#obviously other people can do their own horse designs too i don’t own the concept

[samglyph]

Any artist has permission to draw my designs (whether of existing media or my own ocs) but please tag me if you do! Both because credit is good and also cause I want to see

#this is just in response to a comment I got on the horses #obviously other people can do their own horse designs too i don’t own the concept #but this was specifically a ‘can I draw your designs’ question #to which the answer is yes

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

IOTA Reviews: Mega Leech

Like every cartoon ever made, today's episode is the environmental episode. We all know how high-quality those tend to be, right?

Let's get into the twelfth (chronologically the tenth) episode of Miraculous Ladybug's fourth season: Mega Leech.

We start off with the shyest girl in Marinette's class, Mylene, mentally preparing herself for a protest with her boyfriend, tough guy with a soft side, Ivan.

Wow, real subtle foreshadowing there, writers.

The thing Mylene and Ivan are protesting is something called the “Oxygen Project” by Mayor Andre Bourgeois, which will supposedly create fresh air for Paris. To be fair, this isn't just a random character trait they slapped onto Mylene like what we've seen with other episodes this season to justify their new Akuma forms. Back in the Season 2 episode “Reverser”, a major plotpoint for the final act was that Andre was about to approve a project that would send trash into space, which Mylene and Ivan were protesting at, before the titular Akuma threatened to send the trash back to the Earth. This show can get weird at times.

Even though they're the only two protesters, Andre still has Officer Roger Raincomprix take them into custody. To his credit, Roger does try to resolve things diplomatically, and is very hesitant to take them to his car (even though they aren't handcuffed and there's no divider), he only does so when his job is threatened by Andre. And let's get the obvious joke out of the way now because there's going to be a lot of moments like this.

Marinette sees the event from her house, and after running late to school resulting in a brief moment of Unfunny Marinette Slapstick, tells the class what's going on. Surprisingly, instead of ignoring the whole situation like every other episode she's been in, Ms. Bustier decides to actually be a teacher for once and calls Roger. She says that she'll supervise their protest while the rest of the class comes with her.

Back at the park, Andre is about to chop a tree down with a chainsaw, but is soon called out by Ms Bustier. Mylene calls out Andre for the obviously not eco-friendly project, but he soon plays an ad for the Oxygen Project.

Huh. So this is how Druidia's canned air business took off.

To be fair, this is actually a funny scene, as it does feel like an over the top commercial you'd see, especially the kind that gets promoted by a politician. Of course, this funny joke is soon followed yet another reminder that Marinette likes Adrien, because the writers assume the audience will forget if they aren't bashed over the head with this knowledge every episode.

And as usual, Adrien ignores Marinette's odd behavior around him, but that's more because he's distracted by the ad, because he was told it was for perfume (did the oxygen line not give away the purpose of the commercial?). Quick question: Why is Gabriel taking part in this? Why is a fashion designer being commissioned to create a bottle for a government-sanctioned project? Does he just invest in random projects and hopes they'll go under so he can akumatize someone? As for Mylene, her classmates are naturally confused as to why she is opposed to this project if it's good for the environment. Her response is something that can ironically be used to criticize this very show when talking about the Oxygen Project.

We then get a moment where, of course, Chloe is the one to say she doesn't care about trees despite having no real prominence in this episode. Seriously, this is the only line she gets and it's to remind the audience how much of an irredeemable monster she is.

Oh my God, Astruc, why don't you just say she's a climate change denier while you're at it, seeing how you already view them as criminals? You clearly want to throw every negative character trait and label at her, don't you? If you're so crazy about hating her, why not make Chloe Captain Planet villain levels of evil?

Marintte points out the obvious flaw in Andre's plan to stop pollution by selling air in plastic bottles that can easily pollute the ocean, which gives the Mayor a lot of bad press, and even though she's the one to say this, Mylene still shames her for ignoring her attempts to get people to protest because she was busy. Yes, the show is seriously trying to blame Marinette for not doing enough to help the environment on top of her various other responsibilities like PROTECTING THE CITY OF PARIS ON A DAILY BASIS.

The families of the kids come to support the protest, and Andre tries to call Gabriel for help, but he basically tells him to figure it out himself, supporting my earlier theory in the process. He transforms into Shadowmoth and sends an Akuma and an Amok to Andre. This transforms him into Malediktator again and and gives him a Sentimonster ally, the titular Mega Leech.

Mega Leech is another example of a Sentimonster with a simple design but a really interesting set of powers. As soon as its summoned, Malediktator jumps into his mouth and summons an army of minature clones of himself (making me wonder why they didn't call the Sentimonster “Micromanager”) to jump into the ears of civilians and control them directly like Plankton in that one episode of SpongeBob. It's a pretty terrifying concept and a really clever extension of Malediktator's mind control powers.

Adrien transforms into Cat Noir and tries fighting off the Malediktator clones, but obviously gets overwhelmed by their sheer numbers. Marinette soon pretends to be possessed by a Malediktator clone to get Mylene to run away while she transforms, once again summoning her Lucky Charm as soon as she meets up with Cat Noir because the animators really want to show off the new suit. She uses the Lucky Charm, a single ice skate, to break the mayoral sash around one of the Malediktator clones and frees the Akuma and Amok, but Mega Leech is still around, along with the brainwashed civilians. She and Cat Noir realize that the Akumas and Amoks must have multiplied when Malediktator cloned himself. Ladybug tells Cat Noir to distract the Malediktator clones (the latter actually acknowledging how he always has to do that)

Ladybug meets up with Mylene in the sewer where she had escaped to earlier, only to find the girl crying. Ladybug offers Mylene the Mouse Miraculous, but she turns her down because of how scared she is. Unlike when they tried to do the same thing by having Zoe doubt herself in “Queen Banana”, this scene makes sense because Mylene has consistently been shown to be a very timid person. It feels much more believable to see this from her. Granted, it's undermined by Ladybug saying that Mylene is already like a superhero because of her protesting for a good cause. I get she's trying to reassure her, but the whole environmental lesson is kind of muddled by saying Marinette doesn't care about the environment because of how busy she was FIGHTING CRIME. Thankfully, the lesson is more about bravery being able to move onward in spite of fear.

Nevertheless, this still motivates Mylene to take the Mouse Miraculous and transforms into Polymouse.

And boy, is it bad. I'm not trying to body shame Mylene here, I'm glad they didn't try and slim her down either, but I'm really not a fan of the color scheme for the suit. With the use of pink and white, it looks way too similar to Pigella.

I get that they were trying to make Mylene look like a mouse, but I'm just really not a fan of the white gloves and boots. They stick out compared to Pigella, where they actually blended in with the color scheme. Then there's the actual suit itself. Why give the suit a hood if you're going to make it yet another skintight jumpsuit? At least with Carapace, they had more armor to help him resemble a turtle, but there's no excuse here. And finally, the hair. How can you take a girl with a very vibrant hairstyle, make it pink when transforming, cover it up, and then call it a day? There are just so many questionable design choices here. I don't think it's as laughably bad as Shadowmoth's suit, but it's really one of the weakest hero suits to be introduced recently.

I'd give my thoughts on how to improve it, but thankfully one of my anons gave their own ideas for a redesign.

Thank you to whoever sent this in. You certainly get character design better than some of the animators on this show, and that's saying a lot given they're supposedly better than the ones at Pixar.

Ladybug gives Polymouse the ice skate to use as a makeshift flail with her weapon, a jump rope, while she fights the Maledikator clones. Polymouse uses her power, Multitude, which turns her into a swarm of miniature clones to take on the horde of Malediktator clones and free the brainwashed civilians. Ladybug meets up with Cat Noir, but big surprise, Cat Noir gets brainwashed by a Malediktator clone. Sure, Polymouse frees him from the control, but I'm surprised Ladybug isn't more used to this happening by now.

Ladybug then gathers several temp heroes to help them out. She gives Kagami the Dragon Miraculous to become Ryuko, Nino the Turtle to become Carapace, Max the Horse to become Pegasus, and she gives back the Bee Miraculous to the super amazing Zoe so she can once again become the world's greatest superhero, Vesperia. There’s a brief joke where Cat Noir rushes to join the team pose, which could be seen as foreshadowing for future events, and if it is, good job, writers.

Pegasus uses his Voyage to teleport Vesperia above Mega Leech, where she uses her Venom on the Sentimonster, while Ryuko uses her Wind Dragon to gather all the scattered Akumas and Amoks freed by Polymouse for Carapace to trap in his Shelter. Ladybug purifies all the Akumas and Amoks, gives Andre a Magical Charm, tells him to rethink the Oxygen Project, and the heroes leave where Ladybug takes back all their Miraculous.

Back at the park, Andre decides to plant more trees in what's obviously not a desperate attempt to save his reputation. He may say he's doing the right thing, but I doubt investors will be happy that the project's being aborted just like that. We get one more hilarious moment where Marinette stutters around Adrien, who soon goes home and gets sent to his room by his father (because we just needed an Angstdrien Depreste scene this episode for some reason), who fidgets with his ring and stares ominously as the episode ends. And in case you live under a rock, this reignited a certain fan theory I'll be talking about in another post.

Overall, I thought this was a pretty decent episode. The environmentalism subplot was pretty standard for episodes like this, with how the antagonist is a rich asshole who doesn't see how he's harming the environment, and gets his mind changed by a hopeful youth. I'm glad Andre isn't Captain Planet villain levels of evil here, though I am glad the episode acknowledges that there's no single solution to stopping pollution, and that there needs to be more unity if we need to help the planet's situation.

While it had a bumpy first act, things really started to get interesting as soon as the action started. Questionable design aside, I thought Polymouse (who didn't even name herself in the episode) had a good first outing with the use of her powers coupled with the use of the Lucky Charm. The first act with Mylene really showcased her character and her courage in the face of adversity well. Part of me kind of wishes we could have seen her interact with Ivan while she was transformed, but then again, he was still brainwashed I think.

The other heroes honestly felt shoehorned in during the climax. I get that they helped gather all the Akumas and Amoks, but there was really no buildup to them appearing like in other episodes with multiple heroes.

The one major problem I have is how the episode tries to blame Marinette for not being as kind as Mylene because she didn't know about the protest, even though, as I have stated multiple times, SHE ROUTINELY SAVES PARIS EVERY EPISODE. I think that counts as saving the planet.

This episode had some flaws, but it was still pretty enjoyable, and it was one of the better episodes this season so far.

#immaturity of thomas astruc #iota #miraculous ladybug #miraculous ladybug sugar #marinette dupain cheng #ladybug #adrien agreste #cat noir #chat noir #mylene haprele #polymouse #nino lahiffe #carapace #max kante #pegasus #kagami tsurugi #ryuko #ryuuko #zoe lee #vesperia #gabriel agreste #hawkmoth #hawk moth #shadowmoth #shadow moth #andre bourgeois #malediktator #chloe bourgeois #queen bee #queen b

[ygreczed-3]

The Red Guard and the Snow Angel

Summer Falls desert concept art

Hank and Connor

Gavin and Nines meditating + thunder, snow, fire and wind seal

Gavin and the thunder spirit

More concept arts - traditional art & inking

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5

When they go through the Summer Falls desert, Connor and Nines pass out fairly soon due to their intolerance to fire magic. They only get better at night, when the temperature drops, so they stay awake to watch out while the humans sleep. During the day Hank and Gavin have to take them on their horse/Sumo and walk beside them, even though the intense heat isn't making things easy for them either. They reach a village in an oasis where Connor and Nines get better, and when they realize there's a spring in it, they decide to go and rest a bit as the night arrives.

Nines and Gavin are gone meditating on a less crowded part of the spring.

Gavin : That's stupid… How can this make me stronger than my training ? Nines : Stop talking and focus on your breathing.  Gavin : Grmphh.. Nines : Can you feel the source of magic inside your body ? Gavin : … Yeah. Nines : You have to… establish a connection with it. Show him you don't fear it Gavin : But I fear it. Nines : The war spirit you host is an incredible source of power, and you can believe me, it is as bellicose as you are. It only needs a goal to aim for and you'll be able to channel its energy.  Gavin : … You know I'm your enemy… Why do you help me ? Nines, closed eyes : I know I can compete with you. I'm ready to be challenged. And it's funnier to fight a skilled warrior than a scared little boy. Gavin : … Fucker.

X

Connor and Hank in the hot spring

Connor : I think that's what your hug feels like. Hank : hm ? Connor : The hot water. I think it's what hugs feel like. Hank : You said my hugs... Connor : Did I ? I was just thinking… about how you hug Sumo sometimes. He loves it. Hank : Yeah, this big boy loves cuddles  I admit that. Connor : It must feel good. Hank : What… You've never been hugged before ? Connor : Golems do have… intimate behaviors, of course but it's not… I mean we're… not physically warm, so... (NB : I was thinking golems in this universe would be like vampires, not as freezing as actual snow but still colder than humans) Hank : ...Thought you didn't like heat that much. Connor : Warmth from human's touch is different from fire magic : it feels more… safe, less aggressive. I think I'd like that. Hank : … How do you know that ? Connor : I touched your back to heal it, remember ? Your warmth feels nice. Hank : Yeah okay, you touched me, but you don't know what my hugs feel like ? Maybe you'd hate that. Connor : I wish I could know.

They look at each other, but then Hank looks away and stands up.

Hank : It's late, I'm tired. I'm going back to the inn. Connor seems disappointed, but then Hank keeps going. Hank : You coming ?

When they enter the room they share all together, Nines is already in stasis and Gavin is snoring loudly.

Hank takes Connor's wrist silently, looking at him in the eyes as if tacitly asking for permission. Connor just lets himself be enveloped by wide arms, and rests his cheek on his collar bone.

Connor sighs, closing his eyes as he enjoys that nice bear hug. He feels that warm something in his chest growing in his body, invading his stomach with pleasing flutters. 

Connor : Hank… Hank : Shhh… it would be embarrassing to wake those two idiots up now.

Connor bites his lower lip as he silently reaches for Hank's hand, his skin turning white as he presses gently each of his fingers against Hank's. It's known to be a quite intimate gesture among golems, and the closest human equivalence to it would be a kiss. Connor is aware that it could even be interpreted as indecent given how close their bodies are, and that if Nines was to wake up at that moment he would probably choke on thin air. Of course Hank has no clue about that and just thinks it's funny.

Hank : What, you wanna dance ?

Connor realizes they're holding each other on the left side and touching hands on the right side, and it seems like they're going to waltz. He chuckles from the absurdity of the situation from a human's perspective. 

Connor : I wouldn't know how to. Hank : Good thing, I'm a terrible dancer. Connor : Ahah...hmm, Hank, I like it. Can we stay like this for a moment ? Hank : Sure.

X

One night in the middle of the desert, Gavin is on the watch as Hank sleeps in the tent. Connor is with him, but Nines inexplicably stays around the fire, silent. Gavin is bored out so he just starts the conversation. 

Gavin : I feel like the old man and your stupid brother are getting along. Nines : I have this feeling too. Gavin : Doesn't bother you? Nines : What can I do ? I asked Connor to be careful, but I'm not blind… He's shining with glee whenever Hank is around him. I can't… force him not to feel. Also, I think Hank isn't that bad of a person… for a human. Gavin : Still certain we're the bad guys ? Think about it : you were made to serve us.  You betrayed your creators and let us starve like dogs. Nines : Humans didn't create us. Kamski did, and if he had wanted to, he could have made unthinking, obedient golems. Maybe we were meant to break free. Gavin : Oh yeah, so why can't you even procreate ? Simple answer: you were not designed to be an individual species from the start. You were built with no other purpose in life than to help us survive.  Nines : Didn't that even occur to you that humans did bad things too ? Gavin : We're just trying to survive ! Nines : So we are. Gavin : … So what ? You're saying we're two evils ? Of course we are. But I have to protect my people, you understand that ?

Nines stays silent, exploring the surprisingly genuine glare Gavin throws at him. Of course he understands that. His own despise for humanity is only driven by his deep desire to protect Connor, Marcus, and his people. He looks back at the fire heating them, unconsciously processing how ridiculously similar they are.

And yet, something starts growing in his mind, the irritating sensation his relationship with Gavin has changed from the moment they met, and that he unexpectedly wanted to protect him as well.

Nines : Would you kill me ?

He can't even explain how this sentence even made it out of his throat. He already knows the answer. Gavin stares at him longingly, noticeably surprised by the question. He stays silent as he puts more wood in the fire.

Gavin : If I had to, I probably would. But I… hum… don't want to. Nines : … hm. Gavin : What about you ? Would you kill me ? Nines : I don't know. If lives were at stake, certainly, even if I'd find this decision… regrettable. Gavin : ... Oh wow, is that your way to tell me you like me ? Nines : … Don't set your hopes too high.

Gavin breathes in a laugh and goes back to silence, smiling smugly. 

X

They arrive in Nestlepeek and split in two teams, Hank and Connor go to the center of the town, where Connor hopes to find more precise information about Kamski and where he hides.

Gavin and Nines were supposed to go buy supplies, but as they head to the covered market, they are challenged by a man in the street to defeat his champion in a fight. As Nines realizes it's all for illegal gambling, Gavin accepts and finds himself in a cage, combating a birdman.

He thinks he's got the hang of it but as soon as the birdman starts flying Gavin can't touch him with his sword anymore and becomes vulnerable to his aerial attacks.

Nines : Gavin ! Summon the spirit ! Gavin : No way ! Nines : You'll lose if you don't ! Gavin : I know what I'm doing, alright !? Nines : You obviously don't ! Thunder magic gives you advantageous long throw attacks, you can't win against a flying foe with close combat techniques ! Gavin : I think I killed enough Golems to know how to fight flying foes ! Nines : You bastard…

Nines uses his snow magic to catch the champion in ice and immobilize him.

Owner : What the hell !!! Who did that ?! Nines : I did. I'll replace your champion, open the cage.

The owner is confused first but then he sees the opportunity and accepts. Nines enters the cage and gets ready to fight.

Gavin : … You wanna die ? Told you I could do it. Nines : We've been talking about this fight for ages. It's time to see what you're capable of.

They start fighting and they're pretty even for the first ten minutes. Their fight gathered a lot of gamblers and spectators.

When Nines starts to take advantage, Gavin's eyes suddenly turn bright yellow, and he charges at him : Nines can see the thunder magic halo surrounding him. He parries many strikes but Gavin has gained in speed and ferocity. Soon enough, Gavin throws him to one extremity of the cage, and as the crowd around them is screaming in excitement, Gavin holds up his dagger. He's trembling, electricity forming around his hand. 

Nines can make eye contact but somehow, Gavin isn't answering his glare.

Nines : Gavin- You hear me ?

Gavin doesn't say anything, and Nines is sure he's gonna die when the human warrior shoots down his dagger… only to hit one of the cage's bars just behind him. Gavin closes his eyes, and opens them, showing blue-green orbs again, and he straightens up, breathless.

The crowd boos them as Gavin takes a step back and drops the other dagger. He asks the owner to open the cage and leaves the place, Nines following him, still out of breath as well.

Nines : Gavin !

Gavin stops, letting Nines get closer, until they face each other again.

Nines : You did it. You mastered the spirit… Do you realize that ? Gavin : I could have killed you, then everyone around me. That's what the spirit wanted to do… Do you realize that ? Nines : But you didn't. With a bit more training-... Gavin : I almost killed you, Nines, for fuck's  sake ! Nines : … So what ? Thought you were ready to. Gavin : Listen, this beast wanted you dead, everyone dead so bad… How can I… How can I use this power when I know how dangerous and unstable it is? Nines : … But you stopped it, right ? You can control it. Gavin : You fucker, if it wasn't for you, I know I couldn't have stopped it. I would have killed all those strangers, I know that, and I'm not… I'm not a murderer. Nines : … What do you mean, for me ? Gavin : Drop it. I need some air, don't follow me.

X

Hank and Connor enter the library, Connor is looking for the archived events-records to see if Kamski came into this village (which is most likely given it's the first one you can find after the desert)

It appears that the local people can fly so the library is very high, and most scales don't even reach the top of the bookshelves.

Hank : How the hell can we reach the archives ? Connor : Wait a minute, I'll go there and take some volumes with me.

Connor spreads his wings, that widen to support his weight as he takes off to the highest point of the library. Hank is impressed by how graceful Connor looks in the air. When the golem comes back with a consequential pile of old, handwritten books, he's just there, mouth open in amazement.

Connor : Here we go… the last 10 years of history in this village… Ready to pull an all-nighter ?

Hank doesn't reply.

Connor : Hank ? Hank : You're beautiful.

Connor blinks once, his lips slightly parted from the surprise, his eyes conveying nothing else than confusion and yet, low-key content.

Connor: ..I'm sorry ? Hank : When you fly I mean… that's impressive… and beautiful. Connor : Huh… Thank you, I guess ? Anyway hum… let's… let's find a table… Hank : “Thank you” ? But do you even realize how beautiful you are ? Connor : I was created to meet some human ideal. Why would I be proud of something that isn't my doing ? Hank : Ah, don't be so modest.  Connor : … you know, I think I find humans more attractive than Golems. Each one of you is unique, and I love everything you call “flaws”.

Hank laughs halfheartedly at his last line.

Hank : You don't make sense, kid.

X

They read the archives until it's dark outside. Hank can't help but yawn as Connor lights the candles to keep reading.

Connor : You can go back to the inn, Gavin must be there already, and Nines can take over. Hank : Nah, I'm good. Connor : Hm… Hank : You okay ? You look… worried. Connor sighs : … What if we can't find Kamski ? What if… I was wrong, what if we had to go back to Detroit and Jericho with just nothing ? I don't want to return to a situation where I'll have to fight you… I just can't.  Hank : … Yeah, I understand that. I don't think I can remain a Red Guard after what we've been through… After I got to know you. Connor : If we were to fail… nothing will never be the same again. Without you.

Hank just looks at Connor with sharp eyes, as if he's got the urge to say something. At this point Hank knows he's falling for the Golem, but of course, he won't say anything, because he's sure it's only one sided, Connor is so young and handsome he can't possibly feel the same.

Actually the dark haired golem is totally in love with the man, but again, he thinks Hank can't reciprocate his feelings since he's probably into women (after all he used to have a wife), and definitely not into Golems anyways. It just feels so unfair to both of them to consider going back to their normal life when they just want to stay with the other so bad. They just wish they could stay together and run away in some romantic and lovesick lunacy. Again, they won't tell each other about it.

#detroit become human #dbh #The red guard and the snow angel #TRGATSA #dbh hank #dbh connor #dbh gavin #dbh nines #reed900 #hankcon #dbh hankcon #dbh reed900

[binderclipdocs]

Hello! I’m wondering what your take is on Dear Friend (and especially “I’m in love with a friend of mine”?) I find the song a little confusing, and I’ve read a lot of different interpretations. I really love your films and I know you’ve done a lot of research, would love to know what you think. Thanks!

Thanks for your appreciation, anon!  I love Dear Friend and am happy to share my thoughts on this haunting, mournful, mysterious song!

I’ll be the first to admit the lyrics are confusing (like so many McCartney songs!), mostly by virtue of the fact that Paul uses “friend” twice in a row.  Are there two friends, or only one?  By using the word “friend” on top of each other as he does, it suggests either a single friend (the titular “Dear Friend”) in two situations OR two friends, in separate/competing situations.

Dear Friend, throw the wine 

I’m in love with a friend of mine 

Really, truly, young and newlywed

Of course, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, interpretation, fantasy, etc.  and no one but McCartney himself can definitively declare precisely what he meant with this song.  But it’s my opinion that Paul was saying the latter; that he is in love with his friend and new wife, Linda.  This is my conclusion after having deeply researched this period extensively for TWO documentary series (McCartney (2020) and Understanding Lennon/McCartney), an opinion that obviously no one is required to entertain and anyone is free to discard.  But for those who are interested, I’ll share my reasoning below.

Firstly, this is NOT an attempt to disprove that Paul was ever in love with John or vice verse.  They both used this term publicly and therefore probably/possibly did privately with each other as well.  But Paul’s statements in April, 1970 pretty clearly spell out the situation:

“Personally, I don’t think John could do the Beatles thing now. I don’t think it would be good for him.

John’s in love with Yoko, and he’s no longer in love with the other three of us. And let’s face it, we were in love with the Beatles as much as anyone.”

So John and Paul were “in love” (with each other as people, or the Beatles as a concept, or Lennon/McCartney as a team, etc) for a long time.  But by 1970, they both have new spouses and new lives and are following different paths.  Here’s a brief recap of the events that led to this statement:

In a now-famous meeting in September 1969, John told Paul that he was leaving the Beatles and wanted a divorce.  Whether this was an idle threat designed to scare/hurt Paul, or a real desire on John’s part is open to interpretation, but Paul, for his part, took it seriously.  

Allen Klein asked John not to go public with his decision to leave the group and John happily and uncharacteristically agreed to sit on this “news” indefinitely.  Paul subsequently disappeared for 6-8 weeks, mourned the loss of the band privately in Scotland, and then began working on his first solo album. Communication between John and Paul fell apart at that point, and John began a campaign of maneuvers - possibly engineered or facilitated by Klein - to bring Paul back into the Beatles’ fold and force him to submit to Klein’s management and John’s leadership. Backed into a proverbial corner by John, George, Ringo, Yoko and Klein, Paul played the last card he had: he quit.

In April 1970, Paul made the split official (deliberately or accidentally? YMMV) with the release of his first solo LP, and attempted to finalize the divorce with an uncooperative John for the remainder of the year. As is pretty well-documented, Paul tried for a quick and amicable split, requesting a release from the Beatles’ contract. But after John was unresponsive and Allen Klein advised him to set duplicitous legal traps that would prevent Paul from separating from the Beatles, Paul (as advised by his lawyers) decided to sue for divorce by the end of 1970.

