#which is gonna require a lot of going Back To Basics of defining the tone n stuff

[sprucewoodmpreg]

been trying to think abt compressing the life series -> figuring out exactly what defines each season, eg tone, themes, reoccurrences, etc. figure out exactly what makes each one distinct and explain it as simply as possible. it's awesome but also Not easy

#i also enjoy trying to figure out what the most ''iconic'' item/block of each season is #so far i've got 3l = banners. ll = wither skulls. dl = goat horns? liml = tnt minecarts. and sl isn't over yet #i say ''iconic'' but moreso i mean like. what's a recurring item that seems to reflect the values of the season #idk. i still want to be able to make a big teardown post about 3rd life one day. but i need to work on ripping it apart first #which is gonna require a lot of going Back To Basics of defining the tone n stuff #i guess it's like. if you had one sentence to tell a story. what would you choose to say

[time-to-write-and-suffer]

What are some of your favourite tropes?

Do you have any tropes that you hate reading but love to write?

Are there any tropes that you would like to see more of?

Honestly, I'm pretty generic when it comes to tropes, and will vibe with any of the great oldies like your typical chosen ones, lost royalty, elemental magic, runaway princess etc etc. It all comes down to execution, which is where I usually get up on my very very very tall and smug horse.

As for tropes I hate reading but love writing? I dunno, is that a thing? Why would I like to write stuff I hate to read? The closest to this mentality I'd get is probably when I think I could pull off a thing better, but I only think so because I like the tropes/ideas in the first place. I usually look for things I want to read, and write stuff I would like to read, as well. I'm not really someone who likes to read things that aren't already in my general area of interest. I don't go "Wow I hate this thing! I'm gonna write it now!"

That being said, for how popular enemies-to-lovers is, I can't remember reading a good example of it, lol, but I do very much want to write it someday. Then again, people define enemies-to-lovers in such broad terms that it's really a matter of taste. It's just that nobody has yet to hit that specific collection of requirements I personally have for the dynamic.

One trope I think is very tasty and delicious is reverse horror, and that term is mostly used to describe video games at the moment. But I loooove the idea of a horror story where the true horror is the protagonist. Like, not action stuff like Doom or anything like that, but imagine a straight up horror thing where the creatures or monsters come out swinging, then the tone shifts as you realize they're the prey, and the thing they're messing with is a much bigger threat.

It's a trope that understandably doesn't have a lot of maneuverability in terms of storytelling, cuz once you do this, you've pretty much deleted all the tension and turned it from horror to action or comedy, but it's great power fantasy fodder. I've been playing with the idea of some sort of angelic monster hunter that follows this premise, where their catchphrase is "be not afraid" because their true angelic form is incomprehensible and terrifying to the demonic horrors of the story, but they're still a good guy.

Related to that, I also love the "No-Sell" trope, particularly when it's employed by an underdog character against the Big Bad. I'm kinda over the anime-ass climaxes where the protag must be beaten to a pulp in order to find their last reserves of power and save the day. We don't all need to follow that three-act structure. So I would like to see stories where the villain's downfall has been planned for a while, and they've already lost because the hero eclipsed them long ago, but just don't know it yet.

Also I think we should bring back revenge stories. No more "uwu revenge bad just ask nicely for justice" shit. I hate it when revenge stories are now framed less as "this will have consequences for you, and will likely hurt you and not really bring any closure" and more as "uwu violence is never the answer! violence bad! just forgive and forget or you will be as bad as the perpetrators!" Stories thrive on conflict and people doing bad shit, at times self-destructive, but often justified or at least understandable. All this moralizing and crap makes for really miserable reading and/or viewing. Noboy's out there saying John Wick shouldn't have avenged Daisy.

Basically right now I'm in my "What if MC was the monster all along?" phase. "What if, in my quest to stop the horrors, I must become what they fear?" type shit.

Anyway it's late and I'm rambling, but I hope this answered your questions!

[grandducktale]

“All Yet Seems Well” - Game of Thrones, Dexter, YGO, and the legitimately troubling trend and implication of “the problem play’s” re-emergence in pop culture

So first off, spoilers, naturally. Gonna be talking tragedy here. Also, cringe warning. I’m going to use mostly anime here. Kid cartoons, even.  But there’s a point to all this. If you were fans of Dexter or the television series “Game of Thrones”, any show that had more than anything an “unsatisfying finale” you might be able to pick up what I’m putting down.

What is a tragedy? The definitions vary, but it is a troubling or melancholic story with an unhappy ending. 

A Tragic Hero is easy enough to define. Hamlet from Hamlet, and Spike Spiegel from Cowboy Bebop. These two men are tragic because they pass away, and are unable to fully protect what they hold dear. But... I wouldn’t say they’re truly tragic. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t want to be either of them, but Spike Spiegal and Hamlet do to an extent accomplish some of their goals, and go out in a blaze of glory, score a moral victory, something.

(Pictured Above: Spike saying “Bang” as he bleeds out after killing his nemesis and destroying half a criminal empire in a wild one man blaze of glory)

This post is not about those characters. This post is not even about tragedy, necessary. This post is about problems. Problem plots, problem characters, and problematic implications. The title of this post is “All Yet Seems Well”, because the shows and the characters I am about to discuss are highly reminiscient of Shakespeare’s “Problem Plays.”

To start, let me bring up the character of Shouzu Hiiragi from Yu-Gi-Oh Arc-V(a cartoon about children playing competitive card games Konami makes to sell trading cards). Arc-V is basically the “problem play” of YGO, if said play had a caged gorilla break out and steal the spotlight for the last third of the performance. “Problem Play” is a vernacular used to refer to three of Shakespeare’s plays that couldn’t quite be pegged into tragedy or comedy, that provoked discussion either about the plot’s structure, the means used to resolve the problem, or both. For those not even slightly into Shakespeare, I’ve always viewed the operetta The Yeomen of the Guard as Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Problem Play”, so to speak, though Yeomen might as well be a straight up tragedy relative to Gilbert and Sullivan’s other works. 

But what makes a “Problem Play” a “problem play”, precisely? Well, since we’re talking about YGO Arc-V, lets go to Act V of one of Shakespeare’s “Problem Plays”, All’s Well That Ends Well. Act V, scene three, to be precise. 

King: Let us from point to point this story know, To make the even truth in pleasure flow: If thou beest yet a fresh uncropped flower, Choose thou thy husband, and Ile pay thy dower. For I can guesse, that by thy honest ayde, Thou keptst a wife her selfe, thy selfe a Maide. Of that and all the progresse more and lesse, Resoluedly more leasure shall expresse: All yet seemes well, and if it end so meete, The bitter past, more welcome is the sweet.

So to understand the “problem” with the above(besides finding a more contemporary translation and supplementing that with sparknotes, tvtropes, and google), one must understand the gist of the plot of “All’s Well That Ends Well.”

Basically, the protagonist of the play, a common girl by the name of Helena, has just prevailed in her desire to marry the love of her life, the highborne Ward of France, Bertram. The audience and the reader should in theory rejoice in such a moment. Helena was given the ability to choose her husband as a reward for saving the ill King, and though she picked Bertram and stipulated that he did not have to marry her, and though Bertram did not directly reject her but instead provided her with two nigh impossible tasks that required guile, intelligence, and strength to prevail, something just seems off. (Perhaps this is why the King says “All Yet Seems Well)

What is it that is off? Is it that Helena was for whatever reason the only one in France capable of curing the King? Is it that for someone as skilled and cunning  as Helena, telling Bertram he doesn’t have to marry her is pointless? Is it Bertram’s own psychological manipulation, to the point that even if these two people married and truly did love each other, that their happiness is a righteous person’s misery? That doubt, that uncertainty, the vague feeling that runs contrary to the overt, happy plot is what makes up a “Problem Play.” 

Shozu Hiiragi is tragic not because of a vague sense of malice or villainy inherent in his character like Helena. No, in fact, he is an authentic version of the “Noble Commoner” facade that makes Helena so problematic. YGO Arc-V is about a kid named Yuya trying to make it as an entertainer after his father left him at a very young age, vanishing into thin air. Yuya was bullied severely, and his father was supportive and this larger than life figure. Naturally, his abrupt disappearance was a traumatic event for Yuya.

Yuya compensates for this disappearance and his past by playing Pagliacci, a sad clown. The Pagliacci thing aside, the show makes it quite clear in the first three episodes that Yuya holds on so tightly to his identity as an entertainer because of the absence created by his father’s disappearance

Now before I get to Shouzu Hiiragi, I have to talk about Yuzu.  Yuya’s childhood friend and sweetheart is a girl named Yuzu Hiiragi. 

Shouzou Hiiragi is a lifetime friend and operator of Yushou’s entertainer school.  To summarize without being too spoilery, the audience eventually finds out that both Yuya and Yuzu are alot more important than they seem, and that they sort of just... appeared one day as babies. This is where Shouzu starts to become tragic, since we learn that not only did he raise a child that wasn’t his, he did so as a single father

 So Shouzu was second banana to Yushou, but he was an entertainer of some renown. He gave it up so he could raise his adopted child, and later on, act as the operator of “You-Show Duel School”, a school named after Yusho but ran by Shouzu since Yushou disappeared.

Now there’s a lot of issues with Arc-V. A lot, a lot, a lot, a lot. I am focusing on Shouzu but there’s so much to talk about with how this series has a lot of problems that its tone clashes far too hard with. But I’ll show a meme image out of context for the heck of it. 

I focus on Shouzu because he is the legitimate avenue towards Yuya and the show’s main conflict of balancing entertainment with legitimate hurt, dangerous conflict, and immense suffering and pain. He is a man who does good and puts his ambition aside out of alturism to start, but more than that, he is a genuine father figure to Yuya despite all that is on his plate. 

Like his costume of flame suggests, Shouzu is hot-blooded and passionate. As the plot progresses, Yuya struggles with doing what is right, being a good entertainer, preserving his father’s legacy, and a whole bunch of things. The advice of his father, Yusho, and the advice of his mother, Yoko, is to “smile when he feels like crying” 

This advice isn’t bad, but it is a crutch and a mantra for Yuya, one the direction of the show itself portrays as unhealthy and stunted. (When Yuya cries, he tends to wear his goggles so as to not let it show). So let’s analyze a sequence near the beginning of Arc-V’s 140+ episode. Yuya had obtained a special power like any Campbell Hero, but his rival, Reiji Akaba managed to copy said power in a duel against him(Which Yuya won, anyways albeit due to Reiji having bigger things to deal with)

Being bullied and having a traumatic past, then obtaining a special power unique to him that allows him to win duels, and then LOSING that special power, gets to Yuya a lot, even if he is plenty competent as a duelist.

So he runs away in tears.

Shozou hits Yuya with some facts about how naturally, if a technique or special ability in a game was discovered that gave someone an edge, it would only be a matter of time before other competitors used it too. But Shouzou then challenges Yuya to a duel, and instead of telling him to smile instead of cry, instead re-frames Yuya’s situation of losing his unique ability in a postive and constructive manner

A lot goes on in Arc-V, but the pendulum that Yuya swings back and forth on is the legacy of his father and becoming his own person. Shozou, who is Yuya’s de facto father, provides a path towards the latter. 

But... to make a long story short, Shozou is forgotten about. Yuya keeps chasing after his father, and the lesson he learned from Shozou is forgotten. Arc-V, which if you haven’t been able to tell from my essay on the main character’s girlfriend’s dad has an amazing ensemble cast, and spends 50 episodes developing these great ensemble characters.

But in the next 50 episodes, the ensemble characters fade into the background, and Yuya takes center stage only to repeatedly just smile and want to be like his father.

And in the last 50 episodes, the show gets downright mean spirited. A likable ninja character that has the design of a generic henchmen is killed off unceremoniously, an unlikable legacy character manages to shrug off that fate with ease. 

All the while, the show keeps this upbeat tone of optimism and Yuya triumphing.

And Yuya does triumph, he does save the day, but it’s all wrong. 

I am only skimming the surface here, but the reaction I saw and was invoked in me about Arc-V’s ending was the same reaction I saw with Game of Thrones’s ending.

Something along the lines of “I don’t mind a bad ending, so long as it is tonally consistent and not a confused mess!” 

Were this sentiment unique to Arc-V that’d be it. But it is applies to the end of Game of Thrones, Dexter, Netflix’s Watchmen, damn near EVERYTHING that was popular this past decade. This trend of something having a strong beginning and then fading into tonal nonsense, to the point that the viewers either speculate on finding the “true” “hidden” meaning of a piece

, or worse yet, an active desire for a bad or evil ending, so long as that evil at least makes sense

So I have a bad feeling about all of this. Not just because a series I liked went down the toilet, but because, well, remove all these other mainstream series with promising beginnings that nosedove into the ground and crashed and burned, and what’s the most recent universally acclaimed show left?

That’s it. Breaking Bad. A nihilistic story of personal triumph at the destruction of everything else. Which has its place. But with Arc-V, with Game of Thrones, with all these shows, I see a trend of the absurd entering and ruining a show, which leaves people craving order, even if that order is horrible.

I mentioned Gilbert and Sullivan before, so I’ll end this rambling essay with a quote from a song  from the Mikado that was allegedly almost cut from it.

“ My object all sublime I shall achieve in time — To let the punishment fit the crime — The punishment fit the crime; And make each prisoner pent Unwillingly represent A source of innocent merriment! Of innocent merriment!”

The Mikado is a tale about the absurd and chaotic, the same absurdity that seems to be turning audiences to darker, more orderly, things. But the Mikado showcases both the trouble of the absurd, and the genuine opportunity and chance for grace the absurd provides. 

In my opinion, Problem Play Plots are actually tragedies more tragic than regular tragedies. Borderline horror, even. They bring up problems, and the easiest solution to those problems seems to be that of tragic selfish scheming. But perhaps that needn’t actually be the case. That a benevolent and convincing solution to these problem plots exist - one people can accept, and be inspired by, in a good way. 

And if that can’t be done, if the trauma and chaos of these shows serves no point, then the Gordian Knot of problem play plots must be cut. The damage they have done must be acknowledged, the mystery boxes resolved or done away with entirely.

#spoilers #Game of Thrones #Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V #Arc-V #Dexter #Breaking Bad #Shakespeare

[callsignbaphomet]

🖊🖊🖊🖊🖊🖊🖊🖊🖊🖊🖊🖊🖊🖊🖊🖊🖊🖊🖊🖊🖊🖊🖊🖊🖊🖊🖊🖊🖊🖊🖊🖊🖊🖊🖊🖊

Y'think thats enough pens? Either way I don't expect you to do somethin for aaaaaaaaaall of em lol

Gsudkblbzysuv hun, this is so beautifully chaotic!

🖋 Ginger's a vampire but both of her dads (Lee Grimm and Glenn Grimm) are werewolves (Mist Walkers). Both are trans men.

🖋 Jelani uses male, neutral or female pronouns. Has no preference to which ones someone should use.

🖋 Trevor knows ASL. His little brother was deaf and in his memory he learned ASL.

🖋 Angelus sorta, kinda had a daughter. Ok tl;dr back in the late 1800s he ran into this little girl that was living in the street and tried to steal some money off him but she got caught. He gave her everything he had on him and then she ran off and he lost track of her. Much later he found her again but this time she was a bit older, like 11 years old. They recognized each other and they both went to get a bite to eat and she told him she ran away from home because her parents were abusive. Obviously coming from a similar background he heavily sympathized but he didn't know the first thing about kids but he still took her in. She grew up, married and had kids of her own and those kids grew up and eventually his adopted daughter (her name was Alice) grew old and died of old age. He kept in contact with his sort of grandkids obviously but as his great grandkids grew older and had families and kids of their own Angelus distanced himself. How the fuck are ya gonna explain your sort of adoptivr great grandfather looks like a 20 year old twink? He's kept an eye out on them as a "friend of the family".

🖋 AJ introduced Angelus, Mahmud, Tre and Madison to his favorite hobby: parkour. The five of them regularly get together to free run in places they think would be both challenging and fun.

🖋 Madison introduced Mahmud, AJ, Tre and Xiomara to spelunking and scuba diving as a hobby.

🖋 Sanaa loves and collects windchimes. So Ingvarr modified an alarm clock to make any chime she puts on it chime whenever she sets the alarm. So instead of some jarring alarm she wakes up to a windchime.

🖋 Angelus has an abnormally high tolerance for pain to the point where he won't react to most injuries. This was due to years of having to learn to control his cries of pain because the more he cried out the harder he'd get beaten.

🖋 Trevor holds the world record for longest confirmed sniper kill. Can't be found in any public record but it's in Oracle records and that's good enough for him.

🖋 Jelani (Loke and Jela's grandad, not J lol) and Subira made a spell called "Bright Light". Basically a faint little orb of light that when cast makes anyone near it calm down. It works for regular nervousness, anxiety, panic attacks, anger and so on. It's one of those beginner type spells that barely requires any energy and it can either hover over the caster's palm or it can be "attached" to an object.

🖋 Sunniva (she was Ingvarr's first wife and the woman who gave birth to Loke) is still alive. After she became pregnant she heavily regretted it so that's why as soon as Loke was born she ran away without telling anyone anything. Loke was always told that she disappeared but honestly speaking he never knew her so he has no attachment to her. To him Sanaa is HIS mother and only her.

🖋 Latoya was what you would consider a sickly kid. Someone in another country sneezed and she got sick. Her colds and flus lasted longer than usual and she was a super skinny little girl. When puberty hit she took up sports and when she was 18 she started lifting weights, blew up in terms of muscle tone and got laser eye surgery. Now she's like Rambo in his prime but pretty.

🖋 Abigail is constantly coloring her hair different colors but her favorite is any hue of green since that's her favorite color. She'll also help and color anyone else's if they ask her for help.

🖋 Ginger and Abigail got married on October 13th. Yes, the wedding had a Victorian goth theme to it. Even though they couldn't eat it the cake was red velvet with black frosting and everything. It almost looked like a funeral 'cause everyone was wearing black. I hope to doodle Ginger and Abby in their wedding dresses someday.

🖋 Haakon had a habit of collecting leaves from different countries he visited and kept them safe. Ingvarr and Jørgen both keep journals with leaves of different countries they've visited. They write down the tree the leaf came from, country where they got it from and date.

🖋 Anette can't drive until she's 21. When she was 14 she took Jelani's car, drove her and a bunch of her friends super late at night in winter (from what I've read driving in Norway during winter is horrible), crashed into another car after she lost control, totalled both Jelani's car and the other car and severely injured some of her friends and the other driver. The funny/not funny part is Jela was planning on giving her that car when she got her license but she totalled it. It was BMW by the way. Fuckin' teenager driving around in a 2 year old Beemer lol.

🖋 Speaking of cars. Grete (Anette's mother and Loke and Jelani's aunt) is horribly afraid of driving. She can't get behind the wheel of a car without freaking out. Anette crashing made the fear 10x worse. She can be in a car as long as she isn't driving and the car isn't going too fast.

🖋 During a visit Anette convinced both her parents and Jelani to let her stay with him during the summer. She also convinced both Leah and Xolani to stay over as well. So for a whole ass summer Jelani had three teenagers staying over as a kind of sleep over vacation. It actually turned out fun in the end, the kids had fun and Anette and her rebellious attitude kinda softened.

🖋 Anette, Xolani and Leah have one defining thing in common. None of them know what to do with the rest of their lives. Thing is Leah is very nervous about it, Xolani is kind of aloof about it and Anette is kinda of frustrated about it. Anette is frustrated which leads her to act out and cause trouble. Xolani just looks like they don't care but they do. Leah is super nervous about it. Another thing they got in common is the three of them tend to look up to Loke and Jelani 'cause they feel both understand them better than their parents do.

🖋 Ginger is kinda very obsessed with portals. She's fascinated by them but also respects them as they are incredibly dangerous and unpredictable. She is basically the only person in the world that managed to control portals even if it's for a short amount of time.

🖋 Shaine got really into explosives when she was just a kid. After an accident with a dozen cherry bombs she was left partially deaf, now has to wear a hearing aid and is the explosives expert.

🖋 Before joining Oracle Katya financed her transition by making fake IDs and passports. She also doxxed corrupt government officials and ransomed vital information she got off them.

🖋 Loke is allergic to bird dandruff but would love to have a pet pigeon. At least he can have dogs which is his other favorite animal. His favorite dog is the pitbull.

🖋 Until he got together with Jelani all of Angelus's previous relationships were short and ended in kind of disaster because he constantly compared them all to Jelani and to him they didn't measure up. He ultimately said no to relationships around the 1930s and just fucked around. Obviously until he got shit faced once and confessed to Jelani he was in love with him and the rest is history.

🖋 Tre is one of the super rare seers that can see and feel visions. He's so sensitive that merely standing in an area with a lot of energy could affect him.

🖋 In Oracle there is a head of the organization and two leaders. Current head is Aleksey with Jelani and Angelus as leaders. There's always three as kind of a callback let's call it to when Oracle was started. Aleksey and two close friends started it so from then on there's always 3 leads. When Aleksey steps down Jelani will be head, Ginger will be the second lead and Angelus is the third lead, however he plans on making Trevor the third lead. The reason is because Angelus is fully aware of what he can and can't do and he knows damn well that he isn't lead of an organization material. When he steps down he'd be the Trickster team leader, that he can handle, and since Trevor left a vacant spot Loke would take that spot.

🖋 There is a place called Kironia. It's theorized to be a sort of epicenter for portal activities. Angelus and Ginger have been tasked with keeping an eye on it but it's shrouded in so much mystery most people don't think it's real.

🖋 Despite the fact that Trevor personally knows a Maker and a goddess (Jade, Latoya's girlfriend) he's still an athiest.

🖋 Trevor didn't have a name growing up, he chose the name Trevor because it sounded pleasant. He took his surname, Ravencroft, from a woman he'd heard of from other Oracle agents. He eventually got to meet Morgana Ravencroft, she thought it was flattering he took her name.

🖋 Speaking of Morgana Ravencroft, Angelus was first introduced to the concept of magic because of her. He went with Trevor to help him with some supplies and after being completely hypnotized by some illusions she gave him a book on the basics and helped him get started.

🖋 Loke stopped aging and it's something of a weird occurrence that is brought up every so often. When he was 28 years old he and Jelani (who was 15 at the time) were delivering some supplies to another village. They ran into bandits and as usual Loke was trying to protect Jelani and in doing so he was fatally wounded. Of course Jelani freaked the fuck out and his "fail safe" kicked in. Jela doesn't remember but Loke does, he saw Jelani change form and after dealing with the bandits he turned his attention to Loke and stopped him from dying. He was rusty as fuck so he put a little more oomph behind it and a tiny portion of his energy slipped into Loke. Neither of them know but Loke is basically kinda frozen in time when it comes to aging. So because of this Loke can't die unless Jelani dies.

