#...who were created by that very same guy. so like it's just an infinitely repeating circular logic error | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

chazukekani · 3 years

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Summary for Code:03 is here! I hope you guys will enjoy (spoilers, not really!)

Recap: Murase-officer was killed by Verlaine, so Chuuya and Adam were going to find out why he had become Verlaine's target.

From the blue mobile phone acquired from Murase-officer's pocket, Adam believed that the phone was not the original but got replaced by someone, and hence Adam inferred that Verlaine was the one who did this in order to wiretap his call, and Adam was able to get the recording of the final call on Murase-officer's phone.

'It's me, brother,' that's the voice of Murase-officer.

'The gravity guy is here, just like what you said. Wait! There is one more person! Who is this? What's his relationship with Chuuya! Call me when you hear this!" and that's the end of the call.

This recording took place shortly after Verlaine invaded the police station.

'That's very interesting,' Adam was sure about something, 'With reference to my record, his brother was supposed to be dead already.'

Murase-officer's brother, was dead in April 14 years ago. He died in an accident while conducting an experiment. His name was not on the official record, nor there was any photograph of his appearance, so let's call him N for now.

'Officer-san's brother, participated in the research of Arahabaki?' Chuuya said.

The creator of Arahabaki...? Adam could not handle such surprise in his mind. The trio (Chuuya, Adam and Shirase) continue to deduce the hints they have. They supposed N was probably the only survivor as all scientists were dead during one explosion of the experiment. Now they know, Verlaine's next target was N because he was the only one left who knew the secrets behind Chuuya. Henceforth, they have to find N now.

'Hey, you...' Shirase looked at Adam with a terrified face as if seeing a ghost. Adam was confused, but the next second he realised, that was Adam himself talking.

'I am the one who needs your help,' Adam's mouth moved, 'Adversely, you need my help too. I am the one whom you called N.' The man who called N hacked into Adam and delivered this message.

'I can no longer speak to you in such a way, come here, I want to meet you. I will leave the address in this machine.'

'Hey, wait. Meet us? What do you know?' said Chuuya

'Everything, Chuuya. Everything about you.' that voice spoke as if a god with a very calm voice, 'I am looking forward to meet you,' and the connection was lost.

They have arrived at their destination. It was a huge and broad place underground, as big as a tennis court, and there were firewalls built in the surrounding with guards guarding the front gate. Chuuya, Adam and Shirase were stopped by the guards and demanded to do a blood check before they could proceed for security purposes, but of course, Adam was spared from it.

After finishing the check, they finally saw N. That person that stood in front of them, was exactly the one who stood next to Chuuya in the picture that the Flags gave him.

'I am the director of the Arahabaki Project. The military named me as N because this is the initial of Nakahara.'

'I am your father.'

'What do you think ability is?' The group were in a corridor of the facility.

'We, researchers, frankly speaking, don't really know what ability is. How embarrassing,' N proceeded.

But there were few things that were confirmed. Other forms of life apart from humans, such as animals or plants, are not able to possess ability. Also, when the human dies, the ability that he has will together vanish from this world. Every ability has a maximum of output of power, and the military wanted to know so badly how we could break the limits. Yes, there is a way to break the limit, and that's called ability singularity. This is a phenomenon that occurred as a result of two or more contradicting abilities interfering with each other. Which means usually it requires at least two ability users to create such a phenomenon.

However, there is one type of ability user that is able to create an ability singularity on his own. They are able to do so because their ability itself consists of theoretical contradiction. The first person who discovered this was a German scientist, and he named this type of ability 'self-contradicting ability'. To be precise, this ability allows the user to amplify the output of their own ability. Since the user can continue amplifying the power of their own ability, it gives them an unlimited source of power, which breaks through the limit of ability. However, this user also needs to take the risk because once they are granted infinite power, the high density of the energy will create a distortion in space and collapse it into a gravity vortex, and can never go back.

There was an intense competition between Germany, France and Britain on investigating this subject. Since Japan was the ally of Germany, Japan also acquired various techniques and reports regarding this topic. Since most of the countries were running out of resources by the end of the war, they were eager to take theories into practice, and the most advanced country on this topic was France. They successfully weaponised ability singularity, and they found out that the most effective way to control it was heart, in other words, the human's soul. Yet with such huge energy, it was afraid that ordinary humans were not capable to manage it, but ironically, only humans are capable of possessing ability. Therefore, the French scientists came up with a solution, and that is to create a homunculus with a soul, and that’s how Paul Verlaine came. Years later, the Japanese government also obtained the related information and hence proceeded to conduct a similar experiment, which later what was known as the Arahabaki Project.

N wanted to show Chuuya something, but it was considered top secret. So he asked Adam and Shirase to wait while he and Chuuya would go somewhere else.

While going to another room, Chuuya told N that he recognised this place. However, N told him that it was just the No.2 Laboratory which had the same design as No.1 Laboratory, and it was destroyed during the Arahabaki Project. So what Chuuya remembered was actually the environment of the No.1 Lab. Meanwhile, Chuuya recalled some of his memories in this facility. He recalled that he had been staying in darkness for a long time. Yet, he heard 'Invaders!' 'Lock area 8 and 15!' one day. He used to be inside a cradle and locked from the outside world. But that day, someone broke the cradle and a hand touched Chuuya. That's Rimbaud's hand, and next to him was Verlaine.

'You are a miracle, Chuuya,' said N.

N showed something to Chuuya, and that's a cylinder which has a size similar to Chuuya. The container was transparent, and it had some blue and black liquid kept inside it so it was quite difficult to see through.

'Who is inside!' Chuuya yelled, but N didn't say a word.

N pressed a button via a remote in his pocket, and the liquid began to drain, and Chuuya was shocked to see what appeared in front of him.

What inside the cylinder, was Chuuya.

The Chuuya inside the container had his eyes closed, and quite thin. His leg was locked by two chains respectively that linked to the bottom of the cylinder.

'May I introduce, your original,' said N.

Chuuya's jaw dropped.

Suddenly, the teen inside the cylinder was in pain, and could not breathe. He cough badly and almost had his organs cough out.

'Hey! Are you alright!' Chuuya yelled.

'No way he would be alright,' said N, 'he had his living-saving fetal aqueous solution drained after all.

Chuuya grabbed the controller from N and pressed all the buttons on it, but nothing happened. Shortly after, that teen died, and his body including his skin, flesh melted together into a blue-black liquid.

All of a sudden, Chuuya felt dizzy and fell down.

'I designed you, so I know you the best. No matter how strong you are, you are incompatible with poison,' said N. Chuuya realised that poison was injected during the blood check. He was furious and tried to punch N. Yet, a bullet hit Chuuya's forehead, and he lost his consciousness immediately.

On the other hand, likewise, Shirase also felt dizzy. Adam noticed Chuuya might be in trouble as well. After keeping Shirase in a safe placed, he proceed to search for Chuuya.

In a room of nothing, Chuuya's upper clothing was deprived, and he was bleeding. The most serious injury he had was on his chest. His hands were locked up by chains that connected to the ceiling, and electricity went through his body via this chain. Under the order of N, Chuuya was injected with midazolam, and continued being tortured.

N revealed that Chuuya was the only experimental product in the country that consisted of a safety measure - in order to activate his full ability, a spell was needed. Once Chuuya said the spell, his personality will be erased and overridden. Such that Chuuya would be free from pain and darkness. And the spell was-

'O grantors of dark disgrace, do not wake me again! I will endure my solitude, arms seemingly already useless,' N said the spells.

'O grantors of dark disgrace, do not wake me again...' Chuuya repeated after N as if an automatic robot. This was the result of the midazolam.

'Very well,' N smiled

'I will...WHO ARE YOU?' Chuuya yelled.

'Raise the power,' N ordered the assistant to give Chuuya another electric shock, and Chuuya screamed.

Chuuya was not in a stable state of mind. He saw different kinds of illusion. He saw Dazai, Piano Man, Albatross, Ice Man, Lippmann and Doc, and the members of sheep. He was blamed by such an illusion, and his value of existence was denied.

The last person who showed up was Verlaine.

'I will kill this researcher,' said Verlaine in Chuuya's illusion. He gave his hand out to Chuuya and said, 'come here,'

'Why...' said Chuuya

'Didn't I tell you when we first met? I am here to save you,' Verlaine replied, 'Go, my brother. Kill N and take your soul back from this crazy world.'

Adam was dealing with the soldiers that were attacking him. At once, a teenager showed up in front of Adam, and he's Dazai.

'Nice to meet you Mr Inspector,' Dazai greeted, and he continued, ' "Why are you here?" I believe that's what you wanna ask me. I will tell you. That's a stage of the plan. "What's the plan?" you may ask, and I will tell you, everything.'

Dazai explained that the documents that he gave to Verlaine was the information about Murase-officer, N, and everything else. The purpose behind this was to save time, because Verlaine's initial first target was Mori. Hence, by manipulating the information, Dazai can squeeze out extra time and assassinate Verlaine back.

'According to the plan, Chuuya will kill N, and will not be a human anymore. However I want to see Chuuya as a human, so I am here to stop him,' said Dazai.

A fight broke out in the laboratory where Chuuya was staying, and other people were evacuated from the facility.

Chuuya had immense hatred towards N.

'W...wait! I can't help with it! It's all work! I never ever once wanted you to suffer on my own!' N cried and tried to escape from Chuuya.

'Don't listen to him Chuuya,' Verlaine showed up in the entrance.

Chuuya was holding a chain on his hand tightly, and threw it out with the speed of sound and stabbed the target: Verlaine's chest.

'W...what?'

'Didn't see that coming right, Verlaine. It's true that the researcher is harsh, but you killed Piano Man and the others after all,' Chuuya said, and the 'brothers' had a fight.

There was a mass explosion everywhere inside the room. The punches were able to create tiny suns and the gravity made the room collapse.

Amid the fight, N, who was injured nearby, yelled to Verlaine, 'If I died, you would never know your secret!'

' I am not joking, everything. Including the one you wanna know most - the Secret of the Gentle Forest,'

'How do you know this!' Verlaine shouted.

But there was no spare time for them, All of a sudden, a skeleton appeared. That's Chuuya's original, and that's what the body left after dying and melting in Chuuya's arm just now. It was connected with the tube and wearing a coat. The skeleton was under the control of N and launched attacks towards Chuuya, and he couldn't move

Shirase, who woke up and found Chuuya, surprisingly appeared and saved Chuuya by plugging out the tube from the skeleton. A while after, Adam and Dazai also found where Chuuya was. The battle was paused.

All of a sudden, the light in the room was turned off, but turned back on a few seconds afterwards. Yet, Verlaine and N were gone, and the ceilings of consecutive multiple floors above were gone as well.

Code 3 ended

#bungostraydogs #bungoustraydogs #bsd #boungo stray dogs storm bringer #bungou stray dogs storm bringer #bsd storm bringer #bsd nakahara chuuya #bsd paul verlaine #bsd adam frankenstein #bsd dazai osamu #nakahara chuuya #paul verlaine #adam frankenstein #dazai osamu

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stxleslyds · 3 years

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I saw your rant about the Red Hood Movie lol (I agree DC keeps hurting my boy Jason) and you said something that interested me, you mentioned that you don’t like it when Jason is drawn with a bat symbol on him but why? Personally I feel that him wearing the bat symbol makes sense because he’s always tried to fit in with the family and it’s his way of connecting with them because he’s never had a family before. He gets along with his other siblings sometimes so I don’t think it’s ooc. I consider ‘bat symbol’ Jason an era of the past and am perfectly fine with his new Red Hood logo it looks sweet (but I wouldn’t be angry if he had the bat symbol on or not in the future). I’m curious what you’re thoughts are!

Hey there Anon, I have to be honest with you, your ask has been proven very difficult to answer, this here is my third draft. I have decided that instead of explaining my thoughts as I was trying to do in my previous drafts, I will now just link you to some of my past posts when I bring up certain points that make me think Jason should have never worn the bat-symbol on his chest.

Just a heads up, I am not a fan of Batman, the “Batfamily”, or Jason being dragged to any Bat-related content, I think it makes his character bland.

In order to make the answer clear to me as well as to anyone who reads this post, I will be separating my thoughts on how I think Jason’s relationship with Bruce has led me to think that he shouldn’t wear a bat-symbol or be involved with any Batman related content, and how Jason’s relationship with his brothers has led me to think that he isn’t part of any Batfamily or has ever been written as someone with true reasons to consider the others his brothers/allies/friends. I will separate each of those two groups in four different sections: pre-New 52, New 52, Rebirth and Infinite Frontier.

First though I would like to say that Jason as the Red Hood wearing a bat-symbol doesn’t make sense to me from the most basic of things, Jason’s vigilante name has nothing to do with Bats. Who wears bat-symbols? Batman, Batwoman, Batgirl, Batwing… All people that who have the “Bat” prefix on their names, nobody else wears a bat-symbol, Nightwing, Robin, Red Robin (Robin), none of them wear it, so why would Red Hood do it? It just makes zero sense. But anyway, that’s just me being annoying, I guess.

Jason and Bruce’s relationship.

First let’s go back in time to when Jason hadn’t died yet. You said that Jason wore the bat-symbol so he could connect with his family because Jason had never had that before, well, I see things differently, Jason had a family and that was his mother, the mother that he cared for when she was sick and the mother that he saw die to drugs after his father was put in jail. He had a family with her. And then he had a family with Bruce when he was Robin, but because Bruce started to neglect and not pay enough attention to him after he realized they weren’t seeing eye to eye in various things, Jason was pushed to act the way he did when he found that his birth mother was alive and “being manipulated by Joker”.

Jason’s father was abusive with his mother and didn’t care for Jason, Bruce wasn’t ready to be a father (even after Dick) and when Jason started to not want to follow his every rule Bruce neglected him, later his birth mother betrayed him and was one of the people involved in Jason’s death.

My point here is that Jason had a family with one person who died to drugs and then every other “family” that he found ended up betraying him or neglecting him. So, I don’t really think that Jason has much trust in the whole concept of “family” at least not when it comes to any of his experiences outside of Catherine Todd.

Now let’s move to the events of Under the Red Hood where Jason comes back to comics. Jason doesn’t hate Bruce then but he felt betrayed by him and felt like Batman’s whole crusade was not good anymore. Jason expressed several times in that book the fact that he didn’t believe Batman was good for Gotham and that he became a better version of Batman, the Red Hood.

Red Hood could do things that Batman didn’t dare do, he was better. So, why on earth would Jason wear a bat-symbol then? Well, Jason never wore a bat-symbol pre-New 52 when he was wearing his Red Hood suit. NEVER.

Jason didn’t care for Dick or Tim, he saw Dick as inferior to him because of Nightwing’s no killing ways and he was completely indifferent to Tim, his only interactions with him were when he cut his throat a little bit in Batman: Hush and when he called him “the pretender”.

So, Jason wasn’t looking for family he just wanted Bruce to kill Joker for him, and Bruce didn’t. When things got complicated and Jason realized that Bruce was too much of a coward he improvised, he told Batman that in order to stop him from killing the Joker Batman would have to shoot him (Jason). Batman didn’t use the gun, but he did save the Joker by throwing a batarang at Jason’s throat. When Joker detonated the explosives in the building they were in Bruce once again saved Joker from the rubble and didn’t look much for Jason.

That my dead Anon is the first time Bruce betrays Jason in such a big way that made me think that Jason would have never wanted to interact with Bruce in a good way. I will repeat it now, Bruce SAVED the Joker instead of letting Jason KILL the Joker.

After Under the Red Hood we got to see that Jason was alive and well in Green Arrow #69-72, where he made an appearance, there I can say with a 100% certainty that Jason hated both Batman and Bruce. He actively did things that pissed Bruce off and was searching for conflict with the man.

Jason and Bruce don’t interact much after all that because at some point Bruce “died” and that’s where Battle for the Cowl comes in. There is where we see one of the craziest Jason characterizations, there Jason took on the mantle of Batman because Gotham needed Batman (what? Red Hood was created to replace Batman!). But in that book Jason actually harmed both his brothers and left them for dead. In that book we also see a horrible message that Bruce left for Jason where Bruce told him that “Jason was broken and he tried to fix him” and that “Jason was my (Bruce’s) biggest failure”. I don’t know about you Anon, but if my father saw me that way, I would be packing my bags. And Jason didn’t look like he was looking to connect with his “family”.

After all that we don’t see Jason until Batman and Robin vol.1, where we see the weirdest characterization of Red Hood, this Red Hood hates Batman and would kill anyone just because. Jason had zero need to connect with his family there.

I just want to remind you here that Jason never wore a Batman symbol until here in his Red Hood suits, he only wore the symbol when he “was” Batman and that was OOC.

So now I welcome you to the New 52, where Jason wears a bat-symbol on his Red Hood suit for the first time. I HATE New 52 Jason Anon; you will find zero love for him here. That man wore a bat-symbol on his chest even though he didn’t believe in Batman’s ways and while he had this internal conflict about whether he hated or not Bruce. This Jason gave up a memory from his Robin years with Batman because he didn’t care enough to keep it, then he was seen acting like an ass towards Bruce and Barbara in the “Court of Owls” event.

But this whole shit show was written by Lobdell and one day he decided that Jason cared about what Bruce thought and let us know that maybe Jason secretly admired Bruce (in the post I will link here! I talk about what happened in those issues among other things). That story would be followed by Batman and Robin vol.2 #20, or what I like to call “the second time Bruce betrayed Jason in an even more painful way”. I am not going to explain what happened there, but I will like here! the post where I talked about what happened there and why I think that Jason should have never been on good terms with Bruce again from that moment on.

In that post I also discuss how much of an abusive and manipulative person and father, Bruce has and can be. He is a disgusting human being and Jason called him out about it but DC loves to write Bruce being abusive and then swiping it under the rug, Jason being on good terms with Bruce or wearing a bat-symbol on his chest is just horrifying after witnessing that issue, and it normalized Bruce’s abusive behaviour when issues later the same writer (Tomasi) had Jason interact with Bruce as if nothing had happened.

After that Jason was seen interacting with Bruce when the latter lost his memory, Jason even hugged Bruce there, it was OOC, and like I said it normalized Bruce’s abusive behaviour or at the very least made it look as something of no real importance.

Now, we are entering the Rebirth era of Bruce and Jason’s relationship, Jason was still wearing that fucking bat-symbol on his chest and this time around Jason even made a deal where he wouldn’t kill anyone while in Gotham (RHatO vol.1 #6), Lobdell even wrote them as being all buddy-buddy after the mess that was the New 52, absolutely disgusting.

Jason didn’t interact with Bruce in Rebirth that much, in fact the next time that Batman made a big appearance in the Red Hood book was in Red Hood and the Outlaws vol.2 #25, yeah, the issue where Batman beats the living shit out of Jason twice because he thought that Jason had killed Penguin. Father of the year, Jason wasn’t dying to be part of Bruce’s family, he was just brutally beat to be part of it. Bruce also ripped the vat-symbol off of Jason’s chest and told him that he didn’t “belong” with him or in Gotham any more. The AUDACITY of that bitch, can you believe? Jason belongs in Gotham as much if not more than Bruce.

Later when Red Hood and the Outlaws became Red Hood Outlaw, we saw Bruce and Jason interact again when Bruce informed Jason of Roy’s death, hugged him and also told him that he was still not allowed in Gotham, what a swell guy that Batman lad!

After that Batman went after Jason Todd when Jason came back to Gotham (without King Batman’s permission) and told the world that Jason Todd was alive and well and taking over Penguin’s Casino. Jason actually threatened Batman with revealing too much information about himself to the world (meaning, Jason threatened Bruce with revealing his secret identity) and that was that. Jason and Bruce only saw each other a few times when DC needed to make money with one of their boring ass events like Joker War and Bruce was shown “welcoming” Jason to Gotham in Red Hood Outlaw #51 or #52, I don’t remember but either way, it was absolutely hilarious and made zero sense. I am sorry, but after Bruce being a manipulative, abusive and all around a horrible person, I don’t feel anything except rage when they make them interact as if they cared for one another.

Shit hits the fan in Infinite Frontier with Urban Legends: Cheer, once again instead of explaining what happens there, I will just link you to the six posts I made about that mini. Part one, Part two, Part three, Part four, Part five and Part six.

Here I will only talk about the comeback of the bat-symbol in Jason’s life. Like you said Jason used (still has in some books) his own logo on his chest after Bruce ripped off the bat-symbol and told him to fuck off. That Red Hood logo was still done with the bat-symbol in mind and I just thought that it was ugly, like, there is no need for a logo if you are going to give him an ugly one along an even uglier suit. But that’s not what matter here, what matters is that the bat-symbol IS making a comeback because at the end of UL: Cheer, Bruce gives Jason a brand new (ugly) suit that has the bat-symbol again. That gift comes as a slap to the face after the disaster that was that book, from every point of view that mini should have not come out to the public. But it did because it forced the “Batfamily” down our throats through Bruce deciding to welcome Jason back to the “family” by giving him a suit with HIS logo on the Red Hood suit that kinda looks to me like Bruce saying “glad that I own you too as well”. The whole bat-symbol thing doesn’t sit right with him and sadly I don’t see it like a “Jason era of the past”, I see it like a metaphorical jail for Jason’s character, he is not free to be the character that he is supposed to be (a perfect opposite to Batman that shows that duality MUST exist in Gotham), and instead all we get is another Batman wannabe that is just as boring as the Batman himself.

Jason and his brother’s relationship.

The funny ha-ha thing with this is that we are not supposed to see Dick, Jason, Tim and Damian as four brothers (and to be honest I have never seen them four as brothers, as far as I see it, Jason hasn’t had a brother since before died). DC always makes it clear that Damian is Bruce’s only son so yeah, there is a big misunderstanding there within DC themselves, they have no problem with trying to sell us their absolutely nasty version of a family but at the same time they refuse to acknowledge any one except for Damian as Bruce’s son.

Even though I don’t necessarily believe that Jason sees his brothers as such I still call them that way because they were/are all Bruce’s children.

But this is not about Bruce so let me talk about Jason’s interactions with his brothers in the pre-New 52 era. So, as I said earlier in this post Jason didn’t think Dick was a big deal in UtRH because *just* like Batman Dick never killed and his way didn’t work or whatever (if only Jason knew what Dick did), and with Tim, Jason was mostly indifferent, he only hurt him a little bit in Batman: Hush (for the little bit that he took Clayface’s place) and then he referred to him as “the pretender”. Then we jump to the events of Teen Titans for Tim and Nightwing for Dick. In Teen Titans #29 Jason went to Titans Tower and beat the living hell out of Tim just because, now that thing was OOC and written by Geoff Johns but it existed and it further proves that DC writes this “family” through violence every time they can and then they just hope we forget it happened. With Dick, well, there was the Brothers in Blood arc where Jason dressed up as Nightwing and killed people in his name, he did it because he wanted to “bond” with Dick because he thought that Dick had killed Blockbuster, the whole arc was a mess and I can tell you this about it, Jason wanted to bond for all the wrong reasons and Dick was written as actually preferring Jason to be dead.

