childhood shows + favorites

spike, angel, buffy & romanticism: part 2

part 1: “When you kiss me I want to die”: Angel and the high school seasons

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“Love isn’t brains, children”: Enter Spike as the id

For all that I’ve just discussed all of the ways that the first three seasons subvert the romance of Angel, it’s also true that the writing still fundamentally takes him—and Buffy’s relationship with him—seriously. To some degree it has to. Because Buffy is the show’s emotional anchor, if the writing didn’t take her emotions seriously, the audience wouldn’t either. It needs to be sympathetic to her (regardless of whether it endorses her, per se), or else it would run the risk of losing all pathos. Making fun of Buffy and Angel makes for a great gag in “The Zeppo”, and fits with the general way that season three undermines the romanticism of them, but if that was the show’s attitude the whole way through, it would come off as simply meanspirited. It would seem like it was making fun of Buffy for being a stupid teenage girl in love, instead of sympathetically depicting the human experience of being caught up in big, tempestuous emotions.

But at the same time, if the writing were to only take romance seriously, that wouldn’t feel very true either. Or fit with the general Buffy ethos, which loves to flip between serious and silly moods in order to capture all sides of whatever it’s exploring. And therein is the magic of Spike’s addition to the chemistry of the show. Practically from his introduction, Spike parallels Buffy’s romantic storylines, except unlike Buffy, Spike is allowed to do the comic or morally incorrect thing. His status as a soulless vampire means that the show is free to use him to point out both the sillier and darker sides of romance, without tainting Buffy’s heroism or the seriousness of her emotions.

In “Becoming, Part 2” for example, Spike is free to explicitly say that he’s saving the world because he wants Dru back, and leaves Buffy to die once he’s gotten her. Whereas Buffy, despite also wanting the person she loves back, ultimately chooses to save the world rather than keep him. Spike allows the episode to show what Buffy’s, or anyone’s, romantic id might want, without Buffy herself going through with it. He also allows the episode to show the ridiculousness of the romantic id, by giving him comic moments like “Didn’t say I wouldn’t”, or “God, he’s going to kill her”, or beating Angel with a tire iron, or any of the times that Buffy makes fun of him (“The whole earth may be sucked into hell and you want my help ‘cause your girlfriend’s a big ho?”). All of which is in contrast to the tragic seriousness of Buffy’s heartbreak. Spike in season two is not a character without pathos; in fact, he has quite a lot of pathos that parallels Buffy’s--think of the tortured close-up on his face as Angel and Drusilla taunt him in “I Only Have Eyes For You.” But neither is he limited or defined by that pathos.

He plays a similar role in both “Lovers Walk” and “The Harsh Light of Day”. In “Lovers Walk” he’s devastated by the loss of Drusilla, as Buffy was devastated over Angel in “Anne”, yet the way they get out of their respective depressions is very different. Tonally, “Anne” plays Buffy’s misery extremely straight, and when Buffy decides to stop moping and become an agent in her own life again, her version of “agency” means getting in touch with her leadership and heroism. Whereas for Spike, agency means a love spell, or torturing Drusilla into liking him again. The romantic id tries to re-possess the object of its desire, whereas the ego or superego is able to set that desire aside, whether or not it wants to. More obviously, Spike in “Lovers Walk” parallels all of the other characters and their romantic situations. All of them are behaving somewhat selfishly or self-destructively in their love lives (Xander and Willow cheating, Buffy and Angel torturing themselves with friendship) but are in denial about the fact that they’re doing so. And then Spike blazes in with his version of love that is selfish, scary, grandiose, charming, pathetic, genuine, and absurd by turns—and suddenly, everyone’s romantic weaknesses are out in the open. It makes perfect sense that Spike finishes the episode gleeful and optimistic, because “Lovers Walk” as a whole represents a triumph of the romantic id over the romantic ego, if only temporarily. And it’s all handled with a brilliantly whiplash-y mix of comedy and tragedy because at the end of the day, the power of the romantic id really is ridiculous. The way that Spike turns on a dime between being scary and pathetic parallels the way it’s at once absurd, and kind of frightening, that your id would make you, say: cheat on your wonderful high school boyfriend, just to have a chance with your childhood crush.

Because Spike is often treated as the show’s romantic id, the writing’s relationship to his romanticism gets complicated. Like Angel, there is something romantic in his aesthetic and behavior, even if he doesn’t look like Angel’s conventional Byronic hero. He wears a long, dramatic coat, poses rebelliously with his cigarettes, and dotes on his paramour with the elaborate attentiveness of Gomez Addams. But unlike Angel, he is not just a romantic symbol or object, he is also a romantic subject. That is to say, Spike’s romantic storylines tend to emphasize his romantic desires, and use those desires as motivation. By contrast, Angel’s storylines don’t really have much to do with whether he’s “gotten” Buffy or not—instead they have to do with whether Buffy has gotten him. The fact that Buffy and Spike are both treated as romantic agents in this way is a key indication that the two characters are meant to parallel each other. Angel’s side of the Buffy/Angel romantic storyline has to do with whether he can control himself around Buffy, whereas Buffy’s has to do with whether he likes her or wants to be with her. Similarly, Spike’s romantic storylines hinge on the status of whether Drusilla or Buffy want him. 

Not only is Spike a subject when it comes to romantic relationships, he’s also a subject when it comes to Romantic thinking. He is a character practically defined by his romanticism. He aspires to romantic things, and therefore can be used to poke at romantic outlooks. Despite his grand love for Drusilla for instance, she still cheats on him, and he still has to knock her out, do a love spell, or torture her to get her back. Or he’ll make grand pronouncements that are immediately followed by things like getting tasered by the Initiative or falling into an open grave. Because of this, Spike is able to parallel Buffy’s Romantic thinking as well, not just her romantic desires. Notice how in “The Freshman”, when Buffy is feeling out of touch with her Romantic Slayer self, that she has a scene where she’s treated like Spike--she delivers a dramatic threat and then falls through a ceiling. Or in “Some Assembly Required” when she obeys her id and hotly demands that Angel listen to her, she falls into an open grave. This kind of comedy has a lot in common with the deadpan Angel humor discussed in the last section, but notice that the target of that humor is Angel’s romantic objecthood rather than an outlook Angel has. Angel’s role, when it comes to romanticism, has to do with how Buffy and the audience sees him, whereas Spike’s role (at least in the early seasons) has to do with how Spike sees, period.

The show doesn’t just poke at Spike’s outlook though, it also uses him to poke at other people’s romanticism. In season two, for example, Spike is the one who gets impatient with Angel’s grandstanding, sarcastically explaining that “we do still kill people, you know” and “it’s a big rock.” In “Lovers Walk” he’s the one who cuts through Buffy and Angel’s drama, reducing it to “googly eyes” with a dismissive handwave (while also building it up in his projection-y “you’ll never be friends” speech). In “Something Blue” he points out that Willow is barely holding it together. In “Pangs” he’s the one who brings the debate over the Chumash nihilistically back down to earth, and in “The Yoko Factor” he schools Adam on Yoko not really splitting the Beatles apart. In other words, Spike attempts to see both the romance and the reality of things. He is the avatar of both, which I would argue makes complete sense, because in many ways romance and reality are really two sides of the same coin. Poetry and stories are fake and bigger than life, but you use them to tell truths. But being the id, his point of view can be hypocritical and biased as much as insightful, just like anyone’s gut reactions and poetic notions can be. After all, you can use poetry to tell lies, too. 

Lastly, on a meta level, there is a tackiness to Spike that undermines his romantic qualities better than making him dangerous ever could. Spike likes Passions and Dawson’s Creek (in contrast to Angel reading La Nausée by firelight). He lives in a crypt, but the vibe is more “homeless” than “Dracula” (in contrast to Angel’s tastefully decorated apartment). Spike may act like a romantic, but what does it say about how romantic romanticism really is, that the romantic things he likes can be so unrefined? And with the chip, he’s rendered impotent and pathetic. To me, there’s no more perfect image of how the writing uses Spike than the image of him in his black coat, red shirt, and big, leather boots, blasted under the fluorescent light of his Initiative cell. Light that makes his aesthetic seem suddenly fake and silly and surreal. For all that the writing subverts Angel, he is still the kind of character who gets to disappear mysteriously into the shadows, because he is the romance that Buffy has been forced to abandon. Whereas Spike is left with no place to hide. 

If Angel represented the idea of binaries, then Spike represents the lack of them. There is a reason that Spike invites so many queer readings. He is a vampire, but he loves. He is an object, but he’s a subject. He tells the truth, but he lies. He is a villain, but he is a hero. He is masculine, but he is feminine. He is insightful, but he’s a fool. He is pathetic, but he is sympathetic. He is on the outside of the Scoobies, but he is on the inside. These aspects of him are not split between different personas, but exist within him simultaneously. It is telling that the show introduces human, mythos-bending vampires like Spike and Dru in a season about disillusionment, and it is telling that Spike’s role in the show becomes ascendant in the seasons after Buffy leaves Angel and his split personality behind. As Buffy begins to reckon more deeply with her id, and her dualities, she will begin to reckon with Spike.

part 3: “Something effulgent”: Season five and the construction of Spike the romantic

Once Upon A Time In Wonderland Rewatch: 1x01 Down the Rabbit Hole

So my mum and I love this spin off and rewatch at least once every 2 years. If you haven’t given it a try yet, I can’t recommend it enough! It has complex romance, creative ideas, strong friendships, terrifying villains and a solid plot.  

One thing though is that some of the creatures scare me so much that I have to watch those parts with my eyes closed lol. It’s kinda thrilling though, not knowing when to close your eyes. It’s like riding a rollercoaster. It’s become part of the fun for my mum and I. But that’s just us. You might not find them remotely frightening.

Okay, here we go y’all! I’ll try to keep my thoughts free of spoilers for future episodes.

Alice’s house exterior is so gorgeous.

Holy bananas, how long has she been gone?!

Edwin is a freaking terrible father. Lock the damn doors! He should have someone watching her at all times if she leaves the house. Get a nanny or something! Don’t just let her continue running off to God knows where! She’s just a kid!

And the White Rabbit should probably know better than to lead her to that extremely dangerous place.  

Will!  

Emma nearly ran him over lol.

Ashley! Looks like she’s wearing a Granny’s apron. I guess she was a waitress there.

And Leroy! Cool!

So, I believe this is set some point around season 2. I guess it’s the same day the curse was broken, unless someone else was driving Emma’s car.

Holy cow! How’s granny gonna get that giant hole out the floor??

“I’m late! I’m late!”

That rabbit’s got pink eyes. Cool. I had a dwarf hamster with red eyes. Her name was Tango and her sister, Mango, tried to eat her so we had to separate them. Loved them both.

Alice!

I know how most peeps feel about the cgi in this show but it really doesn’t bother me. Sure it would be cooler if it looked more realistic but it’s the compelling story, dynamics and characters that capture me and allow me to easily look beyond that and suspend my disbelief.

This Lydgate guy istg! I wonder if this is before or after Jekyll killed his daughter, Mary. Oh, his name is Arthur and apparently it’s after she died. Maybe that’s why he’s so bitter.

Cyrus! So Charming.

Couldn’t he just walk out that bottle and drink that ‘drink me’ bottle to turn to his original size? Maybe there’s a magic barrier preventing him from leaving like the one keeping Alice Jones in her tower. And he’s be brought right back to it id someone rubbed it.

Poor Rabbit. I love this Alice as well but that’s a big difference between her and Alice Jones. This one’s more selfish but we get to see her character develop so that she becomes less so and I think that’s really cool!

She’s his master? But she didn’t rub the bottle, did she?

Alice: “I don’t wish for anything!” I wonder if she says that because she doesn’t want to accidentally wish for something. Could she even make a wish in the Victorian Realm?

The Land Without Magic doesn’t seem to be the only place without magic. The Victorian England Realm seems not to have any either. Baelfire could have easily ended up in that land but we know he doesn’t.

Oh snap! I somehow missed when he said she and Cyrus apparently travelled from world to world fighting pirates and swimming with mermaids. I guess all Alice’s like to travel. I wonder what realms she and Cyrus went to. Neverland to swim with mermaids and fight pirates?

She totally should have written a book.

Oh, I guess he did walk out of his bottle and drink the ‘drink me’ potion.

Ah gosh, it must be so painful for Alice to say all the things she went through and the love she felt for Cyrus weren’t real.

Betrayed by the sleep talking. My mum sleep talks and my dad sleepwalks. Please let me escape those genetics!

Anastasia!

The fight scenes are so cool!

Oh no!

She doesn’t write her surname, dammit. I want to know her surname so I can more easily distinguish the two Alices in my tags!  

Oh snap! He was gonna perform a lobotomy on her. Do they still do that? In Smallville Clark was awake when they tried to do it on him, I wonder if that’s actually a thing because it seems like it would be terrifying and hurt like hell. Oh, it’s seen as inhumane nowadays. Apparently they could be done while awake.

Maybe she wasn’t trying to lie to them. She seems to have convinced herself that Will wasn’t/isn’t real, so maybe she convinced herself everything else wasn’t real either.

“You know as well as I do, Alice, nothing’s impossible in Wonderland.” And that’s why it’s so awesome!

Girl can fight! Love this scene where she fights the asylum staff!  

I mean, I’m a pacifist in real life but I do love a good fictional fight scene.  

Dr. Lydgate’s face when he sees the White Rabbit talk.

Bouncy marshmallow!  

The mallow marsh is such a good, creative idea.  

I haven’t had marshmallows since I became a vegetarian 16 years ago. I’ve completely forgotten what they taste like and I am sad I’ll never get to know what’s so good about s’mores.

Damn. Would have loved it if Jefferson was in this show.

The dragonflies are dragons. Love it!

I love the Tulgey Woods scenes in the animated movie. So dark and mysterious.

Will: “I’m gonna die like a bloody s’more.” Lol. I love him.

She’s making s’mores! This show is off the rails and I love it.

Lol. He looks like a snowman.

I’m surprised they managed to get all of that off them. Maybe they ate it off.  

Oh wait, the Rabbit was lying?

The Tulgey Woods!  

This Jafar has to be the most terrifying villain in all of Ouat. Perhaps because he seems incapable of love.

Were Jafar and the Red Queen a thing? I can never tell.  

Jafar flying on the carpet like it’s a surfboard. Whoa, like, ride the waves, dude!

It must be more difficult to climb a tree with just socks on.

The cheshire cat! I’ve always loved the Cheshire cat. Such a mysterious character. I have to say, my favourite version might just be lesbian Cheshire Cat/Caterpillar from the musical, Alice by heart. It’s so good and she’s so gay. I highly recommend.

I love the way he speaks in riddles.

He straight up tried to eat her! And it seemed they used to he friends!

Will to the rescue! No one hurts his little sis!

I just freaking love the Tulgey Woods.

I wish Jefferson would just appear at his house. He made so many hats trying to get back to his daughter. Poor guy.

I wonder how he came upon his original hat and why it had magic it seems he couldn’t replicate.

She found Cyrus’ necklace!

Bless Will, he’s not leaving without her.

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Batman (Comics), Batgirl (Comics) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Cassandra Cain & Barbara Gordon, Cassandra Cain & Tim Drake, Cassandra Cain & Dick Grayson Characters: Cassandra Cain, Barbara Gordon, Dick Grayson, Tim Drake, Leslie Thompkins Additional Tags: Allergic reaction, POV Cassandra Cain, Cassandra Cain is Batgirl, Barbara Gordon is Oracle, Dick Grayson is Nightwing, Tim Drake is Robin, Cookies, Panicking, Hurt/Comfort, Cassandra Cain Whump, Good Sibling Dick Grayson, Good Sibling Tim Drake, Good Sibling/Parent Barbara Gordon, Fluffy Ending, no beta we die like Cass, Everything Turns Out Fine, Batfamily (DCU) Feels, Batfamily Dynamics (DCU), Cassandra Cain-centric Summary:

The one where Cass finds out she has a food allergy - the hard way...

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Cass slipped back in through the window, not bothering to close it behind her (Barbara said it wasn’t safe – someone could get in, but she was strong, so it didn’t matter). She pulled off her mask, dropping it beside her, and yanked out her ponytail, slipping the band around her wrist. Barbara had left clothes on her bed, that meant she was expected to change.

 The new clothes were soft. She hesitated briefly before taking off her suit. She liked her suit; it would be nice if she could wear it all the time. She didn’t need any other clothes. But Barbara got mad if she wore it too long, she said it ‘smelled like rancid meat’ and that didn’t sound good, so she relented.

A laugh rang out, echoing through the halls. She cracked open her door, and noise poured in. Words were coming from the kitchen, opening the door further, she made up her mind to investigate. She crept through the hallway, catching a whiff of a delicious smell as she neared the kitchen.

 Poking her head around the corner, she found Barbara sitting with a guy – Dick – Nightwing, he was Dick without the mask, Nightwing with it. And the boy – Tim – who was also Robin. Tim moved his hand back and forth, looking at her.

 The others abruptly stopped talking, noticing Tim’s movements. She slid back into the hall, unsure of what to do. Barbara didn’t usually have other people here (at least while she was home).

 “Hey, Cass, where’re you going?” Tim called, he was nice – she talked to him on patrol sometimes. She leaned back into the room.

 “Bed.” There wasn’t any point in being up any longer. She would sleep and then train, and then patrol again. Tim frowned, unhappy, though she didn’t know why.

 “Why don’t you come join for a bit. We made cookies.” Dick offered, smiling wide. Very wide, she could see all his teeth. Happy? She didn’t know. It made her feel uneasy, she didn’t know either of the guys very well. She looked to Barbara.

 “I tried one, they’re good.” She gestured to the stove. “Don’t eat them all.” She warned. Cass needed no more prompting; the cookies smelled delicious. She practically floated over to the stove. She shoved the first cookie down her throat with no hesitation (she was hungry after all), and enjoyed a second one, chewing it slowly in her mouth.

 The conversation picked back up as she devoured her prize. Nicking a third cookie from the pan, she stood and watched the three talk. They seemed relaxed and happy, no signs of sudden movement. The cookie was chewy, sweet and like… she thought for a minute. Savory? Savory sounded kind of correct.

 It was kind of sticky though. Like it wasn’t making it all the way to her stomach. And her throat felt weird, like the time Barbara gave her a scratchy sweater to wear to the mall. She scratched it, but the feeling didn’t go away.

 The others were still engrossed in conversation. She took another bite but couldn’t seem to swallow it. She set it down frowning. She liked the cookies, she wanted to eat more, but her throat felt weird, and the itching sensation kept spreading.

 “Cass, how was your patrol?” Barbara asked from the table. She opened her mouth to respond, but the words didn’t come, her chest tightening. It felt like her throat was swelling, closing in on itself, and she found herself gasping for air. “CASS!” Barbara screamed; the boys leapt from the table.

 Wheezing, she half fell into Dick’s arms as he rushed over. The world blurred around her. Panic raced through her mind, her pulse pounding in her ears.

 “Tim, get the epinephrine, I’m calling Leslie, Dick, get her on the couch.” Barbara barked out orders as the world began to spin. Everything was dizzy, and confusing, words began to swirl around her.

 She was swept off her feet, instinctively she fought back, kicking without her usual force. She squirmed away as her foot connected, unwilling to be captured in her own home. <em>Barbara was right</em>, was all she could think. She should have closed the window.

 A kick connected, and the attacker let go. She hit the floor running. Alarm bells rang in her head as she was grabbed by both arms. Words swirled around her as black spots danced across the blurry kitchen floor. She fought to keep conscious as her breath escaped her.

 She was moving, she couldn’t tell where, and she couldn’t see by who. She kept kicking, she tried to scream but couldn’t. The voice turned pleading, but she couldn’t see where it was coming from, her eyes felt puffy, and she couldn’t open them. Hot tears streamed down her face uncontrollably, she wasn’t crying, but they came out anyways.

 With a final burst of energy, she heard a delightful crack as she headbutted her captor, but the hands on her arms held fast, determinedly dragging her away. She squirmed, exhausted, but unwilling to go quietly. Eventually they stopped, and she felt someone pinning her legs, as the first captor pinned her arms and chest. She was forced down, onto her back with her legs raised up in someone’s lap.

 Something sharp pricked her thigh. She squirmed harder, desperately trying to break from the hold. Words usually bounced off her ears, she didn’t have time to listen, she needed to get out! Her brain screamed for freedom, though her body betrayed her; she sat limply against whoever had taken her.

 But, listening might help her figure out how to get out. She willed the panic filling her to ease and focused on the cacophony, trying to pick out something that made sense.

 “Cass?” She made out Barbara’s calm voice amidst the blur of words and held onto it like a lifeline. “It’s going to okay, you’re safe.” She turned her head towards the voice. “Oh, thank god. Nod a bit if you can hear me.” She jerked her head. The grip on her slackened momentarily, and she nearly broke away before it tightened again. “Stay still, it’s just Dick. He won’t hurt you.”

 She thought back to moments before, vaguely remembering him approaching before her vision had turned hazy. “Focus on breathing okay, in… out… okay?” She followed the instructions, turning attention to her breath. In, out, in, out. The hands on her loosened as she sat perfectly still, her wheezing evening out as she concentrated. Something wet dripped on her face and was wiped away, one of Dick’s hand’s receding altogether, the other moving to reassuringly squeeze her shoulder.

 She felt acutely alert, restless, despite the dizziness clouding her mind. She tried to sit up, but Dick’s hand kept her planted to the couch. “Sorry, Cass.” Came his muffled voice. “Stay put.”

 “Cass, Leslie’s going to come over in a minute, is that okay?” Tim asked, the grip on her legs receding. She gave a thumbs up, Leslie was nice, and good of taking care of her when she was sick. “Barbara’s going to put cream on your eyes so you can see. Is that okay?” She flashed a second thumbs up.

 A wet, lukewarm cloth wiped tears and sweat off her face, then a dry fluffy one patted the liquid away. Cool goop was smeared around her eyes, quickly but precisely and gently. Her heart raced in anticipation, but the hands remained gentle. She allowed herself to relax against (what she thought was) Dick’s lap.

 Barbara finished her work, and minutes later, opened the door and the sounds of Leslie’s irritated voice echoed in the room. “I can’t believe we didn’t test her for allergens. I can’t believe Bruce never got her tested. I can’t believe I never got her tested. We’re getting her tested next week.” Leslie declared. She could hear her footsteps pounding closer.

 “I’m going to listen to your heart alright?” Leslie asked, and she nodded. A cool piece of metal slipped under her shirt up to her heart. Leslie asked her to breathe, and little by little, she made it through the examination.

 She was able to lift her eyelids by the time she was asked to swallow another pill. The room swam back into focus, Tim sat at her feet, propping up her legs, and Dick smiled down from above her. She could hear Leslie and Barbara talking in the kitchen.

 She blinked a few more times. Dick’s nose was busted, dried blood covering his face, and one of Tim’s eyes was swollen, an icepack sitting forgotten on the table beside him. Had she…?

 Cass wanted to fade out of existence and sink into the couch. “Sorry.” She muttered sheepishly. The boys looked confused for a moment, then glanced at each other, then broke into light laughter.

