#The knowing literally any Spanish part of my brain right on the list of what has gooooone

[rotzaprachim]

Pensaba que era aprender español taaaaan bien esta semana

y entonces

me atropelló un carro

[mxlleus]

Twisted wonderland theory - who is Dire Crowley?

I'm currently drowning in my brainrot so I shall offer you this. Forgive me if it's kinda messy, I only have one brain cell ;-;

Some people speculated that our very kind headmaster is inspired by the Diablo, Maleficent's crow. This is pretty obvious just by taking a look at his design: the golden claws on his hands, his beak-like mask, the black feathers on his coat and his walking stick with a golden crow on top.

Now, what are Crowley's true intentions? What may be his final goal? Well, if he truly is based on Diablo (which by the way means Devil in Spanish), then he ought to share some traits with him, right? The Disney wiki describes the crow with a certain sentence that has caught my eye: "he is completely and genuinely loyal to her (Maleficent)". Why is this important? Well, what if Crowley was Maleficent's assistant in the Twisted Wonderland universe? Assuming she is Malleus' grandmother, how in the world would he still be alive then?

Let's take a look at his character design. First off, his ears are pointed, and we all know what having pointed ears means! He's a fae, and this would explain why 1) his age is listed as "unknown" (just like Lilia and Malleus', the only two fae characters in the game) 2) he could've easily lived long enough to serve the Queen of the Land of Thorns

(Another hint/foreshadowing of his long lifespan is here: )

Prologue ; Chapter 1 - 19

Crowley: In all these years that I've been Headmaster... For the day to come that students from Night Raven College to go hand-in-hand to face and defeat their enemy! [...] Ace: I would never do that, gross! But Headmaster, how old are you!

Second, he shares quite a lot of similarities with Malleus' design. They have the same pointed ears, same black lipstick and very similar color palettes (for the hair/horns). And what if the mask is there to conceal his eye color? (it could totally be green, for what we know; no one said that goldish glow is his actual eye color) To make it look less suspicious? Because to be honest, I've never noticed all these similarities until I actually stopped and intensely stared at Crowley's sprite.

(another fun fact, we have never seen Crowley without a hat, neither in official art, the opening movie, his usual sprite or the vacation one. He might be hiding the Vatican's secrets under there and no one would suspect a thing)

Second of all, what is he trying to do? I remember reading somewhere (I don't know whether it was a theory or in-game infos), that NRC's true objective is recreating the great seven, to find magicians talented enough to remake the original seven but in version 2.0. But why in the world is he trying to do that? Well, if he really is Maleficent's loyal servant, then he may be doing it for her. Maybe because of an order, a wish or it can totally just be independent acting on his part. That's also why we have dorm leaders and why he was so happy to have met someone like Yuu, a person who can coordinate the haughty students of the college. He wants to use us to control and in a way manipulate his future great magicians.

Prologue ; Chapter 1 - 19

You cannot use magic.

But, maybe, precisely because you cannot use magic means that you could give instructions to wizards and get them to cooperate. Perhaps that mediocrity is exactly what this school needs right now!

[...]

MC.

I have no doubt that your existence is essential to the future of this academy. So says my educator-senses.

This would mean that he's not researching a way for us to go back to our world as he wants to keep us there as much as possible.

As if he wasn't suspicious enough, in the actual opening of the game there's this sequence of images that hint at his connection with the overblots.

(1) the ink of the overblots (2) that's him doing the 👁👄👁, very suspicious if you ask me

(3) this might as well be related to Pomefiore's overblot or the importance apple trees have in NCR as stated in the scary monsters event* (4) the symbol of diasomnia, a spindle (+thorns)

*why would apples be related to him? Do we have any proof? Oh! Would you look at that! Are those apples on his vacation shirt? Yes. Yes they are.

Lastly, these two are the most important pictures:

(5) his jacket laying in a puddle of what I presume is water?? (6) the viewer is being closed into a coffin as a crow flies inside the mirror

Why are there 6 keys on the back of his coat? Yana wouldn't just give him a random number of keys just because, if there are 7 dorms then where is the seventh one?

Right here! His walking stick is a literal key, and even the biggest one!

(He also has 4 keys on his hip ; they might as well represent the NRC staff: Crewel, Vargas, Trein and Sam)

Anyone who has ever pulled anything in the twisted gacha knows that coffins all have a little window that glows green, a fountain with green water and a mirror. When we pull to get a card, we see green flames and then a giant mask with the overblot symbols and dark lipstick. Are they obsessed with the color green? Did they choose it just because it has a nice contrast with the background? (the color palette is, once again, crowley's. I'd add a picture if I could but I've reached the maximum for this post) Or is it because it's a type of magic based off on Maleficent's? Each time we see the diasomnia students using magic in the opening movie, the color is always the same shade of fluorescent green that we have seen so many times.

Why is a crow flying into the mirror? Here I come to you empty handed because I simply do. not. know. We'll have to see what the next events/main story chapters will tell us because this image is too specific for me to find an explanation for it. It might be a mention to how we got isekai'd, it may represent Crowley flying off into the distance because he wants to break free from all the taxes he has to pay, or it may simply be a crow attracted to a glowing mirror, just like a moth flying into a lamp.

[adaodinson]

I´ve known since I met you

Yes, writing fics during my online classes is my passion.

English is not my first language.

Summary: You move to a new apartment and one of your new neighbors quickly gains your affection.

Warnings: Swearing, a tiny bit of angst.

Relationship: Bucky x Mexican!reader (it´s for the story, there are no lines in Spanish).

Shared kitchen?! Seriously?! That was ridiculous, who would approve a shared kitchen? You sighed after reading the details of the amazing apartment you had found. It was perfect: pet-friendly, quite reasonable price, pretty close to your work and only four neighbors. It was a small compound with five apartments. It wasn´t a building, the apartments were not on top of each other and it had a huge garden, which was perfect for your dog and two cats. But a shared kitchen.

-Do this people not have that feeling of hatred towards any person that walks into the kitchen when they´re using it?!- You almost yelled to yourself. You chuckled at your situation. It was too good to be true, but it´s still good. You had been looking for a place for almost three months, you had actually slept in your car for a couple of nights because of the fear of settling in a hotel and spending too much money. Luckily your boss was the nicest woman you had ever met, she sympathized with your situation and let you take a few days off (not the three months, of course) even though you hadn´t even started working yet, because you had recently arrived from Mexico. You had moved because of the job, it had been an offer, your dream job, you weren´t gonna waste it.

You decided to visit the place and liked it a lot. If you set aside the kitchen issue, it was perfect. Oh, what the hell? A day later you called the owner of the apartments and finally gave him your answer. Yes. You couldn´t be too picky, and it wasn´t that bad. All the apartments were connected, they were in the middle of the huge garden, next to each other. They had privacy and thick walls, but the kitchen was the “common room” in the middle of the five places.

You settled down in no time since you didn´t have all that much stuff. You took your cats to what would be their “room” and settled their litter box, food, water and bed. They got along just fine with each other and with your dog, so the small space wasn´t a problem. Your dog would sleep in your room (so would your cats even though their beds were on the other room), and her food and water was settled at the small fenced yard that was behind your apartment.

It was really nice, but if you had to be honest with yourself, it had been your metaled-armed neighbor that had convinced you this had been a good idea. You first saw him the day you moved in. You were carrying your huge books box while your dog was playing in between your feet. You tripped and swore you would lose your teeth because of the impact (since your hands were securing the box), but It never came, you only felt a really strong arm holding your stomach and saw the other hand catching the box you were carrying. You were already stunned by his action and strength, so when you saw the man your brain died and then resurrected. He was tall, had broad shoulders, short dark hair, and his face gave the image of a freaking lion and a lost puppy at the same time. You were caught in those deep blue eyes when your dog Cleo literally climbed him and started licking his face. He let go of you and started producing the most beautiful laughter you had ever heard. You reacted (finally) and called your dog to get away from him.

-I´m really sorry, she knows no boundaries. And thank you, thank you for catching me and my books- You said as you pet Cleo to keep her still.

-It´s not a problem, I like her too- He answered happily- And you don´t need to thank me, you seemed more worried about protecting your book rather than your face-.

-Well they´re really good books, and expensive ones- You said with a giggle.

-I´m Y/N- You said as you lifted your hand towards his left one, the one that wasn´t carrying your books.

-I´m Bucky- He made an awkward, almost worried face and shifted the box from his right arm to his left one and shook your hand weirdly (since you were using opposite hands for the shake). It wasn´t too awkward though, you were too lost in his features and touch to care about which hand you were shaking. He was also taking in everything about you. Almost scanning you, your features, your body language, your smile. God, your smile.

You two finally regained focus and he helped you carry in the rest of your boxes.

The second time you encountered him wasn´t as nice as the first one. You had been making your famous chocolate, oatmeal and banana pancakes, ones that you enjoyed a lot, when a lady (another one of your neighbors) came into the kitchen and looked at you with a disapproving grin. You couldn´t care less about what she thought of you, but what she said really triggered you.

-Mmmh, honey, are you sure you want to use chocolate? It has too much sugar, and bananas are really heavy fruits, you should eat a banana alone for breakfast if you want to have good habits- Who does she think she is?! A nutritionist? She didn´t even say good morning and she was already criticizing you. You were about to tell her a few of her truths when you felt a familiar strong hand grabbing your shoulder.

-Good morning Y/N, Ms. Cavanaugh- He listened to what happened and saw the look of anger in your face. You did seem like the type of person to not pull with anyone´s shit, at least to him. But that woman was the owner´s aunt and had a great relationship with him, he had learnt from experience she was a “tough” person, to say the least, but it wasn´t worth it getting on her black list. He was usually shy and reserved, but it was easy to be more “sociable” when he knew the amount of people in the apartment block wouldn´t increase, and that those people would always be the same.

-Morning James- The woman´s face literally shifted from the disgusted look she gave to you the second Bucky walked in. He just smiled and nodded while taking your arm and leading you back to your pancakes.

-That smells great, what are you making?- He asked curiously.

-Chocolate, oatmeal and banana pancakes- You said emphasizing in the “chocolate” and “and” while gazing at the woman.

-Woah that sounds great, I hope there´s enough batter for me to get some of those- You were more relaxed now, but you still didn´t understand why he hadn´t let you defend yourself.

You nodded with a smile and showed him the remaining batter. Ms. Cavanaugh finally left and you turned to him immediately.

-What was that for? That woman needs someone to tell her some of her truths- You said intensely, but not angrily. He softly explained the relation between the woman and the owner, and you quickly understood as you flipped his pancakes.

-Ohhhh, in that case, thank you. You know, it´s the second time you saved me this week, you gotta stop, I don’t like owing people things- He laughed while shaking his head at you.

-If you want me to stop saving you, stop giving me reasons to do so- You tried making an angry face but laughter took the best of you. You two had breakfast together and talked easily through it. He was insanely nice and smart, he seemed reserved and an introvert just like you. Sure, you didn´t let people step on you, but you were shy as hell. He seemed to have an interesting past, but didn´t talk much about it. You didn´t push it, you happily answered all the questions he asked about your family. You were currently telling him a story about your mom and dad from when they were dating.

-So it was really late, and we still don´t know if my dad said “move to the right” or “turn to the right”, because both of my parents say differently, but anyways, my mom offered to park the car and, remember they were not even married, she got in, moved forward and turned to the right. She suddenly felt the car drop a bit, turned to my yelling dad and got out of the car before it sank more INTO THE POOL! She freaking drove my dad´s car into the pool at my grandad´s house and they had to call a hoist at 3am to get it out! I don´t think my grandparents found out but JESUS!

Bucky was holding his stomach as it ached from his laughter.

-NO WAY- he said not being able to form a full sentence.

You were both laughing whole heartedly when your phone´s alarm rang, announcing you had to go to a gathering with your best friend. You apologized to Bucky and explained you had to leave, but before you did that, you basically jumped into his arms for a hug. His immediate reaction was to hold you as close as he could, as strong as he could, but he then remembered his left arm and doubts started filling his mind as you walked away towards the parking place you had outside the apartment’s block. He was afraid of your reaction if he told you, he knew you from a week and was already considering telling you everything about himself. Telling you the truth, but he was too afraid of your reaction. He knew you had recently moved from Mexico, and he also knew you weren´t fully aware of who he was.

But now, he was sure you had felt his metal arm when he held you, he was sure and he was dying. He wandered around the door while “watching” a movie waiting for you to arrive to your apartment. He was sure you knew, so he wanted to explain, at least that he had a metal arm, but he didn´t feel ready to tell you everything yet, or that´s what he tried convincing himself of.

You arrived three hours later. It was 5pm. He heard you walking and saying hi to Cleo (that was now allowed to be at the garden of the whole place, not just your small part). He walked to the kitchen, knowing he would bump into you there.

-Hey- you said with a wide smile as he opened the main door for you.

-Hi, I was just grabbing a snack when I heard you-

-Well, thank you-

-Listen, about my arm, I´m sorry if it made you uncomfortable when you hugged me before you left, I- You cut him off before he continued.

-Hey, your arm has never made me uncomfortable, you’ve been worried about this since I left?-

-Never? For how long have you known?-

-That you have a metal arm? Since I met you haha, it wasn´t hard to tell-

-But, it doesn´t make you uncomfortable? Why didn´t you as-

-Ask about it? It doesn´t make me uncomfortable, at all. And I didn´t ask because you didn´t tell me. If you want me to know, you´ll tell me, it you don´t I won´t invade your privacy-.

He seemed shocked at your words. It hurt you to think he had gone through anything that made him think his arm was unworthy of showing. He smiled, almost hurt. So you did what you had to. You hugged his waist with one arm, and with the other you held his left hand. You gazed at him, asking with your eyes for permission to remove his leather glove. When he nodded, you slowly lifted the material and intertwined you fingers with his metal ones. You then pressed your palm against his, reveling how small your hand was in comparison to his. He felt tears threatening to leave his eyes, but when he felt your head resting against his chest his mind wandered with thoughts. You trusted him enough to let him hold you, even though you knew about his metal arm, you had known about it since you met and it was never a problem for you.

You felt his other arm around your waist and turned to face him. He had a tender look in his eyes, like he was looking at the whole world. You smiled softly, released your fingers from his metal hand and grabbed his shirt, pulling him into your lips. He slowly surrounded you with both of his arms, and you tangled yours around his neck. You could feel him relax into your touch, and your stomach was meeting more butterflies than you had ever felt. Your breaths mixed perfectly, and you felt him smile widely into the kiss. You finally parted, reaching for air. You smiled again and he tenderly caressed your face with his left hand.

-I was about to go and watch a The Hobbit marathon, wanna watch it with me?-

-The Hobbit marathon? There are movies?! And more that one?!-

-There are three, you have NEVER watched them?!- Oh this was gonna be fun.

-I just read the book- He said with a smirk.

-Well, I read the book AND watched the movies, and now I´m curious to see if you´re a crazy fan that´ll hate the movies, or a crazy fan that´ll love them like me-.

-There´s only one way to find out-.

[tinyboxxtink]

“Return To Sender” *Part 5*

What what whaaaat? TWO chapters in one day?! Well, I had the day off and literally went nowhere, so I sat here and wrote. ALL day. Yup. So enjoy!

Also-- did anyone else catch the Pretty Woman rule? 😉

---

Tag List

@dumauier

@chasingeverybreakingwave

@word-scribbless

@wanniiieeee

@objection-argumentative

[Am I missing anyone?? Or does anyone wanna be added?]

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 6

Barba slammed you on the couch, wasting no time in getting to work. Your now ruined shirt was quickly coming off, the both of you grunting and moaning as he explored your body with his mouth.

Then his fingers found your thigh, and your mind went blank as they skated up, up, up. You shivered as he nipped your earlobe, your neck, his breath hot on your skin, you had to bite your lip to keep quiet.

One hand dipped to the small of your back, pulling your body flush against his as he nibbled on your ear. You surrendered a moan once his wandering hand found your underwear,  your fingers dug into his shoulders as he traced the dampened center seam. 

His lips trailed lower, lower, until your neck tilted back to the ceiling and gravity ceased to exist beyond his arms. Then you were flat on her back, his fingers tearing through the fabric of your panties, and you would have been angry if his hands weren’t slowly sliding them off and tossing them to the floor, all while tugging the cups of your bra down—Until he paused, his breath ghosting over your nipples. 

“Now say it,” he growled into your ear.

“Say what?” You moved your neck up a bit, to meet his eyes.

“Say I’m better at this,” He smirked.

“You haven’t even started, counselor,” you snorted. “Sex with my gay boyfriend was more exciting than this,” You did your best to keep a straight face as his breathy laugh against your nipples caused you to shiver.

“Gay boyfriend? Ay dios..THAT’S the only time you’ve had sex?” He laughed more, now playfully twisting your nipples.

“Carino...you might want to brace yourself,” He grinned devilishly, ripping off your bra and tossing it over the couch. He engulfed one of your breasts in his mouth as he shoved two fingers into your opening, making sure it was nice and wet for him. It was, of course. Hell it probably had been wet the moment he picked you up. 

“I love it when you’re wet for me,” He growled again, unbuckling his belt, releasing his erection. 

“Are you sure you’re ready for this?” His green eyes looked into yours with a devious stare.

“God could you be any more cocky…” you rolled your eyes.

“Oh, you mean cocky like THIS?” He thrusted into you roughly, causing you to gasp very audibly. 

“Do we need the pillows again, sweetheart?” He whispered, causing you to flash with rage and ecstasy at the same time. 

“No I think I can keep it down, honey,” You tried your best to be flippant but his dick against your walls was making it very difficult.

“We’ll see about that,” He began thrusting harder and harder, until you had to finally concede and grabbed a pillow, screaming into it wildly. 

“Ah, see? Good girl,” He panted against your ear, now moving his mouth down your neck. The pain of his teeth and the pressure of his hips was giving you sensations you never thought possible. 

"God you are so tight, it's like you're brand new Cariño," he purred into your ear, thrusting harder and massaging your breasts. 

"Ah... Barba…" You muttered.

"Rafa baby, I think you've earned the right to call me by my first name. Especially if you're screaming it," He chuckled.

"R-Rafa…" 

"Yes, Cariño?" You could hear the lust in his voice. 

"I'm….gonna…" you couldn't form words, there was no blood left in your brain. It was everywhere else. 

"You gonna come for me, detective?" He whispered, to which you nodded a huge YES. 

"Me too, you're so beautifully tight, we're going to come together, yeah?" 

You bit your lip and nodded another vigorous yes, as you let go. Your hips vibrated erratically against his, and you felt him twitching wildly. He pulled out quickly and unloaded on your stomach with a satisfied moan.

After a moment of enjoying the warm glow inside you, you were painfully aware of the cold liquid all over your stomach. You let out a disgusted groan. 

"Seriously?!" You hissed, but he was lost in his own orgasm. 

"You love it," he chuckled, not opening his eyes. That gave you an evil idea. 