Then we jump right into Battle for the Cowl and even though (once again) this Jason was extremely OOC he did try to kill both Damian and Tim and fought Dick too, so, so far, I am not seeing Jason wanting to connect with his brothers, it was more like him going “be robin to my weird ass version of Batman or suffer!”. It was just weird.

Then there was Batman and Robin vol.1, where Jason’s Red Hood was just a blood thirsty and crazy and he didn’t want to be part of any family. I might not like Jason being written as part of the family but what this book had going on was not it.

Now, get ready because it is New 52 time again and this is messier than his relationship with Bruce in this timeline. The most recognizable relationship (or lack of thereof) was Jason and Dick. Lobdell just let us know one thing about what Jason thought of Dick and that was HATE. Jason HATED Dick, why, you ask? Oh, um, no one really knows, the only panel we were shown as “proof” of why Jason hated Dick was when Jason was acting like a little bitch when Dick was teaching him stuff during patrol (RHatO vol.1 #6). But, yes, Jason “had” (apparently) a good relationship with Tim. Yeah, no gracias, listen, Jason and Tim having brunch for two pages (RHatO vol.1 #8) isn’t making me believe that Jason cares or sees Tim in a good light, just throwing a brunch between them isn’t proof of them being the best of brothers but then again Lobdell loved giving Jason every character trait and relationship that Dick once had (examples: Tim, Roy and Kory). That brunch didn’t mean much because later on during the Death of the Family event Jason almost killed Tim (Teen Titans #16) to “save” his father from Joker (talk about bad writing). Jason and Damian had a very weird and forced “bonding” moment in that same event (you can include Damian to the relationships that Lobdell borrowed from Dick), all of the sudden Jason cared for Damian and he was acting all brotherly, because “they worked together” as different people in Batman Incorporated #4, this weird interaction between Jason and Damian (it can only be called weird because it looked out of place and you cannot change my mind, even Jason thinks it is weird in those panels) happened in RHatO vol.1 #17. In that same issue is where Jason tells Dick that he was trash because he didn’t want to say hi to Kory and kinda tells him that Dick “underestimates” Kory, listen, New Teen Titans isn’t a book that I enjoy reading most of the time but Lobdell needs to do some re-reading himself, Dick isn’t trash to Kory, Lobdell was trash to Kory. Anyway, at that point in time, Jason had a bad relationship with Dick, a secret admiration for Bruce, and a weird ass relationship with Tim and Damian.

Before we go on let me tell you what I think about the whole New 52 dynamic. Jason was used as a replacement of Dick Grayson. Dick was the one that had good relationships with his brothers and father, Jason up until the start of New 52 didn’t care for Tim or Damian, hated Bruce and kinda had a soft spot for Dick. In the New 52 the tables were turned. Jason’s relationship with Tim was never developed in paper, they for some reason were friends only when they stood together like they did in Robin War and Batman and Robin Eternal, there was never development or a reason as to why they “were in good terms”, they just *were*. The whole Jason and Damian thing didn’t last long because Damian died and then the whole mess of Batman and Robin #20 happened with Bruce.

Ahh, Grayson #12, the time when Jason and Tim’s last braincell died, they threw so much shit Dick’s way and for nothing. I will forever be mad at this, they really thought that Dick of all people faked his death, and because Bruce was conveniently amnesiac nobody dared say “hey, wasn’t it Bruce the one that told us that Dick was dead?”, seems to me like New 52 Jason and Tim can go be friends with that one braincell all by themselves. This is not family; this is people teaming up with whoever so DC can sell another weird comic event. Also at that time Damian was alive and Jason couldn’t have cared less about him being there (maybe it was because Jason was there when Damian was resurrected? Who knows?).

And now we jump to Rebirth because I hate the New 52. Tim was nowhere to be seen. Jason just forgot Tim existed and it wasn’t until the Red Hood Outlaw era in which we saw Jason interact with Damian again. What we did see, was a reconciliation between Jason and Dick, Jason was written as acting completely different in RHatO Annual #1, Jason respected Dick and his work and also said that Dick “had been a better brother than he had given him credit for”. Then Jason appeared once in Nightwing and they talked about Dick’s new girlfriend. And that was that for a long while.

As I said, during the RHO era Jason and Damian shared a couple of issues in the Teen Titans run, I have talked about these issues before in two posts (Post 1 and Post 2) but I will summarize what happened there here quickly.

Apparently, Jason and Damian had been working together in secret (never shown in actual comics), Jason gave Damian targets and intel of people for Damian to put in his secret prison for villains. When Damian and the Titans go after a target something goes wrong and the Titans end up hurt. Damian goes after Jason without a second thought and accuses him of betraying him, a physical and emotional fight ensues and it ends with Jason promising that if he sees Damian again, he will kill him. That’s all for Jason and Damian being on good terms in Rebirth.

But it all changes in Infinite Frontier, in August of 2021 we see the *real* comeback of the “Batfamily” in Robin #5. Dick, Damian, Jason, Tim and Stephanie appear in this issue but the only things of essence happen between Jason and Damian and Dick and Damian. Only one of them made sense, and it wasn’t Jason and Damian.

Jason was there to bring Damian back to Bruce. Listen, the last time Jason and Damian were seen together they were actively hiding their work from Batman and then they ended promising to kill each other, and now Jason came fresh out of Urban Legends: Cheer #6 wanting Damian to go back to Bruce. Damian tricks Jason into a hug, but surprise! it wasn’t a hug, Damian electrocuted Jason to get him of his back.

And that’s all.

I understand that there have been moments where Jason has been written as wanting to connect to one or two people from the “family” but its never developed or based on something of true essence. You might consider it actually strong family connections but I just don’t see it that way.

Jason wearing a bat-symbol after the abuse and manipulation that Bruce put him through in new 52 onwards is just dumb to me. And given Red Hood’s origin, Jason wearing a bat-symbol in the first place is absurd and goes against everything that he once was.

Jason officially started wearing the bat-symbol again in Detective Comic's back up story written by Rosenberg and will continue to use it in the ongoing book Task Force Z.

The bat-symbol is annoying but Rosenberg writes Jason beautifully so yeah, I am biased there...

We just have different opinions on the matter Anon, but don't take this post as an attack towards you and what you think, it is just that I just don't like Jason being involved with anything Batman.

I hope you have a fantastic week Anon!

#jason todd #red hood #tim drake #dick grayson #damian wayne #bruce wayne #batfamily #batfam #dc comics #asksss

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grimmywrites · 3 years

Text

So, about Infinite Darkness...

I’m gonna try to be as succinct as I can (I failed) about all the problems I had with it, but my list is pretty long... Yes, this has spoilers. Let me state upfront: if you’re not a hardcore RE fan, you can skip the show. Below I’ll tell you why.

Story: What a mess. Honestly, they turned me off right at the beginning with all the military stuff. It’s the same reason people didn’t like Chris’ campaign in 6; didn’t they learn anything from that? So, the story wasn’t the best thing I’ve ever seen. Honestly, it had more plot holes than anything and so many points where I went: “I don’t care about this.” Again, it was a jumbled mess. Capcom, hire me and I’ll do better, I swear. Let’s just sum it up by saying it’s a rehash of things we’ve seen SEVERAL times in the series before. If you’re gonna do it AGAIN let’s make the story unique and interesting. Oh, there are shady people in the military that want to use bioweapons in war? Okay, we’ve known that since the first game. We’ve seen it time and time again. Look to re8′s ending for example: the BSAA are now starting to use engineered soldiers - THAT was a reveal that was far more interesting. The way it was addressed and overcome in this show was just... so lackluster. Ultimately, it just felt like this entire thing didn’t need to happen. It changed nothing, it impacted nothing, and I’m aware that it really couldn’t since it was after re4 and before re5. There was just no lasting point and all the ‘themes’ (if you can call them that) made absolutely no sense, but I guess I’ll get into that with the characters? Pacing: Absolutely god awful. One minute we’re in the White House fighting zombies then I blink and it’s over and I’m like: Oh, we’re done? Another we’re in a sub and then I blink. Oh, that’s over, too. Also, the creators must’ve taken a page from the last couple of seasons of Game of Thrones (which is an abysmal idea, don’t fucking do that) because with a few cuts here and there we went from Guam to China back to DC. Guess everybody learned how to teleport so they got exactly where we needed them to for the “climax”. Let’s talk about that climax: There was none. Let’s look at Degeneration and Damnation (no I won’t talk about Vendetta). Both had their weaknesses but Leon and the climaxes were BADASS. Leon doing parkour in Degeneration? Leon going against Lickers and the huge Tyrants in Damnation? Those were amazing scenes. He did a few cool things here and there but nothing that got more of a laugh out of me. My man is coming off re4 where he rampaged through a village, a castle, and an island of mutated creatures to save one girl. C’mon now. Characters: By now (if anybody is even reading this rant), you’ve noticed that I’ve talked a lot about Leon. But what about Claire? Yeah, they lied to us about them working together. She got sidelined again. A lot of people are upset about this -- and yeah, it sucks because I do love Claire. Leon has just happened to be my favorite since 1998 so I wasn’t as heartbroken. That doesn’t mean I’m not disappointed, I’m just not very surprised. Leon - My main problem with Leon is Nick, his voice actor. I’m so sorry for all those who like him, but he just isn’t good enough for me. Paul Mercier (re4, Degeneration, Darkside Chronicles) and Matt Mercer (Damnation, Re6, Vendetta) would have been more appropriate. Nick tries his best, but he’s just too soft sounding to be post-re4 Leon. This is a man who is quipping one-liners left and right a couple of years ago. Now he’s barely smiling and doesn’t feel confident at all, and I think a lot of that is because of his portrayal. There are times where the lines hit, but more often than not they fall flat. I never felt that way with Paul who is my favorite Leon or Matt who gave emotional performances every time. Also, his decision at the end? I can understand it, but explain to Claire! Claire - I like Stephanie as Claire, I have no problems with her. She makes her sound tough and ready to do what she thinks is right. Unfortunately, the story completely sidelines her and makes her role obsolete. Everything she uncovers (because that’s her role apparently, just there to Nancy Drew) is already told to us through flashbacks and other characters. Why even have her? Was it just to show us WHY her and Leon don’t talk often? A waste. Shen Mei - I don’t care. I felt nothing for her. They tried really hard, but they just failed to flesh these new characters out and when her time was up I once again went: Oh? That’s it, then. ‘Kay. I think I laughed a bit, sorry girl. Her whole plotline was to get that chip in Leon’s hand, nothing more. Jason - I don’t care. A character I thought I felt sorry for with his ptsd but nope. Once his story unfolded - messily, I might add (I hate the REPEATED flashback shit. Tell me once and stop teasing me.) I just went... okay, what the hell is your plan? To spread fear? ‘Kay. It was dumb and made no sense. What, he wants everyone to feel terror so they know? It needed to be clarified. It’s like they couldn’t figure out more synonyms for fear and terror. So, what? It helps keep Leon from going public with the chip and that information? Because he knows it’ll just cause mass hysteria? And then you’ve got Claire’s side - she’s not an agent and she believes the people have a right to know. They’re both right, but there’s no goddamn communication between ANYONE in this show. I just felt exhausted by it, nothing else. Not to mention it’s useless angst because of the plot of Degeneration. Wilson - Our bad guy. Let’s just sum up really quickly in case people were confused by the plot: He was putting infected soldiers into war zones so that even after they died they’d kill anybody involved, then he’d bomb the area and clean up the evidence. These soldiers didn’t show any symptoms because they had inhibitors that kept the virus at bay until they died, so they had to take regular shots to stay human. He’s the one who gets the zombies into the white house so that he could blame it on China and get the US into a war with them. That way he could send in his soldiers and infect the populace. From there, he’s the only one with the cure so he could rake in LOTS of money selling it to the world. AKA: he wants to use the US military to infect everyone so he can make a profit. He gets infected by Jason and gets away... then meets up with someone who gives him an inhibitor. This someone is working for Tricell, the big bads of re5 who work under Wesker. So it leads right into the fifth game. That’s all he is, a tie in and yet another example of someone in power trying to profit off the viruses of the RE world. Honestly, nobody else is worth mentioning. Animation: They’re getting better at it. Leon and Claire looked especially pretty, but there’s still a stiffness here and an issue with everyone’s mouths while they talk. I want to praise how different SOME of the characters look - the president and his aides all look appropriately aged and grizzled and distinct. Same with Jason. Other characters (side characters mainly) kinda look generic. Shen Mei for example isn’t very distinct. I mean, her grandpa and brother (both one scene wonders) were more realistic looking than she was. Even Claire - they gave her a bigger nose and made her look more in line with her Revelations 2 model (thank god I love that model). Movement was pretty fluid, I wish we’d seen more fighting and cool action -- though not to the extent of Vendetta. Maybe that’s what they were trying to avoid, but it didn’t make it any fun to watch. Enemies: This is the last thing I’ll comment on. The zombies were fine - they always are. I heard a ton of reused sounds from remake2, as well, but I thought of it as an Easter Egg more than anything. They looked good, their gore was good, all set there. Problem was, they were basically the only bad guys. That’s a huge fucking disappointment. I know people recognize this series as ‘the one with the zombies’ but that’s not true. Every game (save 7) had MULTIPLE enemy types all created through bio engineering. In this show we see three types. THREE. Zombies. Zombie rats - a one-scene wonder that Leon dispatches fast and easy. I’ll admit, they looked cool but there was nothing else to them. “They’re a bioweapon” and then Leon fries them all with some electricity and we’re done. Jason’s mutated form. Okay, I have to admit, I really loved his design. He was cool, I liked that he could talk and emote. But, other than that? He didn’t DO anything cool. He mutated once and hopped around a lot. That’s it. I mean, a bioweapon that keeps his mental capacities? C’MON! We could’ve done so much more with him. Again, this goes back to why the climax was so bad -- he and Leon didn’t fight. One jumped, the other ran around to catch up and fired a few bullets and a rocket at him. Then he used an acid bath to finish the job. (Also, explain to me WHY he mutated into a tyrant-like creature while everyone else with that specific virus was another form of zombie? We see Jun (Shen’s brother) mutating almost crystal-like at one point but... what? You leave them off for a while and they turn into crystal zombies? Make it make sense.) I’m sure there’s more to say, but honestly, unless you’re a hardcore RE fan like me, I’d say you can skip it. It wasn’t a fun ride, there weren’t any stakes, it wasn’t emotional... it just... was. I will end on one good note that made me smile, though: I loved seeing the Ashley Easter Egg.

#resident evil infinite darkness #resident evil: infinite darkness #resident evil #my opinion #Leon S. Kennedy #leon kenney #claire redfield

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darlingpetao3 · 3 years

Text

House of W (Multiple!Wells x Reader, Chapter 2)

Rating: T

Summary: After having to deal with the deaths of an infinite number of Harrison Wells in the Multiverse, you, a magic-wielding meta, have a breakdown and unwittingly create a happy, fictitious sitcom life with some of your favourite men. In a world of comedy and cameos, can Team Flash and an out-of-town magician break through your powers to save you? And what if you don’t want to be saved...?

Tag List: @fandomdancer @bluesclues-1234 @pinkdiamond1016 @crissymadlock @ensign-tilly @disneyoncerlover815 @marvel-lady10 @thecaptainsgingersnap @noctvrnalmoth @alexxlynn @dontbedumb3 @heyl0lwhatsup @ryou-cosmos

PROLOGUE | CHAPTER 1

Birds tweeting, sun shining…

Big strong arms around you.

“Well, well, Wells,” you say with a scratchy morning voice and twist your body around in bed to see who’s got you in his grasp. Ah. “Good morning, Harry.”

“Good morning, (Y/L/N),” the scientist replies. You just love how strands of his hair stick up in place. Harry arguably has the best bedhead.

“You know dear, since we are married after all, don’t you think it would be more acceptable to call me by my first name?”

Harry chuckles and pulls you closer against him.

“You do raise a fair point. (Y/N).”

“That’s more like it.”

He kisses your nose. Shortly after he does, it starts to feel itchy. You feel like you’re about to sneeze. It wiggles and wiggles until—

“Achoo!”

Suddenly, Harry, who had been clad in his silky pyjamas is now- oh my.

“(Y/N), did you just sneeze my clothes away?”

You can hardly answer the Wells in your bed because you’re so enthralled by his lack of clothing under the sheets.

“Happy accident?” you offer innocently. Harry shakes his head and smiles as if to signify that you’re up to your old antics again.

“Come here, you,” he says and pulls the covers over you both.

* * * *

The scene is really quite comical.

Harry walks briskly with his long legs into work at S.T.A.R. Toys Manufacturing Inc. as you try to keep up with quick little steps and a clipboard… while H.R. trails behind you like a maniac with a tray of coffee.

“(Y/N), I believe you have some explaining to do,” Harry speaks to you over his shoulder. “Can you remind me why you’re at work with me? And why the numbskull, too?”

“Handsome numbskull!” H.R. jokingly clarifies. Harry rolls his eyes.

“I told you, honey,” you begin, “I decided it would be best for me to get a job instead of sitting around the house. Plus, an assistant here was the only position available. I thought that was terribly convenient. We can spend more time together now, isn’t that wonderful? As for H.R., I hired him as my assistant!”

“My assistant has an assistant?”

“Don’t question it, honey,” you tell him and pat him on the cheek. Just then, two young employees walk up to you. They look rather familiar, but you can’t place why at the moment.

“Good morning, Mr. Wells,” the pair greet Harry. “And Mrs. Wells. ...And Mr. Wells.”

“Ah, good morning Garcia. Runk,” Harry answers. “I trust your projects are coming along?”

“That they are, Sir,” the young man called Runk replies.

“We should have them finished and ready by end of day,” Garcia, the young woman, adds.

“I’m glad to hear it-”

“-Well done, chaps!” H.R. interrupts. “You’re all doing such magnificent work. All for the children.”

“All for the children,” Garcia and Runk agree.

Harry clears his throat and whispers to you, “I think assistants to the assistants should be seen and not heard.”

“I’ll have a little chat with him,” you tell your handsome boss husband. “Now, let’s build some toys!”

* * * *

After a long day at the factory, you, Harry, and H.R. all return home. The delicious scent of dinner greets you as you walk in the door.

“Mmm, I wonder what Sherloque and Nash are cooking up!” you think out loud.

“I hope it’s nothing French,” Harry says semi-bitterly.

“H.R., can you go see what they’re up to in there, sweetie?”

“I most certainly can, dearest!” he responds then disappears into the kitchen. You are sure to take this opportunity to have some more one-on-one time with Harry on the couch. As you sit, he sets his briefcase down on the coffee table and removes from it a small rocket ship. After turning it around in his hands, Harry hands it to you.

“I’d been working on this today,” he says.

“Oh Harry, it is so groovy. You do such fine work.”

“The idea came to me in a dream.”

“You make dreams come true for children every day.”

Harry turns to you. “I think I’ve always wanted kids. But I guess it’s never happened for me.” He looks into your eyes. “I think I’d like to have one with you someday, (Y/N). How do you feel about that?”

“I feel… I feel…” Your nose starts to wiggle again. “Achoo!”

“(Y/N), are you sure you’re feeling okay?”

“Oh, yes, I’m completely and totally, whoaaaa!” You stand up to get a better look at yourself, finding that your tummy has a noticeable roundness to it.

“Are you…?” Harry asks. The rest of the Wells men come rushing into the living room.

“Qu’est-ce qui se passe?”

“I heard another sneeze!”

“Jumping juniper, (Y/N)’s pregnant!”

They all group around you in a half-circle to admire your belly and to declare their delight at the very abrupt surprise.

“Is this really happening?” you ask all of them, falling deeper and deeper into your happiness.

“I couldn’t imagine a better life with you,” Harry says and punctuates his final word with a kiss. Everything about this moment just seems… so much more colourful and vibrant.

And perfect.

~ ~ ~ ~

Barry had urgently messaged Cisco and Caitlin to meet him back at the Grand Central City Auditorium, where they had just seen Zatanna’s magic act. The plan—what very little of a plan he had—was to race to find Zatanna, the Mistress of Magic, and ask for her help.

Word on the street was that Miss Zatara’s act wasn’t mere illusions. People have said that she really does possess a special magical power. And if this was the case, she was their only hope to retrieve you from whatever world you’ve gotten yourself into.

They say sometimes you have to fight fire with fire.

Well, now Team Flash is going to fight magic with magic.

It took a bit of making a scene inside the venue with the security guards for Zatanna to finally come out of her dressing room to see who was causing the commotion.

“Hi, excuse me, what’s going on here?”

“Zatanna? My name is Barry Allen,” your brother introduces himself. “I was at your show tonight.”

“Flawless,” Cisco can’t help but add.

“Sure,” she says, probably very much wanting him to get to the point. “How can I help you, Barry Allen?”

“We have a bit of a magical issue. My sister has gotten herself into a situation. We need your help.”

Zatanna’s big round eyes squint slightly, but whatever she sees in these three strangers surely isn’t threatening.

“Your sister, you say?” The Mistress of Magic always did have a soft spot for family. “Where is she?”

“You better come with us and see for yourself.”

~ ~ ~ ~

“Wow, this is quite the setup,” Zatanna says, taking in the Cortex upon her arrival. “Now, you said that your sister is broadcasting her own sitcom?”

“That’s right,” Barry confirms. “I switched on the TV earlier, and there she was in black and white. But the weird thing is that her set looked almost identical to her home, except not because her real home exploded-”

“Yeah, that’s the weird bit,” Cisco pipes up sarcastically. “Definitely not that she’s married to four different versions of the same man.”

“What?” Zatanna looks entirely confused. “Okay, you guys are going to have to catch me up.”

“No problem. The episode is streaming online. On repeat.”

“Cisco, pull up the show on the monitors,” Barry orders. The engineer does so, and the crew proceeds to analyze the sitcom episode.

“This man... or these men, rather—you said they died?” Zatanna asks the room. The rundown the gang gave her on the way to S.T.A.R Labs was quite rushed, so naturally it would only generate more questions.

“That’s right. I saw them disappear before my eyes,” Barry confirms. “They sacrificed themselves for us.”

