#but also that would come waaaay later down the road

[wuntrum]

are you also writing for those stories you illustrated for your thesis? I'm so intrigued please

yes, i am!! so signals is going to be a 52 page comic debuting at shortbox comic expo this october (at least, thats the plan 🥲), and then after that i thiiiink i'm either gonna work on the shallow end or rhizomoprh (i also have stuff im writing thats not from my thesis but i swear ill get to all my thesis ones eventually skdjfkf)

#asks #thesis tag #not sure exactly what form theyll be written as #like i thiiiink maybe the shallow end will be a novel #same with rhizomorph #but there are others (like the graveyard shift) that would work better w more visuals #not even Sure what form a single trace will be #part of me thinks a point and click game would b really cool #but also that would come waaaay later down the road #and since i have both a vampire and a cowboy wip going #blood moon gulch is a little on the backburner </3 #but that one would be a shortish story anyway so IDK IDK #oh and uhhh not sure abt the divine autopsy one #all i know is itll have prose from second person pov i think #anyways yeah sorry for goin off in the tags dfgkjg

[madigoround]

Things that happened today:

I was working from home which actually means that I flexed my hours so I answered emails on my phone while I was out and am now actually doing work

I went to thrift stores trying to find cat stuff before the shelter opened

I went in with the intention of possibly adopting tadpole, the kitten I met yesterday, and they were like hey by the way she has a brother that’s still here do you want to meet him too and after spending two hours petting them while they laid in my lap I decided to adopt both of them because I love them so much even if it was a lot more money than I was planning to spend

I get twenty feet out of the spca parking lot and run over a nail which gives me an immediate flat tire, road side assistance that usually covers these things for free decided that I’m no longer covered by it so I had to pay 60 bucks for someone to come out and put the spare on

I have to drive for work so I was going to have to call in sick for work tomorrow to go get it fixed if I didn’t get it fixed right away so I go to Sam’s club and they initially say they can fix it and then say that it actually has a tire that needs to be special ordered and wouldn’t be there for five days and also that they don’t think anyone would have that size tire on hand because it’s small?

I decide to try the good year down the road in a last ditch effort and they said they don’t usually have that tire but they do today and 180 dollars later my car was fixed

Got home waaaay later than I meant to and am now working, the kitties got scared while the spare was being put on and had a major accident in the crate and they won’t let me clean them but otherwise they’re settling in well and I love them so much

#I spent so much money today I’m working hard on not losing my mind over it #the cats did keep me calm when all of this was going down though #it was so cold and the triple A person was like it’ll be about an hour and a half and I was like um I have kittens in the car I just adopted #and they were like okay it’ll be thirty minutes lol #their names at the spca were tadpole and froglet which are very cute but I was planning to rename tadpole hope and now I’m thinking I’ll #rename froglet luck it’s still up in the air though #in the third picture they’re laying one on top of the other in between my legs lmao

[zachsgamejournal]

PLAYING: The Legend of Zelda: The Breath of the Wild

Dang this game is big. There's a decent amount going on in the towns. I both want to "get through this" and get lost in it forever!

Divine Elephant Beast

I don't remember it's name, Vah Ruta or something. Anyway, I remember thinking this was a fun opener. I loved riding Prince Sidon around shooting at ice cubes and mines. Very fun, action-packed sequence.

The interior was less exciting. It kinda had classic Zelda dungeon vibes: it's a maze and a puzzle at the same time? I remembered the Ganon gunk everywhere with the eyeballs that had to shoot, but it reminded me of Gylt. Which Gylt is actually reminding me of BotW, and I wonder if this is where Gylt got its idea for destroying eyeballs to unblock gunk.

Anyway, because I've been rushing through the story I didn't have a lot of supplies going into this. So of course we get to the first boss fight of the game and I'm not equipped at all!

It's really hard because the Ganon fiend is killing me in a single hit. Every time I'm defeated my son gets really frustrated. He's so disappointed. We have a conversation about not getting mad and just trying again, learning from our mistakes. A day later, my daughter would recite this philosophy to us when she has trouble with her tablet game.

After the 10th try, I actually figure out how to beat the first form, almost easily. It takes looking up a video guide to figure out the second form. Mostly, I'm just so weak that I can't make any mistakes or DEATH!

We save the day, free the elephant from Ganon's control, and get a cut scene of Mipha being a little flirty and sentimental with Link. Link returns to the Zora's and the old fart that hated us for letting Mipha die has come around a bit. While the dialog is overly long for not being voice acted (and would be overly long if voice acted) it's an interesting story.

Oh yeah, and they gave us this shirt that lets us swim up waterfalls!

On The Hunt for Gorons

So despite the interesting Zora environment, the cool elephant battle, and pretty ok drama for a Zelda game, my wife still isn't sold on BotW. So I set off to find Gorons with the hope that she'll be excited to see them.

But we run into trouble. HEAT. I know that once I get to the village I can buy armor to keep me safe from heat, but I need to get there. Unfortunately I just don't have the health to survive. I spend waaaay too much time trying to access cold areas to collect ice bat wings in hope that I can make cool down potions.

Apparently I just don't know how to make potions.

Even after getting an ice wand (which helps you stay cool) I can't survive the heat. So I decide to switch to Gerudo.

On The Road to Gerudo

I know I can get cooler clothes here, so I'm hoping for the best. We find the guy that sells you Gerudo clothes so you can sneak into the women only town. (I wonder if there's some Trans/Terf issues here...) Point is, we get inside and meet the prince/queen. She seems to know Link is a man and doesn't care.

At this point, I don't think my wife is interested at all.

Still, I push forward. We get sent on a mission to a Yiga clan hide out. Here is a stealth section, and I love it cause I love stealth. The boss fight is kinda neat, but also simple. We return to the Gerudo leader and set off to jump on the camel Divine beast.

OH, I also discover watermelons that say they have heat prevention qualities. I'm thinkg, "I've got my way in to Goron City".

The Divine Beast Camel

I don't remember its name.

This beast, in particular, makes me think of Shadow of the Colossus. Which is another game BotW borrows from, even if not intentionally. But unlike SotC, the animation of the beast...sucks. It's not very smooth and doesn't imply the wait and scale the way SotC animated its creatures. Come on Nintendo, this is like 15 years later you can't do better than this?

I'm not a fan of this sequence. You have to stay near the Gerudo princess to avoid being struck by lightening. But you're either going too fast or too slow. All the while you have to shoot at the divine beast's feet with explosive arrows. Too far a way and you miss, too close and you blow yourself up then get struck by lightning.

Inside of the camel is quite similar to the elephant. No real surprises here. We get to the boss fight and the kids start freaking out again. They just can't take it. After a few tries I learn the patterns. But the last part is the hardest cause he's all electrical. Eventually I figure that out and it's an easy win.

In general, I'm not super impressed by the Ganon battles. Like MGS5, the battles are mostly "pummel it till it dies". While for these series, bosses used to be much more unique experiences. I think, for both games, the intent was to allow players the freedom of creatively defeating bosses, but you know 97% of players are just going to pummel it till it dies. It makes the bosses very unmemorable.

Return to Death Mountain

With the camel tamed, we see the Gerudo champion being a little sarcastic with Link. I don't get it. But whatever. The Gerudo princess thanks us for our efforts, but we still have to be dressed as a woman to be in the city (rules are rules).

Thinking with my Gerudo clothes, Watermelon food, and ice wand that I have a chance to resist the heat--I head for Death Mountain.

Nope. I burn up immediately.

Looking it up, you can buy potions from a lady at the bottom of the mountain. I do that and the trek is way easier. I buy the armor by selling all the minerals and monster parts I've been collecting.

I show this off too my wife and she smiles politely. Then she talks about how we should replay Skyward Sword one day.

Trek up Death Mountain

I decide to carry on finding this divine beast. I first have to find the Goron Chief's back pain medicine. Some Goron in a mine has it. I fight my way there and use a stationary canon to release him from an avalanche. We then agree to climb the mountain to chase away the divine beast making it rain fire balls on the city.

This section has security drones watching a path. Very metal Gear Solid! I fight my way up, bringing the Goron with me. He's slow. When I get to the top I'm confused. Where do I go? I then realize I was supposed to be shooting the divine beast with canons on the way up. Now I have to drag this slow poke back down, plus all the monsters have returned.

Frustrating.

Still, it was a fun sequence despite the back tracking. Now I've reached the divine iguana beast. Which reminds me of the iguana colossus in SotC.

This is where our story ends for now.

#Zach's Game Journal #PLAYING #The Legend of Zelda #Breath of the Wild #Nintendo #Switch #Gaming #Video Games

[the-mercurial-star-o-vesper]

TEN OUTTA TEN 1010

Welp, its happened. I’m into No Straight Roads, and the boys with the K-Bop in their step has got me hooked.

So I’m gonna celebrate (for the moment) with lots of gathered info I’ve found, seen, or heard speculated, regarding the Top Boy Band of Vinyl City... 1010. [Possible OCs to come later]

Some of this stuff might be common knowledge, some is already on the wiki, but hey, no shame in having a consolidated list.

But for now...

The Names of 1010 were deciphered by out of universe fans. They are Rin (White), Haym (Yellow), Eloni (Green), Purlhew (Blue) and Zimelu (Red).

An old placeholder model for 1010 had Black Hair and different tron lines.

1010 in binary is... literally just 10.

Eloni does not get fan letters; He’s the “Funny Band member”, and Funny Band Members don’t get fan letters.

1010 wears Sailor uniforms (The US Navy would call them Dress Blues, so think... Popeye. But no hat.) In fact, their flying limo is a god damn Tron-lined Battleship. Even the Cannons dance to the music.

They’re a parody on K-Bop bands or Boy Bands to the West. And while they’re listed as Funky, they’re technically Synthpop. (Haha, Synth)

In the background of their fight, when the Battleship Limo stops for pictures, you can see that there is a set of pictures of 1010. Rin the White has a Fuschia or Purple Background, while all the others have a background matching their aesthetic colors.

1010 have common powers... ... Firing Lasors. ... Levitation (Or small time Flight; as they rush to the side to meet the Cameras) ... “Taking to the Sky”, or just really powerful jumping. ... Being powered by Cheers. ... There’s a reason I left Shield off in a moment.

1010 are both outrageously tall (Mayday only comes to their waist when they stand up properly), and outrageously heavy (did you hear them walk backward in their intro cutscene? How heavy are these guys!?)

It could whatever kind of AI they have, but they are waaaay insynch, almost preemptively. Perhaps 1010 are directly linked to each other?

In most of their appearances outside of battle, they all have the same colored eyes as their aesthetic colors. But in Battle, they all have White eyes. Mind that in their Show Stopper picture, they’re back to having their aesthetic eyes again. Take that as you will.

1010 has associated attacks, when you’re in the Phase facing the Factory and Neon J. ... Yellow has Missiles or Splash Damage explosions. No literally, the yellow droid is the missle. ... Green has Bombs. HIS HAIR IS A BOMB. ... Red has Saws. He-He literally uses Red Droid as the Saw. ... Blue has some sort of Staffs or Whirlwind strike. They are staffs made of Purl-Hew. ... Because of his Picture’s Purple Background, White’s likely isn’t an attack but is, in fact, the Shields that occured early in the battle. Which is probably why they’re never deployed, because how the hell can you make a shield out of Rin Bots.

It was pointed out in one of the many Youtube Comment Sections that 1010′s hairstyles match their respective attacks in some form or fashion. ... Zimelu’s Mohawk indicates his associated Saws. ... Haym’s hair looks like a missile. ... Eloni’s hair looks line a Grenade Pin. ... Purlhew’s flat top hair could indicate the fact that he’s literally used as a Staff End. So basically he’s Blue. That’s his attack. [Hah] ... Rin’s the sexy one. Look, for a Band of Robots with fancy hairdos and attacks, he’s not considered remarkable.

As they are a parody of Boy Bands across the World, they may follow the boy band “archtypes” ... Rin is the Leader, and the Heartthrob (He doesn’t have a weird hairstyle, and he does the most flirting / talking; as well as the most promoted) ... Eloni, as already established, is the Funny Guy, or the Comedian. ... Purl-Hew is the Cool Guy, (consider his Sunglasses) ... Zimelu is the Bad Boy (Mohawk, his ANGRY EYES AARGH) ... Haym’s is apparently considered a Pompadour. Maybe he is also a Bad Boy? Consider his name, he may be the Smart Guy. ... There is no known “Shy Guy” or “Cute Guy (Technically, the Second Heartthrob, but isn’t a threat to first Heartthrob’s position). So, go forth and create.

Fun Consideration on my part. Since Names can have meaning in No Straight Roads and meaning in personal names... ... Rin is a japanese name, and boy can it mean a lot of stuff depending on the Kanji (Some of the meanings are “Dignified” “Compassion” “Cold”). He’s probably coolly impassionate off stage. ... Purl-Hew is apparently a pun on Pearl Hue (cos I guess blue Pearls). Perhaps he likes puns. ... Zimelu is an ooold fortress in Lativa apparently. Perhaps he has a warish personality. Or I guess knows very Niche military history. (Perhaps, in-universe, it was the name of a base Neon J served at?) ... Haym is the name shared by a few people, but in the themes of music, its probably Nicola Francesco Haym (Italian Poet, Opera Librettist, Composer, Manager, Editor and Numismatist (That’s uh, a guy who studies Currency)). Perhaps our Haym is quite the Nerd. ... the name Eloni means Lofty. Which can me “Of Imposing Height” (They all are), “Noble or Exalted Nature” (Possibly?) “Proud, Aloof or Self-Important” (They all are that too, yes), or in regard to Lofty Wool “Thick and Resilient” (I mean, if you look at those thighs-- Ahem). So basically Eloni’s name defines all the group... Wow, poor fella. No wonder he’s the Comedian, he’d have to pull anything to get noticed (when its not about his hair) [THE DUDE DABS]

If Battledroids all have background memories to be more efficient in combat... Does 1010 have backup memories from Neon J?

Metro Division shows other kinds of Robots, and the progression of 1010′s Mark Models (1 looks like your typical Sailor, 2 looks a bit like our 1010 but more droid, jointed and blocky, and our 1010 is currently mark 3... There are 4 known Types of Droid, so a 4th Mark may be on the way)

Neon J, Manager and Creator, is a Vetren of Vinyl City’s Navy (It only has a Navy); and his District is literally a Theme Park mashed with a Ship Yard.

Neon is the 10th element of the Periodic Table, and J is the 10th letter. Dude loves his 10s.

Considering how he replaces the bots in battle, or even outright uses them as weapons... Perhaps his “Troops” are not the Bot bodies, but the AI possibly hosted inside? 1010 has more personality out of battle after all, and Neon is seen fervently protecting 1010 when their eyes share their hair color. (As their eyes are only white in battle...) Hm, mayhaps the HC is, that when their Eyes have color, the AI is truely present.

Neon is a Cyborg, note that his body appears to be the same kind of droid as 1010′s, with a Radar head. His brain is apparently in his radar, and as we saw post-battle, that head was smashed to hell. Perhaps the reason he was reminiscing so much and though that BBJ was really after him, was because of some serious onset head or brain trauma.

Apparently, Vinyl City has or has had Border Wars. This could be a reference to the Korean DMZ Conflicts (As 1010 does distinctly include Korean K-Pop, and South Korean men do have to serve 2 years in the military forces by law), but there have been hundreds of different Border Wars throughout the world. [ I wonder what war Vinyl City was in. Perhaps against the Artist Capital of the World, Canvas City ] [ Oh take me down to the Canvas City, where the grass is green and the pics are pretty--]

Neon’s passion is Dancing.

Neon J and DJ Subatomic Supernova do seem to be in a lot of pictures together. No wonder everybody ships them.

Neon J used to make toys, as seen by the collectibles you can get. Done by hand too. Though if each toy found is a stage in his life... I wonder who the doll with the violin is.

Think maybe Neon J has direct control over 1010? I mean they share the same voice, they have a passion for poses and dancing, he does directly command them...

Are Cyborg parts cheap? Or was Neon J someone important enough in the Vinyl City Navy to actually become a cyborg? Military doesn’t do expensive prosthetic surgeries for random grunts without reason.

Okay, regarding what the Azkar faction is. Its probably suppose to be Askar. Azkar is a type of Islamic Prayer. Askar is actually Arabic for Army. So it’d be The “Army Faction” (which makes more sense for a nation city-state that only has a Navy)

The place he called “Kewan” is not a real world place. Its either Persian for “Saturn” (What, is he... Is he a SAILOR SCOUT!?) or Kurdish for Mountains (He does mention mountains).

Possibly more as information arises.

#no straight roads #1010 #nsr 1010

[love-fireflysong]

yIt's done. It took me waaaay to long to write this piece out but between June and my computer apparently deciding to kick me in the teeth this month, the fact I made it to 5 full squares completed anyways I will gladly take as a victory! And, just fyi, this WILL be the last piece for this month. I know that there is still another four days left of June, but I am sick and tired of dealing with my keyboard so this is the last fic you're gonna see from me until I get a new laptop hopefully fairly soon. (Unless I decide that I'm desperate enough to try and write things out on my tablet of course...)

Anyways, the First Date trope was specifically requested by @jesus-hotsauce-christmas-cake when I let her know that the one she did guess (road trip) was going to be a second chapter of a twoshot. Which you still might get because I'm very likely going to be sharing the short little summary blurbs I had written down for each trope so people can very easily bully me into writing them anyways if people still wanted to read them. And even though it would be like months and months late, still post them under this bingo board because I can and I had a cool idea for what I was doing with the colours and layout before life decided to say 'NO!' in a very firm voice. (Unless of course the three lovely ladies that came up with this idea in the first place say no obviously)

Rambling over though now I promise. Chocolate Covered Confessions can be read over and AO3 of course, with the full fic also under the readmore as well.

Chocolate Covered Confessions

Trope: First Date Fandom: Until Dawn Characters: Ashley Brown, Chris Hartley Words: 8214 Rating: General (though reader beware there is some almost scandalous hand holding and a couple of scandalously public kisses. You have been warned...) Authors Notes: Oh look, more chrashley fluff. Who da thunk it? Pride month? What pride month? This is just me apparently figuring out how many different ways I can get Chris and Ash to confess their feelings. Because you only read like three of them, I still have another two waiting in the wings. Plus at least three others if you count climbing chrash lol.

Something was...weird. It wasn't something that Ashley could put her finger on just yet, but something was definitely off that was for sure. The problem of course was that she didn't even know where to start looking in the first place, because for the most part her day had been extraordinarily ordinary.

She, Chris, and Josh had planned to go and see a movie Saturday morning a few days back and then hang out the rest of the day. But seeing as they were, you know, best friends that certainly wasn't the issue. Not even close. They always made plans to do stuff like that together. And yeah, okay, so maybe Josh had 'coincidentally' texted them just before the movie started to let them know that something unavoidable had come up and he wasn't going to be able to meet up with them. And when her and Chris had brought up just waiting until a later showing when he was free, he had immediately been quick to affirm that nope, he was going to be busy the whole rest of the day actually. So the two of them could continue with their original plans and they could make it up to him another time.

While certainly suspicious, that wasn't what was wrong though. Josh had been flaking out on their plans more and more, especially when it was plans that took up an entire day. Ashley Brown wasn't stupid. No siree Bob she was not! She knew exactly what Josh was trying to do by leaving her to spend the day with Chris. Alone . And she appreciated it (she really did!), but if Chris was going to make a move then he would have done it ages and ages ago, because she sure as hell wasn't going to do it! Ashley Brown wasn't stupid, but she also wasn't exactly what you would call brave either.

Not that Chris had seemed to notice what Josh was pulling though, he had just sighed and rolled his eyes with a grumbled "fucking typical", and then the two of them had entered the theater to watch the movie. And as per their usual shtick when Josh wasn't there with them, Chris paid for the tickets while she paid for the food and drinks. Or, at least, that was how it normally went. Instead, when she had decided to take a run to the bathroom while he held their spot in the long concession line, she had come back to Chris waiting for her with the pop and popcorn already in hand. After brushing off her flustered apologies, he had explained that shortly after she had left, another cashier had popped on till so the line had gone down in half the time either had expected. And it seemed like a dick move to just wait there until she came back so he had just decided to get the food instead.

She still felt a little guilty about it honestly, even after swearing that she would get both the tickets and food next time.

And, to be completely fair to Josh, he hadn't exactly been missing out on a lot by skipping out on the movie. It wasn't a horror flick (he would never even think of skipping out on that after all) so it wasn't one that he would feel the need to make the two of them watch again with him. Which was more than fine honestly, because if she was to describe the movie in a single word, well, that word would definitely have been 'dreadful'. If she was given a few more words, then she would have easily elaborated and stated that it was 'a boring, plot-hole driven mess, with only extremely over-the-top action scenes and explosions every five minutes to carry any semblance of the extremely loosely written plot'. In other words, she had lost interest in the movie barely half an hour in, and considering that Chris had started scrolling through his phone bored, she wasn't alone in this boat either.

Still, Ashley had resolved herself to sit through this over-budgeted explosion fest if only because movie tickets were horribly expensive. Not to mention the fact that Chris had shelled out money for both the movie and the food. But then he had turned to her, asked if she was as bored to tears as he was, and once he got that confirmation, asked if she wanted to just ditch the movie entirely. And she did—she really, really did—but didn't want Chris to waste the money he had spent more. And then yet another explosion...exploded on screen, and she realized that she was wasting precious hours of her life that could be used to do something more fun and less mind-numbingly boring.

Like watching paint dry. That at least had a semi-cohesive plot.

And so the two of them had walked out, continuing to share the extra buttered popcorn between them (the movie may have been awful, but the popcorn certainly wasn't) as they left the movie theater behind and wandered into the nearby mall. That wasn't the strange thing either. The mall and subsequent window shopping had absolutely been part of their day plans after, even if those had been unexpectedly pushed forward a couple of hours.

Admittedly the art show that the mall was running in one of the empty storefronts was unexpected, but  it had been simply a nice surprise and a great way to kill time. So after paying the $2 entrance fee, the two of them had continued to share the popcorn as they looked at some of the paintings and sculptures that had been on display, giggling childishly at most of them. And okay, so one of the curators had been glaring at them( or rather, at their greasy, butter-covered fingers) the whole time, but that had just been a little rude and insulting. Not strange. And that had stopped almost the moment they had run out of popcorn, Ashley nudging him in the stomach with her elbow as she licked her fingers clean, and the two of them laughing under their breaths at the curator who had looked exceptionally much more at ease once Chris had crumpled the empty bag into a ball.

