#also there are three distinct things that inspired this but we don't have to talk about it

[throwaway-yandere]

"Aren't You Supposed To Hate Me?" (Yandere Modern!Il Dottore/Reader)

CW: mild yandere

the real a/n: if you see me putting too many sylvia plath references, no– no you did not. Also, webttore rights. I promise he's not that bad bakery anon pls don't kill me-. ALSO LOGO'S MADE BY ESTHER ANON!!!

Mother of Klee, Alice’s note: When your bakery opens, can you make some Eton mess? What? “That’s not on the menu…?” Well, you should add it! My darling Klee looks adorable eating strawberries! Oh, but you're not leaving Teyvat Pro, right?

Yandere! 1k Idol Match-up Event

---------

According to what people have said about you, you exude calmness. And that it’s a strength. That your soothing and somewhat “motherly” presence puts you one step forward more than most people. But why isn’t your composure congruent with the frantic screaming inside of you that begged this lunatic to quit clutching your baking supplies?

Damn, this isn't the time to NOT be assertive, assistant (Y/n). Pull yourself together.

"Please stop. You're strangling it."

"We all die, (Y/n). The sooner you internalize that, the better."

The man in front of you is none other than your boss: "Il Dottore", the man behind the idol group ADDICKTZ's creative decisions. You have been given the responsibility of maintaining order among the original 4 ADDICKTZ members while he deals with the second batch after he chose you out of the other 22 interviewees. 

"Sir, we're just baking. Please use a proper measuring cup. Aren’t you supposed to be a doctor–"

"Master. Not sir. I suggest you speak to me in a more respectful tone, Assistant (Y/n). The mere fact of your utility does not make you indestructible."

"I understand that very well, sir– Master, but please put the dough down. I cannot allow you to do the frosting at this rate."

Dang Akademiyan scholars and their honorifics.

Zandik huffed, unsatisfied, before leaning back on his chair. 

"Mind you, I'm a licensed surgeon." He boasted snarkily. "I'd certainly outmatch you when it comes to steady hands, assistant."

"Well– shame that a medical degree does not automatically mean you'd be good at art, then."

"(Y/n), did I hire an imbicile? Answer me, who exactly are you working for?"

"You, Master Zandik." 

"And my occupation?"

" ADDICKTZ’s Creative Director–"

Zandik smugly raised an eyebrow.

"... I admit defeat."

ADDICKTZ values both of your artistic inputs. Even after work hours, you've done what you can to support DCKZ. You helped Diluc choose a haiku to confess his emotions not long ago, and more recently, you aided Zhongli to find inspiration in contemporary poetry for his lyrics. Sir Zandik, on the other hand, would help the group's plans progress from simple masquerades to a magnificent mashup of VISUAL Kei and distinctive pop elements with unbuckled bones facing the front view just tasteful enough to adhere to the unit's usual aesthetics.

Of course, these tasks are obviously trivial in comparison to what your "real work" entailed, and the CEO would split hairs if you joked about retiring. The doctor is no different; in fact, he is the most guilty of this dependence. Normally, superiors wouldn't break into their staff members' closed bakery at 2 in the morning on a Saturday, but Il Dottore has a few loose screws.

Partly, it's your fault too because Zandik has a crush on you.

That's not your ego talking– he admitted it three days ago. Maybe you would've accepted that confession if he didn't utter another word, you did hear Sohrah and the other staff members mention that he's some eye candy. The nose, the eye pits, the full set of pearly white teeth– those mean nothing when the person is Zandik. His personality is as foul as the things Ayato bought in the ADDICKTZ's hotpot game. You’re never crossing the water for an obvious red flag.

Following his direct confession, he went on to enumerate all of your faults in a psychopathic and alphabetical order. As to add more salt into the wound, Zandik brought out printed pictures and pointed at all the blemishes on your face that needed fixing before tossing a plastic surgeon's business card at you.  What an absolute jerk. Not the most romantic confession out there, but he did ask you out, right?

WRONG.

After his long spiel about being burdened by unnecessary dependence on you, he gave you an incentive to "look more unattractive during work hours" with a pay raise. 

So, Herr Doktor. So, Herr Enemy. Yet, you can't loathe Zandik when he's THAT honest about his avid repulsed fascination. The man is mad, but being mad doesn’t make him stupid. He wants the exact opposite of the likable behavior reinforcement theory coming from you. Zandik would sooner receive the loving embrace of an iron maiden than be in a rendezvous. He wholeheartedly believes that love is an illusion of a Greek necessity– whatever that meant. 

You were ready to argue when he pulled out a contract that Zhongli had revised for added credence. As self-preservation reared its not noble but necessary head, your anger left you. His proposed numbers were bafflingly astronomical that you might just quit your job after the first pay…

The moon has nothing to be sad about once it witnesses your dreams bear fruit. Zandik knows that as well, that's why he visited your little bakery before its opening day, demanding that you make him any type of pastries. Unfortunately, you're the type who would adjust your schedule for others and not the other way around.

Zandik wiped the sweat off his forehead with his sleeves. "Mind if I strip?"

"E-Excuse me?" You chuckled nervously. "Strip your apron, right?"

"Hair extensions, assistant." He clicked his tongue, amused. "With some common sense, you would’ve discovered that they get in the way and that these two long strands are artificial. Clearly, you lack some degree of rigor expected for an assistant."

Should’ve expected as much. This is the same man who cut off Childe's hair because he's "so damn tired seeing everyone in this forsaken group have the same fucking rat tail." You're pretty sure the only person who thought it was mildly amusing was Dainsleif.

Still… Last time, he told you those two strands were part of his hair. Zandik is not the type who would pettily lie for a joke. He's as straightforward as CEO Alhaitham– for better or for worse. Maybe he has a twin brother or something… 

No, that’s just inconceivable.

Zandik watched in amusement as your forehead creased. 

"You should've worded that differently… Doesn’t matter. Is there a flavor you’d like? Chocolates or...?"

He answered immediately. “Strawberries. Saw Alice ate some with her daughter last night.”

“Definitely it's not because it's your favorite, I’m aware,” you mused sarcastically. “Since you’re not actually into strawberries, might I suggest chocolate?”

Zandik glared. “Why?”

You batted your eyes at him playfully. “Oh, doctor, don’t you know chocolates have the love drug? As Langston Hughes would say “Have you dug the spill of Sugar Hill? Cast your gims, on this sepia thrill–”."

“Debunked. It’s laughable that you would insinuate such an incorrect notion.” Zandik scoffed loudly. “Chocolates don’t directly pass phenylethylamine to our nervous system, you’re more likely to excrete these pathetic sweets off your a–” 

Never been a romantic. Dottore somehow loves to make it a point to remind you of that foul personality trait of his in every conversation.

“Alright, that’s enough. It’ll be strawberry flavored.” You sighed as you placed the tray inside the oven. “Might I say, you’re acting rather… cocky, for a lack of a better term, with how I should handle my work.” 

“In my many years of living, I’ve learned that arrogance is a side-effect of truth and intelligence.”

“Yes, but your methods of holding that dough is quite barbaric. Please let it go.”

“Tsk.”

Dead hands, dead stringencies– Zandik simply lacks the talent for baking due to his rigidity. He dropped the dough and you smirked for a second, relieved. You secretly have a competitive side and you'd hate to admit that you're scared he might just beat you at your own game because of the frostings.  

“Master Zandik, please just sit down. There are empty chairs at empty tables–”

He rolled his eyes, crossing his legs on your table. You tried not to scream at him about hygiene and barely succeeded. “Friends are all dead and gone– I know. Do not think you can reference Les Miserables without me knowing, baker.”

You shook your head as you set the timer. While you were preoccupied, it seemed as if the doctor just couldn’t sit still.

“Hmph, this is the only thing of interest I’ve found in your precious little bakery thus far.”

You turned to look at him.

Zandik paused in front of the small wall of photographs you had on display. A smile crept on your face as you remembered how proud you were of organizing the photos of your friends and family into a heart-shaped mosaic. There is a tiny square space in the middle and he correctly inferred that will be the center will be used to display a photo of the bakery's opening day. Be that as it may, his attention lay elsewhere.

"You had a violent streak, didn't you?"

"... Pardon?"

"You were the "problem child", that's my assessment," Zandik smirked, detaching a photograph from your wall, which surprised you since you've had trouble easing them free. 

He specifically picked the photo you took during kindergarten with your grandma. 

"You had scraped knees and elbows but you don't have that stereotypical dumb boyish smile. You seem to have quite a pronounced frown. Would I be wrong to assume you weren't well-liked in your school–"

“Put it back.” While you do generally dislike being put under a spotlight, the cause of your harsh delivery stems from his unpleasant phrasings.

Zandik pretended not to hear you, "–I'm not teasing you. I would know this because I had a photo similar to this one."

For a moment, you saw a flicker of melancholic humanity in your otherwise monstrously rigid employer. You thought that vulnerable display would be brief, but the hollow chuckle that echoed proved that this event will mark a milestone in your "work" relationship.

Master Zandik is opening up to you.

"Unlike this cute and happy memento, I don't have a grandmother who would take a picture with me. I’ve lost them all in the fire." He muttered, his voice low and his eyes squinting. "Hence the reason why I squandered most of my hours burying my nose in textbook after textbook. Pantalone and I had to prove ourselves worthy of living a life outside the orphanage. But this picture…"

Your boss grumbled. "This picture looks awfully similar to the only childhood picture I have taken. A large frown, beat-up uniform– a rage that I can relate to. I understand your child self all too well. Too well, in fact, that I feel the urge to burn this photograph like what I’ve done with mine."

He traced his thumb around your young self's image, shockingly intimate.

You blinked incessantly, trying to process all the information that he told you. First, your boss has no family left. Second, he’s an orphan raised alongside sir Pantalone. Third, he burned the only picture he had when he was a kid. You would pinch yourself but this conversation is jaggedly real. 

As sensitive as this topic may be, your skepticism slips out as easily as breathing. "You burned your only childhood photo?"

Zandik ruminated. 

"Curious as to what I would've looked like? You don’t seem to find my decision very agreeable."

"Who would?" You didn't mean to whine, but the tone of your voice made you sound like complaining. "What possessed you to do that?! Now no one would know what you looked like, not even yourse–"

"I didn't look too different as to who I am now," Zandik answered, his usual confidence coming back. "Only back then, shades of purple bruises would overlap my face, arms, legs, and stomach. If I loathed my natural features I would've done something drastic to tweak my appearance."

"Of course, you would, hair surgeon." You jokingly muttered Childe's best Dottore insult.

"What was that?"

For the sake of the hair Ajax is trying to grow out, you need to change the subject, fast.

"Master Zandik, I have to ask– aren’t you supposed to hate me? Pray tell, what are you doing here then?”

It’s been bothering you since he walked in. If he wants his “crush” for you to disappear, then why the hell is he spending more time with you?

Surprisingly, Zandik was also stunned by your question. His eyes went wide, perplexed.

“... What are you talking about?”

“You know what I meant.” You deadpanned. “The contract, what else?”

“Contract?” He squinted. “What contract? Is it a contract revised by Zhongli?”

“An astute guess.” You mocked his tone. “Yes, it is. Perhaps we’ve handled so many workloads the past month because of Sir Alberich’s eye-plucking shenanigans that’s why you forgot. To put it simply, you ordered me to act less attractive in exchange for a pay raise.”

“What?”

He looked at you incredulously, as if you were joking.

“Is this some kind of twisted joke?” Zandik huffed. “I would do no such thing. That’s...”

His demeanor shifted once, then twice. After a moment of silence, he nodded.

“Forgive me, you’re right. I did propose that contract, haven’t I?”

“Yes, Master.”

“And I also confessed my affection for you as well?”

“Yes, Master.”

“Pity.” He muttered, his tone grieving. “There should be no other person who can understand me more than I do.” 

Zandik glared. “But why on earth is He trying to sabotage us.”

He?

“What are you talking about?”

Zandik gritted his teeth and smiled. “No matter. There’s no need for concern, darling.”

…

Did Master Zandik always have shark-like teeth?

He reached out and ruffled your hair slightly, but there is an ominous aura that lingered in his expression. It was akin to self-loathing, but not quite. Zandik pulled his hand back slowly, clenching it into a fist as he walked away.

You will never understand what he was talking about. After all, “Zandik” failed to mention the most important aspect of that photograph.

He had no parents, aunts, uncles, cousins… But the outcast did stand next to someone in that single childhood photo he had.

And that person was the picture-perfect imitation of himself, the perfect “sibling”.

Il Dottore laughed.

Now, if he could just throw him in the fire too…

Ansytea: Thank you so much for joining the match-up event Bakery Anon! Please don't chop, cook, and serve me to faceless!ayato–

#tag: yan!1k idol event #dottore x reader #yandere male #yandere genshin #yandere genshin impact #yandere genshin impact x reader #yandere dottore x reader #yandere dottore #yandere il dottore #yandere zandik #yandere webttore #webttore #zandik rights fr– #yandere #tw: yandere #yandere genshin au #yandere genshin imagines #il dottore #il dottore x reader #webttore x reader #bakery anon #ansy-writes

[emblazonet]

Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern

THIS BOOK IS SO GOOD!! It's so good! This is 100% my favourite Pern book so far. The characters are all great. The setting felt alive and interesting. The stakes were fucking high. I knew Moreta was going to die, in the way you know Vanyel is going to die in The Last Herald-Mage trilogy, because we're going back in time to explore the life of a characters from an in-universe ballad, and it made me love her more.

It's also about a pandemic, but in a soothing way? Honestly it was SUCH a relief to read a story about people just fucking doing the work of Dealing With A Contagious Flu without much of the bullshittery we've all had to live through these past three years.

This got long, so more under the cut!

There are no psycho anti-vax cults in Pern. The small population scattered over a continent that's constantly being besieged by Thread does not, generally, have the luxury of either the greed we've gotten to witness IRL nor the misinformation campaigns. Characters that hoard are stolen from; characters who try to prevent vaccination are villains in the narrative and the good guys go into their territory to vaccinate—that's Moreta's final heroic moment! She dies, not from the disease but from exhaustion, to ensure everyone gets vaccinated to PREVENT A SECOND WAVE.

I expected to feel re-traumatized by the pandemic conflict. Instead, it felt healing to read about these characters. It felt affirming. It made me feel better about my choice to continue wearing a mask in public. It felt invigorating: ok, so my world isn't as sensible as Pern's, but it's still worth it to fight disease, to fight the depression and apathy—in short, it did exactly what a fantasy book is supposed to do. Inspire. I don't know that this will be everyone's take away, but it was mine.