By 2020, even the most casual Beatles fans know two basic truisms: 1) that Paul loved John always and 2) that Paul didn’t want the band to break up. Of course there’s more to the story than just that. We have also been told repeatedly that John “left Paul,” but this is not the whole truth either.

Essentially what John did was yell “I’m breaking up with you!” and then block the door every time Paul tried to leave.

As late as September, 1971 John is still saying publicly that he hopes Paul will return.  

Int.: Let's talk a bit about Paul's aversion to Klein. From what we've read it seemed as if this wasn't there in the beginning, even though Paul wanted the Eastmans to run things. But it came on later as things progressed. And yet despite this, we gather that Klein was still hoping that Paul would return to the group.

John: Oh, he'd love it if Paul would come back. I think he was hoping he would for years and years. He thought that if he did something, to show Paul that he could do it, Paul would come around. But no chance. I mean, I want him to come out of it, too, you know. He will one day. I give him five years, I've said that. In five years he'll wake up.

[Narrator voice: Paul did not came back.]

Yes, Paul loved John.  No, Paul didn’t want the Beatles to break up.  

But when John said he wanted out, Paul took him seriously, respected his decision, never made a single attempt to woo John back and showed up 6 months later with a moving van and divorce papers.

When you hear Dear Friend out of context -knowing only that Paul loved John and was sad after the breakup- it’s not wholly unreasonable to think maybe Paul was declaring his eternal love for John here:

I’m in love with a friend of mine really, truly, young and newlywed

But when you experience Dear Friend in the proper context, that interpretation sounds less and less likely.  Here’s Paul:

April 21, 1970

“I’m not blaming her. I’m blaming me. You can’t blame John for falling in love with Yoko any more than you can blame me for falling in love with Linda.

We tried writing together a few more times, but I think we both decided it would be easier to work separately.  I told John on the phone the other day that at the beginning of last year I was annoyed with him. I was jealous because of Yoko, and afraid about the break-up of a great musical partnership. It’s taken me a year to realise that they were in love. Just like Linda and me."

Summer 1970

Paul writes John a 12-page letter requesting that they “let each other out of the trap.” John’s response was a picture of himself and Yoko with a balloon drawn above his head saying “How and Why?”

Paul responded: “How? By singing a paper that says we hereby dissolve our partnership. Why? Because there is no partnership.”

April 16, 1971

PAUL:  “We used to get asked at press conferences, 'What are you going to do when the bubble bursts?' When I talked to John just the other day, he said something about, 'Well, the bubble's going to burst.' And I said, 'It has burst. That's the point. That's why I've had to do this, why l had to apply to the court. You don't think I really enjoy doing that kind of stuff. I had to do it because the bubble has burst-- everywhere but on paper.' That's the only place we're tied now.”

Nov 11, 1971

MM: But John said to me that what you’d done in bringing the [court] trials up and everything was what they all wanted, that you’d just done it a lot earlier than they would have done.

PAUL: Well if that’s true, well… well, come on! That’s – see, I’ve told you… The joke is, though, that we don’t have to do trials. It’s not necessary. If the four Beatles signed a bit of paper, or even ripped the old contract up and said, “This contract is no longer valid, we all hereby said it, we all legally direct the shareholders…” the whole thing, to wind it all up, we could do it. And if that’s really what he wants, he could do it this minute. [snaps fingers]

Furthermore, Paul was deeply in love with Linda during this period, as reflected by: the songs on both McCartney and RAM, the testimony of those around them at the time and by Paul’s own recollections.  The first few years of Paul and Linda’s marriage was their honeymoon period, their era as newlyweds.  It was certainly an awful time for Paul in many respects:  the business battles of the Beatles were excruciating and extremely stressful and the loss of his three best friends was heartbreaking. Furthermore, the rock press had largely turned against him (sometimes viciously so), and John & Yoko (and Allen Klein) were painting him as a traitor to the counterculture and a villain for destroying the Beatles with his granny music, giant ego and overbearing personality.  Paul and Linda were extremely isolated, partially by choice and partially by force.  

But even though this was a terrible time for Paul in many respects, he was extremely happy with his new family.  He later described this period with Linda as one of the happiest periods of their life. Paul has said numerous times Linda (along with nature and horse-riding) brought him out of depression after the Beatles ended and gave him the strength to push forward with his solo career, at a time when many were rooting against him (and a literal cult was forming that claimed he was DEAD and had been replaced by an inferior imposter- let that sink in for a moment!).  He has been consistent about it over the years, and reiterated it as recently as 2020:

UNCUT: Tell me about the guy in the photo n the McCartney sleeve.  He looks happy. 

PAUL:  I was really happy, yeah.  The Beatles had become such a business machine, and with the arrival of Allen Klein the whole thing, every day was very unpleasant. 

UNCUT: So there you were on the farm, finding solace in a new family... 

PAUL: Yes. I had a little place in Scotland.  So we just went out there. “It’s so remote, no one can be bothered trekking all the way up here for a meeting.” It was a good period. We grabbed our freedom- you know what, we seized the day! Also, I had a new baby; I’d not been a father before, so I was very happy.

In December of 1970, John gave his infamous Lennon Remembers interview to Rolling Stone.  According to the liner notes of the Wildlife reissue from 2018 (and confirmed by the timing of the demo), Paul composed Dear Friend in reaction to John’s comments in that interview (not How Do You Sleep, as is commonly believed).  But he sat on the song for awhile and didn’t record it until late 1971 (for inclusion on Wildlife).  Judging from the tone of Too Many People and other songs on RAM, Paul’s initial sadness, confusion and disappointment gradually morphed into (or perhaps swung back and forth between) anger and defiance, accompanied by a taunting and/or gloating tone.  Having gotten Dear Friend out of his system, it seems it simply didn’t fit thematically on RAM. Perhaps after the release of HDYS, Paul was deflated and despondent enough to return to Dear Friend?  Perhaps Jealous Guy tempered or calmed Paul’s anger?   

Or maybe it was just a genuine attempt to turn the heat down.  We know that immediately following its release, John and Paul agreed (seemingly at Paul’s insistence) to quit bickering in public.

In any case, Dear Friend is a complex songs with a spectrum of emotions. Unlike Jealous Guy it is not apologetic; it’s mournful but also incredulous and slightly accusatory.  Paul appears to be calling John’s bluff:  Do you really believe all the bullshit you’re spewing?

Are you a fool, or is it true?

The John Lennon of Lennon Remembers is without hope or faith, denouncing everything he ever believed in and everyone he ever trusted -with the notable exceptions of Allen Klein, Phil Spector and Yoko.  Paul clearly loves John and hopes to salvage their relationship, but Dear Friend was written at a time when John was being manipulated and exploited by people he later admitted were misplaced “daddy figures.” While Klein and Spector turned out to not be the most reliable friends to John, Paul certainly seems to know and understand John’s vulnerabilities and motivations better than most.  As he sings in the demo:

Are you afraid?  Or are you blue?

So why does Paul mention that he’s newlywed and in love with Linda? Firstly, because he is, and he wants to celebrate with his best friend. We know Paul’s desire was for the two couples to make peace and be friends.  Pour the Wine.  Clink glasses and celebrate their new marriages together.

PAUL: Dear Friend was to do with John, a bit of longing about John. Let’s have a glass of wine and forget about it. A making up song. (July 2001).

This is precisely what the two couples did in December of 1971, immediately following the release of Wildlife.  

JOHN: We were both nervous, the four of us were nervous. I hadn’t seen him for a long time. I’d spoken on the phone [with him]. Uh, it was alright, you know. It was alright.

This is precisely what happened again throughout 1974 (with John & May Pang this time around), which John affectionately called their “Beaujolais evenings.”   

Admittedly, It may seem odd for Paul to mention that he is happily married (and in love with another “friend”) in a make up song to John.  Until you think about the romantic tension between John and Paul and Paul’s bold public recognition of it with this statement:  “It’s taken me a year to realise that they were in love. Just like Linda and me.” Paul acknowledges here that John is in love with Yoko and wants John to acknowledge his love for Linda as well.  

In Dear Friend he’s communicating that there is nothing to fear; they are secure in their respective marriages, there is no need to be hurt or angry or jealous anymore.  We’re no longer partners, but we can still be friends.  “Let’s have a glass of wine and forget about it.”  A softer, gentler version of: Wake up, John. It’s over. Sign the fucking papers already.

So I think of Dear Friend as an olive branch, but not the groveling type some apparently do.  And I most definitely do not think it was a signal to John that Paul was still in love with him, despite being newlywed to Linda. 

I suppose it might seem a bit brutal for Paul to be singing about loving someone else in a song to John (although he’s done it before and I think John has done the same).  But I honestly think it is something Paul believes John needs to hear and accept at this point; that he is “really, truly” in love with Linda and that he’s not about to divorce her or run after the first “blonde with big tits” as Allen Klein so charmingly suggested. 

By September 1971, John still hasn’t seemed to accept Linda, or Paul’s relationship with her:

John: Paul always wanted the home life, you see. [... long, rambling story about being terrified when Paul got a job in 1961 and for a second looked as if he might abandon John and the group] 

 All the other girls were just groupies mainly. And with Linda not only did he have a ready-made family, but she knows what he wants, obviously, and has given it to him. The complete family life. He's in Scotland. He told me he doesn't like English cities anymore. So that's how it is.

Int.: So you think with Linda he's found what he wanted? 

John: I guess so. I guess so. I just don't understand . . . I never knew what he wanted in a woman because I never knew what I wanted.

With comments like this John seems (IMO) to be twisting himself into knots trying to rationalize Paul’s choice of Linda, practically wondering aloud what could she give him that I couldn’t?  He still seems unwilling to face or accept what Paul begrudgingly accepted and admitted years before: that his partner fell in love with someone else.

Here’s 76 year old Paul reminiscing about this tender, bittersweet time in his life, happy and in love with his wife and young family and simultaneously in deep pain over losing his dearly beloved best friend:

I remember when I heard the song recently, listening to the roughs  in the car. And I thought, ‘Oh God’. That lyric: ‘Really truly, young and newly wed’. Listening to that was like, ‘Oh my God, it’s true!’ I’m trying to say to John, ‘Look, you know, it’s all cool. Have a glass of wine. Let’s be cool.’

“Let’s be cool.”  Not “Please take me back,” not “Ignore my just-for-show marriage, I’m still in love with YOU.” To me, Paul is saying “I’m really, truly in love with my friend and new wife, can we please just be happy for each other? It’s all cool.” And for the record, I don’t find this sentiment any less loving on Paul’s part because I don’t think Paul being in love with his own wife (which he was), detracts from his love for John in any way. Again, I agree that the lyrics are slightly ambiguous, and perhaps this is meaningful too.  It could be that the lack of hard boundary between the two friends (John and Linda) reflects how much Paul loves them both; they certainly aren’t positioned as opposites (i.e. I love her but I hate you). Instead they’re both part of the imagined celebration; Paul wants them all to share the wine together- and he wants them to tolerate (love) each other. 

I think the traditional narrative doesn’t account for all of this because the traditional narrative does not acknowledge that John has any feelings for Paul in the first place. How in the world could Paul be asking John to “be cool” and accept the new situation when John didn’t even care about Paul in the first place and had been trying to get rid of him for years?  This perception - of John gleefully blasting Paul with HDYS and Paul replying that he’s in love with John - has taken hold in many minds and has picked up a lot of steam in recent years with so-called “jean jackets” because they fundamentally believe that Paul’s love for John was one-sided. They cannot comprehend that Paul would ever tell John to “cool it” or back off in any way (even in 70-71) because they take the surface story at face value:  John dumped Paul for Yoko and heartbroken Paul spent the rest of his life desperately trying to win John back. This is the narrative depicted in virtually every book I’ve read. My analysis is based on my own research, not this narrative.

I would invite readers of this post to watch (or re-watch) ULM (particularly volume 3 ) for a more comprehensive study of John and Paul’s relationship.  

Lastly, after doing my own independent research for McCartney (2020), I found that the Paul McCartney described by the musicians and collaborators in Paul’s life was dramatically different from the person depicted in books like Man on the Run. My films are free from narration and commentary; I rely on first-hand interviews and information from the people involved, and in my opinion there is a great deal to be learned about Paul from the way he relates to others, especially through music. And although the McCartney series is about his solo career as opposed to his Beatle career, I would definitely recommend it to anyone who is interested in Lennon/McCartney for the insights they could gain. 

Thank you very much for this ask- hopefully there aren’t too many typos!

[r6shippingdelivery]

headcannons for hobbies? Like what they do on their off time?

Hi nonnie! I actually did a Hobbies HC for “all” ops a long time ago. But seeing that was before the expanded bios, and it only reached up to Gridlock and Mozzie, I’d say it’s time for an updated version, don’t you say? 

Some of the answers are unchanged from the old post, because I already nailed it or the new info didn’t disprove my ideas. But I had to revise a lot of the answers I gave the first time around! In order to find their hobbies and/or get a glimpse of their lives beyond Rainbow and what they might like, I read all the bios, and looked up concept art, and elites, and past battlepass content, etc. And when none of that was enough, I just went with my gut instinct 😂 Thank you to @grain-crain-drain, @dagoth-menthol & @todragonsart for bouncing ideas with me when I was stuck! 💕

Hobbies Headcanons for ALL ops (up to Neon Dawn)

FBI

- Ash: According to her savta, shooting things is not a hobby, but Ash disagrees. And since according to her expanded bio she knows Hebrew, Arabic, English, French and Greek, I’m willing to bet she enjoys learning languages as well. - Thermite: He grew up on a ranch and loves riding. He’s also taken an interest in improving gadgets it seems, so my old proposal that he dabbles in forging/smithing stuff seems plausible. And based on this concept art, demolition derbies attending and maybe even competing himself too? - Pulse: He’s interested in a variety of topics and goes through phases of intense, nearly obsessive focus, until something else captures his attention. He still has a lingering fondness for building muscle cars, since it was something he used to do with his father. And like Thermite and Hibana, it seems he might enjoy demolition derbies. - Castle: He’s a language nerd, studying/reading/practicing new languages is his hobby for sure. Since the expanded bio says he rescues abused dogs, I don’t think it would be far fetched he volunteered at animal shelters too.

SAS

- Thatcher: Aside from repairing his boat, The Iron Maggie, he also enjoys fishing. He used to do that with his dad & brothers, and tried to take the rest of the SAS fishing as a bonding experience. It didn’t go very well - Sledge: He plays rugby, and has an inexplicable fondness of trying the wildest ideas that tend to end with something broken, be it one of his bones or a structure or wall (just read his extended psychological profile and you’ll see, lmao) - Smoke: Boxing, it helps him focus all his chaotic energy. And chemistry in general, it’s not just a hobby but a passion of his. - Mute: he enjoys tinkering with stuff, taking it apart and then putting it back together in a different way, just to see if he can improve it or make it work in his own way. Flying drones plays perfectly into that, with the added bonus of being able to do the flying part just for fun too.

GIGN

- Montagne: His main passion is working with people, teaching and mentoring others, and therefore when he’s not on duty, his main passtime still is mingling with people and getting to know them. I could see him making overtures with Castle, interested in the American and fascinated by his knowledge of various languages, an area Monty feels insecure about due to only knowing French and English.  - Twitch: Engineering, robotics and developing an empathic AI is her life.Twitch is a workaholic passionate about those topics. She also greatly enjoys traveling and, according to her expanded bio, people watching.  - Doc: He surely had some hobby at one point, but he can’t remember it, or the last time he had free time for it. Doc is also a workaholic, although one that loves to complain about it.  - Rook: Apparently he’s passionate about cycling, auto racing, and rock concerts. Mainly cycling though, since he dropped out of university to cycle around France.

Spetsnaz

- Tachanka: He collects and repairs old weapons. Mostly soviet, but he has some interesting pieces from other countries too. And he dances surprisingly well.  - Kapkan: Aside from a certain interest in psychology, his main hobby is hunting, of course. But he also whittles and carves wooden figurines.  - Glaz: Quite obviously, painting. He’s an artist, and quite a good one. He also likes playing cards, especially poker. - Fuze: He builds new weapon prototypes for fun. And tests them, if he can convince Six of it. He also likes to bake from time to time, a skill he learnt thanks to his grandma - and because he has a sweet tooth.

GSG9

- Jäger: Planes. Model planes, repairing old WWI & II planes, you name it. And watching copious amounts of documentaries.  - Bandit: His bike is his main hobby, both taking care of it and riding it. He also likes playing pool; and, if pranking people counts as a hobby, that’s his oldest one, dating from when he was a kid. - Blitz: He was and still is an athlete at heart, and Blitz loves running. - IQ: In order to disconnect from engineering pursuits, she indulges in rock climbing, spelunking, and writing science fiction stories.

JTF2

- Buck: He crafts mechanical puzzles, and enjoys all kinds of physical activity that can take place outdoors. - Frost: She just loves being surrounded by nature, and often goes mountain climbing or diving.

SEAL

- Valkyrie: Swimming and diving, of course! She wanted to be a professional swimmer, but now it’s just a hobby. And apparently she enrolled for a helicopter pilot license, and language classes. - Blackbeard: According to the expanded bios, he likes sailing and even participated in a championship. And since he climbed Mount Everest, it’s safe to say he also likes mountain climbing.

BOPE

- Capitao: He loves football, playing or watching it, doesn’t matter, he’s all for it. - Caveira: Spends a lot of time practicing Jiu Jitsu, in the gym and also on unofficial tournaments.

SAT

- Hibana: For her it’s traditional Japanese archery (Kyūdō). And probably demolition derbies too accounting that concept art from before with Thermite and Pulse. - Echo: According to the expanded bio, he has few interests outside work, but I always imagined he’d be into gaming and e-sports. Hacking too, and that’s a direct influence from Dokkaebi.

GEO

- Jackal: He plays the acoustic guitar/spanish guitar, and sings too. And now we also know he volunteers with at-risk youth. - Mira: Fixing cars is second nature to her, and thanks to her expanded bio we know she also does metal sculptures that incorporate used mechanical parts.

SDU

- Ying: Extreme driving, which can sometimes trigger her PTSD, and traveling. Especially exploring cities by randomly jumping in public transport and just going anywhere. - Lesion: He is also one to volunteer in underprivileged areas (like Junk Bay, where he grew up), and clearing mines and other unexploded devices. I also imagine him with a certain gusto for playing blackjack.

GROM

- Zofia: If obsessing about her father’s supposed suicide and the oddities surrounding it, and desperately trying to reconnect with her sister count as hobbies, sure, she has those. - Ela: She’s also an artist, one with a very particular vision that some have called narcissistic. Apparently she also does some “freelance” volunteer work, roaming the streets at night and offering help/comfort, or a willing ear to the people she meets.

707SMB

- Vigil: He likes to take walks around the forest, just aimless exploring and marvelling at nature and any animals he might come across. Often listens to relaxing music while doing so, and he might pick a pretty rock here and there to bring home. - Dokkaebi: Hacking is her hobby, of course. She also has several social media profiles and is an active member in a couple of hacking forums. As per a previous battlepass, I believe she enjoys mountain trekking too. And dancing to electro beat, due to her elite.

CBRN

- Lion: His rebel years left him with an appreciation for rock music and a dream to be in a group. Lion still plays the electric guitar, when he’s not off volunteering at the local church. - Finka: Pushed by her parents from a young age to try different sports, just like her siblings, she eventually discovered a strong love for fencing and ice-skating.

GIS

- Maestro: Cooking, and boxing, an interest he shares with Smoke. But mostly cooking. - Alibi: She’s also a marksman, engages Ash in friendly shooting competitions.

GSUTR

- Clash: She’s very involved in different activist causes, mostly surrounding racial issues and inequality. - Maverick: Photography, mostly nature or candid shots of his fellow operators. I also think he likes horses and riding. And Buzkashi of course, but he hasn’t played since he left Kabul.

GIGR

- Kaid: Playing chess, he’s a good strategist and it shows. And  while dozing off with a cat on his lap is not a hobby, he also loves that. - Nomad: Traveling to all sorts of remote locations, she’s an explorer with a thirst to prove herself. She also keeps a travel journal, which includes maps and some drawings of the places she’s seen.

SASR

- Mozzie: Dirt biking, of course. The more dangerous the jumps and stunts are, the more he likes it. He knows his limits and works to surpass them. - Gridlock: Robotics. She still wants to compete again in robot championships, just like she and Mozzie did so many years ago. She would consider that fixing cars and vehicles has become more part of her job than a hobby, but still loves it too.

Phantom Sight

- Nokk: Fencing, as evidenced by some of her concept art, she participated in fencing tournaments. - Warden: He knows appearances are important, and he cultivated a very specific image, so he likes to take care of that, be it by buying luxury or antique cars, or designer suits, etc.

Ember Rise

- Amaru: Archeology and exploring the Amazon jungle is her passion. It used to be her whole life and job, but since she joined Rainbow, she’s been busy with training and missions, yet she never lost her love for adventure, history and protecting her country’s cultural artifacts. - Goyo: He’s a really good chess player, and enjoys other games where he either has to think, or his usual poker face and calm demeanor can throw his opponents off.

Shifting Tides

- Kali: When she’s not writing reports about her underlings progress, or making lists about who should be ascended/rewarded, who needs to be punished or chastised, etc, she’ll be doing yoga, since it helps her focus. Or hardcore pilates when she needs to burn away some frustration first. - Wamai: Diving and being underwater in general, be it on his special immersion tanks or on the actual sea, it doesn’t matter. He finds it calming (and he’s addicted to the anoxia sensation)

Void Edge

- Iana: Space exploration fascinates her, and she’s always trying to learn everything she can about the cosmos, watching documentaries and conducting her own in-depth research. - Oryx: Wrestling helps him hone his physical prowess, and it’s also a measured outlet for his deep seated rage. He also greatly enjoys reading poetry.

Steel Wave

- Melusi: She’s committed to the conservation cause, which stems from both her love of wildlife and nature, and her protective instincts. She likes to explore too, although she’s not driven by a will to prove herself or reach certain goals, but simply for the joy of seeing natural spaces. - Ace: Social Media. He’s obsessed with his public image and popularity. While he travels quite a bit, it seems he does it more to share new and exciting selfies on Instagram than for the pleasure of visiting new places.

Shadow Legacy

- Zero: He knits and crochets, it’s an engaging hobby that helps him clear his mind, plus he enjoys making stuff too. Not many people know about this side of him though. 

Neon Dawn

- Aruni: She and Hero, her giant pouched rat, volunteer on landmine detection and removal efforts. She also likes to travel extensively, and has done so in the company of Twitch and Nomad.

#rainbow 6 siege #r6s #rainbow six siege #rainbow 6 #headcanons #Anonymous

[prorevenge]

Ridiculed, accused of lying and incompetence, I shoved burning facts down their throats and made a successful business in the process.

"The best revenge is massive success." -Frank Sinatra

TL;DR; Told I was lying and didn't know anything about game design. Made a spite video game that became a huge hit. Jackass is also forever immortalized within the game credits.

PREFACE

This is a very unusual story compared to the typical posts you've read here. There's a lot to unpack but I'll try to summarize everything as best I can.

I hope you'll find it as entertaining as I did. And, what's great about this story is that it happened very recently, it happened here, evidence is searchable, and it's still kinda on-going. It's a tale of trolls, video game addiction, self-righteous arrogance, harassment, winning an impossible bet, a viral hit in Russia, and massive success with even some little revenge sprinkles for added measure.

Quick background about me: I've worked with game developers for decades and I'm an avid researcher and supporter of unorthodox and ethical video games used for educational and clinical purposes.

HOW IT STARTED

Two months ago, there was a new reddit post about "using video game to ease depression" that caught my attention.

The reason it caught my attention was because it was a game & study that I had in-depth knowledge of (from over a year prior.) Unlike everyone else in the thread, I was the only one who had actually seen the game, played it, knew the developers, and even had the original technical game design documents.

The article discussed a variety of topics but never addressed exactly HOW the video game was able to ease depression. So, I provided a quickly summary of what the game actually did.

[SKIP THIS SECTION IF NEUROSCIENCE & GAME DESIGN DON'T INTEREST YOU]

A quick side note about this article, for those that like extra details: One of the cool properties of ketamine is that, not only can it provide rapid and temporary relief for depression, it also actively heals damaged brain circuits. Then there's dopamine. A chemical that we internally produce, that has similar but less potent effects. There is no cure for depression, but these are promising treatments for some. The article focused on what's called "flow". Using certain game design methods you can induce a "flow state" by causing a sustained dopamine release. When used ethically, it can be highly beneficial in stimulating/training the brain to perform certain activities, improve or learn memorization, adapt to challenges, learn new concepts, exercise motor skills, and meanwhile rebuild pathways/synapses. While all of this is happening, the user is receiving pleasurable rewards without realizing it. This process can create new pathways, repair old circuits, and increasing their neuroplasticity. Increased neuroplasticity means improved cognitive functioning, reducing impairment of the reward process, and improving the effectiveness of antidepressant medications. Video games can be a unique non-drug option to accomplish this while easing symptoms. Research has already shown that many popular games can already accomplish this (unintended effects by the game developers). By comparison, the game design they used in this theoretical study was highly limited in scope, so permanent benefits were negligible compared to the temporary respite brought about by basic dopamine release. Science is still barely scratching the surface of neurotransmitters and flow state. There are still many unknowns, but dopamine isn't just a pleasure chemical that the media would like you to be believe. It can do quite a number of things. Research has shown that "flow state" can modify synaptic plasticity, improve connectors between cells/synapses, ultimately helping cells in the brain communicate better as a network and improve neural system intrinsic properties.

