#and the nebulous status of what they meant to each other | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

rageprufrock · 8 months

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Hi Pru, this is a career question... I am in my mid-twenties, female, not quite the most junior employee at my organization but treated often as one. The workplace is highly male-dominated, competitive, the older supervisors sometimes hilariously old-boys'-club, and the younger men (my age) mean well (feminist, etc.) but have their own territories to defend. For complicated reasons I cannot leave. I knew some of this coming in but am ashamed to say that

You’ll love this: my response is so late because I too girlbossed too close to the sun and have accidentally reached mid-senior leadership status at my organization and the past month has been the most hilarious cluster of fucks. Insert clown emoji herey.

ANYWAY.

I have a few thoughts on this one, and hopefully one, or some, of these are helpful as you're navigating your early career.

To address your most immediate question: is it meant to be this hard? I think "is it meant" or "is it always" are two different questions, and each with branching answers completely dependent on your field and profession. Some are notorious for early career hazing--banking, medicine, etc--and then the answers are that the suffering is a feature, not a bug, for these industries (this can be debated ad nauseum but you know what I mean), and then for many, many other professions, the answer is that while it's not meant to be this difficult, it still is, and that it's all we can do to survive it.

But setting aside the macro issues, of whether the role itself is objectively hard or if the environment you're in is objectively sub-optimal, the more nebulous and inescapable thing is that each one of us, individually, in our early career are undergoing one of many puberties and all its attendant implied indignities. I find it weird that culturally we don't talk about this much--at least not in Western or the Eastern cultures with which I'm most conversational--but think about it: in the first five to ten years of your working life, you're often simultaneously navigating a staggering number of life-changing systemic shifts that have a tectonic impact on your lived experience. I

For a lot of us, beginning your life as a working adult means you're likely moving out of your parents' home, which adds a huge amount to your mental load and financial burden.

For a lot of us, these early professional jobs are also the first time we're operating in a performance-reward system for which there is no clear rubric or understandable progression monitoring--there aren't any grades, and I can't tell you the number of people who I've spoken to in my career who have been shocked when they're told they're being put on performance improvement plans even though they thought they were doing fine.

It's like being sent to college with no class list, textbooks hidden in eight different departments run by varyingly helpful people, while trapped in an inescapable group project run by someone who seems just as frazzled as you are, and told "okay well you should need to bring me your completed degree by EOD Thursday." This doesn't even take into account your genetic assignment to play this entire game on hard mode by failing to be a cisgendered man in the dominant cultural demographic.

People who've had multiple jobs and career changes can attest, every new job, no matter how seasoned you are, is fucking exhausting. It's almost a joke among my friends at this point how often I change jobs, and every single time I do, there's at least a six month run where at the end of every day, I'm fucking spent. I couldn't calculate 1+3 if my life depended on it, because I've spent my working day so furiously trying to read the professional tea leaves and figuring out what the actual fuck I'm supposed to be doing--which, funnily enough, is never as clear as you would think! Even if you are at increasingly senior levels of responsibility! It's really fun and good! Your boss's boss's leadership team meetings? Surprisingly similar to when I used go get coffee during my break working at an ice cream shop to complain about our customers and equipment and boss! It's amazing how no matter how much changes, everything stays the same!

So I think in the end, my answer to your question is this:

Is it meant to be this hard? Depending on what you do, maybe.

But should it be this hard? Of course not. Life is short and lush and wonderful, but already so filled with challenges, and it's a shame that being rooted in capitalism, we're all forced to participate in a system that's so unbending and unforgiving.

But does that mean it's going to be forever? Or that you can't survive and thrive and have fun in the process? Absolutely not.

However awful you feel, however bad the job is, it doesn't have to be forever. This role you're in now may be just what you need to find your next, better, better paid opportunity. And maybe that one won't be the ideal for more than a year, maybe two, but that's why you keep an eye out and a keen focus on what you want, and what's most important, and like a shark, you continue to move and grow as you get clearer on where you want to move and how you want to grow. The person I was at 24 could not have imagined the person I am at 38, and I'm guessing that the woman I am today can't fathom who I'll be in another 10 years. Whoever she is, I hope she's still choosing to do hard things and--to the very best of her ability--having a good time in the process.

It's okay to cry about work. It's okay to cry at work, even though I strongly recommend that you do this huddled in a restroom in privacy because otherwise it gets messy--fairly or otherwise. It's okay and normal to do these things. It's okay and normal to feel like a fucking disaster, to feel--or to in actuality!--be categorically failing. It is okay and normal to hate and love your job, and to love money and hate the work. There is no right way to do this, and the only wrong way is to give up on yourself, or to create a situation where you cannot have the freedom of your choices or your future.

It's also going to get easier with time. Even if you don't feel it, every day you're getting more experienced, more confident, more discerning. Those microscopic, atomic changes in you accrue, and I'm sure if you're honest with yourself you can already identify how even today, you are a stronger, more capable person in your professional context than you may have been just a year or two ago. Even if you don't mean to do it, just the experience, the bruises, the callouses from throwing yourself at the brick wall over time will rewrite the person you are--if you do this with your eyes open and intentionally, all the better.

Five years from now, ten years from now, you might still find yourself crying about work. But hopefully you'll share the good fortune I have been privileged enough to have, and find yourself the type of good friends who say, "don't care during work hours, it's beneath you to give them the satisfaction--cry later," and actually have the wherewithal to follow that extremely correct guidance.

So anyway, it shouldn't be this hard, but it is. The good thing is, you're better and stronger than it is, and you can look forward to the day you get to look over the shoulder at all the worlds you've conquered as you get ready to do it all over again.

💖

#advice #career advice

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cebwrites · 2 years

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Red Hair pirates anon here! that's totally fine! I get not wanting to jump into something without being more sure, since Shanks wasn't on the masterlist I debated at first but glad to know!

instead of that crew then what about the Strawhat crew then? Luffy invited new crew member after (incident they met/beat up the same person lol) then Luffy convinced this complete stranger to join the crew. its clear they're nervous/not so open in the merriment then it's revealed it's cause they're trans.

a much smaller crew/ship nothing stays secret forever, even if the Strawhats are friendly, new crew member can't help being wary from past rejections.

can do, anon~

coming out to the strawhats as transmasc

various trans/queer hcs for the strawhats word count: 1k

My readings of characters tend to lean very queer anyway, so you honestly could come to me and say that the SHs were an all trans crew and I'd take your word at face value - lets take a “”conservative”” estimate though and propose that it’s, say, only Zoro, Franky, and Robin as binary-ish trans folk

And Sanji (after the timeskip and a LOT of tumultuous unlearning of embarrassing amounts of internalized trans and homophobia) and Luffy as the sort of nebulous genderfucks; Sanji has the vocabulary to describe his disconnect with gender, Luffy however is completely feral and doesn’t care - one of those “ate my gender like a beetle last week” lil guys

Point is, no one on this fruity little crew would judge you for it, some might need a bit of explaining (namely Luffy) but honestly it wouldn’t change anyone’s perceptions of you afterwards - Luffy would just hit you with the ol’, “oh, so just like Ace, cool!” and then ask if you’d like to see the bug he found under one of the floorboards

Least of all the older members; you don’t get to Warlord status like Jinbei and still have trans people elude your periphery when you’ve got people like Iva running about, and Brook? Well, even if he set sail a lot earlier than everyone else on this crew, pirates are meant to be wild and free, who cares about what’s in someone’s pants so long as it wasn’t a weapon

Plus, looking at him now, what does gender even matter to Brook anyway? He’s a bag of bones! Yohohohoho!

It’s easier said than done though, I get it, not everything is outwardly supportive and you can’t always be sure from the jump - depending on when you join, too, it might just be you and the East Blue crew and it’s not like Zoro’s particularly talkative about his experiences

When the man comes back post-timeskip with top scars from the vampire dad himself, though, that line of dialogue might be a little easier to have; he’s very matter-of-fact about it, talking about what it was like growing up in the kind of environment his master’s dojo fostered, how stifling it could be at times, Kuina, and how he vowed to rise above it all in spite of that, for the both of them

It’s a tender moment Zoro doesn’t have easily, but if it’s with nakama he’ll manage, just maybe don’t mention the emotional vulnerability in front of anybody else, okay?

Sanji’s love language, as it’s always been and not always romantically, is through food and cooking for those close to him, he won’t mention it unless you bring it up but he does see you hanging back a little bit, understandable since not everyone is able to match the Strawhats’ bombastic energy right off the bat, but he does bring little snacks to you and make small talk in the hopes that you’d come around

He’s reassuring, joking about how the best of people probably wouldn’t adjust to this wild crew all that easily but you’d find your footing soon enough, share his reason for joining and you’d see the way he lights up when Sanji talks about the All Blue - nothing about gender was actually mentioned, but by the end of it you’d feel just that much warmer

Usopp and Nami have responses not dissimilar from each other but approach it from different angles - they’d have an inkling of what’s going on but not really the tools to help, maybe even turning to Franky and Robin respectively as the resident trans parents to help out with the situation, but ultimately handle it in ways both unique to each other

Nami would huff at Luffy and the other’s antics from the shade of her Mikan trees while you were nearby, tsk’ing about potential collateral damage once Franky and his weapons join the fray before pushing down her shades and asking if you’d like to join them, when you decline, she smiles knowingly and mumbles that she supposes there can be exceptions to boys being boys

Usopp is a bit more skittish around the idea, as he usually, is but it doesn’t take long for him to fire off into one of his tall, unbelievable tales about how he’d fought and taken down giants before you joined the crew (not entirely wrong depending on when this is), how he was determined to be a brave warrior of the sea just like his father, but most importantly he wanted to be a man that his crew could depend on

All three of them, Sanji, Nami, and Usopp, don’t address the root issue, but their intentions are clear - they want you to feel welcome on this crew, make it your home as much as they have

Post-Enies Robin would be more willing to help, although a repertoire would have to be built up first - that’s more on her own issues surrounding trust and being vulnerable - she’d be a lot more open about it after the timeskip, talking you through potential ways you’d be able to tell the rest of the crew and calmly soothing your worries about any potential (non-existent in this case) backlash

If you came to Franky at any point about it, he’d be SUUUUPER supportive from the start, surprisingly good at keeping secrets despite his usual bluster; he kept Pluton out of the WG’s hands for that long before it’s eventual burning at Enies Lobby, no? Franky’s the best hype man once the cat is out of the bag too, you don’t really get much “bro”-er than the SH’s loveable (suuuuper) Cyborg

Chopper would also be overjoyed to help out his nakama as the crew’s resident doctor, maybe a little too excited at first and you have to remind the little reindeer that you’re not ready for everyone else to know yet, but once he’s calmed down your health, happiness, and confidentiality is 100% in good hands

All in all, your crew will support you with whatever decision you make regarding this going forward (just like they always have for any of their own’s wishes), and hey, if you need a little extra reassurance, all you’d have to do is ask and they’d be more than willing to shower you in it

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vexic929 · 4 months

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ooooh okay now I need to tell you more about Eris and Nyx :D

Eris: an Amazonian warrior, several thousand years old. Because the Amazons are traditionally female, you could say they're afab, but they'd have no idea what that meant if you said it. Plus, technically they were sculpted from clay, so both the "female" and "birth" part are a little up-for-grabs there. He's somewhat ethnically ambiguous in that millennia-old way - i.e. they appear vaguely Middle Eastern or North African, since those were cradles of civilization before populations spread. He's built of about average height, and has a well-sculpted fighter's build (mostly lean muscle, a bit more in the shoulders and thighs, and androgynous like a Greek statue). I might make a picrew to capture the vision sometime? idk

She's a fierce warrior who fights with a spear or javelin (a fact that endears him to Harley later on, of course), though is well-rounded and adaptable when it comes to weapons. And they've got one more trick up their sleeve... he can turn into a lion(ess) when needed, though she rarely uses this power as it's draining and draws a lot of attention

After leaving Themyscira, they tend to follow whatever world conflict they want to fight in. This doesn't always place him on the "right" side, but she's usually not on the "wrong" side either. She meets Rick flag while he's in the military, and he saves them from a bomb threat (since Eris isn't quite adjusted to modern military techniques). They continue to look out for each other, until Rick is eventually transferred to his job working the Suicide Squad. Eris follows, finding it more interesting than simply following war now that war has become so widespread and technological, and often jumps in during the missions since he's a bit hardier than the non-metahumans in the mix. They and Rick are essentially inseparable - not quite romantically, it's all a bit nebulous, but they're partners in every other sense.

And then the events of The Suicide Squad (2021) roll around... that'll be interesting >:)

I'll send Nyx in a different ask since this got longer than expected

yessssssssss I love them, he sounds SO cool! I love that she can turn into a lion(ess) that's sick!! I already ship them with Rick lol

can't wait to read about Nyx too!!! <3333

#practically-an-x-man #practically an x man #vexic answers #vexic lives #pax ocs

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aronarchy · 1 year

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https://twitter.com/butchanarchy/status/1428192146603929603

A 101 on the basic structure and function of the State:

[image ID: A flow chart titled “Basic Structure and Function of the State.” Created by: Lee Shevek @/butchanarchy

The chart has “Politicians” linked to “The Wealthy” at the top. They are connected by a box reading “Same interests and often the same people.” “The Wealthy” is linked to “Wealth = access to resources.” Below this is “Centralisation of Power” linked to “Each power imbalance (hierarchy) creates dependence on the State structure for those who have more power and a source of resource extraction from those who have less.”

This links to: “Government Services, such as forest service, welfare, infrastructure.”

Third box: “Keeps populace too busy and tired to have energy for other projects or engaging in politics.” This links to: “Pointless jobs, long work hours, unnecessarily difficult working conditions.”

Final box: “Provides distractions, naturalises the State via propaganda, manufactures public consent to State actions.” This links to: “Media/Entertainment Industry.”

/end image ID]

https://twitter.com/butchanarchy/status/1428198109172043780

This chart is based off of a thread I did earlier this year with the same general information. You can find it here in written form if that’s easier for you:

https://twitter.com/butchanarchy/status/1428372465760145414

Disclaimer that this is a simplistic and basic framework for understanding the state, it is not (and cannot be) entirely comprehensive or capture every aspect of how State power works because… it’s a singular chart lol. Just made it to help folks get a basic grasp on it.

https://twitter.com/butchanarchy/status/1354964276348219393

Okay here’s a breakdown on State power. *deep breath*

The State is represented by wealthy people who get paid by other wealthy people to work in the State to further their interests. The State can only function if it has these four things: police, prisons, borders, and armies.

The reason a State needs these four things is because it must have a claimed citizenry, and a non-citizenry. It needs borders to make external distinctions of that, it needs prisons to manage internal distinctions of that.

And, of course, a State needs police and armies to enforce those distinctions. Otherwise, those wealthy people who represent it would only be some random people declaring things in a room together. And they wouldn’t be wealthy either.

