#why people are so restrictive when thinking about how characters can occupy that space | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

fictionalarsonist · 4 years

Text

the heartbreak prince - part 3

pairing ›_ yoonmin ; taegi feat. ›_bts namjoon ; bts hoseok content ›_angst ; murder ; violence ; blood ; drinking ; mature language ; major character death ; implied/referenced drug use rating ›_pg-13 word count ›_2.5k

―

premise ›_On his way to be on the top of the food-chain, Yoongi stumbles on the dazzling, articulated and prize possession Park Jimin. Yoongi finds himself willing to do anything to get Jimin to accept him. Taehyung believes his hyung is better than that.

credit ›_ tysm to @jiminssizzles for beta-reading this for me and for the feedback as well, i really appreciate it, hon. 🥰🥰😘

「 ao3 | masterlist 」

[ part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | wip ]

After getting treated and dismissed, Taehyung waited to see Yoongi. Those plastic chairs are uncomfortable, Taehyung’s all the more uncomfortable with all those bandages and the splint on his fingers is restraining his movements - he can’t use a gun if he had to, for once - and inches. He’d be better off if he took care of it himself. People come and go, visiting their loved ones, the clock ticks the time away and Taehyung doesn’t leave even when Jimin does.

“ Taehyung?” Yoongi blinked in confusion. “Wha- What are you doing here? How’s the office?”

“Hyung-” Taehyung started, “Take it easy.” He immediately jolted to his feet when Yoongi tried to push himself up, “You shouldn’t force yourself like this yet-”

Yoongi swallows dryly and lays down again, allowing Taehyung to set him down properly.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

Taehyung steps back as Yoongi, annoyed by his restricting body, seems to look everywhere.

“Where’s Jimin?”

“Right here.”

Jimin’s voice sounds clear and quite cheerful as he walks in, Taehyung steps aside to allow Yoongi to find what he’s been looking for. Jimin smiled at him.

“How are you feeling?” Jimin asks, discarding his coat over the hospital bed’s rail carelessly before leaning and interrupting whatever Yoongi would say with a casual kiss, as if they’ve been doing this since forever.

Taehyung watched Yoongi’s eyes look for Jimin’s, his lips still searching for another kiss when Jimin smiled. Taehyung finds it hard to suppress the bitterness that comes to him unexpectedly like an assault when Yoongi smiles. He never saw that smile before.

“You’re really here.”

“You did all of this for me. The least I can do is nurse you back to health,” Jimin says matter-of-factly as he pulls back, “A-Ah!” Jimin stops Yoongi from trying to sit up yet again, “You should rest.”

“So, you’re staying,” Yoongi’s confidence shook in his words. Taehyung either hated that or Jimin’s smile plastered on his face. It was oh-so-obvious to him that Jimin was having fun with this, but it meant nothing to him. Taehyung could see how Yoongi’s blind to it or he just wants to ignore it.

Jimin tilted his head and his smile cracked only sideways before he could part his perfect plum lips to speak.

“We’ll see-”

“I’ll- go call the doctor,” Taehyung says and ignores Jimin's eyes signaling the button right above Yoongi’s bed.

It’s only when the door’s closed at his back that Taehyung finds it in himself to breathe. He doesn't know that he's been holding his breath or for how long. Taehyung stands there in the middle of the hallway, jealousy gnawing at his skin and conflicted by his loyalty to Yoongi. The doctor walks up towards him and he walks away, only taking a look back to confirm as he sees the doctor walking in Yoongi’s room.

A few hours later, his phone rang. Taehyung picked up as soon as Yoongi’s ID popped up on his screen

“Hyung-,” he started.

“Where are you?” Yoongi’s voice is unusually hoarse and weak, but the demand in his tone is nothing to take it lightly.

“I’m at the factory,” Taehyung replies promptly, “I’m taking care of our latest harvest. I won’t be good to have them in for too long. After this, I’ll head to the office and do as you planned-”

“Forget it.” Yoongi cuts him short.

“Forget?" Taehyung asked in confusion, he stopped in the middle of the dark, cold corridor and mentioned for his men to go on ahead.

“Yeah, I sent Jimin there,” Yoongi’s casual tone made him all the more confused.

“Hyung-” he tried, “I- Honestly- I don’t think the boys will listen to him. They don’t know him.”

“Make them,” Yoongi orders.

“Hyung-”

“Jimin will be in charge until I get back,” Yoongi says, purposely ignoring whatever Taehyung’s intention to contradict him, “Make sure the boys listen to him well!”

There was a pause, Taehyung knew Yoongi was listening for the usual ‘yes, hyung’ , but he just couldn’t bring himself to say it. Taehyung tried swallowing the contradictory sentences that seem to easily find their ways to his lips and despite the fact that he didn't say a thing, he knew Yoongi could hear him thinking out loud.

“Do you have anything to say?” Yoongi dared him.

The silence occupied the space, his usual compliance waiting to be voiced out. Taehyung swallowed hard. “No, hyung.” He replied hesitantly.

“Good.” He heard and closed his eyes, angry at himself, but even more so at Yoongi’s stupidity, “When you’re done come over.”

Taehyung hung up after a shallow ‘yes’ and half-hearted goodbye to Yoongi. He stared at the screen, Hoseok’s words echoing in his head. Taehyung doesn’t believe Yoongi’s blind to this. He keeps telling himself Yoongi can’t possibly be this naive, but the more faith he wants to put in Yoongi, the more he feels like it’s nothing but blind faith.

“Sir!”

Taehyung’s head snapped up just in time to see one of his men rushing and stopping sharp in front of him, obviously anxious about whatever that he has to say.

“What?” Taehyung promptly walked beside him back in the direction he just came from.

“Someone’s asking for Jung Hoseok’s specifically- ” The man says with nervousness shaking his voice, his eyes darting back and forth to Taehyung and the corridor in front of them. As he was about to say anything else, Jimin appeared walking towards him. Yoongi’s men walked behind him, looking puzzled and irritated, throwing questioning glances at Taehyung who dismissed them with a wave of his hand.

Taehyung couldn’t understand how Jimin’s bright eye smile made him feel off, the halo around him seemed to light up the dark corridor. It was otherwise something good and attractive, to Taehyung it feels threatening.

“Oh! Our adorable Tae’s here!” Jimin smiled openly, tilting his head questioningly.

“Didn’t know you’ve been looking for me,” Taehyung beamed as they walked towards each other as if to impose himself, more out of stubborness than anything else, Taehyung stopped first. Jimin chuckles and takes a few steps before stopping as well.

“I’m sure Yoongi called you already.”

Taehyung hummed as a reply, nodding his head.

“I just talked to him just now,” Taehyung added uncaringly.

Jimin carefully put his hands inside the pockets of his dress pants and cocked his eyebrows, waiting for something more and a half-smile broke his facade.

“Then-,” Jimin hissed, “Then, why is none of the boys answering my commands?”

Taehyung caught up on Jimin’s threatening tone under all that sweetness. He knew how dangerous that could be, despite being in his own element, Taehyung felt Jimin’s threat under his skin much worse than Hoseok with his calm and uncaring demeanor holding a gun to his head.

“I’ve heard Hoseok’s was sent here for harvesting, right? I think it’d be best if we get rid of him.”

“This has already been taken care of.”

Jimin blinked in faked innocence and nodded, looking away from Taehyung.

“Oh, is that so?” There was a very short pause when Jimin looked back at Taehyung daringly, “That’s funny ‘cause I swear I just heard some of your boys talking about Hoseok’s high maintenance habits.”

Taehyung didn’t like how Jimin cracked a smile any more than he likes his usual one. He watched as Jimin took slow steps towards him until they’re face to face.

“You wouldn’t mind ordering them to show me where you keep your guests, would you?”

Jimin saw Taehyung gulping down and taking a deep breath before turning to the man that has been standing with them this whole time. If Taehyung didn’t seem to like him, the others seemed to like him even less. Not that such a thing bothered him, but he needed Yoongi’s men to do his job. Jimin didn’t take his eyes off Taehyung as the other gave the man the order, wanting to make sure there was no sign of misleading orders.

“Take Mr. Park here to see the underground-” Jimin cut him short there.

“Show me where Hoseok is… Or whatever you have of him.” Jimin corrects.

“Just do as he says,” Taehyung sighs, obviously contradicting himself as he orders. The other man waits for any more orders, but Jimin’s the one who speaks up.

“You leave first, Tae.” Jimin says, staring at Taehyung.

Conflicted Taehyung passed by Jimin, his heart thumping irredically against his chest, containing the petty will to bump shoulders with him. He felt Jimin’s eyes on his back until he was off sight.

Jimin turned to his new companion and raised his brows.

“Shall we?”

“This way, sir.”

The man took him the opposite way Taehyung went and opened an unsuspicious door midway towards the end of the corridor. The place was a cold, dark maze and Jimin made sure to trace the path. He didn’t have a say in this yet and even if he saw no other signs of Taehyung, there’s no way he is trusting the man in front of him.

Walking down the staircase that seemed to be longer than he thought at first, another joined them and unlocked a heavy door. He threw a questioning glare at Jimin, but didn’t seem to mind him much.

“Who?” The man asked, pushing the door open.

“Jung Hoseok’s room.”

Jimin didn’t miss the one-second-hesitancy where he looked for a mixed signal from the other and frowned, just slightly, then there was none. Both men guided him down the corridor when the first man’s phone rang.

“Don’t take that.” Jimin ordered.

��It’s the boss.”

“Taehyung?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t take it.” Jimin reached out and took the phone from him, just in case Taehyung would try anything by phone.

The eeriness of that place was unsettling, Jimin could hear indistinguishable sounds from behind some of those doors were off-putting and made Jimin be all the more alert. They finally stopped in front of a room and Jimin felt as if they were taking a little too long to unlock the door.

***

It’s quite funny to him, in a twisted way, that is. Not too long ago Taehyung was the one who would follow Yoongi without saying a word. Despite the mistakes, the danger, the stupid moves and seeing how Yoongi had nothing but raw hunger to move forward and higher, Taehyung followed, not caring on where would it lead him next. Now- It’s Yoongi who's doing that, but not to him- and it’s not that he ever expected that, but Taehyung can’t accept that Yoongi’s followed this Jimin guy of all people while he’s just there. Watching. Thinking more than he should, questioning as he would never do.

“I sent one of the boys to tell you about-” Taehyung interrupted his right hand man.

“I know, there’s something you all have to know about this new guy. Assemble the boys for a meeting. Now! I’ll join you once I talk to the doc.”

“Yes, sir!”

Taehyung felt like smoking, but one of the rules is never smoke in the operation center and everyone had to follow that rule, even Yoongi did. He pushed the double doors open to the operation room and met the doctor, looking agitated for whatever reason. The man stood frozen on the spot when Taehyung walked in with his foul mood.

“Problems?”

“Yoongi called me, he told me about a guy called Jimin taking over.” The man spoke in one breathy tone that seemed to use everything he had in his lungs, his eyes darted everywhere in panic, “This Park Jimin- He’s one you should invite into the business like this~,” the man sounded desperate, “If he’s joining in I can’t stay- I- I can’t -,” the doctor’s voice started to drop as he spoke, “You- you have to let me go. You have to. I can’t work with him. Someone else- Just ask someon-”

Taehyung has already taken enough of Jimin’s name and the divergent reaction he draws from others, so he latches onto the doctor. This is nothing, really, but the delicate doctor takes the light punch, the dragging, the threat, the shove and the harsh words a little too close to heart. For a man like him, this seems a little too much.

“What makes you think I’m better or less threatening than Jimin?”

The doctor licks his broken lip, trembling and looking everywhere.

“Yo-You don’t understand. You just-,” he glances in desperation to Taehyung. “Tell the boss to get rid of him. Huh? Tell him Jimin’s dangerous. He- He’s not like you see him.”

“Where do you know him from?”

The doctor swallows hard and looks away.

“I-I can’t-”

Seeing nothing but red, Taehyung’s hand grips on the man’s throat.

“I can’t say it. Not if he’s in.”

Taehyung pushed the man away on the chair and turned away, rubbing his hands over his head. The chair tilted back and the man fell to the floor in a ridiculous manner. He didn’t bother to stand up.

“Look for another doctor.” The man speaks with his trembling voice. “It won’t be safe for me if I stay and I can't guarantee my loyalty either. Jimin-,” the man licks his blood-stained, broken lips, “he knows, he… I know someone that can take over my job. Maybe better than me- I swear, ” the man fumbles to his feet and ignores his unstable legs as he jolts to place his hand on Taehyung’s shoulder, trying his best to be heard, “I did what I could to take this job from this other person. I promise- you’ll like him better-”

“Did he tell you to do this?” Taehyung asks quietly.

“Wha-”

Taehyung turns to face him and the doctor steps back.

“Did Jimin tell you to do this to get his man inside the business? Because you’re a coward to get between him and hyung?”

“I- Wh- No! I swear! ” The man begs, dropping to his knee, “This isn’t it. Taehyung, you have to trust me.” Taehyung's eyes flew to the man’s hand gripping on his pants. “I swear- Taehyung. Please.”

Taehyung stared at the man at his feet, his lips forming words without sound and Taehyung knew what they were. The doctor already paid his due to the business a while ago, he could be let off, but he wasn’t feeling like he should do so. There’s too much anger, all because of Jimin.

“Alright.” Taehyung spoke up suddenly and a sickening smile appeared on the doctor’s face, “I’ll make sure Jimin doesn’t find you.”

The doctor’s smile died at Taehyung’s glare. He pulled away and tried to leave, but it didn’t work no matter how much he tried. If there was no use to keep him as a doctor, maybe Taehyung could add the doctor to the income. Being without one would cause some losses anyway.

On his way out of the room Taehyung pulled out a cigarette, maybe if he smoked before going in he wouldn’t be so stressed. He could count that as a big loss for the business. He turned to one of his men looking strangely at him from the corridor.

“Once Mr. Park leaves the rooms downstairs, take the doctor and make sure that he’s quiet about it. Don’t let Jimin see him, yeah?”

“Yes, sir”

Taehyung’s heels echo as he walks down the hall. Maybe Jimin brought the worst side of him after all.

⇽ part 02 | part 4 ⇾

#95line.net #bangtanxm #bangtanscenery #kwordsmiths #btsnoonanet #mine #taegi #yoonmin #bts fanfic #angst #mafia au #gang au #yoongi #taehyung #jimin #mxm #bts mxm

4 notes · View notes

alixofagnia · 5 years

Text

OpheThorn II: A Slightly Less Rambling Analysis

The Missing of Clairdelune is a superb second installment in The Mirror Visitor quartet. We get more of what we loved about the first book, more pieces to the larger existential puzzle, yet it smartly stops short of resolving too much so that we stay invested for the third episode. Christelle Dabos allows herself slightly more exposition. But the novel really succeeds by continuing to follow the less-is-more mantra and the showing vs. telling style.

As you may or may not recall, after I finished A Winter’s Promise, I spent an embarrassing amount of time copy/pasting excerpts from this book into Google Translate with the result that I really did spoil a lot of the OpheThorn parts for myself—which I don’t exactly regret. But, essentially, it left me with a bit less to say. I had a good response to my first OpheThorn analysis (it’s here and thank you for all the kind words), so I did think that I’d like to put something out about Clairdelune as well, I just wasn’t sure what. After some consideration (and a re-read), I do have some more thoughts about OpheThorn.

So, here we go.

[Spoilers included this time]

[All fanart images credited to @patricialyfoung]

Intro

Since Clairdelune begins right where Promise concluded, Ophelia is still pissed at Thorn, while Thorn is still pining for Ophelia albeit in his uniquely aloof way. The only real thing that’s made me scratch my head with them is the severity of Ophelia’s anger/resentment over Thorn having withheld his true ambitions from her and her finding out about them from someone else. I just think it’s a little bit of a weak conflict for them given how pragmatic they are. I get that it’s the culmination of a frustrating situation. But I still think it’s weak.

So, once again the two begin on shaky ground, a space they occupy for the bulk of the novel. They are, at least, together a bit more than before and there’s all sorts of lovely tension, mostly caused by Thorn’s inelegant method of wooing compounded by Ophelia’s stubborn refusal to give him an inch. Thorn’s growing feelings for Ophelia were subtly hinted at in Promise and they become more apparent here, particularly when juxtaposed against Ophelia’s stubborn denial of hers for him.

And I just adore the cover art! Don’t you?

Thorn and Autism Spectrum Disorder

This is what I want to discuss. I may be alone in this, but it seems like Thorn could be coded as having autism spectrum disorder (ASD). It occurred to me while I was reading Promise and this time around, I feel comfortable in taking that perspective on Thorn. I like the notion of applying an ASD reading to his character because it explains a few descriptive quirks and makes him more than a “weirdo” or “freak”, which is reductive labeling. When considering his interactions with other characters and their reactions to him, this reading lends an added layer to his actions and overall development.

But let me make something clear.

This book isn’t about ASD, so I’m not suggesting that Dabos intended to write Thorn as having ASD or is trying to make a statement in any way on the disorder, and I’m cautious about how I use this idea to understand the character. This is purely my own speculation/take on the character.

I also want to be clear that I don’t have any personal experience with the disorder. I’ve met people with autism and ASD and they were all very different from each other and had very different needs. So, I’m largely making connections with textbook examples of ASD and they’re maybe a little bit broad because as I said it isn’t explicitly made clear that Thorn has ASD. I may very likely err in my understanding of this disorder. If that’s the case, I apologize in advance and please do correct me or give me your own opinion on this idea.

Here’s an overview from the webpage of the national institute of mental health:

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a developmental disorder that affects communication and behavior. Although autism can be diagnosed at any age, it is said to be a “developmental disorder” because symptoms generally appear in the first two years of life. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), a guide created by the American Psychiatric Association used to diagnose mental disorders, people with ASD have:

Difficulty with communication and interaction with other people

Restricted interests and repetitive behaviors

Symptoms that hurt the person’s ability to function properly in school, work, and other areas of life

Autism is known as a “spectrum” disorder because there is wide variation in the type and severity of symptoms people experience. Although ASD can be a lifelong disorder, treatments and services can improve a person’s symptoms and ability to function.

It’s been shown repeatedly that it’s very difficult for Thorn to be an inviting and easy-going person, even with people he cares about. Thorn struggles with communication, is emotionally suppressed, is both uncaring and at times completely unaware of how he presents himself socially, and obsessively consults his pocket watch, particularly when he’s at a loss for words or bored, or otherwise ready to get the hell out of any situation that causes him anxiety. He’s highly intelligent, fixated on order and organization, and has a history (as we know from Promise and learn more about in Clairdelune) of meeting intense emotion with impulsive violence.