 “Oh, -ude, it’s -ine.” Dick assured, feeling at his (probably) broken nose. “I smashed it -ast -eek, the -amage was already there.”

 “Yeah, besides.” Tim chimed in, red angrily spreading across his face. “I startled Dick once, and he threw me off a roof.”

 “I -id not.” Dick bantered back. “-ou -ell by yourself.”

 “Sorry, can’t understand you.” Tim caught her eye and smirked. “Don’t sweat it Cassie, Dick’s a bigger dumbass than any of us.”

 “Whatever.” Dick mumbled above her. He pulled her up by the shoulder and leaned her against the couch. “I’ll -e -ack.” He walked over to Leslie, grabbing a cloth and cleaning up his face.

 “So, how do you feel?” Barbara asked, rolling back over. She hesitated for a moment before responding.

 “Confused.” She replied. Weren’t people supposed to be angry when you hit them? And cookies weren’t supposed to make people sick. Everything that had happened since she’d gotten home had been overwhelming. Barbara placed a sympathetic hand on her shoulder.

 “There was peanut butter in the cookies, it makes some people, like you, really sick. But not everyone.” Cass nodded, sort of understanding.

 “Why me?” She asked. Her skin still felt itchy; her hands were still red. Barbara shrugged.

 “Maybe it’s cuz you’re so good at everything else, the gods thought you needed a weakness.” Tim suggested. Barbara tossed an icepack at him.

 “Allergies have scientific basis, don’t go teaching her lies.” She instructed. Cass smiled.

 “I’m too powerful… The gods were scared.” She asserted. She liked the sound of that. Barbara groaned.

 “See she’s like Superman, and peanut butter’s her Kryptonite.” Tim added, pressing the ice to his face. Cass had met Superman, he was nice. Too nice.

 “I could take him.” She grinned as Barbara groaned again.

 “No, you can’t, he’s literally invincible.” She argued.

 “Kryptonite.” Tim reminded. “Bruce probably has some, somewhere. After that it’s easy.” Cass grinned at him, with whatever he was talking about, if it had the same effect as ‘peanut butter’ it would be easy.

 Dick groaned and muttered something undistinguishable from the kitchen table. “He said, shut up, Clark can probably hear you.” Leslie offered. Cass peaked behind the couch to see ice pressed against his face, his nose was back in place with a little shield covering it.

 Leslie strode towards the door. “Call if you need anything, Cassandra’s under observation for the next four hours. I don’t think Tim has a concussion but watch out for any signs. And Dick, if the pain gets worse, don’t be like Bruce.” She admonished. The door slammed shut behind her.

 The group sat in silence for a moment. Suddenly, Barbara started to laugh. Cass nervously chucked along, and Tim joined in as well. Dick contributed a few wheezes, and they all broke into harder, relieved laughing. It felt good, crazy, but also good.

 After a few minutes Tim calmed down enough to speak. “Why are we laughing?” He asked nervously. Barbara dropped her head into her hands, and wiped tears from her eyes, quieting at last.

 “We fight crime every night, and a couple cookies just took down three of you.” Barbara pointed out. “Lord, help us all.” Cass grimaced. She didn’t want to see cookies for a long time.

 Dick made his way over from the table, and sat to her left, Tim remaining on her right. Barbara hugged the left side of the couch. “So, Cass.” His voice clearer than before, but still muffled under the ice. “You can’t leave or sleep for the next four hours. You pick the movie.”

 The television clicked to life before her, and Tim passed her the remote after adjusting the volume. She grinned, scrolling to her favorite (well, she’d only seen three movies, but she liked it).

 “Swan Lake? No one even talks.” Tim asked, sounding puzzled.

 “Hey, don’t judge.” Barbara chided. “She likes ballet.”

 “I’m not.” Tim defended as the opening credits began to play. Cass hushed him.

 “Makes sense. It’s like body language poetry.” Dick muttered. She hushed him too as the dancer began appearing on stage.

 The people in the room fell silent after that. Dick scooched over making room between them and helped Barbara onto the couch. About fifteen minutes later, she heard his breathing even out as he fell asleep. Tim made it another five before he passed out as well. Thankfully, neither snored.

 Barbara sat next to her, awake and alert, quietly scanning her every few minutes. Cass took in the beautiful sequence on the screen. As they sat in quiet companionship, an arm wrapped around her shoulder, and she snuggled back, neither needing words to take comfort in one another.

Meme Waker: That Final Thing

okay aight here we go here’s the big idea compilation you’ve all been waiting for or something like that

since I’ve finally accepted meme waker’s inevitable fate, I’ll share what I’ve had laying around about it. prepare yourself for a wild ride.

first of all, what existed of the planned character key:

Nightmare = Link Dream = Aryll Cross = Tetra Ink = The Entire Pirate Crew Granny Gertrude = Grandma Horror = Quill Killer = Medli Color = Komali Dust = Makar XGaster = Tingle (yes, you read that right) Fresh = Fado (?) Geno = Laruto Blueberry = Niko Error = Ganondorf Giant Flying Chicken = Helmaroc King Core Frisk = The King XChara = Zelda

So XChara was going to fill the role of Zelda–basically, what was going to happen was that when Cross and Nightmare reached sunken Hyrule, which was replaced by the Omega Timeline, they encountered Core Frisk and with their magical Core Frisk powers that apparently exist, separated XChara from Cross’s body. Because Error was hunting him down for whatever villainous reasons (I dunno, maybe he wanted to find Overwrite or something), XChara was going to spend the near remainder of the comic hiding in the Omega Timeline from Error. It was a pretty neat reference to the fact that Error doesn’t know where the OT is.

Unsurprisingly, considering when I was working on this, Nightmare and Cross may have eventually started dating. They were going to kiss during a fight that involved them accidentally rolling down a hill and then likely spend the remainder of the comic referring to each other as boyfriends, with no further indication of romance between them. I never really mentally decided whether I was actually going to incorporate this or not.

In moments where someone needed to present a musical instrument, Cross was going to play a keytar.

There is a very high chance that the entire comic was going to end up being an elaborate prank set up by Ink and Error.

After being rescued from the Forsaken Fortress, Dream was going to get crossbows and… I dunno, maybe be useful with them sometimes. One consideration was that he was going to complain about being stuck in a glorified retirement home and request joining the party.

Nightmare was going to have a fake ID with the name “Nathaniel Meyer” on it.

When Nightmare eventually pulled up the Gaster Sword, he was basically going to do a magical girl transformation and get a new outfit. I was considering holding a contest where people would submit new designs for Nightmare before I realized that I may have wanted to do it myself. Meanwhile, Cross’s design change at the same time was going to pertain to the fact that he had such a hard time with his uniform that he just wanted to start wearing normal clothes.

When XChara was separated from Cross, it would indicate that Cross can’t use the hack knife anymore, so I had to think of a new weapon for him. I considered giving him arm mounts with knives in them for no reason other than being extra, but I was probably just going to end up going with a regular sword.

Nightmare and Cross were going to be mistaken for missionaries at some point due to Nightmare introducing Cross as his ‘companion’.

Nightmare’s fake ID is actually a driver’s license. Cross questions how he could get one when he’s only fifteen, and Nightmare responds with “what can I say? I live in the country.”

The Giant Flying Chicken was going to evolve into the Cyborg Giant Flying Chicken before Nightmare and Cross fought it. It was already a robot, but someone decided it would be fun to make it look more robotic for some reason. Maybe too many people tried to eat it.

Because Blueberry was going to replace Niko, that meant there was going to be a form of challenge that he would present to Nightmare and/or Cross. They were probably just going to play Dance Dance Revolution.

The dress that Granny Gertrude gave Nightmare was actually going to be infused with magical powers. Either Nightmare could only access the power of the Triforce when he’s wearing the dress, or it was going to be a piece of equipment that turned his sword into a fire sword.

Nightmare was going to come back to the Village of Old People to see that his grandmother had conquered it with capitalism.

Dragon Roost Cavern was going to be replaced with a Pokemon gym.

When Nightmare supposedly kicked Error’s ass at the end of the story, he was going to say something along the lines of “Because fuck you!” and it would be the first and only f-bomb in the whole comic. Nightmare would proceed to say that it was the first time he’d ever said fuck and that he felt dirty.

The Triforce of Courage was just going to be called the Triforce of Porridge for exactly zero reason.

Some incarnation of Buffmare was going to exist in the comic, but only in a sequence taking place in Nightmare’s imagination.

When Cross realized his backpack was missing, it was because I realized his backpack was missing. I forgot to draw it. I decided that the backpack actually fused with him to create a Zelda-style magic pocket.

Nightmare was going to try to control a seagull with the command melody, but he was accidentally going to start controlling Cross instead and make him run into a tree.

The Tree Spirit was going to hold official interviews for placeholder guardians in Dream and Nightmare’s absence. These placeholder guardians were going to be Neil, the overenthusiastic French furry, and Ccino, the local emo kid who is absolutely done with everyone’s bullshit, and exclusively because they were the only ones who applied for the job. Neil was going to have an ulterior motive of becoming Gaston’s successor.

Neil and Ccino were eventually going to ‘get together’, if you can even call it that, and for no other reason than shitpost reasons.

Nightmare may have had a showdown with the Giant Flying Chicken while riding the Great Charizard from Dragon Roost.

Another possible concept for whole story was that it was a bad self insert fic written by a younger version of Nightmare, but it’s really unlikely that I would’ve gone through with that.

Nightmare and Cross may have needed to go on a fetch quest to find Ink’s brush in the ocean because they accidentally lost it, but honestly that would’ve served nothing for the progression of the story. Because XGaster put a tracker on Ink’s brush, they were going to have to enlist his help.

and that about wraps up my notes, now let me throw what I had sitting around of a script draft–reading this was a trip because I forgot that literally 60% of it existed:

(inside the mountain)

Cross: holy shoe, EVERYONE has wings? how is this a thing??

Cross: I’m frickin jealous

Chief: Oh. You must be. Those guys.

Horror: yeah man, I enlisted their help to capture the Chicken Terror, but then they were all like yo, it’s a robot!


Chief: horror robot or not I told you that we weren’t going to capture the chicken terror for food because we’re not cannibals we don’t eat birds

Horror: but

Horror: we’re hardly even birds!

Chief: you know your job Horror. now get back to work. your actual work.

Horror: But… being the mailman sucks!


Chief: Do I need to confiscate your axe again?


Horror: OKAY FINE. I’M GOING. (flies away in a huff)

Chief: AND DO YOUR GODFORSAKEN LAUNDRY!

Chief: I apologize for that… so, how can I help you two today?


Nightmare: You guys have like, some pearl thing or something? We need to like, collect three of them in order to… save the multiverse… or something like that.

(Camera dramatically darkens.)

Chief: It’s just as the prophecy foretold…

Nightmare: oh god what

Chief: You see, young whippersnappers… legend tells of a great hero that would rise up and save a bunch of people in times of desperation that they don’t even realize are desperate. the great hero would travel far and wide in search of the Pearls of Shiny to finally retrieve a great weapon that he would use to strike down the evil that few knew existed. also the hero would have a sidekick wearing stupid clothes.

Cross: EXCUSE ME

Chief: THAT’S JUST WHAT THE PROPHECY SAID

Nightmare: okay, y’know, I’m just gonna roll with it. where can I get the pearl?

Chief: Well… that’s where the hard part comes in. You see, the pearl belongs to my son… but he’s been acting like an edgy teenager lately.

Nightmare: Great…

Cross: Is there a reason he’s being edgy? Maybe there’s something we can do to appease his hormones.

Cross: Free food works like a charm for me.

Chief: No, it’s more complicated than that. When one of our people becomes of age, they climb to the top of Charizard Island to receive a scale from the Great Charizard that will allow them to grow wings.

Nightmare: the… great charizard.

Chief: But lately, the Great Charizard has been throwing inexplicable temper tantrums. No one can get close to him anymore. And with my son being of age, he’s decently pissed off about this.

Chief: We’re thinking that the Great Charizard is displeased about something, and it is also causing our shortage of food.

Nightmare: Wait, you worship something named after a Pokemon?


Chief: Anyway, perhaps you two will be able to talk some sense into my son. Maybe he just wants to talk to someone his age that isn’t Horror or Killer.

Nightmare: What kind of names are those?


Chief: There’s a letter that I wanted my son to read, and I’ve given it to Killer to hold onto. You can go get it from him upstairs in the first room near the stairs, just tell him I sent you. He’s the little guy in the short shorts, you’ll probably recognize him when you see him.

Nightmare: Can’t you just call him here?


Chief: No, it is of upmost importance that you experience a basic fetch quest in order to become a great hero, because those fetch quests will become needlessly complicated before you even realize it.

Nightmare: ?????

Nightmare: I can’t even tell if you’re joking or not–

Cross: dude let’s just go get the letter

(scene transition)

(Killer dramatically turns around and it zooms in and says his name SSB style)

Nightmare: Wait, why do you get a dramatic introduction?


Killer: Dayum. New faces.

Nightmare: Why is everyone ignoring my questions??

Killer: (needlessly sensual voice) So, what brings you here? (walking closer)


Nightmare: (backs into wall) NO BUENO

Cross: You have a letter or something?


Killer: Oh. Yeah. Chief gave it to me for some reason. Yo, catch.

(He chucks it like a ninja star. Cross catches it between his hands in front of his face.)


Killer: Ey! You actually caught it!


Cross: I’m a trained ninja.

Killer: So like, who are you guys?

Cross: I’m Cross. He’s Larry.

Nightmare: NIGHTMARE. MY NAME IS NIGHTMARE.

Killer: Aw man, I know the feel of having a really lame name and wanting one that’s cooler.

Nightmare: No. Like. My name is actually Nightmare. My senile grandma called me Larry earlier today and this loser picked up on it.

Killer: There’s no need to lie. I understand.

Nightmare: I’M NOT LYING!

Killer: anyway make sure you get that letter to Color there’s something I have to do–

(Killer zips out the door behind them.)


Cross: what even the frick?


Nightmare: that guy freaks me the frick out.

Nightmare: literally. I felt like he was coming onto me.

Cross: you’re imagining things.

(SCENE TRANSITION)
 Cross: all right Nightmare I literally do not trust your ability to communicate with another person in a way that will make them feel inclined to give us something so just let me handle this okay

Cross: okay better yet wait outside the room

(Nightmare makes a less than amused face.)


Cross: it’s for the greater good

(Cross walks into the room.)

Cross: hi my name is Cross and

Color: LEAVE

(Cross immediately exits the room.)

Cross: this is a lost causeNightmare: what

Cross: go make him bleed with your words

Nightmare: dude isn’t this the part where we give him the frickin letter

Cross: (pauses) :o

Cross: OH RIGHT

(Cross takes the letter and goes back into the room, leaving the door open)

Cross: oh yeah this letter is for you it’s from your dad or something

Color: Oh, wow. Can’t even be bothered to talk to me in person.

Color: Give me that thing.

(Color stares at the letter. It’s actually a letter from Killer filled with really bad pickup lines and other really creepy compliments.)

Color: What the hell, you said this was from my dad!

Cross: We thought it was–??

(Killer teleports in behind them, scaring the shit out of Nightmare)


Killer: Suuuup~

Color: Killer I swear to god.

Killer: Here’s the actual letter, though you might not be happy with it.

(He flings it at Color and it lands in front of him. He reads it over, rolls his eyes and throws it in the trash.)

Cross: So uh… I don’t know what the letter says but apparently we’re prophesied heroes collecting a bunch of pearls to save the multiverse and the pearl you have is–


Color: Can everyone just get out of my room already?

(everyone just leaves)

Nightmare: What even was the point of that stupid fetch quest?

Killer: Oh yeah, can you guys help me with something? Just a smalllll favor. And I can’t ask anyone else because I’m not supposed to do it.

Killer: I need some strong, reliable people…

Nightmare: Don’t touch me.

Killer: It’s just a small favor! And I mean actually small, it’ll take like two minutes.

Nightmare: I have doubts about this.

Killer: Great! Meet me out back by the spring.

Nightmare: Wait which side is the back–

(Killer is gone)

Nightmare: Cross which side is the back.

Cross: I don’t know??

(after spending twenty minutes going through the various exits trying to figure out how to get there)

Killer: What the hell took you so long.

Nightmare: Directions would’ve been helpful. There wasn’t even a freaking map anywhere in there!

Killer: The hollow is like the size of a middle class house! How difficult could it be to find out where to go?!

Nightmare: IT’S A DOME THERE IS NO BACK

Cross: OKAY, what matters is that we’re here, what the heck do we do now.

Killer: Okay, okay. (steps backwards) Look, if you look around here, it’s all a dried up spring. The Great Charizard was throwing a tantrum, a boulder fell down and it coincidentally plugged up the spring for the third time this week, which is literally our main source of fresh water. I’m honestly getting sick of this so I’m going to climb the mountain and see what’s going on because everyone else is too scared to do it.

Nightmare: God. You’re not gonna make us go with you, are you?


Killer: Oh, no way. I just need you to throw me up that cliff over there so I can get into the cavern that leads up the mountain.

Nightmare: Can’t you fly?

Killer: Not thirty feet straight up. Do these noodle arms look like they can manage that?


Nightmare: Whatever. But quick question. How the hell does one throw a person.

Killer: I weigh like fifty pounds. It shouldn’t be that hard. Also, if you’ve noticed, the wind is rapidly changing directions, so you’ll probably have the best effect throwing me when the wind is blowing that way.

Nightmare: Mhmm. Sure. Let’s just get this over with.

(Nightmare crouches down and Killer fuckin walks onto his shoulders)

Nightmare: Hey! Watch it!

(some way or another he throws Killer and Killer barely makes it to the cliff, face planting into the ground)

Nightmare: Well I guess that worked.

Killer: THAT WAS TERRIBLE!

Nightmare: YOU’RE WELCOME! COULD’VE JUST USED A DAMN LADDER!

Killer: NOBODY OWNS A LADDER HERE BECAUSE EVERYONE CAN FLY!

Nightmare: Then how the frick do people get up this cliff?!

Killer: THERE’S NORMALLY A BRIDGE BUT IT BROKE AND PROBLEMS LIKE THESE ARE PRECISELY WHY I’M CLIMBING THE MOUNTAIN TO BEGIN WITH! ALSO I’M LEAVING BYE. (turns and leaves)

(cricket cricket)

Cross: Nightmare we should probably follow him.

Nightmare: No.

Cross: What else do we have to do. We solve their problem, Color can get his wings and then he stops being emo and gives us the pearl out of the goodness of his heart.

Nightmare: I’m not risking my life for this! If that guy is willing to do it himself I’m going to let him do it!

Cross: Dude, look at that guy. He looks about at capable fixing whatever the problem is as Ink is at providing emotional support. If this happens to be anything like a video game, we’re the only ones capable of solving anything. Besides, what else are we supposed to do? Hang around and wait for something to happen?

Nightmare: All right, fine. But how are we supposed to do something? It’s not like we can climb up a thirty foot cliff.

Cross: No, but we can swim, right?Nightmare: What?

(Cross draws a line around the rock covering the spring. It dematerializes into red squares and water starts to spew out of the spring. They both run back towards the side and climb up the cliff they came from)

Nightmare: Dude, what the hell was that?

Cross: I can draw lines around things with my sword and they do that and go away.

Nightmare: … do they go somewhere?


Cross: I dunno.

(Meanwhile in Xtale, a boulder slams into the floor and almost crushes Fresh because of course he’s there)

(The spring fills up)


Nightmare: You know I’m starting to have second thoughts about this swimming thing seeing as how I’ve never actually–(Cross kicks him into the water)


(LATER)


Nightmare: YOU ASSHOLE I ALMOST DROWNED

Cross: You’re exaggerating.

Random Dude: STOP RIGHT THERE!


Nightmare: who.

Random Dude: YOU AREN’T GOIN ONE STEP PAST THIS POINT! YOU’RE LIGHT YEARS FROM FACING BROCK!

(nightmare squints)

(comic suddenly goes into a battle sequence)

Nightmare: whoa whoa what the hell is happening

Cross: oh my god it’s pokemon NIGHTMARE IT’S POKEMON

Nightmare: I DON’T HAVE ANY POKEMON CROSS THREATEN HIM

(Random Dude sent out MEWTWO)

Cross: DEAR GOD

Cross: LISTEN THERE’S A HUGE MISUNDERSTANDING WE’RE NOT TRAINERS WE DON’T HAVE POKEMON

Random Dude: tHEN WHY ARE YOU IN A POKEMON GYM HUH

Cross: Uh… touring?

Random Dude: OH

Random Dude: I SEE

(The Random Dude returns his Mewtwo.)

Random Dude: THERE HAS BEEN AN UNFORTUNATE MISUNDERSTANDING

Cross: Say uh, you didn’t happen to see a scrawny dude with wings pass through here, did you?

Random Dude: Oh yeah, he went into the next room and took the elevator to the top.

(silence)


Nightmare: Why are there always elevators.

(two seconds later, they reach the elevator and there’s a dude standing in front of it)


Nightmare: um excuse me we need to use the elevator

Dude: oh man I can’t find my glasses anywhere what do I do

Nightmare: excuse me I said move

Dude: oh man I can’t find my glasses anywhere what do I do

Nightmare: HELLO

Dude: oh man I can’t find my glasses anywhere what do I do

Nightmare: MOVE ASSHOLE

Cross: I think it’s a preprogrammed NPC.

Nightmare: UAGGGGHHHHH

(Nightmare throws himself into the person, but he slams into the STEEL WALL OF NPC)

Nightmare: CROSS TELEPORT HIM AWAY

Cross: wait are you serious what if that freakin kills him I don’t know where these things go

Nightmare: YOU SAID IT YOURSELF HE’S AN NPC

(Cross shrugs. He draws a line around the NPC and the NPC disappears)

(one elevator ride later)

Nightmare: (chokes) oh god

Nightmare: the altitude

Cross: nightmare this island is still lower than ink’s house.

Nightmare: PSYCHOLOGICAL ALTITUDE

(fwip)

Cross: Oh look, it’s that guy from earlier.

Nightmare: Got captured somehow. Why am I not surprised?

Killer: YOU KNOW WHAT SCREW YOU GUYS

(A really buff guy abruptly slams into the ground)

Buff Guy: FEAR MY WRATH, FOR I AM BROCK! LEADER OF ALL THINGS ROCK HARD

Nightmare: Look man, we really don’t have time for this, just let the shota hoe go, we’re just checking up on the huge-ass Charizard up there.

Killer: excuse me

Brock: I AM THE LOYAL GUARDIAN OF THE GREAT CHARIZARD! You can only pass if you defeat me!


Cross: what the hell is even happening anymore

(Loud gym battle music as the gate at the entrance of the clearing slams shut)

Nightmare: LOOK WE’VE BEEN OVER THIS WE DON’T HAVE ANY POKEMON

(Brock war cries as he sends out a very anime geodude)

Nightmare: can someone please tell me I’m hallucinating all of this

Brock: WELL, IF YOU DON’T HAVE POKEMON, YOU’LL HAVE TO USE A RENTAL

Cross: What? But rental pokemon always suck.

