ARTFIGHT FINISHED!! such an awesome season! i have some other attacks to add here at some point, but for now here's a little deer that belongs to starshrew on AF!

Thoughts on the Finale Double-Header

Because I have so many, I want to corral them into one post, instead of the fifty or sixty I could make.

I'm genuinely surprised by all of the posts concerning dislike - and even hatred - for the finale. Not calling anyone out! Everyone gets their own opinion, and I stick by that, 100%! While I feel that it could have benefitted from another episode or two, or even another week for the final episode (which was surely impossible due to the Season Opener of the NFL next Thursday night), I loved this season. I think it contains some of their best stuff yet. The inter-character growth has felt fantastic, everyone getting closer, even without openly admitting it in audible words. Every episode made me feel something positive, which was nice. (See my notes on Mayans M.C. for how I react to negative feelings... Heh...).

I'll dive into the Nandermo first, because why not? This entire season has been about hiding betrayal, which has been just delicious. Like a group of friends who uncover infidelity amongst a long-married couple, unsure of what to do, but not wanting either party to get hurt. (They knew the guilty one had it coming, but they still tried to keep things hush-hush). I loved that Nandor knew not only what would draw Guillermo out of hiding, but he knew where to find Mama de la Cruz. (Because, let's face it, he was never going to hurt the woman. Fucker nearly got staked because he was so distracted). The intensity of Nandor's forgiveness, for lack of a better term, the whole time they had that stake between them? MM. It was better than makeup sex, because it was heartfelt, and genuine, if a little raw and drowning in hurt. Nandor getting everyone together for his turning-back ceremony? Happily staking the fucking guy who turned his familiar? Knowing Guillermo wasn't ready. The glasses. The effort. The love. That is the kind of Nandermo I enjoy seeing. Would I be upset if they (eventually) got to something romantic? Of course not. But now is just... not the right time. There is so much healing to be done now. Regaining of trust. Rebuilding of bonds. A romantic relationship right now would be the equivalent of a divided couple having a baby to save their union. It wouldn't look good, and it would be a set up for utter failure.

Speaking of that damned ceremony. The fact that everyone came together to save that boy's bacon? Come on. Come on. That even Baron Afanas and Goëjlrm turned up? Even if that part was just for sake of realism, they could have easily said no. They all give a damn about Guillermo, and that was wonderful to finally see. Words are a dime a dozen. Actions are where the proof hides.

FURTHERMORE, everyone checking in on Guillermo made me so happy. The kids coming to see him. Nadja scolding him for speaking to Derek in a manner ill-befitting his station. Even if they were mostly shit at it, aside from the Guide and the Kids, they kept a close eye on him, and that warmed my heart.

"We have a babysitter at home." That made me simultaneously AWWW!!!!, and wonder whether the poor sitter was going to be alive by the time they returned. Y'all know I'm all for their domesticity, so that little snippet was just perfect for me.

While Derek got the short end of the stake, he now has what he has always wanted. Friends. Community. Somewhere to belong. It's just a terrible, ugly way to have to get it.

I want so much more for the Guide. I do. I do agree that they all collectively suck nut at being good to anyone, more than 90% of the time, but that chick was well within her mind to pull her stunts at the Manor. I really do wish we could have had a twelve-episode season, at the very least. Both of last night's episodes deserved to be two-parters. Mm.

Good on Nadja, too, turning the noisy neighbors into an opportunity. She's an enterprising, resourceful broad, that one. Just love her. <3.

I'm still fucking floored, by the way. If someone had asked Nandor from the fucking beginning, this whole season could have been avoided. Granted, yes, that was the point, but it deserves the spotlight for a moment or two. He's such a dumbass, but he knows his vampiric shit. And really, so much good came out of everyone else being dopey as shit for a change. Guillermo learned a valuable lesson. New little lives were created. (R.I.P. to the one those that were ended). The secret surely broke up the monotony for the household for a little while. And, of course, my personal favourite... There are new parents in New Jersey! I'm so giddy for that one!

Liked it or hated it, one thing is for sure. Season Six is going to bring so much inner conflict for Guillermo, and a change of dynamic amongst the household, that I just can't wait!

Short Reflection: Vinland Saga Season 2

A sequel can do a lot of interesting things to the story it’s a part of. A great sequel can catapult an already good story into greatness. A bad sequel can squander whatever potential the first part was building up, or be so inconsequential that you can just pretend it doesn’t exist. But the hardest sequels to talk about are the ones that do an excellent job following up on what’s come before... yet still feel like a downgrade in ways so subtle you’re not quite sure if nostalgia is playing tricks on you or not. Did this series always have these flaws, you wonder, and you were just blind to them before? Or is something genuinely missing from this otherwise fantastic continuation that makes it feel less special than that initial entry? It’s a question I asked myself last year with the final season of Mob Psycho 100, a show that by any other metric would be a knockout success but couldn’t help but feel overshadowed by the seasons that came before. And now that same quandary presents itself to me with Vinland Saga, back after four years for another round of bloody historical viking combat and deep ruminations on the dangers of violence and hatred.

To make my position clear from the outset: I fucking love the first season of VInland Saga. It’s one of the best written, most achingly mature works of storytelling in anime, a beautiful exploration of the humanity behind violence, the people who perpetuate it and suffer it alike, and the complexities of people in a world far too willing to sort everyone into ally or enemy. It was potent, it was sincere, and it was achingly beautiful (at least when the production wasn’t driving itself into a ditch). It also had Askellad, one of my single favorite anime characters of all time for how beautifully he blurs the line between monster and hero. So perhaps that’s the reason why I don’t like season 2 as much; Askellad dies at the end of season 1 and only shows up here for a couple brief visions. My sweet baby gone too soon from this sinful world, we shall never see his like again.

I kid, I kid. Obviously, Askellad’s story ended exactly where it needed to, and any continuation to Vinland Saga- much like Thorfinn- would have to find a way forward without him. And that listless limbo of living between worlds is where we first meet Thorfinn as season 2 kicks off. Far from the ravenous warrior he was in season 1, Askellad’s death and the thwarting of his revenge has left him a shell of a man, barely able to function day by day. He’s ended up a slave on the farm of a seemingly kindly slavemaster named Ketil, his life reduced to following orders like an automaton as he wonders what the point of living even is now that his purpose has been taken away, leaving nothing but the memories of the countless lives he ripped apart in pursuit of it. But that begins to chance with the arrival of a new slave named Einar, a man who lost his home and family to Vikings much like the ones Thorfinn used to serve. As the two strike up an unlikely friendship, the shattered boy slowly begins to piece himself back together from nothing, facing the trauma he inflicted on others and himself and searching for new purpose unshackled from the bloodshed than once ruled his life. But it’s only a matter of time before bloodshed once again comes knocking at Thorfinn’s door, forcing him to come to terms with what kind of person he wants to be... and whether or not it’s possible to truly escape a world that seems to worship violence as the only true way.

It’s a radically different direction for the story to take, but it’s really the only way it could have gone. From the first episode, Vinland Saga has always been an interrogation of violence and its effect on people, a cry for peace in a world where that might as well be a foreign concept. And is season 1 was a full dive into the heart of that violence itself, season 2 is all about the escape from it, what it takes for a person who’s lived their whole life bathed in blood to seek a better way forward. Appropriately, most of what’s been dubbed “Farmland Saga” is spent on conversations and quiet moments, characters working out their issues and finding peace beyond the reach of a sword or ax. And whenever violence does show up, it’s always in short, brutal spurts of death where no one comes out happy, a far cry from the bombastic battles we used to have. And while that change no doubt rubs some fans the wrong way, it’s the only honest way Vinland Saga could continue to explore its themes. You can’t exactly tell a story of a man leaving violence behind and embracing peace if you’ve got limbs and heads flying at the same rate as season 1. Thorfinn’s growth from an emotionally stunted boy into a fully realized man, and the ways the rest of the inhabitants of Ketil’s farm react to the role of violence in their world, is Vinland Saga, and it’s still the same damn powerful story it was telling back when blood ran thicker and death same swifter.

So no, the relative absence of violence is not the reason that season 2 feels somewhat lacking in comparison to season 1. But then... what is the reason?

The obvious culprit to point at would be the change in studio. And yes, I’m as sick to death of the endless Wit vs Mappa debates as you are. So many stupid takes on every side, all ignoring the fundamental issue that both of these studios are infamous for treating their workers like shit and sacrificing healthy production times for the sake of pumping out more content for their shareholders to make money off of. Seriously, all your animation issues with shows from both of these studios come from the same source of corporate greed favorite quick profits over artistry, bond over that and fight your mutual enemy instead of turning it into a fandom dick measuring contest. That said, it’s not every day that you get to see two different studios put their own touches on multiple different anime in such clear terms. And between Attack on Titan and Vinland Saga, I definitely think there’s a conversation to be had on how Wit and Mappa’s approaches to anime differ... and what effect that has on the finished product.

To vastly, vastly oversimplify what I’ve observed, I’d say that Mappa tends to focus more on detailed animation, while Wit prioritizes cinematic direction. Whenever Mappa flexes its “budget” (yes I know that’s not really what it is I’m oversimplifying for time bear with me), it tends to be with intricate shots of richly detailed characters, every crease and line in their skin shaded and expressive. A single image or quick action cut, when given the time it needs, can feel so weighty and expressive, like you can actually reach out and touch it. Wit, meanwhile, tends to put its best foot forward with the way its camera brings its stories to life, sweeping CG-assisted tracking shots or gorgeous tableaus spilling out across the screen. They may sacrifice the finer details sometimes (and let’s be clear, there are moments where Vinland’s first season looks like aaaaaaass), but the visual imagination behind how they frame and present their anime captures that elusive feeling of cinema that few TV anime manage to achieve. Wit embraces anime not just as an animated medium, but a truly visual medium, one where every choice is make to sweep you up in the beauty this art form is capable of. And that’s a level of imagination, sadly, that Mappa doesn’t always measure up to.

In regards to Vinland specifically, the part of season 1 I always come back to is episode 14, which is framed almost entirely in claustrophobic, horrifying close-ups as we witness the slow-burn destruction our protagonists bring upon an innocent family. Everything is so close to your face, almost blotting out the frame, shoving your face in the horrors the story’s main characters are capable of committing and refusing to let you turn your gaze away. It’s one of the most gut-wrenching episodes of anime I’ve ever experienced, and it’s all thanks to how thoroughly Wit embraced the tools of this medium to drive home that horror. Moments like that are what made Vinland’s first season such a cinematic marvel, even when the production was clearly suffering from poor time management. By contrast, most of the big experimental moments from season 2- dreams, nightmares, near-death experiences, visions- are shot and framed rather conventionally. In fact, pretty much every scene in season 2 has the most basic “camerawork” imaginable. Mid shots and long shots and close-ups and detailed action cuts, all in their proper places, yes, but there are no moments like episode 14, no moments where the visual language rises to that same level of brilliance. It’s all individual moments of beautiful animation (and some rough patches as well because again, Mappa and Wit have the same problems with overwork affecting the final product) with nothing that truly takes flight and shows off the true power of the medium as an artistic form. Still achingly effective thanks to the strength of the writing, performances and soundtrack, but if anyone at Mappa has the same sense of cinematic joy and creativity as the folks at Wit, well, they were probably working on Chainsaw Man while Vinland season 2 was in production.

