#and this concludes my current art dump

[blippin]

#and this concludes my current art dump #because i gotta go wash dishes and junk #fitzroy my beloved #my fav boi out of all the taz's #right behind duck newton obvs #the legendary sass master #and v good boi snippers #i know snippers wasnt actually in this scene but i wanted to draw him anyway #this was my favorite moment in graduation so i just had to draw it #if you see this post even if its like eight years later #tell me why you love this good good boy and i will gladly rant along with you #taz graduation #taz #the adventure zone #fitzroy maplecourt #snippers #fitzroy #my art #old art #blippin art

[misguidedasgardian]

I want to steal the bride (2)

2. Desserts, Yi-ti and old things

MASTERLIST

Summary: Aemond finds himself without you for the first time in ten years, so he starts to realize certain things 

Pairings: Aemond Targaryen x BestFriend!Reader, Cregan Stark x Fem!Reader

Warnings: Cursing, Aemond goes around hehe, Criston is sort of a red flag, but that is nothing new, since its an adaptation of the movie, I will be using sort of stereotypes, and there are some jabs about marriage and married men in this part.

Wordcount: 3.8 k

Disclaimer: This is a direct adaptation of the movie “Made of honor” and its script! also the pictures of the header aren’t mine, I took them from Pinterest 

Notes: UPPSSSS

It hasn't even been a week, and Aemond already missed you terribly, he had barely spoken to you, you whined with him about not getting service anywhere, and you were almost always disconnected from him

But he had his weekly meeting with his friends and his brother, and he was ready to play basketball and keep his mind off of things for a while

He met with his brother Aegon, and his friends Criston and Adam Velaryon 

“So, how was the old man’s wedding?”. teased Aegon

“You would have liked it, the bride I mean”, he muttered while tying up his laces of his shoes 

“What was this one? the fifth?”

“Sixth actually”, he said, Aegon chuckled

“For the gods!”, he laughed, “I’m guessing you went with Looooove”, he teased

“Yes, next wedding you go instead please”, he said seriously

“Oh please, you love to find any excuse to take her everywhere”, he mocked, they walk back towards the group and find the guys arguing

“I'm not gonna be able to play today, man. My back”, whined Addam

“If we don't have a fourth, we're gonna end up with Tiny Shorts Guy”, complained Criston

“How's it going?”, Larys Strong appeared with a basketball in his hands, he was known on the court for not being very handy with the ball, and for wearing booty shorts when he played, it was not pretty, “need another?”

“No, our friend Ramsay, with longer shorts, is coming”, said Aemond, he laughed and left, cleary not getting the hint

“No he is not coming!”, remembered Addam, Myranda signed him up for some art-walk thing”

“Art walk? Are you serious? Tell me something, what do you think Myranda did with his balls when she cut them off?”, mocked Criston

“Gods”, mocked Aemond, I go to art walks with (y/n) all the time”, he defended 

“Oh, come on, guys, marriage isn't that bad”, defended Addam

“I agree”, said Criston, playing with the ball in his hand, “without marriage, there'd be no divorce. So, without divorce, I wouldn't have my condo in the Vale”

“There you go”, laughed Aegon, “Good one” 

“I'm serious, man. You're missing out on the best parts of life”, continued the only current married man in the group, now speaking only to Aemond and Aegon, “the most important part of life”

“This coming from the guy whose wife won't let him go to bars”, said Aegon

“Hey, I thought we weren't gonna talk about that, huh?”, he said back, “and besides you are you to talk?”, asked Addam, annoyed, “you are single and you've been single ever since… What was her name, in sophomore year?”

“Um, Cer-, Cerse….Ceresse!” said Criston mockingly, everyone laughed, except for Aegon

“Ceresse, that's it!”, laughed Addam, “Ceresse dumped you for him sophomore year”, he mocked pointing at Aemond

“You've never been the same. You haven't been able to sleep”, mocked Addam

“Scarred”, mocked Criston

“Yeah. You have no idea how nice it is to have someone who's gonna be there for you, no matter what, forever”, concluded Addam

“And you don't know how nice it is to sleep with a different girl every night”, snapped Aemond

“That's true”, said Criston

“Nice rebuttal”, peached in Larys

“You know, you got the best of both worlds, Aemond”, said Criston

“It's true. I can sleep with whoever I want, but I still get to hang with (Y/N) afterwards. It's a perfect setup”, he said with the brightest of smiles, only thinking of you

“Well, maybe not for her”, muttered Addam, Aemond’s smile got wiped out pretty quickly

“What's that supposed to mean?”, he asked

“Come on, Aemond. She's a woman”, continued Aegon

“Yeah, I got that”

“You sure?”, mocked Criston

“Yeah”

“Dude, she's pushing 30. You think her idea of happily ever after is coming home to you and hanging out after you got laid?”, mocked Aegon, Aemond frowned 

“Makes you think, right?”, asked Larys, sneaking into the group

“Yeah”, nodded Addam

It did made him think

You had never shown yourself annoyed when he discussed his conquests with you, you loved hanging out with him on fridays, and… anytime, yes you were annoyed when he asked you to go to his grandfather’s weddings with him, but… anyone would, right?

With a sigh, he picked up the phone, and dialed you

It rang a couple of times, until you picked up

“Hello?”, he asked enthusiastically

“Hey”, you whispered lowly

“What’s going on?”, he asked, “were you sleeping?”, he mocked 

“Its very late here Aem”, you whined 

“How's the weather in White Harbor?”, he asked

“It's great. Only I'm in Winterfell”, he had woken you up, you were exhausted 

“Oh, right. Right”, his smile didn’t waver as he listened to your voice, “So, it's sunny”, he assumed 

“It's 3 in the morning”, you whined

“Oh, right. Sorry. So it's dark”, he said

“Yeah”

“Hey, have you seen the Big black wolf yet?”, he didn’t hear anything back, so he just dropped it, “I know, a terrible joke. Anyway…”

“Is there something important?”, you asked, falling asleep with phone in hand 

“Yeah, you'll never guess what happened”, he said with an enthusiastic tone

“What?”

“They filled in the pothole”, he said matter-of-factly

“The pothole?”, you asked, frowning

“On 83rd”

“Terrific. Hey, Aemond?”

“Yeah?”, he asked

“I'm gonna go back to sleep now”

“Oh, okay. Sure”, he said, finally catching on

“Love you”, you whispered, and Aemond jumped on his seat, it wasn’t the first time you had said it, but clearly it played with his mind

“Good night. Call me Tomorrow”, he said but you were already gone, and he hadn't said it back

He was more confused than before

He loves hearing your voice, and he missed you, but he didn’t know what to think, he didn’t even know what he was hoping for, what he expected with just one phone call, if that could give him more clearance 

It hadn’t

No, he shook his head, he couldn’t, no, he couldn’t

You were his best friend 

But his male friends were right, you… were a girl… a woman, you have had boyfriends before and it's not going to be long before you get another one, maybe one day you’ll get married…

The thought frightened him, he realized with surprise

The thought of being without you scared him to death

So he came to a conclusion…

A bad one…

He invited the last girl in his little black book, to meet her in the vintage store you both liked going to, it had to work… You were going to move on from him, and even though that scared him, he had to be prepared

He was with women all the time, he was going to prove everyone else wrong, he could get girl-friends….

“This stuff's all old”, Jeyne mumbled, looking everywhere, bored out of her mind

“Yeah. That's the point”, he answered, she looked back at him and shoot him a wink and a smirk

“Let's go to Fendi”, she said, perhaps it was a mistake to tell her how much he gained

“Fendi? No. No, no”, he said dismissively

“Yes!”, she shrieked 

“We're here. Let's just stay here”, he said, trying to convinced her

“I'm not into old stuff”, she whined like a little girl

“Why are you talking like a six-year-old?”, he said, immediately regretting his choice 

“I'm not”, she answered sharply

So the next day, he invited Floris to the famous bakery, to try his luck

“This line is too long. Can't we just go somewhere else?”, she asked, anoyyed

“No. This is the best bakery in the world. That's why it's worth waiting in line”, he said simply, but as she looked terribly annoyed, those stilettos she was weaning weren’t making her any favors to stay for two long on her feet, he tried a bit harder

“Come on, we'll play a game. Wanna play a game?”, that seemed to pick her interest

“Yeah, we can play a game”, she said, visibly more engaged

“Okay, good”, he said, now more confident, “Tell me what to order”, he teased

“Why?”, she asked back

“We are playing, that’s the game! you'll see. It'll be fun.Make a suggestion.

“A cookie”, she suggested

“No, no, you have to be specific, like what type of cookie?”, he pushed

“A really big cookie”

Alright this was a bad idea 

“Aemond, your phone's ringing”, said Alys Rivers, the girl he had been seeing every week, he ran back from the bathroom to pick it up, it was you! it had to be you

“Hello?”, he desperately asked into the phone, but there was no answer, only noise, “Hello?”, he asked, but no answer

“What's wrong?”, Alys asked when she say him sighing loudly and desperately

“Missed an important call”

“That's because you're an important person”, she teased. He looked at her, she was gorgeous, he liked having sex with her

“Do you like Yi-ti food?”, he asked curiously 

Half an hour later he was sitting on the same table he used to sit with you, and Alys was right in front of him

The cart was approaching and she smiled widely

“Hey, come to mama”, she giggled, “Uhh, we will have, um, two fried dumplings, two of the wontons, and six of the, uh, fried porky thingies”, she ordered

“Yeah, but that's fried”, he said, annoyed, once her order was on the table, she grabbed a fried piece with her chopsticks 

“Come on”, she teased

“It's not healthy”, he said seriously

“Have some of the fried. It won't hurt you”, she insisted, nearing the fried piece into his mouth. She dropped it, making the piece fall into his pants and staining them

She gasped apologetically

“Sorry…”

“Thank you”, he said, rolling his eyes

This was a bad idea 

It’s been weeks, he had dated, actually taken on dates, many women, and none of them, not one, had made him feel the way you do

He missed you

He realized there was no replacing you, there is no other woman he rather be with… and… that was driving him insane

So today he decided to calculate the hour properly, and call you early, it was nighttime still, but at a  night he knew you were going to be awake 

But it was a glitchy call, he knew it from the beginning

“Hello?”, he tried, rubbing his forehead

“Hey. Hello?”, your voice, so beautiful and melodic, it made Aemond feel like everything was well, like he was at peace, relaxed 

“Hello?”, he repeated, “Love?”

“Hello?”, you asked back

“Hey”, he said, excited of actually being able to talk with you

“Aemond? Aemond, is that you?”, you asked, “Aemond?”

“Hello?”, he asked, annoyed

You could barely hear him, you were on a two day trip to a castle on the outskirts of Winterfell, it started pouring, the road was a mess and you were surrounded by huge cows, they were everywhere

“Hello?”, you asked back, actually, the thought of hearing your best friend right now is just what you needed, but you couldn’t

“You're cutting out. I can't hear anything you've said”, you whined, “I'm stuck in a thunderstorm. I'm surrounded with a herd of cows. Listen, I'll call when I get to the hotel”, you tried to explain

“Love, I can't hear you”

“Aemond?”, you asked, “Hello?”

“Hello? Hello?”, you were interrupted, and hang up when someone knocked on the window of your car, you smiled apologetically, and found yourself in front of the most handsome man you had ever seen

“Oh Hello”

“You lost lass?”

. . .

“Oh, I hate Winterfell”, whined Aemond and threw his phone away to bag, it was basketball day again, and he need to get ready

But his mind was thousand of miles away

As the days passed he realized there was no other like you, you are the only one he liked to hang around with, he loved being with you, he… he loved you 

And the thought scared him

“C’mon C’mon C’mon!”, called Criston, but Aemond was barely able to move before Addam snatched the ball from him 

“We're having a hard time”, mocked Criston, “We're having a hard time”

“Oh, yeah? Want a hand?”, asked aegon, who got the bal and had no problem avoiding Aemond and threw a three pointer from half the court

“Give it up, baby”, he mocked

“Come on, Aemond. Aemond, Aemond”, called Criston, but Addam intercepted him

“Easy”, he mocked, Aemond tried to grab him, tired of failure

“Aemond, foul. That's a foul, Aemond”, called Aegon, “what's the matter with you today??”

“I don't know”, he whined, stopping in the middle of the court, “I think I might have feelings for (y/n)”

“Oh, come on, come on. Let's just play”, mocked Criston, but Aegon and Addam shared concerned looks 

“It's just... without her, something's off”, he explained, like it pained him, “It's got me thinking that, maybe, there's more to life than just sleeping around”

“I don't understand”, said Criston

“I-I'm not following”, muttered Aemond

“Come on, let's just play”, dismissed Aemond 

“I know exactly what you mean, Aemond”, said Addam with a shy smile on his face. Aegon and Criston shared concerned looks and passed the ball to each other

“I'm gonna tell her, when she gets home… I'm gonna tell her that I wanna be with her”, he said with a wide smile, “nothing about marriage, just be together”, Addam’s smile wiped out pretty quickly

“Yeah, that's romantic”, mocked Aegon

From hare, and for the next few weeks he still had ahead of him without you, he could breathe a bit more easy

. . . 

You have one unheard message.

A message from you! Aemond was so excited when he heard it

“Hey, Aem, I'm back. Gods, I cannot wait to see you! I don't care what you're doing tonight, cancel it. We're going to dinner”,  he smiled at the sound of your voice, this was going to be perfect, he knew exactly what he was going to say. “Meet me at that new trendy place next to the small Bravoosi  place we hated that used to be the Mantari-fusion place we loved. Meet me there, at 8 o'clock. I have so much to tell you!”

He had heard the voice message like eight times already while ha changed clothes, he was so so excited, he had his apartment cleaned, his suits pressed, his cologne, - the one you liked- stocked, his hair fixed, tonight, he was going to tell you that he had feeling for you, that he wanted to explore it further

With any luck, he was going to take you back to his palace for the night

You were going to be the first woman even going up there

And he was okay with that 

He entered the new place, it was very nice, as could turn into a date kinda nice, he looked at the flowers he bought on the street for you, and took a long breath as he told your name to the receptionist who led them to the back of the restaurant 

And there you were, gorgeous, like always

He could recognize you everywhere, anywhere 

But as he catched your glance and you smiled at him, you look back to someone else, and there it was, some guy, tall handsome, he hadn't seen him, instead he hugged you and kissed your neck

Fuck no

No no no no

Who was that?

he got so distracted that he didn’t see the waiter coming at him at full speed

They clashed scandalously, plates flew as the flowers and Aemond fell to the ground, not very elegantly, on top of the poor waiter

“AEMOND!”, you called, running to him. He was whining on the floor, “Aemond. You okay?”, you asked sweetly

“I'm all right. Are you all right?”, he asked, turning to the waiter who was moaning and wheezing in pain

“I think I broke a rib”, you helped Aemond up from the floor, and he smiled apologetically at you 

“His rib. I'm fine. I'm fine”, said Aemond, helping the poor waiter up on his feet, he was fine, he hoped 

“Are you okay?”, you asked to Aemond

“I'm so sorry”, muttered Aemond, the manager approached you

“I'm sorry, sir. Here are your flowers”, she said apologetically, trying to grab them front he floor

“Oh, but…”

“You had flowers?”, you asked him

“No, they're not my flowers”, he said dismissively

“They're your flowers. Those are yours”, said the waiter, grabbing his side

“I didn't have flowers”, fought Aemond, grabbing you softly and walking away from the scene. He finally turned to you and smiled

“Hi. It's good to see you”, he purred softly, his eye shining excitedly

“I missed you”, you admitted, hugging him quickly, “there's someone I want you to meet”

Aemond wanted to be the one that broke a rib

“Oh, good”, he said, not expecting you to notice the change in his demeanor 

“Aemond, this is Cregan”, there it was, this tall, handsome, beautiful man

“oh”, they shook hands, and Aemond didn’t know what to think

So fifteen minutes later, with a drink in hand, Aemond was pinching his own leg under the table, because he wanted to scream 

“It started pouring and suddenly it was just me in a field of cows…”, you laughed, Aemond watched in horror the way you were looking at that man, “of course, we're in the North there are no street signs anywhere and it's getting dark…”

“I think she thought she was in some bad werewolf movie”, he chipped in, and Aemond even hated to hear the sound of his voice, "Stay off the moors, lassie.", he continued

He only had eyes for you

“So, anyway, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, Cregan comes riding up on horseback”, your eyes are finally back on him, so he had to muster a weird smile. You laughed excitedly, Aemond had never seen you like that, “Can you believe it?”, you asked him “A horse! And asks me if I need any help”

“Wow!”, he said, faking it, not that you’d notice 

“You were a lady in distress. What was I gonna do?”, he said, Aemond wanted to throw up

Dammit Cregan, we are in a public place! Aemond was sure that if a policeman would have been here he would have arrested him, for public indecency and being a creep

“It was right out of a Valyrian novel”, you said lovingly, you could see that Aemond wasn’t that invested, so you smiled at him, what he had said that you where a “love slut” came back to you, “So, anyway, he shows me to this charming little inn where he proceeds to buy me the most awful dinner I have ever had”, you said, with a bitter taste in your mouth

Probably Aemond thought this was stupid, that you were being silly 

“Right. Okay. Aye. It was pretty bad, even by Northerner standards”, Cregan agreed with you

“Then, we just spent the next month traveling around the country, getting to know each other, and visiting museums. It was…”, you sighed, looking into Cregan’s eyes

“It was perfect”, he said right there with you, looking into yours

“So, when it was time for (y/n)  to leave, I just… I don't know, I just… I couldn't let her go”, Cregan finally found it in himself to look at Aemond

“Ah…”, he muttered

“So, I got down on one knee…”, you smiled widely, showing Aemond your hand, and the huge rock that decorated your ring finger

“And he proposed, and I accepted”, you said excitedly

Aemond was never a man who let himself be controlled by his emotions, that being said, he never thought he even had a nervous breakdown, or a panic attack… until now

He felt his heart beating sot wrongly he thought he was going to pass out 

“Wow, that's just… It's huge, it's…”, he couldn’t stand it, his legs were getting numb

“So, the wedding's coming together very quickly”, you continued

Oh suit fuck, shit, he started looking for the emergency exit, couldn’t find it anywhere 

“Ah, it sounds like it”, he managed to say, his mouth was dry

“We're gonna get married in Winterfell, at Cregan's parents' summer home”, you continued, another nail on his coffin

“It's gonna be a pretty small thing. We can't expect too many people to make the trip overseas in just a fortnight”, Cregan chipped in

“A fortnight”, he said, trying to calm himself

“Right!”, you said

“That's two weeks”, he said seriously

“It's crazy, isn't it?”, you asked him, he seemed to notice how incredibly nervous you were

“Have you ever been to Winterfell, Aemond?”, asked Cregan

“You know, I haven't”, he said, trying to smile, but his cheeks were numb too

“You should see the little church where we're exchanging our vows in”, that smile on your face, Aemond’s heart broke, if he could be the one that caused it, it was so beautiful and bright, filled with love, “It's the same church that Cregan's parents were married in”

“It's pretty spectacular. Just across the loch from our distillery”, of course

“Distillery?”

