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foundtherightwords · 7 months

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Come, You Spirits

Pairing: Ralph (Timewasters) x OFC (Thu from "All Our Yesterdays")

Summary: Stuck in the past (again) and bored during the Ghost Festival, Ralph and Thu decide to check out the most haunted building in Hanoi, with unexpected consequences.

Warnings: none, just a brief mention of a murder and some general spooky stuff.

Word count: 4.6k

A/N: This is both my submission for the JQ Spookathon (yes, I've decided to participate after all! Thank you to @palomahasenteredthechat for hosting and all the mods!) and a soft continuation of my Ralph fic, "All Our Yesterdays" (if you haven't read it, that's OK. I tried to make this a standalone.) I've never written horror before, so here's something on the silly side instead. Plus, out of all of Joe's characters (other than Eddie), I feel that Ralph is most suited to a spooky story, and when Ralph is concerned, everything takes a silly turn for me.

As with "All Our Yesterdays", this is based on an actual urban legend of Hanoi and the location is real (see the photo at the end). The title is a quote from "Macbeth" too.

"You want to do what?" Thu asked, thinking she'd misheard Ralph over the flapping of the bamboo fan she was using to dry her hair. There was a power cut, and she was already sweating despite having just showered.

"Check out that haunted building you told me about," Ralph repeated.

Right, so she hadn't misheard him then. "OK... why?"

Ralph shrugged. "It's something to do," he said. "We've eaten at every possible street vendor in the Old Quarter, we've seen every sight there is to see—I know you take pride in Hanoi being traditional, but when it hasn't changed much since sixty years ago, there's not much left to do."

"That still doesn't explain why you want to see a haunted house."

"Isn't it the Ghost Festival today? Shouldn't we do something to celebrate?"

"Our Ghost Festival is not Halloween!"

"You said it was the day all the souls are released from the Underworld to visit Earth. That sounds like Halloween to me."

"Yeah, but we're supposed to be avoiding spirits, not searching for them!"

"Ah, that's no fun," Ralph sighed. He picked up a paper with a listless hand and threw it down again.

"And anyway, we did go to the mausoleum to see Uncle Ho's mummified body," Thu pointed out. "That wasn't macabre enough for you?" The trip to Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum, a rite of passage for every school kid in Hanoi, had been less of a success than Thu had expected. Ralph had treated it less like a curious relic of Vietnam's past and more like a carnival sideshow.

"No," now he said. "It was just... weird. It's not even real!"

"Oh, like you'd know!"

"You seriously believe that they can preserve a body that well?"

"Why not? The Soviets did it with Lenin."

"Have you seen that one?"

"... No."

"Well, I bet that's not real either."

Thu could tell they were in for another pointless bickering session, which had been happening with increasing frequency lately. Time traveling tends to do that to you, especially when it is as unpredictable as time traveling with Homeless Pete. No matter how in love you are with one another, it can be stressful when you keep ending up in different times throughout history, without warning. And this particular period hit a little close to home—in 1991 Hanoi, with her birth just six years away, Thu ran the risk of running into her parents and experiencing her own version of Back to the Future. She and Ralph had managed to find a place to stay on the other side of town, away from her parents' university, but the strain was getting to her.

Thu knew she should be thankful they had landed in peacetime—if it had been close to either of the wars, the suspicion on Ralph would make it impossible for them to stay. And they had managed to avoid the worst of the 1980s economic crisis as well—she still remembered too clearly her parents' half-humorous, half-painful stories about standing in line for hours to get their meager rations, the mortal fear of losing one's ration book, the stress of hoarding any product you could get your hands on. At least all of that was behind them now. But on a night like this, it was hard to feel grateful. The August air was muggy, the power was out for the third time that week, and the smoke from the burning of joss paper for the Ghost Festival only made the heat more unbearable. No wonder Ralph was feeling restless.

Still, she wished she hadn't told Ralph about that haunted building. They lived just down the road and had come across it while trudging around searching for Homeless Pete, who had disappeared yet again. Built in the Eastern Bloc style, all gray concrete and sharp corners, it squatted on an intersection like some scowling monstrosity, already exuding an air of inhospitality and menace despite being newly constructed.

"That's going to be the most famous haunted building in Hanoi," Thu said without thinking, pointing at it.

"Going to? What happens?" Ralph asked curiously.

Thu told him about how the building was meant to be the new Bulgarian Embassy, but was never put to use for some reason and was left empty over the next thirty years. "And in Vietnam, whenever a house is abandoned, it is said to be haunted," she said. "They say it was built on top of a cemetery or a hospital morgue, and people often hear strange noises or crying inside. The usual urban legend stuff. And then there was the murder—"

"What murder?" Ralph's eyes opened wide with fascination.

"Some woman stabbed her lover in his car right outside the back gate. In the early 2000s, I think. They say his ghost still lingers around."

"Wizard!"

Thu didn't share Ralph's enthusiasm. She didn't really believe in ghosts, but like most Vietnamese people, she had a healthy respect for the supernatural and avoided it when she could. Ralph had no such hang-ups, apparently. And now he wanted to check out the place! On Ghost Festival of all night!

"It's not really haunted, you know," she said, hoping to dissuade him. "Those stories are just made up by junkies and criminals, so they have a place to hang out."

"But you said those rumors only started after the building was abandoned," Ralph pointed out, and Thu silently cursed his memory. "So why was it abandoned in the first place?"

"It's probably just due to some bureaucratic crap."

"Where's your sense of adventure?"

"Let me get this straight," she said, rubbing her eyes. "We're stuck thirty years in the past with no IDs, and you want to sneak into an embassy to see if it's haunted, all because you're bored?"

"Yes," Ralph said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

"No. We are not doing that."

"Please?" He was practically pouting and batting his eyelashes at her, like freaking Betty Boop.

"Stop making that face. You know I can't resist that face."

"It's history!"

Thu sighed. Their apartment was cramped, and the fried fish that the family next door was having for dinner did not smell so great. Perhaps some fresh air would do them good. This was a time when you could still get fresh air simply by walking outside, without having to worry about pollution or traffic, so she might as well take advantage of it.

"Sometimes I do worry about your sense of self-preservation, you know," she said, getting up to find her shoes.

"Come on, that's what you love about me." Ralph grinned and gave her a kiss as she passed him.

***

They walked. Usually, during a power cut like this, they would meet plenty of people and families with kids all along the street, trying to cool down in the night air. That night, however, the street was deserted. The only person they saw was a scrawny student trying to read a book under a street lamp. Clearly, the night of the Ghost Festival was no time to be outside. And even if anyone had ventured out, the stifling, humid air would offer little relief. They really needed some rain soon.

"I'm afraid this isn't the vibe you're looking for," Thu said. "It's too hot to be spooky."

"That helps though." Ralph, always determined to make the best of every situation, pointed at the fat full moon shining languidly over the darkened street.

Just a few minutes later, they reached the embassy building. The place was surrounded by a tall iron fence, sharp points piercing the moonlit sky. The wan light of the street lamps gave the concrete blocks a blotchy, moldy look, and when combined with the scraggly bushes around its courtyard and the leftover building material, the building looked old, ruined, abandoned even before it was inhabited. A giant banyan tree by the main entrance spread its twisted branches over the flat rooftop, its roots hanging down like a curtain, dark leaves rustling menacingly although there wasn't a breath of wind.

The sight of that tree gave Thu pause.

"What's wrong?" Ralph asked.

"They should have done something about that tree," she said slowly.

"Why?"

"A banyan tree, especially one this ancient, is usually home to spirits and ghosts," Thu explained, "but cutting it down will anger the spirits, so people often set up some sort of a shrine or an altar on the tree for them. There's no shrine here. Not even some rice and salt for the lonely spirits." She dug in her bag and found a packet of puffed rice, one of many she'd bought earlier that day as offerings for the Ghost Festival, and scattered the grains over the tree root. To do it right, there should be some incense as well, but she was sure the spirits would find the rice just fine.

Ralph gave her a sidelong glance. "I thought you didn't believe in ghosts."

"I don't."

"Then are you trying to frighten me?"

A corner of Thu's mouth lifted up. "Is it working?"

"Not a chance." Ralph walked around the back. "Come on."

The back was more of the same, sinister walkways leading deeper into the building, eerie shadows that seemed to appear just out of the corner of one's eyes, furniture piled up waiting to be moved in, creating all sorts of odd shapes. An empty swimming pool gleamed pale under the moonlight.

"OK, we've checked it out," Thu said. "There is no ghost or spirit to be found here. Are you happy now?"

There was no answer. She looked around, but Ralph was no longer by her side. He was at the back gate, unwinding the chain holding the gate shut. There was no lock. Shit.

"Ralph, stop! Come back here!" she called, trying to keep her voice low, but it was too late. He had slipped through the gate and disappeared into the murky depth of the building.

Shit, shit, shit. Ralph had always been game for anything, and he was right to say it was what she loved most about him—his endless passion, his ever-present optimism. But she was sure that, having spent time in an Indochinese prison, he would be more careful about putting himself at risk of getting arrested again.

