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docholligay · 2 years

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The Snow Queen, Part Two: A Wedding Invitation

If it was cold, something of it failed to reach into Usagi’s soul, bright as she was, and it was this particular quality that had drawn Seiya to her, a light in even the darkest of evenings. Seiya admitted she had been clumsy about it, at first, teasing and jesting and thinking she liked it all in protest. She had behaved like a schoolboy, and Usagi still poked at her over it all these years later, even as they prepared to marry, but it was always with that wink and a tease all her own. She was privately pleased she had caused Seiya to trip over herself.

Winter was entrenched, the winds whipping around the edges of the little shop where Seiya closed up for the night, though their songs hardly overcame the one Seiya held in her heart. The first of Summer. That was when they would be married. Usagi would be walking home now, having closed up the bakery and taking a few day old loaves to pick apart and scatter for the birds and squirrels as she walked. She worried about them, when Winter came and sat over the land. It was part of her charm, to love things others overlooked.

She pulled on the poorly but lovingly knit hat with the large pom pom onto her head, and headed down toward the center of town where Usagi would be, without question.

Seiya wished, somehow, that she was more the fascinating creature Usagi always acted like she was. She could carry a tune, and sometimes did, in the tavern where they went for a warm drink and a shared meal, and she was successful enough in her little business venture but at the end of the day, Seiya was only a chandler, and Usagi a little baker. It was only Usagi’s eye that made it anything more beautiful.

And, as she predicted, Usagi was standing in the square by the fountain, tearing off bits of pastry and tossing them to the birds and squirrels that surrounded the cool white stone, chatting to them about her day as she did so.

“How was Mr. Squirrel’s day?” Seiya sidled up next to her, grinning brightly.

Usagi looked up at her and wrinkled her nose in a delighted smile. “He said it was so much better now that he isn’t hungry.”

“I bet it is.” Seiya slung her bag over her shoulder and looked up at the old fountain, four goddesses standing in the center of it, posed in celebration. Mako, Seiya remembered, with flowers growing and twisting about her skirt and up into her hands, Rei, moving the cool rainy air along, leaves trapped in its tie. And then there were the two seasons that currently reigned: Minako, weaving the summer sun, and Michiru, dancing lace falling from her hands.

“I bet that’ll be beautiful when Spring comes.” Usgi chirped.

Seiya had not realized she’d been looking at the fountain for so long. It had not flowed any day of Seiya’s life, either frozen in Winter, or water too precious in the overhot Summer. In the cold bright of falling night, it seemed to gleam, not so much like a diamond as like the edge of a knife, long and cold.

She broke her gaze from the fountain.

“Usagi, Spring is a myth,” Seiya laughed, “I think it’s just something old people say, like how young people used to be more respectful, or berries used to be sweeter.”

Usagi shook her head. “My great grandma used to say when she was a little girl, she remembered there were whole months where it was cool in the morning, but warm in the afternoon, and the rain was soft, and it didn’t thunder when it came. She was telling the truth!” She narrowed her eyes. “How dare you think GamGam would lie to me, Seiya!”

She picked up a fistful of snow and threw it in an asymmetrical ball at Seiya who raised her hands but did not dodge, letting it puff off of her coat.

“Okay, okay!” She chuckled as she brushed herself off, “You win. Spring WAS real,” she gave a little bow to Usagi, “But it doesn’t really matter now. It won’t come again.”

Usagi looked to the cold black of the sky, dotted with little points of bright light, though no moon appeared.

“Someday Mako will come back.” the snowflakes fell into her hair, “Someday there’ll be Spring.”

“Oh, we believe in the goddesses, too?” Seiya arched an eyebrow.

It was a silly question--Seiya knew very well that Usagi was one of a fading group that believed the back and forth of Winter and Summer, in all its violence, was those old goddesses raging at each other. But Seiya loved to tease her nearly as much as she loved her. Usagi was a believer in many things, and for however little Seiya could believe in the Goddesses of the four winds, she could believe in the thing that Usagi was. That creature of belief.

Usagi crossed her arms and closed her eyes, sticking her nose in the air and taking her part in the pantomime.

“Someday she’ll come back. You’ll see. Maybe,” she grinned at Seiya, teasing now as well, “I’ll ask her to come back myself.”

Seiya’s laugh was loud and appreciative now. “Why don’t you tell Michiru to take it easy while you’re at it?”

Now it was Usagi’s turn to laugh, imagining that she could say anything to that great queen of Winter, intimidating even in the stories her grandmother told, first made into lace at the edge of her gown, eyes sharp and breath blowing huffs of vapor into the air.

Even as she laughed, she looked over to the river, cold and hard now, dead and still.

“I wonder if she knew it was an accident.”

She said this as though it were quite settled, and she had spoken to the river itself to confirm. We, of course, know the end to this story, and know that love must, in time, melt all things as does the dawn on a night’s frost, but Usagi and Seiya standing in the cold, could not have know this. It is hard to see the facts of a mater when all things could be true.

“Who?” Seiya had already moved on from the conversation, imagining only how she was going to convince Usagi to stop by the little pub instead of going straight home, eager to see her cheeks pink with the only roses Seiya saw in Winter, as she sipped the sweet hot ceyser.

“Michiru,” her eyes were still on the river, “you know the story. Gamgam said Mako tried to tell Michiru that it was an accident, that the river had only been playing, and she fell.”

Of course Seiya knew the story, just as well you do, but even if she believed it, the version of the story she had heard, Rei having been their patroness back when her family believed in such things--there was only her grandfather now--was that her lover had jumped in, a careless and headstrong fool who had seen a glittering thing at the bottom of the river, and not realized that Michiru cared not for the sort of things she could weave at the edge of her fingers. She had jumped in over her head and drowned

But Usagi could not see it that way, because Usagi believed in kindness and in beauty, truly a representative of the people of Spring, a time that would never come again and maybe never had, sure as Seiya’s Fall.

Seiya shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. If she exists--” she tried to let the word rest on her tongue decisively but kindly, “--then she wouldn’t care anyway. Usagi,” Seiya found herself suddenly wishing for a change of topic, “Why don’t you stop by The Acorn and Bloom with me? I’ll buy, even”

She flashed a winning smile, glittering harder than the river and pulling Usagi’s attention back. Usagi smiled slyly, in that way that indicated she had already said yes, but meant to play about it, in the old ways they had teased before they fell in love.

“Well, I don’t know,” she said, “I don’t know if I want to drink with people who don’t believe in Spring.”

She put her bag behind her back with both hands and put her nose in the air, pretending at being a princess she could not yet even know the sight of.

“I don’t need to believe in Spring,” Seiya rested her chin on Usagi’s shoulder and kissed her cheek, “I believe in you.”

Usagi smiled, though she tried not to, and looked at Seiya. “Well, you’re buying.”

Seiya flashed a few coins, and took her hand.

***

The Acorn and Bloom was small and cozy, covered in the dark woods of the forest, sconces against the way casting playful shadows that danced against the the brown whorls and eddies of the wood. The fire was at full height, crackling and popping along with the merry sounds of the violin and drum that played from the corner, the buzz of the crowd chatting amongst themselves a warm rhythm in the background.

Now, when I say that these times were different, and much harder, that the people lived between the fire and the freeze, all of these things are true, but it is not true that a life lived in difficulty is always a life lived in misery. The people of this place, even then, had stories and songs and warmth, and these are the things that keep people every bit as much as a fair season. And basking in the comfort of this joy were Usagi and Seiya, drinking cupfuls of hot ceyser in the corner, a large pie between them smelling richly of onions and stewed meat.

Usagi knew she should have gone home. Soon it would be time for her to get up and open the family bakery, passing her brother as he came home from doing the baking, Usagi putting her hair up in bright pigtails before she served her customers, boxes ready for her favorite clients who came in every day. That sun would peek over the hillside all too early, throwing rainbows off the cold snow into the sky.

Even Winter was beautiful, she thought.

But in the moment, it did not seem to matter. Seiya was growing tipsy, but with pleasantness, and the night was cozy and full, and tomorrow’s problems were for tomorrow’s Usagi.

Seiya took another deep swig of the ceyser and reached her hand across the table to Usagi.

“Dance with me!”

Not waiting for an answer, she swept her onto the floor, leading her about confidently as the music continued around them, in perfect step with the other dancers, all whirling about the floor like the snowflakes that fell outside. Seiya spun her and she laughed as she fell half-clumsily into Seiya’s arms, easily caught as thought she weighed nothing at all, her cheeks pink and the warmth of the fire caressing her gently.

The music stopped, and Seiya kissed her deeply, and Usagi thought herself perhaps the luckiest girl in all the world.

Now, of course, we know that she was not, for stories are not told about the luckiest among us. For it is true luck never to have adversity scratch at the door, to never know such fear that you must gather your courage, to never have a single thing to overcome. Greatness is not bestowed, my dears, it is clawed out of the ground in the cold and damp.

But Usagi still thought herself lucky, and as to yet, there was nothing in the world that should have made her think any different.

A man chuckled at the two of them kindly, and raised his glass.

“Don’t let the Winter Witch see you two so hell-fired happy, or she’ll put a stop to that, mind you.”

He meant nothing by it, one of those things people say offhandedly, only meaning to comment on the radiance of their joy against the winter’s chill, and he would feel regret for the rest of his life at how one careless thought became several, and how several became a journey and war laid at the feet of a chubby blonde baker.

Seiya’s eyes narrowed, emboldened by the geyser, and she gave a low chuff.

“If she wants to come, let her come. Let her come here! Let her come to our wedding! I don't care.”

The statement settled all talk in the pub, the only sound now the whispers of the snow and cold outside. This only seemed to make her more brave, or make think that she had to seem so, and she smiled.

“If the big scary Snow Queen, Winter Witch, Michiru, whatever her name is, wants to come and try to get between me and Usagi,” She held Usagi’s hand more tightly. ‘Let her try. You know what I’d do?”

She grinned at Usagi. Seiya was playing, Seiya was joking, saying was being a bit of an ass and a braggart in the way she always was, and everyone knew she never meant harm, but Usagi felt a deep pit in her stomach open.

“I’d throw her in the fire and melt that witch’s cold heart into a puddle and drink it.”

It was bold and it was coarse, and it stayed the crowd for a moment in silence. The music held, no one spoke, even the scents of the food seemed to quiet as the claim held in the air.

And then.

“Kou, quick question, do you ever shut up?”

And with peals of laughter, including from Seiya herself, the room settled back into its merry mood, the violinist struck up again with a peppy tune, and Seiya accepted a warm mug gratefully. Usagi shook her head, reminding herself to bring Seiya a raisin roll and a dose of chiding the next morning. Silly girl.

The music reached higher, and the wind outside began to gale harder and harder against the sides of the pub, screeching as it whipped around the sides of the building. The conversation went on, and the music, but Usagi felt a cold come into her bones that was not from the windows, and not from the sill of the door.

The door burst open, the cold wind behind it, stopping all conversation and dancing, still as statues, staring at the flung open door, the one with the stiff catch to guard against the cold.

The wind stopped.

The wind stopped, and frost began to creep, winding and turning delicate loops and elegant weaves across the dark floor. The eyes of the pub did not move as it slowly wound its way, stopping here and there before moving on, branches of it investigating dark corners like a vine. The frost seemed untouched by the warmth of the room, glittering brightly in the firelight until each tendril began to turn and move its way over to Seiya Kou.

Usagi tried to stand in front of her as they came, and Seiya held her tightly as the room could only be held in rapt attention, until finally the delicate cursive invitations of a language held deep in mystery and shadow reached the feet of Seiya Kou.

Not a single breath was taken in the pub. A pause. Silence reigned. The wind did not howl, the wood did not creak, no bird dared speak a word as they watched the frost at her feet.

Then there was a great puff of air, and a great burst of cold, and every candle on the walls and on each table went out, daggers of ice sent into the fire, plunging the room into a cold, smoky darkness. There was the sound of shattering as glasses of beer or ceyser or mulled wine exploded in warm hands, the pot of soup froze solid in the kitchen, and every soul breathed fog into the air.

The onslaught stopped as soon as it began, snow and ice and wind whirling out the front door and slamming it closed, leaving only the darkness.

Usagi felt for Seiya, worried she might be gone, but her hand was there just the same, her eyes wide in the moonlight. Someone struck a match and lit a candle, casting shadows against the wall, though this time, they stood still. The dancing had ceased.

In the darkness, a voice like the tinkling of sleigh bells.

“Arrogant fool.”

#I'll have the third part finished this month

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icedmetaltea · 2 years

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🤥👪😨💤🌙🍁🌌(I honest to god can't find it but the mouse trap question)👑📎 (Idk your character/s yet so go wild!)

For this, I decided to go with my edgelord teenage oc, Allie (she/her)

🤥 LYING - are they good liars? do they have tells to show they're lying? - She's pretty average honestly, but lies a lot around people she doesn't know well since she's got trust issues galore

👪 FAMILY - what is their family like? what is your ocs relationship to them? does your oc have any siblings? - She has a biological mom (who is a complete asshole) but later acquires an actual mom through the magical process of found family~ No siblings

😨 FEARFUL - when scared, do they go into "flight" or "fight"? - She definitely goes into flight but pretends to be in fight mode, acting all tough n shit

💤 SLEEPING - do they fall asleep easily? what helps them sleep? - At least at the beginning of my non-existent story, no. Since she grew up in a city, white noise like cars and rain help a lot.

🌙 MOON - what is your oc's greatest wish? how far are they willing to go for it? - Honestly? I don't think even she knows. She wants to escape but there are so many things to escape from that at a certain point she just wants to go anywhere, do anything, in hopes that she'll find a way out of this shitty headspace ya feel

🍁 MAPLE LEAF - what is their favourite season? why? - She doesn't really have a concept of seasons till later in said story since she grew up in a cyberpunk dystopia, but I'd say Summer and/or Winter, since after growing up in such temperature-controlled environments it's a huge relief to get to feel intense things like freezing temps or get sunburns.

🌌 MILKY WAY - what was the inspiration behind your oc? what was the first thing you decided about them? - I came up with her when I was- big surprise- also an edgy teen. Looking back, I can see why I needed to project into her so badly. She has mega mommy issues, and I was constantly having fights with my mom at the time, so it was an outlet for me to get some escapism from that. The first thing I decided was they were gonna have a happy ending lol.

👑 CROWN - what does your oc want to be remembered as? why? - She doesn't really want to be remembered by anyone aside from those she loves, mostly cause of mounds of self-esteem issues (which she's slowly working on)

📎 PAPERCLIP - a random fact. - Her super asymmetrical hair was inspired by the fact that I really wanted short hair at the time but didn't want to look too "boyish" (before my dumbass realized I was nonbinary) cause my mom would lose her shit if I cut it short

Bonus: (Allie on the right)

#Metaltea Talks #Thanks so much for the questions!!#*Gives u a glow worm #Yes that's an inside reference #Pls do not eat or let it bite u #Ask game #Oc talk

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how-to-do-it-better · 19 days

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Reasons For Going Braless

It may be time to let the girls out of boob prison.

With Sam EscobaR, Tonilyn HornunG, & CQt Rose. Listen to the Podcast at How To Sex.

With their pokey underwire, thick straps and sweat-trapping cups, bras are not always the most comfortable thing in the world. Sure, getting a bra that properly fits can do wonders for your boobs, but there's nothing quite like going without one.

While there are certainly some folks who simply can't go bra-free, whether it's due to comfort or size, the ones who can; seem to universally agree that it is supremely amazing — whether you do it in public or just in the comfort of your own home. As someone with large breasts who has recently started embracing the wonders of going braless, I am totally obsessed. Why? Let me count the ways.

1. Your boob sweat can just ... evaporate.

Look, one of the most inconvenient things about summer (and having big boobs in general) is the pool of under-boob sweat that appears with the slightest hint of heat. When you skip the bra, you have a chance to air it all out rather than pressing that gross moisture against your skin all day. It even creates health risks of skin infections and rashes.

2. Your natural chest shape emerges.

For years, I thought that extremely round, padded and shaped look was the best one for my body. Now that I've started skipping a bra all together, I actually get to see the shape of my breasts, about which I've been previously self-conscious. It's fine if you like a bra-shaped appearance for your boobs, but it never hurts to try something new.

3. You realize how unique all boobs are.

Since the bra-free look has returned to popularity, more folks with differently shaped breasts have been rocking it. Droopy, small, large, asymmetrical, perky — all sorts, not just the one type fashion, movies and TV would have us believe. And the cool thing about that is that it's a reminder of how different chests are from one person to the next.

4. You get that "just took off my bra" feeling all. day. long.

You know how wonderful it feels to remove your bra the moment you get home? Imagine experiencing that delight for the entire day.

5. You save money on bras.

Fact: Bras are expensive. Another fact: Replacing them is annoying. If you wind up only wearing one for half of the week, you go through 'em half as fast — and spend half as much.

6. Nipples are highly underrated accessories.

The 1970s was a glamorous decade filled with glitz, gold and visible nipples. Take a page from the disco era and allow your nipples to add a little extra fun to your look. After all, men wear theirs out literally the entire summer. What's the big deal about letting ours simply rest naturally under the fabric of a shirt?

7. You look great in a crop top.

If you've ever felt so inclined to try the continuously popular crop top (hey — it's for any age, any body type!), I've got great news for you: They look great sans bra.

8. At the end of the day, you don't have all those pressure lines.

Even the best bras can leave some uncomfortable marks on your skin — why not just skip 'em all together?

9. It feels just a little extra adventurous.

I'll be honest: Going without a bra sometimes translates to risking a "wardrobe malfunction," depending on what you wear it with. But hey, you only live once. You might as well feel extra alive every once in a while — and that breeze-plus-boobs combo will definitely help.

10. Going without a bra doesn't make your boobs "sag."

First of all, some breasts are naturally droopy. That's a fact, and it's fine. You don't need to be afraid of it! Second, there's this oft-repeated old wives' tale that if you don't wear a bra, your breasts will get lower and lower, but a 15-year French study actually concluded the opposite. In fact, the study found that women who went without bras developed more muscle tissue, allowing their bodies to support their breasts naturally. Thanks, science!

11. You remember that if something makes you uncomfortable, sometimes it's best to just skip it.

Obviously (and unfortunately) there are situations where people are going to judge you for what you wear. However, if you feel your most confident heading out to dinner or to the park without a bra, let yourself just go for it. And don't listen to anyone who says your breasts aren't the right shape, size or type to go bra-free.

12. Once you adjust to how it feels sans bra, it can feel seriously powerful.

Yes, really. Just trust me.

Why I Stopped Wearing a Bra

My mom's refusal to wear one used to embarrass me. Now I get it.

BY TONILYN HORNUNG

It used to embarrass me — my mom's refusal to wear a bra. I'm not sure why, really. It's not like she jogged her way through life forcing everyone to stare at her heaving chest, but as a teenager, I found her refusal mortifying. I'm sure a therapist would delve deeper into the reasons why this may have bothered me, saying something along the lines of, "Seeing your mother in any way womanly or sexualized made her seem like more of a real person than a mother," but to my basic teenage brain, it was simpler. Women wore bras. That's just what women did, and my mom was a woman, so she should wear her bra. But she did not. Now, as an adult, I think my mom might have been on to something.

There was a time I enjoyed buying frilly, lacy bras, and such. Walking into Victoria's Secret was a quiet thrill for this shy, little Catholic schoolgirl. I'm sure my husband would appreciate it if that thrill still existed in my world, but if I'm being honest, the last time I bought a bra was over three years ago. No, I have not decided to burn all my bras for some sort of political statement or because it was super cold this last winter. I haven't purchased a bra for a very good reason.

I wore a bra for two years straight.

The pregnancy books don't really tell a nervous mom-to-be all there is to know about Mom Boobs. Sure, the books go into fantastic detail about all sorts of other pregnancy issues, using scary words like "discharge" and phrases like "growing areolas." But I found that the majority of these helpful tomes forgot to mention that a pregnant lady's breasts can be so tender that putting on a bra, and then strapping them down with an Ace bandage, is the only way to walk up and down a flight of stairs comfortably. The bra (with the Ace bandage) became my best friend during my pregnancy.

I figured after I had the baby, my life and my boobs would achieve some sort of normalcy. I thought I'd be home free, but then I started nursing my baby. Again, I needed a bra to support my milkshakes — but this time it was a nursing bra. These contraptions are slightly more comfortable than a real bra but unlike a normal bra, they open in the front for a little quick air conditioning on a hot summer day. Still, though, trying to sleep without "The Girls" contained was as uncomfortable as sleeping on two actual cartons of milk. So I wore a bra during my pregnancy and while breastfeeding — day and night for two years. (I did take it off to shower.)

Now I require freedom!

At most, a passerby might see me in a sports bra just to keep "The Girls" from roaming all over the place, but I can't stand wearing a real bra anymore. They feel tight and constrictive. I have earned the right to feel my "Girls" flop against my stomach as I sit, but more important, I've discovered my mother's secret: Bras are uncomfortable.

Perhaps one day I will come around and prefer a little lace and wire help hike up my puppies, versus the power of gravity, but for now, I like my freedom. And maybe if I actually used the Victoria's Secret gift card my husband bought for me last Valentine's Day, I might discover bras have evolved over the last several years to where it feels like a person is wearing nothing. But I have a better idea. Why not actually wear nothing?

Oh god! 10 years from now, what will my teen daughter say about my free puppies?

By Tonilyn HornunG

My back pain Is Gone!

My horny hubby’s idea helped me deal with upper back pain.

By CQt Rose

Not wearing a bra... braless... letting the puppies (or kittens, in my case) play freely. Yes, when I went to the grocery store this morning, I didn't bother strapping the girls into anything that would restrict their natural movement. Shopping at the mall? Nope. Church last Sunday? Sorry, that was me swaying completely to the music. (Oh, get over it. Do you really think Mary, mother of Jesus, wore a bra? I rest my case.) Shirts versus skins amateur basketball tournament? Dang, I was benched before that decision had to be made.

Looking back, I can see how naive and silly I was fifteen years ago. I can also remember the real reason I rarely confine my chest into some modern day instrument of Puritanism.

It was the turn of the century (the year 2000, for the calendar deficient). Between the stress of work, my husband launching his own business, and a move from my beloved home to a big city, everything was crashing down on me. The end result was headaches, upper back pain, and a miserable me.

I suffered through it for almost six months before that fateful day my husband came to me with a bewildering question: would I be willing to try going without a bra for a month to see if it helped my maladies.

Fifteen years ago, prior to that moment, before six months of increasingly excruciating pain, I wouldn't be caught dead without a bra. I even slept in a sports bra.

