#I also tried a more poetic title.

[mcbitchtits]

more pointedly re: that last wall of tags—

Dial being a control;

control being a choice;

therefore Destiny being a choice

[planefood]

I’ll probably reformat this once I have access to my laptop but:

Super big character introductory post (that I worked super hard on!!!) id love if you’d take the time to read this and interact :)

Without further or do

Tandy:

The title protagonist of the story. Almost everything happens through his point of view and is often skewed by his own personal beliefs and perspective. Living most of his life exclusively around humans he’s still getting used to being around other robots.

Tandy works as a freelance computer repairman and helps robots fix up some of their issues on the side as well, like an off market robot doctor. He takes his work incredibly seriously to the point it affects his social life.

Although he is described as generally likeable by others for the most part, he’s quite clever and has a strong “take no bullshit” attitude towards everything. But he’s incredibly insecure about himself as well as being quite egotistical which can often come out and hurt others. He has a very black and white perspective of the world that affects how other characters will be perceived sometimes.

Max:

The first robot Tandy gets to meet when Tandy catches Max in a small robot get together when Tandy moves cities. Max was impressed by Tandy’s knowledge around computers and Tandy was totally absorbed by Max’s infectious personality.

Max comes across as very carefree and charming. He doesn’t talk a whole lot but when he does it comes out in oddly poetic short sentences, sometimes to the humour of the people around him. Max also tends to take the time to look after people around him and in turn he’s very idolised by the people close to him. But the time Max spends on other people and despite so many people adoring him, Max doesn’t take the time to look after his own personal issues leading Max to blow up at people if he gets too stressed. Despite all the people he tries to surround himself in he finds himself feeling incredibly alone.

Mikey:

Mikey had a pretty rough early life, which has caused him to be very self isolated. He struggles with extreme anxiety which just isolates him further, he can never seem to click with people, even other robots. A lot of people view him as unpleasant to be around. He’s self-deprecating and makes uncomfortable jokes about his own bad mental health, often taking it to extremes that would kill any conversation he was in. Jokes he makes that aren’t putting himself down don’t ever seem to land either. He doesn’t take good care of himself either which leads to him smelling not the best.

In reality he just needs a lot of support and space to heal. He’s working with what he has and is trying his best. Max wants to support Mikey and cares about him a lot but gets ferociously overprotective sometimes which can put more strain on Mikey’s chance to form his own relationships.

Sierra:

Built and raised in New South Wales, Australia. Looking for more opportunities she found herself moving to New Zealand with her other robot coworker, Newton, working for a tax firm. This is where she eventually met Tandy who was hired to fix an issue with one of her computers.

Sierra was growing ever more resentful of her human adversaries, she was starting to admit she hated all humans (and most animals by proxy) all she had by her side was Newton who she wasn’t particularly fond of by this point either. Tandy felt like a breath of fresh air and an opportunity for Sierra to stop having to interact with humans as much and kinda followed him around ever since.

Sierra comes across as very snobbish. She’s judgemental and easy to irritate. She’s quick to speak out about her hatred of certain things (like humans, children and by extension dogs) which upsets people around her. She speaks with a flat affect that makes her sound even more robotic than she’s meant to, which can make her constantly sound sarcastic and mean even if unintentionally. Unlike a lot of robots, her and Max do not get along at all.

Jay:

While looking for more robot friendly apartments, Jay was directed by her close friend, Phillip to Tandy. From then on they became roommates. Unfortunately Tandy and Jay didn’t get along at all. Jay is furiously headstrong and brutally honest to a fault even if they have the best intentions in mind. Tandy being quite egotistical and struggling to take criticism even at the best of times, Jay's brutal honesty can come across to him as personal attacks. Jay and Tandy mix like oil and water and every conversation they try to have usually ends in an argument. Much to Tandy’s dismay, Max and Jay get along great.

Lithium:

Tandy may have trouble getting along with some people but Lithium is the only person Tandy could wholeheartedly say he truly dislikes. Lithium, not unlike Tandy, is incredibly self absorbed. Lithium has a large sense of grandeur. They love to make others feel as though they’re not as socially conscious and intelligent as they are. Lithium also has a very short temper and will quickly snap and yell at people around him to give him a heightened sense of importance. People would be ‘simply lost without him!’ in his mind. Tandy struggles to understand why Max chose to befriend him. Though he’d never admit it, Lithium and Tandy have a lot more in common than Tandy would like to hope.

Sonnet:

The smallest robot Tandy has ever met, yet she commands so much respect from those around her. Sonnet has a very bubbly personality and seems to break into a little dance as often as she can because she's so full of energy. But Tandy learnt Sonnet can be serious when she needs to be and everyone listens to her when she wants to be heard. To everyone's shock she and Lithium hit it off romantically. One would assume the size similarities would make it easier for something like that to happen, but for someone so likeable to fall for someone like Lithium had everyone scratching their heads. Maybe it might do Lithium some good.

Phillip:

Max’s long term roommate and the one who keeps everything in order. Phillip is a reserved and well organised robot who Tandy barely ever catches an opportunity to speak to. Almost always working or stuffed up in his room practising his music. Phillip considers himself best friends with Max and Jay. But understands they probably don’t feel the same way about him. Phillip often gets quite upset at the notion that people don’t seem to care about him compared to other people, he always feels like the “friend of a friend”. He feels underappreciated in the work he does mediating others and keeping a roof over their heads by working multiple jobs. He wishes deep down he could build up the courage to tell everyone how he feels.

Phillip is always eager to duet with the other musically talented robot, Jay, when he gets the chance as well.

Newton:

Newton and Sierra were both built in Australia for the same company, for the same purpose. But unlike Sierra, Newton loved all the work he did and was incredibly loyal and devoted to anything he sets his heart out to.

But his heart was also devoted to Sierra, he’s head over heels obsessed with her to this day and has been for decades. Sierra was the only other robot Newton knew and when Sierra told him her plans to move to New Zealand he wasted no time in dropping everything to move with her. He felt betrayed when Sierra started paying more and more attention to another robot, Tandy. He grew incredibly jealous of Tandy as well as harbouring a deep hatred for him. Newton has heightened emotions which would typically mean he was very happy go lucky, but Tandy flipped a switch in him for the worse. Newton now vows to do anything in his power to win Sierra back from Tandy. Tandy on the other hand, is barely even aware of Newton's existence outside of what Sierra has said about him and the short conversations they’ve had.

Vicki:

Vicki was built in Cape Town, South Africa with a strong passion for teaching. She studied to be an English teacher, working extremely hard to be the best teacher she could. But what Vicki had in determination she lacked in backbone. She had a very thin skin and struggled to keep her emotions under check when working with particularly difficult students. Her tendency to get easily upset in high stress situations relegated her to the role of “easy to bully substitute teacher”. Vicki, feeling trapped, decided to move to New Zealand for a fresh start in a country she felt would be more mellow. Unfortunately for her, middle schoolers are terrible to deal with no matter where you are. She knows other robots through local robot support groups and lavishes every chance she gets to talk to fellow robots.

Scorpion:

Scorpion is a bit of a lonewolf, she has a short patience with people whether they’re robot or human and prefers to be left by herself. But she attracts a lot of attention from other robots because she’s perceived as being “really cool”. Two robots, Jay and Vicki, fight for her attention constantly, much to Scorpion’s chagrin. She’d much rather socialise on her own terms and hers alone.

Scorpion is one of the only robots whose talents lie in art and painting. Graffiti tagging is her preferred art form. Sometimes she’ll be commissioned to paint murals around the place but otherwise just picks up odd jobs around the place and keeps to herself. She’s quite the mysterious figure to Tandy. Darwin:

Darwin was built in Tokyo, Japan, before shortly moving to New Zealand. They were intrigued by the opportunities available to them as a robot in the country compared to Japan. Darwin’s main goal in its life was to help other people. The first and most obvious answer to them was to take up studying medicine. Darwin studied to the best of their ability and eventually got a job as a nurse in Auckland Hospital. Darwin's dream was to become a surgeon, but there was still a lot of doubt from humans on a robot doing their surgery. Darwin, instead, was encouraged to work with people with infectious diseases as a nurse. Going into nursing around the pandemic having a nurse that was immune to human diseases was the perfect fit. Darwin now finds itself overworked and stressed. Darwin barely has time to interact with anyone let alone other robots. But on occasion will have robots coming into ER where Darwin is first to point them where to go.

Florence:

A tall, neon coloured, full blooded American robot. Florence is the only robot so far who actively dislikes the company of other robots. She much prefers to view herself as a human and interact exclusively with humans. She has a short patience for her robot peers and low sympathy for any struggles they might face. She’s seen hanging around a human named Randy near constantly. Aside from her physical attributes, her thick accent and attitude really makes her stand out against other robots as is. She’s got a lot of charisma one will admit. She’s quite cunning if not sleazy. Tandy isn’t sure why she acts the way she does and wonders what might’ve caused it. Cathy:

Like Mikey, Cathy had a tough life leading up to where she is now. Growing up in the outskirts of a city in the other regions before moving to Auckland. She has an extreme phobia of humans that causes her severe anxiety and paranoia. She’s jumpy and skittish in the company of any human but very calm and intelligent in the presence of robots. She’s the founder of the local robot group that a lot of the characters met each other in. Tandy doesn’t know much about her as she rarely speaks about her personal life.        

[bloodyinkandquill]

Subspace x astronomer Reader who is equally morally questionable

i spent like 5 minutes trying to figure out how to word that title, hell it might still be subject to change so we shall see lmao, and wow third subspace request the people really like subspace, it did change i honestly almost went with ‘reader who matches his freak’ i literally had to consult my friend on it

- You guys practice your evil laughs with each other, before I said anything else I had to say that, you two will just stand there and cackle at each other for minutes on end giving each other pointers on how to improve it, make sure to have water nearby because laughing maniacally with each other does a number on your throat, especially with his being affected by rot just like a good portion of his body

- Before you Subspace had never had any interest in space, the stars, the moon, whatever, none of it seemed interesting to him, however after meeting you he started to take time to appreciate the sky, the hundreds of stars he could see from the cold Blackrock nights, the moon’s cycle, all of it was suddenly a lot more interesting to him, but he preferred not to research any of it, instead preferring to hear you speak on it, how passionate you were about the stars and their movements

- Though the listening to you go on and on was not just him, you would listen to him go into great detail about his experiments, they were far from ethical but neither of you cared, honestly it was exhilarating sometimes, on rare occasion you’d join him in his lab and watch the different reactions to toxic substances, it was mesmerizing

- He would also join you in your lab as you used your giant telescope and charted the movements of stars and how it might affect the Inphinity, he wouldn’t be as hands on but he liked hearing you ramble about all of the stars in the sky and your theories, he’d also peer review any papers you do on astronomy, you were both Blackrock scientists after all

- You two plan future experiments Subspace can conduct, you enable each other, but it doesn’t matter, as long as Blackrock gets their research they condone all actions he does to get the necessary research and scientific improvements, after the invention of the Biografts they became far more lenient, he invented them a robotic army, of course they don’t mind if he kills a few demons here and there

- Due to your profession and love for beyond the sky he gives you a pet name or two based on space, his cosmo or his moon, in turn you gave him the nickname you’re sun, together you shine brighter, it would be more poetic if the shining wasn’t scientific murder, but oh well you gotta break a couple eggs anyways

sorry these were shorter i had to write them between working on a russian assignment lmao, i hope they’re good again tried to be character accurate!

[wehangout]

So, the amazing Calli @callivich came up with this beautiful idea for DVD commentary, fic style, and the amazing questions that go with it. As suggested, I'll be indulging myself while talking about:

Thicker Than Forget. Summary: He blinks at you. “What was your first name?” “Erato.” “Erato,” he repeats. “No need to roll the r.” “Like the muse?” You grin. “Poet, meet muse."

