#//i think a lot of sort of character inconsistencies within the traveler have been so glaringly obvious with how more and more stuff is bei

[risingsol]

it'll probably be a hot second before i can play up to the most recent quest given work and other things (the 98237583253895723 hoops i gotta jump through to even be able to catch up at this point) but from what i hear, more than likely, i'll be slightly more canon divergent.

#;idle chatter ✦ ooc #//i think a lot of sort of character inconsistencies within the traveler have been so glaringly obvious with how more and more stuff is bei #//put into world quests and tech not required quests for the main story that like what we as players might learn about others in those #//quests just can't be put into the main quest a) bc not all players will have done them and b) bc theres just not enough time on the AQ to #//cover all that stuff #//sure it's a problem with the game where theres just a lot of lore that does kinda keep coming out but some of it is gated behind those an #//others are behind just readables

[inlocusmads]

I'm sure this opinion might be unpopular but I just think PB is trying to Lord of the Rings-ify Blades a lot, by introducing so many characters and relying on standard character archetypes to drive the story forth.

Of course, yes, you can only do so much with 18 chapters, but Blades is, like most Choices stories, memorable because of the characters and how they interact with their surroundings more than the larger overarching plot (though it comes a close second.)

Rant follows below, spoiler alert if you haven't read the latest chapters:

@choicesbookclub

I'd love to have Willow, Cherta and the Shadow Court members again for a chapter or two and maybe, y'know Kade?? Since he's our literal brother?? And he's constantly sidelined even though he is the reason why MC bothered with the whole Shadow realm thing in the first place??

I feel like a lot of times we could have had the characters react to certain things that aligned with their beliefs more. I loved the arc of Tyril questioning how convoluted magic can be and it isn't the one-dimensional thing he is used to or Nia standing up and taking risks against her sheltered upbringing. I feel like a lot of times all of the LIs had some really choppy writing given to them, besides the paywalled scenes because I personally believe if you have to paywall scenes to drive the characterisation forward, it lowkey sucks and very money-grabby. It comes with the writing! Paywalled options shouldn't gatekeep them!

Mal's apathy is never really addressed, even though the fandom lost their minds over it. Tyril has some golden moments here and there but it is glossed over completely and sometimes inconsistent at parts (where did the battle-mage Tyril go??). The only thing driving Nia's personality now is just her Shadow alter-ego being this wowie contrasty thing to her 'golden retriever' personality. Imtura's just the muscles and they gave her a semi-character arc-ish to take over from her mother, which completely skids through her complicated relationship with her (at least they could have given her some time to think if she wants to rule over or at least figure out the semantics of a ruling council until after the battle).

And Aerin and Valax have the forbidden-romance route to them. Let's not even like, talk about how Aerin's been missing for a chunk of chapters for reasons beyond why and Valax's route is also weirdly written where in she had no time to acknowledge MC's feelings?? Even when she's so new to romance, relationships and so on? Or like, even a friendship. For someone who doesn't trust easily, I can't really bank on the probability MC is just so alluring enough to rope them into a friendship within days to spare in Ironbreach.

Which comes to the problem, Blades stuffs a lot of characters in.

In Book 1, it felt a little balanced considering the overarching plot was for them to just get to the Shadow Realm to rescue Kade and the friends made along the way were instrumental in that success. Even if we don't know a lot about Adrina or Scholar Vash or Kaya or any of the side-characters, it made it very clear that this was the Party and we'll only be focusing on these people. And even then, taking an example, Adrina got a full story on her own. She helped Tyril with House Starfury's doings, taking over his shoes in the wake of his departure and ensuring things ran smoothly, Adrina helped the Party recoup and recover, even giving them drakes to get to Whitetower and she ended up being the next head(?) heir(?) of the House. Her efforts weren't wasted and it still felt like we got a promising story for her.

In the case of Cherta and Willow, they were "added" to our Party roster -a mechanic that previously wasn't used for the likes of other people, say Aerin, even (even though he did travel with us for a brief chapter and a half in Book 1) and we sort of expected they'd get a side-LI treatment or at least, a character arc like Adrina's, but their stories kind of fell.. flat in my opinion. We leave before Cherta is able to process her grandmother's passing. Willow and her story is just a one-off problem and she's now living her life in the Light Realm.

I don't know exactly why PB added the "__ added to party" game mechanic because it wasn't really necessary in my opinion because it is unlikely we'll see these characters again at least until the final battle (if the final battle involves literally everyone - light versus shadow cagefight and becomes a TC&TF Book 2 scenario) but it does feel weird to have bought their loyalty by doing them favours instead of actually getting to know them. I don't know, it's just my personal opinion.

I do know that 18 chapters is very little to work with, but it can be improved with pacing. PB has a bit of pacing issues going on with Book 2. The woods chapter and Zaradun didn't need to take like, 6 CHAPTERS to make a point! And that's covering the two rifts! If Cherta and Willow were supposed to be one-off characters, why not have one 15 or 17-minute chapter for each one of them and one for the journey from the woods to Zaradun?

I also think that PB doesn't really follow up with how the characters interact to the lore. A lot of times the lore is just wasted upon extra dialogue material or social quests, but if it had some impact on the Final Puzzle we solve to unlock Shadow secrets or whatever or at least a lore callback, it would have been so much fun. Like dwarven culture is so important they dedicated like ONE FULL CHAPTER to it (or at least half a chapter) and they never revisit it, besides Cherta's storyline.

And the lore tablets - ughhh my problem with the lore tablets being, they don't offer any ammunition to the storyline. They're just.. there as "additional info" to spare characters from doing infodumps. Apart from their collectible mechanism, they're just no fun from actually doing the exploration part. The Party's quest to look for Zaradun is a million times more interesting than slapping it on a lore tablet! Like why can't we have bonding sessions like that more often? Or the pit-stop at Riverbend (we'll ignore Kade wasn't even mentioned there).

I also think PB has a problem with the Chekhov's gun rule in writing. They set up these brilliant character arcs for characters and let them down later. I'd say Tyril's whole beef with magic could have gone to Nia, who has dedicated her life to magic and is under the whole 'Light heals, Shadow ruins' impression. Mal's apathy clashes with his whole motive for opening up an orphanage. If he cared so much about MC to open up something so thoughtful with his money in their favour, why does he act like MC's dead or something? Apathy could have gone to Imtura - the person who is the only one who actually expresses her emotions and it would be interesting to see her go all quiet and numb throughout the story, only for her to feel like herself and take on a new responsibility after her mother's passing.

And Aerin and Valax, godddd, way to half-ass romance routes PB. If it weren't for fandom digging into all the subtext and making up subtext, the story would be far less interesting. (this is just my opinion once again) Aerin had so much potential as the cat-on-the-wall character and him journeying with MC and the Party could have actually made him more perceptive and understanding. He could have even bonded with Tyril and Imtura even - them being 'heirs' to houses/kingdoms and coming from a different lifestyles and life obligations.

Valax's storyline felt so last-minute. I definitely feel like we could have added her to the Party long before Chapter 13 when she joins us in the flash flood. It could have made the Watcher character more fulfilling considering how MC would have to make a choice between being on the Light or Shadow side in the debate. Valax could have had her own reasons for closing rifts (or opening rifts) to get to the other side (maybe put in a collectible mechanic there) and not closing rifts/closing rifts could have had some long-term consequences.

I know, it is hard to program it, but this is the same company that brought you old books where your choices did matter and take you down different routes. I just wish they were more adventurous in their programming or at least, fixed their pacing issue because while I still enjoy Blades 2 for what it is, it is kind of a.. mild let down after waiting this to be 3 years in the making.

okay that's it lol.

#blades of light and shadow #mads rants about stuff

[fogwitchoftheevermore]

Yes!!! Watchers are Narrative!! I wish I could put it in words better but that's exactly how I see the Watchers. The patterns and stories and everything Just Makes Sense

DUDE LITERALLY i so badly wish i could actually articulate what i'm talking about here or honestly i at least wish i had some screenshots from the bigger mechscord about how people talked about Narrative. but it's just- ok if you're someone who has never heard of the mechanisms.

the mechanisms were a band of immortal space pirates who roamed the universe looking for stories. every story they found was always a tragedy and every story they made was equally a tragedy. they transcended time and space as they traveled because wherever they were going and whatever they were doing was at the whims of whatever (out of universe) made the story better. the way this manifests in universe means that the Narrative kind of exists in universe and has it's own thoughts and whims and is doing it's own thing. this is most obvious when the mechanisms die. but space, i thought you said they were immortal? yeah, they were, until it served the narrative for that to no longer be the case. all of their deaths are pretty indicative of this, but i think jonny's is the best example/the easiest one to understand.

"for some reason, it sticks". the "reason" is the narrative. the narrative has decided jonny works better dead than alive, now, so that's what he is, even though he has never before been able to reach that point.

basically it's taking those concepts that got real popular on tumblr (doomed by the narrative, the narrative loves you, etc.) and making it real- the narrative is somehow a sentient, alive thing that has wants and a story to tell. you are a member of that story and equally the vessel through which the narrative can tell it. once the narrative no longer needs you, as character or narrator, that means your story is over too.

things happen because the narrative says they do. these things don't have to make sense- sometimes something just works better this way, so there's plot holes and retcons and inconsistencies and missing information from different sides of the story but that doesn't matter because it's all serving one big story.

so like yeah the mechanisms concept of the narrative really encapsulates the watchers, and honestly a lot of mcyt storytelling in general, to me. it's a little cruel but it's mostly just not human. it has a story it wants to tell and that story is very frequently tragic, or at least has a lot of tragedy within it. (the mechanisms sometimes told happy stories! kinda! look the only thing i'm thinking of is briar rose and cinders and even that's not quite happy but you get what i mean.) sometimes the story doesn't quite fit together right, or elements are only decided upon later on and have to be sort of shoved in. the narrative exists mostly outside of the story but sometimes needs to move things along or needs someone to tell the story so it chooses someone to do it. it leaves just enough room for interpretation in the story for the audience to put themselves into it, to have their own brand of fun. do you see the vision.

#this is not the world's greatest explanation about The Narrative but it's what ive got in me #space rambles #yknow what #im maintagging this actually #eyesandears #traffic smp #like DO YOU SEE MY VISION #anyways you guys should all listen to the mechanisms #also as i referenced in that post the blaseball gods also super effect how i perceive the watchers #but they effect it a little less in the realm of 'how the watchers work' and a little more in the realm of 'how the watchers interact' #like how they speak. why they speak. what they choose to say and what they choose to leave out. that kinda thing

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

Top 5 Dumbest Things in The Final Season

I’ve played TWDG a lot, and I can confidently say that The Final Season is my favorite installment, and I’d argue that it’s the best of the series in terms of visuals, controls, characters, and storyline... but that doesn’t mean it’s a perfect game by any means. In fact, there are a lot of issues and inconsistencies you could pick out within the story and the arcs of our characters.

But today I don’t wanna tackle the big problems. The issues on today’s list aren’t a big deal and won’t ruin the experience of the game-- they’re minor and just really, really dumb. They’re things that you probably wouldn’t even notice during your first or second playthrough of the game. Honestly, most of these probably could be easily explained with “shhhh, don’t think about it.” 

But I’m thinkin’ about them because they’re dumb. So, here's my Top 5 dumbest things in TFS. Do note that these Top 5′s are all in good fun, and they’re my opinion. Obviously. 

[also, most of the screenshots used here are from @pi-creates​-- if you haven’t checked out Pi’s blog, I highly recommend you do! :D]

5. Doors make no sense. 

The doors in this game are dumb and make little sense. And you might be scoffing like, “Really? Doors?” and to that I say, “YES DOORS OKAY!”

If you’re like me, you like to look at everything in hopes of finding interesting details and maybe an easter egg. If you look at the all the doors after breaking out of the dorm in ep1, they all have different locks which... why? 

Wait, shouldn’t Clem be able to open this one...? The lock is right there on the outside. 

Why are they different? Also, why are the dorms lockable from the outside? Like, okay, I get it-- ya gotta lock up the troubled youth so that they don’t escape. Fine. Cool, I can accept that... except does this mean that someone had to go around and unlock all the dorms every morning before the apocalypse? What if you forgot a door and a handful got stuck in there for the day? What happens if you lock all these children in their rooms and a fire starts??

And don’t you look at me and try to be like “Pfft, there’s not gonna be a fire--” excuse me?? With Aasim hanging around, and Mitch for that matter, you’re gonna tell me that the odds of fire happening are 0%?

Well, y’know, fine. If there’s a fire, then the kids can just escape through the windows... oh wait--

Weeeeeell fuck the troubled youth, I guess. 

But the dorm doors aren’t even the dumbest doors here-- no, no. That would be the god damn basement door that apparently locks from both sides because game’s gotta game and I guess Marlon has the key?? This dumb door makes no sense. 

Again! I feel like this is a safety hazard?? Sure hope no one gets locked down there, otherwise, you’re fucked I guess?? because there’s no way to unlock or open it from the inside?? After Brody dies and Clem’s looking for a way out, you’d think that she should be able to just open the door at the top of the stairs now that she’s inside but nooooo-- game’s gotta game. 

Ugh, dumb doors!

4. Abel’s magic shotgun

Did you guys know that Abel actually has a special shotgun? A magical shotgun, if you will?

It’s true, he does. He uses a shotgun that, when he fires it, the buckshot curves around to hit the target when the plot demands it.

It’s true! And it’s dumb!

I know this, because if you yell for Violet to shoot Lilly in ep2, Abel will throw AJ to the grab, pull the shotgun out of nowhere, and fire at both her and Louis.... but somehow--

--only Louis manages to get hit.

Soooo.... I guess the buckshot swerves around and above Violet to ONLY hit Louis? Like, I know she ducks a bit but I still feel like something should’ve nicked her as well?? At least?? Like, are lesbians immune to shotguns and that’s why nothing hit Violet?? Am I only learning this now??

Not only that, but it only got Louis in the arm?? H-how??

But that’s not all!

After Louis and Violet flee the scene, Clementine and AJ are on the run with Lilly and Abel shooting BEHIND them... sooo...

If Abel was behind them.... how is it that AJ’s shot in the FRONT of his stomach??

Like, I guess Abel could’ve been at an angle when he shot but they only ever show him behind them soo?? Do I just not know how shotguns work? Do they curve to hit people in their front rather than shooting straight forward?? Because what??

On top of that, how is AJ not dead?? I know, I know, protagonist powers and whatnot but?? the boy took a shotgun to the belly?? other characters have survived lesser things??

But y’know, the dumbest part about this is the fact that I can’t take Abel’s magic shotgun for myself after the Ericson crew capture him. I could’ve just finished off every delta member if the shots curve and travel to hit their targets.

Or maybe Abel’s the only one who can harness its power.

Either way, Abel’s dumb shotgun is dumb.

3.You can’t hug Louis and Violet during their romance routes. 

Sigh.... Why?

Y’all know that I’m a clouis shipper, and now lemme tell you a fun story that isn’t actually that fun-- Do you remember when the trailer dropped for ep3? And we got some teaser screenshots, with one of them being a shot of Clementine and Louis hugging? Well, I was excited for a plethora of reasons, and that hug? 

I could not wait for this hug.

Then I got through my first run of ep3 and... no hug? Wait, no hug? Why not? I thought--

Oh. Oh, it turns out... it turns out you can only hug Louis if you don’t romance him. 

Ummmm. Huh. Wha- why?? Do you know how dumb that is?? What dingus who worked on this episode forgot to implement the hug option for the romance route?? Rather, what dingus thought it was a good idea to only give the Louis romance two options outside of doing nothing-- Slap Louis, or kiss him?? Where’s my hug?? Why is Clementine not allowed to comfort her boyfriend with a hug when he’s clearly anxious about everything that’s about to go down?

Look, the smooch is great and all BUT it’s not what Louis needs in this moment, ya dingus. 

I’m sure if I asked Kent for answers about this, he’d do one of two things-- go into a long winded essay about how the lack of hug and slapping him totally makes sense within the context of Louis’ character arc and route because of this and that and this subtle detail here... or he’d give a shrug and say “I dunno, reasons??”

Ugh, okay, well maybe they let you have the choice in Violet’s romance route--

...Why??

Again, if I choose to romance Violet, why am I not allowed to comfort my girlfriend with a hug before we do this rescue mission?? Sure, I can reassure her that I’m not going anywhere, which is definitely a better option for a love interest than, oh I don’t know, slapping. But the HUG!

They could’ve implemented the hug option into the romance routes but they didn’t and that’s incredibly dumb. 

2. Magic tree is magic. 

Know what I don’t like? The dream theory. Y’know, the theory that the overly happy ending we got at the end of TFS was all just a dream in AJ’s head to cope with the devastation of the real ending-- the one where Clementine died.  

Now, I can already hear you scoffing at me once more like, “Dream theories are dumb, CJ.” and this time, I do agree with you. 

However, there’s actually some compelling evidence that could subtly point at this theory, such as the backward graffiti in the dorms that was present in Clementine’s nightmare, or the fact that Clementine is, y’know, alive despite being seconds away from death in the barn...

Oh, and then there’s this fucking magic tree. 

Oh, you know... the tree that magically grows in in ep4! The one with the tire swing! 

Episode 3 vs Episode 4

This tree is dumb and makes no sense. What, did they just... plant a tree there? Did they push the tree up that was on the ground and use some magical wood glue to fix it?? Clementine said that Willy helped her with the tire swing so like... is Willy some sort of tree whisperer?? 

Or is this just further evidence of the dream theory where AJ’s lamenting the fact that Clementine never got to push him on the tire swing back at the train station and now she never will because she’s fucking dead??

I don’t wanna think about it. In fact, I’m pretty sure that’s what the devs would tell me-- “Shhhh... don’t think about it.” 

This tree is dumb! 

1. What even is the greenhouse??

So.... the green house. It’s dumb. And inconsistent, both in the story and actual location of it. 

First of all, as you can see in the concept image above, it should be within the walls of Ericson, yeah? And if you’re like, “Well, it’s CONCEPT art so it might not be totally accurate CJ.” and I say, “Fair enough, let’s look that the actual in-game map the characters use then.”

Look at that-- still within the walls of Ericson, though in a different location than the concept art. Make sense? Sooo....

Where the hell is it?

Because it’s not within Ericson’s walls. No, no--

It is WAAAAY the hell out here! You can see the bell tower in the distance so like... huh? Where are we?? This is a long as walk to the greenhouse! 

Oh, and if the weird inconsistent locations weren’t dumb enough, there are different conflicting stories surrounding it, as well! 

First, Marlon says that they had it functional with lots of vegetables, but then it became over grown so they don’t go out there anymore. Then, if you go fishing with Violet and Brody, Vi will tell you she worked in the greenhouse the day the twins were killed last year, which... doesn’t add up? Especially when we actually go there in ep2 and see that Ms. Martin died and became a walker inside, but she died a while ago?? 

Also, how did Ms. Martin get tied up like that? Did she get bit, barricade the doors-- wait, that doesn’t work because how did she barricade the science lab from the inside when there’s a shelf in front of the door?? In fact, shouldn’t the walkers that are inside be students that died?? 

“Sshhhh... don’t think about it.”

Ugh, nothing adds up about this greenhouse and that makes it the dumbest thing in TFS.

---

Honorable Mentions

AJ magically teleporting behind Marlon with the gun. Because plot.

The dumb padlock on the gate Louis/Violet/Tenn climb over in ep4 that they could’ve easily broken

Louis’ jacket that somehow holds Chairles

The padding on Violet’s boot that’s rendered useless because they put it on the leg she doesn’t use to kick walkers away

---

Those are my Top 5 dumbest things in TFS, do you agree or disagree? Do you have anything from this game that’s dumber than what I have listed? Let me know! 

Next week’s T5F Top 5 Characters in ANF Who Would’ve Made Better Love Interests Than Kate

#twdg t5f #twdg #twdg clementine #twdg aj #twdg louis #twdg violet #twdg lilly #twdg abel #twdg marlon #twdg aasim #twdg mitch #twdg tfs

[daturanerium]

okay. i’m seeing a lot of misinformation being spread about the whole “veth is homophobic” thing and as someone who’s active on that side of the fandom i’d like to clear up some stuff because this has been blown way out of proportion. 

1. “veth is homophobic” has always been a joke shared among this subsection of fandom. it’s been around for months and has about the same energy as me calling something homophobic when it inconveniences me (ie, no energy; not at all serious). very few, if any of us actually believe veth (or sam) is homophobic. as far as i/we are aware, homophobia doesn’t exist in exandria! we’d like to keep it that way.

2. a lot of us in this little subsection used to be huge nott/veth fans, including me. i was a whole nott stan for like a year and a half! we’re confused, sad, and disappointed with veth’s current characterization. her sudden change in....just about everything feels very uncomfortable and forced to a lot of us. characters are allowed to have flaws, we’re not denying that! it’s just that, to us, a lot of veth’s many flaws don’t make sense or fit with her character and situation. and that makes us sad, because veth was a character we really used to like. 

3. re: veth and beau’s relationship issues. veth has always been a little antagonistic towards beau, unfortunately. it seems like their rift has only grown within the last few episodes. now, again, character relationships shouldn’t be perfect and conflict in games is interesting! i think the main issues lies in not having any known basis; veth’s negative words and actions towards beau seem to be coming from nowhere. it’s disappointing to watch. if veth had a reason to act negatively toward’s beau we would be a lot more content with the situation. but, as things currently stand, we are unaware of any reason why veth is acting this way.

4. re: “shipping discourse”, which is a term that shouldn’t be used for this situation. the problem that a lot of fans are having with veth isn’t about beaujester or beauyasha or beau-whatever. it’s about veth knowing about beau’s crush, saying “i’ll do some work!”, and then actively trying to push fjord and jester into a relationship. whether or not you think jester still has feelings for fjord doesn’t matter; it’s clearly making jester uncomfortable and annoyed, and her “work” has almost seemed to turn into an obsession. veth has done a lot of odd/uncomfortable stuff around relationships and romance (her pushing f/j despite neither fjord nor jester having asked her to, her constantly making sex jokes out of the blue, her writing a letter to astrid without caleb’s permission and later making jokes about him reuniting and having sex with her, etc.). on their own, these instances look pretty harmless. but when you put them together, we start to notice a trend of veth being inconsiderate towards other people’s relationships in favor of herself. now, what i said before still stands: character flaws are important in fleshing out a character and allowing them to grow. the problem is that we really haven’t seen veth grow in this sense at all. she’s been (to a certain degree) inserting herself into relationships for a while now. so, when beau confessed her feelings for jester to veth, we assumed that it would go the same way--veth would see an opportunity to play matchmaker and snatch it up, since this is a trend we’ve been witnessing happen to other potential relationships in the group. but instead, veth essentially forgets about it, instead pushing f/j even more. last episode we even saw her pretend to be the traveler and write suggestive things about fjord in jester’s sketchbook. the question quickly became: what’s different about beau’s crush on jester? why did veth latch onto jester’s crush on fjord and caleb’s past relationship with astrid but completely ignore beau’s crush on jester? i’ve seen a lot of people say “beau didn’t want her to interfere!” and that’s true, but the thing we’re noticing is that someone not wanting veth to interfere hasn’t stopped her before. why is it stopping her now? so, tl;dr: our problem isn’t with “our ship not being canon”. it’s about a lesbian being treated differently than m/f relationships in-game. that’s where the hurt and suspicion comes from--the implications and context make the situation a little more noticeable, and to some upsetting. (it would be nice if sapphics, especially lesbians, could voice our opinions and criticisms without them being reduced to “shipping discourse”. unfortunately, i don’t think that will be stopping anytime soon). 