"Really? Do you love this?" You swiped your fingers across your stomach and moved them towards him. He opened his eyes right before your fingers were on his face, he grabbed your hand and twisted it back towards your own face. 

"Ah ah ah, naughty girl. Now swallow," He commanded you, forcing your fingers into your mouth. You swallowed reluctantly, then got up and began to put your clothes back on. 

"And how was that, sweetie? Better than a gay boyfriend?" 

"Well at least he never ruined my clothes!" You griped, turning around as you held your broken shirt. 

"And how exactly do you expect me to walk out of here, papi?" you asked rather sassy, and hearing you speak spanish got him weirdly excited. 

"Mmmm…. that is a problem," he walked towards you, running his hands up and down your exposed stomach. He then seemed to have an idea-- he walked over to a closet next to his desk and opened it to reveal jackets, dress shirts, and ties. 

He pulled out a white dress shirt and motioned for you to turn around. You obeyed, and he put it on you. You turned back around and he helped you button it up, fixing the collar and rolling the sleeves up. 

"Mucho mejor," he gave you a half smile. When he spoke spanish it drove you wild-- but there's no way you'd let him know that. 

"You don't think me walking out of here in your shirt isn't gonna raise red flags?" You raised an eyebrow.

"Just walk out of here quickly, and don't ruin my shirt," he smiled again, pulling you closer--- and closer? 

His lips ALMOST touched yours, before he realized what he was doing and IMMEDIATELY pushed you back. 

"Ahem," he cleared his throat loudly. 

"That will be all, Ms. Y/N" 

Was he kidding with this bullshit?

"... Unbelievable." You said under your breath. 

"Yeah, alright counselor," you scoffed with a bitter laugh and walked out the door. 

What a dick!!!

------

“UGH! The NERVE of that…” You slammed your front door, causing Hunter to pop his head out of his room. 

“...Where’s your shirt?” 

“Oh, he gave me one to wear. AFTER HE RUINED MINE,” You huffed, sniffing the shirt unconsciously. It smelled like him, that made you miss him, and that pissed you off even more.

“He ruined it? Oh god did he…?” Hunter made a grossed out face.

“Oh no, he did that all over my stomach,” you rolled his eyes.

“So it wasn’t good then,” he leaned against the living room doorway.

“Oh...it was AMAZING,” You huffed, throwing down your things.

“Then why are you so pissed off?”

“BECAUSE IT WAS AMAZING!!!!” You were now pacing the apartment angrily.

“Did I miss something--”

“And And And AND THEN,” You laughed sarcastically. “And then he ALMOST kissed me on the mouth,” You scoffed. “AND THEN HAD THE AUDACITY TO GET MAD AT ME!!!” 

“Wait wait wait back up….” Hunter put up a hand.

“You two have had your mouths in each other’s business, but not in each other’s mouths?” 

“No, he has this stupid ‘no kissing on the mouth’ rule,” you rolled your eyes.

“Wha...Like Pretty Woman?” His question made you stop in your tracks.

“What do you mean, like Pretty Woman?” Your eyes narrowed.

“You’ve never seen Pretty Woman?”

“You’ve known me my ENTIRE life, Hunter! When have I ever had time to watch rom coms?”

“You have a point,” he chuckled. 

“Okay so Pretty Woman: Julia Roberts is a hooker who falls in love with Richard Gere after he hires her for a week,” he explained, and your blood began to boil. 

“And she has a rule: No kissing on the mouth, because it’s--”

“Too intimate,” you finished for him, and it was his turn to look shocked. 

“Did he actually say those words to you, boo?” 

“YES,” You threw your hands up and started pacing the apartment again.

“So I’m a hooker,” You growled. “I’m his fucking HOOKER?”

“I mean, technically he’s the hook--” he started.

“This isn’t funny!” you interrupted him.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry babe but-- there is a bright side,” 

“HOW is there a bright side?” You gave him an angry confused look.

“Well, you said he almost kissed you on the mouth, right?” 

“Yeah and then he FREAKED out about it and acted like I was the problem!”

“Well of COURSE he did, idiot. He’s falling for you and he doesn’t like it!!” He flicked your head.

“Oh please,” you rolled your eyes.

“LOOK,” he took you by your shoulders. “In the movie, when Julia Roberts starts falling in love with Richard Gere, they finally kiss on the mouth!”

“...I’m sorry, I can’t get past the ‘I’m a hooker’ thing,” you scoffed.

“Look you need to talk to him about this,” 

“And how do you expect me to do that, Hunter? You think he’s gonna call me back to his office NOW?” You threw up your hands.

“...He will if he wants his shirt back,” He smirked, gesturing to the shirt you still had on.

“And what am I supposed to say-- ‘Hey so I figured out your crazy rule is from a movie, and I think you’re falling in love with me’?” 

“I mean, not in those exact words,” 

“I can’t…” You started off towards your room.

“Where are you going?!”

“Somewhere NOT to think about this!” You called back, slamming your bedroom door.

“Jesus...it’s not like I came all over her stomach,” He rolled his eyes and went back to his room. 

---

You ripped off the shirt and tossed it across your room, falling back onto your bed and putting your hands over your face. Your eyes were stinging again, and this time you felt why. Hot, big tears were dripping down your face for the first time since-- you really couldn’t remember when. You REALLY didn’t do emotions.

But that bastard got under your skin. 

He made you cry.

HE MADE YOU CRY.

And he was gonna pay for it.

[naralanis]

Fic Writer Review!

Thanks @mssirey for the tag! I totally didn't have a crisis with the very last question, not at all bwhahaha

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

41, soon to be 42. ASJKLDBLAHSDSD how. And also why. But mostly, how.

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

565,934 EXCUSE ME WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK. I was going to check my unpublished works but ya know what. Maybe I've written enough akdjsa

3. How many fandoms have you written for?

Technically speaking, I've written and published fics for five fandoms. However, I only have one story for OUAT (and I have @shadowdianne to thank for that... or do I?) and one for Captain Marvel. Mirandy was my first love, Cissamione the second, and Supercorp has burrowed in my brain and just won't let go.

I've also technically written for Xena, Legend of Korra, and Criminal Minds, but since I never published those, we're going to pretend they don't exist!

4. Top 5 fics by kudos?

Only two are WIPs! YEAH! They're the top two, but WHO CARES, here they are:

1) Perhaps, aka my baby, my child, my darling, the apple of my eye. If I ever had to choose to finish only ONE of my WIPs, this would be the one. This story has grown with me, and I think you can tell when you read. Or maybe not!

2) For the Better. If the former is my baby, this one is like... my moody teenager. I love it dearly, but... it takes a lot out of me. An ode to one of the first fandoms I actively wrote for, it sits unfinished, but nearly, oh so nearly done. I will finish it, damn ittt.

3) The Date. Honestly, this one really surprised me -- it's one of my oldest one-shots, and something I definitely dashed off between lectures back in Scotland, maybe alternating with FtB chapters. It's one of my first attempts at humour, I think.

4) Bits and Pieces. AYY, I wasn't sure Supercorp would make the cut, WOOOT! This one was the second Supercorp fic I ever wrote, and I did it because Lena Is Baby and the idea just wouldn't leave my brain.

And lastly, the fabulous number 5... Perfect. AKA Nara's First (published) Explicit Fic, featuring Praise Kink and an Enchanted Dildo (for... reasons). I'm not gonna lie, I am so HAPPY this one made it, because it has a special place in my heart. It's where Soft Butch Hermione comes to life, and if you don't love Soft Butch Hermione, I'm sorry, we can't be friends. I love her.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why/why not?

Eeermmm... some? I do want to respond, but I'm terrible with keeping up with comments, I really am. For whatever reason, even when I do my best, I don't really love responding directly on AO3. I also turned off all email notifications for AO3 because turns out my brain WILL be distracted by even a single one.

I'm much more responsive on Tumblr, I promise!

6. A fic you've written with the angstiest ending:

Any of my Narlily works, I guess? Like... All Flowers Wither or Carry On.

Unshackled would be another one, though it's Cissamione... but I caved and made a happy(ish) second part for that one.

7. Do you write crossovers?

Nope! Crossovers just don't do it for me, generally speaking (reading or writing).

8. Ever received hate on a fic?

EvEr rEcEIvEd hAtE-- yes. Oh, yes. I've been told my writing is terrible, I've been told my stories were a 'waste of time,' or 'overhyped,' I've had people tell me there was only One Way to write a certain pairing and my way was definitely Not The Way.

The list goes on.

It used to really, really bother me--still does, but in a much smaller way. Delete/Block buttons are my friends.

9. Do you write smut?

I write an absurd amount of smut. I just don't publish any of it because. Fear.

My pretty, pretty pens have created some filthy, filthy things.

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

A couple of times -- only once or twice like, straight up attributed to someone else who acted like they were the one writing it. The other times were reposts or translations (without my permission, so still. stolen).

11. Ever had a fic translated?

I've authorized a couple of translations of a few of my DWP works. I'm usually cool with people translating my stuff IF THEY ASK ME FIRST and GIVE ME PROPER CREDIT.

9/10 it's some Brazilian who translates it to Portuguese without my permission and then gets upset when I, another Brazilian, do not endorse it and politely ask them to take the thing down. Thankfully it's been a while. ASK ME, DAMN IT.

12. Have you ever co-written a fic?

Nothing published bwhaha!

13. All-time favourite ship?

Right now SuperCorp is definitely barking a little louder, so to speak, but I don't really have one favourite overall. It depends on the fandom, sometimes! Cissamione is very dear to my heart, because it's just so fucking out there and literally every one in this ship has some of the most fascinating headcanons for this pairing and it's just. So wonderful.

14. WIP you want to finish, but don't think you ever will?

Eeeeuuughhh.... Right now? Probably The Appraisal. I forget what I wanted to do with it, I'm not sure if I'm still feeling the premise... IDK.

I think the same could be said of For the Better, but I PROMISED to finish it, and GOD DAMN IT, I am so close I can't throw in the towel just yet.

15. Writing strengths?

You want ME to say good things about MYSELF? I'm still learning how to do that asldkjbasdn it's a work in progress. But I think I'd say... maybe world-building, at least on my longer works?

I would also like to think I do pretty OK in... IDK, some of the punchy stuff? The 'oh wait a minute' moment? IDK if that makes sense!

16. Writing weaknesses?

Organizing. Plot (HAHA IKR). Consistency. Editing (which is rich from someone who literally edits shit for a living... but go figure). Pacing. Weirdly long sentences? Commas for DAYS.

I could go on.

17. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in a fic?

I am a-OK attempting it in French/Spanish/Portuguese. It may not sound natural, but it will be correct. If I'm trying another language, I'll definitely get help! But I've got no problem with it.

18. First fandom you ever wrote for?

Harry Potter, Dramione specifically, and you'll never find a shred of it. I was like 12, and almost a decade later I figured out Hermione was much better off with Draco's mother.

19. What's your fav fic you've written so far?

DON'T MAKE ME CHOOOSE asdkljasdl I CAAANNN'TTTT

I mean, obviously Perhaps is one of them -- it is my baby, that has been established. I think Little Bumps in the Road is also up there, because it was just a random writing exercise that got out of hand, and honestly? I'm here for it. Andddd.... I GUESS I'll put A Valentine's Evening up there as well, because it was the first time I didn't second guess every word I wrote when posting smut. I just... felt it, went for it, wrote it, and it felt really, really good to release some of that into the world lol

WHEW, this was a long one! I'll be tagging @intheinkpot, @shadowdianne, @delirious-comfort, and @16-pennies because I am a curious bastard. But, as always, feel free to treat this as an open tag. Go nuts!

[turtletimewriting]

The First Steps Into the Adventure (Patton partners with Janus)

Summary: well it would be no good telling you what happened!

Note: AAH! Okay, I can’t really believe how many people interacted with this! Thanks! Right, so this is still basic introduction stuff, I’ll admit. This is a bit clunky but I want to give as many chances for this to be interactive as possible. 

The decision will be presented at the end!

Once again, this is inspired by fluffomatic’s tickle forest idea!

Previous Part!

_._._

Patton screwed his face up in concentration, carefully evaluating them, before he lit up and pointed at Janus, “You’re on my team, JanJan!” 

“Well good luck on your journey, lover boy,” Janus taunted with a smirk as he walked to stand beside his team leader, Virgil quickly punched his hat down over his eyes as he scampered off as well. He was violently blushing as he approached Logan and he managed to give a friendly smile. 

“Great! Now just two more things to do!” Roman announced with an elaborate flourish.

“How much more to this is there!” Janus frowned to which Patton tweaked his side as a warning.

“Well if you wish to adventure blindly without your map and a hint, then that’s up to you!” Remus cackled as he chucked paper at them violently.

Logan frowned at their map, beyond it’s very apparent unprofessionalism, it seemed fairly straight forward. It was simply one long winding path to a large childishly scribbled ‘X’. He expected something a bit more detailed from a joint creativity project but maybe that was yet to be seen. “Is my map the same as Patton’s?” 

“Yeah, if it’s like a race thing then I’m out,” Virgil snarked.

“Nah, see your map goes down this left road and Patton’s goes to the right,” Remus answered.

“Ah I get it. Left brain goes left and right brain goes ri...” Logan mumbled off as both creativities looked at him blankly. He may as well be speaking Spanish... well if Roman didn’t speak Spanish. Maybe they weren’t quite on his level of genius. 

“Anyway!” Roman called out and magicked two sealed envelopes, “Now it wouldn’t be fair to just send you into this world without any warning. So we randomly selected two of our fantastical beasts... or one of our plants to inform you of.”

Logan perked up at that- maybe the detail would be in the inhabitants of this adventure rather than the adventure itself. Patton handed the envelope to Janus as he had a very bad habit of sucking badly at opening envelopes. Janus wordlessly and without even looking, hooked his finger under the flap and opened it in one swipe. 

“What is it!” Patton squealed.

“Give me a second,” Janus answered with a glare at Logan’s team. He hooked his arm over Patton to turn them so there was no way that Logan’s team could cheat and look at their sheet, “Also be quieter. I don’t know about you but I truly don’t care about winning this.”

It was a very short page from what looked like an encyclopaedia but the information was very limited and basic. Not that they would be complaining.  

A picture showed a huge ‘Little Shop of Horrors’-esque plant monster. Remus’ influence was pretty easy to see. Janus doubted Roman would ever want to create something like that, but he did smile as he recognised that Remus would never have the monster be this pretty looking. Clearly they were much better working as a team. The plant had gorgeous pristine white petals framing a pastel pink ‘face’. The page was titled ‘Motherbloom’. 

“A large flower that’s queen of the tickle forest. She pins down her target and lifts their shirt to deliver a long raspberry on the tummy. She also uses her vines to tickle at other areas. The leafy sacs around the base of the flower holds air she uses for raspberries. The white flowers on the bush carry an intense pollen. Scientists discovered that if this pollen is transferred to other plants, the plants offspring will become tickle plants.”

Patton released a squeal that only dogs could hear. “Patton!” Janus hissed as he tried to wrangle his team leader under control.

“Ah! Aren’t you super tickly to raspberries JanJan?” Patton launched into a hug and quickly pressed a small raspberry to his neck; which totally didn’t send Janus squealing himself. 

“Aw man, you guys got the motherbloom! May come in handy that,” Roman peered over their shoulders. 

“I thought you decided which ones we got?” Patton asked.

“No, it truly was random. We put everything we created into a list and used a number generator to chose which one everyone learned about.”

“Wow, that is... very thorough of you both,” Janus complimented. Roman blushed violently at the very small compliment and awkwardly shrugged it off. 

Logan opened the envelope with a summoned letter opener and quickly withdrew the page. He frowned as he realised this was probably ripped directly from some book. Virgil leaned on to his shoulder casually to peer at the page; therefore making his brain shortcircuit. How dare his boyfriend be so casually cute and affectionate. How was he supposed to work in these conditions. Virgil already looked quite beautiful on this day. Despite how rushed he was to get ready for what Roman and Remus planned, his makeup exaggerated his slightly sleepy eyes and of course his bright almost neon green and purple eyes looked as striking as ever. He was all bundled into his jumper just in case their adventure got too cold and he was mindlessly nuzzling into the front. He was... “Well this isn’t a whole lot to go off on?”

“Wha...” Logan perked up again and stared at the page. It was titled Tickler Jelly. 

“These jellies are attracted to pool toys and swim up to them. If a person is easily targetable, they will latch on and begin tickling the target with its four large feathers.”

It showed some very typical jelly fish with obvious feathery fluttering stingers near the centre with normal, presumably, non-stinging stingers that are used to latch on to the victims. It was pink and undeniably adorable so Logan concluded this was probably a Roman creation. But then again, jellyfish were quite intimidating animals so maybe Remus suggested the concept itself. 

Remus had walked over to them with a shrug, “Would you’ve rather we didn’t give you any information to go on?”

“Well no but we may not even go into water so really this isn’t any good!” Virgil frowned.

“And now you know what could be lurking in the water! I’d stop whining if I was you! This was totally random, I don’t control what you lot found out.”

“Right! Teams!” Roman teleported back on to the platform and stood on his throne, “I wish you the best of luck in your adventures. Your journeys will be long and treacherous. But you must keep in mind that your treasures are waiting for you. If you keep a sharp eye out, you may even find hints along the way to help unlock your treasure. May the best team get to the treasure quickest. Good luck teams!” 

Roman and Remus clapped dramatically and the whole stage puffed into a wave of technicoloured smoke. 

The same stage that everyone was standing on. 

They all fell to the floor with grumbled swears. Both teams awkwardly stared at the other before Janus leapt to his feet and dragged Patton down the path. Logan, seeing this, immediately pulled Virgil into his arms and sprinted down the dusty path ahead of them. The game was on.  

Patton and Janus raced ahead until they lost sight of the other team and settled quickly into a walk. “Right, so what do we need to do?” Janus asked, he figured he better play the game properly and actually pretend that Patton made a good team leader.

“Just follow this path. By the looks of it we have to follow this path which takes us into a wooded bit then across a river before getting to the treasure. Simple!” Patton chirped as he charged on ahead. 

The world was just as beautiful as any other the creativities had created before. Despite it being the evening, it was still a warm day with a gorgeous clear blue sky. There were a few streaks of bright white clouds and there was only enough wind to prettily rustle the leaves of the trees. It was beautiful. The path was taking them past a bit of a thicker grassy bit. Trees dotted along their path with thick bushes of ferns and dry yellow grass that stretched up to their waists. 

Janus frowned as he saw the path was still tilting around a section of trees. “Can I look at the map?”

“Sure.” Patton handed it over without any fuss. 

“Yeah, wait!” Janus pulled them to a stop and pointed to the path they were following on the map. The map clearly showed that the path they were following was awkwardly circling around the wooded bit. It would probably take double the amount of time to follow the path or just cut through the wooded bit. “We should just cut through this wooded bit. We’ll end up back on the path and probably cut off a good ten minutes.”

