#And the narrative tries to frame that like a sweet and sentimental thing

[bonefall]

NEVER STOP!!! everytime I get mad over DOTC I just come onto your page and read your Gray Wing slander and immediately feel better, thanks muchly! 😌✨️

I am but a humble DOTC Slander ranger, riding across the sunlit horizon with a big iron on my hip, putting every hater's formless frustration into the words you felt but did not realize how to say ✨️

#If there's anything positive to say about it #it's that it's at least a SPECTACULAR kind of bad #It's bad in the kind of way that makes you realize what is so bad about other entries in WC #Like the rosetta stone of things wrong with WC #In no other arc is the ableism misogyny and abuse apologia SO apparent. SO plain to see #And of course your mind's immediately drawn to Clear or Tom because they're so obviously awful as characters. #But even the characters they think are GOOD and frame as RIGHTEOUS are revealing!! #Sometimes even moreso!! #though to be clear I end up biting at Gray a lot more often than Clear because he's awful in a less immediately obvious way #but I think clear is literally THE worst character they have ever put in WC. It's not a contest. It's not even a consideration in my mind. #because at the end of the day. Clear is WHY the arc is so bad. #Gray is defending him and doing a shit ton of abuse apologia and generally being insufferable #but as a tool he is being used in the exact way they mean to use him. #And his USE is to SUPPORT CLEAR. #He may not be the main POV but the arc is ABOUT Clear. It's HIS story. EVERYTHING that happens is supposed to be for HIM. #I haven't gotten to Gray's death scene in my reread yet but I should actually reblog it over here on the main when I do #Because it says it. It says it explicitly. That Gray only ever did anything because Clear pushed or bullied him to action. #And the narrative tries to frame that like a sweet and sentimental thing #But it's actually fucking horrifying. That WAS the entire series. #Clear pushing and bullying others until life was worse for everyone. And then they thank him for it. #bone babble #dotc hate

[neoyi]

Saw Belle. Definitely better than the last two movies Hosoda punched out, but not as solid as his earlier works.

Overall, it was a good experience. Visuals were fantastic; always love Hosoda’s take on the internet, however dubious it actually works in real life (it’s one of those things you have to suspend your disbelief for, the way the movie frames how Suzu’s online persona works is left intentionally ambiguous, and I think that was the right call.)

I felt the narrative ran a bit too fast during the first half, leaving little room for the characters to really emotionally interact in a satisfying manner. This is especially so with the Beast and Belle, the latter who, at one point, sings a love ballad to him after maybe a ten minute exchange between the two of them.

There is a lot to suggest Suzu/Belle’s reaction to certain events is brought on not just because she’s dragged into it, but because she understands the need to hide behind a mask and holding secrets instead of effectively communicating (Presumably this is why she’s drawn to the Beast). So a lot of this is as much visually shown as it is explained. It might at least compliment some of the frantic energy of the first half, given Suzu roughly feels the same, too.

It does make up for it almost wholeheartedly once the Big Reveal happens later on and a lot of the emotional beats, character interaction, and narrative not only hit better, but harder. It gets extremely raw and it’s the emotional strength of the characters’ journey that allows Suzu’s pivotal moment at the end to shine across the entire internet in spite of how relatively small scale it is, especially compared to Summer Wars’ more Save the World plot (which I think has a better justification for the Big Climax there).

While Belle’s main theme is to open yourself to others, especially loved ones, to help you deal with trauma through empathy and understanding, it also tries to tackle current internet dramas of bullying, doxxing, and the likes and oh, how times have changed. Where 2009′s Summer Wars and hell, 2000′s Digimon’s Our War Games seem like Hosoda celebrating the vast wideness of what the internet can offer as it slowly grows out of its infancy, Belle digs into the downside of people operating on a wide playground with all the tools they could want, but oftentimes the lack of foresight to utilize it properly. To that, the movie only tackles it on a surface level. I can’t really blame Belle, it’s an issue that’s got wide shoes to fill and such an optimistic movie can’t really provide a meaningful commentary on it as I think it was trying to do.

I think that’s pretty much what the ending feels like, too. Suzu was trying to fix an issue she really only ended up providing a temporary solution for. I think the implication is that as much as she had people to help her, she’ll be there to help them because it’s what her late mother did. But the ambiguity of the aftermath leaves it clumsy in execution and kind of downplays what the issue is in order to deliver sentiment.

Belle is a movie that trips over its own feet a few times, but its heart is in the right place.

Also linking an official trailer showing off some of the songs in the movie because I bought the soundtrack before I even saw the movie, and I’ve not stopped listening to it. The songs hit that sweet button of it being very mainstream pop songs with full, sweeping orchestra that’s kinda like, yeah, it’s a broadway musical, but also it’s ethereal and epic as hell. You bet your sweet ass I’m still lapping that up.

#belle #belle movie #mamoru hosoda #neoyi talks #video

[xyzcekaden]

🚍 unsuspecting sunday afternoon 🚍

by me, xyzcekaden! a pokemon fanfic about when the one you hate to love is made for you

How capable is the human heart now?

fandom: pokemon, gen 3, advanced generation characters: ash, may, steven stone in a “supporting” role ship: advanceshipping genre: romance, angst themes: friendship, pre-relationship, slowburn, 6+1 if you squint setting: modern, hoenn, pokemon universe lite word count: 4.6k rating: T

read it below, on ffnet, or on ao3!

A/N (9.7.201): So this has been in my drafts since about April 2020 😅 Sure, I'm happy to finally share something new with the small yet strong advanceshipping fandom; but more than that, I'm relieved this document can no longer taunt me with its incompletion, hahaha. Do let me know what you think! Especially with this opening formatting; I'm trying something new. :)

Nothing sensitive in the fic, but the characters are all adults so it felt fitting to rate it T. Title taken from the song of the same name by the Backstreet Boys, and its lyrics/sentiments are interwoven throughout. The narrative is inspired and framed by monstaxnight's anonymous ask. If you recognise it, it doesn't belong to me. Thanks for reading!

~~~

fall for someone whose body would start fires

On a Saturday, May asked Ash to come over the next day. “I need a second opinion on something,” she had said. “It’ll be super quick.”

Of course, ‘super quick’ means Ash has enough time to set his switch up on May’s gigantic living room tv and play a few rounds of his favourite fighting video game while she gets ready for something or another in her room. He always acts like he has better things to do than help her with her sundry weekly ventures, but they both know he’d rather do ‘nothing’ with her than ‘something’ on his own somewhere else.

“Okay, Ash, are you ready?” May’s voice rings out. “Yeah,” he answers distractedly, strategically button smashing.

“So I kept the jeans from this last outfit, but this top I just got two weekends ago and haven’t had a chance to wear yet,” May narrates as she exits her room. “I had the, frankly, brilliant idea of using the jacket from Outfit 1 and pairing it with those heels you paid for for my birthday, et voila!”

The clacking of heels stops at the entrance of the hallway. “What do you think?’

Ash redirects his attention to May. His avatar dies on screen, just like his voice dies in his throat.

“You, um, you look great.”

In actuality, May looks smoking hot, but that’s not new for either of them. His best friend is supremely attractive, and he knew it and had no problem acknowledging it normally. This time, however, May doesn’t just look physically great, she also looks like she feels like she looks great. He doesn’t know how much sense that makes; but there is decidedly something different, and Ash feels a strange sense of dread in his chest.

May beams, taking the inarticulate response in stride. “Well that’s a winning endorsement if I ever heard one! Now let’s just hope Steven has as great of a reaction.” She turns to one of the many full-length mirrors stationed around her condo and reviews the outfit with a critical eye.

This brings Ash out from his stupor. “‘Steven’?” he repeats as he sits up on the couch. “You’re going on a date?”

“It’s not a date,” May replies in a tone that clearly conveys that she would not be opposed to it turning into a date. “My dad is having dinner with an old business partner, and the guy’s bringing his son along, so me and Max were invited, too. We were kinda friends back when we were young, but it’s not like we’ve kept in touch or anything. I just figured I should make a good second first-impression… You know, for my dad’s sake.”

Ash can tell the last bit was just something she’s telling herself to rationalise why she’s trying so hard, and it doesn’t sit right with him. He slinks back down on the couch dejectedly and halfheartedly starts a new game.

He finds himself wondering how often they hung out and how much whatever-that-number-was-teenth impressions were worth. He hopes it’s a lot.

~~~

fall for someone who always runs from his kiss

“… And I was right! They were roommates!” May boisterously ends her story, almost losing her ice cream to physics as she wildly gesticulates.

They’re just strolling around the park that’s honestly nowhere near either of their apartments; but over the years, it became their park anyway. They didn’t even set plans to hang out today, but it kinda just happened―a recurring theme in their friendship, admittedly.

For his part, Ash hides a smirk with a lick to his own ice cream, not bothering to say or do anything to protect her treat. If she hasn’t learned by now, she never would. “Oh my god, they were roommates,” he deadpans instead.

May sends him an unimpressed smirk and lightly smacks Ash’s shoulder. He yelps. She yanks her hand back as soon as she realises, but the damage is done.

He blinks down at the cold, vanilla, rainbow-sprinkled stain before raising his gaze to meet May’s equally stunned one.