My hubby is a curious sort and loves research. He had been looking for anything we hadn't tried to help my upper thoracic(back)/lower cervical(neck) spasms, which were the likely source of my recurrent head aches. Low-and-behold, an unpublished work by a couple of orthopedic surgeons in England reported an unusual finding.

Women scheduled for surgery due to neck and upper back pain, when asked to go without the 'benefit' of a bra during pre-surgical preparations, often noted reduced symptoms, even before their actual surgery.

Discussing things, the dynamic-doctor-duo started to consider the bio-mechanics of the brassiere.

They noted that those nasty things were distributing weight from the front of the chest, up over the shoulders, crossing directly over the thoracic-cervical spinal transition zone and associated parts: muscles, joints, spine. Everything was potentially affected, even resting posture. That shoulder-to-shoulder boulder holder was intentionally moving structural stress onto the upper back and lower neck. It couldn't really be that simple, could it?

Obviously, the bra was made by a group of men to help women, right? Nope. The brassiere was made to keep the God-fearing menfolk focused on their jobs and proper etiquette. Why bother retraining a man when you could more easily torture a non-voting woman. Rapidly the freedom of movement was replaced by the proper brassiere, corset, and other torment devices. All to keep evil women from flaunting their apple-eating harlot bodies, and thus deliberately forcing men to have improper thoughts. Heaven knows, no righteous guy would ever have an improper thought if not directly lured by a woman... at least not more than six a minute. (Yes, I know, that study was flawed, but it's still very funny.)

With the passing of time, this original reason for the invention of the bra has been lost. Most people incorrectly think it was made to help women by supporting the breast and to prevent sagging. Not really truth in advertising is it? Yet look what gender is running the ad campaign to promote another piece of lingerie to be added to a woman's "essential" wardrobe.

Knowing it's not to support the breast tissue, why not consider asking women, while on the waiting list for surgery, to 'go natural' for a month. I'm sure our good doctors spun it as "in preparation for surgery" instead of "because we're beady-eyed sex fiends that want to see bouncing boobies everywhere!" (Cue up "Bounce Your Boobies" by Rusty Warren.)

For their study, they evaluated pain scores, mobility, headache frequency, and any other data point they could find (I'm sure the doctors' wives nixed the nipple diameter and 'cup-ability' of the-breast-in-hand aspects of the study, but being boys first, scientists second, I bet it was on their original study outline).

Interesting trial for the patient, not so good for surgical income because a significant portion of the women who went braless improved enough not to need surgery. Back pain? Gone. Neck pain? Nada. Headaches? "Dammit, Jim, bring that one back or I'm gonna have to start putting out!"

Returning to my own painful situation, facing my husband's puppy-dog eyes begging me to try, I bit the bullet. I bit my lip. I did a hundred hail Mary's that first day, asking forgiveness for my sin. I left the bra off.

The following morning, I got reminded not to put it on.

"But it's not working," I whine to my scientist.

"It's been eleven hours," he says.

"Yes! And it's not working!" I emphasize, since he seems to want to prove my point.

"How long have you been in pain?"

"Four months."

"Half a year, sorry. Nice try. Next contestant," Doctor Smarty-Pants says.

"So? It's not working," I grumble.

"So I get half a day to fix a problem spawning, growing, consuming you for six months? The study said four to six weeks."

"But people will see!"

"You mean under your T-shirt, button-up, sweat shirt, and... please! A scarf? It's spring, at least lose the scarf."

I reluctantly put down the bra, leaving all the other clothes on, thankful it was my day off. No freaking way I was going to work without a bra.

Little did I know just how adamant my belligerent husband could be in some instances.

The next day is much easier. Much fucking easier because, "Where the hell are all my bras?" I snarl.

He swallows with a deer-in-headlight look. Not a good sign before I've had my breakfast. He bolts for the door.

"Stop! Man-up!" I yell at his retreating back.

He turns back toward me when at a safe distance, "That's cowboy up, to you, sweetie! Free Willie!" and he pumps his fist in the air before hastening to finish his escape.

By the end of the second week, I'm woman enough to admit, I was having fewer headaches. My neck still ached like a son-of-a, but I swear, Aspirin and I were no longer having an intimate relationship. Of course, neither were my husband and I, but that's not necessarily out of the ordinary.

Finishing the third week, he had grown a set and returned to our bed, sleeping uneasily as I occasionally sang the 'Bobbit' song. I wasn't going to mention my neck pain was reduced by more than half. Let him sweat a little more.

End of the first month? I wanted my brassieres back, but only for special occasions. Like when I go out in public. When I get up in the morning. When I go to bed at night. You wouldn't take Linus' security blanket away, would you? Unfortunately, my husband would... the bastard.

Start of week five. I had to start being honest with him, because he'd hidden a small fortune in lingerie. My neck and upper back were almost completely pain free. I hadn't had a headache for almost ten days. My boobs didn't hurt. They weren't even hitting my knees... yet.

Ladies? Here's a special hint: don't marry a scientist. Not only will they try to support everything with fact, plus at least two references, but everything becomes a classic study where a single result means nothing.

"Ok, you tried our little test. You can have them all back," he smiles, returning the stack of my clothing. He earns himself a blow job. (Oh, as if you've never been so happy to get your way you don't go a little crazy.)

Little did I know, his devious man-mind was still at work. Two weeks later, I make the mistake of dumping out three aspirin onto my plate at breakfast.

"Headache, huh?"

"No shit, Sherlock, who gave you the first clue?" I glare at him, daring him to mention labeled dose.

"You want me to rub your shoulders?"

Never trust a guy volunteering to give you a back rub. He wants something. Or, in my case, he's about to prove something I don't want to really hear.

"Sure," I say, somewhat dejectedly into my toast and pills.

His hands gently start at my shoulders, then in toward my lower neck...

"Holy mother of... stop! Ow! Stop!"

"Oh, sorry. Neck pain?"

"Yes, Einstein, and shoulder tenseness, and..."

Flick. Where the fuck do guys learn to do that? I didn't even have time to flinch, let alone stop to realize what he was doing reaching behind my back again. My girls drop two inches.

"Fucker."

"Thank you. We're starting braless study, phase three now. I trust you can have your bras and use them responsibly? Only in dire emergency? Like you've got an audience with the Pope?"

"Fucker." Only this time, it's said in that tone that means I've given up. Dammit, the stupid Y chromosome-holding genetic freak now held all the cards. {Funny, I never realized how much I could swear when in pain. The good news is that scientific studies show cursing increases your pain tolerance - cuss away.}

"Thank you. You want help taking it the rest of the way off?"

Stupid-ass puppy-dog eyes. God I love him. No matter how hard he makes it.

It only takes three weeks this time. Completely pain free. Last aspirin almost the day after our showdown. I wore a bra less than seven hours over that period of time, and only because it was summer now, and it's too hot to keep wearing a sweatshirt every time I go out.

Then a not-so-funny thing happens. We're out and I've worn just a T-shirt and a huge baggy sweatshirt with jeans. It's hot. I was going to pass out.

"Take off your sweatshirt, silly!"

"I don't have on a bra, dipstick!"

"Sorry, I forgot. Everyone looks at you. You're the center of the universe."

"Stop being an ass, I'm dying of heat."

"You think anyone really gives a flying flip about what you are or aren't wearing? I'll help you watch for the first leery-eyed bastard that looks your way. You get 'that' look, we're out of here. If you don't get that look, you accept it: unfortunately, you're just not that important... just like me. People are in their own worlds and they never see the world around them. Take your freedom and live it."

Stupid revolutionary scientists.

I hate to admit it, but I didn't burst into flames that day not wearing one out in public. Except for the rare occasion, it didn't seem like anyone ever noticed. In fact, until much more recently when I started wearing the thinner, lace-and-sheer tops as I grew more confident and comfortable with my body, did I ever notice anyone taking a second look at me.

It's amazing, not only am I still married to the scientist, but my girls get to roam free everywhere we go. Though I still enjoy a good massage today, it's not needed for neck and upper back pain.

If you or someone you love has upper back pain, neck discomfort, shoulder tenseness, or headaches, it's an easy experiment to try on your own (at least if you're female or a bra-wearing guy). There's no serious significant side-effects and you might be surprised at the amount of mental freedom you feel.

So in answer to, "Uh, excuse me miss, but you have a very nice, uh, natural movement to you when you walk. You aren't, uh, you're not..."

"You bet, buck-o. I'm not wearing a bra! And I'm loving it!"

Another woman concurred.

Great therapy idea.

There are various reasons why some women never go braless but a big reason is insecurity about their shape, thinking their breasts are too small or too big or especially if they think they are too saggy.

A group of neighborhood wives that discovered the benefits of going bra-free, in conjunction with also discovering that their supposed "imperfections" are actually attributes. It came about at a neighborhood walking group, one June evening.

One of the wives revealed that her bras cause her pain and that she goes braless at home to get relief, but is too self-conscious to do it away from home. Another confesses that her doctor told her to avoid bras for the same reason and the three other wives all admit that they hate their bras but feel compelled to wear them, even around their neighborhood friends.

The gals dared each other to leave their bras home at a future walk. The next evening at that next walking group, the wives were talking about their insecurities about their breast shape/size. to dress "conspicuously braless". The ladies eventually decide that during the next night’s walk, as therapy, they will be braless, & forced to learn that their size/shape is OK.

At that next night’s walking group, the women finally were all braless, and loved it. Within a couple weeks, they thought nothing of it, and when the older Anderson couple in the neighborhood started walking with them, the ladies were not bothered at all about Mr. Anderson.

By August, the neighborhood summer barbecues were also mostly braless, & the wives often showed up wearing either tube-tops, bikini tops, or went bra-less under tank-tops, in the 90 degree heat.

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astramthetaprime · 2 years

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Interoception, or To Be A Blob

In the course of my love for comparative relgions, at times I’ve tried to get involved with such things as yoga and qi gong. But it’s never gone well.

As a lifelong fat person it wouldn’t have gone well anyway, but I was willing and fascinated by the concepts and how it related to the philosophies involved. The idea that there was some kind of energy that was supposed to be moved around by these corresponding physical moves, well. So I was curious and as I said willing to try.

But I never felt anything. I couldn’t understand what the instructors were after. “Feeling” such and so in various muscles. “Stretching through” such and such a pose. And any move that involved asymmetrical movements of my limbs invariably threw me off balance. Tree pose was beyond me unless I held on to a wall. To me, the body is just a solid mass. I don’t feel my heart beating. I figure if I ever do feel my heart beating I’m calling 911 since I’m probably dying.

A few years ago I started feeling an odd sensation, like I had an air bubble trapped in my chest. It would start up, be uncomfortable but not painful for a few days, then was gone. This happened several times over the course of a year or so. Finally during a routine doctor’s check up I happened to mention it. There was an ultrasound done. And a few weeks later my gall bladder was taken out. While I was in recovery the surgeon talked to my mother and said he didn’t know how I wasn’t in pain from it, since apparently it was full of stones. But I hadn’t been. Just some discomfort, it felt like an air bubble, happened a few times and there was never any pain. To this day I can’t explain it. But I was disappointed I couldn’t keep the gall stones.

This vaguely worries me because I’m getting old. The older I get, the more likely things are to start wearing out and ceasing to work. I already know at some point in the decades to come I will likely be blind. I’ve already got a partially detached retina in one eye, severe near-sightedness in both eyes, and I’m developing cataracts. What worries me is that something inside me will give way and I won’t have had any warning as I never would realize anything was wrong. I know someday somebody’s going to make that unfortunate discovery of my rotted and partially mummified corpse somewhere on the floor of this house, I’d rather it was later than sooner. I don’t want to go until we’ve had boots on Mars or return to the Moon to stay. I don’t want to go until I’m certain humankind isn’t going to kill itself through inaction. I don’t want to go until I’m certain the future is assured.

But being as I am, I know I’m not likely to get that warning. Because I’m in a bargain basement body that has no internal sensors, with a mind that is captured more by abstract thought than by physical feeling.

#actually autistic

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rayofspades · 3 years

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How to Write a Horror Story: The Magnus Archives

This post is kinda weird since most tumblr fandom content is based on the assumption that Everyone Has Seen The Thing, but since this is a transcript of a video essay, it’s more broad.

I might link the video in a reblog since, you know, tumblr doesn’t like links.

Anyways, here’s the post:

Hello Jon, apologies for the decep-

I’ve seen a lot of mystery shows in my day, and some supernatural shows, and the common thread between them is that they kind of...fall apart as they go on.

Obviously, this is a generalization and I haven’t seen every mystery show or every paranormal show, but it’s a pretty common problem.

At this point in pop culture criticism, it’s basically common knowledge that these shows fall apart due to a lack of planning. If a mystery series is making shit up as it goes along while trying to surprise the audience, it’s going to stop making sense at some point. And if an episodic paranormal show is constantly trying to up the stakes, eventually it’s going to become absolutely ridiculous and stretch the audience’s suspension of disbelief past a breaking point.

Other people have already talked about this stuff to death, but today I want to talk about a paranormal mystery show that actually succeeds at what it set out to do.

The Magnus Archives is a podcast written by Jonny Sims and directed by Alexander J. Newall. It ran from 2016 to 2021 and it’s...really really good. It’s an episodic horror story, taking place at the fictional Magnus Institute where the head archivist reads various statements about people’s encounters with supernatural entities. It’s got it all; scary stories, mystery, an overarching plot, office comedy, office romance, office tragedy, a villain that’s making straight men everywhere question their sexuality, and an overall really solid structure.

If you listen to the Q+As put out by the writer and director, you’ll hear them talk about how they planned the series from the beginning, setting up the layout for each season. Some things were definitely changed throughout the actual writing process; that’s just inevitable and necessary when you’re working on a long running show, but in a general sense, they knew where they were going. But, writing a good story doesn’t just involve knowing where you’re going; it’s about executing whatever plan you have effectively. And I think the execution of The Magnus Archives is pretty brilliant, so I want to talk about it.

And for the record, I said “brilliant,” not “perfect.” I do have a lot of criticisms of this show, and I’m definitely going to talk about those too, because honestly? Even the problems with this show are interesting in their own right.

Ok, let’s go.

Oh, spoilers by the way. For the whole plot. Whole thing.

Part 1: Horror and Mystery

Ok, so The Magnus Archives has two separate plots going on: the episodic stories that can be listened to individually, and the underlying meta plot. The former is where most of the mystery storytelling takes place, and it’s a really engaging mystery. It’s starts off slow, and almost undetectable at first. The main character, Jon, also known as The Archivist, is just reading out old scary stories that people have delivered to the Magnus Institute. Stuff like; a college student sees a ghostly inhuman figure asking for a cigarette, a woman’s fiancé dies and she finds herself trapped in an empty graveyard, there’s this goth kid who apparently murdered his mother and then skinned her? But she’s kind of still alive? What the f*ck? Hope we never see that kid again. Also, this “Jurgen Lietner” guy wrote a bunch of cursed books and Jon knows about this? Are more books gonna come up? And then you’re like, wait is the goth kid who killed that burn victim the same goth kid who killed his mom like 8 episodes ago? Holy shit the family of that girl’s dead fiancé FUNDS THE MAGNUS INSTITUTE? Did this famous youtuber meet one of the missing people from episode one? The goth kid is back and he’s looking for Leitner books? The name “Michael” has come up like 6 times? Are they all the same guy? I just—who the f*ck is Jurgen Leitner?

So yeah, as you can see, a lot of these stories connect in cool ways, and I’ve only mentioned like, 0.2 percent of all of those connections. Furthermore, these stories are told out of chronological order, and sometimes the same scenario appears in more than one statement, told from different perspectives. This asymmetrical storytelling and odd doling out of information creates a mystery that’s really interesting. It also makes for a great re-listen, since you can retroactively see what elements were set up before you even realized that they were going to come back.

The audio format contributes to this too; you can’t just see that the table from episode three matches the pattern on the box in episode eight. You have to pick up on clues that were mentioned and pay attention to what people are describing, and it’s highly rewarding when the pieces all start to fit together.

There is a bit of a downside to this though. Technically The Magnus Archives is a horror story first and a mystery second, and these two elements can mesh in weird ways.

The horror is element is really strong. Each story is completely different, sometimes focusing on psychological horror, body horror, or supernatural versions of more primal fears like heights, darkness, enclosed spaces, etc. Basically, if you’re afraid of anything, there will be at least one episode of The Magnus Archives that gets under your skin.

Jonny Sims can really sell his stories through both his writing and acting. He plays Jon, by the way, and plagiarized his own birth certificate for the character name. (For future reference, Jonny is the actor, Jon is the character). Overall, he’s really good at writing prose, and each narrator has a very distinct voice even though the large majority of the stories are being read by one character/actor.

Obviously not every episode is a bull’s eye. Sometimes it’s due to the subjectivity when it comes to what you as an audience member are scared of, and occasionally it’s just weird writing decisions. I’m thinking specifically of episode 21 where the line “the sky ate him” is said, and it is the worst line in the entire show. The whole goddamn show. That’s it. That’s the number one worst line.

But still, overall, the horror storytelling is incredibly solid, and some episodes even gave me brand new fears, like the unholy isolation of being in space, or the concept that someone you love could be replaced by someone completely different without you noticing.

But here’s the thing;

A lot of good horror is based on the absence of explanation. Most of the episodes that gave me the most visceral reactions of genuine terror come from the first two seasons, because that’s when the audience has the least amount of information.

For example, in episode two, a really terrifying coffin is introduced. It’s creepy, it reacts very strangely to water for some reason, and appears to compel people to try opening it. By the end of the episode, the audience never finds out what’s in that coffin and that is a good thing. That is a huge part of what made that episode so unnerving.

And then a few seasons later, we do find out what’s in the coffin, and to be fair the answer is both very creative and very scary, but it also takes a lot of the punch out of episode two.

No matter how f*cked up your thing is, it’s not going to compare to whatever the audience can conjure up in their own mind after such a creepy set up. This problem isn’t just stuck in this one scenario either; there are a lot of early episodes that, while still good, seem a lot less creepy in hindsight after you learn more about the scenario.

I don’t think it’s bad writing, but I do think it’s a double-edged sword. Jonny Sims even mentions this sort of issue in the first Q+A.

But yeah, to sum up; the narration is good, the ideas are creative, and seeing the mystery unfurl itself is deeply compelling. And for the record, the mystery elements aren’t of the Sherlock Holmes variety. It’s less about finding out who did the thing, and more about discovering how all of these individual points are intricately connected, pulling on each other as they move. Woven together like a... oh shit what’s the word? Gah, it’s on the tip of my tongue. Ah, whatever, I’m sure it’s not like a running motif or anything.

Part 2: Stakes

One of the main reasons I stopped watching Supernatural is that it devolves into complete f*cking nonsense. At the end of season five, the boys literally defeat the devil, and then the show...keeps going? Which would be fine. It’s also, largely, an episodic show, so if they have more creative ideas, they could definitely keep going with it. In fact, there are some post season five episodes that I thought were pretty good. But as they kept trying to outdo themselves with Bigger Bads, it got kind of difficult to suspend my disbelief. And the final nail in the coffin for me was the end of season nine, when Crowly basically points out to the audience that the main characters keep dying and coming back to life, so there are no stakes. The most-badest bad guy can always be defeated because some new Thing can just come out of left-field, and dying isn’t even on the table as a threat since people have tons of ways of coming back to life.

The Magnus Archives, while being a show based in the supernatural, notably doesn’t bring anyone back to life, even though some very beloved characters die. I say “notably,” because in the season three Q+A, Jonny even says, “We make a point not to bring people back from the dead in Magnus, I know it sometimes feels like that, but we are very careful to never actually resurrect anyone.”

Upon listening to this I said “oh my god, these guys are the only writers left who at least kind of know what they’re doing.”

Also, as far as plot progression goes, The Magnus Archives is lowkey structurally perfect in the way the threats escalate in the underlying plot; both in terms of destruction and power and in terms of emotional consequences. Season one starts off with one major threat that’s dealt with by the end of the season, season two reveals the main villain, season three lays out the grander forces at play, season four ends the world, and season five is about un-ending the world. The difference between season one and season five is vast, but how we got there makes perfect sense.

As for the emotional stakes, let’s talk about themes and characters.

Part 3: Themes and Characters

At the very end of season two, it’s revealed that the supernatural happenings in the Magnus universe are the result of entities far beyond our understanding. Since their existence is so fundamentally different from what we can comprehend, they interact with the world through cursed items, creatures, and humans who have dedicated themselves to an entity.

A lot of people read this as a metaphor for late-stage capitalism, and I am one of those people. A bunch of faceless entities exploiting humans through means of dehumanization and causing people to suffer because it feeds them seems like an appropriate metaphor.

While we’re on this topic, I do want to talk about Elias, since he’s the main villain of the entire series and also one of my favorite villains of all time. The Magnus Archives is a series that deals with a lot of moral questions and has a lot of characters who do morally questionable things, so one might assume that the villain of said series is, you know, morally ambiguous and sympathetic to some extent despite being “the bad guy.”

Nope! No stops, full bastard. It’s great.

He falls under what I’ve deemed the “unbeatable boss” archetype. He just doesn’t tolerate insubordination or resistance, and that combined with his lack of empathy means that anyone who crosses him is either killed or brought to heel. His power set is cool too. On the surface the ability to see out of any eye and read minds sounds useful, but not deal breaking, but the way he uses that power to manipulate people and anticipate threats...yeah, it makes him kind of impossible to beat.

He’s just...so evil and he loves being evil and every single f*cking thing he does pisses me off and makes me want to kill him. It’s. Great.

Anyways, I think Elias’s role as the central antagonist is what makes the capitalist reading so common. He’s the head of the institute, he’s wealthy, he’s powerful, and he dehumanizes people in ways that are both brutal and chillingly indifferent. He seems like an appropriate stand in through that lens.

I also love how voice actor Ben Meredith plays him like’s he’s trying to seduce the audience.

With all of that said, I wouldn’t call this the critique of capitalism a direct allegory or anything; in much looser terms, this could be a metaphor for any power structure that exploits humans. Organized religion or cults might be even more on the nose, considering there’s a lot of mentions of rituals and worship within the show.

But if we boil it down to its barest aspects and focus on the avatar characters, The Magnus Archives is a series about people becoming monsters. Or, at the very least, becoming worse versions of themselves. That can mean a lot of things to different people in a metaphorical sense; the tense relationship between desperation and morality, the eagerness to please at the cost of one’s own mental health, the psychological traumas that lead people down dark paths, and how personal choices can still be dictated and manipulated by outside influences. It’s kind of heavy stuff, but put into a digestible package through the show’s abstractions.

