#this isn't a format i'm going to stick with long-term or anything

[lookinghalfacorpse]

You don't have to respond to this one, but @ your last tags on the found family trope post, I can't say I haven't been curious if anything like that was ever the case. You've been so careful in painting everyone's relationship to be on trust and healthy reliance on one another in times of need, and Techno + Dream definitely have something more intimate and close going on (which I deeply appreciate btw- I couldn't bear it if someone tried to stick itwall!Dream as a brother to Techno, or put him in alongside Wilbur as a son figure to Phil :shudders:), so I'm VERY curious how detailed those thoughts have gotten at any point in time /lh /but genuine

(talking about my semi-cursed tags on this post)

yes i can talk about this all day !! i think the dynamic that doomsday trio brings is fascinating, and i don't blame those who see it as a nuclear family dynamic because i think the comparison does work in some places, but it's more complicated than that. i touched on it (in vaguely poetic terms) in this post, but i can give more detail here.

c!philza is an old man and an experienced father, and his instinct as a guardian is strong. this is the closest we get to a nuclear family format in itwall; phil definitely calls on some of his skills as a father when he helps dream, but it's a bit more complex than that. phil recognizes that dream is an adult in human years and doesn't need to be babied (hell, he doesn't even baby Wilbur, his own son who's around the same age!). dream needs care, he needs a mentor, and he needs a better self-preservation instinct before he kills himself. i think their relationship is closer to ancient grecian mentorship than fatherhood/sonhood, the only difference is that the mentee is on death's door for a while and needs some extra attention. phil sees himself in dream, dream sees phil as someone he might like to be, and there's a level of mutual respect there.

i also think that techno and dream have a sense of brotherhood, but in the same way that two athletic teammates have a brotherhood. they have a long history of trust between them, with room for playfulness and teasing. there's a lack of touch aversion (which is HUGE for dream), and dream initiates more of their touches (as opposed to phil, where he tends to be more submissive) (i'm thinkin about ch 12 & ch 19).

and, of course, techno & phil have a complicated relationship of their own. i'm always annoyed by headcanons that techno is phil's son-- we see plenty of interactions where they mutually worry over each other and care for each other. the will is Not written like a boy talking to his father. these two are lifelong partners, and that letter is written to someone who techno knows will understand him and trusts to carry out the more sentimental, intangible tasks, like talking to niki and ranboo, with very little instruction.

highly oversimplified but this is the idea. Techno and dream have similar relationships with phil but it's not really sonhood. all built on trust. they've proven to each other that they will keep each other safe.

and honestly.. none of those relationships would have to exclude sex or intimacy. equals/partners can have sex. comrades can have sex. mentors/mentees can have sex (i think people feel weird about this one, but again: think Ancient Grecian). i have Quite A Few scenes in my head about how their sexual relationships might work (especially in the early days when dream isn't feeling good...). i guess in light of everyone being more open about shipping i would consider writing them, i'd just keep them here instead of ao3.

i think both phil and techno consider dream to be heartstoppingly lovely. i think dream would love to be loved. i think phil&techno and techno&dream may have had some encounters Before the start of itwall, so it would just be a matter of tying it all together.

#asks #itwall #sorry i'm writing essays these days i'm just thinkin a lotta thoughts #affections

[variousqueerthings]

so we're at the final double-episode of the rtd run *wipes brow*

look I'm biased. I'm sure we're all biased in terms of which era we started in, whether it was nu!who or classic!who pre-post rtd... but it's just such a good run. it just is:

obviously brought doctor who successfully back to life and returned it to its status of one of the most iconic pieces of television of all time

updated it to a 21st century storytelling format and audience, with a focus on the companion as the lens through which the show was introduced and the fact that the doctor needs them on a deep, fundamental level that echoes back and gives depth to some classic companions that maybe never got their proper dues within the show, and ripples forwards right into 13's run with bringing classic companions back!

emotional follow-through, with one long arc spanning from season 1 until the next regeneration. I've heard/seen some people think that ten near the end, and especially in the last episode, is self-indulgent and whiny, but I just... idk that is incorrect imo. this iteration of the doctor is a survivor of war and genocide, and clings desperately to people who eventually leave, and they tend to react very strongly to the continued death around them until they decide to literally test time to see if they can beat it and save someone who Shouldn't Be Saved, and then, just when they maybe have found a measure of peace with it all, they have to knowingly go and die. it's a lot for the character to emotionally compute, I think ten is allowed a little tantrum before going through with it, because so much of that regeneration is the universe using ten as a punching bag (after nine was so excited to see what came next too...)

like yeah, it's angsty writing, but that's kind of the point. emotional follow-through on concepts (immortality, transience, alienness, etc) that previously were a tad brushed over, with an added specific survivor's guilt + PTSD thrown in for good measure

speaking of all the people who leave for whatever reason -- companions with families and high stakes at home and individual personal reasons for travelling with the doctor, and for having to move on from that travelling. no longer mostly stumbling into the tardis and then sticking around until suddenly back home (or um... a couple of times dying), and reeeelatively comparably easy goodbyes (for the most part) -- being left over and over, or making the decision to go on alone, or seeing people die, hurts. and on the flipside of that, seeing all that splendor and then having to go on with life... what does that do to a person?

although chris eccleston unfortunately didn't have a great time and deserved better, the atmosphere once behind-the-scenes found its footing was clearly so supportive and friendly. people were coming back year after year (and so many of them have come back for rtd's new run, which I think says a lot too)