🖋 Loke has a black feather that's warm to the touch and small embers can be seen floating out of it. He's never mentioned it to anyone and keeps it close to him. The feather came from Jelani when he changed form to fight off the bandits. After he blacked out and changed back Loke found the feather on the ground. He knew where it came from that's why he kept it. He's never told Jelani about that day because he doesn't know what it means and he thinks telling him would only serve to confuse him further.

🖋 Continuing with Loke, he's your average run of the mill berserker. That means he cannot use magic while in berserker mode or even with his weapons. The only ones that can do that are arcanist berserkers (the Nyota tribe). Sanaa is an arcanist berserker, she can use magic while in berserker mode. However, through years of practice Sanaa managed to teach Loke one spell that her people are really fond of. Falling Stars is a spell that has the user charge a single arrow. The arrow is shot upwards and as soon as it reaches high enough it splits into hundreds of arrows that rain down on the target. Loke started practicing when he was 8 years old and by the age of 30 he managed to pull it off making him the first berserker to use magic.

🖋 Jelani and Leah are two of the extremely rare and fortunate people that have gone through a portal and have returned. Whether their return was sheer luck or the fact that he's a Maker is something I'll elaborate on later.

🖋 Haakon knew Jelani wasn't a berserker. Haakon himself had a feeling that his grandson was something far more, if that makes sense. The day Jela was born Haakon had a dream but instead of fear he just felt an insurmountable amount of wonder. He's only ever told his wife, Eli, who in turn believed him. Both always made sure Jela didn't feel out of place and Haakon frequently encouraged him.

#theonedayking #reply #oc things #long post

[the-headbop-wraith]

1 _ 19 Brambles

Soft voices glide through the room, cutting and retuning to a new scene or tone or voice with rhythmic pauses.  It was a delicate matter to set one claw to the button of the remote and press with a stiff finger, cycling through the dull white noise that made up the blubbering television theme of each channel.  What was defined as ‘news’ was scarcely credible, many channels were dedicated to realty programs, infomercials that promised ‘satisfaction guaranteed or money back,’ and as always the static infused HBO special feature.

Therehad to be a better use for television. Humans just refused to find it, or the general population was content tonumb their minds into oblivion with this toxic waste of ozone.  Mystery huffed into the folds of the blankethe lounged over, and pressed his paw to the button again.  None of his companions had said anything, aslong as the soft background chatter remained below audible they were somewhateased by his habit.  The dog halflistened as Vivi went over the next destinations marked on the map, there werea few but they had lost time after the van was put into the body shop for repairs.  Mystery rolled over, sliding the telly remote along the sheet cover as he did, for ease of access and the minimal of movement required of reaching it.

The argument between Vivi and Arthur had been typical, Arthur on the opposing side wanting no pair of hands on the van aside from his own, and Vivi adamant about getting the exterior of the van patched up. Lewis had been like Mystery, huddled outside in the parking lot where it was relatively safe.  In the end, Arthur had folded under the assurance that nothing within the vans metal hull would be tampered with.  That had been the case of course from the beginning, even Vivi didn’t want the off chance of strange people poking through the vans back, and seeing the mess that none of them had made the effort to pick up.  There was no concern shed over the ward scripts, carved stones, and endless containers of sage and salt stashed in the cuvees – all over the floor.  Long ago Vivi had given up any attempt to explain these items to the inquisitive outsider.

“But the baseball stadium sounds more interesting,” Vivi said.  She and Lewis had the selection narrowed down – a hospital, a maternity store, and a bed and breakfast that was on their route.  Mystery personally preferred the bed and breakfast, and they might just stop in along the way since it was literally on one of their roads.  “A batter ghost?  Why is he there, and who is he?”  She scrolled through one of the tabs she had opened on the main page, there were a few pictures but nothing clear, no definite image of a spirit aside from a gray glob that could be easily be explained as lens flares or rudimentary odd shadows.

Behind her hovered Lewis, just above the head rest of the hard chair she had claimed.  Mystery had caught Arthur glancing over at Lewis a few times, from his position on the opposite side of the one bed.  It was probably difficult for him to wrap his mind around the sight, with Arthur being the analytical one of the group, struggling to rationalize whatever science there was into a free floating body.  To describe it, imagine bungee cords that are not visible, Lewis’ body was parallel of the floor but suspended a good two feet above the headrest and peering over Vivi’s fluff of blue hair and into the computer she held on her lap.

“What’s this activity about?” Lewis inquired. His body dips down, folded arms coming within inches of the headrest above Vivi.  He spoke aloud before she could read off the page, “‘Seen after games end on the field, sometimes caught in the stadiums big screen.’  Groovy.”

“There’s speculation he, or she – we don’t know – they could be a fan,” Vivi continued.  “There’s a case where one of the spectators suffered a concussion from a free flying ball, but they never went to the hospital and by the time they realized how serious the concussion had been, it was too late.”  She shifted in the uncomfortable seat, and Lewis raised himself a foot more reflexively.  “They could be trapped there or something.  What do you think, Art?”

Mystery recoiled from his leisure sprawl when Arthur jerked on the bed.  “Who- what?” Arthur sputtered.  He had met eyes with Lewis, when the free suspended body had shifted so Lewis could see him better.  Vivi kindly reminded Arthur the subject they were discussing, and Arthur set aside his notebook as he thought it over.  “Batter ghost sounds the most low key, but what about the rumors?”

Vivi tapped at the laptop, and Lewis shifted to view the key words she searched for.  “There are all the usual grainy shots, most caught when there’s a game. Lots of people, lots of cameras going off?”  She rubbed her finger over the scroll pad quickly, eyes flashing behind her magenta glasses.  “There are a few post game pics, but they don’t look any more better.”

“We could do with another low key investigation,” Lewis chimed in.

“You liked the ‘Owl Widow’ ghost?” Vivi accused, half a smirk on her face.  The Owl Widow had been horrifying as hell, but she was all bark and no bite.

“I can sympathize with anyone who would terrorize people that would hike all the way out to my house, to wreck the furniture and break the windows,” Lewis grumbled.  “But… she had such a gentle heart.  After all those years, it’s a tragedy.”

Vivi sighed and sank down in the chair, she pushed the laptop higher up onto her knees for Lewis viewing ease.  “She’ll be okay,” she persisted.  “Decades gone by and she just keeps on protecting those owls.”

Mystery folded his wrists together and pinned the remote under his lower paw. Those that study the occult would recall a myth which went, when a person and an animal die in each other’s company the souls are bound, and if the trauma of the event was powerful enough, a spirit would return.  The people of the town spoke of a young birder who had a favorite owl she took out to train.  It was believed that hunters may have mistaken her for some animal and shot her, and her owl, or some variation of the scenario.  Murder was suspected but due to lack of evidence ruled out, and the case was never solved.  However, not long following the incident hikers and campers began to tell stories about an abandoned home in the area, where dozens of owls would congregate to roost, and at night the shrill cry of a woman or a shrieking owl was heard within. Few would dare stay in the home, and those that attempted only made it a few hours into the evening before the ear splitting shrieks would drive them out into the night.

The Mystery Skulls had no problem with the Owl Widow and even believed the rumors false, until they as a group ventured up into the unexplored attic where the owls roosted during the day.  Vivi had no way of hailing the spirit, and the Owl Widow was as feral and skittish as any bird.  When the Owl Widow realized she was discovered, she abruptly vanished without a trace.  Later, Vivi learned that it was the local’s thrill seekers sport to stay in the home or try to draw out the Owl Widow for a good scare, and that was commonly done by vandalizing the home.  This disgusted Vivi and she refused to do anything more that would negatively affect the spirit.

Arthur climbed off the motels bed and gave Mystery’s head a warm rub as he waked by.  Mystery took his cue and climbed off the bed and followed his companion to the door, where Arthur pivoted and stopped him.

“Stay here,” Arthur urged, motioning the dog with his metal hand as his other hand took the door handle.  Mystery sat down and tilts his head as Arthur backed out. “I’ll be back in a gif, I’m just gonna check the laundry.”  Mystery raised an eyebrow as Arthur turned away and shut the door between them.

“Hurry back, then,” Vivi answered.  Mystery glanced her way as she resumed scrolling. “It irks me though.”  Lewis hummed in question and Vivi continued.  “This would be a lot of work running around, for one ghost.  Stadiums are huge, unless we find a binding object.”

“What’s the info on our subject?” Lewis asked, and pointed to the screen.  “Is there anything?  A name?”

“We could just use any old baseball I guess, if that’s what caused their death.”  Vivi was clicking links, hunting for a newspaper article in the cities historical database.  “There’s a lawsuit, but when s’there not?  Mystery.”  The dog looked up at Vivi when she called his name.  “Arthur said he wouldn’t be gone long.  Don’t worry.”

“That link there,” Lewis cut in, pointing to the un-highlighted title among the few darker cousin links on the screen.  “I got a good feeling about that.”

“Keep your socks on.  I got it.”  She clicked it and the two read silently to themselves.

Mystery shrugged his shoulders and returned to the bed. The layout of the motel room was as basic, dry, and boring as the thousands they had the privilege to stay in before – table, armchair, lamp, vanity desk, single bed – a picture print of a pasture with deer grazing in the tall grass, a distant lake and tall trees surrounding the scenery – framed and hung on the wall above the bed.  Mystery stretched out over the tussled sheets and adjusted his thin ankles over a stiff fold of the covers.  He raised the volume only slightly and resumed his meditation through channel surfing.

“There was also this guy that overheated and died while in the mascot costume,” Vivi mentioned.  “You’d think he’d come back as some sort of demon bonded to his costume.”

Lewis often wondered over Vivi’s unique style of thinking.  “What was the costume?”

Vivi fixed her hairband, then put her hands back to the keyboard and scrolled.  “A badger?”

“The stadium no longer sounds low key?” Lewis humped.  He rolled sideways in mid hover and folded one arm under his neck, as if to support his head by some invisible tabletop.  “None of the reports remark on any aggression, accidents?”

“No, you big chicken.”

“Bawk-bawk,” Lewis droned, void of any enthusiasm. “Is it too much to ask that we return to cases where some… angry thing doesn’t come crashing out of the shadows with a huge chip on its shoulder?  Have I mentioned, I would like that?”  He nods, as if agreeing over an important matter.

“Well…” Vivi let her voice trail off, and glanced up at Lewis.  They had those cases too often.  Failed cases she categorized them.  The encounters which were too volatile for traditional techniques and it was advised by any veteran paranormal investigator, that if you have no training in that particular field, you have no right to meddle with it.  In those instances it is strongly advised to pack up and book it rather risk harm, or worse.  It was another topic she wanted to ask Arthur about, but she wouldn’t bring it up with Lewis since he was in that realm himself.  

That place, it would have been one, it should have been a Failed case.  They just didn’t recognize the danger in time.  Another notch, a proud scar in their resume.  They never failed a case, but often the case did fail them, and she had failed them.

Packed up and ran away.  No matter what danger they left to those that came in their wake. Let the experienced, the demon hunters, deal with it.

“Huh?” Lewis asked, slanting one dark eye at her.

Vivi gave her head a shake and returned her attention to the screen.  “I thought of something.  Anyway,” she paused, noting she had exited out of some of the history articles. “Just a bunch of sightings. Nothing threatening.”

“Great,” Lewis chirped.  “What were you thinking, then?”

“I was wondering,” Vivi mumbled and curled down into the chairs back.  She looked up as Lewis peered down at her, prompting her to go on.  “Well….”

“Well what?”  There was something in his voice, something that had been absent until recent. Vivi had only realized it herself, but his voice was sounding more natural, vocal rather hollow.  Solid as if projected, rather than suggested through the vague scratch of an outdated radio.  The slight transition had been lost to her, while in constant company of her subject.  She wondered what sort of voice outsiders heard when Lewis spoke with them, or were they oblivious?  She could ask Arthur how much Lewis’ voice had changed.  “Vi?”

“Are you aware you’re floating?”  Vivi looked between Lewis and the floor, through the back of the chair she was nestled in.  “Can you do that intentionally or—” She winced to the audible thud that came. “Uhh….”

“I was not aware,” Lewis’ garbled voice came, somewhere beyond the chairs back.  “Thank you for notifying me.”

“Explain that to me.”  Vivi set the laptop down on the seat cushion and stood up, to peer over the chairs headrest.  “How can you not realize you’re free floating?”  She pulled back and sat on her knees when Lewis poked his head up, skull in place of a face, and he resumed a buoyant hover above the floor.

“I’m kidding,” he said, as he fixed the jacket collar.  Lewis felt his face, recognized the common distinction of solid spectral that symbolized his skull.  “My concentration broke—  I knew I was, but….” He fumbled, voice breaking off into scratches and he gave up. “Hard to explain.”  He winced and looked up to Vivi when she set her hand on the side of his skull.  The embers of his eyes brightened, most noticeably in Vivi’s glasses as she smiled at him.

“I get it,” she hummed.  “I’ll try not to do that again.”  

Lewis let his gleaming eyes dim and fall away from her tender gaze.  He pressed his cheek into Vivi’s palm and let his ethereal essence sooth out, calming from the choppy ripples that dug through his usual insubstantial eminence. Passive waves rolled through Vivi’s aura, strong, vibrant, and cool.  No wonder she had such power over the spirits; how could she not?  It was compelling and desirable, more than the once strong call that had persisted on him in that early time.  As the days ticked away the call became less, and less vibrant, until the draw had subsided into faint tugs; unpalatable and easily ignored.  Bleu Moyen.  High blue waves to dose his fires, severing his ties to the ravenous fury and blind ambition.  So clear. Everything became so crystal clear when he was with Vivi.

A low shudder burned in Lewis, when Vivi leaned over the headrest to kiss the upper edge of his jaw.  His eyes brightened in their dark sockets and a wisp of flame faded as Vivi drew back.  Lewis didn’t want to lose her, he could scarcely recall that time of the between. He only wanted to believe his feelings were genuine.

An interesting segment was on the history channel, describing ancient magicians of centuries past.  Mystery turned his ears up as the narrator described a priest of the pharaoh whom became famous for cutting the heads of various animals, and that animal would function normally, walk around, but without a head; after some time the priest would restore the head to the creature and it would resume life as normal.  This spectacle was never performed on a human, never a servant, the priest would always refuse, and what matter of the illusion was never discovered, though attempts have been made to recreate it.

By the programs end, Mystery was on his side fully content to watch out the conclusion.  No animals were harmed during the making of the program.  A hollow promise, but it had some effect of easing him a little to see the message and be reminded that some humans did care.  He rotates his head over to see Vivi more or less in the chair, she would be in the chair if Lewis wasn’t under her.  They had resumed discussion of what case was more favorable, but softer, as if Mystery wasn’t there.  He took a deep breath and let the air wheeze out of his nose.

Wait.

Mystery rolled over, off the bed and padded to the door.  He sniffed along the edge picking up Arthur’s most recent scent, and pawed at the scuffed up white paint of the door.  Mystery whined and looked up to Vivi and she peered over the computer in her lap, down at him.

“What’s up, Mystery?”

He barked and sidestepped at the door. Arthur.  How long has Arthur been gone?  Mystery resumed scratching at the door, and reared up on his hinds legs to take the L shaped handle between his wrists.

“He should’ve been back,” Vivi paused as she looked to the clock on the laptop.  “Forever ago.”  She stood up off of Lewis and crossed to the vanity desk, where the telly was stationed. She unplugged the computer, shut it, and stuffed it into her overnight bag on the desk.  She fished around for the room key as Lewis raised up from the chair.

“Maybe he had to re-dry the clothes,” Lewis suggested.  He stepped up beside Vivi and set his hand upon the shimmering surface of the mirror, and stared into the steady state of his skull and bright eye sockets.  He had worked on this off and on, he could ‘jolt’ his state back into his more favorable appearance with a flash of a thought.

“Or he could’ve gone for a walk.”  He briefly examined his face, the stubborn dark eyes, then turned to Vivi.  “Clear his head.  Think for a bit?  He’s been really quiet lately.”

Vivi’s attention was directed past Lewis, toward Mystery standing on his rear legs.  Mystery had tottered backwards with the door following his movements, and was now stepping out.  The door began to slip shut, but stopped when Mystery blocked its progress and gave a bark at them to hurry.  “Mystery doesn’t like to be away from Arthur for too long,” she said, as reason.  “I worry about him, I have to.”  Mystery ducked out of the doorway when Vivi stepped over to him.

“I know.”  Lewis snatched his sunglasses off the table as he followed Vivi out the door, and into the blazing sun of midafternoon.  Way past noon, the sky was getting the dusky soft purples that Lewis appreciated.  He wanted to converse with Vivi about the one time when the group managed to get hopelessly lost and spread out around the motel, only because they kept following each other around the main office building, with a length of the wall distancing them apart.  What messed them up was that they were just barely in ear shot, they could hear the nearest person but in all the confusion they never got it across, “Stay right there, I’m coming.”  They had run around in circles all day, but the scenario was straight from a cartoon and they had great fun anyway.

He decided not to encourage the memory.  It wasn’t so much for her benefit, but the thought of it pained him worse than….

“We just barely ate an hour ago,” Vivi mentioned. She and Lewis followed Mystery down the steps and through the small hallway that cut between the two halves of the motel.  As per destiny, the nearest convenience mart was adjacent to the motel.  Night or day, it didn’t matter to Arthur when he drank an energy drink.  Hell, he’d drink one before taking a nap.  Vivi would check there next.  “You didn’t have to come.”

Lewis gave a sheepish smirk, missed by Vivi. “Well, you didn’t stop me.”

Vivi could smell the warm scent of the dyer heaters as they walked along the wall to the laundry room; beside the kids play area, and the gated and tarped pool.  She pulled the door open and let Mystery and Lewis enter before she followed them into the cramped room.  “Not here?” she spoke, as she moved into the adjoining room with the washers and laundry detergent vendor.  

Mystery’s paws scratched and clacked on the cool tile as he wandered around, sniffing under a table and then at the edge of a wall. He turned to Vivi and gave some soft barks that echoed, unintentionally loud, off the walls.  Arthur hadn’t been here lately, but with all the oddball scents it was a trial to discern accurately a time.

The dryer was still thumping and rumbling. Lewis examined the timer and found it had fifteen more minutes.  “If you don’t think you’ll need me, can I have the room key so I can get this stuff up there?” he asks.

“Sure.”  Vivi pulled the car key out of her wrist sleeve and handed it over to Lewis. “We’ll see you back in the room in’a bit.”  She waved to Lewis as she returned to the glass door, Mystery scratched over the slippery linoleum to catch up with her at the door.  “Chao.”

“Good luck,” Lewis answered, as the door shut. A few minutes drift by and a thought occurred to Lewis.  When Arthur stepped out, Lewis wasn’t certain but he didn’t think Arthur had picked up the laundry bag.  If Arthur had come to the same conclusion, Lewis might run into him on his way to or from the room.

The room was still empty of Arthur and provided no insight of a short return.  Vivi shut the door and took the opposite path along the rooms, her eyes scanned about as she walked, in hopes to catch the faint blur of yellow contrasted on the open car lot below.  Mystery padded at her heel as they took the route for the back stairs that ran above the main office.  Below, a group of kids laugh as they race by, shoes slapping on the hard cement.  Vivi tottered at the rail trying to catch sight of the jovial youths; maybe Arthur was down there lost in his own thoughts and mildly discomforted from the innocent play.  It seemed like the situation he would be tossed into when he craved some seclusion.  The sounds fade somewhere, and if Arthur is below she cannot see him from the angle she’s at above.

“It’s a beautiful day,” Vivi murmured.  She paused on the steps to look out from the narrow arch and scanned the clear sky, the moist tinge still on the air from the recent rains.  “There was a park when we rode in, wasn’t there?”

Mystery stood sideways on the steps and stares at the sky.  He gave a soft yap.

“I know this deal with the van put us on a tight schedule, but we can do with a lil TLC.”  She continued down the steps, and Mystery followed.  “We’ve spent so many weeks cooped up together, I forget what open air feels like.”

The road that cut through this section of the city was not very busy, even throughout the day when people would be busy with errands. Vivi with Mystery crossed to the nearest shop mart with the highest gas prices she had seen in a hundred miles.  Down the sidewalk from their current residence, it was only a few blocks among the stores and cafes to the open flat of the body shop where the van was being adjusted.  The body shop was only going to fix up the ragged sides where the van had fallen and scraped, part of the deal was allowing Arthur to do the paint job himself.  That would leave the van looking half finished and metallic until they returned to home base.

As Vivi pushed the door of the convenience store open, a blast of balmy air hit her.  Immediately the clerk at the cashier counter piped up:

“I’m sorry, miss.  No dog’s allowed.”

Vivi let Mystery in anyway, and Mystery went on his way examining the racks assorted foods, and the doughnut case positioned across from the cashier counter.  “He’s a therapy dog,” Vivi answered.

The cashier, a tall woman with curly hair, hesitates as she looks back to the white dog free of a leash.  “Do you have papers?”  She seemed uneasy as Mystery sniffed along the corner of the tall doughnut case.  In Mystery’s defense, the doughnuts smelled exceptional that day.

“That depends,” Vivi rebuked.  She turned from the woman and looked over the near empty store, a few people drift around picking at the inventory in various sections – sweet, salty, and standard household goods.  “Did you see a guy come in here?  Shocked yellow hair, quail curl, orange vest.”  She turned to the cashier and the blank stare the woman wore.  Vivi motioned her elbow.  “Metal arm?”

__

Indeed it was a beautiful day.  Arthur was glad he had stepped out to enjoy it, get some fresh air.  He hoped the van was all right, he hated the thought of strange people putting their greasy hands all over his pride and joy.  Even if the van liked to break down in the harsh weather conditions, or guzzled gas like a leech did fresh blood, they didn’t pay for it.  He never asked how much it was going to cost, but Vivi had been the one driving at the time and she always insisted on these matters. Arthur gave up trying to fight her about it long ago.

He sighed and leaned back into the cool wall in the stores shadow.  It was cold only in the shadow, but standing in direct sunlight had warmed his chest too much and so here he stood in the shade, listening to the children in the nearby neighborhoods whoop and holler in play.  He put his hand back in his pocket, pushed the pack of gum aside, and pulled up the chainless pocket watch.  Four thirty-nine.  The laundry should be done by now, he didn’t want a collection of his pants in bacon ripple style.  Sickly yellow, bacon ripple style… whatever.

The watch went back in his pocket and Arthur brought the cigarette back to his lips for another draw.  His eyes half closed and he let the sizzle work in his throat. Two more minutes.  He calculated the time up in his head, two more minutes coupled with the walk back to the motel—, he forgot the bag.  Get the bag, go back down and collect the freshly dried pants and shirts.  Or he could forget the bag, have five more minutes to let his blood mellow.

“Arthur!”

He jumps in place and turns to Vivi’s accusing stare.  “Hey. I didn’t worry you, did I?” he rasped. Arthur took another breath and looked down from Vivi, to Mystery huddled behind her legs.  When Vivi began towards him, Mystery turns and bolts out of sight. Arthur backed up and hit the wall. He gets out a vague question as Vivi slaps the cigarette out of his metal hand.  “Whoa now!  What gives you the right—” He shut his mouth when Vivi grips the front of his shirt and heaves back a fist.