The rest of their day in the mall had just been spent following the rest of their day's plan, wandering from shop to shop and browsing at all the things that caught their eyes, and then taking a break after a few hours to have a late lunch in the food court. The two of them checked out another couple of stores, these ones to try and get some ideas for Josh's birthday in another month, before moving onto the small arcade on the top floor. As part of their deal and agreement since it had just been Josh and Chris (Ashey not joining the duo until five years later), Chris bought the tokens needed while she scouted out the various games for an empty console and claimed it until he could join her in another couple of minutes.

They spent the next hour in there, trying to beat each other or work together depending on the game in question. They almost never played a game twice before moving onto the next one, in hopes to both try as many games as possible before their self imposed hour ended and to see if they could beat their previous high scores or make it onto the leaderboard in only a single try. But as the hour came to a close, they both made their way over to their final game: one of the racing simulators scattered around the arcade. And as had been done for ten years now, played to determine which of them would be paying for the tokens next time they came.

And once the race ended, with Ashley winning by photo finish for the third time in a row (and celebrating her winning streak by maturely sticking out her tongue and doing an awkward little shimmy dance in the seat while Chris jokingly sulked and pouted), they had finally left the mall altogether and got into Chris's truck. There, he had surprised Ashley with the novel she had been eyeing in the bookstore (or at least, eyeing closer than all the rest she had picked up) and that he had somehow been able to buy without her noticing. And that certainly hadn't been weird, because it had been so exceptionally sweet of him, sweet enough that Ashley had so badly wished that she could thank him properly. But as mentioned before, Ashley Brown was a coward pure and simple, so she had just clutched the book to her chest and beamed at Chris in heartfelt thanks instead.

He may have said something in reply, but Ashley had already settled into the passenger seat and opened to the first page of the book, so she was already long gone. A fact that Chris had anticipated, if the light chuckle he had let out before starting the truck meant anything. And no, Ashley reading a book while Chris drove them to their usual game store across town was not the strange thing either. If Chris hadn't wanted her to read on the drive over and talk to him, then he never would have given her the book now of all times. He would have waited until he had dropped her off home, or not even bought the book in the first place. After over a half a decade of friendship, if anyone knew what would happen after giving Ashley Brown a new book, it was Chris Hartley.

The drive over is done quicker then she had expected, and even then Chris still hadn't let her know that they had arrived until she had finished her chapter. Yes he had certainly teased her about it the entire time, joking about how she would never find someone as understanding of her reading habits then him (he didn't know how right he was, that she didn't want to find anyone else), but the fact that he had just continued to let the music play in the truck and distracted himself on his phone was so unbearably sweet that she decided to let it lie.

The fact that Ashley and Chris hung around in the game shop comparing dice and looking at new books while wincing over the prices for nearly two hours wasn't what was off either. Hell, if anything the fact that they only spent a couple of hours there before leaving was weird! Her, Chris, and Josh could easily spend almost half a day in there flipping through comics and rolling dice to test them out, only leaving because a tired employee was forced to ask them to leave for making too much noise and taking up a table when they weren't playing anything, especially when there was a group that had been waiting for a table for close to an hour now.

Which brought Ashley to where she was right now, sitting at a sticky plastic table under the shade of a cheap umbrella while Chris had run off to get them some ice cream before dropping her off at home. Her new book was open in front of her, the pages crisp white even in the umbrella's shade, but her mind wasn't on the book anymore. A random line had a character mentioning that something had been feeling off all day ever since they woke up ('like everything had been moved three centimeters to the left, so while it all looked normal, nothing felt right anymore'), and Ashley had also realized that hey, wait a second, her day was also feeling just a little wonky too! But no matter how hard she thought about it, she couldn't put her finger on exactly what it was. Today had just been a normal day hanging out with Chris after all. They went to see (and bailed) a movie, spent hours hanging out in the mall and at the game store, and now they were each going back home. Nothing unusual had happened, so why did it feel like something hugely monumental had been going on all day?

"Oi. Earth to Ash, you okay in there?"

A light flick to the center of Ashley's forehead has her blink in surprise, and she finds herself back into the present once again. Chris is standing next to her, carefully balancing the two cones in his right hand and his left ready to flick again if needed, and a bemused smile on his face.

"Oh, uh, sorry Chris. Got a little too into the book I think." She closes the book, not wanting to get melting ice cream all over its crisp white pages (and she really hasn't absorbed a single word for nearly ten minutes now), but Chris doesn't hand her the cone just yet.

"Yeah, I'm not buying that," Chris says as he snorts in disbelief. "I know your 'praise be to books' look, and that was not it. That was your 'head full, too many thoughts' look."

"Excuse me? What? I do not have a reading look! Or a thinking look for that matter!"

"Oh you do. You really, really do. Trust me. You may have been staring at that book but there was no way that you were reading, I would bet my own ice cream here on it." Chris brandishes his double chocolate cone at her, then seems to reconsider and switches to show off her own dipped soft serve that he still has yet to actually let her eat. "Actually, you know what? I would eat your dipped monstrosity if I'm wrong."

Ashley sighs, but she can't keep the smile from her face. "It's not that bad this time, oh my god. It's chocolate ice cream dipped in blueberry syrup. This is actually a normal combination for people who go out of their way to order more exciting cones then two scoops of chocolate." She leans forward and places her elbows on the table to support her head in her hands. "But I wanna see you do it anyway, so tell me exactly why you're so convinced that I wasn't reading."

Chris opens his mouth, but immediately closes it a second later, as though he didn't realize exactly what he had signed himself up for here until now. Ashley of course takes it as a sign of victory. "I knew it. So let's see this Chris, I wanna see you eat something that isn't—"

"When you read you get, like, super attentive." Chris's face is pink, and not looking at her but at the book on the table as he bashfully continues. "You become so drawn in to whatever you're reading that you ignore everything going on around you, because all of your attention is now on that book. Pretty sure a bomb could go off right next to you and you wouldn't even notice sometimes. And it's always so easy to tell what's happening in the book when you're reading too, cause your face is always so expressive. Like your eyes get big when something exciting or surprising happens, and when you're really enjoying whatever it is you're reading, you start giggling like a loon."

Ashley is too stunned and, quite frankly, her heart is beating too fast for her to even think of a proper response to that . She manages to squeak out a quiet little "oh, um" but Chris doesn't notice. Not when he's still babbling and not looking at her at all.

"But when you get deep in thought, you're not like that at all. All of your attention goes inward, and everything around you disappears cause all the important stuff is going on inside your head right now. Your mouth falls open just a little, sort of like you're gaping at all the information in front of you. And-and sometimes you'll mouth out what's going on inside your head as you try to fit the pieces of everything together so it's neat and tidy like a puzzle. And even though you have the, like, blankest stare imaginable, it's not empty at all if that makes any sense. Cause your eyes narrow and your forehead scrunches just the tiniest amount so you have a small little wrinkle form like right here—" with his unoccupied hand Chris points at the bridge of his nose right between his eyes "—and it's weirdly, insanely cute? But when you finally figure out the puzzle in your head, your face lights up like a kid on christmas morning and...and..." He lets his words trail off and stops awkwardly there, as though finally realizing exactly what he's been saying this entire time.

His face is almost beet red now, and Ashley is pretty sure hers is too. "Oh, uh, wow. I-I didn't realize you paid any attention to me when I was like that..."

Somehow his face only gets redder, and though he mumbles the words under his breath, Ashley can still make them out. "I'm always paying attention to you."

But not close enough attention it seems, she thinks sadly. If you did then you would have noticed something way more obvious than that. But she doesn't want to embarrass him anymore than he already is (then she already is), and she isn't sure what else she could possibly say that wouldn't be her blurting out that she likes him, so instead she pretends that she hadn't heard a single thing and wordlessly accepts the ice cream that he hands to her, accepting her defeat as she takes a small bite of the blueberry covered chocolate soft serve.

...The blueberry covered chocolate soft serve that he had bought for her. Or, you know, the ice cream he had paid for himself. Just like he had paid for everything today. Kind of like it was almost a, uh, date. Like he had taken her on a date.

Oh .

"Oh boy, let me guess: I was right and your ice cream really is a crime against taste buds?"

Ashley comes crashing back down to reality to see Chris, his face still a little red but the playful smile back on his face as he teased her. And yet, that only makes it worse as she can't help but feel the usual gymnastics routine the butterflies in her stomach perform at that particular smile, only they're a thousand times worse now that's she's realized exactly why today had felt so strange. And she can't help thinking how much everyone else would classify what was just a day hanging out with her best friend as a date. And how much she really, really wished it was one.

"Nope," she unfortunately squeaks out, and clears her throat so she can continue in a more normal tone of voice. "Nope, sorry to disappoint Chris, but the ice cream tastes fine." She takes another bite for proof (and to her credit she's not lying, it tastes more than fine). "Just, uh, realized something funny that's all." And the moment the words leave her mouth she realizes just how badly she's screwed everything up, because there is no way in any world that Chris Hartley is just going to let that comment lie.

"Funny? Oho, well now I'm interested. You mind sharing your glorious epiphany with the rest of the class Miss Brown?"

Taking another small taste of her ice cream, Ashley averts her gaze as she gives what she is kicking herself for is obviously an extremely forced laugh. "Did I say funny? I meant boring, just super boring actually."

"Well now I just want to hear it more."

"No, you don't. Trust me, you really, really don't."

Chris's brows furrow in concern. "Ash? You okay?"

She isn't, of course she isn't. She's now realized exactly what a date with Chris would be like, and it would be exactly like this. With them going to all the same place and doing the same things but she's allowed to hold his hand and kiss him when he does stupid sweet things like buying her the book she's been eyeing and talking about all day. She's never wanted something to be so true so badly in her life. And it's likely this thought in her mind that causes her to blurt out "A date." before she even realizes what she's said.

That only makes the confusion on Chris's face go deeper, which is appropriate considering she's sinking deeper and deeper into her chair in a futile effort to hide or escape as well. "What? Are you saying that you just remember what date it is today? Or that you had something you were supposed to do today instead? I'm not really following you right now Ash..."

This is perfect. It's the perfect excuse, she could laugh and say that she totally forgot what day it was and that she had an essay due pretty soon, or that she was supposed to babysit for a neighbour tonight. Anything really, the sky was quite literally the limit. And instead she just bit her lip and stared at the ice cream melting in her hand before weakly admitting "No, a, uh, date. As in, the romantic kind. I realized that today probably looks like a date to anyone else. Funny, huh?"

She's not sure how Chris would react to that. Maybe a startled laugh, and hand wave as he brushes her off. A scoff as he assures her that this definitely isn't a date, cause they're just friends and that's all they'll ever be. Whatever the reaction she expected, it was certainly not the fumbling for his ice cream as he nearly drops it in his shock, and how absolutely flustered he sounds as he trips over his own tongue. "W-what? I-I-I, uh—I mean, th-this obviously isn't—Who would even—? Wh-what would even give you the idea that we could um, possibly be on a date?"

Ashley shrugs weakly. "Isn't it obvious Chris?" She ignores his even more flustered babbling that no, he absolutely did not see what was so obvious as she continued on, still too nervous to look him in the eyes. "You've kind of paid for everything today."

"I wha—? I mean, no I haven't!"

"You kind of have, Chris. The theater?"

"You know I always pay for the tickets, and it would have just been really rude to make the line even longer!"

"The art show?"

"It was just a couple of toonies! And you saw the face of the worker there, they would have kicked us right out if they'd had to break a twenty. It was just easier."

"Lunch?"

"They-they'd had a special on for a two-person meal at that stall in the food court, and they wouldn't let each of us pay half..." he neglected to point out that Ashley could have easily paid for their lunch, and probably should have, but before she had been able to offer he'd already been swiping his debit card.

"The arcade?"

"Okay, that was my turn to buy the tokens, you know that. That one doesn't even count."

Ashley lifted her eyes from the ice cream to the book that sat menacingly and innocently all at one at the center of the table, it's pristine cover mocking her. "The book?"

"T-that was just a gift! You seemed really into it at the store and friends buy each other gifts all the time—"

There was no describing how soft and nervous her voice got as she asked the question that would put the final nail in the coffin. "The ice cream?"

"I, uh, it was just—um..." Chris let out a breath in a weak chuckle. "Shit, I guess I kind of did, huh?"

Ashley doesn't say anything, and neither does Chris, as the table goes silent. She's bracing herself  for when Chris inevitably shoots her down and confirms that it doesn't matter. That the two of them will never be anything more then friends and that she never should have hoped for anything more and by revealing this she's ruined their friendship for good—

"Hey, uh, Ash?" He sounds so nervous that it immediately takes Ashley out of her anxiety driven thoughts of doom and gloom, but she can't do anything more than just shakily nod to let him continue. "It's, uh, probably like a really, really, really stupid question but—" he takes a nervous breath "—did you want this to be a date?"

Her head immediately shoots up as she stares at him with wide eyes, her breath caught somewhere in her throat where her heart is currently lodged. She frantically rakes her eyes over Chris's face looking for any hint that he's mocking her, or playing some cruel joke on her and her feelings, but all she sees is just nervousness all over a pale, shaking face with what she thinks ( prays ) is a glimmer of undisguised hope. But it's still too much uncertainty, and she's too scared to risk it all on a mere glimmer that she is likely only imagining because she wants it so badly to be real, so she throws the question back at him instead.

"...would you have been opposed if this was actually a date?"

"Nuh uh, I asked you first."

Ashley realizes that he's just as scared at what the answer might be as she is. She wants to tell him, has wanted to tell him for years and years and years. And maybe this is the chance she's been waiting for her whole life. The two of them sitting at a sticky plastic table under the early evening sun, long forgotten ice cream melting in their hands, and she can finally tell him that she's had such a huge crush on him since she was twelve.

"Yeah." The word is less choked out than it is released. Like it's a breath of fresh air and she feels simultaneously lighter and heavier for it. "I-I think I would have liked that. I would have liked that alot."

Chris snaps his gaze up to meet hers, and the glimmer of hope that she had seen earlier has now nearly taken over his face at the disbelieving smile that's threatening to crack his face in two. "Really? I-I mean, uh, I would have been alright with the idea too. More than alright actually."

She can feel her own smile start to nervously match his, and then the first giggle breaks out. His own ecstatic laughter quickly follows her own until the two of them are both giddily laughing at the table, but too embarrassed and bashful to even look at each other now. The giggling abruptly cuts off when Chris lets out a yelp of surprise when he realizes how much of his ice cream has melted onto his hand and Ashley joins him in trying to finish off their ice cream before it's melted entirely. But there's definitely a change in the atmosphere around them now. The contentness and laid back ease that always formed between them whenever they hung out was still there, but there is a charge that hadn't been there before either. An excited anticipation that only surges higher and higher whenever Ashley shyly glances in Chris's direction to find he's looking at her with the same disbelieving smile beaming on his face.

They never say anything more about it as they both finish off the ice cream, but Ashley knows. With that little agreement, the entire day had changed. This wasn't just them hanging out as friends anymore, this was an actual, factual date now, pure and simple. So when Chris hands her a couple of extra napkins to clean herself off, she may have let her fingers brush against his for just a moment. The resulting blush and dumbstruck smile on his face when he cautiously took his hand back so he could clean up the rest of the mess on the table was oh so worth it. And when he returned from his trip to the garbage can and held out his hand as an offer to help her up from the chair, she accepted it readily.

Once she's back on her feet, the two of them drop their eyes to stare at their still clasped hands, realizing that they could easily hold hands the entire short walk back to Chris's truck if they wanted. And she does want that—horribly in fact—but it seems it's still a little too early for either of them to make that teeny tiny but monumental jump to hand holding so they let go awkwardly and slowly, letting their fingers linger against the others before letting go completely. As though giving themselves a taste of what may yet actually come to pass in the (hopefully) very near future.

The short walk back to the truck is filled with both anticipation and dread alike, but unusually silent. Ashley knows it's because she's now a buzzing ball of nervous energy, terrified that saying anything at all will shatter this dream that's apparently coming true before her eyes, but Chris is different. He looks more like he's trying to work up the courage to say or ask something, and is spending all his energy on that alone. So when he reaches out to open up the passenger side door for her, Ashley can feel her heart pick up speed when he stops with his hand on the door handle and looks at her nervously. His mouth opens and shuts a couple of times as he tries to work up the courage to say whatever it is he wants to say, and all she can do is stare at him expectantly as she struggles to hold back an excited smile.

"Hey, Ash, ca—nevermind. It's, it's stupid. Don't worry about it." A second later, he has the door opened for her and the moment she can't see his face, she lets her smile fall crestfallen. But only for a second before a polite one replaces it as thanks when he closes the door for her and continues to his side of the truck. It's fine, she supposes as she buckles herself in, while the two of them have been hanging out all day, it's only been an actual date now for barely ten minutes. And once he drops her off home in just another few short minutes it's going to be over. The fact that she even managed to get this far is franky mind blowing, so expecting anything more from her dreams would just be extremely selfish. She can't have everything she wants all at once, no matter how long she's been waiting for it.

The drive back to her place is also quiet, filled with only the droning of the radio playing in the background. Ashley's returned back to her book, but she knows that Chris knows that she's not absorbing a single word, hasn't turned a single page even. She keeps glancing at him out of the corner of her eye as he nervously taps at the steering wheel, and then tightening his grasp when it looks like he's going to say something, only to return to the nervous tapping when he inevitably backs out at the last second and returns to the frantic pep talk he's likely giving himself. The air that fills the vehicle is heavy and thick with anticipation and it's taking almost everything in Ashley to not start shaking the question out of Chris at every red light they stop at.

But, eventually, they pull up in front of her place and Chris stops the truck. There's a moment where the two of them just sit there, not wanting to leave because leaving means the end, and Ashley schools her face into a cheery smile in an effort to hide as much of the disappointment as she can when she turns to face him and bid him farewell, only to have it fall to confusion when he starts fumbling at his own seatbelt.

"Chris? What are you doing?"

He struggles further at it, frustrated that the buckle's apparently decided that now is the perfect time for it to stick once again. "Trying to get this fucking thing off."

"Yeah, I figured that much. But why are you trying to take it off, you're just gonna leave right away again anyway."

He slows his fumbling as cheeks start darkening in embarrassment. "I, uh, I just thought that was something you were supposed to do after a date, walk them to their door to stay goodnight. I mean, at least I think this is a date now? And, and only if you're okay with it! I can stay in here instead if you don't want me to. I was just hoping..."

The once forced cheery smile on her face is certainly not being forced any longer, if anything she's trying not to show how much the idea of Chris walking her to her door thrills her. "N-no!" Well, so much for trying not to show how desperately she wants that. The startled look he gives her at the unexpected outburst had her trying to control her voice into something less desperate, but considering she doesn't think she's ever going tame the frantic butterflies that have been flapping around non-stop in her stomach ever since the ice cream realization, she's probably doing a terrible job of it. "I-I mean if you want to, it's completely up to you after all..."

"Cool. Cool cool cool. Just, just give me a second." He continues to struggle with his seatbelt buckle, letting out more and more agitated curses escape the longer the thing continues to stick, and Ashley is getting the feeling that if he was able, Chris would have ripped the entire thing straight out of the seat by now. Broken safety laws and ensuing repair costs be damned. The moment he finally manages to unstick the traitorous buckle it's with a cry of victory and relief so exuberant that Ashley finds herself laughing in disbelief and awe that he had wanted to walk her the short ten or so feet to her front door that badly. Thankfully, for both of them, her seatbelt unclicks easily and much more quickly in comparison, only taking another couple of seconds to grab her bag from the footwell and joining him.

The far too short walk up to her door is over before either of them realize it. One second the two of them had been standing awkwardly and nervously by the truck as she fought the urge to reach out and grab his hand, and the next they're standing just as awkwardly and nervously (if not moreso) in front of the front door. Both of them waiting for the other to say or do something to break the tension, but cleanly aware that doing so would signal the very final end of the day, and the date. In fact, just knowing that Chris doesn't want this to end just as badly as her, is what gives her the courage to look at him with a surprisingly heartfelt and soft smile.

"Today was fun."

Chris lifts his eyes from where they had been staring at the dried leaves on the doorstep to match her smile. "Yeah. It was."

"And thanks. For the movie, and everything else." Ashley raises her hand to give the new and still shiny paperback a small wave. "And, you know, the book too. Of course."

"Yeah, it was no problem. Anytime." There's something with how he says the last bit—not really emphasizing it but making it clear all the same that he means 'anytime'—that causes her face to flush giddily as she pulls her lower lip in between her teeth in a weak effort to fight back against the ecstatic smile that forms anyway. And when she sees his eyes lower just a smidge to follow the motion and the way his shoulders stiffen in reaction, Ashley very quickly also finds she's trying (much more successfully) to hold herself  back from just saying 'to hell with it' and throwing her arms around Chris so she can finally kiss him silly and until they're both breathless. But considering that she's too much of a coward to initiate something as innocent as hand holding apparently, there is absolutely no way that something as...as scandalous as kissing him on her doorstep is ever going to happen. Clearly.

And yet, she gives Chris another few seconds to try and work past that blockade in his throat, but when he still can't muster a single word, she decides to just put the both of them out of their misery. Or further into it. It's probably just the same thing really. "I guess I'll see you next time. I'll talk to you later, okay?" She turns away and puts her hand on the doorknob, and tucks the book under her arm so she can dig into her bag for keys, but is stopped when Chris's hand abruptly snakes out and wraps itself firmly around her wrist before she can reach into the bag. And it works—boy does it ever —turning back to him and the hand wrapped around her wrist as excitement just starts to bubble up inside of her.

A second later though, his brain has apparently caught up with the movement he clearly hadn't intended to make, because his face goes beet-red and he's dropped her hand so he can shove both into the pockets of his jeans. He averts his eyes so he's back to staring at the loose gravel and dried leaves under their feet.

"Oh, uh, sorry about that. I didn't mean to..."

"It's fine, Chris." Ashley tries to smile softly at him in reassurance, but it's considering she's gripping the doorknob in an almost vice-like grip in anticipation, it's likely far more eager than she would like. "What is it?"

Somehow, his face goes even redder and he blurts out the question so fast that it may as well have been one word. "CanIkissyou?!"

