#and also a bunch of other stuff happened. but ugh. too lazy to explain

[paterday]

Had a dream that it was my birthday and John halo guy was at my birthday party

[isthatbloodonhisshirt]

If you could change ten things about Teen Wolf what would you change??

OMG BUCKLE DOWN BECAUSE IT’S GONNA BE A LONG ONE! Do asks have a word limit? Guess we gonna find out! (Sometimes I wish I could speak these replies, they sound much funnier when I am speaking out loud to myself and then they are just weird and flat typed up but I DIGRESS! I do that a lot, have you noticed? Doesn’t matter.)

(Also, I did put a “Keep Reading” but for some reason it’s not working. Or it’s not showing as working on my end. But it’s right under this paragraph I swear so if it’s not working, that isn’t on me....)

1) SO! Trauma. People be dealing with their traumas. That’d be a thing I’d like, thank you. Like, I’m sorry, but there is a fuckton of trauma in this show and everyone like, goes to bed at night and wakes up cured. Like MAGIC! I mean, yes, I get that magic is a thing in the show (is it? I mean kind of? Idk, I never saw past season 4, they alluded to magic and then SNATCHED THAT AWAY so, side-note, that’s coming up later!) But yes, I would’ve very much liked for people to, you know, deal with their traumas in a realistic fashion. Let’s get some therapy going, or like, idk, some actual negative reactions to thing! They kind of had that with Stiles every now and then, but he seemed to be up and down episode to episode so like, it’d be like they wrote an episode where he reacts to what happened to him and then four episodes have gone by where he’s fine and the writers were like “OH YEAH SHIT HE JUST MURDERED LIKE A WHOLE HOSPITAL, make him have a panic attack randomly over dropping milk, that balances out, excellent, we’re so smart.” So yes. DEAL. WITH. THE. TRAUMA! Thanks.

2) LESS CHARACTERS, MORE DEVELOPMENT! I mentioned this in another recent ask about relationships but like, they just kept shoving characters in there. Like one of those clown cars. So we got like, 30% character development on the core group and then the rest was like “wait, who are you again?” Like, legit, I have a bad memory, you put too many people in front of me, I ain’t gonna remember them unless they have a good personality or a reason to be there. And like, develop their relationships! Not even romantically, but like, Scott’s mom loves Scott, that is sweet and lovely, but like, we never really… see… that… developed? Idk man, like again, I have a bad memory, but when you really develop relationships WELL (ex: Brooklyn-nine-nine), that shit sticks with you and you CARE about people. The friendships are important, and the familial relationships are important and just developing all the dynamics is important! They spent more time showcasing how much everyone hated each other and lied to each other and stuff and that just got really tiring. Yes, you’re allowed to get mad at your friends, but if you’re a Werewolf, and your human friend is calling you when there is a fucking monster running around killing people, can you maybe stop making out with your girlfriend and answer your phone so your friend isn’t treading water with a 200+ pound Werewolf for 2 hours? Like, JUST SAYING! (Spoiler alert: Me and Scott would not be close friends. Like, I think we’d be friends, but not so much that I’d trust him with my life. If I wanted to grab pizza and a movie, maybe play some video games, he sounds like a treat, but if my life was in danger, thanks I be callin’ someone who answers their phone).

3) Actual consequences for their actions! Okay like, I am also guilty of this in fanfic, but at the same time, my writing is free, I don’t get paid for it, and I write what I want because that’s how it works, so I can do whatever I please (If I wanna make the Hales royalty for the millionth time, ain’t nobody gonna stop me!). But like, when you are a legit paid screenwriter who is writing a show? Consequences! Just because it’s a show about Werewolves doesn’t mean there can’t be any consequences! Like, the best scene, and I feel like we can agree, because fuck it like, hurt my soul and my heart and I was just so like ;~; was when the sheriff got fired (fired? suspended? TEMPORARILY UNEMPLOYED!) because Stiles stole a police van when they locked Jackson up in it. Like, that shit was REAL LIFE CONSEQUENCES for actions, and that shit was intense and it HURT and omg I loved it! Give me more of that! Like, I’m sorry, but you gonna tell me Nogistune!Stiles walked through the hospital murdering a bazillion people and not one camera was working the whole time? Not one? Nobody saw that? Nobody went “hey, isn’t that the sheriff’s kid?” Like, CAN. YOU. IMAGINE?! That would’ve been so amazing, a bunch of episodes of the pack scrambling to keep the Supernatural a secret while also trying to stop Stiles from GETTING ARRESTED because saying “Sorry ma’am, I was possessed by a demon fox who likes chaos and thought murdering a bunch of people would be fun” ain’t gonna fly in court and the FBI sure isn’t gonna believe that but like, UGH! Again, bad memory, but was the fact that Dark!Stiles wandered through the hospital killing people EVER brought up again???? CONSEQUENCES. Woulda really liked that.