Here’s a list (also from the NIMH website) of common symptoms:

Making little or inconsistent eye contact

Tending not to look at or listen to people

Rarely sharing enjoyment of objects or activities by pointing or showing things to others

Failing to, or being slow to, respond to someone calling their name or to other verbal attempts to gain attention

Having difficulties with the back and forth of conversation

Often talking at length about a favorite subject without noticing that others are not interested or without giving others a chance to respond

Having facial expressions, movements, and gestures that do not match what is being said

Having an unusual tone of voice that may sound sing-song or flat and robot-like

Having trouble understanding another person’s point of view or being unable to predict or understand other people’s actions

Repeating certain behaviors or having unusual behaviors. For example, repeating words or phrases, a behavior called echolalia

Having a lasting intense interest in certain topics, such as numbers, details, or facts

Having overly focused interests, such as with moving objects or parts of objects

Getting upset by slight changes in a routine

Being more or less sensitive than other people to sensory input, such as light, noise, clothing, or temperature

People with ASD may also experience sleep problems and irritability. Although people with ASD experience many challenges, they may also have many strengths including:

Being able to learn things in detail and remember information for long periods of time

Being strong visual and auditory learners

Excelling in math, science, music, or art

One can’t help but notice that we can check several of these points off for Thorn. Not all, certainly, but I’m sure you can call to mind some of your own examples of him exhibiting many of these behaviors repeatedly.

Where Does Ophelia Fit In?

Thorn has always treated his relationship with Ophelia in a very business-like manner, almost like a negotiation, which makes sense within the context of an arranged marriage. At the novel’s start, Thorn wishes to make amends, but Ophelia makes it very clear that she will not forgive him for his lies and neglect. His response to her is rather clinical.

“We simply can’t allow ourselves to be enemies,” cut in Thorn. “You’re making my life difficult with your resentment; it’s imperative that we become reconciled. […] Meet me at the Treasury, insult me, slap me, smash a plate over my head if you feel like it, and then let’s never speak of it again. Name your day. This Thursday would suit me.” [65]

I suppose this is a rather annoying response, especially if one is really just looking for a simple and genuine apology. But if we read Thorn as having ASD, then this feels a little different. He’s simplifying a conflict that he maybe doesn’t quite understand; he’s been given a different perspective on his actions and it’s perhaps beyond his capability to comprehend. To compensate, he turns this into a matter of business, which is something he can understand quite well, even going so far as to try and pencil Ophelia into his calendar. But he’s woefully unaware of the frustrating effect his language and tone have on her. Of course, what’s key here is what he isn’t saying: that she’s making his life difficult because he loves her; he wants to be on good terms, but doesn’t know how to fix this. Note that he again suggests violence as a means to deal with her emotion.

When they do meet up, Thorn says,

“I have many enemies. I no longer want to count you among them, so tell me what I must do. That is why you came here, isn’t it? You have a deal to offer me, I’m listening to you.” [152]

He’s desperate. It’s also worth noting that he’s fairly vulnerable in this chapter; he exhibits jealousy and some hurt—Ophelia missed their original appointment because she was with Archibald and forgot about him.

Modest as always, Ophelia asks only for a job, money to pay Fox, her new assistant, and to see the real outdoors again. She lastly requests that he always be honest with her, especially in matters that directly concern her. In exchange, she will teach him how to Read objects after the ceremony of the Gift and he will teach her how to use the claws that he’ll pass to her. She also reiterates, for good measure, that this will be their only conjugal duty. He grants the first three readily enough, but the fourth one trips him up. He does agree to it, but it’s obvious that it will cost him in more ways than one.

While I imagine that he’s receptive on some level to sexual intimacy with Ophelia, I think he’s more afraid of intimacy in general. Sharing things and being honest with a partner means opening oneself up to vulnerability, to weakness. The undertaking he’s set for himself—a mission he’s already devoted 15 years of his life to—doesn’t allow for that kind of intimacy; rather, it requires utmost resiliency, secrecy, and focus. Furthermore, if he were to be seen forming loving attachments (with Berenilde, Ophelia, or anyone else), then that could be turned against him over the course of fulfilling his risky endeavor. It’s that very fear, in fact, which has made him exclude his aunt (and attempt to exclude Ophelia) entirely from his investigation. His pursuit of a noble title and legitimacy is a front, an easy excuse he thought up to satisfy Berenilde’s and the court’s curiosity about why he suddenly wanted to get married and Read Farouk’s Book.

Like Thorn, it scares Ophelia to feel herself falling in love. Perhaps the womanly pride she carries with her makes it difficult for her to open up. After all, love and marriage were never apparently high on her list of things to accomplish either. Ophelia and Thorn are separately dealing with the same conundrum, which is that to love means to fear, and that’s messy. It could get in the way of a life that is humble (Ophelia) and a life that is ambitious (Thorn). Simply put, neither one had accounted for even the possibility of love in their marriage.

Perhaps because Ophelia is a Reader, I think that deep down she likes the enigma and challenge that is Thorn. Yes, he’s frustrating, but she never truly loses interest in him. Indeed, if anything, she becomes increasingly intrigued and is entirely won over when she at last learns all about what he’s doing. Ophelia is very likely the first person to make Thorn both confront and attempt to correct his inadequacy in areas of intimacy. As I touched on in my previous analysis, Ophelia calling Thorn out on his behavior and habits is surely a novelty for him.

“I believe neither in luck nor in destiny,” he declared. “I trust only the science of probabilities. I have studied mathematical statistics, combinatorial analysis, mass function, and random variables, and they have never held any surprises for me. You don’t seem fully to grasp the destabilizing effect that someone like you can have on someone like me.” [377]

Ohhhhkay.

It turns out, she’s a bit of an enigma and definitely a challenge to him in kind. This is Thorn’s way of trying to tell Ophelia that he loves her.

Thorn and Ophelia seek control and wield it differently. Thorn can be arrogant and overconfident with it, and he wants to be its sole retainer. Ophelia also wants to retain it but as it pertains to her decisions for herself, and she rebels against it when she feels like that’s being taken away from her. It’s important to them that they are in control of their own actions and destinies. But what neither one of them understands is that those we end up loving is often (or maybe always) outside of our control. Love has no explanation, and doesn’t require one. You can’t predict it. You can’t dictate it. You can’t calculate it or quantify it.

Ophelia seriously turns Thorn’s life, and everything he thought he could predict or control about it, upside down. Initially unwittingly, then actively, she encourages him to develop.

ASD Made Sexy

As inelegant as he is, Thorn does have his own way of being shocking:

“You wanted me to be honest with you. You will thus learn that you are not just a pair of hands for me. And I don’t give a damn whether people find me suspect, as long as I am not so in your eyes. You will return this to me when I have kept all my promises,” he grumbled, holding his watch out to Ophelia without noticing her stunned expression. “And if you still doubt me in the future, just read it.” [156].

You guys, this is kind of romantic, right? He’s so direct and it really flusters Ophelia, who is steadfastly resisting the decidedly non-business-like turn their relationship has taken. Skip to novel’s end, however, and she has totally changed her tune about Thorn. Right before they believe they will be parted forever, Thorn finally gives a straightforward confirmation of his feelings.

“Don’t go falling down any more stairs, avoid sharp objects, and above all, above all, keep away from disreputable people, alright? […] Oh, and by the way, I love you.” [486]

Swoon.

The fact of the matter is this: despite his unconventional looks and mannerisms, Thorn hits a certain level of sexy. Which begs the question: Can ASD be sexy? Sure, one could say that his sex appeal comes naturally with his role as the male lead, which is directly connected to his chemistry with the female lead. But I think there’s actually an important distinction to be made; it’s not whether ASD itself is sexy, it’s whether a character with ASD is sexy and I think that’s important because you don’t want ASD to be treated as a gimmick in fiction. It matters how that kind of character is presented.

Thorn’s ASD traits make him eccentric at best and a “freak” at worst, by Ophelia’s own description. Some of Thorn’s less offensive eccentricities are portrayed in an endearing light: his brusqueness with silly persons (i.e. Archibald, Baron Melchior) and their silly behavior; wearing his heavy uniform in a tropical illusion when there’s no evident dress policy for officials; preoccupied with tending to the order of his office over the tending of his wounds; launching a dangerous existential investigation all because of an illegal and unjust disruption in odds and probabilities, an utter crime in Thorn’s eyes.

But it’s also important to look at how other characters view him. Those at the Pole may look down on him, but there is no doubt that he commands a considerable level of their respect. He’s at the center of Citaceleste’s political and economical arenas, and has some judicial power as well. In short, he’s the one that everyone seemingly runs to in a crisis. Ophelia begrudgingly admires his self-control, coolness under pressure, and appreciates that he is not corrupt, like the other officials and aristocrats. Naturally, Berenilde regards him the highest. She, more than any other, gives us a glimpse of the true Thorn, putting forward the image of a protector, provider, and all-around genius.

So, the answer is yes. Thorn is sexy.

Ophelia and Asexuality

OK, I realize I’m going off on a tangent here, but since asexuality is a common reading of Ophelia that I see in reviews, I wanted to address that as well.

There are many instances of Ophelia fulfilling, for lack of a better way to put it, the butterfly trope:

Perhaps it was due to the nervousness Thorn brought out in her, or the lace veil obscuring her vision, or the scarf coiled around her foot, or her pathological clumsiness, but the fact is, Ophelia tripped on the final step of the stairs. [28]

Hearing Thorn reawakened such nervousness in Ophelia that she seriously considered hanging up on him. [63]

She did, however, have to admit that Berenilde had got it right: it was indeed out of cowardice, more even than anger, that she’d spent recent weeks avoiding him. [100]

Somewhat embarrassed, Ophelia wondered whether he felt as nervous in her company as she felt in his. [160]

Ophelia felt her blood throbbing against her eardrums, but couldn’t have said whether it was due to sudden relief or, on the contrary, heightened tension. [323]

Ophelia gets butterflies whenever her love interest is near. It’s important to note that she’s not afraid for her safety when she’s with him, although there is one incident, where she thinks he’s going to strike her, which is quickly dispelled by his sincere assurance that he’d never harm her. He gives her butterflies often by doing totally mundane things such as standing in front of her or looking at her, and that bothers her. But why?

Like Thorn, she’s convinced herself that intimacy and love aren’t for her. Some reviewers have praised Ophelia for being a representation of asexuality and, while I think there’s a strong case for her being somewhere on the asexual spectrum, I stop short at positing that she’s totally uninterested in sex or doesn’t experience sexual attraction. She’s noted, on several occasions, both in Clairdelune and Promise, Archibald’s handsomeness. In this novel, she also notes Fox’s.

With his gold braiding and red mane, he was as dazzling as Thorn was dark. Ophelia sensed herself coloring just looking at him. [165]

So, she does experience sexual attraction and, furthermore, she physically reacts to Fox’s appearance (though never to Archibald’s), which suggests that she’s not wholly disinterested in sex. In Promise, she commented that “no man had ever quickened her pulse” and lamented about whether she’d ever feel that way about someone, and I think this is probably the point at which most readers took away that she might be asexual.

But, like...

Thorn is the only man who produces intense and consistent physical reactions in her.

Also, if you look at the [323] quote above, he did in fact get her pulse up. Just saying.

Rather than label her as purely asexual or even being on the spectrum, we could instead speculate that, as a Reader, she’s experienced to some degree love in all its forms through countless objects and perhaps she can’t help having this reaction to love and intimacy. I’m not trying to be cynical or pessimistic, but love can be treacherous and people are driven to do all kinds of terrible things for it or because of it. As wonderful as love is despite that, it seems likely that Ophelia has simply decided it’s not something she wants to navigate. Or she just hadn’t met someone yet who was worth all that trouble.

I’ll Close With This:

“You’re free,” whispered Ophelia. “Free to go, free to stay. I won’t make you leave one cage for another one, although, as you’ve seen, I really don’t live in great security. I decided your fate without taking time to think, or to speak to you. I was selfish…and I still am. […] I still am because, deep down, I would like you to choose to remain by my side. I know that apologizing can no longer change anything, but anyway: forgive me.” [135]

Ophelia says this to Fox after rescuing him from the dungeons of Clairdelune and taking him on as an assistant. Now, when I read this, I couldn’t help but think that it’s precisely the apology Ophelia wants to hear from Thorn. Yet, here she is, guilty of doing to someone the very thing she holds against him. Isn’t it funny how hypocrisy and love are such good friends? As we know, articulation and eloquence are not Thorn’s strengths and some of Ophelia’s aversion to him is based around her inability to accept this part of him.

Eventually, Thorn does make, more or less, the same apology.

“I should never have involved you in my affairs. I knew it would be dangerous. I convinced myself that I had the situation under control, and that mistake almost cost you your life. […] There is one thing that I have tried to tell you several times. I’m no good at these formalities, so let’s get on with it and speak no more of it. […] Please forgive me.” [444-45]

Strangely, she barely acknowledges this; she’s too busy having an epiphany.

At that second, she finally knew with absolute certainty where her place was. It wasn’t in the Pole, it wasn’t on Anima. It was precisely where she was now. At Thorn’s side. [445]

Well, perhaps this isn’t so strange since the novel starts off posing the question to this answer.

Deep down, Ophelia wondered where exactly her first home might be. Since she’d arrived at the Pole, she’d already visited Berenilde’s manor, the Clairdelune embassy, and her fiancés Treasury, and she hadn’t felt at home in any of them. [24]

The theme of home and belonging permeates this novel in a more central way than its predecessor. Ophelia is repeatedly confronted by it, but it’s also echoed in Farouk’s obsession with the Reading of his Book and finding out where he comes from and what happened in his past. When her family arrives from Anima, she sees the Pole and Thorn through their eyes. She ends up defending both from their disapproving remarks and in doing so, she realizes that she has ceased thinking of Anima as her home.

Life in the Pole was like that: wherever one went, whatever one did, danger was part of daily life. And yet, Ophelia reflected, she didn’t hate it that much, that life. [280]

Thorn’s apology seals the deal: she understands now that she was mistaken. Home is not a place. People, those who love you and who you love in return, give a home meaning. Belonging, likewise, is only made possible by the people who accept you and give you a place among them. It’s been hard-won, but she’s found both in the Pole, in Thorn and Berenilde. Her lack of a direct response to Thorn’s words suggests that she’s already forgiven him, that it matters less to her that he struggles with communication, that she’s finally accepted him for who he is and, better still, found him lovable despite that.

If we read Thorn as having ASD, then this intense dynamic between them is a positive treatment of mental/social disorders in fiction, which is really the only point I had to make with this entire thing.

Where Does Ophelia End?

I asked this question in my last analysis. Based off of the fact that, when we left her in Promise, she was experiencing some serious discomfort in body and soul directly connected to Thorn, I predicted/semi-already-knew that she would evolve toward him.

At one point, Ophelia loses the ability to pass through mirrors. We understand that it’s because she’s been lying to herself; after all, her great-uncle made it very clear that mirror-traveling is impossible under such a circumstance. It’s ironic because, by her own admission, she’s a “bad actress” [161] and, according to her mother, “was never any good at lying” [157].

She’s just so stubborn, isn’t she? It’s gratifying then to read when Ophelia overcomes it. Thorn makes a public announcement, cancelling his marriage, refusing to Read Farouk’s Book, and handing in his resignation as Treasurer. He does this to protect Ophelia and her family from imminent danger but at risk to his own welfare and position. He’s basically committing suicide, which very nearly turns literal at novel’s end. Ophelia can only think to go to him by the quickest means possible.

She looked straight at her determined face, beyond its scratches and bruises, finally ready to face that truth that she hadn’t wanted to see. It wasn’t Thorn who needed her. It was she who needed Thorn. Ophelia plunged, body and soul, into the mirror. [416]

I don’t think I need to spell that out.

Thorn and His Watch

To go on a little bit of a tangent, I also wanted to touch on the watch.

I believe it was mentioned in Promise that the watch had been a gift from Berenilde, which is so precious. Berenilde is the only true parental figure Thorn has known. She used her status and wealth to protect and care for him, and seems to understand him as only a mother--one with a child the rest of the world refuses to accept--can. I thought her reaction to Thorn’s suicidal announcement was especially devastating.

She had begun to shake so hard that Agatha rushed to take the baby from her arms. Bent double in her chair, as though punched in the stomach, Berenilde looked imploringly at Ophelia. “I beg you. Don’t abandon my boy.” [412]

Keep in mind that Berenilde has outlived her three biological children, none of whom survived past childhood. Thorn is such a lonely figure that it’s easy to forget he comes from somewhere. But Berenilde’s reminder to us is clear: he’s not the child of his Dragon father nor of his Chronicler mother. Thorn is her child, and she’s terrified of losing him like the others.

While there can be no doubt of her sentiment toward Thorn, it’s entirely likely that Berenilde foisted much of her maternal grief, trauma, and longing onto him without his express permission; he never seems to regard her with any particular filial warmth. Then again, he once attacked Archibald in defense of Berenilde’s honor, after he seduced her away from Farouk, and Ophelia later notes that he “suspended an investigation and jumped into an airship” to be near to Berenilde when she went into labor with her daughter [373]. Thorn is clearly defined rather more by his actions than his words. But the point is Berenilde is the one who gave Thorn his sense of belonging, and I just adore that.

Metaphorically speaking, the watch represents Thorn’s heart, which was given to him by his mother figure and which he gives to Ophelia as a token of his love and trustworthiness. Indeed, it’s even called a “mechanical heart” [156]. Ophelia has Read one of Thorn’s possessions before (dice) and was overwhelmed by the fury and breadth of his emotions. If she were to Read his watch, she’d probably die. Every time he digs it out of his pocket to look at it, to hold it, to fiddle with it, he’s engraving some emotional signature or trace onto it. Ophelia ultimately decides not to Read it.

“Before you go, I would like to return this to you. You need it more than me, and, in any case, I won’t read it. I’ve chosen to trust you—you, not your watch.” [285]

Her words have a profound effect on Thorn, rendering him totally speechless and maybe more confused than ever. At any rate, he misreads the situation and catches Ophelia off guard with an awkward kiss. It’s kind of a heartbreaking scene, because Ophelia simply reacts (by slapping him) and is genuinely baffled that he took her words for encouragement. I don’t necessarily take this to be evidence of her asexuality. I don’t discredit it by any means, but it just feels more like she was taken by surprise.

The thing is, for perhaps the first time ever in his life, he actively desired for someone to know his true heart and to trust in his sincerity, which is why he gave the watch to her in the first place. In his defense, this was quite a pretty and irresistible thing for Ophelia to tell him and I don’t think she’s as put off as she wants to be.

With ears burning and glasses crimson, Ophelia stared at the faded letters on the old wooden panel—“STAFF ONLY”—as if Thorn might, at any moment, retrace his steps, take back his kiss, and leave his fob watch with her, as she’d suggested in the first place. [286]

It’s funny. She wants to erase the uncomfortable physical side of the incident, but she also wants to retain his metaphorical heart. I mean, yes, it’s broken because of some careless action on her part and she asked for it back so her great-uncle could try to fix it. But still. It’s hard to ignore the metaphor there as well: if the heart watch has changed from beating to broken and she wants to hold onto the broken heart watch to try to mend it…

Well, good Lord, it’s just so obvious, isn’t it?