Brock: YOU MUST PROVE YOUR WORTH SOMEHOW! AND BECAUSE YOU’RE SMALL CHILDREN YOU OBVIOUSLY CAN’T PROVE IT THROUGH SUMO WRESTLING.

Nightmare: I’m fifteen!

Cross: Nightmare I think you’re missing the point.

Killer: Good god, just let them through and let me out of here, they’re the heroes of prophecy.

Brock: PROPHECY

Brock: GOODNESS ME I APOLOGIZE FOR THAT

(Brock returns his geodude)

Brock: YOU SHOULD HAVE SAID SOMETHING

Nightmare: That would have worked?

Brock: BUT! IF YOU WANT TO FREE THIS TINY FELLOW HERE, YOU MUST COMPLETE A DIFFERENT CHALLENGE! FOR YOU SEE, HE TRIED TO PASS THROUGH HERE WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION!


(Killer rolls his eyes. Nightmare squints, literally pulling a notebook out of his shirt. He writes something in it, walking up to Brock and holding it up. It says “Let the guy out of jail you dick”)

Brock: AHA

Brock: WELL

Brock: I CAN’T ARGUE WITH THAT

(He stomps his foot on the ground and the bars in front of Killer go up)

Brock: DON’T BE CAUSING TROUBLE NOW KIDS


(He ascends back into the sky)


Cross: I’m not even going to ask. That entire conversation felt like a drug trip.

(Killer dramatically throws himself onto Nightmare)


Killer: I knew you would come around, my knight in–

Nightmare: Why did I assume that you had become any less creepy in the last ten minutes. Why did I even do that?


Killer: Because your heart told you to.

Nightmare: Dear god stop touching me or I will literally pick you up and slam you into the floor.

Killer: Feisty. Anyway, I figured out why the Great Charizard is freaking out all the time. His tail is hanging down into the room below him and something is chewing on it like all the time.

Cross: What? Then why doesn’t it just, I dunno, pull its freaking tail out of the room like a reasonable creature? Or maybe take care of the problem on its own?

Killer: The Great Charizard is like a five year-old. It’s self aware, but it expects all of its problems to be solved by everyone else and throws tantrums when that doesn’t happen.

Nightmare: Well that’s stupid. Why does everyone act like it’s some holy being then?

Killer: Because it’s a massive, terrifying dragon that can breathe fire?

ok unfortunately this is where the script ends but I hope you enjoyed that

oh yeah, and some extremely old art that I found:

as well as a brief consideration to make the characters human before deciding that I just didn’t want to work on the comic anymore.

basically you will notice that most of this doesn’t have a solid outline, and you’d be right: I never actually planned it that meticulously. I mostly just winged it and threw stuff in over the course of time and never even really planned anything close to a definitive ending beyond “maybe it was a prank”. sorry if this is like… anticlimactic, but it’s all I could find!

Jona’s Top 10 Dramas of 2019

A couple words about how I do these lists. Firstly, I only count as “2019 dramas” shows that finished airing in 2019, therefore dramas that started airing in 2018 but finished in the early months of 2019 have been included in my process, but dramas that are currently airing and will finish in 2020 have not been included. Secondly, this list is more based on my subjective experience with each of these dramas than my objective assessment on things like acting, writing and production values, though naturally I take the latter into account when forming my opinions.

Also: Yay! This year I managed to write a full review on every drama that wound up in my top ten, so feel free to click the link on each title and check those out if you want to read my detailed thoughts.

10. Hotel Del Luna

I have a somewhat Stockholm Syndrome-y relationship with Hong Sisters dramas. Though a lot of them are not excellent, or stumble a bit in the execution, I can’t seem to stop watching them. And yes, I’ve seen them all. Something about their particular blend of fantasy, romance and camp just works for me. I do think Hotel Del Luna plays to their strengths. Somewhat like if they got to take a second run at Master’s Sun but with their dream budget, and it’s just fun. This drama is gorgeous to look at. However, it is Lee Ji Eun, aka IU, who carries the entire drama on her lovely shoulders with her mesmerizing presence as Jang Man Wol.

Bottom Line: It shouldn’t be this way, but it’s so rare to get a mainstream drama where the female lead is allowed to be truly dark and flawed, or for a drama to fully focus on its heroine’s journey through the whole run.

9. Encounter

I was somewhat disappointed by the ending of this drama, and I think that might have made me unduly harsh when I looked back at it earlier in the year. However, I got the chance to rewatch episodes with a friend and was reminded of the soft, romantic escapism of this drama. Ultimately that’s the reason this ended up in the list. I like that it plays the rich woman/poor man, noona-romance tropes entirely straight and I liked the quixotic fairy tale it was unapologetically trying to sell me. Park Bo Gum and Song Hye Gyo are a noona-romance dream team up that I’m glad I got to see at least once in my lifetime.

Bottom Line: If you don’t like your dramas slow-paced and highly sentimental then this might not be the show for you, but I can appreciate a drama that knows exactly what kind of show it is and tries to do one thing well.

8. The Light in Your Eyes

If there’s any common theme to these favorites lists in previous years, it’s that they usually include dramas that took me by surprise and did something I haven’t seen before. The Light In Your Eyes fits that description so well, not just because of oddly dark tone or the quirky premise it presents in the first episodes, but because it’s a drama dedicated to showcasing the talents of the veteran actress, Kim Hye Ja, with whom the lead character shares a name. Of the dramas on the list this one made me cry the hardest.

Bottom Line: The Light In Your Eyes is a drama that has a greater emotional coherence than it does logical sense. In fact, if you think about the plot too hard it falls apart entirely. But it feels true, and that’s why it hit me so hard.

7. Search WWW

In my review I called Search a “female power fantasy” and I still think that’s a good description. It’s also sexy romantic fantasy, twice a noona romance, and a corporate drama focused on the very contemporary issues of powerful search engine companies and how they affect the information we see and the way we view the world. I think any of those is an interesting enough angle to make a drama about, maybe several dramas. If this show has one major flaw, it might be trying to wear too many hats at once. But I salute the creators for trying to make us something different than the typical pretty boy chaebol story, and giving us not one but three female characters filling those typically male roles.

Bottom Line: I do believe this drama deserves more love and respect than it got from a fandom that at least in theory cares about women’s stories. But I also understand why a lot of people didn’t connect with the lead character or the business stuff. But for me there was something about the lead couple that rang true and resonated with me.

6. WATCHER

Every time I watch a thriller, I’m hoping for something like WATCHER. Something with deep, complex, gray characters and a story full of twists and turns that keeps me engaged and guessing from episode one until the finale. Add on top of that a powerful cast who can really do justice to these substantial characters, you’ve got a winning recipe. OCN produces a lot of dramas in this genre, and they seem to be more prone to produce sequels than most other networks. Unfortunately, that also means a lot of the dramas they make feel paint-by-numbers and empty on the inside. WATCHER is one of those shows that reminds me why I keep coming back to this network and this kind of story time and again.

Bottom Line: This is one of those dramas that has you second guessing yourself even when they come right out and give you the answer, keeping you in a perpetual state of distrust along with the characters. But it’s built on the strong backbone of complicated and dynamic character relationships, which is why it is one of this year’s best.

5. Be Melodramatic

The higher I get up this list the harder time I have boiling down my thoughts on these dramas to one pithy paragraph. Often even I don’t know what kind of dramas are going to steal my heart. I have a particular weakness for dramas that can make me both laugh and cry, and then laugh through the tears. Dramas like Go Back Couple and Matrimonial Chaos that have deep heartache folded into the shenanigans. I love a funny drama. I like to laugh, but that doesn’t count for much unless I really care about the characters and their lives at the end of the day. That’s what makes me go from liking a drama to loving it, and that’s ultimately what I’m going to remember about a drama when it’s over. Be Melodramatic is special for the way it deals with heavy subjects in a gentle and lighthearted way, and somehow without losing the emotional impact.

Bottom Line: Be Melodramatic is a drama with tongue firmly planted in cheek, lots of laughs, lots of clever dialogue as well as a meta look at the drama industry from the inside, but the reason it works so well is the vein of heart, love and loss that runs all through the story.

4. One Spring Night

It’s so gratifying when a drama delivers exactly the experience you hoped it would. One Spring Night was a drama that ended up on my radar on the strength of the previews and posters, which promised me understated, romantic slice-of-life. I’d really enjoyed Han Ji Min in The Light in Your Eyes and have been fond of Jung Hae In since While You Were Sleeping. The pairing immediately seemed to have potential, but because the drama was picked up by Netflix, in the US I had to wait until it finished airing before I could give it a shot. A lot of the time when that happens, I see enough of the drama through gifs and screencaps that my interest fades. In this case I was only more intrigued. I’ve still never watched Something In The Rain but watching this drama has made me consider that might have been an oversight on my part. And yet I worry that if I watched it now I wouldn’t be able to help unfavorably comparing it to One Spring Night. This drama is truly something special.

Bottom Line: Because of the restrained, faithful realism of this drama and the two leads who seamlessly embody their characters, this drama has the almost voyeuristic quality of peeking into something intimate and private. It’s a palpable and thoroughly involving love story.

3. Nokdu Flower

I can hardly recommend this underrated gem of a show enough. I know nearly every historical gets compared either favorably or otherwise to Six Flying Dragons, which is kind of the recent high-water mark of sageuks, and I’m going to do that again here because Nokdu Flower is really the first historical drama I’ve watched since SFD that is at the same level of quality. One thing that sticks out about my experience watching both dramas is getting actual shivers watching these charismatic leaders rally their followers around them, and understanding at least in some small part why someone would leave behind everything they knew, pick up arms, and risk their lives for an ideal. Nokdu Flower captures the fearful power of revolutionary ideas in the hands of common people, but doesn’t descend into mere jingoism or sand off the rough edges or try to white wash the dark parts of human nature while it’s at it.

Bottom Line: At its most basic level Nokdu Flower is a story of revolution, and one of flawed characters either finding their humanity or having it burned out of them in the crucible of war. As that description would suggest it’s not an easy watch, but it’s a good and worthwhile one and definitely one any sageuk fan should check out.

2. My Country: The New Age

Compared to the far more traditional and grounded Nokdu Flower, My Country is almost fantastical in tone and at times eschews logic and realism for set pieces, sword fights and close range shotgun blasts of pathos. That’s probably why I love it. The larger-than-life sensationalism of this drama is what pushes it higher on this list than the carefully crafted Nokdu Flower, because this drama appealed to me on a more primal way. It’s so unrestrained and epic in everything from the set design, the soundtrack, the cinematography to the characters themselves and the performances of the actors playing them. Lurid, melodramatic, passionate, intense, suspenseful, romantic, raw, angsty, dark...I’ve basically run out of new adjectives to use while describing this drama elsewhere on this site. Basically, My Country is my id on a plate. Bon appetit.

Bottom Line: While there are definitely misguided and flawed elements to the writing and execution in this drama, somehow all of that is swept away in the sheer pleasure of watching it. If it had been specifically designed to appeal to every narrative kink I have, they couldn’t have made a more perfect drama for my tastes.

1. Children of Nobody

I finished my favorite drama of 2019 back in January, and then got to wait around 11 and a half months to see if anything else I watched last year would knock Children of Nobody from the top spot. It’s a mixed blessing to peak that early in the year. On the one hand, there was nowhere to go but down from here. On the other, I’ve had a lot of time to digest this very heavy show, which is something I definitely needed. I mentioned in my original review of this drama that each of the characters is an iceberg, so much more going on beneath the surface than what we can see. And what I’ve realized over the course of the past year is that the whole drama is like that, in a way. It’s an iceberg of a story, and I was able to pour a lot of myself into it, to try to understand it, and that’s part of the reason it was such an emotional watch for me. I don’t know when or if I’m going to be able to rewatch Children of Nobody, but I hope I can do it some day because I feel certain I would appreciate it even more upon a second viewing.  The fact that this is a murder mystery and a thriller is almost incidental to the emotional core of the story, which is deeper and more lingering than that. The secrets, once revealed, do not diminish the story but only turn it slightly so that you can see it from a different angle.

Bottom Line: This drama is certainly not going to be for everyone. I don’t know if I would say it was underrated so much as it’s niche. The difficult subject matter is naturally going to narrow its appeal. But I do think that dramas that require the most from me, mentally and emotionally, are often the ones that stick with me the longest and make me bend and grow as a person.

I sure hope you’ve enjoyed my top 10 list this year and I wish you joy, success and profound wellbeing in 2020. Thank you again--and thank you always--for following me. I’ve got great things planned for us this year.

Jona

22. The Kanima’s Master

Anchor

Stiles Stilinski x Original Character

Episode: 2x10; Fury

Word Count: 5,938

Warning(s): Mature language, canon violence, injuries

Author’s Note: Hope you enjoy! Don’t forget to reblog and like!

Masterlink in Profiles Description!

"So, this kid," Noah pointed at the yearbook slapped on Stiles' desk, page open with a bright red circle around Matt's picture. "he's the real killer?"

Stiles, Scott, and Olivia all looked at each other before nodding at him. "Yeah."

Noah shook his head. "No."

"Yes!"

"No."

Stiles sighed in frustration. "Dad, come on," he groaned, wishing his dad would just believe him one time. "Everybody knows that the police look for ways to connect victims with a murder, okay? So, all he had to do is, like, look through their transcripts and figure out which class they all had in common."

"Yeah, except for the fact that the rave promoter, Kara, wasn't in Harris' class," Noah crossed his arms over his chest.

"All right, okay. You're right, sorry," Stiles shrugged mockingly. "Then I guess they dropped the charges against him?"

Noah stared at him in frustration, wishing he could deny Stiles' claim; Stiles had seen the look on his face many times. "No, you know what, they're not dropping the charges," he conceded. "but that doesn't prove anything."

Stiles scoffed in disbelief and shared a wide-eyed look with Scott.

"Olivia," Olivia perked up when the sheriff addressed her, "do you believe any of this?"

"Yes, sir," she nodded. "It's difficult to explain but you have to trust your son."

Stiles gave her a grateful look to which she nodded back at him.

"We know it's Matt," Scott added in support.

"Yeah, he took Harris' car, okay," Stiles shared his theory with Noah. "Look, he knew that if a cop found tire tracks at one of the murders, and that if enough of the victims were in Harris' class, that they'd arrest him."

"Matt Daehler's smart, Sheriff Stilinski," Olivia stated. "He's not the run of the mill type of lacrosse player."

Stiles gave her an offended look. "Uh, was that supposed to be a slight against me and Scott, 'cause I think it—"

"Stiles, really?"

"Right, right," Stiles turned back to his dad expectantly.

"All right, fine," Noah sighed. "I'll allow the remote possibility but give me a motive. I mean, why would this kid want most of the 2006 swim team and its coach dead?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Stiles gestured wildly. "Our swim team sucks! They haven't won in, like, six years."

Olivia cocked her head thoughtfully while Noah gave his son an unimpressed look. She thought about how Mr. Lahey had abused Isaac ever since his mother died; who's to say the man didn't take out some aggression on other kids, too?

"Okay, so, we don't have a motive yet," Stiles' shoulders slumped. "I mean, come on, does Harris?"

Noah pressed his lips together and looked down at Matt's picture in the yearbook. "What do you want me to do?"

Olivia perked up, surprised that Sheriff Stilinski gave into his son's explanation. Before, it hadn't looked like he was going to. Stiles whipped around to grin at her and Scott, obviously speechless.

"We need to look at the evidence," Scott requested, more composed than Stiles; Stiles nodded rapidly.

"Yeah, that would be in the station where I no longer work."

"Trust me, they'll let you in," Stiles said earnestly.

Noah raised an eyebrow at him. "Trust you?"

"T-Trust Scott or Olivia?" Stiles stammered, pointing to them.

Noah exhaled through his nose before pointing at Olivia. "Olivia, I trust."

"Really?" Stiles asked in surprise; he didn't blame his dad for trusting her because it was Olivia but she and Noah had hardly spoken to each other. "You hardly know her."

"You wanna go to the station or not?" Noah challenged him.

"Oh, yeah, uh, definitely—I definitely want to go to the station."

Noah left the room and Olivia followed after him, sending Stiles a cute smile and teasingly poking out her tongue at him. Stiles sighed as he watched her leave his room before turning to Scott, "I'm gonna marry that girl someday."

Scott chuckled and clapped his shoulder. "Sure, you will, buddy."

-

Since there was only one murder that the kanima didn't commit himself, they started with footage from the hospital first. They were hoping that the cameras placed in every hallway would have captured Matt on the way to murder Jessica, the woman who Jackson couldn't kill because she was pregnant.

The deputy that had desk duty that night had taken only a minute for Noah to convince her to let him into his office. From there, Noah was allowed to access all of the evidence that the police were building for this case.

"I don't know, guys," Noah sighed after watching twenty minutes of footage, none of which had Matt in it. "I mean, look at this. There was a six-car pileup that night, the hospital was jammed."

"Just keep going," Stiles urged. "Look, he had to have passed one of the cameras on that floor to get to Jessica, okay? He's gotta be on the footage somewhere."

Olivia narrowed her eyes at the computer, watching one of the figures storm down the hall. "Hold on, stop and scroll back," she requested, pointing out the guy she had been eyeing. "I'm pretty sure that's him."

"That's him!" Stiles agreed as soon as he took a closer look. "That's Matt."

"All I see is the back of someone's head."

"Matt's head, yeah," Stiles told his father. "I sit behind him in history. He's got a very distinct cranium, it's weird."

Noah looked up at him in disbelief. "Are you crazy?"

"Matt has a weird walk, though," Olivia told the sheriff. "It's like he's always in a rush to murder someone."

"His walk," Noah's voice was flat; Olivia bit the inside of her cheek.

"Fine, then look at his jacket," Stiles pointed at the footage again. "How many people do you know who wear black leather jackets?"

"Millions, literally."

"Okay," Scott interjected. "can we scroll forward? There's gotta be a shot of him coming at one of the cameras."

Noah clicked play and the footage went on for a couple of seconds before Stiles stopped him again.

"Right there!" he exclaimed; Noah stopped the footage. "See, there he is again."

"You mean there's the back of his head again," Noah corrected him.

"Okay, but he's talking to someone."

Scott peered over Stiles' shoulder. "He's talking to my mom."

Within seconds, Scott was on the phone, asking him mom about her run-in with Matt.

"Scott, you know how many people I deal with in a day?" Melissa asked incredulously.

"This one's sixteen, he's got dark hair, looks like a normal teenager—"

"Yeah, he looks evil," Stiles enthusiastically cut Scott off.

Olivia grabbed his shoulders, pulling him away from the phone. She ignored the accusing look he had given her and pressed a finger to her lips in a signal to be quiet.

"Scott, I already talked to the police about this."

"Mom, I'm gonna take a picture and send it to you," Scott quickly took a picture of Matt in the yearbook and sent it to his mom. "Did you get it?"

"Yeah."

"Do you recognize him?" Scott asked. "Do you remember him?"

"Yeah, I did," Melissa confirmed. "I mean, I remember I stopped him because he was tracking mud in the hall...Scott, what's going on?"

"It's—It's nothing, Mom," Scott assured her while Stiles, Noah, and Olivia exchanged looks. "I'll explain later. I gotta go."

He quickly ended the call and shoved his phone in his pocket.

Noah hurriedly grabbed one of the files in the pile next to him. "We've got shoe prints alongside the tire tracks at the trailer site."

"And if they match, that puts Matt at the scene of three murders," Stiles continued thoughtfully. "The trailer, the hospital, and the rave."

"Actually, four," Noah corrected him. "A credit card receipt for an oil change was signed by Matt at the garage where the mechanic was killed."

"When?"

"A couple hours before you got there," Noah checked the file for confirmation.

Stiles shook excitedly and Olivia couldn't help but smile at him. This was his thing. Like her thing was science, his thing was solving cases—full blown detective work that impressed the hell out of her.

"All right, Dad," he said quickly. "if one's an incident, two's a coincidence, and three's a pattern, what's four?"

Noah slammed the case file shut. "Four's enough for a warrant," he stated before looking at Scott and Olivia. "Scott, call your mom back and see how quick she can get here. If I can get an official ID, I can get a search warrant. Olivia, you go to the front desk. Tell them to let Scott's mom in when she gets here."

Olivia nodded firmly. "On it."

Olivia left Noah's office, heading down the hallway that they had traveled to get there. To her surprise, the young deputy who let them in wasn't at the desk like before. And when she turned around, there weren't any night-duty cops in their wreck room, either.

"Hello?" she called softly.

Tingles started erupting all over her body, goosebumps covering her skin.

Olivia.

Olivia followed the voice whispering in her ear, turning around to see that Matt Daehler had been behind her, aiming a cocked gun to her.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, she whimpered mentally.

"Matt," she breathed, trying to keep her fear from showing on her face. "Let's talk about this."

"Let's not," Matt said sharply, a single tear falling from his eye. "Why don't you lead me back to the Sheriff's office?"

Olivia nodded and slowly raised her hands so Matt could see that she wasn't going to try anything. Matt gestured down the hall with his free hand and she instantly started walking, leading him back to Noah's office where the boys were waiting for her.

She tried not to freak out, taking deep breaths and telling herself to be calm. She didn't know if it was the breathing or if her anchor powers could work on her, too, but she did feel herself calming down the slightest bit. She wasn't panicked but she was still on edge.

Who wouldn't be with a gun held to their back?

Olivia heard Scott tell Stiles and Noah that his mom was on her way to the station as she walked into the office. The Stilinski men weren't able to respond to Scott, spotting Olivia' predicament right away; Scott followed their eyes, his own widening when he saw Matt and the gun he aimed at Olivia.

Olivia could see Stiles clenching his jaw and shifting angrily. She really hoped he wouldn't lose his temper and make Matt even angrier.

"Matt?" Noah's voice was calm, the antithesis of Stiles' expression. "It's Matt, right?" Matt nodded cockily. "Matt, whatever's going on, I guarantee you there's a solution that doesn't involve a gun."

"You know, it's funny you say that," Matt scoffed. "I don't think you're aware of just how right you are."

Noah had no idea what Matt was talking about but Olivia, Stiles, and Scott knew.

"I know you don't wanna hurt people."

"Actually, I wanna hurt a lot of people," Matt disagreed. "You four weren't on my list but I could be persuaded."

Olivia flinched as Matt pushed her away from him with the barrel of his gun, urging her toward Stiles and Scott. Stiles instantly grabbed her hand, pulling her close to him in case Matt had any ideas.

"And one way is to try dialing somebody on your cell phone like McCall is doing," Matt snapped, seeing movement in Scott's jean pocket. "That—that could definitely get someone hurt. Everyone," he pointed his gun on the desk, wanting them to give up their phones. "Now!"

The four of them put their phones on Noah's desk. Matt then marched them out of the office, down the hallway, to the holding room, where he made Noah sit on one of the benches just a few feet away from the two holding cells. He had Stiles put handcuffs on him, attaching him to the metal bar right behind him.

"Tighter," Matt ordered, pointing his gun at Stiles when Stiles clasped the cuff loosely around Noah's wrist.

"Do what he says, Stiles," Noah nodded at his son.

Stiles rolled his eyes and tightened the cuff before looking at Matt expectantly. Matt scowled at him and grabbed Olivia's shoulder, pushing her out of the holding room. Stiles and Scott were quick to join the line behind her as Matt herded them to the front desk.