Well, there was nothing to it. She slipped through the gate after him. If the lack of a lock was anything to judge by, the place was not very well guarded, being newly built and not yet inhabited. They may be lucky and not get discovered.

She caught up with Ralph, who was strolling down the covered walkway that connected the two wings of the building, looking for all the world like he was taking his constitutional along the Thames, despite his modern-day clothes. Apparently, one can take the boy out of London but cannot take London out of the boy.

"Get out of here before you get us into trouble!" she hissed.

"Relax," Ralph said. "There's nobody here."

"And there's no ghost either," Thu said, with more conviction than she actually felt.

It wasn't simply the fear of getting arrested that made Thu jumpy. She hated to admit it, but being in this building, knowing its history—or rather, future—made her hair stand on end. She didn't believe in ghosts, she told herself. But something about those cold, gray concrete walls, those dark, tunnel-like corridors, and the sheer emptiness of it felt like there was a razor pressed to the back of her neck, making her want to stand with her back against a solid wall. She fought the urge to take Ralph's hand.

"So you have time-traveled, yet you don't believe in ghosts?" Ralph said.

"That's different," Thu muttered.

"How?"

They were now inside the main hall. The building must have its own generator—there was a naked light bulb on the ceiling, shedding its yellow light over a reception desk of cheap plywood and a floor that still hadn't been completely cleared of sand and mortar. They climbed the staircase leading to the first floor, where another bare bulb swung from the ceiling, bringing more shadows than light.

"Time travel is—is—science," Thu said lamely.

"Is that so? How does it work then?"

"It works by—by—I don't know, some wibbly wobbly, timey wimey stuff!"

Ralph looked blank. "What?"

Thu bit back a teasing smile. "You're probably the only Brit alive that doesn't know Doctor Who. If—when we get back to the present, we really need to sit down and watch it."

"To be fair, I was born ninety years ago—"

A heavy, drawn-out sigh echoed down the corridor, cutting him off. It was ringing clear, as though the person was standing right by them.

Ralph gripped Thu's wrist. "Did you hear that?"

"Oh, for Heaven's sake!" She shook Ralph's hand free and strode forward with long, decisive steps. "It's probably just the wind or something—"

She rounded a corner, and her heart stopped.

A figure wavered in the gloom at the end of the corridor.

Then the figure moved into the light, and Thu realized it was much, much worse than a ghost.

It was a middle-aged man, dressed like a security guard, wearing the green pith helmet of the Vietnamese army, with a baton in his hand and a startled expression on his face.

"Excuse me!" he exclaimed in Vietnamese. "Who the hell are you?"

Thu didn't know where she found the clarity of mind to stick out an arm and block Ralph, who was still hidden from view behind the corner. But block him she did, and she could hear him duck into an empty room, much to her relief.

"This is private property! It belongs to the government of Bulgaria!" the guard shouted, limping toward her. "What the hell do you think you're doing here?!"

"I'm so sorry, sir," Thu said, running up to the guard to prevent him from going further down the corridor and discovering Ralph. She decided the best course was to tell the truth—or a version of the truth anyway. "The gate was open, and I—my friends and I heard that the place is haunted, and they dared me to go inside..."

"Haunted?" The guard frowned. He had the yellow teeth and yellow fingertips of a chain smoker, and, as he got close enough to her, the breath to match as well. "I've worked here since they started constructing, never heard of no haunting."

"It's just what people say—isn't this place built on an old temple? Or was it a cemetery—"

The guard narrowed his eyes at her. "Aren't you a bit old to get up to such shenanigans?" he asked.

Thu was ready to get offended, but then she remembered that thirty years in the past, someone in her mid-twenties could very well be married and having kids already—her own parents were. "You're absolutely right, sir," she said. "I'm so sorry. I'm leaving now."

She turned to leave, but the guard put his baton up. "Hold on," he said. "Let me see your ID."

Thu's heart dropped. "I—I don't have it with me."

"Where do you live?"

"Just... down the street."

"Right, I'll go with you to get your ID then."

"No!" she exclaimed. Realizing she would not be helping her case by panicking, she tried to soften her voice. "Please. You'll get me in trouble with my parents. Please, sir. I haven't done anything. I just walked around—"

Her plea fell on deaf ears. The guard grabbed Thu's arm with vice-like fingers. "So you just admitted to trespassing. Come with me."

"Hey, you can't do this!" She tried to pull away, but his hold was too strong, despite his limp. "Do you even have the authority to detain me?"

"Ooh, like to use fancy words, don't we?" The guard's craggy face took on a harsh, unyielding look. "You're right. This is a police matter. I'm only detaining you until I can fetch them." Ignoring her protests, he dragged her down the corridor and threw her into a room at the very end. "And for your information, young lady, my authority is absolute here!" he said, before snapping shut the padlock at the door with a cruel click.

"Shit!" Thu said out loud. How could she have been so stupid? She should have dragged Ralph bodily out of here—no, she shouldn't have let him through the gate—no, she should never have agreed to come here in the first place!

When she first time-traveled, she had lived for six months in 1929 without any ID whatsoever, but things in 1991 were very different, and with the police getting involved, how was she going to explain herself? She could only pray that Ralph was smart enough to get out while the guard was preoccupied. She may be able to come up with some crazy story to the police to explain her lack of ID, but explaining the presence of a young Englishman who was actually born in 1904 was too much for her. She could see the headlines—"Mad Woman Claims to Come from the Future". "Mad Foreigner Claims to Come from the Past". Or worse, there would be no headlines at all. They would just get thrown into jail or a mental hospital and forgotten.

Thu looked over her jail cell, trying to figure out what to do. She was in a bathroom, lit by a bare light bulb as the rest of the building. The door was of sturdy wood, and the only window was a tiny square high up on the wall. Even if somehow she managed to wriggle through it, it was still a two-floor drop to the ground. No wind came through that window, and the room was boiling. Sticky sweat poured down her back.

A shadow passed by and stopped just outside the room, blocking out the narrow strip of light underneath the door. It was gone in an instant, followed by several more, rather like a group of children crowding each other to peer into a room. Thu pressed her ears to the door but heard nothing, no footsteps or even a rustling of clothes.

"Hello?" she whispered in Vietnamese. Receiving no answer, she switched to English. "Ralph? That you?" Still no answer, but there came that long, heavy sigh again, and the light went out.

The sweat on Thu's back turned to ice. She staggered away from the door, heart hammering, spine crawling, until she hit the wall with her back. The solid wall made her feel slightly better, though the tiles chilled her. She missed Ralph's warm arms.

She sat down on the toilet, trying to gather her wits. Some shadows, a noise, and a power cut were nothing to be so shaken up about. It was just Ralph's overactive imagination and those damned stories getting to her, that was all...

BANG!

She nearly jumped out of her skin, before realizing it was just a window on the ground floor. Probably just the wind. She took a deep breath—

BANG! BANG! BANG!

This time they came right above her, one after another, sounding too fast and uniformed to be caused by the wind. A quick glance out the window told her that the night was as still and muggy as ever.

The guard's voice came from somewhere in the bowels of the building, "Who goes there?" Thu heard a high, clear giggle, but it could be her imagination, or it could simply be from a kid playing in the street outside. This was followed by a long moment of silence, then a scream—more like a yelp, thin and far away, then silence again, ringing in her ears, endless, unbearable.

The silence was broken by running footsteps outside the corridor. Her heart in her throat, Thu cast wildly about for a weapon. She settled for the heavy porcelain cover of the toilet's water tank, though what good it would do against a ghost, she had no idea. But then again, ghosts wouldn't have footsteps, would they?

"Thu?" came Ralph's familiar voice, and the band squeezing her heart loosened, almost making her drop the cover on her foot. She scrambled to the door.

"Ralph! What happened?"

"The guard fell into the pool."

Shit. "What did you do?!"

"I didn't do anything!"

This was no time for more bickering. "He must have the keys on him," she told Ralph. "Find them and get me out of here!"

"OK. Hang on."

His footsteps receded. After what must be the longest five minutes of her life, he came back, the door was opened, and the next thing she knew, Ralph was pulling her into his arms. "Are you all right?" he asked. "I'm sorry, this was all my fault—"

Thu was so relieved she wasn't even angry with him anymore. After all, she had followed him into the building of her own volition.

"No time for apologies. Let's just get the hell out of here," she said.

Grabbing each other's hand, they ran down the corridor, down the stairs, and toward the back gate. As they passed the empty swimming pool, Thu glimpsed the dark shape of the guard lying in a heap at the bottom.

"Is he dead?" she asked, horrified.

"No. Just knocked out, I think," Ralph said. Seeing Thu slow down, he paused as well. "What are you thinking?"

Thu weighed the bunch of keys in her hand. "I have an idea," she said, motioning for Ralph to climb down into the pool with her.

They put the keys back into the guard's pocket and carried him into the bathroom where he'd locked Thu up. This way, Thu reasoned, when he woke up, the confusion would be enough to throw doubt over his story, and they would be off the hook.