My summary posting was fine for a while, until predictable trolls arrived led by an "armchair game developer". Dr. Armchair definitely did not appreciate my post. It was an affront and insult to his profession. Within a few minutes, it dropped 30 karma. I don't care about imaginary internet points but I don't like being accused of lying. Dr. Armchair and his pals started with the usual "do you even lift?" Then it was quickly asserted, from their armchairs, that I knew nothing about flow, psychology, dopamine or game design at all. From their high horses, they contributed nothing useful; only taunts, defamation, attacking my character and physical appearance, and accusing me of being a liar and incompetence.

Apparently it was a very sensitive topic. Who knew?

It quickly devolved into Dr. Armchair gleefully, and repeatedly claiming, that he won, he was right, and I was wrong. He demanded that I essentially write a 300 page peer-reviewed study to prove him wrong, and when it couldn't be provided within 5 minutes, there were more gleeful cheers of "HAHA! I WAS RIGHT! I WAS RIGHT! I'M NOT LISTENING TO YOU LALALALALA.."

Obviously, it was going to be impossible to reason with Dr. Armchair and his buddies. But actions speak louder than words.

So, I claimed that I would provide undeniable proof in the form of a video game "a few months from now" that he could actually play for himself. Once again, claiming that I was lying and it was impossible. And more of the usual "It's been 5 minutes, where is it? Oh, you can't do it can you. HA! I was right! I BEAT YOU! I BEAT YOU!"

It was weird.

Eventually the mods had enough. Dr. Armchair and his cronies harassment, ad hominem attacks, accusations and inflammatory attacks resulted in multiple posts being removed. But my promise still stood and I fully intended on keeping it.

THE BOLD CLAIM

The plan was simple:

Create a proof of concept that demonstrates just the critical neuroscience principles that induce flow. To prove it beyond a doubt, I intended to also prove that MOST COMMON INGREDIENTS of a game are completely UNNECESSARY to accomplish this.

So, I made the very confident claim that the game would still be fun, addictive, and demonstrate flow state, even after ripping everything out:

No extras or frills. Built within a short period of time.

No music. No sound effects. No animations. No story.

No expensive art. In fact, hardly any at all: I would use ONE SINGLE ART ASSET for the gameplay (plus some lines.)

No feature creep. No sign-in system. No gacha mechanics.

No level design. No achievements. No RPG gamifications.

I could get at least a couple hundred people to play it.

I should have also mentioned that it would be built with ZERO BUDGET and NO MARKETING.

If this sounds like a strange way to make a game, it is. For a typical game developer, this would raise many eyebrows, and they'd consider it highly risky or improbable to achieve any success with both arms figurately tied behind your back while blindfolded.

HOW IT ENDED

While I was preparing to stress test the game online, it was discovered by .ru bots that were scouring the web for new games. Even before the game was ready, they published the game link on several Russian gaming sites.

The game exploded.

It has graphical similarities to Tetris, so it was a nice coincidence that the game essentially launched and did so well in Russia at first. After that, other game sites started discovering the game on their own too, even before I had a chance to submit the game myself. Most importantly, the proof of concept and everything I claimed worked (high ratings and retention). It proved so effective that the game is currently being played by hundreds of thousands of users worldwide. And it's a clear demonstration about the importance of combining psychology and game design.

I suppose you could say that there are many layers of revenge happening here, maybe even karmic justice or backfiring on their part, it's really hard to classify. The best kind of revenge is always massive success, and shoving it in their faces, however. But, on top of that, I also fully kept to my promises while proving these ignorant individuals so wrong they look like fools.

I also added some extra salt to the wound. I figured that success of the game was partly due to Dr. Armchair's ignorance. It was only fair that I included his name within the Game Credits. So, I officially gave this very wonderful human being a very "special thanks" for their support in making this success possible.

(source) story by (/u/postfu)

#prorevenge #by /u/postfu #pro revenge #revenge stories #pro revenge stories #pro #revenge #last10

[conradoneil]

Among all of the colorways to drop was the original colorway that was released for the first time since 2007.

Probably, by words of several online shops, their Nike shoes are authentic, while in fact, when you receive the shoes, you may be disappointed, for sometimes, those shoes in online shops are fake ones. Among all of the colorways to drop was the original colorway that was released for the first time since 2007. Then at once his spirits rose, and he would begin with childlike openness giving her a full account of his adventures with Josephine; he smiled and laughed, blessed Natasha, and praised her to the skies, and the evening ended happily and merrily.. It is a fire that BURNS TO THE LOWEST HELL!. Boeing revealed their new beautiful 787 10 Dreamliner in February. On the walls were priceless tapestries, ancient and much faded, depicting the glory of the Old Empire of Ghis. By the time I turned up at two o’clock in the afternoon the poor woman’s agonies of suspense had reached an extreme pitch. Ghost was closer than a friend. 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[welcometomy20s]

February 7, 2021

This is Part two of the introduction of Nijisanji. I have written for an audience who has just gotten to know vtubers through hololive and wants to explore more. This part cover all of Nijisanji members who has debuted in the year 2019.

2019 Part 1 (Jan-Apr)

Warabeda Meiji - Another eleven year old, but likes FF14 and K-On! So frequently described as an 11 year old third season. But she is genuinely cute! And a really good singer, so much so that her K-On cover gets banned for being too close!

Gundou Mirei - Actually a teacher, but definitely a ditzy and lazy one, that is incredibly sexual to an uncomfortable degree, you know, a fan favorite, including of mine. Watch her 3D streams and you will be amazed. Has a ship with Shoichi as mentioned before, even though she’s a self-professed bisexual. It’s odd but, you know, it works!

Yuzuki Roa - Kind of innocent devil like Towa, but more like a kid than an older sister. Really like Belmond. Was friends with Chitose, a retired member, and got a costume based on her a bit, and maybe is retiring herself, considering she hasn't uploaded for quite a few months now. Well, whatever. She’s cute and innocent.  

Onomachi Haruka - Another of the rare, truly seiso people in the team, but can go wild if the vibe goes that way. Lost and found a llama in minecraft once.

Seto Miyako - Kind of a quiet girl who might be psychopathic... you know the type. Her true tendencies pop up during gaming. Also tweets a lot... make sense.

Kataribe Tsumugu - Basically retired, but her concept was so shocking that it took Naruse Naru’s return of old design to push her into the bottom of the list.

Otogibara Era - She’s a Cinderella if she has gone completely out the window. People routinely separate the original Cinderella side as Era, and her true side as Gibara.

God, how do I describe her. Gibara is just great. Her adult comments are something to behold, let’s say she gels with Tamaki very well. She returns to monke often, and does other types of screams too... seriously look at her gacha stream and witness Gibara in her full glory. Also incredibly lazy and definitely cannot live by herself.

But as you have guessed it, she is an incredible singer. (It might be the case that incredible singing is associated with madness) Had knockout hit with her 3D stream, trending number one on twitter and 30,000 US dollars in superchats!

Lize Helesta - Queen of Shizuoka, I mean Heleste kingdom. Usually behaves like an empress, but as with most royalty has a real competitive spirit, so she knows how to badmouth when she needs to. So, she’s a really stingy person as well... not really fitting for a royalty, but you do know some people that act like that.

She’s a strange person. Look at asphalt or a handstand in order to sleep. Friends with Ange, who was a childhood friend, even with an age difference. Also does radio stuff with Lulu as well. Reveres Mito, wonder why. Again, incredible 3D debut.

Ange Katrina - Nice low-middle voice with a smooth upper body, and surprisingly small but that got fixed as 3D started. Think she’s cute, but blushes when people agree. Just a cool gal who I enjoy very much... her streams, I mean.

Inui Toko - She’s a cerberus, and now works at a cafe. A little bit out there, but definitely a tsukkomi. Usually does little gaming outside Minecraft, so mostly talks and sings. A unique laugh and loves Ensemble Stars. Hangs out with red and blue people, like Lize, Ange, Roa, Ayame, Suisei and so on. Actually is boing boing, Ange felt betrayed.

And as mentioned above, a great singer, and can play many instruments as well!

Saegusa Akina - High tension singer, who is quite sickly and is terrible with girls. But he got better as time went on and the ship with his gen mate Manami started to sail. Actually he hangs around with many girls... maybe it’s just Manami?

Arizona Manami - Ito Life’s daughter... so you know what she looks like. Calls herself the queen of sensitivity, and yes she does very suggestive streams... but she’s pretty innocent and childish... so she’s kind of like Melody in a way. Has a very fond-looking relationship with Akina as mentioned above.

Suzuhara Lulu - Just your typical art student. She’s a rich girl, so she knows very little about the outside world. Definitely has stamina of a thousand horses, famously played 11 hours of Dark Souls, then straight onto 10 hours of Ring Fit, and never got phased. Seriously, she never gets phased. She rode the freaking snake without a problem! Apparently really beautiful in real life, really has large expressions.

There’s a rumor going around that she’s actually some kind of an eldritch god... and I don’t know where that comes from at all. Look at her, she’s such a sweet gal, look at her dancing and singing... she’s a true idol, that’s what she is... (don’t hurt me.)

Yukishiro Mahiro - First-year high-schooler. Good variety of content. Her personality is of a rude kouhai. One viewer described her as a bad-tempered chihuahua. Really likes Kanae, which is okay, I guess. There’s not much more than that.

2019 Part 2 (May-Aug)

Ex Albio - A hero from a different world. Originally portrayed as a rude snarky figure, much like Kazuma without charm or luck but with perseverance. Got his fame through his noob Minecraft experience, as with Minecraft servers, they are ripe with collab opportunities, so he started to collab especially with Ars Almal, which he thinks as a mentor... and so they both talk in high register. Eventually became a couple.

Has a thing where he questions something and immediately denies it, which is quite funny. Eventually got a dark alter version due to the imagination tournament I talked about earlier, which brings the fact that he can’t fight until tragedy occurs.

Levi Elipha - Actually only six years old, and apparently dense, like physically dense. Great singer and good physique, does some English songs as well.

Nui Sociere - A 25-year old witch, but more like a NEET with an addiction to horse racing. Very much like Megumi in terms of magic abilities, but capable of melee.

Kind of sounds like Doraemon when she screams... usually plays JRPG... and well, just look at her. Damn... well, least you have something to look forward to.

Hayama Marin - Hayame is Hayame. She’s just a little kid with a pure mind. Yeah.

Hayato Kagami - CEO of a toy company, so called that. Polite and diligent, but like a CEO of a toy company, completely becomes a boy when getting a bit excited.

Actually is a great singer, maybe a trained singer as well. As a good example of rich getting richer, fans have a tendency to throw red superchat, a typical stream might hit 10K USD, even though there’s nothing particular going on.

Yorumi Rena - Idol magician, but no actual proof of her magic abilities. Plays APEX a lot. Very much an outgoing person with lots of collab from everyone. Hakase calls her mama. Sleep promptly at midnight, except when ARK was involved.

Also makes 8-bit art proficiently, does all her loading screen. A bit of a lewd mind.

Hakase Fuyuki - HIgh school girl who likes to experiment, but it’s obvious none of it ever works. Tries to ship Yorumi and Kagami, and calls him papa. Just absolutely in her own world and everyone is just privy to it... also incredibly bad at gaming.

Mayuzumi Kai - A white hacker. Very cool, but has a thing for comedy, almost to the level of Joe Riikichi, but laughs very little himself. Make sense, since he lost his parents at an early age and lived in the system, therefore is a night streamer. Very good with kids as a result, and very kind and polite as well.

Ars Almal - A mage who specializes in lightning. Started out by apologizing, gets bullied for her round face, usually by Shiina. Cute voice with toxic words with a knack for pranks and taunts. Actually is quite boing boing. Good at Minecraft construction, but get rough and dirty under the wheel, as in Mario Kart. Became a kitsune, and then immediately got compared to Fubuki... much like Fubuki in a sense.

Aiba Uiha - Another idol who is a bit out there, has a tendency to be clingy. Also has a large physique... kind of a denatured Lulu is what I’m getting at. Sisters with Ara Chae, incredibly bad eyesight, apparently. I can see that, actually.

Eli Conifer - A flower fairy and maid with a unique phrasing. Likes to immerse herself in games, very knowledgeable, especially with teas, and also handy at housework, and superb at drawing and singing. Ryushen and Rion think she’s a badass, and they might not be entirely wrong on that aspect, actually.

Kokoro Amaiya - Dragonborn, I think. But there’s no dragon anymore. Has that mumble-speak that people really don’t like. She’s very much kid-like in a sense, uh, so get put into the loli category much like her fellow peer. Incredibly weak.

Ratna Petit - Adventurer with an independent streak. Does games and ASMR, tries to be grown up during collabs, but retreats into a kid in solo streams. Got the infamous random deletion of the account that Kiara famously got.

Nijisanji ID Gen 1

Taka Radjiman - Another CEO, this time a food CEO. Usually streams games, but much like other CEOs here, a pretty good singer as well. Obviously a good cook as well.

ZEA Cornelia - She’s an automata. ZEA is short for Z-type Executive Automation. Likes to sing, and sung many songs including La Vien en Rose by IZONE! I really like her, her streams are bit odd and ZEA can carry a stream like no another.

Hana Macchia - A design student, much like Lulu. Likes drawing as you expect, also like gaming as well. Does some barista stuff as well, a kind of the ambassador of Nijisanji ID, since her father is American and her mother is Japanese, and she lives in Indonesia.

Papa Macchia appears on stream from time to time, and apparently was the progenitor of Hana’s gaming prestige as he played Doom and Half-Life. She’s on the cute side of things, but blushes when she gets called that. Also cries in horror, but screams in excitement... just overall a well-rounded in strangeness. I really like her.

2019 Part 3 (Sep-Dec)

Sukoya Kana - Incredibly smart, but also has an otaku and perverted side. Likes acting, as you might have guessed and bad at housework. Has a quiet voice, but gets savage when a game is involved. Pretty good at english as well. Does a radio show as well.

Oh, yeah, likes to throw up. It’s a thing. Also plays drums. She’s pretty cool.

Shellin Burgundy - Before Kanata did her PPT intro, Shellin was the first one. Professes himself to be a detective, but little lightheaded for that. Good narration voice, though, which means he’s a good singer as well. I kind of like him. He’s good.

Hayase Sou - An outdoorsy girl who likes cosplay and road biking. Kind of talks like she’s middle age, but she acts pretty young. And of course she likes shotas.

Fumi - It took over a year for her to debut. She’s a hikikomori gundam otaku and a goddess. A bit airheaded and pretty bad at gaming, and since she is 67, gets called grandma infrequently. She’s fun to watch. Has a ship with Nagao.

Hoshikawa Sara - Half Japanese and half English. Definitely a cool and tough, ready to take whatever sex jokes and insults you throw at her. Hangs out with Mahiro a lot, or with male members like Yumeoi, Ebio, Shellion or Kanda. Has a wide voice range, with a wide personality as well. There’s a sense of healing to her, honestly.

Obviously gets fangirled by many, including Matsuri, whose frequently red superchats her much to her confusion and relative embarrassment.

Yamagami Karuta - She’s a tengou in training, since she is filled with desires, mostly to connect with people. This is real, apparently. Has a ship with a staff member...

Matsukai Mao - Smartest devil... no, she’s an airhead like the rest of them. Apparently she can spit out crude oil... which is pretty useless. Definitely an unlucky, miserable person who needs to be protected at all times, and she relishes that like the devil she is.

Hangs around with Luis a lot in real life, apparently. Also plays APEX and stuff.

Emma August - Demon Lord that was thrown in an uprising, living with Morinaka Kazaki, and got a new house in February of last year. An alcoholic and a masochist, who gets berated by Kazaki of all people. Definitely not a loli, that’s for sure.

Luis Cammy - An expert thief, which excites Shellin very much. Seen as the leader of the gen, but found out to be much of a kid as the gen mates, especially around Shellin. They are a couple now, apparently. Oh yeah, she did an Outlast stream with a cat outfit and invited Shellin because she was scared? Now there's a loli version of her... yikes.

Fuwa Minato - A host, but a teetotaler, because of health problems... yet drinks Monster energy like it’s no business. A bit out there, as Nijisanji people are. A bit of a trickster, a bad boy if you will... right there with being good at games as well. He’s pretty cool.

Shirayuki Tomoe - When I first saw her, she felt like one of those people in mahjong tournaments. Well, she’s a queen of the night, so night-time streamer, although she has daytime streams as well. Strong drinker. Talks about SM, but also effortlessly friendly and a lovely person. I think she’s attractive, but I can see why people call her cute. She hates bugs, loves cute things, odd thoughts... feels like an aunt to me.

Very bad at reading kanji, not that she’s good at anything else. Likes to practice, hence preserved her way in the Mario Kart tournament. Does talk and ASMR streams with a third of her viewers being women. Likes Mirei, makes sense. Oh, she’s a nudist.

And don’t forget the relationship between Kana and her. Purported to be the most real of the ships of any vtubers. I believe it’s called Crossick. I don’t know too much.

Gwelu Os Gar - Presenter for the elf kingdom, hired as a presenter, since Nijisanji got so big and there’s only so many Kakeru around. Unfortunately seen as boring, and transitioned into kind of a Maimoto character.

Already married, I don’t know why that’s significant but there you go. Oh, and an actual dad! That is pretty significant. Although Setsuna also has a child, and had to retire to take care of the little baby. Teaches math to others, so that’s cool.

Mashiro - Recent high school graduate. He’s a boy. Yes, he has heels and boobs, but he’s a boy. And yes, he is a bit out there, stealing candies from the office.

Naraka - Another oni, and a loli-baba. Obviously a fan of the fellow oni, Mikoto... which has a queen kid relationship. And yes, her chest is smaller than Mashiro... sad.

Kurusu Natsume - 19-year old college student who likes music and sheep. Very smart and very normal. Has an ASMR test stream, which was pretty fun.

Nijisanji ID 2nd Gen

Rai Galliel - An interdimensional policeman. Likes cheese, but hate porridge due to only eating one for four months. Likes baking, pretty cool personality, if a bit straight edge.

Amicia Michella - A freelance illustrator, so the drawing is superb. Like sleep but also sports. Also penguins. Likes to play horror games pretty calmly. Raises two dogs, well one of them passed away late last year. Sang a 10cm cover?

Miyu Ottavia - A business student, and likes otters and is optimistic. Mostly plays RPG and online multiplayers. Tries to be cool, but look at her! She’s very cute.

Riksa Dhirendra - A 24-year-old freelancer and works as an editor and translator. Looks mean, but is actually a very decent gut. He is pretty competitive. Plays RPG.

#nijisanji #vtuber #long post

[thecandywrites]

Jewel Of The North Part 2

So in case you missed it Part 1. Again, many thanks to @monstersandmaw​ for sharing the concept of ice orcs with me and letting me run WILD with it. I’m having so much fun with this. 

Ok, so Zara Kingsley, top left, top right- Doug Kizzo and just under him is supposedly “Wolf Eye” which is a brand of whiskey I made up just for this story. Fun fact- there is actually a high end brand of whiskey called “Wolves” and they sell whiskey the way designer limited edition sneaker/tennis shoes are sold ($150 a bottle and you have to “register” to even get on a list before they’ll send you a bottle, *sigh* rich people, but I am not a rich person in real life which would explain why in every fantasy story I write, I can change that about my character) anyway, I didn’t know was even a thing until after I wrote this and as a point of curiosity, I double checked to see if Wolf Eye whiskey was a thing so I didn’t have to worry about copyright (Which is why names are Like That in this story) And that beautiful plate of seafood is what I envisioned a “king’s platter” would look like vs. A fisherman’s stew which is the picture right above the little girl who I’ve chosen to represent Sakura in this story and we have the lovely Taylor in the bottom left. 

Now let’s go shall we? Off to the Arctic Tundra!

Jewel of the North 

Part 2 

You woke up earlier than you thought you would, mostly because you were still in your Great Lakes time zone. So what was 10am to your body, it was 7am there. You crept out of bed and snuck into the bathroom to brush your teeth and your hair and put a bra on under your pajamas and then as quietly as you could, unpacked your gifts for Taylor and her family and arranged everything on the table as you quickly made a pot of coffee and some toast for your pre-breakfast and the smell of coffee was what roused Taylor and Greg at about 8:30.

“Good morning.” You greeted them warmly as they were both still obviously groggy but both happily shuffled over to the coffee pot to drink their coffee.  

“What’s all this?” Greg asked as he looked at his table which was almost overflowing. 

“Presents, Taylor told me to bring seeds.” You answered. 

“Did you...like...clean out a greenhouse?” Greg chuckled as he looked at the sheer amount and variety you brought. 

“Mmm...more like 5 but that’s not important besides I got to a lot of them just as they were closing out for the season so I got a bunch of it for mere pennies on the dollar and it was just a matter of being in the right place at the right time with money in your pocket.” You giggled with a dismissive wave of your hand. “I don’t do anything small or by half.” You shrugged before you handed him a wrapped present. 

“Oof, that’s heavy.” He realized as he took it from you. “You didn’t have to get me anything...oh my gods, you got me Kraken!” He practically squealed when he opened it and pretended to cry as he hugged the gallon jug. 

“My precious.”  He impersonated Gollum as he pet it which cracked you and Taylor up before you handed her- her own gift as she gasped and tried not to squeal too loudly as she unwrapped a bottle of raspberry peach Grand Marnier. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” She practically bounced in her spot, hugging the jug too before she leaned over and hugged you too. 

“Alcohol is so stinking expensive up here it’s ridiculous, thank you so much for bringing this.” Taylor thanked you. 

“Yes, it’s very generous of you, thank you.” Greg mirrored. 

“You’re welcome.” You beamed. 

“You know, we really shouldn’t keep all these seeds for ourselves. We should gift these at the festival. That way all the clans can benefit from this.” Greg realized. 

“I was thinking the exact same thing, I told her that last night when she told me about them.” Taylor nodded in agreement. 

“You got a box we can put it all in for now?” You asked before Taylor grabbed the biggest box she had and the three of you packed the seeds away before you grabbed your other crate that had all the seasonings in it. 

“There’s more?” Greg laughed. 

“Well yeah, Taylor said the local grocery stores are pretty limited on spices so I brought enough of everything that it should last you until we see each other again.” You shrugged. 

“It’s like you brought a spice store with you.” Taylor swooned as she opened some of them and sniffed them before Greg did the same, both of them grinning at the scents in their noses. 

“French toast for breakfast?” You suggested. 

“Hell yeah,” Greg immediately agreed before you and Taylor began to make breakfast before the scents of breakfast woke the kids up. 

“Good morning guys!” You greeted them cheerfully as they stopped and stared at the stranger in the kitchen. 

“This is Zara, she’s a friend of ours so you can call her Auntie Zara and she’s going to be staying with us for about a week.” Taylor introduced you. 

“And I’m really grateful you guys opened your home up so I could stay with you, so I brought you guys presents.” You told them which made all of them gasp in excitement. 

“So, you must be Katie, the sensible older sister.” You asked as you pulled out the presents that had their names on them. 

“Lovely to make your acquaintance Katie,” you greeted her formally as you handed her the wrapped gift. Because tweens always loved it when you treated them like little adults. 

“And you must be Matthew.” You deduced as you handed Taylor’s son his gift before you got on your knees so you could be eye to eye with the toddler. 

“Is your name Jamie?” You asked as Jamie hid his face behind his mother’s leg as Greg and Taylor laughed at his bashfulness. 

“Do you think you could take this gift from me Jamie?” You asked as you held it out to him before he took it and ran away. 

“You got me a race car!” Matthew exclaimed and promptly high fived you as Katie’s jaw dropped at her present. 

“Your mom said it was ok to give you girl pampering stuff, so there’s a few face masks, some nail polish. Fancy hand lotion, a few bath bombs and stuff.” You explained as you pointed everything out before Katie happily enveloped you in a hug. 

“Thank you so much.” Katie thanked you gratefully. 

“You’re welcome sweetie.” You grinned just as Jaimie squealed in delight at his new toy and came running in and nearly knocked you over giving you a hug which got you to cackle laughing so you were left to sit on the kitchen floor while Jamie hugged you before he left to go play with his toy as Matt was already racing his car around the house before the family finally got to sit down to breakfast as the kids got to know you better by asking questions about you and your family and where you lived as you showed them pictures of your own kids and how you were a widow now and what you did for living and your horses and pets and things as Jamie happily ate his breakfast from your lap and stared at you adoringly and practically inhaled half your breakfast which you didn’t mind one bit.  As long as babies ate well, they should thrive and you remembered how your own son Xander was practically a bottomless pit. 

Then the calls started to come in on Greg’s and Taylor’s cell phones, all asking if you were there yet. 

“Yup, Noah flew her in yesterday.” You heard them both say as their phones then started to blow up from texts. 

“Uh, babe…” Taylor looked at her husband in a meaningful look that bordered on concern because word had spread like wildfire as they showed each other their screens, the same people texting both of them, but mostly Taylor because they were hoping she would give better answers than simple yes or no’s that Greg was giving. Except to his brother Doug, who Greg was giving him just about everything that you were sharing with his kids as Doug was already claiming “dibs” to the others. 

“Want to go out to dinner?” Greg offered. 

“Sure.” You nodded. 

“In town there’s really only a few restaurants, Eska’s which is a mom and pop- grandma’s food in a tavern, the bar- Kesuk’s.” Taylor began to list off. 

“Is it the place that has the ‘kitchen sink nachos’?” You asked. 