AU. Ian is a poet. Mickey is his recently-corporal muse. They eat an absurd amount of stupidly named ice cream, try to find beauty in things, and fall hopelessly in love.

This was fun! Let me know if you want commentary on any other fics!

Give us some stats - (when you wrote it, word count, how long it took to finish, is it a one-shot/multi-chapter, etc)

So, I wrote this for the Shameless Big Bang in 2021. I couldn’t tell you how long it took me to write (Word is giving me conflicting info), but it was probably my easiest write to date. Word count sits at 30-ish thousand words.

What was the initial inspiration for your story?

It was initially inspired by a novel. I don’t remember which one, but it was either Lament or Ballad by Maggie Stiefvater. The only similarity between that one and mine is that a character falls in love with their muse. The plot itself is very different.

If the story is written from a character’s POV, why did you choose this character?

Mickey. Because it’s almost always Mickey lmao. I did try from Ian’s, but this had to be from the muse’s POV and Mickey had to be the muse.

What was your favourite scene to write?

The smut 👀 if you’ve read it, I hope you understand why lmao

How did you come up with the title?

From the poem, Love is Thicker Than Forget! It fits so well with Ian being a poet and the overall theme of the story.

Are there any little moments or references you hope readers will notice?

I went a little meta on fanfic, fandom, and shipping in this, which was so fun. I think only one person seemed to really notice and mention it, though, haha.

Was there anything you struggled to write? If so, how did you overcome this?

I didn’t struggle to write it, but figuring out how to end it was tough. It took a long time for me to figure that out. When I originally came up with the idea it was for an original story, and did not have a happy ending.

Favourite line in the story?

I’m gonna go with lines, plural, because I have a couple

He kisses you and he kisses you and oh. Oh. This is what they were writing about. All the poets, every word of creativity they took from you … it’s this.

He closes his eyes and continues to sigh sonnets into your skin

Also, the last two lines of dialogue, and, I mean, “Fuck the connection” has to be right up there.

What are you most proud about in the story? (plot, characterisation, dialogue, twist/cliffhanger, etc)

The writing, actually. I’m not a poetic person, none of the poems in the fic are mine, but I’m pretty proud of the poetic nature of the writing.

Are there any ‘behind the scenes’ info you’d like to share - e.g. what’s going on in a characters head in a certain scene or how you came to write a certain line?

So, this is the fic that made me realise I needed to stop taking things so seriously lmao. @captainjowl can attest to the research I tend to do. In this case, every ice cream name was a legit flavour at the time, taken from a Baskin-Robbins website. The mural exists. The flowers and trees in the botanic gardens are flowers and trees found in that exact botanic garden. The hoodie! Taken straight from the Brooklyn Zoo website. The pasta they eat at the North Pond – I used Google Maps to make sure there was an Italian restaurant nearby and looked up ponds in Lincoln Park.

I've since tried to be more chill. Sometimes I fail.

Reading back the story now, is there anything you’d change or add?

I’d make it longer, if possible.

Would you ever write a sequel to this story?

It’s a nice idea, because I’d love to write something pretty again, but I have zero inspiration for it.

Are there any ‘easter eggs’ in your story - e.g. references to other stories you’ve written, a trope you often use etc?

Uh, if you’ve read this and Suncatcher you might notice that I, like Ian and Sandy, have a thing for The Doors.

If you’ve chosen your most popular story, are you surprised by the popularity?

I don’t know if this is my most popular story, but I was definitely surprised by the intensity of the comments I received. It was one time when I knew I’d written something good, but the way it made other people feel definitely took me by surprise.

Anything else you’d like the readers to know about the story?

I love that this was loved. I still go back and read it every now and then and just sigh.

[undiscovered-horizon]

Imagine being the one who releases Morpheus. - Part 2

[Part 1] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5] [Part 6] [Part 7] [ENDING] [ALT. ENDING] || A/N: I spilt the beans regarding my blog's name/title || Sandman-inspired playlist

For him, it's been mere hours but for you long years had passed where you had to learn life anew, without the comforts of privilege that your surname once provided you. Ever since Morpheus returned to his domain, his unkempt thoughts would slip away and slither back to the memory of your kind words and gentle eyes. After all, you had no reason to work against your father and set him free. You knew there was a real probability that Morpheus would kill you - a judge, jury and executioner in a world he didn't belong to - and yet you took that chance, believing in his assumed mercy. It was fairly foolish, even you knew that but it was also very human and that was an affliction you couldn't simply reason your way out of. That curious complexity Morpheus wasn't entirely capable of comprehending occupied a portion of his mind while he was busy rebuilding his kingdom.

When his realm was stable enough for the king himself to leave its grounds and venture into the Waking World once more, Morpheus followed your dreams and found himself in a small town by the sea. Looking around in search of your familiar face, he noticed someone sitting at the end of a long pier. They looked ethereal in their loneliness as people walking by the boulevard were either oblivious to their existence or consciously ignored them; the world of humans kept spinning in its usual rhythm and yet there was someone, a hermit by the endless waters, who existed next to it as if they were part of this world but the world wasn't exactly part of them.

Morpheus followed the pier, old and rotting planks creaking underneath his feet. As the sound of cars, people and dogs grew silent with every step he took towards the forgotten individual, it seemed as if he was crossing some invisible threshold between two parallel but not equal worlds. He was entering their seclusion as they once entered his.

You listened to the rhythm of his steps until they abruptly stopped close behind you. Looking over your shoulder, you saw exactly the same brooding man you helped escape a few years ago. There was something unnerving and yet comforting in the way nothing about him seemed to have changed. In some poetic way, you freed him from your father's malice entire years ago but he left that cold basement no earlier than yesterday.

"You haven't aged a day," you spoke up.

Not a shadow of any emotion passed by his features. "You did."

"Come on, sit." You patted the planks next to you.

"This is not a social call," he warned in a cold tone.

"Maybe not but I sure could use one."

Morpheus did not answer. Reluctantly, he approached the edge of the pier where you sat and only then did he notice a raft of mallards swimming around you. In your hands, you were holding a bag with cracked corn, oats and nuts. With an experienced flick of your wrist, you threw a handful of the mixed dry food to the ducks in the cold water below you. Pushing one another, each of the birds tried to eat as much as they possibly could.

"Where are we?" he asked. It was somewhat surprising to you that he had found you and yet did not know where exactly he did so. Maybe instead of following roads and signs, like people do, the King of Dreams relied upon a sense he was created with but one you could never relate to.

"Southend-on-sea, England. Right outside of London."

"Why here?"

His question had an interesting hidden suggestion that you had willingly chosen this place specifically to meet with him again when in fact you were never sure you would see Morpheus even one more time.

"Shh," you whispered as you raised your finger in a meaningful manner. "Just listen."

Surprisingly enough, Morpheus complied. At the tip of his tongue, he had a reprimand, reminding you that he was in no way your equal and you should never treat him as such but something made him discard that expression of his ego. The sound of waves crashing against the shore filled his ears. It was a rhythmic sough, one that brought tranquillity into the hearts of those hearing it despite its loudness. Seagulls were flying over his head, screaming their frustrations and hopes into the aether. With each breath, he smelt salt and algal bloom. In the presence of an otherworldly monarch, Mother Nature remained unmoved in her might, unimpressed with the oniric thaumaturge.

Being the King of Dreams, he had seen things more breathtaking and wonderful in their strangeness that the sight before him. Maybe in this fascination with nature's simplicity, he could find the key to your exceptionalism that he so desired to understand.

Listening to nature, a soft smile entered your face as you let out a tired sigh. "It's so peaceful in here. When you've grown up in a burning house, you simply assume the whole world is on fire. But it's not... It's not." Morpheus noticed how your voice was dripping with hope.

Watching you feed the ducks with corn, oats and seeds, Dream noticed something about your skin: there was a long scar on the back of your hand as if a beast of malice once dared to raise its horrible hand against you. The blemish was white in colour, a sign that the wound it was before was caused quite a long time ago; surely it wasn't a recent hurt. It did cross his mind that he was the reason for that scar - that fateful day when he broke free he paid for your kindness with a deep wound. Truthfully, it wasn't very king-like of him but at the same time he refused to take the blame for it: after all, he never did ask you to break open his prison.

"I never assumed I'd see you again, dear stranger," you interrupted the reflective silence.

"I was busy rebuilding my kingdom."

"So, Dream of the Endless, to what do I owe the pleasure of our reunion?" It was clear to you that an entity of his class wasn't one for welfare checks or anything like that. Wherever he appears, he had business to tend to there.

"I admit that it is knowledge I desire." Morpheus made a pause. "Why did you do it?"

For a moment, you simply watched his expressionless face. It felt almost funny that you could provide knowledge to someone who was probably as old as humanity if not even older. Whether either of you knew it at the moment - it didn't matter, not quite but Morpheus in his mundane lack of understanding of your motives, seemed no less humane than the pedestrians walking along the boulevard far behind you. The cold sea breeze tugged at your coat.

"The school I attended had a beautiful relief of lions and vines over the entrance with inscribed Seneca's quote: Dum iter homines sumus, colamus humanitatem. As long as we are human, let us be humane. That fateful day I did only that: I was humane."

"You are Rodrick's child. I could have killed you." Morpheus seemed to not quite be ready to let go of the notion that you, possibly, had an ulterior motive that you had discarded only upon basking in the might and glory of the King of Dreams.

"And it would have been your responsibility." What caught Dream's attention was your seeming lack of fear in the face of even hypothetical death. In his experience, people both craved and dreaded that fated moment. "What is kindness if not bravery in the face of cowardice and cruelty?"

"Had you no fear of your father's anger?" he changed the course of the conversation.

To you, it seemed nearly as if Morpheus came to you with a list of questions he wished to ask - like he was conducting research more than checking up on a past partner in crime if you could be called so.

"Oh, I did," you answered in a sad voice. Absentmindedly you rubbed the left side of your chest where Magus had burned a sacrilegious mark. It stopped hurting after you moved to the seaside, something about the humidity and salt bringing relief to the acute pain. "That day he disowned and cursed me, although what hex lies on me I do not know. In a way, I doubt I wish to ever know. The responsibility of such knowledge I might not withstand."

He had no doubts that you were strikingly different from humanity as a whole. You asked for nothing, you desired no power nor riches; you were strangely content not knowing. But that observation did not satiate his curiosity for Morpheus still did not comprehend why it was that way. The secret of your exceptionalism was still elusive to him. But, perhaps, he already had been given the exact answer he'd been seeking for the past years but something about him, some expectation he wasn't entirely aware of, prevented him from seeing it. Maybe he refused to accept that behind such dilemma and complexity stood a simple, very mundane and human, explanation.

Morpheus's eyes met yours. By the soft, understanding stare you gave him, he knew you had realized exactly what piece of knowledge he was seeking - the reason why he found you in the first place. He neither asked nor begged for he was a king. And yet you decided to answer his silent plea:

"Sometimes I think that it could be a truly revolutionary thought in its simplicity." To his utmost surprise, you grabbed Dream's hand. Your skin felt hot against his cold palm as if he was a corpse brought back to life by your burning touch. Firmly and yet gently, you held his hand as you poured some of the birdfeed into his palm. "That all it takes to make the world a little better, a little warmer, is just a little bit of tenderness."

You let go of his hand and suddenly the sea breeze felt a lot more freezing than Morpheus previously thought. Had he not known the pleasant warmth of your skin, the cold weather wouldn't be so severe to him then. The same chilly air shook him awake and Dream raised his hand above the raft of mallards and opened his fingers to let the birdfeed freely fall into the murky water.