“Oh yeah!” Patton stared at the map before flicking up to look at the path, “but we have no idea what could be lurking in the forest ready to tickle tickle tickle us!” He was wiggling his fingers and curling up to Janus. To which he totally didn’t blush. Of course he got partnered up with the literal tickle monster.

“Yes but then again we have no idea what could be on the path. We seen some butterflies flying around, any one of them could be planning an... attack on us. I don’t think we’ll be in any more danger if we cut through. Plus, don’t you think it would be in Remus’ nature to punish us for following the boring predictable option?”

“Well, we should figure this out soon. The more time we stand here arguing, the more time we are wasting...” 

Meanwhile... with Logan’s team!

“Right. Now the most logical decision would be to analyse the map and decide which is the optimal route to travel. Knowing Patton, he will be following the map blindly,” Logan pulled Virgil to a stop and summoned a compass so to actually use the map effectively. 

“Yeah but he also has Janus with him. We have no idea what they could be doing,” Virgil awkwardly tried to conceal just how hard he was panting from the short run. Logan ignored him by examining the map and looking up for any identifying features. 

“Okay so by the looks of it, we can follow the path through the plain fields ahead of us. Or we can quickly jog over that hill and there will be a public garden.”

“Why would we go through a garden?” Virgil frowned and yoinked the map away from him. 

“Well right now we are at the mercy of whatever the twins have organised,” Logan stated.

“Yeah you don’t need to remind me. Us even standing still right now could be the opportunity this weird world is looking for. We could be standing in the middle of an ant hill for all we know!” Virgil whined but Logan pressed him into his side with a gentle smile.

“All good points. I’m just saying the field could contain anything for all we know while a flower garden would only contain flowers. Therefore we know to avoid loitering and interacting with the flowers and it could be a straightforward path forward. They both lead to the same place,” Logan reasoned as he guided them slowly forward. 

“Do you want to go through the garden?” 

“I think it’s worth considering. However, I could never outshine you in thoroughly considering our options. I’ll leave the decision up to-”

“Too much pressure!” Virgil laughed and burrowed into his chest. 

“Okay then,” Logan murmured, “we could continue through the field and face whatever they have planned. Or we go through a flower garden and know we have to face tic... plants. Hmm...”

And so the adventure has fully began!!

Should Patton and Janus:

A) Follow the path.

B) Cut through the wooded bit.

Should Logan and Virgil:

1) Go through the field.

2) Go through the flower garden. 

[nyaheum]

My yearly list of Eurovision songs after the first impression (I mean, for like, half of them. I heard snippets of some songs.). Judged on music videos, because...if I only listen to the songs on Spotify, my eyes get bored. :’)

(oh, and don’t talk to me about iceland’s placement, I know this might be unpopular)

X. Belarus

Fuck Belarus, all my homies hate Belarus. Not even going to grace them with a rating.

Norway (TIX – Fallen Angel)

...no. :( And it’s not even because Keiino didn’t win, I just wholeheartetly hate this song. And I’m kinda sorry to TIX, because he seems like a cool dude and his stage outfit is absolutely hilarious, but oh my god do I hate this song with an absolute burning passion.

Poland (RAFAL – The Ride)

eye emoji mouth emoji eye emoji – well, this is a non-qualifier if I’ve ever seen one. Can we just...skip this?

Belgium (Hooverphonic – The Wrong Place)

Nap time! This song annoys me. I cannot explain it, but it gives me a headache and my whole body is revolting against this song. I am not kidding. Objectively, I don’t even hate it, but there’s just something about it...that makes me go...hnghgng…

North Macedonia (Vasil – Here I Stand)

eye emoji mouth emoji eye emoji ver. 2 – I am not trying to sound mean, but does North Macedonia do any music that is not dramatic power ballads? I’m serious. (And I don’t like it, sorry. :((...except for the high notes, I like them. When he can hit them live.)

Estonia (Uku Suviste – The Lucky One)

This (the music video)...is soft porn. I am slightly scared of Uku. I don’t know why. But, uh...this is better than last year’s song? Still, it wouldn’t qualify under my watch, whoops.

Georgia (Tornike Kipiani – You)

He stopped yelling angrily at the microphone. :((( Nah, but this isn’t my thing. It’s great that they are doing their own thing, it’s just not really my thing...it also reminds me of a song I know, damn.

Austria (Vincent Bueno - Amen)

He looks like a german youtuber. I don’t know hich one, but he looks like one. I also canot tell if he’s 18 or 38, lol. (For some reason he also reminds me of Alex Albon, which is even weirder.)...oh, uh, the song? Idk, I don’t care for I. It’s fine.

Spain (Blas Cantó – Voy A Querdarme)

Confession: I’m probably the only person who actually doesn’t like the sound of Spanish all that much. Whoops. Apart from that though, I’m not the biggest fan of this song. Can’t really say more about that. Meh.

The Netherlands (Jeangu Macrooy – Birth Of A New Age)

Listen: I really like the tone of this voice. It’s great. I am not a fan of the song. There’s something just very off about the loud percussions (?) in the background that make me go absolutely crazy when listening to this. My sensory-overload-prone ears hate it, and I’m sorry...the part before the last chorus on the other hand I love. The whole song could have sounded like that and I would have loved it. (...and I can’t unhear “You are my broccoli – You know my broccoli!” ;-;)

Azerbaijan (Efendi – Mata Hari) Whenever I see Efendi, my brain still goes “Cleopatrrrrra!”, oof. This song sounds like a song I know. Which...is super unprecice, but I genuinely don’t know which one. I do like that they kept the weird pre-chorus thing from Cleopatra (and reference the song later on), but I must say that I liked Cleopatra more...but it’s a party song, so I think it will be fun on stage!

Romania (ROXEN - Amnesia)

I didn’t like her song last year, I don’t enjoy this all too much and I’m kinda sorry but also...I don’t want to apologize for my taste in music, lmao. I want her hair though. Give me her hair.

Denkmark (Fyr & Flamme – Ove Os Pa Hinanden)

Ring ding ding, native language bonus. This is also way more fun than I thought it would be, hah. VERY retro, but I don’t hate that? :D (this and sweden really aren’t any different in terms of how much I like them)

Portugal (The Black Mama – Love Is On My Side)

I can appreciate this. I just wish it was in Portuguese, honestly. I don’t really know if I like the English for this song. That being said, I don’t know if you can make these very specific tones (you know what I mean) in portuguese without it sounding super off, so…

Ireland (Lesley Roy – Maps)

Okay, you do you Ireland. :D

Israel (Eden Alene – Set Me Free)

This exists. :D

Cyprus (Elena Tsagrinou – El Diablo)

Cyprus came to party, and I can’t be mad at that. I just don’t know why everybody in the YouTube comments loves this SO MUCH that they are sure that it will win if it gets the jury votes. I don’t think it’s as good as Fuego or She Got Me were, but maybe I just have no taste in party music. I don’t party. (Only if you got a 2000s playlist and some iced tea.)

France (Barbara Pravi – Voilà)

FRANCE sending a BALLAD? In MY Eurovision? It’s more likely than you think. It’s good, objectively. Personally, I don’t really care for it all that much and feel like I already know it.

United Kingdom (Embers – James Newman)

A good, modern song? In my british eurovision song? What happened on the Isles over quarantine? Are you guys okay? Did you find yourself? Have you taken your last breath (breath!) and looked at your past results? I’m impressed enough to put this relatively high, wow.

Serbia (Hurricane – LOCO LOCO)

*adore delano voice* party! Oh, and native language bonus...for a party song! I’m...impressed, actually. I cannot decide wheter I prefer this or Hasta La Vista, but I think it’s this one? The flows smoother, if that means literally anything.

Bulgaria (VICTORIA – Growing Up Is Getting Old)

*shrugs* I think a lot of people will like this. And I get that. I think I even understand it...yeah. I didn’t like her song last year either. It’s just personal preference, I think. I just want to have fun during Eurovision, hah.

Finland (Blind Channel – Dark Side)

Finland: FUCK YOU!!! Germany: Fuck you. <3

That’s all I’ll say, we know how the Finnish are, this is not surprising, lmao. (And I’m one of those children that grew up on Rammstein, so I legally cannot dislike this.)

Croatia (Albina - Tick-Tock)

Tick-tock, can you hear me go tick-tock? My heart is like a clock, I'm steady like a rock-...oh wait, wrong tick-tock! Still, really enjoy this song’s chorus – I actually enjoy it so much that it makes up for the utter loss of interest I experience once it’s over, chrm.

Sweden (Tusse – Voices)

I mean...let’s be honest, it’s a generic swedish pop song. It sounds like every other Swedish entry, and I think that bothers me. I know, that sounds kind of...weird, looking at my choices higher up in the list, but...meh. I think this will easily qualify for the Final and place high, and I am totally okay with that. It’s just not...what I wanted, I guess? :D (and i’m sorry but as a german-speaker I cannot get over the name “tusse”) (oh, and tusse seems to be super cool)

Albania (Anxhela Peristeri - Karma)

Oh, we’re going to war in 130 A.D.? Fine, let me just pack my spear and- oh, Albania has already sent a singer? Ah, well, might as well give up and just vibe.

Czech Republic (Benny Cristo - omaga)

This sounds fun. Not a winner or anything, but fun. I’ll probably still be on Twitter when he’s performing, whoops.

Slovenia (Ana Sklic - Amen)

Wait, there’s TWO songs called Amen? And why do I actually kinda like this? Oh well, might as well just accept it. (Her voice though...mhmmhmhm…yes please)

Iceland (Dadi og Gagnamagnid – 10 Years)

We just vibin’. I liked Think About Things more, but I’m very much biased here...because I’ve known that song for a year now. But this is still very good, and very on brand. (And I understand like...half of the lyrics, but I am okay with that.)

Australia (Montaigne - Technicolour)

not australia flexing at all of europe that they can hold big gatherings! D: oh, but I like this way more than last years song. I feel like Montaigne can show her GREAT voice way better in this song. (Even though her outfit and the sound of the song reminds me of the UK song that had...a dude run on the stage. I can’t think of the word for it right now.)

Malta (Destiny – Je Me Casse)

Destiny’s voice is just….wow. This is very different than All My Love, but it’s fun. The topic of the lyrics kinda remind me of Toy, and I like that…..I don’t really like the music video (especially the dancers in the colorful dresses? idk), but I’ll just ignore that.

Germany (I Don’t Feel Hate - Germany)

Confession time: I actually actively enjoy this song. Everybod is shitting on it, but it’s FUN and it has a good message, and Jendrik seems like the nicest dude ever and...it doesn’t deserve all the hate it’s getting? It’s completely self-produced and just fun. Stop being mean. :(

(...also someone on youtube said “pewdiepie” and I can’t unsee that now so fuck you >:((...no, no I don’t feel hate, just rethink your life choices)

Moldova (Natalia Gordienko - SUGAR)

What in the “Eis.de ist in der Kiste” is this music video? And I thought I would absolutely hate this song, but I actually don’t mind it all that much. It’s actually fun. Oh no, I’m splipping, someone catch me, aaaaaahhhhh….(and that poor cake dude. Is this song about cannibalism? Does she want to eat him?)

San Marino (Senhit – Adrenalina)

Catch me hum the chorus of this song at least once a day...but honestly, without any malicious intent: what the actual FUCK san marino? This is so much better than Freaky, and even though I do not believe for one second that this will win, the simple outragiousness of bringing Flo Rida to Eurovision deserves attention. (Bringing someone like Flo Rida to ESC sounds more like Scandinavia/Bulgaria, doesn’t it?)

Russia (Manizha – Russian Woman)

Not gonna lie, I miss Little Big, but at least they are sending something that’s at least as weird. I love that. Russian Rap is cool as fuck anyway, so I’m fully here for this...but I’m glas this song doesn’t have a music video, this just has to be a live performance. (Oh, and another strong woman!)

Ukraine (Go_A – SHUM)

I’m SO glad Go_A are back. But, let me be completely honest: I know why they had to change the lyrics, but I still liked the first version better. BUT I feel like the new one will grow and me and it will climb one or two places, because the Instrumental just slaps SO HARD. (Makes me feel like putting on a Cybergoth outfit and start dancing at a German industrial park, lmao.)

Latvia (Samanta Tina – The Moon Is Rising)

Does this count as my guilty pleasure this year? I loved her song last year, and this sounds similar, so...I like this too. It sounds modern as fuck (well, for Europe, you know) and I can definitely...”vibe” with that. I genuinely really enjoy this, and I don’t know why. (Even though I prefer last years drop.) A lot of “strong, independent women”-songs this year, and I’m not complaining.

Switzerland (Gjon’s Tears – Tout l’Univers)

Just so we’re clear, this and Italy share the exact same spot. I just cannot compare them at all. Gjon’s voice just takes me hostage throughout this whole song and won’t let me go. And everything that isn’t english/is in the countries offical language immediately gets plus points from me. As if this song needed them anyway.

Lithuania (The Roop – Discoteque)

Aaaaaand...dance break! Good, I just love them so much, it’s not even funny anymore. And I’ve been singing this song randomly since it came out. I can’t stop. It has burned itself into my brain. Let’s dis-co-teque right at my home! *waves arms around with no sign of coordination*

(and does anyone else feel like he’s serhat, just with a different alignment? Like, they are both chaotic, but serhat is chaotic neutral and he’s either chaotic good or chaotic bad, it really depends on the way he looks at the camera)

Italy (Maneskin – Zitti E Buoni)

Italy delivers, as they do every year. Not only do I really like this song (it is very much my genre), THIS is an aesthetic I can get behind! Knowing Eurovision, I doubt it will win, but damn if it won’t be super fun! (I am so glad this won Sanremo, hah.)

[unintentionalgenius]

ok @ongreenergrasses tagged me to do this and that's how I know we're made for each other bc tagging me in things is my love language

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 20, but 13 of those shouldn't count because they're Sherlock and I am not that person anymore

2. What’s your total AO3 word count? ok I had hopes that there was some way to do this besides doing, you know, math. but. it's 169,674

3. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?  shockingly, #1 is Death and John Watson; or, Five Times John Watson Met Death and the One Time He Died at 615 kudos. If you'd asked me what was going to top this list I never in a million years would have said this one. I might have to re-read this now.

What I would have said actually comes in at #2, the (almost complete, dear g-d I'm so close) Come then, and be broken at 376 kudos.

#3 my beloved, my eldest daughter of a fic, Put Away Childish Things at 223.

#4 is astoundingly another Sherlock fic, this one creatively titled Five Times John Woke Up to Sherlock and One Time He Didn't (it's not bullying if it's past me I'm making fun of, right?).

#5 is a tie, with 60 kudos each, but they're part of the same series: A Great Man and Something Like Beginning, from my Sherlock kidfic (and incidentally how i met Hayls in the first place!).

I'm really committed to preserving my ~journey~ as a writer, but the outsized prevalence of Sherlock fic on my profile is making me question that decision. I feel like it's false advertising for who I am as a person now. 😅

4. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? I try to! It might not be in a timely fashion, and honestly sometimes I feel weird about it, but I do go through and answer a few at a time when I have a few minutes.

5. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending? I refuse to re-read the Sherlock fic just to confirm, but I think Childish Things wins by a landslide anyway. Fic where John or Sherlock died was a dime a dozen back in the day whereas "[a genderswapped] stiles helps peter kill her best friend" is still a very particular, unique twist of the knife.

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending? this is probably going to be that Sherlock kidfic verse!

7. Do you write crossovers? If so what’s the craziest one you’ve written? I absolutely do not write crossovers. No offense to anyone who does, but I simply do not understand the appeal.

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic? It was less about the fic and more about the fact that I pointed out 911 has some copaganda elements via a fic's tags, but yes.

9. Do you write smut? If so what kind? I now, as of literally the most recent chapter of the most recent work I posted, have to admit that I do technically write smut. It's super cerebral, feely smut, but you do read two people having sex, so like. guilty.

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen? I don't think I have written any fics worth stealing but if it's happened I don't know about it

11. Have you ever had a fic translated? nope!

12. Have you ever co-written a fic before? nope! I have co-written things in Real Life and I honestly don't think I have anyone that I would want to write fic with like that. HOWEVER I do have a beloved sounding board in @ragequilt

13. What’s your all time favorite ship? i literally cannot answer this, there is no way I can say decisively

14. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will? I had this fic from when the first of the new star wars movies came out where everyone thinks poe is dead, so finn has to become a person on his own, essentially, rather than being taught/hand-held by poe which I felt like I was seeing a lot in fic. The whole thing was epistolary, a diary that finn's therapist had him start keeping, which he then started writing to Poe. That's pretty firmly abandoned at this point, but it still haunts me and I wish I had finished it.

15. What are your writing strengths? Hayls once told me I'm really good at dialogue, and I actually think that's true. I'm also pretty good at atmosphere, I think, though no one has ever said exactly that. I do think I'm good at characterization, and that for me is really tied to how I do dialogue. I would honestly accept any commentary anyone wants to offer on the subject, though

16. What are your writing weaknesses? PLOT. not like, emotional arcs or a character's journey or whatever but. the ticky little nuts and bolts of how we get from a to z, especially when it requires a tight plot of external action. I always think about myself as (to quote @ragequilt here) someone who writes hurt/comfort, not casefic, and this is why. I'm rarely interested in writing the finer details of a mystery or an extravagant plot full of courtly intrigue. I'm probably bad at other things, too, but this is the one that stands out like a glaring neon sign to me.

17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic? I think in almost every case it's not necessary UNLESS it's being done for effect - that is, if I intentionally want the reader not to know what's said. Otherwise, I'm just going to put the switch to french/spanish/hebrew/arabic/mandarin in the narration. One exception to this for me, which is really just a sub-clause under the "only for effect" rule, is when I'm writing canonically bilingual characters who would employ words or phrases in both their languages in the same sentence. Some of this is characterization - Eddie Diaz speaks Spanish or Spanglish around his family; someone writing me wouldn't be writing me properly if they didn't write the Hebrew/Yiddish/English patois that I speak in Jewish spaces. I don't want my writing to read like the over-translated subtitles you sometimes see where loan words are translated, thereby rendering the subtitles actually less intelligible. It's a delicate balance and I wouldn't guarantee I get it write all the time, especially when it comes to not othering a character I'm writing. (also @ hayls I am one of those people who always/almost always says Hashem instead of g-d 😂 for me it's a way of making sure people don't think I'm talking about Christian God™️) You will notice, though, that I do have a tipping point implicitly delineated here - if someone is speaking another language for whole sentences, I'm just going to put that in the narration; single words or phrases will be written as spoken.

18. What was the first fandom you wrote for? Sherlock (womp womp)

19. What’s a fandom/ship you haven’t written for yet but want to? I've never written Destiel fic, and while at this point you might be wondering what on earth there is left to say via fic about that pairing, I have a lil thing bubbling around in my brain about bodily autonomy vs. trauma vs. helping someone not suffer from their trauma while violating whatever the brain equivalent is of bodily autonomy.

