#i felt good. swamp monster lady real

[baphometboots]

pictures of my place where i go i go there i

#fog #bog #swamp #good #yessss #goood #i took these this morning #i walked out and the fog rolled over me #i felt good. swamp monster lady real #then i saw a couple wild rabbits playing #they were running around and binkying i almost cried

[legionofpotatoes]

we decided to watch all story cutscenes from the new resident evil village videogame on a whim, since it’s not really our cup of tea gameplay-wise but seems to be this massive zeitgeist moment that made us morbidly curious. And I know how much everyone cares about my thoughts on things I know very little about, so. let’s get into it huh gamers. and yeah spoilers?

for context, I’ve only played resident evil 4 and a small portion of 5. I also read the wikipedia entry for 7’s plot recently. all this to say I was only vaguely aware of how tonally wacky the series was going in

I also completely gave up following the plot of the mutagens’ soap opera, so that paid off in spades here as you might imagine

anyway so that baby in the intro. that baby’s head is just massive. humongous toddlerdome. when ethan finds the baby’s head in a jar later on. there is no way that head would fit into that jar. bad game design. no not even game design. basic stuff. one hundred years in prison for jar modeler

if I see a single functional hetero marriage in video games I will cry tears of joy. I understand their misery is kind of The Point irt them badly working through the hillbilly romp trauma but like. sheesh. at least set that up as an emotional story goal the plot will help resolve. but nope they start off miserable and it goes nowhere

I know I know the mia thing has a huge wrinkle in it but like. not really in terms of dramatic function?? set up a happy end to the re7 nightmare (miranda can keep up appearances for all she cares) and then take that all away from angry griffin mcelroy for manpain. it will still absolutely work to set up the dramatic forward momentum. why throw in this cliche Hollywood Tension in their marriage if you’re not going to address it oh maybe because it’s normalized as automatically interesting because nuclear families are a self-propagating pit of a very narrow chance at emotional happiness relying on social stigma to preserve their empty function oops my baggage slipped in yikes abort mission

I called him griffin mcelroy because I saw his face on twitter and. yeah. I will continue to do this occasionally. my house my rules

... fuck the reason I’m hung up on this is specifically because the rest of the game is so tonally dexterous (which is a shining point to me! more on that later!), and yet they felt weirdly compelled to create the aesthetic trapping of a family-at-odds trope without following it through too well. a sign of both the good and the bad stuff to come

but listen the real reason why I wanted to talk about any of this is to nitpick the fascinating backwards-engineered nucleus of the entire thing; in that this game essentially creates a melting pot of just SO many disparate horror tropes and then makes a no-holds-barred unhinged effort at weaving thick lore to piece them all together. it is truly a sight to behold. like straight up you got your backwoods fright night situation, your gothic castle vampires, your rural-industrial werewolves, and don’t forget your bloated swamp monsters over there, with then a hard left turn into robotic body horror, and the entire ass subgenre of Creepy Doll writ large, and the bloodborne tentacle monsters, and a hellboy angel bossfight, which rides on the coattails of a mech-on-mech pacific rim bonanza, and just jesus henry christ slow down

almost all of these are textural hijack jobs that don’t really get into the metaphor plain of any of those settings but the game sort-of makes an argument that the texture IS the point and revels in it. It is kind of admirable almost. The same reason why the intro felt boxed in and unmotivated is also why the rest of the game just blasts off of its hinges to the point of complete and self-indulgent tonal abandon. I kinda loved that about it. lady dimitrescu made sure to hold her hat down as she bent forward in mahogany doorways and then suddenly she’s a giant gore dragon and you settle in your temp role as dark souls man with Gun to take her ass down. Excellent??

this rhino rampage impulse to gobble up every horror aesthetic known to man comes to head when the game wrestles with its FPS trappings in what is the most hilarious solution in creating visceral player damage moments. Since most cinematics and the entire game is in first person, that leaves precious little real estate for the devs to work with if they really want to sell griffin’s physical crucible. To wit. This dude’s forearms. Specifically just the forearms. They are MASSACRED throughout the story. The poor man lives out the silent hill dimension of a hand model. by the end cutscene he looks like a neatly dressed desk clerk who had decided to stick both his grabbers into garbage disposal grinders just a few hours prior. like in addition to everything else it manages to rope in that tinge of slapstick violence into its general grievous genre collection except this time it IS for a lack of trying! truly incredible

but wait his miracle clawbacks from everything his poor paws go through are retroactively explained away, yes, but far too vaguely and far too late to console me as I sat and watched everyone’s favorite baby brother reattach an entirely severed hand to his wrist stump by just. placing it on there. and giving it a lil twist ‘n pop terminator-style. and then willing his fingers back into motion right in front of my bulging eyes. this game just does not care. it does not give a shit. and boy howdy will it work to make that into one of its strongest suits

cause generally speaking resident evil was THE premiere vanilla zombie content destinaysh for like a decade, right? and as the rest of the world and mainstream media started encroaching and bloodying its blue ocean it went and just exploded in every single conceivable horror trope direction like a smilodon on catnip. truly, genuinely fascinating franchise moves

yeah the big vampire milf is hot. other news; grass... green. although I do love the implication that her closet is just identical white dresses on a rack. cartoon network-level queen shit

apropos of nothing I’ve said there’s also this hobo dante-devimaycry-magneto man, and I can’t believe this sentence makes sense. anyway he made that “boulder-punching asshole” joke referring to chris redfield and it was probably the only easter egg that really landed for me and boy did it land hard. I have not seen him punch the boulder in re5, mind. I had only heard about how funny it is from friends. and here this dude was, probably in the same exact mindset as me, trying to grapple with that insane mental image. with you on that ian mckellen, loud and clear

I advocate vehemently against the shallow pursuit of hyper photorealism in art direction but I gotta admit it works really in favor of immersive horror like this. the european village shacks especially gave me super unchill flashbacks to my rural countryside retreat in western georgia. I could smell the linoleum dude. not cool

faces are weird in this game. can’t place it. nice textures, good animation, but the modeling template is... uuh strange? and the hair. it has that clustered-flat-clumpy look that harkens to something very specific and unpleasant but I just don’t know what. sue me

griffin’s mental aptitude to take all this shit in stride and end every seemingly traumatizing bossfight involving some fucking eldritch being yet unseen through mortal eyes by essentially throwing out an MCU quip is just. What the fuck dude? I mean that was funny how you casually yelled the f-word at a god damn werewolf that you considered a fairy tale an hour ago but are you like, all right?? it was swinging a sledgehammer the size of a bus at you, ethan

oh oh the vampires are afraid of cold and your last name is winters. I get it haha

Pro Gamer Nitpick: boss fights seemed a bit unnecessarily long?? idk why the youtuber we picked decided the ENTIRE propeller man fight counted towards the vital story scenes he was stitching together, but man mr big daddy lite there really had some get up and go huh??

why are they saying dimitrescu.. like that. is it really how you say that word or is the english language relapsing into its fetish for ending every single word with a consonant at all costs

I’m not saying it’s a dramatic miss of a twist in context of all that’s going on, but the “you died in the last game actually and have been DC’s clayface ever since” revelation is low-key. it’s. it’s just funny to me, I dont know what to say. century-old god-witch fails her evil plan after she mistakenly removes heart from what was definitely NOT just some white guy with eight fingers after all

chris realizing he’s about to become the player character and immediately swapping out his tsundere trenchcoat for the muscletight sex haver sweater

the little bluetooth speaker-sized pipe bomb he taped to his knife was nuclear?? really??? I must have missed something because that is just too good. I buy it though I totally buy it. chris just got them fun-sized nukes in his car trunk for, you guessed it, Situations

anyway this is all for now just wanted to briefly touch on how unexpectedly funny and tonally irreverent this seemingly serious game turned out to be. did not articulate any cathartic story beats whatsoever but my god it had fun connecting those plot points. he just fucking put his severed hand back on his stump and it Just Worked todd howard get in here

#text #another one in my bulleted review series with no rhyme or reason #sorry resident evil fans this could be a painful read pls turn away #i know almost nothing about it but i am gonna be super fake familiar and critical of this one hey ho

[funkzpiel]

Geralt wonders why he can never get rid of Jaskier. One night Jaskier is drunk and telling Geralt stories of his childhood. How his mother was once saved from a monster before he was born. The man took no coin in thanks, only claimed the Law of Surprise. His father died in the attack, and later his mother discovered that she was pregnant with Jaskier. His mother never saw the man again. Jaskier chuckles to himself, not noticing how Geralt has suddenly gone silent and wide-eyed.

I changed the background of the ‘how’ a bit, but I hope you still enjoy it.

Together

“There’s nowhere you can be that isn’t where you are meant to be.”- John Lennon

Jaskier, by the definition of his very personality, was Geralt’s polar opposite; and yet, for a man so utterly unlike the witcher, the bard had an uncanny ability with comfort. That was how Geralt found himself sitting at a bar with company rather than alone. It had been a few months since ‘fate’ had begun to reappear into his life – little tendrils of coincidences and off-hand remarks from various people and events that were constantly reminding him that the clock was ticking. His child surprise was coming for him.

With every warning and every sign of the inevitable, Geralt felt his jaw clench tighter and tighter until a dull pain had rooted into his temples, constant and burning. Everyone had an opinion. Everyone felt the need to tell him what to do; to just give in. Fate was, after-all, unavoidable - or so they insist on telling him. But “fate” was a ruse made by weak-willed men who wanted to hide their deeds behind excuses like ‘inevitable’ and such, and Geralt wanted nothing to do with it. There was no such thing as fate, he was definitely not about to take in a child-ward any time soon, and that was all there was to it.

“You’re grinding again,” Jaskier said easily, slipping back into his spot across the table from Geralt as he slid another full pint toward the man. He gestured at his own jaw with a twirl of a finger and elaborated, “Your teeth,” when Geralt didn’t immediately stop – as if he had merely misunderstood.

Geralt pursed his lips with a grunt, took the flagon, and imbibed a hearty sip. He wiped the froth from his lip with the back of his hand and continued looking sour. They had just finished a contract – Jaskier being Jaskier all the while – with a sorceress who had, at the end, tried to ‘pay him’ by becoming ‘possessed by Fate’ with a capital ‘F’. Reminding him of his duty to his child, of course, how the fuck did everyone know about that. As if this girl, this princess, were his daughter. Geralt felt his jaw tighten again.

He blamed Jaskier. There was no doubt in his mind that the man had created some pub shanty about his child-surprise without him knowing about it and even he had the good sense not to sing it around Geralt.

Jaskier whistled. He was a bit noodlely at the moment. Knowing Geralt as well as he did, it was Jaskier who had insisted they take a load off and wind down at the tavern to celebrate a job well done, a heavier purse, and the fact that they were very much the masters of their own fates, thank you. It was the last bit in particular that got Geralt’s interest; not that he had ever been a man opposed to a good drink. Jaskier had merely made the point that ‘to drink would be to spit in “fate’s” face, after all – and it brings us no nearer your child surprise, right?’ and it was a done deal.

So they drank. They drank, and Jaskier had done his damnedest to keep up with Geralt out of what the witcher could only assume was some spirit of camaraderie. The idiot. So the bard was rather noodlely and loose. There had been a distinct moment when he had first stood to refresh their cups that Geralt had been certain the bard would collapse. But despite the tilt to his gait, Jaskier had managed – and was, in fact, still remarkably cognizant for a man Geralt had no plan of letting walk again for at least an hour or so.  

Geralt himself had the beginning of a pleasant buzz beginning to burn throughout his body, numbing his ire toward fate and destiny and village folk who were constantly trying to rip him out of his money for doing jobs no sane man would do. Perhaps Jaskier had been right. He did need a night to drink, to spit in destiny’s face, and be neither father-to-be or witcher, but merely a man in a bar drinking with a friend.

He forced himself to loosen his jaw and Jaskier stopped his babbling from across the table with cheer and said, “That’a’boy, Geralt!”

They played Gwent; a game that Jaskier’s fingers struggled to keep up with but his mind, surprisingly, had no trouble with at all. Allowing Geralt to put his own mind into a pleasant round of distractions as he kept Jaskier’s frontline from utterly devastating his own with all manner of range and weather cards. When the time came, it was Geralt who refreshed their cups next (and had a private word with the bar keep to perhaps water Jaskier’s down just a little).

The evening went on like that – pleasant and mundane and mild – until suddenly it was anything but. Because Jaskier, the fucking bard that he was, just had to make things personal. And in Geralt’s experience, nothing good ever came from getting personal.

“Honestly, Geralt, I’m on your side with all this fate rubbish,” Jaskier finally said, evidently confident enough in the good turn of mood in the witcher to further discuss the topic. As though the matter were a wet sheet to be aired, dried, folded and finally dealt with. Geralt felt a twitch run through his jaw but the booze by and far helped stop him from setting his teeth to grinding again. He kept his gaze on his cards, hoping his focused expression might spare him from the conversation at hand as he slowly laid down his move and rumbled, “Funny. You seem too romantic to be on my side.”

Jaskier chuckled, hands fumbling clumsily through his own cards as he smiled and said, “Fair! Very fair. By all counts a master musician and storyteller like myself should be utterly enamored by fate—”

“—I don’t know if a man who wrote that ‘fishmonger’ nonsense can be considered a ‘master musician’,” Geralt hedged, hoping to distract the bard with his little jab, but Jaskier just merrily continued as though he hadn’t said a word - far too used to the witcher’s barbs to let it stop his rhythym. Damn.

“—but I’ve first-hand experience to tell me otherwise. Fate may be a romantic and beautiful storytelling device, no doubt, but every writer knows all too keenly that fantasies are just fantasies at the end of the day. After all, we wrote’em.”

Jaskier had a merry little blush about him; it peeked out from under his messy collar and kissed the tips of his ears, his cheeks, the bridge of his nose. Geralt chalked it up to what he referred lazily to as ‘bard magic’ that the man managed to look attractive whilst drunk instead of like a slobbering fool – like most humans. It wouldn’t be the first time Geralt wondered if there were something more to the bard than meets the eye.

Jaskier’s fingers still fumbled like a drunken fool as he played his cards though, so Geralt shook it from his mind.

“First-hand experience?” Geralt snorted, shaking his head when the bard, despite his drunkenness, managed to pull out another great move in their Gwent game – not once thinking that perhaps he too was inebriated in the slightest. “What? Did the woman you deem yourself ‘fated’ to marry reject you?”

Geralt smirked a little at his own jest, pleased.

Jaskier let it roll over him with all the candor of a duck shaking water from its feathers, smooth and easy.

“Hardly,” Jaskier laughed, watching Geralt as the man refocused on the game. “Well, I mean, you’re not wrong – Lady Emily was meant to be mine, and the world is a poorer place for her having married that lout Bartolomeo rather than myself – but no. That wasn’t it. You see, I was told ‘fate’ would have a big role in my life as well, witcher. Practically from the day I was born. And it didn’t. So there – same side.”

Geralt raised his brows, eyes lifting from his cards to drift up to Jaskier’s face with surprise. That sounded like quite the story and yet the bard didn’t immediately launch into it. Strange.

“I think that’s the briefest story you’ve ever told. Are you ill?”

“Ah!” Jaskier exclaimed, pointing at him as though he had caught the witcher red-handed in some years long investigation, “I knew you liked my stories.”

Geralt snorted, played his hand, then leaned back to cross his arms over his chest and stare at the bard menacingly – which was evidently not menacing at all, because the bard just waved him off as his eyes fell to their game and said distractedly, “Honestly, there’s no real story to tell, Geralt, don’t give me that look. Nothing happened - that’s the point.”

Geralt felt his lips curl the littlest bit downward. Now he was truly beginning to worry the man had been possessed. He even began running through the possibilities of what specific spirit it could be.

“Jaskier.”

Jaskier blew out a breath that ruffled the fine curls of his bangs – if that was even what they were called, to be honest Geralt didn’t truly know – and rolled his eyes as though Geralt were the one prone to prying and not himself. Good, Geralt thought. Served him right to get a taste of his own medicine.

“It’s an old story, not even particularly special. It’s happened to others and it just so happened to my father. He was headed home from a gala of some sort – thankfully without my mother – and he and his carriage was attacked. Not even by anything particularly remarkable, by the by, that’s how droll this story is. He was traveling through the swamps that led to home, a wheel got stuck in the mud – drowners tried to off’em, you know the way it goes.”

Geralt felt the uncanny grip of something flipping his stomach upside down and chilling his skin as suddenly a memory slammed to the forefront of his mind, dragged up from the depths of decades, triggered by Jaskier’s words.

 Geralt had been on his way back to the village to turn in a contract. He had been sore and tired, the worst of one of his potions slowly ebbing from him. His hair was a filthy, muddy, bloody thing and he looked rather like a monster himself. But the Water Hag was dead – a particularly old and particularly powerful hag at that – and the promise of a heavy purse was on the horizon. Coin and a bath and a bed. The thought alone quickened his steps for a moment.

But the swamp had been a muggy, dreadful thing. Geralt had resorted to leading Roach by her reins on foot rather than risk her ankles in the mud beneath his weight and that of his pack. He had been taking his time, grumbling now and then about the flies and the mosquitos that dogged him, the heat oppressive and thick.

He ultimately ended up leaving Roach behind when he heard a man scream up ahead. He slid through the mud in clumsy, fumbling strides only to find a carriage with its wheels stuck, plagued on all sides with drowners. They had taken the man’s horse out at the ankles and were dragging it through the mud. Geralt could still remember the panicked whites of its eyes and its shrill screaming – the sense of relief he felt knowing he had left Roach a safe distance behind. Somewhere out in the mud, he saw a gloved hand disappear beneath the mire – likely a travel guard. Dead now.

“Help! Oh, you there! Please don’t leave me!” A man had shouted from atop his cart, barely beyond the reach of webbed, grasping claws.

 He shook himself. Tried to focus. Odd for the story to start out similarly, but like Jaskier said, the monsters were as common as the situation. Focus.

“Way he tells it, it’s quite a tale. It’s too bad you’re hearing it from me and not him. Man appeared out of nowhere and out of the goodness of his heart, he cut down all the drowners.”

 It had been sloppy work, between the mud and the exhaustion. The swamp kept sucking his boots down into the muck, every move slow and squelching, but he managed. He took the head off two before they even noticed his presence – the beasts too lost to tunnel vision and bloodlust to manage much else  – then cleaved the hand off another that reached too close to the man atop the carriage. That drew the beasts’ attention rather quickly.

The fight had left him even filthier. Slathered in guts and swamp gunk and reeds that peaked out of the edges and grooves of his armor in comical places. He leaned himself against the carriage, leaving a great messy smear behind him, and sucked in a breath. The horse was dead, the carriage a lost cause. But the man was alive. Hopefully that would be enough to spare him some random human’s moaning that he hadn’t arrived in time to spare the horse. But it wouldn’t be the first time it hadn’t been enough…

“Oh, thank you! Thank you!” The man babbled urgently, scrabbling down from the top of his carriage to stand before the witcher. He was a bit of a rotund man – obviously well off – with dark mousey hair, and startlingly cornflower blue eyes. He wore rich fabrics done up in delicate, intricate threading and patterns. The knees of his trousers and ass had been muddied, his hands as well. But he looked rather cheerful for a royal of some sort who had recently taken a tumble through the mud. Most royalty always tended to be sour, even when their lives were saved. Geralt found himself off-balance.

“However can I thank you, Master…?” The man asked, letting the sentence drag pointedly.

“Witcher is fine,” Geralt said. People took none-too-kindly to his name these days. Witcher was safer; which in and of itself was a bit tragic.

“Master Witcher it is,” the man beamed, and for the life of him Geralt couldn’t fathom how a man managed to smile like that to a complete stranger. Smiling like they were longtime friends reunited after decades of getting old in separate lands, but never forgotten. This was usually the point in which people gave him a suspicious look and yet this man smiled.

 “Father said the man wanted nothing. No price, no pay. Honestly, that’s why I think he’s lying. Even you witchers require pay when you help slay monsters. Who possibly would have stepped in on that situation and been willing to walk away after risking their lives for nothing?” Jaskier snorted. It was obvious that this story had once meant quite a deal to him at one point, and slowly – as the years passed – it had lost its glamor like petals falling from a flower one by one until nothing was left but a thin, weathered stalk. Geralt grunted and tried to banish that nagging memory from his mind, to focus on Jaskier’s story. He rested his wrists down against the table to steady the subtle shaking of his cards.