So, every law that is ever passed is fundamentally either a police order, or a military order, as it falls on those two arms of power to actually enforce it, regardless of what it is.

Wealth isn’t money. Money, as we’ve seen, is a social construct that is meant to reflect/stand-in for wealth. Wealth is access to resources. We were all equally wealthy on earth once. It was only the consolidation of POWER that makes so few of us wealthy now.

Even were something as nebulous as the stock market to vanish tomorrow, the wealthy of today would still be wealthy because of their access and control over resources. Those resources were and are continually stolen from the rest of us.

The State uses other constructs beyond wealth or citizenry to divide and conquer a populace. It has structural patriarchy to create imbalance of power among genders. It has structural white supremacy to create imbalance on the basis of socially constructed race.

In settler colonial States, it has structural colonialist practices to create an imbalance of power between settlers and Indigenous people, whom the State also needs to displace to create its power and set its borders.

Imbalances of power are what keep the State stable. They need a hierarchy that goes into as many relationships as possible, so that many people involved are dependent on the system to maintain whatever power they have, even as they are being crushed by someone else’s power.

All that said. The State is also porous. It consists entirely of people just showing up to work. Government workers AND non-governmental workers. Were any substantial amount of people to just, collectively not show up to work one day, it would all stop in its tracks.

Even with all the State’s power in both armies and police, those forces only ever amount to a tiny percentage of the population. Were the above thing to happen on large enough scale, there would be nothing they could do. So, what they actually do is project their power.

What’s stopping anyone (who isn’t morally opposed) from shoplifting when they need to? Not the fact that a cop is on every corner. But that a cop could be on any corner. That’s what projecting power means.

So, what about electoral politics? Well, electoral politics is based on this simple myth: that we can all reduce our political agency to a symbolic demonstration (voting) every few years, and that in return the State will limit its OWN power.

But, as we know, this is not how this works. Power congeals. Power protects itself. Any time that the State ever comes across something that threatens its sovereignty, it crushes it. It will never limit itself in self-preservation regardless of what its official policy says.

Electoral politics, when said and done, is allowing space in political discourse for people to blow off steam, but at the end of the day still go home and yield to State power. Investing it with legitimacy because, you know, at least they got to yell about it.

Capital also works on you, from the other side of things. You have to work, hustle, grind for 40 hours a week to make a living. What do you do when you’re exhausted by that? Buy something mind-numbing and check out until the next shift starts.

That is how they also keep people from engaging in their political agency. They burn you out, burn you up, and keep you going until you drop. Keep giving you scraps and then taking them back from you until you die or otherwise check out from the world.

They keep weekly work hours long and hard, even when it doesn’t make sense (ex: making cashiers stand all day). The more you are likely to see that the system doesn’t function for you, the harder they will work you to make sure you don’t resist.

And always on the outside of the grind is the ever-present threat of houselessness, starvation, death, for you or your loved ones. And the inside of a jail-cell if you do resist. Where they’ll keep working you at literally cents/hour. All of this so you’ll submit to their power.

This is, of course, simplified and incomplete, but it was all that could be done on a single Twitter thread! If you have anything you’d like to add, reply or qt and I’ll retweet you if I think it’s a solid and accurate point!

#repost of someone else’s content #twitter repost #butchanarchy #theory #the state #anarchism #anti capitalism #abolition

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zabiume · 3 years

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Prompt: could we get a fic about Ichigo and Orihime’s very first date. Like that awkwardness in the beginning then they get more comfortable as the date goes on

I was going to answer this to the T, but I realized there have been a lot of awkward first date fics, so I thought I'd add a little twist to this one. Hope you like! :')

[Read on Ao3/ff.net]

They were twenty—well he was twenty, and she was a few weeks short of her birthday—when Ichigo could admit to himself that he maybe, possibly, probably thought about taking Orihime out on a date sometimes. It wasn’t a lot—his mind had erected rigid boundaries about what he was allowed to want, and what was strictly confined to his private thoughts when he was lying in his dorm bed and listening to Keigo snore.

And Keigo snored a lot.

So maybe he did think about it often, about Orihime coming down to visit him at college, eyes sparkling fondly when she saw through his attempts at humble-bragging about something he was secretly proud of. Listening to her thoughts and her opinions and her occasional bad puns.

Often, he felt homesick just thinking about it—which was ridiculous, really, because his university was a fifteen-minute train ride from home and having Keigo tail him around college was really no different from high school.

(Or maybe it was just stubborn denial of the fact that his homesickness wasn’t really for home, at all. Not strictly anyway).

Either way, when Orihime texted him back saying, yes, she would be interested in coming down to see this really cool aquarium he’d spotted, he sat up in bed and grinned like an idiot.

…

This was a mistake, Ichigo thought, the morning of, flinging a wad of clothes out of his closet. He was due to pick Orihime up from the train station in twenty minutes and he had absolutely nothing to wear.

“Wear a leather jacket,” Keigo said, from where he was lounging upside down on a study chair. “Girls like leather jackets.”

Ichigo made a noise of acknowledgement but frowned. In truth, he wasn’t really worried as much about the outfit as he was about the date itself. Orihime was a friend—a good friend, and half of him was perfectly content to let that be the status quo. The last thing he needed was an awkward change. The other half of him, though, the half that bloomed in hope when she so much as smiled at him—that half wondered if she’d maybe give him a chance.

He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and sighed glumly. His hair was too orange. This was a terrible idea.

A sudden knock against the door pulled both him and Keigo out from their reverie.

“Kurosaki-kun! We’re here!”

Ichigo frowned. We?

He threw his leather jacket over his shoulders and quickly hurried to fling the door open—

—coming face-to-face with Orihime, Chad and Uryu, all dressed up and ready to go in their summer clothes.

Ichigo frowned.

Chad flashed one thumb up in greeting.

“Sado-kun’s car just got back from servicing, so we drove here instead of taking the train.” Orihime explained happily, hands clasped together. “We figured we could spend more time with you that way.”

“I’ve been wanting to see the kelp forest exhibit,” Uryu felt the need to butt in quickly, lest anyone assume he willingly wanted to spend more time with Kurosaki.

Ichigo, on the other hand, was stunned. He opened his mouth to make a bold attempt at words, but was interrupted again.

“Sado? Ishida?” Keigo had come up to the doorway, one brow furled in confusion. He glanced at Ichigo. “But I thought it was supposed to be just—” Ichigo was on him in a flash of a second, palm forcefully covering his mouth even as his ears burned in embarrassment. They wrestled until Keigo was fully in Ichigo’s control, stumbling backwards into the room. The door slammed shut. Someone—probably Keigo—screamed.

Orihime, Chad and Uryu glanced at each other in confusion. When Ichigo re-emerged, he looked rumpled, but made a valiant effort not to let his inner turmoil show.

“Well.” He cleared his throat. “Let's go.”

…

In retrospect, he’d never really specified it was supposed to be a date. There was absolutely nothing in his text that indicated he wanted to maybe try holding Orihime’s hand while they watched the magnificent giant Pacific octopus leer at them. But still. Though he loved Chad (and Uryu, he begrudged), he wanted nothing more than to glare at their looming shadows behind him right now.

“You know, it was so thoughtful of you to invite us out like this, Kurosaki-kun.” Orihime bumped her shoulder with Ichigo’s. “I’ve missed this.”

Ichigo softened, despite the misgivings in his head. “Me too.”

“Is that a cuttlefish?” Uryu piped up from behind them. “I’ve never seen one on this side of the Pacific.”

Ichigo groaned. He resisted the urge to turn around and snap, “how does it matter?!” but ultimately chose to grit his teeth instead. His forehead and armpits were damp with awkward sweat and this was going a lot worse than he’d pictured it in his head.

“I think it's a squid,” Chad rumbled.

Ichigo pinched his brows. Orihime raised a brow in concern and he flashed her a fake, half-hearted smile that only made her face falter in more concern.

Good going dumbass, he thought.

“Look!” she gasped suddenly, and his heart gave a strong lurch when her hand curled around his bicep. He forcibly peeled his eyes away from how close they were to follow her gaze upwards. They’d arrived at a darker section of the aquarium, a long, overhead arch glowing a vibrant sea-green above them. Ichigo squinted, trying to see what she was seeing among the thick kelp and seaweed.

“There,” she whispered, hand unconsciously clutching him tighter. He followed her pale finger, just in time to catch a bloom of kelp morph into a nebulous cloud of pink, tentacles unfurling outwards in gentle curls. “Camouflage.”

Ichigo returned his gaze to the dancing spots of the water’s reflection on Orihime’s face, utterly captured by the soft ‘O’ of her mouth, the pretty arc of freckles that dusted across her cheeks, her shimmering eyes. When she turned to look at him—and found him already looking back—her hand slipped from his arm in surprise and her cheeks pinked. Their knuckles were so close now, almost brushing, and Ichigo held his breath.

“Welcome to the Carnivore Kingdom~Where the mighty carnivores thrive and roam! Carnivooore Kingdoooom!”

“Damn it, Chad!” Ichigo roared.

…

After Ichigo’s outrage over Chad’s ringtone had gotten them kicked out of the kelp forest exhibit, Orihime had retreated to the washrooms to fix her hair and makeup. Ichigo had seemed rather poorly earlier, but she hoped he was alright now. He’d sounded so keen over text about meeting up this week, it really was strange to see him acting out. Had he been in a fight? Shaking the thought out of her head, she exited the restroom, only to find Ichigo waiting by the entrance—alone.

“Did Ishida-kun and Sado-kun skip ahead to the sea otters already?” Orihime asked, confused.

Ichigo scratched the back of his neck, a dull color rising to his cheeks. “They, uh—” he cleared his throat. “They left.”

“Left?”

Ichigo opened his mouth, then closed it. He took a deep breath, one fist clenched. “Inoue, I haven’t exactly been honest with you. About today, I mean.”

Orihime’s belly tightened in worry. So something had happened. “Kurosaki-kun—”

“I meant it to be just the two of us,” he confessed sheepishly, meeting her eyes. “Y’know. Like a date.”

He stared at his fingernails after a prolonged moment of silence. Orihime’s mouth fell open.

“Oh,” she heard herself say, very softly, the sound of her heartbeat filling her ears in fierce thrums.

He must have caught something in her expression, because he quickly added, “But I don’t mind if you don’t...if you don’t feel the same. I don’t mind staying friends, Inoue—I mean that. I’d never want you to feel obligated, and if this isn’t something you want—”

“NO!” she shouted, before simmering down in embarrassment, her face feeling hot. He glanced up at her curiously—maybe a little hopefully, she thought, her chest swelling with tightness. Her eyes felt thick with the first swarm of tears, but she fought them back to shake her head and stammer out, “No. I want this. I—I’d love to go on a date with you, please, Kurosaki-kun.”

She clenched her purse tightly with one hand, her only relief being that his face was as red as hers was. They stared at each other for a tense moment before his face broke out into a smile—a real, boyish smile full of warmth and relief.

“Good,” he said, nodding. “That’s good. Want to go—uh, see those sea otters?”

“I love sea otters,” she said faintly.

“I know.” He smiled, holding his arm out for her to take.

She took it.

#yes ichigo sends them home #ichihime #myfic #asks #happy birthday hime!

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novelconcepts · 3 years

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Hey Novel. Your services are being called for again (check the comments section.) 😂

https://twitter.com/lawriscactus/status/1375175430261604360?s=20

You’ve made quite a reputation for yourself. Good for you!

The sculptor learns early the value of strong hands. She learns it early, and she learns it well: that small does not mean weak, that devotion holds as much place in work as in human relationships. You have a builder’s hands, they tell her, and she believes it; she sees no other choice. The world is cruel, and complicated, and callous. You create, or you simply let yourself fade away.

She finds purpose in the work. In repairs, and in planting new life, and in this more than anything else. In leaving something behind that wasn’t there to begin with. In looking at an empty space on a shelf and deciding it merits filling. She finds purpose, and more than that: she finds magic. A truth in art that cannot be located anywhere else.

There are things the sculptor does not feel she comes to naturally--relationships and conversation, people and the paths they tread together. People, she thinks, are unreliable. Stone is steady. People are ever-shifting, nebulous, unpredictable. Stone is reliable.

She finds purpose in the work, magic in the muse. In selecting a piece of marble of proper size and weight, in testing her tools against its hardy surface. In settling into a rhythm, carving away the facade to reveal what has always been waiting for freedom beneath. It takes time, bringing life into a place that did not bear it to begin with. Seeds take root slowly. New shoots must be tended. This, here, is no different.

For a time, the sculptor isn’t sure what she’s building. For a time, she isn’t sure it matters. The value is in the strength of her hands. The value is in the work itself, in the patient escalation of art from stone. Some things, she knows, can’t be rushed. Some things, she knows, can’t be forced.

It comes to her not in a dream, not as a vision from beyond, but in the simple care for the work. One day, the face begins to emerge. Slowly, but with powerful intent--as though it was always there, as though it was always meant to rise beneath her hands. The stone knew, she thinks; maybe it was the sculptor who simply wasn’t ready to see it.

Now, though, now that it’s begun, she finds herself unable--unwilling--to stop. The work is methodical, almost gentle; she angles her tools, tilts her head, feeling all the while as though the truth is growing more and more obvious with every passing hour. There is stone here, and there is beauty. They are not the same. The stone, she navigates with her builder’s hands, with the deliberate focus of work. The face, she navigates with a flutter of exhilaration bordering on fear. The stone can be replaced, she feels; another block brought in if this one fails to reveal its secrets, another attempt made later down the line.

The face belongs to this moment alone. This face, appearing with such precision, she feels almost unworthy of it, is singular.

People are complicated, dangerous creatures; the life shining out from the stone is something else altogether. It is precious, and it is perfect, and yet there is something about it--as she carves away the excess, presenting the world with voluminous hair, with a smooth brow, with full lips and round jaw and long neck--that feels almost too honest to look upon directly. There is work, she thinks, and there is art, and somewhere in the middle lands whatever this is.

This, no longer a slab of potential, but a woman emerging from the depths of a blank canvas.

This, no longer a realm of routine, but a reason to tip her head and see the world in fresh light.

Her hands are strong, her dedication complete: no longer does she worry over slight or mistake, her fingers shaking around her instruments as she coaxes forth shoulder and bust and waist. No longer does she think she is too perfect. There are blemishes in the piece, formed as though without her artist’s intent: wrinkles in the dress, as though the woman has been running a long way without pause; freckles on the skin she does not remember scattering like constellations across a summer sky; hands which, though slim, look as though they have held secrets, and found some of those secrets burn.