End

Well, that’s about it. As I said, I really only had the one main thought and then a bunch of smaller ones.

I just learned—and am seriously devastated—that The Memory of Babel won’t be released in the U.S. until May 2020. I’m hoping this is a tentative date and that it will be available sooner.

In the meantime, if someone could upload a PDF that I could then spend days plugging in to Google Translate (again), that’d be super greeeeaaaat…

For part III, head here.

#ophethorn #La Passe-Miroir #les disparus de clairdelune #the mirror visitor #the missing of clairdelune #christelle dabos #long book report

149 notes · View notes

zippdementia · 4 years

Text

Part 77 Alignment May Vary: A Little Touch of Undermountain

Last time, my players got wrapped up with a bunch of Githzerai and so I needed to come up with a Gith dungeon. For the next piece of the adventure, I used level 16 of Undermountain, so following will be spoilers for that level of 5e’s Undermountain. If you don’t mind, then read on to see how it progressed!

When I prep for a dungeon, I like to read the whole thing first. Not in incredible detail while taking notes or anything, but just skimming through, browsing maps, getting the general idea, spotting interesting rooms, getting a sense of the challenge.

What I’m really trying to do is to find the story.

Every dungeon tells a tale, or at least has the ability to tell a tale. There is no exception to this. Sometimes the tale is very deliberate, other times it will read differently to each GM, based on the personal biases and aesthetics they bring to their reading of the dungeon. For instance, in a dungeon run by Kobolds but with no details as to why they are there, different DMs will draw different conclusions. Some might look at the treasure room and determine that the Kobolds must be protecting an ancient treasure of their people. Bam, there you have a story. Others might notice that the Kobolds are oddly led by a Drow wizard and conclude that this is only the tip of a greater invasion dwelling just below the surface. Another might take the same data and think that this is the dwelling of an outcast Drow, who pridefully believes this to be the first step towards his conquering of the world. Even another might see this and believe that the Drow has been magically enchanted to believe that he himself is a Kobold, and the Kobolds serving him don’t have the courage to try and convince him otherwise, not after what happened to poor pussbottom...

In the case of the dungeon levels of Undermountain, we have quite a bit to go on. Each level in the fifth edition rendition of the dungeon is given at least one deliberate and major story that can be used as a throughline without and several smaller plot lines that are left more open for the DM and players to develop through their actions. In level 16, there is a Githyanki fortress led by a female warrior, Al’Chaia. Wrapped up in her rule is a number of complications. For one, she has encouraged competition among her followers and this has had led to at least one believing they could be a better ruler than she is. Even among her dragon pets, there is competition, as one of the young dragons is seeking to escape the rule of his great red mother and is willing to burn his way to freedom if given the opportunity and a strong enough party of (momentary) allies. And speaking of momentary allies, there are prisoners in the dungeon just waiting for a chance to escape: a group of Mind Flayers for one, and a lone Githzerai monk for another. The two groups won’t work together, but either one could make for a powerful set of allies when trying to work against Al’Chaia. Al’Chaia, for her part, is equal mixture paranoia and pride, desiring to have a direct hand in everything that happens in Stardock and personally interviewing all trespassers and prisoners. She prefers to have intruders taken alive and her knights see this as such a clear way to her favor that they will go to great lengths, even endangering themselves, to capture interlopers rather than kill them.

So, this leaves us with the following story threads:

Al’Chaia wants prisoners

Ezria is a prisoner whom the Githzerai want freed

At least one general wants Al’Chaia dead

There are Mindflayer prisoners who want to be freed

Level 16 is broken into two dungeons, really: the Crystal Labyrinth and the Githyanki Stardock (which is actually located in space and is a light entry into the Spelljammer campaign setting).

Transposing a Dungeon

If playing Undermountain on its own, then the purpose of every dungeon level is to survive and make it to the next lowest level. In this light, Level 16 is an odd one, because you never actually have to go to Stardock to proceed to the next level of Undermountain. Even a group curious about Stardock can’t easily access it, they have to find a key first which requires either killing or convincing one of the more powerful combatants in the Crystal Labyrinth to give you their key. A group might be COMPELLED to seek out and explore Stardock by groups they encounter earlier or later in Undermountain, but square for square it is the easiest level of Undermountain to bypass. The other surprising thing is that all of the story I mentioned above, all of those hooks, happen mostly in Stardock and not so much in the Crystal Labyrinth.

For my purposes, there isn’t anywhere else to go: the players aren’t in Undermountain trying to get to the next level, so I had to focus them from the start on the idea of accessing the Stardock. At the same time, they had some major restrictions that delvers into Undermountain don’t, the big one being they have nowhere to run to in case they need a long rest. Oh, and because their ship is running out of oxygen, they have a limited amount of time to finish the adventure and achieve their goal.

The goal I set up as rescuing Ezria, the Githzerai monk. It made the most sense in terms of story and also felt like the most achievable mission (as killing Al’Chaia is tough, considering she fights with other Gith at her side and at least one young red dragon (possibly more, and possibly an Adult Red Dragon, too, depending on when and how you fight her). I didn’t rule out the possibility of them killing Al’Chaia, but if they did it would have to take place as a hit-and-run assassination, killing her in a few rounds before she had a chance to summon any guards and then getting the heck outta dodge before the mamma dragon showed up to take revenge. Regardless, the mission would require stealthy play, something we haven’t done too much of in our adventures.

I also broke the mission into three pieces in my mind: one was to get through the Crystal Labyrinth (reskinned for my purposes as an in-between world, a backdoor the Githzerai “tunneled” through the aether into the Githyanki fortress, but which was discovered and occupied by the Githyanki) probably proceeding with the help of one of the dissatisfied generals working under Al’Chaia. The second part was to find Ezria in Stardock and break him out of prison. The third part was to escape back to the entrance of Stardock, where Ezria would open a portal and they would get back to the Githzerai homeworld.

There was nothing I threw out or changed over much aside from focusing the dungeon flow on these elements and adhering to those three parts. Other than that, I just got ready to improvise based on whatever the players did.

How Did it Go?

After an initial added puzzle involving a malfunctioning security laser system, the players enter the Labyrinth proper. I changed the entrance point to be the far east side of the map, rather than the west, because I wanted to place them potentially closer to Urlon, one of the more benign of the disgruntled lieutenants (AKA he doesn’t attack them on sight). Overall, there is less activity on this side of the map so I felt like it gave them a better chance of finding a way through the maze to the Stardock.

They do a good job initially of sneaking around. They encounter an imprisoned Mind Flayer, Marqoux (we call him Marky for short) and talk to him for a moment to get a basic understanding of where they are and what to look out for. They are unable to free him at this time, and so they move on and come to a gigantic cavern filled with Githyanki, overseen by a more powerful Githyanki female floating naked in a crystal in the center of the room. This fight is huge. It ends up involving about a dozen Githyanki, all them leaping and misty stepping all over the place, striking by darting in and then teleporting away. The woman in the crystal compliments their attacks with magic missile, haste spells, and twice a gigantic fireball that the party manages to dodge. There are also three Crystal Golems, time and light bending monstrous statues who are less effective than they might have been (due to some poor rolling on my part) and instead make the players feel pretty epic as they dodge around +8 and +10 to hits and whittle away at the Golems until they are naught but crystaline dust in the glowing Labyrinth.

The coolest moments to come out of this come from Imoaza. At one point she strikes down a Githyanki and then uses her Warlock powers to trap his soul and raise him from the dead as a wraith who fights at her command. At another, she leaps over a Crystal Golem’s attack, splits Drosselgreymer into its two smaller sickles, lands on the golem’s chest and hangs there with one sickle while slashing away at the creature’s single diamond eye with the other until it goes down. She then backflips off of it, puts together Drosselgremyer again, and shoots eldritch blasts at two Githyanki as she lands. It’s some next level anime shit.

All this fighting eventually attracts the attentions of one of the Githyanki Knights, who strides into battle atop a young red dragon and who turns the tide in favor of the enemy, scattering the players. Imoaza hides inside a cone of ice and then sneaks away when it dissipates. Carrick flees deeper into the caverns, hiding himself in a crevice. And Milosh, who has proven to be by far the tankiest of the characters, takes on the dragon and its rider on his own for a round or two before being forced into a dead end outside of the Mind Flayer’s prison cell.

I don’t know if we’ve mentioned before that Milosh has a power cannon on his arm, similar to Mega Man? His can burn special gun-arm slots to mimic certain magic and it can fire arrows like a crossbow, powering them up with different effects as he fires them (and he’ll learn more effects as time goes on). He uses one here to launch an electrified arrow into the Githyanki knight’s chest, nearly killing her in a single blow! She survives though and with his resources running out and a pissed off red dragon staring him down, Milosh prepares to either make his final stand or use a special ranger power he has to pierce the aether and travel unseen through the ethereal plane to escape. But instead the Githyanki hails him between ragged and haggard breaths and orders him to stand down and surrender. Milosh agrees and tries to find some clever way to turn this to advantage, but instead he is clapped in magical irons that prevent the use of his abilities and a magical headband that might have been familiar to Targaryen/Daymos from long long ago, blocking out Milosh’s thoughts and blinding him. Then he is led from the arena and up to Stardock.

But what about the player? Not wanting to lose anyone from the table for an extended period, we determine that in their haste to capture Milosh, the guards did not notice a key lifting off of their belt and floating quietly towards the small portal set in the door to the Mindflayer’s prison...

Keeping Your “Head” in the Game

The other party members, Imoaza and Carrick, witness Milosh’s surrender (Imoaza was actually disguised through magic as one of the Gith warriors talking to Milosh about surrendering, though she is too afraid to be caught to try and make a big play, like escorting him herself). They see him being led away by the injured Githyanki knight and her very-healthy-looking red dragon and realizing (correctly) that there is probably nothing they can do to rescue Milosh without risking the death of at least one party member, they continue to explore the labyrinth. Carrick is not very stealthy in his plate mail, and ends up alerting ANOTHER Githyanki magic user in a crystal, but Imoaza still has her disguise, and is able to pretend she is chasing him down, which makes the other Githyanki pause in their own pursuit. In this way, they stumble into the workshop of Urlon, creator of the crystal golems and their best bet at getting into Stardock.

Urlon explains his frustrations of Al’Chai’s rule and his desire to see her dead. He says if they manage to assassinate her, then he will create a distraction and slow the hunt for them, buying them time to find their comrade and escape. The players agree, though in truth they don’t intend to take on Al’Chai: they simply want to get to Ezria and get the heck out of this mess. Urlon doesn’t know this, so he offers them a ton of help: items and a general layout of the Stardock, and he also reforges Mistweaver, which used to belong to Aldric but which Carrick is now using, into a +3 magic weapon that retains its curious ability to hold onto and reproduce certain kinds of damage. An alarm then sounds throughtout the Labyrinth and Urlon snarls: “One of the Mindflayers has escaped,” he tells them. “They’ll be swarming the Labyrinth to find and kill the bastard. Here, you’ll need to hide until this is over.” He telekinetically levitates a massive work table off the ground to reveal a trapdoor leading into a small chamber underneath the workshop, where Imoaza and Carrick squeeze into a semi-comfortable spot, getting a short rest while Urlon and his apprentice, a younger Gith male, go to join the hunt.

The Mindflayer in question is the one being played by our other player, and the alarm is because he inadvertently alerted the Gith after a botched stealth roll. He now flees through the Labyrinth, seeking a hiding spot. He eventually spots one while slinking around the edge of a large cavern: a niche high in the wall that he levitates to and stuffs himself inside like a trapdoor spider. Indeed, the metaphor is apt, for some time later (after a short rest), a young Gith rests against the wall, out of sight of his companions... and is promptly set upon by the Mindflayer, who scores a critical hit against him and drags him up into the niche to feast on his brain. The brain’s memories rush into Marky and it turns out he ate the brain of Urlon’s apprentice. He now knows that two of the adventurers he met earlier are hiding out in Urlon’s workshop and that they have the means to enter Stardock.

Imoaza and Carrick have been sharing a somewhat uncomfortable silence while they rest. Carrick has been keeping an eye on Imoaza since Aldric’s death. Some whisper of fear eats at him. He hasn’t exactly suspected her, but some Paladin intuition is cluing him in to Imoaza’s deeper evil... though, for her part, Imoaza does not believe in evil. She believes only in pragmatism, and has already justified Aldric’s murder in her mind as an act of mercy. Aldric was clearly going to die, she tells herself, and was beginning to show his weakness besides. He’d become emotional and attached. He had a family, for god’s sake. That was dangerous for the group. She was preserving the group.

When Imoaza and Carrick next see the light of the Crystal Labyrinth pouring in through the trapdoor, it is not Urlon who stares down at them, but instead the tentacled face of the Mindflayer. He sends a telepathic message into their heads: “We should help each other.”

It is not the easiest decision to make. After all, Mindflayers are not easily trusted, and they also know that the Gith will be hunting for this one and will respond to any sighting of it with extreme prejudice. Even Urlon, who seemed actually sympathetic towards Ezria and the other Githzerai, going so far as to say he would cease the hunt for them if he replaces Al’Chaia, turned cold when it came to discussing the hunt for the ‘flayer.

At the same time, what choice do they really have?

The three thus band together, leave Urlon’s workshop, and make their way to the portal to Stardock. The Mindflayer uses his access to the Gith’s brain he devoured to fool the lone Crystal Golem blocking their way to the portal to Stardock (a cool notion the player came up with). They pass the golem without incident and insert the key into the portal, and are whisked away to the second part of the adventure, which we will cover next time.

One More Thing...

Before I sign off though, notice some of the things that went on in this session. I didn’t overly prep for this session. All I did read over the dungeon and then find those story threads. To keep things moving and the game fun in the actual session, all I had to do was tie everything that happened in the actual play with one of those story threads. Thus, when the fight with the Githyanki threatened to kill one or more of the players, it was perfectly reasonable instead for the Knight to try and imprison at least one of them, avoiding a TPK and keeping the story moving. Then, because that was removing a player from our game potentially, I improvised by turning to another story point: the Mindflayers. Now my player could stay in the action (very memorably so) as a Mindflayer. How often does a player get to play a monster in a game? And last, when the players seemed beat down and at a loss for where to go next, they found Urlon, who connected them to the “revolution” plot line.

Thus, no matter how crazy things got, I could always get us out of the weeds by steering us back towards the story threads. Identify these in your own sessions and you will find you have to plan a lot less and are ready to improvise when the need arises. And it ALWAYS arises. That’s half the fun of being a Dungeon Master!

#Dungeons and Dragons #dnd 5e #Campaign Journal #AlignmentMayVary #Alignment May Vary #Githyanki #Githzerai

4 notes · View notes

generaldevi · 5 years

Text

Prognosis

Chapter 5: Blisters

Rating: Mature

Pairing: Law x Luffy

Characters: Roronoa Zoro, Nami, Monkey D. Luffy, Trafalgar D. Water Law, Usopp, Donquixote Doflamingo (mentioned), Donquixote Rocinante (mentioned, Dr. Kureha (mentioned), Sanji (mentioned)

Warnings: References to Depression, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional Dependency

My part for the @lawlu-events BigBang 2018/19

The story got illustrated by the awesome artist @novicecomics

“Oi, Nami.” Luffy had noticed the way Nami’s posture and way of walking had changed a while ago. Why was she limping, did she hurt herself? He would have noticed her twisting her ankle or her tripping, it must be something different then.

He walked beside her, grinning as she looked at him in a questioning way. The way Luffy gazed at her and then at her heels. Something was up.

“Why did you buy these shoes if you cannot walk in them?” She was wearing light-brown sandals with high heels. It could not be comfortable walking in them. Luffy was confused why so many women (and some men) were wearing these kinds of shoes. They looked more like a device made to hurt someone and not like proper shoes!

“Luffy!” Nami did not appreciate the question, she looked angry at first and then huffed in annoyance. By now everyone in their friends-group was used to Luffy’s weird questions and tics. Often it seemed like he did not understand a lot of things, but Nami somehow felt, as if he most of the time knew more than it seemed.

“What? Did you just buy them, because you like the colour? Or do you think they’ll fit better after a while?” Not that Luffy knew much about shoes. He has had the same pair of sandals since a few years. He only buys new ones, when his old ones were too loose and broken beyond repair. Luffy never had cared much for clothes. Something looked cool, he bought it and wore it till he needed something new. The world was far too exciting to bother with something simple and unimportant like clothes!

“Yes, I like the colour. And hmpf” She would not explain to Luffy, that these shoes emphasized her female curves! Pushing her chest and lower back slightly forward. Making her bosom and behind seem bigger, more appealing.

“But I think I got a blister from them.” She sighed heavily. She did not want to stop wearing them, but then again, blisters would make walking more difficult. Walking had started to hurt a while ago and it would not get better...

“Mh, when we are back on the cruiser, we can go to the doctor there! Torao is really nice!” “Torao?” “Yeah, the doctor! The one I went to with Zorro and Usopp!” There was a big grin on his face. “Oh right, I remember.” Nami thought about it for a moment. The good-looking doctor in fine clothes, who would ensure that she could continue wearing her sandals?

“Yes, I will go there.” Even though it was weird, that Luffy was suggesting visiting a doctor for something simple like a blister. Seems like Luffy was really interested in that person. Luffy nodded. He was excited to meet Torao again. Maybe today the other one would join them for barbeque! It would surely help the doctor with the darkness occupying his mind!

They had spent the rest of the noon going to different shops, interacting with the locals and relaxing a bit in one of the Cafes close to the shore.

When it was almost evening Nami sighed, feeling numbness instead of pain in her feet by now. “I think we should head back and I really need to give that Doctor a visit!” She said with a big grin. It was nice to see Luffy being so eager about something or someone. This time it was at least nothing dangerous!

It was almost as expected. Travel sick people and sunburned people had been a continuous occurrence on this ship. There were less people with blisters though. Apparently not everyone wanted to wander around a lot. No surprise considering the immense summer heat at the moment. Only one elder couple had visited him for some blistering plasters.

When he heard a rather familiar knock on his door he flinched. Not again. By now the dark-haired boy had visited him twice. One time with his weird long-nosed friend and a second time with some green-haired dude who had the worst sunburn Law ever had witnessed. Both times it had been rather chaotic.

The patients had not been a problem. The only problematic person so far had been Luffy. By now, he knew the name of the Strawhat. Quite a few people on the cruiser knew him after a few days.

Luffy was like a crazy whirlwind. In his office he had looked around, taken some of the medical stuff, questioning about the usage, questioning Law personal stuff. He should stay away. Safer. Isolation.

The first meeting with Luffy had been annoying, one of the most annoying patients/supports he had the pleasure of meeting in a while. Law had endured it, like he always did. His hope had been, that he would not have to see the other one again. He was wrong though.

