Jeweler Richard Fanbook Short Story #12

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Suit Story

If you went through Ginza’s Main Street from 7-chome to 1-chome, the change in the city’s atmosphere would shock you. Bulgari, Cartier, Louis Vuitton, Chanel. Felt like you could play shiritori with these high-class brand names. It was a fun neighborhood to stroll around during Christmas season, as all the stores would come up with elaborate plans for the decorative lights, but it was currently autumn. The store most closely related to me in these vicinities was the long-established stationery store where I went to buy stationery. It was, however...

“Please raise your arms a little more.”

“All right.”

“Pull your chin back a bit. Yeah, that’s great.”

“Haah. Is this really right?”

“Of course. Might be hard, but please do relax.”

For whatever reason, I was across the street from the stationery store, practically in front of it, on the second floor of a branded men’s fashion store originally from England. On the walls of this mysterious-gentleman-themed space, which housed a bar counter and even a huge aquarium, there were clusters of business suits, pants and waistcoats with basting threads attached to them in conspicuous spots.

It was a place for taking measurements for custom-made stuff.

I couldn’t get over the feeling that this was some kind of mistake. Wasn’t this the stationery store? The place where you could buy vanilla-colored envelopes for 30 yen each? Or illustrated writing paper with seasonal vibes, or pens.

“Seigi, you are too nervous.”

“Nakata-san is such an imp, but so are you.”

Leaning against the bar counter, Richard shrugged his shoulders, indicating possibility.

Today was Thursday. Having been called by Richard, who said he wanted to ask me to do some odd job, I went over to the front of Etranger, and then we came to this store in the green jaguar. Just when I thought he was gonna make me hang with him for shopping, the man on the driver seat hastily took out his phone, showing me a video letter from my dad, Nakata-san.

“Seigi, congrats on your graduation. I wanted to go suit shopping with you, but I’m in Jakarta, so I’ll be borrowing Richard-san’s assistance for that. Seems like people are getting them custom-made lately. Make sure to buy a good one. Well, see ya.”

Richard had watched over me in the passenger seat as my eyes got wet, but the tears drew back in when we stepped into the store.

While talking lightheartedly about the difference between English and Italian suits, the young clerk, who wasn’t all too apart from me in age, smoothly took my body measurements with a measuring tape and showed me countless textures.

“You can also choose the lining. What should we do about the pockets?”

When I started getting dizzy, said man, who was like a page of suits, began giving me suggestions from behind. I had nowhere to run. I was really going to have my suit made here. As I picked a charcoal-gray suit with blue lining, Richard quickly told me that tanzanite cuffs would look very nice in it. Of course, I was thinking the exact same thing.

By the moment that the Onii-san finished the measuring and disappeared into the back of the store to take notes, I heaved a deep sigh. “This kinda stuff’s been happening a lot lately. All I ever do is receive.”

When I said that, Richard laughed, giggles ringing up his throat.

Richard had two types of smiles, and whenever he raised his voice while laughing, if I refused to back down, he’d often give me a word of advice of some sort. When it was a silent smile, I’d feel like he was telling me in some way to “reflect about myself”, which would make me a bit anxious, but I liked both.

Walking up next to me as I stood in front of the mirror, Richard grinned. “It is no longer guaranteed that your body will grow out of your clothes. Isn’t it fun to sometimes purchase slightly larger clothes and try to wait for your body’s growth?”

“Feeling like this talk doesn’t have the ‘sleep well and drink milk’ kinda nuance to it.”

The reply was a smile. How strange. Richard’s face was right at my left side, but the smile in the mirror was looking directly at me. Clad in a double-button slender silhouette suit, his figure was perfect no matter from what angle I looked at it, like an extraordinarily fine jewel, so my own figure as I tensed up beside him appeared even weirder.

“Hey, Richard, I kinda have the feeling that suits are like the base metals of jewelry.”

“Are you referring to the foundation parts of rings, earrings and such?”

I nodded. The base metal was the metal part that formed the foundation for attaching gemstones to jewelry. In stores, people would often memorize the materials and call them by their names, such as gold base metal or platinum base metal.

It was a part that never played the leading role in Etranger, which handled accessories with gemstones on them. But it’d be hard to wear jewelry on the body without it, and it was also a part that allowed people to express their particularities regarding the materials, durability and design. Whether they would be prominent or not depended on the basis. Erm, this was probably what a jeweler from Kyoto that I was acquainted with would say. The contrary was also possible.

“Gotta psyche myself up. If I don’t become someone that won’t lose to this suit, I’d feel bad.”

“This is my personal opinion, but there is nothing more tiring to look at than a jewelry in which the gem and base metal are at rivalry with one another. What you should emphasize is the harmony. Just because you use the finest high-grade eggs and milk as ingredients, it does not mean you will create the best pudding – is that not the same thing?”

“Ah...”

When I replied that, indeed, high-end ingredients were often strongly in demand, the beautiful man nodded with an “exactly as you say”. By the looks of it, those were the sweets that he was into lately. I hadn’t been able to take time some for it at all due to being busy, but I decided to make pudding again one of these days and offer to him. Despite having a wallet that enabled him to eat as many high-grade desserts as he wanted, Richard would always be delighted anew no matter how many of them I made, which made me believe that, as one would expect, he had a talent for pleasing people. I was grateful for his existence.

“Both suits and jewelry are goods that exist for the sake of their owners. The initiative is clear from the start. You must handling it skillful and comfortably, not fight against it. That is why it is custom-made.”

“So you’re also ‘skillfully handling’ the clothes you’re wearing right now?”

“Evidently. Enough that I do not know anymore at what point it ends and I begin.” With that said, Richard sleekly patted his suit. I wanted to try saying that too someday.

We exchanged glances not through the mirror but directly.

When the clerk Onii-san came back, the measuring recommenced. I got kind of embarrassed as he praised me, saying I was well-relaxed.

   “Seigi-kun, good work! Wow, that suit looks really great on you.”

“Thanks, Tanimoto-san. Uh, this print on your furisode, could it be—”

“I was told it’s a modern type of print, but yep, it’s kinda like...”

“It looks like a bismuth crystal!”

With a face that said, “I know, right”, a dandy crease formed under her eyes, which were just a bit more on-the-mark than usual. Her bob-cut hair was the same as always, her cream-colored hakama paired with a yellow-green and dark blue furisode, which bore a mysterious geometric pattern print. On top of being cute, it was unique. She said it was rented, but I got emotional upon finding out there was a furisode that was so much like her.

As for me, I was wearing a double-button English suit that fit my body extremely well. It was a little embarrassing, but the creatures called college boys were more or less the same kind of individuals as myself, so they weren’t too mindful of their male friends’ clothes. Only one of them, who had found employment in the apparel industry, said that “the suit Nakata’s wearing is so nice”.

It was the graduation ceremony of Kasaba University. We gathered in the excessively large auditorium for all but an instant, and once we had our diplomas in hand, it was the beginning of a rapid shooting party, where we took pictures with our preferred friends in spaces near the auditorium. Tanimoto-san came running over to the spot near the central library, where we had decided to meet up.

“Seigi-kun, really, congrats. Things might get hard from now on, but if it’s you, everything will definitely be okay.”

“Thank you. I’ll do my best. I don’t think I’m that big of a deal, though...”

“That’s not true. I know very well how awesome you are.”

I played around a little and bowed my head, also congratulating Tanimoto-san for her graduation, she laughed with a “huhuhu”, looking happy.

She had passed in teaching and she would officially be a middle school science teacher starting this April. She fulfilled the dream that she had told me about when we were in our second year of undergrad. So cool. She had laughed when I said I wanted to take her classes if it were ever possible, but now I knew her video communication address, so it might be that I could actually get to attend her lectures at least once. Even if I were no longer living in Japan.

“Tanimoto-san, the school you’re assigned to is...”

“In Okayama Prefecture. It’s famous for the Katsuta Group of vicarya fossils. Compared to you, it’s next-door.”

In a few days, my address would change from Japan to Sri Lanka. I was going to be a jeweler apprentice. I had been told that I would often have to move around in rough dress, so sure enough, I was going to dedicate myself to wearing formal stuff for the time being. It was a bit of a waste, but Nakata-san and Richard had probably given me a chance to wear this kind of thing because they knew about that.

I could hear a voice in the distance calling, “Shouko~”. It was apparently a friend of Tanimoto-san’s. She waved at them in response.

“Seigi-kun, y’know... I think I was very lucky to meet you in this university. Literally thank you. Thanks to you, university was always fun.”

“Those are all my lines. But Tanimoto-san, I only ever gave you trouble.”

“If you’re gonna say that, same goes for me. I feel like you’ve granted me many opportunities. Seriously, thank you.”

When she smiled, saying she was going to do her best, she looked really cute. Neither of us had any familiarity with Okayama, but surely, she would actively pave the way with her own strength no matter where she was. And on her days off, she would go out to the Katsuta Group to dig up fossils.

“From now on too, if there’s anything I can help you with, I want you to tell me. I’ll do anything. If you run into any weirdo, I’ll get on a plane and come give them a beating.”

“Me too; if anyone ever messes up with you, Seigi-kun, I’ll take my crack hammer and go finish them off. Look forward to it. Ah, Aki told me that a sniper rifle suits me better, apparently?”

“I-I wonder.”

After that, we talked for a while, seated on an inconspicuous bench, and when it was finally time, she told me to at least take care of my body, offering me her hand. I nodded and squeezed it back. Her hand was small but very strong.

“Take care of your body, at the very least. May the blessings of the stones fall upon you.”

“Thank you. You too.”

We bowed deeply, taking pictures with each other while we were at it, and once we were done with the commemorative photoshoot, in which the two of us kept a moderate distance from one another, we parted ways. Students here and there were hugging intensely and wailing, but neither she nor I were that type, and I didn’t think this would be farewell for a lifetime. We would definitely get to see each other from now on too.

However, this was our last time seeing each other while we were students. After the handshake, my angel waved her hand with a “see you”, even more brightly than an actual angel.

Later on, having finished looking around for the friends that I could call friends and going on a tour to tell them “thank you for everything until now”, lastly, I sent a brief text. Not to Richard. To Nakata-san and Hiromi.

“I was able to graduate from university without problems. Thank you very much, truly. I will be in your care from now on too.”

Rather than a greeting, it turned into a notice to announce my renewed determination. The stylish suit indeed gave off an extraordinary feeling of fittingness, but I couldn’t think I was fully used to it. Obviously. It finished being made just a while ago. It would start from here. If it would take on my shape the more I wore it, then I would make sure to wear it steadily to my own liking.

What mattered was the harmony, he had said.

While smoothly stroking the suit, which I still couldn’t deem as anything other than formal wear, as if I were stroking my favorite gemstone, I seared the contrast of cherry blossom petals against the blue sky into my eyes.

V with Makarato?

...yes. I would. I added 12 (lingerie) just because it worked with what my brain was writing today, hope it still works for you!

humiliation/degradation + Makaráto

Maglor wasn’t quite sure what had possessed him to rummage through the back of his closet to pull out the gag-gift he had received from Fingon a few years ago for his begetting day, nor what had possessed him to try it on in front of the mirror, stripping off his own clothes and pulling on instead what was clearly supposed to be a a pair of trousers meant to go beneath the robe but which served as nothing really, besides to barely cover his groin and to act as another invisible layer over everything else. Maglor grinned, spinning around in the mirror and admiring every angle of the sheer blue-grey fabric on his body, wondering, wildly, what the tittering society of Tirion would think if one of their princes were to go outside wearing such a thing.

Probably, he reasoned with himself, not very much considering only a week before Celegorm had ended up running through the streets in a lap of the city utterly nude after loosing a bet to Fingon. Most likely, he thought, it would not be such a scandal, not that he would ever be wearing the robes outside or in public ever… right?

Maglor shivered, the night air flowing right through the transparent robes as he tried to hide behind Maedhros, desperately hoping that it was dark enough even with Telperion’s light that his father wouldn’t recognize his face.

“If you didn’t want to wear them, Káno, you should have had something else on when I came upstairs!” Maglor glared at him, rubbing at his bare arms and hissing back,

“Well how was I supposed to know we were leaving right then and that we were the last! Now I have to walk around looking like—“ Maglor froze as a warm hand fell on his shoulder and he spun around, ready entirely to either slap whoever it was across the face for touching him while he was walking around virtually naked or to beg for a set of borrowed clothes. Instead of a stranger, as Maglor had expected, he instead found himself mere inches away from Finrod’s face where his wine-scented breath ghosted across Maglor’s lips.

“You can go ahead, Russo, Findekáno’s waiting for you under the fountain, I think he said something about a secret garden?” Maglor watched his cousin flush, his face half-embarrassed and half-excited as he made his way over to the large silver fountain in the center of the clearing leaving Maglor feeling quite alone and quite naked as Finrod glanced him up and down giving him a small smile, and wrapping a hand around his waist, leading him not away from the party but further into it.

“Please, Findo, can I just borrow a set of clothes for the night? Nelya caught me-- I didn’t have time to change.” Finrod laughed lightly, leaning over and nuzzling his nose against Maglor’s,

“Mmmh, perhaps later, but I know what you like, brat.” Maglor shivered, the night suddenly seeming much colder and his skin much warmer,

“Findo!” He whined, trying to cover at least some part of him, but Finrod laughed, a smile so fond and full of love on his face that Maglor felt sorely tempted to indulge him in whatever games he wished to play,

“Mmmh, my little songbird, my little brat, my little… slut.” Maglor froze, unable to move even one step forwards as a rush of heat filled his skin with Finrod’s words— no, just one word. As much as Maglor loved all the other pet names Finrod had given him, even brat, none of them had affected him as greatly as this latest one.

“Káno? What’s wrong? Too far?” Maglor let out a stuttering breath and whispered,

“Wh-what did you call me? Last?” Finrod frowned, reaching as if to gather Maglor into his arms but at the last moment his attention was caught by something else and instead of pulling Maglor into an embrace he chuckled lowly and reached down to rub a hand across the prominent bulge visible through the just barely opaque fabric covering Maglor’s middle.

“Oh, you— you liked that?” He asked, his seductive act breaking for a moment as pure surprise flitted across his face and a mischievous grin followed almost as fast,

“Oh, you are a slut aren’t you, darling? Hmm? Do you like that? All trussed up for anyone to see you and take you, god, your hair isn’t even braided Macalaurë, what would Nelyo say?” Maglor shivered, his hips twitching forwards into Finrod’s touch as he stammered,

“H-has seen me, s-said I deserved t-to look like— like a whore if I spent my t-time acting like one when I was supposed t-to be g-getting ready for a party.” Finrod laughed again, pulling Maglor a little further back into the shadows and onto his lap as he mouthed at a point just below his ear, one hand splayed across Maglor’s belly and the other lazily rubbing over his tented trousers,

“Bet you liked that, huh, darling? Even when it was coming from your brother? You know he was telling the truth, right?” He chuckled again, pulling his hand back from the front of Maglor’s pants and Maglor let out a desperate whine, hips shifting up to follow his retreating hand,

“You’re leaking, little songbird, if you go back everyone will see, they’ll know, how does that make you feel? They’ll all know you’re a slut too.” Maglor threw back his head, baring his neck to Finrod’s eager lips and, breath hitching, replied,

“P-please, n-need you to— need to change b-but need you f-first.” Finrod nodded, pulling Maglor to his feet as he stood also and murmured,

“The only path back to the house is through the party but it we can make there it’s empty and there’s a store room on the ground floor that we can use, yes?” Maglor nodded dizzily, eager and barely able to think straight and Finrod wrapped his arm around his lover’s shoulders, guiding him stumblingly back through the party waving off those who tried to help with a simple excuse of,

“Don’t worry, Macalaurë’s just had quite a lot to drink,” Until finally they were alone and he was free to do as he pleased.

also 43: A kiss pressed to the top of the head. (platonic soulmates)

YES YES YES!

Also on Ao3

"This is the second time a member of the Rose family has come to my apartment today.”

David bites back a grin, his knees bent. “Hello to you, too.”

Stevie steps aside to let David in. He drops his bag in the foyer and looks around.

Her apartment is a little dreary - it’s always a little dreary, David notes, but it’s very much Stevie and he loves it and that Sarah Maclachlan poster regardless.

It smells like vanilla, too, and David thinks he’ll have to convince her to get something a little more atmospheric, something that will bring a little dimension into her home.

He makes a mental note to set aside a few of the soy candles at the store for her.

There’s a suitcase propped-up by her closet, slightly caved-in from its lack of contents and there’s an empty cereal bowl sitting on her countertop, the spoon still in it. 

Smudges of dark makeup sit caked under Stevie’s already dark eyes and the cuffs of her flannel are balled-up in her fists. She swipes at her nose.

“I brought wine,” David announces, setting the bottle next to the empty bowl. He eyes the half-empty blend she already had uncorked. He gestures to it. “But I see that might not have been necessary.”

“It’s from your mom.” Stevie gives him a weak smile as she flops into a chair, her dark hair falling in front of her face.

David sighs. “You okay?”

“Did your dad put you up to this?” She murmurs, voice thick. She doesn’t meet his gaze.

“No.” David leans his elbows into the counter, adding much softer, “But...he did tell me about Emir. Coming here was my decision.”

Stevie’s posture visibly slumps in response. She remains quiet.

David doesn’t say anything for a few minutes. Instead, he pulls up his sleeves and begins cleaning up her dirty bowl. He sets out a towel under her drying rack, wiping the excess soap from the base of the sink. 

Once that’s accounted for, he tops of Stevie’s wineglass with the stuff he brought - making a very prominent point to pour out the faint remnants of the cheaper bottle down the drain and sets it off to the side for recycling. It was less than a proper glass, really.

He hears a light huff of a laugh from behind him, causing him to smile.

With his own glass in-hand, he sets Stevie’s down, taking the empty chair across from her. Even still, nothing is said as she stares at the dark liquid in her glass. It’s just the two of them sitting in somewhat comfortable silence, taking sips of their drinks until David decides to get up and pour them each another.

“Where’s Patrick tonight?”

David nearly snorts. “He’s sulking at his apartment over Romanian marble and the fact that Ronnie officially hates him.”

Stevie gives him an odd look. “What does that even mean?”

He shakes his head, swilling his wine. “Nothing. I’ll explain tomorrow.”

Stevie just mutters a dejected, “Sure,” and picks at a loose string hanging from her sleeve. 

The apartment goes silent again - it’s a trend tonight, and David thinks he’s okay with that - the only real sound coming from the buzzing of Stevie’s old refrigerator every so often.

“Fuck him,” David states. It’s sharp, it’s a little biting, and Stevie pushes her brows together when he says it.