But more and more, his stomach dropped like a stone. Slipped beneath the surface of icy dread like that traveling guard’s hand had disappeared beneath the murk of the swamp.

 “Honestly, don’t worry about it,” Geralt said. He was exhausted. The man surely had no coin on him of any import and Geralt had no interest in following the man home to then negotiate some fee as all men seemed inclined to do after the work was done and the threat gone. He wanted nothing more than to return to town, burrow into a bed at the tavern, and sleep off the rest of the potion still chewing at the edges of his system. He wanted to wrap up his current contract, not haggle another. He held a hand up to the man when he tried to pull the rings from his fingers and said, “Truly. It was only decent to stop and help. I didn’t even manage to spare your horse or guard—”

“Ah, Renfield—” the man said, suddenly sobering. A true sense of somber grief appeared to steal over the man, his eyes casting out to the spot in the swamp where he last saw him. “And to think I don’t even have a body to bring home to his wife…”

Geralt shifted uncomfortably. He wanted to go. He wanted to  sleep.

“See? You owe me nothing,” Geralt offered softly.

“You still saved my life,” the man said, “That is not nothing.”

Geralt clenched his teeth and looked out over the wastes of the swamp. It was obvious the man would not relent. Furthermore, he couldn’t leave the man like this either – alone in the swamps among the carcasses of dead drowners. The witcher sighed, long and heavy through flared nostrils, and finally said, “Walk with me to town and I’ll surely think of something.”

 “But father insisted on paying the man,” Jaskier said, a little grin slipping onto his face then as he proudly said, “We’re a bit of a stubborn lot, we of house de Lettenhove.”

Cornflower blue eyes drifted up to twinkle merrily at Geralt, surely expecting the witcher to sieze the opportunity to agree that, yes, Jaskier was nothing if not bullishly stubborn when he got something into his head. Something like following a witcher around and using those adventures as a muse, for instance.

 Geralt was thanking his lucky star by the time they finally stumbled into the village where he needed to turn in his contract. The man – some Viscount from some place Geralt really had no intention of remembering – had managed to fill the silence Geralt so desperately wanted all the way from the moment they left the swamps to the second they stepped into the village. He spoke of why he was traveling with one guard - “Well my wife is pregnant, you see, and I was afraid to leave her alone in her state. She’s due any day now,” – and how they were expecting a wee lass and oh, how he’d tell her about the brave, muddied man who saved him.

Geralt barely stopped himself from burying his face into Roach’s neck when the man clapped him heartily on the back and exclaimed, “And now I owe you furthermore for escorting me to safety! Have you thought of a just reward?”

Geralt felt a groan lodge behind his teeth and just barely managed to smother it. The alderman’s home was  right there. He was so close.

 Geralt cleared his throat, but his voice still came out like a choked croak when he asked, “And your father wouldn’t take no for an answer, right?”

“Quite right, witcher-dear,” Jaskier said, finally playing his hand in their gwent game with a drunken flourish; but it felt a bit stale from some reason. In fact, everything about Jaskier felt stale the moment he started telling the story… “I think you’ll find this next bit the most interesting. It’s why I don’t think this child-surprise is anything worth worrying about – all just a load of rubbish.”

Geralt reached for his pint and took several deep pulls from the thing as though that might drown out what he knew was coming.

“He invoked the Law of Surprise,” Jaskier said coolly.

 “I’ve thought of something,” Geralt said quickly. It was a foolish thing, more romantic than practical, but royals always seemed charmed by the idea. They sometimes asked for it themselves,  often eager to pay slyly through a surprise shipment of silks or a newly whelped hound pup rather than true coin, all beneath the mask of ‘tradition’ rather than greed. Loathe as he was about the law, given it landed him in the School of the Wolf himself, he usually avoided it. But it had its uses - and the man was already expecting his daughter. Nothing ill should come of it. It should work mundanely, perfectly. “Law of Surprise. Are you familiar with it?”

The man’s eyes opened a little wider with childish wonder and he said, “Why, I thought that was just a myth about you witchers. Do you truly use the Law of Surprise as payment?”

“Aye, we do. That seems best, don’t you think? Given the circumstances? I’m afraid this is far as I can take you though… Send a messenger to your estate, have them send a true escort to see you safely home from here. And when you return, whatever you find that you did not expect – that will be my payment.”

“I’m afraid that even for royalty, we live a very plain and humble life. It might be a barrel of wine or a shipment of books—”

Perfect.

“—Quite alright, sir,” Geralt said soothingly, trying to make it sound as though the mystery and tradition were part of the value; anything to make the man agree and free himself to head to the inn as soon as possible. “Whatever you find will be mine, and one day I’ll return to collect.”

“Aye… Alright, witcher, you have yourself a deal!” The man said, beaming, as he shook Geralt’s hand without so much as an inch of hesitance about the grime and gunk dried onto Geralt’s hand. “I look forward to seeing you again and paying you properly, friend.”

Again Geralt was struck by the intimacy of the man, the sheer openness of him. He held no ill will for the witcher. Seemed intent on expressing his gratitude genuinely. If Geralt didn’t feel as though he were three steps away from a coma, he might have asked to journey home with the man himself. To get a good meal and a flea-less bed and a decent rest before heading out on the road again.

As it stood, he had no time, patience or energy for any of that. Instead he clapped the man at his bicep, squeezed, and agreed, “Until next time.”

He left the Viscount there to handle his own business with no intention of ever seeing him again. He had no need for books from royalty, more often than not focused on aesthetics than practicality. He had a horse, he had no need for a pup or silk or wine. And thankfully the man had told him more than once about the child his wife was about to birth. No surprises there. Nothing could go wrong, it was an easy out.

Geralt returned to the inn, collected his purse without having to haggle much for their priorly agreed upon sum after the fact – and as he bathed and ate and prepared to rest, he pat himself on the back for managing to slip away from the Viscount who wouldn’t shut up.

 Geralt drank until his flagon ran dry, and felt it the moment everything he had chugged hit the bottom of his stomach sickly. He felt pale and clammy. Wide around the eyes and nearly removed from his own body. Jaskier was chuckling lightly, oblivious and self-depreciating with his humor as he said, “Man never returned to find out what he got. I suppose I wasn’t worth the journey back to get me. That’s ‘Fate’ for you. I grew up being told about how ‘Fate’ would bring this muddy stranger into my life. How he’d fetch me, how I’d be part of his life. My father got me tutors to prepare me for that sort of living, you know - adventuring. Medics and survivalists and all manner of men and women, all so I’d be ready for a life at some witcher’s side. I should have hated it… Should have hated the idea of being given away, of having no control in my life, but I was just so damned excited.“

Geralt’s eyes flicked up to catch the expression on the bard’s face - soft as he remembered the romantic fantasies of a child picturing a life of wild adventures at some hero’s side; eyes distant. Something twisted painfully in Geralt’s gut. It should have been a book or a pup or a bottle of wine. Not… this. It shouldn’t have hurt anyone. But the Law of Surprise rarely left his life unscathed. He should have known better. The Law of Surprise had made him a witcher. It had tied a young princess’ destiny to his own and now - Jaskier had been made victim of it to. The casualty? His childhood and the innocent belief children often had in stories. His sense of worth. Gods above, Geralt had been hurting Jaskier long enough before he ever said a cruel thing to his face.

He felt pale. Sickly. Thin and clammy and terrible. 

“I kept waiting though. I wanted it to be true. I yearned for all the details my father never gave: what he looked like, how he acted. My father was so smitten, so blinded by his romanticism, he had barely anything left to describe him by beyond the fact that he was brave, valorous and muddy. But the witcher never came. So aye, Geralt, I’m with you. ‘Fate’ is all a load of horseshit and the only worth it has is to fill my pockets with gold when folk fall for my naive songs about it. Don’t worry. You won’t see that lass if you don’t go looking for her. I’m proof of that. You wouldn’t be the first witcher not to show up.”

But he would be. He was. He clung desperately to the knowledge that Viscount had been expecting a daughter. That he had been certain that by his wife’s slim frame, they weren’t having twins. But even as he tried to convince himself, he knew… Geralt’s eyes slowly drifted over the bard, wide like that dying horse’s eyes had been and just as cornered. He was gripping his cup so tightly it would’ve been shaking if it hadn’t been braced on the table. The witcher swallowed, throat dry despite the ale.

The man, that Viscount from the swamp… he had been expecting a daughter. Jaskier was definitely not a woman, he knew that firsthand. He covered his mouth with his hand to smother the sound that tried to escape him – strangled and out of control.

"Geralt?” Jaskier asked. There was a tightness about the bard’s eyes. Something worried for his friend, of course, but also something creeping, something suspicious. Geralt felt naked. “Are you alright? Do you… do you know this story? Do you know the witcher?”

Geralt swallowed.

Then he pulled his hand away and deflected, voice a rough croak from the ale and from guilt’s claws tearing his throat to ribbons, and said, “You’re lucky. When witchers come for their child-surprises and find them to be male, they take the Trial of the Grasses.”

Jaskier tilted his head at that - words that he was familiar with but Geralt knew the bard had never quite had the balls to ask. Now, well… Geralt couldn’t imagine refusing him answers now when he was too cowardly to tell the truth that actually mattered.

“As you did?” Jaskier asked. It was a surprisingly tame question, as though his story had drained some sparkle of life from him. 

“Yes,” Geralt admitted, “As I did.”

“What was it like?”

Geralt ached to stand, to refill his cup and be done with this night. He clenched his jaw, all manner of relaxation gone, and said, “It burned everything away.”

His hope that his mother would return for him. His dreams of becoming a - he didn’t even remember anymore. It had dissolved everything from before the trials away to dust. By and far, he was born the day he survived it. Both harder and hollower for it. He was suddenly dizzy with the realization that because he had not known about Jaskier, he had not had to make the decision of what to do with him. Young boys were made into witchers, it was the way of things.

But would he have been able to do it, knowing how few survived? How much worse things got if they did.

“Then "Fate” is a ruse and I’m lucky for it,“ Jaskier said, raising his glass to Geralt. "No offense, of course.”

Geralt obligingly tapped his empty flagon against the bard’s, but set it aside to watch the man drink eagerly from his cup. He had never heard the bard sound so… hollow. As though beneath his songs and cheer laid a hole, covered by brush and leaves and full of jagged rocks at the bottom. That was his fault. When would he learn his lesson?

Jaskier finished his pint, stood suddenly as though invigorated, and exclaimed, “I think we are both in need of another refill!” Only to wobble rather perilously. 

Geralt stood, his own hip connecting painfully with the table, but managed to steady the bard in time to stop him from toppling over. He grimaced at the sting in his hip, slight but annoying, then stilled when Jaskier practically melted into his hold like a maiden swooning. A thin arm wound around his neck, a whisker-less face pressed into the curve of his jaw, and Jaskier murmured, “On second thought,” a little weakly into his skin. His breath stank of booze. Geralt wrinkled his nose. He shouldn’t have let it go so far. Shouldn’t have done a lot of things.

“Bed,” the witcher rumbled, because he was afraid of saying anything else. Afraid of admitting anything else. Afraid of shattering the bard with the truth of it just as the bard had so easily, in one well swoop, shattered him. Fate was real. Between Jaskier and Yennefer and Ciri, there was nothing left in him but weak, exhausted acceptance. It was real and like a cat keen to curl in the lap of dog-lover, Fate followed him with spiteful compassion. Pulling more and more threads into his life until he was nothing but a puppet, tangled in strings.

He forced himself to focus on the mundane. The task was arduous - what with Jaskier barely awake and more wet noodle than man - but he managed to get them both upstairs to their room. The witcher took his time. Took the time he hadn’t given the bard, but had owed him for so very long. Gods above, it explained so much. How, despite his best efforts, the bard always found a way back to him - smiling and singing. Like sunlight, he always came back. Explained why Geralt didn't try very hard to leave him either. How many times could he have galloped away? Left while the man slept? He should have. For the bard’s own safety, he should have, but he never did. He hit him and he sneered and growled; all manner of things to at least drive a sane man away. But Jaskier stayed, fiercely compassionate and loyal, like his namesake. Steadfast and always blooming. Scatter him to the wind and he just came back more stubborn than before.

He disrobed him kindly, wary to jostle the bard too much as queasiness began to set in. He brushed the man’s hair back from his sweaty brow, hummed gently when his eyes tried to flicker open or when he tried to babble some drunken nonsense. Jaskier whined and moaned and, as expected, reacted to his own drunken state rather dramatically. But Geralt steadily learned what soothed him. Hands in his hair, at his cheek. Soft words, solid and firm like the bedrock of a home. Geralt got him into night clothes, settled him down into the bed. He brought a glass of water to the night stand, then wet a rag to set over the bard’s eyes. He was just about to take the chair - guilt gnawing too powerfully at his guts for him to share the bed with his abandoned bard - when Jaskier asked with surprising clarity, “Why didn’t he come, Geralt?”

Geralt looked at him. He wasn’t wholly there, not truly. Jaskier wouldn’t remember come morning, he could tell. This was merely the detail his drunken mind had fastened on. So, like a coward, Geralt answered, “Because witchers are fools,” knowing the bard couldn’t actually hear him. It was as close to sorry as he knew how to say. And it would never be enough.

That night, he stayed awake. He sobered quickly, watching the bard as he slept. Hindsight was a peculiar thing and now, thinking back, he could see so much of his life that he had been blind to before. Epiphanies that begged questions. Did he tolerate Jaskier because it was Fate? Was nothing in his life in his control? What was Fate and what was the purpose or significance of 'will’ if Fate existed? Would he have gone to Jaskier, had he known about his child surprise? Did knowing Jaskier’s true role in his life now change anything with Ciri? Was he only worth loving if someone was forced to love him, bound by fate?

If anything, it proved only the futility of it all. In avoiding fate, he had only hurt himself, hurt others. What would happen if he embraced it? At the very least, even if it became no less painful, at least he wouldn’t be exhausting himself trying to outrun it anymore. That thought wouldn’t have driven him to the road out of sheer spite, once. He should leave. He should spit in Fate’s face, howl into the winds, claim his life as his own. But when had he ever truly conquered Fate? And looking back… were the things Fate had brought into his life truly so bad?

He was tired. Tired of running. Tired of questioning everything. Tired like a dog that had pulling at its lead too long, too hard, wheezing and choking itself. He fell slack in the chair, every muscle letting go all at once, and realized - he wasn’t going to run. He had nothing left to give that life. No more energy with which to run and snarl and evade. 

“You fucking win,” he growled, grumpy and bristling; and yet oddly relieved.

It was circular. Thoughts tumbling one after another, around and around, and Jaskier was the eye of the hurricane – calm and sleeping in the bed as Geralt watched on.

He watched the sun rise. Watched the way the warm light of day slowly painted Jaskier’s face in creamy golds and sleepy pinks and oranges. He should close the curtains, yet he couldn’t pry his eyes away… He did eventually, when Jaskier began to stir. He closed the curtains, slipped down silently to the kitchens, and gave into fate. He ordered a platter of biscuits and sweet jams to help absorb the worst of the alcohol, then breakfast meats and fruits for once Jaskier’s stomach settled. He fetched a pitcher of water, pulled a tonic from his pack to help with the inevitable pain, and then returned to the room and waited.

Jaskier stirred, as he did in all things, theatrically and lively. He moaned, curled tighter into the sheets, and pressed back oddly - searching for Geralt, he realized with a feeling of being struck. When he found no hard heat at his back, no arms to hold him, the bard’s nose crinkled and he peaked open one eye only to whisper a vicious curse. Geralt felt both fondness and dread build in his gut, uncomfortable. He never used to have to deal with emotions like this. Yet he did not entirely wish it away.

“Ger'lt,” Jaskier moaned when finally he opened his eyes long enough to catch sight of him, “I’ve been pois'ned.”

Geralt let out a soft huff of a breath, pried himself from his chair, and grabbed the tonic from the bedside to hand to Jaskier with a soft, “Drink.”

“Never drink ag'in,” Jaskier moaned, but eventually obliged with a curled lip when Geralt merely repeated the command more firmly. Geralt forced himself not to laugh when the bard let out a shiver like a cat that accidentally stepped in something wet. “Gods above, Geralt, that’s torture in a bottle!”

Well, he was cognizant again. At least there was that.

“Yeah, sorry,” Geralt said, pulling the tray over to place in Jaskier’s lap, “Eat. It’ll help.”

Jaskier stilled halfway into reaching for a pastry on instinct, his gaze turning suspicious as he gave Geralt a rumpled stink eye - a look ruined by the messy nest of hair sticking every which way from his head and the crease the pillow had left on his cheek. Soft, so soft - yet he travelled willingly with a witcher.

“Why are you being so nice?” Jaskier asked, “Who are you and what have you done with Geralt?”

“I’m that bad, huh?” Geralt mused, a little sting of guilt buried beneath his amused look. 

“Bad? No. More… distantly aloof,” Jaskier said. It appeared as though he had dubbed the food safe enough to eat though - or at the very least the need to steady his stomach outweighed the oddness of the situation - because he grabbed a pastry and with one wary look at the jam, decided to eat it plain. 

“Hmm.”

“Precisely,” Jaskier said pointedly, then after a bite or two he tilted his head a bit, taking Geralt in, and asked, “Are you feeling alright, Geralt? All jests aside, you are… I can’t put my finger on it, but you’re worrying me. You’re more stoic and yet not stoic than usual. Did something happen last night? I’m afraid it’s all a bit embarrassingly fuzzy.”

This was it. His last chance to back out. Something prickled at the back of his neck, something like awareness. Not so much something forcing him forward, or some unintended momentum - merely some instinctual understanding that the time was right, regardless of the outcome. So he sat down on the side of the bed, braced his elbows on his knees, and fastened his eyes to the wall as he forced himself to try something new. He didn’t run.

“You told me a story.”

Jaskier snorted and said, “I tell a lot of stories.”

“Aye, you do,” Geralt agreed, scratching at his stubble. “Thought I’d return the favor, for once.”

“Oh?” Jaskier said. There was moment behind him, no doubt Jaskier settling himself up against the headboard so he might properly listen. Without looking, Geralt could tell the man’s eyes were likely twinkling. Excited, eager for Geralt’s next story - no doubt already thinking of how he’d craft it into song. Geralt braced himself. His pause seemed to still Jaskier somewhat. Dampen him. That concern was back.

“Geralt?” Jaskier began, and Geralt took that as his cue: now or never.

“Once, a long time ago, I saved a man in a swamp. Drowners, a lot of them. They’d dragged the guy’s horse into the mire. Drowned his guard. His carriage was stuck, and he was surrounded, caught atop it.”

Jaskier hadn’t caught on yet. He could feel the bard’s eyes on him, waiting for the story to pick up, eager for the juicy part. The climax, he called it.

“I had just finished a contract. I was covered in death, you’ve seen it before. Unrecognizable. I stopped, I helped as best I could. It was simple - would have been simpler if not for the contract I had just finished. I wanted nothing more to claim my prize for the hag and sleep, but the man insisted on rewarding me.”

Behind him, Jaskier stilled. Geralt heard the faintest inhale of breath, how it caught and held in Jaskier’s chest. He closed his eyes and forced himself on.

“Bastard talked the whole way to the village. Non-stop. About his wife. His child-to-be: a daughter. How I was a good man, how he needed to find a way to repay me. I didn’t want to haggle and I didn’t want to deal with whatever process it would take to fetch his funds. I just wanted to sleep. He wouldn’t let it drop, so I invoked the Law of Surprise to get him off my back. I thought it harmless. Wine or a book. Maybe a pup if I was unlucky. He knew his wife was with child, after all. Knew the kid was coming. So it wouldn’t be…” His voice cut out with a dry little click. He cleared his throat and said, “I bid him farewell, never looked back. Never found out what surprised him when he got home.”

“Geralt,” Jaskier said - whisper soft and pained, tight like he had been stabbed. Geralt forced himself onward. Maybe this was how he’d evade Fate after all. There was no way Jaskier would want to stay now that he knew.