“Yeah, Cregan's family owns the largest whisky distillery in the North”, you said with a knowing smile

Did you expect him to like this Cregan person?

“Aemond, look…”, oh shit, he thought, “If you were getting married I'd expect to be your best man”, you said surely, and he paled even more, “Aemond… will you be my maid of honor?”, you asked excitedly 

“Your maid of honor?”, he asked, it felt like the knife this Cregan guy had plunged into him, was being twisted, he got up, he needed to get out of this place, he needed to run,t o scream to

He turned and BAM

He crashed against the same waiter, both ended up in the floor covered in some warm soup

“Oh, I'm so sorry”, he whined

“WHAT IS IT WITH YOU MAN?”, he screamed high pitched

taglist!

@snh96 @sagelovesreading @toodlesxcuddles @ammo23 @bananzaa @ttkttt @at-a-rax-ia

#misguidedmade #aemond targaryen x reader #cregan stark #cregan stark x reader #hbo house of the dragon #house of the dragon #aemond targaryen #cregan stark x you #cregan stark x oc #cregan stark x y/n #made of honor

[fefflerone]

This now concludes my dumping of all the art I made while playing rdr2 last year. I am currently playing rdr1 for the first time tho soo maybe there’s something coming there who knows (I don’t)

#those weird character sheets i did of dutch and josiah single-handedly taught me how to accurately draw off photos btw #and by god was i insane about josiah #i literally started crying when i saw him once #he didn’t even do anything he was just #standing there #red dead redemption 2 #rdr2 #rdr2 fanart #dutch van der linde #josiah trelawny #fanart #my art

[lotusunset]

Far too many pics of the Palais Garnier! (Part Four!)

In October of 2022, I had the extraordinary experience of getting to complete an 15+ year old dream of mine to visit the Palais Garnier. I took a metric fuckton of pictures and now I want to share them with you all, the PotO community!

Before I start dumping, a few things:

Please reblog this post. I usually don’t post a lot, therefore I don’t have a big following. I’d really appreciate people sharing these as much as they can. When I was a dumb kid in ye olden days of the internet, finding a post like this was the sort of thing I would have been hyped up on for weeks. Help spread that kind of joy!

Feel free to use these photos for any sorts of graphics, artistic reference or any other fandom related projects, as long as it’s not for profit. Please just credit me in some way. In fact, I'd love to be tagged to see whatever creations come from sharing all this!

This is Part 4, which will be pictures of the stage, things that were on display and a few extra pics from my Paris trip.

Part 1 (Exterior) | Part 2 (Staircase) | Part 3 (Foyer) | Part 4 (HERE)

Honestly, we were shocked we were even allowed to see the stage at all! The day we took our tour, it was closed for rehearsals. When we came back the next just to have more time to wander around, it was closed again. Right as we were about to leave though, rehearsals finished and we got to see it! This was the view from box 25.

There were lots of costumes from past productions on display throughout the halls. These were a few of my favorites.

The very impressive Opera Library!

There were a few halls that have been turned into museum spaces. This painting was part of the series of concept art that was eventually turned into the ceiling paintings in the grand foyer.

The outside balcony area, the grand foyer is right inside.

Extra Stuff!

The interior of La Madeleine. We couldn't get any good pictures of the exterior, as it is currently going through extensive renovations. This church was about a 15 minute walk from the Opera. In the Kay adaptation, I remember Erik making a sarcastic comment about marrying Christine here.

A few shots from the Paris catacombs. If there was interest, I could also make a photo dump of this place. It was pretty extraordinary. It was very easy to imagine our favorite sewer goblin hanging out down here.

Notre Dame! She is doing well after the devastating fire in 2019. Not open to the public yet, but it was very neat getting to see construction work happening while we were there! Under the scaffolding, we could see parts of the roof starting to take shape once more. Hopefully, it will be finished in time for the 2024 Olympics.

While in Europe, I also stopped to see Phantom in London! This wasn't originally part of our plans but knowing I wouldn't likely be able to make it to New York to see it on Broadway before it closed, I made a priority to see it here!

This concludes my epic photo dump. If anyone has questions about anything, please ask! I will try to answer to the best of my ability. I absolutely can't wait to see how the community uses these!

Part 1 (Exterior) | Part 2 (Staircase) | Part 3 (Foyer) | Part 4 (HERE)

#phantom of the opera #le fantome de l'opera #poto #photography #christine daae #raoul de chagny #erik #phantom #palais garnier #paris opera #paris #architecture

[bp-best-froggo]

Soo, uhh, the Arknights anime...

(fyi, this might be obvious, but I’m gonna spoil the first episode now. If you haven’t seen it, go watch it. Then come back. Or don’t. I’m not your mom. I’m going to dump my thoughts here. This isn’t going to be very structured, very sorry if it’s incomprehensible rambling. It’s a long one. I’m not even kidding.)

First of all: What is this show supposed to be?

This might be an obvious one. An adaption of Arknights main story, in particular its first couple of chapters. The show is called “Prelude to Dawn” which does imply, also based on the material they have shown so far, that they will adapt Chapters 0 - 3 (as these chapters are also displayed together in the game’s story hub). Currently the show is listed with 8 episodes, which is shorter than most other shows.

With that out of the way, what kind of adaption is Arknights: Prelude to Dawn? Is it attempting to simply transfer its story to a different medium? Market the game to a new audience? Or is it trying to improve on a story, which was flawed on release, due to a lack of experience?

Or to frame the question differently: Why adapt Arknights into an anime show at all?

There are a couple of reasons for that. First of all: Expectations. If you’re releasing an anime-style game (or a manga or probably also a light novel), and it gains decent popularity, it’s a given that your fanbase will expect to see an anime adaption. Most fans are dreaming of that perfect adaption, that captures everything they love about a piece of media and looks stellar. Which I think is understandable, but also, when it comes to video games, near impossible to do right. Games are interactive art - you can only transfer a fraction of that experience into a visual/auditive medium.

Basically, you can tell me the story, but you can never capture the frustration of trying to clear NL-S-3 CM. Don’t get me wrong, I love the story, but I also love the gameplay. You can’t capture the gameplay, because I’m not the one doing it. In an anime, I watch someone else doing it. This makes it, by default, impossible to deliver on the expectations set by the community.

If you’re making it so hard on yourself to deliver a satisfying product then, why bother? Reason #2: You can make money off of it. If you have a bunch of people, who are by default willing to spend money on your product, because there’s a familiar name on the tin.

I cut this one short: I don’t know how profitable making this show is. You can watch it on Crunchyroll and I don’t know how much HG is making by selling the liscense. But then they’re also sharing it on YouTube which... I mean, it’s nice, don’t get me wrong, but like... for free? I mean they are getting ad revenue too, but... is that enough to make up for the production cost or even turn a profit? I guess you could also sell physical copies, the fans are gonna love those. But is that enough? I have honestly no idea.

Reason #3: You can market your game. A lot of manga and light novels used to do this and probably still do (don’t know for sure, I don’t watch as many animes anymore), where they get adapet for a single 12-ep season, only to push sales on the original work. No Game No Life, Btooom!, Baccano! come to mind for me. Decent shows, but will probably never have another season aired, even though the show is far from concluded.

If you wanted to make an Arknights show, to have more people pick up your game, selling them a story is one way to do it. But frankly, is that going to work? Remember you’re selling a gacha game. Peeps like me are here for the story, sure - but also for the characters. And if you want to haul in new customers, you might want to sell me your characters.

I know this is going to sound cynical, but if you’re not showing me at least 6* waifus only obtainable by gacha in the first 2 minutes, what’s the point? EP1 features exactly one character who is (not even exclusively) obtainable by gacha: Dobermann, a 4*. So honestly, either HG has no idea how to market their game (which looking at some of their ads might be a somewhat valid take) or that’s not what they were going for. Or they have a lot of faith that the story ends on strong enough of a cliffhanger to pull in the players then. (Which I don’t think either? Like, there’s a Limited Banner coming up both on CN and Global. Why wouldn’t you want to pull in players now?)

Which leaves me only with Reason #4: You create it because you can.

You can also call this one wishful thinking. I certainly think it is. Nowadays it’s hard for me not to look at PieceOfMedia(tm) and immediately think about what it’s trying to sell me. Even Arknights to an extend, isn’t only trying to tell me story. Every event comes with a new banner, so I can waste money on the newest 6* Blorbo. But I wouldn’t like Arknights if I didn’t see an earnest attempt between all the gacha banners and marketable characters to create something meaningful.

Earlier this week I got Glaucus’ module. I don’t think she’s a super popular character, so her module text will probably go unnoticed by most players. It made me tear up, because whoever wrote these few sentences wanted to express a kind of joy and happiness that not everyone can or will experience. This is why I play Arknights.

It’s these kind of things that make wonder, if this anime really only does exist, because there are a couple of people who care so much about something they have created, they want even more people to experience it. Even if gacha or tower defense isn’t their cup of tea. Even if it doesn’t turn a profit. Even if it goes largely unnoticed or unappreciated.

The truth is, probably, somewhere in between these four reasons. That’s why this adaption exists.

And it’s actually pretty good. Admittedly, it has been a while since I’ve read Arknights first chapters, but I still remember that at the time I skipped through most of them. They weren’t the reason I stuck with the game. The reason came way later. If anything, Arknights was a welcome distraction from the absolute hellhole that ‘Rona was at the time.

There’s a strange sense of comfort in a story about a world ravaged by an illness, too poorly understood to be cured, and people yet fighting to help those who suffer from it. Because at the time, when I looked at the outside world, all I could see was selfishness and fear. It was probably, curiously, the best possible time when the game had come out. At least for me.

I think what sums up this episode is that it was simply: Solid. Unspectular, but solid. The animation was good. It looked well-made and it was clear to see, that the animators put a lot of care into every scene. The dark scenes hit pretty hard. The voice acting was really good and I especially adore the Doctor’s voice. There was only one fight scene, but it was well done. I liked how they portraied the Doctor’s tactical thinking, using the drones and all that stuff.

But overall, the pacing was pretty slow and the exposition felt a little... clumsy. The Doctor’s amnesia and weak physical state is a good explanation to have all the characters explain a lot of stuff to them. But it slows the story down in a situation where it would otherwise be adviceable to... hurry up and get the fuck out of there? We know from the beginning that Amiya and her companions are in enemy territory, so having them stop every other minute to tell the Doctor all the stuff they have forgotten takes out the urgency from the story. Not completely, most of the time they are still hiding somewhere. But apparently it’s not urgent enough to not save Ursus mom and her daughter from Reunion.

A faster pacing definitely would have helped deliver the story. I’m not sure how much of the exposition was actually necessary, a lot of it felt like it was mentioned twice, but that might also be just me. I’m already familiar with the setting afterall. I’m still curious how good the setting was actually explained though. I will try to convince a friend, who has no idea what Arknights is about, to watch the first episode. Just morbid curiosity.

A lot of this might read like I have mixed feelings about the show, but that’s not exactly true. In fact, I love it and enjoyed the first episode so much, I will probably rewatch it at least once or twice over the next week. Most of my thoughts are just... uncertainty. This is afterall HG’s first attempt at an adaption. So far, it’s really good. It has honestly surpassed all my expectations and I was expecting something less polished than that. But I want to be careful about setting my expectations too high.

On the other hand I can’t help but wonder if this show is what will inevitably make Arknights pop culture - if such a thing can even be called inevitable. Maybe Arknights isn’t meant to appeal to everyone. A part of me would much prefer that over a slow decline into mediocrity that usually comes with increased marketability.

I have long since made peace with the fact that even Arknights might only be a phase for me. Right now, I still love the game and I play it every day and talk to people about it all the time. I know this can’t last forever, and I can’t help but wonder, whether my love for Arknights has already peaked or if it’s still going to last for a long time. Times feel uncertain to me so I find it though to believe in an eternity.

Regardless, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wanting for this to last just a little longer.

Frankly, I don’t think this show was made to market the game. I feel like it was made for me, and people like me. I’m probably wrong about this, but this is what I choose to believe right now.

To the two people who chose to read all of this: .... thanks for reading, but also, why?

#arknights #prelude to dawn #long post #arknights spoilers #i guess not really i rambled about everything but the show I feel like - #zeta.txt

[gothfionaapple]

I find it difficult to believe that new year’s day is the best time for deciding what changes to make - you may not realise, but you’ve spent the last couple months being flooded with advertising that slowly primes you for the realisation that you are indeed too unfit, too lazy, too distracted, sub-optimal, etc etc. You ate too much over Christmas, you drank too much on new years, now you might find yourself - just like everybody else - deciding to exercise more, drink less, focus on your career, be more outgoing, or whatever else it is salaried people care about. However, I - also like everybody else - rely on arbitrary markers of time to make sense of the world. And I don’t rejoice at tearing down the things that hold people in one piece, keeping everyone from crumbling at the largeness of the world. So, 2024 resolutions:

I would like to be more warm and present, less self aware. I’m trying to practice a level of genuine openness that I don’t normally feel comfortable with. Ultimately I would love to be the kind of person that people find easy to talk to - at the moment I’m aware that I have an awkwardness about me that can come across as rude or indifferent. I wouldn’t mind appearing this way if I had ever been indifferent about anything in my entire life.

I also want to use my phone, namely social media, more. I think I might be the only person with this resolution. I’m so bad at replying to people or knowing what’s going on at all. I think it’s currently a disservice to be so unaware of my larger social world.

Lastly, I hope to get more of my thoughts out of my head in a clearer way. I cant help when using this page to be so grossed out by my self focus, which is odd because I decided to use it like a diary rather than focusing on the idea that anyone might read anything here (which realistically isn’t going to happen unless I let it). So the fictional reader might notice that I’m writing poorly and with lots of “I”. But I’m trying to get comfier with just letting things go somewhere else so I don’t have to think about it anymore, and so that when I do write I can dump and edit rather than begin at a high standard that I cant actually maintain. I’m also forcing myself to be okay with writing in this sort of crap first person stream-of-consciousness way so that when I write in a more separated way I can place myself in there more, and find a way to express my position on it all. Does it make sense? Not really. You, the fictional reader, might find that all of these resolutions come back to me struggling to exist within rather than outside of. As someone who loves art that is contextual, and who loves their own context, I struggle to actually see myself in that context. A drunk friend a couple months ago said my greatest weakness (after I asked) was that I need to see that I also have what I admire about the world. If he ever reads this and thinks that’s not what he said, please correct me because I was pretty drunk too. But I’ll take it as I remember it! I think he just meant that I seem to observe a lot more than I exist. I’ve had that pretty confirmed in other ways.

So, the goal is to try and be in the world, somehow. It’s exhausting dumping these kind of feelings onto a keyboard. Do I need a sign off? Maybe. I’ve never been very good at concluding things appropriately.

#text

[merlettamustdie]

Small art dump for August since it’s nearing the end of the month <3

So first off, I touched up my converse since they looked boring af and devoid of color

Next, I finally painted my ceramic opossum from last semester and her name is clementine 💛

I had an vinyl record of a band I don’t support anymore so rather than breaking it I decided to paint it! It’s my own stupid little fake koi fish band named the mason jar pond 🦑

And to conclude, I have two small doodles plus a cat photo (as per usual) and the current song I’m listen to.

#art dump #watercolor #drawings #cats of tumblr #koi fish #vinyl records #ceramics #possum #converse diy #fiona apple #Spotify

[tehuti88-art]

3/17/23: r/SketchDaily theme, "India." Ganges, with an unintentionally creepy person.

...

This week's character from my anthro WWII storyline is Edelgard (no last name ever given). She's a newer character who never appears in the main story but plays a big role in the history of one of the major characters. There'll be more about her later in my art Tumblr and Toyhou.se.

TUMBLR EDIT: Aside from one brief mention in Godfrey Klemper's updated entry, you'd have to go to my Toyhou.se to see whose name Edelgard's resembles, another character given only a first name and whose last name is never given. He's developed quite a backstory--and a future story--since I last described him, and Edelgard here plays a massive role in it, despite being long gone and presumably dead by the time the main plot takes place. Her character, despite existing only a brief time so far, has already undergone massive changes--including a sex change. (No, not within the story--originally her character was male, then I wondered how different the plot would go if she were female, and it abruptly happened.) It's yet another disturbing tale in a plot full of them, I realize, but yet again, here we go.

Let's set the scene, which is still heavily in development so may still change. In the current story, various units of the Wehrmacht which patrol the countryside often stop to rummage through abandoned houses for goods since the supply chain is frequently fractured. One of these units is PFC Klemper's, under the command of 2nd Lt. Frieder Dasch. Klemper is a child soldier who grew up dirt poor, working early on on a farm, and was orphaned young as well; he knows how to scrounge and provide for himself. So he knows, from a quick peek inside, which houses have the good stuff. Dasch often sends him in first to see if the effort is worth it. One day, the unit crests a rise and is surprised to see below them at the edge of a vast clearing near the woods not a house, but a castle--a veritable castle. Sure it's short and boxy and nothing like the castles in picture books, but still, aside from Castle Schavitz it's the first castle they've come across, right in the middle of nowhere, too. They know of no castles supposed to be in this area yet here one is! After a few moments of puzzled speculation, during which they observe it through binoculars and conclude it must be abandoned, they decide to go down and check it out. Maybe there's something good inside.

Accompanying the unit is 1st Lt. Ratdog, a sniper whom Klemper has been assigned to watch; when not busy sniping ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ he sometimes travels with them, since he and Klemper, who've grown close, are often separated for weeks on end. He's as surprised to see the castle as they are, but seems strangely dismayed as well; Klemper notices his reluctance to approach it although he goes along. No smoke rises from the chimneys, plus, oddly, the windows and doors have all been left open. Result, the elements have gotten to the place, with the interior being quite worn, damp, and unsuitable for longterm habitation. Ratdog sits on a mouldering couch in the main hall while Klemper ventures up the great staircase and the others mill around curiously. Dasch notices a large portrait of a couple in Prussian noble dress over the fireplace, but the faces have been damaged. There's an engraving in the wood above the mantel and he brushes off the dust; he reads aloud, "'Herr Herzog und Frau Herzogin von...'" but the surname is gouged out and unreadable. All he can tell is the castle once belonged to a Herzog and Herzogin--a duke and a duchess. Whoever they were, their name is now lost to history.

Upstairs, Klemper rummages through the living quarters; he finds nothing much worth salvaging aside from a child's toy--a carved wooden horse, which he tucks into his coat--but is quite curious about a pile of portraits he finds at the end of a hallway. Just dumped there after being pulled from the walls. He looks through them in the hopes of learning about who once lived here. Some of them are what appear to be family portraits--a mother, a father, two children--but, creepily, the faces of the parents are all destroyed. The children are a younger boy and an older girl with long straight hair, both of them unsmiling. Klemper tries to push down his unease though it's difficult the more he looks. As he browses, the children in the portraits get older, until finally he digs out one where the girl looks almost grown, the boy perhaps in his mid teens. And Klemper drops the portrait, eyes wide, and pushes himself to his feet. He runs back up the hall and down the great staircase to the ground level where everyone else is milling around.

