#and everyone expects them to be awesome friends because they’re so similar on the surface

[symphonyofthewrite]

Saw your post, getting stuff off your chest, I just wanted to say that I haven't seen the thing with the kids mentioned by anyone and it really stood out to me, I feel what you mean to some extent, because for me it was a stronger reaction, albeit you probably won't feel the same and that's, obviously, perfectly fine. I have an instant recoil these days whenever a character is around kids for like one second and everyone instantly goes "THEY LITERALLY ADOPTED THEM/THAT'S THEIR CHILD/THEY'RE A PARENT"... genuinely sick of it, and I went white as a sheet when I heard it, I wanted to pluck my eyes out. I don't know if it's an American thing but English speaking fandoms (well, those teeming with fancops that is) seem like they cannot process adult looking characters being in any near proximity to childlike characters without automatically imposing parenthood and family dynamics and it's becoming distressing to me. I feel like Alucard needed to process his trauma and learn to trust and be whole again, he's young himself too, why he needed to be a "father figure" all of a sudden is beyond me.

Thank you so much for the ask!! I don’t get many asks so it makes me happy when I can talk meta with people 💛💛 (Sorry I’m a bit late in answering.)

Funnily enough I actually do agree with you. I didn’t have quite so strong a reaction, but I definitely had a very similar one when I first hear it.

My feelings were and are a bit mixed. I was saying in my other post that I would have preferred that I got to actually see this interaction; see the kids run by him and call him father, and him smile when no ones looking. I still think that would have been a better, more touching way to do the scene, and would have had more chance of me liking it (though I probably still would have felt very weird about it). (I think it especially would have been better because it would show that Alucard himself liked it, not that Greta was forcing the role on him.) I know that it was meant to be something touching, and pretty much everyone seems to like it (and I have seen some cute posts about it), so I just tried to like it too, and focus on the fact that all they were really trying to say was he was having a nice relationship with the kids, and that was indeed sweet.

But yeah, when I heard Greta say “I heard some of them calling you father” for me it was less a reaction of horror, and more a “HUH??!!”moment. When I heard it I was like “Alucard...you agree with this???!! This is how you see yourself??!!” I almost expected Alucard to refute it and say he didn’t see himself as a father to them. Like I seriously do not see Alucard as anything remotely close to a father figure, and it felt weird and wrong to me.

Like when I saw him interacting with the kids the first time, I didn’t think “oh he’s a father figure to them.” I just thought “yay, Alucard’s playing with some kids, and getting out of his bubble!!” I didn’t have any thoughts as to what his relationship role was with them, I just thought that first interaction was lovely.

And if I saw him interacting with the kids again, I still wouldn’t go “father figure” I’d just be like “yay, Alucard’s playing with the kids again, how sweet!!”

Sometimes the relationship doesn’t need a role or a label, ya know?

And I thought it was especially strange because…he literally just met them?? Like how can they possibly start calling him father when he’s played with them once or twice? Regardless of Alucard’s side or things, what group of kids would randomly call a nice man they just met ‘father’? Is...Is this a normal thing??

Anyways, back to Alucard’s side of things, Sypha’s line about Alucard being a teenager trapped an adults body has always been something that stuck with me and shaped how I view Alucard. I definitely view him as internally much younger than he looks. No matter how much I might hate them for what they did to him, I think Sumi and Take are about the age he actually is, and their relationship with him made sense to me. He’s still a kid—or at least young—he still needs his parents in his life, really. (That’s part of why I didn’t like that Drac and Lisa don’t go to him at the end. I personally don’t think Alucard really got closure, and in my mind I think he still very much needed them, and that would have been the perfect ending to his story in my mind, where everything comes full circle; He was forced to lose his parents and grow up too early, and only when he’s started to truly grow up does he get them back.) So yeah, I really don’t see him like a father at all. One of my main focuses in my Castlevania fanfiction is his relationship with Dracula, so I very much see him as the son, not as the dad, even when Drac isn’t around.

(Sidenote, come to think of it, I think this is another reason why Greta x Alucard is a nope from me. She’s very much an adult, so I just see a discrepancy between them that makes me feel weird about them being in a romantic relationship. If we need a label I feel like she fits as an older sister for him, guiding him and giving him support. Him unloading all his problems on her within just meeting her makes more sense if he’s like a younger brother who needs to cry to his sister. I felt weird about it in a romantic context when it was so fast. I mean I know he was desperate to talk to someone, and I probably would have done the same, but still).

“I feel like Alucard needed to process his trauma and learn to trust and be whole again, he's young himself too, why he needed to be a "father figure" all of a sudden is beyond me”

^^ THIS. EXACTLY THIS.

I was honestly really hoping they’d go in depth into him dealing with his trauma, and how he’s still hurting from the wounds of it, and how he needs to heal. I thought that’s what his S4 arc would be about. I don’t think they gave him the chance to really process and work through everything that happened. (Again, I don’t think him just unloading all his problems on a nice stranger is truly working through his trauma. I would have much rather watched him struggle to trust her, and him telling her about his trauma happen later, and be difficult for him, and a deep, heartfelt moment).

Like I was saying in my other post, I think if they framed his arc in how he dealt with the town collectively, I think that would have fit better, and been more touching and satisfying. I would have liked to see him struggling to trust humans, and then see as time progressed how several different people in the town liked him and meant him no harm, and how he realized he could trust them, and that he liked them too. It wasn’t that he had a bad romantic partner and needed a new one. He believed he needed to be punished for killing his father, and in his deep loneliness he let these kids into his house and heart, and they turned on him because he was half vampire. That’s something pretty deeply ingrained, and not something a new romance just fixes by existing. He needed to work through that in a much deeper way.

I know this is gonna be a very unpopular opinion, and it's totally cool if you disagree, but in a weird way... I sort of disliked Alucard’s ending. Don’t get me wrong, Im glad he’s happy, and I’d certainly prefer it to him just getting more trauma like last season (*shudders*), and I don’t think him opening up his castle (and his heart) to humanity is a bad way to end his story, certainly not. I think that fits. And my heart did melt a bit at the "I'm weirdly happy" scene. But, where everyone else is like “*sobbing* happy endings for all our faves” ...I see the creators of the show trying to wrap everything up in a neat little bow, and while that’s certainly not all bad, I don’t love every aspect of that. Theres a time and place for that, but a show based on video games, for which there’s more content in these storylines isn’t one of them in my mind.

Sometimes some of the sadness needs to linger. At the very least, let it linger at the beginning of the season so you can work through it in a powerful way, you know? It may have been tough to see Alucard be more closed off, but I think it would have been more satisfying to see him open up his heart and go back to his old self if we saw his trauma leave lingering effects at the beginning.

To me it didn’t feel like a satisfying arc, it felt like the fairytale ending of “oh look he’s not apprehensive about humanity even after what happened! Oh look he got the girl! And the Castle’s a happy place now! Look he’s not sad anymore! He’s even a father figure to these kids! He’s totally moved on!” And all those things can be awesome when done properly, and when they have depth to them. But they didn’t work through the trauma to get there, so it felt surface level to me, and too fast. I really liked that first episode, and how we saw the two sides of him—one that's become more closed off, and the other that still buries the human despite his comments—and I also really liked the first interaction with the kids, and thought that was one of the few interactions that had depth to it and fit with his arc well. Having it go beyond “they’re helping him learn to like and trust humanity again, and displaying who he really is inside” ended up detracting from the power of his relationship with them in my mind.

Having played SOTN, I think an ingrained loneliness and sadness are, in a way, a key part of Alucard’s character. That sounds really sad and awful out loud but…there are some people that just have a sadness or a loneliness to them, and that's not entirely bad. Here’s the thing…it can make them that much more beautiful. The fact that they still fight for good, even when they see all the dark, those moments when they find true friends, despite how alone they are, those moments when they are happy, are so much more powerful. They just are always a bit…separate from other people. One of my favorite lines in anything is the line "We are connected by our darkness, not by our light" in Pandora Hearts. I think it's a line that fits Alucard well, and it’s always something that’s drawn me personally to him. Don't get me wrong, I don’t think Alucard’s all dark and sad and lonely, he’s definitely got a bright side to him too, of course he does. But I also don't think he ever is able to fully accept the vampire side of himself, and I find that interesting, and worth exploring. Personally I was honestly hoping for the show makers to come up with a bittersweet reason for why he went to sleep for 300 years, (and I thought that's why they set things up with Sumi and Taka that he’d have something against his vampire nature). Personally it felt like they were trying to say “oh he’s all better now, he’ll never be sad or lonely again” and while that’s nice I suppose…for me it sort of…stops feeling like Alucard, in a way? I don't know if I'm explaining it right, or if that sounds terrible...😅

Anyways, back to the topic at hand. I do agree that’s very common of fandom that people are like “boom! Just add water! Instant father figure!” and I don’t love it either. Sometimes it can be cute if it truly fits, but it doesn’t fit every relationship between an adult-looking character and a kid character, and shouldn't be the first place people go to. In the same way every relationship doesn’t have to be romantic, not every relationship has to be parental/familial either. Sometimes it feels like fandom culture isn't really okay to have some characters just be good friends. A good friendship can be more wonderful than a romance sometimes.

If we have to put a label on it, I think he seemed like a nice older brother figure to them? I think that fits who he is in my mind. But father? Nope. Not for me. And again, I don’t think it needs a label.

Thanks again for sending me this ask!! It was nice to get the chance to work through some more of my feelings here too. Sorry if I went too overboard. And I hope I don’t sound too terribly negative, it really was a great season, and I definitely liked some parts of his arc, just not all of it.

If you or anyone else reading would like to discuss with me more, be my guest!! 💕

#alucard #castlevania #castlevania season four #castlevania s4 #castlevania s4 spoilers #castlevania season 4 #castlevania netflix #Adrian tepes #adrian fahrenheit tepes #Greta #greta castlevania #castlevania alucard #alucard castlevania #castlevania Greta #netflix castlevania #castlevania meta #castlevania spoilers #castlevania anime #asks #Castlevania asks #alucard meta #alucard asks

[beautifultypewriter]

Omg , i loved your ideas about Denethor's daughte . I got all the feels with this. I can't help to imagine how much she would relate to Eowyn's pain, them wanting to avenge Boromir and Theodred, how she would support her in her wish of joining the men of Rohan in combat. Can i ask you for some headcanons about them? It's just me or this two girls are awesome and could be amazing friends?

Oh thank you so much!! I think you mean they could be amazing sisters because yeah.

Being Boromir and Faramir’s younger sister and befriending Éowyn:

When you first arrive in Edoras with Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas, and Gandalf, you’re still mourning the loss of Boromir.

At the same time, Éowyn is mourning the loss of Theodred as well as the banishment of Éomer, so the two of you are in similar places and you can recognize that in each other.

You’re kind of drawn to her and when everything settles and your party is welcome in the city, you go to introduce yourself to her.

You two click right away. You have similar ideals and hopes and you both know what it’s like to want to deny expectations.

You’re both in mourning and this is actually the first time you’ve given yourself the chance to breathe and the chance to think of Boromir, so this is when you start to break.

Because prior to all of this, you had pushed all your feelings down. Now they were coming to the surface.

Éowyn is there for you in a way that none of your other friends can be. She understands your pain just as you understand hers and the two of you often sit together and speak quietly of your feelings and what it all means to you.

The comfort and compassion that the two of you show each other helps you form a strong bond of friendship and sisterhood.

You notice that she often eyes your sword with something akin to longing.

You ask her if she fights and she responds with not as much as she’d like to.

You feel that. Because you know that you’re not really supposed to have this sword, but you do and it wasn’t easy for you to get here.

The two of you will often sneak away from everyone else and train together.

When the Battle Of Helm’s Deep rolls around, you know you’ll be fighting because honestly who’s going to stop you?

But you also know that Éowyn has been forbidden to fight and you know how desperately she wants to defend her people, so you try to speak on her behalf, but it all falls on deaf ears.

So you leave her in the glittering caves with a hug and an apology. She tells you to be safe and fight hard.

Before the Rohirrim ride for the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, you help Éowyn secure her armor and you make sure she has everything she needs to fight.

When you see Éowyn and Faramir together, you get so excited because you know they’re perfect for each other.

You know she’s going to give him all the love he deserves and you know that he is going to treat her with the respect that she deserves.

Plus now she’s going to be your sister for real and honestly you’re more excited about that than anything else.

#eowyn x reader #lord of the rings headcanons #gondor girl

[fanficsforheartandsoul]

A Lost Jedi | [Fem!Reader] | Star Wars

Wooow, I wrote a second part :D

Notes: I do not live in the US, I’ve never been to Disneyland and I have no clue about writing

Fandom: Star Wars

Warnings: Non-Canon Story, Minor Swearing, Unrealistic Depiction of California, Non-Canon Timeline from Star Wars

Summary: Y/N, a Jedi padawan is lost on an unknown planet with her droid R7-S9. Her ship is destroyed and she cannot reach her Master. With the help of a kind human civilian, she was able to find a location where a Jedi outpost could be and where she might just find other members of the order...

Word Count: 2711

Part I

——–

“R7? You there?”

Her comlink stayed silent and Y/N cursed under her breath.

“Listen, buddy, I’m sorry for before. I mean we’re on an unknown planet without my Master and... I’m kinda scared, you know. So could you like, maybe... respond?”

Her fist clenched the comlink tighter as she ran around a corner. She pressed her back to the wall and checked the way she came from. No one seemed to have followed her. A relieved sigh left her lips and her shoulders relaxed slightly.

Beep. Woo-weep.

“Hey, my friend! Yes! Yes, of course!”, exclaimed the young Jedi and she couldn’t hide her relief. 

“Where are you right now?”

The droid whistled through the comlink and she blinked. 

“You... What? You found an outpost?!”

Some people turned heads in her direction and she reprimanded herself for being so loud. She had already cast some stir, it was better not to cause more.

“Are there any Jedi?”

While she had a whispered conversation with R7-S9 she saw some people with similar white hats checking out the crowd before her. Y/N already had her suspicions and decided to move. Better safe than sorry.

Wohoop Be-Weep Woo-Beep. Be-Beep!!

R7′s thrilled beeps and whistles made her laugh and the fact that he apparently found a Jedi made her heart leap. She would ask the Jedi for help, then contact her Master and the order and then finally, she would leave. Anakin and the 501′s were probably already waiting for her. She would apologize to the council and then go back into battle.

Her heart was pounding in anticipation as she followed the instructions of her astromech droid who was leading her to his location. 

While Y/N was rushing to get to him, R7-S9 watched a brown-haired woman in grey clothes. According to his scanners, she was a Jedi. The lightsaber on her waist was enough evidence. R7 whistled. Y/N would probably cry from happiness once she got here. A sound similar to a snicker escaped the droid.

“Mom, look!” 

The astromech droid turned his head and scanned the two approaching humans with his triangular eye. A female adult and a male child.

“That’s the droid from the parking lot!”

Small hands began to paw the droid and he shook in revolt. An angry chirp showed his disapproval and R7 extended his gripper arm with a shock module attached. He waved it in front of the child and whizzed some rather inappropriate insults.

Boop Be-Weep Wo-Beep Ba-Waap!!

“Woah, Honey! Maybe you shouldn’t get too close to it. It doesn’t seem to like it.”

The mother grabbed her child and stepped back to a safe distance. R7-S9 whistled in satisfaction and turned his head around only to register that the Jedi was gone.

Beep Boop!

“My, what do we have here?”

The astromech droid was startled and turned his head to the side only to notice the female Jedi right in front of him. It took him a moment but then he introduced himself and waved his gripper arm as a greeting.

“Are you lost, my little friend?”

R7-S9 chirped politely. He wasn’t lost, he was waiting for his ma- a voice interrupted his whistles. 

“R7, there you are!”

Both he and the female Jedi turned to see Y/N arrive. The padawan was out of breath and the droid analyzed her pounding heartbeat. 

“Man, some weird civilians started to follow me. We need to get to the Je- Wait a second. You!”

The brown-haired woman next to the astromech droid pointed a finger at herself.

“Me?”

-

Y/N just stared. The person before her also had a lightsaber. In fact, there seemed to be many people walking around with some sort of replica of the Jedi weapon. But none of them embraced the force. And with this woman, she felt the same. The force wasn’t engulfing her. 

That shouldn’t actually worry the padawan since her Master was able to completely hide her Jedi nature as a Jedi shadow but she still had doubts. 

The Jedi remembered the masked man who looked like a Sith. Now that she thought about it, she hadn’t felt the force when she stood before him. That person hadn’t made her feel like she would drop her lightsaber because of her trembling hands, he hadn’t shaken her balance with just his voice and the malice in it. Actually, that man had no trace of the fury, torment, and angst that surrounded a user of the dark side.

It was at this moment when Y/N realized. And it hit her like a brick.

She could not feel any Jedi or Sith on this planet because there were none.

-

“Adam, wait!”

The panting of his friend and assistant Marcus stopped the actor from following the woman. He turned around and looked at the stormtrooper mask that Marcus was wearing. 

“What are you doing? We’re still filming the video.”

Ah.

He remembered the camera and promptly took a look around. Jace waved at him and he just nodded since he couldn’t do more with Kylo Ren’s helmet on.

One of the people that escorted him and guaranteed his safety while in the park, took off his helmet and stepped closer to him.

“That wasn’t planned, Mr. Driver. We’re sorry for the ruckus. Security will take care of that lady, don’t worry.”

Adam straightened his hood. 

“I’d like to meet her again.”

He said these words without giving them too much thought and Marcus was obviously surprised. 

“Why?” 

“I...”

He couldn’t quite name what he felt when he saw the young woman but there was something weird going on. It was a gut feeling. 