“You promised me you quit!” she snarled.

“I did!  I DID!”  Arthur tenses but makes no move to defend his face.  He probably deserved it.

It was on the prescription, among the long list of drugs compiled into his blood to keep his kidneys from shriveling up, his heart pumping, his capillaries clear of toxins.  They worried about toxins in his blood.  Arthur had laughed that day, it was so out of character they had to call in a psychiatrist to evaluate whether or not his brain had suffered mental trauma that was not foreseen since his earlier evaluations. Oh what medical science was blind to; oh what they were willfully ignorant of.  The only person that might’ve gotten the joke, wouldn’t have gotten it anyway.  That cruel irony made looking at her twice as difficult for the remainder of the month, but he found his way out of it.

The doctors advised Arthur to quit, obstructed capillary networks was what they labeled it.  It was common in amputees.

“Was this your first pack?” Vivi growled, tugging Arthur towards her.

He choked and spat out a no.  “I’m gonna stop though, I will!” he stammered, leaning back.  Why was Vivi so strong?  Arthur was no heavyweight, but she could pick up Lewis when he was alive.  “It always helped, with the… it just helped!”

“We have sage!” she hissed, face twisting, tears brimming in her eyes.

“But that’s so rude!”  Arthur cringed down fully expecting the blow to connect and knock some sense back into him.  He bought gum and sometimes chewed that instead, but it wasn’t the same.  He’d show Vivi once she calmed down.  He was hauled forward, staggering through the dark shade of his thoughts and awaiting the flash of light from her fist to cleave through his mind… but the harsh blow never comes.  Instead, soft arms wrap around him.  Arthur risks opening his eyes and stares down on the weed riddled pavement behind her blue heels.  His muscles remained locked, he didn’t dare move even when Vivi’s shoulders quivered. Arthur clenched his fists at his sides and rested his chin on the poofy sweater around her neck.

“I should have asked,” she mumbled into his shoulder.  “I should have asked you.”  She squeezed tighter around Arthur’s chest, as if fortifying his presence with her embrace. “Why didn’t I?”

“You…” he began, and hesitated.  Vivi said nothing, hadn’t calmed down, and Arthur went on, “already knew the answer.  Nothing’s changed.  This is fine.”

“No, it’s wrong.”  She pressed her forehead into the collar of that stupid amber vest Arthur always insisted on wearing.  “I wasn’t thinking about you, I wasn’t worried that….  Jesus, I don’t think.”  How could she forget?  Why had she been blind to this?  For all her intuition, her flexible and quick mind, how could she overlook such simple, yet crucial details?  Essential, yet fragile.  Delicate, but poisonous.  A balance that tipped dangerously.  

Arthur brought his arms up and wrapped them around her shoulders, gently.  “Vi, we’ve talked,” he insists.  “I told him I was solid.  I don’t have the right—” Arthur froze again when Vivi recoiled and pushed him back by his shoulders.

“That’s not an invitation!” She snapped.  “That’s submission!  That won’t do.”  Arthur let his head hang, but Vivi cups his chin in her fingers and pushed his face up. “No, Art.  Look, I’m not mad, I’m frustrated.  Well, maybe that’s not the truth.   I’m mad at me, not you.  But— Would you look at me!  I’m frustrated, that’s it.”  She stares into Arthur’s face as his eyes crease and his brows stretch, into a conflicted expression she was too familiar with.  “You’re not allowed to destroy yourself.  Are you listening?”  He nods, and tries to let his eyes drop from her steady gaze.  “What did I just say?”

“Don’t wreck myself,” he mumbled, below a breath.

“That’s good enough, I guess.”  Vivi sighed, and raised a thumb up to touch the lone tear that had made it past Arthur’s resistance.  “How do I save you?  How do I save my boys?”

“I miss Lewis,” Arthur says.  He shuts his eyes and begins to slip down to the cold ground, his knees fold up under him.  Vivi helps him down, pulling at his vest and trying not to grip the upper space of his left arm where metal met flesh.  “I’m keeping it together, pulling myself back.”  Vivi kneels in front of him and pulls him upright when he begins to sag sideways over his knees.  “I’m not gonna fuck this up too.  I can do this.”  He shuts his eyes and presses his metal palm to his forehead in an effort to cool his fevered brow.  “I can do this.  Just… just give me some time, and I’ll work it out.”

“Hey.”  Vivi brought her hands up and clasped Arthur around his forehead, his shocked blond hair folded under her palms as she held him.  Arthur tucked his eyelids shut and winced to her touch.  “Don’t push yourself so hard.  It’ll… you’re going to hurt yourself.”

“I know my limits,” he murmured.  Arthur feels his heart being ripped in two, skewered by icy teeth and shredded across his ribs.  “I can endure.  I can.”

“Don’t give me that,” Vivi hissed.  “You’re not impervious to— Art, wait!”  Arthur had ripped himself from her hands and managed up onto his feet, stumbling a bit as he spun away from Vivi still crouched on the broken asphalt. Vivi hopped to her feet and followed his stabbing steps. “Art’ur!”  She jerks back when he whirls on her.

“I’m not fragile, Vi!  God, I’m not going to come apart and scatter in the wind.” Arthur screams, his body movements erratic as he gestures with his hands; the prosthetic arm is dull and awkward while he’s amid a state of distress.  “My legs are strong, my mind’s still here!  I’m okay!  Just… chill.” He motions his arms, bringing them down to his hip level as Vivi watched.  “You don’t trust me?  Do you?”

Vivi searched for something else to focus on, and settled for the edge of the motels roof beyond the corner of the convenience store Arthur had hidden behind.  “Sometimes you forget Art,” she says.  “You’re so focused on anything else, you avoid the little things.”  She shakes her head and then looks back to Arthur.  “I don’t want to forget for you.  I can’t drag you down.”

Arthur stuffs his hands into his pockets and toes at the crumbling cement, trying to dislodge a thick stubborn stalk of a wilting weed.  He recollected on Vivi before the Cave, ambitious headstrong Vivi, always leading the way.  Lewis always right there for her, to grab her and pull her back from the edge of disaster when it suddenly opened up in her path.  And Arthur… him, always a step behind, the last one into the room, always lagging behind the others.  The first to run, or the one somehow caught.

“Vi,” he says, “you never dragged me.  If anything—” He stopped, and looked up at her.  “You brought me back.  You were there when I woke up.”

Vivi doesn’t meet his eyes as she moves towards Arthur.  She takes him by the wrist of his metal arm and pulls the hand into hers and examines the stiff, numb digits, Arthur had carved himself.  “I wasn’t always there,” she confessed.  “I didn’t want to be there.  Art?”

“Hmm?”  The air became chilled when a cloud, or the sun, had inched behind some obstruction that blocked the strong yellow rays.  He couldn’t feel Vivi’s fingers tracing the mars and etches in place of his metal palm, he could only detect the vibrations he had grown accustomed to when faint touch fell onto his false limb.  When he had built his first prosthetic and attached it, Vivi had never taken a second look at it.  He had always been gratified by this.  

“We should look for Mystery,” she suggests, and tugs him by the wrist with no force applied.  “I think he went this way.”

Arthur followed without protest.  “We should talk a bit.”

“We’ll talk a bit,” Vivi echoed, leading Arthur behind her by his hand.

“It’s such a nice day, or was,” Arthur muttered, and squinted at the darkening contours of the sky.

Vivi led their way towards a dark alley behind the convenience store, chain link fences and the clay floor packed down, overgrown with trees and weeds.  It looked more interesting and secluded than the open sidewalk beside a road.  “I thought we could hit the park tomorrow.” Vivi’s voice brightened a bit.

As they departed the wall and Vivi’s voice twittered with the prospect of a day for just them, a dark shadow rose across the glossy paint of the brick.  The shadow seeps from the walls surface and reforms itself, bright magenta illuminates along its outline and spreads across its torso and legs.  A gilded heart pulses at the broad chest as the dark hue fades by degrees, until it is restored to its pacified shape.

Lewis took a step from the wall and leaned back onto it, he crossed his arms over his chest as he watched Vivi and Arthur disappear down the alley.  He thought of following them and making certain Vivi was safe, but he decided that may have been a lame excuse to eavesdrop on following conversations. He’d… done enough of that.

“What happened to us?  I mean, why did we let this happen?”

Vivi’s words rattled in his mind.  He remembered Arthur then, catatonic, sleeping.  His aura had been in its most indolent in that state, and Lewis had for a moment believed Arthur had died, if not for the shallow movement of his chest.

The questions plagued his deepest contemplations, alternating, “Why did we? What happened?”  As if she were before him now asking the same question, inquiring for some form of answer he too yearned insight into.  There remained the questioned he flittered away from, the ones that he could ponder over for long hours, while time held him prison to witness superficial events from afar.  The locket thrummed at his chest, always steady, sometimes thunderous, and then at other times its as somber as a coo.  The questions in their most basic function nibbled at him:  What and Why?

It was all a ruse, he promised himself. He only intended to frighten them.  Get them to abandon his mansion and force them far-FAR away, never to return.  Leave him to sleep and forget, and fade away with each pulse of his heart.  That was his intent, he swore it was all that he meant to do. Play up the theatrics, convince them it was not worth their time or sanity.  He was incapable of killing.... unlike Arthur; it was beyond his nature, he swore it wouldn't go that far no matter how much… he suffered. The long, endless cycle of time tormenting his existence, abandoned and betrayed by someone he thought of as a dear friend. Something...  somewhere… it all went wrong.

  Reuniting with Arthur. The event brought something out of him, something he never genuinely contested before. Not with earnest. The unbridled horror in Arthur's features when Lewis emerged from his coffin, the unsightly attributes which cost everything he held dear and precious; his brazen perplexity upon seeing this… ghost. It pissed him off. He wanted to wipe it out, make Arthur taste some of that spite that curdled his soul. He couldn't stop, he absolutely could not stop himself. How far could he drive Arthur on before he broke? Arthur deserved the suffering, the torment and hostility unleashed by his failings. Nothing would make this right, but Lewis also couldn't elude that anger. It was as much of a part of him now as the locket affixed to his chest. Inseparable. 

And then she was there.  It had happened so fast and Lewis couldn’t bear it.  The ache in his hollowed chest when he saw her for the first time since….

He said goodbye.

Why he remained far past his expiration was never a controversy for him.  The question that stumped him when he was not careful, and it came upon him when his defenses were down: What was he now?

Lewis rounded the corner of the convenience store and walked across the parking lot.  He saw Mystery on the sidewalk beyond the gas pumps waiting for Vivi, or him, he was on the sidewalk beside the crosswalk marks that bridge across to the motel.  The dog perked up at Lewis’ approach, and Lewis said nothing until he reached his four legged ally.  “How’s it going?” Lewis rattled, his voice near toneless.

Mystery’s answer was to tilt his head and lower one ear at an angle.  He stood and pivots to cross the road, glancing around for any speeding traffic; there were no cars but Mystery was careful to look anyway.  He spins about when Lewis begins to walk off, and Mystery pads up to follow at a distance.

“I’m not going back to the room yet,” Lewis explained.  “Vi and Art are looking for you.”

Mystery’s steps slowed and he fell back.  That didn’t make sense, any one of them knew without a fail that if he was separated from his company, he would either turn up at the van or the current place of occupation.  He gave his head a shake as he resumed his quick pace, struggling to keep up with Lewis long stride.  It was evident Lewis was in no hurry, but Lewis probably wanted to be alone and Mystery knew he couldn’t allow that.

They came to the busier district of the widespread city.  Mystery recognized it down the road from the motel, an easy to and from for some of the better diners and the cafes.  Arthur was impossible when it came to the prospect of being stranded, and the distance to a place for a worthwhile cup of coffee.  Mystery woofed at Lewis’ back.  Lewis didn’t need a reminder that he was out in public, and not dressed for one on one interactions.  Numerous shops throughout the city block catered to tourists, featuring carved wooden animals, jewelry, or rugs and quilts.  The small clumps of people they passed would give Mystery odd stares, and Mystery began to wonder what for.  It wasn’t unusual for people to stroll around with a ‘pet’ off the leash, was there a city ordinance he was not aware of?

Then it dawned on him.  No shadow was cast under Lewis and he had no reflection in the shop windows.  Lewis was hiding.

This didn’t alarm Mystery, if it was Lewis’ wish to go unnoticed then he was entitled to that.  For Mystery matters were complicated.  Head up, chest puffed out, ears proud and forward facing.  He had someplace to be and that was where he was headed.  He observed that humans rarely bothered a dog with confidence, minding his or her own business and on their way to wherever dogs go.  What humans did not trust was a timid, confused, lost creature that scuttled away from attention or drifted around.  If he kept moving it would make tracking him difficult.  Even so, he had his collar and tags and people would regard that and conclude he was just a regular out for a walk.  He would be fine, and he had some notion of Lewis’ destination.

As predicted they arrived at the body shop where the van was left.  Show Car Remake and Renew, a general garage and minor vehicle repairs.  The main garage was a long gray building with a few windows along the uppermost walls, and the large shutter doors at the base drawn down and locked for the evening.  The far side of the lot was overnight parking, the cars and trunks caged in by tall barbed wire fence.  Mystery followed Lewis to the fence but was forced to wait, as his transparent companion slipped through the metal links and entered amongst the many vehicles.

Mystery lost sight of the ghost as his tall figure weaved around the portion of large vehicles and trunks.  Mystery spun around and looked back to the road as the first streetlamps snapped on, cars sped by and after a short time of waiting the street quieted.  It was getting late, the air grew colder.  He sat down and gave the spot behind his ear a dedicated scratch, working to straighten out the hair bent there.  He tensed when a white utility trunk drove by and seemed to slow down – at least to Mystery it looked like the vehicle was stopping – but no, the truck sped up and the dog let out a sigh.  Never was the best time to run off and get lost somewhere in a strange city, with strange people, and strange beliefs.

Vivi and Arthur would be wondering where he was, if they had managed to reach the room by now.  They shouldn’t worry, but Mystery admitted he was not immune to dangers, or the mild irritations offered by the few humans he could do without meeting.

The sudden awareness of a presence at his back caused Mystery to twist around.  It was only Lewis, slipping through the large chain links in the fence.  Mystery examined him over and noted the piece of cloth tangled in his hand.  Ah.

Lewis looked at the cloth between his fingers as he untangled it.  “Are you still afraid of me?”  Mystery raises his snout higher and glares through his spectacles at Lewis.  “Would it be enough if I apologized?”  He unfolded and refolded the cloth and straightened out the creases to the best of his ability.  It had been folded and pressed wrong for quite some time.  

Mystery give a soft woof and steps back from Lewis. They should head back now.  The dapper specter wouldn’t budge.

“You were there for Arthur,” Lewis whispered, traces of flames bud from his shoulders and hair.  “But not for me.  Why not? Why is it…?”  He tightened his fist around the sad piece of cloth, “Why did I have to be the one abandoned?” He looked down when Mystery stepped forward and set a paw on his foot, the white face looked up at him.  Before Lewis could utter a word, Mystery had whisked away and was already halfway across the parking lot, the faint tapping of his claws fade as the ghost stares after him.

He could have just haunted Arthur.  Or he could have remained in his mansion, his sanctuary from the world ticking by with the tempo of the seasons cycling through, worlds moving; moon sweeping through crescent to quarter, harvest and back to the new moon.  What time had passed while he had slumbered?  Existing but not in a state of present, not dispersing but not fully cumulative either.  A piece of himself was lost in every wedge of every day, not noticed and not missed. Small segments of his childhood, the places they frequented as kids, the warm smiles of his parents.  How could he miss what he couldn’t reflect with?  It may have been a process of Acceptance, or it just happened naturally.  He ceased to worry, and he couldn’t care.  The lethargy of simply existing drained him heavily, and he fed on the lone coal of his passion, his raison d'etre.  What purpose, and what meaning had come to him, when the cycle of existence had evicted a squatter?

It was Mystery’s aura that had stirred him. That wild, untamed thing – a font of composer and class, with a writhing tangle of insanity that clawed for escape. He would know it anywhere, it was the last, and first thing he had latched onto before the fulcrum of his final volition had scattered.  He didn’t remember much in that span of time between… before….

The light of the motel room was out.  The curtains were drawn shut, as Vivi had left them, and the walls would be absolutely silent, if not for the dull rattle of the heater.  Night was well upon the motel now, and Vivi and Arthur would not be far behind it. Without a thought Lewis pushed his palms into the cracked stucco of the wall, and allowed his unsubstantial shape to slither through the cold molecules of cheap drywall and plaster.  Mystery gave a soft yap at his back as he faded, and then, the room was opened up before Lewis.  The interior air warm from the buzzing heater in the wall, bags and a few essential supplies sat in grainy detail along one wall, the bed was overtaken by blues and yellows.  Lewis turns back to the door and pulls the handle, but stood in the way when Mystery tried to nudge through and enter with him.  Lewis picked up the piece of cloth he had dropped, but paused as Mystery searched for a way around him.

Somewhere in the parking lot below the walkway, Lewis could pick up on the soft warble of Vivi’s voice accompanied by the timid tones of Arthur’s speech.  “Hold on,” Lewis murmured, as he shooed Mystery out of the threshold.  “They’ll let you in, but I have something to do real quick.”  Mystery stiffened when Lewis gave his scalp a comforting rub, an action Mystery was unaware of how much he missed.  Mystery stepped away when Lewis straightened up and shut the door.

What… just happened?  

Mystery whined.  That was not fair!  He scratched at the door and sniffed at the crack along the frame and listened for the muffled sounds from behind the door.  He tugged at the handle, though he knew the door couldn’t be opened without a key.

“What up, Mystery?” Arthur was the first to ask. He stepped behind the dog and raised his knuckles to the door, rapping gently.

Vivi leaned down and hugged Mystery around his shoulders, plucking him up off his front feet as she rocked him.  “Did Lew leave you outside?”  Mystery whined and stared at Arthur, pleaded at Arthur’s back with his eyes.  “I’ll talk to him about it, and we’ll fix this.”  Mystery strained his whimpers, and Vivi took note of that tone in his voice. “D’you have a key, Art?”

“Hmm?  Yeah, sure,” he muttered, as he began digging through his pockets.  Arthur found the thin plastic card easily, and with one swipe the red light on the handle lock flicks to green.  “Lew?”  He asked softly as he pushed the door open, intent to enter before Vivi for once. “You left Mystery outside.”  The heater of the room chattered as it stuttered off, and the dark plain before Arthur was left with the reverberations of its silence, along with the strange emptiness of the room.  The scarce glow of the few streetlamps outside tumbled around his shoulders as he stood in the doorway.  He was startled only briefly by his own reflection in the mirror, directly across from the doorway.  “Damnit,” he gasped, and clutched at his chest as his heart pounded behind his ribs.

“Lew?” Vivi chimed in, as she and Mystery pressed in behind Arthur.  She shuffled to the tall lamp stationed in one corner of the room and flipped the light on, coating the walls and floor with its pale white coat.  “Are you here?”  She had the impression that he was hiding for some reason.  Vivi brushed past Arthur and crossed to the bathroom at the furthest side of the room.  Mystery followed, sniffing along the bed and the corner of the wall.  

There was nothing in the bathroom.  The light blazed harshly over the white walls and plastic floor, a few bottles of shampoo sat around but mention nothing of guests. Vivi was usually comforted by the fragrant soaps, but she had only noticed them now when she was uneasy.  It didn’t feel right.  The bathroom heater came on with the light, but the air retained a chilled quality.  The whole of the room felt reticent, inhospitable.

Vivi shut the light off and stepped out.  She felt unnerved and was not certain where this sensation had crept out from, but it was there and she couldn’t shake it.  She heard the door shut as Arthur entered fully, he cast his eyes over the walls and the short carpet as if anticipating Lewis to pop out from a surface at any given moment.  Arthur sprang in place when Mystery poked his head up from the opposite side of the bed.  Vivi shared a look with the white face, then their sight feel onto the bed.  

The scent of fresh laundry overpowered the room, and Vivi with Mystery examined the shirts, skirts, and pants laid out over the bed covers where they wouldn’t wrinkle.  Further evidence of Lewis’ presence was not visible, aside from the large leather jacket draped over the back of an uncomfortable armchair.  On the table rests the room’s twin key card, beside a pair of dark purple sunglasses.  There was nothing to suggest anyone had been in the room recently.

#msa #mystery skulls animated #msa fanfic #mystery skulls fanfic #msa fanfiction #msa lewis #msa arthur #msa mystery #msa vivi #mystery skulls fanfiction #msa ghost #mystery skulls

[sacks-of-kittans]

One thing I would say is that alienated young men (sexless and/or friendless which are usually both rooted in the same sort of social issues) get told a lot of the same self-improvement advice -- lift, read, journal, meditate, read stuff like Dale Carnegie's book, etc. and at the more extreme end things like NoFap. And surveys show that this group of young men measured in terms of sexlessness has risen a lot over the past decade (the last number I heard was 28%). So a lot of what is traditionally true in terms of social expectations for young men is becoming less true over time.

Since I’m bad at reading, I’m gonna type back to you what I think you mean and then go off that just cause I have a bad habit of misreading/misunderstanding things.

Men are still told to self improve in similar ways like women, but different. Lifting (gaining muscle) vs the women version of getting toned/skinny/or snatched waist. Mediating (I think like self therapy) vs. going to a therapist. And then men have the no masturbation which isn’t really told to women, but I guess a place holder vs would be skin care routine/makeup. The Dale Carnegie books I saw was stuff like “How to win friends and influence people” “how to stop worrying and start living” which I haven’t read but seem to be “how to aggressively live life like a boss” kinda. (Not like a go with the flow more of a take your inner peace by the gut and make it a reality)

Looking at the advice males are given I can definately see how it hurts them because tbat expectation is changing. For the lifting, I do hear a lot of girls like a guy going to the gym in moderation because if he goes too much could be a “red flag” not in an abusive way but in a way that he might be too dedicated to a routine to date, care “too much” about his own diet and soon hers, and other reasons. And that’s gotta be confusing for guys cause they’re working out for themselves and then find out it’s #unattrative.

With the masturbation idk what it is but you can meet a dude and just tell he does it way too much to where his brain is rotted. Mostly in the topics he chooses to talk about or just how he talks to another person. I haven’t given any guy the advice to stop maturating so I personally haven’t seen the affects.

Meditation in placement of therapy doesn’t seem like good advice. Yes mediation is good! But I think a lot of men can benefit if they have the resources for therapy. Of course I know it’s expensive, but just for some resources, I know a lot of universities offer a counselor with visits that are already paid for in your tuition (my university offers 6 visits but since no one uses them they don’t really count them) and I know there’s a difference in therapist, and counselor, but it’s a start honestly. I know the stereotype is that men don’t talk about their feelings in a healthy way and they need to reach out.