“I mean, you already did,” he adds, earning another half-hearted laugh from his best friend. “But fuck him.”

She sniffs, eyes trained on her hands in her lap. “Thanks,” she whispers.

“I’m not going to say a bunch of fluff to try and make you feel better because, let’s face it, that won’t help.” She nods and David continues. “So, if you’re fine with it...I’ll stay over tonight, try and distract you or something.”

She scrubs at her cheeks, disrupting tear-stains and still nodding. “Thanks, David.”

His smile grows just a bit wider, the dull knot of an ache in his chest starting to unravel itself. 

He grabs his bag then, tossing it onto the unmade bed. David begins taking out various creams and cleansers, a jar containing the under-eye serum he loves so much, and a bottle of lavender toner.

“Go wash up,” he nods toward the bathroom.

Stevie stands wordlessly, gathering everything up in her arms. When the door shuts behind her and he hears the water running, David begins tidying up again.

He starts with the bed; straightening out the fitted sheet and fixing the comforter. He fluffs the pillows and drapes a chunky knitted blanket that’s been thrown haphazardly over the back of the couch onto the bed.

It’s right about then that David spots the script for Cabaret. It’s written in big, bold letters across the front. His mother had mentioned in passing something about it and a “courageous and sturdy woman like our dear Stevie.”

His heart squeezes in his chest at image of his mother handing the script to over to Stevie. It makes sense why she came here now.

He’ll ask her about it tomorrow. For now, he places it on the kitchen table. 

Save for the very dregs, their glasses from earlier are empty, so David takes to delicately washing them out and setting them upside-down on a dishtowel. He makes two cups of tea, steaming and ready by the time the bathroom door swings open again.

Stevie comes out fresh-faced and dewy, her flannel now bunched-up in one hand. 

She hitches a thumb over her shoulder. “I left everything on the counter if you want to use it.” 

David hands her a mug. “In a second. But, uh...” He picks up a tattered novel from where it sits on her nightstand, smirking. “What’s this?”

Stevie rips it from his hold, swiftly shoving it into a drawer and hip-checking it closed. “It’s a book.”

“A Scandalous Kiss,” David recites coyly, “Sounds hot. Where the hell did you pick that up? A pharmacy?”

“I’m borrowing it from Gwen. She wouldn’t stop raving about it when I was in the café last week, so I’m borrowing it from her.”

David blinks. “Yeah, I don’t know who that is.”

“Gwen,” Stevie repeats. “Bob’s wife.” When David shrugs at her, she tosses her flannel onto a chair.

“I’ll be out in a few,” he says gently, offering a much softer smile to which she returns. 

“You’ll be out in more than ‘a few,” she calls through the door, and despite the congestion in her voice, her wit is still there.

The seals from the unopened products he’d handed her are still scattered around the sink, so he dumps those into the trash before moving on.

David hastens his way through his nighttime routine, knocking off about half the time it normally takes so he can get back to Stevie.

Abbreviated version done, David lines the products up in Stevie’s mirror-slash-medicine cabinet. He thinks about organizing them by step for her, maybe going through it all with her tomorrow morning if she’s up for it, but brushes off the notion.

Stevie’s curled-up on her side atop the covers, her back to him, when David emerges. He takes this opportunity to slip into a pair of sleep pants and a tee, tucking his things away by the foot of her bed.

As David comes around to her side of the bed, Stevie’s shoulders are shaking ever so slightly.

He lets out a quiet sigh, sitting carefully by the bend of her legs. Stevie has her arms wrapped tight around her pillow, her eyes distant and puffy from what David can make out from his angle.

“Hey.” He gives her thigh a firm rub. She only sniffs in response.

He lets out a breathy “Oh” sound and stands again, repositioning Stevie so she’s under the covers and tucked-in tightly. He lays the knitted blanket over her shoulders and, with a tentative hand, brushes the hair from her face.

Stevie turns just enough to look at him, her eyes red-rimmed. 

David offers a half-frown, one that says, “I’m here for you, I care about you, I’m not going anywhere.”

It’s the truth.

“Sorry,” he hears her say once the lights are off in the main part of the apartment and the only source is coming from the lamp on her nightstand.

He’s laying with her now, matching her position. She looks so small in her huddled form, and David wants nothing more than to hold his best friend close.

“You have nothing to be sorry about.”

There’s a long pause before Stevie says anything again. “I feel really, really stupid.”

He lets a beat pass. “You’re not, though.”

She hums. “It just sucks.” Stevie heaves a deep breath, a gurgling sound coming from somewhere deep in her throat. “I thought that it was actually going somewhere...and it wasn’t.”

“Not that it’ll really make you feel any better,” David starts carefully, repositioning himself on the pillow, “but I’ve been in that boat countless times. You get over it. But it does really suck. And it really fucking hurts sometimes, too.”

Stevie’s lips quirk downward on one side. She pulls a hand out from where it’s still wrapped around the pillow to rub at her eyes.

“You really didn’t have to come tonight.” She says it so softly, as if she’s trying to convince herself that David coming here was nothing big.

But he sees right through it. “I wanted to.”

He reaches over to shut the light, a metallic click echoing out. When he turns back to face Stevie, she’s staring at him sadly, eyes still glazed-over.

David lifts up an arm as incentive for Stevie to wriggle over to him. She sets her head on his chest, nuzzling as a hiccuping sob releases itself. David links his arms at her back. 

She settles sometime after that, going deathly still, and there’s something about the way she lays there that lets David know she’s knocked-out cold for the rest of the evening.

She’ll be emotionally hungover in the morning, he knows that for a fact - he’s been there himself, Stevie’s even seen it.

But for now, she’ll sleep like a rock. A small, dark-haired rock shaped like his best friend whom he loves. He really, really loves. He hopes that’s enough for her.

David presses a kiss into the crown of her head, one hand coming up to brush through her hair. He breathes in the familiar scent of Stevie’s shampoo, it comforts him. 

David kisses her head again, tucks her impossibly close and drifts off as her breath tickles his neck. 

The Grand Tranquility Hotel (VI)

Pairing: Alex Turner/Reader

Summary: An eccentric hotel owner and an inquisitive writer find solace in each other when they both seemed to be at the edge of rock bottom.

Notes: I have the week off of work! Expect some updates in the next few days!

Let me know if you’d like to be added to the tag list.

Chapter VI - The World’s First Ever Monster Truck Front Flip

She’d managed to rid all the tension from her shoulders after a steaming hot shower with a lovely lavender-scented shampoo and was now strewn out across her bed with the book she’d been reading from the library. She didn’t have much planned for the day, simply wanting to refrain from causing any more distress between the others and herself. But when someone came knocking at her door, she didn’t feel like she had a choice but to open it. She was met with the eyes of intrigue himself.

“Will you accompany me for the day?” Alex merely asked. “Where will we be going?” she questioned in turn.

“You wanted to know all about my hotel. So, I’ll show you what I can, writer. Meet me in the service room behind the lobby when you’re dressed.” Looking down at her figure clad only in a soft white robe, her cheeks reddened in embarrassment. She saw the corner of his lips quirk up, before he sauntered back down the hallway towards the elevator. Cheeky bastard.

Having decided on wearing a long skirt with a pristine white blouse to maintain some form of professionality, she grabbed her notebook and pen and made her way towards their one-sided agreed upon meeting point. When Nick was greeted by her ‘good morning’ and with the sight of Alex holding the door to the back room open for her, he gave them a look of complete bewilderment, which Alex simply deemed to ignore. She shrugged and held her notebook a bit closer to her chest before stepping through the doorway.

The room wasn’t very large. In fact, most of the space was occupied by a large desk, filing cabinets and most prominently; television screens. They showed different camera angles to hallways and other communal areas, such as the library and dining hall. It was clearly live, because she could see Matt taking Mardy out for a walk in the gardens and Nick behind the counter, who still hadn’t taken his eyes off of the door they’d gone through. Alex took a seat at the table that held all the electronics and cables and motioned for her to do the same.

Hesitantly lowering herself on the chair next to him, he seemed to be waiting patiently until she’d opened her notebook on a blank page and her pen had revealed its ink when she scribbled down the date on the top right corner. She looked up at him and saw a look in his eyes she could only describe to be the hesitancy of a man who was desperately trying to place his trust in a stranger for the first time in years. She felt it was her turn to take the initiative. “When did the hotel first open its doors?” she decided to start with.

The simple question seemed to bring him back to focus, as he cleared his throat. “About twelve years ago, I’d say it was.” “That’s quit a while. I’m guessing you were rather young to be opening a hotel,” she noted, silently scribbling her pen across the paper in the meantime. She didn’t dare look away from him. He nodded and grumbled a chuckle. “Young, and very inexperienced. Even though I’d had everything planned out from the start, it turned out to be a lot different in practice than what I’d expected it in my head to be.”

“In what way?” He thought about it for a moment. “I guess I had to learn that I couldn’t do everything beforehand and that I had to make more direct decisions on the spot. Although, I was very lucky to have Miles and Matthew at my sides. They were with me every step of the way.”

She smiled softly. “Matt told me about your school years with him and Miles.” “He did? Yeah, we go way back. Bit ridiculous to think I made him promise to come work for me if I ever opened a hotel. Poor lad never stood a chance choosing a different career path. Miles, however, he’d always expected to become my business partner.”

“So, it hadn’t really been Miles’ initial ambition to become mayor?” Alex shook his head, “No. He’d always had a knack for politics and as you well know he’s socially very capable. But if it hadn’t been for his position today, I think this hotel would’ve remained a pipe dream.”

She hummed, letting her eyes wander over the wide array of television screens. “This is your office?” she wondered. “Of sorts,” he replied, “Though Nick often finishes his paperwork in here. It’s where everything is filed.”

“Doesn’t the noise ever bother you?” The slight static hum appeared to be constant and she felt like it derived the room of its peace. “It would most certainly drive me insane.”

“Ah, the exotic sound of data storage. Nothing like it, first thing in the morning,” he quipped with satire. “No, I think I’ve gotten used to it over the years. I don’t really hear it anymore.”

“Have you always had cameras around the hotel?”

“No. We didn’t think it was necessary for a long time, but certain events proved otherwise.”

“Events you’d rather not talk about right now.”

“You’re really getting the hang of this, writer.”

 He took her to see the library next, and their walk was silent until they were once again behind closed doors. “I didn’t mean to be secretive, but I did borrow a book from here,” she admitted, shuffling to one of the plush seats near the fireplace. “I know,” he replied, making her look at him in surprise. “I’ve read every single one of these books. They’re all classics, because I’d never let a bad piece of literature enter this room without my permission. You just happened to take one of my favourites, which I can only commend you for.”

She knew the plot of the book from memory and couldn’t help but let a mischievous smirk spread across her face. “You like cheesy romance novels?” she teased. “Laugh at me all you want, writer,” he replied, “But it was you who specifically chose that book to borrow out of all of the ones in here, which means I’m not the only one guilty of fancying a good love story.” “Alright,” she admitted, “What other genres do you prefer when you’re not swooning over Mister Darcy?”

He snickered at her banter. “I take interest in science fiction.” “Intriguing. I suppose great minds do have a wild imagination.” “Was that a compliment I heard?” he inquired. “Don’t get cheeky now, mister Turner. We’re both still testing boundaries here.”

He told her all about the becoming of his grand book collection; of how he’d initiated his fondness of reading through his mother’s literature shelves until he’d gone through them all and started sticking his nose in bookshops and libraries. “When the hotel gained more popularity, some regular guests seemed to pick up on my hobby and I’ve only ever received books as thankful parting gifts from that point on. I’m rather relieved, because I was getting sick of flowers and champagne bottles from people with horrid taste.”

“You really do sound like a ritzy hotel owner now.” “I’d rather be ritzy than be in the rubble.” She raised her brows at him with a silent inquiry at his remark. “Don’t say it,” he muttered.

It was when they winded down a staircase she hadn’t seen before did she unravel her notebook again. During the beginning of their conversation she’d only written down the facts and dates, until she’d decided her memory would suffice for the rest of their conversation. Up until he’d taken her to the lower level of the hotel, which managed to fascinate her to a great extent. “What is this place?”

She knew what it was on first glance but wanted him to elaborate on it. “It used to be a bathhouse,” he told her, “but the previous owners were never able to maintain it. It’s a long-term project of mine to restore it.”

It looked very worn indeed, but the vines that protruded the walls and the moss overgrowing the smooth pillars reminded her distinctly of the Romantic art in the paintings she’d seen across the halls of the hotel. There was a large pool in the middle, and though the green substance that most likely used to be clear water obtained a lot of algae’s, it was alleviated by the gorgeous flowers floating atop their lily pads.

The grimy pastel-coloured tiles in blues and pinks were illuminated by the soft light appearing through the ceiling window in the back of the room, which had a few cracks here and there. She walked around one of the separating walls and found an array of bathtubs lined up to the side, decorated with rusty showerheads and crooked room dividers.

“It’s gorgeous. I’m glad you haven’t decided to tear it all down,” she breathed in awe. He hummed, “I have thought about it. But I’m legally not allowed to since it’s been deemed a piece of ‘cultural heritage’ by the mayor himself.” She snickered, “So, Miles didn’t want it to be torn down.” “Let’s just say it was a mutual understanding.”

She gave him a look and took a step around the next corner, but then no longer felt the ground beneath her foot. She could start to feel gravity pull her down until a hand wrapped around her arm and pulled her back, causing her ankle to scrape against what she now recognized to be a large crater she was meant to have fallen in. Alex pulled her flush against his chest and she let out a deep breath of relief, her heart a pounding mess against her ribcage. “I understand your curiosity is getting the better of you now that I’m answering most of your questions, but it wouldn’t hurt you to be a bit more careful.” His breath tickled her ear and his husky voice was like a musical echo throughout the room. “Thank you, mister Turner. I think I’ll be alright now.”

He slowly let her arm slide out of his hand. “Were you hurt?” “Just scraped my ankle. I’ll be fine.” He shook his head. “Let’s get it sorted. Can’t have you limping around my hotel. It would ruin my reputation.” “To who? All of the other guests?” “I will push you back into that pit if I have to, writer.”

She was still able to walk well enough, but they decided against taking the stairs this time and took the service elevator instead, which lead them straight to the kitchens. He’d rummaged through a few cupboards before finding the first aid kit. She sat upon the counter and lifted her skirt a tad to inspect the damage.

“I’m sorry, but I’m afraid we’re going to have to cut it off, miss.” She smacked his arm and he let out a bark of laughter. It was deep and vibrant, and it gave her more joy to hear it for the first time than she’d expected.

Yet, as he cleaned the wound and wrapped her ankle with a soft bandage, she couldn’t help but feel a sense of grief towards the evident wall he hid his emotions behind. It added to the long train of thoughts she was already dealing with right now, and she couldn’t say she was particularly pleased with it.

A silence washed over them as he finished his work and it gave her the opportunity to really look at him. Not just his appearance, but taking in everything he was.

“What will you do if you can’t save this hotel?”

He took long enough to form an answer that she’d almost thought he’d gotten upset with her again. Instead, he replied in a quiet voice that deeply saddened her to the core.

“I really don’t know.”

Celeste Stuff

Basic Character Questions

First name? Celeste

Nicknames? Cela 

Date of birth? September 23rd 

Age: Thirty-three

 Physical / Appearance

Height? 5'

Build? She's got a soft build. Wide hips and full, heavy breasts. No real muscle tone, except for her legs and backside.

Hair color? Dark brown at the roots, fading to a lighter tone at the ends. Shock of dark blonde at the front of her head. 

Hair style? It's just...so much hair. She keeps it pinned up for the most part, but if she let it down it would fall to the tops of her thighs. She twists it up like a crown at the top of her head, framing her face with what can't be contained, tucking the strands behind her ears. 

Eye colour? Green, like seaglass

Distinguishing facial features? A heavy smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks.

Which facial feature is most prominent? Her lips. The top lip has a sharp cupid's bow, the lower lip is full and pronounced. 

Which bodily feature is most prominent? Her hair. There's just so damn much of it. Second would be her chest. A lot of that, too. 

Hands? Long elegant fingers with short, manicured nails. She pays a lot of attention to her hands, as often as she has to scrub for examinations and deliveries, her skin dries quickly. She loves a luxurious lotion or oil.

Makeup? Not a fan in day to day practice. If she's invited to the palace for a formal affair, she has no qualms about a dramatic eye with lots of violets and a bold brow, soft lip. When the mood takes her, she'll wear dark red lipstick. 

Scars? A few burns on her arms from miscalculating the angle of removing things from the oven. 

Type of clothes? She tends toward linen and cotton dresses when she's home in gem tones. She likes to "borrow" Asra's tunics. At work, she wears a structured uniform of Julian's choosing, with a lot of piping, high collar and long skirt. If it's cold, she's usually sent out in massive furs. 

What are their feet like? Her feet are as immaculately manicured and kempt as her hands. She wears short, ankle-height leather boots with a pointed toe and thick, short, sensible heel. 

Are they in good health? When she's making good choices and not draining all her magic, generally. 

 Personality

Are they more optimistic or pessimistic?  Optimistic. Or, rather, stubborn. She can get in her head about somethings but knows that if she goes at it at the right angle she'll usually succeed, even when it's hard. 

Are they introverted or extroverted? Introverted. She decided to live with the hermit, after all. 

Do they ever put on airs? When Lucio is around. It's not even conscious, she just hates him so very much and wants him to know that she's superior in every way. Pretty much the only person she has that strong negative opinion of. 

What bad habits do they have? Giving too much of herself and not knowing when to take a step back. 

What makes them laugh out loud? So many things. 

How do they display affection? Acts of service and physical touch. 

How do they want to be seen by others? As someone that can be relied on. A healer, putting others first.

How are they seen by others? Trustworthy if a bit strange. Townspeople can never quite figure out what's going on with her and her men, so she has been a source of gossip. It hasn't hindered anyone from coming to her in their time of need. 

Strongest character trait? Boundless love and devotion. 

Weakest character trait? Not knowing when to quit. 

How competitive are they? There's a little streak of it. Maybe more than a little. 

Do they make snap judgments or take time to consider? A little from column a, a little from column b. 

How do they react to praise? She loves it. It gives her warm, tingly feelings. Unfortunately, it all comes out a little "Shut up, baby, I know it." 

How do they react to criticism? Poorly. Not the person to offer criticism to, constructive or otherwise. She will shut down. 

What are their biggest secrets? Her private "birthday parties" for Julian. She sees it as a necessary evil, but not one that will be particularly well-received if word got out. Hence, wiping his memory the next morning. 

When was the last time they cried? All the damn time. She's got a lot of feelings, okay? 

What are their political views? That there's always more that can be done to improve the lives of the people, and when that gets clouded, society suffers. 