5) re: “death threats”. i haven’t personally seen any directed at sam but if they’re out there i would like to sincerely apologize for them. we do not stand for anything of the sort. i have also seen some threats directed at my friends who are a part of the side of cr twitter that is currently in focus since the “discourse” has gone mainstream. it’s frightening to see, but thankfully it hasn’t happened a whole lot. some of us have tagged sam in various threads/tweets about our concerns with veth (with varying levels of passion and professionalism). we do not condone death threats in any way shape or form, and anyone who sends death threats does not represent us.

so, tl;dr: current cr discourse actually revolves around veth’s current inconsistencies in her characterizations and actions. this “discourse” has been around for a lot longer than most people realize, and most of it comes from a point of love for veth’s character and potential. and, of course, we don’t condone death threats.

if anyone wants clarification, examples, etc, feel free to reply and/or message me. i wanted to keep this post fairly short but i can go into more detail if you’d like! 

sincerely, 

emmy, @acefjords (a former veth/nott stan)

#critical role #cr discourse #there's a whole other post i could do about s*m but that's discourse for another time #please feel free to hmu with any questions!

[secretgamergirl]

How not to Write a Campaign

I have been playing RPGs for a very long time. Back in the day, I avoided any and all pre-written adventures of any sort because my limited experience with them was... just frankly terrible. Weird inconsistencies in tone, unfair encounter setups, too many assumptions about PCs’ motives and actions, etc. Then much later I discovered a group of writers who actually got it, wrote things perfectly in line with how my friends like a game to go, and we’ve been all in on those for a decade and change. But I just finished running a ROUGH one, and I want something good to come of it.

I don’t want to make this a specific review, because... I’m in the industry, I know the people who wrote this campaign, I can guess at some of the problems involved, and I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings or reputation, so let me just refer to the offending prewritten campaign here as the Amnesia Campaign. It’s for a big fantasy RPG, it riffs of a particular author’s work, you can probably guess what it is from that, but, I’m trying.

The first problem I need to bring up with the Amnesia Campaign is that it just commits the cardinal sin of long term RPG campaign writing- The mustache-twirling villain who always manages to escape from the PCs at the last minute. I cannot convey just how important it is that you never, ever do this. The worst sort of example is when you plan around the PCs actually confronting your villain multiple times, and failing to kill them, which is a terrible idea because there really is no way to ever stack the deck and account for every contingency to make an unwinnable fight, or even one where escape is always possible, and especially if you’re publishing adventures, some number of groups will kill the villain too early, either shorting things out or forcing a handwave to keep an ineffectual villain in play and pretend they’re still a threat.

The Amnesia Campaign doesn’t quite go there. Having an actual chance to go toe to toe with the villain is reserved for the very end, but it does use another variant, where no matter what happens, the PCs arrive just after the villain they’re chasing has left. Now... there’s a way you can make that work. If you have a villain who cannot be reached in practical fashion, and can launch attacks anywhere within a huge region, you can build a whole campaign out of characters reacting to the aftermath of evil actions they could not be expected to even learn about until the villain has left the scene. Here, meanwhile, we have a villain with a big elaborate plot that requires traveling all over the world gathering things, based on research he does at the very start which the PCs can, and indeed are expected to do, quickly pick up on these research notes, and basically know everything the villain plans to do from nearly the start of a very long campaign. And... frankly, the villain has no real edge to keep him believably one step ahead. He is a mildly wealthy man hiring goons, mundane forms of transportation, and having to negotiate and fight his way through to various sub-objectives needed for his plan, and it is at least strongly implied that he doesn’t have a lot of lead time. When presented with a scenario about someone needing to be chased down and stopped, PCs can pretty reliably be counted on to constantly be rushing forward, coming up with clever ways to accomplish what they need to in less time, and cut down if not completely nullify their travel time. But, like with battles the villain somehow keeps escaping from, I am forced to continuously state to my players in running this that no, somehow even after avoiding this whole side quest by reading the mind of the person with important information, and directly teleporting to where the villain left for by riverboat, he somehow beat them there, and once again, just left. It’s frustrating, and implausible. We end up with a villain who seems overwhelmingly outmatched, but keeps succeeding because... well, he has plot armor so we’re railroading this.

Admittedly, having a good villain when writing a full campaign in advance can be tricky. The safe and tested formula is generally to start off with minions of your main villain, starting with some who don’t even know who they’re ultimately working for, gradually build up to who’s calling the shots and to what end, have a big side trip to prepare for the final confrontation not directly involving the villains, than cap it with a big showdown. If the PCs know who the main villain is from the very start and where to find them, it becomes hard to rationalize anything between. Sometimes you can pull it off if they’re leading an army or ruling a country, but even then, you want to work up a food chain to them.

A similar problem, which crops up a bit towards the end of the Amnesia Campaign, is making too many assumptions about how the PCs react, and who they befriend. In RPG writing, you need to make as few assumptions as possible about the specifics of what the PCs will do in any situation. You can count on the real broad strokes. The party will investigate the situation described in the adventure, they’ll explore the area, find the villains, fight them, win, learn something to keep the larger plot growing, but that’s it. You can’t assume they’re going to team up with this NPC, enter this room from that direction, or otherwise reenact what you’d imagine you’d do in their place, or what happened in your test play of your adventure. This is particularly important when you include a little sidequest unconnected to their primary goal, or you’re presenting an open-ended investigation.

Ideally, you just have a sensible location, have some villains in it with clear goals and personalities laid out, and you scatter around some things to enable various clever tricks if players think to try them, without mandating any of them. Mention where windows are, and chandeliers, and holes just too small for the average human to fit through, but don’t, as part of the Amnesia Campaign does, invest heavily in the assumption that the PCs will start investigating a sewer system when investigating how a cult gets around a city and go sparse on other possible clues. Also don’t waste adventure background note space on thousands of years of history at the expense of what the actual current problem in the area is and who or what is behind it.

The next problem is one that, were I the average consumer just buying this book would bother me a hell of a lot more than it does as someone who knows how the sausage gets made. Put mildly... you do not want to play a rogue in the Amnesia Campaign. Nor do you want to play a swashbuckler, a critical-hit focused character of any stripe, really any class out of the... roughly 25% of all classes who rely on knowledge of where to make a hit count the most to do the full amount of damage with their attacks, because practically everything is immune.

Now, again. I partly understand how this happens. We have several different authors writing different chapters of the campaign, simultaneously, in pretty unforgiving crunchy conditions, with just a rough outline to go off. Nobody really has a chance to confirm notes and say “hey, did your chapter totally invalidate one of the foundational character archetypes, because I was thinking of doing that and having two of those back to back would be a bit much.” And while the publisher of the Amnesia Campaign does throw out little booklets of tips for players on what sort of character concepts will/won’t work, they’re not written last, so this sort of tip is missing there too. On the other hand, it’s a huge problem within nearly any given chapter just on its own. If you’re making the call on what all monsters to include in a multi-level stretch of a campaign, you should generally avoid choosing nothing but monsters immune to one of the most common bread and butter class features. And honestly, given how the subject matter naturally lends to the deployment of a particular monster type, erring on the side of assuming everyone else is heavily deploying them wouldn’t be a bad assumption for any author to make.

This though, unlike the rest of my gripes, is ultimately a high level problem that needs a high level solution. When you’re publishing a whole campaign, and you’re doing it in a game where several foundational character concepts kinda live or die based on things like whether things are properly harmed by particular flavors of damage, or whether a decent percentage of enemies fall under a certain classification, that really shouldn’t be a double-blind. Coordinating to get all authors to use a decent spread, or include outline notes like “it’d make sense for about half the enemies in this chapter to be fire elemental themed in various ways, but keep a good variety otherwise,” and/or trying to get a rough handle on emergent themes to adjust for/warn about in player-facing pitch material. Even the best-written campaigns are prone to rude awakenings or hilarious reductions in challenge as turns out, say, going all in on cold damage does indeed pay off for the one with Fire in the title.

Meanwhile, on the other side of that coin, more or less, huge swaths of the Amnesia Campaign really just completely break down by failing to account for some basic standard issue capabilities of a typical party. Particularly the fact that past a certain point, you need to account for the fact that the PCs are almost certainly capable of flight. It’s a thing that happens. If you are really keen on writing adventures where local warlords are chilling out on the open-air rooftop patios of their otherwise heavily fortified fortresses, or melee-oriented monsters plan an ambush in a canyon in a vast wasteland, or a dangerous leapfrog between a series of elevated platforms over something dangerous, you want to make those low-level adventures, or else a typical party, possibly even accidentally, will just completely circumvent the whole thing. There is a whole lot of that in the back of the Amnesia Campaign. My group... literally skipped giant swaths. Heck, there was a whole side quest in the last book where the PCs are rewarded with the location of a giant obelisk which I had to cut because... it was in the middle of a big open outdoor space, and they flew over the city on the way in. They definitely had a view over those hedges.

This sort of dovetails into the next issue, consistently escalating threats. The whole fantasy RPG gimmick is that at level 1, you’re a helpless peasant barely capable of doing anything remarkable, and by level 20 you’re literally punching gods in the face and have more money in your pocket than everyone else in your home country combined (with the obvious exception of the other people in your party). Now, mechanically, balancing around that is a very easy math problem. Characters of level X are meant to deal with threats of level Y, either pull a Y level monster out of the book, or slap levels on something lower to bring it to that point, or spread that out over more enemies, then they drop Z amount of fancy loot. Easiest thing in the world. But you also need things to fit together thematically. You can absolutely throw fighter levels onto the local chicken-stealing goblins to make them mechanically as threatening as a demigod bursting through from another plane of reality, but when a group of characters is at a level where they can be expected to handle the former, it’s just plain weird for them to end up dealing with the latter. Like, yes, these particular goblins have 200 HP instead of the usual 4, so the local town guard can’t handle them, but that should never be true of chicken-stealing goblins. You don’t get that tough stealing chickens, and once you’ve gotten that tough, you should have your sights set a good deal higher than that. At least be stealing rocs or something.

The 4th chapter of the Amnesia Campaign is a particularly blatant example of not getting this, featuring a large number of “please be aware the party can fly at this level” moments mentioned above, and also just demanding the PCs deal with problems that really are beneath them at that point. Seeking out local guides, impressing petty local warlords, getting challenged by giants they must impress to rest safely when crossing a huge desert. These are... not appropriate speed bumps at a point in the narrative where the party is traveling to a location where they are going to literally fight a god, weakened or otherwise. The whole setup would be wonderful as the first chapter of a campaign, but that far in, it just doesn’t work. Particularly when the actual opening of the Amnesia Campaign sets the tension very high right off the bat, with extradimensional threats, shapeshifters, an evil cult, things that typically come later as things start to escalate.

This isn’t to say you can’t mix things up a little. Dealing with threats well below a party’s capabilities can be really nice as a chance to just sort of flex, and get some perspective on how much more capable they’ve grown over time, but you have to do it in a low-tension point of the narrative, and a little self-awareness about it doesn’t hurt.

Finally, while I really kinda hate modern wealth-by-level assumptions, they are baked into the design of the game, so if you’re running with it, you really need to make sure you’re really giving the players something they can use. The Amnesia Campaign really leans heavy on treasure being weird oddities that may be of value to a collector... while also being set, generally, in places so totally removed from civilization that shopping trips aren’t really practical. Much less those needing the party to really find the right sort of buyer.

Really, you want to give out entirely practical loot (really hard to do without knowing the party makeup, but variety can work), big piles of cash/sellables along with sufficiently large cities along the way for viable shopping, or raw materials suitable for crafting plus ample time to really do something with them.

Anyway, hopefully this has come across more as practical constructive advice for anyone writing a campaign, either as a printed product or just for your home game, not just me tearing into the Amnesia Campaign at length.

#rpg #game design #gm advice

[michelles-garden-of-evil]

Ian Martin’s Strange Paradise, Part II: The Top 5 Worst Things

Last week, I listed my top five favorite things about the first 44 episodes of Strange Paradise, when Ian Martin was headwriter and when the show had a very different feel to it than in the final four weeks of the Maljardin arc. But no creative work is perfect, and, despite my fondness for this show, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think that the writing for early Maljardin had several glaring flaws. Unlike Danny Horn, I don’t think that Ron Sproat was a better writer than Martin (actually, I consider Sproat the worst writer on SP), but that doesn’t mean that I don’t also feel that his writing needed some improvement. Note that this entry is specifically about the writing during this period, so things outside his creative control (e.g. the Conjure Man’s questionable casting) will be excluded from the list.

That said, here are my top five least favorite things about the writing in the first nine weeks of Strange Paradise:

5. Cheesy dialogue

More specifically, (1) bad jokes and (2) slang that was already outdated when these episodes originally aired in 1969. This one is #5 because, while these lines are cheesy, I can’t hate them because most of them make me laugh. Even my personal least favorite of Jacques’ jokes, the “pose” line from Episode 18, is kind of funny in an ironic, anti-humor sort of way, like the dad jokes that have become fashionable in recent years. While there are some jokes in this show that I find genuinely funny--Elizabeth’s Song of Solomon joke, for instance, or “the lady doth detest too much”--most others are the epitome of cornball. Sometimes you hear both in the same episode: Episode 21 is loaded with Devil jokes/puns that would be unforgivably corny if Colin Fox didn’t possess enough charisma to sell them, and yet the same episode also features a genuinely hilarious double entendre. The good jokes sneak up on you, sometimes amidst a hurricane of bad ones.

As for the slang, some comments that I’ve read mention that it was largely out of date even in the late sixties. My good friend Steve (with whom I often discuss SP) has told me that “you might not be aware of how campy that slang sounded in 1969 since you obviously did not live through the Sixties--this happened with a lot of TV shows during that period, the most egregious examples being the various ‘evil druggie Hippie’ episodes of DRAGNET.” Apparently Martin became infamous for using outdated slang later on when he wrote for CBS Radio Mystery Theater, putting lines like “I dig a man who’s far-out!” and “I think bein’ around here’s gonna be kicks!” in the mouths of some of his younger characters. Even if he had used up-to-date slang, it most likely would have still aged poorly (as slang typically does), especially for generations born after phrases like “the most” and “making the ___ scene” fell out of use.

4. Slow pace and excessive repetition

This one is also low on the list, because slow pace and repetition weren’t flaws when the show originally aired, but instead have aged poorly because of advances in technology that made them unnecessary. Before the advent of the programmable VCR, you had to be able to catch the program you wanted to watch on time or have someone you knew catch it on time and record it--which, in 1969, would have meant an audio-only tape recording. This meant that only the most fortunate and/or most loyal viewers would have been able to watch Strange Paradise every day, making it necessary to recap all the major events in subsequent episodes for those who missed out. This is also likely the reason why early SP (like most soaps of the time) has a relatively slow pace: if too much happens in one episode, you have to recap more and the people who missed the big episode are more disappointed.

Nowadays, with DVRs, video streaming, and DVD sets--not to mention certain legally-questionable means--it’s nearly impossible to miss an episode of your favorite show (with few exceptions), making extensive recap largely obsolete. Screenwriters can cram as many plot points as they want into one episode and no longer have to write five episodes of the other characters reacting to the news if they don’t want to.

Even so, just because the constant recap served a function at the time doesn’t mean I have to like it. It gets annoying hearing the same plot points reiterated episode after episode. Like I said while reviewing Episode 21, “if someone were to remake this show for Netflix or another streaming service, they could safely ignore about 75 percent of the original scripts and condense the remaining 25 percent quite a bit without omitting anything important.”

And don’t even get me started on the lampshading of absent cast members, like in Episode 9 when Jean Paul and Quito wasted two minutes searching for Raxl just to slow the plot down. It’s nothing compared to Ron Sproat’s “we must search for Quito” filler episode in Desmond Hall (Episode 78), but still, those scenes were pointless.

3. Extreme artistic license with certain historical/cultural details

Although Ian Martin did a surprising amount of research on certain subjects for Strange Paradise, there are some subjects where he either didn’t do enough research, or (more likely) made extensive use of artistic license. The first one is his portrayal of Jacques’ wife Huaco as an Inca princess despite their marriage occurring over a century after the fall of the Inca Empire. I discussed this all the way back in Part II of my review of the pilot, where I invented the theory of Jacques traveling back in time to marry her, but other possible explanations include Huaco being a 17th-century descendant of Inca royalty (as the Quechua people are still alive today), extreme artistic license, and/or critical research failure. I don’t know if we would have eventually gotten a good explanation if Martin had continued writing the series, but we would need a damn good one for the approximate equivalent of having a 21st-century character marry the Russian Grand Duchess Anastasia. I’m willing to suspend my disbelief and accept it considering that this is a fantasy series, but it still creates a lot of plot holes that need to be filled.[1]

Another example of artistic license about which I feel more ambivalent is the conflation of voodoo with the Aztec-inspired indigenous religion of Maljardin, which I’ve discussed before both in my Episode 23 review and Part I of this post series. I’m not sure if this is genius--religious syncretism is a real phenomenon throughout the Caribbean and Latin America, and some people today do syncretize the vodou Serpent God with Quetzalcoatl--or just an instance of Martin playing fast and loose with facts. I would like to think it’s the former, but it could just as easily be the latter (hence why I referenced it on both lists--I have mixed feelings about it).

2. Annoying inconsistencies

Does Raxl know that Jean Paul is possessed by Jacques Eloi des Mondes? Does Vangie? Why does Jacques’ portrait disappear in some episodes after he possesses Jean Paul, but not in others? All three of these things vary from episode to episode, and change annoyingly often as the plot demands. Steve and I have also discussed this subject in the past, and he believes that Martin used this device to make the story easier to follow; if that’s the case, it appears that he used Raxl and Vangie as audience surrogates, especially for new viewers or people who didn’t tune in every day. But surely there were other ways to do that without creating continuity errors? It may have served a function, but that doesn’t make it good writing. What Martin is essentially doing is filling and reopening the same plothole, episode after episode.

Regarding the portrait, I don’t know how much to blame Martin’s scripts for this inconsistency and how much to blame the directors, as I don’t have access to any SP scripts beyond the pilot script and the Vignettes. However, I’m going to assume that he’s at least partially to blame, because at least the pilot script mentions the disappearing portrait (which literally disappears in all three of the Paperback Library novels), Also, while none of the characters ever mention the portrait vanishing (unlike in the tie-in novels), some of his episodes have characters looking at it while Jacques is controlling Jean Paul and commenting on the uncanny resemblance. See also the diegesis tag for more discussion and analysis of the disappearing portrait.

1. Tim’s subplot

It should surprise none of my regular readers that Tim’s subplot is my #1 least favorite thing about the first nine weeks of Maljardin. I’ve already written an entire post about why I dislike this subplot, so I’ll keep my discussion of it here brief. Jean Paul saves the life of artist Tim Stanton when he hires him to paint Erica’s portrait, but then does nothing to make the commission easy for him--which is not a bad set-up for a plot in and of itself, but the execution is terrible. Tim chooses to use Holly as his model despite her barely resembling Erica, and Martin mostly uses their subsequent interactions to drive the old, tired, clichéd plot where two people who bicker and hate each other at first eventually fall in love (or at least he appears to be setting that up[2]). The payoff for the Holly portrait subplot finally occurs in Episode 33, but it’s underwhelming (not to mention barely recapped) and the already bland Tim quickly becomes a background character. In short, his subplot is a boring waste of time and should have either had more payoff or--preferably--been scrapped altogether.

That concludes my list of the worst things about Ian Martin’s Strange Paradise. Stay tuned for my review of Episode 45 within the next two weeks.

{<- Previous: The Top 5 Best Things }

Note

[1] Interestingly, there is a possible (if unlikely) historical explanation for Huaco’s sister Rahua having “skin as white as goat’s milk” and “hair like ripened wheat.” An early Spanish account of the Chachapoya people (aka Cloud People) of the Northern Andes describe them as “the whitest and most handsome of all the people that I have seen, and their wives were so beautiful that because of their gentleness, many of them deserved to be the Incas’ wives and to also be taken to the Sun Temple.” Assuming the Spanish account isn’t made up, this proves that reality is sometimes unrealistic.

[2] Thankfully, given the soap opera genre, it’s unlikely that Tim and Holly would have stayed together forever, even if they had eventually fallen in love during their painting-and-bickering sessions. Even so, that doesn’t make it a good subplot.

#strange paradise #ian martin #maljardin arc #review #analysis #arc review #list #bruce gray was a good actor but tim stanton is zzzzzzzzz #even jean paul agrees ;)

[enchantedbyhiddles]

Tom Hiddleston smells amazing—overwhelmingly so—as I walk into his hotel room on the 10th floor of the Crosby Hotel in New York City. I can't quite pick out his cologne, but I later described it as "heaven" to everyone I know. "Hello! Tea?" he chirps in his charming British accent as he opens the door for me. Hiddleston has that kind of presence where it's hard to formulate words around him. "Ha ha, it's 4:20 on 4/20 and your fans are called Hiddlestoners," is the first thing I blurt out. I've been waiting to make that joke to him all day, but it falls flatter than I expected. He laughs to be polite, or maybe just out of pity.

The 35-year-old actor is wearing an exceptionally well-fitted blue suit that Wednesday afternoon and gray-framed glasses that add even more allure. Most actors turn out to be smaller in person, but Hiddleston's 6'2" frame—with seemingly mile-long legs—looks even more slender in person. While he's the epitome of dashing, his room is kind of a mess. Fed-Ex boxes are littered all over the place, suitcases are scattered, open, and half-stuffed with half-folded clothes. "Sorry, it's a mess," he apologizes as I navigate my way to the couch. "I'm packing up. I've been traveling for about 10 years." Hiddleston really has been all over the place lately. He's solidified himself in the Marvel Universe as Thor villain Loki (a role he will reprise in 2017's Thor: Ragnarok), just starred as Hank Williams in the biopic I Saw the Light, starred opposite Jessica Chastain in Guillermo del Toro's fantastical period horror Crimson Peak last year, plays a hotel manager-turned-spy in AMC's new TV series The Night Manager, and next year will appear in the new King Kong movie (Kong: Skull Island) with Oscar-winner Brie Larson. So yeah, he's got a lot on his plate.

When we talked, he was floating through Tribeca Film Festival to promote yet another new film of his, High-Rise, director Ben Wheatley's stylish dystopian adaptation of J.G. Ballard's 1975 novel. In the film, Hiddleston plays the middle-class Dr. Robert Laing, who lives in a society where the poor live on the lower levels of a high-rise building while the rich live on top. Laing gets caught in the middle of a class war with his neighbors, played by Sienna Miller, Elisabeth Moss, Luke Evans, and Jeremy Irons, who portrays the building's rich architect and penthouse resident. We talked plenty about High-Rise, but also about his famous Hiddlebum (which serves a symbolic purpose in High-Rise), his love for dancing, and the stomach-churning preparation he had to do for the movie.

You play a doctor in the film. The scene where you tear apart flesh from a skull was kind of hard to watch. You had some horrifying scenes in Crimson Peak as well. Do you get squeamish watching those scenes? No, but I got squeamish when I was doing my research. I actually attended an autopsy because I knew I was going to have to perform a dissection. I simply had no frame of reference and I wanted to do it properly. I didn't know how to make incisions, so I went to see a forensic pathologist who showed me how to do it, which was quite stomach-churning. But it was fascinating, listening to him talk about the biomechanics of our engineering. As human beings, we often forget that we are machines, made up of machine parts, and if certain things are broken then that will have an effect on our behavior.