Klemper stumbles into the main hall so abruptly that everyone looks at him. Dasch asks if he found anything useful; he says no, he didn't. Dasch decides that they'll sleep the night there, since at least it provides adequate shelter on a dry mild night, and they'll head out again in the morning. Everyone gets out their bedrolls and they start a fire in the fireplace, settling down to eat and talk a bit before turning in. The next day, as planned, they head out again, leaving the castle behind.

Ratdog notices Klemper giving him a furtive look now and then, but neither says anything.

It isn't until later on, when they're alone, that Klemper pulls out the little toy horse and shows it to Ratdog. Ratdog blinks and actually flinches back a bit. Klemper hesitates before venturing, "It used to be yours...?"

An aside, now. When they were still getting to know each other, and on rather poor terms yet improving, Klemper had asked Ratdog his real name. Ratdog had replied, "It doesn't matter. I'm the last, it dies with me." Implying it must be some kind of old, rare name. Klemper said, "What's your first name, then?" to which Ratdog paused but then said, "Adel." Klemper henceforth refers to him by his real name, Adel, and is the only one to do so until after the war (when most of the characters drop his wartime pseudonym and refer to him as Herr Adel).

Now...when I chose a real name for Ratdog, I don't believe I put much thought into it aside from it being German, and sounding good. I likely looked up the meaning and thought that was cool too, but it wasn't why I chose this particular name. This is my way of saying I had NO idea about this future plot point when I named him...but it worked out in an odd way.

"Adel" isn't just a name. In combination, Deutscher Adel, it refers to the old German noble class: The barons, the counts, the dukes. (Adelina Dobermann's name is from the same root word.) "Herzog," duke, is almost as high a noble rank as somebody can get without being a literal prince. The name and faces of the duke and duchess of the old castle were wiped out, but the portraits of their children, the young Herzog and Herzogin, survived. Klemper has no idea who the girl is, but despite being only a teenager in the image, Ratdog was easily recognized. Ratdog isn't just a Junker, he's the last of a long, ancient line of dukes, and that was his castle.

In one part of the story, a Nazi official offers to put together Klemper's family tree; he manages to do so from the names of Klemper's late parents and gleefully proclaims that Klemper is of pure Aryan blood and comes from "a long, proud line of peasant farmers." Klemper isn't impressed either way. Ratdog turns down the same offer. Klemper now wonders if this is why; he doesn't want anyone to know he's a duke? Ratdog asks if this changes anything between them--he's the exact opposite of Klemper, and maybe a hundred or so years ago, somebody just like Klemper would've worked his fingers to the bone on Ratdog's estate. Klemper says it doesn't matter. He's curious why Ratdog would want to hide such information, though, and why he apparently abandoned that life. Because as long as Klemper's known him, he's lived alone in the woods in a tiny stone cottage he built himself. Why would he give up a castle? What happened to all the portraits and the family name? And most of all, what became of Ratdog's older sister? For that's obviously who the unknown girl in the portraits must have been.

Ratdog is just as obviously quite reluctant to share his story with Klemper, but the two of them are learning to be honest with each other, and this is a pretty big thing to not be honest about. In bits and pieces he tells Klemper his story.

His family of dukes and duchesses had lived in the castle for generations, hundreds of years. The farmland around the estate, and the number of people working for them, dwindled more and more over the years so that by the time of his grandparents, it was pretty much just them and their son and daughter. One winter day the older duke and duchess went off hunting in the woods near the castle and didn't return by evening. A snowstorm passed through, so it wasn't until the next day that the younger duke could finally go out searching for them. He returned home emptyhanded. The only thing he and the younger duchess could assume was that they'd been caught in and succumbed to the storm. Later in the following year, he would indeed find two scattered sets of bones inside a cave in the woods where they must have tried to seek shelter, but most likely froze to death in the cold.

Now it was just the younger duke and duchess living in the castle. Although there was a distant neighbor here and there which they could trade with when necessary, aside from that they were on their own; the duke knew how to hunt, so he could provide for them, though it was quite a lonely, isolated existence. They eventually had a daughter--a new young duchess--but from an early age it was obvious something was wrong with her. She was prone to extreme violent fits which her mother couldn't handle, ending up locking her in her room for extended periods. Her father tried to get through to her when he could, but didn't do much better. He disagreed with the duchess's decision to lock their daughter away, but without anyone else to help calm her down, there was little they could do.

After several years they had another child, a son. He didn't share his older sister's violent temperament, seeming every bit a normal, healthy child, and his mother doted on him. One day when wandering the castle unattended, he discovered a locked door and managed to get inside. By the time the older duchess realized he was missing, and tracked him down to the room where his sister had been confined, the girl already had a scissor blade pointed at the boy's neck.

The duchess's screams brought her husband running and they both stood and stared at their daughter, holding their young son with the weapon at his throat. No amount of begging and cajoling would convince her to let him go, until the boy looked up at her. Unlike his parents, he was too young to understand the seriousness of the situation, and so wasn't afraid. Seeing him looking up at her, the girl let him go. The duchess grabbed her son and pulled him away and the tense standoff ended.

The duke asked for the scissor blade and held out his hand, the girl lashing out and gouging it open; when he held out his other hand, however, instead of getting angry with her, she finally relinquished the weapon. He refused to lock their daughter away again--the way she'd reacted to her brother proved, in his mind, that she wasn't entirely broken. Surely they could help her. The duchess didn't want anything to do with her for threatening their son, so he took it on himself, finding her some decent clothes, washing her up, brushing and fixing her tangled hair; before long, she looked like any noble child any family would be proud of. He tried to spoil her and pay her all the attention he could, but it didn't seem to get through to her much; a few times she would hold her arms out to her mother and make noises indicating she wanted to be picked up, but the duchess refused. A chill fell between them and they never grew close, though she did grow close to her younger brother, who would often keep her company and play with and read to her. He didn't seem terrified of her like their parents were.

Klemper stops the story and asks the question that has to be obvious by now: The only people who had been living in the castle were the old duke and duchess, and their son and daughter. The older couple had disappeared into the storm. Now, there's a new duke and duchess, and their son and daughter. "This girl and this boy, this is your sister?--and you?" When Ratdog confirms it--these two children are himself, Adel, and his sister, Edelgard--Klemper then furrows his brow and says, "Then, your mother and your father...they were...?" Ratdog confirms this, as well: His mother and his father were brother and sister, the children of his grandparents. It's never stated outright, but the implication is that his grandparents were also siblings, and who knows how far back this particular arrangement goes.

Klemper then has to gingerly ask: "You and your sister...?" Ratdog shakes his head--no, the two of them were never a couple; although they were likely expected to be, they weren't interested in each other that way. It's obvious now why he didn't want his family tree made out; he again asks Klemper if this changes anything between them. Klemper replies, "It's...odd...but odd things happen out in the country." He would know. Ratdog theorizes that this long family tradition may have contributed to his sister's fractured mental state, though he isn't sure why the same didn't happen to him. Does Klemper want to know the rest of the story? He nods, so Ratdog continues.

Despite their father's, and his, best efforts, his sister was never quite right, and the resentment between her and her mother only seemed to grow over time. Whenever Adel and his father left the castle to go hunting, his father teaching him everything he'd need to know when it was time for him to take over, this left Edelgard at home alone with their mother. The two simply tried to avoid each other as much as possible. Privately, Edelgard would confide in Adel her feelings about their mother, and they were dark ones; he tried to reassure her, but wasn't sure how. The older the two of them grew, the more strained the situation became.

One day Adel went out hunting alone--he was old enough now--while his father remained behind to tend to their mother, who wasn't feeling well. Edelgard of course remained home as well. It was late by the time he returned, puzzled by how silent the place was; sure it had never been noisy what with only the four of them there, but there should have been voices at least, or dinner on the table. He grew uneasier the longer he looked around, but there was nobody on the ground floor; so he went upstairs where the living quarters were. When he reached his parents' room, he finally found his mother, still in bed, but now drenched in blood; his father was slumped on the floor beside the bed with blood pooled around him as well. He panicked at first, trying to wake them, then realizing they were both gone--then breaking down sobbing--then gasping and cringing back when something moved in the corner of the room. Edelgard was there, her own clothes soaked red, though she wasn't hurt. She still held a long, dripping hairpin in her hand.

When he asked her what she'd done, she hadn't much answer, aside from the ever-present enmity between her mother and herself. What about their father, though?--he'd never rejected her, he'd only ever been kind. Why would she kill him, too? Edelgard's eyes grew dark when she described how he'd reacted upon coming into the room in response to his wife's screams. "He called me 'monster,'" Edelgard said quietly, and that was bad enough.

For a few moments it looked as if she would turn the hairpin on him as well, but when he didn't turn on her the way their father had, she faltered. Instead, she advised him to take what he needed, and leave the castle--"Before I hurt you, too. It's only a matter of time, anyway." Despite the horror of the situation he was reluctant to leave her, but had to do so when she started screaming at him in a rage; he hurriedly rifled through the family's belongings, fetched a few things, and fled. Over the next day or so he visited a distant neighbor who was willing to help him settle some monetary issues and trade him a few things he needed; he intended to return to the castle, but a heavy snow fell, delaying him from doing so. When he did return, he found the castle almost exactly the way Dasch's unit found it, with the doors and windows cast open, snow drifting inside and piled into corners and dusted upon furniture. His parents' bodies were gone, as well as Edelgard. After searching the castle from top to bottom he ventured into the woods, calling for her, but there were no prints to follow, nobody to be found. He lingered nearby for a bit, but nobody ever returned to the castle, and so he finally left it, and his name, behind for good.

"You never found her?" Klemper asks. "Alive or dead?" No, Ratdog isn't even sure if Edelgard is dead, though he assumes that, like the grandparents they never met, she simply wandered off into the snow. He himself wandered around a bit before picking a secluded spot to build his own home, where he's lived ever since, when he's not staying in the city. Klemper, who had previously mocked the tiny stone house more than once, refrains from doing so again--now that he knows why Ratdog built it and what he left behind--and instead asks, "Why do you think she ran away? You never hurt her, she never hurt you." Ratdog shrugs and says, "I think maybe she felt she was just too broken and didn't deserve to stay with me. Or that maybe it was just inevitable I'd end up hurting her, too."

Klemper says nothing this time. He's had a very rough life, has been chewed up and spat out more times than he can count, and although he's only around eighteen when he and Ratdog first meet, he's lived through way more awful experiences than anyone should, and it's left him bitter and dysfunctional. Although he wants more than anything to matter to someone else, all he ever seems to end up as is a victim, and by now he just assumes he's too broken to be fixed, he doesn't deserve love, and everyone, Ratdog included, will just hurt him anyway. Ratdog's proven he means it when he promises Klemper he'll be there for him, repeatedly, but Klemper's just been through SO much he can never entirely believe him. Ratdog's description of his sister suddenly hits home hard and he realizes why her story resonated with him. Although their circumstances were quite different, some of the fundamentals are the same. Ratdog's patience dealing with him and his mental instability is because he's already dealt with such a thing, in his own family. Ratdog can tell from the way Klemper falls silent and looks away that this has just struck him, yet he too says nothing.

I believe at some point later in the story Ratdog's true status somehow comes out--it's almost guaranteed for example that the SS, which keeps detailed records on everyone, has a lengthy file on him, especially since he's investigated and even briefly detained when authorities learn he didn't earn his rank in the Wehrmacht and is more of an "honorary" member than anything--and of course Dasch and his unit are surprised by this revelation. Far from it becoming a source of ridicule as he'd expected, Dasch's men seem to respect him somewhat more--he isn't quite the dilettante playing soldier whom they'd assumed he is, although not from a fighting family he's still from old German blood--much like Klemper, despite their vast difference in status--and after learning the ropes he knows how to look after himself. Dasch does take a poke at him here and there referring to him as "Herr Herzog" but it isn't intended maliciously, he grows to grudgingly respect Ratdog since Klemper does. This revelation about Ratdog's personal background might end up benefiting him or the unit at some point though I have yet to determine how.

The rest of Ratdog's plot has developed somewhat since I last wrote about him. It's complex and extended, I've likely gone over parts of it already, so I'll avoid going into minute detail and will summarize best I can. He and Klemper make plans to retire to his little stone house and live there together, away from everyone else but happy; not long after the war has ended, however, while there are still random skirmishes here and there, another German sniper takes a shot at Ratdog but Klemper, hearing it first, shoves him to the ground and is wounded instead. Ratdog brings him home and removes the bullet; they fall asleep in each other's arms after going over their future plans again, with Klemper reiterating that all he'd ever wanted was to know that he mattered to someone else: "I have everything I want." He dies in his sleep, bleeding out from the second bullet that both of them missed; overwhelmed by grief, Ratdog buries him next to the grave of his son Hans, who was killed when only a toddler. He himself is then shot while traveling in the open; his assailant this time is Didrika, a former resistance leader he and Klemper had alternated between fighting against and assisting throughout the war. The three of them had technically been enemies, but more often acted like rivals, with Didrika and Klemper tossing mocking nicknames at each other while Didrika and Ratdog admired each other's shooting skills. Earlier, Ratdog had come across Didrika's lover, Boris, mortally wounded in a ditch; he gave Boris his gun, with one bullet, so he didn't have to bleed out slowly and painfully. Didrika found his body and Ratdog's pistol, and has tracked him down to finish the job. After some back and forth, Ratdog finally snaps at her to kill him: "Go ahead, then! I have nothing left." Instead, Didrika breaks down weeping; she's mourning just the same as he is. Ratdog passes out from blood loss, comes to back in his own cottage, his wound bandaged up; Didrika saved him, unable to bear losing yet another person she knows. Technically they were enemies, but now they're all each other has left. In the absence of the ones they intended to spend their lives with, they become each other's lifeline in the years following the war.

Ratdog and Didrika aren't in love with each other--those feelings they keep for Klemper, and Boris--and they never marry. They do live together as partners, though, filling the void for each other, and have a son and a daughter, Godfrey and Tatiana (named after Klemper, and Boris's deceased sister). Ratdog's family line doesn't die out with him after all. Shortly after both children reach adulthood, Didrika falls ill, and after a time succumbs. Ratdog is finally left alone, and after so many losses--his parents, his sister, his son, his lover, and now his partner--he's barely holding on; the hurt is overwhelming. However, Tatiana tentatively informs him, on a visit, that she's pregnant; she was worried he would be disappointed in her, as she's not married herself, but Godfrey had insisted she tell their father, believing he'd understand, and that the news might help him. Indeed, Ratdog isn't disappointed in her (he'd been a single father himself), and Godfrey promises to help his sister with the baby when it arrives, so everything is well. After the birth Ratdog goes to visit at her bedside and meets his new grandson; he asks what she'll name him. Tatiana peers up at him and murmurs, "I wondered...would it be all right, would you mind, if I named him Hans...?"

Ratdog gives his blessing for his grandson to be named after his deceased son, Tatiana's and Godfrey's half-brother whom they never met. He thinks he hid his feelings well enough, breaking down only after reaching home; Tatiana's decision hits him hard, and he can't handle it. A knock at the door, however, makes him straighten himself out long enough to answer; he's surprised to see Godfrey. Godfrey is sensitive to others' emotions, in some ways much like his namesake, and he knows his father isn't doing well. They talk briefly, Ratdog assuring him he's all right, and Godfrey prepares to leave; at the door, though, he suddenly hugs his father, hard. "I want you to know," he whispers in Ratdog's ear, "I'll always love you. No matter what happens."

His words make it clear: He knows what's been on Ratdog's mind since Didrika's death, during their whole relationship in fact. It was why he urged Tatiana to tell him about her pregnancy while she had the chance. He knows Ratdog's held on as long as he was able, and this is likely the last time they'll talk. And he tells his father, in his own way, that he understands. It's all right to let go now.

Ratdog tells him he loves him and Tatiana and Hans in return. Godfrey promises to let them know, and leaves. Ratdog waits until he's sure he's gone before breaking down sobbing. His heart feels like it's been sucked out of his chest. It's felt that way since Klemper's death. He gets up and digs around in his cupboards, pulls out a large bottle. He gave up drinking years ago, as it reminded Klemper too much of his drunken father. He starts drinking anyway even though it just makes him cry harder at first--"I'm sorry, Godfrey," he sobs repeatedly, hating to break his promise to Klemper. His crying slowly lessens a little the longer he drinks, though, and he pulls himself together enough to write a short note--"I'm sorry, I tried"--which he leaves on the table, setting a glass atop it. He gets up, opens the window and leans out into the snowy air, taking a breath--it makes him shiver, but a few more drinks warm him up again, and he finally starts to feel drowsy and numb.

He opens the other windows, the door, lets the gusting icy air fill the tiny house, snow flitting in, piling into corners, dusting upon furniture. He takes the toy horse Klemper stole from the castle so long ago and holds it close. Then he lies down in his bed, shuts his eyes, and drifts away.

[Edelgard 2023 [‎Friday, ‎March ‎17, ‎2023, ‏‎4:00:23 AM]]

#artists on tumblr #ibisPaint x #SketchDaily #original characters

[jasontoddiefor]

Title: would you be so kind Ship: obikin Second: Ten years ago, Obi-Wan Kenobi met Anakin Skywalker, a charming young mage from Naboo, but as fate willed, they could not be together. A decade and thousands dead later, Alderaan’s High Court Sorcerer meets a Forger and his excited apprentice. AN: I forgot to post this on tumblr apparently, but here’s the first chapter of my second long WIP I am working on!

Then

The ship was crammed, filled to the brim with people clinging to one another, staring either at the home they’d lost or the home they hoped to be sailing to. Hundreds of ships had left Dromund Kaas already, carrying refugees across the ocean to safer harbors. The tension was high and sharp enough to cut as they sailed away from the doomed country and only relaxed when the pressure of the country’s shields finally left their shoulders.

“An awful sight, isn’t it?”

Anakin startled, instinctually pulled his coat around himself. Were he in a better shape, he would have lashed out immediately, winds, bindings, blood—

But the power flowing through his veins was too constricted, caged like a wild beast. Instead, Anakin just turned to look at the person who’d addressed him. An old woman with snow-white markings and long lekku stared at the dying country just as he had moments before, grief and resignation painting a sorrowful picture. “I never thought I’d leave this place. Did you?”

Wordlessly, Anakin shook his head. No, he certainly hadn’t thought he’d ever leave this place again. He’d been ready to be buried under the ashes of marble altars, not see this new dawn.

“I was born here, married too. All my children were born within the boundaries of this country and perhaps that is the reason they all left,” the woman continued. “I am glad that they weren’t here. If I think about what could have happened to them were they anywhere near the capital… I apologize; I hope you don’t mind my rambling. You looked like you needed company. Are you traveling to Naboo?”

