#which mechanisms judge you negatively and which judge positively?

[apparitionism]

Bonus 3

I so frequently have to start these intros with “where were we?”, because I so frequently confuse even myself with regard to where any given in-progress story left off... typically it’s a cliffhanger of some sort, but off of, or onto, which specific cliff were we hanging? Well. Here in this continuation of a Christmas tale, we—or rather, Myka and Helena—were suspended in a broken-down elevator in an accounting firm’s office building in Cleveland. Something might’ve been juuuuust about to happen (see part 2 for what that something probably was, and part 1 for the causal chain that got them there), but a voice interrupted, seemingly from on high.

Bonus 3

“Is everybody okay in there?” the voice from heavenward repeats.

Myka looks up, this time confronting not her own reflection but a dark emptiness, one that is partially filled by... a firefighter?

She is sorely tempted, in the moment, to proclaim that everybody in here is most certainly not okay, given that she herself is among that “everybody” and is ready to spit nails at the timing of this supposed rescue... she talks herself down, though, because the firefighter certain doesn’t need to be informed about the grinding frustration of unrealized near-certainty.

The firefighter, most likely concerned about the lack of response, goes on, “If you’re in distress, we can hoist you up through here, get you faster help. If you’re okay, you can wait till we let the car down to the next level and get the doors open. Then you’ll be able to walk out.”

Myka looks at Helena, and they are on the same page regarding being hoisted. “Walk,” they both say.

“Good choice,” the firefighter tells them. “Easier on everybody. Never know when you’ll run into injuries, though... or sometimes worse, claustrophobics, so we gotta check.”

“Among our many problems, claustrophobia is not,” Helena says. She smiles up at the firefighter.

Who smiles back. She’s good-looking, this firefighter.

Not jealousy, Myka admonishes herself. Not now.

“Good for you,” the firefighter tells Helena. Maybe a little jealousy. Then: “I’ll put the lid back on; you two sit tight.”

She disappears; the mirror reappears. Magic-esque.

“Well, this is overdetermined,” Myka mutters.

With a head-cock, Helena says, “I believe I know what that word means, but I’m not certain I know what it means. In context.”

Is she serious? Might as well assume so... “It’s kind of like if you actually had remarked on naughtiness,” Myka says. “But maybe all I really mean, in context, is ‘story of my life.’”

Now a squint. “I know what those words mean as well, but again I must ask—”

“Never mind. I had this wild hope that maybe one thing might go right. But here we are.”

“Being rescued doesn’t fall into the ‘go right’ category?” Helena asks. And now she blinks ostentatiously, combining innocence with a sparkle of eye.

You’ve been teasing me, Myka now suspects, and she wants to say it—to accuse it!—but the interruption stole her boldness. Instead she sighs out “of course it does” and resigns herself to contemplating the complications that have, over the span of time during which she and Helena have been hamhandedly dealing with their destiny, sat themselves down solid-awkward between possibility and realization.

And anyway, if Helena is teasing, does that mean she fails to feel the same urgency Myka does about what might, in the absence of intervention, have been... realized?

Myka has made so many miscalculations with regard to what Helena does, might, could feel. Could the tease, if that’s what it is, have a different significance? Maybe. But Myka is tired. Of miscalculating, yes, but also of hoping. Of wishing. Of hanging on a knife-edge of believing in something that fate keeps deciding should not happen...

Okay, deep breath. Maybe it isn’t fate this time. Maybe in this case it’s nothing more—or less?—than a disapproving elevator.

As they at last exit those hypercritical confines, Myka leans into that latter interpretation, saying back in the car’s direction, “You were pretending to be Jesus-birth-focused, whereas I think in actual fact you’re harking your way around the Old Testament, but as said testament gets cherry-picked by fundamentalist New-Testamenters who don’t know Hebrew. So congratulations on your historically insupportable theology.” She’s pretty sure the unnecessarily extended creak she hears from the mechanism is its version of a crude gesture.

Their firefighter, who had been the one to pry the doors open inch by inch and set them free, now says to Helena, “Did she maybe hit her head when the car stopped?”

“No, she’s merely imaginative,” Helena rejoins, cheerily.

“I’m imaginative?” Myka demands. “Says the father of something.”

The firefighter touches Myka’s arm as if it’s the next step toward physically restraining her, a clear indication of how unhinged her last statements must have sounded. Further indication: the firefighter says, “The whole elevator system’s shut down till they figure out what happened. Can you get down a lot of stairs okay, or do you need assistance?”

“Oh, I definitely need assistance, but not with stairs,” Myka tells her.

Helena steps smooth between the firefighter and Myka, taking Myka’s arm herself instead. “She’ll be fine, I believe. But thank you.”

She’s very gracious. The firefighter is very attractive. Did Helena move to break the firefighter’s hold on Myka... or to place herself closer to the firefighter?

Not jealousy, Myka reminds herself. Not now.

Particularly not now that they’re embarking on a stair-descent and leaving the firefighter behind, one step at a time. It’s an endless-seeming series—“a lot of stairs” indeed—on which they expend no small amount of time. And no small amount of energy.

As they near what seems, blessedly, to be the end, Myka huffs out, “If I ever start thinking I want to live in a high-rise, just say ‘elevator dealy-thingy’ to me to make sure I understand how much I’ll end up regretting it if there’s ever an emergency.” It’s the kind of thing she would say to Pete, so she backtracks: “Sorry. Never mind that. I’m tired.”

Helena’s breathing isn’t exactly unlabored as she says, “No, no. Object lessons. I might take one as well: feign injury so firefighters will convey us via stretcher down accursed emergency stairs.”

“Brilliant idea,” Myka says, though she does spare a “glad we didn’t put you through that” thought for their firefighter.

“Thank you. Coming from, as quite recently noted, such an imaginative individual, that’s a great compliment.”

“Sorry for that outburst too. I was just so ticked at the elevator for how it clearly intended to put a stop to—”

Fortunately/unfortunately, Myka doesn’t manage to finish the utterance, because fortunately/unfortunately, they’re at last pushing through the first-floor fire door.

In a perverse twist, which Myka suspects the elevator of somehow contriving, that door releases them into the cubicle farm. Very near Bob’s location. Where he is now enthusiastically, rather than resentfully, stationed.

“Ladies!” he greets them. Did the elevator text him to lie in wait? “I finally got paid! I’m flush!”

Helena nods in satirical approval. “And we were rescued from the elevator at an overdetermined moment. Such good news all around.” The verbal irony chokes Myka, for it confirms—entirely—that Helena had indeed been teasing.

“Good thing I was here to light a fire under you,” Bob swaggers, clearly oblivious to Helena’s sarcasm, and it’s for once a good thing that he’s paying most of his attention to Helena anyway, because Myka is utterly failing to keep her eyes from widening, her jaw from slackening, into the very dictionary illustration of incredulity. “So what are your plans, now that you’ve put the fear of god into Nancy and made her give me what I deserve?”

Fear of god... now Myka’s certain he and the elevator are in cahoots.

“We have business to attend to,” Helena tells him.

“IRS business?”

Helena smiles. It doesn’t reach her eyes. “Not at all,” she says, and Myka recognizes that tone as “continue at your peril.”

So of course Bob continues. “Oh, that kind of business,” he smarms, like the two of them are speaking in some super-secret, super-specific, only-we-know-what-the-word-“business”- means code. Infuriating in itself, but he goes on, “If you’re not on the clock, maybe you’d enjoy an evening out.” The “enjoy” is slimy, and the “maybe” is smug, as if he has no doubt the answer will be yes.

“Oh yes,” Helena says, bringing Myka up short, and “very much so,” she continues. What performance is this? “But not with you.” Myka exhales in relief. Helena then turns to her and says, “I believe you promised me an evening that would make up for our having been trapped?”

Myka nearly chokes again, now at the way “an evening” and “make up for” absolutely roil with salacious intent.

Bob yelps, “I knew it!” which Helena skewers with a completely, and completely transparently, fake-dense, “Knew what?”

He is sufficiently cowed to refrain from responding with anything involving the word “naughty.”

When they finally escape the building, Myka fumes, “Nancy Sullivan did not in any way go far enough with that guy. I don’t know what this pen would let me smite him with, but I’m extremely tempted to take it out of the bag and make a list of my own.”

“Despite the downside?” Helena asks. She’s dialed back the punish-the-offender spice; now she sounds her baseline undercurrent-of-amusement self.

Myka envies her ability to change registers so seemingly effortlessly. “I’m already off the charts, judgment-wise,” she admits, “so I honestly wonder how much downside I’d really feel.” It’s more than she would have been inclined to say, pre-elevator. But something has surely shifted.

“Hm,” Helena noises, a not-quite-poke of an answer. But she then asks, “Would I be on this list?”

Whiplash: back to an unassimilable suggestiveness. That’s better, though, than Helena making and conveying a guilt-ridden assumption, as she most likely would have done in the past, that Myka would pass judgment on her for her misdeeds.

“And if so, in which column?” Helena muses on.

Again Myka would love to have panache, to be able to play into the overdetermined idea of “naughty” or at least counter it with a clever turn on “nice.” Instead she offers something in hope, which she hopes is most immediately legible as practical and not too hopeful: “Since you implied I’m taking you out, I think I’d better do that. Or some other mechanism might decide to get all... judgy. Disapprovey? Obviously from a different theological perspective than the elevator, but even so.”

“Such other mechanism sounds strangely chivalrous. Holding you to account on my behalf? I confess I’m curious as to the form that chivalry might take.”

It’s a perfect opening to probe Helena’s true interpretation of the overdetermined interruption. “But the consequence of said chivalry,” Myka says. “I don’t want to risk it.”

“Any such consequence would be, at this point, merely delay,” Helena says.

Delay... the interruption was merely delay... which means Helena thought that not-quite realization of all their pent-up possibility was—thinks it is!—as inevitable as Myka had. As Myka does. Does now again. Okay, the tenses may be hard to render sensically, but Myka knows what it all means.

Alas, despite the change in their together-weather, she can’t quite see her way clear to realizing that inevitability on a sidewalk... to move in that direction, though, she undertakes to demonstrate that she can be the chivalrous actor, no disapproving mechanism required. Object lessons. “I know you haven’t had any food since this morning,” she says. “Are you hungry?”

Helena’s eyebrows rise. “Oh,” she says, as if only just remembering that her body has physical requirements. Could her time as a hologram have affected—dampened—her awareness of such necessities? Even thinking the question jabs Myka with want, to be the one to bring her back to the body. Its needs. “Yes, I am.”

“What do you like? What’s a favorite?” Please don’t let her say tacos from a truck, Myka begs the universe, because she would really rather not have to explain her lingering shivers around taco trucks as yet another dealy-thingy.

“Preferences are still in process.”

It isn’t “tacos from a truck,” so hallelujah. But it’s inscrutable. “Are they?”

“I’ve traveled through America and elsewhere, over the weeks I’ve been away.” Helena pauses, giving Myka time to appreciate this window, however minimal, onto an answer to the “where were you” question... sadly, “America and elsewhere” gives precious little insight into the reason for all this travel. Helena continues, “What I’ve found is that contemporary cuisine bears little resemblance to what I knew. Some is strange and off-putting; some is strange but surpassingly delicious. Have you experienced a ‘blooming onion’?”

Is that intended to occupy the former or the latter category? “Pete loves those,” Myka says. That should fit as a response to either one.

“They represent what I cannot help but imagine is a foretaste of paradise,” Helena says.

She sounds rapturous.

Thus Myka has a new goal: to inspire a tone in Helena’s voice even approximating the one with which she’s just expressed this unexpected adoration.

However, Myka also has a new frustration: that not one but two of the people who occupy essential positions in her life venerate blooming onions. Which she herself cannot stomach. How to process this? Maybe she could do it by simply watching Helena eat one of the vile things... that really might be worth doing, if only as a stick against which to measure Pete’s gusto...

Sadly, that’s not going to happen today, for a frantic search on her phone yields zero restaurants in the vicinity offering even an approximation.

Onions aside, however, the number of restaurants near to them is, in positive news, nonzero. Myka reads her list of results to Helena as suggestions, and she is genuinely entertained, as well as informed, by the vehemence with which Helena vetoes every option that isn’t aggressively carnivorous.

Twenty minutes later they’re seated at Marble Room, which billed itself on its website as featuring “Steaks and Raw Bar”: Helena had turned up her nose at “raw bar” but landed with claws on “steaks.”

Watching Helena leaf through a menu—sitting across from her at an intimate table for two and doing the same—is even more astonishingly normal than any of the other normal things Myka has seen Helena do, and has done together with her, today. “Have we ever been to a restaurant? Just you and me, being seated? Getting menus and looking at them?” She would of course remember it, if they had, but she asks so as to press on the newness of it.

Bonus: Her asking the question prompts Helena to propose they conduct an inventory, limited though they both know it is, of shared non-B&B meals. It seems a gentle tiptoe through the past, one that might help rather than hurt, so Myka agrees.

“We didn’t share any table in Tamalpais,” Helena begins.

“Too busy saving Claudia from combusting,” Myka concurs.

“And removing you, vertically, from the path of marauding vehicles,” Helena concurs back. She smiles at Myka with a spark, one that is neither naughty nor nice, but rather alchemizes both into a gift of energetic attention that should be impossible.

Oh, this... this is what Myka has found irresistible from the start, for the full alchemy is in fact not only Helena’s impossibly true spark, but how Myka herself responds to it: with an internal melt, the “oh, this” that always hits new, each time she feels it. They say the body doesn’t remember pain; apparently it also doesn’t remember, from one moment of recognition to the next, how it greets its perfect match.

Another of those irresistible moments—actually a cascade of them—had occurred on a plane, as they traveled to Pittsburgh to probe what had happened to the students in Egypt, about which Helena was of course hiding her full knowledge. Myka tries not to push too hard on how significant that episode had been to her, given all the internecine baggage, as she says, “Sitting on a 737 in row 32, me in E and you in F, choosing between the market snack box or the chicken-salad-sandwich plate... that doesn’t count, I’m pretty sure.”

“Alas, no. I did, however, appreciate your willingness to share your sandwich with me.”

“You said it was one of the worst things you’d ever tasted in your life.” In the sandwich-share’s wake, Helena’s face had presented an astonishingly unnuanced canvas of disgust, and Myka had despaired at having caused such a reaction, even as she had reveled in having taken the unprecedented opportunity to do so: “Want a bite?” she’d asked, desperately casual, and Helena had accepted the invitation, biting, all teeth and lips and... and then, sadly, the reaction.

