#sorry i had to censor the panels a little bit

[rewordthis]

Out of all the Rights and Wrongs, this was the Wrongest!

Watching Nanami, the only sane and logical person in the whole fucking anime being so lost in a fantasy was honestly heartbreaking. Nanamin, you were so proper to the very last moment… I’m not proud of you. I deeply respect and feel sorry for you. Being a witness to a delusional Nanami, that had checked out from reality and was only fighting on autopilot felt like shit and the fact that his plans and hopes for the future were rolling out in plain sight really made me feel like I eavesdropped and intruded to his innermost desires. It genuinely left a very bad aftertaste in my mouth. Fuck you, Gege. You played with his mind in his final moments and in the end when he eventually came back to himself, Mahito was already a touch away. I know full well, that a concentrated Nanami would have felt Mahito’s cursed energy from a mile away in that photo booth… so yeah once more, FUCK YOU, Gege! 🤬

Also, Nanami calling Haibara, his only friend from highschool (cause Gojo is the senpai and boyfriend!) got me a little off guard. Like, I understand that this is why Yu died – because he was doing his best for what he was ‘fitted’ to do best – ; it makes sense that Nanami would want some guidance or insight or maybe even regret alleviation from someone that he considered on his level and that had gone through the same shit but this was so abrupt… I could even say that maybe he just needed some validation, that his whole life as a sorcerer was not in vein. That his sacrifice will not be in vein. That all those broken dreams were ok to be left just dreams. That his small despairs and little daily sacrifices — like not reading this book he bought last week — were all worthwhile, they were all meaningful for someone. Something.

And Yu wants him to not leave with this burden. This curse. Because it is a curse, a regret — despite what Nanami himself says, and you can see it in his expression when he looks back and forth between Yu and Yuuji and he’s genuinely scared, terrified even — that he’s got nothing to leave behind. He’s got no students like Gojo. No brothers or sisters. No protégées, even if Ino is trying to be one for him for a long time now. Even if Gojo appointed him to be Yuuji’s guardian and guide. He still believes Yuuji is not his student, because he’s not a proper teacher. He doesn’t want that responsibility, too. But Yuuji is also very dear to Nanami. Gojo gave him something he can’t just leave or overlook. That boy, is his pupil as much as is Gojo’s and by Gojo’s request Nanami is to first and foremost teach him how to not let the loses become poison in his heart. Heavy duty, indeed… It makes me wonder if that was all that really plagued Nanami’s heart... Could it be that he desired something else to say, as well? A “thank you” maybe? Perhaps an “I’m sorry” even? I really don’t know. Yu was persistent, too. In the anime it seemed like he was showing at Nanami but the manga panels show him clearly showing Yuuji. So, “tell him”, is what he was meaning to say. Right? And Nanami really fought against his urge to tell Yuuji what he really wanted, as I strongly believe that he still didn’t 100% said exactly what he wanted to tell Yuuji. He just summed it up as best he could and probably (considering his character traits) also censored quite a bit of it. And then there’s simply the fact that Nanami just couldn’t keep refusing Haibara’s request because, let’s face it, Yu knew best to push him to let out his final thoughts so he wouldn’t carry his regrets on the other side and risk becoming a curse… Does that make sense to anyone else but me?

Also, why is this man getting touched so much?Why is everybody wanting a piece of him?! Can you please not touch Gojo’s property, you pesky creeps?!

Btw, Gege is on a 3/5 strike right now with 3 of his male victims getting stripped. Huh… Yuuji, Geto and Nanami were all half naked when they were killed. I wonder what Gege’s profile would be had we been on a Criminal Minds episode… He’d probably be characterised a rapist in Yuuji’s case since we had Sukuna ripping his heart out, which you know, includes penetrating essentially Yuuji’s body. Or how Mahito was ‘caressing’ Nanami’s body before he ‘touched’ his soul (bro, this joke after watching sankaku has gotten on another level for me… 😅). Could the part where he’s at least letting them keep their pants on, show remorse? But then again his very first victim Yu got his entire bottom ‘eaten’… 👀 Gege has escalated since then and I’m not being too far myself either… Ahem… Anyway. Sue me for being slightly derailed ig. 😬🫠

On a side note: I do not count Gojo because kid went down the river saw the crowd and literally said to Charon “See you later”…

And what do you think the proper continuation is after such a tragic end? My ancestors would say catharsis but Gege is just a shitty troll so of course it’s turn to comedy! >:P

The scene where Mahito screams at Yuuji for being loud right after killing Nanami, is so fast paced and down right ridiculous that I doubt there’s anyone left unaffected by the absurdity of it. I was thrown into a hysterical fit of laugher and from that point on it was just getting worse and worse.

It did made me sober up a bit when Mahito told Yuuji he’s him — and thought that maybe we’re going to be given some profound truth about humanity — but that honestly didn’t last long because then we had…

THIS SCENE:

Okay… Dude even closed his eyes! He really felt it!!! *screams* Bro! I need both Gege and MAPPA to step up their game for the shipping discourse. Who has a crush on who and who are they actually shipping with whom?! 🤣

Im team 57(reverse) and SkIt btw! (Now imagine a bottom Sukuna… that’d be fun~) LOL

Gege is a damn savage for doing that right over Nanami’s dead body… ngl. 😬

However, I have to admit that Yuuji coming to his senses so quickly after thinking that Nanami wouldn’t let himself be swayed by anger… was both incredibly nice and awful. Because think about it, Nanami’s last words gave Yuuji a purpose and a sense of duty to fulfil and that was partly a call — in Yuuji’s mind at least — to fill Nanami’s shoes and also to remember what he learned from him. All while Nanami himself, might have not lost himself in anger but he had lost himself in his emotional fatigue. His soul was so worn that living the sorcerer life must have felt more like an obligation to him than a conscious choice. I mean, look at how he questioned his decision to come back into this world... This is such a well-delivered irony. I hate Gege. And I hate the plot. And I’m mad that it’s so tightly and beautifully woven. Damn.

Also, the last scenes showing how Mahito did a split… SHIT. He’s the most uncanny villain after Sukuna and to be fair, even Sukuna is a lot more straightforward with his opponents than this trickster over here. 🫤

He is one trump card for the bad guys for sure.

After that reveal, the fact that he met with Nobara of all people and he realised that she’s probably important to Yuuji… Woaaah… 👀😰

This better be as imaginative as promising it looks! 😎

#nanami kento #itadori yuuji #mahito #jujutsu kaisen #jjk #jujutsu kaisen 2nd season★ #fandom talk #episode rant

[ejzah]

Can you do a fanfic where the team spots Deeks with a mystery beautiful women getting all close and Kensi gets jealous. The team gives Deeks a hard time the next day, but when they learn who the girl is (old friend or cousin), everyone are embarrassed and apologize.

A/N: I think I’ve done something similar before, so I will attempt to make this one a bit different. I changed the prompt a little to fit the scenario. Set around season 4.

***

When You Assume

“Where is Deeks?” Sam asked, shifting to look around them. “The seminar is supposed to start in 30 minutes.” They stood in the middle of a small foyer with about 50 other agents and federal personnel, waiting for a required training to begin. As part of the team, Deeks was expected to attend, despite the fact that he was technically an LAPD employee.

“You’re the only one who would qualify that as late,” Callen pointed out.

“It’s a sign of professionalism.”

“He said he ran into some traffic and should be here in a coupe minutes,” Kensi said quickly. Deeks hadn’t actually texted her, but she figured there was no point in letting Sam get even more irritated.

“He does know this is important, right?” Sam glanced at Kensi, his gaze censoring, like she was somehow responsible for Deeks’ absence and professionalism.

“Of course he does. You know Deeks never slacks when it comes to these kind of things.”

“Mm.” Seeming unsatisfied with her answer and turned his attention to the monitor to the left of them that announced the schedule for the day.

“I think I see our wayward liaison,” Callen spoke up, looking past Kensi to peer out the floor to ceiling windows that paneled one side of the room. “And it looks like he brought a friend.”

Showing zero discretion, they all turned to look, watching as a sleek black convertible stopped a few rows of cars away from the building. Deeks sat in the passenger seat, his blonde hair instantly recognizable,

a woman with long dark on the drivers side. It was too far away to see any distinct features.

“Well, that’s subtle,” Sam muttered wryly. Kensi didn’t say anything, attention focused on Deeks movements. He reached into the back to grab his bag, a grin briefly visible before he turned back to his companion. Her stomach sank as the woman leaned across to Deeks’ side and kissed his cheek, lingering for a few seconds.

Kensi’s stomach dipped and she wanted to look anywhere but at Deeks, conscious of Sam and Callen’s attention shifting to her.

“Well, I guess we know why he was late,” Callen quipped. They continued watching until Deeks turned around, quickly shifting to face the opposite direction. Kensi wasn’t entirely sure their act was all that convincing, especially with the way Sam glared at Deeks when he walked in.

He stopped to grab his name tag, running a hand through his wind blown hair, and joined them.

“Hey sorry about that,” he said, flashing a quick grin. “Got stuck in traffic.”

“Sure you did.” Deeks made a face at Sam’s obscure comment, shrugging and turned to Kensi.

“So what exactly is this conference about? Hetty mentioned something about professionalism, which is pretty much as vague as you can get.”

“You should have done the pre-conference reading,” Sam said a little harshly.

“I would have, but I was a little occupied last night,” Deeks said, covering a yawn.

“Occupied, that’s an interesting word for it,” Callen commented. “Though to be fair, I didn’t read anything last night either. But that’s just because I’ve been to a dozen of these things and they’re always the same.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t have time to scan it on the way over,” Kensi said, giving Deeks a sharp look. He frowned, scratching at his head again.

“Ok, did I miss something? You’re acting like I ate the last cupcake and ran over your sick cat.”

“Oh please, don’t act stupid Deeks,” Kensi snapped, jealousy and annoyance taking over. Now that the surprise had settled in, she felt stupid, and a little hurt, that she didn’t know he was seeing anyone.

“At the risk of opening myself up to a bevy of jokes, it’s not an act,” he said, his own frustration leaking into his voice. “What the hell is going on?”

“Give it up, Deeks,” Sam suggested, sounding disappointed. “We saw how you got here.”

Frowning, Deeks settled a hand on his hip, and shook his head, clearly not getting the significance.