I think that scene's a declaration of intent by Ben [Wheatley]. You see Dr. Laing peeling the facial tissue off her head to reveal the blood and the bones beneath. I think that's sort of what Ballard is doing to society. He's saying, "Let me take away the surface and show you the flesh and blood beneath."

Speaking of this movie and Crimson Peak, directors seem to love shooting your bare butt. I'm sure you know the nickname you've been given: Hiddlebum. It's there. [Points to butt.] And there it is.

It's an Internet sensation. It's one of those things that I've never really thought about because the nudity has always been part of the story and it's never felt gratuitous. It's always felt as if it's in service of something. In High-Rise, it's quite symbolic. Laing moves into the building to get away from the entanglements of real life. And the first thing he does in this new clean, clinical space is take all his clothes off and sunbathe. And within seconds, that peace and freedom is interrupted. And then he never takes his clothes off again. And that's in the novel. I felt it was kind of important, and honestly, you don't see anything more than you would see if I was just walking down the beach, so I didn't have a problem with it.

The party scenes in this movie are so intoxicating. Did the parties ever go on after the cameras stopped rolling? The parties were so fun because we would set them up and, of course, there's no real alcohol, but there is real music and Ben would put on music and we'd start dancing. The camera would stay rolling, and he would say, "Crazy, go crazy, dance more crazy, more crazy dancing." He would gently encourage everybody to get a little more wild, but there was something very safe about it.

We're all familiar with your amazing dancing skills. I've got to know if that dream sequence where you're dancing with those flight attendants was your idea. It actually was my idea. But it wasn't my idea to dance. We shot it at the end of our first day. We were due to wrap at 6 p.m. and at 5:45 they started doing that scene. These flight attendants were walking down the corridor and I was watching it and I said to Ben, "Do you think that Laing should be a participant in his own dream?" And he said, "Well, yeah, it'd be nice to have the option." I asked, "What do you think he should be doing? Is he walking in front of them or behind them?" And then he said, "He should be dancing with them." So we did it, and we did it once. We put on Sister Sledge's "Lost in Music" and we danced down the corridor. It was great.

Do you remember the first moment you fell in love with dancing? When I first danced ever?

Yeah, when did you discover the rhythm of your body? [Laughs.] I don't know, actually. I have a very happy memory. My mom used to play the piano for me and my older sister when we were very, very small, about 3 or 4. There was no furniture in the living room of the new house that we had moved into so my sister and I would dance around the living room. It's one of my earliest memories and it's a very happy one. I was just dancing to my mom playing the piano and she had these three things she used to play. And then beyond that, I don't remember dancing or enjoying dancing until I was about 15. I started to go out to parties and playing music and being introduced to girls and wanting to impress them.

If you're a good dancer, it's much easier to get girls... I couldn't possibly attest to that.

Please. [Laughs].

You do these stylistic British films and then you're Loki from the Marvel movies. Do you notice the different ways people receive you in different places? The Marvel films have an extraordinary reach. Loki is the most well-known character I've ever played. But when I was in Louisiana, people had seen me in Coriolauns onstage in London and people have already seen my new TV show, The Night Manager.

You're such a unique chameleon of an actor.   I get huge pleasure from challenging myself and surprising an audience by doing different things. But that's partly because I think all human beings contain enormous range and complexity. We're capable of huge courage, and love, and kindness, but we're also capable of cruelty and inconsistency, and solitude and loneliness, and all these things that we all suffer as much as the next person.​ My pleasure is trying to express that.

Have you seen that Reductress article about yourself? It's a satirical women's site. I have to show you this article: "9 Times Tom Hiddleston Left You Breathless and Alone in the Woods." [Scrolls through phone, laughs.] Wow, is it good to leave someone breathless and alone in the woods? I feel like that's a very unkind thing to do to somebody.

#link #tom hiddleston #high rise #interview #high rise promo #can't remember seeing this #oldie but goldie

[secretshinigami]

Not Alone

Author: @jam-knife (I’m submitting through my main) For: @misas-biggest-fan Pairings/Characters: LxLight Rating/Warnings: Mature. Major characters’ deaths. Mentions of sex (though nothing too explicit, and I kept curse words to a minimum too). Angst, lots of it. Prompt: Light being tailed by L’s ghost Author’s Notes: heyyyyy first of all I LOVED your prompts! I really enjoyed writing this for you, it was a very interesting scenario to explore. I hope you like it!!! Please let me know what you think of it once you finish reading it. Second of all, this fic begins with a scene that was unfortunately cut from the anime (though it wasn’t canon in the manga as far as I know, so it’s not that bad). I don’t know whether or not you’ve watched it, but I’ll leave the link here just in case! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tX1_K-mUH94 Word Count: 12k (approximation)

“You said nothing much to look forward to, Ryuk?”

Light’s words were met only by the rustling sound of leaves being ruffled by a sudden cold breeze, which carried with it the smell of removed earth, moss and death. The dirt stuck to his palms and the fabric of his pants as he stood up. He didn’t even show the empathy it required to rub it off.

“Not really. From now on, I’m going to show you how the new world is built.”

His eyes travelled to the sky, dyed orange and red as dusk fell upon him and his –unusually silent– Shinigami. He didn’t give L’s grave one last glimpse as he turned and left. What was there to see anymore? The rocky cross was nothing more than some artfully carved stone, the body six feet below it just an empty carcass, and the dirt that covered it and clung to his person wasn’t different from any other dirt.

None of it truly represented what L had been. L couldn’t possibly be reduced to or preserved in a graveyard lot. Those symbols were hollow.

L was gone. Forever. Which meant that Light now had green light to do with the world –His world– what he wanted.

That’s when he felt it, for the first time.

A step.

Light froze. That… he must have imagined it. Just in case he glanced over his shoulder, and confirmed there was nobody else there; just Ryuk, hovering half a foot over the paved path. That means he imagined it.

That extra step, as if someone tailing him had synchronized their walking with his own, but their last step was slightly off-key.

No. It was nothing. It had been a long day… a long year actually. But now the war was finally over, and all there was left to do was conquer-

He didn’t manage to conclude that thought before the chilling breeze enveloped him in a personal whirlwind of sorts, seeping into his clothes and attacking his every nerve. It only lasted a moment, but it was more than enough for him to perceive an intention in it. One simple idea. Confrontation.

Light was free. Omnipotent. And L was no more.

That is the plain truth… right?

The second time he noticed it was a few days later. Most of the time he wouldn’t even remember it, but every now and then the extra step would announce itself. Subtle, barely present enough to tickle the back of his head. And it grew worse every time he looked the Task Force members in the eye and manipulated or lied to them.

No, he didn’t feel guilty about L’s death –or about any death that preceded it. To think that the reason why his subconscious invoked a constant sensation of being followed and sneered upon was because of some pathetic remorse was ridiculous. Light Yagami was above all that moral crap humans loved to entertain themselves with. He was the God of a newborn world; he simply did what needed to be done for true justice to prevail.

No matter how many times he told himself this, though, the sensation wouldn’t fade away. But, again, it was just that. A sensation.

Or so it had been, until that night.

He had been working on replicating L’s voice synthesizing program for hours on end. There were no windows on the building’s main room, but he knew it was probably very late by now. Even Ryuk, who didn’t biologically need sleep as the otherworldly being he was, had sprawled himself messily on one of the couches and was snoring to his heart’s content.

Light sighed and went back to work. He remembered how that artificial voice had sounded when L used it against him, and when he lent it to Light so he could contact Namikawa during the Yotsuba period. That’s how he knew he was close to getting it right; going to sleep now would only be a waste of time and concentration.

He tweaked the depth and the vibration here and there, checked it, then went back to correcting it. And finally, he succeeded.

“Hello, one two three, testing…” He spoke into the mic, and beamed when he realized he made it. Yes, this would work.

To make sure it was convincing enough to fool anyone, but mostly just because he was feeling giddy with victory, he tried out some L-ish phrases and worked on his intonation and mood.

“You’re in Japan. And your first victim was… little more than an experiment.”

That was exactly what that man had said… so many months ago. Light could still perfectly recall the smugness dripping off every syllable.

“It won’t be too long now before I am able to sentence you… to death.” He replicated impeccably, the words leaving a sour aftertaste behind as he remembered the rage they had unleashed within him back then.

Light gulped and took a breath before leaning into the mic one more time.

“I am L.”

Are you done playing detective?

Light jumped. The chair rolled beneath him and he landed roughly on the floor, together with the toppled mic and a stack of papers, causing a momentary ruckus. He quickly scrambled to his feet, finding support on the desk behind him as he eyed the room. But there was nothing there.

There was no way. He could have sworn he heard L’s voice –not the digital fake, the real deal– whispering inside his head just now. But it lacked the inconsistency of a memory; it had sounded way too organic. It was nothing like the footstep or the silent vigilance. That… was real.

But it couldn’t be. L was dead –he was absolutely certain of that. He had held his body when it happened. He felt it go numb. Still. He confirmed there was no pulse. Then why… why could he hear him?

Was he going crazy?

Every ounce of rationality in him told him so. But. If that… thing just now was real, then…

“Well… Shinigami exist, don’t they? Literal Gods of Death.” He thought out loud. “So… what would be so weird about ghosts?”

Slowly, as if not to disturb the atmosphere, he picked up the chair and sat back down. Not facing the computer, but the room enveloped in darkness. Nothing happened, but he still raised his knees to his chest and adopted his rival’s trademark position out of instinct.

He was definitely losing it.

“Did I make you mad, L?” Light teased, his lips twisted into a wry smile that lost some of its effect given how shaken he actually felt. Even so, there was no answer. “Nothing to say? Why so shy all of a sudden…”

The room was completely quiet except for Ryuk’s thunderous snores. Light waited for a whole minute, and then two more. There were no words… but that feeling of something lingering remained.

“You said yourself I’d do a great job succeeding you.” He tried out, although he was probably just trailing off. “But we both know you wanted to test me, to see if I gave you a response worthy of Kira. You weren’t expecting to actually see it unfold, were you. Does it irritate you? Do you want to hurt me?”

He was about to give up and go back to work when the quiet, familiar chuckle resonated inside him, sending shivers down his spine.

That’s rich coming from the man responsible for my death.

Light’s heart skipped a beat… and his smile grew darker. So it was really him. He wasn’t crazy, or hallucinating. L was haunting him.

“So what? Have you come to take revenge? Talk about a sore loser.”

That, right there, is where you are wrong, dear. You think you’ve already won, but the war is far from over.

He frowned. Even dead, L continued to be as smug as ever. Had it always been this annoying? Moreover, how come L could say it wasn’t over? What else was there left to do? Who else left to defeat?

“What do you mean? I killed you. Everyone left believes in my innocence and supports me as the new L. I’ve acquired the ultimate power. I can direct the police force as L while enchanting the general public as Kira. There’s nothing and nobody else standing on my way to absolute victory.”

Only silence followed his statements. Even more exasperated, he declared:

“You are already dead, L. You’re dead.”

He waited, but nothing else came from L that night.

That, of course, didn’t mean he was gone for good.

Light continued to hear the extra step following him from room to room. That he learned to ignore over time, since it’s easier for the brain to disregard what it gets used to perceiving –just like not seeing your own nose in front of you all the time unless you actively think about it.

What always caught Light off-guard, even though it had become an everyday thing, was when L spoke to him. Light would normally be able to feel when L was laughing at him, or when something he did made the ghost mad. But every time L spoke actual words, they echoed inside Light’s head and his skin tickled.

It was icky. Plus, talking to L always got Light on his nerves. Even after death, the detective had found a purpose for his existence in unnerving Light. And even that was remarkably ordinary and unsurprising compared to the fact that Light somehow managed to put up with it for over four years.

Four years of snarky remarks over his shoulder. Four years of effort dedicated to ignoring that voice and pretending he didn’t hear it, only for L to slip into his dreams where he couldn’t escape him.

Not all was bad, though. He had already experienced having L study his every move, follow him from room to room… back when they were handcuffed they even had to sleep in the same bed and take showers together. Compared to that, the current situation was not so bad. The lack of chains was an improvement, he no longer had to hide his identity as a mass murderer, and since he already had several years worth of experience with talking to entities nobody else could see, concealing L’s presence to the Task Force wasn’t too hard a task.

Ryuk would sometimes eye him like he had gone insane, but Light had no interest in explaining himself to a Shinigami. He knew what Ryuk thought of death: after passing away, the soul goes to the 無(Mu). The Nothingness. According to that, L’s existence as a ghost should be impossible. But here he was regardless.

L didn’t just talk. Light came to realize he was a great listener too. Maybe ‘realize’ was not the right word; more like… rediscover. Except that back when the man was alive, Light was convinced the only reason why he listened to anything he had to say was because he was desperately trying to blame him for something, even though Light didn’t have memories of being Kira back then.

The fact that L listened to him, now that everything was out in the open and what couldn’t be undone had been done, was… nice? That was not quite it.

Sometimes they’d just debate for hours about justice, life and other philosophical matters; sometimes Light would get engrossed in explaining detail by detail each and every plan he executed against L while the ghost laughed and mockingly praised his ingenuity. Sometimes Light felt so alone he crawled out of the bed he shared with Misa and went to the living room, just to sit down in the dark and talk nonsense to that invisible presence.

Meanwhile, time flew by and the world mutated. Kira had become the universal symbol of justice with little to no opposition from any government or social movement, and the mighty detective that once confronted him had slowly faded away, until people grew to remember him as one of many who rebelled against God and obviously failed.

Ghost L found this hilarious at best, and revolting at worst.

And even though the supernatural factor of their whole relationship also extended to how annoying the ghost could get, Light still got used to him not ever really leaving. Slowly, too gradually to pinpoint when, the rage of an imperfect victory was subdued by the solace of keeping the one person that understood.

Until Sayu was kidnapped by Mello. And that changed everything.

There were more opponents. L would call them ‘successors’. The words that were spoken by the ghost over four years ago began to make sense: the war was far from over. With the rise of Mello and Near, Light felt like he was facing his old rival all over again, except this time everything was messier, and the stakes higher.

They had to give away the Death Note to save Sayu’s life. Light did everything that was at hand to stop them from taking it… but they lost the missile. A defeat of that magnitude… It was something he hadn’t experienced in years. It was even worse than when L publicly humiliated him with his live broadcast.

It reminded him of that time. The rain fell relentlessly. He sat, soaked, and let L massage his feet while those huge, merciless yet peaceful eyes pierced him with the truth that the detective had never, not even for a second, swallowed his bluffs. And it made Light feel stupid and desperate and small. That was how he felt now.

The wrath, the impotence, the absolute disgust it all produced were so intense he did nothing but sit on his chair, staring at the ceiling. Misa approached with a cool drink, probably trying to soothe him, but he lacked the energy and the interest to pretend he gave a fuck, so he simply slapped it off her hands and to the floor.

Why was everyone so useless? Why was he so useless?!

Those two kids… he hated them for getting in his way. And he hated L, for being related to them.

Light stormed out of the room and into the bathroom, the door finding its frame with a bang. He wanted to yell. He wanted to break something. With no means to release his rage, he began briskly ripping his clothes off and turned on the shower. Steam immediately filled the room from floor to ceiling; the heat was suffocating even without exposing himself to the water and that, somehow, was relaxing.

You know, that was a very rude thing to do.

Light growled. Not now. He couldn’t handle L as he was now.

“Nobody asked for your bloody opinion.”

I knew you had some anger management issues, but I never would’ve thought you’d take it out on the only person in your life who’s ever offered you comfort and her unconditional support-

“What do you care, L!” He swirled around, yelling at the empty bathroom. He knew he wouldn’t find the man there when he turned, but screaming at the shapes in the steam was easier. “For someone who isn’t even alive you do have a lot to say. It’s pretty hard to give a shit about what you think when you’re never useful and you’re not even here.”

What do you expect me to do, then?

“I don’t know! How about you face me for once instead of hiding like a coward? Or maybe you could just disappear! Why are you even here?!”

He was being irrational, he knew it. And he could only imagine what Misa or Ryuk would think of all this if they walked in on him, screaming at the air. But he didn’t care if he didn’t make sense; he was too angry, and the only one he wanted to take it out on was L. Because it was his fault that people continued to sabotage his perfect plans. If L hadn’t shown up… everything would have been easier.

Do you really want me to leave?

“Yes.” He answered, without a shade of a doubt. “That’s the only thing I’ve wanted ever since you first threatened to sentence me to death. I thought you picked that up when I held you in my arms and watched you die with a smile on my face. Or didn’t you see me laughing at your grave?”

I did.

“Then what the hell are you waiting for?”

A moment of silence followed. Then, hesitantly…

I can’t.

What?

“Why?” Light asked, reaching the limits of his patience.

You think that if I knew I’d still be here? Don’t flatter yourself. The voice answered dryly. It was irritating, but… somewhere deep inside those words he could identify an edge of frustration and… pain. There is something that draws me towards you. Like there’s something I need to do, and it won’t let me go until I do it. But whatever that is I have no idea.

Light huffed, holding his head in his hands.

“Why couldn’t you just die normally…”

I ask myself the same thing every day.

He breathed out. So there was no way to get rid of L as it was. No chance of freedom in the near future. Well, at least he could vent out a bit. Resigned, he finished stripping and stepped into the shower.

He reached out to take the soap, and froze. The presence… L’s ghost was usually respectful of his personal space but now, it had followed him into the shower.

“What are you doing?” Light asked cautiously, his face beat red and not because of the heat. He didn’t want L in his shower, not even for old times’ sake.

You must hate my guts. Not that I have any anymore.

“Isn’t that obvious?” He retorted, not knowing when the atmosphere got so dense or why he felt uneasy about it.

I guess. Still, I never thought of our altercation as something personal.

“We literally tried to get the other killed for months, L. I’d say it was pretty personal.” Light frowned, earning himself a giggle from L.

Fine, I guess you’re right. However, I don’t think I hate you now. I hate what you did. What you still insist on doing. But I don’t hate you, even though it doesn’t really make any sense.

He didn’t answer. He had no words worth speaking, and even if he did, he wouldn’t know what to do with them.

I’m sorry. I wish I could disappear just as much as you do.

“It’s okay. I… don’t mind having someone to talk to either.” He admitted through gritted teeth.

But, about facing you… I think I might be able to do that much.

What… what was he talking about? Light stayed put as water dripped down his body, feeling the steam behind him shift and change, then settle. His skin tickled with even more intensity than it did before, and for a whole five seconds, he seriously considered running off without turning around to see. But, of course, he didn’t. The temptation was too great to ignore.

When he turned around, every nerve end alert in case he had to fight –even though he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to fight a ghost–, he saw it. A translucent figure, its edges blurring into the steam…

“L…”

The commotion of seeing his face again, his eyes, his knowing expression after so many years was so strong Light stumbled back, and found stability against the dripping tiled wall. L’s pale lips curved into a small smile.

“Better?”

Light gulped. Even his voice sounded more corporeal, now that it was coming out of a mouth and not echoing inside his head. Hesitantly, he raised a hand and reached out to touch him. L, understanding his cautious curiosity, didn’t move.

Light went for the chest, over the point where he felt that last dying throb before L’s heart failed permanently. But when he got close enough to touch, his fingers simply trespassed the specter. Energy tickled like electricity all over his hand and up his forearm. He pulled out in shock, and the steam regrouped around the hole he left behind.

“Could you feel that?” He blurted out before thinking.

“Not at all.” The man answered, calmly even though he was also eyeing his own shape with devouring interest. This was new for him too. It was the first time in over four years that he tried out a physical shape.

Wide translucent eyes beamed when a new idea crossed his mind. L tossed his hand against the shampoo rack, but it didn’t even react. It didn’t show the slightest disturbance. That new discovery had L bedazzled. Meanwhile, Light couldn’t stop staring at him, still not quite grasping that this was real. That he could see L again, just the way he was when he lived. His expressions were even livelier than they were back then, now that he was dead and didn’t need to be cautious with his thoughts.

“Can others see you?”

“I don’t know yet. But given how nobody could hear or perceive me before except for you, I wouldn’t think so.”

“Then, from now on, can you stay like this? Visible I mean.”

L’s eyes narrowed, his features shifting with amusement, and Light looked away, his face flushed with embarrassment.

“Did you miss me that much? I’ve always been here though.” He teased. Light thought he’d die of mortification.

“Shut up. I just hate hearing you speak inside my head. It feels icky.”

“Alright then.” The smirk grew meaner.

“Also, step out of my shower. This is already weird enough as it is.”

L’s laugh in response to that couldn’t have been more annoying.

L had been right… for the most part. No other person or living being could see him hovering around Light; they wouldn’t react at all to the late detective’s presence as long as he avoided being trespassed by them.

But coming to realize Ryuk could see and hear him was amusing. For L at least, who could also now perceive the God of Death and seized the opportunity to suffocate the otherworldly being with questions until Ryuk lay on the floor, exhausted. Ryuk, too, seemed flabbergasted to find out ghosts actually existed, and he even taught L how to perfect his manifestation technique, until the specter managed to muster an almost solid-looking consistency he could acquire or shed at will.

Meanwhile, Light felt like his temper was gradually being gnawed at. Having both entities annoying him separately had been irritating enough, but he simply couldn’t have imagined how much worse it would get when they did so together.

“And then he told me he wouldn’t give me any more apples unless I found all the cameras!” Ryuk whined. “Even though he knew of my terribly painful withdrawal symptoms. And then I am the monster…”

“How awful.” L shook his phantasmagoric head in exaggerated disapproval. “Oh Light dear, what a cruel, terrible Master you are.”

“You said it! Heh-heh.” The Shinigami barked in agreement.

That was it. He wasn’t taking it anymore.

Light groaned, tossed the earphones away, snatched a pencil holder from the desk’s top and unchained a vicious rain of pens and pencils against the source of his irritation. L and Ryuk simply sat, amused, and watched the items as they trespassed their intangible forms.

“For the love of everything good in this world and the next, can you both just shut up for a goddamn minute?!”

“Anger management, remember?”

Exasperated, Light simply growled and went back to work.

“Ryuk, go back to my father before the rest begin wondering where you went. We’ll be ambushing Mello’s headquarters in a few hours. I need you to be there so he’ll do the deal of the eyes with you.”

“Heh-heh. Sending others to accept deals you’d spit on yourself.” Ryuk chuckled grimly, his eyes flashing bright red for a moment. “Alright! Let’s catch up later, L.”

L nodded at the Shinigami before it disappeared through the wall. He then came hovering to where Light was and sat –or rather landed– on the desk, facing him.

“So the reason why you forfeited the ownership of the Death Note is not only passing the trouble of handing over half of your remaining lifespan to someone else, but also avoid your father realizing you are a Note owner yourself when he comes back. Am I right, Light?”

“It was the only way.” Light shrugged it off, not quite grasping why L found that little trick so interesting. “How can I hope to rule the New World if I die young? I’m not going to risk my life on the frontline, let alone give my years away.”

“But your own father’s years are alright to sell.”

Light didn’t answer.

“You don’t care at all, do you. You’re straight up throwing him to the wolves. He could be shot to death in there and even if he does survive, he won’t have much of a life ahead of him, will he?”

“Enough.” He mumbled, but L didn’t stop.

“You know it. You know they wholeheartedly believe in that 13-days rule you made up. You know that lie is the only alibi in your hands that’s keeping Aizawa and the rest at bay. Which means… that even if tonight works out how you want it to and Mello is killed by your dad, then you’ll have to murder him in two weeks for your plan not to crumble-”

“That’s enough.” This time his voice came out firmly, and the ghost fell silent. “I’m just doing what needs to be done, L. I thought you of all people would understand that, after you confined and tortured Misa and me for days and even forced my dad to pretend to shoot me.”