This book gets so much right, I can't even believe this is the same author who wrote all those other Pern books I've read so far. (How did we jump from the crap of The White Dragon into this? HOW?) All these things:

Despite there being SO MANY characters, the book largely juggles its cast well, and while I often forgot names, the context usually helped me out. Every character actually felt unique and distinct and like they had different lives they were living.

Moreta and Alessan's relationship was so well done. You know it's not a romance that will go anywhere, so it feels precious when they snatch some time together. Also, Alessan is just an attractive dude character? Unlike any other of the male leads in a Pern book, Alessan appeals to me.

The relationship between Moreta and the older queen rider, Leri—UGH MY HEART. At the beginning of the book I was worried Moreta would have the 'not like other girls' vibe... I needn't worried. Leri as mentor, accomplice and friend is everything I could have asked for in a female friendship. And Moreta has other relationships and positive experiences with women, and it's so good, but what she has with Leri is so special.

The way the book builds this yearning for Moreta to be able to fly Orlith again, and then at the end she's with Leri's exhausted Holth, and they die away from their partners in the line of duty—I CRIED OK. It was so much. It was so good.

Only small bits of time travel, smart avoidance of paradoxes, thank you.

I was super invested in Moreta's healing of the Thread-damaged dragon wings. The whole process of healing dragons was super interesting!

Loved that Threadfall kept on happening throughout, it made the stakes even higher in the best way possible.

There were things I think could have been better:

I didn't enjoy Moreta's introduction and it made me feel like the book was gonna suck lol, she was arguing with Nesso and then talking about her body in a way that just felt dated and weird.

Everyone on Pern must have the same blood type I guess? Because they're just using extracted blood to make the vaccine, and the vaccine appears to have no ill effect. Honestly, the book had so much going on I'm pretty grateful it didn't go into Accurate Medical Science, but it did feel incredibly oversimplified.

Telgar Weyr's Weyrleader just sort of like decides everyone's not allowed into his territory and fuck you guys but I didn't really get a feel for that character at all or where he was coming from? So it undermined Moreta's end sacrifice a bit, because the ending felt rushed.

I really wanted Sh'gall to do something so egregiously annoying that someone yelled at him. Sh'gall was basically the comic relief though, I generally enjoyed how useless he was lol.

Overall? 11/10 and I REALLY hope the rest of the Pern books are this good! I'm going to pick back up in January with Nerilka's Story.

#Amber reads Pern #Dragonriders of Pern #Moreta #straight up I enjoyed this one even more than Dragonsong #wish we'd globally handled the pandemic like they did on Pern #still losing my mind that runnerbeasts are just horses #ffs #I'm gonna have to design a weird equine for pern

[sleepless-crows]

important points to note:

there are two new images (of malina and wesper)

it begins the way siege and storm does, with alina and mal having fled to novyi zem after faking alina's death

season 2 will cover storylines from siege and storm as well as ruin and rising, but not the plot of six of crows (not the main plot: the ice court heist, so they might still rescue matthias from hellgate by the end of it, the possibility isn't ruled out)

there was a mystery idea proposed that we will not expect (even leigh didn't expect it) which could be above point but the fact that it's said separately makes me think it isn't referring to some of the ruin and rising storyline being added

crows' leader, knife-slinger, and pistol prodigy 💖💖💖 (but jesper has revolvers and kaz has pistols, excuse me?)

"Nikolai Lantsov (Patrick Gibson), a privateer first introduced in Bardugo's Siege and Storm with two distinct sides, the diplomatic Nikolai and his more charismatic Sturmhond persona" WE'RE GETTING STURMHOND EVERYONE !!!!!!!!!!!!!

"the Crows arc on the show will always, in some way, feel like an Ocean's 11 heist plot" I GUESS ITS TIME TO WATCH OCEAN'S 11 (which didn't leigh say was also a huge inspiration for the soc books? akjfhkjashfd)

""I love that he is so good with chemicals and with music," Heisserer says. "And he is also so pure." did he just call wylan pure? i'm scared

Expect Nina and Wylan to disrupt the dynamic among the Crows. They "don't understand the unspoken rules" or the "things that the three don't talk about in season 1," Heisserer points out. The newcomers will poke at those touchy subjects a bit and, the showrunner says, "are gonna blow that up" — separate from Wylan's bombs.

alina and the crows will have two separate storylines that made intersect each other at some points, just like in season 1

#grishaverse #shadow and bone #sab #six of crows #soc #crooked kingdom #siege and storm #ruin and rising #alina starkov #malyen oretsev #kaz brekker #inej ghafa #jesper fahey #wylan van eck #nina zenik #matthias helvar #nikolai lantsov #tamar kir bataar #tolya yul bataar #AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH #.1

[solarishashernoseinabook]

Tell me about the process of writing trr 👀

Thank u so much for indulging me 😭

Um. This got very long. So most of it's going under a readmore.

One of the first things I did when I started TRR was come up with three principles for writing autistic!Halt, which I stick to every time I write him:

Halt is an autistic character, not a character who happens to have autism. Essentially meaning: Halt's autism must affect the narrative. TRR (as well as many recent one-shots) would not be the same stories if Halt was neurotypical, and I figure if I did write something where Halt's autism didn't affect the story, then I've written it poorly

Halt's autism can't be discarded for the sake of the story. Pretty self explanatory. In a lot of media with autistic-coded characters, they're portrayed as weird and having some social difficulties or weird interests in a way that can be summed up as being "lolz so QUIRKY 🤪", but those traits can be highly inconsistent depending on what the plot needs. I was determined to not do that in TRR.

Halt's autism is value-neutral. There's two broad camps that a lot of autistic rep or autistic-coded characters fall into, mainly depending on the genre they appear in. If they're in a more serious story, the focus tends to be on how much of a problem they are for their caretaker, and if they're in something comedic, the focus will be on how much of a jackass and/or how clueless they are and the basis of the humour will be other people responding to this. In either case, we're supposed to sympathise with the non-autistic characters and relate to how difficult dealing with an autistic person is. The other alternative is that we get an inspiration-porny depiction of autism where the autistic character is so saintly and good and wonderful and inspiring, which is also pretty damn dehumanising. So for TRR, I tried to avoid both those extremes. If characters had problems with Halt's autistic traits, that was their fault - any problems they have with him are part of a failure to accommodate him, or because they pushed Halt out of his comfort zone. Of course, Halt would have to meet them half-way here: if he's rude, he does have to realise that and apologise for that rudeness. At the same time, Halt isn't better than anyone else by virtue of being autistic. He's not an inspiration to them, nor is he there to teach them how to be better people: he's just another character, just like any of them. Maybe I haven't always pulled this last principle off correctly, but I try.

The rest is going under a cut sorry :"D

Another thing I did really early on was settle on what Halt's autistic traits would be. In canon, Halt dislikes loud noises, doesn't seem to look at people very much, he can talk for a long time on things he knows but doesn't otherwise speak very much, and he loves archery - he's one of the Corps' best rangers. Using this as a basis, I decided Halt has noise sensitivities, generally avoids eye contact unless he knows people well, and that archery is one of his special interests. I wanted to make Halt slightly touch adverse, so I gave him my trouble with being touched around the shoulders. Finally, based on how many times Halt gets quiet and avoids people in loud situations, I decided to have him shut down instead of melt down when he starts to get overwhelmed.

And then I had to decide how to actually write that autism - as in, like, the mechanics of writing. There's a subtle difference between how Halt's POV scenes are written versus everyone else's. When I write from Halt's POV, I don't typically include any emotion from other characters unless it's very obvious, or I describe body language without much detail. If Halt meets someone for the first time, the other character will be described with a hair colour and maybe their general build and that's it - Halt doesn't like looking at faces much, so you won't get details like their eye colour or distinct facial features. This means a lot of perspective-hopping, because if the other characters' emotions are important to the scene, then I either can't tell it from Halt's POV or I need a scene afterwards that backtracks slightly to explain what we missed. I also try to focus more on the information coming through Halt's senses - what he's hearing or feeling, for instance. It was the only way I could think of to actually get across social difficulties and what having sensory processing disorder feels like, lol

More recently, I reread RA's two prequels (which cover the same timespan as TRR) and made extensive notes on the plot/characters...fully knowing I would need to discard 85% of it for TRR. I can at least make shout-outs to it, or use it as a basis for what I write. I turned those notes into a 41 page document that describes characters, locations, and events, complete with sub-headings!

WHEW okay thank you for enabling me :D I mainly focussed on character creation i know but i had the most to say about it 😭

#asks #i've got some more to say on other characters but you haven't read to that point in the series 😭😭 #ra #rangers apprentice #halt o'carrick #autistic!halt

[nemetonisevilpassiton]

The Teen Wolf Movie, Scott McCall and regret

I suppose that I should start this meta with a disclaimer of sorts. I belong to a school of thought called the cauldron of story that presents the idea that every narrative you ever encounter in your life goes into a giant cauldron to make a sort of story stew, and with practise you can see the stories that inspired it. This isn't plagiarism because it's not the stories that are the meat and potatoes of the work but the mixture of them.

So for example Star Wars is Dune + Hidden Fortress + The hero with a hundred faces and through understanding those works allows you a peek into George Lucas' mind at the time.

Every creator is a giant melange of the narratives that they consumed, ones they liked and ones they didn't and ones they over heard of public transport.

So me shrieking about Jacob's Ladder does not imply Teen Wolf plagiarised it - it just stole from it, in the same way every creator has sticky fingers.

And to understand the teen wolf movie we need to talk about Silent Hill 2 - which creates a story cluster of it's own, if you crossed Jacob's Ladder with Blue Velvet and some other things, some of which are Japanese and I can't recognise [never having encountered them] you get Silent Hill 2.

Unfortunately Silent Hill 2 creates a sort of loop in that Blue Velvet and Jacob's Ladder also inspired Teen Wolf and so it's this sort of smear where we can say that the three of them are all inspirations but we can't say which is which. For example in 3b Scott and Allison hide in a wardrobe with louvre doors which is just like the scene in Blue Velvet where the main character sees the villain through the door of the wardrobe where he was hidden - but the same scene appears in Silent Hill 2 where James first encounters pyramid head. So which is the inspiration - I don't know. Which came first, the pyramid head or the oxygen mask?

Jacob's Ladder is incredibly intrinsic to Teen Wolf [props to weasley-detectives for the leg work on that one] and it defines bardo, and many of the monsters in Allison's narrative, for example, are lifted from that film entirely. Jacob's Ladder did not inspire Silent Hill [the first game] but it did inspire Silent Hill 2 and again they're all mashed together. In season 3, after the be a better Scott McCall program, Scott starts dressing like James Sunderland [the man character of SH2] who in turn is dressed like Jacob Singer in JL, but Scott's costuming is not the same as that of Jacob.

This blending of sources is normal and annoying, generally it is better to have sources that are distinct so you can dig better and explain one source and not two.

At first I thought the Teen Wolf movie was going to be inspired by Event Horizon because I knew it would be full of mindfuckery, and I was wrong in that it was Silent Hill2. It was a few days of picking at it before I realised that it wasn't inspired by Silent Hill2, it was what would you get if you rewrote Silent Hill 2 in Beacon Hills and then had to completely rewrite your script because you can't get the actors.

Scott's narrative is Silent Hill 2 - it's not "inspired by" it's an au but it also has a chronic misunderstanding of Silent Hill 2.

Remember how Gus Van Sant remade Psycho because he wanted to see how it worked and when he did it - it didn't work. It's like that.

In Silent Hill 2 [which is considered a masterwork and work of art in its own right, and is considered to be the very best video games have managed so far] James Sunderland recieves a letter from his dead wife asking him to meet her in Silent Hill. He finds the town abandoned and full of fog but there he meets an alternate of his wife, Mary, but sexy called Maria, a child called Laura [the sh2/twin peaks knot] a bully called Eddie, a girl called Angela who is seeking her mother, and twisted manifestations of James' own emotional turmoil - pyramid head, the sexiest version of nurses etc.

James was made impotent, both sexually and emotionally by Mary's long illness and death and the town forces him to face it. It is a purgatorial wasteland where water is seen as corrupting. This is the same as in Teen Wolf [and actually allowed us to unlock the symbolism and eventually colour theory]. The town is shrouded in fog to show how limited James' viewpoint is.

Now if we look at Scott's narrative, he returns to Beacon Hills to reunite with his dead girlfriend, finds the town almost completely abandoned, she is different and doesn't know him, and he is forced to face the one enemy that made him feel powerless and he gets the girl and the innocent child after someone else defeated the monster again.

Sound familiar.

We need to look at why Void, which the film specifically calls a nogitsune but then contradicts all the canon lore about kitsune we've ever had - but the same is true of Deputy Ishida. When Void possessed Stiles and Scott thought that the possession was quiescent he went with Stiles to Coach being shot, then the explosion at the Sheriff's station where Scott sucked up the pain of just about everyone he met, and Void revealed itself after stabbing Scott, and consumed all the pain that Scott had taken in, and he mocked Scott whilst doing it.

None of the other villains really cared about Scott, they might have paid lip service to the myth, and monologued about him doing things he hadn't, before someone else took them from the picture with Scott there posturing, but only Void made him feel small. Just like Mary's illness with James Scott was made impotent, both sexually and emotionally. Allison's death rid him of his determination that they were destined to be together - even though she had chosen someone else.

Just like Mary/Maria Allison is robbed of any autonomy. Mary is defined entirely by her illness, something she resents. Maria is Mary but sexy and resents James' fixation on Mary. Allison is the twisting of the knife to Scott, she is also the one who died on his watch and the one who he loved - and chose someone else. Brought back via the nemeton she is robbed of memory and vacillates between the image of her mother sending her after the wolves and Scott's image of her. She does not remember that she broke up with him, why she broke up with him, or any of the times he manipulated and used her. She is unaware, under the stadium, that he is still manipulating and using her. He is so set on his own affection for her - which after fifteen years will be a very different creature to what it was when he was sixteen and she was alive, that he steamrolls over her arguments and rather than bring her to her father, who she remembers and trusts, he maintains the isolation until she remembers what he wants her to remember.

Allison might as well be a ghost in the movie for all the autonomy and ability to choose that she retains. She is a weapon to be aimed, first by the nogitsune-creature that is manifested [which looks so much like the green eyed fox in The Lost Tomb (series 1, which is not the first series but is the first one chronologically] that I actually cursed out loud that I can't even watch weird Chinese tomb raiding shows without Davis having seen them too. I am actually tempted to call it the Green Eyed Fox because it even shares powers and the fly caught at the end of 3b was a housefly not a firefly - you can make a solid argument that it was Scott's view of the nogitsune, and had nothing to do with Void or an actual nogitsune and why Deputy Ishida was a 900 year old kitsune who didn't know because it allowed Scott an easy understanding of how it had oni - the weaons it used to kill Allison]

Or to simplify a lot of the details in the movie might have manifested because they were Scott's understanding of those things.