I know the music isn't technically underrated, but I think the music is kind of underrated actually, especially individual episode scores. the companion scores, the gallifrey score, the ood choir, the action score that was introduced in s3, and so many more, all perfection and show up wonderfully as various motifs in different places, but individual episodes had perfectly tailor-made scores (some personal favourites are dalek, father's day, impossible planet/the satan pit, gridlock, human nature/family of blood, midnight, and waters of mars)

similarly to the doctor being self-indulgent, I've also heard that dtennant is overrated, which, again, I get it. I don't agree, but I do think that some people don't engage enough with other iterations of the doctor, and so aren't really giving "the doctor as a whole character" their due shake, but sticking only with ten's narrative. that being said there's nothing about dtennant's performance that I think is anything less than amazing. and there's a reason that ten is so beloved, and it's that the main themes of the nu!who soft reboot rtd era stories that people weren't sure would last beyond a season or two, are carried on ten's slender slender shoulders and dtennant does it perfectly (see, I do think there could be less romance in ten's run, because it never works for me, and that's partly that the writers themselves seem to be shy about it/not quite sure what to do with it (because it shouldn't be there in the first place) but that's not the performance, that's unfortunately dtennant's jessica rabbit-ness). the point being, this was for a new generation that was coming from a different television background, and it was done pretty perfectly. and also dtennant loves doctor who, absolutely loves it to bits, and that shines through... the fucking nerd

rtd's main flaws (there are none I'm kidding!!) are that things can get unwieldy once they get too big, and there are times where one can see the cracks badly covered by duct tape in the format and pacing of some of the bigger adventures. that being said, every single rtd finale (from the flawless bad wolf/parting of the ways to the messy bitch that is the end of time pt1+2) is always at the end about something incredibly (for lack of better word) human. it's always about the relationships between the companions and the doctor (and also the doctor and the master, but that makes sense). the doctor and rose, the doctor and martha, the doctor and donna, the doctor and wilf (honorary companion). and the pretty big cast of characters that make them feel real -- rtd may at times be messy but he is hardly ever boring or emotionally vacant. the story itself might become untethered, but the emotions are firmly understandable

(that being said, fingers crossed that 13 years of post-doctor who have given him more sense of what to keep and what to scrap, so that the specials can be both silly and serious, without the seesaw completely ripping out of the ground -- I mean, mainly I hope it won't be wanky and self-congratulatory, but I have faith on that front! we'll see in one month)

this era of television did something that has barely ever (has it ever?) been done before. brought a story back and made it not only work, but near-perfectly balance respect for the classic, with leaps and bounds into the new. it created a brand new generation of fans, and brought along the older ones too

as a kid I didn't think any of these things, because I was just watching doctor who through the gaps of my fingers (I was a very frightened child overall). and like I said, bias ahoy, because nostalgia will do that to you, but you know what? it's still good. it's really really good. I'm so glad that it's part of my DNA

#doctor who #dw #rtd #russell t davies #david tennant

[aspiring-holistic-otaku]

Ramble#11

This month's episode we focus on Naoki Urasawa, a living manga legend, a true goat of the medium and my number 1 favourite mangaka. Ever since I started this podcast, at least one episode on him was inevitable and even if I don't stick the landing I hope this encourages someone to go check out and even support his brilliant pieces of art.

I'll be following the usual format of things read this month and then going over older reads, this time going from least to most favourite. Afterwards in what I'd call a part 2 I'll be doing a bit of off the cuff ranting.

So without further adieu, let's get into it!

Urasawa works read this month:

Asadora! (2018 - present with 37 english translated chapters):

A young girl named Asa has her home town destroyed by a Kaiju that only she saw. For those unfamiliar with the term Kaiju, it's basically the genre of film centered around giant monsters, think Godzilla. Anyways, years later, after training to be a pilot so she can track the monster down as she's its only living witness, she's approached by a certain organization that's been tracking the beast, so she can be trained to defend the country.

Not really a first time read but the first time I checked it out in 2020 there was only like 15/20 chapters out so with there being like twice that now I figured I could put it as new + bite me

Not much to say as again there's not that many chapters but it was my first time seeing a female lead from urasawa and I thought it was cool that the first page of the first chapter set the time frame for this world threatening disaster as 2020, which was when I picked it up and around the time COVID kicked off, even though that chapter itself came out in 2018.

Yawara! (1986 - 1993) 331 chapters total but only 92 in English:

Trained by her 8 time national judo champion grandad to get an Olympic gold, Yawara has been doing judo since she could walk. But as she enters the springtime of her youth, she just wants to be a regular, cute and fashionable girl.

Now I figure some of you may be wondering "What's the problem? Why can't she have both?". Well firstly, you know fiction, there's no story without conflict no matter how ridiculous. But as the mc would put it, judo just isn't cute!

She thinks she'll be unapproachable if she becomes known for grappling and throwing people around which tbh is fair but if you know anything about training to be an athlete, especially an Olympic level athlete, the time dedicated to training is no small thing. In the manga her grandad makes her train every day starting at 6am before she goes to school then after school they train again at 6pm.

