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lightandfellowship · 19 days

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It took a really long time but I finally settled on Dream Eater teams for the upperclassmen + Baldr. (Dream Eaters in these images do not reflect their actual sizes.)

As usual here are the explanations under the read more:

Vidar

Aura Lion (primary): I really wanted to give Vidar a wolf Dream Eater because of the mythological Vidar's connection to Fenrir, but alas there are no wolf Dream Eaters in this game (which is very surprising to me; seems like an obvious choice?). I felt a lion Dream Eater was the closest thing, and a lion's reputation for being the "king of the jungle" fits Vidar's leader role and his pursuit of Kingdom Hearts. This Dream Eater is also a Light type, which is perfect for Vidar who is fiercely loyal to the Light. It's one of the most powerful Dream Eaters as well with a lot of Light attacks and support abilities, which fits a powerful leader who watches out for those under him.

Juggle Pup (secondary): I'll admit, I had a hard time picking Vidar's second Dream Eater. What convinced me to pick this guy is its color scheme, gambling theme, and its description. It's primarily blue and yellow which nicely matches the colors in Vidar's design. And much like this Dream Eater, Vidar "took a risky gamble" on Kingdom Hearts. Its description also says "their poker faces are hard to read", which I think fits Vidar as well (just look at how straight-faced he is when Vor despairingly talks about her emotional issues, haha).

Vala

Peepsta Hoo (primary): Because owls are considered wise. And this Dream Eater has an ability where it "scans" enemies for weaknesses to exploit (along with having a name that evokes "looking/peeping at something"), which fits the "vision" thing Vala has going on, along with how she watched Urd from afar to assess her abilities. This Dream Eater also uses a lot of elemental magic attacks (as well as some light magic despite being Dark type) which fits how Vala primarily uses magic. Finally, it has a link attack called "Fly-By Knight" which will be relevant…right now.

Lord Kyroo (secondary): Mostly because of my knightly Vala headcanons I've talked about before (tbh "samurai" could probably work too and would perhaps be more fitting; I just go with the European knight thing because of her debuting in Beast's Castle and because I'm more familiar with knights.) That being said, its description does call it a "smartypants" for some reason, which I think fits her. The clear reference to the Frog Prince fairytale also works well with her debuting in Beast's Castle since the Beast is also an enchanted prince turned into something "ugly". And of course this Dream Eater uses magic.

Vali

Me Me Bunny (primary): Me Me Bunny is the closest thing to a ninja-themed Dream Eater due to its appearance/body language and its description saying it knows "bun fu". (I know, not Japanese). It is Physical-attribute which fits how Vali uses physical attacks.

Kooma Panda (secondary): Gonna be honest, not much logical reason for this one, I just think they would make an adorable team. I'm imagining Vali taking naps on Kooma Panda's belly and them climbing trees together. That said, color-wise, I think Kooma Panda's blue-green claws match Vali's eyes extremely well. Oh, and it's a Physical and Light type; I don't think I need to explain why Light types are good for the upperclassmen in general, haha.

Heimdall

Cera Terror (primary): Mostly just because this Dream Eater's crest (head) resembles the shape of Heimdall's collar. I just love it when people visually resemble their pets in some way, whether in shape or color scheme or vibe. Once again, this one is a Physical and Light type.

Skelterwild (secondary): I wanted to pick a rainbow Dream Eater as a reference to the mythological Heimdall who guards the rainbow bridge "Bifrost" (funnily enough this Dream Eater is ice-themed as well…"frost" is in the name Bifrost, even if it doesn't actually mean that. It can just be a silly pun, y'know). And yeah I guess our Heimdall gets to have a dino theme for his Dream Eaters.

Helgi

Keeba Tiger (primary): I knew I wanted either Aura Lion or Keeba Tiger for him because of these animals being considered strong, scary, and wild, but I think the ice age theming of a saber-tooth tiger better fits how Helgi looks like he's dressed for the cold with those furs of his. In addition, its ability link board includes a lot of attack boosts and attack hastes which fits Helgi's confrontational personality. Plus, much like Aura Lion this Dream Eater is just pretty powerful in general.

Tyranto Rex (secondary): For a lot of the same reasons as above: it's large, powerful, imposing, and wild. (I guess I accidentally went for an "extinct" theme here.) One of its dispositions is called "Tyrant" (and Keeba Tiger has one called "Conquerer") which fits how Helgi thinks force is acceptable for maintaining righteous order. Both of his Dream Eaters use fire attacks, coincidentally.

Sigrun

Wheeflower (primary): Wheeflower's head shape actually perfectly matches the flower shape on Sigrun's sleeves. But yes, I chose this one because of the flower theme. I also really like the headcanon from user rosie-kairi that Sigrun is distantly related to Lauriam and Strelitzia, and wouldn't you know it this Dream Eater is not only a flower, it also has a dandelion themed attack. It also has access to Protect and Shell which fits how Sigrun jumped in front of Heimdall to protect him from Dragon Maleficent.

Eaglider (secondary): I wanted to pick a Dream Eater that could reference how the mythological Sigrun was a Valkyrie, and I think this one works well for that. Its head shape is very helmet-esque, and I frequently see Valkries depicted with feathered wings.

Hoder

Pegaslick (primary): It was absolutely necessary to me that Hoder have at least one Light type Dream Eater, so here it is. Also, I feel like Hoder's hair kind of resembles white feathers (plus she's got that whole angelic look going on), so a pegasus just makes sense. It has support abilities like Haste and Regen.

Cyber Yog (secondary): I really struggled with picking a second Dream Eater for her until I realized that the dispositions for this Dream Eater are all references to Santa's reindeer (Comet, Blitzen, etc.) And, well, mistletoe is important to the mythology of Hoder and Baldr. Because Cyber Yog is Thunder attribute and Pegaslick is Light, it can do a dual link with Pegaslick called "Ragnarok", something else important to Hoder and Baldr's mythology. Cyber Yog being red also matches the red accents in Hoder's design. Finally it has access to Protect and Shell which fits Hoder's original intentions of protecting Baldr.

Baldr

Ghostabocky (primary): Like with Hoder, I knew I wanted Baldr to have at least one Dark type Dream Eater on his team (he actually gets two). This guy being a mischievous, gluttonous-looking ghost just fits Baldr's color scheme and vibe, right? (I mean, it wields a knife.) One of its dispositions is called "Split Personality" which can (figuratively) reference a couple of things, like Baldr hiding himself and his darkness from everybody, or his symbiotic relationship with Darkness.

Woeflower (secondary): This one was so easy to pick because of how perfect it is. It's a Dark type, of course. Its head shape, thorns, and color scheme match Maleficent, the one who, y'know, had a major hand in killing Hoder. But the best part is its description: "This Dream Eater is a total downer, inflicting negative status effects left and right and getting pouty when companions leave it behind." Just like how Baldr feared Hoder leaving him behind.

#rambling about dim path #ch tag: upp #ch tag: bal

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rockingrobin69 · 3 years

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Uranus

1.2k of medieval AU for the last day of the series! All my thanks to @nv-md for the incredible beta.

This was not how it was meant to go.

It was very simple, actually; he kills the dragon, saves the princess, lives happily ever after. Does some… knightly duties, who the hell knows. It was supposed to be simple. All the books made it out to be a piece of bloody cake. He just needed to be brave enough to go on the quest, pure of heart enough to pass the trials, strong enough to beat the beast, and then – well. Harry didn’t really know what you were meant to do with a princess. Be kind, maybe? The way he figured, he’d cross that bridge when he got there. But then he went on the fucking journey, and guess what. Nothing was as it was supposed to be.

For starters, the trials were a joke. An old lady in a ghost-town asked him to kill a snake which was, at best, the size of a large lizard. Harry took pity on it. Instead of ‘slaying’ the monster, he kept it in his satchel, named him Fredrick. Fed him dead mice he found on the Great Plains. Honestly, as if that was anywhere near what he’d expected.

For the second trial, he had to ‘fight’ this ‘demon’ in black robes. “The Demon knows all your greatest fears,” an ancient mage warned him. But Harry saw the shoes underneath the hem of his cloak, their soles covered in shit. And if there was anything Harry knew for certain, it was that he wasn’t scared of shit.

It continued like this for a while. There was a hole blown right through the ‘Terrifying Maze of Fate’. The glowing orb was supposed to ‘reveal his destiny’, but Harry sort of accidentally broke it, and he didn’t stick around to heed its warnings. There was a book, said to be written in blood, that contained the most horrific curses known to man. Harry just never opened it. Honestly, did they think he was that stupid?

Fredrick was good company, at least, walking through the desert. Through the jungle. Through the snow. It was there in the frozen ridge, finally, that his journey was to come to an end; from afar Harry could see the smoke, indicative of the beast. His dragon. His true test. It has finally arrived.

The mountains surrounding the castle were oddly shaped, and difficult to push through. Squeezing between their crevasses, Harry could have sworn he’d occasionally hear them snore. But at least this was hard; this bit finally fit the description. He was getting closer. Happily-ever-after was right around the corner. And so he made it, exhausted, to the foot of the castle, and climbed the foreboding stairs of the watch tower. A great perch hung inside, and on it lay…

Nothing? No. A bird. A teeny, tiny, snow-white, chirping bird. An owl? What in the name of god?

“Looking for something?” a voice startled him, and Harry turned around, sword drawn. It was a man – tall, slender, very pale, with a long braid of blond hair slung across one broad shoulder. He had the brightest pair of grey eyes Harry had ever seen. And Harry, who was usually quite brave, found himself unwittingly frightened.

“Who the hell are you?”

“I could be asking you the same question. You’re the one who just invaded my castle.”

“Your – “ Harry tried, lost. He’d heard of shape-shifting dragons before, sure, but… the man didn’t really seem like one. He was too dainty to be a dragon. Too – what’s the word – beautiful. “I came to free the princess,” Harry said at long last, because he truly didn’t know what else to do. The man emitted a loud sound which, shockingly enough, turned out to be laughter.

“Oh, Merlin, not another one of you knights? I thought that was all over and done with.”

Confusion flooded his cheeks with color. “Well, you were wrong. I am here to fight for the princess.”

“Goodness. Look, Sir -?”

“Harry.”

“Sir Harry, there’s been a mistake. There is no princess here.”

What was most terrifying was the glimmer in the grey eyes as the man looked at him. Terrifying, because it was very much not so. “I don’t understand. Has – has the dragon eaten her?”

“Eaten her? Gracious, no. I’d sent the dragon away… lord, ages ago. Ice giants are far more efficient guards, in any case. Not the brightest, but certainly less likely to set your bedding on fire. Although they do tend to be rather gassy.”

“Ice giants?” Harry’s head was spinning. “Wait a second. Guards? Are you – are you the one keeping the princess captive?”

The roll of his eyes was inexplicably sweet. “You’re a slow one, aren’t you? There is no princess here, Sir Harry. Or, should I say, if there was any princess here, it’d be me. Princess Draco, if you wish. And I have retired to this castle especially so I could avoid the likes of you. I have no desire to be rescued or fought for – in fact, I’m quite capable of fighting my own battles. The dragon is gone; if you wish to meet her, I could point you in the right direction. Now, if that’ll be all…”

Harry grabbed his wrist before he had the chance to leave. “Wait.”

The grey in his eyes became steel-hard. “Unhand me. Now.”

Harry obeyed, immediately, as though his touch was fire.

“I just… wait, all right?”

“No, not quite. I have had it up to here with you holier-than-thou, mighty knights who slay without reason or care, who choose brute force over mind, who have no regards for the life around them. Let me guess, it took you a second and a half to kill the poor snake, right? And then – what are you doing?”

Harry took Fredrick out of his bag. “You mean this snake?”

“I…” he didn’t even know why he wanted Draco to stay. Only that there was something there, something… only that he wanted him to. Living the life he should have led was exhausting and usually dissatisfying. Princess Draco was – unexpected. Different.

“Look, I just want to talk to you. Can we do that?” he could see the doubt in Draco’s eyes. “Also, if you have any mice for Fredrick, he’d be much obliged.”

Draco just stared at him for a long moment. Then, in a grunt, “Oh, all right, I suppose you can come inside. But only for the snake. He will be fed, and then you will leave.” He led them down the stairs, and Harry was rather sure he heard him mutter, “even if you do have a rather fetching rear-end…”

Well. This was certainly not how it was supposed to go. It was as far from simple as possible, and to be perfectly frank, Harry had no idea how to feel right now. He just knew that whatever it was that did happen, he wasn’t disappointed. Harry followed him, curious, confused, free.

The last day of Reaching for the Stars was inspired by Uranus, an ice giant (also a gas giant, if you’d believe it) four times as wide as earth! Had to make an arse joke there, didn’t I? Thank you so much for reading, I had a blast doing this series! So sad that it has to be over... Or does it?

Previous days: Venus, Neptune, Mercury, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars

#drarry #fic #medieval AU #Knight Harry Potter #Princess Draco Malfoy #knights and dragons #unfortunately without the dragon #but there's a snake #he's very cute #reaching for the stars #one shot series #RockingRobin69

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ms-demeanor · 4 years

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You're right, George is more than his abs, but why would he need to be nearly naked the entire movie though? "some characters briefly objectify George but the *film* does not treat George as an object." Ok, but why THIS distinction never made when talking about the male gaze? What I mean is, how is objectifying George any less sexist than Megan Fox's character in Transformers? They both have character beyond looks and both subvert gender tropes.

Why would he need to be nearly naked the entire movie though?

It is obtuse of you to pretend that George of the Jungle is not clearly a children’s comedy interpretation of Tarzan. That’s it. That’s the joke. Me Tarzan, You Jane. Me Handsome Strong Jungle Man, You Smart City Lady. When George makes it to the city he looks pretty darn good in Armani and happily wears a dress because it’s comfortable. When he’s in the jungle he’s dressed like Tarzan because this movie is based on a cartoon that is a children’s comedy interpretation of Tarzan.

It’s not like there’s a rash of criticism of Blue Crush for featuring women in swimsuits or Bring it On for putting girls in short skirts because in the context of the films swimsuits and short skirts are relevant and appropriate. There HAS, however, been a lot of mockery and some serious criticism of Marvel for putting Chris Evans in uncomfortably tight clothing with no purpose other than showcasing his body. “Steve Rogers can’t buy clothes that fit and all of his shirts are too tight” is actually a major fanfic trope because of that.

"some characters briefly objectify George but the *film* does not treat George as an object." Ok, but why THIS distinction never made when talking about the male gaze?

It is. Constantly. It’s the second sentence of the Wikipedia entry on “Male Gaze.” That’s a constant feature of academic media criticism. Here, have a video about how the framing and direction of Michael Bay in Transformers objectifies Megan Fox in a way that the film’s script does not:

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That’s a whole video about that distinction.

Fox’s character in the first Transformers film was written as a hypercompetent, intelligent, complex woman. People remember the character as tits and ass because that’s what the camera reduced her to.

Think about Ellen Ripley.

Did you think about her in a Powerloader? Did you think about her holding a flame thrower? Did you think about her in her jumpsuit calmly trying to enforce quarantine and protect the entire ship?

You probably, on reading the name “Ellen Ripley” did not think about her like this:

[Image description: Ellen Ripley wearing revealing underwear in front of a bunch of computer consoles and pipes; if you look very closely it is possible to see that the pipe behind her is not a pipe but is actually the alien Xenomorph curled up and camouflaged by the console]

The underwear scene stands out in Alien. It’s unusual, given the way that Ripley has been framed in the rest of the film. In the underwear scene Ridley Scott uses the framing of Ellen Ripley as a sexual object to 1) distract the viewer from seeing the xenomorph that is right behind her and 2) increase the character’s vulnerability to ratchet up tension in the film’s climactic scene.

This is an example of the director taking advantage of cinematic language to use the audience’s gaze against them and it is very well done.

That is very different than the way that Fox’s character (Michaela? I think? Someone who is so objectified that it is difficult to remember her name in spite of the fact that “Sam Witwicky” is almost obnoxiously hard to forget) is sexualized and objectified in Transformers.

But even Bay makes use of this! WHILE he is busy objectifying Fox as a director we also see the way her character is the subject of Sam’s gaze and the audience is STILL set up to be sympathetic to Sam because we’ve seen Michaela’s boyfriend objectifying her in a much more overt way than Sam does.

What I mean is, how is objectifying George any less sexist than Megan Fox's character in Transformers? They both have character beyond looks and both subvert gender tropes.

I mean, aside from the fact that I’ve already made the distinction that while some characters in GotJ objectify George the FILM does not, you know that just saying “This person is really hot!” isn’t itself objectifying, right? Michaela is a sexy prize that Sam is trying to win throughout the first Transformers film, George is a person who Ursula meets and takes on an adventure to the city and she gets to know and appreciate him as a *person* beyond his novelty as a “find” on her jungle excursion.

If Ursula spent the entire film attempting to seduce George by being sexy and ignored his wants and needs because he was just a dumb jungle man then yeah, it would be ALMOST as sexist as Bay is against his male characters. (Transformers goes hard as fuck at reinforcing “appropriate” gender roles and punishing characters who don’t live up to them and it is arguably more interested in gender policing its male characters than its female characters)

But you are asking me “isn’t this movie that you have repeatedly praised for modeling healthy masculinity sexist against men” and no? It’s not?

