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shadowling-guistical · 3 years

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Sit and Bleed.

Roman asks Remus for advice, and Remus delivers. In his own, mildly disturbing way. Somehow, bonding ensues.

Yeah idk either. I shared this to one of my friends and they said, and I quote, "Hey mishi i love you but wtf? Did remus posess you?"

So like, enjoy?

WARNING: Extensive blood talk, period talk, mild injury, mild gore, and generally just canon typical Remus shenanigans.

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"Do you think that it's true?" Roman had asked him one day, "That writing is easy? That you could just sit at a typewriter and… And bleed?"

It had been dusk, and somehow, Roman had Imaginationed the setting sun to send it's final rays streaking across his room. From where Remus had been lying, splayed out on Roman's carpet like a human sacrifice waiting for a malevolent god, it looked sickeningly beautiful. The gold that bathed the room, the warmth and splendour, he thought it was just saccharinely horrid.

Roman turned his chair to face him. Remus turned his head. A heartbeat turned into two before he scoffed.

"Please," Remus idly picked his nose, rolling the products he found jammed up in his sniffer into a small hard ball and flicked it off to god knows where. He hoped it landed on Roman's pillow. "If writing were that easy, I'd twist my foot off and feed it to Virgil's tarantula,"

"It used to be,"

Remus sighed, swinging his legs up before he leapt onto his feet with a soft oof. Roman went back to his writing, ignoring the sound of Remus' spine popping when he straightened himself. The Duke sauntered to Roman's desk, looking over his shoulder to see…

Nothing.

Well, nothing substantial .

Bits of writing here, a doodle there, scratched out ideas at the corner, angry scribbles at another…Oof.

His twin must have noticed, because Roman’s tone was bitter.

“Not anymore,”

"Yeah well," Remus muttered, thinking of glittering yellow eyes filled with mischief and a sly smirk underneath a shadowy hood, "A lot of other things used to be easy too,"

"Well? What do you think?"

Riiiiight, typewriting and bleeding. Remus scoffed, "Well willya lookit that. You never asked me before, why start now?"

Roman groaned, "... Remus I’m serious here,"

"Hey! It's true," Remus swiped the paper and crumpled it into a ball. Without looking, he threw it over the shoulder. Roman scowled when he sees it bounce onto his bed, "What's up, Prince stink-a-lot? You ask me to come hang out. You didn't kick me out when I wiped boogers onto that skinned angora cat you call a carpet, and now you're asking me questions? What gives?"

"...it's just…"

God, it’s just this and it’s just that , Remus wanted to pull his hair out already. He wished Roman would just spit it out. Just vomit it out and get this over with. Really, getting his stupid twin to just spew whatever was rattling in that noggin if his was worse than pulling teeth out of a gator. And Remus would know, he tried it a lot over the years.

"I just wanted to be like you,"

And there it was, whatever thing that had been sitting in his twin’s gut like a 5 foot long tapeworm.

…

Like him.

Like Remus.

The Duke of Dastardly Deeds.

Mr. Dark and Disgusting himself.

Roman "Pretty Boy" Sanders wanted to be like him?

Remus leaned forward, far more amused than shocked.

"...You're fucking with me,"

"No, I am not," Roman was looking at him with those intense green eyes of his and woah… the guy really was serious, wasn't he?

Huh.

Curiosity reared it's head, familiar and cloying somewhere inside of Remus' stomach. Then again, it could have been the extra potent shaving cream he had over his deodorant earlier today. Who fucking knows.

"Why?" He finally asked.

"Because… You've always made it look so… easy," Shaking hands ran through unruly curls, "It comes easier for you than it did for me. Always did. Just— How do you do it, Remus?"

The other twin considered it for a moment.

Had it really? Admittedly, Remus didn’t really notice it. He hummed. Sit on a typewriter and let yourself bleed , huh?

Well. He apparently had a crisis to handle.

Remus leaned against Roman's desk. Lightly, he ran rough, clumsy fingers on a splotch of dried ink absorbed into wood.

The tone that his Other Half (Don't make it weird Tumblr, he didn't mean that way. So put those pitchforks down and back away. Thanks.) had used while gesturing to the stack of papers and feather quills on his desk now morphed into disgust, "it feels like I just don't have any flowing in me anymore,"

"Well duh," long, dirty fingernails tapped against polished wood, "It's because bleeding isn't supposed to be easy, you doofus," He sighed, and Roman’s expression caused him to nearly want to groan and drape himself over the table. God, it was so fucking obvious that Roman really had no idea, did he? "You know, If you wanna go all gross metaphor with me, you gotta at least not half ass it,"

"Okay, but half ass it how? That how the saying goes,"

With all the tact and delicacy of a blunt axe, Roman’s words were cut off.

"Then it's a shit saying,"Before Roman could protest, "Look do you want me to help or not? Yeah? Then good. Just shut up for a sec and spill the juicy details," Pause, "Okay, what do you know about periods?"

Roman stiffened, obviously beginning to not like where the conversation was steered to. Because not even Jesus could take the wheel when Remus was behind it. However, Roman reluctantly let his shoulders relax when his twin brushed him off with an eye roll. Cautiously, because Remus still needs to be handled much like a skunk would.

"Remus— “

"Oh just relax. This is going somewhere. Trust me. And I won't do any shit I can't clean up. Just answer the question,"

Roman looked queasy, but swallowed heavily. He supposed he did ask, "I guess, just what Thomas learned in Sex Ed,"

Hm, he could work with that.

"So absolutely shit! Great! I just love the educational system in Florida. Wonderful. Wish the Nerdy Wolverine was here to tell you. But you only got me so it'll have to do— Should've prepared a whole musical number about it too—"

Remus held out his palms, and Roman sees the skin tighten. It strained and stretched before it ripped into a bloody gash. Roman grimaced, the other unperturbed. In fact, he daresay Remus looked curious. Like he was mulling over what to say.

"Eh, Follow up— Have" Remus let the blood pool into his cupped hands. A tablespoonful turned into a cupful and soon it was overflowing. He tipped his hand so that the blood dribbled down. Drip drip drip, a small stream of blood hit the floor in splatters, "Have you seen it before? Period blood?"

"What?” Oh god, he feels like he could gag, “Gross—! No of course not,"

Remus rolled his eyes.

"Unfeminist much?" The dry tone was met with protest.

"I'm not!—" Roman spluttered, "I don't go around looking for what comes out of people's pants, Remus!"

"Yeah yeah, but did you know they're chunky though?"

"I— What the fuck Remus?"

"Just...humour me for a sec. So they're chunky," Remus sort of flicked his hand, sending smaller droplets flying. A particularly large droplet streaked across Roman’s floor, "Thick goopy, disgusting— Hey, think of that the next time you scoop out some Crofters eh?"

Well, there nearly goes Roman's lunch.

"Oh god.” He pushed down the tickle at the back of his throat, “Please don't— Just, get to the point,"

"Okay okay. Jeez. The point is," two scarred, calloused hands rubbed together, letting the blood smear, "Is that even blood flows differently,"

The hands raised up, tinged red and both of them marred with an angry, red, jagged tear.

"Look at this shit. See? Not everything that comes out is the same. Some places will drip. Others flow and some? They're chunky. That's just how it is. you can't expect chunky blood to flow as easily as fresh blood,"

Without letting Roman mull on the morbid metaphor, he ploughed on.

"Oh yeah— And blood coagulates. It dries up and turns to scab. It won't stay bleeding forever. It's not supposed to. And expecting it to is just stupid, so write that down with your fancy quill,"

Blinking, Roman's mind slowly caught up with him.

Flowing blood and drying and scabbing— He soon deflated.

Oh.

Oh…

He just watched wordlessly as Remus wiped his hand against the fabric of his outfit. Flakes of dried blood sprinkled down joining the droplets on the ground like some sort of morbid snow.

" And just in case you forget, because of course you do. Scabbing is good. Personal experience guaranteed. It heals things. Plus…" the hand with the cut waved again. Exaggeratedly, mockingly, and even Roman couldn't help but to crack a smile, "You gotta make a pretty deep cut if you wanna bleed a lot,"

Maybe Roman was imagining the softer tone that Remus had let bleed into his voice.

"And if you bleed a lot, you gotta let yourself scab,"

A long, slow exhale.

He had to let himself scab.

"And… You've kinda been bleeding a lot, didn’tcha?"

"I…" Roman swallowed, mouth suddenly dry, "...Yeah...I think so,"

"Been making some huge cut lately to get it flowing?…"

"...Mmmm…" Shaking breaths, fragile and soft. Okay… okay… "Remus?"

"Hmm?"

"Do you… do you think I can… I should—"

Should he stop?

"... Course you could, you stupid bleeding heart…" a hand found itself in Roman's hair, gently carding it. Really, almost petting it, "...But fuck Ro, if that isn't the thing we all love about you, you doof. Of course you can. And you should. In fact, I am telling you to,"

Hesitantly, a pair of arms circled themselves over Roman's shoulder, pulling him close.

Remus didn't mention it when he saw broad shoulders decorated in tassels begin to shake. He didn't pay attention to the soft sobs that sent a Prince, unwavering and strong, shaking. He didn't care about the way Roman's face had crumpled.

"It's time to let it scab, Roman. And try not to pick at it too much,”

Outside, the figure that had been leaning against the door for the better part of the last 10 minutes smiled.

Heh… Credit where credit's due, he supposed.

He tilted his bowler hat forward and began walking down the hallway. No need to worry.

Who knew that the Duke had it in him.

#sanders sides #sanders sides fic #creativitwins #remus sanders #roman sanders #ts remus #ts roman #tw blood #tw periods #tw mild gore

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mymadmedleyw · 3 years

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Fic Writer Review

I was tagged by @dp-marvel94 (I am just saying this is my very first occassion to by tagged in a thing like that, so filling this made my day really, thank you!)

1) How many works do you have on AO3?

22 – wow, that sounds many…

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

206.997, and more than the half belongs under one idea – that’s creepy…

3. How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Oh, it’s many… once, I am into something, I have to write in that – surprisingly I am addicted to DP for nearly a year, and nothing else.

(But little bit of history, from the newest to the oldest: Danny Phantom, The Irregulars (that was really a short one), Guardians of Childhood/Rise of the Guardians (my very first finished multi-chaptered one was in that), Dark, Charmed (the old one, not the new series), Gravity Falls, Venom, Doctor Who, a crossover within Tangled: The Series and Milo Murphy’s Law, Death Note/Death Note: Another Note; and I had some ideas about a Rick and Morty and Gravity Falls crossover, and it seems I never uploaded here my concept about a not crossover Tangled: The Series idea, and either an independent one in Rick and Morty, hm… shame. Most of those are not finished. Okay, like 99% of it…)

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Core (Danny Phantom), stand-alone, ~3k

What The Past Holds (Danny Phantom), wip, ~91k

Pitch’s Secret (Guardians of Childhood/Rise of the Guardians), finished, ~14k

We are not alone (Venom), really short one, ~1k

Phantom (Danny Phantom), stand-alone, ~2k

5. Which of your fic do you want more attention for?

Definitely it’s WTPH. It’s my current work. The idea about it came in December, and since that, I am working on that constantly. At first, I had ideas for eight chapters, and nothing else. Now, it grew into this monstrosity: a side-line (Bonds Over Time), and a collection that contains the deleted scenes or ideas that appeared in my mind and could fit into the story (Bits Of The Past), and also an entirely finished concept for Vlad’s past (Certain Moment Of Time), that could be connected to it too.

I also put many headcanons in that, and ticks of characters, and parallels, and layers that I just love: like Vlad having a sister and some details about his family background, Dan having Vlad’s memories too, how the explosion in the Nasty Burger happened and how Dan turned out like that… some precious things, really, but I won’t elaborate much, in case of anyone wants to give a read to it. Overall, I tried to make the TUE-mess into a somewhat more reasonable logical mess – if I managed to do that at all. I don’t know I’m just like a mother with a new-born with it: look, it’s my child! I made it! I developed it! here, hold it! and love it too, as much as I do! (Sorry, I don’t know how that metaphor came…)

6. Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

Even if it’s a kudo, or a keysmash as a comment, I write back. I mean, if someone writes – literally anything – and spends time with it, I write them back too. (And my very bad habit, that sometimes, if the comment hits an interesting thought, I tend to explain the background behind that more, and accidentally spilling some things I shouldn’t yet... In many cases, it’s like a brainstorming, and then I use that idea. I mean as, for example many of @dp-marvel94’s comments on ff, made me to realise some things, and how then I fixed those forgotten parts made my story along with it much better – once, I will list them, and you’ll be surprised how long is that list, and how obvious things I forgot about entirely…)

7. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Okay, I don’t have many finished story – shame on me. So, I’ll count the shorts. I think it’s then Phantom. It rolls around the idea what if in Forever Phantom, Danny can’t change back to Phantom, and his parents blame Phantom for the disappearance of Danny, and they start chasing madly the ghosts, making them leave the human realm once and for all – which means, Danny has to go with them. It’s really a short fic, but I very like this idea, and it was my very first in this fandom. (I was watching DP that time, I mean, getting familiar with it, but this idea got stuck in my head as I watched that episode, so that was my introduction here. Also, I watched my very first DP episode that time, which means, less then a year ago, so, I am that newbie here…) I am not spilling the end of the story, but it doesn’t have a very happy end I could say.

8. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

Uh, yes? I have a crossover within Tangled: The Series and Milo Murphy’s Law. It’s unfinished, but that time I thought Milo and Varian have the same vibe, including clumsiness. It was only a short idea that time, but it’s definitely worth once to continue or finish somehow. I have a crossover within Rick and Morty, and Gravity Falls. That is standing within my very big idea, but it’s halfway written on my original language and English and that’s like after how a certain trilogy end, but it has some mentioning of ideas I never finished, so yeah… it’s not even published anywhere. Maybe, once, I’ll decide what language I prefer for that, and translate the other part and then, hardly, but I’ll finish it some day... – or, never, it actually would be a very big bite if I try to imagine it.

9. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

I don’t remember to that. I mean, my main story (WTPH) kind of not everyone’s preference, ’cause of Dan, so that’s already divides the readers and I haven’t got all in all many comments yet on my stories (kudos are appreciated too, I am shy too to leave comments on fics, so don’t worry, I get it), so I think I haven’t got any. But I'd be curious to experience if someone reads one of my stories and leaves behind a comment that then criticizing it. I mean, I’d be open to learn what part is not fitting, or just too much. (I am surprised that no one ever mentioned my ’weird’ sentences. I mean for me those make sense, but those make sense for a native English person too? I’m always worried about that…)

10. Do you write smut? if so what kind?

Uh, yeah, I did. Not very proud of it, though I don’t have a heart to orphan that work. I mean, it belongs to me too. Sometimes I wonder to delete some of my works, but then I realise, no, that’s me, I won’t pretend where I came from, and shove into the dustbin my mad thoughts... All in all, my stories now, for a while, are much more family-friendly – if, anything within DP could be really counted as ‘family-friendly’…

11. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yeah, I was very proud of my story back then, called Metamorphosis (Death Note), and I had a crazy idea and tried to translate it. So now, the first chapter is out there both in English and both in my native language, but I got stuck at the second chapter. I couldn’t translate wisely and logically the title of it to give out the many meaning it has in English. And I once tried to translate California (Gravity Falls) to English, but that would be a hard work, so I left it behind – maybe once…

Over that I sometimes has a crazy idea to translate back and forth my stories, no, beyond that, I haven’t had a fic translated from anyone else. And I think I am the only masochist that it ever crosses my mind, I guess…

12. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No, not really. I’d be curious to once do that – maybe, but I’m not sure...

(To tell the truth, I’d be worried about that. I’d be glad to do that once, but I am anxious if I could understand my co-writer, or not. I mean, do you have any idea that I have to give five reads to any longer comments to understand it? I understand those (and I really love getting those!), but I have to give many reads to make sure I understand those well, and then, making sure, I answer back right, and my sentences make sense. My fics have ’fancy’ words, and I love working in English, but sometimes it’s a curse it’s not my native one. So then, I’m constantly worried about interactions, if I receive well something, and if my sentences are understandable for others or not. So, in short, you can see my struggle here… same reason I don’t do Invisobang, but I am considering it...)

13. What’s your all time favorite ship?

I’m not very much a ship-type. But I count Danny and Sam, as a fix point. (Danny and Val was nice and I’d have been very glad to see them in more episodes, but let’s face it, that wouldn’t work, because both of them are too stubborn to choose their other life and if once, they would face with each other, knowing everything about the other, they’d remain allies or at most very good friends.) If, the question is, what are the ships in my head (but not necessarily just ‘romantic’) that I prefer to read, well, it’s Dan and Valerie. I love their dynamics, especially in Deliverance. I don’t know why I just love reading it.

For other reasons I ship Dani and Valerie. Though I can’t write romance and stuff like that, but in one of my planned ideas they are dating - sort-of...

14. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

Okay, there are many. Surely, it’s my Gravity Falls story, called California, but that’s a huge one, and the first one in a trilogy (plus some additional side-lines), and mainly in my head for years, so yeah… I think I won’t ever reasonably finish that as it should be finished. A Tale of Fords (Gravity Falls) could be count as one too. Oh, and Envision and ties (Doctor Who). Sad to say, but yeah, I am always saying, “maybe once”, but I am not sure when…

15. What are your writing strengths?

Okay, this is a funny thing, but I’ve realised I can’t deal with many characters at the same time. So, I think my strength are dialogues and interactions within two people. And I get into their thoughts, so I guess if I have to word it somehow: it’s character-studies then.

16. What are your writing weaknesses?

Can’t handle more than two people. No, seriously, somehow it always turns out, the third is unconscious, sleeping, leaves the room, and so on. I’ve just recognised it recently, and it was a hilarious recognition…

I am also bad at actions, like very very bad, I don’t even try that, because my brain just simple can’t come up with fight-scenes at all. I think I only can write character-studies, and nothing else.

17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

Oh, man… does it count I am not a native English-user? So, technically I ‘always’ write dialogues in another language? But jokes aside, sometimes, I have ideas that the people use another language, and I am like “are you aware, you can’t even write English slang?”, so then, I gave up. Right now, though, I am planning to add ASL in one of my future ideas. I am wrecking my mind, how to do that nicely – but that’s only a forming plan, and dated for next year, currently, I am only collecting ideas for that.

18. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Does it count my very first fic was a fanfiction of one of my friend’s fanfiction in high school? She wrote a really good story – not shared anywhere, we were just giving each other the hand-written exercise book (oh, the old days…). If I remember well, it was a crossover within Supernatural and Queen of the Damned (the movie, not the book). I had no idea about Supernatural, but the story was good, but I was not satisfied with the end, and in secret I wrote another end for it, to myself. I’m not sure where is that anymore, but I clearly remember that was my very first written stuff, and that’s how my origin story began and how is I am here now.

(Oh, and once, I wrote a H2O fanfiction short story to my sister as a name-day present, in which she was a mermaid, discovering her powers during a holiday at a beach (we were at that time in Croatia in a family holiday, so the timing was fitting), and that was one of my very first fandoms to write in it too… God, I have no idea why I wrote it down, it just crossed my mind, and I remember I thought it was cute, I think she was eleven or twelve that time, so I am not sure she appreciated as much as I found it fun to write that…)

19. What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

This is mean… anyway, currently it’s WTPH, for obvious reasons. But I am very proud how the Angst Week turned out (my work for that is called Certain Moment of Time). First of all, I doubted I would be able to write for every day, since I planned to do the whole DannyMay, but things turned out differently and I am still sad, I haven’t done many. But I did not just managed to write for all days, but all could be counted under one idea, and also each of the chapters could be read independently at the same time. It includes a little bit of background story about Vlad, about a rewritten time, his struggles at the hospital, things around Danny’s birth, how Danny managed to survive the Portal incident, how Vlad was informed about the Ghost Boy, and that actually Danny’s separation was just a ‘plan B’ that Vlad tried to avoid… it’s complicated to describe the many things in that, but when I feel WTPH an unescapable mess, and I am frustrated by the lack of proper words to finish the coming chapters, CMOT is my absolute favourite. And I love the whole idea about it. No, I’ll be honest, that’s my beloved so far (just because it’s finished). But I like so much too my idea about Dan and Dani in Bonds Over Time, how they try to live together a normal life… okay, let’s admit it, this question is mean, I seriously can’t tell, and I am thinking right now only my current ones…

20. What fic are you most proud of?

Okay, this is mean too. I am proud of my old works as much that I always go back to them when I am in a nostalgic mode. (I haven’t read any of my old ones in ages, because I try to avoid distractions, and knowing myself, I’d start thinking about the continuation and never finishing my current works at all...)