“Never came up again… until last night,” Geralt finished, hanging his head now, still unable to look. “He told me he was having a daughter, Jaskier.”

He waited. Waited for Jaskier to slip from the bed, dress, and leave. Seconds hung like hours, weighing on him as heavily as the weight of the years he had left Jaskier to wonder why no one ever came for him. 

“They were going to name me Juliana, after my mother’s mother,” Jaskier said. There was a quietness to his voice, a stillness, that was utterly unlike Jaskier. Not broken so much as tempered like a fine blade - and Geralt waited for it to strike him down and sever the threads that wound them together. “You didn’t know… He posted about it on the notice boards for miles.”

“I went south after that. Didn’t return for years. Just… happened that way.”

“You didn’t know,” Jaskier repeated.

“No.”

“It was you,” he said, just as clinically - as though he were reciting from a book rather than truly understanding the words, their meaning. “All this time, it was you.”

“Yes,” Geralt breathed. Waited.

“I found you,"  and finally he was back. Jaskier. His words, each pregnant with years of stories and yearnings and waiting that Geralt hadn’t been there for, said in a hush through shocked lips. Geralt turned, braced himself for a look of contorted hatred, only to grunt when the man launched himself into his chest. The platter clanged loudly when it hit the floor - pastries and fruit and meat tumbling in all directions. Geralt went still and taut, unable to follow what was happening, off-balance. Shoulders high around his neck, back a rigid line. Jaskier was bent in an odd position, but that didn’t stop him from pressing his face into Geralt’s neck, fingers winding into fine white hair. "You’re real.”

It was so similar to how he had drunkenly pressed himself into the witcher, yet now it was real. Jaskier wasn’t drunk. He was present. Willful. Hugging him despite the gravity of Geralt’s admission. The witcher’s brows drew together, confused. Yet even as apprehension stalled his heart and tensed his limbs, the longer the bard pressed into him, threaded his fingers in his hair, the more something in his chest settled. Like it had been floating all this time, and had finally found an anchor.

“Jaskier, I…”

“I had hoped it was you.”

Geralt let out a breath as though it had been punched out of him and couldn’t quite figure out how to inhale again. He thought of the man’s father - always smiling, so much quicker to offer a positive word than a curse. Open, instantaneously loving. He was holding that man’s son. A soul promised to him, tied to his fate. 

“Jaskier.”

He grimaced. Why couldn’t he find the words, any words, for this man who had waited for him for so long? His lip curled, furious and sick of himself. 

“I saw you that day in the tavern, sitting alone at the table, and I couldn’t look away. I knew that look. I’d had it myself before - wariness of people. You had your stones and I had my fruit, and we were just two kindred spirits no one wanted around, and I hoped… when I saw your eyes, I hoped I wasn’t just reading into it. That maybe, just maybe, I had found you.”

Jaskier pulled back, cornflower eyes misty and wet. His cheeks were smudged pink in odd places. Puffy with drink and grief - or was it something else. Something unidentifiable.

“Then the mountain. And Yen, and Ciri. You hated Fate so much, I knew it couldn’t be. And gods above, it was easy to hate Fate with you.”

All this time, Jaskier had known. Somewhere in the fiber of his being, Fate had tied a thread around his heart and willingly Jaskier had followed the call - followed and traveled and suffered scorn and horror - just to wait, and wait, and wait. Nearly three decades of waiting.

“And I was okay with that,” Jaskier said with a sniff, nodding, “Because Fate wasn’t real, and at least - if nothing else - it had trained me to survive long enough to do what I wanted to do. To travel with you. I figured that was fortuitous, right? Maybe I was making Fate happen for myself.”

Then his voice cracked again and that voice - so bold, so full of life - broke and whispered, “But still… I hoped one day you’d look at me and realize I was always yours. But then the mountain, and I-”

Geralt cut him off. With one large hand, he cradled the back of Jaskier’s neck and brought him close again. He wound his arms a little tighter when he felt the man shiver against him, sucking in quiet sounds that might have been dry sobs. Wheezing, heaving little catches of breath, buried in his shoulder. Jaskier grabbed at his back, wound his fingers into the loose fabric of his dark shirt and clung.

“Witchers are fools,” he finally said, as close as he could get to sorry. Jaskier let out a wet, messy laugh into the skin of his shoulder and collarbone, and said, “So I’ve heard.”

Geralt blew out a breath.

“What now, Geralt?” Jaskier whispered, too afraid to speak the words into existence, to tempt Fate: will you stay?

Geralt hummed, felt the force of it in Jaskier’s bird bones, and said, “We go get Ciri. Together.”

He felt Jaskier smile into his skin. Felt him clutch his shirt tighter, sink into the circle of his arms as closely as he could. Together. Fate did not seem so daunting now that he could add 'together’ to the end of the line. 'Together’ wasn’t a death sentence, it wasn’t a period at the end of the story.

It was the beginning. Finally.

Together.

#the witcher #gaskier #geralt of rivia #jaskier #law of surprise #fic prompt fill #drunken confessions #hurt/comfort (emotional) #fate #i stg i meant this to be half as long #I ALSO WILL WRITE SOMETHING SAD EVENTUALLY #one day #they are just soft babes i can't help it #had a headache at the end #so sorry if it stops making sense #yay trash

[ziracona]

so can u tell us a little about ur characterization of Lisa?? What's she like inside and outside of trials? Does she have a lot of lucidity, what were her relationships with others like, would she ever get better, do you think? ( im SAD.) Just. What's she like!! Also, same for Sally? Oh! And I'm rly enjoying two songs by Meg Myers which maybe you'll like? Running up that hill (Cover) and Desire. Maybe check em out? :3 - Sleepy

Sure!

My Lisa is from a bit before the archives for her placed her (early 1970s), because I wrote ILM back when there was no date given for many killers or survivors, so I just hoped they were historically accurate with the things they did mention & went through a fairly exhaustive list of drained swamps in the Southern US & paddleboat makes & placed her according to that data (it’s been a bit so I don’t remember the exact date without looking up my notes) in the 1920s-1930s, I believe? And in her early 20s, since she’s described as a girl & young woman, which DbD usually does only for characters in their early 20s. (Which I’d still assume is her age, bc even though her archives, if you go by them, have her in her teens, they’re not connected to the events of her disappearance/definitely happened before them.)

In trials, Lisa has like 0 lucidity. I talk about this some in chapter notes, so I’ll try to give a quick overview instead but sry if I restart myself. She’s so starved that any time she sees a living being, she is just completely overcome with hunger and can’t do anything but operate on it. Very scary. Feral. Like being attacked by a starving animal. She’s super out of it, and is completely wild and violent and has no control, only the need to eat. Outside of trials, if no one is around, she’s lucid again, but will remember trials and what she did to people, and spends that time in horror and despair. She’s tried to kill herself before, because the last thing she ever wanted was to become the thing she swore vengeance on (the Entity’s a real cruel motherfucker. Did the same to Rin, to Philip, to everyone it could. Likes to really twist decent people into what they would most despair to be), but in the realm, she’s stuck as it. She’s not really aware for trials, but remembers them with decent clarity, and is in constant agony over what she’s done. Unfortunately, suicide does not take in the realm, and every one of her attempts failed, just like her attempts to maim or tie herself up so she wouldn’t be able to hurt people did. She’s horribly alone and despairing, and also in physical agony. She’s at the worst end of what a human can be at as far as emaciation and starvation while still being alive goes, and that’s physically awful. It fucks up your brain chemistry too, and everything is just really fucking miserable all the time. It hurts to move, it hurts to breathe, your breath smells tastes like rotten fruit but in a way that’s so much worth than that can sound. She’s so hungry, her addons are things like dragonfly wings consumed to give her extra stamina. That’s the kind of bare sliver of relief she ever gets. God, poor Lisa’s life is hell. She’s completely heartbroken and isolated and almost dead. As far as relationships go, she didn’t have any for a long time. No one can really interact with her, because she goes feral at the sight of food. She’s kinda utterly alone. But briefly, when Alex, Philip, Vigo, Benedict, and Sally were a group, she kind of got stumbled into, and after a kind of nasty first encounter, was able to regain lucidity around other people, and had a truly sweet and memorable and invaluable bit of time with love and friends and other people. She was kind of in love with Sally, who did her hair for her and was really kind to her, and Sally liked her too. They were close. Lisa was close with all of them. But when things ended the way they did, the Entity took that away. Lisa remembers it, but she could never get them or it back, and was cast aside and left behind until the end of ILM, when she finally got peace and found happiness in finally getting to be at rest in the arms of a friend. Overal, she’s a fairly young and wide-eyed, bright, cautious, fun and sweet girl by nature, now massively traumatized and hopeless and broken, but still with a truly incredible amount of that kind nature retained. She would have really loved reading fantasy novels aloud and exploring the worlds of lore and history, travelling, seeing other cultures and geographic features and animals. Enjoys fashion too, and has a heart for designing and making cool, personal and cultural and symbolic tied designs, and would have been both great at that and loved it if she’d lived long enough. (Shoutout to @artianaiolanthe who inspired the fashion take & it is so suited to her I love it). A little shy, but an extrovert at heart under it, just a nervous one. Loved people. Liked climbing trees and fording brooks and baking bread and throwing rocks and baseballs to knock a target out of a tree and win a prize at little town fairs. Didn’t get the length or quality of life she was owed, and it’s just not fair or okay at all. Liked to watch the stars.

As far as getting better goes, mentally, totally. If they could get her out of the realm or break the Entity’s connection, she’d immediately stop killing. She has never done it of her own free will. She’s a sweet small town kid who was just trying to live her life. As far as physically goes though, Lisa is in one of the worst possible spots. Unlike say Amanda, who was on death’s door but healed by the Entity, or the Legion, who weren’t injured at all, Lisa was on death’s door and like Adiris, did not get healed. Just preserved in that near-death state and forced to work in it. Honestly, it’s possible she could survive long enough to get to a hospital and be saved, but at best, she’d probably live another year. When you starve, your body begins to catabolize/eat your own tissue to save itself, starting with fat, and ending with muscles and organs, which, when it reaches the heart, kills you. Lisa was so close to dead, the organ damage was probably awful, and would leave her with complications that would take her very young. The most likely thing, since she was saved literally seconds before death, would be for her to step outside the realm and immediately die. However, it’s possible she got lucky on body damage and could be saved—kinda up to interpretation—and if say, she was around for Quentin’s Vigil going healing batshit, and got some organs repaired that way, she’d have a real shot. (I also am sad. Lisa was actually the only determinate character in ILM to me/that I wasn’t sure the ending for, and while I am very happy with what ended up being her closure, I also would like to see her live for even more love and peace TuT. Lol, if I ever end up doing my goddamn four fate route fics like I’ve joked now a truly dangerous number of times about doing [>.> me @ me] then maybe she will get a variety of lives in the end). I’m glad you wanted to know! I really like and pity her. This poor kid really did nothing wrong, much like Rin, and just got eternally tortured for asking for help and justice against the monsters who took her life so violently. Fuck Brittany. (Read: the Entity.)

Ahhhh Sally. My sweet, sweet girl. Uhhh, not sure which of the Lisa questions you meant for her too, so I’ll try to speed-answer them all? Sally’s intelligent and understanding and thoughtful, patient, polite, almost elegant despite how impoverished she spent most of her life—she just tries to act like a lady and treat people with as much respect and esteem as she can (unless they suck lol). She’s also very mentally damaged and not there though, and has extremely unstable mood swings, especially into despair. Her relationships with the other killers were limited. She talked to & was on polite terms with any who would talk to her and not be condescending or a dick so openly she’d pick up on it (so like, on cordial terms with Evan, Herman, Caleb if she’d been there that long, but not like, Kenneth or Freddy or someone who wouldn’t bother to put up an act). But mostly, after figuring out she wasn’t really of any use to them, they quit communicating with her. Sally has been extremely isolated since shortly after being taken. She believes that the survivors are innocent and suffering and knows that they don’t deserve the hunt, but has no way to stop the whole system, and has been convinced by the Entity that if she does a good job and earns moris, the ones she strangles to death get to stay dead instead of coming back after death to suffer endlessly again, so she works very dedicatedly and slowly trying to earn kills to save them. It took her physical eyes when it got her and lets her see through it’s powers, and uses that to randomize what survivors look like in her memory so she doesn’t catch wise it’s the same people over and over and she’s not saving them at all. It’s extremely tragic. God it’s one of the most cruel Entity tricks, which is saying a lot. Poor gentle woman is Sisyphus pushing a boulder up a hill day after day year after year and she doesn’t even know how hopeless and meaningless it all is. : (

When the Vigo-Philip-Alex-Benedict team was going, though, she met and attacked, then was convinced to instead befriend them, and quickly became very attached and well liked by them. Met Lisa while with the group, and became extremely fond of her and loving towards her and was truly, truly happy for a brief period of time. Still remembers her, even as lost as all her memories are. Not her name, but what she looked like to Sally, and how her hair felt, and how nice it was. Sally would have considered everyone in that group a dear friend, and in ILM, Philip most definitely becomes her deepest, closest, and best friend, just like she does to him. She’s a very faithful woman to her soul. Loved her family, loved her husband and mourned him, worked as hard as she could. Cared for her patients, and did her best in that hell until the Entity slowly whittled away at her sanity until it broke her mind and left her convinced the only way to end their pain would be to give them death, and she had to do it to save them. Sally loves little pretty things and neatness and collections. Flowers, bows and ribbons, china and colored glass. She would have treasured gifts like decorative holiday cards and carved animal figures and left them on her mantle or carefully tucked in lovingly organized and decorated books she could open to revisit the memory. Likes dresses and skirts and the way the wind feels. Hopeful and very enduring. Loving. Had a mom heart, and will never really get entirely over the loss of her children, but is strong and kind and will find new love that makes life still worth living in other people. Will remember both kindness and cruelty a long, long time. Loved Quentin from the second he gave her flowers (Dwight: Quentin, why did the entity let you have three moms? Quentin: Because I fucking earned it >:[“ [author’s note: he did. God that poor kid...]). Loved Kate from the day she sat with her in a hospital and held her hand. Is like that. Remembers small kindness and treasures them.

Sally could definitely recover. Not all the way probably, physically or mentally, but by far enough to be complete and happy and realized and who she wants. She never meant to hurt people, so she really just needs some stability, and I think she finds that with her new family. I mean, it is a lot to adjust to. It’s been like nearly 100 years. The Entiry broke her mind, and she’s got some damage that just probably can’t ever be fixed, but a lot can be, with drugs and treatments and therapy and kindness and a good support system, and honestly, the biggest things she needs are people to keep her memories together and herself present, and influences to protect her from being manipulated and controlled now that she’s so suggestible and easy to hurt, and she’s got that. I am 100% certain that while some things—the scatteredness, the ease of slipping into other moods especially deep sadness, the different way of thinking altogether—never leave her, she gets better in the most important ways and is truly happy and quite functional and what she wants to be. While there’s no way (yet anyway lol. Cybernetics that good when?) to give her new eyes since the Entity ripped hers out, and she’s blind now, and can’t be changed, her seeing eye dog does a great job for her, and she’s very happy and adjusts well. She has a lot of friends to be her eyes, and learns to lean into what she can do and has a quite fulfilling and blissful life outside the realm in ILM.

Also: thanks for the recs! I’m going on a run soon, and I’ll add those to my iPod and give ‘em a listen if I can. Hope this answered what you wanted to know! ^u^

#ask #sleepy #in living memory (fic) #in living memory #ilm spoilers #dead by daylight #Lisa Sherwood #Sally Smithson #long post

[zachsgamejournal]

COMPLETED: Resident Evil 7

This is the most I've enjoyed a Resident Evil since RE2 on PS1. May actually like it more than Code Veronica...

I kinda hated the freight ship section. By this point, I felt the game was done. But the designers were like: Nope, we're gonna have an environment as large as all previous sections combined, more enemies to face, start your gear at zero, and halfway through, make you replay areas via a flashback that's length to story ratio is 100:1.

The remote bombs were...a weird addition. I could place them on the floor, but not...you know...toss them. For like, when you're being assaulted by slimy monsters with shark teeth...And still, the game gives you a ton of them!

Turns out, I wasn't far from the end of the freight ship. So that was good. Then we end up at the salt mine. Turns out Lucas was just playing along...weird. So he got his arm cut off and everything on purpose? Like, he's a legit psycho?

I'm really confused about where the fetuses with curing abilities are coming from...ah well.

So we get some background info: Eveline was a fetus that was mutated to have super powers. She could infect folks, and cause hallucinations: presenting herself has a young girl. She, having never had a childhood, wants a family--so takes over a family and has them kidnap folks to add to their "family", but she's a psychotic child raised by other psychos, so everyone under her influence ends up violent and cruel.

And she vomits up monsters, or something...

Into the salt mine. I thought this was gonna be another section of exploring and puzzle solving, but it's actually quite linear. Seems they designed it to be the action section since they constantly send you up against molded, and drop healing items and ammo EVERYWHERE! I didn't need that because I had amassed so many healing items and weapons by playing frugally.

It's just like when I replayed Resident Evil 1--early on every zombie is life or death, and every bullet and herb is precious. But by the end, you become Terminator, can't die and tons of ammo.

There's a spiral climb at one point, and I just ran from everything. If you move quick enough, it's pretty clear of enemies. First molded was an easy side step. The second was a crawler and he trapped me on a catwalk. I was getting hit from behind, so had to kill that one. The third guy was just a walker, so I shot him once to get him to stumble, making the walk around easy.

And that was it. Salt Mine done. Which I was thankful, cause that damn tanker section!!

So we end up at the beginning, in the old house, reliving some Mia interactions via hallucinations. Not worried, cause I'm more well armed than an American Police force with more medicine than a...uh, pharmacy...I guess.

The phase one fight with Eveline was...unimpressive. But it was more about the story...I guess? I'm torn between being done with the game, and expecting a boss-fight on par with previous ones. But alas, we simply stab old-lady Eveline (nice twist) in the neck with a cure. She asks, "Why does everyone hate me" -- heart breaking, then talks about how it hurts. Almost as emotionally confusing as the end of Alien Resurrection.

But then...phase 2.

Instead of dying, Eveline turns into a giant tentacle monster. I guess it's inevitable that Resident Evil end on a ridiculous note. As grounded as much of the game is, they had to go big. But it's a pretty lame fight. You just shoot at mega-Eveline until a helicopter drops you special gun (Kind of like Brad dropping a rocket launcher at the end of Resident Evil 1 - wink, wink).

So she dies...for realz this time. And Chris Redfield appears in an Umbrella Helicopter. I'm glad he's not mega-Chris from Resident Evil 5, but he also doesn't look "his age". I don't know, seemed like unnecessary name dropping, but also no harm, no foul. Ethan hops in the chopper, finding Mia alive. Aw, so it is a love story!

But then the game gives this cheesy epilogue, blaming Eveline for being horrible--even calling her an "it". And then talks about how Mia just wants to put everything behind her. Everything being that Mia worked for a shady organization making horrible bio-weapons, and as part of her duties, helped hold a traumatized child captive and then attempted to kill her when the girl inevitably escaped??

Eveline was the real victim in this story. She did horrible things because she was child that wasn't properly loved and raised. No shit she wants to build a family. Her saying, "Why does everyone hate me", heartbreaking. I have kids. They're selfish, violent, impulsive bastards sometimes--but they're really sweet and just need people to love them.

Eveline wasn't given love. She was given orders, and restrictions. No surprise that she lashed out, and she did so in the ways she could: vomiting up molded zombies and possessing people.

So bosses...talk about unbalanced.

Boss 1: I had a single clip of ammo, maybe two healing items, and a pocket knife. All got used really quickly. I think you're not supposed to shoot him, just get the car keys. But it was confusing and intense, because I didn't know what to do. CHALLENGE: 3/5.

Boss 2: Jack again, but now it gets real. Moving around is awkward, and the second half involves a chainsaw duel. I used up at least 10 rounds of shotgun shells, all my healing items, and died at least 10 times trying to beat this boss. I almost switched to easy. CHALLENGE: 5/5.

Boss 3: Marguerite as a crazy bug lady. This was kind of the scariest battle, as she drops in out of nowhere and from behind. And if you don't constantly attack her, she sends bugs after you. This one drove me a bit nuts, but eventually I found the winning strategy. CHALLENGE: 4/5.