“But I didn’t kill anyone. We are not the same-”

“Don’t give me that bullshit.” Light cut him, every muscle in his body tense. His stare was hard, unyielding, when it locked with L’s. “You were perfectly willing to let a criminal use the Death Note to prove the 13-days rule was false. You admitted yourself that you were expecting me, Kira, to instantly kill my dad if he tried to shoot me, because you knew damn well I’d put my own life before his. His death was no more than a calculated risk to you. In fact, in your head, it was the most probable outcome.”

The detective fretted, and Light grinned maliciously. He hit home.

“See? We both do whatever it takes to get what we want. You’re not different from me. You’re not better than me. So, instead of pretending to be surprised by my methods, how about you leave me alone so I can work on getting my Death Note back?”

The silence that followed was smothering. Painfully so. L was no longer looking back at him, but staring through the window. He looked offended mostly, but also guilty. His expression was so open and so sincerely aching Light blinked. So this was how L truly felt about the decisions he took, back when he was alive.

“Fine.” The ghost muttered finally, as his form dissolved in the air and disappeared.

For a moment that sight filled him with pure dread, but then he realized, as his heartbeat settled down, that he could still feel L’s presence coating him. He wasn’t really gone, he had just temporarily left his visible expression.

Good. Light didn’t feel strong or stable enough to face him right now.

A few hours later, Soichiro Yagami died in a hospital bed, relieved to know his son wasn’t a mass murderer.

After returning the Death Note to its rightful owner –a Shinigami that called itself Sidoh– all the Task Force had left to do was wipe their tears away and wrap it up. The trip back to headquarters was silent. Light appreciated that everyone was too shook and devastated about his dad’s death to talk about it.

Once alone in his room, he was free to be himself again.

He began calmly taking his clothes off and getting ready for bed, but before he could invoke some self control, he was already screaming and punching a pillow while tears rolled down his face.

This had been his father’s fault. If he hadn’t been weak… if he had killed Mello instead of hesitating…!

“Why did you let yourself get killed, idiot?!” Light yelled, his throat aching. His hands, which were clutching the pillow with violence, trembled vehemently as his crying echoed through the room and his tears fell, abundantly and showing no signs of stopping. “You didn’t even get rid of him! Why?! You weren’t supposed to die! Y-You… you weren’t supposed to…”

A sob shook his whole body on its way out, and he collapsed on bed, his face buried in the wet pillow. Only soft whimpering could be heard.

Later, he felt the air shift, and electricity tickled him in the leg.

“I thought you were counting on his death.”

Light’s face was swollen from crying when he lifted it from the pillow to look at L’s figure, sitting next to him in the dark with his hand on Light’s thigh. The touch held no weight or warmth, nothing quite organic; just a tingle.

“He was destined to die.” He mumbled weakly as his gaze wandered to the opposite wall. “It’s as you said. Either tonight or within two weeks, he had to. What’s more pathetic is that he only lived for a few hours after doing the deal… which means… that even if he hadn’t done it, he didn’t have much time left in his clock to begin with. He would’ve passed away naturally by tomorrow morning anyway.”

“Why are you crying, then?” L inquired softly, as his hand caressed up and down Light’s leg. “Because you couldn’t see Mello dead?”

Were other the context Light would’ve found the sparkly sensation bothersome –even embarrassing. He didn’t want to reach the level of feebleness that made him deserve L’s consolations. But that was not the case. The detective’s almost inexistent touch was comforting. Light closed his eyes, trying to remember what the real thing felt like, while fighting the devastating pang L’s question induced in him.

“My father’s death was inevitable. I know I did what I had to do. Still… that doesn’t mean I wanted him dead. In an ideal setting, Aizawa, Ide or even Matsuda would’ve taken it upon themselves to do the deal and kill Mello.”

He sat up, feeling the warmth building behind his eyes as new tears accumulated.

“Then… I could’ve killed any of them easily. But he just had to be… so freaking moral. He had to sacrifice himself… why? Nobody would’ve judged him if he had let someone else do it, then why?! It was that same attitude that got him shot in the end!”

Furious, he wiped the tears away before they overflowed. It was the truth. Even when his father died a somewhat happy death, he would’ve preferred it had been anyone else in his place. Still…

Light’s breathing settled, and he looked L in the eyes with determination.

“However, when he stood with Mello in that room, and when the building exploded and all the cameras went blank… and even as he lay there dying… all I could think of was ‘kill Mello. Kill him for me. Don’t leave without taking him down with you’.”

The pain of actually losing his dad came a while after, and even then it had been tainted with frustration and resentment. He wanted Mello dead. That, together with retrieving the Death Note, had been the whole point of the mission, and he had failed because his father chose the worst possible scenario to be humanitarian.

Light hated the feeling. He lost, even though he did nothing wrong. He hated not having control over his own battles. He hated how his father had chosen to die without revenge. He hated Mello for being alive out there somewhere.

“Even if it had been someone else in his place, I know your methods well enough by now to know you won’t be able to hide your true self forever.” L placed a finger on his chin. Even though the gesture wasn’t useful in practice since he simply trespassed it, Light still raised his head to look at him “Eventually, you’ll be wiping all that is left of the Task Force. And then it won’t matter anymore that your dad died today.”

Yes. L was right. Light… would have killed Soichiro eventually. It was only natural to take that course of action. And Light would bite his tongue and choke on it before letting himself hesitate on that matter. L’s eyes as they regarded him were incredibly sad, but not surprised.

“Do you find me disgusting, L?” He asked, a wry smile taking over his lips even though he was terrified of the answer he’d get. The ghost shook his head.

“No, Light.” An incorporeal hand brushed over his cheekbone. He closed his eyes and leaned into the tingle. “I’m just trying to decipher whether you’re a remorseless psychopath faking the pain you show, or if you’re actually acting remorseless to hide how much you’ve wounded yourself. Either way… I find you pitiful.”

And Light wanted to be angry. He tried his best to feel rage, indignation… even shame. But he couldn’t find it in himself. He was empty.

“Maybe… you’re both.”

“Tell me, Light. Did Misa approve of this plan?”

“Shut up.” He scowled, fixing his tie in front of the mirror.

Of course the answer was no. If Misa ever found out about this then she would gouge out both his and Takada’s guts. Giving up her Death Note and passing it to Mikami didn’t really make her any less lethal.

“I thought so. Especially by the way you whispered sweet nothings into the phone earlier.”

“Look, L.” Light turned around to face the late detective. L had become so good at expressing a physical shape that, if it weren’t for the blur at the edges when he moved, Light could’ve believed he was actually standing there in flesh and bone. “Whatever I choose to do with my love life is not your business, especially if it has something to do with my plans as Kira.”

L narrowed his eyes. Whether or not he was judging Light was hard to say.

“You have no moral structure whatsoever, do you?”

“As previously established, you don’t have much of that either-”

“I know.” The ghost cut him, raising a hand. “And I admit I wouldn’t hesitate to do the exact same thing you’re about to do to gain a benefit, as you already know.” At that, Light looked away. The room was too dark for his blush to be discernible. “Still, your shamelessness continues to amaze me.”

He chuckled ironically, staring the specter down as if it had just dared him to do it.

“Aizawa will come to install the cameras and mics now. Once he begins, I’ll have a perfect excuse to ignore you for the next few hours.” Light opened the box on top of the coffee table and began pulling out wires. He then halted, a meditative twinkle in his eyes, and addressed L. “Actually, could you disappear? I don’t want to see you through the corner of my eye when I-”

“You know that I’ll still be here even if you can’t see me, right?”

“Ah, yes. I forgot you’re a prime voyeur.”

“Trust me; this is about the last place in the world I’d like to be in.” The detective retorted, and for some reason his voice had an irritated edge to it.

“I guess we both have to compromise, then. As long as you stay invisible and keep yourself from talking inside my head until I’m done here, I’ll make sure not to kick your ass in Hell.” Light satirically extended a hand to him. “Deal?”

L simply stared him back, scorn invading his whole expression, before disappearing. Light could feel he was mad –uncharacteristically so. Yes, Light had seen him in a foul mood many times, while they lived chained to each other and they both had to listen to Matsuda speak.

But whatever got him so on edge about tonight, Light had no idea.

In fact, L’s mood grew worse and worse as the night progressed. He didn’t notice it at first; It became a constant buzz in the back of his head after Light looked Takada in the eyes and said ‘I missed you’, so he managed to ignore it quite well. However, by the time all mics and cameras were disconnected, he realized L was on the verge of bursting.

Lately, L’s thoughts had grown more tangible, together with his physical shape. So much so they sometimes became suffocating. When L would forfeit his form and settle back inside his head, Light often had a hard time differentiating their mixed feelings.

In life, L had always been incredibly skilled in the art of preserving a cool semblance. Even when he had been visibly annoyed or angry, the way he carried himself always sold the idea that the matter in hand was no more than just a mild inconvenience for him.

“Listen, Kiyomi. I am the real Kira.”

Light would’ve never expected to come face to face with that bubbling rage.

Takada gasped in surprise.

“That’s right. I’m Kira.” He repeated, mostly to confirm she had heard him right, but also to assure himself against L’s violent, thundering emotions. “That’s what I wanted to tell you.” Takada didn’t respond immediately, so Light took the chance to raise the phone to his ear and wrap up the conversation with Mikami. “Listen. I won’t allow you to ask Kiyomi who I am; you don’t need to know my identity.”

“Yes. I’ll leave the rest to you, God.”

Bastard.

Light shook. It had been a while since he had last heard L’s voice inside his head. Didn’t he explicitly tell him not to do that?! He’d make sure to devote the rest of his life to researching a way to kill a ghost again. He hung up the phone and turned around to address Kiyomi, as he stifled down his irritation.

“Do you understand? I am Kira. The man who was on the phone, is one of my followers who I’ve shared my power with.”

Takada’s eyes lit up.

“I… I can’t believe it’s you!” She whispered in awe. “You are the only man I’ve ever really admired. To be honest… the only man I’ve ever felt a connection with.” L growled. “And now, to find out you’re Kira… it’s incredible.”

As planned, Light had Takada curled around his finger in no time. He would’ve been able to fully enjoy the sweet taste of victory if it weren’t for L’s sour invasion. Oh, but he wasn’t about to let that bloody ghost spoil his mood. Was he pissed off now? Then he was about to become completely infuriated.

Light stepped closer and willfully lowered his voice to a deep whisper as he cupped Takada’s cheek in his hand.

“Please… join me, Kiyomi. And you will be the goddess of the New World.”

“Light…” She immediately pulled him into an embrace he didn’t fail to return.

He smirked over her shoulder –he had her right where he wanted her… and she was about to have him right where she wanted him too.

When Light leaned down to kiss her, L’s wrath pulsed through him.

Two and a half hours later, Light finished doing his tie, put his coat on and exited the room. Takada had already left –it was best for both that they weren’t seen leaving the hotel together.

Everything was working out smoothly. He now had a connection to Mikami through her, which would make everything easier from now on. The annihilation of the whole Task Force, together with the SPK and Near were visible in the horizon. In a matter of days, there would be no one left in his way. He’d be the only, unquestioned God of his own New World.

Confident with his secured victory, Light pulled the phone out.

“Light! Are you okay?” Matsuda exclaimed. Of course they were worried, after losing all connection with him for over two hours.

“Yeah… Kiyomi was able to work things out with Kira. I decided that from now on, I’m gonna pretend to be dating her.” L, who had fallen unusually quiet for a while now, suddenly shifted uncomfortably inside of him. He smirked. “We might be able to find Kira that way.”

“Alright, if you say so…” Matsuda answered, and for the musicality in his voice it was clear to everyone that a) he had serious doubts Light was just pretending and b) he knew Light simply hadn’t spent the last two hours with Takada playing Monopoly.

Right after that, a smack could be heard. Matsuda whined out loud as Aizawa scolded him. Light rolled his eyes and hung up.

So you actually went and did it.

He stopped on his tracks, overwhelmed by how the voice reverberated inside him. He growled in annoyance.

“I told you not to do that!”

As an answer to his protest, L materialized in front of him. All the ire he had felt bubbling inside him left. It shook him to realize that L had turned back to his old –living– habits. The expression in his face was barely a washed-down version of the consuming wrath Light now knew inhabited him.

“Still manipulating women and using sex to get what you want, uh?”

“You say it like that’s the worst thing I’ve done.”

“Oh, no. Of course it isn’t.” L shook his head. When he narrowed his eyes, the gaze he bore was venomous. “When are you gonna kill her, then?”

Light gulped, glaring at him. He wanted to be surprised that L brought that up, but he couldn’t; he knew how vicious he could get. The ghost smiled back at him, even though the gesture held no warmth, sympathy or bliss whatsoever. It was a dry smile, filled to the brim with a wish to hurt.

“That’s what you do, isn’t it? Attachment and intimacy are alright as long as you can get something from it. As soon as the other person becomes a hindrance you dispose of them.” L spat. “So? How long until you murder Takada too?”

“I hate you, you know.” Light hissed. “I hate how you always talk like you know everything about everyone. I hate how hypocritical you are, going around making moral statements about other people when you were just as bad or even worse. And I hate how you are convinced that everything has to be about you!”

The ghost took a step back, and Light seized the opportunity to push further. They had already pulled each other down on the mud; they might as well fight.

“Maybe I just like sleeping with Takada. But… oh? Does that irritate you?” One look at the detective’s face told him he had hit the nail’s head. “Does it drive you crazy, that it’s her and not you?”

“This is nonsense. Stop talking before you humiliate yourself.” L growled, earning himself a barking laugh from the other.

“Come on. I felt it. I felt how your blood boiled when she embraced me. Admit it.” The ghost stood there, and said nothing. Suddenly intoxicated with rage and something close to desperation, Light walked up to him and reached out to grab his arm. He grabbed nothing. “Admit you’re jealous.”

“How…” for the first time ever, the specter’s voice came out so terrifyingly low it sent chills down his spine. “… am I supposed to be jealous, when we both know you’re just using her? We both know she’ll soon be dead meat. She isn’t getting anything I haven’t gotten already.”

Light shivered, unable to talk through the knot in his throat.

 “You can’t fool me, Light. I see everything, remember? Goddess of the New World… How many times have you used that trick on Misa this month?”

“Shut up.” The words were no more than a tremulous whisper. It was mortifying.

“Then how about this very week?” L pressed, and even though Light couldn’t feel a breath meet his face, he still stepped back, looking hurt. When he replied, his words were calm with bitterness.

“So now we’re pretending you’re not the same?”

It happened often during the lapse of time Light had to cope with L cuffed to his wrist and without his memories of the Death Note. He’d constantly be shaken awake by nightmares that didn’t seem his own. Sometimes the startling would be soft enough to simply wake him up, and he could just roll over and go back to sleep without disturbing L. And sometimes, like that time, he’d physically jump on bed and find himself drenched in cold sweat.

He sat up and looked to his left –by his side, L slept soundly, curled into a ball with his knees to his chest, the half of his face that wasn’t buried in the pillow giving off an expression of peace.

Light sighed deeply as he wiped sweat off his face and neck. He wouldn’t mind being able to lock himself up in the toilet, but handcuffs. He directed his energy into staying still and steadying his breath instead.

“Another nightmare?”

Light blinked. So L wasn’t even half as asleep as he pretended to. He looked at him from below, his face still half-buried in his pillow. It was way too adorable –Light looked away.

“Yes.” The detective sat up too, the sheets sliding down his torso.

“What was it about?”

“I… stood on top of a very tall building.” He narrated, his gaze lost somewhere in the shadows that inhabited the room. “Below, at ground level, people were screaming. I wanted to look down to see what was happening to them, but I was too afraid. Then, from behind… a tall massive shadow hovered over me. It’s silhouette wasn’t that of a human. The thing laughed; that wasn’t human either. I tried to look over my shoulder, and was pushed off the building. I fell. The screaming grew closer…. and I woke up.”

For a long moment, there was nothing but silence.

“Is that all?” L inquired quietly. A crease took shape between Light’s brows, and he fixed his stare on his lap.

“I know what you’re thinking. I’m not stupid enough to not be able to deduce what you think my dream represents. But, Ryuzaki…” He formed fists with his fingers to keep them from fidgeting, and raised his eyes to L’s. “I can’t be… I don’t remember ever doing any of that. And I know. I know people can do the unspeakable when pushed to the limit, but I’d never kill on my own free will.”

“Light…” L hesitated, and then crawled across the bed to reach out and grab one of the towels from a nearby hanger. When he crawled back, he pressed it to Light’s face. “There is a chance Kira somehow possessed you during that period. In that case, you wouldn’t have been in control of your own actions.”

His tone was soft, but it wasn’t enough to conceal his real thoughts. Light smiled sadly as L wiped the sweat off his neck.

“But you don’t think I was possessed.” He spoke the truth nobody wanted to acknowledge. L stopped drying him. “You’re certain I was the original Kira. Even now, you must be wondering whether I’ve been bluffing ever since I was inside that cell. You’re probably thinking all this is just part of an act; some greater scheme on my behalf.”

The detective didn’t respond immediately. They looked at each other for several seconds; when he did, his words were grave with the amount of seriousness the statement deserved.

“I am.”

Light nodded. He didn’t really blame L for thinking that. He, too, was slowly getting more and more obsessed with the idea that he might have been, indeed, Kira. Yes, the justice system was flawed. But if he had had Kira’s power, would he had actually used it like Kira did?

“I understand.” He replied. “You’re just doing your job. And I want to help however I want. I want to reach the bottom of this, and cleanse my name. It’s just…” Light sighed and scratched his head. Saying it was much more awkward than he had anticipated. “I really wish it could have been different.”

“What?”

“My relationship with you.”

His heart was beating like crazy, but he had already begun talking. The rest gurgled out and he couldn’t restrain it.

“I wish I could’ve stood on equal ground with you when I met you; with me being a detective, not the prime suspect for the greatest mass murder of the decade. I wish I could’ve gotten to know you, without all the games and the lies. We could’ve held conversations that didn’t feel like interrogations. You’re very smart, and determined.” His face was burning up now, but he kept on talking. “Even though that shouldn’t be good, considering you suspect me… I admire that a lot.”

Their eyes locked, and Light’s stomach turned.

“I admire you.”

For a long while, L didn’t move or react at all; instead of widening eyes or abrupt exclamations, that was how the mighty detective processed shock. It was pretty embarrassing for Light, though. The blush crept to his ears and neck, and he was about to roll over and pretend none of that ever happened, when L cleared his throat. A soft, pink shade took over his pointy cheekbones.

“You admire me.” He reiterated, as if not completely believing it. Light would’ve found it funny had he not been focused in his racing pulse. He nodded… and L gulped. The detective raised a hand and brushed a strand of brunet hair away from his eyes. “Do you only admire me?”

“I…”

“How else do you feel about me?” His finger curled around Light’s ear. His voice was soft, but deep. “Tell me.”

“Not all is good.” He admitted, too distracted by the touch to watch his words. “Sometimes I hate you. So much I want to punch you-”

“Yes, you have done that.” That made him laugh.

“Yeah… it’s because I hate it when you prod me for a confession I can’t give you. And when you say things like ‘it’s pointless to keep on trying’, when my name is in as much of a stake as your title, and when you’ve already done too much to me to just dismiss it like that. I hate being reminded that you only see me as a potential murderer; that you were lying when you said we were friends… And I hate being unable to accept your kindness without thinking you’re playing with me, because I-”

Crap. That was close. He barely managed to bite his tongue before he spurted something dangerous. But L, being L, simply wouldn’t let him off the hook that easily. The detective scooted closer –their legs were touching, and they were breathing the same air. Light’s heart fluttered. L’s fingers on his cheek were cold compared to the flushed skin beneath.

“Because?” L whispered, and Light’s gaze fell on his lips, fascinated by their shape, the cadence with which they moved, their invisible, indescribable allure.

Don’t make me say it if you already know. That was what he would have liked to say, but he couldn’t speak. He barely had a moment to process what was happening and take a breath before L closed the distance between them and delicately sealed their lips together.

Light held his breath and sat, static, as his mind was filled with the subtle, tingling sensation of L’s mouth caressing his. That alone was enough to make his heart pound hard against his ribcage. It was a soft kiss; plush, barely more substantial than the brush of a finger. When the man pulled away –only one inch, just enough to end the contact–, their lips separated with a quiet pop.

Light’s whole body was tingling, and he had to forcefully stifle down the urge to tremble that was building steadily in the pit of his stomach. He breathed out, and in, and out; shallowly. He didn’t want to risk inhaling any more of L’s scent.

He should have backed off. Gone back to sleep and pretended that never happened. It would have been wiser. Instead, he remained still and did not oppose L’s movements when the detective cupped his nape and angled his face into another kiss.

It was a deeper one this time, given how their mouths were briefly open. Moisture quickly built up over his upper lip as he felt L’s lower lip seductively pressing against his teeth. Light closed his eyes and opened his mouth. Swiftly, without letting the chance slip by, the man expertly locked their jaws together and entered Light’s warm mouth with his tongue.

A soft gasp that escaped him and coated L’s lips, and then transformed into a barely audible whine. It was inevitable. He couldn’t fight the trembling anymore. He felt feverish all over. Touch-starved and about to burst. His tongue tingled when L’s caressed it, and it filled him with desire and a deep-rooted desperation. He changed his angle to reciprocate the man’s movements, their lips now moving in unison as they sank deeper into each other.

Nobody had ever… not like this. Misa’s kisses weren’t necessarily bad, but they were always messy and indelicate-

L’s free hand began travelling up his thigh, and the spasm that triggered on the muscles of his leg was so powerful Light jolted backwards, and the trance was broken. Out of breath, he searched the detective’s face, and looked away when he realized he could only focus on the blush in his cheeks, the intensity of his gaze and the moist spot on his lower lip.

“Ryuzaki-”

“What’s wrong, Light?”

He bit his lip. L’s voice was still deep, but it was gradually acquiring a sharp edge. Now more than ever, he knew he shouldn’t have allowed that to happen. He blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

“What about Misa? Even if she never finds out…”

He shyly searched the man’s face again. L held still for a moment, as he considered his words. Slowly, he seemed to assimilate them. He nodded, and cupped Light’s face again.

“Then… you can hold me accountable for it.” L whispered, and dived back in. That time their mouths locked together even more naturally, and although Light’s whole body was brimming with the urge to give in to the kiss, he still couldn’t brush off the feeling that it was wrong.

Disrespecting Misa, playing with her feelings for him… he wasn’t like that. And the fact that he had to instruct himself to feel guilty about it only brought him self-disgust. He turned his face to the side, and L’s lips slid away from his. The detective didn’t waste over a mere second to understand that this –whatever it was– would not drag any longer.

“Could it be that you were pretending to be interested in me?” He inquired.

Light flinched. His words stung more than he could’ve predicted.

“Do you think I’d do that? You know what, don’t answer. Either way, this… it’s not fair on Misa. I told you I would never use a woman’s feelings to my advantage, so don’t make me betray myself-”

“You don’t love her.” Light gulped. “You don’t even know why you are with her, do you.” L’s gaze grew harder as he went from appreciating Light to analyzing him; a shift Light himself was all too familiar with. “You forgot… together with everything else-”

“That’s enough.” He cut him, his voice coming out firmer than he had expected, and brushed L’s hands off his face. “I’m not about to believe I am a murderer. And Misa isn’t either. I’m not what you think I am, Ryuzaki.”

That being said, Light rolled over and pulled the covers over himself, signaling the end of the conversation. What they just did… it was better off forgotten. As things were now, stubbornly trying to follow that path would only bring pain, regardless of Light turning out to be Kira or not, and regardless of his feelings for Misa and the man. Which didn’t necessarily mean that Light wasn’t already aching over it, but he’d never admit to it.