4) STOP with unnecessary romances. Like, yeah, I get it, the allos like their romances, but shockingly, you can still have a good show without focussing on the romance. Like, it can be there, I’m not saying don’t put it in, I’m saying DON’T MAKE IT THE MOST IMPORTANT THING! Like, the entirety of season one was Scott chasing Allison and Stiles chasing Lydia. This… this does not make an interesting show? Like, is that just me? And then as the season progressed, EVERYONE had to be in a relationship? WHY? Again, haven’t seen past season four, but I mean, I know Scott and Kira were a thing, and then Stiles and Malia, and Liam and some… person? Idk. And Ethan and Danny (congrats Jeff, you get to tick your “I had representation in my show!” box, well done, gold star, or whatever). And Isaac and Allison, and Melissa and Chris (apparently?). And then Stydia was alluded as being canon, and Scott ended up with Malia somehow?? And Derek slept with half the town and all of Mexico, idek. Like, stop it. Stop. Shows work without everything being about everyone banging each other. (See again: Brooklyn-nine-nine, or Avatar the Last Airbender, or The Good Place, or even fucking Supernatural!) You can have a good, interesting story without everyone banging each other. It ain’t necessary.

5) More actual storytelling (again, this woulda worked better without the unnecessary romances taking up 49 of the 50 minutes of air-time). Like, yes, I get it, pilot’s gotta have some pizzaz! Gotta be spicy and sparkly to make people interested (and like, fucking hell, all I can remember of the pilot is sobbing Allison soaking wet–LIKE, WAS THAT NECESSARY???–about the dog she hit and oh noes is it dead well thank God the lead character works for a vet! And somehow has keys and access to the whole clinic like nbd at all hours? Whatever. I wasn’t even allowed inside my blockbuster as a shift lead if it was off-hours but apparently a high school student doing paperwork at a vet clinic is different, I’m not a vet so what do I know? I HAD A BAD DAY OKAY, I GOT FEELINGS ABOUT THIS RN!) I went off-topic, what was I saying? Oh yes, storytelling. You know what woulda been nice? Werewolves! It happens, we find out about Laura, we find out about Werewolves, Scott gets bitten, all that jazz. And then like… ease in the Hunters? Like, why was there Laura/Derek, Peter, AND the Hunters all crammed into the pilot? Yes, I get it, you need the SUSPENSE and the DRAMA, but you can do that without the Hunters right off the bat. Just, how CONVENIENT~ that the same day Derek and Laura come back, Hunters move to town? That’s just lazy, and again, I can be guilty of laziness, I admit to it, but I literally get paid in—like, do hearts count? I get paid in hearts and pats on the back for my fics, I can write whatever I want. If you’re getting paid to write something, try a bit harder, yes? Yes???

What number am I on? Oh good Lord, I got things to say, okay.

6) MAGIC! Can you like—I feel like this one is self-explanatory. Stiles did the whole mountain ash thing in season one, and it was SO PROMISING, and then that just died. It died like Maes Hughes getting shot in a phonebooth (spoiler, but really, you haven’t seen that yet, that’s a you problem). Why even bother introducing magic if you weren’t gonna use it? Like, was it because people like Stiles more than Scott and the showrunner was like “nonono. If we make him magic, he’s TOO cool, and then Scott is unimportant.” I mean, you coulda worked that in your favour, but no. You just murdered the fuck out of it, like straight up took it out back and shot it. Like, yeah, Derek went kiddo again and Jennifer was apparently all magic beauty spell or whatever, but like?? That’s it??? You had a show about Werewolves and you didn’t even try to make it more interesting by making some of the characters magic? Lydia’s basically the closest and they didn’t even explain her powers that well. Magic would’ve been dope and they totally shoved that to the side. That was dumb. Shoulda done something with that.