Only then, when the seeds, oats and corn spilt from his open hand and into the water to be gobbled by hungered mallards, did Morpheus experience a truly human enlightenment: those birds owed him nothing and neither did he to them. They had no means of feeling gratefulness or of rewarding his good deed. The secret of human morality and its inborn complexity was revealed to him in all of its simplicity. The King of Dreams finally understood that you helped because you could. Because you wanted to. No other reason was needed for the love you spread wherever life guided you.

He thought back to your warm touch and how it burned his cold skin. In its absence, everything felt unbearably cold to the point of undermining his peace of mind. Was that... tenderness?

Tagging people who were interested in a follow-up: @rosaren2498 @jessiboobdbdb @chantzmar @lexi-anastasia @bisexualunicronrunningloose

[starrysharks]

can yew tell me abt magical girl ward!! ^_^ im v interested it sounds kewl

okiii i will tell you about magical girl ward!!! note that it's like very up in the air right now and a lot of stuff is susceptible to change. also TW for suicidal ideation, online suicide groups, teen suicide... basically everything to do with suicide.

so the story follows the lives of these girls who are all like mega depressed and suicidal for various reasons, who all meet on this chatroom website and start this tiny community for each of them to vent about their problems to each other. the "leader" of the group, lago_lyre, decides that all the girls should meet up and perform a group suicide because she wants to go out in a crazy, poetic way, and the other members oblige.

there are six members of the group (their usernames become their magical girl titles) -

velvet kuragari aka @bloodEbunnE - 14yr old who hates humanity and idolises lago_lyre for her pessimism. the protag and my PFP!

lillith lyremann aka @lago_lyre - 16yr old misanthrope and obsessive who believes everyone has horrible secrets, thus making them "impure"

momo momoka aka @b0n3ybun - 13yr old shut-in otaku, kind of cut-off from the rest of the world due to poor social skills

izia inuyama aka @jazzalope - 15yr old sports overachiever who's become overwhelmed by responsibilities, overly peppy and active

calico clandestein aka @calicottontail - 17yr old struggling with self-identity to a higher degree than the others, very self-defensive and openly suspicious of others

and poemu paracosman aka @painterpaws - 18yr old artist who's unsure of her future

the main thing is that each member doesn't know the other's identity at first. they all wear different rabbit masks under the instruction of lillith, who wants their deaths to be strange and inexplicable. unfortunately for her however the girls are saved by an unknown magical girl, who dies protecting them. the girls are turned into magical girls in turn, who travel into a cyberspace called the "ward" in order to help other girls on the social media. the girls' profile pictures manifest into "icons", which basically help them in battle - all different rabbits that poemu had drawn for them all.

anyway, the girls have to juggle their daily struggles, magical girl responsibilities, and most importantly keeping the secrets behind their suicidal ideation under wraps. the girls have a shared goal to fulfil the martyred girl's dying wish - one that they don't even know - but lilith is still dead set on her goal of becoming a poetic death and still tries to encourage the other girls by revealing their secrets to the others. um hopefully that makes sense also sorry for answering so late 😭 if anybody asks more questions i'll answer them also none of this is final i'm super tired thank you for the OC ask ^^

[marengogo]

Silver Lining - What If #8 : Min & Kook or Busan Brothers?

Neuron by J-Hope (with Gaeko & YOON MIRAE) focused playlist.

[Music is a very big part of my life and I’m MOSTLY INCAPABLE of writing without music, so I just thought I'd share what I am listening to while writing this]

🐺 — 🐺 — 🐺—

Ladies, Gentlemen and Distinguished Enbies: HELLO!

How is everyone? Hope you are all enjoying this little break, if you celebrate Easter, and if for any reason you didn’t get a break either you don’t celebrate Easter, or you are part of the “holiday working class” I hope you are at least safe and serene 💜. All that said, let me tell you;

It’s incredible what a few days off can do, aye?!

For one I've been very vivid dreams and, for two, I’m actually in the mood of writing posts, would you look at that! AND BY THE WAY I keep forgetting to do this, but I will at some point later today I need to write an advisory note for the Sonyeondan Colosseum as I haven’t been there in a while but I still get aspiring gladiators, who are dying to participate, and albeit fun, at the moment, I really don't have that much time, to provide these fighters with the appropriate match they deserve 😫. So it is only right that I rely the appropriate information, as I do believe I run a fine institution and as such I am sorry for allowing my administration to slack real life suddenly got so busy and interesting that I didn’t, and still don't, have time to play, but who knows what the future holds right?! There just might appear a contender so unique, I might not resist the urge for a little tussle.

Anyways, back to the topic of this post, as it is sort of a continuation of this one → Solstice & Equinox, it is indeed about the Jikook Travel vlog we still no absolutely nothing about, but of which I woke up with thoughts/ideas about, hence, why I’ve placed this post, yet again, in my Silver Lining series 🤡. In my previous post I tried to predict the vlogs' scheduling, in this post I would like to talk about the possible style this vlog might take, while making, as always, educated guesses and also diving into JK’s filmmaking style.

⚠️I MOST LIKELY WILL WAX HELLA POETIC OVER A LOT OF FILMMAKING STRUCTURES, SO BE HELLA WARNED⚠️

Let’s start right off the bat with:

Also if you are NOT familiar with “Youtuber” Jimin, below is a little summary:

As you can probably tell by some of the ss because there are so many more, believe me!, JM is very enthusiastic about vlogging and, as we all know, JK is very enthusiastic about producing video related content as well as taking it further when he directed Life Goes On for example. Both JM and JK consume copious amounts of video content, be it movies, dramas, anime or shows and they often seem to be watching the same shows as well. Reason why, perhaps, they often seem to be the only privy of their media related inside jokes.

Now, imagine loving to watch shows so much and having as a significant other someone whom not only has so much footage/pictures of you which will never see btw 🤡 but also has the skills to potentially make a show out of you, or with you, because they also enjoy the same thing, what would you do? Sure, you like travelling and he is not too big into that, but some time 7 years ago this person not only took you on a trip, but also found the most memorable way to immortalise this for you, resulting in this person producing more and more travel vlogs. Not sure if JK has come to enjoy travelling, but one thing is for sure; 

he seems to enjoy making one helluva good vlog out of it.

Now, before we get into the reason for my title (Min & Kook or Busan Brother?) let’s look into JK’s filmmaking style THIS IS WHERE I AM SURE I WILL NERD OUT, and in order to do this we will look into two of particular videos, as I feel like their travel vlog could be a mixture of this two: 

VIDEO 1: [BTS VLOG] Jung Kook l CAMPING VLOG

VIDEO 2: G.C.F in Budapest

Let’s start from VIDEO 1. This was a series of vlogs we got from each of the members and were posted on BANGTANTV between July 9, 2022 and December 10, 2022 as always with the Tannies, the actual filming dates may or may not be close to the time they were posted. There are many different types of vlogs out there, because many are the different interests of viewers out there. When looking at our boys, you can clearly see theri vlogs divided in 3 specific types of vlogs:

“HOW TO”-vlog: In this type of video, usually the hosts want to learn to do something, and so they either attempt or they are a master in said craft to do said something, while showing the viewer step-by-step, with the intent/hope that the viewer can learn or feel inspired to want to do it as well.

Jin

Yoongi

JM

“CELEBRITY LIFE”-vlog: This type of video, we follow a typical/particular day in the life of a celebrity. There is usually not so much editing done, and it gives very much the feeling of watching a reality TV show.

Tae

Hobi

“TRAVEL”-vlog: These are usually specifically about showcasing cities, spaces, activities. They are very action filled, so they will not have as many static shots as, for example, the previous two themes 

Joonie

JK

Even though JK and Joonie have the same style of vlog, there is something that JK has, which all the other 6 don’t, which is his own “colour”.

JK has a very specific style that is unique to himself within the group, and you can notice in the editing, which makes me think he often takes part in, whereas, even though the type of vlog is different for the other 6 members, the style of editing is the same for all of them. When I say that JK adds his own colour, I mean that, for example, he so often breaks the 4th wall in very conventional and unconventional ways and this is something I've noticed only he does actually in Bangtan. 

Aside from JK’s Film Colour, I do believe that this is also an indication of how long we can hope their travel vlog to be. In the end the main event was camping, with other events as well and it was edited to 45mins, which is a long ass video for this type of vlog, it basically means that they realistically had hours of footage and at least 3 type of campers, which I will get into in my next point.

GCF in Budapest has all of JK’s colours as of 2023. 

This video is the result of 6 years during which he filmed, edited and directed different projects. GCF in Budapest is very professional, and even though he didn’t do the final edit on this, he did direct it, meaning that there wasn’t a single shot that he hadn’t planned, requested or approved of. Basically, JK is the person that instructed other camera-people the times he wasn’t filming himself as to what shot he needed and wanted for the final project, all the way from principal, to secondary, footage I DON’T THINK YOU CAN’T BUT I’M ABOUT TO NERD OUT, RIGHT NOW. Following are the notable structures in this GCF, with related explanations/examples:

Non-static self-filming - This is the typical vlog style where the main subject is filming himself. But in his case he seems to favour this type of shots when he is moving the most, as if he wants us to fill like we are really travelling with him, as opposed to constantly placing the camera on the surface, not moving, and talking. 

B-Roll Footage - is also known as “filler footage”. Usually there is no talking or nothing of importance, but they are quite good for either transitions or comic relief. I LOVE B-ROLL FOOTAGE and JK uses it so well. I believe that b-rolls fit JK so well because of his personality, he tends to space out so often that, in the filmmaking context, this type of footage offers a way to show this dimension of his personality, for example, himself goofing off in the b-roll is perhaps what he does in his head when he is spacing out in real life. 

Traditional filming - This is your typical main subject being filmed by a camera-person. As there seem to be two different angles during this type of shot, there were at least 2 different people filming him I will not go deep into the type of camera/s that were you as this is not that kind of post. 

Establishing shots - This are shots that make the viewer know where and when something is happening, and they are extremely important in film-making, but not really in vlogging as the title of the vlog already tells you where and sometimes when, if not you’ll find out in the dialog you are, but it is exactly this kind of touch that makes his work feel very cinematographic.

All the aforementioned, are characteristics that I am expecting to see in their travel blog and I am soooooo much looking forward to check our the whole crew, if by any chance we get a roll end credit scene 🥹 to be honest, going back to video 1, since they were in each known location for more than a day, they could make at least 2 self-sufficient vlogs but hey ….

JK surely came a long way from GCF in Tokyo, didn’t he? And even though he hasn’t produced a GCF with the same colours ever since, there was something that was:

To me, filming is the art of skilfully deceiving, while  willfully being deceived, during a specific amount of time, after which we all go back to our realities unharmed or “not”, depending on the depth of the film.

Films are like magic.

But what is filming for JK? To be veeeeery honest with you, the person who has a future in acting amongst the Tannies is Kim Taehyung, yet, the two people who can for sure act, on the silver-screen, are Kim Seokjin and Kim Taehyung … so why do I feel like Tae is the only only that has a future in this field? Because Tae can live for and with it. Just knowing how to act is not enough, you have to want to be an actor, for real-real. You know how Hobi breathes dancing? Tae breathes out imaginary characters in a similar way, reason why I can see him having a very prolific career as an actor as well.

Now ... why do I bring this up?

If JK just wanted to become a movie director alongside being the amazing musician he is, he’s had the perfect subject/s to do so. So why has he been so fixated with filming JM? JM is not the type of subject you can use for a long film, sure, he likes to act with his friends, but I don't think that cinema glory is one of his objectives in life I may be very wrong. He can perform/dance like hell crazy for the camera, HANDS FUCKING DOWN, but, once again, serious silver-screen acting isn’t what he wants. So, once again, given a choice of Tae and Jin;

Why JM?