What will they stand up for? Justice, Equality, Love. 

Are they indoorsy or outdoorsy? Outdoorsy. 

What quality do they most value in a friend? Knowing when to intervene on her behalf. 

What do they consider an overrated virtue? Temperance. 

If they could change one thing about themselves, what would it be? Not a damn thing. 

 Friends and Family

How big is their family?  Growing. She has Asra, his parents, Muriel, and Julian. She will have the babies, too, soon. 

What is their perception of a family? It's the most important thing. Even if it isn't blood, you can forge your own family. 

Describe their best friend. How do you describe Julian Devorak? 

Do they have any pets? Inanna and Faust. She hasn't found a familiar that truly suits her. 

 Past and Future

What is their greatest achievement? Arguably, beating the devil. Getting Muriel to accept that they were just going to be in love forever and that he needed to calm the hell down is a close second. 

What was their first kiss like? The first one she remembers was like fireworks and rainbows, which seems silly and childish, but that's what kissing Asra is like. Pure, childlike innocence and all-encompassing passion. But, there have been a lot of first kisses, and they are all magical. 

What is the worst thing they did to someone they loved? Gave up and moved on after holding on for too long. 

What advice would they give their younger self? It won't be easy, but it will be worth it. 

What past actions are they most ashamed of? She has a lot of pain surrounding Julian and not being able to just fully let him go, and it leads to her making some questionable choices. 

Has anyone ever saved their life? Too many times. 

 Love

Do they believe in love at first sight? Absolutely. 

Are they in a relationship? Oh, yeah. 

When did your character last have sex? This morning. Twice. 

What sort of sex do they have? Um...What kind of sex doesn't she have? 

Has your character ever been in love? A lot. Too much.

Have they ever had their heartbroken? Yes. Badly. 

 Conflict

How do they respond to a threat? It depends on how immediate the threat is.

Are they most likely to fight with their fists or their tongue? Magic first, fists next. 

If your character could only save one thing from their burning house, what would it be? Anything can be replaced. But, if pressed, the ring that Muriel and Asra created for her when they wed. 

What is their choice of weapon? Magic. 

What living person do they most despise? Lucio. Depending on your definition of "living". 

Where do they go when they’re angry? Bed, or to the waterfall. 

 Work

What is their current job? Midwife and healer. 

What do they think about their current job? It's important, necessary work that she feels passionately about. 

What are some of their past jobs? Royal magician, shopkeeper. 

What is their socioeconomic status? There's a lot of bejeweled shells to go around. She doesn't accept payment for her services.

 Favorites

What is their favorite animal? All the animals. 

Which animal to they dislike the most? Not big on spiders, but she leaves them to their own devices. 

What place would they most like to visit? She would like to go back to Nopal once the babies are born. Possibly to the steppe, if Muriel can manage it. 

What is the most beautiful thing they’ve ever seen? Muriel and Asra tangled up in each other in the moonlight. It is heartbreakingly, achingly gorgeous. 

What is their favorite song? I'll just say her "theme" is Crystal by Stevie Nicks from the Practical Magic soundtrack. 

Music, art, reading preferred? Reading. 

What is their favorite color? Greens and Purples. 

Favorite food: She loves seafood, but enjoys most food and loves to cook. 

 Possessions

What is in their icebox: Fresh Eels, black ale, blue-tongued skink, lots of fruit and vegetables, cider, cheeses. 

What is on their bedside table? A vase with belladonna and forget-me-nots. 

What is in their pockets? Gems and shells. A gold compact with a mirror. Extra hairpins. 

What is their most treasured possession? Her heart. 

 Spirituality

Who or what is your character’s guardian angel? Asra. 

Do they believe in the afterlife? Yes. 

What do they think heaven is? 3 am, half-awake, in the arms of her lovers, one at each breast, snoring softly. 

What do they think hell is? Absence. Separation. Emptiness. 

Are they superstitious? Yep. 

How would they like to die? At home, with her family sending her on. 

What is their zodiac sign? Libra. 

 Values

What do they think is the worst thing that can be done to a person? She firmly believes there are no ambitions great enough to justify the breaking of someone's heart. 

What is their view of ‘freedom’? Choice. 

When did they last lie? March 12th. 

What’s their view of lying? Fairly intolerant. She has been known to make exceptions. 

 Daily life

What are their eating habits? Love eating. Love cooking. 

Describe their home. A cozy cabin in a clearing, built by Muriel when he realized she really wasn't going anywhere. 

Are they minimalist or a clutter hoarder? She's a minimalist that lives with hoarders. It can be a bit trying. 

What do they do first thing on a weekday morning? She pulls herself out of bed and goes to get ready for work. 

What do they do on a Sunday afternoon? Spends all day making dinner, then all evening laying around, snuggling up. 

What do they do on a Friday night? She might sneak off to Portia's for a girl's night. 

What is their alcoholic drink of choice? Moscato or a nice spicy hard cider. 

 Miscellaneous

If they could save one person, who would it be? Too hard to answer. Save everyone or die trying. 

If they could call one person for help, who would it be? Asra. 

What is their favorite proverb? Love is blind. 

What is their greatest extravagance? She has some lovely jewelry. Delicate gold pieces with rare gems. 

What is their greatest regret? Failing Julian. 

What is their favorite fairytale? The Little Mermaid. The original version, where she has to do good deeds to earn her soul. 

Do they believe in happy endings? How could she not? 

What would they ask a fortune-teller? What time will you be home for dinner? 

If your character could travel through time, where would they go? Before. Just to fully understand. 

Dragon-Rider (RWBY AU Snippet)

No one knows where the first dragons came from. We know only that they arrived long ago and that, for a brief time, they took human form and lived amongst us. From the dragons, we learned magic and countless other arts and crafts. Yet in time, the dragons left.

But their legacy remained.

For the power of the dragons lingered in the blood of their descendants. We call them the dragon-blessed, people with the blood of dragons flowing through their veins who can, with time and practice, assume the form of a dragon themselves.

The dragon-blessed have always played a prominent role in our history. They have forged empires, unlocked the secrets of magic, and brought both prosperity and suffering to the world in equal measure. Yet they are needed now more than ever before.

When the Grimm first came, no one was afraid. What was one monster? What was ten? But it didn’t stop there. Ten became a hundred. A hundred became a thousand. A thousand became ten thousand. The Grimm grew to numbers beyond counting, and soon, all too soon, the nations of the world were under siege. Cities fell, nations burned, and empires were brought to ruin.

The Grimm were too many, and amongst them were monsters of incredible power. Only the dragon-blessed could stand against them, but not even they could face the Grimm alone. For amongst the descendants of dragons were those who could not take on the form of a dragon. Instead, they could lend their strength to the dragon-blessed, and the two together would become far more powerful than either alone could ever hope to be.

They call these people dragon-riders.

And this is the story of a dragon-rider named Ruby Rose.

X     X     X

“Come on!” Ruby cried. “Pour on the speed, Yang! You’re getting lazy!”

Beneath Ruby, the golden dragon gave a low rumble of amusement, before she folded her wings and dove. Like a bolt of lightning, Yang raced toward the ground. The wind whipped past, and Ruby gave a cry of delight as her sister pulled up at the last second and then streaked upward, each powerful beat of her wings carrying them higher into the clear sky.

Yang’s dragon form was that of a solar dragon - a dragon who wielded light and fire as their weapon - and although she wasn’t the fastest dragon in the air, her durability and strength were both outstanding. 

A few stray birds gave squawks of alarm as Yang drew level with them and bared her teeth. Still squawking, they wheeled away, unwilling to stay anywhere near the massive reptile.

“Stop teasing them, Yang,” Ruby chided. The harness that held her securely onto her sister’s back was a custom model, one designed to keep her firmly in place no matter how fast her sister went. They’d switched to it after realising just what Ruby’s ability as a dragon-rider was.

Speed.

Pure unadulterated speed.

With agility to match.

Ruby had only been able to use this aspect of her ability for less than three years, but it was already accepted that with it, Yang was the fastest dragon in the sky, as well as the most agile. They’d yet to lose a practice bout in the air with it active, and the Grimm they’d faced had been easy prey, unable to keep up with them at all.

Ready to give it a go? Yang asked, her voice unchanged in Ruby’s head.

“Yeah.” Ruby lowered her posture, pressing herself flat against Yang’s scales. As always, her sister was incredibly warm, like sitting on a rock that had been in the sun all afternoon. “Now?”

Now.

There was a rush of power, and Yang’s golden scales were suddenly streaked with red. Her already impressive speed doubled in a matter of seconds and then doubled again. Ruby felt the air ahead of them thicken as Yang’s magic increased to ward off the growing pressure. Yang’s eyes gleamed, and Ruby felt the muscles beneath her shift as Yang fought for every scrap of speed she could get. 

There was a sudden shift, and Ruby gave a scream of delight as they broke through the sound barrier. It was something that had long been considered impossible for any dragon to do, but her magic made it possible. Below her, Yang gave a roar of her own before adjusting her wings to better deal with the change in conditions. Indeed, they’d almost crashed the first time they did this before realising how to better handle traveling at supersonic speeds.

Like a golden meteor, they streaked through the sky, and Ruby shuddered as her sister banked sharply to one side before spinning upward into the sky only to drop into a loop at the peak of her ascent. The world spun wildly, and Ruby tightened her grip on the harness as Yang rolled once, twice, three times and then began to zig zag back and forth between mountaintops.

No one had ever imagined that a dragon could go this fast, and even fewer people had believed a dragon could go this fast and be this agile. It made them an absolute nightmare to face in battle, especially when Yang used her magic.

Like all solar dragons, Yang could cover herself in a mantle of fire and light that could do immense damage to anything unfortunate enough to run into her. However, Yang’s personal magic allowed her to absorb damage and use that to boost her reserves. When she combined those two abilities, Yang could transform herself into a flying wrecking ball that only got stronger the more things she ran into.

They were about to practice that exact manoeuvre when Ruby felt the charm around her wrist pulse. Her brows furrowed. “Yang, slow down!”

Her sister slowed, and Ruby cut off her magic. The charm only ever pulsed if someone from the academy was trying to communicate with them. She raised her arm and ran her magic through the charm. Her father’s voice filled the air.

“Ruby, we need you and Yang to come back. We’ve got a special visitor. It’s probably best if you’re here to meet her since she’s actually here to see you.”

“Oh?” Ruby leaned to one side as Yang banked to turn back toward the academy. “Who is it?”

“It’s a surprise. But let me put it this way. You’ll know her when you see her.”

X     X     X

Ruby patted Yang’s scales. They were travelling at a much more sedate pace since their father and the other instructors had made it very clear that travelling through the air over the academy at supersonic speeds was a recipe for disaster. There were other dragon-blessed and dragon-riders to consider. A collision at that speed might not hurt them too badly thanks to Yang’s magic, but it could easily injure or even kill a less experienced pair.

“I wonder who it’ll be?”

Probably someone from one of the other academies who wants to borrow you for a couple of weeks. Yang bristled. They need to find their own dragon-riders.

“Well, there aren’t really all that many dragon-riders whose magic does what mine does,” Ruby said. “And being able to travel at supersonic speeds while actually gaining agility is pretty useful.” She peered ahead. “Are those dragon-blessed?”

Yang shrugged her immense shoulders. In her dragon form, her sight was far, far, far better than Ruby’s would ever be. Yes. None of them are anything too weird… oh.

“What?”

They’ve got a glyph dragon.

“A glyph dragon?” Ruby almost squealed. “Really?”

Solar dragons were relatively rare, but they weren’t confined to a single bloodline or family. Glyph dragons, though, were different. Only one family of dragon-blessed had ever shown the ability to transform into glyph dragons - the Schnee family.

In purely physical terms, a glyph dragon was no match for a solar dragon. Even though Yang still had some growing to do, she would still be able to knock any glyph dragon around like a piñata if she could get her claws on them. However, glyph dragons were exceptionally fast and agile in the air. But what truly set them apart was their breath.

All dragon-blessed could unleash breath attacks of some kind or another in their dragon forms. The most common, of course, being fire breath. As a solar dragon, Yang was capable of three forms of breath attack: fire, light, and a super-concentrated combination of the two that was closer to a laser or plasma. Glyph dragons were different. Instead of breathing fire, they breathed raw magic, which they could shape into glyphs that had different effects. 

This was devastating for two simple reasons. First and foremost, a dragon-blessed’s magic was orders of magnitude more powerful in their dragon form. And secondly, glyphs were the crystallised forms of spells. The glyph version of a spell was almost always far more powerful than the spoken or gestured form of a spell.

Combine the two, and glyph dragons were basically flying weapons of magical mass destruction. Winter Schnee had famously destroyed tens of thousands of Grimm in her dragon form without the aid of a dragon-rider after using a combination of dozens of glyphs to create an explosion large enough to destroy an entire city in a single attack.

“Are you sure?” Ruby cried. “Are you really sure?”

Unless some other kind of dragon can suddenly breathe glyphs, I’m pretty sure that’s a glyph dragon hovering over the academy.

“Speed up!” Ruby said. “I can’t wait to see them!”

Not a chance. I don’t think we want to startle them.

“Fine.” Ruby huffed. “At least make sure we come in at a good angle. I’ve never seen a glyph dragon before.”

Sure thing, sis.

Yang kept her word. They came in from the west, and Ruby had a perfect view of the glyph dragon hovering over the academy. Her eyes widened in awe. Pristine white scales adorned a slender, graceful form that was at odds with Yang’s bulkier, sturdier physique. Broad, sweeping wings beat the air, and the glyph dragon’s neck was a long, serpentine column that led to a head crowned with a pair of sinuous, curling horns.

“Wow…” Ruby breathed. “They’re beautiful.”

Yang snorted. Should I be jealous?

“Well, you’re beautiful too,” Ruby said quickly. “But… yeah…” She stared dreamily. “It’s like looking at a snowflake in the shape of a dragon.”

Let’s go say hello.

Yang eased her speed even further as an immense glyph appeared in the air in front of the other dragon’s mouth. It pulsed a deep, vivid green for a moment, before the damaged walls of the academy began to repair themselves. Ruby gave a low whistle of admiration. Those had been damaged during the last Grimm attack, and it would have taken weeks to repair them. 

“Hey!” Ruby shouted. “Hello!”

Yang rolled her eyes. Dragon’s have keen hearing, Ruby, but there are easier ways to communicate. Yang settled into position about a hundred yards away from the other dragon. Hello.

The other dragon finally shifted, and the voice that greeted them was that of a young woman. Hello. You must be Yang Xiao Long and Ruby Rose.

We are.

The glyph dragon inclined her head in a slow, elegant gesture. I am Weiss Schnee.

“Nice to meet you!” Ruby shouted.

Perhaps we should have this discussion on the ground. Weiss’s voice was filled with a hint of amusement. This is a little awkward.

Sure. Yang angled toward one of the massive landing zones the academy used. The moment she touched the ground, her body was enveloped in golden light. When it faded, Yang was in her human form. As usual, she reached out to catch Ruby with both arms. The harness she’d worn clattered to the ground a short distance away.

“Thanks,” Ruby said.

“No problem.” Yang looked over as Weiss landed and transformed back into her human form. There wasn’t always a great deal of correspondence between the two forms, but in Weiss’s case there was. As a dragon, Weiss was slender, poised, and elegant. As a human she was much the same, albeit a tad shorter than Yang had expected. Oh well. The Schnees weren’t known for their height.

“So…” Yang walked over with Ruby. “Welcome to Signal Academy.”

Weiss inclined her head. “It’s good to be here.” Her gaze shifted past Yang to Ruby. “So… you’re the one I’ve been hearing so much about.”

“Uh… yeah?” Ruby was openly staring at Weiss, and Yang bit back a laugh. Her little sister had only just begun to discover that hormones were, in fact, a real thing.

“I will be speaking to your father and the other instructors here about some important matters, but there is something I would like to ask you.” Weiss knelt. “Ruby… will you be my dragon-rider?”

“…” Ruby stared. “Uh… why are you kneeling?”

Weiss tilted her head to one side. “It is customary for a dragon-blessed to kneel when asking a dragon-rider to accompany them, at least it is in Atlas.”

Yang put one arm around Ruby. “You’ve got a lot of nerve coming here and asking her out of the blue like that.”

Weiss stayed kneeling. “Atlas finds itself in a precious position. There is a Grimm that has been assailing our settlements. It is an aerial Grimm of unprecedented speed and agility in the air. None of our dragon-blessed can keep up with it, so it has been able to attack without mercy before retreating with impunity.”

“So… you want Ruby to be your dragon-rider, so you can go off and kill it?”

Weiss nodded. “Yes.”

“Um… maybe get up first.” Ruby looked around. “People are staring.”

Weiss stood and straightened the coat she was wearing. “Very well.” She looked over to where the instructors had begun to arrive. “We shall continue this discussion later.” 

“Uh, sure.” Ruby nodded slowly.

“We might as well go along,” Yang said. “Since I’m pretty sure she’ll be asking dad and the other instructors about borrowing you.”

“Well, it would only be for a bit, right? And Atlas are our allies.”

Yang ruffled Ruby’s hair. “We’ve been training together since we were kids, Ruby. I don’t like just handing you over to someone we don’t know. What if they don’t take good care of you? Us dragon-blessed are pretty tough, but you dragon-riders are kind of squishy.”

“Maybe that’s why she came here,” Ruby said. “I mean… it’s not like dad would just send me off without being sure I would be taken care of. Maybe she’s here to, you know, show her stuff.”

“Well, hopefully her stuff can cut it,” Yang said. “Because if not, there’s no way we’ll let them borrow you.”

X     X     X

Author’s Notes

This is just another one of those random ideas that popped into my head. It’s RWBY but with dragons and dragon riders… but sort of with a twist. Let me know if you think it’s worth carrying on.

You can find me on fanfiction.net, AO3, and Amazon.

Definitely check out my Amazon stuff if you enjoy my sense of humour.

Daydreaming, channeling fictional characters, being very influensed by any sensory input and creating worlds of your own

I’ve been looking for words/terminology for a few concepts that are so close to myself that I never thought about putting them into words - I didn’t need any words for something so ever-present. I now need words for it, because due to a discussion with a coworker I wanted to find if there was any research on these things and neuroatypicality.