But technical differences can only explain so much. Attack on Titan also had a rough start switching to Mappa, and it still managed to be pretty much as electrifying and incredible as always. Which means we need to dig a little deeper in the writing of season 2 and figure out what isn’t clicking quite as well this time around. And thankfully, the answer is actually pretty obvious, so I’m gonna come right out with it: the dialogue in season 2 kinda sucks.

See, telling a slow-burn story that’s mostly conversation is a totally fine way to explore your themes, even if the actual plot remains fairly still for the sake of intricate character work. But there is an art to writing a slow burn without making audiences long for something faster-paced, and it is not an art that season 2 pulls off well. Almost every conversation boils down to characters talking explicitly about the show’s themes for minutes on end, repeated and re-repeating themselves as they endlessly ruminate on violence, peace, the nature of war, the nature of hatred, trauma, forgiveness, moving forward and choosing the hard way over the easy way until they all start bleeding together into the same indistinguishable soup. These conversations don’t feel like people engaging with heady ideas, they feel like the author was terrified of even a single audience member not getting the point. There are some really powerful themes season 2 is working with, but they start to feel less special when every episode is full to bursting with characters doing nothing but talking about those themes for the hundredth time.

And just to make sure, I re-watched an episode of season 1, and it didn’t have this problem! The dialogue in season 1 flows so much more naturally, characters seamlessly weaving between plot-relevant exposition and interpersonal relationship-building and interesting, quirky asides and heavy, climactic confrontations. Perhaps it helps that season 1 also has a lot more moving pieces, so it has countless ideas it can juggle throughout a single episode without getting bogged down in a single mode for too long. The occasional thematically explicit speech or monologue becomes a lot more powerful when used sparingly, interspersed with other story beats that advance the story and its themes through less direct methods. “Show, don’t tell” is a common piece of writing advice for a reason; most of us find stories’ ideas far more engaging when they’re revealed through characters actions rather than (or at least in addition to) their words. But with so few actions to “show” throughout season 2, pretty much all of its thematic weight relies on characters “telling” us what we should think about the experiences they’re going through. Thorfinn tells Einar about his trauma, Einar tells Thorfinn about his perspective on life, Canute tells his weird ghost dad head (which, I’m sorry, this thing just looks goofy) about his increasing moral rot and the weight of the king’s crown, and all of it really starts to drag when there’s nothing else to change things up. No wonder some fans grew tired and started to beg for a return to the bloody action.

Which I seriously want to drive home: Vinland Saga season 2 not being violent is not its problem. This show has always been a plea for peace, so exploring the aftereffects of escaping a violent life in a mostly peaceful environment for Thorfinn to find himself again is exactly the direction it should have gone in. And in the moments where stuff actually happens in season 2? Where the endless slow-burning conversations give way to action, violent or otherwise, on part of its characters? It’s just as heartbreaking and awe-inspiring as anything in season 1. The only reason I’ve gone so hard on critiquing this season is because I know just how fucking fantastic this show can be at its best, and when season 2 is at its best, it absolutely lives up to that high bar and more. Going peaceful isn’t the problem; the problem is that it just isn’t as good at being a peaceful story as it is a violent war story. Not bad at it, just not as good. Vinland Saga’s first season explored its themes so well by balancing so many different factors and making them all sing in harmony, delivering a propulsive tale of blood and swords that drove its ideas into you like knives while still being an entertaining story capable of effectively delivering those themes in the first place. Season 2, meanwhile, puts almost all of its eggs in a single basket, and suddenly it finds itself running into problems it can’t fix without betraying the core of its narrative. It’s like trying to build the same house twice but the second time you only have 10% of your toolbelt available; the fact it even ended up as great as it did is something of a minor miracle.

And make no mistake: Vinland Saga season 2 is still great. For as much as I’ve complained about it, it’s every bit the change in direction this story needed to carry forward. And while the execution wasn’t perfect, it was still able to lay me out on the floor like few shows even come close to. Vinland Saga is a colossus. Vinland Saga matters. It’s so rare we get stories this mature, this thoughtful, and this widely beloved in this crazy medium we call home. And if Mappa’s planning to stick with this one until the end like Attack on Titan, I hope, much like that show, future installments are able to find their footing and push it back to the top of the heap where it belongs. Until then, I give season a score of:

8/10

And so begins the Spring 2023 round-up. Look forward for more seasonal reflections to come!

TEST

24 And the people complained against Moses, saying, “What shall we drink?”

25 So he cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree. When he cast it into the waters, the waters were made sweet. There He made a statute and an ordinance for them, AND THERE HE TESTED THEM,

26 and said, “If you diligently heed the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in His sight, give ear to His commandments and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have brought on the Egyptians. For I am the Lord who heals you.”

Exodus 15:24-26 (NKJV)

"Then the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you. And the people shall go out and gather a certain quota every day, THAT I MAY TEST THEM, WHETHER THEY WILL WALK IN MY LAW OR NOT."

Exodus 16:4 (NKJV)

• God has the habit of testing whoever wants to walk with Him intimately:

"NOW IT CAME TO PASS AFTER THESE THINGS THAT GOD TESTED ABRAHAM, and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am” (Genesis 22:1 NKJV).

- Most of the things God did allow the Israelites to pass through or experience in their journey to the land of Canaan, were tests which He expected them to pass (Deuteronomy 8:2,16).

- Unfortunately, they failed those tests and were robbed of their ultimate blessing—getting to the the land they were promised:

21 But as surely as I live and my power has no limit, 22-23 I SWEAR THAT NOT ONE OF THESE ISRAELITES WILL ENTER THE LAND I PROMISED TO GIVE THEIR ANCESTORS. These people have seen my power in Egypt and in the desert, but they will never see Canaan. They have disobeyed and tested me too many times" (Numbers 14:21-23 Contemporary English Version).

- Similarly, in your Christian journey as a believer in Christ Jesus, God would allow you to be tested as regarding whatever He wants to do in your life.

- God would want to test your character, obedience, reliability, faith, and faithfulness!

• God tests before He promotes whoever He wanted to. Each promotion is preceded by a test or a couple of Such.

- The speed with which you rise or move in your Christian journey and the blessings of God you receive, are determined by how often you pass God's tests that may be brought your way.

- The Israelites journey was slowdown and ultimately could not be brought to the completion.

- The main or original people who were purposefully taken out of Egypt to get to Canaan land were unable, but their children. This happened because they could not pass the tests brought their ways (Numbers 14:22,23; Hebrews 3:16-19).

- And they could not pass the tests because of unbelief, hardened heart, disobedience, and rebellion:

12 Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of UNBELIEF in departing from the living God; 13 but exhort one another daily, while it is called “Today,” lest any of you be HARDENED through the deceitfulness of sin. 14 For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end, 15 while it is said: “Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not HARDEN your hearts as in the REBELLION.”

16 For who, having heard, REBELLED? Indeed, was it not all who came out of Egypt, led by Moses? 17 Now with whom was He angry forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose corpses fell in the wilderness? 18 And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who did not OBEY? 19 SO WE SEE THAT THEY COULD NOT ENTER IN BECAUSE OF UNBELIEF" (Hebrews 3:12-19 NKJV).

• God said they had denied Him ten times:

"none of the men who have seen my glory and my signs which I wrought in Egypt and in the wilderness, AND YET HAVE PUT ME TO THE PROOF THESE TEN TIMES AND HAVE NOT HEARKENED TO MY VOICE" (Numbers 14:22 Revised Standard Version)

- You will do well to cooperate with God in whatever test brought your way by Him, and endeavour or strive to pass it.

- That sum of money you have just gotten, big or small, could be a test!

- God may ask you to give part of it or the whole of it, for a particular purpose in His Kingdom; to His work, His minister, or someone in need.

- Your obedience, the promptness of it, determines your lifting or promotion. It also determines the depth of your relationship and fellowship with God, and the covenant He establishes with you.

• Any number of believers miss it always in the place of passing God's tests.

- Some things which many believers lay the blame on the devil, are caused by their insensitivity and their inability cooperate with the Holy Spirit on the inside of them to pass God's tests—which could lead to their blessings, promotion, and greatness.

- Unbelief, disobedience, hardness of hearts, and rebellion would hinder your growth and your blessings in the Kingdom (Hebrews 3:18,19).

- Amazingly, some believers do not even believe that God does test His children, in their walk with Him. These tests are shared on the pages of the Scriptures (Exodus 15:24; 16:4; Deuteronomy 8:2,3; 13:3; Judges 2:22; 3:1,4).

- How God tested His people to proof their hearts, to know whether they would be loyal to Him or not.

- He uses various things like hunger, basic needs of life, obedience to certain instructions and commands; to test them:

2 And you shall remember that the LORD your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, TO HUMBLE YOU AND TEST YOU, TO KNOW WHAT WAS IN YOUR HEART, WHETHER YOU WOULD KEEP HIS COMMANDMENTS OR NOT. 3 So He humbled you, ALLOWED YOU TO HUNGER, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, THAT HE MIGHT MAKE YOU KNOW THAT MAN SHALL NOT LIVE BY BREAD ALONE; BUT MAN LIVES BY EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS FROM THE MOUTH OF THE LORD" (Deuteronomy 8:2,3 NKJV).

- He also uses opposition, those who rose as enemies, to test them:

21 I also will no longer drive out before them any of the nations which Joshua left when he died, 22 SO THAT THROUGH THEM I MAY TEST ISRAEL, WHETHER THEY WILL KEEP THE WAYS OF THE LORD, to walk in them as their fathers kept them, or not." 23 Therefore the Lord left those nations, without driving them out immediately; nor did He deliver them into the hand of Joshua" (Judges 2:21,23 NKJV).

• What would you become in Him If you are lifted to a higher honour—a place of blessing and greatness?

- Would you not renounce God? Would you still be faithful in what you are assigned to do?

- And If you were in need, Would you still SERVE God faithfully and be obedient to the instructions given you by Him?

- God rewards faithfulness in whatever state or level you may find yourself—either in riches or lacks.

• You will not fail in Jesus' name.

Peace!

ah yes me trying to justify how the brother change how they interact with you after the lilith reveal thing probably to make myself feel better

this is ranging from who is easiest to write for which also includes but is also not exclusive to my bias.

ofc spoilers especially for Obey me lesson 14-20? mostly 16. fuck it the entire season one.

There is nothing to mention for Mammon and Asmo.

they act exactly the same way . i’d like to analyze their characters one day tho!!

Belphegor

bitch has been blaming humans for his sister’s death his entire life

then probably goes like “oh wait it’s thanks to them that she fell from heaven and Lucifer gave her a better life which is exactly the life she wanted i guess i have to thank humans but my grudge is still there i think”

Then this sheep human thing with a pure heart set him free because they want his sweetheart twin brother to be happy and genuinely want him and his family to be close again.

and even after he killed them for something that isn’t even their fault, they are still kind and super understanding to him and didn’t hold a grudge

so that’s why he wanted to be the closest to you, he felt bad for killing you and he felt in love with your kindness. (also maybe his interest in humans that stills somehow exist in secret might also turn into his interest in you instead)

oh my god i love him i cannot stop talking about him

Satan

i am convinced he fell in love with you way before the reveal.

specifically when his arc thing with Lucifer happened and you guys talk about how satan is his own person and has his own identity.

he never really had anyone to talk about it before you because he feels like he’s distant from his brothers not having a connection with Lilith and he just feels like they see him just as “a product of Lucifer’s rage” and he thinks that Lucifer think of him as himself but inferior (that’s why he developed a superiority complex coughs) and everyone else just see him as “the avatar of wrath who pretends to be always calm and you should never piss him off”

but you were the first person who could see him as him, no statuses, no association with Lucifer.