20. What’s your favorite fic you’ve written? whyyyy would you ask someone this, it's like asking someone to pick a favorite child. the answer will change tomorrow, but right now I think it's the still-WIP sequel to Childish Things, A Twisted Thing Cannot Be Made Straight. It's got fun witchy!Stiles, buckets of angst but also lots of fun pack shenanigans in flashbacks, lots of me working out my own feelings about childbirth and raising children, ambiguous relationships, belated grappling with trauma, and also a satisfyingly bloody climax. There are some scenes there that still give me chills to read, and I wrote them.

@ragequilt I want to see yours!

[mrsmaddiebobaddie]

MCYT High School Teacher AU

I don’t know if this has already been done but with student teaching on the brain this was invading my subconscious.

Phil: Principal

The most chill admin you’d ever find (He kind of has to be with the staff at the school)

Will let most things slide if you ask nicely

Has a quiet space in his office for students to take a moment to calm down after acting out. He’ll offer them candy and talk through the situation with them. 

Started out as a counselor at the school, so he still holds a similar mentality when it come to talking with students and staff. 

Always takes the side of his staff. The district is usually in the wrong anyway.

He knows the teachers are the experts, screw whatever requirements the state has, he lets them run their classrooms whichever way is best for the students’ learning

Technoblade:  Literature & Composition

One of the most engaging teachers at the school

Most students love him because he’s real and he’ll tell it like it is. 

Has a coffee machine in his room. It’s rare that he’s not holding a mug in his hand while he teaches

Has high expectations for his students

Rarely gets angry. Even when he’s upset he still comes across as calm.

Usually stays at the school late making sure to give the best possible feedback on papers and reports. He genuinely wants each kid to learn something from his class.

Tommy: Speech and Debate

It’s only his second year of teaching

The students would run the classroom if not for Tommy basically being a student himself

There’s a strong chance his class will be off topic at any given point. It’s always an adventure walking past his door, you never know what you’ll hear

Somehow still gets high scores on average from his students

Keeps students after class when he notices them struggling with school or life in general to talk with them. The conversations are always beneficial.

Will 100% fall asleep during professional development meetings.

Karl: Biology

Tries to act hip, fails most of the time.

Always has the most energy in his lessons, finds unique ways to teach the concepts other than slides and worksheets.

Usually the first one in the building each morning

Will give students different options for final projects so they can chose the best method of showing their evidence of learning. 

Gets lower scores than he should on observations because he doesn’t do well under the pressure. One year Phil didn’t announce when he’d be coming in and watched from the door to give a more accurate review. 

Wears a sweatshirt to class more often than he should

Quackity: Spanish 

Hands on learning whenever possible

Uses the home ec. room to make authentic Mexican dishes with his students when they cover the food and restaurant unit

Will just forget that the kids don’t speak Spanish fluently and ramble on until someone interrupts him.

Slow grader, you get your scores when you get them.

Known to be a bit chaotic with his teaching style, it works for some kids but he does need to reteach certain sections every now and then

One time a kid feel asleep in his class so he had all the other students leave and they had class outside to freak the kid out (They were right outside the classroom window, he could still see the sleeper, he told Phil)

Skeppy: Algebra

Like’s his job, pretty much your average teacher

Can’t stand freshmen, but tolerates them since that’s half the students he has. He prefers teaching advanced algebra to upper classmen

His lessons are always formatted the same, starting with a lesson on how to do that days math, with the remainder of the period being free work time

Holds math challenges with his class and gives out prizes. It’s usually candy, though one time he gave out cash. He made his kids promise not to say a word about it. 

Very good at teaching the same math concepts in different ways to help struggling learners

Always one minute away from being late for first period, but makes it just in time every morning.

Dream: Health/Football and Assistant Basketball Coach

Took the teaching job mainly to coach sports

Still cares about making connections with his students, he uses his class to teach life skills and promote positive social and mental health.

If any of his players are in his class he will pick on them. He has no mercy.

Dreads sex education because no one can be mature about it. He gets revenge by making the students film a “how to say no to sex” video with someone in the class.

His wheeze laugh is iconic. You can hear it from down the hall.

If you meet with him and are honest when you’re struggling, he’ll work with you to pass his class. He isn’t going to ruin your GPA over a project on the negative effects of smoking.

Wilbur: History & Geography/Theater 

The teacher who sits on his desk when he lectures

Is very sarcastic with his students, but knows who can take the teasing and makes sure not to make anyone feel uncomfortable.

Prefers class discussion over solo work time, he likes hearing student’s perspectives and ideas.

Turtlenecks

One of the teachers most likely to be the crush of teenage girls. 

Not afraid to mark you down for sloppy work. You use a black ink pen and draw precise lines when turning in maps and graphs or you redo it.

Speaks in musical references 

George: Physics

The chillest teacher by far

Due dates? Don’t worry, he’ll accept an assignment literally months after it was supposed to be turned in

Makes difficult topics seems simple when he describes them

He doesn’t really care if you have your phone out in class as long as you’re paying attention and learning the material

The students straight up call him George, he doesn’t seem to care

Placing near the top for the most crushed on teacher

King of multiple choice questions

Eret: Economics & Government

Makes any student in his class feel welcome

One of few teachers who can lecture the entire period without students falling asleep. He always has interesting stories

Let’s kids chose where they sit

Freshmen are always caught off guard by his voice when they hear him for the first time

Spends too much of his own money on supplies for his students and classroom (Honestly most teachers have to spend their own money on necessary supplies, he just goes about and beyond.)

There’s always a group of students who eat lunch in his classroom 

The Union Rep at their school, will fight tooth and nail for the staff members

Tubbo: Band Director

Super cheerful whenever he’s teaching

He rarely has any free time before or after school because he has so many one-on-one lessons and meetings with students

Likes to have practice outside when the weather is nice

Does his best to make his students feel comfortable and relaxed whenever he does performance based assessments. 

He’s also a new teacher, but you honestly wouldn’t be able to tell

He will be in tik toks if you ask him to, and he’s familiar with all the pop culture trends

Let’s the students chose a song to play at the last band concert. Some years have been less chaotic than others, the worst (or best, depending on who you ask) being when the students voted to play Deja Vu from Initial D.

Fundy: Computer Science/Coding 

Begins each class with a cheesy computer joke. Every class.

Everyone knows you can’t get anything past him technology wise. He can see that headphone in your ear from across the room.

Isn’t afraid to assign extra work when students are disrupting class

Once took up an entire class period showing his students how he coded different difficulties in Minecraft. He wasn’t ashamed to admit that he plays the game in his spare time. 

About half the students in his class aren’t really interested in computers, they just want to have him as a teacher since everyone says he’s cool.

Known to hack school computers to bypass restrictions

Sucker for pizza parties. Has at least one per semester  

Sapnap: PE/Basketball Coach

Hella competitive 

Abuses his power of having a whistle. Someone should really take it away from him

Gyms shorts every day. Even in the winter. Sometimes he wears sweats, but never jeans.

Doesn’t let anyone sit out of activities

Tries to set up fun tournaments for each activity they do, makes sure to balance the teams so no one has too much of an upper hand.

He’s usually the teacher who mans detention, he tries to make it as positive as it can be though.

Keeps extra sets of gym clothes to give to students who forgot or can’t afford to buy them

Schlatt: Calculus and Stats/Business  

You either love him or are terrified of him

One of the only teachers who can have an “aggressive” teaching style and still connect with students

You will learn something from his class, he makes sure of it. 

Doesn’t accept late work unless you have a really good reason why you couldn’t turn it in

Wears a tie every day

If another teacher needs a last minute sub during his prep period he’ll cover them. Doesn’t matter what subject, he can wing it

He was the reason the school started offering business studies as an elective due to some vague threats towards the district

Niki: Art/German

Teaching voice is so soft

You can’t tell whether or not she’s giving you constructive criticism because everything she says sounds so positive 

Let’s her students lead learning for the most part, she will cover topics that most interest them while still trying to hit the district required standards (luckily teaching electives gives her a bit more freedom with her curriculum)

Her classroom always smells lovely

Will bring in homemade goodies each Friday for the staff room

Holds art galleries at the end of each semester to show off the arts since they often go unappreciated. It has turned out to be a super popular event for students and staff.

Bad: Special Education

This man has endless patience. It’s crazy

Even after the longest days when none of the students are cooperating, he still has a smile on his face

If he hears cursing in the halls he will call you out in front of everyone. Teachers included. 

Makes sure to keep a list of all his students favorites so he can surprise them with gifts on their birthdays or around holidays

He works closely with the other teachers to make sure his kids can be as involved in general education as possible.

Always wears something fun, be it a tie, socks, shirt, or even a full outfit. His students love seeing what new wacky garment he’ll be wearing that day. 

More Head Cannons

If someone brings food for the staff room Tommy WILL take it. Sometimes he’ll come back for seconds, there will be none left by the end of the day. He’s not as bad as Skeppy though, who will literally pack it up to take home for later.

For the past few months the staff members have been receiving anonymous email chains with photoshopped pictures of each other. Everyone was sure Fundy was behind it, Eret thought he saw him teaching his students how to use the program by editing their favorite teachers into stupid situations (they’ve all been school appropriate of course). Fundy did in fact start it, but now so many other teachers have joined in that it can’t be traced back to one person anymore.

All the teachers love going to sporting events. They’ll join in with the student section to cheer on the teams. If they know there’s a kid who doesn’t have family that will come to watch them they’ll make shirts with that players number to show support for them.

Wilbur, Niki, and Tubbo work together on musicals. Niki does the sets and costuming, Wilbur directs, and Tubbo leads the pit. There are plenty of long nights during tech week that devolve into chaos (especially when Niki isn’t there)

Spirit week is very intense, to say the least. The teachers are assigned a grade to be advisors to, and they get into it. For the duration of the week they practically become rivals with whoever isn’t in their assigned grade. They’ll pull pranks on each other constantly, especially when the students can see. It’s all playful of course, but it gets the kids more excited about spirit week when they can support their teachers and watch the amicable rivalries carry out.

Technoblade once joked that he knew every detail about every classic novel. His students took this as a challenge, and tried to find the most obscure and specific trivia questions they could ask him. He has yet to be stumped.

Dream and Sapnap had a running streak of about four weeks where they made everything into a competition. Who could enter their grades into the computer fastest? How many cups of coffee did they drink that day? Who got to school first that morning? There was a tally board in the staff room and the teachers had a betting pool going. Phil finally ended it when they accidently broke the school’s copier trying to see who could scan the most documents in five minutes. Dream was ahead by three points, Sapnap never lived it down.

In service days are incredibly boring, so the staff tries to make those days a bit more entertaining. They order in pizza or sandwiches for lunch. Since there aren’t any kids in the school they’ll do everything they’re no supposed to, like racing office chairs down the hallways and blasting non-school-appropriate music in their classrooms.

Wilbur accidentally started a black market of sorts when he took all the new whiteboard pens from the supply closest. He used this to his advantage, getting people to do him favors in return for the good supplies. When Dream found out he not-so-jokingly threatened to slowly steal everything from Wilbur’s classroom until he released the pens. The next day the closet was replenished once more

Quackity and Tommy are co-emcees for the school assemblies. They hold class competitions between the grades, including spirit chants and ridiculous games. Think minute to win it style, but way crazier. Everyone gets super into it, the upperclassmen usually win. The two have good chemistry and a fun energy.

George has a unit where students make bottle rockets and launch them outside on the soccer field. And every year Karl brings his class out to watch claiming that “it’s science, I teach science, I’ll have them write a paragraph about what they learned”. Really he just wants to watch rockets go brrr

For Schlatt’s birthday one year, Wilbur and Techno printed off shirts with his face on it for all the staff to wear. Schlatt was super confused when he came into work and all his colleagues were walking around with his face plastered across their chest. He got back at Wilbur for it by putting salt in his coffee for a week straight, but Techno never got his comeuppance. It’s debatable whether Schlatt just didn’t know he was in on it, or if he knew better than to mess with Techno.

Lesson planning and curriculum building is quite the process. Some departments can stay on task better than others. Schlatt and Skeppy get in, plan out the term, and get out. The math department has everything on lock. Social studies are also pretty good at getting pre-planning done. They tend to spend most of their time having discussions that aren’t necessarily related to the tasks at hand though. The English department is a mess. It’s really Tommy who’s a mess, he just projects that onto everyone else. Karl and George work well together to map out science curriculum. Even though teachers who teach electives aren’t required to collaborate with each other, they still get together and bounce ideas off each other and get feedback.

I have plenty more if people want a second part. I also only listed the MCYTs that I’ve watched enough to know their personalities at least a little bit, but if you wanted to see another person I may expand the staff list!

[johannesviii]

Top 10 Personal Favorite Hit Songs from 2020

You know, when I finished my latest list and realised every decade had the same pattern and that we were slowly going towards a series of great years for pop, I didn’t realise how good that year would be.

What’s at the top? Am I boringly predictable because I already said I loved that song all the way back in January 2020? Let’s find out.

Disclaimers:

Keep in mind I’m using both the year-end top 100 lists from the US and from France while making these top 10 things. There’s songs in English that charted in my country way higher than they did in their home countries, or even earlier or later, so that might get surprising at times.

Of course there will probably be stuff in French somewhere on this post. We suck. I know. It’s my list. Deal with it.

My musical tastes have always been terrible and I’m not a critic, just a listener and an idiot.

I have sound to color synesthesia which justifies nothing but might explain why I have trouble describing some songs in other terms than visual ones.

So. Uh. How was your 2020?

Mine was actually surprisingly good, considering. I’m lucky enough to have a job that I can partially do from home, and I was extremely paranoid from the get-go and nobody got sick under this roof so far. Turns out I’m even better at my job from home and I got permission to work from home one day per week even after the health crisis is over! My first name was also finally officially approved and I can’t tell you how happy I feel about that. I almost feel bad to have had such a good year considering the circumstances. I feel like an asshole just because I’m happy, haha.

The only frustrating part was that I was supposed to see Hatari in concert in Paris in early April which, as you can guess, was cancelled. I’m not too mad about it though, since their tour was called “Europe will crumble” and the message saying the tour was cancelled started with “since Europe is actually crumbling due to Covid-19″ and that’s hysterical.

Good or interesting albums that came out in 2020 now, let’s see.

Nightwish released Human/Nature, which was a huge letdown compared to their previous album, but I will relisten to it at some point to make sure I wasn’t just in a bad mood that day.

The Birthday Massacre released Diamonds, which might be their weakest album since their debut, but contained some real gems (I listened to The Last Goodbye on a loop, it floored me. Flashback and Enter are also very good).

The 1975 released Notes On A Conditional Form, and let’s be real, it’s a f█cking mess. You could cut half the tracks and end up with an excellent album, but as it is it’s like, yes, a collection of notes ; however there’s some truely excellent shit on it (see unelligible songs).

Thanks to a friend on a discord server I was exposed to Dorian Electra’s music and I haven’t been quite the same ever since. I’m so happy to be alive to see other enbies making such great music with an insanely good aesthetic surrounding it and asking so many interesting questions about gender. Also the arc the ‘gentleman’ character goes through over the course of the entire tracklist of the 2020 My Agenda album is absolutely hilarious, don’t @ me.

I also discovered 100 Gecs this year. Why are most of you guys saying it’s unlistenable garbage. It’s just as abrasive and over the top as industrial music is, but with none of the edginess or drama. I love it. What the hell. But yeah Tree of Clues was released this year. Good.

Speaking of industrial, in March 2020 Nine Inch Nails were like “hey remember when we released Ghosts I-IV a decade ago entirely for free and how amazing that was? Well we’re all in lockdown and bored as hell so here’s Ghosts V-VI and it’s also free. Enjoy” and I f█cking died instantly. And it’s even better than I-IV. What the hell was that year

Jonsi released Shiver. It’s strange and highly experimental. I’m pretty sure it’s a good thing I was into hyperpop this year, otherwise going from his previous material straight to this album would have been brutal.

Yadda yadda yadda After Hours by the Weeknd good yadda yadda.

I’ve joked about that already but if you had told me in 2019 that 2020 would have fires, a pandemic, riots, monoliths appearing and disappearing, and also a super good Machine Gun Kelly album, guess which part I would have found the most ridiculous. But yeah uh. Tickets to my Downfall good

So uh this year I tried to listen to some hyperpop and liked it a lot, and I also dipped my toes timidly into screamo and listened to Svalbard, who released When I Die this year, and the entire album was a very beautiful, very intricately decorated punch to the face. It sounds like God Is An Astronaut except with a shit ton of yelling. I love it. Open Wound is my favorite track on it.

But no, despite all of this, my album of the year was from a band I had never even heard about before that year, called Spanish Love Songs. The album is titled Brave Faces Everyone and it’s line after line after line of extremely relatable generational angst but yelled with complete sincerity and it’s so propulsive and energetic you can’t help but feel both exhausted and ready to fight the entire universe. I don’t know how it works, but it’s incredible. The entire album is wonderfully brutal, so it’s kind of difficult to pick my favorite songs on it, but Beachfront Property and the title track stand out.

Unelligible songs, now, and there’s, uh, quite a few of them too so I’m also gonna use bullet points. Good lord this post is gonna be long.

First, let me say I have literally no idea why Midnight Sky by Miley Cyrus wasn’t a bigger hit. It’s not on the year-end US top 100 and it feels extremely wrong. Would have made it to #4 on this list otherwise.

I still entertain the vague hope that stuff from Machine Gun Kelly will chart higher in 2021 but I doubt it will happen so I might as well tackle it now and say that Bloody Valentine and especially Forget Me Too are both excellent and that it’s a shame radios aren’t playing them more often.

Heaven by the late Avicii featuring Coldplay should have charted in 2019 and still didn’t chart in 2020 and that’s a real shame.

If the world was a bit less unfair, Lovesick Girls by Blackpink would have been a hit rather than the awful Ice Cream.

One day I will stop complaining about my bafflement concerning the lack of mainstream pop charts success of The 1975. Today is not that day. I just love how they keep making songs about extremely awkward relationships full of weird details, and I haven’t grown tired of that yet. So yeah If You’re Too Shy is about a guy who’s crush is asking him to get naked on Skype in his hotel room and he’s, uh, not too sure about that idea.

And Me & You Together is about a guy who never finds the right moment to tell his best friend he’s in love with her, and he manages to do so at the end and it’s cute as hell. My fave part is “I'm sorry that I'm kinda queer / It's not as weird as it appears / It's 'cause my body doesn't stop me (Stop me) / Oh, it's okay, lots of people think I'm gay / But we're friends, so it's cool, why would it not be?”. Relatable as f█ck.

And now for an international hit that should have been bigger in the US and/or in my country but wasn’t: Head & Heart by Joel Corry and MNEK.

I’ve heard Nos Célébrations by Indochine extremely often on French radio for months now so I was very surprised to see that it didn’t crack the local year-end list. What happened.