And this is where the overlap with Jacob's Ladder comes in.

In the chiropracter scene Louie explains to Jacob about Meister Eckhart, a christian theologian who explains bardo really well. To summarise after death figures appear and start to burn away the things that hold people to life, if you're nto ready to give these things up the figures seem to be demons and if you are they're benevolent angels.

Scott, and his entire plotline being about wish fulfilment and regret, feeds into this because Scott won't give these things up. He is still working for Deaton, he has done everything he can to not be a wolf except when it benefits him, but given the opportunity to bring Allison back from the dead he leaps at it without questioning anything about the plan - which Deaton does.

He fixates on Allison, not as she is, but as she was and leaps into danger convinced of his own ability to sway her to his side - because he believes he loves her.

But he doesn't love her - she's been dead for fifteen years = he LOVED her.

Silent Hill 2 is purgatorial which is a term you see thrown about a lot in media, oh this did make sense it was purgatorial, or the reason that these scenes don't gel is because it's purgatorial. Often those things aren't, they're just shitty writing. Lost for example, it being purgatory made no sense whatsoever.

Purgatory is an old Christian concept which is also called limbo. According to catholicism Purgatory is where you went when you should have gone to heaven but for some reason couldn't, for example a new born baby who wasn't baptised was tainted by original sin [you're born damned in catholicism] would go to Limbo, good people who weren't christian went to Limbo, the wives of sinners who could belonged to their husbands but didn't deserve hell went to limbo. Some catholic theologians suggested that it was possible to pass through purgatory and ascend to heaven.

It's this version of purgatory that Meister Eckhart put forward and Teen Wolf calls Bardo. It is a series of between states that allows the subject to cast aside those things that held them in place - like regret, to ascend to heaven.

Beacon Hills does seem to descend into a purgatorial wasteland, like Canaan in canon, as the show goes on and Scott re-enters it to the collapse of Oak Creek [which is weird that it went from standing proud to building graveyard in fifteen years when no one demolished it], and the first person he meets is Lydia- who has been shown to be able to travel between the worlds and has one foot in the afterlife by her nature.

Yet he cannot give up the triumphs and losses of high school. His worst enemy is one that didn't care for him when he was a kid. He gets to play lacrosse in the state championship. His teenage girlfriend comes back to life. He wants kids and how convenient the only werewolf with a kid dies saving Scott.

Scott chooses to remain trapped in the past. He cannot accept the figures stripping away those things that hold him back. Even the one thing that can lead him forward -his wolf - is denied. He is still the person he was in high school - he's just older and has a car now.

In many ways that's much more tragic than killing Derek.

The movie had some really great ideas - it's a pity that the movie ended up like that with Derek beating up the green eyed fox in a location they stole from Deadly Premonition and that is one piece of media Davis can keep to himself because life is far too short to play Deadly Premonition.

#teen wolf meta #anti scott mccall #allison argent #i promised a meta about derek and wrote one about scott

[autumnbell32]

*tw: depression, SI talk

I Don't Wear Mascara Anymore

I want to live, I just can't handle living at this point. And trying to explain that distinction to doctors is tricky business. "Please help me BEFORE I get to this point," I've begged over and over again. Even when you aren't at that point, even mentioning that point is risky because there isn't any room for talking about it. I can't speak for everyone, but living in the silence of long term mental illness is deafening- you literally lose any source of human noise around you. People stop understanding you, people expect you to stop talking about it even though it puts a grey veil over all of your days, people blame you, people get frustrated, people go away. Especially if it has been a long battle. I didn't choose this battle, but the fact that I keep choosing to fight it also gets stifled in the silence.

I sent a message to my doctor a few days ago telling him that these mood cycles- especially since they are happening around my period almost every month- aren't sustainable for me anymore. No one should expect me just to be ok with building myself up for two weeks out of the month, only to fall again for the last two weeks. I'm trying to do my part- I workout three days a week, I still go to work, etc etc etc. I walk talk and breathe. I slip up, though, when the symptoms are bad- I numb out with glucose because there isn't really any comfort in my life. And I'm in therapy to address that. I made my motivation very clear in the message- I will do more work to lessen the symptoms of this illness, but I can't do it alone and I can't continue on this particular path. I need my doctor's help- maybe he needs to recognize that functioning does not nullify suffering. I'm suffering immensely.

I was met with a call from the nurse saying I needed to go to the ER. "Why? I'm not su*cidal, I'm not going to hurt anyone else, and the doctor said I'm medication resistant so what would the point be? I don't fit the criteria." The nurse put me on hold and put an NP, who I have never in my life talked to, on the phone to school me on the legality of making sure I'm safe. And to ask me what I expect an 8-5 doctor's office to actually do for me. And to tell me she wasn't even sure there is anything that could help me anymore.

The answer can't always be hospitalization, there are a lot of us that are resilient but still suffering and I wish doctors would stop being comfortable with their script pads and inpatient orders. There is a portion of us that that does not help anymore, so we get written off in another way. Maybe it is just the people in my life, I'd be so glad to know that others struggling with long term mental illness have people to be patient with them and remind them of who they are. But people in my life are ok with me remaining silent and hidden. Realizing that you might be another face that fades someday because of a mental illness is an immediate gut drop. Every time I have realized that possibility, I see myself standing at the mouth of some source of human existence and I swear I feel ego death (and not in a good way).

After seeing my screen name in a depression support chat, another member noted that it is a reference to a piece of classic literature. "Yes, it is," I responded. And then I cried, because intractable mental illness makes you forget yourself- your preferences, your humanity (you become walking pain). You lose your visibility. Even if you do remember, those things aren't easily accessible when sick. Jesus, even I am getting sick of talking about all of this. Scream into the void long enough, and you are going to lose your fucking voice.

My name is Ashley and I love classic literature and horror movies and warm, rainy days and the smell of peonies and baking and helping others and weird 80s-inspired synth music and running and animals. I'm hoping that, someday in the near future, I will want to fill my apartment with plants and be semi-good at trail running and I will want to write most days and I will have a partner that will show me what love without immense pain looks like and I will want to cook for myself more and I will be able to travel and I will be able to recover some of the life that I have lost. My name is Ashley and, someday soon, I hope that I will be able to make it through a day without crying.

#mental illness #bipolar type ii #anxiety disorder #cptsd #ed nos #pmdd #doctors #nurses #treatment resistant depression #writing #writeblr #writer

[sunburnacoustic]

Attempting to make some sense of the Madness on here because I've got a minute...

Tagging system (it is held together with duct tape and is borderline functional when I don't do like Muse Blackout-Reblog Saturdays or whatever)

Muse, Muse band: this tag will literally not help you find things on this blog, it's basically everything that has been tagged. It's more for finding posts outside of this blog than it is to find stuff successfully on this blog

Matt Bellamy/Chris Wolstenholme/Dom Howard/Tom Kirk/Morgan Nicholls: self-explanatory. I tend to not do a general tag where a post e.g. where Dom isn't involved with Dom, so anything that's tagged will just be because the tagged band member is in the post (or at most, being talked about in the tags)

{Matt, Chris, Dom} from Muse: three tags encompassing all the Muse Madness! Taking inspiration from the one and only "Hi, my name's Matt from Muse..." All the Muse silly moments. Some will also be tagged "silly hours", "silly moments", "sillies" or thereabouts, it's not really a robust tagging system lol. Some of those are more chit-chat/vibes based

Muse live: Now I wish I'd separated this out into two tags because right now, it's gig pictures and also any live performance videos. I briefly tagged live stuff with something like "Muse live gigs", but seeing as how I can't even remember the name you can see how well that went... (there's also "The Muse live experience is something else", and you tell me it isn't!)

Muse interviews: interviews copied and pasted, linked, gifs/videos of the band in interview if there's text of them actually saying anything. Quotes from interviews too.

Muse in magazines: written interviews, but also just photoshoots in magazines. I'm old enough to remember NME, Kerrang, Q etc. being print magazines, so I don't make a distinction between digital mags and paper scans. Many scans should also be tagged "mag scans" hopefully. Specific magazines are also often tagged (except Pitchfork probably lmao but that's because I simply don't post their stuff here, it is not worth it)

Muse audio: audio, usually from studio recordings, live gigs, sometimes interviews/radio performances, etc. Isolated tracks, instrumental tracks, vocals only, hyper-specific-'Undisclosed Desires vocoder (?) backing vocals on the last verse only' tracks, all covered here, but also there are more specific tags: "muse isolated audio" for all your analysis needs, "Muse instrumentals", "Muse isolated vocals" (<- don't remember this 100%)

Album tags, song tags, eras/tours tags: I'm so sorry this is a mess. Albums and songs are either tagged "Muse {title}" or "{title} Muse" sorry. "{Album} era", "{Tour name} tour". Knock yourselves out.

Musers: all fan-related stuff! Fan chatter, us all analysing and crying over a single song in 1500 words, fan artwork, gig pictures, the new polls, etc. all under the overarching Musers tag. I do tag fanart though: "Muse fanart" and also just generally art because why would I limit the amazing art people here make to just the 20 Muse fans here? Polls are specifically tagged "Muse polls".

band pics: usually press/on the road, etc. pictures of the whole band. Not super comprehensive lol I often forget to use this tag. 'the early years' -> baby era stuff, usually pre-Showbiz so I have no idea what else to tag them because 'Random 1-8 era' would be such a pretentious tag I'd have to punch myself.

anything with the word "collection" in it: we sure do love our collections here on muse tumblr - off the top of my head, there's a Matt Hawaiian shirt collection, Matt drinking things on camera collection, dedicated wardrobe collections (-> the legendary @wtfismattbellamywearing and @wtfisdomhowardwearing) and the sunglasses-on-head collection (dangerously close to 100 pictures...) "mum with sunglasses on her head lives!" Reason? Matt wears his sunglasses on his head a lot, he looks like my mum doing this, and it is the normalest thing you could see a Proper Rock Star like him do and it's just sweet and silly and we all have collector's disease what can I say. (My mum has responded "😍" to the collection so far)

Muse lore: all the band history, and commonly referenced memes amongst fans. Expect to see the 'fucking little fucking fuckers, yeah' Feeling Good performance, 'Hey you crazy kids!', 'The Muse' live on Italian football tele, idk, lots more I guess: 'Hi my name's Matt from Muse' (entire composition of the band dissolving around this), brie, trousers, showers, pwoper fishing, qua at aol dot com, weird interview quotes, various times Muse rebelled against being asked to mime. Lots of fun stuff.

faffing about - just posting!

Other than that, specific things might be tagged on posts, "pianos", "synths", "Manson guitars", "Mirror Manson" (big apologist here), specific weird quotes. Try a search if you need anything lol, good luck to you!

#random admin stuff - I am not even going to pin this so I don't know why I wrote it #I am too fond of my pinned post to remove it. As above so below: 'Sunburn acoustic live in an HMV in Bristol in 1999 beloved!' #faffing about

[dualdeixis]

please talk about the doing the dishes comic pleaseplease i am begging you i am on myknees please your brain is so massive plea

THANK YOU HAHA that's very sweet of you to say <3

i tried to make a symmetry with the color palettes used throughout the pages! the borders go around the color wheel: starting in orange and culminating in black, and then going backwards to orange again (roughly, as i did change the hues a bit the second time around to keep them visually distinct and appropriate to the tone i was trying to convey). then the last three pages are yellow, green, and red specifically because those are the colors i associate most with them (i love playing with the fact that green + red = yellow in additive color!). which also means i picked all new colors for Everything in Every page lol but the use of color (and the lack of it) has always been very important to the way i convey things in my art so i enjoyed being precise about it. there are certain constants throughout, though; like the color i used for "black" (lineart, vanitas's speech bubbles) usually sits around dark blue, and the color i used for "white" (their shirts, ven's speech bubbles) mostly sticks around pale warm colors.

and the seventh page being the only one to use pure black and white was very intentional of course. also the poses there are inspired by christian iconography of saint michael stomping on satan.

this comic ended up being a lot about hands for some reason. maybe something about how touch is the first frontier for connection (see further below for notes on corporeality and hugs) and also a little bit of me bringing back ven's original left-handed design and my headcanon that xehanort forced vanitas to become right-handed.

ven's "i'm with you" is a reference to sora saying the same in kh3 about roxas. and the backstory for ven's nickname and the "pure light and pure darkness don't exist" line are from the bbs novel.

vanitas is washing and ven drying because of the water = darkness symbolism in canon and ventus = wind.

but also fuck canon. in this house we ignore ux’s retcon of vanitas’s origins.

similarly when i mentioned in the other essay that i saw vanitas calling ven "brother" as an approximation of their complex relationship: in canon it seems he only calls ven that because he wants to claim total distance from ven’s identity, as re:mind hints and ux reveals that he technically is a separate being from ven/didn't originate from within him. but once again fuck canon <3 i'm repurposing vanitas calling ven his brother, as well as ven saying "we’re not brothers we’re the same," for my own lore which is "we don’t know wtf is going on and we’re trying to figure it out over time." in my lore they’re comparable to alters in a system; "we’re brothers" + "we’re the same" are Both equally true and untrue statements.

anddd i didn't address ven's "we're the same" line in that essay because i forgot it was added in re:mind, so when i tried to search up that cutscene for reference and saw the original version without that line, i was like "well i guess i made that up in my brain" aksjdkddf. so really, my more detailed thought on it is that vanitas calls ven his brother as his own sorta-metaphorical-sorta-not approximation of their relationship -> ven is resistant to that label at first because he doesn't understand it or their relationship yet -> he accepts/uses it for the first time in my previous comic, trying to affirm vanitas’s existence using vanitas’s choice of words (while having his own internal nuances and interpretation of their brotherhood as informed by his brotherhood with terra) -> vanitas is like holy shit we’re brothers (discomfort) (relief) (???).