After a good five minutes of complete stillness, L finally tucked himself in bed, he too giving his back to Light, and before drifting to sleep he murmured:

“If it’s worth something, I really hope you weren’t.”

Yes. The memory of that night’s events, no matter how long gone, was very fresh in their minds. Though, just like the nightmares had been back then, the Light from the present didn’t quite feel that it belonged to him.

When he lost the Death Note… it was crazy. He became a completely different person. It wasn’t just about not remembering being Kira; it reached the point where thinking of what Kira had done revolted him to the core. Then he began questioning himself, doubting his own innocence, and came to realize he could understand his actions to some extent. He used to think the world was rotten before Kira entered the picture, and he still did during the Yotsuba period.

However, the retrieval of the Death Note carved a crack in his moral system he didn’t remember ever sealing. He went back to his old ways, used Misa just like the dangerously volatile tool he had always seen her as. He used everyone, including Rem, a God. Thinking back, it made sense L was suspicious of his most tender side; the Light he was now would have definitely tried to seduce L if he had seen some utility in it.

Kira would have never fallen for the detective.

Even so… what he had felt back then had been real. He did fall for him. And he was given a chance to shatter that burden when he got his memories back –his priority went back to being himself, and L was simply an obstacle–, but this was the first time he let himself think about what could have been, and he found out his feelings weren’t shattered at all.

It still ached.

“Didn’t you do that just to test me?” Light said, accusingly. “You thought I was acting it out, didn’t you. You had to see for yourself how far I’d take it.”

L didn’t kiss him because he felt something for him; he did it to see if he would recoil. In fact, the way he rejected the man in the end was probably interpreted as a positive result.

The ghost didn’t need to answer –Light could see the admission in his face.

“I pretty much confessed to you.” He looked away. That was in the past now. It should have been. L was dead. Then why did he still feel so bitter about it? “And you didn’t even care. You were too busy studying me like a bloody scientist.”

“Can you blame me?” He couldn’t. “Besides, that is not entirely true.”

Confused and untrusting, Light locked eyes with the ghost. L sighed.

“I do admit I didn’t believe it at first –it was too convenient. But I never gave you any hints I was romantically interested in you, and I couldn’t have imagined you were. Therefore, I didn’t understand why you resorted to that method if you just wanted to manipulate me. I began to wonder if it had been for real; but before I could question you further on the subject it was too late. We captured Higuchi, and it didn’t take me long to notice that you… changed.”

Light’s stare landed on his feet. He believed L; he was dead and didn’t need to lie. What if the detective had said something before they cornered Higuchi? It was pointless to dwell on it, since Light was certain he would have killed him in the end. The world needed L to die so Kira could reign. In retrospect, it was a good thing he didn’t, since he allowed Light to move forward with his heart unscathed.

Or so he thought, before all the pain he wasn’t even aware existed inside him through the years came back to bite at him. He hated it. Despising L was easier than this.

“Why are you telling me this?” He bit back, arms crossed as he returned L’s gaze, his ache now obvious in his features. “If I had broken into tears back then and told you I still felt the same way for you, would you have let me go? Would you have risked trusting me? No, you wouldn’t have given me a chance-”

“I did give you a chance. That’s how I know Takada is as good as dead now.”

Light’s eyes widened. He couldn’t mean…

“That time…”

It had been the night after Higuchi’s capture. He had his memories back, and L had, according to the Task Force’s wishes, begrudgingly agreed to dispose of the handcuffs that had bound them together for months. Light was allowed to spend the night in his own room, alone, for the first time in what seemed ages. However, he couldn’t sleep.

It must have been because the excitement at seeing his plan work out perfectly had been too great. Or maybe he had grown used to having someone else lie next to him. His bed seemed huge to the eye and cold to the touch, even though it was the same size as the previous one and both rooms’ thermostats shared the same settings.

He was pacing around aimlessly when he heard a knock on the door. It was L. But Light didn’t get to talk to him, for the man immediately raised his dark eyes to Light’s and determinedly jumped him, pulling him into a ravenous kiss. And before nobody could get in the way, the door was slammed shut and they were in bed.

This could work for my advantage, Light had thought as he gave in without a care for the world. He had wanted it for so long, anyway. In the end, it had been a good way to release pent-up frustrations and unnecessary feelings, and no sweet words or pathetic confessions were exchanged.

“I woke up, alone.” He recalled. “You had gone out to the roof, even though it was pouring. That’s where I found you.”

Right now, Ghost L looked just as sad and decidedly hopeless as he had looked back then. Light could even imagine the rain dripping down his face and dampening him whole in between one blink and the next. Later, at the staircase, L had smiled sadly and said ‘It will be lonely, won’t it? You and I will be parting ways soon’.

He couldn’t have predicted that wouldn’t really ever happen. Still…

“Back then… you already knew you’d die, didn’t you?”

“Yes.” L nodded solemnly.

“But why? I… I gave you my consent. We-”

“Exactly. I knew you disposed of people as soon as you stopped finding them a use. By letting me have you the night before, you were clearly trying to manipulate me. If you had been the same Light I’d been handcuffed to for months –if you had felt strongly enough not to kill me– you would have rejected me. But you didn’t resist or hesitate. Not even when I-”

“Enough.” He breathed. He felt like he was choking. So that was why L had called him a liar back at the roof. The detective had seen right through him… the whole time. But… he was missing a vital piece. A thunder resonated in the distance.

“I invited you to use me. And you did.” L concluded, a small smile forming in his lips without reaching his eyes. The first few droplets began falling.

He had to say it. If he didn’t say it now, he never would.

“Yes, I admit it.” Light lowered his head. The rain grew stronger above him. “I wanted to manipulate you, just as much as you wanted to call me out for it.” Then he raised his chin to look straight into the ghost’s eyes, water rolling down his face as he spoke up. His voice came out broken. “But that’s not all it was, and you know it.”

L’s specter froze, his eyes slowly gaining focus. Light, on the other side, let out a long exhalation. The aching deep in the pit of his stomach didn’t really yield, but shifted. A weight had been lifted; one he couldn’t claim back even if he wanted to.

“Are you saying you truly wanted me?” L breathed out, as if worried that raising his voice would disturb the atmosphere. However, he looked more aghast than hopeful.

“No.” He shook his head, his expression softer. “I’m saying we wanted each other.”

There was silence, and rain. L stood there, petrified as the falling drops trespassed him without disturbing his clothing or his black messy hair. And with every second that he spent with his wide, desperate eyes glued on him, Light’s heart beat faster. Harder.

He had to wait until the man was already dead, but he finally did it.

He finally confessed.

“Won’t you… say something?” He whispered.

L opened his mouth… then closed it. Then opened it again.

“I…” The ghost looked away, and Light realized then how utterly devastated he was. His voice quavered. “I can’t.”

And then he disappeared.

…

Wait.

Why… why couldn’t Light feel him… he was always able to feel him when he vanished, then why?

No.

No… No.

“L…” Nobody answered. “L!!!!!” It was useless.

L wasn’t there. All there was, was silence and rain.

Events continued to develop without further disturbance. He met up with Takada several times –with the Task Force listening, so he didn’t try anything–, and passed his instructions to Mikami. The SPK found out about Mikami and tried to tamper with his Note, so a fake Note was crafted. Everything was going according to plan.

Even Mello’s decision to kidnap Takada, though unexpected, worked out perfectly for him, as he managed to dispatch both of them easily. He had been waiting to see Mello dead since the explosion. As for Takada, he was relieved to take that weight off his back. And he would have actually been able to be a hundred percent remorseless about it had he not remembered his conversation with a certain deceased someone.

As for L… he didn’t return. No matter what Light did or how awful he became, L didn’t manifest, talk inside his head, or give any other signal whatsoever of still existing. And Light had expected it to hurt… maybe he wanted to feel hurt. But he was too empty to feel nothing other than rage, and greed. All that occupied his mind was Near, and their encounter at the warehouse. He was too busy with conquering the world to feel lonely.

Still, some nights he’d surprise himself yelling at the top of his lungs at a soul that no longer tailed him. He’d yell stuff like ‘Aren’t you going to show yourself?!’. There never was an answer.

Then the day came. Mikami did his job perfectly, so much so Light physically struggled to avoid bursting into laughter ahead of time. And right when he was feeling giddy with victory, desperate to rub his success in Near’s juvenile face as the boy’s heart failed… everything was gone. It slipped from between his fingers as easily as the seconds ticked away in his watch.

He didn’t go down without a fight. First, he desperately attempted to accuse the SPK of framing him, and when that didn’t work, he used the truth. The mask he had carefully crafted crumpled. In a feverish, delusional moment of revelation that lacked little to reach hysteria, he gave the greatest speech of his whole life; he shared with them the legacy he had tried to leave behind, hoping they would understand. Even so, Near still called him a crazy serial killer, nothing more, and nothing less.

He had his watch with a piece of the Note inside, but he could have never calculated that Matsuda would shoot him; repeatedly. When he fell to a puddle on the floor and Matsuda stood over him, tears streaking down his betrayed face as he glared and aimed his gun at his head… Light realized how badly he had screwed up.

He could have died. That man could have killed him in a mere instant. Even through the multiple layers of tortuous pain his fresh bullet wounds were inflicting on him, he only had the mental capacity to process that gut-deep, swiping fear.

He called for Mikami… but the man was of no use. So he simply lay there in his puddle as it changed its color from transparent to red. He gasped for air, and cried out.

“Where are you, Misa?!” He had used her, and left her at home, deprived of her memories. “Where’s Takada?!” He had killed her. His actions finally settled fully on him, and tears swelled at the corners of his eyes.

Someone… w-what do I do n-now…

…

L…

Mikami stabbed himself, and Light wasn’t about to grow out of old habits. He used his follower one last time, to crawl to his feet and escape while everybody else focused on the bloodshed.

He ran. As fast as he could, with his body bent over in pain and his injured arm hanging like dead weight by his side. Every step was excruciating to take, and every gasping breath was more difficult to inhale than the one that preceded it, but he didn’t stop. He knew his legs would give in soon. The blood loss was taking an exponential toll on his body. He kept on running, even though it was futile.

Every decision he had made up to that point, only now he could see how they had stuck to him like parasites. He had been rotting away ever since he picked the Note. Ryuk… had been right. In Kira’s crimeless world… the only rotten apple left was him.

However, if he had been given the chance to go back to being that seventeen-year-old, naïve boy he once was, he wouldn’t have taken it.

His running slowed down to walking; he had lost Aizawa and the rest long ago. By the time he reached the abandoned building, he could hardly stay on his feet. He sprawled himself on the stairs… and then he felt it.

It coated over him. It felt like coming back home after what seemed forever.

Hello, Light.

Tears overflowed his eyes. He could have never imagined that his voice would bring him such intense joy.

“L…” he whimpered. “Y-You’re back-”

The specter materialized before him… weird. He looked more corporeal than he ever had before. Or was it just that Light had forgotten how he had looked after so long? There was some sort of ethereal blue aura around him, though, which hadn’t been there before. And he was smiling… fondly.

“You don’t look too well.”

Light laughed, which made him cough and wince in pain.

“Missed you too?” He retorted sarcastically, and it lacked most of its usual bite. Everything, even just raising his head to look L in the eyes, felt awful, but he did it all the same. “I thought… you were gone for good.”

“And give you the pleasure?” The detective grinned, his eyes gleaming. “Never.”

“Good.” He replied, relaxing and smiling at last.

It was at that moment that his heart hammered through his chest… once. Burning pain irradiated in all directions from there. He felt the tingle taking over every inch of his body as his vision blurred and his focus faded.

“W-What…” The pain, suddenly, stopped. All at once. He jerked to his feet, utterly confused, only to realize he didn’t feel the pressure of a floor beneath his feet anymore. L was staring at him wide-eyed. Whatever he saw had him flabbergasted. Light looked over his shoulder… at his own limp body, lying on the stairs and with no soul in its eyes. And he understood. “Ryuk…”

He shook at the incorporeal sound of his own voice.

“That makes two of us, I guess.” L mused, walking over to face him. “Welcome to the realm of the dead, Light.”

“I’m…” He stood still, having a hard time processing it. Then, slowly… a sparkling sensation in his stomach bubbled up, and he giggled. The smile he gave to L was radiant, as he reached out to him.

And as if things couldn’t get any more amazing, when his inexistent fingers landed on the man’s chest… there was resistance to oppose them. Solid, and warm.

“L!” He beamed, patting the other repeatedly. “I can touch you… I’m touching you!”

“Yes. Yes you are.” L confirmed, laughing too. He was bedazzled. “I feel you…”

The moment after, they were wrapped in each other’s arms, laughing. It shouldn’t have felt this real, but it did. Light could even perceive a hint of L’s scent when he dug his face into raven hair.

“You’re here…” He squeezed harder. “What happened? Why did you disappear? Where did you go?”

“I was always here. I was just in such conflict with myself I couldn’t reach out to you.” The man murmured against his shoulder. “I get it now… this was my mission all along. I was supposed to be here, to welcome you when you passed away. Everything makes sense now…”

Light pulled away. He needed to look L in the eyes.

“So, a moment ago…” He hesitated for a moment that didn’t last too long. “When you spoke to me. Was I able to hear you because I was agonizing, or-”

“I don’t think that’s the reason.” L shook his head, and smiled. “I finally found an answer to my conflict. To my feelings for you.”

Light blinked, finally understanding. He didn’t think he’d be able to feel butterflies in his stomach given how he no longer had internal organs, but he did.

“What I said that time…”

“You wrecked me.” L joked, and cupped Light’s face in his hands. When their eyes locked, his were full of devotion. “But you were right. I shouldn’t have, you were a mass murderer not to mention my nemesis, but I did want you. More than you can imagine.”

Light reached up, to fondly caress L’s knuckles.

“L, I loved you.” He swallowed, and leaned into the warm touch. “I… still do. Even after everything.”

“Me too.” The man whispered back, and for the first time, Light heard him go weak.“Even after everything.”

He grabbed him by the collar and locked their lips together. He melted into the kiss, trembling feverishly. He had missed this sensation so much he could barely stand it. The plush, wet and enticing brush of their lips soon grew hungrier, starving, even though they were both smiling into it. And it felt, both literally and metaphorically, more real than any other touch they had ever shared, dead or alive.

Then, they slowly began crumbling away. The kiss was broken as they both stared down. It began at their feet –they were dissolving into iridescent specs of dust that caught the light, and then into nothing. Gradually, it crawled up their shins, reaching their knees, and thighs.

But it wasn’t painful, or scary. Neither of them was scared. It was very peaceful. But just in case he didn’t get another chance, Light pressed every part of him that remained to L’s shape.

“L…” He breathed against the man’s mouth. “Are… are you even real? Or have you just been a product of my imagination all this time?”

L looked puzzled for a moment, but then he simply smiled.

“Does it even matter at this point?”

Light looked him in the eyes, as their torsos began to fade, and felt it deep within himself. He took L’s face in his hands, even though the tips of his fingers were disappearing too.

“No.” He concluded, and leaned in for one last loving kiss which L reciprocated.

And after that, nothing.

#Death Note #L Lawliet #fanfiction #submission #jamknife #misasbiggestfan #ratings: mature #L #Light Yagami #lawlight #B's Bitchin Borthday 2k19

[kcwcommentary]

VLD7x06 – “The Journey Within”

7x06 – “The Journey Within”

This is an exhausting, excruciating episode to watch. It is full of inconsistent writing that is counter to what we’ve seen and been told in the show in multiple previous episodes. It’s offensive in how it talks about the clone and how it sidelines Shiro. A lot of miscellaneous, meaningless stuff happens in the episode to be negated with a flip of a switch, making the flow of the episode spastic. The episode is built around the idea that the finalized group of Paladins recognize that they really are friends, but it’s a totally hollow declaration at the end that does not in any way feel like character growth. And the episode ends with a massive inconsistency between the dialog and the artwork.

The Paladins in their Lions are still travelling through space. They look tired. Pidge is working on something and tells Allura to “try the sonic wave,” which the Blue Lion fails to manifest and Allura says that “it probably won’t work again until our power cores are recharged.” This lack of power for the Lions is such a contrived plot. As I’ve said multiple times before, and I’m going to say again because this really bugs me, in 3x07 “The Legend Begins,” Alfor says that he “made [the Lions] from the quintessence-infused ore of the comet, which provides them with an endless supply of power.” This low-power thing the show has been doing with the Lions this season is contrary to what the show has established about how the Lions function.

Pidge says at their current speed, it will take them 1.5 Earth years to make it to Earth. They have to be travelling really, really fast. Even moving at the speed of light (aka the fastest non-science fiction speed possible) it would take 4.5 years to get from Earth to the nearest star (other than our sun). Team Voltron aren’t even in the Milky Way.

Shiro says that “replacing the Castle of Lions is our top priority,” and while there have been small references that that is a goal for them, none of those references had the weight of it being their primary goal like Shiro talks about here.

Keith says, “We didn’t plan on going through the galactic void, but we’ll get through it.” I wonder what the writers mean by this. Is Keith just referencing the really common empty space between galaxies? The animation of this episode almost always has them surrounded by stars. Until the very end of the episode, they’re always depicted as being within a galaxy. This reference to the “galactic void” is made here and then immediately forgotten.

Cut to a mostly black area with a handful of dim stars scattered throughout that black. Pidge says that she thinks “that this area is surrounded by some kind of nebula that blocks most of the light.” I honestly don’t want to take the time to try to analyze the pseudo-science the show tries to use here. The shot of space outside Lance’s window looks like a fair number of stars, so this dark nebula is quickly forgotten.

Shiro says he’s thought of an idea of how to recharge the Lions. Considering they have an “endless supply of power,” per Alfor, they shouldn’t have to do anything, but the show is ignoring that. Lance is incredulous that it’s taken Shiro this long. Shiro then says, “Well, I’m sorry, Lance, but I guess having my consciousness transplanted from the infinity of Voltron’s inner quintessence into the dead body of an evil clone of myself has left me a little out of sorts for the past few weeks.”

This is so infuriating.

There is so much wrong with what Shiro says. He wasn’t in “Voltron’s inner quintessence.” Shiro was specifically in the Black Lion. Not Voltron, the Black Lion. I know the show is doing everything they can to take being the Black Paladin away from Shiro. I know the show wants us to forget that the Black Lion and Shiro were bonded from the beginning, to forget that Shiro fought to free the Black Lion from Zarkon’s influence, to forget that Shiro fought to acquire the black bayard, that the Black Lion sensed the presence of the clone and demanded that Keith go rescue him, that the Black Lion let the clone pilot her, that even after the clone was “evil” the Black Lion saved him, that it was specifically within the Black Lion that Keith encountered Shiro’s disembodied spirit, that was from the Black Lion that Allura pulled Shiro’s spirit when she put his spirit in the clone’s body. I know the show wants us to forget all this because the EPs hated Shiro, hated that he was the Black Paladin, and resented that they weren’t allowed to permanently kill him. But these are the facts of this show’s story. Shiro was not in “Voltron’s inner quintessence,” he was in the Black Lion. The Black Lion refused to let Shiro die because she was that tightly bonded to him.

Also, Shiro says he was put “into the dead body of an evil clone of myself.” This is so offensive. Maybe this is more of this show’s notoriously inconsistent writing. This episode is the last one credited as being written by Tim Hedrick. Hedrick is also the person credited with writing 6x07 “Defender of All Universes,” at the end of which we get the big scene of Allura taking Shiro’s consciousness and putting it in the clone’s body. So, Hedrick wrote that episode and thus that scene. He wrote this episode and thus what Shiro says here. Hedrick was also the show’s Story Editor. It was his job to keep this all straight. Maybe he was just bad at his job and he forgot what he previously wrote. Or maybe this statement from Shiro now is supposed to be a retcon. Maybe the show is just hoping that the audience will have forgotten the uncomfortable details of Allura putting Shiro in the clone’s body. I haven’t forgotten.

Shiro says here that he was put “into the dead body.” The clone was not dead. Our heroes put Shiro’s spirit into the still-living body of the clone. It made them all look cruel, unethical, and immoral. Had the clone’s body been actually dead, then it would have been totally different that they put Shiro’s spirit in the body, but the clone was still alive. “Defender of All Universes” specifically has Keith say that “this body is barely living.” Barely living is still living, not dead. The only way the clone was going to die is if Team Voltron let him. They took him out of the healing pod. They wanted to steal and use his body in violation of him as a person. Trying to pretend that that didn’t happen doesn’t make it have not happened. Tim Hedrick wrote the show’s heroes to have violated the clone and now he’s trying to cover it up by claiming the clone was dead when he was alive.

Also, Shiro refers to the clone as “an evil clone of myself.” The clone was not evil. No matter how many times the executive producers or the writers of this show want to claim the clone was evil, the clone was not. The Black Lion detected the clone out in space and called on Keith to go to the clone’s location and save him. The Black Lion let the clone pilot him, all while knowing that he was a clone (because at that time the Black Lion had Shiro’s spirit in its psychic space). Even after the fight with Keith, after the clone was acting “evil,” the Black Lion still saved the clone from death. If the clone truly was “evil,” then the Black Lion would not have done any of this.

Also, the clone had demonstrated time and again the personality of a hero. He was always focused on helping and protecting people. He was desperate to rejoin the Paladins in 3x05 “The Journey.” He was desperate to join the other Paladins to help them in the fight in 4x01 “Code of Honor.” To the unreasonable annoyance of everyone, the clone identified with the inner calling to protect people that he wanted to play as a paladin in their D&D game in 6x03 “Monsters & Mana.” Time and again, we have been shown that the clone was a good man. This show has shown us that the clone’s actions at the end of 6x04 “The Colony” and in 6x05 “The Black Paladins” was specifically the result of Haggar and her use of space magic to violate the clone’s mind and manipulate and control him. She is responsible for those actions, not the clone. The clone’s agency was taken from him. Having your agency taken from you does not make you an evil person. It’s offensive that this show says this, it’s offensive that Tim Hedrick wrote this.

Despite what Shiro is written by Tim Hedrick here to say, the clone was not dead, and he was not evil. This infuriates me.

Shiro reflects back on early in the show how they were fighting Zarkon and hit by some dark energy that sapped their quintessence but that they, as Keith says, “repowered Voltron ourselves.” Shiro says, “I think that’s how it’s meant to work. Since I disappeared, you’ve been relying on the Castle’s crystal to keep the Lion’s charged.” For one, despite his saying they’ve been using the Castle to recharge the Lions, the show has ever shown them doing that. But also, again, this is completely inconsistent with Alfor’s description that the Lions’ power is “endless” specifically because the Lions are made out of the “comet.” This explanation from Alfor from 3x07 “The Legend Begins” was another episode written by Tim Hedrick.

This is such absolute inconsistent writing.

Shiro continues, “If you were a team of fully realized Paladins, you wouldn’t need [the Castle.]” I know the show is doing this to try to declare Keith, Lance, Pidge, Hunk, and Allura as the final roster of Paladins. It’s offensive because, here, the show is doing that through having Shiro produce his own demotion. This is an insult to the character of Shiro and an insult to everyone who’s ever liked Shiro as a character.

Allura says, “I can’t help but feel this must be my fault. You were able to recharge Voltron before, but since I joined—.” In writing her to say this, the show is ignoring that Allura, alone, supercharged Voltron in 4x06 “A New Defender” in order to get off of Naxzela. Like this episode, like the others this episode is inconsistent with, “A New Defender” was written by Tim Hedrick.