The fact that someone is naked and attractive is not in and of itself sexist. A major, major part of the plot of GotJ is people (and the audience!) seeing that George is more than the silly beefcake they initially mistook him for and I think you’re missing the fact that most films that feminists criticize as sexist have female characters who are naked and attractive and have very few memorable traits beyond being naked and attractive and fawning over the protagonist.

Who here remembered that Michaela’s dad was a felon and that she has a record for refusing to testify against him? You probably remembered that she’s good at cars because Transformers is a movie about cars and there are at least two scenes where people expect Michaela to be bad at cars and she isn’t. So. Okay. Michaela is good at cars. DOES THIS EVER HAVE ANY IMPACT ON THE PLOT? She hotwires a truck in the climactic fight scene and it is window dressing as the background for Sam to make his heroic sacrifice. If you replace Michaela with a sexy lamp is the film any different? It wouldn’t stop Sam from being the target of the Decepticons, wouldn’t change the fact that Sam gets Bumblebee, wouldn’t change the conflict with the government, and wouldn’t change anything in the final battle. Michaela exists to be a sexy lamp for Sam to kiss after he’s won the movie.

If you make George a sexy lamp you don’t have a movie. Now! Obviously Michaela is not the protagonist of Transformers and George IS the protagonist of the movie made about him so it’s not a one to one comparison, but “could you edit this character out without it having a significant impact on the plot of the film” is a pretty decent test as to whether the film treats the character as a Person or as a Decoration.

Michaela is good at cars. She exits the Transformers series by getting cheated on after spending a movie trying to trap Sam into proposing. This is not the gender subversion that you’re claiming it is.

Michaela deserved a better movie than Transformers and Megan Fox deserved better than working with Michael Bay.

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e-vasong · 4 years

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Animorphs

Leah Submitted:

So I remember picking the books up as a kid and I believe I read the first book but my library only had the first five (Ithink) ? But because of sewing stuff on Tumblr I found a pdf and am reading/rereading. (I’m on book thirteen)

Some thoughts:

- okay ik these books are known for dark/war themes but if these sciences weren’t written at a middle grade level and went into more detail they could be a fantastic horror series

-That said sometimes the writing goes really hard even for things other than the fights and such, like the description of the jungle/ fear as a worm? Viscerally impactful.

-These books are so 90s? It’s wierd buy also kinda cute?

-Speaking of cute Rachel/Tobias are really precious (Cassie and Jake too but Rachel is my fav and I really like Tobias as well)

- I’ve been listening to kids in the dark by all time low on loop while I read and I think it fits super well (“they left us alone”, “ a hill that’s quietly crumbling”, “dressed for the kill”, “ I see a falling star”, “wondering how we got so far” and “come to far to pretend we don’t miss where we started” to cite some lyrics)

- I think the books are good but have alot of unfulfilled potential as well, they have good characters/neat powers/themes but the books are 70-ish pages max?! From what ik this doesn’t get much better due to ghost writers/not having enough time.

Oh my goodness! This made my day. I am always excited to know what people are thinking about the Animorphs as they read/reread.

Yeah, the books are pretty short. I think this is both an advantage and a disadvantage? Like you said, it makes some themes/plot points feel like they could have expanded upon further. But I think that it also serves well in that it makes the narrative feel very serialized? Which makes the war feel longer. Which works, I think, in a series that is about guerilla warfare and a group of children fighting a losing battle against a more powerful force.

I agree about the unfulfilled potential. There’s definitely some stuff that suffers for the fact that these books came out in the era where children’s lit was deeply mass-produced. In terms of it getting better/not better, hm… I think there’s some variation? For instance, the David trilogy, which happens at around the book-twenty mark, is fantastic. I remember The Reunion (which is…30-ish?) is also really good. And the last ten books or so are tense as hell. The Animorphs definitely suffers from the time crunch/mass production, but I would say that it’s pretty consistent across the board in the sense that it always does some things really well even as it underexplores other important details. That said, the middle is definitely the weakest segment.

They ARE incredibly 90s and I love it with my whole heart. I love these dumb 90s kids who hang out in the mall and walk through abandoned construction sites.

I love Rachel so much! (Though I love all the Animorphs lmfao. Every single one of them owns my heart in one way or another.)

And oh, yeah! I think the books never actually stop feeling like a kid’s series – I actually think they are perfect as kids books because they’re written simply but still deal with some really important themes. But they do go incredibly hard with the morphing descriptions, and even some of the stuff that’s glossed over is incredibly dark when you take a moment to think about it.

#animorphs #asks #submission

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watchathon · 4 years

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BONUS: The Last Airbender

In case you’re finding this post just by browsing the tags I’ve used for this post, this is the Watchathon, a blog where I’m hoping to watch an episode of a show (or in this case, a movie) every one-to-two days, with a short blog post where I give my thoughts on what I’ve just seen. Each new point starts with a hyphen and a bolded first word.

- Like so.

But today, I’m subjecting myself to the notorious live-action film The Last Airbender, to... Well, to “celebrate” its tenth anniversary. I initially planned on doing it either after Book 1, or after Book 3, but for whatever reason, I have decided to do this now.

Fair warning, this is going to be one of my rare posts where I’ll be mostly negative.

So much for “gushing about things I like”...

Also, so much for “the rare occasion I cover movies”, but that I don’t mind so much. The Lilo & Stitch post was a ton of fun to make.

- So, first things first, I don’t tend to be a fan of live-action movies based on animated properties in general. But it’s not like I don’t give them a chance.

Sometimes I even like them better than the original. I could never get through The Jungle Book in one sitting as a kid, but the 2016 live-action remake? I adored it!

Even the worst ones I tend to be “meh” about rather than flat-out disliking. But The Last Airbender? I hated it when I watched it as a kid... Emphasis on the past tense. I could well change my tune because of this, though I can’t imagine I’ll end up liking it.

- They recreate the “Water, earth, fire, air” part of the intro but without narration. Which, to be frank, just makes it look pretty silly.

- “The four nations. Water, Earth, Fire, and Air Nomads.” Sooo are they all nomads?

- Awvatar? Pronouncing Aang as Awng, I could sorta get, but... Awvatar? Really?!

- It feels oh-so-weird to see a white Katara and Sokka, when they, and all the people of the Water Tribes, had the darkest skin in the show.

- Something that really strikes me about this movie already is that it’s so... humorless. Sokka described himself once in the show as “the meat and sarcasm guy” if I’m remembering right, and not even five minutes in I can already tell we’re missing half of that description.

- Not only is this movie humorless, it can seem strangely... smaller, than the cartoon. In the cartoon, Katara got Aang out of the iceberg by accidentally using powerful Waterbending.

But here, Sokka causes the ice to crack by accident, revealing the iceberg with Aang inside. Then Katara grabs Sokka’s boomerang and whacks the iceberg twice with it.

- More about the lack of humor: There’s not even a mention of penguin sledding once Aang is out either.

- And not only are our most prominent Waterbenders white, the Fire Nation (who had light skin in the cartoon) have the darkest skin of the whole main cast. Juuust great...

- Aang’s heroic moment from the cartoon is taken away from him. In the cartoon, Aang was on his way out of the Southern Water Tribe when he saw the Fire Nation approaching, at which point he turned around and helped them.

Here? Aang sits in a tent until one of the Fire Nation soldiers sees his tattoos and drags him out.

- “We found that boy, he’s our responsibility!” Katara sounds like she’s talking about a stray puppy they found. “I’ll feed him, and bathe him, and teach him!”

- It crosses the line into unintentional hilarity when, as Katara and Sokka are discussing Aang, there’s just Appa noises in the background, entirely unremarked upon. The only take a glance in that direction once they’re done talking, ironically after Appa’s quietened down somewhat.

- Nobody gets out of this movie without major changes, but if it weren’t for Iroh referring to Zuko as his nephew, I’d have never guessed it was him. Also, Eeroh. Frankly, I’ll be surprised if Zuko isn’t pronounced Zucko.

- Katara and Sokka’s grandmother pronounces Avatar correctly. Why don’t Katara and Sokka? Or, heck, why doesn’t she pronounce it “Awvatar”? It’d be better if they stuck to one rather than the inconsistent pronunciation.

- I’ll give them props: The idea of testing if Aang is the Avatar by setting four objects representing the elements in front of him is pretty cool. Does become kinda silly, though, when the rock just... wobbles and goes upright. They could have had it, like, cracking, but instead, wobbly rock.

- I might be misremembering, but it felt like Aang’s escape from Zuko’s ship was a lot... more, in the cartoon. I know, time constraints of fitting a twenty-episode season into a two-hour movie. But I have to tilt my head at just how much shorter (and milder) this particular scene is than its animated counterpart.

- It’s weird how Katara’s narration calls Aang by name, then like a minute later (at most) we see her ask him for his name.

- Wow, is it weird to see Aasif Mandvi playing Zhao when I watched The Daily Show as a teenager.

- Exposition is always fun when it’s delivered in the form of a roast.

- “But we will let [Zuko] wear [the Fire Nation uniform] today, like a child wearing a costume.” And nobody even smiles at Zhao’s sick burn.

- Hey, at least they have Iroh drinking tea. But cartoon Iroh probably wouldn’t do that so casually while his nephew is fighting Zhao’s soldiers. And cartoon Iroh would probably smile. At some point in time.

- And movie Katara and Sokka have apparently gone all the way to the Earth Kingdom without learning that Aang is the Avatar.

- “He was bending tiny stones at us from behind a tree! It really hurt!” I gotta be honest, that’s not a bad joke. It does feel kinda out of place with the general tone of the movie thus far, but whatever. I’ll take the lighthearted fun moments where I can get them.

- I can sort of understand why they would want the Earthbenders imprisoned by the Fire Nation to have some sort of earth to bend without the Gaang going to all that trouble to get the coal. But putting them in a quarry is more than a bit overboard.

- Aang gets a big Katara moment from the cartoon. And the thing is, Katara doesn’t really get that much time to shine in this movie. She could have used a moment like this one. Heck, Aang could’ve joined in to confirm that the Avatar has returned.

But no... In this scene, Katara just shoves a Fire Nation soldier who’s being rude to Aang.

- Ah, the infamous pebble dance. And the thing is, in the cartoon, this would’ve been a joke.

Aang would go through this huge, over-the-top dance just to make a relatively small rock float slowly towards a Fire Nation soldier. At which point, Toph would make the rock move much faster before teasing Aang about what he just did.

- Ohhh, gosh, I’m half an hour into this hour-and-a-half movie, and the post already looks like... this.

- “Teachers to teach you bending.” A lot of attention gets given to another repetitive line later on in the movie, but we shouldn’t ignore this beauty.

- Weird to see Ozai in plain view. Especially considering how, later on, he will be framed in shadow.

- Agni Key... What is it with this movie and changing pronunciations? I wouldn’t even care if that was the only problem, but with how it is, it’s one of several things that make this movie feel like “Avatar but wrong”.

- “Yip yip.” Gosh, does it feel weird to hear those words in a movie that tries to be more serious than the cartoon.

- I had to stop and continue this in the morning since it was late, so I might be forgetting something... But was it established before the Blue Spirit that Zuko knew Zhao would be hunting the Avatar?

- Hard to take it seriously when Zhao looks at his soldiers, chained by their hands to the ceiling, and simply mutters “fools.”

- “You think my son is this person the soldiers are calling ‘Blue Spirit’?” *pause of at least four seconds* “...Yes.”

- “My brother and the princess became friends right away.” First off, that’s really underplaying it. But second, Sokka’s face is so blank as Katara says this that I can’t buy even that.

- Zhao really becomes a much less threatening force when it’s Ozai who tells him to kill the spirits, when it’s Ozai who starts talking about their destiny.

- “HOOOOOOOOO” lives in a pineapple under the sea?!

- Everything in the Spirit World is compressed into this one dragon. Which makes it seem a lot less like a Spirit World than just the home of this dragon.

- I would say that the whole bit of Aang trying to avoid Zuko even though he’s right behind him is more like something from the cartoon... But, the dramatic music really makes it seem like this is supposed to be a serious moment. And it just doesn’t work as one.

- Iroh’s trying to stop Zhao is nowhere near as good as it was in the cartoon.

- “He’s making fire out of nothing!” I don’t understand why they made the change that this is uncommon. The Fire Nation are the villains, they should be stronger than other benders.

- “It’s time we show the Fire Nation that we believe in our beliefs as much as they believe in theirs.” I don’t understand how anyone thought this could work as a serious line.

- Back to the whole thing of this being smaller than the cartoon, Aang doesn’t turn into Aangzilla here. He accomplishes a very impressive feat of Waterbending, but when I just watched the cartoon version last week, it feels lesser in comparison.

- I imagine this is supposed to be Aang bowing in response, since he didn’t with the monks. But it doesn’t look like bowing. It just looks like an elegant dance move.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Yeah, I still don’t like it much. But I’ll say this: Now that I’ve watched it again, I appreciate the cartoon so much more.

I appreciate the characters. I appreciate the tone, I appreciate the pacing. And I appreciate all the things that are lacking from this movie.

I can only hope that the new live-action adaptation will be better, even if I know the cartoon will still be my preferred way of experiencing the story.

#The Last Airbender #bonus post #long post #really long post #super long post #negativity #negative #Katara #Sokka #Aang #Iroh #Zuko #Zhao #pebble dance #Fire Lord Ozai #Movie

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latin-dr-robotnik · 4 years

Note

1, 6, 16, 18, 29 :D

Oh, ‘sup beev :P

1. Why did you become interested in Sonic?

That’s the beauty of childhood - cool thing you see, cool thing you love. Technically I should’ve been a Mario fan (since SMB is the first game I’ve ever played), but Sonic was vibin’ better with me. It’s the SEGA marketing reasoning: he’s blue, he’s fast, he’s cool. That was enough to get me interested. Then the music and Sonic X helped me get invested for real in everything the series had to offer.

Also the worlds! The colors, shapes, sprites, the whole idea of an adventure interconnected instead of regular-ass 1-1, 1-2, 1-3, etc. Everything came together quite well, honestly.

6. Favourite game(s)?

At this point I think you know the answer better than me :P

S3K is the absolute holy grail of Sonic, no questions asked and full nostalgia. But it’s a well-deserved nostalgia in my opinion, since even the biggest of Sonic’s detractors can’t bring down that game.

Sonic CD. I’ll forever defend this game’s lack of flow and weird pinballing across time periods. Beyond that, the music and art style carry this game all day.

Sonic Adventure. There’s no room for discussing nuances of Sonic’s transition to 3D, this was an almost perfect transition of classic era Sonic to 3D. Everything about this game is so cool, even the poorly aged cutscenes are endearing in a “so bad it’s good” way. Probably my favorite level lineup for Sonic, while I like to consider the others as little bonuses I can go for if I’m in the mood. And, of course, the music.

Sonic Unleashed. No nostalgia bias, but this is peak 3D Sonic for me - yes, even with the werehog. The world, the adventure, the world adventure; everything is so right with this game. It takes one of my favorite parts of Adventure (hub worlds) and makes them genuine places you want to live in. And while the gameplay is not exactly Adventure-formula, it got so many things right for its first time (if I want to go slower than normal Sonic I can boot up a werehog level, and trust me, I do that a lot.) And the music... well we are very trained on that aspect :P (Jungle Joyride Night > everything else.)

Sonic Mania. Yeah, I said it. Mania was the game I didn’t know I needed until I saw it for the first time. Growing up with the Genesis games you can absolutely conclude I was also part of the target demographic for this game, and I honestly don’t care. Mania looks great, plays great and sounds great (even if I’m getting a little tired of everyone recreating Tee’s Mania style for fangames and remixes), and while it ain’t S3K, it gets pretty close at times.

(Special mention to Sonic Colors, a little gem I still love 10 years later, and probably even more than ever right now. It’s fun, it’s harmless and it’s a pretty good time.)

16. Favourite Sonic soundtrack(s)?

Look at the previous question and guess which are my favorites, lol.

I’d add Rush, ‘06, probably half of Genesis 3D Blast, half of SA2 and Forces’ Avatar songs to the mix, and we’re golden. Hell, I’ll probably even add Lost World at some point.

18. Got any remixes you like?

heh, “any”?

An entire article, and also an entire Spotlight series dedicated to great musicians that have done at least one great Sonic remix in the past :P

Need more? Metal Sonic (Progressive House Remix); Aquarium Park ~ Act 1 (Remix); Turquoise Hill Zone Act 1 (Sonic Chaos Remake); My Sweet Passion (EuRosy Mix); Marble Zone '12; Labyrinth Zone '12; Evening Star ~ Tudd Future Funk Remix; Marble Zone ~ Joshua Morse Chiptune Funk Remix; Mystic Cave Zone ~ NewJackSwing Remix; Special Stage: Sonic 3D Blast Main Theme.

Funnily enough, I just noticed I’m mentioning fan remixes. For official remixes I think I’ll pick...

Seven Rings in Hand (Fairytales in Trance) (this is a great remix, I don’t know why you guys hate it so much </3)

Generations’ Stardust Speedway Bad Future US (it beat Forces for 6 years lol)

Hell, Gens’ S3 File Select is still so great.