He opened his mouth to reply, to give an affirmation, but stopped. He hadn’t quite thought where he’d go, except as far away from this place as he could. Naboo was certainly an option; Padmé would be glad to see him, he was sure. She’d take him in without asking a single question and defend him against the storms that were sure to come.

But Padmé was his friend and Anakin couldn’t allow her to shoulder his burden.

“No,” Anakin heard himself saying. “I’m not traveling to Naboo.”

“They are quite defenseless right now, yes, you are right. The fact that it’s the first stop of this ship is tempting enough for most to disregard what troubles might find them there.” The woman nodded in understanding. “I’ll be going to Alderaan myself. My eldest lives there, and in a country as strong as that, a tragedy like this can’t strike.”

She turned to look at the remains of Dromund Kaas again. The coastline used to be covered by beautiful large trees; his Master used to tell him how vital they were for its defense.

Now there was nothing but ash and darkness. Even here on the outskirts, where it had taken the longest for the remains of the catastrophe to reach, nobody was safe from it. Dromund Kaas had been in a pitiful state after the last war, which had made it an easy place to hideaway in. Alderaan might be stronger, the blooming center of magical education, but Anakin doubted they’d be able to defend against an attack like this. Nothing could save them from an attack such as this.

But Alderaan’s distance to this cesspit of disease was enough to provide a different kind of security.

Thousands of refugees would search for safety there, and Queen Breha was as cunning as she was kind. No one would be turned away and Anakin could slip in just right with them.

“I’m going to Alderaan as well,” Anakin replied.

The woman looked him over, then she beamed as if she were a young child and not already among the older members of her species.

Her smile was the first Anakin had seen in weeks. “Looks like we’ll be traveling companions then! You must tell me your name, young friend. I’m Raya Tano.”

She held out her hand and Anakin awkwardly shook it with his own left.

“My name is—”

Now

“Anakin Skywalker! Your automaton is ruining my kitchen!”

Sighing, Anakin let the spell sink back into the metal and settle into it. So much for working on his commissions today. A quick glance around the workshop told him that it was not one of his automatons running wild. Artoo was currently charging up and Threepio was keeping himself busy cleaning up. All the other small automatons Anakin crafted when he was bored were either asleep and charging or hurrying around the workshop, washing up the floors and putting away the tools Anakin had been using.

Anakin tugged off his gloves and threw them to a tiny and eager little automaton before picking up his softer everyday gloves. The leather was still quite resistant and had more runes stitched into it than most people dared to weave into one cloth, but they were nowhere near as excellently crafted as his work gloves. The dragonhide gloves were worth a fortune and so they never left his workshop unless Anakin had to. Anakin watched the little automaton put the gloves in their usual compartment until he could hear the click reassuring that the lock was in place. At first, that had only been a measure against thieves as he hadn’t had much to his name, but by now, it was a habit.

And it discouraged Ahsoka from stealing them for her own projects.

Anakin walked out of his workshop and crossed the courtyard to the small cottage he called his home, finding a kitchen in disarray, Raya standing on a chair with a small red automaton attempting to clean the floors.

“Look what a mess it’s making!” Raya said accusingly. “Instead of polishing my floors, it’s dirtying them!”

“I can see that,” Anakin hummed. He waited until the small automaton had reached his feet, then he bent down and pressed his hand flat on its small back, stopping it. Ahsoka’s handiwork was getting better; this little guy had kept moving for a while despite her absence. Anakin had no idea what the formal apprenticeship for forgers entailed, when they ought to hit what milestone, but he was willing to bet that Ahsoka was years ahead of her peers. Her spells were strong, her rune work fantastic, and very few actual weaknesses were left to explore in her automatons.

But Anakin was still a Master and Ahsoka only an Apprentice. Her work was not yet good enough to keep out foreign interference. Without much thought, he deactivated the automaton completely.

“This was your granddaughter’s handiwork,” Anakin commented. “She’s improving in leaps and bounds.”

Raya huffed and stepped from her chair. “I’m glad to hear that, but weren’t you meant to teach her control?”

“I am,” Anakin said, the argument an old and fond one. They returned to it frequently, mostly to annoy the young Apprentice. “And were she still as much of a mess as three years ago, she hardly would be able to craft such a fine automaton. Can’t do anything about her manners.”

Especially since she’d become a teenager. Anakin didn’t remember being as much of a pain as Ahsoka could be.

“And here I was thinking Masters were supposed to teach their Apprentices a medium of decorum.”

Anakin snorted. “Yeah, well, that’s what she has you for, doesn’t she?”

Raya’s expression softened. “That she does.”

Anakin sometimes wondered how Raya managed to stay so kind and calm when the world had taken so much from her. Her husband, country, her children— and yet she still stood straight, caring for the fellow traveler she’d never allowed to leave and the granddaughter that had been dumped on her with just a warning for Ahsoka’s generally explosive tendencies.

“Where is Ahsoka anyway?” Anakin asked, looking around the kitchen as if she would jump out in the open any moment. “I sent her on an errand earlier this morning, but she hasn’t returned yet.”

Unfortunately, Raya couldn’t tell him either. “I have no idea where that girl is running around—”

“Anakin!”

Speak of the dark and it shall appear. The door was thrown open and Ahsoka rushed inside, tracking even more dirt all over the floor, causing Raya to throw up her arms in defeat in a way Anakin knew meant Ahsoka would be left with all her favorite chores for the next week.

“Welcome back, Ahsoka,” Anakin said. “You’re late.”

“Yes, yes,” Ahsoka replied and rolled her eyes, obviously disinterested in what he had to say. “I got all you asked for and ordered the new metals, but look at this!”

Ahsoka raised her hand, revealing a ripped-off poster. It was tasteful in design, fine cursive writing on light blues, gold ornaments in the corners and, of course, the royal crest right in the middle of it.

Her Majesty the Queen of the Kingdom of Alderaan, Breha Organa, invites all Alderaani Practitioners of the Mythic Arts to attend the festivities in the capital of Aldera—

“Absolutely not,” Anakin said before he could even read the rest of the text. “We’re not going to Aldera to some festival.”

“Why not?” Ahsoka shot back. “It’s no summit, but it would at least be something.”

Her bitterness did not go unnoticed. Ahsoka had begged for months to attend this year’s summit. Every five, all magic practitioners gathered on Tython to exchange notes on their craft and pretend they were not also discussing the politics of their respective countries, forging alliances and the like. Anakin hadn’t been to the last summit, it having been just after Dromund Kaas, and the one before were tainted by the memories that followed, no matter how sweet the time had been. Ahsoka, of course, had begged to attend this year’s one, but it would only be foolish and reckless. He couldn’t just walk into the biggest gathering of mages in the whole continent and expect to get out of it without anyone realizing who he was, asking questions, concluding what he’d done.

Anakin had too much to hide, too much to lose, and he wasn’t going to risk his little Apprentice for it.

Not that Ahsoka knew any of that and wasn’t in the least satisfied with Anakin’s reply and immediately made her displeasure known.

“What would you even want to see there?” Anakin asked, trying to downplay how entertaining such an event was. “It’ll just be all the posh court sorcerers showing off with their fancy focusing crystals. It’s utterly boring and uncreative.”

“Like you wouldn’t use a focusing crystal if you had one,” Ahsoka muttered, arms crossed. “It’s just— there’s nobody else around here who can do magic. And all you ever do is work on machines.”

“Which requires a lot of concentration as it’s not just the manipulation of one aspect, but—”

“—but many, yes, yes, I know the speech,” Ahsoka said and dutifully listed all elements that went into their craft. There was a reason why not many forgers existed. Most mages lacked the talent, patience, and education to learn this craft, or were just plain afraid that they’d permanently damage their ability to use magic at all.

And with the speed technology was evolving and magic weaponized to terrifying new heights, not too many people still had use for forgers. Where two-hundred-years ago, you wouldn’t have gone out to hunt a dragon with a simple sword, but only with one crafted by a Master forger, nowadays you didn’t necessarily need one. Battle magic was on the rise again, especially with more and more countries growing uneasy, peace treaties falling apart. Combined with the threats from the northern continents, it was no wonder people cared less and less about expensive forgers when they could mass-produce and enchant simpler items.

“I just hoped you’d allow at least this,” Ahsoka finished. Her shoulders dropped. “Should have known better. I’ll go finish my readings.”

Ahsoka turned around, her shoulders still hanging, her head low.

Damn it.

Anakin knew that she was doing it on purpose. His Apprentice was cunning and had learned how to play into his every weakness. Slowly she marched into the direction of the door, dragging her feet behind her for effect and dramatics.

Raya raised a brow at him. She usually stayed out of Ahsoka’s tutelage, knowing next to nothing about magic herself, but even with his past being little more than a mystery to her, she could read him better than anyone else.

“Urgh, fine,” Anakin heard himself say. “Fine, we can go to the festival.”

Ahsoka turned around quicker than light and jumped up. “Yes!”

“But that means you’re not going to bring up the summit again!”

“Yes! Of course!” A moment later, Anakin had an armful of an apprentice. “Thank you so much, Master, you’re the best!”

Once she let go of him, she went to hug Raya and hug even her dirty automaton to her chest, still radiating happiness. “I need to go pack my bags immediately!”

“The festival is not for another week—”

Ahsoka obviously didn’t care. So caught up in her joy, she rushed upstairs, heading to her room to start packing. It shouldn’t surprise Anakin that she was so motivated. Ahsoka was a person who thrived on interaction, being surrounded by other people. While the people of their village were friendly, none of them were mages or even just sensitive to magic. It was one of the reasons Anakin had decided to stay without too much fight. But growing up so far removed from other mages had made Ahsoka twice as curious to meet others.

The thought made his stomach churn. He’d have to give Ahsoka formal lessons about their trade now, just if somebody asked questions that were too pointed. She’d also need a bit of the know-how on how you usually interacted with other mages and which pretentious bastards to call sorcerers before they threw a hissy fit. All these capital folks were much too sensitive about terminology after all. Anakin had never bothered to tell her the differences before, but Ahsoka would kill him if she accidentally embarrassed herself because he hadn’t seen it fit to instruct her properly. Forget teaching Ahsoka how to improve her automaton, the next week would be full of etiquette lessons. Skies, there’d be people trying to steal their spellwork too. Had he even mentioned that kind of theft before? Anakin honestly couldn’t recall.

“Already regretting it?” Raya asked, her voice just a touch amused.

“Just a bit,” Anakin replied.

“It’ll be good for her,” Raya said, convinced and confident enough for the both of them. “And good for you as well. I’ve known you for years now and you’ve never even brought a friend over. I’m not going to be young forever, you know. I do expect to be introduced to your future spouse at some point.”

“And this is my cue to go packing as well,” Anakin announced and followed Ahsoka up the stairs with Raya’s laughter following him.

He had no intention of being with anyone, ever, unless he could find glamours that held up even when majorly distracted. On his way up the stairs, Anakin caught a look of himself in the window, saw black vines curling around his neck, inviting someone to take a closer look.

It was better this way.

#obikin #star wars #anakin skywalker #obi wan kenobi #ahsoka tano #fanfic

[julemmaes]

Pinky Promise - Chapter One

A/N: It’s currently midnight here and believe me when I tell you my brain is fried right now. I just wanted to finish this and post it. The real story starts with the next chapter and here we have a little more info dump cause yeah. Hope yall enjoy!

Fic Masterlist

Word count: 3,802

Rhysand had to stop by his house for a short break to change and take off that uncomfortable shirt he was always complaining about. Cassian had tried to tell him several times that being an elementary school teacher he could dress as he wanted and no one would ever tell him anything, but the youngest of the brothers didn't seem to get the message.

While they were waiting for him, Cassian had tried to start a conversation with the other two, but both had answered monosyllables and he had enough problems of his own without getting involved in whatever had happened between Elain and Azriel.

Despite all this, when they got to the Archeron house, the older had a lopsided smile on his face. The smile widened even more when they entered the apartment and saw his cousin gobbling a cracker with some cheese on it. Morrigan got up in a flash and went to greet them.

"Took you long enough." said the blonde, "We were waiting for you."

Cassian snorted, taking off his shoes and jacket so as not to wet every surface of the house, "I can tell."

"Don't be an asshole." he heard from the kitchen, Amren. She was also sitting at the kitchen table, where Nesta was chopping parsley and eating strangely long, fried things.

His girlfriend looked up at him and smiled. She had to be feeling better because she had a much more relaxed expression on her face than only an hour or so before.

He approached the table, followed by Rhys who was staring with a confused look at whatever that strange food was in front of their friend.

"What the hell is that?" Azriel asked once he had freed himself from Mor's hug.

Amren arched an eyebrow, taking another fried thing and eating it whole, "Frog legs."

Cassian, who was about to kiss Nesta, stopped, looking at her in shock, "Sorry, what?"

"Yeah, a new French restaurant opened on my street and I've been getting the weirdest stuff for a couple of weeks," said Amren smiling. "I even tasted the snails last Monday." the guys all seemed shocked.

Nesta made a confused grimace, "Actually they're not as bad as you'd think, they taste a lot like chicken."

"I'm not sure I want to kiss you anymore," murmured Cassian as he walked away slightly from the girl. Rhysand nodded beside him, pouring himself a glass of wine and passing one to Azriel.

"Oh, stop being a baby, it's just food." Amren muttered, casting a hard look at him.

He kissed Nesta on the cheek anyway while she finished cutting the onions and poured everything into a pot. The smell of meat that came out was enough to make Cassian fall in love a little more.

"I'm gonna go change," announced Elain, who had been particularly quiet the whole time.

Nesta lifted her head, looking in her sister's direction, who was already in the hallway, "Did you get my stuff?" she asked loudly.

Elain's reply didn't take long to come, "Yes, I'll bring it to your room."

Nesta shook her head, even though she couldn't see her, "No don't worry, I'll take care of it, just leave it in your room." a faint okay came from the other room and then the conversation resumed.

"One very important thing before I forget, next week Manon should come here," said Mor, clutching her shoulders, "I'd like to arrange a little something at my house, with everyone. If that's alright with you," she hesitantly concluded.

Mor and Manon had met that summer when the former went on vacation to the other continent alone. She'd stayed in Erilea for almost two whole months, going from city to city and stopping only when she deemed it necessary. Once she reached Orynth she immediately made friends with a large group of people there and when they introduced her to Manon it was hate at first sight.

More than hate, actually, Morrigan felt awkward.

Manon stared at her with that seductive look of hers that she couldn't really decipher and only when the other one had explicitly told her that hes was flirting with her, Mor understood that she could enjoy that vacation and have a summer fling with the white-haired goddess. One thing led to another and they ended up getting together at the end of August and after only a month of relationship no one had had the chance to meet her yet.

"Finally we get to know her." smiled Amren.

Cassian took a beer from the fridge and put two more on the table in case someone else wanted more than wine. "Where did you say she studies?" she asked for what was probably the millionth time.

"Oh, she attends the Academy of Fine Arts in Adarlan. Rifthold precisely." said proud Mor, smiling.

"Does she study art like Feyre?" Rhysand asked, taking another cracker and putting a slice of salami on it. Cassian saw Nesta shake her head in disbelief and had to hold back a laugh. It was impressive how he managed to squeeze Feyre into his every conversation.

Mor didn't give it much thought anyway, "Nono, she dances. She studies ballet. She has a- I always forget what they are called, but she has a group, with whom she always dances. They call themselves the Thirteen," she continued nodding, "They also have a channel on You Tube, if you're interested."

Elain walked into the kitchen at that moment, wearing only a pair of pajama pants and a VHS lacrosse team sweatshirt, with the name Vanserra on its back. She took a beer from the table, opened it and drained half of it in one long sip. She made a disgusted face and then took one of the fried frog's legs off Amren's plate, who was looking at her alarmed.

Nesta gave him a confused look, mentally asking him what had happened on the way here, Cassian shrugged.

"Hey Ellie everything's alright?" asked the older sister, turning off the stove.

Elain nodded, helping her set the table while everyone took their seat. "Everything's perfect."

Azriel laughed, not even looking at the girl, "As always." Elain's head snapped in his direction.

Elain gritted her teeth, "Maybe you should learn to mind your own business."

"And you should learn what self love is and stop letting others treat you like that," Azriel said to her in an equally harsh tone.

Cassian understood then, Lucien was involved.

Nesta sighed, placing both hands on the table and bowing her head, "Can we please have one dinner without arguing?" Elain sat down with abrupt gestures and nodded, apologizing. Azriel seemed to think about it for a second, looking at the middle sister, nodding in turn and sitting next to Rhysand.

They ate quietly between jokes, and the tense atmosphere that had created immediately dissolved. Elain and Azriel bickered so often that the group was used to it and they'd become good at pretending nothing had happened.

***

Nesta was sitting on the floor next to Cassian, practically lying on top of him, while he kept his arm around her waist. Whatever Morrigan was explaining she couldn't understand. Her brain was already clouded by alcohol. They had just finished the first game of the evening and she couldn't figure out how they were all still relatively sober after all the alcohol they had ingested. Or maybe it was just her impression and in reality they were all wasted.

She looked up at her boyfriend and put her hand on his cheek, making him turn towards her. Cassian smiled at her and gave her a peck. When she kept looking him in the eyes even after they had parted, he raised an eyebrow. What is it?

Nesta shrugged and kept following Mor's speech.

"And who draws the last king drinks the whole cup, got it?" the blonde looked around the room trying to figure out if everyone understood at least one word of what she had just said. Nesta took a sip from her glass and Mor groaned, "Come on Nesta, you don't have to drink now."

Azriel chuckled, almost as drunk as she was, "Stupid drunk."

"Fuck you, Az." she giggled, clinging closer to Cassian.

Elain nodded, raising her drink to the ceiling, "Yes, fuck you Az." she hiccupped and smiled in her best friend's direction, who gave her the middle finger. They all burst out laughing, knowing perfectly well that there was no grudge in those gestures.

She couldn't follow the game properly, but someone had just drawn a seven and Nesta knew that she had to raise her arms to the sky before the others or she would have to drink again, and although this evening was putting her in a good mood, she wasn't sure that her head would thank her in the morning. Elain ended up drinking.

When it was her turn, Nesta drew a nine and thanked every god present in that moment because if she had to find a rhyme for anything the others would say, she would surely throw up from the effort.

"I picked a nine," she said giggling, falling on Cassian, who laughed and helped her up, "and since I'm feeling rather nice tonight, I'll say orange," she slurred.

"You don't play like that," said Amren annoyed beside her, taking a sip from her soft drink. It was her turn to take everyone home that night.

Mor nodded, agreeing with the girl, "You can't take the one word that doesn't rhyme with anything."

Rhysand cleared his voice, "Sporange." he said at the same time that Elain screamed the same word. The boy brought his hand to his chest, opening his mouth wide, "I said it first."