I am proud of Pitch’s Secret, because that was my very first multi-chaptered one idea that I actually managed to finish. That in fact, gave me the courage to start working on a multi-chaptered DP one. (My original plan was to be brave and aim doing eight chapters, to top the five, and I would have been very proud of myself, but instead now it’s way longer than that original idea, and I seriously don’t know when it will end – twenty chapters maybe?)

I think, if I don’t include the previous question. (It’s the same, isn’t it?) I am very proud of the first chapter in my Doctor Who fic. That doesn’t tell anything about the plot or about anything, that just gives a very good atmospheric background. Every time I read that, it gives me shivers.

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okay, I don’t know who to tag, anyone who feels like it, serve yourself, I am curious... :)

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rvmmm21 · 4 years

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. you know who i am? part end .

*yawn* i can now sleep for a while. thanks guys! if you read this all the way through, can i get some pocky pls? i’m craving it right now.

part 1′s here.

part 2′s here.

[badgirl/bully!joohyun x freshman!seungwan]

...

Seungwan, the poor fool, would never have guessed.

She thought she was in deep? Hah! Joohyun was yelling at her to stop wading in the kiddie pool and come join her in the deep end.

If only she’d been able to see past her own emotions to realise it was Joohyun who had started this whole mess by making them partners all those weeks ago.

~~~~~~~~~~

Seulgi, like any sane human being, disapproves greatly when Seungwan lays her options down on the table one morning.

“Mmph!” she grunts, shaking her head and hastily swallowing the last mouthful of sashimi before staring at her delusional friend, “no, absolutely freakin no way.”

“I-I mean it’s more like paraphrasing…” Seungwan offers, shrinking into herself when she sees the other girl grow more frustrated by the second.

“Stop it, Seungwan,” she interjects, massaging her temples to soothe the ache, “you literally told me you were planning to ‘lift quoted texts and mush them together’. I mean, come on, that’s plagiarism plain and simple. Stop trying to defend it.”

“B-but Seul, I don’t have a choice!”

“Really? Cheating? Hello, is Son Seungwan home? This isn’t you, Wan-ah, you sound crazy! And so is she! And that’s literally – ah wait, no that makes it perfect… aish forget I even said anything.”

Seungwan mirrors her concern. “I think she might have actually made me insane, Seul. I’ve never thought about cheating… ever!”

It’s true. Seungwan’s always been a tucked-in shirt, pulled up socks, neatly ironed uniform kind of girl. She currently feels like the biggest hypocrite. Seulgi’s scoff triggers her rambling again.

“I-I don’t know though, it’s like… it’s like the more we work together, the more I wanna be together! A-and not even like be together as in girlfriends or anything… just, I dunno, spend time with her. I wanna be around her constantly… and stuff. I think I might fail this semester cos I can’t stop thinking about her. But… I have to do better, cause if I fail, she fails. A-and I’ll never let that happen.”

Seungwan’s expression screams ‘whipped’, and it pleads for some sort of reassurance, but Seulgi’s fresh out of stock at the moment. She’s too shocked by what she’s just heard her twit of a roommate tell her. When she finally finds her tongue, it’s not to give her friend the reassurance she so desperately seeks, but to simply ask.

“But do you want to?”

Huh?! The girl screams in her head. Do I want to what? Plagiarise? Have a cup of tea? Tell Joohyun to stay ten feet away from me because whenever she’s near I just want to grab her by the face and kiss her silly?! Or perhaps I need to be demanding she pay my hospital bills because my heart is –

“Be her girlfriend.”

Oh, wow, blunt. But when you put it like that…

Slowly, Seungwan looks up at Seulgi; looking like she’d been caught with her hand in the metaphorical cookie jar; guilty as hell.

“… mm… can you repeat the question…?”

~~~~~~~~~~

The flip side of the coin isn’t looking so shiny, either.

Joohyun finds herself all caught up in thoughts of Son Seungwan; the girl she’s wanted since day one, but the girl who also managed to properly steal her unguarded heart while she was busy acting all aloof and in control. In control was something she definitely wasn’t, right now. And as much as she should be out, guns a blazing, to retrieve what’s been stolen from her, she can’t help but not want it back. Somehow, she feels as though it’s safer in Seungwan’s hands.

Clumsy, weak-hearted girls were certainly in fashion, and Joohyun is dead-set on getting hers.

“Yah!” Sooyoung swats at the hand that’s just stolen her one of her last Pocky sticks, “that was the longest one! I was saving that till last!”

Joohyun ignores her, thoughtfully nibbling on the chocolate coated biscuit as she contemplates her next move. She glances over at the other girl upside down on the bed, blocking random Instagram followers with her feet up against the wall and an open packet of crisps by her head.

“Jennie,” she deadpans, “do you think I should do it?”

The girl barely takes a second to look back at Joohyun before swiftly pinching the actual last Pocky out of Sooyoung’s grasp. They both pay no mind to the frustrated yelling from their flabbergasted friend as she storms off into the kitchen to throw away the empty box. She leaves them in peace.

“I dunno,” Jennie shrugs coolly, returning to her blocking spree, “but you better stop playing with your food. Didn’t your mum tell you it’s rude?”

Joohyun rolls her eyes. “Yah, I told you, I’m not playing. I don’t want anyone else thinking they have a chance with her.”

“So do it,” Sooyoung re-enters the room, already chomping on a fresh box of snacks, “stake your claim. Get her before those others do.”

Joohyun perks up, a glare frosting over her pretty face. “What others?”

Sooyoung smiles at Jennie, knowing their lovesick friend has fallen for it.

“Oh you know,” she cracks on, “those hordes of people I saw outside class once. They were all lining up to confess to your Seungwan, love letters and everything.”

Joohyun realises she could tackle Sooyoung right now, but she chooses not to. Instead she turns to face the girl who looks smug as ever with a mouthful of crisps.

“Ha ha, very funny,” she scoffs, “oh yeah, and I lied. I did drink your strawberry milk the other day.”

Sooyoung’s eyebrows shoot up to her hairline. “Hyun!! I knew it wasn’t Haetnimie!”

~~~~~~~~~~

Seungwan often found herself dreaming about it; as if she couldn’t decide whether it had really happened or not.

The first time Joohyun kissed her.

…

Joohyun scans the landscape for her study buddy today. Strategically situated in the furthest, quietest corner the bustling café has to offer, she takes impatient glances down at her phone set face up on the small, round table. Late, as usual, she thinks, rolling her eyes as she flicks her phone screen on and off for the sake of something to do.

Finally, her impatience is fizzled away by the tinkling of the small bell at the stop of the door, indicating a new patron.

Late and clumsy, more like, she corrects herself, a smile crawling up her face as she watches the harassed-looking girl spot her with an embarrassed wave and begin to make her way over, books cradled in arms and a tube of string cheese between her teeth. Joohyun can’t stop a giggle when Seungwan thinks she’s knocked someone’s latte off their table with her bag strap. She bows over and over, spluttering disjointed apologies only to find out the cup is still perfectly on the table and the people are now looking at her in pure amazement.

Oh god, another one for the books then, Seungwan sighs, turning her beet-red face away from them and slinking on.

Eventually, she’s settled down across Joohyun, who’s been waiting, she realises in horror as she checks the time, for 15 whole minutes.

“Sorry I’m late,” her breathless smile and tired eyes have Joohyun subconsciously softening at her sincerity, “I didn’t get much sleep last night, and oh–! Have you eaten, unnie?”

Seungwan digs into her school bag, and, with a happy little ‘ta-da!’, pulls out a nicely cling wrapped, homemade oatmeal cookie.

“I decided to bake, instead,” she cheerfully chirps, breaking off a portion of the baked treat and offering the bigger half to her raven haired senior, “I bake these a lot, you should try!”

Disappointment nudges Seungwan’s heart when Joohyun glares at her, suddenly aware of the sting in her bicep from still holding part of her cookie out in front of her. She tries not to let it show, but the disappointment quickly turns into something else when she sees that all too familiar smirk flower on Joohyun’s pretty lips.

“You should feed me.”

Seungwan shivers at the expectant stare she’s fixed with while the other girl remains composed as always. Annoying. Before she has time to respond, her knee collides with the underside of the table, loudly clinking the metal cutlery and causing a few heads to turn. It takes everything in her not to look down where she just knows Joohyun’s foot is ever so lightly grazing her pant leg.

Joohyun blinks innocently at Seungwan’s rapidly reddening face as she’s forced to apologise profusely yet again, this time for something she’s actually done.

“Unnie…” she croaks, trying to calm her racing heart.

“What?” Joohyun cocks her head. She promptly picks the cookie out of the girl’s fingers and takes a bite, “serves you right for keeping me waiting.”

Seungwan lets out a breathy groan and begins flipping the pages to where she’s bookmarked.

“Mm, this is really good, Seungwan.”

Cadbury eyes light up at the praise and Seungwan stops annotating to cap her highlighter.

“R-really? You like it? Oh that’s great news! I’ll make you some more! I can!”

Joohyun chuckles and nods. Seungwan’s puppy eagerness melts her more than she cares to admit. The way any sort of positive affirmation she throws her way has her excitedly tossing aside whatever she’s doing. Not that it matters anyway, Joohyun’s more than happy to take rightful precedence over stupid assignments and due dates.

“Good. Best I’ve eaten in a while.”

…

“So that’s what I’ve interpreted here. Going off what he’s written in this paragraph, I think he genuinely believes he’s right.”

It happens somewhere between ‘genuinely’ and ‘right’.

Smooth and secretive.

Like the hushed whisper over the din of a crowded room.

Fingers tug at her collar and a pair of lips press into hers from across the table. She’s caught completely unawares, and Joohyun’s lips are gone before she can even get used to them. She watches in shock as her senior sits back down, not even giving her a second look as she returns to annotating the next paragraph.

Seungwan can’t believe Joohyun’s ignorant to the fact that she’s just unfolded her origami heart like no one has before.

~~~~~~~~~~

The blaring of Jessie J’s ‘Price Tag’ piercing her peaceful Sunday morning has Seungwan flailing to grab her phone off the table top. She has to swipe three times after playing hot potato with the device before she finally manages to answer the call.

“Hello,” the screen is cold against her ear as she groggily answers.

“Oh hello? Seungwan? Did I wake you? I’ll call later – ”

Joohyun’s husky voice registers in her brain and she shoots up so fast into a sitting position she feels slightly light-headed.

“No no no!” she exclaims a little too enthusiastically, running a hand through the tangled mess on her head and palming swollen eyes, “I’m awake it’s fine. We can talk. Is… is everything okay?”

“Yes, it’s okay, don’t worry.”

Joohyun sounds like she’s smiling over the phone, but Seungwan doesn’t get her hopes up. The other girl continues. “Yeah, probably should’ve texted you earlier to tell you I was coming by your dorm, but I was picking something up at the shops anyway so I thought I’d drop by and try my luck.”

“Oh, I see,” Seungwan isn’t sure if she wants to ask if this is about what happened at their latest study session but her nerves dampen a little when Joohyun chips in.

“You left your pen at the café so I’m just returning it.”

Ah, okay, Seungwan thinks. She’s weirdly upset at the fact that Joohyun’s pretending nothing had happened between them. Perhaps she toys with people this way. Perhaps Seungwan’s just another notch in her string of empty loves. Irritation pinches into her chest at the prospect. Couldn’t miss high-and-mighty take into account her feelings for once? It’s not like she could just change Seungwan’s life like this and not expect to take an ounce of responsibility.

It’s absolutely unfair. She almost wants to scream into her phone, but Joohyun’s voice stops her before she can even open her mouth.

“… oh and. We need to talk.”

Okay, there it is. Commanding and concise; what Bae Joohyun does best. She doesn’t know if she should be jumping for joy or locating the nearest exit, but she nonetheless finds herself hastily shuffling to her wardrobe to throw on the first pair of trousers and hoodie she finds.

“Uh sure, unnie… give me ten minutes? I’ll be down. Did you want to meet at the shops?”

“No it’s okay. Just meet me downstairs, I’m waiting.”

And she hangs up.

…

With how fast Seungwan brushes her teeth and gets herself dressed, it should be in the Guinness Book of World Records for the quickest thing anyone’s ever done for love. There’s no time to fiddle around with contacts today so she rummages through her drawer for her only pair of chrome steel-rimmed glasses.

She brushes past Seulgi who’s sitting on the sofa having breakfast. The girl’s eyes suspiciously follow her harried friend as she rushes out the door, crinkling her nose at the distinct waft of perfume that lingers after she’s gone.

Seungwan spots Joohyun leaning over the railing outside her dorm. She pauses before pushing the huge glass doors open, shaking her head with a sigh. How does someone make mum jeans and a white t-shirt look Vogue-worthy?

Joohyun sports the faintest smile when she sees Seungwan jogging over to her; her pin-rolled sweatpants, fluffy Uniqlo hoodie and unruly bed hair making her look nothing short of adorable. Dumb little sleepyhead, Joohyun mumbles just out of earshot.

“I’m glad I woke you up bright and early,” she chuckles at the girl who’s bent over next to her, clutching the railing to catch her breath.

Joohyun gets a quick ruffle of soft, caramel hair before Seungwan straightens up. She holds the black ballpoint up to the other girl, who accepts it with a small thankful nod.

“Thanks, unnie,” Seungwan says, not really interested in the returned possession. She really wants to ‘talk’. “So uh, you wanted to… talk?”

“Ah, yes. Um…”

Joohyun blinks a couple times, seemingly at a loss for words. She seems not to know what to do with herself, darting her gaze here and there, lightly rapping her fingers against the cool metal bar. Her sudden awkwardness is more than justified, though. After all, confessing to the victim of her bullying has never been something to cross Joohyun’s mind. For once, she’s the one tripping over herself. For once, she’s the one caught completely off-guard.

Even the gentle morning breeze feels awkward. Seungwan starts to think that ‘shopping’ is looking more and more like a cover up for something else.

She inwardly beams at the way Joohyun currently embodies everything she’s felt this entire time. However, she decides if she is ever going stand up for what she believes in, it’s now. Taking a deep breath, she mentally thanks Seulgi for her advice on how to appear like less of an idiot in front of the person you’re deeply in love with.

“Unnie,” she begins, “I need you to tell me honestly. What are we?”

Joohyun opens her mouth to reply, but nothing comes out. She’s still at a loss for how she could possibly convey what she wanted to in this moment. Goddamn, she curses, why can’t I just go back to bullying this little nerd? When did life screw me over like this?

She stays silent as Seungwan so confidently lays the cards out for her.

“Because I know how I feel… and…” her tone falters momentarily, her natural awkward self threatens to barge in again but she manages to shut the door on it.

“… and I… I like you.”

The confession is significantly quieter than anything she said before, but Joohyun hears it through a megaphone. Her eyebrows arch up and she turns to face the girl who’s had the courage to do what she’s wanted to do all along.

“Seungwan…”

She looks at the other girl who’s silent; waiting.

“I-I don’t know how to…”

“Then don’t.”

Her breath hitches when Seungwan’s fingers interruptedly caress her pink cheek. The shorter girl slowly leans in, and Joohyun gladly lets her take the lead.

Eyelashes flutter and the world stops altogether, when Seungwan presses her soft, pillowy lips to hers in a positively heart-attack inducing kiss. It’s tender, luscious and Joohyun can’t get enough. She takes in everything she feels; the tip of Seungwan’s nose gently poking her cheek, her fringe tickling just below her eyebrows and the hand now resting on the small of her back, drawing her in for more.

A shared cluster of fireworks go off behind both their eyelids.

Seungwan pulls away first, gracefully meeting the gaze she was once terrified of. Joohyun’s smiling now, and she doesn’t miss the way it reaches her eyes. It’s much easier to speak her feelings when she isn’t being shot at with death glares.

Yet she suddenly feels shy, withdrawing completely and scratching nervously at her arm. “Unnie… I was wondering if I could uh… you know…”

Of course Joohyun knows. The tables turn yet again when the elder girl finds herself a new assertiveness to wear after that kiss. Sweet lips curl into a knowing smirk, much like the one she usually exhibits. “Be my girlfriend?”

Fresh rose petals sprinkle over Seungwan’s cheeks as she meekly nods.

Joohyun laughs, grabbing the surprised girl by the wrist and melding their bodies together, hand cradling Seungwan’s nape.

“Silly freshman,” she says fondly, leaning in to playfully peck her on the nose. “You were always mine.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Seungwan flings her pen into space for the umpteenth time today when Joohyun leans over from her position on the bed and gives her a kiss. She should be used to it by now, but it’s just something about those mysterious eyes and the velvety voice that she can never quite acclimatise to. It’s something about that specific shade of maraschino cherries on Joohyun’s lips, and the fact they taste even sweeter when they’re pressed against hers. Everything’s too sudden, and it has her light-headed and reeling each and every goddamned time. Grumbling, the younger girl squirms around for a while before she sprawls out with the fattest heart eyes, muffled thuds from socked feet kicking a tantrum into Joohyun’s wooden floorboards.

“Ahhhh unnieeee,” she squeals, wriggling around like a deranged worm, “please stop distracting me, we have to get this done!”

Joohyun smiles at how she looks like a kindergartener who’s just had their lollipop taken away. You know the one, when they’re all grumpy but so cute to watch.

“Get it done then,” she says unhelpfully down at Seungwan’s red face, grinning at the exaggerated sigh she receives for it.

“You’re not helpinggg-ahhhhhh,” Seungwan rolls around helplessly, and Joohyun merely laughs at her partner turned human mop.

“It’s not my job to help, Wannie. I’m the bully, you get bullied. That’s the deal, so don’t you forget it.”

Pft, yeah sure. This time it’s Seungwan who can’t stop the budding laughter as she recalls the past few weeks with this girl.

It takes about five seconds for Seungwan to un-starfish herself and drag her upper half up into a sitting position again; her mouth may say stop, but those rosy cheeks, that sulky school-girl pout and messy hair absolutely begs for another.

“Only joking, freshman. I’ll help you. But only cause you’re cute. And you’ll owe me, big time,” she teases before darting her eyes to the corner behind the other girl.

Seungwan’s eyes light up at the offer. “Thank you, unnie. Let’s get star– ”

“Hey Wan, what’s that over there?”

“Huh?”

A teasing smirk and a fraction of a second later, Joohyun has Seungwan staring up at the ceiling after her spine does a 404 error, rendering her a boneless heap of lovesick gurgles and deserted thoughts.

And it was only a kiss!

“Unnieeee!!”

The never peaceful study session dissolves into a small insult battleground; playful, of course.

The fun might’ve just begun, but their open books and un-analysed literature stare up at them in disbelief; forgotten yet again.

Joohyun’s had enough of watching from the clouds and proceeds to get off the bed to join Seungwan on the floor. They tussle around for a while, before Joohyun’s hovering above her. She’s just staring down, something that happens so often but never fails to make Seungwan squirm in discomfort, all shy and self-conscious. Joohyun doesn’t care, though. She simply smiles; she can ignore all the playground insults hurled at her, the tiny fists half-heartedly pummelling at her arms in an attempt to get her to move off. Hell, she can even ignore Mr. Lee’s stern warnings about failing the class if she keeps turning up late, or Sooyoung’s hollow threats at tattooing ‘I’m a thief’ across her forehead when she’s asleep unless she stops eating her food when she’s not around.

There’s a lot Joohyun can ignore, and plenty more she’ll choose to in the future.

