#yes i do get the idea its cause people waste slots others could get

[thetimelordbatgirl]

Ngl, its very concerning that people somehow think Rishi Sunak’s idea of charging people a £10 fine if they miss an appointment at their GP/hospital, is somehow a good idea, cause...these people really like the idea of people having to pay money even if they tried to make it to the appointment but something made them miss it. 

[biot08]

Preaching to the choir

*long, long before the events of the ARR, before her adventuring career:*

Rayford Portier was reaching the end of recounting the things that he wished to bring to Ser Vauban’s attention regarding the current state of everything he had felt affected the little fort in Coerthas. There was much; despite the lack of importance of the family’s name, the fort was still a critical outpost in the Dragonsong war, and the patrol routes that left it regularly covered a large area. He had mentioned the need for certain supplies, had brought in letters that would need to be distributed, and the skywatcher’s early reports for the upcoming season. But at last, he found he could finally no longer avoid the news he was not looking forward to relaying. “…and, ah, your father sends word of one last bit of business.”

He did not continue talking. Zoissette had spent much of the meeting busying herself with the watch schedule, her pen scribbling names into slots. She was paying attention, and the break in the flow of Rayford’s speech did not go unnoticed. Her writing slowed as she finished writing one last name for now, and she gently stuck the feathers of her quill into her mouth before slowly looking up with a head tilt. Rayford simply fixed her with a steady gaze. She reached over, and placed the pen back into its ink pot, and she sat up.

“The Inquisition intends to make an appearance at the closing of the next moon.”

The two looked at each other. Zoissette drew a long breath in and then let it out slow. She leaned forward, and clasped her hands tightly together on the desk. She had been at the fort for a bit over five seasons. During that time, she had seen and participated in several skirmishes. She had taken care of her people as best as she was able with the meager budget a lesser house could spare. The fort was important enough to be manned, but not at all glamourous. It was sticks duty. There would be no chance for young up and comings to make their name out here, mostly rebuffing scouting parties. It was a duty that was tolerated as necessary, but not celebrated, and gaining the trust of the soldiers and support staff had required simply showing up and doing the work. No speeches. No lectures. No preaching. Just showing up, and showing that she was simply there to do the job. And certainly no delusions of power (she didn’t have), delusions of holiness (she didn’t feel), nor displays of extravagance (she wouldn’t waste precious resources on).

She could feel it all fraying and coming apart under the heavy hand of the Holy See.

When she spoke, she drew out her words, enunciating fully, as though care of word indicated holiness of intent. “Have they said what cause of heresy they suspect?”

“None, ser. They claim this to be a routine visit. It has been some time since they have come out this way. Apparently, to hear your father retell it, they merely think now to be an opportune time. The astrologians believe this to be a point of a longer lull than usual in the fighting. The Holy See wishes to make an appearance. Do a few interviews. Make sure all is well, and when they find that it is, take the opportunity to… remind the soldiers who they fight for, and what they fight against.”

Rayford’s tone was politely neutral. It always was. A skill he practiced as he lived. Zoissette was pretty sure his idea of raising his voice was inflecting his syllables differently.

“I… see. Well, I doubt they will find anything here,” Zoissette said. There was an unspoken ‘I hope’ there. She was new yet, but not stupid. Heretics, if they were present, would certainly go to pains to keep themselves hidden.

“May I be free with my words, ser?”

“Always, Rayford. Always and particularly now.”

“The men and women will need to be told, but you should be careful with how you handle them in the coming weeks. This will be a delicate time. Many of them have had run ins with the Inquisition over their lives. All of them will have seen the Inquistion’s work at a distance. The work may be necessary, but it is often brutal, and even the most innocent and pious sort of man may see a hollow shadow behind him in the mirror when he hears that the inquisitors will be calling.”

Zoissette buried her face in her hands. “I know.”

~~~

The Sergeant at Arms stood over the practice pit, watching lancers and archers coordinate their attacks on the training dummies at the far end of the area. He was an old hyur, with gray grizzled hair and a scar on half his face. He had lost an ear and his good looks to a dragon early in his career, and like as not would be at the fort supervising others rather than being out on patrol. He did not care for that, but his experience was valuable, and he had the rare enough knack of teaching.

Zoissette liked him. He tolerated her. She knew that, and appreciated it for what it was.

He was now frowning at the news. Zoissette often would just stop in long enough to do turnover with him and then be on her way without getting in his, but this time, she lingered, watching him mull over the news, and wanting to be present should he have something to say about it.

He looked over at her, expression dark, and lowered his voice.

“Do they suspect heresy here, madam?”

She hated being called madam, but she let him get away with it. Again. Good teacher. Rare knack. And he didn’t let the others do it, so a minor loss for a better gain.

“No. Routine visit, they say. Just want to conduct interviews and remind us of our duties.”

The man’s scowl deepened, and he pointed at a pair of trainees that had slowed their advance. Once they were startled back into action, he turned to Zoissette.

“Ill news. Almost be easier if they had announced they had found heretics and were performing their investigation. Then my soldiers would have focus. They would not trust each other for a bit, sure, but I can work with that. As it is, they will be jumping at every shadow, jumping over each other to ‘prove’ their piousness. Discipline’ll improve, sure. Moral, though? It’s going to plummet. The next month is going to be hell.”

Zoissette sighed, and nodded. “I know.”

The two continued to discuss the realities of the situation and how to try to work through it, and then both returned their attention to their respective duties.

~~~

Zoissette was in the fort’s library. The fort was small, but it did have its library, and a reasonable selection of books. She was hoping to find a treatise on pole arm tactics.

Instead, as she turned away from the shelves empty-handed, she found one of the maids standing there, eyes downcast and hands folded in front of her. The woman was obviously in distress.

Odd. Usually the house staff would go to Rayford if they needed something.

“Esmerelda?”

“Y-yes madam. Knight! Knight ser. Ser. Yes, yes ser,” the woman stammered.

“Hey hey hey. Deep breath in, let it out slow, you’re okay, we’re okay.”

“Yes. Of course, ser. Yes ser. Begging your pardon, ser…”

The woman’s voice trailed off, becoming small. Zoissette clasped her hands behind her, and gave the woman her full attention. She suspected.

She was right.

“Ser, do we… do we have heretics, here, ser?”

Zoissette shook her head. “Not that I know. Look, it’s… it’s just a routine visit. Nothing to worry about. They say they just-“

The woman swallowed, hard, and stared at the floor. Zoissette fell silent, to let the woman have space to speak.

“My… my apologies, ser. This is hard for me. I … I am a good and pious woman, ser. I know I have nothing to fear from the Inquisition, ser. I know it. I … I KNOW it, ser. But… I want you to know it too, ser.”

Zoissette inwardly had to admit, that usually Rayford was the bridge between her and the staff, much as the Sergeant at Arms was the bridge between her and the non-noble soldiers. But this woman was clearly in distress, and it fell to her to be present. Zoissette nodded, and put a hand on the maid’s shoulder.

“Of course. I have never had cause to suspect.”

“I… I apologize, ser.. I just… it’s just… I came to House Vauban because I could no longer stand to stay at my previous house, ser. They found… they found heretics among the staff, ser. They… they chose to make an example of them, ser.”

The woman took several deep breaths, steadying her nerves, and then all of a sudden, her expression went dead, and her body seemed to fold in on itself.

“They put them to the sword in the courtyard, ser. I thought several of them my friends, ser. They ended it quickly, thank the Fury for small mercies, but… I am no soldier, ser. I am just house staff. I had seen death before of course. We all have. But this was different. I did not handle it gracefully. In the days and moons afterward, I could not see the courtyard without seeing … them. So I left, ser. Your family was kind enough to take me on, ser. It can be hard for a commoner to find good work if they leave their priors like I did, but yours took me on, and I am grateful, but…”

The woman’s voice trailed off. Zoissette tried a smile she hoped was reassuring and squeezed the maid’s shoulder. The maid looked up at Zoissette’s hand, and reached her own up, to touch it.

“I know I am out of line, ser. And I know the Inquisition is necessary ser. But I cannot forget that day, ser. I am a good and pious woman, I promise ser. I just… I just need you to know that.”

“I know,” said Zoissette.

~~~

“We’ve got a problem,” said Ser Jervoix.

Vauban was a minor house, and the fort was not an important one, but sometimes the other minor houses would pass around their knights, both as a show of mutual support and a way to expand the experience of their officer corps. The fort was not a prestigious outpost, and the work was not exactly easy, but it still had to be done. And that was how Zoissette had come to have another visiting noble who helped her. She had only been there for a season, and would only stay for another. She had been surly at first, but had steadily grown used to the situation, and while she was not a friend, she was at least reasonable to work with. So while Zoissette handled matters closer to the fort, being the face of the family, Gilda Jervoix had been leading patrols and managing the remote camp.

That she had come back early said much. That her first sentence was that said more. Zoissette nodded and gestured to the table nearby. The two sat, and Zoissette poured them both a cup of the customary mulled wine.

“One of our men spooked at the news of the Inquisition coming,” said Gilda. “When he went, several others abandoned their posts also.”

Zoissette groaned. “Heretics after all?”

“I am sure the Inquisition will suspect so, but no. I don’t think so. I spoke with the men. It took some asking around, and a bribe or two, but I learned much. The man who first ran was in a village that had unknowingly harbored heretics. They were apparently sneaking into an abandoned house using a tunnel system of some sort.”

“I think I recall hearing this news from my father. It’s one of those inspiring stories they like to tell. The heretics were found out because they were stealing from the villagers under cover of night. When the villagers investigated, they stumbled upon the heretics’ stash, finding both their stolen items and some draconic artifacts. Rather than handle the situation themselves, they pretended to ignore it. Notified the Inquisition.”

“I heard the same story, right. The Inquisition swept in, burned the heretics, and held the people of the town up as model citizens.”

“I feel like that story must be at least ten years old. What’s that have to do with our missing man?”

“That story is a just a little older than your guess. Older than I remembered, to be honest. Sixteen years ago, it made quite an impression on a certain eight year old who watched the house next to his get burned to the ground… with the people still inside.”

Zoissette sat back in her chair and stared at the ceiling, and groaned.

“As for the others, I think they were already skittish. If a man who was declared such a holy example from his youth feared the inquisition…”

“…what hope could they have. Yeah.”

Gilda looked at her drink.

“I know the work the Inquisition does is necessary. There are those who would tear down Ishgard, and do the same to us, if not worse. But should we not be better than them? Should we not be so… brutal?”

“I know,” said Zoissette.

“More may flee in the coming weeks. Maybe not permanently - I got news from one of the other holdings, in fact, that our man had been spotted on the road -to- Ishgard. I think he was merely hoping to not be here while the Inquisition is. Hard to say. But with him and the others gone… our patrols are thinner now. It’s going to be hard to fill out schedules. Like I said… we’ve got a problem.”

“I know,” Zoissette repeated, feeling a sinking weight in her chest.

~~~

Zoissette greeted the Inquistor at the door with a salute.

“Greetings, with all due respect from House Vauban. It is our privilege to host you at our holdings. Please, come in.”

The inquisitor walked into the fort, looking around, taking stock of his surroundings. He wore a coat, lined thick with sumptuous fabrics. Gold chains littered the outside of it, and various rosaries and other symbols of his holy office. His presence was unmistakeable, and he seemed fit to try to fill the space with himself.

He smiled warmly at Zoissette.

“Ah, Madam Vauban, Ser Knight. Thank you for receiving me.”

“Of course. We have prepared a meal for you, of course, that you may have at your leisure. If you are tired after your journey, our house servant, Rayford Portier, has already prepared a room for you. He is at your disposal for the duration of your stay, as, of course, am I.”

The inquisitor nodded, a faint smile on his face. “Of course, of course. Thank you, Madam Vauban. I trust that you, of course, understand the importance of our work out here. I will need to see your books, of course, so that I can schedule interviews with the people. I do not think I will find anything, but often you can find hidden truths that point, if not at a person, at least elsewhere. Diligence is the price we pay, and we will pay it in full.”

“I know,” said Vauban.

“And it is the hope of the Holy See that the men will find the site of one of us visiting even such a distant outpost will be inspiring. We care for them, after all, one and all. They will surely look upon this as a momentous occasion, as their purity is seen for the truth of itself, and be bolstered by knowing their own holiness demonstrated. Our purpose is for the glory of Ishgard, you know.”

“I know,” said Vauban.

“Good, good. Of course you do. All is well for now, then. I think I shall retire for the evening. I have been traveling all day, and we can start our work early, and fresh, tomorrow morning. This is good work that we will do, Madam Vauban,” the inquisitor said, offering Vauban a smile.

Zoissette returned the smile, but her eyes were cold, and her smile was brittle.

“I know,” she said.

[duxhess-kryzewan]

Obi-wan saving Satine from a suitor, and then lots of fluff and cuddling.

- This Love - 

During his time on the run with Qui-Gon and Satine he had become somewhat of an expert on the history of Mandalorian culture and the various clans that make up its people. Satine of course had hailed from Clan Kryze. Many long days and nights were spent discussing the history of her people and it's various leaders throughout its time as an established civilization. It had helped them pass the time. 

That said, he only remembered so much from that ongoing history lesson. Too many things had been slowly compiling themselves in his brain and he had long since forgotten some of the specifics when it came to the differing clans. Satine would surely chastise him if he were ever to let her know that.

He does know however that she tries to maintain a steady line of communication with all the major houses that the clans compiled in order to keep peace between them. 

One of her guards had informed him that she was in the middle of a House meeting when he landed on Mandalore. He had finished a simple extraction mission on one of the other outer rim planets earlier than expected and had decided to sneak away and visit her while he had the time. What little he ever had to spare was precious and all the better when he was able to see her. 

Of course he had told her guards that it wasn't necessary to disturb her meeting to inform her of his arrival; force knows that he would never hear the end of it if he were to interrupt her while she was conducting her duties as Duchess. She may be just as thrilled to see him as he was her, but they both had a mutual understanding that their duties would always come first.

"It's fine," He insisted, "I'm sure the Duchess would be less than pleased should her meeting intruded upon. I'll fair out just fine, I tend to know my way around here."

"As you wish, Master Kenobi." The guardsman had said before retreating down the hallway. It was true, he had spent enough time over the past year or so in Sundari Palace that he knew his way around without a guide. Thankfully he was able to operate under the guise of being a liaison for the Republic instead of simply coming for personal reasons, which was the case more often than not. 

He had been roaming the halls of the palace close to her throne room while he waited. The pieces of their culture was something one could easily get lost in, and the palace had no shortage of historical artifacts and antiquities to delve into. All the better for him; her meeting had a tendency to drag and there was only so long he could hover in one place waiting for her. 

Her voice always pulled him out of whatever trance he was in, and today was no different. Something in his chest fluttered every time her voice graced his ears. 

He took his time though to head down the hallway; it was obvious she was still speaking with one of the House members even as they finished the meeting. It was a voice he hadn't recognized; a new representative perhaps. 

He stops dead in his tracks though when he finally makes out what the voice was saying.

"-And the other clan leaders as well as the house leaders think it best you are appointed someone."

"A suitor?"

The man cleared his throat, "Yes, they see it fit. The people are satisfied for now with your ruling however the clans worry that you will start to loose public support without a male figure at your side."

There no mistaking the annoyance in her voice despite how well she had tried to hide it.

"I find it highly inappropriate that a matter was discussed without consulting my council first, let alone something so personal and belittling as appointing me a consort." 

Something about her being appointed a suitor stirred something both primal and worrisome inside of him. It was but another series of events that had him questioning his decision not to stay with her all those years ago. He certainly wouldn't have to worry about her being courted by someone else, let alone have them be a proponent for marriage. 

He does his best to squash those feelings as they come though, jealously was very unbecoming of a Jedi. And in truth he really had no claim on her. As loyal as they were to one another in regards to whatever their relationship was, deep down he understood that there was always the possibility she would move on without him. And why shouldn't she? He could never give her everything he deserved. He wanted her to be happy no matter how much it was harm him. 

That said though, he knows just how much she would loathe being forced into something. 

"It's simply a matter of maintaining an effective leadership and not a personal slight against you, your grace. It's why I was slotted to attend the meeting. My influence among House Kast has been vital in the past years and has permeated throughout a number of clans and would be nothing but beneficial to you." The man says, the assurance to his tone only serving to get under Obi-Wans skin even more. 

He can sense the change of her emotions through her force signature; the sharp shift from displeased to both swelling anger and unmistakable panic.

Whoever it was that was speaking to her head only been in that meeting for one reason; to propose himself as a probable suitor to the Duchess. Part of him wanted to scoff at the notion that Satine was any less than capable of ruling Mandalore. She was a strong leader in her own right and commanded respect; the idea that she would ever need a male figure at her side to continue to win over her people was downright insulting to her capabilities. 

It took him only a second for him to decide what to do.

“They sent you to propose-” 

“Duchess.” 

He had rounded the corner just as she had begun to speak, catching both her and the house member off guard. Normally he wouldn’t dare interrupt her. She was more than capable of handling herself, but he couldn’t bare to hear anymore of the conversation. It was selfish on his part, he knew, but she would have to forgive him.

“Master Kenobi.” She says, not even bothering to hide her surprise at his sudden appearance.

“Pardon me,” He says, “I hope I’m not interrupting.”

The man was a bit younger than he had imagined; his dark eyes matching the inky color of his hair. Certainly not what he ever would have pictured. The contrast between him and Satine’s bright eyes and golden hair was striking and he couldn’t ever imagine her with someone so tenebrous.

“Of course not.” She answers quickly, “We were just finished.”

The man - whose name he has no interest in learning - looks both dejected and a touch angry. 

“Actually Duchess,” He begins, “I was hoping we’d be able to continue our conversation-”

Satine tears her eyes away from Obi-Wan and looks back to him, “Our conversation was through the moment you spoke of my ability to rule on my own. If your house has issue with it than you most certainly can address it with my council. Now if you don’t mind, I have other matters to attend too. I’m sure the guards can see you out.”

Without sparing another glance at the man she starts heading down the hallway in his direction, all but beckoning him to follow. Of course he maintains an appropriate distance from her; he couldn’t imagine the scandal it would cause if someone got wind of his occasional visits being anything more than business driven. 

He doesn’t bother asking where they’re headed; he knows the way to her chambers like the back of his hand these days. Besides, the anger from the conversation was radiating off of her so strongly that he wouldn’t have even needed the force to sense it. The tension was more than palpable.

Her chambers are quiet; the guards that would normally wander about the halls no where in sight and the moment that the doors of her private quarters slide shut behind them she grabs him briskly by the shoulders and crashes her lips to his.