On the second day Luffy’s questions had been even more personal. What was up with the boy. Did he not know about personal space? Apparently not. The worst part was... as dumb as Law first expected the boy to be, his empathy and emotional intelligence was incredibly high. The questions had been on point, making Law uncomfortable and uneasy. The threatening undertone was missing though. Tongue keen as a razor. Eyes hidden. Prodding. Questioning. Tormenting. Did he reveal so much of himself on the first day? He was kind of nervous what the boy would do today. Would he question him again?!

Of course, he could always send him away, but then again… he did not come alone, he always came with a patient, one of his friends. It felt, as if Luffy knew, that approaching him alone would make Law push him away.

The second knock on the door was louder. Slowly Law headed towards the door, open it in a reluctant manner.

“Torao! How are you!? Nami has worn the wrong shoes for wandering! Did you sleep? No, you did not! Why don’t you sleep? Ask Zorro! He is good at sleeping!”

Nami just shook her head. Poor doctor. “Come in.” Law sighed before closing the door after the two.

“Luffy, will you wait outside? Let me talk to the doctor?” It would make things less awkward for either the doctor, as well as for Nami. The way the doctor reacted to Luffy showed, how uneasy he was. Luffy refused though. He had a big grin on his face, as he sat down on the free chair.

“Eh? I wanna talk to Torao!” Luffy laughed amused. As if he would go outside! By now Nami should know, that he had a mind on his own!

But on contrary to his words, he watched in silence, as Law checked Nami’s hurting foot. “Nothing is twisted or broken, those shoes are way too tight. They are restricting the blood flow in your toes. They are rubbing your skin raw as well, the reason for your blisters. I will give you some lotion. I will apply it for now, make sure to either wear comfortable shoes or, even better, to be barefoot. Put the ointment on, whenever you start to feel the burning sensation again.”

Long, tender fingers were massaging the lotion onto the raw skin. Nami sighed heavy, as she felt the burning pain fade away.

“Your fingers are skilled” She tried to flirt with the doctor, but Law ignored her. Not only was the doctor pushing away Luffy, but also her! Weird person.

“Luffy, are you coming?” Nami asked, after getting up from the cot. The throbbing in her foot was way better now.

“No! I join you guys later! I wanna chat some more with Torao!” The grin on Luffy’s face did not fade, he simple ignored the way Law looked at him in a shocked way.

“Are you sure?” “Yup!” Nami sighed and smiled at Law. Well, she had tried. She could only hope, that soon Luffy would think about the evening buffet and then losing interest in spending more time with the doctor. “What do you want from me?” Law asked, after Nami had closed the door. He sighed heavily and sat down in the chair behind the desk.

He took the now empty coffee cup in his hands, turning the coffee machine on. He definitely needed coffee after dealing with the brat again. It also felt safer to have something in his hands, something to occupy at least part of him.

“What I want? Silly question! What do you want? Why are you not happy? For someone being able to save so many lives you seem in a rather dark mood!”

“I do not know what you are talking about. Everyone is in a bad mood from time to time.” Slowly Law raised one eyebrow. How did Luffy get these ideas? He could not simply look through his masquerade, could he?

“From time to time? Yeah, but you are not!” The grin did not falter, it was still cheering, still warm. Usually Law would feel threatened by a big grin. Especially while talking about uncomfortable topics.

Big grin, white teeth, revealed gum, sunglasses. These things would trigger not happy memories for the doctor. Isolation. Self-worth. Sacrifice. Shady deals. Things he should not know...

Luffy’s grin was quite the opposite. Warm and nice. Gentle in a way. And yet powerful enough to make others join him in his happy mood.

“Everyone here is happy! Isn’t this your holiday too? It is awesome seeing so many different islands, eating so much food and being able to talk with all these people! Come on! Enjoy it! Tomorrow you go with us! I will show you, how to have fun!!!!”

“I have to work.”

“You are not the only doctor here! There are two others and I am sure you can get one free day!”

If Luffy knew, that there were other doctors on board, why did he always come to him with his friends? Especially with... all of his friends. Yesterday they even had to wait, till the other patient had been outside. And still … Luffy had decided to bring his friend to him and not to the other doctors.

“I am excited for tomorrow! Just think about all the delicious meat we can eat!”

Law glared at the other one. “I did not say yes.” “You do not need to! I know, that you want to!”

Again, there was this laugh of the boy. It was a cheerful sound, kind of quirky and it had a special ring to it. It was no threatening Fufufufu that let one’s blood freeze into the veins.

It was a Shishishi sound, that let Laws lips twitch a bit. His body wanting to follow the smile, but he could not, at least not yet.

#LawLu #Trafalgar D Water Law #Monkey D Luffy #lawlu bigbang #OPFanfic #Fanfiction: Prognosis #Chapter 5

12 notes · View notes

jmsebastian · 5 years

Text

Great Adaptation Expectations - Sword of the Berserk: Guts' Rage

Some things just demand to be adapted into video games, and Kentaro Miura’s dark fantasy manga series Berserk stands pretty much atop that list. Released in 1999 and developed by Yuke’s in cooperation with Miura, Sword of the Berserk: Guts’ Rage is a third-person action game for the Sega Dreamcast that attempted to scratch that initial gamification itch, and ride the success following the first anime adaptation of the series, which premiered two years prior.

Before discussing the details, it’s important to note that Sword of the Berserk suffers the same fate that so many licensed games do. It isn’t very good. Some of that comes down to the era in which it was made. There are a few frustrations that plague it that are typical of an era in which 3D action games were relatively new. That isn’t to say there aren’t things to enjoy about the game. If nothing else, it did help solidify why the approach to how action games played needed to be adjusted. Unfortunately, that means Sword of the Berserk itself, is something of a missed opportunity. On the plus side, it’s not a very long game, so its shortcomings don’t have enough time to grossly overstay their welcome, and any suffering along the way is mercifully brief.

The first obvious issue is the lack of camera control. Going back to play any 3rd person action game without a controllable camera can feel extremely limiting. It’s become such a staple that it feels more unnatural not to have it than it probably did to have it when it was first introduced. Of course, there are certainly examples of very good games that lack it. You can’t control the camera in Onimusha or Devil May Cry, but you don’t tend to notice that limitation as much since the camera is placed in thought ways that reveal the relevant visual information to the player.

Sword of the Berserk’s camera lacks that thoughtfulness. It tries to be dynamic, moving along with your character, but the concern seems to be more on framing Guts in a particular way rather than assisting the player. Given that this is an adaptation of a beautifully drawn manga series, it’s hard to fault the developers for trying to capture some of that magic in their game (which they largely accomplish in the cutscenes), however, it ends up compromising its playability to a fairly extreme degree at times.

You also have the issue of moving toward the camera a lot, meaning you’ll often find yourself running headfirst into danger you can’t see until it’s too late. There’s even an escape sequence near the end of the game reminiscent of Sonic Adventure 2’s opening sequence. You have to run around and jump over obstacles with little warning before you’re right up against them. Without rings to help you cling to life, this is extremely frustrating. One mistake means you die, and in a game with limited checkpoints and continues, it can quickly become the hardest and most frustrating part of the entire experience.

Rollin' around at the speed of sound/Got places to go, gotta follow my rainbow/Can't stick around, have to keep movin' on/Guess what lies ahead, only one way to find out!

Another part of what makes the camera so difficult is that it doesn’t have a lot of room to maneuver, even if the developers might have wanted to. You spend most of your time inside a castle, fighting through narrow corridors and cramped courtyards. In those confined spaces, the camera can’t really move wherever it wants because chances are, level geometry would get in the way. There are few examples of where this does actually happen, such as when you travel below the castle’s cemetery, and an obelisk sitting in the middle of the room complete obscures any figures that move behind it.

Aside from restricting the camera, the level design has the consequence of hampering what the game’s mechanics are centered around entirely, the combat. The whole point of a Berserk game is to play as Guts and swing the laughably huge Dragon Slayer sword around. There are several levels in this game where that is literally impossible. One level in particular, where you run through the castle town has several passageways where you’ll clank your sword against stone trying to land a hit on guards that hinder your progress. The developers seemed to realize this would be a problem, so they put in the option to sheath the Dragon Slayer and fight with your fists. I can say that this is not the most adequate solution. Even playing on the easy difficulty, punching guards out is a dubious proposition. Your damage output is drastically reduced and since the guards can snipe you with arrows from some distance with crossbows, you may well die before even getting the chance.

Let me just, uh, erm, hmm.

On some level, you have to respect the commitment to realism, as you obviously could not swing a sword the size of the Dragon Slayer in most places that human being typically occupy. However, the ability to swing said hunk of iron in the first place is fantastical, and thus, I think it would have been more than a fair compromise to let the sword simply clip through level geometry in an effort to make the combat more fluid and satisfying. Thankfully, the boss fights, which are the main draw of the game’s combat, are usually placed in much more open areas to avoid this issue.

Ultimately, I get the feeling that the game’s design took something of a back seat to the story that Kentaro Miura wanted to tell, and as such, there’s relatively little actual game to be played at all. Of the roughly four hours it takes to get through, most of that time is spent in cutscenes, making Sword of the Berserk more of an animated film than a game. Honestly, this does not really bother me. If you got the game because you were already a fan of Berserk, then what you’re getting is Berserk. What’s especially great about it is that the story told is unique to the game. It’s a side-quest, as it were, to the Millennium Falcon arc, where Guts has decided to keep the traumatized Casca close to him as he continues his quest to defeat Griffith. In this side story, Guts meets some traveling performers and decides to go watch their performance in a nearby town. He ends up walking into the middle of a conflict between the regions lord and people afflicted with a curse, called the Mandragora.

What’s more, is that the story is told quite well. For its time, the Dreamcast was a very capable platform for 3D graphics. Even twenty years later, the cutscenes are enjoyable to watch on their own if you’re willing to overlook a few flaws. Sure, the characters models are a bit blocky and they move a bit like action figures, but robotic movement is a problem that still plagues 3D animation if the 2016 Berserk or 2019 Ultraman anime is anything to go by. There’s still incredible attention to detail. The faces, in particular, have a lot of expression to them and help bring moments to life in a way that seems hard to believe at times.

You can really see the despair on his face.

It helps, too, that the voice acting is of very high quality. With well-known talents like Cam Clarke and Earl Boen, there was a clear emphasis on treating the game’s story seriously. This is extremely important since the story makes up pretty much the whole reason you’d be playing this game in the first place. There are some issues with the localization here and there (the name Guts is treated as a nickname rather than a given name in a few scenes), but the line delivery and interaction between characters really sell the scenes, even if the lines themselves are a bit clunky or cliched. When you compare the cutscenes in Sword of the Berserk to those in say, Tenchu: Stealth Assassins, released just a year earlier, you can’t help but appreciate the skill in direction and experience of the actors when stellar voice-acting in games was not a given.

You could argue that this story could have been served better through manga or traditional animation, but it’s hard to fault Yuke’s for wanting to make a Berserk game, or Miura for wanting to branch out and test the waters on new methods of conveying his story. Berserk’s popularity in Japan meant that a game based on the series was going to be made at some point, and creating a self-contained side story that can be begun and ended within that game makes perfect sense. It also helps make the game approachable by those who aren’t familiar with the series at all. In 1999, Berserk certainly wasn’t considered such a pinnacle of dark fantasy in the West as it is today, so someone picking the game off the shelf in the US would very likely have no frame of reference for the story at all. Thanks to the introduction of new characters like Rita, the player can learn what they need to know through the lens of those characters, making the reliance on that prior knowledge a lot less necessary.

Now that Berserk’s influence has become so far reaching, it seems unlikely that anyone would come to the Dreamcast game without some working knowledge of the series. While it’s hard to consider it a can’t miss part of the Berserk experience (save for the wonderful musical contributions of Susumu Hirasawa), there’s enough there for anyone willing to put up with some clunky design. At the very least, it’s worth watching a playthrough online for the story alone if the act of playing the game itself doesn’t manage to replicate the feeling of becoming the Black Swordsman himself.

#berserk #kentaro miura #tenchu #sonic adventure 2 #dreamcast

4 notes · View notes

tahirqarn · 5 years

Text

-- Prompt 01: Questionnaire

(content warning for: violence, substance abuse, suicidal thoughts, self harm........ maybe don’t read this actually he’s a mess)

01. Tell us about your character’s name. Was it given to them or chosen? Does it hold any special meaning? If your character has aliases or nicknames, how did they get them and what do they mean?

Tahir was named by his mother, on Denon. He doesn’t have any memory of what it might mean, but suspects that it’s something unfavorable (he’s wrong).

He doesn’t have any official aliases because whenever he’s on the run he just refuses to tell people his name... He might have to develop one in the future, though, if ‘on the run’ ever becomes a permanent status.

The Master he’s serving at the moment has a ton of annoying nicknames for him that if anyone else tried to use he’d have to fight them. She only gets away with it cause he’s terrified.

02. What is your character’s relationship to their homeworld? Do they hold fond memories of it, or do they hate it? Are they still here, and if not, do they miss it?

Like those of his mother, Tahir's memories of Denon are almost nonexistent. He assumes it was very similar to Coruscant, all tall buildings and gleaming grime. It has a worse reputation, though, so maybe it’s more grime and less gleam.

He never intends to visit.

On the topic of Coruscant, though... There are a few too many memories to have a fond opinion. Both good and bad, the emotions weigh heavy on his tongue when he thinks of the planet for too long. He doesn’t miss it. He won’t. Another place he never intends to return.

03. Describe your character’s relationship with those who raised them. Was it positive? Negative? Neutral? What sorts of ideologies were they raised with, and do they still stand by them now?

The Jedi that raised Tahir were... He wasn’t their favorite student. Tahir was something of a problem child from the beginning, although he did try his hardest. It wasn’t ever that he wanted to disappoint them, the lessons just never really clicked.

Luckily, he was able to fake his way through well enough-- he learned all the right things to say, and when to say them. If things weren’t so dire for the Jedi at the moment, he might have warranted more attention and restriction, but as things were he could fight well and paid lip service to the code and that was all that really mattered.

04. What is your character’s relationship with the Force? Is your character Force-sensitive? Whether or not they are, do they believe in it? Do they lean more towards the dark or the light or are they somewhere in between?

For Tahir the force has always been dark. Clearing his mind, meditating, focusing as hard as he could... The light was always weak and thin, as though through murky water. That doesn’t mean he didn’t keep trying, but in every event that went past his training, every time his instincts kicked in and the force reacted without preparation, he leaned into the dark.

Close, warm darkness, thick on his skin like the pollution of Coruscant summers. Maybe it’s corrupting him, twisting his mind from the inside out, or any of the other horror stories that the jedi warned so strongly against, but he doesn’t care anymore. It feels good, it feels right, that’s all that matters.

05. What three word would you use to describe your character? What three words would your character use to describe themself? What three words would someone close to them use?

me: cowardly, guilty, repressed

tahir: gone (yes he knows that’s less than three words)

io, relationship complicated: betrayer most foul (also, ‘i’m going to kill that bastard’)

06. Describe your character’s aesthetic. Do they tend towards fashion or function? Do they like to accessorize? How does this extend into their own personal spaces, such as their home or their workspace?

Left to his own devices, Tahir is a Mess. As evidenced by his hair growth and shabby wardrobe ever since he officially left the Order. Before that, he at least kind of tried to maintain appearances, but why bother at this point? He thinks the ragged cloaks and beard make him look more intimidating, anyway. He does very much like to collect shiny things, though, which can sometimes be seen in both his wardrobe and his living space.

Speaking of-- he calls the monster that spreads over every space he occupies for too long organized chaos but anyone else would call it a mess. At least he knows where everything is.

07. What are your character’s vices? Guilty pleasures? Bad habits? Weak spots?

There’s... so many. All of Tahir’s habits are bad, all of his pleasures are guilty, the man is one giant weak spot and I’m not sure he has any virtues.

But seriously, I don’t even know where to begin. I mean, I guess, he’ll do just about any drugs that are offered to him? Especially at this point he’s eager for any sufficient distraction-- he’s somewhat careful to keep himself from growing dependent, but it’s a thin wire. It’s kind of a... Russian Roulette kind of thing. He’s far too afraid of death to actually take his own life, but he’s not above daring the universe to do it for him.

It doesn’t help that his force abilities seem to grow slightly in power the more he loses control, although he has yet to try and take on a fight when seriously impaired. Also, he tries to avoid hallucinogenics after a couple of bad experiences.

For bad habits, he chews his nails pretty consistently (the ones that are left), and has a hard time leaving wounds alone.

And if anything hits one of his big guilt spots, the will to fight might just leave him completely.

08. Tell us about your character’s relationship with food. What are their favorites? Do they enjoy cooking? Are they adventurous? Will they eat absolutely anything or are they hard to please?

Tahir has a surprisingly strong sweet tooth! And, when he’s not being a grumpy butt and denying himself things he doesn’t think he deserves, he’s kind of picky too. Not enough that he’d make a big deal about it, but it’s definitely not uncommon to see him pushing his food around his plate and delaying until he can reasonably say he’s full and leave to find something better.

He does enjoy cooking, but it’s a secret secret, partially because he doesn’t commonly get around to it. A few old friends might miss his experimental dishes, though-- he has a fantastic grasp of flavors, even if he doesn’t always get ingredient ratios and cooking times quite right.

09. How does your character feel about engaging in relationships—romantic and / or sexual—with others? What is their history like? Do they fall in love easily? Are they constantly in and out of relationships?

He’s deadly allergic to love, to be honest. Tahir’s felt its poisonous touch before, even let himself become fully infected at certain points. but he’s always done his best to rid himself of it quickly. Love’s a stubborn bastard, though, isn’t it? Sometimes even when you’ve severed ties to someone completely, it lingers.

Sex is a different matter, though. Like several of his other indulgences, it’s a good distraction and nothing more. He’s never officially been in a relationship but he has had a number of sexual partners over the years.

10. What is your character’s pain tolerance like? Can they hold their own in a fight, despite injury? If someone hurts them with the aim of gaining information, how much can they take before they cave?

Higher now than it used to be. One doesn’t really lose an arm, get a new one, and deal with the ongoing maintenance of a mechanical prosthetic without getting used to a level of pain.

More than that, though, there’s always been a certain allure in pain. At times when nothing else can cut through the haze, it’s there, strengthening him, reminding him he’s alive. Reminding him that at least his body cares if he’s alive, even when he can’t muster that instinct anywhere else. It’s a stalwart friend.

11. What is your character’s weapon of choice? Are they more skilled as a melee fighter or do they have more skill with ranged weapons? What’s their fighting style like? What sort of training do they have behind them?

The boy has a double bladed lightsaber (w a white crystal) !! Cause he’s just that stupid. Listen. He just wanted more stabby parts. And lightsaber is actually one of the few things he excelled at in the academy, so he spent as much time training as he could-- so far he’s managed to avoid seriously injuring himself.