“Yes.” Taylor beamed. “And it’s not a “dive bar” but it is very much the local watering hole. Now there is a “dive bar” and that is Goose’s. I wouldn’t go to the bathroom there but we will get takeout from there because they make the best double cheeseburger while White’s has the best wings.” Taylor explained. 

“But Swanson’s has the best steaks, but it’s a bit pricey, it’s right next to Gold Horn’s which is the biggest and nicest fishing and hunting retreat around.” Greg explained. 

“And one of the nicest butcher shops because most of the hunters can’t take all that meat home.” Taylor added. 

“Anyway, the locals around here will go to Swanson’s for weddings, anniversaries, birthdays and stuff, pretty special occasions.” Greg continued before they continued to list off all the places around to eat before you decided on Eska’s because it sounded like the ‘safest’ option and spent the afternoon getting ready while you happily walk Katie through your ‘routine’ of getting ready as you, with Taylor and Greg’s permission helped her get dressed up too and put some simple makeup on her as her new ‘auntie’ and by dinner your nerves were already a little frayed because Taylor told you that you were meeting ‘the family’ meaning not only hers but Greg’s too and you had picked up on the hint of Greg talking about his brother and his accomplishments and such and you gave Taylor a meaningful look to which she looked back apologetically. 

If you were honest, you were used to it. If your friend’s mates had failed trying to flirt with you or whatever, often you were ‘introduced’ to so many brothers, friends and especially brother in laws. 

You got to dinner and the ‘family’ was already there, waiting for the table to get ready while ‘Doug’ was running late getting ready and there had to be 20 people there, all of them there to meet which you didn’t mind as you did your best to meet and greet everyone before the table was ready and Taylor had you sit at the end of the table as Greg and Taylor made sure that the seat across from you was Doug’s seat and you asked Katie to sit next to you so you wouldn’t be all alone since there was an empty seat next to Doug’s seat because he liked to “stretch out” as you met Greg’s parents and Taylor’s parents and got got catch up because Glenda, Taylor’s mom had missed your mom and to see pictures of your mom on her horse with your kids made them all happy as they got to know you a little as you kept an eye on the door, waiting for ‘Doug’ before an older woman came in with the cutest little girl you had ever seen in your life then a familiar face came in behind them. 

Noah. 

You instantly blew out a breath of relief at seeing him before a relieved and happy smile plastered itself on your face and you noticed they were walking by you and Noah seemed to see you shortly after you saw him as he soon mirrored your smile as he seemed equally excited to see you. 

“Hey Stranger.” You greeted. 

“Hey, fancy meeting you here, this is my daughter Sakura, this is my mom, Summer.” He introduced. 

“But you can call me Nana Hun.” She warmly smiled at you as you shook her hand. 

“Lovely to meet you Nana, and it’s so lovely to meet you Miss Sakura.” You excitedly greeted them as you crouched down to take a knee so you could be eye level with Sakura, she couldn't be much older than 5 and your heart ached at the thought of her losing her mom so, so young and how hard that must have been for her but you didn't want to bring it up because you didn't want that to be upsetting. 

“You should be really proud of your Daddy, he did such a great job flying me here yesterday.” You praised to Sakura.  

“He’s the best pilot ever!” She agreed which got you and Summer to laugh as Noah chuckled bashfully at the praise. Goodness was she precious. 

“I agree!” You confirmed with a very exaggerated head nod. 

“So you’re Paradise?” She asked in awed wonder as she stared at you. 

“Uh...oh, are you talking about how I look like a paradise orc?” You asked as you ran your hand over your skin of your exposed arm and she nodded before you nodded in confirmation. 

“My Grandma’s tea leaves told her that my daddy would be meeting Paradise yesterday.” She proudly informed you as you could see Noah turn a deep sapphire as his smile turned slightly nervous as he gave his mother the side eye. 

“Your Grandma reads tea leaves? Mine does too! Only the way my Grandma does it, I think she reads them wrong because they tell her things like my son was ‘a ball’, which, to be honest when I was pregnant with him, I looked like I swallowed a ball and when he was six months old he was almost as wide as he was tall and very, very round because he was a fantastic eater and he’s still practically a bottomless pit but he’s turned out pretty normal so far, he doesn’t ‘bounce’ too much.” You shrugged with an easy grin which got Sakura to giggle at the joke which got you to laugh as Noah and Summer chuckled too. 

“But that was really cool that your Grandma’s tea leaves told her that I was coming,” You nodded solemnly. “Did they tell her anything else?” You whispered as you leaned forward as she smiled and giggled and nodded. 

“Can you tell me?” You asked hopefully as she looked up to Nana for permission before Nana nodded her permission as well- completely ignoring Noah who looked particularly terrified at the notion and was shaking his head subtly to his mother and his daughter ‘no’ but it was like they couldn’t see him before she came up and put her hands over your ear. 

“They said that you were the best mom ever.” Sakura whispered and your heart melted and you almost wanted to cry. 

“Well I try, really hard, every day- to be the best one I can be so that’s true.” You confirmed. “And you know what? I tend to adopt every kid that’s around me, so if you see me and if you need or want anything at all, you just let me know ok? And I’m not offering that just to be nice, I mean it. I don’t offer anything unless I’m prepared to be taken up on it. I’m only here for like a week and a half but while I’m here if I’m needed somewhere to either help your dad on the plane or help watch you, I’ll happily do it ok?” You generously offered because you just instantly adored this child and could tell she was just a sweetheart and you just...loved her. The way your love surged for your children when you got to hold them for the first time, that same love was surging for her. Something about her found every heart string you had and pulled on them and made them into a bow and you would happily wrap yourself around her little delicate fingers as you just stayed there smiling at each other before Doug cleared his throat which made you turn your head away to see Greg next to what you assumed was his brother who was dressed really nicely as they both smiled expectantly at you. 

“Hi, be with you in a minute.” You greeted them with a polite smile before you turned back to Sakura. 

“Now, you go enjoy your dinner ok Sakura?” You urged her before she launched herself into your arms before you gladly caught her and hugged her, grateful you had taken a knee so you weren’t knocked backwards. 

“How did you know I loved hugs?” You cooed as you hugged her tight and rubbed her back and just held her until she let go first because you knew that some kids just needed a good long hug and you didn’t care if you were making Greg and Doug and everyone else wait, all that mattered was Sakura and the poor baby just needed a hug. 

When Sakura finally pulled away she was smiling and her eyes were just a little glassy from unshed tears before you reached into your purse and got her a tissue and your business card. 

“This is my cell phone number. You call this, and if I’m working when you call, just leave a message and I’ll call you back as fast as I can and if I’m not working when you call, I’ll pick up ok? I’ll always pick up.” You offered and it only felt odd as an afterthought that you just met this child and you were kicked so hard and so high into mom gear that you would already go to the moon and back and bend over backwards for her but it felt like the right thing to do and the best thing you could do for her. 

“Thank you.” She thanked you graciously. 

“You’re welcome Sweetheart.” You cooed to her as you squeezed her little hands in yours before you reluctantly let them go because Greg cleared his throat again before Noah took the hint and ushered his family to sit in the booth directly behind where you would be sitting. Which was nice that they were so close as you stood to your full height. 

“Thank you so much for your patience. I’m Zara Kingsley, the LMT from the Great Lakes.” You introduced yourself to the man who had a familial resemblance to Greg as you politely shook his hand from across the table. He was handsome, that usual olive green skin, gold amber eyes, jet black hair, he was obviously younger by the way he styled his hair and his hipster- black t-shirt, black blazer, skinny jean look and the way he proudly carried himself, his chest puffed out all proud, like a peacock showing off his plumage. You could tell he knew he was one of the most handsome men in the room and his ego was too big for the place. You knew from Greg that he was practically a decade younger than you too. His ex wife had been one of the prettiest women in the Arctic Tundra but they divorced after five years and two kids because they both were having affairs. 

“Does every kid treat you like a visiting Disney Princess?” He asked pleasantly which got you to chuckle. 

“Yes, very much so, which I don’t mind at all.” You shrugged. 

“Well it’s understandable, with a name like Kingsley, it’s kind of a given you should be treated like royalty everywhere you go.” Doug flattered and you heard Noah cough a ‘damn’ behind you like he had just gotten hit in the gut and even you had to admit that was a pretty smooth line. Although it wasn’t the first time you heard that. 

“Thanks,” you nodded. Oh gods. This was going to be the longest dinner ever. He was just going to spit game at you all night and you just wanted to turn around and invite yourself to dinner with Sakura and her family as you slipped back into your seat because you were not about wait for Doug here to come around the table to pull out your chair because you were pretty sure he’d try to sneak a peek into your cleavage as he would try to too. The game was on and you were in no mood to be chased by Doug. 

Noah though, no he could chase you like the silver fox he was because he was just barely getting a few gray hairs on the sides of his head  and it made him all kinds of distinguished and made you all hot and bothered and you could already fantasize his head between your legs, with your thighs resting on his broad shoulders- your powerful thighs clamping around his ears as his tongue…

Oh, that’s right, Doug was talking to you. Damn it. 

“I’m sorry what was that?” You asked as you tried hard to refocus on Doug and what he was saying, thankfully the restaurant had gotten louder since Doug sat down directly across from you and started talking and it was kind of hard to hear him anyway. 

“I asked how you’re liking the Frozen Tundra.” He repeated. 

“Oh it’s wonderful. It’s gorgeous and the people are lovely, very kind and generous and welcoming.” You grinned politely as the waitress came over. 

“What can I get you to drink?” She asked you. 

“Anything sweet and fruity?” You asked hopefully. 

“Lethal too or just light?” She questioned. 

“Ooh, lethal.” You couldn’t help but giggle because you would need it to persevere Doug’s advances as Doug started to grin a little wolfishly. Ha! Like he had a chance of scoring with you tonight. 

“For sweet and fruity and lethal you have two choices, cloud berry punch or purple peach punch.” 

“Purple peach.” You ordered. 

“Half or full?” She asked. 

“What’s the difference?” You asked curiously. 

“A half is served in a tumbler. A full is served in a mason jar and has an order limit of three.” She answered. 

“Oh yeah, my kind of drink, a full please and thank you.” You ordered gleefully. 

“Do you want your usual Doug?” She asked moving onto him. 

“Actually could I get a glass of Wolf Eye?” He asked and you nearly snorted a laugh and covered it up with a cough. May the gods grant you patience to deal with this pretentious asshole. While Wolf Eye was a decent whiskey, it was only popular because celebrities thought it was awesome and the bottle was *couture*. Just like any other designer name brand. 

“Do you like whisky?” He asked. 

“I do.” You nodded. 

“Could I also get her a glass too?” He asked. 

“Sure.” She nodded before she got everyone else’s drink order. 

“Wolf Eye is one of the better whiskies.” You appraised. 

“Have you ever had it before?” He asked. 

“Yes I have. My sister Blossom is a whiskey geek/ whiskey snob, my sister Blossom’s husband is a whiskey geek/snob too and my own parents and my brother are all beer snobs while my baby sister Anya is a bartender and she gave me a shot of it once. Usually it’s too rich for my blood to order it though.” You confessed. Even though you had three bottles of it at home from your wealthier clients. 

“What about you? Is there any kind of alcohol you’re really into?” He asked.

“It doesn’t really compare to Wolf Eye.” You answered as you realized you probably looked bashful, when really, you were dreading being judged. 

Every guy- without fail who got you a glass of Wolf Eye were trying to show you how fancy and couture they were- thinking that because you were jewel orc- you somehow should have very refined, expensive tastes. When in reality, you didn’t. Honestly once those guys heard what you loved- they thought less of you. Or the guys who found out what you liked and weren’t pretentious assholes somehow felt that because you didn’t have “refined” tastes in wine or other booze, that that spilled over into your taste of men which couldn’t be farther from the truth. You were picky as hell when it came to men. 

Although if you were honest, you loved your clichés- the bubble gum pop music, sweet fruity wine and cocktails and peppermint mochas and sappy romance novels and romantic comedy movies and you would preferably have all of those at the same time while in the comfort of a bathtub with a bath bomb fizzing away. But that was a world away from this. 

“Oh don’t feel bad, you like what you like.” He reassured you but you laughed that laugh that said ‘oh you don’t know what you’re really asking’. 

“No I insist, I promise not to judge you based on your answer.” He vowed and you didn’t believe him one bit. 

“Ok. So, honestly, in my family- food wise, I’m the queen because I love to cook and I cook really well and my brand of hospitality is you are not allowed to leave my house hungry but drink wise, I’m like the black sheep of the family because I love flavored alcohol, the kind of liquor that’s low on the proof and mostly flavoring, so flavored moonshines and flavored rums and vodkas and especially liqueurs and things like that. The cheap ones that you just pour into some juice and it’s instantly a fruity cocktail. That’s my speed. Sweet and fruity.” You shrugged as the waitress came back and gave you your drinks as you graciously took the glass that had whiskey in it and sniffed it and swished it around the way your sisters always did before you took a tentative sip. 

Yup. It was whiskey. Could you tell the difference between a scotch, a whiskey or a bourbon? Nope. Could you tell the difference between a $20 bottle of whiskey or a $70 whiskey, hell to the nope. The only thing you noticed was if it burned or was smooth or not. You knew that all scotches were whiskeys but not all whiskeys were scotches and that was the extent of your knowledge. Honestly if this glass was full of peach whiskey you’d probably like it better. But you knew how to be a gracious recipient of a gift. And you had your manners to keep. 

“Very good.” You praised, pretending you knew what the fuck you were drinking as he took a sip and practically moaned and for some reason, that noise coming from him was making you want to gag and one look at Katie who frowned at him was nearly causing you to burst into laughter. Even she could smell his bullshit, which to you was hilarious and part of the reason you wanted her close. Having someone like a niece or a sister or the best ones - a mother or a grandmother, or someone close to whoever you were paired with tended to keep whoever it was- in line- and would keep them from asking inappropriate questions or delving into inappropriate topics of conversation. It was a strategy you learned to employ often in these circumstances. 

“So Greg told me that you’re divorced.” You put to him. 

“I am divorced and I have two kids, two boys, Doug Jr. who we just call Jr. and Kent, Jr is 5 and Kent is three.” He answered. 

“Aw, they must be adorable, where are they?” You asked. 

“They’re with their mom tonight.” He answered. 

“Oh, well I would have loved to meet them, I love kids, I also have two of my own, Xander and Skylar, but they’re a bit older, Xander is 9 and Skylar is 7.” You answered before you pulled out your phone and showed him as he showed you his kids. 

“And Greg said you have joint custody of your boys?” You asked. 

“Yup, they get to spend the week with their mom and the weekend with me.” He answered. “And their mother is about to remarry so the bitch won’t bleed me dry with alimony and child support for too much longer now.” He groused and you took a measured deep breath in to keep your face neutral as you heard Summer murmur into her drink. ‘Lucky woman’ and somehow you got the distinct impression that his ex-wife was lucky to have divorced him and to have gotten alimony and child support and just seeing Doug and after knowing him for a whole 2 seconds- you could agree with that sentiment. You could just sense that he was a narcissistic asshole. And your late husband had been one of those and there was no way in hell you were ever doing that again. 

“But I understand you don’t have that problem because you’re a widow. Obviously a young one.” He returned as you could tell he was trying to age you. 

“Yup, that’s true, my late husband Andrew was in an accident at work about two years ago, but I’m not that young. I’m 35.” You answered and he paused. Greg had told him early thirties, you were mid thirties. You looked great for mid thirties but that was practically middle aged and you only had what- another 5 years of child bearing age left in you? Not that long. But you were supposed to be a rich widow who worked in some kind of spa and had married into a rich family and drop dead gorgeous, he could work with that. 

“Wow you really good for your thirties. How long have you been dating since then?” He asked. 

“I haven’t really been dating much or for very long, just in the last couple of months actually. I wanted to give myself and the rest of my family time to grieve properly and not rush into anything that not only I wasn’t ready for but that my kids weren’t ready for and it wasn’t until a couple of months ago that they let me know that they were ok with me trying to date again because they are the most important people in my life and I’m really picky about who I let around my kids too. So I can understand why you didn’t want to bring your kids to meet me.” You answered as Greg was kicking himself for not bringing his kids because obviously you connected to kids and if his kids would behave long enough and well enough you could have bonded to his kids and made him a shoe in and this could have been a done deal already. 

“So, Greg told me that you work in the fishing industry.” You prompted him. 

“I do, I’m a sales executive for First Star, which ships all kinds of seafood all over the world.” He answered proudly. “And the pay is really good and there’s always sales incentives and I get bonuses often.” He grinned smugly as he fingered his heavy gold chain necklace around his neck and he put on way too much cologne. It was almost burning your nose and making your eyes water a little.  

“Wow, do you have a business card?” You nodded, pretending to be impressed before he very proudly pulled out his wallet and you could see from his billfold that he must have had at least a thousand dollars on him. He was flexing for your benefit and judging by his gold rings and gold banded tusks and just the general decked out nature of his attire. He was definitely showing off for you as he handed you a brand new business card. It was fancy but...not as fancy or as nice as yours. 

“Very nice. Remind me to call you before I leave so I can buy a case or two of crab and ship it home and have my mom put it in my deep freeze freezer.” You urged him. 

“Oh, you won’t have to buy them, I’ll happily gift you whatever you want.” He generously offered. 

“Aw, that’s very generous of you. Thank you.” You thanked him even though the way he said that you were pretty sure he had another "payment" in mind but this was polite company and Katie was right next to you and you didn't want to expose her to what you assumed was that particular side of her uncle just yet but if he exposed himself that was on him. 

“So being a sales rep does your income base itself on how good the fishermen’s catches are or is it pretty stable, like no matter what they catch, you’re bringing home a salary?” You questioned thoughtfully. 

“Oh it’s a salaried position and it’s all year long, unlike the fisherman who only run on the boats for a fishing season, like the different kinds of crab have their seasons and the different kinds of seafood all have their own seasons.” He answered. “Or even the pilots who only fly during the spring summer and fall, which is only like a three month window up here and have to live off of that all year long.” He answered as he cast a look past you to see Noah who was pretending to enjoy his own beer instead of eavesdropping. 

Oh this son of a bitch had to go for the low blow of putting others down to build himself up. Ok. Honestly you were grateful he was telling on himself like that. 

“So are we ready to order?” The waitress asked as she came over, after having gotten Noah’s order already and you were following along with the menu and you already decided that you wanted the same thing because it sounded amazing. 

“Yes can I have the King’s platter?” Doug ordered. 

“It’s a huge platter, we could share it.” Doug offered to you. 

“Oh, no thanks, can I just get the fisherman’s special with the seafood stew?” You requested sweetly. 

“Sure thing.” She nodded as she wrote that down and continued to get everyone’s meal. 

“So I understand you’re a masseuse?” He asked excitedly once the waitress left. 

“No. I’m a licensed massage therapist, LMT for short.” You gently corrected. 

“What’s the difference?” He frowned. 

“A masseuse uses “massage” as their cover for being a prostitute, which honestly if you’re going to be in the oldest profession, just be honest about it and don’t call it massage. Which, again, if you chose to do that,  I don’t judge, I have strippers as clients because they take self care to a whole new level and everything they get from me is a tax write off for them so it’s a win win. However, a licensed massage therapist actually went to massage school and has a license to practice massage just like a doctor has a license to practice medicine and we are held accountable to a board or in my case- to the state medical board just like any other nurse and doctor and an LMT never gives happy endings or has sex with clients in any way shape or form.” You answered with a proud smile. 

“Oh,” Doug nodded and even you could see he was trying to hide his disappointment. 

“So, are you able to make any kind of real money off of massage or is this just a hobby for you?” He asked and you were ready to dump this overpriced whiskey in his face, but that would be alcohol abuse and an insult to the whiskey itself. 

“Well massage has been a passion of mine since I was a kid, so you could call it a hobby that turned into a career. But I’m more interested in what constitutes as “real money” in your opinion.” You posed curiously. 

“Anything more than forty or fifty thousand a year.” He patronized. 

“I take it you make more than 50 thousand a year then.” You deduced as you overheard Noah whisper to his mother. ‘I barely make ‘real money’ then.’ 

“Oh I make a few times that. I make about two hundred thousand a year.” He bragged. 

“Yeah I can see you’re wearing most of it.” You appraised and Noah snorted his beer and nearly choked on it trying to cover up his laugh because your unimpressed tone was giving him life as you heard a hissed ‘yes’ from Noah. 

“You’re one of the lucky ones then. I make about the same. A little over 200 thousand a year actually.” You answered evenly like it was no big deal. 

“What? H-how?” Doug frowned in shock.

“Well I have four businesses, all four of them are solely in my name and I own all four outright and none of them have any debt while each of them have their own assets, so my massage business which makes me about a hundred- to a hundred and twenty five thousand dollars a year, my esthetician business which makes me another fifty to sixty thousand dollars a year and then the sales of my massage products, essential oils and esthetician products, skin care line, makeup, all that goods stuff to round it out with another thirty five to fifty thousand dollars a year and the fourth business is the shareholder for all three businesses and I only have to work about thirty to thirty five hours a week in total to do it too and I only work about 9 to 10 months a year.” You beamed proudly as Doug’s eyebrows practically went up into his hairline as you heard Noah murmur a ‘damn’ which you imagined was muffled because he must have said it into his fist behind you. 

“W-why?” Doug stuttered as he struggled to wrap his head around all that.  

“Well,  when my husband was alive, he made about a hundred and twenty five thousand dollars a year and when he died, I turned all four of those businesses which at the time were the side businesses I had to earn my own spending money into my full time career to replace his income when he died because you see I specialize in…” You began as you brought out your business card and listed everything off from the back and added to the additional certifications that weren’t on the card.  

“Not bad for a “hobby” huh?” You asked with a smug grin as you heard Noah practically whistle lowly behind you and clap ever so softly and you would have given anything for a mirror to see his face, hoping he was at least impressed. 

“Uh, nope, not bad at all.” Doug had to admit. 

“So if you got remarried and the man you married could provide you with his income that would either equal or surpass your own would you still continue to work or would you scale back? Retire?” Doug asked thoughtfully. 

“It depends.” You answered simply.  

“On?” Doug prodded. 

“It would depend on the circumstances and the person.” You specified. 

“Such as?” 

“Well, I’ve been very lucky in that I have the four thriving businesses and because I have a very good and very expansive client base where I live and I fill a niche that very few others can fill in my area and because I live just 20 to 30 minutes outside of few major cities because I’m centrally located in the country in between all of them and I work out of my own private space at my home and the home I work out of is my dream home, it’s a home that my late husband and myself designed together and it’s awesome and the only way I’m moving is if I find a home that’s even better than the one I have and that criteria is pretty extensive plus I’m very well supported and well known and have a reputation that I regularly bank on every year and speaking of support, I have my parents who live right next door and my in-laws live only 15 minutes away and all of them are very involved in my children’s lives. So honestly, I’m not gonna move unless I find circumstances even better than the ones I already have and the person I would be moving for can give me things that I don’t already have which is basically at this point- unconditional love, respect, recognition, dignity, sympathy, empathy, kindness, understanding and freedom to keep my independence that I already have so that if I so choose I could basically start my businesses over again in a new area.” You specified. 

“So...what is your criteria for a potential mate?” Doug asked, hoping that you would list off things that he could try to shoot for. 

“Well, whoever I choose to marry- he can’t drink to excess, he can’t do drugs, he can’t have a bad temper, he can not yell or scream at me or my children, he can’t be abusive in any way shape or form or I will kick him to the curb faster than lightning strikes but he doesn’t have to make as much as I do or make more than me or whatever. If he had a job that he was passionate about and he loved it as much as breathing which, for me, that’s what my career represents to me, I do what I do because I love it, it’s what I was put on this planet to do and I’m really good at it and to a degree, it’s a skill I can practice anywhere as long as I have a pool of clientele to pull from so there’s some flexibility there.” You mused and you saw Doug nod along with your train of thought so at least it was making sense to him. 

“But for me to give it all up for someone and be absolutely dependent on my partner for everything- probably isn’t going to happen because there is inherently a power dynamic that I’ve been on the losing side of in my past marriage. Because my husband had a great job with fantastic health insurance and other benefits and shouldered all the financial responsibility of the family which had its perks because that freed up my time to pursue what I wanted to and he could afford to send me to school to get all these licenses and certifications. But because he made all the money, he felt he had the right to demand whatever he wanted in return and he had a say so on how I spent the money he gave me to care for- as he put it- “his house” and “his vehicles” and such because he’s the one that paid for it all and he was a controlling narcissist. Now, was he all bad? No, he was a fantastic father and he was decent enough as a husband in that he didn’t beat me, didn’t drink to excess, didn’t smoke, didn’t gamble, didn’t do drugs, didn’t cheat on me and didn’t scream at me or cuss me out in front of the kids but I couldn’t get a credit card in my name without him knowing and he tracked me on my phone everywhere I went and if I wanted anything “extra” I had to “earn it”, like a child earns extra screen time for doing their chores kind of thing. It was all about a power dynamic and if I didn’t support him in everything he said, he got after me for not being “a good submissive wife” or “a team player”. And after 13 years of that, I’m done. I’ve had more than enough of that and I will be damned if I ever let that happen to me again. I’m not interested in that dynamic at all. No matter what side of it I find myself on.” You specified as Doug just stared at you, a bit guiltily as he was rather speechless and blushing profusely like you had just pulled his pants down and exposed him and you didn’t feel any guilt for it either and the look on Katie’s face told you that you hit the nail on the head and were preaching truth and her smile of adoration and awe was priceless.  