Its raw and primal and just a little bit desperate, not at all what he’s used to from her but he wastes no time in cupping her face between his hands and kissing her back with just as much fire. He knows whats happening, that she’s trying to prove a point that there wasn’t anyone she would touch so scandalously but him.

“I would never even consider a consort of any kind.” She says firmly when she breaks the kiss, “Never. I am capable of leading alone and there is nobody in the galaxy I would want next to me.”

He understands the unspoken words. Nobody in the galaxy other than him. She didn’t need to say it. He knew.

He kisses her this time. He wants her to know that he understands, that perhaps they would never be able to fully belong to one another in front of anyone else, but that they have willingly given each other a piece of themselves. 

“You’re brilliant,” He assures her, “You’re strong and wise and one of the most formidable leaders I’ve ever known. They are foolish to ever doubt your ability to lead on your own.”

He can feel her force signature soften under his words and finally she manages to smile the slightest bit at him.

“Thank you, Obi-Wan.” She says lightly, before her soft smile morphs itself into a wicked grin, “It’s been too long since you’ve come to see me.”

He doesn’t even protest when she grabs his hands and drags him towards her bedroom. 

---- 

Later, hours into the night, they lay awake in her bed, his hand trailing up and down the length of her spine while she lay against his bare chest. It was the most at peace he had felt in months.

She lifts her head up and rests her chin against the center of his chest, blue eyes shining with something he doesn’t quite recognize. Something made of both happiness and sadness, perhaps?

“I’ve tried, you know.” She begins.

He merely raises an eyebrow in response. 

“To move on,” She clarifies, “I thought perhaps that one day I’d be able to find someone to else. Someone to marry and rule Mandalore by my side.”

She drops her head on its side and nuzzles it against him, her hand finding his free one and gripping it tightly, “But I could never. There is no one else, Obi-Wan, and I don’t want you to ever doubt that.”

He loves her, more than he could even begin to explain. He would never be able to be with her in all the ways she so desperately deserves, but something inside of him would break should she ever find someone new.

“There’s never been another soul in the galaxy I’ve felt about in the same way I feel about you, Satine.” He tells her gently, “There won’t ever be anyone else for me either. You’re it, and I am so dreadfully sorry I can’t be by your side in all the ways you deserve.”

She raises her head up once more to look him in the eyes, “I love you as you are, protector of the galaxy and all. And while I want you here forever, I know we made our choices for the right reasons.”

He smiles at her, “And I love you, Satine.”

It’s the first time he’s ever been able to say the words aloud. She’s always known, always understood his way of life made it difficult to say it, but here and now he wants to make sure she never has to wonder how he feels. 

Her smile lights up something inside of him and he vows then and there that once the war was over, he would be by her side. 

Always. 

[wearesorcerer]

Creativity versus Cheating

You may think I’m beating a dead horse about this, but given the number of really stupid takes on this website, I think it needs to be said. With examples! And stories! And ~*fun*~!

A Definition of Cheating

In the end, my erstwhile conversant antagonist mentioned “cheating”. This is a childish way of asserting your disdain for the conversation, but Venomancer has never been a good interlocutor. (This is me being petty and spiteful, but I do have a point here.) “Cheating” gets thrown around a lot as a complaint for why something shouldn’t be allowed. However, to cheat, you have to do three specific things:

Break a rule. Your action has to violate a rule entirely; it can’t simply bend the rule.

Acquire an unfair advantage. Because it required breaking a rule, no one else can benefit from the action you have taken. However, the action still works within the system of other rules to give you some benefit.

Break trust. If you break a rule without intending to do so, it’s a mistake. If you get an unfair advantage but didn’t mean to, it’s a mistake. Cheating has to violate the trust in a system of rules, which demands there be intent behind it.

I point this out because, as I mentioned before, spellcasting in D&D has a very, very long history of people complaining that it is too powerful. Spellcasting. Magic. Seemingly breaking the laws of physics. Magic may or may not itself be cheating (if real, depending on whether or not it actually violates the rules of existence), but its very existence in a codified rule set frequently causes problems, particularly with people who don’t want to play magic-users. The bones of these arguments litter spell descriptions across the editions: feather fall can’t slow down a weapon (so probably not a guillotine blade), magic missile can’t target objects, and other odd bits of wording that make you scratch your head all trace back to some questionable use of a spell.

And yet, it’s not just spells that result in this. Take this conversation from 2006 (D&D 3.5) between a player whose character was a “bareknuckle boxer” Fighter (no idea why he couldn’t have played a Monk) and a DM who was a bit paranoid about getting the run-around from players:

Player: “Can I use Sunder attempts to break opponents’ bones?”

DM: “Hmm... I don’t see why not. However, if you do that, that leaves it open for me to do the same.”

Player: “Y’know, I don’t like that possibility. I’ll just not.”

This is a creative use of established rules to get an advantage. However, it’s not cheating by a long shot: the player is avoiding breaking any rules, the DM approves of the mechanic, and the advantage isn’t unfair because literally anyone can make a sunder attempt (and plenty of monsters can do it better than this bareknuckle boxer could).

You may note that this is the exact same issue as was brought up with the create water in lungs example: the advantage isn’t unfair because others can use the same tactic (this is in fact the poster’s complaint) and the DM had to approve it, meaning either it didn’t violate rules as written (see next) or the DM employed Rule 0 (”the rules are guidelines; tweak or discard them as you wish”). What is “unfair” is that magic users can do this but others cannot; but that’s the same as any class-based issue and is the complaint that’s been leveled at magic users the entire time. But let’s stick with the unfairness at hand: it’s not unfair to other magic users and the DM allowed it, ergo it’s not cheating.

Mistaken Readings: Breaking the Rules but Not Getting a Significant Advantage

Now, here’s the catch. The create water example would vary between editions. I can tell you that in third edition it was against the rules for create water or other conjurations to create objects inside of a creature, while in 5e it requires an open container (lungs themselves are not and the passages into lungs have several ways of being closed specifically to keep water out). All you have to say is “that’s not how the spell works in the rules” and you’re good. But that wasn’t the point of the post, so I’m going to drag it some more.

A great example of such a misreading is a story the bareknuckle boxer player told me of a druid he’d played in high school.. It was the habit of his previous DM to incarcerate his PCs and strip them of all their gear to see how they’d escape from said predicament. My friend’s druid specialized in wood shaping and took Eschew Materials (feat: ignore material or focus components of negligible cost), so he cast goodberry to create some plant matter, then entangle to grow it and wood shape to retrieve the guard’s keys and unlock his cell. Had he a window or were the cell close enough to the outside, he probably wouldn’t have needed the goodberry spell in the first place. As we pointed out to him, though, goodberry didn’t work that way at the time: it wasn’t a Conjuration effect that required berries as material components, but a Transmutation effect that targeted them (making them into healing potions that also filled you), so there were no materials for him to Eschew. This was a key (but subtle) design mechanic to limit the power of a druid, who had no ability to conjure non-creature plants.

Here’s the fun thing, however: 5e’s version of goodberry works exactly the way the player thought it did in 3.5 (save that it’s still an effect of the Transmutation school instead of Conjuration). Any druid worth their salt who likes using plant shaping spells should prepare goodberry if for no other reason than to ensure that they have access to plants. (Sadly, there’s no Eschew Materials equivalent that I know of, but you could find a Divine Focus and hope for the best. Or maybe there is an equivalent that I just don’t know about.)

But here we get into another flaw in the argument: even if it’s not how the rule is supposed to work, it doesn’t exactly grant an unfair advantage. Yes, a druid needs plants to cast a lot of their spells, but not all, and a druid with wood shape (a 2nd-level spell at the time) would be a minimum of 3rd level (I know they were higher because another player was a wild shaper, but let’s just go with that). A 3rd-level druid had a base of 1 2nd-level spell (wood shape) and two 1st-level spells (entangle and goodberry), meaning that if this character had been 3rd-level, he’d have used up all three of his non-bonus spell slots just to break out of a jail cell. (Reminder: cantrips were not at-will in 3.5.) Now, given that I know they could wild shape, I must note that the minimum level for that (5th) would have given him base spell slots of 3/2/1 (not counting cantrips), so he’d still have used half of his spells just to get out of a jail cell.

At that level, though, he could have just shapeshifted into a baboon (Str 15), black bear (Str 19), or a snake (Medium constrictor or Small viper) and gotten out (breaking the door down or slithering through a gap), using a single use of a mechanic to escape and prepare himself for combat. But he didn’t. And his story is better because he didn’t.

And this is where the create water and lungs thing comes back. In the end, if it had been allowed, it would have been a save vs. death. But casters already have plenty of ways of killing creatures at first level -- and often more than one creature at a time, whereas this would have likely only worked on one. Sleep is a great example of an early save or die spell: if the creatures fail their saves, they are now helpless and open for coup de grace-ing (decapitation, stabbination, whatever). Color spray in 3.5 is far and away better than in 5e in this regard because it also makes creatures go comatose, though it doesn’t scale well. (Neither does sleep, for that matter.) Burning hands is an AoE damaging effect. I can go on.

The point is, even misinterpretations of spells tend to run afoul of how cost effective their use is.

In the end, Clerics don’t wander around filling people’s lungs with water because that’s wasteful. You worry about enemy characters trying to kill you in a game about killing things?

Where Rules Mongering Kills Fun

The biggest reason I hate these complaints is not that they make it more difficult to kill things in a game that’s always been about killing things, but in that they try to stamp out any out-of-the-box use for spells. And I mean any.

At the tail end of the Summer of 2005, when I was starting undergrad, another friend of mine recounted tales of a gnomish caster he had played. Two spells featured: dancing lights and Tenser’s floating disk. He had been trying to intimidate some NPC, so rode in on his floating disk and proceeded to use dancing lights to create the image of a humanoid getting disemboweled. Clearly, dancing lights cannot do that: it can create up to four lights or the outline of a single, vaguely humanoid, glowing form. However, if we’re stuck on the dancing lights part, we’ve missed the point: as a gnome caster, he could have done the same thing with silent image anyway (if he had it; I don’t recall what class he was or why he chose dancing lights). No, the issue is with Tenser’s floating disk. Per the spell description:

You create a slightly concave, circular plane of force that follows you about and carries loads for you. The disk is 3 feet in diameter and 1 inch deep at its center. It can hold 100 pounds of weight per caster level. (If used to transport a liquid, its capacity is 2 gallons.) The disk floats approximately 3 feet above the ground at all times and remains level. It floats along horizontally within spell range and will accompany you at a rate of no more than your normal speed each round. If not otherwise directed, it maintains a constant interval of 5 feet between itself and you. The disk winks out of existence when the spell duration expires. The disk also winks out if you move beyond range or try to take the disk more than 3 feet away from the surface beneath it. When the disk winks out, whatever it was supporting falls to the surface beneath it.

It has a range of Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels), meaning you can direct it to hover anywhere from 0 to 25-75 ft. (1-20th caster levels) from you. If you weigh less than 100 pounds (gear included), at first level you could sit atop it and move at your normal speed. This would accomplish two things: let you ignore terrain problems that require you standing in a square (pressure plates, difficult terrain, etc.) and look really cool but in a fairly typical way for a mage. Since you’re a caster, you’re going to be in the back in marching order, meaning that you’re probably not going to be the one to activate a trap, and your spells have decent range, meaning you don’t have to worry too much about difficult terrain. (This wouldn’t protect you from lava, for the record: remember your convection!) At most, it would let you cross a body of water -- unless the DM said that the surface of the water didn’t count as the surface beneath the disk, which is fair. So minor is this ability that the Elocater prestige class (Expanded Psionics Handbook) gets an equivalent merged with a better version of the levitate spell as a constant effect at first level in addition to a feat and an improvement to previous casting (well, manifesting) ability.

And you might think that all of that’s so minor that surely no one would have complained about it, yet there’s evidence to the contrary. Pathfinder came up with the Magic Trick feat to allow you to do exactly this, but only if you’re third level, pay the feat tax, and put skill points into Fly. Y’know, for the thing that the rules as written would let a light character do at first level and most characters do at second by just casting the spell. Fifth edition won’t let you do it at all: the disk disappears if it comes closer than 20 feet to you (20 ft. is an awfully long distance between you and what amounts to a pack mule you’re leading).

Now, it’s not always that way. 5e’s mage hand is now de jure able to manipulate objects, whereas it wasn’t clear in 3.5, but that’s probably because open/close got folded into it. But for every positive like that, you get two negatives from vociferous people who can’t stand it when other people don’t use spells in specific, pre-defined ways.

In the End...

At the end of the day, having a fun story to tell about how you did something unusual that occurred to you on the spur of the moment and which somehow worked is far and away more important than playing this game like it were a video game, with each spell doing only one thing. And that’s not just coming from me or the people I’ve played with; that’s coming from decades of player stories, fan works, pop culture references, and even D&D novels.

The OP in that old post said that if you can’t abide by their overly narrow, strict interpretation of the rules that maybe you shouldn’t be playing 5e. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t want to sink to their level, but I think I will: if you can’t stand people being creative, you ABSOLUTELY should not be playing a role-playing game of any kind. You should stick to video games and board games. Or Fourth Edition.

[dokidokey]

KAMI: 21 questions

summary: kaminari denki does not understand the significance of explaining the song he wrote about his ex-girlfriend, but little did he know, a certain fan needed just his words to lift herself up from her one-week misery.

pairings: kaminari denki x reader

bingo slot: musician x fan au

genre: fluff, slight angst if you squint real hard

warning/s: swearing, mentions of todomomo, mentions of cheating, a very adorable denki (!!!)

word count: 3,042

notes: I AM SO EXCITED FOR THIS I AM LITERALLY BURSTING DON’T MIND ME IGNORING MY 289384 WIPS BUT I GOTTA DO THIS ONE. anyways, 4th bingo piece for @bnhabookclub’s hero camp bingo! my series masterlist, along with my event masterlist, can be found HERE. what series? this is discontinued (even though it didn’t start in the first place.)

Kaminari is one to always decline media companies’ interviews, most especially, Verified. Verified is a media company that asks artists in to shred their songs lyric by lyric and give its meaning. Kaminari never understood the concept of that. Like, what is the point? Aren’t things more interesting if you leave it be and leave your fans to decipher it how they want?

But here he is, with a yellow backdrop that matches his hair and his manager, who dropped this bomb on him yesterday, on the other end of the room. He never agreed to this. What is the point of prying his song line by line? Wasn’t it obvious enough that it is about his ex-girlfriend who cheated on him?

“But it’s good for you! Plus, the exposure!” Mina, his manager, reasoned out yesterday, the paper in her hands dancing in the air. “Your song is gaining views, Denki. It’s good to take the spotlight while it’s there.”

Denki groaned, throwing his head back. “I know. But explaining the lyrics? Really? Is there any other way?”

Mina rested her hands on her hips, a stern look on her face. “No. Besides, Verified is a big and popular company. You better not be sulking tomorrow.”

He just grumbled as she left his studio. It’s not like she left him a choice.

“You ready?” The man behind the camera asks him, angling to the lens to get a better view of him.

Denki smiles, nodding. Here he is anyway, might as well get it done as soon as possible. When the man in front of him nods, Denki raises his hands in a wave.

“Hi there! It’s KAMI, and here is the official lyrics and meaning of 21 Questions,” he grins and pauses, waiting for the question the Verified employee will ask which will be cut off during editing.

“What is the song about?” The brunette beside the camera man asks.

Denki clasps his hands together. “You know, that feeling in a. . . relationship, when it starts falling apart and there are these－ these questions running around in your head, like why did she do that, how did she do that.” His hands were moving all over the place as he talks, going up in circles beside his head and down to his lap again. “This song. . . It’s－ It’s my inner turmoil.”

He nods to signify the end of his explanation, then goes on to talk about the first verse. “So first we have, I wish there was a situation to be mad at or a person I could blame, which is. . .” Denki trails off, pursing his lips together. “Thinking about, you know, wondering if it’s alright to blame her, or blame me, or blame the other guy. Because, thinking about it, there must be something－ something wrong with me, or there’s something I don’t have that the other guy does, for her to do that.”

Denki hates this. He hates every moment of it. He is literally just opening his sleeve up for the world to see. Some people won’t even care about it. This whole idea of splitting himself open, his heartbreak in all its glory, for people to just shrug off is so pointless.

He continues, nevertheless, because does he even have a choice?

“I’ve got a loud mouth, I’m pale with a ghost obsession but behind the scenes with her I’m playing twenty-one questions,” he sings, slurring the words. “Everyone knows that I talk a lot, okay?” He laughs, the tinkling sound bouncing inside the four walls. “That, and, this one. . . It’s kind of－ It’s saying－ The me I show the world isn’t the same me I face her with. Meaning, like, during the time this was going on, no one would ever guess our relationship was falling apart.”

Reliving the same hurt is hell. He doesn’t understand how Mina can just stand there when she had a front row seat of his pain. There’s an inkling of annoyance and betrayal dancing in Kaminari’s chest, along with a the guilt he’s feeling for feeling that way.

The singer wrings his hands together as he forces himself to spew out what needed to be heard. If they ask him who the song is about, he might just lose his mind. The song cover art’s background is literally Kyouka Jirou’s jacket. Yes, he made it that obvious who the song is about.

“So. . . There’s gotta be a reason you keep your guy in hiding, I’m becoming what I’ve hated but your talk is so inviting. The first line is pretty self-explanatory,” he smiles at the camera, a little wobbly and a little unsure. “I’m becoming what I’ve hated. . . That’s, uh, see, I never liked the fact that she cheated on another man with me and I didn’t know because you know, she told me she was single. I wasn’t aware she was in a relationship and cheating,” he rubs the back of his neck with an uneasy smile. “And now I’m becoming the other man, I’m the one being cheated on, but I can’t do anything about it because she－ well, she’s intoxicating.”

He continues, thrumming his fingers on his jean-clad thigh. “But then what, you drop your guy and take me on, it’s everything I wanted but then what, would you get tired of my time. Hmm,” Denki tilts his head to the side a little, eyes upward. “He left him for me and now would you get tired of my time, of me, of the tours and work and everything. Would you get tired and do the same thing you did to the other man.”

The chorus of the song is next, and a disbelieving chuckle bubbles up his throat. God, he was so fucking whipped for that woman, it kind of throws him off a little now.

“My mood’s dictated by our conversation and if you don’t text, I get too frustrated, I want you all to myself this time. Conflicted looks good on me, I’m trying desperately, I want you all to myself this time,” he sings offhandedly, bobbing his head along the tune of his failed love. “This－ This is an interesting one because I always have my phone on DND,” he shares to the camera like it’s a secret to be well-kept by everyone. “And when she came along I started leaving my phone on ring so I won’t miss any of her texts or calls. It was so unlike me that it kind of scared me a little bit, to be honest.”