Zatanna hums in thought. “Whether they’re truly dead or not, she must be using an incredible amount of magic to create this world and broadcast this across the airwaves.”

“Guys!” Caitlin raises her voice. “We have an incoming broadcast!”

The monitors change after a bit of static. Now, instead of the episode Team Flash was watching, a brand new jingle comes through the speakers.

“Is this…?” Barry starts.

“She released Episode Two!” Cisco cheers. Everyone in the room shoots him a look. “What? I’m invested.” As they watch the new episode, they take frantic notes, searching for any kind of clues.

“Look!” Barry points at the screen to the familiar faces.

“How did Allegra and Chester get in there?” Caitlin wonders.

“They have a guest-starring role…” Cisco notes, possibly with a hint of jealousy.

“And who are they?” Zatanna inquires.

“They’re our friends,” Barry clarifies. “At least, I think they are. They can't be illusions, can they? Created by (Y/N)?”

“I’ll call them and see if we can hear their phones ringing in the show,” Caitlin suggests. As she attempts the call, the rest of the team stands and stares at the screens hoping for some form of ringing sound. This episode seemed to be styled more in the Sixties, so it was unlikely that they’d actually see Chester and Allegra pull out a cell phone.

Nothing. No sound.

They must not have their phones on them…

A little while longer passes, with even more analyses by Team Flash and Zatanna studying your power on screen. Once in a while, she’ll ask Barry for background information about you. Which brings her to ask the all important question:

“How did (Y/N) get her powers?”

Barry goes on to explain your origin story, which coincides with his own. It was that one fateful night where Barry was in his CSI lab at CCPD, and so were you. You had stopped by to see how he was doing after the whole debacle of Iris getting her laptop stolen and Eddie saving the day instead. (To Barry’s credit, he tried really hard to catch the criminal, he just wasn’t fast enough). But you were checking up on him when the Particle Accelerator exploded and sent a wave of extraordinary, uncontained power across the city. You saw the lightning in the sky and tried to get Barry away from holding that metal chain, but in doing so, you also got caught in the crosshairs of the accident. Your brother fell into the shelf of chemicals as the lightning struck at the same time you knocked over a box of evidence—stolen ancient crystals from the Central City Museum.

Zatanna takes in the story silently, nodding in the right places. She’s deep in thought when a voice comes from the entrance to the Cortex: “Hey guys, what’s going on in here?”

Barry rushes to the two younger members of Team Flash, Allegra and Chester. “How did you two get in there? How did you get out?”

“Get in where?” Allegra wonders.

“Come on! In (Y/N)’s sitcom,” Cisco says. “Did she send out a casting call or did she just tell you that you got the parts?”

Chester and Allegra glance at each other with identical furrowed brows.

“You really don’t know what happened, do you?” Caitlin asks them.

“What happened?” they reply in unison.

Cisco stands up immediately. “I’ll get the popcorn.”

As he replays the footage, both of the ‘guest stars’ shake their heads in disbelief.

“Wow, nope, don’t remember any of that,” Chester says.

“No,” Allegra agrees. “One minute I’ve got my feet up in the Lounge, and the next I’m here walking into the Cortex.”

“Interesting,” Caitlin muses. “Interesting, but beyond strange. It’s like they’ve been mind wiped of the experience. We need more answers.” The rest of the episode plays out to reveal the big cliffhanger at the end.

“(Y/N)’s going to have a baby?!” Cisco shouts. “Oh man, things just got real. I wonder who’s the father... You don’t think (Y/N) would turn her show into a Maury episode, do you?”

“Zatanna, is there anything you can do?” Barry asks desperately. “This is getting out of hand.”

“I can cast a locating spell. All I have to do is say the words of what I wish backward for it to take hold.” Zatanna readies herself. “(N/Y) etacol,” the magician utters with her eyes closed. Everyone in the room stands silent in case making any kind of noise would ruin whatever spell she has cast.

They hold their breaths.

“I’m getting something…” Zatanna says eventually. “It’s like a signal of sorts. I can see it in my mind. And it’s coming from… here.”

“What do you mean, ‘here’?” Barry presses.

“Here. As in S.T.A.R. Labs.”

#reader insert #harrison wells x reader #harrison wells imagine #harrison wells fanfiction #harry wells x reader #harry wells imagine #nash wells x reader #nash wells imagine #hr wells x reader #hr wells imagine #sherloque wells x reader #sherloque wells imagine #the flash imagine #the flash fanfiction

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thedistrictsleepsalonetonight · 3 years

Text

Your mess is mine

Sue may only be a math major, but she knows this much about telling a story: it needs to have a beginning, middle, and an end.

If she were to sit down and write one, here is where it would start — Emily laughs and she falls in love. It doesn’t matter the year, the month, or the minute; when Emily laughs, she falls in love. Sue’s a little slow when these things are concerned, love doesn’t come to her as quickly or as easily as it has historically come to Emily. I saw you in the coffee shop and I knew you were the one, she’s fond of telling Sue, usually during fights. It’s highly annoying that Emily thinks it’d work on her. Even more annoying is the fact that it does.

Alright, does she have moments of intense déjà vu sometimes? Like when they’re lying in bed, after one of Austin’s house parties, and Sue curls up into Emily’s soft shoulders, plays with her pretty, pretty hands? Or when she catches Emily conked out in front of her laptop in a corner table at the café on her break and gently wakes her up? Sure. But isn’t that what love is? The same five gestures repeated in infinite ways, creating a well of infinite affection. So if walking the steps with Emily settles deep into her bones without flinching, as if they’ve done this before, she’s convinced that it’s because they’re well and truly perfect together.

(Definitely not because — and this is something that has been occurring to her more and more lately — they were star-crossed lovers in a past life a century ago.)

(That would be crazy.)

(Right?)

*****

Falling in love aside, Emily can be really, infuriatingly, secretive about the worst of things. Sometimes it is charming, watching her having to pick her way through multiple explanations, create long-winded detours just to attempt to confuse Sue into getting exasperated enough to drop the subject altogether. But that’s at the very end, when it turns out that she was going to all this trouble to make sure Sue wasn’t going to find out she’d gotten her that one Hawaiian shirt Sue had off-handedly admired once, aeons ago. Or that she’s been holed up in their room all day because she’s been setting up lights in honor of it being exactly six months since they first hugged. Which is why she is more resigned that surprised when Lavinia sits down in front of her, leans in, and asks her what she’s doing for Emily’s birthday next week.

Sue sneaks a look at Emily who is currently chatting with an old lady who usually comes in on the weekends. Her girlfriend happens to be one of those baristas who is beloved by the elderly, God only knows why. All the older ladies will hang back at the counter and tell her all about their grandkids’ schools and ballet recitals. In return, Emily will rant to them about college and apparently, Sue as well, which was something she discovered one day when she walked in and two old ladies gave her teasing yet approving smiles from their table.

(And then took her aside to whisper — Showing a little skin wouldn’t do any harm and would keep your girl on her toes — which near about killed her)

The entire situation is hilarious. Also the most adorable thing she has ever seen.

“Why haven’t you guys discussed your birthdays yet?”

“It’s just never,” Sue muses, “come up, I guess.”

Austin rollerblades past, swivels to a stop and bends so he’s approximately level with their faces. “Are we talking about,” he says, lowering his voice to a comical whisper, “Emily’s birthday?”

Lavinia pulls him down, so he’s sitting on the spare chair. “And Sue’s, apparently. Did you know her birthday falls, like, nine days after Emily’s?”

Austin stares at her, wide-eyed. “That means it’s on the.... 19th?

Sue nods.

“The 19th of December? After Emily’s birthday, on the 10th of December?”

“Y....es?”

He swipes at his phone, taps a couple of buttons, and then looks up with a smug smile. “I knew I remembered something. Look.”

Lavinia has to angle her whole body to see, but it registers for both of them at the same time. A certain poet and her muse, who also apparently shared the same birthday as her and Emily.

“Huh,” Lavinia says. “Maybe there is something to Emily’s theory after all.”

“You mean Emily’s theory that we’re the reincarnations of those two?” she asks, hearing her own voice get progressively more hysterical by the word. She clears her throat, takes a deep breath, adds it to the list of rapidly growing coincidences in her head that she’s never going to give a closer look to, because that would be crazy.

“Really the only part of this I’m genuinely shocked by,” Lavinia says after a long pause, in which Sue is struggling to reason with the logical part of her brain, “is that Austin remembers Emily Dickinson’s birthday.”

Austin smiles proudly, and the thought is so funny that it drives potential insanity out of her mind eventually.

*****

“Why didn’t you tell me your birthday’s tomorrow?”

Emily startles from where she’s staring out the window of the car, and Sue has about a moment to regret blurting it out before they’re looking at each other. She’d spent the entire week setting up the entire thing for Emily and now it probably won’t even be a surprise, but she’s insanely curious. No better time for it, either way. She’d planned everything perfectly, from picking up Emily at the café in the classy car she’d borrowed from Austin, to making sure it wasn’t too late after dinner. And yet, here they were, surrounded by cars and honking people because traffic was a fickle bitch.

“Is that why we’re taking this trip?” she asks, wide-eyed.

Sue extends a hand towards her, ruffles up her hair, feeling fond. Trust her idiot girlfriend to not have figured it out yet. She moves her hand to Emily’s cheek, and feels Emily cover it with her own. Feels a soft kiss pressed against her palm.

“What did you think it was, dumdum?”

“Well, it is the three month anniversary of—” Sue’s alarm is probably showing on her face, so she backtracks quickly. “Kidding. Kidding. There’s nothing tomorrow.”

Sue pinches at her cheek. “Except your birthday. Speaking of which—”

“Eh,” Emily shakes her head, shuffles around on her seat awkwardly, “it’s.... uh, complicated.”

“Is the complication that you happen to share a birthday with a poet from long ago?” she’s only half-joking.

Emily laughs at that. “Caught on, did you? Did you also check—”

“E-yup.”

“That your birthday is also—”

“E-yup,” she says. Then turns to look at Emily. “Wait. How do you know when my birthday is?”

Emily opens her mouth, but before she can say anything Sue hurriedly cuts in. “And you’re not allowed to say you have your ways.”

Years ago, when Sue was fourteen, one day her dad and her mom came home with the same vegetable. Same quantity. It was beans, and she could vividly remember all three of them staring down in mock dismay at the two separate huge bundles of beans that now took up most of the space on the table. Then they started comparing prices. Turns out her mother’s bundle had cost a couple cents lesser than her father’s. But it’s not the same , her mother had insisted, holding up both the bundles. See, yours weighs more. I think the grocer I bought it from took some off .

To this day, she defines love as the way her mother’s hand fell over his, combined with the way her dad looked at her next — like a child who had just been told that the blanket fort he’d spent hours constructing, wasn’t going to be torn down. Like someone had just handed a piece of the world to him, and told him to make of it whatever he wanted.

Sue recognizes it in the way Emily looks at her. Like she’s saying — Of course. Of course, you know me well enough to guess the next stupid thing that comes out of her mouth.

(She’s not very good at love, but she hopes Emily can read the answer in her eyes just the same)

“Birthdays are complicated,” Emily says, slowly. “I’ve had some very good ones and then some very bad ones.” First girlfriend who she asked out on her 20th birthday, and second girlfriend who she broke up with a week before her 23rd; Sue fills in the blanks as she talks. “So I guess I try not to tell people so I myself don’t expect anything out of it. Neutral birthdays are better than euphoric ones or sad ones, because at least they don’t haunt me forever.”

“Baby,” she says, and then trails off. Sometimes she likes calling Emily endearments, or just say her name out loud, randomly, even if there’s no statement attached to it. The sentiment’s always the same, however. I’m glad you exist. I’m glad you found me. I like your name. I love you.

(Emily’s fallen asleep by the time she’s driven to the top of the grassy knoll, by the time the clock hits midnight. Sue lets her sleep through it. There will be time to sit on top of the blanket and watch a sleepy Emily blow out the candles on a tiny cake that looks like a typewriter, to stare at the stars all night long while they listen to soft, slow songs on a pair of shared earphones. For now, Sue watches Emily sleep, head tilted against the glass and decides to hold off on telling her she loves her until the day after her birthday. It’s a perfectly neutral birthday. No use in spoiling it.)

(Emily says it back though, in case anyone was wondering)

*****

Sometimes, when Sue sees Emily cooking for her, she loses her breath.

(And sometimes, it’s not even due to the smoke from a burned dish)

But there’s something peaceful about watching Emily cook, especially if she hasn’t yet cottoned onto the fact that Sue’s watching her. She’s one of those annoying people who always has their headphones on, so most of her cooking in the kitchen involves perfectly timing the beats with the swipes of her spatula. Sometimes she spins around in the middle of a pancake flip to see if she can catch it in midair. Juvenile shenanigans aside, what really gets Sue, even after almost a year of having watched Emily dance around in the kitchen is the care with which she handles food that they will eat. It’s so different to the kind of food she cooks when she’s just cooking for herself. Sue’s seen her slap on two days expired cheese on top of a tortilla and call it lunch. And yet.

And yet. Sue will have the best of things. Lasagna that’s still steaming. A sandwich filled with the most delicious ingredients. Waffles topped with cream that Emily will get up early in the morning to get for her. Food enhanced with care, made better with love.

Why don’t you make those nice things for yourself, she’s asked on multiple occasions, to which Emily’s always shrugged. It’s just me. I can have almost anything.

(Emily deserves the best. Sue will make sure she has it)

There are flowers on the table, an assortment of daffodils and lilies arranged on a vase. Right in between two shiny plates laid out with napkins folded carefully beside them. Sue slides into one of the chairs quietly, rests her elbows on the table and waits for Emily to finally turn around.

There is a panicked scream when she does. Sue doesn’t want to be that girlfriend, but this is definitely going on the list of stories she’ll tell their future kids when they’ve grown.

(Another day she would worry about how the term — Their kids — moves around in her chest comfortably like a sip of hot cocoa. Today, exactly one year to the day Emily told her she liked her, she shrugs it off)

“You weren’t supposed to wake up for another half an hour at least.”

Sue hums. “You did tire me out last night, that is true.”

“Sue!” Emily says, scandalized, face rapidly turning red. “I — that’s highly — okay wait, first things first....”

She walks over to the table, and bends to kiss Sue.

“Happy anniversary.”

Sue closes her eyes, kisses both her cheeks in response. “Happy anniversary, my love.”

Emily grins back, then stands again. “Either way,” she says, as she ladles soup onto a bowl, and gathers multiple plates on a tray to subsequently bring to the table, “brunch! Courtesy of your beautiful girlfriend who finally managed to figure out how to make the perfect chicken pot pie without burning down the house, or worse, giving you salmonella.”

Sue inspects what lies in front of her. “Babe, this looks amazing.”

Emily looks proud, as she sits on the other chair. “And that’s not all, okay? This is just the start. Today evening I have gotten us both tickets to—”

“Move in with me.”

When Emily blinks, Sue startles. The words that had just come out of her mouth definitely weren’t well-thought-out, but now she was thinking about it and it seemed like all she ever wanted in life. To go to sleep with Emily, and wake her up in time for her morning classes, to be able to see her all the time, and not have to watch her go.

“That wasn’t my gift, by the way,” she adds, speaking fast, thinking of the limited-edition original copies of a book she’d driven five hours to the next town to get. “But it’s what I want. Us. Living together. I love you. We should.... uh, live together so — uh, okay Emily make me stop talking please.”

Emily shuts her up with a kiss. When they separate, she stays close to Sue, looking right into her eyes with that soft, soft expression.

“Are you sure?” she asks.

Sue takes in a deep breath. Nods. “Yeah.”

Emily considers that for a moment. Then says with a teasing smile — “I thought this violated your relationship rules.”

“What ae you—”

“No kissing before the second date. No celebrating six-month anniversaries because that’s for dummies. No moving in before at least two years of dating—”

“And if you remember correctly,” Sue cuts in, smoothly, “I kissed you two days before our first date. And serenaded you with a Taylor Swift song at the café on our six-month anniversary.”

“You did do that,” Emily says, quietly.

“And as long as we’re on the subject, I hate staying up past 11, or listening to sad girl music in the car, or watching that horrendous show about those two annoying men fake-dating,” Sue tells her, “but — it is my greatest honor that I get to do that for you. And with you. Emily, if you haven’t figured it out already, you’re kinda the exception to every single one of my rules.”

Sue reads Emily’s answer in the kiss she receives next.

*****

The middle, the middle, everything boils down to the middle. It’s what Sue sometimes hears Emily muttering to herself in the middle of the night when she has an assignment due the next day. Sue will blink, look over to the desk where Emily is planted with her nightlight on, hands in her hair. Sometimes Sue will keep blinking slowly, taking in the sight of Emily typing until she falls asleep. Sometimes Emily will notice that she’s up, walk over to the bed, and hum snippets of songs until she’s drifting off again.

And for all the beauty of the beginning, of first kisses and first dates and first times, there’s something to be said about the fifteenth time Emily plays her something on the ukulele, warning her beforehand that her voice might crack. Or the sixtieth burger she runs across the campus to hand over to Emily when she knows she’s got back-to-back classes scheduled. About the hundredth time she falls into bed, and scooches over, eyes closed, until Emily’s wriggling body is aligned against hers. There’s peace in knowing that a first time will inevitably lead to a second time, and then countless others.

(There’s peace in knowing the middle lasts the longest)

*****

She knows she’s in trouble. Has known she’s in trouble the minute she came out of the store and discovered that there was a pileup on the highway. And then when Lavinia called her panicking because their house-warming slash house party was getting out of control because of a lack of beer and a general overabundance of Austin. And then when her phone died in the middle of her conversation with Emily.

(So much trouble)

She’s exhausted by the time she makes it back to her apartment (their apartment , she corrects herself, smiling at the thought) and makes her way up the stairs, hearing the volume of the music increase with every step. Opens the door and is assailed with extremes — the tiny sparkling mirror ball someone’s managed to hook up to the ceiling, the dancing crowd in their living room, and a very loud and weirdly on-point Austin making guitar noises on the karaoke microphone.

“Lavinia!” Sue calls out in relief, when she catches sight of her. “Where’s Emily?”

Lavinia excuses herself from a group of frat boys hanging onto her every word and walks over. “Sue! Emily!”

“Yeah, I know! Tell me where she is!”

Sue points towards the ceiling, and in the same smooth motion, grabs the crate of beer from her hands.

Sue’s out of there before the first cry of “Beer” permeates the air. She climbs another two floors, and then the metallic ladder to find Emily sitting there, wrapped in her blanket, glaring up at her.

“You promised,” she says, flatly.

Sue drops onto her knees and takes Emily’s cold hands in hers. “I know.”

“No, you,” Emily repeats, then pauses, looking like she’s struggling, “you promised you were gonna be here, okay? I agreed to the housewarming thing only because you told me there wouldn’t be many people and you’d stay with me the whole time—”

“—baby....”

“No, don’t baby me. Let me finish.” Emily waits until Sue nods. “And then you went off to the store.”

“We ran out of beer,” Sue says, feeling sheepish.

“I know — I know that, okay?” Emily says. “I know there’s a reason, and probably a valid one but I’m mad, okay? You promised me something and then bailed. That’s not cool.”

Sue adjusts so she’s properly sitting down right in front of Emily. “I’m sorry,” she says, and means it. “It was inexcusable.”

Emily sighs, and seems to relax a little. “Okay. Thank you for saying that.”

Sue nods. “Some party, huh?” she says, after a while.

Emily smiles a little, then. “Did you see Austin? He was performing the High School Musical songs when I left.”

She laughs. “When I came in, I think he was doing the guitar riff to Bohemian Rhapsody.”

“Hey,” Emily says, after they’re done giggling at that. “I never asked. What took you so long? I thought you just went to get beer.”

“Uh,” Sue says, “I’d rather not tell you.”

“What? Why not?”

“Because I don’t wanna charm my way out of you being mad at me.”

“Oh,” Emily draws the sound out, teasingly. “It can’t possibly be that charming.”

If she wanted to play it this way, then okay.

“I stopped at an animal shelter on the way home. There’s a young cat there I thought we could adopt. Consider her a housewarming present.”

“Oh,” Emily says, then in an undertone. “Damn it.”

“Charmed?”

“Ugh, fuck, okay,” Emily admits, then pulls at their joined hands till Sue gets on top of her lap. “I hate you. I love you, but I hate you.”

Sue kisses her in return, settles in more comfortably.

“Tell me about her?” Emily asks, softly, in the quiet.

“Well, she chased the light reflected off my watch round and round so it’s safe to say she’s not the brightest.”

“I love her already,” Emily assures her.

*****

On her eve of her 25th birthday, Sue walks into her apartment and finds Emily, Lavinia and Austin panicking over how to fit the last half of her last name onto limited space on a handmade banner. She says hi to Juggers and Iguana, their two cats, then picks up their two-month-old puppy Rooney, all before one of the three already present humans in the room realizes she’s there.

“Sue, I’m so sorry,” Emily says, walking over to her and looking at her with a slightly desperate look in her eyes. “We tried baking cake, but it’s half burnt, but we can’t decide what to get and all we have are balloons but then Austin’s going crazy trying to keep Juggers from bursting them, because guess what? The cat is the devil—”

“—babe—”

“—no, I tried to make it a good birthday, I really did!”

She puts her hands on either side of Emily’s face, which forces her to quiet down. Then she looks over at the others.

“Have you guys been here the entire time I was taking classes?”

They nod.

She feels a little overwhelmed. “Guys, I — thank you so much,” she says, then takes stock of the situation. “Can you order pizza? We’ll ring in my birthday with pizza tonight.”

Lavinia side-hugs her on their way out to the couch, and then they’re alone in the kitchen. She kisses Emily on the forehead, then on both cheeks, trying to drive away the frown.

“What?”

“I just wanted you to have a good birthday,” Emily says, despondent.

“You’re here, aren’t you?” Sue says. “And so are our friends, who sat and worked this hard for hours trying to make me happy. And we’ll have pizza! We like pizza.”

“You’re just saying that.”

“No, you idiot” Sue explains, fondly. “I mean it. We’ll have burned cake, and we’ll fight over the pizza, and even if the animals are outnumbered, we’ll probably lose to them. And then we’ll probably watch a movie, and somehow all fall asleep on the carpet because Austin always claims the whole couch. Either way, it’ll be a good birthday, because I’m happy. And you know why I’m happy?”

Emily’s still pouting.

“Emily, why am I happy?”

“Because we’re together,” Emily completes, in a small voice, and then finally, finally smiles.

(It’s the messiest birthday Sue has ever had. Also the best)

*****

Here’s the thing about endings: everyone who writes stories knows they don’t really exist.