They stare in silence for a moment, then May cracks a conciliatory grin. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry?”

He shrugs it off easily. “I probably deserved it,” he says, making peace with the knowledge that his previous unwillingness to protect her ice cream from any accidents is the undoubted origin for his current poor luck. He nods toward the path. “Shall we?”

“We passed by a restroom a little bit ago. We can clean you up,” May disagrees, tugging on his arm in the opposite direction.

“‘S fine,” he argues as he tries to continue walking forward.

“Ash, it’ll stain!” She tugs harder.

“It’ll be an improvement!” He’s overpowering her, but not as easily as he’d like.

“Why are you being such a butthead about this!?” She’s pulling with all her strength now, this being a matter of pride to her at this point.

“Come on, May!” Ash heaves one last time.

They tumble head over feet onto the ground, but that’s not the reason Ash feels like his world has turned upside down.

May’s body weighs comfortably on his, his hands naturally settle on her waist with hers on his chest, and his brown eyes bore into her blues. Their ice cream has fallen… somewhere, but Ash doesn’t concern himself with that considering this is the closest they’ve been since they first met.

They’ve been toeing this line since then, too.

I’m gonna do it, he thinks to himself.

He closes his eyes.

He leans in.

May scrambles away.

Ash sits up and blinks at the sight of May’s confused, furious eyes. “Ash, what are you doing?” Her voice croaks like her throat is dry. It makes him clear his own before dumbly responding, “I was trying to kiss you.”

“Why??” she asks, her voice strangled. He pushes himself off the ground warily as he watches her hold herself, bite her lip, shake her head in a panic; and somehow in all of that, he understands.

“I thought it wasn’t a date.” Ash tries so hard not to sound accusatory, but her wince in response proves it didn’t work. It also proves his fear correct.

He turns, hiding as if the people walking by could discern his transgression and shame by the sight of his face alone. Besides, his mind can conjure up an image of her running away just fine on its own.

Ash notices the remnants of their impromptu outing splattered on the ground near his feet. He picks up what he can and stomps over to the nearest trash bin, throwing it in as hard as he can to let out some of his frustration.

He hopes he hasn’t gone and screwed everything up.

~~~

fall for someone whose lips belong to someone else

They don’t talk about it, and then it’s too late.

“Ash, this is Steven,” she tells him softly, as if it could make up for how it feels like the sight of her arms wrapped around the guy’s torso and his arm casually thrown over her shoulder assaults him every time he blinks.

“Steven Stone. It’s great to finally meet you. May speaks of you highly,” Steven introduces with a dignified air. Not pompous, no; he is just someone who was raised being told that he was going to do important things and who happened to believe it.

They shake hands, and Ash’s fingers feel cold, a marked contrast to how there’s something in his chest that’s burning.

Inside the restaurant, the waitress asks if a table is okay, and no one asks for a booth instead. In his seat, Ash is neither directly in between nor directly across from the newly-established couple, and he wonders if this is where all his luck went into.

Lunch goes better than expected.

Ash was prepared to hate the guy, but what is there to hate? Steven has a decent sense of humour, loves pokemon but loves rocks even more, and is COO of the biggest enterprise in Hoenn. He is a safe, sensible choice. This guy isn’t going to break May’s heart.

As the meal winds down, Steven offers to pay for everyone; but Ash still has his pride. In the end, he manages to negotiate paying for just his own plate and drink, knowing he has no right to battle for the privilege of paying for May’s.

He wouldn’t even do so on a typical occasion anyway; but as far as Ash is concerned, Steven’s presence throws all of the friends’ typical rules of engagement out the window.

They say goodbye and part ways in front of the restaurant.

A few steps later, Ash snaps his fingers as he recalls something. He turns around to remind May of their movie plans in a few days, and he is met with the sight of the couple sharing a sweet kiss on the corner while waiting for the light to change.

Steven could never break May’s heart, but he sure can break Ash’s.

Ash turns back and continues walking. He hopes May can remember on her own.

~~~

fall for someone whose touch is way too much

May insists that nothing has changed between them, but clearly something has because Ash doesn’t remember ever being so anxious about her proximity before.

He had always been aware of her, though. Always. When your first meeting is saving the other from getting run over by a tour bus, you quickly develop the habit of keeping track of where the person is at all times.

Between his athleticism and her natural proclivity towards tactileness, casual physical exchanges quickly became their norm: hugs and high fives, friendly elbows in the rib after a good joke and sharing a blanket as they watch a movie, (lingering touches on the shoulder and holding hands even after they’ve escaped a crowd… or did he make those up?).

They were controlled yet unmistakably affectionate markers of their relationship.

But now?

When she shifts one centimetre closer to him in line at the mall food court, he accidentally overpays by fifty pokeyen out of distraction. When she grabs his fork out of his hand to try a piece of his takoyaki, he jerks so hard at the contact that he spills his soft drink all over the table. When she pats him dry using flimsy food court napkins with a joke about ice cream in her voice and fondness in her eyes, he needs to claim a rapid-onset fever in order to give himself an excuse to cut their lunch short immediately.

These innocent touches have been an ever-present facet of their friendship since basically the beginning; and even when he realised he was in love, they hadn’t affected him like this.

Things are different now, despite what she says.

Well, maybe not things; maybe just him.

He had allowed himself to revel in their familiar touches when she was single because he could, because there was no one else that she was supposed to be able to make feel like this. Even if the feeling wasn’t meant for him, it wasn’t meant for anyone else either.

But now.

He can’t, in good conscience, allow his heart to rush and his smile to form and his hand to squeeze back. It wouldn’t be fair to May, not when she’s trusting him with her friendship and he’s taking more from her than that.

Even though he’d like nothing else than to keep that closeness, to go back to how it was between them before, this is the way it has to be now. He just hopes she can understand.

~~~

fall for someone he doesn’t want to feel for

On sleepless nights, he wonders when.

He knows the who, what, why, and how; but the when eludes him.

...

They were both breathing heavy, attention focused on the spot of the road where the girl would have flattened like a pancake if it weren’t for his quick reflexes and hero complex.

The clapping of a few passers-by snapped them out of their shock and into the realisation that he still had her protectively cradled to his chest.

They quickly broke apart, and he took the time to wave off the praise from the gathered crowd while she checked her purse to see if everything was inside.

“You got everything?” he asked after people’s attentions finally turned back towards their own lives.

“Yeah, I do,” the girl replied, and her voice was rather cheery considering the ordeal she just survived. (He would later learn that was her default.)

“Great,” he said, genuine yet awkward.

They continued staring at each other. The adrenaline from their brush with danger hadn’t worn off yet; his heart was still beating very fast.

“So, um, have a good day,” he bade after it was clear neither of them had anything more to say. He made to return to his errands, but a hand on his arm stopped him.

“You saved my life, and you’re just gonna walk away?” she asked incredulously.

He blinked at her. “I’ll be honest; I wasn’t aware there was an after-action protocol for this sort of situation.”

She was incredulous for only a second before she giggled at him. “The least I can do is buy you lunch to say ‘thank you.’”

“Well, I’ve never turned down a free meal,” he accepts with a grin.

She giggled again then stuck out her hand. “My name’s May.”

“Ash.”

...

No, it wasn’t then. Nor was it during the meal they shared, nor at the bar where they happened to see each other that weekend, nor while they were escaping from the bar fight that she accidentally instigated that night.

...

“Is this going to become a running gag? Will I have to constantly be saving you from trouble you unintentionally get yourself into?” Ash panted after he directed her to duck into a nearby alley.

“Hey, as far as I’m concerned, this automatically makes me the most interesting friend you’ve got,” May countered.

He took one extra second to check no one was following them then cut a glance at her. “I don’t know about you, but most of my friends have my number.”

She rolled her eyes with a smile. “Smooth.” They switched phones and exchanged numbers.

“Better memorize that by heart,” he jested as he handed her her phone back. “Don’t wanna waste your one phone call at the station just because you mixed up the last two digits by accident.”

“If the next time you hear from me is because I went and got myself arrested, just leave me to rot. I must have earned it,” she smirked.

...

Luckily, the next time one of them reached out to the other wasn’t to bail the former out of jail. May invited him to a pool party for her birthday, where he handily won a water balloon fight and impressed everyone by fixing the grill for their barbeque. Their friendship continued to progress naturally: movie nights that turned into impromptu sleepovers, brunches that turned into walks around town. Several shopping trips and video games and hikes later, they were each other’s best friends. It was basically inevitable.

So when? When would he have had the chance to fall in love with her?

...

“Hello?”

“Ash, you picked up!” she sounded surprised―happy, but surprised―and he winced. He knew he’d been blowing her off a little more often lately, but making her think he’d turn down her phone call?

“Heh, yeah, sorry about that,” he said, betting on the hope that she somehow implicitly understood everything he was apologising for. “Is everything okay?”

For an extended second, she was quiet, then she said, “I need to tell you something.”

His hackles rose, and he started grabbing his keys and putting on his shoes. Maybe she finally ended up in jail. “Where are you? I can be there in ten minutes, maybe twenty with traffic―”

She giggled, and he paused. That was her nervous giggle. “May?” he asked, still wary but not about to race out of his house with only his boxers on.

“No! No, it’s nothing like that. It’s just… Steven told me he loves me.”

His breath left his lungs.

“And I told him I love him back,” she continued.

All the adrenaline that had surged through his body only moments before completely left him at her words, and his limbs locked up instead. He felt cold.

“Hello?”

He didn’t even realise he had sunk to his knees until he meant to take a step back towards the couch. He just slumped onto his butt. “That’s―” He had to clear his throat. “That’s gotta be recent.”

He could slap himself. He sounded as dead as he felt. He tried again: “I mean, that’s great news, May! He’s a lucky guy. Yeah.”

She sighed with relief. Could Steven tell what her sighs meant over the phone? ”I’m the lucky one, I think,” she said happily, and that was his last straw.

“Heh, yeah, well,” he sputtered out, just to have something to say. “Listen, since you’re not in danger or anything, uh, you actually caught me at a bad time, so I gotta go. I’ll catch you later, yeah?”

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

“Wait, Ash! Before you go!”

He held back a sigh. “What’s up, May?”

“It’s just… You’re right; it is recent. You’re actually the first person I told.”

“I’m honoured.” He couldn’t help the sarcasm that spilled out, but he backtracked quickly. “I mean it. Thank you for telling me.”

“Of course, Ash; I tell you everything. At this point, it’s like I have to; nothing would ever feel real otherwise.”

He shut his eyes. He really couldn’t take this anymore. “I know what you mean. Same here.”

She made a cute sound, a quiet little ‘hmm,’ and that was when the first tear spilled out. “Alright, I’ve taken up enough of your time. I’ll text you later!!” she promised.

“Later,” he repeated, both an echo and a goodbye; and finally, blissfully, he ended the call.

...

When, when, when?!

That was supposed to be one of the sweetest moments of her young adult life, and she called on him―trusted him, even―to be happy for her. When did he get to the point where he couldn’t even do that? Instead, he recalls it now as he struggles to fall asleep, playing the memory at half-speed over and over again in his imagination, and all he does is hope.

He desperately hopes it’ll stop hurting so much.