“It was,” Helena says. “Nevertheless I appreciated your willingness—but aha!” she pounces, “sandwiches! We ate ful sandwiches together from that cart in Alexandria.”

“No seating there,” Myka reminds her. “Also no menus.”

“Disqualifying,” Helena concedes. She falls quiet.

They both know Egypt is the end; what follows is adversarial. And then incorporeal.

But today—this collaborative, embodied day—is a beginning. “So we should mark this as a first,” Myka says.

“Celebrate this as a first,” Helena responds... corrects? She looks down at her menu and doesn’t look up as she says, “Of many. If I may dare to hope.”

Myka waits to answer until the look-back-up has occurred. “Only if I may too,” she says, meeting and holding Helena’s eyes.

Which roll, those eyes, and Myka panics. “You may and I may, but such mutual hope will likely have no earthly effect,” Helena says, providing relief: the scoff was directed not at Myka, but at... everything.

Hoping to unscoff her back to celebrating, Myka tries, “Can’t we mutually hope for it to have that effect though? In addition to that underlying mutual hope, for this being the first of many?”

“We can,” Helena says, her brow skeptical, “but would that be sufficient? I suspect the overall situation is likely to require several recursive applications of hope.”

“I can’t dispute your suspicion,” Myka concedes. Is hope a finite resource? That feels like a philosophical dead-ender, or at the very least the beginning of a descent, so she tamps down her impulse to voice the question. They’re here now, a circumstance on which Myka certainly, and Helen probably too, would never have thought to expend any hope at all.

She gives her own look at the menu and, without thinking, blurts, “This meal’s going to cost me several recursive applications of my credit card.” Immediately she wants to swallow back those words; they’re yet another instance of something she’d say to Pete, and anyway mentioning money is so picayune, here in the midst of an historic first. And yet... it never ends well when she tries to pretend to sophistication, moneyed or otherwise, that she doesn’t have, so she gives up and goes all in. “I don’t even know what a ‘duroc pork chop’ is, much less why it would cost more than a coffee-table book. And my dad’s brain would break at the thought of adding a lobster tail to a meal. At the price of it too, but the very idea.”

“I can’t dispute your father’s position,” Helena says, and Myka loves the echo—loves that Helena bothered with the echo. “My mother would most likely respond the same. She was a servant, you know.”

Myka could assure her that she does know; she’s done enough research on the historical H.G. Wells to produce a double-doorstop of a family biography. But she is over-the-top eager to know what Helena might be willing to say, so she goes with what she hopes is an appropriate please-inform-me prompt, sugared with just enough eagerness: “Was she?”

Helena nods. “It trained her to be exceptionally practical, but she became even more so after the failure of my father’s shop compelled her to return to service. That was difficult for her—for all of us. Charles and I were both desperate to rise above that station... insofar as one could, we did a reasonable job of it, and what I’ve learned of Charles’s later life suggests he went even further. A century later, I have as well. So I’ll pay for the meal.”

“But disapprovey mechanisms!” Myka protests, realizing she’s piled error on error: first, she’s supposed to be taking Helena out; second, she’s implying that she can’t pay; and—

“For good or ill, money is no longer my limiting factor,” Helena says, halting Myka’s thought-careering.

She seems genuinely indifferent to the financial consequences, so Myka sets herself to try, against every fiber of her frugal  and responsible being, to pretend like that’s okay. Besides, there’s another issue to pursue. “If not that... what is your limiting factor?”

“Ironically, time,” Helena responds instantly. Acerbically.

“That’s everyone’s,” Myka says, but just as instantly she understands it’s another utterance she should have censored, because she knows what the response will be.

“Unless one is bronzed.”

Expectation fulfilled. And yet: “You aren’t bronzed anymore,” Myka says. To emphasize that—or rather, to emphasize its implications—she extends her right hand across the table. Maybe Helena will take it... she is more hopeful about such a possibility than she has ever been.

“Or unless one is a hologram. Or, now that I think of it, unless one is a vampire.” Helena says this musingly, but she offers her left hand, and now they are touching, and Myka is regretting her vamp somewhat less. “Does that support your earlier postulate?”

Myka can muster few words with their fingers atangle. “Doesn’t matter,” she manages. “You aren’t those either.” So as to put all time-suspending states away, as the past or impossibilities. Or both.

“You are correct. I am none of those.” Helena’s grip on Myka’s hand tightens.

They are holding hands. And if it’s overly adolescent of Myka to find this barely precedented joining significant? So be it.

Together they sit, not letting go. Accustoming themselves, even, to skin on skin. Learning it.

A throat-clear invades Myka’s ears from some unclear direction; she raises her eyes to regard a server.

But those joined hands, hers and Helena’s, don’t immediately disengage. Helena doesn’t let go, and Myka doesn’t either. This has meaning, here among the bonuses: the waiter seeing is okay, and that okay-ness is a continuation. Nancy Sullivan saw. Bob saw—differently, but still. This server, different yet again, but even so: seeing.

“I’m Frank,” that server says. “Really pleased to be here for you tonight. First I need to explain not checking in earlier: you were in conversation, and we try not to let service intrude on your privacy. If that’s an error, it’s on me.” His voice is sleek, as is his physical presentation: he wears a spectacularly well-fitted all-black uniform, as every server here does, but he’s also beautiful, with Roman-ideal bone structure and perfect raw-umber skin. His teeth are perfect too.

Gazing upon him makes Myka regret even more her jump to jealousy with the firefighter—for it now seems more likely that Cleveland has simply been doing its best to show its loveliest helpers to her and Helena.

Bonus.

“No error whatsoever, darling,” Helena says, her sincerity evident via the endearment. From anyone else, it might seem dismissive, even infantilizing, but from Helena, as Myka knows thanks to Claudia’s reactions to being on the receiving end, it’s a notice-signifying prize. If an occasionally unnerving one.

Frank, however, is not unnerved. He visibly warms, turning toward Helena, drawing his hands apart, opening his shoulders—expanding his physical presence, like a peacock, but one whose display is appreciation. When he speaks, however, he shifts to include Myka in his openness. “Like to start with drinks? And I can clarify anything on the menu, if you’ve had time to look.”

“I can clarify that she wants a steak,” Myka says, to speed the process along, given how long it’s been since they both ate.

“The Delmonico,” Helena clarifies further.

“That’s a standout cut. Preparation?” Frank asks.

“Bloody.”

Myka laughs. “Saw that coming. Rethinking the vampire thing a little by the way.”

This makes Helena smile—not naughty, but rather, again, with attention. As if she and Myka really do know things about each other... under a tragic knife, they’d said words about knowing, knowing better than anyone, but Myka is aware, and she presumes Helena is too, that those words weren’t true; they were nothing more (or less) than wishes, postulates about a better world than the too-real one that seemed inescapable.

But now they might be inching closer to that better world.

Helena says to Myka, “In deference to our parents’ sensibilities, I won’t add a lobster tail, but perhaps Crab Oscar? For the resonance?”

“I have to admit, that’s like the pork chop: I don’t know what it is,” Myka says. “Except for the resonance.”

“Is resonance like instagramming?” Frank asks. “Unless it’s just for that, I’d go elsewhere.”

Helena glances kitchenward, then looks back at Frank. “So. A specialty, but not of this house,” she says, voice lowered, almost-but-not-quite comically cloak-and-dagger.

“Few blocks west for cooked seafood. Blue star on the door; can’t miss it,” Frank says, lowering his voice too.

They are beautiful co-conspirators.

“Oh, Oscar would have liked you.” Helena now sounds silky. Fey and silky, and Myka wants to wrap herself in that magicky silk.

“The Grouch?” Frank tries, a little flippant—but only a little. He’s keying on Helena’s every word.

“He certainly was,” Helena says, with approval, as if Frank has passed an exceptionally exacting test.

“Okay,” Frank says. His I-don’t-know-what-just-happened-but-I-think-I-liked-it tone is painfully familiar. “And for you?” he asks Myka.

“The beets and blue cheese salad, please.”

“A salad?” Helena gasps, clutching at her chest.

Could that level of indignation possibly be real? Myka ignores the histrionics for the moment and tells Frank, “A couple of vegetable sides too: the blackened carrots and also the steamed asparagus.” She then says to Helena, “They sound subtle.” Real reaction or no, Myka might as well start defending her choices.

“You vegetarian?” Frank asks. “Vegan? Kitchen can modify whatever you—”

“Not as such. I’m just not as carnivorous as she is.”

“Mm,” Helena noises, and Myka can already hear the “Aren’t you?” that will follow... she tries to shape a riposte, and she is so preoccupied with that impossible task that she nearly misses what Helena actually says: “I’m sorry. You should of course have what you want.”

Her contrition seems genuine. But in the end it doesn’t matter, for the reason Myka now articulates. “I do. This minute, I do.”

Which... flusters Helena? She looks down at the menu again, down then up at Myka, blinking, then turns her attention to Frank, as if he might save her. From an overload of honesty? Of resultant expectation?

Frank doesn’t seem inclined to offer any lifeline. Instead, he says to Myka, “Listen. If you’re into subtle vegetables. It’s not on the menu, but chef’s serving a really special kabocha squash with some of the meat dishes. I could bring you some of that too? If it doesn’t hit you right, no harm no foul.”

“That would be great,” Myka says. She doesn’t know what kabocha squash is, but she’s copped to enough unsophistication already; she and her phone can figure this one out, and anyway, squash is pretty much squash. It’s not some coffee-table-book pork chop.

“Thinking about those drinks?” Frank then asks. “I’ll tell the kitchen to expedite that steak though.”

The idea of making yet another decision is too much pressure; Myka declines. Helena declines too, in a way that suggests she is deferring to Myka, conforming to her wishes. It’s another bonus: not only does Myka not have to defend her choices, but she can in fact shape choices for both of them.

It’s as intoxicating as any cocktail.

Frank adds, “But with the meal? Maybe? I can bring out the full wine list.”

More pressure, and Myka, despite the fact that the thought of drinking wine with Helena is lovely, opens her mouth to say no. But then: “Do you have a recommendation?” Helena asks Frank. It’s defusing. As if she knows that’s how it hit Myka, as pressure but also as potentially lovely. And as if she wants to resolve “pressure.” So as to reach “lovely.”

“To stand up to that Delmonico, it’s definitely a cab. Sommelier likes to pair the Hall Coeur 2013. Young, but deep. Takes that journey, you know? It’s a Napa, from St. Helena.”

Helena raises an eyebrow at Myka. “A signal of approval for once?” Her voice rises, up up and away from cynicism.

The last thing Myka would ever do is quash that rise. Hearing it—knowing it applies to the two of them together—is another bonus. “Saint Helena,” she agrees, without irony.

As the meal proceeds, the bonuses multiply: Helena’s face lights up when the steak arrives, and that is of course a gift, as is the voracity with which she attacks it. But watching her begin to cut and consume the stark slab has a further effect on Myka, in that it puts her in mind of Helena’s basic personhood. Or, no: her animalhood. An animal, here a human one, eats a piece of meat. Throughout prehistory, recorded history, all the history, this throughline. “Let me try a bite,” Myka says, and Helena obliges, slicing, transferring across the table, connecting each of them, as a consuming animal, to the other, the two of them, as animals, to all others. There’s both thrill and comfort in that.

The service, too, is a plus: Frank attends to them with delicate discretion, never interrupting conversation, yet always appearing when a dish should be cleared, when the wine should be poured. Sleek. Smooth. In addition, this serves for Myka, surprisingly, as a sotto voce contrast to Helena’s aspect, revealing her as a bit less sleek and smooth than Myka always ideates her as being... why does the difference, if that’s what it is, seem so striking? Well, Frank is clearly practiced at his tasks. Experienced. Does that mean Helena, here being with Myka in this way, sitting and sharing, is in fact doing something... new?

Myka knows her preferred answer to that.

Also rewarding, completely unexpectedly: the kabocha, presented as thick slices that are charred but not smoky, seasoned but not overspiced, sweet but not cloying, creamy but not clottingly so. It’s unlike any squash Myka has ever eaten... thus squash is not pretty much squash. “I could have this squash every meal,” Myka says as she finishes the not insubstantial portion, literally licking her lips. She suspects her voice is betraying something very like rapture, and could this possibly be how Helena and Pete feel about those execrable onions? “Every single meal. For a week. A month.”

“I could do the same with this steak,” Helena says.

She’s managed to down an impressive percentage of its sixteen ounces, which prompts Myka to say, not entirely jokingly, “We may need to talk about heart-healthiness at some point.”

Helena takes a moment. Then she says, “Healthiness of heart... mine? Yours? Or both?”

It’s a bit sardonic, involving an eyebrow, and Myka berates herself for not having preconsidered, and consequently rejected, bringing up hearts, because they could not possibly be ready to speak directly about—

—but then Helena is extending her left hand, and Myka is meeting it with her right, and just like that, they are rejoined.

With her right hand, Helena raises her glass. “How did we fail to toast when the wine first arrived?” she asks.

“You were too focused on the steak.” Myka says this with affection. With familiarity. She can imagine—and wishes she could confidently predict—saying these same words to Helena again at some future celebratory meal. She can imagine—and wishes she could confidently predict—their hearts being made healthy by such continued affection and familiarity.

“That was certainly an error, and as our charming Frank would say, it’s on me. So I’ll toast now as I should have done then: To you.” Helena’s salute is candid. Open. As warm as her hand on Myka’s.

“To you too.” Myka has to raise with her left hand—it feels a little weird, but isn’t that appropriate for a first toast with Helena? “And to us,” she adds, a dare that Helena reward by not withdrawing her warmth or her hand.

Their hands are still joined when Helena’s phone announces its presence. The intrusion breaks their hold. Myka’s heart, just now so high, sinks, for such interruptions—of chats, of meals, of anything consequential—are so rarely good.

She braces herself for an adverse outcome.

She tries to hide the bracing by directing her attention to her remaining stalks of asparagus, slicing them into bite-sized pieces, then slicing them again, halves halved, quarters quartered, sixteenths sixteenthed, practically baby-fooding them as she aggressively pretends to ignore the words Helena is saying.

Not that those words are revealing: “yes,” and “all right,” and “I understand.” Repeated with slight variations.

Upon disconnecting, Helena says to Myka, “Apparently my reprieve has come to an end. I’ve been instructed to go to the airport.” Her voice is calm but somewhere sharp, a blanket smoothed over blades.

“A reprieve? That’s what this was for you?” Bracing had been the right instinct, but Myka had not expected that to be the body blow. “For me, it’s been a bonus.”