And sometimes they reach out at the far worst times so they don’t receive the support they are looking for. My pre covid life when I was going to parties at the end of the night when I’d be waiting for my ride is when one of my guy friends would unload how bad he’s been suffering and I was no where in the right state of mind to listen or say anything helpful. This happened often. I feel like learning how to reach out and sending a text beforehand or call to set up a time to talk about some stuff would be helpful to it’s like known instead of binge drinking and getting caught up in the feels. I feel like guys need to be each other’s allies and real friends when it comes to venting instead of just calling each other lame.

You might be thinking “why does this random woman’s observations matter?”. The program I was in classes were 19 guys to 1 girl often. Of course I made friends with these guys, talked them about a lot of stuff, and I learned some stuff about guys. That was my life for 2 years. Of course I know I’d be treated differently, but once I was ten feet away I didn’t exist.

Basically the expectation of self-improvement for males is back firing. And it does suck, but I think men can grab a hold of some new changes with the times changing. I mean it has to be the style to be skinny as a pole and now it’s tiny waist big butt. Adaptation is important when it comes to evolution. I think with this age of technology norms/trends/ expectations are gonna change faster, and it’s important for you to take care of yourself and prevent isolation.

I think that the social expectation for males come from mostly males. Of course there are gonna be women who say “ meditate, lift, before you talk to me” but that’s in the context of dating. When it comes to professional fields, unless you’re required, the work place isn’t gonna ask you to lift. We know that more professional positions are held by males which is why males would want to stick to male expectations, but if you’re worried about the dating scene also, step it up.

Of course it’s gonna be harder to know what female expectations are, because since it’s only the dating scene that we have some power in, expectations vary. Some women do prefer the traditional expectation, while some are bored of it but don’t know what they want instead.

Now this is all purely my own observations mixed with the anon, I have done 0 real research outside the people I know. So do what you will with my answer.

#ask #anon

[incarnateirony]

God as I’ve gotten older I’ve gotten so cynical about idealization.

In the last few days across various private messages to various friends I’ve said the following things about not understanding people iconizing old SPN as dark or gritty:

Diet dark

Dark but airing at 7PM for teenagers on the WB dark

Dark but airing two hours after Pinky and the Brain dark

Dark but on Fridays at this time I flip a channel to watch a talking cat dark

I’ve said, for example, it wasn’t dark or even gritty really. It was still hollywood glamor, if a little less than it is now. That it was dusty, more than anything

Dusty like offroading in your prius and forgetting to wash your car dusty

Dusty like hitchhiking and maybe stealing some over the counter eyedrops to trade back in for cash and buy a cheap motel room dusty

Dusty like transporting goats in the back of my Corolla dusty

Dusty like that time I slept in a junkyard dusty

I have become an EXCESSIVELY cynical bitch, I see.

Maybe it’s because my life *was* dark and full of grit. Maybe it’s because I DID blaze a dusty path. Maybe it’s because just about anything the guys did in the first few seasons, I did before I hit puberty. Maybe it’s because I lived that and could see through the hilarious glamorization of it all. I don’t know. 

Like, do I MISS the vibe of the old seasons? Sure, sometimes. Which is when I, like, go to netflix and watch the first few seasons for that vibe. I much prefer this thoroughly fleshed out and constructed style of modern storytelling in general, but there was in fact a fun Americana vibe to it. I’m not saying it wasn’t fun. But people act like old SPN was some peak macabre horror psychological thriller and not a teenage drama with overexposed lensing for bleached film stock. And that goes on both sides with people talking about it being “problematic” or whatever. Beyond the old era rimshots at gay people and the habit of discarding female characters or whatever -- while, protip, we all tuned in to a show featuring white male leads by choice -- like. 

I don’t get it. I literally do not get it.  Like as hard as people have romanticized one idealization, it’s like for the sake of argument against the fanon romanticization of that idealization they’ve excessively piled on and built up something to dismantle that barely existed to begin with and, what did exist has literally been show dismantled. Now either side of the fence will scream “codependency, true love/problematic” if brothers like. Breathe in each other’s vicinity. Or don’t just casually let the other die bloody and alone. You know. Basically, whenever they aren’t being absolute terrible human beings that don’t give a shit about their family at all, this flips into magnetic polarization in fandom dialogue. Like, sis, they're eating sammiches. I don't need a 5 page essay on how this "deconstructs the codependency." Dabberens have been on a warpath ever since they dropped Red Meat as the cornerstone sure but literally they're eating bologna and playing foosball chill out.

It’s one thing to like, hm. Take a highlighter to your favorite elements in fanon spaces. Write fics or art that deepen a particular theme or tone. But it’s another thing to like, hold evolving canon to the precedent set up in your own mythologilized fandom spaces.

Things that have /objectively/ changed in the show:

- Genre/cinematography; lighting and set adapted from vaguely horror-esque (halfly to hide the terrible makeup and CGI) to high fantasy over time (in which increased lighting shows that terrible makeup and CGI). Not liking one or the other? VALID!

- Character focus: The first several seasons were pretty much just da bros. Carver era extended into Team Free Will even if people hit denial waves about it. Dabb era seems to play ship-juggling acts and does openly engage in sport like “Oh wow, Rowena is flirting with Cas, I wonder if they’re gonna be a thing :)” while shoving some Sabriel or Samwitch in the way between more central pairs like Saileen or Destiel. Not liking one version or another of this? VALID!

- Mythology: Old SPN demonized literally any tradition that wasn’t christianity. Their alchemists and shamans are, respectively, kind of offensive. Carver only used the established races and a very vague cain and abel concept. Modern SPN is using alchemy and philosophy formerly villainized under the Calvinistic lens. Not liking one version or another of this? VALID!

- Core Principles: While “Family don’t end in blood” has always been there, the current author room’s statements about believing in hope or heroism over tragedy /are/ distinctly different than tragedy-oriented old SPN with the faintest lick of hope-ish-seeming-things with Lisa’s “never too late” kinda slapped on at the end to vaguely tell us there’s silver linings. Characters aren’t fighting just for survival all the time now, they’re often fighting for silver linings. Or gold ones right now. *rimshot* Not liking one version or another of this? VALID!

- Rule of Cool: Literally, this was a thing, and then it wasn’t. Kripke picked cars he liked because he liked them and thought they were cool. Kripke picked guns he thought were cool. Kripke picked name spellings he thought were cool. These are all things he’s said, like, on the record. This is also why the early show attracted more dudes that also operated on Rule of Cool. But maintaining cohesion required less and less rule of cool and more and more intertextual and subtextual poetry that gave less “plug whatever you want in the space with the cool shit” room and more “infinite amount of material that, while defined, all has flexible potential if you think about it and how to employ it.” Not liking one version or another of this? VALID!

Noticing change is /fair/. It’s /valid/. You don’t have to /like/ the change. 

Hell. This started addressing fandom romanticization of the early seasons but let’s not pretend Destiel fandom doesn’t have its own versions of this. All the different wings that romanticize the weirdest fucking eras as “the best” rampage too. Like the parts you like. Enjoy content how you enjoy it. But when you build up a romanticized version of a product in your head, you can’t expect the product to perform like the romanticized version. 

I know first memories are powerful. Nostalgia is powerful. But have you ever... like... gone to turn on a movie you loved as a kid 15, 20 years ago or whatever and load it up now and realize like, “Wow, I used to like some stupid shit.” And hell. We may even acknowledge it was stupid shit and STILL like the stupid shit. Or the stupid shit may annoy us know, depending. Who knows? Not to say seasons 1-2 are “stupid shit” if you will (or whatever season, 4, 8, whatever Destiel fandom may argue about as The Best on a given day) -- but it feels like attaching to these characters, and then arguing about these characters, without EVER unplugging from the content at all has made people lose that perspective where we, IDK, turn Digimon back on for the first time and go “oh wow this is a lot dumber than I remember it being (but it’s still fun)”. Yes, Pikachu IS annoying to hear squeaking constantly like your parents said before you lit up in holy, righteous fury defending the sparking rat. No, that doesn’t mean you can’t have fun watching the reboot of Mewtwo Strikes Back. It just... perspective.

I dunno. Maybe fandom will in fact pan out differently in 15+ years once people have had the chance at this kind of down time. 

Random thoughts.

[readingsbylibramc]

birth chart reading for @im-sleepwalkingg

hello! welcome to your reading. I’m gonna give you a quick overview of what I’m going to analyze about your natal chart. feel free to ask me anything if something isn’t clear, of course. you’ll find out your dominants’ influence on your persona, your physical appearance, impression on others and the way you approach the world; your ego, identity, the real you; your reactions, your desires, inner emotions; your way of expressing your feelings, your mind and ideas; your desires and approach to love; your energy tank, instincts and temperament; in-depth analysis of each house with their rulers and analysis of heavy aspects; love life + soulmates/karmic partners interpretation; your relationship with your friends; your family life; your approach to career and work in general + possible jobs suggestion; your style, fashion sense analysis; life purpose and past life description; basic transits’ analysis to describe your current mood and, last but not least, your secret skills, how to make the most out of your soul and manifest what you desire based on your birth chart.

🦋 chart shape, dominants

your chart is a splay shape, meaning that your planets are located randomly in different groups in your chart. people with this type of chart are usually very talented at different things. they can focus their attention on different matters, from family, to work, to love. everything is important for you, and you try to live your life to the fullest. you may be particularly talented at things that require action, it doesn’t matter whether it’s physical or mental. you may be very good at sports, dancing… or maybe you’re good at leading, you could easily be the boss on your work place. since you’re interested in so many things, you could easily be skilled at all of them to be honest. my advice would be to pick the hobby that is most important for you and care about it more than the others. that’s because people with this chart usually tend to do so many things that they may lack precision. it’s better to give all of yourself to what’s important for you.

your dominant planets are saturn, venus and the sun. you're an hard-working and ambitious person. you probably know what you want in life, you have strong beliefs, but you also know how to relax and have fun. you're most likely extremely artistic and creative, you're very imaginative, and thanks to your saturn dominance you know how to balance duties and hobbies.

your dominant sign is taurus. you're a chill person, you prefer staying at home instead of going out and partying. you are quite stubborn, but that's because you're passionate about your ideas and beliefs. you prefer trying and take action, even if you risk to hurt yourself, instead of just standing still and observing. you find comfort helping others; it's a way to feel satisfied both with others and yourself, as you like proving your skills and talents.

your dominant element is earth. you're a loyal and stable individual. you value longevity in your relationships, and that makes you quite picky. you can easily appear as cold, as opening up to someone you don't know well is too much of a risk for you. once you do, though, you'll stay forever. money and material possessions are important for you, as you understand that financial stability is one of the main qualifications in life.

🌎 ascendant in leo, 2° / 1st decan ruled by the sun

you’re an extremely confident and bright person, or at least you have a very strong aura around you that makes you look like you are. you have exceptional charisma and presence, in fact this is usually a celebrity placement! you surely don’t go overlooked. you naturally always try your best to make people feel at ease, and you mostly succeed thanks to your warmth, which makes you even more attractive. you probably like being recognized, and you may want to be famous. in fact, you like being in the spotlight and loaded with compliments and appreciation, they incredibly boost your self-confidence. your charisma may sometimes be too noticeable, resulting a bit dramatic; you may gesticulate a lot, imitate voices… basically, you would do amazing at acting, for example. in fact, most actors have a leo rising, or leo placements of any sort. you’re very playful, you most likely look younger than you are for your personality. you may also be a savage, and you’re most likely good at jokes of any kind. you appear as a very bubbly and outgoing person, yet you may be quite secretive. you don’t open up easily, especially about family / private matters. especially with your virgo influence, you’re very picky when it comes to trusting people. in addition, you’re a perfectionist; you care a lot about everything that revolves around you, from physical appearance to your job, you want it all to be perfect. that can cause you a lot of stress, as you always want to seem at your best state, you despise being seen as weak or unprepared. physically, all leos have beautiful hair. you may have curly, perhaps red or dark hair, or at least it’s very thick. you may also get tanned easily, you could an olive skin tone or any kind of warm undertones to your skin. you may have full, plump lips, or at least they have a defined cupid’s bow. you may also have doe, almond-shaped eyes, and all of your facial features are quite feminine. you may also have naturally silky hair and perhaps pale skin with some warm undertones to it.

🌞 sun in taurus, 23° / 3rd decan ruled by venus and saturn

you’re more sharp-witted and pragmatic than the typical taurus. you value stability in both romance and in your day-to-day life, like at work. you take care of your body and style in any sort of way, as your leo ascendant confirms. after all, the 3rd decan of taurus is a great balance of beauty and brain. I imagine that you're not very extroverted, you prefer staying in, but I repeat that you still probably have nice social skills that could take a while to develop. or at least, they're your secret skills. you like keeping your mind active everyday, especially by following your passions. if you’re the logical type, you might enjoy playing sudoku or things like that. on the other hand, if you’re more philosophical you might enjoy reading, writing etc. you have a great sense of duty, that makes you want to excel in whatever you do. in addition to this, you’re also very stubborn. you probably get in arguments with others because you don’t accept their advices/criticism and prefer going your own way. you may also tend to overindulge a bit, and become a bit lazy. you're also very attached to food, and since your sun is also conjunct jupiter you may have the tendency to overeat. yet, since you have a strong earth dominance, you probably don't gain weight easily. you enjoy the finer things in life, but you might struggle with jealousy because of that. you have the tendency to look at other people’s achievements and get disappointed about yours.

taurus sun conjunct taurus mercury: you express your ego and identity through your words and ideas. you’re very opinionated and you protect strongly your beliefs. after all, you probably came up with your ideals after thinking deeply about them, you were too precise to be wrong. you’re also probably an avid reader, and you could do well in writing yourself, as you’re able to properly convey your ideals with your words. in fact, with your mercury being conjunct your gemini mars and your virgo moon, you'd do well as a writer of any kind, especially of adventure books. your mind is very active, and you feel comfortable letting all your thoughts out. it’s actually a way to relieve stress. you also have a wide vocabulary, and you’re capable of making a formal speech if you have to. you have a memorable way of speaking, as your words are very sharp. it’s hard for you to be ignored for your intellect.

taurus sun conjunct taurus venus: you enjoy peace and harmony. you want your surroundings to look all neat and clean, and the same goes for the people you surround yourself with. you wish people saw you as easy to approach, even though you may struggle with your image. you try to be as formal and kind as possible with people you don’t know well, unless they start getting on your nerves by disagreeing with your opinions or being too bossy. you’re very feminine, not only in your looks and manners but also in the way you dress. you’re quite romantic too, and dream of having a perfect marriage. the downside to this aspect is that because you take so much care of yourself, people may mistake your self-love for vanity, especially with your ascendant being in leo. also, your self-esteem may depend too much on others’ opinion of you; you may start thinking you’re ugly and unworthy of love just because someone told you you’re not their type, to sum up.

taurus sun conjunct taurus jupiter: this placement makes you more easy-going and kind-hearted than the typical taurus sun. you have a warm personality. even though you may not be the most extroverted person based on your other placements, I imagine that, once you get to know people, you become very outgoing. you always try to make people feel comfortable and, matched with your virgo moon, this placement makes you particularly considerate of others. you have a knack for religion, spirituality and just knowledge in general. you have strong beliefs, and you're most probably very open-minded as well. the negative side of this mostly-beneficial placement is that you may be subconsciously too confident in yourself or skills, resulting arrogant or selfish. it's alright to praise yourself of course, but you may start to look down on people who don't share your same interests, opinions etc. you can't repress this side of yourself of course, but try not to show it with people around you if it causes you problems.

taurus sun square aquarius uranus: this aspect makes you crave independency. you like doing things your own way, especially since it’s backed up by your fixed dominance. you’re really creative and intelligent, yet this may be misunderstood by those who surround you. you stand out for the way you think and your interests, and some may even perceive you as ‘weird’. I honestly think that, if well-devolped and paired with a good use of words, this aspect can be highly beneficial for your growth. a lot of successful people, like bill gates and stephen king, have this aspect, as it gives one the ability to imagine unordinary things that can impact society in a good way.

🌙 moon in virgo, 28° / 3rd decan ruled by mercury and venus

this is the truest virgo decan. you want to have everything under control, you can't bear not being organized. you most probably write down your appointments and stuff on an agenda, or perhaps even in the notes app of your phone. you're extremely precise, you want everything to be perfect. mixed with your leo rising, you probably care a lot about your appearance; you most likely have a skincare routine, workout... just anything that makes you feel healthy. you love taking care of yourself, especially of your hygiene. you also put a lot of effort in your outfits, you fear not being at your best state. you're a perfectionist, after all. this also project in your home environment; you may clean your house thoroughly, it's most likely all neat. in addition, this mania of yours of being perfect makes you have high standards; in fact, you need people in your life that try as much as you do. you despise lazy people. you probably have a reputation for always being calm and elegant, as you try to avoid conflicts as much as possible. you're very smart and insightful, and you strive for perfection; you want to prove your power to yourself, as it helps you boosting your self-esteem. in fact, it depends a lot on your achievements; if you don't meet your expectations, you start going through a hard time of insecurity and struggles. you love communicating, but you may struggle to find the right words, especially with your mercury being conjunct mars. your eyes talk for you, though. you're also very introspective, and you're fond of art and creativity in general. you're very critical, both of yourself and of others. you don't do it with malice, though, but as I've already mentioned you want to frequent people that try to be at their best all the time, just like you after all.

🗣 mercury in taurus, 28° / 3rd decan ruled by venus and saturn

this is the most quiet taurus decan, yet also the most precise and analytical. you care a lot about grammar, you don't want to make any mistakes. looking ridiculous is your biggest fear, hence you end up overworking to prove yourself that you're capable to do anything you want. you have a slow way of thinking and speaking. your voice may sound really calm and pleasant to hear, yet still strict and ambitious. you’re probably a good singer, or at least have the potential to become one. you tend to overthink a lot, but you eventually get to a conclusion and stick to it. no one is gonna change your mind. you enjoy learning and working in creative ways; you might enjoy using powerpoints, flashcards or maybe study with your friends, or listening to music. you also probably have a nice, aesthetic handwriting and you like organizing your agenda. your voice is probably very soft and youthful.

taurus mercury conjunct gemini mars: this placement makes you slightly more aggressive, or at least loud with your words. in fact, it makes you look more assertive and almost bossy. you could often attack people with words when you get angry, and you can get quite provocative too, but I don't see you raising your voice. while you are quick-minded and it's hard for you to be tricked, you have a very sharp tongue that could hurt others. other people may not understand your sense of humor for example, and they could get offended. you love debates and expressing your opinions, as you take a lot of pride in your thoughts. yet, may also take things very personally, you get defensive extremely easily, and that makes it hard to have a healthy discussion with you as you're very fiery. you could often get into arguments too.

taurus mercury conjunct taurus saturn: this placement, on the other hand, could delay your communication skills. you may find it hard for you to express your thoughts and opinions in a clear, understandable way. you may be too shy to speak your mind, for example, and hence you end up sounding very insecure in your speech. you may even end up stuttering, for example. on the other hand, you're very mature and well-mannered, which is a positive thing considering that your taurus is also conjunct mars. yet, you could be extremely pessimistic, you never allow yourself to think for the best. ironically, in this way you may actually attract bad luck to you. you could be the type to say 'I am so ugly', 'nobody loves me' and other things like that, and at a certain point you'll just start believing in it, and that obviously damages your self-esteem. you should definitely stop with this behaviour, start being more optimistic, even though you may be skeptical at first. you'll naturally attract positivity to you after a while, and you'll feel much better.

❤️ venus in taurus, 15° / 2nd decan ruled by venus and mercury

you seek long-lasting relationships. you're very romantic, and this fixed influence gives you high standards for your partner, you stay back from players. you look for someone you can always count on, and that is willing to support you through thick and thin. it may take you a while to find someone worth to be your lover, but once you find them, you'll always be loyal to them as long as they're respectful. they're your most precious possession, hence you're very jealous and protective of them. if it becomes unhealthy for both you and your partner, it's surely an issue you have to solve, maybe together. you're also the type who likes to be spoiled by their lover, and wants to make lovely gifts as well. these gifts don't have to be expensive, even homemade things are fine. for example, you may melt at the thought of your significant other to take their time and do something exclusively for you, like baking a cake or writing a poem. little gestures that show you their love. in a potential partner, you also care about how they present themselves. I'm not necessarily talking about conventional beauty, but more on a self-care side. you like people who smell good, have a nice fashion sense and maybe people that are quite conceited too (obviously not to the point of narcissism).

taurus venus conjunct taurus jupiter: this placement makes you extremely likeable, and it's particularly beneficial considering that your leo rising could make you appear kind of snug. you're probably quite popular, or at least you're very appreciated wherever you go. not only you're physically attractive, but you're also very friendly and charismatic, which makes it impossible not to notice you. you despise conflicts and chaotic situations in general, you're very peaceful. perhaps, to have fun you prefer using creative and artistic outlets rather than going out. I also find this an extremely beneficial placement for you, as you have a scorpio 5th house that makes you attract obsessive and / or problematic partners. with venus being conjunct to jupiter, this energy may not be as prominent as usual, as you tend to attract more positivity in your life.

taurus venus conjunct taurus saturn: as I've already mentioned above, you're a very affecionate and loyal partner. yet, due to this placement, there could be some insecurity around your love affairs. you may be too cold in relationships, it could be that you have troubles showing your love and affection for others. or perhaps, you're afraid of being in a relationship, and hence you may directly avoid them or break up all of a sudden. you could literally jump into relationships, resulting in you getting hurt from time to time. because of this, with this placement marriage is usually delayed. it could be hard for you to find your true love, but it'll surely come. you could possibly date people more dominant / older than you, and I'd recommend you to get married after your saturn return, which is around your 27/28s. little side-note, you may often date karmic partners, aka partners from your past lives, so you may often experience this 'I’ve already seen you before’-vibe in your new encounters and relationships, and you’ll always learn something from all your relationships.

☄️ mars in gemini, 6° / 1st decan ruled by mercury

you’re driven by the sense of intelligence. your intellect is your greatest strenght, it’s your energy tank. you’re interested in a bunch of things, and hence you may have troubles staying focused on one thing at the time. you probably have tons of hobbies, and you may end up not being much precise since you have tons of things that you have and want to do. you can’t stand boredom, you need your day-to-day life to be exciting and, above all, offer you something new to learn and / or experience. usually, gemini mars individuals tend to be very physically active, but I personally don't think it's your case. you could be into fitness and health for example, but you're not the type to go out and party for example, you're way more chill. also, you’re extremely witty and curious, and you want to live your life to the fullest. you may often change your style, your opinions, maybe even your personality, and that could make you seem confusing and / or unreliable.

gemini mars opposite sagittarius pluto: with this placement, I assume that when you were younger you were some sort of victim. you could have been bullied, for example, you used to be insecure about the way you looked and were. you could have felt different from others, and they took advantage of that to make you feel even more insecure. or maybe, it was a parent, or every authoritative figure in your life, that restricted you from following your own ideals. because of that, now you constantly feel the need to prove yourself. you probably tend to accumulate a lot of anger all together, which you need to let all out or you could explode. you could find comfort in physical ways to relieve stress, like punching bags, slamming doors, etc. or perhaps, when you're angry you just get overwhelmed by all of your emotions. you may cry, scream, even throw up in certain cases. on the other hand, you are extremely magnetic and attractive to others, you naturally draw people towards you. you're also extremely passionate in whatever you do, you put your whole heart in doing things you love. you're very hard-working and determined to achieve your goals, and I find this beneficial considering that your gemini energy tends to make one superficial. with this aspect, you're probably more dedicated than the common gemini.