~~~

fall for someone with the sweetest rebel heart

When he finds out he didn’t get the promotion he was vying for at work, there’s no one else’s comfort he sought but May’s.

“I’m sorry that happened, Ash,” May soothes as she rubs rhythmic circles into Ash’s back. They’re in her condo, noticeably nicer maintained than Ash’s flat, side by side on the sofa. It is the first time he’s let her touch him in weeks, and he really needs it. “At least now they know you’re interested? It might be your turn next time.”

Ash snorts but nods anyway. He’s usually the type to look at the bright side, but it would be an understatement to say that he is simply disappointed. After all the L’s he’s been taking in his personal life, he had been hoping at least something would go his way professionally.

May continues, “Just make sure not to let this setback actually set you back. Keep putting your best foot forward, and I know you’ll win those guys over… just like you did with me!” She ends with a wink, trying her hardest to inject some levity into the situation.

Just like that, Ash’s mood sours even more. “You can’t say that to me, May,” he angrily replies as he shuffles out of her hold.

“What are you talking about?” she pouts as she feebly tries to get him to lay back against the couch so that the cold air can’t get under the blanket they are sharing.

“I didn’t ‘win you over,’ clearly.” He shrugs off her touch and scoots away. He has spent so long trying to keep his bitterness inside, but he doesn’t have the emotional wherewithal to regulate himself right now. He’s tired of trying to get over things that make him upset.

May frowns, the furrow between her brow getting deeper as she sits up straight on the sofa. “Ash, why are you talking like that? I meant, like, how we became friends, obviously. I didn’t grow to love you by accident.”

Ash stands then, balling the blanket up and throwing it back on the couch. “I bet Steven wouldn’t be too happy to hear you say that.”

She follows suit, her voice elevating in volume as if to match. “I bet Steven wouldn’t appreciate being judged by someone who’s only met him once―despite my efforts otherwise, might I add.”

“I bet Steven would love to hear his girlfriend say she loves another guy.”

“I bet Steven isn’t dumb enough to think I can’t love you both.”

“You don’t love me, May!” Ash finally explodes.

He has never raised his voice like this, not to her, but he’s tired. He’s tired of loving someone he can’t have, he’s tired of hating himself for it, and he’s tired of the guilt when he takes it out on her despite all his attempts not to.

She looks like she’s torn between yelling right back or kicking him out; and before she could make up her mind, he collects himself enough so he could bring his voice down. He states simply, “Not the way you love Steven.” Not the way I love you.

He doesn’t say it, but he can tell she hears it anyway. He clears his throat and turns around, trying to hide without running away. “Hearts don’t work like that,” he murmurs into the room.

He makes to leave, but May’s hand on his shoulder stops him. She forcibly turns him back to face her, and Ash is shocked at the determined set to her face. Her eyes, bluer than a water stone and twice as powerful, hold him as captive as they always have. “You listen to me, Ash Ketchum.” Her tone brokers no argument. “If you thought for a second that I stopped loving you because I fell in love with Steven, you clearly underestimated what my heart is capable of.”

Her grip on him tightens, as if making sure he is still with her in the moment. “It’s big enough for the both of you; and if that’s not the way hearts are supposed to work, then I’ll just be the exception that proves the rule.”

She pulls him into a hug then, like locking that promise between them, and he dares let himself hope she means that.

~~~

fall for someone whose heart needs sewing up

Ash wasn’t expecting a knock on his door this late at night, and he definitely wasn’t expecting to see a beautifully made up May Maple standing in the hallway, mascara-tinged tears and runny nose notwithstanding.

"Steven is moving to Alola to support Devon Corp’s expansion," is all she said, but even that much is hard to make out through her watery voice.

The news sinks in, and Ash’s heart feels like someone moved it three centimetres to the left: still there, still functional, but not at all where he needs it to be.

"You’ve always talked about going to Alola," is the only way he could respond, thinking of all the times they’ve imagined taking a week off and vacationing in the tropical region. He won’t, can’t let himself think about anything else or else he’d break down.

In his heartbreak, he cannot recognise May's tears, which are too raw and too loud to be that of someone bearing regrettable news. These are the tears of a confused, broken heart.

"Ash, I'm not going," she sniffles, still stiffly standing outside his door. "He asked me not to."

Finally understanding that he misunderstood, Ash is even more disoriented than he was before. "Why would he do that?" he asks, obviously still trying to wrap his mind around what the hell was happening.

"I don’t know!" May yells while clenching her fists and stomping a high-heeled foot. It is the most movement she's made since he opened the door. "I demanded a reason, and he spewed nonsense at me! He said―" and she stops. Her whole body slumps back into stillness but without the stiffness of before. She continues quietly, "He said he didn’t want to see what I’d look like with my heart so far outside of my chest," like a guilty confession. Ash is at once reminded of their almost-fight a month ago, and he still isn’t sure what this all means.

He almost asks, Why wouldn’t he believe your heart was right where you were? or How capable is the human heart now? but he doesn’t.

Instead, he finally welcomes May inside. He sits her on the couch and helps her take off her heels before she wraps herself up in the blanket he keeps there―a blanket he only has, he remembers, because when she first visited his apartment, she insisted his couch needed one. She doesn’t just hold the blanket around her shoulders; she hides her entire frame within its folds. He merely sits on the couch next to the lump and places a solitary hand on top, unsure where it was resting yet hoping it is providing comfort nevertheless.

He wonders if May ever let Steven see her like this, the way she needs to shut out all stimuli as if to physically recreate her darkest moments. He wonders why he loves that she does that, even though it causes him so much selfish pain to be close enough to see her like this but shut out from her healing.

"I don’t think I have a boyfriend anymore," May says at length, voice dampened by the space and fabric between them.

It would have been the happiest news of Ash’s adult life if it weren’t for the extreme melancholy that laced her tone as she said it out loud.

He squeezes his hand into a fist on top of the blanket, his signal that he’d like to hug her if he could.

"I would have missed you if you left." Ash gives a nonsequitur-confession in response. May burrows deeper into the blankets and says nothing.

Instead, she reaches a hand out from a heretofore unseen opening in the fabric and holds on to his other hand tightly.

Ash stares at her slender knuckles, made paler from her firm grasp, and stops hoping.

He gently plies her fingers from his palm and tries not to feel guilty about the shocked, embarrassed way the hand pulls back into the blanket as he leaves her there.

The love of his life needs compassion right now. This is not his opportunity to sweep her off her feet; this is not his second chance.

He returns from the bedroom, settles back into his place on the couch, and forces May out of the blanket.

~~~

May jerks her head up, shocked and angry and still embarrassed from her rejected attempt to seek Ash’s comfort, but she is quickly mollified into confusion. The expected sight of Ash’s lit up form in his lit up living room ends up being no different from the blackness from which she thought she was rudely taken.

It is so dark under the extra, larger blanket that she can’t even see Ash’s nose even though she can sense his head is mere inches from hers.

His hands find hers in the darkness and squeeze. Relief flashes through her as she finally surrenders to the deep, thick slice of heartbreak.

May wants to see his face, but she settles for a hug.