The first concept is that of being very, very influensed by whatever media/show/song/character/fictional world that my mind decides to emerge itself totally in. This concept should, given that almost everyone I know around tumblr are from fandoms, not be very alien to most people here. The thing is, I never really considered how much of this was interest driven and how much was my brain being rather... suggestable? Because it isn’t just that if I really, really like a show, I watch it over and over again. Actually, mostly I don’t. Instead, I explore everything connected to it, as rewatching the show/movies themselves too much might actually put limits to the vivid fictional universe that’s expanding inside my mind due to said show/movies. Fanfiction is, for this purpose, excellent. So many different adaptions of a theme I already love, with just enough variability and novel ideas to further fuel the expansion and add details to the fictional universe. Music connected to a fic/podfic that affected my greatly can run on repeat for weeks, evoking memories of the story and creating new images and details, and enveloping me in an incredibly ‘safe’ bubble of said fictional universe. It’s not a ‘bubble’ - because there isn’t really an ‘inside’ and an ‘outside’ of that fictional universe in my mind; it colours so much of my mind, blends and creates new associations; new objects, colours, words, features or songs that will make me smile and think of the fictional universe and its characters and enhance the thrill of it all. It feels thrilling and safe simultaneously, and it’s probably more personal to me than anything else, almost. I generally only hint at exactly where my mind’s at, and the obsessions of it, when talking to people close to me. I can’t explain just how much of me it affects; I will think and see things in the colours of that particular universe. I am never far from the sense of that reality, it’s always just a thought away, and it affects my choices, my priorities and even the inner narrator in my head. It’s not static - there are so many different angles and corners in the whole ‘fictional universe’ inside that it might take the voice/tone of one fic for some weeks, then change into another adaption, changing my outlook of things and what makes me curious as the focus of the stories influense my thinking. If I’ve just read a snarky, funny story related to that universe, that’s what my thoughts sound like. If I’ve read something more poetic, that will be my inner narration until something else distracts/takes over or becomes more prominent.

I guess what I wonder is this; is this what it’s like for most people in fandom, or just a subset of fans? Or, book-lovers or other lovers of fiction? And; are there any terminology for being this... easily influensed by input?

The second concept is that of ‘borrowing traits’ from characters; others’ characters or my own. While searching for possible research about similar things, I came across a blogpost that mirrored my experience almost perfectly. It described how the blogger channeled different characters of a show, taking on their traits, at work. They used music connected to the show to evoke it, and which character from the show would be channeled depended on the situation; did they need the wits of character A or the pragmatic realism of character B? What struck me most of all was one of the last sentences, in which they described that it wasn’t always a clearcut case of character C or character D - they could mingle/blend like colours, creating new fusions. 

This is, oddly enough, the first time I’ve read someone describe it in such a relatable way. Both using media to evoke it, and the blending of characters, picking up whatever traits suited the task or situation, but still feeling familiar due to being connected to a beloved show. I’ve only read a theory of something similar once before, in a Swedish novel, when they discussed the way people used the mythoological gods in similar manners - to wear a kind of sandal that reminded you of a particularly untouchable/invulnerable god when you wanted to feel like the other kids’ taunts weren’t touching you. I’ve done this my entire life, and it’s never been a choice, really, just something that happened automatically. I can’t not do it. There are, of course, a lot of the time when I’m not doing it/thinking about it. But most of the time, it’s somewhere in the background, colouring me and my own concept of me and what I want and what I like. Due to this little oddity of my brain, I don’t exactly have very much of a set personality - I only have traits that are more or less pronounced depending in what universe my mind is currently emerged in. Or so it feels. I don’t mind, really, although it makes me wonder, at times. My values don’t change too much, but they too are affected. My impulses, wants and obsessions certainly are affected. They’re mine, but they are... very entwined with whatever is currently replaying in my head and taking up all the space there.

What I wonder about this is basically the same as for the first concept; are there words for it, and is it like this for many people? I know, as my professional life is all about talking to people about how they function, that it isn’t like this for everyone. If it was, I would probably have picked up on it at some point... 

Lastly; I have read quite a bit about maladaptive/excessive daydreaming, and I relate to this concept, but I find that my own version of this is less static, and the alternative worlds more changable and easily influenced than what’s described. Otherwise, it very much fits the bill for the first concept I’m looking for. The second concept, however, is trickier to find terminology to use in order to google for possible research or similar. And now I’m curious, because it’d be really interesting to see what the world of psychology thinks about these things. I probably won’t fully agree or buy into whatever theories there are, but that doesn’t mean I’m not curious to see these things put into words, possibly with theories or explainations attached to them. That’d be very interesting.

Plus; I’m also interested to find out if these things are in any way connected to neuroatypicality (my hypothesis, given that the only somewhat relatable things I’ve heard about similar concept have come from neuroatypical people), and it’d be neat to be able to prove/disprove that hypothesis, not only for the sake of the discussion with my coworker....

So. I wrote this mostly for myself, I realise at this point, but... Anyone have any input?

Google Says WHAT?! --A mini-fic

I’ve been reading the Hundred-Year Playlist series by the amazing @girlbookwrm and also creeping on other people’s comments on the story, because that’s something I do with stories I like. @girlbookwrm mentioned, in one of the comments-conversations, that if you Google “queer 1930s Brooklyn” you get Steve Rogers fan research on the first page of results. I may have swooped in to say that Tony’s reaction if he accidentally saw that, in-universe, would be hilarious, and then-- this happened.

It’s a bit more serious than I originally intended it to be, but still has some levity to it.

Story below the cut and maybe eventually on Ao3.  Takes place a few days after CA:TWS, because who better than Tony to sift through the SHIELD/Hydra data dump?

“Really, sir,” said JARVIS, “I must strongly advise you to go to bed.”

“Great,” Tony said absently. “You’ve given me the advice. Now you can feel good about it.”

“Sir . . . .”

Tony pushed his chair back from the table, spinning a little as it drifted smoothly across the lab until he was juuuust within reach of the countertop where he’d left his coffee. He picked it up and took a sip. Not too cold, yet.

Almost, but not quite.

“Look, JARVIS,” he said out loud, “I’m not working with fire, I’m not operating heavy machinery, I’m not actually making anything. I’ve even slept in the last 24 hours. Why are you on my case?”

“It is the total amount of sleep you’ve had in the past five days that concerns me, sir.”

Tony snorted.

“. . . and your reactions to some of the information uncovered by the Black Widow’s information dump at the beginning of that time.”

Tony put his mug down on the counter. It made a sharp clack sound. Not like the normal ting or click-thump of putting down a drink--this was loud, attention-grabbing, the sound of ceramic hitting on granite countertop just barely not hard enough to break.

Great. Now his coffee was a drama queen.

“Look,” he said. “It is entirely in character for Obie to have been paid off by someone to do what he did, and he needed sketchier contacts than Stark Industries has to get in with the Ten Rings. Might as well have been Hydra. I honestly could have put that together if I’d had time to stop and think before everybody I know called me up and asked me to start going through those files, it just rattled me that I didn’t and then that came up, okay? Honestly, I’m kind of surprised Rhodey didn’t think of it first and warn me when he called,” he added thoughtfully, “except I’m pretty sure Rhodey hasn’t slept in a lot longer than I haven’t. --Shouldn’t you be bugging him?”

“Colonel Rhodes is not my priority,” JARVIS said mildly. “And I believe he would agree with my assessment of your needs in this situation--as would Ms. Potts, who has repeatedly contacted me from the construction site in Malibu to inquire as to your well-being. I would hate to tell her you’re neglecting yourself.”

Tony stopped scowling at his lukewarm coffee and its noisy mug and moved the scowl to the ceiling. Technically JARVIS’s sensors were at least as dense at mid-wall and in the baseboards, but JARVIS would know what he meant. “You,” he said, “are a cheating cheater who cheats.”

“You did build me, sir.” JARVIS’ voice was extra-bland. He only did that when he was very pleased with himself. Tony sure as hell hadn’t made that part of him.

Artificial intelligences. They grew up so fast.

“Fine,” Tony said after a moment. “I won’t go down that particular rabbit hole anymore tonight, alright? No more looking to see how long Obie was working for Hydra, no more sniffing around what happened when—” His hands clenched tight enough to hurt and he made himself relax.

“I won’t follow up on the ‘was Obadiah Stane involved in the car crash’ angle until tomorrow. In fact, I won’t look at the secret files anymore. Just give me a few more minutes to finish up a couple trains of thought about other things from them, and then I’ll call Pepper myself, okay?”

“If you must, sir.”

~

Tony really was being good, dammit. He didn’t follow up on anything he thought could be related to Obie or his parents’ death. He didn’t go looking for anything new and unpleasant. He didn’t do anything but follow the money, because Hydra couldn’t have come out of nowhere. Once they got into the US government, sure, money wouldn’t be an issue, but how do you get your secret little evil organization off the ground? Couldn’t exactly ask around for angel investors.

No, all he was doing now was hunting for cash. He was going to figure out just how far down the rabbit holes went (the hydra-holes? Something something Hercules burying the immortal head under a rock and the other heads grew two more unless you torched them and arson would cover up a lot of records of failed operations but not all of them and THAT was interesting funding-wise, because to extend the Greek monster metaphor and borrow from that one D&D comic, you actually would get lightheaded and pass out if you had too many heads and too little blood supply to deliver oxygen and so they needed some stable sources of income in this heads-are-evil-operations-blood-is-money metaphor and again, once you were embedded in a government organization, you could totally just use that funding, but they weren’t like that to begin with and if you were going to get started as mostly outside a government operation in the US but needed the ties to get in, you needed money, and leverage, and that meant organized crime, and that meant—)

Long story short, he was looking up the history of various criminal organizations in the US and trying to figure out which ones might have been started by Hydra, or which other, older organizations they might have taken over or just steered in the ways they wanted. That meant reading about, among other things, the Mafia and their various sources of revenue going back to--based on what he knew about business and networking and family ties and inheritance and seriously, fuck you, Obie--about a generation and a half before the official, formal rise of Hydra as a Nazi science organization, to see if that would connect up with ties made even later when Hydra people came over in the fifties. So basically, large-scale criminal enterprises from the early 1900s on.

Maybe it took a little more than a few minutes.

On the other hand, it was a particularly fascinating more-than-a-few-minutes. People had gotten homicidal over really weird shit in the dark ages. Street gangs beating up people until they sold a different newspaper--now that was aggressive marketing. Tony still hated pop-up ads--Stark Ad Annihilator was the best adblock software on the market for a reason, that reason being that Tony had been bored and hopped up on decongestants one day and--anyway. Still better than getting stabbed to death. And then of course there were the hilariously inventive ways people had come up with of making, smuggling, and secretly serving booze during Prohibition, and that was probably where he really ought to be looking if he was going to follow the money. But there were all these interesting little spinoffs, like—

“The mob owned a lot of gay bars?” Tony said out loud, frowning. “What, like—’da boss says love is love. Dis is an equal-opportunity institution’?” He snickered. (It was not a giggle.) “That’s probably too funny to be accurate.”

“Indeed, sir,” JARVIS said. “The article you are about to click on reports, in summary, that the mafia had a great deal of expertise in running illegal nightclubs. When Prohibition ended, some mob bosses saw an opportunity to maintain this revenue stream.”

“That makes a decent amount of sense. Not very funny, but—” He waggled his hand. “Could see da business sense.” He snickered again.

“Quite,” JARVIS replied. “Sir, I must remind you—”

“Yeah, yeah. Just a few more minutes, J.” Tony glanced up briefly. “Promise.”  

“I will hold you to it, sir.”

Tony nodded absently— “sure, whatever”--already looking through a few other databases. The proto-SHIELD organization had been based in New York City for a while--with other offices elsewhere--before its official rebranding and move to DC, which meant he was looking for people with behind-the-scenes pull in NYC in the fifties.

“JARVIS, if you’re mother-henning, help me out and open up a few Google searches.”

“Sir?” JARVIS sounded marginally offended.

“I need crappy, surface-level information. Broad strokes. Your searches are too good. Give me anything they’ve got for searches on banking, politics, real estate, whatever pseudoscience or spiritualism was big at the time, and hell, why not, the LGBT community--all of those--in the twenties, the thirties, and the forties, and then take those results and show me anything that cross-references with our SHIELD people of interest in the fifties or later.”

A pause.

“Done, sir.”

“Anything good?”

“A few more data points to cross-reference with other sources. We may have the beginnings of a paper trail on the history and extent of Mr. Stane’s involvement with the organization, related to his business ties before Stark Industries, but—”

“Skip that,” Tony ordered. He wasn’t going to go into that. Not tonight. Not until he had everything he needed to chart out the whole festering shit-show and deal with it all at once.

“As you wish, sir. Two, perhaps three, of the prominent city council members at the time may have had ties to Hydra, most likely unknowingly. A housekeeper’s murder may have been precipitated by something she overheard rather than her affair with her employer, although the perpetrator may be the same woman as originally suspected. There may be more behind the apparent suicide of a SSR agent and a deadly riot at a movie theater than was originally suspected as well--though in those cases the revelation is the extent of the foul play, not its presence. There are also a few cases I have flagged as false positives. Would you like to review those?”

Tony stood up and stretched, his spine popping. Ow. “Sure,” he said, yawning, “they’ll be funny. And then I’ll call Pepper and go to bed,” he added, rolling his eyes, “so don’t say anything.”

“That is wonderful news, sir.”

The false-positive Google searches appeared as holographic screens around him. The first one was about a shady real estate deal that Hydra clearly hadn’t had a hand in, because the fact they didn’t own a particular piece of land later was a real hindrance to them, so that was good. The triumph of run-of-the-mill white-collar crime over evil. Or something.

The next few were restaurant reviews, for some reason. About all they proved was that foody talk from seventy years ago was just as weird as foody talk today, except people back then had really really liked preservatives as much as they really really hated them now.

Another search result was a Buzzfeed article: “17 of Howard Stark’s most hilarious parking tickets.” Apparently his dad had had a bad habit of just leaving cars lying around once he’d modified them with anti-theft mechanisms. One had sprayed a cloud of skunk musk at the officer leaving the ticket. Judging by the comments, people thought this was hilarious. They were all missing the point of the collateral stink-damage to bystanders and nearby cars. Tony could do it better than his dad ever had. Tony could do better in his sleep.

That left a sour taste in his mouth. --His brain? His mouth tasted awful, come to think of it, like the stale coffee now gone stone-cold at his elbow and too long without sleep, but that wasn’t the point. He needed mind Mentos, was the point. Next false positive.

(this is the actual search result!)

Tony started cackling.

“Are you alright, sir?” JARVIS asked.

“Yeah,” Tony said, clicking on the flagged article. “Yeah, I’m fine. What, this came up because of—?”

“Confluence of a known Hydra target and the search term ‘queer 1930s Brooklyn.’”

“Like the rainbow mafia, that makes sense when you think about it.” Tony shook his head. “Oh man, I’m gonna tell Cap that someone’s turned their history project on him into the history of Grindr.”

“Sir?”

“He blushes like a lobster. This’ll be the best. Thank you for this, J, you’ve made my night.”

“Are you going to leave the laboratory at any point in the near future, sir?”

“Yes, Mom, as soon as I read this actual article because even though it’s probably not really about Grindr, I’m sure there’ll be plenty in there I can embarrass Steve with. . . .  --Oooh, excellent subtitle. ‘Mr. Rogers’ Gayborhood,’ I’ll have to . . . .”

He trailed off absently as he realized what he was reading. “Huh. --JARVIS, how deep in the search results was this buried?”

“About halfway up the first page, sir.”’

“Huh.”

“Are you alright, sir?”

“Fine, it’s just--really good historical research, kind of light tone, but actually . . . probably not a horny undergrad messing with a history prof on a paper assignment. And the comments are . . . people are agreeing with . . . There are historical documents here.  --OK, real search engine time, JARVIS: is there some sort of, like, scholarly and/or Internet message board consensus that Captain America is gay and I missed it?!”

“It appears to be a topic of heated debate, actually,” JARVIS replied, “the foremost proponents of which are adamant about it not being a joke.”

“Okay,” Tony said, “I know about the clone conspiracy theorists and the Russian conspiracy theorists and the weird cultists and the Reagan administration snake-people conspiracy theorists, and I know he does too. How does Steve not know about this already?”

“He does, sir.”

Tony made a wheezing, squeaking noise, torn between hilarity and incredulity.

“The Captain has apparently been approached on occasion--in person, informally, and inconspicuously, most often by people who have written scholarly articles on the subject—”

“He has?”

“--and has refused to give any meaningful reply one way or another, other than that it’s not really anyone else’s business.”

Tony blinked. He was familiar with that bland kind of shutdown. It did not go well with the picture of flustered, wrong-footed Cap that his head kept trying to give him. He got flustered when he didn’t know what was going on. He got calm and blank and authoritative when he did.

“His refusal to answer questions has been especially marked when asked about his relationship with James Barnes.”

Tony blinked again, reached out on autopilot, and took a gulp of his now definitely too cold and ugh ugh ugh awful coffee.

Once he’d finished gagging and had acknowledged that, yes, his mouth absolutely hated him and this was possibly worse than waking up hungover and tasting stale vomit because he had been sober and in control of his own behavior when he slugged that down, there were no excuses--once he was done with that little ritual of disgust, he frowned, then firmly swiped the article’s display off to one side. “Save that for tomorrow, J,” he said. “And start a new file. I’m getting to the bottom of this.”

“Are you certain that’s wise?”

“‘Is Cap into guys’ is a more fun mystery than ‘did a terrorist organization recruit my dad’s best friend to spike his drink or cut his brakes the night he died so he���d be out of their way,’ JARVIS,” Tony said heavily. “Let me have my fun.”

He might be imagining it, but he thought JARVIS sounded almost gentle when he said, “Of course, sir.”

***

CODA.

Tony had been asleep.

He knew he’d been asleep, and he knew he was awake now, and he wasn’t sure when he’d transitioned from sleeping to thinking or if he’d just woken up abruptly. It hadn’t been a nightmare. He was lying perfectly still, his heartbeat was regular, and he wasn’t sweating or anything. He was just lying in bed, awake, aware that he was awake, eyes open and staring at the ceiling.

“JARVIS,” Tony said.

“Yes, sir?”

“The guy Steve wouldn’t tell the Internet people about. That’s the same guy--that really weird message from Natasha . . . . ?”

“So it would appear.”

Tony thought for a minute.

“Well shit.”

“Aptly put, sir.”

Tony look at the ceiling some more.

“Merge the new folder I told you to make with the other one, the—”

“The folder entitled ‘Soviet Winter Reunion Tour or Something, Romanoff is Being Cryptic, Get Steve to Explain When He’s Conscious,’ sir?”

“Yeah, that one. Merge ‘em. Rename, uh, ‘Ancient History, Search and Rescue Edition.’ Mark it high priority.”

“Done, sir.”

“And JARVIS?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Send Pepper a bunch of flowers and see if you can maybe find an earlier flight for her to come home.”