calling back to my first fanart of these two, in my lore vanitas ALSO does, on some level, want to be protected and wants that loving brotherhood rather than an adversarial one. it's not solely ven who wants that. but it's just one of the many many conflicting feelings he has about ven so it's difficult for him to parse and admit. he is working on it tho i'm proud of him :)

wait this also reminds me of how re:mind added "HEY GUYS. FEELING A LITTLE LEFT OUT HERE!!" KASJDKFDL best vanitas characterization decision kh3 ever made

vanitas finds hugs very nice and comforting but only with ven (at least until he chills out a little and feels comfy hugging other people, maybe) which is inspired by a really good fic i read in the summer and still think about frequently. the “supernatural dysphoria” it’s tagged with is written SO well imo, it includes the idea that vanitas feels calmer when in physical contact with ven because that’s his original body which he was forcibly removed from and desperately wants back. i LOVE that. and i think ven would like hugs too because of course vanitas is the other half of his heart who he’s missed dearly. a hug between them is like coming home after a really long time away and someone moved all the furniture around but it’s still home and it feels good to be there again at last :)

canonically vanitas was always able to vicariously feel ven’s emotions to an extent; i headcanon that an aftereffect of their fusion is ven starting to feel vanitas's emotions as well, now that the connection between them has been forged anew. he has less practice with it though, so it's easier when he's in direct contact with vanitas or one of the unversed, which he showcases with the hareraiser.

the specific choices for unversed are intentional too :) i went with red hot chili = anger, blue sea salt = bitterness, hareraiser = panic, and thornbite... is like the emotional reaction to physical pain. i think it would be very easy for vanitas to conflate physical with emotional pain, especially considering he doesn't technically have a physical body and is Made Up Of emotions.

alsooo i think i phrased it a little ambiguously but vanitas doesn't think that the unversed are "the bad things" that ven is talking about!! he's saying that the unversed are like him in that they "hadn't been given a chance to see all the good things in life." i think about nomura's reasoning for their name ("those that are not [well]-versed in life/their own existences") Every Day. it's about the fact that they were all made to believe that suffering is all there is and that they are fundamentally monstrous but that is not true and there is hope and a future for them... i need to lay down now.

only ven is allowed to call him nita for now but it's still nonbinary transmasc nita nmonday. end post <3

#long post #correspondence

[notesofarichlycolorednight]

s1ep25 kung food

BUCKLE UP WE HIT THE EPISODE I WAS DREADING

making a list again so i don't get too off track. bc this one is somehow worse than rogercop

racism: marinette's uncle, the bad chinese, his broken english

racism part two electric boogaloo: chloe's racism, the fact that adrien speaks better chinese than marinette

racism part three electric boogalee: kung food's design

the problem with the creator's infatuation with japanese media and choosing to make marinette half-chinese

marinette's voice actor voicing characters from japense media

english instead of french

the fact that all of kung food's weapons are western instead of chinese

marinette having to learn a lesson about not aggravating chloe rather than chloe learning not to be a racist piece of shit

racism part one: like do i even need to say it? the fact that he speaks in broken english. the fact that they just assumed he didn't speak any english (or french, as it were). the fact that, for some inextricable reason (not really i know the reason), marinette called alya instead of her mom??? her mom who is, presumably, fully chinese. her mom, who is chef cheng's neice??? hello???

i can handle ppl mispronouncing marinette's chinese last name. like i'm just used to it. but the fact that they put absolutely no effort into even trying to pronounce the chinese right is aggravating. like it's okay if marinette's sounds like shit, tho we're going to get to speaking about diaspora, and i'm getting ahead of myself but adrien is supposed to know chinese fluently enough to translate. and his pronunciation also sounds like absolute dogshit.

racism part two electric boogaloo: i mean do i even need to go over this one, either? the fact that she asks why chef cheng doesn't just make sushi, even though he's chinese. the fact that after sabotaging his soup, and he speaks to her in perfectly find english she says, "sorry no speak japanese." the fact that when marinette suspects chloe of sabotaging chef cheng's soup, adrien is just like "sounds like her, yeah." the fact that at the end when chloe storms off when it's pointed out she was kicked off the panel, adrien just sheepishly rubs his head and laughs, despite her racism toward his supposed friend and her family member. the fact that the only punishment chloe really gets is that she's kicked off the judging panel is furstrating. bc yknow what her takeaway is? she can get someone akumatized and still be rescued by ladybug bc "it's the right thing to do." frankly, i think anyone as blatantly racist as she is should be turned into soup.

i don't want to talk about having adrien's chinese be better than marinette's is wrong on so many levels bc it pains me on a very deep level, but it ties into me being diaspora, so i'll talk about it a little insofar as i don't think any white person should ever* write a mixed and/or diaspora character bc they will never understand the immense and deep pain we feel when we don't have a connection to our culture that we feel we should. and language is a very, very big link.

(*at the very least get sensitivity readers who are mixed and/or disapora, for the love of fucking god)

racism part three electric boogalee: do i really have to talk about why his akuma design is racist?

the creator's infatuation with japanese media: for one, i don't think he respects japenese media, i think he just consumes it. for two, i think it's an issue bc it informs his decision on things, when marinette is very specifically half-chinese. like maybe it's too subtle for most westerners, but the differences in culture are very distinct, and so if the creator is taking inspiration from japanese media and anime,,,why not just have marinette be half-japenese? it's very clear that he feels a lot more comfortable in area either bc he just consumes a ton of japanese media and/or he's done more research into japanese culture than chinese culture.

marinette's english va: this is a bit nitpicky, and this is by no means meant to be a slight to her or the fact that she voice acts for anime. i really like her voice acting, and i love anime lol. what i mean by this point is that it's clear that she's used to pronouncing things in japanese from when she's had to for anime. like it's probably not a lot or common, but it's clear that she feels more comfortable pronouncing japense words and names. and idk i just kinda wish they had taken more care and she'd learned how to at least attempt at a chinese pronunciation.

english v french: i just found it funny they say english, like they didn't think chef cheng spoke english, when they're in france. don't be a coward. just say french, even tho you're speaking english lol. it's like not changing the pronouns in songs when you're doing a cover.

kung food's weapons: interesting choice that all his weapons are distinctly western when he's a chinese chef. smoked sausages aren't served with hot pot???

marinette's lesson: marinette ends up thinking the takeaway is that she shouldn't have provoked chloe, which does nothing for the narrative. and also teachers the kids the wrong thing. that if you just don't provoke the racist person, they won't commit acts of racism. hello??? chloe would've sabotaged chef cheng's soup regardless of if marinette had defended him or not. bc that's what racist people do! they're going to be racist, regardless of whether or not you're nice to them, so there's not point in being nice to them!!!

my one and only consolation is that they at least used the correct character for meal in mandarin chinese. and that the english va for chef cheng sounds like he knows a little chinese. but we are in the pits of hell. so i find no comfort in them.

and honestly there's so much more i want to say; i could go on forever about this fucking episode. the fact that they greenlit this episode drives me to the brink of insanity. when i was younger and watched this, i was filled with so much righteous rage. now that i'm older, i'm just filled with a deep sadness and aching pain.

#chirp.ml #chirp.txt

[blossomlillyofspry]

Art is an Expression

Art is something we tend to see in our everyday lives, but we don't see it and appreciate it enough. Artworks we see in streets, faces, papers, the sky, music we listen to, and among others Artworks are not something we do; they are something we express. Any experiences in life, any situations we are in, and any people we encounter possess art that we can turn into artwork. Some people, if they don't understand a certain artwork, tend to comment something like "stupid!" "meaningless! "weird!". On the other hand, people who appreciate and love artwork tend to comment with something like "beautiful!" "painful!" "I can feel it!". We interpret art the way we understand it and also from our perspective. One of the great artists of this century with whom I'm living right now is Melanie Martinez. Let's get to know more about this artist I'm talking about.

Melanie Martinez, who was born in Astoria, Queens, New York, in 1995, was raised on Long Island by parents who were of Dominican and Puerto Rican descent. She describes herself as an emotional youngster who found it difficult to completely express herself in her family's conventional setting. As a result, she was drawn to poetry, painting, and music from a young age. After participating in the American television vocal competition program "The Voice," she gained notoriety in 2012. She followed it up with the 2014 release of her first single, "Dollhouse," and her debut EP of the same name. In the year 2015, Melanie's "Cry Baby" studio album debuted. The songs "Sippy Cup," "Mad Hatter," and "Mrs. "Potato Head," "Cry Baby," "Pacify Her," and "Soap" were all given gold certification in the United States. Both the EP "After School" and Melanie's second studio album "K-12" were released in 2019. She has a distinct personality and is frequently misunderstood by others around her. Melanie is understanding and non-judgmental, understanding that various life paths suit various personalities. She has a hidden rebellious streak in addition to her inherent empathy. INFPs frequently experience other people's feelings as though they were their own. Melanie dislikes conflict; therefore, if she has to deal with it, she does so by considering her feelings. Up until one of her ideals is broken, Melanie is adaptable and relaxed. She isn't hesitant to stand up for things she believes in if one of her core beliefs is under attack. The INFP personality type values honesty and integrity; thus, Melanie possesses these qualities in spades. Melanie is understanding since she always considers things from various angles because she is a Taurus. Taureans typically pay great attention to others, which aids in their understanding of the world. Melanie listens well and tries to respect other personalities. Melanie is creative, compassionate, and outgoing. She has a distinct outlook on life and is very concerned about upholding her morals. Melanie wants to connect with people who share her ideals and characteristics. Melanie is unique and takes pleasure in her identity while having a complex emotional makeup.

An artist like Melanie Martinez. She gets inspiration from negative emotions she feels or negative situations she is in. I don't know her personally; I only know her music, artwork, and faces. faces, as I could say because her albums are in three parts but with the same storyline. Faces that represent an alter ego that we can all relate to. Sometimes we are numbing or ignoring the emotions we feel because society tells us that it's weak for us to express emotions by crying, especially men. It makes us uncomfortable when we see someone crying. We don't like to deal with things because we're afraid to deal with anything that other people might find weird. That's the same weirdness some people feel when they see artworks they don't understand. It's the same feeling they feel when they see someone crying or they want to cry but stop themselves because society has taught us that it's weak to be vulnerable. Showing vulnerability means you're a normal human being. I hope that when you see artwork you don't understand, try to see it from your own perspective, allow yourself to feel what you feel, and express the emotions you are longing to express. Allow yourself to be a human being. Everyone can be an artist; just allow yourself to be vulnerable sometimes. Turn that pain into something beautiful. Believe that everything you see in this world might end, but one thing that didn't end is the soul that created art; it lives forever.

 

©jansal

Picture from Pinterest

Reference:

https://www.sosyncd.com/database/melanie-martinez-personality-type-zodiac-sign-enneagram/

#ArtIsAnExpression #MelanieMartinez

[characterstring-game-design]

Learning How to Add Sound and Getting Started with working in Unlit/Low-Poly Style

Most of my last week has been spent three things: 

1. Actually thinking through how the game is going to work and how the story will support it 

2. Building some initial assets in Blender and getting the beginnings of a stage set up in Unreal to test my understanding of working in this style. Want to make sure I'm not committing myself to something too painstaking before I start building out the map. 

3. Learning how to add sound. 

Game Story & Mechanics 

Initially I was envisioning a more narrative game, but I want the end result to use as much of the mechanics we've learned in class as I can, so after giving it more thought and being more realistic about what I can do in the time we have, I'm making it more of a collecting game. My inspiration for this game is a mountainside Antique Mall in my home town in Vermont that also has a small Llama stable/petting zoo next to it. I really want to do a whole game set at this Antique Mall, but for now I'm re-envisioning it as a dedicated Llama petting zoo that's simply reminiscent of it. 

The player is going to discover that one of the Llamas can talk, and is very good at giving advice. The player has a problem they could use some help with but the Llama doesn't consult for free...you have to pay them in feed. The feed dispenser only takes quarters, though, and you have no cash. So you have to go around collecting errant pennies and exchanging them for quarters with several locals in the area. A few will only agree to the exchange if you can fetch things for them. It'll basically be three stages of collecting things, each time allowing you to continue your conversation with the llama. 

Game Assets 

The assets I managed to build successfully were the penny, a llama and the feed vending machine.  The llama is just a first attempt....I don't necessarily want to go for a completely blocky low/poly effect, but I need to take another pass at one to try out some other ideas. If I don't toy around with shape, then I at least want to explore hand drawn/illustrated material textures to make the visuals a little more interesting and not so typical of the aesthetic.  

I actually wanted to try importing a small animation with the llama (a simple chewing animation to go with a grazing sound effect I wanted to use), but though I was successful building the animation in Blender, I couldn't manage to successfully import it into Unreal.  Had to give up on it for now and just go with the static versions. There are definitely small animations and motions I want to include in the game (like with the feed vending machine) so I hope the learning curve isn't too steep for figuring out how to do it.  

The vending machine I'm especially pleased with. Took some time to figure out how to get the glass container to be transparent, but it was immensely satisfying when I did. Turns out there's a dedicated Shader Node for transparency: Transparent BSDF. You simply use a Mixer Shader to pipe an alpha-controlled version of your color in along with your primary one. The you just use the Alpha slider in your Principled BSDF node to adjust the amount of transparency.  

You also have to change the Blend Mode in the Material Properties Settings to one of the Alpha options. 

Color selection and management ends up being the heavy lift when working without lighting. You have to make every material emissive and you have to be clever about varying colors on objects that overlap, otherwise you'll lose all sense of shape, depth and distinction.  

Sound Design 

In my first attempts at incorporating sounds, I wanted to add a suitable effect to the coin collection, and I wanted to try out having several layers of sound to place you in a wooded setting with a pack of llamas.  

The coin effect was simple enough,  messing around with ChipTone, but I decided also to add in a small jangling coins sound effect that I coded to execute right after the first one. Wanted to make it sound like you were adding to a stash of coins, and I think it works.  

For the llamas I wanted the sound of generic woodland atmosphere, but then the sounds of the llamas just going about, so either light stomping, or huffing or something to that effect.  I found a generic sound effect of horses grazing in a stable that came pretty close to exactly what I wanted. Since some of my llamas are actually eating grass off the ground, I added in another sound of more audible chomping of grass, pulling the attenuation in close so that you only hear it when you're up close to them in particular.  

I put the coins around a body of water, so for kicks I added some splashing sounds that execute if you wander over it. I didn't actually tie it to the navigation event triggers, but I'm interested in figuring out how to do that.  

Also spent some time this weekend just playing around with the sound machine apps, which I was having a blast with and getting way more into than I was thinking I would, so I went ahead and just created my own music for this initial sound test. I think I'll actually keep pecking away at it and make it one of the custom elements of my game.  

This is the program I ended up using for the music I eventually included and a video on how to use it:

BeepBox -- Brutally Easy Music Software (Free & Open Source Too!) - YouTube

The challenge I envision for sound is working out the sound effect for the vending machine. That's a little more specific and I didn't find anything that would work online, so I think I'll have to go gonzo with that one and make a trip over to the Central Park Zoo to make my own recording. Luckily the weather has gotten warm just in time! 