As they were walking by one of the hallways, Olivia stopped in her tracks, horrified by what she saw. The three night-duty deputies, plus the one who was manning the desk, were all dead, their stomachs slashed to shreds. The kanima was in the station, too.

Scott gaped at the sight of them. "What, are you gonna kill everyone in here?" he looked back at Matt incredulously.

"No, that's what Jackson's for," Matt remarked. "I just think about killing them and he does it."

Olivia bit the inside of her cheek, desperately wanting to comment about how one of her closest friends wasn't just a murder slave. But she didn't—they couldn't have the situation escalating. She had to be calm, cool, and collected and she would be. She didn't hide her emotions all the time for nothing.

Matt pushed on Stiles' back, sending him into Scott, who fell into Olivia. She jumped forward, getting the hint that Matt wanted them walking again. They walked around the front desk and down another hallway, entering what looked to be a shared office.

"What is it that you wanna do, Matt?" Stiles spoke up, unable to keep quiet any longer. "Or are you just gonna parade us around the station a couple of times? I've seen it plenty, it's nothing special."

"Shut up, Stilinski," Matt pushed him toward the desk with the computer. "I want you three to delete the evidence. Anything relating to all of this, I want gone."

Stiles, Olivia, and Scott shared a look; if that evidence was gone so was the case against Matt.

"Get going!" Matt raised his voice.

Stiles went to the computer, deleting the evidence stored on the hard drive while Scott and Olivia started on the files, going through them for anything to do with the case. One the evidence was collected, they shredded it all under Matt's watchful gaze.

"Deleted and we're done," Stiles tapped a key on the computer and aimed his heated gaze at Matt. "All right, so, Matt, since all the people you brutally murdered deserved it because they killed you first—whatever the fuck that means—we're good here, right? We'll get my dad and we'll go, you know? You continue on the whole vengeance thing. Enjoy the kanima."

Just as Stiles finished speaking, a car pulled into the lot, it's headlights flashing through the blinds in the window.

Matt's eyes flickered over to Scott. "Sounds like your mom's here, McCall."

"Matt, don't do this," Scott pleaded roughly. "When she comes to the door, I'll just tell her to leave. I'll tell her we didn't find anything."

The door that led to the wreck room groaned loudly as it was opened.

Matt glared at Scott. "If you don't move, now, I'm gonna kill Olivia first, then Stiles, and then your mom," he gestured out of the office. "Let's go."

And so they marched back to the wreck room.

"Open it," Matt ordered Scott when he hesitated at the door.

"Please, Matt—"

"Open. The. Door."

A phantom sting raced across the back of Olivia's neck, causing her to wince. The feel of it was familiar, not because it was happening to her, but because it had happened to Derek before.

Scott opened the door, revealing Derek standing behind it.

"Oh, thank God."

"Derek!" Olivia lunged toward her cousin, hoping to catch him as he fell forward but Matt quickly tugged her back. Derek hit the floor on his back and glared at Matt with angry pale-green eyes.

"This is the one controlling him?" he grunted as Jackson—half in his kanima form—entered behind him. "This kid?"

Matt let go of Olivia, pushing her toward Jackson, and leaned over Derek. "Well, Derek, not everyone's lucky enough to be a big, bad werewolf."

Olivia hid the surprise on her face, though Matt could easily see it on Stiles and Scott.

"Yeah, that's right," he nodded proudly. "I've learned a few things lately. Werewolves, hunters, kanimas, whatever the hell Olivia is...It's like a fucking Halloween party every full moon," he caught Stiles rolling his eyes. "Except for you, Stiles. What do you turn into?"

Please do not sass him, Olivia pleaded mentally as she side-eyed Stiles.

That was exactly what he did. "An abominable snowman," he told Matt dryly. "But, uh, it's more of a wintertime thing, you know? Seasonal."

Stiles...

Matt nodded at Jackson; from behind Olivia, he reached for the back of Stiles' neck and slashed his skin. When Olivia and Scott moved to stop him, the kanima was quick to push them away. Stiles fell right on top of Derek, paralyzed just like the alpha.

"You bitch," Stiles' voice was warbled since his face was smushed against Derek's chest.

Derek just seemed very annoyed with the whole situation. "Get him off of me."

"Oh, I don't know, Derek," Matt drawled, amused. "I think you two make a pretty good pair," Olivia furrowed her eyebrows, not seeing the same thing as Matt apparently did, and Derek just blinked flatly. "It must kinda suck, though, to have all that power taken away from you with just a little cut to the back of the neck. I bet you're not used to feeling this helpless."

"Still got some teeth," Derek snarked back at him. "Why don't you get down here a little closer, huh? We'll see how helpless I am."

"Yeah, bitch," Stiles grunted.

"Matt," Olivia spoke up, keeping her voice calm; Matt turned to her with expectant eyes. "We deleted the evidence and you obviously have the upper hand, here. You got what you wanted so just let us go."

Matt scoffed. "You didn't think that would work, did you, Olivia?" he asked mockingly as a vehicle pulled up to the station. He paused and turned to smirk at Scott, distracted. "Is that her?"

Scott inhaled deeply, knowing that his mom had finally arrived; Olivia reached for his hand, trying to offer some kind of support.

"Do what I tell you to and I won't hurt her," Matt ordered him. "I won't even let Jackson near her."

"Scott, don't trust him!" Stiles yelled from his place on Derek's chest.

Matt gritted his teeth and grabbed the back of Stiles' shirt, flipping him around and off of Derek's chest so his back was on the floor. He placed his dirty shoe against Stiles' throat, applying pressure.

Stiles, Stiles, Stiles.

"Does this work better for you?" Matt shouted at Scott as Stiles choked underneath him.

"Stop," Olivia rubbed her ear, her free hand going to her throat. "Matt, stop!"

Stiles, Stiles, Stiles.

Stiles' face was rapidly turning red, the vein in his forehead popping out as he continued to choke.

"Okay, just stop!" Scott yelled.

"Then do what I tell you to!"

"Okay, all right," Scott agreed; Matt continued to hold pressure. "Stop!"

Matt took his foot away from Stiles' throat. Olivia fell to her knees beside him as he gasped sharply, placing a cool hand on his red cheek to make sure he was okay.

"Get up," Matt roughly grabbed her arm and pulled her to her feet before looking over at Jackson. "Take them in there," he nodded at Scott. "You and Olivia are with me."

Matt pushed them out of the wreck room and into the lobby just as Melissa was entering the station.

"Mom?"

Melissa looked away from her phone and sighed in relief when she saw Scott and Olivia walk out. "You scared me. Where is every—"

"Mom," he cut her off as Matt appeared behind them, gun aimed at Scott's back; Melissa bristled, looking absolutely terrified. "just do what he says. He promised he wouldn't hurt you."

"He's right," Matt agreed before cocking his gun and shooting Scott. "but I didn't say I wouldn't hurt you."

Olivia gasped as Melissa screamed and Scott fell to the floor, her stomach tingling. She ignored the whispers of Scott's name to kneel down next to him, putting pressure on the steadily growing blood stain on his green shirt.

"SCOTT?" she heard Noah yell from the holding room. "OLIVIA? STILES?"

Melissa went to help her but was stopped when Matt aimed his gun at her. "Back, back!"

"Ms. McCall, stop," Olivia pleaded, pushing her hands against Scott's wound. She didn't want Melissa to get hurt and Matt would do it. He had proved his violent tendencies with all of the people he had Jackson kill. "Please, stop."

"I said get back!"

"Scott..." Melissa's wet eyes were stuck on her son.

"Mom, do it," Scott told her. "Please, Mom."

"He's gonna be okay, Ms. McCall," Olivia assured her just to keep her away.

Melissa stayed back, not moving another inch. Satisfied, Matt turned back to Olivia and Scott, lowering his gun to aim it at Olivia. "Get up," he snapped at her. "You too, McCall."

"Matt?" Noah called, trying to get anyone's attention. "Matt, listen to me—"

"Shut up! Everyone shut the fuck up!" Matt screamed before giving Olivia and Scott his attention once again. "Now, get up, or I'll shoot you and her next."

Olivia nodded shakily, let go of Scott's wound, and scooped her hands under his armpits so she could lift him to his feet. "Okay, we're up. We're up."

"We're putting her in the holding cell," Matt gestured to Melissa. "Let's go."

Olivia was the one to put Melissa in the holding cell; Matt's gun was at her back while she slid the lock into place, making sure she did it correctly so Melissa couldn't get out.

"Please, he needs to see a doctor," Melissa begged Matt.

Matt snorted. "You think so?"

"Hey!" Noah barked, not liking the way he talked to Melissa; he jumped to his feet, his left arm still cuffed to the metal bar, and pointed at him. "You listen to me—"

"Stop, stop!" Olivia cut them off before Matt could get more pissed. "He'll be okay."

"He's clearly not okay!" Melissa argued tearfully, pointing at Scott, who was still clutching his stomach.

But Melissa didn't know what Olivia knew; Scott's name wasn't being whispered to her. His wound was healing and he'd be fine in a matter of minutes.

"Mom, it doesn't hurt," Scott assured his mother.

"That's because of the adrenaline," Melissa shook her head. "Please, let me—let me take a look at him, okay? I mean, at least let me stop the bleeding."

Matt laughed and looked back at Scott in disbelief. "They have no idea, do they?"

"Just let me take a quick look—"

"SHUT UP!" Matt roared at her, lunging toward the cell. "Lady, if you keep talking, I'm gonna put the next bullet through his head."

"Hey!" Olivia pushed against him, sending him skidding back a couple of inches from her. "Back off!"

She could be calm but she wasn't about to let this guy bully Scott's mom. She was clearly desperate, thinking her son was going to die, and not thinking about her own safety. Olivia would, though. She wouldn't let Matt hurt Melissa.

Matt scrambled toward her, throwing back his hand with the gun and backhanded her with the butt of it.

"HEY!"

"LIV!"

Olivia cried out as she fell to the floor, holding her aching cheek. The pain was bad but it was bearable. She had never been shot before, but she knew that she would feel worse if he had shot her like he did Scott. She sucked in a few desperate breaths to keep the stinging in her eyes at bay. She wasn't going to cry in front of this asshole.

"Liv, are you okay?" Scott asked worriedly.

"Get up," Matt snarled at her again before she could answer Scott.

Olivia glared at him and let go of her face, getting to her feet. He pushed her toward Scott and she grabbed him to steady herself, inhaling deeply. She nodded at Scott, silently telling him that she was okay.

"Both of you, back to the front," Matt ordered. "Let's go!"

Back in the front room, Matt pushed Olivia and Scott past Stiles and Derek where they were laying on the floor. They were both still paralyzed and they were both visibly fuming, though the lack of sensation in their bodies led them unable to do anything to Matt.

"The evidence is gone," Olivia spat at Matt, repeating her earlier words. "Why don't you just go?"

"You—you think the evidence mattered that much?" Matt scoffed, shaking his head. "No, no, I-I want the book."

"What?" Scott was confused; so was Olivia, for that matter. "What book?"

"The bestiary," Matt told them. "Not just a few pages, I want the entire thing."

"That's Argent's bestiary," Olivia could not believe they were going through all of this for a glorified dictionary written in archaic Latin. "We don't have access."

"What do you want it for, anyway?"

Matt glowered at Olivia and answered Scott, "I need answers."

"Answers to what?"

Matt lifted his striped t-shirt, revealing his stomach covered in scales just like Jackson's. "To this."

Olivia wrinkled her nose in disgust. "Look, you want to talk to the Argents? Be my fucking guest. Good luck," she glared at Matt. "but we don't have the answers for you so let us go."

Matt just shook his head and raised his gun to her head, cocking it. "Give me your phone," he told Scott. "or I'll blow her brains out."

Okay, so, that was a bad idea, Olivia admitted to herself as she stared down the barrel of the gun. What happened to cool, calm, and collected? Show no fear, Liv. Damn it, do not cry.

The problem with Matt demanding Scott's phone was that they had already given them to him when he first showed up. It was Stiles who was the one to remind the psycho about that. Luckily, he did so with no sarcasm, otherwise Olivia was sure she would have gotten a bullet to the head.

After marching Scott and Olivia back to Noah's office, he texted Allison on Scott's phone, asking her to bring the bestiary to the station.

"There," Matt threw Scott's phone back on the desk and walked them to the bullpen where the deputies usually did their work. "You know, I feel sorry for you, McCall. Cause right now, you're thinking about how you're gonna explain to your mom that you healed."

Scott looked down at his wound; the blood had trailed down from under his stained shirt and had dripped onto his jeans, too.

"The sad part is, you don't even realize how incredible it is that you're actually healing," Matt went on. "Cause you know what happens to everyone else when they get shot? They die."

Olivia eyed him carefully, noticing how he had emphasized the last word of his statement. And then she remembered the conversation at the rave. When he had told them—through Jackson—that people had killed him.

"You died, didn't you?" she asked, her mind racing. She thought about how he was afraid of water. "How did you drown?"

Matt shook his head slightly. "He shouldn't have let them drink."

"What?" Scott furrowed his eyebrows. "Who?"

"You're talking about Mr. Lahey, aren't you?" Olivia guessed. "He let the swim team drink?"

Matt nodded in confirmation. "I didn't know what was happening," he revealed. "I didn't know they had just won state and Lahey, he's letting his favorites come over to have a couple of drinks to celebrate. Who cares if they're seventeen, right?"

Scott cocked his head. "Were you at Isaac's?"

"He had this first edition Spider-Man—or was it Batman?" Matt recalled. "And we were gonna make a trade but then I went over there and I heard music. Everyone was having a good time and I saw Sean. He threw Jessica in the pool. And then—and then Bennett went in and—"

"Bennett?" Scott interrupted. "The hunter?"

"And then Camden, Isaac's jarhead brother," Matt continued as if Scott hadn't spoken. "He grabbed me. He thought it was funny."

Olivia pressed her lips together. "He threw you in."

"I-I yelled that I couldn't swim but nobody listened. I went under and I swallowed water and no one cared," tears drip down Matt's face. "I-I saw that Jessica had her hands down Sean's board shorts. Tucker was grabbing Kara. And I was drowning. I was dying and they were laughing."

The sadness, the complete devastation in Matt's tone made Olivia swallow harshly. Nothing justified him making Jackson kill these people but there was a part of her that understood. They had done something horrible to him and he got his revenge.

"All of a sudden, I was just—I was lying by the pool with Mr. Lahey right above me. He said to tell no one and that it was my fault," Matt face crumpled as he imitated Mr. Lahey, "'What little bastard doesn't know how to swim? You tell no one!' And I didn't. I didn't tell anyone," he shook his head, disgusted. "I would see them at school and they wouldn't even look at me. I'd wake up in the middle of the night, I'd gasp for breath. And my parents, they thought I was an asthmatic. They—they even gave me an inhaler. They didn't know that every time I closed my eyes, I was drowning..."

Olivia wished that Matt would have told his parents about what happened. She wished that they could have gotten him help. She wished that he hadn't turned into this person.

"You know about that little white light that they talk about, the one you see when you die?" Matt looked to Olivia and Scott; both of them nodded. "Well, I didn't see anything. Just darkness. Everything was dark...but then—then came the Argent's funeral and everything changed."

"What do you mean?" Olivia didn't know what he was talking about. How would Kate's funeral change everything?

"I was taking some photos and then, purely by accident, Lahey got in one of the photos," Matt told her. "I looked down at the screen on my camera and I just had this unbelievable rage inside of me. I-I just looked at him and I wanted to see him dead...The next day, he actually was."

"You know, Einstein was right," he said thoughtfully. "Imagination is more important that knowledge. It was like something out of Greek mythology. Like—like the furies coming down to punish Orestes."

Scott shot Olivia a confused look and Matt caught it.

"You have no idea what I'm talking about, do you?" he deadpanned at him.

"Was he the guy who stabbed out his eyes?"

"That was Oedipus," Olivia corrected him. "Furies are deities of vengeance. Their tears were blood and they had snakes as their hair. If a crime went unpunished, the furies would punish the instigator."

"Jackson is my fury," Matt declared, earning himself a disgusted look from Olivia. "You know, when I saw him the next night, it was like this bond had been cemented between the two of us. I knew he had killed Lahey for me and I knew he would do it again. So, I went to Tucker's garage," he scoffed. "I even paid for an oil change and guess what? He didn't even recognize me. So, when he wasn't looking, I took a shot of him from my camera. In a few hours, he was dead...So I took more pictures. All I had to do was take their picture and Jackson would take their life."

The lights flashed for a second before going out altogether. The station was bathed in darkness except for the few emergency lights.

"What is this?" Matt freaked out as Olivia looked around nervously. "What is this? What's happening? What's going on?"

"I don't know!" Scott told him.

A car pulled into the station's parking lot, its headlights flashing through the windows. Olivia barely had enough time to see more vehicles coming in before she was ducking to avoid the bullets being shot at the window. She ducked down behind a desk with Scott at her side, both of them looking at each other with wide, frightened eyes.

There was a flash as a couple of canisters were thrown through the window the bullets had just broken through. Smoke erupted out of them and within seconds, the room was full of it. Olivia coughed into her arm and tugged on Scott's sleeve, yelling, "Come on!"

Scott ran out of the room first, running straight to Jackson so Olivia could get around him. She dashed into the room where Stiles and Derek were being kept and knelt next to Stiles.

"Take him," Derek urged her. "Go!"

Olivia nodded and gathered Stiles' arms just as Scott joined them and Derek ran from the room. Scott helped Stiles to his feet and carried half of his weight as he and Olivia dragged him through the station with Jackson on their tail.

"Here, here, here," Olivia pointed to an upcoming room. They entered and set Stiles on one of the chairs. Scott quickly ran out of the room to see what was going on but Olivia stayed for a second. "I'm gonna go check on your dad and Ms. McCall," she told him. "Don't move, okay?"

"Seriously?" Stiles glared at her.

"Sorry," she quickly apologized before leaving the room and making sure the door was shut firmly behind her.

The smoke wasn't as bad the further she walked through the station to get to the holding room but she couldn't just worry about that. She had come across two grown men with huge-ass guns stalking through the building, looking for someone to shoot. She had to be careful when turning down halls and entering rooms.

Since they were already in the police station, she figured that the Argents were behind this attack. She was proven right when she turned into another hallway and ran into Allison.

She raised her hands when Allison aimed her bow at her. "Allison," she eyed the sharp arrowhead. "What are you doing?"

"Where's Derek?"

Olivia furrowed her eyebrows. "What? What are you even—"

"Where is Derek?" Allison spat at her with hard eyes. "Tell me where he is, Olivia."

"I don't know, Allison! What the hell is going on? What happened?"

She had come to trust the youngest Argent against her better judgement because she liked Allison. They were friends, good friends. They had sleepovers and study dates and talked to each other on the phone at night when they needed someone to talk to. And now her friend was pointing an arrow at her.

Allison's grip dropped and her eyes softened slightly. "You have to stay away from me, Olivia," she warned the shorter brunette. "I—it'll be safer for you if you just stay out of the way."

"What are you talking about?" Olivia was completely confused; Allison didn't answer as she pushed past her and stomped down the hallway. "Allison!"

Something else was going on that had Allison pulling an Anakin Skywalker ala Revenge of the Sith. If it had Allison turning on her friends, on Scott, then they were all in trouble.

(Gif is not mine)

[fanfic] What’s In A Name:  Chapter 3

Words choked in Ken’s throat. What they said couldn't be true. But – Digimon weren’t human. Humans didn’t come back from being dead. He’d always known that. He’d seen himself in the mirror and seen a reflection of his brother, but deep down, he knew it wasn’t true. He was just mimicking Osamu in as many ways as he could.

Not very well, either. Osamu hadn’t been nearly as bad of a person as he was. Osamu wouldn’t have done what he did. Even when he was stern and didn’t want Ken touching what was his, he hadn’t hurt other people. He just hadn’t.

But Ken had. Ken went out of his way to hurt others, telling himself that they didn’t matter, they weren’t real, and he could do whatever he wanted, and if anyone tried to stop him, then they were wrong.

Oh, that almost made him want to laugh now, if it didn’t want to make him cry. A thousand emotions crowded themselves into his heart. He couldn’t have named a single one of them, aside from the yawning gulf of guilt and the screaming need to somehow make up for it, to undo all that he’d done.

“Wormmon,” he whispered. Perhaps that would be a place to start. “Is Wormmon here?”

Punimon stared at him suspiciously. “Why do you want to see him? Do you really think he’d want to see you again?”

Ken swallowed. He trembled and closed his eyes, hot tears streaking down his cheeks. “No. No, he won’t.” He wanted Wormmon to want to see him again. Only why would he? Wormmon fought to overthrow him. He’d helped the Chosen and then he’d given his last energy to bring down Ken’s own nightmare creation. He’d died to open Ken’s eyes.

It worked. Ken’s eyes hadn’t just been opened, his heart had been as well. Ripped open, bleeding, torn to shreds, and he’d deserved every second of it.

“You’re right!” A tiny black Botamon declared. “Wormmon wouldn’t want anything to do with you! No one ever should! All you do is hurt people!”

Ken thought he wanted to say this was wrong. Even in Wormmon’s death he’d done his best to help Ken. But some of that wasn’t wrong. All he had done was hurt people. So many people – humans and Digimon alike.

What I id to Motomiya alone... And the plans he’d had if he’d ever actually captured Motomiya Daisuke on a long-term basis – which he knew he could have, if he’d ever decided to do it. The Chosen hadn't known where his fortress was or that it flew. It would have been so easy and he’d just never gotten around to it. Building his personal Digimon took all of his attention.

That was probably for the best. If Motomiya was smart he’d stay far from from Ken for the rest of forever. So would everyone else.

But – he wanted Wormmon. He wanted to stare into those blue eyes and her that soft voice and know that just once, he hadn't done something unforgivable, that someone he cared about lived. That he wasn’t going to kill people forever.

Footsteps sounded and Ken slowly dragged his head up, blinking his eyes open. Yuramon bounced towards him, a determined expression on his tiny face. Beside him there strode a tall figure – a Digimon, of course. This one resembled a great cat, a lion, wearing pants and with a sword carried on his back. Ken blinked a few times. This creature looked more than strong enough to tear him apart with their bare claws, and if he’d still been the Kaiser, he would have gone out of his way to put an Evil Ring on him as soon as he could.

“There he is, Leomon! That’s the Kaiser! Get rid of him!” Yuramon declared, bouncing fiercely. “Get him! Get him!”

Leomon stared down at Ken. His eyes were very blue and very kind – so much like Wormmon’s that once again Ken’s throat closed up and he tried in vain to wipe the tears from his cheeks. They just kept coming even when he did.

“You were the Digimon Kaiser.” Leomon’s voice was deep and rumbling. It felt good to listen to. Ken nodded slowly, not quite daring to raise his head. He managed to look at Leomon by darting his head up for a few seconds, then dropping it down again.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered softly. “I was wrong. I was so wrong.” Would those tears never stop? He didn’t know. They couldn’t wash away the past. “I just – I want to make it go away. I want to fix things. I want – I want Wormmon back.”