The sculptor is not sleeping, she finds, nor craving the variation of other work. The sculptor’s devotion is absolute. This is what matters--this woman who seems, day by day, more real than the people who pass on the street. This woman who seems more genuine than tattered smiles and shaking heads. She is made of effort, and she is made of time, and she has perhaps been here all along. Waiting for the right hands to come along and offer the attention needed to urge her to breathe.

She finds purpose in the work, and finds, too, that it no longer feels like work at all. Whatever happens now, she believes, will happen regardless of her skill with hammer and chisel. Whatever happens now, she believes, was set in motion the moment she met marble eyes.

Days pass. She is dreaming of this face now, as she hasn’t dreamt of a living woman in years. There is no sense to it, she understands; marble hands cannot reach for her skin, marble lips cannot accept her kiss. A marble heart does not beat--and yet, as the last of the excess stone vanishes under her hands, she grows more and more certain. This is the finest art any sculptor could produce, through will or through luck. She suspects the woman is product of a little of each. She suspects the woman is something else altogether.

The sculptor does not think of herself as a lonely woman. She does not think of love as a void within her life, a blank space on a shelf needing to be filled. She hardly thinks of love at all--save for in her workspace, gazing upon a face too soft, a brow too determined, to be anything but human. She turns her head away, almost embarrassed at the onrushing emotion, the heat of her blood. This, she knows, is art. This, she knows, has come to light under her hands.

And this, she knows--though she cannot explain it, though she’d never speak the words aloud--does not belong to her. To gods or to dreams or to the simple good fortune of a muse whose head happened to tilt her way, maybe; not to her. The work was her own. The woman is too much like life to possess.

She is uncertain of the next step. Statues are meant to be crafted with perfect concentration, and then sold--auctioned off to those wealthy or fervent enough to collect. This, though, she can’t imagine setting before the greedy eyes of patrons. This, if she does not look directly, seems almost to draw breath. How, she thinks, can an artist sell something which feels too much like a someone? How can a price be placed on a woman whose eyes seem to follow her every move?

Blue, she thinks without meaning to. Her eyes would be blue.

There are other reasons, too, for the hours slipping in between the work. The woman is almost finished now, the residual stone around her base nearly gone. The details are fickle, every motion minute; the sculptor agonizes over the moments left to her, grieving the end of the job. This is, the rational part of her--which has always been strongest, always been as much a part of her work as her hands--knows, the way every piece ends. Art will, inevitably, conclude; to keep going much longer will put the structure itself at risk. She will have to step away, and she will have to make eye contact at last with the end result of her efforts.

And she will have to admit, at last, that there is love and there is art, and sometimes, the two are too similar to be extricated from one another.

She can’t love me back, she thinks, as if the thought has never occurred to her about a woman before.

She can’t care for me, she thinks, as if that fact has ever made a difference to the sprint of her heart.

She needs to be allowed to breathe, she thinks, as if there was ever any stopping it, from the moment this marble was chosen.

The days pass, one at a time, and the sculptor cannot allow herself to stall any longer. She works the last of the dress, her hands giving deliberate attention to every detail of cloth woven from stone. The work belongs to the woman, she feels, as much as to herself--a muse granted without warning, without asking anything of her in return. It hurts, to think it will be over by sunset. It thrills, to think she was ever granted this moment at all.

She steps back at last, rubbing tired eyes, and gazes upon the truth born of stone. The woman is beautiful, the column of her neck true enough to convince the sculptor of a pulse, the curve of her fingers honest enough to convince the sculptor of desire. Her smile is, above all else, warm and sweet, almost hesitant in its shine.

The sculptor sets aside her tools. Brushes off her hands. Nods once. Enough, then, she thinks. It’s enough.

She dreams of the woman again, but this time, there is no sign of stone about her at all. No awareness of the timeless nature of her skin, the inorganic permanence of her smile. In the dream, she exhales across the sculptor’s lips, her eyelashes fluttering against a smooth cheek. In the dream, the illusion of each wrinkle in her dress grows soft beneath the sculptor’s searching hands.

In the dream, the woman laughs, and there has never been a more human sound in all the world.

She aches, waking to an empty bed, to the memory of the work’s finality. The sculpture is complete. The muse, then, must move on to touch someone else. The sculptor, who has always put faith in the strength of her hands, in her determined ability to coax life from nothing at all, will start again.

She walks slowly to her studio, noticing little of the sunrise, of the cool air coasting over her skin. The dream is still so fresh, more real than the morning coming to life around her. If she closes her eyes, she imagines she can feel the woman pressed warm against her frame, fingers pushing recklessly into her hair. If she closes her eyes, she imagines--

The studio stands empty.

The plinth, upon which the sculpture has left her mind and joined the world, stands empty.

The sculptor stares, the empty grief of the work’s conclusion finding a new home in her chest. Someone, she believes, has stolen the woman away. Someone who cannot possibly understand how impossible that ought to be--how a woman can’t be stolen, only liberated, only given a chance to set out on her own merit.

The woman is gone. All else stands as it has for weeks: tools in their appointed places, windows unbroken, tables still set upright. There is no sign of break-in. No sign of robbery. The woman is simply...

“I thought,” a voice says from the door, “I could surprise you.”

The sculptor turns, an admonition ready on her lips. I have no time today, she wants to snap. I’ve lost her. I have--

The woman in the doorway is beautiful, her dress rumpled as though from an endless run. Her hair is windswept, her eyes a bright blue. Her smile is, above all else, warm and sweet, almost hesitant in its shine.

“You seem,” the woman says as the sculptor moves to her in a daze, “like you could use the company.”

The sculptor has never trusted in the reliability of people. People are complicated, unpredictable creatures. Stone is solid. Stone is certain.

This woman, somehow, is a little of both. This woman--art or muse or sheer mad luck--is a little of everything.

Her pulse rushes under the sculptor’s strong hands.

Her smile does not so much as shiver under the stroke of the sculptor’s thumb.

She does not belong to the sculptor, nor to anyone who might be looking to purchase the artist’s wares. She does not belong to anyone at all.

She is purpose all her own.

#fanfiction #ficlet #the haunting of bly manor #dani x jamie #damie #right. well. this happened.#I keep meaning to work on the stuff already on my list #and then cheerfully turn and knock out the oddest prompts I can find instead #so here: have a faiirytale. or a myth. or a treatise on love and art #it is I think all of the above #(I'm not sure if the original artist is on Tumblr but the piece that prompted the ask--and thus the piece--is rad)#(highly rec following the link to check it out)

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karukos · 3 years

Photo

Mirrors: FFNet || Ao3

Waking up normally was not the most exciting thing in the world. Normally, it was the exact opposite. No matter how well you slept, no matter how disciplined you were and no matter at what time you awoke... nobody woke up and felt like jumping out of their bed with a summersault and whatever else boundless energy would make you do.

Izuku Midoriya might be the exception. At least for now. It was going, relatively normal really. The alarm went off, he groggily opened his eyes, trying to resolve himself to rise up early, as he did every day. Normally, this was the part where he would grab his phone, scroll through various sites for a few minutes before getting up... This time however...

He would not even dare unlock his phone, not even turning on the screen. Lying in bed like a statue frozen in place he looked at one thing and one thing only. That little light at the corner of the device that steadily blinked like a heartbeat... He got a message... or maybe worse... he might have gotten a reply!

Anxiously he stared at the blinking light, his hands feeling like they would start shaking any second, if they weren't already and he didn't notice until now. For some reason that was even more nerve wracking than typing the actual message. Like getting an exam back, not knowing how well you did on it...

Deep breath in. Deep breath out. In the end, it was just a text message. Nothing serious... right? So he unlocked the phone... and almost locked it again. Regardless, he could feel the heat rise into his head as he threw himself onto the other side of his bed, pressing his face into the pillow.

He hadn't really been able to read what was written, but he had gotten far enough. There was the reply. The sender was Toga. And here he thought he was prepared. He thought. He was wrong. There was a sound that wanted to press itself out of his throat but he kept it under wraps. The last thing he wanted to do was wake up the whole dorm with his inhuman screeching, because he got a text message back.

So with all the pressure mounting in his chest, he unlocked his phone a second time, opening the text messenger and just read:

"Hi Izu~! 😘"

He looked at it. He stared at it. Somehow, he shouldn't be surprised. Somehow he actually was. He had gotten a reply and it was... It was too early in the morning to use his brain. The message had shocked him awake, yes, but that didn't mean in any way that he was functioning right about now.

If anything now he somehow felt lightheaded, incredibly tired even though he had just woken up. There had been a weight on his chest that had been lifted. It was not much but it was definitely there!

Then it dawned on him. Slowly. Surely. Inevitably. That meant he still had to reply. He didn't even really start a conversation. He just sent her a message.

Aaaand there was the weight again. It was one thing to start a conversation when nervous when you were PHYSICALLY next to each other. A totally different thing, however, when you both were only in that nebulous space that was the digital world. What the hell was he supposed to talk about with her? Maybe just how are you? He typed it out for a moment... then deleted it. That sounded... off. Too formal, but not really that...

Maybe...No. Asking how she got her number into his phone? That would... probably sound way too angry for what he was going for. Although... Did he mind? This was, after all, exciting. Even if it was somewhat wrong.

He pushed that thought to the side quickly instead choosing to maybe write up another question. Even if he asked, there was no way of knowing if she was lying to him. She could certainly. He didn't want to give her the chance or the need to. He was curious but he didn't want to know. Instead he wanted to focus on the fuzzy feeling it was giving him instead.

Now he kinda wished he could ask somebody for advice. He had no experience writing with anybody like that. Especially not with all the baggage that was coming with their current situation. Normally, he would not even feel that uncomfortable asking either Tsuyu and Ochaco for help, maybe Mina if he felt like he could handle the teasing, but right now... no this was probably not really an option he had.

With a sigh of frustration, he locked his phone, rolled onto his back and looked at the ceiling. Maybe he would need to sit on this for a while. He was not sure how fast Toga expected an answer so... he was taking his time. Patience was a virtue after all. A virtue that he had to practice not only with other people but himself, on occasion.

So he got up, looked around, made his bed, sorted out the clothes for today and... then looked back at his phone. There was no way for him to ignore the phone really. He was going through the motions, but really it was circling around to that thing. He needed to respond, didn't he? It was rude to leave somebody on read...

So there he was, sitting there with his phone in hand, looking at the greeting words she had written. And now to reply:

How did you get this number? Delete. What are you doing? Delete. This IS Toga, right? Delete. Delete. Delete. What am I even writing? Delete.

The last one brought in some catharsis, having written out what he was feeling, that little bit of frustration that needed to be let out otherwise it was starting to clog up his thin pipes. More than his nervousness already did.

With a little sigh, he looked down. The first choice would be the best in the end. A response was better than no response, right? She would hopefully take it the right way.

"How are you?" Sent.

That was it. Right? That meant he could go about his day now. At least it felt that way in a way. It was at least enough for him to get up and actually start his day off properly. Getting washed, brushing his teeth, getting dressed properly before he got back into his room and a familiar blinking light.

"🤭 I’m doing just fine! Wbu?!"

This was... so much easier now for some reason. It was just a hurdle he had to climb at the beginning it seemed.

"Good. Getting ready for the day."

That felt like it was vague enough to not feel like he was saying too much. After all this... was still all kinds of weird to him. Not the writing itself but who he was writing. That everything was comparatively normal did not help that fact either probably.

He sat down on his bed as he immediately saw the sign on the screen. Toga was already typing back at him, clearly having waited for his response.

"Ooooh~ what's the plan?"

He was not quite sure how to reply at first. There was a strange bit of noise in his head that wanted to make him sound interesting. A little bit of a whisper that lying for that end might not even be bad. A stern reminder that embellishment is better because it was still the truth, before he consciously shut down all of those ideas.

"Going to get breakfast now. You?"

That seemed more truthful as he got up from his bed, sliding the phone into his pocket as he was about to leave the room, when he felt it vibrating against his thigh. While opening the door he looked down towards the text.

"Occupying my Izu~"

That felt... weird. Like a blush without the heat in his face, almost like it was stuck in his stomach for a moment, before the feeling passed, refusing to be introspective or identified.

"... is it working?"

With his phone still in his hand he made his way downstairs, watching the small dots jumping up and down as she was typing, hoping that he would not find a wall in front of his face or a distinct lack of floor underneath his feet when he started taking the steps.

"You tell me ;PPP"

Needless to say, he almost fell down the stairs at this point as his foot was gracing the edge of one particular step. At least it wizened him up to at least wait until he was at the bottom of the staircase before he replied, his heart still thumping up into his head... mostly from almost tripping.

"Works phenomenally."

It did not even take half a second for her to reply to that.

"😘🥰🥰"

Walking towards the fridge he started making himself some breakfast, meaning, mostly cereal with milk, eating it slowly while he thought of a reply, a smile plastered on his face, while he sat there, alone. He was, after all, the early bird of the dorm. For the better really. What would happen if they saw him sit there with his phone, grinning like an idiot. Speaking of getting up...

"Why are you waking up early?"

If he would focus, he might be able to hear the slow footsteps of Iida and Kacchan getting up. Not many people were used to being awake this early. Or so he thought. The sun hadn't even properly risen yet.

"I haven't even gone to bed yet 🤗"

For some reason, and he couldn't help himself, he just felt laughter rise in his throat, something he had to fight down hard, lest he would choke on it or spit all that milk over the table. Neither sounded too much fun. Somehow, he should have expected that response, yet he walked right into that.

"Aren't you tired yet?"

"Nah, I got a bit more juice to keep me going"

"You should probably go to sleep though..."

He tried to put his worried tone into the text the best he could. For a moment, he thought about adding an emoji, which was not usually his style, but he was already far out of his comfort zone with the... underlying emotion of this conversation so might as well try? In the end, he decided against it.

"Awww... don't you wanna talk with me anymore?"

How did she jump to that conclusion? Although she might be just teasing him. He was not quite sure. Either way, he probably should disarm that situation a little bit. His thumb raised over the keyboard as if speed mattered in the response:

"Of course I do... just want you to stay healthy."

If she was still awake, though, that probably was a nice sentiment but also probably a bit late. Now that he thought about it, she did have a bit of bags under her eyes every time he had seen her. Before she could even add a reply he asked:

"Are you staying up this late often?"

"Yeah. Are you up this early this often?"

"Yeah."

"Shouldn't you try and get more sleep?"

Ah, okay now she was turning this around on him. For some reason, he got the feeling of both concern and mischief from her side. On the one hand, she could definitely enjoy having used her own argument against him... on the other, of course there was always a bit of physical discomfort for getting up so early and if that was healthy was also up for debate.

"Touché :P"

"What are you even getting up so early for?"

For a moment, he thought about not really explaining it. What if he was giving intel, what if they learned he was up this early already then... but then it occurred to him, that it was neither really good intel, nor that it really mattered either way. He had already decided to trust her to this degree. She already knew he was awake. He was writing with her.