#pokemon #pokemon fanfiction #advshipping #advanceshipping #ash ketchum #may maple #aamaylove #satoharu #unsuspecting #xyzc*

[recurring-polynya]

Bollywood Review Time!

Today, I am going to talk about Om Shanty Om, a very good movie that was Not For Me.

Let me back up. People recommend stuff to me a lot and I try to watch it and talk about it, and I always feel bad when I don’t like it. This one was recommended to me by my friend @serene-faerie​ I want to make it very clear that you, reader, may like this film very much! It was a strange perfect storm of Things I Don’t Care For, and I actually rather enjoyed the experience of picking apart what I didn’t like about from what I did, because honestly, I am always interested in the ways stories are told and what stories say about themselves.

Cut for spoilers and also length

First off the bat-- this is not a film for the Bollywood beginner. It’s sort of a meta-narrative, with a ton of cameos from famous stars and jokes about Bollywood tropes and directors and such. There’s a ten-minute dance number in the middle that’s just famous people showing up to get down and everybody cheers every time someone new rolls in. I have only actually seen a handful of Bollywood films, mostly made after this one (it was made in 2007), and I could tell that there were a ton of gags and references that flew over my head. I got the sense, both from watching it, and from reading reviews, that this was all very well done and funny, I just didn’t have the proper frame of reference to appreciate it.

The main character, Om, is played by Shah Rukh Khan, an incredibly famous Bollywood star whom I had never heard of before watching this film. In the beginning, Om is a somewhat-bumbling movie extra, dreaming of stardom, flipping his hair, and falling in love with a beautiful starlet on a billboard. I… was not taken in by his charms. I feel like I really missed out by not knowing who Shah Rukh Khan was ahead of time. That was sort of an interesting thought to me-- that a famous actor brings the good will of all his previous roles to a movie with him, and that it was very interesting to me to watch a film stripped of that context. I was literally shocked when halfway through the film, he rips off his shirt and had killer abs, I was absolutely not expecting it.

The deal of the movie is that, through a series of coincidences, Om meets Shanti, the actress of his dreams (from the billboard). She is played by Deepika Padukone, who I fell for immediately. She is gorgeous and had a ton of charisma. This movie seems like it’s going to be a love story, but it really isn’t. Shanti is charmed by Om’s sweetness, but she’s already in a doomed secret marriage with a scumbag director, Mukesh, who ends up murdering her when she wants him to publicly acknowledge her, which is kinda time sensitive, because she is pregnant. Mukesh had planned to have her star in a lavish movie spectacle called Om Shanti Om, but when she forces his hand, he burns the set down with her locked inside. Om witnesses all this; he tries to save her and dies in the process.

Om happens to die in the same hospital where a famous director’s child is being born, and he is reincarnated as the baby, and grows up to have the life he always wanted-- that of a Bollywood superstar. His name is still Om, but his nickname is O.K., so I am going to call him that to distinguish between 1977 Om and 2007 Om. He meets Mukesh again who is now a super-successful Hollywood producer. O.K. gets all the memories of his past life back, and decides to Get Revenge by proposing to do a remake of Om Shanti Om. He finds a wanna-be actress, Sandy, who looks exactly like Shanti, and has her haunt the set in order to make Mukesh think he is going crazy (and maybe also confess? It’s not a terribly clear-cut plan). You might think that Sandy is the reincarnation of Shanti, but Shanti’s ghost shows up in the grand finale of the film, so I guess she wasn’t?? You also might expect O.K. and Sandy to have some romantic feelings, but they really don’t, and in fact, O.K. is actually pretty mean to Sandy, even though she is extremely sweet and I don’t see how anyone could possibly be mean to her.

The movie is lush. The costumes are elaborate, the sets are lavish, the dance numbers are many and long. There is not a single scene without an off-screen fan to dramatically tousle the actors’ hair. I actually rather liked the last act of the movie where they were gaslighting Mukesh and it was over-the-top, scenery-chewing, Hamlet--play-with-in-a-play madness. A chandelier falls on someone. A lot of the end doesn’t even make a lot of sense or exist in any sort of linear time, cutting between the film-within-a-film and dance numbers and what’s “really happening” and I really had no problem with any of this. I actually really liked the amount of meta that was happening and the breakdown of boundaries, and I found the end to be reasonably satisfying.

So what didn’t I like about it?

The entire film relies on you being charmed by Om and I did not care for him. We all have this set of trope personality types that we enjoy and fall for, and “young person who dreams of making it big on the stage/screen” is a huge swipe left for me. Give me a stolid second-in-command who has been stationed at an ice wall for 30 years to protect his homeland. A incredibly tired dude muttering “fuck” as he wades into a swamp to fight a bog zombie, because who else is gonna? My dude turn-ons include duty and self-sacrifice and really good posture. I couldn’t watch Naruto because everyone spouted off about “their dreams” too much, and I thought Om should have cut his losses and gotten a real job. I am who I am.

There’s a weird fine line between “meta,” that is, stories about storytelling and presentation and media, and movies about being in love with making movies. I like the former a lot and I do not care for the latter one bit. I did stage crew for a high school production of 42nd Street and I have a very distinct memory of thinking “this is a play about putting on a play. Why on earth would anyone who is not an actor want to watch this?” I also hate books where the main character is a writer (yes, Stephen King, this is a call-out). I also hate biopics about musicians and actors. I honestly do not care about the craft, and the “magic of cinema” has never been a thing I have found remotely compelling. 

What I love about reincarnation storylines is the period where the characters recognize the feelings and memories that are tied to their previous lives-- where they see someone and can feel their old emotions for this person, but without knowing why. This is where I live. I eat this with a spoon. I want this to prolong the emotional burn, because the characters don't know what are their own feelings and what comes from their past lives, and that there are conflicts that must be resolved for both lifetimes. Alternatively, you can also use a reincarnation storyline to skip the emotional burn entirely, by just having the character “get all their memories back in one fell swoop.” This is… the opposite of what I want. This is what Om Shanty Om does. I felt deeply cheated.

Relatedly, the entire theme of the movie was "When you want something badly, the whole universe conspires to give to you", a sentiment I wholeheartedly disagree with. I love stories about the conflict between agency and destiny, I think this is a really meaty subject, but once again, the movie used it as an excuse to let the characters sit back and do nothing and have a solution to their problems drop into their laps. I am sure you could make an argument for the charm of this viewpoint, but it is not for me.

I like dance numbers all right, but they are not why I watch Bollywood films. This movie is over two hours long and a lot of it was dance numbers. I was very tired of dance numbers by the end. That being said, the titular song was a bop and I had it stuck in my head for days. “Disco of Distress” was my second favorite.

I do not really feel a lot of nostalgia for the late 1970s, which is when the first half of the film takes place. If noisy patterns and kitsch and big winks and goofy hair is your period aesthetic, you will enjoy this part a lot!

Here’s what I did like!

Sunglasses. There were so many good sunnies in this film. So many. A parade of excellent shades.

Deepika Padukone. She is so adorable, for one, and she charmed me in every way that Shah Rukh Khan did not. I loved her both as the melancholy starlet Shanti and the doofy, gum-chewing Sandy, and also the Angry Revenge Ghost at the end. I would say this movie is 75% Om and 25% Shanti, and I would have liked it a lot better if it were the other way around. Sandy had basically no agency whatsoever; the second half of the plot was basically about O.K. getting revenge on Mukush... mostly for himself? I liked that the first half of the movie didn’t make Shanti fall in love with the puppy-like Om just because he was devoted to her, but it would have been a nice reversal if the jaded O.K. had softened toward Sandy more in the second act, and that there had been a bit of a love story to temper the revenge plot.

The idea of the plot. The plot described in words is very cool to me, and there was a period of about 3 minutes in the film when O.K. recognizes Om’s mother when I got real excited about where this was going, and then I realized it wasn’t going where I wanted and was sad again. I think I might have liked it better if the movie started out with O.K. and revealed Om’s story slowly, through flashback, but nothing about this movie catered to my narrative aesthetic, so I eventually gave up with ways of trying to fix it.

Anyway, as I said, I can definitely see how someone could love this movie! If you are a big Bollywood buff and you love dance numbers and silliness and Shah Rukh Khan, I would recommend it in a second! It was strangely almost tailor-made to hit some of my pet peeves, and I was mad because I wanted to like it more than I did.

That’s my review! @serene-faerie​ I hope you still love me even though I didn’t like your movie. I am always trying to expand my movie knowledge and I learned a lot watching this one, and I don’t regret watching it, even though it wasn’t my fave.

#bollywood #om shanti om #reincarnation stories

[veridium]

Short Story: Solas Helps Theia With Her Anger

Writer’s note: So, I have always wanted to write this depiction of Theia’s and Solas’s friendship, but I haven’t found the right niche for it. I realized that maybe it was a good standalone read, an accent to her main narrative. I know I’ve alluded to their friendship before, but I haven’t yet fleshed it out, so, here is some of that! It also comes with my personal interpretation of Mage abilities and some of it may very well diverge from canon, but, who cares! It’s all about the adventure, right?

Summary: Theia Trevelyan has come to her friend for assistance in a very personal matter. Solas, obliging for his keen and willing ally, instructs her in the process of unlearning some intemperate crutches she has fortified in her powers as a Mage. The ritual unfolds, and Theia learns more about what drives her viscerally to succeed as both a Mage and a leader.