Again not the very first time I read it, basically I started like a year ago but only read like 5 chapters then got upset that it wasn't fully translated. Cause I figured if it's been complete since 1993 and in 2022 there's only 92 chapters translated I'd be blue balling myself to hell with what I assumed would be another urasawa great (side note, more reason for learning Japanese so I can be a translator)

And I'm feeling bittersweet in being correct in my thinking because I really really dug it. Very neat aesthetic I've gotta say as urasawa plays up yawara trying to be cute and dressing up and so forth. It was also my first time seeing urasawa not doing mystery, as Yawara is a fun light-hearted slice of life but it still has a great cast of distinctive characters with brilliant dynamics just as I've come to expect from all of urasawa's works.

Master Keaton (1988 - 1994) 144ch:

I'm just gonna go with the final volume's description here as it's pretty spot on

When the wall that separated the East and West falls, the twentieth century comes to an end and brings radical changes to the world. During this turbulent time, Taichi Hiraga Keaton has difficulty finding a job in archaeology even though his long line of cases as an insurance investigator doesn't seem to end. As he navigates through dangerous adventures, Keaton encounters some bittersweet lives…

If you glazed over for a minute there, basically the mc loves archeology, wants to be a professor and have his own dig sites and such but because of skills he picked up in the army, he has much better luck being an investigator.

Great scenery, neat characters but pretty episodic to the point where I'd want to call it an anthology as characters don't really carry forward much. There's a lot of nitty gritty details about wars, factions and etc. around the world in that time period which can be a bit overbearing at times but that's what give the characters and situations the impact they would have gotten if they stuck around longer.

Also gotta say it's pretty educational, not just in the mc basically being macgyver and building self defense weapons out of whatever is on hand kinda way, but it takes a good look at Europe and how fucked it was during that cold war period as it indirectly and directly references many real world events. Maybe it's just my lack of exposure but I haven't seen that much media outside of documentaries really pinpoint Europe and the effects of war there and not on a large high level country scale, I mean like really looking at the lives of civilians and how they lived and died during that time.

Lots of variety, as I said it's very episodic as almost every chapter has a different subject ranging from finding a lost animal to settling spats between holocaust survivors or proving a statue is fake

I also have to mention something I've always appreciated about Urasawa's works that really stood out in Master Keaton for me and that's the diverse and well done racial representation. There's people from everywhere and it doesn't have that feel manga tends to have of like a Japanese person drawing what they think other people look like or something, it just looks like a person drawing other people, feel like I'm wording that weirdly but that's how I'm wording it.

Happy! (1993 - 1999) 254ch:

One day a high school girl, Miyuki Umino that takes care of her 3 younger siblings on her own, is approached by Yakuza who tell her that her older brother ran out on loans amounting to 250mill yen, approx. 1.8M USD) and now she needs to pay up or be sold into prostitution.

While wondering what to do she sees on the news a tennis player earned that amount in winnings so she decides that despite the difficulty she has to try.

Pretty dark premise and I'm telling you she goes through some dark shit but it's a great story, brilliant characters as usual, loveable idiots abound, antagonists that you can really really hate. You don't have to be a fan of tennis at all to appreciate the heartwarming n heart wrenching ups and downs. Teared up at least twice.

This was my favourite Naoki Urasawa work I read for the first time this month, this manga really showed me Urasawa really has THAT range fr.

Older Urasawa reads:

Monster (1994 - 2001) 162 chapters, this was my 3rd read:

A promising young doctor, Kenzo Tenma, ignores his superiors orders to operate on their mayor and instead operates on a young boy called Johan, that came in first, as he firmly believes all lives are equal. The mayor dies and the boy is saved but this leads to unfair treatment by his superiors and being left by his fiance. Soon after, not only does the young boy disappear but his superiors die from poisoning, leaving him, staff and ofc the police baffled.

10 years later during a string of serial killings, a key witness ends up being a patient of Tenma's but is killed for trying to reveal this by Johan, the real killer, now a young man who reappears in front of the doctor. Even more shockingly, he reveals himself as the one who killed Tenma's superiors all those years ago. Because of similarities in the murderers then and now, police pin it all on Tenma so he goes on the run across Europe to find the young man and clear his name.

Undeniably engaging from the jump, the ever building draw being who the fuck is this Johan dude? where'd he come from? why the fuck is he killing all these people? etc. etc.

Great side characters as usual with interactions that I can only call truly genuine whether they were sweet or sour.

There's a lot of nice interplay on the meanings of life and death, the notions of fear and hope, humanity and the inhumane, all weaved into every intricate thread of this story.

Not to be a hater but personally its relative popularity, as in relative to his other works, is a little upsetting. I get that it was his first critically acclaimed banger but he's done so much since then that isn't talked about enough for me. His later stuff not having anime adaptations doesn't help but if you've read and watched enough media adaptations in general you know that tends to mean diddly squat in terms of the quality of the source material . The industry unfortunately runs more and more on fan service every day.

Pluto (2003 - 2009) 65 chapters, read 3x:

The destruction of one of Earth's greatest robots and the murder of a leading figure in international robot rights seem unrelated at first, but both bodies were made into some bizarre collage with the central motif/pattern being a pair of horns placed by their heads, making them obviously related. The confusing thing is that the only thing that could destroy one of Earth's greatest robots is an even stronger robot, but could a robot really be related to the murder a human? Gesicht, a robot detective is put on the case and eventually comes to realize that all of Earth's greatest robots, himself included are being targeted.

As you can expect with any futuristic robot media there's an exploration of the concept of humanity vs the artificial but it's done so tenderly for lack of a better word and I'm not sure how often it's done that way in these noir type beats. Especially from the viewpoint of a robot mc.