Elain shook her head, pulling herself up and bending her legs underneath her, "No. That's not true." she said snickering, "I said it first."

Cassian burst out laughing, making Nesta's back flutter. She looked at him and winked, nothing sexy in that gesture at all and it only made the boy laugh more.

"Azriel tell him that I said it first." the girl complained, pouting. "Cassian tell him too."

"Nah ha, you have your family, they're with me." said Rhysand, getting up and staggering until he was between his two brothers. He circled both their shoulders and slapped Nesta in the face unintentionally.

"Ouch." she mumbled, pulling herself up and rubbing her nose.

Elain seemed on the verge of tears, "It's not right. I was faster than you." she practically screamed, "And I only have one sister here, it isn't fair."

Rhysand shrugged, "That's not my problem."

Their little argument went on for a few minutes before the boy surrendered and admitted that she was the one who said the word first, "But only because you don't have enough sisters for backup, otherwise we'd solve it physically," he concluded, winking at her. Elain giggled and Azriel muttered something about the physical part of the hypothetical fight that made Cassian laugh.

They all turned towards the entry of the apartment when they heard the door open.

"Speak of the devil," said Mor with a smile, "Feyruuh! Join us."

Rhysand had stood up and was smiling like an idiot, "Yes Fey-Fey join us," he repeated, approaching the small threshold.

Nesta saw the boy stiffening and immediately realized that something was wrong. She closed her eyes and sighed.

"Feyre," breathed Rhysand, "what happened?

From where she was sitting she couldn't see the hall, but even Amren, who had a perfect view of the whole room, had a hard look on her face. Perhaps she should have stood up.

The alcohol in her body did not allow her to stand up without the risk of falling. It was already much that she hadn't blacked out.

"Nothing, don't worry," said her sister, finally entering the room. Nesta could see her face and understood what Rhysand was referring to. Her eyes were swollen and bloodshot. She had been crying.

"Feyre..." she said, trying to pull herself up with Cassian's help.

Her younger sister raised her hand to stop her, "I didn't want to ruin your evening, I just came to say hi." she gave everyone a faint smile. Rhysand, next to her, held his breath. He suddenly seemed much more sober, more aware of what was happening. "I'm sorry... goodnight everyone." with this she turned around and walked out of the room. Mor moved to get up, but Amren placed her hand on her leg to stop her.

Elain was the first to break the silence, "That piece of shit." Nesta gasped hearing how much anger she uttered those words with. She turned towards her sister and before she could ask her, she had already started talking again, "I can't believe it." she stood up, swaying too much and falling on her knees.

Mor was immediately beside her, "Be careful."

"It's alright." she ran her hand over her legs and then looked towards Feyre's room sighing.

"Can someone explain what the heck just happened and why no one is going to see how she's doing?" asked Amren slightly annoyed. Rhysand was out of the living room before she could finish the sentence.

They all turned to Elain, who seemed to be thinking about what to say.

"I'm too drunk for this," whispered Nesta, massaging her temples, "Ellie can you please tell me if this is a life-or-death issue?" she asked again. She felt a hand on the small of her back and turned to Cassian, who looked at her with a sad smile on his lips.

Elain laughed without amusement, "No, of course she's not dying, it's always the same old arguments with Tamlin. She should just break up with him," replied Elain surprising everyone. It was very rare that her sister said something so sincere when it came to Tamlin. The only times she had done so she had risked ruining her relationship with Lucien.

"I don't think I should tell you the details, it's her business and I'm not here to gossip," said Elain after a few minutes in which everyone had started to clean up the mess they'd made, "All you need to know is that Tamlin is a piece of shit," she whispered the last part, as if she was afraid her boyfriend might hear her.

"Nothing new." Amren said, getting up and starting to pick up the cups scattered around the room.

They heard Feyre yelling something, but Nesta couldn't understand just what she said. They waited a few seconds, to see if they needed to intervene or not, when they heard nothing more Azriel spoke.

"Do you think we should tell her something?" he asked again, still sitting on the floor, tilting his head back so that it was resting on the couch. "I mean, it's already been a few weeks since I've seen her cheerful, I'm getting worried."

Nesta was surprised. It was nice to see how much Azriel cared for the youngest of them. Of course, she knew it was true, but it was rare for the boy to express his feelings so openly.

Cassian shook his head, reducing his lips to a thin line, "Not tonight," he said as he looked down the hall, "She's probably insulting Rhys in every possible way now. I guess it's a good way to cool off," he added when they heard Feyre screaming again. Rhysand answered equally loudly.

"Maybe we should get Rhys out, he is drunk after all," Azriel said standing up. Nesta did the same, following him into the corridor.

"They know that Rhys would never lay a hand on Feyre, don't they? Even if he is drunk. And angry." whispered Elain, even though they all heard very well. Nesta giggled and Azriel shook his head smiling. She was so drunk.

Cassian answered her, "No Ellie, it's not that. It's that drunk people tend to say things they don't really mean." they heard a whisper of agreement.

Azriel was about to knock on the door, Nesta right behind him, when it opened wide and Rhysand rushed out, shoving his older brother aside. Nesta couldn't see his face, but he must have been pretty upset because Azriel followed him right out of the apartment.

Nesta blinked a couple of times and then turned to her sister, who was pacing back and forth with her hands in her hair.

"Fuck!" cried Feyre. Nesta entered the room, closing the door behind her.

Feyre looked at her and grimaced, "What? Did you also come to tell me how to live?"

Nesta shook her head, crossing her arms, "I gotta be honest with you, I'm really drunk right now, so I'm struggling a little bit to understand things, but if you want to talk to me, I'm always there. You know." she said to her, sitting on the edge of the bed.

"Yes, yes. I know." Feyre murmured, "But right now I just want to sleep and be alone."

Nesta glanced at her and saw that she had mascara smeared on her cheeks. She had cried again.

They could not face this conversation now.

She sighed, "Alright, if you need anything call me, I'm sleeping at Cass's, but if you need anything I can be here in twenty minutes." she cautioned her as she got up. Before leaving, she turned to her sister and left a kiss on her forehead. "Don't worry, everything will work out. I'll be back for lunch, okay?"

Feyre frowned, "Why do you always treat me like a child?" she suddenly asked her.

Nesta was caught off guard, "What do you mean?"

"I'll be back for lunch. I can be here in twenty minutes," she said imitating her voice, "I don't need you to tell me your schedule, I can cook pasta, I can take care of myself." she pointed out, looking Nesta straight in the eye.

"I don't- Feyre, I was just letting you know that I'll eat at home, I wasn't implying anything. We live together, it seems normal to me to tell you about my movements," she replied, being defensive, "I didn't call you a child."

"Get out."

"Feyre-"

"I said get out." sobbed the sister, "Please."

Nesta tried to get closer when she saw that Feyre was crying again.

"Go away!" cried the other one. Nesta stiffened and nodded just once, saying goodnight and leaving the room.

Cassian was staring at her from down the hall with a worried look. Throwing a quick glance inside Elain's room, she saw that Amren and Mor were helping her change and would put her to bed before leaving, as often happened during these evenings.

She reached her boyfriend and when he hugged her, she let out a deep sigh, resting her head against Cassian's chest. "I'm sorry," he said, kissing her hair and holding her tight.

"Don't worry, we both know she's not mad at us. She better than anyone else." she looked up to him. Cassian moved a strand of hair from her eyes, placing it behind one ear. "Maybe we made a mistake, though, letting Rhysand talk to her."

Cassian chuckled, "Maybe." He leaned over her and brushed his lips against hers.

Nesta yawned in the kiss and they both laughed.

"Okay lovebirds, it's time to go home," announced Amren, putting on her shoes and helping Mor tie hers. The blonde was also in terrible condition.

Cassian broke the hug, but followed Nesta to her room while she changed and took things so she could change the next day, and then followed her to the bathroom, where she took extra tampons in case the ones at his house had finished. She strongly doubted it, as Cassian always worried about having an endless supply every time, but it was better to prevent.

"You're such a lost puppy." Mor laughed, looking at them, "Disgusting."

"You're just jealous cause you can't be with Manon every day," replied Azriel, walking back into the house at the right time, followed by a quiet Rhysand.

Mor poutted in a way that would make a three-year-old child look a saint and her eyes filled with tears. Amren threw her arms in the air, "Was that really necessary?" she asked exasperated, turning to Azriel, who apologized to her friend.

They all left the house, leaving the kitchen and living room relatively tidy, nothing an hungover Elain couldn't handle.

When they reached Morrigan's house, only Azriel and Amren went to escort the blonde home and make sure she went to bed.

Nesta took the opportunity to say a few words to Rhysand.

"It's not your fault if she reacted in that way," she said, placing her hand on his arm. God, the drunk Nesta was so affectionate. Rhysand looked at her with a wrinkled forehead.

"I know." he sighed, running a hand over his face and looking older than he actually was, "I just wish she understood how much she's worth. That Tamlin doesn't deserve her." he looked out the window, waiting to see the other two appear so he could get home as soon as possible and pass out in bed. "There may have been a moment in their relationship where things worked, but now it's getting too much."

"I agree." Nesta simply said. Rhysand didn't need her to comfort him, no. He needed Feyre to realize how much the situation she was in no longer benefited anyone.

***

Cassian slipped into bed next to Nesta and laid his arm around her waist, pushing her flat against him. She immediately relaxed and intertwined their fingers, carrying his hand on her belly. Cassian started massaging circles on her stomach, applying a little more pressure at the bottom to help her with the pain.

"Better?" he asked her, placing his head in the niche of her neck.

Nesta nodded, "Much better."

They spent a few minutes in silence like this. If he managed to tell her that he wanted to enlist, if he managed to confess to her his plans for the future and she accepted him, there would no longer be so many times when he would cuddle her. They would no longer be granted.

When Cassian was on the brink of falling asleep, with a thousand questions in his head, she asked him something.

"Hmm?"

"Tomorrow, you wanna go out for dinner with me?" she repeated, turning around so she faced him.

Cassian opened only one eye, "Like a date?" he asked, smiling tiredly.

"Sure, like a date." she answered him, tilting her chin up so that she could kiss him.

"Yes, I'll go out for dinner with you," he said returning the kiss.

"Perfect."

"I love you." he whispered to her, hugging her.

Nesta did not answer and Cassian fell asleep shortly after, dreaming of the day when he would make Nesta his wife.

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@tottenhamboys20 @sjm-things @kris10maas @awesomelena555 @sannelovesreading @queenamydien29 @ireallyshouldsleeprn @messyhairday-me @ncssian @observationanxioustheorist @my-fan-side @booksstorm @maastrash @sayosdreams @thedarkdemigod @courtofjurdan @thewayshedreamed @ladywitchling

#pinky promise chapter one #pinky promise #nessian fic #nesta archeron #cassian #nestaxcassian #cassianxnesta #feyre archeron #rhysand #feysand #azriel #elain archeron #elucien #elriel #amren #morrigan #mor #tamlin #lucien vanserra #acotar #acotar fic #acosf #acomaf #acowar #acofas #sjm #sarah j maas #a court of thorns and roses #a court of silver flames #a court of mist and fury

[oscopelabs]

It’s Arrested Development: How ‘High Fidelity’ Has Endured Beyond Its Cultural Sell-By Date by Vikram Murthi

It’s easy to forget now that at the beginning of 2020, before the pandemic had taken hold of our consciousness, for a brief moment, High Fidelity was back. Not only did Nick Hornby’s debut novel and Stephen Frears’ film adaptation celebrate major milestones this year — 25th and 20th anniversaries, respectively — but a TV adaptation premiered on Hulu in February. In light of all of these arbitrary signposts, multiple thinkpieces and remembrances litigated Hornby’s original text on familiar, predictable grounds. Is the novel/film’s protagonist Rob actually an asshole? (Sure.) Does Hornby uphold his character’s callous attitudes towards women? (Not really.) Hasn’t the story’s gatekeeping, anti-poptimist approach to artistic taste culturally run its course? (Probably.) Why do we need to revisit this story about this person right now? (Fair question!)

Despite reasonable objections on grounds of relevancy, enough good will for the core narrative—record store owner seeks out a series of exes to determine a pattern of behavior following a devastating breakup—apparently exists to help produce a gender-flipped streaming show featuring updated musical references and starring a decidedly not-middle-aged Zoë Kravitz. I only made it through six of ten episodes in its first (and only) season, but I was surprised by how closely the show hewed to High Fidelity’s film adaptation, to the point of re-staging numerous scenes down to character blocking and swiping large swaths of dialogue wholesale. (Similarly, the film adaptation hewed quite close to the novel, with most of the dialogue ripped straight from Hornby.) Admittedly, the series features a more diverse cast than the film, centering different experiences and broadly acknowledging some criticisms of the source material regarding its ostensibly exclusionary worldview. Nevertheless, it seemed like a self-defeating move for the show to line itself so definitively with a text that many consider hopelessly problematic, especially considering the potential to repurpose its premise as a springboard for more contemporary ideas.

High Fidelity’s endurance as both a piece of IP and a flashpoint for media discourse is mildly baffling for obvious reasons. For one thing, its cultural milieu is actually dated. Even correcting for vinyl’s recent financial resurgence, the idea of snooty record store clerks passing judgment on customer preferences has more or less gone the way of the dodo. With the Internet came the democratization of access, ensuring that the cultivation of personal taste is no longer laborious or expensive, or could even be considered particularly impressive (if it ever could have been). Secondly, as one might imagine, some of Hornby’s insights into heterosexual relationships and the differences between men and women, even presented through the flawed, self-deprecating interiority of High Fidelity’s main character, are indeed reductive. Frears’ film actually strips away the vast majority of Hornby’s weaker commentary, but the novel does include such cringeworthy bits like, “What’s the deal with foreplay?” that are best left alone.

Accounting for all of that, though, it’s remarkable how many misreadings of Hornby’s text have been accepted as conventional wisdom. It’s taken as a given by many that the novel and film earnestly preach the notion that what you like is more important than what you are like when, in fact, the narrative arc is constructed around reaching the opposite conclusion. (The last lines of the novel and film are, literally, “…I start to compile in my head a compilation tape for her, something that's full of stuff she's heard of, and full of stuff she'd play. Tonight, for the first time ever, I can sort of see how it's done.”) That’s relatively minor compared to the constant refrain that Rob’s narcissism goes uncriticized, even though the story’s thematic and emotional potency derives from what the audience perceives that Rob cannot. To put it bluntly, High Fidelity’s central irony revolves around a man who listens to music for a living being unable to hear the women in his life.

While Hornby’s prose immerses the reader in Rob’s interior monologue, providing ample room for the character to spout internal justifications of his behavior, the novel hardly obscures or conceals this conclusion. Moreover, the film makes it unavoidably explicit in numerous scenes. Rob (John Cusack) triumphantly pantomimes Rocky Balboa’s boxing routine soundtracked to Queen’s “We Are The Champions” after his ex-girlfriend Laura (Iben Hjejle) confirms she hasn’t yet slept with her new boyfriend Ray (Tim Robbins), but doesn’t hear the part where she says she prefers to sleep next to him. When Laura informs Rob that she did eventually sleep with Ray, Rob completely falls apart. In an earlier, more pointed scene, Rob goes out with his ex-girlfriend from high school (Joelle Carter) to ask why she chose to have sex with an obnoxious classmate instead of him. She venomously informs him that he actually broke up with her because she was too prudish, an abrupt, cruel bit of business we actually witness at the film’s beginning. It was in her moment of heartbroken vulnerability that she agreed to quickly sleep with someone else (“It wasn’t rape because I technically said, ‘Okay,’ but it wasn’t far off,” she sneers), which ultimately put her off sex until after college. Rob doesn’t hear this explanation or the damning portrait of his teenaged self. Instead, he’s delighted to learn that he wasn’t actually dumped.

These are evidently low character moments, one’s that are comedic in their depiction of blinkeredness but whose emotional takeaways are crystal clear, and one’s that have been written about before. My personal pick from the film, though, comes late when Rob attends Laura’s father’s funeral. He sits in the back and, in typical fashion, turns to the camera to deliver a list of songs to play at his funeral, concluding with his professed wish that “some beautiful, tearful woman would insist on ‘You’re The Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me’ by Gladys Knight.” It’s a really galling, egotistical moment that still makes me wince despite having seen the movie umpteen times. Yet, it’s immediately followed by the casket being lowered to the ground as Laura’s sobs ring out in the church. In a movie defined by John Cusack’s vocal timbre, it’s one of the few times when he completely shuts up. From two-thirds down the center aisle, Frears’ camera pushes into Cusack’s face until tears in his eyes are visible, but what you really see is an appropriately guilt-ridden, ashamed expression.

However, none of this evidence carries any weight if your objection to High Fidelity is that Rob suffers no material consequences for his behavior. While Rob is frequently called out for his actions, he is never actively punished. He doesn’t, say, receive a restraining order for continually calling Laura after they’ve broken up or end up alone mending a permanent broken heart because of his past relationships. By the end, Rob and Laura get back together and Rob even starts an independent record label on the side. It’s a stretch to characterize Hornby’s High Fidelity as a redemption tale, but it is a sideways rehabilitation narrative with a happy ending that arises at least partly out of mutual exhaustion.

Those two elements—Rob’s asshole recovery and the exhausted happy ending—rarely seem to factor into High Fidelity discourse. Granted, there’s credence to the idea that, socially and culturally, people have less patience for the personality types depicted in High Fidelity, and thus are less inclined to extend them forgiveness, let alone anything resembling retribution. I suppose that’s a valid reaction, one against which I have no interest in arguing, but it’s somewhat ironic that High Fidelity has endured for reasons that have nothing to do with its conclusions regarding inflexible personal principles and the folly of escapism. Both the book and film are specifically about someone who slowly comes to terms with accepting reality rather than live in a world mediated by pop cultural fantasies whose unrealistic expectations have only caused personal suffering. It’s not unfair to characterize this as a fairly obvious epiphany, but considering we currently live in a world dominated by virtual echo chambers with an entertainment culture committed to validating arrested adolescence, it retroactively counts as “mature” and holds more weight than it otherwise should.

Near the end of High Fidelity, the book, after Rob and Laura have gotten back together in the aftermath of Laura’s father’s death, Hornby includes a chapter featuring five conversations between the couple unpacking the state of their relationship. During the third conversation, Rob and Laura fight about how she doesn’t care about music as strongly as he does, catalyzed by Rob’s objection to Laura liking both Solomon Burke and Art Garfunkel, which, in his mind, is a contradiction in terms. Laura finally admits that not only does she not really care about the difference between them, but that most people outside of his immediate circle of two don’t care about the difference, and that this mentality is indicative of a larger problem. It’s part of what keeps him stuck in his head and reluctant to commit to anything. “I’m just trying to wake you up,” she says. “I'm just trying to show you that you've lived half your life, but for all you've got to show for it you might as well be nineteen, and I'm not talking about money or property or furniture.”