RPG Campaign Setting Thoughts - Alignments, Death, and Outsiders

Continuing on from this post here, tonight we have some VERY sketchy notes about the Outer Planes and associated stuff, which is going to spill over from world-building into mechanics and this is all too loose for me to bother with anything resembling in-book presentation.

The Outer Planes have traditionally always served two purposes in this cosmology of D&D and its derivatives which are honestly somewhat at odds with each other. They are both the actual afterlife of the setting, where the souls of the dead end up, theoretically for eternity, and they’re where all the demons and devils and daemons and angels and maybe gods and a bunch of other really weird things that exist mainly for the sake of symmetry generally hang out when they aren’t being summoned so they tend to prominently feature as a way to go bigger and more epic late in a campaign. It’s also very much a tradition (which is weird because I can’t think of a single religion that actually works like this) where all of these supernatural creatures are what the souls of the dead BECOME in the afterlife. If you’re neutral good, when you die you become an angel. If you’re lawful evil, you become a devil, etc. (and there’s a lot of weird exceptions because there’s way more outsider types than alignment combinations, and that’s before also factoring in undead and reincarnation and so on).

The problem here of course is that sometimes, the PCs are going to end up dying, and having friends who die, and when you’ve established that that turns you into one of these cool types of monsters, and that those monsters can be summoned, dying turns into this weird sort of power-up, and this was fixed with a very... game designer sort of solution. Namely, when you die, you completely lose all your memories, skills, personal connections, and really by any reasonable standard straight up cease to exist, being replaced with some new outsider springing into being on whatever other plane who’s really just a different character doing their own thing. And, yeah, that solves that problem, but it creates the new one that WOW, THIS AFTERLIFE REALLY SUCKS!

Now, I did already establish for this setting the concept of a layered prime material plane, where you can essentially have your high level alternate universes as weird little pocket dimensions you can honestly just walk right into without even using magic... but I mean, visiting the outer planes is still a cool fun thing to do, and fighting demons is a cool fun thing to do, and your soul transforming into some weird thing in the afterlife is just neat. So I don’t want to drop any of that, but I want to make some tweaks.

Also? Death sucks game mechanics wise. Players, as it turns out decades down the road from when this whole RPG thing first began, tend to be really attached to their characters, and don’t want to just rip up their sheets when they die. They want to cheat death. Which is fine. But the way you cheat death is you pay a bunch of money and either have your cleric cast a quick spell (or rush back to town to find one) and tada, you’re back with some temporary experience penalty you either kinda walk off or buy off. Which is all very... weightless. And straight up losing cash sucks if you’re saving up to buy fancy magic stuff. AND you don’t even get to visit the afterlife really.

So... the standard raise dead spells? They’re gone or at least getting alterations (gotta keep reincarnate in some form because I have a soft spot for it). Plane shift? Also gone. Instead we are going to dust off our old pal Astral Projection, have it at a reasonable level, and no, when someone gets killed, you have to cast that sucker, chase them across the astral plane, maybe to one of the outer planes, and have this whole mini adventure of rescuing their soul and shoving it back in their body.

Also? I am sticking to a hard and fast rule that the material plane is the physical plane, and all the outer stuff is all souls and magic. Nobody gets to bring their body with them which also means you don’t get to bring all your fancy equipment. You’re either a ghost getting sucked into hell or you’re a demon that used to be a ghost or you’re still alive but effectively a ghost tethered to home by a silver cord.

By the same token, outsiders can’t just physically come over to the prime material plane. This is kind of a big fundamental shift in things, but at the end of the day, isn’t it just freaking weird that there’s never really been a place in D&D for demonic possession?

So, tada. That’s a thing now. Outsiders on the material plane need to borrow something to use as a body. A willing person to possess, or an unwilling person subjected to a proper ritual first, or a recently sacrificed corpse, maybe some kind of magical focus stone. This is one of the sketchier parts of the idea here, but no matter how it works out it’s a built in adventure hook, and it doesn’t really change a ton because obviously being possessed by a whatever dramatically transforms the host into the standard existing stat block until its defeated. Summon spells kinda need a material component or a focus I guess, or maybe even not because like you’re calling up a whatever but you can’t really anchor it so it just has this unstable body made of dust and debris and temporarily conjured matter.

I’m also tempted to straight up invent a new divine caster class to fit in with this theme that’s all about having some outside pal they let possess them in combat. Get the whole Devilman sorta thing going, Maybe in a little subsection with a really dex-y fighter and a different take on an arcane type and a rogue type for a really non-standard but complementary core 4.

Back on the side of dying and visiting the other planes though, I say this is a good place to wedge in a good ol’ corruption mechanic. If you die,and your friends manage to catch up to you while you’re streaking across the astral plane, cool, no harm, no foul. Once you end up in whatever plane though, you gradually start to turn into whatever sort of outsider. Subtle cosmetic stuff at first, sprouting horns and getting weird colored hair and maybe a tail first, some slight shifts in personality, and over months or years you just kinda naturally lean into that, and your class levels fade away, and you just kinda naturally go all in on being a mephit or an azata or whatever the hell thing.

And then when your friends do get your soul back and shove it into your body again, that weird metaphysical transformative soul corruption deal doesn’t just go away. That’s partially demonified you possessing your old body now, so, you keep the horns and the flaming eyes and stuff as a permanent reminder of that time you died for a bit and you can be all angsty about it and maybe rededicate yourself to something because that’s not an afterlife you want to go back to, and honestly if you’re the sort of person with a real thing for dramatic mid-campaign transformations and you want a character to look all furry or glowing or be a hot demon gal at higher levels without the mechanical baggage of transformation magic, hey, the door’s open a crack for you.

Also speaking of succubi, while I’m playing around with outsiders, this one has always bugged me. Say we’re going all 7 deadly sins. We’ve got our wrath demons- big angry spikey jerks, maybe on fire. We’ve got our sloth demons- big gross sluggy things who can barely move. Our gross-Kirby gluttony demons, etc. But then we get to lust and it’s this super hot seductress. That breaks the pattern and I hate it. I am definitely kicking them out of that niche and replacing them with proper lust demons, evoking super creepy long-fingered horny dudes.

And really there is room from there to expand into a two-tiered system of outsiders for every plane where there’s the things that are there because they’re what happens to the average person who had this alignment as their reward/punishment, and then there’s the things that are their to make sure things run the way they’re supposed to, are generally more powerful, and are formed from the souls of people who really actively served their patron deity in life. I’m mainly looking at this from the angle of “do the members of the cult of this demon lord realize that in the afterlife they’re all going to become lemures and realize how much that sucks?” but even on the good side, you have to figure the average paladin doesn’t want the blissful retirement package after death, they want to do the whole holy avenging archon sort of thing and continue to kick evil’s ass, right?

Which segues me into alignments. A lot of people absolutely hate the traditional law/chaos good/evil alignment system, but I find as long as you’re careful to use it descriptively rather than prescriptively and you don’t use really messed up alignment definitions (AD&D 2nd ed had some DOOZIES), it’s cool. There is one missing element I would like to formally add in though- An extra variable for mundane and divine/committed/radicalized versons of each. Breaking this down with specific examples...

First and foremost, I am a big big fan of neutral as the default alignment nearly everyone falls into, with everything else being a bit of an outlying extreme. On the good/evil axis then, neutral if for people who you would generally describe as basically good people. They know right from wrong, and generally always try to do the right thing, but they have a strong sense of self-preservation. Truly good people go past that and will, as a general rule, really stick their neck out and take major personal risks or do full-on self-sacrificial things to help people. Evil people are all about looking out for themselves first. Or put more simply, seeing someone being attacked/persecuted/in great need, a neutral person will think “someone should do something,” a good person will think “someone should do something and I’m that someone” and an evil person will think “sucks to be that person” and try not to think about them much.

Meanwhile on the law/chaos axis, lawful people have an unflinching commitment to some form of faith in the system/some particular authority/a rigid personal code of some kind.and will always work within that framework. If that’s always obeying the law, any plan that’s explicitly illegal is off the table, and if the law is unjust, working to change it is the way to go. If they’re super religious, doubting their own deity is never on the table. If they’re strict adherents to a code, they don’t make exceptions. “I’ll never allow suffering” never gets a quiet clause of “unless the person suffering is a scumbag who deserves it” they’re really going to intervene over that.

Someone who is chaotic meanwhile actively has a chip on their shoulder about any sort of bureaucracy, full stop will never “have faith in the system,” generally assume any sort of authority figure is a power hungry scumbag, and while it’s hard to translate this into fantasy terms, be the sort of person who always jailbreaks their phone and has a strict no-DRM stance on all their software.

The vast majority of people are, again, neutral, falling between those extremes. Follow the law, trust that calling the cops will usually get things sorted out, but when push comes to shove, most rules are really guidelines and you can make exceptions where you have to.

All of these represent real, realistic attitudes normal real-world people have. Most are true neutral. The corner alignments are the rarest (always going by the book and always sticking your neck out is demanding, looking out for number 1 without bowing down to the powers that be really requires a certain sort of lifestyle, etc.) but there should be people you can point to at all 9 points on the grid, and none of them should really clash so hard that people can’t be friends or live in the same society, and they should all be functional alignments for adventurers since a good adventure should have a mix of personal stakes and rewards and a good party should all like each other enough to stick together through whatever comes up.

Then there’s the more extreme versions of these alignments. Where neutrality becomes about “maintaining the balance” or actively rejecting society as a whole, evil is actively causing harm for harm’s sake, chaos is constant change, law is absolute rigidity and caste structures and such, and good gets really extreme about scope. These are still worldviews actual humans CAN hold, but more typically these are the sort of things supernatural forces get bent out of shape about and have as sources of constant conflict.

Again, lots of loose sloppy notes here, but you can hopefully see where I’m going as far as moral philosophies and cosmology driving games in fun directions, right?

Your leadership styles for the 3H lords was very interesting to read and lined up with what I’ve seen so far in my playthroughs. I recruited Ferdinand in the AM route, to see how a character who’s defined so much in the context of Edelgard would be written there, and his doubts about Dimitri’s fitness as a leader were very telling. Are there any other moments when recruited characters call out the lords’ ability to lead like that?

First, a disclaimer: I kinda played all the routes with only the original cast plus that one person where you get a spare dialogue window, because I sort of wanted the experience/vibe with the original casts and was curious about everyones ‘canonical’ deaths. 

I then found a youtuber who had everyone recruited on their ng+ runs but they did Blue Lions first so I have no idea what sort of unique recruitee dialogue you get on the Kingdom route 

If you find me a link to someone who did the Kingdom route with everyone recruited I’d kiss your virtual feet. I borrowed my Brother’s switch and it is now back with him - I am a stereotypical broke millennial... ^^°

- but what you say there seems in line with his  “a King shouldn’t be too emotional” lines as in the other routes. I actually didn’t know that/ think it’s pretty interesting though Ferdinand generally does hold the view that one should speak freely to and stand up to their leaders, that sounds like him and I kinda really wanna see it though it might turn out to be exactly the same line just slightly different XD

Though I suppose you could just fit it into the general plot of AM itself where, recruitee or otherwise starts having more and more doubts about the initial revenge trip. 

I don’t actually think Ferdinands’s that much ‘defined’ by Edelgard (though I suppose i see how it could look that way in the first few chapters) he’s got bucketloads of characterization outside their rivalry which never gets that serious, prominent or embittered to begin with.... notably he always invariably ends up as a politician/statesman regardless of which route you’re on, (apart from that one ending where he marries Manuela and Edelgard makes her prime minister ), a far cry from the route-specific variations you see with  Felix or to a lesser extent Alois and Bernadetta. 

I suppose it comes up a lot in his support chain with Byleth but that’s actually the only one, and even there it turns out half wax through that it’s just an outlet for his fear of not amounting to anything. 

So voicing objections is just Ferdinand being Ferdinand, or differences between Ferdinand and Dimitri,  more than it would necessarily have anything to do with Edelgard.  (though both are very expressive, Ferdinand at least values composure and restraint, which you also see in his supports with Caspar or Hubert, whereas Dimitri is a very emotional person and, though sort or repressed for politenes/formalities sake,  values being a very emotional person.) 

It’s not like he doesn’t disagree with Edelgard on stuff. He’s the one sociable, conventionally-presentable semi-traditional dude among the Black Eagles, also the only believer of the bunch though he’s not super devout. At some point he voices the intention to talk her out of abolishing the nobility and then in their A support when he explains his reasoning (basically, ’we need to produce trained politicians somehow’) they cook up a plan that involves free public education and considered an improvement by both of them.

I might be overlooking something/ that wasn’t something I was specifically looking for/paying attention to/ which i might keep in mind in the future, there are surely a lot of lines where the characters aren’t too thrilled about the general destruction or misfortune befalling their home faction, but not per se criticism. 

The only thing that really comes to mind is that one line where Sylvain wishes that Edelgard and “her idiot sidekick” (rude!) would try negotiating more, though this is somewhat offset by Edelgard’s lines about how she “tried to save him”/likely attempted negotiations during the time skip (Though by the time they get to the Tailtean plains she does specify that his head be removed, so point taken. She has many talents but negotiation isn’t one of them... though not at all because of the often purported “she doesnt care how much havoc she wreaks and thinks only she is right/can fix things” but rather because she deals poorly with being in vulnerable positions and doesn’t really expect to be understood. Projecting strenght doesn’t really disarm ppl or put them at ease, and influencing others, according to many a reputable life advice book, is often about making yourself appear influencable)

Alas while both have been all for negotiating at various points it was never at the same place at at the same time. You’d need Dimitri out of stubborn mode and Edelgard in a situation where she isn’t already cornered or at least one of them would go kamikaze and force the other’s hand. 

Also Sylvain's just generally cynical about everyone/ never fully gets on board with anything, he  notably has exactly the same “whoever won will say they’re right” no matter if he’s fighting for Edelgard or Dimitri and says a lot of critical things about the latter too that sorta make you think about him a bit differently, like hinting at his vindictive side when he first defects (”His highness gets pretty scary when he’s like that... I wonder how I’m going to die”) and stating that he already lowkey hated the empire during their time at the academy/ even before the big reveal and avoided associating with adrestian students (Though this also makes sense considering that he was already investigating/suspecting Arundel before everything went to hell, and adds a tragic angle like he was suspecting that these people he considers relatives kinda did it but he was really really hoping that they werent and then the apparent confirmation just slaps him in the face and from there on his choices are a) get himself killed trying to avenge the actual culprit or b) survive and find out the truth,  but that truth happens to be that the person who was his mom in all ways but the body fluids one never loved him.  “Poor Dimitri” is a sentence that cannot be said often enough. )

PENTAGRAM/PENTACLE DEFINED FOR BEGINNER WICCANS

Symbols are constantly recycled in society and religion. Their meanings evolve over time and can differ from belief system to belief system. A pentacle/pentagram is one of those symbols that has picked up a whole lot of baggage over the years. Beginner Wiccans often come to our religion having to ‘reprogram’ their own way of thinking about the pentagram. For years, pop culture, media hysteria and other religions have drilled the idea into our heads that Pagan symbols are bad, and the pentagram is evil.

Unfortunately, in a lot of books aimed at Wicca for beginners, more misinformation about the pentagram is spread. This time, it errs on the side of trying to make the pentagram look good, attaching to it all kinds of romanticized ideas that are just not factual.

What is a pentagram? What is a pentacle? Is there a difference? Let’s have a closer look at the history of this symbol, and the meaning of the pentagram today.

WHAT IS A PENTAGRAM?

A good place to begin anytime you’re trying to understand a word and its usage is to hit the dictionary and look up the entomology of the word. The word pentagram is rooted in the Greek.

Instead of giving you my own interpretations, I’ll take the meaning directly from the dictionary:

MEANING OF A PENTAGRAM: A BRIEF HISTORY

The earliest use of the pentagram we know of is from ancient Sumeria-- but it wasn't a religious Pagan symbol. It was a word in their language that meant a corner or angle (due to the 5 sharp angles in the figure).

In the 6th century BCE, Pherecydes of Syros used it to illustrate the five recesses of the cosmology. Pentagram figures occasionally turned up in the far East as well, due to the 5 Chinese elements: wood, fire, earth, metal, water.

Pythagoras went on to use the pentagram as the symbol of man. Partly it was because the shape represented a human standing with his arms spread wide (the top point being the head, the to outer points the arms, and the bottom two points the legs). It was also considered to represent the 5 elements that the Greeks believed made up the physical body: Earth (matter), Air (breath), Fire (energy), Water (fluids) and Aether (the psyche or soul). When Pythagoras’ school was driven underground, students used the pentagram as a secret symbol to identify each other.

In ancient Judaism it was a symbol found in mysticism, related to the top portion of the Tree of Life in the Kabbalah, it stood for the 5 books of the Torah (what Christians refer to as the Pentateuch in the Old Testament of the Bible) and the symbol was featured in a seal representing the secret names of God.

Early Christians into the middle ages used the pentagram heavily as a symbol for Christ’s five wounds. The star of Bethlehem that lead the wise men to the baby Jesus was believed to be the pentagram. In Authorial legends, you’ll often see the symbol of the Pentagram inscribed on knight’s shields and other things—these were actually Christian, not Pagan, references. Christians thought of the pentagram as a protective amulet, and it was the primary symbol of Christianity back then, even more common than the cross.

So the pentagram had a long, ancient history of uses as a Pagan symbol and Judeo-Christian symbol. It had no single meaning. It represented perfection in mathematics, the human body, words, and was also used in religious ritual and magic.

BUT WHAT ABOUT WITCHES, WICCANS, AND SATANISTS?

So I’ve mentioned that just about everyone had used the pentagram back then, except I haven’t mentioned Witches, Wiccans and Satanists. What about them?

The fact is, they didn’t really exist yet. The only “witches” at the time were the kind of folklore and rumor. Oh, don’t get me wrong—there were people who did magick, but they would not have identified with the term “witch”.

WHEN THE PENTAGRAM BECAME ASSOCIATED WITH “EVIL”

The 14th and 15th century saw the rise of occult practices that were rooted in Judeo-Christian symbolism and mysticism, and they borrowed liberally from many of the symbols, including the pentagram. They also borrowed from Gnostic and Paganism symbols. It’s no small surprise Ceremonial Magicians were accused by the Christian church of heresy. And heresy, to a medieval Christian, barrels down to Paganism, Satan worship and witchcraft.

Anything liberally used by Ceremonial Magicians became associated with anything considered heretical. If you don’t want to be associated with such things, you don’t use their symbols.

By Victorian times, the witch hunt craze was ending, and people started to forget how pentagrams were once very common, prominent Christian symbols. It’s now associated with paganism, Satan and witchcraft, and seen as an evil symbol.