Boss 4: Super molded. I basically hid around the corner of the elevator and used all my shotgun shells on it. A few shots from the pistol and the thing was down. Not sure I even took damage. CHALLENGE: 1/5.

Boss 5: Mutant Jack. He was so big that he couldn't move around and hide like previous bosses. I maybe was hit once or twice, but it was nothing. The eyes were obvious weak points. CHALLENGE: 2/5.

Boss 6ish: Two Super-Moldeds. Kind of reminds of the big infected guys from The Last of Us. While they killed me the first time (very quickly), on my second attempt, I kept the elevator between us and used all my grenade launcher ammo against them (which I had been saving). They didn't touch me. CHALLENGE: 2/5.

Eveline Phase 1: Walk towards her, block when she shock waves. Timing was semi awkward. I died once. CHALLENGE: 1/5.

Eveline Phase 2: Shoot at a giant target that doesn't appear to do any actual damage. Could have been a cutscene. CHALLENGE: 1/5.

It's so weird that the hardest bosses were at the beginning. I guess this is where you have consider experience vs challenge. But for survival horror, challenge is part of the experience. You're supposed to be scared of bosses.

I think the final Eveline battle should have the player running through the swamp. Eveline's tentacles swimming after you, and in front of you, giving birth to molded with familiar faces (Like Mia) to freak you out. And that keeps happening until the player is out of ammo and healing supplies. Once you've used your last heal and bullet, Chris Redfield snipes the molded. You watch as the Eveline Mass rises to attack the helicopter. Chris takes aim with the Wesker gun, fires a shot at a tentacle arm--it calcifies and shatters! Eveline freaks out and smacks the chopper, sending the gun flying to the ground. You see it 10 yards away. You run to it, grab it, turn--Mia appears before you. "I'm one with her now. If you kill her, we'll never be together." If you hesitate too long, Mia kills you. If shoot, she shatters--Eveline attacks, final few shots: END.

Ah well. It was a good game and I'll probably play it again. I could see this being a semi-regular replay for me, right there with RE1 and RE2.

#Zach's Game Journal #COMPLETED #Resident Evil 7 #Stadia #Monsters need love too! #Video Games

[botslayer]

Top Ten games of the 2010′s

This trend seems to be doing the rounds at the moment and seeing as I’ve been gaming for about as long as I can remember, It just feels right. So, let’s get into it. But first, worth saying: These aren't really in any specific order, it's just the games I've personally had the most fun with overall, but it's pretty hard to decide what the hard numbers on things you enjoy for different reasons are if that makes any sense. 10. The 2010's weren't exactly the best time for anyone, I think. For me they were a slog of finding myself and learning things I wish I didn't. Amid all those things I wanted some levity. The world needs something and stupid. We got a lot of it ion 2013 but I feel like we could have used it scattered around a bit more. In that spirit, allow me to show you one hell of a pick me up:

Saints Row 4

Saints Row 4 does not give a fuck. It is aggressively demonstrating that the entire time you play. It doesn't care in the slightest what you think or why, It just wants to show you cool, if juvenile, and interesting, if weird shit. It's the finer points of Ratchet and Clank's arsenal, SR3's humor, And superpowers that genuinely put Prototype and Infamous in a blender and tell you to go ape shit with them. The soundtrack isn't top shelf, it's the roof of the building the shelf is in. Saints Row Two had a better story overall but SR Four's was just plain fun and a solid enough story to still be invested.

The DLC was just as irreverent and madcap, Featuring everything from an evil Santa Clause to evil Gimps on Game of thrones chairs made of dildos Or Tropey-ass costumes and weapon reskins that I'd be genuinely surprised the game dev didn't get sued over. It has earned its place in my top 10 and I will die by that decision.

9.

2016 saw the advent of a new genre. They blended TF2 and MOBAs, and we got hero shooters in their first AAA forms, Overwatch and Battleborn. But neither of these games is on this list, much as I liked them. Partly because the whole time, I kept thinking of one simple question: "Why do I keep thinking of...?"

Anarchy Reigns

Anarchy Reigns is my favorite Platinum game. Full Stop. The Story mode is interesting and has genuinely good character moments, the characters themselves are completely mental, ranging from a mercenary with a bionic cat leg that secretly has a gun built into it to a giant cyborg bull-man with a jet-powered hammer. The soundtrack is mostly angry hip-hop, making every song a banger and fittingly speedy for things like random bombing runs from jet fighters that come from absolutely nowhere.

There are giant monsters, cars with mounted flame throwers, giant robots, and the online is still pretty sweet because even when abandoned, loading it up with bots still rules. I regularly have more fun with this than I ever did with Overwatch, and I don't care how insane that sounds.

8.

Some games want to make you feel something and fail. Some games make you feel some things accidentally, for example, a desperate need to laugh. This game made me feel like a human blender. Like a Chthonic god of mangled flesh and raw destructive power. Nyarlathotep ain't got nothing on me. I speak, of course, of...

[Prototype] 2

There's no end to the absolute destruction you feel like you're causing in this game. It feels more fluid than the first, the main character is a pinch more relatable, and all the body horror, superpowers, zombie hordes, and big old monsters make for some of the most memorable and fun moments and fights in gaming. The DLC is also pretty solid, adding new fun side challenges, and new powers and weapons that elevate you from "Flesh god" to "Screw physics, I made them" Omnipotent. Best god/monster simulation of all time.

7.

Sometimes some games are at an honest tie in your mind. Be it that you like them for essentially the same reasons, or for completely different reasons, but the overall total joy or entertainment they bring is roughly equivalent. Here, we have a case of the former:

Furi/Cuphead

Both games have a tight focus on giving players a unique, boss-centric challenge, both have interesting, somewhat minimal narratives, and both are absolute eye candy.

Furi has a more "Samurai Jack" Quality to me. A complete badass on a relatively simple quest with a somewhat minimalistic art style learning some things as he goes.

Cuphead on the other hand, nails that rubber hose animation style, and the fun levity of such animations while still making the player's ability to interact with the world damn impactful and fun.

They share a spot in my soul, games I love everything about but will never be able to finish. Hats off to both dev teams.

6.

Now here we have another tie. Mostly because the games are so close together, they need to be evaluated more or less as one product IMO, not enough changed for me to consider them separate games, fortunately, that is the furthest thing from an insult it can be in this situation. I present to you, my next pick(s).

Costume Quest 1/2

Now, This might seem pretty random considering my other picks, but honestly, I love Halloween, I love creative madness, I love subversion, I love good characters, and I love cool action, these games have all these things by the bucketload.

The first game is a wild ride through Halloween in multiple very lively locations and the second, slightly confusing as it is, is pretty awesome for the things it introduces, including time travel. Other elements, like the battle stamps, the truly epic forms of everything in the fights, The ability to customize your costumes, etc. they blur together in a pretty big way, but again, there's not a thing wrong with that when both games rock like crystal candy. 

5.

Now, if you hadn't noticed, all of the games on this list have had some hard action at their core, and while I don't HATE calmer games, a lot of the time, so many are kinda dull to me in that with the exception of easter eggs of some sort, most farming sims, for example, just have you doing normal farm stuff with very few twists, may as well start a real farm in that case. My most chill entry is a game that tosses that to one side, asks you to grab a suck cannon, and start harvesting gelatinous monster poop.

Slime Rancher

While you don't spend a lot of time actually interacting with other characters, they just talk at you, the story of the game is pretty effective, the player character of Beatrix has left Earth for a simpler life of Slime Ranching, which entails the raising of alien crops, delightfully derpy and colorful chickens, and going all around in an attempt to farm new breeds of slime for their genetic material to sell off or trade-in for the creation of gadgets while being surrounded by a cast of interesting characters. It's all very wholesome family fun.

The game looks great, has great ideas, and is genuinely the best farming game I have ever played. @ me all you want.

4.

The 80's are almost fetishized nowadays. Given all the property reboots, games that go for the vibe and aesthetic of the time, etc. It almost seems as though the eighties vibe train ain't gonna stop rolling any time soon. But we owe it to ourselves to remember the first big swipe of madcap neon-colored actiony B-movie bullshit and how mind-meltingly epic it was. Ladies, Gents, and whatever else, I present:

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon

Blood Dragon's story is relatively simple, you play Sargent Rex "Power" Colt (A name said in full so many times I thought his last name was "Powercolt" for the longest time), a former "Omega force" cyborg. Rex and his friend "Spider" were sent into a secret island base to investigate the supposed defection and treachery of their old commander, Ike Sloan. It turns out he has gone rogue and taken an army of "Mark 5" Omegaforce cyber-soldiers with him. What follows is a long story of betrayal, science fiction of the highest nonsensical level, comedy, and brilliantly cathartic action.

The collectibles range from data on animals, to research notes from a scientist, to literal VHS cassette tapes that have full descriptions of movies that I would legitimately watch if I could. "You may now kill the brides" is not a real film and I am angry for every day that that is true. Anyway, play Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, I dunno if it's on PS4 but it's one game I'd buy a new/old console for.

3.

A lot of superhero games NEED to railroad you. Your goals MUST be to save the lives of the people and help the weak and all that. But one dev asked the simple question: "What if it didn't?" "What if the player chose how to use their power? What if the player could be as evil or as good as they damn well pleased?" One game gave you the powers of thunder and lightning and asked what you'd do with it. It's sequel asked you the same, but against more... interesting forces.

InFamous 2

InFamous 2 is a game about making choices, just like the first one, also just like the first one, it can have an effect on gameplay. That effect went from "What does this particular power do in this allignment?" To "Which new set of NEW powers would you like?" The forces of the last game went from “Three flavors of gun-toting whackos” To “Possibly an allegory for the Klan, Swamp monsters, and Ice-powered super soldiers.”

This was, and still is, the best game in the whole series, The powers felt distinct from anything else and still do, the story is solid as a rock, and the enemy types were still varied enough to be interesting, I miss the Reapers from the first game, but that's about it. Everything else was a massive step up. If you have something that can run it, play it.

2.

Action is something I think we can all appreciate on some level. We can understand when it does or does not work, we can understand when we do or do not like how it feels when we are the ones partaking in it. EX: Any schlep can tell you when the weapons in your game lack impact, or when your character moves too slow for the game to be fun. The following game is something I can't say anything of the sort about. And it's kind of like Wolfenstein, when you have enemies this bad, who the hell cares how many you kill?

Doom 2016

Y'all are lying if you say you didn't expect this one. It's DOOM 2016. This game is made of hate and fuck. AND I LOVE IT. You move so fast, you may as well be half cheetah and half sports car. You slaughter the dregs of hell by the dozens and even the biggest, baddest things this game throws at you can be beaten with the starting pistol if you have the stones for it. It looks amazing graphically, the demons all look appropriately threatening, and even the Multiplayer is a great deal of fun in my book.

Something worth noting: The story presented by default is pretty barebones, but that's where supplementary material fills in the gaps, the difference between supplementary material in most games and supplementary material here is the material is till IN THE GAME. You're free to ignore most of the plot as it happens around you, and even interesting tidbits of the lore like how certain demons function. Not only are these things missable collectibles, prompting continued play to find them, they are also pretty interesting reads. So yeah, just about everything you could want in a sequel/remake, builds the on lore and gameplay very organically. 

1.

And here we are, the last game I'd put in this category. An entire decade, and here, we end on the last game that left such an impact I'd put it in my top ten. But first, let's talk about expectations and delivery: When you say a game is coming out, there are certain expectations you have for gameplay, EX: I say "Ratchet and Clank" and you expect a TPS with platforming elements and crazy guns. I say "Gears of War" and people expect something to do with lumbering about in big armor, dismembering things with a chainsaw gun and otherwise shooting them to paste. We might also expect changes to things, better graphics, innovations in grenade variety, something as that franchise goes on.

After the last game in this series was released, there were tons of people who felt let down and disappointed by it. Then they released the still somewhat disappointing special edition of it. They were both still fun, but neither really felt like the full next step in the series. After a failed reboot, they returned to the original story and the lot of us rejoiced. And when it finally came out? It was a step up in most, if not, all regards, to its predecessors. You know what this last one is. Please, give a warm round of applause to:

Devil May Cry 5

A game that was not only a return to form, but a major escalation in gameplay for one character, and a new style of gameplay all together by way of yet another new character. It didn’t exactly hurt that the story kicked ten kinds of ass and that the game looked spectacular in both the design of everything and the actual graphical fidelity.DMC 5 is, like DOOM, Like InFamous 2, Like [PROTOTYPE] 2, everything you want in a good sequel. It built very well on already solid foundations and it was generally just a fun, slightly goofy, massively stylish, and ultra badass ride. I recommend this, and all these games, to anyone.Good night everyone, have a great 2020. And the rest of the decade, for that matter. 

#Prototype 2 #James Heller #Devil May Cry 5 #V #Dante #Virgil #Nero #Slime Rancher #Beatrix #InFamous 2 #Cole Macgrath #Doom 2016 #Doom Slayer #Rex Power Colt #Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon #Costume Quest #Anarchy Reigns #Furi #Cuphead #Saints Row 4 #Happy New Year #2020 #2010's #best games #of the decade

[anistarrose]

Ford in Amphibia

Summary: Anne and the Plantar family take in an eccentric new guest.

Word Count: ~2100

Warnings: none

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19375102/chapters/46100365

Part 1 of… 2? 3? Probably somewhere in that ballpark, but it really depends on if the still-progressing canon of Amphibia throws me anything new. 

This chapter doesn’t require much Amphibia prior knowledge to read, though — as long as you’ve seen the first pair of episodes, you’ll be fine!

***

“Anne! Anne? Anne, you gotta wake up! It’s an emergency!”

“Ugh, what?” Anne sat up in her bed, rubbing her eyes as she checked the time on her phone. “Five A.M.? What the heck is going on, Sprig?”

“The whole town’s outside our door! And they’re asking for you, and saying it’s urgent!”

Sure enough, a muffled slamming noise sounded from aboveground, followed by of a chorus of distressed ribbits.

“But… I didn’t even do anything bad yesterday! What do they want with me?”

“Doesn’t matter! We can’t afford them bringing out the battering ram to bust down our door again, so c’mon!” Sprig grabbed Anne by the hand, and dragged her upstairs.

There was thankfully no battering ram in sight when Anne threw open the door to face the citizens of Wartwood, but it looked like Sprig hadn’t lied about the whole town being outside. He had, however, neglected to mention that nearly all of them were wielding torches, pitchforks, and other staple weapons of angry mobs.

“Here she is, the girl of the hour!” Sprig offered weakly. “… Please don’t kill her?”

One-Eyed Wally sprung forward, and Anne flinched — but rather than attacking, he cast his pitchfork to the ground, and took her by the hands. He gave a quick bow, and Anne realized his one golden eye was wet with tears as his head bounced back up to meet her gaze.

“Thank goodness you’re here! You’re the only one who can save us now! Please, my lady, I beseech you!”

“Uh… not sure I’m following what’s going on here…”

“Another foul beast has been spotted roaming these parts,” Mayor Toadstool explained, pushing his way to the front of the ground. “Go on and tell them what you saw, Wally. Be brave.”

Wally’s hands trembled as he spoke. “It had a haggard gray mane, and its eyes reflected red light brighter than the moon itself! It loomed over me like a mountain, and it — it —”

He rummaged around in his pockets, and pulled out a few charred pieces of what must have once been a tree branch. “It fired bolts of lightning out of its arm! It just barely missed me, but it reduced a mighty old oak to ash in a single strike!”

“But since we’ve tamed a loyal beast of our own, she can drive it away for us!” Toadstool finished. “Then the town will be saved, and none of us will have to risk our precious lives fighting it!”

“What?!” Anne gasped. “You really think I could chase off something like that? And — and even if I could, I’m not your attack dog!”

A murmur went through the crowd, and Toadstool looked seriously ready to debate the attack dog comment, but Sprig spoke up before he could say anything.

“Anne, wait! You should hear them out — you know how everything gets overblown whenever Wally’s the one telling the story. Maybe it’s another lost human, and this whole situation is just a misunderstanding!”

“Look, I accepted a while back that I’m the only human in this world,” Anne shot back. “If there were more, we would’ve crossed paths by now for sure! But… I guess Wally is kind of prone to overblowing things…”

She sighed. “Okay, tell you what. I’m not fighting that beast, but tell me where you last saw it, and I’ll do some recon on it for you guys.”

Wally immediately burst into tears. “You’re a hero!” he blubbered. “This town will owe you a debt for the rest of your days!”

“Oh, I don’t know about that —” Toadstool cut in.

It was only then that Hop Pop walked into the living room, stifling a yawn. “Kids? What’s all this commotion about? Anne?”

Anne darted past him, back into the basement, and emerged a minute later wielding her tennis racquet.

“No time to explain! Gotta go risk my life for strangers by hunting a lightning monster!”

“See you soon!” Sprig added as the two of them sprinted off into the early morning light. “Maybe we’ll bring back another monster from the woods, and let them live in our house too!”

***

Ford’s patience for the frog dimension was wearing thin.

It had felt (quite literally) like a breath of fresh air at first, after spending close to a week consorting with unsavory characters in the alleyways of a sprawling, smog-filled metropolis — but limited signs of civilization meant traipsing through long swaths of muddy terrain, and mud meant that new boots would be ruined and silent movement would be nearly impossible, and… well, he could go on and on about why he hated swamp environments. The list of inconveniences just never seemed to end.

Ford didn’t actually mind amphibians — in fact, they accounted for some of his favorite anomalies back in Gravity Falls. He didn’t even mind the anthropomorphic frogs that watched him from afar and then fled before he could approach them — directions would have been convenient, sure, but he still had faith in his navigation abilities.

No, what he hated were the frogs that crept up behind him at the earliest hours of the morning, and nearly gave him a heart attack because they just happened to have BRIGHT YELLOW EYES. Or worse, in the case of today’s encounter, just ONE bright yellow eye. Why couldn’t those frogs be the ones who minded their own business?!

A branch snapped behind him, and he whirled around, gun in hand.

“Come out where I can see you!” he barked. “I’m willing to resolve this peacefully if you are, but try anything funny and I won’t hesitate to shoot!”

A bush a few feet away let out a small whimper, followed by a series of hushed whispers like it was having a conversation with itself. Finally, the culprits peered out, hands above their heads…

Human hands, in one case.

“There are humans in this dimension?” Ford asked, just as the girl blurted out: “Wait, are you a human too? How did you get here?”

There was an awkward pause, before Ford replied: “Even if we are of the same species, there’s no guarantee we come from the same dimension.”

“Are you some kind of space pirate? Am I on another planet?” the girl asked at the same time, speaking over him. “Or a time traveler? Have I been in prehistoric times all along?”

“Uh… not exactly either of those, but closer to the first one,” Ford told her.

This didn’t feel like a trap. The human girl seemed genuinely inquisitive, and her frog companion looked scared out of his wits, not scheming. “I apologize for being so hostile before. I’ve just been on guard lately.”

“It’s fine. I did pretty much the same thing when I got here too,” the girl assured him. “I’m Anne Boonchuy, and this is my buddy Sprig. Nice to meet you!”

“Likewise. I’m Ford.”

“Just Ford? What, no last names on your planet?”

Ford sighed. “No, I just don’t like sharing personal information. You never know what identity thieves might lurk in unfamiliar worlds.”

It was his go-to lie when dealing with kids, since it sounded a lot less intimidating than there are a lot of extremely ruthless people after me and the less I tell you about myself, the less likely they are to be a threat to you. He didn’t think Bill’s minions would have much influence here, but it didn’t hurt to err on the side of caution.

He and Anne shook hands, and he couldn’t help but cringe slightly as she looked at his fingers and frowned in confusion.

“I can’t help but notice you’ve got, uh, more than the normal number of fingers… or is six fingers normal where you come from?”

“No, I carry a rare genetic mutation that causes polydactyly. I’ve always been something of an anomalous case, even in the world I hail from.”

“Wow, you sound like a pretty smart guy.”

“Well, I would hope so! My eleven PhD’s didn’t earn themselves.”

“Dang, you are smart!” Anne’s eyes lit up. “Hey, want to come back home with us? I’ve got some, uh… weird odds and ends from my world that I want an expert opinion on.”