7) Explain things more? Don’t mention them once and then do nothing? Like, we got some brief stuff about anchors, and emissaries (which are super duper secret according to Deaton but then like, EVERYONE KNOWS HE IS EMISSARY SO WHICH IS IT DEATON? YOU TELL ME!) Like, they had so much opportunity to talk about so many things and again, maybe that comes out more in the later seasons, idk, but they likely coulda done with more explanations and they didn’t and this angers me GREATLY. They mention something once and then it never comes up again. That’s some Lost bullshit right there. Don’t start something if you’re not gonna commit. You tell me the beginning of the story, I wanna fucking know the end, don’t forget halfway through and wander away, that ain’t right, I NEED ANSWERS JEFF! And like, as above, never really got Lydia’s powers. I know what a Banshee is, but her powers did NOT make sense to me. Idk, could just be that I’m dumb, but similarly, don’t write something so convoluted that it confuses people, that is also dumb. As dumb as I am so like, well done there. And also do we get more on Parrish? I know he’s a Hellhound, but how does one get born a Hellhound and not know until you are conveniently lit on fire by someone trying to kill you for money? (Also, you bean, you absolute treasure, “I’m worth five dollars?” You’re so cute. Silly child.) I feel like being a Hellhound is something that woulda come up before getting barbecued in his cruiser. Like, he works a stressful job, you gonna tell me not ONCE while getting shot at he didn’t have a massive heart attack over a close call and like, burst into flames? No? Is that just a me thing? I feel like the slightest annoyance and I’d be fully on fire, not gonna lie. (I’d be on fire a LOT… CLEARLY I AM AN ANGRY PERSON! No, that’s not true. No yes it is, I am angry, but more angry lately because I’m sleep-deprived and work is dumb ANYWAY back to this)

8) EMBRACE THE SIDE CHARACTERS! Okay, so MAYBE Scott is meant to be the golden child. The Dick Grayson of the show, if you will. The original Robin, the creme de la creme. That’s all fine and dandy if he is, no judgement (little judgement), but you know what you don’t do when your side characters are getting a lot of attention and love? What you DO NOT do is give them less screen time. Because then you’re being petty and, shockingly, you get more positive results when you give the fans what they want. I’m not talking about pairings, because everyone is different, and you can’t cater to everyone, but like, the more people moved away from liking Scott, the harder the showrunners pushed him into our faces. And like, that isn’t how this works. If I like side character 87 a lot, and the lead’s getting annoying, you know what’s gonna make me NOT watch the show? Cutting out side character 87 (hey, for shits and gigs, let’s call him DANNY, just, not coincidentally at all) and then just shoving the lead into my face. That is what makes someone go “Well, four seasons is enough, I can happily live knowing I didn’t waste my life watching two more of them.” Like??? I’m not saying cut out Scott, because the show is ABOUT Scott, but the more everyone tried to showcase how amazing and wonderful and pure and perfect he was, the more annoying it got? Like, Scott has flaws. THEY ALL HAVE FLAWS! If you don’t admit that they all have flaws, it gets boring, and you hate the characters. I know that Scott turned into a douche later (apparently, again, haven’t seen it), but even in the early seasons by trying to make him this pure True Alpha golden angel child who spreads love and hope and trusts everyone, it just got boring. He was vanilla, and also a bad friend, because he was too “perfect” to be around someone “imperfect” like Stiles, and even like, the rest of the pack overall. He was always put on a pedestal and it made the show really… irksome? Idk, I just feel like yes, SCOTT is the Teen Wolf, but you added all these damn side characters, maybe use them a bit more? At least Stiles was interesting, and Lydia was fucking badass, and fucking hell, if you’d done right by Boyd and Erica, the actors wouldn’t have left for better shows so like, come on man, you coulda done better. We coulda had such a dope show, why you gotta crush my dreams like that Jeff? What did I ever do to you?