“I have clients that easily double, triple, quadruple even- my own salary because they’re doctors or surgeons or executives or whatever. But they’re the kind of men who feel emasculated when a woman they’re with earns anything because their income is what they base their own masculinity on which is a very dangerous and stupid thing to do in my opinion. And while these men may be really good at earning an income, that’s all they’re good at. Otherwise they’re shitty husbands and fathers. They feel that because they earn so much money that they don’t have to help out at all around their own homes. Heaven forbid they change poopy diapers, do any dishes or laundry or especially scrub a toilet and if they do any of those things, by the gods they will piss and moan and gripe and complain forever and feel “owed” that they did more than their “share”, which is bullshit. They would rather hire someone else to do any or all of that because they feel that’s beneath them as manly, masculine men and feel that a wife’s only job is to stay in their home, raise their kids and clean their house and look flawless while doing so and feel that the only support they need to give her is financial. Which, in my opinion is complete and utter fucking bullshit.”  You explained as you watched Doug’s frown get deeper and deeper the more you talked as you heard Noah hum in agreement to that sentiment. 

“So... you’re basically just looking for a Mr. Mom?” Doug asked and you could tell by his tone he was offended and incensed just saying those words. 

“To a degree, yes. But what I’m really looking for- is a partner who will view and treat me as an equal instead of a lesser or a supporting cast member while they’re the star of the show. Right now I do everything all by myself because I have to and I will continue to do so for as long as I need to because my children need me to be their everything. If I’m going to enter into any kind of romantic relationship, I would look for someone who’s willing to put in work. Someone who will happily and willingly pick up slack and support me as much as I support them. Someone who will work to gain not just my respect and admiration but my children’s respect and admiration as well and it doesn’t matter how much I like or even love a guy, if my kids are uncomfortable around him or just plain don’t like him. I’m not going to force the relationship onto them. Now there have been a couple of guys who my children really clicked with but I didn’t because they were either immature or had other issues and I’m pretty sure the only reason why my kids liked them is because these guys never told them ‘no’ and bought them whatever they asked for which is no way to raise children. There’s ways of telling them no and explaining your reasons why you’re telling them no without belittling them, hurting their feelings, implying they’re stupid or annoying for asking.” You explained as you heard Noah murmur an ‘Amen’ from behind you and instantly you saw all the hope and lust in Doug’s eyes die because he realized that this wasn’t going to work out for him just as dinner came. 

Conversation dissolved into idle chit chat while he practically wolfed his food down as quickly as he could and drank his whiskey and excused himself and quickly paid the waitress for his meal and only his meal and begrudgingly- your wolf eye whiskey too, saying he had work to do at home and you were so grateful when he left and so relieved when you peeked over your shoulder to see Noah still there, finishing up his dinner as Katie got up to go to the bathroom, leaving you alone at the end of the table as Sakura and Summer went to the bathroom too. 

“Do you like whiskey?” You asked him hopefully as you leaned backward in your chair towards him. 

“Yeah,” he confirmed. 

“You ok drinking after me?” You put to him. 

“Yup.” He nodded before you took your glass of Wolf Eye and put in on his table. 

“The whiskey’s good, I just can’t enjoy it knowing a pretentious asshole bought it for me, but I don’t think you’ll have that issue enjoying it yourself. Enjoy.” You beamed at him which got him to laugh. 

“Cheers.” He offered before you got your own drink and clinked it with his. 

“Cheers.” You mirrored. Even though dinner didn’t go as planned, you got to share a drink with Noah and that was more than you hoped for before Sakura and Summer came back. 

“Nana, I forgot my bow.” Sakura realized as she reached up to find that the bow she had been wearing in her hair was gone. 

“I can go back to the bathroom and help you look for it.” You happily offered before she took your hand and led you back to the bathroom as you grabbed your purse too. 

“Are you going to date Mr. Kizzo?” She asked you as you went into each stall, looking for her bow. 

“No, absolutely not, he is not the man for me.” You shook your head adamantly. 

“Oh good, his boys are mean.” She pouted. 

“Have they been mean to you?” You asked as your protective urges surged again. 

“They play really rough and they knocked me down and they didn’t even say sorry!” She complained and you gasped in horror. 

“No! How rude! Well if we ever go anywhere together and they’re there, point them out to me and I’ll protect you.” You insisted before you found her bow sitting on top of the toilet paper dispenser in the last stall before you quickly sprayed some sanitizer on it before you had her take a seat in one of the chairs in the bathroom so you could brush her hair and get it looking gorgeous again because you kept a little brush in your purse. 

“My Daddy likes you.” She blurted as you brushed her hair out. 

“Aw, I like your Daddy too, he’s a really good guy, he’s sweet and caring and protective and I can tell he loves you a lot and he works really hard to take care of you.” You praised as you smiled happily at her in the mirror. 

“He cries a lot.” She revealed. 

“Well I cry a lot too,” you nodded. 

“He cries because he misses my mama,” she added.

“Well, I can understand that because your Daddy and I both lost our marriage mates and we miss them sometimes and the happier we were with them and the more we loved them, the more we miss them and the more it hurts to lose them. Do you cry a lot too because you miss your mama?” You asked gently as she nodded. 

“I’m so sorry you lost your mama sweetie, I can’t imagine how much that must hurt.” You sympathized with her before she got out of the chair and reached her arms up before you readily picked her up and held her tight as she started crying before you took the seat in the chair and just held her as she cried on your shoulder and you just held her and rocked her gently and comforted her before Nana came into the bathroom. 

“What happened?” Nana asked. 

“I was brushing her hair and she told me her daddy cries because he misses her mama and I completely sympathize.” You told her as you did your best to keep your composure but you were failing spectacularly because you were an empath, her pain felt like your own as Summer pulled up another chair from the nursing mother’s area as she shot Noah a quick text just as Taylor came in looking for you and seeing how Sakura was crying in your arms, she instantly knew what was going on. 

“Noah and Anarra, or ‘Neena’ as she was better known as- were basically Frozen Tundra’s sweethearts. Neena still is greatly missed, she took care of a lot of the older ones whose kids have moved away or are on the coast making their money on the fishing vessels and when she got sick, everyone rallied around her but...by the time she started showing signs she was sick- it was too late. None of us have been the same since she passed away. Noah puts on a pretty strong face but he’s probably the most fragile.” Nana revealed as you nodded in understanding as Taylor nodded along too. 

Taylor had told you about “Neena” because Taylor and Neena were best friends and you didn’t put it together until just now that Anarra and Neena were one and the same which would explain why you and her had gotten so close so quickly because you had bonded over your losses as Sakura’s cries turned into whimpers and sniffles as you just held her and pet her head and her hair and held her and rocked her as she curled up in your lap and happily soaked up all your affections as you kissed the crown of her head affectionately as she clung to you as Nana and Taylor filled you in on the situation. 

“Neena had brain cancer. One day she was fine, the next, she had such strange symptoms and doctors around here are rare and expensive and by the time we found it, it was too late, there wasn’t anything we could do. She barely had enough time to make some videos for Sakura. She died holding her.” Taylor said as she nodded towards Sakura in your arms as you wrapped your arms tighter around Sakura as your heart effectively broke in your chest. 

“Her last words were how much she loved her and Noah.” Nena added as you passed around your thing of tissues because you were crying your makeup off. 

“My husband’s last words to me were a ‘honey do’ list, which was- ‘do the dishes, do the laundry, clean the bathroom and to brush my damn cats’ who he hated and I’m so grateful they outlived him, I know that sounds awful but they love me more than he ever did and he wasn’t dead a week before I went to the local shelter and adopted a dog for each member of my family and another cat so that there’s three cats and three dogs and we were renting from his parents at the time and before it was only because I bore them their only grandchildren that I got the ‘privilege’ of having the two cats before. And they didn’t dare argue with a new angry widow about ‘protection’ dogs for their only grandkids and didn’t want me moving away into a new place just to get them animals while we waited for our house to be built.” You revealed. 

“Did he at least have life insurance?” Nana asked which made you nod emphatically. 

“Yeah Andy wasn’t an idiot or heartless, he had a life insurance policy through work and a private one as well and because it was an accidental death at work, it paid out even more and his parents had a life insurance policy on him too that they handed over to me because they had the good sense to have life insurance policies on me and him so that if anything ever happened to the both of us, they could raise our kids comfortably and at the time, I was working for another outfit and even I had my own life insurance policy on him so we’re all set, the house is paid off, all debt is paid off, all the vehicles are paid off, I own everything outright. Other than utilities and of course food and insurance, which I can easily take care of myself, we’re ok.” You answered. 

“Did Neena have any kind of life insurance?” You asked and Taylor and Nana both shook their heads no. 

“No, Noah barely had enough money at the time to cover the funeral. When she died in the fall, at least he didn’t have to work and could stay home with Sakura and he already knew how to take care of himself and her because Neena was always caring for others, which he was very proud of her for doing and he supported that. He was always helping her to help others because so many ice orc men have moved away chasing “better lives” anywhere other than here and ice orc women are left to either do the same or stay behind and have to deal with the others who come up here, either looking for gold or fish or lumber or other resources and it used to be every summer solstice that all the tribes would get together and alliances were maintained and marriages made but all the young people are rejecting those practices because they feel they don’t have a place in the modern world. Our ways are dying, our languages are dying and Neena was one of the few women who embraced the old ways and was teaching all the kids the native languages. And when she died, a lot of the same older ones reached out to Noah and helped him with what they could and unfortunately after Neena died, some of the older ones she took care of followed, but they left Sakura everything because Neena was like a daughter to them and because she took care of them, all they could do is leave her what they could leave behind and when Neena died, that left Sakura as heir in her mother’s place, but she’s a child. She’s had so many men come back to claim what they felt was their birthright, which is mostly land at this point but thankfully the courts upheld Sakura’s rights as heir since their parent’s had the good sense to get it writing with the local lawyer who fights for the clan’s rights.” Nana explained. 

“That’s...that’s a coincidence, I know exactly how that feels.” You nodded. 

“How?” Nana asked as she tilted her head. 

“When Andy died, I was really close to several older clients as well, I got to work on them when they were at retirement age and came into my work and when their health declined, I stayed with them because they were close friends and I wanted their last moments to be in peace and as pain free as possible. They didn’t have any family to take care of them either and I endeared myself to them enough so that when I lost Andy, they all individually entailed everything they had to me too because I was their favorite person and they wanted to make sure I wouldn’t financially suffer because of my husband dying. Within six months of losing Andy, I lost almost all of them within a span of only three months. So the nine months that followed Andy’s death were just...the worst. But then to meet with dozens of lawyers and get check after check, after check, and deeds and titles and property and vehicles, I was so...numb. It didn’t mean anything to me, but man did I sure learn a lot very quickly about how to handle my newfound fortune. But the worst of it was the vultures circling because it felt like the minute I inherited all that money and property myself, suddenly every vulture of a guy somehow found me and circled me like wolves. Cause I was this “hot young desperate lonely widow” who didn’t know how to handle that much fortune and here were all these ‘knights in shining armor’ coming to “help me out” and “be there for me”. It was ridiculous, as if I couldn’t see right through them and what made it even worse was the way Andy died at work, it was a freak accident that killed not just him but five others. So the company he worked for sued the company who built the crystal grower because this was a known and very well documented issue. And the company used my picture because I was ‘the prettiest of the widows’ in the news and in the courts and they won and I got the lion’s share of the settlement because I was the one who was the public face of it and because I was the public face of it, I had organization after organization reach out to me to try to help me out too and by that point I had 5 very good lawyers and a private investigator in my pocket who were more than eager to be at my disposal. So I know exactly what it’s like to be an unwitting heiress. It’s really, really hard, thank the gods my in-laws are so great with money because they’ve been helping me structure it and organize it and keep it all and make it work for me.” You revealed lowly. 

“Could you teach Noah and Sakura any of those lessons?” Nana asked hopefully. 

“I would be more than happy to, I feel I need to at this point.” You admitted. 

“Because no one else around here knows what to do or how to help. Even now Noah’s dad Ukluk works as guide at Gold Horn and pilots his own bush plane for the hunters but it doesn’t pay as well as others, Noah’s brother Nago works for the postal service but he and his family are in June Neau. And now even Neena’s parents are no spring chickens. I know they would really appreciate it if they knew you could protect Sakura and Noah with what you know.” Nana insisted. 

“Consider it done,” you agreed. 

“So are you ever gonna get married again?” Sakura finally spoke up. 

“I would like to.” You answered honestly. 

“What are you looking for?” She asked. 

“I just want to be with someone who makes me happy and loves me for me and loves my kids as their own too who won’t hurt us but will protect us.” You answered. 

“What if they already have kids?” She asked. 

“Then I would hope that their kids would like me too, I do love being a mom, it’s the best job on the planet in my opinion and if those kids would let me love them as much as I love my own- even better and if my kids and those kids could get along, oh man, I’d be so so so happy. You see it doesn’t matter he’s rich or poor or whatever, money doesn’t matter to me. Who and what kind of person they are and how they treat others- that’s all that matters to me.” 

“And if they happen to be well endowed enough so that when...” Taylor double clicked her teeth. “Happens, you can’t walk straight after...” She hinted which made Nana raspberry her laugh. 

“That’s a bonus.” You readily agreed which made you start to laugh through your tears which made them do the same. 

“Well Noah’s you know,” Taylor implied as she clicked her teeth and winked which got you and Nana to start busting out laughing. 

“He’s what aunt Tay-tay?” Sakura asked as she turned to look at Taylor.

“Handsome, he’s very handsome.” You quickly supplied which earned you a solemn nod and an appreciate grin from Nana. 

“Ok, no more tears, let’s get cleaned up.” Nana insisted which prompted you to gently get Sakura off your lap so you could rinse the rest of your makeup off in the sink before all four of you left the bathroom to see Noah looking particularly worried. 

“Everything ok Pumpkin?” He asked his daughter. 

“Yup, we were telling Paradise about Mama.” Sakura told him. Every trace of sadness now gone as a happy smile plastered itself on her face. 

“And she brushed my hair and braided my hair and held me and comforted me and everything, can she come over to our house to watch me?” She asked. 

“If she wants to.” Noah answered. 

“I would love to, just give me the address, I’ll be there any day you need me there, free of charge.” You immediately offered. 

“Work an extra long day tomorrow Daddy, I want to watch my movies with her.” Sakura insisted which got Nana to snicker a laugh. 

“Uh,” Noah stuttered. 

“I can do tomorrow.” You immediately agreed. 

“You could have Taylor and her kids come too, because usually Taylor watches her on Tuesdays.” Nana added. 

“We’d love to.” Taylor immediately agreed as well. 

“So it’s a date. What time should I be over?” 

“He leaves early, like six in the morning.” Nana informed you. 

“Won’t be a problem. I’ll be there at like 5:30 then.” You insisted. 

“I won’t be there that early, I’m going to sleep in until a decent hour and come by later but we’ll drive by and show you where Noah lives and you could walk there if you wanted to because he’s like a ten minute walk away, five if you run because normally, she spends the night so that I don’t have to get up that early.” Taylor added. 

“But my body is still on Great Lakes Time Zone so 5:30 am here is only 8:30 am to me which is a normal time for me to wake up. So it’s not a problem at all.” You reassured Nana and Noah. 

“Ok, thank you, very much.” Noah nodded as he avoided Nana’s smug grin that screamed ‘I told you so’. 

“Well good night then, sweet dreams guys, I’ll see you in the morning.” You offered as Taylor tugged on your arm as Katie peeked her head back into the restaurant and gestured for you and her mom to hurry up. 

“What about my bill?” You asked her. 

“He got it.” Taylor answered as he gestured to Noah. 

“Aw, thank you for dinner!” You thanked him as she had to take your hand and pull you out of the restaurant.

“I really love Paradise.” Sakura said dreamily as she watched you go. 

“Well she is lovely.” Noah admitted as he got his box of leftovers and got out of the booth. 

“She likes you back, she told me so.” Sakura informed her Dad as she took his hand in one of hers and continued to hold your business card like a beloved photograph. 

“Oh yeah?” Noah returned, pleasantly surprised to hear that. 

“And she’s an heiress like me and she promised that she would teach me what she knows about it.” Sakura revealed. 

“Really?” Noah turned to look at his mom to either confirm or deny that. 

“Oh yeah, she knows how to deal with not just foxes but wolves and vultures too. The gods sent us the perfect person to help. And I have a feeling she won’t leave until everything is well taken care of and we will be hearing from her and seeing her very often from now on.” Nana predicted. 

“How?” Noah asked. 

“Just wait and see.” Nana simply grinned. 

#modern orc love story #modern orc #Jewel of the North #Jewel of the North Part 2 #ice orcs #jewel orcs #orc #orc love story #orc romance #orc reader insert #Female reader #female reader male monster #orc boyfriend #exophilia #exo #monster boyfriend

[2bstudioblog]

Konami’s wheels are turning... slowly

Lot’s of interesting news heading to our heads this Monday from what I heard from Yong Yea’s video about Konami wanting to outsource their IP’s to 3rd parties.

Obviously, Akira Yamaoka has kinda given away a strong hint that he’s working on a project with Bloober which in this case would be the long awaited SH remake or the direction they had with PT before it got cancelled. Akira Yamaoka also decided that (too late) he wanted to amend the article from his interview and release it later down the line. It’s very unusual that these news happen, but we all know Yamaoka is most famous for his music in Silent Hill.

Which brings me to a funny story about my own involvement of a Silent Hill game. I mentioned this on a podcast that I was part of 2 Konami-owned IP’s that went into another direction and killing off their franchises which have been like dead bodies in a morgue for the last 7 years.

I got the request to write industrial-metal music for a Silent Hill (of course at this time I only knew the IP and their most famous version of the game has been Silent Hill 2.) game. First I was of course very excited to be part of the series, but I jumped to early until I found out it was a Pachinko-machine (A japanese style pinball-game mixed with a touch-screen and a one-armed bandit and a slot-machine in one.), and my heart sank a little. I think I produced 4-5 cues for the machine, but I’m glad that nobody will be able to hear my “mediocre” masterpieces because all you would hear are metal-balls falling into a tray. But the thing about this machine, it had taken cut-scenes from Silent Hill 2, upscaled or even re-mastered/remade the graphics which would have looked great if it was its own game. But it was the same thing they’ve done with all their other IPs when those transfer over to this kind of entertainment. All what was left of it, Jim Sterling turned the game into a Meme and all I can hear is the -”HIT THE LEVER!” and the effects overpowering the music behind it. But I’m glad it didn’t go further then that. Technically here, Silent Hill(s) died with the arrival of the pachinko-slot machine and the series have tried to re-establish itself ever since.

Another game I was a part of was a Castlevania (Dracula in Japan) themed Pachinko-slot machine, with the revolutionary phrase “Erotic Violence” in it’s PR material and video-commercial. I mean, they took the music production part of this machine very seriously because I wasn’t aware of the “EV” part. I just thought it would be a machine praising the history of Castlevania. I was assigned to re-write and re-orchestrate a few songs from Neo-classical Metal music into more Progressive Metal style, and I was super-proud of this one because they had the sheet-music already available for me. All I had to do was re-arrange some parts for a string-quartet (1 cello, 2 violins and 1 viola) and I believe it was engineered and recorded by famed engineer Kenji Nakai who was under and working with famed engineer Mr Bruce Swedien (Michael Jackson, Quincy Jones).

From that moment me and Mr. Nakai stroke a friendship because he has a passion for Progressive Metal and he asked me if I could send more songs his way. From this we both have been incredibly busy on both of our ends, but I hope we can be able to work on something in the future. I have a feeling that might be soon.

So a long story short, Konami spent a lot of money for recording, they approved everything and we were done. But when it turned out to be a pachinko-machine and not a world-wide videogame release, I just had to facepalm myself, asking the question why they keep doing so many poor decisions. Why leaving all those fans out in the cold and really start making Castlevania mean something. This void of “lots of fancy things, but no substance” started right here...

Konami are turning their wheels a little bit too late and too slow until now. After they got rid of Hideo Kojima (Who I believe was thinking of the international-market rather than the domestic one), Konami had only one thing on their minds: Making money quick and domestically. No more wasted time on translations, straight for the gambling crowd. No need to write interesting stories. No need to introduce kids to this adult material. They wanted to earn it back as fast as possible. But we all see their decisions put them on the map as a “black-company”, who mistreat their staff, shaming them out in the office for overstaying their lunch-breaks. Moving staff from one business to another, from a programmer to a Konami-fitness Center-staff, or as a toilet-cleaner at a Konami-owned pachinko-slot gambling hall. The management of the company has been horrendous for the full-time employee. I’m glad I was not part of these later projects and only wrote stuff for them for Pro Evolution Soccer series from 2009-2012. (My work on 2010-2012 was unfortunately un-credited work. :(

Metal Gear Solid V - The Phantom Pain In My Ass

When the playable teaser called Metal Gear Solid - Ground Zeroes, came out on the PS3 and later on the PS4, it was an introduction for the new graphics engine designed by Hideo Kojima’s team, simply called The FOX-Engine. Basically this “game” was more of a demo rather than a full-product. But it looked great and with a fantastic score by Akihiro Honda, Ludvig Forssell and Harry Gregson-Williams, it had everything going for it to become something really awesome. It became a standard approach from Hideo Kojima now to produce “Playable Teasers” to show a great concept while offering a 3-4 hour short campaign, showing off the engine’s graphical capabilities.

Still, the story was under progress and I knew early on that Hideo Kojima really didn’t want to do it after he always felt that Metal Gear Solid 4 was final. But here is the curse of the die-hard fans, and I’m sorry to say it. No matter how many Iron Man movies Marvel crams out, at the 3rd movie, I started to feel “This does not feel like Iron Man anymore”. But that’s what the fans wanted and is a standard in the movie industry. Always produce a trilogy. Indiana Jones has always been the 3 movies from 1981-1989. The 4th one doesn’t really need to be called Indiana Jones at all. It was there I felt, just like with Metal Gear Solid V, they were beating a DEAD RACE HORSE.

I can’t deny the talents on display for Metal Gear Solid - Ground Zeroes. It laid down some really cool foundations for the gameplay, but I still believe the better game-series for stealth was beaten by the likes of Splinter Cell and most recently Thief. Stealth in MGS has always felt a little bit childish and I only really enjoyed MGS 1, MGS 2, tried to play MGS 3 (still have it one my Vita!) and will try to finish it. MGS 3 has felt like the TRUE Zeroes experience, with the inception of the story and lore behind the cloning of Big Boss. MGS 4 finally brought it all to a great finale and I felt, there is NOTHING more to tell. MGS 1, 2 and 4 is the Trilogy, MGS 3 serves as the Prequel and I see nothing wrong with that.

Mission - Erase Kojima’s Legacy

The making of MGS V - The Phantom Pain is kinda true to it’s title. Can you feel the nostalgia? Or are we just imagining the sensation of a Metal Gear Solid game past it’s prime? The missing link? The missing limb? And with the worlds biggest cop-out  of everything that had to do with story was completely missing.

Each mission is playing out every time the same, with an intro to a TV-show, giving away massive spoilers to who would appear in the mission, you do your thing (not so much of story, just a “go-here, do that approach, sneak back out, head to pick-up) rinse and repeat. I wonder how much of this was Kojima’s fault? I don’t think he was up to it. I’m sure he fought for more story but the big heads didn’t want to listen to what makes a MGS game a MGS game. The new management had now already played the hand to disown the man who put Konami on the map for games since the mid 80s.

The game is no longer marketed like before. The tagline “A Hideo Kojima Game” no longer exists and will never be part of Konami’s mission of erasing the person who gave them their fame and the recognition that a game carrying the name Konami was a brand of quality for any gamer out there. Me myself, personally only played PES because of the stellar animations, but its recently since 2012, I stopped playing the series. FIFA had already cheapened itself, PES likewise. Updating the graphics, but the same old animations have been recycled back to the PES3 days. Maybe there’s been an update in the collision engine, but otherwise everything stayed the same, with the huge amount of data collected from previous years of motion-capture, why do it all over when its all about the brand recognition? Saving money on processes wherever possible. Simple Math. And here it is. MGS V is not a MGS game.

We already knew it was going to be a massive budget behind the game of MGS V. But what can Konami do to save money on MGS V? They already have the Fox Engine running from Ground Zeroes. The assets for “Snake” (I’ll let you know why I put quotation-marks around it) and standard models will extend somewhat. Oh, yes, let’s save money on a character that doesn’t speak (Quiet), over-sexualize the character to start a fan-base of people who just dig character design, animated a sexy “shower” routine for the character for boys to go nuts over. What about voice? Let’s not really try to sync the voices to the mouths. Let’s have the guy from “24″ record his performances onto tape-logs. Kiefer Sutherland would have been a good “Snake”, but I understand now that you are not “SNAKE”. The game explains pretty soon at the end that you are just a Medic and all the tapes you’ve been listening to is the original Big Boss. You never where the character of Snake. Even though this all could have been handled better, Konami wanted to save money wherever possible. We also knew David Hayter was not asked or put forward to return as “The Voice of Snake”. But in this case I start to wonder myself, David Hayter might have dodged the biggest bullet in the most expensive, commercial and very controversial game of all time once Konami decided to kill everything that built up their reputation.

Even during production Kojima managed to start working on PT. The game Konami “silenced” after it was released on the PS-store. Guillermo Del Toro and his friendship with Hideo Kojima’s dream-game was put on ice. All because Kojima was about to get frozen out of the company that was according to Konami “Wasting too much bloody money”. I might get blacklisted for saying this, but once the new management started to mess with the other IPs for just domestic/gambling market, that’s where everything went sideways. Konami wasn’t treating their heritage with respect.