"Getting breakfast, waking up well before school and having time to work out a little bit."

"Every day?"

It had been... pretty much every day, for the last couple of months... probably up to a year or longer now. Ever since All Might dropped into his life, at least when he did so in person.

"Pretty much yeah." was his only response there. It was that after all. There was not really a way around it in this way.

"This feels like talking to an alien. How?! 🤣"

The fact that she sounded somewhat excited about this somehow was putting a smile on his face. He knew of course, that him being up so early was a bit weird for a teen, but come on, she was taking it a bit too far! And somehow he couldn't help but love it. Somehow it felt almost like a compliment in that sense.

"Just getting up... get yourself an alarm. You will manage."

"I can't get up at 12 PM with multiple alarms. And people say I am the crazy one."

He was just about finished with his breakfast for now, just smiling as he was texting Toga back. Slowly Iida and Bakugo started to enter the room, sleep hanging over their faces like a cloud as they tiredly greeted him. It was at least a sign for him to get up and start training, bringing his bowl to the kitchen and washing it off before making his way outside.

Here and there he would feel the vibration of his phone, quickly texting Toga back before sliding it back into his pocket, feeling a little bit happy each time. A small smile was like permanently carved onto his face, no matter how hard he was pushing himself.

It was then, when he was about to go to school that Toga finally wrote her final:

"Keep thinking about me, Izuuuu~ 😍"

Before she went to bed, leaving Deku to feel strangely... empty. As if to say goodbye to a friend at the end of the day. Like Bakugo used to when they were small... that thought just added a little bit more punch to the feeling... Even if maybe it was a tiny bit different.

For a moment, he pondered on it, trying to understand what was going on inside himself before he just slid the phone into his pocket and made his way back to his room and went about his day from there.

It was probably not the best idea to train now, that his mind was racing still from the interaction he just had, but he couldn't exactly skip today either. By the time he was finished with the training and got ready for school, his workout wasn't the only thing left that kept a healthy red glow on his cheeks.

At least a quick jump into the shower, helped him cool down a little. As shocking as stepping under the cold shower was, it did wonders for his mind. From there it started off as another day at school. Another day of challenges and studying... And a little distraction in his pocket that Izuku couldn't wait for.

And the question most prominent in his mind: Would that start being a daily thing?

#BNHA #My hero academia #Boku no Hero #Fanfic #Deku #Toga #izuku midoriya #Toga Himiko #my writing

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duskbornbaker · 3 years

Text

Torchwood!Tommy Character Profile

Essentials:

1) What name did they go by as a Kine, and what name do they go by now? Why and how did they choose this name, if it’s different?

Born Tomàs Baker, they were primarily called "Tommy" in life and that continues. As it's been 80 years since they were registered legally dead, they have decided to take on a false surname, as well as to keep Torchwood from knowing too much about them. They borrowed "McDonnell" from their crush from when they were alive. Though, this is moot, as due to a backfire of a ritual, Torchwood 2 now knows their real name.

2) What year were they born (or how old would they be in life), and what age do they appear? What age do they feel?

They were born in 1907 and died in 1925, so they look like an 18 year old, though with the infirmity they experienced and just life being what it was at the start of the 20th century, their "18" looks a little older. They can often pass as early-mid 20s without too much difficulty. In truth, they are 101 years old. The year is 2008, the pyramid has just fallen and to some degree they feel so young and vulnerable. Old World Kindred tend to be older. Princes have held these positions since, some of them, the establishment of the Camarilla nearly a millennium ago. But then, among the Kine they work with, they feel ancient. People reference pop culture from any of the time while they were in the Pyramid and it just flies over their head. They feel out of place among these oh so young and fragile humans. Thankfully, Seòras helps them feel a little more okay with it. Agent Lennox, being nearly 50 years old, also doesn't get the references. They sometimes sit there while Cami and Ash talk about some movie or internet trend and just let the conversations wash over the two of them, absorbing nothing.

3) Which Clan do they belong to? How do they feel about their Clan?

They were Embraced into Clan Tremere and House Tremere. Though, lately, people have started questioning the truth of their affiliation. They're a Thinblood, after all, do they really deserve the title of "Tremere"? This all is compounded by the fall of the Pyramid. The House is in chaos and the childer are unreigned. Kindred openly rebel against their sires and the new House Ipsissimi has been formed. Generally, the Anarchs accept both their status as Thinblood, some among the 14th Generation even going so far as to call the term a slur. They are the Duskborn. Duskborn are burgeoning into a new Clan within the Anarch movement and while Tommy is yet to be forced to choose between the two, they know the time is coming. They are yet to make a decision.

4) Which Predator type do they most align with and why?

Currently: Bagger. It's part of the conditions of their employment. No feeding off living humans. Tommy has given a taste for the blood of corpses, its disgusting but, occasionally a welcome change, as well as animals, honestly somehow more unpleasant than the former and coming with the added issue of needing multiple vessels to even lend themself a somewhat satisfying meal. No, bagged blood is the best of the options available. Further, they don't have to steal it. Torchwood buys the bags at the same rate a hospital would pay and it simply comes out of the food budget. Yvonne *does* question why their food budget is so high, but as of yet hasn't pursued the issue too closely. Thankfully, Lukas covers for Tommy. It's a precarious situation, but one that balances for now.

5) Who Sired them, and into what Generation were they Sired? What’s their relationship with their Sire like, and what were the circumstances of their Embrace?

They were sired by their sister: Somhairlín Baker into the 14th Generation. They were scheduled to be Embraced anyway, by Sam's sire, but before the date was supposed to come, they were struck in a motor vehicle accident while in Galway seeking medical treatment for their chronic anemia. Anemia caused by Sam's clandestine use of Tommy as a Cloven Blood Doll. Somhairlín, feeling guilt, Embraced Tommy. Their parents died. The two bonded closer than in life. This would eventually be a source of great pain in Tommy's life as, in early 2008 following the F1rstlight attack on the Vienna Chantry and the Head of the Tremere Pyramid, Tommy felt need to murder their sister.

6) What level of Humanity are they? Has this changed over the years they’ve been dead?

Tommy's Humanity is very low. Due to the practices of the London Chantry and a development of growing Noddist and Cainite practices, Tommy ended up on the Path of Caine during their time in London. They moved to London to escape Thinblood persecution in the post-War era and it was for naught. In London, Tommy hid themself as Sam's ghoul, and Sam, in turn, entered them into a Blood Wedding, a situation where two Vampires bond themselves to the other threw drinking each other's Vitae. This created a feedback loop where both of them sunk to deeper levels of depravity match for match. And, under Hal Grove, Regent of their Chantry, they began doing research into the Thinblood condition.

The research consisted mostly of Embracing new Thinbloods and finding the limits of the condition: could they use disciplines, could they bond, could they be tapped as a source of Vitae... all of these answers proved to be "sometimes" and the Baker siblings lost grip on their humanity with extreme speed. Since the Fall of the Pyramid, they have been slowly clawing their way back; first: onto the Path of Humanty, a dangerous feat to attempt without personal guidance, and then slowly up the ladder of morality. Now, they sit at humanity 5 -- 6 through 8 being the usual extremes of the average human being.

7) Which Disciplines do they possess, and which do they favor using?

They have the traditional disciplines of Clan Tremere: Thaumaturgy, Dominate, Auspex, but they favor Thaumaturgy. In their role as offensive specialist they favor the paths of Flames and Nebulism. The former as a means of attack and the latter to disable enemies or clear a building of civilians.

8) Who are their Touchstones, if any? / 9) What are their Convictions (moral opinions and standings they hold fast to)?

Cami. A fellow Agent of Torchwood who vouched for them to become member of the team. She represents a value of trusting others judgements. As they say "I take pride in the goodness and strength of my friends and that they, being as such, should care for me."

Lukas. Their boss, the head of Torchwood 2. They keep Tommy in line and enforce the value of the preservation of human life. As much as Tommy is frustrated that Engstrom is blackmailing them to keep them in line, to some degree they are thankful.

10) Do they belong to any sect or are they independent?

They belong to the Anarchs. Hard to be a Camarilla Tremere when you collapsed your old Chantry and murdered your sire. No Camarilla Tremere will touch them. They wouldn't bleed on Tommy if they were on fire.

Life

1) What did they do (as a career or in general) before they were Embraced?

They were a Seminarian, studying to be a Priest. Now, that is just completely out of the realm of possibility.

2) Do they still have mortal family or friends, or descendants of those people? Who were they closest to during life, and is there anyone they’ve contacted after their Embrace?

Still, no. Again? Yes. The people they knew are dead and tracking them down would be dangerous. Once, they tried to find their namesake McDonnell's descendants, but lost track of them when they moved to the New World. Thus is unlife. A series of disappointments. And what would they have said anyway? 100 years ago I wanted to kiss your grandfather? That's not going over well. It's as good a reason as any not to keep pursuing.

3) What were their hobbies, skills, and interests?

They knit. They were rarely able to make the trek to the school at the other end of the island in their youth and so they took up crafts. One of the neighbors had sheep and often sold clothes. With Tommy's health the way it was, they sometimes couldn't get out of the chair for days and spinning wool into yarn by hand and kniting the yarn into fabrics. It was nice. They were always cold so now they had sweaters and blankets to keep themself warm. They also sold some of their wares in town, or, the neighbor sold them and split the profits. A necessary source of income when their father was out at sea so long and money became scarce.

4) Did they have any vices, addictions, or mental illnesses? Which carried over into death?

They smoked. The doctors suggested it as means of strengthening the lungs with hopes of helping them build up the energy to walk. Obviously, this was counter intuitive. When they did feel up to it, and the night air was fresh and cool, Tommy and their friend Larry McDonnell would sneak into the chapel and "borrow" a bottle of communion wine. Red-faced and dizzy, they would fall in love with him over and over again, afraid of what it meant, but craving the times when they felt brave enough to reach out for him. Sometimes Tommy felt like maybe Larry felt something in return. It was hard to peel the alcohol from the desires from the truth, and so they never truly acted on it.

5) What were they most afraid of in life? How has this changed?

They were most afraid of their homosexuality. Did this mean they were going to Hell. Did they have to worry about dragging someone else down with them... This has changed in that they have largely given up on the Catholic faith. Perhaps they'll come back to it, they feel a draw to spirituality to fill the hole left by their lapsed Noddism and worship of their Domitor-and-Thrall. They've attended services a few times lately and it seems like some of the opinions within the flock are shifting. They don't want to get too attached but reattajing to their human faith is helping them feel just that much more Human, an addicting feeling.

6) What were their goals and ambitions in life? How has this changed?

Their goal at the time had been to squash their sexuality with faith. Now, they have embraced their queerness. It's a struggle many days to treat themself with kindness in that front. Hell, it's a struggle most days to treat anyone with kindness. But they're getting better.

7) Did they follow any religion or spiritual paths in life? How did that change when they died, if at all?

They were a Catholic in life, hoping to become a Priest and then in Unlife first abandoned religion but then got drawn in by the lures of Cainite Noddism. Now, with the Fall of the Pyramid, they feel a call to that old religion once again. Who knows where it will take them.

8) When they were Embraced, what was the aftermath like? Did they fake their death, do their loved ones think they went missing, etc.?

Their family died along with them so they faked that they died, too. At least they don't have to worry about their parents thinking they're missing.

Death

1) What have they spent most of their years as a Kindred doing?

Most of it has been spent researching their condition. Now, they are one of the most knowledgeable , probably in the world, on what it means to be a Thinblood.

2) What’s the entire lineage of their bloodline, from them all the way back to their Clan’s Antediluvian? Is there anything in particular that they and their grandsires all had in common?

They were primarily raised by their grandsire. Sam's sire took them on as a second childe, even though they had planned to wait maybe 10 years. So, Tommy got the same education as their sister. His sire, however, I haven't thought as much about.

3) How do they adapt to the changing times around them? Do they still uphold values, styles, or other things from the past?

They definitely dress a little bit out of time. And what's not anachronistic is absolutely horrible. They dont, however, adapt very well. They haven't gone through the back catalogue of media Cami gave them, cultural milestones and things that have happened... Just a few months ago, Tommy found out man had touched foot on the moon. They are more than a little behind the times.

4) Do they have a coterie? What position do they take in that group, if so? Otherwise, do they have any notable Kindred (or other creatures) friends?

Their "coterie" is probably the Torchwood 2 team, deapite being Kine. They serve as a blaster with magic on call they can destroy threats and protect their lives -- especially Lukas Engstrom, who, if he dies, will release a catalogue of all the information he has gathered on Kindred to every intelligence agency in the world, a threat Tommy doesn't take lightly.

They are also connected to Alastríona "Cass" Balach. She is Tommy's sponsor in House Ipsissimi and, by human standards, their Sponsor in Alcoholics Anonymous. The disguise is simple wordplay, but the Ipsissimi hide themselves within the Crowleian "Astrum Argenteum" which they in turn have using Alcoholics Anonymous as a front. This also serves as an out for Tommy. They couch their cravings for human blood in terminology based around Alcoholism and thus they are given a space to discuss their emotions. At meetings is also where a Ghouls of Balach's will give them study materials if need be. New rituals and information about the next step on one of their Paths. It's a pretty nice arrangement.

5) Which of their Clan’s stereotypes apply to them? Which do they act against, or embody the opposite of?

They are a neurotic mess. A perfectionist to their core, and sometimes they apply that perfectionism outward becoming a domineering person. They are secretive and dangerous. They have spent decades engaging in unethical magical experiments. Truly, they are quintessential Tremere.

However, they fight to change that. They want to be a better person and a better Kindred. They want to look at a person and not feel a desire to take them apart and find out how they tick. Thankfully, Engstrom keeps them in line on that front, with the actually follow8ng through of it anyway.

6) How do they feel about the Antitribu of their Clan?

Having very nearly been one, they understand the allure. The draw of Vampiric Supremacy and the willingness to bring human kind to their knees, however, they also pulled away. Once their eyes were clear they put their very existence on the line, revealed to the Prince that they had been a Thinblood illegally living in her domain and turned on the Cainites to bring the White Hall Chantry down. They fear the Tremere Antitribu. Their sponsor was also former Goratrix and, bearing the Mark of the Traitor, she was a fullfledged member who partook of the Vaulderie. Whatever brought her out remains to be seen, but Tommy wouldn't have an in at continuing Thaumaturgical Studies without her, and for that, he's grateful.

7) Have they Embraced anyone? Ghouled anyone?

They have, but not to keep around. And having lived in the Blood Bond for decades, they never want to do that to anyone else again.

8) Do they prowl, or is there a city they permanently reside in?

They seem to have settled in Glasgow, as much to be close to their new Sponsor as anything else. And, with their membership in Torchwood 2, they hope to stick around for a long time.

9) What’s their haven like?