"Are you still angry with me?" Ralph said as they made their way back to the apartment. "I won't do anything like that ever again, I promise."

"You better keep that promise," she grumbled, but when he tentatively reached for her hand, she didn't push him away.

***

For a few days afterward, Thu avoided going past the embassy, just in case the guard still remembered her face. One evening, she and Ralph were going to dinner when they found their path was taking them past the building again. There was a great bustle as workers went in and out, carrying furniture and cleaning up the leftover building material. Seeing a woman struggling with a heavy chair, Thu came over to help.

"Are the Bulgarians finally moving in?" she asked in Vietnamese.

"No," the woman replied shortly. "They're moving out."

It was then that Thu noticed the furniture was being loaded on carts and taken away. Did this have anything to do with their misadventure the other night?

"Why?" she asked the woman.

"No one wants to work here," the woman said. "The locals say it's haunted."

Startled, Thu looked back at Ralph, whose eyes were open so wide they threatened to pop out of his face. He hadn't learned much Vietnamese, but he had certainly caught the word "haunted" and understood what it meant. Có ma. Inhabited by ghosts.

"What happened?" Thu asked the woman, trying to sound casually interested.

The woman cast a look around, before dropping her voice. "On Ghost Festival, a security guard was working there alone. He said some woman showed up, telling him the place is haunted. He thought she was a trespasser and locked her up to wait for the police. Did everything by the book, right? Only she vanished! And the guard found himself locked up instead! What do you make of that?"

Thankfully, Thu didn't have to answer that, because another worker was calling to the woman irritably, "Hey, move it! Some of us want to get out of here before it gets dark, you know!"

As the woman scurried back to her work, Thu gave Ralph a brief summary of what the woman had told her.

"I guess we were the ones that started that whole haunted rumor," she said ruefully.

"Well, at least now we know why it was abandoned," Ralph replied, cheerful as ever.

Thu shook her head at him, half exasperated, half affectionate. She should really stop letting him draw her into these harebrained adventures, but it was hard to say no to those puppy eyes.

"So tell me," she said, slipping her arm through Ralph's as they continued on their way, "what did you do to that poor security guard, exactly? How did you know where the breaker was?"

"The what?"

"The electricity. You turned it off to scare the guard, didn't you?"

"I thought that was another power cut?"

She slowed her steps, puzzled. "But you did slam the shutters, right?"

"Yes, the one on the ground floor. I thought it might make a good diversion."

"And the ones on the second floor too."

"No, I didn't go on the second floor."

"But I clearly heard three slams, right above me."

"I heard those too. I thought that was you!"

Did he think she was that gullible? "Come on, Ralph. You're messing with me."

"You're messing with me! How could I have gotten from the ground floor to the second floor so quickly?"

"Right, and next you're going to tell me you didn't make the guard fall into the pool either."

"I told you I didn't! He was already there when I found him!"

Thu finally stopped and looked straight at Ralph. "What are you saying?"

"I am telling you the truth," Ralph said slowly. "All I did was slam the shutters to draw the guard away. Then I hid. I didn't see anything. I only heard giggling and panting, and the guard's scream. When I found him, he was unconscious in the pool."

They stared at each other, neither uttering a word, minds running wild with all sorts of possibilities, while a strange, oppressive feeling—not quite fear, but a vague unease—clutched at their hearts. Thu could feel the razor on the nape of her neck again. As one, she and Ralph turned to look at the building. The workers had finished and left, and the building was deserted once more, looming gray and silent in the last rays of the sun.

"Perhaps the ghosts were helping us because you gave them some puffed rice," eventually Ralph said.

"I don't believe in ghosts," Thu snapped.

"Maybe you should," Ralph said. "They believe in you."

Thu looked over her shoulder again. It could be her imagination, or it could be a trick of the dying light, but the banyan tree looked like it was winking at them.

Definitely her imagination. Maybe.

"Don't say things like that," she said, trying to shake off the crawling sensation on her back. "It sounds so creepy!"

"Sorry."

She glared at Ralph. His eyes were full of earnest concern, with no hint of the twinkle he usually had when he was teasing her.

"You're lucky you're cute, you know that?" she said.

Face brightening up, he grinned back at her. "I know."

For all her bravado, Thu's grip on Ralph's hand was tighter than usual as they walked home in the gathering dusk. Then again, perhaps that was what he was aiming for, the cheeky tosser.

#ralph penbury #ralph timewasters #ralph x ofc #all our yesterdays #joseph quinn #joseph quinn fic #jq spookathon 2023

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grodyego · 23 days

Note

DOVE 🍎🍀❤️

🍎 - What is the OC’s relationship w/their parents like?

dove's mother died not long after childbirth, although as it was often told to him, she apparently used her last moments to beg for the safety and care of her child. its not completely clear to him what parts of this story were true and what might've been exaggerated to manipulate him, but regardless it makes him think about her quite a lot, even still. there was no information that he was given about his biological father either, so he just always assumed he must've died as well at some point.

after that he was given to the care of a nursemaid. while he doesn't have the clearest memories of her, from what he does remember, she was fairly stern but still far and above the kindest person who'd ever looked after him, more than anyone he would go on to be tutored or trained under. so he always wished she ended up having a long and comfortable life.

🍀 - What originally inspired the OC?

back in 2017 the 5th season of samurai jack started a huge samjack revival and dude i was sooooooooo deep into it. i was fairly nostalgic from it even though my memories of the original show were pretty fuzzy but then upon revisiting it i was completely swept up (and then pretty brutally let down, but. What Ever.) anyway i had always really liked those kind of like, Temporal Fish Out Of Water stories, i think there a really cool and fun way to make commentary on and juxtapose a number of things about like, history and the human condition and a bunch of other really smart stuff, it is also just really cool to put like a knight or a cowboy or a samurai in the future and just have him run around and go crazy, so i wanted to take my own crack at both of those things. i was also really fascinated by the kind of like, bittersweet futility of the original seasons of the show, of jack always getting so close to his goal but ultimately having to give it up most of the time in order to do right by the people of the present, and once again i really wanted to make my own guy to roll his own metaphorical boulder up the futility hill, and thus dove in his earliest concept was born. its not even close to a perfect 1 to 1 and i think outside of the concept of "ancient warrior is thrust into a crazy mishmash sci fi future" there arent that many similarities now but i can and will not ever be able to separate the influence it had. straight up if samurai jack did not exist neither would dove. for better or for worse lol

❤️ - What is one of your OC’s best memories?

dove holds very little nostalgia for his "old life" because he was aware of how unfair and brutal it was even before he was able to compare it to the state of the future, there is truly probably next to nothing that he actually misses about it (save for maybe his horse). that being said one of the clearer memories he does have about the nursemaid who looked after him was her letting him go off and socialize and play with some of the livestock and other animals that were apart of the property he was taken into, kind of her own version of a "special occasion" for him. dove has a lot of tenderness for animals and while that moment wasnt the cause it definitely helped foster it !

#oc tag #original tag #dove

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thenightling · 6 months

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How I got into The Sandman

The first time I read The Sandman was in 2017. First let me backtrack a bit. Back in 1999 I ran a Labyrinth role playing game on AOL and I played Jareth. I had to flesh out his personality since the movie didn't elaborate on much. I had to speculate and use sources like the novelization. As my friends and I played, a few tried to talk me into reading The Sandman. One described him as "Goth Jareth." This didn't work quite as well she hoped. She showed me some illustrations of him but that was all. I was / am a Goth and usually dressed in black. And for a while I wore an ankh pendant. I had seen one in an episode of "Are you Afraid of the Dark?" where the episode said it meant eternal life. I actually had several ankhs but one by one lost them because I'd give them to my brother as talismans to protect him against night terrors. My brother was prone to violent nightmares. Sleep disorders ran in my family. My mother slept walked, my brother had Night Terrors, and I still get bouts of insomnia and find I sleep better with an inverted sleep schedule. Anyway, I had shoulder length dark hair, dressed in black t-shirts and leggings, and wore an ankh. This must have driven my Sandman loving friends crazy because I still hadn't read it. I was told I looked like Death and "Death is so cute." But that was not how you should get me to read something. I don't care if a character is cute. Tell me about their personalities. Tell me about the horror hosts turned nightmare entities residing in The Dreaming. Tell me about Morpheus's love of Halloween aesthetics. Tell me about Morpheus being a screw up trying to set right his own wrongs. That would have appealed to me. Anyway, by 2017 I still had not read it. There were just a few things I knew about it. I knew that Lucifer of the Fox (not yet Netflix) TV show originated in The Sandman and that's where he quits ruling Hell. I knew that Death was Morpheus's sister. And she was a cute Goth girl. And I knew that Morpheus was like a "Goth Jareth." That's all I knew.