I've probably said this for all his works so far but there's brilliant cast, great dialogue, great art that the context pretty much demanded and even though it's based on an arc in Osamu Tezuka's tetsuwan atom, better known as astro boy in the west, the greatest robot on earth arc to be specific, Urasawa really rose to and in my mind completely surpassed the challenge of adapting the work of he who is called the God of manga.

Also like man it's so crazy good for how short it is, please read this.

20th century boys (1999 - 2006) 249 chapters + 16 in the wrapup sequel 21st century boys, I've read both 2x:

The story follows a group of childhood friends, now adults who are trying to patch together their memories in an effort to uncover a conspiracy that seems to be based on games they used to play about saving the world from destruction.

It's pretty difficult to describe the events of the story further but it definitely stands out in my mind as the grandest scale of anything Naoki Urasawa has ever done though I wouldn't put it past him to go further.

As I said the story follows friends trying to patch together memories so the time period goes back and forth quite a bit. It can be pretty jarring trying to follow it strictly by year so I'd recommend just thinking about it in three tone periods, namely; childhood, present day and miscellaneous flashbacks. Separating childhood from miscellaneous flashbacks as their childhood remains within a constant range but as the story moves forward and present day changes so does the range of flashbacks they have.

That should hint a bit at the scale of this whole thing but outside of the breadth, there's a depth of characterization and dynamic that I haven't seen elsewhere.

Side note, if the length is frightening it's the type of read I'd recommend savouring anyways.

Billy Bat (2008 - 2016) 165chapters, this is my 4th time reading this:

A Japanese American mangaka/cartoonist, Kevin Yamagata, suddenly has his workspace taken over by police claiming they're investigating one of his neighbours for being a Soviet spy. In the middle of protesting this, one of the officers sees the comic he's working on, Billy Bat. He says he's seen it before in Japan, basically calling Kevin's work a copy. Kevin takes offence but admits he was stationed in Japan for some time and may have seen it and subconsciously copied it. As one of the lasting lessons his father taught him was that you can't steal people's stuff, he goes to Japan to seek out this potential original creator.

The story unfolds as he meets an artist that tells him the bat is actually something passed down throughout history, throwing him right into the middle of several conspiracies concerning real key incidents throughout modern history.

On top of everything, the bat starts talking to him, urging him to find a supposedly important and immensely powerful scroll.

My favourite piece from urasawa, brilliant in every respect, please please please please read this.

That's it for this first part, if you're still here, thanks for listening, please please read these, urasawa is a goat, a legend a phenomenon.

Just to share some resources before I go into the part 2 bit which may have spoilers irdk yet, there were two YouTube videos I really liked that I highly recommend.

The first was 'The greatest mangaka of all time' by the masked man and second was 'A guide to manga's greatest master' by the omnibus collector.

The first video is about 10 minutes long and uses the quality of Monster, 20th century boys, Pluto and Billy Bat as their rationale for why Naoki Urasawa is the greatest mangaka of all time.

The second is 20 minutes and pretty much covers Naoki's entire career and body of work, giving pretty rad descriptions of all his pieces, inspirations for them and a bunch of other really neat info. Bonus For those of you who are int that sort of thing, they also show the physicals they own off all the manga they talked about. really appreciated that. thank you omnibus collector.

Really appreciated these videos as most animanga fans and discussions focus on monster, sometimes 20th century boys and rarely anything past that unless they're ranking which I'm really not interested in.

There's also a third video I mention in part 2 of the episode I'll link here as well.

Anyways thanks again for listening, stay hydrated and listen in for some rambles if you're also into that kind of thing.

#just another day #mm..manga #naoki urasawa #asadora! #yawara! #master keaton #happy! #monster #pluto #20th century boys #billy bat #Youtube #writeup

[anime-clickanddrag-geemu]

Hi there! If it isn't rude of me to ask, how long does it usually take you to make one click and drag game?

Hi! I don't find it rude at all! I think it'll be a fun thing to answer actually

I'm gonna go long with this one, do bear with me!

So it usually depends! Anything I make from scratch will definitely take longer than anything I've already created gifs/banners for. If there are a lot of characters (~20-50), it'll take a WHILE (like ~2-4 hours) but if there are only a handful, it can take just about 45min to 1.5 hrs)

If you want me to go into specifics, I'll go through my step process! first, I'll have to look for pictures to use and crop them all which would generally take me 5-7 minutes for each character. Then I'll have to compile those images into multiple gifs which would take me roughly about 3-5 minutes for each different gif. Then, the last step would be to finally add the labels and "@" for each gif (taking ~2 minutes each)

After explaining this process, you can imagine how long it'd take to create gif sets that include 20+ characters 🥴

For this blog, it's much more of a straightforward process that I stick to more consistently in comparison to how I do things in @deescade. In @deescade I basically follow the same process, but now, I'll be including the time it takes to brainstorm new ideas/themes/scenarios. Things will take a LOT longer because I try my best to be creative with 'em. (Especially for games that include text/worded outcomes such as Date! Scenario or 7MiH). Whereas, on @anime-clickanddrag-geemu , I simply use the standard outcomes (bff, rival, lover, cockblock, etc.) that you'd often see in the original click and drag games back in 2014-2015, so there's no extra level of creativity that's required of me

I'm not sure if you've seen my games from when I first started out this blog @anime-clickanddrag-geemu (back in 2018), but if you look back at them, you'll notice how a lot of them were not mobile friendly and were quite plain in terms of format. Back then, I would use only one base gif to use for the rest of the options so if you screenshotted it, your results would mostly end up being the one single character (or sometimes 2 of the same characters) you screenshotted. So in order to get a wider variety of characters/results, I would take the extra step of creating multiple, differently ordered gifs, specifically 9 gifs in total.