They live at the Glasgow Hub: the basement of a nondescript Warehouse in a district of Warehouses, itself hidden by Vampiric magics. They have a private room to live and sleep in near the entrance. When they sleep, they are the first line of defense if something should come in. They protect the themself and their partners with another spell that will wake them immediately if a danger disturbs their residence.

The Hole itself is cozy. Not very big, about the size of a studio apartment. A single room with a bed, a bookshelf, and a fridge to hold Blood Bags. Not too much going on otherwise.

10) Do they believe they are descended from Caine, or do they follow a different path?

They do not believe they are descended from Caine. They have looked at the information Ash has managed to draw from them and it appears that Vampirism may be of extraterrestrial origin. Its exact origin is unknown, but alien stock seems to rule out the concepts purported by Noddism. And, after a period of time otherwise, they are back on the Path of Humanity.

11) How do they feel about Diablerie?

They wonder often. They wonder if they should have Diablerized Sam. Sure, it's a crime in the Camarilla, but they are no longer Camarilla, and they wouldn't be a Thinblood anymore. They would be a stronger force to reckon with, more able to protect their team... But it's a dangerous line of thought. And there's nothing doing, now.

12) Regardless of whether or not they adhere to Camarilla rule, have they ever broken any of the Traditions?

13) Do they believe in Gehenna? How do they feel about Thin-bloods, and do they believe they’re a sign of the end times?

Absolutely. Most of them. Respect of Domain and Hospitality. Their existence is a violation first of all. And they killed their sire. Even with permission, that's still a violation of the Traditions.

14) Have they ever Frenzied? What happened?

Not anymore. Its been a long unlife, and it was even longer thinking their own existence would draw the death of their people closer. But, they have learned to shrug off these kind of Noddist teachings. And they don't think the world is going anywhere any time soon.

The moment the Blood Bond broke, they frenzied and drank someone to death out of rage. An innocent person dead because they couldn't keep their cool. Other than that, no. They have kept themself well fed these years. And tht hope to keep it that way.

#tw!verse #ooc

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unremarkable-house · 4 years

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Polaris by unremarkable_house

The X-Files, MSR, Rain King

Mulder and Scully attend Holman and Sheila's wedding in Kroner, Kansas.

Tagging @today-in-fic

Part One: Mulder and Holman

“Platonic intimacy is the foundation of my relationship with Agent Scully, Holman, and risking physical intimacy affects both parties. I don’t want to take that risk unless we are both willing.” There is a condensation of intent that settles around the patio of the Kroner Prairie View Ballroom and Suites where Fox Mulder and Holman Hardt - weatherman, meteorologic anomaly, crack relationship analyst, and now very newlywed - share their conversation during a small break in the matrimonial festivities.

It is also something Mulder has never admitted out loud, his desire for something more, and he feels the uncomfortable humidity of it fill the blissfully mild Kansas air. Holman has made it vexingly clear that he expects him to dish on the so-called Mulder-and-Scully-relationship while the blushing bride and redheaded FBI agent were otherwise occupied. Apparently, he and his buddy the weather wizard had a special affinity for these kinds of chats.

“Are you really worried that you wouldn’t be compatible in bed with someone who looks like your partner?” Holman is projecting a bit of his newfound sexual confidence with Sheila, but he doubts he’d have any trouble if Agent Scully came to bed instead. Or both. Holman’s eyebrow quirks appreciatively.

Mulder is not worried about his level of attraction to his long-suffering and comely partner, he does get to look at her every day after all, but he is worried that the weight of their traumas could make the next level of intimacy challenging. He didn’t need a degree in psychology from Oxford to figure that out, he need look no further than his own baffling sexual history. Plus, he knows how much energy she puts into maintaining their professional distance, especially since Antarctica. And Diana. As always, part of how he shows her he cares is by respecting that.

“There is something to be said about the fact that it’s been six years and no one has even mentioned sex. With each other or otherwise. Maybe she’s just not that into me.” He shrugs, also thinking that really isn’t the case. Although it had been not-so-helpfully suggested by a Gunman or two before. As if any of them had any real experience with women outside of chat rooms and computer labs.

Because Scully hasn’t left him either. Hasn’t ever expressed an interest in a life outside the X-Files. Hasn’t ever, ever let him down. She stands entirely too close to him on elevators and drinks from his coffee cup when she’s in a rush. She waits up for him in the middle of the night, she lets him watch her sleep. She rises like the Phoenix time and time again. She touches the stars and toils in the basement. And she kissed him on Tuesday.

Though she would be seriously perturbed if she heard him acknowledge any of that out loud. Especially that last part.

But he was allowed to acknowledge it, right? He had to, or else they were never going to get past this bizarre phase where their relationship was even a secret to themselves. Will they or won’t they? Are they or aren’t they? Damned if he knew.

They didn’t even have the X-Files anymore. The entire pretext for their relationship hovered over the razor’s edge, completely unprepared for Salt Lake Cities and Diana Fowleys and meaningless days spent tracking down literal piles of shit. He made it clear he wasn’t ready to handle anything personal and then they RSVP’d to a wedding together.

Polaris or utter chaos. Scully had once called him unfathomably capricious.

“Yea, but don’t you want to just take her in your arms and kiss her?”

Holman’s aggressively simple advice is reflective of a man who got everything he wanted. Easy words from someone who finally found safe harbor.

Three months ago, he was offering Holman dating advice. Now Holman was freshly married and all Mulder’s gotten were a few chaste kisses he wasn’t supposed to think about. Cosmic justice or just complete fucking irony?

Sighing, Mulder looks back through the windows where Holman and Sheila’s wedding reception is just getting into full swing. Dazzling lights, disco balls, even a few novelty lasers spin dizzily over the guests as they start feeling the liquor and therefore, the groove. Scully is in there somewhere and his eyes scan for her instinctively, but he doesn’t see her red hair in the crowd. She must still be in the bathroom or surely she would come to find him out here, right? Mulder couldn’t believe the amount of insecurity he had been feeling since she came out in that dress and asked him to help her zip up the back. He needed a drink, big time.

“It’s not just about kissing her -” Above them, the full moon is in dazzling brilliance. Not a cloud in the sky, not a hint of chill in the breeze, downright perfect humidity. On Holman Hardt’s wedding day at the end of April. Figures. “I don’t sit around and pine for Scully the way you did for Sheila. We are in a relationship, have been for years, I guess. We are not just partners, I know that. And not just friends. But it’s about being with her all the time - forever - I think. I want to keep that possibility alive.”

At whatever the cost, he doesn’t add, an onslaught of near-misses hurtling past them like a vengeful comet wrought by some dissatisfied god. The weight of the knowledge that he would follow her anywhere - and she, him - whether they liked it or not. Something that was beyond what a ring or social status could ever symbolize, objectively speaking.

It was as simple as wanting Scully like air to breathe, simple as obeying the laws of gravity. A purely biological necessity. No need to complicate things. And no need to scare her off by being as lousy a lover as he was a friend. If all she ever needed from him were chaste yet unforgettable kisses, he would be honored to provide. Ad infinitum, if that’s what it took to keep her in orbit. No need to define the bonds that connect them. Just the need to stay connected.

A light in the sky from which he could chart his course.

Mulder looked hungrily back into the pulsating throng behind him, seeking his personal universal invariant. As much as he wanted her to return so he could end this candid and hyper-intimate conversation, he especially did not want her to overhear how pathetically punch-drunk he was after just the smallest morsels of her affection. He was supposed to remain coolly and Mulder-ish-ly aloof. It was part of their unspoken agreement for partaking on this exclusive jaunt they had both surreptitiously cashed in their vacation days for.

“I’ve kissed her a couple of times, though.” Except for that, of course. Holman gives him a high five. Then he says in the wistful way he’s been saying everything tonight:

“You know, I’ve been in love with Sheila since I was in high school; I was completely infatuated.” Mulder knows, but not really. Who could be in love with someone with a voice like that? Who consistently kicked you under the rug to date the people you detested the most? To him, the sexiest thing about Scully was that she willingly spent time with him. That and she smelled like a secret garden and her skin was as soft as a petal. His own luscious Atropa belladonna; look but don’t touch. It was a fitting match considering his life was rotely defined by his personal, unattainable longings.

“I think it's different, Holman. I love Agent Scully--” more of that condensation settles. “I have for a long time. As a friend first. But I'm not lovesick. I'm not…” he trails off because to say he’s not also in love with Scully isn't the whole truth. But it’s not the same. “I'm still working on being in love with her in a way that is most fair for her. For us.” He looks up into the starry night and grips the edge of the stone wall that he is perched on. “I tend to be a bit overbearing and unpredictable.”

And incomprehensible and dog-headed and nebulous and borderline unreliable - but he’s not really interested in listing all the ways he’s failed Scully or why he knows he’s badbadbad for her. The reasons why she shouldn’t be wearing a short navy blue dress at a private and completely voluntary event with him tonight. Why he should have done the gentlemanly thing years ago and convinced her to get out and save her reputation, to save herself from a lifetime of pain. Should have resisted the tender, irresistible way she always pulled him back to her. Should not have RSVP'd to this damn wedding, at least.

Instead, he spirited her away from the world living into the world of the half-dead and always searching.

Then again he’d probably be dead ten times over, considering the numerous occasions she’d saved his ass over the years. But life without Scully would be a fate worse than death.

He’s seeding the rain cloud, he knows. These are the kinds of words phrased in such a way that he’s been avoiding admitting - let alone thinking - for years. It’s admissions like these to people like Holman that will force him to pay the piper. He envisions Holman and Sheila forcing them to slow dance beneath the dizzy lights to Fools Rush In. He’d prefer a Whiter Shade of Pale, himself. Something a bit more subtle.

“Loving someone isn’t about being fair, Agent Mulder. My life has basically been at a standstill until I finally got my chance to be with Sheila. I wasn’t willing to move forward with any decision in my life if it meant missing a chance I might have with her. I accepted a job in the same town I grew up in, for Chrissake, because she was here! And yes, there were times when I resented the fact that she refused to see me as more than a friend and instead chased after the people I liked the least.

I have a few buddies from high school who got pretty sick of my laments for a woman - who you will probably agree - is completely out of my league.” Mulder resists reacting, different strokes and all. “The fairest route would have been to save myself the drama of Sheila’s many romantic interludes and settle down with someone else - you might not know it but I’m quite the catch in a small town like this - but I was determined to wait until it was my turn. Now those same guys from high school are here dancing at our wedding!

Look at me! I’m married to the most beautiful woman in Kroner! In all of Kansas, probably! And we are already talking about starting our family right away!”

Holman, glowing with pride like the light of the moon with his arms outstretched, has a nostalgic, faraway look on his face, back to his days as the awkward teen in love with the prom queen. Indeed, Holman had received his just rewards for patience, diligence, and the honor of a respectable life.

Scully is his reward too, Mulder knows. Has always known, since the day she walked back into his basement office after spending thirty-six hours hiding in the rain forests of Puerto Rico with no food or water and scared to death that the kill squads were going to find them and use extreme force. He was constantly falling in love with the versions of herself that she shed with each tragedy - always a moment too late. Always under her sharp and disapproving eye. She wore her newfound vulnerabilities with a sign that read: “Danger, Stay Back”. That she refused to be worshipped just made her easier to love. He’d had no clue dignity was such a turn on.

Mulder was just worried he hadn't paid his dues with such noble qualities as Holman’s. His many wrongdoings play with a sad soundtrack in his head, as sad as the desperate way she always looks at him when they’ve cheated death yet again. She had been particularly unzipped by his recent near-drowning and nick-of-time rescue in the Plantagenet Bay. The Gunmen published it in their quarterly and referred to Scully as the Babe of the Bermuda Triangle. He still felt kinda bad about that one.

Was it just Mulder or was the moon shining a little more brightly right now?

“One of the best days of my life was when Sheila started working at the station.” Holman gets another dreamy look upon his face as he recalls the day. Mulder remembers too, it was chronicled in the local paper. That and a portfolio of other newsworthy weather events Holman was responsible for sat neatly collated within his X-Files. And now including their invitation to the blessed Hardt-Fontaine nuptials. It wasn’t every day he got to hang out with one of the curiosities from his wonder cabinet.

Unless he counted Scully which he explicitly and vociferously did not.

“May 11, 1992: residents of Kroner, Kansas, report witnessing a rare quadruple rainbow,” He recites.

Mulder has a similar best day of his life, but he doesn’t recall any meteorological event that marked the moment. It wasn’t even a full moon. Just a regular March afternoon that he had been antipathetic about.

Holman grins. “Some reported seeing a fifth arc as well, but it was never substantiated.” Then his face grows cloudy. “That same day, while we were catching up, was when she told me she was moving in with Darryl Moody and that they were ‘engaged to be engaged.’” He spits the last words out like venom. And that would explain the subsequent supercell lightning storm that knocked Kroner off the grid for three days (also in his files).

“She just wanted to be friends,” he bemoans before becoming annoyingly cheerful again, “but being her friend was the next best thing because here we are! Sheila recently told me that the best relationships are rooted in friendship so if that’s what it took to get here, I wouldn’t change a day.”

Mulder, dipping his chin to his chest, was appalled he found that so pathetically endearing. And a little bit wounding. Were he and Scully not rooted in friendship? For someone who was so quick to believe, he knew he was certainly wanting for a little more faith in the matter. Because here we are, he thinks, together, in other lifetimes, always.

In this particular lifetime in Kansas, there might be drinks and dancing and more than one excuse to touch her companionably and then maybe a little more familiarly, as soon as she finished up inside and he could end this awkward conversation with the groom.

“Don’t let some bad luck cramp your style, Agent Mulder,” Holman says, reaching the end of his proselytizing. “The future will be as bright as you make it.”

Following Holman’s gaze up into the night sky, Mulder finds that the heavens are now alight with the ethereal trails of meteors, dainty and otherworldly, glittering their way across the universe.

Mulder sighs again, equally entranced by and indifferent to Holman’s bizarre skills. “Easy for you to say, Holman.” But Holman just laughs the contented and mirthful laugh of a man in love. To him, everything is limitless: life, love, the weather, and now the entire galaxy.

And though there was once a time where Mulder would have imprudently coveted the ability to touch the unthinkable like Holman Hardt, tonight he is content to reach only one star.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/24564760

Notes:

WIP, I hope. There should be a chapter for Scully + Sheila and another for Mulder + Scully. Fingers crossed! Mad love to my favorite fanfiction of all time, Parabiosis by Penumbra. This story includes some loving references to that masterpiece. Made with the utmost respect. Thanks for reading.

#if you read this #THANK YOU!!!#xf fanfic #the x files #msr

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marypsue · 5 years

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The villain post...is good but also I threw it in my queue with a bit of a tag-rant about why GoF Voldemort really worked for me and then realised that could probably be its own separate post and anyway: the when and how you establish a villain's threat level is also important in people's takeaway from them.