“I dunno,” Sprig piped up, speaking for the first time since his exchange with Anne in the bush. “It worked out well when I brought you home, but… are you sure he’s not gonna eat us? He feels like the type of person who would eat us — he’s too fluffy for it to be anything but a trick, to make him look less threatening!”

“Oh, it’s just my beard that’s scaring you?” Ford asked, pulling a lighter out of his pocket and squinting as he held it just beneath his chin and flicked the wheel. “Because I can get rid of this real quick if I just — ah, here we go!”

He let the blaze travel up his face for a few seconds before patting it out, ignoring Anne and Sprig’s slack-jawed expressions.

“Dude,” Anne gasped. “Did you just set your face on fire?”

“Well, how else am I going to get rid of a whole beard in under thirty seconds? Not by shaving, that’s for sure.”

***

Anne motioned for Ford to sit down, and he did so as she unfolded the cloth concealing the object resting in her lap. The Plantar family had been surprisingly charitable towards Ford, feeding him breakfast and insisting that the couch was always available if he needed somewhere to sleep — just as charitable as they’d apparently been to Anne, when she’d abruptly been tossed into their lives not two weeks before.

She’d given the summary of her story over breakfast, and in return, he’d explained the very basics of his story to them: that he seeked to eventually overthrow a tyrant who threatened many parts of the multiverse, and that he traveled from dimension to dimension with very little control over where he would end up. Anne had seemed disappointed to hear that second part — presumably because she’d been hoping Ford would have a way to get her home.

But maybe, not all hope was lost in that regard just yet.

“This is the music box that brought me to this world,” Anne explained, tossing aside the cloth. “When I opened it for the first time, it flashed all colorful and I woke up here, but it hasn’t worked since.”

“Peculiar,” Ford muttered. “Where exactly did you find this music box?”

“Just a weird knickknack shop,” Anne answered, a little two quickly.

“May I hold it for a moment?”

“Sure.”

She handed it to him. It was metallic and oddly cold, far colder than anything should have been on this sweltering day — almost as if it was magically draining the heat from Ford’s hands. He held his wrist in front of it and pressed a button on his watch, and a grid of laser dots were projected onto it, signifying a scan in progress.

“Those gems were more colorful when I first found it,” Anne explained. “But they’ve been gray ever since I got here.”

“Hmm. Well, here’s your problem: this box was once a vessel for a large amount of magical energy, but that energy has since been depleted — presumably when it brought you to this world. That’s probably why the gems lost their color, and why it can’t transport you back anymore… but if you were able to recharge that supply of magical energy somehow, I think there’s good odds it would take you home. Either that, or it would take you an even more foreign dimension of even weirder creatures. No way to know for sure unless you try?”

“Well, that’s the best lead I’ve got by a long shot,” Anne told him. “How do I recharge it?”

Ford shrugged. “Good question. I’ve got no clue.”

“What? C’mon, aren’t any of your PhD’s in cursed music boxes?”

Ford shook his head. “Magic is a fickle thing, and it works differently in almost every dimension. In one world, you might learn how to cast a spell that rains bolts of lightning down on your enemies, but in another, you might barely be able to summon a spark using the same ritual. Even if I’d encountered a relic like this before, there’s no guarantee that yours would obey the same rules.”

“Oh.” Anne’s face fell. “Well, thanks for your help anyway.”

“Keep you chin up,” Ford told her. “Your search for answers has only just begun — there’s still plenty more research to do, and plenty more chances to have a eureka moment! And if you have any questions of the scientific sort… well, I’m not sticking around forever, but while I’m here, don’t hesitate to ask me anything.”

“Thanks. Will do.”

#gravity falls #stanford pines #amphibia #anne boonchuy #sprig plantar #disney amphibia #rosalia writes fic #fic: ford in amphibia

[thenightling]

My few grievances about The Batman vs. Dracula:

The animated film The Batman vs. Dracula is both a guilty pleasure and a disappointment for what might have been.  I sort of like it but at the same time acknowledge it’s a very flawed movie.    Here are a few of the problems I have with The Batman vs. Dracula the animated movie.   Note: I do like this movie.  It’s a guilty pleasure because I know it’s flawed.  Anyway, here we go.

1.   I would have preferred to see Dracula up against Kevin Conroy’s Batman, Batman of the 1990s Batman animated series.  To me this version is the perfect Batman and in my mind (when I was ten-years-old) he was the version of Batman I wanted to meet my other favorite characters like Disney’s Gargoyles, or The Real Ghostbusters.  So of course he’s the version I would have preferred meet Dracula.

2.   I acknowledge The Batman vs. Dracula doesn’t really follow  The Batman vs. Dracula (Red Rain) graphic novel trilogy.  This doesn’t bother me too much.   Truth be told I wish they would make a new Batman vs. Dracula in the main DC comics continuity.  DC almost never uses Dracula.   And honestly, I kind of felt the trilogy was mildly disappointing.  

3.   Dracula is one of the few public domain characters that I can’t help but say Marvel got better (except the stupid “Dark Elf” look where he had that high white pony tail and red armor from 2010 until 2018.   That was annoying.)   But no one can deny that Tomb of Dracula (which gave us Blade: The Vampire Hunter) is now a classic.

Come to think of it, I prefer Marvel’s Adam (The Frankenstein Monster) to DC’s Frankenstein monster too.   At least when Marvel remembers Adam (The Frankenstein Monster) is intelligent and articulate.  Sometimes he gets writers who are stuck on “Fiiire Baaaaad!” and clearly aren’t familiar with the Mary Shelley novel... (Someone hire Steve Niles, quick!)

 4.   On to the story itself.    This scene. This scene right here!   Bruce Wayne / Batman The Great Detective... He should not have had to write “Alucard” on a silver platter in lipstick and hold it up to a mirror to realize it’s Dracula spelt backward. I get that The Batman is the more kid friendly incarnation of the animated Batman but why not a scene of him telling someone like Alfred or someone else that Alucard is Dracula backward.   Spare “The Great Detective” his dignity.

Also let’s be honest.  Dr. Alucard is just a terrible alias and Dracula is just asking to be caught.  And not just because he was overly excited by a platter of steak tartare.   This Dracula is so obvious I think he wants to be captured.  ...I think it’s a cry for help.   

5.   Dracula’s death scene.  Batman in the main DC comics continuity and especially in the more kid friendly animated universe does. not. kill.   Yet here in this animated movie (Tied to the “Kid friendly” The Batman animated series) has a scene of Dracula defeated and on his knees.  And what does Batman do?:

Weak and on his knees Dracula looks up at him and goes “You’re Bruce Wayne.”  (Someone clearly forgot one of Dracula’s powers is supposed to be mind reading!  In fact I’m adding that next.  The de-powering of Dracula.)   Batman melodramatically has his cape spread in front of a giant sunlamp’s light.  (No, really...)  It briefly looks like Batman is going to show him mercy.  Batman corrects Dracula by saying “I’m Batman.”  And it’s a fairly cool delivery but then he lowers his spread cape so that the light kills Dracula.  Who is cowering ON HIS KNEES!  Our hero, ladies and gentlemen!  

Questions and problems related to this:

A.  Does killing Dracula not count as taking a life because he’s undead?   Isn’t that some sort of racism, Batman?   And if Dracula doesn’t count as alive where’s the line? Does that mean Solomon Grundy and Swamp Thing don’t technically count as alive?   Grundy is literally a zombie.  Swamp Thing is the consciousness of a dead man absorbed into “The Green” and in a plant-avatar body.  Run, Swampy!  Batman’s goin’ gardening!    

B.    Does this not count as murder because it’s technically the lamp that killed Dracula and not Batman? This is a dubious technicality.  Again, where’s the line?

C.   Honestly, based on how it played out, it looked like he WAS going to show Dracula mercy but once he realized Dracula knew his secret identity he decided to go “Nope.”

D.   Even The Avengers don’t try to kill Dracula anymore.   Marvel heroes have elaborate restraints and special cells for holding Dracula.   If Tony Stark can do it, so can Batman.  Wouldn’t Dracula’s blood addiction and predatory instincts and animal-like inclinations from an arcane blood mutation that grants superhuman powers earn him his own special cell at Arkham? 

E.   We saw at the start of The Batman vs. Dracula that Dracula had easily been held in chains in a coffin away from his homeland.  So obviously he can be contained.  Was Batman just being lazy?  In Batman The Brave and the Bold we learn he has Nth metal handcuffs that can hold a ghost.  He should be able to contain Dracula.  

F.   Come on!  Dracula is easy to contain compared to The Joker yet The Joker is spared!

G.  This was a missed opportunity.  Think how interesting a recurring Dracula could have been.  He could have escaped or been captured.   And if he was captured a semi-reformed Dracula would make for a fun reluctant hero or anti-hero (So long as he keeps all of his powers, of course.)  Imagine the banter if Bruce held him in The Bat cave. 

6.  Dracula is too depowered.  Marvel and DC are both guilty of making Dracula burn in the sun (like in the movies) but in the original Stoker novel Dracula could walk in the daylight just fine. He was just weaker by day because it was not his natural time.  And he could not take animal form by day.   

Marvel once published a graphic novel of the original Dracula story by Bram Stoker and in that they remember that Dracula could walk by day. And they claim the graphic novel is the backstory for the version of Dracula in Tomb of Dracula but by the time you get to Tomb of Dracula he burns in the sun.  So go figure...  

Anyway, Marvel’s Dracula has the power to conjure storms, turn into a wolf, bat, and mist.  He has been raised from the dead many times.   He can read minds. And he can hypnotize. Of course he has all the traditional weaknesses too but still this version seems far more powerful than DC’s Dracula...

 Marvel’s dracula is just superior.  

And what makes it more frustrating is Dracula is in the public domain. That means anyone can use him.   And they could have and still could do so much more with him.

7.    It’s a little odd that Dracula’s wife in The Batman vs. Dracula is Carmilla.  Carmilla is a lesbian in her original novel. She’s bisexual in Castlevania.  I don’t mind her being bisexual.  And I don’t really mind this twist. It’s just a little odd.

8.  I keep wishing they would remake the animated movie but with a more serious / adult feel to it, like Justice League: Dark.   And I wish DC was as good about finding clever uses for their Dracula as Marvel does.  DC’s version goes to waste.

Just look how cool he looks!  Why aren’t they using him?!

#Dracula #DC Comics #The Batman vs. Dracula

[post-itpenny]

Hello

@grotesquegabby

The clubs had reopened but there was something… different about them.

People acted the same, many of the regulars were happy to come back, and the inside of each one was the same as well. But there was a vibe, like some half-hearted attempt at something.

Alex sat at one of the tables stirring a strange glowing drink with a straw. He smiled but it wasn’t quite his signature one. Around his waist was of all things a fanny pack.

Except it wasn’t.

Fanny gave a quiet growl, someone had entered the club. Alexander sat up and observed the room. Catching a familiar presence before spotting its owner’s bright red hair.

Alexander smirked as a rather nervous- looking Maggie approached him.

“Well, well, greetings and salutations. Congrats on the promotion Red.”

Maggie blushed in embarrassment as she sat down, quickly ducking to the side as Fanny attempted to launch herself across the table. Alexander grabbed the creature and pulled her back with a chuckle. “Say hi to Fanny.”

Maggie smiled at the strange creature as it wrapped itself around Alex’s arm. “You would be the kind of guy to have a monster fanny pack as pet.”

She paused then, blinking. Alex could see her eyes shifting, he recognized the look.

“So Red what does the future have to tell you?”

“... I’m checking if this really is a good idea.”

“What idea is that?”

“What I’m about to ask you.” Maggie responded as she nervously shifted in her seat. “Alex I have to go visit another elder today and I need someone to come with me. I- I can’t do this by myself.”

Alexander leaned back in his chair, watching the young elder in interest. “Well I’m sure ol’ Billy-Boy would just love to come.”

“He can’t, he’s not allowed and I was told I couldn’t bring Vespers or anyone else. But I think you could get away with it.”

Alexander grinned, oh it was going to be fun to tease his “good friend” Billy on this one. “Well if that's the case why we still hangin around here? Let’s roll!”

Maggie reached out and took his hand. The world shifted around them. It was a bit of a rocky ride that left both of them unsteady on their feet.

“Yo, I take it you’re knew to teleporting?” Alex questioned, “warn a guy next time.”

Maggie did not answer, instead taking in their surroundings. They were in a path inside a lush forest. Dappled sunlight breaking through trees of every type and species imaginable.

As they walked Fanny moved herself to Alex’s shoulder, tongue lolling out of her mouth. Alex himself felt a sense of familiarity, it had been a long time since he had come to this place.

They rounded a corner and found a cottage, outside of which a curious-looking woman sat in a chair knitting.

Alexander grinned, “What's shakin Granny A!”

The woman looked up in surprise but smiled when she saw her visitor, giving Alex a warm hug before planting a kiss on his head. Fanny lunged at her, mouth open wide only to be caught midair.

“None of that,” the woman playfully scolded Fanny before returning the creature to Alex.

“Alexander dear what a nice surprise, haven’t been causing too much trouble have you?”

The party clown grinned, “nah Granny A. I told you to call me Alex, everything is slammin.”

The woman narrowed her eyes, “something is bothering you Alex. Why are you here?”

“I-I asked him to Ma’am.”

They both turned, Maggie stood a few feet away, looking up at the elder nervously. She was an odd looking woman no doubt. A grandmotherly face hidden behind large glasses and soft golden hair piled onto her head like a beehive with streaks of grey running about. But her eyes were like those of a hare, she had the ears of one as well. Of all things a proud set of antlers sprouted from her head along with a tiny set of hawk wings from her shoulders. From her mouth two tiny fangs sprouted. It was as if she could not decide on what form to take and just decided to be a little of everything.

The elder gave a small gasp, “oh why you’re a little black bird. How lovely! You’re most certainly not one of mine though and I know that didn’t come from either Bridgette or Jackal. Come here don’t be shy now, let Granny Adeline take a good look at you.”

Maggie timidly stepped forward. Adeline gently held her face, turning Magge’s head this way and that for inspection. The elder hummed in approval before letting go and giving Maggie a warm smile. “My goodness you are terribly young for this. Yet… I do believe you will grow into the role just fine. Tell me little bird what do they call you?”

“It’s M-maggie Ma’am.”

Adeline chuckled. “Just Maggie then? You take right after your elder I see. Well I am Lady Adeline, master of healing arts and caretaker of the universe's creatures. But you can just call me Adeline.”

She winked and Maggie felt a small sense of relief, but there was still the reason for their visit.

“I am sorry however Madam Seer but in the letter I sent I did request that only you came.” Adeline said as she ushered everyone inside.

The elder’s cottage was far bigger on the inside strange creatures moved about and hind in various nooks and crannies, all in various stages of care. Maggie nodded but had a determined look on her face. “I understand but I… I’m sorry but I was too afraid to come alone. Plus, Alex was her friend and I knew you would have already known him so… I figured it would be ok?”

Alex turned to Maggie in surprise. He was who’s friend?

Wait…

He spun around to Adeline, “Hold up… she’s here?”

Adeline nodded but her mouth held in a grim frown. “When I was told of your relationship with the poor thing I thought it best you come first, that were could speak as equals. I did not want friends or family to visit yet due to the nature of her condition.”

“Wait, wait she’s here?” Alex asked again, “Oh come on Granny you gotta let me visit!”

“Alexander sweetheart-”

“Come on please?”

Adeline sighed in defeat, leading them both into the kitchen and having them sit at the table. She did not speak to either of them as she prepared tea. Would not even look at them until everyone had a cup and she was sitting with them.

“I am going to be plain with you both. I have never had such a case as her. I truly doubt Blackwood even fully understood what he was doing in the reconstruction of her body. I honestly wonder if it would have been kinder to just let her go.”

Alex frowned, Maggie gripped her hem of her dress tightly. Adeline took a sip of her tea before continuing. “I will admit this one has quite the fighting spirit however. So as long as she tries so will I. Blackwood was not prepared to take care of someone in such a fragile state and I happened to be visiting the day he brought her back… so I intervened. I need you to understand I did this for her own sake. The Elder of Creation may be good at creating reality but this is a life that already existed, one now in a body recycled into another form of itself. What is already living is my domain, not his.”

Maggie nodded, “I understand. But please, it is her right?”

Adeline shrugged, “I have know way of knowing, I didn’t know her from before. Her lights are still settling into her body, she is weak and at this point having to manually think about each action she takes with great intention. I hate to say it but she is a bit of a prisoner inside herself, I was only able to trust she could breathe on her own this morning. I also have no Idea how strong her memory is either. It is very likely that the person you knew is gone for good and we have only one way to find out.”

Alexander’s frown only deepened the farther into the cottage they walked. In front of him Maggie was shaking like a leaf. Adeline lead the pair down one hallway and then another before at least reaching a wooden door with all manner of flora and fauna carved into it.

Inside was a small but airy bedroom. A window was open as sheer curtains billowed in the breeze. There was a large oak bed and canopy, nestled among a dozen or so pillows sat Magpie.

The Elder of Sight’s breath hitched, she had been terrified of looking at any point in the future that came to this, terrified of what she would find. Yet here the moment was at last.

Magpie looked so small where she sat, yet so close to looking the same as what she once was. Her face marks seemed brighter however and she now had bangs that just brushed her eyebrows. Her eyes also had an odd sparkle to them, very much like swirling stardust.

She sat perfectly still, the only sign of life was the movement of her chest as she breathed.

“Hello Magpie dear,” Adeline quietly greeted. “I have a few visitors for you.”

Maggie stepped towards the bed, Alexander himself stayed in the doorway. Magpie almost didn’t look real, she was too still, too quiet.

Maggie gingerly reached out and held her former guardian’s hand. “Hey,” she paused to clear her throat. “Hey Aunt Magpie, I- I.”

Maggie was getting choked up, her voice warping as if two people were speaking at once. Tears forming in the corner of her eyes.

Adeline gasped in surprise, “well would you look at that.”

They all looked down, around Maggie’s feet tiny green stems grew from the wood floor, delicate red petals bursting into bloom.

Poppies.

Maggie sobbed, wrapping her arms around Magpie’s still form and holding her tight. The older clown still did not move but there was a spark of something, happiness, grief, love, life. Alexander gave his signature smile, there was Magpie.

Maggie cried and hugged Magpie as the flowers continued to fill the room and flow out the door into the hallway. Adeline chuckled, “well, there is no doubt she’s one of Blackwood’s. This is good, I would like to let her recover a little more before she gets swamped with visitors but this is wonderful.”

Maggie nodded to her fellow elder with a grateful smile before turning to Alexander, “come say hi.”

Alex removed himself from the doorframe and stepped forward. At once Fanny unwrapped herself from him and shot across the room, swallowing Magpie’s head.

Maggie squawked in fright as Alex rushed forward to pull the creature off Magpie. Behind them Adeline gave a groan, “oh goodness. I’ll be right back with a towel then.”

Alex pulled Fanny away from Magpie who was now soaking wet with saliva. It would have been funny except for the look he caught in Magpie’s eye.

Uncertainty, confusion, a lack of recognition.

Internally he gave a sigh, so her memory was damaged then.

Back to square one he guessed.

Alex flashed Magpie a smile. “Sorry about that little mama it's just how Fanny likes to greet people.”

He paused when he heard an odd sound. A light chuffing of breath. He looked at Magpie and noticed her face. The corner of her mouth giving just the tiniest twitch.

She was laughing.

Alexander grinned and gave a laugh as well, he let Fanny settle onto Magpie’s lap. The creature nudging her for attention.

“Hey I think she likes you! But yo lemme introduce myself. The name is Alexander Calamity but when you can, call me A-”

Pop!

Alex blinked, and looked down at his wrist where a glow ring appeared.

#as requested

[some-triangles]

MUSIC OF 2018

Ophelias – Almost

All-woman band with disreputable male producer creates songs about codependency, power exchange and the prison of needing others.  This is my favorite album of the year because it has the projecting power from a position of weakness thing down to a science, plus the production is crisp as anything and the melodies stay in your head.   It’s all very simple and very careful and very thoughtful and very skillful and very angry, and the singer does not display a trace of emotion at any point.  Perfect for all moods.