“Which means we saw your girlfriend.” Kensi said more harshly than she intended and saw Deeks’ eyebrows narrow and then he had the audacity to laugh

“You mean Chrissy?” he asked, still chuckling a little. “Yeah, she’s not my girlfriend.”

“You seemed awfully cozy.”

“I’m not sure where you got that idea.”

His lack of concern was infuriating and Kensi resisted the urge to smack his arm. She crossed her arms to keep control of her physical reactions.

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because she kissed you on the cheek,” Kensi said sarcastically. Deeks gave her a strange look, but didn’t say anything about her relatively aggressive demeanor.

“Chrissy’s affectionate, but like I said, she’s not my girlfriend,” Deeks repeated. “She’s a former colleague from the district attorney’s office. I had some car trouble, so she offered to let me tag along since she has a conference around here too.”

“Why didn’t you call one of us to pick you up?” Sam asked again, with the same suspicion. Deeks didn’t look that intimidated.

“Maybe because every time I do, you guys complain and act like I asked for a kidney,” he said, glancing at each of them again. “So, are we done with the third degree? Or do you want to know who I talked to this morning when I walked Monty?”

Feeling her cheeks flush, Kensi glanced at her feet. Guilt was starting to surface along with embarrassment at her blatant jealousy and knee jerk reaction.

“No, we believe you,” Called decided.

“Just make sure you’re on time for the next training,” Sam added. “Car trouble or not.”

“I’m 20 minutes early,” Deeks muttered, shaking his head as Callen and Sam walked away to talk to talk to someone they recognized. He started to follow after them, but Kensi caught at his sleeve, holding him back.

He turned back warily, clearing expecting more accusations. Drawing on her courage, Kensi drew in a deep breath.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have attacked you like that and it’s not any of my business who you see.”

“Forgiven.” He gave her an easy smile, knocking her shoulder with his. “Although, I would like to know why it bothered you so much.”

“Oh my god, can’t you just be happy with an apology?”

“Definitely not.” He slung his arm over her shoulder, drawing her with him. “I have a lot of questions.”

“I need a drink,” Kensi sighed.

***

A/N: Hope this is ok. Thanks for the prompt!

#ncis la fanfiction #marty deeks #kensi blye #plus sam and callen #not really angst #anonymous prompt #ejzah fanfiction

[stxleslyds]

I try not to let the fandom ruin a character for me but it's becoming really hard to appreciate C*ss (censoring her name to avoid getting this being in her main tags) as a character when (some) of her fans are annoying as hell, I sometimes really can't stand them and honestly I'm sorry if I come off as rude, that really wasn't my intention. I've been in this fandom for a while now and while I mostly only really care about Talia and Damian, it seems like I can't avoid seeing C*ss stans being really annoying.

I know it's not all of them, certain character stans are always gonna have bad apples but damn they get on my nerves.

Hi Anon! I have to say, I completely understand where you are coming from. It happens in all fandoms from whatever piece of entertainment. Every time we join a new fandom, we are always going to find people that are really mean and gatekeep-y or people who we just cannot see eye to eye with.

It doesn’t make you rude, at least I don’t think so. One can easily get fed up with people’s narratives when they revolve around bringing other characters down.

I joined this fandom quite late and even though I have been a Dick Grayson and Jason Todd stan for a very long time. Dick was the one that I met first and then Jason. When I found the fandom side of comics, we were already a bit into the Rebirth era of DC, and the fandom was wild.

It was like nothing I have ever seen; it was like the Jason and Dick that I knew didn’t exist, and it was really difficult for me to like any Jason Todd centric blog because they usually came with a horrendous amount of Dick Grayson hate.

I even had a really bad experience with a Dick stan, who acted like Dick’s most distinguishable trait was having a bad temper. It was true that person probably had read more comics than me but them using out of context panels to prove Dick’s bad temper kinda put me off.

I understand now, that they probably were trying to fight the “sunshine and happiness” characterization of Dick, but they still were extremely rude to me and it made me feel bad.

It took me some time to find blogs that made me feel welcome to the fandom and that felt were willing to educate the newies without treating us like we were less.

My advice to you? Mute and block every tag that you feel makes you have a bad time in fandom. And don’t feel bad about muting tags, sometimes it is the best thing that could happen to you.

I grow attached to characters and pieces of media a lot so when something bothers me a lot it can make me anxious. A long time ago I was part of the Supernatural fandom, it is basically my second favourite show, and one ship destroyed my experience of it, whenever I looked it was all about that ship, the show seemed to come second to it. It really made me separate myself from all that and I decided to not only enjoy the show on my own but also, I muted tags and everything involving that ship.

This fandom is the same, granted it doesn’t reach Supernatural Fandom levels of toxic but it does have its moments.

In a way or another fandom is the reason that I kinda hate Tim Drake but I am also not interested in him that much, but I have gotten tired of him and some of his stans in the past quite easily.

I know it is frustrating, but what we have to do is make ourselves look the other way, sometimes all we can do is look away. Maybe some day we will come across a story involving a character that we don’t like (due to fandom) and might find ourselves still enjoying it.

I know there is this ever existing “soft beef” between Jason and Dick stans but I know very little of it because I have taught myself to dodge it.

It is not worth having a bad time here on tumblr (or anywhere else) when we are trying to find people who like the same stories/characters that we do!

I hope your experience in tumblr and fandom in general gets better Anon, I can assure you, once you find bloggers that make you happy even though they might post something you don’t quite agree with, it all gets better!

#asksss #fandom sometimes has to find a moment to chill #I probably come off quite harsh to people too #if I do I am sorry #but you can always just block my existence away #we have to do whats better for ourselves

[name968]

Having Han Mi-nyeo as your older s!st3r

Tw: S!st3r, s!bl!ng, spoilers, and d3@th

If those are your triggers please just scroll past! Because I won't be censoring them :( sorry

[Platonic] Big s!st3r! Han Mi-nyeo x younger s!bl!ng! Gn! Reader

Contents below

- She would probably tell you about everything (Maybe not 'that' though)

- I'm not sure why but she gives me the vibes of being protective

- When she found out that hiding behind another player (In Red Light, Green Light) she would probably make you stand behind her

- In Gganbu (Marbles) you guys would probably partner up not knowing what's next

- Either you give up your life or she gives it up

• If she were to give up her life her last words would be like "Avenge me" then tell you about player 101 (I keep forgetting his name-) and that's what you do in the glass panel game :)

• If you were the one who gave up their life then she would probably just try to keep her distance from people since she's vulnerable during the mourning period

- If somehow you guys didn't get to pair up in the marbles game, then you guys would be planning about in the glass panel games. If somehow you are before player 101 you would probably kill him yourself, but if she's behind him then she would kill him

- When she dies then Gi-hun would probably try comforting you

- If you had/have a good relationship with player 101 kinda consider Mi-nyeo a little bit softer towards him, but that is IF you still have a (somewhat) good relationship with him

- If you were one of the people in the line when the gang skipped for more lunch (The lunch with one boiled egg due to the game) she would probably give you her egg because yes

- After Thug-Of-Wars she wouldn't be praising herself but rather praising you (Say that one guy that was praying for god wasn't in the team and instead it was you)

Second fanfic! Feeling proud ^^

#just random things for a random writer #squid game #han mi nyeo #player 101 #Platonic of course

[rockmiyabideusexmachina]

2020 Megaman Summer Fanart Contest Results Thread ~ Cat. 1 - Mariko-Sensei’s Hot Hot Hotspring Club

Sorry for the delay in these results. Those following me on Twitter know I had a little computer mishap the week after the deadline, when I had planned to get this all done. And once I went back to work, time to focus on this has not been plentiful. So I’m going to try to keep this a little shorter and concise, best I can. As has become the norm, I’m going to break up the results into separate posts for each category. Here are all the steamy submissions from Category 1 (that *ahem* hopefully aren’t too hot for tumblr nowadays...), and your winners, after the break:

Thank you again to all who participated! As always, you make it very hard to judge these pieces with how great they all were! I will be contacting all winners today, after these posts go live. For the full gallery with images at their actual resolution, please check out these two links:

https://imgbox.com/g/tUBHFYfbpd   [Everyone’s entry, except...]

https://imgbox.com/g/N3dEQbKjjc   [...inanehipsterslang’s multi-page entry]

I will also include a direct link after each entrant’s name, if the images won’t load or are crunched for legibility.

Category 1 - Mariko-Sensei’s Hot Hot Hotspring Club (this category focused on Megaman characters in an onsen setting. Mariko-sensei needed to appear somewhere in the entry, but did not need to be the focus of the piece.)

1.) Steph O’Dell: [ENTRY] *For coming in 1st, Steph has won $125 via Paypal*

Um, uh...sorry to intrude, Mariko-sensei... Gosh, this turned out so dang pretty! In terms of the overall background environment, your piece certainly felt the most polished. The details in the shading, from the rocks to the fence, and the opacity of the water and steam feel just spot on. Stunningly beautiful to look at. 

2.) @dragonmarquise​ [PAGES 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] *For coming in 2nd, dragonmarquise has won $75 via Paypal*

♫ If you’re ‘fraid of hot springs and you know it, clap your hands ♪

You won points for having the most cohesive story and bringing the category’s titular club to life! There were a lot of panels that had both cute and humorous moments, (glad to know Match at least isn’t weirded out by showers XD) it read well, and felt like a unique and thought-out entry. 

3.) Komito Amae [ENTRY] *For coming in 3rd, Komito has won $50 via Paypal*

As one of two traditional medium entries, I felt you did a really pretty job with your shading and highlights. Especially with everyone’s hair, but also details like the light shining behind Meiru and the pretty contrast in the sky. The rounded rock arrangement fit the composition nicely and stood out in a unique way against the other entries. 

4.) Viruscore [ENTRY] *For being the Honorable Mention, Viruscore has won $25 via Paypal*

Keep your eyes closed or covered, everyone else. There’s not enough steam to keep Mariko’s buns properly covered, and I’m not talking about her hairstyle. _____

And here are the remaining entries that just barely missed the cut, in alphabetical order by alias:

@inanehipsterslang​ [ENTRY FULL GALLERY - 23 PAGES]

Man, I Love Frogs. Man, I had a good laugh at Shadow Man in that shirt! While I have a feeling you were more pressed for time to finish this entry as well as you wanted to, I appreciate that you were the only one who had characters in yukata for this theme, and still snuck in a little Akane bribery. Challenge me to censor your art, will ya? Well, this is what happens... ;p

Mattasaurs [ENTRY]

Layer sure was a popular choice in this theme, and her new XDive swimsuit skin was probably a catalyst. She looks super cute here! I think you nailed her new style perfectly!