“Let’s follow her. I think it will be entertaining.”

The actor couldn’t see his assistant’s face under the stormtrooper helmet but he was sure that Marcus just gave him a devastating look. He turned to Mr. West who planned the filming of the video. 

“It might be interesting. Could we change the route?”

While the producer talked with the team of Disneyland, Adam stared into the crowd. He remembered the moment when the woman had glared at him. Hatred and pain filled her eyes and he wondered where they found such a good actress. Then he remembered the words of the staff worker. That wasn't planned. Then who...?

-

It was a great day. She was finally here after weeks of begging and pleading. The grin that appeared on her lips in the morning was still there. She was smiling so hard, the corners of her mouth slightly hurt. Nothing could ruin this d-

"Leah, I told you to watch your brother!"

She sighed. Her eyes found Timothy standing not too far away with his back to the rest of the family.

"Tim, get back here, Mom's worried!", she called him but her brother didn't answer. He seemed spellbound by something.

But he wasn't the only one. Leah noticed how other park visitors started to crowd in front of them and they seemed to watch the same thing as her brother.

She approached Timothy and grabbed his shoulders.

"What are you looking at?"

"They're fighting, Le. Rey and that Girl!"

Her heart began to pound faster. Was this one of the special acts of Galaxy's Edge? She heard that some actors would randomly meet up and perform an Impro. Witnessing one would be an awesome memory. So she peered through the crowd and her eyes found the two subjects her brother was talking about. Her expression changed from excitement to shock.

"Tell me!"

She recognized the actress immediately who was playing Rey. She was sitting on the ground in a defensive position with her hand stretched out in front of her. The expression of the actress showed unease and Leah praised her for her good acting skills.

The other woman that Timothy mentioned was standing over Rey. Her appearance was foreign but clearly from Star Wars. Leah had never seen her before that's why she didn't recognize the character she was supposed to play. But from the lightsaber hilt on her hip, she was probably a Jedi.

"Where are the Jedi?!", shouted the female stranger and Rey cowered in fear.

"I-I don't know. Miss, you should calm down!"

Leah didn't even realize that she got out her phone and started recording.

"Why is everyone walking around with a lightsaber but no one is connected to the force?!"

Rey shook her head and made a sign with her hand. Neither the crowd nor the woman realized that It was a sign to call the security who protected the actress.

"The Fo-Force works in many ways. I don't know why you can't feel it, it's here. It surrounds us."

Leah's phone was on Rey and she almost squealed in excitement when she heard the words only a true Jedi would say. That's why she didn't expect the answer that was coming from the strange woman.

"True, it does surround me but your connection to the force is weak.”

Gasps erupted from the crowd and her brother shouted angrily: “Rey is the strongest Jedi!”

Leah gripped his shoulder and a shiver ran down her spine when the woman slightly turned her head to look at Timothy. It was just a glance but it was powerful and even though she was impressed by the skills of the actress, she couldn’t stop the thought that maybe, just maybe, the woman wasn’t an actress but something else.

“So you call yourself a Jedi, huh. Can you even use your lightsaber?”

The prop on Rey’s hip flew into her hand. Surprised chatter escaped the surrounding people and more phones surfaced and started recording the odd improv. The woman pressed the activation button but nothing happened. Obviously, it was just a prop. 

The expression on the stranger’s face distorted. A sudden beep alarmed Leah and she turned the camera to focus on a droid that looked similar to R2-D2. My god, Disneyland is so good with props! 

The robot beeped again and wheeled towards the two women and only then did the girl realize that it must be the companion of Rey’s counterpart. 

And then a lot of things happened at the same time. 

The crowd shuffled and split and five seemingly harmless park visitors appeared. But they had walkie talkies on their hip and wore all the same hat. 

“Ma’am, please step away from Rey. You are disturbing the park and would like for you to come with us. If you do not comply we will have to use force.”

At the same time, the woman crushed the lightsaber prop in her hand. With sheer astonishment could the crowd watch how Rey’s lightsaber hilt turned to dust. 

“What is this...? Where are the Jedi? M-Master...” 

Leah probably was the only one who heard the woman. She was shocked that they apparent actress was, in fact, none and the security guards had shown up. 

One of the guards took a step forward and wanted to grab the woman but he froze as soon as a yellow glow enlightened his face. 

“Do not take a step closer!”

It was only for a second but she saw it. The distinctive shape of a lightsaber like in the movies. It was pointed at the security guard but the next second it was gone and the woman with it. What... what just happened?

-

Tears streamed down her face as she ran away from the crowd using the force to hide. Her Master’s technique had probably saved her life this time. Like many times before. 

“Master...” 

A big lump formed in her throat and she tried to regain her focus, her peace, but the Jedi and their codex seemed so far away for the moment. How could she stay calm when she had no way to contact her Master and leave this planet?! Emotions seemed tempting and it took all her concentration to stop the tears and at least try to keep some of her Jedi dignity. 

She didn’t realize that she had left R7-S9 once again behind and that the astromech droid tried to follow her while scanning the environment for heat signatures furiously. And neither did she notice that she would collide with a stranger if she continued to walk tha-

A muffled oof and two strong arms that held her in place made her regain her focus. 

Y/N looked up and she recognized the mask of the Sith impersonator. She understood that the Force veil had somehow lifted and she was now visible again. 

“There you are.”

The words were void of any threat or danger and the padawan just stared. Her expression had turned to stone and the only things who showed how emotional she was ten seconds ago were the wet streams on her cheeks. 

His appearance had lost any dangerous air when she had realized that there were no Jedi or Sith in the park. 

“What do you want?”

Her voice was slightly nasal because of her crying but she ignored it. 

“You seem lost.”

A raspy laugh escaped her lips. How right the man was. 

“What if I am?”

-

Adam almost forgot that the young woman was still in his arms when he spotted the cameraman in the corner of his eye and he immediately let go of her and took a step back. Kylo Ren wouldn’t hold a woman like that. Maybe Rey but not a stranger. 

The tear stains gave her a somber aura and he focused on her cold expression. He wanted to ask if she was okay but they were still filming and his persona would never ask that. He thought about his response for a second and then said:

“Join me.”

Her eyebrows narrowed for a second and she took a step back. A rational choice.

“For what? I know you’re not a Sith.”

The spark of anger he saw when they met the first time was gone. Her indifference towards him now struck him and spiked his interest.

“I am not a Sith, that is correct. The Sith are gone.” 

She eyed him carefully. Her hand slipped to her hip.

“Then what are you?”

He wanted to stay in character and respond like Kylo Ren would but he saw Mr. West behind the woman with his thumbs up and he sighed.

With a smooth movement, he took off his helmet and revealed his face and identity.

“I’m Adam Driver.”

-----------

“Star Wars fans are going wild because of viral video filmed in Disneyland California. Many believe that Disneyland just teased a new movie and its main character. After The Rise of Skywalker, fans are thirsting for some new content. In this clip...”

Leah just watched the video in silence. It was the scene that she filmed earlier this day. It was from another angle so the person must have stood on the opposite side of the crowd. 

“The woman has been seen several times in the park. She knocked down Kylo Ren and his troops and fled the scene.”

That information was new and Leah was surprised when they showed another video clip from that moment. It seemed like the actors were really pushed by something invisible. 

“How do they do that?”, she asked loudly and pondered for a moment.

“Disney hasn’t made a statement yet but the first clip shows how security shows up so the possibility of the woman being an actress to announce a new movie is small.”

Leah stopped the video. If that weird woman wasn’t an actress how could she knock down the other actors? Did they prank each other?”

The wheels in her head were turning and she continued to watch some more videos about the strange event. 

Youtube and Twitter were exploding with news about the woman after all.

.

.

.

“Adam Driver? You want me to join you on driving an Adam?”

The man that had just revealed his black hair and brown eyes stared at her in bewilderment.

“What?”

He seemed so shocked he didn’t continue.

“He’s an actor, Miss”, said one of the men with the white helmets behind him who tried to hold back his laughter. The Adam Driver turned around and gave him a look. 

“An actor?”

Y/N didn’t quite understand.

“Adam Driver is his name.”

Oh.

#star wars #adam driver #Jedi #Sith #Kylo Ren #padawan #Rey #the force awakens #droid #anakin skywalker #fanfiction #fanfic #reader insert #female reader #fem reader #x fem reader #Luke Skywalker #reader #fanficsforheartandsoul

[where-fading-princesses-live]

double standards

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[thanksjro]

More Than Meets the Eye #2- Yet Another Robot Falls Out of the Sky

Issue #2 opens with a phone call between Brainstorm and Rodimus, and it’s going well, all things considered. They only get sidetracked twice in their 30 second conversation, which is honestly pretty good for them.

Brainstorm and Perceptor have managed to suss out what exactly happened to make the quantum generators explode as fantastically as they did. Brainstorm’s calling now as opposed to after all the testing Perceptor wants to do, because he’s impatient and is so self-assured that he’s already got the answer, it might actually kill him to wait.

Yep, Brainstorm’s that guy who walks around talking on speakerphone in the middle of work. Is he doing it to keep Perceptor in the loop while he’s busy working on the generators? If he is, he’ll never admit it, because he’s too tsundere to admit he wants to be noticed by his science senpai.

Brainstorm, much like a majority of the Lost Light crew, has a complicated relationship with relationships.

Rodimus tells Brainstorm to get his butt out in the field, so they can find the rest of the ‘bots who got thrown through the stratosphere after the quantum jump, then takes another call from Chromedome, who’s over with Rewind and Hound pulling Cyclonus out of a lake. Chromedome and Rewind have run into the guy who committed an act of terror on their former place of employment twice in the last few hours. We’ll see just how the hell he wound up there a bit later on. What’s important in the here and now is the fact that we’ve gotten our first glimpse at Rewind’s magic color-changing pants.

Issue #1

Issue #2

What a strange and terrible power this tiny robot holds.

Up in the sky, a small yellow ship vops into existence from a portal that looks very similar to the one the Lost Light went through during their quantum oopsie. Inside, we find a guy who apparently fell asleep while holding a lit weld torch and a gun. He’s got no idea what’s going on, or who he is, or that he’s in grave danger.

Honestly, not the WORST name I’ve ever heard out of Transformers.

No, actually, that’s not his name, but rather some repressed trauma trying to work its way back up to the surface. His real name is Skids, and he’s just kind of making it up as he goes at this point, as he sets the ship to crash into the planet below and jumps out.

Now that’s just gratuitous.

This is about par for the course when it comes to Skids- he’s just so very extra, all the time.

The ship crashes behind him, and it would appear that vague sense of paranoia was completely justified, as the burning remains reconstitute themselves into multiple giant robots with swords.

So we’re gonna have to deal with that.

Back over on the Lost Light, Rung’s getting patched up by Ratchet, and we get our first taste of his perpetual forgettability. Of course, Rung knows who Ratchet is, because everyone does, and butters him up for no real reason other than he can, I suppose. Or rather, because Roberts was feeling a bit cruel.

Twist the knife a little more, why don’t you?

Of course, Rung’s assumptions are quickly dashed against the rocks, as Ratchet proceeds to loosen up his sticky fingers by smashing his hand with a mallet right beside him.

As Ratchet reattaches Rung’s arm, they get to talking about their new friend, Tailgate, who’s still passed out. Swerve’s watching over him, because he’s just a nice guy like that.

That’s the smallest Tailgate’s feet will ever be.

Drift calls the medical bay to let him know that they’ll be bringing in the guys who fell out of the ship, so Ratchet should put on a smile so they’ll feel better. This, of course, doesn’t sit well with Ratchet, who starts griping about Drift’s newfound hippy-dippy state of mind, a result of him having almost died back during the Chaos storyline. Swerve, never one to miss out on a good trash-talk session, starts feeding the fire, until Ratchet gets distracted and burns Rung by mistake.

Then Whirl wakes up and starts strangling people.

Whirl wasn’t meant to be on board this ship, and he probably hasn’t seen Rung since he got booted from the Wreckers, so waking up from a fight still raring to go and finding the guy who tried to make him connect with his Feelings™ hovering over him was bound to start some nonsense.

Ratchet tries to talk him down again, with Swerve “assisting”, but nothing seems to be getting through to Whirl until Rung threatens him with prison time. Whirl doesn’t like prison, to put it lightly, so he snaps out of his stupor, drops Rung, and leaves the medibay. No one is particularly sad to see him go.

All this commotion must have woken up Tailgate, who’s introduced to the others. He asks if he’s on board the Ark- you know, the one from roughly six million years ago- and suddenly all the weirdly ancient internal parts Ratchet found inside him start making a lot more sense. Swerve bribes Ratchet with food to get to be the one to break the news to Tailgate.

It goes about as well as one could expect.

Back over with Skids, we see that not everyone survived the fall through the stratosphere, as the burning bodies of Hyperion and Polaris sit in the foreground as Skids prepares to face off with the giant yellow robots.

Corpse desecration! Fun for the whole family!

Polaris slams into one of the yellow robots. Thinking quickly, Skids makes a makeshift bomb out of Polaris and a gun, blasting his fuel tank and making a very big explosion.

There’s still another robot to deal with, but it looked pretty cool.

Back on the Lost Light, Cyclonus seems to have recovered from his dip in the lake, and he’s finally getting his meeting with Rodimus.

They’re so awkward. I thought you two were supposed to cool.

Also, major dumbass points to Cyclonus for tying himself to the roof of the ship like camping gear on the top of a family sedan, and making it through a goddamned quantum jump.

Here we get a glimpse at the thought process behind Rodimus even bothering to be in the same room as this guy: Cyclonus turning on Galvatron back in Chaos probably gave him and Optimus an extra few seconds to save the entirety of reality from the Dead Universe. That’s a pretty big solid, and he recognizes that. However, there’s still the whole Kimia thing, which was pretty un-chill of Cyclonus to have been a part of.

It probably doesn’t help that the Venn diagram for “Lost Light crew-members” and “dudes who were on Kimia when shit went down” is practically a circle.

Yeah, Cyclonus kind of isn’t allowed to have friends until issue #21.

Cyclonus isn’t going to apologize for what happened on Kimia, because- and this is honestly a pretty fair point- virtually everyone on this friggin’ ship is a war criminal and ought to know the score by now. War is hell, y’all. He doesn’t want a fight, he just wants to cruise around on this space-yacht and chill out for a little while.

Like, perhaps love?

Nah, that’s crazy-talk. He’s too stoic and emotionally-dead inside for all that.

Rodimus hears him out, and agrees to let him stay on the ship, on the condition that he’s going to have to deal with Rodimus being the guy who’s going to judge his every move, like an easily-disappointed father. Rodimus will be Cyclonus’ Optimus.

Ultra Magnus comes in to add that if Cyclonus screws up, he’ll be breaking out the heavy hammer of justice to pound him flat.

Also, he brought Whirl. It’s time for Cyclonus and him to kiss and make up.

What a beautiful start to this friendship.

Back outside, Swerve’s accompanying Tailgate on a cool-down walk, so he doesn’t pass out due to stress twice in a 24-hour period. He’s probably uncomfortable when people start crying, which is a staple of the Tailgate-brand freakout.

I looked into this, and unless I missed something, the “overheating optical filaments due to emotional stress fizzing up and away from the eye” thing is the only real instance of Transformers being able to cry. Roberts really made the robots have a physiological response equivalent to crying so he could hurt them more thoroughly.

As they walk, Swerve starts asking questions, because he’s incapable of shutting up- literally, he has logorrhea. He asks to see Tailgate’s alt-mode, what he did for a living before he fell in the hole, what the ruined decal on his arm used to say, and it turns out that Tailgate’s a pretty interesting little dude. He was on a bomb disposal squad with the Primal Vanguard.

The two of them catch sight of Rewind and Chromedome on a cliff, and Swerve makes introductions, comparing the pair to Rack’n’Ruin in terms of closeness, Rack’n’Ruin being two robots who share a lower body. 

You know, when it’s put like that it sounds a bit dirty, doesn’t it?

Skids falls into the scene, and demands that someone take the Inhibitor Claw off of his back. Chromedome obliges, because he’s the only one tall enough to reach Skids’ upper body. Once the thing’s off, Skids’ can activate his onboard weaponry, which he does with aplomb.

Chromedome, you fool! You’ve made him too cool!

As Skids kicks the ass of this mystery ‘bot, more of his memories come back, until all he’s missing is the short-term stuff. Once he’s done, everyone tells him how awesome he is, Swerve having maybe fallen in love just a bit, as he asks just what Skids’ whole deal is.

Skids is a theoretician, which means he forms/develops/studies the theoretical framework of a subject. I can’t imagine that pays too well, maybe that’s why he’s moonlighting as a hired gun or whatever.

Chromedome seems to know Skids, and invites him back to the Lost Light so they can try and figure out what exactly is going on with his brain, and also that gun that he’s been holding in his hand this entire time, but never noticed or used.

Yeah, that one.

Tailgate’s wandered off to get a closer look at the robot Skids annihilated, getting its last words: nineteen eighty-four. Guess he really likes Orson Welles as an author.

The Lost Light takes off, and as everyone congregates on the bridge, Rodimus wonders just what the hell he’s going to say to them all. Between Ultra Magnus’ bleak starkness and Drift’s blindingly sunshiney outlook, he figures that he’ll just wing it.

Down below, Swerve’s managed to convince Tailgate to try transforming, by way of talking his ear off, then walks away the moment he begins the conversion- he’s a little stiff, so it’s going to take a minute. Swerve starts chatting Skids up and poking him in the ass, because that’s what you do when you want to be friends with someone. And Swerve really, really wants to be friends with Skids.