You know him and you accepted him. that’s when he feel in love with you but like in “Read my heart” he doesn’t know how to express it.

well until you got k worded.

he decided from that moment to be honest with his feelings and cherish you as the one who accepted him for himself

Leviathan

you were his first non-online friend,the first person who actually sees him and doesn’t call him a disgusting shut-in otaku,you even forgave him after he tried to kill you

and you didn’t just accepted him. you *liked* him

you keep spending time with him and you were happy to be his best friend

his feelings probably grew over time but he is afraid to get out of the friendzone scared that you might not accept him this time

and guess what? YOU GOT KILLED LLLLLL

at that moment he decided to be more honest with his feelings about you and he softened up and tone down the “normie” thing

he’s also still shy and insecure about his feelings but it’s Levi so you can give him time!!

one day he’ll stop friendzoning you and be honest 24/7

can someone tell him that having a significant other is not just a normie thing. is he good.

Beelzebub

he just like his twin fell in love with how kind you are

how you protected him and luke that one time lucifer was FURIOUS even tho you’re just a human

but the main reason is probably

how much you care about his brothers and how you want their relationship to improve

he really admired how you wanted to help Lucifer and Belphie make up because he wanted them to make up too!!!

and also how forgiving you are after Belphie k worded you??? you are so kind to his twin he loves you and he wants to protect you and his family with his life omg

so just loves you because of how much you love his brothers and care about other ppl

Lucifer

this is going to be hard for me i don’t write for him usually for a reason

i think the reason he was acting like an asshole the whole time was that he was actually worried

worried about what? worried about you using his siblings since you’re making pacts with everyone and their siblings!!

but around the satan arc he was like “huh maybe you aren’t that bad and genuinely wanted to help” the comes his second question

why the fuck would you want to help???

and this asshat has been in the devildom for so long her forgor that genuinely kind people are real

and in the first timeline where Belphegor came out of the attic he was like “ARE YOU TRYING TO GET MY BROTHER IMPRISONED YOU MF???”

and when he realized how far you’d go for his family and that you’re actually a genuinely kind person with pure intentions who has done so many things for him and mended his broken family relationship he’s like marry me!!!

so why weren’t they like that sooner?

because they’re awkward. they don’t know how to act or change naturally when they fall in love except for Asmo and Mammom who are social butterflies who dated so many ppl no Satan doesn’t count he’s never felt like he had a true friend before you.

they didn’t realize how much you mean to them until you were gone, your death is what made them realize their feelings for you and or after you come back to live they fell in love with you

they’re just using Lilith like an excuse to get closer to you after they have already accepted that she’s gone.

or maybe im better at writing than the game. idk.

thank you for listening to my rambles.

So when I was an egg in high school, I created a self-insert OC named Yar Kramer. I used him for a bunch of RPs, and several works of fiction, only one of which I actually completed. There were like two sprite comics and one thing I made that was literally just "sprites + dialogue and descriptions of the action", plus an unpublished and incomplete novel.

RP

The original original roleplay was on a Hitchhiker's Guide website called the H2G2, created by Douglas Adams as an attempt at realizing the eponymous Guide (which has been largely supplanted by Wikipedia). My username was originally "Adolescent White American [wronggender] Who Likes 47" (I liked the number 47 to its frequency in Star Trek); people shortened this to "Yankee Kid, likes 47" and subsequently "YK-47" and just "YK", which I backronym'd to "Yaradovich Kramer"[sic], after Yaridovich from Super Mario RPG and Cid Kramer from Final Fantasy 8. He was originally a coolkid Jedi in a red jacket, but at some point I retconned it to generic "psychic powers."

I also roleplayed him on a few RP MUDs, but I don't really remember any details there.

The "Original" Story

The novel was going to be called "Red Jacket", I think. "Yar Kramer" was a witness-protection alias, and his original name was Daniel Lancaster (hmmmm, someone's primary identity doesn't match their birth name!); he and his family had been forced to work for an evil organization called Project Robinson, which intended to create genetically-engineered espers for reasons I'm not sure about now. Project Robinson was led by an evil scientist called Dr. Krause and a computer named Mother Brain; I justified stealing the name "Mother Brain" because there were three unrelated video games which featured a character by that name (Metroid, Phantasy Star II on the Genesis, and Chrono Trigger).

The Grim Reaper was a woman who talked in underlined dialogue, and whacked people over the head with her scythe rather than actually reaping. She'd changed her form in the 1960s because she found the whole "skeleton" deal to be depressing. She had a black motorcycle with a flame pattern and the text "Pale Horse", and the souls she collected traveled in a pink sidecar which said "Binky" on the side in Comic Sans (where "Binky" is obviously a Discworld reference). When I created this in the 00's, there was totally nothing significant about a character who'd clearly changed her gender, nuh-uh.

Yar's love interest was Mackenzie Robinson, one of Project Robinson's creation. Despite the fact that the gummint had an active hand in extracting Yar's family from Project Robinson, there was some FBI/CIA spook called Agent Pinkerton who hounded Mackenzie like Inspector Javert. I know he had a classmate named Eckhart, who was this ratty-faced jerk with a heart of gold, who was inspired by one of my RL classmates.

I also found a half-written script for a comic, which gets as far as a prologue, followed by a scene which estalishes the witness protection business. Yar jokingly introduces himself Trigun-style as "Yaradovich Halvorsen Thompson-Stryfe-Gainsborough Donatello Leonard Raphael Michelangelo Farnsworth Anderson-Smith Jean-Luc Jones Solo Pepper Tibloxley Amelia Fayette-Mahoney Kierkegaard Williamtonshireworth Melora Kramer I." Wow. Let's see, "Halvorsen" and "Kierkegaard Williamtonshireworth Melora" are clearly made from whol cloth, and I'm not sure where "Jones" came from, but other than that, I can see in order ... Trigun (Thompson and Stryfe), Final Fantasy VII (Strife and Gainsborough), all four Ninja Turtles, Futurama, The Matrix, Star Trek, Star Wars, Cowboy Bebop (re-engrished "Pepelu Tivruski"), and Slayers. Again, wow.

First Reality

The "main" sprite comic, which was a sort of Final Fantasy parody made mostly in RPG Maker, and which ran from 2001 to 2004 on Keenspace. Yar Kramer was a "Neo-Samurai" (basically a ripoff of SeeD from Final Fantasy 8), fighting alongside a dude named Shigeru 'Gary' Oak (Gary Oak except as an adult, with a gunblade and dressed as Seifer Almasy, with no sign of any pokemon), and Tina Branford (Terra Branford without her tragic backstory).

The setting was incomprehensible if you didn't have detailed knowledge of Final Fantasy 6, 7, 8, and also Mega Man X; nearly every single place name was named after something from Final Fantasy except for Death Mountain, where they went to in order to get the Triforce (long story). A pink-haired goofy-and-hyperactive Celes Chere was the princess of Mysidia, and was a FF8-Sorceress; she frequently went in disguise as a thief named Fobby, and used a Reploid named Dancer as a body-double.

The main villain was named Darklumen, and his evil plan was to destroy the world by weakening the fabric of existence by leveraging sprite comic cliches, thus demonstrating that I have always been Like That. (The fact that I had a direct author avatar called the "Ultimate Guardian Force" with semi-omnipotent powers over the comic isn't even worth dwelling on, because omnipotent "author" characters are par for the course with sprite comics.)

The other party members: Kefka Palazzo, who was the court jester for Mysidia; Enerion Imusen, a half-Esper who was invented from whole cloth, who overcame his hangups about being half-esper with Tina's help before he got killed off by the bad guy; and "Rock Light" (because one of the reality-damaging sprite comic cliches was "Mega Man is present"), who was actually the Great Guardian Force Yu-Yevon in disguise for convoluted reasons.

In the ending, it's mentioned that Gary marries Princess Celes, and sort of vaguely implies that Yar ends up with Tina. (Tina made actual romantic overtures to Yar halfway through the comic, but they were interrupted by shallow comedy.)

I absolutely refused to let go of a running gag in which a male character would say something that broke the fourth wall, and at least one female character would immediately yell at him for doing so.

... I actually found some MIDI songs in the First Reality files which I personally composed. Well ... I say "composed", but the Darklumen final boss music was clearly based on the Super Smash Bros 1's Final Destination music with techno-twittering from All Your Base, one was based on a boss theme from Final Fantasy X combined with anime music, and Yar Kramer's personal themesong was chiefly based on Glyde's theme from The Misadventures of Tron Bonne.

YaraY

The other sprite comic, hosted on a subdirectory of First Reality's site. The name came from Yar's evil twin, Ray Remark ("Yar" and "Kramer" spelled backwards), and also from the Japanese expression "yare yare" (translated in JJBA "good grief").

It was a shallow Bob and George-esque thing with Mega Man sprites, and invovled Yar's shenanigans opposite Ray Remark; a straightlaced roommate with blue hair named Elbert Ssab (I don't know where I got "Elbert" from, but I came up with "Ssab" after noticing that "Elbert" backwards is "Treble"); a Reploid named Jive who was an orange recolor of Zero from Mega Man Zero; and a girl in a pink shirt named Kira, whose character concept began and ended with "hyperactive blonde girl." At one point, there was a comic which depicted First Reality as an actual console RPG being played by Kira; this comic was then ported directly to First Reality.

I abruptly stopped updating it in the middle of a story arc in which Jive went off with a group Maverick Hunters which inexplicably included Zio from Phantasy Star 4, who was just there to be generically evil rather than actually pursuing any of his canonical goals.

Super Adventure Yar

And finally, the "sprites plus dialogue" thing. It used whatever anime, video game, and internet characters I was interested in at any given moment, and there were inserts from several people I knew online. All of whom were basically overpowered in some respect, i.e. one of the friend-inserts was literally just a redheaded Goku in a trench coat, except his Saiyan name was "Suckarot". It was the most absurd and ridiculous of these things.

Yar was your basic inexplicably-overpowered action-shounen protagonist, and people kept going "What!? Why is he so powerful!?" (If there was going to be an explanation, I never got a chance to give it and I don't remember what it was, but I doubt there was anything reasonable.) Of course, this was also true of pretty much every protagonist.

His fighting style involved throwing energy blasts, and his signature move was named "Island King Kamehameha", because I knew the etymology of the Dragonball attack, but the kind of creative person I was at the time was that nuance, self-awareness, and "general understanding of what I was putting into my stories" were something that happened to other people.

Mayl Sakurai was impulsively violent with a squeaky-mallet.

At one point, while the protagonists were discussing a plot point which Mayl wasn't present for, she said, "What the hell are you talking about?" and then tossed an entire burger into her mouth.

Cut Man's NetNavi was FishMan.exe.

Yar bought Chii Chobits from Strong Bad, who ran an unbelievably shady second-hand electronics store; Chii's copycat tendencies extended to copying other peoples' magic and superpowers.

He also bought a generic NetNavi and expressed the intention to customize it, but all sign of NetNavis were dropped after a few episodes.