The love of romanticized myth and history drive a new movement: the Pagan revival, and the pentagram gets turned around again. This is where it gets confusing, because misinformation and false histories begin to fly liberally from the late 19th to mid-20th century.

This is the time the Pagan Revival begins (mostly a re-invention than a re-construction of “Old Ways”). This is when Margaret Murray published her theories on ancient Witch cults being peaceful Pagan religions—though her works have been completely debunked since. This is when Gerald Gardner founded Wicca, and people came crawling out of the woodwork claiming to be ‘hereditary Witches’, or claiming their coven was ancient, or claiming some unbroken line to the Pagan religions of antiquity. This is also when a few ‘reverse Christian’ groups popped up, with practices specifically designed to mock and rebel against Christianity (those these groups were pretty rare and the NeoPagan community did their best to distance themselves from such groups).

One thing most of these groups have in common, though, is that they adopt the pentagram.

Hollywood – new on the scene in the mid-20th century – adopts the pentagram as well. Hollywood is not interested in accuracy; it’s interested in the shock value of things. They adopt it as a symbol for evil magic and reverse-Christian style devil worship and stick it into just about every horror movie conceivable. This fuels the antics of a lot of bored, rebellious people, particularly teens, who like to spray paint it on park walls and carve it into trees for the shock value.

By the late 20th century, the pentagram is being used and abused all over the place, but it is Hollywood who manages to make an indelible imprint on the social consciousness—and this is further driven by the media with sensationalized reporting during the 1970’s “Satanic Ritual Abuse” hysteria (which has also been debunked).

It’s only the tail end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century in which the pentagram is finally gaining some understanding. Though mainstream society hasn’t completely lost the ‘kneejerk reaction’ to it, the growth of the Pagan Revival and the availability of information via the Internet have helped to quell some of the shock value and fears over it.

WICCAN SYMBOLS: PENTAGRAM VS. PENTACLE

More misconceptions abound, considering the Pagan community more commonly refers to the symbol as a ‘pentacle’ rather than a ‘pentagram’. Many books and websites have tried (and failed) to make the distinction clear. Some assertions I’ve read in passing are:

The pentagram is evil with one point down

the pentacle is good with one point up

The pentagram is just the star

the pentacle is the star with a circle around it

The pentagram is 2-D; the pentacle is 3-D

Actually, all of these answers would be technically incorrect. If you look at the definitions provided above, pentagram and pentacle are synonymous, and have nothing to do with which way the points face, or whether or not they have a circle around them.                           

A look at the dictionary's answer to pentacle and you see that the only real difference is one is derived from the Greek, the other from the Latin:

DICTIONARY MEANING OF A PENTACLE:

THE PENTACLE: NOT JUST A FIGURE, BUT A TOOL

A tool arose out of ceremonial magic. This tool was a flat, round disc or paper that was inscribed with protective symbols (a pentagram could be inscribed on it, but there were other symbols they used as well). It is used as an amulet of warding and power because a large part of Ceremonial Magic is invoking and commanding various entities from Judeo-Christian beliefs.

It was called the pentacle or sometimes pantacle. On the Tarot (a Christian-origin divination system), the symbol is used for the suit of coins, and it represents the Element of Earth.

Wicca and other NeoPagan religions borrowed this tool from Ceremonial Magic. They kept the name, but re-defined its purpose since Wiccans don’t believe in Judeo-Christian entities and is not concerned with calling or commanding spirits.

The pentacle (the disc) was adopted as an altar tool, and is used to symbolize the Element of Earth on the altar. It’s also used as a tool for placing sacred items upon it when cleansing, consecrating or charging them.

The Wiccan symbol of choice for this round disc was the pentagram/pentacle. To further confuse things, this tool does not have to be inscribed with a pentagram/pentacle.

TYPICAL MEANING OF A PENTAGRAM/PENTACLE IN WICCA

As far as Wiccan symbols go, the pentagram isn't a representation of good vs. evil. It’s a symbol of our faith, a symbol of the 5 Elements (one for each point), and the circle (the universe) contains and connects them all. No matter which way it’s facing, circle or no circle, there’s nothing ‘bad’ about it.

Another misconception about the pentagram in Wicca is which way it points. Again, you will find common misinformation that says the pentagram is “evil” if point down and “good” if point up. The point down is most commonly associated with Satanism, because the largest branch of Satanism (Church of Satan, est. 1966) adopted the inverted pentagram with a goat head inside of it as their symbol.

It’s traditionally used both point up and point down. Point up pentagrams are more common; but point down pentagrams are not considered evil at all.

The point-up pentagram represents the spirit ascending above matter. The top point represents the Element of Spirit, the other four points represent the four Spiritual Elements.

When a pentagram is point-down, it represents spirit descending into matter. This is most traditionally used in lineage covens during second degree initiations, because it’s at this point of one’s spiritual path that one turns “inward”. You face and challenge your ‘dark side’ – your base emotions, fears, ignorance, prejudices, etc., you deal with them and develop mastery over yourself.

Contains minor SPOILERS.

Cala Maria gif courtesy of @casioonaplasticbeach​.

The debut game of Studio MDHR is the completely hand drawn 1930s cartoon inspired Cuphead for the Xbox One and PC. Particularly the Fleischer Studios short starring Bimbo known as Swing You Sinners! (1930). For example, Cagney Carnation’s idle animation is one a ghost has in it. A later significant donnybrook borrows from that cartoon’s aesthetic and characters too. There’s visual grain filter and simulated 24 fps too! There’s a deliberate color inconsistency between Cuphead’s design and the hues for his victory screen: a commonality found with older cartoons. An Inkwell Isle II boss character speaks with a Porky Pig inspired stutter whilst possessing a moniker close to a famous animator’s (Grim Natwick). Natwick, in real life, spoke with a stutter, making a double reference to cartoon history. 

As a cartoon fanatic and a seeker of run and gun games, I had to check out Cuphead for sure! 

On Xbox One. 

My name is OrchardBlossom. 

Cuphead has been in development for seven years and is the final result of seven people animating it is beyond mind blowing. Their names are Chad Moldenhauser, Danielle Johnson, @jake-clark, Thomas “Smo” Smolenski, @habihanna, Joseph Coleman, and Tina Nawrocki. Take a bow y’all! *Throws roses, kisses, glitter, and confetti* 

Cuphead, is, as cliche as it sounds, a dream come true for me. 

The moment I tried the Sony Imagesoft (publisher) and Traveller’s Tales (developer) Sega Genesis game Mickey Mania in the early 90s, I’ve been relentlessly searching and totally craving another release that utilized hand drawn animation that pulls from classic cartoons. In it, Mickey Mouse can toss marbles at foes and his HP that’s represented by fingers on his glove is 5. The player goes from left to right avoiding by jumping over or trouncing adversaries. Mickey Mania’s opening level is the culturally and genre significant Steamboat Willie (1928) and a later one is a favorite of mine known as The Lonesome Ghosts (1937). Often I’d avoid enemies and not proceed so I could soak in the game’s distinctive visual aesthetic for a second longer. Similarly, I’d prolong a couple of clashes in Cuphead for that very same reason. Despite never winning against the final fight in that damned The Prince and the Pauper (1990) stage, that Mickey Mouse game still retains a special place in my heart. In fact, when taking a slight break from Cuphead I fired up my Sega to only lose against Captain Pete…Again. 

25% of Cuphead features run and gun stages that bring to mind Mega Man, Contra, Gunstar Heroes, Metal Slug, and Super Ghouls ‘n Ghosts. Your introductory HP is 3 and can be higher if you sacrifice the strength of your weapons via purchased charms. Charms are bought using Coins found in levels and around the hub islands of Inkwell Isle.

With this currency, charms or weaponry can be bought at Porkrind’s Emporium. For instance, the Smoke Bomb Charm makes your dodge waaaay more efficient. The Coffee Charm is ideal for plane boss battles since you cannot make your Shrink dodge any better in them: this allows you to obtain Super Arts of powered up techniques faster. Cuphead’s basic projectile weapon is known as the Peashooter. The boomerang-like Roundabout is your best bet against most bosses if you’re adept at facing the opposite and firing it. Chaser is a weak homing weapon that’s perfect for boss battles that require both tricky and constant dodging (like the final phase of queen bee Rumor Honeybottoms). Experiment with your six firing weapon selections and find what’s the most comfortable for you though. Remember that Cuphead and Mugman can fire while ducking/moving and their firing angle can be adjusted. 

Likewise, in a plane, one can use the gun or bombs. I didn’t realize this until late in the game, ha ha! 

The remaining 75% of Cuphead consists of brimming with personality and creativity boss battles alongside some toe-tapping worthy jazz-infused tracks. Cuphead is a game that takes patience, analyzing patterns, learning to properly parry (leads to the capability of utilizing stronger weapon moves and Super Art techniques), knowing when to stop firing versus dodge some more, ducking, and changing your weapon set or Super Arts when necessary. Now, it is possible to hold down the fire button and switch between weapons on the fly. I personally found it overwhelming, an additional challenge of sorts, that made it increasingly harder to accurately concentrate during either run and gun stages and boss battles.

So, in Cuphead, you will die a lot. I guarantee it. I died 1111 times beating it on Normal mode alone. I didn’t give up nor go above 3 HP. It was immensely satisfying when I won against everything. 

But I feel this by design: the game’s mechanics are solid and each time I lost I didn’t blame Cuphead since everything is clear. Trial and error is in the game’s DNA. Controls aren’t an issue essentially. They’re quite responsive, so each failure unquestionably feels like my fault. If an attack or enemy isn’t pink, it cannot be parried, so it must be avoided or slain. The directions in which bosses bombard you don’t change at all (besides after a phase alteration where new moves are still very much broadcast)…The order isn’t consistent however. And my advice is to always stay on guard. Sometimes, the smartest attack is to wait though. 

Whenever you do lose, a progress bar is unveiled about how dismal or great your overall performance was. Along with a taunting quote from a boss. Like Wally Warbles, a Woody Woodpecker colored bird says, “Even without my feathers, you’re in for stormy weather!” Talk about adding insult to injury! This actually compelled me to keep going. I wasn’t deterred because I learned from my errors and mistiming mistakes until I won. I can defeat some of the initially seemingly impossible boss battles without taking a hit now. 

In short, Cuphead is tough yet fair in my eyes.

Alas where it falters most is the usage of two boys as our protagonists. I get that is supposed to be a homage to Mickey Mouse (with a hint of Felix the Cat?) and the long forgotten Oswald the Lucky Rabbit with each sporting said famous character’s colors/gloves. That’s cool I guess.

Still, not Cuphead and his sister? Because it isn’t like Betty Boop isn’t that famous or anything right? Or how about neither a guy or girl? They’re anthropomorphic characters with a cup and a mug for heads! Why solely men…?

Cuphead is a tale of owing a debt to the Devil through gambling. They are forced to collect soul contracts from the lives of others the Devil and Dice King’s casino have corrupted. Or lose their own lives instead as grisly punishment. The minimalist plot is conveyed through a excellently done storybook motif. I prefer Cuphead’s bro Mugman who told him to stop gaming when the Devil challenged him.

Mugman’s the one I never get to play as. XD

Yes, despite the game creators (Chad and Jared Moldenhaur, brothers) stating Cuphead wanted to avoided a damsel in distress narrative as the main one a.k.a. a retro concept that should stop being the norm. However, there’s a small juxtaposition between this and Cuphead writer Evan Skolnick. In Cuphead, women are unfortunately in short supply. The most prominent recurring one (Legendary Chalice) is literally trapped and has to be saved to unlock the powerful Super Art abilities located in the Inkwell Isle Mausoleums. I mean our introduction to her in the game is the word “HELP” with an exclamation mark for emphasis. Saving her grants you more useful Super Arts that assist in stage and boss fights, but aren’t necessary to beat the game. To achieve victory, the player must parry all of the spectral threats to release the straw-halo spirit from a repeated prison thrice times throughout the course of your journey. 

For some reason, a celebatory background statue of her can be seen in Rugged Ridge, suggesting her character was once one of considerable prominence in this game’s world (or storyline I suggest). My real query is why the Legendary Chalice has “legendary” in her name in the first place? So, why couldn’t she of been similar to a Great Fairy from the Legend of Zelda series then? As the protagonist Link, you locate the Great Fairy fountains and she gives you something for the effort. Or what if the Mausoleum parry challenges were meant to prove that Cuphead and Mugman are worthy to own the sacred Super Arts Legendary Chalice has in her possession?  

I sincerely wish her character’s background had been suitably expanded on. Like maybe she sees potential in them for completing the Mausoleums in Inkwell.  Perhaps her role in the game could of had more meaning? How it stands with Legendary Chalice simply plays into a classic video game trope I’ve always loathed. The damsel in distress the Moldenhauser bros tried to not use. 

Others women talk to you in the hub world or ask for assistance in some way. Like a fish fishing, for one! How wonderfully weird. Is she a cannibal by chance?

What remains are bosses. Ahem, how few there are that is, yeah. Out of twenty plus bosses only seven feature women with five being the actual focus.

The introduction to planes battle has Hilda Berg: an Olive Oly zeppelin that transforms into the constellations Taurus and Sagittarius (they are coded/drawn as men) during the fight. Another is a drunken martini glass that’s part of an alcoholic beverage trio you might contend with. The Domino mini-boss has two halves: the top is a hat and bow while the bottom is a skirt with that same bow serving as hers. This half has distinct lashes and red heels as well. There’s the Betty Boop sound effect laden Cala Maria, the gigantic mermaid seen in each trailer for the game’s release. Sally Stageplay is the most memorable for me with her battle taking place in a theatre with a live audience: it opens with a wedding and has her theatre husband in the background not contributing to the fight while trying to take care of a baby. There’s the aforementioned Rumor Honeybottoms, in an intense scenario which pushes you to your platforming and parrying limits. My favorite in terms of concept to execution is in the Inkwell Isle II level Sugarland Shimmy! She is called Baroness von Bon Bon. 

Here’s an intriguing fact: the singer for the seemingly masculine Cab Calloway influenced antagonist Dice King is sung by Alana Bridgewater (her vocals are fantastic!).

All in all, I recommend Cuphead. The indie darling is an equally exhilarating and addictive game with a superb soundtrack to boot! On top of that, Cuphead’s nods to video games and animation history are an impeccable fusion I couldn’t get enough of. Cuphead’s fun and challenge is raised with a friend on-board for the surreal worth taking ride. You can revive your teammate for a price (they return with 1 HP left and any subsequent revivals become increasingly harder to pull off) through parrying their ghost or taking HP (Like a thief…Blargh. ) from one another upon dying in boss battles or levels.

Oh, there is indeed a lower difficulty, but the developers will sadly not let you truly finish the game if you select it. Bosses lack entire phases and overall health. Locking content in this manner does disappoint and irk me for those that desire the full Cuphead experience. Especially for those that are already put off by the game’s difficulty curve as a whole from the get-go. Since part of Cuphead’s joy is seeing so much creative and stunning animation lovingly crafted on display. Listening to new music. Drinking in the atmosphere prior to being killed for the umpteenth time due to miscalculating a parry or boss attack. This is lost for those that choose Simple. *Sighs despondently*

As are the game’s wonderful secrets I won’t divulge here. 

On the other hand, folks should give Simple Mode a gander to check out lost animation Normal and Hard Mode doesn’t have. ;)

A PSA for those seeking an A rank on the Run and Gun stage Funfair Fever! Um, there’s a glitch in the game that won’t allow this achievement. Meaning, you have to conquer it with a P (Pacifist: only parrying, no shooting) rank as an alternative. I spent hours attempting to secure an A rank to no avail until I succeeded with the P rank I needed towards earning a game secret. This has just been patched.

My recommendation for Cuphead would be loftier if gender representation had been better and Simple Mode had encompassed all of the game. It doesn’t. You’re mocked by Dice King and that doesn’t seem right to me. No one deserves to be made fun of for playing something that is meant to be purely entertainment.

My feelings towards the red skinned turban wearing genie magician guy in the game bother me as well. Like he’s time period accurate and ultimately offensive. Should of done some in-depth research before posting this. :(

P.S. Dr. Kahl, is named after animator Milt Kahl, but modeled after Sonic’s Dr. Ivo Robotnik and Mega Man’s Dr. Wily. You’ve been warned. So many deaths were caused by him. So. Many. Losses. *Shudders*

Auteur Study of Spike Lee

  According to the New York Times, prolific director Spike Lee helped “[usher] in ... the American independent film movement of the 1980s.”[1] Lee is a tenured professor at his alma mater, NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, where since 2002 he has served as artistic director of the Graduate Film Program.[2] He also owns the production company 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks, through which he produces most of his films. Throughout his career, Spike Lee has been a strong advocate for social change. Lee uses his voice as an auteur to draw attention to social issues and to highlight the beauty and resilience of Black American communities.