A famous author once said that they weren’t really the end of the story, just where you chose to stop it. Well, Sue agrees. Which is why this story in her head never ends. The imaginary typewriter in her head will keep typing long after, filling pages with anniversaries and birthdays and emergency dog adoptions. Maybe the next page talks about the day Sue breaks her arm, and Emily proposes to her with an onion ring she gets out of the hospital vending machine. Or the day Lavinia loses Rooney, walks around the entire block with Austin to find him and finally discovers he’s hanging out at the old café they used to work at.

So. Yes. This is where she decides to leave it. Finish it. There will be more stories to write later.

The end.

(Wink wink. Nudge nudge.)

#dickinson #emisue #fanfiction #emily dickinson #dickinson fanfiction #alright - so this is a modern emisue domestic fic about them being happy and in love or whatever bullshit people in love do #and technically it's a sequel to my first dickinson fic - although i don't thikn it's necessary to read that first to understand this #i've been working on this a while - so i hope you guys like it #also i made anohter playlist to vibe - think i'll put it in a reblog just in case anyone wants to check that out #and yeah #that's it i guess #happy reading!

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wielderofmysteries · 4 years

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Jace Beleren, Masculinity, and the Trans Experience

(This post is a Twitter thread I wrote in response to a Goblin Lore podcast episode called “Jace Beleren and Toxic Masculinity”.)

I feel I have a unique perspective on this topic as a trans man. Trans man Jace isn't my headcanon, but it's an interpretation I love. He's my favorite character of all time, and as a trans man, I feel like reading Jace's flaws as toxic masculinity isn't quite right.

There are several "pillars" of toxic masculinity that Jace doesn't have. He doesn't have the self-destructive emotional repression, worship of sex and violence, or desire to subjugate women and his peers that men who experience toxic masculinity have.

Even BEFORE Ixalan, Jace was an example of many positive masculine traits. He was curious and emotionally open. He wrongly believed he could make decisions for others, but he cared for people, wanted to protect them, and couldn't sit idly by when he knew people were in danger.

In Agents of Artifice, he financially provided for Kallist and Liliana, and in Magic Story invited the Gatewatch to live in his home. Jace wanted to heal Garruk, tried to stop his rampage and had a Hedron implanted in Garruk's shoulder to relieve the effects of the curse.

"I don't want to hurt you, Garruk."

"Lucky for me, I don't feel the same way."

"Garruk, this is not a fair fight. You've suffered enough. Please. Come with me."

[...]

Jace stood in thought. Garruk held him by the throat, could end his life in an eye blink, had already proven he was immune to Jace's illusions. Garruk laughed again. If Garruk was open to having friends, then Jace might have been a good one.

"You win," said Jace. "We will leave you alone. I will not seek you out. But please, if you change your mind, come find us on Ravnica. Something is still not right here. We can help you."

In "Revelation at the Eye" Jace tells Ugin that Zendikar isn't a puzzle to be solved, and that it didn't matter if killing the Eldrazi has consequences, there are real people on Zendikar fighting for their lives and he needs to help them.

"Zendikar isn't a puzzle to be solved," said Jace. "It's a place. It's somebody's home. And those people are out there, right now, fighting for their world and wondering if anybody's going to help them kill what's killing them."

He showed scenes of suffering, then—of families mourning the lost, of landscapes ravaged by Ulamog, of even the skies and seas teeming with the Eldrazi menace.

Ugin cocked his head. The hedron architecture of the chamber seemed to melt and flow, became a pattern of tessellating dragons mocking him from the walls.

"So certain," said Ugin, "and so young."

Ral Zarek tried to kill Jace and ruined his relationship with his close friend Emmara, but in "Project Lightning Bug", Jace forgives him. Jace is honest about his feelings with Ral even after Ral was openly rude to him.

"I don't remember home," Beleren said quietly, unbidden.

"What?"

"You talked about growing up in Ravnica. A lot of my memories from my childhood are gone. Chopped up in my head into a few impressions. Most of what I remember begins here, on Ravnica. I'll never have roots here the way you do, and I admit I'm off to other planes a lot. But I think of myself as Ravnican to the core, too."

In Kaladesh block he wanted Chandra to be able to confide in him, and didn't want to stay home when he heard she could be in trouble. He used his mind magic to help Nissa sleep when she had a sensory overload in the busy city.

Nissa looked up. Jace and Gideon were exchanging a look. Both glanced at her.

They stood as one.

Jace turned toward the coat room. "I'll head to Kaladesh. It should be easy for me to—"

Lavinia appeared in his path, one hand resting on the pommel her sword. "Again?" she said, in a weary, disappointed tone.

He frowned up at her. "You can't expect me to sit here and do paperwork!"

Across the streets, beyond the barricades, the Consulate's panharmonicons are still blaring "The Gremlin's Wedding March" at us on infinite repeat at double speed. They left them on all night, and after the moon set Nissa started crying, hands clamped over her ears.

[...]

Jace sat down with her. They talked a minute and his eyes flashed. She curled up in a big potted plant and didn't wake up until the sun fell on her.

But what does being a man mean to Jace Beleren? Well, take a look at his feelings towards Gideon. Jace saw Gideon as the male ideal. I think Jace admires (and is envious of) the way Gideon is a representation of positive masculinity.

Eyes widened, jaws set. They understood their task, he was certain of that. But were they actually prepared to perform it?

What would Gideon say?

Jace smiled. Of course.

"For Zendikar," he said, raising one fist in the air. It felt thin to him, lacking Gideon's armored fist, his baritone war cry, his iron conviction.

None of that mattered. The soldiers shouted as one voice, holding their weapons aloft.

"For Zendikar!"

Gideon is not violent or hypersexual. He's kind, not afraid to ask for help, a defender rather than an aggressor. The pillars of toxic masculinity are absent in both Jace and Gideon. So why does Gideon's mere presence make Jace insecure? I think that insecurity is dysphoria.

I'm only 5 feet tall. People treat me like a kid, think I need help, and certainly don't see me as a man because I'm very small. It feels bad knowing my looks don't inspire others or make them feel safe like big tall guys can.

Gideon is super tall, muscular, conventionally attractive. He's charismatic and a natural leader. Gideon's like a human lighthouse. Jace is average height, out-of-shape, often pale and sickly, and his telepathy makes people automatically distrust him.

It's easy to see why people follow Gideon's lead so easily rather than Jace's. As a trans man, I personally related to Jace's insecurity. He feels inadequate compared to Gideon.

"I'd rather stand," said Gideon.

Jace stood up. It was an error. He still had to crane his neck to look Gideon in the eye, and now the size difference between them was glaringly obvious. He hated feeling small. Hated it.

Jace wanting to lead the Gatewatch didn't come from a desire to dominate others and be an ~alpha male~, but from a desire for people to believe in him. What Jace really wants is to prove to himself and others that he's competent and that he can be trusted.

This vision appeared whenever the man was struggling at a task.

[...]

"Listen, you aren't really suited to this task. Let me handle it." The vision's voice was gruff but friendly.

It came off as condescending.

The man was annoyed.

"I can do it myself."

The hallucination sighed. "You and I both know you're not suited to this. Let me handle it, you go philosophize on the other end of the beach."

"I said I can do it myself." The man let his irritation reach his voice.

"No, you can't. I call the shots and execute, you stand to the side. That's how this works."

The man responded by throwing his hook at the hallucination. It went straight through the figure's eye and landed behind him on the sand.

The time he spends with Vraska is so good for him! I loved that [the podcasts hosts] talked about how he was finally happy to follow someone else's lead! He didn't need to be a leader, he needed someone to trust him. She respected and loved him and thought he was incredible for who he is.

Vraska looked him in the eye. "You're incredible. You know that, right?"

Jace returned her smile and felt his cheeks warming. "I do my best."

"Well, your best is incredible," Vraska said, turning toward the central tower and approaching a large gate on what appeared to be its back side.

Liliana never told Jace he was incredible.

Liliana would have scoffed. She would have made a dismissive joke, rolled her eyes, and called him a show-off. She would not bother to talk to him for days. She would consume the body of a demon with a crocodile's jaws and laugh over the sound of its flesh tearing off. She would do all sorts of things, but she would never call him incredible.

It was important for Jace to get that validation. Now he's not insecure about his appearance. It's not that he finally developed into someone who was caring. He was caring all along, but he was held back by insecurity about how others perceive him. He learned to love himself.

Despite all his good qualities and deeds he still felt insecure because it wasn't easy to visually see him as a "strong man". I think it's important to acknowledge positive masculinity even when the man in question isn't attractive or charismatic, and even if he makes mistakes.

As a trans person, Jace's experience reminded me of the struggle to "pass". It's frightening how easily insecurity can turn into toxic masculinity when you feel different from "real men". If you don't look the part, some people will just never acknowledge you.

Next to 'perfect' guys like Gideon, it's easy to see our own perceived weaknesses and shortcomings. Easy to feel resentment for it. But from this struggle comes the strive to be better men, to be confident in ourselves, and comfortable in our bodies.

There's SO much I wanted to talk about, like how Jace's trauma shaped his need for control, how the IRL gamer guys he was created to represent actually hate him, how he's a male victim of abuse by a female partner, etc but this thread is already terribly long.

TLDR; I think toxic masculinity as a reading of Jace is missing some perspective. The trans perspective. Not all insecurity men experience is toxic masculinity. Sorry I totally should have waited until part 2 was out, but I couldn't stop thinking about that episode.

There's a lack of trans men's voices in... basically everything, and this is something I think we should definitely be included in. I'm so grateful for the Vorthos community opening these kinds of discussions. Super excited for part 2 of the podcast!

#mtg #jace beleren #magic story #analysis #long post

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dustedmagazine · 3 years

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Dust Volume 7, Number 5

Sarah Louise

A week or two before this Dust’s deadline, we got our first tour announcement by email in more than a year. It was the first of deluge, as live music looks to be coming back with a vengeance starting this summer and really picking up steam around September. Meanwhile, we celebrate our newly vaxxed (or for our Canadian correspondents half-vaxxed) status with tentative steps outside. Your editor had her first beer at a brew pub in mid-May, and it was stupendous. Also stupendous, the onslaught of new music, which has, if anything, accelerated. This month, contributors include all the regulars plus a few new people: Jennifer Kelly, Bill Meyer, Patrick Masterson, Ray Garraty, Tim Clarke, Andrew Forell, Ian Mathers, Bryon Hayes, Jonathan Shaw and Chris Liberato. Happy spring, happy normal and happy listening!

Amulets — Blooming (The Flenser)

Blooming by AMULETS

Like a lot of us, Portland-based noise artist Randall Taylor discovered the solace of long walks during the pandemic. His work, which has always used tape degradation to explore the intersection of time, loss and technology, shifted to incorporate another source of decay: the natural world. So, in opening salvo, “Blooming,” alongside blistering onslaughts of eroded guitar sound, it is possible to hear the sounds of a fertile garden — birds, insects, air movement. You can nearly smell the flowers and feel the sunshine on your skin. “The New Normal” explores sounds of creaking, friction-y word and metal, alongside pristine chimes of synthetic tone. It is uneasy, with skittering string-like squeaks and swoops, but also deeply meditative; it shifts from moment to moment from anxiety to provisional acceptance, much as we all did last year, staring out our windows. Overall, the tone is elegiac, gorgeous, but Randall does not hesitate to introduce dissonance. “Heaviest Weight” thunders with frayed bass tones, a weight and a threat in their subliminal pulse. The contrast between that ominous sound and purer, clearer layers of melody, makes for unsettling listening—are we at war or peace, happy or sad, agitated or calm? And yet, perhaps that’s the point, that the past year has been swirl of feelings, boredom alongside anxiety, hope lighting the corners of our listlessness, the smell of flowers pleasing but faintly reminiscent of funerals. Blooming decocts this mix into sound.

Jennifer Kelly

Astute Palate — S-T (Petty Bunco)

Astute Palate by Astute Palate

Astute Palate is a hastily assembled group of rockers summoned to support David Nance in Philly on a date when he couldn’t bring the David Nance Band. Participants included Richie Records proprietor Richie Charles, Lantern’s Emily Robb, Writhing Squares/Purling Hiss/all around Philadelphia regular Daniel Provenzano on bass and, of course, Nance himself, all huddled together in Robb’s recording studio for a weekend together. None of this origin story does justice, however, to the pure liquid fire of this one-off musical collaboration, dominated by Nance’s viscous, distorted blues-inflected guitar wail, but knocked sideways by brute force drumming, wild hypnotic bass lines and the ritual incantation of Nance (and later Robb) singing. The long “Stall Out” does anything but, rampaging free-range in unbridled Crazy Horse/Allmans-style abandon for close to ten minutes without a single sputter. “A Little Proof” is somehow simultaneously heavier and more country, spinning out the soul-blues jams like a younger, unrulier cousin to MC5. “Treadin’ Schuylkill” gives Provenzano the spotlight, opening with a growling bass solo soon joined by heavy psych guitars (a nod, perhaps, to the illustrious locals in Bardo Pond). If Nance et. al. can pull stuff this fine out in a stray road warrior weekend, what are the rest of you doing with your lives?

Jennifer Kelly

Axis: Sova — Fractal (God?)

Fractal - EP by Axis: Sova

Axis: Sova is a combo of three Chicago guys plus one drum machine, which had already been inactive for two or three seasons before the initial COVID lockdown. This digital EP is their way of clearing up some business that could no longer remain undone. The title tune, “Fractal USA,” is a remake of a song from the early days, when the “band” was Brett Sova’s solo project, to full-on, no your pants aren’t tight enough rock band. They just needed you to know about the evolution, you see, so go ahead, do some scissor kicks and gurn while they windmill away; you have enough money saved up from not seeing live music to pay the inevitable chiropractor bill. “Caramel” hypothesizes that a Cluster song that’s played twice as loud and twice as long is twice as good; not sure if I agree, but it’s still not bad at all. Maybe you got a little weird after a few months of putting on your best mask for your daily trip to see if the stimulus check was in the mailbox? The Brenda Ray-meets-Old Black mash up, “(Don’t Wanna Have That) Dream,” is proof that while you were alone, you weren’t alone. If you’ve made it this far, you don’t need to have the fourth track described, so let’s just say that it’s longer.

Bill Meyer

Mattie Barbier — Three Spaces (self-released)

three spaces by mattie barbier

While perhaps best known as half of the trombone-centric new music duo RAGE Thormbones, Mattie Barbier is a member of several other combos and a sonic researcher under their own name. Three Spaces, which is a single, album-length sound file, has the air of experimentation about it. “What do I do,” one can imagine Barbier asking themself, “when I can’t play with other people?” Make music at home, and out of what’s at home, is the obvious answer. But doing isn’t the only point here; the outcome also matters, and while what Barbier has accomplished with Three Spaces sounds quite different from the RAGE Thormbones live experience, it registers quite strongly. Barbier has combined long tones and melodic fragments played on euphonium, trombone and reed organ, that were recorded both inside and outside of their home. Carefully layered, the source material combines into a sound rather like a bell’s toll, which over the course of nearly 39 minutes swells and recedes, but never quite decays; it ends with an imposed rather than natural fade-out. The sound is as deep as it is expansive, inviting the listener to let themselves fall ever father into its realm.

Bill Meyer

Beneath — On Tilt EP (Hemlock Recordings)

On Tilt EP by Beneath

One of the more pleasant surprises this year is the resuscitation of Untold’s Hemlock Recordings imprint. A vital voice in the post-dubstep fracas at the turn of the ‘10s thanks to releases from Hessle Audio’s Pearson Sound (when he was still Ramadanman) and Pangaea, James Blake, FaltyDL and Hodge to name but a handful, the label went dormant following a Ploy 12” in 2017 before the surprise announcement of Londoner Beneath’s On Tilt, which sounds every bit the sensible alliance in practice it looks on paper: These are low-end rumblers with irregular rhythms and spare melodic tics that worm their way into your brain in the best bone-humming fashion (see “Shambling” or “Lesser Circulation” for a good example). Who knows how long the return will last, but for a certain stripe of DMZ-damaged devotee and pretty much no one else, it’ll feel good to have some Hemlock in your life again. Tilt back, pour in.

Patrick Masterson

Black Spirit— El Sueño De La Razón Produce Monstruos (Infinite Night Records)

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More metal comes from South America than Spain, but these Europeans clear the high bar set by Latin America scenesters. The album’s title states that it was inspired by “El Sueño De La Razón Produce Monstruos.” That can testify both to lasting influence of Goya’s art and to the laziness of the current culture which seeks inspiration only from the most popular pictorial art of the past. The track “Ignorance and The Grotesque” perfectly captures the whole mood of the disc: it balances ignorant speeds, undecipherable vocals and grotesque parts with piano interludes and doom-ish atmosphere. It would be better without the grotesque, but that’s probably part of the baggage.

Ray Garraty

Burial + Blackdown — Shock Power of Love EP (Keysound Recordings)

Shock Power of Love EP by Burial

You might worry, occasionally, that Burial was becoming a victim of diminishing returns. Here, as ever, he uses a narrow palette to create tracks that few can emulate. However, even though the music has its rewards, it doesn’t clear the very high bar that his previous work has set. Thus “Dark Gethsemane” rides a 4/4 beat, angelic murmurs, vinyl crackle and a tightly ratcheted build that morphs into a sermon led by the repeated invocation “We must shock this nation with the power of love.” As his vocal samples become more explicit, the mystery of his music fades. This is all promise and no real resolution. “Space Cadet’ likewise sounds both gorgeous and minor with its soul gospel refrain “Take Me Higher” over an old-school jungle beat. At six plus minutes it would have been enough. It continues another three with an almost cartoonish second movement that lacks the subtlety that characterizes Burial’s best work.

Andrew Forell

Colleen — The Tunnel and the Clearing (Thrill Jockey)

The Tunnel and the Clearing by Colleen

While COVID messed with most people’s lives, it was both an endgame and an opportunity for Cécile Schott, the Frenchwoman who records under the name Colleen. She was just coming out of a series of health and personal dislocations, which resulted in her being newly healthy but alone in a new town just as the lockdown came down. Clearly, this was not a time for half measures, so she selected an entirely new instrumental set-up and settled in to make a record that reflected what she’d been through. Out went the viola da gamba and melodica that have figured prominently on her last few albums; in came a Moog synthesizer, a Yamaha organ, a tape echo and a drum machine.

Colleen’s voice, of course, remains the same. Airy and precise, her delivery doesn’t match the gravity of the experiences her songs describe. But that sense of remove is, perhaps, a reflection of one of adversity’s lessons; if you don’t stay stuck, you can wind up somewhere quite different. Between the keyboards’ cycling melodies and the drum machine’s fizzy beats, the music on The Tunnel and the Clearing imparts a sense of motion that carries her light voice along for the ride, dropping painful sentiments and letting them fall behind.

Bill Meyer

Current Joys — Voyager (Secretly Canadian)

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Nick Rattigan has been releasing music under the name Current Joys since 2013, and Voyager is his latest offering. It’s a dramatic and often brilliant collection of songs, bringing to mind the urgent rhythmic drive of Spoon, the dour grandeur of The Cure and the unapologetic emotional heft of Bright Eyes or early Arcade Fire. On Voyager’s standout, “American Honey,” a simple strummed backing and Rattigan’s vocal delivery are potent enough, but it’s the string section that proves devastating, cycling around for multiple punches to the gut. While more stripped-back songs such as “Big Star” and “The Spirit or the Curse” offer some respite along the way, Voyager does prove a little unwieldy. With 16 tracks clocking in at nearly an hour, the album’s execution doesn’t quite live up to its ambition. The wonky tom-tom rhythms of “Breaking the Waves” are more distracting than interesting; a serviceable cover of Rowland S. Howard’s “Shivers” feels more like an acknowledgment of influence than a striking interpretation; and the combined six minutes of the two-part instrumental title track may have worked better as shorter interludes. Nevertheless, plenty of Voyager’s tracks demonstrate Rattigan’s knack for a raw, emotive indie-rock tune.

Tim Clarke

Ducks Ltd — Get Bleak EP (Carpark Records)

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Toronto duo Ducks Ltd celebrates signing to Carpark with an expanded re-release of their 2018 debut EP Get Bleak. The pair — Tom Mcgreevy on vocals, rhythm and bass guitars and Evan Lewis on lead guitar — bonded over a shared love of 1980s indie bands. Their intricately constructed guitar interplay carries the DNA of Postcard and C86 over meaty bass lines that evoke Mighty Mighty as much as Orange Juice and McCarthy. The sprightly music belies the miserablism of the lyrics that focus on FOMO, poor decisions, screen induced isolation, the corrosive impact of gentrification and gig economies. Mcgreevy and Lewis don’t wallow, however. Their jaunty jangle is a paean to the joys of jumping about and singing along with those new favorite songs that suddenly mean everything and will stick with you long after the world’s shit slopes your shoulders.

Andrew Forell

Field Music — Flat White Moon (Memphis Industries)

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It’s easy to take Field Music for granted. Since 2005, the Brewis brothers have been making smartly composed and tightly executed guitar pop with obvious debts to The Beatles and XTC, and all their albums have fallen somewhere along the continuum from good to great (my personal favorites are 2010’s Measure and 2012’s Plumb). Album number eight, Flat White Moon, features the usual balance between Peter’s more pensive, bittersweet numbers with greater focus on piano and strings, such as “Orion From the Street” and “When You Last Heard From Linda,” and David’s funkier, more staccato cuts, such as “No Pressure” and “I’m the One Who Wants to Be With You.” Twelve songs, 40 minutes, tunes for days — what’s not to love? If you’ve yet to get acquainted with Field Music, Flat White Moon is as good an introduction as any.

Tim Clarke

Gabby Fluke-Mogul/Jacob Felix Heule/Kanoko Nishi-Smith — Non-Dweller (Humbler)

non-dweller by gabby fluke-mogul, Jacob Felix Heule, & Kanoko Nishi-Smith

With Non-Dweller, we have a trio of Bay-Area improvisers who certainly do not reside in one place for very long. There is an agitated freneticism about their interactions here, the performers acting like electrons seeking to release energy and break out of orbit. Each player brings a unique collection of timbres to the party with their implement of choice. Heule is a percussionist by trade yet focuses on extended techniques — mainly friction-based — as he wrests an unholy wail from the maw of his bass drum. Fluke-Mogul’s violin sways between tone generator and noise source. Nishi-Smith is a classically trained pianist who here is bowing and plucking the koto, or Japanese zither. The trio spend most of their time in sparring mode, their energies unleashed with synchrony as if in an elaborate dance. It is clear they have collaborated before. Heule and Nishi-Smith have been at it for over a decade; Fluke-Mogul joined the party in 2019. The most gorgeous moments happen when all three players are focused on friction: Heule slides across his drum, Fluke-Mogul soars with their violin and Nishi-Smith gracefully bows her koto. The energy is focused and particles collide, creating waves of tone. The players wrestle intensity into submission, and the ensuing sonorities are unmissable.