Now in 2017 my friends started a DC comics themed role playing game as some of them were very into the Arrowverse. And I really liked the Fox TV show was Lucifer. So I was to play the DC version of Lucifer but all I knew about him came from the Fox TV show. I like to research my role when I play a canon character for a role playing game. I knew he first appeared in The Sandman and I knew he was designed to look like rock star, David Bowie. So I decided to start there in The Sandman. I found out his first appearance was issue 4 so I figured, Okay, I may as well start from the beginning and work my way to him. I read it in digital format first because I didn't want physical copies of The Sandman unless I found i loved it. I fully anticipated skimming and skipping combat scenes and explosions since "all comics have those." Boy, was I wrong! I'd read many comics over the years but explosions and fight scenes were always the norm with Marvel and DC. And I always found those parts boring. So I'd skim them. By the time I got to "The Oldest Game" in issue 4 I finally realized "This was no ordinary comic book." The explosions and drawn out fight scenes I'd come to expect were no where to be found. When Morpheus said "I am Hope." I knew I had something special.

I was thirty-five-years-old when I finally read The Sandman and I had been seventeen the first time it had been recommended to me. I went back and re-read those first four issues carefully, and with a more open mind to what I was getting into. By strange coincidence, the following day when I was reading Dream of a Thousand Cats, that was when I went to the animal shelter and adopted Loki and Vlad. I was hooked. I was now much more interested in Morpheus than in Lucifer. And I'm glad I discovered The Sandman when I did. Imagine waiting decades for the first TV adaptation. I only had to wait two years. (It was 2019 when the Netflix show was announced even though it didn't get released until 2021.)

#The Sandman #Neil Gaiman

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galbadiaedeakramer-blog · 1 year

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Alyson Court: Yeah, I always wanted to explore the Clesker aspect.

Kicking off my little Clesker evidence file is none other than Claire Redfield herself, Alyson Court. She blessed us with her lovely voice in the Resident Evil series from 1998 to 2009, and becoming the embodiment of Claire Redfield. Alyson also played memorable roles such as Loonette from "The Big Comfy Couch," Lydia from "Beetlejuice," and finally Jubilee from "X-Man." Many fans came to regard her as the sole Claire over the years, and she is truly missed. I still want her back.

Anyway, we know Waugh has given his thoughts on the Clesker pairing, and now it's time for Alyson's opinion. If you haven't read that, the link is right here.

https://www.tumblr.com/galbadiaedeakramer-blog/702678365794172928/wesker-loves-claire?source=share

Now in the "Residence of Evil" podcast which took place in 2017, Alyson mentions her favorite character.

https://youtu.be/WhyrKAAjK_I

@ 56:45 in the podcast

Host 2: "Question 3 from Francis Conway. Who is your favorite character from the entire Resident Evil series? I'm assuming he means someone other than Claire."

AC: "Ok, well.... that's a really tricky one for me to answer. Um.... I have a thing for Wesker."

Hosts 1, 2, and 3: "Oooh, D.C. Douglas?"

AC: "Not proud of that, but I do have a thing for Wesker."

Host 1: "He’s in my top three."

AC: "I loved when, so Code Veronica was my favorite and when we revisited the game. The cast recorded the for what was it, Code Veronica X?"

Host 1: "Yeah"

AC: "Yeah, the director's cut, which came out after. Um, it had the extra stuff with Claire and Wesker, and that was really fun. Cause um, I hadn't gotten to do that in the previous version, and I enjoyed that immensely."

Do ya’ll see something?

Well, in this next interview that occurred in 2012, the question pertained to Alyson's opinion on whether she’d like Claire's story to grow. I wanted to post this as it ties into the next WeskerxClaire statement.

Umbrella Survivor Podcast @38:51

https://youtu.be/tsVAulozv_w

(Warning, the sound quality fades in and out.)

Host 1: "They brought you back as Claire in The Darkside Chronicles and The Mercenary 3d. Whereas Claire's story was either a rehash of old events or there was no story at all. Which would you prefer: to simply return as Claire in any capacity, or to have her story explored further?"

AC: "You know, as an actor, I always relish new material, so anything that allows me to expand on new material is great. Or what was done previously and go into new territory. I'd like to see something new with her story line, but having said that, I think they've done *inaudible,* and each time we've done something. During the original Resident Evil 2, Code veronica and then coming back to do The Darkside Chronicles. It wasn't the same experience cause there was a different feel with the game, I mean the game has very different game play. So it was quite an interesting performance we did, and that was great, and then doing Operation Raccoon City again was a very different experience. I don't know how many times you can go back and do something different with the same source material. Eventually you will have to move on if you're going to continue with those characters. So I guess, in terms of my own hope, I can continue as Claire. Yes, I would love to see a whole new storyline start for her."

Host 2: “Yeah, I'd like to know, aside from Claire, of course. Who would your favorite character be in the entire franchise?”

AC: (laughs as her inner fangirl mode is activated) “I have a thing for Wesker, I have to admit.”

Host 2: “I think we all do.”

AC: "So when you were talking about the new story line and stuff. Yeah, there's a big part of me that wishes for a CLAIREX WESKER game. They had some stuff going on in Code Veronica X, and the way it was kind of left hanging, it felt like the two were definitely going to meet up again in the future. So I would like to see that happen.”

Host 3: "As would we all, as would we all."

We as Clesker fans could’ve had a Clesker game, an entire Clesker game for us. We would’ve been fed until the end of time.

Another interview that fuels my vendetta against Capcom, occurred on December 20, 2013, by Scottie Brown. I really liked this one, and I'm happy fans still love Alyson even to this day.

https://youtu.be/32SUVfmqw4A

Beginning @ 32:32, Alyson is asked.......well, we already know.

SB: “So I wanted to ask you, who is your favorite villain from the Resident Evil series and why?”

AC: (fangirl mode activated) “And why? Oh, I don't know if I can properly answer why, in a fulfilling way, I've always had a thing for Wesker. I love Wesker.”

SB: “Yeah, Wesker is awesome.”

AC:”Yeah, um. I don't know why it could be in the original voice, but what Richard Waugh did for Resident Evil 2 (She meant 4) was pretty fantastic. Now D.C. Douglas, it's just like what great guys and it's like how can you not love whatever character they’re voicing? Um yeah, I just keep, I get caught up in the fan fiction stuff and I have this naughty dark side where Claire and Wesker have a thing going on. But you know I ought to keep that to myself.”

SB: “And that would be crazy, because Chris and Wesker hate each other.”

AC: “Yes”

SB: “When they get into a room together, (lol) it's just madness. Could you imagine Chris's reaction, with his big, gigantic muscles pounding and hitting the walls, when he finds out Claire and Wesker might be having a thing? He wouldn't be too happy.”

AC:“No he wouldn't, but that would be an interesting-added dynamic to the storyline. See and then you can give, well imagine the internal conflict for Wesker. If he found himself falling for Claire, and he's reminded that wait "This is Chris Redfield sister, I hate Chris Redfield and YET fond of Claire". There would be so much inner turmoil, it would be wonderful.”

Alyson was truly ahead of her time, and I see a lot of female characters in a gray area, falling for bad guys.

A queen.

The final tidbit of Alsyon-loving Wesker, came from a 2009 anime convention in California. The panel included Roger Craig Smith (Chris), Karen Dryer (Sheva), Paul Mercier (Leon), Liam O'Brian (RE5), and Alyson Court (Claire). Everyone is having a good time, and if I could find a better quality video with the entire length, I'll add it. The panel gets crazy, and the RE actors are asked what's their favorite character and cookie is. Starting with Roger Craig Smith.

https://youtu.be/XXqJtyxfIG8

@1:41 He drops Wesker, and we can see from Alyson's reaction that was going to be her answer.

But she answers @ 4:09.

AC: “So I like oatmeal cookies, and even though Wesker was originally my choice. I think I like to be a licker or HUNK.”

The next day, the panel is asked a question that I assume is regarding Wesker and how they would kill him or something. Our queen, Alyson, always comes through. @00:21

https://youtu.be/cjSvqHUwHUE

AC: “I was reading some fan fiction where Claire and Wesker actually went off on their own and got a little something, something going on. So you know what, that's fine by me.”

The fangirl squeals and the random alright is what made the video for me.

Welp, that's all I can find right now, I'll keep you guys updated if anything new comes up. But I'm posting this to tell you not to be embarrassed, because some people would kill for their favorite to have this spot. Also, too many people are quick to dismiss this pairing, but uplift the one they really want Wesker paired with.

So don't fall for the gaslighting.

Remember, Capcom does listen to fans if people are vocal enough, and they've been dropping major hints.

All credit goes to Alyson and Waugh.

If you guys are reading this, thank you, and may the Most High continue to bless and protect you all.

So can we get some fan art and fanfic please.

*Now I need some sleep, hope you all enjoy*

#clesker #Alyson court #the best pairing #increase the fanfic please #and fanart too #a clesker game would've been lit #CVX remake needs to hurry up #and bring back Alyson and Waugh please #claire x wesker

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honnojis · 1 year

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Hello zumi, i just found out that Painful Truth has 2 versions. Why? And also do you have a story about the making of Painful Truth?

the old one just felt kinda outdated! and also wayyyy back i used to just compose songs on a whim, one of the results being painful truth (others being saki's hijinx and despair desert). Painful truth just ended up being used for the title screen by Jan! And honestly it's for the best considering the old title screen was blast-your-ears-out loud LOL

Anyways!! I've been starting to use bits and pieces of that song as leitmotifs in other tracks since. The main leitmotif is now fully fleshed out as ARCHETYPE instead (it's easier to work with and to slot into other tracks compared to PT), but it still has a clear connection to Painful Truth.