Helena inclines her head. “A bonus, certainly. If you prefer.” Smoothing, smoothing.

Myka does prefer, but she pushes back. Back to punishment, hoping to expose the blades. “What you prefer—what you called it, even if you don’t prefer it—matters more. If this was a reprieve, what was the sentence?”

“It wasn’t pronounced in any court, but from my perspective? To keep my distance from the Warehouse,” Helena snaps, then winces. “And the obvious corollary.”

Myka has hit her mark. And now, saying it out loud... that will make it real. So: “From me,” Myka says.

“From you,” Helena says back. Her saying it, realing it too: it’s gratifying.

“You can’t even stay for dessert.” It’s an absurd heaviness to put on such a silly thing, and it’s not like Myka would have eaten any dessert herself. But she would avidly have watched Helena do so... “I’m questioning the Fredness of it all,” she laments.

Helena turns quizzical, but there’s no way Myka can explain. Well, no: there’s no way Myka can imagine wasting time by explaining.

“My flight isn’t till tomorrow,” she says instead, plaintive. She’s seized by an impulse to—what is it?—go with Helena to the airport? Yes, of course she wants to do that, but there’s more—again, what is it?—to figure out a way to fly with Helena wherever she’s being sent, damn the consequences? Yes, that’s closer. But Myka can’t gift herself such a wildness. Not even for Christmas. Not even if she put herself on her own “nice” list.

Should’ve taken this to a hotel room, her body berates. Should’ve skipped to that. All this time wasted in a restaurant. Sitting. Menus. Should have pursued the satisfaction of what you’ve always known, from the marrow of your bones all the way out to your skin, is a greater hunger.

But. Even as her body tries to persuade her of its primacy, she thinks back over their interactions of the past hours. Would she trade them for that satisfaction? Would she really? Perhaps, in a different world—a more desperate one. But in this hopefully better world, this time was not wasted. All these bonuses... they were, they are, important. Conversation has been essential to each incremental increase of their intimacy. She shouldn’t discount it. She should celebrate it.

“I went to a wrong place just now,” she tells Helena, whose face is on pause—she must have been waiting for Myka to make even the slightest bit of sense. “I’m sorry. Do you want me to go with you? At least in the taxi?”

Helena’s post-pause expression is deeply indulgent. “I think you should stay and enjoy dessert. Let me imagine you seeing this unprecedented meal to a sweet completion.”

“I’m not really a dessert person,” Myka says, not wanting to be indulged quite like this, and additionally not wanting to misrepresent. “And anyway I don’t see how I could enjoy it with you gone. Could you maybe imagine something else?”

Helena softens; clearly, that was a good response. “What if I simply think of you. You eating your salad, your vegetables,” she says, then, “and one bite of bloody steak.” That’s another of those transcendent attentional gifts. One bite of bloody steak. Myka files that away for future comfort, even as Helena continues, “While I watched you do those things. Reveling in the fact that, as established, such a thing has never happened before.”

“I like that,” Myka says. “I know I’ll be thinking of you eating your steak, how I watched you. Which also, as established, never happened before.” She is compelled, however, to add, “But you’re leaving again. Which has.” She checks the time, and now it is Christmas Eve. She tries not to draw inferences from that.

“But I will come back.”

“When?”

“When I can.”

“Why did we get stuck in that elevator?” Myka asks.

“Because the mechanism malfunctioned. With intent?” Helena says that last playfully.

Myka doesn’t, here at the end, want to play. Play along. “I repeat, more existentially: why did we get stuck in that elevator? Bearing in mind that the elevator itself may not appreciate its role in the... grand design.”

Helena takes a moment. Then she says, “So that we might have this goodbye rather than, as before, none at all?” The words are a softness.

Myka wants to respond in kind. “Or—and?” Fighting against fearful reticence, trying to be truthful, she says, “So I could work my way up to saying this out loud: please come back. To me.”

Helena breathes. “And so I could say this to you: when I can, I will.”

They’re in public. How different might this have been if Myka had pushed them toward a hotel room? But she can’t help checking herself: it’s not like things couldn’t have gone spectacularly wrong in such a space. Plus an elevator would most likely have been involved, so...

In the space they are actually inhabiting, Helena now rises from the table. Myka does the same, moving to meet her.

They share a hug, one that terrifies Myka—because they’ve never touched like this before; because it feels awkward rather than natural as their bodies surge, press, warm; because if they can’t even hug right then what does that bode for anything else—but as they emerge from this confusion of arms and torsos, Helena says again, “I will.” Her assurance reshapes the ungraceful embrace into a profound affirmation.

The certainty heats into Myka: any goodbye, even a clumsy one, is a bonus compared to no goodbye at all.

But then Helena is gone.

And Myka is not at all surprised—yet still devastated—to be sitting alone at a table for two in a steakhouse in Cleveland on just-turned Christmas Eve.

“I’m sorry your lady had to leave.” Frank has materialized next to her, like he’s the Ghost of Christmas Bonus. Or, no: the Ghost of Christmas Bonus Rescinded.

“Story of my life,” Myka says, trying for a jest, fearing it’s a sob.

Frank juts his perfectly sharp chin like he’s considering a similarly perfectly sharp comment... but then his face gentles. “She paid the check and then some, so you can sit here forever if you need to.”

“I should probably go,” she says. Sad but true.

“Wait a second though. She said to bring you this, because she wants to make sure your heart stays healthy.” He places a small plate of kabocha squash before her. “She seems for real,” he concludes. But then, “Is she?” he asks.

Yet another gut-familiar reaction to the Helena of it all: not-quite-belief. “She is,” Myka testifies, again fighting that sob. Because before tonight, before today and tonight, her response would more likely have been “I hope so.”

As she eats an additional portion of absurdly delicious squash on Christmas Eve in Cleveland by herself, Myka considers calling Pete. He would at least rescue her from this sudden crush of loneliness...

... but on second thought, would he? Or would his presence make it worse, as it sometimes has before? Myka knows she’s at fault for that; she’s never really explained to him, out loud in words he would understand and accept, what Helena is to her. How entirely she matters.

Which in turn brings her to the keynote, which is that she should feel the loneliness. She owes it to Helena, for this is one of the visceral testaments to Helena’s significance: because her absence matters just as much as her presence.

****

When Myka gets back to the B&B the next day—after having been offered on both of her flights the opportunity to purchase a chicken salad sandwich, each time rendering her nostalgic and frustrated in equal measure—Steve is waiting for her.

“How was it?” he asks as he relieves her weary hands of the pen-bearing static bag.

“Really, really nice,” she says. For the resonance.

Steve smiles a smile Myka doesn’t understand.

TBC

[raguiras]

POV: Deuce's very first kiss from his crush

(Click for better quality)

I'm finally officially introducing my Yuu/OC x canon/Yumeship here! (✿◕‿◕) Writing this post took me forever, but I'm super happy with it!

Reblogs are super appreciated hehehe

Please be kind & DO NOT take inspiration from this ship. ^^"

(While Allen isn't me, I'm calling them a Yumeship because he's based on my younger self/me when I first started playing TWST & because the ship gives me a ridiculous amount of comfort!)

Allen x Deuce (aka Spade of Storms) is my ultimate comfort ship and they mean a ton to me.

These two are best friends who become lovers and closely mirror each other. Deuce is the delinquent with rather bad self-control who tries to be a model student, while Allen is a former honor student who's now a very lowkey delinquent with stellar self-control and a mature attitude.

Due to the fact that Allen and Deuce are so similar and yet the opposite of each other, they're able to excellently understand and support the other, and they help each other accept themselves.

Their ship blog: @spade-of-storms (facts, drabbles & more est. May 2024)

Now why exactly are these two perfect for each other? Well...

LONG TEXT AHEAD!

♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤

Deuce:

Allen supports Deuce with all his heart. Instead of believing that someone "as stupid and temperamental" as Deuce could never become an honor student, Allen fully believes in him and encourages him. In comparison to when other people say it, these words actually have an incredibly strong impact on Deuce and are believable to him because he knows that Allen has similar experiences and speaks from them.

Allen doesn't think that Deuce is stupid in the slightest and views him as genuinely smart. To Allen, intelligence isn't determined by grades or academic abilities, but by morals, attitude, logic, and willingness — all of which Deuce has.

Allen doesn't try to change Deuce. Rather than turning Deuce into a full-on honor student and role model, which he isn't by nature, Allen prefers for Deuce to stay true to himself and work towards his goal while not suppressing any aspect of who he is — Allen knows exactly that forcefully becoming someone you naturally aren't would cause more issues than it would fix. In order to assist Deuce with staying true to himself while working towards his desired self, Allen does several things:

Allen lets Deuce be his 100% authentic self when they're together. Deuce tries extremely hard to always be polite and serious in order to maintain his reputation and not resort to old habits, but Allen, being very impulsive and easily angered himself, knows just too well that suppressing one's feelings and true nature isn't the way to go. When they're together, Deuce can openly rant about topics, use insults towards the people who angered him, and show his emotions without having to worry about how others perceive him or about how it might mess up his reputation — Allen would never judge Deuce nor share his secrets with others. This way, Deuce can be himself without restraints while also maintaining the way he wants others to perceive him.

Allen allows Deuce to be a delinquent in a safe, harmless way. If Deuce ever feels like doing something forbidden without breaking rules or staining his reputation, Allen (a very lowkey delinquent) has just the ideas for him. This provides a comfortable space for Deuce to live out his tendencies without falling back into bad habits.

Allen is able to introduce Deuce to a wide range of healthy coping mechanisms that work for him. Allen is a much angrier person than Deuce and is equally impulsive, but has stellar self-control due to the methods he uses, and passes them down to Deuce. As a result, Deuce doesn't feel the need to immediately lash out at others anymore and manages to become calmer and much more mature, taking steps into his desired direction.

Allen helps Deuce channel his "negative traits" into positive/helpful ones. With Allen's assistance, methods, reassuring words and unique view on things, Deuce learns how to use the qualities that he used to hate about himself to his advantage. Suddenly Deuce's anger is no longer a hindrance, but a source of energy and motivation.

Allen admires the things Deuce hates about himself. While Deuce wishes he wasn't as hot-headed, Allen views it as an amazing trait and sees the passion and longing for justice behind Deuce's fiery attitude. Additionally, Allen is able to help Deuce see the positive side of these traits, and aids him in channelling them into something good to use to his advantage (see above).

Allen is the only person to fully get through to Deuce. Due to them essentially having the same experiences, opinions, wishes and morals, Deuce felt comfortable trusting Allen with every last bit of his heart (in comparison to other friends) — not to mention that the way Allen was able to help Deuce so intensely and actually talked to him the way he needed it also played a role! Allen has his way with words and knew exactly how to talk to Deuce from the beginning.

Deuce can genuinely open up about his self-esteem to Allen. It's been heavily hinted at in the game several times that Deuce thinks incredibly lowly of himself, but this topic is usually cut short and he doesn't talk about it further with the canon Yuu. With Allen, however, Deuce can open up all he wants to. He knows that Allen has similar experiences and struggles with self-worth related issues himself, therefore not only not judging Deuce, but also fully understanding him.

Allen perfectly understands Deuce's past. Having been feared, avoided and known to be a delinquent/bad kid himself, Allen even understands the details extremely well. Neither of the two ever had a proper friend until they met each other on their first day at NRC.

Allen successfully helps Deuce with his studies despite hating school. Seeing how Deuce needs help, Allen (the "gifted kid") gladly volunteers, even though he's no longer interested in class and has sworn to drop the "honor student" facade himself. Due to Allen's easy explanations, methods, photographic memory and capability to catch on quickly, Deuce actually manages to improve his test results by 1-2 grades.

Allen's study methods are unique, which helps Deuce & is necessary for him. Being a slow learner (I also hc him to have some sort of intellectual disability), Deuce requires rather unique approaches to topics. As Allen is well-versed with both studying and psychology and also keeps Deuce's exact issues in mind, he's able to perfectly tailor methods and mnemonic bridges that actually work out for Deuce.

Allen makes sure that Deuce's desire to be a model student is & stays healthy. A fair part of Allen's trauma stems from being an honor student himself and having unrealistically high expectations regarding grades and attitude shoved down his throat by everyone at school (including himself), so he pays a lot of attention that the same doesn't happen to Deuce.

Allen respects Deuce a ton. Not only is Deuce determined, passionate, loyal, honest and eager, but he has the same core values as Allen, too. In Allen's opinion, finding someone with these traits is not only rare, but immediately makes them endearing to him.

Allen is patient with Deuce. He understands that Deuce occasionally has a difficult time processing and understanding things, and he isn't bothered by it in the slightest. This means even more when you consider that Allen is generally a very impatient person and is only able to be patient with those he truly loves and trusts.

Allen fills Deuce in when he doesn't understand something. Due to Allen being able to catch on extremely quickly, he can immediately explain things and situations to Deuce, helping him out and allowing him to get everything right from the beginning.

Allen indirectly protects Deuce. Known for being intimidating (in a good way), quick-witted, sly and a skilled schemer, most people — including those who enjoy picking on Deuce — shy away from Allen and avoid getting in trouble with his friends.

Allen stops Deuce from getting into fights. Whenever Deuce is about to get into a fight anyway, Allen gently but sternly reminds him of both his goal and the healthier coping mechanisms.

Allen understands that Deuce dislikes being picked on. Allen, being a sensitive person, hates it himself, and he actively tells off everyone who dares to make fun of Deuce or call him "Loosey Deucey". At times, Allen even gets snappy because of the inappropriate nicknames or insults directed at Deuce.

Allen inspires Deuce. Him being skilled at a variety of things and just logical in general gives Deuce the motivation to achieve the same. Deuce doesn't compare himself to Allen, either, and views him as an inspiration. If Allen can control himself and get positive things out of his negative traits, so can Deuce, right?! Not to mention that Allen is extremely tough and pulls through no matter what despite his mental and physical state...

Allen's maturity subconsciously wears off on Deuce. Even outside of the fact that Allen helps him grow and improve a lot through all the ways mentioned before, Deuce sometimes also subconsciously copies his boyfriend's mature attitude or asks himself what Allen would do in certain situations.

Allen is an advisor to Deuce. Deuce struggles with planning ahead, and Allen — a big-time overthinker who's extremely competent at scheming — is able to assist him. As a result, Deuce makes less bad decisions.

Allen loves blastcycles. Deuce can rant about them to Allen for hours, and the two often go on blastcycle dates together. Nothing is more fun than clinging onto your partner while driving at full speed!