Voldemort's a vague, shadowy menace for most of the first four Harry Potter books. It works. He's a Big Bad, an outsized future fantasy threat for an outsized fantasy world our protagonist has only just dipped his toes into. While Harry's still at school and learning the ropes of the wizarding world, it makes perfect sense for him to be sort of a nebulous background threat. The moment he appears onscreen in Goblet of Fire - him, not a servant or a memory or a ghost - he kills a child. Onscreen. And not just any child, but someone we've grown to know and like and admire throughout the book. Abruptly, Voldemort goes from being sort of a fairy-tale villain to something real and shocking and very, very dangerous, before our eyes. We learn along with Harry just how heinous he is and what he's capable of.

It's not at all a coincidence that this event marks an abrupt darker tonal shift in the series, though personally I think it fell a little flat by trying to maintain the status quo and not having enough Voldemort-being-heinous-onscreen. But I'm of the opinion that villains like Voldemort who suddenly Get Real should be conserved according to the Jaws Law of Conservation of Shark, and should only really be allowed to appear onscreen/show their true threat level in the last third or quarter of the story, so you can devote significant screentime to allowing them to escalate.

Speaking of escalating, once you have your villain establish their threat level onscreen, then unless you want to use them for comedic purposes, give them a redemption arc, or both, every time the reader sees them afterwards, they need to be taking it up a notch. Every time the audience sees that villain, they're going to think they know what that villain is capable of, which lowers the fear factor and the threat level in the audience's mind. In order to keep that threat high, you have to remind the audience, every time they see the villain, that they do not in fact have a handle on the situation, and things could always get worse.

So, again, for a villain like Voldemort who suddenly Gets Real, it makes the most sense to have him Get Real closer to the end of the story, so there isn't much escalation necessary before the resolution. Otherwise, there's a risk of the villain getting silly and comedic in the opposite direction of the villain who never escalates.

I'm thinking specifically of Phineas & Ferb vs. Supernatural here. The former has Heinz Doofenschmirtz, who is a comedic character partly because we the audience know the true threat level he's capable of and he never rises above it. This is also what the principle of Weird Villain Uncle is based on, where an entry-level villain doesn't stop being a threat but never escalates above the level he was at when the heroes were still green and didn't know how to deal with him. As the heroes grow, he seems like less and less of a threat in comparison, especially if he never comes up with anything new and worse. The latter...well, the longer SPN goes on, the less it seems to know how not to escalate its threats out of all scale and proportion, and the humour mostly appears to be unintentional.

For some things, too, establishing the villain as a real and serious threat right out the gate is necessary, so escalation runs the risk of sending them into unintentional comedy territory. That's where I'd say the ideas of scale and proportion come in.

If, say, you're trying to establish a character as a formidable villain from the jump in a fun neon eighties nihilist cartoon-action-fest, having her first onscreen appearance be stopping an unstoppable force and destroying an indestructible object gives that immediate, visceral 'oh SHIT' reaction, and can easily and proportionally be escalated to singlehandedly taking out an army of trained soldiers and literally raising the dead. (This does, admittedly, also rely on a healthy dose of PRESENTATION!!!) On the other hand, if you're working on a serious war drama, your initial threat assessment is going to have to be a little more within the realm of actual human abilities, and your steps of escalation are going to have to be smaller and closer together - say, from shooting a dog to starving a prisoner to straight-up treachery.

In cases where a villain has to be kept closer to realistic, I've found it also helps to make their escalations more and more personal to the protagonist. Circling back to Harry Potter, the previous post mentioned Umbridge as an example of a great villain. And she is! A lot of that is that her heinousness is mostly onscreen. But unlike Voldemort, she never kills anyone onscreen, and yet she's almost universally more hated.

Part of that is, I think, like the OP of the previous post said, because of how many people can relate to having an antagonist like that in their own lives. But I think part of it is also how each step of her escalation is aimed so directly and personally at the protagonist we're supposed to sympathise with. Voldemort feeds a Muggle Studies professor we've never met or encountered to his snake onscreen. That's heinous. That's escalation. And yet, because it's targeted so directly against a personal weakness of a character we're meant to sympathise with and have become attached to over the course of five books, Umbridge forcing Harry to write lines with the quill that carves up the back of his hand produces the more visceral reaction in me as a reader.

Anyway. tl;dr: unless you want them to look ineffective and silly, villains need to escalate. Unless you want them to look unintentionally silly, villains need to escalate proportionally to the story they're in and the abilities of the protagonist they're facing. And if you want to do a sudden tonal shift to bring the horror home, have them escalate Real Fast.

#writing #villains!#see also Danny Phantom and Reign Storm or TUE vs Phantom Planet

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brujahinaskirt · 4 years

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As long as I‘m playing this game again I gotta do a little real talk venting at how poorly Beth understands racism despite recklessly endeavoring to write about it in their games. Beth can’t seem to delineate the specifics of real-world racism from their own fantasy racism. One of the biggest problems therein is that there’s no “whiteness” in TES, and yet so many of their parallels re: Nordic racism rely upon audiences conceptualizing Nords as white in a way that is often in direct conflict with the fantasy politics they’ve established in their games.

Time and time again, Beth continues to guide players into feeling a certain way about prejudices we see in the world by sloppily mirroring heinous racist sentiments against POC... except they then nonsensically proceed to VALIDATE these prejudices over and over and over. I’m not even sure if there are nefarious writers buried in the team who do this shit on purpose or if they truly just lack writing consistency and the validation is mindless. Either way, oversimplification + prejudice validation makes for an emotionally messy, contradictory, and incoherent narrative.

Let’s look at these game releases as stand-alone texts, since they’re sold to us that way, rather than as an enormous nebulously connected body of canonical lore (since we can’t assume players will enter the “texts” with an encyclopedic knowledge of canon). Just a few examples of reckless prejudice validation here. If we’re supposed to feel angry about the world’s typecasting of Khajiit as thieving drug dealers (a racist typecast we should be angry about), then why does Beth almost never introduce a Khajiit who is not both a thief and a crack cocaine sugar dealer? If we’re supposed to understand the Nords’ discrimination against elves as an allegory for the outrageous real-world panic of ill-intentioned white racists who claim white “culture” is being threatened, then WHY put the same Nords in a life-threatening state of REAL and URGENT military occupation where their culture actually IS being systematically obliterated through extreme state violence... perpetuated by a fascist trans-national coalition of elven supremacist mer whose design transparently draws upon real-world fascist government? Why are we not offered more access to Ulfric and Tullius’s true designs versus the propaganda hurled against each in turn? Given the lengthy lifespans of mer in comparison to the other playable racism of TES, why are the last two games damn near completely silent on their own fictional reality that the Dunmer nation proudly engaged in a massive system of chattel slavery of Khajiit and Argonians, one we saw front-and-centered in Vvardenfell, and something Vvardenfell characters broadly defended as an integral part of their culture? If memory serves, I think we see a single Dunmer character in the Imperial City openly reject the way her homeland treats these peoples. Since we see Dunmer and Argonians living in close proximity in Windhelm and are presented with barely-there hints of racial tension between them, clearly drawing upon competition for the real-world model minority myth, where is the cultural and emotional blowback of the Argonian sacking of Blacklight--on both sides? Some of these former slavers are sure to still be alive! Am I meant to understand the Dunmer as an oppressed race now in social status lock-step with the Khajiit and Argonians (an absurd claim to be making, if I felt at all certain that was even an intentional claim)? Beth, give me some consistent emotional cues on your world history!

If we’re supposed to understand the Nords’ rejection of Khajiit and Argonians and Dunmer as misdirected aggression against their actual oppressors, very much a real-world phenomenon, then why is this topic only given a feather-light brush in the Gray Quarter? (Speaking of, why doesn’t Beth let us see and experience the everyday Gray Quarter squalor we hear about? Why did Beth choose to make most of the businesses in Windhelm owned by mer instead of showing us the everyday experience of non-Nordic poverty in a Nord-run city? Why don’t we get to see and experience more everyday Thalmor military oppression? Why don’t we get to see and experience the everyday consequences of living under this bloated and failing empire... which, by the way, once turned its nose up and allowed a colonially conquered Vvardenfell to keep its slavery? It’s ultimately a failure to write racism meaningfully into the world beyond a thin overarching plot and scant lines of throwaway dialogue.)

And this is without even touching upon the low-effort way TES’s indigenous peoples like the Skaal and Ashlanders are depicted in the games. The entire discussion of racism is shallow puppetry. It’s all tokenism! It's a veneer of complexity -- a complexity that could be written into the bedrock of the world, but isn’t.

True, there’s a much bigger body of lore that exists outside and beyond the video games, but the majority of players can’t be expected to hunt all of this lore down and the marketing embraces this limitation. The writing should, too. If they want to commentate on (or even just explore with the dynamics of) real-world politics in their games, especially real-world racism, it’s on each individual piece of media to show us enough of this surrounding lore so that we can understand the parallels they’re trying to draw... and, more importantly, how we’re supposed to feel about it given the story we see vs. our own personal worldviews.

Mind, no writing team should spoon-feed us Humanities 101 morality or serve us a dumbed-down story just to repeatedly hit us over the head with their own personal manifesto. That sort of storytelling is rarely effective in getting people to think. But more often than not, rather than offering us consistent information and narrative depth we can then decide what to do with on our own, Beth leaves us to navigate these emotional questions solely by drawing upon our own pre-existing feelings about real-world racism -- a real-world that simply doesn’t align with the fantasy world they’ve established. When that happens, our feelings don’t get challenged or meaningfully mirrored or refined -- which is the very point of making such overt political parallels in the first place.

#brujahbitches #writing

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master-sass-blast · 5 years

Text

Tricks, Tricks, Tricks!

I hate doing intros when I’m tired bc it feels like it takes forever.

Summary: You and Wade set up a haunted house for the kids at Xavier’s --and prank Scott Summers, of course.

Pairings: Piotr Rasputin x Reader.

Rating: G. Just ignore the swear words. Pls.

Set before “Questions and Answers” but after “THIS IS HALLOWEEN.”

Taglist: @marvel-is-perfection, @chromecutie, @super-darkcloudstudent, @girl-obsessed-with-things, @nebulous-leo

It’s not every day that you and Wade stumble onto a legitimately, objectively good idea.

Granted, you guys have tons of great ideas. The fallback of nearly all of them, however, is that they usually involve some sort of destruction and-slash-or generally deviant behavior.

Which, in yours and Wade’s opinions, makes the entire shebang that much more fun, but dealing with the “post brilliant idea clean-up” and the temporary social fallout among your peers –depending on who you target and piss off—isn’t quite as fun.

However.

It’s Halloween season. And the teachers at Xavier’s tend to do some sort of Halloween-y thing for the students there because a lot of places that host seasonal events –surprise, surprise—won’t admit mutants.

Plus, Piotr loves Halloween, which means the two of you have a “non-deviant” spokesperson to advocate for your plan.

And, the cherry on top of it all, is that Scott has been an absolute asshat as of late, meaning that he needs to get the shit pranked out of him to whack his massive ego back down to a more manageable size.

You and Wade grin at each other as you look up various “how to make a haunted house” tutorials. This is gonna be awesome.

***

Convincing Piotr to back your idea is easy.

First, you convince him without Wade around. You’ve learned that Piotr doesn’t necessarily mind if you and Wade come up with ideas, but that Wade’s manner of “selling them” completely frustrates your darling boyfriend and puts him off even the most benign suggestions.

Second, you present the idea as something fun and seasonal for the students at Xavier’s; Piotr, essentially, is a massive mother hen that loves nothing more than making his “kids” happy, which means that he’s on board for just about anything that involves doing special stuff for the students.

Third, you’re his girlfriend and he thinks you’re cute, which means all you have to really do is bat your eyelashes at him and say please.

(And, granted, you’d had other tricks up your sleeve if he’d hesitated, but sometimes life just lets you knock one out of the park. It’s a great feeling.)

***

With Piotr’s seal of approval, you wind up selling the idea to the rest of the X-Men with no problem –and, since Jean’s out of town visiting family, she’s not here to rat you out to Scott, either.

Granted, Xavier still could, but you’re starting to think he’s less of a “lawful good” and more of a “neutral” or “chaotic good” type than he lets on. There’s been plenty of times he could’ve sold you or Wade out on any of your pranks, but he usually keeps his mouth shut.

Ah, well. Best not to question the freebies life sends your way.

Better yet, you and Wade already have a list of ideas and necessary supplies, thanks to your “haunted house research binge” that you two did earlier. Granted, Piotr outright naysays half of the suggestions due to them being too expensive, too destructive to the building, or too gross –Wade—but all in all it’s a success.

Hell yeah.

***

The official set up goes as such: on the designated “haunted house day,” you, Wade, and a few volunteers get to spend the morning and part of the afternoon setting up the haunted house in a sectioned off part of the mansion –except it’s for the elementary aged students, so it’s technically “Haunted House Lite,” but that’s fine. Then, at four in the afternoon, the elementary aged students will get to walk through, enjoy some G-rated spooks, and get little bags of candy at the end to enjoy.

Lovely. Wonderful. Wholesome.

And then the fun comes in.

Because, beknownst to Piotr only because he caught you and Wade conspiring with everyone else, you and Wade managed to get all the middle school and high school students in the room and fill them in on your idea to scare the everliving shit out of one Scott Summers.

And, because teenagers are basically little shits that run on caffeine and entropy, they’re all super down to watch Scott get pranked.

So, once the little students have had their seasonal fun and have been ushered off for dinner with everyone else, you and Wade and your volunteers have five paltry hours to beef up your haunted house with some higher grade spooks and also set up your prank for Scott.

Granted, it’s not a lot of time to work with, but the two of you have worked with less before.

***

The prank itself, compared to yours and Wade’s usual fare, is… unremarkable, actually.

“Go figure,” Wade grumbles under his breath while he wrestles with one of the several smoke machines he’d purchased for the prank. “Captain Vanilla-Save-For-the-Pole-Up-His-Ass doesn’t watch horror movies. Leave it to a fucking jumpscare. Fucking stupid. He’s literally the single most boring person to exist!”

“Hey, at least it makes it easy for us,” you reason as you work on dying a bunch of cheesecloth with a massive mixing bowl of tea. “Why go through the extra effort for a dill-hole like him?”

“Fair enough. Hey, I think I got this working!” Wade tries turning on the smoke machine, then pulls a scowl when it makes an alarming grinding noise, turns it back off with a disgusted huff, and turns in his chair to shout down the hall. “Nathan! Get your ass in here and talk to your cousin! This fucking thing won’t work!”

You snort and shake your head.

(Nathan does, in fact, get the smoke machine to work, but only because he bothers to read the instructions first.

Wade calls bullshit anyway.)