As with many that wield a double bladed saber, his fighting style relies more on agility than strength. On the battlefield, on a good day, he becomes a blur of whirling light and robes, hopefully as difficult to hit as he is to track. He tends to rely on many small injuries to weaken his opponent before going for the kill rather than a more aggressive strategy.

Without his saber he goes from ‘good’ to ‘okay’. In cases of unarmed combat, he resorts to force tricks immediately.

Actually, what am I saying, he uses force tricks the whole time. If he can use his abilities to up the confusion of the moment and weaken his opponent in any way, he’s going for it.

12. Does your character have any words or catchphrases that they say frequently? Tell us about how they picked them up.

Not as much catchphrases, necessarily, as certain speech patterns that pop up consistently. That is, Tahir back pedals like every other sentence, and is constantly contradicting himself or dancing around the subject. What do you want from him he’s a chicken shit.

13. Tell us about a negative experience your character has had with either the Jedi or the Sith, and how this has affected their standing. Whether currently aligned or unaligned with either faction, if forced to choose, how would they side?

Ahahahahahahahaha

Ahem. I mean his experience with both has been pretty shit. Growing up among the Jedi wasn’t a wonderful experience for him, and it could be argued that he’s lost even more since he joined the Sith. Tahir would be hard pressed to say anything good about either organization, but then again at least the Sith let him be himself.... Sort of.

Besides, he’s already aligned with them, right? That’s not really a decision he can really take back at this point, not after all that he’s done.

14. How would your character react to seeing a relative or friend on the opposing side of a battle or mission?

I mean I guess we’ll find out won’t we !!!! Or, we already did at least!

So far it hasn’t stopped him, or even really made him hesitate. He’s killed... At least one of the people that helped raise him at this point. Hard to say what he would do if it was someone he actually cared about, though.

(That’s a lie.)

(If it was someone he really loved on the other side of the blade he’d let them kill him.)

15. Describe a memory that your character finds embarrassing.

All of them... How terrible, to recall existence.

But for a real answer-- take your pick of any of the times he accidentally force cloaked at the academy and couldn’t undo it until Io came and calmed him down. The idiot.

16. What goals does your character hold for themself and what steps have they taken towards achieving them? How far are they willing to go to reach them? What is their be-all and end-all?

Survive! Survive!! And when you’re done keep surviving!!! The goal is to somehow be alive at the end of all of this bullshit!

Maybe someday if he heals somewhat he’ll develop like... Things that are worth living for, but right now it’s down to base instincts babey!! And moral obstacles are no match for raw instinct!!

17. What is the one thing your character would change about their life if they were given the chance? What other lives could they have lived as a result?

Just one thing, huh.... You drive a hard bargain. Fine. If he had the choice to only change one thing, he’d rip his stupid inconvenient emotions right out of his chest. They’re fucking everything up.

18. Living in such a high-conflict time, how does your character feel about doing what they must to survive? Will they hurt or kill others—either directly or indirectly—to protect themself and / or those close to them? If so, do they regret it when all is said and done?

Doing what you have to to survive is the name of the game babey!! He’s killed before, he’ll kill again. He’s killed strangers, masters, friends. No one is off limits. He would have a hard time getting himself to kill innocent kids but that’s no guarantee he wouldn’t do it! If they wouldn’t get out of his way!

That’s a lie he likes to act tougher than he is and kids and animals are his weak points!

He loses no sleep over any of this!

That’s also a lie he hasn’t slept unaided in like........ years.

19. What is the biggest problem your character is currently dealing with?

He’s supposed to hunt down the one person that might actually give him pause to fight. How is he supposed to cope with that? I mean, he’s gonna, but he’s not gonna be happy about it. How does he even find this fucker, anyway? Bait him into a trap, probably.

20. Give us 3+ headcanons of any length or subject matter.

1. Force Cloak: The ability that Tahir has always found easiest to access and activate is the ability to cloak himself in the safety of the force and disappear from view. Unfortunate that he instinctively reaches for the dark side to do this, but it’s very effective regardless. When he was a child he could barely control it, but over the years he got it firmly in his grip... And then lost it again when he started relearning the force through the dark. Now it’s more powerful than ever, but mildly out of control again. Any sufficiently strong fear or fear-adjacent emotion prompts him to immediately vanish, whether he likes it or not.

2. Force Healing: Something he had zero talent for in the Jedi academy, this is something he’s actually been working on in secret since turning dark. Approaching it from a different angle has given him new insights, and while he has yet to practice much on others (there are few willing participants and even fewer people he would trust to know about his pet project), he’s gotten to the point where he can heal himself fairly well. Not from anything mortal, but flesh wounds are easy enough. Splitting skin only to watch it knit back together again under his own power has become something of a mild fascination. Not that anyone can know.

3. Sith Civil War: It’s a secret, but given the power struggle among the Sith at the moment, and that his base of operations is on Korriban, and that his master is pretty powerful and politically involved, Tahir has fended off his fair share of assassination attempts. He’s probably killed just about as many Sith as he has Jedi at this point.

bonus. Give us a list of any length telling us why our “fave is problematic.”

WHERE DO I BEGIN......

listen, you read this far, you Know

there is nothing un-problematic about this boy except for MAYBE his fondness for creating tasty eats.

#sidereal prompt 01 #2 #3 #4 #5 #prompt #musing

3 notes · View notes

cogentranting · 6 years

Text

Possible Additions to the Legends Team:

(It has been stated that someone who has previously been introduced into the Arrowverse will be joining the Legends in the back half of the season. Anyone who is currently a series regular on another show I considered invalid (e.g. Wild Dog, Elongated Man, Guardian). I don’t know Supergirl well enough to put any of it’s characters on this list, and I think it’s pretty unlikely anyway. Vaguely in order from least likely to most likely)

Hawkman or Hawkgirl- Technically possible. However, it doesn’t really fit within the idea of a revolving cast and I don’t think either character is popular enough to justify bringing them back after such a long absence (Kendra might be more popular than I realize, Carter certainly isn’t)

Katana- Tatsu would be further up this list except that I’m pretty sure DC has put her off-limits in the same way that Deadshot and Deathstroke are. Katana’s been teased before on the show (early season 2) and is a character I really love who (at least partly because of DC’s restrictions) didn’t get to keep coming back and showing off her mad skills. Would be an interesting personality to add to the mix because, unlike all the others, she was married, had a kid, a stable life. Could fill some of the hole left by Stein, in that sense. She doesn’t have powers though, and the show might be looking for that after losing a powerhouse like Firestorm.

Ronnie Raymond- upside: we know Ronnie, he’s a well-liked character. However, the reason Ronnie was killed in the first place is because Robbie Amell didn’t want to be a regular on Legends. So it’s unlikely that it’s changed. He doesn’t have any sort of superpower or fighting ability- in theory he could retake the Firestorm mantle with a new partner but that might move from ‘filling the opening on the team” to a full ‘replacing Jax and Stein” vibe. Hoewever, he is the only character on this list who could easily replace Jax as ship engineer.

Vixen (Mari)- She fits in with the story, the actress is available. She’s a known character. Her dynamic with Amaya and Kuasa would be interesting. But, she has the exact same power as Amaya, which is boring. The timeline complications of having both grandmother and granddaughter on the ship wearing the same totem are a little wonky, even for Legends. Adding her shifts the balance a little far into being a show about Vixen... with some other people too.

Huntress- She hasn’t made an appearance in four years, so it seems unlikely that she’d suddenly pop back up so drastically. How would this happen, who’s gonna recruit her? There’s an existing rivalry with Sara, that could be fun. Her skill set isn’t that interesting at this point unless you wrote in some upgrades, which is possible. But then again the actress isn’t very good so do we really want her back full time

Artemis- Evelyn could get resolution and redemption without taking up space on Arrow (which seems to not have room for her). On the other hand, she wouldn’t be around any of the people she betrayed so her redemption would lose a lot of depth. I’m also not 100% sure she’s alive. Doesn’t quite fill the superpower powerhouse hole left by Firestorm. Does fill the role of “the young one” which Jax somewhat occupied.

Nyssa- Not very likely because A. I think her actress has her own show and is unavailable B. her skillset is probably too similar to Sara’s and C. It would likely instantly launch her and Sara into a committed long-term relationship which I don’t think is something Legends wants to do with Sara at this juncture. Conversely, they did just reference the relationship between Sara and Nyssa and seem to be showing that Sara missed it which could be interpreted as plans to revisit it (or it could be interpreted in terms of it’s parallel to the Alex/Maggie relationship-- a positive relationship which is nonetheless definitively over). But also Nyssa’s awesome and I’m always down for more Nyssa. Though I’d prefer to keep her on Arrow, cuz I think she fits better there.

Dr. Light- I don’t remember where we left Dr. Light. I think she’s on Earth 2? And she was only in one episode of Flash so it’s pretty unlikely. But hey it’d be fun.

Star Girl (or Other JSA team member)- Of these Star Girl has the most development and is thus most likely, but also none of them were particularly remarkable, and it would probably end up a retread of Amaya’s season 2 plot.

Arsenal- The timing probably doesn’t work out with when he’s returning to Arrow this season. And I think that if Roy were to return to the Arrowverse full time, it would be to Arrow, where all his connections are (technically both Ray and Sara know him but... yeah...) But story-wise, it’s easier to get Roy onto a time ship than it is to unfake his death, and I’ll take anything that gets me more Roy. (Speedy is also a vague possibility. Legends has a shorter season which might work for Willa Holland. But also seems pretty unlikely that they’d separate the Queen siblings like that)

Jesse Quick - She seems to be pretty thoroughly written out of the shows by this point and when she was around mostly had her story revolve around Wells and Wally, neither of whom are present. I also think she’s a full-time superhero on another world, so she has her hands full. But, fills the super power void, and is not being used on another show, and was well-liked by fans from what I can tell.

Gypsy- Another potential super power big gun to pull in, but potentially too big. Breachers are really powerful, particularly one as skilled and experienced as Cynthia. I also don’t think Flash wants to give her up. And she has a job on another Earth, so it’d be somewhat hard to justify her giving that up to wander time on Earth 1.

Pied Piper- He’s around. He’s redeemed. He’s significantly more agreeable than he was initially but would probably ruffle feathers enough to be interesting. He’s fairly different from the existing characters but also could take over some of the science related tasks left by Stein, or possibly take over as Engineer of the WaveRider.

Golden Glider- As Leonard Snart makes his final exit, Lisa Snart could step in to take his place. She could potentially have a really interesting dynamic with Mick. She could be the schemer in a way that both Leonard and Sara used to be. She’s young, unpredictable and the CW has been trying to get her actress on a successful show for several years now and has been failing, meaning the actress is (to my knowledge) currently available.

Constantine- He’s definitely going to make an appearance. They’ve said he’s only back for 2 or 3 episodes but that could be old information or a straight lie. He’s a character fans have consistently asked for more of, who is currently unattached to anything else. He doesn’t have strong connections anywhere in the Arrowverse so he would lose anything in transition. He’s significantly different from anyone currently on the show. He would fit with the magicky overarching vibe this season. He would be the third member of the team with magic, but his magic is a pretty different style from that of either Vixen or Zari.

Ragman- Rory was a great addition to Arrow last season but sadly his superhero side wasn’t a good fit for the show because it was too weird. “Too weird” is what Legends does best. Ragman is powerful enough to make up for no longer having Firestorm (but likely easier on the effects budget). He’s got magic to fit with the season but it’s weird specific magic so it doesn’t overlap too much. One of Rory’s most fun aspects on Arrow was watching him be bewildered by everything and boy oh boy dial that up to 12 on Legends. At the same time, Rory doesn’t have a personality like anyone else on Legends- quiet, spiritual, artistic- meaning he’d contrast really really nicely. He doesn’t have anything/anyone keeping him from drifting through time because all his friends and family were killed-- speaking of which, it would give Rory the chance to avenge his family by taking on Darhk. It would add the complication of having two characters that go by Rory, but also that could be so much fun if you just lean into the fact that the two most different characters have the same name. If it were up to me, Rory is the character I would pick to add to Legends.

Kid Flash- The Flash doesn’t know what to do with Wally. They’ve said as much. Flash doesn’t really have anything to do with him but also doesn’t want to kill him or anything like that, so they’ve basically just put him on a bus. Moving him to another show would solve the Flash’s problem while still giving fans all the Wally they want. Wally’s story line has also been set up as ‘looking for his place’ which is very much a Legends vibe. Wally had a cars interest early on which could be translated into making him the Waverider Engineer (at least, with Legends/Flash’s understanding of science) which in theory is needed. He’s different from existing characters while still having connections. He’s powerful enough to fill the Firestorm hole. However, Flash may not want to give him up entirely. And bringing him onto Legends may just transfer the Flash’s Wally problems to Legends: Wally is series-lead-powerful. Wally, as a gifted speedster, should be able to handle most problems on his own (he’s at least as capable as a late season 1 Barry- which is why Flash wrote him out). Meaning that including him in fight scenes often leaves other characters (especially ones like Mick) with nothing to do, or just means that problems can be resolved too quickly.

Anyone I missed? Any viable Supergirl options that I should know about? Thoughts? Predictions? Hopes? Dreams?

#legends of tomorrow #LoT speculation

4 notes · View notes

tvdas · 4 years

Text

Is there anything especially expert about being a philosopher?

by David Egan, a visiting assistant professor in the Dept. of Philosophy at CUNY Hunter College in New York. Outside a university setting, telling people that I’m pursuing a career in philosophy can be a bit of a conversation stopper. More times than I can count, I’ve faced the bemused but well-intentioned question: ‘How is that useful?’ I seem like a nice guy, smart, capable – why am I intent on doing something that won’t make me rich and won’t in any appreciable way make the world a better place?

This sort of befuddlement afflicts labourers in the humanities more generally. In contrast with the ‘hard’ disciplines of the STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, mathematics), the humanities are often disparaged as ‘soft’. You don’t need an advanced degree to read a novel, the thinking goes, so why bother?

What do these adjectives ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ denote? The ‘hardness’ is often glossed in terms of difficulty, but there’s nothing easy about work in the humanities – as my students often learn to their dismay, after turning in the first essay in which they confidently claim that the topics we’re studying are ‘subjective’ or ‘relative’ and therefore not open to rigorous critical scrutiny. It might be closer to the truth to say that the ‘hardness’ of the STEM fields is owing to their more technical nature, even if the humanities disciplines also have their technical aspects, as anyone who’s taken a course in logic or struggled with scansion can attest. But that answer just invites a further question: what is it about the STEM disciplines that requires a greater density of technical apparatus?

Let me work toward an answer to this question by way of an analogy. One of the most celebrated films of 2018 was Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma, a semi-autobiographical take on the director’s own upbringing in the Colonial Roma neighbourhood of Mexico City. The central figure, an indigenous maid named Cleo, was played by the first-time actor Yalitza Aparicio to great acclaim, earning her an Academy Award nomination among other accolades. Aparicio is only one recent and prominent instance of a nonprofessional actor wowing audiences. The Italian neorealists in the postwar period made a virtue of working with nonprofessional actors; directors such as Werner Herzog, Ken Loach and the Dardenne brothers have made significant use of them too; and the first-time actor Haing S Ngor won an Academy Award for his role in The Killing Fields (1984).

By contrast, imagine being invited to a violin concerto in which, you’re told, the violinist will be playing her instrument for the first time. To put it mildly, this does not sound like a blueprint for artistic triumph. But why not? Why can directors get masterful performances from first-time actors, but no conductor gets a masterful performance from a first-time violinist? Is it that playing the violin is in some way harder than acting?

The answer, I think, is that, really, there’s no such thing as a first-time actor. Every socialised human being has embodied knowledge of what it’s like to fly into a rage, to explode with laughter, to eye someone with suspicion, to listen compassionately. Learning these things is part of learning to be a person. But unless we go out of our way to acquire it, we don’t have embodied knowledge of what it’s like to drag horsehair across catgut. We all have an intuitive feel for how to perform fictional characters because we perform ourselves all the time.

That said, acting schools are not a scam. Acting is a craft, and the people who make a living from it train hard and work hard to acquire mastery of their craft. Nonprofessional actors, like child actors, win accolades only in a fairly limited range of roles. For one thing, starring roles for child and nonprofessional actors are almost exclusively restricted to screen acting, where camerawork and editing can cover for some of the limitations in their craft. And accolades for successful performances emphasise the ‘authenticity’ or ‘naturalness’ of actors playing in roles fairly close to the ones they occupy offscreen. You wouldn’t expect an untrained actor to excel in the role of an orc, a Victorian aristocrat, or a morose prince of Denmark.

Consider the different kind of training you might expect from an acting coach and a violin teacher. Your acting lessons will start in medias res, as it were, teaching you to become more attuned to emotional processes you already experience and more precise in the verbal and physical expressiveness that you already possess. That training is sometimes highly technical, but it mostly hones capacities that we all have to some degree. The first thing a violin teacher has to do is get you familiar with holding the violin and bow, and feeling out for the first time what happens when you draw the bow across the strings.

There’s a similar contrast we could draw between a first class in philosophy and a first class in electrical engineering. I lead my students into philosophical questioning by starting with intuitions that they already hold and then applying pressure to those intuitions, asking them to take their reasoning farther than they’d normally take it. We all make claims to know things, for instance, and we all recognise that sometimes these claims are justified and sometimes not. But outside a philosophy class, we rarely press very hard on the question of what constitutes knowledge and how we might distinguish it from, say, a lucky guess. I invite students to press harder on this question by starting with their familiar intuitions about when they are and aren’t licensed to claim to know something. By contrast, although I confess I’ve never taken a class in electrical engineering, I’m pretty sure that the course doesn’t begin by teasing out the students’ intuitions about how electrical circuits work.

The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein compared language to an ancient city: a centre packed with a maze of streets and squares, with new buildings squeezed in against old ones, which gradually gives way to newer, planned suburbs with an ordered grid of streets and uniform houses. We could think of the field of human enquiry similarly. The sciences are like these well-regulated suburbs, rigorously ordered according to precise methodologies, and the humanities are like the chaotic centre, as messy as the human lives that buzz about in it. You take a trip out to different suburbs for specific purposes: you want to send a rocket into space, treat an aggressive cancer, or devise a proof for Goldbach’s conjecture. Most of us will never visit these suburbs, and no one will ever get deeply acquainted with all of them. But we all come together in the city centre. All human lives feature some deliberation over what matters to us, what we like and dislike and why, what’s meaningful, admirable or despicable, what’s to be hoped for, what’s to be feared. When we start asking these questions more deliberately and rigorously, we’re intensifying an activity that’s already familiar.

So how is philosophy useful? The response I’ve learned to counter with is that the question being asked is itself a philosophical question. One of the things we do in philosophy is precisely to ask what’s worth doing and why. For the most part, my questioners have already presupposed a fairly limited set of acceptable answers to the question of what’s worth doing – answers that generally bottom out in the material wellbeing of oneself and others. But those answers, innocuous as they might seem to the speaker, are philosophical answers to a philosophical question.