My process required less time before, but as my click and drag games began to grow more popular and have been getting more feedback on it over the years, I'm spending more time in order to fix those kinks and inconveniences to the best of my ability. I feel like I've accomplished that with @deescade the most, which is why I'm much more active there than on here. The ideas that I come up with on deescade are more fun and interesting too, albeit it takes longer to create.

It's a really tedious process that I'd rather not spend that much time on, but if it makes my games easier to enjoy for myself and others, then I don't mind it too much.

Thanks for asking this question, I enjoyed answering it! :)

Stay safe!

-Nene

#interactions!! #nene's rambling

[scenes-in-between]

En Ami

CGB

Months of planning. Layers upon layers of subterfuge. Dominoes meticulously arrayed, men placed just so on a chessboard, whatever metaphor you please. A different story for each participant, painstakingly crafted to ensure his or her cooperation. After all, without all of the players working in concert, the whole thing unravels.

How unexpected, then, when I learn of Scully’s visit to Doctor Parenti. Of her unwitting inclusion in a program under my direct purview. So she wants a child, does she?

“Of course none of the samples she brought in are viable, but it’s no matter. We can proceed with something from the next test batch. I’m sure we are getting closer.”

The program is on its last legs, and Parenti knows it. A less experienced man might be fooled, but I am no stranger to sycophants; these are merely the words of a man desperate not to lose his funding. Another failure, and it will surely be another failure, wouldn’t matter in the case of some random test subject, but a failure with Scully? She will not be deceived so easily, and after she exposes every last person involved, Mulder will come riding in on his steed of self-righteousness and burn the place to the ground.

Could we recover from it? Of course. But it’s an expense and a complication I don’t need. I already have enough knives in the air.

“No, use what she gave you. Let it fail, and let her go. I have another use for her, later.”

What I don’t tell him is that her failed conception will serve my purposes quite nicely. An unplanned gift of leverage.

And, ultimately, a means by which I can not only repay her for her cooperation in the larger plan, but potentially drive Parenti’s program into obsolescence.

***

Mulder

“I don’t understand. You said I was getting better.”

“I said the medication seemed to be helping slow the progression, as we’d hoped it would. Unfortunately, it hasn’t stopped the progression entirely, and the differences I’m seeing between your scan from two months ago and the one from today are significant.”

“But how is that possible? I feel fine! I’ve had no symptoms, no headaches, nothing. How can there be something progressively rotting my brain without there being any outward sign?”

“I confess it is puzzling. Given the areas of encroachment, I would expect you to be having all manner of difficulty with your auditory processing. It is possible, I suppose, that you have been experiencing low-level auditory hallucinations and simply haven’t recognized them as such.”

The walk-ins. Samantha, Amber Lynn, the boy who led me to Samantha’s diary… Scully didn’t see them. What if…? But no, he said auditory, not visual. No, they were real, I’m sure of it.

“So what do we do next? Where do we go from here?”

“I’m, uh… I’m afraid, Mr. Mulder, that I am at a loss. I’ve conferred with several colleagues about your case, and none of us has ever encountered a pathology quite like this before. We’ve exhausted all of the conventional avenues of treatment.”

“Okay, well what about the unconventional ones?”

“There are a handful of experimental therapies being explored, primarily overseas. Monoclonal antibody therapy, various stem cell treatments. But they’re all unproven, still very early in development. You would also have to be selected for the clinical trials, of course, and I’m afraid there’s no guarantee you’ll meet the criteria.”

“So… so, what, I’m just supposed to do nothing and wait around for this to kill me? I refuse to accept that. There has to be something else to try.”

There has to be. Damn it, I was getting better! I can’t leave her alone, not like this. And how in the hell can I tell her now, when she’s still so sad about the IVF? Oh my god, the IVF. I only agreed to it because I thought I was getting better…  

“I wish I had something more to offer at this point. I’m sorry, I truly am. It’s worth bearing in mind that we don’t know the timeline on this. It’s… unlikely, but not impossible, that you could carry on as you have been for quite some time before you become drastically symptomatic. I know it’s hard to think about things like putting your affairs in order, and while I want to stress that it’s a good idea for you to start considering that, I’m also not suggesting that you give up hope altogether.”

“Oh, believe me, I’m not. You may not be able to help me, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t someone who can.”

***

Scully

“Shit. Shit, shit, shit…”

*sound of fabric scraping across the microphone*

“Mulder, I don’t know how this happened. I don’t know where I am, but I think he’s found me out. He has to have found… He changed my damned clothes. He drugged me and moved me from the car, and I’m in a room in… I don’t know, a house or a hotel or something. My, uh… my bag is here. My things are all here.”

*more rustling*

“But he put me in pajamas, which means he has to have seen the wire. I don’t know why he didn’t take it. I don’t know if he’s even still here. Maybe he saw the wire and decided the deal’s off. I’m so angry, I’m so… I’m furious with myself for letting my guard down.”

*unintelligible*

“--orry this turned out to be nothing but a waste of time. I thought… I really thought I could get this cure, could give other cancer patients the same chance I got. The same chance Jason McPeck got. But I’m done making deals with CGB Spender. Once I figure out where in the hell I am, I’m coming home.”