TIME FOR TIN HATS Y’ALL HURRY 👏🏾 HURRY👏🏾 HURRY! 📢

I, Marengo, think that JK had always intended to make GCF in Tokyo as merely a video to preserve the happy memories, during a hard moment in their lives, which they spent together. This video-gift was specifically intended, for JM, in the style that JM mostly appreciated at the time, which might have happened to be YT vlogs. While editing his video, JK perhaps realised that it might have been a bit on the nose, so he added establishing b-roll shots of Tokyo, thinking it might have been enough to divert the attention from JM; but unfortunately failed. For a few reasons, but mainly, the lack of any spoken words in my opinion. 

The thing is that for the purposes of what i think his objective was, words were absolutely not needed. “Look! See how happy you were here! It doesn’t matter how shit things are, we can still be happy; You can still be happy!” In the same way, with Life Goes On he wanted us to see their changed everyday life of the time, the sadness, melancholy and hope they all felt. Words were not needed, and this is the type of filming which is closest to the inner colours of Jeon Jungkook. JK is not the best with words, so I believe that he found in filmmaking a form of expressing himself in a more effective way.

HOWEVER, as we all know, even though Life Goes On was well received, GCF in Tokyo’s main critique was “Where is tokyo? All I see is JM”. Yet, his main purpose wasn’t Tokyo, the shots, the song, the editing, clearly indicated that. Nevertheless, if at the time, JM was indeed his queer interest as I don’t believe they were going steady at the time, he wasn’t going to jump out gun blazing to defend his choice; was he now? No, he left us to believe that he was gonna get better, and next thing he did was add more members and better establishing shots, but never forget; gcf in Tokyo is still there and still something he remembers fondly. 

Now as for the title of this post  😂😂😂. Be it straight, queer, interrational or whatever, there is one thing that most of couple YT channels have in common:

Their channel name is either a union of their name or there is and &/and to join siad names. When JM was pretending to have a channel with JK during this live → VMINKOOK LIVE he named their channel MinKook, because he was Min and he was Kook so, MinKook and let’s forget for a second that this actually resulted to be a very funny korean pun. I honestly do believe that if you are a platonic duo on YT you will very rarely use your name with your friends name as it seems like it is a universal YT truth that “” & “” channels are couple channels. So if anything, if JM was talking out of subconscious, he maybe had been watching a lot of YT couple channels, at the time, and thought it okay for them to have a channel name that matched the same energy? … 

🤡🤡🤡

So my question is: will the channel be named something akin to that couple vibe RISKY AF, WHY WOULD THEY DO THAT?? Or will it be something more like the Busan Brothers name that they are often given … HELLA SAFE, MAKES A LOT OF SENSE? I guess only time will tell! 

Ok then, hats off! Let's go back to reality, where we can happily keep waiting for this blasted travel vlog LOL.

Always respectfully yours 💜🫰🏾,

Marengo.

[greenhorn-art]

to catch a sunbeam with white moonlight

Author: orphan_account [this work has been orphaned and is no longer associated with it's author]

Fandom: 全职高手 | The King's Avatar

Rating: General Audiences

Category: F/M, Gen, M/M

Words: 55,720

At a Glory convention, Dai Yanqi meets Ye Xiu who is helping Su Mucheng buy her favorite doujinshi. They surprisingly hit it off as they browse through all the doujinshi about their peers and talk about Glory.

About the book

FONTS: EB Garamond (body text, title), Roboto (body text - electronic), Bebas Neue (title, headings), Alfie (title), Segoe UI Symbol (scene breaks - 'gear without hub')

IMAGES: Sunflower (Rawpixel, ID: 2687359), lightning (Rawpixel, ID:10200699)

MATERIALS: Domtar Earthchoice (textblock - 20lb, cream, 11x17 cut down to 8.5x11), Recollections paper pad (endpapers - Dark Watercolor Florals), Iris bookcloth (covers - Eggplant), Verona bookcloth (covers - Hot Toffee), Ribbon (covers - 1/4", shell grey), embroidery floss (endbands - 209 Very Dark Lavender), leather cording (endbands - 1.4mm), Ceramcoat acrylic paint (painted edges - metallic silver), Anita's acrylic paint (painted edges - 11038 Purple), Reeves acrylic paint (painted edges - Violet & Crimson & Blue Lake, Payne's Gray), waxed linen thread (sewing textblock - 30/3, white), Books by Hand (glue - pH neutral PVA)

PROGRAMS USED: Affinity Publisher (typesetting), Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo, LibreOffice Writer (QR codes), Bookbinder-JS (PDF imposer)

BINDING STYLE: Split-board binding, French double-core endbands

(Belated) Binderary Book 2024

My first year participating in Binderary and I'm 2/2 with my goals, albeit slightly late (even with the added leap day).

Goal No. 1: Bind a book!

This fic is an orphaned work, with no author available for me to reach out to. Convenient, since it was a last-minute decision.

Goal No. 2: Finish typesetting the fic that got me into this whole bookbinding/fanbinding hobby!

Bad Boys JEDI Style is a 217 chapter, 908k word "comedy of errors: in which our heroes are recruited to film a reality holo-drama". Much to my despair, the fic I loved had been deleted from every site it was uploaded to, and I was left kicking myself for not having downloaded a copy from AO3.

Shout out to Kam and Lofe, whose wonderful Binderary demos were put to use in the making of this book! Kam's French Double-Core endbands demo was super helpful, sizing up the 'textblock' and components made it easy to actually see what's happening with the sewing. Loffe's demo introduced me to the split-board binding technique and, sleep-deprived hiccup notwithstanding, I think I might find it easier then bradel style binding! Need to bind more books to know for sure (such a hardship 😔).

In other new-s, I took my dad's recent workshop baby for a spin. The bookbinding plough works like a dream! I tried a hidden fore-edge painting for the first time (just a solid colour), but the purple is lost under the Payne's Gray basecoat I applied to the silver painted edges. Adding ribbon to the cover was also new (mostly due to the fact that I never remember until the endpapers are already pasted down).

On the Design

Cover

This is a Team Thunderclap!Ye Xiu AU, so the cover was based on Team Thunderclap's uniforms from the donghua (from the one screencap of the team I found, see below): purple across the shoulders and forearms of their jackets with a yellow stripe down the centre. I added silver ribbon as a nod to the white of the jackets as well as the grey gear of the team's logo. Also in reference to the title: yellow=sunlight, silver=moonlight.

Title Page

The title page stumped me for a while. While brainstorming title page design ideas, I thought about what the title means. In English it's poetic but nonsensical, so I wondered if maybe it held some meaning in Chinese?

As it turns out, it does. Kind of. Maybe. (If I stretch and reach for it, it makes sense). According to a quick search of one webpage for each query, "'White Moonlight' usually refers to a person or thing that is elusive in the heart, has always been loved, but cannot be touched" or "an 'unforgettable first love'." The sunbeam itself might be Ye Xiu, the figurative ray of light, the hero, the gaming idol. Or 'catching a sunbeam' could refer to how "sunflowers turn their heads to catch every sunbeam."

The potential meaning I have cobbled together is how Dai Yanqi turns Ye Xiu's head and captures his heart by sharing the (SanXiu-ified) story of Su Muqiu, the aforementioned white moonlight. Is this what the author intended? Who knows. But it does seem plausible enough to inspire me.

I ended up using both the idea of sunflowers and Thunderclap's uniforms (again). Lightning referencing the team's logo, and also the white colour of a flash of lightning which is kind of like moonlight. The logo's background is blue, as is the uniform as seen on the cover of the manhua featuring the captain Xiao Shiqin (see below), so I made the background blue-purple.

Endpapers

The (not-actually-)sunflowers carried over to the endpapers, as well as the grey colour from the gear in Thunderclap's logo.

Endbands

Kept these simple. A solid purple, as close as I could get to the bookcloth. I didn't want to draw attention away from the stripes on the covers or the silver edges.

Probably could've gone for thicker cores.

The text

For the scene breaks I used a special character of a gear. The cog also looks like a sun. Which is fun because it can reference Thunderclap, the title (sunbeam), and my design choice of sunflowers.

I reused the lightning image at 50% opacity as a background to set apart the backmatter.

Misc.

Recently, I've begun to increase my efforts of preseving fanfiction and safeguarding the stories I love from purges and takedowns. (Sparked by the December 2023 scandal about Sony announcing an upcoming removal of content including the movies and TV shows that people have purchased).

This fic has been archived via the Wayback Machine at https://web.archive.org/web/20240215155152/https://archiveofourown.org/works/37414021?view_full_work=true.

Also, curses be upon Rawpixel. Since the time that I had downloaded the images, they have now be placed behind the premium user paywall (along with a number of other graphics and elements that used to be free).

[khalixvitae]

★Under The Skin ★

Rook Hunt x Reader | ~3k words

Warnings: mentions of death and dying (not descriptive), a smattering of angst but we don’t have time to unpack all that; semi suggestive at points because I cannot seem to help myself; mentions of book 6 but nothing too descriptive! Reader is also implied to know Floyd. Vaguely canon compliant, takes place ambiguously after book 6

Info: I’ve been obsessed w the idea of Rook w an implied goth reader who collects bones and makes bone jewelry. Entirely self indulgent (i am goth and I collect bones and make jewelry Lmao). GN reader, no physical descriptors used other than that the reader wears jewelry.

——————————————————————————

Rook Hunt was an odd duck, you’d always known that much for certain. He was hyper observant and yet seemingly unaware of social norms, constantly invading the personal space of those around him. Ever the chatterbox, he’d seamlessly suck any passersby into a whirlwind of a conversation, gleaning whatever information or entertainment he’d sought out before discarding his still confused target with a friendly adieu. He would regularly monologue, lyricize, and wax poetic about even the most mundane of things. Frankly it was difficult not to notice such glaring personality traits- he had a habit of making his eccentricities everyone’s business.

Even so, his outlandish tendencies and flowery language only further obscured what kind of person he was hiding beneath the surface (and beneath that bizarre hat). He was in Pomefiore, after all- and a Vice housewarden no less. It only made sense that his public persona, as bewildering as it may have seemed, was carefully crafted by his dexterous hands. Always guiding the conversation away from himself with a practiced ease, it was obvious he sought to keep any clear image of his character permanently out of focus. He was like a mirage- not quite tangible, his perimeter fuzzy and constructed only of contradictory statements or nearly mythological anecdotes. No matter how hard you tried to get a peek behind the veil, he was always just out of sight. You had always been certain that the trajectory of any arrow fired by those same hands would be far straighter, cleaner, than any conversation you could ever hope to have with the huntsman.

Which is what made your current situation all the more unexpected.

“And this one?” His eyes darted to another one of the many trinkets you’d scattered across your bed. Lithe fingers hesitated over the pendant he’d zeroed in on, an owlish gaze flickering up to meet your own. He wanted permission. How very unlike himself, you thought. Or perhaps it was more like him than he’d ever been in your presence- you had no way of knowing, of course. You pushed the thought away and instead nodded affirmatively. He plucked the necklace from the duvet, its weight remembered by an indentation in the plush down.

“Yeah, I found that amber while digging around on the beach with Ace and Deuce. I’d never seen inclusions like that before. It just needed a little polishing up and it made for a really nice piece. The other stones are tigers eye- I got those online.” He held the petrified resin up to the sunbeams streaming through your bedroom window, nodding affirmatively as you spoke.

“Magnifique! How lucky you are, mon Trickster.” He rolled the stones between his fingers, a musical lilt coloring his speech. “You have quite the collection- a proper Cabinet des Merveilles.”