@megagundamman​ [ENTRY]

Onsens don’t always have perfect clear blue color. There is actually a variety of types and reasons why they appear different colors. Being yellow, this one might have a bit too much iron or sulfer in it. Or maybe that sunken booty is where all the iron is coming from. 

@tea-and-finalfantasy​ [ENTRY]

The watercolor look of this piece is just as soothing as the feeling Layer and Mariko must be experiencing in the waters. The flowers and berries mixing in help make it an even prettier scene, and the little ducky floating by is cute. I really liked how your Layer turned out; the extra wave and curl in her hair looks very nice like that. 

#Rockman #Megaman #Mega Man #Rock Miyabi's 2020 Megaman Summer Fanart Contest

[onepunchmiss]

OPM s2e2 Liveblog

The Human Monster

So I posted my (vague) predictions for this episode yesterday, lets see how wrong I was! As last time, I’m watching this from the perspective of someone who’s read the manga and webcomic. Long post ahead, but let’s get to it!

Alright, looks like we’re picking up right where we left off. This marks the first legitimate Garou episode, doesn’t it? I’m so excited to see the trash son in action.

Garou’s! VOICE! I know we’re already heard it briefly but AHH! I didn’t look into the voice actor ahead of time so I didn’t have much more of an idea as to what he’d sound like but I was expecting it to be...deeper? And honestly I like this way better than what I thought it would be please keep talking my boy you cocky bastard please please

Woah ok I had to pause again to point out how much I appreciate this music. Is this gonna be the recurring Garou theme? I hope so, it’s way darker sounding than any other music in the show that I can recall and I am LIVING

Oh FUCK Heavy Tank’s arm is some body horror right there why is the skin so lumpy???? “Baaaka~” Garou is not one of my top favorite characters but at this rate I think the anime might get him there pretty quickly. And I see JC staff is cutting no corners when it comes to animating his physique I’m sure LOTS of people are gonna be happy for that

Oh my fuck Aaaand more body horror, the sound effects make it worse. I knew this was coming but I forgot. Somehow.

Um excuse me but JC STAFF WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS? WHAT ARE THESE COLORS. WHY. ITS NOT EVEN LIKE YOU’RE CENSORING IT. YOU’VE ALREADY SHOWED THE WHOLE SEVERED HAND AND THE BLOOD WHAT IS THIS EYESORE. Like, the sudden randomly fast animation of Blue Fire’s hands caught me off guard completely and had me laughing even though I don’t think that was supposed to be funny? I though that was a kinda jarring animation choice but what the hell is this?

Ah yes thank you opening theme please cleanse my eyes of what just happened.

Yeah I’m never gonna get over seeing Zombieman’s pissy face at least TWICE every episode thank the heavens for that really. Also Phoenixman. I just think he’s neat ok

Also, I just realized they gave Choze silver hair when I totally imagined it blond. I guess they figured the Nazi imagery would be TOO MUCH given the character already?

OH MY GOSH ARE THEY GONNA DO A DIFFERENT S CLASS EVERY TIME?? LOOK AT THIS BABY. DOES THAT MEAN Z WILL GET ONE TOO IT WAS TATSUMAKI LAST WEEK FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

As expected, on to the Fubuki confrontation. But first I’d like to take a moment to appreciate Geno’s apron. Oh sonic SONIC! we ARE getting the TOASTER VS NINJA THIS EPISODE YES! YES! WAIT a 20 minutes later cut?? I swear they better not skip the action….

“Yo, I’m Saitama” Fucking hell the inflection of his voice when he says that is perfect. Anyway- the boarding in this sequence is messing with me. Is it just me or is every really monotone? Something just feels kinda off. There’s so many panning shots? Keep the screen still its making me a bit motion sick. This isn’t an action sequence there doesn’t need to be movement 100% of the time, it doesn’t fit well here. I’m gonna need to rewatch this beginning to end without pausing for the blog to judge it better [EDIT: after watching it in one go, its still noticable, but not AS BAD. Slightly more forgivable imo]

Fuck the fucking obligatory boob jiggle god damnit

“Are you gonna fight me with rocks n stuff? Better not” Was that a Geryuganshoop callback??

ok I put my finger on it. This whole sequence has been riddled with unnecessary panning of the camera. (90% of which is focused on Fubuki for whatever reason). This shot for example would have been fine with just gusts and rocks flying everywhere. but instead they panned up in this shot in a crooked gliding motion. why?? It keeps happening?

Why is it zooming in and turning sideways it’s getting distracting when the subject matter within the frame is relatively stagnant. Also, it got much better quickly with more action, but the Saitama speech on newbie-crushing felt kind of underwhelming. Maybe it’s just because I was already so distracted but it felt much more impactful and forceful reading it than listening to/seeing it just now.

WAIT

YES! YES!

Please let this fight be on a better note! aww, no smug Genos face. Let the boy smile for once in the anime pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee? And side note- I can’t wait for every single Shot of genos to be turned into a compilation of gifs, cause thats how the fandom do these days

This whole fight just had me shouting YES at the screen THIS IS WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT it got so much better! So much better!! A huge sigh of relief from me over here. There are so many good shot of Genos here oh my god thank the heavens yes. Oh that muffled voice effect with the clones is cool too, oh man. JC Staff loves sonic I’m convinced. Yeah, some bits are over the top with the flashing but I kinda don’t care

YEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS SAITAMA YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

I’m so glad they nail this art style! Also I’d like to say that the anime delivered the serious series: Serious consecutive side hops 100% that is some GOOD SHIT.

OH MY FUCK did they seriously just rip the face directly out of the manga panel???? I Mean it’s perfection so i can’t blame them???? Oh Shit that’s fuckin gold and the now-vocalized ‘DOAUGHU’ is perfect.

Y’know, I knew they had to animate the tatsumaki spoon panel that shit was just too cool looking to not include. AH! Atomic Samurai’s Disciples! Oh my god I can’t wait to see them actually! Look at Kama my QUEEN

And ya know, I was completely willing to forgo the lil Aamai mask cut away but here it is. I’m gonna spare yall his stupid face. If you like Amai mask I’m sorry, you’re stronger than me.

Hah, “there’s also King, the world’s strongest man.” I just paused it before he walks in the door. Little do you know, gurl, little do you know. Oh, I appreciate the little ‘Hmph’ Fubuki does, too. Reminds me that she and Tatsu really are sisters. Ah, aaaaand there King is. AAAaaaaaaand its over just like that. Lets get through the end credits before I summarize my thoughts i guess!

well FUCK I WAS SPOT ON WASNT I?? The episode ended with Saitama and Genos getting their Hero Names and Garou walking away from Tanktop Vegetarian. Not gonna lie I’m proud I called it to a T.

All in all, I didn’t love it as much as the first episode, but I loved it nonetheless. Aside from the one color disaster and the Fubuki confrontation scene (which admittedly, is a big deal) I was REALLY digging it all the way through. It seems to me they struggled with making an emotionally impactful scene with only minor elements of action. The King scene last week was great, no nauseating camera movement or anything- just exactly what it needed to be. The full on action sequences were also fine this and last week. I don’t know if it was the combination of dialogue and static characters mixed in with Fubuki using her telekinesis that threw them for a loop but it definitely felt like they had issues with that scene. Not as bad as I initially felt, like I’m not mad at it per se, but they’re still there. Otherwise no pacing issues or anything- actually they covered exactly as much ground as I guessed they would and it felt great! I have today come to the conclusion that JC Staff loves Sonic and also has a weird thing about panning shots of Fubuki. Good episode still had me shouting YES repeatedly at the screen.

Seeya next week!

#live blogging #i give episode 2 a thumbs up! #one punch man #season 2 #the human monster #s2e2 #s2e14 #saitama #genos #opm #fubuki #garou #okamaitachi #iaian #bushidrill #sonic #sos sonic #child emperor #king #anime #blue fire #heavy tank loincloth #tanktop vegetarian #opmiss mumbling #spoiler #spoilers

[edenfalling]

[Fic] "What Wind Is to Fire" - Chronicles of Narnia

alexseanchai said: Narnia, noble gases, some combination of Susan, Lucy, Aravis, and Lasaraleen. Depending on which combination, the scenario could just be getting them in contact or in the same physical location. (1,375 words)

I went fairly AU on this one, because of reasons. :)

--------------------------------------------- What Wind Is to Fire ---------------------------------------------

"Excuse me, Dr. Tarakhiana?" said an unfamiliar female voice as Lasaraleen extricated herself from a conversation on gaseous fractional distillation methods that had spilled from the presentation room into the hotel lobby, and prepared to return to the tiny room she was sharing with her so-called assistant for an hour of breathing space before her own research group's presentation.

Lasaraleen held up her free hand in a silent plea for time, swallowed, and lowered her paper cup of too-weak coffee. "Yes, that's me. I'm sorry, your name escapes me."

The other woman -- tall, pale, long black hair done up in a net of intertwined braids that managed to look effortlessly gorgeous despite how long Lasaraleen could tell it must have taken to put in -- smiled. "Susan Pevensie, of Cair Paravel Technical Institute. I hear we have a friend in common."

Only years of practice allowed Lasaraleen to keep her expression cheerful and her posture relaxed, even as her heart pounded in a mix of fear and emotions she refused to name. "Oh! Isn't that just delightful! How is Aravis these days? You must tell me -- it's so difficult to get any sort of personal news when one isn't working just down the hall in the same laboratory."

Dr. Pevensie nodded. "I know exactly what you mean. I sometimes feel I wouldn't see my own sister more than once or twice a year if she weren't attached to the Cair's research hospital." She gestured with her own paper cup, setting the little paper tab of her tea bag swinging. "But I'm sure you have places to be and I don't want to keep you. Perhaps we can talk some time when neither of us is so tightly scheduled. My card."

She pressed a small piece of paper into Lasaraleen's palm.

It was the right visual size and shape for a business card, but far too thick: one or more larger papers folded up small. Lasaraleen tucked it into her purse without commenting on the oddity.