[mckinnonkate]

all the love we had and lost

post s11, mulder and scully go on a babymoon! i tweeted about this once and had to get it out of my system so you get to deal with it

there’s probably plot if you squint but why would you do that

tagging @today-in-fic

He floats the idea to her during week fourteen.

They reserve Sundays for lounging around together at home. Though the sun creeping over the horizon might technically signify the start of the day, they often stay in bed together well into the morning, tangled up like the young lovers they used to be. Their lives have slowed from a frantic chase to an almost dreamlike crawl, but they have a new respect for the solace found in spending an entire day simply existing with the person you love – especially with the impending arrival of a new person looming in the not too distant future.

This Sunday, she’s sitting propped up by pillows with her eyes closed and her head tilted back against the headboard. He’s lying face down next to her, head perched on his arm flush against her hip, and his hand roaming across her bare stomach. It hasn’t quite popped – not yet – but almost overnight, her once taut and flat abdomen has developed the slightest curve, jutting out to let the world in on the miracle that grows inside. He can’t stop touching it; part of him continues to marvel at the incredible feat her body is accomplishing, a different part can’t quite believe this is happening and uses the touch of her skin as a litmus test for his lucidity, and another part entirely falls even more in love with her and their baby as they reach and surpass each milestone. Frankly, he couldn’t keep his hands off her even if he tried, but luckily for him, she doesn’t seem to mind.

“We should go somewhere,” he says, his voice slipping from his mouth like honey. She makes a noise somewhere between a groan and a sigh, he’s not sure, but either way, he knows she’s already against the idea.

“Don’t wanna move,” she mumbles through lips as soft as the sheets engulfing them. “Too comfy.”

He chuckles, the sound rumbling through his body like an earthquake in the stillness of their bedroom.

“Not right now,” he amends, “before the baby comes. Let’s go somewhere.” He lifts his eyes to her face and watches as hers slide open. She regards him with a furrowed brow, one of the expressions he knows means she’s curious and not angry or upset. He can work with that.

“I want to take you somewhere, anywhere, while it’s just us,” he tries again, stroking his thumb back and forth over their baby like a metronome. She huffs out a laugh and runs a hand through his hair.

“That’s very sweet, and I would love nothing more than to be whisked away by you, but you know how risky this is,” she reminds him, still softly petting him in the intoxicating way that makes him forget his train of thought. He suddenly wants nothing more than to just let the soothing feel of her nails against his scalp lull him back to sleep. If she whips this skill out on the kid, bedtime should be a breeze.

“I doubt my doctor would approve of travel, let alone allow it,” she continues, oblivious of the detour his brain just took.  

“She said everything looks really good though,” he counters, “and that we got through the worst of it.”

Which is true, technically. Despite near hospitalization when a week or two of particularly bad morning sickness ripped through her, an appointment a few days prior had shown that things were progressing exactly as they should. An image of their perfectly healthy baby hangs on the fridge and a recording of its perfectly healthy heartbeat resides on both of their phones, yet she’s hesitant to throw herself into this when it could all come to a screeching halt at any moment. Going through that heartbreak once was bad enough – she’s not sure she’d survive it again.

“I know we’re not completely out of the woods,” he says, and now it’s his turn to pull her away from her own thoughts, “but you deserve it. We deserve it.” She sighs, thinking about sun on her skin and wind in her hair and life coursing through her veins.

“We’ll talk to Dr. Klein next time we’re in and in the meantime, I’ll think about it, okay?”

He grins, a tender smile with all of the boyish charm he had when she met him 25 years ago.

“Good,” he says, propping himself up on an elbow. “I just want you to relax as much as possible before we’re scavenging for sleep like a pair of starving raccoons.” He leans down, then, addressing her belly. “Not that you won’t be every bit worth it, little one, but we’re really old.”

She laughs halfheartedly in response, covering the hand on her stomach with her own.

~

On a Tuesday during week sixteen, their baby is still perfectly healthy with a perfectly healthy heartbeat. Her doctor runs through the exam according to procedure, asking questions and taking measurements, and Scully updates her on feelings and symptoms when she’s prompted, but her eyes remain glued to the image of the baby on the screen. The evidence is staring her in the face, evidence that she can breathe and let go of some of her worry, but she still holds her breath and expects something to go terribly wrong. She’s seen too much, been through too much, to take anything remotely good at face value, and it kills her.

She hopes the baby can’t feel that.

“More than anything, Dana,” she hears her doctor say and immediately shifts her attention. “I want you to relax as much as possible. You and baby are healthy, everything is on track, and I want to keep it that way. The less stress you’re under the better.”

“Speaking of relaxing,” Mulder interjects from his place next to her, “in your medical opinion, do you think we’d be able to go on a little vacation of sorts?”

She pauses for a moment, forming a response, and hands Scully a paper towel to wipe the gel from her abdomen.

“In other cases like yours, I would typically advise against it. However, and I don’t want to jinx anything here, this pregnancy is going remarkably well. I think I can sign off on a small trip barring any abnormalities on your next scan.”

Mulder reaches over and clasps her hand, shooting her one of the smiles that makes her heart melt. She tries to return it, but the word abnormalities echoes persistently in her head.

~

By the time they reach the Tuesday of week eighteen, in addition to seeing and hearing that her baby is healthy, she also has the tangible proof of little limbs pushing against the confines of her womb. Once again, they’re told that everything is fine and once again, she waits for the other shoe to drop.

“I’m very happy with what I’m seeing here. If you’re still thinking about planning a trip, I think you’re in a good position to do so. My only conditions,” she adds, as Mulder helps Scully off the exam table, “are that you avoid international travel and stay on the east coast.”

In case something goes wrong, Scully supplies in her head, wincing slightly at the baby’s sudden onslaught of frantic movement in her belly as soon as she thinks it. Still, she can’t help but yearn for a respite out of the city, regardless of how brief it might be, where it’s just her and Mulder in a different place being different people.

Hopefully she can leave the intrusive thoughts at baggage claim.

They walk out of the OB’s office hand in hand, his thumb sliding back and forth over hers. When they reach their car, he regards her with the tilt of his head and the quirk of an eyebrow, uttering one location.

And that’s how they decide to go to Florida.

~

He takes over the planning part of the whole endeavor, asking her to trust him, and she finds it hard to say no when she thinks about how deeply he knows her and how deeply exhausted she is.

Within a week, he books flights and a place on the beach, consulting her only to find out when she’d like to leave.

The night before their flight out, she’s asleep in bed while he finishes some last minute packing. Suddenly, she’s roused from slumber by the sound of someone mumbling, and she realizes she can feel his head down by her abdomen and his mouth against her stomach.

“We can’t wait to meet you baby girl,” he whispers in a way that lets her know she’s catching the end of whatever he was telling their child. “Your mom and I love you so much already.”

She decides to pretend to still be asleep, teetering on the edge of consciousness until he moves her shirt back down to cover her belly and drifts off himself.

~

They leave on a Wednesday morning during week twenty. The flight is a little under three hours, and she feels every second of it.

It’s not that she doesn’t enjoy traveling, but traveling with an added 12 pounds of baby weight isn’t the most comfortable thing in the world. Still, the salt in the air and the warmth in the breeze puts a smile on her face, and she’s content the entire trip from the airport to where they’ll be staying.

As soon as the car pulls up, she’s impressed.

A dozen or so cabanas are sprawled out in front of them, each one with a stone walkway to the front door that veers off from a main path down to the beach. The buildings are quaint – short and fortified with concrete, able to withstand rain and wind beating against the structures. They’re all painted a soft yellow, which, paired with the beige trim of the roofs, reminds her of the sand she walked on in Africa years ago. Outside of each cottage, two deck chairs sit next to each other on the unnaturally vibrant grass, completing the picturesque vacation spot. She can hear waves crashing and smell the foam from where they stand.

While Mulder checks them in, she walks slowly up and down a small stretch of the main path down to the shore, one hand on the small of her back and the other resting atop her bump. The baby had been still since they left that morning, but she could feel her now coming awake under her finger tips, a kick here, a kick there. She felt the urge to talk to the human in her womb, to talk nonsense or say anything at all like Mulder seemed to be able to, but words stuck in her throat like tar.

So she simply walks, waiting for Mulder to come find her, and thinks about the way the sand will feel under her feet and the way the ocean will feel against her skin and not about the way the baby might feel in her arms.

He finds her easily and guides her to one of the cottages toward the front of the pack, closer to the actual beach than the rest. He unlocks the door and ushers her inside first while he grabs their bags, and despite the overwhelming floral prints and pastel colors that scream tourist!, the first word that comes to mind is charming.

The space is essentially set up like a one bedroom apartment, with a kitchenette and living room taking up her field of view as soon as she walks in. As she ventures further inside, she takes stock of the white wicker furniture and the king-sized bed in the bedroom. Most importantly, she spots a claw foot bathtub in the bathroom. Not bad, Mulder, she thinks, lowering herself to the bed. Not bad at all.

The man in question enters not a minute later, looking expectantly at her.

“Good choice?” he asks, insecurity creeping into his voice. She beckons him to her and once he’s standing in front of her, she takes a handful of his shirt and pulls him down to her.

“Very good,” she tells him against his mouth before pulling it against her own. His hands move up to cup her face and his thumbs swipe her cheeks. They come apart, but he still holds her face in his hands.

“Do you need rest? Food? Anything you want, say the word and I’ll make it happen.”

She shakes her head, attempting to pull him closer. “I feel like I’ve been resting all day. I want to do something.” As she’s speaking, her stomach growls, loudly enough for him to notice and her to blush. “But food first would probably make me and your daughter very happy.”

He chuckles and kisses the top of her head before reaching out his hand to help her up.

“C’mon, I think there’s a place down the street.”

~

The irony of being on the coast but not being able to eat seafood is not lost on her, but she manages to have some of the most mouthwatering food she’s ever had anyway. They leave the local restaurant and notice that the sun should be setting soon, and Mulder decides it’s the perfect time to walk on the beach.

(In her case, it’s more like waddling, but he knows better than to joke about that.)

They walk hand in hand along the shore, letting the remnants of waves wash over their bare feet and the setting sun beat against their backs. After a few minutes of bumping shoulders while they walk she stops and turns to him, facing the sun. The golden hour light makes her hair seem like fire and her eyes like sapphire, and her beauty nearly knocks him off his feet.

“Here,” she says, pulling their joined hands to her belly. “I think she likes it out here.”

Only recently he’s really been able to feel their child moving, and it seems like he hit the jackpot tonight. He can feel the baby tumbling around under the skin of Scully’s abdomen, the soft rolling sensation of a hand or a foot against his hand. It reminds him of the ocean, the power it holds and the almost otherworldliness of its existence. As the sun slides beneath the horizon, they make their way back to the cabanas for the night.

“Headed to bed?” he asks as she makes a beeline for the bedroom as soon as they cross over the threshold of the cottage. She hums in affirmation as she reaches the door before throwing a look over her shoulder.

“But Mulder,” she says, eyes dark and voice deep. “I’m not tired.”

~

They spend Friday lounging on the beach – she soaks up sun, he swallows a ridiculous amount of seawater.

She sits cross-legged on a blanket under an umbrella, spending a few hours in the shade to cool her skin off from the rays she’s already gotten, and watches as he trudges back to her, shaking out his hair and body like a wet dog.

“Hi,” he offers, plopping down on the blanket next to her and leaning over to kiss her check with a wet smack. “Long time no see.”

“I know, I wondered if I’d ever be able to get you out of there. Thought for a second you found a nice, beautiful mermaid to settle down with,” she jokes, squirting out some sunscreen in her hands. He scoffs in mock offense as she lathers her arms.

“Scully, please, scientifically real mermaids are nothing like the fairy tale iterations we’re peddled as children. They’re gruesome sea monsters with nasty tempers and while I’d love to meet one, that’s just so not my type anymore.”

She laughs, moving from her arms to her stomach, and rubbing the sunscreen in with small circles. He crawls in front of her, flipping onto his side, and watches her.

“How do you feel today?”

“Fine. Good. Really good. The change of scenery is nice.”

“And the baby?”

“Active, but calm. I think she can tell I feel a little more relaxed here, when I’m not thinking about the giant list of things we have to get done before she gets here.”

“Shhh,” he interrupts, scooting closer and placing his hand on the swell of their baby. “Tell mommy she doesn’t need to worry about anything because we’ll get everything done and everything will be fine.”

“I can’t help it!” she good-naturedly exclaims, only to be shushed by Mulder once more.

“This is a private conversation between me and our child,” he continues, despite her eye roll and exasperated sigh. “Please don’t interrupt us.”

“Anyway, as I was saying, baby girl,” he starts, once again addressing her belly. “Your mom worries about everything and everybody, and that might infuriate you from time to time, but eventually you’ll learn that that’s just one of the many ways she shows you she loves you.” She’s caught off guard by his sentiment and tears spring to her eyes.

“She is always going to make sure you’re loved and taken care of, and that’s why you’re so lucky to have her.” He looks up at Scully then, noticing the wetness of her eyes, and he kisses one of her knees. “We both are. Care to add anything, doc?”

She shakes her head, blinking back unshed tears, and continues reapplying sunscreen. His hand wanders from her belly to her bathing suit bottoms and he fingers the olive green fabric.

“New?” he asks, subtly steering her away from anything else emotional and genuinely curious. She nods.

“I had to pick up a new one or two. I…outgrew my others, for lack of a better word.”

She looks pointedly at her bump.

“Yeah, I can imagine.”

He looks pointedly at her breasts.

She rolls her eyes and shoves him onto his back.

~

The next morning, they come across a sign for a local flea market, and that’s how they spend Saturday.

When they walk up to the booths, they’re immediately intrigued by the local art, jewelry, and clothing they see.

They walk through the rows of vendors like any other couple, hand in hand, fingers interlocked. She feels normal, almost mundane, on a vacation somewhere tropical with her partner walking beside her and their baby tossing and turning inside her. It’s hard, though, not to think about how much they had to overcome to get to this point. The people they’ve lost, the pain they’ve felt, all reminders of the trauma they’ve faced, both together and apart. It feels sometimes that those memories are just barely hovering out of her mind, waiting for the slightest thing to signal them back into her consciousness and fill her with dread.