The "ageless faceless gender-neutral culturally-ambiguous adventuring person" (AFGNCAAP) from Zork/Enchanter was one of the main characters. They frequently used spells from Enchanter such as "gaspar" ("provide for your own resurrection" -- basically like a Final Fantasy "Auto-Life" spell, but AFGNCAAP was also able to use it on others), "vaxum" ("make hostile creature friendly", and every single target which it actually worked on promised to kill them after it wore off), "krebf" ("repair willful damage"), and "talcor" (healing; this seems to be something I made up myself, because I can't find any references to it in Enchanter canon).

I insisted on using "he/she" and the like instead of just the singular "they", wow I was deep in the egg in 2004. But they did say "I don't have a gender" at one point!

Magus/Janus from Chrono Trigger was trying to take over the world using robotic Sinistars. His minions were "the Terrible Trio", which consisted of Onslaught from Marvel vs. Capcom 1, Dalton from Chrono Trigger, and Dynamo from Mega Man X.

I stole the "now I'm wet and on fire!" joke from the webcomic Adventurers! during a fight between Dalton and AFGNCAAP.

Magus got a Vegeta-style "suddenly I happen to be on the same side of the heroes" redemption with the sudden arrival of, um, the Saiyans. Starting with Raditz as just a retread of Dragonball Z.

After Raditz was beaten, he sent a message to Vegeta and "Zappa", who was just Nappa but with a terrible wig and an atrocious southern accent; I have no idea what I was going for there.

The planet Arlia from Dragonball Z was populated by clones of Alia from Mega Man X5. It had the same fate as in the show, namely that Vegeta and Zappa just casually blew it up after going on a rescue-a-princess quest.

There was an "It's a gundam!" joke there.

The Goku-expy friend-insert taught Yar how to fly Hitchhiker's Guide-style ("throw yourself at the ground and miss"), and how to use bullet-time.

Mayl trained under Magus. At one point, while she was fighting a friend-insert with a sniper rifle (who'd previously stolen everyone's wallets for no apparent reason), Magus remarked that she had "hidden potential" and noted that in her hands, her squeaky mallet was just as powerful as the sniper rifle.

Vash the Stampede showed up, and the plot promptly started getting derailed as everyone around him dropped everything to try to claim his $60 billion bounty (Onslaught, to Dalton and Dynamo: "We'll split it 50-50-50!").

At one point, Vash ran off with Chii for reasons that only slightly made sense in context, and Yar chased them to a town called Las Eisley.

The three of them got into a bar fight at a "restaulant"[sic] (I thiiiink this was originally actual engrish from Trigun itself?) which completely wrecked the building.

After the bar fight, Yar called up AFGNCAAP to make repairs using the krebf spell; AFGNCAAP asked, "Was all the damage willful?" and Yar replied, "Well, I definitely proceeded in the full knowledge that massive destruction would occur." Due to the rules of sprite-comic comedy, this was enough for krebf to work.

There was a "Dear Strong Bad, how do you type with boxing gloves on?" joke.

In the middle of everything else, I started writing an episode introducing Valkyries and Loki -- which displayed a surprisingly deep knowledge of Norse mythology on 18-year-old-me's part -- but I never finished it and my files don't even have the sprites for the main Valkyrie character, who was another friend-insert.

... All of these continuities just feel amazing to me in retrospect, because this is the kind of thing that can only happen in fanfiction. Only something using existing characters, our existing associations with these characters, can possibly reach this level of ridiculousness.

Which isn't to say it's all fun and games, though. I was a particularly un-woke Rotten Egg, which meant that there was rampant sexism, and lowkey fanservice. The concept might look fun, but the execution was invariably "the worst parts of the sprite comic fandom."

1, 7, 12, 17, 28 and 50 x

Hello darling!! 

First of TYSM for asking :)  I am 99% sure this was for the fanfic asks? (If I am wrong, let me know!) 

1) How old were you when you first starting writing fanfiction? 

- Uhhh I think I was 25 or 26?

7) When is your preferred time to write?

- Okay so usually Friday nights to be completely honest but usually I only find the time during my breaks at work 🤷‍♀️

12) Who is your favourite character to write for? Why?

- Actually I reallyy enjoy a few of them... Stiles is always fun because he’s got the biggest heart of all the folks I write for I fell like. Thomas has become an amazingly fun one to write and that’s because I am getting to really explore him as a character. I feel like he’s the leader needed... For both of them (and really a lot of DOB’s characters probably) I get the whol Tic’Tic vibes from 10,000 BC 

Tic'Tic : A good man draws a circle around himself and cares for those within. His woman, his children.

Tic'Tic : Other men draw a larger circle and bring within their brothers and sisters.

Tic'Tic : But some men have a great destiny. They must draw around themselves a circle that includes many, many more.

I also really enjoy Ivar because the man is multifaceeted. I feel like he’s not as crazy as he pretends but he is entirely ruthless. 

Dean because of the same reason as Stiles and Thomas bug also because this is a character this grew up loving and I always fall away from him but come back and seeing his growth as a person over the last few years has been amazing. 

17) Post a line from a WIP that you’re working on.

The most recent line I have worked on... 

Not that Sam knew that was where she had gone.. but she'd been at the funeral and had listened as the pastor had given a eulogy about how Jess was a cheerful, optimistic girl who loved deeply and had been at Stanford pursuing a legal degree in family law. She'd wanted to help children in shitty living conditions get out of it and punish those that would harm them.

28) What is something you wished you’d known before you started posting fanfiction?

As a writer, I have a need for feedback... There is no getting around it. The praise helps the inspiration for the writing and so does criticism (done correctly)... when I don’t hear back on a piece... I freak out that I did bad? That I am a sham of a writer kind of thing... It’s a bad few moments then I end up talking to  @nicole-lynne, @stiles-o-dylan24 or @mummybear and They remind me that I am good :) 

50) If you could write only angst, fluff or smut for the rest of your writing life, which would it be and why?

Angst.. Cause you can add anything to angst... It can be fluffiness that ends angst that hurts the soul, smut that leaves you broken... 

I feel like angst allows me to explore the darkest parts of humanity and can be done in so many different ways that I wouldn’t get bored of it?

Cauldron Bound

This is a Nessian Fanfic taking place after the events of ACOFAS

Chapter Three / Chapter Five

Chapter Four: Clipped Wings

The rain beat down on them. Drumming against the tent Devlon still stood within. Against the wooden cabins and cloth structures that stood within the camp. Cassian and Nesta raced onward towards the shop seeking refuge from the rain. As they stood beneath the protruding roof of the wooden structure Cassian looked towards Nesta her hair and clothes soaked with rain. The sight of the aged map fresh in Cassian’s mind. Had Nesta commanded it, or had he never noticed the aged corner? A piece exposed to the elements.

Lightening cracked through the sky once again striking in the near distance. The thunder that accompanied the bright light close to their position causing gooseflesh to rise on their arms. Cassian reached towards Nesta pulling her close as lightning flashed again closer to them this time. The sound deafening as a tree split and crashed in the devastation of its’ wake. Her damp hair beneath his chin smelling of the rain and of her, aged parchment and lilac reminiscent of the buds blooming within Elain’s garden. His chin resting upon her head their bodies touching in the closeness of the encounter.

Nesta did not move their bodies slick against one another. She could feel his warmth through his rain-soaked leathers. His heart pounded echoing her own in the crash of the thunder. She felt as if she could feel his palpations beneath the leather. Beating against her chest now swathed tightly in soaked cloth.

Cassian untangled himself from Nesta remembering himself. They were here for her, for their people. This was not about him or what he may have felt towards her.

Nesta mentally shook herself as if to remember beyond the frightening closeness of lightening and the warmth of Cassian’s touch. She had been adamant in her endeavor to fight for these people, these fae that she did not know. She was unsure where this passion had come from, but she felt herself a human emissary standing before a meeting of courts reminding them of the human causality that would ensue if they did not fight against Hybern. Before she had been fighting for a life that had been taken from her, but today… Today who was she fighting for?

“Thank you” Cassian said looking directly into Nesta’s eyes. His gaze held the admiration of a commander and ally.

“For what?” She responded. Her guard returned. She felt the mental armor surround her. A defense against him, against feeling. An armor that she had worn long before becoming fae. 

Cassian did not shake his head. He did not feel discouraged in his endeavor. Nesta had put into words something that had needed to be said long ago to a leader who had shown no sympathy for the plight of those he commanded. “What you said it took courage.” He said unfaltering in his words. “What you said today. I have known Devlon for decades, centuries, he is stubborn. I saw his mind change today.” 

Nesta nodded. She wanted to reach out. Wanted to squeeze his hand. Express in some physical way that she understood the immensity of speaking for a people in need. Communicating the importance of being given the position to help, to guide. She could not move. The armor restricted her as much as it gave her strength.

Cassian nodded towards the door. “Shall we?”

Nesta followed him into the shop. A muskiness filled her nose. The armor and supplies dusty, untouched. It appeared the shop had not known patrons in months. Yet still it was obvious a great care and love had been put into keeping the small shop stocked and in repair.

“Hello, welcome…” The voice from behind the counter paused. The Illyrian female looked them down, measuring them up.

“Emerie” Cassian said. His voice was not sympathetic, it held no pity, he sounded as if he was greeting an old friend. “It is good to see you again. This is Nesta.” He said motioning to her.

The female, Emerie, sized her up. She nodded in Nesta’s direction. Respect, it seemed would need to be earned not given. Nesta herself sized up the female in return. This was a dance and she would lead it.

“If you are not here to buy anything, I would ask you to leave.” Emerie said her eyes not moving from Nesta’s.

Cassian moved to look at a selection of leathers. Touching the material. Admiring its’ quality. “I am here to buy” he said his fingers following the ridges of the patterns crafted skillfully into the leathers.

“You told me to give supplies to the camp and yet I am treated with the same disdain as I have been before your intrusion.”

Nesta’s eyes flicked to Cassian and then back to the Illyrian female. “And you care for what they think?”

Emerie’s eyes flashed, a challenge. “I could not give a fuck what others say about me. I know who I am, yet hatred of me does not pay to maintain my father’s shop.”

Nesta understood then. She had known a father spending endless, fruitless, hours crafting wooden art before a fireplace. Broken and starving. Rage, all she could feel, could remember, was the rage.

“What happened to your father?” Nesta asked. Her words softer now. Barley audible above the thunderous roar of lightening and the incessant drumming of rain.

“He died.” Emerie replied her words guarded. “He fought in the war with Hybern. He did not survive it.” Her voice faltered over her last few words. Alone, regardless of her feelings towards her father.

“I lost my father to that bastard as well.” Nesta said moving towards the counter. Her eyes landing on a rusty necklace that laid upon it. A rag beside it as if the Illyrian had been trying to clear away the age. “Tell me of your father.” Nesta asked her eyes unmoving from the necklace.

“He clipped my wings.” Emerie said the harshness returning to her voice. The line that had been drawn in the sand those months ago that he had met her remained it seemed, even with Nesta.

Nesta looked to Emerie then. Cassian noted her posture. It was the “I will slay my enemies” pose he decided. The rage however was not at the Illyrian female, but rather at the male who had marred her wings and stolen her flight.

“Why?”

“Tis tradition. Or it was. Illyrian females are to birth younglings and raise them to fly. If they could take to the skies why would they remain upon the ground?”

“Perhaps then you will have to find a new way to fly.” Nesta said. Cassian had stopped his admiring of the shop’s wears. He watched the encounter with rapt attention.

Emerie snorted, “you think I have not tried?” The Illyrian took up a pose Cassian decided was the “I will eat your eyeballs” pose. A recurrent favorite of Nesta’s. “What would you have me do, turn back time to when my wings were whole?’