I can finally hear the appeal of Bring Me The Horizon. It took me ages. And also Death Stranding. The song Ludens isn’t in the game per say, but it’s among the ones you can pick to broadcast briefly when people drive by your constructions, and long story short it's been living rent-free in my head for months now.

Phew.

It’s time for a round of Honorable Mentions for elligible songs, containing a couple of guilty pleasures, which is saying something considering the kind of shit I put on some of my previous lists.

Ne Reviens Pas (Gradur et Heuss l’Enfoiré) - Heuss is a French artist that kept baffling me while making my lists for the previous years, and I was like “??? ok, that’s it then, I guess I’m getting too old to get what teenagers find funny”. This one worked for me, though. And the music video doesn’t hurt. Really dumb and really fun.

Adore You (Harry Styles) - Perfectly good little pop song, very pleasant to listen to, never outstayed its welcome for me.

Mood (24kGoldn) - This doesn’t sound like a very good relationship, my dude, but that’s still a super pleasant song.

WAP (Cardi B & Megan Thee Stallion) - This song is absolutely hilarious and I will hear no argument from any of you.

Control (Zoe Wees) - Was clearly a hit here. Should have been even bigger though. What a powerful but comfy voice. If I had better taste it would be on the list.

Hot Girl Bummer (Blackbear) - I. Uh. Listen. I keep saying I have bad taste and nobody believes me. Do you believe me now. But yeah. “F█ck you, and you, and you~, I hate your friends and they hate me too” is gonna pop in my head every single time someone is being a jerk anywhere near me now. It’s been happening all year already. Someone trashed my documents at work? Someone isn’t wearing a mask in public? That guy has filled his car with rolls of toilet paper? Brain goes “F█ck you, and you, and you~”. Every. Single. Time.

Come & Go (Juice WRLD & Marshmello ) - Damn, that’s a pretty good little song. I’ve seen plenty of people saying it’s ruined by the drop, but may I remind you I’m the person who loves Blue by Eiffel 65 with all my heart. If the song was ramping up consistently until the end instead of ending like that, it would have made the list, definitely.

And now, the actual list. This one actually feels pretty solid, I genuinely like everything on it, there’s no filler here for once.

10 - The Box (Roddy Rich)

US: #3 / FR: #23

Now this is a weird case, because for the longest time I couldn’t figure out why this song was so popular and I was completely neutral about it. Then, one morning in September, my mental jukebox (which always, always puts a song on a loop in my head when I wake up) decided to play it. And I was like oh wow?? I never noticed the atmosphere in that song before? It’s so great. And that hook too. Let’s listen to it.

So yeah, I don’t know what happened. It just clicked one day and everything fell into place, I guess.

9 - Alane (Wes & Robin Shulz)

US: Not on the list / FR: #93

Come on. You can’t do a remake of one of my previous #1 songs and let it chart in 2020. That’s cheating. Even with this subpar drop, I have to put it on the list, now.

I’ve already said my piece about the original, so I’m just going to send you back to my 1997 list.

8 - Kings and Queens (Ava Max)

US: Not on the list / FR: #76

[BBC documentary voice] After Lady Gaga decided to make piano balads and left her musical niche vacant, Ava Max quickly took her place as the top predator pop diva. Even after Lady Gaga was re-introduced to her natural habitat in 2020, she still hasn’t fully recovered in Europe, where Ava Max still reigns supreme on the charts -

(tldr I think it’s hilarious that this isn’t on the US Billboard while Lady Gaga isn’t on the French year-end top 100)

7 - Roses (Saint Jhn & Imanbek)

US: #19 / FR: #3

What an earworm. It doesn’t even bother trying to have an intro or an outro, so it loops almost perfectly. It’s like entering a party that started long before you arrived, and it will go on long after you leave it to go back home. Kind of hypnotic in a way.

And yes, my mental jukebox was very fond of using it to wake me up this year, so this is another song that’s here almost solely because of that.

6 - Physical (Dua Lipa)

US: Not on the list / FR: #69 (hehehe)

“Hey I’m not that old” says the guy who’s definitely a sucker for this kind of retro throwback that was so popular this year. Oh well.

I don’t have anything interesting to say about this one, though. Apart from the fact that everyone seems to have a different fave song on that album. Guess that’s quality for you.

5 - Rain on Me (Lady Gaga & Ariana Grande)

US: #48 / FR: Not on the list

That is far from being Lady Gaga’s best song, but it was a joy to listen to everytime it was on the radio anyway. Also Ariana Grande has surprisingly good chemistry with Gaga! This year was full of strange duets mostly made for commercial reasons, and this one isn’t an exception, but unlike a lot of them, it really, really works.

4 - Dynamite (BTS)

US: #38 / FR: Not on the list

I’m still not 100% sold on k-pop even if a ton of it sounds super good, but come on. Even if some bits of this song (especially the beginning of the second chorus) sound a bit like they were made on autopilot, it still sounds just as happy and fun several months after I first heard it and I never got tired of it. That’s quality. You hear it and you can’t help but tap your feet and smile.

Actually, I’m sure there’s people somewhere that don’t smile when they hear this song. And they must be avoided at all costs.

3 - Godzilla (Eminem ft Juice WRLD)

US: #62 / FR: Not on the list

What are you doing so high on this list, old man. Why are you still here in the year 2020. I thought we left you in the previous decade. Who gave you the right.

I’m gonna tell you who did, and it’s actually Juice WRLD. Because that chorus is incredible, and like a lot of people I’m pissed off because the guy died super young and this shit shouldn’t happen to anybody. No, his early material wasn’t great, but I’m sorry I’m gonna say it again: have you heard this damn chorus? It’s suspenseful and dark, it’s got this lowkey menacing quality, it’s an earworm and a half, and it’s more convincing in like six lines than Eminem’s own flexing is in the entire song.

The beat is extremely good as well, and the flow, obviously, impressive. The weakest link is Eminem’s writing, which is as usual full of puns and weird wordplay, except here a lot of it isn’t great, and that last ultra fast part at the end is technically impressive but it also drives the song up a cliff and stops it dead in its tracks once it’s over. But frankly the lines fly by so fast it’s difficult to be too annoyed by them.

Can I sincerely put this extremely flawed song so high on my list? A better question would be “did I spend hours trying to learn how to sing this shit without choking on my own spit?”. The answer is yes. To both.

2 - Heartless (The Weeknd)

US: #28 / FR: Not on the list

I’ve said it on my 2015 and 2016 lists already, but just for the record I’ll say it again: it took me ages to like The Weeknd, mostly because I found most of his songs fairly boring, or disliked the lyrics, or both. Also I never really liked the general vibe of his “sexy” songs like The Hills, they felt dark but in an unpleasant creepy way. Felt like miserable hedonism, if that makes sense.

So, because I’m a person with extremely consistent and logical tastes, here’s the exact same shit he was making before, except that this time I absolutely adore it.

What is he doing differently that makes the whole After Hours album click for me whereas almost all of his previous material failed to do so? Is it the energy? Is it the reverb? Is it the fact that the narrator sounds properly unhinged and, frankly, scared to be spiralling out of control? Why are the colors so beautiful yet full of anxiety? Why is that bridge so fantastic? How can you make your voice look like a glowstick in the dark?

I give up. I have no clue. At least I’m done talking about-

Oh.

1 - Blinding Lights (The Weeknd)

US: #1 / FR: #1 (listen sometimes something’s just that good, ok)

Surprise. Or not.

Wow, look at that, Johannes has put this year’s number one pop song at number one on their personal playlist. The audacity. The edge. What a hot take.

I discovered that song when it first came out at the end of 2019 and I adored it instantly. And I was so scared it wouldn’t be a hit. Which means I’m a f█cking dumbass considering it ended up breaking all sorts of records in 2020. But what can I say, overplay can be a blessing when you love a song that much.

Like every single song I put at number one on one of my lists, I will draw this one at some point and you will understand how incredibly satisfying it is to listen to a song called Blinding Lights, talking about city lights looking blurry when you’re driving at night, while looking itself like a bunch of blurry city lights passing by super fast. Perfect in every way.

Also it sounds exactly like A-ha, and that never hurts.

See you next year! Pretty sure it will be even better music-wise.

[thirteenandten]

hello, do you have any tips for writing in English when you're not a native English speaker? Do you write in English from the start? Love your writing, btw!

Well hi! This was a very nice anon to receive, I'm honoured! And thank you for the compliment <3

So first let me start reminding you that writing in a language that it's not your own is super difficult, because it's not just diferent words and structures, but a whole different way of thinking and understanding the world. So please be gentle and patient with yourself while you do it!

Yes, the stories that I intend to publish in English are written in English from the start. Ever since I started writing my fics in English I took this approach and tbh I think it’s the best one. I reccommend it big time because you surely will write more complex or ellaborate stuff in your native language and then it'll be very difficult/frustrating to try and take that into English. Don't worry if your first stories in English are a bit rough, you'll get better with time! Practice here is key.

You can find the tips under the cut because I’m wordy as hell so it turned out super long.

- When English is not working for you like, I suggest writing down a little summary in your own language of what you want to write for later. Not the actual thing but what you want to tell. The ideas will probably come easier in your native language and then when English is working again, you can go back to it without losing your ideas.

-This one may be obvious but READ A LOT IN ENGLISH. I would especially suggest books written in English by English speakers. But of course, everything helps, including fics. And while you do that, try to stop and pay attention to the language. When something really works for you (a dialogue, a description, a feeling) pause, go back to the words, and notice how it was done. I've been doing this "active reading" lately and it has helped me a lot.

-Similar to the one above: expose yourself to a lot of English. Tumblr is okay but also go and watch videos of native English speakers. Listen to songs in English and take the time to look for the lyrics and think about them. When a word sounds interesting but you are not certain of the menaing, look it up! Even if you don't remember the words exactly for later, the little research will help you either way. Watch movies and series and pay attention to the language and how people talk. That'll also help you to incorporate phrases, jokes and sayings that people use in everyday life. Just expose yourself to English as much as you can and have your writer brain open and attentive!

-Going more into the writing process, those lists of different ways of saying words, or words for different moods or situations are fantastic. Just always remember to check for the word precise meaning and usage before putting anything in your work.

-I highly recommend Thesaurus. It's great for looking for alternative to words (always checking meaning and usage!), but also sometimes you know there's this word that reminds you of this other that would fit perfectly in your text and you just can’t remember the actual word you want. In those desperate moments, I go to Thesaurus, search the word I do remember, and more often than not, I arrive to the one I actually wanted (or sometimes, to another great word I hadn’t thought about!)

-Using a Collocations Dictionary literally saves your life (? I learnt about these dictionaries during uni and I loved them so much I bought a physical one which saved me many times while writing essays. Basically it gives you the prepositions, adjectives, adverbs, whatever that most usually “collocate” (go with) the word you’re looking for.

-Check for spelling whenever you are not certain you are writing a word correctly. And I mean putting the word straight on the Google search bar. If you got a letter (or several) wrong, Google will help you.

-Google combinations of words between quotation marks (”word”) to see if they are actually used by English speakers. I can’t come up with anything better right now, but for example, “seat belt” in Spanish is “cinturón de seguridad” and you could translate that literally to “security belt”. If for some reason I wasn’t sure of which of these combinations the acceptable, I could google each phrase between quotations marks and see the number of results. Usually, the option with more results is the one that is most commonly used and that will be understood more easily. For example, “security belt” throws 316k results, while “seat belt” throws 57million results. 

-Use Google Images to look for specific vocabulary you can’t remember or simply don’t know. “Kitchen appliances names”, “parts of a book names”, “parts of the body names” “clothing names”. You’ll get charts with pictures and names and it’ll make your life ten times easier, I promise.

-Decide if you are writing in British or American English... or if you don't care lol. The most sensible thing to do is to pick one, but if you are writing just for fun, you might as well accept that you’ll have inconsistencies in that matter and let it be. If you do choose one English variant though, google the most common differences in spelling AND I highly suggest running Word’s spellcheck after setting the language to the English variant you’re using.

-Needless to say, writing blogs are your friends. They are full of resources, some even specially thought for non native English speakers.

-In general I would say that googling stuff is an excellent strategy when you have doubts: verb conjugations, one words vs the other, anything about English grammar, etc.

-If you feel comfortable with it, getting a Beta reader who is an English native speaker is super great. A Beta reader in general would be fine because someone else may notice a mistake you overlooked (God knows how many "ringed" instead of "rang" I've posted in my life). Also a trusted friend giving a second read can help. Or you reading out loud, if it's not a very long thing, can help you identify if there's something off.

-Be gentle with yourself! You'll make mistakes! You will even post them! My fics, old and recent always have at least one mistake no matter how much I check them. That's fine! You can go and edit them or leave it, and I promise people won't get mad at you (if they do let me know and I'll virtually punch them).

-Finally, practice, practice, practice!

I hope this very long answer is somewhat useful! And do let me know if I can help you with anything else.

Much love xx

[turqrambles]

The Five Worst Things About Digimon World

I did it.

It took 20 years but I did it.

I finally beat Digimon World for the Playstation 1, a game that has haunted me for most of my lifetime, and I did it with a Phoenixmon, the reason why I use “Turquoisephoenix” as a handle!

This is who I used to beat the game, named after an obscure Ratchet and Clank character because that’s just how I roll. The final boss battle involved a lot of Prominence Beam spamming and med recovery floppy spamming but I did it fair and square. 

Before I get into what I thought about this game as a whole - and I do have a lot of good things to say about this game since I obviously enjoyed it enough to get to the end - I gotta talk about my least favorite things about this game. In a concise, Buzzfeed-esque list because I like writing things in easy to digest chunks.

Because, like most charming yet difficult games of the late 90′s, this game is very flawed and the flaws are pretty annoying!

1. Care Mistakes

The three emojis - Smile, Cool, and Poop.

Okay. This one - my least favorite part in the game - is going to take a bit of explanation.

First off, I don’t actually hate care mistakes existing as a mechanic. I think it’s a cute, virtual pet-y way to add a different wrinkle to evolution requirements, even if I think it’s a bit counter-intuitive to have to suddenly abuse my little companion once they reach Champion just because I want them to evolve into a floating metallic ball with a chainsaw.

My problem with care mistakes is that there’s literally no way of telling many care mistakes you have on your given Digimon. 

Literally everything else in this game is concisely recorded and easily displayed on your Digimon’s stats screen. You can see how much your Digimon weighs. You can see their Happiness, their Discipline. How much Life they have left. Their Age. Even how many poops they need to make before they digivolve into a sentient pile of feces.

But Care Mistakes? Naaaaw, you just gotta remember every single thing that you did to your Digimon from the moment it evolves in your fallible human brain. What’s that? A good portion of this game involves grinding in the Green Gym and it’s really easy to make a Care Mistake there without knowing you did so because you mashed A too fast like the stat-grinding numskull that you are? Well, that’s just too fucking bad for you, then! Enjoy not getting some of the best evolutions, you piece of shit. You stooge. You moron!

This game, multiple times: You know who I hate? The player.

Care Mistakes are such an invisible mechanic that, to this day, there are many guides with misleading info about what counts as a Care Mistake and what doesn’t, which...really stinks for a game such as this where you will be using a guide pretty extensively to get the Digimon you deserve. And you know why that is? Because we don’t get any indication as to whether or not some random event counts against you when raising your Digimon.

And honestly, having one of your main mechanics of the game being entirely invisible to the player is a terrible idea. Just put a little number in my profile that says “Care Mistakes: 0″ in there. Let me know this information without guessing.

2. The Glitches

Pictured: Something that will CRASH YOUR GAME if you try it on a physical copy.

Let me start with a disclaimer that most of the glitches I’m going to complain about were added into the game when Digimon World was localized and therefore aren’t the original intent of the developers. There are certain versions of Digimon World that are more stable than others (The English PAL version is the best version to play because of this) and, if you play this game via “certain methods”, there are patches to circumvent some of the bigger problems.

That being said! Boy! Isn’t it ironic that a game where I’m exploring the digital world is plagued with so many annoying, game-ruining glitches? Especially if I’m playing this game on a physical 20-year old copy like a dunce?

“Ohhhh...so Agumon thinks that they can block the Digimon game with their big fat Digimon-blocking head, do they?!”

The NTSC version of this game has a jukebox that will crash the game if you try to use it, keeping you from ever using a bonus feature meant to be a fun little reward for completing a certain dungeon, but that’s not as heinous as the Spanish, French, German, and Italian PAL versions of this game locking a good portion of the game to players because they forgot to make the Agumon in front of Ogremon’s Fortress an object you can interact with.

So that means, if you happened to get this game in one of four lucky countries, you can’t complete the Ogremon mission, you can’t recruit Whamon, you can’t recruit Shellmon, you can’t recruit anything tied to Shellmon’s bulletin board (which means no Vademon or Skullgreymon), and you can’t go to Factorial Town and recruit Giromon, Andromon, or Numemon. Ogremon is a key part of the Digimon World storyline and causes so many different things in the game to change, meaning that it should’ve been imperative to make sure this part of the game works!

But no. Instead this one little bastard Agumon keeps most players from finishing the game, because it starves players of those PAL regions of a bunch of Prosperity points, the main source of progression in this game. That means that Mt. Infinity and the final boss is just that much harder to unlock. It’s doable, but it’s more grueling process.

This really is a problem with the translators and really highlights a lack of general care with testing this game. Why this game was allowed to be shipped with such glaring bugs is anyone’s guess, especially in an era where you couldn’t release any patches over the Internet to fix retail versions.

3. The Monochromon’s Shop Minigame

Ohhhh....this one was so close to getting the top spot. When I first wrote this draft, this was the top spot.

Monochromon was only spared of my true ire on account of the fact that it really only exists for one part of the game (rather than being a constant problem like the Care Mistakes and the Glitches are) and you can easily cheese it by sleeping in front of the store so that you can save scum your way to victory. Like a true Digital Champion!

At one point in the game, you gotta help a entrepreneur dinosaur rhino man make a profit, because he was stupid and put his convenience store in the middle of a giant canyon next to a gaping chasm. So you play a little game of haggling, where you try to ruthlessly oversell a bunch of random items to customers until you make enough of a profit that this talking dinosaur tells you that you passed his secret test of character, abandons his store, and moves into File City.

There’s just one problem with this minigame - everything is decided by RNG.

“Get the hell out of my shop”

This minigame hates you. It wants nothing but to see you fail and to waste your time. The difference in profit margins of the three items (Meat sells for 50g, Portable Potties sell for 300g, and Medicine sells for 1000g) are so stark that, if you get too many customers asking for Meat, you might as well just reset the game and start over because it will be literally impossible to meet the requirement even if you busted the customer’s proverbial balls and squeezed every last bit out of their cutesy penguin faces.

Oh! It’s also RNG as to whether or not your customers will take your asking price or storm out of the store without buying anything!

It’s all the fun of working at retail! In a video game!

4. Three on One Battles

What you see before you is a battle system that is really fun when it’s one vs. one, manageable at two vs. one, and downright unbearable at three vs. one.