Skids doesn’t really cotton to this whole questing thing the Lost Light’s trying to do, and asks for a little more clarification on just what exactly they’re trying to accomplish. He’s not super impressed with the information once he has it.

Rodimus, having collected himself enough to face the crew, announces the deaths of Ore, Polaris, and Hyperion, and that while their collective passing is very sad, they’ve got to press on with their journey. Their next scheduled stop is Crystal City, once they figure out where the hell that quantum explosion dumped them.

Whirl brings up the fact that every good adventure team has a sweet name. Swerve tries to pull a Chaos Theory Optimus and take back the suffix -cons by calling themselves the Crusadercons, but nobody seems too keen on that idea. Don’t worry, Swerve, you’ll get there one day.

While the boys try to name themselves, Rodimus is given the phone. Red Alert’s on the line, and he’s freaking out, because there’s a murderous monster on board the ship.

You can tell the art style hasn’t settled yet, because they’re still photoshopping the insignias on after the fact.

A sparkeater is a major problem, but it’ll have to wait until next month to be dealt with, because that’s our cliffhanger ending for this issue.

#transformers #jro #mtmte #liars A-to-D #issue 2 #maccadam #Hannzreads #text post #long post #comic script writing

[itsclydebitches]

RWBY Recaps: The Shining Beacon Part 2

I miss RWBY. Specifically, I miss early RWBY when there was less drama (not really but let me pretend), so let’s head on back to Volume 1.

In our opening scene of Episode 3, Ruby and Jaune have managed to find the hall where the rest of the newbies are meeting and honestly? I’m super proud of them for it. These are the two fools who will later argue over who had the map while wandering around the wilds of Remnant. Baby leaders managing to find the rest of their flock? Great job. Well done. Mama’s proud.

This little time skip raises some questions though. Did they ever find the Beacon cafeteria? What else did they chat about the rest of the day? Yang makes it sound like they’ve been gone a number of hours and I for one would love to know what awkward Ruby and even-more-awkward Jaune got up to during that time.

Tis the realm of fics though, not canon. Instead we get another shot of RWBY’s infamous shadow people with Yang standing out like the goddamn sun.

Who could the main character possibly be??

Beats me. What a gosh darn difficult question.

Yang: Ruby! I saved you a spot.

Are... are there spots, Yang? You’re all standing in a giant auditorium. If Ruby comes to stand beside you is another student gonna throw a fit about it? I mean real talk, I went to watch the changing of the guard while spending a month in London and let me tell you, there were people who guarded their spots like a pissed off bird guarding her eggs. (For the record you couldn’t even see anything. This was just human prickliness at its finest). So who knows, maybe Yang knows precisely what she’s doing.

Ruby abandons Jaune to join her, which on the one hand is kinda mean—you can’t invite your new friend to stand around with you?—but Ruby does say she’ll “see [him] after the ceremony,” so that’s nice and all. I know my anxious ass would have been thrilled to hear someone making future plans like that, even if it’s mostly just a nicety. Making new friends is hard.

Of course, Jaune doesn’t make that job any easier on himself. I’ve written before about his Nice Guy tendencies in the early volumes and they come back in full force here. He bemoans Ruby’s leave, asking himself where he’ll find “another nice, quirky girl to talk to?” It’s an easy introduction for Pyrrha, revealing her behind Jaune and quite obviously setting her up as that “nice, quirky” girl who he’ll become closest to as the episodes progress, but jeez, Manic Pixy Girl assumptions abound. Especially given the fact that Jaune/Pyrrha became canon in Volume 3. Obviously Pyrrha will be written with great depth as RWBY continues, but it does rankle a bit to have her introduced as a Ruby stand-in, someone positioned as a way of fulfilling Jaune’s ridiculous “needs.” I’m glad this is undermined later when she takes initiative towards him, i.e. saving him during initiation and angling to be his partner. Her interest is clear even if at that point Jaune will take anyone pretty: Ruby, Weiss, Pyrrha herself.

But I digress.

Ruby gives her whole spiel about meeting Weiss and Yang’s response is, “Yikes. Meltdown already?” heavily implying that she expected Ruby to have a “meltdown” at this school, just not so soon. Which—iffy terminology aside—isn’t at all surprising. RWBY does an excellent job of setting up Ruby’s nerves, from her “bee’s knees” comment to her eagerness in showing Weiss exactly what she’s capable of. The girl is desperate for validation—as is the whole RWBYJNPR gang, in their own ways—and a lot of that comes out as anxious, social awkwardness. If Ruby was at all inclined towards “meltdowns” at Signal then I’d say she did a damn good job holding herself together through everything that happened at Beacon. Granted, being put in a position of power will help with that, at least on a surface level. To semi-quote Oz, how can you expect others to put forth their best if you’re not constantly doing the same? Ruby has the veneer of self-control down now because she had to for her team... which makes me anticipate her inevitable breaking point all the more. We saw in Volume Six how close Ruby got to dropping her ‘I’m an endlessly put together leader’ persona with Qrow drinking himself to oblivion, but she never quite got there. I’m waiting (hoping really) that Ruby’s long-established anxiety will finally be addressed, what with Yang having made good headway in that department and all the shit they’ve gone through adding up to a very justified breakdown.

Let the poor girl really falter for once and let the rest of the group grapple with that. Everyone deserves it.

I’m jumping six volumes ahead though. Here and now Ruby is still telling Yang all about her horrible encounter, segueing into how she “just wanted her to stop yelling” which of course is the perfect moment for Weiss to sneak up behind her with a loud “YOU!” (Jaune’s comment linking to Pyrrha; Ruby’s comment linking to Weiss—RT enjoys writing these little bridges, particularly for introducing new characters).

I love this moment simply for how much it tells us about Weiss. Largely in retrospect. Because while her trailer song is definitely on the nose in some respects—“I’m the loneliest of all”—it’s not until later on that we realize exactly how abusive Weiss’ family is and how isolated she’s been for the whole of her upbringing. This girl has absolutely no experience interacting with people outside of the Schnee/everyone else hierarchy (note in a moment how she assumes that Ruby will want to “make it up to [her]”) so if you’re suddenly surrounded by people for the first time who aren’t fawning over your name and money and dust connections... what do you? How do you get some vaguely positive attention? Oh okay, guess I’ll force it! Here Weiss is claiming that she never wants Ruby to speak to her again, but she’s the one who barged in on their conversation and loudly drawing attention to herself. Weiss is starved for healthy validation while simultaneously stuck in the behavior she’s been taught: asking for attention solely by trying to show off— here’s a rambling summary of the Schnee Dust Company’s disclaimer look at what a good puppet I am—or by insulting others. Weiss mocks Ruby’s genuine offer to buy school supplies together but then doesn’t move away from her and Yang once the announcements start. She doesn’t know how to say ‘yes’ to any offers of friendship, but she also doesn’t want to say ‘no.’

Interestingly, that moment also tells us a fair bit about Ruby. Not just by re-emphasizing how kind she is by extending the offer to start this relationship over, but also adding weight to the headcanon that Ruby is neurodivergent. Weiss’ heavy sarcasm about how they can “go shopping, paint our nails, and talk about cute boys” goes right over Ruby’s head. She responds with a “Wow! Really?” similar to the “...can you?” heard right before she attacks the Nevermore during initiation. Ruby has a history of not just being awkward but missing a lot of ‘normal’ social cues as well.

The girls’ bonding is interrupted when Ozpin begins his speech and boy oh boy do I love this moment too. Anyone who reads my metas knows that I’m a firm defender of our disaster headmaster, especially after volume 6, and looking back this scene is the PERFECT example of how RT tries to make Ozpin seem shady... while really failing to accomplish that. Obscuring eyes/the whole face is a super easy way to tell the viewer that this is an Untrustworthy Character. See: every horror movie where the villain’s face is obscured by shadows, our own dear Adam who keeps his face hidden with a mask, etc. It serves to dehumanize the character, keeping us from seeing some of the most expressive parts of their bodies, and equates one thing they’re hiding—such as a deformity. Yay ableism! /s—with other things they’re keeping from the heroes; secrets, sinister intentions, and the like. The primary exception to this are characters who wear masks for defined and morally acceptable reasons. i.e. superheroes who need to keep their secret identities intact and, notably, aren’t withholding that information from the viewer. We as the audience usually know who they are and thus aren’t inclined to distrust the character based on secret-keeping.

Awesome superpowers aside, Ozpin doesn’t fit within the mold of superhero, so all of this reads as pretty damning:

Like holy shit, friends. With the exception of one moment, 

notably when Ozpin informs them that “knowledge will only carry you so far,” the cinematography goes out of its way to hide his eyes, if not his entire face. Oz comes across as super shady here, compounded by the close up and centered shot of Ruby’s silver eyes to contrast. Compounded further by the exchange Ruby and Yang have afterwards about how he seemed “kind of off”—an exchange that doesn’t precisely fit with in-world logic (how does Yang know what Ozpin is normally like?), but serves as a clear message to the viewer: Something is UP with this guy.

The problem? This isn’t Ozpin’s introduction.

Imagine a series where in Episode One we only hear about a powerful Beacon headmaster. Someone who bends the rules and let’s Ruby in two years early for reasons unknown. Then by Episode Three we see this guy almost insulting the new group of students (Yang’s eyes narrow when Ozpin says he sees only “wasted energy in need of purpose”) and the entire time the camera refuses to give us a good look at him. That would have set up a character who is legitimately creepy. Someone we know instinctively might not really be on our side.

Instead our introduction to Ozpin is this.

He’s smiling and charming and legitimately kind. He listens to why Ruby wants to come to Beacon before making his decision (aka establishing her agency here). He shares a fond “Aww, you know I’m gonna get what I want” look with Glynda. He brings cookies, for god’s sake. Ozpin’s supposed shadiness falls completely flat here because we’ve already developed positive feelings for him, notably while he was with our protagonist and his BFF headmistress. The intimacy in Episode One implies that this is the “real” Ozpin, whereas a formal speech in front of (from the audience’s perspective) a literally faceless mass sets this up as a “fake” Ozpin, one that comes out when he feels the needs to be stern with incoming students. Or, based on information we learn later, when he’s pulling from another personality.

All of which isn’t a criticism of RT’s writing. Rather, given what we now know definitively from Volume Six, I don’t think they were invested in making Ozpin into a legitimately shady character. What RWBY is invested in is poking at or outright dismantling a lot of tropes and conventions, which is essentially what they did here. “You EXPECT the secretive, powerful headmaster to be a morally gray kind of guy... so we’re just not even gonna go there. Not really.”

But back to the actual plot. Jaune ends the scene by sliding up and announcing that he’s a natural blonde, another excellent example of precisely the thing women aren’t looking for in a guy. He knows Ruby now so it’s totally cool for him to re-join her, but using that as an excuse to start talking about his looks? Nah. Remember folks, women generally like it when you treat them as more than just a romantic and/or sexual conquest!

But enough about Jaune. We cut to that night where all the newbie students—way more than we’ll actually see throughout the rest of the series—are crowded together in Beacon’s hall, which from a world building perspective is a really great choice. I love what it says about Beacon as an institution: We’re not giving you rooms yet because we believe that most of you will fail the initiation (or at least that’s the impression they want to give the students). There’s a sense of ‘roughing it’ with simple mats and no personal space, the sort of things they’d have to get used to if they’re out traveling as huntsmen later in life. The overall emphasis on community and team work. Like the teams of four, Beacon is invested in setting up situations where the students are forced to work with one another. Particularly with those they might otherwise avoid.

That’s precisely the sort of interaction we get in a moment, but first: a tangent. Okay. So in previous metas—mostly Volume Six stuff—I’ve gotten a lot of pushback for my use of the term “kids” to describe the RWBY gang. Which I get. Post-Beacon most of them are legally adults by our standards and they’re certainly doing Adult Things nowadays. I do think there’s a lot of interesting nuances here—the fact that our protagonist and arguably most significant character plot-wise (Oscar) are both still underage, asking whether Remnant even views age in the same way we do, whether hitting the magical age of 18 suddenly gives you any more insight or maturity than you had at 17 or 16, acknowledging that they were never meant to be out in the world fighting this war and making these decisions yet, so we shouldn’t conflate traumatic necessity with emotional growth—but for the most part fans don’t want to grapple with those sorts of questions. There’s a knee-jerk reaction (particularly from those who are around the group’s age) of, “Most of them are 18. They’re not kids so stop acting like they are.” RWBY has raised a lot of questions for me regarding how I balance “Kids/teens/young adults are people with agency and more maturity than people tend to give them credit for” with “I remember how much of a kid I still was at 18 and know precisely how much I’ve grown in the decade since. I was not an adult then, no matter what the law said.” It’s a matter of acknowledging generational experience without turning into one of those, “Bah! Kids don’t know what the hell they’re talking about” curmudgeons. I’m an adult with a father who dismisses everything I say because he’s got—and will always have—50+ years on me. I’m well aware that it sucks.

Why am I bringing all this up again? Because this scene is just so kid-ish. It’s wonderfully young and carefree! Ruby is writing a letter to her friends in cutesy grimm PJs. Yang slides over with a comment about how it’s just like a sleepover. They acknowledge that Tai would not be pleased with all the boys around while Yang ogles the shirtless guys and Jaune wanders around in a footed one piece. This entire scene has a distinctly middle school or early high-school vibe. Not that adults don’t hang out and chat in super comfy PJs—we totally do—but rather that viewers know how scenes like these are coded. They’re supposed to look young here and even though experience has most certainly aged them, even though about two years have passed since this moment... that’s still only two years. I have a difficult time accepting that we should now view the group’s decisions as irrevocably Adult and Mature (cough-airship-cough) when such a short time ago they weren’t either of these things. And they weren’t meant to be those things. Not yet. I wish that these later Volumes of RWBY were more interested in exploring the concept of (yes) kids forced into the role of adults, as opposed to trying desperately to pretend that they’re adults already with a more worthwhile voice than people with 10, 20, or in Ozpin’s case, a 1,000 years more experience than them.

Anyway. Enough ranting for one recap.

Ruby shares her fears about not making any friends and Yang has her “You’ve just made one friend and one enemy!” line before giving her little sis a legitimate pep-talk. She explains that there are friends all around Ruby, “you just haven’t met them yet.” A near identical perspective to what we heard from Jaune last episode. Which is hilarious given that ten seconds ago Yang was pseudo-insulting the guy.

Seriously though, how is there not more Jaune-Yang interaction in canon? They’re got so much more in common than just blonde hair and anger management issues.

Cue another segue. Right after Yang finishes talking about future friends Ruby catches a sound off screen and we get our first look at Blake since the courtyard.

Yang quite literally drags Ruby over and it is an excellent display of siblings being siblings.

Blake recognizes Ruby as “the girl who exploded” and honestly I’m sad that this didn’t become a moniker for her in the same way “vomit boy” did for Jaune. Nothing like being defined by your embarrassing moments and ridiculous habits to encourage true bonding! My BFF calls me Trout and I call her Hunter and no, I will not expand on the ridiculousness that was my middle school years.

I mean, Ruby starts to tell Blake that she can call her crater face before realizing that this might not be the best idea. The girl is awkward af and I love her.

Yang: What are you doing??

Ruby: I don’t know help me!

God they’re so fucking relatable.

Yang manages to get Blake’s name out of her and then makes the mistake of commenting on her bow. Granted, Blake doesn’t show any overt signs of discomfort here—that would have been too obvious even by RWBY’s standards—but looking back we can assume that any conversation veering towards the one thing she wants to hide wouldn’t exactly endear her to these girls. Blake gets pretty rude by saying that she’ll continue to enjoy her book just as soon as they leave. Yang gets ruder by announcing, right next to Blake, that she’s a “lost cause.”

The book is Ruby’s in though. Now it’s less small talk and more legit interest as she asks what Blake is reading. The fandom has acknowledge to death the “It’s about a man with two souls, fighting for control” line and how that obviously relates to the Ozpin-Oscar situation, but beyond that I’m interested in the fact that we never learn the title of this book. Normally that wouldn’t mean much (only so much world building you can do and book titles aren’t necessarily the sort of thing RT wants to waste time on), except that Ruby specifically asks for it and Blake delves straight into the summary. I wonder if perhaps this specific text will show up again in future volumes. I don’t have any real evidence for the hunch, just the fact that we now know Ozpin has put stories out into the world that relate to his situation, namely The Maidens fairy tale. I have to wonder if perhaps other lives of his created art as a way of coping with their situation—unknowingly truthful accounts that people like Blake read, oblivious to the ways that this fiction might be setting them up to be more empathetic towards the same situation in real life. It just stands out to me that we’re not given a title or author here; that Blake was one of the ones to learn about Ozpin’s immortality off screen (denying us her initial reaction); that comparatively she was one of the more sympathetic during that awful moment out in the snow. It would be awesome if the “lol Blake is a nerd who sometimes reads porn” aspect of her personality actually sets her up to be one of the more understanding people in Volume 7.

Basically, please give me super nerd Blake who starts warming back up to Ozpin because she finds out he’s authored a bunch of her favorite books lol. Or at the very least she realizes that she’s now living the stories she’s long adored; she’s been given the opportunity to extend real support to someone so very like the characters she’s felt for all these years...

RWBY does love its meta.

Ruby admits to loving books too, particularly the fantastical stories that Yang used to read her. Blake is far more pessimistic.

Blake: Hoping you’ll live happily ever after? 

Ruby: I’m hoping we all will.

Hello, conflict of the entire series. As well as many fans’ hope for how it will all turn out. I’m personally not at all interested in a 7+ year investment with this cast only to watch them end on a bleak, or even bittersweet note. Despite what some might claim nowadays, happy endings are far from overrated. Given the state of the world, happy endings are radical.