A heavy paw-hand rested on his shoulder and now Ken managed to drag his head up all the way, to see those warm blue eyes staring down at him.

“Is that really what you want?”

“Yes. I can’t stand knowing what I did.” Ken sniffled. “Please, where’s Wormmon? Do you have his – his egg?” Oh, he wanted to apologize so much and he didn’t think that there would ever be words enough.

“If his egg is here in the Village of Beginnings, and if he truly is your partner, then you can find him.” Leomon tilted his head and considered Ken for a few moments. “Do you have your Digivice? Or your Crest?”

“Crest?” Ken tasted the word. It felt a bit familiar, though despite all the memories of cruelty and harshness that surged through his head, he couldn’t pin it down. What was a Crest? He knew what a Digivice was; he stared down at the one he held. Black and corrupted, but more inert than anything.

If he’d really wanted to, he could have started it all again. Prevented every Digimon from evolving and begun to raise his empire from the ashes. But the fire that raged inside of him remained nothing but coals and whatever rose from them wouldn’t be that rage.

If this crest, whatever it was, could help him find Wormmon, then he wanted it. He would do whatever he could.

Wormmon had once told him to be kind – he’d forgotten that for so long. After that trip to the strange surging ocean where he’d transformed the old Digivice to what he had now, he hadn’t cared any more about being kind. It felt so weak to be kind. Being kind just made other people hurt.

So he would be evil. So he would keep them all under his control and no one would die for real because they weren’t real. It didn’t matter. It had never mattered.

I was such an idiot.

The ashes in his heart stirred. What stirred this time wasn’t rage. It wasn’t even the endless sorrow. But the desire to change things. To change himself. To atone for his past by being the person Wormmon wanted him to be.

To be kind again.

To be the Chosen of Kindness.

He hadn’t seen that small rectangular item since he’d first arrived in this world. Now a soft pink glow shimmered from his shirt pocket and he drew it out, eyes rounding at the sight.

“Yes,” Leomon said in approval. “That is your Crest. And it can guide you to Wormmon.”

To Be Continued

Notes: I considered having Ken meet Elecmon but I decided Leomon was probably more of what he needed. More of them later.

Please answer 1-98 >:3

Weird asks that say a lot

1. coffee mugs, teacups, wine glasses, water bottles, or soda cans?      water bottles 2. chocolate bars or lollipops?      chocolate bars 3. bubblegum or cotton candy?      cotton candy, though I don't like either very much 4. how did your elementary school teachers describe you?      I don't know 5. do you prefer to drink soda from soda cans, soda bottles, plastic cups or glass cups?      plastic cups??? 6. pastel, boho, tomboy, preppy, goth, grunge, formal or sportswear?      sportswear I guess 7. earbuds or headphones?      I only have earbuds right now, but I like both 8. movies or tv shows?      tv shows, but that doesn't mean I don't like movies too 9. favorite smell in the summer?      the ocean 10. game you were best at in p.e.?      capture the flag 11. what you have for breakfast on an average day?      whatever I can find 12. name of your favorite playlist?      "Good Songs :D" 13. lanyard or key ring?      key ring 14. favorite non-chocolate candy?      I don't particularly like any non-chocolate candy. Too artificial and sweet :/ 15. favorite book you read as a school assignment?      Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes 16. most comfortable position to sit in?      leaning back and with my legs out 17. most frequently worn pair of shoes?      white converse 18. ideal weather?      raining or a mild temperature like 80 degrees F paired with high humidity 19. sleeping position?      I fall asleep on my side and wake up on my back 20. preferred place to write (i.e., in a note book, on your laptop, sketchpad, post-it notes, etc.)?      Google docs heheh 21. obsession from childhood?      I was one of those warrior cats kids (no, I didn't pretend to be warrior cats at recess) 22. role model?      Snickers 23. strange habits?      popping my back, checking sunset/sunrise times 24. favorite crystal?     all crystals are great 25. first song you remember hearing?      Counting Stars by OneRepublic 26. favorite activity to do in warm weather?      hiking 27. favorite activity to do in cold weather?      reading 28. five songs to describe you?      Modern Loneliness- Lauv // Scared of Heights- Loving Caliber // backpack- slchld // By Now- Will Jay // Come True- khai dreams, Forrest., Biskwiq 29. best way to bond with you?      don't annoy me 30. places that you find sacred?      the beach when no one is there or deep in the mountains 31. what outfit do you wear to kick ass and take names?      ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 32. top five favorite vines?      road work ahead, jared 19, damn daniel, 2 bros chillin in a hot tub, x files theme 33. most used phrase in your phone?      probably >:3 34. advertisements you have stuck in your head?      that spotify ad about peter and jumping/skipping rope. IF you knew what an 8track tape was!! 35. average time you fall asleep?      ~2:30am 36. what is the first meme you remember ever seeing?      the pepe the frog memes 37. suitcase or duffel bag?      suitcase 38. lemonade or tea?      lemonade but tea is also superb 39. lemon cake or lemon meringue pie?      lemon cake bc I've never had lemon meringue pie 40. weirdest thing to ever happen at your school?      I don't really remember. Let's go with Mr. Rightmyer and Mr. Mikow in general (ig matrix_multiplication). or maybe the time Sami put a lamp on her head and pretended to be Shaggy 41. last person you texted?      Snickers 42. jacket pockets or pants pockets?      jacket pockets 43. hoodie, leather jacket, cardigan, jean jacket or bomber jacket?      hoodie 44. favorite scent for soap?      hmmm something tropical 45. which genre: sci-fi, fantasy or superhero?      sci-fi 46. most comfortable outfit to sleep in?      clothing 47. favorite type of cheese?      swiss or colby jack or parmigiano-reggiano 48. if you were a fruit, what kind would you be?      peaches bc they're the best fruit 49. what saying or quote do you live by?      "you become what you think about" "success is the progressive realization of a worthy goal or ideal"- Earl Nightingale "the opposite of courage is not cowardice, it is conformity" "sanity and happiness are an impossible combination"- Mark Twain "If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading"- Lao Tzu "failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough" - Og Mandino 50. what made you laugh the hardest you ever have?      let's go with https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TilHylia7rE and more recently, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voncdcV648g 51. current stresses?      upcoming exams, writing essays 52. favorite font?      My current favorites are Frank Ruhl Libre, Overlock, and Rajdhani 53. what is the current state of your hands?      good, though I perpetually have a bump on one finger from writing too much 54. what did you learn from your first job?      job?? what job? 55. favorite fairy tale?      three little pigs 56. favorite tradition?      sleeping 57. the three biggest struggles you’ve overcome?      I don't know 58. four talents you’re proud of having?      Freestyling (ground moves and juggling), shooting knuckleballs, popping my back really well, running a 5-6 minute mile 59. if you were a video game character, what would your catchphrase be?      I don’t know what my catchphrase would be 60. if you were a character in an anime, what kind of anime would you want it to be?      a shonen where the protagonist is trying to survive in a crazy world, become the best at something, or master some special power (examples: tower of god or solo leveling if it was an anime) OR something with a mafia 61. favorite line you heard from a book/movie/tv show/etc.?      "Well, if you only knew how little I really know about the things that matter"- Elio in cmbyn the movie (think about this quote all the time) "Let us cultivate our garden"-Candide in Candide by Voltaire “The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born must first destroy a world. The bird flies to God. That God's name is Abraxas.”- Sinclair in Demian by Hermann Hesse “I wanted only to live in accord with the promptings which came from my true self. Why was that so very difficult?”- Sinclair in Demain by Hermann Hesse “Know yourself and go in swinging.”- More than this by Patrick Ness “Just leave me alone. I’m not myself. I’m falling apart, and I don’t want you here.”- Charlie in Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes Tons of quotes and references from Arthur, httyd, and other media 62. seven characters you relate to?      Lance (vld), zuko (atla), okonkwo (things fall apart), nwoye (things fall apart), bokuto (haikyuu), sinclair (demian), hiccup (httyd) 63. five songs that would play in your club?      Wednesday Girl- Elijah Who, Aso, Peachy!, Kudasaibeats, slchld // Way Back Home- SHAUN, Conor Maynard, Sam Feldt // Let Me Down Slow (Acoustic)- New Hope Club // Crush Culture- Conan Gray // All Night Long- TAEYEON, LUCAS 64. favorite website from your childhood?      animal jam 65. any permanent scars?      I have a ton of scars on my legs and knees. I ran into a cart at staples once and have a big scar from that. I have a few scars on my elbows too 66. favorite flower(s)?      columbine (CO state flower) 67. good luck charms?      none 68. worst flavor of any food or drink you’ve ever tried?      I have no idea 69. a fun fact that you don’t know how you learned?      I don’t know 70. left or right handed?       right 71. least favorite pattern?      cheetah or zebra print 72. worst subject?      hmmm biology but only bc I don't put in the effort 73. favorite weird flavor combo?      I don't know. I like food 74. at what pain level out of ten (1 through 10) do you have to be at before you take an advil or ibuprofen?      I don't think I've experienced enough pain to accurately answer this question. I've only taken ibuprofen once (when I got my wisdom teeth taken out), but I didn't think it was that necessary to take 75. when did you lose your first tooth?      probably when I was six 76. what’s your favorite potato food (i.e. tater tots, baked potatoes, fries, chips, etc.)?      scalloped potatoes, hash browns, Spanish tortillas, potato salad, mashed potatoes 77. best plant to grow on a windowsill?      aloe vera 78. coffee from a gas station or sushi from a grocery store?      sushi from a grocery store 79. which looks better, your school id photo or your driver’s license photo?      school ID 80. earth tones or jewel tones?      earth tones 81. fireflies or lightning bugs?      they're called fireflies 82. pc or console?      pc 83. writing or drawing?      writing 84. podcasts or talk radio?      podcasts 84. barbie or polly pocket?      no 85. fairy tales or mythology?      mythology 86. cookies or cupcakes?      cookies 87. your greatest fear?      Accidentally biting off my tongue and then choking on it, seeing things in mirrors, being stabbed with a knife as I enter a hotel elevator, receiving emails 88. your greatest wish?      Happiness??? I don’t know 89. who would you put before everyone else?      Snickers 90. luckiest mistake?      I don't know 91. boxes or bags?      boxes 92. lamps, overhead lights, sunlight or fairy lights?      sunlight 93. nicknames?      let's not talk abt that,,, 94. favorite season?      spring or summer 95. favorite app on your phone?      google play books, goodreads, tumblr, kakaotalk, spotify, google keep 96. desktop background?      it's a slideshow. the background at the moment is a photo of Manarola, Italy taken by Peter Hegedus. It's one of my favorite photographs of all time 97. how many phone numbers do you have memorized?      three not including 911 (so four) 98. favorite historical era?     1300s in the Mongol empire or around when the spice trade was at its peak, 1800s in America during westward expansion, 1920s, ancient egypt, Harlem Renaissance 

Morgan Romo

(This is just going to be a bit of an info dump on my character Morgan Romo. There’ll be her general information, and the headcanons I have for her (there are a lot of them-) so, this’ll be a long one)

General Information:

Full Name: Morgan Louise Romo

Age: 25

D.O.B: 15 August

Gender: Female (dfab)

Height: 5 ft. 2 in.

Orientation: Bisexual

Relationship Status: Single

Occupation: Secret Agent*

*: In most continuities. Alternate versions of Morgan can often be depicted as some sort of detective, officer, private eye, or an android (much like Connor from Detroit: Become Human)

IEA Information:

Agent ID:  E-05-09

Agent Rank: Elite

Agent Status: Alive; Active

Number of Years Active: 12

Agent Specialization: Undercover assignments, high-risk missions

Number of Completed Missions: 83

Successful Missions: 83

Failed Missions: 0

Security Clearance: Level 5; Top Secret+

Headcanons (Human):

01: Thalassophobia Morgan has a mild form of Thalassophobia (which is the fear of open/large bodies of water). She is not a strong swimmer, though she is able to swim. She will go out on a boat, but will not look out over the water or go into the water herself. This stems from a handful of traumatic experiences she'd had with deep/open water, the even which mainly caused this took place when she was just a child. Morgan had been out swimming with her parents, and learning to swim at the beach. There was a sudden incident that caused her to go under the surface of the water, and her foot got caught in a gap in the rocks, which didn't allow her to surface. The young girl had nearly died, having to be put in the hospital to ensure that she didn't dry drown, as she had coughed up a fair amount of water when she came to once she was brought back on land.

02: Discovery Being a secret agent, Morgan is terrified of being discovered. She is careful to not break cover, but has had many close calls. She has been trained to avoid suspicion, and keep a low profile, and feels that she would not only put herself in danger if discovered, but she would also fear the failure coming along with that discovery.

03: Philophobia Morgan suffers from a form of Philophobia (the fear of falling in love, emotional attachment, or close relationships). This stems from the nature of her job, as relationships can be incredibly dangerous. Those close to someone in Morgan's position can often be in a dangerous position, themselves, running the risk of being kidnapped or even killed as a way of getting to the agent. Morgan doesn't wish to put anyone innocent at risk, and so she doesn't get close to people. She doesn't have any proper friends, and was only in one short relationship before she went into training, which didn't end very well. She doesn't associate with her family, either, not wanting to put them at risk, despite the fact that they never got along very well. She has vowed to herself to never get into a close relationship, especially a romantic one, and to never start a family, as to avoid putting anyone in danger.

04: Adermatoglyphia Morgan has a genetic condition called Adermatoglyphia, which causes her to not have the ridges associated with fingerprints. Instead, her fingertips are entirely smooth, and she leaves no fingerprints behind. Despite this, she still wears gloves at all times, especially while she is working.

05: Morals Despite the nature of her work, Morgan does have at least some morals. She won't target children, tries not to go into the world of torture as long as there is some other option, and she won't kill anyone who is innocent. She'll go into the gray, yes, but she won't kill someone who hasn't done anything aside from maybe being an asshole. If she's called upon to take someone innocent out, she'll technically do it. What'll happen is Morgan will go and find someone who closely resembled the target, someone who isn't so innocent, and take them out instead, making it look like things fell through properly. Then it's just a matter of cutting contact between the target and the order, making it look like the true target is gone. Morgan would rather die herself before she kills someone who does t deserve to die, especially if it can be avoided.

06: Handedness Morgan is primarily left handed, aside from when she's using a firearm. During one mission, which qualified her for Elite status, she had been tightly restrained by her target, a "doctor" who ignored all medical and moral laws. In attempting to get herself free enough to take the man out, Morgan very nearly broke her left wrist, and received bad scarring on both wrists and ankles. Following the mission, Morgan had to change hands when wielding a firearm, as the recoil would aggravate the injury. She had to qualify with a handgun to be promoted, and did so with her right hand. To this day, she still shoots right handed, as a gun with too much kick back can still prove painful for her left wrist.

07: Family Connections Though Morgan doesn't always get along with her family, and rarely ever contacts them, she still cares for her parents, and they do still care about her. Despite the sometimes strained relationship the agent has with her parents, her relationship with her grandparents, specifically her mother's father, is much better. Morgan has a soft-spot for her grandparents, and was very close with her grandfather on her mother's side. If asked, she'll often state that he was borderline crazy in a number of ways, and would often visit when he heard she had ended up in the hospital. Though it would seem he'd start to lecture the young woman, he'd actually question why she had gone head-long into dangerous situations without him there with her. Morgan's "Crazy old man" as she'd call him, passed away when she was about 22. At his funeral, she had seen an unfamiliar, uninvited man there there. The man had given a short eulogy, placed something in the old man's casket, and silently remained at the back of the venue for the rest of the event, leaving without a word. It wasn't until several months later, days following her Elite promotion, that Morgan found out who it was that had been there and why. The mysterious man had been a former Elite, sent to serve as the Agency's send off to a well-decorated and respected Special Agent. The item that had been left with the old man had been representative of all the years he had spent serving with the agency in some form, whether as an agent, driver, or informant.  

08: Alcohol Morgan rarely ever drinks. She says it's because she doesn't like how it'll impair her, as she doesn't want to be impaired and get into a situation where reasoning and reflexes will count. Really, this is only a part of it. The other reason is something she keeps more private. Alcohol, even in smaller quantities, can make her fairly sick. She has a mild alcohol intolerance, and her body doesn't break it down properly, which can put her out of commission if she has too much. She's fine if she has a single drink, but she needs to have water just after. As for what she drinks, it's usually something with a lower alcohol content, to help prevent her from getting too sick. Usually she'll stick with a simple light wine or beer, but she won't get anything much stronger.

09: Smoking While undercover once not long after being promoted, Morgan took up smoking. She smoked for about two years, and decided it would be better to quit before she started to depend on it any more than she already was. She's been doing well, rarely actually smoking at this point, and using nicotine gum to help with any major cravings and ease herself off the substance entirely.

10: Trypanophobia Morgan suffers greatly from Trypanophobia (the fear of injections/hypodermic needles). This wasn't too much of an issue as a child, oddly enough, but following the Wallace Incident (in which Morgan, on her first Elite-level assignment, was captured and nearly killed by Logan Wallace [who intended to kill her using a lethal dose of an unidentified drug]). After this incident, Morgan has been terrified of needles, to the point where she has been black-listed from taking on any assignment which could involve them, and to where she sometimes has trouble even going in for stitches after being injured on other assignments.

Headcanons (Android):

Android 01: Communication Though she's meant to work in espionage and law enforcement, often undercover, Morgan doesn't quite have a grasp on the subtle nuances of human speech and communication. She often takes background roles to get her information while undercover, so it often poses little issue. When speaking with humans, though, it becomes fairly clear that she doesn't fully understand things. Her way of speaking is fairly rigid and analytical, being very precise and containing very few contractions (she says things such as "It is", "Do not" and others, rather than "It's" and "Don't"). She also has trouble with her own body language, despite being able to normally read the body language of others, thanks to her lie detecting features. Morgan also doesn't curse, and doesn't always understand certain sayings and idioms, which can lead to some confusion on her part. Overall, she tends to have trouble connecting with humans, and even other androids who are more acutely aware of the more subtle details of human communication.

Android 02: Potential Deviancy Currently, Morgan is a fully compliant android with little to no sign of deviancy. Though, under the correct circumstances, she could become deviant. CyberLife has installed an extra fail safe within her programming. Along with an Amanda-like handler, Morgan will experience what is much like a very bad headache (up to migraine levels of pain) if her systems detect prolonged deviant behavior. If she was determined enough to do so, Morgan could push through the pain and fully deviate, though it would be extremely difficult.

514: Teenage Strangler

Oh, boy, I get to talk about serial killers!

That isn't even sarcasm.  Remember I mentioned my addiction to terrible television?  That includes not only MonsterQuest and Ghost Adventures, but also a number of things on ID (investigate!). I'm going to enjoy this very much.

Twenty-something 'teenager' Betty sneaks out of the house to see her boyfriend Jimmy with help from their mutual friend Anne.  On the way home, the two girls get separated and Anne is murdered by a figure in a leather jacket suspiciously like the ones Jimmy and his friends wear!  This isn't the first such murder, and it won't be the last.  Over the next few weeks more and more bodies are discovered... is it one of the kids? No, of course it's not.  It's obvious from the very first scene that it's Mr. Wilson the fucking creepy school janitor, and he has a totally rubbish explanation for why strangling women fills the void where his soul should be.

The movie was made in a small town by a bunch of people who had never made a movie before, and as a result the whole thing has a weird, histrionic vibe to it.  Every performance is either overdone or underdone.  Jo Canterbury as Betty sounds breathless and hysterical even before she witnesses a murder.    Bill Bloom as Jimmy is furious about everything.  Betty's mother is unaccountably delighted by the police in her house.  Jimmy's father intones every line as if he's doing Shakespeare.  The sheriff looks like he's reading his lines with a gun pointed at his head.  And then there's Mikey... I'm not sure English has the vocabulary to describe Mikey.  Imagine a kid so withdrawn and socially dysfunctional that not even Napoleon Dynamite would hang out with him.  Then make him more so.

The movie tries its best to present us with suspects.  Jimmy's anger and supposed criminal past makes him the obvious one, and when it turns out Mikey was the bike theif we're supposed to wonder if he is our pubescent DeSalvo.  When neither of them prove to be the suspect, we're next offered Curly, leader of the Fastbacks drag racing team.  All of these, however, are obvious red herrings.  The janitor is the only adult with a significant role in the story besides the cops – we know it's not any of them, therefore it has to be the janitor.  We would be sure of this even if his first appearance wasn't popping out of the darkness to scare Anne and Betty half to death and then creepily insisting on walking them home.  If you lined up everybody in this movie and asked people to pick which one is a serial killer, nobody would hesitate.  It's the janitor.

Meanwhile, there's very little evidence that the town at large cares about the series of horrific murders going on.  Kids are having a party with live entertainment in the malt shop the day after Anne's death hits the headlines (the malt shop extras probably look back at this movie and feel personally responsible for stereotypes about white people and dancing).  People don't even bother to start locking their doors.  There's no sense of the pervasive 'who will be next?' terror you might expect in a community being stalked by a serial killer.  Betty's parents tell her to stay home, but only because they don't want her hanging out with Jimmy, not because they're afraid the killer will find her.

The girl who gets up to sing Yipes Stripes actually looks a bit like Betty, so if you're not paying attention it's possible to confuse the two.  This may leave the casual viewer wondering why the hell this girl is literally dancing on tables mere hours after watching her friend get brutalized in an alley.  It feels downright surreal and it was a relief to know I'd merely confused the two characters... but then I realized that we were never going to see the singer again and there was no point to the song!  In I Accuse my Parents the songs were part of the story.  In The Giant Gila Monster Chase was a character as well as providing the soundtrack.  Yipes Stripes, much like California Lady, just kind of happens and then it's over.

Sampo on Satellite of Love News noted that Yipes Stripes is a hell of an earworm.  I concur: I was singing it to myself all week after watching the movie for this review (and now you will be too).  I have to say, though, that despite all Tom Servo's complaining I do like how the same tune in a minor key is used as the ominous stalking theme.  It unifies the soundtrack and represents a note of professionalism this movie otherwise would not have.

There's certainly not much professionalism in the sets.  The high school stuff seems to have been filmed mostly in and around a real school, and various people's houses make appearances, but check out the 'holding cell' the gang is kept in, with its cardboard walls painted in a 'brick' pattern.  Or the 'malt shop', which looks like somebody's basement bar – I especially like the sad little pennants pinned to the walls in the effort to distract from the lack of windows.  The Sheriff (played by the town of Huntington's actual sheriff, which is possibly why the guy looks like a deer in the headlights) makes his TV broadcast in front of a set of curtains standing in for a TV studio.

Between the amateurish sets and acting, the flat and uninteresting lighting and the lack of any suspense, the overall effect we get is that we're watching a school play.  It just happens to be a play about a serial killer for some reason.  So with that convenient segue, let's talk about our culprit, Mr. Wilson the janitor, and why his excuse that he kills for revenge against the girl who ruined his life is almost certainly bullshit!