Well, does a cover fit in the description? Because Crush 40′s Un-gravitify is probably the greatest underrated cover.

Green Light Ride (Tyler Smyth Remix), of course.

Ice Mountain.

The Sonic and All Stars Racing Transformed Metal Sonic’s theme from S4E2. (This is the ultimate Metal Sonic theme and they just don’t use it anymore, SEGA you cowards.)

Also, Pleasure Castle is my favorite 3D Blast Remix, lol.

29. Met any Sonic friends through the fandom?

Face to face? Not really. I know about 3 people that live not that far from me, and technically we could meet up one day if we want to, but I don’t think it’s gonna happen haha.

Internet friends, on the other hand? Oh boy, a lot...

#ask latin dr robotnik #beevean #this took wayyyy too long #mostly because tumblr actually broke apart while i was writing this #it doesn't surprise me tbh - they pushed out an update i believe today or yesterday #but it was still annoying af

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chiimmchiimm · 4 years

Text

❝𝖒𝖔𝖓𝖘𝖙𝖊𝖗 !¡ 𝓉𝒽𝓇𝑒𝑒 ❞

CHAPTERS “ 01 - 02 - 03 - 04 - 05 - 06 - 07 - 08 - 09 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13 - 14 - 15 - 16 - 17 - 18 - 19 - 20 - 21 - 22 - 23 - 24 - 25 - 26 - 27 “

The northern jail was the most dangerous in the country, social scum, thousands of criminals were locked behind their bars. Who would tell poor Blair that he would end up there because of his father’s mistake. The problem was not the lack of hot water, but that inhuman obsession that many of the prisoners had for “new toys.” Rookies had two options; be submissive and abide by veterans’ orders or suffer the dangerous anger of those disturbed minds. It all started one night when Blair had the bad idea of going to shower alone.

𝒫𝒶𝒾𝓇𝒾𝓃𝑔: Jungkookoffender au x (female: Blair) 𝒢𝑒𝓃𝓇𝑒: smut.(later), offender au, fluff, angst. 𝒲𝑜𝓇𝒹𝓈: 3.8 k 𝑅𝒶𝓃𝓆𝓊𝒾𝓃𝑔: +18 𝒲𝒶𝓇𝓃𝒾𝓃𝑔: abuse, violence, , sadness, psychological abuse, dirty lenjuage, half-naked, impressive backs, muscles. 𝒜𝓊𝓉𝒽𝑜𝓇’𝓈 𝓃𝑜𝓉𝑒: Well, I am very grateful for the love you are giving him. I’ll upload the next one later. Delicate scenes and some morbid ones that will increase the tension are coming.

I didn’t keep an eye on the whole night because of the weary thoughts that gathered in my conscience. Akame would not sit idly by and I was sure that my boldness would pay her sooner or later, however, a hope had stuck in my chest from the bathroom scene. That stranger had been so kind. It had saved me from the atrocities that Akame had surely thought for me.

I didn’t even know who I was but I felt indebted to him.

In all the years I had been living in Los Angeles at any time I could see someone the same. I did not speak only for the physique so suffocating that it had left me petrified when I navigated it, but for the direct look I had. As if his dark eyes will only focus on one thing downplaying the rest of the world. Without hesitation, her beauty had left me without valid descriptions.

Currently, I was sitting in the large leisure space under the stairs. My legs in Indian position while I leaned forward to hold my head with one hand. Solé was in front of me with a wad of letters. I was thinking of the best strategy to end the smile so triumphant that Dallas scrubbed with superiority. Then, as if all his neural connections had agreed to get the best idea, he threw a letter to his opponent and immediately undid his smile.

“Shit. He cursed under his breath as he threw the cards on the table. “Old lady, who taught you how to play like that?“

“When you live with a Ludopata whore for thirty five years, you teach yourself to play even if you don’t want to,” he muttered completely calmly as he ordered his wad of cards. But as I managed to emphasize earlier, Solé was a person who could not hide his pain. That is what I saw in his eyes. One so big and dangerous that he got his positive attitude to vanish as fast as lightning strikes. Dallas watched her for a moment. Finally, she sighed resigned to living with her unhealthy memories and looked at both of us with a half-done smile. “Never let someone humiliate you and denigrate you as people.” Don’t make the same mistake as me, girls.

Sole rose from his seat and climbed the stairs in silence. Dallas lost her gaze among the pile of cards on the table while I kept looking at her until the metal of the stairs completely prevented me from following her.

“She burned her husband and her lover’s whore.” She commented between dramatic pauses. With his voice mired in his thoughts as he sighs and lifts his head to bump into my surprised reaction. Then he smiled. “I threw them three liters of gasoline and set them on fire.”

“Fuck, you don’t know how much I admire her for that. She had the ovaries to kill that son of a bitch who was mistreating her for so many years. That’s what it’s worth, Barbie.”

I put aside my annoyance for that stupid nickname to give way to my curiosity about the subject. Everything that had to do with Solé mattered to me.

“To burn someone?” I asked confused by his last sentence.

“No.” I denote the adverb with a short chuckle. “To have the courage and do what you want.”

In that aspect I was a little short. Throughout my short and boring existence I had done nothing but follow the absurd norms of society. I had never been allowed to go crazy because immediately the scandal would close around my family. Thanks Dad. In short, towards everything that was known as “politically correct” from not cursing in front of people to not saying what they thought. A young lady had to keep her composure and show submission to those of greater age range. If I thought about it, the true and only time I had done what I wanted had ended up being threatened by a crazy Asian girl and saved by a penetrating stranger.

“Do you know thirteen?” The question came from my lips without thinking of the consequences it would have. Dallas between opened her lips when she heard me. His red nails were embedded in the leftover fabric of his jacket to calm his tremor. I was really surprised how the simple pronouncement of a name could cause him so much fear. And of course, curiosity increased a hundred percent.

“Don’t go near him if you know what’s right for you.” In the depths of his tone there was a warning. He had leaned forward and raised his eyebrows in compass with the grin of his mouth. Between I closed my eyes trying to understand his attitude so evasiba. Then Dallas analyzed my face with a rather alarming curiosity for me. “Why do you ask me about him?”

“Because everyone talks about him and was curious, nothing more.” I answered with my great ability to really hide what I wanted to say. I was good at lying as long as the person in front of me didn’t intimidate me. Dallas made my homework quite easy since her attitude was far from the outgoing girl I met the first day. “Hey … I didn’t sympathize with Julia.” I didn’t know her but I’m really sorry.

Dallas’s ironic smile left me speechless.

“Dallas was not my friend.” He replied, raising his tone compared to the lazy voice he had used with the previous talk. His safety was something I did not understand. When he saw the confusion reflected in the wrinkles of my face as he frowned, he took a more relaxed sigh and curved his back as before. “We don’t have friends here, Barbie.” We only have partners to tell our shits to someone and not feel completely alone. I will not deny that his death has impressed me but from there to fuck my humor for an aunt I knew just a year ago, well no.

His lack of sensitivity did not surprise me being honest. That quality seems not to be around here much. Those who did not shout and beat stayed in corros watching as the others did. Practically this place was the jungle where the animals most likely to survive either by their strength or power ruled over the weakest others. The problem was that I didn’t know where it fit because my character was strong and considered me, as humanly possible, brave and decided only that the physicist was never on my side. I was not short but I was not tall and my thin body is not that it will help much in the fight for survival. In clearer terms, I was in shit.

My talk with Dallas didn’t last long after that. Now I was inhaled the suffocating vapors of the showers while I waited patiently for one to leave. I picked up my towel and soap. Afterwards, I got into a ucha and opened the water that was not very hot but at an almost pleasant temperature. Clean all the dirt that had accumulated when matching the library shelves. When I thought I was clean enough to finish my shower session I turned to the hanger to pick up my towel, the problem? That had disappeared. I was no longer hooked on the small hook, I even looked on the floor in the hope that it would only have fallen but for me bad luck I realized soon after. Someone had taken my towel. So, taking a long breath to calm down I left the marble plate and walked towards the white where my things were. What looked like a fucking high school girl joke became something more serious when I realized that my clothes were also not where I had left her.

“Have you seen my clothes?” She looked crazy asking something like that in the midst of so many deranged women but they had given me no choice. Fortunately the tone did not shake me and I could pronounce the words quite firmly. I was upset and my face was a vivid image of it. I adjusted my hands more to my feminine attributes when a girl passed by me and I whistle like a dog. The maniacal laughter soon drilled my head. Getting more nervous at times I decided to hurry into the bathroom cubicle. I clenched my fist and hit the wall with rage. Then, when I had my forehead on the cold plastic of the wall, I could see that a towel stood out from the upper edge of the bathroom. I didn’t even take the time to know if I had or didn’t own it, I caught it quickly, I got involved with it and ran out of there.

The bruised smiles of those women was the last thing I saw before going out the door of the locker room.

With the hand firmly holding the ends of the towel so that it does not go down a centimeter. The main plot seemed crazy. I met two guards in my race to the bedrooms, each one more stupid for his sexist comments that shouted in howls of dogs in heat. My misfortune had a name and it was Akame’s. I had no proof of my accusation but that is, wasn’t it obvious? What surprises me is that it has been lowered to make this kind of funky and childish jokes.

“London!” What does he do for god’s sake?

The governor shouted at me when I raised myself in front of the closed door of my module. And far from looking like a woman who had intentions to help me, I kept seeing my outfit as something scandalous that to judge with her annoyed grimace I would not hesitate to say that I thought I was spoiled. And of course it wasn’t at all.

“Dress up!” His insistence made me roll my eyes.

“That’s what I’m going.” I commented without grace at his repetitively tired attitude.My comment seemed to dislike him too much since he immediately closed his annoying eyes. “My clothes and towel have been stolen.” This one you see here is not mine and I have no idea who it is. Believe me, I don’t want to be that way either, but I don’t lie to him when I tell him that I have nothing else to cover myself with. Can you help me please?”

The governor cabildo a couple of seconds the answer until he turned to the guard and took a good look to open it. I gave the woman a forced smile to feel my gratitude. He approached me and touched my shoulder before entering the module. I followed her behind without expecting that each and every one of the prisoners would find themselves in their leisure time and that they would end up impacting on one’s chest by mistake.

“But what is this little thing we have here?”

A disgusting whisper made him take a small leap backwards. I squeezed the ends of the towel at the moment two men stood in front of me. I toured their tattooed bodies with some disgust but my act only caused them grace. There was a pale redhead who played with his mouth piercing while running through my bare legs. The other, a pretty intense blond who didn’t take his eyes off my scared eyes.

“Hey you bastards!” If you want to make a straw go to the bathroom like everyone else does! ”Out of nowhere a voice that I recognized instantly came between us when he placed himself in front of me covering his disgusting glances. Dallas lifted her chin and with an unfriendly look persuaded them there among more insults that I would not dare to repeat. Then, he turned around and looked at me with a raised eyebrow. “You want to die, right?”

A grotesque whistle intervened in my reply.

“Pigs!” Dallas turned to the upper railing and extended her middle finger. The man shook his head at us as he laughed with his companions. Dallas took my arm and dragged me up the stairs to our shared cell. He pressed the button to close the door with his fist clenched. I ran to my bed to put the shed under the pillow. “What did you want to do a model step? Those bastards wouldn’t have hesitated to rape you if there were no cameras …”

“I know, fuck!” exhale exasperating me at times. Shaking my hair in a nervous act. The asphyxiating pressure of my chest did not end until I completely covered my body with the uniform. A rather perverse shiver went through my body when I recreated his eyes on my bare skin. Disgusted, it was the feeling that perfectly described how I felt about those depraved. “But Akame was in charge of reminding me that I owe him a favor with this shit …”

“What?” My answer seemed to surprise him. He opened his eyes erratically when he heard that he pronounced the name of the Asian psychopath. His fingers clenched my forearm madly making me groan at his impromptu act. “You can’t owe anything to Shanghai, for your sake. Solve it.”

Without saying anything else he left me confused. Was he afraid of that woman so much that he began to hyperventilate just by hearing her name? I had no more than a cheap copy of the typical high school thug. I had encountered several throughout my life and the only thing they transmitted to me was a huge shame. They always followed the same pattern were so predictable. First, they were looking for the weak prey to strengthen their security against other people. Second, they believed themselves with sufficient will to rule over others that were not up to it. I had already become accustomed to fear living with my father. So, that woman did not transmit anything to me except a chill session.

The patio sun was falling on my eyes causing what will close them to protect my retinas from light overstimulation. I was breathing the little oxygen that came with the air. I had to calm down if I didn’t want to commit any madness.

He watched with boredom as a pile of ants clustered in a hole in the basketball court, and as they subsequently entered it and disappeared. What envy I had at once, as I would also like to disappear and that the earth swallowed me. Not even Dallas’s whining attitude seemed funny to me when Sole won her hand skillfully.

“Are you Barbie?” A sharp voice startled me instantly. I lifted my head from the ground and watched the girl in front of me. Between I closed my eyes annoyed, not because of the poor girl who had done nothing to me, but because of the stupid nickname with which she had called me. My mother gave me a name for something and not for two brains to come up with a nickname as ridiculous as the nickname of a doll. And by the way, I still don’t understand its origin. “Take this is for you.”

I leave a folded paper on top of my legs and disappeared in a small race. I frowned confused by her shy girl attitude. He was younger than me but not too much. I saw her blond hair disappear when she got inside the building. I grabbed the paper note with my fingers and watched it as if it were an archway that was totally unknown to me. Unfold the note with care not to crack it and read its contents:

Cell 345. At 18 hours.

“What is it?” Dallas’s sudden voice scared me. I closed the note when I noticed that his eyes were directed towards her with curiosity. His body bent so much towards me that his arm was attached to mine. I didn’t understand your attitude, why now

did she behave as if we were friends? I have not forgotten his first day teasing yet. Keep the note in my jacket pocket and get up. Dallas followed me with her gaze.

“Nothing.” Raise your eyebrows in unison so that you drop the subject.

Suddenly, my neck suffered a recreated puncture to alarm me. Then, I looked away at the benches that were hiding at a corner of the great courtyard. I immediately found a feline look that had not stopped looking at me even when I realized that it was. I wrinkled my lips inertia.

His look flooded with hatred didn’t make me turn away from mine. As I said before she didn’t scare me.

Akame got up from the bank slowly. Activate my survival instinct and consequently I took a step towards his direction. However, the brunette turned her gaze a few seconds towards another direction, undid her step and entered the building.

But what?

I followed the direction of his gaze. Dark orbs cut my breath when they noticed my attention to their person. There he was. Giving me a half smile to perceive the redness of my cheeks. I talked to a blond shorter than him, however, he didn’t look away from my agitated body. The intensity of his gaze was so penetrating that incalculable cramps squeezed the mouth of my stomach. He looked in a relaxed position while resting half a body on the wall. The sleeves of his jacket were rolled up leaving his tattoos in sight of any curious who stopped to admire them. And I was. Because my gaze could not stop only on his features. The light reflected on his face and I could better appreciate its appeal compared to the few bathroom lights. It was beautiful. With the perfect proportions to make anyone rave.

His lips gleamed hypnotizingly when his tongue slipped slowly over his handsome ones. I could perceive a glow of mischief in the depth of his dark pupils.In short, he was the man who had most aroused my curiosity, not even the stupid of my ex boyfriend had made me tremble as he did.

Why was everyone afraid of him? Who was? Why do you help me? Millions of questions gathered in my head producing an exciting headache that would end up disappearing when I met them. Was he the one with the mysterious note? I wasn’t crazy, I thought that because the last thing he told me before he disappeared was exactly that, that we would see each other tomorrow.

I don’t know if it was curiosity that controlled my actions or whether Thirteen really demanded my presence. For some strange reason I couldn’t deprive myself of seeing him again. So, I climbed the stairs of the male module while holding my breath for a long time. Clenching the little note into a fist inside my jacket pocket every time I met a couple of nasty looks that surely hadn’t forgotten the incident this morning.

A few minutes later, I reached the corresponding cell, however, when I went to knock on the door, it swung open, leaving me with my hand hanging. A brown boy with his hair down welcomed me. His square jaw moved slightly to the side when he saw me. Its height prevented me from feeling small. Why were Asians so tall? Fuck, it barely reached the middle of my city. Then, I began to suggest with my restless eyes that he will turn away observing in a short period of time what he would find behind him.

“I’m leaving, Thirteen. See you later,” he announced in a soothing tone. He raised his lips to recreate an impromptu smile that resulted in the sweetening of his manly features. At first glance you could see that it was not so intimidating if you took the time to analyze their gestures. Without much more to say, I turn aside to leave the cell. Then, I dare to enter and …

“Oh my god!” I cover my eyes immediately when I visualize the impressive muscles of his back. “P-sorry!” I stutter between abnormal sighs from the scene that deprive my little hands. I hear a hoarse laugh in the background which causes my hands to start to sweat. I should have knocked on the door or just asked if it was available for a talk.

“You know? Many women would pay to see what you now cover with your hands.” I’m not even sure if what I heard was a low moan or simply that her voice is too provocative. The only thing I was aware of was the annoying cramps that accumulated in the lower area of my belly. His fucking voice was such an appealing melody that he would lose his sanity if he lowered his tone that way again. “I know you want to look and it doesn’t bother me.”