But she can never ignore the girl who clumsily left her taro tea fingerprints all over her heart.

#red velvet #wenrene #red velvet scenarios #irene #wendy #bully irene #university au #red velvet imagines #kpop scenarios #girl group scenarios

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ettadunham · 5 years

Text

A Buffy rewatch 6x22 Grave

aka doesn’t matter i still love you

Welcome to this dailyish (weekly? bi-weekly?) text post series where I will rewatch an episode of Buffy and go on an impromptu rant about it for an hour. Is it about one hyperspecific thing or twenty observations? 10 or 3k words? You don’t know! I don’t know!!! In this house we don’t know things.

And today’s episode is easily the most unconventional season finale of the show (excluding Restless, which is more of a bonus episode). Buffy doesn’t defeat the Big Bad. Or... does she?

Fun fact, Grave is the only season finale that wasn’t written by Joss Whedon. Well, depending on whether you count Primeval or Restless as the finale of season 4, since the former was also penned by David Fury instead of Whedon.

But this episode has many other distinctions as well. It comes at the heels of an already subversive season, that was meant to deconstruct the very structure of the show, as well as its characters.

Deconstruction however is tough. If you don’t do it well, your audience will rightfully call you out on needlessly pulling your story in an often darker direction to seem fake deep or interesting.

And I feel like season 6 has plenty of criticisms on that front. This certainly wasn’t one of my favorite seasons on my first, or even second go at it. It’s hard seeing characters you love hurting and acting against their own self interests. It’s even harder to see them hurt each other.

This time around however, I wanted to not only look past those previous misgivings I had, but appreciate them and what they mean to the story. Because truth be told, I’m not sure season 6 is actually more flawed than any other season of Buffy.

That doesn’t mean that there aren’t issues – Willow’s drug addiction metaphor was pushed way too hard and took away from the themes of power and control surrounding her narrative for one –, but every season has its hurdles and strengths. Season 2 had an excellent arc, but a lot of confusing fillers. Season 4 meanwhile had great standalones, but a weak overall Big Bad. Every season had its missteps, and a lot of those are subjective to begin with. One girl’s Go Fish is anothers Beer Bad.

There are no wrong answers on this quiz.

So yeah, I went into season 6 not only knowing what to expect, but expecting to gain a new, more favorable perspective on it. And that’s more or less what I got.

Sure, there are things to criticize. But what I’ve been enjoying about this Buffy rewatch in particular, is the opportunity to write long paragraphs of nonsense rather than just saying “Thing Bad”.

Look at Tara’s death. I am perpetually ready to fight Joss Whedon over that in a parking lot, but it also gave us one of the most memorable examples of a hero going dark. And people’s been coming up fixes to that storyline for years (Xander being the one to die is a popular alternative among some fans, but also time travel if you go by fanfics), but it only goes to show that that story itself still worked.

…it’s just that it works in a horrible cultural context that’s rightfully criticized for perpetuating harmful notions, especially for some of the most vulnerable of our population, and the role of media in our society as both a reflection and a model can’t be ignored and should be discussed in order to call attention to these patterns.

Anywho. Grave.

As mentioned before, this is a rather unconventional season finale. Buffy doesn’t even get to fight the Big Bad, aka Willow in this one. Instead the initial showdown happens between Giles and Willow, at least up until the moment Willow breaks free.

That doesn’t mean that Buffy doesn’t fight though. She runs to save Dawn and Xander (and also Jonathan and Andrew I guess), and then when she gets stuck underground with Dawn, she fights to get out. And then she fights some magic zombie skeletons.

More importantly though, Buffy fights her own depression. She’s fighting to see that beauty and meaning in life that she failed to convince Willow of in the last episode.

She even talks to Giles about this. She tells him that she doesn’t understand why she’s here, why she’s alive, and Giles’s response of how she has a calling feels unsatisfying.

Others would’ve taken her place. She was done.

Then why is she here now?

And Giles doesn’t have an answer to that. Because they both know that there isn’t one. There isn’t a purpose to life, no all-encompassing explanation. We all have to find our own answers to get us through the day.

And by the end, Buffy finds hers in Dawn. Seeing life through her eyes, her future, the many things that’s yet to come. It’s arguably a bit clumsy, and I wish we built more on this theme between Buffy and Dawn this season, but it does tie into another aspect of the episode.

While season 6 in itself is a deconstruction of the show, this finale, and Buffy’s arc in particular, is clearly a subversion of the end of season 5. And in true Buffy fashion, a very unsubtle one at that.

In The Gift, the sun coming up marked the turning point for Buffy, the realization that she can save Dawn by sacrificing herself.

In Grave, the sun comes up right after Giles confirms that Willow’s going to end the world.

In the season 5 finale, Buffy jumps to her death. At the end of season 6, she crawls out of the ground to live.

I could go on, but you get my point.

This is also just a great moment for Dawn, as she interrogates Buffy on why she didn’t tell her what Spike did, and reminds Buffy how she can’t protect her from the world. Tragedy happens either way.

BUFFY: “Dawn, I'm trying to protect you.” DAWN: “Well, you can't! Look around, Buffy. We're trapped in here! Willow's killing and people I love keep dying! And you cannot protect me from that.”

At the center of it all though is Willow. I’ve already been through the broad strokes here; basically, Willow’s rampage is about avoiding feeling her pain and grief.

And Giles understands that. I absolutely love Anthony Stewart Head’s performance in this one; Giles is focused and cautious, but there’s also genuine pain and concern in his expression as he’s talking to Willow. I also love this exchange around the end of their fight:

GILES: “Your powers may be undeniably greater. But I can still hurt you if I have to.” WILLOW: “Boy, you just don't get it, do you? Nothing can hurt me now. This? *heals a cut on her face* Is nothing. It's all... nothing.” GILES: “I see. If you lose someone you love, the other people in your life who care about you become meaningless. I wonder what Tara would say about that.”

Yup. Giles definitely knows how to hurt Willow. Willow’s line of “it’s all… nothing” is also a lot, especially that little melancholic tint that Alyson Hannigan delivers it with.

But apparently this was all part of Giles’ plan to get Willow to take his magic away, so it would open up her to feel again. However, his line to her afterwards about how “she can make it stop” naturally backfires.

Willow’s been doing all this in order to stop the pain. Giles wants her to feel it to get through it, but Willow predictably would rather see the whole world burn than feel it anymore.

I’m not a super big fan of the narrative choice to have Giles comment upon what’s happening through his link to Willow after that, especially by the end as Xander shows up with her. But I do like those initial lines when he first feels what Willow does, and you can see the pain through him.

Giles later says that the magic she took from him tapped into Willow’s remaining humanity, but I’m not sure I would use that wording. Willow tried to avoid and shut off her pain through her murder trip, but that was still her. Her humanity, her pain was there underneath all along – Giles’ plan just made it harder for her to repress those emotions.

So, hence why she decided to go full apocalypse in order to stop feeling them anymore.

It definitely made it easier for Xander to get through to her in that moment too. But maybe he didn’t even need the extra supernatural help for that.

Willow spent the last three episodes trying to get away from herself. She didn’t want to come back, and she made sure to burn all her bridges in the process. Knowing that what she’s done would cost her friends only strengthened her resolve.

And here comes Xander, out of nowhere. Xander with his familiar, signature jokes, the ones that he cracks in order to cope with life.

More importantly, Xander doesn’t blink. He doesn’t fight or argues with Willow. Doesn’t try to convince her to stop. And that, paired with the familiarity momentarily disarms Willow. So she counters that by lashing out, hurting Xander.

But Xander, once again, doesn’t blink. Because he’s not bluffing. When he says that he’s okay with the world ending as long as he gets to be with his best friend, it’s because he means it.

This is a difference that I’ve been alluding with Buffy for a while now. Buffy can’t do what Xander does here. She can’t put the whole world aside to be with her best friend. That’s not who she is.

It’s definitely who Xander is though. Right or wrong, he always goes with his heart.

So, that’s what he does. He does exactly what Willow mocks him for, and tells her that he loves her.

Even if she kills him, he’ll still love her.

The fear of being unlovable is ingrained into us all on some level. It creeps in when we least expect it. Fear that we’re not good enough. Fear that we can never live up to others expectations of us. Fear that we won’t be accepted. Fear that we can’t be forgiven.

That’s why there’s so much power in unconditional love. Being told that we’ll be loved, no matter what.

We often don’t even realize the anxiety and fears we have about it and how deep they go; so the sheer relief upon hearing those words can be unexpected and overwhelming. And Willow’s no exception.

Again, she tries lashing out, telling Xander to stop, hurting him, but it’s of no use. All he does is repeat those words, even while suffering through the pain that was inflicted on him. By her. “I love you. I love you.”

And when Willow breaks, she breaks hard. Letting herself go in her best friend’s arms, feeling all of her grief at once.

Platonic love saves the day, as the show once again invokes Sarah McLachlan in its final moments. It’s a less memorable song choice than Full of Grace was at the end of season 2, but it’s a nice callback to that.

Oh, and Spike’s got his soul back, after the last few episodes aggressively tried red-herring that he went to remove his chip.

Overall, as I said, I enjoyed this season. As with all seasons, there were things that worked less so, but I generally liked the deconstruction that we’ve got around to. Instead of a Big Bad representing a metaphor for Buffy to overcome, we’ve made those struggles real. The Big Bad of season 6 was Buffy’s depression, Willow’s addiction and need for control, Xander’s baggage, and so on.

We also didn’t need to turn the characters inside out to have these turns and conflicts. The season built on well-established character flaws, and guided us through a journey full of ups and downs, culminating in an emotionally cathartic finale.

I think I’m ready for the finish line.

#buffy rewatch 2k19 #btvs talk #btvs

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tacittherapist · 4 years

Text

We open on a familiar scene: Rose perusing media on her laptop. Yes, she’s doing the narration thing and concurrently performing the actions described within the narration. Don’t judge her. If a certain pointy-spectacled too-much-hairspray anime blowhard can do it, so can a depressed goth nerd. Some semblance of rain pours outside: a faint cloud of cosmic dust they’re passing through pelts her windows with sawdust-sized particles. Her eyes glaze over as she goes through her old chat logs.

tacitTherapist [TT] started trolling carcinoGenetics [CG].

TT: Karkat. Let’s talk. I know you have time because I’m currently watching you sitting on a couch in the aftermath of yet another homoerotic tussle with Dave.

CG: ‘HOMOEROTIC’ YET AGAIN MEANS NOTHING HERE YOU RUSTPANNED SHITWEASEL.

TT: I’ve been thinking lately.

CG: OH, REALLY? WOW!! INCREDIBLE LALONDE, YOU MIGHT BE ONTO SOMETHING THERE.

TT: Don’t interrupt me. I’ve been thinking about our situation.

CG: WHAT DO YOU MEAN ‘OUR SITUATION?’ ‘OUR SITUATION’ AS IN HOW THIS ENTIRE FUCKING STRUCTURE IS IN LITERAL AND METAPHORICAL SHAMBLES?

CG: LET’S PUT ASIDE THE NEAR CONSTANT ANTAGONIZING BY DAVE’S PREPUBESCENT THINLY-VEILED WAILS FOR HELP CLEANING UP HIS OWN OVERFLOWING SPIRITUAL WASTEPANTS AND PERHAPS ADDRESS THE FACT THAT YOU AND MARYAM HAVEN’T SPOKEN FOR OVER THE EQUIVALENT OF SEVERAL WEEKS?

CG: NOT TO MENTION TEREZI IS STILL MISSING, ALONG WITH A SMALL PORTION OF OUR EVER DWINDLING RATIONS THAT YOU POMPOUS GODTIER SHITSTAINS APPARENTLY STILL PILFER DESPITE NOT EVER NEEDING TO EAT.

CG: OH, AND THERE’S A HOMICIDAL CLOWN LOOSE IN THE VENTS. THERE’S THAT TOO.

TT: Yes, all of those things are items I considered.

CG: OH GREAT. FUCKING GREAT. LET ME GUESS, YOU’VE CONJURED ANOTHER CRACKPAN SCHEME TO SOMEHOW MAGICALLY -- SORRY, ‘MAJJJJJJYYYYKLY’ WHISK ALL OF THIS SHIT AWAY?

TT: No. Our situation is bleak, Karkat.

CG: COLOR ME FUCKING SURPRISED. OUR SITUATION IS BLEAK? HOLY SHIT LALONDE, I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS IS WHAT YOU SPENT DAYS IN ISOLATION FORMULATING IN THAT ALL-SEEING MIND OF YOURS.

TT: I do have a proposition. And if you’d be kind enough to quit hammering your clumsy sausage fingers upon that poor phone for even a second, you might even get something from this conversation.

CG: ...

TT: Ellipses wholly unnecessary Karkat. Take your fingers off the buttons.

TT: I have a plan to alleviate our circumstances. It’s risky, but better than sitting here for another few years.

TT: Yes, I know you use sweeps and I’m a totalitarian bigot for not using it here.

CG: YOU PREEMPTIVELY ADDRESSING IT DOESN’T MAKE IT LESS TRUE.

TT: Karkat. Fingers off the buttons or I magically disassemble your phone again, and this time I won’t help you reinstall the macro you use specifically to hide Dave’s long rambling text walls about the economy.

TT: Now then, I haven’t received a vision in several months. I can only presume this means the game is testing my mettle by withholding this power from me.

TT: After weighing the factors behind our predicament, I’ve ascertained that there are two latent states to our position, and the game in general.

TT: Moving and stillness. There exist no states outside of those two. Both a successful and a doomed session move; they may only take on the states of ‘successful’ and ‘doomed’ after having progressed to their ultimate conclusion, after all. A null session, by contrast, stands still. Forever locked into a state that is neither successful nor doomed.

TT: If we were to translate our position into one of these two states, we would be null. This is arguably worse than a doomed session, as demonstrated by the slow malaise gradually overtaking everyone’s moods for the past few months.

TT: Obviously we missed our target somehow. Whether by some small deviation in our course, or a slight miscalculation by Sollux, we are definitely not reunited with Jade and John, who were supposed to have crossed paths with us some months ago.

TT: So instead of sitting here, waiting for one of us to miraculously drift into the other, I propose we recalculate our trajectory.

CG: HOW. IF YOU HAVEN’T NOTICED, SOLLUX FUCKED OFF TO TRAIPSE ABOUT THE AFTERLIFE OR AFTER HALFLIFE OR WHATEVER THE FUCK KIND OF NOT DEATH NOT LIFE THING HE HAS GOING ON WITH MEGIDO. SO WE’RE A LITTLE SHORT ON TELEKINETIC POWERS TO GIVE US ANOTHER PUSH.

TT: Incredibly telling that you refer to everyone by first name when you hold more affection for them over everyone else. It’s really not subtle here, Karkat.

CG: FUCK YOU.

TT: Yes, we no longer have psychic powers at our disposals. But I’ve done some detailed calculations on our current path and where we need to be.

TT: There are a number of small cosmic bodies about to pass us. If we simply jump onto one in particular, we should be able to correct our course and meet up with the others to get our session restarted.

CG: IS THAT WHY ALL OUR NAPKINS HAD INANE CLUCKSCRATCH ON THEM?

TT: Yes, but no more inane chickenscratch than all the penises you and Dave drew on them.

CG: OBVIOUSLY YOU KNOW I CAN’T GO ALONG WITH THIS.

TT: Why not?

CG: WELL FIRST, I’M NOT ABOUT TO TRUST NAPKIN MATH. SECOND, IF THIS ISN’T A ONE HUNDRED FUCKING PERCENT CONFIRMED THEORY, I WON’T CHANCE OUR MORTAL LIVES ON A HUNCH THAT YOU GODTIER ASSHOLES FIGURED MIGHT HELP US STARVE TO DEATH EVEN FASTER.

TT: Dave has no hand in this. You’re the first person I’m telling.

CG: WAIT, WHY?

TT: Because I need you to get everyone on board. You’re still the de-facto leader.

CG: THAT’S A LOAD OF HORSESHIT AND YOU KNOW IT.

TT: Your continued denial of this simple fact is more evidence to the contrary.

CG: SO WHAT? YOU WANT ME TO SINCERELY PEDDLE THIS IDEA THAT WE JUST HOP OFF OUR HOME FOR THE PAST TWO SWEEPS BANKING ON THE HOPE THAT WE JUST MEET UP WITH EGBERT AND HARLEY?

TT: Well yes, but I was thinking you’d make it a bit more palatable to everyone else. That’s more your specialty than mine.

CG: YOU REALLY HAVE TO BE FUCKING WITH ME RIGHT NOW. ABSOLUTELY FUCKING WITH ME. THE VERBAL DIARRHEA COMING OUT OF YOUR MOUTH RIGHT NOW CANNOT BE GENUINE.

TT: We’re both typing on phones right now Karkat.

CG: YOU KNOW WHAT I FUCKING MEAN, ASSHOLE. IF YOU CAN’T EVEN CONVINCE ME THIS WILL WORK, WHAT MAKES YOU THINK I CAN CONVINCE EVERYONE ELSE IT WILL? YOU’RE REALLY NOT GIVING ME THE HARD SALE HERE.

TT: I know this, but please just hear me out. Our food will run out in three weeks at most, and that’s if both Dave and I curb the hunger pangs with something else to distract us. Yes, we won’t die, but you will likely suffer more antagonizing at the hands of a Hungry Dave.

CG: NEVER. *EVER*. ****EVER****. CAPITALIZE HUNGRY BEFORE DAVE LIKE THAT EVER AGAIN.

TT: Deal. On the condition you get everyone else on board.

CG: NO DEAL. FUCK YOU AND FUCK THIS DEAL. YOUR PLAN IS A FAT LOAD OF SHIT AND I REFUSE TO EVEN CONSIDER THIS A LEGITIMATE CONVERSATION GIVEN YOU’VE BEEN HOLDING ME AT METAPHORICAL GUNPOINT THIS ENTIRE TIME. I DON’T MAKE DEALS WITH TERRORISTS, LALONDE.

TT: If you could drop the performative morality shtick Dave has been foisting on you for just a moment, what exactly could I say to change your mind? Perhaps you’ll feel differently in two weeks when we’re down to our last few loaves of alchemized bread?

CG: ...

TT: Tell me, does a large ‘JUST’ or ‘HEROIC’ sign pop up when mortals die? I’ve personally never seen it before, but I imagine of the four of your twelve original session remaining, at least one of you must have seen a non-ascended death. Do you think starvation counts as just or heroic? I mean, Dave and I are precluded because the ascension really did remove our need to eat, but maybe if we find one of your quest beds on this desolate laboratory, we might be able to spare at least one of you from eating the others in desperation.

CG: FINE. FUCKING FINE. YOU’VE TWISTED MY ARM. YES, METAPHORICALLY, SHUT THE FUCK UP. I’LL MAKE A DEAL.

TT: Good. Your terms?

CG: YOU HAVE TO GET MARYAM ON BOARD FIRST. IF YOU CAN DO THAT, I’LL TAKE CARE OF CONVINCING THE OTHERS.

tacitTherapist [TT] has stopped trolling carcinoGenetics [CG].

carcinoGenetics [CG started trolling tacitTherapist [TT].

CG: HEY. WHAT THE FUCK?

TT: My finger slipped.

CG: NO IT DID NOT YOU AGGRANDIZING FUCKHOLE.

TT: Did you just call me a ‘fuckhole’?

CG: I’M TIRED AND HUNGRY, SHUT THE FUCK UP.

CG: WHY DID YOU ABRUPTLY CLOSE THE WINDOW.

TT: I don’t know if I can convince Kanaya.

CG: WHY’S THAT? THIS IS THE PERFECT FUCKING CHANCE FOR YOU TWO TO FINALLY TALK. I THOUGHT THIS WOULD ACTUALLY BE EASY FOR YOU.

TT: It’s not that simple.

CG: OHHH WELL EXCUSE ME FOR GETTING MYSELF ENTANGLED IN THIS COMPLEX HUMAN MATING RITUAL. YOU HAVE TO FORGIVE ME IF I JUST MAKE SNIPPY REMARKS EVERY CHANCE I GET WITH CONTEXTLESS DESCRIPTORS THAT ARBITRARILY DESCRIBE YOUR GENDERS.