It took them 7 years to realize their mistake! And now, for those who wants to be part of 3rd party developers who would get a crack at a new Castlevania, a new Metal Gear Solid (remake I hope), Konami has realized that the only way they will survive (Yeah, Metal Gear Solid Survive killed them HARD) is to let other’s take over. Maybe my dream of scoring a Metal Gear Solid game would be somewhat more possible now rather than working in the confined space of limitations posed by the higher ups at Konami. Let 3rd party developers breathe life into the IPs because I know there are smarter ways to tell a story and I would gladly like to see the return of David Hayter in the seat, without having to deal with the blank-face approach that he was faced with every time he had to audition for Snake in MGS 2, 3 and 4! David Hayter is a fantastic writer, actor and voice-actor. He has the chops and I think we are all ready for either a re-make or a better follow up to MGS 2 and the time between that one and MGS 4.

#Metal Gear Solid V #the phantom pain #Konami #Hideo Kojima #Akira Yamaoka #Yong Yea #Castlevania #Pachinko #Silent Hill #PT #Ground Zeroes #harry gregson williams #ludvig forssell #3rd Party #Bloober team #remake #Metal Gear Solid Remake

[crusherthedoctor]

The Lutrudis Hadeer Design Concept Masterpost

Every now and then, I get the occasional question about my very own Lutrudis, which I'm always gladly willing to answer. Yet for all the times I've answered such questions, it seems some folks are still a bit left in the dark as to how Trudy came to be. So I figured I could make one big post all about the creation process. Maybe not every single detail per say, but at least everything that I think is worth mentioning in a post of this sort.

I'm aware that fellow pal @benignmilitancy​ covered this subject herself recently, but I might as well do my part to back up what she said.

1. When did Lutrudis become an idea?

The basic idea for Lutrudis - and indeed, the setting of Viridonia and Beyond the Stars itself as a story - was thought up as early as 2014. When I say basic idea however, I really do mean it, as aside from the general concept of her being the latest Friend of the Week helping Sonic and Co fight evil on her home island, very little else about Trudy was set up, including her name and species. While some aspects of her personality were already set in stone by that point, I focused on the design first when I decided to go ahead and make her and Beyond the Stars a real thing. The idea being to use what personality traits I had in mind to create a mental image, then use that mental image to help figure out the rest of her traits, as a design can often help out with working out a personality.

So basically, I scratched my back, so that I could scratch it again. Made sense to me.

2. Why a horse? Is it because friendship is magic?

Maybe...

Actually, I wanted a species that hadn't been used before, at least in the games, its continuity being the one Beyond the Stars takes place in. But at the same time, I also wanted to go with a fairly mundane species rather than anything rare, extinct, or extravagant, as I felt that the latter would undermine the story arc that I had in mind for this particular character. Compared to the likes of Sonic, Shadow, or Blaze, Lutrudis is more akin to Amy in the sense that she's ordinary by comparison, despite her living conditions and the magical brand of ammo she eventually decides to use. To have the arc of a “normal” lady becoming a hero in her own right be represented by a T-rex or a dragon wouldn't really land the same impact in the context of this universe.

Already, I was quickly warming up to making her a horse because of this. But then I realised that many of Trudy's personality traits - her loyalty, her passion, her elegance - were ALSO commonly attributed to horses in real life. And if you're not aware, I'm a big fan of letting Sonic and Co have character tics representative of their species, and a horse in particular had plenty of potential to have some funny and cute moments by letting their horsiness show itself. This additional thought helped make my decision on the matter final.

...Well, that and I wanted Trudy to have longer hair than the average Sonic female due to how, IMO, short hair wouldn't work as well for her. Obviously horses have manes, so that made it easier to get away with than it would have if she were a hedgehog, though it also helps that Trudy's hair is never any more detailed than the rest of her, meaning her hair actually looks like her own rather than her wearing an overly detailed wig to appease a certain disgraced comic writer, one of whom I will probably have the entirety of Beyond the Stars uploaded by the time he actually does something with his echidna libido-fueled comic at this rate... Looking forward to it in 2030.

As for what kind of horse she is, I decided to go with an English Thoroughbred, if only to further justify Trudy's English accent, which is nonetheless fairly mild compared to everyone else in Viridonia, who sound as though they jumped out of a 90's Rareware title.

3. “THIS IS WHO I AM... But who am I?”

Believe it or not, but even by 2016, I still hadn't decided on what to call my little pony. I had already figured that whatever I was going to call her, it would abide by the same naming convention as Amy Rose, Miles Prower, and Ivo Robotnik, to help further add to the aforementioned notion that she's an ordinary lady who wasn't born with any superpowers. That, and because “___ the Horse” doesn't have the same ring to it as “___ the Hedgehog” or “___ the Echidna”.

So what did I do?

I looked up a list of female names for baby girls. Duh.

Well, it worked out, because I stumbled across “Lutrudis”, which was German for “strength of the village”. The more I repeated it in my head, the more it appealed to me. Sometimes, you can have various names that mean the same thing, yet one in particular will just have that perfect sound to it. That was me with this name. This horse being named Lutrudis felt right to me, even if I perfectly understood that it was perhaps a bit more exotic than your usual Sonic anthro name.

Not that it mattered too much, since I was quick to think of “Trudy” as a nickname for her, since in addition to being less of a mouthful, that name - also German in origin - had a similar meaning, “universal strength”. Fit her character and arc just as well.

So that was the first name sorted, but what about the surname? Well, when looking at a selection of appropriate words, I stumbled on “Hadeer”, and while the Arabic meaning of the name is slightly unclear - some sources say “adventurous”, others say “sound of the water falls” - I felt that the meanings associated with it were all equally appropriate regardless. Then I combined it with the first name, said the full name over and over again in my head, and thought “Yeah... this sounds correct.”

I realise the irony of a part-German, part-Arabic name being associated with an English character, but considering this is the same universe where a man who is presumably not Polish is given a Polish term for a name (Robotnik), I think we can let it slide.

4. “You guys know what EDS is, right?”

It's no secret that another friend of mine, @greenyvertekins​, has Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, which has a lot of unfortunate complications to it, but in laymen's terms basically means your body is more fragile than that of the average person's. This condition is rather rare, so much so that a majority of people have never heard of it. Sure enough, I was one of those people, until I became friends with Verte.

After hearing Verte talk about her EDS and what she's had to go through, along with doing my own research on the condition, not only was I considerably more informed on it, but I also felt very sympathetic to not only my friend, but everyone else who has had to experience it, particularly with how ignorant other people continue to react to it due to lack of public awareness. It made me want to do something in dedication, and in the process, a certain pony eventually crossed my mind.

This wasn't done for the sake of appeasing blue checkmarks on Twitter. I genuinely wanted to help raise awareness of EDS however I could, and I considered that perhaps its inclusion in my story would help do that, so long as it didn't sacrifice everything else about the story or forget that it was still a Sonic the Hedgehog story. Yes, it's a fanfic, and thus not as well known as a Hollywood blockbuster or a bestselling novel, but if even a few people were to end up learning about EDS through Lutrudis, I would be happy.

However, I was well aware that the idea of a Sonic character having EDS might be seen as a bit jarring, and if done badly, could potentially be accidentally insulting. So I made sure to consult Verte about it, saying that I would only go through with it if she was comfortable with me doing so, and made it very clear that I would try to make its representation as tasteful and as faithful as I can, despite the inherent nature of the Sonic universe that Trudy is part of.

By the way, horses in real life can fall victim to very similar disorders, so that was yet another reason why I went with that choice.

5. “Hey Benign, I'm shite at art, please help.”

I can't remember the exact conversation that led to it, but after I talked to @benignmilitancy​ about Lutrudis, she offered to bring the character's design to life through her mad art skillz. Initially I was hesitant to take up the offer, since I felt guilty about having to rely on someone else to show people what my own character looks like, but I was giddily honored by the offer and decided to agree as long as she was willing. Luckily for her, she wasn't working with a blank canvas so to speak, as I had a relatively complete image in my mind regarding what Trudy would look like, having already reasoned to myself why this or that would apply.

When putting my vision into words to Benign, I mentioned that...

- Since Trudy is the same age as Rouge, logically that should mean she's given a similar mature build as the latter, as opposed to the pipe limbs you see with the other female characters. Since Trudy spends a lot of time with Amy and Cream and has a lot of motherly interactions with the latter in particular, it helps signify that she's older than them.

- Being a horse, she would have two slits for nostrils rather than the usual dot nose that most characters have. Similarly, though you don't see them most of the time anyway, her feet are grey hooves, but they abide by the usual Sonic-style feet rather than being more realistic ala Clove's hooves, if only because the latter didn't look right for this character IMO.

- To add to her gentle warmth, her eyes would be a honey shade of brown. Just like how Cream has brown eyes. Again, it's like poetry, they sort of, they rhyme. Every stanza kinda rhymes with the last one. *shrug* Hopefully it'll work.

- Since EDS tends to apply several subtle physical traits to those who have it, at least some of them should logically apply to Trudy as well. Those with EDS often have a bluish-grey tint to their sclera, and they also tend to have paler skin than most, so Trudy would have those qualities too.

- To emphasize her love for Mother Nature and all its amazing sights, and also to contrast with Amy and Cream's colour schemes, Trudy herself would be green, albeit a more gentler green rather than the brighter tones of Vector and Jet, while her clothes would be blue, with slightly different shades depending on the clothing to prevent her from looking like a drab curtain. After a few initial sketches, Benign eventually suggested that some of her clothing could be changed to brown to balance out her overall colour scheme, as well as to further add to the subtle nature motif by having brown (trees) go along with blue (water) and green (grass). Needless to say, I wholeheartedly approved of this idea, and decided that the best placement for the brown sections would be for her leggings and glove cuffs.

- Speaking of, as a nod to her equine status, she would wear leggings that could pass off as Equestrian jodhpurs. (Not that she has an aversion to wearing skirts or dresses, since she's girly and tomboyish in pretty much equal measures, compared to how Sonic females usually lean towards one or the other.)

- People with EDS are unable to wear heels since they can hurt their feet, so heels were out of the equation for this little horsie. But I also figured that regular shoes or sandals wouldn't mesh well with the rest of Trudy's clothing, so I went with boots that were flat at the heels. They can allude to her adventurous streak AND allude to how there's a lady willing to kick ass behind that quiet, mellow, introverted demeanour. Plus, much like how being stomped by a real horse's hoof would be very painful to put it mildly, so too would being stomped by this horse's boot.

- Seeing how Trudy's arms have permanent scars on them - permanent scars being another common effect of EDS - she would wear elbow-length gloves over them, since she wouldn't be comfortable with showing them publicly. Note however that she would still wear long gloves even if she didn't have those scars, since they genuinely happen to appeal to her fashion tastes as well. Covering the scars up is just a bonus. And since long gloves are often associated with royalty and high class, they're also suiting for a lady who lives in a fancy castle (despite not being royalty).

- Her hair is kept in a big bouncy ponytail, not unlike Coco Bandicoot or Shantae, since it's both cute and tomboyish... that and because the visual pun of a horse with a ponytail was too good to resist, let alone it humorously mirroring the general shape of her actual tail.

- To contrast with Sonic's spiky quills, a lot of Trudy's design is emphasized to have a round quality, such as her tail, her ponytail, and her sloped ears. To add to this design philosophy, she would wear a headscarf similar to Wave's. Me and Benign contemplated on whether Trudy's muzzle should be more blocky like that of a real horse, before we agreed that the softer muzzle fit both the round aesthetic and her general character better.

- Trudy has trouble breathing in colder temperatures, and she also has a sensitive nose that reacts strongly to heavy scents. As such, she would have a bandanna that she could cover over her mouth and nose to help out with either of those things whenever the situation called for it, or any other scenario where she deems it appropriate. It helps that a bandanna suits a horse anthro anyway.

Truth be told, I was worried that I was coming off as too demanding. But Benign assured me that giving all these details helped rather than hindered. In any case, I was more than pleased with the final result, as it was precisely spot on to what I had in my head, although even her initial sketches during the work in progress were great stuff.

6. If Amy uses a hammer, then Lutrudis uses...

Trudy has surprising arm and leg strength despite her appearance, which is mainly due to her horsie genes. But since she's still got EDS, it's still wise for her to equip herself with a weapon or two to even the odds. I contemplated a few ideas in this case, including a quarterstaff, but ultimately I decided that the following would be a little more interesting, while still remaining appropriate for the character in question.

I thought to myself “What's stopping her from having two weapons, one for short-range, the other for long-range?” I decided on the long-range weapon first: bow and arrows, the latter of which would eventually include the Ethereal Zone-powered crystals inside the cavern below her castle. Goes without saying that a bow suits her elegance and how it can be used from a stealthy distance, and the use of the crystals and their different abilities also helps to keep the reader guessing on what exactly is the nature of the elusive Ethereal Zone itself. I also reasoned that Trudy using a bow was a nice contrast to Amy's hammer, although I'm aware that Amy herself used a bow in the Fleetway comics. But no one uses a bow in the games (yet), so it's fine, right?

As for her short-range weapon, I thought it'd be funny if she had a whip that resembled a riding crop. Not only would it be used to give Eggman's robots the Simon Belmont treatment, it could also extend up to a certain distance to help grapple onto things and allow her to overcome areas that would otherwise cause complications for her body. Is it a bit ludicrous? Maybe, but so is a blue hedgehog fighting a Roosevelt lookalike. You just kind of have to live with it.

So there you have it! Everything you need to know about how Lutrudis Hadeer's name, species, design, and EDS came to be finalised. Now when you turn her into a monkey without my knowledge or permission for the sake of dunking on her because you don't approve of me making fun of Kingdom Hearts rejects, at least you'll have a better idea on what you're actually talking about. :^)

#Lutrudis Hadeer #Sonic Character Design

[writingonjorvik]

The New Gang Pitch

Following my narrative arc pitch, I wanted to outline a pitch for the new central character unit around the MC to go with it, since characters can make or break a story.

The Self-Taught Vessel, Allacia Clair

One of the first characters part of this group I would imagine has a bit of a rivalry with the MC about their powers. While she’s also a Vessel (my name for the Aideen’s champion role from my narrative pitch), she didn’t have anyone like the Keepers to teach her about her powers. She has a strong grasp on the “Avatar State” power/connecting to Aideen, her other powers she can’t really control and doesn’t have a good foundation for using her other core abilities. Her arc with the MC includes them learning to work together, possibly coming to a head at some point when it seems to this character that the MC is having no trouble with learning about the “Aideen State” powers.

She should be reckless, her powers manifesting in bursts, kinda like an unbridled Lightning Circle Alex, to show she never learned basic control over her powers. She’s stubborn and resilient, with a bitter sense of respect for the MC. She should be funny in a dry humor sort of way, but heart of gold trope, all the way. Points for her being in her mid to late 20′s, so a little older than the “about to start college” MC to add to that “how can you do this thing I struggled with” arc. Extra, extra points if she’s a POC, because, you know, cannon POC badasses are great.

The Valley Girl Hacker, Brittany Bellwinter

We need a diva in the party, and there’s nothing I love more than the idea of a full blown, bubble gum popping, gag me with a spoon, Silicon Valley girl for that. None of the “I don’t get people” hacker trope. This girl gets people, but is also Elle Woods smart with computers. “You took down entire network of G.E.D. encrypted asset logs.” “What, like it’s hard?” She takes no shit for being the pretty blonde girl, and she works her ass off to pull off her chic cyberpunk style while she takes down an entire DC facility’s security system from the Stablebucks down the street.

She’s open, honest, and direct. Her self-confidence is through the roof, to the point of initial conflict. Her being a vigilante when she meets the MC is a great arc to have them working together, and also establishing people outside the Keepers having an issue with Dark Core. She’s hungry for knowledge though, and her handiness with gadgets can provide SSO with a lot of tools for having ruins being destroyed in story beats without losing the information. But also a problem as she risks her life to get those pictures.

The Heart, Kadin Fairwind

This is the one character I think whose gender is most important to be kept the same. Kadin needs to be masc-presenting, either as an enby person who uses he/him pronouns, or just simply as a male presenting person. This is first and foremost because of the message Kadin can send. If SSO wants to be a story about gender equality, then it needs to also talk about how men relate to “feminine” topics, in particular, being the heart of the group. The Heart of the 5 man band is exclusively reserved for a female in the party, which is why it’s important to have a character like Kadin, who is masc-presenting, be the heart, to subvert that and show other masc-presenting players that you can be masculine and also be an empathetic person that tries to keep your friends together.

Kadin is a big sweetie, possibly physically, who just has a soft-spot for people. But when I say he’s big, I don’t mean Kadin is this doofy gentle giant or some himbo. No, he’s physically built, like a quarterback built, but he’s also very intelligent. Kadin needs to be outwardly very masculine, with an awareness of his strength and how it impacts people around him. He’s smart and observant and is really good on picking up on people’s emotions. He wants to help people, with a passion for being either a counselor or a nurse (specifically a nurse, not a doctor). Possibly with friends who were assholes when they were in school who bullied people, until Kadin decided he didn’t want to do that and wanted to be better aware of how he hurt people and how to make things better.

As much as I’m an advocate for queer & POC rep, I think the best way to do Kadin is just have him as this straight, white guy. I think him just being a hetero-cis dude and becoming aware of his privilege can be such an impactful message, even if the why isn’t ever explicitly said.

The Magic Enthusiast, Nakai “Xen” Seiko

If Kadin is cis, then Xen is one hundred percent they/them non-binary. But also, if Brittany is the tech wiz, then Xen simply wants to be an actual wizard. And not just wishes magic was real kinda wants to be a wizard, legit knows magic is real and can’t figure it out/can’t use it wants to be a wizard. Xen consumes all things magic, which makes them an amazing outside asset to the MC and Allacia, who both can use magic, but don’t always understand magic. Xen gets magic fundamentally as a study, but not always as a practice, which is why they struggle to actually use it. And while I do think they should learn how to use magic, they should by the kind of character who wants to multi-class wizard over and over so they can get every school of magic, not so they can actually get better. It’s Xen’s craving for understanding magic that will be a great tool in learning more about other planes of reality and how they relate to magic.

Xen’s personality is fundamentally at odds. While they come from a very traditional Japanese immigrant family and have a high respect for their culture, they obviously struggle with who they are and how that fits into what they want to do with their life. This is import in particular to me because so many cultures gender magic, with feminine and masculine sources of magic. Xen as a non-binary magic user, like myself, has to struggle with figuring out where those legends come from and breaking down how to feel about that in their own practice, particularly when Aideen is shown has being a very feminine entity. Much like the points before, I don’t think this has to be explicit, but I do think it can be very clearly coded to say that gendering things is often forced. While there are gendered things in nature, like things surrounding baby-making, most things aren’t and just because something is gendered, like Aideen, it doesn’t designate that all things need to be. I think the best way to balance this message is to have Xen has a very comedic person, always telling jokes, even when the timing isn’t always right. They should have an issue with hyperfixating, and I think having them being someone with ADD/ADHD is a great match for their other struggles, getting consumed in their pursuit of magic to the point of it being a hazard too.

The Gentle Giant, Bogga Norsdóttir

If anyone is going to be the brute of this party, it’s going to be Bogga. Bogga is a “I’m going to deadlift a Shire” kinda girl, but she won’t, cause it’s a horse, and why would she scare a horse like that? She’s honestly the simplest concept I have. She’s a gentle giant, though I don’t think she should be “stupid.” I think she should have a simple code of ethics, a very black and white version of right and wrong. It’s simple, you hurt her friends, she fucks you up. I would love too if she’s part Kalter. But yeah, Bogga is kinda the constant rock of the party, and that’s not just cause she’s a solid unit. She’s just reliable, and for that she’s kinda a sounding board for everyone else’s more complicated arcs. The point is that Bogga will always be there to support the party, and she doesn’t really need to grow. She’s got her life figured out, and so she’s just there to help everyone else figure out theirs.

The Returning Soul Rider

If there’s any of these members I’m ok with dropping, it’s this one. Not just cause I can’t decide which one, but also the whole point of the above group is establishing a friend group that the MC chooses through the story and actively recruits, not an existing friend group like the Soul Riders are. Even with the new intro to the Soul Riders they added, there’s never going to be a point where the MC isn’t a fifth wheel to their group, at least for me and I know for a lot of you, particularly as SSL gets more and more removed. The only reason they could even effectively establish their friend group before was because only two of them were friends when Lisa got to Jorvik, and it was Lisa that brought the four of them together. And honestly, I think staying on their story makes if feel more and more to me like we’re cleaning up their mess and undermines the Soul Riders defeating Garnok in SSL. Which ruins their abilities, and it’s just yet another reason we need to move away from them narratively.

Still, that doesn’t mean I think the Soul Riders need to be cut out entirely, but I think we need to relook at the angle that the MC is relating to the Soul Riders. And that means the Soul Riders relooking at themselves, particularly post Garnok, which is also why I think this arc needs to end.

In any case, I’m tied between Alex and Anne. On the one hand, Alex is a fighter and suddenly having no big bad to fight is a hell of a good arc to pitch. I also think her in contrast to Bogga is a great square off. Alex not being ready to be done fighting is a good arc, because she’s always been a fighter. What is she without something to go after now? I think her being afraid of falling back into her old ways now that she doesn’t have a target to hunt down is such an interesting arc to follow.

Anne is another interesting one, because I think with everyone expecting Anne to be consumed with vengeance before Garnok is defeated and her to come out of that, people would expect that after he’s gone, she would be ready to be done and just go back to being a normal girl. But I think that even if Anne gets over her vengeance, she’s the Soul Rider of the Sun Circle. Her powers are to open portals, she’s destined to travel. Anne isn’t going to want to go back. Whether it’s being a dressage master or traveling between planes of reality, Anne is the portal master of the druids. Worse, she was an imprisoned portal master. She’s shouldn’t want to be still ever again.

I’m honestly up in the air on them, and I’m not opposed to both, but I think it should just be one in the main group and another with a side arc we touch in on when we touch base with the other Soul Riders.

And yeah, that’s the pitch.

#sso #star stable #starstable #star stable online #starstableonline #woj writing #woj analysis

[metellastella]

Mao Mao Pride Week Prompts, Part 2

A continuation of the prompts put out by @maomaosmother Previous batch here: https://metellastella.tumblr.com/post/621726687992872960/hello-everyone-happy-pride-month-to-all-of-you

4. Who I am

Mao said, “You know how some people like B.C. marry the other sex and have children to ‘fit in’?”

“Yes.” Snugglemagne said. “It’s something that’s crossed my mind once or twice, to be honest.”

Mao started in surprise. “Really?”

“Yes, to continue the throne. Hard to imagine committing to someone you weren’t drawn to, but …” he shrugged. “Maybe it wouldn’t be that bad?”

Mao rubbed his chin. “I don’t think a lot of people would agree with you there. But. For my own part. A good number of Mao members choose celibacy, because of our offered teachings. Would that not simply be a form of celibacy, just on one side, not the other?”

The king thought about it. “Well, it does seem to make it more manageable, when put that way. I’ve been visited by groups of nuns traveling from their covenants, and they don’t seem to be worse off for it. But, obviously it’s easier for women than men.”

“There are friars, too,” Mao pointed out. “Wanderers. Tending to the poor. Stand-up characters. I felt lucky whenever I’d run into one. Camped out with a few of them in my time. Nice fireside chats.”

“Oh, yeah.” 

“Both of those genders we just talked about  . . . and we in the clan tend to think of all of it, more of as an option. Not a core part of who I am.”

“Hm.”

“How about yourself?”

“I’m with your battle partner on this one, Mao.” 

He nodded. “Fair enough.”

The cat chuckled. “It was kinda cute on nights when he’d pick up a partner and I wouldn’t, and he would get all anxious on my behalf, and, say, ask if they should go to a different floor and not the next room so I wouldn’t feel more ‘lonely.’ He just doesn’t get it’s not that big a deal. He never has.” he shrugged. “And, heh, I have more than enough training to block out distracting sounds from my mind, and I sleep really deeply. But, I appreciate his being concerned over me anyway.”

“I guess I might think of it a little less as a central tenet than he does. After all, I haven’t been actively courting anyone since you both got here, or a little before that, either.”

“So, nothing to do with me?” Mao quirked an eyebrow.

“Heh, unfortunately not. I’ve experienced ‘love at first sight’ before, but for your particular case, it crept up slower. Sometimes that’s just how it is.”

Mao opened a gloved hand. “Right! That’s kinda like the point I was going to make about marrying someone the spouse wasn’t drawn to. Think of the reverse! At least among us siblings, no matter whom we’re drawn to, or how strongly, we tend to seek the same sex a lot, anyway, because it’s just much less hassle and worry, you know? Somewhat because we have warrior duties that take precedent over having children and domestic life, somewhat because we’re wielders, when mixed-magic-and-non-magic opposite-sex pairings can be complicated. We do have, not only the magical blockers to consider, but we’d like to have more wielder children if we’re going to pair up and take that risk in the first place. My sisters would be … I guess a word for it might be … embarrassed? Or frustrated …? To go through an entire pregnancy and not ‘gift’ the world with a wielder. A new dragonslayer! It’s not just outside pressure, either! The bond between a wielder child and parent is just … unfortunately more satisfying than not.”

Mao paused, examining the non-magical animal’s face.

The lion carefully guarded his expression at that. It really didn’t sound like prejudice. He seemed apologetic enough. But it felt that way.

Of course, he could never understand it fully. 

If Mao was looked down on for being the weakest … what gauntlet must a non-magical child born into the clan go through??

Maybe it was sheer, pure benevolence on the womens’ part to do what they could to prevent that. 