Bryon Hayes

FMB DZ — War Zone (Fast Money Boyz \ EMPIRE)

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Ever since FMB DZ got shot and moved out of Detroit, he has continued to release angry music. (He may not be more productive after the assault, but he’s certainly not less so.) War Zone is his latest effort, along with The Gift 3 and Ape Season, and DZ is back in his paranoiac mode and ready for vengeance. That’s hardly unusual in this type of music but DZ stands out because he’s a bit angrier, a bit more pressing and a bit more gifted than the next man. He doesn’t outdo himself in this tape, but rather mostly follows the blueprint of Ape Season. The standout track is “Spin Again.”

Ray Garraty

Ian M Fraser — Berserk (Superpang)

Berserk by Ian M Fraser

Ian M Fraser is kind enough to provide details about how he created and edited Berserk, although relatively few listeners are going to really know what “nonlinear feedback systems and waveset synthesis” are, let alone “sensormonitor primitives auditory perception software”. And fewer still will be able to focus on what that might mean while Berserk is actually playing, because the output of those programs and systems is immediately, viscerally clear. If a computer were actually capable of going rabid, feral, well, berserk, the human mind might imagine it sounds something like this. Over four shorter tracks and the relatively epic 8:26 of “The Cannibal,” Fraser either coaxes or allows (or both) his tools into the equivalent of something like what someone who knew very little about both genres might imagine is like a power electronics act playing free jazz or vice versa. It is absolutely viscerally thrilling (albeit probably easier to repeat at this length of 16 minutes than, say, 50) and will do the track the next time you feel like your brain needs a good hard scrub.

Ian Mathers

Human Failure — Crown on the Head of a King of Mud (Sentient Ruin Laboratories)

Crown on the Head of a King of Mud by Human Failure

It’s tough to figure out if the band’s name is meant specifically to apply to D. Cornejo (sole member of Human Failure) or to the general field of human failure, which grows ever more capacious. Whatever the intent, Human Failure makes thoroughly unlovable music, pitched somewhere on the continuum that runs from the primitivist death metal to stenchcore to harsh noise. This reviewer is especially fond (yep, somehow that’s the only word for it) of the title track of this 10” record: “Crown on the Head of a King of Mud” sloughs and slogs along for two minutes, sort of like one of the ripest zombies in Romero’s Day of the Dead (1985), wandering about and slowly falling to pieces in Florida’s tumid heat. Just as that last bit of flesh is poised to slide from bone, the song unexpectedly breaks into a run. Where is it going? What’s the rush? No one knows. Things eventually bottom out into “Disassembling Morality,” a static-and-distortion laden electronic interlude that might squeak and spark for a bit too long — but then “Your Hope Is a Noose” shambles into the frame. That zombie seems to have found some equally noisome and truculent friends. They djent and pogo around for a while, and the song has a lot more fun than seems called for by the band name. Cornejo might be pissed off by the myriad manmade disasters and outright catastrophes that burden the earthball (he’s sure angry as heck about something…). But the record ends up being sort of successful, if deafening, grinding, growling stench is on the agenda. All things considered, why wouldn’t it be?

Jonathan Shaw

Insub Meta Orchestra — Ten / Sync (Insub)

Ten / Sync by INSUB META ORCHESTRA

Ten / Sync was recorded in September, 2020; not exactly lockdown time, but certainly not out of the pandemic woods. It’s no small task to keep any 50-strong orchestra going, let alone one devoted to experimental music. So, if you already have one, then having it perform during a pandemic is just another challenge among many. So, the Swiss-based orchestra assembled three groups of musicians, numbering 31 in all, and assembled their contributions during post-production. While this did not provide the social experience that IMO’s gatherings usually impart to participants, an outcome that just isn’t the same seems awfully representative of the time, right? And since one Insub Meta Orchestra subspeciality is making music that sounds like it was performed by many fewer players than were actually present, this collection of sustained chords concealing tiny actions and apparently disassembled passages is actually very representative of the ensemble’s music.

Bill Meyer

Amirtha Kidambi & Matteo Liberatore — Neutral Love (Astral Editions)

Neutral Love by Amirtha Kidambi & Matteo Liberatore

With her own group, the Elder Ones, and in Mary Halvorson’s Code Girl, singer Amirtha Kidambi shows how far you can take a song while still giving the meanings of words and the boundaries of form their dues. But Neutral Love, like her two tapes with Lea Bertucci, explores the territory outside the tower of song. The main structures for this improvised encounter with electric guitarist Matteo Liberatore seem to be a shared agreement to exclude certain options. Song form and overt displays of chops are right out; the patient manipulation of sounds is where it’s at. Liberatore opts mostly for swelling and subsiding resonations, while Kidambi spends a lot of time finding out what’s hiding at the back of her throat, drawing it out, and then tying it into elaborate shapes. Patient and eerie, these four tracks find a place adjacent to Charalambides at their most abstract, and make it their own.

Bill Meyer

Kosmodemonic — Liminal Light (Transylvanian Recordings)

KOSMODEMONIC - LIMINAL LIGHT by KOSMODEMONIC

NYC outfit Kosmodemonic is among the recent wave of metal bands attempting to effect an organic-sounding synthesis of numerous subgenres: a slurry of sludge, a bit of black metal, a dose of doom, and a hit or two of the lysergic. When it works — as it does on a number of tracks on the band’s long new cassette Liminal Light — it’s an exciting sound. Songs like “Moirai” and “Broken Crown” manage to couple tuneful riffs, dirty tone and a muscular bottom end in ways that feel thumping, groovy and pretty weird. You’ll want to bump your butt around even as you’re looking for something to break. But the tape is pretty long, and the further afield Kosmodemonic gets from that mid-tempo groove, the more middling (and sometimes muddled) the material sounds. “With Majesty” can’t quite find its rhythmic footing in its more technical passages, and the song’s sludgier sections feel like compromises, rather than interesting maneuvers. But the record begins and finishes with really strong songs. Both “Drown in Drone” and “Unnaming Unlearning” embrace scale, letting their big riffs rip. When “Unnaming Unlearning” slips into complex sections of blackened and distorted dissonance, the drama surges. Formal experiment and manipulation of mood fold into each other. The song gets interesting, even as it’s reaching for a peak. And then it ends, suddenly, violently. It’s pretty good. Your impulse is to flip the tape and hear it again, which is just what Kosmodemonic wants you to do. Well played, dudes.

Jonathan Shaw

Sarah Louise — Earth Bow (Self-Released)

Earth Bow by Sarah Louise

Asheville-based songwriter Sarah Louise wants to be your personal nature interpreter. The titles of her recordings, from her debut Field Guide through Deeper Woods and Nighttime Birds and Morning Stars are like planetary signposts pointing to a more intimate relationship with our planet as a living organism. With each successive release, her music has also become more and more organic sounding, culminating with Earth Bow, in which Louise herself is arms deep in humus, communing with birds and insects. Recordings of creation feature prominently; katydids, spring peeper frogs, a creek and various birds are credited as providing additional singing, augmenting the artist’s own mellifluous voice. For a recording in which the track titles and lyrics are focused on nature and Louise’s experiences therein, there are a lot of digital elements. Her 12-string guitar is prominent in places, but synths are everywhere: in the background, bouncing around like shooting stars, and mimicking the various fauna that they accompany. Yet the earthly and the machine-made are not juxtaposed, they are blended. The vocals, which center the recordings, tie both elements together nicely. Earth Bow is a tasty concoction, in which a variety of ingredients are married in botanical bliss.

Bryon Hayes

Le Mav — “Supersonic (Feat. Tay Iwar)” (Immaculate Taste)

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Nigeria’s alté scene has been bubbling for a couple of years now on the backs of guys like Odunsi (The Engine) and Santi, and Gabriel Obi bka Le Mav is no stranger to the fray, having produced Santi’s “Sparky,” Aylø and a recurring favorite of his, singer Tay Iwar. The two have already collaborated at length (for songs off Iwar’s debut album Gemini in 2019, as well as the entirety of last year’s Gold EP), so the comfort level here is established. It shows: Iwar’s smooth-as vocals match Le Mav’s breezy piano descent and gentle rhythmic shuffle in an easygoing song that matches anything you might hear coming from Miguel, Frank Ocean or the Sun-El Musician orbit. “If it feels right, touch the sky,” Iwar suggests early on. Well, don’t mind if I do.

Patrick Masterson

Sugar Minott — “I Remember Mama” (Emotional Rescue)

I Remember Mama by Sugar Minott

At some point after Lincoln Barrington Minott had left Kingston and his early dancehall and lovers rock legacy with Studio One and Black Roots behind for cooler climates and the old world of London, he ran into producer Steve Parr at the Wackies offices. Story goes that the two decided to start up Sound Design Studio with the intent to record and mix for ads, film and music — but scant evidence of this idea exists beyond “I Remember Mama,” released on 7” and 12” in 1985 and reissued for the first time since via Stuart Leath and his long-trusted Emotional Rescue imprint. Parr does most of the work on the recording (Andy MacDonald shines on tenor sax and Paul Uden guitar in the original credits), but it’s all about the sweetness Sugar brings to the table: With backing from two accomplished performers in their own right, Janette Sewell and Shola Phillips, Minott’s naturally relaxed delivery shines through on this. “Sound Design” is a dubbier instrumental version that retains Sewell’s and Phillips’ vocals, and Dan Tyler (half of Idjut Boys) provides an even spacier, handclap-laden 11-minute remix, but while both variants are excellent, the boogie of the original is unassailable. Look for the vinyl to hit in July.

Patrick Masterson

Jessica Ackerley — Morning/mourning (Cacophonous Revival)

Morning/mourning by Jessica Ackerley

It makes sense that Wendy Eisenberg wrote the liner notes to Morning/mourning, since they and Jessica Ackerley are bound by a shared commitment to string-craft. Both have a deep idiomatic foundation in jazz guitar, but neither is willing to be confined by what they’ve learned. In the case of Morning/mourning, that means that patiently paced ruminations upon Derek Bailey-like harmonics sit side by side with frantic but rigorously scripted forays that sound a bit like Jim Hall might if he input the contents of his French press intravenously. This album’s nine tracks observe passings and new beginnings, since Ackerley pulled the recording together while in quarantine, shortly before leaving Manhattan for Honolulu, and titled some of them in tribute to a pair of guitar teachers who were taken by 2020. But in their attention to tone, harmony, velocity and structure, these pieces, like Eisenberg’s records, speak as much to intellect as to emotion.

Bill Meyer

Nadja & Disrotted — Split (Roman Numeral Records)

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It makes a certain kind of sense for Nadja and Disrotted to tackle a split together; although both bands traffic in a particularly foreboding strain of doom metal, they also share a weird sort of comfort. There’s a sense more of horrible things happening around you than to you, like you’re in the eye of the storm or maybe in a bathysphere plunged to crushing depths. There is a precision to the menace, a measured quality to the noise. And they get there when they get there; as Dusted’s Jonathan Shaw pointed out in his review of Disrotted’s Cryongenics, “Pace seems to be the point.” This excellent split doesn’t shy away from these commonalities while still highlighting the distinct timbres of each act, with Nadja settling into and then returning to one of their indelibly titanic bass riffs throughout the 19-minute “From the Lips of a Ghost in the Shadow of a Unicorn's Dream” and Disrotted somehow conjuring the feeling of a massive structure corroding and collapsing on the 15-minute “Pastures for the Benighted”. When the latter slams to a half, one last hit echoing away, the listener may find themselves feeling equally relieved the onslaught is over and kind of missing both sides’ pulverizing embrace.

Ian Mathers

Nasimiyu — POTIONS (Figureight)

P O T I O N S by nasimiYu

Nasimiyu’s songs bounce and shimmy with complex rhythms, her background as a dancer and percussionist for Kabells and Sharkmuffin coming through in the intricate interplay of handclaps, breathy beat-boxing, rattling metal implements, all manner of drums and, not least, her lithe, twining vocal lines. “Watercolor” blossoms out of a burst of choral “la”s, each note allowed to flower briefly before behind cut off with a knife-edge; these are organic sounds shaped with mechanical precision. Against this background, Nasimiyu herself enters, her voice fluttery and syncopated, a bit like Neneh Cherry. The mix is full of separate elements, the backing vocals, a synthesizer working as a bass, handclaps, Nasimiyu’s singing, but the song remains light and translucent. “Feelings,” sings Nasimiyu, “I am in my feelings,” and so, for a moment, are we. Nasimiyu is half Kenyan and half Scandinavian-American, and you can hear a bit of East Africa in the surging sweetness of choral singing on “Immigrant Hustle.” But there’s a post-modern gloss over everything, as the singer brings in sonic elements from jazz, electronica, dance, pop and afro-beat. Yet however many layers are added, the sound remains bright and clear, a bead curtain of musical sensation whose elements click faintly as they brush together, but remain essentially separate.

Jennifer Kelly

Carlos Niño & Friends — More Energy Fields, Current (International Anthem)

More Energy Fields, Current by Carlos Niño & Friends

Multi-instrumentalist and producer Carlos Niño latest album which straddles and largely crosses the line between spiritual jazz and new age ambience features friends from both worlds including Shabaka Hutchings, Jamael Dean, Dntel and Laraaji. Niño, who plays percussion and synthesizer, edited, mixed and produced the album from recordings made in 2019 and 2020 in a variety of settings. The results are largely low-key soundscapes designed to assist meditation on the fields and current of the title. Much evocation of the natural world, chiming eastern influenced percussion and layers of acoustic and synthetic keys that are lovely but tend to lull. It is the slightly disruptive reeds that prick the ears here, Aaron Hall’s plangent tenor on “Now the background is foreground,” Devin Daniels’ alto phrasing on “Together” and Hutchings’ expressive duet with Dean on “Please, wake up.”

Andrew Forell

Shane Parish — Disintegrated Satellites (Bandcamp subscription)

Disintegrated Satellites EP by Shane Parish

The normally ultra-productive Shane Parish didn’t put out a lot of music in 2020, and none of what did come out was recorded that year. It turns out that he was busy giving guitar lessons via zoom and moving from North Carolina to Georgia, but we’re well into a new year and he’s back in Bandcamp. This three tune EP doesn’t declare a new direction, of which Parish has had many, so much as an integration of his interests in American folk music and far Eastern tonalities. Simultaneously familiar and alien, but above all propulsive, it serves notice that the time for reflection has passed.

Bill Meyer

Séketxe — “Caixão de Luxo” (Chasing Dreams)

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The thing that gets your attention about Séketxe is… well, everything: how many of them there are (i.e., how you can’t really tell who’s in the group and who isn’t), how they’re all propellant, a musical bottle rocket bursting out of your speakers, confrontationally in your face on camera — and how much fun it looks like they’re having. Somewhere out there beyond the reaches of kuduro and Mystikal lie the Angolan barks and rasps of this youthful sextet, who trade verses (and a soothing harmony drizzled right across the madness at around 1:40) among one another over an Eddy Tussa sample on a beat by producer about town Smash Midas. What are they on about? My Portuguese is nonexistent, let alone my Luandan slang, but even I can tell that title translates to “luxury casket.” Anyway, it’s bonkers and if you’re looking for a jolt your morning joe doesn’t deliver anymore, Séketxe oughta do it. You’ll never catch me thanking an algorithm, but I guess it’s true the maths can serve it up right every once in a while. Séketxe is the proof.

Patrick Masterson

Tōth — You and Me and Everything (Northern Spy)

You And Me And Everything by Tōth

The title of Alex Toth’s solo debut, Practice Magic and Seek Professional Help When Necessary, alludes to his belief in music as therapy — that there’s an alchemy in the process, yet one that can’t necessarily be depended on to pull you out of an emotional hole when that hole gets too deep. On his new album, You and Me and Everything, all of his recent personal struggles are out in the open. There’s the tale of when he was so fucked up he couldn’t play trumpet at a family funeral (“Turnaround (Cocaine Song)”); there’s leaning on songwriting as a means to process the pain of heartbreak (“Guitars are Better Than Synthesizers for Writing Through Hard Times”); and there’s his ongoing battle with anxiety (“Butterflies”). While such heavy emotional terrain could prove hard-going, Toth approaches everything with a playfulness, a lightness of touch and a gentle haze to the production. Plus, he gets a helping hand from Jenn Wasner (Wye Oak, Flock of Dimes), who lends backing vocals to standout “Daffadowndilly,” which taps into the woozy gorgeousness of prime Robert Wyatt.

Tim Clarke

Mara Winter — Rise, follow (Discreet Editions)

Rise, follow by Mara Winter

For people with busy performance schedules, 2020 posed a problem; how do you stay busy and creative when you can’t do what you usually do? Mara Winter, an American-born, Swiss-based flute player who specializes in Renaissance-era repertoire and instruments, used it to forge a new creative identity. In partnership with experimental composer and multi-instrumentalist Clara de Asís, she began exploring the commonalities between early, composed music and contemporary approaches and developed a platform to disseminate documents of that research into the world. Rise, follow, the inaugural release of Discreet Editions, is an hour-long piece for two Renaissance-style bass flutes played by Winter and Johanna Bartz. The two musicians played long, overlapping tones with contrast attacks, pushing on until they grew so tired from hefting those woodwinds that they just couldn’t play anymore. Effectively the performance unit is a trio, since the two musicians had to accommodate or collaborate with the reverberant acoustics of Basel’s Kartäuserkirche. The church’s echo threw sounds back at the player, turning pure tones into blurred timbres. While the instrumentation is antique, the ideas about sound combination and endurance have more to do with Morton Feldman, Phill Niblock and Aíne O’Dwyer. The result is music that is simultaneously meditative and as heavy as a bench-pressing competition.

Bill Meyer

Wurld Series — What’s Growing (Melted Ice Cream)

What's Growing by Wurld Series

Some reviewers of What’s Growing, the second album by New Zealand’s Wurld Series, have managed to avoid making Pavement comparisons, but it’s hard to fathom their restraint. Brief opener “Harvester” feels like you’re being dropped mid-solo into a random Wowee Zowee track; the guitar tone on lead single “Nap Gate,” on the other hand, sounds like it's nicked straight from Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain. And while singer/guitarist Luke Towart doesn’t attempt to match Malkmus’ flamboyance in the vocal delivery department, their voices and wry lyrical observations bear a distinct resemblance to one another. “Caught beneath a dull blade / What a mess that would make” he sings on “Distant Business” before the song reaches its finale where guitar solos blast off from atop other guitar solos in an array of complementary textures. But besides being a ridiculously fun guitar pop record, What’s Growing is also threaded through with a British psych folk vibe replete with Mellotron flute — and the two styles blend seamlessly together thanks to Towart’s partner in crime, producer/drummer Brian Feary (Salad Boys, Dance Asthmatics). So, whether you're looking for a great summer indie rock record or you’ve ever wondered what the Fab Five from Stockton might’ve sounded like if they’d stuck to short songs and had more flutes, this one’s for you.

Chris Liberato

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mahlergeek · 3 years

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At the Heart of a Calendar Experiment

Love is neither quantifiable nor finite. Time is both quantifiable and finite.

That’s the problem at the center of my current calendar experiment that has me floating between two houses, a polyamorous nomad who splits time somewhat evenly between my wife and my girlfriend for two months.

There are risks in doing this, not the least of which is how it could impact our children. We don’t want my kids to feel abandoned or neglected by their father, nor do we want to leave the impression that we’re blending families at a most awkward time, right as our children are preparing to leave the teenage shipyard and slide down greased rails into the choppy Bay of Adulthood.

At the conclusion of our grand experiment, we’ll all compare notes and evaluate whether or not it was a success.

How will we measure success? By how much we learn. So far, just a week into the evaluation, it’s looking successful from my perspective.

OPENING UP

I’ve come to realize that the risk of silence about my unconventional relationship outweighs the risk of opening up about it. If someone stumbles upon my reality — say, seeing me holding hands with a woman I’m not married to — I lose control of the narrative. I become the victim of assumption at that point, and it’s entirely possible that I won’t even know that people saw me and are now drawing unsavory conclusions about me. The fictional tales they write in their own heads about my sleazy, shameful lying and cheating could become the dominant story when I’d prefer people know the more mundane truth: I’ve consciously picked an unconventional relationship structure in the most ethical way I know how with the full consent, and occasional prodding from, my wife of 20 years.

And let’s be real. By “unconventional,” I mean something that is extremely common but, for reasons that will likely always remain murky to me, is not considered a social norm. The longer I live, the more I realize monogamy is almost nonexistent. It’s a fantasy, yet that fantasy has become the social expectation for generations of Western people who hook up, swing and cheat while hoisting the monogamous banner.

The most honest people among us, of course, realize and admit that fact of humanity. I prefer calling them honest or observational rather than non-judgmental, although both labels frequently overlap. It’s those honest people who I’m very reluctantly opening up to.

CLOSE FRIENDS

“Are you guys free for dinner? I’m here with my longtime girlfriend, and my wife says you should meet her.”

That’s the out-of-the-blue text I sent my friends who I knew were at the same art festival we were mutually visiting. After a long pause — we figured they needed time to shit themselves, then more time to clean up — we made dinner arrangements at the kind of trendy, upscale restaurant that always serves as stark contrast with my middle-age, awkward, plaid-shirt frumpiness.

They thought I was punking them. I was not. And after three hours of lovely conversation over mind-blowing mushroom cakes, sunchoke pâté and gnocchi, we’d deepened our friendship with the closeness that only brutal honesty can bring.

The next night, we repeated the process over a dinner we prepared ourselves: bruschetta, corn salad, grilled scallops and peach melba trifle. Our guest was my girlfriend’s close friend, who opened up about some current relationship struggles she’s dealing with.

It was beautiful. We’re all human, trying to figure this stuff out. Giving and receiving raw truth — not for validation or approval, merely for connection — feels absolutely wonderful.

The food was a hit, too. Our guest described the dessert as an “orgasm in my mouth.”

EMOTIONAL WHIPLASH

One of the hardest parts of dealing with a somewhat long-distance relationship is the emotional explosion that happens when you say goodbye.

I felt that feeling bomb go off when I was leaving home, saying goodbye to my wife and kids for a week away. The fact that I was leaving wasn’t unusual, as I travel all the time for work and fun solo trips, but this time felt different. Driving away, I experienced a sad longing sensation, the kind of nostalgic melancholy that I only noticed in Brahms’ symphonies after I had some age under my belt.