Immediately, Ashley's gaping at him wide-eyed and her mouth open in shock as her heart's beating so fast that she's pretty sure it's ready to burst out of her chest at any moment. "Wha—"

"I-I mean goodnight. Can I kiss you goodnight? That's what people are supposed to do on dates, right? A-a-a-and I think we agreed that this is a date now, or at least I really, really hope we did. Cause I've wanted to go on a date with you for the longest time and-and-and I didn't want Saundra or-or-or any of your neighbours to see cause I know that would just really embarrass you and me but I've been trying to ask you for the past thirty minutes now cause I've wanted to kiss you since forever but I was scared about how you would react cause I really, really, really like you Ash and I just wanna to kiss you so fucking bad right now you have no idea and—"

Ashley would like to believe that she's brave enough to throw her arms around Chris and drag him down into that searing kiss she's been dreaming about forever and ever, but she doesn't. Even with a confession that is everything she's ever wanted to hear and more. That's not to say that she doesn't want to do it—god does she want to do it—but she's so frozen in place from shock that she physically can't. So instead she just continues to gape at him as he (adorably) rambles on and on, and giggles out an elated little "okay".

His nervous rambling stops dead in its tracks, and he finally looks back up at her, nervous relief evident all over his face. "Really? I mean, are you sure? I'd understand if you didn't want to—"

" Chris ."

That immediately shifts the relief to a different kind of nervousness entirely, one of excited disbelief, but even then neither move to actually initiate this promised kiss for several seconds. Instead just staring at each other waiting for the other to be the first to move, Chris with his hands still in his jeans pockets and Ashley glued to the doorknob with her other hand frozen as it hovers over her bag. Finally, Chris is the first to slowly bend down to meet her awkwardly half turned body, and she unsteadily tries to rock herself onto the tips of her toes without losing her balance completely and falling over. And still, they both pause about an inch away from each other's faces, though whether to give the other an out if needed or just to work through the logistics of how to do this exactly without their foreheads or noses smashing into each other or Chris's glasses getting in the way is anyone's guess.

But finally, mainly due to the fact that Ashley can't lean forward anymore without falling completely on her face, Chris closes that final bit of distance and kisses her. It's a nervous brush of the lips really—a quick peck at best —but they jolt back from each other so quickly that the single action may as well have activated some hidden magnetic repel function that neither had been aware of until this moment. Both of them are staring at each other wide-eyed and breathless as the magnitude of what they had both finally managed to accomplish hit them. The kinda-sort confession and the almost hand holding meant absolutely nothing in comparison to this. Those she could have (and would most likely have) brushed off as her reading too much into innocent statements and gestures when she thought over everything that had happened today in the safety of her room later tonight. But this? This was physical proof .

Looking back, Ashley's not sure which of them moved first. One second they had been staring at each other in disbelief, stuck in the same awkward bent and leaning stature from before, and the next it's as if the magnetic attraction between them reverses its flow entirely. Chris is cupping her cheek with one hand as he kisses her in the way she always dreamed he would, his other hand slowly skating across the back of her neck so he can pull her up closer to him. The book that had once been clutched protectively under her arm was completely forgotten about—fallen to the ground with a sharp crunch as it crushed the dried leaves beneath their feet—as her arms wrapped possessively around his shoulders as she props herself as high as the tips her toes will allow her. She can still taste a hint of the chocolate from earlier on his lips, and the small part of her that isn't being blown away by all of this is wondering if he can taste the blueberry and chocolate on hers as well.

She's not sure how long the two of them stood there on her doorstep, kissing for all the world to see, but she does know that they still separate much, much too soon for her liking. Not that they fully separate of course. She may be back on the soles of her feet, but neither of them have removed themselves from the embrace itself. And with the way that Chris is lightly brushing his thumb over her cheekbone as he just stares at her with the same stupidly giddy grin she's got, Ashley would be perfectly fine if they could just stay standing like this forever.

"So..." she starts, and stops to take a moment to giggle when Chris bumps his nose into hers. "I think that was a perfectly acceptable first date if you ask me."

Chris doesn't let go of her when he leans back to consider her, the comically raised eyebrows in shock doing nothing to take away from the absolutely thrilled beam of his smile. " First date? Why Miss Brown, are you perhaps asking me out for a second one already?"

"I mean, if it's not too presumptuous of me, I suppose I am. I-if you're not opposed to it of course." She can't help the way her nervousness starts to bleed through with that last sentence, already panicking that she's somehow completely misread everything that's just happened and that maybe that kiss didn't mean as much to him as it did to her after all.

His next words completely derail those fears entirely. "Of course I'm not, I would love nothing more than to go on a second date with you. Followed by a third and fourth and even a fifth if you have the time for it."

"I mean, I'm a pretty busy girl but I think I can open up as many days in my schedule as it takes if I need to."

Before she knows it, the two of them are leaning in for another kiss when the sound of pot being dropped in the nearby kitchen through the open window jarringly brings them back to reality and the two of them let go of each other red faced and embarrassed. Oh no, how much of this had her mother heard? Or worse, saw? She wants to leave the doorstep (which is rapidly becoming her favourite place in the whole entire world) even less now, but the longer she takes the worse the excited interrogation from Saundra will be so she starts digging back into her bag to try and find her keys once again.

"I'll text you later, okay? And, maybe, we can talk some more about that second date...?"

The reply from Chris is flustered but eager. "Yeah, totally. I-I wouldn't miss it for the world."

"Cool. And um, the next one's one me. The date that is. It's only fair after all."

"Yeah, right. Only fair. Totally. And, uh, your book..."

She finally finds her keys from where they had sunk to the bottom of her bag, and looks up at him and the paperback book that had fallen during their, uh, intimate embrace. "Oh! Uh, right. Thanks." She could easily leave it at that, but the last few minutes have made her bold so when she reaches out to take the book back from him, Ashley curls her fingers over his and bounces onto the balls of her feet so she can give him one last kiss on his cheek—almost the corner of his mouth really—before finally stepping back with the book and keys in her hand. "I mean it. Thanks . For everything."

"Yeah. No problem. It was my pleasure."

She lets herself have one last glimpse of the stupefied grin on his face just as he turns to walk just a little unsteadily down the path back to his truck. The only sounds being the leaves crushing underfoot and the jangle of metal as she sticks her keys into the door to finally unlock it. A sound that it quickly interrupted by not only the click of the door unlocking, but a muffled shout.

Alarmed, she turns quickly expecting to see Chris having accidentally shut his coat into the door as he is sometimes known to do when the weather gets colder, but instead watches in elated shock as he continues to keep energetically flapping his arms and fist pumping into the air and screaming what she can vaguely make out as 'yesyesyesyesYESYESYES' over and over again.

Suddenly it hits her. Despite the shy confession over ice cream, and then the much more rushed and rambled one only minutes ago, and followed by the kiss(es) that are still sending her heart into rapid fire, Ashley still hadn't believed what all the evidence had been saying. Chris liked her. He really, really liked her. Possibly as much as she liked him even! This wasn't just a one-off event that would now make things awkward between them for the rest of their lives. This was happening. They'd just had a first(!!!!) date and after Chris had kissed her goodbye, she had asked him out for a second one.

And he had accepted .

Ashley fumbled with the door and the moment she was in the house, slammed the door behind her, not even bothering to lock it. She let her bag fall from her shoulder to the floor with a soft thump and slowly slid down the door until she was sitting against it with her eyes wide and breathless. She ignored the surprised clatter coming from the kitchen as Saundra immediately dropped whatever it was she had been doing in and held up the book so she could stare at the once innocuous cover in amazement.

He had bought her this book and the ice cream because he liked her and he had gladly and excitedly accepted to go out on another date with her. And even more if he had been serious about that third date and beyond line.

And not that either would ever know it, Ashley mirrored Chris at that exact moment by placing her head into her hands and screaming as the built up joy and bliss finally exploded out of her.

#pride month prompt challenge #my writing #until dawn #chris hartley #ashley brown #chrashley #take two of trying post this stupid thing! #tumblr deleted the last one >:( #but this one actually copied over the italics so that saves me a shit ton of time if im being honest

[blaster-aichi]

Cardfight!! Vanguard Extra Story IF 16 things

forgot to post this, heck

Fanguard’s dream of actual hobo Kai-kun sleeping on Bench-chan is finally realized

There’s a lot of Kamui and Shin instinctively having feelings true to the true reality and mismatched to IF’s world. There’s two possibilities for this: a) Aichi did a really shitty job nailing down everything due to his concentration being focused primarily on Kai-kun b) the rupture from the illusion around Kai-kun unravelling tore into the IF world as a whole and it’s unable to entirely maintain its story, allowing for instances like Morikawa recalling Kai-kun’s line from Reboot’s first episode or Kamui and Shin recognizing Kagero as a clan expected of him.

The Kamui/Morikawa interactions were really cute, it’s nice to see them butting heads and just being rambunctious kids

Izaki sank the Miyaji Kai-kun theory, curious what he’s like at school in this form.

The ferocity of his original memories invading and scaring him having a lasting impact and making him afraid to play again even a couple/few days later is both fascinating and gutwrenching.

Honestly very surprised that Shin would reprimand anyone for being loud, particularly when that’s Misaki’s thing and where are you hiding her?

The softer he is, the more heartbreaking his situation is in the grand scheme of things, even if he’s come to terms with it. How dare you, Bushi.

IF 15: [roasts himself]. IF 16: [literally roasts a nerd]

Love and hate how the opportunity to elaborate and delve into Kai-kun’s relationship with Dragonic Overlord is taken advantage of because why not just stab me instead? It’s a nice insight into a facet of his time away from Hitsue that was never truly touched on in either version prior.

Emi and Shingo become Fanguard.

Right eye sighted. But being it’s Shingo's recollection of Aichi, not yet willing to buy that it’s completely normal with the fact that, beyond this and his encountering Shuka, it’s remained hidden — the purpose of the shot itself was to establish Shingo isn’t remembering things correctly, so there’s no reason to believe that he’s aware of anything that might be different about it.     — This could be reflected in how Aichi keeps his distance from the others, holed up in his private quarters and suffering with only Kourin seeming to be anywhere near him during such times. It’s reminiscent of Legion Mate, both in his trying to shoulder everything alone/hide the agony he’s going through and Kourin’s close proximity, standing as his right hand in a manner that no-one else fills.    — Also to go with the Legion Mate topic, in this moment, IF Aichi gives off VoidAichi vibes. Despite how broken up it’s apparent he would and should be to exile himself (see V epi 21 and the flashback to him watching the others in Card Capital from Legion Mate), he shows no emotion, but rather seems completely numbed. Also probably looking waaaay too far into it, but 2/2 times when his face has been completely obscured, there’s been a stylistic choice beneath his eyes that is typical of exhaustion/strain/fatigue and it keeps worrying me.

IF 17

The preview gives the impression that this episode is about to be a turning point; that with Naoki and Shingo both having some understanding that things aren’t quite right, their loyalty to Aichi might start to wane.

Naoki’s going out in his Miyaji school uniform has alarm bells ringing, personally, for reasons elaborated below.

Never knew that needed Kai-kun working a part-time job in my life but boy is it a need now.

Here for Mamoru reigniting his fandom for Kai-kun. Very here for it.

IF vs. V 21

As a first note, Kai-kun being the one to separation between Aichi and his deck against their IF selves has a nice touch of irony to it. Calling back to it would be a powerful way of drawing on their positions in relation to the scene.

Considering just how badly Aichi freaked out over the idea of giving up his Royal Paladin deck and what it would force unto him, there’s little reason to suspect anything that’s happening in IF is really of his own free will.   — It’s been brought up that, without the two meeting as kids, Aichi shouldn’t really have much knowhow about Vanguard, much less a relationship to it. Considering Kai-kun remained a Hitsue student, it’s an easy assumption to make that Aichi’s education followed the same pattern (though his reasoning for returning to Miyaji remains a mystery, with his lacking the confidence that his original reality/Outside World self had); his exposure to the game might come through his time in Middle School, but it’s a loose and distant connection at best. IF World Aichi, without knowledge of Outside World (if they are two separate versions), would have no reason to target Vanguard over anything else.

As Void and Star-Vaders aren’t a facet of the Reboot continuity, a theory that had in mind for a while is that a remnant of Brandt may have seized the moment when Aichi was Deleted and been festering away in the same manner as the Link Joker Seed. A previous post detailed the mindfuckery involved to break Aichi enough that he would turn on the game, particularly given how fearful he was of relinquishing it and the isolation it would return him to — the very circumstances he’s imposed upon himself (but far worse, in exiling himself from the real world). Though he’s a selfless boy and Kai-kun means an enormous amount to him, it simply doesn’t make sense that he would willingly go down this road.

Rather he’s mind has been twisted so much to believe in what he’s now doing or he’s being controlled by something of Brandt (as we’d never confirmation it was no longer a threat), if not some other force (though to introduce a new one at this stage in both the franchise and the reboot continuity with OverDress around the corner would be a peculiar choice).

Couple of theory things, feat. one really out there idea:

Naoki:

Naoki’s actions in the preview might be glimpses of him starting to break away from Aichi’s will; not with malicious intent, but rather the opposite.

The line of thinking goes as so: as he and Shingo come to realize their memories have been tampered with, Naoki seeks out Emi and Shuka, obtaining Blaster Blade with the intent of returning to the point in time where Aichi should have received it. Among the screencaps Bushiroad has released, one shows a young Naoki and Aichi, who’s holding a card  — rather than allowing the event to play out as it should have, Naoki intends to give Aichi the card himself.

In doing so, Aichi can begin down his path that liberates him from the crushing loneliness that he endured prior to actively playing the game, or in the case of IF, running away from home. Simultaneously, Naoki himself is freed from the guilt that’s shackled him in both continuities about not doing anything to help Aichi, as the Reboot has demonstrated how he yearned to at the time but was too late to make any move. This is his means of doing so and atoning for a reality when he failed.

When Emi, Shuka and Kai-kun would recognize him as the one who threatened the latter’s parents plus Suiko (and Ibuki) would be familiar with him as normal, there’s not a clear reason why he would forgo his Sanctuary Knight uniform for a civilian look other than to avoid attracting the attention of bystanders.;(It might be overthinking it to speculate there being anything more to it than this, but when has that ever worked?)    — Granted this is under the assumption that he would be able to leap through the timeline though Jammers of earlier episodes were capable of doing so, none of the enemy’s core have made any such move yet. And the consequences of doing so; if Aichi’s suffering is the result of IF World unravelling, then Naoki venturing to alter the timeline further may, in fact, cause him more harm than any good he may intend.

2.5 hours later edit: Courtney just shared the epi synposis and FUCK

Alternatively, Naoki might regain glimpses of the Psyqualia Zombie arc and see himself beating Aichi, leading to Destiny Conductor being able to control him and his eventual Deletion by Ibuki’s hand.

On the one side, it reinforces Aichi’s feelings that Vanguard is something they shouldn’t come into contact with, but Naoki could see it otherwise. He harbours guilt over being the catalyst for those instances, piling on top of his failure to reach out when they were in elementary school, spurning him to go back and redo everything so that he can always protect Aichi, not to embody anguish that the other goes through.

It would also strengthen a hostile opposition towards Ibuki, whose past sin comes back into play. He might throw the event in his face as a means of trying to dredge up his old feelings towards Vanguard and sway him to resist setting things right, whenever/however it is he’s released from wherever Aichi sent him and depending on what he experiences there.

Kourin:

Where we are currently feels very much like the “Sera’s betrayal leading to the Quatre Knights’ dissolution” point. Sera and Rati clashed with one another personally, Gaillard joined with Kai-kun and Naoki, Neve opposed VoidAichi directly — Naoki’s actions in the preview might be glimpses of him starting to break away from Aichi’s will. Though Naoki’s intentions are ultimately to save Aichi from the position he’s stuck in, it’s ultimately defying him — a far cry from what has been shown of the Knights, thus far, who have been fiercely loyal to him, which makes this sort of movement striking.

Miwa also doesn’t appear best pleased in the preview. As someone whose best friend was nearly killed as a result of Aichi’s orders  — a friend at risk now that he’s taking a stance against the group’s status quo — there’s every reason for him to defect for the sake of preventing another (and possibly actually fatal) incident. It’s very possible that It’s entirely possible that, in similar vein to Legion Mate, the collapse of the Knights will leave only Kourin by Aichi’s side, who’ll serve as the last line of defence. 

Mamoru & Tokoha / Aichi & Emi:

It wasn’t touched on during Nagisa and Gouki’s episode, but the dynamic of older brother and younger sister has the potential to crop up here, as well as the chance to contrast the Sendous’ current selves with the Anjou siblings (and the former’s past).

   — Not to mention how Mamoru and Aichi are polar opposites, at the moment in regards to their sisters in danger. Mamoru gambled with his life to keep Tokoha safe in the Dragon Empire attack of the original continuity, and anyone could see Aichi would do the same, but IF Aichi is the one who would inflict harm upon Emi, made clear by his soldiers’ attack on her and Shuka when they attempted to enter the past. Maybe, inadvertently, Tokoha might be put in jeopardy and Mamoru propelled to protect her in the same way, bringing about the behaviour of the two versions of her brother that Emi knows in the same situation.

Give me 11-year old Tokoha to mirror 11-year old Emi at the start of each continuity and drive this home.

And most importantly:

DRAGONIC OVERLORD ARMOUR

#Cardfight!! Vanguard #Cardfight!! Vanguard IF #cfv spoilers #give me Alfred Aichi vs DO Kai kun sword fight #better yet give me Alfred Aichi vs BB Emi AND DO Kai kun fight #also free Misaki 2k20 #long post

[jeidafei]

D.Gray-Man Chapter 234 Theories

Guys! Thank you so much for your responses! I’m so happy! I’m posting replies to comments on the Translation Notes here as some are going to be very, very long!

@team-hemsworth​  your theory is actually very good, my mind is blown :o but what about the 3rd side of the war? i’ve always thought the heart is already awaken and is leading the 3rd side (i don’t even know where that thought came from though) i also think the world the noahs lived in was an alternative universe and the exorcists actually existed there once and bookman clan along with the noahs, are survivals from that world (again, don’t have any fact to back that up, just my intuition)  

Thank you! As I said, I typed that out very fast, it was like a stream of consciousness XD Once I had a good night’s sleep, I woke up finding a lot of loopholes that needs addressing, such as: If Mana/Earl really is the Heart, why is he affected by Innocence? Cross states a few chapters ago that he must keep Mana in this amnesiac, defenseless state away from the Heart and Innocence, and his fears came true later; in Lost Fragment of Snow, Red hit Mana with his Innocence-embedded arm and caused Mana to go even crazier, forgetting even his mission of searching for Nea. 

However, one thing of note is that while Red was hitting him, he noticed light particles flying out of Mana’s head. Could that light have come from within Mana himself, not Red’s arm? Could it be Innocence coexisting with the Noah? We have already seen that this is possible in the case of Allen Walker. 

Anyways! Back to your comment! My theory right now is that the 1st side is the Black Order, the 2nd side is the Noah and the Earl, and the 3rd side consists of Nea, Past!Allen, Cross and the residents of Campbell Mansion.

Bookmen, of course, don’t take a side. 35 years ago they were on the Noah’s side to record the war, and now they moved over to the Order’s side just to fill their history books as well.

I think the purpose of the 3rd side is essentially the same as the others: Preventing the end of the world, but it seems they want to go about it differently from the Noah and the Order. As Road have said to Allen before she disappeared, Nea “was fighting for Mana’s sake, but that’s a secret.” 

Having known Mana and Nea from childhood, Cross is repulsed by how the Noah is using Mana for their own revenge, clinging to a prophecy. The Noah seem not to care much about the welfare of this new world and its people, so long as they get their revenge; they seemed to think it a lost cause anyway, and only wants to avenge The Pillar that destroyed their world. 

Meanwhile, Cross seem to not like the Order and their ways much either. We’re not sure about his reasons yet, though.

As for the Heart, yes it most likely has awaken. Waaaay back in Chapter 158 there is this scene:

I don’t remember where this following anecdote came from, but the Earl also once said that the Heart is very sly and would create diversions to misdirect those looking for it (i.e. Allen and Lenalee). So in short, the Earl only let the Black Order survive for so long, in order to draw out Apocryphos and the Heart. 

I think for the Earl, this war isn’t between them and the Order, it’s them and the Heart aka The Pillar. To put it harshly, The Order doesn’t mean a rat’s fart to him.

According to the Earl above, he doesn’t want the Heart to learn the secret of the Akuma’s evolution. He wants to keep the Order ignorant about the souls within them. But who is the only Order member willing to see Akuma as souls/humans in need of salvation? Allen Walker. 

From flashbacks we saw that Mana’s persona was fighting the Millennium Earl persona. And we know that Mana cursed Allen with the ability to see Akuma’s souls as his last act, the ability that gave him the unique weapon of “empathy”, the very thing the Earl does not want the Order and the Heart to learn about. 

What if Mana intentionally gave Allen that particular curse, to hand him the only weapon that could destroy the Akuma for good?

As for the Noah’s “world”, in my simple opinion, I think it’s this same world we’re in. The Noah are the only survivors of the Pillar’s cleansing, and thus they became ancestors of the humans of today (I remember they said that somewhere). That is why ALL humans have the possibility of awakening into Noah. 

I think the Noah’s intention is to evolve their descendants (the world’s people) into the ultimate Akuma, which someone speculated that maybe the Ultimate Human, like themselves. As we can all see, with each passing Level, the Akuma become stronger, more human, more sentient. I think their intention is to use those Ultimate Humans as their army to fight the Pillar.

This also came to me just now: What if the Pillar was the original form of Innocence that broke apart and scattered all over the world in 109 pieces, with the Earl as its Heart?

@thelunarvoid​​

This is such an interesting and logical theory! Actually, the new infos we got out of this chapter make so much sense! Since the Noah hate and intend to sabotage “the Pillar” that much, it is only logical that Apocryphos (the human shaped independent innocence) wants to harm the Noahs as well, as it is the protector of the Heart. I wonder how the reaction of the Order’s members will be, if they find out the tragic fates they put themselves into by siding with the “substance” that actually wants to destroy the whole world once more. 

Yes, exactly! Apocryphos itself said that it is like the “Grim Reaper” for Noah. 

Allen doesn’t want anyone in the Order to find out though, because if they do, they’ll lose faith in the Innocence and get punished by becoming Fallen Ones. Such is the fate of those who displease/betray the Innocence. 