She thinks about Melissa as they walk past a table of handmade jewelry. Her sister’s death has been on her mind more recently as she thinks about the lack of family their baby will have. She would have been an incredible aunt – cool and fun and warm, and sometimes it makes her chest throb when she thinks about just how much she misses her. She pulls on his hand to bring them to a halt and surveys the spread of necklaces, bracelets, and rings. She picks up a gold chain with a crescent moon pendant and runs her finger over the metal.

“Hand-forged,” the woman, who, Scully presumes, makes the jewelry, offers as she comes over to them. “Each piece is one-of-a-kind unique.”

Mulder peers over her shoulder at the metal in her hand and leans closer to her.

“You like it?” he asks into her ear, and she nods, but goes to put the necklace down. “Then we’ll take it,” he directs the latter part of his statement to the owner, and she scurries back the way she came to get a bag.

“Mulder, no, it’s unnecessary.” She tries to fight the gesture despite knowing how futile her efforts are. If he can do anything for her, even the smallest thing, like buying a necklace, he’s quick to jump at it.

“Let me do this for you. Think of it as an early push present.” At her look of amusement, he rushes to clarify. “I read about them online. They’re a nice sentiment. Besides,” he adds, as he hands a wad of cash to the woman and takes the small box she’s put the necklace in. “buying you jewelry now is good practice for when you decide I can give you a ring.”

She smirks and lifts up on the balls of her feet to plant a kiss on his cheek, lingering there for longer than necessary, and slips her hand in his, leading them once again down the aisle. As they walk, she’s looking up at a hanging light fixture to her left when she feels a soft touch on her right arm. She turns to the source and finds herself face to face with a woman who looks to be about a hundred years old, but smiling at her like an overzealous child.

“Come over,” she says, gesturing to a booth of what seems to be knitted goods. “I have something.”

Scully looks at Mulder who shrugs, essentially letting her decide what to do. She doesn’t sense any danger, just maternal warmth that reminds her of her mother, so they follow the woman to her stall.

Once in front of the items, she sees that they’re all hand-knitted goods. There are blankets, hats, and sweaters, all in different colors with different patterns. Scully runs her fingers over one of the beanies and she’s shocked at just how soft the material is.

She looks up and sees the old woman rustling around behind the items on display, apparently searching for something. Scully disentangles her and Mulder’s hands to properly look through some of the items. Each one is as soft and well crafted as the last, and both she and Mulder are almost elbow deep in fabric when the woman approaches them again.

“For baby,” she says, handing Scully what she now sees is a blanket and nodding to her bump. Instinctively, she takes the offered item from the woman and runs a hand across the front of her abdomen.

If it’s even possible, whatever this blanket is made out of is even softer than the things she was looking at before. It’s a baby blanket, she notices as she unfolds it to its full size, and it has light grey stars with sparkling thread hand-stitched all over the white fabric.

“It’s beautiful,” she tells her in earnest, running her thumbs across the raised edges of the stitching. “What on earth is it made of?”

The woman smiles and her expression reads as equal parts coy and proud.

“I mix my materials. I take a little from one, a little from another, just to make them feel like clouds. It’s all a secret.”

“How much for it?” Mulder asks, sensing that no matter what the cost, Scully isn’t going to walk away without it. The woman makes a dismissive motion with her hand.

“No charge. I spotted you walking past and you needed it. I have a sense.”

She shrugs, and Mulder still tries to take out his wallet.

“Please, you put far too much work into something like this to just give it away.”

She firmly shakes her head and then turns to address Scully directly.

“My mother had my sister late too. It all turned out okay. It will also turn out okay for you.” Scully nods as tears spring to her eyes, and Mulder wraps an arm around her shoulder, kissing the side of her head.

In the end, they decide to also buy a larger throw for the living room, one that resembles a certain blanket that used to reside in his apartment.

~

When she wakes from a nightmare in the middle of Sunday night, she realizes she should have known she wouldn’t have a few days of peace.

She jolts upright as much as she can at twenty weeks pregnant and tries to calm her racing heartbeat. She can’t remember the specifics of the dream, but she remembers the specific kind of fear she only associates with something happening to her child.

She palms her abdomen, selfishly begging for movement, and breathes a little easier when she feels what she thinks is a fist pushing back at her. She grabs her phone off the bedside table and checks the time. A little after 1 a.m. means she’s only been asleep for a few hours, yet she feels too wired to fall back asleep. She looks over at Mulder, on his stomach and oblivious next to her, and slips out of bed. She uses the bathroom, careful not to wake him, and tiptoes outside.

The midnight breeze is cool, but her body is so hot these days it feels welcome against her skin. She looks out at the ocean, watching how the inky black water moves and crashes, back and forth, in and out. Deciding to perch out here until her sudden burst of energy dissipates, she lowers herself into one of the deck chairs. The surface is a little rigid, and the angle is a little harsh, but she moves around a bit before finding a position that’s somewhat comfortable. Her hands fall to either side of her belly and she rubs slow circles, trying to calm down the baby she knows she riled up. Maybe it’s the cover of night, or the presence of the ocean, but she feels something loosen in her, and starts talking.

“It’s just you and me tonight, baby,” she begins. The kicks get stronger as the baby becomes more awake. “I’m sure that’ll change once you’re out here with us, because I’m usually so much better at sleeping, but tonight it’s just us.”

She pauses for a moment, choosing to cradle her stomach with her hands.

“I think I should apologize to you, baby girl, because we haven’t talked that much recently. Or, well, ever. Your daddy is a lot better at this than I am. He believes that everything will work out, and everything will be fine. When he believes in something, he believes so fiercely, so he’s been more willing to talk to you and…um…love you.

The truth is, baby, I’m so scared that something is going to happen to you and I’ll never get to meet you. You’ll find this out when you get to us, but we’re quite a bit older than other parents. I’m a lot older than other moms and that comes with a lot of risks – risks that could really hurt you. And the last thing I want is for you to be in danger because the truth is, baby, despite every effort to keep a part of me detached from you in case the unthinkable happens, I love you so much already. I think about holding you and kissing you and watching you grow up and I want it so badly it hurts. Thinking about that being taken away from me…again…made it so hard to let myself love you, baby girl, and I’m so sorry.

I’m also sorry you won’t have much family around when you meet us. Your daddy and I have…been through a lot, and I wouldn’t change a single thing, but it’s cost us some of the people closest to us. And now, by default, you. You won’t have grandparents to spoil you rotten. You won’t have aunts to teach you the secrets of the world. You won’t even have a brother to protect you and keep you safe and god, baby, I’m so, so sorry.

But I want you to know, if you enter this world with any knowledge at all, that your father and I love you more than you could ever think is possible. That despite how unexpected your existence is, you are loved and wanted, and we never for a second thought about not having you in our lives. I made that mistake once, baby girl, and I’m going to spend the rest of my life paying for it, but hopefully the entirety of yours making up for it.”

As she finishes, she sniffles and hears footsteps on the grass approaching her.

“I don’t think the doc had this in mind when she told you to relax.”

She huffs out a watery laugh, letting him lift her chin so he can look in her eyes.

“Did you know that now my immediate response to waking up without you next to me is to try to call the police? I didn’t, by the way, but that was the urge I had to quell.”

“I’m sorry, I woke up from a nightmare and couldn’t sleep and…”

“Decided to catch some rays?”

“Something like that. How long had you been standing there?”

“Long enough. Can you scoot?”

She nods and moves forward a bit on the deck chair, allowing him to slide in behind her. He brings her back to his chest and she falls back against him, immediately appreciating the relief of a soft surface behind her. His hands find their way to either side of her stomach and he rests his chin on her shoulder.

“I know how scared you are, and I also know that there’s nothing I can really say that will make you not scared because you’re carrying a baby and that’s just how that works, but I want you to know that my faith comes from your faith. I believe in you, and that lets me believe that both you and our baby will be okay.”

She’s crying again, so he takes the sleeve of his hoodie and wipes the tears that have already fallen down her cheeks.

“Thank you,” she chokes out, trying to burrow even deeper into his embrace as he tightens his hold on her. “Thank you for being here and for being you.”

He kisses her temple before she turns her head to give him access to her lips.

“Now, kid,” he says, rubbing small circles on her belly with the tips of his fingers. “If you think this is a memorable trip to Florida, wait till you hear this…”

#msr #this is so long i'm deadass sorry if the read more fails #anyway i was writing this last night #and finished around midnight #and then went to bed at 1 #and had to be awake at 4 to go to work #maybe i snapped #also there are three distinct things that inspired this but we don't have to talk about it #just know there are reasons #(me seeing the waitress tour 6 times in 8 days is one) #ficc

[will-o-the-witch]

Hello! Hope the day finds ya well.

A question but also request for you: would you mind explicating the term ‘Abrahamic’ and it’s issues? Or just in general the issues stemming from trying to group Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, plus any of their smaller denominations and derivatives, together.

Full disclosure as being white American and so at least culturally Christian. I know that from basic definitive cosmology difference that each are fully distinct. At the same time: the incorporation of similar core entities, at least linguistically, makes for a nearly direct connection between the three main belief systems. Further it implies a similar [certainly not the same] core scriptural continuum. From all that: is there a term or concept that neatly reconciles there being strong difference but retains the interrelation between the branches? Or is there use or anything beneficial in keeping them conceptually connected?

Also I know that this is a multi-faceted and complicated topic on any one of those facets and I wouldn’t want you to spend too much effort on it. Just looking for multiple perspectives.

Have a nice day in any case!

Hey there! Like you said it can be a complex issue but I will try my best to weigh in on it. ^^ Abrahamic isn't necessarily a dirty word in the way "Judeo-Christian" is (feh!) but the problem lies more with the way people misuse/misunderstand it. It's still a decently-functional term in academia for saying "hey these handful of religions have the same root text," but it stops being an accurate description if you step much farther outside of that. Even putting aside all of the (many) additional writings that make each tradition distinct, each group has a drastically different relationship with the texts and religion itself. Some versions of Christianity rearrange the order of the books to convey a different message. Muslim scholars consider the Hebrew Bible a mix of divine inspiration and human invention, and is therefore not a fully-reliable resource. Some traditions say God's word is law and can/should not be questioned. In Judaism, Israel literally translates to "struggling/wrestling with Gd" and we self-identify as a People where questioning and arguing with Gd is not only normal but even encouraged. You can even win those arguments. Some actively encourage proselytizing and others forbid it. There are no universal Abrahamic opinions or beliefs on sin (if they even recognize it,) tradition, practice, clothing or dietary requirements, demons, angels, prophets, encouraged/discouraged behavior, life after death, how to interpret the texts, or even God Xirself. There's really not as much connecting us as people tend to think. Anybody who says "Abrahamic religions believe..." is usually just talking about Christianity since that's what most people know and assume is universal. Conflating all of us together erases what makes us unique and spreads misinformation about who we actually are. In addition, it lumps smaller, more marginalized religions in with our oppressors which contributes to supersessionism and reinforces the idea of Christianity as a universal or superior belief system. It can direct the beef people have with Christianity onto more vulnerable populations for things that don't even apply to them. This got wordy (oops) but I hope it helps! Again, it's much less of a problem in academia when used correctly and it's not the most offensive thing in the world, but it's just important to be mindful. I recommend if you're talking about beliefs/practices/etc.... just be specific! :) "Judaism and the Baháʼí Faith tend to..."

[fragileizywriting]

Izy... IZY.

I saw that art u showed for flp.

I just wanted to tell u. I. HAVE. BEEN DYING to draw someone- ANYONE! From your AU, EVERYTIME I READ IT. I GO FERAL OVER THE LITTLE DETAILS U ADD, WHETHER IT BEING THE CLOTHES THEY WEAR, their FACIAL FEATURES- EVEN THEIR BODIES. I can't I'm so weaaaaaakkkkkk I RLLY WANNA DRAW THEM SO BADDDDDDD.

BUT whenever I try tho, it's always the character's clothes that always get me. Like I KNOW this is set in a certain period, I just didn't know what!

From the way they lived I thought it was the year 15-1600s. BUT THEN, I remembered how you described Marinette getting dressed, and well IT DOESN'T ADD UP! I've done enough research and even watched TON of videos(def not for this AU no.) of how women got dressed in that time period. The exact detail I remembered that threw me off the loop was her putting stays as an undergarment! And I know that's not in that period, no that's not how they get dressed, unless maybe if she was a noble then maybe I haven't done enough research.

But she's only a commoner!!!(despite marrying a demon prince in the future!) And well... I DON'T KNOW ANYMOREヽ(`д´；)/!!!

I've always just drawn other characters from other shows, in another site so I've always wanted to make my first ml piece by making a small gift for u! I just wanted to know how they really look like(their clothes ofc, im talking abt their clothes)! And... the... time period ur writing in.........

hello anon!!!!! i hope you're doing okay!!!! oh god, i never imagined someone would want to draw this au, eep!!! i'm so glad you want to draw for this au...

you definitely have very important questions, and i hope i can explain!!!

this au isn't exactly set in any exact time period, which is even worse, isn't it? here's how it works out: there are two very distinct places of inspiration i got in order to flesh out this au.

black butler and howl's moving castle.

at the very least, these are two very different time periods, i know.

for black butler, it's where we got the whole "tattoo glowy part and the demon has the same tattoo on them in order to show that they're contracted to one another" type of thing. it's also where we get a lot of the dark elements of the story from.

howl's moving castle is everything else. the magic, the scenary, the sweetness and the calmness even though there's war and destruction in the movie, it's one of my all-time favorites.

i've tried to make the time period as "fantasy" as possible, but there are a couple of things i've made sure to do. for one, marinette wears a chemise under everything. she wears stays, too, and they either lace up the front of the back (the back is her more formal one, since that probably requires a second pair of hands to help her out. familiar chat to the rescue!)

i personally personally personally have taken a huuuge amount of inspiration from these two videos on how they dress for the time period: video one | video two yes, these two are definitely two very different time periods, too! but the delicateness, and the floweryness of the late 1700s combined with the ruggedness and the comfort of late 1800s... i've tried my best to combine them as much as i can, even though it might not have come off as professional... marinette wears nearly identical clothing to video two, but in dark colors instead of denim.

honestly, i should've picked a time period and stuck to it instead of trying to fit different time periods together in order to pretend that this is a completely different world ToT

the tl;dr, anon, is whatever you'd like to draw in whatever clothes, go for it!! the drawing i drew was original from when before i started writing the au, about two or three years ago, so it's definitely wrong now. i didn't fix it when i redid chat, because i totally forgot to!!

i hope this helped...

have a good day!!!

#speakizys #fire lily petals

[prompt-master]

Bear Trap (Part 1/3)

Request fill for @hibiscuswolverine and art done by @doodles-by-noodles

The world was starting to heal.