Mr. Wilson is a very good fit to the standard profile of a serial killer: he's a middle-aged white male in a job that he feels is beneath his talents, and he murders vulnerable members of the gender he is attracted to – in this case, women and girls walking alone at night.  He is what the FBI calls an organized killer: his job at the school gives him ample time to observe and stalk the students and female teachers who are his victims, and he puts some thought into how he will avoid capture and see that the blame falls on somebody else, as illustrated by his theft of the Fastback jacket.  And he leaves the bodies in places that ensure swift discovery, so he can enjoy the shock and horror of the community and feel like he has power over all these people.

Also like many real-life serial killers, he has a rationalization for why he does what he does.  Sutcliffe claimed he murdered prostitutes because god had told him to.  Ramirez and Berkowitz blamed Satan. Bundy at least implied that it was revenge on a woman who had spurned him, while Gacy insisted that he killed over thirty teenage boys in self-defense.  In Mr. Wilson's case, it's about the lack of respect the students have for him, and particularly about a girl who ruined his life by accusing him of sexual harrassment.

This rings false, for starters, because the students never seem to be particularly disrespectful of Mr. Wilson.  He is not presented as the butt of jokes or pranks.  In the opening scene, Betty and Anne are startled by his appearance but they are not rude to him.  When he corners Betty at the climax he taunts her for calling him 'Mr. Wilson' as if this is something new, but throughout the movie we have never heard the students address him as anything else!  Mr. Wilson's persecution by the student body seems to exist mostly in his own imagination.

Then there's his claim of the false accusation that cost him his teaching job.  Of course we only hear his side of this, which is probably coloured by his victim complex.  We never meet the girl it happened to, so we can't get her version, but Mr. Wilson's choice of phrase when telling the story is interesting. I wasn't even near her, he says.  There are plenty of ways to sexually harrass somebody without actually touching them, and a teacher would be in an excellent position to take advantage of these.  Perhaps Mr. Wilson made embarrassing remarks to her in front of the class, or wrote inappropriate things on her test papers.  Maybe she accused him of attempted rape because her parents and the principal kept downplaying or ignoring complaints about his actual behaviour.  Whatever happened, I'm willing to bet this mysterious student would tell a very different story than he does!

The movie ends with Mr. Wilson being shot by the police, who had only just arrived and couldn't possibly have any idea what was going on in his office.  It's an ending that fails to be worthy of Colman Francis only because the shooter isn't in an airplane.  You'd think they could throw the audience a bone by having a line about how they'd suspected him all along or something.

I've probably made it sound like I don't like Teenage Strangler, but that's not the case.  The movie is something like Teenagers from Outer Space in that its ambition far outstrips the budget and talent attached to the project, but everybody gave it their best and you can't say their hearts weren't in it.  It sucks, but it sucks with sincerity, and that's my favourite kind of bad movie.

I was going to try to do a Star Wars novels post this week, get back in the swing of things, but I can never stay away from STAR WARS fic for too long, there’s just too much that’s incredibly good! There’s so much that’s either just spot on to the characters or just hits the id or does something so clever that I’m enthralled (or does all three!) that is amazing and everyone should come scream about them with me! STAR WARS RECS: ✦ Cataclasm by dendral, obi-wan & anakin & ahsoka & waxer & cast, 45.6k wip    For reasons unknown to all but himself, Obi-Wan Kenobi has left the Jedi Order in the midst of the Clone Wars, taking with him a single clone. Anakin Skywalker has been unofficially tasked by the Order to find Obi-Wan and bring him home. Unfortunately for Anakin, it seems his former master is always ten steps ahead of him. ✦ Fountain of Force by esama, qui-gon & cast, final fantasy 7 crossover, 8.9k    In which Qui-Gon Jinn comes from Gaia. ✦ Shih by esama, obi-wan & anakin & qui-gon, time travel, 8k wip    Obi-Wan Kenobi has a vision of the future, and tries to change it while elsewhere Ben Kenobi dies. ✦ Equinox by lilyconrad, obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, sith!obi-wan, 40.8k wip    During the Clone Wars, Obi-Wan and Anakin crash on a remote planet and take shelter in the ruins of a grand estate only to find they are not alone. ✦ At Your Service by DonkerRood, obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, crossdressing, spanking, 1.9k    Anakin dresses up in a maid outfit and he and Obi-Wan have some fun. Just smut. ✦ untitled by stonefreeak, shaak ti & yoda & kit fisto & mace windu & cast, 1.3k    When Shaak Ti returned to Coruscant she had not expected anything remotely as dire as an explosion at the Senate—injuring several senators and staff, killing two, and leaving Master Kenobi in a critical condition—to happen. ✦ Respite by GirlwithCurls98, anakin & ahsoka & rex & cast, 4.9k    After a particularly grueling mission, Anakin Skywalker, Ahsoka Tano, and the 501st are sent to Kamino for some much needed medical care. ✦ Pursuit by Icse, obi-wan/anakin, mildly nsfw, modern au, 6.8k wip    Anakin Skywalker is a Grand Prix jumper transitioning into the Eventing world. While his scores are good during the cross-country and show jumping phases of Eventing, his dressage scores are abysmal. His sponsor sets him up as a working student for two-time Dressage Gold Medalist Ben Kenobi to help him pursue his dream of competing in the Olympics. ✦ Untitled part 1 + part 2 by glare-gryphon, obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, a/b/o, 2.4k    Prompt: Anonymous asked: Hi are you still taking prompts at the moment? If yes how about Alpha Obiwan who when in rut tends to loose himself in his (very protective) instincts, while Omega!Anakin very much keeps his head and is very aware of what goes on around him but still willing to indulge Obiwan’s somewhat ridiculous alpha instincts ✦ On the Day After by victoria_p (musesfool), anakin & bail & breha, ~1k    Vader has many questions, and only one place to turn for answers. ✦ i’m just a kid of ill repute (and this skin i wear is my only suit) by SashaSea (SHCombatalade), obi-wan & anakin & padme & cast, kingsman fusion, 5.6k    “This is a disaster,” Anakin huffs out a near laugh, passing his remaining grenades to Obi-Wan. He accepts them with a grin and a few spare magazines for Anakin’s pistol, bumping their shoulders together. “This is fun.” ✦ Ain’t No Light Without the Dark by lumenbriide, obi-wan & anakin, 2.2k    “You should have joined me all those years ago, Kenobi.” Anakin overhears Dooku remind Obi-Wan about the temptation on Geonosis, and suddenly, Obi-Wan isn’t as infallible as he seems. He has secrets, just like Anakin; and their bond can only get stronger. ✦ Rewrought by esama, obi-wan & qui-gon & maul, time travel, 4.4k    Bit o time travel ✦ Faithless by esama, obi-wan, 2.5k    Obi-Wan loses his faith in Tatooine full details + recs under the cut!

✦ Cataclasm by dendral, obi-wan & anakin & ahsoka & waxer & cast, 45.6k wip    For reasons unknown to all but himself, Obi-Wan Kenobi has left the Jedi Order in the midst of the Clone Wars, taking with him a single clone. Anakin Skywalker has been unofficially tasked by the Order to find Obi-Wan and bring him home. Unfortunately for Anakin, it seems his former master is always ten steps ahead of him.    Chapter 10: This is an update rec and will focus on this chapter, rather than the fic as a whole. This is the end of the first arc of this fic and it’s a good place to leave off, including the previous chapter, as there’s been at least enough resolution to be a good stopping point, even though the major things are still in play. This is a chapter that’s about Ahsoka and her visions, how it starts to explore a bit of what it means to be a Jedi in contact with the Force, to have to struggle through being unsure if it’s your own anxiety that’s making you feel bad or if it’s a warning from the Force or some twisty, turny combination of both, and how they desperately need control over themselves to not spiral out, to not be consumed by all of this. The moments between Anakin and Ahsoka as he comforts her after a series of bad dreams, lightly touching on how Obi-Wan used to do the same for him, was really lovely and wonderful and worth the read alone! But also the really sweet moments with Yoda and Ahsoka!    I continue to love that this is a fic that’s spot on for the Jedi, if they’d ever managed to catch a fucking break or to have things brought to a head sooner, that they’re all struggling through this dark time, but they care very much and work so hard to do the best thing, and there are still moments of joy (Ahsoka and Yoda saying they’d ask Anakin to join them for meditation, which they’re surehe’ll love, I had such a smile on my face!) that it’s one of the best fics out there right now. ✦ Fountain of Force by esama, qui-gon & cast, final fantasy 7 crossover, 8.9k    In which Qui-Gon Jinn comes from Gaia.    I wasn’t sure what to expect when I picked up this chapter to read (which stands on its own, it’s part of a collection of shorter fics, but they’re unconnected), but I was curious and I’ve always liked this author’s work. What I got was something that was half-world-building and half character piece, wrapped up in the setting of a crossover, all of which came together just exactly as it should. The two worlds blended very well together, the River of Light and the stone Qui-Gon picks up that’s Force-sensitive, the way everything on Gaia just bubbles over with the Living Force, the way this is used by Qui-Gon to gain a deeper understanding of himself, in a lovely and incredibly Jedi sort of way, is wonderfully done. This is a piece that I thought really captured his character, this felt like the character I recognized and was incredibly engaging! It’s not just about Gaia, it really is a piece centered on Qui-Gon Jinn as a character, about his life as a Jedi and the antics he gets into (the sense of this being an actual galaxy is very nicely done as well! I enjoyed the helium-breathing planet just as much as I enjoyed Gaia just as much as I enjoyed everything else), it’s about self-reflection and understanding his own flaws and working on them, just as much as he understands what he’s good at.    It helps to be familiar with FF7, especially to understand the connection of the rock that Qui-Gon picks up and what happens later, likely because of it, but you absolutely don’t need to know it to enjoy this fic, it can just be a cool background world for Qui-Gon to have come from while you read the characterization stuff! It’s one of those fics that I read and made me fall back in love with the potential of Star Wars, it’s one of those fics that I felt like it understood what a Jedi would actually go through and how they’re such good people and the kinds of things they struggle with, it’s one of those fics that made it genuinely interesting and engaging to read! It’s a great piece for someone who has trouble finding Qui-Gon fic that suits my feelings, but also it’s just a really good fic. ✦ Shih by esama, obi-wan & anakin & qui-gon, time travel, 8k wip    Obi-Wan Kenobi has a vision of the future, and tries to change it while elsewhere Ben Kenobi dies.    Oh, well. This fic is only two chapters at the time of this rec and already I’m So Very Sad about it, because it’s such a lovely, aching look at these characters and the impending doom hanging over them all, that Obi-Wan is plauged by unspecific but inescapable visions, that he knows something is going to go terribly wrong, but he doesn’t know what and trying to figure that out, trying to navigate between this sweet child in front of him versus the cloak of darkness that swirls around him, that visions don’t necessarily always come true versus that this one is one he knows is more important than that. I absolutely adored the scene where Obi-Wan goes to talk to moppet Anakin, the glimpse he gets into the child’s fears and uncertainty, the kindness that Obi-Wan naturally extends to him, it’s so true to his character, even as there’s a vague current of hurt and unease that Qui-Gon has so easily replaced him. But it’s not bitter, because that’s not who Obi-Wan Kenobi is, instead it finds just the right amount of sad versus knowing that he’s capable of walking forward to whatever comes next.    I would have read this fic just for that first chapter, the relationships Obi-Wan has with both of these people! But then the second chapter came along and, oh, Ben is so tired and worn down, there’s something so difficult about all the hard-won experience he’s gained, the balance between regret that he couldn’t do more, that it felt almost wasteful to stay on Tatooine, versus knowing that it was the right decision. That, when he realizes there’s a chance for change, it’s not a simple thing and that complicated tangle is so much more interesting than a straight-forward fix-it (much as I love love love fix-it fics, don’t get me wrong, I’m hoping for a fix it here, I’m hoping for good things, but I love that it’s not ever meant to be easy, if it were, then the original canon wouldn’t mean so much) and the conversation they have, the things that Ben understands because he’s seen so much more, are perfectly done. Because he’s right, it wasn’t just one thing or one person. And the ending of that chapter is the perfect hook to make sure I’m going to keep reading, because, damn, I’m definitely invested now! ✦ Equinox by lilyconrad, obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, sith!obi-wan, 40.8k wip    During the Clone Wars, Obi-Wan and Anakin crash on a remote planet and take shelter in the ruins of a grand estate only to find they are not alone.    Chapter 8: This is an update rec and will focus on this chapter, rather than the fic as a whole. Also, there are likely to be spoilers beyond this point! One of the best things about this chapter is just how high the tension of it was, that the reveal wasn’t the end of it, but instead yet another racheting up point, that learning how the Sith versions were visions more than anything, the research that Obi-Wan had done (and I really enjoyed the difficulty with the translations and poetic language, it’s one of those little touches that really works for me) and how they both had to work to figure out what was going on in a way that felt spot on to them, that they would investigate and discuss things this way, but without feeling like the story had hit pause for the characters to become talking heads, which is something that can be hard to avoid. Instead, this felt like two characters who were genuinely on edge, little touches of Obi-Wan drumming his fingers on the datapad or the way Anakin curled up in the blankets add to this, that show what they’re feeling, rather than telling us. This adds to the creepy atmosphere of the house, whatever’s going on with the Force here, how run-down and dilapidated everything feels here in a very spooky way.    This is also the chapter where the Jedi versions, the real versions, first tumble into bed together beyond just a shard kiss or curling up together, and that made sense to me, because I really felt this sense of isolation with them, that they’re the only two people here in this house. When the Sith were there, sure, they were on edge and wary of them, couldn’t trust them, but at least someone else was there, but now there’s just nothing but them and whatever shadow is lurking around the corner and trying to sneak its way into them. This twines around the confession from the night before, Anakin learning to trust Obi-Wan just a little bit by telling him the truth, Obi-Wan helping to shoulder that burden with him, and so it’s pulling a whole lot of feelings and sexual tension to the surface, resulting in how they tumble together in a way they might not have in other circumstances, but makes sense for them in this moment. The connection is still real, it’s about what was already under the surface, even as it’s heightened!    I also really loved the smaller reveal in this chapter of what was happening with the beacon–the answer was the only one that made sense with what we already knew, but even having guessed it, it doesn’t detract from the creepy scene and the build-up of the tension when Obi-Wan was following Anakin, the way his whole demeanor was just weird and unsettling, like a shiver-inducing fugue state, until something seemed to be trying to dra him away into the dark, something that wasn’t just a physical presence, but was getting at his mind. And that’s far more creepy than just some physical monster that can be fought with a laser sword!    And then there’s the sex itself, ahhhhh. As much as I would have enjoyed penetrative sex, I think the handjob/blowjob combination probably works better here, because they’re just starting out, because it’s more about the desperate need for contact with the other person–especially Anakin, who is so afraid and feels whatever’s in the house so keenly, even more than Obi-Wan does. Not that the verbal comfort wasn’t lovely as well, I loved so very much that Obi-Wan was extra careful with his words because he knew how brittle and on edge Anakin was here, that Obi-Wan was so careful not to blame him for turning off the beacon, because that’s not what his concern was about. And that he’s hyperfocused on Anakin a way the situation warrants, so of course he makes even more effort than usual to make sure Anakin understands the lack of blame–another way where their interaction is heightened from normal, but in a way that’s pulling up what was already there underneath and makes sense for them.    But, okay, also Obi-Wan’s hand in Anakin’s hair, the visions of what their counterparts had done, what that says about what these two want, the darkness that looms in this place, even when these characters are both such good people, that this was about desire and want and heat and fear all rolled up together. It was the perfect balance between my affection for the way the (Soft) Sith versions are used in fic against how the Jedi are good and so valuable, that it’s about these characters as people and what they’ve been through and what they want, yessss.    All of that is true, there’s so much I love on a narrative level, on a more intellectual level, but then I whip right back around to: But Obi-Wan’s hand in Anakin’s hair. The way Anakin’s mind goes blissfully blank, the way he so desperately wants to belong to his Master, that desperate step forward that crashes right through his usual knee-jerk reactionary “I don’t belong to anyone!”, to show that if he choose to give himself to someone, chooses to let that person have power over him, then it’s different and comforting and so good. It’s about safety, it’s about being able to relax, because everything in his head isn’t dragging him down, that there’s someone there to take so much weight off him. But also I just really loved the image of Anakin all pliant and messy and sprawled out beneath his Master, cast in shadows, like he’s still very much a Jedi, but the imagery and potential thematic meaning in a house full of so much shadow is really, really lovely. ✦ At Your Service by DonkerRood, obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, crossdressing, spanking, 1.9k    Anakin dresses up in a maid outfit and he and Obi-Wan have some fun. Just smut.    This was one of those fics that was just exactly what I needed when I picked it up, one of those that appeals right to my id and gives me the fun, light-hearted, smutty things I apparently enjoy a ridiculous amount. Anakin in a maid’s uniform, roleplaying with it and acting out to be bratty and so he’ll get Obi-Wan’s attention, who will spank him before fucking him, and it’s exactly what it says on the tin, if you go into this fic, you know exactly what you’re getting and you gotta roll with that. But it’s warm-hearted as well, it’s meant to be fun and joyful, that it’s about giving Anakin what he wants, satisfying something in him and making him feel so loved and content, that Anakin is so very gorgeous like this and Obi-Wan enjoys seeing him being able to whine for more, that Anakin gets to do that, that Obi-Wan gets to fuck the noise and restlessness right out of Anakin’s head. And by the time he’s finally pushing into Anakin, finally fucking him, it’s just nicely satisfying sex and exactly what I needed during shark week, bless and thank. ✦ untitled by stonefreeak, shaak ti & yoda & kit fisto & mace windu & cast, 1.3k    When Shaak Ti returned to Coruscant she had not expected anything remotely as dire as an explosion at the Senate—injuring several senators and staff, killing two, and leaving Master Kenobi in a critical condition—to happen.    This is part of the Supreme Chancellor Obi-Wan series and should be read in order by this point! And, ahhhh, this was such a lovely tide-over until the next piece, where it’s not really about resolution, but about the Jedi reacting to the explosion that happened recently, the chaos they’re trying to help tame, and one of their own being injured and what that means for young Skywalker. This is so spot on for them, how they work to remain calm in the face of such awful circumstances and they work so hard to do the best for everyone, to break the news as best they can, consider what’s the best thing for everyone in the situation. There’s such consideration of Anakin’s reactions, knowing how close he and Obi-Wan are, and it’s just so good and warm-hearted and kind a fic that I’m in love all over again. ✦ Respite by GirlwithCurls98, anakin & ahsoka & rex & cast, 4.9k    After a particularly grueling mission, Anakin Skywalker, Ahsoka Tano, and the 501st are sent to Kamino for some much needed medical care.    This was a cute little fic about Anakin and Ahsoka having pushed themselves so far that they need to rest, that they’re on the edge of physical collapse from how hard the Jedi are running themselves in this war. And there’s a lot of complicated feelings in here, especially Anakin who still doesn’t really understand the Jedi (so the line about the Code is unreliable, considering Anakin doesn’t really get it), but mostly it’s a healing fic, where Anakin cares so deeply about her, how his relationship with Obi-Wan helps him even when they’re not anywhere near each other at the moment, how the clones care so deeply about the Jedi and vice versa, how they Ahsoka and the clones help each other when they need this moment of respite. It was such a sweet fic in the middle of such a horrible war and I really enjoyed it a lot for that! ✦ Pursuit by Icse, obi-wan/anakin, mildly nsfw, modern au, 6.8k wip    Anakin Skywalker is a Grand Prix jumper transitioning into the Eventing world. While his scores are good during the cross-country and show jumping phases of Eventing, his dressage scores are abysmal. His sponsor sets him up as a working student for two-time Dressage Gold Medalist Ben Kenobi to help him pursue his dream of competing in the Olympics.    This is one of those fics that appeals directly to what I want sometimes when I’ve had enough of the heartbreak of canon and when fandom has gotten extra spirit crushing about things–where it’s a light-hearted, warm, embracing-the-fluff modern AU where Anakin is a horse jumper training for the next level, while Ben trains him and Anakin desperately, desperately wants to fall into bed with him. Where it’s all about Anakin being an adorable, soft disaster who does everything he can to get Ben’s attention, who is trying to stay away from doing anything with him because he feels its not proper. It’s just fun when you’re in the mood for something completely, ridiculously warm-hearted and cute and fluffy and with a little bit of smut mixed in. Which is exactly what I’m here for and I just sort of wrapped myself up in this like a warm, fuzzy blanket! ✦ Untitled part 1 + part 2 by glare-gryphon, obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, a/b/o, 2.4k    Prompt: Anonymous asked: Hi are you still taking prompts at the moment? If yes how about Alpha Obiwan who when in rut tends to loose himself in his (very protective) instincts, while Omega!Anakin very much keeps his head and is very aware of what goes on around him but still willing to indulge Obiwan’s somewhat ridiculous alpha instincts    The first part is this cute, light-hearted, fluffy thing where Anakin has to put up with Obi-Wan’s rutting instincts and the nests he winds up making and it’s really adorable! And the second one is just ridiculously satisfying a/b/o porn, together the two of them are just an absolute delight to read! I am always here for Anakin in heat, just desperately wanting wanting wanting, wanting his Master to fill him up and fuck him and get this noise out of his head, I am always here for Obi-Wan who tries to be considerate and thoughtful, but it’s contrasted against the rutting instincts, where he just wants to flip Anakin onto his stomach and drive into him, wants to finally claim him and hold him and take care of him. And these two just hit me right where I live, they’re charismatic and, oh, the way Obi-Wan ground against Anakin’s backside, almost lost to this desire to push into him fast and hard, but holding back just enough to ease the way for Anakin, until he’s finally open and relaxed enough that Obi-Wan can properly fuck him, it’s sosatisfyingly delicious. I have a thing for Obi-Wan grinding back and forth, trying to hold himself back while Anakin writhes and tries to adjust, but they both want more, and this fic just delivered that so very well for me. ✦ On the Day After by victoria_p (musesfool), anakin & bail & breha, ~1k    Vader has many questions, and only one place to turn for answers.    This is a follow-up to On the Day Before, which should be read first! This was a lovely sequel piece to the previous one and it walks a fine line, because Vader isn’t someone who is kind or does good things anymore, but also I can believe that he could be inspired to follow Padme’s daughter, that there’s just enough of a spark of good and some misguided intentions, and it absolutely nails that Vader has never wanted power for himself, it’s always been about being someone else’s sword, someone he would do any amount of dark things to protect. And this fic walks that fine line very well, that Vader sees that he can’t just brute force strength his way through this, Leia would never be won over, but instead he has plans about her and, oh, it’s a disaster in the making and it’s spot on, this was so much fun to read! ✦ i’m just a kid of ill repute (and this skin i wear is my only suit) by SashaSea (SHCombatalade), obi-wan & anakin & padme & cast, kingsman fusion, 5.6k    “This is a disaster,” Anakin huffs out a near laugh, passing his remaining grenades to Obi-Wan. He accepts them with a grin and a few spare magazines for Anakin’s pistol, bumping their shoulders together. “This is fun.”    This was a fun fusion piece that just sailed right along and had the right kind of charisma and charm to keep me engaged the whole way through, there was just the right amount of sparkle and whatever-it-is that makes a fic fun to read! It’s fairly light-hearted and it’s centered on Anakin, as well as his relationships with Obi-Wan and Padme that are each complicated and each something more than friendship, something deeply rooted in him, if in different ways–and I really loved that with Padme it was more overtly romantic, but with Obi-Wan it felt more like he was woven into the fabric of Anakin’s life, both made for satisfying dynamics! I do think you should be familiar with the first Kingsman movie to read this one, but it’s definitely a delightful pick-me-up when you need something fun to read! ✦ Ain’t No Light Without the Dark by lumenbriide, obi-wan & anakin, 2.2k    “You should have joined me all those years ago, Kenobi.” Anakin overhears Dooku remind Obi-Wan about the temptation on Geonosis, and suddenly, Obi-Wan isn’t as infallible as he seems. He has secrets, just like Anakin; and their bond can only get stronger.    A lovely little story about Dooku trying to tempt Obi-Wan away from the Jedi and how it doesn’t really work, that’s not who Obi-Wan is at heart, and the conversation Obi-Wan has with Anakin afterwards and what that pulls to the surface between them. This is a story centered on Anakin’s complicated feelings and the relationship between these two characters, one that works towards giving them a little bit more understanding and showing the depth of care between them in an understated but entirely genuine way. It was a very nice read, one that engaged me from beginning to end and I’m very glad I picked up to read! ✦ Rewrought by esama, obi-wan & qui-gon & maul, time travel, 4.4k    Bit o time travel    This is one of those fics that’s the kind of thing I daydream about sometimes, what a time-traveling Obi-Wan Kenobi would do, had he a chance to do the Naboo invasion all over again, and written in an incredibly engaging, easy to imagine sort of way. It’s not precisely a happy fic, but it’s balanced between standing well on its own if this is all there ever is, it’s short glimpse into the canon being shifted to another track, or it could spiral out from here, if it was ever continued. I’m fine with either way, really, because what the point was focused on was the moments where Obi-Wan makes his move, where he springs his plans into actions, and seeing that through the eyes of people who have no idea what’s going on. The loss of Obi-Wan in their eyes, the grief Qui-Gon has to work through, the chaos that comes from the actions of the “Sith Lord” that escaped Naboo, it’s all super engaging and interesting and fascinatingto watch unfold! It’s beautifully characterized and written, it’s got great action and great emotional impact and so much potential that sets my thoughts spinning around it, which is exactly what I wanted from a quick time-travling oneshot! ✦ Faithless by esama, obi-wan, 2.5k    Obi-Wan loses his faith in Tatooine    Oh, this one definitely hurt to read, all the more so because Obi-Wan is sort of right about some things and sort of terribly wrong about others, but that’s kind of the point of his time on Tatooine, that he’s struggling through so much. It’s not ultimately where he’s meant to end up, because Obi-Wan is someone who comes back to his faith, but as a piece where he loses his way, it really worked for me, that this is one part of a bigger cycle that Obi-Wan goes through in his isolation. The writing is so sad and lovely, so self-reflective and you can feel the loss from the character without it being hammered home into the reader, there’s something almost understated here, except also there’s beautiful imagery–I’m not explaining this well, but it’s just a really well-done piece. It’s very much a piece about Obi-Wan being lost, even as he manages to continue to get up every day, some days harder than others, that he continues forward on this path he’s on, that it’s not just the loss of his family and culture, but a loss of faith and the slow, horrible feeling that instills in me, reading this. So sad, but lovely.