“You are conflating temper with willpower, Inquisitor, and it will get you only so far.” Solas’s calm comment defied the energetic nature of the moment. There she lay, once again on her back on the floor of Solas’s study. While their outdoor sparring ground was useful for most anything, sometimes a curious discourse would provoke both the Mages into demonstrating under a roof.

Theia, panting slightly as she tried to recollect her breath after the latest trip-up to the floor, growled with undirected frustration.

“I swear by the Maker’s greased smallclothes that I am utilizing my willpower and not anger,” she grumbled, before using her legs to jerk herself upright and back onto her feet, rising from the squatted position and picking up her staff along with her.

“Then why am I so successful in countering? You are using your fury as a source of reinforcement. Willpower by nature is collaborative, and does not favor a single source of momentum.”

Theia paced, dragging her feet with a hand on her hip. “Fine, then, you caught me. I’m a ball of furious rage and there’s no hope for me.”

“You are too resigned to your own carnal nature. Being emotionally intuitive and in control are not mutually exclusive. Let us try again.”

Theia chewed on the inside of her cheek. Rolling her shoulders which were exposed after she had taken off her overcoat, leaving only a thick tank-top on her upper body for dexterity, she turned to face her friend once more. She tried hard to hide her disdain for the situation so as to show respect to him and the time he was taking, but they both knew she was growing more impatient by the minute.

“Again,” he commanded simply, folding his arms and taking a few steps back.

Theia took a stiff, though deep breath. Loosening her body deliberately, she held out her staff horizontally in front of her chest, both hands on gripping out at shoulder-width. She closed her eyes, feeling the tension slip out from her shoulders, down to her waist, then through her hips and thighs until it felt as though its slipperiness was like a silken nightdress let slip.

Then, through the darkness of her eyelids, she envisioned a slowly growing and brightening orb of light. It was blue at first, undominated by any one emotion. She felt excited when she saw it -- as if it were only a slight chance it would reappear, even with her tenacious conjuring. Her lips parted as she focused, and that is how Solas knew she could see it, too.

“Good. Now, do not think of it as holding back. Think of it as organization, as cohesive input.”

Theia could feel her willpower and anger being intertwined like vines, a relic of her protective spirit. Her temper, her fury, was her source of power for so long, it felt nearly-impossible to revoke. That is what sparked her consultation with her friend in the first place -- she wanted to be more, be better, than this. Anger, after all, was a secondary emotion: its power was based on its corruption of the root of her nature, a symptom and not a foundation.

She grit her jaw slightly as her mind worked to entice her anger into relenting. It was a strong proclivity, and her temper was feeling entitled to her powers. She wanted to give in, to witness the strength of it. It viscerally thrilled her, but she knew that was what led to its dominion over her.

A low, willful growl emanated from her throat.

“Do not mirror it, counter it. Do not argue, debate.”

She could sense Solas starting his pacing of a half circle around her. Then, hairs around her face began to billow in a self-cultivated momentum of air.

There it was. Her anger, supreme and exalted. The redness, the purple, the kaleidescope of bruising. It was heated, pulsating in her chest.

You deny me what is mine? She could hear her inner voice ask.

Theia could feel the sensation of sweat gather on the side of her forehead. She was being disputed, and ferociously so. Her lips closed, jaw clenching with assurance but not aggression.

Solas’s voice, an echoing thing now, again: “It will utilize what it knows. Redefine the boundary.”

Theia’s eyes strained to remained closed. Her powers were seeking an outlet now, she had conjured and built up the energy in her body like a pressured bottle bomb. Now, it wanted expression, craved its release. Anger was the easiest kindling to use, and had always been.

You know I am inextricable, it hummed again, lurking and waiting for an exposure of spiritually weak flesh in its host body.

“No. I am your hands. I am your mind. I am your protecturate,” Theia said in her mind, teeth slightly gritting with her words.

Detestable, you disrespect me in my own domain.

“I am your domain because you are mine. Let us come to an understanding.”

I have kept you alive and this is how you repay me.

“I am saving you as you have saved me.”

Bullshit, you are nothing without my authority.

“I am everything because I am your authority. Now, a compromise, if you would.”

The quaking in her ribs was unignorable now. Her mana, her willpower, all of it, witnessing a standstill. She wanted to see it, wanted to visualize who she was debating. It had to have embodied something, or someone, to be so potent and dictatorial. She knew it had attached to a crutch in her psyche, but what? Who?

“Show me what you are, so we can debate this like women.”

Then, a chuckle. A familiar one. A crushing one.

You ask for me but you do not address me by name. Insubordinate.

Theia growled now, but tried her best to keep it with as weak of an emotional undertone as possible. She knew exactly, then, who would use such diction. Her closed eyes flickered side to side, up and down, searching for the source of the voice.

Then, feeling a cold breeze encapsulate her shoulders, like a ghost would extend their hands, she held her breath.

“Faustina.”

Then, like a blinking snapshot, her body appeared. The silver-haired woman, the mentor, the teacher, the sparring partner. Her curvatures, her stature. Her curls of hair framing her angular chin and cheekbones. She smiled, as if she had been enjoying a jubilant conversation all this time. It unnerved the Inquisitor, who had encountered one-too-many foes with betraying facades.

My apprentice, you have discovered me. Or, rather, the trace of me in your subconscious.

In the back of her mind, Theia wondered why Solas had grown quiet. Perhaps it was because he knew she had found the epicenter of her struggle, and now it was her battle alone to do.

“Faustina, why have you embedded into my power?”

Another chuckle, deep and warm, though slightly sinister.

My dear, you put me here long ago. You depended upon me to help organize your emotions and your abilities. It was only logical that you should encapsulate me here. Or, my likeness, anyway. I knew once you would become powerful to find me and untangle me from your web, you would.

“So you are the embodiment of my anger, that which has consumed my powers?”

I am one of them. The main source from which the rivers in your soul flood and drought dry. I helped you discover it, after all. Now, you must convince me to release myself from you. You are right, you are the authority.

“Okay. So, how exactly do I accomplish this?”

You must take all that you have learned and re-frame how you hold your memories in yourself. I am anger, that is true. But anger derives itself from injustice, and injustice is unrest and a hunger. Do you still hunger for it?

Theia could feel her shoulders tense, feeling all of the reasons all at once for why she did feel hungry for justice. She had always carried it, like a torch with an intemperate flame, relying upon it when it could only stand certain terrain. Her allies, her friends, her wanderings.

“What if I do? What if I hunger for it, but I also wish to turn my heart towards this new life of mine? Can I do both? Surely you would understand and know how,” Theia’s voice was not enveloped by her sentimentality for her teacher.

My dear, Faustina reached a hand to her, her fingers tucking under her former mentee’s chin, You are powerful, and almighty, but you also allow your body to be a conduit for something you alone cannot muster. Your anger protects you because it feeds off of your recklessness, and depends on your survival for its meals. Is that what you truly want? Mages have said yes before, and will do so long after we are gone.

Theia’s throat hardened as she felt the unfamiliarity of peace within herself. Faustina was giving her a taste of what it was like to unmesh the anger from all the deep caverns of her soul, and leave room for something different. It was tempting in the most melancholic of ways.

“How can someone like me ever allow peace in myself without falling short in my destiny?”

A pause of silence. Faustina withdrew her hand.

Theia, my dear, sweet, protective Theia. Keeper of an ice heart. Your peace sharpens your teeth more than any fury can.

Suddenly, Theia understood. She understood now why Solas was so intent on this process, and why Faustina’s smile seemed to mock her. Her fury was beautiful, ravenous, and powerful, but it was also negligent of the other sides of herself. Her peace, her determination, her resolution, brimmed with possibility.

For what was more menacing and fearsome than an angry Mage woman? One who felt contented in her polarities.

“I see now. I know, I know what I must do now.” She felt the ache of her strong grip on her staff begin to vibrate as the power in her limbs used the staff as an outlet.

Good. Now, follow your friend’s instructions, and convince.

She took a solid breath, feeling the webbing of her rage dance across her skin. She felt the static of it, interpreted via her electric powers. She felt half of her body enveloped in peace, and the other in her temper. It was like she would split apart in two, but she remained whole. Then, as if held in reservoirs, they crashed into one another like waves. She felt the tingling, the rush of adrenaline surging through her veins as she stayed still.

From the outside, Solas witnessed her oscillation, a satisfied grin on his lips as he witnessed his friend’s inner triumph. He did not usually take such a tutorial interest in people, but after months of Theia proving to be a precocious and optimistic individual, he felt more open to instructing her in ways he felt would empower her to be a better Mage and a better leader.

As the glowing dissipated in her skin and her staff weapon, he knew she had come to the necessary conclusion of it all.

Then, as if an invisible weight was released, she jerked forward, coughing as she hunched.

Trying hard to reclaim her breath, she held her staff in one hand.

“Well done, my friend. You have created a treatise within yourself.”

Theia, straightening her posture as she huffed quietly, put a hand to her stomach. “I can’t...believe...was that all real?”