Kyouka Jirou was an amazing girl, Kaminari won’t deny that. They got along so well. They wrote songs together over champagne and the dim lights of his studio. They shared kisses behind cameras. They even whispered sweet promises to each other in the void of Denki’s room. Those things happened and she had another man all along.

In the back of his mind, Denki is disgusted. With who, however, he doesn’t know. He’d been kissing his girlfriend who kissed another man. Who is he to know if that was the only thing they ever did.

It was sad, to say the least. Loving someone right under your nose who is loving another man behind your back. It was like Jirou took his heart and ripped it right in front of him, and she made sure to break it so good it would be hard for Kaminari to love again.

“I never have to carefully shape sentences when I have some words to say. They’re falling from my mouth from the time that they hit my brain. I don’t have a brake in my mouth, okay?” He pauses to stare at the camera. “I say whatever I think even before I realize what the fuck I’m saying.”

When Denki sees Mina’s eyes immediately growing wide like saucers at the expletive, he slaps a hand over his mouth. Verified always bleeps out curses and his mind decided to throw that information out the window. “Sorry!” He giggles behind his palm. “See!” He points at the camera. “That is the exact meaning of those lyrics!”

Small giggles are still erupting from the man as he tries to suppress it and get on the next parts. “Will that be cut out? Can we cut that out?” He wheezes as he rubs sweaty palms on denim. “Anyway,” he breathes, puffing his chest up and sitting himself right on the stool. “’Cause we built a picture made for frames, we live in chemistry away from all the wasted time and taste.”

Denki’s mind paddles back to a late night writing session with his former girlfriend, the other half of his sandwich long forgotten as he stared at the girl, who seems like the whole world to him as she scribbles word after word on the ripped piece of paper she snatched up somewhere on his messy table. He swears there are stars twinkling in the background whenever he catches sight of her, and it makes his little heart swell with pride as he softly tells her promises of their future together.

“We were too perfect,” Denki says, clicking his tongue after as if in disappointment. “We were. . . wrapped up in our own world. Or maybe I was the only one wrapped up in something that was. . .” He falters, heart aching at the thought of the promises that are nothing now.

He covers it up with a smile, eyes crinkling at the sides as he let his hands rest on the back of the stool. “And it sucks to sleep ’cause you aren’t talking to me. I wanna give you space but the amount between us is wrecking me.” Kaminari squints as he hums, tilting his head back and groaning softly. “So, this one. . . This is where we were nearing the end and the communication was so bad even though that was the only thing I wanted to somehow still fix what was left of our relationship, but she didn’t want that. We were already light-years away from each other, what was I supposed to do?” He lifts one hand up in a “what?” motion and crumples his eyebrows together.

He slurs out the next lyrics. “’Cause then what, you dropped your guy and took me on it’s everything I wanted but then what, am I in his position now?” He claps his hands like he just discovered something big. “This! Am I in the position of the other guy before me? Like, am I now in his place? Will you leave me for the guy you. . . cheated on me with.”

Kaminari then goofily positions his arms as if holding a guitar, and starts strumming the air while bobbing his head side to side. “I’ll forget you if you need me to, like nothing ever happened. My sun still sets without you, like nothing ever happened.” His smile is glowing as he stretches his arms wide. “I can forget, and I will,” he looks determinedly at the camera. “And I will get on with my life and do the things I love and every day would be a happier day for me,” he grins. “Even without you.”

Denki doesn’t realize that little slip up of acknowledging her as he waves goodbye, a sliver of something heavy lifting off his shoulders.

It’s another boring Sunday for you as you snuggle your blanket on the couch, the show on the TV serving to be just white noise as you go over your last texts with your ex-boyfriend.

It has been a week since your break up with Shouto and you’re still moping. He calmly explained to you how your relationship wasn’t working out anymore and that he started having feelings for a friend. In spite, you replied with “I wasn’t aware our relationship had gym schedules.” And that was the end of it.

You groan at your stupidity. If you weren’t so caught up in your jealousy, you could have talked to him a little nicer, a little calmer. But you knew who that friend he was pertaining to. Yaoyorozu Momo, the girl who always seems to be around your boyfriend. She’s a meek girl, and even before you and Shouto got together, she had been around. So, Yaoyorozu was there before you.

There are times when you and Shouto are out and she would happen to be at the same place. At first, you didn’t pay any mind, but when it got more frequent, you had your suspicions. What’s worse is that whenever she’s around, she’ll just smile at you and that’s that. She’ll pretend like you’re not standing right next to your boyfriend and like you didn’t exist. It made you feel small.

You’re loud and, at times, obnoxious. You are aware of how much attention you catch because of your brazen attitude. It really was a mystery how Todoroki liked you. You two were so different. He was more on the likes of Yaoyorozu, and thinking about it, they were so much more alike that it’s ridiculous. Yaoyorozu’s a rich girl, and so is Shouto. Their auras are the same and they give off the same vibes. Those are what really pulled at your insecurity.

And see, it didn’t take long for Todoroki to realize he didn’t belong with you. You loved him, yes, and you thought maybe you’d last forever. But now, seeing how it all ended, you want to laugh at the face of your past self for thinking such absurd things. Of course it wouldn’t last. Maybe you were too much for Todoroki.

The bubbling insecurities inside you is just starting up when there’s a ping from your phone and you groan, thinking it’s Hitoshi again because he’s been pestering you for the past week to actually get up and be productive. But no, it isn’t your friend. It’s a notification for the latest tweet of your favorite artist, KAMI, and you almost fall off the couch when you read it.

10 minutes til @Verified drops my official lyrics and meaning vid for 21 questions! Stay tuned!

Fuck, what the fuck? Official lyrics and meaning? The four walls of your room are the witnesses to how much you cried to that song after your break up. Some lyrics were so relatable but you’re relieved you didn’t experience the cheating part. It must suck for Kaminari to have his girlfriend of over a year cheat on him.

After several, consecutive refreshes, the new video pops up and you let out a little scream because on the thumbnail is Kaminari Denki himself, clad in a white shirt and leather jacket. You click play and a giggling Kaminari is on your screen, saying, “Will that be cut out? Can we cut that out?” Then it’s the usual intro of Verified.

Kaminari is waving and introducing himself with a huge smile on his face. You admire your favorite artist through the screen and wonder when he will hold a meet and greet. I’m manifesting, you think, as you position yourself more comfortably in your couch.

“This song. . . It’s－ It’s my inner turmoil.” Huh. You’re not surprised. Songs written and sang with so much emotion strikes the listeners way harder than any other song. And the fact that Kaminari wrote it with his heart up his sleeves, the song meant a lot more to you.

As he goes on explaining every line, every lyric, you can’t help the same hurt blooming on your chest again. Everything he’s saying stabs right at your heart. Every word, though different in context when it comes to you, is like a kick to your chest. 21 Questions never felt so much like home right this moment.

“I never have to carefully shape sentences when I have some words to say. They’re falling from my mouth from the time that they hit my brain. I don’t have a brake in my mouth, okay?” There’s a pause and an intense stare at the camera. “I say whatever I think even before I realize what the － I’m saying.”

There’s a bleep and your heart almost bursts at the absolute cuteness when he instantly covered his mouth and his giggles sift through your phone’s speakers. So this is where the first clip on the video is from, when he asked if they can cut it out. But no matter how adorable his giggles were, Kaminari’s words are banging its way into your head.

“We were too perfect. We were. . . too wrapped up in our own world. Or maybe I was the only one wrapped up in something that was. . .” His sentence is left unfinished, but you felt it in your bones. It’s like a slap to the face. Yeah. Maybe he’s right. Maybe you were the only one wrapped up, maybe you were the only one attached. It seemed too good to be true, and you were so high up you didn’t realize Todoroki had gone down and Yaoyorozu was there to catch him.

You aren’t prepared for the next part though, because the man decided it was okay － totally fine! － to lean back and bare his whole neck while groaning － groaning! Any other human being will not survive this. What is he doing. You’re seconds away from hyperventilating as you double tap to replay that certain part. He wants you all dead. Yes. That must be it.

The video is close to ending, and as Kaminari says his last words, it tickles something awake in your heartbroken state.

“I can forget. And I will! And I will get on with my life and do the things I love and every day would be a happier day for me. Even without you.”

Even without Shouto, you’ll get by. Your world doesn’t revolve around him. There’s a lot of things you can do without invalidating your heartbreak, and maybe you’ll hold on to Kaminari’s words. Every day would be a happier day for me. It’s another thing you’re manifesting on, along with that meet and greet of Kaminari.

more notes: yes this is based off waterparks’s 21 questions pLEASE I FEEL LIKE AWSTEN’S CHAOTIC ENERGY IS A DIRECT COPY OF THE ONE KAMINARI EXUDES SO THIS IS PERFECT. anyways this series’ titles are going to be a bunch of waterparks songs.

[bgn846]

D4 FFXV Drabble - One Shot

Featuring Gladio and Ignis.  in which Ignis has a bad day at the office, punctuated by an attempt on his life by the office vending machine.

The mechanical whir of the machine broke his momentary stupor.  Sighing heavily, Ignis gazed through the scratched glass panel of the vending machine, waiting for his selection to drop.   It was a pathetic excuse for dinner, he knew it, but there wasn’t much else he could do.  His meetings for the day had gone long, and he’d gotten behind.  The only way to catch up was to work late.  

Staying at the office was a trick he’d learned early on, it prevented any excuses on his part for not doing his job.  The second he’d set foot in his apartment all chances of work would be lost.  The need for rest would take over and he’d be screwed the next day.  

Gladio and Noct would scold him for this type of behavior but he needed to make sure things were done properly.  In other words, he had to do it himself.  When the machine stopped making noise Ignis looked down in the collection slot and frowned.  The dark plastic pit that should have held his processed food package was empty. 

Daring to take a peek inside the machine where his item had been housed, showed it was stuck. Wedged firmly between its neighbors in the machine, it wasn’t going anywhere. The first thought that crossed his mind was to kick the machine.  Some form of self-preservation kicked in and prevented his foot from moving.  After staring for far too long, another idea came to him.  Find more money and buy something else.  Losing a couple bucks to the vending machine wasn’t the end of the eos.

However, after he’d torn his desk apart and fully emptied his wallet it became clear he had no more cash.  This vending machine was too old to accept credit cards so he was out of luck.  He did consider the notion that a different machine on another floor in the citadel might take credit.   The idea of leaving to go buy terrible food was a worry.  He might simply keep walking, and end up at his car in the garage, if he left the floor.  Groaning out loud he pushed himself up from his desk and went to analyze the situation again.

Another indeterminate amount of time passed as he glared at the offending machine.  Finally he decided on a plan.   His arm was long; he might be able to reach the item if he stuck his hand in through the bottom.  The fact that the machine was outdated worked to his advantage in this scheme.  The door wasn’t tamper proof.

Sustenance was literally within reach, all he had to do was stretch another inch.  The last inch proved the most difficult.   Something about bones and tissue not stretching, despite willing them to do so, meant Ignis could only scrape the packaging with his fingernail.  Yelling in frustration he forced his arm into the tiny space ignoring the pain it caused.

The movement was enough to dislodge the item and it fell gracelessly into the bin.  Releasing a giddy laugh at his success, Ignis balled his fist up in a victory stance.  Unfortunately he moved his arm too quickly, and subsequently smacked the metal rack that held the food in the machine.  What happened next was truly terrible.  Ignis didn’t know vending machines could enact revenge.

The spiraled coil of metal that held the food in place had moved during his small celebration, and hooked itself on the band of his wrist watch.  Panicking slightly as it pulled his arm Ignis tried to pull back but he was stuck fast.  Apparently, this machine was not happy at having been tampered with.

The discomfort he’d felt before was now amplified and he wasn’t sure what to do.  Maybe he could unlatch his watch and get free.  The angle he’d gotten stuck meant his other free arm was again, just out of reach.  Astrals, he was going to be stuck here the whole damn night.  People would come in the next day, and find him passed out.  He’d probably lose his arm in the resulting rescue mission.

This wasn’t acceptable, he needed help.  Shoving his pride aside at having been played by a damn vending machine, Ignis worked to fish his phone out of his pocket. The pain was getting worse and if he didn’t hurry he’d have to call the crownsguard office to send someone.  That was his last resort, he other options before things got that dire.

Pulling up the last number dialed he hit send and waited.  The line rang and rang but Ignis prayed he’d would pick up.   Right as he was about to give up, the line connected.  Gladio’s out of breath voice greeted him a second later.  Thank the six, the man must have been training late, that meant he was on the grounds.

“Gl-gladio,” Ignis hissed through his pain. “Please tell me you are still at work.”

“Iggy, what’s wrong, you sound off.”

Unsure if he should describe his misfortune over the phone, Ignis opted for a brief summary instead. “I’ve had an accident in the break room on my floor, I need h--,”

Gladio didn’t even let him finish, “I’m on my way right now, are you bleeding?”

“No,” he gasped, “I’m – six, this is embarrassing,” Ignis lamented.      

“Stay calm, I’m on my way. I might lose you on the elevator ride but I’m coming okay.”

“Thanks,” Ignis managed as he sat on the floor and waited.  Gladio, bless the man, talked to him the whole time.  The shield covered as many mundane topics as he could in the short five minute trip over to Ignis’ office. It was enough of a distraction that Ignis could block out the pain, and the disturbing fact that his arm was starting to go numb.

Gladio’s suspicions about losing the connection while in the elevator were true, and Ignis was forced to breathe deeply in an effort to calm his nerves.  When the elevator just outside the break room, dinged, signaling his arrival. Ignis nearly cried for joy.  Leaning his now, sweat covered brow, against the glass Ignis called out to Gladio.  “I’m in here!”

Gladio’s panic stricken face appeared a second later.  “What the hell happened?” He asked as he took in the sight before him.

“The machine is trying to kill me,” Ignis spit out. “My watch band--,” he wavered as a new wave of painful sensations flared in his arm.

Gladio had rushed over and was already sitting on the floor next to him. “Shit, uh, I’ll get you free, give me a second.” He announced while shoving his muscled, tattooed arm in through the bottom.  Gladio thankfully was at the right angle to reach his abused appendage.  The shield made quick work of undoing his watch band.  The second he could feel his arm move freely, Ignis ripped it out of the machine.  Hissing in pain he cradled his arm to his chest.  

Maybe he’d pulled a muscle with this ridiculous stunt, he wasn’t sure yet.   The faint, but familiar pull of magic, in the back of his mind, drew Ignis’ gaze over to Gladio.  “What are you doing?” he asked in shock.

“You’re hurt, and I’m not taking no for an answer.” Gladio huffed as he took Ignis’ good hand, and forcefully crushed a potion bottle in it.

Relief from the pain was instant.  He wanted to chide Gladio for wasting a potion on him, but his mind was currently too distracted to let him.  A hand on his shoulder made Ignis snap out of his daze.  “Huh? Were you talking to me?” he asked weakly.  Gladio’s expression was a mix of concern and anger when Ignis looked up.  Oh dear, had he interrupted something important?  Perhaps he should have called someone else instead.  “Sorry for troubling you so late, I didn’t mean to ruin y--.”

“Nope, not gonna work,” Gladio interrupted.  “Nothing to be sorry about, you are always welcome to call me for help.  Seeing you in pain like that was hard,” he sighed.  “Promise me you’ll always ask me for help when you need it?”

Caught off guard by the sincerity of the comment, Ignis took a few seconds to gather his thoughts.  “Yes, of course I’ll always call you. Sorry I’m tired and this hasn’t helped my cause.”

“You look exhausted Iggy, why are you still at work?”

“I had things to finish up,” he offered.

“I’m sure none of the things are an emergency, right?”

Pursing his lips, Ignis glared at Gladio.  Leave it to the man to pick apart his reason for being at the office late.  “I still should finish up before I head home.”

“Sure, if you say so.  Let’s go back to your office and you can tell me what the hell happened.”

Humming in agreement Ignis worked to get up off cold linoleum floor.  Once he was upright the room began spinning.  Gladio was by his side once again, with a strong arm around his waist.  “Oh dear,” Ignis muttered more out of irritation than anything else.

“When was the last time you ate?” Gladio asked with a raised eyebrow.

Laughing nervously Ignis tried to turn around and reach for the discarded item in the vending machine.  “That was supposed to be dinner,” he joked, though the mood wasn’t quite right for it.

“Please don’t fight me on this,” Gladio begged.  “I know you’re not a stupid person Iggy, but you are done for the day, okay.”

“Really?” he tried, “no more?” Deep down Ignis knew Gladio was right but he still had so much work to do.  “How will I catch up tomorrow?” he asked dejectedly.

“That is a whole other issue that needs addressing.   Why don’t we go back to your office and pack things up for the night and go home.”

Nodding in defeat Ignis let Gladio lead him back down the hall.  He felt slightly better and things had stopped spinning, but Gladio still had an arm around his waist.  Only when they’d reached his office did the shield relinquish his hold.  Carefully gathering his items while Gladio patiently waited, gave Ignis time to think of all the work he really was doing.  Maybe Noct and Gladio were right, perhaps he needed to take it easy.

When they were ready to leave Gladio once again pulled him close and they walked out of the building together.  Before he could break the somewhat comfortable silence that had developed, Gladio spoke up.

“No arguments, this is what’s gonna happen,” Gladio huffed. “First, I’m driving you home. Second, we’re ordering delivery so you don’t have to cook. Third, you’re taking the day off tomorrow; call it a mental health day.”

Ignis could feel Gladio’s body stiffen once he’d finished talking.  Clearly the man thought Ignis was going to fight him on what he’d said.  However, all of what had been listed sounded perfect.  Not driving, eating something warm that didn’t come from a metal and plastic box, and taking some time to recoup lost energy was a wonderful idea.

“You don’t mind driving me?” he checked with a small smile.

“Huh?” Gladio’s eyes were wide in disbelief as he processed what Ignis had said.  “Seriously, you’re not gonna fight me on this?”

“No, you’re right.  I know you and Noct are always berating me for working too hard.  It appears I need some help with that endeavor,” Ignis admitted sheepishly.

“So I can drive you, and order you food, and you’ll stay home tomorrow?” Gladio checked with an ear splitting grin.

Ignis nodded and offered Gladio a smile of his own.  He wasn’t prepared for what happened next.  Gladio actually whooped in the parking garage, and gathered up him in a bone crushing hug.

“You won’t regret this Iggy, I’m gonna text Noct later and we’ll figure out a way to help you with your work load.  You’re doing the job of like three other people right now and you don’t need to, it’s not fair.”