Masterlist of Light’s Birthday Prompts

A compiled list of everyone’s prompts from the exchange – thank you for letting us post them, and we hope you guys enjoy them! Prompts are organized by their submitter, so be sure to give credit if you use it!

rainbowraven32

Mello and Light doing something together (friends or boyfriends)

Misa trying to plan Light a party

L and Misa bonding over baking a cake

Light having “fun” at a child-like party

Misa and L shopping for presents

Light and Sayu having cake together

thequietonesarethedarkestones

Mello x Matt ice staking fluff

A day in the life of L

L or Naomi visiting Beyond in the hospital after he’s burned

1. L playing piano

L angst (Looking sad, crying, etc)

Naomi and Beyond solving the LABB case

Zenthisoror

Light is infected by a virus that broadcasts all of his thoughts painfully loudly - all of them, even the incoherent half-formed ones, the images, like the Noise virus in The Knife of Never Letting Go and isolates himself

L and Light with the Snow Queen story, Light has the eye mirror shard and L the heart mirror shard, or vice versa

L and Light wake up in a white room with no memory of who they are or how they got there. In the white room are glass cabinets, containing artifact evidence from a case (the Death Note case), which a disguised voice informs them, on the intercoms, that they were both involved with. They need to work together to work out what was the crime, who were the culprits, who they are and their own roles. (It’s the afterlife and a strange sort of judgement, but they don’t know it)

carley-carley-carley

Near sickfic

Hoilday season with the SPK

Near finds a kitten, keeps it

Near looking snug in his socks

Near realizes that he’s taller than Misa Amane, feels rather smug about it

Somewhat concerned Near as he runs from the SPK building during the riot

caked-in-cake

(fluff) Lawlight - AU where Light never found the Death Note and goes on to work for L, and accompanies a disguised L to a city on a case, where they bond and eventually kiss

(fluff) AU where L is the one with the Death Note and Light is a curious and bright young employee of his who has been suspicious of him and looking into his activities for a while. L kisses him to stop him from discovering something that would be instrumental to his downfall. 3.  

make a bet that whoever loses the case has to take the other out to dinner (author has freedom to decide who wins and who loses and can be platonic!!)

Light chained to a chair with his Death Note and a spectral/ghost L behind him and the quote “my forever antagonist”

L and Light facing each other over a spinning globe of the world with a quote from the first Death Note OP (The World by Nightmare)

L and Light having tea and cake in a cafe. Sakura blossoms outside the window (hope these aren’t too hard)

niatsuki

Folklore AU featuring Light, Near, and Mello

Near and Light discuss Kantian ethics

Explore a canon divergence scenario in which Mikami survives and Light doesn’t

Near and Light kiss

Light falling asleep at his desk

Mikami and Light in uniform

nocturneproductions

Every time Light used the death note, a flower grew on his body.

Sociopath!Light AU.

Light is put into a coma instead of dying after Matsuda shot him, in his dream world the world is perfect, Soichiro and L are alive, and he never wants to wake up. =)

Light and Near!

Light when he was smol

Light and Kira enjoying their birthdays! (Yes I know it’s not canon don’t judge me.)

casuistor

Light and Sayu doing cute sibling things in a no-Kira AU.

Light and Yamamoto talking about life after high school and the future. Gen or shippy is fine by me.

AU where Soichiro actually dies from the heart attack he had in the first arc and Light is accused of murdering his dad.

Light as a maiko geisha

MikaLight where Light has his head on Mikami’s lap while reading a book.

Light giving Sayu a piggyback ride.

in-the-drowning-deep

Light/Mikami au where Light is older (mid-20s) when he gets the Note and has already met Mikami

Sayu-centric post-canon fic with her either healing or becoming a kick ass detective (or both)

Light & Near interaction in a non-Kira au where Light sets himself up as a rival detective to L and Near succeeds L

The Yagami family being together and happy

Light & Mikami having an impassioned discussion

Light in handcuffs, for whatever reason the artist likes

annoyingpandauniverse

A childhood memory with B and A

Misa and Light

Matt and Mello

L and B

Light meeting Mello

Matt and Near

Light meeting B

tzigi

L gets first suspicions about a string of heart attacks which may be a new murder case for him.

Light’s first day at To-Oh after L’s death

Light’s first day of work at the NPA

Near tries to pick up L’s investigation

Why did Near go back to L’s original font for the “L” logo between chapter 108 and the C-Kira oneshot?

A non-Lawlight rendering of the first evening of Light being chained to L after everyone else has already gone to sleep (preferably in keeping with the One Day one-shot)

Light begging Ryuk for his life

Light’s funeral

veeraha

Light/L any AU where there’s no death note but Light ends up being a serial killer anyway

Mikami/Light university AU

Light and B or Light and Takada, ship/Gen AU where both commit murders together as partners. Okay to include NSFW /Violence/Angst.

Light, B and L in suits

Ladies of death note in dresses

Wammy boys - mello, near, Matt Maid Cafe AU

yagami-raito-kun

Noelverse AU where Light and Mello both survived the end of Death Note and have adjoining cells in Near’s basement

Light and Sayu doing sibling-ish activities

The Wammy’s children are going on an outing. Roger Ruvie tries to persuade Near to put on socially acceptable clothes.

Near with a pet dog practically bigger than he is

anything inspired by Noelverse or This Is How I Disappear

theboredbookworm

I’ve been dancing with devil, I love that he pretends to care.

L finds a death note instead of Light

Day in the life of a Shinigami

Naomi in the afterlife

Girls’ night out

Light as a punk and the subsequent reaction of everyone around him

mklt

kira task force celebrates light’s bday

mikami/light , walking home together

halle+mello+matt living together

mikami/light, bday

spk family (near is their favorite son)

acerbicapplecoffee

post-canon Aizawa/Ide (any kind, although something domestic would be nice)

Light’s psychological condition during the first days of using Death Note /

Matsuda/anybody from Task Force, a love affair captured with notes and messages

Yagami family celebrating Light’s 10th birthday

The entire Task Force team during their ordinary working day

Mogi by way of yakuza!AU

smileycube

Light’s family and/or the three other Kiras hold a surprise birthday party for Light.

Light’s relationships with his family and the Kiras, and his thoughts about them as people.

Light meets Mikami in-person for the first time.

Light’s childhood. 

(Bonus points if Mikalight is added into the first three prompts)

Light receives presents from the three other Kiras.

Light receives a birthday present he’s not very fond of.

Light sitting or standing with Mikami at his feet and possibly clinging to his legs.

Light hugs Mikami.

mikami

Mikami and Light celebrate Light’s Birthday (ship very welcome), 

Mikami and Light meet in first grade of elementary school

Naomi joins the task force, introductory interactions ensue (no ship!!)

Mikami as a child, being excited about something (Super Sentai? Schoolwork? He’s a nerd.)

High school MikaLight with both of them wearing the uniform of Light’s high school

Mikami and Light meet as policeman and prosecutor on a case (if it looks shippy? Good.)

Honestly MikaLight wild card??

izaori

Mello and Light meeting at the Yellow Box rather than Near

Misa Misa getting ready for a performance/doing a performance

Matsuda and L gossiping about celebrities

Mello and Light clothing swap

Near with glasses and a bowtie

Light and Mikami having tea

all-my-lovely-fics

Breakfast Club AU with the Kiras

Soichiro asking for advice to Watari about how to deal with a genius son ( Watari is like… hm… sir… I’m not sure I’m the best person for it… mmm ), and these two bonding

The Wammy’s kids making a play about Kira VS L fight ( they may or may not change some things, it may or may not happen in an alternate universe ! )

Misa, Mikami and Takada making a surprise-party for Light

Smoll Sayu and Light being a responsible big brother because the world needs more of it

Just something happy, it’s up to you.

@just-smol

Uh anything with platonic lawlight would be fine

Lawlight going on a platonic date in handcuffs, L accidentally poisoned one of their cups and the way the date is going Light hope that it’s his :)))

Light was so fed up with being in the hq 24/7 and litterally BEGS anyone to take him out, in a dating way or in an assassinating way HE DOESNT GIVE A FUCK ANYMORE JUST TAKE HIM.

L reciting a poem for light: roses are black. Violets are black. Why dont you confess back. That youre kira you biatch. End with a badum tsk and light crying in the bg

@voldy-in-my-turban

A fluffy story of child!A and child!B during one of their hilarious adventures at Wammy’s.

Rather go for angst? Okay then, I want Matt and Mello’s last ‘goodbye’ before they go out to kidnap Takada and eventually die (sobs).

Oh, but you’re looking for the smut! Then a really hardcore, NSFW Lawlight one shot. You can choose whatever context you like, as long as you make it lewd af. [Note: except for no.3, the other two request don’t have to be necessarily romantic/sexual]

L and Light cuddling in bed, the chains cast aside bc come on, those two dorks don’t need the cuffs to cuddle all the same ;).

Some really edgy emo Misa standing at the top of a building in the night, with storm and lightning and shit going on. You may add Shinigami wings, but maybe that’s to much so I leave it up to you :).

Wammy boys (yes, including L and B) cosplaying their favorite anime characters. I personally see Matt as Noiz and Mello as Yurio Plisetsky, but again, you can do as you like. Surprise me!

theredtint

Kira x BB(murderer buddies possibly, preferably as a pairing)

angsty Light in afterlife looking back at his work crumble

B and A doing cute stuff in wammy’s and wrecking havoc

Kira x BB, shippy stuff

Beyond as a shinigami

B and A halloween night(not really a ship since they are tiny)

almostsane-things

The forgotten characters corner (minor characters venting or responding to the events of canon)

BB is actually working the Kira case under the guise of L

Explore the history of the Shinigami. What are they? How did they come to be? What was their original purpose?

Any DN characters as Hamilton characters (You can pick from these or make your own: Light- Hamilton, L- Burr, Matsuda- Laurens, Misa- Lafayette, Soichiro- Mulligan)

A gathering of Shingami

DN characters having fun at a convention

DN as an Undertale style video game

pashmina-dhaage

Sherlock AU where either L or Light could be Moriarty or Sherlock, I don’t mind who, but I prefer them to be the center of the story

An interaction between smol!Light who is fascinated by this 18 year old guy (L) who his father calls a detective - the conversation or interaction could be anything, I just want to see how their characters would work out in this AU context

 Old!L (like sixty years or something) living with his partner/husband Light in a happy aftermath (as happy as they can get) scenario, this can include a lot of other Death Note characters too, just a glimpse into their life

 smol!L (as in, L as a kid) in the orphanage

L dressed as Sherlock Holmes (imagine smol!L trying to dress up as his favorite detective but that is up to you, it can be adult or smol!L)

Light in a tux looking evil lol

silvia-aivlis

Show me the diary/blog that Light writes or would have written? Either canon or AU is fine. :) 

A canon-divergent AU in which L and Light die on the same day. Include the quote: “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.”

Mello and Near wake up and find themselves in each other’s body. Humour.

Annoyed 14-year-old mathematics tutor L and annoyed 7-year-old student Light

Ryuk directing the Death Note Choir

Mikami as the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland

lawlietislaw

L is dead. Wammy’s is under attack by Kira. Men with guns have taken Roger and they’re locking down the perimeters. 13 year-old Matt has only minutes to escape, and all he has on him are: a PSP, matches, gum, Near’s legos, and BB gun. There might be friends or more supplies back at their tree-house-more-like-fort if he can make it. Will the kids be able to fight back Home Alone style?

The day L publicly challenged Kira on television, B breaks out of prison. Through hacking, spying, and detective work, B has discovered that the prime suspect is Light Yagami and Kira needs a name and face to kill. B breaks into Light’s room at the dead of night. This is the chance for revenge he’s been waiting for. 

A normal afternoon of errands ends in disaster when felons have kidnapped Soichiro, Light, and other civilians as hostages. Will father and son be able to stop their crime spree and free the prisoners?

Nobody has a worse first day of medical school than Light Yagami. Imagine moving in to find that your roommate is an insufferable, sloppy insomniac who calls himself 'L’. What’s more concerning is L apparently has Type II diabetes, but there’s always doughnuts in the closet, and licorice on the bed. Shouldn’t future Dr. Yagami do something about this?

Sayu as the older sibling, Light as younger, where Sayu embarrasses Light by bragging about him to her friends. Fluffs

inspired off the song Lone Digger by Caravan Palace (warning for NSFW music video)

redesign Wammy kids (L, Watari, B, Mello, Near, or Matt, however many you want) in cyberpunk outfits or Victorian outfits  

abbadon-abandon

Fluff with Light spending time with his dad

Something Matsulight :)

 AU where L adopts Light somehow

Light in some sort of frilly, pretty dress

Matsulight cuddles

Someone giving Light a piggyback ride

complicatedmerary

Light won, but Mikami is alive and he already renounced him as his God. Bonus points if it’s really angsty.

Takada is dating both Light and Mikami without them knowing and it ends badly for all three of them, plot twist optional.

A look into Wedy and Aiber’s life before they worked for L.

L and Light dressed in Misa’s flashy outfits, with a grinning Misa proud of her manipulation.

Halle, Naomi, and Wedy as a kickass female group who fight crime, think Charlie’s Angels.

Light and Takada in royal clothing (bonus points for historical detail).

@pensulliwen

Misa visits Light’s grave

Misa reflects on Rem after her death

Misa finds the notebook for the first time, AU or canon compliant

Misa visits Light’s grave

Rem and Misa flying together

Misa holding the Notebook for the first time and staring at it

weneedtotalkaboutdeathnote

Something Near/Light. Does not have to be shipping (can be if you like though) but I do love any interaction between these two.

Light alone with his thoughts (possibly while he id being detained by L), obsessively going over his plans and growing ever slightly anxious and doubtful.

AU in which Light still owns the Death Note but never used it and takes a personal interest in hunting down Kira (Misa) once mass murders start.

Something Near/Light. Does not have to be shipping (can be if you like though) but I do love any interaction between these two.

Light celebrating his Birthday with his family (and possibly Ryuk heh)

Light alone, writing in his death note looking relaxed.

dank-cheese-burrito

young!L meets young!Light

L and Beyond = brothers

LightxL fluff

young!L

Beyond Birthday

any shinigami

jeevas-exe

An AU where Misa is Mello’s younger sister, but when Mello leaves, she doesn’t know how to cope.

A bittersweet mattxmello piece where Mello feels very guilty about the things he did, because of his faith. Matt tries to help him through this guilt. Catholic!Mello, if you will.

A coffee shop AU where Beyond Birthday is the barista and Naomi, who’s an FBI agent, comes running in after trying to chase down a suspect. She starts coming in more frequently due to certain events, and it’s eventual naomixb

Detailed profile of Matt

A depiction of Kira and Light as separate entities

Misa in high fashion (any Valentino dress!)

Birds of Prey rewrite

Birds of Prey/ Harley Quinn Fix this story

My disclaimer: I ma more a Birds of Prey than Harley Quinn fan, though I love her in the cartoons and Suicide Squad. However, this movie was not good. Basically the story needs to be an empowering, funny, sexy, chick flick and it fails miserably. First, the costumes must be wonderful, not the trash bag thrift store panic shopping of the movie.

Synopsis: Harley and the Joker break up. Not sure what happened because it does not matter, but it happened when she was in prison. Harley does a drunken melt down, similar to the movie, but the soundtrack is “bang” by AJR. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4THFRpw68oQ During this Harley realizes that she has no friends. They are all Jokers crowd, and the ones who are still friendly think they are getting back together. They are also all gangster groupies. One can even quip “girls just wanna have fun”. This is different from the movie because she thought she had friends, not just Joker. Harley is doing what she calls couch surfing, which means breaking into rich people’s second homes while they are out and eating their food and raiding their closets. Harley is arrested and Amanda Waller tells her that she is on indefinite probation if she can show she is rehabilitated. Basically the suicide squad can only be from activated criminals who have potential to be rehabilitated instead of the worst. “I want you on a chain, but they want you lobotomized or put down like a rabid dog. Your choice. Is this you or is this him?” She chooses mandated rehab. “Which one?” “I don’t care. You are the psychiatrist. DO them all” New Rules: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2qgadSvNyU

SO we have the joy of Harley quin going through 12 step (and other) programs.  Shot of a board at a Y/center with the Support Groups schedule. She takes the whole thing. Comedy montage of Bikram yoga mindfulness class, breaking the finger of a guy that gropes her, “SO sex addicts group was a mistake” etc. Visual quote of Fight Club support scenes. In “co-dependents no more” she meets Canary/Dinah, who she had seen around. Canary is assigned as her sponsor. Part of the fun is we are not sure who Canary means when she describes “Men in power are addictive. The surrender of control, the reduction to Id, seems like a type of freedom. But it is a cage. You are on their leash.”  Ras-al Ghul or Arrow? (Hint underlying message- all of the birds in the movie destroy their cages- or make new ones) HQ:“You know the 12 step programs don’t work if you are an atheist.”  Canary: “You know that placebos work even if you know it’s a placebo?” Therapy montage song options:  I Love me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vImvzQCb0o8&list=PL3oW2tjiIxvTKa5OYCIb8TdKjxSYuv5dg&index=23

I drive me mad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqBvK14JPGg&list=PL3oW2tjiIxvTKa5OYCIb8TdKjxSYuv5dg&index=36

In the different groups, she meets many people including Cassidy Cain in Klepto Anonymous. Harley co-opts and ends up leading several of the sessions. (I am OK with the casting of Canary but would like Camila Cabello. Though she could be Huntress.) Cassidy is a very different character from the movie. She is still 13, but smarter, and always on a phone. Running joke, it is a different phone in every scene. She is an epic pickpocket, appearing to be a clueless teen who bumps into people because she talks and texts and selfies all at once while actually picking people’s pockets and photographing security. She also gleans information and is the source of information on why people hate Harley.  “Wow. You should see his Instagram. He should be banned for those images. Just a sec. Done.” She is the definition of plucky comic relief. Casting should actually cast a minor. (Marsai Martin, Mckenna Grace, Brooklynn Prince.)

The Bertinelli Diamond is a nice plot device, bringing in Huntress who is tracking it as well as the gangsters who killed her family. (BTW this needs to be recast with someone who has a charisma and can at least dance. Madison Beer, Nicole Maines, Hailee Steinfeld, etc. Huntress wears motorcycle leathers, a very Asian gang vs American biker look) HQ: “OOo! Italian leather!” The Huntress backstory is necessary but cut the bit about young Helena drawing with crayons. If she draws, it should be recognizable. She’s had art lessons since 2.

Harley sees Cassidy Cain on the street steal from a known gangster.  The chase begins. We can keep the glitter cannon/ prop room brawl, but it should be a gangster hideout not the police station, (unless she can get out of it another time and have a joke where Canary coughs “white privilege”) However, to preserve a better story arc, let’s move this to a gangster vault, and have this be where we meet the Huntress. Here is where we realize that Harley loves to hit things, but hates to shoot things. Huntress is fine shooting things. “Do you have to kill everybody?” “Do you have to blow up every crime scene?” “yes” Bad Guy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyDfgMOUjCI

SO Harley has Cassidy and Huntress hanging around. Huntress wants to use Cassidy as bait while they wait for the diamond to drop. Funny bit as Huntress gets sucked into group, probably an anger management group. “I always wanted to be a teacher” Harley wants to finish her program and needs to check in with her sponsor. She is on step 8/9.

Canary: “DID you make your list” HQ: “ I think so.” Drops a ream of paper. “I have to apologize to everyone?” “It’s a start. And I know someone you could start with. It might be easier than the rest because she was hurt when you were in jail” HQ”????” Canary “Practice” Barbara Gordon is never referred to using her whole name. (casting: Liana Liberato, Kennedy McMann) The cop in the movie is completely unnecessary. Either have Oracle, “B” be in the movie or cast someone like Rosario Dawson to be a kick ass Hispanic cop and have her stuck in vice and always asked to work for ICE. Since Gotham city embodies the worst of our current world skewed through a dark lens of madness, having the women in the movie own that “the women in Gotham are the ones who have to clean up and deal with the shit and the fallout of all the crazies.”-B. “That ain’t me”-HQ. “You act like the only options are to be the ass who trashes the place or the maid. (I’m going to) Find something else”-Cassidy. The rest of the film is Bs first real run as Oracle, remotely feeding them information, using drones, shutting down the bad guys tech. “There’s more than one way to fight.”