Allen values Deuce's company like no other. Deuce regularly feels like a nobody, and Allen takes that feeling from him due to how much he connects with him and likes having him around.

BONUS: Allen is not only beautiful but also has an incredibly strong personality, drive, and determination and hasn't given up despite everything that happened to him. Deuce is a massive simp and his humongous crush on Allen has always been obvious due to how Deuce just can't shut up about him.

Allen:

Deuce loves and accepts Allen's body. As we have seen through his interactions with Azul and Epel, Deuce is very protective of people who don't fit the norm, and Allen is another such person — an intersex boy who was bullied for his unconventional body. Deuce has not only sworn to protect Allen from any possible discrimination, but also loves his body dearly and thinks he's super hot.

Deuce gives Allen a sense of stability. Allen's life was all about short-lived fake joys and prevailing negativity prior to coming to Twisted Wonderland, which made him feel disconnected from many things and people and gave him the feeling that everything is temporary anyway. However, Deuce's fierce loyalty and the strength of their relationship prove Allen wrong — yes, there can indeed be things in life that last forever.

Deuce's utter affection warms Allen's empty heart. Allen was never loved by anyone but his parents, who he thinks only love him because he's their son. Other than that, he never experienced love, affection, ... or even mere friendship. He was alone... until he met Deuce, who he somehow immediately connected with. It was as if their friendship was predestined by the universe... and with every day, Deuce's affection for Allen only grew.

Deuce genuinely admires Allen. Seeing how Allen always does his best, works hard, has ambitions and aims to improve impresses Deuce a ton. This is extremely healing for Allen, whose efforts were never properly recognized or rewarded before and who thinks that he needs to perfect at everything in order to be "someone".

Deuce makes Allen feel useful and resourceful. Allen often believes that he has no worth and could never make a change for the better no matter how much he tries, but seeing just how much he's able to help Deuce with a wide range of things proves Allen wrong — he's indeed capable of a lot of things. Not to mention that Deuce even passes some of Allen's tips down to Epel!

Deuce's honesty is refreshing to Allen. After being lied to and tricked by about anyone Allen ever knew before coming to Twisted Wonderland, Deuce's natural honesty and loyalty are an unfamiliar but utterly wonderful experience for Allen.

Deuce makes Allen feel understood. Allen often believes that others would view him as a monster if they were aware of his secret anger and opinions, but Deuce shares many of them. These two can openly talk about their values together and Allen feels extremely understood because of it — a feeling he barely ever experiences with other people.

Deuce helps Allen enjoy the moment. While he has some overthinking tendencies himself, Deuce is much more spontaneous than Allen and tends to act more on impulse. As a result, he can show his ways to Allen, allowing the overthinker to finally relax and think about his problems a little less.

Deuce doesn't hesitate to stand up for Allen. The fact that Allen was bullied for something he can't change in the past saddens and angers Deuce, and he has sworn to himself that he'll always protect his boyfriend. If there should ever be another situation where Allen gets bullied, Deuce won't hesitate to absolutely throw hands — this is not being a bad person and picking fights, it's standing up for an innocent person whose life was ruined by malice. Deuce wouldn't regret it in the slightest anymore, especially since Allen has helped him learn than anger isn't a bad thing.

Deuce helps Allen with becoming a proper mage. When Allen first gains magic during the final quarter of the school year, he has absolutely no control over it and is partially even avoided due to being a "walking health hazard". Deuce, however, sees this as the perfect time to pay Allen back for helping him study theory and decides to assist Allen with practical things. Through Deuce's determination and belief in him, Allen is able to improve much quicker than he would've without Deuce's help.

BONUS: Deuce is the warmth and honesty that Allen needs in his life. The boy's mere presence lights up Allen's day and Deuce's careful physical affection makes him feel like the most cherished person in the universe.

What else is there to them? (examples)

Both are extremely close with their families.

Due to being so similar and sharing many personality traits, loving each other so deeply allowed them to realize that they can easily love and accept themselves, too.

Deuce's previous incarnation had a crush on Allen's, who died way too early. In this life, the regrets of the past are being fixed.

Allen's the brain, Deuce is the brawn.

They're both extremely cuddly with each other.

LOTS OF COMPLIMENTS (from both sides).

Deuce often gifts Allen plushies.

Allen and Deuce are basically inseparable by now.

If you hang out with Deuce, you have to suffer through at least one tiny ramble about Allen.

...and much more that can be found on @spade-of-storms!

♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤

Thank you so much for reading! I hope you like the art & ship and are looking forward to more of them! (✿◕‿◕)

EDIT: Please do not take inspiration from this ship. ;-;

[thydungeongal]

Anyway ultimately when it comes to trying to define the act of roleplaying ultimately I've decided on such a circular definition (to me, in the context of a roleplaying game, roleplaying is the act of playing a roleplaying game) because it's satisfactory to me and ultimately who cares. Splitting hairs about which action is and isn't roleplaying (is engaging with the rules roleplaying? Sure! Is making goblin noises roleplaying? Absolutely! Is solving the GM's physics puzzle via interfacing both with the mechanics and the fiction roleplaying? Hell yeah!) isn't satisfying to me and ultimately I feel it just leads to people turning personal preferences into value judgements.

But also like the whole idea of judging people for not roleplaying to a satisfactory standard to you is often the domain of tiresome killjoys. Who cares that Steve is here to just roll dice because he wants his character Bob to do cool shit and isn't interested in interrogating Bob's internal life? His fun doesn't have to come at the cost of anyone else's fun provided there is a broad understanding across the table as to what everyone wants out of the game.

Now what I do think is useful, in the domain of tabletop RPG writing, is defining what roleplaying means to you in your specific game, but even then I feel it's better to frame through positives rather than negatives or opposites. And this is because the medium of RPGs is so broad that the act of roleplaying in a romantic drama like Monsterhearts is going to look very different from roleplaying in a dungeon crawler to the point where they're going to be unrecognizable as being "the same" activity.

Also I think everyone should try out both a challenge-based dungeon crawl and a game of Monsterhearts, it would do all of you good

[bunnyjesters]

I kinda of ship ragapomni like way way more but I’m curious , what’s the appeal of jaxPomni ?

Why do you like it ?

Hello! Mew here 🌸

They are a very opposites attract type of ship. I want to start with analyzing Jax's character and then Pomni's.

From what we have seen, we know that at least in outward appearance Jax is very much self assured and enjoys picking on other members. He also loves getting a reaction from the group, whether its positive or negative. He doesn't seem all that worried about being trapped and uses whats at his disposle to entertain himself in the meantime. I'm sure at one point he was very very distraught about his situation but nowadays he either honestly doesn't care or has learned to distract himself from the issue at hand.

Internally I think his attitude is a defense mechanism of a couple different issues. The fact that he is trapped and the fact that he's lonely. If you view his character and look at his interactions with everyone. He does not seem to be very close to any particular person in the crew. At least not in any way that could be considered intimate (emotionally) I like to think in his human life he may not have had all that many close friends either despite being relatively intelligent and somewhat charismatic. I think that keeping people at a distance is safe for him and no one in the digital circus either realizes or cares enough to push his boundaries in that area.

Pomni on the other hand does not hide how she feels. She feels things very primally (mostly fear from what we've seen) She is pragmatic and genuine. She desires to be good person but struggles as people do and she is aware of this and unafraid of it. I get the feeling that whether or not she is a good communitcator, she is open about how she feels when she talks and very much direct. (I hc that she is Autistic) We know she does not like to be touched which I believe to be more of a neurodivergent thing rather than something from previous abuse. Although I may change my mind later on that.

As for how she is internals vs externals, in my eyes she is one and the same. She doesn't hide herself as I've stated before.

Now the attraction on Jax's end is that he loves attention, he loves to get a reaction from people and Pomni is very reactive. I think at first there is a dynamic of "hazing" the newcomer that is really just Jax getting a feel for this new addittion and mainting his own sense of control. I think it grows very heavily on Jax's part simply because Pomni is so sincere and she doesn't judge him or make him feel stupid for being open. At first he resents this part of her becuase she doesn't respond to his passive aggression when he's upset about something. She forces him to be clear about what bothers him and even though it's uncomfortable it soothes a piece of him he was likely unaware of. She also has hope for escape and it probably reminds him of himself at one point or another.

Pomni finds comfort in Jax. He's intelligent and entertaining. He has a hidden softness to him that resonates with her strongly but I think at first she may just use him as stress relief. He distracts her from the reality of their situation and gives her enough ease to focus on a plan for escape. I do think she is very fond of him even at the beginning and views him as her closest friend (in the circus) She is also not all that aware of his growing feelings either and some times takes him at face value in what he wants.

~Side note but I think her desire to escape sometimes really hurts Jax. I don't even know if he wants to escape at this point in time.

I imagine this ship to be a strangers to harassment to friends (with benefits) to Jax choking on his one-sidedly feelings and then maybe lovers.

definetly lovers :3

[nostalgiclittlespace]

Yeet, online agere positivity

Just your reminder not to listen to the meanies on the internet y’all :)

I know being an age regressor online is pretty much a guarantee that you’ll be harassed, both may NSFW accounts and just meanies who have nothing better to do than to spread negativity.

But just know you are 110% awesome and valid. These people don’t know you. They don’t know your circumstances. They don’t know your experiences. And you can say the same about them. So, why should you value their opinion of you?

Of course, you should definitely block and report anyone who is bothering you. But don’t let them get to you. Don’t let them steal your happiness and positivity. We have an awesome, creative, accepting, and comforting community here, and I’ll be damned before I let some stranger on the internet steal that from me.

Also remember that you’re not alone; we have all had to deal with our fair share of meanies. So we can all lean on each other for support and understanding! You are amazing and strong and a reall cool person for being a regressor, okay?! 9 times out of 10, the hate we receive is from a place of ignorance. People just don’t understand because they haven’t experienced it-at least that’s my perception of it. Does this make their bullying okay? Absolutely not. But you shouldn’t take what they say to heart. 5ey don’t know you. You don’t know them. Their opinion is irrelevant and only affects you if you let it. Be strong, and all your fellow regressors are here for h you!

Keep on regressing everyone, no matter what anyone else might think. Bottom line, you deserve your safe space, comfort, to be welcome, and to be happy. Anyone who disagrees can fight me. If you judged another human being based on their coping mechanism and healing, which doesn’t hurt ANYONE, then YOU are the problem. HAPPY and PROUD regressing, guys. Screw them haters. You got this.

[confoundedluna]

okay I got back from the UD movie like half an hour ago, I promised a post with my thoughts so here it is, warning here that this will have spoilers for anyone that does still wanna see it spoiler-free, I have tagged it as such

let's get into it ig - apologies if this is Long lmao

TL;DR - passable horror movie, Bad until dawn movie

so I'm gonna start with the positives, because I don't think it was entirely Awful, even if my overall opinion isn't great

the best things were absolutely the cinematography and the practical effects, which I've seen many people praising too even in more negative reviews. there were some really great original shots that really built some tension, and some really well integrated recreations of shots from Until Dawn - the best was definitely when the character of Megan (Ji-young Yoo) uses the radio, and when she gets stuck on a glass ceiling which is cracking under her, which evokes Emily in the fire tower. the gore was really well done and believable, it wasn't overly edited with CGI like some other films have done in the past, and that really does help with the mood of the film. sets were also well done, lots of details. the recreation of Hill's office was Perfectly done and even things that weren't one to one were very closely recreated and very clearly evoking what they were trying to, like the mines and the sanatorium

another thing was there were a few jokes and lines of dialogue that did land well that weren't ripped from the game, though the most entertainment I found was Definitely in something that I really don't know if it was meant to be comedic or not (though judging by how the marketing has referred to it, I'm assuming not). there were more references to the game than I was personally expecting, and a few moments that are basically film versions of the Don't Move mechanic, which was fun.

that is, however, where most of my enjoyment stops

I'll start with the main gang of characters. I did not connect with them, at all. yes, that's common in horror, but that's because most of horror casts will end up permanently dead. the final character or smaller group of them within the overall group is usually more developed, and there's usually at least Someone to root for. the entire cast of characters all survive, bar the missing sister who is confirmed turned and then killed. most of the cast I felt nothing towards, and the only one that really got any kind of interest was Belmont Cameli as Abel (I'll be calling him Abe since most of the characters did if I refer to him again). he's the asshole of the group - he's willing to leave others behind and sacrifice them to save himself, and though I wasn't in any way rooting for him to live, at least I got some entertainment out of him and a few of his lines. This is highly unlike Emily and Mike, the most comparative game characters, who both are at least kinda assholes depending on your playthrough, but you still end up rooting for them because of how they fight to survive, through their chases and their relationships with the other characters. I didn't get anything like that for the movie group. I didn't care about them finding the missing sister, because there is no lead up event that gives me any kind of sympathy for her or anything like Hannah and Beth got through the prank and falling off the cliff. we're just told that she's missing, though we do see her die once as the opening kill.

the general setting also doesn't lend the same mood that the game has. there's an inexplicable storm that surrounds but doesn't cover the building and woods area that the film largely takes place in, but it's a far cry from the snowy, isolated mountain. even if the sets are well done, the general setting isn't right. until dawn is very large, with the lodge, the basement, the hotel, the sanatorium, the mines, the cabin, and the cable car stations. the film largely sticks to one building, the welcome center, until the ending. i suppose it's an attempt to get the same isolated feeling, but a mountaintop and a few small buildings are very different.

the story i was Hopeful for when i heard the premise, because I did believe that a time loop could lend itself very well to the story of until dawn (before hearing it wasn't going to be said story). however, the loop really isn't utilised to its fullest potential. the set-up was that every night would be a new threat, and it also ends up being that the threats sometimes carry over. there's simultaneously a witch who possesses characters, and the Psycho knock-off, for example. however, the film then completely drops the ball on this. many people said that it wouldn't be possible to do the story of the game because of the large amount of content, and I'm glad they didn't try to, because they couldn't even do the majority of their own content. Most of the thirteen nights that they can survive but don't are shown through brief video footage, skipping over what could have had character development or something more directly, from a few nights in to the final night. this footage is purposefully glitchy, masking anything interesting happening for the little time we see it. it feels rushed, and like a cop-out way to show Some stuff but not commit to it. it's played off with the characters not being able to fully remember each night, with the only way to reliably track how long it has been being the guestbook that is signed at the start of each loop, but it's just not well done in my opinion.

my Biggest issue is with the threats and villains/antagonists of the nights themselves. the majority are only briefly shown, but a few do get more screentime. this is the Psycho knock-off, a witch, water that makes you explode (yes, the 'bad water' leaks from ages ago Were in fact real.), the film version of game's creatures, and Dr Hill. the witch is the least important here, and the Psycho I'm only mentioning as I need him for a comparison.