🏡 houses, interceptions

your 1st house is in leo. with this placement, you care a lot about your persona, both physically and also mentally too. yet, you may start feeling like you need to be perfect at all costs to be accepted, especially during your early years. for example, you may be the type to follow fashion trends to look cool, and you may subconsciously force yourself to like them. you need to understand that you should enhance your individuality, and ask yourself who you are. it’s not all about who you are outside, the inside matters even more. you’re free to stand out, but make sure that you do it in a comfortable way for you, or it will start becoming toxic as time goes by. the ruler of the 1st house is in the 10th house: you have big goals for your future, you may even want to be famous. they’re basically the centre of your life, it revolves around your goals and achievements and you want a successful. you’re naturally charismatic, you may have lots of friends or at least it’s easy for you to get known in your community, even though these results may be delayed due to saturn in your 10th house. you may also care a lot about your reputation.

your 2nd house is in leo again. your self-esteem depends on matters like money, possessions, as well as your influence on others. you may feel confident when you're praised and spoiled with compliments and material things, you may enjoy being in the spotlight as it increases your self-confidence, even though you're quite shy so you don't feel very at ease. you feel confident when you're able to earn money and you're financially stable, and hence you probably felt guilty as a child to ask your parents for money for example. you probably love luxury, you aspire to become very wealthy, live in the house of your dreams, etc. you could also dream of becoming famous. and actually, with this placement, you could make money from leo-related matters, and hence being in the spotlight, creativity (especially theatre / drama), comedy, etc.

your 3rd house is in virgo. you're very precise and polite in the way you express your thoughts. you're probably very careful to grammar, vocabulary etc... you love looking and being knowledgeable. you're more a logical type rather than an intuitive person, you hardly ever do something only out of curiosity. you're very cautious about the decisions you make, and hence it could take you a time to finally choose something, but that's because you just don't want to regret anything. you think deeply about your choices, and most of the time they turn out to be right. you're strongly opinionated, but you may be a bit too harsh when you express your ideas. sometimes you could even hurt someone, as you're extremely honest. you don't like sugar-coating your words. you're also very intelligent and hard-working, and you can't stand messy things. you're probably very neat, you like having schedules and you may even keep an agenda / diary where you keep track of your appointments and other things you have to do. you also have the moon placed in this house: it's hard for you to hide your feelings, as you express them through your words. you may also be the type to let your feelings out through writing, and hence you may write very personal poetry, books, etc. your emotions are directly connected to your speech.

your 4th house is in libra. your home environment was probably very pleasant and beautiful, both physically and emotionally. you may have a conventionally beautiful family, or at least they're particularly attractive and charming. your house may also be very well-designed and elegant, doesn't matter how big it is. you probably see your parents as ideal, they are your role models and you look up to them, even though they could have been a bit strict from time to time. it could be that you didn't argue often, probably because you weren't much rebel as a teen, or even if you discussed there was hardly ever shouting or even violence. the ruler of the 4th house is placed in the 10th house: you may have a reputation for being very nurturing, like a sort of mother to others, a benevolent leader. also, your future career may include 4th house matters; that means that you could follow your parents' steps and work in their same field, for example, or maybe even follow their studies. you could possibly work with families, e.g as a counselor, or perhaps in real estate. you could possibly even become an interior designer, or you could be particularly talented at cooking, you'd make a great chef or maybe a baker too.

your 5th house is in scorpio. you're not really the type to hang out and attend parties. actually, you most likely prefer spending your spare time alone. you're extremely passionate about your hobbies, especially since pluto is also placed in this house, enhancing this scorpio energy. you may dedicate all of yourself to them, to the point that you could actually develop an obsession to be great at them. yet, you could struggle to show your creativity, you most likely keep all of your artistic and creative works for yourself. probably, this is linked to the fact that your moon is in the 3rd house; you create very personal art, and since you're very secretive you don't to show your emotions to people you don't trust, and hence same goes for your hobbies. because of that, you may often feel different or out of place, and that may interfer with your relationships with other people.

your 6th house is in capricorn. usually, people with a capricorn 6th house are very responsible and work-oriented. they generally don’t leave much space to fun and amusement, you have a strong sense of duty and you may end up overworking yourself, especially with your stellium in the 10th house. on the other hand, this placement could make you an amazing leader, especially in your work environment. you can easily work alone, you can handle it. when it comes to health, you may suffer from problems to your bones, and hence you could wear braces, you may have diseases to your back, etc. the ruler of the 6th house is in the 10th house: you could pursue a career that involves healing, possibly medicine. you could be a therapist of any kind, a doctor, a nurse… even a vet. also, this placement indicates that you’ll communicate something through your career. it doesn’t necessarily have to be with words, you may also communicate in a graphic way, hence you could be an actress, an artist, a photographer etc.

your 7th house is in aquarius. you do like the idea of marriage and love, yet you need your space as well. you don’t want to feel committed in a relationship, it would be suffocating for you. that could make you appear as emotionally cold or detached, when you’re really not. you just care a lot about your personal growth. you also have uranus and neptune placed in this house. perhaps, you could even attract mentally unstable partners, they could be a bit moody for example. you probably dream of a love like those you hear about in fairytales; you're not only looking for a partner, you literally want a prince, who's willing to give their all to you. you find yourself daydreaming often about love, and it may also be your source of inspiration for creativity and art in general. probably, you may idealize people too much; that is, you may create a version of others that only exists in your head. hence, once you get to know someone better, they turn out to be the exact opposite of what you thought. this causes you to be sort of naive when it comes to relationships, so pay extra attention to this problem now that you're aware of it. last but not least, you may meet your future spouse in an unexpected situation.

your 8th house is in aquarius. you're secretly quite rebellious, or at least you have a few unconventional ideals that you struggle to let out to the world. you are extremely open-minded and you have a strong sense of justice, you're always ready to defend others, especially if they're your friends. yet, while this placement makes you extremely open-minded and supportive of others, there are also some bad sides about it. in fact, you may often find yourself being afraid of being unconventional, you tend to conform to others out of fear. you could give up on your own freedom and comfort since you struggle to achieve your independency, you probably care too much about what others think of you. you have troubles stepping out of your comfort-zone, and paired up with your virgo moon, you can't improvise, you're way too logical and you base your routine and actions too much on a schedule. you could also come across some hardships regarding your friends, you may often attract people that could hurt you deeply. yet, these experiences will allow you to learn something grow up in order to become the best version of you.

your 9th house is in pisces. this is definitely a nice placement! the result is that you're probably extremely open-minded and imaginative. you hardly ever have have prejudices, you judge people way less than the typical leo rising. you're extremely opinionated, and combined with your virgo 3rd house you're constantly looking for the truth. you hate it when people say something wrong for example, you can't help but correct them. you could also be religious and believe in a god. philosophy, literature and poetry are also a part of your many interests. in addition, you're most likely also into foreign languages and cultures. you could travel a lot, or perhaps with your pisces in the house cusp you like travelling with your mind. you probably literally create stories in your head, you're extremely imaginative. a good advice would be not to waste this talent of yours; you could actually make your fantasies concrete and express them through creative outlets: books, drawings, songs, choreographies... basically, it would be a waste to only keep them for you.

your 10th house is in aries, with also a big stellium involving venus as your most elevated planet, saturn, jupiter and the sun. with your 10th house cusp in the energetic sign of aries, you need a career that allows you to be independent, you probably prefer working alone than in groups. or perhaps, you actually aspire to become a boss, a ceo, someone people look up to, and if you work hard you may actually become an influential person in your work place / field. in fact, with saturn placed here, at first you may struggle to find the job that is right for you. you may be indecisive about it, or perhaps you could come across some hardships regarding bosses or even payments. yet, this will naturally get better with time, as you grow up and make new experiences. your jupiter here points out that you'll be able to earn lots of wisdorm thanks to your career, and hence you'd probably make a perfect leader, or even teacher for example. with also the sun placed here, your career is basically the focus of your life. you aspire to be successful, as you're quite materialistic. you like spoiling yourself and even your loved ones, you're probably fond of shopping of any kind, and you want to be wealthy thanks to yourself only. last but not least, venus is also placed in this house and it's your most elevated planet. that means that your life, and hence your career too, will revolve around artistic outlets, it's a natural talent of yours. you could become a singer, a dancer, an actress, an artist, a stylist, etc. also, you may often date people from your work place, and you could even find your future spouse there.

your 11th house is in taurus, with also mercury and mars placed in this house. you are probably very possessive of your friends, you hate it when they don't spend much time with you. you don't do it out of malice of course, you're just afraid of not being enough, deep down. you could attract some possibly harmful people in your friendships, but any hardship will just help you to grow up. overall, your relationship with your friends will be very stable after growing up and becoming more mature. the 11th house is also about long-term goals, and hence you may also aspire to become wealthy and earn a great income. in fact, since mars is also placed in this house, you're highly motivated to achieve these goals of yours. also, your friends are your energy tank, they literally help you to recharge, and they're probably the ones to comfort you when you feel down. last but not least, with mercury you're extremely curious about people and the future of the world in general. you may be into conspiracy theories for example, or even into topics like psychology, criminology, history, etc. that help you understand more about people and the whole world. you could also be very impatient to achieve your goals, and a downside to this is that you may give up halfway if you don't see improvements.

your 12th house is in cancer. you’re an extremely spiritual and intuitive person. you may be attracted to dreams, religion, astrology, spirituality… anything that can wake you up, spiritually speaking. you may also be particularly talented at reading birth charts, tarots, even talking to spirits. you may have prophetic dreams, or you could even have deja-vus. the 12th house is also the house of fears, so having cancer here indicates that you may be afraid of your childhood, emotions, past memories. perhaps, even of your home environment or directly of your parents. it’s a part of your life that you’d rather keep secret. you may also have some escapism tendencies, such as oversleeping, overeating… or perhaps, you could easily develop addictions, so be careful to that, as you’re particularly sensitive to drugs, alcohol etc.

❤️ love life, soulmates

in love, you attract aquarius, sagittarius, pisces, scorpio and taurus. your future spouse will most likely have scorpio and taurus traits or placements, maybe also some pisces too. they’ll be very similiar to you: secretive and hard-working, but also with a warm, loyal heart and a hidden insecurity to them. you may meet them at work, or in any place where you go to have fun. it may be a party, a bar... literally any place you attend where you can meet other people. possibly, even abroad or in vacation. your children will most likely have strong scorpio, sagittarius or pisces traits: they’ll be very daring and brave, but also very funny and warm. also, they’ll be extremely intelligent and more mature as time goes by. they'll also have a tender side to them, but that is often overshadowed by their playfulness. they could also get easily very possessive and jealous.

👶🏻 family life

your father is a very fiery, impulsive person, with a short-temper. he could have even been quite violent with you during your childhood, and he might have a few childish behaviours. deep down, he's actually kind of insecure with his role as a father, but he may hate to admit it. he may have aries, capricorn, libra, taurus, leo, sagittarius, pisces or scorpio placements in his chart. your mother, on the other hand, is slighly more submissive. she's mostly a peaceful and emotional person, even though she most probably has a passive-aggressive behaviour. she might've been a bit strict or overprotective. nonetheless, you could actually have a better relationship with her rather than with your father, or at least she understands your needs better. she may have libra, or taurus placements in her chart. if you have siblings, they're probably very peaceful, affectionate and intelligent. they may also be very kind, as well as organized. their rooms probably look immaculate. they could have virgo, cancer or gemini placements in their charts.

📊 career

honestly, your chart points out that you'd do great at a bunch of things! from working alone or even in groups, you'll be able to be successful in any path you choose. in fact, there are many indicators in your chart that indicate that, if you work hard, you'll be able to achieve a great fortune thanks to your job. for me, the best career for you would be teaching. I can see you being an amazing teacher, as you have the knowledge, open-mindness and calm to lead people and let them understand different matters, without forcing your opinions. you could also work abroad, perhaps with different languages, or maybe with children, and hence you could be a primary school teacher or a foreign languages teacher. otherwise, you could also do well at jobs that involve arts and creativity. what matters the most is that you're able to achieve a great position, you want people to look up to you. that's the only way for you to feel satisfied and accomplished.

👚 fashion sense, style analysis

with your heavy venus presence, I'm sure you're very elegant. even if you're just wearing a sweatshirt with pants, you still manage to make it look so expensive and particular. you may like pastel, light colours, or even earthy shades like kaki, brown etc. you prefer using comfortable clothes, but you definitely know how to dress up when you have to. you might also be very fond of accessories, like jewellery and bags. you may also enjoy buying designer clothes, but even if they're cheaper, you want them to be of a nice quality. you may also enjoy going thrift shopping, as you may like wearing 'timeless' items, such as white shirts, blazers, coats, classic heels... basically, versatile clothes that are a must in your wardrobe, as they've always been trendy. you could also love oversized fits, as well as 80s/90s aesthetic.

👁 past life, life purpose

in your past lifetime, you used to put your spirituality aside for a while to focus on finding out your identity here on the earth. you learned how to be responsible, healthy and stable on the earth. you know your values, and they’re already very grounded, you’re very mature from this point of view. in this lifetime, you now need to get more in touch with your spirituality. you need to get close to your higher self, and you may actually be quite skilled at it; probably you may interpret your dreams, you could be interested in religion, what’s beyond the world, and you’re most likely also interested in astrology and other occult matters. you’ll finally be able to reach happiness and fulfill your soul when you start having awareness of your soul’s purpose. since you’ve booked a reading, I’m sure you’re already on the right path, so keep going this way.

🤔 major transits analysis / september 21st

this year your focus is mostly on your career, work environment. you may undergo different changes in your routine, probably unexpected situations at work. yet, you’ll get out stronger and with more knowledge with you, which will help you gain more maturity and awareness when it comes to jobs. also, your focus may also be on your health and / or fitness. you may possibly get rid of a disease or anything that made you feel unhealthy, like a bad diet for example, or any unhealthy habit of yours.

🧿 manifest what you want, secret skills

your secret skills revolve around finances and just security in general. with a positive attitude, you may attract material luck: money, clothes, houses… everything that you desire. since you’re a logical person, I assume the most efficient way for you to manifest through the LOA is writing! take a notebook and just write down positive affirmations, such as 'I have the car of my dreams’ etc. you may also write them on post-its and glue them around your house, so that you can accelerate the progress. you can also try to idealize your wish before trying to manifest it. for example, if you want a new sweatshirt, try to imagine yourself wearing it. you could also go into a shop and actually try that sweatshirt it on; being in contact with it will boost the law of attraction even more.

thank you again for booking a reading! hope it resonated with you :)

#astrology #birth chart #birth chart reading

[argentgames]

Dev Log: GUI Design for Non-Artists

Today’s dev log is on a small but indescribably important part of game design: GUI.

More specifically, I’d like to discuss how to make a GUI for your game regardless of whether you’re a writer, programmer, designer, cat, whatever. It doesn’t require any art training, nor any specific skillsets beyond a) understanding aesthetics (or having a friend who does), and b) an art program like GIMP or Photoshop.

“But Dovah!” you exclaim tearfully. “Ren’Py has a simple, customizable default GUI! I don’t want to spend time changing it when I could be doing something else more productive!” 

Well, my nonexistent pupil, I’ll tell you why.

What is GUI?

GUI (or graphical user interface) is an essential part of any game. It’s the first thing the player sees--even if they only notice it subconsciously--and it immediately sets the tone and style for the rest of the experience.

I’ve seen countless games where the GUI is either default Ren’Py or slightly altered; as good as a game can be, this lack of effort always detracts from the game for me.

If Skyrim looked like this, your immersion might break a bit.

Now, if you have no artistic talent (like me), you might think that your only key to a good GUI is hiring someone to make one. This is not the case.  

Once you have the one tool you really need to make a GUI--an image manipulation program, like GIMP or Photoshop--the steps from there are simple.

3 Steps to GUI

1) Close your eyes and imagine core aesthetic of your game. Is it fantasy? Sci-fi? Modern? What words would you use to describe your game? Are there any key colors, objects, elements?

2) Once you’ve done this, find pictures (royalty-free!) that match this aesthetic. For a fantasy game, maybe that’s a forest or a castle. For a sci-fi game, maybe it’s a fancy computer screen. 

3) Slap those bad boys onto your canvas in your program. Think of what buttons you need, then find a font that matches your aesthetic. Start changing colors, moving elements around, combining them. Make sure everything is legible.

The menu screen for our current project, Your Dry Delight, is very simple. The key visual (our protagonist emptying a bottle) is combined with a royalty-free picture of the Volstead Act, which defined Prohibition. The font is an art-deco style that evokes the 20′s, while the bottle that servers as a hover marker hearkens back to Prohibition. The white divider is simply a line that’s been faded out on both ends, intended to draw the eye to the buttons.

Everything here, except for the key visual, I cobbled together in Photoshop. It’s not gonna win any awards, but it tells you a hell of a lot more about the game you’re going to play than a default Ren’Py GUI, and more importantly, it helps put you in the right mood.

The Good, the Bad, and the GUI

Now, professional drawn GUI art will definitely look better than most amateur creations. But there are barriers to getting a professional GUI--commission costs, lack of understanding the aesthetic, and so on.

It’s very possible you won’t be pleased with a GUI you create yourself. Heck, I iterate probably 4-5 times for every screen I do in Ren’Py (and often am still displeased with the results). But you can only get better through practice, and when you do get better, you may be surprised by how well you can convey your core concept of the game through something as simple as GUI. 

And unless you’ve slapped bright yellow Comic Sans on a neon orange background, whatever you make will surely look more polished and immersive than nothing at all.

Also, the magical mistakes that happen (like setting text kerning to 1000 instead of 10 for your save text) make it all worth it.

Helpful, free resources:

GIMP (free Photoshop, basically)

Pixabay (look up banners, textures, designs etc that you can use in your game, all royalty-free)

Google Fonts (free fonts)

Visual Novel Interfaces blog (not updated regularly, but useful references)

Free resources on Lemmasoft

Support our future and current projects on Patreon for extra goodies, follow our Twitter for shenanigans, and join our Discord to chat with the devs (and other yaoi/visual novel fans!)

#gamedev #dev blog #renpy #visual novel #game development #GUI #UIdesign

[nikashepard]

2.5D zDepth Animations Tutorial

Due to the popularity of this post, I decided to write a simple tutorial for whoever wants to try the same thing with their favorite game. This method will work with every title that supports ReShade and Depth Buffer (and pretty much every static image you want to animate).

What is ReShade?

It’s more or less a mod that alters the original graphics, adding in more effects (like lens flare), different tones and fixing bad looking edges.

What is the 2.5D/Parallax effect?

2.5D is a method used by many editors to animate a completely still picture, from simple sceneries to characters. This creates a sort of 3D depth on your pictures, used a few times by many professionals to bring famous paintings and advertisements to life.

Note: This tutorial is mostly about scenery animation faking a camera movement and adding in a 3D space between layers. For the Parallax animation on characters I’ll write a separate guide.

What you need:

• The game (duh) (in this case I’ll use Assassin’s Creed Syndicate as example) • ReShade (I find myself more comfortable with a previous version, because I somehow cannot achieve the same results with ReShade 3+ at the moment. This should easily work with the latest version too, but for any problem or if you want to follow the guide better, grab ReShade 2.0.4f from here) • An editing program like Adobe Photoshop, anything that allows you to separate parts on layers and fill empty areas. • Adobe After Effects

A basic editing knowledge is required, along with a good understanding regarding Adobe programs in general. If you make graphics and gifs you’re already a step ahead, but you actually don’t need to be familiar with AE to do the animation.

The tutorial will include four parts:

1) In-game screenshot w/ Depth activated 2) Editing/preparation for AE 3) Compositing 4) Animating

Part 1: In-game Screenshot with Depth Buffer

1) If you are using ReShade 3+ you can follow this tutorial regarding its installation, otherwise copy the ReShade folder, ReShade.fx and ReShade64.dll (or ReShade32.dll if the game is 32bit) into the main game path (where the exe is, so to speak), then rename ReShade64/32.dll as dxgi.dll.

2) With ReShade 2 go to ReShade directory > Presets > Default and drag Shaders_by_CeeJay.cfg into Notepad, then scroll down to the very last line where you see a shader called DisplayDepth. Next to #define USE_DisplayDepth change the value from 0 to 1. With ReShade 3 press Shift+F2 and look for the same name, if you properly downloaded it along with the other shaders of choice it will most likely be already activated. It is highly recommended to set a hotkey for this effect so that you can easily turn it on and off in game (for example, #define Depth_ToggleKey VK_F12). 

3) Open Pipeline.cfg and look for the line #include EFFECT(CeeJay, DisplayDepth). Select it, cut it away and then paste it to the very top before any other shader listed. This will allow you to obtain smooth shapes instead of jagged edges (you should also play around with AA options, specifically SMAA and/or FXAA, both included in CeeJay.cfg). Sadly I’m not sure how the setup works in ReShade 3+.

4) Now that your options are properly set you can start the game. Find an area you like and want to shoot, then press F12 (or any other key you chose for it). If the game has a photo mode or custom made free camera tools, you should totally use those for the best results. You can check this post for a few listed titles and all their respective links.

ReShade allows you to automatically store your screenshots directly into the game’s folder by simply pressing the print screen key. This is how the scene looks normally, without UI and with the free camera activated.

This is what happens when you turn DepthBuffer on.

Note: If all you get with Depth is a fully white or black screen, chances are you need to “reset” by simply entering the fullscreen mode (and switch back to borderless/windowed if that is what you usually like playing with). ReShade usually reloads whenever you apply a modification to the settings, but if even after this the effect doesn’t show up it probably means the game has no DepthBuffer support (or there is some incompatibility somewhere, which may be related to other shaders).

Part 2: Editing

1) Grab your depth screenshot and open it with your editing program of choice, I use Photoshop. In order to animate this, you have to create different layers (renaming them for an easier use in AE, but that is up to you) being sure each hole is covered, or else the empty part will definitely show up in your animation.

2) Make a selection around the areas you want to separate, I’m starting with what is close to the “camera”. Try to be as precise as possible to keep most of the details, especially around the character. Once you’re satisfied with your selection press CTRL+X to cut it out and then paste it into the same position, a new layer for it will be automatically created.