Blake tells Ruby that her dreams are “Very ambitious for a child,” one of the very few indicators we’ve gotten (along with Weiss’ “Aren’t you a little young to be here?”) that the rest of the students recognize on sight that Ruby is younger than them. I’ve literally never heard one child refer to another, same-age acquaintance as “child.” Especially not when they’re hinting strongly that they’re being naive.

Yang is SUPER proud of that optimism though and starts a tackle hug that leads to them fighting cartoon style, complete with stars, cat noises, and dust clouds. The racket of course brings Weiss over. And by “of course” I mean “Oh look, another excuse she can use to go talk to the only people she knows here.”

We get another handful of great lines—Ruby has known Weiss a day but she was “always on [her] side,” Weiss exclaims that Ruby is “a hazard to [her] health”—but the episode is basically over. Blake blows out her candles and that’s that.

Meanwhile, I can’t believe I just wrote nearly four thousand words on a six minute episode. I’m gonna go re-think my life choices.

Minor Things of Note

“You’re lucky we weren’t blown off the side of the cliff!” Hey there, episode four foreshadowing! Also, Weiss, you guys are nowhere near a cliff. You’re so dramatic.

You can really see the difference in their expressions when Oz gives his speech. Ruby and Yang looked pumped and joyous. Weiss is anxious and unsure.

Still super interested in Ozpin actually using his cane as he leaves the stage. Probably just a random animation choice before they worked out all his character kinks, but if we imagine that his host was currently speaking maybe that’s a quirk specific to him.

We never again hear about “the gang back at Signal” that Ruby is writing to. Just like we never see the friends Yang apparently entered Beacon with (and weren’t meant to given that they were also shadow people). Not that RWBY needs any more characters to keep track of, but from an in-world perspective it is a little strange that they were supposedly super close to all these people and then just... never mention them again lol. 

#rwby #rwby recaps #mymetas #the shining beacon pt. 2

[rileysroleplayingephemera]

Soooo... in the RP I’m currently in, all the PCs have fallen for this one (awesome) NPC, to a greater or lesser extent. Also, I would totally be on board for him to have a side romance with another NPC (not a specific one, just, I’d be down for that. Mohammed is eminently shipable).

Also, we found out in the last session that he’s literally a millionaire doctor with huge emotional issues (well, we knew some of that already) which makes him a literal Harlequin Presents hero.

Anyway, I have no chill, so I made THESE.

Bonus: My character with his husband

Yes, they’re all supposed to be this horrible.

Fake romance novel summaries under the cut, because I am steadily losing the ~negative 50 chill I have.

Sheikh’s Desert Duty

A fake mistress... in a very real predicament!

Pamela Martel is used to changing her identity to suit herself and keep the authorities off her trail, but high society is not a place she’s comfortable. High heels and evening gowns don’t exactly scream ‘rebel, rebel’. But she’s not sending another man she loves into the lion’s den alone.

Mohammed Bashir might not be at ease in this world, but he’s a lot more familiar with it than she is. His father’s reputation can get them in - but it can’t keep their enemies’ watchful eyes off Mohammed. He knows Pam is the only way to get the information they need... but he also knows they can’t afford any distractions.

But as the situation grows steadily more precarious, and Pam and Mohammed are forced to depend on each other for more than backup, it becomes clear that one thing neither of planned for was their hearts.

“...immensely satisfying...” - theringer.com

Desert Affair

She’s far from home... and trapped in Paradise!

Kaelyn Howard never planned to get swept up in world events - but now she’s targeted by terrorists and on the run from the law, trying desperately to stay alive, get out of the country... and reconnect with the daughter she never knew.

With fellow fugitive Mohammed Bashir, Kit is forced to flee the United States - running straight to his father’s luxurious empire. But there’s more to reckon with than their enemies - there’s her painful history, her complicated feelings, and Mohammed’s dark and mysterious past - which may put them all in even more danger...

“...pretty adorable.” - @theserpentsadvocate​

The Sheikh Doctor’s Bride (First Edition)

Never back down...

Pam Martel is stranded.

After everything she’s done in the last few years, the United States finally has a valid excuse to throw her in jail. She can’t even go home to Canada without being extradited. Given everything she’s done to stop a terrorist cult - and the fact that her friends are going back to their old lives while she’s trapped in the Emirates - the rest of her life looks both bitter and bleak.

Mohammed Bashir is the one bright spot in her awful situation, but he’s not without his own troubles. Without a wife, he’s in danger of losing his father’s comprehensive business empire. After all he’s been through, Mohammed is on the point of giving up and going back to the one thing he can still fall back on - medicine. But there’s no way Pam is going to let that happen to the one person who hasn’t abandoned her.

Maybe she should have thought before she made the offer, but there are worse things than being married to stunningly handsome millionaire doctor. If only she wasn’t in love with him...

“OMG.” - @natalie-is-my-name​

Be Loved

The only way forward... is together

In the years since they’ve last seen each other, things have changed a lot for Reuven Svobodya and Mohammed Bashir... but some things are still far too similar.

Mohammed has done a lot of soul-searching in the interim, and it’s pretty certain now that he’s not as straight as he once thought, but coming face to face with the man who prompted that realization still isn’t something he would have chosen. Some friendships are better left unrevived, especially when one of you can’t be honest. And then there’s the fact Mohammed is sure that Reuven still blames him for the loss of his family - after all, he blames himself.

It’s been a long time since Reuven decided to cut everyone important out of his life - any more hurt would have been impossible to take. Making a completely new life for himself was the only way to survive the crushing weight of what happened. But being near someone he once cared about is making him question that for the first time. And if he can forgive Mohammed, maybe he can finally forgive himself...

“[W]hen I've... started questioning my use of my limited time on this planet... this is what I'll remember.” - actual professional musician Luke Maynard

Christmas Bride for the Sheikh

Under the mistletoe... for two weeks!

Pam Martel was hoping to dodge the tiresome Christmas season and say hello to an old friend - she didn’t anticipate becoming his fake wife!

When Mohammed told a business associate he was engaged, the white lie was supposed to fend off the man’s overly amorous daughter; he never anticipated this! While being told his wife had arrived for the Christmas celebrations was a shock, Pam is the one person who might be able to pull off the deception - a good thing, since being caught out could ruin an important political connection for him.

Pam’s usually willing to roll with anything, but this is different. She’s carried a torch for Mohammed for years, and if there was ever a right time to make a play for him, this is it. She’ll be Mrs. Bashir, all right - and the act will be so realistic her ‘husband’ won’t know what hit him!

“Friends-to-lovers has never been more fun.” - soyouthinkyoucanwrite.com

The Harlot and the Sheikh

He gave her everything she wanted... except his heart.

Samar Naaji has been forced to do some awful things to survive. So has Mohammed Bashir. The difference is that while Samar is condemned by society, Mohammed is condemned only by himself.

In a chance encounter, Samar once saved Mohammed at great risk to herself, and while she doesn’t expect a hero to remember someone like her, she’s willing to try anything to get her sister the medical care she so desperately needs.

The last thing she expects is to be whisked into a world of luxury while all her worries disappear. More comfortable scrubbing a floor than being waited on, Samar devotes herself to understanding her rescuer, and quickly finds that underneath his wealth and privilege is a deeply broken man.

All Samar wants is to make him understand how good he is... but by that time, will she be too captivated to survive without him?

“[You] should... lead with [this].” - @theserpentsadvocate​

Every Move He Makes

To stay alive, they will have to learn to lean on each other.

Reuven Harel doesn’t have the slightest idea what’s going on, but he knows it isn’t good. Counting on someone else to get him through this is galling, but at the very least he’s sure Mohammed is more trustworthy than the multitudes of people shooting at them. The truth is, the other man is the only thing keeping them both alive.

Mohammed Bashir knows exactly what’s going on, but he’s pretty sure he’s starting to fracture around the edges. The man he’s chosen to protect might be utterly in the dark, but Mohammed envies him his rock-solid sense of self. In fact, he’s starting to think that Reuven might be the only thing keeping him sane.

As their enemies grow and the body count rises, the two men must turn to each other for what they can’t find anywhere else: safety, surety... and maybe even love.

“What is even happening right now?” - @whimzhbeeaffairs​ (Also Reuven, probably.)

The Sheikh Doctor’s Bride (Second Edition)

One condemned by her crimes, the other by his past... but can they save each other?

After breaking the law to stay alive, Kit Howard is facing extradition back to the United States. The only way to stay free is to remain in Saudi Arabia... married to a citizen. After the wreckage of her first horrific marriage, she balks at the restrictions that come with it.

The tumultuous events that brought them together have left their mark on Mohammed Bashir. Before he goes back to his old life, he’s willing to make one final sacrifice to keep Kit safe - but after the loss of his father and brothers, getting attached seems almost fatally foolish.

Neither Kit nor Mohammed wants anything more out of this marriage than necessary... but somehow that’s all too easy to forget when they’re together. At least, as good friends and nothing more, nobody’s heart will get broken...

“OMG.” - @whimzhbeeaffairs​

Dancing With the Tide

The greatest risk... is love

Mohammed Bashir’s purpose is to protect people more important than himself, people who can make a difference. Right now, that person is Reuven Harel. As the illegitimate son of an influential American politician, he might have leverage; as one of the prophesied Lightbringers, he has an unknown amount of power - but even if it’s all a myth, his simply staying alive is vital to Mohammed’s cause. He’s also a genuinely good person - not the worst man in the world to take a bullet for, if it comes down to it.

Reuven doesn’t believe in a bunch of supernatural bullshit, but he does believe in fulfilling his obligations. As far as he’s concerned, Mohammed is an innocent civilian being targeted by terrorists - and the American government - and it’s Reuven’s responsibility as a police officer to keep him safe. That he’s kind, handsome, and unfairly charming is irrelevant.

At first, the only thing the two men can agree on is that they want the other safe - but when things take a dark turn, they find common ground in other ways. When they’re forced to take refuge in a part of the world where their growing feelings could be punished by death, things threaten to burn out of control. If they want to avoid losing each other, they’re going to have to risk their hearts...

“My word.” - Luke Maynard, literal published author

Be True

They’ve been friends for years, but who knows what’s hiding beneath the surface…

Reuven Harel has always known who he is and what he wanted.

Sure, he’s gone from being the loud, angry, openly gay teenager at marriage equality rallies to an equally out RCMP officer, but he’s still loud, still proud, and still determined to change the world for the better. Unfortunately, being between serious relationships brings it home that he’s also still hung up on a too-good-to-be-true college friend. It’s not worth jeopardizing their friendship – but now he knows Paul’s not straight, it’s even harder to let those feelings die.

Paul Svobodya lost the blueprint for his life a long time ago.

He likes teaching history, likes living in Halifax, and frankly he loves being a single dad. It’s a long way from teaching English in Alberta with a wife and 2.5 kids, but he wouldn’t trade it for anything. He never intended to be single at twenty-seven, newly out as bisexual, and supporting a mortgage and a five-year-old, but that’s how things shook down. Rocking the boat at this point seems like a bad idea, but with his last serious relationship over and one or two casual dates with men under his belt, it’s hard to keep on denying what he really wants…

“This is the purest and wholest thing.” - Luke Maynard

*

(All novel write-ups are technically and theoretically canon-compliant as of this writing, although I used Reuven’s birth name in EBHT and DWtT because using his married name felt squicky. Yes, I killed his husband in the other one. I literally murdered my own OTP. Jesus fuck. I don’t believe it either. And let’s not even think about Nat.)

Stay tuned for the harem anime and maybe a mockup of the more serious AU/novella idea I have where Paul sells Christmas trees.

Why am I like this.

#cattle crossing

[im-the-king-of-the-ocean]

could I nab an aro/ace jim? going along w/ life before it hits him that crushes?? exist?? because I personally never realised that this was a thing people experienced, and realising my experiences weren't the norm. I thought I was bi for the longest time because I felt the same towards everyone. perhaps his 'crush' on claire is a squish, or becoming qpps with toby? or maybe something else if you feel you've got a rad idea :o

Ace of Spades

When Jim found out about being aromantic and asexual, it was because of a set of pride flags he stumbled across online.  He knew what some of them were.  He’d spent months trying to figure out if any of those ones fit him.  Then realizing they didn’t.  Not really.  The only one that came close was bisexual.  Still, it felt like there was something different about him.  Something that didn’t quite fit with the bi label.  Something that was it’s own thing entirely.

Mom said he could be a late bloomer.  That he’d figure out romance in his own time.  There was no rush.  She’d always be there for him if he wanted to talk or if he needed help in getting resources.  Jim never took her up on that.  

What if that supposed magic moment where he’d figure romance out never happened?  He asked himself on occasion.  Did he really want it to?  Jim wasn’t sure.  He’d never considered himself different from anyone else.  He always thought the way he felt was the norm.  That the “romance” he saw in media was something exaggerated by Hollywood to sell all the movies they could.

The fact that he was apparently the different one felt strange to Jim.  He didn’t know what to make of the feeling.  He’d gone through life without really thinking about romance as A Thing.  He honestly didn’t want to start now.

So, seeing those pride flags and learning of the aro and ace labels felt nice.  Like the beginning of an answer to a question Jim didn’t know he needed to ask.  “Aroace” rolled off the tongue in a pleasant way.  It was a secure feeling, to know he didn’t have to be anything else but what he already was.

In the coming days, Jim learned more words, an entirely new vocabulary.  Squish.  Queerplatonic relationship.  Zucchini.  That last one made him smile when he used one of the vegetable for dinner one night.

An entire world he didn’t know existed, one that felt right, had been opened up to him.

And something, for once, felt comfortable.

Jim soon found it was hard to deal with everyone else.  Before learning of being aroace, he hadn’t realized (noticed) how much everyone else around him seemed to be obsessed with romance.  Now that he did, it was grating.  Just a little bit.

Jim didn’t mind that romance existed or that people were interested in it necessarily.  It just, it wasn’t something he was interested in.  Not really.  Sometimes it was downright frustrating when everyone assumed he wanted or would want it.  Eventually.

His mom, in particular, seemed to be waiting for that “eventually”, given her regular comments that “girls” were a natural part of high school that he should be worried about.  Jim generally avoided talking to her about it if he could.  He loved her, but there were times when Mom could be pushy when she thought she was being helpful (when she was really not).

Jim still hadn’t figured out how to talk to her about that one yet.

Toby was easier.

“So aroace, huh?  Sounds like you’re some cool archer dude.  Like you’re an ace ninja with a bow and have like a bajillion arrows that you can shoot with deadly accuracy and you’re going to become a superhero—wait, hang on, I gotta look this up.”  Toby whipped out his phone and started typing.  “There’s gotta be some cool aroace superhero already.”

Jim laughed.  “Only you, Tobes, would react by thinking of some hero thing.”

“Laugh now, Jimbo, but one of these days I’m going to be right.  Just you wait.”  Toby paused.  “Anyway, you good?”  He turned to face Jim.  “How do you feel?  Like are you “I just came out to my best friend and I’m totally awesome sauce cause I know we’re awesome sauce forever” or “I just came out to my best friend and I’m kinda panicky about it?”

“The first one.  Mostly.”  Jim shrugged.  “I wouldn’t put it exactly like that, but yeah.  “We’re good, Tobes.”  He took a cookie off the plate Nana had given them and lay back on Toby’s bed.  He let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding in.

“Master Jim, I must apologize.  For I assumed you and Tobias were already in a partnership.”  Blinky spoke in an uncertain tone.

“Wait, you thought we were dating?  Like gay?”  Jim clenched his hands arounds his knees.  This conversation was not going how he’d expect it to.  After talking to Toby about it, he’d decided to come out to Blinky too (and ARRRGGGHHH!!! depending on how the conversation with Blinky went).  So far, he’d made it past telling Blinky that he was aroace.  That had gone well.  Blinky had accepted his explanation of the labels.  But now they’d gotten here, where Blinky apparently assumed he and Toby were an Item.

Blinky spoke up again,  “I would not put it like that necessarily.  Not too many years ago, while scavenging on the surface, I overhead a set of humans talk of what they called a ‘queerplatonic relationship’.  From what they said, I gathered it must be a meaningful sort of relationship that exists independent of the usual trappings or symbolism of traditional romance.  Since then, ARRRGGGHHH!!! and myself have found it a wonderfully useful term to define what we are to each other.  We are something that is both strong and deeply emotional.  Somedays there are no words to eloquently put how I feel about him nor him about me.  For us, queerplatonic fit what other words could not possibly hope to describe.”  Blinky paused.  “Ah, my train of thought seems to have gotten away from me.  But my assumption was that you and Tobias share a similar relationship.  That you are, I believe the right term is zucchini?  Partners?”

“Oh, um no.  We’re just friends.”  Jim’s grip tightened on his knees.  He hadn’t thought about being anything with Tobes.  Not yet.  He was still adjusting to his identity.  That was what this conversation was supposed to be about.  His identity.  “Blinky, I’m…I may never want a relationship.  Of any kind.  I haven’t really so far.  Like I haven’t gotten crushes or anything ever.  I didn’t even think they were real for the longest time, but according to Toby they are.”  He sighed.  “I just…I don’t know.”  He threw up his arms.  “I’m ok with the possibility of a queerplatonic relationship, but I don’t want you guys to just assume I’m going to do that.  Or anything else.  Because I don’t even know what I’m going to do yet.  I’m still figuring this out!”  He paced around with his fists clenched.  “Just…don’t say I can still have relationships despite my identity.  Cause being aroace?  Is really important to me.  It’s a part of me.”  He spun and glared at Blinky.  “Not something that needs to be overcome.”

Blinky approached him slowly.  “I deeply apologize, Jim.”  He cautiously put his hands on Jim’s shoulders.  “It was not my intention to convey that that needs to happen.  It does not.”