Before the return trip home, it felt even more intense. It was Stravinsky sadness this time, shocking and maddening. I ugly-cried all alone after saying goodbye to my girlfriend after a blissful week, not because things ahead were so bad, but because things behind were so good.

The emotional high of opening up to a few close friends surely contributed to that, but it’s not the only reason. This roller coaster of intense highs and lows has been a continuous thread in the years since opening our marriage. It comes with the territory, I suppose, of having to say goodbye and hello so frequently when you deeply love more than one person.

Part of my sadness, though, came from a realization: I can’t have what I really want.

My fantasy life involves peace and stability. I dream of a quiet, tiny, neatly kept cottage where I socialize at the Quaint Orchid Growers Society and cook meals from the heirloom vegetables I grew from seed in my garden. My nights are filled with smoky Scotch, burning incense, silky jazz and long, thoughtful, introspective conversations with my brilliant, beautiful, monogamous wife who can’t wait to unleash her sensual side when the curtains close.

That’s the dream.

It’s not possible for that dream to become my reality, though, and not just because it’s ridiculous.

For one thing, I couldn’t ask my wife or my girlfriend to give up their other partners, any more than they could ask me to do the same thing. It’s impossible, at least, if you really love someone. Secondly, even if I had my minimalist/monogamist dream life, I would miss the freedom and excitement that polyamory provides. I’d agonize over the love I’m potentially missing out on, knowing what I know now about how great it can turn out. Even though I’m not looking for someone new to date now — the calendar forbids it, and the monogamist clinging inside me doesn’t really want it — the ever-present possibility of serendipity isn’t something I’ll easily give up.

My emotional side craves something that my cognitive side knows is impossible, but the craving for that fantasy is still very real.

CHANGE, LIKE NATURE

The stability within my fantasy is especially appealing during a stage of life, and a current experiment, where I have to check my smartphone to see where I’ll be laying my head every night.

I’m a creature of routine. I want my Quaint Orchid Growers Society meetings every Wednesday at noon, my Scotch-sipping friends every Friday night at 7, and my head in the same bed, with the same person, every night. We’ll sip chamomile tea by the fire at sunset and share coffee by the garden window at sunrise.

Again, that’s the fantasy, whether it’s my own brain wiring or my conservative religious upbringing at fault for it.

That fantasy is a black-and-white snapshot; my current life is a color IMAX movie. It’s ever-changing, larger and much more vibrant than the small, still life in my dreams.

If there’s a solution to be had, I suspect it will involve learning to appreciate the changes in my life for their own unique beauty. I’ve already got a good allegory for it: Alaskan wilderness.

On our trip to the far north a few weeks ago, one of many things I marveled at was how different all the scenery can look day to day, moment to moment. The light changes. The weather changes. The tide rolls in and out. The wildlife comes and goes.

If I took 10,000 snapshots from the cabin porch, every one of them would be different. There’s a beauty in that, of the constant change, and it’s telling that nothing in nature stands still. The universe itself is growing, pulsing, creating, destroying. We’re part of that.

When relationships change in their infinite ways — growing, pulsing, creating, destroying — it’s not something to be afraid of, which is a default reaction for many of us.

Instead, change is the most natural thing we can do as humans, mirroring the very nature we see all around us. We’re not meant to be static beings. We’re meant to change, just like everything else in existence.

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frasier-crane-style · 4 years

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Terminator: Dark Fate

I have no idea how TSCC came up with two seasons’ worth of innovative scenarios about Terminators and these cinematic universe motherfuckers can only redo T2 with more CGI.

This movie is plotless. It has no real plot. It’s like Now That’s What I Call A Terminator Movie! There are so many callbacks and borrowings from all the other Terminator movies that it passes the point of homage and just becomes plagiarism. The bad Terminator is the same as the T-X, metal endoskeleton with a T-1000 shell. They kill him with a Terminator power core. They say Come With Me If You Want To Live and I’ll Be Back (twice! It’s the first thing Sarah Connor says and it makes no sense in context, it’s just something people say in Terminator movies). In fact, it has anti-plot, since it undoes a lot of the story developments in Terminator and T2.

The premise is basically just we’re going to remake Terminator 1, but people don’t like reboots, so we’re going to bring back Linda Hamilton and make it a technically kinda sorta sequel (sure, Skynet was wiped from existence, but another, completely different, yet exactly the same AI called Legion was created and did the exact same thing. Which also happened in T3, but they had the decency to still call it Skynet). But otherwise, it’s entirely people being chased by an evil robot from the future and trying to destroy it.

That’s it. That’s all there is to it. T2 had the whole thing about preventing Judgment Day before it happened. T3 had Judgment Day actually happen. This one, nothing. There is nothing going on under the surface other than a bunch of action sequences and explosions. Even T3 got some mileage out of the idea that Judgment Day was inevitable. Here, our cast learns that Judgment Day was already ‘averted’ once slash that it’s destined to be repeated and they basically go “Eh. Figures.” I’m not kidding.

Wait, that’s not fair. Let’s count out the TWEEESTS.

1. In a very contrived way, the script waits an hour and a half to actually explain why heroine Dani has been targeted for termination--you know, the thing Kyle Reese explained to Sarah Connor the moment they were out of danger--all to set up this big ‘reveal’ that Dani isn’t the NuSarah, she’s the NuJohn (yes, they actually say this aloud, just so you soup sandwich motherfuckers in the audience get it). Hear that, neckbeards, John Connor is now a woman! And Mexican! And she’s got a bit of a gay vibe, because it’s 2019 and God forbid we have a heroine that isn’t a bit bicurious. If she has a cock and balls, my bingo card will be a winner.

2. Months after killing John Connor and thus completing his mission, an Arnold-model Terminator started a family (wow, that was quick) and learned the value of human life and eventually switched sides. This is a crazy new idea that also happened in Terminator: Genebissss, so it’s done and dusted in ten minutes, even though Arnold is the most engaging character. (He’s saddled with a lot of yuk lines about how he’s a comically serious Terminator, yet (teehee) works as an interior decorator, but at least he has a personality.)

3. The other good Terminator is Grace, who needs meds to keep up her cyborg strength or she’ll crash (this never affects the plot) (it’s like they read something about Rey Palpatine having no flaws and so they decided to give Grace the ‘flaw’ of literally having her own Kryptonite). She’s not a Terminator, she’s an augmented human, which means she can make MCU-style wisecracks every five minutes. (”I didn’t hear anything.” “That’s because you’re not a cybernetic super soldier from the future.” Actual dialogue.)

4. Linda Hamilton is back, baby! Yes, that’s right, they dragged her away from doing guest spots on Lost Girl! Can you believe???? She’s become a Terminator hunter that ambushes Terminators as they come back from the future and destroys them, because Skynet was both able to send back an infinite number of Terminators AND because now they can easily be destroyed by one five-hundred-year-old woman.

This makes it a bit confusing why they have so much trouble taking out Ghost Rider, given that he’s a T-1000 skin with a creamy T-800 center. It seems like if you hammer him enough, he’s got no endoskeleton, and that’s all she wrote. That’s what happened to the T-X. Can his liquid metal skin just walk around without the other half of him? If so, what’s the point of the endoskeleton? The T-1000 managed without it and that seemed a lot harder to kill. At one point, Sarah hits the bare endoskeleton with a bazooka, which seems like it should’ve been a mortal blow, but it’s the first act, so I guess not.

And is it supposed to be funny that the opening takes place in a car factory where (in 2019!) the human workers are losing their assembly line jobs to machines? Because they’re all Mexicans? None of them ever look at a Terminator and go THEY TOOK OUR JOBS, but man, that one is all teed up for the Rifftrax boys.

For a movie with, as I said, no plot, it’s very rushed. They seem to be saying “yeah, it’s a dumb Terminator movie, you know the score,” (even tho it’s halfway aimed at people who aren’t Terminator fans; more on that in a minute) because it seems to take all of ten minutes for both good guys and bad guys to find Dani and start getting into CGI stunt double fights, which means the story has very little time to breathe and we have very little time to get to know any of the characters. The bad guy spawns practically at Dani’s front door! And pretty much does everything by massacring a bunch of people and then hacking a computer. The T-1000 had some intelligence, some charisma. This guy’s a big nothing.

And the Dani character is useless. She starts the story already super assertive, is barely traumatized at all by her loved ones being killed and her own life being endangered. There’s none of that relatable feel of an everyman suddenly being told they have a grand destiny and an incredible responsibility, because right from the start she’s standing up to her mean boss and doing the Nevertheless She Persisted thing. And all this while being literally five feet tall and looking all of twelve years old.

I love these Spy Kids movies.

And at least the original two movies were smart enough to leave the future John Connor mostly to the imagination. This one actually shows us Dani as grizzled military badass, beating up guys and delivering inspiring speeches (would it surprise you to know that humans fighting among each other “is exactly what Legion wants”?), and it’s just--oh man. If ever a political leader is enough to make people think back to the good old days of Trump and Biden...

And if we’re going to talk shit (rightfully) about Jai Courtney’s Kyle Reese not being at all scruffy or traumatized or feral, it should be noted that Grace seems pretty well-adjusted for a post-apocalyptic guerrilla fighter (who all wear Starship Trooper uniforms). Aside from a tendency to smash the face in of everyone she comes across, whether they’ve done anything to deserve it or not (Sample dialogue, to a doctor who is looking at her X-rays after performing life-saving surgery on her: “Did I give you permission to look at my private parts?” SMASH. No, really!)

They really go all in on this cringey, woke af “You’re not the mother of some MAN, Dani. YOU ARE THE FUTURE!” And yet, there’s a hilarious amount of toxic masculinity in this movie, just without the dongs. About every other line Sarah and Grace have is generic tough guy bullshit about how they’re going to kick someone’s ass, how they’re suspicious of someone, how they’re hostile towards someone. If they had dongs, you would think they were the smallest dongs possible, because they are compensating for something, BIG TIME. Between the T-800 and Sarah and Grace, everyone in this movie seems to outright hate each other, to the point that Arnold’s killer cyborg is one of the more pleasant characters. It gets to where you just want someone to order a fucking decaf. Does the fact that Sarah Connor has a vagina keep it from being ridiculously over the top how she spends all her time either blowing up robots or drinking herself into a stupor? C’mon. You can’t complain about male characters having ‘man-pain’ then give Bad Grandma a pass over her ovaries.

And that’s it. It’s a Brundlefly shit between yet another dumb girlpower reboot for the people who’ve never seen a Terminator movie and a sequel with Sarah and Uncle Bob to try and get that last drop of blood outta this stone. They’re trying to make something that appeals to both people for whom this is their first Terminator and people for whom this is their latest Terminator and it just doesn’t work. The newbies don’t have any emotional investment in these characters and the Terminator fans don’t like it that all the old movies were rendered meaningless to prop up Grace and Dani.

Hilariously enough, I actually played Terminator: Resistance recently, which is a fun little mid-tier shooter that was meant to tie in to this movie... and it completely ignores all the Dani/Grace/Legion BS to take place in John Connor’s future war and tie in to the first two movies. That’s how forgettable this movie is. Its own damn video game adaptation pretends it doesn’t exist. Fuuuck.

Oh! Oh! Oh! And in that big, bad, sexist original Terminator, which was so unwoke and problematic, Sarah saved herself and finished off the Terminator herself. Here, Dani has to be saved by Arnold at the climax. The 35-year-old movie is more feminist than this one. Fuck you very much.

#terminator

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coolgirlontheweb · 3 years

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sasuke uchiha (Naruto) - INTJ

when typing, a lot of people forget that the individual functions work in tandem with each other in a single type - they don’t exist in a vacuum, but instead have relationships that sometimes compliment each other, and sometimes oppose each other, like sasuke and his Ni-Fi. sasuke is the single most distinguished and potent example of an unhealthy INTJ - the things this poor guy went through all for the sake of the “shinobi world” is enough for the healthiest INTJ to only ever use Fi-Se; which is the exact problem we have with Sasuke. he isn’t an ISFP, but because of his use of Fi, overwhelming Fi loop and Se grip, a lot of people think he is.

sasuke’s dominant Ni and auxiliary Te in early naruto:

sasuke is practically the poster kid for dominant Ni and auxiliary Te in early naruto. his immature dominant Ni at 12 years old was over-serious, perfectionistic, and was quite unrealistic in his beliefs and expectations. his auxiliary Te, however, walked the line between healthy and immature. sasuke strived for a well rounded goal, he was tenacious and disciplined in his training and in realising his goals. with a great work ethic, he learnt systematically from mistakes in every fight he found himself in, which made him highly efficient. his great work ethic teetered over into immature territory by having an excessive and perfectionistic pursuit of results. just think of his attitude towards the notion of naruto surpassing him and the amount of training he resorted to in an effort to make sure that this never happens, and to achieve his goal. his overindulgence in auxiliary Te also made him stiff and humourless, and seemingly addicted to training which thwarted any healthy Se expression he might have had, which carries on throughout his entire character arc. sasuke was always devoted entirely to whatever goal he had for the future, and present sensory experiences were completely overlooked by him; there is no way that Se could be his auxiliary function when he has practically zero healthy expression of it. if sasuke was indeed using Fi-Se as his dominant/auxiliary, he wouldn’t be as stand-offish or combative as he is toward naruto in the beginning. his dominant Fi would make him noticeably more attached to the uchiha massacre which would make him more outwardly emotional, and his auxiliary Se would let him live in the present moment and thus, not be as objective or calculating as his Te allows him to be - sasuke would be less meticulous in his training, and less high-strung about things and people in general.

development of Se grip and Fi loop in late naruto:

his goal (his entire reason for living, in his words) however, doesn’t come easy to him. towards the end of the original naruto, sasuke steadily becomes more and more distressed, with his sensory experiences plummeting from pleasant and stable with Team 7, to insecure and agonising (which ends up fostering his Se grip and Fi loop), his past is exposed which is sure to make him uncharacteristically vulnerable - the reappearance of itachi, orochimaru and his damning curse mark, and naruto’s steady and quick growth all amalgamate into one glaring symbol of his own mental and physical decline. something important to note that this is all to himself, no one actually believes everything he thinks about himself, that he was weak on the night of the uchiha’s massacre or that he will never have enough strength to defeat itachi, what’s significant to his state of mind at that point in the narrative is that he believes this, which is because of his Ni’s natural tendency to speculate on potential implications, and his Fi at work contemplating in times of stress for him. the top comment made by AsuraPsych said something I think should've put the ISFP/INTJ debate to rest already: “Fi is a stress point for sasuke, not a point of natural strength”.

because dominant Ni operates closest to the unconscious mind, Ni doms have an unhealthy tendency to overindulge in introspectivity, which leads sasuke to overthink and over-criticise himself. this is very indicative of the unhealthy relationship with his Ni-Fi - both of these functions participate in making him critical of his own actions as well as his own emotions. functions operate in opposition with each other; they push and pull against each-other which creates internal conflict. i don’t think anyone can disregard sasuke’s internal conflict with Ni-Fi: his Ni is geared toward his future plans to defeat itachi, and notes its potential implications (like naruto getting so strong that he can’t get defeat him to unlock the mangekyo sharingan, which is where all of his hostility toward naruto comes from - watch the hospital fight and you literally can see the insecurity on his face), and his Fi is geared toward thinking about his traumatic past and is stuck making sense of the night of his clan’s demise, which literally comes to fruition at the end of naruto shippuden when he explains he could never move forward in spite of the past holding him back; that's practically word for word the description of his Ni-Fi conflict.

sasuke responds terribly to the sensory experiences of the outside world (Se) and his own internal rumination (Fi), which makes him develop into an extremely unhealthy INTJ, this time with an Se grip and Fi loop in full swing. it’s almost too apt that itachi’s infinite tsukuyomi is what sends him hurtling into an Se grip, and later Fi loop. the tsukuyomi that itachi puts him in is a repeat of the night of the massacre, where he is forced to live through the worst experience he has ever had. the sasuke that returns to consciousness is no longer the sasuke we once knew, but a deeply cut, volatile shell of his former self. this is the first time the expression of his Fi changes this dramatically, the second is after finding out the truth about itachi. by the 107th episode, sasuke’s Se grip is violently evident: he feels easily thwarted, provoked and distrubed. we see this in his refusal to listen to kakashi’s advice, where instead lashes out at him with harsh words - this is also a very clear expression of Fi loop, where someone’s own conception of morals and beliefs will blind them to any opposing opinion, nuance or context. sasuke’s previous use of Fi solely for personal rumination goes out the window, and is replaced by an unhealthy expression which shoots down any good advice as being too hard or too complicated. additionally, when naruto and sakura visit him in the hospital, he physically lashes out at sakura, who was only cutting him apples, and did nothing to provoke him. sasuke’s Fi loop also causes him to have irrational fears about compromising himself or his integrity, and is easily frustrated about challenges (the primary one here being naruto’s growth) which makes him take things way too personally. naruto was trying to receive acknowledgement from sasuke, but he took this as a show of hostile competition. coupled with his Se grip, it makes him uncharacteristically impatient and explosive, and the combination of the two causes him to challenge naruto to the fight on top of the hospital in an effort to try and salvage some sense of self and security.

sasuke finally succumbs to his overbearingly dominant Ni, unhealthy use of Fi, and Se grip, which makes him finally leave the leaf village. one of the defining features of dominant Ni is its ability to use idealistic impressions and symbolic imagery to set a direction. Ni as a function takes the abstract in and forms ideas on it. in children, this tends to manifest as being overly imaginative and insightful. paired with his piercing auxiliary Te, sasuke’s decision to leave the village is based on the relationship of his Ni-Fi, and his Se grip gives him the push to leave with the sound ninja 4. sasuke’s Ni uses idealistic impressions and symbolic imagery, such as naruto making a larger hole in the water tank using rasengan than him, to come up with judgements about the future. he rightfully determines that if he keeps on going as he is, naruto will surpass him in the near future, and he uses this to determine that he won’t be able to beat itachi this way. from all of this, he ascertains that if he wants to get power, he must also venture into evil and hatred. the use of symbolic imagery in his thought processes is clear as well - sasuke sees itachi as the symbol of all hatred in the world, and sees orochimaru as the symbol of evil. his tertiary Fi kicks in strong as well, to support his decision to leave as well by evoking the memories of his clan’s demise.

i think people are mistaking him for an Fi dom in his childhood because of how introspective he is, but Ni is easily misunderstood as being very impersonal, which it is not. applied to oneself, a dominant Ni becomes a powerful tool of self-assessment, which is exactly how sasuke uses it at age 12. a lot of his thought process isn’t recognised, and i think that this much more pronounced in the anime - because sasuke doesn’t have an internal monologue outside of battle strategy like naruto does, the viewer is left to gage what he is thinking a lot of the time, which is why people may find it hard to recognise his dominant Ni.

stable expression of Ni-Te under orochimaru’s guidance and as leader of hebi/taka:

under orochimaru’s guidance sasuke devotes himself to training, which allows his Ni-Te to shut down his Se (orochimaru’s hideout isn’t really a place that stimulates his Se), therefore it’s easy for him to completely disregard any sensory inclinations he has: he spends his time training and meditating - which no doubt strengthens his use of Ni-Fi. his Ni and Fi work in tandem making him committed to his goal. he begins to develop his Fi here - he follows a strict code of “no killing innocents” to be actively against what itachi did, and declares his hatred for orochimaru for the same reason he hates itachi before he kills him. whilst his expression of Fi helps him uphold his morals, this doesn’t mean it is his dominant function. i’m beginning to think that people are deliberately ignoring how much Ni-Te that sasuke actually uses. from the beginning of his introduction to us we learn he has an “ambition”, that he doesn’t care to call a “dream”, because he knows he is going to bring it to fruition one day, which he does, through his Ni making him resort to meticulous internal planning and excessive, austere training. sasuke’s dominant Ni gives him an unequivocal understanding of what his goal is and the easiest route he can take to make it happen.

INTJs use Ni-Te to see the consequences of the application of new ideas, and live to see systems translated into real substance. we see this in the formation of hebi - sasuke uses Te to be an assertive leader who is very terse and dominating in organising the group to reach his goal in the most efficient way possible. he says that over the 2 years he was with orochimaru, he paid attention to different shinobi and selected suigetsu, karin and jugo based on how he could use their individual abilities to get to his goal. there is no instant whatsoever where sasuke isn’t taking charge of the situation as the leader of hebi, or isn’t using his Ni-Te to gage the next move he should make, and how he should combat problems that he is presented with. dominant Ni is fundamentally focused inwards, on the internal world of thoughts, ideas, and concepts, as opposed to dominant Fi, which is fundamentally focused on personal ideals, morals, and emotional understanding of oneself. the only time that sasuke prioritises Fi over Ni is when he is trying to come to terms with the uchiha massacre and the truth about itachi. a weak argument to support sasuke having a dominant Fi is that all of his actions are driven by his feelings, however this isn’t true. his trauma and emotion, as well as the seed of hatred that itachi planted and sowed in him is what drives him. his feelings act as a mere catalyst to reach his end goal, but every action he takes, and his natural thought processes are certainly driven by Ni. sasuke is far too stunted and close-minded in his outward expression of feelings or authenticity for him to be an Fi dom - they don’t come naturally to him at all, but act as a hindrance to his mental stability - which only gets worse after he finds out about itachi.

instances of Ni-Te in sasuke’s battle strategy:

this isn’t part of the analysis, but i wanted to add that sasuke’s Ni-Te is also observable in his fight style, which i thought was interesting to pick up on. his Ni foresees his opponents moves: he consistently used lightning style throughout his fight against itachi to heat up the atmosphere so that by the time he is out of chakra, he knows he still has kirin left as a final move. sasuke’s Ni-Te is also merciless in clearing ramifications so that he can reach his goal; he literally asks karin to stand still whilst he sacrifices her by piercing through her heart to kill danzo using chidori spear. his Te systematically learns from mistakes, which makes him highly efficient in battle. in his final battle against naruto (part 1) he recalls that two chidori is his limit so resorts to another method of defeating naruto; in his final fight against naruto (part 2) he knows that using shadow clones are naruto’s preferred way to fight so he stops him making the hand sign around 4 different times before he can complete the jutsu.

#mbti!#naruto #sasuke uchiha #intj #Ni-Te

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shikamarubae · 4 years

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War of the heart pt3

Pairing: Kakashi x reader, Itachi x reader

Summary: In Konoha they have already realized your kidnapping and they need a plan.