Well, for the most part.

There’s some debate as to whether or not Daisy’s arc was handled tastefully. While her demise and Basira’s character arc were clearly meant to condemn police brutality and the deeply corrupt system that allows it to foster, it’s still a weird subject to discuss in such a fantastical context, and there is a strange sympathy for the devil angle that can get kind of uncomfortable for some listeners.

Okay, stepping back from that for a bit, let’s talk about Jon and how he fits into this whole “people becoming corrupted” thing.

Jon has one of my favourite brands of character arc, which is one based in deterioration alongside growth. The most obvious way this takes form is his departure from humanity as his relationship with the Eye drives him to psychologically harm others, and he finds himself sympathizing more and more with the people he was afraid of, stating in episode 152 that anyone listening to his recordings might compare him to the other avatars that have had their minds and morals twisted.

Over the course of the series, he is repeatedly traumatized and the show makes a point that he is being both physically and emotionally scarred. These happenings are what drive his motivation for revenge in season five, and he even states that revenge is making him a worse person. As a character he’s constantly berating himself and his own monstrousness, much to Martin’s dismay.

That’s why the finale destroys me in the best way. Upon seeing that Jon has betrayed him and basically given himself over to the Eye, Martin asks “how much of you is even left?” And when Jon tries to reassure him that he’s still himself, Martin’s response is “how would you even know?” This cuts through me every time. Up until this point, Martin had consistently stood up for Jon and Jon’s humanity, even in the face of Tim’s doubt, Basira’s mistrust, Elias being cryptic, and Jon’s own self-hatred. This is the ultimate breaking point, the point where even Martin, the love of Jon’s life, doesn’t really recognize him. It’s brutal. Because at the end of the day, Jon is still himself; he’s a deeply broken person trying to make the right decisions.

We’ll come back to the finale later, but for now I want to talk about the romance.

Jon’s emotional growth throughout the series is largely tied into Martin. Martin’s the first person that Jon really opens up to, and this later grows into trust which then turns into a genuine emotional connection. On the flip side, Martin’s growth in season four is largely tied into Jon. Martin starts season four basically waiting to die, but Jon’s return gives him a reason to keep living, and he’s later able to recognize his own value outside of the pure utility of ‘you need to set yourself on fire to keep everyone else warm.’ Both of them give each other reason to push onward despite everything becoming more and more hopeless.

It’s a good romance. I wish the two had had a few more scenes together before the culmination, but it is built up over the course of four seasons and comes together in an utterly fantastic confession.

And yeah, the scene with Martin and Jon in the Lonely is cheesy as hell, but it is the highest quality of cheese. These are some gourmet nachos.

Umm, also kind of stating the obvious here, but it’s also pretty cool that the main character in this horror story falls in love with another man. You don’t see that a lot, and it’s cool that no one even makes a big deal out of it. It’s just a normal romance, but with two guys. It’s nice.

So, they go to Scottland, they hang out, they’re in love, Jonalias starts the apocalypse through Jon, the world ends, and season five starts!

...Let’s talk about season five!

Part 4: Season 5

At the very start of this post, I said that supernatural mysteries tend to get worse as they go along, and I am deeply sad to report that I don’t think that The Magnus Archives is an exception. It just goes downhill in a very different way than its ilk.

And, so we’re clear, I don’t think season five totally tanks or becomes unlistenable, it’s just, in my opinion, notably worse than the rest of the show.

As discussed earlier, it doesn’t fall apart due to a lack of planning; everything still makes sense, but the presentation has changed drastically. The episodic statements are no longer scary stories, but more like slam poems about the various hellscapes that Jon and Martin are trekking through. Honestly if these were published in a book of slam poetry, I would probably think they slapped pretty hard. I genuinely believe that Jonny Sims is a good writer, but as a podcast a lot of these statements just made me zone out. There’s at least four that I don’t even slightly remember. Myself and many others have noted that they just...aren’t scary, unless there’s a specific episode that really gets under your skin due to a certain fear or phobia.

To quote my friend, “it’s harder to feel a solid impact when the setting is literally divorced from reality. People would either go numb or insane to the point where their fears become unrelatable.”

And, to be honest, I think that this same surreal odyssey set up could have worked with a slight shift in narration. Two stand out episodes for me were “Strung Out” and “Wonderland.” Both of them show the tormented target actively trying to resist and interact with their tormenter, instead of just trying to escape or live through their situation. “Strung Out” is also more of character study; you learn about Francis’s life before the apocalypse through their interaction with the Web hellscape. Meanwhile “Wonderland” is just...f*cked, and you get to see Jon take the perspective of first-person Bad Guy throughout the whole thing, which is its own level of disturbing.

But the majority of episodes feel so abstract that I kind of forget the people trapped in them are supposed to be characters and not just concepts, so it’s harder to feel their dread and pain.

But I’m still here for the metaplot, the drama, and the romance. And when that’s good, it’s great! I think the final handful of episodes are really solid in that regard.

Buuuuuuut...

A decent chunk of season five is dedicated to the “kill bill” plot. Jon discovers he has the power to smite people, and while at first, he’s embarrassed about this, since he actively enjoyed killing Not!Sasha, Martin is super into it! He’s encouraging Jon to murder people.

This is actually the set up for a really good arc. As Jon gets more and more into his own avenging angel persona, Martin could get more and more disturbed by it so by the time they get to London, Martin could be really upset that Jon is so willing to wreak his own divine justice by killing or torturing all of the avatars.

And this does kind of happen. We do reach this end state, and it makes for a good final conflict, but the way we got here was borderline nonsense. Thematic gibberish, if you will.

Throughout the journey, Martin is clearly motived by a sense of justice; these people are bad, and so they should die. Whereas Jon is clearly more motivated by revenge; he only goes after the avatars that hurt him personally. At one point, Jon admits that maybe all of this killing isn’t making anything better, but just making him worse. Martin apologizes for egging him on, Jon absolves him by saying he started it, and then Martin’s like “I’ll keep my apology then.” This is the second worst line in the entire series, right after “the sky ate him.” And it’s close.

But it kind of feels like we’re back at square one. Jon is back to being ashamed of killing and Martin is still keen on his justice stance, but now just less pushy about it. The arc is basically half resolved at this point.

But then it doesn’t matter, because Jon kills Helen anyway. So, Jon’s back on his revenge/justice thing. Then what was the point of his earlier revelation? Why have that if it’s not going to matter and the conflict that was escalating still culminates with Jon leaning into the avenging angel stuff, and Martin being disturbed by it? It just makes both of them look like huge hypocrites! I f*cking hate it when they’re in the tunnels and Martin says “you weren’t meant to enjoy it this much,” regarding Jon’s smiting. Where did this come from?! Why didn’t you say this earlier? Third worst line in the series.

And yeah, I’ll say it; the boys fight too much in this season. I loved their romance up to season five, and their cute moments and more lowkey serious discussions are still good in this season, but God, they fight so much. And I’m not saying couples can’t have fights or tension, that’s just realistic and also stories need conflict to be interesting. Jonny Sims is on the record saying that balancing a healthy romance with the stress of a literal apocalypse was a priority, and I’m sorry, but I don’t think it’s well balanced. I’m just saying that sometimes it feels like they don’t even like each other and it really started to grate on me.

Maybe it would have been better if the beginning of this season was dedicated to charming romance at first, so we as an audience could better appreciate how strong their love is and how it’s truly being tested. But obviously that was never on the table—

ALEX NO.

So, yeah, I have a lot of problems with season. I think it’s the worst one by far, even though there is a lot of it I still enjoy, including the ending.

As I mentioned before, the moment where Martin confronts Jon in the panopticon absolutely kills me, and Jon’s reaction kills me even harder. Throughout the season, Jon had largely been motivated by revenge, martyrdom, and the subconscious call of the Eye, and all three of those factors led him to his position as the pupil. He’s getting revenge against the powers, sacrificing his humanity to get rid of the Fears, and taking his place as wearer of the watcher’s crown. But all of this gets thrown out the window when he realizes that Martin is going to die. And not only is Martin going to die, Martin is going to die specifically because he loves Jon and refuses to leave Jon alone to die horribly. Martin had always been an underlying motivation for Jon, his “reason” as stated in episode 167, but now love as a motivator has come to the forefront, and Jon can no longer go through with his plan because of it. But at this point in the series, they’re both utterly doomed, and Jon concludes that the only possible chance they have of surviving, however unlikely, would be to sever the pupil of the eye, technically killing Jon, but maybe, just maybe, allowing them to escape with the Fears. Whether that’s meant to be literal or more ethereal is left unclear. Hell, maybe Jon’s just making it up completely and creating his own potential happy ending. It’s a pretty potent ending in emotional terms; Jon has to release the Fears and Martin has to kill Jon, and those are the two things they were dead set on not doing.

The Web, arguably the real main antagonist, basically won, and their manipulation of Jon worked. The destruction spread, and there is kind of a bleak underlying tone to that.

But at least this ending has some semblance of hope to it. I’m not saying that releasing the Fears was objectively the correct moral decision; the entire point of the dilemma is that there was no objectively correct moral decision. But, while Jon’s solution does have merit, it was also the most hopeless. I think dramatically, any one of the choices on the table could have worked if the writing was well executed, but thematically this one seemed like the perfect combination of grim and optimistic. Like, all of the evils that plague humanity can’t just be defeated forever and things could get worse, but maybe not. Maybe everything works out...

So yeah, The Magnus Archives...is a podcast. And it’s a really good podcast. Great, even. I can complain about season five all I want, but regardless of how that worked out, you can tell throughout the entire show that the people working on it were trying to tell a genuinely excellent story.

It’s good. Go listen to it. Even though I spoiled the entire thing and if you’re still here, you’ve probably already listened to it. Listen to it again.

#tma #the magnus archives #jonathan sims #martin blackwood

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elsewhereuniversity · 4 years

Text

When I first started here, I called myself Ada, because my wordpress as a teen was adamantiumhalfdragonx523 and it was the first thing I thought of when they said I should pick a nickname.

...I know, it’s kinda ridiculous, and I was hoping to present a somewhat more mature persona at college. But at least Ada is an actual name, and I could claim it was after Ada Lovelace instead of my RP blog.

Anyway, I dove into class quickly. Engineering, with an accidental minor in physics: I liked the required courses so I took a few electives, then realized I was only like nine credits away from qualifying for a minor so I went for it. Got immediately bogged down by homework as usual, barely scraping C minuses through humanities requirements and getting extensions wherever I could. I’ve never been good with time management? It’s the adhd.

There were always rumours of strange things happening on campus, but I mean, it’s college. You get drunk larpers and people hallucinating moving shadows from lack of sleep and old buildings with confusing layouts and it’s enough for weird rumours to be spread for months.

There was this weird girl who moved in a couple doors down from me: she turned up around March, I think she was a transfer? Her roommate literally burst into tears and ran away down the hall when I mentioned her, so I didn’t push it. It was a bit weird but I guess they were close with their previous roommate? Don’t know why they left, maybe they dropped out. Anyway, near the end of the semester the girl — she went by hazelnut, I think — invited me to this pre-finals rager out in the woods. I think it was late April, maybe the first of May? Mysty (my roomie) said not to go but I was feeling pretty prepared for my exam so I figured I’d go check it out. She kept, like, tutting at me, and made a big show of pouring salt lines at the window and door and around her bed? I don’t know how you can pour salt sarcastically, but she managed.

It was a pretty decent party, honestly, all through the woods. There was obviously much wilder stuff happening deeper, bright lights and screams and music and stuff, but I met up with a group I vaguely recognized from some class or other, spent a good couple hours playing, like, a music-based chase game around this awesome spiderweb of a slackline rope course someone had set up in the trees, falling off laughingly as we got progressively drunker. Also Cuttlefish (trans dude, marine bio major) with the Bluetooth speaker started skipping erratically between songs with dramatically different genres and beat structures until we all ended up tackling him to make him stop. I was just thinking of heading back to dorm when this girl with really cool dark-fantasy makeup stumbled out of the trees, obviously in distress.

She was dressed in this kinda ragged-but-flowing translucent robe thing over incongruous muddy cargo shorts, barefoot, exhausted-looking, and screaming about being chased. Lark (short girl, I think geology major?) immediately grabbed some big hoola hoops I’d been ignoring (I mean, when there’s a huge multi-tiered rope course with ladders and slack lines and trapezes, hoola hoops don’t stand out) and threw one over Spider-makeup-girl immediately, who kinda collapsed to the ground sobbing in apparent relief, and Lark yelled for everyone else to sit in one as well. Something something salt circles? So we did, kinda bemusedly, two to a hoop.

Spider-girl’s chasers burst out of the trees a moment later, and, like, I had figured Elsewhere must have a pretty substantial cosplay community, considering the larping I’d heard people talking about, but damn these guys’ costumes were good. One had to have been like six and a half feet tall, but they were on tall digitigrade stilts that raised them closer to eight, if you included the mask, and the other had this really clean 4-arm rig and I swear the arms were moving separately. Like, I’m an engineer and I couldn’t figure out how either had put the costumes together, the movements were so smooth they looked practically natural. I hope they get into whatever film studio or props company they want, the prosthetics were definitely movie quality.

Anyway, they came bursting out of the woods, making growling sounds, but they both stopped abruptly when they saw the probably-ridiculous sight of nine twenty-somethings sitting in plastic circles on the grass. I expected them to start laughing, but they were really deep in character.

They kinda circled around us for a moment, sniffing the air. I wanted to comment on their costumes, but everything seemed super serious all of a sudden. Then one of them spoke.

“Have they trapped you, weaver? Do you take salt chains over calm oblivion? Do you think they can hold you against the hunt?”

Their voice was kinda deep and raspy, oddly resonant in the chill night air, like I was only hearing part of it. This was obviously part of some scene, but I dunno. Spider-girl was curled into a ball, shaking, and I felt these guys were taking it too far.

There were a couple moments of tense silence, then Lark spoke up.

“Our bargain is with her, not with you. Leave, or wait out the dark. We aren’t moving.”

The four-armed one literally hissed at that, raising up this ragged crest along their back and flexing all four of their clawed hands.

“If you take her, human, then you take her debts. How certain are you, that you believe yourself capable of filling them? Do you think her gifts worth the cost of her entrapment?”

I still couldn’t tell how the rig was working, there wasn’t much space in their costume for complex pneumatics or anything, which was kinda annoyingly obscure. Was it just puppetry? How the fuck did they get the arms to DO that? And the tall one’s mask, were those articulated eyelids AND ears?

“She is ours, human, hunted and caught. You mettle in affairs of what you know not.”

The big one was circling faster now, striding long-limbed on those stilts. They sounded ominous, but I saw a loophole there, so I spoke up.

“You obviously didn’t catch her? She escaped long enough to find us, and if I understand the setting of your game well enough, we count as scenery or props, not players on the same level as you. So it sounds like she got away on her own and found a hiding place she can wait out the sun, which means you lost and she’s free. Go bug someone else.”

They both roared at that, making charging motions towards us, but thy kept pulling up short about two feet away from the hoola hoops. I’m not gonna lie, it was super intimidating, but they didn’t seem like they were going to get any closer? After like five minutes of this, the tall one broke and ran into the trees and the four-armed one followed, both shrieking.

We stayed in the hoola hoops after that. I would have liked to go back to the dorms, but any time any of us moved Lark started shrieking at us to stay still because it was “dangerous” or whatever. Cuttlefish turned the music back on and we ended up playing a trivia game someone had on their phone. It was super uncomfortable but it could have been worse, especially since I was still pretty drunk, so it was all a kinda pleasant foggyness. I must have dozed off at some point because next thing I knew it was a bit brighter and spider-girl was standing over me.

Her makeup was even better in the twilight, extra eyes and weirdly-textured skin and everything.

“If you are, as you said, merely scenery in which I have found my own escape, then I owe you nothing.”

She looked around at all of us, then at Lark, who was getting up with a murderous expression, then back to me. Up close, I could see my reflection in her eyes, including the six fake ones. They looked intimately real.

“Your words unwind me altogether, even from your would-be friend,” she whispered, just to me, “and I owe you, gift for gift.”

Then, suddenly, she was gone. I saw her bolt to the rope course and up one of the support ropes, much further up than I’d noticed it went, until she disappeared into the treetops. It was impressive.

Lark yelled at me a bit, something something she could have made us all rich? I don’t know, I don’t understand the larp setting well enough to understand the context. And then I went back to my dorm and collapsed into bed. I only got three hours of sleep before I had to get up and take my exam, but I did pretty well on it anyway, got a solid 83%.

Couple days later I heard a sound at the window, and when I went to investigate I found a bundle of fabric on the sill. Unwrapping it, i found a hooded knee-length asymmetrical vest thingy with this really cool greyscale-geometric pattern on it, made from the same flowing material as spider-girl’s robe. It fits perfectly. Mysty made a bit of a fuss when she saw it, but calmed down a bit when I told her the context. I’ve been wearing it ever since, it looks really good over jeans.

Anyway, yeah. Probably the weirdest story I have, though there are some solid contenders, actually....College, you know. Stuff happens.

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21751201 (wrote this back in December, forgot to submit it)

#the oblivious #ada hs no fucjing clue what’s actually going on? probably for the best #the salt is in the hoola hoops fyi. portable insta-circle!#submission #long post #stories #i LOVE this #ada #the wild hunt #this is pretty much exactly how I imagine it when i talk about how a majority of students just write weird things off as #just Weird College Stuff #and i think this is the first fic I've read where people USED the hoola hoops full of salt #which is DELIGHTFUL

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withoneheadlight · 4 years

Note

NSFW Anon here and I’ve come back w the most NSFW thing ever right, so like imagine this,,,, Steve and Billy being happy and content,,,, wow

Hey nsfw! anon💗💗💗. here I finally am!

First of all: this is the most amazing, most beautiful of asks🌟. Thinking about then happy and content, thinking about them having a FUTURE together is, the most non-safe thing ever, definitely not safe for the heart, in that way love is always a risk, a leap of faith, it's not safe at all. But I honestly think these two can fall on their feet at the end of the jump. I don’t think is gonna be easy, ofc. It’s not easy people we’re talking about. The jump is gonna last long. Sometimes is gonna feel like a freefall. That rage Billy has inside is going to be hard to deal with. For Steve, for himself. Things like that leave a mark, and being raised like that, learn that you have to bite to survive, that becomes an instinct, so it’s going to hurt, learn to live with that inside. And Steve-- having so ingrained that love is something you have to buy, a rent you have to pay without fail so people stay by your side, well, that ain’t easy either. And there are so, so many other things they’ll have to deal with. To learn. To understand (about themselves. about the other. about all the other people in their lives) so they can keep moving forward.

But if I’m not gonna be a romantic in here where else could I be? xD So I believe love wins, haha, at the end. Lame as it might sound. I believe that because the more I think about these two the more alike I found them. The more I think they’re like two sides of the same coin, spinning, spinning, and sometimes, unexpectedly, the coin stops on its rim, it doesn’t fall: they realize the other gets them. They realize they’re looking in the eyes of that somebody that is gonna know. when they need it. Its gonna look at their eyes and just know. And that’s not gonna make it easier but-- its the thing that changes it all.

It’s the thing that rescues them both.

And that’s the idea that fuels all my stories because my stories are, like, always the same? xD, something draws them apart. Something draws them back. And the thing is, I had always imagined them, like, moving together to a tiny, shitty apartment after that, after everything happens, after they’re finally together, and for good, that last time. But then, after the two month+ quarantine I spent at my own tiny apartment, I was lucky enough to move to my parent’s house in the country, and I had spent almost all that time writing them in a frenzy, so the moment I got there, with all that green and the trees and the fresh air I thought okok, the apartment is good but they’re gonna buy a house, at some point, they have to buy a house. So I started to write this messy hc that is like, mmm, an epilogue, for a lot of those stories, like a mash-up? future fic-ish-y thing, mixing parts of them all. Like: no matter what happens. Or how it happens. All roads lead to this future. To them coming back to the other like gravity. To them buying an old house with a backyard, and an ugly couch, and a strange-shaped kitchen, with them finding their place inside themselves and together and in the world. And if not their place at least some kind of peace (because, well, it's never that easy either, as we are as ever-changing as life itself is)

But, you know, a good future. Together.

So, here is a small piece of that, a bit messy and a bit tooth-rotting but, I’m writing this is basically to make myself happy so, no regrets xD. Also i hope it makes you a bit happy too, anon, as you have made me with this lovely lovely ask.

…...

The kitchen is Steve's favorite part of the house.

It has this odd shape. Trapezoid. “Fuck, Stevie, so goddamn weird”. Doesn’t make sense in a, on the other hand, perfectly rectangular house (or, well, it does, but they’ll only find out about that later). The cabinets are ceiling-high. The tiles of the wall white and cracked under the repeating pattern of light mint-green-stemmed, yellow-petaled lilies. The whole backdoor is painted on that same shade Billy calls Ripe banana dreams, both so terribly old fashioned and fiercely cute none of them say a word about repainting it. There’s a wooden piece, built into the farthest end of the counter. It looks disgustingly juicy and mercilessly stabbed when they move in, but Billy insists on keeping it, and sanding, and treating, and varnishing it. Manages to get it back up on shape because “Better than anyone, darling you should know what a little touch of class can make”. And for more than two weeks straight the only goal of his life is to learn to cut vegetables at high speed because "I have to live up to this level of professionalism. Impress our most un-impressionable guests"

(And, to Steve’s surprise –and probably hers– when she finally dings to pay them a visit his mom is, in fact, pretty much impressed)

He learns how to make good casserole. Tries his luck with Mexican and Italian. Fails miserably with Japanese. Will never-ever admit it, but he loves it when flour ends up staining every single surface, making the biggest mess around himself when he bakes. Steve knows why it is. It's a shared feeling. Floats up till it reaches the ceiling and bounces back down to them, heavy with the warm smell of cooking pie and cinnamon. Tastes docile and tamed like “Maybe not so much vanilla next time. Whaddaya think, babe?.” Tastes savage and daring, like the overwhelming tang of freshly squeezed lemon lingering on Billy’s tongue when he crowds Steve against the fridge and kisses him, bites a shuddering laugh out of him “How the fuck are you able to even think about putting your mouth near that thing, Hargrove?. That was––ugh. That was disgusting” “Well you know me, whatever it takes to make you squirm” leaving Steve with absolutely no option but lick the sugary dough stain over his cheek to “Cover up that foul flavor” and maybe because he likes to make Billy shudder too. It’s an ever-present feeling. Like the vivid smells of green tomatoes and parsley and mustard sauce. Like the sensation of Billy’s lips against his. The way he loses his breath when Steve kisses the sugary flavour into his mouth.