In other words, we’re all doing philosophy all the time. We can’t escape the question of what matters and why: the way we’re living is itself our implicit answer to that question. A large part of a philosophical training is to make those implicit answers explicit, and then to examine them rigorously. Philosophical reflection, once you get started in it, can seem endlessly demanding. But if we can’t avoid living philosophically, it seems sensible to learn to do it well. This article appeared on AEON.co

0 notes

elenasescape1-blog · 4 years

Text

Good morning ✨

So now we are pretty much in an official lockdown in the UK; the confirmed cases and death toll are increasing daily... I want to talk about where I think this virus REALLY came from, as I truly believe this was not spread like how everyone thinks.

I really do believe this virus was man made; I believe this was a big distraction from what really was going on. Current wars in other countries have been completely forgotten about! World War 3 was about to break out but suddenly we don’t hear about it anymore because the only thing spoken about in any form of media is Covid-19... not sure if this is any use to anyone but Covid-19 translated into Hebrew then back to English is “Kobe”. Which celebrity death was all over the media then got taken over by Covid-19? Kobe and Gianna Bryant’s. Now this takes me to a couple of episodes from The Simpson’s, where they have predicted many things to have come true.. 9/11, Donald Trump’s presidency... how weird is it that they predicted Kobe’s death? Even weirder, they predicted both the Coronavirus and Tom Hanks’ isolation... and that’s all I’ll say on The Simpson’s, they seem to have predicted many things to have happened in the last 20-30 years... just food for thought with that one. Lastly on predictions, I’m sure many people have seen a picture on Twitter which has even been retweeted by Kim Kardashian West; it’s a snippet of a book written many years ago, stating “in 2020 a pneumonia like virus will attack the globe, vanishing just as quickly as initial onset”. Still not think it’s somewhat man made?

Let’s also think about what’s really in those chemtrails we see in the sky; yes we see them at certain times of the day because of air pressure and weather etc, but do we really and truly know what’s in them? One more thing to think about, how convenient that all this Brexit stuff went on for nearly 4 years and then we formally left the EU January 31st 2020? Brexit now means that the Covid-19 vaccine won’t be available in the UK as quickly as other countries... weird timing, right?

I don’t believe this was necessarily spread through Chinese people from Wuhan eating bats or whatever it was. Yes the first cases came from Wuhan, but why weren’t flights from China suspended straight away? I believe this virus was planted in the food markets as a way for them to have population control over China, where let’s not forget for a while the families were restricted to one child each as their population was over 1billion. Flights were not suspended to other countries to allow the spread, which they knew would be very easy and very quick. This, in my eyes, was a way for the governments to have some form of population control and also climate control, now that everyone is staying home much more of the time, pollution levels have decreased a lot, so much so that there are fish back in the canals of Venice. I expect to see dolphins in the river Thames within the next month (🙄).

Anyway, here’s a video I thought I’d include that I came across on Facebook yesterday - it reiterates a lot of what I’ve said and it’s really interesting.

https://www.facebook.com/124411634236128/posts/3136593436351251/?vh=e&d=n

Now moving on to mental health during isolation. I used to hate constantly being at home, being left alone just me with my anxious thoughts. This is going to be a testing time for many people who also feel this way. It’s important that we do not disconnect ourselves from our circles; yes we may not be able to physically see the people we want to be around, but we are so lucky to have the technology we do where we can call, video call (with more than one person at a time now) and stay in touch via social media - had this outbreak happened 20 years ago we would have been far worse off in this sense. Most importantly, if you do feel low, REACH OUT! Talk to anyone you can! Now that everyone is at home in the same boat, many more people have more time now to put into conversations. Remember, this is not going to last forever. I just personally hope that we don’t have a pandemic of social anxiety once everything goes back to normal - people will be so used to staying indoors most of the time and in the comfort of their own homes that they may feel anxious being back out into the world, unable to re-adjust to usual life as quickly as others. But we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it...

For those that do struggle with anxious thoughts & being at home for much of the time, or even for those who just get really bored and restless easily, here are 12 things for you to do during your day to keep yourselves busy!

1. Learn to cook

- this a great new skill to take up and one that can keep you occupied for a few hours during your day! Here’s a site with some apps (most of which are free) that give you cooking recipes, advice and can even show you recipes with what you can make do with what’s in your cupboards right now! There are also some great YouTube tutorials out there!

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/best-recipe-apps/%3famp

2. Learn a new language

- How cool would it be to come out of isolation billingual?! Okay not completely billingual, but beginning to speak a new language? This is a great task to put your minds to! Here are a couple of free apps that have been rated 4 stars or more on the App Store for iPhone. If they aren’t available on Androids, these apps have websites and there are plenty of other apps for Android too!

3. Find 5 films of different genres to watch and watch one a day.

4. Find 3 series with a decent amount of episodes/seasons and spread throughout the week.

- this goes for both 3 & 4; I believe binge watching in a time like this is not ideal! Imagine completing the series or film marathon you love in a whole day and then feeling like you have nothing else to watch! Spread the episodes/films out so you have something to do each day!

5. Pamper

- whilst taking care of ourselves mentally, we can’t forget that we have to take care of our skin too! Aside from drinking plenty of water, morning/nightly skincare routines are important to keep your glow, check out YouTube for some tips if you need them! Stay consistent too! You can even make homemade face masks, which are also on YouTube. Giving yourself a mani/pedi should take up a decent amount of time - your skin feels amazingly soft after too!

6. Exercise!

- we have no excuse for not doing exercise now! For those that love a walk or a jog, we are still allowed to leave the house to do this, whether it be around the block or in the park (which will be patrolled). Finding yourself a home exercise routine is a great way to keep occupied and feel good, as we know when we get that endorphin rush after a workout! There are many routines you can find online, and if you’re already a member in a gym and have their app, I’m sure there are routines on there too. If you have kids then you can all do this together! Joe Wickes AKA the Body Coach is doing online PE lessons for kids, so now you can all keep active. I’ll link his YouTube channel below:

https://www.youtube.com/user/thebodycoach1

7. Meditate

- For those with anxiety, meditation is so important! Meditation trains the mind to keep calm with racing thoughts and to have a mind over matter overall thought process. Here are some great apps below, which I have also used (they really are amazing):

8. Draw/be creative

- drawing/painting/sculpting - all so therapeutic and calming. They really allow you to put your mind to a task for a lengthy period of time and allow yourself to explore your creative side! A great way to learn new things about yourself if you never knew you had a creative side 😝

9. Vlog/blog your day/keep a journal

- write/express your feelings! If you are feeling low this is so important - this way you can understand your emotions more logically and your form of expression allows you to release them too. For those who are simply just getting bored, this is a fun way to keep occupied throughout the day! You can blog about what you’re doing, vlog your exercise routine etc. It’s great fun!

10. Organise/clear out cupboards/draws/wardrobes

- ever seen Stacey Solomon’s “Tap to Tidy” stories on Instagram? So satisfying! You could do the same. This is a pretty lengthy task and a great way to escape anxious thoughts by putting order in place!

11. Read

- reading is a lovely form of escapism where we can go into our own world for however long we want. It gives us a story to focus on and really become engrossed in the situation and characters, whether it be fiction or non-fiction. If you don’t own books, there are audiobooks, e-books and google books all online where you can find whichever book you want to read/listen to!

12. Find one thing to learn about each day and spend some time researching and learning loads.

- interested in space? Astrology? Egyptian history? Well grab a notebook and YouTube! Find anything in the entire world that you want to learn more about and watch some YouTube videos on it. I say YouTube videos because I personally believe this is the least boring way to learn about something. Write down some notes or draw visual notes on it, whichever way you learn best!

Basically, what all these tasks have in common is that it puts your mind to something fun, that you can really focus on for a decent period of time! Don’t leave yourself anxious or bored in isolation, keep your relationships with others both physically and virtually where you can. Keep yourself to doing something, stay as busy as you can/want! Don’t forget, if you’re feeling low or any type of way, please reach out and talk to someone/anyone, do not let yourself run away with these thoughts over something temporary!

💚✨💚✨💚✨

0 notes

casgirlwrites · 7 years

Text

When Worlds Collide

Requests: @wayward-sociopath-in-the-tardis asked: ‘Can you do some kind of SuperWhoLock fic set in the near future with something about the eclipse? I know it's not very specific, but that sounds kinda cool.’

Warnings: Slight self harm but otherwise none

Word Count: 2700ish words I got carried away

Characters: Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, Castiel, the Doctor (12), Bill Potts, Sherlock Holmes, John Watson, Moriarty (mentioned)

A/N: Thank you for the request! Writing superwholock was a hell of a ride and I’m so sorry that it took so long writer’s block ugh and I hope you like this one! Thank you again ❤️

“Dean! Slow down dude.” Sam’s hand reached the roof of the Impala as he steadied himself. “You’re going way too fast.”

“There’s no way I’m going to miss this eclipse Sam!”

“Dean… Sam is right. You’ve got to slow down a little or we’re going to face uncomfortable death.” Cas spoke up from the backseat and Sam sent the angel a grateful look.

“Alright fine,” Dean grumbled, giving in. “But we’re not stopping for anything on the way. Not even for a pee break.”

Cas just shrugged. “I don’t urinate.”

Sam shot Dean a glare and Dean grinned at his younger brother. “Mexico, here we come.”

“And did you see his face when you pulled out the reactor at the last minute?” Bill Potts chuckled. “He looked absolutely flabbergasted.”

“That’s such a weird word. Flabbergasted. Wonder which idiot came up with it.” The Doctor was not-so-secretly pleased with Bill’s enthusiasm and awe. “You’ve been travelling with me for over a month now and you’re still not used to it, Bill?”

“I don’t think I ever will be Doctor.” Bill smiled up at the Time Lord whom she had come to admire.

He returned her smile. “So where to next?”

“Well I was thinking -“

“Oh how about a trip to Pluto? The people over there are amazing, Bill! You’ll love them,” the Doctor said before she could finish her sentence. “Or maybe we could go to another solar system. How does that sound?”

The Doctor rushed around the TARDIS, hitting certain consoles and brushing past the others.

“Actually Doctor…” Bill came over and stood next to the Doctor. “I was wondering if we could watch the solar eclipse today.”

The Doctor paused and raised an unimpressed eyebrow at Bill. “Why would you want to look at a boring eclipse?”

“I really want to watch the eclipse and I’ve never seen one before.”

The Doctor gave in to Bill’s pleading glances.

“Fine. But we have to get to Mexico if we want the full experience.”

Bill gripped the railings as the Doctor pulled down on the TARDIS’ consoles and the blue box shuddered as it made it’s way across space.

John Watson tapped his finger against his knee as he looked at Sherlock who occupied himself with looking outside the window of the aeroplane.

“Sherlock?”

“Hmm?” Sherlock didn’t shift his eyes from the window.

“Why are you so adamant about seeing the eclipse?”

That morning, John had been shaken awake by Sherlock rather early. Sherlock didn’t say much. All that he asked of John was for him to pack his bags as they were going to Mexico. When John asked why, Sherlock simply replied that it was to ‘see the eclipse of course’ and he refused to say anything else. John hadn’t protested nor pestered Sherlock… until now.

“Here.” Sherlock handed him an envelope.

“What’s this?”

“It’s from Moriarty.”

Sherlock’s face remained expressionless as John proceeded to read the envelope.

“How is it that Moriarty is still able to reach out even after his death? I thought that we had heard the last from him after what happened with Eurus.

“I don’t know how he does it, John,” Sherlock said, pursing his lips. “But for some reason, he wants us to go watch the eclipse when it’s at the highest during noon time.”

“And that is in Mexico?” John raised an eyebrow at the detective who nodded. “None of this makes any sense, Sherlock.”

Sherlock said nothing.

With the Impala going at a steady pace, Dean was sure that he could have reached Mexico soon. But the two hitchhikers they picked on the way caused some trouble at the Mexico borders. Well until the old man showed a card to the border guards who took one look at it and immediately apologised for the inconvenience.

“Who are you guys?” Dean looked at the old man and the twenty-something girl in his rearview mirror as the car went along the bumpy road.

“Ah just travellers,” the older man spoke up with a slight chuckle.

“He’s the Doctor and you can call me Bill.” The girl rolled her eyes at the ‘Doctor’ and offered Dean a friendly smile.

“Doctor? Doctor what?” Sam turned behind to address the old man.

The Doctor just chuckled. “Well that’s the question, isn’t it.”

Dean had found the two by the side of the road and they had asked for a ride and Dean had obliged. They were all going to watch the eclipse along the same direction so it wasn't going to be a problem.

“Just admit it Doctor. You didn’t land us 50 miles from Mexico on purpose.” Bill was arguing with the Doctor who was looking at Cas in a weird and amused way.

“Everything happens for a reason Bill.” The Doctor shifted his gaze to Bill, his Scottish accent ringing clear.

This was either going to be an interesting road trip or the most annoying one.

“Why is there no one here?” John looked around the empty field that they were standing in.

Their aeroplane had landed early and he and Sherlock had reached with enough time to spare.

“I wanted to get away from all the people. We don’t know what Moriarty might be up to or where he would strike. So the smartest thing to do is observe from the distance.”

Sherlock fiddled with his scarf. No matter how nonchalant Sherlock sounded, John knew that he was nervous. But before he could say anything on the matter, the deep rumbling of a car distracted the two of them. John looked up to see a black Impala come to a rest a couple of feet away from them and six people got out of the car.

Sherlock quickly strode over to the man who had gotten out of the driver street.

“I’m sorry but you aren’t allowed to be here,” Sherlock said as he flashed a badge.

John rolled his eyes as he realised that he must have picked Greg’s pocket again. He made his way over and stood next to Sherlock.

“Well that’s too bad. We’re FBI agents.” The two taller boys flashed their badges and John looked at Sherlock with an uneasy look.

Sherlock’s eyes took in the scene before him. The man who had showed him the badge was obviously not FBI and neither was his brother - the tall one. They had an unprofessional air about them and the badges were obviously fake. The man in the trenchcoat didn’t say much but regarded Sherlock with a slight frown. The other two - an aged man and a woman of over twenty five years - were just looking around the fields and talking to each other in hushed tones. They looked like travellers, Sherlock observed.

“Your badge is fake,” Sherlock smirked at the green eyed man.

“And yours says ‘Scotland Yard’,” the other man retorted without missing a single beat.

Sherlock smiled. Maybe this man was smarter than what he gave him credit for.

“Boys, boys,” the older man came forward. “What seems to be the problem here?”

If Sherlock had to guess, he would say that he was Scottish.

“This is a restricted area. No one is allowed to come here.” Sherlock pocketed his badge. It wasn’t going to do him any more good.

“Ah well…” the older man started and looked at the woman next to him. “I’m the Doctor and this is Billy and we’re special personnel.”

The man held up a blank sheet of paper.

“The paper is blank.” Sherlock said, confused, at the same time John had muttered, “You’re the British Special Forces?”

Sherlock’s confusion deepened as he looked at John. “The paper’s blank John.”

“Um no Sherlock,” John said, frowning. “It clearly says ‘British Special Forces’.”

“Interesting.” The Doctor smiled a knowing smile at Sherlock before he clamped his ID shut.

“Who are you?” Sherlock asked him. “Tell me the truth.”

“I’m a Time Lord,” the Doctor grinned. “From the planet Gallifrey.”

Demons, spirits and wendigos… Dean could handle those. But now there were aliens too? Dean had almost called bullshit when the Doctor introduced himself as an alien. Sam and Dean had exchanged unbelieving glances but Cas had simply stated that the Doctor was not of this planet and that he was not lying. The Doctor also seemed to know that Cas was an angel and had even seemed pleased to finally meet a ‘friendly’ angel. Dean had no idea what that meant.

Sherlock Holmes and John Watson needed to take more time to digest everything. Sherlock had been adamant that they were all lying, that Dean Winchester and his brother could not be hunters, that Castiel was in no way an angel.

‘Angels, monsters and aliens don’t exist.’

In the end, Sherlock had grudgingly come to accept things the way they were but still refused to talk to any of them. Great. What started as an exciting day and a day to break from the weird life turned out to be Dean’s weirdest day.

The only one who seemed cheerful during this ordeal was the Doctor and his ‘companion’, Bill Potts.

“Get ready! The eclipse is near.”

At the Doctor’s words, Dean slipped on his glasses and the rest of them did the same - except for the Doctor who put on some unusual shades which made a weird sonic sound.

Despite himself, Dean was excited as he shifted his gaze to the skies. The moon was nearing and the whole place turned darker, slowly.

Suddenly a bright light lit up and Dean shielded his eyes from the sudden brightness. A tear in space had opened up a couple of feet from him. It was the same tear which had been present the night Jack, the nephilim, was born.

“What do we have here?”

The Doctor grinned as he stared at the rip in fabric. Things were starting to get interesting.

“How is this here? Who opened it?” The taller Winchester brother - Sam Winchester - spoke up.

“You’ve seen an inter-dimensional rip before?”

“Yes,” the angel with the gruff voice spoke up. “It appeared when the spawn of Lucifer, Jack, was born.”

“You named the spawn of Lucifer Jack?” Bill sounded incredulous and Cas stared at her in confusion.

“It’s - It’s a long story,” Dean muttered as he looked at John Watson who had paled significantly and gotten more baffled at the mention of Lucifer.

“You mean Lucifer as in the Devil?” John Watson let out a humourless laugh and no one said anything. At that precise moment, the rip pulsed with light and a creature made its way out.

“It’s a demon,” Sam yelled. “Look out!”

“It’s not a demon!” The Doctor yelled as he pulled himself and Bill to cover. “That’s just the name humans came up with but they’re actually called -“

The Doctor paused as Bill glared at him.

“Let’s definitely go with demons.” The Doctor rubbed his hands together as the demon walked towards Sherlock who was staring at the creature in fascination and disbelief.

“Sherlock get back!” Sam yelled out and the demon went out in a blinding light as Dean shot at it.

“We’re lucky that we have some angel killing bullets left over from last time,” Dean grumbled and handed a gun to the Doctor.

“Ah no,” the Doctor raised his hands in front of him. “I don’t do weapons.”

Dean just shrugged. “Fine suit yourself. But be prepared for more of those sons of bitches.”

“We need to close the gateway,” Sherlock said, speaking up for the first time.

“Won’t the rip close automatically when the eclipse has passed?” Bill asked the Doctor.

No sooner had she finished speaking, more demons appeared and Sam, Dean and Cas tried to keep them at bay.

“Just the opposite actually,” said the Doctor. “Once the eclipse passes, it will be impossible to close the rip.”

“Doc you’ve got to close that thing before more demons come in. We won’t be able to handle a whole lot of them.” Dean’s voice was strained as he took on two demons at the same time with a long silver blade.

“Closing it won't take much time. All I’ve got to do is reverse the polarity.” The Doctor tapped his sonic glasses and grinned.