"I don't know if I'll have any free time for the rest of this conference," she said, falsely bright, "but I'll certainly make a point of writing. Or at least I'll try! I'm sure Aravis can tell you all kinds of horror stories about how scattered I can get when it comes to everyday bits of logistics. And international mail does get rather chancy on occasion."

Dr. Pevensie laughed. "As the person generally responsible for managing everyday logistics among my own research team, let me assure you that I've both heard and handled worse. Speaking of which, I should probably go wrangle some of them off to their next sessions, and leave you to your own plans in peace, Dr. Tarakhiana."

"Oh, do call me Lasaraleen! After all, we have a... friend in common."

"Lasaraleen, then," Dr. Pevensie said as she pressed the elevator button. "And you must call me Susan."

"Of course," Lasaraleen said. "Best of luck in your wrangling, Susan, and may your tea never be too bitter or too cold."

"That would be a true miracle," said Susan Pevensie, and stepped aside to allow Lasaraleen to enter the elevator.

Lasaraleen didn't take the folded papers out of her purse then, nor in her hotel room. (She might not have seen her assistant setting up cameras and recording devices, but that meant very little. It was better to err on the side of caution.) Instead she gave her paper, danced lightly through the question-and-answer period, and attended a highly interesting panel on recent advances in applied uses of superconductivity. She went to dinner with her research group and their various assistants, and spun new conversational topics every time an awkward silence reared its head. She accepted two complimentary drinks from a very drunk and persistent professor from Terebinthia and tactfully fobbed him off on hotel staff to be poured into his own bed where he'd hopefully wake up with both a massive hangover and a refreshed sense of shame.

Finally she felt secure enough to excuse herself for "deep thoughts, darlings, you know how it is!" and wave off her assistant's offer of company with a laughing promise not to leave the hotel. She took a glass of indifferent white wine out to the central courtyard and spread both the typed copy of her paper and the several sheets of shorthand notes she'd made about the more intelligent questions raised by audience members before her on the little glass patio table. The strings of fairy-lights woven through the trees weren't quite bright enough for comfortable reading, but she had a pocket flashlight to aid her and long-established preference for working outdoors, so nobody should question her.

She unfolded the papers Susan Pevensie had passed her, and took a swallow of wine in a futile attempt at emotional preparation.

My dearest Lasaraleen, Aravis had written.

Lasaraleen closed her eyes and pressed her hands flat against the creased pages. Dearest! Still! One night of desperate words, two years of nothing, and still, that old word.

Something ached behind her eyes and writhed nebulously through her chest. Lasaraleen took a deep breath, pulled out a pen to further the illusion of work and unconcern. Then she continued reading.

My dearest Lasaraleen,

I am sorry for not writing sooner. I know the censors would never have allowed anything of worth to reach you through normal channels, and so I never tried to send even anything light and empty. That felt to me as though it would have been a lie, and thus worse than silence. It has been made clear to me that this was cruel.

I am beyond grateful that the reflected suspicion of my flight has finally faded and you were allowed to attend an international conference at which one of my new colleagues was also in attendance. Please know that to me you are still the sun in the sky and the breath in my lungs, and I regret every drop of woe I have brought upon you. If I could have stayed in Calormen without losing myself, I would have. You are what kept me true enough to myself to know that I had to leave.

Saying that is probably also cruel. I am sorry for that. It remains true.

If you wish to defect, I will do all I can to help you. If you wish to remain, I hope you will nonetheless forgive me enough to allow communication. Without you, I feel like an atom of some noble gas, perpetually doomed to drift without bonds. You, O my dearest, are my oxygen, my fluorine, overcoming my resistance to bonds and connecting me to the world. Oh, I have my colleagues here in the North, and my fellow refugees -- do you remember Cor Fitzroy and Hwin Conseil, who worked for a time on the cleaning staff at the Mezreel laboratory? -- but the Calormen they knew or imagine is not the same as the face you and I grew up with, however false it has proven.

Someday the Tisroc will die, and while there is no guarantee that General Rabadash will be any better a man, transitions are always periods of chaos. There may then be a small time and place to insert a lever into the wheels of power and push for change. I am pushing in Archenland and Narnia, as are others who either love Calormen as it could be or who abhor the cruelty and waste that trail in the wake of hostilities between nations and believe that an outstretched hand is a stronger inducement to reform than a closed fist.

But all that is gilt and glitter over the steel of my sorrow and my longing to once more hear your voice and feel your arms around me as I embrace you in turn. O my dearest, you are as clear water in the desert and I would drink you dry.

Yours, if you wish it, Aravis Khereena

In a hotel in a foreign land, under the scrutiny of spies, wreathed by the shifting shadows of fairy lights that danced as wind rustled through the trees, Lasaraleen pressed the heels of her palms to her closed eyes and swallowed against the burning pain of joy.

---------------------------------------------

End of Story

---------------------------------------------

I ended up splitting the difference between letters and an actual scene-with-dialogue. *wry*

#liz writes stuff #mini ficlet prompt meme #ladies bingo #chronicles of narnia #lasaraleen #aravis tarkheena #susan pevensie #alternate universe because reasons

[yaboylevi]

I'm sorry I'm answering like this, but I don't want to get into the ship tag with my non-shippy opinions (please censor the name of the ship in the ask, next time). Also, this answer CONTAINS SPOILERS.

So, first of all, I think every group of shippers is guilty of thinking/hoping, with different degrees of intensity, that their ship will be canon in the future (or is/was canon, it depends). That's not something inherently bad, because it just means we really, really love our ships and we just see how their canon platonic relationship could evolve into something different, something romantic, because their personalities just click the right way in our opinion. Honestly, I think every ship has a chance of becoming canon, however their fates are ultimately in the hands of the original creators and only they can decide which relationship to change into a romantic one. EM shippers may feel more assured about it because, well, it's pretty common for the main protagonist to end up with the main heroine (although it's also common for her to end up with the protagonist's best friend).

Isayama's only implied couple was an f/f ship, though, and that's pretty uncommon. But anyway, honestly speaking, I don't see Shingeki ending with Eren (or even Mikasa) involved in a romantic relationship. Even yumi/hisu's arc wasn't about their love story, it was about the effect they had on each other, which led to mysteries being unveiled (so: it was plot-relevant). EM, imo, is not framed in a way that implies they will become a canon couple in the future; if anything, it's the opposite.

In regards to Eren, I think he is not interested in relationships, he has other things to focus on. Or maybe he is just super oblivious. He never seemed even aware of other people's romantic feelings, while Mikasa (and to a certain degree everyone else) was keenly aware of them (Ymir's, Hitch's). But I also think Eren might be more interested in men than women. However, this is a matter of perspective and preferences (+ I'm thinking about a hilarious smartpass interview where he was asked about the female cadets in a suggestive way and he just went "???? what about them??").

As far as Mikasa's feelings go, in my opinion, they are something different from purely romantic ones. I think she is just so grateful to Eren, she'd do anything for him. As a teen, I think it's almost obvious she might feel like she's fallen in love with the guy who saved her. Heck, she would have been sold as a prostitute to a brothel or, worse, to a noble as a sex slave. Eren gave her a reason to fight, and saved her life. When she thought Eren was dead, Mikasa decided to keep on living in order to remember him. That's how strong her feelings are. But I don't think they are exclusively romantic. They're so much more, more complex, deeper, stronger. For example, if he ended up with someone else, she wouldn't hold a grudge, she would be happy as long as Eren is happy. I think now that she's older, she understands this, but when she was 15, she was jealous, or at times even completely blind to Eren's feelings (which weren't romantic). 

This behavior was mainly used as comic relief, but it was there. Hence the "yandere girlfriend meme" Mikasa has become to some people.

The scene in chapter 50 is beautiful. In a moment of utter desperation, Eren hears Mikasa's words and realizes that he isn't a complete failure, he saved a little girl once. He can do it again, he just needs to...not stop fighting. And so he gets on his feet and fights. Was Mikasa about to kiss him? Probably. Eren didn't realize it or simply thought there was no need for Mikasa to confess her feelings as a result of her giving up, because he could still fight, he could still save her. And so he did. "I'll wrap you up in that scarf again and again. Forever," he says. In my opinion, it's not a declaration of love, but a declaration of his devotion to fight and protect and save Mikasa and his friends. Forever. No matter what. This is who Eren is, the pillar of his character. And in that moment, after having momentarily lost his motivation, he strengthened his resolve, his purpose in life again.

How did this moment change their relationship? I don't think it changed it severely. I think it was more gradual and this was just the pinnacle of Mikasa's romantic feelings and after this, she acknowledged that that's not what it was all about. She cares for Eren a great deal. She wants to see him happy, accomplished and safe. Who wouldn't? But she also realized, she cares deeply for many other people. Her crying desperately for Sasha (a friend not from her childhood) is the peak of this. She's way past the "Choose. Eren or Ymir?" phase. Her heart, once closed off because of trauma, has opened up again, and I can see how she can return to be that happy girl she once was, independently from Eren. I think this has been implied for a while now, since she's been put in the background during the Return to Shiganshina Arc, always a step behind Eren and Armin. 

But this has always been the case, apparently. She didn't even know about Eren and Armin's promise/dream of the ocean. 

While I understand this was a necessary set-up, seeing how things escalated/paralleled with Levi-Eren-Erwin-Armin, I also believe it was a sort of nudge into the right direction for her, like "Mikasa. You are your own person and you're not bound to what Eren does or say. Be free." 

(Although, this could change because I'm not sure what happened in Marley. It's possible her hand, in particular, was forced by Eren...and it seems her love for Eren has made her more miserable than anything else...but anyway, these are conclusions I'll draw once we know for sure what happened then.)

Mikasa has gone from not trusting Eren and constantly reminding him that he was "not enough" and that he needed her (a behavior that superficially irritated him but in fact affected him a lot, imo, maybe because there was a bit of truth there)... 

...to respecting his personal space and opinions, and trusting in his abilities. And she tells him exactly that, which is super important. This panel below makes me tear up a bit, if I'm honest.

Mikasa went from being so self-centered about her role in Eren's life to the point that she unintentionally ridiculed him in front of everyone...

...to accepting that Eren's life is independent from hers, and leave him to his own ridiculous shenanigans with Jean.