TT: It’s just not a good time.

CG: HOLY SHIT. YOU THINK IT’S NOT A GOOD TIME? REALLY? WELL I GUESS WE’VE ALL JUST BEEN PLAY ACTING A FOOD AND GRIST SHORTAGE FOR THE PAST FEW WEEKS. HA HA, WHAT A FUNNY AND ELABORATE PRANK WE’VE ALL BEEN PLAYING ON OURSELVES THIS ENTIRE FUCKING TIME.

TT: I mean it’s not a good time to bring this up with her. I’m still sorting out where I stand with her and how I should approach this.

CG: FOR ALL THE “”““CALCULATIONS”“““ YOU JUST PULLED ON ME JUST MOMENTS AGO, SUDDENLY YOU CAN’T NAVIGATE YOUR OWN STUPID IDIOT EMOTIONS?

CG: WOW. JUST WOW. YOU KNOW, DESPITE HER TOTALLY BONEHEADED APPROACH TO VIRTUALLY *EVERYTHING* AT LEAST JADE KNEW HOW TO TACKLE THINGS HEAD-ON. MAYBE WE DO NEED HER HERE RIGHT NOW, IN SOME TWISTED CATCH-22 MOBIUS DOUBLE REACH AROUND AS ALWAYS.

TT: I can convince Dave.

CG: SO CAN A BOTTLE OF FUCKING CIDER.

TT: I mean that as a counter offer. If I convince Dave, you convince the others.

CG: NO DEAL. NOW THE FOOT COVERING IS ON THE OTHER LEGSTUMP, EH LALONDE?

TT: You just used ‘foot’ in the same sentence as ‘legstump’.

CG: YEAH AND I’LL SHOVE MINE STRAIGHT UP YOUR POLYESTER-SWADDLED ASS IF YOU TRY ANY MORE NEGOTIATION. THIS IS MY ULTIMATUM. IF YOU REALLY BELIEVE IN THIS PLAN OF YOURS, IT HAS TO AT LEAST HOLD CONVICTION STRONGER THAN YOUR REFUSAL TO FACE YOUR OWN EMOTIONAL TURMOIL WITH MARYAM.

CG: GET KANAYA ON YOUR SIDE, OR NO DEAL. FINAL OFFER.

TT: ...

TT: Fine. I’ll see what I can do.

CG: GOOD LUCK. SINCERELY THOUGH, LET ME KNOW HOW IT GOES.

TT: Thanks. I told Dave you were talking shit just now, by the way. You should make yourself scarce unless you want an hour-long lecture about how gossip is destroying society and by extension the economy.

CG: FUCK YOU. BYE.

carcinoGenetics [CG has stopped trolling tacitTherapist [TT].

#long post #pesterlogs

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momestuck · 5 years

Text

Epilogues: Candy, chapters 14-15 [Epilogue 3]

On to Epilogue 3.

The last Epilogue ended with a cliffhanger: prior to his disappearance, Dirk was constructing a ‘feminine’ robot, which Dave discovers is holding a note in its hand.

CW suicide for chapter 14. A successful suicide by hanging is described in some detail.

Also this Epilogue is really short and I actually read an entire nother epilogue before I realised that, so the next post will be very soon after this one!

Chapter 14

We get a POV chapter of Dirk, which might answer our question. This chapter is in second person, and brings back the “> Ascend” prompt, used so much throughout Homestuck. All that we know is “the world has been set on a path you cannot tread”. There are apparently no stakes or consequences - so Dirk has decided to kill himself. He succeeds, decapitating himself by hanging himself from a tower in a rather grim recapitulation of all the Dirk’s head jokes.

The narration is extremely self-aggrandising and condescending towards everyone else, as befits Dirk. Although exactly why he felt John’s decision to stay rendered anything he might do in the new world devoid of meaning or consequence, or prevented him from popping out into the Farthest Realm to get involved in some plots out there, is not immediately clear.

Although he’s god tier, the death ‘takes’:

Your body doesn’t get up, and your head doesn’t open its eyes. When you think so little of yourself as a moral character, any act of self-termination will result in a death that is Just.

Friggin’ Dirk.

Chapter 15

Funeral time. It begins about as awkward and ridiculously as Dirk himself.

Most of it is given to a speech by Dave. It’s well-written, in-voice, and makes me feel stuff about Dirk Strider. He specifically addresses intrusive thoughts about suicide, the shit that Bro did, the way that Dirk mattered to them even as weird and self-absorbed as he was. Which does kinda mean something, because I guess I feel like, like Dirk, I live a lot in my head, follow trains of thought that mean very little to other people, but I’ve managed to make myself matter to others anyway.

Not gonna kill myself though. Not anymore.

Gamzee, for some reason, has Dirk’s note, and accidentally destroys it. The narration continues to emphasise how disgusting Gamzee is: how much he smells, how he’s clumsy, openly scratches his crotch, etc. His attempt to recap Dirk’s final message is mostly skimmed over in narration. Jake’s also gonna give a speech but the camera mercifully spares us that.

John, at this point, offers to retcon the suicide. Because... he can actually do that. There’s a brief discussion of the difference between time travel and retcon (if Dave went back, it would allegedly just create a separate timeline where Dirk does not die). Dave is like, no, don’t do that John... but John attempts to do it anyway, only to find his powers no longer work!

At that point Roxy shows up and proposes. What’s that thing they have in America, where the studios are doing a donation drive so they write loads of really dramatic moments into shows? ‘Sweeps’? ...oh it’s actually to do with the ratings system, trying to court advertiser money, but same difference. It feels like that right now.

Something about this doesn’t feel... right? Just a few weeks ago, Roxy was happy with Calliope, and now she wants to have his babies? John feels like he’s missing something important here, like he went for a bathroom break during the part of the movie where the plot twist happens. He should give Roxy some time, get himself some space. It’s all happened so fast that it’s suffocating.

Yeah. Calliope hasn’t shown up onscreen for quite a lot of chapters. What are we missing? What profound effect has John’s decision to stay had, that’s caused everyone to suddenly be obsessed with pinning down ‘endgame’ relationships, having children etc.?

Roxy once again prophesises that they will be ‘so freakin happy!’. I’m getting more and more uneasy every time those words are uttered.

(Apparently ‘prophesise’ is nonstandard, but I like the sound of it more than ‘to prophesy’, so I’m keeping that, nyeh.)

Epilogue 3 as a whole

Suicide’s a heavy subject, and describing in second-person and in detail is intense reading, but also a pretty harsh thing to do without (localised) warning. I would personally have put a content note at the top of this chapter, and invited the reader to skip to the aftermath if they felt the need.

The funeral was well-written, even if we’re like, skating from dramatic moment to dramatic moment - deaths! funerals! proposals!

I imagine if I was more invested in Dirk I’d be a bit frustrated to see him so abruptly killed off, but I suspect he’ll have a much more substantial role in Meat.

Will be interesting to see just what is up with Calliope...

#momestuck

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snarktheater · 6 years

Text

Ghosts of the Shadow Market — Every Exquisite Thing

Today, we’re still hanging out with the gang from an unreleased book trilogy. And to be fair, we’re in much less angering territory than the previous story. So there’s that—we’re back to “mostly okay, but also, why isn’t this just fanfiction rather than a published work you’re expecting people to pay you money for?” So, you’ve been warned, this is mostly lacking in any kind of proper fire.

It’s also lacking in any kind of meaningful presence by one Jem Carstairs, which may be an interesting correlation. Then again, I didn’t hate Cast Long Shadows for Jem’s part in it, so…who knows, really.

Every Exquisite Thing focuses on Anna Lightwood. If you’ve been following, Anna is Gabriel Lightwood and Cecily Herondale’s oldest daughter. She’s also Christopher’s older sister, and as such, the modern-day Lightwoods' great-great-something-aunt.

Anna is also a nonbinary lesbian. I think that’s the best way to label her, seeing as she seems to still use she/her pronouns, is attracted to women and refers to it specifically in lesbian terms. But Every Exquisite Thing opens before she’s out of the closet. And I mean that both metaphorically and literally, seeing as she’s also in a closet at the start of the story.

Specifically, she’s in her brother Christopher’s wardrobe looking for clothes of his to steal and wear for herself in secret. See, she likes wearing men’s clothes and assuming a more manly presentation in general. This does come at the cost of criticizing the “girly” persona she’s forced to assume, and…you know, I’m not touching that one, because while rejection of femininity by women is its own problem, I feel like it’s excused for a genderqueer character.

Anna’s room was so different from her brother’s. Her walls were papered in a dusty rose […] Given her choice, the paper would be a rich, deep green, her decor black and gold. She would have a deep chaise longue on which she could read and smoke.

You get the gist.

Now, you may be thinking: “wait, she’s Cecily’s daughter, and Cecily couldn’t wait to be a warrior and use Shadowhunter fighting gear, so why is she even dressing up like a man in secret?” And if so: congrats, you spoiled yourself the end of the story. Thankfully, the conflict in the story isn’t really about her coming out as genderqueer, because otherwise this would be really dull to anyone who knows the previous generation of Shadowhunters (and Clare’s refusal to let her darlings show the slightest hint of modern-day intolerance, even if it would be justifiable in their own time).

So anyway. Anna retreats to her room with the stolen clothes to change. This is complete with telling us Anna doesn’t wear a corset ever, because feminism, and then describing her feelings on wearing men’s clothes.

Even in these clothes—stains and ham sandwiches and all—her confidence swelled. She was no longer a gangly girl who looked awkward in ribbons and flounces. Instead she looked elegant, her lean body complemented by more severe tailoring, the waistcoat nipping in her slim waist and flaring over her narrow hips.

She fantasizes about using Matthew’s clothes instead, since he’s the fashionable one, but even Christopher’s clothes, damaged as they are due to his one character trait being “mad science”, are good enough for now. She also fantasizes about charming young ladies in her attire, just so you know that yes, she is a lesbian, and then the plot kicks in in the form of Cecily calling her downstairs.

The plot, in this case, is Inquisitor Bridgestock and his family being in London, and since the Lightwoods are a big deal, they were invited for dinner to talk politics. Anna’s not pleased, but she has no choice. Cue meeting the Inquisitor’s family, and specifically, his only daughter Ariadne.

In the doorway of the dining room stood a girl, probably Anna’s age, in a midnight-blue dress. Her hair was jet black, like Anna’s, but fuller, more luxurious, deep as night sky against her soft brown skin. But what captured Anna were her eyes—eyes the color of topaz—large, the lashes thick.

Guess she’s our love interest for the evening.

Ariadne is from India, and was adopted by the Inquisitor after her parents died in a demon attack. She’s also involved in politics, even if her politics make no sense to me as she argues against a Shadowhunter currency…

“Shadowhunters are an international group. We must blend seamlessly with many international economies. Having our own currency would be a disaster.”

Like, it makes sense to use local currencies in the Institutes, but…what about Idris? What currency do they use there? Wouldn’t it make sense to pick a standard to trade in in your own country? Or do you just not need money in Idris? Is it a communist utopia where everything is free? Now that I think about it, I remember Clary getting weapons from a blacksmith in Idris, but I don’t remember her paying for it.

Anyway, back to Ariadne. She’s also very hot, hot enough for even Christopher to notice. If this seems like setup for something…it’s not. The book literally uses Christopher’s obliviousness as a way to highlight how hot Ariadne is. There’s a lot of purple prose about how hot Ariadne is. Plus some fantasizing on Anna’s part, who thinks Ariadne might be requiting her attraction, but isn’t sure if it’s her gaydar or her please-be-gaydar. And that’s pretty relatable, if I do say so myself.

After dinner, Ariadne shows Anna the library alone, just long enough to establish that Ariadne, in fact, is probably interested.

“I am modern and possessed of all sorts of advanced notions.” […] “Your brother’s eyes are quite extraordinary,” Ariadne noted. Anna heard this a good deal. Christopher’s eyes were lavender in color. “Yes,” Anna said. “He’s the good-looking one in the family.” “I quite disagree!” Ariadne exclaimed, looking surprised. “Gentlemen must compliment you all the time on the shade of your eyes.”

She also asks Anna to be her training partner, because she’s very late on combat training, and absolutely flirts with Anna in the process.

“You may find me clumsy.” Ariadne twisted her hands together. […] “You will have to be delicate with me, then,” Ariadne said, very softly.

The parents come in before this can go anywhere, and we soon cut to the Lightwoods on their ride home. It’s a fairly cute family moment, but there’s also a meaningful moment of Cecily asking her daughter what she thought of Ariadne.

And this is where I skip forward a little, because it turns out, most of the kids of Anna’s generations know about her being attracted to girls. So the conflict here seems to be mostly about whether her own parents know and what they’d think of it. But since it’s not brought up again until the very end (which I somewhat spoiled already), you can guess how tenuous this conflict is. Good thing we have a love interest to spice things up, right?

But first, this is where Brother Zachariah comes into play, as he’s still in the London Shadow Market. And yes, that includes referencing the previous story.

Tonight, he also glanced around to see if he spotted the vendor he had seen on one of his previous visits. […] She sold colorful potions, and Matthew Fairchild had purchased one and given it to his mother. It had taken all of Jem’s efforts to bring Charlotte back from death’s door. She had not been the same since, nor had Matthew.

I’m glad you’re finally acknowledging Charlotte’s grief…in a story where she’s not even present, and in a man’s point of view. Yeah, that’s a good way to treat your female character.

We also learn that Jem’s mission for Ragnor, which I’d assumed last night was looking for a cure for himself, is actually something else. He’s looking for the demon who sired Tessa, because now that her kids are manifesting powers of their own, she’s hoping that knowing the demon she’s descended from might help her…I don’t know, figure shit out.

Ragnor has made no progress, though. Oh, à propos of nothing, Jem also runs into Malcolm Fade, along with another warlock named Leopolda Stain. Who I’m sure is totally not a villain, by virtue of being friends with the villain from Lady Midnight. I mean, that’d just be ridic—

“Leopolda is a bit of an odd one,” Malcolm said. […] “She is … […] more connected, I suppose, to her demon side than her human side than most of us are.”

Yeah, no, she’s our villain for the evening.

But for now, let’s check back with Anna, who’s fixing the clothes she took from Christopher.

Anna was not a natural seamstress, but like all Shadowhunters, she possessed the basic skills to repair gear.

You…didn’t really need to justify that, but okay, I guess. If mentioning this may empower you.

While doing so, she muses about how differently people treat her when she’s wearing dresses compared to her wearing men’s clothes, which she’s only done twice so far. I’d say it doesn’t sound very statistically significant, but also I’m fairly sure it’s mostly hyperbolic on purpose.

[Women] looked at her soft lips, her long eyelashes, her blue eyes; they looked at her hips in tight trousers, the curve of her breasts under a man’s cotton shirt, and their eyes spoke to her in the secret language of women: You have taken their power for your own. You have stolen fire from the gods. Now come and make love to me, as Zeus made love to Danae, in a shower of gold.

I mean, maybe there is a secret language of women and this is how they all talk to each other in that language. I obviously wouldn’t know. But it does sound pretty hyperbolic to me.

Ariadne goes to visit her cousins at Gideon and Sophie’s house, mostly to stop angsting about Ariadne. This allows us to introduce Anna’s relationship to the other kids. By which I mean mostly just mention how hot James Herondale is, like all Herondale men.

Anna loved all of her cousins, but she had a very soft spot for James. He had been a somewhat awkward young boy, gentle and quiet and bookish. He had grown up into a young man Anna could see was extraordinarily handsome, like his father.

She tells them about Ariadne, but only as a potential training partner, but she seems to be mostly here to make plans with Matthew. And if there’s a surefire way to make my mood go sour, it’s Matthew Fairchild.

He and Anna often spoke of gentlemen’s fashion together, but today Anna noticed that his hair was a bit wild, and one of the buttons on his waistcoat was undone. These were small things, to be sure, but on Matthew, they spoke of something larger.

Oh no, the poor guy caused his mom to have a miscarriage because he was too dumb to just talk to her! Weep for him and his angst!

I swear I’m not going to harp on this too much. Although I will note now, before the rest of the plot unfolds, that Matthew is also responsible for the bad shit that will unfold in the rest of the story. Well, most of it, anyway. Because fuck Matthew Fairchild.

Specifically, he suggests to Anna that they go out to a place in “a nefarious corner of Soho” at night, and that she’ll have to put on a disguise to go. Needless to say, she takes the opportunity to dress with Christopher’s clothes. And because Matthew is a great friend, he shows up already drunk when they meet.

He had been like this a lot in recent weeks—what was fun and light about Matthew had taken on an edge. On some level, she felt a bit of worry rising.

This is no cute, this does not inspire sympathy, and to be fair, Anna’s absence of reaction beyond “a bit of worry” doesn’t make her look much better.

Anyway. The place is a…club? I think? Frequented by mundanes and Downworlders, including Woolsey Scott (who everyone knows is the head of the Praetor Lupus, you know, that oh-so-secret organization that the TMI cast wasn’t sure was real at all) and Yeats (because real people). And Leopolda Stain, because duh.

Oh, and creepy cultists, too.

Next to them was a woman wearing a gold turban scarf pinned with a sapphire. “Are you two of The Chosen?” she asked Matthew and Anna. […] “[Leopolda]’s going to help us,” the woman said. “Obviously, we’ve had such troubles here. Why, Crowley wasn’t even recognized here in London! He had to go to the Ahathoor Temple in Paris to be initiated to the grade of Adeptus Minor, which I’m sure you heard about.” […] “I was an Adept of the Isis-Urania temple, and I can assure you that I was adamant that—”

I guess Matthew didn’t learn anything from the previous story after all, because not only is this not alarming to either of them, but Matthew actually acts like he and Anna are also part of her cult, and she invites them to a private ceremony the next week.

“The faithful will be rewarded, I promise you. The ancient ones, so long hidden from us, shall be revealed.” “Of course,” Anna said, blinking. “Yes. Wouldn’t miss it for the world.” While she was simply making conversation, Anna found that she would like to return to this place.

As Matthew and Anna leave, we cut to Jem, who’s just…watching them leave the house and thinking about how much Anna reminds him of Will. And then we cut to one week later, when Ariadne randomly shows up at the Lightwood house to ask Anna to train with her, after not talking to her the entire time. The training scene itself is mostly just Anna being too gay to function, and noting that Ariadne is in fact not that great at fighting, and ends with Anna inviting Ariadne to come with her that night to the house where the creepy cultist invited her to come back. I guess she didn’t pick up on the creepy cultist vibe.

So Anna dresses up like a man again that night, goes pick up Ariadne at her house (she’s wearing a dress, because I guess we have to keep the butch/femme dichotomy)…and they get stopped at the door by the bouncer. Ariadne’s reaction?

“Now I am curious,” Ariadne said. “We must go in, don’t you think?”

They climb up a drainpipe to the roof, and suddenly Ariadne is showing a lot more skill than she did during training. And when they get inside, they find Leopolda summoning a bunch of demons and sicking them on the human cultists. The girls engage in combat, and Jem shows up as well, since he was obviously tailing Leopolda since they met in the Shadow Market. Also, Ariadne fights with an electrum whip, which…is notable for some reason, although I’m not sure what that reason is, because the story never explains it. Same with how Ariadne can suddenly fight at all. Maybe she was just faking to get an excuse to get close to Anna?

Wait, I’m getting ahead of myself again. During the fight, they manage to contain the demons, but Anna gets wounded. Jem wants to heal her, but Ariadne says she learned healing techniques from the Silent Brothers herself, and she offers to take care of Anna while Jem goes after Leopolda. Jem…does, in spite of having no idea who Ariadne is. Luckily, it’s true, and Ariadne takes Anna back to her home and heals her. Also, some romantic tension…

Throughout all of this, Anna was silent, breathless. She did not feel pain. She felt only Ariadne’s careful hands on her.

…and resolution.