You shrugged at that, glancing down at the innumerable treasures you’d accumulated. Well, treasures was a subjective title to say the least. Bones or teeth belonging to unknown animals, each fragment you’d found in the woods and painstakingly cleaned to later preserve. Carefully dried flowers from plants you’d never seen prior to your arrival in Twisted Wonderland, as well as some familiar varieties you’d taken comfort in coming across. Sea glass, petrified coral, and iridescent shells you’d collected on trips to the coast with your friends. A shadow box of butterfly specimens found around the school’s botanical gardens, each one you’d mounted with care. Evidence of your time there, proof of your experiences and your memories and your love for a foreign place you’d slowly made home.

When you managed to untangle yourself from your own sentimentality, you realized he was watching you. He was waiting. His vibrant green eyes were too green in the early evening light, shining like pools of opaque, still wet oil paint.

“I’m glad you like them,” you answered simply, your voice far more hoarse than you’d anticipated. The bizarre nature of your situation only hit you further when he shifted his weight, his attention now focused solely on you- as if you were a specimen in your own collection.

All of this because he’d inquired about your earrings in homeroom.

They were simple things, really. Pretty green glass beads strung together with tiny bones you’d unearthed on one of your many hikes. They had belonged to something small, and you were certain the delicate pieces were vertebrae. It was a wonder they were so intact- however despite their relatively pristine condition, you had no idea what creature they’d belonged to.

You figured they’d caught the light just right, or maybe you’d tilted your head just so- it didn’t take much to catch the hunter’s attention, after all. Whatever the case, halfway through the lesson you’d noticed his keen eyes on you. Your recognition did nothing to deter his blatant staring; in fact, he’d waved at you. As strange as it may have been, you didn’t pay it much mind. Rook was odd, sure, but he’d never done anything outright malicious. Well, not towards you. This kind of behavior was well within his usual repertoire and therefore easy enough to ignore.

In much the same way, it wasn’t totally unexpected for him to descend upon you as soon as the bell rang for dismissal. Rook wasn’t an especially large guy, at least not compared to some of your other classmates. He was broad shouldered and sturdily built, sure, but he wasn’t a notable giant like Jack Howl. And yet something about Rook made him loom, an imposing presence despite his cheerful cadence and charismatic smile. He always toed a fine line, giving the impression that he was all over you without ever once making physical contact. Your encounter that day had been no different; he’d spouted off a laundry list of greetings and praises, only half of which you’d managed to catch, before dipping in closer to view your handiwork.

“Oh! Beau savoir-faire! Did you make these yourself, Trickster?” The way he’d honed in on the dangling vertebrae made you keenly aware of how they framed the vulnerable column of your throat; the equivalent to a neon sign for any apex predator, Rook himself included. Feeling ever more exposed, the rest of the conversation passed with a quickness you had grown to expect from the hunter. Before you knew it, you’d invited him to come by Ramshackle so he could view the rest of your collection. After all, it wasn’t often that someone took vested interest in your little hobby. Ace thought it was outright creepy. Shells were fine, and he could almost (almost) give the butterfly thing a pass, but bones were where he drew the line and made a point to tell you so. And tell you he did. Frequently. Deuce was less outright rude about his discomfort- he wasn’t Ace, after all- but the squeamish look on his face was enough to deter you from showing him any unusual specimens.

When you’d arrived home from classes that day, Rook was already on your doorstep. He looked excited, nearly childlike in his enthusiasm. You’d resolved to yourself then that letting him into Ramshackle would do no harm- Rook was strange, yes, but he was only as dangerous as the rest of your peers. He’d never been remotely unkind to you; in fact, he’d been extraordinarily helpful on more than one occasion. Besides, he was already there, patiently waiting for you on your own stoop. Turning him away now would be just plain rude, not to mention he often made pleasant company.

And so there you were, settled across from Rook Hunt of all people. Alone, in your otherwise desolate dorm- the Great Seven only knew where Grim had slinked off to when your guest arrived. Even the ghosts had made themselves scarce since you’d guided Rook to your bedroom. That being several hours prior, you were astonished that not a solitary soul had intruded upon your peace. Normally something or someone would’ve stirred up trouble for you by then, but the dormitory was silent. He was still silently observing you, and that exposed feeling from earlier in the day seeped back into your bones.

“The ones you’re wearing. May I look at them again? The lighting here is much better, no?” As always he sounded so sublimely agreeable, and it would’ve felt even more revealing to tell him no. Not that you wanted to tell him no, necessarily. If anything, you didn’t mind the thought of him getting closer. That was a damning thought you forced down immediately as you gave him the go ahead. He removed his hat and placed it somewhere beside him- you didn’t keep track of where, far too focused on his reasoning for doing so. He leaned in closer, so close in fact that the brim of his trademark accessory would’ve prevented him from achieving the proximity.

“Snake vertebrae,” he murmured, as if identifying them didn’t take a moment’s thought. “And my, how wonderfully preserved! You’re quite talented, mon Trickster.” His breath grazed your cheek as he spoke, words ringing impossibly close to your ear. The sudden thought that he smelled nice passed over you, only serving to grow your list of absolutely damning thoughts about Rook Hunt. The subsequent realization that there was a list to begin with would have made your blood run cold had the heat of your embarrassment not warmed you down to your bones.

You briefly recalled one of Floyd Leech’s many complaints he’d voiced to you on your living room floor. He’d dropped in uninvited, if memory served you right, but you’d digress for the moment. You weren’t sure of the full context- you didn’t make point to pay that much attention when Floyd was in one of his moods- but what you did remember was a rather innocuous detail he’d given you about the hunter sitting on your bed. That he only wore perfumes when he wanted to be noticed. Of course Floyd’s delivery had been much more coarse and insulting, but nonetheless. And the herbal, nearly floral scent you’d caught was definitely cosmetic, you were sure of that. So he wanted to be noticed by you, then? Another idea to add to your ever growing list.

The soft shuffling of leather brought your senses back into sharp focus. He’d removed one of his gloves, brandishing his bare hand in your line of sight. “May I?”

You nodded silently, watching it for as long as you could. A gentle tug on your earring let you know he was turning the charms around, looking it over carefully with those unnerving eyes of his. Wheatgrass strands of his cropped hair tickled your skin, but you held as still as one of the courtyard statues.

When he finally sat back he looked more than pleased. “Your finds are most impressive,” he chittered, tapping his bare fingers against his gloved ones. You watched them for a moment, taking note of the practiced calluses on each exposed fingertip- marks of his upbringing that even Vil’s carefully coordinated skincare routines couldn’t fully erase.

“But why do you collect them?”

The question wasn’t entirely unexpected- it was quite common for people to be curious about what motivated such a strange hobby. What was unexpected though was the glint in his eye. Something hopeful and genuine brewed behind his placid expression, something you couldn’t quite place but intended to figure out.

“Because they’re beautiful,” you replied, far surer and more steadfast than you’d been moments before.

“Even though they’re dead?” He raised a manicured eyebrow at you expectantly, the shine of his eyes catching the sun’s last bright rays.

“Of course. I mean why wouldn’t they be? It’s not like death itself is innately ugly. And dead things aren’t either.” It was your turn to lean forward, soaking up his expression that wasn’t all that unlike surprise.

A quiet laugh bubbled up past his lips. “So you do not fear death, then?”

You shook your head, matching the soft smile he offered you in exchange for your thoughts. “Death, no. Dying? Absolutely. Dying has a sensation- well, probably, its not like I’ve done it before- and that’s what I’m afraid of. What it feels like. I’m way more impartial when it comes to death itself. Mostly because it’s also impartial. It just is. It’s not malicious, or calculating. It’s just there.”

You brushed a hand over your trinkets, choosing your next words carefully. “I guess the only scary part about death is that when you’re dead, you run the risk of being forgotten. I mean, that’s why stuff like ruins and run down cemeteries are a thing. It’s not that those things don’t matter anymore because they’re dead, but because they’ve been forgotten about. Bones are a lot like that. Just because they aren’t up and moving anymore doesn’t mean they just cease to exist. The thought of dead things being forgotten about… bothers me? I guess? Especially when they’re beautiful things. Because all beautiful things were loved at some point, even in passing.” Perhaps this was all getting a little too introspective. Part of you wondered if you were a forgotten thing back in your own world; what had your loved ones done? Sometimes you felt like a dead thing with no body, no grave for them to visit. Something that had truly ceased to exist outside the memory of those around you. You worried you were revealing far too much, however his wide eyes and parted lips were all the encouragement you’d needed to continue forward.

“So I like to find them and clean them up. Yeah they’re inanimate now, but they deserve to be remembered and loved, even if they’ve changed. And I do love them. They’re special to me, just like the times and places I found them.”

Rook was wound taut like a bowstring, his posture rigid and features affixed in an expression of unmistakable awe. And there he was. Suddenly his usual shifting demeanor was frozen in time. The smoke and mirrors he usually deployed were no longer in effect, and you were absolutely sure that you were getting an honest look at him. Staring at him like that, you could recall a few instances where you’d seen him in momentary clarity. When he’d jump to protect his juniors, or when he nearly took off alone during the STYX debacle, and when something would catch him so off guard he’d throw his head back in unpracticed laughter. This was that Rook. The prolonged sight made it hard to breathe.

The final fiery glows of the setting sun illuminated him, now uninterrupted by the wide brim of his hat that still lay discarded on your bed. In the warm evening light you could faintly see the ghosts of freckles along his high cheekbones and the bridge of his nose, faded but still a part of him. His soft woodsy perfumes, the bare hand laid flat against your duvet and the hopeful way he stared at you, as if begging you to accept some sort of invitation you’d never consciously received.

For the first time you could recall, he looked weak.

And just as quickly, he began to slip away. His long lashes fluttered and he forced a quiet laugh- he was beginning to recompose his facade piece by piece. He went to work slipping on his missing glove, beginning one of his typical monologues- he was running. Whatever silent offer he’d given you, you’d sorely missed your chance. If you didn’t think of something, anything to stop him, you were sure this wouldn’t happen again. “Magnifique! Another devoted to the pursuit of love, much like myself! How dreadful it is that the evening is drawing to a close-“

“You’re so beautiful.”

Whatever door he’d tried to close was promptly blown off its hinges. There was a heavy silence that settled over the two of you as his already wide eyes grew to the size of saucers. The sun had fully dipped below the horizon, and now the fluorescent street lamp by your window illuminated his visage in new shades of blue.

“Excusez-moi?” His honey colored lashes fluttered as he once again met your gaze. You may as well have punched him in the gut.

“I said you’re beautiful, Rook.” By lightly nudging his hand away from his hat you only further disarmed him. Something in his posture went lax; the bowstring had finally snapped, leaving him boneless, powerless beneath your intense gaze. He looked relieved. Being so exposed was exhausting, yet set a visible shiver down his spine.

All at once you placed that glint in his eyes from before, his silent request coming into vivid focus. An aching desire to be a part of your larger collection- something to be coveted, something to be loved regardless of form. You supposed one devoted to the pursuit of love would crave it the most. Had that been what this was from the start? His benevolent assistance, his endless compliments, his unwavering attention? You’d written it off as his usual eccentricities, but had he been subtly peacocking this whole time? The way he allowed you to ever so gently remove both gloves and press your skin against his gave you all the confirmation you needed. When you trailed your fingertips along his forearms before encircling his wrists, he all but pushed them into your grip. There was something else in his verdant gaze, something that told you he’d ask you to maim him and enthusiastically thank you after the fact. Not that you’d ever want to harm him at all; no, seeing him in such a state gave you an abrupt and thorough understanding of his desire to protect all things beautiful.