How can it not bother you to look at a stranger? And how can he have the nerve to propose something like this if we have barely met only twice? Only something could make it clear and it was the little shame this man had. In addition, the great security he had for his physique, and it was not for less, if I had his, I would also be proud.

“Can you put something on, please?”

My vision was still covered but I could materialize a smile under his glossy lips.

“Do you feel uncomfortable?” He asked through a mischievous attitude. I was not aware of his closeness until I noticed how his breathing warmed my ear. Listen to the wet sound of your lips as you wet them with your tongue. Swallow sharply. By now I should have noticed everything that caused his intimidating attitude in me. Then, his lower lip moistened the shell of my ear when he leaned in to whisper. “Where are you uncomfortable, Blair? Down there maybe?”

My face began to burn under the surface of my palms. My irregular breathing to take a distant rhythm to healthy. God, what a shame. I held a gasp when his big hands slid around my waist, pulling my body toward his. Touching with my knuckles the compaction of his warm and soft chest. The laugh that landed on my fingers was completely disastrous for me, unfortunate tremor. Then, he confidently inhaled my hair just before puffing into my ear.

"It’s time for you to return the favor.”

✞

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these-are-the-first-steps · 5 years

Text

JUST SEEN THE TRAILER- TIME TO BREAK IT DOWN!!

So my brain refused to pay attention to both audio and visual at once with this, so my break-down is first with the dialogue we hear (which is the first thing that kept drawing my attention), and then with what we actually see.

DIALOGUE:

-Ok, who the fuck is that talking at the front end?? I *think* it might be Poe? Because it matches the pitch and tone of Oscar’s voice when he’s talking to 3PO, HOWEVER--- -”Good people will fight if we lead them!” jesus fuck that sounds like Adam??? It sounds like Adam. His voice DOES pitch up quite a bit in passionate moments- see TFA’s forest fight. It sounds like his same voice there here.

-”People keep telling me they know me. No one does.” SAME, GIRL, SAME. “But I do,” a very SOAKED Kylo Ren says as he emerges from the wave to confront this off-the-rails prodigal! GO GET HER, BBY!!!

-”And now, your coming together....is your undoing.” You know what’s fuckin weird here? Palpy doesn’t even really sound happy about it?? Like he’s almost...sad??? What even??? What is going on here???

-heart-string pulling like from 3PO was UNCALLED FOR, JJ. )X

-”Confronting fear...it’s the destiny of a Jedi!” says the guy who came from a LONG LINE of Jedi who ran away lmfao. Ok, Luke, ok....

-Carrie’s voice as the last voice in the trailer? Yes, thank you, I have been fed.

VISUAL:

-Rey tossing down Luke’s old training visor- so, we’re training. Rey’s working hard, but her training transitions right into what she’s done her entire life- scaling derelict ships for parts. Why do all new things always lead back to the old, I’m sure she wonders? The look on her face reads exasperation. She’s DONE this before- wasn’t that old life supposed to stop?

-Lando seems to become a rallying point for the fractured and beaten resistance. <3

-The kids (Finn, Poe, and Rose) go on adventures, through jungles and deserts! The old sand yacht seems to make a reappearance- do we go back to Tatooine? The fuckin...shitty epicenter of the whole skywalker lineage? What are they there to look for, I wonder, if so?

-Rey looks....downright angry on the downed death star (are we agreeing that’s what it is?) when Kylo appears, and Kylo, as the last trailer snippet showed us, really seems to have his head on straighter this time- he’s serious, but he looks VERY collected- he knows what his business with Rey is, and he is (deathly) calm about fulfilling it- whatever that might be!

-The iceberg island looks like something out of Farscape’s “Unrealized Realities” episode. In that episode, the iceberg was an ephemeral construct created by dimension-jumping beings to steady and sustain the show’s hero to figure out just *why* he wanted to go home so bad- and why he wanted to use something that could easily be turned into a galaxy-destroying super weapon to do it. So that iceberg, which was a stepping stone not just through TIME but DIMENSIONS (unrealized realities- the what-could-have-beens in every single instance of every being’s existence) is giving me serious “Unrealized Realities” vibes, which....well, it might fit into the theme of all this. If you want some crazy science-philosophy downloaded into your brain, please check out that episode.

-that’s the fucking game of thrones throne- JJ whyyyyyyyyy

-that imperial star destroyer looks like it is LITERALLY coming out of the ice- has it been hiding all this time?!!!

-The falcon clearly has plenty of friends- I think the resistance is probably OK.

-Kylo and Rey’s clash in the splash looks more passioned than deadly. It’s like when you’re really REALLY upset and you smack a pillow a bunch- are you really out to damage your fluff or are you just hitting it because you don’t know what else to do? That’s what those sword swipes look like to me.

-ALSO ALL THOSE STRIKES ARE ON REY- THAT’S KYLO ON THE DEFENSIVE, HE’S NOT ATTACKING HE’S BLOCKING HER STRIKES.

-At least the resistance friends look to be on a First Order ship as they shoot down troopers and not some haunted imperial one.

-Carrie, I cry.

-I....is that a pod racing homage? I’m even more convinced it’s tatooine.

-Who is flying that...A-wing? Is that like a resistance A-wing?

-I don’t get the horses. Stop trying to put horses in star wars ok. At least make them slime aliens or something.

-The room where Palpy and Luke and Vader had their infamous showdown and our two children are just standing in it *staring at each other* I really really cANNOT.

-Finn is suddenly at the clash ‘n splash now, too? Looks like he’s yelling “REY!” like when Kylo carried her off in TFA? In fact that whole scene looks like an echo of that. I wonder what Rey’s reaction will be to it this time- she knows both men much, much better now, and I get the feeling that Finn’s not gonna be the type to understand aggressive courtships.

-Rey and Kylo are destroying things together. This is good. But it almost looks like they’re in some weird Cloud City?? I slowed down the trailer to stop on that frame and the thing they’re destroying looks almost like some sort of decoy puppet- it’s got a head and the shape of a body under a cloak. Could it just be some avatar of Palpy or something? Or actually him himself? Would that be too much to give away in a trailer? lol. What kind of Jedi/Sith tech can we find that might fit the description of an animated avatar to work on one’s behalf at a safe distance? I’m super into this idea now. Also, Rey is holding a knife now- a new weapon!! It doesn’t seem like destroying that thing was much of a challenge for them either, and Kylo still has his mask on, so perhaps this is at an early part of the movie before he loosens up a bit more?

-fuuuuuuckin star destroyer o’clock!! D:

-Something’s reflecting off of Kylo’s face here. Is some sort of old holovid playing? What is he watching? What is he being shown?? He looks almost...hurt. Caught off guard by whatever it is he sees!! :O

-This bit with Rey almost looks like the item in the top left corner could be Vader’s mask, but I think it’s just that fuckin discount iron throne palpy bought at the wrap auction. Because standing in front of it in a black cloak is probably whatever husk of the former Emperor is left...

-Rey looks emotional in this closeup. Is this where she sees her darksider self? She seems sadly accepting of whatever it is she’s looking at, and that would fit the bill- “Nobody really knows me” and here she is confronted with the Dark truth she’s never actually vocalized. Niiiiice. This is why Kylo knows you, baby!! <3

-The last three shots of this trailer are of Kylo and Rey, and AT LEAST TWICE this was edited to show Kylo and Rey pointed towards each other shot-wise. None of it was aggressive, all of it was weepy begrudging. And I, personally, can work with that.

God speed, Space Babies!!!! I am SO ready for December!!!!

#reylo

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yourdeepestfathoms · 4 years

Text

the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb

TW: Vomit, blood, descriptions of periods, strangulation, opium

——————

Mercy wasn’t feeling good in the first place.

She groaned before her eyes were even open that morning. She cringed when she rolled over, feeling hot slickness between her thighs, and didn’t even want to look at the crime scene that she already knew was lying beneath her blankets. Remaining in the mess, however, was plain gross. It was going to be painful to stand, but if she lays in bed for too long then the fabric will stain. Mr. Putnam and Goody Putnam would certainly not appreciate that, so she has no other choice but to haul herself up and save the bedding.

As if it were that easy.

Mercy liked to describe the feeling she just went through as “the floodgates opening” because that’s exactly what it was. She was forced to kneel when the pain flares up, which only seemed to strengthen the flow when her knees parted and her vagina seemed to feel the need to open like a window during a hurricane. She prayed for her ruined undershorts, which are sticky and wet around her legs, clinging tightly to her skin like they had been glued there.

Eventually, she gets herself to stand and, with trembling hands, carefully and quietly strips the sheets of the bed, relieved to find that the blood hasn’t soaked through to the mattress. She stumbles down the stairs and out of the house, trying to keep the bloodstained part of the sheets angled forward and away from the rest of her body, but her groin was already sopping wet with what was probably twenty-five percent of her body’s blood, so hygiene didn’t really matter in the long run. On the way outside to clean, she grabs a rag and then a bucket once out of the house.

Walking is uncomfortable, lugging a bucket of water from the well isn’t any better, and the wet fabric of her undershorts chafe horribly. However, the blood is almost welcoming in a gross sort of way because it was freezing outside and the dead-baby sauce was actually pretty warm. Unfortunately, the cold seeps in through every fabric of clothing and she’s soon chilled to the bone, even with the abundance of red syrup glazing her loins. The cold only intensifies when she plunges her hands into the ever-icy water of the bucket and gets to scrubbing her bedding.

It takes nearly half an hour to clean the bed sheets, half an hour of having to stare in humiliation at a crimson mark created from her leaky vagina in her sleep, having to smell the scent of her shredded uterus juice, and having to bleed all over herself. By the time she’s finished her hands are so cold she can barely feel them, her thighs are so wet she’s sure they’re going to be permanently stained red, and she’s in absolute agony. All she wants to do is curl up in a ball and cry.

Then, she hears the front door open and someone calls her name from the porch- a high pitched, youthful voice. Mercy doesn’t answer. She’s too embarrassed by her state and she doesn’t want who she sure is Ruth to see her suffering and ruin the cool image of herself the younger girl sees her as.

Her silence is to no avail.

Fallen leaves and icy grass crunch underneath shoes.

“Mercy?”

Mercy kept her eyes shut for a long moment before forcing herself to own up to and face her situation.

“Ruth, hey,” She said, standing up, but nearly collapsing back down because of it. “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” Ruth replied, “What are you doing?”

“Washing some sheets.”

Ruth went to ask why exactly, but then her eyes trailed downwards and she saw the small puddle that had accumulated in the grass beneath Mercy, as well as the dark red streams running down her legs.

“Your monthly blood?” Ruth said quietly.

“Clearly.” Mercy said, attempting to keep her voice from wavering. She shifted her weight to a different leg and cringed when a fresh bout of blood oozes free.

“Will you be okay?” Ruth asked, “We’re supposed to go to the forest today, but if you’re in pain...”

“No, no, I’m fine,” Mercy lied quickly. “Trust me. I’ll get a cloth to catch the blood and then I’ll be all good.”

Ruth nodded, believing her, since she has it to bleed and didn’t know the intense pain that came with it.

Mercy also believed herself, thinking that should would be fine, but when she actually went out to the woods with her friends, she proved herself to be very, very wrong.

In just a few hours, the sharp cramps in her stomach had become violent spasms and the dull aching in her back turned into an intense, radiating burn. She was both sick with hunger and too nauseous to eat. Her bladder and bowels ached. She was sweating from the pain of it all, but also shivering and weak from anemia. And, to top it all off was the gross, hot feeling of her uterus being filled to the absolute brim with blood and pressing uncomfortably up against her lower stomach with so much pressure she thought she would burst if the fluids weren’t deposited. The cloth she had bunched up to her vagina was doing its job at soaking up the blood, but it rubbed her thighs in a way that made her want to peel her skin off, which was a whole other problem in and of itself. Plus, sometimes it feels like the rag shifts a bit too high and actually goes into her bloody folds and she just about passes out from the unwanted sensation of a piece of fabric literally plugging up her vagina.

Needless to say, Mercy felt like death warmed over with an extra pinch of suffering.

Somehow, she still found herself at the usual meeting spot in the woods, despite how sick and horrible and disgusting she felt. As much as she wanted to spend the whole day curled up in bed while cuddling her pillow close to her stomach, she knew she couldn’t skip out on the outings just because it was her time to suffer Eve’s curse. Susanna, Abigail, and Mary all suffered through their own every month- hell, they could be bleeding right now as well- and they were able to function just fine, although Mary does have a tendency to not talk or move around too much, or simply not go out at all. Mercy didn’t want to be that girl, especially since Abigail didn’t like it when someone chickens out just because of a little leaky vagina and stomach pain.

Though, that sounded like an impossible feat with the way that her frame shook from the exertion of standing alone. Mercy’s whole body was as heavy as lead, everything in her entire being hurt, and it was all swirling in a kaleidoscope of pain until all she could focus on was how bad she felt. She was sure she could faint, could already feel the faintest numbness slowly creeping in on the edges of her consciousness, but she held strong until she just couldn’t anymore.

One of the worst cramps she’s ever felt in her entire life hit her when she was clambering across a thick branch to get to another tree. She and the other girls were playing a very serious match of hide-and-go-seek and she was determined to win by hiding in the dense patch of leaves and branches she saw when she had been seeker during the round before. However, her plans of victory were rudely interrupted when the ovaries at the end of her Fallopian tubes seemed to morph into claws and viciously stab her from the inside, causing her to teeter right off of the branch just as Mary, who was that round’s seeker, burst through the underbrush.

Mercy didn’t feel her body hit the forest floor- the pain in her stomach overpowered every other sensation in her body. She could, however, miraculously still see through the raging storm of black spots across her vision and saw Mary above her, looking absolutely mortified, like she could see the invisible ovary-claws goring their way out of Mercy’s abdomen. The younger girl was completely paralyzed and stark white, and her mouth was opening and closing like a fish out of water, which would have made Mercy laugh if it weren’t for the fact that laughing pulled the muscles in her stomach tighter until it felt like they would snap.

Mary wasn’t doing anything to help, too stunned to get her head on straight, and, if she had the strength, Mercy would be griping at her to do something. Luckily, someone more capable of functioning properly in dire situations came to the rescue.

“What happened?!”

Abigail, who must have been hiding somewhere nearby or maybe was just trying to sneak around, leapt from the thicket like a jungle cat, startling Mary into awareness. Mary looked from Abigail, to Mercy, then back to Abigail, stammering and sputtering over her words and clenching the rims of her cowl like she does when she was anxious. It was honestly quite pitiful, and Mercy felt kind of bad for the kid.

Abigail, however, felt the opposite.

“What did you do?” Abigail snarled, stalking towards Mary, whose eyes were practically bulging out of their sockets. Her own were smoldering like hot coals. “What have you done to her, Mary Warren?”

“N-nothing!” Mary squeaked, “I haven’t touched her!” She backs away, but Abigail advances on her, seizing her by the throat. “Abby...-!!”

“You are a liar!” Abigail roared, shaking Mary slightly, “What did you do to her?!” She could so easily wring Mary’s neck like a towel. She grips tighter in her fit of rage. “TELL ME!”

“Abby...”

Abigail pauses her process of strangling the younger girl to glance over her shoulder. When she realizes it was Mercy who had called her name, she releases her prey and darts down to her side. Carefully, she lifts Mercy’s head into her lap.

“Mercy? It’s Abby. I’m right here. Can you tell me what’s wrong?” She sets a hand on Mercy’s back, “Your muscles are so tight... What happened? What did that little mouse do to you?”

“Hurts...” Mercy rasps out, so soft Abigail nearly missed it.

“What hurts, Mercy? Where does it hurt?”

Mercy couldn’t answer when the cramps return with just as much power as before and render her uselessly silent. She can only grit her teeth to the point where they may shatter and hold onto Abigail’s dress like it was her only anchor to consciousness.

“What’s going on?”

Susanna, Betty, and Ruth all emerge from the tree line, having been alerted by Abigail’s yelling. They don’t miss the way the leader of the group protectively holds Mercy closer to her.

“Is she okay?” Susanna, who had spoken before, asked, glancing at the blue-clad girl.

“I don’t know.” Abigail answered. First she shoots a momentary glare at Mary, then looks back down at Mercy, who seems to have settled slightly. “But she’s trembling and is really flush.” She said, feeling her friend’s cheeks with the back of her hand.

“Wait,” Ruth piped up, “Is this because of her monthly blood?”

Silence.

Abigail feels Mercy tense in her lap.

“Oh, Mercy,” She murmured, “You should have told us.”

Her eyes then glance at Mary, who was on her hands and knees, silent as she paws tentatively at her neck. Abigail wanted to send the other girls away, give Mercy privacy so she wouldn’t be anymore embarrassed than she already was, but she knew she had to settle things with Mary first.

“Mary Warren.” She said, not missing the way the younger girl flinched when her name was spoken. “Come here.”

Mary doesn’t move, like she was now being immobilized by cramps.

“I will not ask you again.”

That does it.

The smaller girl awkwardly skitters over, still very much shrunk in on herself. It doesn’t help when Abigail makes contact by cupping one of her cheeks, keeping the other hand on Mercy’s waist, and lifting her chin to make her meet her gaze.