I'll start with Hill, because he is the main antagonist of the film. He's supposedly the same character as from the game, and he is the main mastermind behind the events of the film. The area that the game takes place, there was an immense disaster that caused an entire town to be wiped out, and he was sent in to help any survivors deal with their trauma. he is (somehow, this is never explained) controlling the time loop, using it to study fear and the effects it has on people. Clover (Ella Rubin) is the one influencing this current loop, her fears manifesting as the threats within each night. yes, this also ripped off Silent Hill. the Psycho is apparently a 'common' occurrence, and the bad water is 'quite rare', and due to her 'self-destructive tendencies'. he is also defeated by said water; he sets his coffee mug onto his desk Directly Next To a leak of the water and monologues to Clover, who has seen this water Explode Most Of Her Friends and knows that there is No Other Normal Water within the area, and he Turns His Back On Her, during which she pushes his cup under the leak and then back from it. he drinks the coffee and explodes, and since the gang then lives to dawn, they're free to leave - the storm surrounding them stops. despite this, the ending of the film is the monitors from his office changing to show recreations of the game lodge, with a car pulling up, and him whistling over said scene (which is something he just. does in the movie, for some reason.)

this is. an interpretation of Hill that feels a Lot like someone watched an out of context clip of him in Josh's final hallucination or the one where he yells at the Psycho showing up in his office. game Hill is a hallucination, plain and simple. he was created from Josh's mind, which was going through withdrawals and severe trauma as well as just a general history of mental illness. the real Hill was concerned about Josh and directly tells him not to go through with the prank, not to stop taking his meds. he had even actually Helped Josh for a period, as the report clue that can be found mentions Josh Improving after Hill treats him. there's a great Reddit post from the UD subreddit that talks all of this through very well:

put simply, this Hill does not line up with the game Hill in a satisfactory way, and if a sequel with the remake Sam teaser Does go ahead and turns him more into the film version, I think it's an immense disservice to Josh's character. his motivations are his own, he chose to go through with the prank because of how he was suffering, Hill is him, his mind, and not someone with ulterior motives. retconning it into something that was done for Hill's personal gain takes away from that. the film showing him having a report on Josh as well as on Clover, and the way he whistles over the monitors of the lodge setting, seems to imply that Josh is just another in his time loop experiments. if this is the direction taken by a film or game sequel, I'm sceptical of how it would work.

the next thing is I feel something that the fandom and people following the game and movie in any way Need to talk about more, but I've only seen mentioned by a couple of people so far, and that is how the creatures work within the film. they are clearly intended to be the same beings from the game, using the same name. they are this only in their name, and in the fact that they eat flesh. they are more like general zombies than what they are supposed to be.

the Biggest problem, however, is how they are created. while the game has rightfully received criticism for its use of Native mythology, particularly for having a white actor playing the character that is named after a real person and is supposed to be Native, what I have also seen is that its portrayal of the creature is far more accurate than most media. compared to the deer skull and antlers portrayal, the game version (the stretched, bone thin, starving, cold person) is incredibly faithful.

the film version shares traits within the physical transformation: losing hair, growing teeth, nails sharpening, and focus is drawn to the spine coming out of the skin. the transformed characters do not move in the spidery way from the game, and do not seem particularly stretched in the same way as the large game versions, but they do seem to see based on movement, and the faces do resemble the ones in the game. however, the most important part is what Triggers the transformation. it isn't succumbing to cannibalism and being possessed by the Native creature's spirit. while immense hunger is Mentioned as happening within the loops in a video within the film somewhat akin to the Events of the Past, it is the loop itself and being trapped within it, constantly dying, that is what transforms you. the characters do not ever mention experiencing any kind of hunger as they transform (thirst is shown within the bad water loop so it Could be read that they're also hungry, but it isn't confirmed outright), despite this being key to the lore of the creature in both reality and the game version of events. though i'm not Native myself, so I cannot speak on a personal interpretation there, this seems Immensely disrespectful, taking something that is a part of Native mythology, and turning it into something that happens to you because of something that a white man has done (Hill with the time loops that he has purposefully trapped people in).

the film version of them also just. kinda suck? which is far less important, but is very much worth bringing up. we see throughout the game the immense presence and strength and power of the creatures. they're (most of them at least) decades old and still incredibly powerful. only fire can kill them, and hand-to-hand combat with them is Not something that ends well. the film version? one is defeated by being repeatedly stabbed in the head, even if it is still moving throughout this, and another from being impaled through the stomach on a stone spike. both times, overpowered by the teenage characters that are barely shorter than them. the Psycho, by comparison, seems invincible. and he almost is! he is only killed within the final loop, and this takes three of the gang working together and using an Enormous pickaxe to smash his head in. every other attack (throwing things, stabbing him) does nothing to him. he's akin to Michael Myers, with his ability to just have attacks bounce off without damage.

another thing I want to bring up but wasn't entirely sure where to put it is the character of Megan, who I mentioned before. she's given some form of psychic abilities, able to sense how the nights are getting worse, being possessed by the witch without being near her (unlike Clover, who has to be gassed by her), and generally more impacted by the situation compared to the others (she gets sick when they first arrive, for example). i saw it suggested that this somewhat stands in for the player and the premonitions we can get from the totems in the game, and I suppose this could be true? but her treatment within the film is just. it stood out as oddly. i guess vicious? to me. one point is that her deaths seemed far more exaggerated than the others. with the bad water, everyone else that drinks it simply explodes, kinda like Ready or Not. Megan? first one of her legs explodes at the knee. the her stomach inflates and explodes as she's crawling on the floor. then her head explodes after that. with the witch possession, she's shown as being in immense pain, eyes rolling back in her head, screaming very shrilly, and then she floats. she's seemingly briefly possessed by others that have gone missing, stating lines that they would have said in their own loops, and then her neck promptly snaps itself after she warns the others that things are going to get worse with each night. she also wears a butterfly necklace, which feels important to point out. I don't know, it's just. something.

basically, the film's a little slow to start up, the middle was probably the best part, the ending peters a little and the survival of the entire cast, even after they all experience several deaths, just doesn't feel earned or like something i really wanted. i won't say that i had an outright Bad time, but that was because I knew going in that it wasn't going to be an until dawn movie, not really. and i feel like it's. y'know. a Bad thing when someone has to actively pretend your adaptation has nothing to do with its source material to even remotely enjoy it.

I want to say that I have absolutely no ill-will or hate towards anyone that did enjoy the movie, fans of the game or not, these are my own personal thoughts and opinions as someone very autistic about until dawn that dislikes change and would have straight up been happy with a ten hour shot by shot recreation of a path of the game.

hope y'all that read this far enjoyed my rambles lmao

[kryptonbabe]

to a degree, if taste in art did not reflect a personality it would render the art meaningless. it's supposed to evoke a feeling. if there is nothing inside you that speaks to the art, it truly is just pure consumption and nothing beyond that.

Here are the posts about this for context. Yeah, of course one's taste in art might reflect aspects of their personality. That being said what we consider a personality is vast and multifaceted, your taste in art can reflect your fears, your desires, your past experiences (positive and negative), your views of the world - these can be intimate, or surface level. However I should say it at once: our actions and how we affect each other in real life are the only mesures by which we should be judged. To ponder over a disturbing theme is not the same as commiting a disturbing act. As Susan Sontag says in Regarding the Pain of Others: “Nobody can think and hit someone at the same time.”

Art can speak to facets of our psyches that are surface level, based on a recent experience in school you might look for a book on fishing, you never fished, you don't even intend, but your teacher talked about it in such a vivid way it spoke to you, so you borrowed a book, read it and never thought about it again. What motivated you then? Empathy for the dear teacher, a fleeting desire to experience that, a sudden curiosity?

On the other hand, art can speak deeply to us, as I felt when I first read Light in August by William Faulkner, a book dealing with parental abuse and race prejudice to a mixed race person, who was not a "good" person by the way. Still, my own past, as a mixed race person with some traumatic experiences made me really connect to the character, the book is also beautifully written despite its violence. Books like the Xenogenesis series by Octavia Butler also explore disturbing themes of violence and abuse in a graphic manner, and still, they can speak of a message that does not endorse these subjects. And I am fond of that kind of fiction, they open paths for me to understand my own traumas, intrusive thoughts and other undesirable feelings that have been part of my life for a long time. I developed coping mechanisms that take advantage of the fact that we are imperfect beings and there's acceptance in that. This is my experience however, there are no wrong ways to enjoy or appreciate art, even if those reasons are aspects of yourself that you're not proud of, a bad memory, a bad thought. According to E. H. Gombrich in his book The Story of Art:

“I do not think that there are any wrong reasons for liking a statue or a picture. Someone may like a landscape painting because it reminds him of home, or a portrait because it reminds him of a friend. There is nothing wrong with that. As long as these memories help us to enjoy what we see, we need not worry. It is only when some irrelevant memory makes us prejudiced, when we instinctively turn away from a magnificent picture of an alpine scene because we dislike climbing, that we should search our mind for the reason for the aversion which spoils a pleasure we might otherwise have had. There are wrong reasons for disliking a work of art.” The art objects he's talking about of course are not relevant, the focus is on our approach to a piece of art and how our prejudices can alter our perceptions of a given work.

I have't even touched on the matter of curiosity, the unconscious and the historical context of transgression in art - which is so interesting. We could talk about for instance if the philosophers and writers (Epicurus, Hume, Dostoievsky) who pondered about the problem of evil and wrote about it were all deranged human beings, if the researchers / teachers of literary studies who dedicated their lives to understand works of Marquis de Sade are all perverts. Why were they thinking about these things? Why would they dedicate so much time to make sense of those awful works of art. But then, why shouldn't we think about these things? They might be frightening, painful, uncomfortable aspects of life, but they are not going away any time soon. We do live in a society after all... and in that way we feel like part of its mess. We are not evil by nature like that silly Thomas Hobbes used to think, but we do have the potential for it and we often act on it, why? That is the place of science, philosophy and yes... art to answer. Until we find out, we keep trying.

So yeah, art can and will reflect characteristics of our existence, collectively and individually (as in what we can call personality), on the surface level as momentary interest or deep and emotionally, or yet as curiosity, intellectual concern, it might be instead an unconscious parts of our being (the Jungian shadow-self), who am I to pick and choose what moves others, people I don't even know and never met, towards any given art work? I don't even fully know my own self.

Sorry for the long ass answer, now let me just finish with another Susan Sontag thought, also from her book Regarding the Pain of Others: “Someone who is permanently surprised that depravity exists, who continues to feel disillusioned (even incredulous) when confronted with evidence of what humans are capable of inflicting in the way of gruesome, hands-on cruelties upon other humans, has not reached moral or psychological adulthood.”

[chibrary]

ARTICLE: Charles Leclerc: "Ho imparato anche a dire le parolacce" (2020)

source: alessandra retico for repubblica.it translation: lovingleclerc2 on twitter series: f1, 2020

Might your arrival in Maranello negatively influenced Vettel’s performances?

I don't think so, on the contrary I think he was pushed even more to show what his true value is, although we all already know that he's a great driver.

Do you have any advice to give him?

I would never allow myself to, he has done much more than me in this sport and he deserves respect.

But between you, there were contrasts and sparks on track.

Yes, but our relationship has always been very good. Maybe at first it was a bit strange because of my 'fault': I was next to a 4-time world champion. It intimidated me, it made me anxious. He is so renowned while I still haven't proved anything. But over time we have sympathized. There's always been a great respect even in difficult times like in Brazil last year or in Styria this year. But once off track we always made it clear and we went on with serenity.

Are you serene about the future?

I'm extremely motivated, happy to get the most out of a difficult situation like this. It won’t be a quick recovery for Ferrari but my job is also to try to push everyone to make sure that this difficult period is as short as possible. Mentally I am as focused as ever and although I would like to fight for higher positions, I know that I‘m doing a good job and that the team is happy with me. Of course, being happy with a 5th or 6th place is not really what I want, I will never want that, but it satisfies me to progress to be as ready as possible when the time comes, for me and for Ferrari.

When will the time come?

As for performance, it'll be difficult to make a miracle with the 2021 car. In 2022, there'll be big changes and from then on we’ll have many years with the same concept of cars. We must start that phase competitive and with enthusiasm.

What can you promise to fans realistically?

To give my best, to give a show, this I can promise.

Meanwhile your popularity is growing.

For me, it has always been very important to stay the closest to the people who follow me on social media, on TV, or on track. Now that it’s more difficult without an audience, I want to maintain this closeness. The contact, virtual or physical, being accessible to others, for me is essential. And I’ll tell you more: next year I’m going to expand my social networks, which now are very thematized on my professional life, with content about me behind the scenes, out of track, in my private, to let people see who I am and what I do between one race and the other. I want to tell of myself as a person more.

Who is the private Charles Leclerc?

A normal guy, who enjoys the time he spends with his friends and family. Although since I’m in Ferrari a lot has changed: not like I did bad things before, but now I also have to give a good image of myself outside the car. Just saying, if I eat at the table I have to be careful how I’m doing it.

Your strong and your weak point?

: "I am strong in self-analysis: I'm very sincere with myself and this makes me grow a lot. My weak point is being sometimes too harsh in judging myself. Before, I was very upset about making mistakes that I still make out of inexperience or too much desire. But being demoralized is useless, the past cannot be changed. Making mistakes made me more mature, mentally very strong.

Ferrari will be without a world champion. Did they choose well with Carlos Sainz?

I don't know why they took him rather than another, but Carlos is very strong and consistent. Last year towards the end of the season he used to ask me if there was a free seat in the Red car, I replied that I didn't know, but he already had stars in the eyes.

What do you like the most and the least about Italy?

I like the simplicity, besides food of course. One flaw? I hear the bad words from the mechanics and I got into the habit of saying a lot of them too, I say more in Italian than in French.

Will your brother, now in the FDA, get to Maranello?

It’s soon, but he deserves it. He didn’t have my chances, we started together but then didn’t have enough money to continue both, my father gave the priority to me as I am older, Arthur had to stop and started again since I’ve got into F1, my uncle and I help him. He's talented, we are similar in personality. He will find his way.

Today Mick Schumacher makes his debut with Alfa Romeo in free practice. How much does it matter to be the son of Michael?