As for the second version, this is an updated version I did for Jan as a surprise as the old track was... well, old! As in, i-was-using-the-trial-of-mixcraft-and-not-fl-studio type of old. I'm pretty sure that song is from like... early 2015? the newer version is from 2017! I had access to better instruments and samples, so I figured I'd give it a do-over.

anyways hoped u enjoy those bits of trivia!!

#zumi answers #anonymous #pokemon rejuvenation

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dealgemeneverwarring · 8 months

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De Algemene Verwarring #96 - 4 September 2023

The ninety-sixth episode of De Algemene Verwarring was broadcast on Monday, September 4, 2023, and you can listen to it by clicking on the link below that will take you directly to the Mixcloud page:

Yes, we're back at it after a long summer break, it's September 4 and it's bleeding hot in the Quindo studio, so nothing has changed. Pictured below is the UK postpunk band The Psychedelic Furs at around 1980, a lineup that wouldn't last long but that was responsible for the self-titled debut album that was released in 1980. The band was brought to my attention again by the Dynamite Hemorrhage radio show. Host Jay Hinman mentioned some reviews that he had read about the debut album being characterized as the ultimate mix of Roxy Music and The Velvet Underground. For me it was also the first time I heard these two bands mentioned when talking about The Psychedelic Furs, but it kinda makes sense. Anyway, the debut album is really really a great record, sexy and groovy and made to dance to. So I played the track "We Love You" from the Furs. There's more old music in this episode from The Prunes, The Vultures, The Peechees, Armitage Shanks, Blod. But moreover, the summer spawned some really great releases, I don't think I have ever bought so many records in the summer months as I did now in 2023, and most of them being new releases. The new Famous Mammals lp is a masterpiece, there's new bands such as Children Maybe Later, The Sheaves and Burnt Envelope, and new releases from bands such as the synth goths from Es and droners Pefkin. So, a great episode, if you ask me. And beneath the photo you can find the playlist for the show. Enjoy!

Playlist:

Armitage Shanks: Are Friends Electric? (7” picture disc “Are Friends Electric?” on Damaged Goods, 1997)

The Vultures: Alcohol (7” “At Home” on La Vida Es Un Mus Discos, 2015, reissue, originally released in 1981, self-released)

Patsy: Heathen (12” “LA Woman” on La Vida Es Un Mus Discos, 2017)

The Peechees: Well Worth Talking About (split 7” met The Drags, “Radio Disappears” on G.I. Productions, 1996)

Burnt Envelope: I’m Immature (LP “I’m Immature: The Singles Volume II” on Hozac Records, 2023)

The Sheaves: Lariat Slung (LP “Excess Death Cult Time” on Minimum Table Stacks, 2023, reissue, originally released on tape by Moone Records in 2022)

Famous Mammals: Empty London (LP “Instant Pop Expressionism Now!” on Siltbreeze Records, 2023)

Children Maybe Later: West Macarthur (LP “What A Flash Kick!” on Slothmate Productions, third pressing 2023)

Liars: Rose And Licorice (Oneida cover) (Split LP met Oneida “Atheists, Reconsider” on Version City Records, 2002)

Es: Emergency (7” “Fantasy” on Upset The Rhythm”, 2023)

The Psychedelic Furs: We Love You (LP “The Psychedelic Furs” on CBS, 1980)

The Prunes: Man Falls Down (LP “Lite Fantastik” on Baby Records, 1988)

The Pheromoans: Wizard Thing (LP “I’m On Nights” on Alter Records, 2015)

Peter Jefferies: Whatever You Want (LP “Closed Circuit” on Grapefruit Records, reissue 2023, originally released in 2001 on Emperor Jones Records)

The Cat’s Miaow: Hollow Inside (LP “Songs ’94-’98” on World Of Echo, 2022) - Ross Cummings ook in The Shapiros en Hydroplane (recent ook compilatie uitgekomen op World Of Echo)

Pefkin: The Lunar Pull (split LP met Roxane Métayer on Morc Records, 2022)

Blod: Leendet Från Helvetet (LP “Leendet Fran Helvetet” on Aguirre Records, 2022, reissue, originally released in 2017 by Forlag For Fri Musik)

De Fabriek: Harrisburg (LP “Blecheintopf - Music For Modern Art Exhibitions, Volume Two” on Futura Resistenza, 2022, reissue, originally released on cassette in 1982 by New Bulwark Records & Tapes)

#radioshow #de algemene verwarring #punk #post punk #experimental music #new wave #indie #drones #noise

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leaahhh · 1 year

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two tuesdays ago i traversed uptown to get my left ear cut open. back in october, i had impulsively gotten a new earring while i was pitifully sad during a morning walk. “to feel something,” i’d sighed to friends, who mostly rolled their eyes.

it never stopped hurting. helix piercings are notorious for taking longer to heal, but mine remained extra stubborn, consistently tender to the touch and annoyingly easily irritated. i winced every time i slept on it (i knew there would always be at the very least a dull ache and willingly went forward with it anyway, even as a side sleeper). on new year’s eve it started showing signs of infection. the back of my ear swelled up to an alarming size, hot and beet red and bulbous. just a handful of hours later – 11:53pm, minutes before the clock struck midnight and the year turned over – i used my phone to take a photo and saw that the skin had completely closed over the jewelry, backing and all.

the pain numbed almost instantly. my body had swallowed this foreign object in defiance, embedding it into my cartilage, threatening to remain in my bones.

i flew back to new york and spent a week mindlessly tugging at it, aware i should probably get it looked at but not bothered enough to feel much of an urgency at all. it wasn’t until my roommate, who i flippantly told the story to one afternoon, shone a flashlight onto the back of my ear and insisted it was genuinely concerning. she said she was coming with me to urgent care that weekend.

at urgent care i was referred to an ENT up at columbus circle for an emergency appointment. as i sat in the waiting room, i scrolled tiktok with the sound off (my new preferred way of interacting with that app, until i delete it entirely). i saw a video about an old song exploder podcast episode featuring phoebe bridgers and marshall vore diving deep on “scott street” from 2017’s ‘stranger in the alps,’ which i’ve long considered a truly Perfect Song. it was my favorite for months after it dropped and has remained highly important to me for the past half decade. i’d listened to that podcast when it came out, but by now had forgotten nearly everything that was said. i reminded myself to give it another listen on my trip home.

minutes later, a plastic surgeon examined my fucked up ear and confirmed that my version of what happened was true. he numbed it up, handed me some odd vibrating device that was supposed to help “distract my brain from the pain.” still, it was excruciating. i heard him make the incision then use a variation of sharp metal tools to dig out the jewelry. grating, like nails on a chalkboard. when it was out, i shyly asked if i could keep it; he handed it back to me in a tiny manila folder.

“you probably shouldn’t get it pierced in that same spot again,” he said.

i turned on the “scott street” podcast as i left the surgeon’s office, hearing marshall and phoebe break down the track. marshall spoke of a previous relationship that inspired the lyrics.

“this person did love me, but they were also working against me," he explained. "i wonder if they’re ashamed of that, and i wonder if they’ve grown up.”

“it’s so sad and weird to play catch up with someone who was so intimately involved in your life for so long,” phoebe added.

at the conclusion of the episode, “scott street” played in its entirety as i walked through the passageway from the E to the G at court square. i closed my eyes, hands in my pockets drumming along to the familiar series of bells and train horns, ear bandaged and shot up with lidocaine. i considered friendship, shame, forgiveness, and my penchant for purposely reopening wounds while the outro of the song repeated over and over again: “anyway, don’t be a stranger.”

maybe you've caught onto the fact that this story isn't about an earring.

in an unrelated moment of desperation last fall, i’d posted a zoomed-in selfie on my close friends instagram story with a massive text block overriding it, reading: “CAN SOMEONE CONFIRM IF TIME REALLY HEALS?” several people responded with casual optimism (and probably exasperation towards my visible months-long spiral), but adam’s response stood out:

“it just lives in you differently.”

EDIT: walked past the shop i got my piercing at today; this sign sat outside:

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merv606 · 8 months

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damn so i became curious about moldova 🇲🇩 after mercy chapter 18 so i looked it up. lmao i thought the official language was french for some reason but its actually romanian so is terry speaking romanian? my british ass is impressed lol since i can only speak english like most brits and here’s our psycho speaking multi languages fluently haha. anyway i also thought moldova 🇲🇩 (my phone keeps making flags sorry) was in central europe and then it says its in eastern europe and it being affected by the ukranian 🇺🇦 war against russia 🇷🇺. how did terry get a visa for daniel? well, he is pretty much karate god so i suppose he can do whatever he fuckin likes. amazing story much love.