***

The day of is nothing short of busy.

The two of you –and your volunteers—set up shop in one of the unfinished wings meant to be proper classrooms. You’ve got the entryway, the flight of stairs going up to the second floor, the hallway, and a few of the rooms of the rooms to set up your little “house of horrors” in (along with the back stair case that leads back down to the main hallway on the first floor, but that’s only for an easy exit for everyone).

The main order of business is such: put up the most labor intensive props –curtains to black out the windows, a curtain to block off the first floor hallway from view, spiderwebs, anything hanging from the ceiling or the walls that isn’t going to be switched out—first so that the bulk of the work is done for the day, since you won’t have much time between the littler students and the older students (and, most importantly, Scott).

The smoke machines get put in next, along with any special lights –including some cool black lights you and Wade had gotten their hands on, which go next to a mirror at the end of the walkthrough so the students can see what their costumes look like under the effects of the lights.

After that is the rest of the props, which are all switch out stuff. The younger students get some relatively innocuous skeletons, some cartoonish looking zombies, a couple mummies, and a bunch of pumpkins, black cats, and otherwise tame Halloween fare. The older students get much gnarlier, gorier stuff, including a demonic clown statue that actually gives you the creeps.

You grin as Wade sings “Spooky Scary Skeletons” –the dubstep remix, no less—while the two of you fill up goody bags for the students. This is going to be great.

***

Piotr stops by after lunch with a bag of costumes –yours and his—and some extra supplies Wade had asked for.

You kiss his cheek as he hands off the bag of decorations to Wade. “Hey, babe. Had a good day?”

He nods. “Students are very excited to go through haunted house. Especially younger ones.”

“Well, here’s hoping we can give them some good, old-fashioned, spooky fun,” you say with a grin. “Ready to get changed and transform into creatures of the night?”

He does a scarily perfect Dracula laugh and winks at you. “But of course, moya lyubov’.”

Your costumes –for today and also for this year’s Halloween—are Dracula and the bride of Dracula. Piotr made nearly all of it, save for his shirt and slacks (and your two’s shoes, obviously), and between the costumes, the makeup, and some fake fangs, the two of you actually look the part.

(And Piotr sounds the part, what with his Russian accent and all. It’s almost like he was born for the role of Dracula.)

The two of you get to set up in one of the rooms with two doors, which also boasts a cauldron with a smoke machine in it, a bunch of fake spiderwebs, a couple of fake coffins, and some skeletons hanging on the walls. You get dressed, do each other’s make up, and then Piotr helps you put on your fangs before doing his own.

“So, tell me how to do a good Russian accent,” you say, lisping slightly around your fangs. “I gotta match what you’re selling.”

“I think you do just fine,” Piotr replies as he puts a glob of denture cream into one of his fangs and sticks it to his upper canine tooth. “Just try to avoid cheesy mobster accent, and you will do great.”

“Are we gonna do the whole ‘I want to suck your blood’ thing?” you ask. “I think we probably should.”

“If you want to.”

“Okay. I’m gonna practice, you tell me how I sound.” You clear your throat, get into your mental zone, then let out an accented, ominous, “I want to suck your blood!”

Piotr chuckles as he tests the fang’s hold on his tooth. “Very nice, myshka.”

You preen, then practice a few more times at varying pitches and speeds. Then, once you’re certain Piotr’s adjusted to your fooling around, you lean in and murmur, “I want to suck your dick.”

Piotr sputters, cheeks flushing –even under the pale make up you’d put on him—and looks around for anyone that might’ve overheard you. Once he’s certain that no one heard you –especially Wade—he exhales and shakes his head. “Later.”

You giggle and kiss his cheek.

***

Right at four, the elementary aged students are ushered into the haunted house.

You can hear them from the room where you and Piotr are set up, giggling and gasping as Ellie and Yukio –who had volunteered to walk the younger students through—escort them along.

“Alright, before we enter this room, we all need to practice our brave faces,” Yukio says outside the door furthest away from you and Piotr. “Because in this room are Dracula and his wife!”

There’s some gasps and “oohs” from the kids, along with a couple expected “Dracula isn’t real”s.

“Don’t get too close,” Ellie says warningly. “Or else they might try to suck your blood!”

You grin at Piotr as the kids gasp again –he grins back and winks at you—then put on your “game face” as Ellie opens the door so the kids can enter the room.

It’s hard to keep a straight face, though, in the presence of the elementary students. It’s easy to tell that they’re really enjoying the mini haunted house, what with how they’re bouncing and grinning, and that combined with their adorable costumes –skeletons, princesses, pirates, pumpkins, there’s even one of the kids dressed as Iron Man—makes the entire thing downright heart-melting.

The kids all gasp, giggle, and whisper amongst themselves as they approach you and Piotr, flocking together like a bunch of baby birds—

And then one of the kids in the back shouts, “That’s not Dracula! That’s Mr. Piotr!”

Ellie, Yukio, and you all snort, while Piotr just winks at the kid in question.

“What do we have here, my love?” you ask, slipping into your “vampire accent” as you make a show of looking over all the kids, which prompts another slew of gasps and giggles from them. “It seems someone has brought us a bunch of tiny treats to eat!”

Piotr “hmms” as he stands, looming over the students in his long, flowing black cloak. “So it does, moya Koroleva. I must say, I am feeling peckish. Perhaps we should have afternoon snack.”

“Oh no!” Yukio exclaims. “Do you guys think they should be able to do that?”

“No!” the group of students all shout at once (which, admittedly, is a little rough on the ears).

“Well, I think we can do whatever we want,” you retort, looking over at Piotr to make sure the two of you time everything properly. “And…”

“We want to suck your blood!” you and Piotr declare while simultaneously fake-lunging at the group of students.

The students shriek, then run out the other door at Ellie and Yukio’s encouragement.

You and Piotr “pursue” the students –which is less of an actual pursuit and more just angling yourselves in their direction—until the last of the kids “escape” into the hall, then stop and grin at each other.

“I think that went well,” you say –quietly, so as not to disrupt the students’ experience.

“I agree.” Piotr holds out his arm to you. “Shall we, moya Koroleva?”

You giggle and place your hand on his arm. “Absolutely, my love.”

The two of you head out the door at the far end of the room –the door the students had originally entered in—and into the hall. Fortunately, there are a couple curtains blocking the rest of the hall from view, meaning that there’s no risk of anyone seeing the two of you sneaking through the hallway and down the stairs to the main floor.

Piotr ducks into one of the storage closets by the staircase and pulls out a box with various goody-bags stashed in it. “These looks very nice, moya lyubov’.”

“Thank you. I tried to make sure everyone got one of everything –oh, wait a second.” You reach into the closet and pull out a bag you’d stashed separately from everyone else’s. “This one’s Timothy’s. I wanted to make sure it didn’t get mixed up and he get peanuts by accident.”

“Good thinking.” Piotr sets the main box of treats on a nearby table, then turns back to you and kisses the top of your head. “How are you feeling, dorogoy?”

“I’m feeling good; I’m really looking forward to the big prank tonight!” The corner of your mouth turns up when he makes a “hmmm” of disapproval. “I take it you’re not a fan?”

“I just… I am concerned about how you and Wade target Scott,” Piotr says diplomatically. “The two of you seem to ignore everyone else.”

“Well, there’s not really a need to prank everyone else,” you reason. “And it’s not like we prank Scott all the time, either.”

“I would just worry about team dynamics.”

“He already fucks that up by being an asshole, honey,” you argue, careful to keep your voice down so the kids don’t hear you swearing. “Scott’s a total dick! He’s objectively horrible to Wade; he’s also a jerk to Russell. Like, massively.”

Piotr sighs. “I… I do not think pranking helps the situation.”

“Look, sometimes when people refuse to listen to polite conversation, you have to smack them around a little to keep them from letting their asshole behavior ooze all over everyone.” You grin. “Wade and I are just the smacking team.”

Piotr glances towards the door where the back staircase opens onto the main floor; there’s sounds of little voices and footsteps, meaning the kids are almost done. “Just… be considerate. That is all I ask.”

“Already done, baby,” you reassure him. “It’s a super basic jumpscare prank. Nothing about him, nothing about being a mutant, all Halloween themed. I made sure Wade didn’t get too crazy or destructive this time around.”

Piotr relaxes a little at that and kisses your temple—

And then the door opens, and the group of students rush into the main hallway.

“I told you it was them!” one of the students shouts, prompting everyone else to laugh.

“It was,” you admit, foregoing the vampire accent. “Did you guys like the haunted house?”

“Yeah!” the group choruses at once.

You and Piotr both grin, then work on handing out bags of candy to the students –and make sure that Timothy gets his special bag, no allergy episodes today, no sir—

And it’s good. Life is good.

***

Once the younger students exit for dinner, everything switches to a mad scramble to flip the space for the second walkthrough.

Granted, it doesn’t sound like much, until you realize that it involves taking down basically all the props and putting new ones in.

It’s sweaty work, and by the time you’re done you have to reapply all your vampire make-up –because you and Piotr are still doing the vampire bit. And then—

And then.

Once the older teams exit the “vampire room,” you’ll sneak out the “entry” door and down the hall, then hover over the door everyone exits out into the main floor hall at the end of the walkthrough, and when they do, you’ll drop down next to Scott and scare the everliving shit out of him.

Simple. Stress-free. Borderline stupid.

It’s gonna be great.

***

The second walkthrough is just as much of a success as the first one. The older students aren’t as giggly or excitable as the younger group, but it’s still easy to tell they’re enjoying the haunted house –at least, if the occasional screams and comments about “how cool” everything looks is anything to go by.

Better yet is that Scott is jumping and gasping at, like, everything. He’s so easily scared that you won’t even have to try when you drop down next to him. He’s so easily scared that the prank almost isn’t fun.

Keyword being: almost.

You and Piotr do your vampire schtick again –which, unlike what you did for the elementary students, this round involves the two of you lunging out of dark corners and acting, objectively, much scarier—and when the older teens and Scott run out, you grin, give Piotr a kiss, then dart out the other door.

It takes basically zero time to get positioned over the door everyone exits out of. You tuck yourself up into the corner where the walls and ceiling meet, then resign yourself to being bored while the older students finish their haunted house walkthrough.

Scott, predictably, is the first one out of the door. He looks annoyed by the entire situation, and is trying to brush fake cobwebs off his shirt.

Perfect.

You wait until there are a couple of students in the hall as well –you can’t have the prank go unwitnessed—then count down from five before dropping down next to Scott while screaming “Trick or treat!” at the top of your lungs.

He jumps five feet into the air and shrieks like a teenage girl in a horror movie, and the students laugh.

Mission: accomplished.

#sass writes #piotr rasputin x reader #colossus x reader #note: the author is not a scott summers fan #it's fine if you are #i'm just #no #x men fanfiction #deadpool fanfiction

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murasaki-murasame · 4 years

Text

I’ve seen a lot of people being like “but how could Mascula have even worked as a playable adventurer when he’s a pacifist?” so let’s go over some options for how he could have been a playable adventurer without ‘contradicting’ his pacifism.

[I’m just gonna put this under a cut since it got long]

1: Literally just make him a healer. That’s like the bare minimum you need to do to give him a playable role based around helping people. He doesn’t even necessarily need to be a staff unit to be a healer. I’ve been wanting them to experiment with having healer characters that have weapon types other than staffs, and he would have been a great candidate for that. They could have even given him a defensive coability instead of the usual blade one.

2: Make him a dedicated buffer unit like Emma, and make both of his skills into different types of team buffs.

3: Make him a dedicated debuffer like Delphi, and make his skills do stuff like stunning the enemy or directing aggro toward him. Maybe they could go the whole nine yards and have his regular attacks not actually do any damage, but inflict some sort of status effect or something, with the rest of his kit being tuned to make up for his lack of strength. Or they could give him a permanent strength debuff, also like Delphi.

4: They could just give him a character arc where he accepts the fact that hardline pacifism doesn’t work in times of war, and so he reluctantly accepts the idea of taking up the blade until true peace can be made.

Side note: I really don’t care about any of the reasons why he ‘wouldn’t make sense as a playable adventurer’ when we have characters in the game like Elias, Pia, Lathna, Noelle, and Emma. I don’t even have any sort of issue with those types of characters being playable and being used to fight dragons and shit, I just think it goes to show that it really doesn’t matter if a character engaging in combat doesn’t really make sense based on their characterization, age, or whatever.

There’s so many things they could have done to make him work as a playable adventurer, and the only reason he isn’t one is because they chose not to make him one.

They also didn’t actually kill him off so honestly nothing’s stopping them from just having one of the various scientist characters in the cast study Laxi’s body and figure out how to put Mascula back into his own body. Again, the bottom line is that they’re just choosing to sideline him, not because their hands are somehow magically bound by the sheer power of his characterization and there’s nothing they could do about it even if they wanted to.

And for the record, I’ve read Laxi’s adventurer story and it just solidified everything about why I dislike Laxi as a character and why I think both her and Mascula suffer as characters due to being shoved into the same body. Laxi’s personality is basically just ‘remember 2B? From Nier Automata? She was pretty cool, wasn’t she???’, and like 80% of her own adventurer story is focused on Mascula instead of her. While at the same time Mascula literally can’t be his own character anymore because he’s stuck in Laxi’s body, and even by the end of Laxi’s adventurer story it feels like his pacifism is a character flaw that hasn’t meaningfully been challenged or ‘dealt with’. I’m pretty sure that right at the end of the story he’s still complaining about Laxi stepping on flowers, just to hammer in the fact that he’s still irrationally pacifistic and that hasn’t really changed. I think they both weigh each other down and keep each other from being their own, complete characters because of the situation they got stuck in, and I think that’s really frustrating. I think Laxi actually has a lot of potential to be a genuinely good character, and I like her sibling banter with Mascula in concept, but in practice she just feels like a very hollow and thinly sketched out character. And Mascula just got the short end of the stick in general. At least in the English version, he doesn’t even have his own voice, since in Laxi’s voiced lines they just have her VA put on this really fake-sounding male voice when she’s meant to be voicing Mascula. Which feels almost insulting, lmao.

I’m also well aware that the end of Laxi’s adventurer story hints at there being something up with Maestro, but that’s just a completely nebulous question mark at the moment with no real indication of what’s going on with it. I’m not exactly gonna hold my breath and hope that it has something to do with them continuing their story down the track in a way that involves Mascula getting his own body again, so really I don’t have any real opinion toward it. It might lead somewhere, or it might not. Who knows!

At this point I’m just ranting again, but still, this just feels like a frustrating mess of missed opportunities. Though tbh at the end of the day I think that if everything else about the game was perfectly fine, I’d be more willing to let this sorta thing slide, but since this is just one mess on top of a whole list of other things that have been going wrong with the game lately [expert/master high dragon trials, time attack rankings, HDT weapons, everything to do with Gala Cleo, augments as a gameplay mechanic in general, strings of reruns, the Megaman event being disappointing, and to a lesser extent the notable bias toward female characters], it’s much harder to have patience for it.