However, Rook would, in fact, leave shortly after. Your time had drawn to a close, and he did have duties to tend to at his own dormitory. Part of you worried he wouldn’t come back- that the moment of weakness the huntsman shared would be regretted as soon as he slipped away.

How foolish of you.

A few days afterward on your way to class, you noticed something glinting in the morning light. An arrow, cleanly wedged into the clapboard by your front door. A little bag of trinkets had been secured to it, along with a note.

“Pour le Cabinet des Merveilles de mon amour” - R.

——————————————————————————

Tag list for those of y’all who were on the same wavelength over the last few days! Feel free to DM to be added! A Vil fic is probably gonna be next bc I have Pomefiore brainworms alsjdkdj (and dm if you wish to be removed ofc! <3)

@v-anrouge @vtoriacore @phoneymedic @gum-gum-time

[bicheetopuff]

for the ask game, what're your thoughts on togachako

I’m so sorry for taking so long to respond to this @frausted !!

Ship it

1. What made you ship it?

Idk any other way to word it other than, I admire their devotion to each other. I appreciate that even though Togas a villain, Ochako ignored that to see her for who she actually was underneath her unwarranted villain title.


2. What are your favorite things about the ship?

As a queer POC, I relate to Toga a lot (I also share her bday btw which is fun). Although my phase of “I’m misunderstood and I’m tired of people telling me I can’t be who I am” wasn’t as violent or morbid as Togas, I grew up in a very conservative county so people telling me who I need to be happened a lot and I would lose friends for not conforming.

Also I love how Toga kinda set the foundation for what love is in the story and Ochako kind of refuted that with her own version of love.

Ochako was basically told since the beginning of the story that she liked Deku and that she’s supposed to like Deku because she’s a girl and he’s a guy and Toga kind of set that idea in stone for Ochako when she asked her “don’t you wanna be just like the people you love?”

I don’t doubt that she did like Deku at the beginning of the story but she tried so hard to live by Togas ideology to try to mimic Deku, because that’s what’s she’s “supposed” to do, but it never worked for her and she became frustrated with it. She’s “kinda weird” cuz she’s not capable of loving the same way everyone else does and she envies Toga for being able to do it so confidently.

Their characters were truly made for each other. Toga was the person that made Ochako genuinely consider what love actually was and Ochako is the first person to love Toga the way she needed to be loved in the language of giving instead of mimicking and I just find the whole thing pretty poetic.

3. Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

I don’t think they’ll be canon. I view them more as a romantic tragedy. While Ochako admires and loves Toga, I don’t think she’s capable of being in love with her. Plus a big part of her character is learning to be your own person so I feel like being single would be the best ending for her.

I don’t think bnha is a manga that’ll be open to the hero x villain trope so I view it as a kinda “right person, wrong time/met too late” kinda thing cuz at the end of the day, Toga has murdered people and even almost killed Ochako. I feel like if Ochako had met Toga before she resorted to killing people, they would’ve been the perfect match honestly. But, this isn’t Naruto. I don’t think people would take kindly to hori bullshitting the villains out of going to prison or at least correctional facilities for the sake of half baked endgame ships. Their relationship isn’t developed enough to get away with that unfortunately. That probably isn’t as unpopular of an opinion as I think it is though…

ASK GAME

[kolachess]

Qiubing Chinese Fic Recs: What if rewrites

Sharing some more Qiubing fic recs from Lofter! Remember, these fics are written in Chinese, and so if you want to read them, you'll have to suffer some terrible MTL (or be able to read Chinese). Note: I’ve found that Safari’s built in translation seems to fare better than Google, as the names are least translated properly. I haven’t played around with other translators.

This round is focused on some of the (many) 'what if?' themed rewrites, which I'm currently obsessed with (in case you missed my first rec). Most of these involve rebirth / time-travel / consciousness returning to a previous part of the timeline. (Reborn here means to have been reborn into an earlier time.)

Note: Lofter is similar to Tumblr, and authors post chapters in individual blog posts. To find later chapters of the same work, just navigate to the author's page and search through blog titles with the same title (usually they'll number it somehow). Also, these titles tend to be more descriptive like a prompt rather than function like AO3 poetic titles.

Disclaimer: Crappy title translations and rough synopsis are mine... don't judge too hard 🤣). These synopsis notes are more for me to remember what the story is about... Also, my criteria for good Chinese fics is simply not being too OOC, and NO easter egg BS (i.e. the author basically tries to make money off of their fic by hiding majority of the story behind a paywall). My Chinese is too crappy to pick out good prose vs. bad prose haha.

Title TL: Sickly kitty, acting mode is on (WIP)

(AKA: What if Li Bing had returned to Shendu after those three years still sickly and with white hair, if he never entered Dalisi, but knew a lot of things?)

Synopsis notes: Mostly a canon rewrite, but with a LB who has white hair and prone to illness. LB still ends up involved in all the cases, but there's slightly less animosity between our favorite pair and more of QQZ trying to look after LB.

Title TL: Reborn before any tragedy occurs; this time we must have satisfaction (WIP)

(AKA: What if Li Bing's consciousness returns to a time when no tragedy had yet occurred?)

Synopsis notes: LB returns back to before their country started the war, before his father died, and before he parted with QQZ. He implores his father and QQZ to investigate the suspicious nature of the war, and thus they embark on more investigations. Features a stubborn LB, protective but indulgent QQZ, LB crossdressing as a woman because Wang Qi isn't there, redeemed Chen Jiu...

Title TL: What if after General Qiu died, Li Bing was reborn? (COMPLETE)

(AKA: What if LB returns to when he first took up his post as the Vice Minister of Dalisi?)

Synopsis notes: LB returns to when he first returned to Shendu and took on the Vice Minister post. Features a calm and shameless tease LB and a QQZ trying his best to remain unaffected and maintain a charade. LB keeps sneaking into QQZ's room in the middle of the night...

Title TL: If you eat (my) Li family's bing (cake), then you become my (Li Bing's) person (WIP)

(AKA: What if QQZ's consciousness returns to when he first met LB?)

Synopsis notes: QQZ returns to when he first met LB and tries to cue him into the conspiracy earlier and prevent all tragedies from happening. Features QQZ centric POV, which is a fresh take! Of course, doting and indulgent QQZ as always...

Title TL: A reborn Li Bing will definitely force Qiu Qingzhi to spill the beans (COMPLETE)

(AKA: What if LB was reborn to three years prior as QQZ returns from war and manages to force him to speak the truth instead of avoiding him?)

Synopsis notes: LB returns to when QQZ just returned from war and stubbornly refuses to let the guy ghost him. Featuring an alive and doting papa Li, sickly and fragile LB (no cat form), doting / protective / occasionally teasing QQZ, Yi Zhihua becoming bffs with LB (much to QQZ's chagrin), and everyone is happy.

[onlycosmere]

Writing Styles

Would Nabokov’s writing be considered “purple prose” in today’s writing climate? by meadowillow_ 

meadowillow_ : Vladimir Nabokov is praised as one of the most gifted writers of the ornate style. Interestingly, somebody wrote an article—its title eludes me—about sending a sample of Nabokov’s writing for review. This sample was sent under a pseudonym. The advice was to make the writing simple and economical.

That made me wonder. How much of our judgements about ornate writing are post-hoc rationalisations? Do we fish for reasons to judge the writing as good because we know the author is a masterful stylist? Would we judge their writing the same if it were written by a nameless, faceless stranger on the internet?

I’m denying neither that Nabokov is an excellent writer nor that his work is immune from criticism. I just wonder how much established authors fairly evade and unknown authors bear the brunt of a certain type of criticism.

With all of this in mind:

Do you think that Nabokov’s writing would be well-received if he were an unknown author in 2024?

[I’d like to keep the focus on his writing style not on the controversial nature of some of his books.]

Great_Ad_5561:  I used an alt account to post an excerpt from an award-winning novel in r/writers, and it was torn apart. I think people these days don't appreciate anything that isn't straightforward. Of course, there are those who still enjoy it, but for the most part, lives are busier now than they were then, and to some, it is easier to read straightforward books.

Bridalhat:  Also, judging by the types of work most commonly posted here, r/writers and r/writing is not full of literary scholars, writers, or readers. Which is fine! But there’s probably more people here who like Sanderson’s prose than who have read Nabokov period, maybe excluding Lolita. 

SizeableDuck: I'm not a fan of this trend at all, though everyone's obviously entitled to their opinion.

I read Lolita recently and absolutely loved it mainly because of how witty and poetic the prose was - completely unlike anything published nowadays, not to mention its subject matter. It's clear from the first page that Nabakov was a genius.

Tried Way of Kings for the first time shortly afterwards and found it to be the driest, most watered-down thing I've ever read by comparison. The only thing about it that challenged me was reaching the final page.

I get that Sanderson has a different style and his writing is -meant- to be completely lacking in spice, style and charm in order to make his stories more palatable for the average fantasy fan nowadays, but look me in the eye and tell me you've ever laughed at the constant, god-awful wordplay in those books.

He just describes exactly what's happening in the plot and the character's heads. There's no poetry and it makes me a little bit sad to see so many people praising him as an amazing fantasy writer purely because of his plots.

You can find a ton of writers nowadays that're like Sanderson, but you can't find any closer to Nabakov.

Brandon Sanderson:  While I agree that taste is completely subjective--and it's never offensive for someone to simply not like a book--I think you're spreading some misinformation here.

Those of us trying for clean, striking prose aren't doing it to make "stories more palatable for the average fantasy fan nowadays." We do it because we like this style, and would rather the ideas--and not the method by which they are expressed--be the challenging part of a story. I find it insulting that you'd imply prose choice is anything but a literary decision made for the merits of the narrative.

This division isn't new. George Orwell was advocating for clean, crisp prose in the 40s, a full decade before Lolita was written. This push and pull between clarity and ornament stretches back to Shakespeare, whose contemporaries would lambast his flourishes as incomprehensible. (Not that I mind, obviously, literary genius being in the ornaments. It's only that I find multiple kinds of writing worthwhile.)

Moreover, you can absolutely find writers closer to Nabakov today. Guy Gavriel Kay is still writing, and is one of my favorites. (Try Under Heaven.) Hal Duncan is still writing, and is amazing, though rarely releases anything. And, of course, there's N. K. Jemisin--not the same, but most certainly "closer to Nabakov." Even the majority of the writers in the New Weird experimented with style in the same ways as I think you'd like.

Many varieties of writing are valuable to the craft, and I suggest new writers (many of whom frequent this subreddit) practice multiple styles to find the ones that appeal to them and match their narrative goals. It's totally fine to prefer one over another, but I find abundant "spice, style, and charm" in something crisp like Harrison Bergeron--indeed, I find just as much of it as I do in something like Lolita, if for different reasons.

SizeableDuck:  Much more level-headed and correct than what I was typing last night. Thanks for the recommendations, too.

Edit: Just realised you are the man himself. I take everything back.

Edit 2: By this I mean I take back my previous rudeness twofold. I had a think about it this morning when I read his reply and realised that the creatives I love to shit on have, in most cases, accomplished more than I could hope to. And in addition, probably know more about the topics I'm criticising than I do.

[your-local-uwu-artist]

You ever just get the urge to write an essay about errorink??? 