***

CGB

Of course I drugged her.

Oh, she fell asleep on her own, that much was true. But even as tired as she was, she never would have slept through being carried to the house.  Couldn’t have her waking up before I had a chance to give her my gift, could I?

It's miraculous technology, the chip in her neck. And it's not even the latest model. Of course, that's of little matter in light of advancements such as software patches and wireless data transfer. The human body is a complex machine, but once you hold the key to reprogram it at will, well… anything is possible.

Once-depleted ovaries, for example, could easily be stimulated to produce anew.

And given her previous exposure to both the alien virus and vaccine, given Mulder's exposure to the same, if the two of them were to conceive a child naturally, they just might be able to accomplish that which we’ve spent decades trying and failing to do artificially.

My lies to her in the car were by design, of course. I know full well the degree to which the two of them have become entangled. But a claim to believe otherwise was carefully calculated to let her believe she still had secrets. To let her believe, in a sense, that she had the upper hand, just as I let her believe, for a time, that I didn't know about the wire.

It’s admirable, if unfortunate, that she is capable of such deceit. Having her complete trust would make things easier, but I suppose I have more respect for her, knowing she is smart enough to protect herself, to not stroll willingly into danger without taking precautionary measures.

Still, it was time to let her know she’s not fooled me. I could have put her into bed fully clothed, preserved the illusion of ignorance. Instead, I chose to send a message: I know what she’s up to, and I’m not threatened by it in the least.

Well, that and I truly did want her to be comfortable. Not every word out of my mouth is a lie.

It was a calculated risk -- she nearly decided to walk away this morning -- but I gambled on her fundamentally altruistic nature. For the moment, at least, it remains a bet of the safest sort.

***

Mulder

“It’s not her.”

“Mulder--”

“I’m telling you, it’s not her! It’s impossible. Look at the date and time stamp on this. There’s no way she could have sent this email because we were in California then, and she didn’t even have her laptop on that trip.”

“Are you sure?”

“Damn it, Frohike, of course I’m sure! And this one. This is from a week ago. At 11:35pm, we were sitting together at her kitchen table. She never even left the room. It’s. Not. Her.”

“Okay, well if you’re a hundred percent certain she didn’t write these, then who did?”

“You guys tell me. I thought you were the hacking experts. Can you figure out who gained access to her account?”

“Depends on how much they covered their tracks. This could take some time.”

“She may not have much time. Someone has gone to a hell of a lot of trouble to set her up, and if it’s the son of a bitch she’s with right now, he won’t think twice about using her as bait. We’ve got to figure out if this is related to wherever she’s gone or if it’s a whole separate operation.”

“Look, man, you know I’m the last guy on Earth who wants to see her get hurt. I promise you, we’ll try to get some answers for you as soon as we can.”

“I guess we’re having a slumber party at my place, then. You want me to put coffee on?”

***

Scully

“Mulder, it’s me.”

“Scully! Where are you, are you okay?”

“I’m okay. I’m southbound on Highway 209, on my way home. I should be there in about four and a half hours.”

“What the hell were you thinking?”

“Excuse me?”

“Do you have any idea how much danger you were in?”

More than you even know. “Look, I took the necessary precautions. I’m unharmed, and once I get back, I will be happy to walk you through exactly why I did what I did. But I don’t think it’s a good idea to discuss it any further over the phone.”

“Call me every hour. If I don’t hear from you, I’m sending out the highway patrol.”

“Mulder--”

“He could have had you killed!”

“But he didn’t! So you can stop acting like you’ve never put yourself in danger for the greater good.”

“...”

“I’ll call you in an hour.” *click*

***

CGB

It might seem like a long way to go, just to kill a man. On the face of it, certainly, there could have been simpler methods. But they would have been messier, and far less comprehensive.

It wasn’t just the killing of the man, after all. It wasn’t even that we needed the research. Everything on that disc he handed Scully, I already have.

I am not actually dying. That was another necessary lie.

Cobra worked for the project, once. He was one of the brighter ones, making connections others couldn’t, spinning gold from the virtual straw we gave him. Bits of translated hieroglyphs from the Ivory Coast craft. Biological and genetic data from an exterminated EBE. Nanoprocessor technology from another recovered ship. The advancements he made in a few short years were astounding.

Unfortunately, his genius ultimately became a liability. He developed a conscience, which is, shall we say, problematic in this line of work. We could tell he was getting ready to bolt, that he’d already smuggled data out of the office, data we absolutely couldn’t risk falling into the wrong hands. In the end, it was merely a matter of making sure he bolted in the right direction.

Enter Dana Scully.

Even the most brilliant of men can be led around by the nose by a smart and beautiful woman. Impersonating her via email was child’s play, and though it may have taken months of careful grooming, “Scully” eventually convinced Cobra to destroy all but one copy of the research with which he’d absconded, to turn that final copy over to “her” for safekeeping. Luring him out into the open took some skill, I’m not afraid to boast, but it would require Scully’s actual physical presence in the end. And there were those who wanted to see her eliminated as well, once she had completed what we needed of her.

Perhaps I am growing soft and sentimental in my old age. Or perhaps I am just as susceptible to her charms as Cobra was. I can couch my decision to countermand her kill order in any number of justifications, all of them valid, but it remains possible that I am simply losing my stomach for it.