This place smells like home, tastes like home. Like finally, finally. Home.

It’s Billy’s favorite place, too. But Steve doesn’t think it's just because of that. But also because maybe,

maybe.

He has also noticed that--

There’s this particular, particular moment. It happens around seven on autumns, right when the day starts to fade. It happens between six and six past twenty-eight on winters, and holds the sleepy cheeks of the newborn tulips on Steve’s garden till they fall asleep on springs, sun already sinking behind the horizon by the time both hands of the clock meet over the spiraling infinity of the eight. And it grows bigger and bigger and bigger from there: the golden sunlight seeping through the wide, double-paned window facing the backyard at an oblique angle, making the yellow flowers of the tiles look like they’re re-blooming in gold.

It's the moment the day turns into a fire.

It’s their favorite moment in time. And in this particular, particular day of summer, it happens at ten past nine.

Billy is making Spaghetti carbonara. The kitchen is damp with the rich smells coming out of the boiling water. Mushrooms and oregano, black pepper and lime. A song is cooing at them from the radio, the beat of the drums a boneless memory of that one echoing around the quarry that last night at the end of July. Water rippling under the quiet sigh of the breeze. Trees cutting the liquid rays of light in asymmetric halves.

Billy takes off the apron, lowers down the fire.

Reaches out to Steve, fingers wavering come, come, come.

To me. Come to me. “C’mon, Harrington. Are you afraid of me or what?"

He has this way of looking at Steve that makes the space between them narrow, narrow: the whole unknown world. And aseptic, non-lived-in flat in downtown Florida. This tiny, tiny town. A mysteriously-shaped kitchen–

“¿Can I have this dance?”

Steve walks to him, takes his hand.

––Their bodies, pressed flush.

Inside his chest, Steve’s heart is running.

“Can I at least have this dance, before we say goodbye?”

Mazzy Star was playing. The corner of Billy’s eye felt wet where his skin brushed against the corner of Steve’s mouth. They danced till the daylight faded, till there were teardrops falling from the night sky (“Billy, I don’t have to–-” “Don’t. Don’t, pretty boy. Don’t say it. I’ll make you stay if you do. And I can’t do that”), they made lovelovelove on the back of Billy’s car.

In this light they fell in love, they fell apart. Ran away. Ran back.

Steve nudges at Billy’s chest, makes him move backwards till he’s far enough to tug, draw him in between their arms, hands intertwined. Steve curls himself around Billy’s back, nudges at the warm trapped between his curls. He smells like BillyandSteve, like this home, like past, like future. Like us.

Steve whispers in his ear. Three words. Billy’s neck curves towards him. An instinct. Tickled by their warmth. Steve kisses the curve of his ear. Tugs the collar of his shirt aside, bites where shoulder meets neck and up, up.

“Easy, Prom King” Billy teases, grins at him tender and wild. Knows when to use the one that gets Steve every time “Or you’re gonna make me think we’ll become picture perfect from this magical night onwards. A bunch of kids. White fences. You know, the whole shebang”

Billy crashed the Camaro into a tree in the winter of two thousand and fourteen. Had left the house in a frenzy. Something had happened Max wouldn’t talk about. But she was scared, so she had called. When Steve found him, he was in the middle of the Brookville road, feet following the twin yellow lines, so weary, so impossibly small like this, head hanging, feet stumbling, surrounded by the tall shadows of the pines. Steve stopped the car at his side, engine oozing steam, shaking in the cold mid-May air “Billy” he said. Low. Careful. Careful. Billy’s eyes looked wet in the moon-silver night, pupils blown, deceivingly calm, “What are you doing? You know this is dangerous” And Billy had leaned in, forearms over the rim, had leveled with Steve. Looking wasted, looking tired, but still, he flashed a grin at him, teeth-shark white, not going down if he wasn’t going down swinging. And Steve hadn’t known at the moment, but the blood staining his cheek, the screaming-purple mark around his eye, those weren’t from the crush. “I was sleepwalking, Harrington" he said, voice dry, laugh harsh "Waiting for a stroke of luck"

“What does it make you think that’s not what I’m aiming for?”

When he took Billy to his house Max was already there, had sneaked out, white knuckles peaked with red around the handler of her bike “Neil will kill you if he finds out” Billy didn’t say it, but she read it on his eyes. And Max had called Steve. Called for help. So Steve took care of Billy’s face. Made him stay. Spend the night. Almost the whole next day, didn’t wake up till the hands meet over the spiraling infinity of the eight. Steve left him there. Retraced Billy’s steps down the Brookville road, following the yellow lines. The Camaro wasn’t done yet. Howled like a wounded beast under Steve's hands, but stayed together all the way to Donny’s garage. Steve paid for the repairs. Covered it all up. Two weeks later, Billy showed up at his door. Offered to teach him how to fight “I cannot give you back your money, but I know you don’t need that”

They spent almost the whole summer together. Some days. Most nights.

Wasting time. Fighting. Joking. Driving. Fooling around.

No ‘what ifs’. No promises. Just,

“Leave the light on if you can’t sleep. If I manage to sneak out of the Old fuck, I’ll pick you up. I won’t stop kissing you until dawn”

Because Steve was gonna leave. Wasn’t going to throw a single glance behind his back. That was the plan.

And he did. He did. But––

He spins Billy out. Tugs him back. When their chests bump, his laugh explodes, bubbles up. Weightless. Happy. Because all that matters to him, to them, it’s between these four irregular walls now.

And God this, this, is Steve’s favorite part.

–ended up coming back running, following the yellow lines. Hoping Billy was the one letting his light on this time.

Because the sun is gonna keep on shining. They can keep on dancing in here, in their weird, yellow, trapezoidal kitchen, for as long as they want. Hearts touching. Lips brushing. Bodies swaying, spinning, cutting through the golden light.

#harringrove #golden hours at the harrington-hargrove household #billy x steve #steve x billy #xharringrove #xask #askfic #ns*w!anon💕

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theshy1sout · 4 years

Text

The day before

It's a one-shot I guess. I just wanted to write about what would happen before Trolls World Tour that Branch wants to confess to Poppy his feelings. I also have to apologize for stopping writing "Poppy's extraordinary playlist" (well, I'm still curious if anybody reads it). I had such a really big exam, but now I can come back to write it.

But now I've written this. I hope you'll enjoy it

Rated: G

Words:1899

Ao3 here

_______________________________

- Poppy, what are you doing?

- Emm... - Pink troll looked at little crepe flower in her hands. She looked really tired, especially when she stopped, trying to remind herself what she was doing.

- I'm just fixing decorations, that's all. - Poppy shrugged, turning back to replace flowers on a tree.

- Poppy - Branch tried not to sound too firmly, but he was really upset. He took a deep breath, starting with a much calmer tone: - You're exhausted. You shouldn't climb up on the ladder.

- I'm fine - She said, tried to focus on her work. - It's my duty to make every single party perfect!

Queen smiled slightly, which made her look even more tired.

- It is actually perfect - Branch said, putting his hand together in the 'explaining' gesture. - You don't have to fix those flowers.

- But there were asymmetrical! - Poppy lifted up her arm with frustration. - Who made them?

- Poppy, come here, please - The blue troll tried his best to get her down. She could fall in every single moment and he didn't want to be a witness of this.

- Why are you so desperate to get me down? - Poppy finally looked at him, just sleepy and tired. She always wriggled her nose, when she was angry at him. It was no end cute, even if it meant nothing but trouble.

- You were singing, dancing, and hugging the whole day and now you're fixing decorations on the party - Branch pointed out clearly. - You worry about everything and everyone but yourself. You just need to sleep.

Poppy groaned out, tilting her head back.

- But I just love dancing, singing, hugging and fixing decorations at the party - She mumbled, closing her eyes. Branch was scared of she could fall asleep just right then, without any warning. He had to make up something quickly.

- Well, if you love hugging - He opened his arms and smiled at her slightly. - You can take one if you climb down.

Poppy looked down at him and smiled warmly.

- Okay then - She said and started climbing down carefully. She looked like she couldn't keep her balance so well, so Branch hopped to the labber and grabbed it tightly. He looked up at Poppy coming down slowly to him, wondered why she strained herself so much. If anything went her way, she had to resolve it instantly, no matter how weary she was. She just wanted so desperately to be a perfect queen and make everyone happy. Branch found it really damaged for her, but, on the other hand, it was also what loved her in her the most: she took care of other's happiness more than her. And, no matter what, she could never give up on anyone.

When Poppy's foot finally touched the ground, she lost her balance a bit, so Branch caught her to not let her fall. She stood up straight, smiling at him, amused by this little fiasco.

- Thanks - The pink troll giggled gently and threw her arms around his neck. Branch stopped, feeling a bit confused. He just forgot he promised her a hug. He chuckled and embraced her tenderly. He couldn't stop himself to enjoy every single hug he got from her. Poppy was really soft and nicely warm. Her hair always scented like vanilla, chocolate and strawberries. He didn't know how it was even possible to always smell like that. But it made him lose his thoughts for a second, just breathing in her perfumes and feeling her smooth hands on his back. For the half minute, he felt so safe and comfortable. He wished he could cuddle her longer. But he couldn't. They weren't a couple.

Branch pushed her away carefully and felt that Poppy was already weak and kinda got flabby. She opened her eyes only partly, smiling sleepily at him.

- Maybe we could go dancing a little more? - Poppy asked calmly like it was an absolutely normal thing to do, being half-sleep.

- No, Poppy - Branch tried to catch her attention, tilting his head a bit down to lock eye contact with her. He held her arms tightly making sure she didn't lose her balance again. - You're exhausted. I get you home.

Queen of trolls was just grinning at him mindlessly, blinking slowly and sleepily. Staring into his eye, she looked like she was processing what he had said. Then her smile slowly faded away. She rubbed her eye and her cheek.

- Okay... - Poppy whispered, quoting to pretend that she wasn't tired. She yawned so loud and instinctively put her head on Branch's chest. He took off his hand from her arm and lifted them up, not knowing what to do. He found this situation so confusing.

- Emm... Poppy? - He asked helplessly, but she didn't answer. She was just breathing calmly on his chest like she fell asleep right then. Branch giggled nervously.

- Okay, c' mere - He said, lifting her head and taking her arm to lead her home. When he started walking with her carefully, trying to keep her straight, she put her head tiredly on his shoulder and embraced his arm tighter by both her hands. Branch felt as his cheeks turning into purple, but then he found it really cozy. It didn't feel unnatural, surprisingly. It felt delightful. He kept the direction to the Poppy's pod, taking a look on her face. She looked so peaceful and comfy. Her cheeks were sparkling slightly as always, a few strands of hair were falling from the crown on her blissful face. He moved gently one of them from her closed eyes and saw as the edge of her lips trembled a bit to form a little heart-warming smile. He could help but adore her sleeping on his arm. She looked just gorgeous when she was sleeping.

Branch started seriously wondering why they weren't a couple yet. They spent every day with each other, doing their duties like they were already joint. He took care of her a lot, didn't let her overwork or be overzealous, and she always knew what to say or do to calm him or make him having fun with others. They danced together, sang together, hugged each other every 'hug time', accepted each other moods and odd ways. Just like couples did. So maybe they were too busy to just stop and think about, they did too many things to just start another one. And it seemed ridiculous. Branch looked at Poppy's peaceful face, wondering if she even knew how important she was for him. How many things he could do for her.

How much he loved her.

He suddenly realized what it meant. If he wanted to be with her, he had to become a king sooner or later. And as much as she wanted to be by her side, he had never thought about himself as a king. It sounded just outrageous in so many ways. Like, come on, the gray grumpy troll from the bunker? Okay, he wasn't that grumpy and he wasn't gray at all... But would the trolls like him? Would his ruling them be likable? They all just loved Poppy, but how would they love him as much as her? He still wasn't that sociable, extrovert, and cheerful. He liked dancing, singing, and hugging like everyone, but he still preferred caring about safety in the village than anything else. He made a lot of traps, he took care so much about hygiene in the locals and restaurants, he visited the hospital very often to make sure that everything was okay, he taught kids how to be safe and survive in the forest, he fixed every single mechanical defect in the village, not only in the public installations but even in the trolls' pods, and he made a group of trolls who could protect the village if something attacked them without any warning, and.....

Branch blinked. He saw what he was thinking about and realized that it was actually what kings usually did. Wasn't it? Was he already a king without any purpose? It sounded even more ridiculous than everything he had thought before. But it calmed him for some reason. Being a king suddenly wasn't that frightening. Branch looked at Poppy once again. She was still blissfully dreaming on his shoulder when they walked slowly to her pod. She was so close, he could kiss her cheek if he wanted. But he didn't. He smiled lovely, staring at her sparkling cheeks.

Branch couldn't look forward just to tell her how much he loved her.

When they finally arrived in the pink royal pod, Poppy slept really deeply. Branch took her up on his arms in the bride's way. Her head fell unconsciously on his chest and he felt her warm breath and touch of her cold nose. He held her tighter to make sure he couldn't drop her and then he threw up his hair, grabbing limb above them. He lifted them up and jumped onto the pink threshold. He kicked the door and went into the pod.

Branch knew where was Poppy's bedroom, he was there so often, almost every day. He laid Poppy carefully on her bed, trying to put her head on the pillow without waking her up. He took off her crown and blue scrunchie - she really didn't like sleep with them on her hair. He put that thing on the bedside table and covered Poppy by her blanket. He hadn't switched on the light so it was so dark, but he still could see peace on her face and gentle smile on her lips. He felt as his lips were lifting up slowly, forming a big lovely smile on his face. He wanted to touch her last time for 'goodnight', like kissing her forehead or squeeze her hand slightly, but he stopped himself from doing that. He could wait till tomorrow. It would feel much more delightful if she let him do that knowingly. So he just whispered "Goodnight" to her and turned around to go out.

But then he heard her voice.

- Branch? - Poppy mumbled quietly, turning to him sleepily in the bed. He saw her pink, bright eyes and gulped. Did he do something wrong?

- Yes? - Branch asked shyly.

- Thank you - Poppy beamed at him tiredly and sweetly, what made her look magically beautiful when the moonlight gently touched her sparking cheeks. Branch blinked, stopped for a sec, just being amazed by her glancing at him in that way. He felt his heartbeat quickened.

- You're welcome - He answered finally, smiling widely and kinda dorky.

- I just dunno what I would do without you sometimes - Poppy added, closing her eyes sleepily. She took a deep sigh and covered her cheek with the blanket.

- Me too - Branch chuckled slightly, couldn't stop adoring her, especially when she smiled tenderly at his answer and whispered to him sweetly:

- G'night, Branch.

He sighed long and blissfully. Her voice made his name sound so lovely and soft. He could hear her wishing him a good night every evening. He wished he could one day.

- Good night, Queen Poppy.

He knew how much she loved being called a Queen. He knew she would smile hearing it and he just stood to stare at this little cute smile he wished could never fade away. He left the room feeling confident and hopeful, his heart was squeezed and warm and his face was filled by a big lovely smile.

Tomorrow would be the day.

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anheliotrope-old · 4 years

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oldwoodsoldwoodsoldwoods

I survived two nights in the Old Woods hideout with permadeath in Darkwood. It's commonly considered to be the toughest hideout. It was incredibly tense! Though also easier than I was dreading it to be.

(For quick context, Darkwood is a top down action RPG horror game. It features timing-based combat, base defense and resource management.)

I never got there before. Well, I did get there on my run 2 years ago, but it looked so difficult I felt I had no energy left to deal with such a difficult location. I was streaming it to @lesimpleton but I forgot most of it because I was doing this to destress during the last 2-3 months of my thesis work.

Playing a really stressful game to destress from a really stressful ongoing activity - definitely a me thing.

(Didn’t really help memory retention either.)

The Old Woods hideout initially looks maze-like. Some walls are torn down, a passageway is blocked. It's just not a neat collection of rooms. It's something you have to get familiar with in order to navigate during attacks. When you get there, you're against the clock to barricade it and get everything ready, which makes it hard to properly map the area in your mind.

To mitigate that I planned a bit so that I'd reach the hideout during morning. Having time to figure out the layout helped a ton, because mobility is king.

At one point they made changes to the game to incentivize more mobile play rather than barricading a single room to the max:

Earthquakes move your stuff.

Poltergeists move your stuff.

Molotovs destroy your stuff.

Damaging lights spawn on top of you, prompting you to have to exit the room so that your photosensitive character doesn’t get cataracts and dies, since healthcare coverage is quite poor in rural Poland.

Black damaging substance spawns under you, again prompting you to leave immediately.

All of these events make it potentially perilous to have only one safe room. I've adopted a proactive but still defensive style (Ironically, I’ve also had only two earthquakes over a dozen nights).

I used a lot of traps and upon hearing a bear trap get triggered I would immediately seek out the enemy to finish them off while they were snared. I barricaded no doors whatsoever, not even the doors leading to the outside. This is so I can roam the entire hideout and kill enemies early.

The worst thing you can do is barricade the whole place or barricade in a way that creates chokepoints while you hide. The result is that enemies are stopped at the barricades and take time to destroy them, during which other enemies might spawn that also get siphoned into the chokepoint your barricades have created. Once the barricades get destroyed you now have to deal with multiple enemies at the same time and that’s always Really Bad in the darkest of woods.

Instead what you want to do is to have enemies come at you staggered. This is achieved with traps and asymmetric barricading. This also helps you feel more like a predator in your own territory rather than "aaaa I'm in a death trap". The place might be a maze, but now it’s your maze.

The thing I love most about this game is that it's not mechanically difficult, but it just requires a lot of cold blood.

At this stage in the game the best weapon you can have is the single shot shotgun. One shot kills a red chomper. You miss and you have a good chance of dying, red chompers are very fast, faster than you, and deal a lot of DPS. If you missed your shot, gaining another chance to hit will require a clear idea of what to do rather than having an "oh shit" moment. You need to know how you're going to escape.

The way weapons work in this game is that you have very poor accuracy upon aiming and need to continue aiming for 1-2 seconds. Aiming slows you down and reduces your cone of vision. Moving and shooting reduces accuracy, taking damage destroys it.

Successfully gunning down an enemy requires good timing with the shotgun and the pistol, but in different ways. Shotgun is all or nothing, on the other hand, the pistol requires several shots and your accuracy goes bad on every shot, requiring some time to reset. The enemy generally gets staggered on hit which helps, but you constantly have to be mindful of how fast you're shooting and your remaining space. Panicking and shooting faster or backstepping too early will kill you.

There was a moment in the first Old Woods night where a red chomper was breaking the outer door and I no longer had a trap there. I opened one of the inner doors for it and waited for it to enter and blasted it to hell.

It felt good to ignore normal hide and wait instincts - instincts that this game maliciously nurtures by giving you:

Limited light, including things that damage you in the dark without you being able to defend yourself.

Limited lives. 4 (+4 collectible) on Hard. Just one on Nightmare. Harsh in a game that takes 12-25 gameplay hours to complete for a normal run.

Time as an enemy and precious resource.

Pitifully low health, represented as two lonely bar segments, probably from a bygone alpha era where having segments made more visual sense due to being able to get more health.

A limited 90ish degree visibility cone. The limited visibility constantly makes you feel like you might be backstabbed at any moment and makes listening to sound incredibly important. And oh boy, the sounds in the game are definitely not relaxing.

After the night was over, the friend to whom I was streaming to, went afk and I could hear something like "jeez what was intense" in the distance. The stress of playing really leaked into the stress of just watching that unfold.

This game has lot of unknown in it due to the harsh death penalties. This element of "cold bloodedness" wouldn't even exist if you could repeatedly experiment with the enemy AI and figure out everything down to a T.

It would be completely overblown borderline chuunibyou to call it cold bloodedness at that point, it would just be succeeding at a basic mechanical trial. But the game gives you a strictly limited ability to experiment. You have a very rough idea of how things behave and you need work with that. In combination with the horror theme, it works very well to give you a feeling of fulfillment when you act with clarity.

This has opened my eyes a bit in terms of game design. Limiting experimentation is a valid method, if a very dangerous one, but it seems really necessary for horror games to not lose their tension.

I've noticed that games where I feel like I know everything but am just lacking a bit of mechanical skill get boring really fast, especially if that mechanical skill requires a lot of repetition to gain. Darkwood requires little repetition overall, but doesn't even give you that little amount you need, resulting in a pretty strong do-or-die feeling.

(This also makes me realize that games like Dwarf Fortress and Rimworld lose their “charge” very fast if you were able to explore a lot of them in a sandbox mode.)

#game design #vidyalog #darkwood #permadeath

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sepublic · 3 years

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Gushing about the Overlord Dragon

I’m really enjoying the Overlord Dragon set we’ve gotten from Lego; We’ve waited eight years for this (and still have yet to get a Mega Weapon, we almost got that in the Legacy Destiny’s Bounty before it was inexplicably and disappointingly removed!), but I think the wait has honestly been worth it!

It just… captures the original look of the show’s depiction of the Overlord, while still translating it into a feasible Lego set; A very well-done reverse-engineering, where instead of translating a Lego creature into a CGI, organically-shaped model into the show, it was done the other way around… And yet, I could also believe it as having happened the usual way, with the set coming first, THEN the show’s depiction!

If there was an issue I had with the original Overlord from the show, it’s that his design felt a little too organic, not greebled and detailed enough to indicate his adapted origins as a Lego set; But the set manages to perfectly capture his likeness while keeping the unique molded pieces to a minimum! The Overlord Dragon’s head design is particularly brilliant; I love its snaggle-toothed, almost crocodilian snout, faithfully retained from the Season 2 finale. I can imagine that iconic shot of the Overlord’s maw brimming with violet flames before he engulfs Lloyd with them, but with the Lego depiction instead. Similarly, the parts usage is clever; Instead of designing two new separate molds, for the upper and lower head respectively…

The designers only designed one jaw piece; But the teeth placement are asymmetrical, so that when you put them together, they interlock perfectly! It’s like a bear trap- Or to use a more Lego comparison, how the Shadow Trap in Bionicle consists of two identical pieces that when placed opposite one another, clamp into place. Still, the mold used for the Overlord manages to convey the illusion that the upper and lower head are different, and indeed I didn’t realize this until I had the actual pieces in my hand building the set; Adding the eyes on just the upper jaw, while additional barbs on the lower jaw, helps to pull off the look. And of course, the Overlord’s relatively simplistic design from the show –compared to other dragons- means the designers can get away with having the upper and lower jaws molded identically. The dual-molding for the teeth and head is also superb.