  Lee’s has faced funding issues since he began making movies, and has often produced his films independently or through alternative funding routes. His breakout feature She’s Gotta Have It (1986) was funded through various grants from state-run and non-profit organizations, “a cast working for deferred payments,”[3] and a crew made up largely of Lee’s family, friends and former classmates.[4] The film premiered at the Directors Fortnight, where Lee won a prize for young directors.[5] The majority of Lee’s filmography has made the rounds in the festival circuit before receiving a wide release, including five films which showed at Cannes,[6] where he is now the first Black Jury President.[7] He is also a strong supporter of the lesser-known American Black Film Festival.[8]

  Off the back of his early Cannes success, Lee received studio deals for his next few films, but was often unsatisfied with the budgets, editorial limitations and lack of marketing afforded to his films. In his pre-production journal for Do the Right Thing (1989), Lee ponders which studio to go with after Paramount backed out, writing “Touchstone, Orion, Universal? In a way all these motherf***ers are the same."[9] From the mid-nineties on, Lee alternated “between increasingly rare studio financing and esoteric indies, adapting as the landscape of both kept shifting under his feet.”[10] Lee has funded the majority of his films through private investments, outsider studios and distributors such as Netflix, Amazon and Blumhouse,[11] or even through Kickstarter.[12] Despite his indie sensibility and frequent festival appearances, Lee’s adaptability serves him well in straddling the line between art and commercial cinema. Although most of his feature films have been independent, he has a long history of directing commercials[13] as well as music videos for the likes of Public Enemy, Michael Jackson, Anita Baker and Prince.[14] When given a major studio budget for a feature film, Lee also clearly excels, as we can see by the popularity and financial success of his heist film Inside Man (2006), a 45 million dollar co-production between 40 Acres and a Mule, Universal and Ron Howard’s Imagine Entertainment.[15]

  Spike Lee’s voice as an auteur is clear, having written, directed and produced the majority of his films.[16] In much of his earlier work he has also served as editor and actor.[17] He has maintained long-term collaborations with cinematographers Ernest K. Dickerson and Malik Hassan Sayeed,[18] editors Barry Alexander Brown and Sam Pollard,[19] and composer Terrence Blanchard.[20] Lee also frequently employs a line-up of actors including, most notably, Giancarlo Esposito, Samuel L. Jackson, Delroy Lindo and John Turturro,[21] who’s highly successful screen acting careers were arguably catalyzed by their appearances in his early films. Lee uses his significant platform as an established producer and educator to elevate the voices of the next generation of Black filmmakers, often taking them under his wing as a mentor, offering them internships and production deals.[22]

  Almost all of Lee’s films contain themes of race and gender, and deal with social issues faced by Black American communities. His passion for these issues and his authenticity in depicting these communities feeds into Spike Lee’s cinematic self-expression, having grown up in Brooklyn where many of his films are set and shot,[23] and having attended the historically Black Morehouse College in Atlanta.[24] His first foray into filmmaking came in the summer of 1977, which saw a city-wide blackout in New York caused by a record-setting heatwave and an ensuing mass plunder of the city’s audio equipment stores.[25] Lee, having borrowed his friend’s Super 8 camera while home for the summer, decided to document the night of looting and the subsequent block parties taking advantage of the newfound DJ equipment. Upon his return to Morehouse, Lee declared a major in Mass Communications, and was encouraged by his film professor to edit his footage together into a documentary. His work on the what would become his first student film, Last Hustle in Brooklyn (1977, title a play on Last Tango in Paris), sparked in him a passion for filmmaking. As he states it, “film found me.”[26]

  Most of Lee’s filmography draws heavy inspiration from his lived experiences and uses his filming locations almost as characters of their own. On filming in Brooklyn, Lee says “it’s my home, it developed who I am and what I’ve become,” and this love for the borough permeates many of his films, “the people, the diversity and culture [serving as] his inspiration.”[27] She’s Gotta Have It, for instance, often shifts its focus from the plot at hand to show different aspects of the Fort-Greene neighbourhood, beginning with a montage of still photographs shot by Spike’s brother David Lee, inserts of day-to-day life in the neighbourhood, and an abundance of establishing shots which serve to show off the livelihood of the community itself rather than to establish any particular narrative space.[28] According to film scholar Manthia Diawara, Lee “positions the spectator to feel a sense of belonging to the place,” that he “develops his metaphor of public-space-as-home throughout the film.”[29] Do the Right Thing paints a stylistically similar portrait of Bedford-Stuyvesant, another Brooklyn neighbourhood, through the use of an ensemble cast and on-location filming, and expands upon the themes surrounding rising tensions caused by New York’s intolerable heatwaves, a phenomenon which he experienced first-hand while filming Last Hustle in Brooklyn. But nowhere are the autobiographical aspects of Spike Lee’s filmic style more apparent than in School Daze (1988). The film takes place at Mission College, a fictional historically Black Atlanta institution, and follows a Black undergraduate student and activist in a plot which clearly draws from Lee’s experiences studying at Morehouse.[30]

  Beyond thematic links, Spike Lee also has many recognizable stylistic markers across his filmography. He often adds emphasis to certain key shots by repeating them from different angles, like when the trash can comes crashing through Sal’s window in Do the Right Thing,[31] or when Malcolm X is reunited with his old partner Shorty in Lee’s biopic.[32] He also has a penchant for fourth wall breaking techniques, most apparently in She’s Gotta Have It’s constant in-your-face direct camera addresses. His famous double dolly shots are another breaking of the fourth wall. First employed in Mo’ Better Blues (1990),[33] where, in Lee’s own words, it was “really just show-offy, student film stuff,” he reused the technique subsequently to create “a transportive, or sometimes alienated feeling.”[34] This feeling is conveyed to great effect in Malcolm X (1992) when the civil rights leader passes by the ballroom where he would soon after be martyred, as if in a trance,[35] as well as the last scene of BlacKkKlansman, when Ron and his girlfriend Patrice investigate noises outside their apartment only to discover a flaming cross surrounded by Klansmen a ways outside their window.[36]

  Lee’s most prominent stylistic signature is his frequent use of still photography and archival footage to bring a sense of actualité to both his narrative and documentary films. This can be seen in the aforementioned opening montage of She’s Gotta Have It and subsequent inserts, and in both the still insert of two boxers in the lead-up to the climactic uprising in Do the Right Thing and the photograph of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X shaking hands which concludes the film.[37] This practice was greatly expanded upon in Malcolm X, in which key moments throughout the film are punctuated by both real news footage and black and white insert shots of Denzel Washington’s Malcolm meant to evoke the look and feel of old newscasts.[38] Taking it even further still, the bulk of Spike Lee’s four-part documentary When the Levees Broke (2006) is made up of archival footage and photographs, with interviews and other footage only accounting for a small portion of the 255-minute runtime.[39]

  Lee continues to insert archival footage into most of his films to this day. His ending for BlacKkKlansman (2018) consisted of a montage of current news footage of acts of anti-Black violence, white supremacist gatherings, and speeches by the very much real and still relevant David Duke (the former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard portrayed prominently in-story by Topher Grace) and President Donald Trump both showing support for white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups.[40] He also book-ended Da Five Bloods (2020) with a montage of Black anti-Vietnam-war protesters and a speech by Dr. King, and interspersed still photos and paintings of Black historical figures.[41] Even in his recent concert film of David Byrne’s American Utopia (2020), Lee takes the opportunity to have family members of fallen victims of police brutality hold up archival photographs of those they lost in a montage while Byrne performs a cover of Janelle Monae’s Hell You Talmbout, a protest song whose refrain prompts listeners to repeat the names of Black people who have been murdered by police officers.[42]

  Throughout his 35-year career, Spike Lee has made a wide variety of films, from commercials and music videos to independent art films to major studio thrillers. He has seen success in both festival contexts and at the box office. Much of his filmography draws inspiration from his personal experiences and surroundings. As a writer, director and producer Lee brings his views on social issues into his filmmaking, frequently adding a layer of actualité by incorporating archival footage and photography into his films. Lee is among the first of the few Black directors to have been accepted into the mainstream canon of art cinema. His critical and financial success has helped pave the way for subsequent generations of Black cineastes, and his early success set the stage for the American Independent film movement as a whole.

Works cited: [1] Paul Brenner, “She’s Gotta Have It (1986) Review Summary,” The New York Times, archived October 27, 2007, accessed October 31, 2020, https://web.archive.org/web/20071027102646/http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/44229/She-s-Gotta-Have-It/overview. [2] Nate Von Zumwalt, “A Portrait of the Artist as a Teacher: Spike Lee,” NYU | Tisch (New York University, November 19, 2019), https://tisch.nyu.edu/tisch-research-news-events/news/a-portrait-of-the-artist-as-a-teacher-spike-lee. [3] Vadim Rizov, “Joint Financing: Spike Lee Has Never Had an Easy Time Funding His Films,” MTV News (Viacom International Inc., July 26, 2013), http://www.mtv.com/news/2770944/spike-lee-film-funding/. [4] Stuart Mieher, “Spike Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It,” The New York Times Magazine, August 9, 1987, https://www.nytimes.com/1987/08/09/magazine/spike-lee-s-gotta-have-it.html. [5] Spike Lee, “She’s Gotta Have It,” Quinzaine des Réalisateurs (Société des réalisateurs de films, 1986), https://www.quinzaine-realisateurs.com/en/film/shes-gotta-have-it/. [6] “Spike Lee,” Festival de Cannes, 2020, https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/artist/spike-lee. [7] Yohana Desta, “Spike Lee for President…of the 2020 Cannes Film Jury,” Vanity Fair (Condé Nast, January 14, 2020), https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2020/01/spike-lee-cannes-jury-president. [8] Mike Fleming, Jr., “No Cannes Do: Why Spike Lee Nixed ‘Do The Right Thing’ Silver Anniversary For Black Fest Fete,” Deadline (Penske Business Media, LLC., May 13, 2014), https://deadline.com/2014/05/no-cannes-do-why-spike-lee-nixed-do-the-right-thing-silver-anni-for-black-fest-fete-729355/. [9] Spike Lee and Lisa Jones, Do the Right Thing : A Spike Lee Joint (New York, N.Y.: Fireside, 1989), 75. [10] Rizov, “Joint Financing.” [11] Da Five Bloods, directed by Spike Lee (Los Gatos, CA: Netflix, Inc., 2020), Netflix streaming; Chi-Raq, directed by Spike Lee (Culver City, CA: Amazon Studios, 2015), Amazon Prime Streaming; Pass Over, directed by Spike Lee (Culver City, CA: Amazon Studios, 2018), Amazon Prime Streaming; “BlacKkKlansman (2018) Company Credits,” IMDb (IMDb.com, Inc.), accessed October 31, 2020, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7349662/companycredits. [12] Fleming, “No Cannes Do.” [13] “Spike Lee TV Commercials,” iSpot.tv (iSpot.tv, Inc., 2020), https://www.ispot.tv/topic/director/gK/spike-lee. [14] “Music Video’s,” 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks, 2019, https://40acres.com/video/. [15] “Inside Man,” IMDb (IMDb.com, Inc.), accessed November 1, 2020, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0454848/. [16] “The Jointography,” 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks, 2019, https://40acres.com/the-jointography/. [17] “Spike Lee,” IMDb (IMDb.com, Inc.), accessed October 31, 2020, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000490/. [18] “Ernest R. Dickerson,” IMDb (IMDb.com, Inc.), accessed October 31, 2020, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0225416; “Malik Hassan Sayeed,” IMDb (IMDb.com, Inc.), accessed October 31, 2020, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0768434/. [19] “Barry Alexander Brown,” IMDb (IMDb.com, Inc.), accessed October 31, 2020, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0113084/; “Sam Pollard,” IMDb (IMDb.com, Inc.), accessed October 31, 2020, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0689498/. [20] “Terence Blanchard,” IMDb (IMDb.com, Inc.), accessed October 31, 2020, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005966/. [21] “Giancarlo Esposito,” IMDb (IMDb.com, Inc.), accessed October 31, 2020, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002064/; “Samuel L. Jackson,” IMDb (IMDb.com, Inc.), accessed October 31, 2020, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000168/; “Delroy Lindo,” IMDb (IMDb.com, Inc.), accessed October 31, 2020, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005148/; “John Turturro,” IMDb (IMDb.com, Inc.), accessed October 31, 2020, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001806/. [22] Von Zumwalt, “Artist as a Teacher” [23] Robin Bennefield, “Spike Lee on Why Brooklyn Has a Starring Role in His Films,” Marriott Bonvoy Traveler (Marriott International, Inc., December 4, 2015), https://traveler.marriott.com/new-york-city/spike-lee-on-why-brooklyn-has-a-starring-role-in-his-films/. [24] “Shelton ‘Spike’ Lee Bio,” Morehouse College, archived May 6, 2012, https://web.archive.org/web/20120506002442/https://www.morehouse.edu/about/boardbios/slee.html. [25] Neil McCormick, “Murder, Blackouts and a Hip-Hop Revolution: The Summer That Inspired The Get Down,” The Telegraph, August 12, 2016, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/on-demand/0/murder-blackouts-and-a-hip-hop-revolution-the-summer-that-inspir/. [26] Mediabistro, “Spike Lee: My First Big Break,” YouTube Video, YouTube, September 27, 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1KEEbQeC-w. [27] Bennefield, “Why Brooklyn Has a Starring Role.” [28] She’s Gotta Have It, directed by Spike Lee (Santa Monica, CA: Island Pictures, 1986), Netflix Streaming, 00:01:00 – 00:02:13. (Opening montage, other examples can be found throughout the film). [29] Manthia Diawara, In Search of Africa, 2nd ed. (1998; repr., Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), 263, https://books.google.ca/books?id=eyTbwaEDTsUC. [30] School Daze, directed by Spike Lee (Culver City, CA: Columbia Pictures, 1988), CTV Streaming. [31] Do the Right Thing, directed by Spike Lee, (1989; New York, NY: The Criterion Collection, 2019), Blu-ray, 01:38:50 – 01:38:57. [32] Malcolm X, directed by Spike Lee, (1992; Burbank, CA: Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., 2012), Blu-ray, 01:31:45 – 01:31:50. [33] Mo’ Better Blues, directed by Spike Lee, (1990; New York, NY: Kino Lorber, 2020) Blu-ray, 01:18:45 – 01:19:38. [34] Glenn Kenny, “Doing the Right Thing,” DGA Quarterly, Spring 2008, https://www.dga.org/Craft/DGAQ/All-Articles/0801-Spring-2008/DGA-Interview-Spike-Lee.aspx. [35] Malcolm X, 02:59:06 – 02:59:22. [36] BlacKkKlansman, directed by Spike Lee, (Universal City, CA: Focus Features LLC, 2018), Netflix Streaming, 02:05:38 – 02:05:55. [37] Do the Right Thing, 01:32:37, 01:53:55. [38] Malcolm X, 00:00:00 – 00:02:35, 01:59:30 – 02:02:25, 02:25:50 – 02:26:40, 03:07:20 – 03:10:40 (real news footage); Ibid., 02:02:40 – 02:02:45, 02:26:45 – 02:27:25, 02:32:25 – 02:33:35, 02:34:27 – 02:34:32, 02:43:35 – 02:45:45, 03:06:50 – 03:10:40 (black and white inserts). [39] When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, directed by Spike Lee (New York, NY: HBO, 2006), Crave Streaming. [40] BlacKkKlansman, 02:06:00 – 02:09:14. [41] Da Five Bloods, 00:00:05 – 00:02:50, 00:40:15 – 00:40:50 (anti-Vietnam protests); Ibid., 02:25:13 (MLK); Ibid., 0:19:02, 00:27:55 (stills). [42] David Byrne’s American Utopia, directed by Spike Lee, (New York, NY: HBO Films, 2020), Crave Streaming, 01:25:25 – 01:29:35.

Thoughts On the Beauty of Katsuki Yuuri

apparently there’s been a debate going on about whether yuuri ought to be called beautiful or not? idk, here’s my thoughts on the issue I guess, for what it’s worth.

I’m just gonna start off by saying I think yuuri is a REALLY well-designed character. there’s a lot to talk about here! his design is not only appealing and charming (because tadashi hiramatsu is a goddamn professional) but I’d even go a step further and say that the finer points of yuuri’s character design are also a vehicle that communicates the show’s themes. this is a really impressive and unfortunately rare thing in anime these days! 

When Hiramatsu has talked about his thought process for designing yuuri in the past, he’s said that yuuri is meant to look as plain as possible. this is pushed further by comparing him to the rest of the flashy-looking characters in the cast, but I’ll just use victor for now as a point of comparison.

Yuuri: he’s Japanese, obviously. He has many prototypical japanese features (black hair, brown eyes, shorter legs etc). His looks are virtually never commented on by anyone in the story, and when they are it is most often in a negative light, though it is mentioned his skating is beautiful. Victor: he’s russian. he has straight-up silver hair and really bright, somewhere-between-blue-and-turquoise eyes. uh... this is... normal for russians..? he is universally acknowledged in canon as, at the very least, distractingly good looking, causing heart attacks and fainting spells all around him with but one wink.

point is victor looks like an anime character, and yuuri looks like a real person, comparatively.

however, the MOST IMPORTANT feature of yuuri’s design is how dramatically he can change his look and still be recognizable as himself.

Like...??!?!

ok yeah this is obvious, I know it is, because I know every single one of us had A Reaction when yuuri turned on the eros for the first time. After inching closer and closer to a nervous breakdown for the first 3 episodes, we get nice and comfortable in our perception of what yuuri’s character type is; then the Onsen On Ice event comes and he suddenly does a 180 and becomes Sexy Confidence Personified for 2 minutes on the ice. I’m thinking woah, this is the fabled Gap Moe, where a character’s seemingly predominant personality traits are contradicted in certain situations. The gap moe only works because we love to be surprised, which just happens to be a recurring theme in YOI. :O 

But yoi handled characterization really well and sidestepped a number of oft-tread tropey paths for most of the characters. Especially Yuuri. The series portrays him as having a wide range of feelings, motivations, and reactions to things. He is revealed more and more to be a really complex, real-feeling person. The expressiveness of his design, and his ability to transform visually in so many different ways (there are so many different variations of his design! his body goes through physical changes as well as his changes of attitude physically changing his design. is this why he has 3 different nendoroids already...?) reinforces the wide range of his personality as well. His well-written character and carefully-designed outward appearance work together to express a really believable person, who is capable of surprising us with his depth episode after episode.

So, think of yourself as Victor, for a moment. The first time he sees yuuri, he arguably doesn’t even recognize him as a skater, from looking at him. Nothing special, probably just a fan, of which he has and has-seen zillions. Victor, like the viewer, comes to appreciate yuuri by experiencing his depths over time, learns how he works and how to exist successfully alongside him, and eventually comes to really capital-L Love him. As the viewer, speaking for myself, I found myself developing my feelings for this character at much the same trajectory as victor: over time, and in response to his gradually-revealed depths. My first impression was indeed of a shy, plain, regular-ass guy. I was like “oh looks like Hiramatsu re-used Parasyte Guy again” (which, lol, joke’s on me: Parasyte Guy is also designed with versatility of his look in mind). That’s all you get when you see a person for the first time. Just an impression based entirely on how they look. It is completely purposeful that he looks pretty regular in the beginning, to the viewer and to victor. Because it makes uncovering all the beautiful details SO much more enchanting.

it’s necessary for yuuri to come off as plain in the beginning, because how else will we feel that sweet, sweet surprise when he brings the Eros all of a sudden?

I think, as viewers, we fall in love with yuuri just as victor does. As we accumulate knowledge of his personality, little things about him start to take on beauty you probably wouldn’t have noticed as keenly at first. It’s what can take you from:

“This is a pretty cute anime-smile”

to:

*PRINCE’S I WOULD DIE 4 U BLARING AT 100000000 DECIBELS*

I’d argue it’s appropriate to call yuuri “plain-looking”. He looks like a regular person (well, caveat: he looks like a regular figure skater. that’s the only explanation for his ass) His magnetism is not in blinding, fae-like beauty like Victor’s or Yuri P’s. The effect of his confidence is never as obvious on him as it is one someone like JJ, with his near-permanent smirk and half-lidded eyes. the appeal of his eros isn’t like Chris’ overt, exaggerated sexuality with full lips, bright eyes, and prominent eyelashes. He never even really fits into the Eros costume perfectly. it’s never skin-tight on him. It is even, technically, a borrowed costume. But while not really fitting his body, it grows more becoming on him as he brings more and more of his genuine feelings into his performance.