As for why The Pillar destroyed the world, it also came to me just now (again, heh) that in the Noah’s highly-civilized world 7,000 years ago, Dark Matter might have been the source of all technological advances, including the incredible Noah’s Ark. As we can see, Dark Matter now also has tremendous potential in creating machinery like the Akuma Egg and the Akuma themselves, and giving the Noah powers equivalent to that of Innocence’s. 

This may have displeased God somehow that the puny humans dare to aspire to be as powerful as him, the ultimate creator. So 7,000 years ago, he sent the Pillar down to destroy everything. The Noah however, survived. 

It might be the FMA weeb within me, but like in FMA, creating life, defying death, bending the rules of nature is taboo, as that is supposed to be God’s sole privilege. Perhaps the advances in Dark Matter technology, analogous to “science” might have modified God’s world too much for his liking? And now by trying to evolve Akuma into humans (well, the Earl did promise to bring back dead humans), the Earl, who is kinda an alchemist, might be attempting the very thing only God is said to be able to do, with Dark Matter instead of Innocence.

@apeironstella​

 Additionally, on Allen being the “sign/signpost”- maybe this is reading too much into it, but it being written with “ 目印”, kanjis for “eye” and “mark/stamp/seal/emblem/symbol”, given the wound “mark”/”curse” he got from Mana when he ‘summoned him as an Akuma’? The name itself is clearly important here, but not completely sure how, just wanted to mention the possible kanji play there too?

That’s an awesome observation! I haven’t noticed at all.

The Japanese definition of 目印 is “a mark put on something for it to be recognizable instantly”. So the essence of this kanji use is “a mark/sign for the eyes to notice” rather than “a mark/sign on the eye”, but it can be a nice play on word, too! I think what Nea means here is that he will come back with the name “Allen” as his definitive mark, so Cross should keep an eye out for any Allens approaching Mana.

@jjfole​​ 

Omg. Wow. I mean it's an impressive theory. I also still wonder what were the Noahs back then, all the questions still without answers ahaha

Originally, I think they were normal humans created by God. Like, descendants of Adam and Eve. But like I said earlier, the humans of the world 7,000 years ago might have experimented with Dark Matter and augmented their bodies so much, that they become so powerful that God struck down with the Pillar and destroyed them, and the Noah Clan are what’s left. So the Noah repopulated the world with their descendants, and are trying to recreate these people into super-darkmatter-humans again to avenge God. 

That’s all for now. I’ll add more when there are more comments! Thank you soooo much for your input! It’s a very fun thought exercise for me, musing over all these theories. I’m a writer after all!

#dgm #d gray #d gray man #d gray man 234 #long post #dgm spoilers

[gojira007]

Movie Meme

Took me a bit of time, but I was tagged by @bunnikkila to list my nine favorite movies, and since I can’t help but be ridiculously verbose about that very topic, you can see them all under the cut 8D

As for who I tag?  Well, as always with the caveat that you are free to ignore if you don’t wanna, I’ll go with: @elistodragonwings @kaikaku @donnys-boy @robotnik-mun @sally-mun @fini-mun @werewolf-t33th  @cviperfan and @wildwoodmage​

and don’t worry, if you DO go for it, you don’t have to get as Extra as I did about it XD

9.) 

Look, the meme is about Favorite Movies, not necessarily the BEST Movies, OK?  And for the most part this list consists of films where that division is less meaningful in terms of how I evaluate the other movies on here.  But in this specific case, “Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie”, which is ultimately not all that different from the “Mystery Science Theater 3000″ TV show it spun off from and thus not particularly impressive as a work of Cinema Qua Cinema, makes the cut primarily because it’s a movie I know so well and have enjoyed so often that I can practically recite the whole thing to you by rote; I quote it all the time in my day-to-day life, I think about it often when I need a little smile, and it’s also become my favorite tool for introducing newcomers to MST3K as a whole since it was designed with a slightly broader audience in mind than the more willfully-eclectic series.  And given how much I love MST3K As A Whole, that’s an especially strong factor in its favor.

8.) 

Looky looky, @bunnikkila, we (unsurprisingly) have a pick in common!  I’m sure this is the one and only time THAT’S going to happen on this list. 8D

Y’know, nearly thirty years (and one fairly useless remake >_>) later, I think the thing that impresses me about “The Lion King” is just how much it is still able to grab me emotionally.  Some of that is unquestionably tied up with how strongly I associate this movie with my family, all of whom it became very special to as a Shared Experience.  But I also don’t know of a lot of people who haven’t had that same emotional experience with it, and that to me suggests there’s more going on here than just Nostalgia.  The mixture of Shakesperean plotting with Disney’s signature strength of Character, for one thing, granting the movie’s story an Epic Scope that never forgets the emotional inner lives of its cast.  The music for another, not only its instantly-iconic song-book but also its memorable score, armed with both Big Bombast and Gentle Sentiment.  And the unforgettably gorgeous animation, rendering every last element of its world with believable naturalism and strongly-defined personality.  All of it, together, makes for what I still personally consider the Crowning Achievement of the Disney Renaissance.

7.)

I think, if I had to name the thing I find most lacking in far too many modern Action Movies, it’s Clarity.  They all tend to lard their plots up with a bunch of unnecessary contrivances and complications in hopes of making themselves appear more clever than they actually are, and all it usually does is just dilute the impact of the whole thing.  “Mad Max: Fury Road”, by contrast, is all about Clarity.  I could sum up literally its entire plot in a paragraph if I wanted, because it is basically One Big Chase Scene from start to finish, never really deviating from that structure for more than a few minutes at a time.  And that, combined with its exceptionally well-crafted Action Sequences, means that the full weight of its visceral power hits you full force every time.  But don’t be fooled; that simplicity is not to be mistaken for shallowness.  Indeed, precisely by getting out of its own way, knowing exactly what it wants to do and why, “Fury Road” also delivers a story that is, in spite of what you might guess, genuinely subtle and smart.  Every character is immediately unforgettable and compelling because their role in the story is so well-considered and their personalities all so stark.  The world it crafts feels at once fascinatingly surreal and yet All Too Real at the same time because even its most Fantastic elements are ultimately just grotesque reflections of things the audience knows only too well.  And most of all, it tells a story with real, meaningful Themes that are deeply woven into each of its individual elements, such that the whole thing is deeply satisfying emotionally, but also piercingly Relevant in all the best, most affecting ways.

6.) 

Oh look, another pick I have in common with @bunnikkila!  This must be the last one, right?

But yeah, this is just a legitimately great movie, at every level, in every way.  Stylistically, it is one of the most radically inventive things to have ever been made in the world of Western Animated Movies, gleefully mixing together a vast array of Aesthetics and Techniques that are at once viscerally distinct and yet coherently connected, all rendered with a fantastic eye toward the world of Comic Book Visual Language that keeps finding new and extremely fun ways to play with that instantly-recognizable iconography.  For that alone, I would call it one of the greatest triumphs of 21st century animation.  But then, on top of that, the story it tells is one that is simultaneously Arch and self-aware, delivering some of the most fantastically hilarious punch-lines imaginable more than a few of which are at the expense of the very franchise it is working within...but also entirely earnest, sincere, and emotionally affecting.  It is, at once, a movie that manages to be about The Idea Of Spider-Man in its totality while also being about just one kid coming to grips with who he is, what he can do, and what his life can be.  I don’t know that I can remember the last time a movie so immediately and unmistakably marked itself as an Enduring Masterpiece, but “Into the Spider-Verse” absolutely pulled it off.

5.)

Ordinarily, I would cheat and give this slot to the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy in its totality.  But somehow, the fact that this is about “FAVORITE” movies instead of just what we think the BEST one is compels me to narrow it down to just one.  And if I had to pick just one, it would be the first of the three, “Fellowship of the Ring”.  It’s not necessarily anything that the other two movies get wrong, either.  All three of the LotR movies possess many of its keenest strengths, after all.  For a starter, there’s the keen understanding of how best to adapt the source material without being enslaved to it; capturing many of its most iconic moments while cleverly tweaking elements to make them more cinematic, knowing what scenes to focus on for the sake of more clearly focusing the emotional through-lines of the story, and knowing what scenes, no matter how good on the page, ultimately don’t fit to the shape the adaptation has taken.  There’s also its pitch-perfect casting, each and every actor doing a fantastic job of embodying the characters so well that even as your personal vision of them from the books may differ radically from what is on-screen, they nonetheless end up feeling Right for the part and a strong, compelling presence.  And there’s the deft visual hand of director Peter Jackson, who knows exactly how to craft a Middle Earth that feels at once lived-in and real but also Fantastic and magical.  “Fellowship”, for me at least, thus wins out mostly because it has the good luck of being adapted from the strongest of the three books, the point at which the narrative is at its most unified and thus has the strongest overall momentum.  But also because so few movies have so swept me away with the sense of stepping into a world I have always dreamed of in my mind’s eye, and that’s the sort of thing that can only happen at the beginning of a journey.

4.) 

Now here’s a movie that is literally sown in to my very being.  It’s the last movie my mother saw in theaters before becoming a Mom.  I grew up watching the “Real Ghostbusters” cartoon all the time and playing with the attendant toys; I had a “Ghostbusters” Birthday Party when I was, like, four years old.  It has been my annual Halloween Tradition to get myself a big Cheese Pizza and watch this movie for about as long as I’ve had disposable income to myself.  There is, quite literally, no point in my life where I don’t remember “Ghostbusters” being a fixture in it.  And as a nice bonus?  It is, legitimately, a Genuinely Great Movie.  I realize that isn’t quite as universally agreed upon these days as it was even a few years ago (thanks, Literally The Worst Kind Of Virulently Misogynist Assholes lD; ), but I still feel pretty confident in saying this one really is That Good.  I still find basically every one of its jokes hilarious; even now I could quote just about any one of them and get a laugh.  I still find its central premise, What If Exorcism Was A Blue-Collar Business, a brilliant, almost subversively clever one that takes The Supernatural out of the realm of The Unknowable and into a world where even you, an ordinary person off the street, can in fact fight back against it.  I still think it’s one of the all-time great examples of how to balance Tone in this sort of High Concept Genre Bender, by allowing The Story to be played relatively straight while allowing the comedy to flow naturally from the characters’ reactions to that story, allowing its Ghostly aspects to land as Genuinely Scary (or at least Worth Taking Seriously) without getting too Stern and Serious about it.  And I still listen to that unforgettable Title Song all the time!  So yeah, even if I could be more objective about it, “Ghostbusters” would almost certainly make this cut.      

3.) 

And so we come to the third and last pick I have in common with @bunnikkila, not coincidentally a movie that played a key role in solidifying our friendship, as bonding over our shared love of it was a big part of how we got to know each other on deviantART waaaay back in the day <3

By 2008, I really didn’t think it was possible for a movie or comic or TV show to really become “part” of me anymore, the way things like Sonic the Hedgehog or Marvel Super Heroes or Some Other Movie Character Who Might Be At The Top Of This List had.  And then “WALL-E” came along and proved that to be completely, utterly wrong.  I didn’t just love this movie, I was inspired by it, to a degree of strength and consistency that I’m still not entirely sure has yet been matched.  And to be sure, some of that is undoubtedly because the movie had already basically won the war before I’d even bought my ticket; Adorable Robots In Love is something like My Platonic Storytelling Ideal, after all.  But even setting that aside, “WALL-E” is a movie where even now I can’t help but be keenly aware, and gently awed, at the beauty of its craft; indeed, watching this movie in a theater did a lot to make me better understand why movies work on us the way they do, because I left that theater chewing so much on every last one of its elements.  Its gorgeous animation, the way it conveys Character through Actions more so than language, the dream-like quality of its musical score (even as i type this i get teary thinking about certain motifs), the clear and meaningful way it builds its theme and story together so harmoniously, and the particular perspective it takes on our relationships with each other, with our environments, and with our own technology...all of it speaks to me deeply and profoundly, and it’s no coincidence that I have seen this movie more times in theaters than any other on this list (twelve times, for the record, and I still remember each and every time XD).

2.) 

This one needs no personal qualifications, to my mind.  Yes, I have some degree of nostalgic attachment to it for having seen it relatively young with my brothers and being deeply moved by it then, but it’s not at all like the kind of Nostalgia I have for “The Lion King”.  “Princess Mononoke” is just flat-out, full-stop a complete Masterpiece, not just my personal pick for one of the single-best animated films ever made, but one of the best films period.  It’s almost difficult for me to put into words how great this movie is, certainly in a way that hasn’t been repeated to death by thousands of other smarter people, because no one of its elements quite answers the question of why it is so great, to my mind.  Yes, the animation is absolutely gorgeous with a design sensibility that brings Ancient Mythology to life so vividly that its influence can still be felt today (The Forest Spirit alone has been homaged all over the place).  And yes, the music is hauntingly beautiful, at once capturing the gentle rhythm of nature but also the elegiac tone of Life Moving On.  And yes, the story is an incredible mixture of the Broad Mythic Strokes of an Ancient Legend grounded in all too human Emotions and Ideas about the balance of nature, the full meaning and cost of Warfare, and perhaps most important of all, about how we determine Right and Wrong when everyone involved in a conflict is fighting simply for the right to survive.  But all of those things add up together to something even greater than a simple sum, because each one isn’t just good in its own right but because each element so perfectly reinforces the other.  And even having said all that?  I really could just carry on singing this movie’s praises.  Just...an absolute masterpiece, top to bottom.

1.) 

I don’t imagine any of you are terribly surprised at this, right?  I almost feel like it’d be redundant to explain my love for this movie, given how self-obvious I imagine it is to basically everyone who knows me Literally At All.  But heck, I’ve rambled on this long, why not go all the way?  Because the thing of it is, “Gojira” (to be clear, the original Japanese movie from 1954 rather than its American edit, “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” from 1956) doesn’t just top the list by being a Great Movie.  Though to be clear, it really is.  Flawless?  No; there’s a reliance on puppetry that even for the time can be a bit chintzier than the movie can really afford, in particular.  But brilliant, even so, a heart-wrenching example of Science Fiction Storytelling As Allegory, one that, in a rarity not just for its own genre but indeed for many movies in general, very meaningfully lingers on its deepest, darkest implications.  Many a film critic has pointed it out, and it remains true: the stark black-and-white photography heightens the sense of Implacable Horror at the core of the story, and the way the central Melodrama, a tragic love triangle that carries with it many aspects of Class Conflict and Personal Desire VS. The Collective Good, ties back into the main story is truly beautiful in its elegance and emotional impact.  Still, for me personally, it tops the list, now and always, because it is a movie that affirmed something for me, that the character I had fallen in love with as a child convincing his family to watch a monster movie with him on television to prove his seven-year-old bravery, really was as genuinely as powerful and meaningful a figure as I had always imagined him to be. 

#movies #meme #gojira007

[c-ptsdrecovery]

Fanny Price and Emotional Abuse

colubrina replied to your post “Emotional Neglect in Austen”

I would actually love to read your analysis of Fanny Price if you ever had time and inclination to write it out.

Oh my goodness, where do I start?

Fanny Price is abused and neglected from start to finish of that novel. She suffers direct emotional/verbal abuse from Mrs. Norris, bullying from Maria and Julia, excessive criticism from those three AND Sir Thomas, and emotional neglect from Lady Bertram and Tom. She also suffers PHYSICAL abuse and neglect, mostly from Mrs. Norris, who does not allow her to have any heat in her room in the winter and forces her to work beyond her strength in the summer even though Mrs. Norris KNOWS she’s chronically ill (and it’s no wonder, considering the amount of emotional strain Fanny’s under, that she should be chronically ill!). 

The only person in that house who even notices that she’s utterly miserable from the trauma of being torn from her family is Edmund: he’s the only one who treats her like a person and is kind to her. It’s no WONDER she falls in love with him: he’s the only person in the entire family who doesn’t treat her like SHIT. But while Edmund recognizes Mrs. Norris’ behavior toward Fanny to be beyond the pale, he generally does not seem to notice that his more immediate family also treats her horribly. Lady Bertram treats Fanny as a servant, putting her own (Lady Bertram’s) needs and wants before Fanny’s (”You don’t want to go to the party, do you? You want to stay home with me because I get bored if you don’t!”). Sir Thomas is generally so critical and cold that when he greets Fanny kindly on his return from Antigua she is “nearly overcome” by his kindness. Even Edmund himself begins to both emotionally and physically neglect Fanny the moment he gets interested in Mary--leaving Fanny for ages on the bench alone, keeping her waiting too long for her horse when she needs to exercise, etc. Fanny only gets noticed and included as a member of the family when Maria and Julia are both gone and the family is apparently bored without them--the same reason Henry decides to flirt with her.

The result is that Fanny has almost no self-esteem. She has completely internalized Mrs. Norris’s lesson that “Wherever you are, you must be the lowest and last.” At one point she parrots the lessons she’s been taught by the treatment of the entire family:

“I can never be important to any one.” “What is to prevent you?” “Everything. My situation, my foolishness and awkwardness.” “As to your foolishness and awkwardness, my dear Fanny, believe me, you never have a shadow of either.”

She believes she’s foolish and awkward because the family harped on her lack of education and “refinement” when she first came to them, and they have drilled into her, not only that she is not important to them, but that she can never BE important to ANYONE. Classic result of emotional neglect. And Fanny NEVER actually gets over it, throughout the entire book.

She’s nearly silent through much of the book too, mostly because she’s too terrorized to talk. As someone who was similarly brainwashed by emotionally abusive parents, I can tell you that taking any attention under some circumstances feels excruciating and guilt-inducing, because you’ve been conditioned so hard to believe that “being the center of attention” is somehow morally WRONG. Fanny suffers from precisely that false belief (note her distress when she is required, by the social rules of the day, to start the dancing at her own ball--Sir Thomas basically has to SCOLD her into it!).

That said, it’s amazing to note the one way in which she DOES have self-esteem: she believes in her own moral judgment. This is the only basis on which she is able to think and act independently of others. When Edmund treats her badly, she gets seriously annoyed. When she notices Henry’s bad behavior toward Maria, she is indignant. She secretly judges Mary Crawford the whole way through the book. I would attribute this trust in her moral judgment to be the result of the kind of long walks and talks she has with Edmund in the text and has had her entire life: he has molded her to think of things with the same moral judgment he uses and to think herself capable of being superior to others in that moral judgment. Of course, since she has absorbed the moral tone of Edmund, learned from Sir Thomas, she is pretty judgy sometimes, since Sir Thomas clearly feels himself and his moral code to be superior rather than conservative. She certainly feels superior to her birth family (with some reason, honestly lol), because in this one thing she has been taught that the family she grew up in was superior to others. She has imbibed this superiority and acts it out when at Plymouth.

Let me give you an example of Sir Thomas’s conservative moral code. You might think, from reading Mansfield Park, that Jane Austen disapproved of private theatricals, and that they were generally considered too naughty by the Better Sort of Person. It turns out that this isn’t true at all. Not only were private theatricals popular, but Jane Austen enjoyed performing in them and even WROTE some plays for that purpose! One of them involves a gentleman sitting on a lady’s lap!! It turns out that the strait-laced tone of the novel is not so much a reflection of the author’s standards of conduct, but of Sir Thomas’s, imbibed by Edmund and then Fanny. Edmund, Fanny, and Sir Thomas’s dislike of private theatricals would have been a bit PRUDISH at the time, not the obvious standard of Good Breeding.

Another thing the novel has imbibed from Sir Thomas is its insularity. The modern criticism of Mansfield Park talks a lot about the family’s isolation. Now, I don’t hold with the criticism that makes a big deal out of Fanny marrying her cousin and implying that that’s incestuous, because in the 19th century, cousin marriage was not only acceptable but a norm. Marrying your cousin was often considered desirable because it strengthened family ties and kept money in the family. BUT, I completely agree with the observation that the Mansfield Park family seems to shun the outside world. 

One thing that I don’t know if the criticism has commented on is that dysfunctional families often function like cults. Offspring of dysfunctional families tend either to rebel and “run away” (Maria elopes, Julia elopes, Tom rebels) or to fail to establish autonomy (Edmund takes a living in Sir Thomas’s gift and later the house right down the road; Fanny never gets out of the family at all because she marries Edmund). Dysfunctional families also teach their members not to trust those outside the family circle. They don’t tend to socially interact much with others. I can say from personal experience that my parents have VERY few friends that they see outside of work or church, and only one couple that they invite to the house regularly. As a child, I rarely got to have birthday parties with my friends: my parents would instead invite my extended family. I was taught not to establish strong bonds outside the family, to trust the family only to be generous or to help and support me. I find it difficult to establish strong ties of friendship outside the family or to trust those friends to support me the way my family might.

The Bertrams are the same way. Maria and Julia go to local balls, but that happens offscreen, and we never meet any of their acquaintances except Mr. and Mrs. Rushworth (who become family). The family disapproves strongly of Tom’s having such an active social life away from home, and disapproves when he brings home a friend (Mr. Yates) to stay. Even when Sir Thomas holds a ball for Fanny in the house itself, we never actually meet any of the guests except the ones we already know! And the “last straw” that causes Edmund to agree to join the theatricals is when they start asking people “outside their circle” of Mansfield and the parsonage to participate. He also deplores that they might invite in an audience of these personae non gratae. Frankly, it’s amazing that the Bertrams were willing to open their family circle enough to let in, not only the Grants, but the Crawfords.

I’ve gone on for quite awhile, but I’ll close like this. When I first read Mansfield Park, I hated it and I hated Fanny, because she had no backbone and cried all the time. Then I watched the 2007 adaptation with Billie Piper, and realized that although Fanny was so shy and retiring and weepy, she had an iron backbone in that nobody could make her do what she thought was wrong. Mansfield became one of my favorite Austen novels.

At the moment, I don’t feel like I can reread MP. I’m dealing so much with my own history of emotional abuse and neglect that MP strikes just waaaay too close to home (also the reason I can’t rewatch Tangled right now). I’m not sure how much I like MP anymore, frankly. Austen did a fantastic job of accurately portraying a victim of emotional abuse. And she gave Fanny what she wanted at the end, which was Edmund. But I can’t help wondering if Austen herself wished she could have ended the novel differently. She comes right out and says, authoritatively, that if Edmund had married Mary, and Crawford hadn’t run off with Maria, that Fanny would have married Crawford and been happy. She could have escaped from her abusive family, with someone who really sees their abuse: “And they will now see their cousin treated as she ought to be, and I wish they may be heartily ashamed of their own abominable neglect and unkindness.” If Crawford and Maria hadn’t run off together, the ending of Mansfield Park might have been entirely different--and it MIGHT have been better.   