But one of my favorite parts is the color scheme; It’s the gorgeous black, gold, and violet of the Overlord’s Golden Master form from Season 3, with an additional dark-blue layered over that I think goes along very nicely! Of course, this does make me wonder what an Overlord Dragon would look like without the blue, and instead just the traditional colors… But regardless. I love how the Overlord Dragon takes obvious designs cues from the Golden Master, which seems to be Legacy’s go-to, evergreen depiction for the Overlord across media now. You can tell with how the purple orb and golden armor on his chest reflect the actual Golden Armor from Season 3, forged from the smelted Golden Weapons of Spinjitzu. The magenta lightning bolt is reminiscent of the Overlord’s torso and its wispy appearance as well, enshrined within a rib-cage.

I love this kind of retroactive, retcon of continuity; It creates more visual cohesion across the Overlord’s designs now that Legacy is arguably providing more modern, definitive takes on old sets, possibly to reflect the changes to the timeline done by the Iron Doom at the end of Season 7. From a meta perspective, the Overlord Dragon is designed after the Golden Master; But from an in-universe, retconned look, it seems the Golden Master was derived from Overlord’s original, natural draconic form! It gives the impression that when he rebuilds and clumps together his essence in Rebooted so he can wear the Golden Armor, the Overlord has essentially downsized and compressed himself into a smaller, humanoid knock-off look of his former self. It’s wonderful, and just like the sets themselves, looks much more color and visually appealing than the in-show dragons (in my opinion).

The usage of purple is great, the golden teeth are a wonderful accent to the Overlord’s face and maw- Having an Overlord minifigure included with the dragon helps to compare and sell the visual similarities and cohesion, how this dragon in the revised canon has been translated into a smaller, vaguely humanoid being. It really does feel like you’re looking at Maleficent, next to her dragon form; And the set is itself is decently sturdy and posable, with the tail swinging back and forth smoothly! I do wish that the arms were revamped to have more posability, as well as the Overlord’s head tendrils and whiskers. I imagine it’d be a pretty simple mod, but still. Overall, the Overlord Dragon set is a wonderfully gnarly, yet at the same time majestic and regal, adaptation of the show design, eight years in hiatus! It’s genuinely gorgeous and enjoyable to both look at and play with, and the building technique for his heels was incredibly clever and fun once my mind put it together both in realization of what was to come, and literally as well.

The set really does feel like something that would’ve been released back in 2013, albeit with a few more modern pieces of course. Right down to some major color and detailing discrepancies, it fits just well with the classic, if somewhat minimal, 2013 “The Final Battle” line… And of course, the inclusion of an entirely new set in the Legacy line, adapting what was never built before, gives hope to old-time fans as well; Perhaps sets will be made of vehicles, structures, and/or beings, that have never received classic Lego depictions themselves! In particular, I’m hoping for the Preeminent having a proper set after all these years; That’s another similarity her and the Overlord had, before the latter got his set… And seeing the Preeminent briefly return in Season 11, even if for a single episode with little bearing on the overall plot, gives me hope!

I’d love to see the Preeminent redone but with 2015’s gorgeous colors and ghostly aesthetic, with the lime-green, dark-blue, gnarly black, and purple highlights! And if the Overlord Dragon set looks better than the actual show depiction, then here’s hoping we get a gorgeous Lego reimagining for the Preeminent- The Ghost Warriors are among my favorite villains in Ninjago, for their beautiful aesthetic, design, and concepts; With the Preeminent being particularly unique as a living dimension who never speaks but clearly thinks, akin to the Mind Flayer from Stranger Things (Or the other way around, as the Preeminent came first).

#ninjago #lego #lego ninjago #ninjago overlord #overlord dragon #reviews #lego review #ramblings

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raspberryfanfics · 4 years

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concepts part III—hyuga hizashi

Summary: All of the world's unproven things could be explained in concepts: fate, freedom, fear, love...and a girl obsessed with birds made Hizashi question everything he believed in and made him believe. He didn't question it, he just let it be. After all, change is just a concept too.

Word Count: 7634

ON FFN HERE Part I HERE Part 2 HERE

Deciding not to bother Hizashi about his love life was probably the kindest thing his brother had ever done for him, though Asuka would argue that it was not kind, it was customary. She had a point, but that didn't stop him from being grateful. She also said that not being subject to pain whenever he did something the main house didn’t like should also be customary, but he reminded her that it was the Hyuga clan, and it wasn’t like they could do anything about it.

For the next few years, they dated, nothing coming in their way. He felt happy when he was with her, he felt safe, and to her relief, he consistently felt free. The limits that being in a relationship put them in were happily obeyed. He never forgot her words about freedom being a concept, as everything had limits. He had no problem with being unable to pursue other women or to have to tell his guy friends to stop when they were talking about how hot she was. There were many benefits in their relationship anyways.

Their skills as shinobi improved greatly and the most bonding part of their relationship was always the training. She helped him learn the rest of the jutsus reserved for the main members, helped him develop his own and pushed him to his limit every day. Asuka had made contracts with several more kinds of birds and they called her Konoha's Feather Fighter.

They did go through a couple of disagreements, as it was healthy for couples to, it was nothing terrible. The bigger problems were getting out of their multiple ANBU missions alive and trying to avoid all contact with the clan whenever possible. This gave them more privacy and more time for themselves. They were young, in love, and those were the only cares in the world.

Time seemed to pass like crazy until one day, they lay in bed at 22 years old, and he found himself wanting to be in this routine for the rest of his life. His smile faded at the realization, then came back bigger than ever before. Asuka looked at him and examined his face.

“What?”

“Nothing, everything's great,” he said, still smiling like a maniac.

She didn’t look convinced in the slightest but he didn’t care. He didn’t care until he realized that he’d somehow he’d have to bring it up to the clan, and somehow, they'd have to discuss their future. After all, she hated being a caged bird like he had to be.

“How long do you want to do this for?” he asked her solemnly.

Asuka paled. “Are you breaking up with me?”

“No,” he sighed. “I’m giving you a chance to break up with me.”

She just kissed him, kissed him hard, and pulled away, only to say. “I’m never gonna break up with you. You better not either.”

He smiled at her but the thoughts of trapping her still shot guilt through his system.

Hizashi declared it to his father the next day, who brought him to a clan meeting to discuss it. They didn’t approve, as Hizashi was talented and they wanted to pass on his strong Byakugan without fail.

“I’m not a part of the main house, therefore it is not a requirement for me to even have children,” he said, suddenly grateful that he was the one branded, not Hiashi. “She has no Kekkei Genkai, she’s an intelligent, capable, talented, beautiful, and renowned kunoichi. If anything, she will make this clan stronger, not weaker. It’s not like she knows little of our clan. She was the one who helped me master the kaiten, the main house jutsu. I’ve known her for ten years and Asuka hasn’t leaked a single secret of the Byakugan. My child still has a good chance of inheriting our eyes. And mustn’t you save our other cousins open to choice when Hiashi starts to marry?”

Hiashi reddened at his reminder.

“She still can be a threat. I heard of all those birds she has.” said an elder. “Couldn’t she use them against us?”

“Or she could use them to our benefit as she has for me.”

The banter went on and on until Hizashi finally stood up and cleared his throat. “If you have ever known love, for your spouse, for your children, or for your village, then you will permit me to propose because I love her more than anything I have ever known. I would much rather die painfully in the hands of the cursed seal than live a life without her.”

He didn’t know what convinced them in the end; the fact that he was hopelessly in love with her or the fact that they’d lose the most powerful member of their clan, branch or not.

Regardless, he picked a ring immediately. He didn’t have to find out her size. After knowing so long, it was easy to pick one. After all, he hand ran his through hers multiple times. He knew her hands by heart.

It was a minimal gold ring. As he walked to her house, he held the small black box tightly in his hands, careful that she wasn’t around as he stared at it. The ring was asymmetrical, one very thin gold band where one end curved slightly upwards and the other curved downwards, a beautifully cut diamond square between the ends of the band. He tucked the box back into his pocket and sighed. He was anxious to get it over with.

When they took a walk around Konoha, everything felt normal.

“Do you ever want kids?” he asked, even though he knew the answer. It wasn’t like this conversation never came up before, they discussed it, even with their team.

“You know I do. Maybe two, just so they can learn compassion.” she smiled. He was surprised to see her smiling widely. “You do too?”

“Yes. I would like kids in the future. Though I’m still quite surprised that you do. I would have thought you’d feel trapped.”

Asuka shrugged the golden sunlight making her honey eyes look warmer. “I can see where you’d think that, but I wouldn’t feel trapped if I could love them. Being a housewife though, I don’t think I could do that unless my husband was one too. Otherwise, I’d be insanely jealous.”

Hizashi smiled at the ease she held when she mentioned the word “husband”. “So you absolutely want kids and to settle down?”

“Settle down? When you put it like that it seems a little scary. Hopefully, I’d still get to go on missions. My husband and I would alternate and I’d still train with the team all the time. Parenting is supposedly a mission anyways. I’d hardly call that settling down. If it’s easy, you aren’t doing it correctly.”

“So in your vision of the future, you’re married,” he smirked.

Asuka blushed. “Well, I wouldn’t want to raise them alone and I’m not planning on having an unplanned pregnancy.”

“I’m sure that’s why they call it an “unplanned” pregnancy.”

“My point exactly. I’m not planning on becoming pregnant unless I’m married.”

“Would you plan on becoming pregnant, married to me?”

Her eyes widened in shock and he saw her running the sentence in her head over and over again, which gave him a good chance to kneel. Her mouth dropped open. She threw her hands to her face as he slowly opened the box, showing her the ring.

“I’ve been in love with you, for probably longer than I’ve admitted. You make me better, you make me happy, and you make me feel like I’m actually free. I know that you won’t ever let yourself be a caged bird and I know how you feel about my clan. If you feel like you’ll be held back, caged or anything less than free, I would understand if you left. But Asuka, I’d be honoured to give you my name, my name, not theirs, because I know how you feel about the clan.”

She suddenly interrupted him. “Stop it with your clan nonsense. I don’t care about it. I won’t let the clan hold you back from what makes you feel free any longer. So just ask me.”

Hizashi smiled wider than he ever did before. “Will you marry me?”

His answer was a kiss on the lips, making him dizzy with excitement. “Kids with the Byakugan and bird obsessions and all.”

Their wedding was small with just a few close friends, his brother and his future sister-in-law or cousin, the only two Hyuga who attended the wedding. She was his very distant cousin, who was very pretty, with raven hair that tinted blue and a permanent blush. He had a hard time introducing her to his friends, as he was confused about whether to address her as his sister or his cousin. However, despite the lingering coldness between the two twins, the petite branch Hyuga was very sweet and she urged Hiashi to attend. He decided that she was a very nice person to be around.

It was the most traditional wedding one could have, with one exception: the headdress. Asuka refused to wear the headdress because it symbolized submission to the groom. She argued that she would never submit herself to anyone, even him. After all, you could barely get any more of a raging feminist than she did. Shy nature would not determine passion.

“It’s not like you haven’t been submissive to me before,” he whispered huskily in her ear as she was fitted for the white wedding kimono. “I do recall you begging for more as I—”

“Not around the tailors!” She blushed harder than Hiashi’s fiance would.

“Afraid I’m gonna taint your dress?” he smirked. After all, the white was supposed to symbolize purity.

“Not like you haven’t tainted me.” Asuka rolled her eyes.

“Well, they do say—”

“Save it for that actual night, Hizashi!”

And he did. He didn’t care whether she wore a headdress or not. For all he cared, she could have stained her kimono red with the blood of all the people she had slaughtered and he would have married her on the spot anyways.

All the birds were silent that day to watch her, after all the years she had watched them. Feathers were weaved into her hair and her lips were painted a soft red. She looked stunning. Simply beautiful. As they walked down the aisle together, her hand was in his and he ran his thumb down the familiar traces of her palm.

Kazane-sensei took the place of both of their mothers, being there for both of them. Kenji was the first to make a toast and the first to give them their wedding gift, a picture someone had captured of them alone, back when they were still genin. He was forever grateful for their presence on his big day.

As a married man, Hizashi didn’t think his life could get better.

Yet his life was full of surprises.

He had come home one day and Asuka had cooked dinner. Though she didn’t admit it when he told her so, she was the best cook, even if she wouldn’t cook chicken, (or any bird for that matter). Yet in the middle of slurping on her famous dish: herring soba, he smelled burning, which she said she didn’t sense. Strange, because as shinobi, their senses were always hyperactive. Ignoring her, he went to the kitchen and noticed a burning dessert in the oven. He quickly took it out with an oven mitt and fanned away the smoke.

“Asuka, why is there a—uh, cinnamon bun in the oven?”

“You put it there,” she replied smoothly.

“No, I didn’t, I just got back.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck and smiled. “Of course you did. Who else would?”

“Well, I mean, you could have,”

“I could have put the bun in the oven, all by myself?”

His mouth dropped to the floor before grinning like an idiot and spinning her around as if he was doing a kaiten. “We’re having a baby!”

She laughed before he planted a kiss on her lips, activated his Byakugan, and admired the small child in her belly. It was healthy, barely there, but nonetheless, he could see the swirl of chakra.

“You better stop doing that. I want the gender to be a surprise.”

Hizashi was more than happy to comply. He carefully rushed her around the compound, first telling all the branch members he was close to, screaming that he was going to be a father with a ridiculous grin on his face. His family members would gasp and five Byakugans would activate at once, focusing on the fetus. He told them to take a good look because he wouldn’t give them the chance to find out what the gender was.

It was a boy.

Why was it so fitting that in the delivery room everything silenced to give way to the cries their son made? That when the two looked to her feet and they first met the eyes of Kenji, who had helped them deliver the baby and was the one holding out the scissors for Hizashi to cut the umbilical cord. That Kazane-sensei, though she insisted that she shouldn’t be called that anymore, was the one who expertly wrapped a blanket around their child as careful as she did with her own child. That she was the one who brought them together into a family and was the first to welcome a new member into their team.

He was a beautiful baby boy with dark brown hair that was almost black and lavender eyes of the clan’s Kekkei Genkai. Whether his hair was inherited from his mother or father, they wouldn’t know. After all, they had the same hair colour. Hizashi and Asuka loved their son, possibly more than they loved each other. He smiled a lot, laughed a lot, and lived like a free bird. Subconsciously, Hizashi would push away his child’s bangs, which was already past his shoulders at one year old and feel the unmarked forehead.

One summer day, they took Baby Neji on a stroll to an orphanage, revisiting the place Asuka used to reside and making sure that the kids there were treated well. They hadn’t been there in over a year and they noticed two new babies around his age. One was with chocolate brown hair who was constantly grabbing at hazardous objects and another was a boy with shiny black hair with bushy eyebrows who was very loud. Though Neji very much disliked the loud nature of the baby with black hair, he seemed to take a huge interest in the girl with brown hair. He examined her thoroughly, the way Hizashi would when he found an opponent, then grinned with Asuka’s smile.

When they left, Neji threw a loud tantrum, apparently missing the two orphans. They tried very hard to calm him down but he didn’t, just flailed his arms in the direction of the orphanage and screamed.

“ENEN! EEEE! ENEN! EEEE!” he cried, very similar to the two babies’ names: Tenten and Lee.

Asuka held him and shook him as he slapped his arms on her shoulder. Hizashi followed his wife and tried making faces to calm his child down. Then suddenly, Neji silenced in a very terrifying way. In a way that made you feel the impending doom. And when he screamed again, veins protruded from his temples and he was even quicker than before.

He was now thrashing in his mother’s arms and in a very familiar fashion, he poked two fingers into her mother's neck then into several other random places and continued to flail unknowingly.

Asuka gasped and quickly rushed him back to the orphanage, complying with his orders. Before Hizashi could question it, she gave him a look and raised her eyebrows.

“He just disabled the tenketsu point in my neck and my shoulder. Neji’s one! He’s 13 months old and he just disabled my tenketsu!”

It was a very good idea to let him play with Tenten and Lee for just a little longer before he fell asleep.

“Did I spoil him too much?” she asked.

“Well, he hasn’t thrown a Byakugan tantrum before…”

“Yea, I freaked out a little bit…”

“I bet they’ll be on the same genin team when they are older.” Hizashi smiled. “The way they destroyed that block castle was a perfect indication of teamwork.”

“We would know. After all, our team destroyed everyone when it came to teamwork,” she said.

“I wonder who their sensei will be.”

“Could be Hatake Sakumo’s kid.”

“Maybe the Hokage's son,” he grinned.

“Or the Uchiha boy, Obito. He shows promise.”

“The kid who’s Sharingan hasn’t awakened yet? He’s 15 already. I would put more money on Maito Gai. He defeated him in the chunin exams after all.”

“To be fair, if he’s as good of a teacher as his father was to him, Neji will be better than we are.” she pointed out.

They were both terribly excited to see their son grow up.

That same year, Hiashi’s daughter Hinata was born as an heiress of the clan. Both were truly happy for the couple. She was the spitting image of her mother; dark blue hair that was nearly black and a soft smile. She was almost just as beautiful as Neji was. She could even be on the same team as Tsume’s second child Kiba.

When Hinata’s mother and Hizashi were in daycare, letting their children play together, she grew strangely silent. His cousin/sister was quite shy in a way that made her more socially awkward rather than choosing to be quiet like Asuka. Asuka wasn’t great with starting conversations though she could maintain one, while Hinata’s mother stuttered a lot and blushed a lot too. However, as the years went by, they warmed up to each other. He was grateful that she didn’t push him to resolve his relationship with Hiashi because she was aware of how complicated it was. Hizashi liked to consider her as his friend.

“I need to tell you something,” she said very softly.

“What is it?” he put Neji down and let his child attempt to walk properly.

“It—It’s about Neji. Th—The elders have been discussing plans on giving the cursed seal to the newest generation of Hyuga when Hinata turns three. So that’s anyone who is more than three years younger than you which means that—”

“Neji will be branded,” he replied, interrupting his sister-in-law.

Dread filled his stomach. Funny how the pain of someone you love hurts you more than your own pain will. How could he let Neji be branded with the same fate he despised?

“I—I thought Hiashi was planning to stop branding us with the cursed seal,” he said with shaky breaths.

“The first step to becoming the clan head is to brand the branch members. He can only stop the generation after that from being branded after all the elders die out.”

“So Neji—He’s going to—” Hizashi resisted the urge to vomit. “I need to talk to Asuka.”

When she found out, she immediately burst into tears.

The guilt swarmed his stomach, clouded his thoughts. He shouldn’t have ever brought her into this life. This wasn’t the life she ever wanted. How could he be the one to cage her? He continued to apologize to her until she yelled at him to stop.

“I don’t care what life I live! My cage is only a cage if you two are not there,” she cried. “But Neji…”

Their child had no idea what was going on. He just watched them as they held him, crying as a family. They always believed in the concept of freedom. That they would be able to make their own choices. Maybe both of them would still be free even with the cursed seal because being with each other brought them freedom. Yet to let Neji be branded without putting up a fight would cage them for the rest of their lives.

They tried talking to the elders. To negotiate a deal. To bargain out a solution where the no was happy but Neji was unbranded. Yet they stood their ground, refusing to give him the freedom he deserved. For all they cared, they’d rather unbrand Hizashi if it was possible than let his child be free.

So when Neji was four years old, the day before Hinata’s birthday, they went to the Hokage. When Sarutobi Hiruzen couldn’t find a solution because apparently, he didn’t want the entire Hyuga clan to turn on him or the village to lose their influence, Asuka and Hizashi resorted to the last act. They were furious that their village forced them to act this way, but Hokage granted permission for Asuka’s discharge. She received a permanent leave that would simply say she left the village under unforeseen circumstances. She wouldn’t be under any bingo book and she wouldn’t be erased.

Hizashi wished he could follow his wife, but he had the cursed seal already. This was the best way. He was ok with living without Neji or Asuka if it meant that they could be free. He would do anything to make sure they would be free.

In the middle of the night, she left.

It was a tearful goodbye yet a quick one. She promised to send letters with her birds and pictures of Neji as he grew older. They would go to Suna because most of the people there used wind release, so she’d fit in well. She left flying. She always left flying.

He lay back in bed, sleep refusing to come. However, it wasn’t even an hour before the main members barged in and cuffed him. They brought him into the meeting room, despite his struggle against them. This was where they would interrogate him and he would refuse to say anything about where his child would go. The cursed mark would probably be activated, they’d probably treat him worse than they already did, but he knew deep down it would be worth it.

Yet as he crouched on his knees and bowed his head, Hizashi heard a dreadfully familiar scream. His head shot up towards the direction of the sound, praying that it wasn’t what he thought it was. It wasn’t possible. How would they be able to catch her when she was the fastest shinobi in Konoha and she had a head start? The scream couldn’t be Asuka’s. It couldn’t.

They had considered the risks before, yet how was it that she wasn’t able to outrun them? She had massive summons which would act as another form of transportation if she happened to sense people chasing her. How in the world had they done it?

When they shoved her into the room and brought her to her knees in front of him while pulling Neji roughly by the arm, he felt his heart drop. He hadn’t ever been so terrified in his life. What was going to happen now?

His father then entered the room with Hiashi, who quickly scanned the room and expression morphed into astonishment. Then it turned into anger and he glared coldly at the two.

“You should be much more subtle about your plans of escaping.” the clan head spat. “One of the maids overheard your little plans. I expected someone of the most prestigious clan in the five great nations to come up with a better escape than on the night before their child is to be sealed with the curse mark. Do you know how easy it was to spring an ambush on someone unsuspecting and running in one direction?”

“You—”

“This should teach you, branch members, a lesson. Brand her first, Hiashi.”

He protested at first, but with the stern look their father sent, he complied.

Hiashi put his hands together and formed hand seals quickly, then placed his palm onto her forehead. A piercing scream ripped through the air and he felt tears rolling down his cheeks. Seeing her in so much pain and not being able to do anything was far worse than experiencing it first-hand. Neji started to cry as well, whimpering in the rough arms of two other main members.

“Mother! Help her! Mother! Father, do something!”

“I’m sorry Neji.” Hizashi choked. “I’m so sorry.”

“Mother! Mom! Mommy! STOP IT, UNCLE!”

Hiashi looked to their father who didn’t seem to feel any remorse for the screaming woman on the floor, clutching her head in pain. Suddenly, his father formed another hand seal and the screaming went to an abrupt halt. The branch member was relieved at first, but he saw her eyes roll back and her body hit the floor.

“NO!” he shouted, panting, gasping for air.