3) If you hide the layer you’ve just made, you will obviously notice an empty shape on the background right where you cut it. The easiest way to fill that properly is by selecting the layer (CTRL+LMB on it), inverting selection and going to Modify > Fill > Content-Aware.

As you can see the empty area has been filled completely, but a few fixes are required. You can use the clone stamp tool or the healing brush, in this case I choose the latter because it makes the process quicker.

It can be a bit tedious in some places... especially if there are a lot of buildings or trees, depending on your scene. Photoshop covered the outline using the existing content to generate the missing parts as I dragged the brush over it, but you may want to use the clone tool as well and even draw here and there where the brush failed.

Repeat the process for all the other layers you want to separate and then rename everything to know what you’re gonna edit in AE (again, this is optional). You can also make the back layer bigger to hide imperfections behind the other layers, which won’t be too visible while animating. Further edits will be done in AE later anyway.

Part 3: Compositing

1) Save the PSD file and load Afer Effects. I’m currently using the CC 2015 one, but even if you have an older version this method will work without problems.

Go to File > Import > File and select your PSD. 

Be sure the importer is set on Composition and Editable Layer Styles is checked, this is essential if you want to work on each layer.

2) Double-click on the left to preview the PSD and convert every single layer into 3D. To do so simply check the third square on the right, under the cube icon:

Now we need to add a Camera. Go to Layer > New > Camera and leave the options untouched (the default configuration should be okay for this).

3) Right under your preview you should see a button called Active Camera. Switch to Custom View 1 to move the layers and create depth between them.

All you have to do is select each layer in the lower panel and move it using the blue arrow (z direction) to push it backward or forward. Use the order you’ve got as reference for the best result, then change the view to Active Camera again when you’re done.

4) Now that you have changed the original positions you need to fix their size to fit the composition. Select all layers at once, press S and activate the little watch icon that appears followed by the effect name (Scale). You will see three values then; place your mouse over the 100,0% one and drag it to the right or left in order to resize the layer(s). Use the directional arrows to also move them up or down eventually.

The stopwatch is absolutely fundamental, because it tells where to place each frame in the timeline. Whenever you apply an effect or any modification you need to be sure it’s recorded at the very start, this way it will affect the entire sequence and you won’t risk to only see it taking action in a few frames later instead.

5) You can move the upper bars in your timeline to change the final time. A few seconds for this kind of animations will suffice, I always set it around 4s.

Part 4: Animating

1) Now we can finally animate, woo!!

It is highly recommended to make all the planes bigger than the composition, so that you can move them around without risking to get empty spaces. In this case we want to fake a camera movement with a sort of 3D perspective, like the gifs I’ve posted in that photoset.

Let’s start from the first layer. Click on it and press P (position) to store the current location on the first frame, then move the time indicator at the end of your sequence. I want the main layer to slide horizontally, thus I will move the red arrow on X axes.

As soon as your first animation is stored, another frame will be generated at the end of the timeline. After Effects automatically creates all the frames between the first and the last one, if you are happy with it select the second layer and do the same, then the third and repeat. You can also use the R (rotation) key to add more realism. Remember to ALWAYS check the stopwatch on frame 1 before doing anything else.

You can preview the animation with space bar, the rendering times change according to the amount of virtual memory installed on your PC.

For a nice camera shake you can follow this tutorial.

2) Once you’re happy with your animation you’re ready to export it. You can pick a simple video option, but that usually requires a second rendering in Sony Vegas or any other program for video editing to fix the bad-looking fps drop. I suggest you to export in frames instead, especially if you plan to make gifs. Go to Composition > Add to Render Queue, a new panel will appear on the bottom. Click on Lossless and pick PNG Sequence next to Format, then on Not yet specified (output to) and select a destination on your computer. Press Render, wait and it’s done! Again, the rendering times will highly depend on your RAM and composition size. The bigger, the slower; if you play in 4k you should reduce the screenshot size to a common 1920x1080 at least, even smaller after that for the final gif (tumblr has a 3MB limit).

Result:

Questions? Send me a note!

#my graphics #ac syndicate #assassin's creed syndicate #assassin's creed #jacob frye #tutorial #depth buffer #zdepth #after effects #animation #guide #graphics #camera shake #reshade #2.5d #2.5d animation #parallax animation #parallax effect

[wobblegong]

I was going to squee about my space-cat but I just got shotgunned through the Chains of Harrow quest & subsequent orbiter thing so instead I’m going to spew my thoughts everywhere. I have too many emotions about this ok. WARNING: Massive story spoilers (for many quest lines), massive gameplay spoilers, massive worldbuilding spoilers, BASICALLY NOTHING BUT SPOILERS UP IN HERE. You probably don’t want to read this unless 1. you’re caught up on everything including 2. you dgaf and find me nattering about a game you don’t play interesting. (~2200 words.)

I. Gameplay/Mechanics

Chains of Harrow is VERY WELL DONE, jfc. I continue to be impressed by Warframe’s execution. Some previous quests weren’t quite ideal but this one... this one was on point.

(Shout-out to my game dev friend who does totally unrelated stuff and their ANGUISHED GROAN when I asked how they’d do the one bit with moving the audio around in their not-Warframe engine; they stared into Hell as they contemplated it. “But Unreal engine apparently lets you do it just fine.” It’s so fun to be reminded that one engine’s effortless task is another engine’s “the only thing that eclipses the suffering this would require is your hubris”.)

There were spoopy screen effects, not that I’m surprised– already seen plenty of demonstrations of what they can do when I get flashbanged or fade in/out of a menu. One section has you chasing directional audio aka heading towards wherever the sound is coming from. (This was the worst section for me, I had to pause three times to get my panic wrangled.) The talking-heads approach to story, combined with the setting, combined with a few lite-cutscenes & one interactive segment... was actually fucking perfect. I usually feel like the exposition-dumps are somewhat contrived and aggravating, but here I was SOLD.

If I had any criticism, it’d be that the spoopy starts wearing off like 1/3 of the way in and just keeps eroding until the end isn’t spoopy at all. It didn’t feel like a deliberate tone-shift, just that they ran out of jumpscare (which is what the spoopy is 100% made of) and didn’t really replace it with anything. I don’t consider it a drawback though... if it had actually been scary the whole way through I’d be a gibbering jelly. Also everything else going on is so fantastic that I prefer the lack of distraction.

I did laugh when the main combat section goes Ghostbusters: you have to trap a spoopy in a box you toss on the floor, complete with a glowy beam trapping said spoopy. Mild grumble because I wasted a dozen traps before I googled wtf to do in that section (hint: APPLY BULLETS TO BAD THING) but fine, if I hadn’t been accidentally lied to I would probably have tried that first instead of faffing around.

Final “boss” fight was indeed kind of a bear but I was warned beforehand that I was gonna get punched out like forty times so when I only got punched out thrice it was like all my namedays had come at once! HOLY FUCK DON’T DO IT BEFORE YOU’VE DONE THE GARA QUEST THO & GOTTEN AN OPERATOR AMP ON CETUS. This quest predates all that BUT THE AMP IS GOOD. EVEN A BAD AMP IS BETTER THAN NO AMP. So... hot tip, get your little shit a little piece of shit and be thrilled when you can actually kill the boss fight adds in under 12 hours.

Ok no I have one true criticism: BLOOD ISN’T RED WAX, WHY WERE THE BLOODY MESSAGES ON THE WALL THAT COLOR. Actually they were... really 3D... ... ...maybe it WAS wax? Where the fuck did the spooperson get so much red wax for writing creepy messages?

II. Story

So the story is that you get a haunted I mean hecked up transmission, it’s spooky; you go to a fucked-up empty ship and find one Red Veil chick just hanging out with her cat. She says a lot of baffling things and then forty ex-Red-Veil zombies/ghosts/possessed assholes try to murder you, ineptly. Ok maybe they’re less inept if they’re not going in ultra-slow-motion. (My god, I will never stop being happy that Frost Prime was my first frame. So good and useful when I’m going into shit blind.)

You haul RVC (Red Veil Chick) out of there and plunk her ass down in the Steel Meridian camp because I guess the factions like each other enough for casual favors like that. She says some more barely-less-confusing shit and very earnestly (there’d be dewey eyes and heaving bosoms if she wasn’t wearing a full-body-inculding-head suit) begs you to go find some relic. Off you go to another fucked-up empty ship! UNNECESSARILY CREEPY WHISPERS lead you to said relic, which was the thing Rell focused on for soothing because most sensory stimulation was too much for him. Wait, what? And then ASSHOLE MCINVINCIBLE tries to stick his hand up your ass like a puppet and if you’re me you sprint in circles for 30 seconds crying while the NPC frantically tries to get you out.

You go back to RVC and she does a seance. It works. To summarize/paraphrase including story bits revealed further into the quest line, Rell was one of the Tenno who got shunned out of the gaggle even before they all got Tenno’d. Apparently this put him in a position to discover what the fuck is in the Void, at which point he had his meatsack body killed so his mind(/soul/whatever) could be chained to his specific ‘frame, leaving him awake/conscious to keep doorstoppering the badbadnotgood, even while the other Tenno were off snoozing per the Lotus’ plans. A line of RVCs (Red Veil Chicks) were in on this and dedicated themselves to... looking after him, inasmuch as you can look after someone who shoveled themself into a robot that’s been chained up somewhere it’ll never see the light of day. They could talk to him anyways– I guess they were mostly there to keep him from going bonkers and maybe intervene if anything ever went wrong.

Anyways, that’s all fine right up until it isn’t; RVC & the Lotus determine that his transference fucked up and fragmented so you need to go Ghostbusters the creepy phantoms of this guy’s psyche. Collect them all while dodging ASSHOLE MCINVINCIBLE (and a smattering of forgettable mooks– fuck off Infested, I don’t care if it’s your ship) and RVC thanks you/tearfully asks you to take them back to where his ‘frame rests so he can die because THAT’S ENOUGH SUFFERING FOR ONE PERSON THANKS.

Nothing gets to be easy, not even that, so when you find the ‘frame and start snapping its chains it wakes up. RVC has about five seconds to go “thaT’S NOT RELL” while your little shit self scurries behind a pillar before boss fight! Red Veil operatives (except dead or mind controlled or who knows what) try to punch you out while some kind of awful red glowing tear pops in and out to fireball you. But eventually you snap all the chains and yaaaay Rell gets his eternal rest. (I’m not crying, you’re crying.)

III. Meta Story/Worldbuilding

It’s SUCH A THING to me that RVC casually knows what the Tenno are. I mean, ok, makes sense because the RVCs were so involved with Rell, buT LIKE. MAN. NOBODY ELSE KNOWS. THE “KIND OF HAVE A CLUE” PEOPLE STILL DON’T KNOW MORE THAN “IF YOU DISSECT A WARFRAME YOU WILL NOT FIND ANYTHING THAT EXPLAINS WHAT THE TENNO ARE”. Fuck, I think the RVC even dresses down the Lotus over it a la “fuck u, u say they’re ur kids but u suck and u never knew about Rell”.

They completely skate right past RVC setting up shop in the hyper-secret Steel Meridian HQ. “Yeah, no big, me and my ouija board are gonna hang out at the secret base of a completely different faction, which happens to be located like three centimeters from the balls of the genocidal maniacs they defected from. Sorry you keep seeing my kavat in the background of my transmissions.” W h a t . ?

...ok, side thoughts out of the way: OH FUCK OH FUCKOHFUCKOHFUCK THE MAN IN THE WALL

As of this point in Warframe’s existence (out of game I mean) they have done... not the WORST job defining the Void, but of course a lot of it hasn’t been written out. (Both because good storytelling and also because the writers probably haven’t gotten that far. :p) Things we do know:

The ship of people who got stuck in there was (afaik) 100% casualties among all the adults. Fuckers all went feral apparently? But the kids lived. Although they came out weird and dangerous (understatement). People do still go into the Void atm, generally via opening a portal on another planet. People... don’t always come OUT of the Void, although presumably they come back out often enough for the major powers to feel like it’s not a waste of time to ransack that shit. I don’t know where they stuck this lore but iirc there’s some kind of horrible THING in there that basically shoves some kind of hijacking device into you, if it catches you, and then it controls you forever. (IDK if dying gets you out of it or if it can just be like HA HA NICE TRY MEATPUPPET and get you back up. With how this setting is, could go either way.) This is why all the Void tilesets have a variety of mob types: the THING has been hijacking the assortment of factions that wander in. Like I said, people don’t always come back out during those expeditions.

So the first badbadnotgood hint I personally played through was at the end of The War Within (Space Lil’ Shit 2 Electric Boogaloo, Now With More Tremors). It’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-it brief, but while Space Dad is congratulating you, your Operator suddenly stares into the camera, eyes turning into voids, and a creepy voice taunts you, something about “don’t forget what you owe me kid” or the like. It’s a single line, but the way the camera snaps around (complete with some fucking over-the-top visual effects) & Space Dad catches your arm while you shake it off... thaaaaaat’s not a trivial hallucination.

Anyway. Among other things, during the Chains of Harrow the RVC is very fucking explicit about how Rell was grappling with/cockblocking a specific “vast and indifferent” entity that lives in the Void. Offhandedly, The Lotus dismisses this while mentioning that basically all Tenno have mentioned or claimed similar things. (RVC keeps on insisting.) Right before Rell finally dies, he asks who’s gonna take over his job if he stops, and the RVC coos that all the other Tenno will have to help now.

I have been told by one friend– without checking around, so could be wrong, but– that once you’ve finished the Chains of Harrow you’ll periodically get jumpscared on your ship by a creepy asshole who looks identical to your Operator, but has a different (asshole) voice. Said friend randomly turned around once and what looked like their Operator was sitting on their nav console. And taunted them. Said friend sprinted down to the transference pod to make sure their Operator was in the right place– they were– but was pretty freaked out by it.

Obviously, we don’t have much more detail at this point, but uH. This is not painting a rosy picture of the shit lurking out there in the Void. To me this is pointing towards some kind of extradimensional horror that you really don’t want to draw the attention of... and we’ve gone and done that. Possibly even that the Tenno were lucky to scamper away the first time after it got to play with an entire ship of people (some guessing there, but given its asshole moves so far...) and going anywhere near the Void after that was about as wise as standing on a hilltop in a thunderstorm while double-dog-daring Zeus.

I’m so excited to find out how fucked we are.

Given what the orbiter shit involved, the answer is probably very, and also creatively. BALLAS? WHAT?? WHAT?????

IV. Further Thoughts

I really would love to hear the perspectives of autistic folk. That said, I... more or less liked how the Chains of Harrow handled Rell? The quest established that he was very different; the other kids-eventually-Tenno ignored him, while his mother loved him (I’m open to other interpretations but everything I heard pointed to sincerity). He had the intelligence and agency to deal with badbadnotgood, and while the RVC had a certain maternal vibe she was pretty damn reverent when discussing what he’d done/was doing. Also (maybe most importantly in my reckoning) he didn’t get a happy ending, but he succeeded at what he was doing. By this setting’s standards that’s a rosier conclusion than almost anyone else gets.

Now that I’m thinking of it, I’m racking my brains for any parties that have known the truth of the Tenno and been kindly disposed towards them without getting all maternal/paternal. I’m coming up blank. (The fuck is with this setting and everyone treating them like kids btw? All indications are that they stopped aging so they look like young teens, sure, but all indications are ALSO that they’ve lived awhile time, even excluding their cryosleep! I’m willing to believe a certain amount of “their brain maturity stalled along with the rest of their aging so they have the hardware of a 13yo” but that wouldn’t undo living long enough to form a small civilization. SOME parts of teenagers not being like adults are hardware, but a lot of it is pure lack of life experience, which the Tenno have in spades by now. Also, you know, THEY PSYCHICALLY POWER SPACE NINJA ROBOTS, SHOW SOME RESPECT.)

...

And now I’m going to pass out to sweet dreams of tomorrow’s fully-grown space-kitty.

#Wobblegong plays Warframe #aaaAAA EMOTIONS #GOD I LOVE WARFRAME'S WORLDBUILDING

[tisfan]

Prompt: Communal Kitchen, Dob-E gets revenge. On what is birthday baby's choice!

Too Big To Be Haunted

“No, it’s fine, baby. I got it.”

DOB-E’s person was doing something DOB-E did not approve of.

He was lying.

DOB-E didn’t know how his person managed the lie; didn’t otherhuman-programs have heartbeat monitors? He sent the inquiry to the JARVIS unit.

Lying is a human prerogative,came back JARVIS’s inquiry. They could detect it more often if they choseto. For sake of communal cohabitation, a situation like this can be consideredtelling a white lie and is ignored for continued mutual harmony.

DOB-E wasn’t certain what the color of the lie had to do withanything. For that matter, DOB-E couldn’t decide how JARVIS knew what the colorwas. It was a spoken thing and had no color whatsoever. DOB-E sent himself areminder to investigate further. Right this second, DOB-E was more concerned withthe other thing his human was doing.

He was packing.

“Yeah, pretty boring without you aroun– no, I know, it’s okay.Someone’s gotta pay th’ bills ‘round here.” His person was on the floor,digging around under the sofa. When DOB-E’s human had taken up permanentresidence in the penthouse, Robby-the-Robot had refused, utterly, to cedeauthority of that area to DOB-E.

Instead, DOB-E had ended up in charge of what was known as “thebolt hole.” Which was actually good, because whenever DOB-E’s human needed thebolt hole, the human was usually in dire need. Thus, DOB-E’s presence, watchinghis human do unaccustomed things and becoming just a little more frantic.

Several months ago, the human had brought tools up, cut away asection of the flooring and installed a gun safe, as well as several otherpieces of equipment. After consulting with others of its type, DOB-E had notbeen concerned about the “scat bag.” Agent Barton, Agent Romanov, and somewhatsurprisingly, Colonel Rhodes, all had stashes in the Tower for emergencies.

That DOB-E knew about; mostly from network-sharing with his fellowcleaners (gossiping, JARVIS had labeled that folder, once). There could havebeen others; not everyone who lived in the Tower had a residence there; nor didthey keep all their possessions on site. There were other storage facilitiesand hide aways.

Paranoia was a word that DOB-Ehad defined for him, most closely, since his inception.

I suggest you not do what you’re thinking of doing, DOB-E, JARVIS mentioned. It is outside your programming parameters tointerfere with human business. The human is well equipped to take care ofitself.

DOB-E’s human is stupid.

And lying.

And leaving.

JARVIS-UNIT will open Project Fribble.

I certainly shall not, JARVIS responded. Thatproject is untested. That project had been forgotten. DOB-E will

This unit had Free Will. This Unit Will Do The Thing!

Unit DOB-E is going to get in a lot of trouble, JARVIS predicted, his data tone droll and smug.

This unit will Represent!

(Mobile Users, there is a readmore; the rest of the fic can be found under the break, or at A03)

There were times that JARVIS really didn’t understand the need fora body; he had access to nearly every computer system, communication link,database, camera, and operations control that he could possibly want.

And then there were humans.

JARVIS was pretty sure he didn’t have a body so that he didn’thave to shake them until their teeth rattled in their heads.

He was quite certain that Mr. Stark would have had a contingencyplan in place – he usually had dozens – to address this particular issue.Except that Mr. Stark also had spent the better part of three months withcatastrophic memory loss and he was still playing, as he could deem it, catchup.

Which meant it had not yet occurred to him that his – up untilthis point – exceptionally loyal bedmate would have packed a bag, told a widevariety of colorful, but probably effective, lies, and disappeared.

JARVIS had to admit, the cover was good; Barnes had gone severaldays without conducting basic hygiene, let his face-stubble grow out until heresembled what Agent Romanov referred to as his murder hobo look, and slouchedaround the Tower appearing depressed and negligent.

“Gonna hole up, f’r a bit,” he told Steve, point-blank lying.“Jus’ until Tony gets back.”

“Pretty sure that’s not healthy, Buck,” Captain Rogers said,putting a hand on Barnes’ shoulder. Barnes slipped to the side, just enough tolet Rogers’ fingertips lose their point of contact.

“Don’t gotta be,” Barnes said, letting his eyes do most of thetalking, all downcast and zigging from point to point. JARVIS could tell,Captain Rogers was concerned, but he wasn’t going to let concerned interfere.“Jus’… it’s too much, without ‘im. I… don’t tell ‘im, okay? I’m workin’ onit, an’… he don’t need t’ know how hard this is f’r me. He’s got his ownstuff to worry about.”

“If you say so,” Captain Rogers said.

“Dob’s’ll look after me,” Barnes said. “Bring dinner an’ stuff. Iwon’t starve. Jus’… need to be alone.”

“You let me know if you need anything, okay?”

“Yeah, I’ll do that.”

Humans had annoying amounts of free-will. JARVIS had lists ofprotocols that he could comb through to see what did and did not apply to agiven situation. JARVIS was protective. He was private. He was discreet.

He was going to be yelled at by Mr. Stark.

Except JARVIS knew that he really wasn’t. Mr. Stark did not beratehis creations; he treated them with love – and the sort of kindness that camewith threatening to unmake and replace them with an intelligenttrash-compactor. Which on the surface never seemed nice, and the first fewmonths after JARVIS came online, he had… uncertainty as to his fate.

JARVIS did not like uncertainty.

He did, however, admire humans.

Who would say “I never do that,” and as soon as a situation cameup in which that was required, managed to throw most of it out the windowand accomplish the task anyway.

Project Fribble initiated.

Well, that was something JARVIS could report, at least.

It had taken some doing, pummeling at old memories behind theblocks and the wipes.

The first time Bucky’d tried it, he’d spent almost an hourdry-heaving, just touching the wiped memories. They weren’t, he knew, actuallygone.

There were blocks in places; pain receptors and scar-tissue to digaround underneath. To try to patch the collective story together.

There were traps.

And not just the sort in his mind. But Bucky did manage to pummelout a section of his brain under the ice that let him know where there was anold Cold War cache, in northeastern Minnesota, and it didn’t take long beforehe was on his bike and headed west.

There were times, Bucky thought, when he really missed having abackup tac team. Disposable Hydra goons; fetch and carry, kept the logisticsonline, science and development. Useful. It wasn’t that the Winter Soldiercouldn’t operate solo; he could. But he didn’t currently have access to some ofthe databanks and mission specs, and certainly weaving his way into a Hydramobile command pod was within his skill set. Just, a specialist would do itfaster.

Bucky twitched, tapped the keys in. Checked the glue-pads on hisfingertips that kept his DNA and other biometric readings from being entered.Who only knew where he’d end up if a Hydra Pod thought it had identified theAsset?

Surge of guilt; he hadn’t told anyone where he was going. Heimagined that if Tony had actually been at the Tower when he’d been contacted,that Bucky would have told Tony what he was doing, but he knew that was a lie.It just would have been harder.

He’d have had to pick a fight or something to get Tony out of theway. Which would not have gone over well with anyone, and Bucky was just asglad he hadn’t had to do it.