That's also why I don't like when people disregard Mikasa's initial flaws. Because it cheapens her development and makes it look like she never had one. She's far from a static character. Her character development is just more subtle and stretched throughout the whole manga, it's not condensed in just a bunch of chapters (like Historia's, for example). I understand people want her to be perfect from the start because they love her, but...then they say she never gets development. Not acknowledging flaws is just counterproductive. 

I really didn't like their relationship at the beginning of the story, it was frustrating because they were both so stubborn...but as both Mikasa and Eren changed, I've grown really fond of it. I don't see it in a romantic light but I still appreciate it. Of course, there's nothing wrong in seeing it as romantic or wishing in a future romantic development, as long as Mikasa is acknowledged as her own person and not Eren's accessory. 

I'm admittedly not very knowledgeable about the EM fandom, and I often see comments such as "Mikasa needs to have Eren's babies" or (serious) jokes like "if you take Eren away from Mikasa, she's nothing", which I strongly disagree with, but I'm sure a lot of shippers don't see it like that. Unfortunately, haters and shippers with bad opinions are also the loudest but they certainly don't represent the true nature of the ship. Chapter 50 felt like the turning point to a better balance between EM, and a main point in Mikasa's development.

#snk #shingeki asks #mine #long post #snk meta #snk 50 #vivimetas

[aworryingdarkness]

Trench.

19 July 1918

Dearest Ginny, Thank you for writing. It's good to know that Davy is walking properly now and that your parents are in the best spirits they can be. Do keep sending them my love. Please try not to talk about current affairs in your letters, neither newspapers nor hearsay. Information is limited here for means of security and morale alike, and the censor panel obscured rather a lot of your last letter. I've heard at a certain point they'll just destroy the whole thing, so best to keep any of that business to a minimum or less. It's more comforting in all this confusion to know the little details from you. There's enough to keep me on edge here as it is, your letters are what help me get any sleep at all. Things here are as well as can be expected. In terms of progress I can't tell you any more than you already know (or have been told). The food continues to be dreadful. So hungry. The noise is constant and every sunrise is both a curse and a reminder of how lucky I am to see it. For every yard we take at one point in the front, we seem to lose two elsewhere, but it can't be too bad as we've only had to draw back twice this year. Like I say, every sunrise. I volunteered for Wolf Division last month. More in the hopes of peace and quiet if anything, as they're a fairly new group and it was rumoured they'd be working away from the front lines. That much is true, but it turns out this business is full of noise everywhere. I started on watch so at least got to be in my own company. Uneventful stuff, which in this game is a blessing. Most of my time has been spent monitoring a church on the province border, rumours of something unusual going on there but even I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be looking out for. The boys here say hello. Afraid to say we lost the Johnson brothers, although I'm sure you've heard that already. Can't go into the details but to say it was a damned foolish business. I know it will be of little to help to their mother Audrey, but when you see her - and when the time is right, of course - just let her know it was quick. They're missed awfully here, but we've vowed to do right by them. Tommy's been a bit off these last couple of days. He was away for two nights on recon and very shaken when he returned. Nasty affair from what I can tell you, although this was after the Johnsons. He was a bit scuffed up but still walking and able to aim a rifle. Not quite himself soon after, though. He became sullen the next day (not unusual in this line of work) and outright rude the next. Tommy's never been the most calm of soldiers, but word is he tried to bite the sergeant at one point. Not sure I go for that, but the poor man's got bruises coming out all over him and he's scratching at his arms constantly. Medical looked at him before he came back to us but not since, so I'm sure it'll work itself out. Chap whose name I don't know is said to have come back the same. Thing is, Tommy lashed at my face earlier when I said good morning to him. Had quite the tizzy, but as I say he's been through a lot. And I'm damned but I've never known itching like it. Going to see if I can get a dressing for it later, but they're awfully busy down there and at least it's not my good side. I can feel (hear?) it tingling, although I'm sure that's some infection being worked out. Anyway, it looks like we're going to be moved again soon so I'm hurrying this one out and not sure when I'll get your reply. Brass are around keeping an eye on things so this could be something big. Have to go, though. Apart from anything else I'm so bloody hungry I've got to find something to eat. Can't concentrate, it's getting so bad. XXXFUXXXXXXXX Sorry, please ignore that, just nerves. Sure I'll be right as ninepence in no time. And the most delicious smell has just wafted past outside. If the boys are eating without me I'll bloody kill them, I swear it. Anyway. See you soon, I know it. Love to all, Daniel. X

#writing #horror #horror writing #horrorwriting #zombie #zombies #zombie fiction #zombiefic #zombiefiction #war #world war 1 #first world war

[sophygurl]

Dance Apocalyptic: Dystopian Fiction and Media In a Dystopian Age - WisCon 41 panel write-up

These tend to be long to click the clicky to read.

Disclaimers:

I hand write these notes and am prone to missing things, skipping things, writing things down wrong, misreading my own handwriting, and making other mistakes. So this is by no means a full transcript.

Corrections, additions, and clarifications are most welcome. I’ve done my best to get people’s pronouns and other identifiers correct, but please do let me know if I’ve messed any up. Corrections and such can be made publicly or privately on any of the sites I’m sharing these write-ups on(tumblr and dreamwidth for full writings, facebook and twitter for links), and I will correct ASAP.

My policy is to identify panelists by the names written in the programming book since that’s what they’ve chosen to be publicly known as. If you’re one of the panelists and would prefer something else - let me know and I’ll change it right away.

For audience comments, I will only say general “audience member” kind of identifier unless the individual requests to be named.

Any personal notes or comments I make will be added in like this [I disagree because blah] - showing this was not part of the panel vs. something like “and then I spoke up and said blah” to show I actually added to the panel at the time.

Dance Apocalyptic: Dystopian Fiction and Media In a Dystopian Age

Moderator: The Rotund. Panelists: Amal El-Mohtar, E. Cabell Hankinson Gathman, Lauren Lacey

#ReadingDystopiaInDystopia - for the livetweets and comments 

(I think I missed jotting down some introductory stuff as my notes just dig right in - sorry about that!)

Amal talked about how dystopia crosses over into issues of immigration, and Cabell posed the question - “dystopia for whom?”

Lauren discussed teaching Octavia Butler’s Parable series during the November election and then teaching Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale this spring. 

Rotund asked the panelists to define dystopia and mentioned the twitter quote about current generations not being promised a future of flying cars, but rather a cyberpunk dystopia. 

Amal talked about conflating dystopia with post-apocalyptic, but that the two function differently. They can intersect, however. Dystopia is allied with ideas of oppression - the severe marginalization of a large swath of the population.

Cabell added that this kind of dystopia is somebody else’s utopia. People with privilege don’t want to lose it - that’s dystopic for them.

Lauren discussed anti-utopias, such as 1984, where the audience identifies with the people being marginalized. Compared that with a critical dystopia where there is a horizon of hopefulness - such as Parable.

Rotund brought up the positioning of Firefly as allegorical confederacy and asked how do we deal with that?

Cabell answered - fanfiction.

Amal discussed how she had not connected Firefly to the confederacy due to the lack of themes of slavery, particularly child slavery. As a Canadian, that just wasn’t her first go-to when watching it. There were so many other examples of imperial or hegemonic control without the slavery aspect in her mind - specifically Lebanon, where her own parents had fled from civil war.

Amal talked about playing with this iconography of rebellion without the ugly context of the confederacy. There’s something interesting to play with about these heroes who were on the losing side, but she acknowledges that her perspective is different than those from the U.S.

Cabell stepped in and said “hashtag socialist killjoy” but, the themes of colonization in Firefly were there even without the confederacy angle. For example, the heavy Chinese influence of the culture but we don’t actually see any Chinese people. What are the implications of that?

Lauren said that one interesting part of dystopias is getting to identify with the rebels. This can lead to an unthinking identification with resistance - the idea that all power is bad, all government is bad. This constant identification with outsiders can be dangerous. She added that Octavia Butler does a good job with the complexities of these themes in her works.

Cabell brought up prepatory vs. cautionary dystopias. Putting the spotlight on collaborators. 

Amal discussed some of Canada’s issues with how it’s dealt with it’s Indigenous cultures with truth and reconciliation commissions. An issue in Firefly is that we have no idea of any Indigenous life on the planets that are taken over and terraformed. 

In some ways, Firefly reflects America’s colonialism with the frontier themes, but what does that look like without any Indigenous populations? Canada’s attitude for a long time was “well, our treatment of Indigenous people wasn’t as bad as what the US was doing...” and that was a fantasy to make themselves feel better about it.

Rotund pointed out that people like to feel like rebels.This was the foundation of Trump’s campaign. It’s a distressing use of the dystopian narrative.

Lauren brought up Handmaid’s Tale and how despite the complexity of it’s historical notes, there were still problems in the ways many marginalizations were ignored.

Amal talked about the appropriation of resistance terms and used MRA’s use of feminist language as an example. Just as a group is gaining a voice against the powers over them, their language is taken from them and used against them. Then the people in power get to have this fantasy of being the oppressed ones.

She brought up Mad Max as this lone man trying to survive the apocalypse and how unrealistic this trope is - we need community to survive. 

(I have in my notes in the sidebar for the next page or so that I missed a lot that was said so bear with me if some of this seems extra jumpy from topic to topic)

Cabell discussed the Wisconsin cocaine mom laws that sprang up during the 90′s paranoia about crack babies (which it turns out is not even a thing, the affects were due to poverty not drugs). This was highly racialized. In 2014, California was found to be forcibly sterilizing female inmates - mostly women of color. 

The point of this discussion is that we’re already living in the reproductive dystopia. People are in situations where they’re needing to ask themselves how to stay safe in a system that is unsafe for them.

Amal brought up a conversation she’d had that day with a taxi driver when he found out she was Canadian and he immediately started talking about how badly we need socialized medicine here in the U.S. To Amal - the idea that everyone deserves health care as being radical is dystopic! She gets worked up and apologizes and Rotund says - don’t apologize for being mad at dystopias.

Lauren talked about Marge Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time as an example where it’s not just about the privileged suddenly being in a dystopia. There’s a theme of complacency, of not paying attention to what’s happening to others. It’s a cautionary dystopia. 

Cabell brought up the SNL video of white people just in a constant state of screaming until finally there’s 2 black people and one asks what’s happening and the other answers - oh they’ve been this way since the election. 

Amal replied that she noticed a lot of people feeling sort of apocalyptic after the election, but many people of color were more like “oh, it’s Tuesday. Maybe a little more Tuesday than usual but...”