#jane austen #mansfield park #literature #abuse #emotonal abuse

[wolfie-posts]

Kiss and Run

Bakugou Katsuki x Female!Reader

Read Chapter 2 here

Author: @wolfie-posts

Warning: language obviously! A little bit angsty

Chapter length: 1,900 words

Story Summary:

You did it! You were given the opportunity to study at U.A. alongside class 1A to become a pro-hero. Within the next three years, you were gonna learn more about yourself and your special quirk, about friendship, about fighting, winning and losing. The road to your goal is bumpy and steep with a lot of obstacles like villains and an explosive blond boy, who decided to make your life a little harder. Will you finally be able to control your quirk? Will you overcome the problems together with your classmates along the way?

A/N: This is my first attempt at multi-chapter fanfiction. I am really excited to work on this and I really hope you enjoy it. Please behold that I am not native English, so there could be some mistakes. I don’t really have a schedule for the updates, so we will see how that goes. Have fun reading my lovelies! 

AO3 

Quotev

Wattpad

_________________________________________

Today was the day...

Today would decide over your future, whether you would be accepted into U.A. or not. Today was the day of the entrance exam and you were shitting your pants.

This was your only chance to get into the best hero academy in Japan, your only chance of figuring out how to control your quirk properly, to grow stronger and redeem yourself.

Everyone was gathered in front of a huge gate. Looking around you, all you could see were kids mentally preparing themselves for the fight.

Some of the kids were already wearing some kind of hero costume to enhance their power.

“Fucking ridiculous,” you mumbled while looking down at your casual outfit. You were just wearing normal jeans with a leather jacket above your plain white t-shirt.

The other contestants were making you nervous, which made you click your boots together and shuffle around uncomfortably.

‘Why am I even nervous? I have the advantage of being able to hack everything that has a technological circuit.’

You inherited that quirk from your father or at least, you thought you did for the longest time. Turns out it was a little more complicated than that.

-----Flashback-----

The doctor was looking at your test results, brows furrowed. He looked up at you for a second but quickly returned to reading through the many documents in front of him. He paused again and looked back up at you with a look of confusion plastered on his face.

Your parents were getting nervous and growing slowly impatient.

“Well, Doctor? Do you know what’s wrong with her eyes?” your mother finally broke the silence, not being able to withstand the tension any longer.

“Well, at first we thought she just inherited both of your powers,” the doctor began cautiously. “She is obviously able to hack and manipulate computers and other pieces of technology, like you Mr. L/N. She also has your physical abilities Mrs. L/N. Her reflexes are amazing and she’s incredibly fast and strong for someone her age.”

“Yes, we know that much already, but what about her eyes and hair changing colors?” your father asked, growing even more impatient.

“Well, I looked through your family tree and the documented entries about the abilities of your relatives,” the doctor said, shuffling through his papers and glancing up at you every now and then as if you were some sort of delightful specimen. “Apparently, way back, you had a relative whose powers could be described as a copycat.”

“So what you’re telling us is that she didn't inherit our powers. She just copied them?” your mom asked confused.

“Indeed.”

“Do you know anything else about her abilities? How they work or what the color change means?” your father kept pushing, wanting answers for his questions.

“Every time she uses her quirk, her eyes change to the color of the person’s who’s quirk she’s copying. However, she doesn’t have a typical copy quirk. She doesn't have to touch the person before she copies them, also she doesn't really have a specific time limit to her powers. Most copycats can only use their power for roughly 5 minutes,” the doctor examined you closely again. “Although, that doesn't mean your daughter doesn't have a limit of using her powers. The moment she exhausts herself or loses focus and control, her hair will change to the color of the person’s hair she is copying. Just like her eyes. If that happens, all her powers will suddenly vanish. We’re not sure how long the effects of overuse will last, we’ll have to run tests to be certain, but we’ve estimated somewhere around half an hour.”

“Oh... I see,” your mother said, looking at you with a concerned expression on her face. “Well, how does she activate her quirk if it’s not through touch?”

The doctor winced and leaned in towards your mother’s ear. He whispered something and your mother’s face paled.

“O-Oh, okay then,” your mother stammered, avoiding your curious gaze. “Y-Yes, I’ll tell her.”

-----Flashback end-----

All the information was just too much for you back then. You didn’t even know you were copying your parents, you thought you had their quirks naturally.

You didn’t have anyone to teach you how to control your quirk or even use it properly which was why you had to get into U.A.

Your powers were fucking useless. Well, not really useless, per se, but they weren't... conventional.

If you couldn't handle your own power, at least you could perfect your body and the physical abilities that you copied from your mother. It isn’t All Might level strength but you were a bit quicker on your feet and stronger than the average person.

Those hard years of training really paid off and you knew that you weren't fragile and could stand your ground in a fight. You had practically perfected the use of your parent’s quirks to the point that you had practically no limit to either of them.

The sudden yelling around you pulled you back into reality. Present Mic was standing on a tower near the gate. He smiled mischievously. The next thing you heard was: “What are you waiting for? There won't be a countdown! Better hurry to get those points you got 9 minutes left!”

Before the words even sunk in, your legs were already carrying you through the open gate. You were running alongside so many other kids who could be your future classmates, but right now they were competition and you weren't gonna lose this test.

You were sprinting full-on, wanting to put as much distance as possible between you and your competitors. It didn’t take long for you to be part of the few people in the front.

Everyone quickly spread out through the fake city, not wanting to have other people claiming their points.

As you ran through the streets of the modeled city, you spotted a robot in a narrow alleyway.

It detected your presence almost immediately, whirling around to face you. Its arms flailed in stiff motions, steam coming out of its sides, red lights focusing on your body, trying to hit you.

Instead of trying to face it head-on, you ran as fast as you could and slid under the machine.

You popped up on the other side and pressed your two palms flat to the cold metal, activating your quirk and shutting down the robot’s circuits.

You let out a sharp breath through your nose, a proud grin appearing on your face “Hm.. 3 points? Easy! I was scared for nothing, I guess.” Feet carrying you already further down the alley, you didn’t even look when the processor of the robot overheated and finally exploded. You tallied your points mentally, keeping track of your kills as best as you could.

The robots popped up like bugs. It was safe to say that you didn’t need to search for them because they just appeared around you, leaving you no time for a break. Then again, who even wants a break when every second counts?

Suddenly, you heard a speaker crackling to life, followed by a loud voice ringing through your ears. “4 minutes left! Better make ‘em count!”

With your father’s quirk, it was easy to destroy the robots without even breaking a sweat. Everything was running smoothly until they unleashed the 0-pointer.

You were running down the main road when the voice came back through the speakers. Just as the man told you and everyone else the remaining time, a huge robot appeared right in front of you.

For a 0 point robot, that thing was waaaay too huge and powerful. “Are they trying to kill us?” you mumbled angrily, adrenaline rushing through your system and making your muscles tense even more.

The robot towered over probably half of the fake city, arms deadly with spikes and other shit you didn’t want to look at.

You could hear gasps and screams around you, followed by kids running in the other direction far away from the murderous thing. You were about to run away too when a blond boy caught your attention in the corner of your eye.

The 0-pointer wasn’t even 20 meters away, but firecracker dude just kept on blowing up the other robots around him.

“What the fuck is this idiot doing? Does he want to get killed?” you growled through gritted teeth, running straight toward the danger.

You didn’t really think about what you were doing. Your legs were carrying you as fast as possible towards the blond boy.

Your heart dropped and your breath got caught in your throat the moment you saw the deadly arm of the robot heading straight for firecracker boy.

The next thing you know, you had shoved the boy out of the way and took the hit for him. Not a second later, you could feel one of the spikes slicing through the surface of your shoulder, leaving a nasty scratch. A piece of heavy debris instantly hit the ground where the two of you were standing seconds ago.

“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING, SHITTY GIRL?!” the blond screamed at you as you coughed and groaned, trying to put pressure on your bleeding wound.

“THAT’S NOT THE NICEST THING TO SAY TO SOMEONE WHO JUST SAVED YOUR STUPID LIFE, ASSHAT!” you yelled back with just as much anger, hurling yourself up and at another robot, not wasting any time on gaining points.

You heard a frustrated roar from the boy who just catapulted himself right back into the fight beside you. A loud siren snapped you out of your rage. “The U.A. entrance exam is over!” and just like that, all of the robots that weren't defeated shut down.

Exhaustion washed over you and you fell down on your knees, clutching your bleeding shoulder. The adrenaline started to wear off and was replaced with burning pain.

“Oh dear, that is a nasty scratch! Let me help you,” an old lady in front of you said.

‘Where the hell did she come from?’ you thought, following her every move curiously.

She reached out and planted a kiss on your skin. A warm tickling feeling spread through your body and just like that the wound and the accompanying pain were gone.

“Ummmm, t-thank you very much!” you said in astonishment.

“No worries, my dear!” she waved you off, heading straight for the next injured kid.

The old lady left and in her place, a fuming blond boy appeared. “I don’t need saving from anyone, especially not some weak ass girl like you!” he said angrily, though it sounded more like a growl to you.

Being flattened by that stupid robot would be more pleasant than dealing with this ungrateful shitstain in front of you.

‘Is a thank you too much to ask for these days?’

“I lost important time because of your stupidity!” he kept on yelling.

“STUPIDITY?! YOU KNOW WHAT?! NEXT TIME, I’LL LET THAT ROBOT SLICE YOU TO BITS, ASSHAT!” you burst out. Flames were probably coming from your eyes, mentally burning the blond boy.

“HAAH, DON’T MAKE ME LAUGH, SHITFACE! THERE WON’T BE A NEXT TIME! THEY DON’T ALLOW WEAKLINGS LIKE YOU INTO U.A.!” the blond boy yelled, catching the attention of everybody around you. He stomped away, followed by shocked looks.

You growled lowly in your throat, forcing the frustrated tears back. You were clenching your fists so hard that your nails were cutting into the palms of your hand. You didn’t want to admit that his words had cut even deeper than that stupid robot.

Next Chapter 

#bakugou katsuki #bakugou katsuki x reader #bnha bakugou #bnha imagines #bnha #female reader #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #bakugou #katsuki #bakugou fanfic #katsuki fanfic #bakugou imagine #katsuki imagine #bakugou series #kiss and run series #bakugou love #katsuki love #boku no hero #boku no hero fanfic #my hero acadamy #my hero academy fanfiction #fanfiction #imagines #firecracker #bakugou x reader #katsuki x reader

[soveryanon]

Reviewing time for MAG145 X_X/

- Aaaaaaaaaand I had considered it but disregarded it immediately, and yet: the episode was (more or less) about Agnes again, so soon /o/

- The biggest reveal in this episode, for me, was probably to learn that The Web actually had a deep connection with the Archives (and the previous Archivist) waaaay before Jon was even born. We know that Jon encountered it as a kid, we know that spiders have been… extremely present around the Archives and Jon during his era – but we didn’t have anything about Gertrude yet, except for the fact that she was apparently working together with Adelard Dekker, who had been able to bind the Not!Them to the Hill Top Road table (and the whole ordeal was Web-y, though that could have been all thanks to the table):

(MAG145) ARTHUR: Alright. Agnes: how’d you do it? Never did understand it, not really. GERTRUDE: Ah. That’s a fair enough question. [PAUSE] It was… The Web. I didn’t know it at the time, of course, and I would call it an accident – but it never is, with them. It’s only after the fact that you can see all the subtle manipulations. I was very new to it all, of course. I mean, I was, what? Can’t have been older than… twenty-five. […] Like I said, mm, I was young. Naïve. I somehow found just the right books, made just the right connections, and even got what I thought was a piece of blind good luck, when I found a tin box in the ashes of Hilltop Road, containing some perfectly preserved cuttings of her hair. Of course, what I thought was a “banishment ritual” turned out… not to be. The circle I constructed was more of a… an invitation. It let the Mother of Puppets bind me to Agnes, interweave our existences at some… metaphysical level, as it had with Fielding and the house. … It was the most painful experience of my life.

Gertrude uses the phrase “Mother of Puppets”, too! Eugene and Peter had used it so far, so it sounds like it’s a term favoured by Avatars-in-the-known? Oliver had also referred to it as a “she”.

- We have a description of a young Archivist, in her 20s, getting pushed by The Web in a specific direction, made to unwillingly serve Her interests, even though it deeply hurt said Archivist.

… which. Sounds like what might be happening to Jon right now, except he didn’t (can’t?) make the connection.

- Gertrude’s description of her researches and how they had been manipulated is also very much reminiscent of… what is happening with Jon, especially in season 4, when he’s pushed towards this or that tape or statement, which was once again the case this episode:

(MAG145) ARCHIVIST: And here? I reached out, I took another tape, eh!, hoping for a bit of guidance, but… [HUFF] To be honest, this hasn’t helped.

We… still don’t know for sure if it’s The Eye guiding him (/something having to do with the fact that he’s The Archivist and the information and statements are his Archives) or The Web. (How many of the statements Jon read in seasons 1 to 3 were actually “sent” to him by The Web, too?) With how The Web made itself transparent in MAG130 (sending one of Gertrude’s tapes covered in cobwebs) and how this statement explained how The Web proceeds, I’m… beginning to expect Jon to eventually get a (face-to-face) visit from Annabelle Cane or a Web-related person? It sounds like these bits are supposed to introduce Jon to the idea that yes, The Web has Her eyes on him, too, and yes, is monitoring him, and yes, has plans for him.

- … But then: Gertrude experienced The Desolation through her binding to Agnes. And The Web encouraged Jon to find an “anchor” to go inside the coffin, where he experienced The Buried, and potentially got Martin to lead him out. Even back in season 1: it might have been The Web which got Martin to come back to Carlos Vittery’s building a second time (MAG022, Martin: “And then I remembered that I'd seen quite a lot of spider webs in the brief time I was down there, and maybe I should check it out again.” + how he didn’t really think when he crushed the first worm), attracting Jane Prentiss’s attention towards the Archives, and it was a spider which unleashed the attack on the Archives (Jon trying to crush it and discovering the worms behind the wall… when they weren’t completely ready yet). Which means The Web is reaaaaaaaaaally not against having Archivists experiencing the other Fears, and Elias has said that it’s supposed to be the Archivist’s role (MAG092, Elias: “It is your job to chronicle these things, to experience them, whether first-hand or through the eyes of others. To simply be told, well…”).

What is The Web’s stance on The Watcher’s Crown? We know it’s involved in ritual-stopping: Peter highlighted that it prefers the world as is, Gertrude evoked the possibility of The Slaughter’s ritual getting stopped by “spiderwebs”, and there were cobwebs in the wax museum at The Unknowing (+ it sent Jon a tape about how The Flesh had been stopped, and possibly monitored his researches about rituals a bit). From what Peter said, it shouldn’t want a ritual to succeed; yet, if Experiencing The Fears is a must-do for an Archivist… the Web is also contributing to this…?

- And same as Jon, re:Gertrude’s powers!

(MAG145) ARTHUR: Shut it! I don’t have to listen to this! GERTRUDE: Hm! [CHUCKLE] Then, feel free to try and leave. ARTHUR: [BEGINS TO BREATHE HEAVILY] GERTRUDE: Mm! Now. Here’s the problem for you, Arthur. […] “Do I…” what? ARTHUR: Have something for me. So I end up like Eugene. GERTRUDE: [CHUCKLE] Why don’t you try to leave and find out…? ARTHUR: [BREATHING DEEPENING, STRUGGLING] [SILENCE] GERTRUDE: Good~! Now, we can have a proper conversation.

… Arthur needed her permission to leave, but what did she do, at that moment? There wasn’t any static, only a bass sound – was it a plain cosmetic sound-effect, or was Gertrude doing something, perhaps similar to when Jon told Breekon to “stop” back in MAG128? I’m still unsure about the whole thing about “giving orders” and “preventing people from leaving” being a Beholding power since it… feels very active, and it’s about entrapment? And we’ve heard Web-victims mention having no choice but to obey? (Though in The Web’s case, it sounded more subtle and “making you think you’re willing”: Jon and now potentially Gertrude are coercing, violently… although there is the case of regular statements, during which people don’t actually have a choice whether or not to tell their story and aren’t aware of it, except for the woman from MAG142. Even Daisy had rationalised that Jon had probably “caught her in a good mood” in MAG061, before she later realised that she hadn’t been willing.)

… And somethingsomething about how MMMMMMMMMM, there is still the Mystery of why Gertrude recorded the specific statements she did (reading aloud or interviewing) – tape recorders have been explicitly associated with Jon in season 4, and they had been used by Gertrude before, and both of them had been entangled in The Web’s schemes, so MMMMMMM…

- A bit of the conversation between Gertrude and Arthur I’m ? about is that “him upstairs”:

(MAG145) ARTHUR: You’ve never really had to bother with it, have you? You got him upstairs to point the way as often as not, and the rest of the time you’re just figuring out people – or things that used to be people. You never try to talk with that Eye of yours. You never had to second-guess a god.

Was Arthur referring to The Eye or… to Elias? Arthur used “it” to referred to his own god (/“them” for the fears), so the “him” was a bit surprising, and Elias’s office is canonically upstairs compared to the Archives… But at the same time, it would be saying that Elias was giving directions to Gertrude/that they were collaborating at some point, and as much as I had thought about the possibility (Gertrude had also mentioned that she could tell Elias about Mary’s visit, and Mary had bitten back that Elias “wasn’t too big on action”, implying that yeah, Elias&Gertrude… were communicating, at least), that would be Big News in the canon…?

- And Gertrude’s way of not Falling Deep into her patron was apparently because she was a bit of a stoic and not curious enough?

(MAG145) ARTHUR: […] That’s the trouble with overthinking any of this: you ignore your gut. And to my mind, that’s the only part any of Them Beyond… actually care about. They don’t give a toss about your “rules”, or “systems”. They only care about what feels right, what freezes your belly with terror. GERTRUDE: Hm. I rather like to think I’ve managed. ARTHUR: [SCOFF] Yeah. … But you don’t actually care about Them, do you? Not really. You forget, we’ve been watching you a long time, and I know you, Gertrude. You don’t actually care about… the Fears. You’re too practical. All your energy is focused down here, on monsters and… murderers, and all the things doing the dirty work for Them Beyond. You know plenty, sure! But you don’t have that obsession, that stupid urge to try and understand and… classify things that use logic and reality like weapons. GERTRUDE: Hm. Per–perhaps. ARTHUR: [CHUCKLE] Always respected you for that. Takes a strong stomach to not give a shit. GERTRUDE: Eh! You��ll forgive me if I’m not overjoyed at the compliment? ARTHUR: Suit yourself.

1°) And Jon is aaaaall about classifying and understanding, and is currently desperate for Answers at the moment, which. Oops. Very different from Gertrude, indeed. (Who occasionally threw out a few hypotheses here and there, indeed, but was also “practical”.)

2°) And Jon is also Very Afraid overall, even reminded us of that in MAG132 when going in the coffin (“When does the fear go away…?”)

3°) If Gertrude wasn’t letting fear get a hold on her… there is still the matter of Oliver’s dream/prediction, which pictured her as absolutely terrified (MAG011, Oliver: “I saw the face was uncovered. It was your face and the expression upon it was far more fearful than any I had seen in eight years of wandering this twilight city. That was when I awoke.”) – still the good old questions of “what happened around Gertrude’s death”…?

- Hello, it’s Arthur hours, I LOVED HIM… WHAT A TERRIBLE MAN… Voice acting was stellar, so funny, so seething, so… carnivorous? Defeated and yet still harmful, still utterly terrible, although he was able to pinpoint some of his mistakes (notably about how they had raised Agnes and how he was missing her). His rant about theology and Diego, and giving Too Much Information was incredible:

(MAG145) ARTHUR: But I was an idiot. Saw it as… attacking my leadership. Burnt the thing. Diego wasn’t happy. [PAUSE] Well, he’s in charge now! Of all of us that are… left, at least. He can look for the answers in whatever books he likes, no skin off my bones! GERTRUDE: I didn’t actually ask. ARTHUR: [INHALE] Figure if you’re gonna pull this stuff out of me, I, I might as well get some of it off my chest anyway…! Not like I can vent to the others about what a prat Diego is! Got a lot of funny ideas. Still calls The Lightless Flame “Asag”, like he was when he was first researching it. I just want to tell him to get over it – I mean, [FASTER AND FASTER] Asag was traditionally a force of destruction, sure, but as a church, we very much settled on burning in terms of the… face we worship, and some… fish-boiling Sumerian demon doesn’t really match up, does it?! Plus, there’s a lot of disease imagery with Asag that I’ll reckon is… way too close to Filth for my taste, but, but no, he read it in some ~ancient tome~, so that’s that– GERTRUDE: Well, I can’t say I– ARTHUR: –reckons he always knows best, ‘cause he’s read a few books, well. Big. Deal! Way I see it, if a writer can’t even save themselves, they probably don’t have a lot worth knowing! Find me one so-called “expert” on all of this who didn’t end up regretting all of it! […] Found a mass of the Crawling Rot growing, a while back. Managed to get a hold of the property before it became too big. Gotta wait ‘til it blossoms before we can properly burn it. So until then… just playing landlord. It’s alright, I guess. You’d be surprised the misery and pain you can cause, when you have control over someone’s home….! If you’re careful, if you’re smart, you can burn their life to ashes as thoroughly as any fire, and worse comes to worst, you can still do it the old-fashioned way. Had an elderly tenant last year. Oh, [CHUCKLING] she was in a terrible state. I had her trapped, too poor and immobile to do anything but… sit there. Then, I broke her boiler, so the cold started to get her. Not exactly my usual, but… agony is agony. But then, her son and his wife moved in with her to help her out. Not much I could do against that. So I just waited until all three were home, and set the place ablaze. They went up nicely. Screaming all the way as the flames started to reach them. Doors were locked, and handles too hot, so they didn’t have a hope of escape– GERTRUDE: Yes, that’s quite enough, I think. ARTHUR: Oh, I’m sorry. There I was, thinking you liked the gory details! My mistake. GERTRUDE: I think we’re just about done here.

And OUUUCH, the story about the family was incredibly nasty and… really vicious. Describing the story of how he abused and tortured an old woman right in front of Gertrude? Definitely on purpose to try to get at her.