“But given the magnitude of the eclipse, you’ll need more power to reverse the polarity,” Sherlock spoke up, for the first time in a long while.

“That’s where the problem lies,” the Doctor agreed.

“Well… think of something fast!” Sam yelled as he strained against a demon who had managed to hold onto him.

“Castiel?” The Doctor addressed the angel. “I’ll need a bit of your grace.”

“What do you need his grace for?” Dean asked the Doctor with annoyance.

“Don’t worry. I just need a little. I won’t harm your boyfriend.” The Doctor assured him.

“He’s not my - ”

“Take it.” Castiel spoke up, interrupting Dean. “How much do you need?”

“Very little. I just need enough to - ”

“Send into the other world.” Sherlock had finished for him.

The Doctor was mildly impressed and annoyed. “Yes. Yes. If we send something of high power from this world into that, then the balance will be disrupted and the other world will be weaker.”

Castiel nodded and lifted the blade to his throat and cut enough for very little grace to leak out. He caught it in a small vial and handed it to the Doctor. Meanwhile, Bill and Dr, Watson were helping the Winchesters with the demons. The Doctor was worried for Bill, but he knew that she would be able to take care of herself.

“All right let’s do this.”

Together the Doctor and Sherlock walked over to the rip and they tipped the contents of the vial into it just as more demons tried to make their way out. Suddenly, the rip pulsed brighter and started flickering. It was working.

Quickly, the Doctor adjusted the settings on his sonic glasses and increased it’s frequency till it matched that of the portal. It took him hardly a couple of minutes to close the portal and they were on time too as the eclipse was over and the moon out of the path of the sun.

“Well that was fun.” The Doctor grinned.

Everyone around him cast him a disgruntled look but Dean was glad for his and Sherlock’s quick thinking. They wouldn’t be here if not for them.

“Alright then! Time to leave, Bill!” The Doctor looked at Bill who nodded.

“Goodbye boys. It was a pleasure working with all of you.” The Doctor shook all their hands.

“Will you show it to me?” Sherlock asked the Doctor. “Your time machine?”

“Perhaps one day Mr. Holmes.” The Doctor promised.

“It’ll help me learn more about Moriarty.” Sherlock’s voice was really quiet that Dean wasn’t sure he had heard him correctly.

“Wait... isn’t Moriarty the guy who stole all the Queen’s jewels and broke into basically all of London a couple of years ago?” Dean had heard about the serial killer. He had been all over the news. And so was his death…

John nodded. “Even after his death, he continues to play us like puppets on a string. He was the one who asked us to come here.”

“It may have been possible that he knew this would happen.” Sherlock grimaced. “I wouldn’t put it past him.”

“Well I think that you humans are the craziest ones among all other creatures in this owners,” the Doctor said, with a slow shake of his head.

“I’ll agree with you there,” Dean muttered. Humans were the weirdest ones. And this Moriarty sounded like a piece of work.

“You two can come with us,” the Doctor said, indicating Sherlock and John. “You three are allowed to come too, of course.”

“Thank Doc, but hard pass.” Dean shook his head. “I’ve had enough for one day.”

“I’ve got to agree with my brother here.” Sam gave a small smile. “It’s been nice meeting all of you.”

“Maybe one day our paths will cross again,” Castiel said with a knowing smile.

“I don’t doubt it.” The Doctor grinned back.

“I’ll actually look forward to it.” Sherlock had a faint smile on his face. “You’ve opened my eyes to see the impossible. Now… shall we Doctor?”

“Goodbye boys.” The Doctor shook their hands one last time and Bill smiled up at all of them.

“Take care,” she said and followed the Doctor.

John gave them a small nod and raised his hands in farewell and fell into step with Bill - behind Sherlock and the Doctor.

Dean turned to his brother and his angel with a grin. “So who’s up for some burgers?”

A/N: Send me your feedback here!! I would love to hear from you

Tags below the cut! ((Let me know if you want to be tagged!))

forever tags: @alittlebitofanna @sup3r-pott3r-lock3d @whovian1077 @a-very-british-me @tillielynn16

#supernatural #sherlock #doctor who #superwholock #fanfiction #carefreegirlwrites #oneshot #Sherlock holmes #John watson #dean winchester #sam winchester #the Doctor #12 #Peter capaldi #bill potts #when worlds collide #writing blog

76 notes · View notes

lextenou · 7 years

Text

The Gayest Bunch of Songs I Ever Did Hear

AKA The Songs That Helped Lead to My Sexual Awakening.

I love music. I love having something playing in the background. I apparently know a lot of songs, if my record at pub quiz is any indication. In this spirit, I’ve curated this list of songs that mean something to me as part of my journey from child to adult.

Many a year ago, as but a spritely lad, I saw a movie. ‘Twas a rather pedestrian movie, all told, but well casted and well framed teen movie. What really threw it over the top was the blatantly “fuck you, I am in charge of me” feminist slant that the movie took. A baby Yeardley Smith was in it - notable as this was released three years before she would take on her lifetime role of Lisa Simpson.

She was not what caught my eye and my burgeoning interest. No, that honor was reserved for the lead and namesake of the movie, Helen Slater. In her role as the confused and desperate teenager Billie Jean, Slater managed to create in me a respect for the autonomy of self, and a lifelong deep seated weakness for blondes with short hair.

All told, The Legend of Billie Jean occupies a special place. Ostensibly inoffensive, it has as its crux the story of a girl who deals with unceasing, unrelenting soul crushing beatdowns of spirit. But then! In taking up protection for her brother, she finds in herself the will to stand up, fight, and demand what’s fair. Indeed, the mantra of “Fair is fair” rings throughout the movie, and the slimy douchebaggery of a crotch grabbing ass spelunking ephebophile attempting to convince her to accept payment in the form of his dick throws her past the breaking point.

At which point there’s kidnapping and running from the law.

The main song, and indeed, the theme of the movie is Pat Benatar’s “Invincible”. The video includes the standard clips from the movie, including scenes of Slater both before and after she cuts off her hair. Also, no, she and Christian are not actually brother and sister despite playing siblings in the movie.

youtube

I went through a lot of changes in 1999. Not the least of which was mourning the passing of the Prince song “1999″, I also had a magnificent few months in San Francisco, where I first listened to The Butches. Comprised of Kaia Wilson, Alison Martlew and Melissa York, they were iconic and pioneering. Every bit as much as Wilson’s first major band, Team Dresch, The Butchies managed to find an accessible and aggressive sound rooted firmly in dyke loving.

Seeing them at San Francisco Pride remains a highlight of my life.

While “Send Me You” is their most perfect song, “Sex (I’m a Lesbian)” was the first track from them that I ever ran across while silently tapping at my keyboard after everyone else had gone to bed. It’s frenetic energy rises and ebbs, bringing the listener to an abrupt crescendo that leaves you gasping.

Much like an orgasm.

Listening to The Butchies reminds me of a very simple adage: fuck ‘em. I owe no one an explanation for who I am.

If you ever look them up, they are also quite attractive. I highly recommend it.

youtube

The late 90′s had rather a zeitgeist of queer culture coming to the public. Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures burst on the scene, leaving everyone stunned that such a horrific murder could be made into such a beautiful movie. Lillith Faire was touring - and releasing compilation albums.

I had the chance to snag one of those compilation samplers. Lillith Fair 1998 New Music Sampler had as track three “Everything for Free” from K’s Choice.

From the moment I first heard Sarah Betten’s voice, I was captivated. Fronting the band along with her brother Gert, The band took a break a year after Sarah came out in 2002. They have formed and re-formed in the years since, and her solo work was able to be heard in numerous places, including on queer shows. K’s Choice did also perform “Virgin State of Mind” on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

It is difficult to say which era of the band, or which of her solo songs is my favorite. At different times, each one has spoken to me in different ways. “Stay” is a beautifully sweet and romantic mid tempo ballad. “Come Over Here” with its driving bass and drum simplicity gets stuck in the head incessantly. “Killing Dragons” has some of the best harmonies I’ve ever heard. “Hide” gets me through some incredibly dark times.

watch me, I’m coming closer

I am the mood you’re in tonight...

The first song I heard, however, remains near the top of the list. It’s story is not initially complex until it becomes clear that the narrator may or may not require institutionalization. It may just be a gay kid, locked up because their parents don’t want to deal with learning who their child is. It may be someone who’s had a break from reality. Realizing that the narrator is unreliable throws the entire song off kilter and completely transforms it from a straightforward tale to layered and mysterious.

To bring it full circle, K’s Choice did do a song based on Heavenly Creatures. It’s called “Winners”.

we will be winners, our heads glued together

and all is indefinite in you

youtube

In 1992, Nakayoshi magazine printed the first act of Bishoujo Senshi SailorMoon, finishing in 1996. In August of 1993, Bishoujo Senshi SailorMoon Musical Gaidan Dark Kingdom Fukkatsu Hen was staged. For the next thirteen years, the musicals, or Myu as they are colloquially known, were staged.

The Myu is notable for multiple reasons, not the least of which is that the original cast can be seen on an inside jacket of one of the issues of the original manga. They are canonical every bit as much as the anime is - though the Myu actually took Naoko Takeuchi’s direction. In the third story arc, the Infinity/Mugen/S arc, there are a couple new characters introduced.

SailorUranus and SailorNeptune.

They are always presented as a loving lesbian couple, so much so that directors have told the actresses to “Act like you’re married. You are a married couple.” In the Myu, this is seen much more than in other versions. The longest running actresses to play Uranus and Neptune were Nao Takagi and Asami Yuuhka. The two were fan favorites as well, leading to their roles being prominent in multiple musicals. The characters were also given multiple duets or group songs, all of which embraced fully their rampant lesbianism. Of these, the song that blew up the Myu fandom was “Destined Couple”.

A duet between Uranus and Neptune, it takes place as the closing of a fight between the senshi. They are admonishing SailorMoon that sacrifices must be made. The song is a powerful ballad that illustrates the love the two share, and their devotion to their mission of protection.

Seeing these two for the first time, learning about the musicals and how downright blatant their representation is to this day...

It made me realize that I wasn’t alone. There were people who did feel the way I did, who did think similarly to how I did. It was possible to not be living according to the restrictive gendered norms that I grew up with. I could live as myself, be comfortable with myself, without apology.

Through SailorMoon and Myu fandom, I’ve met and made friends with more people than I ever would have imagined. The first time my wife came over to netflix and chill, the first thing she noticed was a Myu poster. I almost messed it up by correcting her that they’re not “scouts”. Everything went better than expected.

I still have my Myu dvds. It’s almost time for a rewatch. I’m going to have a couple friends over and introduce them to Hikari Ono, the Lesbian Vampire Ninja Pirate.

But first, the lesbian soldier love song. This version is a fanvid with Nao and Yuhka singing, but the video is of the current reboot, with Shuu and Sayaka. I chose this one because its subtitled. At the end, it switches to include Nao and Yuhka.

youtube

I came out when I was a teenager. It was a difficult decision. I didn’t honestly know how my mother would take it. I knew she’d had close gay friends before, but I’m her kid. Would she kick me out? Would she stop loving me? Would she be able to accept me for who I am? I went to a record store and bought Melissa Etheridge’s “Yes I Am”. I put it on to play and sat my mother down. I told her. She was quiet for a while, then told me that she loved me and while it might take her a little bit to adjust, it was okay. Everything was okay. She hugged me as I cried in relief. I told her that I’d been worried. It was a catharsis I didn’t realize I needed. I’m significantly older now, and have been able to be there for my mother over the years. I am proud to call myself her kid, and she is proud to have me as her oldest. She loves and accepts me as I am. She told me more about her gay best friend in high school, who died of AIDS in the 80′s. I had always wondered why she’d gone to California when I was little, and why Dad was so upset about it. When my sisters told Dad that I was out and proud and married to a woman, he put down his dinner fork and stared for a while. When I met up with him a few years later, he’d adjusted and was able to tell me he was happy for me and still loved me.

I’ve never been shy about who I am. I’ve yelled at more than one person telling me I’m using the wrong bathroom. I surround myself now with good people, who love and respect me. I’m apparently able to make friends easily when we’re in bars and clubs, to my wife’s amusement. I don’t go to gay spaces much anymore. I spent my last birthday in our local Irish pub and made friends with a beer rep who is from the town that makes my all time favorite beer. I have no idea how many beers she bought me. It was magical.

When I came out to my mother, I would have never imagined that my life now could possibly be the way it is. It is due to her strength and character that I am who I am and that I can stand up and be proud of who I am.

In that spirit, I am including here “Mama, I’m Strange”. From Melissa Etheridge’s “Breakdown” album, this song resonates strongly with me. I find the message a powerful one, and the upbeat nature of the song lets me sink into the song without further thought. The first time I heard it, I sat stunned and remembered coming out to my mother.

youtube

#random randomness #I had difficulty narrowing this list down #there are a lot of songs that speak to me in different ways #when I'm writing the first thing I have to do is build a playlist to match the mood I want to go for #suppose that's why I like writing songfics #as in fics inspired by songs #not ones where you have the whole song listed out as half the fic

3 notes · View notes

niceness-before-knives · 7 years

Note

get to know my character: 01, 05, 11 for Suibhne; 21, 31, 40 for Arlette; and 43, 46, 48 for Mir.

Thank you so much for all the questions! ;;v;; They were all great and I had a blast with them!!

01. What does your character’s name mean? Did you pick it for the symbolism, or did you just like the way it sounded?

Suibhne means well-going in Gaelic (says behindthename). This is actually the name of my Cousland but I ended up reusing it for my Tabris because I couldn't find either S(vowel)-name I liked better than Suibhne. /shrugs I thought it worked pretty okay with his cousins’ names too, so yeah. It was picked just for aesthetics reasons! And because I enjoyed that way it sounds too.

05. Are they sexually confident or more of the shy type?

Ah, Suibhne is asexual actually! Sexual attraction and him aren’t really the best of friends, hah. I’ll still tuck him into the more quiet confident side though because he isn’t sex-repulsed. He was okay with Zevran's advances and took them with ease because sex isn't a bother to him. It's just not something that’ll come up when left to his own devices.

11. What is something that would make your character fly into a rage?

Okay, so. I'm really weird about words sometimes. Case in point, rage is not a word I associate with Tabris because it's a hot anger kind-of word and he’s not a hot anger kid. Rage is for lashing out, and Tabris doesn’t lash out at people. He gets revenge.

And the easiest way to do this is to hurt someone in his family. If someone does hurt one of them (either of his cousins, his dad plus Zevran, Morrigan and now Kieran), it's a promise they'll die a slow and painful death as soon as Tabris can make it happen since he doesn't have much and his family is the dearest thing he can imagine. So, yeah. Don’t hurt anyone in his family. No one wants to incur Tabris’ cold wrath.

21. What is one of your character’s biggest fears? How would they react when dealing with this fear?

Failure! Or, like failing her family. Arlette lived for her family, especially Bethany and Carver and it was always her biggest fear that she wouldn’t be strong enough to protect them, that she’d lose them one way or another.

And that’s exactly what happened! :D Malcolm died and she didn’t want to live Lothering because Carver wasn’t there with them. They left too late and Bethany died, and Arlette will always blame herself for that. In response to it, she tried so hard to keep Carver close and safe that he ended up having to join the Grey Wardens or die at the end of Act One. Which again, she blames herself for immensely.

Neither had to leave her, but because she failed, they left her. It honestly haunts her more than she ever admits to people. She reacts by trying to compartmentalize all that pain and regret, and just try to move on. She actually tries very hard not to fill the void left by them because she’ll fail again and it’ll hurt and no thanks. But you know, the Kirkwall crew is more endearing than she would’ve guessed at first. And she trades one set of siblings in for another and does her best to keep them all safe and happy.

And in return, they try to do their best for Arlette too.

31. Would your character be the kind capable of killing? Would they enjoy killing or only use it when necessary or, perhaps, refuse to kill no matter what?

Yup! Arlette is more than okay with killing! It's not her favorite course of action because death is messy and people tend to ask questions but she rarely feels a sense of regret over the lives she takes too. She grew up in a family of apostates, so life or death was a really real consequence in her mind's eye. She'll never have a problem killing if it's done in order to protect those she loves. They will always matter more than the soul she killed, always.

40. Does your OC have any guilty pleasures they enjoy? Hobbies, past times, music, etc that they wouldn’t want known by others?

Honestly, for the vast majority of her life, any hobby, past time or pleasure Arlette took apart of she didn't want any one to know. She took to being the step-in caregiver of the family to an absurd degree and doing anything that wasn't for Bethany & Carver seriously made her feel like the worst person on the planet. Of course, that is a ridiculous thought but Arl always felt it very hard. She tried being the best caregiver she could for the twins (and Leandra on her bad days), and that sadly, to her, meant suppressing a lot (a lot!) of her own desires.

Moving to Kirkwall especially post-Act One was kind-of a weird experience for her because it's the first time she's honestly free from those thoughts. I mean, they still exist and exist hard but there's nothing that cements them into reality like before. Bethany is gone. Carver is gone. Her mother has a new life she seems to enjoy and Arlette is like ??? with all this new free time.

She takes up cooking for fun (and teaching others to cook too like Sandal) and reading (especially light-hearted romantic fantasies and smutty things because she's always like those books the best~). But, she shares these things with her friends all the time. She needs connections too much to hide them when most of her family has left her in some way or another. Bonding moments are good!

43. Does your character have a switch that changes aspects of their personality whether they are around friends, family, etc. Is there someone who gets to see their true self?

Yes? Mir has two weirdly different personality sets he uses. One is his “Inquisition” personality. It’s a bit of an over-exaggeration of his real self: more loud, sarcastic, playful and carefree. He acts all on impulse and falls into a nasty habit of not thinking anything through. This isn’t closer to his self per se, but it’s the one he likes better and feels more at ease in. It’s like a comfortable worn-in sweater.

The other is a more subdued version of his real self and it tends to pop up around the Dalish. Growing up, he hid in Mahre's shadow a lot and ended up being a lot more quiet and standoffish as a personal safety measure. He didn’t like letting people close to him, so he put up his defenses as high as they could go. A few people got in there and here, but it was rare. Even during the Inquisition, he still switches back over it too when he’s around other Dalish clans. I’m sure people assume it’s a Dalish thing, but it is definitely ‘my twin is an abusive asshole and I have a hard time disconnecting sometimes at first’ thing.

As for his 'true' self, eh. What Mir considers his true self he does not like letting people see it. It has all his negativity and twisted emotions in it and no one needs to see that, iho! But it still happens. Sometimes he lets people in to see it (Dorian, Thuril, Iseult & Asa) because he at least trusts them all enough not to hurt him with what they’ll see. Sometimes people just lucked out on his bad days and stumbled over it (Vivienne, Varric, Souvelani) and sometimes the Fade casts you into a nightmare hellscape made up of your worst traits and fears for everyone (namely Blackwall, Sera, Bull) to see! :D

Seriously. Fuck the Fade.That shit was the worst.