Her face was still in pain as she lay dead, killed by her own father-in-law. Her hair seemed to lose its shine, her body lost its elegance. This had to be a bad dream. It all had to be one extremely bad dream.

Neji was released by the guards and he immediately crawled to his mother's side, shaking her shoulders.

“Mommy,” he said softly. “Mommy wake up.”

It broke his heart to see his child so innocent, tainted by the cruel ways of the clan. The mark had only burned on her forehead for a mere minute and now it was gone. The mark played two uses: one to inflict pain, the other to seal away the Byakugan once someone was dead. Yet without one, for Asuka that meant that the seal would kill her instead.

“Mommy!” Neji cried, starting to sob. “Dad! Mommy won’t wake up!”

“I know, Neji,” he said softly. “I know.”

“Make her wake up!”

“I can’t, I’m so sorry.”

“Bu—But Daddy, you can do anything.”

“Daddy can’t make mommy wake up—”

And suddenly he couldn’t hear himself anymore. Once again, the agonizing pain of the activated seal burned through his temples. Yet just before his vision clouded into red, he saw a glowing green hand press onto Neji’s forehead. He immediately grabbed for his son, trying to keep him from the pain. Pure determination was enough to ignore his temples throbbing but his father increased the agony.

The red started turning into white and he saw a familiar figure, now full of life again. As she started coming into view, he was about to run into her arms again until she ran at him first. Her ponytail flew behind her and she quickly pushed him back where he came from.

“Not now, Hizashi,” Asuka said, her voice blurry in his head. “You aren’t going towards the light until I say so.”

He went back into consciousness and his eyes shot open. The pain was much less now but it still hurt. No one was in the room anymore. There was only him, Asuka’s body, and Neji. Suddenly, his eyes shot over at Neji, who was sobbing by his side, head buried in his knees. He looked so vulnerable, was so vulnerable, and he swallowed thickly. On his forehead was the cross of the Kanji and two lines beside it, painfully familiar. It was identical to his.

“Oh Neji,” he said softly.

His son’s face shot up and he wrapped his arms around him, hugging his father close. “You woke up!”

“I did. It’s ok, you’re safe.”

“My forehead really hurts.” he whimpered. Hizashi hadn’t even seen anyone looking so scared.

“I know,” he said softly. “I know, Neji, but it gets better, ok?”

“Does it?”

“It does,” Hizashi assured, though he only referred to the immediate pain. The other pain, the pain of losing someone you loved and the pain of being caged, didn’t always get better. “Let’s get you some bandages and an ice pack ok? And we’re gonna go to Uncle Kenji’s house so you feel better.”

Kenji gave Neji a very small dose of morphine and offered some to Hizashi, but he refused. He said that he should probably not be under any influence when he said what he was going to say. He started off by breaking it directly. Asuka died.

His teammate blinked, then again, then again, then ran to the bathroom and vomited. The retching sound wasn’t as disgusting as the sound of heartbreak. When he came back and Hizashi asked if he was feeling ok, all he said was that it wasn’t important. Of course, he wasn’t feeling ok, but Hizashi no doubt felt worse so he had to be there for them. The three boys headed over to Kazane-sensei’s house to break the news to her as well.

Their teacher clutched at her chest and she was trying to hold everything back. She was usually the one comforting them but it was something they had to grieve together. When Kazane-sensei could breathe again, she rubbed Hizashi’s shoulder, the way she always would when he was angry at the world back when he was a genin.

“After my fiancé died, I thought nothing could get worse than that. We were young, 26 years old, and our wedding was in a month. I told myself there was no reason to live. He was the person I loved incredibly deeply, also the person who loved me deeply. On the day we were supposed to get married, I was about to kill myself.” The two jonin looked at her, surprised. They never heard this part of the story before. “You don’t hear about it a lot, but when someone desperately needs a deceased loved one and it is impossible for another to fill their place, that person can reappear to guide you. That day, he put his hand over mine, lifted my blade away from my neck, and he saved me. Hizashi, you’ll see her again. Don’t you ever believe you won’t.”

“I saw her,” he replied and Kenji stared at him, listening carefully. “The curse mark was about to kill me too and I was in so much pain that I could even feel my mind preparing to shut down all my organs. I was running towards the light, but she pushed me back and said that Neji needed me. How many times will I be able to see her again?”

Kazane-sensei looked out the window to a swift that was fluttering away soundlessly. “They say that there is no limit, but if one will put themselves purposely in danger to see the deceased, then nothing will happen. I believe that I haven’t seen my fiancé again because I have found others to help me ease the pain, though I’m sure that when I am close to death, he shall guide me to heaven. I’m sure Asuka will be there too.”

All three passed out in her house that night, though neither of them really slept at all.

Unbeknownst to them, that day, ninja in Kumogakure had come to sign a peace treaty, only to kidnap Hinata. War seemed to be breaking out once again, and the Hyuga clan was furious. Kenji babysat Neji as he attended the conferences to figure out what to do. That week passed by very slowly, as no one was able to find any solution as they demanded Hiashi’s body, who was the clan leader now.

Identical twins shouldn’t look so identical, with the same length of hair, posture, eye colour, skin tone, face shape, and voice. Yet at the same time, they shouldn’t be so distinguishable by a single glance. From the back, you may not tell the difference between Hyuga Hizashi and Hyuga Hiashi, but one look in both of their eyes and they were about as similar-looking as a kunai and a shuriken. One held burning hatred in his eyes, the other with no emotion.

Yet in Hizashi’s eyes, underneath all the hatred at the clan for killing his wife and branding his child, you could find a little love. Love for Neji, love for the village, even a little love for the brother who even though caused him a lot of pain, spared him lots as well. He could take the place of Hiashi, as they looked identical, and his Byakugan would be sealed away. It was a foolproof plan.

But was he willing to sacrifice his own life, to leave his son’s side and to be unable to help him grow up into a fine shinobi, unable to stand at his wedding, unable to meet his grandchildren?

He excused himself from the meeting. They had one day left to figure out a plan. He needed to visit the cemetery.

Something was off about her gravestone that day. The flowers he left on her stone hadn’t wilted yet. It seemed as if birds were always singing around her, even in death. He liked to believe that her summons sent them to remember her by. They were always loyal to her and she was always appreciative of them.

“It’s ironic, isn’t it,” Hizashi mumbled. He really thought they made it. He thought that she was right, that every concept she changed his mind of, really did benefit him. “We survived the Third Shinobi War, were war heroes, but still you die because my family killed you. I thought we’d die on a mission and I guess that’s how I wanted us to die. That’s probably why they tell you never to let your guard down.”

Hollowness was now eating him alive.

“I can save the clan’s secret,” he said to her.

Sometimes she talked back to him. It only happened in dreams or the moment before he fell asleep, but he knew it was more than just longing. His imagination wasn’t strong enough to completely smell her shampoo or to feel her fingers in his. She only came when he needed her and longer for her the most. Yet her voice was always hazy, being in a dream and all.

“I can save the village from a war,” he said.

The choice sounded so easy. He could give up his life. He would give up his life.

“But Neji...he’s going to be alone. He—he just lost you. He just received a cursed seal. I—I want to see him grow old.” Hizashi choked. “He’s the one who keeps me from dying. I would have died with you that day. I would follow you anywhere, even to heaven. But no matter where I follow you, I can’t let him die.”

The birds silenced, quieter than their wedding, quieter than her funeral.

“Asuka...I don’t know what to do.”

A tear streaked down his face and a hand was on his shoulder. A presence was behind him and he turned around to meet her warm brown eyes. She was just as beautiful as ever. Much better than how he had last seen her. Hizashi desperately grabbed her hand, and though it was not warm, it was enough. She was translucent, clear enough to be a spirit. She was half-present.

“Oh, Hizashi. You know deep down what you’re going to do,” she said softly. Though her hand was cold and her body translucent, her voice was just as rich as it used to be.

He put his hand on her jaw, brushing back her hair reminiscently. “I don’t know if it’s the right thing to do. I—how do I leave him? How can I leave him? He’ll be alone like I was and I promised myself I’d never had a kid who didn’t have any love or—”

“Hey,” she said soothingly as he trembled in her arms. “He won’t be alone. He’ll have a team. He’ll have a wonderful sensei. He’ll have friends. We’ll still be there for him. He’ll always have us. Neji will forgive you. He’ll understand when he’s old enough.”

“Do you visit him?” he asked.

“You can only visit the living in dreams or truly desperate times.”

“I’m going to die,” he said, voice shaking. Hizashi bent his head over her shoulder and she held him, in the way she’d always hold him. He wanted her to stay. For her never to let go.

His eyes closed and she pushed him back lightly, cupping his jaw with both hands. He felt her breath near his face and wondered if she was going to kiss him. He longed for her kiss again, just once more as he lived. There was a pause, then he felt his wife’s lips on his, slowly sealing into his mouth perfectly, the way they always fit.

Her lips were slightly cold, like the brush of the winter wind. He softened into her embrace, his body melting from its stiffness. She pulled away devastatingly slowly, first her face, then her hands, then her body.

When he opened his eyes, she was gone.

He barged into the conference room nearly two hours after he left.

“Let me take Hiashi’s place.”

It was safe to say that every pair of white eyes stared at him in confusion.

“Excuse me?” his brother asked.

“I’ll take Hiashi’s place. Give them my body in exchange for Hinata’s.”

“Lady Hinata,” one of the elders corrected.

“I’m sacrificing myself to save this damned clan and this village!” he yelled, before going on to explain his plan. “They cannot tell the difference between Hiashi and I. My Byakugan will be sealed away and Hinata will return to the village safely.”

“You can’t.” He was surprised to see that Hiashi was rejecting his idea. “I’m going. I’m the clan head. She is my daughter. It is my responsibility to take care of it. I don’t want to command you to die, brother. I have controlled your fate enough.”

“You have,” he said because his brother had controlled every bit of his life until this moment. He had only learned to be happy about some parts of it. “Yet this is of my own choosing. I am dying for my brother, for my family. I refuse to die for this wretched clan who chooses to kill its own members off like pigs for slaughter. I shall only die for my family and my village. I shall choose my own fate.”

The elders looked at each other, then at Hiashi, who was still reluctant.

“I will spend my last day with my child. I would like not to waste a minute of my time left. I shall come back at midnight so we can go to Kumogakure.”

He left the room at once, heading straight to Neji’s room. His son had been training his Byakugan so he already sensed him at the door.

“What a pity that you were not born into the main house.” he sighed, ruffling Neji’s hair.

“I know, father. You’ve already told me.” he smiled.

“Do you feel improvement?”

“I do, father.”

“That’s good.”

“Will you help me with dinner?” he asked.

“We aren’t going to be eating with the other branch members?”

Hizashi shook his head, a sad smile on his face. “I’d like to try and make herring soba. Does that sound good?”

“It does, father.”

It was quite sad that Neji viewed cutting fish as training, rather than just a time to bond. It appeared as if the competitive nature of the Hyuga clan had already got to him.

When he asked if this would help him wield a kunai, he shook his head and said it would help him with being able to cook excellent meals for his loved ones. He was pleased with the answer and continued to slice the herring.

The soba was ready in a bowl of broth, half a fish on their bowls for each. Neji happily ate his meal, without a care in the world. Hizashi hoped the rest of his life would be in a similar way.

“How is it, Neji?”

“It’s good, father,” he said politely, slurping on them eagerly.

“They say food tastes better when you make it yourself.”

The four-year-old shrugged. “It’s not as good as mother’s.”

“If it was, then there would be a problem.” he chuckled lightheartedly. Although the meal couldn’t even compare to Asuka’s cooking, it still brought back a wave of nostalgia.

“I miss her,” Neji mumbled.

“I do too.”

Neji listened to Hizashi’s tales of being a shinobi that night. He told her about how he met his team, their first day together being the first bonding moment. How they had his back since the first day and how he followed Asuka’s commands literally blindly. He told him of their first mission, their first real mission, the chunin exams, all of his battles, all of her battles, the night she kissed him on the cheek and Hiashi’s jealousy.

His son took great interest in his mother and uncle’s chunin exam battle, how she used birds to defeat her enemy. He explained how his mother was always free, unlike him. He told Neji of how the love of his life introduced the concept of freedom to him and the concept of being caged. Unfortunately, death may be his only freedom now. Yet being here with his son in his last moments may be freedom as well.

He told Neji of the first summoning contract she developed. He told him about how they used the birds to spy on Hiashi’s lessons so he could learn the main house jutsus. He told him of the pranks Kenji would play on them and how his teammate and sensei would occasionally throw their prosthetics at them abruptly, never failing to catch them by surprise.

He talked about little things like how she would use her wind jutsu just to listen to the leaves rustle in this air or how she walked like royalty but was born an orphan. He told him of the big things like the first time he told Asuka he loved her, the time he proposed, the time she told him she was pregnant, the first time they held him in their arms.

He talked about himself too, like how he hated the world for making him the younger sibling. How he saw death as finally being free. He talked about fate a lot because he truly believed in it at one point. He talked about the concepts he never figured out and all the ones he did.

Neji was wide awake the whole time, almost as if deep down, he knew that this was their last moment.

Minutes before midnight, he tucked the small child in, kissing him on the forehead, and telling Neji to always be brave and to remember that his mother and father love him. Lastly, he told him to always spread his wings as wide as he could and to soar. He nodded and drifted off before the lights even went out.

Arriving in Kumo was a blur. He could barely focus as they took back Hinata and led him into a room with concrete walls lit by torches. He didn’t comprehend the chains around his wrists or the way he knelt on the floor.

The blade of the sword against his neck wasn’t as cold as he expected it to be.

“May you give me one moment to think before I die?”

They had enough mercy to let him take a breath, holding him tightly in the chains.

“I’m facing death,” he whispered, in acceptance, without grief. “May I see you for another moment as my feet are still with the earth instead of the sky?”

When he didn’t feel the cut of the blade, he looked up to see things moving so slowly that the rest of the world seemed frozen.

His breath caught in his throat the same way it had done millions of times before, and there she was again, this time on her knees before him, in front of him, smiling warmly. She didn’t look as ghostly as the last time she appeared at his desperate moment and her body was much less translucent, though she was very much still a spirit. He assumed that she looked almost alive because she was here to take him to heaven.

“How are you feeling?” she asked.

“How am I supposed to feel?”

“I didn’t expect to die, so trust me, it was a surprise to wake up in heaven,” she said lightheartedly. “Everyone will feel differently. So, how do you feel?”

“I’m not sure. Possibly disappointed that I do not have more time to spend with Neji, that it is so early. However, I am ready.” Hizashi breathed, staring into her eyes, hoping she wouldn’t vanish. “Will you stay as I die?”

“Of course I will.”

“Does it hurt, Asuka?”

“Until your heart stops.”

“Will you walk me home?”

His lover’s face softened from the sad look at seeing him die, to a reminiscent one. Usually, he asked to walk her home and this time, it was her turn.

“You don’t have to ask.”

Time unfroze, and there was pain. He felt himself getting dizzy, and his eyes drifted closed. As his grip on her hand loosened, hers tightened. It felt like sleeping at first, feeling extremely tired until a hand shook his shoulder awake. When he opened his eyes, everyone was where he left them, but the room was brighter, and her hand was warm instead of cold.

He sat up and carefully ran a hand down his jaw, to his neck where the blade had pressed. There was no cut, no scar, nothing. The jonin felt lighter, saw his bloody body on the floor, lifeless. He started to leave his human form and his wife helped him from it and then suddenly, in the blink of an eye, he was in the clouds. Hyuga Hizashi was finally free from everything, even the concept of dying.

END

once again, thanks to @theshitthatidoishere for the inspiration and the art

#hizashi hyuga #hiashi hyuga #neji hyuga #hyuga #hyuga clan #hizashi #oc #tenten #rock lee #team gai #naruto #narutoverse #raspberryfanfics

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purkinje-effect · 3 years

Text

The Anatomy of Melancholy, 61: Ряженье

Table of Contents. Second Instar, Chapter 28. Go to previous. Go to next. TWs: Needles, drug use. Preparations for the nuclear winter solstice.

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A tall figure moved about Reese’s dwelling, tending to various materiel, some salvaged, and the rest likely requisitioned from the Deenwood Compound. ‘Choly stepped inside at a caution, rubbing at his shorn neck. He eyed the open space, expecting Reese. His face drooped when the figure faced him. Theirs mirrored his, their mouth open only partly as they eyed him.

‘Choly ineffectually cleared the viscosity in his mouth. Like Bones, Reese had not yet put their mask back on either. He scarce could recognize the Furriers’ leader from his memory of them at the Unfolding, though the vibrant purple and green garments seemed similar to what they’d worn the first time he’d met them. Terrence and Irene’s body now met near full, standard symmetry, save Irene’s extra eye in their left cheek.

“A Vault Dweller, then.” As Reese spoke, ‘Choly noted they had retained their lemniscate dentition. The eight foot tall figure’s lips became a thin line, and they unstuck to pull back their two-tone hair and pace. The smoke had remained to their voice, though now with a neatness to modulation and trachea it had not held prior. “This is where you slept. Are there other officers in your Vault?”

His gaze fell anywhere but on Reese.

“...A JAG Corps lawyer,” he answered, after doing everything he could not to think too hard about the two enlisted. “Really, it’s just me now. Is it a problem?”

“It simply explains a great deal about you. Deeper than the surface. Take, for instance, that you first made yourself more recognizable as an officer when we first met, sooner than wear something with distinct protective benefit. Either you valued concealing your involvement with a Vault, or you did truly awaken very recently, and have no concept yet just how valuable a Vault Suit even is.”

“It’s really nothing that deep,” he lied, laughing off being read. He rubbed at his upper arm. “I just had to change because my uniform to ruined at The Unfold--”

Reese guffawed, transfixed with enthusiasm, and turned heel with an intense glare.

“You see why we discard it all so far in advance! Tell me The Unfolding was everything you expected, Colonel.”

Locked up how to even begin to reply, ‘Choly nodded emphatically, eyes wide and obeisant as he looked up at Reese. Every other Furrier had grown more asymmetrical, more arcane, more everything from The Unfolding, but not their sachem--and somehow, that beguiled him more than anything about the whole ordeal. They clapped their two hands together with urgent delight, flashing him back to gravity.

“It warms me, to know this. We must discuss battle strategy. Earlier you sounded like you had a plan. The General will be contributing her service.”

‘Choly shifted between enamorment and frustration.

“I’m glad we’re in agreement. I’m getting a little tired of being told what I’m supposed to accomplish only after I’ve been cornered into agreeing to it.”

Reese calmed in the rebuff.

“It’s only right.”

‘Choly detailed his understanding, but he lost track of everything spilling out of him, troubled by his infatuation with Reese prior to The Unfolding. Or rather, its absence--now that Reese looked comparatively normal, the magnetism had faded. A recap of everything Liv had discussed with him came, without him really grasping he’d articulated it. His brow strained. He felt more predatory than usual, how his attraction to Reese could simply evaporate in a matter of hours.

He realized at some point that Reese and he had both spoken, but he retained nothing from the exchange. The dialogue waxed looping and incoherent in places, for both of them even, perhaps. At one point, he could have sworn Reese went on that the memories of the Rust Devil tributes had dispersed throughout the Furriers, and that they’d gained gained some tactical advantage in this way. He glanced down at his Pip-Boy, wondering with a petulant absence if he could attribute this brain fog as a side effect of the X-Cell-Squared wearing off. The vitals menu either yielded cryptic results, or his faculties had waned that thin.

Fidgeting idly, he noticed the device had saved a draft. He nodded to himself. It comforted him a bit, that he didn’t have to open it, to know what it was. He’d have to survive the rush, if not just to edit the draft into some enjoyable, viscously detailed reading.

Bones stood again in the doorway, politely waiting her turn to speak as usual. It took some time for the two of them to wave her in, and she smiled to them graciously. Reese snorted and shooed at ‘Choly with the stern protectiveness of a sibling-turned-parent.

“We pick our masks fresh again after The Unfolding,” Reese reminded as Bones took one of ‘Choly’s arms in two of hers. “Be certain to confirm yourself before we leave, Colonel. Thirty minutes, like you said. Not a minute more.”

He could do little more than nod. His heart swapped places with some other organ as the Mistress of Ceremonies dragged him along. It had been one thing, for the Furriers to have outsmarted the Devils with pit and wire traps, on their own property. It would be another entirely, for them to outpace the raiders on the Devils’ terrain. The whole thing felt like a test he hadn’t studied for.

Between Reese’s house and the Reservoir House, he noticed Angel milling idly, transparent in its proximity but also in a deliberateness to keep its distance. He’d have to apologize after Bones had finished with him.

Bones held out the coat for him to inspect. He reached out to run a cautious, gloved hand along the cobalt ultramarine jacquard brocade, jaw slack in distant admiration. It scarcely anymore resembled the white colonel’s coat he’d worn into Voire, between the lining and the turned long-pile peppered fur collar. He pulled back, to remove his rifle and Pip-Boy just long enough for him to slip it on. She gleefully helped him into it, delighting in his features as she fluffed at the collar.

Blood-borne diseases. He clipped his Pip-Boy back on and frowned meaninglessly to himself. The Vault Suit had synced to the Pip-Boy for more comprehensive physiological diagnostics. He swallowed hard to shove down the dread of inevitability. On the one hand, it had told him at the gold course that he had not contracted anything from the Bloodbug stab; but on the other, it had attempted to speculate just about everything else. He gave the device a plaintive touch. Please, never tell me that I fucked up trusting Liv.

His chin bobbled down into the fur, trying to connect their lines of sight while also looking over his glasses.

“Why... why was it necessary to redo the lining before we rush the Devils?”

“The officer’s martial coat had good leather to work from.” She smoothed down his lapels, and briefly broke their gaze to intimately trace at the twin Pharm Corps insignias she’d already pinned in place for him. “Leather has always been the best protection from the postwar elements anyone could hope for. We’ve named ourselves the Furriers, because we learned to survive radiation thanks to tanning and fiber craft. It’s unfortunate that we only had the one source of human leather at the moment’s notice, as it’s the zenith of rad resistance when tanned properly. But leather’s only effective against energy, not mass. I replaced the lining with something not just formidable against the rest, but,” she smiled sweetly to herself, “beautifully fitting of you. I hope the choice of pattern pleases you. It’s the only fabric I had on hand in the right color for you.”

He stood silent, simply running his gloves over the fur time and again. The coat now reminded him of a shuba. Except this one will protect me from the nuclear winter. The floral jacquard brocade reminded him of Hubflower, the way the vaguely iridescent pattern picked up both lavenders and ultramarines. He sniffed, locked up between that juvenile nostalgia again and the fidelity the garment now carried.