I fell for High Fidelity (first the movie, then the book) as a younger man for the reasons I assume most sensitive-cum-oblivious, culturally preoccupied straight guys do: it accurately pinpoints a pattern of music consumption and organizationally anal-retentive behavior with which I’m intimately familiar. I spent the vast majority of my early years listening to and cataloguing albums, and when I arrived at college, I quickly fell in with a small group of like-minded music obsessives. We had very serious, very prolonged discussions filled with impossibly strong opinions about our favorite artists and records. Few new releases came and went without them being scrutinized by us, the unappreciated scholars of all that is righteous. List-making wasn’t in vogue, but there wasn’t a song that passed us by that we didn’t judge or size up. I was exposed to more music during this relatively short period of time than I likely will ever absorb again. Some of these times were the most engaging and fun of my life, and I still enjoy discussing and sharing music with close friends, but I’m not such a true believer to fully feel comfortable with this behavior. It’s not entirely healthy on its own and definitely alienating to others, and there comes a point when you hear yourself the way a stranger might, or maybe even catch a glimpse of someone’s eyes when you’re midst rant about some stupid album, and realize, “That’s all there is of me. There isn’t anything else.”

This is what Rob proclaims to Laura in the conversation when she tells him she was more interested in music during their courtship than she is now. It’s a patently self-pitying statement on his part that doesn’t go unchallenged by her in the moment or bear fruit in the rest of the novel. Yet, it’s this type of uncomfortably relatable sentiment that goes under-discussed. If High Fidelity will continue to have a life well after its cultural moment has passed, then it’s worth addressing what it offers on its own terms. Near the end of the book, Laura introduces Rob to another couple with whom he gets along quite well. When the evening comes to an end, she tells him to take a look at their record collection, and it’s predictably filled with artists he doesn’t care for, e.g. Billy Joel, Simply Red, Meat Loaf. “'Everybody's faith needs testing from time to time,” Laura tells him later when they’re alone. Amidst Rob’s self-loathing and sullen pettiness, Hornby argues that one should contribute in some way rather than only consume and that, at some point, it’s time to put away childish ideas in order to get the most out of life. It’s an entirely untrendy argument, one that goes against the nostalgic spirit of superhero films and reboot culture, but it doesn’t lack merit. Accepting that some values aren’t conducive to a full life, especially when it’s shared with someone else, doesn’t have to mean abandoning interests or becoming an entirely different person. It just means that letting go isn’t an admission of defeat.

It’s why I’ve always found the proposal scene in the film to be quite moving, albeit maybe not specifically romantic. It plays out similarly in both the book and the film, but the film has the added benefit of Cusack and Hjejle’s performances to amplify the vulnerability and shared understanding. Laura meets Rob for a drink in the afternoon where he sheepishly asks if she would like to get married. Laura bursts out laughing and says that he isn’t the safest bet considering he was making mixtapes for some reporter a few days prior. When asked what brought this on, Rob notes that he’s sick of thinking about love and settling down and marriage and wants to think about something else. (“I changed my mind. That’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard. I do. I will,” she sarcastically replies.) He goes on to say that he’s tired of fantasizing about other women because the fantasies have nothing to do with them and everything to do with himself and that it doesn’t exist never mind delivering on its promise. “I’m tired of it,” he says, “and I’m tired of everything else for that matter, but I don’t ever seem to get tired of you.”

This sort of anti-Jerry Maguire line would be callous if Laura didn’t basically say the same thing to him when they got back together. (“I’m too tired not to be with you.”) It’s possible to read this as an act of mutual settling, but I always thought Hornby’s point was personal growth and accepting one’s situation were intertwined. The key moment in High Fidelity, the film, comes when Laura finds Rob’s list of top five dream jobs. (In the book, Laura makes Rob compile the list.) At the bottom of the list, after such standard choices like music journalist and record producer, lies architect, a job that Rob isn’t entirely sure about anyway. (“I did put it at number five!” he insists.) Laura asks Rob the obvious question: wouldn’t you rather own your own record store than hypothetically be an architect, a job you’re not particularly enthused with anyway?

It’s Laura who convinces Rob that living the fifth-best version of your life can actually be pretty satisfying and doesn’t have to be treated like a cruel fate worse than death. Similarly, Rob and Laura both make the active decision to try to work things out instead of starting over with someone else. Laura’s apathy may have reunited them, and Rob’s apathy might have kept him from running, but it’s their shared history that keeps them together. More than the music and the romance, High Fidelity follows the necessary decisions and compromises one has to maneuver in order to grow instead of regress. “I've been letting the weather and my stomach muscles and a great chord change in a Pretenders single make up my mind for me, and I want to do it for myself,” Rob says near the end of Hornby’s novel. High Fidelity’s emotional potency lies in taking that sentiment seriously.

#high fidelity #nick hornby #stephen frears #john cusack #zoe kravitz #90s films #oscilloscope laboratories #musings #beastie boys #music #music movie #vinyl #vinyl film #jack black #tim robbins #adam yauch #vikram murthi #film writing #Film Criticism #hulu #reboot

[thequillsink]

Every now and then, when I’m browsing for new media to enter my brain hole, I come across a title that has managed to capture my interests by just viewing the cover art. This creates enough intrigue from a single piece of artwork that I subsequently purchase and commit to the whole series. Although I have sometime despised purchasing in this superficial manner, I have often come across new media that have since become my favourites. I feel the latter point is true with Soul Liquid Chambers.

What Is It?

Soul Liquid Chambers is a post-apocalyptic action horror manga, written and illustrated by Nozomu Tamaki, most known for his bestselling series Dance in the Vampire Bund. The story follows a young girl with prosthetic limbs and a tragic past who wanders a zombie-ridden 23rd century earth now known as ‘Death’s Amusement Park’. Overrun by monsters, the post apocalyptic wasteland is the last place a little girl should call home, but she has developed a unique coping mechanism.

What Did I Like About It?

Soul Liquid Chambers has a beautifully stylized story. It paints a very vivid depiction of a post-apocalyptic landscape, the struggles of living inside a densely populated city and the impossibility of traversing the wastelands where the undead roam.

Classism is a common theme throughout the story: while zombies are at the top of the food chain, the surviving population is forced to desperately subsist in the few remaining towns with power and defences. The rich and influential have laid claim to this infrastructure as their own, leaving the  remaining few in a state of poverty and hunger. Death and brutality are commonplace in this world savaged by the undead.

The introduction of Soul Liquid is an interesting concept on the age-old trope of eternal life, it has a intentionally sci-fi feel that is fitting to the story but still feeds into the human greed that is associated with it in other media. While the elite live an life of secure luxury, the unfortunate are forced to live in the outskirts of town with less defences, often forced to scavenging zombie meat just to keep themselves from starving to death.

Soul Liquid Chambers has a delightful cast of unique characters introduced over the series, they all have their own individual style and charm but Luise is standout from the rest. She is very reminiscent of other strong female characters in media, one example that comes to mind is Remi from Black Lagoon. With their fiery attitude and maniacal bloodlust, they share similar characteristics to each other. The manga artwork gives these characters a unique look which is easy to follow throw the carnage it portrays. With some characters having disembodied voices, the use of stylised text boxes helps to emphasize this and doesn’t lead to any confusion.

What Didn’t I Like About It?

Soul Liquid Chambers‘ story moves at a break-neck pace, minimal breathing room between big action scenes. The story would have benefited from being slowed down with more character backstory and a clearer look at their place in this wasteland. This would orchestrate a more pleasant structure and require less of a need to dump exposition on the reader.

Without divulging spoilers, the ending isn’t definitively conclusive in the finish and is consequently open-ended. This should conclude that Nozomu Tamaki is planning to continue this story, but with over five years having passed since the release of the last volume, there is no mention of work continuing on the story. Although Nozomu continues work on his other projects, it is unknown whether the story will be continued or left in the current, ambiguous state.

Where Can I Find It?

All three volumes of Soul Liquid Chambers were released in the West by Seven Seas Entertainment and are available on their website or via conventional online outlets such as Amazon (no affiliate link).

Overall Thoughts

Soul Liquid Chambers is a kaleidoscope of colour and violence – incredible, saturated cover artwork and an unnerving approach to the brutality displayed. This manga still deserves to be enjoyed despite its open ending. Amusingly presented with humorous characters, witty back-and-forth dialogue and plenty of pop culture references throughout, I can only hope the author will come back to the story and give it a more satisfying conclusion. Even with the story shortcomings, this is still a great series to start if you enjoy post-apocalyptic settings, lots of violence sprinkled with dark humour.

#journalism #journal #writing #writers on tumblr #review #gore #zombies #manga #horror manga #seven seas entertainment #soul liquid chambers

[thomasmartelpublication]

Japanese Postwar Period Drama As a  Modern Metaphor

Japanese Postwar Period Drama As a  Modern Metaphor

Japanese Postwar Period Drama As a Modern Metaphor By Thomas Martel

With globalization cinema as a whole is becoming an art form without country, without borders and even without a definitive national language. An idea that buds in one country’s cinema may blossom in another. Cinema and the ideas that go along with it travel back and forth across oceans and continents. Japan imported it’s first Edison Kinetoscopes in 1896, and Japanese filmmakers immediately utilized cinema to engage the masses at home and abroad. My inquiry is to examine how post-war Japanese cinema took on the role of fictional historical narratives to interact with the psyche of the postwar Japanese nation. In many ways, all films made in Japan since the end of World War II can be considered post-war cinema, because of the way in which that war affected the country, and because of the way of cinema always reflects society. Japanese directors chose to represent the war, its aftermath, and apprehension about the future of the nation as a whole through the medium of chinema, and more specifically, through fictional historical narrative, or jidaigeki.

Jidaigeki, meaning “period drama”, is a term applies to fictional narrative films set before the industrialization and modernization of Japan; typically before or during the Meiji Restoration of 1868 when the Emperor Meiji reclaimed political power from the Tokugawa Shogunate. The Japanese are a very historically conscious people, and often draw on history for examples relevant to current events. Japanese film is no exception, and jidaigeki are full of metaphors for the present day. As American coauthors George Lakoff and Mark Johnson state, “We draw references, set goals, make commitments, and execute plans all on the basis of how we in part structure our experience, consciously and unconsciously, by means of metaphor”.

Indeed, it is through the use of metaphor that Japanese cinema uses characters, dialogue, and imagery to depict modern international relations and concerns, as well as specific fundamental elements of Japanese society, such as ie, or “household;”which was put under significant stress during and after the war. Due to the popularity of the genre, there were, of course, many jidaigeki produced during the Second World War. Take, for example, Kenji Mizoguchi’s 1941 film Genroku Chushingura, an oft- told story of forty-seven loyal samurai who avenge their innocent master’s execution and then proceed to dutifully follow him into death through disembowelment. There have been hundreds of film adaptations of the story, but this is perhaps the only one financed by The Ministry of Information while under military rule to boost morale. Even stylistically it is clear; the soundtrack consists of bugles, trumpets, and deep, plodding drum beats. Unlike many other adaptations, this one doesn’t show any blood, despite the gory nature of the story. The forty seven ronin are heroic, yes, but equally as

heroically depicted are their wives, who, with great strength and resilience remain true to their doomed husbands, not unlike the wives and families of soldier sent to war to die.

Akira Kurosawa’s 1945 film The Men Who Tread on the Tiger’s Tail is also a retelling of a classic history-based story. The viewer follows a young war hero, Yoshitsune, in disguise and on the run with a small band of loyal followers after being betrayed by his own brother- the military dictator of Japan. Because the story was so well known and respected, perhaps it was not viewed as the protest film that it actually was, further, the film was banned by the American Occupation supposedly for promoting feudal values, although the ban may have been in response to the film’s persuasive power. After WWII, jidaigeki re-emerged to perform new metaphorical functions.

Because the real and fictionalized events of jidaigeki are supposedly removed from the events of modern-day they serve as ideal, safe metaphors for a people in need of a means of discussing their present concerns- the disastrous results of imperialism and militarism, both Japanese and Western. Popular cinema was the ideal tool for these demilitarizing metaphors, and that is exactly where they were reinvested. As Japanese- American scholar Marie Thorsten Morimoto has suggested,“a nation’s metaphors converse with its politics. Hence, with the dismantling of the Japanese Empire at the close of the Second World War, the images which shaped the... state also, in a sense, became ��demilitarized.’ Like the guns and missiles they supported, war metaphors were ‘left over,’ waiting to be reinvested into peacetime Japan.” (Morimoto, 11).

Typically in jidaigeki, samurai cast as the main role in Japanese cinema had represented the Japanese masculine ideal: strong, courageous, courteous and polite, and chaste. However, after the war this masculine machismo was seen as somewhat fascist, and the heroes onscreen changed into imperfect, often lost or wandering swords in a tumultuous, war savaged country. Alternatively, they are disenfranchised warriors in time of peace that has no need for bushido and the real lords are mob bosses and gamblers who dominate the fictional-historical and post-war Japanese and international society.

The 1966 film Dai-bosatsu toge, or “The Pass of the Boddhisattva” by director Kihachi Okamoto is a good example of cinema filled with metaphors. The story follows a young and sword-skilled samurai named Ryunosuke, who, while initially abiding by the samurai code, bushido, more or less embodies opposite. He is quite, contemplative, but also cold and merciless. His peers respect his finesse with the sword, but he is at times seen him as brutal and without remorse. He is constantly challenged by “good-hearted” samurai, and is left with no option but to cut them down one by one. Ryunosuke seems unbeatable. He is an intriguing model for postwar Japan; a nation grasping to traditional ideals all the while reevaluating them as brutal and cold, particularly after the atrocities committed during the Pacific expansion and conquest of China, of which to this day there remains a strong denial. Controversially, events such as the “Nanjing

Massacre” are not even included in Japanese textbooks. Therefore, the only way to speak about these events is through metaphor and cinema.

Ryunoske’s world is thrown upside-down when for the first time in his life, he meets as a sword of comparable ability. Ryunosuke and Shimada play opposites, with an ever growing tension between the two. Despite this, they always remain civil, bound by societal form. These characters represent conflicted and confused views of Japan’s supposedly noble warrior class. Could they be cold, brutal, sociopathic murderers or indeed, honest and humble protectors?

In the end, all of Ryunoske’s brutal acts, such as mercy-killing an old man he heard begging for death, killing an opponent out of self- defense in a tournament, cutting down his wife after she threatens to kill their baby, and other seemingly justifiable acts (just as the atrocities of WWII may have seemed justifiable) drive the anti hero mad with guilt at realization of the impossibility of his circumstances. The film concludes with Ryunosuke drunkenly and madly cutting his way through a burning mansion- an apt metaphor for the state that Japan was left in at the end of the war. He is injured, bleeding, and surrounded by enemies, but he refuses to lay down his sword. It is never revealed if he escapes or is killed, and this represented the uncertainty of Japan’s future that was prevalent in post-war Japan.

Japan had long considered itself the most virile, strongest and superior race in Asia, but defeat by a western power certainly posed a new threat to this nationalistic ideal. In this way Japan’s metaphors became increasingly trans- sexual; submissive to western “barbarians”, yet clinging to the position of an aggressive power in Asia. This persistent attitude became even more apparent during post-war cinema. Feminine characters (who represent Japan as a nation victimized by western powers) are starkly contrasted with brutish, old- fashioned, almost comical masculine characters, as is aptly illustrated in Masaki Kobayashi’s 1962 film Seppuku.

Seppuku tells the story of a young samurai named Chijiiwa who is fonder of the brush than the sword. When Chijiiwa’s father is forced by the Shoguante to commit seppuku, or ritual disembowelment, he goes to live with a family friend in poverty. He is forced to sell his sword, then, when his infant son becomes sick, Chijiiwa goes to a neighboring powerful household to beg for alms by means of threatening suicide, and he is then forced to slowly and painfully kill himself with a bamboo sword. The young and un-warrior like samurai’s body is then dumped off at the house unceremoniously . The rest of the film tells the story of how the family friend, a dangerous and impoverished ronin named Hanshiro, exacts and bring calamity to the household at fault for the destruction of the young and innocent family. Hanshiro arrives at the clan’s gate, threatening, like, Chijiiwa, to commit seppuku. He is admitted, but each of the clan’s assistants that he calls upon to act as a second happen to be home sick that day. Then, when he is about to be killed, he throws on the ground the topknots of each of the

supposedly honorable warriors responsible for Chijiiwa’s death, revealing their hypocrisy and sadistic nature. In the end, Hanshiro is unable to be killed by any of the clan’s warriors, so instead his is gunned down while carrying on his shoulders the clan’s ancestral armor. The empty suit of armor represents the vapidity and non-existence of the so-called bushido that was essentially reanimated for political use during the Second World War. Meanwhile, the dying Hanshiro represents a more realistic view of the nation’s recent past; that of a bleeding population struggling to maintain a dead ideal in the face of vain leaders. Moreover, Hanshiro’s death by a superior technology shows the viewer that modernity leaves little room for tradition.

A film that skillfully represents post-war Japan on an international stage through period drama is Akira Kurosawa’s 1961 film Yojimbo. A “yojimbo” is the old Japanese term for a “sword for hire,” essentially, a masterless samurai willing to sell his skills as a swordsman for assassination, dispute settlement, or protection. The main character of the film is just that, a lone swordsman walking down a dusty path without a name or direction. Like Japan, all he has left is his wit, and a remnant of whatever life he once led- his sword. Unlike the heroes of old Japanese cinema, he is carefree, blown about by the the winds of chance. He is lax, even comical at times. Not only this, but his name is never even revealed to the audience. He is not a famous or noteworthy hero; he represents any man, or every man.

Yojimbo is set in the 1860’s; a time when the warrior caste had essentially collapsed in favor of capitalism. Warlords no longer sought to hire famous or skilled swordsmen, they were too concerned with their own political preservation to even arm themselves to any great extant with modern weaponry. The protagonist wanders into a provincial town that is caught in a war between two rival factions. The yojimbo finds his skills as a swordsman lucrative, but his wit perhaps even more lucrative, as he plays to both factions of the town. He is a gruff, masculine samurai more than proficient with his sword, but he is also very cunning, and uses his wits to dupe the whole town, all the while making himself all the richer. This representation is relevant to post-war Japan primarily as a way of representing the disarmament of military super-power Japan and the transition into the scientific- economic superpower that it has become. “The transition was also one from a society threatened by the scarcity of food, where physical resources translated into physical strength, to a society hungry for knowledge, where young people began competing with their wits in a new game of “human capitalism” (Morimoto 21). Morimoto’s point is true, and can be seen in the rigorous preparation and competition between high school students applying for University. As such, this transition may be seen as beneficial but it also conveys the widespread feelings of nostalgia that the Japanese people felt during the difficult times immediately following the end of the war. Japan, and all of it history and traditions would be sold on the global market.