“You know my answer to such a question, so my verbal reply is unnecessary.”

“Solas?”

“Yes, Inquisitor?”

Theia stood fully upright now, inhaling and quieting herself, before the casually switched the staff between her hands.

“Thank you. You have done me a great service.”

Solas, feeling the aplomb derived from a sincere friendship, was internally taken aback by her modesty and stillness. Surely, such a procedure could have easily yielded her manic. But, as she had done what was instructed, she was now able to collaborate her emotions and not hinder them.

“My pleasure, Inquisitor. It brings me satisfaction to know you, of all people, will salvage some form of peace in these days to come.”

#short story #theia trevelyan #solas #dragon age #dragon age inquisition #fanfiction #inquisitor trevelyan

[uncamellia-blog]

± ♥ ( right back ‘atcha )

Send me ± for a headcanon about our characters:

music of the night // It’s her most telling composition – and one that might never be finished; she writes a little bit of her heart in it, she weaves a couple strands of her memories into it, and she works on it whenever she has half a mind to, but much like the woman it is about and for, it transcends beginnings and ends and simply is, and not a single soul on the earth will know it completely.

i. She’s two. This memory is blurry and damn near inaccessible, and she’s not entirely sure if it’s perfect recall or the result of someone else telling her that it did indeed happen, but the melody is unmistakeable. The memory (and melody) goes like this:

“Mommy, mommy,” she says, tucked into bed, mere seconds after Lacha has finished brushing her hair to resemble silk, and laid her down. “Sing me a bye,” she begs, pulling at her mother’s sleeve, big blue eyes blinking in the dim light.

“A lullaby,” Lacha corrects gently, fondly, brushing a few stray strands away from her forehead.

“Lullaby,” she imitates, closing one eye and twisting her mouth. “Please, mommy?”

Lacha concedes, and she almost lurches out of her bed with joy, but instead claps her hands together in a succession of rapid patters in the quiet of her room, and waits in anticipation, closing her eyes as her mother starts singing, soft, and simple, in a language that she doesn’t know yet. The melody’s entrancing and impossible to follow, and the memory fades out as she falls asleep.

ii.She’s three. This memory is a tad bit clearer: snow falls silently in the dead of night, and the moon stares down from a clouded sky. She’s looking out the window, head turned away from the door, entranced. Lacha turns the lights off with a whispered good night and turns to leave.

She turns her head around; she doesn’t want her mother to leave, not just yet. She cannot think of a reason to get her mother to stay: she’s in her nightgown, her hair is brushed, and she’s sleepy.

“Sing me a lullaby, mommy,” she whispers across the darkness of her room.

Lacha’s eyes glint with moonlight as she glances out the window and watches the snow, and she comes back.

The melody is different. The words remind her of freshly fallen snow glistening in vanilla moonlight, and her mother sings to bring the morning back.

iii.She’s six. The winds howl outside, and she shouldn’t cry or whine because princesses do nothing of the sort, but the trees bend, break, and moan outside, and the wind does not let up its wailing. She’s got her covers pulled up to her nose, but doesn’t feel any more secure because of it.

“Mommy,” she says, tone shaking, even as she tries to hide her tremors. “Can you please sing me a lullaby before you go?”

The lullaby her mother sings drowns out the horror, and the kiss laid upon her forehead bids her sweet dreams.

iv.She’s eleven, frowning at the mirror in a show of frustration that almost no one is privy to; she’s grown out of showing her discontent on her face, except in private. There’s a dip in her brow and her lips are pressed together tightly in her displeasure and she meets her own eyes in the mirror, and smooths out her face for a second, examining it, watching as the soft open of her mouth softens her whole face. She memorizes how it feels. 

She gives up, back to pouting at her mirror, when her mother walks in, graceful, imperial, and powerful, though her gentle tone is at odds with her stride.

Her mother fixes her hair, gently combing through it, and she observes every second of it through her vanity mirror, shifting minutely to see if she can mimic the set of Lacha’s shoulders. It doesn’t work, and she instead chooses to relax into the melody that slips forth from her mother’s lips, smiling and humming her own counter melody. She’s just recently started getting really, frighteningly good at music, or so the royal tutor tells her, and this is when it all clicks; every single lullaby and fragmented melody from her mother starts to weave itself together.

Yes, this moment, with her hair being combed into regality, and the tiara set on top, seemingly jauntily and delicately; she shakes her head and nothing moves and she smiles as the music in her head swells. “Thanks, mom,” she says, grinning and moving in for a hug, wondering if she should start learning the trumpet – so brassy and triumphant is this moment that the piano alone cannot encompass it.

She’s still shorter than her mother, and there’s a gentle kiss to the side of her head before she’s wrapped in her mother’s embrace, a gentle, loving sentiment murmured into her frame. She lays her left hand on her mother and feels the tenderness of the moment twofold. Always. She thinks that might be a fitting title for her composition.

v.She’s thirteen, and fever-delirious; she’s caught some bug, or eaten something, either way, it’s uncomfortable and she thinks she’s crying a little as she lays in her bed. In snatches of lucidity, she can see her mother by her side before she lapses back into her fever dreams. When the fever breaks and she wakes up for longer than a couple seconds, she hears the hushed quality of her mother’s go-to lullaby, and she cracks a small smile, even though she feels like gaunt death. 

She reaches her hand up, the left one, not quite coincidence but also not by design, just simply habit, and lays it upon her mother’s arm, feels the overwhelming worry, a break of relief, and then it’s all muted, because her mother has always been good at hiding what she feels.

She smiles either way, but her throat is too dry and cracked to hum along – her mother’s wild hand is still upon her, and her true desire must show how much she longs for a lullaby, because Lacha breaks a smile and continues humming.

vi.It’s moments like these that make it into her composition, which grows from a couple scribbled lines on a errant piece of scratch paper into a formal pile of papers and never shows signs of stopping. All the snatches of melody and music her mother has ever brought to her make their way into the composition, all superimposed on top of her own light narrative, usually in the higher register of notes – not too high, nor too low, but matched to the tone of her speaking voice.

Sometimes, she sings along to it. There are no words, just clear notes to pair with the piano, and she makes a note of whenever she’s singing.

vii.She finds her way back into her apartment after a fight with her mother – all controlled tones and measured words, not a beat out of place except for the feral beating of her heart as anger pumps through her veins and is forcibly subdued before it reaches the set of her mouth – and she sees the binder that holds her music on top of her piano, and rips out a page of her composition.

It crumples in her fist, and she goes to rewrite it, except all her notes run sharp and the music is angular and jagged instead of the consistent, even, tender tone of her usual musical narrative, and she cries for the loss of her music, and wonders how it is a princess who can feel all the emotions of anyone she chooses in the world has such a small range of feeling for herself. She does not pity herself. She only mourns the things in her that must die as she tries to be even half the woman her mother is.

She is not fit for the crown, not yet.

A small part of her wishes she never has to be fit for rule, but she shakes that thought quickly. The other alternative is death, and that is much worse to a girl who hasn’t had enough of the meager taste of life she’s had so far.

She wonders if this is what her mother feels like: stuck between the crown and death, even if she’s managed to dodge the sacrifice.

She returns the page she tore out of the binder so hastily, and smooths her hand over the wrinkles. Some of the notes originally on the page have been obscured or torn, and she plays the music on that page tentatively, missing notes and all.

It sounds hollow, but that seems fitting for the mood she’s in.

She dates the page.

viii.She hears of the rebellion brewing in her name and writes her conflict (dutiful daughter warring against selfish preservation) into notes, into the melody her mother has provided for the backdrop of her life.

She makes the decision to not inform her mother of the rebellion and dots a note. 

She hopes it will not be the last note in this composition.

Send me ♥ for how my character feels about yours:

The composition is titled “for██ever”, the original dedication scratched out to merely become a vague sentiment, its creator infinitely scared that someone may see far too much of herself and her subject in the music. 

But she fears needlessly – the music is so layered and complex that only those with formal training may scrutinize it and make sense of its ever shifting melodies and notes. The music grows and matures with its writer, and with every page comes another layer of subtext – the music itself cannot give away much of anything lest it is played out, but the effort and the heart sunk into it, the sheer number of pages, the compressed portions showing rewrites, and the wear of the paper showing frequent erasing in a manic attempt to get it right; well, even a fool could decipher the love that went into the making of it.

A fool can see the love; an empathetic man, the vulnerability; a sensible man, the labor; a wise man, the desire to immortality, and a musician, the narrative in flux.

#❛ what if she's golden?┊asks. #❛ i’ve been holding back for the fear that you might change your mind┊lacha. #private #// aw hell it got long

[notori]

RWBY Volume 4 Thoughts

I watched it all in one shot today and, well, spoiler-y comments below the cut!

So straight up I just want to say, in my opinion, this was the weakest volume. Go ahead and disagree, I’m not here to start fights - I just found it lackluster across the board. It left me wanting RT to pick themselves up and get back to volume 3 level next time. It wasn’t supremely awful and I’ll go over the good along with the bad, but I guess my overall sentiment was “Okay, better luck next time. Waiting on volume 5!”

So the good: Ren. Just... Ren. The only time I felt something deep in this volume was Ren’s backstory and his interactions with Nora. Not only super cute between them, but he’s always been a mystery and it was cool to see where those two came from and so on.