I do believe CK is taking place in like 2017 for season one and it is supposed to be only like 2019 by season five- something like that and something I keep forgetting.

So even though the war in Ukraine has been ongoing since 2014, it was only recently in 2022 that Russia escalated it and actually invaded them which caused the rest of the world to sort of reckon with the ramped up tension and potential for a world conflict.

Now, I don’t claim to be an expert and I only have the cliff notes versions but I didn’t really factor it in as with season five only supposed to be 2019 - I don’t think the conflict, considering it is five years old at that point but before the recent escalations would affect them too much.

Also, origanally they were going to be in the mountains somewhere - it was written that he could tell that they were in the mountains and I wanted it to be in Romania 🇷🇴- the Carpathian Mountains - plus their dense forests as well - in which case Moldova would have been the buffer between them and Ukraine but I decided I wanted the added factor of them being somewhere that they could not be extradited back to the states - and Romanian does, so next door Moldova it was, which used to be part of Romania.

I imagine, for some reason, that Terry speaks French and Romanian is a love language therefore he probably could adapt to learning it.

That being said I don’t HC him as speaking Romanian as such and he had brought people with him he trusts - so no guarantee they do and in my mind, don’t know why, but the nurse speaks Spanish 🤷‍♀️ and so does one of the maids.

#ask #I got an ask 🤩#cobra kai #daniel larusso #karate kid #terry silver #silverusso #silverrusso #mercy is a sharp knife

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allsassnoclass · 1 year

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2022 Writing Evaluation

I was tagged by the wonderful Bella @clumsyclifford (thank you for digging this up and tagging me first because i 100% was going to do it anyway lol)

also my pseudonyms are combined on ao3 so although this is my 5sos blog you will be hearing about my other fandom writing as well

1. number of stories posted on ao3: 17!

2. word count posted for this year: 124,269 on ao3, 23,433 for ask box prompts, so a grand total of 147,702!

3. fandoms i wrote for: 5sos, 1d, It (2017 and 2019 movies), Stranger Things, HSMTMTS, Cobra Kai

4. pairings: on ao3 we have some nice crisp muke, lashton, mashton, mashton (friendship version), cashton, cake, malum, narry, lilo (and then also kiaz and caswen (friendship(?) version) and reddie and hellcheer). adding in the ask box prompts and we also have 5sos ot4, roylum, and lashton (friendship version)

5. story with the most kudos/bookmarks/comments: for all of those it’s technically my hellcheer fic, but for the 5sos ones hits and kudos are The Catch, comment threads is pas de deux!

6. work i’m most proud of (and why): pas de deux hands down no question. it’s my longest fic by over 20k! i wrote it almost constantly from november to december and had a goal to post each chapter on christmas and the four sundays leading up to it and i actually accomplished that goal!!!! i’ve never successfully focused on one particular fic for that long, and it actually worked!!! plus, for such a long fic, i think i did a relatively good job of keeping characterizations consistent and sensical throughout, as well as finding little themes to carry through the entire fic (which i got lucky with tbh, some things that became running pieces of the fic were not planned out before, i just caught them as they were happening). i haven’t read the fic back since completing it so it’s possible it’s not as cohesive or as good as i think it is, but i’m extremely proud of myself for it nonetheless.

7. work i’m least proud of (and why): right now, it’s probably when i watch the world burn. i struggled with that one and in the end i don’t think it quite got to where i wanted it to, but i was on a time crunch. it’s a lot different from what i usually write, but i don’t know if i made that transition to a different story style and topic as smoothly as i would have liked.

8. share or describe a favorite review you received: someone left a very long and gratifying comment on both Puzzle Pieces and its sequel Bedroom Activities back in February. grey114 if you see this i love you. it was really gratifying to get a comment on a piece that i love so much that was over a year old at that point, especially since they said it was a reread and they just touched on a lot of things in a really sweet way and that made me feel very happy to have written those fics.

also i know this doesn’t technically count because it got it today but amanda read when i watch the world burn (again, not my proudest work) and said that although this “isn’t her kind of fic” she said that that particular fic is the “biggest proof that it’s the writer more than the content or pairing” because she enjoyed it, which was really nice to hear especially when i’m not feeling the best about it. it’s also just an insane compliment because i absolutely love amanda’s writing, and every time a writer i love also confirms that they really like my stuff it makes me feel good lol

9. a time when writing was really, really hard: the entire first 3/4 of the year, tbh! i was in a big writing slump earlier in the year and it seemed to keep going forever, then I was super busy in the summer and simply didn’t have time. i don’t think i hit my writing stride again until i let myself impulse-write for other fandoms. i think that’s what i really started to realize exactly what it means to write what you love uninhibited, rather than writing what you think you should. like. i have 10k of an angsty caswen at college fic in my drive that may never see the light of day because it’d be super long, but letting myself go to town on that with no expectations of necessarily posting it or even completing it was really healthy for me and extremely enjoyable, and it loosened all the writing mechanisms in my brain to get me back in a writing groove.

10. a scene or character you wrote that surprised you: hmmmmm let’s see. honestly i was most surprised to write anything for hsmtmts or cobra kai, let alone something from johnny’s pov, but for 5sos stuff i was surprised to write so much feldy. he became a pretty big player in pas de deux and when initially planning that fic i don’t think i realized how much screen time he would have. ashton’s characterization in when i watch the world burn was also surprising. i didn’t know when i started writing that he would be like that.

11. a favorite excerpt of your writing: here’s a little bit of the ending of undeniable you

When Ashton fully wakes up, he can hear spring rain pattering against the roof. The room is still blanketed in gray, but Michael is still glowing, even if Ashton only has a view of his bedhead from the way they’re cuddled together. He shifts right before Ashton musters up the willpower to leave the comforting warmth of their bedroom and begin breakfast, as if he can sense that Ashton would rather spend the morning talking with him in appropriately hushed tones than leaving the cozy atmosphere that surrounds them. His eyes are fuzzy and sleepy when he blinks up at him, but he smiles like he’s never been more sure of his place here.

12. how did you grow as a writer this year? i finally truly understood what it means to write for myself!!!! to write for the enjoyment of writing!!!! to stop holding myself to arbitrary standards of what fics i should be working on and how often!!!!!! this year i really let myself work on what i want when i want, and it really did wonders for me. also, i discovered that for the most part outlining does genuinely help me

13. how do you hope to grow next year? mostly i want to continue to write what i want to write. i want to maintain this peace and enjoyment of writing that i’ve found and continue to treat myself with kindness when it comes to this hobby and not let it become unpleasant. that being said, i do also want to focus on individual projects more. i think the key to ensuring these two things aren’t mutually exclusive is to find projects that i genuinely love and to add little bits in there for me to enjoy, like all of the minnesota references (and the csi miami reference) in pas de deux.

EDIT: I also want to start replying to comments this year! i might not reply to new comments on old fics just because i’d feel weird not replying to the comments before (and i have fics form 2016, so i feel like it’d be weird if i went back and replied to those) but i’ll at least reply to comments put on pas de deux onwards.

14. who was your greatest positive influence this year as a writer (could be another writer or beta or cheerleader or muse etc etc)? okay i’m going to list four (4!!!) different people. bella @clumsyclifford and annie @carouselstars have both been extremely supportive, especially while i’ve been complaining in the club nearly every day for the past two months. they’re always encouraging me. i also need to give a big shout out to megs @igarbagecannoteven and gregory @doomeddiabetic for being great sounding boards! pas de deux would not have been completed without megs helping me sort things out in the very beginning, and gregory is willing to talk shop about fandoms they’re not even part of.

15. anything from your real life show up in your writing this year? little things here and there! it’s most prevalent in pas de deux, where i highkey projected onto both characters and forced them to exist in minneapolis. i have been to mia and love all of the art pieces i mentioned in chapter 3. my favorite ballet is dances at a gathering. i, like calum, must always remind people of famous minnesotans. shayla is my favorite newscaster. i watch csi miami and ncis when i need something mindless on in the background. i namedropped my old tech director and ballet teacher in that one. pas de deux is full of little hazel pieces lol

16. any new wisdom you can share with other writers? find what pleases you! find what you enjoy, and don’t turn writing into a chore that you have to do, but rather a special treat to enjoy! this doesn’t mean that it’s going to be sunshine and rainbows all the time, of course. maybe you’re the type of writer who gets immense satisfaction from finishing a difficult piece, and that far outweighs the frustration and struggles to write it! everyone is going to be different with figuring out what constitutes enjoyment, but that’s what helped me, at least.

17. any projects you’re looking forward to starting (or finishing) in the new year? i’m trying not to put too much pressure on myself but i really hope to finish three particular 5sos fics. i think they could become my new favorites. i also have a cobra kai fic that i’d love to write! also, i really want to post at least one chapter of unmute, given that i didn’t do that this year

18. tag some writers whose answers you’d like to read: @igarbagecannoteven, @carouselstars, @lifewasradical, @jbhmalumm, @lukemichaelcalumashton, @babush-cat if you’d like!