46. What is some random affectionate thing that your character always does to their lover?

He just touches them, a lot? o: Mir is very tactile person and needs to touch things for his peace of mind be it walls, tables, sleeves, rings, fabric, something just needs to occupy his hand space and it definitely doesn’t stop around his lovers.

He loves giving out simple touches, brushing back bits of hair, reaching out to hold their hand or tracing patterns over their skin as he talks up a storm next to them. Like kid has a lot of trouble communicating his romantic feelings verbally, so he resorts to trying to physically communicate them instead. With every touch, he just wants to say, ‘I'm here. I like you. I hope that's okay.’

48. Is there anything in particular that would ignite your character’s jealousy? Or does your character not get envious?

Mhm. For all his own internal insecurity and odd trust problems, Mir's not really a jealous person. He knows what it's like being restricted in a relationship, be it for love or friendship, and it would hurt his soul if he ever inflicted that on someone he liked. That being said, he’s a territorial fuck though especially once boundaries have been established in a relationship. Other people crossing them will definitely spark him to be like 'excuse me, hold up', unintentional or not.

Bull's loyalty mission definitely a sparked a bit of that too. If he was reasonable sure Bull still enjoyed the Qun out of love for it, the whole Gatt and Hissrad tango wouldn't have bothered him much. But, he felt otherwise and oh god, did it ever bother him something fierce hence why taking 'his name is Iron Bull' option feels so good and in-character for Mir. It’s his lovely claim that ‘no, you are wrong and don’t talk to my friend like that’.

He still apologizes later to Bull though because making claims like that on people is still really shitty to him and it’s not really one of his fave personality flaws, if he’s being honest with himself. :l :l :l

#long post #just as a warning for y'all #but thank you again for the questions! <33 #i really appreciate them. c:#suibhne tabris #arlette hawke #mir lavellan #youaremorecampaign

1 note · View note

verdelet · 7 years

Link

Rating: General Audiences Archive Warning: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Category: M/M, Multi Fandom: 文豪ストレイドッグス | Bungou Stray Dogs Relationships: Dazai Osamu/Nakahara Chuuya (Bungou Stray Dogs), Dazai Osamu/Oda Sakunosuke (Bungou Stray Dogs), Dazai Osamu/Kunikida Doppo (Bungou Stray Dogs) Characters: Dazai Osamu (Bungou Stray Dogs), Oda Sakunosuke (Bungou Stray Dogs), Kunikida Doppo (Bungou Stray Dogs), Nakahara Chuuya (Bungou Stray Dogs) Additional Tags: Polyamorous Character, Polyamorous Relationships, Sleepy Cuddles, Cuddle Pile, Established Relationship, Domestic Fluff, Domestic AU

Language: English Published: 2017-01-24 Words: 1702 Chapters: 1/1

Summary: When it comes to bonding, few things work as well as a whole lot of sleeping. AKA Chuuya Would Lock His Door But He Won't Admit This Is Why He Doesn't.

"We have four bedrooms," he says, as though that will change the fact that only one of four bedrooms is currently occupied, and said bedroom just so happens to be his. Ironically enough, of the four residents in the house, Chuuya is not one of the three residents currently occupying his bed.

"Your bed has the most space," Oda says, an apology written somewhere under the tone. And that, Chuuya has to concede is true.

Cute...

Oda sighs softly, closing the novel and carefully setting down in a corner of the bed, where it won't get crushed on accident. Dazai's fast asleep, curled up sideways between his legs, head tucked against the side of Oda's neck. His throat feels a little dry from narrating the book, but getting up now would wake Dazai and he definitely doesn't want to do that.

He doesn't particularly want to spend the next few hours asleep while sitting up though, and he lasts about half an hour before carding his fingers through Dazai's hair. "Can we lie down?" he asks, softly even though Dazai hasn't so much as twitched at the contact, but Dazai curls up tighter against him, head dropping to rest under his chin, and that's answer enough for him. One arm around the back of Dazai's shoulders, Oda slides the other on under Dazai's knees and spends a long moment trying to figure out how to move his own legs, restricted as his movement is.

In the end, he does a fairly awkward twist that gets his leg folded under himself, and that's all the leverage he needs to get up onto his knees on the bed, turning so he can lie Dazai down. Immediately, Dazai's hands reach up to cling to his arms, the weight of them pulling at him until he complies and lays down as well. Immediately, Dazai's hands relocate, one curling into his t-shirt over his chest. The other one slides to the back of his shoulder as Oda wraps his arms around Dazai. His mouth presses to Dazai's forehead, gentle and brief.

The position lasts for a few seconds before Dazai starts pushing at him, and Oda rolls onto his back so Dazai can sprawl over him instead, head pillowed on his shoulder this time with an arm and a leg thrown over him. Like a koala, Oda muses, and resists laughing at the thought. He can't say he's very opposed to the thought of Dazai clinging to him all day just like a koala. If anything, he'd welcome it if not for the fact that such an activity simply isn't possible considering both their schedules.

Perhaps the rarity of being able to just lie like this with Dazai simply means he should cherish the moment while he can, he muses, smiling and curling his arm so that it rests over the back of Dazai's shoulders. He can do that, Oda thinks, and turns his head so Dazai's hair just barely tickles his chin. He most certainly can.

It's somewhere between too late for Kunikida to actually give a royal fuck, and too early for him to be vocal about not giving a royal fuck. At any other point, he'd be able to put an hour to the feeling, knows on an instinctive level that he reaches this point once the hour hand hits a particular angle, but his brain is too fried to even ponder the amount of effort required to lift his wrist high enough for him to check.

Really, it's all he can do to get his shoes off, meticulous nature stopping him from leaving them lying around haphazardly like a certain housemate of his. He sets his shoes down properly on the rack, and then curses his meticulous nature which insist he place said housemate's stupid shoes on the rack instead of leaving them in two separate locations just past the front door. He also curses everything under the sun and moon under his breath, since he's already cursing himself and going all the way only seems appropriate.

"... why I have to deal with this every single day, one day, just one day without a stupid question, and-"

"Welcome home, Kunikida," Oda says, and Kunikida's mumble-rant is cut off as he halts midstep, turning to look into the room he's passing. Oda blinks at him from the other side, eyes gray like smoke and half-lidded. It's a little odd for Kunikida's barely-functioning brain, because Oda is sideways and only the upper half of the man's head is visible from this perspective. The other half is blocked by the back of Dazai's head, and from what Kunikida can tell, the brunette is fast asleep. Or at the very least, faking sleep so that Kunikida won't kick him for not putting his fucking shoes on the rack properly. As if Kunikida won't kick him anyway when they're both awake and functioning.

"Ugh," Kunikida ends up saying instead of a return greeting, half-formed thoughts and tangents coalescing into a too-familiar dull ache building from between his eyes. The arm Oda has curled over the back of Dazai's shoulders flops down, hand flexing over the sheets in invitation. It's too much effort to consider the invitation. Kunikida just listens and drags his feet over, only pride and determination stopping him from flat out collapsing onto the bed.

As he sits down on it, Oda moves, rolling onto his side slowly so as to not jostle Dazai too much. It's a stupid gesture when Kunikida knows Dazai's awake- the idiot's little smile is a dead giveaway. It's also a little cute, Kunikida thinks, and promptly wants to smack himself for using cute as an adjective to describe Dazai.

"Get some rest," Oda murmurs softly, and Kunikida has never heard a better idea in his life. Even if he's told those exact same words at least five times a day. The sixth time is the charm apparently because he can't even think to disobey. He doesn't snuggle, he's not a fucking snuggler, despite what Dazai says, but he can't help but slide close and tuck himself along the curve of Dazai's back, forehead resting against the back of Dazai's shoulder.

He can feel Oda's arm against the top of his head, can feel the muscles there shifting as Oda's arm bends and a fingers press briefly to his back. It's too awkward of a position to maintain for very long, and the contact is gone almost as soon as it arrives. It's a gesture he appreciates nonetheless. Kunikida drapes his arm over Dazai's waist, fingers brushing Oda's stomach briefly in acknowledgement before they rest over Dazai's instead.

"Welcome home, Kunikida-kun," Dazai mumbles, voice sounding distant and slurred with sleep. Or maybe Kunikida's the one falling asleep. He's not complaining either way. He's home.

Chuuya's a fairly tolerant person, all things considered. He thinks he is anyway, considering living with Dazai of all people tends to build a person's tolerance to bullshit faster than anything else in the world. He can't help but wonder though, whether he should be amused or annoyed. Whether the current situation falls along the scale of Tolerable to Fuck The Hell Off Right This Second.

"Your bed has the most space," Oda says, an apology written somewhere under the tone. And that, Chuuya has to concede is true. Oda's bed has enough space for the man himself, while the rest is taken up by the books Oda never seems to be able to have enough space for despite the number of shelves he has. Kunikida's bed is big enough for one, and even Chuuya can agree that the room is less of a room and more of an office. And Dazai... If Dazai has a bed somewhere in that mess, Chuuya hasn't seen it in a while.

"That explains nothing," Chuuya responds, even though it explains everything, and maybe Oda knows and maybe Oda doesn't, but the man just looks at the brunette currently asleep on his arm. If he could, Chuuya's certain he'd be looking at the blonde asleep behind Dazai too. Kunikida's fallen asleep with his glasses on again, and it says something Chuuya definitely doesn't ever want said when he strides over to carefully remove the glasses, folding and setting them down on the bedside table. Kunikida doesn't even stir, but Oda nods a thanks before glancing away for a moment.

"There's space here if you'd like?" the man offers, and Chuuya moves to turn down the offer before actually considering it.

"If one of you lie on me, there will be blood," he says in the end, and hears Oda's huff of a laugh as he climbs into bed.

"Chuuya, you can't take a little weight?" Dazai teases, and of course the bastard is awake, of course. He isn't even surprised, and Oda just presses a kiss to Dazai's hair as if to remind the asshole that a cuddle pile isn't the time for snide jabs. Cuddle pile, Chuuya repeats silently, and can't tell if that's amusing or horrifying.

Kunikida stirs a little as they all shift to make space, but ultimately doesn't actually do more than tighten the hold he has on Dazai. Whatever the guy says, he is definitely a Grade A Sleep Cuddler, Chuuya thinks, settling in the space between Oda and Dazai. It's warm, from lingering body heat and the two actual bodies pressing against him from both sides. His head is an inch or so under Dazai's chin, and he can almost feel each breath against his hair. For lack of any other comfortable position, his arm ends up draped over Dazai, hand on Kunikida's waist.

Someone's hand combs through his hair gently. Oda's, probably, because he can feel Dazai's arm crossed over his upper arm, resting on Oda's hip. "Welcome home, Chuuya," Dazai mumbles, and the sentiment is echoed half a second later by Oda. And Kunikida, probably, if the strange grumble Kunikida makes can be considered a greeting in the first place.

"Mmh," is all he can say, though maybe the little flush of warmth in his chest has already long since made itself known and pretending it isn't there just doesn't work anymore. No one pushes him though, which suits him just fine. It's good just like this. Amazing, actually.

Not that he'd ever admit it, though.

#kuniodazaichuu #kunikidazai #odazai #soukoku #bsd #bungou stray dogs #verdy writes #dazai osamu #sakunosuke oda #Nakahara Chuuya #kunikida doppo #why ot3 when you can ot4

15 notes · View notes

legendaryedhplays · 7 years

Text

Magic Design History - Legendary Creatures

Hello everybody, we’ve finally reached 2017 and I have returned from a night of heavy drinking to dive into an aspect of Magic with you to discuss the history of it’s development. This installment will focus on an aspect near and dear to my heart and the larger purpose of this blog, Legendary Creatures!

This topic has a number of story points, in fact its probably more nuanced than I’m even choosing to outline. That said, this could be a long one!

In the Beginning…

In the beginning, there were no Legendary Creature (Legends for the sack of my fingers). Actually, there were no multicolored cards either. I guess that is kind of important for my story.

Then came Legends in June of 1994 as the third non-Core Set expansion. This set was designed mostly before the official release of Magic and brought about the idea of Legendary Creatures - specific people who existed in the world we were visiting. To highlight these characters - who by the way, many were based on the designers’ D&D campaigns - the choice to flip the script was made and they made as Magic’s first multicolored cards. Every one of them.

As a history lesson, I believe the Legend Rule started out being that if I had Dakkon Blackblade out any new copies of Dakkon Blackblade would immediately go to the graveyard when played, thus marooning all other copies in either players’ hands. Because, like, why bother casting a spell that was just going to the graveyard?

I feel this addition to Magic canon was hugely important. But I am biased as I participate in a format that is driven by the quality of Legendary. It is funny to think though that Gold cards were also introduced here and many players will never know realize that all Legends in Legends were Gold and all Gold cards were Legends.

Continuing Trends

Because Legends was an expansion existing before the official release of Alpha, that means that sets following it were aware of legends during their design. That meant that Legends became apart of every set, by my research. So the trend of kicking out a handful of Legends began and with the Legend Rule in its beginning state, it became a design tool to help control the power level of some cards deemed too powerful in multiples. This would be the design philosophy for Legends for the next three years.

I don’t know that anything remarkable happened in this era, this is a point in design that I often flip through in hopes of finding a creature worth building around for it’s color identity and abilities. I am often disappointed. As the next section’s influences begin to come into focus, some of the Legends designed before Tempest would get retrofitted into the story.

Introducing Story

As I stated before - and is terribly obvious - Legends are fabled people existing in the worlds we visit and some time around 1997 - with the release of Weatherlight and Tempest - the cards started introducing more story elements. This meant the Legends being printed began showcasing the characters of those stories. I think this was a great choice that pulled in or retained many of the community personalities we love that identify as a Vorthos.

The story that started it roots in Weatherlight ran through the next four blocks and culminated in the final set of the Invasion block, Apocalypse. Through out all of this, Legends like Mirri and Gerrard were being featured on cards to help showcase their place in the story. My one complaint during this era was that aside from a few characters like Ertai and Croax, we never saw more than one card appearance of characters, leaving the players with no sense of the character’s arc.

Everyone is Legendary

Around the tail end of 2004 Magic took a trip to the new plane of Kamigawa, a Japanese-Shinto inspired world that made the mistake of putting Creative before Design - making for an ill-received block - and now us Samurai enthusiasts must forever pay the price. This was also where the Legend Rule was retooled to make any copies beyond the first destroy all copies of a Legendary Permanent with the same name.

The giant flag waving over all of the Kamigawa block was that it was featuring Legendary Permanents in mass - 163 by my count. Suddenly everything was legendary, including the enchantments and lands and sort of the spells. I think this is real cool in concept, but in the 13 years since, I can see how it might have lessened the special nature of Legends in one way or another.

I personally loved this influx of Legends as a Commander player, because more than half were not linear to build with. The major set back was that Kamigawa was almost entirely mono colored and meaning we were never given allied/enemy paired Legends for any of the tribes used such as Samurai, Ninja, Foxes or Rats.

Thankfully, the following year - Ravnica block - also featured Legendary Creatures in high numbers - 20 in total - and brought about allied/enemy creatures that would also prove to be relatively open-ended once Commander gained popularity. This was an important block in Magic history, because it gave an identity to each of the two-color pairs, something that wasn’t defined until 2006.

Lastly, from a lore prospective, this era of Legends were a mixed bag of important to the stories being told in the novels and completely unmentioned.

Displaced Heroes

Capping off a prolonged period of Legends, Time Spiral block could be described as a nostalgia block. Occupying the space that I see Commander products slowly embracing more and more, the designers turned their attentions to defining the characters of early Magic in card form, sometimes being as fleeting as appearing in flavor text of one card. Thankfully we were not restricted mono colored creatures this time around.

This was another stage of design that I think had it’s ups and downs. Part of the nostalgia also meant making the creatures feel like cards from their respective ages of design. In some cases this made for really interesting designs, like Ib Halfheart or Jhoira of the Ghitu, but (to me) there was a large batch of confusing designs that were more in-jokes than anything, like Mangara of Corondor, Tivadar of Thorn or Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder.

While I think this was an important time in Magic design, I don’t look as fondly back on this time as I might Kamigawa or Ravnica. And while I would more than love another Time Spiral block, I think it’s more for the wink-nod designs of the cards filling the entire set than the Legends specifically. In my eyes, this was a weak point in design, as the Legends were often confusing, though not yet pandering.

The Rise of Commander

Now we’ve reached Magic circa 2009, and the rise of Commander.

Fun fact: Commander was popularized in the 2008-2010 era, but its roots have been said to go as far back as a 1995 Duelist article, with the format being cultivated in 2001 [x]

As the 100-card singleton format began to take root in the general Magic community - and designers started designing towards it - the use of Legends evolved and their significance began to ramp up. Suddenly, the state of being legendary and the colors that creature occupied were a huge deal. In this era we also saw the Legend Rule change with Theros, now Legendary things only exploded if they occupied the same side of the battlefield.

The reasoning for this explosion in popularity, to me, comes from the release of Shards of Alara and the heavy influx of 3-color Legends, many of which were also well suited for themed decks or archetypes. My one gripe being that many of the Legends in Shards block were very linear. But Wizards heard the community’s love for the format and gave us Magic the Gathering: Commander in 2011, which took the number of wedge colored cards from a handful to double digits.

But that leads up to the final or better yet, most recent, point in the design of Legends…

The Fine Line

So now Wizards is going out of their way to design a product for us, becoming yearly in 2013. And with this attention towards Commander, I think two things began to come into focus:

1) The Commander community started complaining when a Legend didn’t work well in the format.

2) Wizards tried to give us what we asked for, but missed the mark.

Truthfully, both points have merits to both sides of the issue.

With the first point, Commander players got a bit of big head, Dragonlord Kolaghan probably being the best example in recent memory. Yes, Kolaghan is legend, sadly it doesn’t work well or at all in Commander.

We want cool legends, and it sucks when one of a cycle doesn’t fit into the Commander mold. But maybe it wasn’t designed for us. Or maybe just the being a Dragon part was.

The second issue more leans towards my hatred of being pandered to, I liked Kamigawa block because the Legends were never built with Commander in mind and thus, they worked as both build arounds and just unique creatures. With Wizards constructing creatures per our requests, it was nice, but there was a communication error that would occur (see Ulrich or the not-yet-confirmed lack of a UR legend that cares about artifacts in Aether Revolt).

And so, as much as I want to knock on @markrosewater‘s door and request specific things, it takes some of the fun out for me. Though, it does make the game I love feel more approachable.

The End…

Man, are you still here? Wow. Thanks.

So, we’ve just covered a solid 1000+ words on my thoughts about the design of Legendary Creatures across Magic’s history. I hope I educated and not just spouted my shallow thoughts, because this took a lot of research and several attempts on my part. What did I skip over that I could highlight in the future? Where would you like to see the series go in the future?

Either way, thanks for any feedback and I hope to catch you later!

117 notes · View notes