“What is time to a goddess?” Nesta replied her hand moving upon the counter. “Your broken wings do not determine your wholness. I will help you fly Emerie mark me on this. No female shall not taste sky song because of the wickedness of males.”

Emerie gave a nod of respect extending her hand to Nesta. “Perhaps you shall” she said shaking Nesta’s hand deftly.

“No.” Nesta said her hand still in Emerie’s grip. “You shall do it.”

Lightening splintered from the skies close to the shop. An omen and a promise.

Emerie let go of Nesta’s hand wicked smiles echoing in their eyes.

As they left the shop Cassian noticed the neckless that had been upon the counter ruined by time. It appeared to shine. Time no longer overtaking it. Cassian remembered Nesta’s hand roaming over the countertop. What was time to goddess?

They walked back into the storm. Homeward bound.  

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

Author’s note: I would like to thank everyone who has been reading this series. I promise Cassian will develop more as a character. I think he has a lot of wounds to heal, but I have been trying to set up the story line so I feel, and understand, this fanfic has been a little slow. That said I greatly appreciate the support and that anyone at all would read what I have to write is amazing. Thank you so much for your continued support. This fic will continue to update on Fridays or Saturdays. Again thanks for reading.

-With love Caged Dove Poetry 

Love Yourself (Chapter 1)

title: Love Yourself summary: A lot of things about Dan’s life are pretty great. He gets to make the music he wants, he’s got a great fanbase, and his manager is his best friend. A few things about his life suck a bit more. He’s currently lacking inspiration, he’s rather lonely, and he’s stuck in a rut. Dan’s been going to the same coffee shop for years. It’s quiet, it’s quaint, it’s near his home. Most importantly: none of the employees give a shit that’s he a world-famous singer. Things change when he meets the new barista. words: 2.3k chapter: 1/? rating: t  genre: singer!dan, coffee shop au, barista!phil, slow burn

a/n: shoutout to @auroraphilealis for helping me edit and inspiring me to finally write this fic i’ve had in my head for a year<3 [[ao3]]

“Triple espresso, one sugar. To go.”

“Sure that will be – oh. You’re Dan Howell.”

Dan’s head snapped up to meet the barista’s eyes. His unfamiliar, gorgeous eyes. “And you’re new.”

“Er, yeah. How’d you know that though?”

“I come here almost daily. I live nearby, plus it’s the only place slow enough that I rarely get recognized.” Please don’t be a crazy fan.

“Seems like the kind of thing my coworkers could have warned me about.”

Dan cocked an eyebrow. “Warned? That bad of a surprise, huh?”

The barista’s eyes grew wide. “No! No, that’s not what I meant. I just mean it would have been nice to have a heads up so I wasn’t so surprised. It’s not like I don’t like your music or anything – I actually really enjoyed the new single you released last week and–”

“Relax,” Dan’s eyes flickered down to the cute new worker’s name tag, “Phil, I’m just kidding.”

“Oh. Good. Um…” Phil seemed to remember he was at work and had a job to do. “That will be three pound fifty.”

Dan dug his wallet out of his pocket and embarrassedly remembered he was wearing old joggers and a hoodie. What a great outfit to meet a cute guy in.

Dan shuffled down the counter, trailing Phil as he started making his coffee. The sudden appearance of a new (attractive) employee woke him up better than any triple espresso ever could.

“So, Phil, what brings you to this hole-in-the-wall coffee shop?”

Phil’s head shot up, as if he was surprised that Dan was continuing to talk with him. “Oh, you know, the usual. I just moved to London and needed a job to help pay the rent.”

“Welcome to London. Where did you move from?”

“Thanks! I just got here from Manchester last week.” Phil slid Dan’s coffee across the counter, a few drops splashing over the edge. However, instead of Dan grabbing his coffee and leaving, he leaned forward, rested his arms on the counter, and took a long sip of his coffee. He knew he should be going — he had a plenty long to do list today — but he couldn’t resist learning a bit more about Phil.

It’s just because he’s new and I come here every day. It’d be weird not to chat.

Even as he thought it, he knew it wasn’t true. All he knew about the girl who was normally working during the weekday mornings — Emma? Emily? — was that she was Irish, and that was based solely off her accent. The guy who worked on the weekends — Jake, maybe? — was incapable of putting his phone down for more than thirty seconds and smoked like a chimney.

But Phil’s new. It’d be rude not to be friendly.

“How are you liking London so far?”

“It seems like a cool city, from what I’ve seen of it. Between unpacking and working, I haven’t really had a lot of time to explore yet.”

“There’s definitely plenty to explore. What kind of stuff are you into?”

“Um, I’m a bit of a nerd, to be honest.”

Dan chuckled and wondered just how much ‘a bit’ was. If Phil was anything like him, ‘a bit’ was code for ‘completely and utterly’. “I feel you there. Have you been to the Sherlock museum?”

Phil’s eyes lit up. “No! I want to so badly though. I’ve heard it’s amazing.”

“It totally is. I swear I think I had to be dragged away the first time I went. They were literally closing when I finally left.”

Phil leaned forward, resting his arms on the counter. “I’ll definitely have to check it out. My friend promised to go on the Doctor Who tour with me on my next day off, so it will have to be after that though.”

“I’ve been meaning to go on that! No one in my life likes it enough to go on a two and a half hour tour with me, though, and I hate doing stuff like that alone.”

Phil nodded along like he perfectly understood what Dan was complaining about. “I know what you mean, there were so many nerdy things I wanted to do when I was living in Manchester but none of my friends there were interested in going with me.”

“That sucks. It’s good that you’ve got someone here who’ll go with you.” Dan took a sip of his coffee, taking the opportunity to study Phil’s features a bit more closely over the brim of his cup. His eyes were a striking combination of blue, green, and yellow and his jet black hair was carefully arranged in a short, borderline-outdated, emo fringe that Dan would have done anything to replicate just last year. One the whole, Cute Coffee Boy looked much more put together than Dan did. To be fair, he probably didn’t roll out of bed twenty minutes ago. “Okay, so, important question. Who’s your favorite Doctor?”

Phil looked contemplative for a moment. “Well, obviously David Tennant was great. He was both cute and played a great character. But I also kind of have a soft spot for Christopher Eccleston? He was the first person I ever saw playing the Doctor and who got me into the show, so he’ll always have a place in my heart.”

“I feel that way about David Tennant! I didn’t give in and start watching until he started — obviously I went back and caught up after watching like two episodes. Are you all caught up? I’ve been dying to talk about —”

Dan was interrupted by his phone buzzing.

Both he and Phil glanced down at his phone, which laying face up on the counter. “Louise <3” was on the caller ID. Dan shot Phil an apologetic smile and held up a finger as he answered, trying to express his annoyance at being interrupted.

“Hi Lou.”

“Daniel James Howell, I’ve been in your apartment for 20 minutes where are you?” Dan’s face fell in shame.

Oh shit. Louise. THAT’S what I was supposed to be doing.

“Er, I’m downstairs. At the coffee shop.”

“Of course you are. Get your butt up here. And bring me a coffee since I had to wait on your bum.”

“Sorry, sorry, I’ll be there in 10.” Dan turned to Phil. “Looks like I need a venti iced soy latte with two and a half pumps of vanilla, double whip cream, and cocoa powder on top.”

Phil raised his eyebrow. “Complicated drink.”

“Complicated drink, complicated girl. I’ll take a few shots of baileys in my coffee if you’ve got any back there. I have a feeling I’m about to get yelled at for being late.”

“Ha. Ha. So you’ve got to go meet your… girlfriend?”

Dan blushed. “NO! God no! I mean – that came out harsh. Louise and I would be a train wreck. She’s my best friend. And my manager.”

Dan averted his eyes, staring into his coffee rather than at Cute Coffee Boy. The silence that fell in the coffee shop while Phil made Louise’s drink felt awkward to Dan and he really, really hoped Phil didn’t feel it too.

Unable to come up with anything to say, now that their conversation had been interrupted by Louise, Dan fiddled on his phone, liking a few tweets here and there. Both too soon and not soon enough, Phil passed him Louise’s and suddenly he had no legitimate reason for loitering. Phil handed him his receipt with a chipper “have a nice day!” and Dan awkwardly dropped his change in the tip char.

Despite having his slowly cooling coffee and Louise’s slowly melting drink, Dan was tempted to stay, to keep talking to this interesting and adorable new barista, but he knew that he couldn’t. He knew Louise would be furious if he wasn’t back in his apartment in the next five minutes, and even more so, he knew talking to a cute boy wasn’t something he was allowed to do at this moment in time.

So rather than staying and talking and just melting in the presence of this beautiful human, Dan grabbed Louise’s fancy ass drink and his own dark and bitter espresso and turned to leave. But before he could even turn around, the words just fell out of his mouth.

“I’ll see you again soon? Raincheck on that Doctor Whol conversation?”

Phil smiled and raised one hand in a stilted wave of sorts. “I’ll be here!”

Dan couldn’t tell if Phil’s response was customer service friendly, or trying to keep my fanboy in check friendly, or I actually want to see you again friendly.

Unfortunately, it seemed, Dan cared.

Dan trudged back into his lobby, nodding hello at the doorman, Mark. Trying not to dump out his drinks, he stuck his key into the elevator and pressed 7, nearly spilling his drinks anyway when the elevator started opening.

When the elevator doors opened to his apartment, Dan was immediately bombarded by Louise, who was apparently waiting in the entryway.

“Dan! I know I told you we were meeting to go over some of this publicity stuff today, where did you go?”

In response, Dan shoved her too sweet coffee into her hands, kicked his worn converse off, and walked passed her into the living room.

Louise followed him into the room, sitting in the armchair across from him. “You’re being weird, what happened?”

Dan sighed, figuring there was no use keeping anything from Louise.

“Well, you know Beans and Grind?”

Louise held up her cup, which clearly had the coffee shop’s name stamped on it. “No, no dear, never heard of it.”

“Shut up, Lou.” He took a sip of his drink, slightly stalling in hopes that Louise would bring up whatever business matters she wanted to cover.

She didn’t. She patiently drank her coffee and stared at Dan over the brim of her cup, waiting for him to continue.

“Ugh, fine Louise. There’s this new barista.”

To her credit, Louise was first and foremost always an amazing friend; she never told Dan off too severely for being reckless or stupid or making poor decisions. So rather than pointing out the millions of reasons why this discussion could lead somewhere bad, she leaned in conspiratorially.

“Tell me everything. Girl? Boy? Non-binary? I want all of the details.”

“His names Phil.” Dan paused, waiting for Louise to say something. What, he wasn’t sure, but he was positive she’d have something to say on the matter. When twenty seconds went by and Louise was still silently staring at him, waiting for more, Dan finally continued.

“He’s new, he just moved to London, he was surprisingly not fan-like once he got passed the initial ‘there’s a famous singer in my coffee shop’, and is apparently a massive nerd. I didn’t get the chance to learn too much else about him though, because somebody called demanding my presence.”

“Well, if I’d known you were making the acquaintance of a cute, new boy, maybe I wouldn’t have.”

“It was just friendly, Louise.” But even as the words came out of his mouth, Dan knew he didn’t believe them.

Fuck.

Morning coffee and gossip with Louise eventually turned into productive work time with Louise, which after a few hours turned into wine and more gossip with Louise. It was nearing 9 o’clock when the elevator let out a loud ding, indicating that someone had entered the apartment. Given Dan’s allowed visitors list, it could really only be one person.