Tropical Fuck Storm – A Laughing Death In Meatspace  

This is more of a specific mood.  A thing I value in music is the sound of a vocalist who is experiencing Peak Distress, but as an artist, intentionally; not goopy or dramatic but using an emotion, albeit a very unpleasant one, to draw a color on a canvas.  The greasy australian who made this band after he got sick of his more famous one does that with the words “at any time” on the opening track, “You Let My Tyres Down”, which is my favorite song of the year. The rest of the album isn’t as good but it’s a high bar.  The album also features people doing exciting things with guitar tones and actively unpleasant distortion while remaining in a rock idiom, which people don’t do anymore and is one of my favorite things.

Noname – Room 25

The best indie rap album of the year, objectively.  Noname used to be called Noname Gypsy but some roma people had a talk with her and now she’s Noname.  No muss, no fuss.  Imagine if everyone was that graceful, huh?  That transformation must have kicked something else into high gear, because this record is miles better than her last one.  Confident, chopsy, warm, wise; soulful, adventurous, real.   Too virtuous for me to embrace fully but undeniable even at a distance.

Kendall 😊 – hey

Unforgivably slept-on new artist making swoony electropop with big stacked chords and big stacked distortions, up against “I can barely play piano but I know what’s beautiful” interludes, drenched in reverb and dripping with honesty. One could pray for this kind of candor.   The chorus of “knife” reminds me of Hindemith, unjustifiably – it’s that maximal approach to building clusters of tones.  On the one hand, it’s another transwoman artist who seems to construe feminity as suffering.  On the other hand, this is the world we live in, and there are worse takes.

Rosalia – El Mal Querer

I’m not going to pretend that I have enough context or the right background to describe this properly but it’s a monumental accomplishment and that comes through even if you got clod ears.  Maximal, sensual, ancient, enormous, combining trad and modern sounds, blah blah. An album about love, religion and suffering coming at you from the weird sex/blood/magic underside of catholicism that white people generally don’t get access to.  Also has that same knack for pinning down and utilizing anguish that the Tropical Fuck Storm guy has.  Like.. not the same, as that. Obviously.  But similar.

Tierra Whack – Whack World

A small clockwork collection of readymades about the quotidian.  I get David Byrne vibes off Tierra – she’s a polymath, an alien, and a designer at heart. But also an extrovert, significantly.  This album is made to be popped into your mouth, digested and forgotten, leaving little traces of doubt in your bloodstream.  It’s an instagram filter for your insides.  

The Cradle – Bag of Holding

The local acoustic dirtbag has come to read your tarot, but he’s also communicating wirelessly with your smart fridge.   This album has a bit of a Jesse Moynihan vibe, and is also nostalgic for those of us who liked our Devendras and our Animals Collective and also enjoy production where someone’s elbow hit the dial and they just kind of kept it in.   There’s a good song on here where a very groovy and centered man is trying to get a lady to break up with her boyfriend because he is too cyberpunk.  Why not?

Lolina – The Smoke

This is an album about Urban Narstiness that is meant to be played in headphones while walking at night, to lend yourself a dangerous sountrack vibe.  It’s too jagged and self-consciously experimental to be heavy, which is good, because there are enough sad boys yelping over cold metal about how the moon is turning them to knife crime.  This is mostly about how being a woman is fun when you feel no emotions, which sort of brings us back to the unifying theme of my year in music. Feeling felt a lot, in bursts; feeling felt not, at length.  

Amaryllis – Away We Go

I wrote a big long poem about how much I liked this album when I first heard it. Once you’ve done that it’s difficult to pretend you were never into the problematic artist in the first place, so on the list it goes.

Hushy’s still young – not as young as she’d like to be, admittedly, but young – and has a lot of work to do.  Wallowing in baby land may not be fulfilling forever, and she might turn her attention elsewhere.  She might become a huge, genuine monster.  She might figure herself out.

In the meantime, please heed the very objective and not feelings-based ADULTS ONLY sign that now adorns all of her work.

In a way I think the Hushy debacle had a part in my journey to wizard town.  I mean, I am grown, so I’m more judicious about dragging you through my personal swamp than she is.  But the particular cocktail of personal tragedy, hypomania, magical thinking and guilt that I see in there - that’s The Stuff.

[blackevermore]

x Wade In The Water

{ Chapter 9: Guiding Lights From Up Above }

Summary: Ester Scott was once in love. She thought the days of her shortcomings were over and that the man she found was her one and only. But all that was taken away when the demons she had became too accustomed to finally took the one thing she had left. Louisiana was her home but the devil down below was calling her name. She only has herself to blame when it came to the hands dragging her under.

Notes: It’s Hazbin Hotel, be ready for everything. Also I apologize for all my mistakes in advance!

Word Count: 4k

For every step that someone takes forward, there are those that follow. For every step someone goes the opposite way the Devil is there to remind you. 

- Ester R. Scott

 Mama sat me in the kitchen chair as she stood at the kitchen sink scrubbing away at dishes. She was upset with me, upset I’d come home and told her about my morning with the Devil. ‘Mama he’s a nice man’ I told her and she quickly hushed me with a threat in her eyes. ‘Mama he fixed my dress when I fell’ I tried again and she turned away shaking her head and asking the Lord why me and why her. ‘Mama he even walked me to school so I wouldn’t be late’ and that was the final straw as she popped me in the mouth and told me to sit. I didn’t understand, no child really understands, but I did know telling mama about the devil was the worst thing she could have possibly heard that day. So I sat in the chair and played with my thumbs waiting for her to say something. Finally, I heard the sound of the dishes hitting each other as they fell into the water and mama sighing.

“Ester,” I turned my head to look at her and she didn’t turn around. “Ester you need to get away from here.”

“What, mama?” I asked her. Confused by what she meant and how that had anything to do with what I told her before. “Mama?”

“Ester, get up right now and get out of here.” Mama finally took a step back from the sink and slowly started to turn around, but every inch she turned her appearance seemed to change.  Her lovely dark hair that was high in a bun started to fall out in strands. Her normal everyday work clothes seemed to become dirty and dry, her skin turned pale as if she hadn’t had water in ages. My throat became dry and I stumbled down from the chair and backwards to the kitchen arch. I couldn’t say anything as my body started to feel heavy as if someone was dragging me down. Fear ran from my toes to my ears and I tried to move away or at least turn my head so I didn’t see what monster mama was becoming. Finally, when I saw her face I wanted to scream but nothing came out and I was left gasping for air I didn’t know I needed. She started moving closer to me, inch by inch I dreaded not being able to get away. Her eyes were gone and nothing was left but giant holes where they should be. Her mouth was slanted and jaw halfway hanging off. Her skin had holes with every type of bug crawling out and back in. I wanted to bad to close my eyes and scream but nothing happened and I was stuck looking at her. She reached out a hand to touch me and I started hyperventilating. 

“E-Ester please wake up,” Mama said again through broken words and a dying voice. “Ester…...get…..out...of here.” She was right in front of me when I was finally able to close my eyes and turn my head.

“Baby please be safe,” I felt the touch of a warm hand on my cheek and my mama’s clear voice. 

I sighed and opened my eyes.

My vision was blurry, not because I didn’t have my glasses, it was blurry from a throbbing headache that took up a large percent of the front of my head. I tried to roll over to my side to prop myself up but I felt so drained and weak. Groaning I managed to do so anyway and pushed on my elbow to sit up. It was only then I realized I was in a bed, a very comfortable and plush bed, under the covers and seemingly tucked in. I pulled the blanket off of me to swing my legs around. But when I did I regretted it as a sharp pain ran up to my hip from my ankle. I cursed and for a moment laid back down to figure out what to do. I already knew I wasn’t back home, there was no telling if I was still in the swamps or at a medical bay, but I knew I wanted out of here. Once again, prep talking myself into finding some form of strength, I sat up with my legs dangling off the bed.

“Now child, I don’t think that be a good idea.” I snapped my attention to the sound of the voice entering the room. I couldn’t see who it was and it made me anxious to get out even more. It was a woman’s voice that sounded a bit older with a hint of concern. When I saw a blur of something or someone getting closer I squinted and tried to make out what was in front of me. She was short and a bit stubby with abnormally pale skin. Her hair was ghostly blonde and I could have sworn she was wearing a fancy dress. She was like a ghost as she got closer and I wasn’t too sure if it was my brain fog or if she was real. What really caught my attention was her large eyes, they were black with red irises. She reminded me of the abnormal appearance of the devil. 

She finally stood in front of me and took my hand into her smaller ones. She gave me my glasses and I quickly put them on to see her. But when I was able to see she looked completely different from the blurs I saw. She wasn’t ghostly white at all and her hair was a normal shade of blonde. Her eyes were honey brown and seemed as normal as any other person. What I was right about was that she was surely overdressed to be here, whatever here was, she looked like she belonged in a club. I was, however, still sure that what I saw before was just as real as what I was seeing now, or so...I thought.

“Did you hear me?” The woman in front of me asked me and I shook my head.

“I’m sorry ma’am what did you say?” I knotted my brows and shook my head, the woman sighed and smiled gently.

“I said it’s best if you just rest here and wait for Al to get back. He really wouldn’t like you running around his place dazed and confused.” She patted my hand then gestured me back into bed.

“Al? Alastor?” I asked. The way her eyes lit up told me that she loved hearing that name more than anything.

“Yes ma’am, he saved you, which is a bit out of character…” She trailed off for a bit but then snapped back into a happier tone. “But nonetheless he would prefer it if you stayed here and waited for him to return. If you need anything lemme know.” The woman smiled brightly and helped me back into the bed. I didn’t want to get back in bed, I wanted to grab what was left of my stuff and get out and go home. Pretend this was all a bad nightmare and just go to work the next day. There was no point in trying to get the police involved, they wouldn’t care to help someone like me. They’d probably tell me I had it coming and send me on my way telling me to deal with it myself. 

“I’d like something to drink, water or tea, please,” I told the little lady and she happily nodded and went about getting me my drink. Once she was gone I finally got to look around the room. It was small with only a bed, one small dresser at the end of the bed, a chair, and a floor-length mirror in the corner. The walls were deep red with fancy patterns I couldn’t recognize and the floor was dark wood. The woman had said this was Alastor’s place which meant I had to still be in the swamplands. There was no way he could have carried me back to any house near my neighbourhood or near the city. A knock on the door drew my attention away from trying to figure out where I was. The little woman came in with a tray in hand filled with my drink and a small snack of crackers. 

“I’d thought you might need something on your stomach, something light. Al said you had a scare so I know eating anything heavy right now wouldn’t be good for you. Hope you don’t mind.” She laid the try across my lap and handed me a cloth to tuck into my shirt. When she did that, that’s when I realized I wasn’t in the same clothes I was before. I looked down to my arms and saw I was in a nightgown. “Don’t panic, Al told me to get you out of those clothes and mend to them. They were torn and muddy and Al is such a neat freak he barely allowed you through the door before I got here. Don’t you worry none darling, I’ll fix up your clothes and have them back to you.”

“T-Thank you.” That was all I could say as I tried to take a sip of the tea in front of me. Everything felt like a threat but I should be grateful that I was alive and not dead laying at the bottom of the swamp. “Who are you?” I asked, it sounded rude but I didn’t mean for it to be.

“Oh me? I’m Mimzy!” I finally noticed her accent wasn’t anything from Louisiana.

“You’re from the north?” I asked.

“You can tell? I mean, yeah you can tell,” she laughed a bit and stuck out her hand. “Brooklyn born and raised and d-” She cut herself off on the last bit and chuckled. I didn’t want to ask her what she was going to say so I stuck out my hand and shook her. As I was about to ask her when Alastor was about to come back we both heard a door creak open from outside the bedroom. She turned and smiled and told me to wait there before putting a peak in her step and heading out the door. I sat there even tenser than before as I became anxious to see Alastor. I could hear talking from outside the room and I gripped the cup in my hand tighter. The burning feeling from the heat was the only thing keeping me grounded.

“Once again I can’t thank you enough, dear. You came at record speed to help an old friend like me.” Alastor seemed to be in a very good mood.

“Oh please, Al, that’s what friends are supposed to do. Besides, you helped me and I’m always in your debt.”

“Careful there, Mimzy, that sounds too attempting to abuse.” Alastor let out a heartful laugh then appeared in the doorway. He was facing Mimzy then when he looked at me he grew silent. His gentle smile lowered to a smirk and his eyes lowered. I took a deep breath and turned away to face the wall. 

“Would you need anything else, Al?” Mimzy asked, looking between him and me.

“A matter of fact I do, it’s outside if you don’t mind.” He looked down at Mimzy with gentle eyes and the woman shuttered before nodding and walking away.  When she was gone he slid into the room and closed the door. The sound of the door clicking shut made me jump back and try to make myself smaller as he walked towards the chair and sat down. I peaked towards him and saw how relaxed he seemed, his legs were crossed and gingers knitted together. He seemed to be waiting for me to speak before he said whatever was going through his mind. If anything was going through it that is, Alastor had the area of a man that would shut off his mind and stare for hours into a void. And with due time, that void would become uneasy and beg him to look away. 

“You saved me.” It wasn’t a question, more so a comment of almost near bewilderment. 

He chuckled lightly then pushed his thin frames up the bridge of his nose, “I did.”

“Mimzy said that isn’t like you.”

“It’s not.” He answered quickly and never losing the smirk on his face. I finally rose my head to look at him directly and he was pleased to have me do so as his eyes grew a bit. I had so many questions to ask him, the first being why was a man like him in the swamps, did he really kill those men, and what was he going to do with me.

“I can hear you thinking so loudly, I believe it’s better if you just said whatever you wish to say out loud,” Alastor told me and I turned my head away again. I tucked my loose hair behind my ear and gulped.

“When can I go home?” 

“Hmmm,” Alastor sounded almost unimpressed by my question as if he was hoping for something more existing. He didn’t answer me for a bit and almost seemed to zone out in the distance. “You can see him, can’t you?” He finally turned back towards me and it felt like he was staring into my soul. Alastor had beautiful haunting eyes like a cat and the way they tore into me with one simple question made me scared. Darkness formed around his shoulders like smoke, he didn’t seem bothered by it but he did acknowledge it.

“See who?” I asked back, he could be anyone, he could be the men outside or the men in the city. He could be an object that someone showed a little too much affection towards. Who was he?

“He told me the moment I returned home that someone would be watching me. I didn’t think he meant someone as simple as you, Miss Ester. No one can see him unless he wants to be been, no one but us.” Alastor recrossed his legs and leaned to his side to prop his elbow up to lean against it.

“Was it him that caused all this?” A fire rose from my stomach as I snapped towards Alastor. He wasn’t phased by it and simply shook his head.

“No dear, you were at the wrong place at the wrong time, this was your own foolish gain.”

“It wasn’t foolish, I had work to drop off for someone, she couldn’t-”

“So she sent you? That sounds like she knew and tried to get rid of you.”

“You watch your mouth about Chemintine Evans, she’s nothing but a good girl trying her best. There was no way she knew what was going to happen to me nor would she set up something so nasty. That girl can barely stand on her own two legs without falling over and crying at least once. She’s a mighty fine girl, ya hear?” I don’t know what came over me but it was enough to make me want to ring Alastor neck for talking bad about Chemintine. This must have been what Chemintine felt when she thought she had to come and save me from an ambush. I couldn’t allow some starlight no good white-passing man to say anything bad about her. Alastor’s eyes went wide quickly and he broke out into his loud and hearty laughter as if I said the darndest thing. I narrowed my eyes and shook my head in disbelief. 

“My apologies, please forgive me,” He clenched his chest and rolled forward holding out a hand to tell me to give him a moment. “I meant no harm, dear, I’m sure Miss Evan is the bell of the ball the way you speak of her. Why I’m glad to hear how close you two are as friends, everyone needs someone like you.” He calmed once again and sat back in his chair. This time I could tell that the lingering darkness around him was off his shoulders and he was in a good mood. 

“Mister Alastor, I’m forever grateful that you saved me but I would like to go home.” I placed the forgotten tea down on the tray and placed the tray to my side so I could pull the covers away. I swung my legs over and out and tried to stand up but my legs gave out. Alastor chuckled and stood up and walked over to give me a hand. At first, I was hesitant to take it, scared even of what he could do, but I had to get up. So I took it and gently he tugged me up and steady me so I could find my footing. When I was sure I was okay to stand I took my hand away and he complied. Now that I was standing beside him once more I felt so damn small. He was so tall and lanky and just intimidating. Alastor snapped his fingers and a knock at the door caught my attention. Mimzy pushed the door in with her foot as she held my clothes in her hand. She handed them to me and went back towards the door.

“We’ll let you get dressed Miss Ester, afterwards I’ll be driving you home, no complaints. Someone has too, the swamps are a very dangerous place to get lost in.” 

“I��m missing my jacket,” I told him, he looked towards Mimzy who nervously smiled.

“I’m sorry, doll, but I couldn’t find your jacket when Alastor brought you. I had a hard enough time finding your shoes.” She mumbled another sorry and I nodded. I was amazed she was even able to make my clothes look as good as new with how beat up they were. With that Alastor crossed his arms behind his back and spun on his heels to head out the door. Mimzy curtsied and said her goodbyes and headed right behind him closing the door.

Outside the room was as if I stepped into a private study that happened to be a house. Animal heads hung from the walls alongside guns in display cases and a few knives of all sorts. The small hallway from the bedroom to the living room was dark and once you made it out the room became lit by a fire. Beautiful furniture of reds and black sat around the fireplace and along the walls. I knew this was a cabin but it was surely of the more luxury side. Off to the side of the living room was an open archway that led to a kitchen. I saw Alastor standing over a stove with his sleeves rolled up stirring a pot. I cleared my throat and he looked over his shoulder and nodded. He placed the spoon to the side and covered the pot. He fixed himself up and grabbed a towel and cleaned his hands before slipping on a pair of gloves. I stood still and watched him head towards the door to grab his dress coat, I felt so out of place standing in his man’s home. I tried to look around once more to find Mimzy but she seemed long gone.

“Come along now, dear, we don’t want it to get too late.” He held open the door and I quickly headed out. The cabin stood on land but was surrounded on the sides by water. You had to step down from the platform onto the solid ground before heading forward towards what I believed to be a pathway out. Alastor led the way and even held the gate open for me. I saw his car parked facing forwards down the pathway and he quickly and swiftly unlocked the doors and allowed me in. I thanked him and got in, I wrapped my arms around myself and tried to make myself as small as possible. I didn’t want him to pay much attention to me. When Alastor got in he gave me a gentle smile and started the car for us to drive off.

 “I can see angels, I could see them ever since I was a child, but the devil seemed to be friendly with me and I saw him too.” The words came out of my mouth faster than I could register what I said. Alastor hummed and nodded but never looked away from the road. I knew I shouldn’t say anything else but I felt oddly safe letting him know. The confliction within my body was strong but the urge to feel...something...was stronger.

“So you saw him when I came into the shop?” Alastor asked.

“Yes, then I saw him at the party when you left, then he showed up at my church and walked me home.”

“Ha!” Alastor chuckled and shook his head. “I swear he is goofy, always flirting with the angels by pulling someone along. He told me he had a bird down here but I didn’t know that was you.” Alastor nodded his head towards me and I quickly shook my own.

“I ain’t no bird Mister, I’ve been told my whole life not to talk to the devil,” I said it sharply so he would understand. I wasn’t some fool making plans with the devil at the crossroads for some secret talent. I was just a black woman in American trying to live her life as safely as possible.

“But all rules are meant to be broken, Miss Ester. You spoke to the devil and his company.” Alastor’s voice lowered and he chuckled deeply. I didn’t know what to say and I stayed quiet for the rest of the ride. The only time I opened my mouth was to tell him where to go. It was about five minutes before we showed up at my neighbourhood and in front of my house. When I stepped out of the car I took a deep breath and looked around. Everyone seemed to either be inside or gone, it seemed a lot emptier than it normally did. I turned back around to lean down to poke my head into the window.

“Thank you once again, Mister Alastor,” I told him.

“Please, I insist you call me Alastor.”

I nodded and thought for a moment then looked back towards him, “I don’t care to know what you did to those men the other day. But I can say the world can use a lot less of them.”

“I couldn’t agree more, have a fine day Ester. I’ll see you around.”