“I’m sorry, sweetie,” Abigail whispers, thumbing away a stray fearful tear that managed to escape Mary’s sparkling eyes. “I didn’t know. I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did. Are you okay?”

Mary nodded feebly. She tried to break eye contact while doing so, but Abigail taps her cheek with a finger and she’s too scared to not look back up at her.

“Are you sure?”

Another nod, although this one is definitely weaker and more unsure. However, Mary knows she shouldn’t be fretted over, Mercy is clearly the one in a lot more pain, not her.

“Alright,” Abigail said. She leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss to Mary’s forehead. “Go home.” Her voice raised to address the others, “All of you. Go home.”

Like that, they disperse. The others knew not to cross Abigail, especially when she was protective like this, so they all obey and head back to town. Only for a moment does Mary hang around. Her hand hovered over Mercy’s shoulder, but she pulls back at the last second. She mutters a tiny “Feel better soon” and “I’m sorry” before scampering away through the trees.

Abigail waited until the footsteps of the fawn-like girl receded to do something. She wasn’t really all that guilty about what she did to Mary- Mercy was her best friend and if she’s hurt and someone is around, then that makes them a possible culprit and she was going to attack! Mary had just been at the wrong place at the wrong time and her poor neck was the victim of Abigail’s chosen assault method via strangulation. Abigail made a mental note to go check on the younger girl later that day, just to make sure she was completely alright.

Right now, however, she had someone else to tend to.

“Do you have anything?” Abigail asked once the sound of footsteps completely died off in the distance.

Knowing what she meant, Mercy nodded.

“That’s good, at least,” Abigail hummed. “Wanna go home?”

“I don’t- I don’t think I can-I can stand.” Mercy panted, “Can I-” She swallowed thickly, “-can I lay here for a little longer? Please?”

“Of course,” Abigail said. She cards her hand through Mercy’s hair to calm her. “We can stay here as long as you need, okay? Just try to relax.”

“Thank you,” Mercy whispered. She closes her eyes and nuzzles closer to Abigail.

For a long time, they just sat there in silence, relaxing and listening to the sounds of the woods. That would soon be broken by Mercy whimpering and wrapping her arms around her stomach.

“Mercy?” Abigail looked down at her. She set a hand on her shoulder as she writhes in her lap, “Mercy, sweetie, talk to me. What’s wrong?”

“...hurts...” Mercy gurgles, holding tighter. Acid curls in the back of her throat.

“I know, sweetie. I know.” Abigail said, threading her fingers through her hair.

The acid curls higher, burns more.

“No, no, Abby-”

Mercy jerked upwards and began to vomit, just barely missing her dress. Through her coughing and heaving, she heard Abigail cuss and then pull any stray fringes of hair that may have escaped her bonnet out of the way.

“Get it out, sweetie. It’s okay. Just get it out.” Abigail murmured, holding Mercy upright so she wouldn’t completely crumple in on herself.

Eventually, Mercy stopped ejecting her internal organs through her mouth and collapsed against Abigail, panting heavily. The cloth Abigail kept her in her pocket wiped away the bile dribbling down the sides of her mouth, but she can’t find the voice to thank her friend. All she could do was make a miserable keening noise.

“Shh, shh,” Abigail hushed her. She wrapped an arm around Mercy’s waist and leaned back so Mercy would be slightly laying on her, hoping that position would be more comfortable. It must not have been, because Mercy began pushing herself up with shaking arms.

“I’m sorry,” Mercy mumbled, deep shame burning on her cheeks. “I think- I think I can go home now.”

“Are you sure?” Abigail asked, worry glinting in her eyes. “Maybe we should wait a moment longer. Let you get your bearings.”

“Please,” Mercy said softly, “I just want to-” She swallowed thickly, “-go lay in my bed and sleep.”

Abigail pursed her lips, but agreed and helped Mercy stand up. Her friend didn’t lean on her to walk, she seemed to be able to do that on her own, but Abigail would still reach out to steady her every one and awhile.

“Where were you hiding?” Mercy asked, trying to distract herself. The conversation was much needed, especially when blood squirted free onto the rag and reminding of just why she felt so miserable.

“In a log,” Abigail answered with a small laugh, “It was kind of hidden in the bushes, so I thought it would be a good hiding spot.”

“If Susanna was seeking, maybe,” Mercy comments, “You know how thorough Mary Warren is when she’s seeker.”

“True,” Abigail agreed. Whatever she said after that was completely drowned out by ringing in Mercy’s ears when a powerful wave of dizziness washed over her.

Mercy couldn’t help but doubled over, wrapping both arms around her aching middle. She grits her teeth tightly, but the cramps last longer than usual and tears start to well up in her eyes.

“Abby-” She gasped, “Abby-!”

Abigail looked over her shoulder and her eyes widen. She darts to Mercy’s side and the girl just about crumples in her arms.

“Abby-” Mercy rasps out, “Can I-” It’s punctuated with a wince, “Can I sit down- for a moment? Please?”

“Yes, yes, of course.”

Abigail helped lower Mercy to the ground, and her friend instantly curls around her stomach. She lifted her head into her lap.

“Shh, shh,” Abigail murmured. She untied Mercy’s bonnet and let her hair down. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”

Despite her calming tone, Mercy still writhes. She squirms like she’s trying to wriggle our of her own skin, and wept silently, unable to hold back the tears any longer. The pain was too much- it felt as if someone was reaching in and pulling out her small intestines.

“It hurts,” Mercy sobbed, digging her face against Abigail’s thighs. “It feels like I’m being stabbed, Abby- I’m being stabbed!”

“No, no, you’re not.” Abigail said. She picked up one of Mercy’s hands and makes her feel her lower stomach. “See, sweetie? There’s nothing there. No knife, no arrow, no nothing.”

The dagger was inside of Mercy, stabbing and stabbing and stabbing away at everything within her. Abigail couldn’t see it, of course, so all Mercy could really do was make a tiny noise and curl up tighter. She clung to her best friend’s dress, digging her nails in. If it hurts when they hook on Abigail’s skin, she doesn’t show it.

“Abby...” Mercy moaned softly.

“I’m right here, sweetie. I’m right here.” Abigail assured her. She used one hand to caress her friend’s tear-stained cheek while the other remained on her waist for a sense of grounding. “You’re going to be okay, my sweet. I promise.”

Mercy shook her head. When she looked up at Abigail, her eyes are glazed and unfocused.

“It hurts so much, Abby...” She whimpered.

“Where does it hurt?” Abigail asked, slightly taking Mercy by surprise.

Mercy didn’t answer immediately, instead hissed air in through her teeth and waited for her Fallopian tubes to stop using her ovaries as projectiles against every other organ in her body.

“L-lower stomach,” She stammered, clearly shy about this. “...And my back.”

Abigail nodded and carefully placed a hand on her friend’s lower stomach.

“Here?”

Mercy nodded. She gasped softly when Abigail began to rub her stomach in slow, tentative circular motions, but then eased up beneath her touch.

“Does this help?” Abigail asked.

“Yes,” Mercy said softly, “A lot.” She sighed quietly, relaxing as Abigail massaged her abdomen gently, moving in careful circles against her dress.

After a few minutes, Mercy’s breathing no longer hiccuped, and her arms weren't squeezed at her front anymore. Abigail’s fingers were still soothing the cramps as best as they could. She’d always been affectionate with her girls, but she’d never done anything like this before. However, she assumed she was on the right track, as Mercy seemed about ready to fall asleep against her, with her hands working easy patterns on her body. She couldn’t help but chuckle lovingly and use her other hand to stroke back sweaty hair from Mercy’s face.

“Thank you,” Mercy mumbled, dozing.

“You’re welcome,” Abigail replied, just as quiet as to not hurt Mercy’s ears.

“I think...I think I can walk again.” Mercy said. “Can I try?”

Abigail nodded and helped Mercy to her feet, despite the hiss of pain that was elicited immediately after. She kept an arm around her friend’s waist, letting her lean on her when needed. She kept glancing down at the hand over Mercy’s stomach, which would sometimes clench tightly during a cramp.

Finally, they got to the edge of the Putnam’s property and Mercy untangled herself from Abigail’s tender embrace.

“Thanks, Abby,” Mercy said, completely coiling an arm around her middle.

“I can walk you to the house.” Abigail said, but Mercy shook her head.

“Go check on Mary Warren.”

“...Alright.” Abigail agreed. Before she left, however, she tied Mercy’s hair back up, put her bonnet back on, and then kissed her forehead. “I’ll come by and check on you tomorrow, okay?” Mercy nods in her hand when she’s cupping her cheek, “Feel better soon, sweetie.”

With that, she begrudgingly leaves, starting down the dirt road that led to the Proctor’s house.

Mercy stands there for a moment, just breathing through vice grip-like cramps, before turning around and walking to the house.

The short trek proves to be hellish without Abigail’s tender, protective presence, what with the dizziness and the increasingly wet slickness between her legs. The rag was completely soaked through by this point, turning her thighs into a sticky, sopping wet mess. Every step made the soggy cloth shift and rub, smearing against her skin to dirty it further. She knew she would have to exchange it for a clean cloth, so she grabbed two new rags and two buckets, one filled with water and the other empty, before heading inside.

She manages to get up to her room without being seen or called and quickly closed the door. The first thing she did was strip from her dress and then undergarments.

As expected, the cloth was soaked. In fact, there wasn’t a single speck of white left anywhere on it. The sickeningly sweet, fishy aroma the uterus blood gave off made Mercy’s stomach churn and she quickly dropped the fabric into the empty bucket. With one of the clean rags, she uses it to wash off her thighs and paw water on her messy vagina to try and flush it out of blood, despite knowing it wouldn’t matter in the long run.

Once she was cleaned up, she scrubbed her hands in the water, put a new rag in her undergarments, threw on soft trousers and a tunic to sleep in, disposed of the buckets, and then finally collapsed into bed. Just in time, too, because her stomach twists again and she whimpers into her pillow.

For awhile, she just writhes and thrashes in her bed, unable to get comfortable or fall asleep due to the intense pain. She began to hear Goody Putnam calling for her, but she just couldn’t get up, so she lied there, weeping softly and wishing she hadn’t sent Abigail to the Proctor’s.

Footsteps walked up the steps and approached her room. Mercy braced herself for a storm.

“Young lady, I have been calling you for-”

Ann’s scolding died on her tongue when she saw the state her servant was in- face very grey and drenched in sweat, cheeks stained with tears, panting heavily, hair falling out of her crinkled bonnet, curled up into a tight ball, clutching her stomach. Mercy is rocking herself ever so slightly and Ann watches for a half second before going to her bedside.

“Mercy?” She brushes the girl’s bangs out of her eyes and felt her forehead. “You’re so hot... What’s wrong?”

“Monthly...monthly blood.” Mercy panted, her voice tight with pain, “It’s my monthly blood.”

Ann hummed in sympathy, knowing exactly what the teenager was going through. She began untying Mercy’s bonnet and then her hair as the girl started to talk again. Her worry grew as she did so.

“It- it hurts so bad, Goody Putnam. It’s never lasted this long before. Nothing helps.” Mercy screwed her eyes shut and hugged her stomach tighter. An audible sob accidentally slipped from her lips and she felt her ears burn hot with embarrassment.

“Oh, my poor dear,” Ann murmured, stroking Mercy’s cheek with a finger. “Take deep breaths, darling. I’ll be back.”

“Wait-”

But Ann was already out the door.

Mercy stared at the empty doorway, hand outstretched, mouth half open in a cry, and tears brimming in her eyes. Her delirium-riddled mind began to hiss horrible words of abandonment and she started to weep much harder than before, flipping onto her other side and burying her face into a pillow.

That’s how Ann found her about half an hour later and she gasped softly, rushing over to comfort the crying child.

“Mercy, Mercy, sweetheart,” She gently shook the teenager to rouse her. “I’m right here. It’s okay.”

Mercy’s glossy eyes widen and she launches herself into her mistress’ arms, not caring about how unprofessional it may have seemed. When she was vulnerable like this, she desperately needed to be held by someone, consequences be damned.

“Shh, shh,” Ann soothed, stroking her servant’s messy hair. “I’m right here, darling. You’re alright.”

“No, no-” One hand moves to grip back at her stomach as Mercy shook her head. “It hurts too much, Goody Putnam. I think I’m dying...”

“Don’t be daft,” Ann said. “Eve’s curse is a terrible one. Unfortunately, it seems to be bewitching you pretty horribly right now.” She notices Mercy grimace and quickly went on, “But I have something for that.”

Mercy hadn’t even realized Ann had brought a few things in- a steaming cup of liquid and an equally steaming pot of hot water.

Ann props Mercy up and brings the cup to her lips. She urges her to drink with encouraging words and the girl eventually relents.

“Good girl,” Ann cooed and it makes Mercy’s heart leap in her chest. “Ah, ah.” She tuts when her servant tried to pull back. “You need to drink all of it, sweetheart.” She puts the cup back to Mercy’s lips, who has no other choice but to down the bittersweet liquid.

When Mercy pulls back, taking deep breaths, she realizes how lightheaded she feels. She lifts both hands to grip at either sides of her skull and doesn’t even notice how she was swaying in her bed. Ann’s chuckle alerts her to look up.

“Someone’s feeling the effects already,” Ann mused, stroking back some sweaty hair from Mercy’s face.

Mercy’s tongue feels swollen and numb in her mouth for some reason. She blinked several times, but it won’t clear up she vision. That combined with how she struggled to speak made her panic slightly.

“Shh, shh,” Ann hushed when her servant began to freak out. She rubbed comforting circles against the girl’s back to relax her. “It’s just laudanum tea, sweetheart. It’s pain relief. You only feel dizzy because of the opium in it.”

Mercy stared at her mistress in shock. She had just been given liquid opium. Although, she wasn’t going to complain if it was a pain relief.

“Now, lay back for me, sweet girl.” Ann helped Mercy lie back down. She lifts her servant’s shirt slightly and pulls a damp rag out of the pot of water, placing the hot cloth on Mercy’s stomach.

At first, it was way too hot, but Mercy’s hiss of pain turned into a sigh of pleasure when the warmth soaked into her skin and began untangling the knots in her stomach. She rests her head back into the pillows, letting her eyelids droop close. With the nice, hot compress, added with the pain relief and Ann’s hand stroking at her hair, she found herself being pulled closer and closer to sleep.

“Goody Putnam?” She croaked, managing to find her voice.

“Yes, Mercy?”

“Thank...thank you...”

Ann smiled at the dazed, loopy girl.

“You’re welcome. Now rest, sweetheart. I shall stay here until you have fallen asleep.”

Mercy liked the sound of that.

She relaxed her body and let herself think she was rolling in molten gold, because that’s exactly what it felt like. For the first time all day, she felt the closest thing to relaxation.

#the crucible #the crucible fanfiction #mercy lewis #abigail williams #ann putnam #mary warren #ruth putnam #susanna walcott #betty parris #tw: vomit #tw: emetophobia #tw: blood #tw: strangulation

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nblievablenerd · 5 years

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Death Order Theory

1: Nobody ✅

2: Justine (Description of video talks about summoning an “Egyptian Mummy” and she’s shown standing next to casket in promo vid) ✅

3: Colleen (“You’re soul for gold,” sits next to gold lion) or Nobody (this is the one I’m least confident about cause colleen can’t die this early??? But I don’t think they’d give us “nobody” this early on either. This is mostly cause she doesn’t fit anywhere else, but nobody else fits here either.) ❌

4: Ro (Titled “Find me a wife,” talked about getting married in ETN. Maybe gets married to the “king of the jungle” because shes shown with a lion in her promo vid?) EDIT 1: (Actually it’s starting to look more like she survives this episode because in the mini trailer at the start of ep 1, she’s with the others encountering pirates, which is definitely episode 9 so? Who knows) EDIT 3–7/16: What if??? Instead of two girls being thrown into the challenge to fight for “wife status” or whatever, Ro gets kidnapped and is forced to get married, and two of the guys must go through the challenge to save her (kinda like in season 2 with the spiders, except no plot twist yknow). Thus, it’s actually one of the guys who dies? This is further supported by Joey’s line: “I promised I’d protect her” or whatever; it could refer to Ro, and her being kidnapped. It can’t be Alex or Bretman for the same reasoning as Ro—they were seen in the pirate scene, later in the series. I don’t think Tim either, as he’s shown in a scene that’s very genie-esque in the trailer. Thus, my guess before the episode is released tomorrow is officially Destorm, with a 2nd, slightly less confident guess of Tim (god I hope not) EDIT 4-7/17 Okay now that Tim’s dead (my bOY-) I’m 100% on Destorm for this episode. ✅

5: Tana (Title is “The Black Night” like the knight in her promo vid) Or Gabbie (Pharoah statue she stands next to in promo vid is mostly black, like the black night) ✅✅✅ BOI I GOT BOTH RIGHT THAT’S WHAT’S UP !!!!!!!!!

6: Alex (Standing with stone statue of woman, like how “The Gorgon’s Curse” turns people to stone). EDIT 4-7/17 Either this, nobody, or Matt/Nikita/an assistant, due to the extra death last episode. Pretty confident about Alex though. ❌ Edit 5-8/7: Welp,,, he was in the death challenge, so close enough lmao.