Shiro counters, “It’s no one’s fault. Being a Paladin of Voltron takes training. You just haven’t had time to focus on finding your balance in this configuration.” This feels like a manufactured excuse. It feels hollow. Allura has been a Paladin for most of the show now.

There is nothing to this attempt by the show to convince the audience to accept Keith, Lance, Pidge, Hunk, and Allura as the Paladins, to convince us to accept Shiro as being not a Paladin, that explains why Shiro can’t be a Paladin. Keith walked away from being the Black Paladin in 4x01 “Code of Honor,” he only jumped back in the Black Lion because he was trying to pursue Shiro (he didn’t know it was a clone when he went after him). All of Keith’s piloting the Black Lion has always been fundamentally tied to Shiro. There is no explanation here for why now the Black Lion cares more for Keith and cares not at all for Shiro. It’s so frustrating.

Keith even says, “I’m glad you’re here Shiro.” It doesn’t feel like it. “After all you went through, how did you find the strength to be the leader of Voltron?” It hurts for the show to remind us that Shiro used to be the leader of Voltron and that being the leader of Voltron is now, right here, right with this episode, right with this moment being taken away from him.

Shiro says, “I had help. That’s why there are five of you, to lift each other up.” Problem with that is it never felt like anyone other than Keith in this show cared about Shiro. Yeah, the others liked him okay, but they didn’t have a bond with him. And despite this show, and this episode in particular, supposedly making a statement about the closeness of these people, they don’t really feel like they care about each other.

Pidge sees some flashing clouds ahead of them. Pidge says, “My scanners aren’t picking anything up.” Well, if you can see it, which clearly you can, then those scanners should be able to at least detect the photons of light that are hitting your eyes that lets you see it. There’s a bright flash, and the Lions are then in some kind of energy stream. The Lions get zapped by what looks like electricity as they try to navigate. Light fills the screen and then everything is back to normal-looking space. The Lions are without power, without artificial gravity. Everyone who’s not Keith, Lance, Pidge, Hunk, and Allura look kind of frozen in time. Coran’s eyes and mouth are open, like he’s stuck in the middle of an expression of surprise. Pidge can still read Shiro’s vitals, and the animation of the graphics of Pidge’s display when doing so is in motion, suggesting that Shiro’s vitals are slightly changing like normal, thus not frozen in time. Romelle’s hair is blowing in a breeze. It doesn’t make any sense.

Allura says, “Our Paladin armor must have protected us from the shock.” I guess specifically the armor with the helmet on since Shiro is wearing his Paladin armor still.

Pidge points out that the Lions are drifting away from each other, and Hunk says, “If we don’t get the power back on, we might lose each other.” Keith says their “top priority is tethering the Lions together.” I mean, I get it, keeping the Lions physically together is supposed to be a symbol for them as a team. Allura says she has some “left over zipline in [her] hull” with which they can do this tethering.

Hunk is annoyingly written to have a queasy stomach again.

The Lions are supposed to be drifting apart, but really, the animation just has them randomly floating around. There is no logistics to where each Lion is and what direction they’re moving. In one shot, the Blue Lion is drifting upward past the Yellow Lion, then two shots later, the Blue Lion is drifting downward behind the Yellow Lion.

I usually really like the animation on this show, and it is still made up of quality drawings here, but the logistics are nonexistent. This is a fault of the director and/or of the storyboarding. This episode was directed by Eugene Lee, and he’s normally pretty good, so what happened here?

Allura says that they have to push the Lions closer to each other in order for her cord to be able to connect them, and Hunk tries using his armor’s jetpack, but he’s not shown having any impact on the Yellow Lion’s positioning. It doesn’t look like he having to zero-out Yellow’s inertia first, so he should be moving Yellow some, even if it’s not a lot. This is basic physics that the show is not getting right. Keith directs everyone to join Hunk at the Yellow Lion and collectively push.

Once there, the weird spatial flashing cloud shows up again. They get flashed into the energy stream, the force of the stream is too great, and the Paladins are torn off Yellow. The energy stream just disappears (unlike last time, there’s no exit flash this time). The Paladins are tumbling through space and they take an unrealistic amount of time before they start to stabilize their motion with their jetpacks. Hunk tumbles by Lance, and Lance grabs him by hand. Why Hunk wasn’t using his jetpack, I don’t know. Allura and Pidge grab each other, and neither of them are using their jetpacks either. Keith grabs Allura. Only after they’re all holding onto each other, do they use their jetpacks to stabilize. That they waited so long to stabilize does not make sense.

They can’t see any of the Lions. They just float in space. Cut to some time later, they’re exhausted or whatever. They’re still just floating in space. Waiting for something to happen. Keith is trying to keep them mentally connected by having them “sound off.” Rather than say, “Hunk here,” to match everyone else, Hunk says, “I’m hiding.” It’s genuinely funny. Keith says that techniques like this helped him and his mom get through the quantum abyss. I guess maybe. Was that before or after getting to the breathable atmosphere, food, and water on the back of the space whale?

So, they were only showed using their eyesight to try to locate the Lions. Why not use any of their really advanced technology in their armor to locate them? (Because this is contrived, the show wants them unable to do anything.) They’re all floating there holding onto each other. Again, basic physics and inertia means that they wouldn’t have to hold onto each other. Now that their motion is collectively stabilized, they’ll stay together until something else moves them.

Lance first, then others see a bright light. Very conveniently given how huge space is, a flock of space animals narrowly fly around them. Now would be a good time to let go and use the advanced technology of the armor to take a ton of readings. Pidge? Hunk? Anyone want to get on that? Hunk suggests they follow the animals, Keith agrees, and as the Paladins activate their jetpacks, the creatures and the bright light with them immediately disappear.

I really don’t like stories that have miscellaneous, unexplained whatever happen. Allura wonders if the creatures were real, and Pidge says they could have been a hallucination. One way they could have been sure is if they had bothered to take any readings with their armor’s sensors. But that would be a logical thing for the characters to do, and this show has a big problem with having characters behave logically.

So that scene ends up being mostly a time filler. The Paladins are back to floating in a clump, sounding off again. Keith gets angry that Hunk doesn’t sound off. Allura calls Keith out. Hunk then talks about the daydream he’s having of getting to Earth and showing the Yellow Lion to a “hot-shot pilot” and the Yellow Lion liking her. Hunk says, “And I’d be like, woah, I can’t stand in between you two, the bond is too strong here.” Given that we know that the executive producers considered killing Hunk’s character and replacing him with Axca, I imagine his dialog here is being used to set up that possibility.

Oh, yeah, what happened to Axca? The last we saw of Axca was at the end of 7x03 “The Way Forward.” She was with Team Voltron on that planet after escaping from Zethrid and Ezor. Axca pledged to them, “I’ll do everything I can out here to help the Voltron Coalition.” That episode ends with them on this planet, and the next time we see the Paladins (not counting inside Bob’s gameshow studio), they’re in their Lions in space. There is no reference to Axca, nothing to explain where she is or, if she’s left them, where she’s gone and how she left them. When they landed on that planet, they got there with only the Lions. They did not have any other ships, so there was nothing for Axca to have used to leave and go elsewhere. So, what happened? The show just forgot about Axca.

Keith gets angry at Hunk for “fantasizing about quitting Voltron.” Keith thinking like this does match up to how he reacted in 1x06 “The Fall of the Castle of Lions” when Pidge wanted to leave the group. Considering how much time Keith has spent as not part of Voltron – over two years, from his perspective – it’s now not reasonable for him to complain about someone else wanting time to do something else. I know the writers would say that these characters are super tired, that they’re not thinking clearly, and that that covers up for any illogical or inconsistent writing. I still say too much of this episode is written while ignoring what has happened on the show before now.

Allura asking, “Am I wrong, or is Hunk still quite young by Earth standards?” made me smile. It’s a cute moment. I like seeing Allura be inquisitive about humans as a species and about human culture. It would have been nice to have had some truly substantive moments derived from her curiosity and inquiry like this throughout the show. When you have a meeting of cultures like Allura would have gone through in having to work with these guys, it would make total sense that there would be a lot of moments of cultural exchange. The show really hasn’t given us interaction like that though.

For some reason, a red space cloud suddenly appears and apparently has some force that affects the Paladins. They get pulled out of their floating, arms-linked posture, and lighting zaps their feet and pulls them away from each other. Hunk asks, “Keith what do we do,” and Keith stares at the camera, growls, and the sound of the other Paladins speaking becomes muffled. Keith lets go with one of his hands, turns, and starts swatting at the lighting. The force subsides, the red cloud and lightning disappears, and the group comes back together. Keith yells, “My bayard won’t work, we don’t know where the Lions are, we’re being attacked by things we can’t even see,” and Lance interrupts him to quietly say, “Keith what are you talking about, there’s nothing out there.” So the whole sequence was supposed to be Keith hallucinating?

I really don’t like stories where miscellaneous things happen, none of it is real, or some of it is real and some of it isn’t, but none of it is explained. I need to be able to ground my understanding of the unfolding of a plot, but stories like this end up feeling like a giant nothing. Things sort of technically happen, but none of it means anything because it’s just miscellaneously happening. It’s exhausting to watch.

They reset back to their arm-linked circle. Keith says there’s no point in sounding off anymore. Lance, Pidge, Allura do so in their standard way, Hunk says, “I am Hunk.” I do like that he wants to be different than the rest.

Allura says, “My father had something he always said in dire situations—” Keith interjects, “‘Give up?’” That upsets Allura, and Keith continues, “Just doesn’t seem like he was a real fighter when the chips were down.” Where in the world did that come from? If Keith had a history of expressing problems with Alfor, maybe it would be different, but there is no reason for Keith to say this. It’s more that the writer just wanted Keith to say something to upset Allura, and what better to upset her than to attack her father’s honor. It makes this moment feel so fake.

Allura rants at Keith, “You have a lot of nerve questioning someone’s leadership seeing how you left us.” I really don’t want to be reminded of the horribly written episode that is 4x01 “Code of Honor” and how everyone, Allura included, unjustly treated Keith like crap then. Keith then attacks Allura for her working with Lotor, and I really wish the show wasn’t reminding me about that badly told story too. As much as this show has settled in on Lotor is bad, the show still hasn’t invalidated any of Lotor’s arguments. Lance starts ranting, “Keith, you ran away. Maybe you should’ve just stayed away.”

I hate this.

I know this is supposed to be a story of a team under tremendous stress who’ll come through it together and stronger than ever. This is supposed to be some kind of presentation of team building. But it just does not work.

Hunk tries to hold them all together. Hunk talks about feeling scared all the time, and Keith responds, “Sorry, Hunk. Guess I just don’t know how to be a coward.”

I really hate this.

This story is supposed to function to unify the team, but it’s just making me not like these characters. There have always been some issues with these characters and how they interact with one another, about how they often don’t actually behave like friends, but it’s never really been this bad. And writing it to become this bad does not actually make things better. It just reveals that these characters don’t function as a team. And nothing that happens in this episode changes that, despite the episode pretending that it does.

Lance tells Keith to “just drift off by yourself,” and Keith activates his jetpack and goes to leave as Hunk grabs hold of Keith’s ankle. Hunk says, “We have to stay together,” and Keith responds, “Why, Hunk? Are we really even friends? Is there anything holding us together besides some messed up series of coincidences? I mean what are we, some chosen saviors? Do you really believe that? What are we even doing out there?”

This is almost halfway through the next to last season of the show, almost halfway through season seven. It feels really, really late in the show to have now be when characters are having this kind of argument. We, as the audience, are supposed to disagree with Keith here. We’re supposed to think that their friendship is what holds them together and that they’ve just lost sight of it. The problem with that is that the show hasn’t actually done any work building strong friendships between these characters, so Keith ends up sounding completely right. Are they friends? The haven’t really been shown to think of each other as friends, they don’t behave toward one another like friends, and they never have. That is a huge flaw of the writing of the series as a whole. And this episode does not change any of that.

They all see another light in the distance. Allura says it looks like a planet, and Lance says it’s Earth. Pidge says that the energy stream they were stuck in “must have knocked us all the way across the universe.” They all start jetpacking toward this hallucination. Only Hunk realizes something is wrong because they can’t see other planets or the moon or the sun. Hunk then tries to get them to stop.

Everyone starts yelling at Hunk. Pidge yells, “Just let us take you home.” I never like stories like this. The psychology of everyone acting against someone else, refusing to listen to them, and it being detrimental that they won’t listen, it just really disturbs me. Allura says, “Just trust us, Hunk. You’ll thank us when we get there.”

Honestly, this episode triggers some psychological distress for me.

Hunk breaks free from the others, maneuvers away from them, pulls out his bayard, the others flying toward him with absurd smiles on their faces that caricaturizes their mental states, Hunk forms his cannon and shoots Earth. Earth disappears and turns into the eyeball of some giant space creature.

It tries to swallow them. Allura says, “We can’t even use our bayards.” Aside from the one time Keith tried to do so, they haven’t actually tried to use them, so I don’t know why she’s assuming that she can’t (oh yeah, because the writer has written them to behave with certain assumptions rather than to write them to have realistically arrived at conclusions). They ask Hunk how he did it, and he says, “I don’t know. I just knew that I needed to.”

Hunk starts to attack the creature, telling the others he’ll buy them time to escape. Despite Hunk having put a lot of distance between him and them, suddenly they’re able to grab him by his ankle, and they use their jetpacks to pull Hunk away from the creature.

The mental state and the expressed opinions of these characters now have changed by the flip of a switch. This is NOT character growth!

Hunk asks why they didn’t use the opportunity he was giving them to escape, and Lance replies, “Why would we ever do that without you?” and Pidge says, “Yeah, you can’t expect us to just leave you,” and Allura says, “We’re a team, Hunk. We have to stick together, like you said,” and Keith apologizes for what he said earlier. I really don’t like the voice acting/direction here. The characters spent so long speaking as if worn down, the stress of the experience and anger in their voices, and now, with a flip of a switch, they’re talking with their normal voices. Lance’s and Pidge’s lines especially sound like they think Hunk is being absurd and that Hunk’s behavior came out of nowhere and that it’s strange and silly for anyone to think that they’re not some super-tight group of friends.

This episode is spastic.

Keith says, “This series of messed up coincidences did happen for a reason. It brought us together as Paladins. But more importantly, it brought us together as friends.”

No, it did not. Literally, what has changed? Aside from the time allotted for the episode running out and the story needing to be resolved in some way, what has changed to make them all suddenly realize the power of friendship? It’s not that Hunk was willing to fight and sacrifice himself for them because the rest of them don’t acknowledge that that is what he was doing; instead, they act baffled by Hunk’s actions. There is nothing that has happened or that has changed that makes them friends.

This is all so hollow.

There’s a split-screen of half of all their faces, which then shifts to half of the faces of their Lions, their bayards turn to weapons, they fly to attack the creature. Whatever. They have no success hurting it with their bayards, so the Lions come in and shoot the creature and it flees.

Then the flashing cloud in space returns. Allura says, “We know we can’t outrun it,” and Keith declares, “We’re not running this time.” They get in their Lions, and they form Voltron. I know it’s supposed to function as a narrative moment of triumph and unity, but it doesn’t feel like that to me at all.

Voltron is engulfed by the cloud, they enter the energy stream, it changes colors this time as they fly through it. The Black Lion and the Red Lion present their booster bayard slots to Keith and Lance, and they upgrade Voltron’s wings. The additional engines of the wings activate. And then poof. They slow down, look around, and those who had been frozen in time are back to normal.

And then this annoys me:

Pidge says, “I recognize these constellations! This is Earth’s solar system!” The episode then cuts from Pidge saying this to showing an image of a galaxy. There is no way Pidge could have “recognized [any] constellations” because they are depicted as being outside of the galaxy. In order to “recognize these constellations,” they would have to be in Earth’s solar system. Pidge declares, “It’s the Milky Way!” No, it actually isn’t. The background artist did not do their job, they did no research whatsoever if they think that this is what the Milky Way looks like. The Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy. It has a very thick bar through the center of the galaxy, and then huge spiraling arms coming out from that center. The galaxy of this background artwork has no bar and no spiral arms. The galaxy in this artwork might could be classified as a lenticular galaxy, but it’s most absolutely not a barred spiral.

So, the dialog does not match the animation. Despite having Pidge “recognize these constellations,” Voltron is depicted as being millions of light-years away from the Milky Way. There is no way whatsoever to see any constellations, let alone to see stars arranged at the precise angles that would have them constitute constellations that are associated with the perspective from Earth.

They jet off toward home.

So, yeah. This episode. I really do not like this episode. It’s significantly inconsistent with previous episodes. I hate what it does with Shiro. I hate how it’s built around having the characters argue for the sake of argument. I am baffled how the creative team thought this episode demonstrated team bonding and character growth. Just, no.

#voltron legendary defender #voltron #vld #voltron criticism #vld criticism #voltron critical #vld critical #vld season 7 #vld 7x06 #commentary

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

Spider-Gwen: Ghost Spider #4 Thoughts

 The very, very, very end of Spider-Geddon and...a surprisingly great issue!

Covering this comic is very strange for me because I’m coming at it from two places mentally speaking.

Firstly I’m jumping into the fourth and final tie in issue to an event comic having not read the prior three issues.

Secondly I’m jumping into Spider-Gwen, a series I abandoned long ago, back in volume 2 issue #10 to be precise, which was published over 2 years before this issue was. It also had an entirely different writer/artist team back then.

Frankly I picked this up purely because I knew Mayday and some RYV characters were going to be in it. In that regard the issue was rather pointless, they cameo and do little else.

However I’m actually glad I bothered with the comic all the same. I was expecting this to be fluff and filler at best. An insufferable worshipping of Gwen Stacy, as so many comics (including Spider-Gwen itself) was when Spider-Gwen got big back in 2014-2016.

To my delight that wasn’t the case.

I admit to being rather lost with some plot points such as Gwen having a symbiote (this was brought up in Spider-Geddon #2 but it was unexplained there too) and how exactly Gwen can transverse dimensions.

However the rest of the issue was mostly good. Now I read Secret Wars: Spider-Verse, Web Warriors and Spider-Geddon #0-5 but I didn’t read any other Spider-Gwen or Ghost Spider issues so to me Gwen’s sense of loss over Noir and Spidey-UK felt rather unearned and cheap. It wasn’t that I didn’t think she’s be upset over losing a comrade but the deep sense of loss and words towards little habits within their respective relationships didn’t ring true to me. However that may have come up in issues I didn’t read so I’m willing to be corrected on that.

But based upon my reading Gwen feeling as sad as she did was a bit of a stretch. I also felt the milking of Spidey-UK’s death from a reader point of view was questionable because...did anyone honestly love that character? Spider-Man Noir I can understand, he has a fanbase (and this issue hammered home how asinine a decision it was to kill him back at the start of this event) but Billy Braddock? Who cares really? He was used for some cheap pathos in Web Warriors and that was about it. Now that being said I did love the idea behind him being buried in Lady Spider’s dimension as she was English (although if memory serves that was never confirmed outright, she may have simply lived in 1800s New York). I did wonder where the Hell Lady Spider was throughout this event though.

The addressing of Noir’s death though was much more necessary and as stupid as it was to kill him I do give Marvel credit for having an issue which addresses that. His fans deserved at least that much, particularly I think the Noir/Felicia shippers who are undoubtedly out there. I also very much appreciated how May, MJ and Felicia had different reactions to his death respectively.

Another great thing was that the general addressing of grief, sadness and death in the issue felt respectful. It felt real even though as I said the specifics of Gwen’s relationship with Noir and Spidey-UK didn’t quite ring true. It’s like it would’ve been perfect dialogue and execution if used for another character’s death.  A small detail I especially  liked in this regard was Gwen’s drumming as a coping mechanism. One of my major complaints in Latour’s issues was how Gwen’s hobbies and passions were underused and underdeveloped. She was a drummer but that didn’t factor that much into the stories I read. So to see McGuire embrace that is as welcome as Miles’ artistic talents in ITSV.

Now I admit, those of you who recall my thoughts on Latour’s Spider-Gwen book might be calling me a hypocrite here. Because another of my frequent complaints was how doom and gloom and glum Gwen typically was in that series from the outset, yet here I’m praising that.

I think the distinction is this. Latour came out the gate defining Gwen as grieving and guilt ridden, reeling from a tragedy that happened an undisclosed amount of time ago (but still making with the yuks and gags). Not only was this tonal whiplash but it also was a shitty way to set up a new ongoing series. It began world building for Gwen in media-res of extenuating circumstances and circumstances which were incredibly derivative of Peter Parker.

Where McGuire succeeds in this issue is by having not only a distinctly different tragedy but also the benefit of this occurring both after Gwen’s world has been built up and in the aftermath of a huge event. It’s totally realistic and earned that there would be a mourning for fallen warriors after a war. It’d be disrespectful for that not to be the case; in fact it’s kind of disrespectful that that mourning happens in a tie-in issue not the main book!

By having this issue actually deal with the aftermath it re-contextualizes the prior issues of the event. Spider-Geddon as a whole was definitely a bloated poorly written inconsistent mess. But this issue as a coda treats it with the weight the main book never had. There is an emotional realism to the story even though we are dealing with something as wacky as inter-dimensional travel and totem vampires.

This emotional realism is pulled off so well you even feel a little something for Karn’s death, you even feel bad he died alone and so violently even though again, no one is a fan of that character. No one gives a shit about him.

Part of this realism comes from McGuire from this one issue apparently being an inherently better writer than Latour ever was, at least for Spider-Gwen. Latour in all this works I’ve read emphasises style, and wants you to ‘watch’ the story unfold rather than feel like you are right there with the characters. You can ‘see’ Spider-gwen is upset but McGuire takes you inside her head and writes her grief from the inside out. Latour might’ve used internal narration but he rarely pulled this off, probably because he was too busy making a clown show on the side with stupid ass Spider-Ham cameos, wacky humour about the Bodega Bandit or building up Evil Daredevil instead of you know, the ACTUAL main character.

His Spider-Gwen work felt a lot like watching things sort of just happened rather than experiencing things unfolding like in this issue.

What further enhances this story is the deliberate or accidental metatext behind the story. No I am not talking about how Stan Lee had recently died when the issue came out, though that did make me tear up thinking about it.

Gwen has been rebranded Ghost Spider (though her recap page doesn’t quite admit that weirdly) and this is an issue about Gwen dealing with ghosts, dealing with death, spreading the grim news as a reluctant messenger of death. That angle just works in this issue and if embraced would work brilliantly as a new element to the character to latch onto. In no small part because, as the issue itself acknowledges, Gwen Stacy’s legacy is inherently linked to death.

That might be admittedly a radical departure from the punk rock youth vibe the series began with, but not only was that rather squandered by Latour (with bullshit like Hipster Electro and Hipster Kraven the Hunter, go fuck yourself seriously!) but at the end of the day that vibe is perhaps rather...shallow...for an ongoing character...??????

Other elements of the issue I liked was the artwork. It’s not much like what Rodriguez was going, which was I admit very distinct and gave Spider-Gwen’s series a unique identity. But this art is still lovely and works very well for the subject matter. What is particularly nice was the different period outfits Gwen adopted as she made her travels through the multiverse. Also, though this isn’t strictly ‘art’ per se, the word balloons at Karn’s funeral have a cool moment where everyone speaks a salute to Karn and the combined word balloons look like a spider. That was just a cool touch.

My final note is that McGuire has one of the best Peter Parker moments I’ve seen in a long time, and considering the quality of Spencer’s run that is not damning with faint praise (as it would’ve been just over a year ago). In the scene Spider-Gwen and 616 Peter discuss Gwen needing some time off and Gwen asks if that is selfish. On the one hand this is a little bit derivative of Peter Parker, King of Guilt and Responsibility. On the other hand I guess most heroes would ask this of themselves. Peter Parker surprisingly gives a very mature answer.