“Yes, I’ve been made aware,” Ignis chuckled wryly.

“Come on, times a wasting,” Gladio enthused as he herded Ignis over to the passenger side.  “Do you mind if I shower at your place while we wait for food to be delivered.”

“Not at all, though you might have to wake me up when it arrives.”

“Easy, I can so do that.” Gladio announced.

The ride back to his apartment was quiet and calming.  The remainder of the evening was spent falling asleep on the couch in between activities.   Dinner was amazing, and so much better than the protein bar he’d been trying to excavate from the vending machine.  Gladio ended up staying the whole night.  Something about Ignis attempting to work meant he had to keep an eye on him.   For the first time he didn’t mind the attention.  His friends were trying to help and there was nothing wrong with that.  Besides, he owed Gladio the full story of how the vending machine tried to eat his arm.

[thewritewolf]

Eating Habits Chapter 6: Date Night

I think ‘date night’ might very well be my most used chapter title of them all, but chapter titles have never been my strong suit... Anyway, have an aged-up Adrienette date. Plus some other things.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 (Final)

Enjoy!

Read on Ao3. 

Adrien had gotten home late after another long but enlightening shift at the bakery. Well… relatively late. The hours that a baker worked meant that his bosses were in bed long before most people, but that didn’t matter much when they took advantage of his youth and strength to do the heavy lifting for them. He hadn’t even considered checking his mailbox last night with the bone deep exhaustion he’d felt. The first rays of dawn were only just barely able to wake him.

He threw his legs over the side of his bed and took the time to watch the sunrise through his bedroom window. Another beautiful day in Paris. Even if it was a little chilly in the early October air, the cold had never bothered him as much as they had his lady. A ghost of a smile flitted across his face as he remembered her and slipped his feet into the silly kitty slippers she’d made for him ages ago.

His muscles ached as he stretched, but between his excursions to the gym, the years of superheroing, and the schedule from his youth that had run him ragged, the pain was more than bearable. A warm shower to help relax helped take the edge off the soreness. Now all he needed was some breakfast, and something to distract himself. With those goals in mind, he got dressed and headed into the kitchen, sparing a glance at Plagg. He was still laying on his back, bathed in a sunbeam as one of his legs twitched. Adrien smiled as gently closed the door behind him.

Despite all the classes and his time at the bakery, breakfast was still Adrien’s strong suit. He started to cook up a cheese omelette stuffed with fresh vegetables, paired with some leftover bread he’d taken home from the Dupain-Chengs yesterday. Barely a few minutes had passed before the silence became maddening. Another lingering pain from his childhood, but one that he could easily remedy. A playlist Nino had made for him filled the air and Adrien’s mind cleared.

Halfway through breakfast, he remembered he’d never checked the mail yesterday. Not wanting his food to get cold, he dashed down to the mailroom of the complex and quickly opened his slot. As expected, there was a bundle of letters that he snatched before closing it and running back into his apartment.

He slowly shuffled through them while he ate. Most were worthless spam or worse. One from a modeling agency he’d worked for a month or two ago. Probably either thanking him for the work or pre-emptively asking for him to come back on for the winter lines. Considering his finances were doing alright, he’d likely pass on that and carefully set the letter aside. Reaching the bottom of the pile, he froze.

A familiar type of envelope in the same familiar handwriting of his father.

Everything in him told him it was a bad idea to read it. He never came out of it any better than when he went in. His heart was pounding in his chest and he began sweating. His breathing was ragged as his eyes flew over the page.

They were all the same. Every single one of them. Different words, same meaning.

‘I did what I had to.’

‘This was for YOU.’

‘Our family needed this.’

‘Put yourself in my shoes.’

‘Would you have done any different?’

The words flew past in a blur as his eyes glazed over. Before he could properly read it, a sharp voice drew him out of the downward spiral.

“I’m hungry!” Plagg whined as he flew in front of Adrien’s vision. “I’m wasting away here, kid. I need delicious, gooey camembert NOW.”

A smile tugged at his lips but didn’t reach his eyes as Adrien jolted to his feet to find his kwami’s breakfast.

----

While Adrien was distracted, Plagg narrowed his eyes and faced the letter. He was sorely tempted to just cataclysm it right here and now, to make sure his chosen would never be hurt by it again. But control of their powers had never been the forte of any of the kwami, least of all the kwami of destruction. Deciding that it was only barely not worth ruining the apartment, Plagg batted the letter into the trash. If only he’d had the opportunity to do the same to Gabriel himself.

Adrien returned with a quarter wheel of cheese, which Plagg took to eating with gusto. Adrien frowned as he looked on the counter.

“Hey, Plagg?” The kwami slowly looked up from his breakfast. “Do you know where that letter I was reading went?”

“Somewhere it belonged, I’m sure,” Plagg replied irritatedly. Adrien was about to speak again, so Plagg interrupted him. “So, date night, right? That’ll be something to look forward to.”

Just as expected, a dopey grin crossed Adrien’s face. Plagg could play the boy like a lute. “Yeah, it’ll be great to go out again. We don’t get to go on dates as much as I’d like.”

“That’s ‘cuz you’d want to go on dates every night,” Plagg pointed out.

“True,” Adrien conceded. “But I don’t hear you complaining.” He rested his head on his hands, almost flush with the table, putting him at eye height to Plagg. “Maybe because you have a love bug too that you get to cuddle with, hm?”

Plagg made a gagging sound. “Sugar cube and I don’t cuddle. We are ancient beings from the dawn of time.”

“Really? Curled up into each other like that, you could’ve fooled me. And what, exactly, is it that kwamis call it?”

“...Shut up.”

“And you have pet names for each other! Just like me and Mari. Sounds a lot like you two are dating, you know.”

Plagg slowly turned to Adrien and narrowed his eyes. “Shut. Up.”

“Aw, I’m sorry Plagg. Truce?” Adrien scritched between his ears in just the right way.

Unable to fight his instincts, Plagg purred in spite of himself. Refusing to continue the conversation, he doubled down on eating his cheese. Adrien chuckled and returned to his breakfast.

Despite his denials, Plagg was looking forward to the date night, but for more than just seeing his Tikki. Plagg snuck glances at his charge, but Adrien seemed to be back to his usual peppy self again. He breathed a sigh of relief. Another crisis averted, barely.

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

With how much she’d been pushing herself, it was bound to happen eventually. Late night studying. Early morning classes. Every hour crammed full of work. Between the darkness of the theater, the calm and pleasant movie, and the comfortable shoulder of her boyfriend, Marinette was destined to fail. None of that made it any less mortifying.

Marinette was gently shaken awake by Adrien as the credits rolled. It took a moment for his face to come into focus, but when it did the amusement was plain.

“Rough night, huh?”

She snorted. “More like rough semester.” She wrapped herself around his arm as they walked out, leaning on him as her eyelids grew heavy. Despite her best attempts, she yawned.

She felt him kiss the crown of her head. “My poor, sleepy bug. How about we bail on the restaurant part of our date and just head over to my place?”

Even in her exhausted state she managed a grin. “Why Adrien, you tom cat. And without even buying me dinner first.”

He rolled his eyes playfully. “You’ll get your food. I just don’t want you face planting in your plate in public.”

“Oh, so it’s alright when I dive face first into my food, just so long as it's at your apartment?”

“Yes,” he said with a stoic expression. “Then when you drown in soup I will be slightly less embarrassed.”

“Oh, I see,” she deadpanned. “Well, as long as my impending doom isn’t an inconvenience to you.”

“I’m glad you understand.”

Their eyes met briefly, but that was enough to break their charade. Both of them broke out into giggles and the conversation passed into a comfortable silence as they made their way to Adrien’s apartment. At which point, she let out another big yawn.

He looked at her with a frown. “You going to make it, lovebug?”

“Nope,” she said, popping the ‘p’. “You’re going to have to carry me.” She stuck out her tongue at him and took a step towards the elevator.

Naturally, she didn’t make it much further than the one step since Adrien swept her up into his arms.

She laughed. “I was joking you ridiculous man.”

“Princesses get carried to their towers,” he replied loftily. “I don’t make the rules.”

The strong, independent woman in her wanted to struggle and get down, but the very tired design student who was presently in control simply cuddled closer as she laid her head on his chest. She felt warm and secure and relaxed for the first time in days. She closed her eyes to listen to his heartbeat more clearly.

She must have drifted off since when she opened her eyes, she was laying on his couch. There was a delicious smell in the air that was enough to make her stand up, clutching the blanket Adrien must have draped over her.

He smiled as she approached his kitchen. “Hey bed bug. Done with your cat nap?”

“For now, at least.” She rested her head against his back as he stirred. “What’re you cooking?”

“Potato soup. Straight from your father’s cookbook.”

She hummed happily. “I can’t wait.”

“Take a seat, I’ll pour you a bowl when its done.”

She moved to do so and happened to walk past the garbage can. Her eyes were drawn towards an uncrumpled letter facing up. It wasn’t hard to recognize the writing - years of idolizing the man behind the brand had trained her well. Even if it had been even more years since that particular pedestal had been broken, never to be rebuilt. She cautiously lifted it from the trash and scanned the page. Ladybug levels of singular purpose parted the tired fog of her mind as her anger was stoked.

“Adrien…” Something in her voice caused him to turn around with a frown. When he saw what she was holding, his eyes widened. “...Have you read this?”

“S-some of them.” There was a tenseness to his shoulders that hadn’t been there a moment before. A stiffness to the way he held himself. “Only skimmed that one before… before I lost it.”

Lost it? Sounds like Plagg’s doing. Marinette made a mental note to sneak the little guy even more treats. Then her eyes widened in realization as his words caught up to her brain.

“Wait. ‘Some’ of them? There are others?”

Adrien swallowed and visibly paled.

In a heartbeat, Marinette was beside him, the blanket forgotten as it pooled on the floor behind her. She reached a hand up to cup his cheek and he leaned into her touch gratefully. With her other hand, she grabbed his forearm and squeezed.

“Oh, kitty…”

After a few more deep breaths, he got himself under control. He took the letter and folded it up neatly before stashing it high on his refrigerator.

“So, uh…” He said in a voice that only barely warbled. “Soups ready.”

She knew him well enough to let it lie… for now. Adrien didn’t like being pressed or forced to talk about things, but she trusted him enough to talk in his own time. For now, all she could do was take his mind off of it.

And if that meant chatting over a dinner of soup and then cuddling on the couch for a few hours… she wasn’t about to complain.

-----

It was morning when Marinette woke up. Apparently she’d been picked up yet again since now she found herself in Adrien’s bed, with the man himself nuzzled up underneath her chin.

As much as she wanted to sleep in, a glance at the clock proved that wasn’t likely. She groaned and tried to wriggle out of Adrien’s grasp.

“Nooo…” Adrien moaned into her collarbone. “Stay…”

“You know I’ve got classes, sunshine…”

He raised his head and pleaded at her with those big, green eyes. His bottom lip quivered with overplayed sadness. It was almost enough to break her right there, but sheer stubbornness carried her through this time.

“Nice try, and very cute, but it’s still a no.”

He sighed. “It was worth a shot. What if I drive you into class?”

“I…” She glanced at the clock again. “I’d actually appreciate that, thanks.”

“And if I happened to not have anything else to do today and brought you lunch later… I don’t suppose you’d appreciate that too?”

She tried to pout at him for babying her, but the warm smile he was giving her was proving contagious. Instead, she sighed and rolled out of his arms before walking into his shower room.

His laughter could be heard even through the door. “I didn’t hear a ‘no’, princess!”

[spookyspaghettisundae]

All Eyes on You

Maybe it could have been a regular weekend for me, but there’s no way for me to tell if I was the one who screwed everything up. I was a bit hungover from the night before, so my head weighed a ton and every source of bright light made me cringe in pain—whether it was the fluorescent neon tubes overhead or the daylight streaming in through the store’s front windows.

Every single beep of the cashier running items over the scanner at checkout was like a tiny knife being stuck into my skull, over and over and over again, even though I was fairly far away from it, browsing the unnecessary amount of different brands of laundry detergent.

I grabbed some random one that had nice soft colors and chucked it into my shopping cart. It caused the whole thing to shake and rattle and a person pushing past me gave me a dirty look.

Under any other circumstances, I wouldn’t have wasted any thought on this, but today was different. Now, everything was different. Now, as I looked up, and past that guy shooting me the disparaging glance, I realized that everybody in the store was looking at me.

“Feeling watched” would have been the understatement of the century.

It was so weird and jarring that I forgot about the effects of my hangover for the next few minutes. In part because my heart was racing, in part because my mind was going wild with conspiracy theories and rampant paranoia.

Although I pretended to not care or not notice, I could tell that everybody in the store was looking at me at one point or the other. Normally, I would have chalked this up to something silly, like one of my friends having written something on my forehead with a magic marker while I was passed out.

But with what had happened the night before, I knew better. I knew something was wrong. Horribly wrong.

It didn’t help that some of these people would pretend to not be looking at me, either—furtive glances, eyes quickly darting down to study a shopping list on their phone, or to act like they were looking over grocery items on the shelves. Anything to avoid eye contact with me.

I know what you’re thinking. Just allow me to dial back and explain before you make up your mind.

The night before, I was feeling pretty depressed. I was still pretty new in this town and knew nobody around there. Just some backwater town in the middle of nowhere. The rent on the apartment I had found there was cheap, and the commute to my workplace only an hour which was a vast improvement over my last home.

So I grabbed some beers, drove up to a lonesome little picnic area on the forest’s edge that I had seen on the first day I had visited town when I went to go scout out the apartment a few months ago, and decided to chill out there and watch the sunset after a tedious Friday at work.

The whole day had dragged on at a snail’s pace and I just wanted to unwind and not stare at any screens for a few hours.

I sat there, nursing my first beer, sitting on top of the backrest of the bench like a rebel, when I spotted a mansion near the forest’s edge. I mean, I had seen it before when I first took a drive through this town, but it was only now that I noticed a few funny details about it. And when I say “funny,” I don’t mean the amusing sort.

It had a large red brick wall encircling the entire yard—and that place was as big as a football field. The large mansion matched that appearance, also featuring red bricks and sandstone and wood in its construction, and a lot of unusual details like a tower built into the corner of it. Everything was overgrown with lush green ivy, and there were some nice-looking trees on the property.

So far, so idyllic.

The weird part were the men in green camo clothing, carrying what I think were assault rifles. They patrolled around the inside of the walls, so it was no wonder I hadn’t seen them when I drove through town earlier that year, but being up on the hill at the forest’s edge gave me some elevation and allowed me to see over the walls somewhat.

They were all pretty big-looking dudes. I pegged them for soldiers or something like that—though my imagination wandered to this being a mafioso’s estate and these guys being some well-armed thugs.

It would make sense for some gangster boss to be living well out on the countryside where everything’s nice and quiet, right?

I downed two whole beers and while I had been trying to distract myself with unpacking everything that had happened over the course of the week—both at work and in my personal life—my curiosity got the best of me.

I had to know what the hell this mansion was.

With a simple plan in mind, I packed up everything, and drove back down from the picnic site, now taking a detour so I could casually roll past the mansion. A large steel gate obscured any way of seeing into the mansion’s premises, which was frustrating. In my mind’s eye, I had expected one of those metal fence gates that you can see through, but this one was just a solid surface instead.

Tossing out my original plan, I parked my car across the road by the grass, got out, and walked over. You may be thinking that I was crazy, and I can assure you I am. I was always a bit of a tomboy growing up, and I possessed a fearlessness that got me into trouble every now and then—and because I always got away with playing dumb or innocent, I always got away with my shenanigans and I never learned. Not until this day.

I pressed a button by the gate that I figured to be a buzzer and waited.

Within seconds, a small metal slot opened on the gate, from which a man wearing sunglasses peered through, and it was so sudden and swift in response to my pressing that button that I nearly choked in surprise.

“Yes?” asked the man behind the gate.

“Uh, I was, uh, I was,” I started stammering until my wit finally kicked in. “I was up at the picnic site up here to relax and I had no reception on my phone whatsoever, but I need to make an important call. I figured I could ask here if I could use your land line, or something?”

I slung out my phone and waved it around like a magic wand while flashing this man a dumb smile and shrugging. He looked over his shoulder as if he was responding to someone behind him, but he didn’t say a word. I think he looked up at the picnic site and I could feel the blood draining from my face. Because he turned, though, I saw a weird tattoo on his neck: just a single eye.

Not like I know anything about ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, but if I had to describe it, that’s what it reminded me of. No fancy elaborate details, just a simple eye. Wide open.

His head turned back with a painful slowness. I could sense the gears churning behind his forehead.

“My phone’s got reception just fine,” said the man. “Here, you can borrow mine.”

I guessed my charm had worked its magic. He held out his phone through the small slot, offering it to me.

Realizing way too late that all of this was a terrible idea, I glanced at my phone and flicked its display on, then chuckled—way too nervously, I presume, “Hey, look at that! I got a bar back. Maybe it was just up at the woods that was not working out for me. Thanks, though.”

The guard slowly withdrew his phone and even though I couldn’t see his eyes, I could have sworn he was glaring at me. I smiled back at him, hoping to disarm any ill will, and started getting really scared about this being some sort of gangster hideout.

“Have a nice day,” he said. But it sounded more like a threat.

He shut the slot with lightning speed and I turned to leave, holding up my phone and pretending to make a call. I yapped away into the void of the non-existent phone call, cringing at my pathetic attempt at emulating a one-sided conversation and the resulting blandness, until I had gotten into my car and slammed the door shut behind me.

My palms were sweaty and cold when they clasped the steering wheel and stick, and I drove away. I was pretty rattled for the rest of the evening although I got back home without any further incident. On the whole ride home, I kept looking into my rear-view mirror to see if I was being followed. And in my paranoia, I thought that some people on sidewalks were shooting me looks, but I dismissed it at the time.

Back at home, I drank the rest of my beers and distracted myself with lousy TV shows until fell asleep.

Then I woke up the next morning, sporting the splitting headache, and decided that things couldn’t be so bad. Because, hey, when it feels like gremlins are pounding the inside of your skull with a jackhammer and your brain’s a funny soup, a lot of worries stop existing. With that state of mind, I went to do my grocery shopping for the week.

And now—this. Everybody watching me. In the confines of my own head, I was calling myself names and cursing myself out for being such a paranoid idiot. There was no reason to be afraid.

But my heart wouldn’t stop racing. Even outside, as I put my groceries in the trunk, I knew that even the people driving in and out of the small parking lot were looking at me.

Watching me.