Besides serving as a metaphor for Japan’s transition from a militaristic

nation to an economically driven nation, Yojimbo illustrates Japan’s position in the Cold War as tension between the United States and the Soviet Union escalated. The village in which the entire film takes place can be seen as a miniaturized version of the world- in a transition phase, shrinking with huge gains being made in communication and transportation, but also dominated by two opposing forces. In the context of the film, these forces are rivaling factions, but in actuality the were the America/ NATO and the U.S.S.R./ Warsaw Pact. Much like Japan during the cold war, the unnamed yojimbo is often both detached and heavily involved in the “mutual assured destruction” of the town. He is ambivalent, an outsider, and the combined forces of the town are far more numerous and powerful than him and yet they both seeks his aid. Fitting with previous descriptions on how Japan views itself, “dominant themes in Japanese cultural self-representations have long been those of uniqueness, isolation, and victimization- hence, of a lone nation struggling against all odds” (Morimoto 22). In the end, the protagonist has prospered even more than either of the two factions, whose battle for dominance has ended in a clash leaving the town a quieter place than before. The “hero” of the film has saved a family, perhaps representative of the Japanese family as a whole, while dogs wander the streets feasting upon the remains of those less fortunate.

There are many more jidaigeki films with equally potent metaphors. Because of the context of film and viewership, we must be careful not to confuse metaphors or imagine them where they do not exist. However, metaphors are a powerful tool in the hands of Japanese filmmakers, and their many uses and examples should not go unnoticed.

Dissanayake, Wimal.1994. Colonialism and Nationalism in Asian Cinema. Indiana: Idianana University Press. Morimoto, Marie Thorsten. 1994. The ‘Peace Dividend’ in Japanese Cinema, Metaphors of a Demilitarized Nation. Indiana: Indiana University Press. Mellen, Joan. 1976. The Waves at Genji’s Door: Japan Through it’s Cinema. New York: Pantheon Books.

Said, Edward W. 1985. Orientalism Reconsidered. New York: Vintage Books. Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson. Metaphors We Live by. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1980. Print.

[hollenka99]

The Friend

Summary: When Sean is six, he creates an imaginary friend. Jack lingers into adulthood and their friendship isn’t as perfect as the little boy had hoped.

When Sean is six, he spends the night at his friend's house. Max's big brother dared them to stay up all night. As much as he tried, the little boy couldn't stop himself from dozing off before midnight. Max teased him about his failure until it got out of hand. Years later, Sean would look back on it all and conclude that Max was a bad friend. In response to the teasing, he invents an imaginary friend. Jack is kind and forgiving. He doesn't care if Sean is loud and instead joins in with the noise. More importantly, at least to the boy, he never sleeps. He is there for him whenever Sean requires him to be. He has no mind with which to object or act otherwise if he wanted. He is the perfect friend. Jack has more energy than Sean. He can continue to run around the school track while Sean has to call it quits. As children, they laugh and suggest it's because Sean plays too many video games. They know their logic is flawed. Sean runs around with his friends as much as they sit down to play on game consoles. But like all children, Sean grows up. Teenagers aren't meant to have imaginary friends. When he was younger, conversing with Jack was seen as sweet. Now older, he'd begun to leave childish things like invisible buddies behind. However, Jack lingers and Sean notices him on occasions. One such moment was after he plays the PlayStation version of Spider-Man 2 and they design a superhero together. Jack is a ghost, no longer required to serve his purpose. He collects figurative dust in the corner of his best friend's mind. Each time he is brought back, even if he can't express it, he is grateful. It prevents him from completely fading into non-existence. Existing as a faded memory is all he really knows by this point. One day, he'll be able to say barely existing is purely numbing. However, for the moment, he doesn't know better. For now, his 'life' and actions continue to be entirely at Sean's mercy. Soon, Sean is 23 and passing 1000 subscribers on his YouTube channel. Jack is proud of him. He smiles on his own accord. It disappears when he feels the muscles in his cheeks tug themselves upwards. Sean is nowhere to be seen. He hasn't existed without Sean being present before. He's not sure what to do without him or how to find him. Awareness of free will dumps him in an empty room. It is only him, the floorboards, four bare walls and a single door. He needs to know where Sean is. How does he proceed without his creator instructing him? Despite all the energetic activity he was subjected to as a child, he is clumsy as he runs towards the door. He falls on his face in front of Sean's TV. His hands sting from absorbing the impact. Upon laying eyes on his only friend, he realises they are wearing the exact same outfit. Neither of them know how to deal with this development. The two of them eventually progress past 'What the fuck?!' 'Don't ask me!'. Becoming real is the strangest thing he's experienced thus far. If he came into contact with something real like a desk, his body would reacted the same way as Sean's because he couldn't imagine a body clipping through surfaces like a badly designed character model. Now when he sits on a sofa, he actually feels the seat underneath his body. Being alive, being able to feel things for the first time is beyond any expectations he could have had. It's July, summer is underway. If he'll be able to register the sensation now, he wants to have the sun on his exposed skin. Sean laughs when he hears this and says it's a shame they don't live in a place where sunshine is more common. A particularly hot day arrives and Sean brings a tub of Ben and Jerry's ice cream back to the cabin. It's cold and chocolatey, with little chewy bits of brownie. Jack falls in love instantly. He goes out and buys more flavours any time the sky warms his skin. Sean playfully teases him about getting fat if his habit continues. The Jacksepticeye channel becomes theirs, not just Sean's. They both play games and grumble to each other about how slow things take to get uploaded thanks to the cabin's terrible broadband. Anything personal like a Q&A or comment reading video remains purely Sean's territory. Their arrangement works, especially with Jack editing into the night so Sean could sleep. Months pass and the weather cools. Unlike warmth, he hates being unable to have complete control of his body as it is overtaken by tiny shaking movements. Sean tells him he's just shivering. If he puts on another layer of clothing, it won't be so bad. His friend seems happier in general. He's not quite so lonely anymore. Jack is glad to be able to contribute to that in any way. He notices Sean making himself hot chocolate one day in December. He's confused when he is abruptly forbidden from making or tasting the drink himself. A week into February, everything becomes clear. "Hey Jack, happy birthday!" Sean hands him a mug of milky brown liquid. He accepts it hesitantly. "But it's your birthday. I got you a present and everything." "Yeah but you need to have a birthday too. And February 7th the best day to have one, in my opinion. Might be the tiniest bit biased on that though." He grins. "Go on, I've been wanting to see what you think of hot chocolate." Later, after Jack has made a few cups of the drink for himself, he'll realise this first serving was a little milk heavy. However, his obliviousness is beneficial. He drinks it eagerly once it cools a little, his first ever birthday present. Sean promises to get him something better next year, once they're more sure of Jack's likes and dislikes. Jack tells Angus about it. The Australian hunter appeared three months before him, as a result of the Survival Hunter series. With only the other for company, they rapidly develop a close friendship. Angus understands how strange existence is. Together, they discuss nature and watch David Attenborough or compete against each other in multiplayer mode of various games. In time, he notices something wrong. At first, in the summer of 2014, Angus begins to sleep in longer. It isn't exactly alarming but it is certainly a change in behaviour. By the time they are discussing hibernation, the wildlife expert is getting forgetful. By the end of 2015, he's constantly in his room, resting. Angus is a shadow, quite literally a faded memory, and Jack knows exactly who's to blame for his friend's condition. He returns to Sean multiple times, forever attempting to persuade him to bring the Survival Hunter series back to the channel. Time after time, Sean argues there isn't anywhere he can take the series. If he thought harder, maybe their creator would find a way to stop it all. He's been so accommodating before that Jack struggles to understand why Sean is so unwilling to cooperate. The first crack shows. When Sean tells him about breaking up with his girlfriend, he provides any support his friend needs from him. Months later, Sean is telling Jack about a Danish artist he's befriended. He gushes about how much he likes her art and how easy it is to talk to her. One day, Jack teases him about having a crush on Signe. With a short, self conscious laugh, Sean admits they were actually dating now and that he hoped to invite her to Ireland soon. Jack ruffles his hair, much to Sean's chagrin. Dude's in love again. Good on him. When she does eventually set foot in their home country, Jack keeps away. She may be a twin but Sean definitely isn't. If she saw a duplicate of her boyfriend, there would be a lot of explaining to do. Seeing as she was solely here to spend time with him, it would be best if they avoided having to say "Well, it's a long story...". Besides, Jack had something that required his own attention. He kept spotting Sean lurking around Jack and Angus' home. Except, he could have sworn their creator had a murderous glint in his eye. His appearance wasn't consistent either. Some occasions, his eyes would be dark or he'd have blood visible on his person. Other times, the intruder simply gave the impression of being unhinged. The problem was that Jack couldn't get a good look at the stalker. The guy would always be in the corner of his eye or disappear as soon as the two made eye contact. Jack could almost say the evil Sean glitched out of reality. He questions if this is a new 'ego' as they'd come to call the two Sean lookalikes. Waking up with brown hair and making dinner with the top being green was a little disorientating. He didn't even realise his hair had changed until he went to the bathroom and shocked himself. Yes, he knew Sean was dyeing his hair for charity in response to Mark doing so. He'd even received a photo from the new grass top himself about the change. What he didn't know was that he'd change appearance too. He checks on Angus. No, his hair was still the natural brown. Sean later gives him forewarning before making an appointment at a tattoo parlour. Despite this, Jack does a double take when the Bold Hunter's Mark appears on his right arm. When the summer of 2016 begins, Sean brings up the superhero they'd designed in 2004. After filming with Ninja Sex Party, he's got a red suit and a lot of ideas. The night of July 10th, a younger version of Sean with his current hairstyle stood at his door. The teenager introduces himself as Jackieboy Man, or Jackie for short. Jackie is the breath of fresh air Jack didn't realise he needed. The 16 year old boy is brimming with energy, enough to match his own. He doesn't seem to have actual superpowers but the older ego assures him that's okay. He introduces him to Batman, one of the most famous non-powered heros. More importantly, Jackie is someone to talk to when Angus is busy spending the majority of the day resting. Within days, they are firm friends. Despite his age and having only just been granted autonomy, Jackie proves his eagerness to play the hero he'd been designed to be. He's also very adept with technology. It isn't long before he's made some improvements to the house. Jack catches him trying to access the dark web at one point. The boy shrugs it off as making the most of his skills. After all, he'd been doing just that in Welcome To The Game. Jack remains skeptical. A month after Jackie appears, Sean messes around with a magic kit on camera. Shortly after the video is uploaded, a man wearing a cape and a cat mask finds himself before the three other egos. His cynicism makes Jack question whether they'll get along. He does like the mask though. Jack stares at Sean when he admits the magician was an unintentional character. He swears he will go prematurely bald from wanting to yank his hair out. Sure, Jack could understand his own beginnings as a separate entity. How could Sean have known that by calling himself Jack, his childhood imaginary friend of the same name would be given life? The same went for Angus. Their creator was entirely oblivious to the power a bad Australian accent and a few hundred subscribers held. By now, Sean should have learned his lesson. The new guy believes his name is Jack the Magnificent. It won't do. Jack wouldn't mind there being another Jack if it wasn't for the fact it would get confusing quick. Not to mention there would be two Jacks and a Jackie. Yes, it would be extremely confusing. Jack watches the magician's introductory video again. Fifty Amazing Magic Tricks from Marvin's Magic. Marvin. Marvin the Magician. Marvin the Magnificent. Marvin's face lights up when Jack suggests the name. It's almost like he's had an epiphany. Marvin's right, the name does fit him. Jack is glad he could help. The boost in Marvin's self confidence motivates him to practise his magic. He was able to conjure fire in the video. Logic dictates he can do it again. Jack and Jackie are ready to assist Marvin in whatever way they can with exploring the extent of his magical abilities. Within two weeks of Marvin's arrival, he is dragging a bloodied Jackie into the house. With no medical knowledge at his disposal apart from basic first aid, the incident ends with the youngest housemate being admitted to hospital. He doesn't wish for this to become a common occurrence but they should be better prepared. Perhaps having a doctor as back-up wouldn't be a bad idea. To his relief, Sean is all for it. He purchases a copy of Operation and a doctor outfit. It's a mystery why Dr Schneeplestein is given an awful German accent. Nevertheless, Jack his excited to welcome the doctor. He's unsure about the backstory. The guy's brought into the world with a disloyal wife who is blackmailing him. He knows they have children but can't remember their names or their ages. The doctor doesn't have a first name either. He was simply 'Dr Schneeplestein' in the Operation video. Like he did with Marvin, Jack attempts to find a name that suits the new ego. He goes through baby name websites, specifically ones featuring German names, with the doctor. They eventually bump into Heinrich which prompts a minute of deep thought before the nameless ego announces Henrik is the right name. Several days later, Jack learns of Elias, Heidi and Alina. In mid-October, the morning after Ninja Sex Party upload their music video for 'Cool Patrol', Jackie challenges him to an arm wrestle. He wins several matches. The young superhero giggles as he admits he's going easy on Jack. The two of them spend the following days exploring Jackie's new powers. Marvin shows up, either to watch or practise a defensive spell, while Henrik stood by. They soon establish that, along with technological expertise, Jackie has super strength, flight and lasers at his disposal. By far, his favourite power is the ability to fly. Jack comes out from a recording session towards the end of October to be ambushed by Marvin. He's questioned on whether he'd like a balloon. The minute he accepts, Marvin fetches the 'balloon'. When Henrik spots Jackie being transported around the room, floating while attached to a piece of string, he mutters something in German and retires to his area with coffee. As the month draws to a close, Sean offers him the opportunity to carve the pumpkin this year. He gladly accepts, only later remembering the weird stuff happening to the footage of several videos. He brings it up with his friend. Sean insists nothing will happen. Yes, he's building up to Antisepticeye making his debut appearance but that will be the second video of the day. Jack is skeptical but lets it slide. While their creator could be wildly irresponsible with his ideas at times, Jack trusts him not to deliberately put any of them in harm's way. He is even promised the dangerous upcoming character wouldn't be a threat between videos. During the carving, his nose begins leaking blood so he jokes about how big of a coincidence it was. Off screen he allows himself to be freaked out by the nosebleed. The actual bleeding nose isn't the issue. He's had nosebleeds before, namely when Jackie's aim was off during training. It's the timing that scares him. It's Halloween, with Antisepticeye due to show up today. This is too much of a coincidence. Despite not wanting to, he decides the show must go on. He says some uncharacteristically mean things to Gerald. When he argues with Sean, at least there's some reason to let insults slip. Gerald hasn't done anything wrong. It fails to matter when he is forced to lose control his body. Regardless of how much he'd love to resist, the knife slices through skin. He wakes up in a hospital bed. Dr Schneeplestein explains everything, advising Jack doesn't watch the video himself. He gets incredibly caught up in sudden, painful revelations as soon as he's left to his thoughts. Sean told him Antisepticeye wouldn't target the pumpkin video. Sean had lied. Apparently, his creator could deceive him without hesitation. Worst of all, he now knew how his 'friend' saw him. Expendable; Jack was expendable. He can't believe he'd trusted Sean like that. What was he thinking? Sean had gone against him in the past, namely ignoring his suggestions to improve the lives of the egos. Did he for one second consider how terrifying being suddenly robbed of your autonomy could be? Or suffering through being murdered by your own hand? Sure, the anaesthetic helped dull it to an ache. That didn't change the fact Jack would have a scar as a daily reminder of Sean's willingness to sacrifice the one he'd designed to be everything he wanted in a friend. If his life wasn't as important as Sean's, the difference should be so small it was inconsequential. By the time he is able to be discharged, he had forgiven Sean. Of course he was expendable. He was just made up like the others. No harm could come to Sean, he was too important to lose. None of them would exist without their creator. In a way, he should be thankful for being used as bait. At least he could still be relevant, unlike Angus. He'd been in Angus' position for years. Jack never wanted to feel like that again, as if he was nothing. He's never resented his basic character traits more. He hates that a little boy could force his best friend to always forgive him. He wouldn't be surprised if Sean committed genocide and Jack let it slide. Never sleepy, unable to stay angry at him forever, always willing to provide emotional support should he require it. Well, at least free will had allowed him to bend those rules at times. The truth was that Sean wasn't perfect and Jack didn't want to treat him as such. It didn't matter. The forgiveness comes too late to save Jackie. Sean's visit to the infirmary sparks another row. Frustrated with the disagreements, Jackie bursts into the room halfway through, screaming at them to stop. As soon as he had thundered off, both faces of the Jacksepticeye channel allowed themselves to resolve the latest issue calmly. "What are we doing? This constant arguing is getting us nowhere." "Tell me about it." Jack grumbled back. "Want to call a truce?" "I'm still furious you used me as bait. I don't know how you could have consciously done that." "I know. I'm not sure what I was thinking. Just wanted to give the subscribers something fun for Halloween, I guess. I-" "A community event where they post art would have been more fun." He interrupts. "Hey, I could do that next year." Sean's smile is cautious. "I promise I won't pull something like that again." His friend extends a fist with only his smallest finger out. He's got to be kidding. "What are you, five?" "Come on, humour me. Please?" Jack is reluctant but does it anyway. "You're a fucking idiot." "Don't we know it." Only one laughs. "This doesn't mean I'm going to let it slide just yet." He fidgets. Despite the stuff Schneeplestein had given him, the ghost of Jack's neck wound bothered him still. "Tell me about Antisepticeye. You've made a video with him so he'll be out there now. I should at least know what to look out for." Jack's biggest regret after that night isn't repeatedly allowing himself to forgive Sean. Instead, he becomes remorseful for not getting his friend to follow the young superhero. By the time either of them realise Jackie was yet to return, it was too late. Jack postpones his German studies to focus on bringing the youngest member of the household back to them. His efforts bear no fruit, even months later. The joint birthday celebrations go far better than either of them could have hoped. There are no ill feelings between the two of them on that day. The only fight they have is when Jack silences Sean's complaints of getting older by 'accidentally' smearing frosting on his face. Signe takes a photo of them, crumbs and frost littering their neon green hair. He keeps the photograph with the other reminders the two of them did have great times amongst the disagreements and resentment. He plays the first chapter of Bendy and the Ink Machine while Sean is away at PAX East and the other egos are sleeping. Sean's been hyped for this game for a while, Cuphead too, so Jack is leaving them for him to record. That said, there's no reason why he can't play it in his spare time. Later that month, he absentmindedly watches Sean's playthrough of it. "'The creator lied to us.' Well boohoo, people lie all the time. It's part of life." Jack had found that message on the wall intriguing when he'd played it. As much as he tried not to let Sean's comment get to him, it lingered. At least this time, he could exit the video and never return to it. The week after Angus' birthday, Chase Brody arrives with a name from the get-go. Unfortunately, he also has a wife who's divorcing him and a suicide attempt under his belt before meeting any of his fellow egos. Sean's done some stupid shit before but portraying a suicide? Really? Jack knows for a fact that his friend isn't one to see poor mental health and suicide as something to joke about. Nevertheless, Chase grows on him. Once you got past all the self deprecation and depression, he proved to be a cool guy who loved his two children. Unfortunately, the bullet Henrik has to extract from Chase's brain ruins his ability to perform complex actions with his left arm. "I'm not changing his character." Sean states during a gaming session. "Okay, but-" "Jack, I'm not doing it. This isn't me being stubborn and unwilling to compromise. People split up all the time and sometimes children are involved. A bunch of my subscribers will be able to relate to the situation, either as the parent or the child." "He shot himself in the head." "Unfortunately, that's something people in Chase's headspace consider doing." There's something in the way Sean speaks that worries Jack. "Some of them out there need proof things can change. I could show that." "You're not depressed." He's really unsure on how to have this conversation. "Well, no, but neither are you." They don't go further and Jack's guilt grows. He is sure he's missing something but he can't put his finger on it. They instead discuss topics that were more pleasant. Any miniscule progress Chase makes with his arm, Jack cheers him on. At least he understands where the issues lay with the latest ego. He wishes he was as in tune with Sean. He had been once. Now they were both watching their tongues in case either of them accidentally triggered a disagreement. Home wasn't so bad. He and Marvin still dedicated hours to locating Jackie but, as ever, no breakthroughs were made. However, progress was being made in other places. May brought a second cat into the household. The white feline was usually found lazing around with Jack and Chase or hanging out with Marvin's Abyssinian, Bastet. Jack feels so dumb when he finally learns why he can never find Marvin when the white cat is present. He couldn't be prouder of how far the magician's abilities had developed since August. He had returned to learning German at night. When reading German texts, occasional words begin to become familiar. Every now and again, he doesn't have to check what a word, or even rarer a phrase, means. It takes him a while to remember how accents change the sound of letters. Practising his speech alone, he is convinced his pronunciation is off by miles. Nevertheless, the delight on Henrik's face when he haphazardly makes his way through imperfect sentences proves it is undoubtedly worth it. Henrik coaches him on his native tongue while Jack continued to correct the doctor's English grammar. Henrik's ability to speak French is utilised after Sean plays a game called Passpartout. Jacques Septique often enclosed himself in his room, painting whatever he felt like that day. Once he became more comfortable around the five others living under the same roof, he offered to paint their doors. Soon, the house was a little more colourful. Jack promises himself he won't get too close to the French artist. He'll be kind and welcoming to him, of course he will, but he knows Jacques wasn't made last. He's a fan creation. All you needed to do was visit Angus to see what happened to that kind of ego. He'd been wary of Marvin when he'd first appeared. Unintentional with no name? He couldn't be more fan made. Jack had been an idiot and allowed himself to become close friends with the magician. It had taken Angus little over a year to start going downhill. That meant that by Christmas, Marvin would show signs too. There was the hope that the near 16 million subscribers were more able to preserve Marvin than the hundreds or thousands who saw Angus' ten videos. However, it was just hope. On the last day of July, Jack has a bad morning. He trips on something, spilling scalding coffee all over himself and breaking one of his favourite mugs in the process. After that, he records a video, only for him to notice none of the footage was recording. Frustrated, he calls Sean to see if he's free. His best friend almost succeeds in cheering him up with his jokes and sympathy. Jack is on the brink of feeling better when Sean ruins it all. "I'm burnt out, man." Sean admits. "YouTube needs to sort itself out." "You're burned out?" Jack scoffed. "Sure, how long have you been feeling like that?" "Oh don't give me that. This isn't a contest to see who's more tired. Besides, you don't get tired." He knows he has the power to avoid this argument before it truly begins. But years of Sean not listening have resulted in little patience concerning these topics. His mind isn't able to stop his mouth in time. "No, you don't give me that, Sean. For three years, I've watched one of my closest friends deteriorate into nothing. We could save Angus but you refuse to help me. Plus you don't let me upload any of the videos anymore." "I... I never have." "I'm not finished." He continues. "You need to stop playing God because you clearly suck at it. If we could find a game with wildlife in an open world for Angus, we could bring him back to his original condition. I'm not saying we go back to Far Cry, especially with the 5th instalment coming next year. But can you finally co-operate with me so we can save him? It would be one less mess of yours for me to fix. Not to mention it's practically 9 months since Jackie disappeared. We both know what happened to him. Anti is your creation. I don't care if he has as much free will as the rest of us. You could think of something, shit I'll take anything at this point, to keep him at bay. I'm sick of having to be the one who everyone relies on. That should be your job. You can't create us and then leave us to deal with suddenly existing by ourselves. If you want to keep acting like this, at least let me sleep. Even just once. Everyone can just escape all the problems you mindlessly burden them with for a few hours. Not me, I have to stay up and wait for the next big disaster you throw at us. Joke all you want about never needing sleep. I won't be laughing." Sean looks at him like he's insane. "Sleep? You're... kidding right? Just lie down and close your eyes. It's not rocket science." "I can't! I physically can't fall asleep because that's how you made me." "I was six!" "Yeah, and now you're 27. You have the power to help us but instead, you just create more of us. Stop being so irresponsible." The fight escalates. Jack is a broken record, repeating many of the points he's made over the years that still remain issues. If that isn't a line of argument in itself, he doesn't know what is. He also insists Marvin's name should be made canon already. After all, it was nearing a full year since the magician's first appearance. The spat ends with Jack forcing himself to leave the situation. "You want to sleep, I'll let you sleep." The words sound more malicious than they should. "Bring back Jackie. He's been missing for months. Do something!" At home, he marathons Harry Potter with Marvin and Chase for a few hours. It doesn't take his mind off the argument with Sean completely. If he knew they wouldn't get the chance to reconcile for two years, he would have apologised sooner. Unbeknownst to him, things were already being set in motion. Just three days later, he is overcome with queasiness as he introduces the latest episode of Bio Inc Redemption. He doesn't understand what's happening. One thing he does know is that nothing about this is good. Excusing himself, he stumbles carefully to Henrik's section of the building. "Hen-" He gags, hand flying to his mouth again. "Henrik, I need help. Something's wrong."