7: Timothy (“The Genie’s Lamp” has genie’s lamp in promo vid) EDIT 4-7/17 So he’s dead so I’m obviously wrong, but,,, I’ve got no clue who else it could be, so until I think of it more I’ll leave this a blank space. Although, following the logic of #8, this could also potentially be a Nobody, due to a Genie’s trickster ways, or bringing somebody back to life, using a Genie’s wish. EDIT 4-7/31 This could either be Matt or Nikita, cause now that there’s so few people on the running, they’re definitely gonna be up for elimination. I’m also sticking with the possibility of Nobody, as even with the extra two, if one person dies each round, there’ll only be 2 winners, and they wouldn’t try to kill Joey off again, they wouldn’t repeat the same thing twice. If there’s a nobody, it’s either with the genie or with the pirates, definitely. EDIT 5-8/7 Well, now we know that Matt/Nikita aren’t actually members, they’re just protectors, so... Nobody’s dying next time, and they’re bringing somebody/ies back with a wish,,, OR one of their helpers die in exchange to bring back a person/s. If someone DOES get brought back, it’s def gonna be Colleen my girlllll. I feel like this is the one I’ve edited most lmao. ✅✅✅ Right for both !!! Let’s go bois

8: Nobody (The title is “Beware of Pirates,” who are the type to play dirty, leading to an unfair challenge, so nobody dies!) or Destorm (Has a sword,,, pirates fight with swords,,,,?) ❌

9: Bretman (Titled “Prehistoric Evil,” shown next to dinosaur in promo vid)

10: Gabbie (The Pharoah was in her video but was already a monster, so maybe it’s because all of the monsters come back, like at the end of all the previous series’s?) EDIT 4-7/31 Welp, she’s already dead, but maybe this could be either Matt or Nikita ? Cause at this point, with so few people in the running, they’re definitely gonna be up for the death challenges also.

So far it seems most likely people to survive are Gabbie (EDIT 4-7/31, see above.) Destorm (EDIT 3–7/16, see above), Rosanna, Matt, Nikita (EDIT 4-7/31), and Colleen (Edit 5-8/7), cause they don’t really fit anywhere too well.

Thoughts???

Imma edit this as I go, if I’m right or wrong and stuff like that.

EDIT 2: In the trailer at the end of the 1st episode, there’s a scene of people who look to be pirates (ep 8), and in it there’s Alex, Ro, Bretman, and possibly Colleen. However, I can’t exactly figure out who else could die in said episodes, not with evidence,,, so these predictions are now people who could end up in each challenge, whether winning or losing!

#escape the night season 4 #escape the night #etn #joey graceffa #if im right yall owe me 5 bucks #escape the night spoilers #etn spoilers

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whiskeyworen · 5 years

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Miriya’s Pad

(Art commissioned from CheruSake) Author’s Note: This was my first attempt at a Guild Wars 2 fic, just as an experiment. I was very satisfied with the outcome, but chronologically it predates ALL the other GW2 stories I’ve put out here. In fact, if you read any of my Danae sister fics, there’s references to THIS one. If it sounds kind of clunky in terms of dialogue and descriptions, I apologize; I was still getting my feet back under me in terms of writing. It’s a bit cliche, and pretty corny, but I felt it was a cute fic. I’m actually really nervous about sharing it here, cuz I don’t know if people will like it at all. In terms of in-game chronology, this would be Pre-Scarlet by only a few months. Lion’s Arch was still the ramshackle version we all miss. That said, please enjoy. ***** "...And our final stop on our tour of Rata Sum is my personal quarters!" Miriya announced brightly, as the magitek cubes that formed the doorway slid in the cardinal directions. The internal barrier field dropped immediately once the cubes had slid into the ceiling, walls and floor. She stepped proudly inside, hands on her hips and smiled. "It's...Wow! Surprisingly spacious!" Kaleb blinked as he stepped inside. The barrier popped back up behind him and the door-cubes shifted shut once more, cutting out the natural noise of the Maguuma Jungle outside. He looked around in amazement at the personal dwelling of his teammate. "From outside it looks so...small." Miriya smirked and crossed her arms. "That's because I had it carved into the side of the mountain and disguised that way." She scuffed her sharp nails on her coat, smugly admiring them. "That and a little bit of fifth dimensional pocket-space manipulation make it nice and big." The home was open-concept in the Asuran style, a cube turned on its corner and hollowed out, easily thirty meters on a side, which gave it an amazingly high ceiling and a strangely deep and terraced floor. Looking up, Kaleb could see a Mystic Stone the size of his entire body hovering just below the top corner of the ceiling, providing a soft, diffuse blue light. There were hard-light paths starting around the perimeter of the room, leading up to solid stone platforms held in place by mechanisms Kaleb could barely wrap his mind around. Each one had some kind of device or piece of furniture on it, though the purpose of some of them eluded him. To be honest, it looked less like a home and more like yet another Asuran laboratory. Turning his gaze from the ceiling to the floor, he counted fourteen terrace steps down to what appeared to be a pool of water in the centre of the room, occupying the 'bottom-most' corner of the building's turned cube design. Around the circumference of the room ran continuous Asura-design windows; high density force fields with a distortion added so those looking in or out can not see precisely what is there.