The Schumacher name is powerful in F1 and not only, but Mick is here for his talent and not for his name. It’s going to be tough here with this cold weather, for him and for everyone, we look like skiers. What about us? Some aerodynamic update, but we’ll struggle with tyres.

Do you envy anything to Hamilton or Verstappen?

I'm happy with who I am, I don't look at others, in F1 you have to be the best & I try to be the best version of myself. When we have Ferrari in front I hope I’ll be able to show what this team's worth.

[luckyladylily]

So the release of Erdtree was a bit of a fiasco for FromSoft and for a very fascinating reason. The game got tons of negative reviews for being unfairly difficult driving the rating all the way down to "mixed " on steam for a good amount of time, a disastrous rating for a game like this.

It's now become apparent that the single biggest contributor to the perception of unfair difficulty was that Erdtree has a new central progression mechanic that people do not know how to interact with, or even that the mechanic exists depending on the player.

We have to remember that anyone who plays Erdtree has to have completed some of the greatest challenges of the base game. These are not inexperienced players jumping into a genre that is too deep for them. So what happened?

For our answer, I would like everyone to think back to the tutorial of the first Dark Souls. That game has an excellent tutorial. It's engaging, it's fun, it plays exactly like the rest of the game, and critically, it forces the player to interact with every vital mechanic. You must demonstrate basic competency in all core Dark Souls mechanics before you can move past the tutorial.

This is not uncommon with very good games. Super Mario Bros 1-1 is effectively a tutorial level. It is constructed such that it leads the player to experimentation. It has demonstration checks for every core mechanic under minimal stress, then combining mechanics. The Mega Man X intro level is similar, Super Metroid has tutorial bits scattered so seamlessly through the game world that most people wont ever realize that a particular hall is designed to teach you the properties of your new plasma beam.

Now what happened with Erdtree is that FromSoft didn't bother to do this with this new progression mechanic. I don't know why they thought it was a good idea to introduce an entirely new 100% required mechanic without onboarding the players, but for whatever reason they didn't. The results were predictable, that being many players did not discover this new mechanic organically and the game was unplayable for these players, they got mad, and rated the game low.

It's gotten so bad that FromSoft is effectively begging players to please try again, and they posted a map giving exact instructions on what to do, basically trying, after the fact, to create an out of game tutorial that better onboards players and doesn't leave it up to chance - a clunky, bad version of what should have been in the game in the first place. It's going ok. Right now, Erdtree's steam rating is sitting at 71% "Mostly Positive", Which is much better than it was. Best I can tell it was down in "Mixed" and just over a 50% positive rating. All because, for whatever reason, they didn't bother with a tutorial for their new mechanic.

This is objectively bad game design. They did this to themselves. The fascinating part is FromSoft does *great* tutorials. They know why a tutorial exists and how to execute them. They've always been good at judging what mechanics are necessary to cover explicitly. It's fascinating to me, a baffling rookie mistake from one of the best developers in the world. And I can't figure out why it happened.

The only thing I can come up with is they got a bit too high on their own supply and thought "we don't need tutorials! Our games are supposed to be hard!" forgetting there is a difference between a game being challenging and a game being obtuse.

[correctional-transition]

Not trans, don't have a detrans kink, just genuinely curious and it seemed you might be willing to discuss the topic a little. I'm not trying to kink shame but my first thought on detrans was "this is transphobic". A lot of detrans posts I've seen repeat rhetoric that transphobes use in a degrading way or just straight up express positivity towards transphobes. So I kind of just wanted to ask, how is this kink separated from just actual reinforcement of internalized transphobia? Just the consent of the individual? Because even with consent (from an outsider's perspective) it kind of seems like a form of self harm? At what point does the kink stop, bc it seems like a lot of people actually mess up their mental image? Once again, no hate intended I was just wondering if you have an answer for any of these questions

Honestly this goes for almost any and all extreme kinks from cnc, age play, detrans/misgen, orientation play, etc.

I don't judge anyone on their kinks and although I will never understand some of them to the point of enjoying them I can understand a lot of them can be developed from different things.

Now I'd like to make it clear that this is all OPINION and it cannot be true fact as I have done 0 research onto the topic of how kinks start or the statistics of bad vs good (which are all subjective) within kink.

A lot of kinks can be seen as bad to people because it goes against a lot of social acceptance such as the detrans/misgen because outside of kink if you saw that you'd say "wtf. That's transphobic. You're a bad person." Whereas within a consensual kink environment it is more openly used as a form of self discovery, acceptance of the world and even coping mechanism. It can, however, still contain bad apples. You can still have transphobes playing within the kink and these people SHOULD NOT BE and you should ALWAYS watch out for people like these in ANY kink. When it comes to bad apples you want to look out for red flags such as "doesn't separate kink from reality", "doesn't provide aftercare", "doesn't support who I really am", "ignores the boundaries and limits I've placed to keep myself safe". And sadly there are a few people who do use it as a form of self harm so you need to be careful with people like that as their mental health matters but it can impact your own mental health too (both in negative and positive ways)

Kink stops ultimately when someone wants to. Everyone is different. Some people make the kink a reality becomes for some people it was used as self discovery and that's how they realised they may be more comfortable as a woman or man or non-binary etc. Some people stop immediately because they realise they were just trying to hurt themselves with the kink and that's not what they wanted to do.

Thats all I can really say atm off the top of my head on this matter but I'd love for some of my followers to also include their own thoughts and opinions in the comments or reblogs because I think its important to have a collective view/opinion on a matter like this as its completely subjective and so everyone's perspective will be different ♡

[phvle]

Subtype Trait Structures: sx9

Very Patient

The sexual E9 is very patient when it comes to tasks, things or relationships in which he believes. Of a patience that may seem infinite to others, but that for him is normal. With children and animals, his patience is extreme. This patience testifies to the need to maintain energy homeostasis in oneself and with the environment so that there are no frictions that could put you in contact with needs or choices.

Without Nuances

Either black or white. He believes that several "versions of everything" cannot coexist. For example, in interpersonal relationships it is difficult for him to understand that there are parts of a person that he does not like, or that he likes less. Both in relationships and in the manifestation of their tastes, there is a middle way, things are white or black, or all or nothing, or they like everything or they do not like anything.

This vision hides the defense mechanism of denying what can produce negative emotions and, above all, it nourishes the false image of a world that is going well at all costs, for which there is nothing missing.

Tolerant With The Other, Severe With Himself

In others, he tolerates everything and finds justification for any act or behavior. (Although inside he has judged first but, from his desire for kindness, "magnanimously understands and forgives".)

With himself, on the contrary, he is severe, critical and does not go too far. In private life as well as at work, he does not forgive himself for any mistakes. The annihilation experienced in childhood and the devaluation received in primary relationships are completely introjected.

Chameleon

Like the chameleon, it is capable of being in any environment and context without being out of place. You can keep any conversation going by carefully following the other person's train of thought. From early childhood he acquires the ability of entering and leaving situations and environments without being seen. The imperative is to be there but without disturbing.

Above Authority

Either he considers it worthy of respect or he does not recognize it. This aspect is very evident from an early age, when faced with a teacher or parent who has not earned his respect, he does what he considers most fair, does not listen to authority and acts on his own behalf. He makes a judgment and appraisal according to wholly personal criteria of that person's merit and ability to perform that role, and then acts accordingly.

But this force to go against authority does not come from the feeling of entitlement. Rather, it is an action driven by defending another or by one's own survival, an acting out by which the experience of low self-esteem can be skipped.

Blind Faith

It is difficult for the sexual E9 to believe in someone because he does not believe in himself. But when she finds someone to believe in , she gives in , she does it blindly and rarely questions. Rather than faith, it would be better to say that it converges with the other.

Mediator and Peacemaker

Not only does he not like to be involved in arguments and conflicts, he does not even tolerate witnessing them. He is stronger than it: when there is an argument, he compulsively triggers the need to placate and fix the situation. He gets in the way without even assessing whether he is in a position to sustain the mediation. The imperative is to quickly regain calm and peace. He doesn't take anyone's side but he manages to assert everyone's reasons and, sometimes without even knowing how he does it, he always manages to achieve his goal.

The sexual E9 empathetically and exaggeratedly feels the pain present in the conflict. The suffering is unbearable for him, he feels the unresolved internal conflicts resonate and so that these do not take priority (understood as the resolution of his internal conflict), he immediately acts on the external world. This terror of conflict often has autobiographical resonances. He is willing to avoid it at all costs because in his childhood the overt conflicts had devastating consequences for him.

Aversion To Change

If there is one thing that triggers a crisis in the sexual E9 and triggers all the alarms, with the corresponding paranoia, it is change. He does not understand why there is a need to change when things are working so well. Fierce supporter of the saying "the best is the enemy of the good", he applies it as much as he can, and to everything. He needs the usual customs, the usual people, the usual places; in short, let no one disturb his quiet, flat little world for which he has worked so hard.

Accurate In The Development Of Tasks

The word "accurate" may fall short, almost maniacal and especially at work. Whether he performs tasks at the bottom of the organizational pyramid or at the top, the sexual E9 is extremely reliable due to his need to always have everything in its place. If a work program is prepared , it must be fulfilled , and if there are changes it goes into crisis and is not very elastic. It does not support the delays of the others, because they are an “unexpected variable” of the program.

Lover Of Good Food As A Shared Pleasure

The sexual E9 loves good food and good wine, but only if he can enjoy it and share it with the person he loves or with his closest friends. He doesn't usually care much about what he eats, and he doesn't like to cook for himself either. Food and drink are a pleasure if they are shared and prepared for someone. When he is alone, on the contrary, they can become a way to fill the void caused by loneliness or the discomfort of doing things for himself.

Dormouse

He has a very deep sleep because he uses sleep as a defense to not feel.

Difficulty For Physical Contact

The sexual E9 does not like physical contact, he does not like to be touched. When talking about this, his idea is that everyone should be in their space. In reality, he does not have the experience of safe skin contact with her mother who, on the contrary, has often been invasive and not respectful of even physical limits. He has not learned to measure personal space.

Ashamed To Communicate His Feelings

He is ashamed to express his affection because he has not been taught to do so. The few times in his life that he has tried to be explicitly emotional, has been deeply hurt or has received a humiliating indifference, and it is a risk that he prefers not to take again.

Incapable Of Making Decisions

The sexual E9 is not able to decide for himself, because he does not know what he likes and that is why it is impossible for him to know what is better. He lets others decide everything, even the important things. Although he will be angry if the decision does not seem fair to him, he will abide by it without raising the slightest objection.

Bad Relationship With The Body And Sexuality

He has a terrible relationship with his body, he does not accept its forms or its aesthetics. He feels awkward, ugly, and thinks that no one will ever be attracted to him. That is why he forgets that he has a body, and the disconnection of desire from him contributes to his total focus on the pleasure and sexuality of the other.

Overadapted

No matter what happens or what others choose, you will always see the positive side and adjust your needs accordingly. The sexual E9 has learned to adapt to circumstances for fear of being abandoned, excluded, rejected and ignored. And this ability becomes a currency to be loved. In reality, it is a false adaptation, which generates a silent rage that accumulates. This anger , of which he is not aware , ends up expressing himself in a stubborn opposition to the other's proposals, posing impediments that are generally of a practical nature , in a kind of displaced revenge.

Indispensable And Docile

The sexual E9 works tirelessly to make himself indispensable to the people around him (relatives, friends, acquaintances). Compulsively, he immediately answers "yes" to any request, even if it has just been outlined, without taking the slightest account of his capacity, his psychophysical availability, the eventual effort to be made or, lastly, his needs. Also in this case it is the price to pay for not being abandoned.

Empathetic

Believes that he always knows with absolute certainty what others need (he does not know what he needs). He is amazed that the others do not have that characteristic to the same extent. When someone does not understand him, he immediately blames himself for that inability that, in reality, is not his. He does not feel loved then, he suffers and is filled with rage. It never crosses his mind that the other might not instinctively possess that empathetic capacity that he considers universal.

Welcoming

Creating a comfortable environment , being open to welcoming the other, being hospitable and affable, using a voice that can be pleasant and friendly, and showing unlimited availability, make the sexual E9 well accepted in his environment. He acts like this because he feels the need to be welcomed by his fellow men and, above all, because he believes that, otherwise , no one would love him. Ultimately, he believes that he is not lovable for himself but for the attention he provides.

Sense Of Duty

The sexual E9 has such a strong sense of responsibility that he often takes on what does not belong to him. The motivation is twofold. On the one hand, he feels that all the obligations of the world fall on his shoulders (it is up to him to ensure that everyone fulfills his duty). On the other hand, he thus prevents himself from experiencing excessive pleasure in situations that might even procure it.

Susceptible To Criticism

He always expects praise, recognition in almost all the activities he does. If he gets criticized for something he has done, he falls from the clouds with a start and suffers horrors. Indeed, the work that he does with dedication and commitment has value because it is through him that he can be recognized by the external world. His work therefore has a double function of expression and recognition. The sexual Nine believes that he exists only through what he does, and not simply because he is.

Disorganized Or Extremely Organized

He lives a disordered life inside (ordering himself would mean looking and suffering for what he sees) and for this reason his house is also completely untidy. Surprisingly, he also lives the ideal of being highly organized. He knows that he has a great chaos inside him, he would never want to deal with it, but he dreams that, with a blow of the sponge, everything will magically fall into place and nothing will be left out of place.

Loquacious Or Mute

In environments with many people (parties , groups , congresses , assemblies), the sexual E9 can be very talkative, because he can not stand the discomfort of silence. He therefore feels obliged to relieve others of what he feels as density "breaking the ice" as soon as possible. He does this by walking up to someone and starting to talk. He experiences the sensation of saying things that are irrelevant and uninteresting, of being verbose, but he can't stop. He would love to observe the others and remain silent himself. In fact, if there is a lot of noise, he can be quite quiet, and even not answer if he is addressed.

Breaking the silence obeys a second motivation. If you start talking you will stop feeling outside the group - and therefore an object of attention - and you will be able to dissolve into it. The sexual E9 has difficulty feeling really part of the group, he always thinks that he is not up to the task, or that his characteristics will not be valued, or that there are already subgroups in which it will not be possible to enter and that, in any case, he will not will be accepted.