#creator au #jack's pov #writersofjack #my writing #jacksepticeye #sean mcloughlin #toxic relationship #jacksepticeye egos #angus the survival hunter #jackieboy man #marvin the magnificent #henrik von schneeplestein #antisepticeye #chase brody #jacques septique

[hookaroo]

Vocivore, Ltd. (16 of ?)

A OUAT WINTER WHUMP FIC

Also on FFN and AO3 (still need to update there!) (ListerofTardis)

Tagging @ouatwinterwhump, @killian-whump, @cocohook38, @killianjonesownsmyheart1, and @courtorderedcake <3

***THE MOST WONDERFUL COVER ART BY COCOHOOK38 HERE!!!!!******

****ALSO!!!!!!!!!!!!Chapter 12 animation and art that will absolutely astound you!!! THANK YOU MY WONDERFUL COCONUT FRIEND!!!!!!!!!!*************

Present (Wednesday, continued)...

Jones sat alone in the hospital cafeteria, nursing an overly sweet sports drink and wondering at the liveliness of the place at 3:00 in the afternoon. It wasn’t as if the population size of Storybrooke would explain it; nor would the rather pathetic selection of entrees on offer. He could only conclude that the majority of customers were family members of the slaves captured that morning, come to check on their loved ones and only now getting a chance for a lunch break. It certainly wouldn’t be the slaves themselves; Whale would have them tucked away for observation and whatever experimental therapies he was devising for their life-threatening condition.

The detective was quickly discovering the inconvenience of having injuries to the undersides of both forearms. He could not rest either on the table in the normal fashion, for that placed pressure directly on the cuts. Neither could he rotate the wrist without pulling on the stitches, which were now beginning to make themselves known in a prickly, itchy sort of way as the anesthetic wore off. Jones sighed, regretting his decision to postpone the pickup of his prescriptions from the pharmacy. The sudden, fierce ache in his chest added another check to the “Pick Up Now” column. He glanced irritably at his phone lying on the table next to his drink. He had wanted it easily accessible in case Emma called, but it had been at least half an hour since she’d dismissed him, and nothing.

When he looked up, he was startled to see David coming through the door, flanked by his wife and son and looking a bit worse for wear. But he had new clothes on and one arm in a sling; it appeared as if he’d been released to go home. As Snow and Neal headed into line, Jones caught David’s eye with a comradely nod, and the prince smiled wearily and headed in his direction.

“Mind a little company?” asked David as he neared. Jones gave him a lopsided grin and shook his head.

“Be my guest.” He waved at the three empty seats, and David lowered himself carefully into the one across from him. David let out a low, rueful groan, adjusted his sling arm, and winced; Jones’ own injuries twinged in sympathy. “I’m relieved to see you traveling under your own power, mate.”

“Same,” said David, a little sheepishly. “Sorry for leaving you to fend for yourself back there.”

“Not your fault,” Jones assured him. “Who’d have guessed it would take a whole score of slaves to commit simple arson?”

Snow White appeared around the corner and hurried over with a bottle of juice and a package of cookies. She gave a hasty but kind greeting to Jones as she unscrewed the lid, then set both items in front of her husband, saying,

“I’d better go make sure Neal isn’t trying to order one of every dessert in there.”

She dashed off. David took a swig of juice and gestured at the cookies.

“Help yourself; it’s all that sounded good to me at the moment.”

“Standard blood donor fare?” Jones suggested, and David laughed.

“Maybe that’s it.” He picked up the cookies, carefully brought the packaging to his immobilized arm, and pulled lightly. The effort’s only accomplishment was to bring a pronounced grimace of pain to his face, and he immediately gave up. Jones leaned in slightly, impish grin in place.

“May I make a suggestion?”

“I’m not sure a hospital’s the best place to look for a hook lying around,” David teased, though the detective could still see lines of pain around his eyes.

“Think simpler, mate.” Jones reached for the package, wincing a little himself as his sternum spasmed a sullen protest. He pulled the cookies closer, flashed a wink, and said simply, “Teeth.”

Deftly, he gripped the plastic with his incisors and tore it open, managing not to dump the contents all over himself. Then he returned the snack to his friend. David smiled wryly and accepted, grumbling,

“Good thing I’ve just been dosed with antibiotics. Protection against pirate slobber.”

“No need to worry, David: I’ve hardly kissed anyone today.”

The friendly banter was helping to take both of their minds off of their pain, the stress of the morning, and their worries, at least for a short moment. But the mood was all too fleeting, and as Jones glanced again at his phone, David must have sensed his mild concern.

“You, uh… heard anything about Killian?”

The detective quickly filled him in on the current situation, concluding with his intention to call Emma if he hadn't heard from her within the next few minutes. David nodded his approval. He swallowed a mouthful of cookie, looking thoughtful, then said,

“I kinda don’t know what to think.”

“About what?”

“Well… him. He’s gotta be pretty badly brainwashed if he isn’t immediately giving up intel on Hope, but… if he is…”

“Then why aren’t either of us dead?” Jones finished the thought. “I’ve been wondering the same.”

“I mean, you know how he thinks, how he fights… is it possible he missed both times? Or was too weak to finish us off?”

Jones considered this as if he hadn’t been mulling it over for hours already. “I… suppose it's possible, yeah. With the neurological symptoms especially.”

David seemed to find that answer satisfactory and gave a one-shouldered shrug. “Guess we should just be grateful, then.”

But Jones remained uneasy. There were a hundred ways to kill a man, and he knew them all. Many did not require much power or finesse. Yet Killian had aimed for places almost guaranteed to be survivable.

Head suddenly spinning, Jones rubbed at his eyes, careful not to brush against the impressive swelling on his cheek. His bed sounded irresistibly appealing at that moment. As Snow and Neal made their way to the table, both carrying trays laden with mediocre food, Jones reached for his phone. To the backdrop of Neal’s incessant chatter, he dialed Emma, wearing a politely distant smile.

“She’s not picking up,” he finally reported. “Could be she’s fallen asleep as well.”

He gritted his teeth and stood, stiff muscles and sore places hampering easy movement. “I’ll go check on them; she’ll likely be peeved if she sleeps through the only opportunity she has of speaking to him.”

“Let us know how it goes,” David requested.

“Aye, of course. Enjoy your meal.”

“Later, Killian!” chirped Neal, and Jones gave a stiff wave farewell.

“Alice is looking forward to having you aboard the next cruise, lad. She says it’s been exceedingly helpful to have a proper junior crewman along.”

Neal bounced in his seat, excited at the reminder, and Jones smiled fondly. With a nod, he retrieved his sugar water and set off toward his counterpart’s room.

*****

Emma was sleeping, all right.

In Killian’s bed.

With his equipment attached to her, and no sign of him anywhere in the vicinity.

Momentarily stunned by the sight, Jones shook himself and strode to the bed, calling,

“Emma? Are you all right?”

The sheriff stirred slightly at the sound of her name. Not quite sure what had taken place, Jones opted for caution and pressed the nurse call button as he searched her face and arms for any sign of trauma. “Emma?”

Emma groaned quietly and reached for her face. She pulled a deep, slow breath, groggy and disoriented. With a grunt, she rubbed her eyes open. They fixed on Jones and immediately filled with confusion. “Killian? What happened?”

“I don’t know.”

She struggled to her elbows and winced. Jones put a hand on her shoulder.

“Take it slow.”

Emma glanced down at the EKG leads snaking beneath her shirt, at first with massive confusion. But then something clicked, and she sat bolt upright, cursing. Jones took a step back at her vehemence. She wasted no time tearing the sensors off, which set the machines to aggravating beeps of warning.

“Emma, where’s Killian? Did he…?”

He honestly did not need to ask. It was fairly obvious: ground floor private room, easy access to the window, and his unconscious wife left in his place. Still, it seemed an unbelievable circumstance.

A nurse came trotting in, but stopped dead in her tracks as she tried to reconcile the confusing scene. Frustrated and frantic, Emma tore the blood pressure cuff from her arm and practically spiked it into the mattress beside her.

“Uh… Mr. Jones?” inquired the nurse, but the wrong Jones ignored her. Emma had swung her legs over the edge of the bed, evidently about to race off to do gods-knew-what in order to retrieve her wayward husband.

“Were you struck on the head?” Jones asked bluntly, moving to prevent her standing up. “Maybe you should--”

“I’m fine,” snapped Emma. “Get out of my way.”

Without waiting, she surged to her feet, and Jones had to scramble backwards to avoid a collision. Emma pushed past the bemused nurse on her way to the window, swearing the whole way there.

“What’s going on here?” demanded the nurse. “What was she doing in your bed? And what are you doing out of it?”

Jones sighed and prepared to explain himself again, but Emma beat him to it. She turned from the window.

“He’s not my husband. My husband’s gone, dammit.”

“He’s… gone? You… think he went out the window?” The nurse was clearly considering whether to call Security, Dr. Whale, or both.

“He’s gone,” confirmed Emma. Without further ado, she slid the window open and prepared to hurtle through.

“Ma’am, I can’t let you--”

Emma flashed her badge at the nurse, who blinked once and changed her tune. Slightly.

“Sheriff, I can’t let you--”

Jones moved toward the window, adding his own protests to the nurse’s. “Emma, wait; let’s call Henry, or Regina, or--”

Halfway outside, Emma fixed them both with such a dangerous look that they froze in mid-sentence. “I’m going after him. Go home, Jones. You can’t help me right now.”

She wriggled easily the rest of the way through, dropped to the ground into some bushes, and was gone. Jones sighed, reaching for his phone. She didn’t expressly forbid him to call for backup…

Still quite nonplussed, the nurse turned back to Jones, taking in his clothed state but also his readily apparent injures. She frowned at him.

“Are you sure you’re not Killian Jones?”

#ouat fanfiction #wish realm killian #david nolan #emma swan #detective charming #hospital #pain #injuries #escape #Vocivore ltd #queued

[mikadechavez]

Manila City is one of the densest city in the Philippines as of today. It is notable for such its unruly physical and economic growth. Rural migrants had pour in the metro desperate for search of work and life. These people settle in margin of the land but when nothing, they build make shift home on stilts above Manila Bay and Pasig River. Discussing about NEIGHBORHOOD AND BUILT ENVIRONMENT. Esteros, railways, garbage dumps, bays, rivers and its tributaries and other public areas such as sidewalks, highway, and parks. The Capital is currently facing various adversities that include mainly, provision for public health service, housing, water system, sewage service, garbage management, transportation, and education. Everything is insufficient due to high increase of migrants and the people of the city itself. I cannot blame the city for this but I think if this is the case, the government needs to prioritize the city to cater all the needs in improving the knowledge and health of individuals, family and communities. As dramatic increase in population over the past two decades that put effect on the urban community, I cannot emphasize how its ECONOMIC STABILITY is going. I have encountered a post that Manila City ranks top 3 among the richest cities here in the philippines. I pressume that despite of the population increase, Manila remained multi-faceted. It remained as the center of commercial, cultural, political and social industry and manufacturer of diverse products. In my own percepts, the reason why it did not hog top to Rank 1 because in Makati it centers to investments to like malls, estates and such but in Manila it’s like all life status dwells in here and ‘some’ benefits go to the people with nothing in return. There is no doubt that Manila is also the center for EDUCATION, and I myself is the evidence. I came all the way from Laguna just to study here because I do believe that the quality of education is high. Since the spanish era, top universities like UST, ADMU, DLSLM, UP, PUP and other universities along the U-belt have been established. Not just for education that it excels but in sports as well that improve not just the concentration of higher education but extra curricular activities. These schools offer courses that are not available in other places as to why people really go here in manila for college. I also observed that there are lots of public schools and science schools which is good most especially for our young children who is not privileged enough to study. Public HEALTH and HEALTHCARE is provided by private corporations since majority of the hospitals in manila are privately owned. Just like in Education, people from south and north go to manila for the quality of healthcare. San Lazaro Hospital is a hospital that I always hear about ever since I was a child who manages cases for communicable diseases. The headquarters for WHO Country Office and DOH is designated at NCR. Around 6 hospitals are also accredited by Joint Commission International and based on my my research, with its multitude health workers and health providers, NCR has the lowest rate of malnutrition but I don’t really believe because it is occupied by nearly slums and squatter areas wich I think unprivileged individuals reside. Talking about SOCIAL AND COMMUNITY CONTEXT. I think the metropolitan area sufficiently and unsufficiently caters this depending on various circumstances and districts. Manila has 16 cities and designated as the Global Power City, it has a very significant role to finance, media, art, commerce, fashion, research, technology, education and entertainment concluding that all lifestyles are here. Housing in Manila varies from high-end to low-end. Condominiums and High-rise buildings have risk due to their elevation and having less number of windows. Starting a family as well in this type of housing would not contribute greatly to social developmental characteristics of a child. Another type of housing are those of along esteros that is detrimental to an individual’s health. No proper ventilation, weak structure, exposed to areas such as contaminated rivers and dumpsites. I also wanna take on consider the improper waste disposal of these people living in manila especially along P. Noval St. here in Sampaloc. Garbage are not tightly disposed, leaving leaks and unwanted odor. When it comes to public safety, the city also houses the Philippine National Police. I strongly believe that if there is a mutual give and take relationship with the people and government we could create a better place to live in. It will all start from the self, the practice of honesty, generosity and discipline.