Worse: I saw that tattoo again. On someone’s forearm. Some lady returning an empty shopping cart to the storefront. She never looked at me directly, but with my back turned to her, I had felt a burning gaze transfixed upon me.

What the hell was this? As an avid reader of strange fiction and horror movie enthusiast, I immediately thought they had to be some sort of cult. What if this entire town was run by a cult? Stranger things have happened.

This was all so surreal. I felt very small and like I was just a passenger in my own body. Everything tingled. My fingers felt numb.

I drove home and shut myself in for the rest of the weekend. I tried to distract myself with TV and video games and even talking to a friend who lived halfway across the country, but nothing helped. I couldn’t help it. I kept thinking that this entire town was crazy and that I was being watched now. I even started getting paranoid if they could tap into my phone or hack my computer, so I avoided telling my friend about anything I had witnessed here.

Just shot the breeze about how life had been for her lately, and put up a good show in pretending that everything was normal on my end.

Come Monday morning, I snuck out of my home and got into my car. Paranoia got the better of me again, so I started checking my ride quite thoroughly, not caring if I would be late for work that day. I had watched too many stupid shows to not think that someone might have tampered with my car. I checked to see if the brakes were working, if there were any bugs, pawing underneath my seats for foreign objects, you name it.

I’m not any sort of professional and if anything was there, I probably missed it. But hey—I tried. Still, I found nothing.

After wasting half an hour on this exercise in futility, I drove off. I never felt so exhilarated to go to work as that day. Because work, for the first time, felt like an escape from something worse. It also felt like an escape from my own head, because I was questioning my own sanity. Surely, the whole town couldn’t be in a cult, right?

I cranked up the music on my radio and sang along to a song I normally hated. And I felt good. For a short while, at least.

It stopped when I drove down the road I usually take to leave town to go to work. A nice narrow road meandering through the wooded area, just like the ones you see in horror flicks.

There was a roadblock in the way once I rounded a curve, with a small jam of cars lined up in front of it. Two police cars obstructed the path and there were some officers standing beside them, one of them talking to the driver in the car at the front of the line. My heart sank, plummeting right into my gut region. I could feel my belly pulsing with my accelerated, anxious heartbeat.

I wonder—does everybody get as nervous as I do whenever I see cops nearby? It’s not like I’d ever done anything wrong, but it had always made me nervous. Even under normal circumstances. Even before this weekend.

But today was different. The events of this weekend had multiplied my paranoia—they had mutated it. If this whole town was run by some weird cult, what if the cops were in on it? What if they were looking for me?

Right when one of the cars was let past the roadblock and drove off, I panicked. I steered out of line and made a U-turn, swerving back onto the road with screeching tires and driving off. It took me a few moments to realize in retrospect that this made me grind my teeth and may have been a stupid move, but I started speeding up and driving away.

The trembling started when I saw a cop car show up behind me, half a minute later. They let the siren wail at me for a split second to grab my attention, and used their blinker to signal me to pull over.

With growing dread, I planned to play along, but step on the gas if things went south.

Even with all the adrenaline rushing through my body, and my attempts to stop my trembling by gripping the steering wheel way harder than natural, I gently steered the car as best I could, driving it onto the roadside and letting it roll to a stop. But I kept the engine running.

A police officer emerged from the car behind me and approached. His hand was resting on the gun at his hip and I wondered if my running motor had anything to do with that.

Or because of this damned cult. Or whatever the hell was going on here.

I rolled down my window once he had arrived there and he looked me up and down. My resolve crumpled and I cut the engine as a token of good will.

“License and registration, please?” asked the police officer in a gravelly voice.

His whole posture was rigid, like a statue—his body language tense. So was I.

Remembering what can go wrong in such an encounter, I carefully leaned over to retrieve the documents from my purse and hand them over. I could feel him watching me all the while, and for the first time in days, I felt like someone watching me was the appropriate action, given the circumstances.

I handed the cop my license and papers and he looked them over, his hand now finally away from the gun, and taking off some of the edge. He studied my face after inspecting my ID.

Then he handed back everything.

“Pardon the interruption, ma'am. Have a nice day,” he told me, and swiveled.

Right when he was walking away was when I saw the tattoo on his neck. The eye—staring at me. Almost as if the damned tattoo itself was watching me.

I never believed in the supernatural or UFOs or any such bunk. But my paranoia was really taking me for a ride now, and I questioned everything I believed in.

When I revved up my engine again and drove off, I still felt the officer’s eyes on me.

Anyway, now you know. That’s how—and why—one day, I bounced from that awful little town, leaving all my belongings behind. How I drove halfway across the states, and started a new life after changing my name.

I’d tell you the town’s name so you can avoid it, but I keep seeing that tattoo in my nightmares. In some of them, it’s like people have an extra eye on their body where there shouldn’t be one, in place of that tattoo. Like the skin breaks open and some bloodshot, weird eye stares at me. Always the same eye.

I still feel watched out in public sometimes. Hell, sometimes I even feel like someone’s watching me at home. I know I should talk to a therapist about this, but I’m afraid they won’t believe me. Or worse.

I got an anonymous call from someone telling me not to talk about what I had seen, but I had to get this off my chest, and maybe nothing bad will happen if I don’t tell you where this was.

—Submitted by Wratts

[khtrinityftw]

My counters to anti-KH2 Strawman Arguments

The strawman arguments presented here are taken from another blog; it’s sad that they were deliberately written as strawman quality and yet that’s exactly how certain obsessive KH2 haters actually type like.

Disney is reduced to pure filler! - Nope. Beast's Castle, Olympus Coliseum, Disney Castle, Port Royal and Space Paranoids all hold plot relevance, and the more filler-esque Land of Dragons, Halloween Town, Pride Land and 100 Acre Wood still have justifications for existing as levels in the game. Only Agrabah and Atlantica feel like complete wastes.

But what reason do they have to go to these places? Where's Mickey, Riku and Kairi? - You go there to stop all of the leftover Heartless from the mass invasion in KH1 from continuing to threaten the worlds' inhabitants, and to find out what Organization XIII and the Nobodies are up to. Later, it's to find a way into the Nobodies' home base (although this one admittedly gets botched by some truly bad writing).  This complaint is as stupid as it is when applied to the first KH, where the small detail of locking keyholes to slow the progression of a world-eating invasion of darkness is conveniently forgotten.

All the Disney Worlds' plots just recycle the plots of the movies! - Nope. Just the first visits to Land of Dragons, Port Royal and Pride Land, both visits to Agrabah, and all visits to Atlantica. Iconic movie elements used in otherwise original stories, such as in Halloween Town, does not count, since that's the same thing the original KH did.

Original and Final Fantasy characters dominate the game! - Somehow this was a complaint? Even though there is pretty clearly more Disney characters in the game than there are original and FF characters. And that among those Disney characters, there are just as many that are important to the plot as there are original and FF characters.

Horrible retcons, especially Ansem not being Ansem and the Heartless not being those without hearts! - The Heartless were not retconned in the slightest since them being corrupted hearts was established in the original game, and Ansem not being Ansem wasn't so much a problem as the writing of the situation around it was (having Ansem the Wise, disguised as DiZ, disguise as "Ansem" in order to get Riku to embrace the darkness, which causes Riku to disguise as "Ansem" and yet he can't change back to normal, and the enemy is Xemnas, the Nobody of "Ansem"...yeah, you get the idea.)

Organization XIII were bland, shallow villains and terrible characters who never should've been! - This complaint is very clearly fueled by backlash against how the KH fandom latched on to the Organization to...shall we say, an inappropriate degree. Organization XIII is fine. (Although no shit “they never should've been”, that's kind of the whole point. Why do you think their lair is called The World That Never Was?)

The Organization is severely underdeveloped! -  Not in the Final Mix version, they're not.

Yet the Organization totally steals the show from the Disney aspects! - Again, this seems more based around the KH fandom instead of based in reality. The Organization only got a little under an hour of screentime in the original version of KH2! For Pete’s sake, PETE had more screentime than Xemnas! 

The Organization are retconned into Nobodies who want their hearts back! - That's clearly what they were in CoM. They even said as much. This claim is bullshit.

The Organization subliminally have gay sex with each other! - Once again, fandom /=/ canon.

Convoluted and horrible storyline! - Convoluted? Yes. Horrible? No, especially when compared to the storyline of the series beyond.

The novels tell this story so much better! - Hahahaha, no. There are even some improvements made in the storytelling in the manga, but the novels are utterly worse in every aspect, as Tomoko Kanemaki is not really interested in telling the actual story of KH2, but of her personal KH2 fanfic.

THE NOBODIES! - What about them? They were fine. Nomura may have made them more convoluted than they needed to be, but as a concept they felt natural. If a heart can become a creature, then it's only natural that what gets left behind can become a creature as well.

The Nobodies are Designated Villains! - No, they weren't. Suffering from some kind of ailment does not give you the right to inflict it upon others. The Nobodies not having hearts and wanting them is sympathetic, but them planning to obtain hearts by forcibly taking the hearts from millions of innocents kills that sympathy and firmly makes them villains.

But you spend the first 5 hours playing as an Organization member/Nobody only to kill them off in the main game! - Except that Roxas was already killing off other Nobodies and had turned on the Organization by the time of that prologue. Roxas' tragedy is that because they're going by what they know of other Nobodies and Organization members, DiZ and Riku are boxing him into a heavy fate and not allowing him to choose, treating him as if he's an enemy and a tool rather than a person with feelings of his own.

The enemies should've just been the Heartless, the Disney Villains, and Ansem! - The Heartless known as Ansem is dead, where could he have logically come from to fill in that last enemy slot? The only way you could feasibly have him is through his Nobody, which is exactly what happened. Hence the Nobodies, Organization XIII included, being the third enemy after the Heartless and Disney Villains.

All beautifully constructed themes from the first KH were raped! - Please define which themes and how they were raped, because I ain't seeing it.

Sora is now an immature idiot hero who is gay for Riku! / Riku is a bland, monotonous emo and a non-character / Kairi and Namine recieve severe underexposure and minimal development / Axel is a raging pedofag who wants to molest Roxas! / Ansem the Wise is a old, boring Mcpurple prose racist peice of shit. He's not the one true ANSEM! / Mickey Mouse should not be a badass: that is out of character! / Roxas sucks! - This is all beginning to sound like ill-thought out, incoherent ramblings that are based on fallacies such as fandom depiction of characters or willful misunderstanding of the text. I just don't give a crap.

Namine was retconned into being Kairi's Nobody instead of a witch with powers over memory! - She quite literally called herself "the shadow of Kairi" in CoM, and Riku noted that she and Kairi had the same scent.  Re:CoM clarified the point even further by translating a line Axel said to her as "WE Nobodies can't ever hope to be Somebodies".  Like with the Organization being Nobodies, Namine being Kairi's Nobody was always the plan.

Maleficent suffered Villain Decay! - Yeah, that was the point. The whole objective behind her arc in this game was clawing her way back to the top. It's not a fault of this game that she wasn't allowed to ever reach that top afterward despite what the ending implied.

That Longest Prologue Ever sucked! - That is a very subjective opinion. 

Cloud's Side Story sucked! - Yes, but it's just a few scenes long, and finishing it is optional. It's a similar case to Atlantica, which is entirely optional. If you don't like it, don't play it.

Gameplay is no longer challenging! - This was never entirely true (certain points of the game are very challenging, particularly in its second half), and it has been particularly debunked through the Critical Mode of Final Mix.

Too many boring long-ass cutscenes! - Oh, you don't like that? Get used to it, it's not going away from the rest of the series.

These worlds are not fun to play through! - That depends on what you want out of them, as there are plenty of people who prefer the more linear, combat-oriented action RPG style than the larger, platforming style of the first KH, which they claim were the ones that were not fun to play through. And even if you want more exploration and item collecting in the worlds like there was in the first KH, then the Final Mix edition has you covered. 

The finale to the story was awful! - No. Not at all. Fuck you.

The experience is not magical whatsoever because the Disney magic was consumed in a Nomura explosion! - No. That's the series beyond. This was pure compromise: not as much unrestrained Disney magic as the original game but not as much of a Nomura explosion as what followed, but a balance where both were equally rich in quality and quantity, and so fans of both could appreciate it. Like with the Disney world visits, this is the way the series should have stayed, instead of granting Nomura unlimited power and the ability to destroy it with his own self-indulgent crap. 

[avocadolouie]

Any chance for a sneak peak of the final chapter?! I am going crazy waiting on it. Just too excited.

yes, yes! so here is a little 2k sneak peak for you friend! for reference, it’s harrys pov and its pretty early on into the final chapter, as not to give things away, but it’s still pretty sappy i think?? idk but I hope it’ll help you wait for the rest of it 😭😭😭 also uh…I haven’t really edited this so the amount of mistakes could be uh limitless?? lmao I hope not but, it happens haha

They’re almost completely out of breath, slightly buzzed from the ridiculously cheap wine aerating through their systems as they tumble after each other uphill, following along a dewy path well known by their feet. So familiar, it’s like a muscle memory the way their legs just know where to go, where to step next. Harry could close his eyes right now and trust that the next time he opens them, he would be standing in the center of their special meadow.

Although Harry still doesn’t have the faintest idea why Louis suddenly decided to drag them both up here, but he’s repeatedly asked him as much. Each time Louis only answers with a knowing smile or the reassuring brush of his thumb along Harry’s palm where their hands are linked together, refusing any sort of verbal answer. But Harry can’t rightly complain, not when it’s such a lovely spring night outside and he’s holding the hand of such a beautiful boy.

The moon is out tonight, glowing clear and luminescent in the open midnight sky. And as entrancing and awe-inspiring as the moon is tonight, Harry finds himself even more captivated by how the full gleam strikingly catches every bright hue in Louis’ eyes as though he’s simply made of stardust.

“Lou, are you going to tell me why we are up here now?”

“Just one sec, H…” Louis tosses over his shoulder, giving Harry’s hand another reassuring squeeze. He is completely resolute in his determination to pull Harry to a particular spot in the vast field of rolling grass, a spot that only he seems to know.

Harry follows along easily, grinning as an unexpected excitement comes over him. He would follow Louis anywhere, he’d follow him right off of the edge of a cliff if Louis asked it of him and Harry wouldn’t even think twice about it.

They get to a spot in the field that is in prime view of the moon. It’s the perfect spot really, giving off the wonderous illusion that they are somehow closer to the stars above. It hardly even looks real, majestic and breathtaking, like something right out of a dream.

Louis finally turns around to fully face Harry, unlacing their fingers as he takes in a deep breath. And then he smiles, an adorably shy but still hopeful and so very beautiful smile and Harry honestly couldn’t tear his eyes away from him if he tried.

“Ok, so I’m nervous—obviously…and um I know you’re nervous too but…I thought maybe we could come up here and start checking things off of our list. Why waste any more time, right?” Louis chews on his lower lip, fidgeting a bit with his hands. “You said that you wanted to dance to the song, Dancing in the Moonlight, but I’m going to do you one better. That’s why we’re up here, really…” His voice is thoughtful as he looks up at the open sky above them in quiet awe. “Because the moon is so gorgeous tonight and it’d be a shame to waste it and….and I don’t know…I thought that you might like to dance under the actual moonlight while dancing to Dancing in the Moonlight—wow, that’s a fucking mouthful, isn’t it?” Louis sort of offers a small laugh, but it’s masked by pure nerves. “I’m bloody rambling again, aren’t I? Shit…”

It’s the sweetest gesture, causing Harry’s lips to spread into a deeply dimpled smile while his heart begins to flutter in his chest as though suddenly sprouting wings of its own.

“Right well, enough of that then.” Louis properly clears his throat, inclining his head towards Harry with his palm outstretched in question. And there’s that smile again, the one that makes Louis’ eyes begin to crease at their corners, the one that never fails to make Harry’s stomach do complete somersaults. “Harry Styles, would you care to dance with me, love?”

And he’s staring, Harry knows he’s staring at Louis, but how could he possibly look away from him when Louis is looking at him like that, like nothing else could even begin to matter more to him. Like the gorgeous stars above, Louis is a thing of dreams, a vision of absolute wonder. The way he makes Harry feel with only a smile, only a look, only a sweet, nervous gesture, is an experience so rare and utterly breathtaking, Harry continually hopes to god he’s not dreaming.

Harry is nodding his head repeatedly before finding the words to speak, and he just knows he has the fondest, most ridiculous expression painted across his face. But he can’t fucking help it and he doesn’t fucking care because he’s so endeared, so in love,and all he wants is for Louis to know it.  

“I’d love nothing more.” Harry finally answers softly, taking Louis’ proffered hand in his own.

If Harry thought Louis’ initial, nerve-riddled smile was everything, the one he gives Harry next is nothing short of extraordinary, leaving Harry spellbound. He looks bashfully to Louis as the classic 70s’ song that Harry used to listen to on a loop, the song he always envisioned as the perfect song to fall in love to, starts to play from Louis’ phone.

♫ 

And they dance. They dance like there is no one else on the earth apart from the two of them, like time doesn’t exist, like nothing else exists. They dance and they laugh, all while bathed under the welcomed, gentle glow of the moon. While held close in each other’s arms, the nerves seem to float right away with the gentle breeze swirling around their bodies.

There is only them and this moment and not a thing else.

Who know how many times people throughout the years have said that the world always seems to stop when they’re with the person they love, it’s so commonly said, it almost becomes a throwaway sentiment after a while. But Harry feels something opposite from that; his world hasn’t stopped, it’s finally turning as it should, finally filled with life. It’s brighter and richer when looking at it through the spectrum of Louis’ eyes, sharpened into focus. The vibrancy and fullness Harry feels is unparalleled, unprecedented by any other relationship of the past. Will it always be like this when they’re together, even when time has had its effects, when they’re older, wiser, greyer? Right now, they’re in the beginning, the start of a new chapter together, blank pages upon blank pages waiting to be written, and Harry can’t wait to see how much brighter and fuller his life can become with Louis at his side.  

This whole thing, dancing in an open field, illumed only by the moon is so spontaneous and unexpected, but still so very romantic and sweet and thoughtful, far exceeding any expectation Harry could have ever had when he first envisioned it as a part of his quixotic hopes for his future self. Harry’s initial list of someday hopes and dreams have taken on a new form since he met Louis a decade ago. Louis breathes life into Harry’s dreams, life Harry couldn’t have ever imagined, translating his hopes from more than just wishes and dreams, but into realities he never thought would happen.

They dance long after the song fades, still wrapped up in each other’s arms, slowed feet still swaying to a rhythm synchronized to the beat of their racing hearts. Breathless and enamored, they gaze into each other’s eyes, magnetized by the gravity of their growing emotions. Harry’s eyes flick down to Louis’ lips, now only a small breadths away from his own. Louis lifts his jaw upwards and moves in the rest of the way, locking their lips together in a slow kiss.