(as an aside: one of the only times a character outright calls yuuri himself beautiful, it’s Victor, and yuuri is wearing his free skate costume, designed for a routine that expresses yuuri’s own emotions and development of himself. a.k.a.: symbolizes everything I’m talking about here lol)

Yuuri’s beauty is never JUST about how he looks, because that’s not how his character was constructed in the first place. Our impression of him is crafted carefully over the course of the series, using his character design and character writing in tandem with eachother. It is through Yuuri that the show’s recurring theme of Surprise is delivered, as yuuri continuously surprises his audience, himself, Victor, and us as viewers. Just because he is indeed “plain-looking”, doesn’t mean he isn’t also so, so beautiful. Yuuri’s beauty flows out gently from within him and manifests in response to learned facets of his personality. His smiles are so beautiful because you’ve seen him in his worst panic. His eros is so mesmerizing because you’ve seen how hard he’d struggled to access it, because you know what honest feelings he tapped into to release it; alluring, because you realize the shy, plain dude from the beginning is just the top layer. Every Yuuri we see is an honest yuuri, it’s all recognizably him, and the variety and surprise as you watch him open up to you and you begin to piece all these visions of Yuuri together into a cohesive picture of his character... is what leads you to fall in love with him, and see him as beautiful. Much like what drew victor to fall in love with him, and see him as beautiful. Much like how a real person might fall in love with a real person, and come to find their beauty as well. 

Very few of us are like Victor Nikiforov, Instantly Stunning With A Chin So Perfect It Could Fell A God. Most of us are Katsuki Yuuris, overlooked by 99.9999% of people on the street, but whose beauty waits to be seen by someone who wants to look close enough. 

so anyway I guess this is why I’M not completely sold on fics and stuff where victor is immediately all hummina-hummina over him. I just feel like that skips over the most interesting angle of Yuuri himself, and imo it’s just plain less interesting to read about a relationship where BOTH sides are smoking hot in much the same way...? There’s something really interesting to me in acknowledging something is plain but finding it absolutely beautiful in its simplicity at the same time. Somehow reminded I heard of a fic where kissing was described as, instead of sweet or fiery or melting, “tastes like mouth”. That’s just... so memorable and wonderful to me, lol.

this sort of bleeds into a thing I’ve been thinking about writing on designing sets of characters anyway, ideas about contrasting the designs against eachother and using a character design to subvert expectations later on down the line. related, but eh. it’s why I latch so hard onto the idea that yuuri can be considered genuinely plain AND beautiful AND sexy all at the same time, just cause... that’s the kind of effect I’ve been trying to achieve in my characters for a long time XD

Anyway that was a ramble, ty for reading, yuri on ice saved my soul goodnight

New Post has been published on https://magzoso.com/tech/realme-x2-pro-first-impressions/

Realme X2 Pro First Impressions

While we’re pretty much done with all the major flagship smartphone announcements for 2019, the mid-range and budget segments continue see new phone launches in the lead-up to the next big holiday season in December. After its recent debut in China, Realme has brought the Realme X2 Pro to India. This is the company’s first phone with a ‘true’ flagship processor, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855+, which makes it its most premium offering yet.

So far, Realme has established a comfort zone in the sub-Rs. 20,000 segment, but with the Realme X2 Pro, it’s stepping into the premium segment, where brands such as OnePlus and Asus have dominated for a while. The Realme X2 Pro looks impressive on paper, featuring things such as vapour cooling, a tactile linear motor for haptic feedback, stereo speakers, a 90Hz display, and extremely fast charging. We’ve been using the Realme X2 Pro for a few days, and here’s what we think about it so far.

The Realme X2 Pro is easily distinguishable from the rest of the company’s lineup thanks to the centre-mounted camera strip and the new position of the Realme logo at the back. This phone is available in a slightly different colour than what we’ve see before, called Neptune Blue, though you could also pick the more familiar Lunar White option.

Build quality is excellent and the Realme X2 Pro feels very premium. There’s Gorilla Glass on the front and back of this phone. As for the new placement of the logo, it did look a little odd at first but we guess it’s just a matter of getting used to it. Considering how smartphones look so similar these days, a logo this prominent is sure to stand out, which could be one of the reasons for this design change.

At the front, you get a large 6.5-inch AMOLED display, which Realme refers to as ‘fluid AMOLED.’ Sound familiar? That’s because, just like the OnePlus 7T (Review), the X2 Pro features a 90Hz refresh rate, a small notch, and slim bezels all around. In fact, the overall design of the front reminds us a lot of the OnePlus 7T, which isn’t a big surprise considering that both brands are ultimately part of the same parent company. Unlike OnePlus though, Realme has kept a headphone jack. However, the X2 Pro does not allow for storage expansion, just like OnePlus phones and also the Realme X (Review).

The Realme X2 Pro looks like a premium flagship

Speaking of which, the unit we’re testing features 128GB of storage and 8GB of RAM (Rs. 29,999), but you can get a higher-end variant with 256GB of storage and 12GB of RAM (Rs. 33,999). As we stated earlier, the Realme X2 Pro is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855+ SoC, which means you can expect apps and games to run very smoothly. Realme is also using the UFS 3.0 standard for its flash storage, which is not often found at this price level. In our brief time with the Realme X2 Pro, we did notice that the sides and the rear (near the camera module) of the phone got quite hot when running a few benchmarks, however we’ll have to test it a bit more to see if it shows the same trait while gaming.

One of the things we noticed in ColorOS on this phone is a dark mode. This is currenlty listed as a ‘labs’ feature, but so far, it seems to work pretty well. Not only does it add a dark skin to Android’s menus but you can also choose which third-party apps it affects. We’ll have to dig a bit further to see what other visual and functional tweaks Realme has added, so be sure to check out our full review of the Realme X2 Pro very soon.

We’ve only been using this phone for a couple of days now, and so far, the Realme X2 Pro has been pretty comfortable to use. It’s a bit on the larger side and a tad heavy at just under 200g, but these things aren’t too noticeable after a day or so. The glass back is prone to picking up smudges and fingerprints but you could use the bundled case to avoid this. We found the buttons on either side to be placed ergonomically. 

In terms of battery life, the X2 Pro has a 4000mAh capacity. One of its biggest selling points is that you get a 50W Super VOOC charger in the box, which Realme claims should be able to fully charge the battery from zero in only 35 minutes. This sounds very impressive, and we’ll definitely be putting it to the test soon. The good news is that the Realme X2 Pro also supports more common fast charging standards such as Qualcomm’s Quick Charge and USB Type-C Power Delivery (PD) so you’ll still be able to quickly top up the battery, even without the bundled charger. 

A premium smartphone wouldn’t be complete without a robust set of cameras, and the X2 Pro checks these boxes too. It borrows the 64-megapixel primary sensor from the Realme XT (Review), which has already proven to be very good for stills. Realme has ditched a dedicated 2-megapixel macro camera in favour of a 13-megapixel telephoto camera, which was a wise choice if you ask us. Super macro duties are now carried out by the 8-megapixel wide-angle sensor, which gets autofocus and can also be used to record video. There’s an ‘Ultra Steady’ stabilisation mode for video too, which we’re eager to test. Finally, there’s a 2-megapixel depth sensor to help with portrait shots.  

Some of the preliminary samples we shot showed a lot of promise. Images seemed to pack in very good detail with good colour saturation. Low-light shots looked sharp and relatively noise-free. Realme has expanded its Nightscape shooting mode too, and it now works with the 16-megapixel selfie camera. There’s quite a bit to unpack here, so be sure to check our full review for in-depth analysis of the Realme X2 Pro’s cameras.

A low-light sample with Nightscape taken with the Realme X2 Pro looks promising (tap to see full-sized image)

The Realme X2 Pro offers a lot of features for a starting price of Rs. 29,999. It should give stiff competition to the Redmi K20 Pro (Review), which is also in the same ball-park price range. What’s more interesting is that this phone will also indirectly compete with its cousin, the OnePlus 7T. Its feature set is very similar, and if you can live without OxygenOS, the X2 Pro could very well be a “budget” alternative to the 7T.  

We’ll know for sure once we’re done testing the Realme X2 Pro thoroughly, so don’t forget to keep a look out for the full review, coming very soon.

In His Shoes (3. We Don’t Talk About That)

               Noctis stared at his own face. Not a reflection. Not a picture. His own face. He was not meant to see himself from this angle, and it was disorienting. He assumed the others felt the same. Did he always look this way, or was there influence from his body’s current occupant? Surely this grouchy scowl wasn’t something which always adorned his features.

               “Highness.”

               His title coming out of his own mouth, in his voice. Weird. “Yeah?”

               “We’re supposed to be having a discussion here, remember?”

               “M’listening,” he answered, tilting his head. There was something morbidly fascinating about studying his own features through a different set of eyes.

               “You very clearly are not. Please, this is a serious situation, and I would appreciate it if you would treat it as such.”

               “I am! But c’mon, Specs. You have to admit this is a unique chance. Haven’t you ever been curious about how you look to someone else?”

               Sighing, Ignis pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’ve never given it much thought, honestly. And looking at myself while talking to you is giving me a headache. Noctis, please I know this is an uncomfortable topic, but I really need you to focus.”

               Slouching against the side of the Regalia, Noct looked to where Gladio and Prompto were holding a similar conversation at their campsite. It was decided they needed to set some ground rules, and it was best done in confidence with the person they swapped with.

               “You and I will be experiencing things neither of us was meant to experience. This includes knowledge of one another’s bodies. Any daily functions should be performed with detachment as not to embarrass one another.”

               “Got it. Don’t stare at your junk when I have to pee.”

               “Prince Noctis!”

               “What?” he laughed. Maybe this was all taking its time to sink it, but the entire situation was laughable. Someone had to make jokes, even it, absurdly enough, it was him.

               “Please be a little less bawdy about this. If we want to come out of this ordeal more-or-less the same as we’ve gone in, some things need to be said. Now, given the status of our relationships, I feel we need to make a no physical contact policy. Engaging in any sort of romantic rendezvous would be a gross breach of trust.”

               Noctis cringed with his entire body. “I wouldn’t be caught dead messing around with that Behemoth.”

               Ignis’ brow twitched into a scowl. He was torn between telling Noctis that was his Behemoth he was insulting, and asking the man if he was so shallow he would no longer want anything to do with Prompto if he didn’t look like Prompto.

               “You’d better not get any ideas in your head, either,” Noctis grumbled, crossing his arms.

               Ignis scoffed. “Hardly. But on that note, any…marks we may find will remain undiscussed, understood?” Pink tinged his cheeks.

               “With the way you teased me and Prom, I never would have thought something like this would embarrass you, Specs.”

               “And I would have thought it would bother you more than it seems to be,” Ignis retorted.

               Noctis exhaled a sharp breath. “Apparently you don’t blush as easily as I do because I am mortified.” He readjusted the obnoxious glasses on his nose and sighed again. “I wanna talk about this stuff as much now as I did in middle school. Personal boundaries should be obvious.”

               Ignis nodded in agreement. “I also feel we should take time to acquaint ourselves with weapons and skills while we’re like this. It wouldn’t do to be caught unawares.”

               “Shouldn’t the first order of business be finding out what that daemon was and how we can reverse this?”

               “Ideally, yes. But should we find ourselves in combat, we ought to familiarize ourselves with the weapons we’ll be using. It shouldn’t be a problem for us, as we are well versed in various forms of combat. Those two, however, will have difficulty. Prompto, not having the stature for it, is unfamiliar with Great Swords, and Gladio hasn’t much experience with firearms.”

               Noctis dipped his head in a nod. The man had a point. “How do you think they’re getting on?” he asked, directing his attention to the two men pacing back and forth on the Haven.

               Ignis studied them for a while. “They aren’t as familiar with one another as we are. Boundaries may be a little more difficult for them to set.”

               “Prom’s really withdrawn about a lot of stuff. Will Gladio respect that?”

               “Give him a little more credit, Noctis. You ought to know the type of man he is.”

               “I do, but they were pretty mad at each other.”

               “So were we.”

               “I guess. I mean, I’m still exhausted, filthy, and pissed, but we’ve got bigger fish to fry.”

               Hearing such casual wording come out of his mouth, in his voice, was bizarre, to say the least. Sighing through his nose, he watched Noctis as the young man kept his eyes on their friends. Though it was his own body, he could see Noctis inside. The way he moved, held himself, stood silently watching was very much like Noctis even though he was seeing the body of Ignis Scientia perform the actions. The same could be said for Prompto and Gladio. Their differences are stark, but body language went a long way as well. It was almost like watching the boys do imitations of one another. Amusing, in its own right.

               Prompto, in Gladio’s body, paced, fidgeted, and gestured as he spoke. Gladio, in Prompto’s much smaller frame, replied with only a few hand movements, standing tall with his chest puffed out. Like a puppy posturing to an adult dog.

               Ignis smirked.

               “Hey.”

               “Yes?”

               “I know Gladio’s in there, but that’s still my Prompto.”

               “Relax, Noctis.”

               The man narrowed his eyes, watching Ignis for a moment before turning back to observe the others.

               Up on the hill, Gladio and Prompto talked. Or argued. Or something.

               Prompto frowned. “They’re watching us.”

               “Probably trying to decide if we’re done.”

               “We would be if you’d be reasonable for two seconds.”

               Gladio sighed, rubbing a hand over his chin. He didn’t know if he could get used to the smooth skin of Prompto’s face. He’d had facial hair pretty much since the time he could grow it. “How am I being unreasonable?” he asked, blinking slowly.

               “Oh, I dunno, how about refusing to respect my privacy?” Prompto asked with an exaggerated gesture of his hands.

               “What privacy? The four of us spend every minute of the day together.”

               “I still have…secrets,” he muttered, eyes flicking subconsciously to the band which permanently adorned his wrist.

               Gladio didn’t miss the darting eyes. “This?” he asked, raising his arm. He looked up to see unfamiliar expressions crossing his own face. Fear being the most prominent.

               “Please, Gladio,” Prompto whispered, lips parted. “I know it’s asking a lot, but please don’t take that off. Don’t even look underneath. I’m begging you, pal.”

               Gladio frowned, seeing small, soft Prompto beneath the gruff, scared exterior that made Gladiolus Amicitia. He didn’t like any of this. “Okay. Relax, Prompto. Does Noct even know what you’re hiding under here?”

               Prompto gave a tiny shake of his head.

               “Oh.” Gladio dropped his arm and exhaled a heavy sigh. “Shit. Well, I won’t look. I know we’ve been at each other’s throats, but I’m not that much of an asshole.”

               Relief washed over what used to be Gladio’s face. “Thank you. Uh, one more thing?”

               “Yeah, sure.”

               “Please don’t go shirtless while you’re borrowing my body.”

               “Why? Too embarrassed by your scrawny body?” scoffed Gladio, making a show of flexing one arm and patting his bicep.

               “Hardly. I’ve got plenty of muscle,” Prompto answered, not taking the bait like Noct often did. “Though I do have some…image issues?”

               Gladio narrowed his eyes. “You, the embodiment of confidence and exuberant personality, have body image problems? I’m not buying it.”

               “Hey, we’ve all got problems, Mr. Never Wears A Shirt,” Prompto grumbled, eyeing his chest with disgust. “Despite being well-toned, I’m not a fan of the way my belly looks, and I prefer to keep it covered, okay?” He muttered the last few words, refusing to meet Gladio’s eye.

               “Okay, I can respect that.”

               “Anything you want me to do?” Prompto asked, feeling a little safer with his body in Gladio’s possession.

               The big guy thought for a moment. “Nah, I’m pretty much an open book.”

               Prompto scrubbed a hand over the cropped hair at the side of his head. “Okay, well, that’s easy enough.”

               “Just…don’t mess around with Noct while you’re in there.”

               “Same goes for you and Iggy.”

               “Works for me.” Gladio extended a hand.

               Prompto accepted the hand, giving it a firm shake. The pair stared at one another before grins washed over their faces. Breaking the handshake, Gladio gave Prompto a playful shove, only this time the normally smaller man didn’t budge.

               “Suddenly this isn’t as much fun.”

               Shaking his head, Prompto waved at Ignis and Noctis. He hid his grin as the two walked over. Noct, usually casual in his gait, sometimes slouching, sometimes just lazy in his steps, was now walking with Ignis’ confident stride, minus the unavoidable hitch caused by Noctis’ old injury. Ignis’ body on the other hand, under the influence of Noct, now moved with a slower, laid-back pace.

               “Alright?” Ignis asked when they joined Gladio and Prompto.

               “We’ve worked out what lines not to cross,” Gladio confirmed, dropping into one of the camp chairs. Used to his bigger size, he misjudged the length of his legs and hit the edge of the seat. He hit the ground hard, flipping the chair onto his head.

               A rush of air passed Noctis’ lips and he doubled over, laughing.

               Ignis hid his smirk behind his hand.

               Prompto quirked a brow. “Hey big guy, I’d appreciate it if you could return the goods in the state you found them. I don’t need bruises on my butt.”

               Noctis was certain exhaustion had a lot to do with it, but seeing this whole scene play out, Prompto with a Gladio-esque glare, Gladio with Prompto’s soft amusement, his own face with maturely restrained laughter, was absurd. And hilarious. Tears rolled down his cheeks, and he couldn’t catch his breath.

               “Okay, knock it off. It wasn’t that funny,” Gladio muttered, getting back to his feet.

               “It was hilarious!” panted Noctis, bent over with his hands on his knees.

               “I thought it was rather endearing,” Ignis admitted.

               “Aw, c’mon. Not you, too Ig’,” Gladio complained, dusting off his backside.

               Ignis shrugged, crossing his arms. He wasn’t entirely sure if he thought Gladio’s fall was cute because he was Ignis reacting to an uncommon thing for Gladio to do, or if this was Noct’s body reacting to a common thing for Prompto to do. Things like this would become very difficult to discern as time went on, he had no doubt.

               “Iggy? You okay in there?”

               Torn from his thoughts, Ignis raised his head to see golden brown eyes watching him with concern. “Ah. Yes, fine. Thank you, Prompto,” he replied after a moment of hesitation. “What do you say we have some breakfast before we start the laborious task of fixing our current predicament?” Turning away from the others, he hoped they didn’t see his brow twitch into a scowl.

               This wasn’t good. Gladio’s eyes didn’t give him any reaction at all. Because their relationship was still relatively fresh, any expression, no matter the intensity, directed at him with those beautiful eyes always did something to him. A breath hitch, a skipped heartbeat, a swarm of butterflies to briefly take up residence in his belly, or any sort of overly romantic problems. Not this time. Those physiological responses were not tied to this body.

               This presented an entirely new batch of problems. Ignis hoped they could reverse whatever magic had taken hold of them before it caused irreparable damage not only to their minds but their hearts as well.