“Thanks, Blink.  I…I kinda like the idea of a qpr?  Just not right now.  Or yet.  Or something.”  Jim inhaled.  “For now, I want to be just me.”  He paused.  “But, can you tell me more about them anyway?  Just so I know?”

“Of course.”

Jim backed up a step, away from the classroom door.  “Are you sure I can be here? I mean, I don’t know, they may—”

“Dude, chill.”  Toby grabbed his shoulder.  “It’s going to be totally awesome sauce.  Trust me.  I got you’re back.  Worst case scenario, we run out of there and become school legends.”

“Really, Tobes?  Running out of a GSA meeting will make us legends?”  Jim sighed.  Ran his hand through his hair.  “This was a bad idea.  We should—”

Toby interrupted him.  “No buts!  Trust in your wingman.  When have I ever led you astray?”

“Do you really want me to answer that?”

“Good point.  But I’m right about this, Jimbo.”  Toby faced him.  “I know you read some stupid stuff online, but this isn’t the Internet where anyone can say anything.  I know everyone on the other side of that door and I can say with certainty, you belong with us and they’ll think so too.”

Jim sighed.  “Fine.  Let’s do this.”  Worst case scenario, he activated the Amulet of Daylight so he could break through the classroom window as an escape and then have to deal with the fallout of revealing magic to a bunch of high school kids.

Toby opened the door with a flourish. “I hereby welcome you to the Gay-Straight Alliance of Arcadia Oaks High!” He led Jim into the classroom.  “Where we have doughnuts, friends, and on special occasions, Miss Janeth’s dramatic interpretations of other teachers!”  In a quieter tone, he added, “You should hear her Strickler.  It’s hilarious, dude.”

“I heard that, Mr. Domzalski.”  Miss Janeth spoke from where she was hanging up a poster on the board.  “And welcome, Mr. Lake, we were just about to get started.”  She turned to address the entire group in the classroom, which included Eli Pepperjack, Shannon Longhannon, Mary Wang, Darci Scott, Claire Nunez, and even the new students Aja and Krel, as well as others Jim didn’t recognize immediately on sight.  “As many of you know, the club fair is coming up and I’d like us to have a station.”  Miss Janeth went on.  “We’ll have signups for those of you who want to help man the table and, like last year, Señor Uhl has agreed to maintain a ‘security presence’.  Now, Ms. Wang has submitted the idea that we get mini pride flags to put on the table, so everyone, especially if they’re still in the closet, knows they’re welcome with us.  She’s volunteered to acquire the flags and start a list so we don’t miss anyone’s labels…”

As the meeting went on, Jim relaxed.  No one asked him to come out or prove why he should be there.  He was welcomed easily into the conversation.  He was ok.

Jim set up the mini pride flags along the front edge of the GSA’s fair table.  It had taken then a while to find them all, but in the end they’d been successful.  He set both the aromantic and asexual flags down next in the lineup after the genderfluid and agender flags.

A part of him regretted letting Toby talk him into helping today, but a part of him really wanted to be there too.

“Ah, they look lively!” Aja bounced into the chair next to him. “It is so exciting!  We will educate the people of the municipality of Arcadia all about the wonderful identities they don’t know they can have or they know they have and don’t know that have support for!”  She spun around in her seat.  “Either way it will be a totally legal day!”

“Arcadia’s a city and we’re only manning the table for the school’s club fair.  I don’t think that many people are going to show up.”  Jim was quick to reply.  The idea of a huge number of people showing up made him nervous.

“Yes, but some will still come  That is exciting!”  Aja playfully punched his arm.  “We will help people!  Toby told me you’re an archer ninja.  Between your mad skills and my…errmm…also mad skills, we will do good for the next two hours!”

Jim couldn’t help but smile.  Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all.

#trollhunters #pride month ficlets 2k18 #jim lake jr #aro ace jim #jades-harley #qpp blinky and arrrgh! #literally no one is straight #not even the arcadia high teachers #ok so i maybe had a couple different ideas and decided to go with all of them and this is the result of that #whirls writing

[lawyernovelist]

Luke Skywalker, Jedi Master: A Legend

I'm not dead! Sorry for the long break, and sorry in advance for the fact that this post isn't quite up to my usual wordy standard; I've spent the last several months suffering from massive writer's block on almost every project I have on the go, including a novel, the next chapter of My Tauriel, and several blog posts.

Anyway, to get on with the show, I thought what The Last Jedi did with Luke Skywalker was one of the coolest and gutsiest things in it.

Bring it.

Spoilers for Star Wars through The Last Jedi and Lord of the Rings.

Now, I opened in that unnecessarily confrontational way because I've seen criticism of how this movie handled Luke from all over the place and all directions. And to an extent I get that, like I kind of get a lot of the criticism of this movie. I would, however, just like to get one small thing out of the way, and that's the comment I've seen all over the place that "they made Luke evil to make Kylo Ren good." And... no?

I think where this comes from is a feeling that because we see Luke do - or start to do - something unequivocally morally wrong, namely murder his student and nephew in his sleep, that must mean that the movie is telling us that Luke turned evil after we last saw him in the original trilogy. The main narrative beneficiary of such a change would be Ren, since this means that not only is the person telling us how he went bad unreliable, but he himself pushed Ren over the edge. It's not Ren's fault; his mentor betrayed him and so he fell from grace as a reaction to that. Luke is actually evil - the sort of man who would murder a helpless boy who trusted him - and Ren is his innocent victim.

Well, that only really holds up if you subscribe to the belief that if someone does or thinks one wrong thing they're irredeemably evil and that anyone who's been victimised is automatically good. And to be honest, I shouldn't be surprised this is a thing; it seems to be a really common belief on the internet.

But this was part of why I admired this story beat so much: it goes square against that narrative. What Luke did was wrong. Nobody denies that, even him. Right then in the moment he realised that he should not murder a defenceless boy just because of his own fears of what that boy might grow to do, and he accepts that what happened next was a consequence of his actions. Meanwhile, while Ren was right to be frightened and defend himself in the moment, and it's entirely reasonable that he drew his own lightsaber, force-pulled the roof down on Luke, left him for dead, and fled into the night, you know what wasn't a reasonable thing to do? Burn down the school and massacre the other students.

Luke did a bad thing, acknowledged it as bad, and accepted the personal consequences, including the lasting guilt. That doesn't make him evil, it makes him human. Ren reacted in an entirely understandable way up to the point where he went way too far and continued his trend of, when presented with multiple choices, always taking the evil one.

Ren: Gee, I've captured a teenage scavenger who has information I need. Shall I put her in a secure but comfy cell, apologise for scaring her, and offer her money and a ride home to Jakku in exchange for the information, or shall I tie her up, threaten her and her friends, and mind-rape her?

Also, while I'm defending Luke, you get points for realising that what you're about to do is awful before you do it. They say that the first thought you have is what you've been conditioned to think and the second is what you actually think.

Anyway, that probably would have been a nice segue over from the last post where I talked about the presentation of good and evil in these movies, but I did want to explicitly call out that one piece of criticism because it actually irritates me more than is rational. They did something complex and interesting! Stop discouraging them!

OK, so I mentioned that I can see why people are upset about this, and the next one I'm going to address is one that I actually kind of sympathise with, as well as being the reason I chose this specific quote as the title of this blog post: the presentation of Luke as a disillusioned old man who has failed to live up to his own legend.

I thought long and hard to come up with a hypothetical Tolkien example so I could empathise on this one, because Star Wars wasn't a big part of my childhood or anything, so maybe that's why I find it easy to say "Oh, neat, they're doing a cool new twist on an archetypical character" when everyone else in the cinema is saying "WTF have you done to Luke?" Eventually I came up with the option of "What if some asshole came along and made a sequel to Lord of the Rings in which we see that power corrupts and all the bad aspects of medieval kingship (and there are a lot of those) have started manifesting in Aragorn?" and concluded that yeah, I'd be pissed and that would actually be less upsetting than this must be because at least I'd have the comfort that such a sequel would be terrible fanfic, not actual canon. This is Star Wars canon now.

So yeah, I get why people are upset, but hear me and my outsider's perspective out.

For one thing, this is another difference between that hypothetical Lord of the Rings example and The Last Jedi: the problem isn't with Luke except that he couldn't live up to the legend that had grown up around his name and his position as the last of the Jedi and founder of a new Jedi order. And that's an awesome take.

A couple of things about me: first, I'm actually really interested in the question of what happens after these classic stories end. Now, that doesn't always mean that I want to find out - I don't feel the need to actually see Cinderella struggle to adjust to her new life as a princess in combination with the potential political awkwardness caused by the fact that the heir to the throne clearly suffers from face-blindness, and that's why I cannot believe Disney made two sequels (though I hear Cinderella 3 is way better than it has any right to be) - but it's always an interesting question. That's especially true of bigger and more complicated stories with world-shaking consequences like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings: it is kind of interesting to wonder how, after the happy/bittersweet ending, things fell apart. Because that's what things do.

To continue down this rabbit-hole - I promise I'll surface with a point in a moment - this was something Tolkien really got and which you can only really appreciate if you read all his Middle-Earth work: The Silmarillion, The Hobbit (supplemented by The Unfinished Tales), and The Lord of the Rings, in that order: things fall apart. Every time there's a victory, something is lost and it's only a temporary reprieve because evil always rises again. It may be smaller, but so are the forces of Good. Tolkien actually did start work on a sequel to Lord of the Rings in which we see evil returning during the reign of Aragorn's son Eldarion, not really because Eldarion was a crappy king or anything but just because that's what evil does.

The Last Jedi hits a similar note: Just because the Empire was defeated, evil isn't banished from the galaxy. And just as in that unfinished sequel, it's not because the heroes of the previous stories did anything wrong, it's just that this isn't as simple as it looks and winning one big battle and killing one guy doesn't solve all the problems. Eventually the situation will deteriorate again.

That's even more true where the heroes involved don't necessarily know how to pick up the pieces of the evil empire they destroyed, by the way. The galaxy was pretty lucky to have Leia on hand.

The second relevant thing I find interesting is myth-making: how people tell themselves stories about what's happening around them, and how that affects their behaviour and expectations. This is something that happens all the time, sometimes because someone is deliberately creating a myth around an event, group, or person, sometimes because a story has been heard, mis-remembered, and repeated so many times that it's lost some details and gained others, sometimes because people desperately want to believe in something. And it's honestly pretty fascinating. It's been great fun watching the discussion around Hamilton, for example, and how it seems to have changed views of the founding fathers because it presents a new myth in the form of a history play with awesome music.

Watching modern myth-making in the form of polemic and conspiracy theory is also a little bit terrifying, but that's a whole other topic.

Humans love to tell themselves and each other stories, and you can bet stories spread far and wide about Luke after the Empire fell. Even Rey, having grown up in this crappy backwater town on Jakku, seems to have knowledge and expectations of Luke and the Jedi. Doesn't it make all kinds of sense that those stories became myths and that they grew and changed in the years between the fall of the Empire and Luke taking some students and setting up a Jedi school, painting Luke as a larger-than-life hero who could do anything?

Personal anecdote time: when Obama was elected in 2008, I was at university in the States (now you can all guess my age :P). I watched the results coming in on the TV in our dorm lounge, and when the election was called for Obama the place went wild. We spilled out into the road, I could hear the celebrations from other dorms half a mile away, even I went running down the length of the building screaming and wearing an American flag as a cape. But once I'd calmed down a bit I looked around at the Bacchic levels of celebration and said to one of my friends "He'll be remembered as a failure." Naturally, she looked at me like I'd grown at least five heads, so I elaborated, "Everyone's built him up to be the Second Coming. He can't live up to this. Nobody can." I bring this up because that's what I remember when I look at Luke in The Last Jedi: everyone had such high hopes and expectations of him, a legend had built up around his name, he'd become a figure of myth, but at the end of the day he was just a man. He couldn't live up to that. Nobody could.

That acknowledgment of the effects of myth-making around great people and events isn't something I see very often in film, and it ties into what I was saying about seeing what happens after the words "The End". What stories do the people in the world tell themselves about the hero? How does that affect everyone's view of him? How does it affect his view of himself?

That last is also why I find Luke's characterisation in Last Jedi very believable. It makes total sense to me that after this massive failure, which also cost the lives of his students and might have driven his nephew to the dark side, he has withdrawn and become embittered. Again, I come back to the line I used to title this post; the way Hamill delivers it really sums that up.

By the way, good grief did my estimation for all the actors in this film go up.

Anyway, that also feels like a subversion of tropes, which was something this movie did in spades and I love it. I'm having trouble thinking of another of these epic fantasy stories where the hero tracks down the mentor who will turn them into a great warrior or whatever and finds someone so disillusioned. Rey's not having to persuade Luke she's worthy or anything (side-note: I especially enjoy that he never gets weird about the fact that a girl is so strong with the force. It wouldn't make a lot of sense - I mean, he knows Leia - but it was still nice not to have a a subplot where she has to prove she's worthy despite the ~*~terrible handicap~*~ of a second X chromosome), she's having to persuade him that just coming back into the fight at all is worth doing. She's not having to persuade him to train her but to train anyone, and his refusal actually does make sense. I mean, look what happened last time he got himself a crazy-powerful young student. Clearly he can't do this and it might not even be a good idea for anyone to do this.

Now, again, not very familiar with the original movies, this might actually be the exact route they took with Obi-wan and/or Yoda, but I don't remember ever seeing it before and something that distinctive is something I'm sure I would have noticed seeing for a second time. If I'm way off the mark here, though, I can only apologise.

One more comment, and then I'll close. I also really enjoyed Luke's relationship with Ren. This is kind of bringing me back to where I started, but it was still interesting to see how the break with Ren has affected Luke as well as how it's affected Ren. I like watching the emotional consequences play out, as well as how his previous failures have affected Luke's later relationship with Rey and view of himself. Also, that last fight was amazing. It did a great job of developing Ren's character in how he reacted to the sight of Luke and also the emptiness he seemed to feel when after all that Luke wasn't really there. For me, the way Ren reacted after that fight really did cement my view that this is not about Ren defending himself any more, no matter what his initial reaction might have been when he woke up to find Luke standing over him with a lightsaber; it's now about revenge. It kind of shone a new light on Ren, which was in itself interesting to me.

Anyway, I liked Luke in the original trilogy. I liked his enthusiasm, his intelligence, his determination, and his compassion (why did nobody tell me about him redeeming Darth Vader with the power of love?). However, that just meant that I enjoyed all the more seeing how he's been developed here. That Luke was still there, minus some enthusiasm and plus some world-weary cynicism that makes perfect sense given what's happened in the interim. I liked him as a character, I liked what he added to the story, and overall I think his presentation was one of the gutsiest things in this movie.

In summary: Luke good. Film good. Don't @ me.

If you enjoy my blog, you might also enjoy my novel: Bladedancer's Heirs. You can also find me on Goodreads!

#Characterisation #film #Star Wars: The Last Jedi #the last jedi review #Star Wars

[writeyouin]

Swerve X Reader – A Human Crewmate - Chapter 9 Part 1

A Play-Date with Megatron Part 1

A/N – Based on a lot of head-canons from @rocksinmuffin and @straightouttacybertron so extra special thanks to them for that. Fun fact, Lepoteran is a word I made up based off Lepidoptera which is the scientific name for a moth.

Warnings – None.

Rating – T

Swerve watched as you paced the bar, speaking excitedly of the planet Hacathar which you would all soon visit. He loved seeing you like this, as did most of the crew. By now, quite the crowd had gathered to hear what you wanted to see upon visiting.

“I wonder what kind of people live there,” You beamed.

“It’s a space-port,” Nightbeat answered, happy to show off his knowledge. “Ships from all over the galaxy refuel in the port while the planet itself is for people to get a break from ship life.”

“Cool… Hey, will stuff there be too small for you?”

“No need to worry about us short stuff,” a slightly overcharged Chromedome laughed, patting your head with a servo which you playfully swatted away. “We’ve got to use our holoforms.”

“Holoforms?”

“The illusion that makes us look human,” Rewind explained. “We also use mass displacement to reduce our weights.”

“Oh yeah, I saw some of those when I was brought aboard. Rodimus, Maggie, and Rung used them.”

“They’re stupid,” Whirl complained loudly. “They don’t want us there! Then why fragging go?!”

“If you hate it so much, why are you going?” A mech called Wrecker asked angrily.

“Maybe I’m going to trash the place.”

“Oh yeah? How ‘bout you scrap off before I trash you?”

Whirl stepped forward threateningly, “You piece of scrap, I’ll-”

“I’ll bet,” You interrupted loudly, “that this planet doesn’t accept non-organics because they’re jealous; I would be too if I was faced with someone way more awesome than me. Never meet your heroes, right?”

Whirl laughed obnoxiously, “You’re right meat sack, smart fragger.”

“So, you’re not going to break anything?”

“Not when they clearly idolise me. Gotta keep the worship coming.”

Everybody watched in awe, all wondering the same thing. How had you stopped Whirl from fighting? Nobody could control him; it was a fact he was immensely proud of. If anyone bothered to ask Whirl why he’d acted so out of character, he would have lied or shrugged it off. In truth, Whirl was afraid of disappointing you. You were a clean slate, someone who didn’t know or care about his past. You understood him without trying to change him; in short, he respected you. Without showing affection or anything that would jeopardise his reputation, Whirl made the effort to find ways to listen to you, even if it meant taking the bait to obvious lies aimed at stroking his ego.

“Great because I’m looking forward to a little window shopping,” You chimed.