I’ve also seen lots of people being all doom and gloom lately about how the game’s not super profitable for Cygames, and I’m just here like ‘seriously Cygames, I will literally give you real money if you at least just let me play as Mascula’, but I doubt they’re gonna give me that option, lol. I already spend money on this game so I’m not even exaggerating when I say that I’d be perfectly happy to spend real money on Mascula if they gave me the choice to.

#murasaki rants #dragalia lost #I continue to be extremely On My Bullshit #@Cygames: pay me for my silence

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eremiss · 5 years

Text

Little Things

(takes place roughly during late 2.2/early 2.3)

Simulacrum.

Urianger used the word in a lecture the other day, and it’s been harrying Thancred like a particularly persistent mosquito. The scholar had been talking about... er… Ascians, yes, that was it.

Simulacrum.

It hadn’t been emphasized, nor barbed; Urianger hadn’t directed it specifically at Thancred, nor cast him any sort of look to imply that his wording was purposeful or backhanded. It had just been part of the rambling explanation.

But it had struck him just right and clung like tar.

Thancred doesn’t care for the word. It’s so clinical and negative. So detached.

And so damningly accurate at describing his actions of late. Because responsibility, good judgement and his own ignored emotions have a habit of getting in his way and making his life difficult when it comes to a certain, specific person, and the best way he’s found to deal with it has been to...make due with someone else.

Many ‘someone else’s at this point, each of them reminding him of that certain person in one way or another. He can only remember a few off the top of his head, and makes no attempts to consider how he should feel about that. There was the Auri woman he’d met in Ul’dah, her flowing tresses a familiar shade of ash brown. And a blonde Miqo’te most of a fulm shorter than him with deep green eyes that had sparkled just so when she laughed at his wit. There was even a tall, lean Elezen man in Gridania with a gentle, patient mien that belied his perpetually stern expression. He had been something of a surprise, truth be told. While Thancred has been attracted to men before, the motive beneath his recent desires for companionship has had him leaning more towards the fairer sex.

Simulacrum.

Thancred really doesn’t care for that word, but that doesn’t make it inaccurate or untrue or unfair.

The acknowledgement makes a thorny tangle of guilt and other things weigh on him that would surely take a toll on his mood if he didn’t work so hard to ignore it.

Seduction as a tool aside, as his work for the Scions is an entirely separate matter, he’s never enjoyed feeling as though he’s using his lovers.

It’s not upsetting, per se, just the same way he’s not upset to hear he’s been on the receiving end of such a thing, rather it’s like… a dent or a chip in a statue. It’s still a statue, it’s still lovely, and it’s still everything it’s claimed to be and everything it’s supposed to be...

But it’s also, suddenly, less than ideal. Minorly, maybe, but noticeably. And going about trying to fix it, if even possible, is never worth the effort.

Eventually Thancred bit the bullet and just acknowledged the truth of it (to himself, anway): he’s seeking others for want of someone else.

“Someone else.” As if feigning ambiguity is actually helping at this point.

Gwen. Guinevere. ‘Dove’. His friend. Thancred has known that all along, but even so the admittance hits him oddly. It makes something squirm and clench at the back of his mind in a way that feels a lot like what his nerves would do if he stood with one foot off the edge of a tall cliff.

Being honest with himself didn’t change his situation much, except perhaps giving the whole thing a sharper edge. It certainly didn’t ‘lessen his burden,’ or whatever it is that admitting the truth is supposed to do.

Thancred still dances around her name like it’s his swiving job whenever he’s able, because willful ignorance doesn’t twist at him or put him off-balance the same way.

It’s one problem of many, and it points right back to the main complication that is… whatever sort of relationship the two of them have at present. Thus far they’ve left it undefined.

No matter what they call it, Thancred knows he’s doing it an injustice with the habits Urianger so perfectly, unintentionally labeled. He spends time with Gwen, for reasons that are ultimately selfish, before running off (subtly...ish) to spend the night with an ill-fitting imposter.

That’s what he’s doing, plain and simple, and no he can’t phrase it any more delicately or fairly because it’s indelicate and unfair by nature.

It isn’t fair to her, or the nebulousness that is ‘them’. Thancred knows the surest way out of it all would be to scrounge up the sense of decency he claims not to have lost and just… just step back-- to go back to simply being friends and comrades like they were before. Uncomplicated. Simple.

But.

(There’s always a but that gets in his way like a brick wall. His head is a veritable maze at this point.)

But he can’t bring himself to let go of all the little changes that have accumulated since she let him closer. He can’t say he’s entirely happy with where he’s at, which he knows is entirely his doing, but he doesn’t want to leave it, either.

Gwen is a good and dear friend to him, for some reason he can’t fathom, seeing how he can recall shockingly few things he could have done to deserve being any more than her amiable colleague. And has only become more so

Gwen is just so...easy, though not in the derogatory way such phrasing leads one to assume.

She’s easy to be around, to talk to, to sit in silence with, to work with, to ask for help, to lean on, to feel safe around--literally and metaphorically, in the sense that misspoken words or a bad day won’t be held against him, provided he makes appropriate amends or humors her rebuttal.

She’s easy to balance when her level head tilts, and easy to soothe when she’s overdrawn. She’s tight lipped about her troubles and concerns, but they’re easy to pull apart and straighten out with a bit of extra insight.

Easy. He’s not used to easy. Which is probably what’s making it all so difficult.

Most of Thancred’s struggles pertain to grappling with everything beyond their friendship and trying to hold it all in line, though it’s taken him far too long to finally get around to parsing them all out.

Gwen has become a master of lifting his mood and giving him a bit of confidence, because she smiles and laughs so readily. Even when he’s scraping the bottom of the barrel for patience he can get a smile and a little banter out of her. She’s practically using his own flirtation against him-- drawing him in with smiles and jokes the same way he draws in whomever happens to strike his fancy.

There’s a certain smile she gets when he comes up with some new inane compliment that throws his head into chaos, alarms echoing at the back of his mind at the same time as his mood jumps up a few notches. It’s not terribly different than when any fair maid is receptive to his flirting, except for the accompanying sense of satisfaction when it’s Gwen.

Gwen is such a stickler for her own personal space that simply being allowed to stand or sit closer to her than anyone else --she’s grown more comfortable with all of the Scions but still doesn’t let them so physically near as him-- feels like something with weight.

He’s accustomed to more physical contact from those he’s intimate with, and even his friends, though that’s more a matter of them allowing the occasional whim to invade their space. Yet he somehow isn’t touch starved. It has to be some sort of quality over quantity thing, even though that doesn’t make any sense. An embrace and a kiss on the cheek feel nearly intimate and leave a fidgety sort of warmth under his skin.

A kiss on the cheek. Feels intimate.

Is he certain he’s Thancred of the Scions, who flirts as easily as he breathes? Thancred of the Scions, who surely holds some sort of (infamous) record for all the desert flowers he’s plucked, so to speak...? Or is he some besotted sodding schoolboy?

When Gwen leans against his shoulder, when he lays his head in her lap and she runs her fingers through his hair, it feels like something. Her getting comfortable with such things was a sort of a learning process, but over time it became nearly second nature. Even after it’s practically commonplace, cuddling still manages to feel like something that matters.

Thancred had never considered simple, little gestures like that to be things of consequence, easy and thoughtless like idle conversation or waving hello. And then the struggle to put himself back together in Lahabrea’s wake had left him... drawn. When days were too long and his patience was too short and even being pleasant was difficult, nevermind being charming, the closeness of others or the weight of an arm around his shoulder could burn like hot water against chilled skin. The little things, fingertips lighting on his knuckles or a conversation started at arm’s length and brought closer, had begun to mean something then, like whispers he hadn’t been able to hear until everything else had gotten quiet.

Gwen has an entirely separate approach to closeness, to fondness, to intimacy, than him, which he thought would ward her off from the start. After all, they clearly wanted different amounts of different things. To try and combine such misalignment was surely an accident waiting to happen.

Instead, Thancred had learned that all of that simply meant Gwen… took everything a little slower. She would get there eventually, just over weeks rather than days or bells. And in the meantime, all she demands --no, asks; she doesn’t demand anything of anyone-- of him is his patience and a bit of his time when they both happen to be at the Stones. Patience, time and understanding. Not endless praise, not a shower of gifts, not promises of devotion.

Not even exclusivity.

In fact, Gwen had made sure to explicitly state that, rather than leaving him to wonder and assume.

The conversation they’d had to establish that had been... something. A roundabout, stumbling, awkward something that he’d gone into fearing a confession or proposition he’d have to reject for both their sakes. Best to put an end to things immediately, like ripping off a stuck bandage, rather than let them fester and cause grief that could jeopardize their professional relationship as members of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, and friendship besides.

Instead, much to his surprise, their talk had simply been… a sort of clarification and negotiation of expectations, so to speak. Because Gwen has always been an anxious sort that, not unreasonably, finds comfort in surety and specificity, particularly in instances that involve openness on her part. She also proved herself to be far more open-minded and relaxed in regards to others’ relationships and intimacy than what her own reserved and, in a word, selective nature had led him to expect.

While non-exclusivity is his preference, Thancred can’t help wondering if Gwen’s willingness in that regard has more to do with the aforementioned misalignment of needs than her own tastes. She’s never offered to elaborate, and he’s never asked.

The biggest point of their discussion wound up being that: she’s the Warrior of Light, just as he’s a Scion, first and foremost, and their responsibilities are their top priority.

They’re friends second, and anything else, more or less, is a distant third, and regardless of wherever their...this went, those priorities could not change.

They both had their own limitations and needs and, so long as they were comfortable with the arrangement and could agree that they would efforts to remain amicable should they go separate ways (because she was always so consumed by ‘what ifs’ and being realistic couldn’t hurt) as well as respect one another’s duties to the Scions and Eorzea, then… well, she was fine seeing where it went.

If Thancred was willing, of course.

He was willing. And he’d said so, even though it made something a little unsettled, like warning or those things he’d buried, start ringing and pulling at the back of his mind. In his defense, he’d still been a little off-balance from winding himself up in preparation to gently, delicately, rebuff the confession he’d expected.

It was all good in theory, at least. And even in practice...so far. And knowing that has kept Thancred (and maybe Gwen, he isn’t sure) from trying too hard to affect much change, lest the whole thing fall to pieces.

General awkwardness aside, the talk had given him an unexpected sense of relief, easing a bit of tension he hadn’t even realized he’d been carrying. Even though relaxing and loosening in one place tended to mean somewhere else grew tense and strained instead.

Gwen didn’t expect him to change or be someone or something else, just as Thancred didn’t expect her to suddenly drop all her nervousness and hesitation and jump into bed with him.

...Not that he would have complained, mind.

In fact, they’ve been moving more into his realm of intimacy of late. Really, it’s no surprise to think Gwen wouldn’t be satisfied with the most basic physical closeness forever. Their intimate moments are always slow, things that start with a lingering touch or look and gradually build until she’s pressed flush against him and his hands are twisted in her hair and clothes. Often as not it’s nearly torturous, in the best sort of way, to take his sweet time until her shy touches grow bolder.

It’s not too dissimilar to their relationship, from meeting in Ul’dah up to now, in that way.

But there’s never any relief for the tension they build, because they always, without fail end up interrupted one way or another. Either the last shreds of their own better judgment or hesitation jerk them back, or fate itself decides that is the moment one of their linkpearls should chime or someone should come rap on the door.

Thancred is convinced some higher power is conspiring against them at this point.

Teeth-grindingly frustrating as it is, in the end he knows it’s for the best. To go any further would risk upsetting the balance they’ve struck between keeping their priorities firmly in order and being more than mere friends. To push for more would be gambling with that stability and everything that has come from it, which they can’t afford to do. Not to mention the fact that the vague sinking feeling he gets at the thought of Gwen withdrawing from him far outweighs the temptation to go any farther and take, or give, any more.

It also might force Thancred to confront and sort out all of the things he’s been stifling and shoving down in the back of his mind for… longer than he wants to think about. But, honestly, that’s more of an afterthought.

It’s safer and smarter to stay as they are. It’s better for Thancred to keep the walls and tangles and buried things cluttering up his head to himself and settle for substitutes, lest he ruin... everything. It works, in one sense. And not in others. But it’s better to play it safe, isn’t it?

So he grits his teeth and does his best to see they stay as they are.

They talk, they cuddle. Thancred's heart lifts a little and he gets a bit of easy banter or quiet relaxation with her head against his shoulder or his arm around her waist. Gwen gets...the same, he supposes.

They flirt. Gwen does little things like press her forehead against his or trace the lines and calluses of his hands, and his thoughts ease and his skin tingles. Thancred murmurs little things against her ear and lets his hands linger here and there, and she blushes and shoots him looks ranging from amused to interested.

And when his thoughts wander too far they butt up against his self-made hurdles and kick up a clamor between his ears.

Eventually, after bells or days, it’s too much to ignore.

So he slips away to find someone to ease his tension, someone to quench the burn he’s left with after they get interrupted again.

Someone else who, somehow, some way, reminds him of Gwen.

Gods.

Damnit.

-------------------------------

Thank you @rhymingteelookatme for beta-ing for me and all the suggestions! Particularly “OH BOI U GOT IT BAD THANC HAHAAA” *showers you with confetti and flowers*

Thancred doesn’t know how to feelings you guys

I’m kinda torn between the more lackadasical flirt and more duty-minded interpretations of Thancred I’ve seen in various fics because I love them aaaaaall. People are amazing at writing him and writing amazing stories and amazing WoLs. I’m really trying to shoot for somewhere in the middle (like everyone, I think, haha)

I think I hit that mark fairly well in Heal. And this! :D I really like how this came out.

I plan to write a lot more about this time in the game/their story. Especially the part where Thancred stops being such a dingus but it’s really probably most definitely gonna involve other NPCs which means I have to figure out how to write them first

Fun fact: I don’t have a completely concrete idea of the in-game timeframe from 2.1 to 2.55, and on top of that the start of Gwen and Thancred’s relationship is relative to a sidequest (Ifrit Bleeds, We Can Kill It) except for the part where they were still at the Waking Sands (so 2.1 fo sho).

This means I CONTROL THE TIMELINE!

But also ...I control the timeline?

oopsnotegotlongsorry

#FFXIV #Thancred Waters #FFXIV writing #ARR #Guinevere Ashe #My writing #Gwencred #feelings how do they work #angst?#yeah kinda #in want of something #trying to do the right thing #except he's just kinda fucking it all up #MY CONCERN WAS UNNECESSARY WEEEE #I'd been worried about my portrayal #but TOO worried #and let it get at me too much #'s all good

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