Every now and then I remember that people not into the ship think its just an “enemies to lovers” thing and its like OH BOY ITS SO MUCH MORE THAN THAT 

miniture ship ramble of one reason i love error x ink under the cut

For me Ive always found it a comfort ship because I just find their to be something poetic about the idea of how two people both under the impression that they could never be capable of love managing to somehow find a way to make it work: In a way I find the way people that dislike the ship talk about how “it could never work” to be ironic, cause to me thats like the whole point

like error as he exits his joker peak insanity phase and starts to realize how much hes isolated himself (insert the error clean freak amv) and ink as he slowly learns and tries to understand all the feelings hes been allowed to feel, and its just like, the idea that these indivuals that view themselves as very seperate to the rest of the world, putting themselves on a pedestal of cockyness and having put up walls without themselves realizing, both of them are under the impression that love is a feeling they are incapable of, that there are incapable of true meanigful connection with others, and that even if they were it wouldnt be enough, that ink deserves better than someone who cant express his feelings, and error deserves someone with a soul to share

and that these to indivuals who struggle to communicate are able to form their own social signals and laungauge between themselves and learn to understand each other and learn that relationships are worth the time to learn to understand someone, 

I like stories where error slowly overcomes some haphephobia for ink but I also love stories where ink and error make it work despite that, where ink despite being a very touchy person and not being top tier at expressing feelings for others manages to find other ways to express care for error, and the two are able to be content in their relationship despite it

This is why “love like you” is an errorink anthem to me, error sees how ink is so passionate about everything despite a lack of soul and how he manages to appreciate the muktiverse despite understanding the nilihsim and lack if meaning to it all, its how their both considered godly beings when both of them started out as just, remains of broken worlds, neither of them fully understand how they’ve come to admire and care for the other they just do

I also think theres some neat parallels to make with their “destoryer” and “creator” titles and backrounds, both were trumatized by staying in a blank infinite white space for too long, for error this cause him to be a minimilist claustrophobe and for ink this caused him to find comfort of clutter and fear wide blank spaces, error directly destroys worlds in universe, ink indirectly helps to create worlds both in but also out of universe, while the destroyer error than procedes to delicately hand make dolls and knit and crochet, while the creator ink has quite the talent for destorying his own relationships!

okay on the topic of ink’s relationships I find errorink even better with some past tense drink, (where ink and dream evvuentually reformed their friendship) 

personally I prefer narrative where there were never like, legit enemies, like on inks side it was just the opposing ideals but ink was otherwise always down to annoy chat with him :) and on errors side error hated him before he got to know him, and over time in tsundere fashion annoying traits became endearing ones, and I’d imagine more so than anything what could cause errors feelings to grow is that Ink still stuck around even though error’s not kind to him

It also doesn't necessarily have to be romantic, its top tier as an unlabeled queer platonic type thing as well, I prefer it romantic cause I think they have excellant romantic chemistry but its still perfection as just platonic

[bonefall]

I tried translating the family of my older OCs into clanmew, it's my first time so it might not be the most accurate.

Silverstrike = Ssoenkubo (silver furred striker). Pretty straight forward like the leader who named her. She was named for her fur colour and ferocity. Although she did receive an honour title of Strikinglight during after the war against her former colony. More detail underneath.

Strikinglight = Kubo-owosha (Striking light clipping around shadow). Significantly more poetic and references her uncle's name as she received it for fighting against Blackbirdshadow, directly and indirectly, throughout his leadership and almost dying. A lot.

Coppertuft = Yaryenaofa (Copper furred with tufts). Also very straightforward but does make you assume he has copper fur. Coppertuft is a phoenix coloured cat, and was born with copper fur but now looks more like a pseudo-cinnamon. The unusually tufty fur is unrelated. Although Coppertuft received the honour title Firewing which is detailed underneath.

Firewing = Kafyarbeof (Wildfire feathered wing). Received the name for successfully running through a burning forest, despite many burns, to warn an allied group of the spreading fire, whose leader demanded he receive an honour title which reflects the feathery wing-like burn scars he received.

Goldbranch = Rreenbaryen (Golden furred branch). Named after golden fur and because he's built thin and long, as well as to reflect his role as guardian which is a role I made for a cat responsible for the territories health (takes notice of weakness or sickness in prey/plants, warns of overhunting) and tends to herbal gardens.

Blackbirdshadow= Ooheemoomae (Blackbird casts blurry shadow from high above). Named to fit the rest of his siblings and black fur as well as his way of hunting which involves making his prey aware of his presence and using that to chase them into an ideal location. Never received the -star title as the Rushbound colony has never practiced that.

Featheredfur = Bufwanfaf (Feathery fur). Brother of Blackbird and father of Striking, Fire and Gold who was named for his fur texture completely. Throughout his youth he was very shy but came more out of his shell with the influence of his (now ex-) mate, Wolfwatcher. Almost received a dishonour name later in life but for political reasons he couldn't get one.

Wolfwatcher = Uruoopipo (Wolf-like with notable sight). Named to invoke strength, which she certainly embodies, due a surprising amount of death shortly before and after she was born, including her siblings and mother. Also named due to her superb vision. Like really, really good sight.

Goldbranch sounds just like a Head of Hunting in BB! Their job is basically territory management. Keeping track of predator territories, biome health, and occasionally organizing efforts to uproot invasives. Though, in base Clan culture they don't truly "garden," that's a role Poppyfrost invents.

Your names are excellent, so I'm drawing a blank on a good word to give you! Great work!

[bloodied-dagger]

some song recs based off lyrics

@rainbowangel110 has asked, so I shall deliver

did I spend entirely way too much time on this? Yes. Was it worth it? Probably not. Did I have to add the lyrics I related to the most for every single song? No, but rainbow specifically mentioned the lyric posting and it's fun soooooo (anyways it's 4:30 AM over here so. if you see any mistakes, no you didn't. I'll edit this in the morning so it won't have any)

Complete list without the commentary is at the bottom. List is in a Song Title - Artist format

Alternative

“Alternative” is being very loosely used here, there will be other genres mixed in here. Also, there is no particular order for this bit

I Will Wait - Mumford & Sons This is probably the most country song you'll ever get out of me, right next to the Nickleback song I've got in there

'Cause I will wait I will wait for you And I will wait I will wait for you

BREATHING UNDERWATER - Hot Milk This is very alt-rock emo of me, sorry rainbow

I tried breathing underwater to drown out the doubt Cracked under the pressure and nearly bled out You said you'd always save me - so where are you now? Feels like I'm failing, I'm dancing while drowning alone

Bells - The Unlikely Candidates Honestly I don't really care about the lyrics for this one, I just think I should throw something a bit more mellow after that last one and it's a good song so

And where we go, nobody knows Those bells are ringing, ringing loud Oh lord, we're going down - six underground Those bells are ringing, ringing loud

Razzmatazz - I DONT KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME Once again I throw a song in for the vibes and not the lyrics. Sue me

And now, well Some things just cannot be fixed With sparkled tongues and politics In a fascist little paradox, we all become anonymous

Rule #11 - My Dream, My Addiction - Fish in a Birdcage Okay, last one I'm adding for the vibes- for now

I, I've never seen a storm this fierce I, am feelin' rather small in here As the walls start to compress Shifting, squirming, restlessness

For You - Loveless Alright now here's a song I'm adding for the lyrics. It's also more on the rock song but it's not that heavy I don't think (maybe minus the bridge where it goes all heavy metal baseline for 8 or so bars)

Wasted my time Why would I ever waste another line on you, you? Crossing the line Why would I ever tell another lie for you, you?

Apologies - acloudyskye You must be something else if you thought we were getting out of this list without a skye song in here. This one isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea bc it's electronic but I like it so

I often think about their lives A fault in me I can't deny And in the end I won't even think So, apologies for all these things

Broken Zipper - Group Project You know I had to put a gp song on here somewhere. This one's def a more feel good song, also one I use to call myself out on with when I'm getting pissed about the little things Although it is a love song about crushing on your best friends sister or something? Whatever

You spend one week's worth of pay on your night out Wrote in pen and ran out of white out Lost your shades and it's much too bright out But who the fuck cares when you're breathing fine right now?

Could've Been Me - The Struts This song has made me cry, and that's an achievement when it's as upbeat of a song as it is

I wanna live better days Don't want to look back and say "It could've been me It could've been me"

Playing Dead - VIOLÀ Came because the song is an emo banger, stayed because I related to it a little while later. This one's also very rock, but I have to have a few in here

But if this is the last time I say sorry Then I'll take it back, 'cause I don't mean it You are the cancer in my body I'm done playing dead 'cause I still feel it

Through the Ghost - Shinedown No idea what living "through the ghost" means but it sounds poetic as hell

Speak of the devil, Look who just walked into the room The guilty invaded notion Of someone I once knew

Reason for Living - Morgan Page This song is actually for the beat saber soundtrack, and so is the next one. Naturally, it's on the more electronic/dance side of things but some of the lyrics are Big Mood™ so

'Cause I don't even sleep no more these days No such thing as staying up too late And nobody's at home waiting for me I'm staying up on a feeling - it's the reason for living

Heavy Weight (feat. Beat Saber) - Lindsey Stirling The fact that beat saber can get lindsey-fucking-stirling on a song is kind of crazy to me. Like. What

Heavy weight Feel it in my past mistakes But I think I've carried them For way too long

Inertia - AJR The shortest songname - artistname on this whole list, probably because it's competition is an artist who's name is abbreviated to IDKHBTFM. Anyway, when this came out I fucking Felt It hearing these words for the first time, and they still hit me the same way (maybe even more effectively than before)

An object in motion Don't ask where I'm going 'Cause where I am going is right where I am (Oh man!)

Alma Mater - Group Project This song reminds me of good times. Maybe not better times, but good ones that're long gone now.

I said "Hey, Why we always end up staying out late, Staying out late?"

It's a love song but I'm 100% not focused on that at all /gen

(Sad, yet) Impactful

Little commentary, songs in order of how impactful each of them are in my opinion (top = least, bottom = most) Also a good portion of these are probably heartbreak songs or smth but I'm pretending they're not like an aromantic would

Cellphone - Promoting Sounds & Nate Kest

It's getting late, I sipped too much Look at me strange, I'll be too blunt I'm easy to hate; I'm hard to love But you love me anyway - or is it lust?

I Won't Beg for You - Chri$tian Gate$

'Cause I won't beg for you, my dear These knees have bled, pulled out my hair Didn't know you tried to burn us down Even when we tried to work it out

Call Me - Shinedown

I finally put it all together But nothing really lasts forever I had to make a choice that was not mine I had to say goodbye for the last time

By The Way - Theory of a Deadman I usually listen to the "(Acoustic) [Bonus Track]" version of this song when I'm sad. figured that was worth mentioning so it isn't out of place (a hard rock song in the middle of a slower song list)

By the way You left without saying goodbye to me Now that you're gone, away All I can think about is you and me, you and me

Rayleigh Scattering - acloudyskye

And if it gets better It's taking forever And what's with this weather? It's not getting better

Before You Go - Lewis Capaldi

So Before you go Was there something I could've said to make it all feel better? If only I had known you had a storm to weather

Landing In London - 3 Doors Down

And when the night comes in around me And I don't think I'll make it through I'll use your light to guide my way 'Cause all I think about is you

Ashes of Eden - Breaking Benjamin

Are you with me after all? Why can't I hear you? Are you with me through it all? Then why can't I feel you?

To Build a Home - Grace Page

And I built a home For me, for you Until it disappeared From me, from you And now, it's time to leave and turn to dust...

Better Than Me - Bohnes

'Cause I Know that you Deserve better than me Better than me, yeah

My Body Is a Cage - Peter Gabriel This one's only here because of that full orchestra impact moment honestly

I'm standing on a stage Of fear and self doubt It's a hollow play But they'll clap anyway

No Time To Die - Billie Eilish

I should've known That I'd leave alone Just goes to show That the blood you bleed is just the blood you owe

My Immortal - Effervescent

These wounds won't seem to heal This pain is just too real There's just too much that time cannot erase

Chasing Cars - Snow Patrol

If I lay here If I just lay here Would you lie with me And just forget the world?