Warnings: Some swearing, some angst

A/N: English isn´t my first languge, please keep that in mind, i hope you like it.(i appreciate comments and criticism).

The parts in italics are memories/dreams with memories.

Tags: @flowersgirl02 , @affection-rabbit , @dumb-dork

Part 1 Part 2 Part 4

Kakashi was angry, mainly at himself, you had not returned to Konoha and when his dogs tried to track you down they failed, the grove where he had last seen you was empty, your blood dried on the ground but the dogs found no trace, it was as if you vanished. The man was grateful that Naruto was traveling with Jiraiya, because otherwise he would be creating a scandal that would make him feel worse, because he saw how you looked at him when you fell to the ground, sad and disappointed, would you have left of your own free will?

-Let's go back-Genma was still determined to find a trace but they had to return to officially report their disappearance and decide what to do and it was raining, looking for more didn't make sense, the remaining trail would be about to be erased. The gray-haired man closed his eyes for a few seconds, feeling the rain, you liked it, you had told him many times, you liked the smell that storms brought and the one they left after.

"I can't believe you left her alone," the long-haired man murmured, Kakashi didn't say anything because he was right, he also couldn't believe that his irrational anger with her had caused all that -What were you thinking Kakashi?

Again there was no response from the gray-haired man and Gemma kept pressing -You know, (YN) said something to me a few weeks ago, that you didn't want to be serious with her and that's why you had discussed. Did you let that interfere up to this point ?

-Of course it´s like her to tell the world that kind of things - he replied tiredly, avoiding the rest of the question.

-It´s not something that only she does, we are friends and after finding her crying i forced her to tell me, I don't know how your relationship worked but it was destroying her.

Kakashi didn´t answer, the silence seemed to be his best answer and thus he kept it all the way back to Konoha, he had never wanted the type of relationship he had with the you to be discussed by the village, because he was not even sure what kind of relationship did he wanted , but of course with you things never worked as one wanted and that was one of the reasons why Kakashi despite loving you in some way, he couldn´t bear with you on certain occasions.

"If (YN) was her sweet-self all the time, i wouldn´t have those doubts" that´s where Kakashi´s mind arrived, because after all, it was that side of you that had made him surrender to you.

You were going up and down in the small apartment, you were remarkably busy, so Kakashi decided to stay at the window watching what you were doing until you noticed or you were done.

-Kakashi-senpai, what are you doing there?

-Naruto forgot her things-he said entering the apartment-and you don't have to call me Senpai, we are no longer in ANBU.

You smiled at the comment and nodded.

-Of course he forgot, I think he hardly slept because of how excited he is -you said smiling as you finished packing food in various boxes.

-Do you think he will pass?- He asked, leaning on the kitchen counter, arms folded. You nodded again.

-If you have recommended them for the exam is because they, I trust your criteria.

-Do not trust my criteria, trust their abilities.

-Isn't that what your criteria is based on?-You asked finally finishing packing everything and giving it to him.

-What is this?- He asked confused.

-It is four food rations, three for the boys and one for you, I know that these exams are not easy for them or for you.

For some reason you had blushed while giving him the food and it was difficult for you to look at him in the eyes, with effort you raised your eyes and found his visible eye in the shape of a crescent moon, his free hand rested on your head -So sweet (YN)...

The comment made you blush even more and you looked at the floor, his hand still on your head, stroking your hair, you smiled nervously and pointed to one of the doors-Naruto's things are in his room.

Kakashi rubbed his face, why had he remembered that while waiting for Tsunade to receive them? His head kept spinning, "had i really treated (YN) so bad?"

-Kakashi have you heard?

-No, this ..... I was thinking-he apologized while Iruka continued talking, not only was Gemma angry with him, Iruka was also, although he didn't say it. If Naruto was like his son, (YN) was like his sister.

-ANBU returning from a mission found this-pointed the Hokage towards the table, on it a bloody sword and next to it a piece of cloth- the problem is that it was very far from the area where (YN) was supposed to be and there are other scents.

-Then ... she did not leave on her own-Iruka concluded what everyone thought-Are you going to create a search party?

The Hokage nodded-I'll send team 8.

-Not me?

-I'm sorry, Kakashi, but it's the best team to track a missing person.

-Add me to the team -he protested leaning on the table- it's my responsibility, I'm the one who left her there.

-Kakashi is right-said Iruka. Kurenai can't handle it, she has to deal with ...

-All right, you will leave tomorrow, in the found objects there is still a trace of the other people so I will find her , don't worry.

The man went straight to his apartment, he didn't want to meet anybody else, he didn't want any more questions or comments about what happened, he thought of going to the hospital to see how Yona was, but he didn't feel like it either. When he opened the door to the apartment, the darkness and the emptiness hit him, since Naruto was not in Konoha, the normal thing was that you would have stayed with him and when he opened the door you would turn on all the lights quickly to go to the kitchen, open the fridge and scold him for having it empty or if you had not arrived together, you would already be there, perched on the sofa, eating something and reading a book and then you would tell him the whole story several times and repeat yourself more than necessary because you always lost yourself in your own narration.

Kakashi didn't understand why he was starting to miss it at that moment, when he had had plenty of time to do it, it had been weeks or maybe even two months since your last discussion, which ended it all.

Maybe it was because he kept seeing you around the village and knew you were safe, that he had not thought about the solitude of the apartment, because despite the endless discussions you had always come back and deep down, maybe he assumed that this time was the same.

Kakashi was disappointed, you knew, he always looked at you like that when something similar happened, his expression of boredom replaced by disgust and disappointment, not wanting to speak to you, but you continued.

-I don't want to see you near me again, you understand?- You almost shouted at the boy in the face, he looked at you trembling and nodded nervously before turning and leaving quickly, people around you looked and murmured by the scene they just witnessed "WHAT?" You said loud, looking around and everyone continued with their things.

When the boy was out of your sight, Kakashi wasn't there either, you found him a few minutes later in his apartment.

-I thought we were going to eat together.

His usual bored expression back, you stood leaning against the door, his body language told you he didn't want you to come in, you clenched your fists ready to get mad at him, but he spoke first.

-Don't throw a tantrum on me (YN) I don't have time for that.

-You have nothing to do for two days or at least you said that three hours ago.

-I changed my mind-with the book in his hand he started to close the door but you stopped him with your foot, opening it and going inside, to the clear chagrin of the man who was pinching the bridge of his nose clearly reluctantly.

-Is this change in attitude because I rejected that guy a while ago?

-Aren't you able to see what you've done wrong?

-I'm not a kid, don't talk to me like you're educating me, besides, shouldn't you be jealous or something like that?

Kakashi's expression was unreadable at the time, he simply denied as if giving up and dropped onto the sofa reading his book-You can come back when you realize, until then, goodbye, close the door well when you leave.

Fed up with his attitude you threw your bag at his face, making him put the book aside -What's your fucking problem? -You yelled exasperated by the situation, all you wanted was a quiet date on your day off and in the end you finished like that.

-My problem is this, you can't be cruel to someone just because they ask for a date and then come and yell and throw things at me -he said getting up and filling the door to open it, standing aside, as a gesture for you to leave.

-It's the fifth time this week that this guy is chasing me to "ask me on a date", sometimes it´s necessary to be cruel with assholes who don't understand no, so fuck off Kakashi, I have every right to shout and get mad-you walked even the door facing him-you are the one who is being irrational and I don't understand it -you went out on the landing and he closed the door without saying anything else- sometimes I don't understand you-you murmured before leaving, confused, angry and sad.

That had been one of the infinite discussions you had, but you always fixed it, except for the last one, despite that Kakashi kept finding your things around his apartment, books, some glasses for the tea that you had brought, a kettle, the toothbrush , spare clothes...everything was as if at any moment you were going to walk through the door and hug him or complain about something and again Kakashi, while taking one of your books, wondered why he had taken so long to miss you and feel that nostalgia.

He took the bookmark inside, it was a craft that Naruto had given you many years ago, it was shrill as the boy but adorned with daisies, he removed it from the book and put it in his jacket - I'm going to find you.

#Kakashi #Itachi #Kakashi x reader #Itachi x reader #Hatake Kakashi #Naruto #Genma #Iruka #Fanfic #Scenario #War of the heart pt3

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cynicaldesire · 3 years

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So what are your thoughts on season 4? Lay them on me!

My husband and I binged the entire Season 4 over the course of the weekend. We watched 6 episodes, then the last 4. We had a lot of feelings on it for a lot of reasons, mostly because I’m a writer, my husband is an artist, and we’re both critics because we have created work in the past.

My husband’s final rating was 6/10, wouldn’t watch it again but he wanted to give credit to the animators and staff that worked on it. I said I would give it a 4/10. It was so... disappointing. I’m gonna go on a bunch of rants about why I was displeased, so if you want to maintain your positive experience, you don’t have to continue.

So, before I get into the writing, I just want to point out that the sound design, music, and voice acting were all either poorly mixed because of COVID in-home booths or just shitty. The music didn’t pop off with any homages to actual game music and I couldn’t hear it most of the time. The voice acting of most of the cast was pretty great, but I hate Alucard’s voice. The murmuring breathy whispers of most of the cast is just annoying to me, but that’s a personal preference, I know. But a lot of other things didn’t have proper weight or punch to match what was happening.

The animation was also wildly inconsistent. My husband pointed out, again, COVID, so the animators were all probably working from home on deadlines and the Art Director, the guy meant to keep all the art on-model and consistent, probably wasn’t available to check work and send it back to the animators for changes. Or, there wasn’t sufficient time between when the animators sent there work in for changes to be requested. Don’t get me wrong, like with the voice cast, some of the animation was fucking sick, but it was just weighed down by all the poorly masked 3D shortcuts or off-model art.

(One of the things I kept thinking of when gore would happen was the Mortal Kombat devs that got PTSD from having to look at images of gore for the Fatalities. And I was like this isn’t worth all that. Fuck.)

Greta was fine, but she seemed flat. I’ve made her character before and been disappointed in how cool and nonchalant she is. She seems to be too good and relaxed at everything going on. That might’ve been the voice actor, but honestly? She fell flat for me. I didn’t not like her, she just didn’t feel very... well written? Like I said, she reminded me very much of a character I would make at first pass. And while I don’t mind or disagree with the choice to make her a love interest or even a close friend of Alucard, there was not enough buildup for it. Probably because she felt so flat to me.

Overall, on the writing front, I will say that it felt very... first draft. Like no one had an opportunity to look it over and say “Maybe don’t give Saint Germain’s whole motivation and backstory in episode 3?” Or not telegraphing the Death inclusion, or like... There’s so much that was just so poorly handled to me. There’s so many ways I personally would have done it differently or how it could’ve been handled better. There were so many characters that just stated their motivations and repeated them over and over again.

Isaac: ends last season hating humanity and having no reason to challenge that belief. Hates Hector for betraying Dracula. Full of hate and rage. This season: Opens with all his Night Creatures repairing a city, earing berries, and completely at peace with his past and his life. Flyseyes is there for ONE scene and never heard from again. And Isaac literally goes from that to invading Carmilla’s castle to DISAPPEARING. WHY?

The sequence with Isaac invading Carmilla’s castle was hilarious, too. Who the fuck is the hot demon? Some demon from the Wiki. Whomst were the fuckin human blokes with crossbows? Literally just human blokes with crossbows that they hired from a town somewhere else because apparently they didn’t have enough forces??????? The ring Hector ends up cutting off is never actually shown to force him to do something against his will? The fucking slave ring is also openly displayed in a bunch of other places and never utilized. It’s a useless McGuffin.

Carmilla descended into madness, or progressed through her logical steps violently due to solitude? And then when Lenore asks her what her motivations are, Carmilla tries to be coy and not answer the question so they end up having the same dialogue like 4 times? Lenore is somehow SURPRISED? Like, all of these people were human at some point, and that shit is never addressed, or if it is, it’s not remembered.

Hector was also here. He made a night creature, helped Isaac kill Carmilla - why did she explode so violently? - and then chilled in the castle the rest of the time. Like, nothing bad happened to him other than his finger. Which, show his hand every time he’s on screen, remind the audience of his injury. Isn’t it cool and edgy and shocking?

Saint Germain being just a shitty carnal entity was boring. He had a girlfriend he wanted to save so he could get laid, SNORE. When they showed her, she looked like Maria from Symphony of the Night, which has an ending that heavily implies her and Alucard hook up, so I was irritated that they coopted her appearance for this woman with no speaking lines that led Saint Germain to the Infinite Corridor.

Like, everything around Saint Germain’s story was pretty cool. If they hadn’t shown up literally in episode 3 through a sudden flashback his story and his motivations and also he’s the villain, the mystery of what he was doing was interesting. And for it to all just be told to us upfront? And then he just fucking died?

I had no fucks to give for Varney/Death. Death is not mentioned at any point before this season, he shows up seemingly randomly at the end as the Big Bad, and he’s just a big skeleton asshole. Ratko was at least a little interesting, but also wtf was he there for?

I also didn’t much care for Zamfir. I felt like there should’ve been two characters in her place. If one of them was crazy and the other was following their orders without knowing they were crazy? Cool. If she was crazy and didn’t ACKNOWLEDGE she was crazy? Better than what we got. The knights and the Underground Court and all the shit with Targoviste? Boring. Because, specifically, it demands a lot of suspension of disbelief that I didn’t have at that point.

Who the fuck was Dragan? What were all the monsters attacking the castle? Awful convenient for Alucard to have a shield now. He also had a bunch of skill from the SotN game, like the wolf form and the winged cape. Why did that one vampire have big bat wings and never again? Why did Varney call like literally everybody on the mirror phones? Why did he know to do that? Why did Saint Germain know him? WHERE DID TREVOR GET THE OTHER WHIP?

Trevor and Sypha were honestly probably the best handled. Sypha was herself but bigger and stressed. Trevor was also very tired and still a monster hunter. My husband was very happy with the “We’re just two sides of the same coin” philosophy Trevor had with Death, like Geralt feeling like a monster because he’s a Witcher. The idea that they aren’t exactly human and cause so much death but to the monsters. He wanted that explored. I was too busy being frustrated at the huge flashy animation fight to even remember that Trevor had said anything like that.

The magical weapons in Targoviste were cool plot devices. Much like with Varney and the mirrors and so many other things, it felt like they were there because the plot demanded it, not because there was some natural story for it outside of when Trevor and Sypha showed up.

But the single most disappointing thing was Vlad and Lisa living at the end. They didn’t want to see Alucard, absolute shit move regardless of their reasoning. The fact that they still went by Vlad and Lisa Tepes was bound to get back to Alucard somehow. And I... Being in Japan and engaging with a lot of Japanese media, I understand the way they use God is similar to the way they use Spirits, or Kami or something. God being used by a Western author makes it so wildly different. But I’m also... pretty against the idea of God in general, so the whole idea that “God” said Dracula and Lisa deserved a second chance is boring. Like, there’s so much wrong with this ending. It was only there for the shippers, probably.

Anyway. 4/10, wouldn’t watch again.

#arandomshotinthedark

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where-fading-princesses-live · 4 years

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double standards

So I was watching this very interesting video last night... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Di_R6Md-L80

And around 6:43, he talks about the classic Mary Sue trope and how, if you have a male character in a work of fiction who is presented as equally perfect and free of flaw (in other words, a Gary Stu), the criticism is less harsh towards him, or in some cases, nearly nonexistent. Some might even say he's a total bad-ass and how dare you find fault in someone so impossibly cool? But if they're female? Good god, it's bad writing and anti-feminist. People seem to be generally way more accepting of male archetypes who fall under this trope than the likes of their female counterparts, hence double standards. You see this all the time in action flicks for instance. Arnold Schwarzenegger films, anyone? James Bond whomst??? But suddenly you have Rey who's arguably not better or worse than the likes of those characters, and yet, the general opinion of her is... kind of unfair. Understandable, nonetheless... I'm not a fan of her either but at the same time, I don't think we should judge her harsher than male characters who have similar treatments. Male characters like that shouldn't be excused. I'm not saying Stus are NEVER pointed out or criticized, but this guy does have a point. There seems to be a much more airtight scrutiny surrounding female characters of this nature and it might be due to internalized misogyny or ''something something quantum quantum...'' Granted, I don't think Stus/Sues should be a widely accepted overused theme regardless, and that should be blamed on poor writing rather than sexism. Whether male, female, both, neither and everything in-between, characters need to be well-written, well-developed, believable and nuanced and blah blah blah. I'm not really here to talk about that. What I want to point out is double standards. And yes, this is sexism.

Take Rick and Morty for example. I'm not going to get too deep into it, but the fandom seems to praise the shit out of Rick who can easily be labelled a Stu because as we're constantly reminded, he's supposedly the ''smartest man in the universe''. Now, when you create a character who is a self-professed genius and placed on a pedestal by the writers, it can definitely come off Stu-ish. It's not that Rick unrealistically lacks flaws... no, this man is LOADED with flaws, but the fact that he's a literal badass who can get out of almost any sticky situation... well, like I said, there's more to his character than that and I'm not going to get into it, but Rick rarely, if ever, fails. Sometimes there's moments of vulnerability and the fact that he keeps trying to change but just slips back into his old ways, that makes him much more 3-dimensional than a Stu... but you know, despite his narcissism, his sarcasm, his alcoholism and mistreatment of his family and his incapability of maintaining healthy long-term relationships, he still has a limitless ability to create, a superior intelligence level even when compared to higher lifeforms on other planets, enabling him to outsmart entire government organizations and civilizations spanning galaxies, well... you can see where I'm going with this. There's no person on this planet like that who exists irl, even among the smartest of history's greatest men. Yes, it's a cartoon, it's meant to be far-fetched. Yes, it's sci-fi so we're expected to suspend our disbelief. Yes, there's a reason for it. Yes, it drives the core of the story. But even if there's times where it seems Rick will definitely fail, he never truly has an ALL IS LOST MOMENT because the writers conveniently write him out of most of his troubles, because the series has to keep going (obviously). Basically, I never feel a real sense of danger when Rick is in trouble because I know he'll get out alive (if not, there's infinite amount of Ricks and infinite amount of realities to replace him-- not to mention he can replace his family members as many times as he fucks up which became the show's laziest overused point in my opinion). Rick's not a bad character. Far from it. That's not what bothers me.

What bothers me is his daughter, Beth. Okay, no, she doesn't specifically bother me. The way the fandom sees her bothers me. Now Beth is undoubtedly cut from the same cloth. You know what they say, like father like daughter. And yet... the fandom fails to recognize her as a potentially great character, just as equally flawed and brilliant minded as Rick. She's a genius horse surgeon in a failing marriage. (I will go out on a limb and say she's more well written than Rick *ducks from flying tomatoes*.) I mean, her story is literally almost the same as her father's, her flaws are just as realistic--in fact, she's probably more realistic because she's not the ''smartest so and so of the godforsaken universe'' which is just as bad as annoyingly cringey The Chosen One trope. She's just Beth. A terribly smart woman with abandonment issues and trust issues and all other kinds of issues, but you can't blame her given her upbringing. By no means perfect or good at everything she does. Or loved (or hated) by everyone or hailed a genius by the entire flipping universe. You can't even call her a Sue. Yet some of the fandom chooses to label her a b*tch for whatever reason... even though her characterization is near identical to D*ck, er I mean Rick (e.g. she drinks just as much when she hits an all time low). She's just as awful with just as many fuck ups yet she's more sympathetic due to the way Rick raised her (or didn't raise her)... yet there's a double standard because somehow, because she's a female, she's a worse character than Rick, who's a male and apparently awesome (brownie points because he's one of the the two titular characters so you *can't* hate him, it's against the law). If Beth were Rick's son instead of his daughter, I wonder if the general opinion would be the same or not. If Rick were a woman.... he would be Rey, now would he? Don't deny it.

Then there's Ed Edd n' Eddy. As much as I love praising the hell out of this show, I also like to crap on it. There's no shame in pointing out flaws in your faves. But this isn't so much the flaw in the actual show and the actual writing, but again, I'm taking a jab at the fandom and how they perceive male characters v. female characters.

Sarah. Sarah is almost exactly like the female Eddy. She's little and bratty and loud af. She's probably the most hated character on the show (even Jimmy and Kevin are more liked than she is). I used to not like Sarah either but I never really asked myself WHY. When I compared her to Eddy, I realized that they're literally, almost the same character and I have no real reason to hate her (yeah yeah a lot of the cul-de-sac kids share eerily similar traits to the Eds and it was no accident; it makes you wonder why the kids hate the Eds so much if they ostracize them for the very same quirks they have, and it's not just the scams--it's because kids at this age are terribly insecure about themselves and tend to make fun of more vulnerable others who share their flaws to make themselves feel better. I was bullied in middle school for acne by... wait for it.... kids who had acne. GASP. Imagine that. So my point is, we often despise traits in others we despise in ourselves, not to mention we don't perceive ourselves the way others perceive us, hence, the Looking Glass Self theory. Basically, EEnE is deeper than it appears on the surface, and I've analyzed this before during those EEnE Appreciation Month things, so I won't bother repeating myself, but that's the basic idea in a nutshell.)

Ahem, before I get off on a further tangent, let me reiterate my main point. Sarah IS Eddy. No, not really, but yes, kinda really. Her voice can be irritating and grates on your nerves at times, she's bossy and controlling of her friends (I honestly love her friendship with Jimmy, and how they both defy stereotypical gender norms, and how protective she is of him, but there's times where she pushes his buttons), and though she doesn't hold Jimmy back from finding his own independence apart from her the way Eddy sometimes does to Ed and Edd who he treats them more as cronies in the first season (for instance, Sarah doesn't raise objection to Jimmy joining the Urban Rangers and finding his own identity and making other friends besides her, I mean they don't have to be glued to the hip and she damn well knows that), and yet... the way she treats Ed... well... even if Eddy stands up for Ed against Sarah and grows increasingly annoyed with the way she walks all over him... Eddy ain't much better, pumpkins. DON'T ACT LIKE HE'S BETTER THAN HER. Sure, male characters *always* get excused for this kind of behavior, but if it's a girl, she's automatically a mega beyotch with no redeeming qualities. If she's a b, he's a b, and they both have potential to redeem their flaws. They should be treated equally.

Don't get me wrong. I LOVE Eddy. He's one of my favorite characters. OPE. And there's the tea.