High heels click clacked on the hardwood floor but the footsteps passed the lounge and continued further down the hallway.

“Really, Dan, this is still happening?” Dan threw a slightly startled, slightly admonishing look in Louise’s direction.

A shrill voice called loudly from the kitchen. “Ugh, Danny! I had such a bad day at work and of course you didn’t come take me out for lunch like I texted you to. Did you have your phone on, like, do not disturb or something?”

Rather than responding to the accusation, Dan turned and whispered to Louise. “Quiet or she’ll hear. Be nice, I really don’t want to fight tonight.”

The voice from the kitchen continued whining. “The girl at work was being, like, so annoying. She doesn’t understand that it’s, like, literally her job to do my errands and stuff. I mean, like—”

Louise continued talking, slightly drowning out the high-pitched complaining from the other room. “Right, unlike every single other night you’ve seen each other this month.”

“— and, like, the woman doing my nails didn’t even believe that I knew you. As if she hadn’t seen us together in the media or anything. I actually had to, like, show her my lockscreen to make her believe. When she finally got the fucking picture, she was much nicer and gave me a free—”

Dan and Louise had both mostly tuned out the diatribe against the woman from work, the manicurist, and whoever else was being complained about.

“Louise.” Dan sent her a pleading look, silently begging her to be nice, don’t provoke her, don’t lecture me.

“Fine, I’ll be polite. That still doesn’t mean I approve of you continuing this…whatever thisis.” Louise loosely gestured to the hallway toward the voice in the other room, which was still rambling at an ear-splitting pitch.

Somewhat resigned, Dan shrugged his shoulders. “Good enough.”

Just as the words left Dan’s mouth, the visitor waltzed into the living room, preceded only slightly by the tell-tale click clack of stilettos. She was wearing a tight red dress with a plunging neckline and her nails were painted to match perfectly. Her hair was styled in big, loose curls that Dan was sure probably took some hair stylist ages to achieve — and probably left a hefty charge on his account, too. The woman was sipping a bottle of Perrier she’d already taken from Dan’s fridge, leaving a thick stain of dark red lipstick around the mouth of the bottle. A bit belatedly, Dan jumped off the couch and crossed the room to give her a chaste kiss on the cheek and wrap his arm loosely around her waist.

“Hi, Isabella, I didn’t realize we had plans tonight.”

[[next chapter]]

TEST

24 And the people complained against Moses, saying, “What shall we drink?”

25 So he cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree. When he cast it into the waters, the waters were made sweet. There He made a statute and an ordinance for them, AND THERE HE TESTED THEM,

26 and said, “If you diligently heed the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in His sight, give ear to His commandments and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have brought on the Egyptians. For I am the Lord who heals you.”

Exodus 15:24-26 (NKJV)

"Then the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you. And the people shall go out and gather a certain quota every day, THAT I MAY TEST THEM, WHETHER THEY WILL WALK IN MY LAW OR NOT."

Exodus 16:4 (NKJV)

• God has the habit of testing whoever wants to walk with Him intimately:

"NOW IT CAME TO PASS AFTER THESE THINGS THAT GOD TESTED ABRAHAM, and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am” (Genesis 22:1 NKJV).

- Most of the things God did allow the Israelites to pass through or experience in their journey to the land of Canaan, were tests which He expected them to pass (Deuteronomy 8:2,16).

- Unfortunately, they failed those tests and were robbed of their ultimate blessing—getting to the the land they were promised:

21 But as surely as I live and my power has no limit, 22-23 I SWEAR THAT NOT ONE OF THESE ISRAELITES WILL ENTER THE LAND I PROMISED TO GIVE THEIR ANCESTORS. These people have seen my power in Egypt and in the desert, but they will never see Canaan. They have disobeyed and tested me too many times" (Numbers 14:21-23 Contemporary English Version).

- Similarly, in your Christian journey as a believer in Christ Jesus, God would allow you to be tested as regarding whatever He wants to do in your life.

- God would want to test your character, obedience, reliability, faith, and faithfulness!

• God tests before He promotes whoever He wanted to. Each promotion is preceded by a test or a couple of Such.

- The speed with which you rise or move in your Christian journey and the blessings of God you receive, are determined by how often you pass God's tests that may be brought your way.

- The Israelites journey was slowdown and ultimately could not be brought to the completion.

- The main or original people who were purposefully taken out of Egypt to get to Canaan land were unable, but their children. This happened because they could not pass the tests brought their ways (Numbers 14:22,23; Hebrews 3:16-19).

- And they could not pass the tests because of unbelief, hardened heart, disobedience, and rebellion:

12 Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of UNBELIEF in departing from the living God; 13 but exhort one another daily, while it is called “Today,” lest any of you be HARDENED through the deceitfulness of sin. 14 For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end, 15 while it is said: “Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not HARDEN your hearts as in the REBELLION.”

16 For who, having heard, REBELLED? Indeed, was it not all who came out of Egypt, led by Moses? 17 Now with whom was He angry forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose corpses fell in the wilderness? 18 And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who did not OBEY? 19 SO WE SEE THAT THEY COULD NOT ENTER IN BECAUSE OF UNBELIEF" (Hebrews 3:12-19 NKJV).

• God said they had denied Him ten times:

"none of the men who have seen my glory and my signs which I wrought in Egypt and in the wilderness, AND YET HAVE PUT ME TO THE PROOF THESE TEN TIMES AND HAVE NOT HEARKENED TO MY VOICE" (Numbers 14:22 Revised Standard Version)

- You will do well to cooperate with God in whatever test brought your way by Him, and endeavour or strive to pass it.

- That sum of money you have just gotten, big or small, could be a test!

- God may ask you to give part of it or the whole of it, for a particular purpose in His Kingdom; to His work, His minister, or someone in need.

- Your obedience, the promptness of it, determines your lifting or promotion. It also determines the depth of your relationship and fellowship with God, and the covenant He establishes with you.

• Any number of believers miss it always in the place of passing God's tests.

- Some things which many believers lay the blame on the devil, are caused by their insensitivity and their inability cooperate with the Holy Spirit on the inside of them to pass God's tests—which could lead to their blessings, promotion, and greatness.

- Unbelief, disobedience, hardness of hearts, and rebellion would hinder your growth and your blessings in the Kingdom (Hebrews 3:18,19).

- Amazingly, some believers do not even believe that God does test His children, in their walk with Him. These tests are shared on the pages of the Scriptures (Exodus 15:24; 16:4; Deuteronomy 8:2,3; 13:3; Judges 2:22; 3:1,4).

- How God tested His people to proof their hearts, to know whether they would be loyal to Him or not.

- He uses various things like hunger, basic needs of life, obedience to certain instructions and commands; to test them:

2 And you shall remember that the LORD your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, TO HUMBLE YOU AND TEST YOU, TO KNOW WHAT WAS IN YOUR HEART, WHETHER YOU WOULD KEEP HIS COMMANDMENTS OR NOT. 3 So He humbled you, ALLOWED YOU TO HUNGER, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, THAT HE MIGHT MAKE YOU KNOW THAT MAN SHALL NOT LIVE BY BREAD ALONE; BUT MAN LIVES BY EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS FROM THE MOUTH OF THE LORD" (Deuteronomy 8:2,3 NKJV).

- He also uses opposition, those who rose as enemies, to test them:

21 I also will no longer drive out before them any of the nations which Joshua left when he died, 22 SO THAT THROUGH THEM I MAY TEST ISRAEL, WHETHER THEY WILL KEEP THE WAYS OF THE LORD, to walk in them as their fathers kept them, or not." 23 Therefore the Lord left those nations, without driving them out immediately; nor did He deliver them into the hand of Joshua" (Judges 2:21,23 NKJV).

• What would you become in Him If you are lifted to a higher honour—a place of blessing and greatness?

- Would you not renounce God? Would you still be faithful in what you are assigned to do?

- And If you were in need, Would you still SERVE God faithfully and be obedient to the instructions given you by Him?

- God rewards faithfulness in whatever state or level you may find yourself—either in riches or lacks.

• You will not fail in Jesus' name.

Peace!

Love Yourself (Chapter 1)

title: Love Yourself summary: A lot of things about Dan's life are pretty great. He gets to make the music he wants, he's got a great fanbase, and his manager is his best friend. A few things about his life suck a bit more. He's currently lacking inspiration, he's rather lonely, and he's stuck in a rut. Dan's been going to the same coffee shop for years. It's quiet, it's quaint, it's near his home. Most importantly: none of the employees give a shit that's he a world-famous singer. Things change when he meets the new barista. words: 2.3k chapter: 1/? genre: singer!dan, coffee shop au, barista!phil, slow burn a/n: shoutout to @snowbunnylester for helping me edit and inspiring me <3  [[ao3]]

“Triple espresso, one sugar. To go.”

“Sure that will be – oh. You’re Dan Howell.”

Dan’s head snapped up to meet the barista’s eyes. His unfamiliar, gorgeous eyes. “And you’re new.”

“Er, yeah. How’d you know that though?”

“I come here almost daily. I live nearby, plus it’s the only place slow enough that I rarely get recognized.” Please don’t be a crazy fan.

“Seems like the kind of thing my coworkers could have warned me about.”

Dan cocked an eyebrow. “Warned? That bad of a surprise, huh?”

The barista’s eyes grew wide. “No! No, that’s not what I meant. I just mean it would have been nice to have a heads up so I wasn’t so surprised. It’s not like I don’t like your music or anything – I actually really enjoyed the new single you released last week and–”

“Relax,” Dan’s eyes flickered down to the cute new worker’s name tag, “Phil, I’m just kidding.”

“Oh. Good. Um…” Phil seemed to remember he was at work and had a job to do. “That will be three pound fifty.”

Dan dug his wallet out of his pocket and embarrassedly remembered he was wearing old joggers and a hoodie. What a great outfit to meet a cute guy in.

Dan shuffled down the counter, trailing Phil as he started making his coffee. The sudden appearance of a new (attractive) employee woke him up better than any triple espresso ever could.

“So, Phil, what brings you to this hole-in-the-wall coffee shop?”

Phil’s head shot up, as if he was surprised that Dan was continuing to talk with him. “Oh, you know, the usual. I just moved to London and needed a job to help pay the rent.”

“Welcome to London. Where did you move from?”

“Thanks! I just got here from Manchester last week.” Phil slid Dan’s coffee across the counter, a few drops splashing over the edge. However, instead of Dan grabbing his coffee and leaving, he leaned forward, rested his arms on the counter, and took a long sip of his coffee. He knew he should be going — he had a plenty long to do list today — but he couldn’t resist learning a bit more about Phil.

It’s just because he’s new and I come here every day. It’d be weird not to chat.

Even as he thought it, he knew it wasn’t true. All he knew about the girl who was normally working during the weekday mornings — Emma? Emily? — was that she was Irish, and that was based solely off her accent. The guy who worked on the weekends — Jake, maybe? — was incapable of putting his phone down for more than thirty seconds and smoked like a chimney.

But Phil’s new. It’d be rude not to be friendly.

“How are you liking London so far?”

“It seems like a cool city, from what I’ve seen of it. Between unpacking and working, I haven’t really had a lot of time to explore yet.”

“There’s definitely plenty to explore. What kind of stuff are you into?”

“Um, I’m a bit of a nerd, to be honest.”