“I would like to kiss you,” Ariadne said. […] “Please, Anna, may I kiss you?” Unable to speak, Anna nodded.

They kiss, and Anna in fact spends the night here, mostly because she’s too weak to leave. It’s not made explicit if they have sex, and I don’t think it really matters.

Before we cut to morning, I do have to check back with Jem, though, since this is also where his involvement in the story ends. Remember how he was looking for Tessa’s demon dad? Yeah, turns out Leopola 1) knows about this in spite of it supposedly being a secret and 2) claims she knows who it is, and will reveal it to Jem in exchange for Shadowhunter blood. Jem is at least smart enough to say “that sounds like an evil plan, so, no.”

Actually, he’s even smarter than that. This exchange happens before Anna gets wounded, so after that, he goes after Leopolda. But he’s not actually on his own: turns out he had Woolsey Scott and the Praetor Lupus on alert as well, since Leopolda’s actions revealed the Shadow World to humans, which could be detrimental to all Downworlders. So we return to Jem meeting Scott at his home, and sure enough, he has Leopolda in custody.

She reiterates her bargain, but Jem’s not swayed. Apparently, her request for Shadowhunter blood is only so she can continue Mortmain’s work…somehow. And he won’t allow that.

Her lip curled. “But you are kind,” she said. "You are famous for it. You will not hurt me. […] That was my Shadowhunter self, he said. I have killed with this staff, though I prefer not to. Either you tell me what I wish to know, or you die. It is your choice.

She tells him Tessa’s father is a Greater Demon—a Prince of Hell, in fact—and “the greatest of Eidolon demons”. Didn’t we already know that? I don’t feel like re-reading all of my TID recaps, but it sounds like something we already knew. She won’t tell Jem the demon’s actual name, though, and so Jem…lets Scott’s werewolves kill her. Admittedly, she did try to fight her way out of here, but that still feels very…um…

Leopolda screamed and whirled on Jem, wide-eyed. “You said you would let me leave! You swore!” Jem felt very weary. I am not the one who is stopping you.

It feels villainous is what it feels like. “Oh, sure, I swore to let you walk free, but the werewolves, whom I had come here on purpose, didn’t!”

So Leopolda is dead, and this whole subplot was essentially useless to this story, so I assume this is going to be our “main” story thread uniting all the short stories? Only took three stories to get to it.

Let’s wrap up with Anna, shall we? She leaves Ariadne’s house early in the morning before anyone can spot her, but she’s giddy because…you know. Gay love. Except when she goes to visit Ariadne officially later that day (after catching some sleep), guess who’s visiting but Charles Fairchild. You know, Matthew’s older brother, who was born during TID? Well, he’s our random eleventh-hour drama for the night.

See, he’s just been named interim head of the Paris Institute for a year, and he’s the Consul’s son. In other words, he’s a perfect match, and Inquisitor Bridgestock wants to marry Ariadne to him. Anna is immediately shocked by this, because she lives in Edwardian England but is baffled by the concept of political marriages, I guess.

“Charles is quite a good match,” Ariadne said as if she were discussing the quality of a piece of cloth.

Ariadne’s argument boils down to “I don’t love him since I’m a lesbian, but I do want to be a mom”. Also, she refuses to come out because she’s adopted and fears her parents would reject her. Her offer is to have a secret relationship with Anna for a year, after which they’ll be over because she won’t cheat on Charles after they’re married.

Anna is not interested. Which, fair enough.

“Good-bye, Ariadne,” she managed, and staggered from the room.

She goes home to cry, Christopher tries to comfort her in his own awkward way, as does Cecily (minus the awkward part…I think).

“She broke your heart, didn’t she? Ariadne?” Anna was speechless. So her mother did know.

So…yeah. Cecily knew, and she’s fine with it.

“Mama,” she said. “You do not mind—that I might not get married, or have children?” "There are many Shadowhunter children orphaned, as Ariadne was, seeking loving homes, and I see no reason why you might not provide one someday. […] As “for marriage …” Cecily shrugged. “They said your Uncle Will could not be with your Aunt Tessa, that your Aunt Sophie and Uncle Gideon could not be together. […] Even where laws are unjust, hearts can find a way to be together. If you love someone, I have no doubt you will find a way to spend your life with them, Anna.”

She also knew about Anna crossdressing, and she’s fine with that too, going so far as to give her a specially tailored suit for her. So did Gabriel, as it turns out when Anna puts the suit on and joins the rest of her family for a walk in the park.

Of course, this begs the question: why now? If Cecily and Gabriel knew, why did they buy Anna dresses and decorate her room in a girly way that she hates? And if they had that suit, why wait for the most dramatic time to reveal it? Well, it doesn’t matter, because that’s not the point, I guess.

“I have always known you, my love,” Cecily said.

And…I mean, I’m sure this is empowering to someone who will read this. I personally feel like narratives where the parents (or other closed ones) already knew and were fine with it, while they certainly reflect a truth, really should be toned down at this point. Most queer people’s families don’t know, and don’t react positively to the announcement. But hey, I guess this is fiction, and it is a fantasy, and there are worse fantasies out there.

So Anna puts on her suit, and cuts her hair short, and she’s a new person. Oh, and Cecily also gives her the family necklace. Well, it’s not a family necklace yet at this point in the timeline, but…you know, the necklace that detects demons? Yeah, that one. I’m not sure why it’s there except to remind readers of a thing in the rest of the series, but it sure is there.

That was Every Exquisite Thing. As I said in my intro, it’s mostly okay, honestly. The Jem stuff feels even more extraneous as before, and I’m back to feeling like Anna’s story could have just been alluded to in her own books and left up for fans to actually write about, but it’s not the worst thing out there. And that’s really all I have to say about this.

#every exquisite thing #cassandra clare #maureen johnson #ghosts of the shadow market #young adult #ya books #books #young adult books #book reviews #ya #reviews #book #book review #review #st: ghosts of the shadow market

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writingpaperghost · 3 years

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Like Father, Like Daughter (Part 9)

A secret is revealed.

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22967815/chapters/81380860

It was a pleasant day, though perhaps a bit on the chilly side. The sun was out, but out in the way where it seemed to do little to warm anyone up. The weather had been becoming increasingly colder as the days went on. Overall, though, the day was rather pleasant. There were plenty of people out and about that day.

A perfectly normal, pleasant day.

Unless you were the Igaguri family, which was anything but normal, even on a good day. It was hard to call yourself a normal family when one member was known by the others to have been a host to the disaster known as Ultraman Zero and another was not known by the others, but still was also a host to the disaster known as Ultraman Zero. It was some degree of importance to note that Ultraman Zero was also apart of this family, but given that only one of them knew, at that exact moment, that he was present, it’s not terribly important information. At the moment, at least (it would be important later).

The point of it all was, it was a normal day, but the family that was currently indulging in it was not. It had been a while since the family had spent a day out together, between Leito’s work and Mayu’s school and after school activities – which had a few months ago grown to include Ultraman Zero and all that unfortunately came with him, alongside an entire baby – it had been hard to find time to spend all together as a family.

But this day together came with good timing, as to some extent Mayu was still reeling from the wild day she’d had a week or so ago, when the Alien Pitts had appeared, and she’d learned that her friend Ayumu – or Kurow – was not at all what he seemed. She hadn’t seen much of him since, he’d disappeared from school, which he hadn’t even done after Moa’s freak out. She thought she saw him out of the corner of her eyes, sometimes, but she was never sure.

She wondered if he had been avoiding her again. She wouldn’t be surprised. Though they’d had quite the argument, and then quickly made up, more or less, things had… Well in a way they’d changed. She knew he was an alien and they’d both made it clear just what extents they were willing to go for others. There wasn’t much more she could do for Kurow, though, not without him coming to her, or at least speaking with her.

It bugged her that he seemed to still be avoiding her, but today, she was choosing to set that aside. Other things she chose to ignore were Zero, to some extent, the fact that Riku had a little brother now, the looming threat of Emari, and whatever else came with Zero. Because as it turned out, when it came to Zero, you got stuck with a lot more than just an annoying voice in your head.

There was also the whole problem of how she was avoiding telling her parents about the whole Zero thing. Her dad had been Zero’s host once before, so it wasn’t like it would be all that complicated to explain. No, now the problem was she had avoided it for so long she had absolutely no clue how to tell them. That and she was running out of excuses to put it off much longer. She didn’t want to worry them, though she now worried that her change in behavior since Zero’s arrival has done just that.

How precisely did one tell their parents something like that anyway?

But today, she wasn’t going to worry about, not one bit. Or at least, she’d try not to. Knowing her luck, she probably wouldn’t succeed very much with that, but it was worth a shot. Though some of it had less to do with luck and more her increasing inability to keep calm about everything and not really worry about all of that.

Today would be, hopefully, a nice, relaxing day where she could just spend time with her parents. She felt that she wasn’t overstepping any boundaries in asking the universe that much. Then again, she’d been proven wrong before. With any luck, though, today would be relatively boring.

And by part way through the day, things were shaping up to look that way. Mayu and her parents had been enjoying themselves and were now sitting in a park. This was a different one than where Mayu usually went, a bit farther away. It had a cute sort of mascot, this huggable looking creature that was red and looked a bit spikey, but judging by the way children hugged it, it wasn’t. It held a bunch of balloons in its hand, giving them out to the children. Zero makes a sound when Mayu notices the mascot, but he doesn’t say anything else and Mayu doesn’t ask.

Her mom made lunch, as even Mayu knew that her dad wasn’t always the most coordinated and often dropped and spilled thing when he was trying to cook. Such was just the way that Leito was, a bit clumsy at times. Regardless, Lumina was a wonderful cook – though that was Mayu’s totally biased opinion – and even sandwiches seemed so much better when she made them. Zero offered a single comment on the matter, and it was simply that it was “certainly better than anything he could do”, which was not reassuring in regard to Zero’s cooking skills. Not that Mayu knew if Ultras even had to eat, it sure didn’t seem like it, as far as she could tell.

“So what’s this new friends of yours like?” Lumina asks as the family eats their lunch.

“My new friend?” Mayu wasn’t entirely sure what she meant. Could she be referring to something to do with Zero? Was her mom onto her and she didn’t even come close to realizing it? (Please don’t let it be that)

“You mentioned to your dad the other day about a friend. It didn’t sound like you were talking about Noa.” Her mother explained, prompting Mayu to breath a metaphorical sigh of relief. Lumina was probably just referring to Kurow. Mayu could work with that.

She takes a moment to consider how to describe Kurow, in a way that doesn’t involve mentioning he’s an alien. Which is a lot harder than one might think, given she’s known him about as long thinking he was a human now as she had knowing he wasn’t. “Ku-Ayumu’s… Quiet, I guess. I mean, he doesn’t really talk.” She finally began explaining, hoping neither of her parents noticed her near slip up. After all, they still needed to think he was a relatively normal human teenaged boy. “I’d say we get along pretty well. We’re classmates, but we didn’t really interact with each other until we were paired up for a project together.”

“We’re glad that you’ve made a friend other than Noa,” Leito smiles, “I know you’re happy with the friends you have, but it doesn’t hurt to make more.”

It wasn’t the first time that Mayu had heard similar things from her parents. To some extent, she understood where they were coming from, given her dismal amount of friends. But on the other hand, she was quite happy with the number of friends she had. Even Kurow’s status as her friends was up in the air, not that her parents needed to know that.

“Yeah, I know,” Mayu sighs, “Though, you know, I like the friends I have.” Which was a nice way of asking them to please stop saying things like that every time she mentions a new person. There’s a sound in the back of her head that she recognizes to be because of Zero, but she once again chooses to ignore it. If he has something to say, he’ll be able to get her to listen, it’s not exactly like she can stop him from talking.

It’d be possible – and understandable – to notice that Mayu has been a bit… short with Zero, lately. It’s not so much to do with him as it is to do with her general tiredness about… well nearly everything, at this point. She was tired of all the crazy things, of worrying about what might happen. After everything that had happened with Kurow before, she just didn’t know what else to do. Zero wasn’t directly responsible for any of it, but every time he spoke up, she was reminded about it. Reminded that she probably wouldn’t be dealing with all of it if he hadn’t come along. (She’s not mad, she’s not upset… She’s not sure what she is.)

She’s grateful for what he’s done for her, but at this point she’s teetering on the edge of apathy and isn’t entirely sure what to do with herself to try to fix it. Or, as a matter of fact, if it could even be fixed at all. She’d gotten fairly good at tuning Zero out during class, so she just started doing that the rest of the time. A part of her was relieved to have managed to trick itself into thinking she finally had peace of mind, the other part felt a bit bad about it. She was aware it was rather rude; she just couldn’t figure out a better way to deal with things.

Zero, to his credit, didn’t seem to be terribly upset. Either because he didn’t care, or because he was very good at hiding it. Mayu wasn’t sure which would be worse.

Though back to the matter at hand, regardless of how Mayu felt about her parents in regards to her friends, her parents seemed happy. Leito, though, was the one to pose the next question, “Did the two of you make up? You mentioned before you had an argument.”

That was a good question. Too bad Mayu wasn’t entirely sure of the answer herself. It would be easy to lie and just say yes, but Mayu didn’t really like lying to her parents. That and she was a terrible liar. She understood that Kurow was trying his best, but he’d probably never act exactly like a human. That was okay, he didn’t have to. But his whole thing with half having emotions, mostly the negative ones, probably wasn’t good. Mayu had more or less forgiven him, but had he forgiven her? It was hard to say, given he’d been avoiding her, probably. She was inclined to say he hadn’t, but Kurow worked in mysterious ways that she didn’t understand. Has he actually been avoiding her, or was it something else? Who knows?

“I guess,” She finally answered, after her deliberation, “He’s been busy so we haven’t seen each other much since. But I guess we have.”

Her mother frowned but didn’t comment. Once more, it was Leito who spoke, “Well, I’m sure it’ll clear up eventually.” Mayu wasn’t as sure, but she didn’t say that to him. Kurow was a degree of her social life that her parents didn’t need to know the details about. (The fact that the details about Kurow were only known by Mayu, Zero, Noa, and to some lesser extent, Moa, was not necessarily important at the moment – nor would it really be important until a bit later. There were quite a few things that were not important at this moment but would become important sooner or later.)

They returned to their peace, talking about one thing or another. Mayu doesn’t recall what exactly, mostly because her attention was, rather rudely, pulled towards something else. This attention stealing was, of course, performed by Zero, who called her attention towards something or other outside her vision.

“Mayu,” He called and, to his credit, he did sound concerned. Still, Mayu couldn’t say she was happy that something was interrupting her day with her parents. She can’t see what Zero sees, but she figured that with how quiet Zero’s been all day, it’s probably important, no matter how annoyed by it she is. “It looks like there someone unusual over there.”

Doing her very best to conceal her frown, Mayu responds, “Whatever you’re seeing, Zero, it’s too far away for me to see.”

“I’m… realizing that,” He comments, “Well it looks like there’s some suspicious guy.”

“How descriptive,” Responding dryly, Mayu wondered if it was too late to go back to bed, “Anything else? Like an actual cause for concern?”

“You’re not taking me seriously are you?”

“’Suspicious’,” Mayu began, “Is not necessarily a cause for concern.” If they worried this much about every suspicious person they saw, they probably wouldn’t get much done.

“I just have a really bad feeling, alright?”

Mayu held in a sigh, “I don’t think a feeling’s enough to-“ Unfortunately for Mayu, she wasn’t exactly able to finish her thought, as out of the sky appeared some kind of robot. A rather large one.

The robot resembled a dinosaur or lizard of some kind. In place of hands were pincer like appendages, with another attached to the end of its tail. Primarily, it was colored white, with small amounts of black and gold here and there. At the center of its chest was a bright glowing red light, the same as the one in its eyes.

“What is that?” Mayu couldn’t help but say out loud. In the distance, she could hear screams.

Her parents looked at the robot, surprised. But there was something else on Leito’s face. Not entirely surprise, there was a glimmer of something that wasn’t exactly fear, but was close. (That was far more scary than any monster that had appeared so far.)

As the three stood up, Zero gives the answer to her question, “Galactron,”

“We should-“ Leito began, “We need to go. Obviously.”

Lumina spared him a worried glance, something wasn’t quite right about it either. It was like there was something here, something to do with Galactron that Mayu didn’t know about. She’d ask, but the mere presence of something like Galactron made it not a good time for that. Besides, she still needed to figure out how to how to get away from her parents in the least worrisome way possible, so Zero could go fight this robot. She wasn’t sure if it was because of the way her parents were reacting or what, but somehow, she didn’t think that Geed would be able to handle Galactron on his own. (She’d been proven wrong before.)

“We’ve fought Galactron before,” Zero began and it doesn’t take Mayu long to figure out that “we” probably meant him, Leito, and Geed. “It was the day that we got the Ultra Capsules for Zero Beyond. Leito had been in danger, and I had to protect him. For a moment, I think we’d both thought I’d died.” There’s something solemn there, in Zero admitting that even he was capable of actually dying. That there had been a time when he’d thought he had. (That Zero could have died ten years ago and everything from that day on would have been totally different. What would that world be like?) That Zero had felt that he’d rather die and protect Leito than anything else. Yet Zero sounded a bit… off, as he spoke. A bit quieter. “But that was the moment that I think Leito really understood what it was all about. I knew, when I felt his conviction, that it couldn’t be the end, that we had to do more.”

He didn’t say it directly, but Mayu understood. That was how Zero Beyond had first happened, after they both held the thought, the fear that Zero was dead. That sort of thing wouldn’t happen again (not here, not with her) but it wouldn’t need to. He already had Zero Beyond and whatever else he had access to, with Geed’s help, no one had to nearly die.

“But what do we do?” Mayu couldn’t help but wonder. She hadn’t meant to think it in a way that Zero could hear, but she realized too late that she had. Mayu wasn’t her father, far from it.

“Well we fight Galactron, hopefully Geed will be here soon,” Zero answered, “We probably shouldn’t waste any more time, though.”

Therein lied the problem, though. Her parents were right there, about to move, to get as far away from Galactron as possible. The logical thing to do, if you didn’t have an Ultra hanging out in your head. The solution to the problem was obvious (goodness did she hate it though).

Shouldn’t waste any more time. Hah.

“So, this is… not ideal,” Mayu finally said, though a lot less time had passed then it felt like. Conversations with Zero could be strange like that (She was getting too used to it). “Um, but like. Galactron.” She gestures towards the robot, which hasn’t started moving yet, but still stood imposingly. Then Geed shows up, a moment later, and Galactron begins to move.

Leito looks surprised that Mayu even knew the name of the robot. She continues, pulling out the Ultra Zero Eye, “Um, Zero says hi, by the way,” Then she adds, as an awkward addendum to an already awkward conversation, “Probably.”

The last thing she hears before Zero takes over and transforms is Leito gasping, “What?”. Then, there becomes more pressing matters. Like the robot that was currently trying to squish Geed. Geed was in a primarily blue and white form, which Zero helpfully supplied as being called Acro Smasher. Dodging out of the way of Galactron’s tail once more, both Geed and Galactron notice that Zero has now arrived, skipping straight to Zero Beyond.

“Zero!” Geed notes, clearly happy that Zero had arrived, “Er, Mayu’s probably annoyed about this, huh?” Annoyed was an understatement, but at least Zero didn’t comment on it. (If he had, Mayu would probably figure out a way to strangle him.)

Instead, Zero turns to face Galactron, “Sorry, Galactron,” He then points at the robot, “But you’re twenty thousand years too early to beat me!”

Galactron did not take too kindly to such a boast. One of its hands switches to a blade and it lunges towards Zero, slashing. Zero dodges out of the way and retaliates by punching it. Geed comes in, switching forms to one that had similar markings and colors to Zero, but also very large horns. Magnificent, Zero provides, briefly.

Mayu has a feeling that it’s probably the form that uses Zero’s Ultra Capsule, given the similarities. She doesn’t know much about any other Ultras, but she imagines that if she saw the other Ultra whose capsule was used in this fusion, she’d probably be able to tell. She really doubted that many Ultras had that big of horns. Or horns at all, probably.