- Diego was once again associated with books, and mmm, I wonder if we’ll get his statement at some point (though we know that Gerry killed him before beginning to work with Gertrude)? Turned out he had actually tried to use childcare books to raise Agnes, which is… still better than the other cultists:

(MAG145) ARTHUR: You might be right. But Agnes did. That’s the thing about an… “incarnation”, isn’t it? She was a child and… person as much as she was a god. And we messed that right up…! … I still remember when Diego brought us a book on childcare. [CHUCKLING] Roger’s body was still in her room, blackened and smoking from… when he tried to feed her. I thought for a moment he’d brought another one of his damn Leitners, but no! It was just a… regular ol’ book on looking after children…! But I was an idiot. Saw it as… attacking my leadership. Burnt the thing. Diego wasn’t happy.

(I wonder if Arthur didn’t take Leitner as the one writing the books, too? Since his later comment (“Way I see it, if a writer can’t even save themselves, they probably don’t have a lot worth knowing! Find me one so-called “expert” on all of this who didn’t end up regretting all of it!”) was also targeted at Diego. Not sure that Leitner had begun to put his seal on the books in the 60s, though, so maybe Arthur retrospectively associated the books to Leitner although they weren’t bearing his name back then?)

- Eugene had it coming, and WOW did it come for him. Gertrude…

(MAG145) GERTRUDE: Oh! I assume you haven’t checked on… Eugene, then? ARTHUR: … What? GERTRUDE: Eugene. Well, whatever his name was, “Vanderbelt” or some such. You sent him to intimidate me a couple of years ago. You must remember? Of course you know him. Used to live in Beckingham, but moved out to that flat in… Ilford, last year. ARTHUR: Yeah. GERTRUDE: Well! He hasn’t been at your “little meetings” the last two weeks, has he…? I suppose no one’s looked into it yet. Not surprising – he seemed a thoroughly unpleasant little man. ARTHUR: Are you… [CLOTHES SHUFFLING] Di– GERTRUDE: Tell you what. Why don’t you make a few calls? [CLATTERING ON THE TABLE] Check it out, and then we can continue our, er, little “discussion”. Alright~? [CLICK.] [CLICK–] GERTRUDE: Well? [CLATTERING ON THE TABLE] ARTHUR: [INHALE] … How did you do it? GERTRUDE: [SCOFF] You don’t need to know that. What you do need to know is I can do it again, if I need to. To you, or… any of your “lackeys”, if I need to. […] ARTHUR: Eugene. It… hurt him. GERTRUDE: [CHUCKLING] Oh, yes. I’m sure your master was delighted with how… awful his death was.

[…] ARCHIVIST: Apparently, he disappeared in late 2009, leaving behind only one thing: a life-sized statue of himself, crafted from candlewax and sawdust. Missing its head. … I wish I didn’t know how painful it must be, to be alive while your whole being is infused with… agonising grit. But, as I was investigating, it… came to me. Eugene is still alive, frozen in place by the razor-sharp particles that are mixed up into what he chose instead of flesh. I don’t know where Gertrude stored his head. But I do know he desperately wants to scream.

AOUCH. 1°) Sarah-the-Anglerfish had left “sawdust” behind her in MAG096, though grit makes me thing of The Buried… Or it could have been a plain regular thing? 2°) hhhh over the fact that Gertrude, who got told that she had been watched BOTH by Arthur-from-the-Desolation and Manuela-from-the-Dark… was shown to absolutely know about them, too, and to be ready to make her moves when needed. 3°) ………………. Some people have pointed out that hum. Thanks to Patreon bonus content: it’s possible that Eugene’s head is actually in the Institute (and we know where, if it is that). (4°) That “delighted” pun… Gertrude… (And Diego used “burning questions” towards her later! Avatars punning about their patrons and others’.))

- Given how Gertrude handled them and talked about them with such disdain (“And you’re all lazy fools! So used to it being easy, to picking off the vulnerable and the unprepared, you can barely conceive of anyone actively working against you. Of being ready.”), she reaaaally despised them and… was that because of their methods in themselves, the glee they take in destruction? Or because the fact that they were the first she really encountered, in her young years, and that had scarred her deeply? Or because she had a childhood encounter with the Desolation even before that and it was exceptionally personal? Jon had The Web, Michael Shelley had The Spiral, Tim (although he was an adult already) had The Stranger + Melanie had The Slaughter (multiple times), Basira&Daisy got multiple stories… lots of people working in the Archives had encountered the Fears before working for the Institute, so maybe it was the case for Gertrude, too?

- I love how “coffeeshop twit” is Jack Barnabas’s official nickname from everyone.

(MAG139, Eugene Vanderstock) “Of course, none of us suspected what was actually going to sink it all. I mean, if you’d told me, I’d have laughed at you. … That stupid coffeeshop twit. I honestly don’t know why Arthur allowed it, or why Jude didn’t step in – she’s usually so jealous!”

(MAG145) ARTHUR: Well, that’s the thing about a fall from grace, innit? Makes you look at things from a… “new angle”. … I miss her. [SCOFF] I’ll tell you that for nothing. Wish I… [PAUSE] I don’t know. I’d actually known her, when she was… alive. Maybe that coffeeshop twit did have a point after all. Could tell you what I saw, at least.

You know that there were sessions of collective ranting about him amongst The Desolation folks, and it stuck.

- Arthur’s personal way of referring to the Fears seem to be “Them Beyond”? He used it twice:

(MAG145) ARTHUR: That’s the trouble with overthinking any of this: you ignore your gut. And to my mind, that’s the only part any of Them Beyond… actually care about. […] All your energy is focused down here, on monsters and… murderers, and all the things doing the dirty work for Them Beyond.

… I found his tirade about the lack of direction and the fact they’re just scrambling around to try to guess their patron’s intent really interesting, but at the same time… presenting their life as So Hard And So Tragic, when they choose to hurt and abuse and torture and kill to feel good and make their patron feel good? Meh. Which is probably why Gertrude, too, was exceptionally unimpressed? Given Oliver’s and Elias’s insistences on choice and free will, I doubt that the bottom line of it is that the Fears change you (“warp you”) into someone else entirely; I think there are still many choices to be made when avataring, and that each victim… is a conscious, deliberate decision?

(… Gertrude’s reaction was also Wow., since, saving the world or not, she herself wasn’t against causing civilian casualties and sacrificing people to achieve her own goals. Maybe that’s the thing with Gertrude, and she thought of herself as the better person since her actions had, in theory, nothing to do with elation, but were about sheer practicality? The way she described the explosion of The Last Feast, however, was… strikingly gleeful. She felt good about hurting avatars and stopping rituals, too.)

- The bits about Agnes were very sad, once again:

(MAG145) GERTRUDE: What was Agnes like? ARTHUR: … What? GERTRUDE: Well, for all The Web bound us together, I never actually met her. What was she like? ARTHUR: I… [PAUSE] I don’t know. Not really. You got as many answers to that as… folks who met her. Never really knew what she felt ‘bout any of it! Not really. Not in her own words. Guess that’s the thing about being the… Chosen One, or… I mean, Agnes was always quiet; but even if you spend all day, every day, throwing out commandments and… laying down parables… At the end of it, you’re always just the… point of someone else’s story. Everyone clamouring to say what you were, what you meant, and… your thoughts on it… all don’t mean nothing.

Agnes is… still a character who was born (/birthed) without a choice. We saw how Gerry had made the most of it, despite his education: he chose to neutralise Leitners, saved civilians here and there even when he was doing it passively. Agnes had never chosen this life, and although Arthur highlighted the fact that there were as many Agnes as people who met her/wanted something from her… I’m really feeling like we’re missing her voice about all of this. She’s a tragic figure, but it would sound a bit off to never have access to her voice, to her thoughts, when all the people describing her so far have been male characters and/or people romantically interested in her (Jack Barnabas, Jude Perry, Eugene, now Arthur).

But, unless she lied, Gertrude never met or discussed with her before she died, so… there probably isn’t any recording of her anywhere. (Unless we could somehow have a tape of Agnes talking with someone else? Ivo Lensik also had visions of a little girl at Hill Top Road before she even died, and we know that the place was messed up: maybe there is still a trace of her left behind, who could speak…?)

(- And YES, OBVIOUSLY, I was “wow.” and welcoming the Agnes/Gertrude as a new Fated By Fears ship. She was calling Gertrude “her anchor”!! They were soulmates!!! The Desolation protected Gertrude to make sure that Agnes wouldn’t suffer from it!! Gertrude was curious about her!!)

(- AND ALSO, YES, OBVIOUSLY, HHHHHHHHHH GERTRUDE HOT WHEN IN CONTROL AND LOOKING DOWN ON AVATARS…)

(- Of course, Arthur’s words about the perception one has of someone… was also very reminiscent of Jon’s whole being…? Though, at the same time, we have a direct access to his voice thanks to the tapes. He can lie, he can dissimulate, he can be a hypocrite… but it will always be a bit more “him” than second-hand accounts.

Presumably.

Because the woman from MAG142 had a very different version of Jon to share, someone we… got a glimpse of in MAG141, but it seems that others Archival characters haven’t noticed a change or that he’s been acting different lately…?)

- !!! So the circle from MAG037 was made by Gertrude, initially to banish Agnes, and in the end a bit modified to alleviate “side-effects”:

(MAG145) GERTRUDE: I really thought you were unique, special, an infernal cult raising their demon Messiah to bring about hell on Earth…! […] I somehow found just the right books, made just the right connections, and even got what I thought was a piece of blind good luck, when I found a tin box in the ashes of Hilltop Road, containing some perfectly preserved cuttings of her hair. Of course, what I thought was a “banishment ritual” turned out… not to be. The circle I constructed was more of a… an invitation. It let the Mother of Puppets bind me to Agnes, interweave our existences at some… metaphysical level, as it had with Fielding and the house. … It was the most painful experience of my life. I mean… I’m sure it’s nothing to you, but I’d never had my lungs try to burn me alive from the inside out before. I survived, though. And you know the rest. I’m not sure exactly how it manifested on your end; you certainly seemed to get the message. I kept the circle over the years, laced it through with signs and symbology of The Desolation to ward off the worst of the side effects and… keep its attentions elsewhere.

And with Jason North’s description in mind:

(MAG037, Jason North) “What was inside each one seemed to vary, some had pine needles and twigs, some were full of dirt, and one or two even held what appeared to be rainwater, though looking closer I could see that it bubbled very gently inside those bottles in an endless simmer. In each I could also see a small photograph, half-buried in dirt or almost boiled clean. They all looked to be the same photograph, though it was hard to tell for sure. An old woman, probably in her fifties or sixties, wearing reading glasses and grey hair curled into a tight bun. She stared out disapprovingly from every bottle. Weirdest of all, on the bottom of each was tied a lock of hair. It was long and grey, in poor condition, and I reckon it must have belonged to the woman in the photograph. It was tied up with the same new string as held the bottles, except for the fact that it was burned, ever so slightly at the ends.”

[…] ARCHIVIST: Mr. North did include with his statement the picture he found in the bottle. It is a photograph of Gertrude Robinson, my predecessor at the Magnus Institute, circa 2002 as best I can tell.

So: 1°) it wasn’t Gertrude’s hair! (And did they grey because Agnes was dead? Or because the hair aged “normally” once removed from her?), 2°) Was Gertrude regularly changing her pictures with updated ones, or were these… updating themselves in the bottles?

- Alright, so, actualising the timeline of events around Agnes and Hill Top Road/Lightless Flame cultists’ involvement with Gertrude:

* Agnes was sent to Hill Top Road to deal with The Web sometime around 1965, when Ronald Sinclair was turning 18 (he said he was born in the late 40s). Agnes was described as “younger than the other kids, maybe ten or eleven years old, and didn’t talk much”. She (playfully) freed Ronald from Raymond Fielding’s influence. (MAG059)

* The house got slowly depopulated until only Agnes and Raymond remained; Raymond disappeared when Agnes “must have been 18 or 19”, Agnes claiming that “he had gone away and that the house was hers”. (Ivo Lensik, MAG008)

* In 1974, a five-year-old boy goes missing in the area. People are suspicious of Agnes, the house burns, Ray’s body is found, missing his right hand, and there is no sign of Agnes. (MAG008)

=> It must be around that time that Gertrude tied her existence to Agnes, as she mentioned “ashes” and her own young age:

(MAG145) GERTRUDE: I was very new to it all, of course. I mean, I was, what? Can’t have been older than… twenty-five. […] I somehow found just the right books, made just the right connections, and even got what I thought was a piece of blind good luck, when I found a tin box in the ashes of Hilltop Road, containing some perfectly preserved cuttings of her hair.

(+ in MAG137, Gertrude pointed out that “The Risen War failed a few years before I was even born.”, and that was one was in late 1942. So all this would put Gertrude’s date of birth at 1949 or after, but not before.)

* Gertrude entwined her and Agnes’s existences – was it related to the fact that Agnes also got tied to Hill Top Road, or was that binding unrelated? On the one hand, Gertrude only mentioned that Agnes was connected to her and compared that binding to Fielding and the house; on the other hand, Eugene insisted that Agnes had been “tied” to Hill Top Road, and Agnes indeed clearly felt something when Ivo Lensik killed the tree that was still there:

(MAG139, Eugene Vanderstock) “As far as we could tell, she had destroyed the place utterly. And yet, she remained bound to it, tied to it in some vital way. I knew, when Arthur told she had kept Raymond Fielding’s hand, that he was worried.”

(MAG145) GERTRUDE: Of course, what I thought was a “banishment ritual” turned out… not to be. The circle I constructed was more of a… an invitation. It let the Mother of Puppets bind me to Agnes, interweave our existences at some… metaphysical level, as it had with Fielding and the house.

* Agnes began to frequent the Canyon Café in the 90s as, by November 2006, she had been visiting for “a decade and a half” (MAG067). She waited, they all waited.

* In autumn 2006, Jack Barnabas confessed to Agnes and they went on a few dates. (MAG067)

* On November 23rd 2006, Ivo Lensik uprooted the tree at Hill Top Road, freeing spiders from the apple buried under it; Agnes felt it, said that she had to finish something, gathered the members of the cult, and at her request, they hanged her, with Ray’s hand tied to her waist. (MAG067, MAG139)

* On November 30th 2006, Arthur sent Eugene Vanderstock to give his statement to Gertrude, threatening her about the fact they didn’t have any more reason to keep her alive (MAG139: “As for you… Whatever you did, and whatever protection it might have afforded you is severed, with Agnes’s death. Arthur has told us not to harm you yet, but this whole thing has really rather weakened his authority, and many of us are now looking towards Diego for leadership. But we shall see, I suppose.”)

* In January 2009, Gertrude took care of Eugene (MAG145, Gertrude: “Well! He hasn’t been at your “little meetings” the last two weeks, has he…? I suppose no one’s looked into it yet.”)

* On February 2nd 2009, Arthur and Gertrude “discussed”, with Gertrude threatening the rest of the cult with what she had done to Eugene if they were to try and harm her. (MAG145)

* On August 6th 2009, Jason North gave his statement about disturbing a ritual site near Loch Glass in Scotland. (MAG037)

* Eugene was officially declared missing in late 2009 (MAG145, Jon: “I did some more digging into Eugene Vanderstock. I thought he was still alive and… working at the steel plant, but it looks like he’s just listed on one of the old directory pages on their website. […] Apparently, he disappeared in late 2009, leaving behind only one thing: a life-sized statue of himself, crafted from candlewax and sawdust. Missing its head.”)

* Until late February/early March 2014, Jane Prentiss, Arthur’s tenant, got taken over by The Hive. On the day of her hospitalisation, Arthur called Pest Control Service to take care of the “wasps’ nest” (whatever the price would be); Jordan Kennedy went, pumped insecticide into the thing, and witnessed Arthur setting himself (and the whole house) on fire. (MAG032, MAG055)

- So, two main things. First, the… dates, once again. I can believe that Eugene’s disappearance wasn’t discovered by public authority until much later than his actual “death”, no problem. But the dates around Gertrude’s circles are a bit weird, since Jason North had mentioned that his wife had burnt not even a week after he had disrupted the site (and before that, his car had broken, etc.); it… doesn’t sound like he had encountered the circle months or years before he gave his statement and tried to find a way to protect his son Ethan – he immolated himself shortly after giving his statement, he was pressed by time, it was an urgency happening in the Summer 2009. Yet… Gertrude and Arthur had been referring to someone disrupting the site some time before… in February 2009.

(MAG145) GERTRUDE: Mm! Now. Here’s the problem for you, Arthur. The way I see it, you came here believing that whatever defences or… assurances I might have had, died with Agnes, or had broken along with the circle. […] I kept the circle over the years, laced it through with signs and symbology of The Desolation to ward off the worst of the side effects and… keep its attentions elsewhere. ARTHUR: [CHUCKLING] Don’t envy whoever broke it! GERTRUDE: Yes. It went very badly for them, indeed. ARTHUR: So where was it, in the end? I spent years looking for it. GERTRUDE: Hm! Nowhere special. The middle of a forest, in the Scottish highlands. Furthest place I could find, from anything, and anyone.

So…? Had Jason North been cursed for a few months before giving his statement, and Ethan had somehow managed to escape The Desolation curse? Is it Jonny mixing dates again (and MAG037 took place in 2008 instead of 2009 or something)?

Is it that… someone else had disrupted the circle before Jason?

… Or has someone/something been messing with dates in the Archives? We’re getting a lot of cases of Potentially Impossible Timelines in season 4 (Neil Lagorio’s two deaths, Jason North’s; there is the matter of Gertrude’s tape from MAG087, when she was supposed to be dead, etc.); is or was someone/something trying to conceal information this way…?

(- Relistening to Jason’s statement and. Hum. About the circle’s location, he finished with:

(MAG137, Jason North) “I asked about who might have gone to the area, but aside from some middle-aged businessmen on a hiking trip, no-one’s been anywhere near that clearing for years. There is no reason this is happening, but I’m still going to lose everything. I am so scared.”

I’m not banking on it, but. Elias was confirmed to be meant to sound “middle-aged” in the season 3 Q&A. So. Uh. Uh. Were these people, like. Peter and Elias on a hiking trip.)

- Regarding Arthur’s connection to The Hive: I… have much trouble picturing that Gertrude did not use what she had learned in MAG145 to somehow make him regret Everything.

(MAG145) ARTHUR: Not like I can vent to the others about what a prat Diego is! Got a lot of funny ideas. Still calls The Lightless Flame “Asag”, like he was when he was first researching it. I just want to tell him to get over it – I mean, [FASTER AND FASTER] Asag was traditionally a force of destruction, sure, but as a church, we very much settled on burning in terms of the… face we worship, and some… fish-boiling Sumerian demon doesn’t really match up, does it?! Plus, there’s a lot of disease imagery with Asag that I’ll reckon is… way too close to Filth for my taste […]. GERTRUDE: So. Now, Diego has taken over… Where does that leave you? ARTHUR: [SNORT] Slumlording over a nest. GERTRUDE: Oh. A nest of… what? ARTHUR: Found a mass of the Crawling Rot growing, a while back. Managed to get a hold of the property before it became too big. Gotta wait ‘til it blossoms before we can properly burn it. So until then… just playing landlord.

I would be really surprised if no one (Gertrude or someone else) had used the fact that Arthur hated Corruption and wanted to wait a bit before killing one of its monsters because it needed to get big enough (practical reasons or hubris there?). Because there is the Question of why did Arthur set himself ablaze when Jane Prentiss got taken over:

(MAG055) JORDAN: At one point, he shook his head and mumbled something about hoping it wouldn’t get this far, but he didn’t seem to be saying it to me. […] Time seemed to move slowly as he reached for the ashtray on the arm of the chair and picked up a pack of matches. He struck one and without even looking at me, he gently pressed the small flame to the centre of the scar. His flesh caught fire, immediately, the flames spreading across his body like rippling water. The armchair caught, then the floor, and then I was running out of the building before the rolling inferno could come at me as well.

Why couldn’t Arthur just… leave? Unless he was fearing that The Hive would come after him, and he was too weak nowadays to be able to properly face it, and he decided to bow out on his own terms? No idea what Gertrude could have done, though; tossing Jane Prentiss in the direction of that house? Or… maybe binding Arthur to the house itself, as revenge/torture, since she did know the ritual to tie herself to someone and had compared it to the binding linking Fielding to the house…?

- Surprisingly, Arthur didn’t mention that he was there the night Agnes had died:

(MAG067, Jack Barnabas) “They were all dressed in rough work clothes and wore severe expressions. One of them, a big guy with a shaved head, was holding an unlit lantern, and speaking to the others that I think was Spanish or Portuguese. Another held a bag that seemed to be full of candles, while a third had a clear plastic container filled with hundred of tiny spiders. None of them paid me any attention, and I was rapidly feeling like I was falling into something that I really didn’t want to.”

(MAG067) ARCHIVIST: […] If the bald man with the lantern is as I suspect Diego Molina, it would indicate a link between his notable obsession with burning, and… Agnes, who apparently had not inconsiderable abilities in that area. I can’t help but wonder if Arthur Nolan, The Hive’s landlord, was one of the other members of that little group.

(+ the man holding candles would be Eugene Vanderstock, as he was revealed to have a thing with candles in MAG139.)

… Same as with Eugene: how come Arthur… barely mentioned any spiders around Agnes? Eugene had been able to point out that Hill Top Road had been a “stronghold” of The Web, but Arthur didn’t mention them at all in his conversation with Gertrude (it was Gertrude who connected her actions to The Web, but Arthur made no reference whatsoever to Agnes’s) – and especially not… the spiders he (if it was indeed him) was carrying on the night of Agnes’s death. Did those spiders do the same trick as with Jon through his lighter, making people’s attention slip right over them…?

(Especially given that! Jane herself had mentioned that there were spiders in the house:

(MAG032, Jane Prentiss) “Was it the spiders? There were webs in the corners, around the entryway into the attic. I would watch them scurry and disappear in between the wooden boards. ‘Where are you going, little spiders?’ I would think. ‘What are you seeing in the dark? Is it food? Prey? Predators?’ I wondered if it was the spiders that made the gentle buzzing song. It was not. Webs have a song as well, of course, but it is not the song of The Hive.”

To what extent was Arthur tangled in threads, too…?)