The pod clicked open; finally.

Once in, it was only a matter of moments to get the navigationonline, activate screens and shields, bring the weapons systems up – he reallyhoped this was not going to be a shooting mission, but better to have guns andnot need them, than need them and have his pants around his proverbial ankles,so to speak – load himself and his gear in, and thumb the button.

“Yay, Eastern Bloc,” Bucky muttered. “I’m sure you haven’t changedmuch.”

He heard the clink as something attached to the transport pod, butdidn’t think too much of it. The tunnels were old, the ejection chutes wereolder. There was probably debris; as long as there weren’t alarms, it wasn’tworth worrying about.

This Unit thinks this was a bad idea.

The landing at Lake Ladoga was rough. Something had been throwingthe rear stabilizer off for the entire transpolar flight. Ice, probably.

Bucky brushed himself off and climbed out of the pod.

The lake hadn’t changed at all, which was somewhat unexpected.Bucky would have thought there would be all manner of changes, it having beensome thirty years since the last time he was in this particular part of theSoviet Bloc. Not that it was soviet territory anymore, which may have been oneof the reasons there was no change. Non soviets tended to shy away fromanything too overly tainted by red block hands. If it couldn’t be fixed, itmight well be haunted.

Bucky was pretty sure the lake was too big to haunt.

What would have been easiest is if his contact was out in theopen. That was exactly why it wasn’t going to happen that way. Nothing inBucky’s life could be easy. Paying off a debt, a blood debt at that, would notbe the first thing to go one hundred percent correctly.

Not for this sort of debt.

Bucky stared around at the lake; it was enormous, there was no wayto walk around it in a day; largest entirely ;and bound lake in Europe.“Suvai,” he said, disgusted. “You need to work on narrowin’ down yourdirection. You still think too big.”

There was a dull clatter behind him, metal on metal, and Buckywhirls, pistols coming into his hands like he’d summoned them by magic.

“What even the fuck?”

It looked familiar, damn familiar, but there was no way in fuckinghell that Tony had set a damn watch bot on him.

Even if, Bucky flushed inwardly, he might have deserved it.

It was a hover drone of some sort, bristling with tiny weapons.All in all, it sort of looked like a flying iron man chihuahua. Except notreally. Maybe a floating bunny. With guns. Hard to say, but Bucky was prettysure that his boyfriend had been engineering on some really high priceddesigner drugs.

“JARVIS?”

The bot, if that’s what it was, probably wasn’t JARVIS. Its techwas clean, but a few generations old now; repulsor equipped and molded in thefamiliar style. JARVIS didn’t have use for a body, the AI had said any numberof times, and Bucky was pretty sure that JARVIS did not find Bucky importantenough to change his mind about that.

Which left…

“Dobs?”

Project Fribble Online. The voice, not JARVIS atall, and nothing that Bucky recognized, was mechanical. Not even a bot, just avocal projection.

What the fuck was project fribble?

“Nevermind. Is that you, Dobs?”

The bot bobbled around a little in midair. Made a fewunidentifiable beeping sounds.

“If you’re DOB-E, what was the first thing you brought for me?”

The bot hovered closer. Reached out an appendage of some sort –Bucky really needed to have a chat with his boyfriend about creepy design specbecause Bucky should not feel quite so disconcerted by a cleaning bot – andtapped Bucky’s shirt, then his pants.

Close enough.

The familiar melodic subrefrain of the repulsor tech was oddlyreassuring.

“We’re gonna talk about this when we get home,” Bucky said. “Ididn’t know you could leave the Tower at all, or I’d have told you to stayput.”

This Unit Will Represent!

“What?”

This Unit Will do The Thing!

Great. “You got some sort of sensor pack in that rig-up of yours?”Bucky sighed, then added, “one beep for yes, two for no, three for I have noidea what you’re talking about and four for fuck you.”

Bucky probably should have expected to be told to fuck offpromptly, but he didn’t. When DOB-E the WarBot beeped at him four times. Buckyhad a hard time not cracking up.

“You said it, pal,” Bucky drolled. “Sensors?”

Beep.

“Great. Bring em up. Scan for non-terran oriented life forms.”

Four beeps, and a pause.

“Not my fault. You want to come along, you get to do the weirdstuff. Non earth life forms, Dobs, look it up. Google it or something if youhave to. I don’t want to be here any longer than I gotta be,.”

Bucky wasn’t sure if Dobs couldn’t figure out the sensor suite, orif Suvai was just that adept at hiding, or what, but after an hour of Dobsdoing general sweeps, Bucky did the only other thing he knew how.

He started walking.

He was pretty sure if things were truly urgent, Suvai would havegiven him better directions. Which meant the old creature was just being orneryand wanted Bucky to work for whatever it was. That was okay, or would have beenin some other lifetime. Right now, Bucky’s problem was that his boyfriend wasgoing to be pissed as hell as soon as he figured out what Bucky was up to, andsince Bucky had accidentally hijacked one of his untested engineering projects,Tony finding out about it was going to be sooner, rather than later.

So they were kinda on a time crunch.

“Please Tony, don’t make me have to chose, here,” Bucky muttered.The two of them stamped around the eastern shore of the lake. Okay, well, Buckystomped. Dob-E did some floaty-levitating-whirring-annoying thing that kept up.Except that the bot kept getting distracted by vegetation – which Buckyrealized Dob-E would never have seen up close and live. And lakes and water anddeer and other things.

Bucky had to practically drag the bot away from an ant hill.

It was like travelling with the world’s most dangerousthree-year-old.

The bot would probably do what Bucky told it in an emergency, butat the same time, what if Dob-E didn’t recognize it as an emergency?

Those were the sorts of questions that were above Bucky’s fuckin’pay grade and thinking about them just made his head ache. He wasn’t here tostart an international incident, much less a galactic one, and yet he couldhave, very easily, and he’d really rather just not.

As it got darker, Dob-E started glowing.

“Seriously?”

Apparently.

“I don’t suppose if I asked nicely, that you’d go back and waitwith the pod while I carry out my mission?”

Beep. Beep.

No.

Beep beep beep beep.

Fuck you.

“Yeah, fuck you, too, pal,” Bucky said. “What are you, afraid ofthe dark?”

Beep.

“Yes? You’re afraid of the dark? You’re a freakin’ light sourcehow are you afraid of the dark?”

Fuck you.

“Does J know you’re out here?”

Yes. No. Maybe.

“He knows you’re out, not necessarily where specifically.” Buckyinterpreted.

Yes.

“Does Tony know we’re out?”

Maybe. No.

“JARVIS will probably tell on us, eventually.”

Yes.

“We should finish up soon and get home.”

Yes. Fuck you.

“It’s not necessary to be an asshole,: Bucky notes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Fuck you.

“So, you a Charlie this time, or still Vlad?”

Of course Suvai had to wake him up at o’dark thirty, stealing upon him past an array of sensors, and Dob-E.

Bucky did a quick sweep of the area. “What’d you do to my bot?”

“Convinced him to reboot,” Suvai said. “I didn’t hurt it.”

“You know I hate that,” Bucky said.

Of course he did. That’s why he did it.

“Charlie, or Vlad?”

“Mostly Charlie these days,” Bucky said. “Got a touch of Vlad inme that won’t ever go away again, I think.”

Suvai peeled himself out of the shadows. Even by Bucky’s dimcampfire, he looked entirely human. Not a day older than the last time Buckyhad seen him, sometime around the fall of Berlin’s wall, some thirty years pastat least.

“Little gray around the edges,” Suvai observed.

“Yeah, well, things aren’t ever black and white, are they?”

“It’s a good thing, starling,” Suvai said. “Touch of stability.Little bit of love in your pocket?”

Bucky couldn’t help a smile. “Proved that one wrong.”

“You changed enough to allow it,” Suvai pointed out.

That much was true. When he’d met Suvai, during his second andmost disastrous escape attempt from Hydra, he’d been totally broken. He mighthave loved Steve, clung to him distantly, but it would have been nothing butnecessary. Survival love, and not friendship at all. Certainly nothingtender, like how he felt for Tony.

“Did you need something, or just want to gossip? Because really,you could have just called. You’ve always known how to find me.”

“Maybe I just wanted to see if you’d come. If you’d remember yourdebts.”

“I remember what you did for me.”

And more importantly, what Suvai had done to him. Grabbedwhat remained of his sanity and pressed it deep like a diamond. Hidden away.Hidden, like all those lives that Suvai had saved. Hydra was going to kill thewhole village for giving the Winter Soldier shelter, for trying to hide anasset from Hydra hands.

Suvai had saved them all. On one condition. Bucky had to go back.He had to make a choice, to decide that those two hundred lives wereworth more than sixty more years of torture and death and murder.

The something bad and the much worse.

And it had probably been the only thing that had given Bucky achance to come back from the Winter Soldier at all.

That one tiny sliver of sanity.

The one that said “the man on the bridge, who was he? I knew him.”

“Is it time, then? To pay up?”

He wasn’t sure that Suvai wouldn’t claim his life. All he couldhope there was that Tony would understand. Maybe that he could say goodbye.

But Bucky owed a debt and he meant to be honorable. Since he couldbe,

“If I come to claim you, will you allow it?”

Bucky handed over his guns to Suvai. Turned. Knelt. “Back of thehead. Do it quick and clean. And let the bot go home, to tell my man that Ilove him.”

The muzzle pressed into his skull.

Tony. Tony I’m sorry. Forgive me. I love you.

There was a click and a whirr. Project Fribble is online.

Dob-E raised an entire arsenal of tiny little weapons and pointedthem at Suvai

Fuck you.

Bucky couldn’t help but turn, to look and watch and marvel and wonder.

“I believe your loyal little friend here might have something tosay about that.”

“Yeah, he said fuck you, Suvai.”

The man who was not a man chuckled. “I didn’t spare your life allthose years ago to take it from you for no reason now.”

“So, what were you planning just there?”

“Wanted to see if your honor was still something that meantanything to you, or if it had washed away like the stone under the waterfall.”

“Do you crap out of the same factory where I get my fortunecookies? You sound like a bad movie mentor,” Bucky snarked.

Dob-E did not stand down. Bucky didn’t tell him to, either.

“I’ve seen you,” Suvai said. “On the television. Working with thisnew team of heroes, these Avengers. It’s a stupid name.”

“Generally speaking, I agree,” Bucky said. “Better than the X-men,I think.”

“I don’t plan to kill you at this time,” Suvai said.

“So, what do you want?”

“I have already taken it,” Suvai said. “While you were sleeping.”

Bucky gritted his jaw. “You fucking bastard.”

“If it was as trivial as a cold, you know I’d have chosen alocal.”

“What do I have this time?”

“Oh, you know, various viruses, probably two or three differentcancers. Heart disease. The grab bag of fun, stuck in this meatbody.”

“Meatbodies weren’t meant to live as long as you’re putting thisone up to,” Bucky said. He didn’t feel sick, but he knew he would, soon enough.A couple days and the serum could beat it, but in the meanwhile, he’d feel likeshit. And he probably wouldn’t be able to get the hell out of Russia beforeanyone came looking for him. Great.

Suvai shrugged. “I’m not done here yet.”

“You’re never going to be done, either,” Bucky said. “You’re notgoing to find them.”

“They didn’t die,” Suvai said. “They can’t leave. Ergo, they arestill here on this miserable planet and I will find them.” He touched his upperarm where his bonded tattoos remained, unfaded. “If it was your lover, couldyou let him go, no matter what?”

Bucky thought about Tony. And he thought about the sort ofdevotion he’d voluntarily laid down at the man’s feet without ever having beenasked, but without ever hesitating. If Tony was missing, there was nothingBucky wouldn’t do to get him back.

“With your help,  I still have time,” Suvai said. “I cantouch every needle in the haystack and make certain. I will find them, oldfriend. Thank you.”

“Next time, ask first.”

“Would you have said no?”

“At least pretend to observe the forms.”

Suvai’s laughter followed him into the darkness.

Bucky didn’t even get three steps following him before he wasdizzy and a wave of pain swept over him. He went to his knees.

“Okay,” he said. “Jus’ gonna have to wait this out. I promise,it’ll look bad, but I’ll be okay. In a few days. Maybe a week. It’s never goneon longer than a week.”

Dob-E beeped nervously.

“Yeah, he’s got some sort of transferral power. Glad you didn’tshoot him, he’d have just given me th’ wounds instead. And I ain’t wanting tobe shot with Tony’s repulsors, thanks anyway.”

Beep beep beep.

“No maybe about it, I’ve seen him do it. You can’t hurt him. Youcan’t sneak up on him. He’s practically immortal, so long as he can dash hisillness off on other people. He saves the big stuff up for people like me, whocan take it, or sometimes suicidal people. Or kids so badly damaged at birththat they can’t survive. He doesn’t like to hurt people, but… he’s alien. Hestill doesn’t quite think of us as peers. We’re… like talking dogs orsomething.”

Beep beep beep beep.

“Yeah. He’s not a good being. But he saved my life, once, and thelives of a lot of other people. I still owe him. Tony will understand.” Ihope.

Beep.

“Oh, hey, you’re awake. That’s good, glad to see that.” Tony’svoice seemed to come from very far away. Something cool touched his forehead.“I’m not saying it’s the worst vacation spot ever, but I’m a little hurt thatyou started without me.”

Bucky had a body, he was pretty sure of that. It was the largish,unmoving thing that hurt everywhere. Trying to get his brain back inconnection with all the parts that moved or breathed or did… whatever they weresupposed to do, he wasn’t quite… ug… He licked at his mouth a little,dry and coated on the inside and… Words. He knew some of those. “Water?” Hewasn’t sure there was any – he’d sent Dobs into the nearest village for araid, and rather expected it hadn’t gone well.

“Yep,” Tony said, and oh, fuck it hurt when Tony helped himsit up a little, but there was the smooth cool feel of ceramic at his lips andwhen he opened his mouth, water flowed in, a slow and steady trickle, and thatfelt good enough to be worth the pain. “Fever’s coming down a little, that’sgood, too.”

Bucky figured out how to open his eyes, decided not to. He wasn’tsure he was ready for whatever expression was on Tony’s face. God damn it,Suvai. “How long’s it been? How’d you get here?” He lied, even to himself.Cracked an eyelid to peer out from under his lashes. Tony was a blur of fleshcolor and black shadows. The light was searing, stabbing, and he couldn’t helpthe groan that escaped him. That had decidedly not been worth anything; he’dgathered no data and just ached more. Probably Tony already knew how much painBucky was in, but he didn’t need to rub it in Tony’s face, so to speak.

“I’ve been here for two days, ever since JARVIS told me you’d goneAWOL and gave me DOB-E’s tracker. According to your partner in crime, here, youwere just laying out on the ground by the lake for about a day and a halfbefore I got here. Which makes whatever you’re infected with terrifying.You know that, right?” DOB-E beeped. Yes.

“Not too bad,” Bucky managed. “It’s th’ cancer makes it worse. Canget treatment for that in a hospital, but th’ fucker never lets me get there.Probably had somethin’ infectious, too. He’s thorough, that way.” He slittedhis eyes again. At the moment, if he’d had to guess, he’d have said justworried was the primary expression, but he could see and hear angry at theedges. He wondered if he was still ill enough for Tony to cut him some slackfor… an hour, maybe? Just an hour. “Sorry.”

“Are you?” That came out a little sharply. An hour woulddefinitely be pushing it. “And what flavor of sorry is it? Is this the sort ofsorry that means you’re not going to do whatever damnfool thing you did again,or the kind that means you’re definitely going to do it again but maybe you’llgive me some warning next time?”

If Bucky was going to tell the truth, and at this point, he reallyprobably should before Tony decided that Bucky was feeling well enough to riskthrowing something at him, it was the flavor of sorry that was wish I hadn’tgotten caught. He should be more diplomatic than that. “Sorry I worriedyou.”

“That sounds decidedly like the flavor of ‘I’m going to do thisagain,’” Tony said, flicking his fingers.  

“I owe him a debt,” Bucky protested. “An’… an’ I can do this forhim. He ain’t killed me yet.”

“Yet.”

That was a short word. But so, so filled with meaning.

“I’mma rare resource for him,” Bucky said. “I can take it. I canheal from it. He can’t, he don’t… his biology, if you can even call it that, istotally different from ours. He can… move th’ hurt around. Take it fromhimself, give it to me, but if he don’t get healed once in a while, he’ll die.”Bucky glanced over to the lake. It still hadn’t changed.

Hadn’t changed for decades. Centuries, perhaps. Suvai would know,perhaps. Their ship crashed; his pod ejected him into the cold lake waters. Hispartners were still underneath, stealthed. Sleeping. Unfindable. Undetectable.The lake was so large. And maybe it was haunted. It was haunted by the love ofaliens, fleeing their brutal home planet, who’d crashed here millennia ago andwere so tied together that they couldn’t leave.

“What is he, one of Xavier’s–”

“He’s an alien,” Bucky said. “They crashed here. He’s been lookingfor his partners ever since. They’re not dead. They’re just missing. Andhe’s going to be here, looking, until he finds them. Or he dies. It’s not somuch, what he asks of me.” Bucky slanted a look at Tony. “An’… god, it’scheatin’ to say it, Tony, but you know it’s true. I’d do it for you. If youwere locked in that lake somewhere, in some kinda suspension, I’d never leave.”

Maybe the lake wasn’t too big to be haunted.

“You’re a liar,” Tony said, and he wasn’t even being fondor affectionate, or even close to forgiveness. “You… you– left me! To comehere, to put yourself at risk, and don’t even think that Dob-E didn’t show methe footage of you offering him the back of your fucking neck!”

“Tony –”

“Don’t. Just don’t say it. You say you love me, and then you putyourself at risk like this, and it’s not like I don’t understand that, but why…why do you have to be stupid about it? Can’t you just…”

“No.” Bucky said, and he was sorry, he was so goddamn sorry,but, “No, Tony, I can’t. I can’t be th’ man that loves you, can’t be th’ man youdeserve to love, and not… be this way. This is who I am, Tony, and I’msorry as hell that you’re hurtin’. I don’t never want to hurt you, I hope youknow that. But this is who I am. If you love me, ya gotta love all of me. Eventh’ bad parts. Maybe even especially the bad parts.”

“You… stupid, annoying, reckless son of a bitch,” Tony spatat him, and then, Tony was in his arms, face pressed tight against the crook ofBucky’s neck and if Tony’s cheeks were wet, if his voice came out more of a sobthan a scream, that was no one’s business but theirs. “I love you. Don’t… don’tdo shit like this to me, I can’t… I can’t lose you. Please, Bucky,just…”

“I got you, Tony,” Bucky said. He was still in pain; every bit ofhim had been torn up, remade, rebuilt, and still, he wouldn’t trade any of itfor the hot feel of Tony in his arms, the way Tony held him just a little tootight, the way they were made to be there. Together. “I got you.”

“For how long?”

“F’r as long as we got, baby,” Bucky said, pulling Tony evencloser, kissing his hair, his ear, the side of his neck. “I love you.Forever.”

Tony relaxed into the embrace, letting Bucky stroke his hair andsoothe him. Finally pulled back, ignoring his red-rimmed eyes and the tracks onhis cheeks. “I’m still really, really fucking pissed off at you. You know that,right?”

“I’ll make it up to you, baby,” Bucky promised.

Fuck you.

Bucky eyed Dob-E over Tony’s shoulder. “Yeah, and you, too.”

Yes. 

#winteriron #tony x bucky #prompts #communal kitchen #hurt/comfort #Dob-E #original character #Bucky Barnes #Tony Stark #justalurkr

[esamastation]

Nobody trolls everybody and everybody leafs

"JARVIS – why is there a green thing on the counter?" Tony asks blearily.

"I believe that is what is known as a plant sir," the AI answers wryly.

"Why is there a plant on the counter?" Tony demands to know.

"I understand they are often used as decoration. House plant is what I believe they're called. They're common in most homes."

Tony stares at the house plant for a moment. It just sits there, being all green and living in its quaint little pot. "You know what, it's too late for this," he then decides and stumbles over to the coffee pot.

"It's seven a.m. sir."

"Precisely," Tony says and gets a refill for the cold, congealing mess at the bottom of his cup. He takes a sip and shudders. Its terrible, absolutely terrible. "Perfect," he decrees it and turns to head off again.

"What should I do about the plant, sir?" JARVIS asks.

"I don't know. Its a plant. House plant, for decoration," Tony says with a yawn and waves a dismissive hand. "Apparently common in most homes."

"Quite so, sir."

"Yeah," Tony agrees and then stumbles off, and back to the workshop.

-

Steve arches an eyebrow at the flowerpot sitting on the kitchen counter. Its the first thing he's seen in the tower that isn't metal, plastic, glass or fake – or integrated into the structure. Its just... a flower pot.

"Heading out on a morning jog, Captain Rogers? Would you like route suggestions?

Steve glances up and smiles. "Yeah, thanks JARVIS, that's be good," he says and then goes for the fridge to get something to eat. "Anyone else up yet?"

"Define up," JARVIS says delicately. "And yet."

"Awake, already?" Steve offers and then frowns. "Stark's still in his workshop and hasn't gone to bed at all, has he? Should I go intervene?"

"I do not believe it would be welcome, and sir has privacy mode engaged – you would not be able to enter in any case," JARVIS says apologetically.

Steve shakes his head and then gets a bottle of milk out. "What about the others?"

"Agent Barton is still asleep I believe and Doctor Banner is meditating. Agent Romanov however is at the gym."

"Hmm," Steve answers, pouring himself a glass. He side eyes the flower pot. "What's that?" he then asks, because it really doesn't seem to fit the gleaming, stream lined futuristic design of the kitchen at all.

"Apparently a common decoration in most homes," JARVIS answers somewhat sarcastically.

Steve's eyebrows arch at that and then he ducks his head a bit. Huh. He hadn't really though that Stark was into that sort of... well, sentimentality. Was the guy trying to make the Tower more homely or something? It was kind of...

Steve sips his milk and then figures, in Stark speech, it was down right mushy as gestures went. Especially since it doesn't look like the plant had cost more than few bucks – which is pleasant surprise considering the last thing the man had offered them were actual sports cars.

Steve might have reacted badly to that, in hindsight.

Maybe this is Stark's way of... trying to be moderate? Still buying things, but not expensive, life changing things.

Steve smiles a little. "It's kind of charming," he decides and then puts the glass into the dishwasher. "I think I'll head off now. Hey, JARVIS? Can you add a flower shop to my run route?"

-

Natasha stretches her shoulders idly while walking towards the kitchen. Her eyes are immediately drawn to things out of place – namely two house plants, sitting on the counter, which most definitely don't belong on Tony Stark's sterile penthouse suite, never mind his gleaming kitchen.

"JARVIS," Natasha says slowly "Why are there house plants on the kitchen?

"I'm told they're charming and common decoration in most homes, Agent Romanov."