Between Geed and Zero, they’re probably making good headway into defeating Galactron, it’s only been a minute-ish so they still quite a bit of time even if they weren’t. After another attempt at shooting at the pair, and another attempt at grabbing one of them with its braid thing – it only succeeded in grabbing a piece of a building – Galactron stops, a good distance away from the two Ultras. The light in its chest begins to glow.

“What’s that?” Mayu asks hesitantly, though she’s often found that such glowing things are never good. Some part of her was hoping that this was an exception (It’s not).

“Geed!” Zero called out, quickly and clearly concerned, “Don’t let that beam finish charging! Remember what happened last time!”

Mayu wasn’t sure if she wanted to know what happened last time. Still, she asked. Zero response was plain and simple, “I nearly died,” he said.

Mayu didn’t want to know anymore. (She was too scared to.)

Switching forms once more, this time to one that was gold and purple and had a cape, plus some kind of weapon, Geed attacks Galactron with what was clearly much effort. His goal was clearly to stop it, one way or another. Zero threw several of his Sluggers at it, but Galactron seemed unphased, its beam still charging.

Zero grumbled as both his and Geed’s timers began to blink and beep. Hesitantly, Mayu offered up her suggestion, in the same way someone who recognizes that they don’t know much about what’s going on would, “Maybe you need to try something else?”

“Something else?” Zero repeats, “Maybe another form.”

It shouldn’t surprise Mayu that Zero has another form other than his main one and Zero Beyond. Zero continues, “Yeah, let’s try Strong Corona and see if we can’t knock some sense into this guy.” Mayu doesn’t know what “Strong Corona” is, nor does she know if it’ll be more effective against Galactron than Beyond. Zero returns to his normal form, then, with a shine of his bracelet, changes. His actually body doesn’t really change, just his colors. Now, he’s entirely red, with gold and silver accents, his Sluggers now gold.

With a swift kick to the chest, Galactron is sent flying into a nearby building. Mayu cringes at the damage, but supposes it’s probably better than whatever would happen if it fired its beam. Whatever the change that Strong Corona brings, it seems to be doing better than Zero had been with Beyond. Zero wastes no time in rushing towards Galactron, with Geed following not long after. Zero follows up with a punch, and Geed attacks with his weapon – Mayu still isn’t sure what to call it.

With a double attack of the two Ultras’ finishing attacks, Galactron begins to spark. Zero turns away, because he thinks he’s a cool guy and cool guys don’t look at explosions. Then, behind him, Galactron explodes.

“How many action movies have you watched?” Mayu couldn’t help but ask.

“That’s not important,” Zero answer and while it’s a non-answer, it is, in itself, an answer. The answer being “probably way too many”.

In a flash, Mayu finds herself not to far from where she’d been when Zero transformed. She looks around, then notices her parents running towards her. Oh boy, this was probably not going to be a fun conversation.

“Mayu!” She hears Leito say, before the two arrive and Mayu finds herself in a hug. As nice as hugs are, she can’t help but find herself still dreading the inevitable conversation.

“How long has Zero been here?” Lumina asks, even though all three of them know the answer. Well, four if you count Zero himself.

Mayu gives a shrug, because she knows that they know the answer. “I’ve been… meaning to say something,” She says and she really does feel bad about keeping it from them, “I just… wasn’t sure how. And then it kept feeling like it would be really awkward and weird and just seeming like it would be more and more so. But this is also awkward and weird and terrible and so that didn’t really help much either way and-“

“Breathe,” Leito says, rubbing her back, “It’s… It’s alright, Mayu. We were worried, but…”

“If anyone will manage to keep you safe,” Lumina laughs lightly, “It would be Zero.” She gives Mayu a pat on the head and a mischievous look, “You should have heard him, back when he was with Leito. He was really fond of you.”

“Oh no…” Zero sounds a mix of mortified and nervous. Mayu really wanted to hear what her mom meant by that.

“What do you mean?”

It was Leito’s turn to laugh, “Oh yeah, what was it?” He wonders aloud, before parroting what was clearly something Zero had once said, “’Nobody hurts my daughter’?”

“Leito please,” Zero pleads, even though Leito can’t hear him. “My dignity. Mayu still thinks I’m cool.”

“I haven’t thought you were cool in months, Zero.”

Leito releases Mayu from the hug with a chuckle. He puts his hand on Mayu’s shoulder and says, “Alright, I think that’s all been enough excitement for today. Let’s head home.”

Mayu laughs a little and nods, “Yes please!”

---

Elsewhere in the park, the mascot, named Masami, looks around. Today hadn’t been terribly unusual, up until that robot had showed up. But that wasn’t what was bugging him. There’d been a family that had shown up, they had an older girl, a teenager, so they hadn’t come close. But Masami could tell there was something off about… Well one of the members, they were too far away for him to tell for sure.

It kind of reminded Masami of his friend, ‘Boshi’s, friend, who he didn’t know the name of. But Masami wasn’t sure.

On a similar topic, Masami should probably see about getting in contact with ‘Boshi soon, they hadn’t talked in a long time and… Masami had kind of forgotten that he was supposed to keep in touch with him. Well, it probably wasn’t a big deal, all things considered. ‘Boshi and the person he was working with were probably too busy to really notice that it had been months since Masami last was in contact with them.

#ultraman #like father like daughter #mayu igaguri #my writing #ultraman geed

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tumblunni · 6 years

Text

Social anxiety C C C COMBO BREAKERRRRR

I had a real good day yo!!

I was in a really stupid emotional state at 4am this morning cos of a dumb nightmare about my abusive mum that i havent seen in 15 years. But at least because of it it prompted me to try and find the address of my childhood home again, and i successfully did and i had a huge nostalgia wave just looking at google street view. I dont know if i'll ever be brave enoughto actually visit there and walk down the same road again with my new and taller legs, but just knowing that its not impossible makes me feel a lot better.

But then srsly i was in real big panic attack shakes and i couldbt get back to sleep and i had a pounding headache and my eyes hurt and then when i finally passed out i kept waking up like half an hour later and having to go thru all the hell of getting asleep again. And then when i woke up at 5pm having wasted the whole day i realized my electricity was out and i needed to walk the 1.5km to the shop where i can pay the bills and AAAAGH giant headache and on the verge of tears and its the middle of a heatwave and my hair dye is all faded bad and so many damn excuses. And 'oh well itll take like 20 minutes to get ready and then what if i walk too slow and the shop is closed'. All the stupid reasons i use to excuse my social anxiety!

BUT IM REALLY PROUD THAT I STILL DID IT

I'm not just giving myself the 1.5 on my kilometres count, im definately getting two points for 'survived anxious social situation with style and grace'!

Cos seriousky cos of the heatwave i wouldnt be able to wear heavy baggy coat yo cover myself up, so i went out in a short sleeved shirt with my binder and i was really inpressed with how good i looked in the mirror. Yknow even tho my face was like sleep deprived mega anxious death hell! XD but yeahi managed to accomplish the Basic Things Of Daily Life despite being in my worst anxious state for ages, and i did it in sweltering weather and while unconfident in my ability to pass. I actually ended up having a swing in my step on the way back and enjoyed a completely un anxious walk for once! I just saw myself in the mirror in the supermarket bathroom and was like 'holy shit i look perfectly fine, what was i worried about?' And then i didnt completely fall apart due to the now new worry that if i was actually successfully passing then maybe i'd get kicked out for using the bathroom of my birth sex. It was a slow shopping day so nobody else came in there, it was fine. And i mean i'd still feel equally as anxious using the other bathroom, there arent any unisex toilets for nonbinary folk :(

But yeah i handled it really well!! Its such a small anxiety to other people tho and i still feel ashamed that i cant completely shed my peoplephobia all at once. But this was a really big step up that metaphorical staircase!

Oh and while i was there i actually felt confident enough to Actually Do Some Damn Shopping! I didnt just limit it to a basic run and gun, get in there, get the one thing and leave thing. I very often do that!! Sometimes it takes me two trips to the shops to get everything cos i got so anxious i just ran home after the first thing XD But today i actually wandered around the whole supermarket and checked if there was anything on sale or anything i forgot to put on my shopping list. Again, very basic thing that normal people do every day, but for me i usually get irrationally panicked so this was a disproportionately big accomplishment!

I BOUGHT A SHOES

I havent bought a new pair of shoes since like.. 4 years? 5 maybe? I cant recall if it was before i moved here or just after. I have a stupid habit of only owning one thing and only replacing it when its broken, because like.. Leftover instincts from being poorer. And its stupid cos im perfectly able to splurge on electronics or pokemon merchandise or whatever when i have spare money, yet when it comes to actual life necessities im like 'nah what a waste'. I guess its cos avoiding paying for them was a common experience during those homeless times, whereas splurging on self birthday gifts was not a thing i could ever do at all. Possibly this is the same reason i get easily suckered in by scratchcards and lootboxes, its easy to not notice how much i'm wasting when its not something i have a long experience with. Plus they kinda cheat by making each singular pull be cheap and then encouraging you to keep gambling fifty more times. But its only 2 bucks each time~fuckin hell im dumb to fall for that shit.

ANYWAY thats why ive been using the same shitty pair of trainers for like five years. Theyre really durable but theyre not exactly comfy or very good looking. Theyre like this neon green and yellow and black tron lines abomination that i DO KINDA LOVE but ive gotta admit that it doesnt fit with many outfits. I literally dont own a single other yellow anything.

So yeah i bought three pairs of shoes on sale for 15 pound in total HOLY SHIT thats a good dealio! I got some plimsolls/daps/im not actually sure what they call them in other countries sorry. Its like the fabric shoe but it has a good grip runner's sole to it? Always used to wear them in gym class at school, i liked them beter than trainers cos the sole wasnt as thick and inflexible. I mean im already clumsy without like 3cm more height on me! And then i got some sort of loafer thing thats similar but more The Comfort. And then i also got some super soft indoor slippers! So now i actyalky have shoes for differebt occasions!! Jogging walking and laying around being a couch potato! Not just wearing these big chunky trainers for all of that! I mean lol it used to be even worse, once my Only Shoes were actualky these huge mountain climbing boots XD i got them free from the homeless shelter and kept them for years after i left, even tho they were too tight and always cut up the back of my ankles. Ah, memories of past trauma! Why am i stirring up so many of these today!!

So anyway yeah thats my Very Boring Normal Day that for once i managed to handle like a normal human being. I'm proud!

Oh and i also got a glitter cowboy hat and i dont know why they were selling a glitter cowboy hat but it was the only sort of sun hat they had so i went with it. It kinda helps with dysphoria somehow?? Like i know people will criticize that part of my fashion first before they notice how ugly the rest of me is XD and its hard to be sad when you're thinking 'beep boop gender cowboy'

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the-dread-papyrus · 7 years

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Papyrus fiddled with his hands distractedly as he stood outside of Undyne’s place. He was early, much earlier than he usually was. He had to see her. Even if he knew that logically, Undyne— his Undyne— was perfectly fine and perfectly safe, his anxiety said otherwise. It was screaming at him to check on her, that she was in danger, that he had to be sure. It was taking all of his willpower not to try to relieve the stress by tearing up his hands. Man, he really should have brought a few ice chips to chew on.

It felt like an eternity since he’d knocked on her door. Maybe something really was wrong. Maybe she really was hurt, or fallen down, or—

The door opened and the familiar, battle-scarred face of his beloved fishy friend greeted him with a vaguely confused and surprised look.

“Papyrus? What’re you—“

Papyrus practically launched himself at her, letting out a wail and hugging her tight. Undyne stumbled a bit, but the fact that he was significantly lighter than her helped her keep her balance. She wrapped her arms around him in turn and started distractedly rubbing his back. She cast a confused glance towards the possessed training dummy out in front of her house. It just shook its head, looking equally befuddled.

“What’s wrong, Papyrus? Talk to me.” She gently turned and nuzzled the side of his head. “Did something happen? Are you okay? DO I NEED TO BEAT SOMEBODY UP FOR YOU?!”

Papyrus whined a bit. She was yelling right in his metaphorical ear, ow. She backed off and nudged him again.

“Seriously, what’s wrong? What’s got you so upset like this?” She frowned a bit, considering. “Do you… do you need to sign?”

Papyrus sniffled and whimpered a bit, before he finally nodded. Undyne broke the hug and sat Papyrus down in her doorway, taking a seat across from him. The training dummy let out a loud sigh and scooted its way over so it could get a better angle on the signing, because it maybe kinda sorta cared a little bit about this goofy skeleton who’s always beating it up as part of his training.

It took a few more moments for Papyrus to catch his breath enough to be able to sign. When he does, his hands are shaky and clumsy. Undyne and the dummy have to pay close attention.

“WASP”— Undyne recognized this sign as Papyrus’s boyfriend’s name, though literally it translated to “sweet boyfriend”— “TIMELINE... INVITE... MURDERER... KILLED HIS UNDYNE”— At least she thinks that’s what that rapid series of signs is supposed to be; he just sort of rapidly signed “sweet boyfriend” and then her sign, “fish warrior”.

“...I’m lost,” the dummy finally piped up. Too many name signs throwing them off.

“Uh, okay,” Undyne said, rubbing the back of her head and glancing between the two. “I think... something happened in his boyfriend’s timeline/universe... thing, and... his Undyne got killed? Am I hearing this right?”

Papyrus nodded, sniffling and wiping his eyes.

“Uh, okay, so uh. Is ‘invite murderer’ a name for someone, or?”

Papyrus snorted, and began signing again.

“MAYBE THAT SHOULD BE THEIR SIGN.”

Undyne shook her head, a grin tugging at the corners of her mouth.

“What is it supposed to mean, anyway?”

Papyrus paused, glancing from one to the other, before he took a deep breath and started explaining.

“WASP INVITED S-C-R-A-T-C-H,” he spelled out their name for clarity, “OVER TO WATCH MOVIES AND THEN THEY STARTED KILLING EVERYONE IN HIS TIMELINE. INCLUDING HIS UNDYNE.”

Undyne’s one visible eye went wide and her head fins frilled up as it occurred to her that that was why he was here early. She reached out and pulled him into a tight hug. He buried his face against her shoulder for a moment, letting out a token whimper.

“So, uh, how does that work, again?” the dummy said. “There’s another person out there named Undyne, what’s the big deal?”

“She’s not just ‘some person named Undyne,’ though. She’s, like... another me.”

The dummy fixed her with a skeptical look. Undyne frowned, her top head fin flicking a bit as she thought about how to frame this.

“Like... I don’t know how to describe it, it’s just like... there’s multiple versions of our universe out there, that typically all have the same people in them. So in Wasp’s universe, there’s a Papyrus— Wasp himself— and there’s the captain of the royal guard and her name is—was— Undyne and she was a badass fish lady who was besties with Papyrus.”

Papyrus made a little noise. That was debatable, at least as far as Wasp and his Undyne were concerned.

The dummy stared at Undyne, looking unconvinced. She huffed.

“Look, I’m not a nerd! I don’t know any better way of explaining it! Just know that it’s a thing, okay?!”

“Sure, sure, whatever. This ‘Scratch’ person sure sounds like a piece of work. Must be pretty strong, too, to take out someone like Undyne, I guess.”

“Yeah, holy crap. They must be a really tough monster or something! I’d say I wanna meet them, but...”

Papyrus pulled back and started signing again.

“S-C-R-A-T-C-H IS A HUMAN CHILD.”

Undyne and the dummy stared at Papyrus blankly.

“Come again?”

“S-C-R-A-T-C-H IS A HUMAN CHILD. WITH MAGIC.”

“And— AND YOUR BOYFRIEND JUST. INVITED THEM OVER FOR A MOVIE?!”

Papyrus shrugged.

“CHILD,” he signed emphatically.

“HUMAN!” Undyne replied, throwing her arms up in the air for emphasis. “Like, holy crap, no wonder they wrecked havoc on his timeline, he invited A FUCKING DANGEROUS HUMAN INTO HIS FREAKING HOUSE!”

Papyrus just dropped his head, effectively falling silent. The dummy looked from him to Undyne and heaved a sigh.

“I mean, okay, to be fair? Would you honestly expect a child to be able to wreck your shit, human or not?” it pointed out.

Undyne opened her mouth as if to say something, but the dummy cut her off.

“You wouldn’t. Because they’re a kid, and kids of any species aren’t exactly known for being that tough.”

“I...” Undyne stopped herself, her fins drooping a bit. She let out a sigh that was equal parts frustrated and exasperated. “Alright, yeah, you’ve got a point. I GUESS I can see how someone would make that mistake. I guess.”

She sighed again and rubbed her head.

“Still… what happened to them, anyway? Did someone at least kill them and make sure they weren’t a threat anymore?”

“THEIR... FAMILY? TOOK THEM HOME. BEFORE WE COULD DO MUCH.” He pauses a moment, then adds, “P-E-P-P-Y BROKE THEIR WRIST.”

“Well, I guess a broken wrist is better than nothing,” Undyne grumbled.

Papyrus still remembered how effortless Peppy made it look. He let out a little shudder and shook his head rapidly.

“TALKED ABOUT D-T EXTRACTION,” he continued, trying to push that thought from his mind. “DISCUSSED DRAINING THEIRS. MAKE THEM... KILLABLE.”

“Wait, what? What do you mean, ‘make them killable?’” Undyne’s frills puffed up in alarm. She didn’t like the implication of humans somehow being unkillable by default.

Papyrus fell silent for a moment, thinking. It occurred to him that he knew roughly the steps that his timeline should be taking, but he hadn’t heard a peep from his Alphys. Not that he had regular contact with her to begin with. She was more WD’s friend than his, after all.

“LET’S VISIT THE LAB.”

Undyne blinked in confusion.

“Uh, what?”

Papyrus hopped to his feet, cleared his nonexistent throat, and managed to switch to verbal speech.

“LET’S GO TO THE LAB IN HOTLAND! THERE’S SOMETHING I WANT TO CHECK ON.”

“Hotland? Really?” Undyne’s fins drooped again. She really didn’t want to have anything to do with Hotland.

“THERE’S A CUTE GIRL I THINK YOU SHOULD MEET.”

Now he’s talking her language. She hopped to her feet so fast you’d think she somehow teleported.

“What are we waiting for, then?! FIELD TRIP TO HOTLAND!!”

#!entry number xx #!papyrus talks to people #!drabbles #!long post #!anxiety #!self harm mention #((so here's a summary of what all went down last night))

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kyuu-rereads-umineko · 7 years

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Ep6, Chapter 5 & 6 (Part 1)

So, yeah, the Steam version of Chiru’s out, but for the time being, I’m gonna stick to making my posts off of the original Witch Hunt/UmiTweak release, the main reason being that I’m already partway through Ep6. There’s also the voice acting, which I think adds a great deal to the story.

Once I get to Ep7, I’ll probably switch to the Steam release. Hopefully that doesn’t take too long, especially since I want to keep up with Rokkenjima’s Chiru Tea Parties alongside this, but... We’ll see, I guess!

Anyways. If I recall correctly, these chapters feature Erika wasting her time arguing with a 9-year-old and being even more dense than Battler used to be? Fun times inbound!

The chapter opens with Shannon talking about how she used to be “a bit of a klutz” “back then” - forgetting where she left something, or forgetting to lock a door/cabinet/whatever. It’s funny - despite how relatively insignificant this information is (especially since we’ve seen Shannon being a bit clumsy in earlier Eps), it’s good at strengthening the connection between Yasu in her story in Ep7 and what Shannon was like when she was younger.

that sentence was kind of a mess but i hope you understand what i mean

Battler asks her how she got over her forgetfulness, and Shannon explains that she got in the habit of taking notes about where she put things and such. Again, pretty minor, but it brings to mind Yasu tying a string around her keyring...

Erika interrupts, asking flat-out if she’s seen Beatrice or not. Shannon says, “I didn’t see her directly, but... umm... some very strange things did happen...”

The narrative mentions that she’s thinking of “a certain summer night,” and then jumps to the two Beatos wandering the mansion at night. “From Shannon’s perspective, it was a ghost story. From the witch’s perspective... it was just the story of a little summer’s night prank...”