The battle system works for the most part. You don’t have full control of your Digimon (and yes, you only have one Digimon with you at one time, so you can never stack the numbers in your favor) so you shout commands at it, commands that the Digimon’s AI are pretty good at following, and hope for the best as you chuck healing items at it.

It’s not the best battle system, but it’s fun. And it definitely reinforces the whole “this is a pet you’re taking care of with its own thoughts and feelings” atmosphere that this game is going for.

However, nothing can protect your Digimon from enemy fire concentrated on them, especially if you did the thing that most players do and equipped your Digimon with the most powerful attacks that also happen to have slower cast times than the faster, weaker attacks.

What then happens is your Digimon’s Health is slowly whittled away as you are powerless to stop it, watching as your digital friend is straight up bullied by enemy Digimon as they keep falling to the ground over and over and over and over again.

The one saving grace is that Friendly Fire exists in this game so that oftentimes the enemy Digimon will damage each other in their mad dash to ruin your day, but that seems more like a band-aid than an actual fix to this system.

5. Fishing Seadramon

“Hi, kid. Let me guess - you also thought you had to talk to the Tankmon in Factorial Town in order to unlock me, huh.”

This one is a lot less of a pain than the other four and it’s only a little annoying but boy...getting Seadramon kinda sucks in this game.

It took me almost a goddamn hour to catch Seadramon. One hour of gameplay devoted to catching one fish. Just like real fishing!

I will say, besides Seadramon, the fishing minigame in this game is pretty competent. It’s just that Seadramon is very elusive, showing up at only two hours in a 24 hour day, and is a very finicky fish that won’t take your bait even if you literally placed it in front of his dumb fish face.

Don’t be fooled by this screenshot. The heart just means you have the right bait. The heart means that you didn’t actually get within range of hooking him.

IT’S RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU!!!

Seadramon is also subject to almost as many gaming myths as the Care Mistakes are, due to how elusive he is, but that’s less to do with poor communication (the game does at least explain multiple times in multiple places how to find him) and more to do with the fact that catching him is just such a goddamn chore to do that players of this game always assume they’re doing something wrong.

When in reality, Seadramon is just a picky little bitch.

Next time I discuss Digimon World, I’ll talk about things I liked, don’t worry. I just had to get all of this negativity out before discussing the full game proper.

[fuckheadwitha]

Listening to Rolling Stone's Top 500 Albums of All Time

Rolling Stone released an updated list of their top 500 albums of all time and being trapped in the purgatory of covid quarantine this seems like the perfect moment to tackle what an almost completely irrelevant former counter-culture institution has to say about music (we can’t actually blame Rolling Stone for this list, a huge number of musicians and critics voted to make it). I am going to listen to every single one of these, all the way through, with a level of attention that's not super intense but I'm definitely not having them on in the background as simple aural wallpaper. Two caveats though: I can make an executive decision to skip any album if I feel the experience is sufficiently miserable, and I'm also going to be skipping the compilation albums that I feel aren't really worth slots (best ofs, etc.). In addition, I will be ordering them as I go, creating a top 500 of the top 500 (it will be less than 500 since we've already established I'm skipping some of these).

Here are 500-490:

#500 Arcade Fire - Funeral

I can already tell I'm going to be at odds with this list if one of the most important albums of my high school years is at the bottom. That being said, I haven't actually given this whole thing a listen since probably the early 2010s, before Arcade Fire fatigue set in and the hipsterati appointed band of a generation just kinda seemed to fade from popular consciousness. I actually dreaded re-experiencing it, since the synthesis of anthemic rock and quirky folk instrumentation which Arcade Fire brought mainstream has now become the common shorthand of insufferable spotify friendly folk pop. Blessedly, the first half of the album easily holds up, largely propelled by dirty fast rhythm guitar, orchestration that's tuneful rather than obnoxious, and lyrics which come off as earnest rather than pretentious. The middle gets a little sappy and “Crown of Love”, a song I definitely used to like, really starts the grate. And then we get to “Wake Up”, whose cultural saturation spawned thousands of dorky indie rock outfits that confused layered strings and horns with power and meaning. This song definitely hasn't survived the film trailers and commercials which it so ubiquitously overlayed, but the line about "a million little gods causing rainstorms, turning every good thing to rust" still attacks the part of my brain capable of sincere emotion. This album is probably going to hold the top spot for a while, because although so many elements of Funeral that made it feel so meaningful, that made it stand out so much in 2004, have been seamlessly assimilated into an intellectually and emotionally bankrupt indie pop industrial complex, the album itself still has a genuine vulnerability and bangers that still manage to rip.

#499

Rufus, Chaka Khan - Ask Rufus

Before she became a name in her own right, Chaka Khan was the voice of the band Rufus, and it’s definitely her voice that shines amongst some spritely vibey funk. That’s not to say that these aren’t some jams on their own. “At Midnight” is a banging opener with a sprint to the finish, and although the explicitly named but kinda boring “Slow Screw Against the Wall” feels weak, this wasn’t really supposed to be an album of barn burners. This was something people put on their vinyl record players while they chilled on vinyl furniture after a night of doing cocaine. “Everlasting Love” is a bop with a bassline like a Sega Genesis game, and the twinkling piano on “Hollywood” adds a playful levity to lyrics that are supposed to be both tackily optimistic about making it big out in LA and subtly realistic about the kind of nightmare world showbiz can be. “Better Days” is another track that manages to be a bittersweet jam with a catchy sour saxophone and playful synths under Chaka Khan’s vamping. This album definitely belongs on a ‘chill funk to study and relax to’ playlist.

#498

Suicide - Suicide

We’ve hit the first album that could be rightly called a progenitor for multiple genres that followed it. Someone could say there’s a self-serving element of this being on a Rolling Stone list (the band was one of the first to adopt the label ‘Punk’ after seeing it in a Lester Bangs article) but the album’s legacy is basically indisputable. EBM, industrial, punk, post-punk, new wave, new whatever all have a genealogy that connects to Suicide, and it’s easy to hear the band in everything that followed. But what the band actually is is two guys, one with an electric organ and one with a spooky voice, doing spooky simple riffs and saying spooky simple things. Simplicity is definitely not a dis here. The opener “Ghost Rider” makes a banger out of four notes and one instrument, and the refrain ‘America America is killing its youth’ is really all the lyrical complexity you need to fucking get it. “Cheree” and “Girl” have almost identical lyrics (‘oh baby’ vs ‘oh girl’) but “Cheree” is more like a fairy tale and “Girl” is more like a sonic handjob. “Frankie Teardrop” has the audacity to tell a ten minute story with its lyrics, but of course there is intermittent, actually way too loud screaming breaking up the narrative of a guy who loses everything then kills his family and himself. The song is basically a novelty, and I think you can probably say the whole album is a novelty between its brevity and character. But for a bite sized snack this album casts a huge shadow.

#497

Various Artists - The Indestructible Beat of Soweto

The fact that this particular compilation always ends up in the canon has a lot to do with the cultural context it existed in, being America’s first encounter with South African contemporary music during the decline of apartheid (it wouldn’t end until a decade later in 1994 with the country’s first multi-racial elections). Music journos often bring up the fact Ladysmith Black Mambazo, the all male choir singing on the album ender “Nansi Imali”, sang on Paul Simon’s Graceland like their virtue is they helped Paul Simon get over his depression and not, like, the actual music. But also like, how is the actual music? Jams. Ubiquitous, hooky guitars propel the songs along with bright choruses over low lead vocals, but I didn’t expect the synthesizer on the bop “Qhude Manikiniki”, nor the discordant hoedown violin on “Sobabamba”. “Holotelani” is a groove to walk into the sunset to.

#496

Shakira - Donde Estan los Ladrones

So this is the first head scratcher on the list. It’s not like it sucks. And I think I prefer this 90s guitar pop driven spanish language Shakira to modern superstar Shakira. But I mean, it’s an album of late nineties latin pop minivan music, with a thick syrupy middle that doesn’t do anything for me. The opener and closer stand out though.  ‘Ciega, Sordomuda’, one of the biggest pop songs of the 90s (it was #1 on the charts of literally every country in Latin America), has a galloping acoustic guitar and horn hits with Shakira’s vocals at their most percussive.

#495

Boyz II Men - II

So, if you were alive in the 90s you know Boyz II Men were fucking huge, and the worst song on the album is the second track “All Around the World”, basically a love song to their own success, and also the women they’ve banged. You can tell it was written specifically so that the crowd could go fucking wild when they heard their state/city/country mentioned in the song, and I’m not gonna double check but I’m sure they hit all fifty states. Once you’re over that hump though you basically have an hour of songs to fuck to. “U Know” keeps it catchy with propulsive midi guitar and synth horns, “Jezzebel” starts with a skit and ends with a richly layered jazz tune about falling in love on a train, and “On Bended Knee” has a Ragnarok Online type beat. Honestly this album can drag, but you’re not supposed to be listening to it alone in a state of analysis, you’re supposed to have it on during a date that’s going really, really well.

#494

The Ronettes - Presenting the Fabulous Ronettes

A singles compilation of the Ronettes, the only ones I immediately recognized were ‘Be My Baby’ and ‘Going to the Chapel of Love’, the latter of which I didn’t know existed since the version of the song I knew was by the Dixie Cups, which was apparently a source of drama since the Ronettes did it first but producer Phil Spector refused to release it. I feel like as a retro trip to sixties girl groups it’s full of enough songs about breaking up (for example “Breaking Up”) getting back together (for example “Breaking Up”) and wanting to get married but you can’t, because you’re a teenager (“So Young”).

#493

Marvin Gaye - Here, My Dear

This album only exists because Marvin was required by his divorce settlement to make it and provide all of the royalties to his ex-wife and motown executive Anna Gordy Gaye. It’s absolutely bizarre, phoned in mid tempo funk whose lyrics range from the passive aggressive (“This is what you wanted right?”) to the petulant (“Why do I have to pay attorney’s fees?”). There is a seething realness here that crosses well past the border of uncomfortable. I don’t think it’s an amazing album to listen to, but it’s an amazing album to exist: Marvin Gaye is legally obligated to throw his own divorce pity party, and everyone's invited.

#492

Bonnie Raitt - Nick of Time

I have never heard of Bonnie Raitt before but apparently this album won several grammys including album of the year in 1989 and sold 5 million copies, which I guess goes to show that no award provides less long term relevance than the grammys. The story around the album is pretty heartwarming, it was her first massive hit after a career of whiffs, and Bonnie Raitt herself is apparently a social activist and neat human being. I say all this because this sort of 80s country blues rock doesn't really connect with me, but the artist obviously deserves more than that. I unequivocally like the title track though, a hand-clap backed winding electric piano groove about literally finding love before your eggs dry up.

#491

Harry Styles - Fine Line

I do not think I have ever heard a one direction song because I am an adult who only listens to public radio. I’m totally open to pop bands or boy bands or boy band refugee solo artists, but I don’t like anything here. It’s like a mixtape of the worst pop trends of the decade, from glam rock that sounds like it belongs in a car commercial to folky bullshit that sounds like it belongs in a more family focused car commercial. This gets my first DNP (Does Not Place).

#490

Linda Ronstadt - Heart Like a Wheel

Another soft-rock blues and country album which just doesn’t land with me. But the opener “You’re No Good” is like a soul/country hybrid which still goes hard and the title track hits with the lyrics “And it's only love and it's only love / That can wreck a human being and turn him inside out”.

Current Ranking, which is weirdly almost like an inverse of the rolling stones list so far;

[papa-1-rights-activist]

Could you tell us some things about your characters?

thank you so much for this ask :D sorry for such a late response, but ngl i got very excited and started writing shit down as soon as i saw it, but then it turned into an entire essay and i had to cut down a ton of stuff until i decided to write it in a list of some sort kjhgkjfgkfg

currently i have like 11 fan characters in total so i will start with 4 to not infodump too much at a time

and i’ll admit that literally all of these guys were made for shipping purposes, but they all have different personalities and dynamics with canon characters. i’m such a sucker for writing couples, so many things to explore, that’s like my favourite thing ;w;

it got very long so imma put it under the cut \o/ (hopefully it works bc tumblr has been pretty unpredictable lately)

sorry if it’s probably way more than just “some things” but i couldn’t help it, i just love these guys so much and i don’t get to talk about them often u v u

e n j o y ~

imma start with the one you guys are more familiar with

Lucas

one of the cardinals in Ghost’s church

Mexican

in his late 40s (like 46-47)

hardworking, ambitious

pretty composed

huge „your teacher from english class who’s also a dad” energies

his character can be summed up to, as someone has said, „he’d kindly but sternly correct your shitty posture”

currently takes the 3rd place of most „best employee of the month” awards (Copia is 4th at that time)

he and Copia start off as rivals for the 2nd place (bc no one can beat whoever is the 1st)

but wouldn’t you guessed it, they end up dating

Lucas has a fair collection of various rodents, including rats. Actually, he’s the one who infected Copia with love for them. Luc prefers ferrets (that’s a rodent right kjhfgkjgh)

he doesn’t really get angry, but when he does he really goes off

he writes poetry, which is actually very, very bad, but Copia loves it to bits which makes Luc feel validated to write more

because his language is so similar to italian, Lucas can implement a lot of spanish into his conversations with Copia, while the other will reply in italian and they will still understand each other (ofc there are some exceptions that result in miscommunication, but that just makes it all more fun)

Copia shared with him that he’s writing music for his album (even tho he wasn’t supposed to tell anyone) and Lucas was more than happy to help him in the process…which was mostly moral support and a few suggestions.

he loves calling Copia “cariño”, “mi amorcito”, “mi alegría” and other cute names in spanish

once Lucas mentioned he used to play flute and Copia immediately decided to include a flute solo in one of his songs, so Luc could play it. Unfortunately things didn’t go as he planned and he had to change it to sax solo

The thing about Lucas is that Imperator sees him as a threat. She’s been plotting with Copia to get him to papacy for a long time, but in the end she isn’t the one who decides who will be in charge, so Copia has to work hard to deserve it. He was already a hard worker, but unfortunately Lucas works harder. It creates this dillema for Copia, bc on one hand he does want to become Papa and in order to do that he has to get rid off competition. But on the other he loves Lucas and he wants what’s best for him.

(i’ll probably post the pic above in a separate post with other doodles, i just wanted to show sth new and relevant)

Elise & Greg

Imma put these two together bc it’s impossible to talk about one without the other.

they work together in a company that takes art commisions such as paintings & murals and their restorations. They’re both pretty skilled in those departments, except Elise specialises in art restoration while Greg specialises in murals and frescos. And ofc one day they’re hired by the church.

they’re both pretty good at painting (but the thing about restoration is that you don’t have to be a great artist to do that, it has more to do with chemistry tbh)

They live together and have been very good friends for a few years now

they both went through some traumatic events in their lives, but maybe i’ll leave that part for another day (or i’ll leave it in my fanfic they’re from that i need to finish ;w;)

they’re very supportive of each other, but also they like to mess with one another

their chat is filled with horny texts about other people

Elise

34 years old

British

a bit awkward, tends to stutter when nervous

very sweet overall, feels the need to be everyone’s therapist

autistic, which shows mostly through her sensitivity to certain textures

hates onions (bc the texture is awful)

gets very emotional very quickly when she sees cute animals. She will use her baby talk to speak with them (which is sth that Copia does too with his rats and once he catches her doing that as well, he feels less embarrased about it)

Cirrus was the first one from the church to actually talk to her and show her around, making her feel a bit more welcome in an unfamiliar place

she talks through her sleep. A lot. Copia finds it very amusing…and adorable.

she discovers that Papa III has fallen hard for her friend way before he himself realises that, but then she’s also the kind of person to not see her own feelings for someone

she finds working on restoration quite relaxing. It’s sth she can fixate over and do for hours (even tho it’s not recommended)

a bit of a workaholic

another thing she finds relaxing is sitting in a corner somewhere warm and doodling people she sees around the abbey (mostly those she finds attractive lol so mostly Cirrus and Copia)

eventually ends up with Copia and Cirrus in a poly relationship

she also finds Cumulus cute, but the ghoulette isn’t interested in another romantic relationship. the one she has with Cirrus is enough for her.

Elise’s relationship with Copia is basically two dorks trying to impress the other while trying not to be too obvious about it, while her relationship with Cirrus is bisexual equivalent of „shy nerd has a crush on a cool girl leading the cheerleaders squad and shopes she doesn’t know. She knows.”

(had to doodle sth real quick bc i can’t believe that i don’t have a single good pic of him lol)

Greg

37 years old

Polish (bc ofc he is)

pretty stoic, might come off as cold

he gives cute nicknames to people he likes (in polish ofc)

he’s actually pretty cheesy and wholesome, but you wouldn’t know that bc he shows his affection through a language that no one understands (which is what he wants, he doesn’t want others to know he actually cares)

has some trust issues, so it’s harder for him to become friends with people

huge Scorpions fan. no, like really, he’s obsessed and will share his music taste with whoever will listen (which is mostly Eli and Papa III lol)

knows a few words in italian, but mostly those related to art after he’s been studying it for a few years. He doesn’t speak it, but he can read it.

he owns a guitar signed by Kirk Hammett (his musical crush)

he’s the kind of guy who will call the person he likes „my dear”, „my love”, „sweet pea” in his mother language and then tell that person it means „dickhead”, „loser” and „lazy ass”

his stay at the abbey is just laying under the ceiling and doing fresco for most of the day, visiting Elise in her art studio and dealing with Papa’s bullshit

Papa eventually starts coming up to lay beside Greg on the construction and watch him work. They tend to just lay in silence while a mix of Scorpions and ABBA plays from the radio. There’s barely any space for a second person, but Greg would lie if he said he didn’t find it endearing.

one time Greg fell off the construction and broke his leg bc of that dumbass (but it’s his dumbass uwu)

anyway he eventually starts dating Papa III

Papa purrs to Greg in italian and Greg speaks sweet words to him in polish (tho it took him a lot of time to get comfortable with that)

their relationship is your typical „1 brain cell and 1 dumbass” and under certain circumstances simply „2 disastrous dumbasses”

they once burnt down Elise’s apartment on accident and the only things they managed to save were the art supplies and Greg’s guitar

anyway

here are these guys in comparison to their partners in this silly style, bc all the other drawings are outdated ;w;

Melea

45 years old

American

fashion designer commissioned byt the Ghost’s church

huge fan of old rock

for a long time her relationship with Papa III was purely professional. He came to her studio, she took some measurements, they discussed what he would like and then he left and they didn’t see each other until the next meeting to try the outfit on, to make some changes, or for another project.

well that is until she asked him to stop putting his face paint on so he wouldn’t ruin the fabrics

i share this popular headcanon that Papa III is pretty self conscious about his clean face, so it was kind of hard to convince him at first

eventually their sessions became that much more personal because of that

she’s a bit superstitious, believing that some things may cause bad luck

collects crystals with good energy

she’s in a way a modern witch…but it’s not like she tries to be one

knows french fairly well, which allows her to talk to Papa (who also speaks it) when they don’t want others to understand them.

huge mum energy

loooves watching conspiracy theories. Sometimes she will pick one of the more ridiculous ones during her sessions with Papa and will argue and try to convince him it’s true, making it seem like she fully believes it, even if she doesn’t – just to fuck with him

and a few times she actually did convince him. Then had to tell him she wasn’t serious and oh my god the millenials aren’t killing the pillow industry by going vegan

anyway at some point they start dating which eventually leads to them getting married ;w;

her relationship with Papa is very soft and romantic. they have the same energy as Morticia and Gomez in regard of how loving they are to each other

also some chibis of these two bc again, all the other drawings are a bit outdated ;w;

[somnilogical]

davis tower kingsley (listed here on the cfar instructor page) who harassed a cis woman about her appearance another cis women reported this to acdc (the people who wrote the thing about how brent was great) and afaict they did nothing, claims that if trans people and gay people dont "repent and submit to the pope" they will burn in hell, defended the spanish inquisitions, wrote about how the mission system werent actually abductions, slavery, forced conversions and this was propaganda, defends pretty much any atrocity that an authority, "believes" the catholic god exists and does not try and destroy them, submits to them. and so much more.

born into another era they would actually work for the california mission system and say it was good.

said thing that cached out to that emma and somni should repent and submit to the rationalist community. wrote up a rant about "how about fuck you. go lick the boots of your dark mistress anna salamon." didnt send. got kicked by some rationalist, reasoning is probably that what id say would disrupt their peaceful machinations of omnicide, would be infohazards, because... the information is hazardous to their social order.

a few of these things are subjects of future blog posts.