Why, then, didn’t I let her keep the data? I confess I was tempted. If there were ever a person to trust with it, someone who would truly only use it with the best of intentions, it would be her. But maybe that’s sentimental of me as well. The sad truth is that the world itself cannot support the possibility of so many cured. Six billion people on this Earth, and how many suffer already from starvation? How many overcrowded, over-polluted cities could handle a population that never got sick and died?

This is why there have to be men like me, men holding all the cards, who make the difficult decisions for the greater good. It is a lonely existence; if I had my life to do over again, I… well, I don’t know if all this power truly is worth the sacrifice. Some days I really don’t know.

***

Mulder

I had hoped to never have to write in this journal again, Dana. I foolishly believed I had won, or dodged a bullet at least. I guess I only heard what I wanted to hear.

Turns out that “not worse” is not the same thing as “better.”

I know I made a lot of promises. I hope one day you will understand why I’m continuing to break them now.

If I had never told you about the ova I kept, if you had simply carried on exploring other options, you would have been spared all that needless heartache. You might have conceived on the first try with a donor egg and the sperm of a man not slowly dying of some unprecedented brain disease. Now I fear you might be unwilling to try again, after how badly this went.

The doctors say they can’t help me. I’ve got a whole drawer of cases that say doctors aren’t the only option. Once I have exhausted those avenues too, or once the progression of my condition is such that I can no longer hide it from you, that is when I will tell you.

I know that you already feel bad about the empty disc, about being promised this miracle cure only to have it yanked away like the football in a Peanuts comic strip. I remember what it was like, finding the chip that cured your cancer. I remember what it felt like when I thought I’d been deceived too, finding a vial filled with water instead of some miracle elixir I thought I was after. To tell you now that you maybe could have had something that would cure me… I won’t compound your frustration and guilt. I won’t do it.

I was angry when you went off alone with him, but if I'm honest, I was really just afraid. Afraid you wouldn't see him for the snake he is, afraid he would dangle promises in front of you all while leading you to slaughter like a sacrificial lamb.

I should have given you more credit. I'm sorry I let my fear turn me into an asshole.

I’m embarking out on my own now for the same reasons you did these past few days. I want to try to fix this without you getting hurt. I don’t know if I will succeed, but I have to try.

***

Scully

Initially, I thought the worst part of this whole thing was seeing the disappointment and anger on Mulder’s face. At first I felt indignant (Who was he to talk, given the number of times he’s run off on his own?), but after the blank disc and the empty office, I started thinking maybe he was right to be disappointed in me.

And then it seemed the worst part was having been so thoroughly played for a fool. I thought I was so clever. I thought I could play him, that I could pretend to go along with his demands but still maintain the upper hand in the end. How incredibly naive. There wasn’t a moment after we left my apartment that I was in control.

Finding out I had been used so comprehensively threw me for a loop. Mulder and the Gunmen explained how my email had been hacked and cloned, showed me the messages that had been sent in my name. Well, the Gunmen did most of the explaining. Mulder mostly glowered. Seeing it there on the screen, evidence of months of correspondence between Cobra and someone pretending to be me, made me sick to my stomach. That this could have all been going on, for as long as it did, while I was none the wiser, is nearly impossible to believe.

It is only now, days later, that I finally realize even this wasn’t the worst part.

Because I can’t seem to stop thinking about those last few moments before Cobra’s death. Because I have woken up in a cold sweat four times in the past three nights, haunted by the look on his face when he realized he’d been set up. When he thought I’d set him up. Because my stomach still turns at the memory of watching the bullet hit him, watching him fall over the side of his boat, struggling and failing to grab hold of him as shots were fired at me, too.

Because I know, now, that if I had just walked away after I woke up in the lake house, he might still be alive. If I’d failed to turn up at our rendezvous, he probably never would have come out of hiding. And all his work, all that science, never would have fallen into the hands of that double-crossing, cigarette-smoking son of a bitch.

In trying to do the “right” thing, I only messed everything up. An innocent and arguably brilliant man is dead, and life-saving, world-changing information has been stolen by someone who will only use it for personal gain.

My instincts in this case were so utterly, disastrously wrong, and because of that, I became an instrument of the very group of men responsible for some of the greatest evil I have ever encountered. That is the thing I am not likely to get over for a very long time.

#x-files fanfic #txf: en ami #cigarette smoking man #mulderfic #scullyfic #mulder's stupid brain disease thing #a/n: i hope you'll indulge my experimentation here #i wanted to play a bit with alternating first person povs #don't worry #this isn't a format i'm going to stick with long-term or anything #;)

[floret-botanica]

Ship game! Dob/Corazon and/or ...whatever the Blades equivalent of polyguild is. XD Polycrew?

Oh, Dob and Corazón my beloveds. I will now have to learn how to put stuff under a cut because this might get long. got long.

Ship It — Dob/Corazón

I will say first off that Dob/Corazón is probably my favourite ship of all time, and certainly the one with the most staying power.

What made you ship it?

Wow, this has changed so much since the start of the Oxventure. This was the first thing, and for a long time, the only thing I shipped, and I did so almost immediately. There are so many things I love about the two of them together, but, I have to admit, the original reasons are that Corazón is hot, I am gay, and I didn't fancy him with Egbert.

What are your favourite things about the ship?

This is a fairly inane answer, but just. The character interactions. The banter! The hijinks! They're so different but also so similar, and I love it. They're both so insecure. Corazón is sure that everyone will leave him eventually, so he tries to make it happen on his terms, while Dob is very much on team "be the good, funny emotional support person and make them need me so they have to stick around." I'm honestly really struggling to articulate why I love this ship so much. They see themselves in each other and that's scary but also incredible.