Most people LOVE Eddy (not everybody, and if you don't, that's fine; you don't even have to like Sarah, but I have a case). Despite the fact that he's bossy, sarcastic, rude, selfish, self-absorbed, over confident, flamboyant, vain, screams with a voice that makes your ears bleed.... well, gee, didn't I just describe Sarah? Sarah loves make-up clothes and hair just as much as Eddy loves speedos and deodorant and cheap shampoo and dressing to the nines for Jonny's Arbor Day Party. Hell, Sarah had a complete meltdown because she lost her freakin' earring! Eddy flipped the fuck out when Ed lost his porno mags. THEY'RE. THE. SAME. FUCKING. PERSON. (and it's why they butt heads but that's a topic for another day, because you know, you can't fight fire with fire... you can argue the same for Eddy and Kevin)

Yet, the fandom HATES Sarah and LOVES Eddy. Probably not cuz she's female, but aside from the Kankers, the girls (and Jimmy, poor Jimmy) seem to receive harsher judgment towards them as characters by fans, even if they have similar traits to the boys. I'm sure it's because Sarah isn't as well written or developed a character as Eddy (who's a main cast member, actually the driving force of the show, the primary lead) BUT that's not to say Sarah doesn't have her moments of vulnerability or moments of total bad-assery that makes her.... well... interesting if given the chance. (In BPS, she beats the living shit out of the Kankers and devises a plan for her and Jimmy to escape their enslavement, one of my all-time favorite scenes in the entire movie; not to mention she beats the crap out of EVERYONE on the show and it's usually, not always, well-deserved but it's entertaining nonetheless: cat fights with Nazz, even beating up Rolf who's twice her size, etc.). The fact that everyone is afraid of this little girl??? (maybe except Kevin). I mean, this chick is fearless, and yet, she still has moments of weakness. That's 3-dimensional if you ask me. She's more than just the bratty little sister. I didn't used to like her, but after studying her more, I've come to appreciate her. There's nothing about her that makes her an inherently ''bad'' female character. She plays a role, as do they all, and she plays the role perfectly.

Last but not least: Nazz. Everyone's favorite (I'm kidding). I don't know if the fandom hates Sarah or Nazz more. I can understand the hate towards Sarah, but Nazz seems even less just. Nazz is like one of the nicest people on the show and never really does anything to warrant the hate (until the infamous flanderized Season 5-- don't judge me, I love S5 regardless)... but even then she's still nice, if a bit artificially so. I mean, she becomes a bit of a Mean Girl (they all kinda do; it must be how the clique school environment changes a person), but she still goes out of her way to be inclusive towards everyone (even if she can be spotted in the background laughing at the Eds along with the others at times, but they're ALL guilty of this... ya'll out here lovin' on Rolf or Jonny or whatever, and pretending like they're saints, but they laugh at our precious Ed boys too. Also, precious Ed boys are not complete angels either and sometimes they need a good ass whooping or two. I mean, they're just kids. Kids are assholes). She's not a bad person though; she roots for all the contestants during the Spelling Bee. She personally appoints Ed to be the mascot of the football team. I can go on and on. She's just nice. Maybe that's why fans hate her. Because nice is boring. Nice is... personality-less. I don't think Nazz has as much eccentricity as the other characters, obviously, but she, too, has her moments (she yodels, for starters). She's not entirely lacking in personality. Sure, she may have as much personality as a board of wood (actually, I take that back, Plank has MORE personality than her XD) buuuut.... Idk, I like Nazz. I didn't at first either. But even if it irks me a bit that she's reduced down to the unattainable love interest and not much else, she, too, isn't an inherently ''bad'' female character. She has the least development of all the cast members, but she fills her role effectively. Without her, the show would feel like it's missing something. Even if she doesn't appear as often.

What bothers me the most is that she plays the same part as Kevin, only female. Kevin's the quintessential jock/bully popular leader of the kids, the King of the Cul-de-sac if you will (self-appointed or otherwise, just don't tell Eddy I told you). Nazz is like his Homecoming Queen, even if they're not an official couple (they spend the whole series as a ''will they or won't they Ross and Rachel'') and though not the leader of the kids collectively, she does sometimes lead the girls (or really, Sarah and Jimmy), while Kevin leads the boys (Jonny and Rolf, excluding the Eds). AND YET Kevin, though sometimes hated by fans, isn't nearly *as* hated as Nazz. Yet, he has as much personality as her (sorry, I love you, Kev). I mean, THEY'RE. ALMOST. THE. SAME. CHARACTER. Good looking, sporty, popular... He's also the least developed character of the male cast. Plank has more development than him and that's kinda sad... y'know... getting beat by a board of wood. (But Plank comes alive through Jonny, so basically Jonny is split into two separate characters; Plank reveals aspects of Jonny that he won't reveal to us, and vice versa. I can talk about Jonny all day, but let's not, because this is about Nazz.) I mean, again, Nazz and Kevin both have their moments of vulnerability and it's not like they're NEVER interesting; I beg to differ. Kevin, anyway, has two great episodes that revolve directly around his insecurities and anxieties and deep-seated fears, some deep shit I wish we got to see with Nazz. But instead we got BPS and it was hands-down the best character development we ever saw from her in the entire show's run. It's sad it had to be the end, because if they gave us more BPS Nazz throughout the series, she would have been a well rounded 3-d character.

Nazz is angry AF in BPS and I live for angry Nazz. We can kind of feel for her here because Kevin is such a dunce. She's finally reciprocating his feelings and he decides to turn the other way.... for his goddamn inanimate bike. It's something Jonny would do, but Kev always loved that bike... I guess more than Nazz, and it's one of the greatest love triangles ever. Phantom of the Opera don't interact. Ahem. My point is, Nazz finally displays more personality here-- like actual fucking emotion beyond just being nice and pretty (sure, we've seen her get angry sometimes, or freaked out other times, but never like this). Buuuuuut the fandom sees otherwise. They hated Nazz even MORE after this, despite that.... the male characters in BPS, like Rolf who punches through a tree and Edd and Eddy who go at it all piss and vinegar in an actual fist fight, are angry fucking men, and they're allowed to be angry and not Nazz because...? They have more testosterone and she doesn't? Because penises are more justified than vaginas? Oops, no, sorry, women can only be angry when they're on their periods, my bad. I mean, everybody's out in this freezing cold swamp, having a break down, at their wit's end, reaching their ''all is lost'' moment... yet, Rolf and the Eds are allowed to vent their frustrations on each other or on the surrounding environment. But not Nazz. No, Nazz is being a b*tch because.... Kevin's paying more attention to a non-living machine than to her. And he sat flat on his skinny ass and didn't help her when she needed him the most. And she didn't have to tag along with him but she did. She didn't have to put up with his cold aloofness but she did. And even if she was trying to catch his attention and flirt with him at inappropriate times she wasn't entirely useless. It was HER idea to find Eddy's brother. If she hadn't suggested it, he'd still be riding around in circles chasing his shadow. Yeah, okay, she's a total b*tch.

God forbid women have emotions. God forbid women cry or get frustrated. Then they're b*tches. But if they're pretty and nice and perfect and popular, they're Sues. Yet, male characters with the same traits.... get lighter sentences. No one even bats an eye. Boys will be boys am I right?

I can go on but yeah, don't say double standards are total BS. In this essay I will

#personal shit #eene #ed edd n eddy #rick and morty #feminism #mary sue #gary stu #nazz #sarah

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thegurlbehindthesmile · 3 years

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I could write a thousand pages about that day.

I think what hit me so profoundly was the thought of having so much meaning after death.

I think of death like I think if most things. A thing. A thing that happens to everything. A process that we go through that teaches us the fragility of being human. As the species we are we have this, deadline if you will. An expiration. It is inevitable. Non the less death has never been something I've been afraid of or even wondered about. I knew what death was. (Or so I thought)

I was raised in a very religious house hold. That's to say we believed in the Catholic Church and their views and teachings. I went to a few private schools where religion was simply another class; just like English or math. I was taught the bible inside and out and told how to follow its every, commandment. The does and dont's of life. Heaven and hell. Dying.

Very young your committed to this structure that when you die you will either go to heaven or hell. If youre a good person and you follow the rules you will go to heaven. Period. The rules are lengthy. You must be diligent and you must not stray. But youre a shoe in for heaven hands down.

At a young age I wasn't scared of death. Heaven was a place all our loved ones went if they too followed the way. The Bible describes it as such a beautiful place you couldn't even imagine. Doesn't sound to bad to me. Sure one day what we do die from might hurt but what a small price to pay to then be in heaven forever.

Quickly i was tossed between different religions. Something I really didn't even know existed "other" ways of believing in the same God. I had relocated schools and instead of continue my catholic teachings (I asked my mother for a change, I was searching for something ) she found a Christian type school. Baptist I believe.

These people told me. Yes you have to do good BUT all you really have to do is be true to your self and ask God into your heart and you'll be free. You'll be able to go to heaven because you proclaimed your rebirthing. You are reborn again. From that day on you dedicate your ways to the way they praise and follow God and your guaranteed heaven. This was much looser of teaching. I felt more comfortable. You were able to approach God just by yourself. Just you and him. If you thought you had sinned you took it to heart and spoke deep within to your Holy Spirit. Prior to this your sins needed to be declaimed out loud to priests. Not straight to God himself. Only those of higher teaching and blessings could really hear and know what God insisted. It was scary and very aggressive. I felt horrible and dirty telling my sins to some old guy. Who then wronged my rights sent me off with some dos and donts and then I was back on pace for heaven.

Death seemed even more closer. More mini. It was something I could simply ask God about myself. In my own sanctuary. The pace was different -even the walk. Death-dying it was just phase two of the metamorphosis called life.

This walk lead me to a church in my home town that was Methodist. By this time I had learned a lot about a lot. Their were so many different religions. Different things that kinda all meant the same thing. I knew there was something higher then me. Something existed that created everything. And I wanted to know more and more about it.

Somewhere along my walk to enlightenment I fell short. I second guessed it all. Everything. I was mad at the choices I had made. I was mad at the world I had created for myself. I was smarter and stronger then the person I was and I was made at myself and the world.

I lost the taste to thrive. I didn't care anymore. I'm not sure I had lost hope or just my sanity. I just felt like I knew better and just didn't have the energy to fix it. Like I wasn't happy with anything. My life was on auto pilot and I was in the passenger seat screaming at my self. *trigger warning*

I began to hurt myself as a way of feeling. This new world was heavy and numb and loud. At times the world felt so heavy I could drown, I could feel the IT grabbing and clawing at my feet. And I could feel the last bit of air in my lungs struggling to figure out how to free myself. Cut yourself free i swore it said. It was the only free. In my moments of weakness the IT would win. I swear it was like it's the only time I stopped screaming. I'd cut and the buzzing and humming would stop and I swore I saw clarity. I felt better. I felt as if I let just enough of the IT out to feel, okay ish. To just feel better about being in auto pilot. Yup still auto pilot. I felt like I could breathe a little. The months dragged on like a bad scene in a movie The more I let myself watch. The more sad I became. The easier I gave up and it just sat on repeat for awhile.

I wasn't thinking about death. I thought to myself "ha. Death would be easier" but it wasn't what I was looking for. I was caught in a game of cat and mouse but I liked it I was searching for something.

One day I just snapped. I didn't want to play the game anymore. But IT was ready for the battle. As I wrestled with what little soul I had left. I prayed. I prayed harder then I ever had in my life. I said... I will fight and I will win but you have to make it worth it. Please tell me there is more to life than this. Because if there isn't, I'm done playing, I'm really done playing. I was so tired. So exhausted. Crying. I remember fighting myself not to do anything but lay still. Very very still. And I prayed. I clutched every bit of myself, I held tight to my soul. Stiff as a board. And prayed.

then I woke up, in all sense of the words. ( I eventually; fell asleep........) I swear The world was different. I felt different. I couldn't tell you what happened that night. But I woke up in the driver seat.

I was 18 then, I'm 30 now.

I have this know how, that I'll live till a ripe old age. Old enough to enjoy and learn many more lessons. I figured once I was done learning, sharing, giving. It would be my time for heaven. I figured the only people I'd really leave a mark on would be my family most of all. My legacy would be them and all they would borrow from my teachings.

Random strangers prepared themselves for their future careers. Some surgeons- doctors- etc etc. all ranges of medical fields. They needed one thing in their breathing life to succeed. A life that wasn't breathing to teach them how to learn what they needed to learn.

I was brought up to think cremation or coffin. But never donation.

Gifford gave and gave till the end. Truly. He always new that was his path, he knew that when this chapter was over his body would continue on to greater things beyond him- he assured it. These strangers will forever and always remember the moment they began working on their first real body. They bank their career on it I imagine. This moment catapults them into the rest of their lives. The jump. Their gratitude towards Pop was unbelievably beautiful. And they hadn't even met him. We had met him We had loved him. We were loved by him. He catapulted us to be the people we are today. How crazy and amazing that his purpose was so clear while he lived. He simply enjoyed living. How surreal that his purpose will continue to live within each of those students as they venture into the world. Like pieces of a dandelion drifting through space forever. Pop is infinite.

I've now learned to use the higher powers to help me control the IT. I still don't fear death, nor wonder about it. One day I'll die and join those I love.

I hope I can be a space dandelion too. Miss ya Pop,

Thank you Golden Bear Over and Out

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hiddendreamer67 · 5 years

Text

Mandy in the Multiverse

Summary: Mandy the writer witch doesn’t know what to write for her prompt, so she goes searching back through her plethora of AUs for inspiration and accidentally stumbles into a few others as well.

(Shoutout to @callboxkat, @lefaystrent and @delimeful for letting me reference their works in this!)

October prompt #23: Witchcraft.

Check out more of my writing at @hiddendreamerwriting!

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Mandy sighed, laying on her back and tossing her pen in the air to catch again. It was dull, lacking the usual shine of inspiration. It seemed she was quickly burning through her magic supply this month.

Her eyes traveled over to the portal, humming in the corner. Several portals, actually. An entire wall of infinite portals, each leading into a different dimension she had created. But what did it matter? All the portals in the world wouldn’t help the young witch find a good story idea. She needed a new portal.

Mandy paused, catching her pen one last time. Or…she could always do a sequel. And for that, a quick lil’ inspiration trip wouldn’t hurt anyone, right?

“I’ll just pop in for a second.” Mandy grinned, already grabbing her cloak and sprinting through one at random.

A bright light flashed, forcing her to cover her eyes. She blinked the spots from her vision, peering around to find… a pet shop?

“Oh, tiny mers.” Mandy hummed, walking through the aisle ways. “Not exactly original, but-”

“Can I help you, gurl?” Remy the sales clerk interrupted her musing.

“Oh, hey Remy.” Mandy gave a disinterested wave, not even looking over as she peered into the empty tanks. She sighed. “Man, this is so boring. There’s not even anything happening here. Well, except with the cats.”

“We don’t sell cats.” Remy informed her.

“I know.” Mandy adjusted her cloak. She didn’t feel like walking all the way over to Picani’s place of residence just to see the shredded remains of Logan clinging to life, that’d just be depressing. “Don’t worry about it.” Without another word she twirled on her feet, the scenery swapping once more.

“Alright, where we headed?” Mandy rubbed her hands together, looking around to try and get the lay of the land. It was a wide open field, which didn’t give her many clues- that is, until she saw how dead the grass was and the hole left behind by what must’ve been a beanstalk.

“Aww, I missed it?” Mandy groaned. She looked around, seeing nobody at the bottom of the stalk either. “Well this sucks. I can’t even tell if this is Virgil’s or Patton’s story. Why does the beanstalk have to come down, anyway? Just let it stay up and eventually consume all the water on Earth.”

That was an idea, maybe. But today was not the day for mythical eco-terrorism. Instead with a sigh Mandy twirled again, crossing her fingers. “Please something fun, please something fun-”

Unfortunately, her hopes were dashed when she opened her eyes to see generic apartment number 3. “Darn it, just a borrower story.”

There was a quiet clattering behind her. Mandy turned, seeing a very startled human Logan standing in the kitchen. “I- how- what did you say?”

“Oh dear.” Mandy winced. Logan was always the one with too many questions, no matter the universe. “Um, a borrower? Tiny person about yeigh high?” Mandy held out her hands for scale. “You might have one already in a cage. That, or they’re still in the walls. I don’t really know what stage you’re at.”

Logan’s eyes widened, turning a deadly pale. He glanced back at the living room door anxiously, leaning forwards and lowering his voice. “How much do you know about the little mouse men?”

“The mouse men?” Mandy wrinkled her nose in confusion. Since when did Logan call borrowers ‘mouse men’? That sounded more like Littles, and the only story she knew with Littles was…

Mandy gasped, smacking a hand to her cheek. “This is Kat’s story!” She excitedly whispered. The witch looked down at her own hands in awe, having not been aware she could even do that. “Oh my goodness I could see Littles. Wait should I? What if I break something? No, I shouldn’t, they’re all so depressed right now, and Kat’s Littles are always so skittish.”

“Cat? What’s this about a cat?” Logan was frantically trying to keep up with her logic, to no avail.

“Don’t worry about it.” Mandy said hastily. “Tell them I say hi. Wait don’t, forget you saw anything. Okay. I love you. Bye.”

With these parting words Mandy spun away, eager to get out before she ruined over a year’s worth of careful planning. But this opened a newfound realm of possibilities; what were her limits? How far could she go? She eagerly focused her energy away from her own stories, trying to see if she could breach the wall again.

“...oh great. Another Remy.” Mandy sighed, opening her eyes.

“Gurl you better check yourself before you shrek yourself.” Remy judged her, taking a long sip from his cup.

Mandy glanced around, taking in the house in disarray. There was a strange amount of potato chip bags and binoculars. On a notebook was a list labelled ‘Vampires?’ where Logan’s name had been written, crossed out, rewritten, repeat.

“Is this Lefay’s Welcome to the Neighborhood fic?” Mandy guessed.

“Yup.” Remy nodded. Mandy wasn’t even surprised Remy had that knowledge; he was some sort of demon of the night anyways here. Or something.

“Good.” Mandy nodded as well. “So I can’t break anything.”

“Bold of you to assume you’re worthy enough to derail this plot.” Remy raised an eyebrow. “Where you headed?”

“I dunno.” Mandy shrugged, leaning against the couch. She cringed, feeling something sticky beneath her. “I mean not that you lovable trash raccoons aren’t, er, great… but I was kinda aiming for Delimeful.”

“The tiny dragon one?” Remy asked.

Mandy nodded. “I wanna introduce Puff to my dragon Virgil. Who isn’t really a dragon, just raised by dragons, and-”

“We get it, ya’ basic. First door on your left.” Remy interrupted with a point. Mandy paused, before with a shrug opening the door that was Remy’s haphazardly thrown together portal. There was another flash of familiar light, but this time the walls appeared more hazy. Translucent, even.

“So, this is a mind palace.” Mandy let out a low whistle, because she could do that in fiction. “Weird. I don’t work in canon enough, huh?”

But that wasn’t the focus right now. Instead her attention was drawn to a scuttling in front of her, a little purple dragon caught off guard by her arrival. Mandy grinned, taking the opportunity to lunge and catch him. “Gotcha!”

Puff did not appreciate this gesture, frantically clawing and biting at Mandy and nearly causing the young witch to drop him entirely.

“Geez, stop struggling, Virgil!” Mandy huffed, readjusting her grip.

“...Virgil?”

Mandy paused, looking up to see she had an audience. Roman, Patton, and Logan were giving her looks caught between confusion and horror. The dragon in question had frozen, terrified when she said his name.

For a moment Mandy thought she ruined everything, but no recognition dawned on their faces. “Oh right, you guys are pre-accepting anxiety.” Mandy gave a small sigh of relief, the others tensing further. “Don’t worry, it’s just a, uh, nickname. Totally irrelevant. Definitely not something worth pondering or asking Anxiety about. Okay, toodles!”

But as soon as Mandy attempted to spin on her heel with Puff in tow, a searing hot pain overtook her arms. She yelped, dropping the fledgling and spinning into the other realm alone, collapsing with a grimace.

“Okay, no taking things between realms.” Mandy grit her teeth. “Good to know.”

She looked up, her eyes peering through the darkness to see a sword glinting in the meager light, pointed threateningly at her face. Strangely, she hadn’t even heard the movement. That was suspiciously terrifying.

“State your business.” The not-dragon Virgil threatened.

Mandy looked down the length of the sword. She looked back up at Virgil. “I was just trying to bring you a present.” Mandy huffed, annoyed that her plan had failed. “It was a dragon version of you. A real one.”

Well, that was not the right thing to say. Mandy yelped, rolling out of the way as the sword came slashing down, clanking loudly against the rock wall.

“Lovely seeing you as always!” Mandy waved, turning on her heel to the sound of cursing behind her.

The witch gave a sigh of relief, trying to focus her mind again after getting so jittered. It was difficult whenever her creations got away from her, especially when she was at the wrong end of the sword. The Lord only knew how many times her giants got out of hand, putting Mandy in all sorts of compromising situations.

“Think Mandy.” Mandy told herself, continuing to spin as she began to get dizzy, multiple universes passing by and only offering her glimpses: cages, a butterfly wall, the ocean…. And of course the accompanying cast, but that was a bit harder to decipher considering they all shared the same fate. “If you could go anywhere, do anything, focus on that. Where would you go? What would you do?”

Her focus was shattered as in her dizzy state she took a single step back, breaking the spell and immediately tripping over something alive.

“Mrow!” The white cat hissed, scrambling fearfully up and away from Mandy and into Patton’s lap.

“Oh dear!” Patton gasped, bending down to check on her. “Are you alright?” She took in his light blue robes, recognizing a fellow magic user.

“Yes, I’m fine.” Mandy took his hand, standing up. She looked down at the bristling cat, glaring up at her haughtily. Mandy winced, slowly recognizing this to be her witch AU. “Sorry about your tail, Roman. Also sorry about your allergies, Patton.”

Patton gave her a bewildered look, not so subtly wiping at his nose. The cat hair was clearly getting to him again. “What? It’s just this spring air. Hardly your fault.”

“Right.” Mandy didn’t bother to explain that she was the one who gave him allergies in the first place. She sighed, wishing she could at least cuddle up Roman with his fluffy coat, but Roman looked to be in no mood to accept her apology. “Aristocat.” She muttered. “Are Logan and Virgil around?”

“No, I believe they went out to collect potion ingredients.” Patton explained.

“Ugh why didn’t I just do that?” Mandy smacked herself in the forehead. “I could have just written something about you four doing potion stuff for witchcraft. This is so needlessly complicated.”

“...sorry?” Patton didn’t know how to respond.

“Whatever, I’m getting out of here.” Mandy glanced at the pair one last time. “I suggest inventing magic benadryl. Or getting regular benadryl. I have no idea what time period this actually is because you refuse to go outside.”

With this mystic advice Mandy disappeared, forever on the hunt for that elusive inspiration.

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