But that in itself was kind of hard to think about. 

Mao didn’t get any hint as to his thoughts.

Another animal might have given into an angry or irritated expression, but the king’s diplomatic and political training paid off. 

Not finding anything amiss, Mao resumed. “Sometimes, we just want to let off steam. We seek the same sex. Sometimes, in the past, despite being drawn to both sexes, I’m not really all that attracted, but I want the option anyway. The ‘option’ concept goes both ways.” 

“I . . . guess I understand that, though I still have a hard time picturing being intimate with someone I wasn’t drawn to first. Despite my idle musings on the possibility.”

5. Obstacles

“What?” Mao’s sister asked. “Just because I’m up for fun, you think I’m any less controlled than you, little brother? Conscious decisions are just as fun. Get over yourself.”

His ears went all the way down. “I … I’m so sorry,” his green eyes got bigger than ever. “So sorry! I always thought you were so impulsive … How could I think so badly of my own kin…”

“Aww, it’s all right, Mao,” she backpedaled. “Oh my gosh, stop taking everything so seriously.”

But he looked genuinely grieved. “I don’t have any room to talk,” he looked at his own gloved hands. “Was it my Ego defense mechanisms kicking in? A blind spot? Or … I mean … the others don’t approve of your actions either. Was I just emulating them? They don’t care as much about my actions. Is it because I’m a man, and you’re a woman? Is it prejudice?”

“Really Mao, stop stressing over it. The elders have their penalties in place for both men and women! The social aspect of it … it is what it is. All people have got their personalized hurdles in life. Like the athletes! Tiring, sure. But. Everybody’s just gotta buck up and jump over them.”

“You think maybe that’s a reference to real bucks?” the badger wondered. “Man, imagine catching an antler to the chest.” His voice faded, losing its joy. Did the lion spot him trembling? “Think of facing an even more massive caribou or wildebeast! All antlers, all business. All genders. I mean even a bare-headed female moose with her mountain of muscles is nothing to sneeze at. I do feel sorry for any one of them who might consider themselves male, though. Antlers are hard to fake. All those dudes and dudettes are WAY scarier than predators. Preds like to make out like they’re hot stuff! Psh!” the animal shook his head. “Many bovine species outweigh them several times over … ” 

“Didn’t stop me,” the black cat said confidently.

“Yeah, yeah,” the badger waved his paws dismissively at the magically strengthened animal. 

“I guess in that case the phrase ‘buck up’ might be slightly sexist,” she hummed thoughtfully. “Deer can definitely jump hurdles, though. Way higher than bears could. Like horse jumping! I wonder if their sports earn more money because the audiences like them better? It’s more graceful, they have more natural ability? Higher stakes, too. Their legs are very slender even though they’re strong … it’s very easy, with their massive weight, to totally shatter their bones if they land wrong. Even just racing, not jumping. The same isn’t true, for, say, greyhounds. Their welfare isn’t as endangered. Enough money flows that there are always magic salves on hand, but bone still takes pretty long to heal after the initial injury. But, because they’re so graceful and skilled, they’re drawn by the money rewards. Bears, who usually do it more for status and reputation, are trundling, bumbling, and clumsy by comparison. Even though they’re half-predators. How did they ever manage to make any kills in the old days? I guess a diet of mostly fish didn’t favor their developing grace and speed, as with canines and felines.”

The badger crossed his arms. “With the other type of ‘hurdles.’ I guess even though I admire you in a lot of ways, I don’t envy you outright being a woman. I can lie about attractions and pretend that I’m never drawn to men, if the situation demands it. There is no ‘closet’ for presenting as a woman. That’s tough, though you’re a wielder, so that offsets it a lot.”

“It’s not like being an average woman. Not nearly! Even if I didn’t have powers though. Being drawn to men is a whole lot harder than my stuff, too,” she disagreed.

Snugglemagne thought it was sweet how they seemed to be mildly arguing over whom to support more.

6. LGBT+ Safety

“There was the phenomenon of ‘male daughters,’ in the ancient world,” the lion said. “They were as perfectly ordinary legal designations as a birth certificate nowadays.”

“Oh?” Mai perked his ears, interested.

“Yes, I’ll give you some material on it. They lived like men did, and inherited wealth like they did. They were treated as men in pretty much every way. No having to conceal for safety concerns, like the mess in some places in the modern world. It was just obvious, and pedestrian, to that culture and those individuals. They weren’t harassed because they looked different, nor was a body seen as gender role ‘destiny.’ The approaches and conceptual framework to this issue have varied so much from place to place, and time to time.” “Can’t wait to read about it.”  

The sister made a face. “Oh yeah, that’s Mao, always holed up with his scrolls. I’m more of a party girl.”

“Same,” the badger said.

“I told him …” Mao sighed. “I told him that you all seek the same sex often too. But it’s different for guys.”

“Why?” the lion asked. 

“Remember what I said about the ‘lower’ position,” the badger reminded him flatly. “Actually, among most adventurer circles, at least, it’s totally OK for a pair of guys to get jiggy with each other, as long as neither does that. It’s called a warrior bond.” 

“The warrior bond was something B.C. and I considered,” Mao said quietly. “Out on the road, you never knew whose nose you’d run into. Subbing is not something you can conceal. With animals who aren’t nose-blind, there is no ‘closet.’ We’ve been to places where birds could do things on the sly. But that’s a rarity. Everywhere else, there are predators, or heavyweights, or wielders who’ll take a piece out of your hide for it. Of course I’d have zero problems defending us if necessary. A random group of anti-heroes or bandits just nosing around for trouble in general didn’t have any chance against me, either. But. Just not worth the hassle. Not to mention I’d want to break the nose on whoever it was. All it would take is one good pop.” He made a lighting-swift motion-retraction with his fist. 

The smiles on both the badger and the bigger cat faltered. They looked at each other in concern.

Mao either pretended not to notice, went on because he wasn’t about to soften his feelings on the matter, or was so absorbed in his own reflection that he really didn’t see them. “And I’d enjoy it too. I always did.” He glanced up at them, expression unreadable. “I won’t apologize for thinking it. In fact, I still do. Being a wielder, though, fanning those thoughts is not a good idea. I had to learn that through trial and error.”

“That’s not healthy for anyone,” the badger shook his head, “wielder or not. You’ve managed to avoid growing more of a … like … you said Blue mentioned … a ‘martyr complex’ over it? Right?”

Mao sighed in aggravation. 

“Yeah. I was in the throes of that before. Anyway. For other normal or lesser powered people, the warrior bond provides safety.” Next:  7. Marriage 8. Self-Acceptance   V Click below V https://metellastella.tumblr.com/post/622003595371544576/mao-mao-pride-week-prompts-part-3

First chapter of the fic here: https://metellastella.tumblr.com/post/617045879413719040/piercing-the-swordsman-chapter-1

#maomaosprideweek2020 #mao mao heroes of pure heart #mao mao snugglemagne #snugglemao #badgerclops #mao mao sisters #fanfiction #LGBT Pride Month #piercingtheswordsman

[prorevenge]

Ridiculed, accused of lying and incompetence, I shoved burning facts down their throats and made a successful business in the process.

"The best revenge is massive success." -Frank Sinatra

TL;DR; Told I was lying and didn't know anything about game design. Made a spite video game that became a huge hit. Jackass is also forever immortalized within the game credits.

PREFACE

This is a very unusual story compared to the typical posts you've read here. There's a lot to unpack but I'll try to summarize everything as best I can.

I hope you'll find it as entertaining as I did. And, what's great about this story is that it happened very recently, it happened here, evidence is searchable, and it's still kinda on-going. It's a tale of trolls, video game addiction, self-righteous arrogance, harassment, winning an impossible bet, a viral hit in Russia, and massive success with even some little revenge sprinkles for added measure.

Quick background about me: I've worked with game developers for decades and I'm an avid researcher and supporter of unorthodox and ethical video games used for educational and clinical purposes.

HOW IT STARTED

Two months ago, there was a new reddit post about "using video game to ease depression" that caught my attention.

The reason it caught my attention was because it was a game & study that I had in-depth knowledge of (from over a year prior.) Unlike everyone else in the thread, I was the only one who had actually seen the game, played it, knew the developers, and even had the original technical game design documents.

The article discussed a variety of topics but never addressed exactly HOW the video game was able to ease depression. So, I provided a quickly summary of what the game actually did.

[SKIP THIS SECTION IF NEUROSCIENCE & GAME DESIGN DON'T INTEREST YOU]

A quick side note about this article, for those that like extra details: One of the cool properties of ketamine is that, not only can it provide rapid and temporary relief for depression, it also actively heals damaged brain circuits. Then there's dopamine. A chemical that we internally produce, that has similar but less potent effects. There is no cure for depression, but these are promising treatments for some. The article focused on what's called "flow". Using certain game design methods you can induce a "flow state" by causing a sustained dopamine release. When used ethically, it can be highly beneficial in stimulating/training the brain to perform certain activities, improve or learn memorization, adapt to challenges, learn new concepts, exercise motor skills, and meanwhile rebuild pathways/synapses. While all of this is happening, the user is receiving pleasurable rewards without realizing it. This process can create new pathways, repair old circuits, and increasing their neuroplasticity. Increased neuroplasticity means improved cognitive functioning, reducing impairment of the reward process, and improving the effectiveness of antidepressant medications. Video games can be a unique non-drug option to accomplish this while easing symptoms. Research has already shown that many popular games can already accomplish this (unintended effects by the game developers). By comparison, the game design they used in this theoretical study was highly limited in scope, so permanent benefits were negligible compared to the temporary respite brought about by basic dopamine release. Science is still barely scratching the surface of neurotransmitters and flow state. There are still many unknowns, but dopamine isn't just a pleasure chemical that the media would like you to be believe. It can do quite a number of things. Research has shown that "flow state" can modify synaptic plasticity, improve connectors between cells/synapses, ultimately helping cells in the brain communicate better as a network and improve neural system intrinsic properties.

My summary posting was fine for a while, until predictable trolls arrived led by an "armchair game developer". Dr. Armchair definitely did not appreciate my post. It was an affront and insult to his profession. Within a few minutes, it dropped 30 karma. I don't care about imaginary internet points but I don't like being accused of lying. Dr. Armchair and his pals started with the usual "do you even lift?" Then it was quickly asserted, from their armchairs, that I knew nothing about flow, psychology, dopamine or game design at all. From their high horses, they contributed nothing useful; only taunts, defamation, attacking my character and physical appearance, and accusing me of being a liar and incompetence.

Apparently it was a very sensitive topic. Who knew?

It quickly devolved into Dr. Armchair gleefully, and repeatedly claiming, that he won, he was right, and I was wrong. He demanded that I essentially write a 300 page peer-reviewed study to prove him wrong, and when it couldn't be provided within 5 minutes, there were more gleeful cheers of "HAHA! I WAS RIGHT! I WAS RIGHT! I'M NOT LISTENING TO YOU LALALALALA.."

Obviously, it was going to be impossible to reason with Dr. Armchair and his buddies. But actions speak louder than words.

So, I claimed that I would provide undeniable proof in the form of a video game "a few months from now" that he could actually play for himself. Once again, claiming that I was lying and it was impossible. And more of the usual "It's been 5 minutes, where is it? Oh, you can't do it can you. HA! I was right! I BEAT YOU! I BEAT YOU!"

It was weird.

Eventually the mods had enough. Dr. Armchair and his cronies harassment, ad hominem attacks, accusations and inflammatory attacks resulted in multiple posts being removed. But my promise still stood and I fully intended on keeping it.

THE BOLD CLAIM

The plan was simple:

Create a proof of concept that demonstrates just the critical neuroscience principles that induce flow. To prove it beyond a doubt, I intended to also prove that MOST COMMON INGREDIENTS of a game are completely UNNECESSARY to accomplish this.

So, I made the very confident claim that the game would still be fun, addictive, and demonstrate flow state, even after ripping everything out:

No extras or frills. Built within a short period of time.

No music. No sound effects. No animations. No story.

No expensive art. In fact, hardly any at all: I would use ONE SINGLE ART ASSET for the gameplay (plus some lines.)

No feature creep. No sign-in system. No gacha mechanics.

No level design. No achievements. No RPG gamifications.

I could get at least a couple hundred people to play it.

I should have also mentioned that it would be built with ZERO BUDGET and NO MARKETING.

If this sounds like a strange way to make a game, it is. For a typical game developer, this would raise many eyebrows, and they'd consider it highly risky or improbable to achieve any success with both arms figurately tied behind your back while blindfolded.

HOW IT ENDED

While I was preparing to stress test the game online, it was discovered by .ru bots that were scouring the web for new games. Even before the game was ready, they published the game link on several Russian gaming sites.

The game exploded.

It has graphical similarities to Tetris, so it was a nice coincidence that the game essentially launched and did so well in Russia at first. After that, other game sites started discovering the game on their own too, even before I had a chance to submit the game myself. Most importantly, the proof of concept and everything I claimed worked (high ratings and retention). It proved so effective that the game is currently being played by hundreds of thousands of users worldwide. And it's a clear demonstration about the importance of combining psychology and game design.

I suppose you could say that there are many layers of revenge happening here, maybe even karmic justice or backfiring on their part, it's really hard to classify. The best kind of revenge is always massive success, and shoving it in their faces, however. But, on top of that, I also fully kept to my promises while proving these ignorant individuals so wrong they look like fools.

I also added some extra salt to the wound. I figured that success of the game was partly due to Dr. Armchair's ignorance. It was only fair that I included his name within the Game Credits. So, I officially gave this very wonderful human being a very "special thanks" for their support in making this success possible.

(source) story by (/u/postfu)

#prorevenge #by /u/postfu #pro revenge #revenge stories #pro revenge stories #pro #revenge #last10

[doyoungbunnyagenda]

Crown Of Thorns; Bed Of Roses - k.dy: Chapter 1

 <- [preivous] |

Summary • Alcohol and late-night rendezvous were the only things keeping the young princess Y/N stable. Doyoung was an actor finding his relief his in cigarettes and dark streets. Ever since meeting one night, they both have spent their time picking up each other’s pieces and building each other from the ground up. When Y/N thinks her life is back on track, her childhood demons come back to bite her, however this time they have a proposal. That had to do with her father, herself and a shotgun... When Doyoung tries to rescue her from her demons, he puts himself in equally as much danger.

Pairing • actor!doyoung x modernprincess!reader

Genre • drama with a whole lot a angst and small traces of fluff. royalty!au

Word count • 3k

Warnings • underaged drinking(depends on where u live), drug usage, swearing, mentions of death, mentions of corrupt governments, arranged marriage, dialogue-heavy

Songs to listen to • War Crimes, Watch What Happens Next, I Felt Younger When We Met all by Waterparks I’m a big parxs fan okay, don’t judge

A/N • @original-jomi , @elite-puppy-seungminnie So this is what I’ve been doing for the whole Christmas break. This was so much fun to write. And as this is written by me, there is barely any fluff (like four lines in total). Well nevertheless, I hope you enjoy!!!

Winter 2017

“You think you can control me like I’m some doll of yours, where you play dress up and chuck them with whatever man you think best, I’m an adult for Christ’s sake.” She shouted at your father lounging on the expensive couch like he owns the entire country which he did.

“Come on, princess it’s only an arranged marriage, nothing out of the ordinary.”

She let out a scoff at the sound of his words.

“So do you even care about me as a person? Are you even putting my happiness into consideration, or do you see me as a business transaction, a peace treaty?” She questioned starting to get to her wit's end with her Dad’s attitude.

“No the point is you fall in love during the marriage, have you seen the Jung family? I remember going to that wedding and they were arranged.” Her protests fell silent.

“If you need more examples, me and your mother we‘re arranged, look where it left us.” The King proclaimed.

“With my mother dead and with a father who only cares about his own safety and nothing else.” She gave her father an ice-cold glare as he remained stunned on the couch. Before he could open his mouth too, argue back, She spoke,

“I don’t care about what you think anymore, I’m not marrying any man you decide to put with me and that’s final, not that you’ll listen anyway.” You cut him off while storming out of one of the many royal places situated, in the middle of the capital.

In her hand, she made sure she had her black face mask and her designer beanie that she received as a gift from one of her friends. Quickly, you darted out of the house, ignoring her father’s angry desperate pleas for her to listen to him, getting quieter and quieter the further she ran. She fixed her mask on her face and went down the back passageway behind the mansion. If anyone went through the front way, they definitely would’ve been caught by security. The builders were stupid enough not to build a security system at the back of the mansion. Breaking in was a piece of cake, all it took was a jump and they were in. The girl leapt over the hedge and made it out of the courtyard, her feet landing on the pavement with a thud. No one could tell who she was and it felt good for once.

Strolling the midnight streets of her country, she turned around the block of some random fast food place. The silence of the city was something she craved. The world around her felt too loud, so she treasured the time she got alone to herself. She just wished Her dad could understand from her perspective. Her point of view. Not his own twisted perspective. 

Hers.

 It was her life he was handing over not his own. Ever since the princess was born your dad traded around her like poker chips. Anything and everything that would improve public opinion about him and his family was on the table. 

Signing her up for any elite activity he could think of. Horse riding, she started at the age of seven. Archery, she had already won several gold medals in national tournaments. By the age of 13, she was already a world-renowned child ballet dancer. On top of all of that, she had to get extremely high grades, it didn’t matter if she couldn’t, she had too. It wasn’t like the king was doing it to better his daughter's future. He only cared about his image and how he can make his family look like a trophy family when it was far from the truth. Totally forgetting that the country still hasn’t forgotten about the ‘indecent” 13 years ago.

Nights like this were nights where she enjoyed getting drunk off her head. It was always fun to drink your problems away. Wandering into the liquor store, she always visits because they didn’t ask for ID. She swore they knew she was underage. As she once walked in with her ‘friends’ from private school one Saturday night many moons ago, buying out the whole store's stock luxury red wine. From one of the shelves, her hand grasped a bottle of hard liquor, shaking slightly as she grabbed it. You went up to the cashier and slammed a tenner on the counter, then left, leaving them very confused and alone in the shop once again. Her mask was now resting on her chin. She popped open the bottle and lifted the top of its neck to her chapped lips. The burn that ran down her throat felt electric, giving her body an instant buzz. She continued to wander down this lonely road, occasionally taking swigs from the drink. She knew it was irresponsible to go out at this time of night and get so drunk she couldn't stand up straight, but it was a means of escaping her reality. And trust me she would take any chance she got.

“Stupid father” The girl mumbled as she ambled and staggered down the streets. The bottle of liquor was long discarded on some random roadside and her mask was perched on her face. She somehow made her way to the shadiest part and poorest part of town. The level of unemployment was so high in this area that many people had resorted to other (less legal) means to keep themselves alive. She honestly didn’t blame them, when the rich were using all their tax money to live a lavish lifestyle, they were in the corners starving, outcasted by their government. The only thing they should be expected to do is rebel. She mumbled another curse word before stumbling into an alleyway collapsing on the floor. She was tired. She had been awake since 6 am in the morning. She swore her dad barely understood the basic concept of sleep. Her head banged against the flimsy garage opening behind her. The princess let out a curse at the sudden pain surging through her head accompanied by a pulsing migraine.

“Problem?” A low voice from above her spoke, his tone laced in darkness. her eyes remained plastered onto the floor, too shy to look up at the person above her. 

“A shy one, I see.” The person said to themselves, they sighed deeply again at her persistent silence and spoke once again,” Not replying when you’re spoken too, is quite impolite, with the clothes you’re wearing I’d expect more of your upbringing.” The person rudely remarked.

“Excuse me, who are you to say that?” She said, with a look of offence evident in her eyes. 

Abandoning her shyness, she got the courage to look at the person who dares to insult her. If only they knew who she was. When she looked up everything she was planning to say got caught in her throat. To only be replaced by a gasp. Their presence was intimidating, to say the least. A male from what you could tell. His shoulders were broad and his eyes a piercing shade of dark brown. If it wasn’t for the moonlight, she could have sworn his eyes were as black as the world around him. Tuffs of raven hair could be seen slightly poking outside of his midnight stained hat. If she didn’t look close enough, he could be mistaken for invisible. A cigarette was held in his nimble fingers and he brought out a lighter from his back pocket. He held it to his lips and lit a spark on the end. After he took his hit, the man looked back at the girl before him.

“You realise staring is also quite rude?” The man sighed sarcastically. She remained silent. “I expected a rich girl like you to know better. Do you know how many people I know who would love to wear that coat or hat of yours.”

She scoffed,” What right do you have to say that. Have you seen yourself? Your hat, no normal person could afford that here. Who’s a credit card is that coming from hmm?” She drunkenly slurred.

The man sighed at your state and chucked lightly.” I’m self-made man, no trust fund, no inheritance, nothing of that sort. I worked my life from the ground up and see where I am now.”

“Smoking a blunt alone in the most dangerous part of town? That definitely sounds like The Life to me.” She said.

“That’s right buttercup, I’m living the life aren’t I?.” He laughed and looked into your eyes. A warm feeling crept up in her chest and a small smile that he could not see graced her features.

“But what do you mean alone, I’m talking to you right? Or has the spice gotten to me and I’m just talking to a ghost.” He joked.

“That latter obviously.” She rolled her eyes and laughed along with her.

“I like your sense of humour, what’s your name?”

Her eyes went wide. If there was one thing he couldn’t know it was her name, it was too risky, her family’s perfect image would be cut in half and plunged into disrepair.

“No can do, it’s a secret.” She teased and playfully put her finger up to her mask. “What about you?” She questioned

“That’s a secret too, I’m afraid.” The man said while mimicking your action.

After laughing at their childishness for a couple of minutes. A comfortable silence filled the air. She observed the slight rise and fall in his chest as he took a couple more hits of the drug and discarded it on the ground and stomped out the tiny flame with his foot. She would blame it on her drunken self, but he reminded her of a prince. A prince you would find in a somewhat twisted modern fairy tale. With all his money he practically could be classified as one. He had a dominative aura which she couldn’t help but challenge. The man could obviously take a joke which was a welcomed change to what she was had known and gotten used to for the whole of her life. For once the girl felt comfortable. Unrestricted. At peace with her thoughts and it wasn’t the alcohol, it was because of him.

“I wish I could be you, you seem so carefree, I want your life.” She said, out of the blue.

“I’m not, trust me, it’s just because of the drugs, I’m not like this, I’m not the person your seeing now.”

“I don’t believe that.” She said her words breathy.”I believe this is your true self when drugs and alcohol get involved, there’s no hiding from yourself. The mistakes you make when your drunk and high aren’t mistakes, they’re not late-night regrets-“

The man interrupted her drunk ramblings and said,” So if me finding myself in the bed of my best friend’s roommate isn’t a mistake, then what was it?”

“It was what you wanted to do, ignoring all the consequences of the morning. When you're under the influence, your common sense is replaced by pure desire. You don't think and that's good, right? It's hard to think with a raging headache."

He sighed,” No that’s not it and I know from experience, your deepest desires aren’t always the best for you and the people around you. The life you are describing is the life you want to get away from..."

“Am I mad for wanting to kiss you right now?” She said unexpectedly, causing a slight gasp to escape from the man next to her.

“Yes, you’re crazy.”

“I would like to I think I’m perfectly sane.”

A blush crept on to the apples of his cheeks for the first time that night. His following words were stuttered. He was flustered.

“Your mother and father must have really gone wrong to create a child like you.”

“Just father here.” You replied 

“What about your mother?”

“Dead.”

“How long?”

“13 years...” she paused before taking a deep breath and continuing. “13 years dead, 13 years of hell for me. I swear ever since she died a switch was flipped in my father. Never known why.” She sighed looking down at the gravel floor.

“13 years ago, I was a runaway. Home was never the safest place, it was for the best. I’m pretty sure my parents didn’t even go looking for me.”

“Seems the both of us have had shitty up upbringings. I guess that makes us equal"

“Well then, about that kiss...” the man trailed off-topic.

“What about it?” You laughed slightly.

“I can’t kiss someone whose name I don’t know.”

The cheesy grin plastered under her mask was embarrassing. She pretended to think about it, but her answer was already set the minute he finished his sentence.

“Well in that case I guess-“

She felt a buzz in the back pocket of her black jeans and went silent.

“Oh, shit-“ She blurted out surprised that someone would call her at this hour. She checked her phone and saw it was her cousin Youngho. She rolled her eyes at the thought of her dad calling Youngho to sort her out, being too lazy to do it himself. She opted to answer the call and lifted the phone to her ear.

“Y/N, Where the fuck are you!?” He shouted from the other end of the line. She winced at the loud noise before continuing.”

“Somewhere, I don’t know.” She shrugged her shoulders and saw the man next to her stifle a giggle.

“You’re so stupid, it’s 4:29 am and you don’t know where you are? I'm so done with you. I’m tired of being woken up at 4 am with your father screeching at me to go pick you up.”

You heard your cousin sigh tiredly.

“Well it not my fault he doesn’t have my number, he could care less about where I am.” She argued back.

“Shut up and tell me where you are,” Youngho said defeatedly.

“You know where the 603’s last stop is, I’m near there.” She finally remembered.

“The most dangerous part of town, I see. Whatever I’m coming to pick you up hang on in there.” He said before hanging up.

“Your dad doesn’t have your number even my father was better than that.” The man next to you commented at your conversation.

“Does it look like my dad even gives two shits? He hasn’t bothered to get my new number after I changed my phone a year ago.”

“You don’t deserve that no one does.” He sympathised with her.

“Now you know why I run away. But it’s almost 5 am and I haven’t slept in 24 hours and I don’t fancy passing out on the streets so I think it’s time for me to leave.”