She also talked about how she saw a lot of people from the U.S. saying online that they needed to leave the country, while other people were angry at this notion saying - how dare you leave when we have work to do? Amal, coming from the perspective of her own parents having fled their country, acknowledges that the people in that first group are thinking more about survival. 

Amal found herself agreeing to let friends from the US come and stay with her as needed, while also members of her family were working on taking Syrian refugees in. “You think you’re safe until you’re not” - in Handmaid’s Tale, the main character waited too long to leave. 

[My own thoughts on the anger about people fleeing is that this is primarily directed at people who do have quite a bit of privilege choosing to leave instead of staying to fight for the people who really can’t make that choice. Example: the whole Amanda Palmer thing ugh]

An audience member asked about the common video game trope of going alone into the woods to survive after a dystopic or apocalyptic event. None of the panelists like that type of game. 

Amal really wants a game like that, but about community building. Cabell would pay lots of money for an MMO in that style.

An audience member recommends the game This War of Mine as doing community building well, and asks the question of if the panelists have noticed the need to upgrade security recently.

Amal discussed how she was detained on her way to the states this time and how horrifying of an experience it was. No one did anything particularly bad to her, but it was still awful and invasive. It did make her think both about the idea of state security and “what am putting out online?” 

She talked about how she has always self-censored, and the investment her family has put into respectability politics as a means of survival. She’s now opening up more, and finds that she’s angry all the time “that’s my secret - I’m always angry”. And yet she still tempers her rage and fury because she doesn’t want to lose the support of white liberals. 

Cabell replied to Amal’s experience about being detained and said - sure they all felt bad but they did it anyway. The idea of collaboration and following orders. When laws are unjust, the moral thing can be to break the law. 

She added that the best person to hide undocumented immigrants is someone who has never publicly said that we should be hiding undocumented immigrants, which makes it tricky. The need for networks and cells for this kind of thing.

Amal addressed that the reason the people involved with her detainment were so embarrassed had a lot to do with how she passes, has lighter skin, etc. 

(I have a whole chunk of something I wrote down that Lauren said that I added a bunch of question marks to, so not sure I got it down correctly but it was about how increased need for security has affected academia and the sense of witch hunt-ness involved in people speaking their minds freely.)

An audience member asked about examples in dystopian fiction of that use of appropriated language of the oppression.

Lauren brought up that in Parable, published in 93, the president really used the slogan “make America great again”. Also the Aunts in Handmaid’s Tale use appropriated language.

Cabell talked about another real life example, which was the laws created to protect fetuses and how proponents of it said it would never be used against pregnant women, but it ended up doing just that - specifically against women of color.

Amal talked about the idea of needing to protect men from women’s temptation and said that her story Seasons of Glass and Iron has an example of this. She also talked about how in The Hunger Games, punishment becomes entertainment.

An audience member asked about the appropriation of dystopian language and does this happen because the stories are too vague? How do we protect against this?

Amal answered that you can’t stop people in power from appropriating narratives. But you can become aware of it and try to check it when it happens. (and then a whole thing I sadly missed about exogenous settlers/immigrants)

The panelists wrapped up with some recommendations. 

Lauren: The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi, Elysium by Jennifer Marie Brissett, and Kate Wilhem’s early stuff.

Cabell: Trouble and Her Friends by Melissa Scott, and a title I did not catch ... something Chronicles by Barbara something (real helpful I know, sorry)  [Edited to add from Cabell: "Darwath Chronicles by Barbara Hambly! Very fantasy alternate universe; not a "realistic" dystopia/post-apocalypse."]

Amal: the song Miami 2017 by Billy Joel and the poem Eighteen Hundred and Eleven

#readingdystopiaindystopia #reading dystopia in dystopia #wiscon #wiscon 41 #wiscon41 #wc41 #dance apocalyptic #dystopian fiction #dystopias #dystopian media

[posercore]

Drama by Raina Telgemeir

I truly believe this book does not get talked about enough. It’s a graphic novel about Callie (The girl in the middle) who does stage/set crew for her middle school. She’s in 7th grade and can’t wait to work in Moon Over Mississippi for the year. While putting up audition posters she meets these two twin brothers in the grade above her. Justin (on the right) who is loud and energetic and very excited to try out for the musical and Jesse (left) who is quiet and sweet and is far to shy to even think about trying out but is very supportive of his brother. Callie soon finds out that their dad put a lot of pressure on them about grades and the play that year was basically their only escape. One day Callie’s friend Matt was being a prick so she didn’t want to sit with him at lunch and conveniently Jesse was tutoring so Justin asked her to sit with him. They sat outside together and Callie started to talk about a boy she liked that was being a jerk to her. Justin then casually responds saying “I’ve known Greg since second grade.He’s always been thickheaded, even if he’s cute.”                         “When you say he’s cute do you mean like...” Callie then begins to ask                “Like, I like boys? Yeah.” 

Of course Callie accepts him wholeheartedly and asks if he’s out to anyone else. He tells her the only other person he’s told is Jesse.(fun fact, this scene was the first time I had ever seen/heard of the word gay) She asks if Jesse’s gay, to which he responds no. Then throughout the rest of the book Justin has a crush on the stage manager Loren and will talk about cute boys around Callie all the time. It’s honestly adorable. He also reads manga which I found hilarious. After this Callie starts to develop a crush on Jesse. He had decided to work on crew with Callie and they bond quite a bit. Then the night of the show comes up. The male lead is played by a guy named West and his girlfriend Bonnie played the female lead. During the first night everything goes well, nothing to crazy. During the final show everything starts to go wrong. West broke up with Bonnie just a few minutes before the show starts so she messes up a lot on stage. Then during intermission she locks herself in a closet and won’t leave. The only other person who knows the role well enough to perform it is Jesse. He had helped his brother practice for auditions so much that he knew every line of her part. So, they throw him in a dress and push him out on stage. He plays the rule perfectly. Soon, the kissing scenes comes up. They sing their duet and then kiss, which blessed the world with these two panels.

Sorry for the bad quality, I could not find digital versions of these panels so I took pictures of my physical copy. What you are seeing right now is two boys kissing in a children’s book. That’s right, this book is for kids. It is also one of the most frequently banned/censored books out there. Also, they never joke about Jesse wearing a dress which is cool.

After the show has ended the 8th grade formal is coming up. Callie’s asks Justin if he’s going to ask a boy, to which Justin responds with a definite know saying his dad would flip. Callie then says he could invite Liz (her best friend) as a friend while not-so-subtly trying to convey the fact that she wants Jesse to ask her. Soon Jesse does ask her and she is ecstatic. They go together and are having fun until a slow song comes on. Then Jesse says he’s going to the bathroom and disappears for almost two hours before Callie is able to find him. He was sitting on the front steps talking to West. For two hours, which is really what ticked Callie off. She yells at him for a little before storming off home. A few days (I think) later she is talking to Jesse in the auditorium about his upcoming graduation and the topic of the dance comes up. Jesse tries to apologize but she brushes it off. She then asks if him and West are together. Jesse says that he’s not really sure because West is still trying to figure himself out. They even use the word bi. At no point was Callie mad at him for leading her on, just for bailing on her really. 

Basically, what I’m trying to say is that Drama is a great book with LGBT themes and more people should know about it. Part of my love for it is that my grandmother bought it for me because the cover had a stage on it and I’m a huge theatre nerd and it ended up literally teaching me that gay people exist when I was eleven-ish (I was kinda sheltered, if that’s what you want to call it). Thank you for your time.    

#drama #drama by raina telgemeir #raina telgemeier #long post tw #text heavy tw #ITS SUCH A GREAT BOOK #I LOVE IT #I REREAD IT TODAY SO I WANTED TO TALK ABOUT IT #LOOK ITS A KIDS BOOK ABOUT THE GAYS #gay stuff

[funnythingshere0-blog]

Assassin's Creed Origins, Six Months Later

New Post has been published on https://funnythingshere.xyz/assassins-creed-origins-six-months-later/

Assassin's Creed Origins, Six Months Later

Half a year ago, Ubisoft released Assassin’s Creed Origins. It was in some ways the most ambitious Assassin’s Creed game ever made, and in other ways noticeably less ambitious than its predecessors. In the months since then, Origins has become considerably more interesting.

Join me now as we climb into the Animus and travel back in time to the world inhabited by our distant ancestors, those people who lived in the fabled era of October, 2017. From there, we’ll embark on a journey through our unusually exciting first six months with Assassin’s Creed Origins.

Assassin’s Creed Origins came out on October 27, 2017. It was released simultaneously for PS4, Xbox One, and PC. It shared that release date with Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus and Super Mario Odyssey, making it probably the biggest single video game release date of the year. It received generally positive reviews. In my review for Kotaku, I said that for all its extraordinary visual splendor, it was ultimately an ordinary video game. But I liked it overall.

A couple months later I recorded a spoilercast with fellow Kotaku Assassin’s Creed fans Luke Plunkett and Stephen Totilo, where we talked more in-depth about what we made of the story and the game overall.

There was one weird wrinkle just as it was coming out, as bots flooded the game’s Metacritic user reviews with fake, positive reviews that were often total gibberish. It’s still unclear why or how that happened, though Metacritic’s boss said that it does happen from time to time.

The game immediately got some quality cosplay and plenty of glitch videos, of course. It was a Ubisoft game, and despite its level of polish relative to other recent Assassin’s Creed games, it still had some funny bugs. In particular, we liked the flying boat, a bug that was patched several months later in January.

There were a few interesting small details hidden inside the game, including some irrefutable evidence that Assassin’s Creed’s present-day timeline and Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs series take place in the same universe.

Advertisement

The game also proved shockingly large, earning some praise as players discovered more of its vast expanse. Its sheer scale somewhat made up for the fact that the game leaned so hard on its straightforward numbers-based RPG leveling system and dropped many of the interesting gameplay experiments (support assassins, grappling hooks, city takeover, pirate ships) of past games.

There was also a fascinating story behind the explorable tomb the developers placed within the Great Pyramid of Giza. Just as the game was coming out, news broke that scientists had discovered a previously undetected space within the pyramid… but that space was already in Origins. Turns out that was because the developers based their design on the work of a French architect who had already theorized the location and general size of the chamber, and correctly, as it turned out.