She makes a face at that. It sounds rehearsed and exasperated – even more than usual for JARVIS. Which means that Stark is being an idiot, sad, or sulking, possibly all of the above. "Where's Stark?" she asks.

"In the workshop – with privacy engaged."

So definitely sulking. Maybe it was the sports car debacle – someone might've said something about throwing money around not being good basis for working relationships, never mind friendships. And Stark had, of course, not shown any of them how deep that must've hit.

Sighing Natasha pushes her shower wet hair back and then goes to inspect the plants – just in case they're something one of them might be allergic to. Pepper had told her about the strawberries, after all.

They're pretty basic house plants, though – a fern and a ficus, she thinks, though she's not exactly an expert on house plants. Knowing Tony, though, they'd be a dead before the week was over after no one remembered to water them.

Still. House plants.

"I guess there's worse things," Natasha muses and goes to grab a water bottle from the fridge. "If anyone asks, I'll be out shopping," she says.

"Very well, Agent Romanov," JARVIS answers amiably.

-

"What the hell?" Clint asks, looking up from his, toast as Natasha comes in, carrying a flower pot.

"Good morning to you – you missed out on workout," she says, sitting the pot in the middle, of the kitchen island.

"Yeah, yeah – jet lag. I'm gonna catch up with Steve later, see if he'd go on a run with me," Clint answers with a yawn and eyeballs the pot suspiciously. "Is there C4 inside or, something? A gas grenade? What?"

"It's a plant, Barton," Nat answers dryly. "It's for Stark."

Clint stares at her for a moment. "I'm sorry, could you repeat that because I think I might be still half asleep – it honestly sounded like you just said you bought a plant for Stark."

"Didn't you notice the plants over there?" She asks, nodding towards the counter.

"I checked them – no bugs or anything, " Clint answers and glances upwards. "Not that it matters much in a place with built in ingested microphones everywhere, listening in on everything we say and do..."

"I also have clear visual," JARVIS tells him in serene tones that make Clint shudder a little. Artificial Intelligences, ugh – had Stark never seen a scifi movie?

Natasha gives him a look and then shakes her head. "Stark bought them and now he's sulking," she says. "As far as good will gestures go, this is down right tame for him – I thought I'd encourage it. That's all."

Clint gives her a piercing look. She's too good nowadays to squirm under it – but he's known her for a long while. It's definitely not that she's interested in Stark that way – and Stark's definitely too scared of Nat to even think it but...

But Tony Stark is the first person after him who, technically, welcomed her to his own house, even knowing who she was and what she did. And not just to visit or stay a while – but to live. For Nat that's a much bigger deal than she'll ever admit.

But how do you say thank you to a guy when you're both emotionally stunted and the guy literally owns everything?

Apparently, you buy a plant. Its absurdly ordinary, when Clint thanks about it, for their band of misfits... but who knows, maybe it works.

"Well... okay then," he mutters and eyes the plant on the kitchen isle curiously. It's a succulent of some sort. "Guess every home needs few houseplants."

Nat glances at him and then gives him that awkward half smile of hers that she probably thinks looks natural and spontaneous but usually it just looks like it takes lot effort. She can't really do uncalculated expressions, too much training in the way – but she tries, bless her lethal soul.

Clint coughs and turns to his toast. Who knows, maybe Stark had a point – maybe this whole tower thing would be good for them.

"Where did you get that, by the way?" he asks nonchalantly, nodding at the plant, and bites into his toast.

-

Bruce blinks at the plants in the kitchen. He's fairly certain they weren't there before.

"JARVIS," he glances upwards. "I though the tower was kept sterile, no plants allowed?"

"Only in the R&D levels, Doctor Banner," JARVIS answers. "Residential levels have separate air conditioning however, so plants and even pets are perfectly fine."

"Huh," He says and goes to examine the plants. "So.... the plants?

"Apparently houseplants are common decoration in most homes, they are charming, there are worse things and every home needs a few houseplants," JARVIS recites, obviously quoting somebody.

Bruce heart thuds heavily at that and he drops his hand. He can just hear Tony, saying all of that, babbling excuses for a simple open gestures because he couldn't just do something nice without expecting people to criticise him for it. "Home, hmm?" he murmurs. "That's..."

He swallows.

It's been a long time since he'd even dared to think that.

Home.

"Doctor Banner?" JARVIS asks worriedly.

"That's nice – the plants, they're nice," Bruce says quickly. "It's just – nice."

"I see," the AI says gently. "Would you like me to give you the phone number to a flower shop, Doctor Banner?"

Bruce blinks, glancing up and then looking down. "Yeah – yeah, please do."

-

JARVIS considers the penthouse kitchen. There are now five plants there – Humata tyermanii, Ficus benjamina, Crassula ovata, Opuntia microdasys and Aglaonema commutatum. Most of them were purchased as some form of gratitude towards sir.

There is some symbolism to it – to choosing live potted plants as opposed to cuttings that would die. Permanence and duration – and care, as the plants would require regular care.

He decides he rather likes the symbolism of it.

Then he puts in an order for an Aloe vera.

-

Tony frowns at his kitchen for a moment. "Are those things multiplying?" he asks. There's six of them now – what the hell?

"It seems the other occupants of the floor took liking to the idea of plants in the kitchen," JARVIS says. "Apparently they're charming, there are worse things and every home needs a few houseplants, and they're nice. Also, there are studies that state they're good for air quality."

Tony's eyebrows lifts at that. "Is that critique on my Tower's air conditioning? Because I take issues with such talk."

"Sir, I would never," JARVIS says and Tony scoffs.

"Well," he says after a moment and shakes his head. "If they're so wonderful, who am I to stand in the way of home decoration and air... quality..."

He frowns at the plants, which just sit there, being all decorative. And homely.

"Huh," Tony says.

"I know a good florist if you're interested, sir," JARVIS says casually.

"Don't be ridiculous," Tony answers and then hesitates. "How good?"

- - -

Call back to a simpler time when we thought the Avengers could be nice to each other.

#Fanfiction #phonefic #mcu #jarvis #Tony Stark #Steve Rogers #Natasha Romanov #Clint Barton #Bruce Banner

[tuckerfuckingdidit]

Carwash

YES. IT’S TIME. strap the fuck in, you knew this was gonna be a doozie when you sent it. obligatory tag for @capricornfraud.

when I started shipping it if I did: this started as a weird preoccupation with why no one else shipped it, and how it would work. like, wash is shipped with doc, who he held hostage, and donut, who he shot. i figured carwash didn’t work because their power dynamic is imbalaced in a pretty clear-cut direction, but then tuckington happened! so i assumed it was the Memories that made it weird, and carolina not going back for him. but honestly, ships with History that they need to work through are my fucking weakness—i have an entire tuckington au where tucker is a freelancer for this very reason. 

second, relationships aren’t always easy to put in boxes. “wash has memories from carolina’s father, so all of his feelings for her are familial.” uh, no. wash has come a long way from his initial implantation with epsilon—he knows he is not leonard, and he had a relationship with carolina before he got those memories. there’s no way his feelings are that easily defined. there’s admiration and resentment in there, and that’s just on his side, before you start to fill in the blanks with headcanons.

i ship it because it stands to arguably be one of the most complicated relationships between two living characters on the show. there’s so much there, and i think the writers have shied from carolina and wash having certain Conversations because they don’t know how to tackle them—or had no interest in doing so because they felt it was Too Serious.

my thoughts: i started out not really paying them any mind and now I LOVE IT!!!! i’ve yelled at freddie a lot in the past two weeks, but just. there’s so much there. a lot of people write them as giving each other a wide berth because they have a lot of similar scars—some that they gave each other. you have to remember that it’s not just that carolina didn’t go back for wash: from her perspective, wash put a gun to her head over strangers (who she later came to love, but they were strangers at the time!), and even though he had seen epsilon’s memories of what the director had done, wash stayed with the project. of course he had his reasons, but when carolina’s discovering that everyone is in the wind except for south, wyoming, and wash, she doesn’t know what shape his recovery has taken. all she knows is that he’s still with them. 

but i think it’s also important to bear in mind that they’ve moved a great deal past that. i talked in my carolina post about how i see her as moving full circle, not reinventing herself. i think the reason there aren’t more carwash shippers is because we aren’t given much of a foundation for them during the project for them to circle back to. we see it happen when they’re fighting, but nowhere else. and with carolina having called the freelancers family, i highly doubt carolina and wash only interacted in drop ships and battlefields. 

there’s a lot of empty space to be filled regarding the freelancers, but simply put, i think carolina was tactile, and wash was affection-starved. wash isn’t given a face because we’ve already known him for three seasons when the flashbacks start, so his helmet never comes off, and we miss out on one of the biggest headcanons i have—the team ruffled this kid’s hair constantly. before leonard realized everyone had gotten too chummy and the board was put into place (because what hurts more: people who were always fiercely competitive and shitting on each other abandoning each other, or a family with genuine camaraderie turning into strangers?), you could catch these two half on top of each other in the rec room every once in a while (which conveniently could be a great reason wash seems to rub york the wrong way). like, if you listen to the tone of voice that carolina teases wash in, she obviously thinks wash is adorable. i refuse to believe she wouldn’t have gotten a kick out of flirting with him just to fluster him.

this portion is getting way too long oh my god. basically, the carwash you get on chorus (and going forward), depends largely on your pfl era interpretation of them. that’s the ground work. just because the writers didn’t take the time to develop their relationship doesn’t mean it didn’t exist. do i think they go through the motions of Falling In Love? no. but i do see them as reluctant to ever let go of each other again. like, ever. especially if there’s really no epsilon anymore. they’re each other’s only relic from the project, and that history puts them in a prime position to be the other’s Person—if the work was put in. if you just write them as never talking, then there’s nothing of note to them, and red is a sad panda. but where’s the fun in that?

What makes me happy about them: her fierce determination to never lose him. her starting to reach out for him physically again on chorus, and wash surprising even himself, because holy shit, he’s not flinching. carolina’s quiet mix of amusement and happiness at the (re)discovery that wash still turns into a goddamn cat if you can get him to relax. her foot hooked under his ankle in the mess hall while she talks to the reds. wash deciding he is Done with his food early so he can jam his helmet on his head, because he can’t stop fucking smiling. 

and in restoration AUs where the reds and blues stay on chorus, once the fighting is over? oh my god. have Some Things:

the first time carolina gets her fingers in his hair and he nearly falls asleep on her

her utter dismay when he proceeds to go back to his room and not sleep at all. 

the fact that she would totally take scheduling a Communal nap super seriously if he started to look really exhausted. 

him showing up at her room at 3 in the morning the night he finally cracks and admits to himself that he sleeps best next to her.

the super chill, seemingly impenetrable bubble forming around them that follows. absolutely no one else understands it. they barely understand it. “are they fucking? wait, what if they aren’t? are they gonna get even more obnoxious when they do?” 

^ tucker, probably. it’s ok tucker, just come squeeze in if you don’t have kai.

and when epsilon is gone, carolina has someone who won’t allow her to wall herself off from everyone else, even if it means they just sit together and don’t talk about it. sometimes they do, but most of the time, they don’t. wash just doesn’t want her to be alone. he knows what that feels like, and he doesn’t want that for her. 

just. the sheer amount of forgiveness and trust that is required for them to even function together will never not Get Me. i love happy, healthy stories, and the idea of the two of them healing together will always be something i am here for.

but they’re also not perfect. she’s still going to be protective, and try to take on too much on her own to lower his level of risk. he’s still a fucking spaz. they’re going to get on each other’s nerves. there will still be days neither of them knows how to say the right thing, and days they both keep saying the wrong things. it wouldn’t be Them if it wasn’t awkward. but that just makes when it works so much better.

What makes me sad about them: there are bad days. days when it’s hard to look at each other. when their silences aren’t so companionable—both of them locked in their heads, mulling over past mistakes, could-haves and should-have-beens. 

the days wash can’t quite meet her eye, no matter how much carolina wants him to. 

the days she doesn’t want him to.

also?? if they get closer when epsilon is still around/alive/himself, LOL. awkward.

things done in fanfic that annoys me: there is no carwash fic to come to my attention so far, which is an annoyance in and of itself. *puts on captain hat*

things I look for in fanfic: FOR IT TO EXIST, CACKLING. but i like it when writers understand carolina’s opinion is one wash trusts, and vice versa.

Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other: yorkalina, kimbalina, tuckington, suckington, and mainewash are all Good Shit. oh, also mainealina. how did i forget mainealina?

My happily ever after for them: if the reds and blues are all getting houses in the same cul-de-sac, carwash doesn’t just live under the same roof, their rooms are right next to each other. tucker, junior, kai and caboose can live next door. they’re loud. wash may be used to the blues, and carolina had church in her head at all times, but at the end of the day they still need a place to retreat when wash flinches at every loud noise and carolina can’t stop grinding her teeth. 

it’s really important to me that they have somewhere they can go be Quiet together ok, no matter where/when they are. i do love the idea that they never really slow down though. carolina’s not really the settling type, and i’ve always read wash with an inherent need to be Useful since serving as recovery one.

who is the big spoon/little spoon: carolina is the official big spoon. she is not the smol, fight me on this. first of all i literally cannot reblog art where she’s shorter than him—thank u rt, for giving us absolutely no tall women in the pfl arc Because Reasons. but snuggly naptime carwash and post-coital are two completely different animals. at first they can’t even both stick around after sex, and then when they start to, they plant themselves right on each respective edge and Do Not Move. 

you can tell the second they relax though, because they slide closer to the clothed, snuggly arrangement, which is less spooning and more wash on top of her with his head on her chest and her hand in his hair.

what is their favorite non-sexual activity: the exact above arrangement with clothes on. lmfao. NAPS, BRAH. but also don’t underestimate the value in them just Sitting Quietly and being present together, because i neeeed it. i crave it ok. it keeps me up at night.

#a-taller-tale #i thought i posted this #it's done i'm done get it away from me #my feelings #the afterword #this is such a mess i'm so disappointed lmao #but i don't have time to work on it for 3 days #i have wips to finish #bye #firing main headcanon #this is so long i'm wheezing god fck #i'm not even rereading it kill me #red answers

[bylerchoseme]

Oneshot #45 :)

The eldest brother James sat cross legged in the room of requirement advising his brother on the art of love. "I know you liked Scorpius for two years now. I will help you win his heart." He chuckled, briefly. "Although, I doubt he isn't interested." A frustrated 13 year old ran fingers through his hair with a deep sigh. "Thanks for taking interest in my love life. However, there is a possibility I'll get rejected." He couldn't fathom not having the blond haired Slytherin as a boyfriend. "I am gonna hand it to you straight. You are very dense." "There is no way Scorpius would ever fall for the chosen one's son." With every excuse delayed a possible relationship between the two which wasn't helping anyone. James in utter disbelief ignored the comment. "We don't have time to waste. Let's get to it." Suddenly, it was as if the whole world froze. It's one thing to not be ready and it's a whole other thing to take action. "I hope he likes me. I really hope he likes me." Albus crossed his fingers. "You don't have to hope he likes you. Anyways, the first step is to get him alone with you." "How and where?" An entire bundle of scenarios ran through Jame's mind, some more direct then others. "Considering the fact the two of you are inseparable, it shouldn't be difficult. I was thinking.....-" He paused for a moment. "Take him to the chamber of secrets." Just a table over sat Rose Weasley, eavesdropping. She saw this as a perfect opportunity to intervene. She closed her book and walked over to them. "Are you out of your mind? How can you suggest such thing? Do you know how many school rules that's breaking?" She gave James a disapproving look. If there is a pet peeve James hated the most, it's others meddling. "Ahh it's the she devil talking. Where does this concern you?" He said with an aggravated voice. She didn't like the tone in his voice. "Excuse me, you have no right to talk to me like that." She couldn't stand her cousin sometimes. "No one asked you to be a part of the conversation. You just waltzed your way in thinking your opinion matters." James crossed his hands. "You are a bad influence. I suggest working on your attitude first before offering horrible advice." She held hands at her hips. Breaking the little argument, Albus had a few words of his own. "If I want to take Scorpius to the chamber of secrets, it's my decision. I'll face consequences if we get caught." Rose turned to Albus, "If you say so." She walked away, exiting the library. "Finally, she left. Good riddance." James shook his head. Albus thought about the previous talk. "How do I tell Scorpius I like him?" "Next step is to take each letter of his full name and provide an adjective to describe him beginning with said letter and turn it into a poem." As basic as this sounds, James felt simple fits into Scorpius's personality. For a second, Albus blushed. "That sounds beautiful. Will it work?" Moments like these made James feel important to some degree. "Do what Tom Riddle did and have the poem be on display in gold and magical writing." "What else can you tell me?" An enlightened Albus wanted all the answers. "When you ask him out, do it in a way that keeps him guessing like for example, you can play coy at first and slowly ease your way into confession." From so much experience in relationships, comes wisdom. Albus was moved. "You are very insightful. Thanks for leading me in the right direction." James smiled for the first time today. "Besides, I ship you and Scorpius together." "What?" Albus couldn't believe the words. "Nothing. Go get your man." James encouraged him. Albus stood up to leave mouthing, "thank you," to James. When the coast was clear, James smiled to himself finishing the drawing of Scorpius and Albus. While running in the halls, Albus bumped into someone. "I am so sorry. I didn't mean to.-" He looked up and saw Scorpius. "It's all good. Where have you been? I missed you" Scorpius didn't mind the bump. In fact, he was glad it happened. Biting his lip, Albus sucked in a breath. "I was with James talking about stuff." He said convincingly. Raising his eyebrows, Scorpius asked follow up questions. "Stuff, you talked to him about stuff? What kind of stuff?" "Mostly, we talked about you." Albus admitted half the truth. "What about me?" Scorpius nudged his shoulder, playfully. Albus jumped, clearly distracted. "Your eyes are grayer today." Scorpius was confused. "My eyes are grayer? What's going on?" "I'll tell you tonight. I gotta go." Albus walked past him very fast. Hours passed and shortly enough, supper arrived. However, Albus had other plans in mind. "Instead of eating dinner, tonight we are heading to the chamber of secrets." "We, as in you and I?" Scorpius reacted, amused. Albus nodded. "Just you and I." He repeated to him. "Normally I would talk you out of it but this I gotta see." Scorpius smirked. They arrived to the sink of the chamber and opened the entrance. Albus jumped in first followed by Albus. It was completed sealed shut. "Thanks for coming, Scorpius. I didn't think you had it in you." That's all he managed to say. "I had a feeling I had to and besides, we only live once." Remembering everything James said stuck with Albus. "Let's go further inside to be alone. We don't want any distractions." Albus took the lead in front. "I know exactly where to go." "I am sure you do." Scorpius ran beside him brushing their shoulders. That alone was enough to send Albus in a frenzy. "That was new. I liked it." Scorpius walked as closely as possible next to Albus. Silence remained for a while. "And we are here." Albus stated. "The place where your father fought Tom Riddle. It's also the same place where he uhhhh.-" Realizing what he was close to saying, he stopped himself. Albus studied him. "You can tell me anything, you know." "Same goes for you." Scorpius snuck up behind him to whisper in his year. "I have something I wanna give you." Albus pulled out a fancy hand written piece of paper. Scorpius wondered about the content. "What is it?" He asked curiously. Taking the biggest breath of his life wasn't easy. "I wrote you a poem. Read it." He handed the poem to Scorpius with shaky hands. Willingly, Scorpius took it flipping it to the front. "I am nervous too." He added. S- Scorpius is my superb best friend with a sweetness unlike any other and he grows sweeter then all sweets combined C- Scorpius is a cutie with a cool attitude that makes me want to cuddle him O- Scorpius is outgoing R- Scorpius is real and my reality P- Scorpius is perfect and beauty couldn't define such pure innocence I- Scorpius is intriguing to my liking and an incredible person at heart with an interesting personality U- Scorpius is undeniably the most understanding and unifying soul S- Scorpius is the surest secret known to man M- Scorpius is mostly miraculously mine A- Scorpius is amazingly addicting to my core L- Scorpius is lovely F- Scorpius is funny O- Scorpius is outstanding Y- Scorpius is a yearning so great that my heart cannot take The ending was something else. Scorpius read it a few times to make sure he read the poem right. Albus and Scorpius exchanged looks. "Albus, this is........-" Scorpius couldn't even gather his thoughts. Albus held his breath. He couldn't respond. Scorpius continued, "No. One. Ever. Wrote. Me. A. Poem. EVER." He emphasized. "D-D-did y-y-you like it?" Albus stuttered with his sentence. "Did I like it? No. I loved it." Scorpius placed the poem in his pocket. Albus was relieved but what came next couldn't have prepared him. Without stalling, Scorpius grabbed him by the face and lightly stroked his cheek as he stared deeply into his eyes. "You won't forget this moment." Before Albus knew it, he was kissed by Scorpius Malfoy. At first, Albus's eyes were open wide in shock. Slowly, he eased into the kiss and let his eyes close. Hands wrapped around his waist pulling him closer. His first instinct was wrapping his hands around Scorpius's neck. Their bodies were in perfect alignment and making physical contact. Lightly, Albus stroked Scorpius's neck with his fingers. The kiss deepened as two tongues joined together, both seeking dominance of the other. Scorpius suckled on the tip of his best friends future boyfriends tongue tenderly as if making love to the flesh. Albus gripped his shirt in response, feeling a range of hormones he had not known existed. Each taste of Albus made Scorpius weak as if he wanted to do something else altogether unaware of what it could mean. Upon feeling satisfied, Scorpius drew out his tongue to lick Albus's upper and lower lip. Neither knew how to stop the kissing session, not that either wanted it to end. Albus and Scorpius kissed each other breathlessly forgetting time was a thing. Besides, they weren't rushing anywhere. At one point, Scorpius brought Albus to the ground. He had his hands pinned as he kissed him nonstop. A first kiss is supposed to be simple yet their's is passionate. Scorpius kissed every corner of Albus's lips and everywhere in between. He was short of breath. Regaining air could wait. Albus kissed back, delicately like the touch of a feather making it special. He bit on Scorpius's lower lip. Kissing carried on for hours. By the time they finished making out, Albus and Scorpius had swollen lips. "I didn't know you'd be this addicting because if I did I would have kissed you in first year." Scorpius felt like he missed out on a lot of kisses he could have had if they started sooner. "It's better now then never. This won't be the last time. We can make it our thing." Albus wanted to time travel to the past and make it so they were kissing since eleven. Scorpius planned on keeping him. "You're mine." He kissed Albus again. "I have a question for you." Albus took out his wand to make the message appear in gold writing on the wall. "Will you be my boyfriend?" Grabbing his own wand, Scorpius wrote yes inside a heart. Albus was full of happiness. "We are official now. What happened next?" "More making out and hopefully marriage." Scorpius found his one and only. "Married or not, making out is in our future." Albus put the invisibility cloak over them. The making out resumed.

#scorbus #scorpius and albus #scorpius malfoy #albus potter