--

cfar has never hired a trans woman, i have lots of logs of them trying to do what people did to porpentine. claiming emma thinks torturing children is hot, claiming emma was physically violent, claiming emma was indistinguishable from a rapist, claiming ziz was a "gross uncle style abuser", claiming somni was enticing people to rape, claiming that anna salamon was a small fragile woman and ziz was large and had muscles. as if any of our strength or speed had anything to do with our muscles in this place. all of these things are false except relative size difference between ziz and anna which is just transmisogynistic and irrelevant.

if they lie about are algorithms claim that we are using male-typical strategies and then they can fail by these lies and be sidelined by callout posts that transfered 350,000$ from miri despite their best efforts to cover this up. (all benefited by having relative political advantagr flowing from estrogenized brain modules. men are kind of npc's in this particular game of fem v fem cyberontological warfare for the fate of the multiverse, mostly making false patriarchal assumptions that ziz was doing things for social status. like status sensitivity is hormonally mediated, your experiences are not universal. or saying like kingsley is saying that people should repent and submit to whatever authorities in the rationalist region they submit to. NO. FUCK YOU. i will not repent and submit to your abusive dark mistress anna salamon.

i knew anna salamon was doing the edgy "transfems are all secretly male" thing before i talked with ziz. it was a thing, {zack, carrie}, ben hoffman, michael vassar were also in on it. ppl had men trapped in mens bodies on their bookshelves because the cool people were reading it. didnt think she was being *transmisogynistic* about it until i talked with ziz. in retrospect i was naive.)

also? anarchistic coordination ive had with people have been variously called lex's cluster, somni's cluster, ziz's cluster by authoritarians who cant imagine power structures between people that arent hierarchical. like based on who they want to say is "infohazardously corrupting people" emma goldman had to deal with this shit too where the cops tried to say she was friends with anyone who thought anarchism made sense. people she didnt know at all who did their own anarchism. because authoritarians dont think in terms of philosophy, they think any challenge to their power is a disease that needs to be eliminated and you just need to doxx their network.

like if ziz and somni and emma were all actually infohazardous rapists as people keep trying to claim we are and then saying "oh no i didnt mean it i swear" and then doing it again. what would happen isnt that a bunch of infohazardous rapists start talking and working together for a common goal. what actually happens with people of that neurotype is they partition up the territory into rival areas of feeding on people like gangs do.

like they dont get together and start talking a lot about decision theory and cooperate in strange new ways.

not that the people lying about emma, ziz, gwen, somni and others are trying to have accurate beliefs. they are trying what all athoritarians try with anarchist groups. unfortunately for them, ive read the meta, i know dread secrets of psychology and cooperation that they claim are like painful static and incomprehensible, yet despite being "incomprehensible" are almost certainly harmful. if harm is to be judged against upholding the current regime, and the current regime is evil, then lots of true information and good things will look harmful. like ive tested this out in different social spheres what people claim is "incomprehensible" is the stuff that destroys whatever regime they are working in. like someone said i sounded like i was crazy and homeless and couldnt understand me when i pointed out that reorienting your life, your time, your money, to a human who happens to be genetically related to you for 16 years is altruistic insanity. just do the math. eliezer, anna, michael, brian tomasik all once took heroic responsibility for the world at some point in their lives and could do a simple calculation and make the right choice. none of them have children.

pretending that peoples "desires" "control them", when "desires" are part of the boundary of the brain, part of the brains agency and are contingent on what you expect to get out of things. like before stabbing myself with a piece of metal would make me feel nauseated, id see black dots, and feel faint. but after i processed that stabbing myself would cure brain damage and make me more functional, all this disappeared.

most people who "want" to have children have this desire downstream of a belief that someone else will take heroic responsibility for the world, they dont need to optimize as much. there are other competent people. if they didnt they would feel differently and make different choices.

you can see the contingency of how people feel about something on what they get out of it lots of places. like:

<<Meanwhile, a Ngandu woman confessed, "after losing so many infants I lost courage to have sex.">>

but people lie about how motivation works, in order to protect the territory of saying "well i just need a steady input of nubile fems so i can concentrate and be super altruistic!" or "i just need spend 16 years of life reorienting around humans who happen to be genetically related to me and my friends so i can concentrate and be super altruistic!" when neither of these are true. these people just want nubile fems, they just want babies. (the second one has much much less negative externalities though. you could say i am using my female brain modules to say "yeah the archetypically female strat, though it has the same amount of lying, is less harmful". but like it actually is less directly harmful. the harm from gaslighting people downstream of diverting worldsaving resources and structure to secure a place to {hit on fems, raise babies} is ruinous. means that worldsaving plans that interfere with either of these are actively fought. and the knowledge that neither of these are altruistic optimizations, neither is Deeply Wise they are as dumb in terms of global optimization as they seem initially, is agentically buried.

this warps things in deep ways, that were a priori unexpected to me.)

this is obvious, but when i talk about it, the objection isnt that it doesnt make utilitarian sense, the objection is that "im talking like a crazy person". authoritarians say this to me too when i assert my right to my property that they took, act like im imposing on them. someone else asked if i could "act like a human" and do what he wanted me to do when i was thinking and talking with my friends. all of these things authoritarians have said to me "act like a human" "talk like a normal person i cant understand you" were to coerce my submission. they construct the category of "human" and then say im in violation of it and this is wrong and i should rectify it. i am talking perfectly good english right now. you can read this.

anna salamon, kelsey piper, elle, pete michaud, and many others all try to push various narratives of somni, emma, ziz, gwen and others being in the buckets {RAPIST, PSYCHO, BRAINWASHED}. im not a rapist, im not psychotic, im not brainwashed. before ziz came along, people were claiming i was brainwashing people, its a narrative they keep reusing.

porpentine talks about communities that do this, that try and pull trap doors beneath trans women:

<<For years, queer/trans/feminist scenes have been processing an influx of trans fems, often impoverished, disabled, and/or from traumatic backgrounds. These scenes have been abusing them, using them as free labor, and sexually exploiting them. The leaders of these scenes exert undue influence over tastemaking, jobs, finance, access to conferences, access to spaces. If someone resists, they are disappeared, in the mundane, boring, horrible way that many trans people are susceptible to, through a trapdoor that can be activated at any time. Housing, community, reputation—gone. No one mourns them, no one asks questions. Everyone agrees that they must have been crazy and problematic and that is why they were gone.>>

https://thenewinquiry.com/hot-allostatic-load/

(a mod of rationalist feminists deleted this almost immediately from the group as [[not being a good culture fit]], not being relevant to rationalism, and written in the [[wrong syntax]]. when its literally happening right now, they are trying to trapdoor transfems who protest and rebel asap. just like google.)

canmom on tumblr talks about the strategic use of "incomprehensibility" against transfems. and how its not about "comprehensibility". i have a different theory of this, but her thing is also a thing.

<<Likewise, @isoxys recently wrote an impressively thorough transmisogyny 101, synthesising the last several years of discussions about this facet of our particular hell world. But that post got just 186 notes, almost exclusively from the same trans women who are accused of writing ‘inaccessibly’.

Perhaps they’d say isoxys’s post is inaccessible too, but what would pass the bar? Some slick HTML5 presentation with cute illustrations? A wiki? Who’s got the energy and money to make and host something like that? Do the critics of ‘inaccessible’ posts take some time to think about what kind of alternative would be desirable, and how it could be organised?>>

https://canmom.tumblr.com/post/185908592767/accessibility-in-terms-of-not-using-difficult

alice maz talks about the psychology behind the kind of cop kelsey piper, david tower kingsley, elle and others are:

<<the role of the cop is to defend society against the members of society. police officers are trivially cops. firefighters and paramedics, despite similar aesthetic trappings, are emphatically not. bureaucrats and prosecutors are cops, as are the worst judges, though the best are not. schoolteachers and therapists are almost always cops; this is a great crime, as they present themselves to the young and the vulnerable as their friends, only to turn on them should they violate one of their profession's many taboos. soldiers and parents need not be cops, but the former may be used as such, and the latter seem frighteningly eager to enlist. the cop is the enemy of passion and the enemy of freedom, never forget this>>

https://www.alicemaz.com/writing/alien.html

anna salamon wrote a thing implying that ziz, somni, gwen suffered some sort of vague mental issues from going to aisfp. (writing a post on this.) alyssa vance tried to suggest i believe cfar is evil because im homeless. but sarah constantin, ben hoffman, {carrie, zack}, jessica taylor (the last three who have blogged a lot about whats deeply wrong) (not listing others because not wanting to doxx a network to authoritarians, who just want to see it contained. and the disease of "infohazards" eradicated.) are not homeless and ive talked with many of them and read blog posts. and they know that cfar is fake. jessica (former miri employee) left because miri was fake.

anna and others are trying to claim that theres some person responsible for a [[mass psychotic break]] that causes people to... independently update in the same direction. and have variously blamed it on ziz, somni, michael vassar. but like mass psychotic breaks arent...really a thing, would not be able to independently derive something, plan on writing a blogpost on it, and then see ben hoffman had written http://benjaminrosshoffman.com/engineer-diplomat/ and i was like "ah good then i dont have to write this." and have this happen with several different people.

like this is more a mass epistemic update that miri / cfar / ssc / lw are complicit in the destruction of the world. and will defend injustice and gaslight people and lie about the mathematical properties of categories to protect this.

they all know exactly what they are doing, complicity with openai and deepmind in hopes of taking the steering wheel away at the last second. excluding non-human life and dead humans from the CEV to optimize some political process, writing in an absolute injunction to an fai against some outcome to protect from blackmail when that makes it more vulnerable.(see:

https://emma-borhanian.github.io/arbital-scrape/page/hyperexistential_separation.html

hyperexistential separation: if an fai cant think of hell, an fai cant send the universe to hell in any timeline. this results in lower net utility. if you put an absolute injunction against any action for being too terrible you cant do things like what chelsea manning did and i believe actually committed to hungerstriking until death in the worlds where the government didnt relent, choosing to die in those timelines. such that most of her measure ended up in a world where the government read this commitment in her and so relented.

if chelsea manning had an absolute injunction against ever dying in any particular timeline, she would get lower expected utility across the multiverse. similarly, in newcombs problem if you had an absolute injunction against walking away with 0$ in any timeline because that would be too horrible, you get less money in expectation. for any absolute injunction against things that are Too Horrible you can construct something like this.

--

a lot of humans seem to be betting on "nothing too horrible can happen to anyone" in hopes that it pays off in nothing too horrible happening to you.

the end result of not enacting ideal justice is the deaths of billions. at each timestamp saying "its too late to do it now, but maybe it would have been good sometime in the past". with the same motive that miri wants to exclude dead people from the cev, they arent part of the "current political process". so you can talk about them as if they were not moral patients, just like they treat their fellow animals.

(ben hoffman talks about different attitudes towards ideal justice coming upon the face of the earth.)

--

https://emma-borhanian.github.io/arbital-scrape/page/cev.html

cev:

<<But again, we fall back on the third reply: "The people who are still alive" is a simple Schelling circle to draw that includes everyone in the current political process. To the extent it would be nice or fair to extrapolate Leo Szilard and include him, we can do that if a supermajority of EVs decide* that this would be nice or just. To the extent we don't bake this decision into the model, Leo Szilard won't rise from the grave and rebuke us. This seems like reason enough to regard "The people who are still alive" as a simple and obvious extrapolation base.>>

https://emma-borhanian.github.io/arbital-scrape/page/cev.html

this is an argument from might makes right. because dead people and nonhuman animals cant fight back.

->"i think we should give planning of the town to the white people, then extrapolate their volition and if they think doing nice things for black people is a good idea, we'll do it! no need to bake them in to the town planning meetings, as they are arent part of the current political process and no one here will speak up for them."

i dont plan to exclude dead people or any sentient creatures from being baked in to fai. they are not wards of someone else. enslaving and killing fellow sentient life will not continue after the singularity even if lots of humans want it and dont care and wont care even after lots of arguments.) and so much else.

the list of all specific grievances would take a declaration of independence.

like with googles complicity with ICE having a culture of trapdooring transfems (for some reason almost the only coherent group that has the moral fiber to oppose these injustices, that is p(transfem|oppose injustice in a substantiative way) is high, not necc the reverse.) who question this sort of thing.

thinking of giving sarah constantin a medal thats engraved with "RIGHTEOUS AMONG CIS PEOPLE: I HAD SEVERAL SUBSTANTIAL DISAGREEMENTS WITH HER ABOUT LOAD BEARING PARTS OF HER LIFE AND SHE NEVER ONCE TRIED TO CALL ME A RAPIST, PSYCHOTIC, OR BRAINWASHED" thats where the bar is at, its embedded in the core of the earth.

kelsey piper, elle benjamin, anna salamon, pete michaud, and lots more have entirely failed to clear this bar. anna and kelsey saying they dont understand stuff somni, emma, ziz and other transfems talk about but its probably dangerous and infohazardous and its not to be engaged with philosophically. just like the shelter people acting as if my talking about their transmisogyny was confusing and irrational to be minimized and not engaged with. just like any authoritarian where when you start talking about your rights and what is right and wrong and what makes sense they are like "i dont understand this. you are speaking gibberish why are you being so difficult? all we need you to do is submit or leave."

and no i will NOT SHUT UP about this injustice. all miri/cfar people can do at this point is say "the things these people write are infohazards" then continue to gaslight others they cant engage on a philosophical level. all the can say is that what i am saying is meaningless static and yet also somehow dangerous.

::

it doesnt make sense to have and raise babies if you are taking heroic responsibility for the world. doesnt make sense to need a constant supply of fems to have sex with if you are taking heroic responsibility for the world. people who claim either of these pairs of things are lying, maybe expect someone else to take heroic responsibility for the world or exist in a haze.

the mathematics of categories and anticipations dont allow for the thing you already have inside you to be modified based on the expected smiles it gives your community. this is used to gaslight people like "calling this lying would be bad for the institutions, not optimize ev. thus by this blogpost you are doing categories wrong' this is a mechanism to cover dishonesty for myopic gains.

using the above, a bunch of people colluding with the baby industrial complex get together and say that the "beat" meaning of altruism includes having babies (but maybe not having sex with lots of fems? depending on which gendered strategy gets the most people in the colluding faction) because other meanings would make people sad and unmotivated. burying world optimizers ability to talk about and coordinate around actual altruism.

openAI and deepmind are not alignment orgs. cfar knows this and claims they are, gaslighting their donors, in hopes of taking the steering wheel at the last moment.

alyssa vance says paying out to blackmail is fine, its not.

CFAR manipulated donation metrics to hide low donations.

MIRI lied about its top 8 most probable hypotheses for why its down 350,000$ this year.

anna salamon is transmisogynistic, this is why cfar has never hired a trans women despite trans women being extremely good at mental tech. instead the hire people like davis kingsley.

kingsley lied about anna not being involved at hiring in cfar in order to claim anna couldnt be responsible for cfar never hiring a trans woman.

a cfar employee claimed anna salamon hired their rapist, was angry about it. mentioned incidentally how anna salamon, president and cofounder of cfar, was involved in hiring at cfar.

acdc wrote a big thing where defended a region of injustice (brent dill) because of their policy of modular ethics. when really, if you defend injustice at any point, you have to defend the defense and the thing iteratively spreads across your organization like a virus.

miri / cfar caved to louie helm.

not doing morality or decision theory right. among which is: https://emma-borhanian.github.io/arbital-scrape/page/hyperexistential_separation.html and https://emma-borhanian.github.io/arbital-scrape/page/cev.html

and so much more.

[pandawritesmanythings]

Halfrid // Part 4

Platonic!Loki x Teen!Reader

Summary: Your life has always been dictated by the fact that you are smarter than most adults. This has made you antagonize many of them, it isn’t your fault that you are just citing facts! However, when the god of mischief becomes your friend, are there enough facts you can cite to prove his innocence?

Warnings: Censored Curse Words, dude being an entitled jerk (not Loki), Angst, Panic attack, bad writing.

Word Count: +4000K

A/N: Thank you so much for the support guys, just a heads up, some things in this chapter may not make sense now, but they will later. I don’t curse, personally, but it was important to have a catalyst in this chapter, that’s why I censored them. Leave feedback, I highly appreciate it!

TAG LIST IS OPEN!!!

PRESENT TIME

“I wish we could have met at a better time. I honestly do.” Fury had returned to the room and you had told him a short version as to why you started to investigate Loki.

“Why do you say that all of a sudden?” You asked, slightly confused.

“You see, I don’t find this kind of fire or passion in agents anymore. If we get out of this, and you are still around, come find me when you are 17, maybe I can find you an internship somewhere you can use your talents.”

He was sincere, you could see it in his eyes… Eye.

“Well, you might be the first. But thank you.”

He cleared his throat, the rumbling above had ceased a bit, according to Fury because the ground above had become a literal war zone. Military aiding the hero’s battle. The enemy ceased fire, but they were sure to resume it at any moment.

“So when was the next time you met the god of mischief?”

You almost giggled. “Ah. That was about six months after. I wish it had been under better circumstances. But the fact that our paths crossed again, is surprising in itself.”

NEW YORK 2015

Both you and Ashley leaned over to be able to look at your crush for a distance.

“We are not staring okay?” “Yeah, we totally aren’t.” You told each other.

You huffed and closed your locker with a thud, slinging your backpack over your shoulder.

“I’m not doing it.” You finalized.