The developers were clear up front that there’d be a lot of stuff coming to Origins after release. A couple weeks before the game came out, Ubisoft launched a trailer detailing the two main DLC packs Curse of the Pharaohs and The Hidden Ones, which you only got if you bought the game’s season pass. They also detailed a bunch of free post-release stuff including the Trial of the Gods and a Horde Mode, and the ambitious Discovery Tour, a combat-free mode that would offer guided historical tours of the game’s re-creation of ancient Egypt.

The Trial of the Gods consisted of a series of limited-time boss fights that would pop up on players’ maps. Go to the spot on the map, and an Animus glitch would crack open and a massive boss would emerge, fashioned after one of the Egyptian pantheon. They started hitting the game in November, but as Stephen pointed out at the time, that was actually a little early for most players to be high enough level to try them. Fortunately they’ve repeated many times since then, and just about everyone has had a chance to defeat all the gods. Ubisoft eventually even offered harder iterations of the gods.

Advertisement

In December, Origins got an extremely important patch that changed the backdrop color of your throwable item from blue to gold. That made it possible to make your entire gear screen show gold items instead of having a single one remain blue. And I mean, let’s be real, that was basically been a game-breaking problem, so it’s a good thing Ubisoft fixed it. This was also one of many patched changes that showed Ubisoft being swiftly responsive to numerous complaints about the game offered in its subreddit or official message boards.

In a December “Developer Q&A” blog post seemingly written with an awareness that some fans found the amount of the game dedicated to the franchise’s modern-day storyline lacking, Ubisoft wrote that Ubisoft wrote that “The main story in each game is the one set in the past.” That frustrated some fans who’ve wanted more from the game’s present-day storylines, and reinforced the series’ clear trend toward minimizing the present-day stuff compared with the first few games. Sorry, present-day-lore junkies.

The 1.1.0 patch also brought a couple of other notable new features, including a new Nightmare difficulty mode, enemy level scaling to keep low-level areas engaging for high-level players, and a more intuitive way to customize Bayek’s look in the “gear” menu. That last option made it much easier to make sure Bayek was always rocking a beard, a shaved head, and no hood, which is objectively his best look and I will hear no arguments to the contrary.

Advertisement

It’s just true.

One funny addition to the game in December was a bit of crossover content tied to Square Enix’s Final Fantasy XV. If you went to a spot in the desert and solved a puzzle, you could get a chocobo-lookin’ camel to ride and unlock some weapons that look like something Noctis would use. The Origins content corresponded to a much more elaborate event that took place in Final Fantasy XV, which included an entire mini story-campaign tied to an Assassin’s Creed festival that Noct and his bros attended.

The game’s first expansion, The Hidden Ones came out in January, and while it offered some nice-looking new environments, it was really just more Assassin’s Creed Origins. Not such a bad thing, though given how absurdly huge the base game was (I STILL haven’t finished every sidequest!), the expansion didn’t really stand out that much from what players already had. Entertainingly, the expansion was accidentally released a week early on Xbox One, though it was subsequently pulled by Ubisoft.

In advance of The Hidden Ones, Ubisoft added a free bonus mission that set up the events of the expansion. It was a cool way to stitch together old and new parts of the game, and was a trick they’d done earlier to set up a free horde mode, and then in March for Curse of the Pharaohs.

Also in January, Ubisoft patched in an audio message to a tomb that you come across in the main game. That set players theorizing that it was meant to hint at some as-yet-unveiled secret, but Ubisoft claimed it was just rectifying a mistake. The message had been meant to be in the game at launch, but for some odd reason had been left out.

Discovery Mode hit in February, and it basically turned the game into a museum. It was a neat idea, and it was particularly cool that Ubisoft sold it as a separate standalone game on PC. Many raved about it, though there was some drama over Ubisoft’s decision to censor naked statues (there are no nude statues in the Discovery Mode version of the game). John Walker at Rock, Paper, Shotgun, offered a more critical look, pointing out that the tour’s lack of clear sourcing and transparency undermined what could otherwise have been a nice educational tool.

In February Origins also got a New Game+ mode, one of several post-release additions aimed at letting players draw out their time with the game and get even more out of it.

The second DLC, Curse of the Pharaohs, hit in March, and Luke Plunkett liked it a lot. It goes buckwild with the story, introducing phantoms from the afterlife, mystical curses, and all sorts of other dimension-shifting shenanigans. Even from the little I’ve played it’s clear that this expansion is special, and will doubtless rank among the best Assassin’s Creed expansions Ubisoft has put out.

Advertisement

At the Game Developers Conference in March, Ubisoft developers shared how they managed to make a game as vast and full of stuff as Origins. The answer, as it turned out, was to have not one but several full studios working on the game, a practice they’ve been refining over the years to allow them to make such vast games on a somewhat consistent timetable.

In April, Ubisoft put out the “Animus Control Panel” for PC players, which lets you tweak all sorts of parameters for the game like enemy awareness, maximum number of tamed animals, and even enemy hitboxes and attack speeds. It’s a nifty bonus, and it’d be nice if console players will eventually get it. That was the last thing added to the game, and no further additions, features, or expansions have been announced.

Advertisement

As you can tell just by reading through this post, Origins has gotten an unusually large amount of post-release support, even for a game from a major-label publisher like Ubisoft. Like Ghost Recon: Wildlands before it, Origins demonstrates how Ubisoft is testing and recalibrating their approach to converting their most well-known series into service games. In the case of Origins, it also demonstrates how an entirely single-player game can still function like a service game, keeping players engaged and coming back months after they ordinarily would’ve stopped.

I’ve grown fonder of Origins over the six months since I first played it. That’s been at least in part because Ubisoft has done such a good job of refining, expanding, and deepening the game. Origins will never be as varied, experimental, or interesting as some other Assassin’s Creed games, but it’s beautiful and relaxing, and makes for a pretty splendid way to spend an evening unwinding after a long day.

Advertisement

It is a testament to Origins’ ambitious scope that after dozens and dozens of hours, I’ve still so many more things to do. It’s a testament to its quality that even after all that time, I’m still glad I’m not finished.

[cassandroid-blog1]

2: Sam Calloway

Depending on her perspective any given morning, Sam either woke twelve hours before her crew mates, or twelve hours after. Tonight, she woke with the distinct feeling that she was behind them rather than ahead. Wrapped in her blanket, she gazed through the four-inch thick porthole at Resurrection’s floating bulk, her barely conscious mind naming all the extremities she could see.

She saw her old neighbourhood, Practica Major, a recessed portion of the ship just ventral of Prosperity Vista. The child she once was gazed back out at her and the Bluenose Patrol Vessel in adolescent longing. Years ago that little girl would never have believed she would be welcomed into the Forces, and presently Sam could not believe that she had ever been that little girl.

The particle juts were in sight, too; their rotation around Res’ curvature knocking away any foreign object debris that chanced their way, that the Peripheral Fleet had missed. The juts appeared to be moving slowly from this vantage, but she knew that really they chugged their way along the hull tracks nearly as fast as Bluenose could travel at full burn. The size of Resurrection was too big to ever fully comprehend, even after a lifetime spent in and outside of it.

She was stretching her muscles as she saw a small dot move between Bluenose and Res; no doubt Lieutenant Baker on one of his midnight joyrides.

“No radio chatter, no buzz. Just the stars, the hull, and the high from exhaustion,” he’d once said to her by way of explanation. “Can’t sleep at night without that few hours in the air.”

Her uniform, draped over her desk chair to preserve its ironed form, called Sam to her feet. She clothed herself rapidly to protect herself from the chill, and with a few small adjustments, was fit for duty. She checked her hair in the mirror—, short, to avoid any fuss—, and donned her wedding ring carefully. Sam sighed once more before turning from her reflection to begin her day.

Life aboard Bluenose wasn’t nearly as glamorous nor exciting as her childhood self had imagined it to be. It was all dim halls and vacuous silences, punctuated by the occasional readiness drill for some disaster that would never come. The gravity was screwy, to top it off, and so from time to time one might feel a little heavier than they had the day before. But what could be expected of nearly bicentury old technology?

Bluenose had been designed to support one hundred crew, and Sam imagined that in its heyday the halls had been alight with laughter, conversation, and organic sounds. Now as she walked the corridor toward the central stair, she was one of only twelve people serving aboard. There was no soul in the ship’s walls; only traces of a faraway history.

The faces of Bluenose’s commanding officers looked down on her from their portraits, which lined the wall between Sam’s quarters and the mess. The early photos showed pride, the later ones only duty.

On occasion, Edvard Barsamian or Stanley Baker might still be up, reading a book or playing a game of cards. Tonight the mess was empty. Sam took a coffee bar from the pressure fridge, and made her way to the upper level.

Tonight, Sam would share the first half of her shift with the new recruit, Yue Wan Sun. She was fresh out of school, and eager to become somebody important. Sam found it difficult to suppress her skepticism of this idea, but she didn’t want to become the type to kill another’s dreams as retribution for her own fate.

“Captain on deck,” said Sun, the sole occupant of the bridge. Captain? That title still didn’t sound natural.

“At ease. How was evening watch?” Sam strode to the command chair, where the Admiral sat by day.

“Uneventful, Captain. Lieutenant Baker is still out.”

“Yes,” said Sam, unwrapping her coffee bar. “I saw.” The first sniff of coffee woke her up before she put the bar in her mouth; a rush of clarity.

“You’re just going to eat it? You don’t need a hot water or anything?” Sun asked. Sam swallowed the first bite.

“Got over that not long after I became an officer. It’s like espresso this way; wakes me up sooner.”

Sun seemed taken aback by this.

“Where’s your shift partner?”

“I offered to let Edvard get some sleep early. He’s really tired these days.” Sun went red from embarrassment. “Sorry, Captain, I meant Lieutenant Barsamian.”

“I knew who you meant,” Sam smiled. There was only one Edvard that she knew of, perhaps only one in all of Resurrection’s population. She’d watched Sun and Barsamian grow closer together the last few weeks. Shipboard relationships were officially prohibited, but that rule had been handed down from a different era. “I personally don’t mind,” Sam continued, “but you never know if the Admiral has snuck up on you, and I’d try to censor myself around her.”

“I’ll try to be more careful, Captain.” Sun returned her focus to the panel from which she piloted Bluenose. Sam’s heart sank; had that been cruel? Only months ago she’d been a Lieutenant herself, and she’d never wanted to grow strict as a result of promotion. She didn’t believe shipboard relationships had any impact on duty or efficiency.