The conversation resumed at a normal pace once again. Meanwhile, when everyone else was in jovial conversation, Swerve worried between serving drinks. He’d spent so much time planning everything the two of you would do together that he hadn’t even considered his holoform. Swerve was no stranger to what passed as handsome on Earth and that concerned him. He wasn’t tall, slim, or remotely muscled and up until now, he hadn’t minded but what if you saw him and were repulsed or expecting more. There wasn’t time to change the holoform now but Primus, he wished he could.

Swerve opened his mouth to shoot a casual question about Earth shops but before he could, the ship’s PA came on, calling you to Megatron’s office.

When you reached the right corridor, Rodimus stomped out of the office. Upon seeing you, he pointed and yelled, “Just so you know, this isn’t my fault,” before storming off again.

You frowned, confused until Megatron called you in with a stiff, “Enter human.”

You stood awkwardly I the doorway, looking up at Megatron who’s discomfort showed. Despite his displeasure, Megatron spoke solemnly, “Thank you for coming, we have something very important to discuss. Tomorrow we arrive at Hacathar and it has come to my attention you intend to go to the planet’s surface. Unfortunately, I cannot allow you to do that, instead you must stay here with Ratchet. You have my humblest apologies.”

“WHAT?!” You exploded. “Why can’t I go?”

“A foreign planet holds many dangers for… one of your kind,” Megatron lied. He couldn’t tell you the real reason; that a Cybertronian aboard the Lost Light was trying to kill you and the planet would provide too many opportunities to do so.

You sighed heavily, “Megatron, I’m afraid I can’t stay on the ship tomorrow. I mean, I didn’t want to bring this up and panic anyone but- but- I’ll die if I don’t get onto a planet soon.”

“Excuse me?”

“Human’s need exposure to natural pathogens to survive, we store them in our blood streams for ages but I’m beginning to run low; if I don’t top up soon, I’ll- I’ll-” You managed to start crying.

Megatron shuffled uncomfortably, unsure of what to do; your lie was taking a heavy toll on him. He couldn’t leave you unprotected, nor could he let you die; his processor was working hard to come up with a workable solution.

“Very well human,” Megatron said tiredly, “we shall reach a compromise. You may visit the planet to replenish your pathogens however, I shall be there to accompany you for the entire day.”

“I mean, can you believe it? Megatron actually told me I can’t go with anyone but him. Does he really think I’m that bloody fragile?” You ranted at Swerve who was feeling more and more crestfallen. Once again, all his plans to make you happy had been foiled. It was almost like there was a force keeping the two of you apart.

Despite his despair, Swerve slapped on a false smile and hid behind humour, “Hey, it could be worse, I can’t believe you managed to trick him like that. I mean, enzymes? That’s hilarious.”

You grimaced guiltily, “Gosh, I’m sorry Swerve. I’ve been bitching at you this entire time but you’re right, at least I get to go out now. I wish I could still go with you but there’ll be lots of time to spend together afterwards. Hey, how about we get a few bots together for a game night when we get back?”

Swerve gave an enthusiastic thumbs up, “You got it.”

You beamed and stretched, “Alright, I’m gonna get some sleep before we hit the planet. Night Swerve.”

“Right and I’ll be right here… recharging.”

Swerve laid on the berth, thoughts once again consuming him. Did he have a problem? He’d already considered this time and time again, constantly switching between conclusions. It was very possible that he needed to get over you, for you were the impossible; despite that, he didn’t want to get over you. It was near impossible to stop thinking about you except for when he talked with friends, providing a distraction to his overworked processor. The only problem with that method was that very few people considered him friend enough to converse with; in all honesty, he was lonely before you came along.

“Damn it, why can’t she go back to just a hot frag fantasy? At least then, I didn’t care.”

You pouted as various bots went to the ship’s docking bay and you awaited Megatron who had delivered you a set of rules while you slept. Never had you felt more patronised than when you read them.

Rule 1: You must wait till everyone else has left before we leave.

Rule 2: You will stay in sight at all times.

Rule 3: No wandering off.

Rule 4: No outside communication without my permission - that includes other crew members.

Rule 5: There will be no mention of Cybertronians on the planet surface.

Rule 6: There will be no consumption of alien foods so as to avoid injury or disease.

Rule 7: No visiting of bars, clubs, or any other such rowdy areas.

Rule 8: No participation in dangerous events.

Rule 9: No usage of the name Megatron upon the planet’s surface so as to avoid conflict.

Rule 10: You will follow my instruction at all times.

 You tapped at the datapad keyboard adding to the document.

Rule 11: No fun.

 Megatron cleared his vocaliser at you, “I see you’ve been studying the code of conduct I’ve given.”

You turned the datapad screen off, hiding the addition, and forced a grin, “I sure have, Megs.”

“Megs?”

“Rule nine, no use of your name on the planet; I was just practicing,” You said innocently.

Megatron frowned coolly; you were almost sure his face had only one setting by now.

“So… can we go now?” You asked.

Megatron nodded and applied his holo-form.

“Whoa… dude, you look awesome.”

Megatron ignored the praise, mainly because he didn’t know what to say; very few had praised him unless out of fear and now, nobody did, not that he felt he deserved it. He walked to the docking bay with you by his side where he could keep an optic on you.

You gasped upon reaching the ramp. The planet below was similar to a rainforest, with thick foliage of the lushest blue creating a tall canopy over the sandy floor. Buildings were scattered under the bushes and trees in a random order; they were seemingly made of sharp, long slabs of crystal. You briefly found yourself wondering if they were onyx. Various market stalls outside the buildings had thatched roofs made of yellow, straw like flowers. With a mix of odd foods on one, clothes the likes of which you’d never seen on another, and technology on a third, you were reminded of old bazaars seen on films. Then, there were the people, all organics like you, yet wholly different. There was a person who looked like a humanoid caterpillar with a long body and multiple hands. Then there were hulking elephants of people inching their way through the crowds with polite exclamations. Somebody examining jewellery had a large maw with razor teeth and apparently no eyes or nose; that person was actually licking the necklace it was holding.

You beamed excitedly at Megatron; it was like nothing you’d ever imagined. You ran straight for the first stall, a clothes stall with labelled racks that indicated not size but species. Megatron glared, he should have made another rule, no running. He paced towards you, maintaining a dignified speed while you listened to the shop keep, a sort of moth man, speaking with a customer; you were amazed by the ship’s translator that Perceptor had previously explained. Eventually, the moth man caught you staring.

“Can I help you?” He harrumphed disdainfully.

“Uh yeah, sure,” You breathed, attempting to calm your boggled mind. “Do you have any clothes for humans?”

“You can’t read?”

You glanced sheepishly at the signs, “Oh yeah, right, sorry.”

“(Y/N),” Megatron glowered, appearing by your side.

“What?”

“The rules.”

“Oh come on Megs, I haven’t done anything yet.”

“Your communication says otherwise.”

“What that? I didn’t know you meant I can’t talk to anyone, I was only asking-” You faltered at Megatron’s scowl, “You know what Megs, when you’re right, you’re right, sorry.”

“Well, at least you behave better than Rodimus.”

Usually, you would have argued your point, but you weren’t willing to push Megatron too far lest he took away your outdoor privileges.

It took only a minute to find the rack for human section and when you did, you were disappointed to find only one hideous, mustard coloured jumper that was much too small anyway.

“What a bust,” You murmured, looking around for the next store.

Your excitement was quickly restored upon spotting a music store which was playing a song you knew well.

“Oh my God,” You laughed. “They have the YMCA in space.”

You grabbed Megatron’s hand, pulling him quickly to the music stall, where you started to dance, much to his consternation.

“Dance with me,” You giggled.

“I do not dance.”

“Come on, every ex-warlord should know how to dance. Besides, this one’s easy, you just have to make the letters. If you don’t like this one, I can see if they have the Macarena.”

“I have no idea what you just said,” Megatron deadpanned.

You danced with even more enthusiasm, and started singing along with your own words, “Old man, you can’t help yourself. Old man, do it for your good health. Old man, old man, come and dance with me, after that I will set you free. It’s the YMCA, come and dance to the YMCA.”

As you crooned, Megatron suffered; as it turned out, you didn’t behave better than Rodimus.

While you danced, Swerve was miserable. He’d visited all the places he’d planned to take you… alone. None of it meant anything without you; he was once again friendless. Now, it was approaching the planet’s early sunset and Swerve was stood by himself on a curved, wooden bridge which overlooked a flowing river; in a few short minutes, it would also have the perfect view of an effect known to occur on Earth, aurora borealis, more commonly known as the Northern Lights.

Light moaning revealed that Swerve wasn’t alone as he’d first thought. He looked around and quickly spotted a pair of the planet’s native Lepoterans (the very moth people you’d discovered earlier) making out amorously in the side alley. Swerve sighed despondently, sloping off in another direction; he couldn’t catch a break.

#more than meets the eye #MTMTE #transformers #Transformers MTMTE #swerve #swerve x reader #swerve x human reaader #lost light #The Lost Light #ll #reader #reader insert #fanfiction #fanfic #a human crewmate #chapter 9 #rodimus #chromedome #rewind #megatron #a playdate with megatron #a playdate with megatron part 1

[dammitadolfnomorecake]

Prt3

You're just easy to please"

"Hunk, we both know that's not the case. Or have you not forgotten the first time we had goo"

Hunk visibly shuddered

"Exactly my good man, exactly. Now that food is organised, can we talk a little more?"

"What... what do you want to know?"

"About you, silly. How did you hear about us? About Allura?"

"I... when I came through I was no where near Altea. I tried to find it, but no one knew anything and there were Galra everywhere. I didn't have food, or money or friends, so I stole what I could. I'd hide out, and steal fruit from markets and you kind of hear things. Everyone was talking about Voltron. And Lotor and Allura. I knew I had to meet you, but I didn't know how"

"All you had to do was ask. Our comms are always open"

"I... when I learned how happy Voltron made people and that... that my mot-Allura was part of it. I had to come"

"How does the gala work in?"

Good. Hunk's question meant he was actually listening to her, and the video feed for the kitchen meant there was a record of this

"Well. I knew if I wanted to attract Lotor's attention, it needed to be big. So I kind of... used Allura's name to invite everyone, except for Allura. Everyone wants to help Voltron"

Lance groaned. He'd have to do the call around and find out who she'd talked to and what she'd told them. No. Better yet, Coran or Allura could do that

"So you organised the gala?"

"And I remembered what Grandfather said about herbs. Altean alchemy is-was incredibly, but some things you needed herbs for. When I was a kid, he'd take me with him. He said I was his good luck charm. I didn't realise he'd take me away because Allura and Lotor were always fighting"

Wrapping his arm around her, Toral sat a little taller

"I loved my dad. I loved him more than my mum, but he was using her the whole time! He just wanted Altea for himself"

"But why?"

"Because that's who he is! He wants everything he can't understand! Mum is a gifted alchemist! Everyone said she was at least as good as grandpa"

"I think that's enough for now, and I have a few things that belong to you"

"You do?"

"You can't have your bow back, but it would really help if you could tell us what these things are"

Using his free hand, Lance pulled out all of Toral's things from his pockets, laying them down in front of her

"My stuff!"

"If you're going to learn we're not here to hurt you, I figured you would probably want these back"

Toral nodded quickly

"Ok"

"Are you going to tell me what they are?"

Toral explained each item. The remote thing she'd used was something used by Altean's to disguise their ships... well, not just their ships. Depending on the way the user wielded it, it could change a planets surface, hide an army or even alter ones appearance. The pendant looking thing was a gift from Alfor, a star for his star, and in the heart of it was what seemed to be gold quintessence. He didn't know if it as actually quintessence, but it shimmered and moved like it was, and he definitely wasn't touching that. There was a piece of tech that looked like a pocket mirror, which Allura had given Toral shortly before they separated and she had no idea what it did. Then there was her collapsible arrows, a broken communicator, half a dozen tiny trinkety things she'd picked up along the way and some loose coins. She really wouldn't have lasted much longer without meeting them, which is probably why she was waiting on the gala planet for someone to return. She probably didn't even care who. She'd missed her mark, and that had to have hurt

"Lance, here's your cookie dough"

Lance's eyes lit up as Hunk placed the bowl down in front of him

"I don't know how you can still be so happy about cookie dough"

"Because it's awesome. Don't worry, I had my ring on during my heat"

"But there was a time it was off"

"Hunk, don't scare me like that. Just let me love this moment. Toral, you have to try this"

"It doesn't look very good"

"Are you serious! Here"

Scraping the bowl with the wooden spoon, he held it out to Toral, who scrunched up her face as she tried to pull away

"I promise it's good"

"I don't..."

"Trust me. I know it's hard, but I was honest with you, and I returned your things, so the least you can do is try this"

"Fine"

Leaning in, Toral used her teeth to pull a minute amount of dough off, her eyes lighting up as she did

"Oh my! This is so good!"

"See. I told you it was"

Toral went to grab for the bowl, but Lance snatched it up

"This is mine. You're going to love your pancakes"

"I'm so hungry, and that tastes soooo good"

Hearing Hunk start to laugh, Lance looked from Toral to the alpha

"What?"

"She's just like you!"

"She's what? No"

"She is. I can't believe I didn't see it sooner. No wonder you two get along so well"

"I didn't come here to be insulted"

"That's right. I'm nothing like him!"

"Exactly. And Toral, stop inching closer to my cookie dough. It's mine"

"But it tastes really good"

When their pancakes were placed down in front of them, Toral dove straight in. The girl wolfing then down like she hadn't eaten in years.she didn't even question if it'd been poisoned. She'd settled down so much faster than he'd expected, and now they had some idea of her past, Lance really hoped they'd be able to work things out and find a way to send her back home.

*

Toral quickly managed to win everyone over. She was loud and bubbly, her personality way too big for her small stature, meaning you couldn't help but like her. Lance was honestly a little jealous of her, after all, there were still days when he didn't feel like he belonged, but Toral just fitted so naturally, and she managed to keep up with Pidge and Hunk's techno babble once she had the basic principles. As for her and Allura. Allure was loving having her around. She'd dress Toral in her old dresses, and they'd spend hours whispering about Altea, comparing all the similarities and differences, as if they were true blood relations and had known each other from day one.

Having completed their visit out to orphan school, and having completely blown more than a few minds, they were now exploring space with the hopes of expanding the reach of the coalition with renewed energy... they hadn't seemed to infect him like it had the others. Even as the movements drew into a phoeb, the castle was brimming with life, and brimming with plans for the future. Pidge having fully analysed the academies data, had found nothing of use, so the files had been squirrelled away into her never ending void of stolen files... Things were finally going right, so... he should be happy? Yet, he didn't know what was wrong with him. It was like he had an itch he couldn't scratch, and he knew he was driving Keith crazy because of it.

Sighing as they cuddled in bed, Lance tried to enjoy his early morning bliss, but that itch was rising again

"I can tell you're thinking"

"I'm sorry. I really don't know what's wrong with me"

"There's nothing wrong with you. But you have been quite, especially after visiting the orphanage"

"I was so excited, and now I'm just... I don't mean to bring you down"

"You're not bringing me down. I was most definitely up"

Lance rolled his eyes as he let Keith roll him onto him. Cupping his face, his husband smiled warmly

"It's ok to need a break"

"I don't need a break. Maybe I'm missing Red? I know we all took our lions down to see the kids, but we were together so much, and now I haven't had to pilot her. We've spent the whole last movement a half just floating in space... yeah... Maybe she can tell me what's wrong with me?"

"Then go spend the day in Red"

"You won't mind?"

"Why would I mind? She's your girl"

"She is. She's my best girl. Do you want to watch the boys today? Or should I?"

"Shiro wanted to do some hand to hand training as he's still having trouble figuring out just how much pressure to apply"

"I'm happy you two are talking"

"It's not great, and sometimes I just want to punch him in the face, but we're working on it"

"Good. Has he admitted to dating Allura?"

"No. They're still hovering around the issue. They like each other, but they both let their thoughts get the better of them. The most they've gone is nearly kiss, and now with Toral. He's trying to give Allura space"

"Do you want me to ask Toral if she wants to go for a ride in Red? Give Allura and Shiro some space"

"I still don't know how I feel about her"

"She's a kid, and she's been good for Allura, and Coran"

"I know. I wasn't impressed you'd let her out, but she's been tolerable"

"Mmm, Hunk said we were alike"

"You two are. She's got the same happy vibe about her, but I prefer you every time"

"Mhmm. Don't go forgetting who you're married to"

"I'm not going to. You can ask her if you want"

"Yeah. I think I will"

Toral was surprisingly keen to get back inside Red. They'd left the castle, and almost immediately Toral started talking about all the things she and Allura had planned, the young girl was very clearly smitten with their Queen. Normally Lance would be happy to listen, but today his mind was to focused on that itch, that even being inside of Red hadn't scratched. If anything, her gentle tugs at his mind were making things worse

"Lance, are you listening?"

"Sure Toral. You and Allura are best friends"

"I was asking what's wrong with you? Did I do something?"

[kerbaldevteam]

KSP Weekly: A Corned Beef Sandwich

Welcome to KSP Weekly everyone. This past January 5th, a legend passed away. A man who enjoyed the longest career of any astronaut (42 years of active NASA service), became the first person to fly six space missions, walked on the moon, and commanded the first Space Shuttle. We are talking, of course, about John W. Young. We want to take this opportunity to honor his memory and talk a little about his work and legacy.