Harry cradles Louis’ cheeks with both of his hands as their slow kiss gradually begins to grow more passionate. And they each get so lost in it, lost in the moment, lost in each other and it’s not long before they soon tumble down together against the soft bed of grass, giggling happily in between gentle kisses, any and all residual nerves between them dissipated.

Lying together on their sides along the cool, damp grass, legs intertwined and slotted together interchangeably, feels so easy, so natural. There’s such a relaxed air to them now, in how their mouths move against each other, in how their hands roam across the clothed curves if each other’s bodies. It’s unhurried and languid, no sense of urgency. They’re just making out like horny teenagers on a school night and yet Harry could lie right here in this very spot, under the moon, kissing Louis for days and nights on end and not do a thing else and still consider his time wonderfully well spent.

Louis shifts from his side, rolling over until he’s lying on top of Harry, bracketing Harry’s hips with his knees as he deepens the kiss. He pulls back slightly, face hovering right above Harry’s, so close that the ends of his fringe brush against Harry’s forehead. Harry gazes into the crystalline pool of Louis’ eyes, continually amazed by how very blue they still are even when there is hardly any light shining on them.

“I love you.” Louis whispers, his voice stays so soft and comforting, but strong in a way that makes Harry really feel his words.

Harry doesn’t know if he’ll ever get used to hearing Louis tell him that, but he knows he will never grow tired of it. And there’s something so incredible about being able to freely express how much Louis means to him, to be able to be completely transparent about how deeply he cares for him. “I love you too.”

And Harry would tell Louis all day and night how much he loves him, just to keep that happily peaceful look on his face forever. Louis nuzzles his face towards Harry’s neck, leaving a few tender kisses near his ear before cuddling up against him.

“All those times we came up here and we could have been doing this.” Harry grins slowly, hands resting on Louis’ lower back, holding him close.

“What a waste.” Louis sighs against Harry’s exposed skin followed by a shiver, entire body jolting against the steady wind that’s beginning to pick up as it breezes through the grassy field.

“You’re cold, aren’t you?” Harry asks, already knowing the answer. He’s not wearing a jacket at all, only a thin white dress shirt and he has a bit of a track record of getting cold easily.

“I maybe didn’t think this all the way through? It was a bit of a spur of the moment kind of thing.” Louis laughs, sitting up with his legs straddling Harry’s hips. He tucks both of his hands under his arms to retain some of his own body heat. “I probably should have grabbed a jacket or something before dragging you up here.”

Harry shakes his head fondly as he sits up as well, shrugging off his own sweater and dropping it over Louis’ head without thinking question. “I’m running out of jumpers to give you.”

Louis laughs appreciatively, burrowing himself inside the warmth of the sweater before draping his arms around Harry’s neck as he sits comfortably in his lap. “In my defense, it is reallyfucking cold up here and I didn’t expect it because it’s the middle of May.”

Harry grins, leaning in for a short kiss. “You really should know by now that it’s always cold at night.”

“Yeah, in the winter, it’s supposed to be spring now.”

“Next time, we’ll bundle you up in a full winter parka just to be safe.” Harry teases.

“Well that’s no fun.” Louis frowns, snuggling half of his face, all the way up to his nose into the neck of the sweater. “How am I going to steal your clothes if I already have my own?”

“I’m sure you’ll find a way.” Harry smiles knowingly, still feeling Louis’ body quiver from the windchill. “But for now, we should probably get back inside before you freeze to death. My sweater can only do so much.”

[dcarevu]

DCAU #20: Prophecy of Doom

“You gave him ten million dollars, sir? And to think I was fretting over the electric bill…”

Hey, guys, so lemme tell you about the craziest thing that just happened to me. There I was, dressed in my cloak at the DCAU brotherhood meeting. And the leader of the brotherhood, Nospoilerz, looked right at me and said, “You! Young man! You are in graAaAve danger! I see disappointment! I see pain! I see misery and woe!” I left the place scoffing to myself, not believing one word of it. But then I turned on Prophecy of Doom and I realized that this guy actually may have known what he was talking about.

Episode: 19 Robin: No Writers: Sean Catherine Derek (teleplay), Dennis Marks (Story) Director: Frank Paur Animator: Akom Airdate: October 6, 1992 Grade: D

Am I being too generous with that D? Because this is definitely my second-least favorite episode so far. It’s another Sean Catherine Derek/AKOM “classic” from season 1, and this just goes to show that sometimes reading the episode credits is all you need to do… Sigh… Bruce Timm himself has made certain remarks about both of these creative forces, citing AKOM as a subpar studio, and Sean Catherine Derek as a writer that would always try to throw in a big message, but could never really make it work in practice. We saw this in The Forgotten with the subject of homelessness, and we see it here again with the fortune teller who is actually just scamming people out of all their money. Yeah, she didn’t write the story of this one, only the script and such, but her fingerprints are all over the place when you break out the powder. Unless you’re a really good writer, a half-hour Batman show is just not a good way to get some of your important, socially-conscious messages across to the public. Who exactly wants to see that? Eric Radomski and Bruce Timm were going for a grim, crime-noir. Sean was pushing for a recycling bin and a god damn dog to be in the show, guys. I think recycling is as important as the next guy. And boy do I love a cute pupper. But this says a lot. Boy. Don’t you just wish that we got a whole episode about why we should should recycle? Just imagine how that woulda turned out.

We would see some of the “big, real world statements” taken on much later with Static Shock, and from what I understand, it often worked quite well. But this was after a lot of DCAU establishment. It also was a very different show than Batman TAS. Not to mention, well, Sean Catherine Derek wasn’t involved with Static Shock at all. I wish her no ill will, and I hope she’s happy writing for whoever she writes for nowadays, but the sooner these episodes we’re looking at leave her behind, the better. Reportedly, she clashed a lot with Bruce and Eric when it came to their visions for Batman the Animated Series, so overall I would say that she just was not meant to be part of this team, or wasn’t flexible enough to write stories that would suit this show.

I didn’t think he was legit until he showed me his kickass flyers!

Nostromos is the one-off villain of this episode, and I’m certainly not gonna be anxiously awaiting his return for a future episode. He’s a guy who supposedly has magic powers and the ability to read fortunes, but as we can tell from spending less than five minutes with him, he’s a big fraud. In this episode, it makes for some confusion as far as how we’re supposed to see and react to him. Mysterio from Marvel did this concept wayyy better because Mysterio was more frightening than this guy. At least back when I was a kid he was (yeah, I get it, he’s got a big bowl on his head)! With Nostromos, we, the audience, along with Bruce Wayne, are skeptical of him from the beginning, and the way he carries himself makes it really hard to feel threatened by him at all.

Top 10 DCAU guyliner material

“The vibrations are right for prophecy.” This guy offers a translation to a completely lost Bruce Wayne

“You are merely the eye trying to view itself!” explains Nostromos. Now this guy looks just as confused as Bruce is. 

Even after we come to the conclusion that he likely was responsible for the sinking of the gambling cruise ship. He’s just so silly and his plan is so uninteresting. And then we see that the other people involved in Nostromos’ brotherhood (a big group of rich/important people) are eating up every word that he spews out, and we get music cues and other moments that almost seem to try and make us take him seriously. It makes the people in this episode seem like absolute dimwitted fools, and how all of them managed to finesse their way to the top of the money tree with that kind of gullibility is beyond me. The tone is really mixed. And it continues to stay mixed throughout the entire episode. It’s just weird to see Batman, the strong creature of the night who always saves the day (not literally, saving the day at night sounds bonkers), be in any sort of danger, but then see everyone else being idiots and that the villain is just a big joke.

“You!!!” This was a pretty poor-looking shot, especially when you see it in movement. 

Bruce’s glass mysteriously shatters.

And what is Nostromos’ plan? Well, his main one is to basically convince the brotherhood that an economic crisis is right around the corner in order to get them to give him all of their money. Is that not the least creative place you could go with a crazy cult in a Batman episode? The least they could have done was made it so that Nostromos wants to kill Bruce for a specific, personal reason or something. Things do get a little bit crazier eventually, but in a way that’s almost as dull as everything else. Nostromos ties Ethan Clark’s (a friend of Bruce in this episode) daughter to this giant solar system display, where she is in danger of being crushed if another planet happens to collide with her.

Seems to me like he could have made things a little simpler if he had just threatened to shoot her.     

This sequence just doesn’t visually suck me in, nor did it with Char. She thought it could have looked a lot better, especially when it’s such a preposterous idea. The episode needs to do something for me to fall under the spell of the suspension of disbelief. It has been said that Akom just didn’t have the chops to animate this the way it was asked for. And trust me, I believe that. It hasn’t taken me long to understand the impact of Akom on Batman the Animated Series. But in my mind…even with proper transition from the storyboards to full motion, is this really a scene that I would have been asking for? Did I really want a conclusion where Batman jumps around on moving papier-mâché planets gone awry?

This is pretty much the best we got, folks

So yes, I do in fact agree with Char, this scene could have looked a lot better. But I also have to ask the writers whether or not this was even a good idea in the first place. And Nostromos causes the planets to spin all over the place, past their normal speeds, by beating on the control panel and breaking it. Why does whamming on a piece of technology not usually just shut off the technology? It always sends it off on a deadly rampage. By the end, Batman escapes, saving Clark’s daughter. And Nostromos gets caught by a stray planet from the spinning display as it lands on top of him.

Nostromos and his crazy plot are much like how Red Claw ended up being a few episodes back. Has potential, then does nothing worth remembering with it. Y’know, this episode also feels like a 70’s Scooby Doo episode. The villain seems like a Scooby Doo villain, has a Scooby Doo villain-esque plan, and even gets caught like one of Fred’s traps. And y’know how usually Fred’s traps are completely over the top, but ultimately the animation and everything keeps it pretty underwhelming? That was the whole climax to this one. It’s like Batman was Scooby Doo, wrecking the bad guy’s plan and managing to trap them. I really wish everyone on the Batman TAS team had known better by this point when it comes to what type of show they should have been writing. Clearly some of them were in on it, but not some of those stubborn ones. I get that it’s still season one, but this episodes wastes time. Instead, we could have gotten something much better in its pace. But these writers were here taking up staff slots, not trying their hardest to produce a really good Batman show. They were too focused on only pushing hard enough to create a typical Saturday morning cartoon show, or a show that displayed a moral, and it’s like, another show could be used for things like that. I think when Paul Dini or Alan Burnett wrote their episodes, they made it so damn evident that they were pouring their hearts into the scripts, and were actually trying to make something good, something they they would have wanted to see. They were giving the best to Batman that they could. This show was airing before I was born. And even if it were brand new, it wouldn’t make any sense to hold a grudge or anything on some of these earlier writers. The ones who didn’t utilize the potential of a Batman show like this. Because what these writers did was make the good episodes seem even better. Not every episode may have been ground-breaking in this series. But even with those which weren’t quite up to snuff, with those which didn’t elevate the animation landscape, we still got so many episodes that did, and they are why the cartoon is remembered as being so important, so influential, and so gosh-darned entertaining. Them, and Batman going, “Psyyyyychic energiiiees, Alfred”. I could listen to that on repeat.

One of our establishing shots of the episode, use for a prelude which ultimately doesn’t end up being all that significant for the story. But at least the jazz was nice!

I don’t believe that we ever actually get any confirmation as to whether or not Nostromos planted this. I’m surprised an episode like this didn’t take the extra step to spell it out for us.

Uh oh, don’t let the fish drown!

Ethan and Lisa Clark. Wonder if they’ll appear past this episode.

Total Scooby Doo villain vibes.

Here are the mugshots 

These keyboard sound effects, though. Let’s get some official Batman TAS ASMR.

Batman flees the falling elevator, not falling victim to Nostromos’ plot

This was a pretty shitty fight scene.

Were you even trying to avoid that swing, Batman? He even gave you some time to react before he swung!

This was a decent shot.

Kevin Conroy’s acting was a lot of fun here. He put a tremble into Bruce’s voice that we all know is Bruce faking, but that’s only because we know better!

The most disturbing moment of Batman TAS so far. This damn smile. Especially with the way his eyes move. And you’re telling me that Bruce couldn’t hold in this smile? It’s not like he saw the camera and knew we were watching. They shoulda had him wink right at us while they were at it.

Maybe the bit that saved this episode from an F

Or maybe it was specifically this ass shot. And you say you watch Batman for the plot.

This is the shot our climax ends on. Just take it in.

This one was harder to write for some reason. Could have something to do with the fact that I’m staying in some friends’ living room and sleeping on their couch with another person over spring break. Not to mention, I have to do a lot of this typing on the floor. But I hope it gave something worth reading regardless! Here’s to a smoother review for next time. They can’t all be winners. Much like the episodes themselves. 

Char’s grade: C

Next time: Feat of Clay (Part 1) Full episode list here!

[thezippingeon]

To be the Best(Kanto): A Pokémon Fanfic Chapter 1: Brother and Sister

“Brrring, Brrring” The ringing of a telephone broke the silence of an otherwise dead quiet building. Not three rings in, and the call was answered by a purple haired woman with fiery red glasses to match her eyes and a mahogany colored business suit.

“You’ve reached Team Rocket headquarters, this is Matori speaking, how may I transfer your call?” She asked into the other line. If one was far enough way, only incoherent babbling could be heard, but Matori, keeping the receiver close to her ear listened to every word and smiled, “I’ll get him on the line as soon as possible.” Matori pressed a button on the intercom next to her and spoke into it, “Sir, you have a call from the Saffron City prison, I’m transferring it to you right now.” In what seemed like nanoseconds, Matori no longer took to the call, instead, a tall man shrouded in shadows took over, his sleek beige cat Pokémon Persian on his lap, napping away and allowing its master to stroke it.

“This is Giovanni speaking, if this is Jessie and James calling, hang up now.” The man said before a few seconds of silence. “Ah, Butch and Cassidy, my favorite cohorts, what is it you need this time? Another bail out of prison? I’d be happy to do so.” The man’s assumption was shot down as the conversation continued, “I see... yes... a marvelous idea... perhaps with that insolent child away at who knows where, we can finally get some things done around here... We’ll follow through with your plan... The Kanto region will never suspect a thing...” Giovanni chuckled darkly as he hung up and continued to pet his Persian.

“Mrrrr... Miaow...” Persian happily cooed as its master pet it affectionately.

“Soon, my pet, we’ll have all of Kanto to ourselves, everyone, that’s EVERYONE will answer to only one name: Team Rocket!”

—————————————————————

The World of Pokémon, a place filled with creatures and people of all shapes and sizes, though it may seem impossible, humans and Pokémon have been together since the dawn of time, and have grown and evolved to share the small world with which they inhabit. Some people use Pokémon to fight each other in hopes of one day becoming Pokémon Masters. Others have them as pets, and some even use them for research purposes. With 18 elemental types and over 800 creatures in the world with more being discovered day by day, the world continues to flourish and adapt to make these two species continue to coexist in harmony even amongst conflict.

In the beautiful Kalos region, a small sleepy town by the name of Vaniville received a special wake up call when a bright red and white bird Pokémon flew in from the sky and landed on the mailbox of one house, reached into its bag-like tail, and pulled out an envelope before finally depositing it into the slot of the mailbox.

A young teenage boy watched the sight in anticipation and wonder from the window on the inside. He had messy dark grey hair, almost black, and lighter grey eyes, as well as a bright yellow sweater, concealing a navy blue t-shirt underneath, which matched his pants, and black shoes to match his hair. As soon as the Pokémon deposited its mail, the boy ran outside and smiled brightly.

“Thanks, Delibird!” He shouted as he waved goodbye to the mail Pokémon

“Deli-Deli!” It cried, waving back before flying off into the horizon.

The boy excitedly opened the mailbox and saw the very same envelope Delibird had delivered, not taking into account any other letters the Pokémon may have dropped off.

“Addressed to: Francois Robin Jr...” He read as he tore open the envelope hastily, praying in his head that what he opened contained what he was so desperately waiting for. He closed his eyes tightly and reached inside. Thin pieces of paper, rectangular shaped, two by four feeling. He narrowly and slowly opened one eye... and the other one shot open in excitement when he finally unveiled the contents: two tickets for a one-way trip to the Kanto region. “Yes!” He shouted before running excitedly back inside, “Maria! Sis! Maria!” He cried as he entered his room, amongst all the Pokémon books that stood tall on his bookshelf next to his bed that had its covers cast aside to the floor, there was another bed in the same room, this one was fluffier and pure white, in contrast to Francois’s maroon red bed sheets. In the bed was a teenage girl, about Francois’s age, but perhaps a month or so younger, unlike her brother, her hair was light brown, which complimented her hazelnut eyes, and her pajamas were light pink, she had her head buried underneath her pillow and groaned.

“Frankie... What time is it...? Can’t it wait til I wake up...?” She complained groggily.

“Yeah, it could, but then we might miss our flight...” Frankie said, this comment piqued Maria’s interest as she lifted the pillow from her head and groggily stared at her brother.

“Flight? What are you talking about?” She asked with a yawn as she rubbed her eyes.

“Only... THIS!” Frankie wasted no time in shoving the tickets to Kanto right in Maria’s face, and just like that, she was wide awake and snatched one from him in awe.

“No way! They came?! For real?!” She asked

“Yeah! I got up at 6:00 just to make sure I got them the moment they arrived!”

“You got up at 6?” Maria scratched her head in confusion, “You went to sleep at 5:00 if I’m not mistaken...”

“I know! I’m really sleepy and I wanna drop dead from exhaustion right now! But I can’t and I won’t! This is too good to disrespect with a fainting spell! Maria! 14 long years of waiting... And today’s the day we finally become Pokémon trainers!”

“No fooling! I need to get ready!” Though Frankie knew Maria well as being laid back and somewhat lazy, he was happy to see her as ecstatic as he was about such an occasion. When both were infants and needed to be occupied for a bit while their parents focused on something, Frankie and Maria were sat down in front of the TV to watch official Pokémon league battles. Maria watched in intrigue, but Frankie couldn’t believe his eyes, the biggest and toughest Pokémon were what piqued his interest the most, as such a small young man, showing off with a huge Charizard or Gyarados would be sure to strike fear into opposing people’s hearts and make them think twice before messing with him.

During summer months, while Maria watched tv, exclusively Pokémon related shows be it mystery or cartoon, Frankie was reading every last bit of information on Pokémon he could. He didn’t know when exactly he would become a trainer, but he wanted to be ready for it, as such, he was able to memorize nearly all known Pokémon’s movesets, typing, evolution lines, and locations to find them, and while catching them all wasn’t a goal of his, he did want to one day stand with the best, no matter how long it took, and as a growing boy, seeing a few pretty faces here and there was a bonus to his eventual travels.