- Arthur confirmed (after Eugene) that Desolation folks had mostly No Idea What They Were Doing. We saw it with The Dark, too (when… they just put Faith in things and hoped it would work out), a bit with The Slaughter (given how things didn’t proceed as they should have) – Arthur did highlight that becoming an avatar meant being burdened with the craving of getting closer to their patron, and Jon, judging from how he echoes some of Arthur’s arguments (about cultists fighting over how to act), couuuuld be implying that it’s the same for him nowadays:

(MAG145) ARTHUR: You never had to second-guess a god. ‘Cause that’s what it comes down to, isn’t it? We feel Its joy and Its… anger; It warps us, and changes us, and feeds on us, though not in the ways we expect. The one thing It never does is just… tell us what to do. It seeds us with this… aching, impossible desire to change the world, to bring It to us. Then, It leaves us to guess and bicker and fight over how the hell you can actually do it. … If it’s possible. Sometimes, I think They understand us as… little as we understand Them. We don’t think like They do.

(MAG145) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] The more I listen and learn, the more it seems to me we’re all just… “groping about”. Trying desperately to find out what we’re actually meant to be doing. [PAUSE] These things that… loom so large over our lives trap us, and push us, and… sometimes kill us. But they never actually tell us what we’re supposed to be doing. So we scheme and we plot, lash out at each other without ever really knowing why. … I think Gertrude knew this. Knew to… focus her attention on those parts that could be understood, and… Well. And killed.

1°) … But at the same time, Not All Avatars: Jared Hopworth told us in MAG131 that he was perfectly satisfied with the world as is, and actively refused to participate in his own ritual, with no apparent adverse effects on him. So… it’s possible to go “Nop.” over those.

2°) Again, I don’t think that the main point is that no ritual is achievable: it… would lower the stakes too much? Sarah/the Anglerfish had also told Nikola, in MAG119, that the in-between wasn’t comfortable for all the monsters, and to hurry up with the Dance to complete the ceremony. Some things went wrong here and there, we didn’t get the whole stories… but I still think that it must be possible to carry a ritual until its culmination, and that The Watcher’s Crown is still a very real looming threat…?

3°) And what is Jon’s actual stance about The Watcher’s Crown and being responsible for hurting people nowadaaaaays…?

- It was… a weird thing to experience: Gertrude, practical, cold-blooded, doubtless Gertrude was the one actually… more or less on the side of protecting innocents, here? While Jon did not care at all, even included himself amongst Other Avatars:

(MAG145) GERTRUDE: And you’re all lazy fools! So used to it being easy, to picking off the vulnerable and the unprepared, you can barely conceive of anyone actively working against you. Of being ready. You honestly thought, when she died, I’d just be struck dumb with terror – just waiting for one of you to finally get around to revenge, paralysed with fear, because that’s all you’ve ever known. […] You tell the others. Make sure they know what happened to Eugene. ARTHUR: Sure. Can’t make any promises, though. ‘Specially for Jude. She really hates you. GERTRUDE: Tell her she’s welcome to try. Oh…! And tell them I’m extending my protection to young Mr. Barnabas. They hurt him any more, then what happened to Eugene will seem like a mercy. ARTHUR: … You’re really pushing it. You know that? GERTRUDE: Hm! Feel free to push back. But until then, get out of my Archives.

Gertrude neutralised Eugene, she talked Arthur down, she protected Jack Barnabas (and in the same breath: acknowledged that it had gone badly for the one disrupting her circle, but didn’t sound too heartbroken about it).

Meanwhile, Jon? Still hasn’t shared a word about the new additions to his collection of traumatised victims, and is sighing and complaining about his own whole situation.

- And worse: in this episode Jon actually humanised… avatars, of all people???

(MAG145) ARCHIVIST: We’ve been back in London for just over a week, now. I’m… more or less recovered physically. It’s just this nagging sense of unease that won’t leave me. … I was so sure I’d find something up there. But instead, it was just another broken person trying to come to terms with the wreckage of their life.

I’m not sure if by “up there”, he was talking about the Svalbard trip and Manuela, or if it was about the new tape and Arthur, but…??? It definitely doesn’t seem like it’s about Floyd??? And whether it’s Manuela or Arthur, who both confessed to multiple murders and torture and absolutely Do Not Feel Sorry About That Part Of Their Life, how do they deserve to be called a “broken person” – what about the persons they broke, what about the persons YOU are breaking, Jon???

(And there was the whole “we avatars”, including himself in it, at the beginning of his rant, which… sounds very much like Jon feels more connected to Their Tragic Situation than to the people they wreck, which is… ew.)

- Overall: I’m really surprised at how abruptly casually unsympathetic I’ve been finding Jon since MAG141, how I’m absolutely unable to feel sorry for him now? Because, lamenting about his lack of direction, his place, his whole existence was delightful and very sad and tragic, indeed! … until we got the reveal that oh, he himself was currently torturing people and feeding from them.

Jon hasn’t had one word about his victims, since then. No concern, no regret, no preoccupation. And I find it so hard to like him right now? It sounds like a string of me-me-me, which… only works as long as he’s not actively hurting others, or as long as he’s trying to find ways to stop it or to mitigate the damage? And it was the same with his string of lies to Georgie (not acknowledging, until she pressed on, that no, he was in “deep”; pretending that Melanie had “told” him about her therapy when the truth is that he had compelled her, although on accident; saying he had some “close calls” when UUUH… I wouldn’t say Floyd and the woman from MAG142 were “close” calls, at all????):

(MAG145) ARCHIVIST: A–all right. [SPLUTTERS] W–why are you, uh… well. Here? I–if it’s not too personal a question. [SILENCE] GEORGIE: … It is a bit. It’s not really my place to discuss it. ARCHIVIST: Oh, uh, therapy! You’re taking her to therapy! GEORGIE: She… told you, then? ARCHIVIST: Uh, yes. Yeah. […] GEORGIE: So… How are you doing? ARCHIVIST: I’m… I’m alright. I’m trying to, uh… rest up a bit. Take it easy. [HUFF] GEORGIE: Really? ‘Cause… I’m pretty sure I heard talking about a screaming headless corpse just now. ARCHIVIST: Oh… Oh. W–were you… listening? GEORGIE: Oh, uh. Didn’t mean to. You know. These… doors are not that thick. ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] … Fine. I’m deep in it. Had some… “close calls”. [SILENCE] GEORGIE: I’m sorry to hear that. [PAUSE] … You should probably get some therapy too. ARCHIVIST: [HUFF] Would you go with me as well? GEORGIE: … No. ARCHIVIST: Yeah. … No, I thought as much.

And… bitterly highlighting that Georgie wouldn’t Hold His Hand And Lead Him Through Therapy (and a bit implying that he would go if she was helping him, but only then)… felt like a really… bad thing to say? What has he done for Georgie for the past year and a half? She housed him for months! She gave him advice! She watched over him while he was in a coma! I find it astoundingly rude of him to even word the possibility of her helping him to get therapy because… yeah, he clearly was expecting a negative answer, but he put her in a position when she was the one who had to officially shoot him down. I understand the sadness and the bitterness but, honestly, with the knowledge that Jon is actually hurting people to feed on the sideline in order to feel good… it gives me the same vibe as entitled males expecting you to do their emotional labour and to sob over their life, who expect you to Accept Them For Who They Are although they’re doing terrible shit here and there.

(And it was… a typical Jon thing, too, but: he didn’t really ask Georgie how she was doing lately, on her side. And the more I see of them, the more, yeah, I understand perfectly why they might have broken up, or why Georgie just… doesn’t want to take care of him anymore, because she used to, and it’s always a one-sided relationship.)

(And it’s so easy to forget, also, in the way Jon interacts with Georgie… that he pulled her into his nightmare zoo. He might have still been unaware at the time he took her statement, but still: he did that to her, and never acknowledged it to her, although we had confirmation that He Knows about it, and knows what causes the dreams now. How could Georgie trust him, if he doesn’t even acknowledge it nor apologise to her for it…?)

I’m still really hoping that there is a twist, that this is all leading to something (Jon was awful in season 2, too! (Though called out on it, and it was in self-defence, because he thought a murderer was after him) – and the point is, he hurt Tim in the process, and this is why it was important narratively for Tim… to never forgive him), though ;; I’m fearing that it’s just wishful-thinking from me, because I… don’t… like… Jon… at all… at the moment… and am hoping that some bits are fake and/or will get improved… (It feels like… such a step back, with all the character development he had gotten in season 3? And it happened around the time he was getting closer to Daisy, who was helping him lighten up…?)

In that vein, the nagging about Elias could lead to something:

(MAG145) ARCHIVIST: Elias always seemed to know what was going on, to have a plan, but… I sometimes wonder how orchestrated some of it really was. … [SIGH]

(Every time Jon lamented about his lack of direction in this season, Elias pointed in a direction: removing Basira to get Jon to go inside of the coffin, sending Jon&Basira to Svalbard after Jon had been unable to See if The Dark was still a threat. So Elias might react to that one jab, and I would like to hope that Jon has picked up on the pattern and is beginning to guess that Elias is Basira’s intel… But at the same time, it’s Jon, he tends to Miss Big Points.)

- Georgie did the “Knock-knock”! ;w; It was something Melanie had done to Elias, and Elias did it to Tim&Martin afterwards… Melanie and Georgie are friends, is that a habit they got from each other?

- Jon dramatically minimised his own current actions to Georgie (pretending, at first, that he was… more in control and taking care, although LOL, it’s been a Power Feast since he woke up – even without taking into consideration the statements he has extorted recently), casually hid the fact that he only knew about Melanie’s therapy because he had compelled her… but Georgie also lied about the fact that she had “accidentally” walked on Jon:

(MAG145) [KNOCK–KNOCK–KNOCK.] [DOOR OPENS.] GEORGIE: Knock–knock! ARCHIVIST: Oh, G… G–Georgie… Wh– GEORGIE: Oh! Uh… ARCHIVIST: What a… You… GEORGIE: Sorry, I thought, em… Is Melanie about? […] ARCHIVIST: I’m… I’m alright. I’m trying to, uh… rest up a bit. Take it easy. [HUFF] GEORGIE: Really? ‘Cause… I’m pretty sure I heard talking about a screaming headless corpse just now. ARCHIVIST: Oh… Oh. W–were you… listening? GEORGIE: Oh, uh. Didn’t mean to. You know. These… doors are not that thick.

So she knew he was inside, and pretended otherwise to get a pretext to talk to him a bit… and yet, we clearly see that the bridge is broken between them at the moment. They’re still curious about the other, there is still something, that would need repair… and I’m not sure it ever will be. (And at the moment, I can definitely understand why it doesn’t work between them: because Jon is craving for a clutch, and doesn’t have… much to give, to people who are not having an Exceptionally Great Time either, and are survivors themselves. It’s one thing for them to offer their help, like Daisy did (and back then, Jon had been able to tell that the Archives team was “traumatised” and that a lot of is was because of him). But they don’t owe Jon anything, especially if he’s not working on improving or healing himself, and it’s really not their fault if Jon is allowing himself to sink at the moment – especially after Daisy had worked on pulling him up.)

- Hey! It’s “sad about Sasha” hours.

(MAG145) ARCHIVIST: I did some more digging into Eugene Vanderstock. I thought he was still alive and… working at the steel plant, but it looks like he’s just listed on one of the old directory pages on their website. … I really miss having people who know their way around a computer better than I do…! [PAUSE] A bit more digging found a rather… bizarre case.

Hacker of the group who used to dig things up so easily… ;; (And Tim could flirt his way into info.)

- Melanie is doing Amazing, sweetie ;w;

(MAG145) GEORGIE: Sorry, I thought, em… Is Melanie about? ARCHIVIST: Melanie…? Uh… Yeah, I… saw her a couple of hours ago. Uh, in the other office, I–I can show you…? GEORGIE: Oh, I’m… sure I can find it. Don’t worry yourself. ARCHIVIST: A–all right. [SPLUTTERS] W–why are you, uh… well. Here? I–if it’s not too personal a question. [SILENCE] GEORGIE: … It is a bit. It’s not really my place to discuss it. ARCHIVIST: Oh, uh, therapy! You’re taking her to therapy! GEORGIE: She… told you, then? ARCHIVIST: Uh, yes. Yeah. GEORGIE: … Well, you don’t need to sound quite so psyched about it. She gets… nervous travelling there alone. ARCHIVIST: [INHALE] Yes, o–o–of course. I–I forget you two know each other.

On the one hand: yes, that therapist gave me the creeps, the whole tape recorder thing was suspicious as hell, we haven’t heard from Melanie directly since then, she’s been described as “quiet”, the fact that she doesn’t like to go there alone… all are worrisome and screaming “Web!” a bit.

On the other hand: Melanie has been going outside, is calmer, is able to call on a willing friend for help… and it sounds like Actual Therapy Actually Helping Her To Get Some Inner Peace?

So wait&see, but I wouldn’t rule out (entirely) that it might be actual therapy at work, here.

(A detail on the Archives’ landscape, too: there are actually two offices! Jon’s and… another.)

- HMMMM, so: the whole episode contained the fact that The Web manipulated an Archivist, an Archivist who was resisting against their own patron and got tied to another avatar who also might have had Reservations about their own god (so two Fears neutralising each other?); avatars who were roughly the same age; one of them being described as an “anchor” for the other, despite the distance…

… Martin, where are you, and does The Web have plans for you and Jon, too…

MAG146 is out and OUUUUUUUUUUUUUFFFFF, siren alarms, I guess??? Especially when it’s about the potential second meaning (… though, at this point, with Jon-since-MAG141, I’d think we’re way past “that point” from MAG146′s title, and deeper than this).

Interesting concept because it appeared on multiple occasions: it was because of it that Naomi started to see the Lonely field in MAG013, Albrecht had noticed a change around it in MAG023, Jason North’s doom started with it in MAG037, Philip Brown pointed out that The Dark was beginning with it in MAG052, Tim mentioned things changing starting around it in MAG104… And, of course, it screams Jon-Jon-Jon (heck, Elias even described Jon’s behaviour around metaphorical ones in MAG092 in his Speech about how Jon had chosen everything (INFORMED CONSENT SAID HI, BASTARD.)); or The Distortion, since the concept had appeared a lot around it (things changing with it in MAG047; Michael using it to describe his Becoming in MAG101; Helen mentioning it in relation to Jon and his fears in MAG143).

So. Spiral statement? Or something about resistance/tolerance? … Jon visiting Elias in prison? *weeps* (Second meaning potentially ;; if it is about Jon…)

#1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #mag145 #the magnus archives #tma liveblog #tma season 4 #long post/ #tma spoilers/ #*insert megumi hayashibara's 'midgnight blue' here*

[dragonsword]

My thoughts on the budding Bodkin-Wish-Xar love triangle

BOOK 2 SPOILERS BELOW!!!

Ok so I've been thinking about this bc as we all know, love triangles are risky. They're overdone, icky, and just generally unpleasant. Or at least, I've never seen a love triangle executed in a a way that was not gross, and I know a lot of people feel the same. And in this case, I lovelovelove Wish, Bodkin, and Xar as individuals and I LOVE their friendship.

HOWEVER

After reading the how to train your dragon series time and time again over the years, and after reading Wizards of Once and Twice Magic, I pretty much have learned to just trust that anything and everything Cressida Cowell hints at will turn out amazing. I also know that she has a way of insinuating something that ends up being completely different from what I imagined. Honestly I completely trust that she's not making a bad decision, and maybe this love triangle won't even be relevant later on (although it probably will; she likely wouldn't have brought it up at all if it was irrelevant, and the context in which it was mentioned makes it pretty clear that it'll play a significant role later on.) Regardless of how important this love triangle becomes to the plot, I firmly trust that Cressida Cowell will execute it wonderfully, exceeding all our expectations, just like she always does.

FURTHERMORE, (THESE NEXT THOUGHTS ARE MORE MY PERSONAL PREFERENCE, AND STRAY FROM THE LOVE TRIANGLE THING)

Although the WoO fandom is tiny right now, the accounts that I have seen are all against a Wish/Xar romance. Everyone says that their friendship is wonderful and a romance would ruin their platonic love for each other. Before reading the second book, I completely agreed, 100%. Also, a romance between them obviously wouldn't work if their parents ended up falling back in love and getting married, but that seems quite far-fetched, although we never know with Cressida Cowell lol. However, after reading Twice Magic, I was genuinely surprised that no one shipped Wish and Xar, regardless of how I felt about the pairing. I figured people would go CRAZY shipping them!!! And this is getting into my own bias now, but I honestly shipped them super hard after the second book. While I understand how precious and underrated good friendships are, I think Wish and Xar are adorable as friends AND as a couple, but NOT YET!!!!!!!! After all, these are 13-year-olds!!! Who've only known each other for a short amount of time!!!! While I would LOVE to see a Wish/Xar romance, I think that they need to first continue building up their friendship. But eventually if they did get together down the road, I think it would be adorable. They make each other feel happy, and they love being around each other. They're not afraid to argue or bicker because they're secure in their friendship, and when Xar and Wish are together, their belief in each other strengthens their belief in themselves. They both have self-esteem issues deriving from their perceived shortcomings (Xar's lack of Magic and Wish's inability to please her mother and conform to the "proper" Warrior personality), but when they team up they help each other see that they are enough. Wish helps Xar learn that he has behaviors he needs to work on but it's all part of who he is. She helps him see that his actions will have consequences but while he should try to do what's right, when he does make a mistake she'll be there (along with Caliburn, Bodkin and the other companions) to help him clean up whatever mess he makes. (Not to clean up his mess for him, but to help him learn accountability and to guide him when he needs help. He is still growing up and learning, after all.) Xar helps Wish see that she doesn't have to conform to who she's expected to be in order to be someone worth being proud of. For example, while at home she's belittled for her inability to spell*, when she's with Xar and his companions, she's immersed into this world of people who don't care about spelling. Xar also helps her see that she shouldn't have to conform because being true to herself is more important than meeting her mother's expectations for what she should be. (Insert that avengers quote about Thor being who he Is instead of who he's Meant To Be lol) Xar helps Wish see herself in a new light, and that new light highlights her "flaws" as the things that make her worth loving herself and worth being loved by others. Of course, there are other people in Xar's and Wish's respective lives that also have a positive impact. Xar has Caliburn, the sprites, snowcats, and others, who are always by his side when he needs them, despite the risk to themselves. They all go waaaay above and beyond for Xar. Wish has Spoon, who we all obviously love, and Bodkin, who started out as not that encouraging (in the first book when he told her she should try to be more normal) but now, as her close friend, is one of her biggest supporters. However, (and I'm not saying that these characters' support isn't worth as much, because it is) none of these companions impact Xar and Wish the way they impact one another. Something about the way Xar and Wish relate to each other so much despite coming from opposite worlds makes for an incredibly unique and special friendship.

Speaking of Bodkin, some people ship him and Wish or him and Xar. I don't really see him and Xar together or him and Wish together because they're just too different (I know "opposites attract" but there's a line, and they would cross it.) I think that while Xar's and Wish's never-sit-still attitude and stubborn tenacity would at first seem endearing to Bodkin, eventually Bodkin would just get worn down from the anxiety of it all. After all, we know that Bodkin's true passion is not actually bodyguarding but storytelling. While he would absolutely accompany Wish and Xar on any and all ridiculous adventures, I think a relationship with him and either Wish or Xar, realistically, just wouldn't make as much sense, and I say this with their futures in mind: as adults, would Bodkin tire of this stressful lifestyle? While his crush on Wish is adorable and I want him to have all the happiness in the world, I PERSONALLY just favor Wish/Xar over Wish/Bodkin or Bodkin/Xar.

With all of this being said, I trust that whatever path Cressida Cowell takes, it will turn out beautiful. If she chooses to have a Xar/Wish romance, a Xar/Bodkin romance, a Bodkin/Wish romance, a different romance, or no romance at all, I will be happy. I'm not against anything despite the preferences I've discussed.

Tl;dr I know we all think this love triangle is a bad idea but Cressida Cowell has never done us wrong so I trust her completely to flesh this out in a good way.