John Young was an American astronaut, naval officer and aviator, test pilot, and aeronautical engineer. He was born in San Francisco, California, on September 24, 1930, to parents William Hugh Young, a civil engineer, and Wanda Howland Young. Young showed an interest for science at a young age and  earned a Bachelor of Science degree with highest honors in Aeronautical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1952. After graduating, Young entered the United States Navy. He served as fire control officer on the destroyer USS Laws and completed a tour in the Sea of Japan during the Korean War. Following this assignment, he was sent to flight training. In 1954, he was designated a Navy helicopter pilot and after receiving his aviator wings, he was assigned to Fighter Squadron 103 for four years. After training at the United States Naval Test Pilot School, Young was assigned to the Naval Air Test Center at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland, for three years. In 1962, he set two world time-to-climb records while flying his Phantom II, attaining 3,000 meters (9,843 ft) from a standing start in 34.52 seconds and 25,000 meters (82,021 ft) from a standing start in 227.6 seconds. He joined NASA this same year.

Fellow astronaut Charles Bolden described Young and Robert "Hoot" Gibson as the two best pilots he had met during his aviation career: "Never met two people like them. Everyone else gets into an airplane; John and Hoot wear their airplane. They're just awesome".

In 1965, Young flew on the first manned Gemini mission with Gus Grissom. He somehow managed to smuggle a corned beef sandwich onto the spacecraft, a feat for which he was reprimanded, even though it was probably far more delicious than the food on board. Some members of the US House of Representatives were not pleased about the stunt, claiming that Young cost taxpayers millions of dollars by disrupting a scheduled test of space food during the flight. Despite this stunt, he commanded another Gemini mission the next year with no reports of corned beef smuggling, though he may have gotten better at hiding food this time around.

In 1969, during Apollo 10, he became the first person to fly solo around the Moon. He became the ninth person to walk on the Moon as Commander of the Apollo 16 mission in 1972. During that mission, he drove the Lunar Roving Vehicle on the Moon's surface. He is one of only three people to have flown to the Moon twice. He also commanded two Space Shuttle flights, including its first launch in 1981, and served as Chief of the Astronaut Office from 1974 to 1987. John Young was the only person to have piloted, and been commander of, four different classes of spacecraft: Gemini, the Apollo Command/Service Module, the Apollo Lunar Module, and the Space Shuttle. Young retired from NASA in 2004 after one of the most incredible careers in aerospace history. He was 87 years old when he passed away, and he will be remembered by space enthusiasts for many more years to come. And it seems that he enjoyed snacks as much as our green little friends. Godspeed, John Young, and here at the KSP HQ we salute you!

[Development news start here]

This past Tuesday we officially released Kerbal Space Program Enhanced Edition! After months of hard work hand in hand with our friends at BlitWorks, we have been able to provide console players a faithful and worthy version of KSP on both PS4 and Xbox One. These past few days we have been carefully watching the response from the community while providing assistance with some controls and functions, and the whole team is jubilant to see that it has been predominantly positive. However, it is through your constructive criticism, feedback, suggestions and bug reports we are receiving that we’ll be able to solve the issues and bugs that have been showing up. So, yes, there is a patch planned that will address many of the issues we’re discovering as part of our ongoing support plan for the Enhanced Edition. In the meantime, remember that posting on the Console Project of the Bugtracker with as much detail as possible is the best way to make sure we see and fix them, so please do report anything you find. As always, we appreciate all of your feedback!

In other news, the Making History Expansion continues to be carefully molded, as more features and components are implemented. For instance, just as with the core game, we expect that Mods will play an important  role in Making History, and this week completed the design of where and how Mods installed into the game are going to be displayed to the Mission Creators and Mission Players. We are making sure that Mod support is at the forefront of the decisions we make with the design. It is imperative for us to maintain the relationship we have with our community and to extend this into the creation of Missions and the support of Mods. It is because of this we will integrate Mod support from day one into the Making History Expansion. In the upcoming weeks, we’ll let you know further detail regarding Mod support, so stay tuned for that.

Additionally, the team is working on the implementation of Tutorial Missions for the Mission Builder into the list of Stock Missions to be included in the expansion. We want to make sure that everyone who ventures into Making History has the means to fully take advantage of the tools they are going to have at their disposal. Our fans have made us aware of shortcomings of the tutorials in the core game and, as always, we have been taking note, so these new tutorials are going to include a new Highlighting System accompanied with instructor dialogs that will improve the flow of the tutorial.

Moreover, the development team finished implementing the correct experience and trait levels into missions for Kerbals, and is working on additional Nodes to be included in the Mission Builder. These include the following:

Action Camera Mode Node: This will be an action node that will allow mission creators to toggle the camera mode during mission. An example of how this could be used is to create a sort of cutscene within the flow of a mission.

Test Velocity Node: With this simple node, we want to include the ability to test a vessel’s velocity. We’ll allow Creators to choose between Orbital and Surface modes.

Create Flag Node: By using Create Flag Node, Creators will be able to place a flag on any planet’s surface. We’re adding the ability to select the Flag, and include a message and description to it.

Test Vessel Distance Node: This node gives the ability to test the distance from a vessel to another object.

This week we finished merging in the last of the code and models for Engine clusters and Structural Tubes into the game, so it's time to get into some more detail on how these work.

Engine plates come in sizes from 1.875 through 5m, and the player can independently select from several node configurations (single, double, triple, quad, 6x1, and 8x1) with symmetry support.  The plates also include mesh switching that allow for up to five different lengths per engine plate.

One design consideration was to not penalize players for using the new engine plates (both in terms of mass and part count).  So they will have a relatively low mass (since they essentially take the place of the normal engine fairings), and will also have a bottom decoupler built in, so the behavior would be very similar to the normal practice of putting an engine on top of a decoupler, except now you will be able to have this behavior for an entire cluster of engines.  Of course, everyone likes part pictures, so here are some examples of the new engine plates, using both old and new engines

We also took all of the new engine shrouds (25 in total) and will be providing a set of mesh-switchable structural tubes, suitable for boat tails and other creative uses. These come in sizes from 1.25m through 5m, each with five selectable lengths.  They all have inward and outward facing nodes on both the top and bottom, and are completely hollow for all of the makers out there. It’s important to mention that these features are still being tested and may still to go through some additional changes.

We're hoping that this new trove of structural elements will really unlock some creative opportunities for our players, and we had a lot of fun making and testing them too, as shown in this test footage. 

Finally, we remind you that you still have another week to participate in our latest KSP Challenge - Target Practice. So go check it out and share your creations!

That’s it for this week. Be sure to join us on our official forums, and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and Facebook. Stay tuned for more exciting and upcoming news and development updates!

Happy launchings!

*Information Sources:

Biographical Data: JOHN W. YOUNG . (n.d.), Retrieved from http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/young.html

Speck, E. (2016, September 25). Moon-walking astronaut John Young turned 86 on Saturday. Retrieved from http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/space/go-for-launch/os-nasa-astronaut-john-young-turns-86-20160923-story.html

Dunbar, B. (n.d.). From Gemini to Shuttle: John Young Retires. Retrieved from https://www.nasa.gov/vision/space/features/young_retires.html

Goldstein, R. (2018, January 06). John Young, Who Led First Space Shuttle Mission, Dies at 87. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/06/obituaries/john-young-dead.html

#ksp weekly #Kerbal Space Program #making history #enhanced edition #john young #devnotes

[gohyuck]

day one

>>STARTING SCREEN

>>RETURN TO MAIN MENU

Your headset is maladjusted. At least, that’s the most likely source of your current inability to see or hear anything. Tampering with it for mere seconds proves your inference, as everything hits you at once not moments later.

>>WELCOME PLAYER#UDREAM127

There’s light. You open your eyes.

Blink, blink. Everything’s bleary.

>>IF NECESSARY - PICK UP GLASSES OFF NIGHTSTAND

Your glasses are where they always are in your own house. Rather haphazardly you shove them on.

>>IF PERFECT VISION - BLINK AGAIN

Blink.

The first thing you notice is that you’re lying in bed. The sheets are white and the blanket is purple. Not necessarily your favorite colors, but they’ll do. The curtains of the window beside your bed are spread wide open. Birdsong is faint, but audible past the glass.   

Blaring screeches from the alarm clock at your bedside drag you out of your thoughts. You wince - even here, in the perfect world, you evidently can’t get a break. Reaching out your hand you smack the nearest surface, hoping that it’s the clock. 

No such luck - the table corner is sure to leave a mark in your palm, though. You groan in pain at the same time the sounds from the alarm clock become more panicked. Turning over almost frantically, you turn it off.

Silence.

Thank goodness. 

Throwing the covers off, you slide out of bed. Stretch. Your whole body creaks, pops resonating in your ears. There’s a full length mirror on what must be the closet door. 

You’re completely naked. Pulling open the door you find what could, if not for its placement in the house and absence of seating, be mistaken for the living room. The clothing selection is massive, and for a moment you’re dumbstruck. 

You’d joined the game due to the pressure from your friends, preparing yourself to be immensely disappointed. For the first time, however, you consider that if the choices of something as trivial as fashion are so well thought out, maybe you can have it all in the game.  

>>CHOOSE YOUR CLOTHING - WISELY

The “wisely” strikes a chord in you, making you uncomfortable for a split second. You shake it off - it probably means nothing. Quickly choosing clothes, you head for the bathroom. It’s fully equipped, clean toothbrush and unopened toothpaste included. Thankfully. You finish everything you have to, even taking a short shower. 

>>CHOOSE RIVINA BODYWASH

Opening the tube, you smell something fainly metallic. It’s gone as soon as it was there, however, and you’re sure you imagined it. No matter - it’s just a game. It’s probably getting close to breakfast for you in real time, anyways - you’ll have to save and leave soon. Pushing all thoughts out of your mind, you squeeze the bodywash onto a nearby loofah, trying to relax. 

Why are you so on edge all the time? You chalk it up to stress. Dinner clouds your mind again. 

>>CHOOSE NICOTIANA BODYWASH

It’s fragrant, albeit a bit strong. Too strong. As far as you know, however, nobody else is in the house but you, so it doesn’t really matter. You can smell as flowery or as unflowery as you want. You slather it on, worrying, rather, about your morning meal in your real life. You’re hungry. You should just save and come back after eating. 

Maybe you’ll just have breakfast here. 

You change into the clothes you picked - they’re nicer than any you’ve ever owned in real life. You’re also sure you smell better than you ever have before - maybe your friends really were right. Begrudgingly, you allow yourself to entertain that thought. 

Just as you’re about to make yourself a bowl of cereal - basic, you know, but you’re totally starving - the doorbell rings. 

You sigh. 

The gallon jar of milk returns to the fridge. 

The hallway between the kitchen and the front door is longer than expected. Then again, you hadn’t expected a hallway at all. You don’t have one in real life.  Pondering this, you swing open the door, only to find yourself face to face with who is quite possibly the most beautiful person you’ve ever seen leaning against your doorframe nonchalantly.

His face is rounded, but jaw is chiseled. His hair reminds you, vaguely, of noodles, but he pulls it off gracefully. Have you ever met anyone pull off a perm gracefully before? You don’t think so. His body is lean, lithe, and relaxed. There are specks of light in his eyes and they, which are framed by long lashes and thick eyebrows, are rivaled only by the soft curve of his lips.  

>>SHORT CIRCUIT - IMMEDIATELY

“Um...”

He raises an eyebrow expectantly. You pause, only to speak again a second later.

“Uh...um.”

You’ve baffled him with your intellect already. Good going. 

Luckily, he finds it endearing... or amusing. You aren’t quite sure. You don’t think you want to know. He pulls a hand out from within his hoodie’s pocket, extending it out for you to shake. You do.   

“I’m Mark, your neighbor. I figured I’d say hi, or something.” He’s younger than you initially pinned him as, you realize. His age can’t be too far from yours, older or younger. 

“I’m (Y/N). I just uh...I just got here.” You blink. He blinks back, more owlishly than you. “Oh! Come inside. It’s not messy yet since I haven’t really...”

“Messed it up yet?” One corner of his lips turns up, and you, blushing, look at him out of the corner of your eye. 

“Yeah, pretty much.” 

He pushes off of the doorframe, following you in. You lead him to the kitchen. 

“Have you had breakfast yet, Mark? I was just about to have some cereal and if you want I can grab a bowl for you, too.” 

His cheeks redden just slightly before he gives you the go-ahead. It’s cute, you smile to yourself, that he’s embarrassed about having someone else do something for him, even if they’re just giving him cereal. 

“Take a seat at the counter, then.”

“I usually have breakfast before harassing the neighbors,” Mark sheepishly grins as he moves the stool back. “Just woke up late this morning and figured saying hi was the priority.” 

“Fine by me. Now I have someone to ask questions to, if you’re cool with it, that is.”  

“I’m stealing away your morning, the least I can do is answer some questions.”

You smile, setting bowls in front of both him and you as you take the stool beside him. Natural light’s filtering in from windows all throughout the unfamiliar, but definitely your, house. Not a bad first morning in the game. 

“Does everyone live alone?” 

Mark chuckles in the midst of inhaling corn flakes and immediately regrets it when one lodges itself in his throat. He coughs and you hurriedly pat him on the back.

“No - it’s just like in the real world. People buy and sell houses and apartments and live with whoever they want. Everyone enters the game, though, alone in a home similar to and in a city similar to the one they’re actually in.” You nod. Easy enough. 

“Does this mean you and I live close by in real life?” 

Mark nods. “Reppin’.” You grin back at him. “Cool.”

“I didn’t see my phone when I woke up, and I can’t find my laptop. How do I find other people I know and search stuff up here?” 

“It’s a virtual reality game, after all. If you ask the AI something out loud, she’ll answer. Like, if you wanted to know where I was because you wanted to hang out, if you go “AI, where’s Mark?” she’ll tell you where I am.”

“Awesome.” Mark’s eyes meet yours, and both of you smile for a moment before looking away. It’s awkward again, suddenly. The presence on your left isn’t unwelcome, though.  

“I’ve, uh, that’s the end of my questions. For now. At least.” You move to grab Mark’s finished bowl from him to put in the sink along with yours, but he beats you to both of them. 

“You picked a good day to start playing - there’s a kind of neighborhood get together by the woods end tonight, around six. You can meet everyone, ask more questions if you think of any, if you want to. I can knock if you need someone to walk you there without getting lost.” 

The last sentence is spoken right as Mark trips over air, grasping at the counter to steady himself so as to not drop the bowls. He slides them into the sink and shoots you an embarrassed smile. 

“Maybe you’re the one who needs someone to walk you.” You respond, only teasing playfulness in your eyes. You walk him to the door.

“It was nice meeting you, Mark.”

“Pleasure’s all mine, (Y/N). See you at six?”

“I’ll be waiting for your knock.” You wink, far less flustered than you were fifteen minutes ago. That’s likely due, of course, to the fact that you’ve seen him blush beet red thrice and trip spectacularly once already. 

Pink dusts his cheeks as he waves goodbye, jogging down your porch steps to his house next door.

Make that four times you’ve seen him blush. 

You check the clock on the wall in the living room. 8:28 AM. You have over 9 hours, and there’s not much, you know, for you to do in game right now. 

“AI, save my game, please.”

<<OF COURSE>>

Taking off your headset, you set it beside you. You’re back in your room, willing away the slight sense of disappointment at how drab it seems compared to the game. It’s 8:29. 

Cynosure, you’re surprised to say, isn’t as much a waste as you thought it would’ve been. You’re impressed at the thought that’s gone into it.

And impressed that someone like Mark, so adorable but so handsome, so intriguing yet so boy-next-door in every sense of the word, exists. 

>>SAVE

>>LEAVE

>>NEIGHBORHOOD PARTY - SIX O’CLOCK

#nctwriters #mark #mark lee #mark scenario #mark scenarios #mark lee scenario #mark lee scenarios #nct 127 #nct u #nct dream #nct 127 preferences #nct dream preferences #nct u preferences #nct mark #mark nct #cynosure

[kaliawai512]

SORRY I HAVE TOO MANY QUESTIONS. In a Pacifist ending, then, where does Frisk stay before the Barrier is broken? Does Toriel open up the door to the Ruins again? Could we get a little bit about what life is like in the Underground with the human around, and do they try to befriend or open up to Gaster at all? (This is Pacifrisk after all).

YOUR QUESTIONS ARE AWESOME ASK THEM ALL. (Also I need more happy questions for this AU.)

On top of that, this question REALLY made me think because I hadn’t considered any of those things before!

Okay. So to start. Frisk (and the gang, as established in a previous ask) has arrived the castle to face Asgore. Asgore is … already reluctant to fight Frisk, but there’s no way he’s going to do it with Papyrus, Sans, Undyne and Alphys all standing with them. He is … unsure of his next move at first, but Papyrus very quickly breaks into one of his Papyrus-style inspirational speeches, declaring that no one has to fight or die, that by attacking these humans, Asgore is simply keeping the war going, even though Frisk had nothing to do with the original Barrier - they are innocent, just like Papyrus and Sans, caught in the middle. Wouldn’t they be better suited to find a solution that would allow for genuine peace if they all worked together?

Asgore, of course, isn’t very hard to convince, and the speech breaks him. He concedes that he has made an enormous mistake in the past, and will not make it again.

… however, as in canon, the extra time before the beginning of the Asgore fight has allowed Toriel time to change her mind. She barges in, sees Asgore, and immediately knocks him over with a flameball. Because she doesn’t need an explanation, Asgore has killed six human children and now there’s another one right in front of him, she doesn’t have time to ask questions.

Except this time she turns out to be wrong, but whatever, he’s happy to see her, even if she’s still very unhappy with him.

So now everyone is here and happy, like they are in that little moment in canon. Except Flowey doesn’t show up, so there’s no interruption - and, of course, no Barrier-breaking. Frisk is given the choice of who to live with, and once Papyrus realizes that Toriel knows both Frisk and his brother, he immediately invites her to come live with them - despite the inevitable puns - and bring Frisk in as his and Sans’s “little sib.”