While Maria wasn’t nearly as well versed in Pokémon as her brother, her consistent viewing of Pokémon related shows opened her eyes to all the kinds of moves Pokémon could learn, and whether or not they were good, she just had to see the moves executed in real life for once.

Frankie was in the kitchen making breakfast, bacon sandwiches with fresh Moo Moo Cheese, in anticipation for Maria to make herself presentable, though the smell of delicious food attracted someone else, his father. His father was huge, dark skinned and somewhat squinty eyed, his hair was jet black like his sons, but his eyes were as brown as his daughters, the two take a lot more from their mother, who had moved to the Alola Region in the far South to pursue a more well paying job opportunity, but both sides still keep in touch, and remain loyal to each other even to this day.

“Good morning, son.” Frankie’s father said in his deep rumble voice, not too different from a Charizard’s.

“Hey, Papa, breakfast is ready!” Frankie replied, causing the older man to chuckle

“That’s my boy, ah, if your mother could see you now... and she said getting you involved in the culinary world would be a waste of time!” At this point, Frankie’s father, formally known as Mr. Robin grabbed a sandwich and helped himself to Orange Juice, “I hear Maria in the shower, is today what I think it is?”

“Yeah! I was getting a little worried, but the tickets finally came!” Frankie showed his father the tickets, who let out a booming laugh

“Good! Good! You’ve been waiting too long for this day! If you ever get to Alola, make sure you tell Mom I said Hello, and that I’m ready to cook for her once she gets home.” Mr. Robin tussled his son’s hair, earning a chuckle from him

“I will, Papa... I hope my first Pokémon will grow to be big and tough just like you! I want a Charmander! Getting to fly on the back of a huge hulking Charizard, breathing fire, striking terror into people among the mountains and on the ground, riding into battle—“

“Well, I don’t need to ask if you’re excited, I suppose! Maria must be too if she’s up this early!” At that very moment, Maria came into kitchen

“Morning bro, morning Pop!” She said, rejuvenated from her slumber. Maria donned a mahogany colored sweater with brown leggings and boots and a pair of dark purple suspenders. Her outfit complimented her brown eyes and sharp light brown hair done up in a ponytail well. “Is that breakfast I smell?”

“Sure is, better start eating up, we don’t wanna miss our flight!” Frankie said as Maria grabbed a sandwich

“Wait, you just barely got your tickets today, the day of your flight?” Mr. Robin asked

“If we’re blaming anyone, it should be the mail people” Maria said with her mouth full before swallowing, “Frankie’s been keeping updated on the delivery of the tickets ever since he ordered them.”

“I was crying two nights before thinking they’d never come in” Frankie admitted

“Well, whatever. You two best get a move on in that case. Your old man can guard the fort all by himself well enough.” Mr. Robin glanced at a Poké Ball on a shelf hanging above the kitchen cupboards, right next to it was a photo of him when he was ten years old and a small chubby blueish Pokémon, a Munchlax, and next to that picture was him a little older with his fully evolved Snorlax.

“We know, Papa...” Frankie said as he and Maria hugged their father tightly, “We’ll miss you...”

“Yeah... But you’re gonna do good, ok? Good looks ain’t the only things you took from papa, eh?” Mr. Robin asked his son as he ruffled his hair, earning a chuckle from him. “Same goes for you, Maria, it’ll be good for you to get moving around anyway.”

“Yeah... Moving around...” Maria said with a slight smirk, thinking of the pleasant thought of getting a large flying Pokémon for her to ride on when her feet got tired.

“Now I love you two very much, but you need to get out of here! Quick! Go go go go!”

“You’re right, papa! We love you too! We’ll see you later!” Frankie said as he ran in place in anticipation, followed by Maria saying,

“If we don’t come back, tell our story!”

“Don’t say that!” Frankie yelled as Maria chuckled, both rushing out the door and into town as their father smiled.

“Good luck you too...” He said before looking to the sky, wondering what their mom would say had she been there.

—————————————————————

The plane was a distant walk over to the grand Lumiose City, so Frankie And Maria had to pick up the pace as quick as possible.

“Maria, come on! Get those feet moving!” Frankie cried, his sleeplessness seemingly gone away in exchange for pure excitement, as Maria walked behind him

“I would if you slowed down!” She complained

“If I slow down we’ll miss our flight! And I’m not missing our flight! Cuz if we do, I’ll snap.”

“Still... It’ll be a while ‘til we can see Kalos again... How about we power walk and take everything in one last time?”

“Well... I suppose that’s... not a bad idea.” Frankie then turned to the wilderness that existed beyond his home town, “Don’t worry, Kalos! We’ll be exploring you soon!”

“Well said! Continue to lead the way, bro! At a slower place...”

“Yeah... sure thing...” He said with a slight blush, and with that, the two young siblings were off on their own for the very first time, expecting to see many new things. Whether it be Pokémon not native to Kalos, beautiful women and attractive men, different smells, or even the fresh tasting Kantonian air, both couldn’t be any more excited. However, their anticipation would be met with something much, much more different than anticipated...

[vilphowilpie1980-blog]

Well, I don't have any advice in finding employment under EU guidelines for foreigners, but I do have a bit of advice outside of that. It may not be a good idea to move to an area for a woman who isn't even committed to you. There are so many places in the world that you could experience. I would have done it for a baby or young who had a low probability of getting better. Like my cat, they would not have been able to understand the situation or why they were going through pain, they would not have been able to express their will to me. So why is it okay to put down a cat but not a child?. Bombs penetrated buildings, exploded inside: Here what happened at BalakotThe unprecedented Balakot strikes in Pakistan drew a deep red line for India. With its seamless operation, IAF scripted history. But the ambiguity still persists. I still on the boat that we probably getting more than the 4 LLs number that people have somewhat arbitrarily come up with. But I can still see why there is so much disdain 거제출장마사지 for his addition since it is by no means a surefire thing. The only precedent we have for Lord numbers going beyond 4 is the Vampire Counts, and there is still the (justified in my opinion) perception that a slot was wasted on the likes of Ghorst when characters like Konrad existed.. So yes, I think you should be able to pick up his badge as long as you bring the ticket confirmation and ID, although the wording is a bit unclear if the ID necessary is yours, the badge owner (your BF), or both? I hope that helps. Yeah. ReedPop customer service is pretty bad unfortunately. To ensure happiness of the couple, the Khmer fortune teller, based on the groom and bride's age, date of birth and the astrological elements, calculates the best date and time for the wedding. Based on the fortune teller's findings on numerology or astrology, offerings are made to further enhance the compatibility of the couple. Sometimes, the wedding has to be called off if the stars just can't be aligned.. I feel like the card design may be hurting its twitch representation. Games feel rather one dimensional at the moment, with an army of Midrange Play Good Cards On Curve decks dominating everything. Even with a more tier 1.5 deck like Rakano Warhelm Hit Face that I like to run, the games boil down to how much undercosted removal my opponent happened to draw. I also earn more money and don have to worry about the price tag of a particular product as much. Brands like Hourglass, ViseArt and Natasha Denona are no longer out of reach and a fun splurge that doesn cause me any financial stress. That said, I still LOVE a good bargain and research it still really fun to fall down a YouTube hole of review videos of bargain or dupe products. AlexandraGigerGrey To an extent it can be "groomed", people will enter relationships with others and commit heinous acts they would have never done alone. There are criminal cases of people who only commit petty crimes, meeting, fostering a 거제출장마사지 friendship and go on to compete very serious crimes. There are a lot of people who are easily manipulated or will do anything for approval.. This happened to me! A mentally ill homeless man showed up at my house one day saying he lived there now and he was going to get a dog and fix my house up real good. We kept telling him to leave and he kept checking out mail and dragging our trash cans to the street. Finally he decided to smash the windows out and climb into my house.

[solnishkawrites]

coffee prompt

a very belated coffee prompt for @new--wave!

prompt: a stalker enjoys a cup of tea after a long day

So, uh, holy fucking shit this is late. I’m so sorry. However, the reason it’s late is because it’s really long: 1919 words (out of what was supposed to be less than 300). I’m gonna have to put this under a cut.

*

Corporal Maksim Sirko coughed at the smells of smoldering plastic and burning oil, then gasped as he rolled onto his back. Pain gnawed at every inch of his body. He breathed heavily for several seconds before getting himself under control.

There, his helicopter—lying on her side with her tail-end just gone, her engine on fire and belching smoke, one blade broken off and two others bent… there would be no way to salvage her, absolutely none.

Maksim coughed again, then crawled to the Mi-8. His head was spinning and he felt nauseous whenever he tried to look up above a certain point in the afternoon sky. He staggered upright, leaning against the helicopter’s underbelly for support, then folded at the knees and sank back down again. He remained standing on the second try.

The pilot clawed at his helmet’s chinstrap, managing to undo it and pushing it off his head. It landed in the lush grass at his feet with a soft thud. The visor was covered with a spiderweb of cracks, and the helmet itself was dented and badly scratched. If he hadn’t been wearing it, Maksim would have been dead with a fractured skull rather than alive with a severe concussion after the crash.

The crash! Maksim’s eyes widened, and he tried to remember what had happened. He was a great pilot; his training sergeant had said he was one of the best he’d ever seen. The accident couldn’t have been caused by something as stupid as forgetting to refuel or hitting the wrong button on the console. It must have been one of those damn stalkers, either armed with an RPG, or able to decapitate his sweet girl’s rotor mast with a lucky shot, or… something.

“Hey, you!”

Maksim turned his head towards the voice and overbalanced, nearly falling. He saw a ragged figure wearing a leather jacket and carrying an SKS walking towards him.

“Fuck off!” he yelled, or tried to; his voice cracked on the last syllable.

The stalker kept walking towards him. Maksim pulled his pistol out of its holster, then realized that there was no magazine in the slot. He stared down at it, trying to figure out what to do through the fog in his brain, as the stalker closed the distance between them.

“Drop your weapon!”

Maksim hesitated, then did the sensible thing and dropped it.

The stalker jogged close and frowned. His face was dirty and splattered with freckles.

“Dude, you look like shit.”

“...Yeah,” Maksim managed.

“I’m amazed you survived the impact.”

“Yeah.”

A thought slowly crawled to the forefront of Maksim’s mind. He narrowed his eyes. “You… you shot down my Mina.”

“Mina?”

The pilot patted the helicopter. “My girl,” he said. “Mina.”

“Awww, you named it?”

Maksim snarled and stepped away from the Mi-8 to swing his fist at the grinning stalker. The stalker skipped aside and let the pilot fall onto his face in the grass.

“Tell you what: why don’t you help me carry stuff back to Sidorovich, and I won’t kill you or leave you here for the dogs. Sound good?”

Maksim rolled onto his back and stared up at the stalker. The motion made it feel as though a heavy ball was swinging around inside his head and rebounding off of his temples. He groaned, then clutched at his midsection as his stomach twisted.

“Excellent,” the stalker said. “D’you think the black box would get me any money?”

“Fzgdflargh.”

“I have no idea what that means.”

The stalker hopped onto the downed helicopter, somehow managed to open one of her side doors, and then disappeared inside. Maksim held his breath, but there was no ensuing commotion within the Mi-8. Apparently none of the special forces team he had been transporting to Dark Valley had survived the crash, or else they were too weak and/or injured to react. After what could have been either several minutes or an hour, the stalker emerged again, this time loaded down with looted AKs and military equipment.

“Catch!” he called, and tossed down several prizes. Maksim rolled out of the way in time to avoid being bludgeoned with a grenade launcher. More things followed, and the pilot took refuge behind a tree to get out of the line of fire. It was only when the sunlight was reddening with the onslaught of a summer evening that the stalker was finally satisfied that there was nothing more he wanted from the helicopter. He climbed down and began picking things up from the grass.

“C’mon,” he said. “Help me carry shit.”

Maksim felt slightly better after sitting behind the tree. He stood up, wasn’t overwhelmed with vertigo, and then helped the stalker gather up his plunder. He felt bad for helping; the man had (probably) killed Mina and by extension the team they had been carrying, as well as being a stalker of the Zone, a soldier’s natural enemy.

Soldiers are usually smart enough to remember ammunition for their pistols, though, Maksim thought with a twinge of bitterness. Yes, he was a great pilot, but he hadn’t exactly excelled in any other aspect of his training. Even concussed, he had no illusions about his ability to survive; he either helped the stalker, or else died horribly sometime tonight in an anomaly or the jaws of a pseudo-dog.

But for all that he was Maksim’s natural enemy, the stalker was decidedly friendly as they gathered up what he had looted and set off for the rookie village and Sidorovich’s bunker. He introduced himself as Gator and said he had been a manual laborer in Zhytomyr before coming to the Zone.

“I liked my military service, y’know,” he said, carrying a bulging backpack as well as five assault rifles. “And my sergeant kept telling me that I’d have a great career if I stayed, maybe even make spetsnaz—‘cept I hate being told what to do. So I fucked off back to Zhytomyr, spent a year there, got engaged, then got un-engaged when the bitch left me, and decided I didn’t want to spend my life digging ditches. I’m not smart enough to go to uni, and I like shooting guns and not paying taxes, so—” he shrugged, “—I came here. What about you?”

“My name’s Maksim,” Maksim said. “I like helicopters.”

“And?”

Maksim tried to put his life’s story in order, and then to decide which parts were and were not suitable to tell someone he had met less than a day ago who was barely an ally. He couldn’t focus on more than one or two things at once; his thoughts fled through his fingers like wisps of fog whenever he tried. He opened and closed his mouth several times, then: “...I like piloting helicopters?”

Gator snickered. “Cool, cool. Glad to see you’ve got your priorities in order.”

They reached the rookie village. Maksim had only ever seen it from above, and at ground-level the place was very different. Stalkers—ragged, dirty, and armed like Gator—squatted around a campfire, smoking and drinking, or lounged in the doorways of broken-down houses. Several of them stared at Maksim’s uniform with narrowed, suspicious eyes as he passed, but made no move to stop him as Gator waved and called out greetings to people he knew. Maksim hunched his shoulders and avoided eye contact as they followed the dirt path through the village to the bunker.

Sidorovich’s reception was no warmer than the stalkers’: “Who’s this?”

“A temporary assistant,” Gator replied. “His name is Maksim and he likes helicopters.”

The trader gave a disdainful grunt. “Stop wasting my time and show me what you’ve got.”

The rest was haggling.

Maksim didn’t pay attention. Once his pack was off his shoulders he squatted down and leaned against the wall, closing his eyes and hoping that the pounding in his head would die down. He felt sick, and more than anything wanted to lie down on a soft mattress and sleep off the remainder of his concussion. He only roused himself when the toe of Gator’s boot nudged his thigh.

“Hey,” the stalker said, “Time to go.”

Maksim got to his feet and followed the stalker back up the stairs. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed in the bunker, but the sun had slipped halfway behind the horizon when they emerged and the twilight was deepening into true night. He could hear crickets chirping and smell the woodsmoke of the stalkers’ campfire drifting lazily through the warm, humid air.

Gator stopped short of the village and shifted his weight onto one foot, staring up at the sky with its first faint suggestions of stars and scratching the back of his neck with one hand. He chewed his lip for a moment before looking back down at Maksim.

“So,” the stalker said. “So, uh, you just go east a bit over the ridge and find the road, and then follow it south… the checkpoint will be right there, with your people.”

“Thanks,” Maksim said.

A boar gave a deep, grunting bellow somewhere nearby, the noise echoing through the trees. Something else screamed in response, but was abruptly cut off.

“Or…” Gator continued slowly, avoiding eye contact with the pilot. He was scratching the back of his neck again. “Or you could spend the night here and not get eaten. I mean, you’re not armed, so it would be safest to wait until daylight.”

“So you want me to stay… here? In the village?”

“Yeah.”

Maksim glanced towards the east, towards the road that would take him both to safety and to an enraged boar. He was tired, sick, and rather doubted he would be able to outrun a mutated pig.

“If I stay, what’s the likelihood of your people killing me in my sleep?”

“Pretty low, s’long as I’m with you.”

Maksim tried to think for a moment, then gave up and shrugged. “Okay.”

Gator finally looked the pilot in the eye. He was grinning now, and one of his front teeth was chipped. “Awesome!” he said.

None of the stalkers looked pleased, however, when Maksim followed Gator into the village a second time, and several of them scowled outright when the pilot squatted down in an empty place in front of their fire. Gator flopped down beside him, lit a cigarette in the flames, and used his teeth to pull back the fastener on a tin of… something that smelled like fish and vinegar. Gator picked out pieces of it and popped them into his mouth between puffs on his cigarette, and Maksim stared at the ground in front of him and tried not to throw up from the stench.

Time passed. The moon rose and the stars came out. The campfire grew less crowded as stalkers drifted off to their sleeping places. Maksim jumped when Gator nudged him.

“Here,” the stalker said, and shoved a mug of tea into his hands.

Maksim mumbled something that resembled a thank-you. He raised the mug to his face and sniffed once—lemon. He drank, feeling warmth curl in his stomach. The nausea subsided a bit. He closed his eyes, and his shoulders sagged as the tension drained out of his body.

Gator cautiously put an arm around him, edging closer. Maksim took another drink of the tea, letting himself be pulled flush against the stalker’s side, leaning on him.

“So,” Gator said softly, “I was thinking just… well, I was thinking that maybe, if, you know, you wanted to stay…”

Maksim was already asleep on his shoulder.

[tumblunni]

Another patented Bunni Brand Random Game Idea I Will Probably Never Actually Make(tm) Guess what, its another pet raising game! Why am i so obsessed with these! Maybe because there AREN’T ENOUGH GOOD ONES and I DESPERATELY NEED THEM, YO

Anyway, the theme of this one is kinda S.C.P-esque? Not actually set in that series since I haven’t read much of it and I’m a huge wimp for psychological horror anyway. But I mean its set in a vaguely similar “organization for paranormal creatures” type of setting. The idea I had was “an artificially created god”. The facility only has one monster in it, and it’s like a homunculus they created themselves and are struggling to control. Flew too close to the sun! The aim of making this creature was to try and make an angel, or a channeler, or just something that can bridge the gap between life and death and answer our questions about what the afterlife really is. But they failed to think about the mental strain on the creature, they basically took a child and poured all of infinity into its head! Plus it doesn’t even know how to interpret any of this stuff, or explain it to humans. It has no perspective on any life other than this, so like... “what? I didn’t mention that cos I thought everyone already knew!” Or when its asked to predict the future it doesn’t know what any of these things mean since it’s never seen the outside world- “people will fall” could mean a mass death from disease, a literal death from an earthquake, one person tripping in france, or even just “my dolls fell off the shelf”. This small room is this creature’s entire world, how is it meant to know that you don’t consider the dolls equally important?