#tag game #those with 911 blogs and pseuds feel free to do this there as well #i like doing stuff like this #and i feel pretty proud of myself!#overall this year was a big success i'd say which is nice because at the beginning i was really struggling and unhappy with writing

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ideas-on-paper · 1 year

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Why I love Mass Effect 1's gameplay (spoiler-free review)

Very recently, I completed my first ever playthrough of Mass Effect 1 - a well renown, beloved game that has nevertheless received quite harsh criticisms for its gameplay. The somewhat rough-around the edges shooter gameplay, the confusing inventory system and frustrating Mako controls were the most common complaints, some of which BioWare addressed in the recent Legendary Edition remake of ME1.

Still, after some extensive research, I decided to buy the old trilogy version anyway (call me oldschool if you like, but I'm a bigger fan of some of the OG light effects) - and imagine my surprise when despite having signed up for a somewhat more tedious gameplay experience, I came to actually enjoy it. In fact, I think ME1 does a lot of things right that other RPGs do wrong - to this day, I might add. For analysis purposes, I will be using the game NieR: Automata (© SquareEnix/Platinum Games, 2017) as a comparison, mainly because I played these two games back to back.

The level system

One thing I absolutely loathe about modern RPGs is how you can essentially break the game by overleveling yourself - not by conscious grinding, but by simply knowing what you're doing. While the level of some enemies in Nier Automata - especially during Route A - may seem daunting at first, all of this can be completely bypassed with the help of one little trinket: the EXP+ chip. While the effect may not be immediate, you will eventually reach the point where you surpass everything the game throws at you in terms of strength - by nothing more than understanding and making use of the game's mechanics. Nier Automata tried to remedy that by introducing a level scaling system, and while this worked out fine in Route B, it appears the developers were too lazy to properly implement it during the endgame: In Route C, all of the enemies are stuck at level 50 (60 for some bosses), so they really were no match for me at level 95. At some point, I got tired of all enemies keeling over if I so much as blew in their general direction, which was one of the reasons why Route C just felt so lackluster to me.

Because of this, I decided to play Mass Effect 1 on Veteran difficulty from the start, just so I don't accidentally make the game too easy for me again (despite having never played a shooter before, lol). However, little did I know there was no need to worry, because somewhat miraculously, Mass Effect 1 manages to avoid any kind of level exploit entirely: The reason for that is that unlike in many other RPGs (including Nier Automata), leveling up doesn't give you an inherent boost to your attack/defense - instead, you have to allot points to specific skills to improve your base values. However, while a little bonus to your stats certainly helps, it's the combat skills that you should focus on: To gain the upper hand in battle, you have to make use of abilities such as temporary damage immunity, overloading the enemies' shields or making them more vulnerable to your attacks. Although this means that you will be spamming abilities pretty much non-stop, you don't have to worry about robbing yourself of any challenge, as the game will keep you on your toes from the first battle right until the final boss. Also, since the level cap is set at 50, you can't simply max out all of your skills, which acts as a nice counterbalance and compels you to distribute your points wisely. (Imagine if the level cap in Nier Automata would've been 50 - perhaps that would've made the endgame actually challenging.)

Another thing I really appreciate is that the equipment you find is always appropriate to your current level. This is because once you start a mission, land on a planet or enter a facility, the equipment you can loot is randomly generated on the spot (you can see this if you revisit a place you went to before but didn't loot: the items will always match the level you were at during your first visit). This not only prevents you from potentially finding an OP weapon early on which you can solo the whole game with, but also the awkward situation of stumbling into "low-level" sidequest when you can no longer use the items you get from them. Also, since the enemies' strength relies just as much on equipment as your own, you always fight on pretty even ground, which means you will neither run into an overpowered squad too strong for you nor an underleveled group which goes down faster than a cardboard wall. Now, that's a way to implement proper level scaling.

The game economy

Another problem that many games suffer from is that you get tons of money, but have next to no opportunity to actually spend it on anything. In the first half of Nier Automata, the "Half-wit Inventor" quest may give a motivation to invest your money into something, but once you accumulated the 180,000 G, pretty much all you need money for is buying and upgrading your weapons, and finding the materials to do the latter is generally more of an issue. The one really cost-intensive thing you need currency for is fusing chips, but since the max chip level is 6 and your capacity is limited anyway, you will arrive at the point where you neither can nor want to upgrade your chips any further. As one might guess, this resulted in me amassing huge amounts of money (in no small part due to my extensive fishing trips), but since there was nothing that I could spend it on, the numbers didn't do much besides looking good.

Mass Effect, on the other hand, possesses a very effective game economy which gives you ample opportunities to make use of the money you earned - if you're focused on optimization, that is. Even though you will find plenty of equipment lying around, it's worth checking the shops from time to time, since they sometimes offer items slightly above your current level. Of course, the prices are accordingly high, and I often had to use almost all the money I made by mining minerals, looting chests/safes, etc.

I will say though that ME1 lacks any unique weapons - ultimately, there are 1-3 "high-end" items for each equipment category (often with marginal differences in stats), while all the other inferior products can simply be disregarded. This means that you usually want to pick the best weapons and armor possible and pimp them with mods as much as you can, while the rest of the stuff is there just for selling. However, even though this may be a bit of a chore, it actually benefits the game economy as a whole: Right before the final mission, I bought a high-end armor for Wrex and two level 10 mods at the Emporium on the Citadel, almost exhausting my entire money reserves - something which wouldn't have been possible without the few extra credits I made by selling superfluous equipment to the outfitter on the ship. The only criticism I have is that there is no "sort by" filter for the selling screen (e.g. selecting that you want to sell shotguns, assault rifles, etc. instead of the standard arrangement by item level) - that would've made things less tedious and time-consuming.

Saving

This may sound silly, but one thing I honestly perceived as such a quality of life improvement when I started playing Mass Effect is that you can not only save literally everywhere, but you will also continue exactly where you left off upon loading. In Nier Automata - and quite a few other games for that matter - you can either only save at certain checkpoints, or the game will automatically place you next to the nearest checkpoint upon loading your save (which may be a fair walking distance away from where you actually left off). However, in Mass Effect, you won't find yourself in the general vicinity of where you last saved, but at the exact same spot - a true blessing that spares you a lot of backtracking and frustration. (I know some people like to call this "save-scumming", but believe me, when one of your squadmates can't join you in battle because they got stuck behind a closed door - which happened to me with Wrex on Noveria - you will thank every god in existence that you're able to load a recent save game.)

Exploration and sidequests

If there's one aspect where Nier Automata and Mass Effect are actually tied, I'd say it's the open world exploration. All criticisms aside, the environments of Nier Automata are a true highlight, and I spent hours walking around just enjoying the scenery, atmosphere, and music. Although Mass Effect is understandably more limited in the graphical department due to its release in 2007, the extraterrestrial landscapes nevertheless manage to look truly captivating, and I had fun taking screenshots of some of my favorite views. However, while you usually explore the world of Nier Automata on foot (or with a mount of your choice), you inevitably will have to use the Mako for Mass Effect's planet-bound missions. Admittedly, the Mako has absolutely earned its reputation as a bouncy vehicle with next to no roadholding, and the physics of that thing are occasionally quite insane. Still, from my experience, it's not completely uncontrollable, and as long as you don't drive like a madman and try to avoid steep terrain, you should be fine - unless you have no other choice than to vertically drive up a cliff (P.S. I hate you Eletania).

Nevertheless, my little excursions in both Nier Automata and Mass Effect ended up having a similar, very relaxing effect on me - which is something that actually surprised even myself, since I'm usually not the biggest fan of open world games. I guess that's because a lot of them tend to have huge, overwhelming maps, and while having the biggest open world is something like a "status symbol" among game developers these days, it doesn't really do anything except making me feel lost and confused. Meanwhile, the free-roaming areas of Nier Automata and Mass Effect are quite spacious, but not so large that you lose any kind of orientation. Also, another thing many open world games do (and that really annoys me) is that they simply put a bunch of symbols on your map for you to traipse around, which is really nothing more than an employment-creation measure for the player. In contrast, Nier Automata and Mass Effect deliberately avoid putting all points of interest on the map - instead, you have to find chests, minerals, and all kinds of other treasures by yourself. While this may be perceived as "userunfriendly" by some players, I think it actually encourages you to go out there and explore, and the feeling of being rewarded for your own curiosity is immensely satisfying - a thousand times better than having everything served on a silver platter.

Last but not least, although Nier Automata is the one that always gets praised for its ambivalent, disturbing sidequests - and rightfully so (in fact, you could say I enjoyed the sidequests more than the main story) - Mass Effect is in no way inferior to it: Just like in Nier Automata, there are sidequests which really make you feel pensive and empty by the end. Personally, "Citadel: Signal Tracking" and "UNC: Geth Incursions" were the ones that unsettled me the most, but "UNC: Missing Survey Team", "UNC: Dead Scientists", and "UNC: Besieged Base" are also runners-up. In general, many of the quests ultimately leave you wondering "what did I actually do right now?" and whether your actions were justified - it truly feels like an insolvable aporia with no right or wrong solution, the only difference being your own moral perspective.