Little by little, everyone who survived Hope's Peak Academy's killing game was bringing about change to the world. It had only just started, and they likely wouldn't live to see their vision fully realized, but there was hope. Hope the world hadn't seen since the tragedy broke out in the first place.

Yep, Naegi Makoto had a lot of work to do, but he also already had so much to be proud of. He and the survivors had already proven themselves to adapt to a world that was nothing like the one they left behind. They had been given a warning from Enoshima Junko herself, but even with the knowledge of killer robots and rampaging despair-induced rioters nothing could really prepare them for life on the outside.

Honestly, they had never expected to make it to where they were right now. Proud members of the Future Foundation, able to work together with the higher ups to take down the biggest threats against the world's progression. It felt like just yesterday they were sleeping in the rubble of what once were apartments, tightly packed together in case anything were to break in. And now Makoto stood proud and tall, going over his next mission on video call with a member of one of the higher divisions.

"I suppose I shouldn't be terribly surprised that the Ultimate Hope would be so adamant on these matters."

Makoto smiled, still as strong and inspiring as it had been back in the killing game, "Really, you don't have to call me that. I'm nothing special, just Naegi is fine."

She completely ignored him, looking over the notes he'd sent to her one last time. He and Aoi had accidentally discovered a distress call from a group of survivors in an unsafe area. There was no way he could ignore something like that, he wouldn't ignore any possibility that someone was suffering like his class did. Even if there was an equal possibility that it was a trap.

"Well, your plan asks for Ultimate Detective Kirigiri Kyoko and Ultimate Affluent Progeny Togami Byakuya to go with you. With those two, plus the Ultimate Hope, equipped with hacking guns then I see no reason to be concerned for any mishaps. Your mission is approved."

Makoto's smile widened at that, feeling a rush of pride and hope at her words, "We won't let you down! Promise!"

She didn't even look up at him, simply humming to let him know she heard. But he could tell, there was a slight smile on her face. Makoto managed to melt his fair share of hearts even if he couldn't explain how. The call blinked off, and Makoto shut his laptop gently, but with no regard to what it was running.

He let out a loud sigh, slouching back into his chair. Any and all office calls felt so nerve wracking. Each one held its own weight in importance. Every exchange oversaw the future. He pulled his arms over his head, stretching them as far as they could go.

He could already feel himself getting pumped up. A small, prideful smirk snuck it's way onto his face. The plan wasn't anything extreme, but he knew with his friends by his side it would all be ok. They were meant to go together in a group so that they could protect themselves in the event of a trap or other unforeseen circumstances. The distress call came from a fallen city mostly blocked off by a collapsed building. They would drop off inside the city's bounds, and continue on foot to find any survivors they could. They knew there would be some despaired within, but that was a given anywhere they went now.

It would all be worth it to save them.

Now he just had to tell Byakuya and Kyoko the good news

It was clear to anyone near the survivors that Byakuya, Kyoko, and Makoto were a force to be reckoned with. While the general public has no qualms with calling Makoto the leader of the group, it was more so all three of them were coleading. Each taking charge in their own way, from the start of their new lives to now. The three of them were all incredibly smart in their own ways and their combined skills lead to a team that could likely conquer any despair they faced. But it took an even closer eye to see the emotional connection the three shared with each other. 

Makoto walked in front, leading since he had heard the distress call in the first place. It was certainly an interesting relationship that the three had. Although Makoto certainly didn't see himself as the leading type it seemed that Byakuya and Kyoko both trusted his guidance entirely. And he did the same for them. There was no way to describe the significance that lay underneath the floorboards of their bond. For the two most emotionally shut off of the survivors to so openly trust him? To Makoto that was enough to lay their hearts out in the open for him to see. And not to mention…

Makoto glanced back at the two. Byakuya was messing around with his hacking gun, glasses slipping down his nose, and hair nearly hiding his eyes from Makoto's view. Kyoko was taking in her surroundings, trying to figure out sooner rather than later if this whole thing was just a trap as suspected. Her eyes may be void of emotion but the color and warmth was vast. Makoto faced forward again, his face feeling just a bit hot. 

They were both really pretty. 

No, no he can't focus on his silly crushes. Yes, crushes plural. Because Makoto's sensitive heart was so big he managed to give it away to two different people. That didn't matter right now though, because the focus was on the mission. 

The town was about as decimated as it looked from the outside. It reminded him of his first experiences out in the new world, making him wonder how many survivors might be hiding under rubble, scared to come out. So far they hadn't run into any sort of trouble. No robots, no despaired, no survivors. There was really...nothing here. It was starting to look more and more like a trap. 

Makoto stopped walking at a split path, "The call said to find the convenience store but...I can't tell where to go since everything's been destroyed." 

Byakuya came to stand by his side, "Not that it should matter much all things considered. Let's just get this over with so we can clear out those insane idiots and rebuild this place already." 

"Togami-kun!" Makoto pouted, Byakuya may have softened up but he still had a habit of harsh thinking first, "don't say that. I'm sure there has to be someone here who needs saving. There's people who need to be rescued everywhere we go!" 

"Indeed" Kyoko chimed in, "but it's not a bad line of thought. If we stage a rebuilding operation here then that increases our chances of finding survivors then if only a search team walked around." 

Byakuya smirked, pushing up his glasses in that annoyingly arrogant way of his, "And to do that, we need to weed out the problems first no?" 

"Yes...yes we do." 

"Besides what would you rather do? Try to talk to the despaired? And get clubbed again?" 

"It was one time, Togami-kun!" 

Byakuya laughed, placing his hands on his hips as he looked around, "Come now, this way. All these buildings are too destroyed to make any sort of distinctions regardless. And by your sentimental logic we should be checking more than just the given location, wouldn't you agree." 

Byakuya didn't wait for an answer, he walked ahead to begin searching the first building to their left. Makoto had to break into a light jog to catch up to him; damn your long legs Togami! 

That marked the start of their exploration, building after building. They found nothing. Not to mention everywhere seemed like it has been residential, no sign of the store they were told the survivors were. Even Makoto felt like something was a little bit off but he couldn't quite place his finger on it. Regardless he kept up hope, he had heard those survivors speak with complete clarity in their voice. They had to be here. He wouldn't give up over a simple bad feeling. 

Byakuya stepped over broken glass, moving further into the crumpled home he was currently inspecting. A surprisingly intact kitchenette caught his eye, and decided a thorough search was necessary without telling his company. Although they didn't need much prompting to understand when he went off trail again. Kyoko thought if he was going to focus on possible material goods stored away in this forgotten piece of life, then she could at least see if there was any current piece of life hiding away as well. Makoto stood at the door of the house. He'd given nothing more than a glance to Byakuya before turning toward the outdoors again. Looking for anything. Any sign of life lurking under the foreboding red sky. 

Nothing. 

He sighed, turning his attention down to what used to be a grass area. Not much was left of that, in fact it looked almost like any plant life besides the weeds in the street cracks were...set on fire. The ground had this grey ashy feeling to it. And when Makoto scuffed it with his shoe….yeah, that was definitely the remains of something burning. That was a good sign right? It meant that someone was alive. This couldn't have been that long ago. 

Makoto opened his mouth to call for his friends, when a cold hand slapped over his mouth and forcefully tugged him backwards. 

Huh

Huh?!

Makoto was immediately kicking and yelling. He bucked like a disturbed wild animal, trying everything he could to get out. Wiggling, kneeing, elbowing, even trying to bite the hand over his mouth but none disturbed the individual. The house was getting farther and farther away but his voice was too muffled to ever reach it. There was heavy breathing in his ear, the air wet and warm against his skin in a way that made his body shudder. He forced himself to look up at his kidnapper. An individual with a wide smile on their face and eyes that spoke of a spiraling psyche. Everything about them...from their expression to their actions to their lack of reaction to pain...it all said despair. 

Eventually Makoto was dragged into the street and thrown down like a slab of meat. Makoto was about to scream again for help, when a hand quickly reached out for him. He couldn't help but flinch back, shoulders bunching up in an attempt to shrink away. His tie was yanked off, the force pulling his body upwards. When the tie snapped off he fell back again, he could feel rocks digging into his skin from the fall. Then his hands were tied behind his back. This was bad. This was so bad. Bad didn't even BEGIN to cover it. 

His captor came uncomfortably close, having lost all concept of personal space in the madness the end of the world has provided. Makoto tried his best to keep calm as they placed their arms to either side of him so that they were above, staring down below. There was a tense moment where neither moved, they simply tried to catch their breaths so that the silence would stop being filled with panting. It felt like a test. Like they were waiting for him to even dare to try to escape. They wanted to show Makoto what happened when he disobeyed! He could see it in their eyes! In the manicale look, in the smile that kept opening and closing like a strange gutted fish. The way their arms trembled and shook by Makoto's head, just waiting with the high of excitement.

Arms still shaking, mouth overflowing with spittle and pupils pinprick sharp, they began to slowly lower themselves. Makoto held his breath, willing his body to sink further into the concrete. His heels scraped against the ground, but he willed himself not to move in fear that any sign of escape would reward him with a slit throat. Their noses pressed against each other. The captor let out a shaky relieved sigh, as if the contact was the greatest thing they'd felt in a long time. Their eyelids fell half lidded, their smirk from excited to downright sadistic.

"I've got you now, Mr. Ultimate Hope."

Stay calm. You've dealt with this kind of person before. 

Makoto's nails gave a tug as he ran them against the concrete in an attempt to ground himself, dirt filling the space between skin and keratin. His heart hammered in his chest as if he were a scared rabbit, but there was no time to panic here. His life depended on it.  The despaired were completely delusional...which meant..

Makoto felt a laugh rise out of him, nervous and high in pitch.  A bit too high in pitch. He scraped the ground again, enough so that it began to hurt from the force. Calm down. Stay fucking calm. 

"Heh...heheh! Yeah! You got me..!" A smile graced his face, "what did you...get me for?" 

They pulled back, but not enough so that the pungent smell of smoke and ash left Makoto's nose. Their head tilted, daring to make an innocent face, "You know who you are, right?" 

"I do. And who are you?" 

Their body moved back and forth as they laughed with everything they had, their knees closing in so that Makoto could feel it against his leg. "Me? Me? Mememe?? Forget that! You're the Ultimate Hope!"

"That's right…" 

"I wonder what Miss Junko would say right now. Seeing you pinned down like this?" Their eyes flickered to the sky at the fantasy that no doubt filled their mind. 

Makoto tried his hardest not to cringe, and just attempted to change the subject instead, "Do you want me to do something for you?" It was a loaded question. One that made Makoto feel like he was picking all the wrong dialogue choices. 

"I do!" 

Progress. He wasn't sure if it was good progress, but it was, in fact, progress. 

"What's that?" 

Their voice dropped to a whisper, waning and cracking in excitement once again. They reached into their pocket. 

"I want you to watch this" 

They pulled out a little remote that looked horribly put together. Even with how much their hand trembled he could see that it was made of what seemed to be the remains of a torn apart scrap pile. Before Makoto could ask what they meant, they pressed the only button built in. 

What ensued was a large explosion. 

------

BOOM 

A loud eardrum breaking noise filled the previous silence. Byakuya was forced to grip the kitchen countertop as the world around him shook, a sudden intense burst of wind following soon after. The heat uncomfortable against his face. He made his way to the open wall, Kyoko not far behind him. 

"Was that an explosion?" Kyoko asked, not wanting to waste any time. 

Byakuya looked outside at the smoke and fire that overtook the sky. It was suffocating just to look at. Shit, it was definitely a trap then. "Looks like it" 

They watched frozen, transfixed on the horror as a building toppled from where it was standing, joining the others as rubble for them to walk on. They still stayed in place. They knew there was nothing they could do to prevent or help the issue. 

Byakuya was so focused on the sight, thinking about how he had to call for an early pick up that he didn't even notice until Kyoko asked. 

"Where's Naegi?" 

------

Makoto gasped and gasped as he ran for his life. After whatever that person had rigged went off he found himself surprisingly not being pinned anymore as the person sat cackling nearby. He had managed to slip away when more despaired came over and argued with the individual who had been pinning him.  Now he was running as fast as he could hoping he wouldn't get caught once again. 

He struggled against his traitorous tie, feeling it chafe against his wrists uncomfortably. Untying it would have been enough of a challenge without the running aspect. Now he found himself tripping over his own feet trying to think about the two things at once. 

Before he knew it, his feet had slipped right out from under him and he barely caught himself before faceplanting. 

Taking the fall as a hint, he stopped to catch his breath, looking around the area to gauge where he was. It seemed like more of the same until he saw a rather structurally sound convenience store. It was surprisingly big too for how little damage it had. A smile overtook his face. Aren't I lucky? Maybe the people inside can help me get this dang tie off. 

After letting his breathing calm down he made his way toward the store. Elation filled his heart, a familiar hope that kept him going. He knew it couldn't have all been a trap! Almost there now. Once inside he'd have someone untie his hands, and then he'd find his friends and-

His friends. He hoped Byakuya and Kyoko were safe. He had no idea how far the damage of the explosion traveled, but if it was enough to collapse an entire building there was certainly the risk of them being in hot water. Not to mention the multiple despaired that were walking around, who knows what sort of danger they could walk into. Then again, if anyone was capable of holding their own it would be Byakuya and Kyoko. But he should probably focus on his own safety instead of imagining Byakuya and Kyoko taking down their enemies in the most attractive way possible-

He was right there. He'd reached the convenience store. All the windows were covered up so that he couldn't see inside, but he knew someone inside was waiting. He just had to- huh? What's that? 

Makoto looked down to see a familiar, very unwelcome sight. It was a Monokuma with yellow and black stripes. At the top of its head was a red siren. And they were making eye contact. 

"Shi-" 

Instinctively he reeled back at the loud, sharp noise. The sound raised and lowered it's pitch smoothly, reminding him of tsunami drills he had to do back when he was in school and the implications it brought were similarly horrifying.

So much for being lucky. Makoto felt himself panicking again, the siren was loud enough to hurt his ears. He couldn't tell if his ears were ringing or if the siren was just that obnoxious. But he didn't have time to complain about that. The noise and the light… no doubt others would be coming soon. 

"Shh...shhhh!! Stop it!" He couldn't break the machine with his hands the way they were...he had to settle for getting help. 

Makoto stopped in his tracks before he could approach the door of the convenience store however, because there was someone watching him through the window. They'd opened the curtain to check what the commotion was. Makoto saw no madness or instability in their eyes...the survivors really WERE here. Makoto smiled, wishing he could wave and gesture for help, but he had to hope his expression was enough. 