The bad: That was really the only moment I felt something! At least on the same level as how I felt throughout volume 3 (or even say, the Project Freelancer arc of RvB - point being, I know RT can do better). I mean, I was kinda concerned about Qrow. I like him - even if he is the archetypcal silent mentor guy who we now know literally has magical levels of angst to keep himself away from people. But I wouldn’t have been too heartbroken if he died either.

I did like Blake and her family. That was sweet - especially with her father and comparing it to Weiss’ family. However, it compounded too much with the other characters having split up and Qrow being himself that they repeated the (been there done that) conflict of “It’s not good for me to be around you! You’re better off! -OVERDRAMATIC EXIT-”

Back to the good: Still on Ren but, that grimm! Such a cool design! Major props to whoever came up with that. Creepy, powerful, all around the haunting image I expect when something terrible from someone’s past comes back.

A little bad: The team being split up didn’t work for me. I know a lot of people probably liked it and obviously the production team did but me? Nah. Didn’t care for it. Take Weiss for example - a titular character - what did we learn about her? Her dad’s a douche, her brother’s a douche, she’s pissed off with the rich people and makes an escape. So... wait... we didn’t actually learn anything about Weiss. We already knew she was headstrong. We already knew she would defy her upbringing for the greater good as we saw at the end of volume 1 when Blake was revealed to be a faunus. Sure, it takes a lot to stand up to family, but given who we knew Weiss to be... didn’t seem like it’d take this long or be this hard. It felt like she got set back when the entirety of her action taken this volume was to leave her home... which was done rather quickly (from a screen time POV) with seemingly minimal consequences. Of course there could be more to it that we’ll see in vol. 5, but as for right now? Again, lacking.

A bit of good though: The scene where she summoned the knight was cool! Also, and maybe this is just because I was watching with headphones, but the sound effects have improved over the years. So good job on that. Not just this moment but the grimm cries, ships, everything ambient really resonated and was pretty cool!

On that note however: Not my favourite volume for music. Which kinda sucks because I’ve always loooovved the RWBY soundtracks! The end credits song of the final episode was the only one I’d want to have of my phone. Same deal, I know RT can do better so I’m hoping they pick it up back up in vol. 5.

Where it really fell apart for me though was the characters, and again this comes back to the team being split up. Weiss got the least progression, but even the others... I guess I felt like no one grew this volume (except Ren, which is cool, but he’s a side character).

Ruby was backseat to Jaune. I didn’t want to say it. I’ve been defending Jaune for a while all through vol. 3 but this one was just... bothersome. Let me clarify: I like Jaune. But I feel he’s a good guy trapped in a bad narrative. All of team JNPR are side characters! And sure we can love our side characters, but do not try to give them this much of a spotlight. In fact this is my only criticism with Ren’s arc: I loved it, but it was Ren’s arc - not anyone from team RWBY - and it was the most interesting part of the volume. Look at what Ruby actually accomplished this volume or how she grew. Did we learn more about her? We saw... Ruby worries about people - which we knew. Ruby is a badass with her scythe - which we knew, but also saw better of before. I know the fights won’t be as good without Monty but did anything Ruby do in vol. 4 even come close to her decapitating that bird way back at the start of the series? Even from an info dump standpoint we learned nothing about the silver eyed people that we didn’t already know. They’re special and they’re being hunted. Yeah... most special people are in a world of magical strife.

Yang’s arc I liked, although it was kinda weirdly done. It’s like they couldn’t decide if they wanted to go dark and give her the grit of PTSD or keep her screen time more upbeat compared to the others. I kinda wish they had stuck with keeping her traumatized though, without it being her wallowing. Because that’s not actually how trauma works 100% of the time. It happens, yes, but it’s more than just feeling listless or being easily startled. We see her go from freaking out over the sound of a broken glass and having nightmares, to being fully okay when her father jokes about the attack. It’s all well and good if she’s over it - and I get that RT has VERY limited time to work on RWBY - but it came on sudden to see her be okay with it. Especially because it was implied through the joke that she and her father had been okay with it for some time.

Blake’s story was... kind of marred by Sun. I get the same feeling about him as I do about Jaune - except Jaune has (for all narrative purposes) been paired with Pyrrha. Sun is still after Blake and is just so stereotypical about it that I can’t not be rubbed the wrong way. Ships aside, I just wish that they could be friends. And unfortunately, they can’t be just friends if Sun is clearly into Blake. Now it’s just going down an all too familiar - and ugly - road of the poor guy who likes a tsundere who doesn’t want to be his friend! They can’t be friends unless they both want to be friends - and it’s clear from not only Sun’s actions, but the way RT is framing it with the comments from her mother and father, that Sun is not in the story to be Blake’s friend. He’s there to be a potential love interest.

Which brings me to my next point: Don’t. You. Dare. Bait. Us. Again.

Arguably my biggest point, and the thing I most want Rooster Teeth to know: We know when we’re being baited. We all do. It’s just a matter of some being willing (or naive) enough to put up with it, or those who have been through the cycle too many times to fall for it. These are my stern words of warning: We know you’re doing it. Don’t do it again. Representation only counts if it is within the story, not said by creators.

My kinder words of advice: At this time, you cannot run a male-female platonic relationship side by side with a budding male-male or female-female one. I can see how in the well-meaning creator’s mind it can seem almost obvious to treat two potential love interest as equal regardless of gender - on paper that sounds great! But in practice, in a world where LGBT+ people are constantly being told that their love, their friends and family, their very lives are second best to cis-straight people... It’s too threatening.

I did notice how Blake was adamant about denying Sun’s advances. And sure, her mother could just be being the playful motherly type and this is all a ruse for the big surprise that is Bumbleby. Yes, Blake and Sun could be just friends and their banter nothing more - hell I know I’d change my tune right quick if everything they did was literally being good friends and nothing more. It’d go from stereotypical boring guy-likes-girl-he-can’t-have BS to subverting the trope in favour of a healthy, fun, platonic relationship.

But you know that’s not how it’s coming across. And that’s where it sucks. Even if you didn’t know how Yang and Blake looked or acted at the start was reminiscent of a potential relationship, you know by now. You also know - given the blatant jokes throughout - that you were writing Sun and Blake’s interactions to at least look like the start of something romantic. Even if the end goal is to trick us.

What I’m saying is, we’re tired of being tricked. Mainly because tricks never work out in our favour. The few times they do, it’s short lived, usually ending in murder or suicide or something else terrible. This is why - at least right now was media is only just getting a handle on representation - if you are going to have LGBT+ rep you have to do it by denying any other possibility. You need to outright say “THIS CHARACTER IS NOT STRAIGHT LOOK HOW FUCKING NOT STRAIGHT THEY ARE!!! SEE THAT OPPOSITE*(For lack of a better word)-SEX CHARACTER BESIDE THEM??? BEST BUDS! THAT’S IT BEST BUDS DON’T WORRY ITS COOL BECAUSE THEY ARE SOOOO NOT STRAIGHT.”

If you don’t, especially if you tease a straight ship alongside it, we are so vastly outnumbered (by our oppressors no less - and yes, people who send ship hate specifically to LGBT ships because it’d interfere with their straight one IS oppressive - trying to silence us seeing ourselves in characters). Teasing LGBT+ fans by saying “yes, you’re here in this story... somewhere... we just haven’t shown yet...” and then writing a possible straight romance that would torpedo your leading LGBT+ one is downright a slap in the face. And don’t act like you don’t know it. And if Bumbleby IS where Blake’s romantic life is heading, don’t make tried fans who are used to getting hurt jump through the emotional hoops, or dragged through the emotional mud, of a straight ship alongside it. You don’t have to hand it to us on a silver platter, but make it clear that others are not happening.

(*Side note: I have zero qualms with bisexual Blake. More power to her. But the fact is her relationship with Yang is far more suited for a better romantic plotline than her relationship with Sun. It’s not because he’s a guy. It’s because he is nothing more than the average down-on-his-luck well-meaning goofball who’s primary character attribute is “I LIKE BLAKE”. And if they did anything to change that now it would only feel forced for the sake of trying to justify the ship.)

We are on volume 4 and you’ve said since the beginning that there are LGBT+ characters, even who we have already met, but just don’t know it yet. You have one last chance, volume 5, to remedy that - and make it count. The excuse of “we don’t know how to write romance” falls flat when you have Jaune and Pyrrha, and Ren and Nora.

Overall thoughts: It was alright. But if volume 5 could be my last unless they pick it up. Ways to do that include: Make Jaune and Sun better characters. Make the titular team the main characters again - together. Up to par music and fights. And - deal breaker - reveal some of these LGBT+ characters.

#rwby spoilers #rwby volume 4 #rwby4 #review #bumbleby rwby #lgbt+ representation #spoilers

[terryblount]

Crackdown 3 – Campaign Review

The past four months paint a bleak picture of the big-budget gaming scene as players had to endure a long series of major disappointments. Games that have been overstimulating our salivary glands for months – or even years – since their announcement only seemed to drive the wedge between publishers and us as consumers deeper and deeper. It was also no secret that long-time fans of Microsoft’s classic, Crackdown IP branded the third instalment as yet another game that missed the bar in terms of fan expectations.