Dan chuckled and wondered just how much ‘a bit’ was. If Phil was anything like him, ‘a bit’ was code for ‘completely and utterly’. “I feel you there. Have you been to the Sherlock museum?”

Phil’s eyes lit up. “No! I want to so badly though. I’ve heard it’s amazing.”

“It totally is. I swear I think I had to be dragged away the first time I went. They were literally closing when I finally left.”

Phil leaned forward, resting his arms on the counter. “I’ll definitely have to check it out. My roommate promised to go on the Doctor Who tour with me on my next day off, so it will have to be after that though.”

“I’ve been meaning to go on that! No one in my life likes it enough to go on a two and a half hour tour with me, though, and I hate doing stuff like that alone.”

Phil nodded along like he perfectly understood what Dan was complaining about. “I know what you mean, there were so many nerdy things I wanted to do when I was living in Manchester but none of my friends there were interested in going with me.”

“That sucks. It’s good that you’ve got someone here who’ll go with you.” Dan took a sip of his coffee, taking the opportunity to study Phil’s features a bit more closely over the brim of his cup. His eyes were a striking combination of blue, green, and yellow and his jet black hair was carefully arranged in a short, borderline-outdated, emo fringe that Dan would have done anything to replicate just last year. One the whole, Cute Coffee Boy looked much more put together than Dan did. To be fair, he probably didn’t roll out of bed twenty minutes ago. “Okay, so, important question. Who’s your favorite Doctor?”

Phil looked contemplative for a moment. “Well, obviously David Tennant was great. He was both cute and played a great character. But I also kind of have a soft spot for Christopher Eccleston? He was the first person I ever saw playing the Doctor and who got me into the show, so he’ll always have a place in my heart.”

“I feel that way about David Tennant! I didn’t give in and start watching until he started — obviously I went back and caught up after watching like two episodes. Are you all caught up? I’ve been dying to talk about —”

Dan was interrupted by his phone buzzing.

Both he and Phil glanced down at his phone, which laying face up on the counter. “Louise <3” was on the caller ID. Dan shot Phil an apologetic smile and held up a finger as he answered, trying to express his annoyance at being interrupted.

“Hi Lou.”

“Daniel James Howell, I’ve been in your apartment for 20 minutes where are you?” Dan’s face fell in shame.

Oh shit. Louise. THAT’S what I was supposed to be doing.

“Er, I’m downstairs. At the coffee shop.”

“Of course you are. Get your butt up here. And bring me a coffee since I had to wait on your bum.”

“Sorry, sorry, I’ll be there in 10.” Dan turned to Phil. “Looks like I need a venti iced soy latte with two and a half pumps of vanilla, double whip cream, and cocoa powder on top.”

Phil raised his eyebrow. “Complicated drink.”

“Complicated drink, complicated girl. I’ll take a few shots of baileys in my coffee if you’ve got any back there. I have a feeling I’m about to get yelled at for being late.”

“Ha. Ha. So you’ve got to go meet your… girlfriend?”

Dan blushed. “NO! God no! I mean – that came out harsh. Louise and I would be a train wreck. She’s my best friend. And my manager.”

Dan averted his eyes, staring into his coffee rather than at Cute Coffee Boy. The silence that fell in the coffee shop while Phil made Louise’s drink felt awkward to Dan and he really, really hoped Phil didn’t feel it too.

Unable to come up with anything to say, now that their conversation had been interrupted by Louise, Dan fiddled on his phone, liking a few tweets here and there. Both too soon and not soon enough, Phil passed him Louise’s and suddenly he had no legitimate reason for loitering. Phil handed him his receipt with a chipper “have a nice day!” and Dan awkwardly dropped his change in the tip char.

Despite having his slowly cooling coffee and Louise’s slowly melting drink, Dan was tempted to stay, to keep talking to this interesting and adorable new barista, but he knew that he couldn’t. He knew Louise would be furious if he wasn’t back in his apartment in the next five minutes, and even more so, he knew talking to a cute boy wasn’t something he was allowed to do at this moment in time.

So rather than staying and talking and just melting in the presence of this beautiful human, Dan grabbed Louise’s fancy ass drink and his own dark and bitter espresso and turned to leave. But before he could even turn around, the words just fell out of his mouth.

“I’ll see you again soon? Raincheck on that Doctor Whol conversation?”

Phil smiled and raised one hand in a stilted wave of sorts. “I’ll be here!”

Dan couldn’t tell if Phil’s response was customer service friendly, or trying to keep my fanboy in check friendly, or I actually want to see you again friendly.

Unfortunately, it seemed, Dan cared.

Dan trudged back into his lobby, nodding hello at the doorman, Mark. Trying not to dump out his drinks, he stuck his key into the elevator and pressed 7, nearly spilling his drinks anyway when the elevator started opening.

When the elevator doors opened to his apartment, Dan was immediately bombarded by Louise, who was apparently waiting in the entryway.

“Dan! I know I told you we were meeting to go over some of this publicity stuff today, where did you go?”

In response, Dan shoved her too sweet coffee into her hands, kicked his worn converse off, and walked passed her into the living room.

Louise followed him into the room, sitting in the armchair across from him. “You’re being weird, what happened?”

Dan sighed, figuring there was no use keeping anything from Louise.

“Well, you know Beans and Grind?”

Louise held up her cup, which clearly had the coffee shop’s name stamped on it. “No, no dear, never heard of it.”

“Shut up, Lou.” He took a sip of his drink, slightly stalling in hopes that Louise would bring up whatever business matters she wanted to cover.

She didn't. She patiently drank her coffee and stared at Dan over the brim of her cup, waiting for him to continue.

“Ugh, fine Louise. There’s this new barista.”

To her credit, Louise was first and foremost always an amazing friend; she never told Dan off too severely for being reckless or stupid or making poor decisions. So rather than pointing out the millions of reasons why this discussion could lead somewhere bad, she leaned in conspiratorially.

“Tell me everything. Girl? Boy? Non-binary? I want all of the details.”

“His names Phil.” Dan paused, waiting for Louise to say something. What, he wasn’t sure, but he was positive she’d have something to say on the matter. When twenty seconds went by and Louise was still silently staring at him, waiting for more, Dan finally continued.

“He’s new, he just moved to London, he was surprisingly not fan-like once he got passed the initial ‘there’s a famous singer in my coffee shop’, and is apparently a massive nerd. I didn’t get the chance to learn too much else about him though, because somebody called demanding my presence.”

“Well, if I’d known you were making the acquaintance of a cute, new boy, maybe I wouldn’t have.”

“It was just friendly, Louise.” But even as the words came out of his mouth, Dan knew he didn’t believe them.

Fuck.

Morning coffee and gossip with Louise eventually turned into productive work time with Louise, which after a few hours turned into wine and more gossip with Louise. It was nearing 9 o’clock when the elevator let out a loud ding, indicating that someone had entered the apartment. Given Dan’s allowed visitors list, it could really only be one person.

High heels click clacked on the hardwood floor but the footsteps passed the lounge and continued further down the hallway.

“Really, Dan, this is still happening?” Dan threw a slightly startled, slightly admonishing look in Louise’s direction.

A shrill voice called loudly from the kitchen. “Ugh, Danny! I had such a bad day at work and of course you didn’t come take me out for lunch like I texted you to. Did you have your phone on, like, do not disturb or something?”

Rather than responding to the accusation, Dan turned and whispered to Louise. “Quiet or she’ll hear. Be nice, I really don’t want to fight tonight.”

The voice from the kitchen continued whining. “The girl at work was being, like, so annoying. She doesn’t understand that it’s, like, literally her job to do my errands and stuff. I mean, like—”

Louise continued talking, slightly drowning out the high-pitched complaining from the other room. “Right, unlike every single other night you’ve seen each other this month.”

“— and, like, the woman doing my nails didn’t even believe that I knew you. As if she hadn’t seen us together in the media or anything. I actually had to, like, show her my lockscreen to make her believe. When she finally got the fucking picture, she was much nicer and gave me a free—”

Dan and Louise had both mostly tuned out the diatribe against the woman from work, the manicurist, and whoever else was being complained about.

“Louise.” Dan sent her a pleading look, silently begging her to be nice, don’t provoke her, don’t lecture me.

“Fine, I’ll be polite. That still doesn’t mean I approve of you continuing this...whatever this is.” Louise loosely gestured to the hallway toward the voice in the other room, which was still rambling at an ear-splitting pitch.

Somewhat resigned, Dan shrugged his shoulders. “Good enough.”

Just as the words left Dan’s mouth, the visitor waltzed into the living room, preceded only slightly by the tell-tale click clack of stilettos. She was wearing a tight red dress with a plunging neckline and her nails were painted to match perfectly. Her hair was styled in big, loose curls that Dan was sure probably took some hair stylist ages to achieve — and probably left a hefty charge on his account, too. The woman was sipping a bottle of Perrier she’d already taken from Dan’s fridge, leaving a thick stain of dark red lipstick around the mouth of the bottle. A bit belatedly, Dan jumped off the couch and crossed the room to give her a chaste kiss on the cheek and wrap his arm loosely around her waist.

“Hi, Isabella, I didn’t realize we had plans tonight.”

Going back through my old quizzes, I've compiled a new quiz made out of questions I can now answer with some certainty, though I am answering from a particularly stressful time in my life. As a sarn, I get angry in a few answers, but I really get into a deeply heated, angry rant at the end of the quiz. I don’t think I’ve ever been so angry before, and it’s not pretty.

What’s your name? I'll forever be Rat, though more recently Rat d'la'fume. I still maintain if I had a proper legal name, I'd want it to be "Imolin", just now it'll be "Imolin d'Bird d'la'Fume". As always, have fun looking it up.

When’s your birthday? Right NOW it's 14 years at some undetermined point in the calendar.

What’s your favorite type of weather? I've still never really seen rain, and I want to hold out hope that I'll enjoy it, but now I've gotten kind of fond of snow.

What’s your favorite mythical/extinct creature? Fuck, honestly? Now I'm kind of burnt-out on dragons. I've lived with dragons, slept on dragons, rode on dragons, played with dragons, held philosophical debates with dragons -- I know two separate dragons of different species, and I met a third that was big enough to be the foundation of a city. I'm dragoned-out. Besides, honestly? I didn't realize just how scary a dragon can be, they get pretty big, you know?

Favorite sweets/candy/snack? For practicality, I still think yorn cydiuren are a smart snack, but they're not my favorite. There's actually this salty chocolate the village use to make that I ... didn't actually like all that much, but I got kind of hooked on? Eventually I started giving my chocolate rations to my one son when I noticed the developing addiction. Kicking a candy habit is HARD, no wonder I didn't get too attached before!

Ice skating or roller skating? Hey, do you think I've actually managed to do anything like ice skating? We are in an arctic wasteland, surely I could figure out to strap some knives to my feet. Maybe I invented the sport for the village?

Are you single or taken? I'M MARRIED!! Man, this answer changed a lot. In the past I figured I could probably be poly pretty easily, but that's changed. Once Bird and I got together -- finally, after years of waiting! -- I found that I'm super possessive, and so is he, and I'm okay with that. I'm happy, even. I wish our marriage Hal'l was something more special, and I wish that our first times together weren't by necessity, but I'm happy. Or I was, until Bird died... I guess that actually makes me a widower? I hate that word.

Who is your best friend? Bird! Except ... he's dead? So I don't know if he still counts? If he doesn't, I'm pretty close with my son Mouse, and Kitten (Akorithra, go figure!) is kind of like my goofy little sister I need to protect.