*Love love love the dyslexia rep! i am not dyslexic but i know that having this rep is an amazing thing and i'm so happy Cressida Cowell did this!!! i could make a whole other post about this but someone else (whos actually dyslexic!) already did lol. I forget their url (so sorry!!) but it's a great post

#Cressida cowell #wizards of once #Xar #Wish #Bodkin #twice magic #wizards of once: twice magic #twoo #twoo: twice magic

[sunnisms]

╰ ☀ ✧ ˖ SON NAEUN. CISFEMALE. SHE/HER. ‖ EVEN AFTER LEAVING, SHE STILL LINGERS ‖ have you seen SUNHEE ‘SUNNI’ SONG at the beach recently? i remember them being so VIVACIOUS, but they seemed a little IN DENIAL today. it must be tough going through such hard times at only TWENTY-TWO years old. even then, they still remind me of CANDID POLAROID PICTURES, SECRET KISSES IN THE DRESSING ROOM, BLACK SILK DRESSES, AND FITS OF LAUGHTER. 

tw: mental & emotional abuse, loss of a family member, depression

background !

so sunni never goes by her first name, and if you ever call her by her first name it better be for something REAL serious otherwise she’ll slap you ok

comes from a family of four sisters, with her being the second youngest and oH YEAH she rebelled pretty hard growing up. it was mainly because her father passed away due to a car crash when she was only about two or three ? her youngest sister was just a baby and her mother completely broke down and just stopped functioning as a human being

her oldest sister had to grow up SUPER fast and was basically the mother sunni and her siblings needed. she didn’t make it easy for her two oldest sisters, but she loves her family dearly but despises her mother for giving up the way she did and basically give up on living and not being apart of this family anymore

seeing her mother do that after losing someone she loved did leave a mental block in sunni’s mind when it came to love. the thought of giving her all to someone like that was TERRIFYING so while growing up sunni simply dated here and there, mostly just for  the hell of it and quickly dumped them a few months later

honestly sunni doesn’t let a relationship go longer than two months. she feels anything longer than that and real feelings start to develop and that’s just disguesting y’know ?

so yeah, she sleeps around QUIET a bit, i mean when she lost that v-card, the girl went kind of crazy ( she found out she was bisexual when she was fifteen and has a hUGE weakness for girls ok )

growing up, sunni also found her love in photography. candid pictures are her favorite, just capturing moments and people by surprise, she feels it really show cases true emotions. she also loves taking pictures of landscapes and has gone on multiple road trips with her friends just to add more pictures to her collection

sunni was diagnosed with adhd as a child, so school wasn’t the easiest time for her. she could never stay still and loved talking over the teacher, so she def wasn’t a teachers pet and got called to the principles office at least three times a week so that was fun

there were a lot of times sunni did some pretty reckless things, mainly b/c she just thought i’d make for a good story, but mainly to see if it would trigger something in her mother and sadly it never did so she just kind of gave up on that and doesn’t really refer to her mother as her mother, but really as just “that corpse that sits in her bedroom all day” waaaay harsh sunni, i know

sunni had been trying to get into the photography business by selling her work and even wanting to work for some kind of big top magazine company but it was proving to be harder than she thought and suddenly money was growing tighter and tighter and she was tired of living off her sisters sOOO what else does a beautiful woman like sunni do to earn a lot of cash fast ?

ya she that basic bish that turned to stripping, woo ! and let’s just say that sunni kind of, sort of, L O V E S it tbh, it makes her feel so alive and sexy and she’s just very confident with her body and sexuality and who knew she was so good at dancing ??

and i know what you’re thinking, mama rose, pls don’t tell me she mets her ex at the strip club bUT YES SHE MEETS HER EX AT THE STRIP CLUB but plot twist, her ex was also a stripper with her

she taught sunni all the tricks and tools to stripping, what to do and what not to do and the two became pretty close due to having similar backstories. at first they would just hang out and do harmless flirting, and one drunk night they ended up sleeping together and sunni didn’t think much of it cause she’s done that plenty of times, only it wasn’t just a one time thing. they did it often and the next thing sunni knew, they were doing it while sober and feelings started to arise and sunni was FREAKING DA FCK OUT

and she tried to push this girl away ( we’ll call her…ophelia, why not ) but ophelia wouldn’t let her, she fought back and told sunni she cared for her and before she knew it, the two were dating and sunni had never felt happier ?

they knew stripping was just a job and they knew who they’d be coming home to at the end of the day. the relationship passed two months, and sunni knew it was something real. three, four, eight months pass and things seemed to be getting better and better…until they got into a huge fight one night. and ophelia began to say harsh things that really threw sunni for loop. how sunni was a failure as a photographer, and that she would end up like her mother if she ever left ophelia: completely broken and worthless

and for some reason sunni believed her, so she apologized and she stayed. and even tho ophelia began to cheat, began to degrade sunni’s photos and comment on how she was gaining a few pounds, sunni stayed because she felt that was truly all she deserved.

until a few months ago when she finally find her voice and stood up to ophelia after the final straw was taken. it was one of the worst nights of sunni’s life, but soon enough, her ex was packing her bags and moving out, quitting her job at the strip club and left town without a word. sunni was finally physically free from her ex’s grip, however her harsh words and strong grip still haunt her to this day.

of course sunni ain’t gonna show anyone she’s suffering mentally, like honestly i don’t think sunni would have ever told anyone about how ophelia truly was, she’d just make ppl think they simply felt out of love and she moved away and sunni is just like eh, it happens, who wants to sleep w/ me now that i’m a free woman asdlkfjlskd

so now she’s currently working on her photography and trying to get her work out there while also slaying at the club and making that dough. she’s a very outgoing and energetic person that doesn’t really have a filter but has a HUGE heart of gold. 

wanted connections !

some regulars that visit her at the club

one night stands / fwb ( she’s got A LOT ) 

roommate(s) !

a muse, someone she takes pictures of quite a bit and they don’t mind too much

platonic soulmates ( a personal fave ) these two love each other dearly, always down for a cuddle session and watching some disney movies but it’s all very platonic and soft 

besties, give her all the besties !! 

maybe someone who’s close to one of her sisters ? 

one sided crush, someone who has the icky feels for sunni and she just doesn’t feel the same but doesn’t know hot to reject them nicely

bad influence, someone who goes along with sunni’s crazy ideas and even adds to it 

good influence, someone who brings sunni back down to earth and keeps her a little more stable 

someone who was close to her ex ophelia ? 

someone who sunni is/did help out w/ coming to terms with their sexuality 

aaaannnddd that’s all i can think of atm, but i’m honestly down for anything <3

#tsunamintro #i said i was gonna change up sunni's relationship w/ her ex #but then i was like naahhh let's just...be lazy and leave it lol #tw: mental abuse #tw: depression #tw: loss of family member

[starnatural0667]

Um so wrote a thing....at 5 in the morning...please read?

So, I have this problem with Dean’s NOT farewell tour. Maybe other people do too, so maybe this can give you a reason as to explain. I should mention this has some destiel exposing? Questioning? Perhaps, answering? In it. For starters, let me draw your attention back to season 11, specifically the season finale: Alpha and Omega. We all know the basis of the plot for that episode being Dean sacrificing himself to save the world from Amara. We also saw the whole farewell tour Dean did in the cemetery. Bearing this in mind, this is what I will be using to compare with Season 14, and more specifically, episodes 11 and 12.

Dean’s plan to avoid Michael taking over and burning the world is to build a special box and sink to the bottom of the ocean, never to be seen again. However, its Dean choice not to go on a farewell tour that…bothers me. As viewers know, and as I’ve just resurfaced, Dean sacrificing himself on previous occasions actually does include a farewell tour; See Seasons 5 and 11. So why would Dean have such a problem with doing it now? This is where my issues begin to involve. You might be saying “Oh, maybe he’s just tired of saying goodbye to the people he cares about.” Trust me, I hear you. I definitely believe Dean doesn’t want to have to say goodbye anymore, evident from him stating in 14x12 that he’s “not good with the whole big goodbyes.” However, isn’t saying goodbye to your family a hell of a lot bigger than saying goodbye to your best friend and “son”? Hopefully, you now understand my problem with the whole no farewell tour. Dean is a very complex character. He hides most of his emotions nearly all the time, but the ones he always, always hides are his feelings and his neglection to being vulnerable. Prophet and Loss was an episode full of emotional rollercoasters, many being seen from Dean. You can tell by watching the episode that he is, quite rightly, scared to carry out his plan and emotional about leaving his family. We have the whole reminiscing about he and Sam when they were younger and specifically Dean apologizing to Sam for not always being there. Now riddle me this, if Dean can have this emotional talk with Sam where they’re both almost reduced to tears by the end, why can’t he say goodbye to Cass and Jack? “Because Sam’s his brother!”, and “Sam’s the only other person apart from Mary that he told his plan to!” This reaffirms my point about how honestly ridiculous Dean’s no farewell tour situation is! If there is anyone in Dean Winchester’s entire life who could convince him not to do something, it would be Sam (See end of 14x12). So, the fact that Dean trusts Sam with his plan and expects him not to be convinced otherwise shows that he absolutely will not change his mind. It shows that Dean believes that Sam cannot change his mind.

Now, to fully understand the weight of my problem, we have to look at reasons as to why Dean didn’t mention his plan or say goodbye to Cass and Jack. I’ll begin with Jack first. I am going to mainly focus on the beginning of season 14, or when Jack gets sick. He and Dean go on road trip so Jack can “experience the life.” This episode also gives us a heartfelt moment between Dean and Jack which provides reason that they each think of the other as family and love one another. Skip back to Dean’s NOT farewell tour, where he doesn’t tell Jack or say goodbye. Why? Why would Dean not say goodbye to Jack? He was prepared to help Jack accept his growing sickness and eventual death…so why didn’t he plan on saying goodbye?

Now here comes the really fun part! Getting to investigate why Dean wouldn’t tell or say goodbye to Castiel. Dean’s known Cass a while now…10 years to be exact. They’ve had their ups and downs as all characters on a Tv show do. Cass in widely regarded as Dean’s best friend and don’t forget that profound bond! My point is, Castiel is family to Dean.

Remember that season 11 parallel I mentioned? Let’s expand…Dean says his farewells to everyone in the cemetery, before going to his presumed death. Dean’s farewell to Cass is sad but beautiful, and one of many peoples favourite destiel scenes. After a hug, Cass says he could go with Dean which Dean answers no, but instead asks Cass to take of Sam because he will be broken up. The point I truly want to get across here is that Dean can say goodbye to Cass. Yes, he’s emotional about it and we have a “thank you, for everything” line the kills me every time but…he still says goodbye. Fast forward to Prophet and Loss and…you get nothing. Dean doesn’t mention his plan to Cass or say goodbye, not even a phone call. Instead, we thankfully have Sam relaying information to Cass. Bless your soul Sam. Why can’t Dean say goodbye? It’s not like Cass can magically transport to Dean and try and stop him. There would be absolutely nothing Cass could do…other than talk Dean out of it. But hey! I’ve already said that the only person that could ever make Dean change his mind is Sam…right? To us viewers, most of us know that Sam just has that ability to stop Dean from doing something stupid, and for a while I think Dean knew that too. However, I believe the most recent episode showed us that Dean doesn’t think Sam can stop him. No matter how much trust Dean has in Sam and no matter how much they love each other, Dean doesn’t think Sam can change his mind.

This is now where I turn into a “DelUsioNAl destiel shipper who reads into things waaaay too much;)” Perhaps the reason Dean didn’t tell Castiel was because he thought that Cass could talk him out of it. Maybe the reason Dean thought this is because he realizes that something has changed between them. Maybe Dean didn’t want to say goodbye because of all the times he’d done it, this could have been the one where he’d actually say what he felt; what he now realizes concerning his feelings which would make it even harder to carry out his plan. You may remember back in season 5 when Dean was planning on saying yes to Michael, Cass was having none of it! We all saw how Castiel, Angel of the Lord, beat Dean Winchester up because he was going to give into Heaven’s orders. We all know the lines Castiel spoke in that ally, on that rainy night. But still, Dean planned on saying yes to Michael. Not until the capture of Adam (who?) did Dean detour from his plans. Looking back on this, the parallels between seasons 5 and 14 are quite strong, but it appears the meaning has changed. There is plenty of evidence in the most recent seasons to show how Dean and Cass’s relationship has evolved. There’s enough to suggest that Dean himself has noticed that change, even if he doesn’t admit it. We all know that for almost the entirety of Cass’s decisions made on the show, they heavily revolve around one thing; Dean Winchester. I think all destiel shippers know that the first acknowledgement of anything truly foundational in Dean and Castiel’s relationship, was because of choices Cass has made. Plus, we have proper evidence to suggest that Castiel truly loves Dean from way back in the 80s of the show. You can say we have evidence for Dean as well, however, I personally feel that that evidence didn’t present itself until the later seasons of the show; ergo, seasons 10-14. To sum it up, the only reason there would be a difference between Dean’s goodbye to Cass in season 11 and his goodbye in season 14 is if something had changed in their relationship. Something that Dean see’s and understands which would affect his choices regarding his plan. Which is why I choose this to be the reason for Dean not saying goodbye.

In conclusion, I still don’t really understand the reason for Dean not telling Cass…and Jack about his plan or saying goodbye, however as you know, I have come up with some great reasons as to explain this bizarre phenomenon. I guess realistically I should just blame the writing…or maybe thank it.

Alas…my rambling is over.

#destiel #supernatural #spn spoilers #dean winchester #castiel #supernatural 14x12 #deancas #spn prophet and loss #help me #please give it read? #spn meta #destiel meta #spn #spn 14x12

[ryuunosenshi]

How would you feel about a Kiriya as Ultraman Zero's host au?

I would die.

It would absolutely kill me.

Seriously, if something like that ever gets written or filmed I need a warning months in advance so I can make sure my will is up to date before I expose myself to that. XD

But when it comes to how I think Kiriya and Zero would interact and feel about the whole situation… Let’s see..

(I’m picturing this as how it could happen in the ex-aid canon and timeline)

I don’t think Kiriya would be very happy about it, especially if Zero just made the decision on his own to take him as a host without asking or at the very least introducing himself first. (something I can’t really fault Zero for since the decision between taking a host and not is often a split second, life or death decision.)

And if it happens at the height of Kiriya’s “welp, seems like the only way to fix this is sacrificing myself it seems” - moments, and Zero’s just like “Hey guess what, with me you can’t die! 😃 Great huh?”. Then I would imagine Kiriya to be quite pissed. Even though Zero’s waaaay more powerful and can handle himself just fine, Kiriya doesn’t need another person to feel responsible for, especially when he already feels like he has to carry the weight of the whole world on his shoulders alone. Maybe he would (reluctantly) roll with it in the beginning and use Zero(’s powers) to his own advantage.

But since he has such a big heart he would grow to like him, they both have a similar cockiness and playfulness to them (hence why I love them both so much. Surprise!), and they would work together really well in battle. Though they would still clash and disagree with the actions and methods leading up to a battle. Zero’s much more of a “punch now, ask questions later” and would deal with everything that’s handed to him head on, while Kiriya is much sneakier, he would spy on or blackmail the badguys, letting them think they have the upper hand before pulling the rug from underneath them.

So when presented with a potential fight, Zero’s like; “Oh you wanna fight, huh?! Let’s go!!” and Kiriya often has to restrain him, trying to explain to him that if they go this other (much much longer) way, they could get more information that would be useful in a fight as well as later down the road. Safe to say, Zero’s not happy about it, so when it eventually does come to a battle, you’ll be sure Zero throws everything he’s got at whoever’s in front of him.

Oh, and there would def have been moments where Kiriya feels guilt for being Zero’s host. Learning how Ultra’s can heal people and bring them back from the brink of death can’t help him but feeling like how, if only Zero had appeared sooner, Jungo could’ve been saved.

Now, as to how I think Zero would feel about Kiriya. He would certainly find him an interesting person and he admires Kiriya’s intelligence. He doesn’t agree with Kiriya’s “I must do this alone and sacrifice myself” mentality. Especially the “doing it alone” part. As an Ultra he knows all about putting your life on the line and sacrificing yourself to save innocents but he also knows you can’t fight without the support of others. And I also feel like Zero just wouldn’t like a human to be self-sacrificing in general, as it’s the job of an Ultra to protect, if needed at the cost of their own life.

But despite their disagreeance on certain things, they would make a great team and care a lot about each other. And when it comes time to part ways and say goodbye, they’d both play it cool but they’d miss each other a lot.

Also, there might or might not have been a moment where they messed with Kuroto just for the fun of it. Think giant Ultra playing whack-a-mole with a tiny, furious, screaming, but still pretty scared for his life, self-proclaimed god.

Ok, I think that’s just about all of my thoughts on it at the moment, sorry it turned out so long and rambly ^^“ (I really hope it makes sense and all my thoughts are coherent) but thanks so much for asking and planting that beautiful image in my mind 💜

#ask #anon #anonymous #Ngl #The moment I read the question my heart skipped a couple of beats xD #Just the thought of my two greatest loves in one room would be too much #Throw in an Ultra/Host situation and I can die happy xD #I really hope it's not too rambly #I'm not great at putting thoughts into written words since my mind and emotions are often going 500mph #So it's hard to hold onto one single thought or headcannon long enough to write it down and have it make sense in the bigger picture

[thotyssey]

On Point With: Doris Dear

A darling of the city’s cabaret stages, Doris Dear is the creation of Staten Island-born actor Ray DeForest and is based on his fascinating mom Taffy. While rarely mixing it up with New York’s nightlife drag stars, Doris has a huge and diverse following all her own. She returns to the Triad Theater this week with a brand new Christmas show... join Thotyssey as we get down with Ms. Dear!

Thotyssey: Hello Ray / Doris, thanks for talking to us tonight! How is the holiday month treating you so far?

Doris Dear: It’s been a crazy, busy, joyous month so far, and there is still lot’s to come! Oh ...hi by the way! 

Hello! Here's an important question... what do you think about the sudden demonizing of "Baby It's Cold Outside?"

Well, my usual take on life as a whole is that if a group is being offended by something then we should respect that. The language we use is constantly changing. Keeping up with things is never easy.

That said, this one I think may take things out of context. If you look at almost any song written 74 years ago, you could look at it as being offensive. Viewing life in the past through a modern lens is difficult. Yet, an overwhelming majority requested not to pull it. So what do we do now? It’s a tightrope to walk, and never an a easy one.

I do think that context is a lost sense these days! So okay, let's put you in some context! Like your character Doris, you're a Staten Island native, right?

Yes, born and raised on the Island of Staten!

How was that for you? I think of SI as being so culturally unique and distant from the other boroughs. Even the accent is so different!

LOL. Yes it is. Staten Islanders are a breed altogether, different than the rest of the boroughs. I do think each borough has it’s own particular identity. 

I just turned 60! Growing up on the Island in the late 50’s, 60’s and 70’s was really wonderful -- when the Island was still underdeveloped, and there were small neighborhoods and lots of open land to explore. I spent my childhood wandering the woods, catching salamanders and watching turtles and native birds, playing hide-and-seek and “superheros” with the neighborhood kids. Luckily, I had a mother and father that really liked the city. My mom was a fashion model in the late 40’s and early 50’s before she met my dad. She loved taking me and my sister into the city and showing us that world.

Now... that accent! LOL it is thick! We have the strange ‘a” sound that is very particular to the Islanders. When I was in college, my acting teacher drilled me hard to develop a more “Mid-West reporter” sound! The classic SI accent is heard when we say “The Staten Island Advance.” Instead of adVANCE, like most people, we say ADvance! 

Yes that's it precisely! So, it was at college when you started theater, or earlier?

Well, I did a high school musical at St Josephs Hill Academy when I was a senior. They needed a tall guy to be opposite a girl that was a lead in their show ... so I was the right height! And in college, I got cast in a show freshman year because I was a swimmer and they needed a good, tall, muscular body to wear pink hot pants as a guard in Jesus Christ Superstar. So it seems my body got me cast in the beginning! After that show, I decided to give it a try and started studying theater.

Tell us about the creation of Doris, and where she first appeared.

Well, really she came about 5 years ago when my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. She was such a light in my life, and many other peoples’ lives. I had always told stories about my parents Taffy and Duke (yes, real names). They were the life of the party. So, to deal with the loss, I decided to do what I know best, and that was to take her story to the stage. I wrote a theatrical cabaret show, and when I tried rehearsing it as Ray, I realized it didn’t really feel right. So I decided to create Doris Dear, who would be Taffy’s daughter, who she is teaching everything she knows to be America’s Perfect Housewife. By doing it as a drag character, it opened up the story telling in a way I could never do as Ray. 

I had not done a ton of drag, but really for me it is just another character I do as a professional actor. I thought I would do one show at The Triad Theater and sell maybe 20 tickets. Well, it sold out... and the theater asked me back, and we sold out 4 shows over 2 months. After talking with my director and musical director, and with the backing of Sydney Myer at Don’t Tell Mama, we developed the show for 6 months. Then we took it on the road and now it has become a staple in the cabaret world... The Doris Dear Specials!

So, Doris is talking about your / her mother, but Doris herself is also actually based on your mother. 

Completely! And all the stories I tell are true. They are all based on my mom. I use magazines and other pop culture items to illustrate those stories and songs, like magazines, recipe books and actual items my mom made... like handbags!

Did your mom have that swooping hair, and those glasses, too?

HA! Yes. She totally had the hair and glasses later in life; she always took them off for pictures. The look is all Taffy!

Do you find that audiences of all ages respond to Doris in the same way... or that she might be too "old-fashioned" for younger audiences to understand?

Well, it’s been interesting watching my audience grow and change. At first, it wasn’t exactly a younger audience. It was mostly straight married couples over 40. The husbands really loved Doris; I represent their mothers! Then slowly, the younger people started discovering this slice of life that Doris lives in. I talk a lot about old NYC. The restaurants, the theaters, the shows etc. They love hearing and seeing that. They also love hearing about the “old rules” that women lived by. Now it is truly a mix of all ages. I have some dedicated 15 year-olds that make their parents bring them to every show! I don’t curse or talk “blue.” I try to have an overall positive energy and message.

Would you ever perform in the bars? I can't really picture Doris as Gaga and, like, Shequida as Beyonce doing "Telephone.” Actually wait, that would be amazing!

LOL... can you imagine!? Look, I grew up as a gay man in the NYC bar culture. I came out when I was 16! That would be 1974! I loved bar culture: a place to feel safe, meet people, and more. I grew up when drag queens, leather guys and preppy men all gathered together. I used to produce large club events as well. Being a part of gay culture has always been important to me. 

Now I feel waaaay too old to do bar performing. Honestly... I’m in bed before those shows are even starting! I try to get out now and then to see all the queens out there, and there are some wonderful queens performing every week. I don’t know how they do it! I am also a terrible lip sync artist. I’m awful. And I haven’t done a slip in years! LOL

I bet it's like riding a bike! So, do you actually consider yourself a drag queen, or like you said earlier -- you are an actor, and Doris is just one character you do who happens to be in drag?

When I first started doing shows, I never said “drag queen" -- only because when people hear it was a “drag show,” they had a certain expectation of what it would be. Those people would come and not enjoy it. I called it a “theatrical cabaret” hosted by a Housewife. I gave up on that, though. I sat with the amazing Charles Busch, and we discussed this very thing. I came to the realization that saying I am a drag queen is actually an honor. We are an elite bunch of men that are proud. I have always said it takes a real man to do drag! 

Well said, queen! So Doris' best-known shows are usually the ones for Mothers Day and Christmas, and the latter is coming up this week: The Doris Dear Christmas Special at the Triad Theater, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday at 7pm! Tell us what we can expect this time around!

Well, it’s a whole new show this year. I absolutely love the Christmas shows. It is a time of year that people really want to feel happy, and we give them that in the show. The premise is that people are coming into my rumpus room and sharing a cocktail and story and song with Doris Dear. I have the most amazing singers who come in and visit. I actually had a cast and band rehearsal today, and I was knocked over by the sound. Simply amazing. Everyone in the show are award-winning singers and musicians. I am really honored that they choose to be a part of the show. You will hear stories of growing up with Taffy and Duke and how we celebrated Christmas. Nothing fills my heart more than honoring them each time I walk on stage!

That sounds absolutely perfect! Anything else we should mention?

I am honestly just so happy at this point in my life I still get to do what I love. I work a lot with other actors through my union SAG/AFTRA. I Serve on the LGBT National Committee and the Sexual Harassment Presidents Working Group to create safe spaces for our members. I try to encourage people to live an authentic life! Finally, what's the number one thing on your list for Santa this year... and what tops Doris' list?

Well, Ray hopes that Santa brings him yet another successful year of shows. And Doris has a bottle of Dewars on her list for all those Whiskey Sours she loves! 

Thank you Ray / Doris... have a great show and Happy Holidays!

Check Thotyssey’s calendar for Doris Dear’s upcoming appearances, and follow her on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube, plus her website.

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