Furthermore, I think it's noteworthy how sidequests are utilized in both of these games from a storytelling perspective. If you take Witcher 3, for example, you will notice that the game tries to make its sidequests into their own independent storylines - a story in a story, so to speak. Meanwhile, the approach of Nier Automata and Mass Effect is completely different: Instead of treating its sidequests as separate entities, they act as little snippets presenting themes and topics that tie directly into the main narrative, enhancing the story as a whole. Together, all these pieces form an intricate, well-constructed web, making up the essence of the story when viewed in its entirety - a strategy which I personally find way more appealing.

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Conclusion

Despite feeling a bit dated, Mass Effect 1's gameplay still holds up surprisingly well - in fact, the game manages to avoid a lot of pitfalls that many RPGs struggle with even today. Thus, I think the first entry of BioWare's hit series truly sets the standard for what is a good RPG, being an example that all game developers should learn some valuable lessons from.

#mass effect #me1 #nier automata #gameplay analysis #game review #spoiler free #rpg #open world #bioware

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katherynes-rkive · 1 year

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2017 | Headspin

The last little story I wrote for my old creepypasta character, Waru, before I dropped the project in '18. This supposed to be a re-imagining of a scene from version of the story I wrote in '15.

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In the darkness of the dead of night it was difficult to see, but the grim outline of the old jumping board that towered yards above the long abandoned swimming pool, blending right in with the lush trees, was enough to pull a sigh of relief from Waru.

She dropped to her hands and knees when she felt her foot touch the first stone slab that surrounded the pool, now a terrarium for moss, ferns and other plant life. She clamped her hands over her mouth when a coughing fit crawled its way up her throat and she desperately tried to sit it out, only pushing very brief coughs out of her lungs which she tried to muffle with the collar of her hoodie.

Jule and her piece of trash friend group couldn't have been very far. Waru was sure of that, and the thought of revealing her location to them was horrifying.

She didn't need light to see what was dripping down into the palms of her hands when she felt the warm fluid touch her skin, and more and more with each cough. Waru gagged and doubled over, finally giving in to the growing convulsions in her chest and coughing as deep as she could in an attempt to get it over with as fast as she could - feeling the vibrations in her chest with each cough, and the taste of iron moving from the back of her throat into her mouth; spilling past her lips and onto the ground.

It was likely only the beginning, she knew, as she finally got to her feet and took a few deep breaths to calm her body. The ringing in her ears had arisen once again - quiet but noticeable -, a symptom of what was to come. Waru coughed again. She wiped her hands on the fabric of her jeans, smearing them with not much thought, and then fished her cell phone from her pocket. She unlocked the device, peered around her to confirm the absence of flashlight beams around her, and then flicked on her own. The soft beam illuminated the tiles she stood upon in a 2-yard circle and just barely reached the edge of the swimming pool before disappearing over it. At her feet laid a puddle of crimson blood, made to seem even darker than it was by the night and the dirt it was mixing with upon slipping through the cracks between the slabs and trickling down to the earth.

Waru wiped her mouth on the sleeve of her hoodie and spat at the ground, ridding her mouth of another thick lot of blood. She flicked the flashlight back off. In a mutual game of cat-and-mouse, the light was more of a disadvantage to her.

At least she knew where she was now.

For a while she considered turning around and stumbling back to her house in the very outskirts of the town. She could try to get some rest and pretend this didn't happen. She wasn't sure if she could sit it out in the forest all evening with a bunch of vengeful, bloodthirsty teenagers chasing her around like she was a piece of game. Op top of that, she didn't have her pills and it was when the world temporarily spun around her and the ringing spiked that she realized how big of a mistake she had made. Simultaneously with those thoughts however, the voiced from Jule and her friends squirmed their way back into her conscious thinking.

So what if she tells her mom or whatever, it’s not like she ever did anything anyway. She’d probably thank us. Besides, we just tell her that if she tries anything we’ll come back and snap her little mutts’ necks.

Or we just grab her, we hold her down and one of us slices her wrist open, make it seem like she finally did the world a favour and killed herself.

Haha.. If only she would.

Her lips curled upward into a toothy snarl she flashed at nobody in particular. She snarled again as she ran her fingers over her left arm which Damian had, she was pretty sure, tried to turn into a piece of freshly carved ham. Her lips rose further as she stroked her finger past the incision feeling the skin split and the flesh underneath, still dripping blood.

She felt euphoric feeling the skin split. It wasn't the cuts or the beatings that she was angry at - they meant little to her - but the thought of them thinking they had the audacity to even assume they were above her, that they could somehow actually beat her down, enraged her. There was a pride that brewed in her chest. How pathetic.

Waru peered around the small clearing that, in the past, might have been full of people sunbathing in the grass by the pool, and locked her eyes on the small wooden shed that stood between the trees. She paced towards it. How dare they. Threatening her was one thing - and it wasn’t like she hadn’t become completely numb to it anyway - but threatening her dogs was something else. If she went back home they’d surely find her there again. Perhaps they were already even there and then she’d walk right into them.

She opened the small wooden door. It made a bone-chilling creaking sound and Waru cringed a little as the noise filled the silence of the woods. She said a quiet prayer that Jule’s gang wasn’t nearby enough to hear it, and then stepped inside the shed where she finally flicked her phone’s flashlight back on. There, in the back, standing against the left wall and partially obscured by litter to the point where one could probably walk right by it, stood three baseball bats.

The fourth and fifth were hidden deeper within the rubbish just in case the main three were ever discovered. Waru picked up one of them, nearly falling into the table they were hidden behind as a sharp headache hit her and the ringing in her ears flared up for seconds. Her head spun like crazy and before the flare cooled down she lost her balance, even when leaning against the table for support, and fell sideways onto the dirt ground inside the shack.

She hissed out a mouthful of curses through clenched teeth and curled up, violently scraping her leg over the ground and coiling in agony as her head felt like it was about to split open for a moment. But only a moment. As spontaneously as the agony has soared through her body and mind it was gone again, leaving the trembling Waru laying on the ground, panting probably even shakier than the rest of her.

She slowly rose back to her feet, keeping most of her weight off her feet and on the side of the table behind her until she felt that she could stand right up without wobbling. She took a few deep breaths while her vision slowly stopped warping the shed around her, and then re-adjusted her grip on the handle of the bat. She tightened and then loosened her fingers rhythmically, focusing her attention on the simple action as her head stopped spinning. Ignoring the ringing in her ears, she focused on her surroundings, trying to pinpoint any sounds other than the ambiance of the forest. There was none.

Waru uncoordinatedly stumbled out of the shack, beating herself up mentally over slipping out of attention seemingly every other second but not being able to correct herself no matter how much she tired. The trees warped and swirled around her as she stumbled back down the tiles of the swimming pool, dragging the bat by her feet. A few times the scraping sound ceased and Waru knew she was close to setting foot off the stone tiles and disappearing in the empty pool, and she steered herself back with a swirly motion.

She let out a low croaking groan as her headache got a smaller spike and placed her free hand over her forehead. She dropped the baseball bat with a sigh. No. She needed to go home. Even if it was just to down whatever was left of her pills and then come back to teach these assholes another lesson.

She grinned and moved her hand down from her forehead, slipping it into the kangaroo pocket of her hoodie and stroking the back of the survival knife that was unsafely tucked inside, bumping against her skin when she walked. She forced a smirk on her face that moreso resembled the snout of a snarling animal than any emotion portraying joy. Fuck, she really needed to get back.

“Okay, okay okay okay.” She mumbled to herself, getting stuck repeating that one word for a while as she paced between the trees, trying to stay on the deer trail she normally took to and back from the hideout at the swimming pool. Her mind kept wandering off and she swore she could hear footsteps around her, though even upon shining her phone’s flashlight around against knowing better, she saw nothing.

“Okay, okay okay okay okay. Okay okay.” Waru grumbled to herself, neck cracking almost uncontrollably and her right hand having trouble keeping a steady grip on the knife she had taken out as they twitched and jerked - as usual, though flared up. “I know you make it worse, I know you make it worse, I know you make it worse, I know you..” She coughed again, muffling it with the sleeve of her hoodie and nearly stabbing herself in the forehead with her knife as she did. She cursed into the fabric.

“Fuck you.”

She glared around the treelines, ignoring the static that crept into her peripheries. Ringing filled her ears and gave her a headache that was sharp enough to force her to lower her gaze and grab her head with her hands as she stumbled further away from the swimming pool. She snarled in agony. Fuck. Fuck. Her medication.

Anger came over her as if a switch had been flicked and growling gurgled up from the back of her throat, seeping out between her canines. She was not going to give in to Jule and her gang. She didn’t give a fuck about the creature that was watching her through the treelines, trying its best to pull her as if on puppet strings. She wasn’t going to let herself get weakened and be at mercy of those assholes.

Waru fiddled with the knife and rationalized that she would try to make it home, and if Jule or any of the others tried to get to her… She giggled, knife in her still twitching hand. Well, it’d be their own fault.

Waru walked further into the forest.

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