It was therefore with a sense of wariness that I installed my review copy of Crackdown 3 since the current state of the AAA scene has been likened to a dumpster fire by many. Adding to my reluctance was the fact that I never played the previous games, which ruled out any sentimental attachment I might have had to the series as a whole. Ironically, Crackdown 3 turned out to be a game that I think was lambasted due to being a product of its context rather than a lack of quality.

“Quack, quack motherducker!” Apparently it is some sort of long-running gag in the series. Don’t ask me.

I am not saying that fans of this series have no reason to be upset; it has been nearly nine years since the previous game after all. However, as a player experiencing Crackdown 3 in isolation from its roots (and with curbed enthusiasm), I really had fun with it. It has no ambition to be original, nor does try to convey a compelling narrative, but what it can offer to players is a hearty sandbox experience that never tries to overreach itself.

Join the crew, Terry’s crew!

The game plays out in a world where super criminals have given rise to super mercenaries for hire thanks to an organisation simply called ‘The Agency.’ With the power of cybernetic and genetic enhancements, The Agency has ushered in a new age of peace keepers where a single ‘Agent’ can represent the military advantage of a one man army. As in the previous two games, The Agency has once again been summoned into a metropolis (called ‘New Providence’ this time round) where the power of corrupt bureaucrats has grown beyond the reach of the law.

This time the focal point of corruption lies within a super corporation named ‘Terra Nova,’ and it is up to Terry Crews… I mean Commander Jaxon and his squad to overthrow the establishment from within. In a style that is virtually identical to Middle Eath: Shadow or Mordor/War, the aim is not to kick down the front door and open fire on the person sitting behind the desk. Instead, Terra Nova must be destroyed using the one, true antidote for tyrants: Anarchy.

The leader of Terra Nova, Elizabeth Niemand. The final boss.

As such, the player will spend their time unleashing all kinds of hell on processing facilities, freeing the local resistance militia, and recapturing outposts all while mowing down masses of hired thugs. You do this until the commanders of each division get mad enough to face you head-on, at which point the opportunity presents itself to strike at the head of the snake. Once all of the lessor bosses have been blasted to kingdom come, the time will come to move against the leader of Terra Nova itself.

That weird feeling of Déjà vu

Shadow of Mordor/War is not the only book that Crackdown 3 has borrowed a few pages from. In fact, virtually all of the gameplay mechanics will feel extremely familiar to anyone that has so much as touched a sandbox or open-world game in the last ten years. Fans from Saint’s Row, Grand Theft Auto, Infamous and even Far Cry will all find something they instantly recognise within Crackdown 3’s gameplay mechanics.

Much like Shadow of War/Mordor you can even gather bits of intel on the bosses, and defeating one makes a path up to those in the higher hierarchies.

Still, the most obvious pedigree would have to be Just Cause 3 both in terms of how the game plays, and equally within the structure of the objectives. Crackdown 3 similarly puts you at the edge of the game’s world, and lets you tackle goals and activities in any order of your choosing. The player can spend an hour blowing up chemical plants manufacturing a green goop called Chimera, and then switch freely to liberating resistance soldiers who could offer additional support against the pesky local militia.

All that matters is results, and I never felt pressured to focus on one particular path. Yet, the thing is, I can list so many other games off the top of my head doing the very same thing, and this is perhaps Crackdown 3’s biggest weakness. Instead of being the stylish, next-gen, sci-fi epic that would be a more authentic continuation of 2010’s Crackdown 2, this game’s identity faces a real risk of disappearing beneath all of its more generic elements.

Why would you NOT want to play as Terry Crews!?!?!?

As I mentioned, there is not a whole lot going on in terms of the story which might make many of the tasks seem superficial, if not somewhat repetitive. The city of New Providence is small when compared to some of the dizzying, colossal sandboxes from modern entries in this genre. As such, you don’t exactly pick out an objective, stock up, and take a long trip to where you carry out your tactically-planned mission. You blow up one stronghold, before literally walking to the next one where you just rinse and repeat.

I can likewise agree with the haters that this game never fully realises its visual potential (without digressing into whether or not Crackdown 3 was visually downgraded). The world is characterised by that sterile feeling of a game engine more interested in keeping the frame rate up as opposed to depicting a lush, full environment. The developers, Sumo Digital, even removed those iconic, cel-shaded aesthetics that have always defined the visual identity of this series. This all adds up to a game that just does not have the eye-candy worthy of a nine-year wait.

I thought you said you liked it?

In spite of all this, Crackdown 3 really began to grow on me once I noticed several small, yet significant ways in which the game made an effort to keep things tight and polished. Even if the narrative fades into the background, and the gameplay never innovates beyond what is familiar to the genre, Crackdown 3 is still really good at what it does. The action is slick, volatile and it just works for a AAA title that you expect to have Terry Crews in the lead.

Good for crushing enemies or blowing up pumps!

Take the gun play for example. Here Crackdown 3 lays emphasis on the thrill of momentum and agility, so there is the option of an auto-lock on mechanic. Just bring anything into the gun’s sights, and the designated target will automatically remain locked on while you are free to jump and dash around the battlefield like a kangaroo on opioids.

It is not just purely for style though, since movement is a crucial defensive manoeuvre against the ruthless, hit-scanning AI. The game eagerly throws large numbers at the player once the fight begins, so those moves serve the purpose of making you an impossibly lively target to hit. Moreover, just one strike from the later bosses is enough to take a meaty chunk off your health bar, so getting good at dodging projectiles is anything but a wasted skill.

Agent + mining facility = flames.

The guns are also really fun even if the arsenal at the player’s disposal is not exactly vast. Each gun has been tailored for maximum efficiency towards a specific enemy type which prevents the player from just going in guns blazing. Chemical weapons are virtually useless against refinery workers in hazmat suits, but once you start bringing out the incendiary charges and explosive weapons, the fight suddenly shifts in your favour. This forms a welcome aspect of sub-strategy in addition to the already frenzy combat lighting up your screen.

On top of all this, just because I think Sumo Digital did not fully replicate the visual potential of this series does not mean the game is ugly. On the contrary, the environment is still unmistakably colourful and vibrant, and Crackdown 3’s physics engine is anything but shy when it comes to flashy, thunderous explosions. A distinctive visual style has also been worked into the vehicles and the architecture so, overall, the game is rather easy on the eyes.

Not much in the way of draw distance, but the game can be beautiful when it wants to.

Everything is more fun with friends… or not

Regrettably, I never got a chance to play the multiplayer so my apologies for not being able to comment on that. This is because, firstly, the upload speed of my shoddy internet will only end with me hurling my controller and, secondly, you need an Xbox Gold membership. Besides, in between Anthem and Apex Legends coming out within the same month, will anybody even be playing this?

It behooves me to mention that the multiplayer aspect of Crackdown 3 is called “Wrecking Zone” due to the physics-heavy gameplay mechanics. Much like Warmonger, which came out way back when PhysX cards were still a thing, the player is able to use super realistic, environmental destruction as an active advantage during gameplay. Feel like raising an entire building to the ground to flush your opponent out from hiding? Go for it. Feel like blasting a hole in the wall for a quick getaway? Sure!

Microsoft, however, does the physics calculations for you on the cloud, so you don’t have to stress about bringing the frame rate of your PC or Xbox One to its knees. Let me know how it is if you get a chance to play the multiplayer (or if you would REALLY like a review of it).

Haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate

So the dissatisfaction of fans is not entirely misplaced, and I had a blast playing through the relatively short campaign, but where does that leave you making your way through this review? Well, my final opinion is that Crackdown 3 cannot be called a bad game in spite of a few superficial flaws. I am truly disappointed that they did not squeeze more of the sweet visual juices from the Unreal Engine 4, and Terry Crews was hopelessly underused as a leading character.

The agency car you can summon at any time. Once you earn some additional driving skill points it turns into a buggy.

Yet, I just ended up having so much fun because, again, this game just focuses on a near flawless execution of its core gameplay. The action and movement are based on an intuitive control scheme that will have you feeling like a total juggernaut in no time, and the environments make up for their lack in visual fidelity through the level of thought that has been put into their design. The more skilled I became at running and gunning, the more rewarding the overall experience became because the game had no trouble making me look like such a badass.

Crackdown 3 therefore makes for the perfect game to play over weekends when you just want to blow stuff up without having to sift through intricate narrative webs or plot twists. If you already have a Game Pass subscription, or you have a sweet tooth for the more anarchic flavour of sandbox games, play this as soon as possible. For avid fans of the first two entries and newcomers alike, perhaps waiting a bit until the price comes down would be best, but you might just end up liking it lot.

Fast and furious combat

Easy to master

Rewarding exploration

Collectable hunting

Voice acting and sound

Somewhat bland world

Limited story depth

Repetitive in moments

Mediocre graphics

        Playtime: 10 hours total. For the single player campaign

Computer Specs: Windows 10 64-bit computer using Nvidia GTX 1070, i5 4690K CPU, 16GB RAM – Played using an Xbox One Controller

Crackdown 3 – Campaign Review published first on https://touchgen.tumblr.com/