Elder explains the concept of “anti-magic toxin” to Chick. She says something interesting here, and I’m not entirely sure how to parse it - “One thing we do have in our favour is the fact that our existence is still extremely weak. Because of that, the toxin does not affect us greatly.”

In magic terms, I think what she means is that it can’t cause the two of them as much pain as it’s shown to cause for, say, characters like the Stakes or Sakutarou in Ep4. In mundane terms... hmm. Maybe that, since the ghost stories about the witch haven’t really taken hold yet, people are less desperate to argue against them? I’m really not sure.

“[Chick] had thought that she wasn’t a witch because she couldn’t use magic, but apparently, she was still a witch nonetheless.”

Elder mentions that not only being seen, but “being heard or sensed can also result in contact with the toxin.” Basically, any cause for suspicion that “the witch’s actions” have a “human culprit” is damaging.

Chick wonders internally why she wasn’t burnt by Battler’s toxin. Meta gonna meta? The anti-magic toxin’s never really seemed to be “a thing” in the Meta-World - it’s more of a gameboard construct.

“Simply put, as we are now, we can only exist when humans aren’t around...”

Elder is awestruck at the idea of being able to appear openly in front of humans. “Is that what we will eventually become?”

Pretty reflective of how Yasu would’ve felt, I imagine. When she started with her little witch pranks, I doubt she could’ve imagined them growing to encompass the entire island the way they did.

“Hmmm, how inspiring. If that is our future, it means that all of our hard work will have been worth the effort.” okay that one hurts

And then Chick asks how those efforts relate to what they’re currently doing - unlocking windows behind the mansion’s servants, lol. Elder explains that the fact the window was unlocked even though “there’s no one in the hallway” is proof of their existence, and of their magic.

“Of course, it wasn’t just small pranks like opening a window. She could also smash windows and vases, or leave behind strange fires and mysterious scribbles.” YASU WHAT ARE YOU DOING

“One day, I will... no, we will become a single witch and control all of Rokkenjima... When that time comes, we will gain complete freedom and will be capable of stretching our wings as we please.”

And Chick realizes the reason she could appear in front of Battler so openly is because at this point, he fully believes in the witch’s existence and doesn’t have any anti-magic toxin to speak of. HOW THE TABLES HAVE TURNED

In Featherine’s study, meanwhile, Ange and Featherine discuss the Beatos’ logic. It basically comes down to the fact that they’ve - Yasu’s - created an atmosphere where anything strange happening on the island is blamed on the witch.

“The servants might have forgotten to lock [the window], or one of the family might have opened it after the servants had locked up and forgotten to shut it again, or maybe someone had played a prank. In the same way that none of those possibilities could be denied... it was also impossible to deny the possibility that a witch really had opened a window to enjoy the night breeze...”

“That’s one of the foundations of magic. Decorating... the process.”

Ange acknowledges that “good magic” really does exist. Featherine says, “The power to repel evil magic may be necessary for a child of man. However, it is the nature of love in the human world that it does not burn away and defile love-filled magic.”

Ange concludes that “Beatrice” isn’t a person’s name, but the name of a phenomenon - that anything strange that happens at night is blamed on the witch. “That all piles up until we reach 1986... This is the veil that the true culprit is hiding behind. And the person hiding behind it is, without a doubt, a human.”

Featherine contends that she can’t stick to that argument “to fight all the way through 1986,” and Ange doesn’t have a response. The narrative jumps back to the gameboard, where presumably Shannon’s just detailed the window being unlocked on that night.

...And Erika, being Erika, says that it was just because someone forgot to lock the window.

Shannon mentions that it happened many times over (which she’d know, of course), and Erika calls her an idiot. I really can’t stand her in this episode, I’m sorry...

Everyone else chimes in to support Shannon, but Erika turns to pointing the finger at the servants as a group. THE IRONY......

She concludes with, “Of course there’s no way Beatrice exists,” and “This delusion of a Golden Witch Beatrice [...] is completely impossible,” which angers Maria. here we fuckin go

Maria states that she’s met Beato (which she has), and that Beato shows her magic all the time. Erika asks her to explain in detail. Seriously, this girl...

The other cousins try calming the situation down, but Erika throws out all pretenses of being polite (again) to challenge Maria. Meta breaks in, and Maria appears in her witch outfit.

Erika invites her to reproduce the magic, and Dlanor appears to tell her, “This battle is not worth FIGHTING.” AT LEAST ONE OF YOU HAS A GOOD HEAD ON YOUR SHOULDERS

At any rate, ridiculous red/blue truth battle ensues. I really don’t have a lot to say about this and formatting the text colours is a pain, so...

During it, though, Erika says, “All truths are nothing more than claims! So, I’ll make a claim separate from yours and smash right through yours!! That is the detective’s duty, and the time we shine the mooooost!!” I think this is a good line to use to reflect on why I don’t like Erika in this episode.

In Episode 5, she has very apparent narrative functions - she’s a detective like Battler is, but ultimately, she’s very much an antithesis of him. She’s a ruthless deconstruction of the mystery/detective fiction genre in general, and she’s a guide on “what not to do” to solve the mystery. She’s also, ultimately, the metaphorical kick in the pants Battler needs to really try solving Beato’s riddle properly, and a parody of the Mary Sue character, by way of literally being Bern’s self-insert. She fulfills all of these purposes quite well, while being an entertaining character at the same time.

In Ep6, though? True, she still functions as a deconstruction of the genre, and as an example of how ignoring the heart of the story leaves you unable to solve it, but... I feel like the former’s kinda old hat at this point, and the latter isn’t done particularly well? Ryukishi (and Battler, I suppose) kinda smack us over the head with that point in this episode, with Erika just shrugging off the love duel getting so much attention and Battler flat-out asking her what her problem is.

On top of that, we’ve got the contrast between her being an absolutely horrible person like she was in Ep5 with an attempt at humanizing her by giving her some sort of tragic backstory involving a cheating boyfriend (that doesn’t really make much sense for a 14-year-old girl, but I digress). I realize the two sides of her match with Umineko’s theme of contradictory options both being true (the culprit being a witch or a human, for instance), but in this case, they don’t mesh well for me at all. Her cruelty is too dramatically overblown for me to take her seriously as anything but either Bern’s self-insert or a parody of the genre, but Ep6 tries using her as a character to convey an important point - her spiel about love making people “see things that aren’t there.”

On top of that, she’s painted as being a “rival” to Battler, when... I never really felt like that was the case? Sure, in Ep5, they do kinda feel that way, but ultimately, Beato is still his rival, and strictly speaking, Erika’s not his “main enemy,” either - Bernkastel and Lambdadelta are. Even though Erika’s given a focus, I don’t feel like that changes in Ep6, either - Bern is the one throwing a fit about losing, while Erika is just kinda going “Yes, master!” the whole time. She feels... more like a device than a character to me, sometimes, y’know?

That’s not to say that her presence is meritless, though. She provides some top quality humour and memeing, and the ending of the episode is phenomenal. Just, overall, I don’t really care for her here.

Anyways. Erika and Maria continue yelling at each other, yada yada yada.

“Let it be known that this fight has no point...” gertrude is on point

Erika does the magic, screeches about how Maria’s a moron, etc. etc.

“...Sheesh!! Just one more step and I’d have been able to take a heart as innocent as the smooth sand just after a wave has pulled back and tear it to bits. ...What a shame. This isn’t fun anymore.” She also gives the most insincere apology ever for “tearing a kid’s dreams apart.”

Back on the board, she gives another “apology” of “I’m still just a kid.” Maybe I’m guilty of not looking at her with love, but fucking hell this girl.

Maria stops crying and starts cackling instead, proclaiming herself as Beatrice’s apprentice. Erika says, “Let’s fight in a more satisfying game next time.” Maria says sure.

The cousins and Shannon leave, heading upstairs to play cards, and then Kumasawa enters. Erika asks her about the stories of Akujikishima and the witch of the forest, offering to get her a drink as well. With that, the chapter ends.

The next chapter opens on George and Shannon in the rose garden arbour, where George comments that he “can’t seem to get along well with kids these days,” about Erika. don’t worry jooji you are not the only one

“I think kids around Erika-san’s age have a really hard time accepting themselves,” says Shannon. This is... oddly painful, considering that Shannon’s given age is 16, meaning she “would’ve been 14” when Yasu solved the epitaph...

George comments that when he was around that age, “I was a weak, deplorable man who didn’t deserve any respect.” ouch

Y’know, I think it’s fair to say that my opinion of George has changed a lot in the 2 years or so since I started this blog. I think he genuinely tries to be a good person, even if he’s passive-aggressive and self-centred - I honestly don’t think he realizes it a lot of the time. To be clear, I don’t mean his twisting of the knife when young Yasu was in tears over Battler leaving - that was intentional and pretty fucking gross on his part. I mean his behaviour in/around 1986 - his focus on what his relationship with Shannon does for him, him shrugging off her concerns and talk about magic... I don’t think there’s any “intent” there (though whether or not that makes it better or worse is debatable) - I think the effects of it just slip right under his radar.

It still makes me kind of ill to see how he responds to Shannon’s furniture complex, but, again - I don’t think it’s because he “doesn’t care” or anything like that; I think his thinking is that if it were something really, truly serious, Shannon would be up-front about it.

That’s absolutely not to put the onus on Yasu for not explaining her situation to him - considering the weight of everything she had on her shoulders, from her identity issues to her body to her blood, I don’t feel comfortable at all with blaming her for not speaking up. It’s been a while since I read the Ep8 manga scans, but I seem to recall that George and Jessica express that sentiment at one point in the Golden Land, too.

I think, ultimately, George’s chief sin is the same as Battler’s - he just doesn’t really think about how what he says or does is impacting the woman closest to him. The key differences are that 1) since we follow Meta-Battler throughout the series, we’re able to see his character develop, from angrily refusing to see things from Beato’s perspective to eventually throwing his life away for her, whereas with George, we... don’t, and 2) even on first read-through, Beato is a lot more... inscrutable, if you will, than Shannon is. Even if we don’t know the depth of what Shannon’s trouble about, it’s easy to tell that something about George’s family talk bothers her, whereas with Beato (in part because the story’s usually told from Battler’s perspective), a lot of her reactions only really make sense in hindsight, even when she’s clearly upset (e.g. Battler rejecting her presentation of Beatrice II’s story in Ep3, and her reaction to Battler’s failed confession in Ep4).

Maybe I’m just stating the obvious here, who knows! Point is, while George definitely grates on my nerves at times, I don’t really hate the guy. He’s just as human as the rest of the cast, and as one of Yasu’s main male love interests, his flaws are often quite visible.

Anyways! At Shannon’s questioning, George admits that the reason he resolved to grow up and become a “splendid adult” wasn’t just because of love for Shannon. He starts going into some of his insecurities, about how he used to be “afraid” of “interacting with women,” and how he didn’t even recognize them at the time.

Huh, Shannon’s oddly confident during this exchange again. She makes a comment about understanding how George felt when it comes to trying to get noticed by the opposite sex, and when he prods her for details, instead of clamming up and blushing like we’d expect, she smiles and says “Of course.” I’m not quite sure how to word it beyond this, but I can really feel Tohya’s love for Yasu coming through here... quite strongly, at that.

And George admits that the turning point for him was how envious he was of Battler and how close he was to Shannon. George prepares to confess...

...And Ange breaks in to throw a jab at Featherine for watching the two of them. lol

“Stories of love are truly timeless. I never tire of them... However, I do find that expression of virgin disgust on your face even more charming...” LOL

At any rate, George admits to looking down on Battler and Jessica when they were younger, and thinking that they’d never be able to find a partner because of how brash they are, as well as using that thinking to distract himself from his own inability to find a girlfriend. Featherine cuts in, commenting that Battler and Jessica “have the power to interact without worrying about their sexes.”

Ange says, “People like Onii-chan and Jessica onee-chan can get along with anyone whether that person’s a boy or a girl... I hate to say it, but I find guys who act too polite... a bit creepy. It’s like they’re virgins trying too hard or something...” ange has 0 chill

George says that at one of the family conferences, he realized that the servant girls - particularly Shannon - were getting along with Battler and Jessica a lot better than with him. “Sickening, isn’t it? ...I just assumed that you liked me, and even had some childish fantasy that we might end up dating. I felt as though my girlfriend had been stolen from me and let myself feel hurt.”

He admits to trying to emulate Battler and Jessica by "joking around and speaking rudely.” That’s... an interesting mental image, and Shannon says as much!

“The reason I had no charm was because of my cowardice. Under the pretense of respecting people and acting to fit in with the general atmosphere... I was always running away. [...] ...I made an oath. This time, I would really make you take notice of me, and I would be reflected in your eyes... Actually, that’s the first thing I felt when I fell in love with you.”

I have to give George credit here - confessing to something like that takes a lot of guts. I don’t think it’s something many people could do very easily, even in private like this. Having said that, and I hate to be critical of him now of all times, I think that this is really the core of most of his problems.

He was so dedicated to “being reborn,” and takes such pride in “succeeding,” that I don’t think he’s capable of taking a look at himself and realizing he’s still got a lot of growing to do on his own. I don’t think that’s something specific to him, either - I think just about everyone has a period like that at some point. The unfortunate thing about George, though, is that he’s surrounded by people who don’t encourage him to take a critical look at himself - Eva and Hideyoshi, I think, are too close to him and too proud of him to realize it, while Shannon, if anything, usually ends up enabling him to keep acting the way he does. The result is that he never really gets a chance to move past that.

“...Sounds pretty... complicated.” lol shannon

“On that day, my desire for revenge against the two of you who ignored me and played together... no, against you alone... suddenly transformed into true love.” Even already knowing how he really felt about Battler leaving the family six years ago, George admitting to resenting Shannon like that sends a shiver down my spine - not because of how gross of an emotion that is (I think, while it’s certainly not pretty, it’s a very human response, in a way), but because he’s able to confess to it. Again, even if he’s pretty rough around the edges at times... George really is strong, in his own way.

“However, I swear this to God. Even though that was the reason I first started to take you seriously... there are no lies in the way I feel about you now. I swear to love you for all my life. I will not lie about that for anyone or anything. And I am prepared to take you as my wife, even if it means having the entire world as my enemy.”

I can only imagine how precious hearing that must be for Yasu...

George starts to say something about how he lied about Shannon being his “first love,” and she forcefully interrupts him. “Is there some rule saying that people can’t get together just because they weren’t each other’s first love? Is it betrayal to forget the first person you fell in love with...?”

“Love... isn’t that simple. Well... it might be simple... After all, love is easy. ...Always, whatever you feel now... only the honest feelings you feel now can tell you the right answer. So, things of the past or how our relationship started aren’t important at all.”

George thanks her, saying, “I was only able to become who I am because of you.” Shannon replies likewise, and asks him to describe the “kind of future we will build together.”

He starts out talking about how he wants to succeed as a businessman, then says it right-out: “Let’s have some kids.”

Shannon’s reaction here is markedly different from any other episode - she laughs, and says, “Yes, my husband.” He paints a vivid picture of a big family, “surrounded by many children and grandchildren.”

I hate to say it, but... I really can’t parse this scene from the perspective of something that actually happened on the board. Even if Battler gave her a new lease on life like I speculated, the weight of everything Yasu was dealing with... I can’t see her responding so readily to George’s family talk like this. I mean, I guess Shannon as a character might, but any other time it’s brought up, Yasu’s terrified of what might happen when George finds out the truth.

At any rate, George gives her the ring... and says, “I swear to resolutely stand against any fate which may attempt to get in the way of our future.”

He talks about how he’s ready to leave the family if worst comes to worst, and Shannon repeats his sentiments about standing against fate. Hmmm...

And then meta breaks in again, and Erika asks Battler when the murders are going to start. He just tells her to shut up and watch. lmao

Really though, right now she’s even worse than Battler used to be in the first four Episodes. While he might’ve shrugged off a lot of Beato’s fantasy scenes in a similar manner, he was rarely this rudely dismissive of them, and he at least recognized that he’d upset Beato somehow when he was (Beatrice II’s backstory in Ep3). erika is a 0/10 detective

Erika realizes that Battler’s pitying her for whatever reason, and asks him to shut the fuck up when he calls her “sad”.

“I can’t understand you at all right now. What on Earth did you figure out? Weren’t you and Beato always insulting and trying to kill each other? ...What kind of truth could you have reached to make you change your emotions regarding her? ...Please don’t tell me that feelings of true love have sprouted from your murderous rivalry or anything like that, okay?”

As much as I still can’t stand Erika in this episode, I can’t help but read her as a standin for some readers here. Battler’s sudden shift in attitude at the end of Ep5 was incredibly baffling on first read-through, and I found myself wondering the same thing as she is here (though not as coldly as this).

Back on the board, Shannon returns to the servant room in the guesthouse. Kanon immediately notices the ring on her finger.

“...So, it’s my turn next.” ooooo

#kyuutext #umineko #umineko no naku koro ni chiru #dawn of the golden witch

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cedar-woods · 5 years

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Your Libido is Like Everyday

She was joking, sort of mock frustration that I do touch her often. I do want sex often. I was a little hurt at first because it felt like a little bit of a dig. And not in the sort about a behavior, "you never take out the garbage," or "you dont understand what the word paradigm means." This felt like saying "you have big feet and they are funny looking." Well yeah, but what do you want me to do about it. I can, and have tried to change what I do. But I am not able to, nor frankly that interested in changing what I am.

As it turns out I sort of misread the moment. It was a good natured tease, in fact we did have sex immediately after. I locked in briefly on the element of truth that makes teasing possible. I do have a high libido, at least relative to my wife, which is the only metric that matters.

I thought a few things in this moment and in the few days after and perhaps you will find them interesting

In the past I have engaged in some poor behaviors relating to sex including

A) clumsy half assed initiation lacking in seduction, grace or interesting conversation (which to me kind of makes sense because sex feels good and we should want more of it, why cant I just touch your leg in bed and we start banging...cause girls just ain't that way bruh...dont call me bruh damn it)

B) jackin it to too much porn and occasionally leaving evidence of such of shared device which was a little outside the bounds of normal.

C) being an asshole when my clumsy initiation attempts failed. Generally this takes the form of make clumsy initiation attempt, her turn over as if to say nah bruh (stop calling me bruh!), then me turning over and clenching fists and huffing and not saying anything.

D) I'm not much fun. People need to do some enjoyable stuff in order to be happy and being happy is a better way to have sex than not. Again, since I am the sort that thinks...you know what would be fun? Sex! It takes some effort to figure out that my wife ain't this way. Curing boredom helps to have sex, having sex is not a cure for boredom.

And in for those things I recognize, yup, those were shitty.

Bad initiation is pernicious. It sets up an unreasonable expectation for your partner and then makes them feel shitty for not meeting it. It's like "you never want to fuck" well no that's not true, it's like one of those doors in apartments in New York with a hundred dead bolt locks, get mad that the door wont open all you want, but you do need to open them all. Dont think it should matter to sex that you haven't figured out how to make your living room furniture appropriately symmetrical and that you haven't shown interest in it, well guess what bruh (seriously I will fight you) that's like finding a locked door and getting pissed that some clown put an excessive number of deadbolts on it. Get mad all you want, that door doesnt give a fuck, this is how doors work. My wife, ahem, wants the door opened, but it isnt just open already. I have done a bad job of figuring that shit out, and an even worse job of reacting when I cant. Like instead of calling the super, just sitting outside in the hallway...I dont know the metaphor is not perfect.

Masturbation is fine to a degree, but using it to avoid solving problems is very much not one of those degrees. Any version of "we are having trouble with sex, so I'm going to just watch porn and stroke it," no good. The sin here is not so much whacking off to erotic scooby doo parodies (although, bruh, cmon), as avoiding conflict and work in being a better human.