Who has broken your heart? Bird. Repeatedly.

Do you hate anyone? I don't know? I think I'm internalizing a lot of self-loathing over failing my one job in life and letting Bird die. No matter how much auflaque ssuu'hha taunts me, or how much I wish I could've enacted some kind of revenge on Taika, at the end of the day I'm stuck with me. I failed. I spent my life training, giving up every sense of self I had or could have been to become a living weapon, and I fucking failed to protect the one. single. person that mattered most to me. What the fuck was it all for?

Are you optimistic or pessimistic in problematic situations? I use to be better at hiding just how pessimistic I can be.

Introvert or extrovert? I actually kind of like being alone (with the exception of spending time with Bird) more than I like spending time with other people. I'm even having a hard time not withdrawing from my family right now.

How high have you ever been up? I've rode on the back of a dragon in flight. I don't know how high up we were.

What is your most precious treasure? The corpse of my husband.

What is your self-esteem like? My old answer: "I’m fucking amazing. I’m not even being ironic or trying to hide a crippling depression or something, I actually think I’m doing pretty well for a fifteen-year-old male of my species. :D" Fuck. I wish I could remember how THAT felt.

What are you most afraid of? I have a fucking list growing. - Being helpless. - Wide open spaces. - Being cornered. - Failure. - The realization there are creatures in this world that are so large that they would never even know I existed if I weren’t in their ear. - My husband being afraid and alone and not being able to communicate or reassure him somehow.

Are you brave or do you easily become nervous or scared? Fuck.

Do you have any pets? What are their names? Duul'sso, although he's less like a pet and more like a new child I have to worry about, but with a bad case of comforting-but-stern dad-voice. He's a hawk.

Favorite desserts? There's this thing I tried in the realm of the damnded, it's like some kind of fizzy, melty, creamy but bubbly drink. There's white firm cream in it, and I don't know what it is, but I really like it.

What’s something that fascinates you? How you can love someone so much that it hurts, and yet you can be so agitated at them that you're not sure you're ever going to forgive them for this, and how you kind of wish you could get them back for it somehow but you can't, because it would go against everything you ever stood for, and besides that, you fucking love them even despite their stupid fucking ideas and the fucking nightmare they've put you through. Also: "If the universe is infinite, fiction doesn't exist."

What do you dream of becoming? I don't know anymore. More powerful, I guess. My failure just means I need to push myself harder than I have been. My marriage has made me lazy and robbed me of precious time I could've spent doing my fucking job.

If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go? I'd like to see warmer lands.

Stars or moon? I still love the stars.

What is your favorite quote? "Ussta che, Usstan xun nindol whol udossa" is a quote I both love and hate for the exact same reason.

Favorite song at the moment? I discovered a music box version of my "character voice song". Someone took this very happy, bubbly song, and made it sound sad and hopeless, but also gentle and calming. It also sort of makes me wish I led a lifestyle where I could try raising a baby with my husband. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JTHLcgTV1g

What do you like to do with your family? I loved escaping with them, and I loved all of us banding together to protect our newest member, but I think I appreciate our time alone more. I love resting my head on Bird's chest and listening to his heartbeat, I love when Kitten comes to me with a social problem, I love talking about my stories with Mouse.

What’s one thing you will never throw away? The corpse of my husband.

Favorite and least favorite chore? Protecting my husband. My least favorite is doing dishes.

What was the most nerve-wracking experience you’ve had? The first time we flew together on the back of Notso, and I realized the sheer emptiness of the world around me in every direction, and I started to panic. Also every time I look out and there's nothing but snow for miles. I guess I was also pretty panicked when I missed my period that one time shortly after Bird and I got together, except that never actually happened.

Do you prefer to be outside or inside? Inside.

What’s the furthest you’ve ever traveled? Never-ending korit'al. I don't know the exact mileage, but we traveled for days.

What’s a sound that soothes you? That use to be the sound of my husband's heartbeat for awhile, now it just reminds me that no matter how close we are, we may never actually be together again. As much as I want to be brave, as much as I want Bird to believe in me so he isn't scared, I have no idea -- realistically speaking -- how the hell I'm going to pull this off.

Do you live near the water? There was a big frozen something-or-other back by the village. One time, we pulled a "whale" out of it.

Does it snow where you live? Yes.

What’s one thing you lost that you want back? My husband would be nice.

What would the person nearest to you right now say about you? I don't know anymore. The one I understood best is dead, and I do not know how the others think very well.

Relationship status: Widower.

Most traumatic experience: That night I rested my head on my husband's chest and listened to him die slowly.

My relationship with my parents: Fuck, is it weird I kind of miss zra'ha? I hope she wasn’t anywhere near when the city crumbled. I don’t think she would be, but there’s always a chance.

A random fact about anything: Centaurs have two ribcages. Think about it.

What is the last book you read? Bird missed his birds, I miss my books. The native ones were cool, but not very exciting.

Name the last song you listened to? Right now, it's some kinda ... what's the term ... is it rockabilly? Anyway, it's some melody my new toddler friend made up. OOD&D: I'm just listening to the same thirty-six seconds of music box music on repeat.

What is the weirdest scar you have and how did you get it? I have some light scratches from my birthday, when I told Bird to just fucking go wild and destroy me.

What are you seeing right now? Actually, RIGHT NOW, I'm seeing a crumbling bar from out of one of my stories. As miserable as I am, as hopeless as I feel, I'm actually really excited to be living my stories. I'm not as excited as I guess I could be, but fuck, give me a break.

Are you a good hugger? Cuddling may be my best skill right now.

Where do you like to get your clothes? Turns out Bird really likes the open jacket thing too!

Last time I cried and why: Fuck. I'm so overwhelmed with emotion all the time that it just never stops.

Tattoos I want: Kinda thinking of getting a blue lo'larox on my upper back. I can still technically keep it hidden so it doesn't interfere with my job, but on the flip side, if Bird ever comes back, he'll be seeing a lot of it and it'll be a further display of my love for him. Also the tattoo sounds badass and feels really symbolic to things right now.

Are you a virgin? I'm too exhausted to make a joke about this or list out everything I've ever tried, but trust me, I'm pretty sure there's nothing left to experiment with sexually except maybe being killed and brought back to life. I was actually really looking forward to that, though I'm not actually sure how I wanted him to kill me. I get pretty turned on by the memory of him threatening to shoot me, so maybe something like that?

Tell us an interesting fact: You'll never actually see your own face, just reflections and photographs of it.

What is your favorite word? I warmed up to "fuck" pretty quick.

A fact about my life: It may not look or sound like it. It may seem like I've given up and resigned myself to a broken heart, but it's been less than twelve fucking hours and I:

- Spent all night listening to my husband die slowly and not be able to save him despite this being my fucking job and I would die for him and gladly take anyone with me to ensure his safety, but he wouldn’t fucking give me that. Instead he gave me some sentiment saying he did this for us, and that just makes it hurt worse, and a task I don’t even want to complete because I’m so fucking traumatized right now I can focus on nothing else. I’ve never experienced aggression toward my husband before but fuck there’s a first fucking time for everything I guess? - My family and I had to flee our home and everyone we came to care about there when they needed us most, traumatizing half the family in the process and that being MY fault because I’M the one that said I wouldn’t let Bird’s corpse come to harm. - Everyone in our family is miserable and becoming distant with each other, and I’m feeling like it’s falling to me to try to fix it even though I just want to be alone right now to fucking mourn. - I think I had a dream about Bird, but I can’t even remember what it fucking was. For all I know, this was the last chance I had to be with him in some way. - My husband sent me a distress signal that I couldn’t answer in time because I didn’t know what to do, and my newest responsibility I’m unprepared for had to fucking tell me what to do next. - I came to a land of nightmares with literal blood raining from a black sky, and the first thing that happens is I was harassed by a giant fucking monster dog who’s so fucking proud of the fact I can’t do shit to him and that he’s torturing my husband’s soul. Forever. For the rest of fucking eternity. And I can’t do anything about it. - I was attacked and cornered by zombies I couldn't beat without someone's fucking pity. How am I supposed to beat anyone or anything else? - I was given a chance to live out my favorite stories and I can’t even fully appreciate it because I can’t fucking calm down. This opportunity to live out a stupid fantasy of mine is ruined. - I befriended a toddler who proceeds to keep interrupting me as I FINALLY get to communicate with my husband in some capacity. For all I know, that was my only fucking chance. I know he’s my new friend, and I know he’s trying to help me, but I just wanted a few damn minutes of not getting stressed out. - I am no closer to rescuing my husband from this literal hell of his own making after he gave his fucking life to go over-the-top on some jackass that almost killed me, after I explicitly told him not to -- after I explicitly made it clear that he was my priority and that I would die for him. Bird is always. my. priority. Bird, I don’t know if I can save you, but you-- you’re smart, and powerful, you could have fucking found a way to save me, but instead you left it to me, and what if I fail? Do you know what that’s going to do to me? But fuck me, right? What’s a little more trauma? I don’t care what your reasoning was, I don’t care what happened to fuck it all up, even if it was as ‘simple’ as bringing you back through necromancy, the fact remains I’m here without you, a crumbling family, and an impossible task. I love you so fucking much, and I don’t want you to suffer, and that’s what’s hurting me most of all. There is no way in hell you’re going to make this up to me you arrogant fucking douchecabinet. Damnit but I still love you, never doubt that, no matter how angry I get. You’ll probably never even know. - I can’t even die now to be with my husband because he’s not even dead anymore. He’s somewhere I literally cannot go without this limited fucking poison to kill me nightly. What fucking happens when I run out? You don’t understand. You don’t even fucking understand. I can’t even die to be with him anymore, he is literally somewhere I cannot reach WITHOUT THIS. LIMITED. POISON. I swear that even if I die, I would just come back, but I’ve been thinking... Bird is the one that invented this stuff and he’s not even dead, he just doesn’t even exist. Even if I reincarnate, or I run out of this stuff, I’ve lost him forever. Moreover, how will I even KNOW about him when I reincarnate? Any hope of him being safe is fucking gone. Any hope of reuniting with him is fucking gone. - And yet STILL, no matter how angry and miserable I am, I want to believe I can save my husband, but I’m facing a nightmare monster that I never even knew could exist outside of my over-the-top fictional stories. A monster that literally emits an aura of pure fucking terror that I can’t overcome, which just brings me back to every nasty thought trapped in my head, and worse, he makes me feel Bird’s pain too.

All this has been in the span of MAYBE six hours, including the time I spent powerless and forced to listen to my husband die a slow and miserable death, and including a flight during which I was stuck in silence with a traumatized family and my own miserable thoughts, regrets and flashbacks.

So, fuck you. Fuck every single one of you that's talking shit about me. Fuck everyone complaining I’m not in character. Fuck everyone saying I’m too emotional about this. Fuck everyone saying I’m obsessing. Fuck everyone saying I’m selfish. Fuck everyone who did this to me in the first place. I know some of you are trying to make it up to me now, I know some of you regret what’s happening, but here I fucking am. I don’t get OOD&D comfort, to me everything is still valid and painful. You can’t take back what’s happened, and even if everything goes well in the end, you can’t fucking ‘fix’ the lasting trauma. You just can’t. I wouldn’t let you, anyway, because every miserable fucking memory is an important learning experience, good or bad. So, I’m being weepy? Fuck. You.