Toriel is … hesitant to leave the Ruins, but agrees on the condition that she returns periodically to make sure that no other humans have fallen. Frisk is thrilled, and Sans, in his own quiet way, is very excited to have his pun buddy coming to live with them, while Papyrus is eager to be a big brother to Frisk. Over the next few days, they move Toriel’s essentials into the skelebros’ home and get rooms set up for her and Frisk. Sans’s socks are picked up within the first hour, and his room is cleaned within the first day. He … reluctantly accepts this fact.

Now this might be the end of it except for, well … Frisk is sharp. They’re going to eventually find out about this guy who really wants to kill them, who apparently hurt their “big brothers,” and who Asgore keeps in a cell/luxury-suite in his castle. They’ve already befriended virtually every other monster - they’re certainly not going to give up on Gaster.

Asgore is definitely not going to want to let Frisk anywhere near Gaster, of course. Same with Sans. Papyrus is torn - he wants to show Gaster his new human friend, but he is … protective of and concerned for Frisk. Toriel, however, had no idea what had happened to Gaster until now - it has been quite some time and she was too busy to consider it by this point - but this is when she learns the truth.

She’s mad.

She’s actually deeply shocked and grieving the loss and (what feels like a) betrayal of someone she once thought of as an adopted child, but on the surface, she’s really mad.

Gaster is going to get a visit. By this point, he’s already heard about Toriel’s return, and has processed it and accepted the inevitability of her judgement. This does not soften the blow. He puts on a blank face, but it really, really hurts to have his former-mother-figure know what he’s done. He is not expecting the hints of guilt she displays, similar to those Asgore felt, thinking that she could have done something to prevent this had she helped him more.

Now Frisk is sharp, but they’re also sneaky. They’ve taken advantage of Toriel’s … distraction and followed her to the castle. They step into the room behind her to try to mediate the one-sided fight and help. Gaster sees Frisk, drawing Toriel’s attention as well. Toriel immediately grabs Frisk and leaves, terrified for their safety. Gaster is left alone. Toriel expresses her fear to Frisk and asks them to please, please never go into that room again.

Frisk is sharp, and sneaky, and determined, and they love their mom, but they’ve been independent for a long time and aren’t inclined to listen to requests if they go against the principles they hold dear. They don’t go into the room again. They go to the castle, knock on Gaster’s door, and talk to him. Over and over. Again and again.

At first, he refuses to engage them. Then he threatens them - in gibberish, of course, to their ears. Then he talks back, random comments, mostly insults, knowing they won’t be able to understand. They keep visiting, and one day they slide a piece of paper and a pen under the door, asking for a written response. After several tries, Gaster returns one. It is insulting and brief and in WingDings, but Frisk has asked Papyrus for a guide to the WingDings alphabet and translates it eagerly. They are not discouraged by the message’s contents.

This continues until the Barrier is finally broken some time later. Now, Gaster and Frisk are definitely not friends, and if you asked Gaster, he would insist he carries just as much disdain for humans as before. But the fact remains that he does respond to some of Frisk’s questions, and does hold conversations with them, brief and cold as they are. Frisk is satisfied with that.

Once they’re on the Surface, well … Frisk still isn’t going to give up. And Gaster has started to realize that at the very least, communicating with the human is entertaining. And an opportunity to study the enemy.

It’s a start.

Toriel finds out eventually, and doesn’t approve, but doesn’t stop them. Sans finds out and is … very concerned, but he’s not going to try to stop it either. Despite some lingering insecurities, he knows that Frisk isn’t showing approval of Gaster’s actions by talking to him - that’s just the way they are, like Papyrus. And he loves his brother too much to hold anything against Frisk for being like him.

#asks about my fics

[rongasm]

Scalia- your thoughts?

Okay, this is going to be the one answer I give in regards to Sc/alia, and it’s not going to be overwhelmingly positive, but before I start, I want to make something very clear: I do not hate Scott and Malia as as ship. In fact, I have crack shipped them since s4. For a long time, I’ve said that Scott treated Malia better than Stiles did and that he could really help improve her as a person. But, with that in mind, I never actually wanted it to happen in canon, and now, in the context of canon and the fandom… I like it even less. 

Problem #1: Personality

Shelley and Tyler have great chemistry, but just because they do, doesn’t mean the characters belong together. You know this, and I know this, but characters aren’t the actors. If they were, we would hate them. I just don’t think Scott’s and Malia’s personalities are conducive to a long term relationship. I personally think he’d constantly be “coaching” her and it would be great for a friendship, but not for a romance. Scott’s incredibly patient– but does that mean he should have to be a parent to his partner? Not in my view. And does Malia even need to be with someone who would be teaching her forever? Maybe at the beginning of her story, yes, but now? I don’t know. 

Problem #2: Kira Yukimura. 

I just rewatched the scene in 5b where Scott and Kira share their final moment together, but in case you’ve forgotten it (it’s short), I typed up a little transcript for you: 

[the camera zooms in on them kissing from a wide shot]

SCOTT: You don’t have to do this. KIRA: I made a deal with them. And I need to. It’s not for my parents. It’s not for you. It’s for me. SCOTT: How long is it going to take? KIRA: As long as it takes. [KIRA reaches into her pocket and hands him her Tail, which is one of her nine lives as a kitsune. It is the equivalent of handing him her soul] Keep it for me. Keep it safe. 

[they kiss]

[End scene]

Where in there do you see a breakup? I… I do not see a breakup here. I see an implied someday in this scene. And then, Scott decides to go date Kira’s best friend. When, in my view, he’s waiting for Kira and Kira is waiting for him. 

I know that people date their friends’ exes, but that is just… not cool with me. The fact that she gave him her tail means that she intends to come back and collect, to me.  

And side note– Kira’s only been gone since winter of senior year. It’s been, like, nine months. It’s been less than a year since Kira left. 

Problem #3: Arden Cho’s treatment. 

From the moment Malia stepped into the scene, Kira’s screen-time went way down and Malia was, essentially, a replacement. Despite the fact that Kira was the love interest of the main character and had been on the show longer than Malia, in s4 and s5 Malia had far more screen-time, backstory, and promotion. In s3, the order was as follows: Allison. Lydia. Kira. In season 4, this is what you would expect it to be: Lydia. Kira. Malia. Instead, it was Lydia. Malia. Kira. And is it honestly worth it to kick the Asian romantic lead off the screen just to make way for another white girl? Kira was shunted to the side for Malia and you can love the hell out of Malia’s character and still acknowledge that fact. 

Problem #4: Malia’s use as a love interest 

Throughout the series, we’ve been complaining that Malia has been used as a love interest. I’m not going to pretend that I’m okay with her being used as “girl who main character gets with” just because the guy that she’s getting with isn’t Stiles. A lot of the fandom likes Malia better when she is single, and although I hope we love the way she is written this season, that doesn’t invalidate me wishing that she won’t just become a prop in Scott’s storyline. 

Problem #5: Lydia being isolated 

Someone pointed out on twitter, and I agree with them, that Scott and Malia being together is only going to serve to isolate Lydia. It’s possible that we’re going to see something very similar to what we had in s4, with Lydia going off by herself and never getting one-on-one time with the other mains. 

We literally see it in the synopsis for the second episode– Lydia is going to Eichen House by herself because Scott and Malia are spending the episode together finding out who shot the bullet. Lydia has gone through some of the worst moments of her life in Eichen House. In 5x05, there’s an entire scene dedicated to Stiles saying “Hey. You’re not going there without me. You’ve been through some shit there and I’m not letting you feel alone.” Even though Lydia has Scott and Kira for protection. Stiles is telling Lydia he’s coming with to emotionally support her because he understands that Eichen House is a place f trauma for her, and for him as well. And that was before Lydia got put into a coma by Theo and then stuck in said coma in Eichen House by her mother and then tortured in Eichen House by Doctor Valack and then accidentally murdered Doctor Valack in Eichen House while she was being saved by Stiles. Lydia almost died several times in Eichen House.

So. Yeah. Lydia going there without someone in the pack? Makes sense. (/sarcasm) And yes, Lydia’s constantly being isolated from the pack in the series, and I’m not expecting her to romantically be with Scott, but she’s dating his best friend and she’s a main character so I don’t think it’s too much to ask that she gets one-on-one scenes with Scotty, one of her closest friends. Like… why is this so hard?

Problem #6: Inter Friend-Group Dating 

Okay, this is a personal thing and it is really small and doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, but think about how weird and mixed up the pack is getting. Not only is Malia one of the only shapeshifters left in Scott’s pack, just like he is (I mean, Hayden’s leaving, Kira’s gone, Isaac’s gone, Lydia and Stiles and Mason aren’t shapeshifters, Corey is barely pack, leaving… Malia and Liam), she’s also the girl to whom Scott’s best friend since childhood lost his virginity. 

So you’ve got Scott whose best friend is Stiles, who is dating Lydia, who is good friends with Malia, who used to be in a long term relationship with Stiles, whose best friend is Kira, who used to be in a long term relationship with Scott who is now dating Malia.  

Like… that’s a lot. 

If you’ve had sex with every person a person you’re having sex with has had sex with… the whole pack’s banged each other. Orgies for everyone.* 

*Note: this is sarcastic. Sarcasm is my only defense. 

Problem #7: Rick Riordan Syndrome 

Let me explain. (Spoilers?)

Rick Riordan, author of the Percy Jackson series, has a Percy Jackson sequel series called the Heroes of Olympus. In this sequel, there are seven main (Girls: Annabeth, Piper, Hazel) (Boys: Percy, Jason, Frank, Leo), and there’s ten characters who have POVS. All of these characters range in age from 13-17ish.

Out of these nine, only two don’t end up with someone, and one of these girls is the Oracle of Delphi so therefore she isn’t allowed to be with someone. 

All of the main characters match up with each other, and if they don’t have a matchup, Rick creates one for them. So, Percy and Annabeth are together, then Piper and Jason start dating, then Hazel and Frank start dating, then Leo is a crazy third wheel so he falls in love with Atlas’ daughter who was doomed to spend her life on an island, then Nico is in love with Percy but can’t get Percy so he gets to be with a way older guy named Will. 

One single character. Out of ten. They’re middle and high schoolers. 

Not all characters need endgame. Sometimes you’re sacrificing the integrity of your plot and characters to give everyone an Ultimate Matchup. It’s just not necessary, and frankly it feels a little sloppy. To me, it tarnishes the credibility of the writers. It just does– that’s how I feel.

I’m attempting to reserve judgement until I actually see the season, and I’m trying to keep an open mind, but I think my concerns are valid. Scott is one of my favorite characters in the series. I really enjoy Malia, I enjoy her scenes. Shelley and Tyler have incredible chemistry. Aesthetically, this couple is awesome. Scene-wise, I know they’ll kill it and I have lots of hope for their dialogue too. They have the capacity to be both hilarious and extremely romantic. But my problem with this ship is something deeper than the surface, and it’s the thing that kinda irks me overwhelmingly, to the point where I’m not sure that I’ll be able to be impartial when it hits my screen. 

However, I’ll try. 

#answered #tw ask #this is critical thinking #it is multi faceted #not all good not all bad #stilinski--jpeg

[itsnotdavid-blog]

MY VILLAINOUS LAIR

TL;DR - I’m indecisive and I don’t know if I want to live in a large house surrounded by friends and family, or if I’d be better off hiding away in isolation inside some tiny, walled off excuse of a home. No to cars, yes to gardens. Fuck yeah, nature!

-

Nothing’s more fun than being tasked with writing a blog post for a class activity. To start things off, I’d like to apologize beforehand for this needlessly long wall of text. I don’t expect you to read along, and I certainly don’t expect you to remember all the itty bitty details, but I do want you to know is that I’m what the cool kids call extra. We were expected to draw one house and my stupid self ended up coming up with three. If that doesn’t give you an idea of what kind of person I am, then I don’t know what will. 

The question still lingers: what exactly do these houses represent? If there’s one thing I’ve learned today, it’s that all these seemingly insignificant little doodles form a bigger picture. Isn’t it exciting - a big picture made of little pictures? Like one big mosaic where each tile delves deeper into the myriad insecurities that stir within me. My inner optimist says it’ll paint something pretty, like a field of vibrant sunflowers, or a horde of zombies getting ravaged by a pack of fire-breathing velociraptors. Then again, there’s also the possibility of this picture taking the semblance of a donkey’s sphincter, or possibly even Mama June after a hot, sweaty yoga session. 

Either way, the picture isn’t what’s important. 

What’s important is that I’ve got three houses, each more pointless than the last, and it’s my job to figure out what these doodles mean. Even as the professor spoke and told us to put our pencils aside, I simply couldn’t keep mine off the paper. It was like there was this odd, supernatural force compelling me to finish what I started. But why? I don’t even put this much effort into waking up in the morning, so what’s gotten me to go full-ham on something entirely fictional and meaningless? The more time I spent on the drawing, the more I began to realize it was wholly unrealistic.

So I started again.

Scratched that one after five minutes. Too small, too unambitious. This one didn’t seem right to me at all.

So I started again.

Eventually I ran out of time, and was ultimately left with three unfinished houses; all distinct with little-to-no similarities save for the essentials. Needless to say, I was devastated. How could I fail something as simple as drawing a house? This was the unassuming sort of task you’d give to a five year old and I’m sure they’d manage to get it finished one way or another. I’ll bet their houses even have dinosaurs. Life isn’t fair.

The first house I drew was far larger than the other two - the perfect home for a less-than perfect family. There’s even a small patch of land in the back that’s dedicated to growing fruit and vegetables, it is fucking awesome. Despite the sheer size of the building, the rooms totaled to four, and that’s only if you don’t count the garden and the backyard. Think of it this way: if a house is big, you can assume it’s got a lot of rooms, and if it’s got a lot of rooms, it’s got a lot of space for inhabitants and/or guests. Generally, some of the more introverted people prefer returning to a lonelier home after a long day of work, faking smiles and chatting up people they’d never interact with outside the office. The last thing they’d want to deal with at home is even more needless social interaction. 

With that in mind, it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to conclude that an introvert wouldn’t want to live with other people unless they absolutely had to. The second house drawn seems to represent this on a deeper level. Let’s pretend for one minute that there’s more to me than meets the eye. It’s not totally unreasonable to assume that a self-proclaimed introvert would want some company every now and then - there’s no shame in wanting to be alone, but that doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to enjoy spending time with friends and family. The two aren’t mutually exclusive.

Though it might not be clear, given my abysmal skill with architecture, house planning and all things creative, I poured a lot more passion into this house in comparison to the others. Even if I firmly believe that what other people think of me is none of my business, I still feel as if my appearance matters in some way. I’m all for sticking to the status quo but there’s no denying that I’m, as I said before, what the cool kids call extra. For better or for worse. 

It’s strange. I’d never admit it in person, I do actively try to distinguish myself from the crowd for whatever reason… but at the same time, I resent the attention that comes with it. It’s a hard duality to put into words, so you’ll have to pardon my inability to explain it. I don’t quite get it myself, you see. Even if everyone in the world’s special and unique in their own whimsical little ways, people are too busy concerned with themselves to notice this about others. It’s an easy to trap to fall into, perceiving someone as dull simply because they’re not good conversationalists; because their quirks are of the subtler sort and only tend to shine once you truly get to know the person. 

The tragedy is, people won’t ever invest enough time to see that side of them.

This is only highlighted by the sheer difference between this house and the two drawn after it. It could be argued that the first home - the larger home - represents the side of me that wants to be surrounded people, and stand out by towering over all the others. This is in stark contrast to the other two, which arguably fits the size of an apartment room than an actual house given its scale and lack of a second floor - a claustrophobic little hovel that’s more fit for a gremlin than a man. I’d imagine it’d be like living in a trash compactor. Don’t get me wrong, it’s good living. Doesn’t change the fact that you’re living in a trash compactor.

Still, I get the feeling I’m only scratching the surface and that there’s so much you can take from the size of the two houses alone. Maybe it represents my desire to live in isolation in my villainous lair, walled off from the rest of the world. Looking back on it now, there’s no way I’d survive in a house like that. I’d go insane, mainly because there’s nothing to do but also because I’m a bit of a claustrophobe. What was I thinking?

Just by looking at this house alone, you can already tell I’ve started to lose a bit of steam. There’s a reason why I don’t do interior decorating - it’s because I’m absolutely dreadful at it. Look at this. What kind of madman puts the bathroom next to the kitchen and not the bedroom? It’s hilariously inefficient, if you ask me. Takes a certain kind of idiot to come up with a house like this and even bigger one to want to live in it.

Bah! It just gets worse and worse!

If there’s something all three of these houses have in common, it’s a kitchen. Funny. You’d think the bedroom would be something I’d prioritize, but apparently food comes first. In all fairness, the only reason I didn’t include a bedroom in the first doodle was because I lacked the time. It’s strange though. I haven’t exactly cooked a proper meal since I moved here just a little over a year ago. Perhaps this the brain’s strange and subtle way of telling you to start cooking once again, though it’s also possible that my brain’s simply calling me fat. Either way, it capitalizes on my love of food. 

On the other hand there is something that all my houses lack and the only person I can blame for that is myself. There’s no fucking garage. Whether it was a simple overlook or a subconscious desire, it’s given me a lot to think about. I’ve never been fond of cars, and I’ve never exactly wanted to drive either so it’s only natural that there’ll be nothing in my house related to such things. Still, every family ought to have a vehicle. They’ve got to get around town somehow. Walking simply isn’t an option in this day and age, as fun as it sounds. Speaking of oversights, I’ve also failed to make any note of what house would look from the outside. All I’ve got is a top-down view: a simple outline that maps out where the furniture’s supposed to go. 

Not that I’d end up following it anyway.