All of that said....if you are bummed that I want to have sex often, with you, in a way that I'm pretty sure makes both of us feel very good, well I dont see that as a problem. To be clear, I dont see it as a problem that my wife doesnt just feel this way, but no apologies for wanting to bang. I was pretty straight forward about this point. Time comes for us all and one day I will likely not feel this way. But that day is not today, and that is not a day I look forward to. I love sex. I love it with my wife. As it happens I love them so much that I have forsaken I with every other woman on earth.

1 + 2 = 3. I want to fix what is wrong but I dont want to change what is right to accommodate my wife. I have made some shitty choices where sex is concerned, but desiring sex isnt wrong. Apologizing for desire isnt a think we should be doing. Needing work by the other partner isnt a thing to be apologized for either. I want to be kind, fun, loving, caring, attentive, but let's be clear on this, I want to fuck. Apologies for the lack of the first set. No apologies for the second.

submitted by /u/SmartLikeBull [link] [comments] source https://www.reddit.com/r/sexover30/comments/bsuhtq/your_libido_is_like_everyday/

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lisatelramor · 7 years

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Kiss and a Miss

Another kiss fic, this time for the prompt Kaito-Akako: Enchanted.

Kaito stared at the cup Akako held out to him. He had an expression like he expected it to rear up and bite him, or perhaps like its contents were poisoned. Akako smiled sweetly and kept her hand extended.

“What is it?” Kaito asked.

“Fruit juice,” Akako said. She held up a thermos in her other hand, sloshing its contents. “I thought I’d bring some in to share.”

“It’s really good!” Aoko said from the next desk over, an identical plastic cup in her hands. “Thanks for sharing Koizumi-chan!”

“It’s not poisoned,” Akako said, dark amusement coiling in her as he still hesitated. “Nakamori-chan and I are drinking the same juice.”

“Right. Just you two?”

“Well, we are something like friends, aren’t we, Kuroba-kun?”

He took the juice, staring her down like he was calling a bluff. “If this turns me into something or contains hallucinogens or some shit, I am pranking the heck out of you later.”

Akako laughed. “It’s just juice, Kuroba-kun.” Mostly just juice. Juice and a bit of potion that only worked on men, but Kuroba didn’t need to know that. She smirked as he took a cautious sip. Kaito quirked a brow.

“…huh, actually tastes good.”

“I’m insulted that you think I’d offer you something bad.”

“Yeah, whatever.” He rolled his eyes. “Thanks for the juice I guess.”

Akako smiled and left him and Aoko to their lunches again. Perfect. Now that he’d drank the juice, she just needed to kiss him and he would be hers for all eternity.

“Kuroba-kun,” Akako said, her literature book and notes in one hand as she leaned against Kaito’s desk. “I was wondering if you could help me with one of the metaphors in this novel.”

“What metaphor?” Kaito asked, as on guard as he had been earlier.

“This one here…” She opened to a page she’d marked earlier, finger tracing against the line. She held the book at an angle, forcing Kaito to lean forward to see what she meant.

“Uh.” He narrowed his eyes at it.

Akako leaned closer. “The commentary section at the end of the book points out the passion in the scene, but the language is a bit archaic…”

Kaito started to lean away and Akako followed.

“Could you explain?”

“Um. Yeah, that scene is.” He was blushing and actually flustered. Akako kept her expression open and curious even as she pressed her arms against her chest at an angle for the most cleavage effect. He was distracted. Good.

“Yes?”

“You should probably ask someone—” Akako leaned in further—

“Oh, that scene?” Aoko cut in, leaning over Kaito’s shoulder and into Akako’s space, effectively blocking her entirely. “It’s a metaphor for sex.”

Akako sighed internally. “Is it? I don’t think I’ve heard that one before. Thank you Nakamori-chan.” For nothing. Dammit. There went that attempt…

“Kuroba-kun, you have something on your—” Akako’s eyes widened as Kaito leaned back so fast to avoid her hand that he knocked his chair over and did half a flip onto the desk behind him.

He stared at her, eyes huge. The rest of the class stared back, Akako included. She cleared her throat. “I was going to say, you had a bit of chocolate at the corner of your mouth,” she said.

Kaito scrubbed a quick sleeve over his face. “Cool, thanks, let’s just pretend this didn’t happen.”

“…right…”

Akako took a breath. This time would work. She wasn’t going to approach Kaito to engage with him—clearly that only put him on guard. She was going to go more subtle this time… Her volunteer (decoy, foolishly enamored follower) gushed to her about her greatness to which Akako responded with only a fraction of her attention and focus. The rest was narrowed down on Kaito’s location relative to her own and the exact number of steps left before she put her plan into motion.

Four…three…two…now! Akako tripped, one foot catching on the other and sending her flying down the last few stairs in Kaito’s direction. He looked up at her gasp. Yes. Good. That made things easier—!

Akako shrieked as he jumped to the side rather than catching her like a sane human being. She rolled to cancel most of the momentum, but her shoulder was going to be bruised to hell and back.

“Akako-sama!” the decoy wailed. “Akako-sama are you okay?!”

“Wow, since when are you clumsy?” Kaito asked, looking down at her.

He didn’t even offer her a hand up! Akako shoved the hair from her eyes and glared up at him. This was all his fault. If he would just let her kiss him…! Her view was cut off as half a dozen boys crowded around her to offer her help. Because they clearly knew how to treat a woman and weren’t insensitive boors that dodged a lady in apparent distress. Akako milked the bruises for all they were worth. After that embarrassing attempt, she deserved a bit of pampering.

Since subtle wasn’t working, she went for blunt. “Kuroba, I need to talk to you.” No polite niceties. No simpering or playing up her looks. Serious. Direct.

“Right now?” He didn’t look nervous like the last few times. Serious didn’t set him off it seemed. Good.

Everyone was packing to go home, so yes, it had to be now. “I need a favor.”

And there was the wariness. “What kind of favor are we talking about?”

Akako licked her lips. “One I have to ask somewhere less public.”

Curiosity warred with caution in his eyes. “Can it wait a few minutes?”

“I suppose,” Akako said sourly. It shouldn’t be that hard to get him to kiss her. The juice was supposed to make him more agreeable to romantic advances all around, but he seemed twice as nervous instead. This was ridiculous.

“Great! Let me just…” He cut off, looking over her shoulder.

“What…?”

Nakamori Aoko loomed looking furious, mop in hand and a lunch box in the other. “Kaaaaiiiitooooo…..!” she growled.

“Uh oh.” He gathered his things in a flash.

Aoko’s mop started swinging. “You!” Smack! “Ate!” Whap! “My!” Thwack! “Dinner!” The mop came down so hard where Kaito had been an instant before that it took a small chunk out of one of the desks. Kaito danced and weaved around it. “You knew I didn’t have time today to get dinner!”

“Ack!” Kaito flattened himself to the ground before rolling away. “I forgot! I thought it was an extra snack!”

“You owe me a meal!”

Aoko swung her mop and Kaito dodged the wrong direction—right into Akako. Akako barely had time to process that Kaito had dodged toward her rather than away before his face smacked into hers. It was less a lip lock and more a bruising mash of lips and teeth. Akako landed in a heap for the second time today, only now with added Kaito-weight on top of her. She was pretty sure her lip was bleeding.

Aoko’s mop clattered to the ground.

“Owwww….” Kaito groaned. He squinted in pain, whirling on Aoko. “What the heck, Ahoko!”

Akako touched her lips. Yes, still bruised and yes, a bit of blood where the inside of her lip knocked against her front teeth. But more importantly, if she had kissed Kaito, why wasn’t he instantly enamored with her as the center of his universe? She narrowed her eyes, grabbed Kaito’s collar and pulled him into a proper fucking kiss.

He squeaked. So did Aoko. She thought she heard Hakuba’s voice say, “I win the bet.” When she pulled back, Kaito looked somewhere between mortified and terrified and not at all in love with her. It figured.

“What the hell?!”

“Get off me, Kuroba-kun,” she sighed.

“You can’t just kiss people like that!”

Akako patted his shoulder. “Consider it payback for all the times you’ve looked up Nakamori-chan’s skirt.”

He went red at that. Akako was too drained to relish his loss of composure. Aoko—and most of the class were staring.

“I guess that is a rejection,” she said to the class at large. “I might not recover from it.”

This garnered the proper response of men rushing to reassure her that no, she was wonderful and anyone would be lucky to have her! Public humiliation on its way to being made right, she marked this down as yet another failed attempt at ensnaring Kaito’s heart and mind. She’d come up with a less complicated plan next time.

Akako touched her lips. Well. At least she got a kiss for her troubles.

#magic kaito #kaito/akako #onesided #fanfiction #my writing #feeling emotionally drained and negative #so post to try and be positive #or something #remind myself that i was productive at some point

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jeremy-ken-anderson · 7 years

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Anticipate/Neutral/Dread

Going through the anime, it’s curious to see my baseline gut reactions to what’s next on the docket. Maybe this is just my own way of seeing things, but I often have an aversion to anime I’ve been watching - maybe I know it’ll demand a kind of emotional investment (It wants my fucks, and I have so few fucks to give; can I really afford to spend them here?). Like exercise, it’s quite rare I’ll get into a show and be unable to watch while it’s showing. I’m generally okay once it’s playing, no matter how bland or how over-the-top. But here are my responses to a bunch of what I’m watching now.

Ranma 1/2 is neutral. I’ve seen and read the whole dang thing - all of it. So it’s very relaxed, and has the occasional nostalgic moment as I see a scene I’d forgotten (remember the science club guys who try to kill Ranma during his first battle vs Ryoga? I didn’t), but it isn’t going to show me anything actually new.

Aldnoah Zero is interesting because it fluctuates. It has episodes that hit and others that miss, because it’s a drama. Sometimes the drama is affective (yes I spelled that correctly) but nonetheless induces the desire to avoid the series, because I’m just not in the mood to spend emotional energy on that kind of thing, you know? Other times it gets self-obsessed with how clever its science is and forgets to make the narrative carry our mood at the same time. Coming up on the end, I’m interested to see the last 2 episodes, so right now it’s in the “anticipate” category. But it did have several episodes where I twinged and went, “really? More of this?” before holding my nose to gulp it down (metaphorically).

Hell Girl is probably going to be lightly dreaded every episode. As I said yesterday, it’s not aimed at being a fun show to watch. Interesting, artful, frequently badass...but “fun” isn’t the aim. And as a show focusing its camera on cruelty it’s a little more taxing than most.

Hayate the Combat Butler conversely will probably never be a nuisance, unless I get two seasons in and they suddenly run out of budget (I remember Ranma had a cringeworthy season or 2 where they farmed out the animation to a cheaper studio and you could really see it). This is the longest series I’d never seen any of before I started this binge, at 103 episodes. I like it!

Hyperdimension Neptunia is almost constantly in the dread category. The mix of kiddie, saccharine, and sexual seems...basically like there’s no target age that doesn’t assume something’s wrong with the viewer. It’s got great comedy, a reasonably interesting story, and lovely animation. So...I wish it weren’t subtly repulsive?

Blessing of the Campanella is very similar but somehow just slightly less offensive to me. I’m neutral toward it, as a series. Somehow it reminds me of Winnie the Pooh: So sweet and kid-friendly that not quite enough can happen to keep me invested for a whole episode. Actually, the opening theme song also reminded me of the Indigo Girls’ cover of the Winnie the Pooh theme.

Sailor Moon is neutral. Some of this is from its age; If something’s offensive then, as with vintage animation, I can sort of shrug and say, “Yeah, it was a product of its time.” I haven’t quite seen all of this, but I have seen a lot before. It’s quite a blast to see some of the weird quirks (For the first 2 episodes, Jadeite’s theme was this weird jazz number. They changed it out for something more sinister from E3 on), but there’s enough that’s samey about the “monster of the day” format that I can’t really be champing at the bit for the next ep of Sailor Moon. At least, not yet (I’m in Season 1). I’m willing to give it time to grab me. I mean, a lot of people agree that Star Trek: TNG is an okay show for 2 seasons and only becomes a GREAT show somewhere in the middle of S3. Also it’s so weird seeing the original S1 opener, with only 3 Senshi.

Dream Eater Merry is...neutral, I guess? By rights I should be SUPER into this series. The visuals are clever and well-crafted and moody, and the story has this adjacent dream world that seems like exactly the kind of thing I’d love. Somehow it’s just not coming together. It’s so busy selling mood that it’s just a little unfocused story-wise, and the dreamlike quality of the visuals is constant/random, which means it can’t be used to help draw attention to important details.

Black Bullet is also neutral. It feels so obsessed with copying clever ideas from the big hits that it failed to commit fully to having its own identity. Those ideas are clever, so the show’s pretty fun to watch, but it feels less distinctive than, say, Bleach - even though Bleach followed a lot of very predictable plots (and the super-speed vs swarming mass fight was a near-direct copy from Gaara v Lee). It’s also got this tone issue where it wants to be a light harem comedy and a grimdark Attack on Titan style “last of humanity” story and...can’t. Sorry. They undercut each other, and doing both in the same episode just makes both elements feel weak. They don’t feel like people trying to maintain a light harem situation to deal with the pain or ignore the terror; They feel like people who are in a light situation, until the writers bring up the imminent threat of death again. It’s clumsy.

Because I Don’t Like My Big Brother At All is dreaded. Every time. It’s started resorting to punching down, in its comedy, and it started off in a bad place since it’s...y’know...about a girl’s obsession with the idea of underage incest? It’s had some laugh-out-loud humor, but it feels like it’s getting weaker over time as they have to reach farther afield for new jokes.

The Disappearance of Nagato Yuki-Chan is anticipated every time. I’ve been ticked at characters here and there but it’s always been because I’ve cared about what’s going on. The narrative is strong and the visuals and sound design aren’t just gorgeous but supportive of that narrative.

Monogatari is also a fave. It’s got that supernatural element that I was talking about being a green flag for me re: Dream Eater Merry, and it has the unique series identity missing from Black Bullet. It’s stylized in a way I’ve...only really seen when watching episodes of Monogatari. In a world where people say “there are no new stories under the sun,” that’s worth a lot. The story moves super-slow, but the banter moves lightning-fast, so you (or at least, I) don’t have time to get bored by the broader pacing. And the different opening for each issue really investigates the interaction between opening song and viewer’s understanding of story - especially the way it changes in the final 5 episodes of S1 (the song stays the same but the animation shifts, as new info has come to light).

Cowboy Bebop is one I’m not allowed to dislike. Fortunately I love it. I think it was episode 6 or 7 it had a commercial-cut image that said, “The Work, which will become a genre of its own, will be called Cowboy Bebop.” And I was like, Yeah. They earned that. It’s gorgeous, with art and sound and editing/direction that all holds up decades later, and moreover I’ve never seen it. It’s all new to me.

The Asterisk War is a harem show and kind of a fluff piece, but it’s fun and I do consistently want to see the next episode. It earns it with good, believable multi-note characters and world-building that feels coherent rather than patched-on-as-necessary.

Black Cat is the reason I started writing this review...thing. I dread it and I don’t know why. Maybe it’s the emotionless male lead? It’s only been a few episodes, though, so I’ll let it go and see how things progress once the band actually forms up (something the opening sets you up to anticipate).

#anime #review

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writeorwrong23-blog · 7 years

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A letter to the girl I’ve been WAY too hard on.

I guess the first recorded memory I have of us was around age 4. Give, or take a couple years. Lol. No, but seriously. Chalk it up to memory repression, but the only stored memories that I posses from ages 0 to 10 are scarce, pieced together, and almost impersonal. I remember being so critical of you. Of every part of you. Of every little detail that I declared less than par. In hindsight, I know that I was holding you to unrealistic expectations. Expectations that I thought would make you worthy, interesting, and important. Most of all. Normal. Maybe it was bitterness, Or resentment, Or helplessness, Or fear. Truth is, there could have been a number of things contributing to my devaluation of you; Nevertheless, There you were… Just trying to exist. There I was. To make sure you knew the proper way to do it. Guess what? You sucked! Fast forward to 5th grade, where actual, in color, and some even high definition memories start. Can I just say: YOU WERE BEAUTIFUL. I know I never told you that then. When you needed it the most, but I had no idea what beautiful was. Society had already encrypted me with it’s very distorted idea of beauty, and im gonna be honest…You were not exactly a poster child of that “idea”. You were skeptical, and nervous. Awkward, and clumsy. You always said the wrong things. You daydreamed. ALOT. All the girls were prettier than you, and the boys were scared to speak to you. I, in my not so passive suggestions, tried to help you out in this department, too. I tried to help with your wardrobe. You failed. Your hair. You failed. Your make up. You horribly failed. I tried so hard to hook you right up with some social skills. You. Failed. Like a Jeffrey Dahmer fail..except without the whole cannibalism thing…Or serial killer thing..ok, lets just say you did not “socially adapt”. Oh, Jr High. Where rumors spread faster than my 13 year old daughter can send a text message. Jr High is such a paradox. It is where freedom and captivation collide. Ones ego can go from self absorption to self depletion during lunch. Lets take a moment to let that sink in. In a single hour, a girl can go from a confident oozing “mean girl” to a borderline depressant. This is the power of our ego, and especially at the age of 13 when the people inside the local Jr High are the only people in the ENTIRE WORLD. A place where if a boy says you have fat thighs, or ugly hair, by God you need to do some 1982 aerobics taught by Suzanne Summers; via VHS, and get your thunder thighed self to the beauty shop for a color/cut combo. Like yesterday! I know it sounds silly to even consider. It sounds silly to me, too. The 33 year old me. The 13 year old me probably didn’t think it was silly at all. I wish I would have built you up through your most challenging years. When you cried tears of defeat I wish I would have told you how brave you were, instead of calling you a crybaby. When you kept wondering why you were such an ugly duckling, I wish I had reminded you that you were a swan, instead of saying “just change this”. When you longed for companionship, and wondered why noone stuck around…I wish I had told you that all the “single” time you had was necessary for you. So that you would learn your self worth from yourself, and not some arrogant boy. Instead, I told you that you were Just too awkward for a boyfriend. I remember your first heart break like it was yesterday. Surely you remember. Your life was over. Done. Grab yaself a fork. Maaaaan oh man. The tears, the dramatic outburst, the anger, the hurt, the ANXIETY. This time of your life is one of my biggest regrets. I let you down. And by “let” I mean..I shoved you. Hard. Off of the biggest metaphorical rooftop in the world. When hurt and confusion swept over your 18 year old, pregnant, and newest member of the dump truck self..I blamed you. If only you were more exciting, more adventurous. Maybe you shouldn’t have cut your hair. I mean yeah it was ugly before, but Jesus..did you have to replicate a shiitake mushroom?? Nobody wants to be reminded of a fungus every time they look at you. It’s not that I didn’t think(or complete opposite) you had potential. I just wanted you to potentially tan them legs, and hit the gym. Afterall, it was your slothy ways that got you in this predicament. These are things I actually said to you. I am so sorry for that. The truth is it wasn’t you at all. It was him. You took responsibility. You moved on to the next phase of your life with no resentment. No hate. You kept a straight face from Sun up til Sun down. You only broke down in the company of me. Tucked safely inside 4 walls, protected by 14 pillows to buffer your cries when the reality got too painful. You were so courageous. I was so proud of you. I’m sorry I never told you. When you became a mother, I was in overdrive. I just did not want you to screw this up like everything else, I critiqued, second guessed, shamed, blamed, and blamed some more. How could you be trusted to raise a mentally, physically, and spiritually healthy child when you are so terrible at life, yourself. I told you everyday you were doing it all wrong. What I meant was..you are killin it. You are a wonderful mother. You grew a human life..and she’s beautiful. You. You did that. …

If I could go back. I would have loved you. I would have loved you at 4. At 8. At 13. At 18. At 21. I would have shown you compassion, forgiveness, and gratitude. I would have been more careful with my words, as well as your feelings. I would have replaced criticism with encouragement, and blame with opportunity. If I could go back. I would love you, because you were always enough. You were always worthy. You were always worth loving. I just got lost trying to make the world love you, not realizing that it was me who didn’t love you. It took a lot of trial and error, but over time I have learned to unconditionally love you. Every part of you. Xoxo, Yourself.

#writerscreed #creedrescue

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