Inconstant

Makes precise projects and acquires commitments that he later postpones and sometimes forgets. Programs that seem to have the highest priority for a time suddenly and for no apparent reason lose interest and fade, replaced by the birth of other urgencies. The sexual E9 acts this way because it indefinitely postpones the satisfaction of its own pleasure. Although at first he moves, and in good faith he believes that he truly feels desires, then the inner dictation of not giving himself pleasure arises. He believes that there is no room in his life for pleasure, and that he only has a reason to be duty.

Pedantic

Has an opinion that he firmly believes, and sometimes expresses it forcefully even if he hasn't been asked, extemporaneously. He is so convinced that he has carefully and correctly analyzed the problem that he makes absolute certainty about it, even though he is spectacularly wrong. The desire to assert himself is not connected with an integrated construction of his opinion.

Disheveled

The sexual E9 takes little care of his external appearance. She dresses without paying too much attention to the harmony of some garments with others and, if she is a woman, she rarely puts on make - up and seldom goes to the hairdresser's. He doesn't care about her aesthetics.

This carelessness is also manifested in the lack of care for their health, when they delay control visits to their doctor and when they ignore, neglect or forget symptoms that may indicate the appearance of some disease. Plain and simple, he forgets himself so much that he does not take care of himself at all.

Autonomous

Not depending on anyone is an absolute need of the sexual E9, which is in conflict with the need to bond symbiotically. As a child, he could not trust the adults around him and learned very early to fend for himself and to reduce his demands more and more, to appear before the world serene, peaceful and unassuming. The motivation is, once again, to ensure the love of others, because if you are not a burden to anyone, you do not run the risk of being rejected. The price you pay is not realizing the lack of independence deep in your feelings and motivations.

Hyperactive Or Distracted

As we have already seen, the sexual Nine sets in motion an «all or nothing» mechanism, in this case oscillating between periods (weeks or hours) of great industriousness and periods in which he wanders and dazzles himself with hobbies of diverse nature that manage to distract him (television, card games, music, books). In both modes, remaining in a superficial state prevents her from contacting his inner world: she is aware that it would be too dangerous and painful.

Source: PDB Wiki

[inposterumcumgaudio]

Maybe you could talk about the department of achieves?

Oooh! Certainly!

The Department of Archives, Printing, and Recycling serves a lot of functions in the game. Because it exists in place of what would be a tutorial level in any other game, I'm going to talk about it in the way that one typically would a tutorial level, by breaking down each part you encounter and explaining its intent.

But, as I implied, it's not a tutorial at all! They just plonk your ass in front of a redactor and tell you to make choices. They don't give you time to read anything but the headlines of the articles Arthur judges on his own and your only hint as to what criteria he's judging is that "Mrs. Bower Wins Garden Prize" is acceptable while "No Swimming in the River" is not.

Been here two seconds and we're already in over our heads. But that's okay because it turns out the choice you're going to be asked to make is not so tricky.

I think it would have been fun if you taking your Joy gave you, like, five minutes of some silly shit before dumping you to the credits. You know how like every Far Cry starts with the bad guy telling you to sit tight for five minutes and if you actually do it, you get an alternate ending? Ah well. I'm asking a lot.

Anyway, you choose to Remember, obvs, and so you're presented your new primary objective: Find Your Brother. But you're Arthur Officeman, not some intrepid adventurer, so rather than leaping into action, you sit and stare at your desk in a fog of regret for several hours until your boss comes to ask what the hell you've been doing all day, remind you that bureaucracy never sleeps, and say that you have an office party to attend too.

You do get a little tutorial, I guess, in how sitting and standing work, how to pick up objects, and how to apply them to other objects all in in the part where you have to change the power cell. Then its back to the redactor.

I think the redactor... mini-game? is kind of a twofold mean trick on the player. I'm the kind of person who thinks that's fun, but I think most people are not.

On one's first playthrough, you have no idea by what parameters an article should be redacted or not. You might have guessed that articles that are negative should be rejected while articles that are positive should be accepted, but you'd be wrong! And maybe you think, "Well, this article just put my character into a tailspin for six hours so I should probably reject that one even if it is positive." And you'd still be wrong! And the funniest part is, you also have no idea that these choices you're making have no effect on your game whatsoever. So you're probably reading the articles carefully, learning about the lore, trying to find anything to give you a clue as to how to do your boring office job when you thought this game was supposed to be about finding your brother.

(And then you go to Clive's office and the "correct" way to do his articles is backwards to make him look bad. Then you can go to Prudence's office and do hers too, but hers don't even give you an achievement, just a richer understanding of the world. *eyeroll*)

The prologue was added to the game fairly early and not changed much. Originally, the game was meant to involve much more binary choice making like this, so it's hard to tell if the meaninglessness of the choices was always intended (à la the intentionally meaningless choices the Lutece twins present you with in BioShock Infinite, a game to which We Happy Few is often compared) or if it was dialed back to it when the choice making mechanics were also pulled back.

Alternative to all that, if you secretly are an intrepid adventurer or particularly goal oriented, you could just get up after you choose what to do about the scrap prize article and never bother redacting any others.

All right, we're really in the game now!

You go out the door and the first thing you see is a window into a room full of glass pneumatic tubes. And Arthur muses aloud at it, "Do you think the canister wonders what life's like outside the tube? Of course he'd have to break the tube to get out. And that would break it for everybody." It's a metaphor for the game. Arthur (you'll learn if you die) is a poet, after all.

Next is Clive's office. Boy's a mess. And based on the lore notes (if you choose to read them as you pick them up because you cannot access the menu at this point otherwise) and the environmental storytelling, he does not like you.

What's funny is, you probably already know that you are playing as one of "three moderately terrible people", but you're still the hero of this story and Clive's office is a shithole, so presenting you with the knowledge that he hates your guts sounds like a him problem. Clearly the terrible person here is Clive. His office is the office of a terrible person.

Moving on to Prudence's office.

Oh, her office is a shithole too. But she can be excused because Arthur likes her, she's been on holiday, and she isn't writing to Victoria pretending to be a "naturally shy woman". Prudence's office is also where we learn that her overdue vacation may be the result of her also being off her Joy.

Now your fellow executive coworkers' offices might have shown their respective inner turmoil, but up to now, the rest of the Department has been ship shape.

Turning the corner from Prudence's office is your first clue that it's not just she and Clive but the office itself that is struggling to cope.

It's at this point that you can watch helplessly as your coworker Hopkin Jones is forcibly injected with Joy by a Doctor, despite his protestations that he's already taken it. (This mechanic was definitely removed from the game; originally Doctors were supposed to be able to do this to you too). Tells you Doctors are not your friend, but also reinforces Victoria asking Arthur if he's off his Joy and then Arthur himself wondering if Prudence is. Any signs of disquiet will be regarded with suspicion.

A story I have been meaning to do is that Hopkin wasn't actually unhappy at all (at least not emotionally), but rather he was upset about the flooding in his office and maybe was a little too plaintive in asking Victoria to arrange a council worker to come fix it. Not liking his tone and thinking he would do well to make do and mend, she sent a Doctor to perk him up instead. Which is also a metaphor. We do not fix problems in Wellington Wells; we put on a smile and pretend it's not a problem at all.

As we move on into the editor bullpen, the chaos only intensifies.

The entire office is in disarray. You are starting to see the genuine scope of the disorder now. The whole room is a winding maze and halfway through, you are confronted with your first glimpse of Uncle Jack.

Remember how we just learned Doctors are not our friend? Very clever, Compulsion.

The room actually also gets in progressively worse condition as you move between the desks. You can't see the knocked over chairs when you walk in the door; it's only once you're around the bend. And once you turn the other corner...

The tube is broken and the canisters don't know where to go outside of it. Dohoho. Foreboding. Foreshadowing.

And then you finally attend Dierdre's birthday party and see the scene that sold this game, the second best cutscene in the entire thing. There's not much to actually say about it artistically that hasn't already been said.

I have some fun trivia stuff about it for you though.

Guy on the right is Clive. You can tell because before Victoria even starts supposing about Arthur being a Downer, he's already gearing up to run and go tell on him. He's been waiting for this day and his moment has finally arrived.

There's some weird glitching that happens with the props being held by the characters in this scene. Victoria's riding crop doubles when she sets it on the table and the one in her hand hovers and gets lodged in her torso in a way that her hands mostly hide in the scene. If you wait to hit the "pinata", the other guy on the left will have two kazoos in his hand.

Here's the scene on YouTube so you can check those out:

The cake Victoria made for Dierdre actually has her name on it even though you're never free to move in that room and the cutscene never gets close enough to show it.

The rotten fruit basket also has flies on it, but the particle effect has a very short draw distance so it's not visible in the cutscene either.

As for practical insights about the Department of Archives, now that my level design analysis is out of the way, one really must wonder at the concept of the redaction office at all.

It's terribly inefficient. Would it not be easier to burn old newspapers? Why are people reading old newspapers with such frequency as to need to have a whole office for editing them? I suppose that must be for the same reason whoever works in the Inter-Network room has four copies of Emma in there with them. But even still, why not just dispose of old newspapers if they're so troublesome?

What is the purpose of individually reading old articles (exposing editors to them in a way that reminds me a lot of those stories about what it's like to work as a Facebook content moderator) and having them make a judgement call on it? What is the point if, like the article with Percy's photo, a single news piece can cause one person to destroy the entire town when it was still deemed acceptable for everyone else to read?

I have to wonder if there wasn't initially some move to preserve these papers. As someone who uses newspapers.com for other projects, I can see the appeal even in a world that wants to forget the recent past. In this respect, I think particularly Vanessa Tinker-Bell and Clive Hamilton at the O' Courant would have made the argument for it. At the same time, I think they'd also both see the wisdom in cutting the unhappy parts out without having to be convinced of it. Vanessa was herself trying to edit Les Misérables to leave out the sad parts.

Redaction is still a very inefficient solution to this problem, but it is also a relic of wartime procedure and bureaucratically slow. It's thematically perfect, really. Exactly the kind of meaningless work Arthur Officeman should be doing in this world while also being the perfect catalyst for him to abandon it.

On a final note, I wonder then if the Government Printing Office that Arthur seeks out to replace his Letter of Transit wasn't merged into the Department of Archives, "Printing", and Recycling. That would be more efficient, while also making it more difficult to actually get anything accomplished there, since you'd then need a Letter of Transit to visit the office that prints the Letters of Transit.

[aikoiya]

Hello there, while I do some Danny Phantom idea but I am here to show you the difference between the hunter from both editions of hunter the reckoning from world of darkness and hoping to get your opinion on both hunters. (Also note that I don't know everything about hunter the reckoning thing like what is the messenger or other things and I also a bit bias for 5th edition because the idea of normal people hunting monsters is cool)

Imbued from 1st edition is supernaturally augmented people who are chosen by the messengers to hunt monster. There are 3 virtues with 3 creeds each but if the imbued want to get a more powerful edge they get more deranged ( a mechanic that every point of virtue above 7 you must get a derangement) and if they want the most powerful edge they must become an extremist.

The virtues (and creed) is

Virtue of zeal is driven by negative emotion of the supernatural and seeking to hurt the monster (the creeds of zeal is avengers creed, judges creed, and defenders creed)

Virtue of mercy is driven by positive emotion and wish to resolve conflict and see everyone thrive (the creeds of mercy is martyrs creed, redeemers creed, and innocents creed)

Virtue of vision is driven by a stable balance of emotion and determine what need to be done without bias( the creed of vision is visionaries creed, hermit creed, and waywards creed)

The extremist path are what happened when an imbued becomes too powerful (got 10 dot in virtue) and deranged ( the three path are the divine path which is chosen, the corrupt path which is corrupted by a demon, and the independent path are when an extremist don't want to be a puppet)

Yeah being an imbued sucks but they are the star of hunter the reckoning...

Until the 5th edition put the imbued in to backstage and let normal people be the star.

5th hunters are normal people that after finding out monsters are real decide to hunt them.

Hunter, while there is some edge that give them a semblance of magic abilities, are just regular people that has to research the quarry (the supernatural beings they are currently hunting) and use the element of surprise they currently have (even their edges reflect this like a library edge that a hunter can access a wealth of information), because while they can be prepared against the monster, the monster can also be prepared against the hunters.

The 5th edition creeds is both the reason, how they approach the monster, and the way of life (note that 3 words for later)

Martial creed is the militaristic hunter that seeks finality to the supernatural to protect people from monsters but are more likely to be extremist and willing to risk the element of surprise to end the monster.

Inquisitive creed are the people who want to know more about the problem and are more knowledgeable about the things they are against but they are more likely to let the monster live so they can learn about it more even though the monster kills more people and they are not well armed.

Faithful creed are religious people who are more likely to use magical like abilities from relics but if has a crisis of faith becomes weak.

Entrepreneurial creed are both engineers and business seeker as they make tech to capture (yes capture) to get a potential reward of inspiration of a invention to get profit but are reliant on their tool and the captured monster can use their power to escape and causes trouble

Underground creed use stealth and immediate action like trap and improvise to be unpredictable but their lack of long term planning leaves them unprepared.

While the creed is the way of life there are groups of hunters that treat it like a job and look to use the monster's existence to their benefits while the hunter want to end the monster existence to save people, they are the orgs (organization). I don't have enough energy to list the example of the orgs but the arcanum (the scholars that you ask in the post of dpxhtp)are one of them.

So what do you think of the imbued and the hunters? They both hunt monsters.

Hmm... Honestly, I also prefer the idea of regular-ass people being hunters. Fits more with what I tend to think hunters do.

Can Dhampirs also be hunters? Because that's basically the mythos behind Dhampirs to begin with, so I wouldn't understand why not.

[fraeuleintaka]

AAIC Previews

This is the 61st post in the Ace Attorney Investigations Collection Countdown: 20 days left until release!

Today's topic: some Previews of the Investigations Collection!

Since the start of August various magazines and gaming channels have posted previews of the Investigations Collection. They've been able to play the first few cases of both games and wrote about their first impressions, most of them being old fans of the series and having played I1 back in the day but never I2. I won't go through all of them like I did for the interviews with the devs previously since there really are a lot but I'm going to talk about a few of the major points most of them mentioned and agreed on that I found the most interesting.

The different gameplay structure of Investigations in comparison to the main series is a welcome breath of fresh air and a lot of fun

That's what I've been saying! I feel validated here. Nothing against the other AA games but the Investigations games are just better but the Investigations gameplay style works so well and I hardly ever see that acknowledged in the fandom. I think they picked exactly the right combination of different but similar which really makes them stand out in the best of ways.