“Hub suits me more than I can say. Thank you, Bones.”

He put a hand to her cheek, and watched her watching him. Their lips closed in on one another’s.

A Furrier with a black cat mask and long stringy dark hair burst into the Reservoir House, donning a mix of oiled leather and military twill. Despite still carrying the silhouette of having a head on his shoulders, his arms sprouted from his hips. He pointed at ‘Choly, who jerked back like he’d been caught.

“Sticks said you’d be here. We should’ve left for the rush hours ago! Why should we listen to you! Can’t even handle your root!”

“Felix!” Bones hissed. “Watch your tongue. It was his first time!”

“And it’ll be the Devils’ first time, too. This isn’t Sanctuary! You don’t think--”

“--Don’t you THINK,” Angel entered at a roar behind him, “that you ought to show your commanding officer a little more respect!”

“Sanctuary.” The word fell from ‘Choly like bile. He knew the man meant it as a name, not an idea. “I don’t think what?”

Felix had to think twice before he spoke again, his head whipping around to account time and again for the number of people now in the workshop.

“Sir, with all due respect--and there’s so little. You don’t think it’s going to be a cake walk, do you? Be part of some elite group where you get to shelter yourself from the chaos whenever it’s convenient for you? This may still look loosely like a military outfit, but understand this, and understand it well: We stand with you, not beneath you. Not for a second. Not with who you are.”

A look gnarled ‘Choly’s face, like he’d mistakenly bitten into something rotten. His head barely would give him the words to put in his mouth.

“Excuse me?” His face righted just enough to form a response. “Where was this vitriol and doubt before The Unfolding?”

“Your little fainting spell just proved how frail you are. Whatever being in that hole in the ground did to you, you aren’t fit for command anymore. If you can’t handle your Root, you don’t have the Endurance to stay afloat in a fight.”

“I’m the one to make that measure,” Angel insisted. “Not. You.”

It put itself between the Furrier and ‘Choly. ‘Choly nearly squeaked in resignation that Felix was right, of course he had the constitution of... wet cardboard, wasn’t it? Felix took a hostile step forward, and Angel squared up, drawing its lasers.

“Go ahead and hide behind your baby blue cotillion bot, Colonel Carey. At the end of the day, we all report back to Reese, not your-- you.”

Bones glared at him, fists clenched.

“Felix, save this for the Devils.”

“He’s sure a demon I could put to rest,” Felix muttered, showing himself out.

‘Choly wheezed once he felt safer.

“What was all that about. Angel, thank you for coming to my rescue.”

“I’m sure you could’ve handled it just fine without me,” the Mister Handy started. He couldn’t discern from its tone whether Angel had intended it as a jab.

“Well I’m certainly glad that you swooped in after him,” Bones disagreed. “Between you and me, we must keep Melancholy in one piece. Am I right, D.I. Angel?”

“I didn’t know you brought the Vault Suit,” he appreciated, sheepish.

“Well, I couldn’t very well have let you get off without a change of clothes, now, could I? What sort of Automatron would I be!”

“You really do all you can to provide for me. You even know what I need without me voicing it.” ‘Choly lost his fingers in the fur again, his eyes distant. “Food, safety, security.” His wet eyes picked up, feeling a fleeting clarity. “Security. You’re home, moy Angel. ...Ty dom.”

“Oh, Sir... I turned you loose to the Furriers because I trusted Mister Hawthorne’s statement that X-Root and X-Squared are incompatible. Worst case scenario, you got a scare. Best case scenario, you enjoyed yourself. Sir... Sir, I can’t tell if you trust me anymore, to put your best interests in priority. And you must, if we plan to survive this full assault.”

“Of course I trust you. The... worry’s been whether you trusted me. I have to be honest with you, Angel. I’ve... I’ve been scared to navigate our arrangement, so I’ve avoided it altogether. Even when I thought chems might help.” His pale face shimmered as his breathing got heavier, and his ears stuffed up the harder he focused on keeping his train of thought in utter earnest. “Day’s already been hell, even before the X-Squared wore off too fast. I don’t think I can get through this day without chems, Angel. I feel the only way we’re getting through this is with a fistful of Stimpaks and Calmex.”

“You and I have an agreement, Mister Carey. You’re asking me to administer chems, and you’re asking me politely, at that. You replaced my worn out Nanny attachments with those in better condition. Let’s try them out, shall we?”

“I. Yes, please.” He stared at it, fumbling and dumbstruck that the understood one another so immediately. “Perhaps, just a dose of Med-X for now. If you could. Please.”

He pulled his left arm from its sleeve, and rolled up the Vault Suit just enough to bare his antecubital fold to the robot. It complied with delicate precision and without hesitation. Once he’d smoothed his garment back down, he leaned his forehead against Angel’s chassis, and it held a tendril against his back.

“Where do you suppose Sticks has gotten off to?”

“He’s doing a once-over on the Riverhawk before we head out, Sir. I’ll take you to him, if you must. We’re wasting daylight, the longer we dally so.”

‘Choly nodded. He looked to Bones.

“You’re the two piloting machines.” She urged them on with a certain distance in her eyes, as though it all made sense.

He walked up to her, and held one of her shoulders. Then, he pressed his lips to hers. Her lurid intensity drew him in with all six arms as she pressed back, the two of them coaxed rather than repulsed by the effect on her activated flesh.

“We’re going to get through this in one piece,” ‘Choly told her with a crooked smile.

“Out of many, one,” she agreed, with an even more crooked smile.

‘Choly took up the Syringer rifle and attempted to mount Angel. He struggled to hoist himself up steady on the foot pegs, but managed much better once he wrapped a fist in the juryrigged chain-belt reins and leaned over the top of the Mister Handy. Once it had tared to his weight, it spirited him out of the workshop, around the Christian Hill Reservoir, and to Ick’s house.

“Oh, good.” Sticks only looked up long enough to confirm he’d heard and seen right. “You’re done speaking with Reese. And playing dress-up, apparently. --Don’t... take that as ignorance. I know Bones was played your quartermaster.”

‘Choly didn’t feel confident in his ability to get back up a second time, so he stayed mounted atop Angel. He shoved down a frown as the heaviness of the painkiller hit.

“Are you going to be all right, Jacob?”

“Can’t take the Ick outta Sticks.” An exhaustive silence transpired while Sticks stuck his head back in the passenger side window, fishing through things he and Felix had loaded up. “It’s good you’re up there. Should’ve stayed atop Angel. You’d have been safe up there.”

“Doesn’t matter what I should’ve done. Does it?” He murmured to himself in a vague lyric, trying to find the words. “No, it does matter. Of course it does. But we can’t stand around sorting out what that means. We have war ahead.”

“Best thing I’ve heard all day!” Felix hollered from the driver’s seat, slapping the wheel. “Guns blazing!”

“Straight shot down to Back Central,” Sticks agreed, hoisting himself up into the back of the truck, where his mounted Flamer awaited him. As he stood in place, he glanced to ‘Choly. “You, leading the charge, and us, heading up the back... It works out, to have had the extra ninety minutes before heading out. We’re more together than we would’ve been without it.”

“I’m glad to be favorable.”

Felix turned the engine over, and they made their way out to the entry point of Voire. Any Furriers who had not yet taken up a mask chose theirs from a pile, then joined their neighbors standing ready for their commanding officer. ‘Choly remembered that Reese had urged him to confirm himself as well, but he didn’t feel right taking one of their masks. He reached into Angel’s storage, and produced his burlap sack hood. It had always hidden his identity, but masks provided the Furriers theirs. With this freakish crew marching through Lowell clad in masks and bright colors, he couldn’t help but imagine them as mummers. What dragon might they slay today?

“Ghost,” he murmured, smoothing it down under his coat collar. “Burlap. Sack. Ghost.”

‘Choly waved them all on, to follow out of Voire. As Angel flew backwards, he watched the Riverhawk get further away from him. He resigned to requesting the aforementioned Calmex and Stimpak, which Angel administered to his throat. He stood resolute, riding standing-saddle. The sky darkened to the East behind them. They brought the night.

Night was longest in the winter. He couldn’t help but feel more the part of Kara-chun, than ‘Choly-ada. And it tickled an important part of him.

His mind played Sticks’s voice as he again faced the front.

You’re just a ghost, Mindy. Well, hell’s full ‘cause the Devils are all here. And they’re going to have to deal with us.

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#fallout 4 #fo4 #fallout 4 fanfic #fo4 fanfic #sole survivor #the anatomy of melancholy #melancholy #sticks #angel #bones #reese #felix #lowell #centralville #rust devils

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touchingoldmagic · 4 years

Text

Day 26 - Nightmare Fuel

Day 26 of the 30 Day Ghostbusters Challenge!

Author's Note: Somehow this turned into Peter/Ray fluff by the end. Oops.

Peter decided if he never had to dust off the ole' psychology skills during another bust, that would be just peachy. He wouldn't even complain (much) when there were a lot of stairs. He'd be perfectly happy if the ghosts just stayed easy and boring from now on. It was better than dealing with this.

"Hey buddy, why don't you take a breath--sorry, too soon? Whatever it is you do to calm down, then. You don't wanna do something you regret."

The ghost was mostly human-looking, but soft around the edges. Not insubstantial, but rather like its ectoplasmic skin was the consistency of putty and was starting to run. One eye drooped, giving its face an asymmetrical look, and its hair was plastered down on its head like it had been standing out in the rain. Its entire body gave off a phosphorescent blue glow.

So did the noose around Ray's neck.

The bust had gone bad from the start. The ghost's cat and mouse tactics were more calculated than their usual fare, seeming to take great delight in drawing them out to various rooms in the old bed and breakfast, only to disappear just when they thought they had it cornered. Eventually the four of them had split up to try to pin it down with streams coming from opposite directions, but even their usual pincer tactics weren't working.

They had reconvened in the lobby and Peter hadn't had a sinking feeling until he saw they were down a man. Before they could even radio to find out what was keeping Ray, the ghost announced its presence with a rattling screech of sound that was wordless yet still conveyed its aggravation with them.

The bed and breakfast was in the middle of renovations before opening to the public, but quite a bit of money had gone into the foyer already. It was a good twenty feet across, all nice carpeting, cheery oak desk and heavy drapes, with a stairwell on the left that led up to the second story hallway. A thin and delicately carved wooden railing was all that separated the second floor landing from a fall to the foyer below.

The screech came from the landing above them, the sudden proximity of the spook sending the PKE meter wailing. Their eyes were dragged upward to find the ghost hovering in the air. It had dragged Ray up onto the railing to balance precariously, holding the Ghostbuster's hands behind his back. That hold--and the noose--were the only things keeping Ray from taking a plunge over the side to the floor below.

Despite the fact that the tail end of the rope floated in the air behind Ray's head on its own like a demented kite, Ray's expression made it very clear how tight it was. His lips moved as he struggled to speak to them, but no sound emerged.

Peter pushed forward to address the aggravated spirit.

"All right. Let's all keep calm here. Look, I'm putting my thrower away." He slid it into its home over his shoulder, holding up his hands.

The ghost glared down at them. Despite being slightly smaller than Ray, its form didn't waver or budge as Ray struggled to pull free of its tight grip. Peter gave a brief hand gesture to tell him to stop moving around, though he wasn't sure how well he could see them from his forced vantage point above.

"So what's the big message, buddy?" Peter asked the spirit lightly. His tone was betrayed by the intensity on his face. "You got something you want to say? Cuz we're listening."

The ghost opened its mouth, but the only thing that emerged was a choking rattle, angry and sharp.

Peter frowned. "Well can't say I know that one. Maybe if you hum a few bars, I can fake it."

The ghost garbled a reply that sounded like a breathless shout and it shoved Ray forward, into open air. For a moment his arms flailed and reached for his neck, expression panicked, before he dropped like a stone.

"Dah!" Peter bolted forward. He was under the falling form in two steps, hands raised above his head, desperate to catch him before the noose snapped taut. He got his hands awkwardly under Ray's boots and pushed upward, taking the full brunt of the weight of his teammate and partner. Peter's knees almost buckled before he locked them, grunting with the effort, arms and shoulders shaking.

"Winston!" Egon barked urgently, taking aim at the spirit. "Trap the ghost. Quickly!"

"But--" Winston's gaze went to Peter and his struggling grip, instincts telling him to go help.

"NOW. It can't materialize extraneous manifestations in the trap."

Winston's eyes widened and he nodded, the plan now clear.

If the ghost resumed the tactics it had been applying all morning, it would have been able to evade two streams. But it was too set on watching its victim writhe like a worm on the end of a hook. A pair of streams shot out simultaneously and the two Ghostbusters were able to snare the specter while it was distracted.

It raged when it was caught, the mostly human features melting further into something more monstrous, with bulging eyes and an elongated chin. Winston held the bucking, snarling thing while Egon threw the trap, and the foyer lit up with a cone of white light.

As soon as the trap snapped shut there was a loud thump. Winston and Egon shot over to help the others, who were now in a pile on the carpeted floor.

Ray had landed on top of Peter, immediately exploding into a coughing fit and clutching at his throat. Peter had him in a death grip, but he released him when he saw Egon bend over to check on him. The physicist helped Ray roll off of Peter and sat him down on the carpet, examining him while Ray struggled to regain his breath.

"You okay, man?" Winston asked, helping Peter to his feet.

"Uh huh. Nice shooting," muttered Peter, but his eyes were on Ray.

Winston patted the psychologist's shoulder after he made sure he was steady on his feet. It was clear where Peter's attention was. "He's okay, guy's got a head harder than yours," Winston said, with a purely relieved grin.

That night Ray rolled over in bed, paused a moment, then carefully shifted to a different position, trying to get comfortable. He debated getting a bag of peas from the freezer but realized he'd probably doze off and wake up in a puddle of defrosted pea juice.

The bruising was pretty colorful. He hoped it would look a bit better by morning, otherwise he was going to be reduced to wearing turtlenecks for the next couple days. And he looked really bad in a turtleneck.

The phone rang. He sat up and reached for it on the nightstand, relieved to have something to do. The cord was permanently stretched out from him dragging it around the room each time he took a call; he was never good at sitting still during a conversation.

"Stantz," he said into the receiver, deciding offhand that his voice didn't sound too bad. Most people would probably think he was getting over a cold.

"Hey," a voice said shortly.

A smile grew on Ray's face. "Hey," he said in return, leaning back on his pillows and getting comfortable.

"That was pretty quick, I dunno if that was even one whole ring," Peter teased.

Ray didn't want to say he had been expecting Peter to call, though he had. He got cranky if he thought he was getting predictable. "Phone's right next to the bed," Ray said nonchalantly, instead.

"Uh huh. And you usually answer the phone at night when you can barely talk?"

"I'm fine. It sounds worse than it feels," he reassured his partner. "What're you still doing up?"

"Oh, you know, night time is when I do my best thinking."

"Yeah, I can't sleep either," Ray said, translating the Peter-speak out of habit.

Most people might avoid talking about a recent traumatic experience, but most people were not Ray Stantz. He launched into a detailed recount of how he had been attempting to draw the spirit into a conversation when he had been grabbed (though he had already gone over it with the team after the bust). His working theory was that the ghost was infuriated that it could no longer communicate as it did when it was alive, so talking to it only riled it up. Peter let Ray talk himself out, but noted that it took less time than normal.

"From now on you leave the negotiations to me. That's what I get paid for," he said sternly.

"Sure thing, Pete," Ray meekly agreed, knowing Peter blamed himself.

Peter sighed. He didn't believe him for a moment.

There was silence on the phone for a moment. Peter cleared his throat. "I was thinking maybe I could come over. It's late, but..." He made a sound that translated to a shrug. "If you could put up with seeing me, anyway."

The uncharacteristic uncertainty made Ray's smile widen. "You can come over whenever you want, Peter," he said honestly. "I always want to see you."

There was a strangled sound in the receiver and Ray almost laughed. Whenever he said something particularly sappy, Peter got an expression on his face that was equal parts exasperated and touched, and Ray knew he was making it now. "Right, see you soon." He hung up so quick in embarrassment that Ray didn't even get a chance to say goodbye.

#ghostbusters #ghostbusters movie #ghostbusters 1984 #ghostbusters 2 #ghostbusters fanfiction #ghostbusters fanfic #peter venkman #ray stantz #egon spengler #winston zeddemore #ghostbusters shipping #peter x ray #ghostbusters 30 day challenge

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chaoswriting92 · 4 years

Text

Games We Shouldn’t Play

Chapter 3: I’m not okay I promise

You were waiting to hear the painfully familiar buzz when the worst possible thing could have happened.

“Y/n? What are you doing here? I haven’t seen you since… well anyway I am so sorry you had to find out like that. I told Jin he should have come clean about it and I really hate that…” The buzz cut her off and you rushed inside heading for the elevator only belatedly remembering she had to ride up with you.

“So… what are you doing here?” She asked as we waited for the elevator to go up to the correct floor.

“Meeting Jaebeom.”

“Oh right the runway show is coming up so you must be needing to go over the tracks with him and the client, right?”

“Nope.”

“Then for the new ad campaign? Jin told me that you had a new shoot coming that Jimin had lined up for V. Did you need a female model for that one? My schedule’s empty this week.” She said positive that it had to be business because apparently, in her mind, if Jaebeom hadn’t liked her, there was no possible way he’d want you.

“No. I don’t need a female for that one. It is a men’s shoot for Dazed and JB and I have already finalized the tracks for the Runway show and for that shoot, but thanks for asking.” You managed to keep your voice professional not wanting to tell her what you were really doing there and grateful that Jin’s apartment was two floors up from JB even if there was a possibility she was going to tell him she had seen you. The elevator doors finally opened and you could swear you heard the hallelujah chorus.

“It was good seeing you Hyeji.”

“You too y/n. Tell Jaebeom I said hi, okay?”

The doors shut behind you and you scrunched your nose in distaste mimicking her voice.

“Tell Jaebeom I said hi, O- dear Jesus! Jimin, Hi.” You jumped and slammed your elbow into the wall, hissing in pain and biting down on your lip to keep from cursing, when you realized you weren’t alone in the hallway.

“Hi, Y/n. You okay?” He nodded in the direction of your elbow which you were rubbing at to sooth the bruising ache away.

“Yeah, fine. How have you been? I haven’t exactly been on the marketing floor since Jin and I… anyway thanks for setting up that photoshoot for Taehyung.”

“No problem. So what are you doing on this floor?” Oh great not him too. You thought.

“I came to visit JB.”

“Oh. Does Jin know?”

“I’m sure Hyeji will tell him. I rode up with her.”

“You know he didn’t mean to hurt you, right? I mean I know what it looks like and I’m not saying any of this is right, but Jin, he’s not… he’s not a bad guy.”

“Jimin I know that, but that kind of makes it worse. I’m late so I’ll catch you later.” You went down the hall giving a small smile to Yoongi where he was bringing his laundry back into his room and knocked on JB’s door.

“I was beginning to think you got lost,” he joked smiling until he saw the deflated look on your face.

“What happened?” He asked looking around trying to figure out what could’ve made you so sad in the twenty minutes it had taken to get from your apartment to his.

“I ran into Hyeji on the elevator and then Jimin in the hall.”

“Should we have met at your place?”

“No, I am going to have to get used to this. If we are going to be really committing to this thing then I need to be seen with you. By everyone. Half of this is supposed to be proving I’ve moved on too, right?”

“Did Jasmine decide she was going to grill you about last night after all?" JB asked you when you pulled out your phone.

"Uh... No. It's just work emails. It can wait until Monday. Where did you want to go for breakfast? I know of a great Bingsu place a few stops down from my apartment." He seemed to think about it for a minute. You started to just say forget it and suggest that you two just go to a bakery or a cafe for a normal breakfast when he finally spoke.

"Dessert for breakfast, I like it. Let's go."

It was surprisingly easy being on Jaebeom's arm. He had an easy way about himself that put you at ease too. It helped that he was the type of person who knew how to laugh at himself even in the face of being such a handsome guy. He was the opposite of Seokjin in so many different ways. Seokjin had sometimes seemed too aware of the fact he was beautiful and had needed verbal reassurance of the fact often so his insecurity was kept bay; Jaebeom, despite being reminded through compliments, and Jackson fawning over him in the way only a stylist could, seemed to be oblivious to it or just not care. Hell, he'd recently pierced under his eye only to take it out a few months later because he was bored with the look of it and this morning had been filled with talk of him redying his hair blue now that it had grown out.

"Really though if I don't dye the roots do you think it will still look good? Here, have a bite of this." He held a spoonful of Bingsu out so you could try it.

"Mmm, oh my god," you mumbled around the mouthful of fruit and shaved ice. The different flavors were a perfect match to one another and completely different to the matcha and chocolate you had chosen.

"Here, bite." You gave him a spoonful of yours before speaking again.

"If you want my honest opinion I think as long as you wear it with confidence anything looks good on you. Even that God awful blonde with the orange bang clip you wore in college. You looked like a banana but a very cute banana. I also think the fact you're dying your own hair is going to drive Jackson and Sooran nuts so I say go for it."

He seemed to think about it for a while and after finishing off a strawberry at the bottom of the Bingsu he finally came to a decision.

"Will you help me after this then?"

"Yeah sure."

Sunday unlike the day before had been spent alone staring at your phone as it rang and wondering if you should just bite the bullet and answer Jin. Maybe you'd cry. Maybe you'd yell at him and demand for the answers to why or what you weren't sure. Maybe you'd be cruel and make up fallacies about how JB was ten times better in every way so that he could feel the hurt and inadequacy you'd felt this entire time. In the end you'd done none of those things. You chose to cry on your own and stare listlessly at the phone hoping to some God it would just die so you didn't have to hear it anymore.

You'd foolishly been drinking in the feeling of being around JB and thought maybe you were getting past the whole Seokjin thing, but when faced with your own thoughts and the reality that two days couldn't mend three years going to waste you just felt stupid... and sad. Why didn't he just give up? Clearly he was still seeing Hyeji. He couldn't honestly think continuously calling was going to do anything. Could he? You were contemplating this when a loud and very insistent knocking rattled your door.

"Y/n. Open up please," Jin's voice called despairingly on the other side of the door you didn't answer, but you waited by the door holding your breath and wondering what he'd do. You watched out of the little peep hole where he paced then raised his arm up like he'd knock again in the end deciding against it and walking away. You slumped down to the floor feeling a familiar friend bump up against the side of your arm. Gureum.

"I know buddy. He left us both, but we still have each other and we don't need that stinky man. Isn't that right Gureumie." You started cooing at him and he purred loudly nuzzling into the ear scritches and batting at your hand every time you tried to stop petting him.