Now this answer is very much in character and logical for Peter, but it’s also something too often writers neglect in favour of writing Peter in a repetitive manner that renders him a caricature. Peter acknowledges it is selfish but that that is not wrong, He says the world will always need saving but the heroes get to pick their battles and have to sometimes rest, that indeed they deserve it.

Though a mere moment in a story not about him McGuire writes a Peter Parker who truly feels like a mature adult, that feels like the Peter who is truly the sum of his experiences.

Were this teenage or college aged Peter he wouldn’t have been likely to say that. If it was friggin Slott’s Peter Parker definitely not (even though he’d have still gone to play with Miles in the park rather than do his actual job). But a Peter Parker who’s insanely experienced and knows his limits? Yes absolutely he’d know he’s entitled to down time and more importantly needs it. It’s demonstrative of how guilt is present in his character and yet is not the defining trait. Responsibility is, and there is a responsibility to himself. Spidey-UK even echoes such a sentiment earlier in the story.

So with all that said I must admit this issue was a tremendous triumph from where I’m standing, I’d recommend you read it and would go so far as to call it the best issue of Spider-Gwen I’ve ever read sans her debut.

Does it change my feelings for Spider-Geddon as a whole?

No, it still sucked and was still pointless beyond resurrecting MC2 Peter (which in my book makes it worth it, sorry Spidey Noir fans, I’m sure he’ll be back eventually) but this last issue took it out on an unquestionable high note.

#Spider-Geddon #Spider-Gwen #Ghost Spider #Gwen Stacy #Spider-Man #Jason Latour #Robbi Rodriguez #Seanan McGuire #Peter Parker #Spider-Man Noir #Dan Slott #Nick Spencer #Lady Spider #May Parker

[moononmyfloor]

Review: The Tyrant's Tomb by Rick Riordan

Thoughts on The Cover

Well, if you've seen my previous posts by now you'd know that I'm not a big fan of loud and action-packed covers. I prefer classy, if not always subtle. But you might like it! See, Reyna is owning the bigger portion of it, which is a nice change. :-)

Ok to Low Points

Halfway through the book, I was STILL unable to "get" into the story

Literally, not much was going on for 2/3 of the whole book, which is very surprising considering:

The time between the release dates of The Tyrant's Tomb and The Burning Maze is the longest as of yet. Whereas other books within a series have come out within twelve months of each other, these two books will be released within eighteen months of each other.

.....and that even the most boring books by Uncle Rick had some silver linings here and there to keep you engaged. Even The Dark Prophecy had the gang arrive and settle in Indianapolis, visit the zoo and free Griffins and REVISIT the emperor. Here? Apollo and Co. escorted Jason's hearse into Camp Jupiter in a frankly insulting manner(more about that later), Apollo got sick, we see that the noble prophecies are being tattooed on Tyson's back, Apollo and Co. went on a lil' trial quest and returned, Apollo got more sick.🤷‍♀️ I was so confused I opened the previous books to see how far those stories had progressed by midpoint.

It got slightly better later on, but it doesn't change the fact throughout the 1st half of the book I just kept on turning pages SIMPLY because I wanted it to get it on with and finish the story. Sad.

2. The so-called Tyrant

I didn't see much tyranny, like...only 3 pages were spent in the Tyrant's Tomb and his company, bad old Commodus and Caligula had more appearances than Tarquin who re-appeared in the very last chapters only to get immediately vanquished courtesy of Diana.....yeah. That's that.

3. How Jason's final voyage was depicted

Uncle Rick doesn't write emotional crying scenes well.

People talk about peeing and pop chewing gum bubbles while delivering the hearses of valued, honored characters.

And I seriously wonder in what position and condition poor Jason's body was after all the drama his coffin underwent.

And based on the spoilery lines(which sadly turned out to be not spoilers at all) we saw in the Magnus Chase series I thought we'd at least get a Percy-Annabeth cameo in this, that Jason will have more of his closest comrades mourning and sending him off. Nah. Nada. Not even a mention of Annabeth. Then why did Uncle Rick mention things like Annabeth and Percy being at California and even Magnus joining them at their time of crisis? Utter puzzlement. And we were also robbed of Nico's reaction to Jason's demise, considering how much Nico valued Jason as a brother-in-arms and a friend. Let's not even talk about Thalia. Why, Uncle Rick? :-(

Which brings us to...

4. Plot Inconsistencies

Why do I have to talk about this in each and every book? :-( Seriously, why would you write about Percy and Annabeth going to New Rome to attend college and being broken hearted over Jason DURING the period of Demigod communication malfunction, only to have us know they have YET to travel across the country and when we meet them again it would still be at New York? And now the communication is working, proving that Uncle Rick conveniently forgot about the clues he conveniently dropped.

AT LEAST I'm glad one thing is consistent in the Trials of Apollo series, that when Zeus decided they'll stop meddling too much in demigod affairs at the end of Heroes of Olympus, he meant it and now it's super duper hard to seek a god even for dire needs, no matter how wonderfully (ill)timed that decision was, costing lives of valued heroes.

5. The Haiku-titles weren't amusing at all this time.

I found one fun haiku .

O, blood moon rising

Take a rain check on doomsday

I’m stuck in traffic

6. The whole Apollo-Reyna debacle.

I would say Uncle Rick pulled a clever twist by turning fan theories on their heads here, but it too way more plot space than needed and when he got to the "Gotcha!" part, I was not feeling it. For YEARS now, we heard abut this no-mortal-no-demigod thing over and over, and fans predicted it might mean Apollo's the one for Reyna. And when it initially seemed like it was the route that Uncle Rick was indeed taking, the only thought that circulated inside my head was; "Reyna doesn't need this completely random and unwanted baggage! Give the girl a dam break!!" But then he was like; "Lol nooo. You kids are wrong", but STILL I was not happy...well, for obvious reasons.

What's the point of this whole plotline? So unnecessary. I mean, the fans always wondered WHY exactly would Reyna think she needs a partner in her life, but now I see Reyna might not have had time to contemplate her personal life logically like WE had what's with her dramatic life. Of course the shallow gods would think her heart was something to be "cured" and Reyna never stopped to think that it's quite the opposite till Apollo provided her with a breather and reason. And to answer why din't she choose to join Amazons instead of Hunters is probably that she wanted to be her own person and not be under her sis the Queen once again. She'd indeed have the freedom, calm and few friends so she wouldn't feel lonely and bored with the Hunt. She might even choose to leave Hunters after she found herself in her own time. I get it. But the way it was dragged and executed was meh.

If Uncle Rick intended this plotline of Reyna to be empowering for female readers, in my opinion it was not. Yes, even a badass girl could have weaknesses, not enough self-confidence and wobbly life choices, but Reyna took too much time with her "Eureka!" moment.

It was funny while it lasted, at least.

“Lester.” Reyna sighed. “What in Tartarus are you saying? I’m not in the mood for riddles.”

“That maybe I’m the answer,” I blurted. “To healing your heart. I could…you know, be your boyfriend. As Lester. If you wanted. You and me. You know, like…yeah.”

HAHAHAHA. That Totally came from the left field Lester, even for you.

“Your girlfriend was pregnant when you had her killed?” Reyna launched another kick at my face. I managed to dodge it, since I’d had a lot of practice cowering, but it hurt to know that this time she hadn’t been aiming at an incoming raven. Oh, no. She wanted to knock my teeth in.

“You suck,” Meg agreed.

I mean, if THIS is not the ultimate deal breaker then what is? Apollo might have changed for better by now, but it doesn't mean we can overlook what he did. I for one certainly don't need a loveline for him in this series. I'm glad Uncle Rick drew(or at least seemed to have) a clear line here.

High Points

It took half the page count even for Uncle Rick's special brand of snark to return. Nonetheless I managed to find some good ones. Which is what matters, right?

1.

“So,” I said, making a second attempt at nonchalance, “are you and Thalia, er…?”

Reyna raised an eyebrow. “Involved romantically?”

“Well, I just…I mean…Um…”

Oh, very smooth, Apollo. Have I mentioned I was once the god of poetry?

Reyna rolled her eyes. “If I had a denarius for every time I got that question…Aside from the fact that Thalia is in the Hunters, and thus sworn to celibacy…Why does a strong friendship always have to progress to romance?"

Preach, sister. But then again I would have to ask did YOU have to swear to celibacy to prove your independence....which is sort of the point🙄..

2.

Even when I was a god and could speak any language I wanted, I’d never sung well in Italian. I kept mixing it up with Latin, so I came off sounding like Julius Caesar with a head cold.

LOL

3.

It was time to be helpful. I needed to be repulsive for my friends!

Which you're most of the time...the latter sentence I mean.

4. Don't we all relate? 😂

“O protector of Rome!” I read aloud. “O insert name here!”

5. And one more.

I bet Gregorix was wishing he’d pursued that business degree his mom always wanted him to get. Being a barbarian bodyguard was mentally exhausting.

.

Heartrending quotes.

1.

This was the source of all our communications troubles—one sad, angry, forgotten little god.

2. This was the wisest quote I saw in the book. The simple indescribable deepness of letting go.

“Good-bye, Apollo,” said the Sibyl’s voice, clearer now. “I forgive you. Not because you deserve it. Not for your sake at all. But because I will not go into oblivion carrying hate when I can carry love.”

Even if I could’ve spoken, I wouldn’t have known what to say. I was in shock. Her tone asked for no reply, no apology. She didn’t need or want anything from me. It was almost as if I were the one being erased.

3. I was saddened to learn about Julia's untimely loss, but I'm sure everybody had a meltdown moment at the following scene.

The old god’s face hardened a bit more, which shouldn’t have been possible for stone. “I see. Well. I’ve concentrated the last bits of my power here, around Julia. They may destroy New Rome, but they will not harm this girl!”

“Or this statue!” said Julia.

4. Honestly? I too forgot until Apollo pointed it out and then I had *shivers*! They're one immediate family, grieving over one loss that affects all of them in various ways, and having mixed reactions about each others the members who survived!

I shivered. How easy it was to forget that this young woman was also my sister. And Jason was my brother. At one time, I would have discounted that connection. They’re just demigods, I would have said. Not really family.

Overall Conclusion

This is the most bored-outta-my-mind I felt after reading a PJO universe book. Am I finally growing out of the Percy Jackson and the Heroes of Olympus fandom? Oh dear, I hope not. I can't imagine living without it and I'm SO not happy with this new development. Just as I feared, Uncle Rick couldn't keep it up after the excellent Burning Maze and now.....please, for your fans' sake who had been loyal for years, I hope at least the final book delivers. Just so we could at least part ways/go dormant with pleasant sentiments and a content heart.🙆‍♀️

#rick riordan #trials of apollo #Percy Jackson and the Olympians #the tyrants tomb #book reviews. #reviews #pjo

[nellie-elizabeth]

Supernatural: Lebanon (14x13)

Hmm. So I...  Hm. I have a lot of thoughts and feelings to discuss. This is probably going to turn in to quite the review. It's one of those ones where I really don't know how I'm going to fall on the scale when I grade it at the end. I'm just going to start writing, and I'll get to my thoughts through that.

Cons:

If I were to review this episode by comparing it to the milestone 200th episode, I might look on it with some disfavor. Why? Well, this was an episode centered around the nuclear Winchester family. So, the focus was on Sam, Dean, John, and Mary. And I'm cool with there being an episode focusing on that dynamic, and it's neat that Jeffrey Dean Morgan was able to come back and all that. But the 200th episode managed to focus on the themes of the show as a whole. It focused mostly on Sam and Dean, but it referenced everything from Adam to Destiel to Chuck to the Samulet and so much more. It was an episode that managed to be about the ever-changing, twisting road that is Supernatural over the seasons. This episode, by contrast, was kind of a "taking it back to basics" sort of episode, that encapsulated the original, long past, aims and themes of the show. Not a bad idea for an episode AT ALL. Just an interesting choice for such a big milestone. Barely any Cas, no Jack, no other recurring guests or even mention of them really... it felt like this episode existed in a time capsule, a little bubble that could have landed anywhere in any season and felt just as appropriate. Is that a bad thing? I don't know.

The elephant in the room here is that John Winchester was a demonstrably abusive father. Supernatural demonstrates that, but ever since his death back at the start of Season Two, the show has been inconsistent in how it's treated the memory of this character. It makes perfect sense, and is indeed good, that Sam and Dean themselves would have conflicting emotions. I don't mind that sometimes Dean brings up how awful John was, and other times seems to canonize him as some sort of a saint. That makes sense for his character. I don't mind that Sam has forgiven John for everything and has his own regrets about their tempestuous relationship. But here's where it gets a little more shaky for me. Think about it: from John Winchester's perspective in this episode, he's in 2003. He and Sam are not on speaking terms. He is continuing to emotionally and perhaps physically abuse and manipulate Dean, who idolizes him in an unhealthy way. Sam and Dean can remember their dad with rose colored glasses, but a more interesting, and more real, interpretation of the John Winchester that they should be meeting in this episode would be one that's so full of anger and grief that he lashes out at his two sons and can't accept Sam wanting to do anything outside of the hunting life.

I like that Sam and John had their big apology/reconciliation scene. I like that Sam expresses that he put their arguments aside a long time ago. But what about Dean? The problem is, John is right in the middle of things with Dean - from his perspective, he would have no reason for apologizing. And Dean would never ask for that apology, or express any anger. But Dean deserves to feel that anger. He deserves for his years of perspective to have taught him that his dad wasn't really a good father to him at all. He was, at minimum, neglectful, and Dean doesn't get to confront that in any meaningful way in this episode.

A couple of smaller notes: as I said above, I understand that this episode had a rather narrow focus on the Winchesters, but it did include a few other characters - namely, Cas and Zachariah. If you were going to do the whole timeline being rewritten thing, cool. If you were going to throw in a few cameos, cool. But this is the 300th episode, people! Is Zachariah really the best pull you have? No Bobby? No Naomi? No Charlie? Gabriel? Jody? Nothing? Time is being rewritten! There are so many creative cameos you could have done here, and it could have been brief, and not taken away from the focus on John. Zach just felt like a very odd choice for such a brief reappearance. Also, does killing him mess up the timeline even more? Time travel makes my head hurt.

I liked the random teens at the beginning of the episode, but it felt odd to cram in this story at the start of the episode, and then toss it aside for much of the run-time. There was just a bit too much focus on the kids to discount it as window dressing, and not enough focus to really bring them in to the limelight as characters in their own right.

Pros:

If I try to tear myself away from reviewing this as a milestone episode, I think I look at it with much more favor. John Winchester has long been a looming presence on this show, and I think the opportunity to focus on him, and more specifically, on his sons' memories and relationships with him, is a great concept for an episode. I personally think John sucks, and I might have wished for him to be treated a bit less kindly by the narrative in this instance. But I'm on Sam and Dean's side, always. I want what's best for them, and a happy family is what they want and totally deserve. I liked seeing that.

For me, I would forgive a hell of a lot of crap for just the moment with Sam and Dean washing up dishes after dinner. That scene for me was the one moment that most made this episode feel like the 300th. It's just Sam and Dean alone, talking about what a shame it is that they'll send John back and he won't remember anything, thus making the whole trip pointless. But Dean points out that as hard as their lives have been, he doesn't want to change anything because then, what would that make them? Dean says he's good with who he is, and with who Sam is too. That is freakin' HUGE. That is a capstone moment for Dean Winchester's character development, and it made me instantly misty-eyed.

Let's do a little check-in with the Cas corner here. Yeah, I might be slightly bummed he wasn't in more of the episode, but there are several things to discuss even so. First of all, Misha killed it with his performance as the back-to-Angel-basics Castiel that we saw. We see the wings, he calls himself an Angel of the Lord, and he kicks the crap out of Sam and Dean. First of all, I'm sure Misha took great satisfaction in that. Second of all, I love the way that Cas is used as a shorthand for everything that's wrong with this changing timeline. Before this moment, Dean was happy to accept the changing universe as recompense for having John back. After this encounter, Sam and Dean both know that things have gone too far. A world where Cas doesn't know them, and tries to kill them, is unacceptable. I also like that Sam and Zachariah paired off for the fight, leaving us with the delicious angst of Dean trying to stop Cas from killing him. (Again. Sheesh). I love that bewildered, heartbroken look on Dean's face when he realizes Cas doesn't know him. And I also love that as the episode ends, the real Cas, our Cas, returns to the bunker, solidifying his place among the core cast of the show, and among the family.

Another thing that I was struggling with a bit in this episode is that the focus was so much on the family, but the family seemed only to include the Winchester four. "Family don't end in blood" is one of the more powerful lines and sentiments from this show's long history. But as the hour progressed, I realized that this core message wasn't being disregarded. Sam and Dean fill John in on everything that he's missed, and they're clear to emphasize that they live in a bunker with an angel and with Lucifer's son. They don't have time to go in to all of the details, but they're sure to fill John in on the state of their family - Sam, Dean, Mary, Cas, Jack. That's family to them now. This important point is re-emphasized again as John has a moment with Dean, lamenting that Dean never got out of the life, and instead was pulled in by John's mission. He says he thought Dean would have a family of his own one day, and Dean instantly responds: "I have a family." This moment is strengthened by his later saying to Sam that he's good with who he is. Yes, he never settled down with a single romantic partner and had babies of his own, but he is not at all dissatisfied or unfulfilled when it comes to a strong family system. It's not just the Winchesters vs. the rest of the world anymore, and that's important to point out.

I know that I earlier said that I had some qualms about the opening sequence with the teens, but I actually really liked the stuff with the pawn shop, the magic items, and Sam and Dean on a regular hunt. It felt a little imbalanced within the pacing of the episode, but I also think it's important to note another key aspect of this story: an homage to the humble beginnings of Supernatural. Sam and Dean are on a simple hunt. They have to burn an item to defeat a ghost. There's a hilarious gag about the ghost of John Wayne Gacy, given Sam's hatred of clowns and fascination with serial killers. It's all very classic Supernatural. It's a sequence that could fit into the show in any season at all. It's also a chance for us to spend some time with Sam and Dean alone, doing what they do best. That was once the only heart of this show that mattered, and it's still one of the most important pieces to the puzzle. We also get John fighting Sam and Dean in the dark, in a nice echo of Sam and Dean's fight in the pilot. All of this serves to show that this 300th episode is about honoring the show's origins, instead of trying to encompass the whole thing. I have conflicting feelings about that, as shown above, but mostly I think it's done really well.

On a smaller note, I love the introduction of the concept that Sam and Dean go about town in Lebanon as the Campbell brothers, and that they've become something of a local legend. That was such a cool idea. I never really thought about their day-to-day reality, but it's cool to think about them being an urban legend, because it kind of brings the show around full circle. From hunting urban legends to becoming one! And the kids describing Cas and Jack was hilarious. Another moment to emphasize that Team Free Will includes all four of the boys.

And now to the performances. Because... holy hell. This episode starts to fall apart a bit if you scrutinize the plot too closely. John Winchester, as I mentioned, is not behaving very John Winchester-y. But this is about Sam and Dean getting closure, and let me tell ya... all four of these actors (Padalecki, Ackles, Morgan, and Smith) were giving it their all, and I felt every one of those heartbreaking, heartwarming moments. I'm going to rapid-fire some of the best things I noticed:

- The way John's voice cracked on the word "Mary" when he heard her voice.

- John and Mary holding hands, and John saying "my girl" to her... instant tears.

- The look on Sam's face when John said "I'm proud of you."

- The hug between John and his two sons, complete with all three of them crying.

- Dean saying "I love you too." Just like... wow. Dude has been throwing the love word around a lot and I am all about it.

- Dean flinching when Sam crushed the pearl.

- Sam saying that he thinks about John a lot and doesn't think about their fights, but thinks instead about not getting to say goodbye.

- Both Sam and John saying "I'm sorry."

- All of the overly sappy yet beautiful shots during the family dinner, of the family laughing, and sharing stories, and eating Winchester Surprise. The fact that this is the ONLY family dinner that they've ever had that way is just heartbreaking. But I'm so happy they got to have it.

Well, what did I tell you? This review is long. I knew it would be. 300 episodes, you guys. Holy crap. And we've got a Season Fifteen coming around the bend. I was really pleased with Jeffrey Dean Morgan's performance, and I thought Jared and Jensen killed it with the emotional material as usual. Are my thoughts conflicted? Yes. But is this one of those episodes that I'll probably go back and watch again? Also yes. It stands out, and it made me emotional. That's kind of all I can ask for.

8.5/10

#review #supernatural #supernatural review #spn 14x13 #spn 300th #spn

[purple-spring]

How long did it take you to become this well of a writer? Do you have any tips or suggestions? I want to make my writing more exciting and vibrant like yours is. I feel like it's not as good as yours and I want it to be the best it can be.

Hey there, @fangirlthatreads​! I’ve been sitting on this ask for a while and I do apologise for that, but I was so incredibly touched that you came to me with this kind of question that I wanted to answer it as best as I could, and create a sort of masterpost for writing in the process. I’m devoting my whole day to answering this, so hopefully it’s worth the wait :)

So, to answer your first question, I guess I’ve always enjoyed and have been fairly competent in writing. I wrote all throughout school, but never really got the opportunity to continue that in college, so I got a bit rusty. I only really started again recently (Sprousehart and Bughead were too tempting to resist), which has just been the most joyful, creativity-unleashing thing. I started simply by writing the beginning for “Tomorrow” because I couldn’t get the idea out of my head, and I had a very vocal cheerleader (hi, @jandjsalmon​) encouraging me to write the whole thing. I haven’t looked back since then. 

As for tips and suggestions, I thought about this for a long time and came up with the following, which I’ve tried to divide into three sections after the cut - READ, LISTEN, WRITE. 

Anyway, without any further ado, I give you –

paperlesscrown’s personal guide to writing 

—-READ—-

I mean, your account name kind of gives it away, but I’m sure you read a lot! But my #1 tip for writers is to read voraciously. I often think of it as fuel for the tank: you can’t put out what you don’t put in. When I run into writers’ block, it’s the first thing I do - I purchase a book for my Kindle and bunker down and read.

Three kinds of reading that I do:

Fanfic - This is a no-brainer. It’s important to expose yourself to the different interpretations of the canon and the characters you are writing about. I must admit that I’m not always the most up-to-date fanfic reader, but I am always hitting up @blueandgoldoffice​ and my dear friend @theatreofexpression​ for suggestions and recommendations. 

Literature - This is important, too. As amazing as fanfic writers are, there is a whole other universe out there of incredibly written original fiction (and poetry!). Anything I can get my hands on, I get onto it. It’s why I bought myself a Kindle - I carry it around with me everywhere to make sure that I am constantly feeding my brain with exciting plots and engaging characters and beautifully turned phrases. 

I often try to read specifically, too. What do I mean by this? So, for example, when I was writing “Apparitions”, which included huge chunks of dialogue between Cole and Lili, I chose to read One Day by David Nicholls, which I knew had a lot of earthy, realistic dialogue between a couple in love. When I was writing my first smutty fic (“In here, too”), I made sure to read The Boss by Abigail Barnette, which is an INCREDIBLE Dom/Sub series (which honestly every Dom!Jug writer should read) with amazingly written sex scenes.

I also make sure I read different formats - not just chapter books, but also longform articles, poetry, etc. I read a lot of short stories because I write exclusively in one-shots, so reading them allows me to see how writers develop plot within a limited word count. 