“Fair enough, see you never...” He paused as if he was waiting for her to say something.

“Y/N.” She said firmly 

“Doyoung.” He stated as she walked away from him, leaving him to wallow in his own thoughts and feelings.

She stumbled to the bus stop where she said she’ll meet Youngho. Her head rested against the metal pole and she sighed. A sigh full of contentment. Remembering what happened moments earlier, her heart warmed her chest and started to beat faster than had ever been. She felt lightheaded. Duplicates of what was in front of her kept appearing in her vision. Like some weird fever dream. Her eyes were about to flutter shut, bringing her into a dream-filled sleep but she was brought back to reality by a low but loud car horn ringing in her ears.

“Get in,” Youngho said, his tone clear and flat. Her cousin turned down the tinted windows of his Mercedes Benz and looked into her eyes with no emotion what so ever. She tried to search for his the usual bright look in his eyes, normally twinkling constantly rain or shine. But all she found was black. Pits of charcoal staring into her own. Because of her wasted state, the only way she could respond was with a laugh. Youngho continued to look unimpressed.

He pushed out the door of the car, for the girl to stumble in and hit her head on the headrest. Even though he found his cousin’s fumbling and slurring funny at times, he needed to keep a straight face.

“For fuck's sake Y/N, you’re so wasted that you can’t even get your seat belt on, here let me help.” Youngho sighed. He draped the seat belt over her half-asleep body and clicked it into the latch. He sat back in his seat and ran a hand through his brown locks. She looked up at him and noticed defined black circles under his eyes. He looked about as tired as she was. He yawned before speaking again.

“I’m tired of acting like your babysitter Y/N. Why can’t you just grow up and stop stupid stunts like this?” Youngho pleaded, tiredness laced in his voice.

“If you don’t want to feel like my babysitter, then stop acting like my dad, you’re my cousin. The three years between us doesn’t mean that much.” She protested weakly.

“Someone has to care about you, Y/N. Your dad is obviously doing a terrible job so that just leaves me, your amazing older cousin.” He chuckled hoping to loosen the atmosphere. It obviously worked as she started to smile again.

“What would I do without you?” She giggled

“Crash, burn and die,” Youngho said before placing his hands on the wheel.

“Just make sure not do this again,” He followed up,” We’re going to my place, by the way, it’s closer. Your dad was like a feral dog to me over the phone. Y’know there are much better ways of getting back at him.”

“Like what?” She questioned eyes half-open and mouth agape leaning her head against the window.

Instead of an answer, you were greeted with nothing but the sound fresh raindrops beating the window from outside and the sound of Youngho hitting the gas pedal and speeding off, into the night.

In due time, the young princess fell into a deep slumber, filled with cigarette dreams, expensive wines, cherry red lips, everlasting nights and a man named Doyoung.

#nct imagines #nct angst #nct angst hours #nct senarios #nct series #kim doyoung #doyoung #doyoung imagines #doyoung angst #doyoung fluff #NCT 127 #nct 127 imagines #nct drabbles #nct 127 angst #nct 127 series #doyoung x reader

[ayankun]

The Asset

so I’m making my mom watch Agents of SHIELD (obviously) and today we watched eps 1x03 - 1x06.  That’s The Asset, Eye Spy, Girl in the Flower Dress, and FZZT.

THEN I ACCIDENTALLY SPENT LIKE FIVE HOURS DISSECTING MY LEAST FAVORITE EPISODE YOU’RE WELCOME

First off, full spoilers ahead, of course.

1x03 is, hands down, the worst episode of the series.  PERIOD.  I didn’t give it my full attention when I did my rewatch, because I remembered it well enough for some reason and the guy that plays Quinn looks too much but not enough like Tahmoh Penikett to seriously irritate me.  DODGED A BULLET THERE.

Giving it your full attention does not do it any favors.  I was physically discomfited, squirming in my seat and dropping snide remarks every 12 seconds.  It’s bad, you guys. 

First off, we have this guy, who is, for now in S1, the one and only “Agent Mack.”

THE SIMILARITIES ARE UNCANNY.

Then this big rig gets dropped like 50 feet and I’m supposed to believe that this guy strapped in the back only had his glasses knocked askew?

Ok then we go see what the team is up to, and lord, three episodes has not been enough time for Chloe or Brett to Figure Their Shit Out.  They’re so awkward and dumb looking.

After a passable briefing scene, where we learn that Baldy McGlasses is a valuable asset (and beloved advisor to FitzSimmons) who was being transported with maximum security before being kidnapped, we get this wildly wild “we have to put something on the screen while exposition happens” shot:

Which cuts contemporaneously to

Thanks I hate it

Where did the atmospheric smoke go?  Was that highway always there?  What time of day is this supposed to be where the ambient light changes so drastically over a matter of seconds?  They couldn’t have kept the camera on the left side of the lane marker?

But it gets worse because Simmons has a line and the coverage for this is basically just a matched jump cut over to the other half of the line up and back again.

I can’t stand it.

So Agent Mack survived the fall and is still on the scene of the accident.  My mom was pretty incredulous that he was alive, and I was thinking it was too bad that he had to sit there for hours waiting to be debriefed instead of being taken to a hospital.

THEN there’s some FitzSimmons pratfall-adjacent sci-fi nonsense that my mom really got a kick out of.  But I was too distracted by Iain’s decision to play Fitz as a douchebag so far this season so I wasn’t in the right mood to be impressed.

Ok then we go back to the lab to do some science on the MacGuffin, and I will admit my favorite part so far is Skye challenging Coulson on the existence of the truth serum, and Coulson plays it so Coulson-y it’s truly chef’s kiss.

BUT THEN May comes along and drops 100 pounds of print media for Skye to review (oh yeah, there’s a key subplot about there potentially being a mole inside SHIELD, which is how McGlasses got got) and MY MOM who REGULARLY prints out things like Facebook posts to keep for posterity rightly pointed out that they have high-tech on this plane like holograms and stuff, so printing out all this correspondence in order to go through it page by page makes 0% sense.

Also we never see it again.

OKAY THEN COULSON AND WARD ACCOST A COWBOY RIDING A HORSE THROUGH THE WOODS.  Said cowboy also just happens to have the incriminating bag of gold on his person, which Coulson and Ward straight up steal.  That’s it.  That’s the whole concept for the scene.  Coulson’s just parked his car along a narrow woodland path, just waiting for a cowboy to come riding along so he can accost him/steal his gold. 

Check out how whack this scene-setting shot is, too.  We have Coulson on the left, facing the Cowboy on the right.  At this trajectory, you can see that Lola and the horse are basically pointed perpendicular to one another.

Yet cowboy pulls to a stop without banking and addresses something dead ahead of him.

Surprise!  Coulson’s over there now and Lola and the horse are facing dead on.

To really drive this home, cowboy spends the rest of the scene on the left, addressing Coulson who remains on the right.

Anyway so yeah, this scene is about roughing up an innocent civilian for intel and then stealing his legally acquired wealth.

At least they can’t take the sky from him.

The purpose of the cowboy gold is that it’s directly traceable back to Quinn Worldwide, which is hilarious considering that one assumes the under-the-table transaction used this method of currency in order to not be easily traced.

Coulson name drops Quinn like he’s some off-brand Tony Stark that we should be impressed with, and we are immediately shown that Ian Quinn’s defining characteristic is that he has an assistant to hang up his cell phone calls for him.  We are not impressed with Ian Quinn.

OKAY AND THEN WE GET THIS COMPLETE MIS-READ OF SCRIPT INTENT IN THIS SHOT

why why why why why why would you ignore a character’s line like that.  Why are you choosing to TELL me that a man is tied up when it would be SO EASY to SHOW me. 

Especially since the narrative so far is that McGlasses has been skillfully kidnapped by a very determined adversary, and this moment, this interaction, is where that assumption is proven erroneous.  Quinn’s line is a very specific cue that we are meant to SEE that he’s restrained, per our expectations following a kidnapping, specifically to introduce the twist that Quinn is just that budget Tony Stark who actually has no malicious intentions towards his former colleague.

A super close close up of McGlasses fails to achieve that moment the script was hunting for.  I’m feeling that the intent was to keep the focus on this dude because of the upcoming secondary twist where he is revealed to be the SHIELD mole who masterminded his own kidnapping, but this guy is So Bad at acting I don’t think keeping him front and center is ever going to pay off.

(ok I just checked and it turns out Ian Hart is a prolific English actor.  this makes me feel like I ought to chalk it up to “difficulty emoting while doing a fake American accent” but guys this performance is so bad I’m really not willing to believe there’s a good excuse)

anyway it turns out Quinn’s good guy!

.....but then he’s on the wrong side of the shot all of a sudden for no good reason and HEY maybe this set up with the wide angle on the lab and a clear look at McGlasses’ physical situation within that environment would have been an alternative for, you know, maybe some sort of establishing shot?  Maybe?  No?

Also here let’s take a moment to let the “plot” really sink in.  These two chuckleheads are former classmates and colleagues, even though one of them looks about 20 years older than the other, and Quinn discovered that “an asset” was being moved, “deduced” that the asset was McGlasses, and wanted to bring McGlasses in on his semi-nefarious science plan.  So to avoid SHIELD interference in his schemey scheme, Quinn

kidnaps McGlasses directly from SHIELD custody,

in the showiest manner, not only using but LEAVING BEHIND the exact product at the core of his scheme,

and pays a local cowboy with easily traceable gold in exchange for just some regular backhoe to bust open the big rig transporting McGlasses, instead of, I don’t know, using his massive wealth and influence and in-house R&D products to not massively incriminate himself

He couldn’t have just invited McGlasses over without calling attention to himself? 

There is the way that “the asset” was being “moved” makes it sound like McGlasses was on top secret lock down with no civilian rights or means of making/receiving contact with people like old colleagues.  But this is never clarified, like, the only other thing we know about him is that he evidently advises classes at the Sci-Ops branch of the SHIELD academy. 

ALSO we have yet to learn that McGlasses personally staged “being moved” and leaked the hints regarding the identity of “the asset” to Quinn just so that Quinn would do all these nonsense things he done.  He couldn’t have just invited himself over???

Also the conversation they have at this point is real rough, with non-sequiturs, shambling exposition, and garbage jokes that wouldn’t float even if you didn’t have a log and a ham struggling to mimic human behavior.

Also Quinn bought the PRIME MINISTER OF MALTA’S old manor specifically because it has a huge underground lab????  What about Malta do I need to know about before this makes sense?

Let’s move on.  FitzSkimmons have an only-mostly painful scene of exposition in which Iain is still having a hard time with the lines/characterization the Powers That Be are forcing Fitz to be at the moment.  I’m going to say it.  Season 1 Fitz is Utterly Unlikable.

However, this rant has given me the opportunity to 1) stand corrected and 2) appreciate this understated joke:

She’s still on page 1 of 1 billion LOLOLOLOL

The other nice thing to come out of this scene is the casual validation that the public school system may not be right for everyone, and that being a high school drop out does not mean you can’t also be an intelligent self-starter who finds value and satisfaction in picking up a trade skill on your own.  *coughs in Robbie Reyes*

UGH but then we go back to McWooden and Bargain Ham.  Their story is UNINTERESTING and their performances are HARD TO STOMACH.  Also it ends on a mirror of the shot we started with (so there is some evidence of intelligent design at play here after all)

But this framing makes me so uncomfortable like, I’ve shipped for less don’t put weird ideas in my head that no one wants least of all me--

Ok.  We’re a third of the way through.  It doesn’t stop getting worse.

So here’s the correct way to reposition your characters if you want to change up the eye lines without making it super jarring!  The start of this scene is actually really textbook-nice, just look:

The pre-mission planning is already in full swing, but we follow Skye, the outsider on the outside, approaching the scene with some amount of hesitation.

She starts on the right, facing left, and crosses across the path of the camera as it follows her towards the meeting, ending up on its left while the folks currently giving lines are framed over her right shoulder.  Your eye line and sense of positioning has fluidly followed hers, and this makes sense.

From this establishing shot, we do a real nice punch in on Coulson as he’s speaking, using a really action smooth cut as he does a bit of business with his hand.

We’re still coming into this scene from Skye’s POV, and this shot reflects that -- close enough to focus on the important action, but distant enough to show Skye’s current position (literally and figuratively) relative to the rest of the team.

The reverse shot is ... fine.  It’s fine.  I don’t like that she’s framed on the right hand side of the screen (exactly where Coulson was a split second ago), but the eye lines still match up and it does give the impression that the camera is the avatar of the audience and we just turned on the spot to look at her as she quietly invites herself to this scene and starts putting that big beautiful brain of hers to work.

Then we leave her to it!  Feel the difference this cut has, emotionally, from the last time we looked over at Coulson:

We’ve left Skye’s aloof POV and now we’re all up in his biz.  This framing tells us he’s no longer the subject of Skye’s contemplation and has gone back to being a character of the TV screen doing TV character things.

The remainder of this scene holds onto that “normal” shot-reverse-shot framing of the team as they give their opinions and work through the plan.

This laudable result of thoughtful camera work is almost instantly ruined by Fitz yammering on about using a brave little monkey to do their serious spy business and HOLY COW Iain does his best with the dreck he’s been given but there is no universe in which I will find this type of dialogue acceptable.

The valuable plot point here is that Skye is finding her footing on the team, doing hacky stuff on her phone and putting herself out there as -- wait for it -- an asset to Coulson.  Ward responds to this with bafflement, being generally supportive of her known abilities while also being doubtful that she’s a complete package, and turning to Coulson for advice on how to round her training out.

This results in yet another JARRING AF transition (read: there’s no transition) from Ward and Coulson’s heart to heart to Ward pointing a gun at Skye at some indeterminate amount of time later.

Look we haven’t even had time to ingest Coulson’s line yet and BAM we’re here.

This scene’s fine.  It’s doing double duty and that’s admirable.  Triple duty, even.  Many duties are being performed in this scene.  We have

fledgling Skyeward

the introduction to the gun-manipulation maneuver Skye will use later on

Skye’s irreverence butting heads with Ward’s need for brass-tacks

at least one solid joke at Ward’s expense

Ward valuing Skye’s er, assets -- I’M TALKING COMPUTER SCIENCE YA PERVS

a very competent conversational segue into Ward’s Whole Deal, wherein we are introduced to the concept of his childhood trauma (lolol and man does Brett just fail to deliver these lines in any sort of a way that inspires human empathy wowowo he’s so bad in this one)

a callback to an earlier conversation as well as a set up for a future joke

SKYE STEALING WARD’S GUN FROM OUT OF HIS PANTS A++++

Now we go into pre-heist plan-walkthrough mode, and it’s so boring and lifeless that Skye’s actual summary line is “Plan, green, drop, walk ... pie.”  To be honest, she got more out of the discussion than I did.

May has an interesting character moment where she’s complaining about going into the field and then immediately regrets it because she was never going to be sent in, but that means Coulson’s going in instead and that worries her.  I keep thinking back on this season as being unfocused, but that’s because I forget that the sales pitch for this entire shebang is “we killed Coulson in Avengers but now here’s a show where he’s the lead because everyone loves him so much” and the subsequent focus of the inaugural season is everyone’s burning curiosity to find out how they undid his murder. 

Aside from the sci-fi/Marvel/generic spy show gimmick of the week, these early episodes never fail to prioritize the interpersonal dynamic of their team while simultaneously teasing out the Coulson mystery with these nice little regular hits.

I let it keep playing while I was typing, and we flew over some whatever business where Skye goes to Quinn’s party, and Coulson and Ward land their little raft on the beach, and the other kids are watching from the Bus and FITZ IS AGAIN TERRIBLE

I feel you, Jemma.

(Also, am I wrong in hearing him give in and say “boobs?”  The Netflix subtitles have it as “oops” but that can’t be it.)

Anyway so Skye’s busy using her Assets to win Quinn over, and Chloe’s shining moment in this scene is the delivery of the drivers test joke.

Back to stuff that’s gratingly awful, we’re supposedly on Malta, right?  And you know how Hollywood generally and the spy show/movie genre specifically tries to stretch their location budgets by putting on color filters to “evoke” distant lands?

We go from the above, washed out and unfiltered, to this sepia-toned nonsense:

This is supposed to be taking place basically right outside.  Why not just keep the filter on for the interior scenes, too?  There’s plenty of searing Maltese light coming in through that wall of windows.

(They must have had a hard time on location for the manor shoots, though, it’s just as washed out in the earlier scene set outdoors that I didn’t show you because it was boring but I’m showing you know because it’s not even the same color filter as the Coulson/Ward shots

)

((Also, yeah, I get it.  You can’t fly to Malta for a day for a television shoot.  But how many people are you fooling when you put the Santa Monica mountains in the backdrop of every exterior shot?))

So we go back and forth between these high-grain-low-saturation beachfront stuff to these holy angelic light of judgement shots and I hate it.

Like, why choose to shoot against this nuclear-blast light?  It’s not doing your actors any favors.

Especially when you’re ALSO choosing to depict that same “natural” light with a whole different palette and then continue to give us the opportunity to compare and contrast.

Also I hate the Ward/Coulson business because it’s just generic spy stuff where some guards come out of nowhere and I guess maybe it’s implied that their cute boat was found but it could just as easily be that it was explicitly stated that there were guard patrols and I forgot. 

But then they fight and defeat the guards in literally under 8 seconds and that’s that.  End of stakes.

The character moment that validates this trivial obstacle is that Coulson tries to do something with a gun and finds that May’s concerns weren’t entirely unfounded.  He’s a little rusty. 

Also Ward’s response to this is to chuck the gun into the laser wall and I don’t know why.  In any case, the energy from both of them in this screenshot really resonates with me.

So then Skye Does The Thing with her Assets and if you’ll let me be picky again about plot holes, why does the wireless access MacGuffin need to have an interface for Skye to check that the connection is possible, and THEN have that connection activated by LITERALLY dropping it on the table.  They couldn’t have set it to auto-scan and then tell her through her earpiece to stay still when the connection activated itself?

Whatever.  Success!  Immediately followed by ... INEXPLICABLE OBSTACLE

WHO, praytell, is on the other end of that walkie talkie?  Because the downed man is the man you see.  Typically, it would be like a survivor of the scuffle who radios for backup, but here we see the scene of the scuffle and some unknown unseen ADDITIONAL MAN who I guess is just spying on them from somewhere and radioing still more unseen men?

Instantly hearing this news, the Unseen begin a sniper assault on Coulson and Ward, and we get to see their bullets getting evaporated by the laser wall.  Remember those guards walking along the sea cliff towards the sign?  There’s no place for the snipers to be sniping from, unless they have some kind of invisible floating island.

This scenario is made even more hilarious once Fitz brings down the laser wall and Coulson and Ward dive through like they think they some kind of James Bonds and then the wall goes back up and the snipers keep sniping.

Why aren’t the guards on the inside of the perimeter of the compound which they guard?  This laser fence is now protecting the intruders.  Minor design flaw.

Anywho, Quinn is still talking about how he doesn’t trust SHIELD and SHIELD doesn’t trust him, so it’s like, what are we supposed to believe about this guy anyway?  Why did Coulson introduce him as bargain bin Tony Stark if he was known to be bargain bin Justin Hammer all along?

So now that snipers have failed to snipe the intruders, some Seen Guards come to alert Quinn so he breaks the wireless MacGuffin and turns a gun on Skye.  (Just sayin, if it had been some secret device that was still in her bag, she’d have plausible deniability) 

I think, at this point, I have two conclusions

Team Coulson has no extraction plan for getting McGlasses out of the compound since they don’t have a Plan B to get back through the laser wall, no firepower to use on the Seen Guards, and no available land-or-sea getaway vehicles.

There was never any sort of extraction plan for Skye even if the laser wall and the Seen Guards were not an obstacle.

Here’s where it gets the messiest.

Coulson busts in on McGlasses but is told no rescue is required.

AT THAT SAME TIME

May has just popped open a tablet over in some room by herself, evidently disinterested in whatever FitzSimmons is probably doing right now in light of this drastic turn of events, and she’s randomly googling up on the SHIELD leak mentioned earlier, only to discover that it was MCGLASSES ALL ALONG.

Keeps a cool head, our May.

Yeah, we know, we .. he ... he just said ... you know what?  We didn’t actually care, though?  Who the mole was or that it was McGlasses.  We certainly didn’t spend the last half hour watching May diligently tracking down some breadcrumb trail of clues to get to this dramatic reveal, only to find out a second too late.  We didn’t even see her checking up that Skye had/didn’t have this angle covered.

Did she print out the contents of the four-foot binder as some sort of eco-terrorist cruel joke since she was just planning on spending three seconds on the computer to complete the same task?

Ok so Coulson misinterprets McGlasses’ decline of his rescue operation as collaboration with Quinn until May clues him in.  We then go to commercials and come back and have to go over all this info again just in case we didn’t follow that super exciting double-cross the first two times.

At which point we figure out where all the pre-production time was sunk -- somebody had to spend a lot of effort envisioning how they were going to do the wacky-gravity scenes.  My feeling is that fun challenges like that are what stand out to people who are working on a thing, and sometimes the prestige of “pulling that off” can overshadow the need to pay attention to other, less exciting aspects of filmmaking, like making sure your eye lines stay coherent in a scene or that your color gradings aren’t super distracting.

Anyway I do really like the load-bearing scene where Quinn threatens Skye at gunpoint because it is one of those many examples this season has of laying ground work for and paying off character moments.

Skye’s flip and smart and completely not ready for this level of field action, but she remembers her training, remembers how earnestly Ward wanted her to be ready for this defining moment, and gets the gun!

That “nOPE” when she can’t shoot the man is also Classic Skye and we Love Her For It.

Anyway oh yeah, McGlasses reveals his master plan to get kidnapped, so that he could get on site and ruin Quinn’s everything because he’s a Bad Justin Hammer.  His performance is SO PAINFUL and his reasoning has yet to make sense.  Coulson doesn’t ask “why did you have to be kidnapped to get in, though” but he does ask “why didn’t you try reasoning with him” as if that were the question we needed an answer to.

Also it turns out FitzSimmons has been pretty chill this whole time since their agents lost their extraction plan (well, they’re smart, they probably knew all along that there wasn’t one) and are just puttering around the lab working on what looks like their regular day-to-day science, talking excitedly about gravitonium rather than panicking that the whole plan’s gone to shit.

Unflappable.

COME ON PEOPLE the mission wasn’t “throw McGlasses into the gravitonium and do high-fives” it was “rescue McGlasses from Quinn’s grasp.”  From the way that this plays out, there is 0% indication that their initial plan was ever expected to succeed.

WE DON’T EVEN SEE HOW THEY GET OUT OF THERE, WE JUST LOOK AT SOME MCGRAVITONIUM AND THEN SEE COULSON ON THE BUS INSTRUCTING THE CONTAINMENT FACILITY ON HOW IT SHOULD BE HANDLED.

Oh well, the gratuitous plot is disposed with after this point.

In the denouement, we get to see May and Coulson interact over his experience in the field and her experience being stuck watching him in the field.  She’s finally ready for combat, but strictly for his sake.  And he’s at the point where he’s ready and willing to take her up on her offer instead of trying to prove that he’s everything he was before he died.

Following that, we get some Skyeward with some really gross romantic comedy type music.  Bear, you’re better than this!!  But the scene is nice, Chloe really brings it (almost brings too much) and Brett is there to support her.

It’s a really on-the-nose admission from Skye that her allegiances lie with SHIELD, but its an organic continuation of that bit from earlier where she wandered all up on their meeting, the outsider, and pushed her way into the heart of it.  She wants this.  She wants to feel like she belongs here.  And now she’s been trusted with some opportunities and tools to prove it!

This early in the season, we’re still doubtful that she’s on the up and up, what with that Rising Tide plot thread hanging so loose and tantalizing over our heads.  Due to the potential of a storyline revolving around her betrayal, there are a lot of fun little moments in the next few episodes where Ward gets to say some betrayal-related stuff that is absolutely excellent in retrospect.

I was watching some old interviews and while it is very clear Brett did not know the fate of his character in advance, it’s also distinctly implied that no one knew and the arc of the season may have developed episode by episode.  That’s so nutty to me, considering how strong the structure of the season is, how there are so many satisfying call backs and payoffs later on.

I think I’m more likely to applaud a well-plotted narrative, in which foreshadowing and a deliberate order of events slowly unravel to great effect.  But I can definitely appreciate the ability to force the illusion of the same by being crafty and attentive and not letting any usable threads go to waste.

Ultimately, whether by design or by providence, Season 1 is successful in pulling it all together.  It’s just that episodes like this one don’t really inspire you to believe that that outcome is likely, or even possible.  Episodes like this one cause a person to give up watching halfway through the season and walk away for years until cajoled into giving it another shot because “it got good somehow.”

But what this season has, every episode, especially ones like this one, is a pronounced, chaotic, relentless prioritization of Character over Plot.  What is this show about?  Who cares.  That’s the wrong question.  This show could have been about anything, and these early episodes are all too aware of it.  What kind of story can you tell when every option is on the table and no one knows what to expect from you?

You find that story, step by step, episode by episode, through the eyes of your characters.  The forward motion of the story isn’t “how did Coulson come back to life” but “what is life going to be like for him now?”  It’s not “will Skye betray the team” it’s “what does she want and what is she willing to do to get it?”

Posing and answering these character questions generates the Story of Agents of SHIELD.  Plots be damned.  Remember how at one point in this episode, our heroes robbed a cowboy at gunpoint?  Yeah.  Me either.

And I can’t agree more with this approach.  In my experience, PWP works best when its about the characters.

#agents of shield #aos