The survivor frowned, eyes fixated on the Siren Monokuma. Without looking at Makoto again they closed the curtain.

No one was coming to help. 

Makoto backed away. That's ok. There was still a chance. If he ran quick enough maybe he could get away before reinforcements arrived. 

The growling he heard mocked his fruitless thoughts. That was the deranged sounds a Beast Monokuma made…he couldn't hope to outrun one of those. They were like real rabid bears but worse because they never got tired. They never stopped running once they had you in its sights, just like this one. 

But Makoto tried anyway to flee, only to end up taking a riot shield to the face from a Guard Monokuma. 

"Oof!" 

He fell back hard feeling all air leave his lungs. The snarling and pounding of the Beast Monokuma was getting louder. Too loud. Makoto rolled onto his side, scrambling to get up. He winced as a claw grazed his cheek, first blood of the night welling up. 

He felt like an insignificant worm with how he desperately rolled on the floor, hoping to find good enough footing in his panic to stand. But when he got to his knees he was met with another riot shield. He almost didn't react in time to dodge another slash from the Beast, managing to get the tie around his wrists cut. 

He'd never gotten to his feet so quickly before in his life. Bits of gravel stuck to his palms and blood ran down his right arm. He scrambled to find something -anything- to defend himself with, but he was already surrounded. It was too late to even bother going for the Siren Monokuma. How the hell was he supposed to-? 

He yelled out as sharp metal claws dug into his back, seemingly deep enough that he feared for his spine. The claws rake along his back as the beast removes them. If that wasn't enough to bring him back to reality, he was quickly overwhelmed, bruises being beaten into every inch of his skin from the shields, and slashes from regular Monokuma's on his arms. And worse of all the Beast Monokuma that was trying its best to chomp his head off with it's twitchy manic movements. He tried his best to fend it off, pushing at it personally with his bare hands despite the continuous relentless assault he was receiving. 

Another good hit with a shield and his hands slipped. In a split second moment that he didn't even get to think about, he reached a leg up and kicked at its face. He only had a moment of victory.

It bit down on his leg and didn't let go.

Now the interesting thing about Makoto is that even though he doesn't seem capable, he's grown to be able to keep himself calm when it mattered. Even at his own execution, where he was slowly heading towards his untimely demise, With frequent reminders of what was about to come, he had managed to keep as calm as possible. Even well he fell stories down into the garbage. He refused to make a peep and panic when every one of his friends could see. But right now no friends were watching.

Naegi Makoto screamed.

-----

"I'm going to kill Naegi my damn self for running off when we find him." Byakuya was, as per usual, annoyed as hell. 

Kyoko sighed, "Calm down. I'm sure there's a reason, you know he isn't like that." 

Byakuya rolled his eyes, but didn't say a word. Kyoko was completely right, but he would never give her the satisfaction of admitting that. His silence was enough. 

They had made way for the source of the explosion only to find the path to the other side of the city was completely blocked off by the collapsed structure. Due to the closed off nature of the cities remains that left them with only one option: go the long way around and hope those entrances aren't blocked as well. 

When it was just Kyoko and Byakuya there was always this weird silence. Sometimes comfortable, sometimes tense. Makoto was always the one to fill it, he was like the bridge between the two. Kyoko wished he could tell Byakuya to cheer up -his attitude was getting on her nerves- but Makoto's absence was the whole reason for it in the first place. 

"Keep your guard up" she reminded, her own hand staying close to the pouch strapped to her thigh. Inside was an all weather purpose mini notepad and a handheld taser. She quite liked her taser, it was both heavy hitting and satisfied Makoto's wish to not kill anyone: even the despaired. "I'm certain that explosion was rigged up by a person." 

Byakuya scoffed, "I am Togami Byakuya" he kindly reminded her. Kyoko rolled her eyes, she'd heard that way too many times to count. "My guard is always up and my reaction time is perfect. Maybe you should worry about yourself instead." 

"Incorrigible as usual, I see." 

He glared back down at her, still walking forward with overconfident strides, "I'll have you know-" 

There it is. Another rant which consisted only of Byakuya boasting about his own skills. She shut him out without a second thought, focusing on her surroundings instead. It's not as though Byakuya would provide any sort of new information anyway. 

"Wait." She interrupted, which Byakuya hated, but his feelings be damned, "do you hear that?" 

Byakuya paused, facing towards the direction she was looking. There was a sound in the distance, something familiar. It was far, but if he focused hard enough he could figure it out. 

Kyoko and Byakuya looked at each other, both having recognized the siren's undeniable screech at the same time. With a nod, they began to run. Makoto or not, whoever was caught by that Siren Monokuma was in danger. Byakuya steadied his hacking gun in his hand and Kyoko effortlessly pulled her taser from it's bounds. Despite their great desire to find Makoto meer seconds ago, they hoped that anyone else would be caught by the Monokuma's. But, this was Makoto after all. 

It took an undetermined amount of time for them to loop around to the convenience store, but the time spent felt uncomfortably long to them both. When they did arrive they found it was a chaotic mess. There was a group of Monokuma's huddled together over one unseen person. There was blood scraped across the concrete as though someone was dragged with their horrible injuries and all. But there were no sounds of a struggle. The sight was more akin to school yard bullies gathering to kick a victim than a genuine fight. 

Without wasting much time Byakuya fired at the Siren Monokuma, destroying it without a second thought. "Damn noise was getting on my nerves" He said. 

Kyoko shook her head, "Focus" she pointed her nose towards the pile up. Byakuya's uncaring attitude toward the situation showed that he believed the person was already dead. One by one the machines fell apart or destroyed themselves. And in their wake was a small, bloodied mess in human shape. The smell of copper and the sickening sight of messy pink was one they had gotten all too used to over the years. But that didn't make it easier when you recognized one of those bodies as someone you cared about. 

Byakuya felt harsh, furious breaths of air pushing in and out of his nose. The action was an almost unconscious response. He couldn't help but let anger well up at the sight of Naegi Makoto laying on the ground curled up on his side.

He grit his teeth, "Is he…?" Dammit. A Togami didn't hesitate. Certainly not Byakuya.

"No." Kyoko's voice was barely more than a whisper, and for a split second he thought she was simply in denial. But no, she had caught  sight of Makoto's chest moving up and down. She made way to him, hands hovering over him unsure of how deep his injuries ran. The first thing she saw were vicious claw marks running down his back. There were bits of debris clinging to the wound. They were ugly and jagged things. She wanted to roll him onto his back to get a better look at him but was it even safe to move him at all? She didn't want to risk paralyzing him. Not to mention she'd be pressing his wound to the ground. She glanced to his leg. A complete mangled mess, she could tell the unit that attached itself to his leg was relentless in its attack. Shaking and thrashing and the like. The fabric that once covered his leg was all but torn to shreds leaving the whole injury on brutal display. There was blood pooling underneath where he lay on the ground. His skin was pale from blood loss, breaking into a cold sweat that made her certain shock was already setting in. Almost all exposed skin was blossoming into a different, unnatural color indicating a plethora of bruises. His breathing was quiet but heavy, he'd already lost a lot of blood. When her eyes finally trailed up to his face she felt a small bit of relief that his features were marred by only a small cut on his left cheek, with a lazy stream of blood pouring from it. 

Byakuya and Kyoko were two individuals with a massive disconnect of their emotions brought about by their upbringing. Byakuya turned any emotion he felt into anger and disdain. Kyoko snuffed out most emotions she felt so that nothing would show. They had the emotional resolve of steel, it wasn't easy breaking down their walls. Makoto was that strange part of the equation that ruined all of that. He managed to get Byakuya to be intrigued by someone so seemingly insignificant and he managed to get Kyoko to act pouty and almost childish during the game. Yes, their entire lives were spent crafting these defenses. And now they had to fight to keep it all together with only elmers glue in their arsenal.

Kyoko was up close and personal with all the gruesome details of his attack. She tried to shove it all down so that she could completely focus on ensuring Makoto's survival. But he was looking up at her with a dazed half lidded look, as though any second the world would slip away from under his feet. And despite that Makoto smiled when he caught eyes with her. Kyoko's heart cracked. 

Byakuya could only watch with his fists by his side. He had set out to ensure all the survivors of the first killing game continued to survive and here we are. He forced all these feelings to be translated into anger. But he knew the underlying causes. He knew there was a part of him that simply was scared for his friends sake. 

The two of them both understood the others emotional grievances. And that's exactly why Byakuya's heart skipped a beat when Kyoko looked up at him with fear vibrant in her eyes. 

"It doesn't look good." 

#naegirigami #naegamigiri #makoto naegi #byakuya togami #kyoko kirigiri #whump #fanfic #dr #dr:thh #danganronpa #im so peeved because tumblr wont show this pic in the main tag #dangaronpa #dangan ronpa #naegiri #naegami #dr3 #dr 3 #bear trap

[irelandseyeonmythology]

What would you describe as your ideal “accurate,” or at least acceptable depiction of the TDD in fantasy fiction?

You know...it's funny with me, because I think that people always think that I have really high standards when it comes to this sort of thing. Like "Oh, if you haven't read THIS obscure Dindshenchas story that was only edited in 1910 and never given a proper translation, you're dead to me." And like...obviously, I LOVE when that sort of stuff is included. I LOVE when it's very clear that an author's done their work, but I don't expect anyone to get their degree to do it. (Though...I...did kind of do that, but I'm also very much a "do as I say, not as I do" example, given that I honestly still have no idea how I ended up getting this far.)

And I should note that, the books that I've individually talked about aside...I do keep up a collection of Schlocky Depictions of the Tuatha Dé. I find them highly entertaining while also being really relevant to the pop culture arm of my research, since I'm always genuinely fascinated in...how people are receiving these stories, what they're taking away from them, how they're getting re-interpreted, and what these interpretations say about us. You know, what does it mean when the Fomoire keep getting depicted as demonic monsters? Why do we keep trying to draw this sort of binary between GOOD characters and EVIL characters that didn't really exist in the same way in the literature? (I'd never say the Fomoire are good, but they aren't as distinct from the TDD as people want them to be.) I love trash, all kinds of trash. Give me your smutty trash, your unedited trash, your vanity press trash, your Oh My God This Was Written In The 80s Trash, your "Read Lady Gregory once five years ago and decided to work off of that" trash, your cardboard cutout characters trash. I will read it. And I will love it. You would not believe the books that are on my "most sought after" list. You would not. You would not believe the things I have willingly and enthusiastically exposed my eyeballs to.

But, to actually answer your question...I don't care about accuracy. Not in the way you think. Because you're dealing with a very fluid tradition, you can never quite keep continuity because there was never a continuity to begin with. That doesn't mean that I'm saying "Eh, who cares. Don't do research at all!" Rather that...I feel like it's important to learn the rules as best as you can and then break them. And I've seen some adaptations crash and burn because they tried to bring too much in from too many sources (Pursuit being the immediate one that comes to mind even though, imo, it was brilliant in many ways.)

So, I would like something that is aware of the sources, but that also...wants to do them justice. I'm working on an adaptation of CMT, so I have my own biases, but the first thing I really wanted to do was to figure out how to use the sources I had to build the characters up and to flesh out the story, while also doing my own thing.

With the TDD, one thing that a lot of adaptations fall into is treating them as infallible. And if they were infallible, I wouldn't be interested in them. Hell, for that matter, the medieval Irish wouldn't have been interested in them. Lugh kills people. Regularly. And, in fact, most frequently commits kinslaying. Nuada has jealousy issues and in, say, Oidheadh Chloinne Tuireann and the Early Modern CMT, was...not a particularly strong or inspiring ruler. The Dagda is willing to kill three men to bring back his own son, only bringing them back from the dead when his son urges him to (and that's not including the things he does that need a tw), as well as being...let's be honest, a pretty terrible father to Óengus, who, himself, as well as being a bit of a scam artist, does...drown a guy in horse piss. Midir is implied in one recension of Togail Bruidne Dá Derga to have caused Conaire's death because of his pissing match with Eochaid Airem and his union with Étaín seems to have been Pretty Damn Illegal by medieval Irish standards (or at least a dick move). Mannanán tries to pull a reverse Green Knight to troll the Fianna. Bres is...Bres. And all the Tuatha Dé who were alive at a certain time definitely were complicit in what happened to the Fir Bolg.

And, obviously, I'm not trying to #cancel medieval Irish literature. That would be...very self-defeating on my end, though I've long since said that the day someone tries to bring Bres Discourse to me is the day I officially yeet myself into the sun. Rather, what I'm saying is that there are a LOT of gray areas people can explore, and that tend to get glossed over. The fantasy genre DESPERATELY want the TDD to be elves, this sort of idealized, wise, powerful immortal race who are all pretty and white/blonde haired, who act as counsellors and guides to mortals, and who all speak in this sort of airy, resigned tone. And...well. They CAN be wise. They are definitely powerful. And they are immortal in the sense of "does not die of old age." But they are also petty and vindictive.

And, likewise, people often feel the need to drag the enemies of the Tuatha Dé down - the Fomoire and the Fir Bolg are prominent examples. The Fomoire I can understand -- they WERE, in their ninth century incarnations, based on the Vikings. That being said, there are ways authors could show them as antagonistic while still showing they're human. We don't need to see Cethlenn committing human sacrifices in her opening scene (yes, I have seen this.) And the Fir Bolg, honestly...did nothing wrong and, in the one long prose text of the First Battle of Magh Tuireadh that survives, I would argue that they're the heroes.

Basically...my ideal version is one that has some grounding in...at least Lebor Gabála Érenn (...only the part with the Tuatha Dé and the Fir Bolg, I would not ask anyone to read the whole thing), Cath Finntrágha, Tochmarc Étain, Cath Maige Tuired, Cath Maige Tuireadh Conga, Oidheadh Chloinne Tuireann, and a few Dindshenchas poems (I know, I know it's a long list, I swear I wanted to only bring in about 2-3, but they're all so GOOD), but that is also aware that, because it's a fluid tradition, they have the freedom to break free and do their own thing. I want to see the Tuatha Dé written as fully realized characters with their own flaws and merits and weird little quirks, and I want to see their enemies depicted as people, as well. I want to see nuanced bonds between all of them, especially with the complicated family dynamics. I want to see a society that...in some ways, is very beautiful -- wonderful poetry, a highly complex legal system, rich clothing, fine jewelry, brave warriors, clever poets...while also showing the dark side. The fantasy genre is wonderful for exploring the complexities of a society and worldbuilding in general, so you can really have some fun with a world inspired by medieval Ireland.

#long post #i have no idea whether this ACTUALLY answered your question but I have a ton of thoughts on this sort of thing