At the climax, which does have a giant brawl of gangster thugs after the team, but all of the team, each having a dose of enemies. It begins with a girl power makeover scene as they are arming. Cassidy:“We should RUN!” Huntress: “I have been running and hunting my whole life. I want this over” Huntress gets carbon fiber outfit from B “Moves better than leather and is knife and bullet resistant, but not proof” Harley gives Canary the fishnets. “Just try them. You need some fun.” The girls make Harley stop with the white face. “Keep the Harlequin Loose the clown. “  Cassidy has a CIA briefcase she stole from the gangster prop room HQ: “Where’s ya get that?” Cassidy:” Stole it from the gangsters but can’t open it”  B:”Here let me” It is adaptive camouflage stealth tech armor. Cassidy: ”Yay! You can’t hit what you can’t see” HQ and Huntress: ”That’s what grenades are for” HQ: “Jinx!” B: “No grenades!” HQ:”we know. No Grenades! (softer)… inside”

Makeover song montage options: My way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5I4KwxMXAA

All the good girls go to hell:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PZsSWwc9xA

Nice to meet ya: (also might work for the group therapy montage)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRvKL8FnrtU&list=PL3oW2tjiIxvTKa5OYCIb8TdKjxSYuv5dg&index=42

The massive gangster fight proceeds. The movie does OK with this except for the dubious production design, and the lack of using Huntress well. And that all of the gangsters are completely incompetent. Note on the bad guys: We do not need a named bad guy. The “Black mask” was lame and sucked screen time. It can just be gangs, at least one run by the gangster(s) Huntress needs to kill. But just mafia, not stupid mask nonsense. As part of the makeover montage, they make a plan and set up a kill zone. B: Looking at Cassidy:”cough- Capture zone” Cassidy (on phone) “Please, what am I 12? Gotham only has kill zones.” B: “maybe we can change that” HQ: “Not tonight we can’t. Baby steps” Huntress snipes the ones with automatic guns that enter the building. Casandra fights and hides. Dropping stuff from vents, etc. When the dust settles, Joker appears: “DO I have to do everything myself?” He tries to talk Harley into coming back, She freezes, then realizes he is just distracting her so he can grab Cassidy.  It works. She chooses her new life and goes to get Cassidy.  She defeats him and kicks him off of the pier, possibly while analyzing him. “You were a horrible boyfriend!”

At the end, Birds of Prey is formed, with the good costumes. HQ:“I drop by every now and then, but I need to work on me. Cassidy stays with B, but we see each other all of the time” “Do I have to stay with you? You’re no fun” B: “I’m the only one who can pass a background check”

HQ; “I got an apartment. I had to get a roommate but I think it will work out.” There is a shot of the Help board at the Y/center with the “roommates” section and she grabs one of every tab numbers including one that says “Ivy” (Cameo of Evan Rachel wood or one of the CW redheads asking “Do you like plants?”) (This can occur earlier if we need a comic break)  

“And I got a job. Turns out in Gotham, group leaders can have an expired license.” Shot of Harley sitting in a bright spotlight with a notepad in a shadowed room full of figures in chairs with a highlight on a cape, an animal ear, etc. “Who wants to go first?”  

Playlist:

My Oh My: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fd2kkLmSDQ&list=PL3oW2tjiIxvTKa5OYCIb8TdKjxSYuv5dg&index=18

The man: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqAJLh9wuZ0&list=PL3oW2tjiIxvTKa5OYCIb8TdKjxSYuv5dg&index=27

Good in goodbye: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQZJsOSw1pU&list=PL3oW2tjiIxvTKa5OYCIb8TdKjxSYuv5dg&index=45

Bang bang: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HDdjwpPM3Y

New Rules: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2qgadSvNyU

Burn the house down: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnyLfqpyi94

Good as hell: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmbmeOgWsqE

Beach bunny Prom Queen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dc6SSu5pnHw

Bored: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsPxaAVg584

Kings and queens: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jH1RNk8954Q

Sweet but a psycho: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXBHCQYxwr0

All the good girls go to hell:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PZsSWwc9xA

Insane like me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeltAGwwsDQ

Impressions – Harry Potter: Wizard’s Unite Feels Like A More Polished, Complicated Pokemon Go

It’s difficult to make AR map-based games unique. Pokémon Go, Ghostbusters World, and now Harry Potter: Wizard’s Unite all feel similar in a fundamental way. They all involve walking around in real life while a virtual avatar does the same on your phone, capturing different types of beasts, and taking on checklist challenges that include the first two items on this list.

So when you look at Wizard’s Unite, which was just released this week, it’s important to look at how it tries to make itself stand out. It’s developed by Niantic, the creators of Pokémon Go, so a lot of the game’s DNA is literally the same—they’d be foolish not to use the same infrastructure they’ve been building since Ingress launched in 2012.

I’ve been playing Wizard’s Unite since Tuesday when Niantic and Warner Bros. Games hosted a launch event at Universal Studios Hollywood, the home of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. It felt fitting to play it in the makeshift world of Hogwarts The first thing I noticed is that Wizard’s Unite looks vastly different from Pokémon Go. Booting it up shows off fantastical buildings, a rustic outline of the surrounding streets, and streaks of magic floating in the sky.

It’s a wonderful sight filled with music that will make Harry Potter fans smile. Once you start playing some of that magic wears thin though, especially if you aren’t a lover of J.K. Rowling’s wondrous universe.

After loading the game up things get confusing and frustrating. You learn that a mysterious calamity scattered magical items and people all over the world and you have to help restore them to their rightful place. As you roam the map instead of spotting Pokemon they’re replaced by different characters and items trapped by “confoundable” magic. You must capture these confoundables to add them to your registry. Collecting those, leveling up your character, and fighting through fortresses (the alternate version of Pokémon Go raids), are the main elements of Wizard’s Unite.

The problem is that all these things are tied to your energy, a mechanic that limits how much you can capture and fight with magic. If you run out of energy you need to collect more from inns, other challenges, or buy them via microtransactions in the in-game store. Right now, the scales are heavily tipped in the direction of buying with real money. Inns, which are like Pokémon Go’s PokeStops that give out Pokéballs, don’t give you much energy, so you’ll run out quickly on your own.

It’s Wizard’s Unites’ greatest weakness. Fighting confounded magic and battling users of the dark arts is a lot of fun, just like Pokémon Go was at the start. It clutches onto that collectathon mindset and encourages you to get out and explore your neighborhood to see how Niantic has adapted it to the world of wizards and witches. The problem is that it also discourages you from continuing to play once you run out of energy. It’s clear that higher levels will be a continuous grind and if you don’t live in a big urban center like Los Angeles you won’t be able to visit as many inns or fortresses. Major lessons from Pokémon Go weren’t applied here: energy sources are few and far in-between (even in a major city), my phone’s battery was drained quickly, and there is no way to gain rewards for walking unless the app is open (something that Go solved by syncing with Google Fit to see how far you walked since last opening the game.)

One big positive in Wizard’s Unite at launch already is its combat and lore. You aren’t just trying to capture creatures by throwing a ball at them, you’re tracing a relevant spell on the screen to counteract confoundable magic. It’s a wonky system that works half the time, but when the screen connects with your finger accurately it feels wonderful.

However, it is frustrating that there is little to no balance in Wizard’s Unite, making some combat encounters feel pointless. I’ve encountered creatures that are at a much higher level, marked as a certain difficulty on a meter before battle, that seem nearly impossible to capture. It’s not clear why I’m encountering them and they drained a good amount of my energy before I even knew how to use it.

There are other things that make this AR map game different. You can find items lying on the ground around you, craft potions to help make your magic stronger, and choose a profession that you can level up with a skill tree. All features that make Wizard’s Unite feel unique. All features that are hindered by the games energy system.

There are three professions in Wizard’s Unite: Auror, Professor, and Mazigoologist. They each have a bit of lore behind them but they come down to warrior, healer, and support classes that all have different advantages and disadvantages in combat. Their abilities break down in a simple way, Auror’s are strong against dark magic and weak against beasts, Professors are strong against curiosities and weak against dark magic, and mazigoologists are strong against beasts but weak against curiosities.

Each profession has a skill tree with small upgrades, although none of them have a huge effect on gameplay. It’s a nice level of depth compared to Pokemon Go, but isn’t anything to write home about. I ended up choosing the class that sounded the most interesting, Auror, but it hasn’t affected how I’ve played the game much. More serious AR gamers might form a squad to fight through fortresses efficiently.

These systems don’t do anything to solve the energy problem though. Systems like these that prevent players from diving in deeper are the primary issue with map based AR games today. They stifle play sessions by forcing you to either buy more energy, which took the form of Pokéballs in Pokémon Go, or walk to in-game inns that shell out a measly amount of energy that might let you play a little longer. It’s a crummy way to design a game meant to encourage exploration.

Wizard’s Unite shouldn’t make energy drops more plentiful, they should scrap the system altogether. There is nothing in the Harry Potter universe that makes the concept of ‘energy’ make sense. Monetizable cosmetics would be a far more interesting way to make the game profitable.

Wizard’s Unite already lets you customize your own wizard identity with photo filters and a swanky ID, but that’s it. Imagine being able to deeply customize your own avatar, something already available in Pokémon Go, or create a wand that is actually tied to the RPG mechanics in the game (right now all wands perform the same). These are features that may come later on, but after three years of Pokémon Go, why aren’t they in Wizard’s Unite at launch?

Wizard’s Unite is on the right path in standing out from Pokémon Go, the wand mechanics are promising if a bit lacking in depth, the RPG mechanics are compelling, and the universe is full of exciting details. It’s a shame that the energy system takes priority over all this, making what would be a fun experience quite dull.

To check it out for yourself, you can download Harry Potter: Wizards Unite for free on the Google Play store for Android or the App Store for iOS.

Tagged with: ar game, harry potter, Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, Mobile ar, niantic, niantic labs, pokemon go

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Clowning

CLOWNING- So what’s the purpose of clowning? the idea of clowning was to bring out the inner child, release any thought of doubt and authentically get things wrong and be ok with that, its being vulnerable within your self. strange because most acting we do, everything needs to be filtered and right, but no clowning is less serious and more playful. Thats why we relate it to being a young child again, we were less bothered about who's watching and imagination took us away, we would play the silliest games with our friends and create our own, no rule world. Then i guess as we grow up, all those natural abilities, were taking from us, as we had responsibility and a life of our own which indeed we had to take serious, so i guess clowning is learning to take all those layers away and express it authentically to the audience, i mean its the opposite of a perfectionist, like myself so i knew id struggle however learn a great deal about myself as a individual actress, which is needed for my growth. 

SKILLS AND TECHNIQUES WHICH WE LEARNT- The lessons on clowning, were very fun and exciting and also interesting. We play games which helped us bring out our child like side and encountered fun and being playful the correct word for this is LE JEU, for example the games which we played were, grannies foot steps, funny nun, Crocodile, and my favorite one was this very interesting game were we would have to listen to the banging drum and react, with real emotion and clock that we had been caught, then we’d play ball with another person and show our inner clown, by TAKING RISKS, which was another key factor of clowning and then being able to CLOCK and take a look at the audience with the correct timing. To help us comprehend this more, tutor Josh made us play a simple game of walking down and to CLOCK the audience at the correct time, i found this easy and fun to do. Yet i found i struggled at the Funny nun game, as it helps show the humor you have which each person playing the game, the whole point of the game is to catch someone laughing who you look at and say ‘Its a very sad and sorrow day isn't it’ yet you have to reply and not smile nor laugh, its serious game, the other person gets to be goofy and fun to catch the other person out. I struggled as i laughed at times i shouldn't of due o everyones humor being different of course, and comprehending the unique relationship which everyone in the class, who ever has the best humor together, is more likely going to performing clowning better. The next game was intense, you and your partner standing very close face to face, saying nothing just staring in each others eyes and if one of you even smiles of laugh, then a slap is acceptable for any slip ups, i found myself to be very good at this as i had a lot of intense focus and concentration, et this game depends on the relationship with the other person as this also effect whether you are more likely to laugh or not. I found that when i was with Morgan, i was concentrated fully due to our connection, however when i was with Billy boy it all changed, we were a lot more likely to slip as we have a great fun bond together so it all comes down to the humor connection.

After games where played, this is were practice started and we had a series of noses which in this case were our masks, the first game was pick up a nose and walk into the room and stay still and silent and literally do nothing, i struggled with this one as am very hype and extroverted naturally, so bringing it back was hard as talking and moving about is my usual and how i openly express myself, yet i forgot when wearing mask where now in character, so i should of focused on that more, i learnt that i’m not so confident with doing the opposite of myself with is nothing as am mostly doing everything. The next game we did was telling jokes with one of the noses on, which i found funny to myself, this helps with finding out your true inner clown, which the audience are connected and entertained too. I then found my inner clown was serious and very sensitive, as this is complete opposite of who i am in general. which is why its usually funnier. The next game was to go out the room while students and teacher pick how many items and guide you by saying responding to hot as clapping and not hot by silence, the items they choose you have to figure out what to do with them and the further along the harder it gets. I found this very hard as the audience barely gives you clues or hints and it literally could mean anything, i took the game too seriously which made it way less funny then it could of been, instead i should of enjoyed the journey but as my tutor said i made it into more of a drama. The aim of the game was to play with the audience and do things wrong but enjoy that and take your time to figure it out in your own way.

TEACHERS OF CLOWNING-

Marcel Marceau was a French actor and mime artist most famous for his stage persona as "Bip the Clown". He referred to mime as the "art of silence", and he performed professionally worldwide for over 60 years. This is one of the teachers we looked at for clowning, then there was Decroux the inventor of corporeal mime, he is the first to formalize his art for his teaching, he teach his students to keep their face covered and learn to convey every emotion through their body. As for Marcel he invents a character who combines chaplin movements with the look of harelquin. 

So in lesson, we learnt about Marcel and his mime techniques as these can be very useful for clowning, we practiced games such as being stuck in the box and it’s to do with timing and body structure, this helped us gain an idea of how realistic a certain movement can make you look, i found it pretty easy to do, i think it was just the timing. The next game was pretending someone was on the other end of the rope and trying to pull it up, i found this pretty easy too as i managed to make it look real as i had the correct facial expressions,timing and energy.

CLOWNING FEEDBACK

So my first idea of clowning that i came up with was ‘Being a baby’, i had partnered up with Kenzo at first the idea was exicting and then throughout Kenzo lost motivation and wasnt exicted to work on it with me, which slightly put me off. I decided to dress up as a baby with Kenzo and be in a Play centre, so i bought some dummies and bottles to make it look effective and dress up in kids clothing. The first time we performed, it wasnt really practised we pretty much just improved the whole thing, we just has to found out what type of clown we both were. I found i was and angry and sensitive clown, whereas Kenzo was a sarcastic and bully clown, this worked well as it needs to be like cat and mouse or boss and auguste, shown in a unique way in order to capture the audience eyes. We wrote down a small draft plan to work off and showed the class, it was very funny at first and ideas where floating out,the joshs feedback was saying it  could really work as we was getting laughs out of it , then he said for me to loose the accent so its better and the water as it makes a mess, Kenzo feedback was to play with it more and have fun also doing so. Yet overall the performance was good fun and laughable, then i noticed the more i did it the less funny it got, so i had to switch up with more ideas yet keeping it simple, i tried adding music and it worked for a while, then it kind of lost focus. Personally i found clowning quite difficult either because of how complex my ideas where or the person i was working with, as there was only some Le jeu now and then. I think i needed to focus more on enjoying it too, keeping up the excitement of the piece as this plays a big part when performing it. The final performance actually went better than expected as we added a few more extra parts towards the end which made it a success, however it could of been better if it had a strong idea of the beginning to the end and was kept more fun and risk taking, as i felt it was a little bit safe.

CONCLUSION-

If you're aware of your clowning or your comedy, then the audience starts to become aware that you're aware, and it starts to become a bit smart. This is what stand-up comedians are very good at doing, laughing at their own jokes, and presenting the idea that we live in a comic world, whereas actors have to play characters from the character's point of view, and those characters don't view themselves as being caught in a comic situation. It's actually often the opposite: the characters are in desperate situations and take desperate measures that become funny in themselves. One of the things that clowning requires, as opposed to perhaps drama, is a very strong connection with the audience; you really have to be in tune with the people who are watching you and you have to listen to them very carefully to know how to gauge how far to take things, and then play off this reaction. One of the things I've always found most interesting about 'edgy' clowning is the word edge, meaning the edge of the stage where you have one foot in the audience and one foot in the story and you ride dangerously close to living out of the story and giving the audience what they want, but also being reigned in by the discipline of what you have to do within the story. It is an edge because if you give the audience too much, then you don't have respect for the story, but if you give them too little then you're not playing with them enough. There's a fine edge where a character can be in the middle of something, but the audience's response can draw him out to them. There are two very distinct sorts of clowning: white clowning and black clowning. The white clown is very good at clowning, very good at mime and at generating laughter with an audience and playing with them. The black clown is the anti-clown, and he mocks mime and the idea of needing an audience, and questions how perverse he can be but still get the audience's laughter. He might mime grabbing a female from the audience, putting her on stage and undressing her and then doing the job on her and smacking her on the bum, which sounds ridiculous but the audience is in a state of laughter, so he looks for how he can take it further, to find what they won't laugh at. From this point he puts it back to the audience and basically says that if you are going to laugh at me and find some value in me, then don't try to change me. 

CONSENT with andy-

Taz what is taz?

They deliver one to one sessions, group work, open access, outdoor education, Youth Council and detached youth work sessions. To help keep the youth safe, well educated and able to trust the council at all times, especially emergency.  

We needed to make a drama piece which involves consent which means giving permission, for a certain thing. So the clients from TAZ introduced us with this, and told us we need to make a performance that involves CONSENT and we can perform this is any way as long as it adds every important detail in there and we deliver it in a way that our target audience eg; high school students 13-14 can comprehend, normally small amounts of humor will keep the audience interested, and they will definitely remember it which is good. We figured out a strategy to help us work up with this, which was to do a dance scene at the start about the boy with his girlfriend at his party, shows them dancing together and him getting pressured by his friends to sleep with her and she was getting pressured to drink, this would help us tap into the common social areas were people mostly crack and are more likely to give in as most young people now a days are influenced to drink, so using a common scenario will have more of a impact as it’s really realistic. Further on through the scene she’d get more drunk and be way more vulnerable and he would had given into his friends pressuring him and done the deed without CONSENT and this is where consent is then introduced within a social situation, then the dance would be repeated to the end, so the audience are introduced to it at the start and then it makes sense at the end. My role was to be one of the friends who pressured the boy to have the party and helped him talk to his girlfriend with the right thing to say, helps to show how much pressure the guy was under and it can be really relatable to young people shows the situation had led out of control all over one thing and it seems to be building up and getting worse. After the dance scene he gets mocked on the bus by his friends once again for being a virgin, so this part really highlight he feels worried of being judged and is upset of it happening so somehow feels like the only way to fit in to be socially accepted by his so called friends is by having sex, so then he takes his girlfriend for a meal and meets up with his friend, who were still of course questioning him about his girlfriend and wondering if he had still slept with her, this scene was important as it was the most triggered scene to the point where they almost fight as he was insulted when his friend called him a queer because he didn’t have sex, this the leads him to doing something he really didn’t feel like he wanted to do, yet left with no choice as he felt that odd as although he didn’t fit in, so he decides to prove himself as his friend offers to throw a party for him to loose his virginity too and he agrees but does his girlfriend? This was the sad part yet it involves the matter of consent and how serious of a matter it is, the girlfriend didn’t give consent especially considering she was under the influence of alcohol which makes conditions a lot worse, so the boy continued to peruse her through the night as his friends helped her get more and more drunk to the point where she’s not aware of her surroundings, making it a lot easy for the bad deed to be done, showing us no consent was confirmed leaving her in a very vunerable state, which helps shows awareness in the area of young people drinking alcohol and what it can lead to, I think we brought up more than one issue within consent which would also have a serious impact on people when they watched it. I think the consent piece was really good and effective as the little things such as the text sound effect catched the audience eyes and made them laugh, and the way the dance with the boy and his girlfriend was repetitive it stood out a lot more, stuck with the students. Then toward the end it helped unravel what consent was when the people spoke up on it, as it mentioned the cup of tea which was a great metaphor for people to comprehend it better. I noticed the music was suited for every scene and made it more interesting to watch, as it played a part.

When performing in schools, we noticed the first school was very echoey and it was overlapping sounds from one another, i found personally it was too small to perform in and was quite cramped, so the schools conditions wasn't suitable for such a active physical piece. However it was performed well, other than for going way too fast then it should of been, it was performed well, the only issue was the environment. To make it better we should of had a bigger stage, and found a way to deliver the bed scene so the audience at the back could also see the performance as it was done on the floor and usually they don’t sit on chairs in assembly, you’d just sit on the floor, that helps us adapt for next time if we arrive at a similar situation. The Q&A at the end could of been directed better so that people could ask questions about the characters and their situations that they were in, to get a better understanding.

AUDITIONS-

I had to find a monologue that fitted to me as a person and showed off my best potential, so i asked Andy to help me find a emotional piece, as that’s my strongest point when doing monologues so i found a Scouse play called Unpleasant and i was reading ALI, this was my contemporary piece, for my place in London drama school i would need 1 contemporary and 1 classical piece, so next was my search for a classical piece, this is where i found Ophelia by shakesphere, i found this difficult as i don’t know much about his work, and not done my research on him, so to really comprehend i need to read the text again an again to see the true meaning of the monologue. I performed the contemporary one first, my given feedback was to loose the legs on the table as it’s not needed for the character and it gives odd confusion for character, i got told i need to in tune with the character more and do less pauses, yet my problem was not learning the lines as that’s where the pauses came from. The pauses interrupted my character energy and flow, just when its getting exciting, i pause, however what i did good on was my anger on certain parts which involved in to make it look effective, my character which i played also suited me a lot as i was able to execute the right emotions at times, and the contrast of emotion were shown correctly. So i needed to learn the whole of my monologue to avoid that mistake, next was my classical monologue piece which i found difficult as for most of it, i didn’t over-stand the correct meaning of the piece and the words nor timing, the audience and Andy picked up on this, so may be i need to be spending more time on translating it in English so it makes sense and then am able to deliver it in a more authentic way.  I think i needed to take more time to get the character right too, these little adjustments will make a big improvement.

The feedback we got given off Andy and the students, where effective as it lets us see from and outer perspective, and then when we realise where we go wrong, we can improve from that and get even better, so i think this really helps. We can see the good things and the bad things that needs to be worked on more, and then we get to perform it again for sure to show how much we’ve improved. We also get told whether our work is put down as a Pass,Merit, or Distinction, and its interesting to know why? from the teacher and students.