"It's um... very nice." He finally replied a bit hesitantly, stepping carefully in the room; each terrace was Asura-step scale, not human standard. If he tripped he'd no doubt fall all the way down into that pool of water in the bottom of the room. "So-o... this is where you keep your stuff? Kinda looks like another lab." "Well it IS a lab, silly." Miriya chuckled, crossing the room to a particular section of wall. A portion of the panels making up the wall and floor rotated at her approach, recombining to form a table and sink. Beside that, a cupboard slid into place from where the gaps were left by the panels, as well as a larger cube-shaped artifact half again as large as the diminutive Asura. "But it's also my home. I paid top-gold to get the constructor golem krewes to come out this far from Rata Sum and build it for me. All to my very demanding specifications." Kaleb nodded, exploring the room. He stepped up to one of the hardlight paths and experimentally tested it with an armoured toe. When it didn't give under his weight or the weight of his armour, he shook his head. Fancy Asuran gizmos. This was one of the reasons he was a soldier and not an engineer or inventor. "I see. So, why are we here now?" Miriya washed her hands in the sink, drying them in a device that clicked out of the side of the sink unit, and turned to face him. "We're here to relax and have a drink, and to be refreshed. Naturally." "Uh-huh?..." He crossed his arms, raising an eyebrow at her, a disbelieving look on his unshaven face. "If that's so then why's the rest of the group not here? Doesn't seem rightly fair to enjoy..luxury...without our friends." She made an exasperated sound, running her fingers back through her slicked back, molten lava-colored dreadlocks. With a flick of a wrist she sent the sink back into the wall, as well as the cupboard, but the larger artifact remained present in the room. Counting off on her little fingers, she explained. "One: Dhangalor is more interested in learning how to make his turrets and flame-thrower more efficient and effective. I wouldn't be surprised if we found him in three days, down in one of the weapons labs. Hopefully he won't learn how to make mass-conversion generation devices; The idea that he could make a device that spawns grenades for him or unlimited turrets scares me more than your god Grenth." Tick: "Second. The moment we walked into the city, Slane disappearred. I wouldn't know where him or his...ugh.... partner... are even if I put a tracker on him. Which I don't have, incidentally." She stepped over to the large artifact, touching a blue power gem on it. The panels on the artifact slid open to either side, revealling a chilly, frosty interior, from which she drew a large, dark green bottle. "Third. Corvus is Priory. He's all about knowledge and technology. If he's not aiding Dhangalor, he's buried up to his nose -- a feat at that! -- in computer files and parchments and datapads." The little Asuran necromancer spun on her heel, presenting her treasure to the still suspicious human. The bottle looked old, and had a label that bore a very particular seal on it. The label was torn slightly near the base, and very, VERY worn... but there was enough to recognize the maker. ---SCALO- V-NERY. est. ---- "...and finally Fourth: I've been saving this bottle to drink with a human some day, and I feel it's the right time now. I trust you enough to enjoy this bottle and not squander it, nor to act inappropriately with it. I know how rare it is, and I think you know how rare it is." His jaw dropped, as did his arms. "Ascalon Vinery?! Did that come from the ruins of Ascalon??" He laughed nervously, facepalming. "Second most rare wine in all of Tyria, and it's just sitting in her...her...whatever. That cold thing..." "It's called a ReFridgerator. Prototype design." She looked at the device with a bit of concern. "Most of the time it keeps things chilled. Though there was one time I left a panel open and....well.. I had to defrost the place. Like, 'Claw of Jormag' kinda defrost." Still shaking his head, Kaleb smiled, and ran a hand through his close-cropped red-black hair. "Alright. You got my attention. Ascalonian wine, and a relaxing evening with a friend. I can do that, easily." Miriya grinned, and put the bottle on the top of the fridge before walking across the room to a green square on one of the terraces. "Do you mind if I get comfortable? This armor is nice, but compared to my own clothes, I always find it confining and itchy." She stepped on the square and a series of panels slid up around her, covering her to the neckline. She continued talking as she changed, the sound of shifting cloth coming from behind the barriers. "It's such a relief to get off the road too. Sometimes I just want to come home, relax for a while, before my next project." "I understand the sentiment completely." Kaleb nodded, turning his back to her changing; even though she was completely hidden, he was still a gentleman. Even to Asura. He rubbed the back of his neck, feeling the muscles and bones creak a bit with tension. "Been a while since I've been home too. Or out of this gear." He stretched and shrugged. "Ah well. What can ya do?" The panels around her sliding down, Miriya stepped out of the 'booth' and straightened her tunic. "Well, what I CAN do is offer you the use of one of my guest booths to change. I'm sure I can cobble some basic clothing together from the info-net if you give me a few minutes." "You can do that?" He blinked, raising an eyebrow. Kaleb had no idea what an info-net was, but if he could just take his armour off for a few hours... "What do I need to do?" She pointed at the green square, tapping a nearby toe-button with her toe. The green square turned blue, and resumed flashing. "Just step on the square. I just turned the dimensions to 'human', so it'll cover more of you than it would have a moment ago." Kaleb stepped onto the square and waited for a second. The panels slid up again, this time up to HIS neck. There was just enough space inside for him to flex a bit. "Hey, this is neat, but... uh... can't exactly take my gear off in a space this small." "Don't worry about that. The booth does the dressing and undressing." She replied, a hard-light display open in front of her on the front of the booth. She flicked through diagrams and designs until she found a suitable one. "Ah here we go. Aaaannnndd..... ordered. Seven seconds delivery? What is this, the stone age??" "What?" "Oh, nothing. System seems slow, that's all." She shrugged and moved a new screen up in front of her. "Just one last thing; full body scan for fit accuracy. Otherwise when it goes to remove your gear, it might...uh...remove body parts instead. Not exactly a smart system." "WHAT?!" Kaleb started to fidget, staring around at the panels in horror. "Take it easy! I only have one scar from a mis-scan! I don't want you to lose anything important!" That was enough to get him to freeze solid, staring straight ahead. His adam's apple bobbed in fear as he swallowed heavily. Inside the booth, a panel flipped open on all four walls, revealling a golem-eye. Flat green light played out from these eyes, scanning Kaleb up to his neck, and down to the soles of his boots. There was a quiet 'ding' and the eyes flipped shut. Next, a set of waldo arms rose out of the floor, sliding along a series of control crystals built into the seams of the chamber, and unfolding when they reached certain predefined points. Magitechnical fingers and drivers unfolded from these waldoes, and set about removing his armour, piece by piece, carefully drawing each piece back into the floor. "Miriya.... This is weird..." Kaleb muttered uneasily as his armour appeared to be disintegrating around him. "Am I going to get my stuff back in one piece? This...thing won't like, mash it into a scrap cube or something will it?" "Oh don't be a big baby." She replied, watching the readouts. Everything was going as planned. The monitors indicated a rapidly increasing percentage of armour removal, leaving a rather bare looking Kaleb underneath. A smile quirked her mouth, and without saying a word, she flicked a toggle switch visibly with her right hand, while her left hand hooked under the display and pressed a small red button. For....posterity. Yeah, that's it. For study. She told herself, as a flash blinded Kaleb in the booth from all sides. "What was that?!" He asked worriedly, down to his boxer shorts within the booth. "Hmm? Oh nothing. Sensor glitch." She replied almost distractedly, as she copied the scan file into another section of her database, under heaviest quantum encoding that she could get, and then proceeded to delete the original. "Nothing to worry about. It should be done now. If you reach out in front of you, you'll find some clothes on a little shelf. They were just transported from Rata Sum via micro-gate, so...uh...they might feel a little fuzzy. Residual dimensional static and all that." Kaleb indeed did find the clothing, folded neatly on a small shelf. As he picked it up, the walls of the booth slid back on all sides, extending planes as they did so to keep his privacy intact. Clearly the machine somehow intuited his need for movement space. A moment later and he had slid on the Asuran-designed human-size clothing. "Hmm...very nice material. This isn't wool, is it? I've not felt anything this soft before." "It's Jungle silk. We harvest it from the spiders and wurms. They might be dangerous monsters, but they can be quite useful for natural materials." She smiled, as the walls of the booth finally slid back into the floor. Seeing him fully dressed again, she tipped her head to the side, crossing her arms, and considered him. "Hmmm....Well, they don't look too bad on you. Perhaps I should have gotten the shorts too, so you could replace those human ones you have on." "Huh?" Kaleb was checking out his new duds in a reflection, when he realized what she'd just said. "You didn't see me in my shorts, did you?" "What? Oh no...no no!" Miriya flushed, shaking her head rapidly and holding up her hands in denial. "No no... That's not what I meant! I just meant I should have completed the set! That's all! Really!" His raised eyebrow made her flush even pinker, and she quickly turned away, running up one of the hard-light paths to her cupboard for glasses. Once she was certain he couldn't see her, she let herself exhale heavily. All that work, and she nearly flubbed it up! Returning with the glasses, she called up a table and hovering chairs out of another wall, placing the glasses on the table and pouring them a glass of wine each. "Now that you are... comfortable...Hehe, about that wine I mentioned?" **** "...And that's when I told him, I told him 'How could I have possibly have punched out your son, when he was already unconscious from the booze?'” Kaleb pointed out, and mimed an unconscious man, slumping on his chair and lolling his tongue out of his mouth. Miriya was doubled over laughing, slapping the table top in mock surrender and nearly knocking her wineglass off it. “Oh, by the Alchemy! How in Tyria did you ever get out of that situation?” She asked when she gained enough composure back, tears of laughter still streaming from her large green eyes. She continued to laugh and snicker as she tried to control it. The last two hours after they started to drink had been a blur. The lovely Ascalonian Wine had gone from a full bottle... to the dregs, which were swiftly being drained by a half-toasted Kaleb. He slammed the bottle onto the tabletop, and grinned. “Well you see, this big ol’ Norn, he thinks he’s defending his son’s honor or something, so he’s all puffed up and about to go Bear on me or somethin’... and then he looks over at his son, sees him facedown in his own drool, a shiner on his face that I claim came from the table as he fell... and he just deflates like a balloon. He shakes that big top-knotted head of his and hauls his son up by his backstraps, and just says ‘Yeah. Yeah, I can definitely see that. Boy hasn’t learned to hold his lager yet. Sorry if he bothered you.’ “ “No... No WAY.” Miriya’s jaw dropped. “You got to be kidding me.” Kaleb shook his head, sitting back and looking smug. “Nope. That’s what he said. He actually apologized for his son’s behaviour. Didn’t realize I had slugged that freakin’ twerp for his talk about how wussy--” He slurred it wuzzy “--humans are, and laid that kid out. I’m just glad it turns out he was drinkin’ age. Couldn’t use that bluff if he wasn’t.” “Cog’s gears, Kaleb, you definitely got guts. Standing up to a Norn in his hometown bar like that.” Miriya shook her head, and rubbed her eyes a bit. “I’d have had to call in my minions if that’d happened to me.” “And you woulda been squished for it.” Kaleb replied somberly, staring at her. “The moment they see your eyes and hands do that glow-thing, they would have flattened you with a damned boot. Not many like Necros these days.” “True, true...” Miriya nodded, levity completely gone. She traced the rim of her glass with a dark green-painted nail. “What about you? Do you like Necros?” He pondered for a moment. “Well, I don’t mind them... I don’t mind most anyone. But if they’re undead, I kinda mind them. Orrian and all that crap. But I don’t mind Necros that use Grenth’s gift for good.” She nodded, still circling the glass, an odd expression on her face. “That’s good, that’s good. Um,” She paused, flicking her eyes up to him for a moment to read his face before looking aside. “So....what about me? Do you like me? I mean, uh, I’m a Necromancer, after all.” He nodded, and thought about it for a second. “Well, duh, of course I like you. We’re teammates! I might not know how the Whispers operate, but if the Pact teamed us together, they must see something there, in our dossiers! And we work really well in combat together, as well as in info-gathering. Yeah, I like you. Of course I do, Miriya!” Miriya forced a smile at him, laughing along with him for a moment, before whispering off to the side, almost to herself. “That’s not what I meant...” "I hate to ask, but, do you have anything more like this wine?" Kaleb asked, tipping the dregs into his glass. He made a face, somewhere between concerned and goofy. "I mean, if we're going to keep drinking that is. I'm finally buzzed enough that I feel comfortable without my armour!" She laughed in spite of herself, in spite of the disappointment of his previous answer, but she steeled herself, hopping off her floating seat and heading for the refrigerator unit again. Looking inside she hemmed and hawed, listing things off. "Let's see, we've got that vile concoction that Colacokaia, that Hylek potionmaster forced upon me, we have indigo formula, and Sunny D....AH, here we go." With a triumphant, if a little unbalanced swing, she held the bottle up for his view. "It's... uh... says something about champagne. I forget where I got this from." He took the bottle from her, raising an eyebrow appreciatively as he considered it. "Not bad, but we can't just go chugging a bottle of champagne. That's more of a sipping kind of thing, in a relaxed situation. It's why nobles drink it at their 'parties' or whatever." He made a little, foppish, flippant gesture with his fingers and stuck out his tongue that made her grin. "You mean we should relax more? I thought we were pretty relaxed already!" Miriya laughed, hands on her short hips. "Any more relaxed and I'd probably be asleep!" Kaleb laughed and shook his head, putting the bottle on the table. "Nah, nah. I mean it wouldn't be good for sitting here at this table, trading dirty stories and reliving old fights. It's more...civilized a drink, I guess." The diminutive Asura pondered for a moment, before an idea struck her. "I got it! Come over here." She led him down the terraced interior of her home to the square shaped pool of water occupying the 'bottom' corner of the cube, and with a flourish indicated the gently lapping blue water. "Ta-da!" "What?... it's a pool of water." He replied, nonplussed. He crossed his arms and looked at her, confused. "Is there supposed to be something in it?" "Yes!" Miriya grinned, tugging at his pantleg. "Us!" She caught herself, and released his pantleg, coughing a bit. "I mean, it's not just a pool of water. I configured this corner to be either a hot spring or a cool bath, depending on what I felt like." "Really? You can do that?" He blinked, and considered the square of water. It was roughly his height on all sides, and he couldn't tell how deep it was based on the terracing and false-depth illusion of the shifting waters. "So....what, we should sit in it while we drink the champagne?" "Well, yeah?" Miriya shrugged and smiled, before running around the square to a panel on the edge of one of the stairs. After fiddling around with the controls, she pushed a red blinking square, and, much to her delight, the pool suddenly erupted into gentle bubbles. "Ah ha! There we go. Jaccuzzi." "Ja-whatzee?" "Nothing." She tested the water with a toe, smiling at the temperature, before turning and hopping up a few steps on the terrace. "Just one problem though; Our clothes. Shouldn't get them wet. Those'd get very itchy and kinda ruin my pool to boot." "So...what?" Kaleb knelt down and dipped his fingers into the water. "We'll strip down to our skivvies? This is as warm as that Norn hot spring...you know the one, in Lornar's Pass?" "You mean Wayfarer Foothills. Zelechor Hot Springs." Miriya frowned, shaking her head. "You are always so bad with locations. I'm surprised you get anywhere." "Hey, my hammer takes me wherever I need to go." He smiled, standing up. "Now, is there another booth, or where should I put this stuff?" "Oh! Anywhere!" She grinned, waving a hand at the terraces around them. "Just leave it high enough to not get wet." He nodded, and started shedding clothes, tossing them onto a higher step. Miriya stared for a moment, feeling the blood rush to her face, before she realized she WAS staring, and quickly looked aside. "Uh, I suppose I better...um...get ready too!" It took her almost no time to get rid of her simple tunic top and light pants, leaving her bathing suit-like bodysuit as the only remaining piece of clothing. It was hot pink and white; not her usual colors, and for a moment, she was horrified and embarrassed by the dichotomy between her normal dress and her bodysuit. Please don't let him say anything about the bodysuit. Please don't let him say anything about... "Nice bodysuit you got there. Didn't figure you for the color pink." He smirked, settling into the warmed water. SCRAP! Miriya swore internally, flushing almost as pink as her suit. She immediately leapt into the pool, covering herself to her neck in water while keeping her arms wrapped around herself. "I-I..er... I forgot about the color...You wear a body suit most of your life as an Asura, and you kinda forget about it!" He shrugged, taking the champagne bottle and looking around. "Uh, do you have any wine glasses or champagne glasses down here? The others we left up on your table up there." "Oh! Yeah... Um... Hang on, I'll go get them." She hopped out of the water, moving as fast as her little legs could carry her; the faster she moved, the less he'd see the pink suit. A few moments later, she slid into the water beside him, and placed the glasses on the exposed step behind them. "Here." "Thank you muchly." Kaleb smiled, and poured them each a generous portion of champagne. That done, he handed one of the champagne flutes to her, and saluted her with it. "To good friends, good drinks, and faking it like high society fops!" Miriya giggled, and tipped her glass so it dinged against his lightly, the pure crystal note a pleasant sound. "To one of the best teammates I've ever had, and possibly my best friend in all of Tyria." They both sipped. "Aw, that was sweet, Miriya." Kaleb smiled, scratching the back of his head after he finished his sip. "I knew we were friends, but I didn't know you thought of me as a best friend." "Well, I do, you big lug." She smirked and gave his arm a playful punch. She put her glass behind her, one step up on the shelf, and rubbed an ear in thought. "You never judge me based on my size, even when we first were introduced, never thought of me as weak or cowardly for being a magic user...never turned away when you learned what kind of magic I used, or what it sometimes does to me..." She shivered a bit, wrapping her arms around herself. "Using the Death Shroud is so intoxicating but... There are times I worry that I'll lose myself to it. And that I might end up no better than an Orrian." Miriya rubbed a tear away from her eye with a finger. Damn the alchohol... it was making her resolve fall away. Already she could feel the depression sinking in again. Soon she'd have to retreat to her room and spend the rest of the night getting herself under contro-- Her thoughts were interrupted by Kaleb wrapping an arm around her and drawing her up into his lap into a hug. It wasn't a comradely hug, like he might have done outside in the cities, or a brotherly hug as he'd done to her before in celebration of things. It was just a hug, but it was much more than just a hug, in a way she couldn't define. It took her a moment of stunned shock to respond, but she finally relaxed, wrapping her smaller arms as best she could around him and hiding her face in his chest. After a few moments, Kaleb spoke. "Miriya, don't ever doubt yourself. Don't ever doubt your skills; I know I don't. You mastered a fantastically powerful magic few dare to. I read the story about how you came to the attention of the Whispers: You made those Inquest pay for what they did. I think you might be one of the most powerful people I've ever had the pleasure of knowing." Miriya listened, and smiled sadly, closing her eyes as she realized he was only seeing her skills and abilities, and not her. So close...so very close... she lamented, still fighting the urge to cry. He just doesn't see... "I've never been scared of you or your skills, Miriya. Not even when you used the Death Shroud. Because I know you'd never harm anyone you cared about." He gently stroked her braids and ears with one hand, not letting her draw away with the other. "You're an amazing person, Miriya, and I think that no matter what, you'll accomplish anything you set your mind to." Miriya's eyes snapped open at that compliment. She quickly mulled it over in her head, and slowly withdrew her arms from the embrace. "Miriya?...are you okay?" Kaleb asked, concerned at her silence and her retreat from the hug. She had her head turned down, so he couldn't see the expression on her face at all. "....I can accomplish anything eh?" She whispered, half to him, half to herself, staring at her hands where they braced against his bare chest. To Kaleb's ear, he could hear the quiet wavering in those few words. "There's just one thing I can't seem...to do..." "What would that be?" He asked softly, wondering about his friend. He could see her shaking quietly, as if she were cold, though the water was quite warm. Her small digits reflexively twitched where she had them on his chest. "Is it something I can help with?" She half-laughed, half-sobbed, shoulders rocking with the effort to resist. Would she take the chance? Would it do anything, mean anything? What do I even have to lose? "Yeah....it's...something you could help me with." She whispered in a shaky voice. "What is it? You can tell me." NOW. "This." She replied, and quickly tilted her head up to catch him in a kiss. Her arms flew around his neck, half to support herself, half to keep him from snapping his head back in surprise as her lips found his. Miriya kept her eyes tightly shut to avoid looking him in the face, seeing the shocked, perhaps betrayed expression on his face as she broke through the friend-barrier to get what she wanted. At contact, she felt that electric charge that she always felt directed at him. In other situations, it had been when he'd touched her shoulder, or playfully flicked her ear with a finger. Or when he hauled her up to sit on his shoulder while they travelled. Little moments of contact, each with an electric pulse, at least to her. They were all friendly gestures, so she put off how they felt, guilty for feeling more. This moment though...the electric shock was so many magnitudes greater...but so was the accompanying guilt. I just tricked my best friend...she cried inside as she kissed him. I just tricked him, got him drunk, and now I'm stealing a kiss that wasn't mine to have...he's going to stay so far away now... her thoughts then fell apart into unrequited sorrow. Slowly, Miriya broke the kiss, letting her hands slip from his neck, and settling down into the warm water of the pool. She never looked him in the eyes; she just turned to the side and curled up on herself, arms around her knees, looking away. Looking ashamed. "I-I'm sorry." She whispered, sniffling. "I-I'm sorry I did that...I just... I wanted t-to..." "Hey. Hey Miriya." Kaleb's soft voice made her ear twitch. With her eyes clenched closed, she almost jumped when she felt his finger under her chin, turning her face up to look at him. Her green, almond-shaped eyes opened in terrified surprise, and she stared at him, pleadingly, but so badly scared of what the question might be. "...For how long, Miriya?" He asked. Her eyes searched his for any sign of anger or betrayal...or disgust. It wasn't long ago historically that humans thought they were the center of all things and that all were below them. Nothing like that was in his eyes. Only warmth and concern. "For how long have you been holding yourself back like that?" There was a moment of silence as she processed his question. Her face alternately lit up with happiness, but seemed so ready to break into full on tears at the very same moment. Her mouth almost stretched into a smile, though it was a shaky one, and a tear escaped her eye, sliding down her smooth cheek. She let out a half-chuckle, half-cry, before shaking her head. "....since...almost since the first time we met." "You entered the room, smiled, and introduced yourself...you and that big dumb iron hammer of yours. " She laughed a little, staring up at him. "I didn't know what to think. I was told there'd be a human on the team, but I expected some dour soldier...instead, you walked in and made me laugh." Miriya reached up and gently touched his hand where it cupped her cheek. "You didn't bat an eye at my Necromancy...you joked with me and made me feel welcome when we camped out on missions...I'm not sure, but I think you even snapped me out of the Death Shroud that one time, by...just being there." She turned her head in towards the palm of his hand and gave it a soft kiss. "I never thought I'd be attracted to a non-Asura. Never even entered my mind...till you. Once I realized that, I had to get your attention some how. Even if for a moment." A sigh escaped her. "When I learned we had business in Rata Sum, I contrived a way for us to be alone. I introduced Dhangalor to a weaponsmith friend, and I lent Corvus my card to the datablocks in the archives." "And Slane?" Kaleb asked. "Didn't have to do a thing. He just disappeared." She chuckled ruefully. "For all I know he's in this room and cloaked, watching my humiliation." The Asura turned her head to look him in the face. "I tricked you, to get you to come here. To get you alone... to get you drunk..." Another tear fell. "I-I'll understand if you want to leave, or if you never want to talk to me again...I just, I just..." Miriya was interrupted once again by Kaleb. This time however, he cut her off by giving her mouth something else to do. Eyes wide in surprise, it took her a moment to realize he was kissing her this time, and when that registered, she all but melted into his arms. "My poor Miriya..." Kaleb sighed after the kiss was broken. He stroked her cheek, rubbing a tear away. "I didn't see the signs...didn't know how you felt. I honestly thought you thought I was a... what's the term?" "...Bookah?" She chuckled feebly. He smiled. "A Bookah. That's it. I know, and I knew, that I could never match you mentally in damned near anything. But I didn't see all the times, all the little things you said and did...till now." "....and now?" "I'm not going to send you away, or ignore you, for starters." He smirked, raising an eyebrow. "And I'm not going to stop being your best friend either. So you don't need to worry your pretty little head about that." Miriya couldn't repress the giggle, which earned a broad grin from Kaleb. "That being said, I gotta admire your little plan. You did catch me off guard with that kiss...but...honestly it wasn't that bad." Her jaw dropped, and she stared at him as he winked. "It was actually pretty good. I had no idea you were that good a kisser." "I...I-ya...wha..." "You know, I think in the back of my head, I always wondered what it'd be like to kiss you. You had those lovely lips, and that black lipstick..." He grinned. "I never would have thought you'd have had a crush on a simple human." That earned him a smack to the shoulder. "You! I... I ARGH!..." She reached up and grabbed his cheeks so that he was looking her straight in the eyes. "Simple human?! Says the guy who goes and rips the scrappin' ARM off a Destroyer troll and beats it to death with it?! And then has the club at the end of that arm turned into a new hammer head?" She glared at him, teeth grinding, a low growl in her throat, before kissing him again. "You're just damned lucky I think you're cute, big Bookah." She purred, stroking his cheek, feeling the stubble under her nail. "Oh, now we're name-calling?" Kaleb chuckled, wrapping his arms around her waist. "Or is that supposed to be my pet name now?" "Mm, no...not a pet name." She frowned a bit, before smirking. "How about a code name for in public? Others might think I'm insulting your intelligence, but you'd know I'm not?" "Works for me...Bookah never really insulted me anyway." He shrugged. "Always made me think 'Book-reader' or something. So coming from an Asura, it doesn't actually sound like an insult." "Good...Then that's what I'll nickname you in public; Big Bookah. MY Big Bookah." She licked her lips playfully, her emerald eyes examining him so close up. "Mm... That does sound good."

#gw2 #gw2 fanfiction #tyrias-library #My characters #Miriya Danae #Kaleb Fenoir #cute #romantic #kinda cliche?#asura female #male human #asura necromancer #human warrior

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chiseler · 5 years

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W.R. BURNETT

William Riley Burnett isn't quite as well known as other crime writers like Hammett and Chandler, but the titles of several W. R. Burnett novels and films everybody knows. His career and his influence stretched from gangster novels and movies, which he went a long way to defining, through noir to blaxploitation and beyond.

According to Burnett, a good place to begin his story is in a fleabag in Chicago, when he was a twenty-seven-year-old hayseed from Ohio who in six years had written some one hundred stories and five novels, not one of them published. On his first night in the big city, sleeping in that cheap hotel, he was jolted out of bed by a series of explosions across the street. Rival gangsters had been arguing over the rake in the parking garage across the street. Things got heated and they started throwing hand grenades -- "pineapples," folks called them then. That was Chicago in 1928. "Capone was King," Burnett later wrote. "Corruption was rampant... Gangsters were shooting each other all over town; in fact, I 'heard' one killing over the radio. It happened in a cafe while a dance-band broadcast was in progress. Two shots came over distinctly, the music slurred to an abrupt stop, then the air went dead."

Intrigued, Burnett started hanging out with cops and hoods, taking notes, and ended up writing a gangster novel he originally titled The Furies. The first New York publisher he sent it to rejected it. He gave it a new title and sent it off again. In 1929 it was published as Little Caesar.

Along with Hammett, whose Red Harvest had come out six months earlier, Burnett was fashioning a new class of crime novel as literate pulp, just as the syndicates were emerging and the Depression was about to redraw the entire social landscape. The writing is very spare in a Hemingwayish way, yet vividly descriptive when it needs to be. His characters have names like Scabby and Limpy John and Killer Pepi, and they speak a Chicago gangster patois he'd heard on the streets, full of hard guys pumping lead out of gats and rods, new to most readers at the time but soon universally recognized. They're vain to the point of girlishness, constantly fussing with their hair and fawn-colored spats and diamond stick pins. They're cocky and quick to take offense because they're so insecure. They're far more tender, sympathetic and loving with each other than they are with their dames. "I would not shoot Rico if he shot me first," one says. "Rico is my friend and I love him with a great love." Rico ends up forfeiting his life because he can't bring himself to shoot an old pal. As opposed to:

Olga Stassoff was just putting the finishing touches to her make-up. Joe came in softly and stood watching her. She began to sing.

"If you're singing for me," said Joe, "you can stop any time."

Olga turned around.

"Well, what are you doing here? Broke?"

"Shut up," said Joe.

Then he turned and walked out of the room.

Scholars have made much of the homoerotic subtext in all this, but then scholars can see homoerotic subtext in a stick of gum. Probably what Burnett was really picking up on was the peculiarities of Mediterranean masculinity as expressed in the largely Italian milieu of the late-1920s Chicago gangster. Film historian Thomas Doherty points out that "foreign" gangsters -- Italians, Jews -- were still pretty mysterious to a lot of Americans; through the 1920s they'd heard more about all-American outlaws like Bonnie and Clyde, John Dillinger and Baby Face Nelson. The rise of organized crime syndicates -- whom Burnett much later called "just businessmen who don’t abide by the rules" -- was also news to many Americans at the time.