Writers’ resources - This is something I’ve started doing recently, and it’s made such a huge difference. There is a whole world of writers’ resources out there. I recently bought the Emotion Thesaurus, which is described as “a writers’ guide to character expression.” It. Is. Amazing. It catalogues an emotion and the different ways a character could express them (that way I’m able to avoid cliches or vary the way that the emotion is expressed). It’s formatted like this:

It’s quite cheap on Amazon and such a worthwhile purchase. You should also check out websites such as Reference for Writers, which has SO MANY amazing resources for writers, plus links to similar websites. 

Meta - Read analysis on your characters, whether it’s a recap from website like Vulture and AV Club or (with Riverdale specifically) meta posts from places like @riverdalemeta, which compiles all the incredible theorising from around the fandom. It helps you think about your characters more clearly. A good story always comes from a good grasp of character, and sometimes meta posts make a world of difference in understanding a character. 

—-LISTEN—-

Listen to…

1. A beta. I cannot emphasise this enough. Betas make all the difference between a good piece of writing and a great one. My forever beta, @jandjsalmon, has saved from terrible writing decisions and has also steered me towards incredible ones. @theatreofexpression is a constant source of ideas, headcanons and discussions about the show. The thing about betas is that they are essentially your first audience and an important first filter for your work. They are able to pick up on inconsistencies, disruptions to flow, awkward phrasing, spelling and grammar errors, etc. I often think about them as the midwives for our stories. I may be the one giving birth to it, but it’s the beta who guides me with how to breathe, stand, position myself, etc. and essentially get the baby out into the world (sorry for the weird metaphor, lol). Always, always try and work with one.  

2. The characters you are writing about. A handy tip - whenever I am writing, I put the show on in the background (as long as it’s not distracting), or interviews with the actors (if I’m writing RPF). It helps me to get a good grasp on their voice. With Bughead, I’m not much of an AU author - I prefer writing and expanding on canon scenes, so it’s important for me to try and get the voice, tone and phrasing of each character right (as well as the overall tone and atmosphere of the scene).

3. Music. Music can activate some really strong emotions and neurological reactions in us that help us to write well. Some people like writing to playlists (I made one for “What she wanted”), while others like listening to instrumental music. Both are fine, although sometimes I can find lyrics quite distracting. In terms of instrumental music, I listen to a lot of Philip Glass (classical and heavy) and Explosions in the Sky (indie and atmospheric) when I write. 

—-WRITE—-

I guess there’s nothing left to do but to write! 

Start small. I write a lot of drabbles, as you may have noticed, and those are just small writing exercises for me to keep the words flowing. Not everything you write will contribute to an amazing story, but it’s important to keep putting ideas to paper. 

Engage in writing prompts. These don’t have to be Bughead-specific. There are plenty of writing prompts on the net - Pinterest is a great place to find some good ones!

Do writing sprints. I actually learned about this idea from the incredible @tory-b​, who does this with other writers on the wonderful Bughead Family Discord. It’s basically stretches of 30 minutes to an hour where you do nothing but write. It doesn’t have to be perfect - it just needs to be written down. It’s a way for you to knuckle down and focus and not have any sort of pressure in terms of getting everything perfect. While my job and life often prevent me from engaging in these, they’re an awesome idea for any budding writer.

Practical tip: Google Docs is your friend. This is a tip just for logistics, but I write on Google Docs rather than Microsoft Word because it’s a lot more portable and I work on multiple devices throughout the day. I have Google Docs installed on my phone and I access it via my web browser off my laptop. This just means I can work on a story when I’m travelling, when I’m at home, even when I’m standing in line at a grocery store. I’m often hit by inspiration quite randomly, so this works really well for me. It’s also the best tool for betas - they are able to edit and make comments in a way that’s easy for them and doesn’t involve multiple file-sending.

…

Anyway. I truly apologise for that insane essay, but I hope this can help you (and anyone else). If you have any other questions, please feel free to send them to me! I hope we can read more of your work soon! xx

#paperlesscrown writes #guide to writing #writing tips and suggestions

[fountainpenguin]

P & Q

P: How much do you plan in advance versus letting the story unfold as you go?

Story-wise, ends and general events are always planned early on (All 130 Prompts, most of Identity Theft, Hawthorn Haven, Little Imperfections, No Anesthetic, Factor It In, Devil’s Backbone, and so on are already planned even though I won’t be posting some of these things for years), so it’s just a matter of doing the actual writing. Beginnings come next and middles come last.

For me, writing is a matter of saying, “Here is my destination. Where are we coming from and how do we get there?” Depending on what I’m writing, sometimes where I’m coming from is the previous chapter, sometimes it’s a specific point in my timeline. Chapters don’t require a lot of set-up because readers should more or less remember what’s recently happened to a character, but with one-shots I have to clarify not only the setting, but recent events as best as I can. There’s a different mindset there.

Origin, Knots, and the Prompts are divided into over a hundred different files in Google Docs, so I can’t give an accurate word count, but I probably have 200k words on hand for both Origin and Knots and at least 300k for the Prompts. I wrote scenes I consider significant early on and I’m working my way towards them, correcting inconsistencies along the way.

What I plan worldbuilding-wise for a fantasy series is another topic altogether (Expanded on below the cut).

Sociopolitical Aspects

For my Mario works, for example, the first thing planned was how the Koopa Kingdom is laid out, and where the Koopalings fit into my ideas. Then it was a matter of deciding which parts of canon I want to draw from and what I want to do with it. I didn’t rule out the new kingdoms revealed in Odyssey, but I definitely didn’t erase Sarasaland and the Beanbean Kingdom either. I worked out the political systems of a few countries, what the social norms and big crimes are, and the basics of Bowser’s inclination towards violence.

I have a document noting what the people of each land are called and what their native languages are so I don’t have to worry about contradicting myself later, which has been extremely useful. I even determined populations for different kingdoms, with the Mushroom Kingdom at about 235 million people, the Koopa Kingdom almost twice that, and the Beanbean Kingdom a measly 4 million. Even if this info never comes up in story, it helps me understand how people interact with one another and fit into this system.

In my FOP works, I worked out the history of Fairy/Anti-Fairy conflicts, drawing from aspects of canon such as the known war over human godchildren. The Pixies fit in there too as the neutral party. Then there’s the matter of fitting in the aliens and humans. Deeper yet, the Ghosts and Beasts. Figuring out the international relationships up front works best for me, and then I can later determine how characters with this background interact in this environment.

In my Danny Phantom works, I drew from a comment Butch made once that although King Pariah was a tyrant, he did keep the Ghost Zone organized and it’s fallen to chaos since he was overthrown. I worked out Ghost-Skeleton relations, how the Observants play into things, and what the space within the world might be like.

In my WordGirl works, determining how Hexagon functions was crucial to what I decided to do with Kid Math: In this case, his planet is obsessed with math to the point they only have spoken language, not a written one. They use numbers and mark up blueprints, but written language is for the Lexiconians [Insert snobby scoffing].

When writing Rhyme and Reason backstory, I worked out how common powers are, how those with certain powers are treated by society, what kind of education kids with powers get pushed towards, what laws might exist, how many heroes there might be, and how police involvement works in cities that have heroes. In this alternate world, there are things called charm schools that are “finishing schools” for kids with powers, and Rhyme was almost sent to one until she ran away.

Physical Aspects

I made the Mushroom Kingdom an archipelago and chose Indonesia as my main inspiration country, researching the climate, seasons, plants, and meals typically found there. I know exactly when the dry season ends and the wet season starts and how this affects the Piranha Plants.

In FOP, I understand the landscapes of Fairy World and Anti-Fairy World, what kinds of mountains and water features they can have, and the flora and fauna found in each location. I know ways to move between locations, what travel is possible with magic, and what happens in times there isn’t any magic. I know what the major buildings are, where they are, and what they do.

In my DP works, there are certain stable parts of the Ghost Zone and certain unstable parts. It’s easy to get lost if you’re new there and not used to things moving around, but as you learn the rules of the world, you’re able to identify landmarks. I know which populations live where and what those landscapes are like. I came up with rules for how lairs work and how far things can move about the Zone. I know how things work and which characters know X amount of information about their surroundings.

Cultural Aspects

I pored over a LOT of small details in canon for my Mario works. I took painstaking notes about the Soybean civilization, the ancient Luffs, the fallen Bask Kingdom, and all sorts of historical tidbits and worked those into modern canon. Some stuff didn’t cross my path during my personal gameplay, but I like knowing about it anyhow.

I considered Peach’s pathway to becoming queen and how she fits her role, especially compared to her predecessors. I made stars important in Mushroom Kingdom culture and the moon important in Koopa culture. I created lore for why karting exists, canonizing all locations and the general idea of kart racing even if I’m not going to make every kart track canon or organize each game in a timeline.

FOP worldbuilding involved gathering as much canon from the show as possible, collecting info from folklore, plucking bits and pieces from insect and bat biology, and marrying the three together. It was important to me to give Fairy World a distinct culture different from any on Earth, and really examine how magic affects daily life in this world.

Anthropomorphizing insect behaviors gave me Fairies who lick faces as a form of greeting and who favor those with freckles above those without. Not exactly accurate to show canon, but it works great. Gyne and drone relationships have been fun to build, and I made sure my timeline included points in the past where such relations were different than modern times. Changes in relationships over time is something that really fascinates me.

Anti-Fairy World also gets a unique culture. Since they’re evil antagonists in show canon, I certainly didn’t want to race-code them like any group of people on Earth. I’ve tried to design them their own culture, heavily inspired by bats and a belief in luck above all. Bats aren’t sociosexual, but they are promiscuous, so I don’t stick wholly to bat behaviors either: they’re partially based on bonobos. Most importantly, I made sure everything I did was fun for me to write.

With my particular writing style, it works to have deep, complex culture for the Anti-Fairies. If I wanted to write short, lighthearted pieces, that would impact where my worldbuilding priorities lay (Probably lots of cute holiday traditions and less focus on why Anti-Fairy culture revolves around causing others harm).

General Research

Heights, timelines, food, and clothes are all things I settle as soon as possible, and I keep ref sheets on hand so I can fact check myself at a glance. Fairies and Anti-Fairies, being a species who live in the clouds, have easier access to silkworms than cotton plants. That determines what their clothing is made of, what products are expensive, and what gets worn on certain occasions. 

I draw from canon where possible, using screenshots or known character heights (Mario canonically 5′1″) and comparing them to others. Being of a different height can impact how others view you. Dining etiquette is a fun cultural difference that can create conversation or social awkwardness and really set the mood.

With fanfics, I dig as deep as I can. Did you know Wario canonically doesn’t know how old he is because his mom never threw him a birthday party? Or that he keeps a matchbox of ants in his cabinet and is “waiting until they worship him as a god”? I drink details like this by the gallon.

I prefer nailing this stuff down before getting far in my writing because that’s what works for me personally. I worldbuild further over time as I think up new questions I didn’t already have answers for.

Unique Aspects

Magic systems are complex. They generally take me longest and are more work than play. I like to have an outline of how a magic system works, write the story, figure out what I absolutely need magic to do and what I don’t want it to do, and then tighten the system during the revision process. For example, I weakened shapeshifting in my FOP works so you can’t easily hold another form while aroused- I personally didn’t want age changes to be involved in lovemaking. That expanded to making it hard to hold a form when you’re drunk too.

It was important to me in my Mario works to have 1-Up mushrooms exist and be capable of saving your life, but I also needed a reason why people don’t walk around with 99 lives and consume 1-Ups at all times. After wrestling with plans for a while, I decided to make them time-sensitive. You have to consume them often to have more than one life on a regular basis, and they’re pretty rare. As long as I can justify why someone has access to this rare item, I can utilize a 1-Up’s power, but I can also justify killing someone off if enough time has passed since they last consumed one.

With Fairly OddParents, I’d seen enough episodes to understand the basics of wishes, magical backup, and Da Rules. When I became serious about writing FOP ‘fics, I started noting the times Cosmo and Wanda failed to use magic for reasons other than Da Rules (Not in sync with each other, low battery, lack of belief in magic, Big Wand toppled over, etc.) and built my version of the FOP magic system to accommodate as many of these “inconsistencies” as I could. My take on magic is complex, but I can stretch the system many ways, so it works great for me.

Will I use everything I’ve worldbuilt in story? I might not say it directly, but having a pool of information I can draw from helps me find ways to flesh out a character’s life. Some stuff makes it in, other stuff is only vaguely glimpsed. To me, diving into worldbuilding is fun. Taking what I have and creating something with it is even more fun. I could whip out a bunch of one-shots about basic slice-of-life events without doing all this work, but tying my stories to social, political, or culture aspects of the world is what I really enjoy.

Q: Do you have any discarded scenes/storylines/projects?

//Laughs

I don’t like deleting things, so I move them to scrap docs instead. Origin, Knots, and the 130 Prompts each have a scrap file of 50+ pages (91 pages of scrapped Prompt scenes) and I can usually remember keywords so the deleted scenes are easy to search for if I need them. Some get recycled, even back into the same chapter I originally deleted them from, but a lot stay dead because they were either irrelevant or inconsistent with the final material. 

Fortunately for me, I have a good memory of what I kept vs. what I scrapped. I’ve compiled some favorites in my deviantArt Sta.sh and linked them in my FOP sideblog because they’re my version of sketchdumps. Even if they’re unfinished, I still think they’re interesting to look at.

For some reason I don’t delete much from my standalone one-shots, just my multi-chapter stuff. Most of what enters my standalones survives.

The projects I’m most hurt to have left hanging are my Total Drama stories The Beatin’ Path and Lions Under Palm Trees, keeping with my tradition of writing stories about eliminated contestants at that season’s elimination location from the perspective of the first character eliminated. I have a good 15k words written for the former and 25k for the latter, and I just… let them slip through my fingers in favor of Fairly OddParents years ago.

Arguably letting them go is for the best because I took the “cartoon physics are canon” concept and RAN with it, so I have an entire plot arc about one character coming into puberty and having his ability to utilize cartoon physics switch on for the first time. I personally consider Lions one of my best works in terms of matching my niche interests, but the acknowledgement of cartoon physics does stray from Total Drama canon, and I just couldn’t get over that enough to keep posting it.

Some of my all-time favorite scenes and characterizations are in these stories. I’m glad I have what I do for myself because these works make me smile even all these years later, buuut it’s probably best if I keep most of this nonsense private. This is probably my favorite snippet of the entire Lions draft, though:

“What’s in the box?”

Don’t say the hearts of small animals, don’t say the hearts of small animals.

“Stuff for my girlfriend.” It wasn’t untrue.

The least loved always end up my favorites somehow. I’m still so in love with my delusional wizard. I honestly might love Leonard more than I love any of the FOP characters I write about nowadays; he was the best I ever had. I mean, look at this FREAKING CHILD-

====

“Hand me my dice.”

Beardo dropped the dice in his hand. Leonard rolled them across the grass. Nine. He groaned. But, obediently, he knelt and poked his head inside the damaged zeppelin.

“Roll me an observance check.”

“Snake eyes.”

“Seriously? It’s dark. Try again. Higher this time.”

Beardo gave the dice another toss. “Lucky lucky seven.”

Leonard let out a high whistle between his front teeth. “No response,” he said after a moment. “I don’t think there are any animals down there, except maybe a few rats and some bugs. All right, I’m jumping down. Keep an eye on my back.”

He slid through the gap and dropped out of sight. Beardo heard him say, “Lux up,” and click the penlight on his keychain.

====

“Incriminatus, television.”

No reaction.

“Incriminatus, television.”

No reaction. The Christmas advertisements blared on. Leonard raised his wand to his eye, then slapped the tip a few times against his palm. “Come on, wand. Tammy isn’t here anymore. Why aren’t you working? I still believe in you.”

The door eased open. “Hey, Leonard,” Jen said in a voice of false cheerfulness. “I got your toothbrush out of… the other room.”

Leonard didn’t try to switch off the TV and faced the window instead. “Brushing teeth is for people who can’t do it with magic.”

====

“Wait.” Leonard raised both hands above his head, squeezing his eyelids tight. “Wait. What you’re saying is, Scarlett pulled a Courtney to the extreme and hid her secret identity as an ‘evil’ mastermind supervillain shaman queen this entire time. She played a character so well that even her closest friend – not to mention Chris – couldn’t see through her act until she chose to reveal herself. At which point she then convinced everyone that she was actually said ‘evil’ mastermind supervillain. You’re telling me there was a LARPing goddess in my presence, and I completely missed it.”

“I didn’t put it in those words for a reason,” Jasmine said, “but at its core, yes.”

Leonard pressed his hands to his cheeks and stared into his salad. “Holy flipping plot twist. I am so turned on right now.”

“No,” Jasmine said, jabbing him in the chest with one finger, “No you are not.”

Amy clicked her tongue. “Leonard, you have a girlfriend.”

“Not anymore. That’s it. I’m breaking up with Tammy for real this time.”

Beardo slapped him on the back of the head and made a sound like a police siren.

====

One Lions chapter was named “Baa Baa Blackmail” if that tells you anything. Ah, memories… It’s probably for the best if these projects stay retired, but I love them so very much.

Fanfic Ask Meme

#Zach needs a tag 9 #asks #ridwriting #Mushrooms and more #FAIRIES! #Satirical vocab alien child show #Going ghost! #riddleverse mention #Long post

[tyrantisterror]

This might be a bit of an odd question, but how would you personally improve Prometheus?

I’m assuming you mean the movie and not, like, the mythological titan.

First improvement: scrap every character except David and start over, because they’re all boring, inconsistent, and terrible.  David is also inconsistent and terrible, but he’s at least interesting, so if we just make him consistent and well written, he’d be fine.

Since the expedition consists of scientists, let’s actually make them ACT like scientists, as opposed to either 1. creationists or 2. poorly written strawmen.  Let’s have them actually be competent in their fields, instead of, say, having a geologist who gets lost in the building he mapped out or a biologist who’s afraid of a corpse but NOT a hissing nightmare penis cobra.  Let’s give them more well rounded personalities than “has an obvious character flaw, like being an asshole or a coward, which shifts in and out of their characterization depending on how we need them to act for a scene rather than being consistent.”

Let’s also have most if not all of the people actually WANT to be on this expedition - it’s a lot more interesting/dramatically ironic if these people are all SUPER PUMPED to explore new worlds and seek out the life they might find there, only to have it all go horribly wrong.  Most of the characters in the film seemed disinterested in the expedition at best and downright resentful that they were there at worst, which resulted in most of the character building moments being “MRAAH I DON’T WANT TO BE HERE ADVENTURE SUCKS,” which 1. isn’t endearing and 2. doesn’t really provide a character arc, since they basically go from “I THINK THIS MISSION SUCKS” to “YEP THIS MISSION SUCKS ALRIGHT,” which isn’t really good for character growth.

I don’t want to brainstorm a bunch of entirely new characters to fill up the cast right now because that’s a lot of work for a tumblr ask, but that’s what I’d have to do first and foremost to make this story not suck.

Let’s move onto the plot. The plot of Prometheus is simple at its core but made into a jumbled mess by its execution, which is what happens when you hire Damon Lindeloff.  So let’s cut to the core a bit: at its center, Prometheus is about people finding evidence that aliens visited earth, and using ancient clues Nicholas Cage style to track those aliens down.  They find an alien world that hides dark secrets and stumble into a whole slew of monsters.

Now, one of the ways Prometheus makes this needlessly stupid and convoluted is that they make the ancient aliens the creators of “all life on earth,” with some bullshit about how humans have identical DNA as the Engineers and all that.  It’s the kind of thing that sounds like it makes sense to people who paid no attention in high school biology and thus only know what DNA is from pop culture.  While this plot point is technically important for the whole “stressful parent/child relationships” theme that the movie has going on, it’s also intensely stupid and I hate it, so it’s getting cut.  Sometimes a theme must suffer for the sake of telling a good story.

But now we have to rejig things to accommodate for that major change, and rejig we shall!  So here’s how things start out instead: archaeologists discover evidence of ancient aliens, complete with what seems to be a star map.  Their corporate financial backer, Mr. Weyland (or was it Mr. Yutani?  I forget which one was involved here), who’s a bit of a wacko, decides to fund a rushed expedition to the planet in the star map.  He thinks these aliens must have created humanity (which the other scientists rightly think is a kinda stupid hypothesis), and wants to meet them to bring humanity to the next level.  An expedition of ambitious experts is assembled, and off to space they go!

They get to the planet and discover that, while it’s technically habitable, all life on the surface is dead.  There are corpses of all sorts of different creatures littering the surface, decayed and partially fossilized.  Some look much like terrestiral life, but a good deal more look very Giger-esque.  Most of the corpses are not in one piece, showing their deaths were pretty violent.  Something horrible clearly happened here.

But our heroes proceed, disturbed but willing to risk the danger in hopes of discovery.  They find an Engineer building and search it, discovering vague holotapes showing chaos on the ship and the creation of various Giger-esque monsters.  They find laboratories filled with strange monsters - David in particular is intrigued by this, as the idea of other artificial life intrigues him.  While the other explorers are trying to find kinship with the Engineers, David finds it all to easily in the monsters they created.

We eventually discover two things: first, the planet isn’t as dead as it looked, as there are a lot of strange monsters living within this building.  The many different monsters in Prometheus were, in my mind, its greatest strength, so my take would push that even farther - we’d have an entire ecosystem of Giger-esque nightmare creatures here.  When first discovered they’d be in a state of suspended animation, but the explorers broke the “seal” when they entered the tomb, allowing the Giger beasts to get active again.  The building quickly turns into a living hell.

Second, we learn the Engineers were nowhere near the benevolent precursors Mr. Weyland/Yutani believes them to be.  They didn’t create life on earth, nor did they visit earth to help us out - they’re colonialists who spread from planet to planet like a virus.  They did tinker with humanity’s ancestors, but it wasn’t so humanity could have some grand purpose - it was to make us better hosts for their bioweapons.  We aren’t children of the Engineers - we’re their petfood.  While Mr. Weyland and the other explorers are disheartened by this discovery, David understands it totally - after all, he was created to be a disposable tool, so why wouldn’t humanity follow a similar route?  The anger and frustration the explorers have at this revelation inspires him, though - after all, if they won’t accept their purpose, why should he?

The opening of the building has also been noticed by the Engineers, and soon enough an Engineer ship arrives on the planet to figure out who popped open their preserved bio-weapons.  The Engineer ship blows up our explorers’ spaceship, stranding them on the planet.  A squad of Engineers enters the building to destroy the remaining explorers and seal things up again, wearing biomechanical suits that make the Giger beasts nonhostile towards them.  We’d have at least one shot of an Engineer in its elephant-face-mask armor walking calmly through a sea of different nightmarish Giger monsters, all of which treat him with absolutely no animosity, because I think that would be a very eerie and interesting visual.

While the Engineers kill a few of them, the surviving explorers eventually figure out how to retaliate, killing all the Engineers in the building and taking their suits as disguises.  The fact that the Engineer’s host form resembles a human very closely is once more a meaningful plot point, albeit in a different way than in the original.  David also joins the group, hiding in the Engineer travel craft with some very familiar looking eggs.

Our heroes then sneak into the Engineer’s ship and try to take out all the remaining Engineers so they can use the ship to get home.  The plan succeeds thanks to David’s secret weapon, but unfortunately all of our human explorers are taken out in the process - either by the Engineer’s hands or, in the case of the final survivor, by stumbling into one of David’s alien egg traps and getting a good ol’ facehugger.

Now the only person left alive on the ship, David returns to the Engineer Building and basically loads up on eggs and other monstrosities, then sets off with plans to spread them as far and wide as he can.

And that’s how I’d change Prometheus.

#notapangolin