I also love the drama, and I just think that they'd make each other worse (then maybe build back up together).

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

I'm not really sure. As you said, there aren't really enough people in this fandom to have unpopular opinions. I guess it's that I want them to be competent? I enjoy this ship because while they are very foolish, and inept, they are also competent (yes, those are antonyms, no, I will not be taking any criticism). I also found Dob quite annoying for ages because I'm the party treasurer and rules lawyer and he's just. Very chaotic and quite A Lot. Grew out of that one though.

To ship or not to ship? — Polycrew

I'm going to answer the not shipping questions for this one because I haven't done them, but there will be an elaboration on my feelings about it.

Why don't you ship it?

The format of Oxventure Blades in the Dark means that we very rarely get to see the whole crew interacting. I know that I will definitely eventually ship it, but until we have some more full crew hangouts (or I read fic about it lol), I'm going to keep shipping (almost) every combination separately.

What would have made you like it?

Mostly answered above, but I think it is just a matter of time. Barnaby is also a bit of a sticking point for me, because He Isn't Very Nice Right Now and I'm struggling to fit him into the dynamic. I think it's because I imagine polycrew happening "right now" in canon, while him and Kasimir or Edvard is, in my mind, quite far in the future.

Despite not shipping it, do you have anything positive to say about it?

I already know it's going to be so good. Even though I can't imagine the dynamic or sequence of events at the moment, I'm so looking forward to the beautiful chaos. It'll click, like polyguild did, and it will be incredible.

#long post #messing around with asks #oxventure watching

[monster-noises]

RaaAAaAAuGh

I'm all Art Frustrated, not like Big frustrated when i tty and draw and it doesn't work and i get all Big Sad but just like.. Art Gumpy and i need to grumble about it

I've run into just.. A Number of challenges working on Lazarus's main portrait that are things i run into routinely every time i paint, they aren't like.. insurmountable problems but they're places where my knowledge and skill fall short and every time i have to throw up my hands and say

"welp guess this will just have to be what it currently is cause idk how to make this work how i want and i still got Several miles to go on this thing before it's done"

It's all fiddly weird stuff like.. figuring out how to make the monotone shading layer+overlay technique work the way i want it to, incorporating the linework into the painting to get a more shapey semi-lineless vibe to match my full lineless painting style but like.. Easier, making Meaty and/or wet things look the appropriate amount of shiny and wet, getting the right feel on a loose and messy lineless background(and hinestly just in my painting in general) where it isn't just muddy shapes but it's also not distracting harsh chunks of colour, and really pushing my poses and anatomy to keep things grounded but also feeling fluid elastic and animated(which sometimes comes naturally and sometimes just Won't Happen which is always bizarre and frustrating)..

They all come back to like 2 root causes :

1) learning is hard; from knowing how to find the Right resources, to being able to execute on what those resources are telling you, to being able to then apply that to different scenerios, and have the info stick and stay Understood it's....mmmmMM... the whole process is a nightmare that never works for me. (I go through this cycle all the time of trying to push myself to find teaching resources and try and Learn about what i want to do. often I'll ask around how other people learn/do things in case y'know i have been interpreting the method wrong or there's a better way for someone with my bad brain to do these things... But every Single time all the advice is stuff i already do or is stuff I know Of but can't use because i can't make that lateral leap from Theory -> Application and there's really no one out there tutorializing That step of the process, so I just... Put it away again until I forget what happens every time I do this and inevitably stumble into the same results...)

And 2) way waaaaaay back in highschool i trained myself/was trained in a method that like.. took "know your fundamentals" in a very literal way and was kinda pushed into focusing on making everything ""right"" but rules of realism rather that "right" by how i learned and what i wanted to achieve.

It did and continues to Righteously Fuck Me Up. (Knowing your fundamentals is true and important but there are different Ways to learn and understand the fundamentals that can be very specific to what you want to do and how you learn. Trying to elbow someone into a learning format that takes their art Away from what they want it to be is setting them up for long term issues and potentially loosing their passion, but that is perhaps its whole own other post. I see big proffesionals talk about this on twitter a lot and i get so ffffffrustrated because of my own experiences but i don't say anything because i don't want to Invite twitter users to casr their eyes upon me like that.)

And i'm just UGH so frustrated.. it's all these bitty little things that I know would make my art better but all I can seem to do about it is trundle around in the dark hitting my head against the walls until i either stick the landing through brute force and luck or sit down and give up where i stand.

Cjkdso idk i don't really have a point or concise ending statement to make here it's just really tough seeing so many little ways your art could actively be so much better and closer to what you want but those ideals remain juuuuuust out of reach because you have Brain Don't Work Disease and a rather controlling friend in highschool (_=<=)_ =3*sighs*

#monster noises #i'm a Notorious over-renderer #my instinct is to keep detailing and tightening and detailing and tightening #and it can really derail things to get stuck in that loop #which is when my art that is supposed to be fluid and full of motion #made of strong defined shapes and colours that flow and blend into like.. harmonious movement #always turns out more.. detailed and often perhaps challenging to read #the Ghosts of those strong basic shapes and looks are there but they're clouded by this pervasive semi-realism that sticks it's landing #just a liiiiiittle too far on the side of realism #Harumph Harumph #my severe time and energy restrictions sure don't help none either #but if i start thinking about that i will Genuinely get sad so lets Nooooot go there