“Same to you Alastor.” I wasn’t going to ask him what he meant by seeing me around. It would be better if I didn’t. I pulled away from the car and watched him turn the car around and pull off. As he sped down the road leaving a trail of dirt behind him I heard the sound of someone gasp.  I turned and saw some of my neighbours standing out the doors or hanging out their living room windows. I was confused but I nodded and waved to them before turning towards my house and heading up the steps. When I reached for the door it quickly pulled open and Chemintine ran out crying. 

“Ester! Ester where have you been! I came back and you were gone, you were gone and I was so worried. I asked everyone had they seen you and they said they haven’t and then I asked Mrs Birdy and she said she haven’t. I tried to call the police but they wouldn’t take the case. Ester are you okay?!” I patted Chemintine’s back knowing how worked up she was. I knew me not coming home last night wouldn’t sit well with her. I wasn't too sure if telling her what happened was a good idea or not.

“Chemintine calm down, I was only gone for a day.” I pulled away from her and cleaned her tears but Chemintine jumped back and out of my arms. She shook her head clenched on to her wrist as if he was going to fall off. I narrowed my eyes at her and gave her a look, I looked around and saw more of my neighbours coming out to see what was going on. “Chem what in the world, calm down it was only a day. I’m fine and I’m here and I would love to take a bath right now.” I shook my head and tried to move past her but she wouldn’t move and just shook her head.

“E-Ester...you’ve been gone for three days.” 

What?

#🔻Red Thread🔻 #my writing #hazbin hotel #hazbin alastor #self shipping community #chapter 9

[promise-to-be-true]

2017

Howdy! Every year I like to write a reflection on the year that has passed. I like to journal, and also document here, so buckle up. 

Right now I am not in a great head space. I’m feeling anxious, annoyed, frustrated and trapped. I’m not sure how this will turn out. I wish I could find my headphones.

Let’s see. Last January, I was living in Danbury. I worked at Starbucks and the library. This was definitely a transitional year. I worked lots of meaningless jobs, lots of hours to save lots of money. Living in Danbury felt aimless. I was close to people I loved, yet didn’t have the time to spend with them. I loved the little house. I had a perfect bedroom and I loved being on my own, but it felt like a year lacking direction. My goal was to save enough to move to Australia. I achieved that goal, but the rest of my time felt sort of aimless.

Okay, I need to pull my head out of the oven because this is getting too negative. In April I started working with a Children’s Theatre company in CT. It was nice to be paid to do theatre again. I was proud of that, but the lady I worked for was a real loon, and overall I was so happy when it was over.

In September, my lease was over, and I decided instead of moving to Australia straight away, I would go on tour with a production of The Outsiders. Looking back, that was probably the best decision I could have made, and it was a real highlight. It was so nice to be acting again. I hated road managing, but I loved it. It was insane, stressful, demanding, overwhelming, but at the end of the day it gave me so much more purpose and meaning than working at Red Lobster.

2017 wasn’t a big year for travel. I’m excited to travel more in 2018. 

2017 was a year of Danny. We went on our first date on Groundhogs Day, and he’s changed my life. We’ve had so many good times, so many challenging times. He’s loyal, supportive, wonderful. It wouldn’t have been the same without him. Lately, I’ve been feeling so low, and taking it out on him which I know isn’t fair. He is patient, he is accepting, and he makes me feel comfortable and loved.

When I think of 2017 I will think of Valentines Day, the excitement of dating someone new. The drudgery of working jobs I didn’t care for. Starbucks, the library, red lobster, being bored. Having a warm little house. Rhys helping shovel my car out. Sledding down the hill with doggo, how could that have already been nearly a year ago? Napping between jobs. Pinching every penny. Locking my keys in Sunshine. Sunshine dying, buying a new car. Jeannie. Driving with Danny, and the Mets, and dancing, and wiffleball. A snow day with Magary, making pie and doing tarot. Scranton. Being comfy in the house. Being bored. Painting again. Writing. Not auditioning. Working with Leslie, touching base with Mikey again. The rabbit that ran into the school. Laughing about how terrible she was. The costumes, the allergy attacks. My birthday, my perfect birthday with Tarrywile and the vulture and space jam. My caffeine addiction. O’Briens. Having faith in myself. Wanting more. Feeling lost and without direction. Bubble baths to warm me because it was so damn cold. The swamp monster that lived in the toilet. Brunch with Danny’s family, and crying. The 30th anniversary party I could give to the people I love. The Outsiders. Feeling wise, being a leader. Being part of something bigger than myself. Vitaly eating everyone’s food. Salmon jerky. Sean and his get rich quick scheme. Getting iced. Getting mad at Goggin, and the way he always had my back. The afternoon when I couldn’t stop crying. Roach motel in NJ. Boxes of wine with Jenn. The comfy La Quinta. Staying in bed. The Red Roof with Danny and Alejandro and Colleen and Myles. Reconnecting. Laughing. Quiplash. Mafia.The fights. The frustrations. Niagara Falls at night. Steve getting sick, getting the call after we left that cute coffee shop in Louisville. Tomas always ushering so he could be there in case I needed to flip my shit. Tomas watching The Office with me, all the way from Syracuse to Connecticut. The death of Cindy. Vermont, and sex and heart to hearts and music and coconut oil. Coming home and substitute teaching and living here. Trying to squeeze in goodbyes. Trying to clean so I can have a new start. Getting an au pair job, getting my visa.

I’ve been home for about a month and I am so fed up. My parents are hoarders. It’s dirty, it’s cramped, it’s hard to walk or think or work. I’m at the kitchen table because my room is so cold and the wifi doesn’t reach, but I want to work without interruption and it isn’t an option. Someday I will treasure these days, but for now I can’t think I can’t function. I am overwhelmed and undermotivated. There are so many things I think I should do, and I have been doing none of them. I need to finish shoveling out my own childhood hoarders bedroom. There’s a lot on my plate.

2018 will be a bright time. I have a couple more weeks to tie up loose ends. then I will be driving across the country with Danny. I’m excited to see new places and spend time with him and make more memories and take cute instas. 2017 felt stagnant, but it wasn’t. I saved lots of money, I had some good times. There were times when I couldn’t remember the last time I had laughed. It was sad, I was working so much it was isolating. Tour was a breath of fresh air, and a push that I should be doing more. I got my visa. I bought my plane ticket. I built a relationship. I moved out of my house. I made money. I stuck to a budget. I cooked for myself. I started writing and painting more. I read maybe 5 books and went on maybe 5 auditions. 2018 will be a year to focus more on my future and a career, not just a job. I’m glad I lived in Danbury because it was better than living at home, but I knew it would always be temporary, a diversion. Sydney will be as well, but it is different. It will be new and exciting and challenging in a way that Danbury isn’t and never was. 

I have lots to be proud of. I need to write more and read more. I need to finish submitting this audition and I need to finish Danny’s present. I need to make time for my goodbyes and time for fun. December has been a standstill,I can’t wait to move forward again and have more control of my environment and my circumstances. 

Goals to 2018:

-More auditions. 

-More books.

-Perform a show at the Melbourne Fringe. 

I can make it happen. It’s scary to leave everyone I love. I hope the ones that matter will still remember me. Better times, new friends, more opportunities await. Most importantly, warmer weather as well.

Much love,

K xoxo

#nye #new years eve #2017 #2018 #personal #reflection

[alicemalory-blog]

Huckleberry Friend

Moon/River fanfic!

Queen Moon was seventeen when she used her wand to ice her Giggle Water. Giggle Water was an enchanted alcoholic drink on Mewni, it was dry and spicy. The Queen liked it and had mastered not giggling after taking her sips. Moon was drinking to celebrate clearing monsters from her kingdom. They could take up swamps, deserts,caves; really anywhere as long as they clung to shadows and were far away from her people. Though she knew some people doubted her for the vice of youth she was proving to be a very serious queen. Queen Moon impressed the High Council with her take-no-jokes attitude. The people feared her and while Moon loved them she felt cool for being feared. Moon became the pride of her family.

The Butterfly family had already been the most arrog-honorable family of Mewni and strived for the cream of the corn's top.

"You've grown quite lovely, Moon." Aunt Etheria said as she stood behind Moon. She snapped her fingers and a servant gave Moon a tiara made of sparkling stardust.

"Count Mildrew speaks of that fact very often."

"Yes Aunt Etheria, you've mentioned that many times." Moon said as she strung pearls into her pale-blue hair.

"He is a fine boy, my girl. Since we're just chatting away I may inform you that I took out your father's needle." Aunt Etheria said while she pointed to a crooked hair over her ear. A servant tucked the loose hair against the rest of smooth pile or violet.

The marriage needle was the tool that would imprint a forever bond between spouses. Its enchanted ink written on the skin would seep into the blood and make the connection permanent. A servant brought the needle in its glass cubical casing, it rested on white petals.

Moon flinched, "I beg your pardon, Aunt Etheria but my father's things are private."

"Pssh. No need to blush, my young queen. Consider examining it before returning deciding where to place it next." The eldest Butterfly said before excusing herself out of the room.

The silver needle was engraved with insect-wing vertebra pattern. Moon felt aggravated by her aunt's pushing, how dare she tell a queen how to live! On the other glove, just the sight of the sharp point put Moon in a romantic mood. She wasn't a frivolous person, she rarely believed the hokum of happy endings and eternal bubble love like other seventeen-year-olds. Bubbles pop, love fades and it's best to make a good bargain instead of choosing by gooey feelings.

And yet...despite all rational thinking and self preservation Moon took the glass cube in her hands. She let grow the sweetness of her silly affections and desired to have an fuller life.

A week later, to her aunt's delight, Moon hosted a ball. She was wearing the widest, most dazzling dress she had made only for that night. On the outside she was cool as cucumbers, on the inside she was a stamped of warnicorns. Tonight she had to ask, not demand, and while certain she'd get a 'yes' Moon was nervous about changing her life.

Count Mildrew was in a corner, long hair flowing, writing a poem about his feelings. Moon looked forwarded to not seeing that one except in minimal social events. In the opposite direction River Johansen of the Johansen clan was suffering to fake interest in Lady Dawnson's chatting. River could not understand why a woman would stuff her head full of feathers when she was in a perfectly warm and crowded ballroom. Moon enjoyed seeing River far more than anyone else. He was funny and odd, which was new and strangely delightful.

Over a feather River saw an arrow made of blue smoke. He excused himself and followed the next arrow out of the ballroom, then onto the castle's balcony.

The smoke lead him to the glowing crystal-heart of Queen Moon's wand. Queen Moon against the night sky... nothing was prettier. She was like medium rare pork covered in honey. River missed his home kingdom almost not at all when Moon was around.

"Your highness, I compliment the choice of bacon. It almost tastes like real zebirou." River said sitting on the marble bench."And I've spent many a cold night with those bros."

Moon wanted to sit next to him. She wanted to brag about where she found the imitation corn-based zebirou meat because the tale would make River would laugh. She liked his barkish laugh. She wanted to hold his short square body in her arms and snuggle against his blonde stubble. Moon, you're not an animal, do what mewmans do in civil society.

"River, I consider you to be my dearest friend." Moon began.

River inhaled and smiled widely, "Uh huh." She's leaving me in the friend-barn, I want to die.

"You know me in the most personal way and know that my first priority is the people of Mewni. I strive to lead them into a grander future," Moon said so business-like and with her arms behind her back, "I must achieve this with the right people. River."

"Just let me have the axe before I jump off this balcony." River said, his eyes dewing.

"River, you're letting your sensitivity could your better judgement." Moon said, "However, I must admit, I like your gift of flexible feelings."

She placed the glass casing into his muscular hands. His eyes glistened and his dimpling grin cemented her decision.

"River, I would honored if you'd be my king." Moon said, allowing her love to shine in her eyes. River made a squeaking bird noise and nodded. Moon allowed the corners of her mouth to raise as she unclenched the latch of her family heirloom. River squealed at the marriage needle then grabbed Moon's waist. He stood on the bench and dipper her to make the perfect night a little bit sweeter. Moon let herself dip into foolishness and kissed him back. The needle's casing between them which she loosely held with her elbows as she held his shoulders.

She felt lighter than air, then Moon realized a servant had lifted her shoes. The servant was attempting to carry her away from her fiance, "Put me down." She said flatly.

"I say!" River said as he pushed the servant down and took the standing Moon's hand. "Mine now."

"Absolutely not." Aunt Etheria said, her glare on River.

He rolled his eyes, "Old toad with a wig."

"Rotten barbar-"

The aunt zipped her lip when Moon glared with a blizzard.

"Auntie, I am your queen. My word is law and my law will unite me with the man I love with or without your blessing."

River held his head high as he escorted Moon into the castle. He would've paid almost anything to wink and stick his tongue out at Etheria. Anything was not everything and Moon saying she loved him was everything he could dream. Not to mention, he was going to be king! Happy day!

"No." The viking with the missing front teeth and brass knuckle said.

Shocked, furious and a bit saddened Moon heard this word from the chief of her fiance's tribe. "Sir, may I inquire why you'd deny me the pleasure of your company."

Chief Thud Johansen made a raspberry noise as he threw an axe towards his nephew's head. River didn't mind the axe, he wanted something to throw at his cousins for chuckling at his attire. He didn't enjoy the fru-fru outfits Moon liked but he very much liked standing at her side with pride.

"Respect, your highness, but you're a stiff. River won't be happy." Chief Thud said.

"I don't want happiness, I want my Moon." The young Johansen told his uncle. He grabbed a chair and threw it at Thud's head. The Cheif took the blow without a blink.

Moon scolded, "That didn't sound quite right." She spoke up, "Your majesty, I am to wed River and as his family I request your attendance."

In a dove's beak there was a lacy invitation to RSVP.

"Baah!" Chief Thud laughed the dove against a wall. The rest of the hairy Johansens laughed like bears and shook the stained rugs under Moon's feet. She did not falter.

River went to her side, "Rats they all are, my love we can go away and marry in a sunnier dimension with less idiots around!"

"We are marrying in Mewni with all of our family members included." Moon said with steel in her eyes. "Whether by their will or not is up to me."

Seeing his oh-so formal darling sound so vicious made him affectionate. River giggled and kissed her gloved hands.

Oustide Moon castle there was a mountain. The five members of the Butterfly family met with four members of the Johansen family. Aunt Etheria, cousins Dorawreathe, Birchward, Fluttersnow and Peggy were there in their fanciest outdoor clothes. Chief Thud, grandmother Spike, cousins Blunt and Lump came in no more than fresh-fur over their backs and groins. The groups sneered at one another, thinking the worse of the polar identities.

A trumpet sounded and introduced an open carriage with Moon and River. They had a servant named Manfred hold three flags. River held up Moon's gloved hand as they walked out.

"What is this then, Queen Cousin?" Birchward asked, his handkerchief at his nose.

"None of you wish to attend my wedding." Moon announced.

Dorawreathe raised a limp finger, "We would if it were to someone else. Like, anyone else."

"Ditto!" Lump yelled and the vikings punched the air.

A lightning blast from Moon's wand silenced the yelling.

"I propose a wager to you all, whomever may reach the top of that hill," Moon pointed to the elementally furious mountain, "may choose mine and River's fate."

The Butterflies exchanged secretive glances while the Johnansens slapped one another's chests. "And I promise resist using my wand." Moon said, she held it in both hands then let it disappear.

"The starting line is here," Manfred said from his floating chair and bejeweled microphone. "Ready?" Fluttersnow held a handy little flamethrower under her corset. A handy potion had Blunt grow two extra fists on his original fists. He was excited to break some dollish faces.

Moon leaned down to hold River's cheek. Her first layer was cold and beautiful, the second layer was hopeful and frightened. River held her hand to his face.

The couple stared at one another while shot went off. Their ravenous family members ran past them. River stared at Moon while he smiled, "Let's give them a five minute head start."

At the time Moon found it very romantic that she and her fiance could bury anyone that dare come between them. Relatives or not there was satisfaction in placing their flag together while everyone else laid mangled.

Barely a year later Queen Moon and King River hosted a party in the castle with their combined families. This time was to celebrate the healthy birth of their newborn princess.

"She smiles so often, is she unwell?" Aunt Etheria asked looking over her great-niece.

Cousin Lump pushed forward to offer the baby-size hatchet. "Baby Star's already owning life better than you!"

There began an argument between in-laws. Princess Star was held in a plush baby carriage with two guards at her side. Moon covered her daughter's ears when the family began using slurs in their heated conversation.

Moon looked sourly at the bickering. She then looked down at the baby's cheerful cooing. The queen was glad to see her offspring grin with her eyes the same way her husband did. Moon was less frothy when her King took baby Star out of her safe zone.

"Pumpkin, come with Papa swing from the chandelier. We can look down on Momma's family." He poked his daughter's tiny hands then whispered, "And throw candy until we see them feel it."

Note: My theory of Mewni Marriage is getting tattooed with magic ink. In Moon and River's case they chose half moons that swirled like clouds placed directly over their hearts. It glows an effervescent periwinkle. They feel it every single second of the day.

#star vs the forces of evil #star vs las fuerzas del mal #svtfoe #queen moon butterflu #princess queen butterfly #river johnanson #king river butterfly #star butterfly #fanfic #moonriver #antimoontoffee

[plasticnightmaredoll]

Resident Evil 8: Village review (spoilers everywhere!)

Now, I want to start off by saying I've never been very interested in the "Resident Evil" games. I've always preferred the "Silent Hill" series because of how macabre the games are, the creepy symbolism behind the monsters, and the intense moments of fear despite having weapons (well, in most of the games at least). I like dark, twisted stuff, and "Resident Evil" seemed too...action-oriented for me, I guess?

However, I did finally get involved when I saw the trailer for "Resident Evil 7: Biohazard." I was shocked, but pleasantly so. Not only did it feature new characters, new locations, and a new disease, but it was in first person AND looked like a true survival horror game. I know some people may prefer the third-person perspective for RE games as that has always been one of their key characteristics, but I think horror games are much more effective in first person. They're more immersive because they give you the illusion of being in the game itself.

I really loved RE7, and still do. I actually have begun playing it again, the first time in a few years (I think 2019 was the last time I played through the game). I still see it as my favorite RE games and one of my favorite survival horror games, but I have enjoyed the "Resident Evil 2" and "Resident Evil 3" remakes and may play other games in the franchise just because.

Now, onto "Resident Evil 8: Village," a direct sequel to 7 (lol 8 does come after 7 but I mean that 8 is a continuation of the story introduced in 7. I mean, RE7 was not a sequel to RE6 at all). I was excited to see the franchise continuing with what it started in RE7, and while I did enjoy RE8, it does have some issues...nothing serious but things that prevent it from replacing RE7 as my favorite.

The Good:

There Four Lords and Mother Miranda were truly unique characters despite being bosses. I felt pity for all of them in one way or another and enjoyed learning their backstories. I think they are the most interesting and "human" villains in the RE games so far (at least, from what I've seen), and in games in general.

I felt so much pity for Moreau, though. He was such a tragic character, and I felt like I was putting him out of his misery by killing him. Clearly, there was something wrong with him mentally like his mental growth had been stunted and he thought and acted more like a child. His primary goals were to win the praise of the other three Lords since they didn't like him (I think Donna may have been ok with him but her mental health issues prevented her from expressing her feelings in a more effective and healthy manner) and to have Mother Miranda see him as her son. All these emotions over one character, a boss enemy, and possibly the least complex of the Lords and Miranda herself, I think demonstrate some fantastic writing. I mean, I've very rarely encountered bosses that I felt sorry for, and killing them was mercy.

Donna was a very strange character. She was the only one of the bosses who didn't transform into a monstrosity, and her boss fight was vastly different from anything else in the game. I liked it, though, for the most part, this sort of "calm" within a storm of deadly monsters and bloody battles. Of all the Lords and Mother Miranda herself, Donna was almost just there, like she was observing instead of actually participating. She respected Mother Miranda but, unlike the other three Lords, she seemed to prefer to live in her own little fantasy world with her dolls as her family and friends.

The graphics were, as expected, incredible. If you have a computer that can handle the game with high/max settings, it will look absolutely stunning. Also, the soundtrack was very fitting, but I don't have much concern for this trait unless the soundtrack is truly exceptional, which is rare -- or if the soundtrack is awful, which I have yet to encounter in a game.