So, anyway, the player’s perspective in all this would be as... the janitor! Well, former janitor turned caretaker for a terrifying oracle child. How did this happen to meeeee?! Sort of an accident happened and the creature imprinted on the first person it saw when it was born. And the researchers are WAAAAAY less equipped to control it than they expected! All their containment facilities failed, which led to it getting far enough away from the lab that it bumped into this janitor in the first place. He was just a hapless dude sweeping the fakey harmless business exterior of the place, completely uninitiated into the true purpose of the place. Until someday some baby monster came flying through the wall and somehow it ended in a hug??? Now he’s their only method of (at least temporarily) containing the monster. For some reason it seems to be bound by oaths and words, if its “father” orders it not to do something then it obeys. Sit here in this room and don’t leave, don’t hurt any humans, stop breaking all the locks and bars just to boast that you can, it really demoralizes our staff! But it’s always searching for loopholes to someday escape. That would be exceptionally dangerous- humans are a fun toy to play with, and it doesn’t understand why you can’t fix them when they break...

So yeah, thats why this random ordinary man has now been forcibly initiated into a high position in this organization, and Has No Choice In The Matter. He has a huge amount of power as the only one able to control the beast, but also zero power in the organization as the latest noob and totally unqualified candidate. And they can’t kill him cos they need his power, but they can always torture him until he cooperates... (”We’d really rather NOT do that though, it would be such a waste of resources~”) Also this guy’s personality is just a super shy and anxious Good Dad who wouldn’t have the courage to be able to pull off a daring escape even if he had the opportunity. He’s sorta spent his whole life already just saying “ok” to everyone bullying him, this is no different. I was imagining this story as maybe a place to put the Iggy character I created for that random lets play, cos I’ve grown pretty attatched to him! Or maybe it could just be a similarly adorable shy dad, or another gender even? I was just thinking that a short round huggable parent is what this story needs, so Iggy is the perfect puzzle piece to slot into it~

So you’d spend every day selecting between different options to try and parent up your new monster child, similar to stuff like Princess Maker. The goal of the organization is to make them more obedient and find ways to make use of their powers to profit humanity. But the protagonist’s personal goal is just to show the monster love like a normal child, prove that it can live peacefully with humans someday. You have to balance these goals, otherwise if this whole project is deemed unprofitable the higher ups might just trash this monster and build another... And then in-between all this you’d get scenes of the protag being generally bossed around by the higher-ups, and learn more about this organization and how to operate within it. You can potentially expand your protagonist’s skills too, form relationships with your coworkers, and navigate a complex web of lies to eventually find some way to escape...

Though I think that the “just escape” ending would probably be the bad one, cos without you they have no way to control the oracle child. It’d be the ending of sacrificing everybody to save yourself, and spending forever on the run as you keep hearing of the cities destroyed by this monster trying to track you down. Of course, the ending where the two of you escape together and become a real family would be way more positive, but you’d need to complete your quest to earn the monster’s love and socialize it and etc first. Possible other endings: Go full organization and get sucked into their perspective of seeing this thing as just a thing. Stop caring about the monster child, treat it like shit, and experience success in your new job! Be a mindless yes man! Live happily ever after! :( Alternatively, maybe you can end up synmpathising TOO MUCH with the monster child? Instead of convincing them of the virtues of humanity, the general assholeishness of the organization makes you lose faith in it. But what would even happen if you refuse to cooperate with your orders? Maybe even could end up as just another monster locked up in this facility, and forget you were ever human :(

And then for the oracle child itself, I actually have no clue what kind of design I’d like to give to them? i was initially thinking a very humanoid one, cos it’d be creepy to have a creature that looks human but doesn’t act it, and everybody treats them like a mere object that’s never gonna be capable of real sentient thought. But then I’m also kinda like “ehh maybe people would be dissappointed the design isn’t a more monsterous monster child”. And I’m not sure exactly what sort of humanoid design I want, even? Their powers were meant to be mostly like psychic and such, so maybe a big ol monster eye in the middle of the forehead. I want something that’s at least a little bit spooky but can also be cute once you get to know them. Oh, and all I know about their gender is that I definately don’t want them to actually be a “them”, yknow? Nonbinary characters only ever being non-human is a weird trope in fiction. Its like the only representation we’re allowed to get is stuff that reinforces that we don’t exist in real life, both as an intentional and unintentional message. So yeah if there’s gonna be any Characters That Are Like Me in this story, they’d be one of the human characters. The kid will be a boy or a girl, even though I’m using “they” here until I decide it. Also i don’t know whether they’d be a formerly human child who was experimented upon to give them powers thus “oh no organization is evil cos they did that to an innocent”, or they were just created out of nothing like a homunculus and have always been a monster. That would lose that establishing aspect for the organization, but it would perhaps be an even more powerful metaphor for like.. love and stuff. This kid is worth loving not JUST because “there’s some human in them, deep down”, but because they’re an innocent and they’re a sentient being, and them just not being human isn’t a justification to treat them like an object. Anyway! Their personality! They’re just as innocent and have as much potential for goodness as a normal child, even though they seem scary at first. And they don’t understand humanity very much, and nobody’s ever really shown them kindness before or tried to teach them morality, so why would they know what it is? Its not like they’re intentionally being “evil” though, if they understood the consequences of their actions properly it would destroy them.

I was actually thinking of a particular potential scene where they temporarily escape and cause some chaos. It would initially be like “oh god they really are evil and you were stupid to trust them”, because you see that they killed a guard during their escape. And the guard would be one of the few nice npcs in this evil organization, and someone the child seemed to be developing a friendship with. It would be a REAL punch in the gut! So now you’re not trusting this kid anymore, yet you still have to come to work the next day and pretend like nothing’s wrong. And the kid acts like nothing’s wrong too, they don’t seem to comprehend why you’d be angry or upset, reinforcing the perception that they must be pure evil at heart. And its just a really awkward, messed up day at work, for the first time feeling like you’re being held hostage taking care of some dangerous monster that doesn’t care about you, even though that’s what they told you on the first day of the job... And then.. at the end of the day... they ask you when their friend is coming back. And you realize that they don’t even understand what they’ve done. Nobody bothered to explain death to them. They don’t understand that these “toys” can’t be fixed when they break. Possibly even a super creepy scene at some other point where their arm gets ripped off in an accident and you have to sew it back on, to establish that this homunculus creature is super hard to kill? Also i was thinking that.. well its not like they can’t understand pain, its just that they feel so much pain constantly that the minor additional pain when they take physical damage doesn’t matter enough to notice. You have to try and explain the concept by being like “you know that thing you feel 24/7 when your power is overloading and it burns inside your head? Other people feel that when their arms fall off.” And also maybe they have trouble understanding their own powers? Like, they have to learn to be able to turn the oracle visions on and off at will, initially they just happen at random and the kid can’t choose what they look at. They don’t even know if its from the past or the future, or how far in the future its gonna be, or what it’s about or who its happening to. And sometimes they don’t even realize they’re in a vision, so it’s hard to understand the consequence of your actions when you might have been seeing the events out of order. Also imagine the kid being like “you lied! you said they went somewhere where they weren’t coming back but I just saw them!”, but then they realise that their friend was just repeating stuff that they’d already said, and nobody else saw them there. So they realise that it was just a vision, and it really is true. Maybe they just go catatonic for a few days and try and live forever in the past, only waking up when they’ve finally managed to come to terms with the meaning of death... :( Or maybe they break out of their cell and run to the morgue and summon up every ounce of their power, try EVERYTHING to wake up the guard, and finally break down crying for the first time in their entire life when it doesn’t work. And imagine how SCARED they’d be to see a corpse! They ran down here expecting to see their friend just sleeping, and they see this cold and empty doll that doesn’t even look like them anymore... :(

Also, less depressingly, I was thinking of endearing moments where the kid’s emotionless facade would break in the rare event you’re able to show them true happiness. Like for example, their everyday life is just sitting here in this cagey room with barely anything to distract them from the boredom. They only even have a sparsely occupied bookcase because the organization was like “ugh, if it’ll make the thing more cooperative i guess we HAVE to”. And so the kid has just obsessively devoured those two or three textbooks, and one day comes to you like “So when is the test?” They’ve read the books hundreds of times and memorized everything right down to the punctuation and spelling mistakes. And they don’t even understand the CONCEPT of recreation, because every day is just testing. If these books were here, there must have been a purpose, right? When are you going to test me on them? Hell, they might even get a bit pissed off when you say there’s no test, cos those books weren’t even fun and the only hope they had of some minor enjoyment was the mystery of the test at the end. So then you introduce them to STORY BOOKS and they’re like HOLY SHIT WHY DID NOBODY TELL ME THIS WAS A POSSIBILITY.

And you find a lot of trouble trying to explain the outside world to them, when the idea of “grass” and “sky” just seems so ridiculous. So you go get a carpet swatch for the sake of comparison, and you find out the kid hasn’t even ever experienced THAT! Imagine them going totally nuts, like this thing is goddamn catnip. MY PERCEPTION OF LIFE IS EXPANDED BY THIS CARPET SWATCH! Imagine the protag convincing the scientists to put a carpeted floor on their cell, and the kid just being so impossibly happy that they never stop rolling around on it. “Goddamnit we can’t predict the future if our secret weapon is doing floor cartwheels for two straight weeks” (Relateable note: I literally feel this way as an autistic adult. For some reason carpet swatches work as a low budget stim toy for my stupid brain XD Also jam is like the opposite to carpet. if even the tiniest drop of jam lands on my hand, the grossness freaks me out so much that I can’t concentrate at all until i scrub my hand to death. Even if i wipe it off I can still feel it!!)

Oh, and its also surprisingly endearing to imagine when Creepy Moments intersect with these cute scenes! Like, moments where the kid is being pure and innocent but also reminds you they’re a monster. Getting too excited by a new toy and causing everything to levitate around in a tornado of poltergeist activity! Or, maybe moments where the kid is trying to say something completely normal and cute, but it accidentally gets misunderstood as creepy cos of their social inexperience? “Father I have the SKIN HUNGER.” = “Yknow that feeling when you really want a hug, but I don’t know the word for a hug cos none of these science guys ever show any affection.” The closest thing the kid has as a reference is being picked up and carried to the latest testing room when they refuse to walk there on their own, so sometimes they misbehave on purpose to experience this almost-hug. Tho having a hug with a hazmat suit guy while locked up in handcuffs isn’t really all that enjoyable, the scientists wouldn’t dare touch monster-kid without eighty billion protections. Actually, having a hug could be a really monumental moment, like a milestone for both of you. Kid understands humans enough to be able to vocalize this wish, and trusts you enough to think you’d give a different answer to the scientists who always say no. And you’ve overcome your fear of the big ol scary monster enough to hold them, and you’ve grown to understand them enough that you can figure out what they want when they’re not able to explain it well. And then it could be super sad and heartwarming cos when you have them in your arms you realise how fragile and thin they are, how much pain they must be in from their shaky breathing, maybe you can even see scars you never noticed on their scalp from all the experiments...

And probably there’d be a lot of other scenes like this, where all of their “creepy” actions can be linked to a misunderstanding or a cry for help, and you can always resolve it and help them become more human. It would help make the scene of them accidentally killing someone be even more of a misdirect, like “oh my god, was I wrong this entire time and they really are evil?” But at the same time you’d also have more reason to want to hear them out, even when the situation looks impossible to explain. And it would be even sadder that this time the “and in the end they learn to be more human” part would be learning something horrible, a part of life that’s just going to make them suffer more. :( And speaking of which, the protagonist would also have to develop away from his initial optimism, kinda? Like, the bad result is where the job makes him become more jaded and he eventually becomes an asshole just like everybody else in this organization. But the good result would be becoming jaded in a different way. Becoming less oblivious and naive, aknowledging that evil exists in this world. And addressing his blind cliche optimism, and replacing it with like.. actual real optimism that he came to out of his own free will. Like not just being nice cos you’re too scared to argue with people, but also being brave enough to stand up and say that something is wrong even when you’re scared of arguing! And also reexamining his rather cliche views on good and evil. This job has also been showing him how evil humans can be, as well as how innocent this monster is. Maybe its wrong to look at it as “I’m teaching them to become more human”...?

...anyway i have a lot of ideas for this idea, lol sorry this post is so long

[theceoofrusa]

Uh… I’ve already published this short frantic fanfic on my FFN and AO3 accounts, but to those who didn’t have any… here it is.

Well, of course, this is not my idea. It was all @trimystic‘s idea. I own nothing but the story. Not the characters, the franchise or the idea, but the story. Hehe. ^^’

(Also, please I beg of you check out Mystic’s art. Hehe. They’re beautiful. ^^)

Every arcade had its story.

Ruby recalled one of the films he had seen with Sapphire a year ago.

It was about the protagonist was an arcade villain who wanted to be a hero, because of his tragic life outside his video game. A heated argument caused the protagonist to abandon his own video, hoping to prove that villains can be a hero. The film’s plot lead the protagonist to end up accepting himself as the villain of the game, but a good guy underneath and outside his own game. It was a great film, really. It made Ruby realized something.

It was quite ironic once he thought about it.

The film’s main theme was about accepting yourself, either be the good or the bad side of yourself, it was a part of you as a person in a whole.

He had a hard time accepting himself, honestly. He did lose Sapphire because of his aggressive side when they were younger, and thus, changing himself for her. But in the end, she accepted him for who he was and he learned that maybe it wasn’t bad to be himself. Sapphire accepted him and his flaws, and he learned to slowly yet surely to do so.

It wasn’t just Ruby who realized something from that film. Sapphire did learn a lot from it too. She quite related herself to the protagonist, knowing what it felt like to be left out and not accepting themselves.

In the end, both loved and enjoyed the film, and it was all thanks to their younger friend, Diamond, for recommending that film to them. Diamond’s taste for films may be different from all the Pokedex holders, but he surely knew the best ones.

“Maybe we should take turns.” Sapphire said, inserting a coin into the slot. She turned around, looking at her boyfriend. “You know, so we could play the game peacefully.”

Ruby smiled, gently shaking his head. “We could do it together. Besides,” He pushed the button, scanning his surroundings. He saw five people watching them with their arms folded across their chests. Their eyes were locked on them. “I think a lot of people wanted to play, so it’s best we should play it together.”

Sapphire sighed and nodded. She bit her lip, her cute, left fang popping out from it. Judging the environment’s annoying noises, especially the ones behind them, it really was best for them to play the game together. Besides, she wanted to finish this game and leave the arcade at once. It was getting too noisy and uncomfortable anyway.

“Heads up.” Ruby went behind her, giving her all the time and space to grab the ball and shoot it in the basket.

Sapphire watched five balls roll and approach her as the game’s timer started counting down. She grabbed one, and tossed it in the basket.

Three points!

She smiled. That was her first shoot and she already scored three points. She had a good feeling about this. She grabbed another ball, and tossed in the basket, gaining two points.

The process continued.

She grabbed a ball, tossed it in the basket and gained two or three points.

She was getting good at this. She was enjoying this. Now she understood why this game had a long line.

It was a ridiculous game of grabbing a ball, shooting it in the basket, gaining points and releasing all your stress, all in one game. It was definitely fun.

She felt some sweat trailing down on her forehead due to her excessive throwing of the balls. She took a deep breath, taking a glance at the scoreboard.

The highest score was three hundred and their score was two hundred seventy.

They have thirty points left to tie their score. She had this sudden urge to beat it. “Do ya think we could beat the score?”

“Hm?” Ruby looked at her, taking a glance at the scoreboard. His eyes widened in shock.

Their score was two hundred seventy seven. They were close to tying with the highest score. He could feel Sapphire’s determination, and he would definitely not let this chance go to waste. Beating the highest score together did have a nice ring to it.

“Let’s do it.” He responded, smiling. Determination struck in his eyes.

Sapphire threw another ball into the basket, then turned around to give him a smile. Her cute fangs sticking out from her top lip as determination slowly built into her eyes. “Roughly twenty points left.”

Ruby gave her a wink, going behind her. “We’re close to beating it.”

Sapphire nodded, grabbing another ball, tossing it into the basket.

They gained another three points, with a minute left before their game ends.

Ruby grabbed a ball, his arm gently brushed against her waist, tossing it into the basket, gaining another two points. He swallowed hard. They had a minute left, but how come his heart was beating fast? He took a deep breath in hopes to calm his fast heartbeat, grabbing another ball.

Sapphire felt his arms brushed against her waist, her heart started thumping wildly at his soft, warm touch. She felt heat rising up on her cheeks, but chose to ignore it and focused on the task at hand. How come she just felt it? They had been playing the game for three minutes, and she just felt his comfortable, warm touch. Was it because of their small conversation earlier?

She sighed, grabbing another ball, feeling Ruby’s hand brushed against hers when they took the same ball. Her flustered eyes met his.

Three…

She noticed how flustered his eyes were.

Two…

She could perfectly tell he was flustered and sorry at his sudden act.

One…

She understood him, nonetheless. They were too focused on beating the highest score and failed to notice their proximity. Everyone had their own businesses in the arcade, so she hoped no one saw them.

Game over!

After a moment at staring into each other’s eyes, the buzzer interrupted them, telling them their time was up.

Sapphire swallowed hard, stepping away from him. That was slightly embarrassing. She hoped no one saw them. She looked at the scoreboard and sighed.

Their score was two hundred eighty eight. They were close in beating the high score. She wondered if she her flustered thoughts didn’t bother her. There might be a chance in beating that score.

“Hey, your time is up, lovebirds. I wanna play!” A kid yelled, grabbing their attentions. The couple looked at the youngster, who’s roughly about fourteen years old, placing a coin in the slot. “Just watch me beat the score! Your lovey dovey power of love is no match for my awesomeness!”

Sapphire’s cheeks increased its temperature. She lowered her head, hiding it using her fringed bangs. She swallowed hard. Yes, she and Ruby were a couple, but the kid didn’t need to say it loudly. It was embarrassing if someone heard it.

Ruby released a sigh, placing his left hand on his forehead in hopes to hide the growing blush on his cheeks. Why did that kid call them that? It was flattering, but it might embarrass Sapphire. And he didn’t want that. “Let’s get out of here.” He offered his hand at his girlfriend to which she accepted. He intertwined their fingers together and gently dragged her away from the arcade’s loud environment.

Truly, every arcade game had its story. Theirs was one of a kind.