Sam couldn’t see what Sun did in Edvard, who was good for a game of cards now and again if you didn’t let him get too drunk. But hell, out here, there wasn’t much in the way of stimulation. The slightest spark could seem a roaring blaze to a mind so dulled, and Sun was only just getting used to this new life.

Sun turned around once again, after she’d brought the Bluenose about. “Is this where you saw yourself, growing up?”

Sam took another bite of her coffee bar, hesitating to answer.

“Sorry, Captain, is that too personal a question?”

“Truthfully, no, I didn’t picture this.” What she’d pictured had looked and sounded the same, but somehow still had nothing in common with the reality.

“I always thought I’d end up as some sort of artist. I was pretty good at art in general, particularly line work. I never imagined I’d be piloting a space ship.” Sun gestured to the bulkheads around her. “My mother told me it was best that I got a job that paid well.”

“How does that translate into piloting? There are what, thirty, forty pilots in the pop that can do what you do? BaltiCorp alone employs a couple hundred graphic designers.”

“Things lined up, I guess you could say. Admiral Nussenbaum gave a talk at my brother’s grad, while I was still studying third package.” The picture of the Admiral speaking to a room full of students made Sam involuntarily snort. “I think most people were bored, but it inspired me to get into flying. Being a cabbie or a grunt on the periphery never appealed to me, so I went for the more advanced training. Spent all I’d saved, but when it came time to apply for this job there was a vacancy. Mom thinks my plan was incredibly smart, but she has no idea how lucky I am.” Sun glanced back at her control panel. “four hundred kilometres.”

Sun turned the Bluenose again, back towards Res, whose form quickly filled the viewscreen ahead of them. At the front of the generational ship, the ship’s former capital stuck out precariously. Few citizens of the Collective Cities were lucky enough to ever see Resurrection City, but Sam had had that privilege every night since she’d taken on bridge duties.

Resurrection City was capped by the largest of the ship’s glass domes, but unlike the others, there were no electric lights inside of it. Just the occasional pinpoint of a fire; the only evidence anyone had at all that there were still people living in there.

“Incoming transmission. Standard frequency,” said Sun.

“Bluenose, this is Magellan. Come in please.” Stanley Baker’s voice was frazzled.

“Magellan, this is Bluenose,” said Sam.

“I’m getting a weird signal. Sensors are registering something but they won’t tell me what it is.”

“What kind of signal?” asked Sam.

“That’s just it, I have no idea. Oh, shit!”

Sun turned back to Sam, concerned. “What’s up, Stanley?” Sam asked.

“I think I need a pick up,” said Baker. “Something’s wrong with my controls, and I’m on a direct path towards Res.”

“Head towards his current position, now!” said Sam.

“On it!” Sun nodded.

“Magellan, how long do you estimate until impact?”

“Five, maybe six minutes. Everything is fried. I’m using my helmet communicator. The fighter’s just totally fried!”

“Do we have time to move Res?” asked Sun.

“No,” Sam said bluntly. Res could turn itself around in a week if it needed to, and even then the manoeuvring thrusters hadn’t been activated in Sam’s lifetime. “Do we have time to reach him?”

“It’ll be close,” said Sun. “Magellan, what’s your speed?”

“Wish I could tell you, Bluenose,” said Baker, “my displays are out. I’m pushing the throttle but I’d as well be praying with these hands, the good it will do me.”

“Can’t we tell what his speed is?” Sam asked.

“Not without Magellan’s transponder. We’ll have to rely on naked sight.” Sun’s voice was wavering.

Sam activated the shipboard PA system. “Attention all crew: wake and move to stations. This is not a drill. Repeat. All crew: wake and move to stations.” With the push of a button the ship’s alarm sounded.

“Send order to launch bay to open doors,” Sam said to Sun.

“I’m just a little bit busy right now, Captain,” Sun said, her eyes glued to the screen in front of her.

Stanley’s voice erupted over radio, “Oh, shit! There’s a particle jut coming right for me! It just appeared over the horizon. I don’t got five minutes! Fuck if I have one! Holy shit, I think I’m getting tunnel vision.”

“You need to eject!” said Sam. “Sun, I’m heading down to the launch bay myself, you have the bridge.” Sam knew fully well that Stanley wasn’t wearing a spacesuit.

“No need!” came Admiral Nussenbaum’s voice from behind her. Sam swung around and saw her walking onto the bridge, barefoot and wearing a bathrobe. “Get down there, Sam, I’ll take over from here.”

Sam nodded, jumped up quickly and ran for the door. The bulkheads shook as Lieutenant Sun pushed the Bluenose’s engines to their max, to the point where Sam had to steady herself a couple of times as she made her way to the stern. A few crew mates passed her in the halls, including a groggy and shocked-looking Lieutenant Barsamian.

“What’s going on, Captain?” he asked.

“Get to your station!” was all she could say as she continued to run. She suppressed annoyance at his lack of professionalism. Too many drills and you get complacent, she thought.

Sam entered the pressure gate for the launch bay, and manually shut the heavy door behind her. She overrode the decontamination sequence and entered the hangar, where Cynthia Baker stood. Sam’s heart sank.

“Captain,” she said. “I’m here to help. I know Stanley’s out there; I was awake in our cabin. Please don’t tell him, I’d tuned into his helmet radio. I was worried.”

“We need to open the launch doors, now!” Sam led Cynthia to the observation room, which was sealed off from the hangar. Once they were sealed in, Sam initiated the airlock procedures, and the large metal doors began to slide open. Without having secured the hangar, a cargo container and a few loose ends that weren’t bolted down were sucked out the opening as Sam and Cynthia watched from their protective shell. “Wish you weren’t here, Cynthia. You don’t want to see something you don’t want to see.”

“He’ll make it,” she said timidly in response. “And if he’s dead it won’t be my fault.” Even now, in this kind of situation, Cynthia didn’t take any of Stanley’s bullshit. Sam didn’t know whether she envied or despised that.

At this point, there was nothing they could do but wait. She knew the procedure: Lieutenant Sun would be flying Bluenose right at the Magellan, hopefully scooping up the fighter.

The proximity alert sounded, but Sam and Cynthia couldn’t see anything from their current angle.

“Brace for impact,” came the Admiral’s voice over the shipwide speaker. Sam held on tighter to the console in front of her.

Suddenly the Magellan slid quickly into the hangar, heading right for the observation room. Its trajectory was only subtly altered as it interacted with Bluenose’s artificial gravity. Just as quickly as it appeared it slammed into the window in front of them. The reinforced glass did not shatter, despite its age, though Cynthia let out a yelp of shock.

Sam went to close the hangar airlock, but before she could reach it the ship was slammed by something she could not see. The particle jut, she reasoned, as she and Cynthia were knocked off their feet. The lights flickered and the proximity alert doubled its intensity.

“What was that?” asked Cynthia. Sam had no time to answer. For a second time, she reached for the button to close the airlock, and the doors slowly began to shut.

Bluenose seemed to be out of danger. Someone had finally disabled the proximity alarm and the doors finished closing. The console in front of her indicated that the hangar would repressurize in thirty seconds.

“How do we know he’s in the fighter?” asked Cynthia.

“The cockpit’s still closed,” said Sam, wiping the sweat from her neck. “It comes off completely if you eject.”

“Hell of a landing,” Cynthia said. “I wonder if he survived impact. I wasn’t counting on an impact.”

Sam didn’t know what to say. Finally, the hangar was pressurized, so she exited and ran towards the Magellan with Cynthia close behind.

Admiral Nussenbaum led Sam into her office. “You can close the door behind you,” she said. Nussenbaum sat behind her desk, letting out a long sigh. “How’s he doing?”

“He’s alive,” said Sam. “But only in the sense that he has a pulse. Zero brain activity. Zero muscle response. No breathing. But get this: no circulation.”

“You can’t have a pulse without circulation,” said the Admiral. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“That’s what I’d have believed before today. I can’t do a blood test because I can’t draw any blood. Stanley was not exposed to space one bit, yet his blood has for some reason congealed. Hell, this isn’t the response to expect if he was exposed to space! It’s totally solid. And yet—, and I have no explanation—, he has a pulse. You can come down to the MedBay and feel it if you want.”

Admiral Nussenbaum gulped. “I—, what the hell?”

“I don’t know. Cynthia swears she saw his eyes moving, but the scanner says his intraocular fluid is also a solid right now. Exposure can’t be the cause; the Magellan is designed to hold onto heat even after generator death for up to a month. And the fighter’s the strangest thing. The generator is out, like he said when he messaged us, but one of the displays is still lit up. It’s displaying information but Commander De La Rosa claims there’s zero electronic signal. No power whatsoever.”

“Sounds like how you described Lieutenant Baker.”

“Yes. His pulse is erratic. At first I thought it was like an arrhythmia, but when I compared it to the display on the fighter, which was also showing a single line light up in a rhythm, it’s the same thing. It’s like it’s a code or something. Morse code or whatever.”

Nussenbaum said nothing. “Sam, this isn’t the right day to be messing with my head. I have a tremendous amount of respect for you and I wouldn’t think you could stoop so low.”

“I swear, Admiral, I’m telling you what I saw.”

Tenting her fingers, Nussenbaum asked, “What made you compare his pulse to the fighter’s display?”

“A hunch which normally I would have totally ignored.”

“And the signal he received beforehand. Could that be related?”

“I’m not sure, Admiral, but it seems as likely as anything else.”

The Admiral nodded. “OK. Send for a shuttle. We need to get him to a proper hospital.”

“I agree,” said Sam, “I’ve already sent for one. It should arrive within the hour. My own first aid skills are inadequate, I’m afraid.”

“I don’t know if anyone’s are adequate. You say it’s like a code; I think that’s likely. Is it being recorded?”

“His pulse map is, yes. Not the fighter. I could have a camera put in, if you think it’s important.”

“There are two options in my head right now, Captain, and neither is very comforting.”

“Yes?” Sam pried. She had her own suspicion, too.

Hey all, just a note from the author. If you’re terribly confused, this is just a spot that I’m putting my poorly-written novel up online to show it to friends. And though I don’t think anyone would want to steal this, I’d like to make it clear that I am ideologically opposed to the idea of intellectual property and copyright. The story is as much yours as it is mine (and therefore, you’re also to blame for it being so awful).