I enjoyed the change in environment from RE7. I liked the creepy house in the woods and "ghost ship" in RE7, but RE8 had us in underground tunnels, a rundown village, a castle, a factory, a swamp town...I mean, you went all over the place, but it made the experience diverse and entertaining.

RE8 gave us a lot of answers to questions left by RE7, and, in some ways, enhanced that game's story. Finding out the truth behind Ethan's seemingly indestructible body was a twist I didn't expect. It did provide an answer for just how easy it was for him to literally patch himself up and put himself back together over and over again. It was no longer just "game logic."

Ending Ethan's story made sense. It was clear by the end of RE8 that his character had gone as far as possible, and it was time to switch gears. I'm curious as to how the next game will utilize Rose as a protagonist. She has powerful psychic abilities, unlike her father, and I don't think any other RE protagonist has had such abilities (as far as I know), so that could make for a very interesting gaming experience.

With that being said, I really do hope RE9 continues what was started in RE7 and developed further in RE8. I really do. I think there are plenty of things left to explore, plenty of room for some good twists and turns.

There weren't many puzzles in this game, but I didn't think it was such a bad thing. It was still a lot of fun to play with a reasonable amount of action-oriented challenges. There were so many bosses in this game, minibosses included, yet it never felt overwhelming or underwhelming. I thought the minibosses were fantastic "bridges" to each of the 5 main boss fights.

MAGNUM IS BEST WEAPON. Seriously, what is it with these types of guns and their insane amount of power? I liked the grenade launcher as well, despite how slow it was to reload. The use of flashbangs proved to be much more useful than the grenades themselves, oddly enough. I know they have been in other RE games, but they were much more essential in RE8.

The pacing was perfect. I felt like the game was the appropriate length, not overstaying its welcome nor leaving players underwhelmed by lack of content. I mean, I still wish it were longer but that's only because of how entertaining it is to play. Leaving players wanting more but in a positive sense indicates that the game was planned thoroughly with a lot of attention to detail.

Miranda's and Moreau'sboss fights were the most challenging in the game. Both were endurance battles and required you to move quickly and think fast and basically just survive until they died. Ammo was very important in both boss fights because the right weapons made things much easier but if you didn't have enough ammo for them, well...you're going to have a more intense challenge.

My favorite "location" was the Dimitrescu castle. I like the elegant "antique" aesthetic of old castles and houses/mansions.

Unlike in RE7, RE8 does allow you to upgrade some of your weapons, which makes things easier if just to allow your guns to hold more ammo before needing to reload. You also didn't need to pull out a weapon to open crates. If you "interacted" with one, Ethan automatically used his knife to break it. RE7 made you do it manually which was a little annoying, especially during fights.

RE7 pretty much just had the Bakers and mold monsters as enemies. They all put up a good fight, but RE8 has a much wider range of enemies: wolfmen, zombies, flying zombie bats, werewolves, cyborg monstrosities, witches (well, if you consider the Dimitrescu daughters as witches, and they kind of are), a gross but pitiful fishman, a mentally disturbed doll maker, and an egocentric engineer. Variety added another layer of difficulty and surprise to the game since it wasn't always the same enemy types popping up to get you.

Mixed Thoughts:

Donna's boss fight was unlike any other fight in the game -- or any game, really. It was a morbid hide and seek challenge that was a nice change of pace but I do wish it had been a bit more difficult. I liked the concept, and it suited Donna, but it was the easiest boss fight in the game, almost like it was a miniboss fight instead. Good concept, but weak execution.

RE8 allows you to upgrade weapons, but RE7 doesn't, and while it may sound like RE8 has the upper hand, I disagree. RE7's lack of weapon enhancements/upgrades made the game more difficult because what you saw was what you got, and you had to make do. You didn't have the option to make your weapons hold more ammo or shoot faster or deal more damage.

The Bad:

Most of the boss fights were...rather easy? Minibosses included. The only ones that posed a real threat were Moreau and Miranda. Everyone else was just standard boss fodder, unfortunately. In RE7, I felt that, while there were far fewer boss fights, they all were much more demanding and exciting.

Lady Dimitrescu was such a fun character, and yet, she was only in the game for a short time, and her boss fight was just so-so. With all the marketing surrounding her before the game was released, I expected her to have a much larger role in the game.

They had an opportunity to make Miranda a sympathetic villain seeing as how the loss of her daughter basically drove her to madness. However, the way she was portrayed, I honestly didn't feel any sympathy for her, which was a shame. If she had been portrayed as a more tragic, broken character, then it would have made the final boss fight very emotional since you would feel some guilt killing her knowing what she's been through.

Not very scary. I mean, it's not a terrible thing, but for a game that is part of the survival horror genre, I felt like RE8 focused on the action a little too often. It was an intense experience just not a chilling one. RE7 had so much tension and atmosphere that it truly played out like a survival horror game.

Overall, I do like "Resident Evil 8: Village" and want to play it several more times. It bested "Resident Evil 7: Biohazard" in a few ways, namely with a diversity of enemies and customizable weapons but it fell short in the horror department and mishandled most of its bosses.

Final Grade: B+

For reference:

Resident Evil 7: A

Resident Evil 2 (2019 Remake): A-

Resident Evil 3 (2020 Remake): B-

#resident evil village #re8 #horror game #resident evil #survival horror #lady dimitrescu #salvatore moreau #mother miranda #resident evil 7 #resident evil 8 #re village #queued post

[boggytalking-blog]

Grandpa Abe

A short story all about addiction, gardening, and progress.

-Step one, get a shovel.

     That same rusted shovel grandpa Abe used to bury my cat, my dog, my next cat, and that bird I somehow convinced my ma to buy. That damn shovel that always seemed to slip out of my hands and the jagged plastic grip cut up my fingers. The shovel that spoke more in its scratches and dirt than my grandfather Abe could…. Most grandfathers tell stories of adventure and wisdom and wise lessons to their grandchildren. Yet, Abe taught me to garden – or tried to teach me that is. I named it and Abe was planting it: Lily of the Incas, Amaryllis, Anemones, Rose, Daisies, Daffodils, Chrysanthemum, and a hundred other ones I can’t begin to name. After grandma Sue “uprooted” as Abe started to call it; he had been religious in his gardening. I think in some sense he felt he could he could replant his fleeting memories of her.

-Step two, find his house.

     This little ranch style house with more garden than there were guards at Buckingham. The story goes that once grandma Sue had her cancer go into remission, she wanted to start something that not even cancer could kill: a garden. So, she set out spending social security checks on trowels, seeds, various mulches, and probably this damn shovel… She went to work redesigning their entire front lawn, and then the entire side lawns, finally even the back lawn, the window sills, the indoor planters, even planting flowers around the mailbox! Grandma Sue couldn’t stop! She made her self a little gardening club with some of the other local ladies and even got herself a tab setup at the towns gardening shop. She had been talk of the town when her cancer had flared up, talk of the town when she beat its ass, talk of town when her garden grew larger than life, and talk of the town when the cancer came back…

-Step three, make sure it’s the shovel.

      I scanned it over, its got that same stink of poor quality present from before I was born. “That there was hand-made by a war friend of mine over in Switzerland; the Swiss make two good things…” Abe would trail off while sinking into his La-Z-Boy. “What two thin—” I could barely  ask and Abe started back from his tangent of silence, “…CHEESE! Cheese and Axes! The Swiss are good at two things: Cheese and Axes…” and off he trailed… Lost in a swamp of memories; like one big brain of alphabet soup with phrases forming and fading as the broth rolled. The same plastic handle chipped and scarred all the hell. Probably still splatters of blood from when I forgot to wear gloves around this monster of consumerism. Abe didn’t get this axe from a Swiss friend… I know this cause on the inside of the handle, if I looked real close, I can just make out a white sticker with black font that reads, “MADE IN CHINA.” In fact, grandpa was never even in a war… His father did serve in World War II. Abe was born in 1930 at the start of the Great Depression, he was only around 15 by the time the war ended, and his father never came back.

-Step four, find the tree with the carving.

     Just behind their quaint ranch house sat this lumbering oak tree. Easily forty maybe fifty feet tall with a trunk so large you had to use two tape measures. Grandpa Abe and grandma Sue had apparently started dating after he carved their initials into the tree back when you could wrap your arms around its trunk. “Abe + Sue” engrained in the very bark from years ago. This tree had silently seen their entire friendship, relationship, and hardship. Now It was about to watch their grandson commit something pathetic… It’s not like I want to be here doing this, but I need to. In the same way Abe mumbled. “I need to garden…” He just fell off the deep end. He was playing on the precipice of the drop into full dementia and Sues “uprooting, she just uprooted…, I can replant her…” he lost himself. He tried so hard to replant her via all those flowers, he didn’t even maintain the ones he planted. They would die, and he would just plant new ones on top. He couldn’t seem to replant his own memories. Even the tree and the carving weren’t enough for Abe to replant those memories. After awhile he stopped even referencing grandma Sue just saying, “plant, need them planted.” He started rambling about roots and the, “intricacies of root structures.”

-Step five, 10 paces towards the shed

.     “One… two… three…” Abe would count out the seeds for each species. Always ending on “…ten.” “Ten is a powerful number, Jeremy…” again trailing off as he said my name. People usually called me J. I’m not sure why… There were tons of nicknames, J, JJ, Jerm… I liked Jeremy and I’ve never been sure why people didn’t just call me by that… Grandpa Abe’s old shed housed a slew of gardening supplies; all chaotically organized. In fanatic fashion he would dash from shed to plot and back. That’s why there’s no grass in front of the shed or in much of the yard. After forgetting how to walk normally, Abe’s cinderblock stride would carve dirt paths all in the grass. Surprisingly straight lines spread out from the sheds opening; practically all 90-degree angles because complex curves got to be too much for him. Living in part of the Great Depression Abe learned from his mother to, “never trust them bankers, Abraham.” Long before any dementia or issues with Sue he had started burying his money in the back yard. One spot I knew of was ten paces from the oak tree to the shed.

-Step six, dig.

     I drove the shovel straight into the ground, sure not to lose my grip and have it attack me again. Scoop after scoop of the earth I was manic; digging away in the same fashion Abe did after Sue “uprooted.” I had to get this money, I needed this money, I need to get this fast. The house sat silent and empty of thoughts. Reminiscent of grandpa Abe in his last moments. I got so upset. When he was finally hospitalized, they thought they could explain it all to me in simple terms. Saying, “J, grandpa Abe is going to take a long time and he’s going to sit really quiet. He’s in a vegetative state.” This infuriated me, I yelled and had a fit, I thought they were mocking him calling him a “vegetable.” I couldn’t understand. All I remembered was the previous summer Abe told me something; stopping all his frantic gardening he slowly walked over to me and got on one knee. “Jeremy, make me a garden…” with tears Abe trailed off and never spoke coherently to me again. I was in shock, it took me years to realize that I watched the last signs of my grandpa leave his body.

-Step seven, dig further

.     “Where is it, its got to be here, there’s no way he dug it up” was all I could mumble as I kept digging. Deeper and deeper into the hard soil I stopped. “Where, where, WHERE!” I screamed under my breath as the dying garden seemed to watch me. I stopped for a moment and was out of breath. I never had been a very athletic kid but even this hole was nothing for me… I scratched my neck and my arm and then repeated. I was getting uneasy. I needed to find this money and faster than ever.

-Step eight, jackpot.

     Albeit not recognizable, there was a sound nothing like metal on earth – the sound of metal on a mason jar. It was worth it. There had to still be something left in this. Abe always talked bout how he needed to hide his money from the bank incase another depression hit. “I’ll be prepared this time, isn’t nothing going to take my money, no sir” was a favorite motto from Abe. I had always seen him planting these mason jars, yet he never let me help. From my memory, there has to be at least 10 or… 10… of course… of course there’s 10 of these fucking jars. As I clawed this one from the dirt my nails grew clogged with soil and clay. But there it was; a silver topped glass mason jar barely lit by moonlight passing through the leaves of that mighty oak.

-Step nine, regret.

     It’s dirt. I opened the jar and its dirt. That’s not true – its dirt and seeds. 10 seeds to be exact. All of them were. All 10 of these fucking jars are dirt. Now I can’t go and get my fix… What am I going to do…? I’m behind on that payment and the center is going to notice I’m not in my bed… Oh no… Why dirt and seeds… He always said he was burying for the future... I can’t do this, I’m too tired...

-Step ten, fix your roots.

      In my frenzy I wore my body out. So, there I sat leaned up against old shed with that horrid shovel going into detox. I cried out, I spasmed, and I sweat in the cold night. But I cried out for grandpa Abe; and whether or not you believe me he came. I watched him confidently step down the back steps from inside the house and stride over to me. “Oh, Jeremy… what’s happened?” he solemnly Abe asked of me, like a bird with a broken wing. Grinding my teeth, I tried to make a coherent sentence, “I…I … needed to … money… I had to get some…. I’ve got an addict… tion. Grandpa…” He stared at me with such care and compassion after all I had done, “Oh no… Jeremy what happened to the yard…?” I couldn’t help it, maybe it was the withdrawal, but I just broke down, “The mason ... jars I … needed the … money…” How ironic that now I was the one trailing off and grandpa Abe was healthy and shining. As I shivered and cried out to grandpa Abe, he bent down to me and whispered in my ear as he handed me 10 seeds one by one. And just as prideful as he had come, he was gone.

-Step eleven, find help.

     I woke up the very next morning. All I could do was sit there, the trees flowed with whispering among themselves, the weeds stretched and clamored among the decrepit gardens, and the old house slanted to one side almost like it was tired and leaning up against a wall. As I tried to move my body felt like rust. My veins burned and boiled as I tried to start sitting up. In my left hand were 10 seeds. I knew what I had to do now. I made it to my parent’s house and after profusely apologizing as one has to after skipping rehab… again… I told them about Abe’s house. They said once he passed, he had left it to me! Yet, they were saving the deed for when I got clean. I lied and claimed that was why I came here and had left the rehab center – to get clean out fixing up his house and living out in the forest a bit. They were skeptical up until I took my clay covered paws and placed 10 seeds on the bar. My mother broke down, “Where did you get those?” She was ecstatic like she was a little girl again. Apparently, these seeds are for growing Black-Eyed Susan’s. My Mom seemingly accepted this as payment and apology all at once.

-Step twelve, grow a garden.

     That was 6 years ago. I’m 25 now, living in my grandpa’s old house out in the forest growing flowers, fruits, and vegetables all day. I’ve got a steady business of selling flowers and crops when I can. I even have a new shovel! I didn’t get rid of the old one – just hung it up in the shed. The house is still being renovated but is pretty close to being done. The big oak is still growing and there’s a smaller heart that says “Jeremy + Taylor.” And soon Taylor and I are going to be adding a heart just by that one that has the name “Susan.” She’s due here sometime in the spring and we can’t wait. I never will be able to create a garden as amazing as my grandma Sue did or my grandpa Abe tried to. I will never be able to forget or forgive my past. I will make sure the lessons I learned from my grandparents never go unforgotten. Just out front of the house is one new thing. I small black pot filled with the best soil I could get and watered first before any other. A single magnificent Black-Eyed Susan sprouts from the middle of the soil and shines more than any other flower. On the front of the pot is a small mantra I heard on the worst night of my life, “Sow Seeds; Not Sadness. – Abraham Scott.”

*This was a piece for my ENGL 360 Creative Writing course. The ending to me feels rushed as I was nearing a word cap.*

#grandpa abe #short story

[goodbyenothanks-blog]

Week 4: Halloween

Sorry for not writing an entry for last week, I was swamped with work (and last week’s show didn’t really need a blog entry, I think (?)). Anyways, I’m back this week to bring you some spooky Halloween-esque music that should put you in the mood to put on your costumes and run outside! Hopefully, you’ll show restraint and wait until Tuesday. I hope you’ll doot along with some classic Halloween pieces and some interesting takes on the genre!

Fun and cute couple costume idea #1-- Pickled Richard from the hit T.V. show “Richard and Mortimer” and show creator Dan Harmon!

1. String Quartet No. 8 in C Minor (Mov. 3 - Allegretto) by Dmitri Shostakovich (Performed by the Brodsky Quartet)

Oh wow, look who’s back for the third week in a row. Real surprise!! I promise that I won’t have any Shostakovich for the next few weeks. But, I thought this middle movement from my Favorite Piece of All Time had a very creepy and unsettling feel to it. It’s a waltz, but a really demented waltz. The kind of music you might hear in an abandoned carnival coming from a sound machine that looks like it should be broken... OH NO WHAT IS THA-

2. Night on Bald Mountain by Modest Mussorgsky (Performed by the New York Philharmonic)

This is the one truly, truly cliched piece on the playlist. So cliched, even, that I felt obligated to include it. However, I think it’s a popular Halloween trope for a good reason. It’s really dark and foreboding, and the source material is about a witches’ Sabbath (foreshadowing!) on Kupala Night, which is a event in Eastern Europe in late June that celebrates the baptism of St. John. Kupala Night is a time when people engage in a “mischief night,” when people perform pranks and mild vandalism, in a very similar fashion to Halloween. It would make sense, then, that this piece invokes some of the same feelings we associate with Halloween.

Fun and cute couple costume idea #2- Music aficionado and rapper extraordinaire Cal Chuchesta and his roommate Tony

3. String Quartet No. 14 “Death and the Maiden” (Mov. 4 - Presto) by Franz Schubert (Performed by the Ehnes Quartet)

Some composers, faced with their own mortality, wrote some of the most enduring and powerful works ever composed. Tchaikovsky’s Pathetique Symphony, Shostakovich’s Eighth and Fifteenth String Quartets, and Schubert’s Death and The Maiden all fit this description. Music critic and writer Walter Wilson Cobbett views this fiery finale as a dance with death itself, modeled after the tarantella, an Italian dance supposedly used to ward of the madness and convulsions incurred by being bitten by a tarantula. I don’t really think it gets more Halloween than that.

4. Bacchanale by John Cage (Performed by Alan Feinberg)

In the interest of offsetting the popularity of Night on Bald Mountain, I present for your listening pleasure John Cage’s Bacchanale. I’ve come to really enjoy prepared piano parts in pieces, so I was very excited to listen to a piece written exclusively for it. This piece has all the fun spooky Hallow’s Eve vibes of the other pieces, with the added benefit (for me) of cultural obscurity. “Oh yeah, you like John Cage? Name a piece that he wrote that isn’t just 4 minutes and 33 seconds of silence.” Sometimes, it’s fun to pretend to be an obnoxious music hipster. Sometimes, I don’t even need to pretend.

Fun and cute couple costume idea #3- Harry Potter and Severus Snape!!

5. Symphonie Fantastique (Mov. 5 - Dream of the Night of the Sabbath) by Hector Berlioz (Performed by The Chicago Symphony)

Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique is one of the most interesting programmatic pieces out there, in my opinion. A young man falls in love, and follows his love to a dance, where he gets spurned and falls into a depression. He ventures out to the meadows to collect his thoughts, but they only become more dark and tortured. He resolves to kill himself, thinking that this young lady is is only love and does not love him back, by overdosing on opium. He does not succeed, however, and the final two movements of the piece take a very drastic turn. In the fourth movement, he dreams that he has killed his love, and envisions himself at his own execution by guillotine (At the end of the movement, you can even hear his head fall into the basket!). In the final movement of the symphony, which is the one I feature in this playlist, Berlioz writes:

   He sees himself at a witches' sabbath, in the midst of a hideous gathering of shades, sorcerers and monsters of every kind who have come together for his funeral. Strange sounds, groans, outbursts of laughter; distant shouts which seem to be answered by more shouts. The beloved melody appears once more, but has now lost its noble and shy character; it is now no more than a vulgar dance tune, trivial and grotesque: it is she who is coming to the sabbath ... Roar of delight at her arrival ... She joins the diabolical orgy ... The funeral knell tolls, burlesque parody of the Dies Irae, the dance of the witches. The dance of the witches combined with the Dies Irae.

6. Spooky Scary Skeletons by Andrew Gold

Happy Halloween! The ƒ-hole will return next Friday at 10 AM on WMUC Digital, this time probably actually (maybe?) featuring John Williams’ March from 1941. Thanks for stopping by!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

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