The more logic based gameplay mechanics are a lot of fun and very fitting for Miles as a protagonist, they ground the setting in a good way while still keeping the characters and situations as wonderfully wacky as before

Also something I've been saying for a long time! Miles just has the best skills and mechanics, that's just how it is. I especially appreciate how many previews note the characters and story developments being just as good and interesting as AA is known for because I've seen too many people calling I1 lacking in that department and I just can't understand that at all.

Miles as the protagonist is a particular highlight, he's an amazing character to be in the head of and his commentary and his interactions with other characters are highly entertaining

One of the major reasons why I adore the Investigations games so much so I completely agree with this. There's a reason Miles is my favourite character in the entire series after all and my favourite to play as. He's unique in all the best ways, could comment on the most boring stuff imaginable and I'd still find it interesting (I'm like Ema in that way) and can interact with any random character and make it entertaining just with his contribution alone. No other AA character has been able to match that for me.

The initial cases gave very good impressions, they seemed like the start to a compelling story and most previewers were eager to see more

Again, with the overall fandom's comparatively negative opinion on I1 I'm quite happy to see more positive judgements be thrown its way. I don't have any doubt that I2 will blow most people who haven't tried it yet away with how incredible it is but it's still good to see my own impressions validated.

There's no notable difference (in tone or quality) between the I1 and I2 localisations, most previewers felt right at home with both

That's very good to hear! From what the devs said, that's what they were going for and more and more supports the impression that they fully succeeded. Fantastic!

The various enhancements of the collection were judged very positively, especially the HD chibi sprites, and all the extras were very appreciated; some called it the best collection yet

That was to be expected but I still love to hear it. I've been fangirling about all of this for the last 60 days now so I'm glad I'm not the only one 😄 It's always nice to read positive comments about things you love.

The logical deductions the game asks of you are clearer than the main series sometimes is, maybe the game is a bit easier because of that but only in a positive way

This I found very interesting and not many previewers put it quite so clearly (some also found it too easy and others deliciously challenging) but it did pop up a few times. Several called it overall less frustrating because of that and while I never had major issues with any game in the series in that way (only ever isolated incidents) I do agree that the Investigations games handle their deductions and logic chains unusually well. They always make complete sense and there are (almost) no weird jumps or strange detours before you arrive at the conclusions the game wants you to. Maybe that also partly stems from Miles being the protagonist since he usually knows what he's doing and follows a concrete strategy instead of just guessing half of the time but it's definitely another point in the games' favour.

The closest thing to a negative point that most of the previewers mentioned is that the pixel art looks out of place against the HD backgrounds

I feared this might be the case. You can't really keep the backgrounds on the DS graphic level or they'd look insanely blurry on the larger screens but with crystal clear background art the pixel art of the sprites in the foreground looks jarring. No idea how you could possibly avoid that. It's not relevant for me personally since I won't actively be playing with the pixel graphics anyway but it definitely isn't great for the people who want to. On the positive side, if that's the only thing most previewers even came close to criticizing, this promises stellar reviews and ratings for the release of the collection!

[archduchessofnowhere]

The Accidental Empress Reading Blog I: Evil Gackl and the regency of Archduchess Sophie

I knew what I was getting into when I started The Accidental Empress, I really did. This historical fiction romance novel by Allison Pataki about Empress Elisabeth of Austria doesn't have particularly flying reviews in Goodreads, mainly to the historical inaccuracies and mischaracterizations. But I wanted to judge it by myself, specially since this is a very popular novel.

But I'm only one chapter in and this is my only reaction:

I have so many things to say about this chapter alone that I'm going to do a break down of it. I'm not planning to do this with every chapter (it will take me forever to finish it if I do), so enjoy this over analyzing reading blog, it won't happen again!

We start the chapter with Elisabeth and Helene outdoors, hiding from someone. We soon learn that that someone is their 13-years-old brother Karl Theodor "Gackl". Who is a bully that constantly torments them and insults them. I wish I was making this up.

...

In reality, Karl Theodor was Elisabeth's favorite brother and they remained close all their lives; he even named one of his daughters after her. Karl Theodor must have been a very charming and likeable man, since everyone that knew him held him in high esteem. Needless to say, he was nothing like how Pataki chose to portray him.

Because changing Gackl's personality was a deliberate choice by the author, in her own words: "I needed a mechanism for some early character development for the spirited, plucky young Sisi, and so Karl became an early opponent of sorts". I'm not that advanced into the book to decide if this benefited Elisabeth's character arc; but Gackl just bullying his elder sisters with no consequence seems kinda... dumb?

Continuing with the chapter, after this (they escape from Gackl by throwing rocks at him or something? I don't remember) the family gathers to dinner. Here we are told a little more of the family, and we find out that Elisabeth's eldest brother Ludwig Wilhelm "Louis" just... doesn't exist in this book? Karl Theodor is referred as the eldest son and heir more than once?? Weird choice, specially since the second book (yes this has a sequel) covers the Mayerling affair, in which Louis' daughter Countess Marie Larisch played a key role.

During dinner comes the unavoidable moment in which Ludovika announces that her sister Sophie asked for Helene's hand in marriage for her son, the young Emperor Franz Josef. This never happened, but (with great sorrow) I'll let it slide for the sake of the narrative.

Up until that point this novel had been your average, overly done, "Sisi lives free of worries in humble Possenhofen until her sister is told she's going to marry the emperor". I had nothing positive to say about it, but also nothing negative. It is a curse of contemporary Sisi adaptations that a relative she had a good relationship with is turned into a sort of antagonist (think Helene in RTL's Sisi and Ludovika in Netflix's The Empress), so even Gackl's villain arc didn't upset me that much.

You know what did upset me? This:

WHAT??? Franz Josef had been emperor since 1848. There was no regency, Sophie didn't had to rule anything. He was only eighteen, but he was of age and took charge of his reign from the very beginning. The implication that only since 1853 he had power is insane.

I already fear that Pataki went down the path of "Franz didn't do anything wrong, ever! It was his evil mother who ordered all those executions!" In fact, a couple of lines later Elisabeth recalls Franz Josef as "schrink[ing] whenever his mother had spoken" when she met him in 1848, a few months before the abdication of emperor Ferdinand. Which is also total crap.

And if I had any hope left for nuanced portrayal of Sophie, I completely lost it when Elisabeth recalls her meeting with her aunt:

Wow I can't wait to see the rest of her characterization! *sarcasm*

So far the writing itself had been okay-ish, even if I already had problems with the characterization and historical accuracy. But from this point onward we are delivered incredibly awkward expository dialogues, which completely took me out of the novel because it was obvious that the characters weren't talking to each other, but explaining to the reader the historical context. Like this just isn't a natural sounding dialogue at all:

"Your father is referring to the fact"???? I understand this novel is aimed at a general audience, but having the characters literally explaining the history (specially since this is recent history for them! it happened less than five years ago!!) feels extremely forced to me. Duke Max's dialogue alone worked fine, a voice in off could've explained the rest.

The chapter wraps up after this with Ludovika informing that Elisabeth will also accompany Helene to meet her betrothed (say it with me: Helene and Franz Josef were never engaged!), then the girls have an emotional talk in their bedroom and the chapter is over. I'll give Pataki one point for originality because she didn't follow the typical path of Helene being groomed to become empress for years and even had her oppose to the idea of marrying Franz Josef, but that's it.

And to finish this ridiculously long reading blog, I left under the cut all the inaccuracies that, while don't actually affect the plot so in theory can be forgiven, annoyed me anyway!

The Aunt Myth strikes! I don't blame Pataki for this mistake, since she probably took it from Hamann's biography. I made a whole post about how this is incorrect, but in short: while it's true that the Ducal household was in mourning, it wasn't for an aunt, but for Duke Georg of Saxe-Altenburg, Queen Therese of Bavaria's brother (so he wasn't even related to Elisabeth).

Actually Ludovika herself was extremely introverted, and according to her granddaughter Amalie of Urach, every interaction with people outside her inner circle was a torment for the Duchess. Public events and social gatherings caused Ludovika a lot of anxiety and she tried to avoid them at all cost, often excusing herself alleging being ill. All her children were said to also be very timid, most famously Elisabeth, who apparently spoke so lowly that sometimes it was hard to understand what she was saying.

It wasn't unusual for royals to marry people they had never met in their life (that ended up being the case of Sisi's sister Marie), but Ludovika and Max knew each other since they were children. King Maximilian of Bavaria, Ludovika's father and Duke Max's great-uncle, was fond of his nephew and wanted him to be close to his daughters, partly because Duke Max was quite lonely as a child, and partly so he wouldn't be a stranger to his future wife. A nice gesture, but that didn't prevent the couple of being utterly miserable together once they married at 20-years-old.

I am once again asking writers to understand that this was just not a possibility. Netflix's The Empress also has a moment of "You will stay with me as a lady-in-waiting!!", ignoring that being a lady-in-waiting was technically a job that belonged to the women from the highest ranking noble families in the empire. Noble, not royal. Elisabeth was the granddaughter of a king, being a lady-in-waiting was beneath her status. Also, why is this presented as a good thing anyway? Sisi serving her own sister would've been humiliating for her.

This is a silly mistake to point out since it can even be justified within the text as Sisi not knowing the proper titles for being so young; but this is the me being annoying section so I'll point it out anyway: there was only one Crown Prince, the rest of Helene's hypothetical children would've been Archdukes or Archduchesses (the Crown Prince was also an Archduke, but it was more usual to call him by the former title). And the Crown Princess was the Crown Prince's wife, the Habsburgs never had a Crown Princess in her own right.

High class girls going into marriage completely ignorant about sex is an strangely common trope in historical fiction, and while this was true for some (this was the case of Stephanie of Belgium, at least according to her memoirs), most of them knew exactly what was supposed to happen. After all, producing an heir was their more important task, so why would they not be told how they were meant to achieve that?

Ludovika was well aware of that, and she did not keep her girls in the dark about sex. She always talked very openly about it, and was proud of having educated her daughters about what happened on the wedding night. So no, she didn't "only ever implied things"

To be fair with Pataki, she wouldn't have found this information regarding Ludovika in Elisabeth's biographies in English. All of this information I found in Martina Winkelhofer's biography, only published in 2021 and still untranslated in English. I think the biggest problem with this book in regards with historical accuracy is going to be that Pataki relied solely on outdated English sources that perpetuate myths that have been challenged in German works for the past decades.

[khaicrafts]

emilio sakraya, homosexual, male + he/him, mage «—◦—→ well meet, khairi dior! the godling born child of hephaestus. it’s been 27 years and now they have answered the song in their veins. can he change the course of history with their ambition, wit, + intellect or will their frivolousness, impulsiveness, and overthinking hinder them? only time will tell before this godling’s name is sung into myth and legend!

name: Khairi Dior

nicknames: Khai

date of birth: October 30

age: 27

face claim: Emilio Sakraya 

 godly parent: Hephaestus 

height: 5'10”

dominant hand: Left

education level: University Grad Student

Occupation: Mechanical Engineer Intern; GameStop employee and Insta Cart delivery driver

parents: Hephaestus (Biological father)

siblings: Pretty much all the other kids at the Children's Home he grew up in.

pets: Merryweather (Giga Pet Pixie); maybe he'll get an actual pet!

astrological sign: Scorpio

positive traits: Ambitious, Intuitive, Optimistic, Intelligent, Loyal

negative traits: Awkward at times, Sarcastic, Slightly Argumentative, Brutal 

habits: judging stare; primarily since his brain is always switched on analytical mode.

quirks: Several things he likes to almost always carry on his person: His pocket sized PC, Airpods, His Gigapet and a bag of Teddy Grams.

pet peeves: People not putting his things back after moving them. People messing with certain items in his space. Don't touch his lego sets without permission. Don't open his collectibles still boxed. Don't turn him down if he suggests getting ramen & boba. ;)

hobbies: Tinkering and building. Sketching. Gaming. Comics. Anime & Manga. Reading Novels. Legos. Collecting Funko pops and statues. Cosplay. Strength Training & Mixed Martial Arts; gotta stay fit.

sexual orientation. Homosexual. Homoromantic 

sexual position. Vers

clothing style: He always goes for comfort so typically athletic and casual wear. He loves his graphic tees and hoodies. Every now and then, if you can convince him to go somewhere for the evening, he can clean up super nice too.

prominent features: birth/beauty mark 

what were they doing when they hear the song of their godling blood?

Was in the lab on campus working on a supercapacitor.

class: mage. 

Inspirations: Princess Shuri & Riri Williams from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Elle Woods from Legally Blonde, Belle from Beauty & the Beast (1992), Kronk from Emperor's New Groove; Jimmy Neutron from Jimmy Newtron.

biography: Khairi's biological mother was far from the ideal parent. She was abusive; mainly due to her labeling him 'odd' since he was completely introverted and uninterested in whats she assumed he should. Her alcoholism and attitude escalated the situation and around age 9, he ended up with him being taken away via protective services and placed in a group home.

While there are many horror stories involving youth in the group home setting, Khai was spared heavy damage. He actually lived in a solid operated home with several others around his age. The staff there were super supportive. Although he never had an actual real family, none of the relatives on his mother's side wanted to commit. The one foster family he stayed with when he was finally taken in at the age of 14 wasn't completely hurtful and but they weren't invested in him either. They laid down basic rules, which he did abide by to keep a roof over his head along with whatever luxuries they did provide for him; or rather that they kept up to date on for whenever they got a new kid when he aged out and had to go.

His bonds were mainly formed at school as through his classmates and friends, he discovered his hobbies. What he enjoyed. Life didn't suck too much when he could dive into his fantasy worlds. In school, his teachers also realized his brilliance and they aided in accelerating him into taking AP courses. By the time he finished high school, he had already achieved his Associates of Science in Engineering.

At the age of 18, he was made to leave his foster home since he was no longer a minor. He crashed from friends to friends place until one of his former physics teacher decided to give him a leg up. Khai was offered a spare room while he looked for work. Taking a brief break from school, he found two gigs; one working part-time at GameStop & also making deliveries in the area for Insta Cart. While he stacked up his personal funds, his teacher helped him apply for grans and scholarships while Khai still furthered his education by returning to community college.

He had a goal of going to MIT, which a lot of people who knew scoffed at since it was such a prestigious school. His intellect and diligence worked in his favor, along with programs and projects he participated in with the engineering program at his community college.

He took his courses left for undergrad part-time to balance his schedule. Though when the acceptance for MIT finally came, life was truly on the upswing. He moved to Massachusetts and began his new life. His last year and a half of undergrad courses, he began the graduate program while nabbing an paid internship.

And then he was told that he's a demigod. Let the adventure begin.