Little Caesar was an instant hit. So of course was the film adaptation. The movie was a huge box office success at a time when the Depression was cutting attendance figures by half, and it made Edward G. Robinson a star. It's not nearly as tough or brisk as the book, though Robinson is great in it. Both the book and the movie had their share of critics who expressed outrage that Burnett seemed to be sympathizing with and "humanizing" his hoodlum characters.

Hollywood called and Burnett answered. For the next forty years he'd be there, writing both novels and films, many of them successful, a few of them classics.

There was The Beast of the City in 1932, with Walter Huston as an unscrupulously tough crime-busting cop who'd later be seen as a pre-echo of Dirty Harry. Howard Hughes called on Burnett to make some sense of more than a dozen draft screenplays for Scarface, based on the Armitage Trail novel published around the same time as Little Caesar. Burnett compiled the best scenes into a master draft, then Ben Hecht applied the polish. The result was the last of the great pre-Code gangster films, a movie much harder and more raw than Little Caesar.

Butnett's oddball 1935 comedy The Whole Town's Talking is a kind of meta-crime story, with Edward G. Robinson brilliantly playing two roles, sometimes in split-screen, as a meek bank clerk who's identical to a vicious killer. Jean Arthur's great in her snappy role too, but then isn't she always. Burnett's prizefighter novel Iron Man was made into three films, Iron Man in 1931, Some Blondes Are Dangerous in 1937, and Iron Man again in 1951. His novella Dr. Socrates, about the clash of a small-town doctor and a hoodlum on the lam, was first serialized in Collier's, then made into the 1935 film of the same name. It starred the great Paul Muni and Ann Dvorak, who'd been paired a few years earlier as the possibly incestuous Tony and Cesca Camonte in Scarface. It was remade in 1939 as the Bogart vehicle King of the Underworld.

By his 1940 novel High Sierra, both Burnett's writing and his tough guys had fully matured. His style is more relaxed, still handsomely descriptive but with more psychological depth. Roy Earle in the book is more broken and melancholy than the Dillinger-inspired outlaw Bogart plays in the film, more jittery and uncomfortable in the world after years in stir. He's not thoroughly a bad man, more of a bad-luck stray like the dog Pard. He's weary and lonesome and sick, showing his age in his inability to control either his flashes of snarling violence or his fits of nostalgic longing. The newspapers call him Mad Dog but Old Dog would be more fitting. His affair with Marie, the only other character as tough and savvy as he is, would be totally mysterious to the hard guys in Little Caesar.

The film adaptation came out in 1941, directed by Raoul Walsh, with a screenplay by Burnett and John Huston that's pretty faithful to the book, though they made the necessary Hollywood concessions. In the novel, Velma's not the innocent little hick she is in the film -- she's damaged goods in more ways than the clubfoot -- and it's explicit that Marie starts out "just a lay," as Roy tells her, then worms her way into his heart just like Pard does. Burnett and Huston tacked on the movie's big melodramatic climax as well. In the book Roy makes sure Marie and Pard are well out of harm's way, then dies alone up in the mountains, shot by a gunman he never sees, taking his bullet quietly, almost wistfully. It probably wouldn't have made good cinema but it's a more fitting end for him. This movie would also get remade twice, as a Western in the 1949 Colorado Territory and then as the grimy 1955 I Died a Thousand Times, with Jack Palance as Earle and Shelley Winters doing the Ida Lupino role.

Having helped to invent the modern gangster novel and picture, Burnett wrote some of the darkest, hardest, and ethically murkiest postwar noir, creating a world where it's nearly impossible to tell the good guys from the bad ones because most everybody's tainted or bent in some way. In the 1946 Nobody Lives Forever, John Garfield is both a war hero and a con man. When he comes home from the warfront, like a lot of other vets he tries to pick up his old life, only to find everything's changed while he was gone. It's sort of The Best Years of Our Lives for hoodlums.

In The Asphalt Jungle, published in 1949, the world's gone so dirty and upside down that the supposedly upstanding citizens are actually worse than the bad guys. The cop and the lawyer are more crooked and sleazy than the hoods who pull the heist, and some of them are plenty sleazy. Like Roy Earle, Dix Handley is a throwback, a farmboy operating by a kind of Old West outlaw code of honor he probably read as a kid in pulp magazines. He's pulled down by lowlifes who are thoroughly modern and urban, and as innocent of ethics as rats in an alley. Huston made the film the following year. It reappeared as the forgotten 1963 George Sanders movie Cairo and again in 1972 as the blaxploitation flick Cool Breeze. A tv crime series called The Asphalt Jungle ran for one season in 1961.

Burnett also co-wrote the screenplay for This Gun for Hire, adapted from the Graham Greene novel. He adapted the Eric Ambler spy novel Background to Danger, worked on the anti-syndicate potboiler The Racket and on several Westerns and wartime pictures.

He was still at it in the 1960s, still writing crime novels like The Cool Man, published in 1968. At a time when other pulp writers were cranking out endless knockoffs of James Bond or trying to get with the hippies and drugs, Burnett stuck with what he knew best. Like High Sierra and The Asphalt Jungle it's about a big heist gone wrong, leaving some of the crooks dead and the rest spatting over the spoils. Now almost all his hard guys are anachronisms, noir characters who've survived into the Swingin' Sixties by wits, guile or just brute force. They're at the opposite end of life from the cocky young narcissists in Little Caesar, old guys moving deliberately down crooked paths they know by rote, pursuing their agendas -- money, revenge, self-preservation, sex -- by instinct now. When fate throws them curves they take it, like Roy Earle would have, with a resigned shrug. By the end of the book all their machinations have just sort of petered out; a few of them are dead and the rest are stranded like sharks out of water. You have to wonder if Burnett was feeling a bit like that himself by this point.

Burnett also co-wrote the screenplay for The Great Escape with James Clavell, his last Hollywood coup. He did some uncredited work on Ice Station Zebra, and wrote episodes for several tv series, including Naked City, The Untouchables and, of course, The Asphalt Jungle, as well as a lot of Westerns. His eyesight failing, he didn't write so much in the 1970s. But he was still able to bring his whole career full circle with his last book, Goodbye, Chicago, set in 1928, the year he got there. It was published in 1981 and he died the next year.

by John Strausbaugh

#John Strausbaugh #The Chiseler #The Cool Man #Beast of the City #Jean Harlow #Edward G. Robinson #WR Burnett

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justakidwithopinions-blog · 5 years

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The Big Small

Did you know that each size in clothing has a range? For example, the small sizes for women in Europe usually range between B 82-89 cm, W 65-72 cm and H 90-97 cm; meaning that a woman that has 89cm bust, 72 cm waist and 97 cm hips are still a part of the small size category. But we don’t see that. What the media usually portraits is women with 82 cm bust 65 cm waist and 90 cm hips or even portraits someone who is slightly below that and are usually tall and when you’re shopping online they say in the description of the model “Our model is wearing a size S” well they’re not wrong, so what is the problem? You see there has been a trend recently which in my opinion is really empowering that clothing brands have to represent “Plus-size models”, which means someone who is above the L size (B 98-107 cm, W 82-90 cm and H 105-112 cm). Brands post pictures of “regular” models on their Instagrams and the feedback is amazing, some people are leaving rather sexual comments and others are jealous of the model and on the other side when a brand posts a picture of a plus-size model the feedback tends to be in 3 categories 1. People that are “concerned” for the health of the model due to them being “overweight” 2. People defending the model saying that they’re beautiful no matter what body shape they have and that they can be healthy even though they’re “fat” 3. Very rude and offensive people leaving mean comments saying that such models shouldn’t exist, that they’re not models and that they’re showcasing obesity.

What is my problem you may ask, you might tell me that sizeism is over now that the brands are shining light on “large” people! Let me answer you with two questions that I later will clarify.

Where are the 89cm bust, 72 cm waist and 97 cm hips models? Where are medium-sized models?

I’m a 19-year-old middle-eastern girl that fits the description above; I call my size the Big Small. I’m 166 cm in height and I wear a size small in women’s Europian clothing and never have I, in my entire life, seen someone with my body type represented in a model. As if, if you’re not the Small Small you’ll be seen as obese and fat. No one ever believes me when I tell them that I am in fact a size small. When I was younger I went on a diet because I was a fat teenager, I hated every second of it and I thought to myself that when the diet is over I will begin to love myself, that I can finally see myself represented in media. But I clearly remember to this day that when I measured myself on the last day of my diet I perfectly fitted the small size, but I asked myself why the hell I don’t look like the lady in the picture? And the body dysmorphia continuous.

Even though 3 years have passed since my diet, I still cannot eat like a normal person. I measure myself every day, look at myself in the mirror with disgust and I had a habit of weighing myself every 2 minutes which I have thankfully let go of due to my parents destroying the scale. Body dysmorphia has caused depression and anxiety but since it doesn’t seem like such a big problem to others - I mean no one is chopping off my arm, it’s just in my head, right?- no one takes me seriously when I have an off day when I mentally cannot do anything but lay in my bed and checking my body every second in my phone camera and crying, so often thinking about killing myself. So why is representation important?

It is 2019. Blacks, women, plus-sizes, disabled people, queer people and in general so many minorities are being represented and you will not understand the power of representation until you’re a part of a minority. You will complain about why they are making Captain America black and why Captain Marvel is so important? And why Captain Marvel isn’t wearing a sexy suit to please you? You will bash out to people commenting about how happy they are that a minority is being represented and you will always look for your looking-glass.

What does looking-glass mean? Let me introduce to you this theory that Virginia Woolf once beautifully portrayed:

Women have served all these centuries as looking-glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of a man at twice its natural size. Without that power probably the earth would still be swamp and jungle. The glories of all our wars would be unknown. We should still be scratching outlines of deer on the remains of mutton bones and bartering flints for sheepskin or whatever simple ornament took our unsophisticated taste. Supermen and Fingers of Destiny would never have existed. Tsar and Kaiser would never have worn crowns or lost them. Whatever may be their use in civilized societies, mirrors are essential to all violent and heroic action. That is why Napoleon and Mussolini both insist so emphatically upon the inferiority of women, for if they were not inferior they would cease to enlarge. that serves to explain the necessity that women so often are to men...how is he to go giving judgement, civilizing natives, making laws, writing books, dressing up and speechifying at banquets unless he can see himself at breakfast and at dinner at least twice the size he really is.

Now do yourself a favour and replace any woman/her/she with the minority and every man/him/he with the majority that complains.

People are afraid that once they are equal and not superior, they’ll cease to exist. They will insist on everyone following their specific guidelines and morals so that they can rule everyone by teaching one how to behave. Hitler just had his own way. If you don’t exist in a certain way, you do not exist at all. Believe it or not, we're still at war with the Hitler mentality only difference is, this time it’s in our minds. We’re our own little Hitlers. No, we don’t want to go and kill other people, but we’re willing to kill ourselves if we don’t fit in the standard that we have created for ourselves with the help of the media! [Do you know why people like violence? It is because it feels good. Humans find violence deeply satisfying. But remove the satisfaction and the act becomes hollow - Alan Turing, The Imitation Game (2014)]

The conclusion is that we shouldn’t beg for representation at the same time that we should beg for representation. That no matter how small it may seem one hate comment might end up killing someone. That as cliche as it sounds it’s time to stop hating ourselves and hating other people. Not to be confused with disagreeing with someone or arguing with the agreement of all participants to reach a conclusion. If we don’t have something nice to say about a person -again not to be confused with their opinion- we shouldn’t say anything at all and maybe look for a fresh pair of eyes.

-Negin Hamesh

#representation #hatred #we matter #i matter #essay #body dysmorphia #representation matters

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dungeonecologist · 5 years

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WILD ARMS 2 - Withered Ruins

Wild Arms 2 is a personal favorite of mine and so an easy target to go back and pick through. Thousand Arms is populated with original enemies in design and origin, but like many of the classic RPGs that the Wild Arms franchise draws upon for influence, Wild Arms 2 is chock full of neat and often obscure monsters drawn from myth, folk lore, historical grimoires and fiction, as well as other inspirational genre sources like Dungeons & Dragons and western horror films. So, I’ll try to not only comment on the monsters and how they relate to their dungeons but also their origins going forward!

Starting with what is basically the canonical "first” of three prologue chapters; our central protagonist, Ashley Winchester, is a militia soldier deployed to an old abandoned and structurally unstable ruins to rescue an orphan boy, kidnapped by disgruntled and disenfranchised laborers.

The dungeon has 3 basic enemies, 1 boss, and 1 secret enemy that pops up WAAAAYYY later in disc 2...

The most accessible (knowledge wise) and the weakest is the Kobold. Other than being a well known magical creature of German folk lore, it is also a common enemy in other RPGs. Dungeons & Dragons in particular memorably depicts them as reptilian humanoids in the service of greater Dragon races. JRPGS frequently depict them as dog-like or otherwise furred savage humanoids. They are also frequently in the company of other mythological spirits like the Undine, Salamander, and Sylph as a representative of Earth, rounding out the set of Four Elements. Oddly none of these depictions adhere to much integrity to the source folk lore.

Although usually invisible, a kobold can materialize in the form of an animal, fire, a human being, and a candle. The most common depictions of kobolds show them as humanlike figures the size of small children.

Legends tell of three major types of kobolds. Most commonly, the creatures are house spirits of ambivalent nature; while they sometimes perform domestic chores, they play malicious tricks if insulted or neglected... Another type of kobold haunts underground places, such as mines. A third kind of kobold, lives aboard ships and helps sailors.

Kobolds who live in human homes wear the clothing of peasants; those who live in mines are hunched and ugly; and kobolds who live on ships smoke pipes and wear sailor clothing.

Given the context what we see here is a type 2 Kobold; child-sized, vaguely humanoid, somewhat animal-like, and haunting the dusty remains of crumbling sandstone ruins. Later Wild Arms games will shift towards depicting them as Earth spirits, complete with a dramatic redesign, but this iteration doesn’t have any specifically Earth based attacks. Curiously however, its bestiary entry does in fact list a weakness to Air magic and resistance to Earth magic.

The other common enemy in this dungeon is the Stirge. An original monster to the original Dungeons & Dragons as part of the Greyhawk supplement. Initially more bird-like, save it’s long blood sucking proboscis, later editions would shift the Stirge’s design more toward insectoid, and later still toward a leathery aberration unlike any insect or avian entirely.

Here the Stirge retains both its leathery wings, and its signature ability to drain its enemy of HP. But otherwise, it varies drastically in that it seems to borrow from H.R. Geiger’s Alien Facehugger some, playing into the monster’s tactics of grasping onto its prey with pincer like claws before draining them of blood, although it replaces the variable beak-like appendages of classic designs with a striking tail.

Somewhat rarer is the Gagison of all things, a very obscure choice for an early dungeon; a spirit only briefly mentioned in The Book of Abremelin. He also appears in the Shin Megami Tensei games under the name “Gagyson” (An image of which I used above in the absence of any historical illustrations) where his descriptions mention:

His name means "one farms striped mullet". Originally a Hebrew minor god of plague. While in "The Book of Abramelin" he is a low-ranking demon subordinates to Arioch.

In line with being a supposed “minor god of plague,” the Wild Arms 2 version does utilize the Disease status ailment.

So what I really love here is how perfectly “First Dungeon” this set up really is: It showcases 3 different kinds of monsters (from folk lore, from pop culture, and from myth) but despite disparate origins, they do all paint a cohesive picture... The cutscenes showing the exterior of the dungeon show a desert terrain, the sandstone architecture has an earthen tone, both of which place comfortably place the Kobold in this dungeon. In addition the Stirge, while traditionally a dark forest dwelling monster, has been known to have desert and jungle varieties, and the ability to drain HP fits with the withering theme, as does the Gagison’s Disease ability. All together these three give off the impression of a dungeon not only “withering” in physical form, but in regards to an earthly life force; It is a place abandoned, drained of life, sickly, and falling apart –a prevalent tone for the planet Filgaia at large, and indeed a major theme of the later plot of the game.

But then we come to the Boss monster, Kalivos. Despite some flavor thrown into the ending cutscene that mentions explosive secretions, Kalivos does not actually use any kind of explosive or Fire based special attacks. Instead Kalivos had two massive rending claws and a Laser Breath attack. (One fun feature of Wild Arms 2 is the segmentation of boss monsters into a core enemy and various specialized body parts. Defeating specific limbs awards their own exp and disables their own set of attacks and abilities.)

But here’s the thing... I have absolutely NO idea what the hell Kalivos is supposed to be...

It’s the name of a town on the island of Crete in Greece, apparently? The Greek town is written as Κάλυβος, which technically ought to sound something like “Kah-loo-bohs” I think? It might actually be a reference to Calibos, from Clash of the Titans (who, oddly enough, isn’t a mythological figure, but a character original to the 1981 film) but honestly there aren’t enough shared features between them to really pin that reference down: Horns? A tail/whip? A tangential relation to a kidnapping?

More over, even if it was in fact Calibos, that wouldn’t really add to the “Withered” theme of the dungeon?

Anyway, that’s really all I’ve got to say about this one.

#wild arms 2 #jrpg #psx #dungeons and dragons #d&d #stirge #smt #shin megami tensei #persona #gagyson #gagison #kobold #clash of the titans #calibos #kalivos

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