Monday came and your head was pounding when the alarm went off. You groaned rolling out of the bed and shuffling your feet a little to get them to fit into the slippers they’d landed on top of when you stood up. You walked over to the closet and rubbed at your eyes looking through the different colors and styles of clothes wondering which you should wear. Something comfortable and neutral that didn’t really take much thought, or something eye catching that would show everyone that you were fine.

You thought you were past the facades and the lying and that you really were almost fine before yesterday. Something about just having Seokjin at your door and acting like he still loved you was different from all the phone calls and texts in the world. Probably the fact you couldn’t delete a person. Couldn’t ignore a voice that was attached to a person and not a machine. Couldn’t escape the words shouted at you through your apartment door. It was like having the place that was supposed to be a haven away from the outside world turn into a cage that trapped you in all of your insecurities and Jin was the one who locked you in. Your phone let out a small chime and you hesitated before turning around to grab it letting out a sigh of relief when you saw whose name was lighting up on your lockscreen.

You threw your phone back on the bed and went back to your closet flipping through hangars until your hands landed on a two piece black dress and a wrap asymmetrical blazer combination with ruched 3 / 4 length sleeves and gold button details on the left shoulder and slanting diagonally across the abdomen to seal it closed. It was one of your newest creations and one you hadn’t shown anyone yet. You slipped the dress on and buttoned the blazer in place pairing it with a pair of black ankle boots with gold buckle accents to match.

True to his word Jaebeom was knocking on your door right at seven and you were fixing your hair and makeup into place. You went to open the door a few moments later and noticed Jasmine loitering around outside talking with him. His back was turned full focus on whatever conversation they’d been having. You hoped it was about work and not about yesterday. You honestly didn’t know if Jasmine even knew about what happened yesterday hopefully she’d been out.

“-Yeah, no JB I didn’t even know he ca- Wow.” Jasmine stopped mid sentence and JB immediately turned around. For a moment your breath caught in your throat. Jaebeom’s eyes had started from the top of your head roaming all down your body to the sensible boots at the bottom and back up until they met your eyes the two of you stayed like that for a minute. JB looked like he wanted to say something but he also seemed just as speechless as you were.

“New dress?” Jasmine saved you both from the awkward silence. You’d honestly forgotten for a moment she was standing there but you turned to her and smiled, trance broken.

“Yeah I finished it last month. Been sitting in my closet ever since. I was going to give it to Hye- one of the models, but I think I’m going to keep it.” You gave a slow turn and she whistled and nodded in approval.

“Looks better on you anyway. Right JB?” Jasmine said.

“What? Oh. Yeah. She looks… I mean you look stunning, Y/n” He said and smiled.

“Aren’t you glad you went on that date Friday now?” Jasmine taunted both of you and you rolled your eyes.

“Shut up. Let’s just get out of here before we’re late for work,” you chastised.

The ride to work was quiet. Music playing over the radio and you lost in your own thoughts about everything, yesterday, this morning, what was going to happen at work when you got there. You may not have shown this exact dress to anyone but Hyeji had seen the design sketches before you’d started on it and mentioned that she’d love to wear it when it was made. Maybe that was why you’d chosen it. You knew she’d wanted the dress and after hearing what JB had to say about everything she’d done you’d decided that being petty in some small way was more than deserved. Maybe, though, you’d worn the dress for the look on Jaebeom’s face when he’d turned around this morning. He’d looked at you like you were the most beautiful woman he’d ever laid eyes on. Then he looked at you like he’d give anything for Jasmine to get lost and the two of you to be late for work… extremely late.

“You ready for this?” JB asked as he pulled the car into his space in the parking deck drawing you out of your thoughts which had strayed to the idea of what the two of you would be doing if you had decided to just let Jasmine go and be late.

“I think so. Are you?”

Now that it was here you were second guessing if what you and JB had decided on wasn’t completely crazy and if you should just call it off but he scooped your hand in his and kissed the back of it smoothing off the chapstick imprint with his thumb.

“Come on,” He said letting go of your hand only to come around and open your door. You had to go outside and around to the front of the building to get in and when you got past the revolving door he settled in beside you with an arm over your shoulder like it was perfectly natural to be there.

“Hey Y/n, JB how was your weekend?” Bambam had walked up and was already carrying a tablet which meant he was about to get to business talk after the pleasantries.

“It was ok. What you got? Ad campaign or something that needs an audio overlay?” you asked, holding your hand out for the tablet.

“Audio.”

“And that would be you.” You passed the tablet to JB.

“You trying to get rid of me already?” He took it and hit play on the video that Bambam and his team had made and you could already see the gears turning and hear him humming a little of a few different songs. It was incredibly endearing and you could feel yourself smiling as the three of you walked towards the elevator that would take you to your respective floors.

“Y/n!” You looked up from where you were waiting for the doors to open and saw Jin walking in with Jimin, Taehyung and Namjoon.

“I’m just gonna take the stairs.” You started to walk off but JB caught your hand.

“It’s okay. We talked about this, trust me,” He whispered into your ear. He was right. The two of you had talked about it. How it was going to be hard to face Jin and the others today as your hands had washed through his hair and soaked the dye into it. Your fingers were still a little blue around the cuticles but his hair looked great. You thought back to how much fun Friday and Saturday had been and took a deep breath. He promised to stick this out with you. The least you could do now was what you promised. You nodded.

“Y/n can I talk to you.”

“Why don’t you go talk to Hyeji instead.” Bambam muttered.

“I’m sorry, is there a problem here?” Jin snapped.

“Yes Seokjin there is.” about that time the elevator dinged and opened up.

“Bambam,” You shook your head and he gave you a look like, ``Are you serious?” and you nodded. Your hand was still being held by JB’s and you had noticed him squeeze it once or twice in solidarity but he hadn’t said anything. He looked like he wanted to though. He looked like he wanted to push Jin out of the elevator to when he’d climbed on. Namjoon was off first as he worked on the accounting floor. Taehyung was off next shooting conflicted looks to both you and Seokjin but he shook his head and let out a sigh before stepping out. Jimin would be riding all the way up with you and Jin unless Jin kicked him off with JB and BamBam who were going to the media floor. You half thought of getting off with the two of them yourself and making some excuse like the video they were working on was for one of your photo shoots, but you couldn’t do that either.

When it hit JB and Bambam’s floor Bambam shoved his way out of the back annoyed and looked to JB.

“I’ll see you in the studio, okay? Deadline is at eleven.”

“I already figured out the track we just need to overlay it so it will be done way before that. I’ll see you at lunch, beautiful.” He turned to face you hooking the elevator door with his foot so it wouldn’t close and kissed you on the cheek. You nodded and reluctantly let go of his hand. As the door shut you could hear Bambam speaking to JB.

“Why didn’t you-” the doors cut the sound off and it stayed quiet for a moment. Jin was the first to break the silence.

“Hyeji told me she saw you at the apartments the other day.”

“Hyeji should learn to keep out of things.” You replied.

“That’s not fair. The two of you were friends.”

“Were friends Jin. Then she reminded me why you don’t befriend just anyone in this industry.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I think I’ll let you ask her.” The elevator door dinged open on your floor and you stepped off. Jin followed grabbing you by the arm.

“Seokjin let me go.”

“No. You have been avoiding me for weeks. We need to talk.”

“I don’t want to talk, Jin. Not yet. Can you please just go now?” You tried to wrench your arm loose, but he still had a grip on it.

“Let her go and go back to your floor right now or I swear I will file workplace harassment.” Jasmine came over followed quickly by Mark, Jungkook and a few of the other staff. Jungkook put a hand on Seokjin’s arm and Jin seemed to visibly blink out of the anger and frustration he had before looking at his hand like it belonged to someone else then up to your eyes.

“Shit, Y/N I’m sorry.” He let go and went to the elevator hitting the button so he could leave.

“Are you okay?” Jasmine wrapped an arm around your shoulders and tears leaked out of your eyes. Your breathing hitched and you shook your head.

“No. No Jazzie I’m not.”

#fake dating au #Social media au #jb got7 #Sorry for the late update #hope this is ok

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How Dead by Daylight Gave Slasher Horror Icons The Game They Deserved

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If you grew up a gamer in the ‘80s and ‘90s, buying a bad licensed game was a rite of passage. Sure, even young gamers could detect a bomb like Home Improvement: Power Tool Pursuit! for the SNES from a mile away, but at a time before game reviews were easy to find online, it was natural to hope that the new X-Men game might just be good enough to take a chance on.

The situation was especially rough for horror movie fans. I owned the Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th adaptations for the NES and at least tried to finish them. It’s not that I thought they were good, but at a time when licensed horror games (not to mention major console horror games) were few and far between, the opportunity to face off against my favorite movie slasher was too enticing to ignore.

The industry eventually learned to embrace horror in a meaningful way that resulted in some all-time great gaming experiences, but the slasher movie icons of the day remained tragically underutilized. While original horror series like Silent Hill and Resident Evil expanded the storytelling potential of the medium, Chucky was reduced to starring in a Temple Run knock-off.

In the minds of many horror fans, the hope for a great game starring Micheal Myers, Freddy Krueger, or Leatherface lingered even as passable adaptations of those characters eluded us for decades. Where was the disconnect?

“I think it probably extends from the fact that they are two very, very different mediums and two very, very different ways of telling stories,” says Mathieu Coté, director of Behaviour Interactive’s hit slasher multiplayer game Dead by Daylight. “The reasons why slasher movies are so successful, and why they make you feel the way that they do, are extremely difficult to translate into gameplay mechanics. I think that probably that’s the root of it.”

The earliest examples of slasher movie games certainly support that theory. In 1983, adaptations of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween were released for the Atari 2600. They offered wildly different experiences (Texas Chainsaw Massacre saw you mow down victims for points while Halloween was all about evading Michael Myers), but each was so bad that you’d sooner be caught smoking weed while having sex at Camp Crystal Lake than playing either for more than a few minutes.

Even as technology and game design advanced past what was possible on the Atari and NES, slasher icons were still being butchered in ways that would make these killers proud.

“It often felt as if [licenses] were either tacked onto an existing product that didn’t fit or it was just shovelware where the attitude is ‘make a thing and put the name on it,’” Coté says. “Oftentimes the people holding the licenses, and again it’s a matter of those two mediums being so different, but the people holding the licenses to the movies, they know about movies. They don’t know about games. That can make things difficult.”

With Dead by Daylight, Coté’s team sought to capture the essence of the slasher movie and translate that into fun gameplay that actually made sense for the genre. The asymmetrical multiplayer title sees one player assume the role of a killer tasked with eliminating four player-controlled survivors trying to escape the terrifying scenario. Since its release in 2016, Dead by Daylight has been embraced as the definitive horror multiplayer experience.

Given how difficult it has historically been to make a slasher title, much less one featuring licensed characters, perhaps it should come as no surprise that Dead by Daylight’s origins can be traced to a much simpler concept that didn’t even start out as horror.

“There was a designer working in basically a silo somewhere making little prototypes, and one prototype that he made at some point was literally hide and seek,” Coté remembers. “It was one character that’s trying to accomplish a goal and there was another character that was very powerful. If he touched you, you’re dead.”

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An equally simple tweak would reveal the prototype’s incredible horror potential.

“We put cardboard in between [split screens] and went ‘Oh, my God. This is super fun,” Coté recalls. “The idea of creating a game in which you could play the fantasy of being the villain in a horror movie, that’s a longstanding one…if we put that with the fantasy of a villain in a horror movie, we have a winner.”

The idea of pairing the basic structure of hide and seek with a horror movie villain shows team’s vital understanding of what makes the slasher genre so entertaining in the first place.

“A lot of effort is put into these [villains], so of course they’re more appealing,” says Dead by Daylight creative director Dave Richard. “I think that’s why we started rooting for them, and we have this enjoyment and guilty pleasure of rooting for the villain. I think that we all have this inside of us at different levels. We’re embracing this macabre thing.”

The team’s fascination with the macabre would slowly turn their experiment into a fully-fledged horror game.

“The original prototypes showed survivors as literally beheaded silhouettes wearing different colored t-shirts with phrases like virgin, stoner, and jock,” Coté explains. “That’s something that Cabin in the Woods did very, very well, and the early prototype was based on those tropes.”

While Coté and Richard reference meta-horror movies like Cabin in the Woods and mockumentary Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon as early inspirations that helped them contextualize the genre’s key elements, they ultimately turned to foundational films such as Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre when crafting the game’s environments, characters, and other design elements. In those early days, though, few believed that Dead by Daylight would eventually host some of the stars of those films.

“There were dreams and ambitions, but I don’t think there were thoughts,” Coté says. “We barely expected it to break even after a couple of months. When it started to really explode in the first month or so, we started looking for opportunities.”

The earliest of those opportunities happened to involve arguably the most important slasher of all-time: Michael Myers.

“We were lucky enough to get in contact with some very nice people who are the owners of the original version of Michael Meyers,” Coté explains. “Being able to get the rights to bring in that character and the original Laurie Strode into Dead by Daylight was kind of a big deal. It set the stage because it legitimized us in a certain way.”

For anyone who has followed the history of licensing rights and copyright law (not to mention the aforementioned history of slashers in games), the fact that the team was able to add Michael Myers as a playable killer must conjure an image of a developer clawing their way out of licensing hell with one hand while holding on to Myers with the other. Yet, it sounds like the process wasn’t all that complicated.

“I wouldn’t call it [licensing] hell,” Coté says. “Most of it is actually super interesting, and most of the licenses that we have…we’re dealing with people who get what we’re trying to do. The people who are, as I was saying earlier, more into movies than into video games, tend to trust us to do the right thing.”

Securing Michael Myers was one thing, but now that they had him, the team was faced with the same dilemma that had ruined even noble attempts at building games around these characters in the past.

“We first had to ask ‘What is the fantasy around that character and what is so interesting and unique about these characters?’” Richard recalls. “Of course, most of them have a weapon and they kill, but what’s their special sauce?”

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As Richard explains, Freddy Krueger has a “dream world” and a “fantasy that’s easier to get.” By comparison, Michael Myers is often portrayed as a guy with a mask and a knife. How do you translate that into a game in a way that makes him feel unique?

The answer to that question came in what Coté rightfully describes as a “stroke of genius.”

“I remember that meeting where we were talking about Halloween and how to make [Michael Myers] unique,” Coté explains. “They pitched us the idea of a killer that would just watch you. We’re like, ‘What?’ They’re like, ‘Yeah, he’s just going to stand there and watch you,’ because that’s what Myers does in the movies. That’s what he does, but it’s an action game. People want to chase each other…We all thought, ‘Oh, you’re an idiot.’”

Yet, when Coté got the chance to actually play an early build of Dead By Daylight with Myers as the killer, he immediately understood what the team was aspiring to achieve.

“The very, very first version of the prototype I remember playing and repairing a generator and looking over my shoulder, and I see him standing on a hill and just watching me, and I go, ‘This is the creepiest thing I’ve ever experienced in this game,’” Coté says. “It’s super creepy, especially knowing it’s an actual other player right there. He could attack me right now, but he chooses to just watch me…that kind of thing made me realize the liberties we could take with the gameplay mechanics to really create something that would be unique and special.”

For the next few years, that’s exactly what the team did. They bent the rules of the game to incorporate other famous slashers. Freddy Krueger dragged Dead by Daylight players to dream world while Saw’s Amanda Young turned the game’s traps into a gambling proposition. Leatherface’s devastating attacks impacted a survivor’s ability to carry on and Ghost Face’s playfulness and humor distinguishes him from one of his major inspirations, Michael Myers himself. Through it all, the team’s goal was to stay true to the legacy of these characters and give them a proper home.

“I love Mortal Kombat, but whenever a character gets imported to Mortal Kombat, they all turn into martial artists,” Coté says. “When you put Jason in Mortal Kombat, he becomes a martial artist and he hacks people, and then he does a finishing move and it’s awesome, but that’s it. When you take Michael Myers and put him in Dead by Daylight, he’s Michael Myers.”

Of course, Dead by Daylight’s roster of killers doesn’t just include an array of adaptations. At launch, the game boasted three original killers: The Trapper, The Wraith, and The Hillbilly. The Trapper was, by the team’s admission, based on Jason Vorhees and The Hillbilly certainly resembled Leatherface. It was in The Wraith, a desperate figure whose pursuit of a job saw him become an unwilling executioner, that the team found their first truly great original creation.

“For us, it was important that one of the killers was inspired by more of a cultural idea, and that was The Wraith,” Richard notes. “You don’t see The Wraith archetype in movies. It really comes from horror culture and cultural monsters more than movies.”

That desire to explore every corner of horror rather than just retread film successes is a big part of the reason why Dead by Daylight’s original killers are among its most popular. In fact, the team draws inspiration from such a wide array of sources that it’s possible some players may feel the impact of these original creations more intensely than others.

“The Huntress is heavily inspired by Eastern European folklore and mythology,” Coté says. “For some of our players, especially Russian and Ukrainian players, they were immediately, completely freaked out because she’s humming a song that their mothers sang to them when they were a kid. It was really like it hit way too close for some of them, and it was great. It made them feel things, but for Japanese players or Brazilian players who had no cultural link to that, it was still an impressive and terrifying character because what scares people is visceral and universal”

While Dead by Daylight’s original killers stand tall against horror’s heavyweights, the game’s most impressive contribution to the slasher genre may just be its emphasis on the personalities and attributes of its survivors. Early builds of the premise portrayed survivors as Merrily We Roll Along rejects wearing self-identifying sweaters, but the game eventually began treating survivors with the same reverence as killers.

“Survivors have been the learning experience, to say the least,” Richard confesses. “When we created the original characters, we wanted them to have real stories and personalities, but also to be relatable. I’m going to say a word I don’t like so much, but it’s almost like they’re shells that the players can identify with and easily become.”

Dead by Daylight’s emphasis on the unique qualities of its survivors helped it outlive (pun proudly intended) other asymmetrical multiplayer games, but even Behaviour Interactive found itself having to reckon with some of the stereotypes that plague even the best slasher movies.

“The fact is that a lot of those [early character designs] are stereotypes that convey, let’s say, cultural tropes that don’t need to continue to exist in today’s society,” Coté admits. “For us, it was more interesting to create characters that feel like someone you could stand behind in a coffee shop and not blink because they’re regular people. They’re people you can relate to.”

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While Dead by Daylight’s roster of survivors features a few imports (such as Halloween’s Laurie Strode and Evil Dead’s Ash), the team reveals that “licensed survivors are much harder to find than killers,” largely because they still want the game’s survivor’s to feel overwhelmed by the stalkers. Coté specifically notes that it wouldn’t make sense for someone like John Wick or Arnold Schwarzenegger to be hanging helplessly from a hook. Yet, they also don’t feel like the legacy and value of a horror hero should be defined by their ability to play offense.

“All of them are serial survivors,” Coté says of the game’s characters. “They continue to win, which is impressive, given the challenges they face.”

Besides, as millions of fans who have shouted at the screen at a horror film can attest to, the fates of Dead by Daylight’s survivors really come down to the players themselves.

“We always wanted to make it so that if you die in Dead by Daylight, it’s because you did something dumb or you panicked and didn’t stick to the plan,” Coté says. “Obviously the killers are extremely powerful, but most of the time [survivors lose] because someone panicked or was careless and got cocky and didn’t make good decisions.”

The ability to test your mettle against a slasher legend is one of Dead by Daylight’s more interesting examples of meta brilliance, but its most notable meta mechanic is the presence of The Entity, the invisible hand that pulls characters from different horror universes into the game. It’s a subtle, yet vital, story component inspired by another horror legend.

“The main inspiration for The Entity was actually The Dark Tower,” Richard recalls. “Many of us on the team are fans of the work of Stephen King, and when we deep dove into The Dark Tower, it was a favorite. The way every book in the Stephen King universe links together and is tied up with The Dark Tower was the inception of the idea of The Entity.”

The Entity is the core component of the game’s surprisingly strong lore, which not only offers compelling backstories for nearly every survivor, setting, and killer but even adds a few new chapters for licensed universes like the Scream series.

In many other multiplayer games, that lore would be little more than an easter egg debated over on Wiki pages and fan forums. But in Dead by Daylight, the commitment to meaningful storytelling is a core component of the ambition which defines Behaviour Interactive’s mission.

“Every time we create more of our lore, we solidify what Dead by Daylight is and the universe around it,” Coté explains. “It’s not just to be able to bring in anything, but to be able to create a universe into which all of these things can exist and make sense.”

While the team’s commitment to lore may help bolster their pitches to rights holders, their commitment to ensuring that Dead by Daylight’s growth adheres to an internal logic also speaks to the team’s confidence that they can give nearly any slasher a home.

“I’d say that a few [killers] still elude our grasp, and it’s mostly due to the fact that someone thinks they can make a standalone game for them, or they are working on one,” Coté says. “Anybody who’s got a little bit of experience in video games can tell you that recreating the magic of Dead by Daylight and that sort of balanced chaos is a terrifying prospect. It’s certainly not a simple thing to recreate.”

There’s a sincerity to that statement which encapsulates so many of the reasons why Dead by Daylight was not only able to secure slashers and survivors who could easily star in their own games but do justice to them within the framework of an experience that wasn’t designed to accommodate those legends in the first place.

After all, if the bad old days of slasher games and adaptations were defined by limitations and indifference, then Dead by Daylight succeeds because it takes nothing for granted. Its team carefully crafted a scenario that invoked the pure pleasure of the slasher genre and then spent years studying the ins and outs of these characters and worlds in order to better understand what makes them work beyond the superficial pleasure of their mere presence. It’s an involved process that doesn’t work for everyone.

“We’ve had a couple of cases of people on the development team that, maybe after a year or something, they go, ‘You know what? I think I’ve had enough.’” Coté admits. “Especially 3D artists who keep looking at references of grizzly things all the time, and most of them, they’re just having a blast…but I’m thinking of one or two examples of people who were like ‘You know what? I need to go and work on something with unicorns and kittens.’ That’s fair. That’s absolutely fair.”

The amount of work that goes into a game like Dead by Daylight may ultimately scare off other developers who would dare give legendary slashers their own games, but as long as we have Dead by Daylight, at least a few horror icons will always have a home.

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“It used to be that we were hoping that people who hold the licenses to these legends would allow us to bring them into our world,” Coté says. “Nowadays, the conversations oftentimes revolve around asking them if they’re big enough to make it into the hall of fame that is Dead by Daylight…It’s the place for horror to come by and live.”

The post How Dead by Daylight Gave Slasher Horror Icons The Game They Deserved appeared first on Den of Geek.

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