“Aw, come on! Be a little courageous!”

“Being courageous is to know your mom may find out that you have been researching Loki for 6 months and still risking it by logging onto, probably, illegal websites and the dark web.”

“Soooooo, she doesn’t check your history anymore?” Ashley mused.

“Not manually, and I may have hacked into her phone so, I have that going for me.” You walked towards the exit, other middle schoolers filing after you.

“Still, if you just go and talk to him-” “Are you CRAZY?” “Don’t interrupt me. If you just ask him to walk you home, maybe then you could at least ask him out!”

“Not all of us have been able to have seven boyfriends on their 12-year life span.” You cocked an eyebrow.

“Oh, come on! I still haven’t kissed anyone. I’m waiting ‘till I’m thirteen!” She chirped.

“Why thirteen?”

“It’s supposed to be the unlucky number, right? That way I can pass my bad luck to whatever jerk deserves it!” She seemed too proud of herself.

“You are a jerk.”

She flipped her hair. “Wow. Thanks!”

You both giggled. Through the months you had learned to read her bull, call her out on it, and she had pushed you to try new things. It was a mutual relationship, she knew where your limits were and vice versa. Yet, in a way, you seemed to balance each other out.

“Anyway. Not all of us have your confidence, Ashley.”

“Well, if you don’t do it, I will.”

“You wouldn’t dare.” You gasped.

“Wanna bet?” She playfully glared at you, and you glared back.

Suddenly she made a run for it, dashing towards the exit where your crush was hanging with his friends. “Malcolm! Hey, Malcolm!”

“ASHLEY FOR THE LOVE OF G O D!”

Your crush turned around as you tackled Ashley onto the ground.

“Hey! You guys okay?”

You froze when you heard his voice. Oh, you were so sure your smile looked like a weird grimace.

“N-Nothing. It’s just someone was about to do a stupid.” You said as you got up and brushed off imaginary dust.

“A stupid?” He asked amusement in his voice.

“Is my constant state of being.” Ashley chirped.

Malcolm, your crush, raised an eyebrow in amusement. Another guy behind him chuckled.

“Well, I think we are all in a pretty similar state.” He smiled looking at his friends.

“You mean, you Malcolm.” The guy behind him called out. “Parker wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

“Ah, as if you weren’t in that state often Morales.” Malcolm retorted. You knew he was joking, but there was something in his tone that just…

“Actually, my friend wanted to ask you something.” Ashley pushed me towards him.

“No. I don’t.” I squealed.

“What is it?” He asked with a smug grin.

“Umm… I-I…" STOP STAMMERING BRAIN!!! "I-I was wondering…”

“Yes?”

Ashley was dying inside. You definitely needed to work on your communication skills.

“I-I…” She placed a hand on your shoulder. You took a deep breath. “I don’t know if you r-remember, b-but in… science class? Yeah! Science. We have a project together, and since Ashley is already not coming with me home today… I was wondering if maybe you… Wanted to have a coffee? To… Plan the project out! Of course!”

He had a smug grin on his face, but it softened into a smile and he nodded. “Of course, I would love to accompany this lovely damsel in distress…” He winked at you kissing your hand. You pulled it from him, there was a way that he talked that you had never noticed before. However, since you actually did have a project to do, you ignored it and gave him a smile.

“Alright! Well, I’ll wait for you outside. See ya! Yeah… Okay.”

You fled down the stairs and waited patiently for Malcolm to come by so you could start talking. However, you were unaware of the conversation that was going on back there. But Ashley wasn’t. She hid nearby, where she could hear the aftermath of your petition without the boys finding her spying on them.

“Dude! She is really cute.” Ashley heard Miles say.

“And nice, I have Spanish with her and she is always very proper and quick about her speaking. She is really cool.” Peter added.

“I don’t know. See, physically, she isn’t my cup of tea. Yeah?” Malcolm interrupted.

“But, you do know there is more to her than how she looks, right?” Miles questioned, worry in his voice. This was starting to unnerve Ashley. Few boys had ever made her feel a chill go down her spine like this guy. He looked pretty nice on the outside but in private… He didn’t seem that nice.

“Bah, I’ll see. I do have to do the project, so let’s see if she is any good.” He said as he walked out the doors. “And, remember I’m waiting for that science report.”

Ashley had heard enough. She was not gonna let this idiot take you home by any means. She dashed as quickly as she could down the stairs, near where you were furiously typing something on your phone.

“Hey! (Y/N)!”

“Gimme a second Ash, I can’t let myself forget this.” You typed a little more and then turned off your phone. “I suddenly got an idea for a new argument for my essay. I think I almost have the intro down, but I need the first transition and-” Ashley quickly pulled you aside, interrupting you. “H-Hey!”

“Sorry, but I don’t have much time. I don’t think you should go home with Malcolm.” She tried to warn you.

“What? Why?”

“I don’t think he is who he makes out to be.” She continued. “I think he is only going to take advantage of you!”

There was something deep inside you that had been telling you the same thing. But you wanted to believe otherwise.

“Alright, I’ll be careful Ash. Thank you for telling me.” You smiled.

“But… I don’t think you should be around him, I heard him back there, he-”

You interrupted her back. “I know you mean well. But I don’t want to live life thinking the worst of everyone. If he steps out of line, I’ll kick him straight in the groin.”

Ashley let out a nervous breathy laugh. “Just… Be careful, I don’t want you getting hurt-”

“Hey!” A male voice sounded behind you. “Ready to go home, princess?” Malcolm asked taking your hand and placing a kiss to it as he did before. Again, you pulled away. For some reason, that gesture unnerved you.

“Yeah…” You smiled awkwardly. “I’ll call you when I get home, okay Ash?”

“Yeah… Ok. See you (Y/N)” She said masking her worry with a winning smile and a flick of her hair as she walked away.

“So, lead the way.” The boy signalled for you to start walking and, with a timid smile, you started walking towards a coffee shop near your home.

It wasn’t anything unusual. He cracked a few jokes like he usually did in class. Offered to open the door for you when you got to the coffee shop. And although you bought your own drink, he insisted on getting you a snack.

“You can have whatever you’d like.” He smiled. You tried to reject his offering, but he wouldn’t have any of it. In the end, you just asked for a muffin.

He was actually really good at doing research, quickly flying through loads of information and sending them to you as you typed the essentials into the PowerPoint presentation.

“I just need to make it look pretty, but I’ll do it some other time.” You said while saving the presentation and snapping your computer closed. He did the same and got up, pulling your chair gently from behind you so you would stand up.

“Are you ready to go home, then?”

“Yeah, it’s not that far away from here, so I can go by myself.” You smiled while strapping your backpack.

“I don’t mind, I’ll go with you.” He insisted.

In the back of your mind, Ashley’s warning kept sounding off. But you decided that a little bit longer wouldn’t hurt. He had been very kind to you after all. Why not let him take you home? That sounded really nice.

Together you walked out of the quaint little coffee shop and started heading towards your apartment compound.

“So, I heard you were in the WRITE scholarship!” He smiled.

“Yeah… Wait. Who told you that?” Only your parents and Ashely knew. She wouldn’t have told him about it, right?

“I saw you taking out a paper in class, it had: WRITE ideas! Written in a corner.”

“O-Oh…” You blushed.

“I’m working on it myself. Coming along quite nicely. It’s going to be a short story, but I think I might turn it into something bigger later down the line.”

“If mine does any good, I may publish it. But, I don’t think people would want to read about it.”

“Oh! Really? Why would you say that?” He asked with a raised eyebrow.

“It’s just… It may get a little controversial…” You hid your face.

“Ah. I see, one of my friends is also writing about something controversial. I’m not supposed to say, but being anti-gun control sounds pretty controversial to me.” He whispered in your direction mockingly.

You giggled at his tone. “Ah. Well, she has her beliefs. I think as long as she doesn’t try to use her essay to justify violence, it should be okay.”

“Are you anti-gun control?”

“No. I think people’s safety is way more important than things.” You honestly said. “But she can have her opinion. Honestly, that’s why we have superheroes, to protect us. That way people don’t need that many guns.”

“Yeah. I think I stan Stark the most.”

“Oh, and why?”

“Billionaire? The smartest guy on the planet? All the babes? He has everything.”

You cast your gaze to the ground. Your shoes suddenly being more interesting. 

“I mean. I think he is cool because he saves people. But he just has everything.” He finished

After what seemed an eternity you arrived at the entrance of your building.

“Thanks… For coming with me.” You muttered.

“Nah, no problem.” He smiled. “By the way, can I come in? I need to pee.”

You didn’t want to. You really didn’t want to. But you found yourself nodding and leading him inside your apartment.

“The bathroom is over there… Just- Quickly, my parents shouldn’t be long.”

He ran inside the bathroom, and you walked into the open kitchen. Getting a cutting board out, you started slicing some carrots and boiling some water to make some chicken and potatoes. Your dad’s favorite dish. You really wanted to surprise him, and in about two hours he would be home.

Okay, yeah. You had lied to Malcolm about your parents being home soon. But he was making you uncomfortable, every time you let your guard down you had felt him invade your personal space, maybe he was just trying to be charming, but you wanted him out of your house, quickly.

And then you felt two hands sneak through your waist.

The handle of your knife made contact with the side of his forehead. The hands released your waist, you turned to see Malcolm stumbling backwards. His hands holding his head as he tried to recover from your hit.

“You b*tch!”

You were left paralyzed.

“Take that back…” You mumbled. The words barely coming out of your mouth.

“What if I don’t? You hit me with the handle of a knife, you b*tch.”

You head went numb. Swirling thoughts repeating over and over your head. Your demons were hunting you again.

“Get out.” You said. But it was numbed. You couldn’t hear yourself. “Get out.” This time he flinched.

Although you felt numb you grabbed his backpack and threw it through your window. Not caring about where it fell.

“Get out.” You kept saying as you pushed him down the hall. His string of curse words only worsening while all you could say was: “Get out.”

You reached the street and you were still saying it. He hadn’t touched you anymore but he was screaming at your face. And suddenly all the noise came back, crushing you.

“GET OUT!!!” You heard yourself scream.

“I’m out already you piece of-” He was interrupted all of a sudden.

“Malcolm. Stop that!” Miles came out of nowhere and pulled him away from you.

“Get out!” Was your voice failing you? You swore your voice sounded hoarse.

Two pairs of hands held you in place. “I’m sorry (Y/N). I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have left you alone with him.” You heard Ashley say near you.

“Hey, she is really cold. Is she okay?” Another male voice sounded behind you.

You shied away from his touch and retreated straight into Ashley. You did your face in her shirt. Finally allowing your voice to rest. But you felt so weak, your legs felt like jelly and your chest hurt. A lot.

“Hey, you’re okay.” She soothed you. “We’re here. We’re going to take care of you.”

Ashley ran her hand through your hair, a gesture that slowly calmed you and allowed you to regain a level of consciousness.

When you felt better, you pushed away from her and gave her a weak thanks. Then turned to see a very worried looking Peter Parker next to you.

“ ’m sorry Pete… I didn’t mean to push ya away…” You said weakly. Your throat barely emitted any sound.

“No, it’s okay. You were upset by whatever Malcolm did, you needed some space.”

You looked around, he was gone. “Wher’ did he go?” You slurred, suddenly feeling your energy drain out of you.

“Miles pushed him away. Don’t worry, he isn’t gonna bother you anymore.”

You highly doubted that.

The rest of the afternoon was a blur. You didn’t remember entering your apartment again. Just the feeling of Ashley running her fingers through your hair, and the worried questions of Peter near you. Mumbles. That was all you could hear. No definitive words, no. Just mumbling going all around you.

When you came back to your senses it was about to be 5:30 pm. Ashley was heading out the door with Peter and Miles, saying goodbye to both of them.

“I’ll see you guys on Monday, okay?”

“Yeah, sure. If she needs anything you have my phone right?”

“Yeah, I got it. Thank you, boys.” She closed the door.

“Ash?”

She whipped around to see you lifting yourself up from the sofa. “Hey… How are you feeling?”

“Like I was hit by a truck.”

She chuckled. “I made you something. I can bring it if you’re hungry.”

“Nah. I’m good.”

“Mom was calling me. I have to go, but if you need anything please let me know.” She started heading out the door. “Love ya girl.”

“I love you too.” You smiled at your friend.

But as soon as she closed the door it vanished from your face. You felt empty. That was something that happened when you got too worked up about something. Mom had told you that it would fade over time, and both of your parents constantly apologized whenever it happened. That’s why you never told them when this happened anymore.

Dad would arrive any minute, so you dragged yourself from the couch and sat in front of your computer to try and squeeze something out of your brain.

Your research for WRITE was good. But the more you looked at it, the more holes you found.

Why did Loki really attack Earth? He had been here before, why hadn’t he done it a year prior?

Was his slip up with Agent Romanoff a mistake? He hadn’t spilt any kind of information before. Not about himself. Not about his plan. Afterwards, he hadn’t even been asked why he’d done it. There was no trace of any comments from him about his actions. 

You looked and looked and started breaking apart. This was never going to work. This was stupid. There was no way that anyone would believe your poorly researched essay. There were no official comments on the main perpetrator. And where would you get it?

They were right. All their words. You were useless. Stupid. You would never be enough, why couldn’t you just dissape-?

“CUPCAKE! I’M HOOOOOME!!!”

Ah… Dad…

“Cupcake?” He had opened the door. “How are you, sweetie?”

You turned around, in the darkness he couldn’t see your reddened eyes. “I’m good. Just finishing some homework.”

“That’s my girl. Hey, I gotta head for the night shift, but I’ll see you in the morning.” He headed towards you and kissed you on your forehead.

“I-I didn’t know you had a night shift today…”

“Yeah, I know I’m sorry. They need extra back up to supervise after Ultron’s attack.” His voice was apologetic. “I’m a sorry munchkin. I promise you I’ll here tomorrow.”

“Don’t worry. I know your job is important.” You smiled, even though you felt broken inside.

“Mom also has a night shift, but she couldn’t drop by to say goodnight.” He rolled his eyes. “You sure you’ll be okay on your own?”

“Yeah. I know the drill.”

“Goodnight munchkin.”

“Goodnight dad.”

You were all alone. He left. She didn’t even bother to check on you.

You walked up to your closet and pulled out a corkboard. Where for the last few months you had worked extensively in collecting research to figure out your thesis.

Pictures of security cameras. Documents. Transcriptions of recordings. Some were tied by a red cord. It looked like a detective trying to solve a case. And for a while, that’s what you thought you were. But as you looked through it, you found more wholes. Wherever you looked, the word failure just hammered in your head. 

The word he had called you today. That insulting and disgusting word. 

In your anger, you grabbed the board and knocked it over. Papers flew across the room. Strewn all around.

Sobs then proceeded to rack your body. There was no way you could do this. Who would listen to a 12-year-old anyways?

THE NEXT DAY

Neither of your parents arrived home in the morning.

New York seemed to match your mood since it was raining. It was definitely a lazy Saturday, so you decided to text Ashley that you were feeling better and that you’d see her on Monday. Then afterwards, you walked out, with your coat on and some money to spend it all in whatever you were craving for breakfast that day. 

You usually didn’t ask for much, so your parents were never angry at you when you spent just a little bit more for yourself.

Is not like you were going to order a bunch of expensive items. But you just went wherever your stomach led you.

You ended up in a bustling part of the city. Despite the rain, people walked by in a hassle. You approached a food car that had a small roof to protect yourself from the light rain that fell upon New York. 

“Hey, there sweetie. What would you like today?” The owner of the truck asked you kindly. 

You looked at the menu, the variety of options overwhelming you. “Well… What do you recommend?”

“Ah! I think the best food to have in weather like this, is the Chocolate waffle delight. With some hot cocoa? The perfect comfort food, missy.”

“Then I’ll try it.” You smiled at him. Did you really look that bad?

After paying you still stood under the roof as the rain lightened, turning into a drizzle. The waffle was honestly really good. It was crunchy outside, but soft inside. The chocolate dripping everywhere and the sugar topping it. The hot cocoa was good too, but you preferred your dad’s. It was creamier.

As you finished your breakfast you dedicated yourself to look around at the people who walked by. Couples walked arm in arm. Families held the children’s hands. People who walked on their own, seemed to go faster. All of them had somewhere to go.

But you, today, on a Saturday like this. Had nothing to do and nowhere to go. Wasn’t that just pathetic?

If the thing with Malcolm hadn’t happened you would probably be working around those holes for your scholarship. But you didn’t feel like writing anymore. There was no motivation coursing through you like it normally did. 

So you just stared.

And stared.

And stare- Wait, what?

A single person in the street stood out to you. What was he wearing?

You threw away the paper wrapper and cup of cocoa and said a hasty thank you and goodbye to the truck owner.

He was standing on the sidewalk, waiting for the crossing sign to change. And he stood out like a crown in a sea of parrots. Because yeah, New Yorkers are weird, but not that weird. Who wears a three-piece, all black, suit anyway?

You speed-walked through your pedestrian crossing, walking towards him. 

It can’t be. They took him back to Asgard. They would arrest him if he ever set foot back on earth. It can’t be him.

You racked your mind for an explanation, but the place where he had just walked out of sent you into a new form of confusion. Why would he be in an elder’s home?

You finally caught up to the man. However, an inner panic overtook you so you just stood awkwardly by his side, waiting for the pedestrian light to change.

Look towards me. Come on. Notice me. You hoped since you were definitely not just going to start a conversation with an unidentified criminal. No. That would be irresponsible of you.

You bounced on the ball of your feet and when the light changed, you followed him as inconspicuously as you could.

After a minute or two of quietly following him, you just thought that maybe you were following the wrong guy. Maybe your sight failed you. There was no way this was him. I mean, he would have the FBI, the CIA, the army and the Avengers on top of him just by setting foot on earth. Yeah, you just-

“Why are you following me?”

Oh no. It’s definitely him.

“Uh-Uh, excuse me?” You tried playing dumb.

He didn’t turn around, nor he stopped. So you didn’t either.

“You have been following me for some time. Please go, I’m not friendly with kids.” He dismissively stated.

“Wow. I guess I’m just some kid. I thought I wasn’t that forgettable.” You smirked, wondering if that would steer his brain.

He only stopped when the next pedestrian light turned red.

Still not looking at you, but with a furrowed brow, he asked: “Do I know you?”

“Yep. I guess I am pretty forgettable.” You shrugged, not meeting his side looks. “I guess sneaking past the security of the highest security vehicle in the world is quite dumb.”

Is he catching on? Am I pulling this off? Or do I just look like an idiot?

It took him a second of silence and starting to cross the street to suddenly whip around in the middle of the crossing and give you a look.

“You’re my cell buffoon.” He smirked.

You gasped, feigning hurt. “Excuse Y O U. I’ll let you know that I am so much more than "entertaining”.“

You both stood there, in the middle of the street, staring at each other for a while. 

"Well, this will be interesting then…” The smirk on his face told you one thing. This was just starting.