Somewhere Out There - acloudyskye

It's over Oh, and under Under we go So far below

Full list, no commentary:

Alternative

I Will Wait - Mumford & Sons

BREATHING UNDERWATER - Hot Milk

Bells - The Unlikely Candidates

Razzmatazz - I DONT KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME

Rule #11 - My Dream, My Addiction - Fish in a Birdcage

For You - Loveless

Apologies - acloudyskye

Broken Zipper - Group Project

Could've been me - The Struts

Playing Dead - VIOLÀ

Through the Ghost - Shinedown

Reason for Living - Morgan Page

Heavy Weight (feat. Beat Saber) - Lindsey Stirling

Inertia - AJR

Alma Mater - Group Project

Impactful

Cellphone - Promoting Sounds & Nate Kest

I Won't Beg For You - Chri$tian Gate$

Call Me - Shinedown

By The Way (Acoustic) [Bonus Track] - Theory of a Deadman

Rayleigh Scattering - acloudyskye

Before you go - Lewis Capaldi

Landing in London - 3 Doors Down

Ashes of Eden - Breaking Benjamin

To Build a Home - Grace Page

Better Than me - Bhones

My Body Is a Cage - Gabe Peters

No Time to Die - Billie Eilish

My Immortal - Effervescent

Chasing Cars - Snow Patrol

Somewhere Out There - acloudyskye

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s2 episode 12 thoughts

oh, from the very beginning of this episode, from reading the little plot summary when you click on it, i was seated. and then i was even more seated through all of its twists and turns. a thoroughly enjoyable episode, if outlandish, but that's what we come here for!

so here we are. in a town called aubrey. there's a dog at a police station and the officers are talking about a murder.

we see this guy that looks like j jonah jameson- introduced as brian tillman- and a woman who works there is sad he didn't come home for dinner last night. BUT we also had a very conspicuous pan over his desk to see that there is a photo of his wife, who is NOT the woman he is talking to. affair....???

oh shoot, she's writing something. "i'm pregnant" the note says while he's on the phone with a coroner. AFFAIR BABY!

she's going to meet him at a motel but she can't see straight and is like. moaning in pain. now chat, i don't know much about pregnancy, but to me this is seeming... unusual. so i was confused until she started having a vision, and then she goes to that place where the vision was set, and starts digging up bones. notably, they are bones, so the murder is an old one.

title sequence. back to our agents, who are staring at xrays of teeth. very thoughtfully, mulder announces "i brush after every meal" thank you king of dental hygiene

so this woman- her name is B.J.- is a detective and found remains that match those of an FBI agent that went missing over 50 years ago. that's juicy. but mulder's like, why the hell was she in a field at night? she's lying and we need to go down there.

and also, "i've always been intrigued by women named B.J." <- mulder have you ever tried shutting the fuck up? it could be good for you.

ugh. a man. disgusting. you should be groveling.

so they're at the scene of the exhumation, which i had honestly forgotten the word for, and i almost typed "the bone unboxing", but it came to me in the nick of time. and it's clear she's lying about how she came across this whole thing.

the affair parner to B.J.- brian- is getting really protective while mulder asks if she's a psychic. he should have been a bit more protective a while ago but that's a different story.

autopsy date!!! what if i looked at some bones while you read me the poetic writings on the nature of evil from a long dead FBI agent... well that is what we see scully and mulder doing at this very moment!

scully puts on her glasses as she tries to figure out if the marks on the rib bones have any meaning, and shares this wisdom:

"it's obvious B.J. and tillman are having an affair"

mulder is GAGGED by this revelation. she read the situation for filth. good for her. "a woman knows these things" okaaayyy please use your intuition at parties and figure out everyone's complicated love situations scully it'll be soooo fun!!!

B.J. walks in and starts experiencing visions. typical! she leaves and says she doesn't feel good and scully sighs and follows her. she knows her duty.

allow me to copy verbatim from my notes here, because i was losing my mind:

"OH NO, SCULLY STARTS TALKING ABOUT HAVING FEELINGS FOR PEOPLE SHE'S WORKED WITH.... i'm not unpacking that right now but this B.J. CHARACTER MUST BE MORTIFIED. SCULLY'S DOING HER BEST STOOOOOOP. "you're pregnant aren't you" OH SCULLY PSYCHIC REVEAL?"

now. i was experiencing about a million emotions in a second at this scene, one for scully reading the situation and immediately jumping in to try and comfort B.J., two on the confession that she's had feelings for someone she worked with before, but i skipped all over that to focus on three, B.J. must be sooooo embarrassed she was so easy to read.

but now that i know what happens in the rest of the episode... scully, tell us more about having feelings for someone you are working with. how recently would you say this affliction has plagued you? please feel free to elaborate. i'm imagining like a silly summer job where she's 16 and navigating a crush and at the same time i'm imagining straight up pining over mulder. don't be shy. please share more. no? you just wanted to try and make a stranger in an uncomfortable situation feel better by relating to your personal experience, because you are a deeply empathetic individual? okay that's Fine.

by this point i was cackling, because damn. again. she just got straight to the point about the whole thing. B.J. is like "he'd kill me if anyone knew" and scully proceeds to IMMEDIATELY walk back into the room with mulder and spill the tea. and my laughter increased tenfold at this point. he looked shocked!!!!! she does not give a fuck she is going to tell him the drama!!! and i get it!!!!

anyway poor B.J. seems to know that the markings on the bones spell out "brother" and somehow that's true

this brian tillman fellow seems awful. he's picking up the evidence our agents brought with them from the 1940's crime scene and yelling at B.J. asking why she has sealed evidence from 3 days ago with her. this is because he cannot read that the files are literally from 1942 and that this seems to be some sort of copycat killing.

so our agents meet B.J. at a nice little secret picnic table rendezvous, where mulder drops the line "i've often felt that dreams are answers to questions we haven't figured out how to ask" okayyyy poet!!!

she draws a picture of what she sees in her dreams, and mulder immediately identifies it from a postcard in NYC, and announces it is the symbol of the 1939 world's fair... "NERD", i proclaimed to the screen, because it was so strong i needed to verbalize that feeling

brian tillman is back to being the worst, pressuring B.J. to "go through with the appointment", saying that it's not HER choice, it's OUR choice, which it famously isn't. reproductive coercion is NOT gonna slide you hillbilly spiderman hater looking freak.

she's looking at a bunch of criminals from 1940 to try and see if the murderer from her dreams is in there... and she identifies him... it's a man who looks kinda like elvis... elvis from SHEIN... his name is cokely, and he carved "sister" into somebody's chest in 1942... why was he not serving in the war at this time...

so mulder thinks the dude is their number one suspect for the new sister carving murders even though he's 77 now, and his reasoning is that "george foreman won the heavyweight crown at 45". which is so funny. mulder is such a walking encyclopedia but also the writers need to make him seem sort of cool so he just spits out sports facts and it doesn't make him any cooler.

scully's like, well her dad was a cop, maybe he knew about the case and she heard about it as a kid, and the copycat cases are bringing repressed memories back. which gives us this lovely exchange:

"i seem to recall you having some pretty extreme hunches" "i have NEVER!" (mutual smiling)

awwwww.

anyway. to the old man murderer's house.

he has an oxygen tank and he is smoking which i thought wasn't allowed but he probably doesn't care tbh. and he kinda talks like SHEIN elvis as well. he keeps calling scully "little sister" which is sus as hell because the victim carved brother or sister into all the people... but he denies and denies

at this point in my notes i imagined myself in the shoes of B.J.: "imagine if having an affair baby made you the conduit for solving 50 year old murders... girl i'd lose my damn mind"

she wakes up COVERED IN BLOOD with "sister" CARVED INTO HER CHEST and at first it was so horrific- and also, how could someone sleep through such a thing- that i thought it was another hallucination. but no, it is in fact real, and she doesn't worry about the blood, instead running to someone's house and lifting up the floorboards that she saw in another vision. and when brian comes to escort her to the hospital, our intrepid duo lifts up the boards to reveal some bones.

it would really suck to live in a house for a long time and then find some bones, wouldn't it?

scully further solidifies her stance as a real one by bringing what i think is some clothes in a paper bag to B.J., who insists that it was cokely the old murder man/elvis dupe who attacked her... but she insists she saw him as a young man, and he is now, of course, 77, so that's weird

but the blood found at the scene matches some of the genetic markers of cokely's blood, so they go visit his other victim who survived. and oooHHHH mulder sees that symbol from the world's fair on the wall!

mulder knows the victim, now an elderly woman, left the hospital the night of the attack, and returned 9 months later... she says it was complications but he goes for the jugular and asks "what happened to the child?"

now the roles are reversed, and it is scully who is gagged by a pregnancy reveal! the woman says that the child was evil, and he was sent to an adoption agency

new theory time: mulder says what if it was cokely's GRANDSON that did all this? it could explain the resemblance in her report AND that it was a younger suspect AND the blood types

! MULDER LORE REVEAL ! he used to wake up in the middle of the night from terrible nightmares where he was the only person left in the world, until he heard his father cracking sunflowers seeds in his study and realized he wasn't alone

we can and will analyze that. the boy who lost his sister being terrified everyone else in the world will leave too, and it'll be just him left behind, trying to find answers. the man who almost lost scully feeling even more alone than he knew was possible, pulling at any sort of thread to bring her back.

and this is deeply touching, but they frame it as a genetic debate on if he was predisposed to liking sunflower seeds, and then it turns into a nature vs nurture argument with scully, and they're interrupted from discussing the finer points of the theory of genetic memory when they have to call the adoption agency

ULTIMATE GAG REVEAL: the son of cokely is... B.J.'S FATHER!!! SO is SHE DOING THE MURDERS? mulder seems certain, and that she even carved her own chest. scully is like wtf. and i'm like, i don't know if grandpa being a murderer makes you one too, but i don't know anything about genetics

NOOOO. we see the old lady we have previously visited- cokely's victim, now revealed to be B.J.'S grandmother- with an unwelcome visitor in the house!!! AND IT IS A DERANGED B.J.! i was shocked at this point because i did not think she was going to be the killer. but we see her closing in on her, and poor old lady says "you're my grandchild", and then a knife, and then yelling....

she's looking for someone to blame, just like her grandfather did all those years ago....

so she's in cokely's house, doing some slashing, when mulder rolls up, and the score is going sicko mode. the composers were popping off.

she SMACKS mulder in the head (yowch!) and has him pinned down, with the razor to his throat, and he's begging for his life. and scully BURSTS in, her finger about to pull the trigger on B.J., when....

BRIAN bursts in??? affair baby father has entered the chat. he's like "B.J. what is going ON" and he gets her to stop attacking

and then mulder is still laying on the floor, so scully comes over, and CRADLES HIS HEAD. yes you heard me she GENTLY holds his head, looks for any marks, and we fade to the case report

scully's theory is that pregnancy activated the dormant serial killer urges/genetic memories in B.J. and all i'm saying it it's a wild place out there.... if y'all are gonna have affairs, please be safe, perhaps this was a cautionary tale....

this episode was WILDDDD. twist and turn and twist and turn and i was seated! they definitely turned the concept of "someone receiving information on unsolved crimes from beyond the grave" on its head, and i certainly did not see poor B.J. as the killer. was it realistic? NO! but did i enjoy it! YES!

various highlights: scully being kind enough to confess to having feelings for a coworker to make someone she just met feel better, scully clocking the affair and pregnancy, scully immediately spilling the tea to mulder, who looked shocked, mulder nightmare reveal, scully also bringing B.J. clothes in the hospital because she is too good for this world even if she is a little gossipy with the bestie, and mulder nerd evidence- why do you know about the world's fair anyway?