I know this is only eight, but this is long enough, if I go two more, this is gonna be IN.SANE. And also it’s late and I haven’t finished my fic for the day (I mean, I’m almost done, but I’m not done yet!) So like, I’ma stop here. But yes, hopefully this answered your question. Sorry I got REALLY PASSIONATE about it but it’s been a day.

Also, I feel this needs to be said, but obviously these are my own personal opinions, and as opinions, you are not obligated to agree with them. But you are also not allowed to tell me my opinion is wrong. You can disagree with it, but this is an opinion, not a law, so there is no right and wrong. Don’t @ me, my day’s been bad enough kthx!

HAVE A GOOD NIGHT, BE BACK IN LIKE TWENTY(?) MINUTES!

[shewantedtobeasecretgirl]

11. The Lovecats a.k.a an irresistible offer, a guy in proper clothes and a dangerous ginger

In the previous chapters: Effie gives a few pictures taken by her to Krisha who promises to show them to Kelly Curtis but Effie rushes away in the middle of the conversation to avert a date crisis between Judy and Jeff . After Mike’s awkward one-night-stand and the embarrassing intermezzo between Judy and Stone in the shower (that might have been seen by someone else too), the bunch is gathering at breakfast time in a bistro near the motel. Their exchange gets interrupted by Eric who has bad news for them.

 „Guys, we have a problem.”

Ugh… if I was a road manager and the band I’m managing had a show tonight and the lead singer had lost his voice due to his uncontrolled yelling, maybe I’d call it a problem. But I’m a lead singer of a band that is supposed to play a show tonight who lost his voice due to his uncontrolled yelling so I just call it an as fucked-up dumpster fire as possible.

I can barely understand the reactions since everyone in the bunch is desperately shouting at us.

“Has Karrie disappeared?”

“Did Suns defeat Sonics? I knew it!”

“Is the Twelfth Amendment coming into effect again?”

“We’re out of weed?”

Yeah, preferences.

“Hey, everyone, calm the fuck down!” Eric tries to talk them down. “It’s about the show tonight. We… we probably have to cancel it.”

“What? Why? No way!” the cacophony goes on and it only stops when Eric shuts them up with a loud whistle using his fingers.

“Should I explain calm or fuck or down?” he asks annoyed. “The thing is… Ed has lost his voice. He’s not even able to speak.”

“But… how?” Stone stares at us with clueless face. Such a smart guy and such a stupid question.

“He obviously forgot it in a public restroom and by the time he went back, it was already gone. Jesus.” Judy rolls her eyes playing with her fork. Thanks Judy, that’s what I was thinking about, now that you’ve translated it into Sarcasm, Stone might understand too.

“Actually, he accidentally flushed it down the toilet. In case you need to know the exact details to process it, Stoney.” Beth supports her with an audacious grin.

“No problem, we send Jeff down in the canal, I’m sure he’ll find it.”

“I’m able to deal with any shit except yours, Stone.” Jeff retorts, getting a snort from Judy as a reward.

“If I was you, I wouldn’t be so proud of that…”

“Seriously, what happened?” Mike cuts the forming exchange off.

“He was complaining about having a sore throat already yesterday evening too… he was working on a few lyrics but he felt tired and fell asleep relatively early and by this morning… nothing, he can only whisper, I’m afraid…”

“NO!!!” Judy interrupts her and blushes in a second since suddenly, all eyes are fixed on her. “I mean he mustn’t whisper, that’s the worst he can do.”

He? Hey, I lost my voice, not my hearing or my mind.

“It kills vocal cords, which can even lead to neck pains, I’m speaking from experience.”

“Really?” Eric frowns in disbelief.

“He has probably laryngitis. I mean, I’m not sure, he should see an otorhinolaryngologist for an exact diagnose but it’s very likely. It’s mostly viral or bacterial but extreme overburdening doesn’t help either… and extreme overburdening is a pretty euphemistic description for what you’re doing every night, sorry Ed but someone has to finally say it.” she addresses me but my only answer is a helpless shrug. I’m sure I do something wrong but I was procrastinating to face my limits until now and… here’s the result.

“And now she’s already a doctor too. And she completed the medical program in one single night, remarkable.”

“Shut up Stone.” Eric interjects not taking his eyes off of Judy.

“And how long is the regeneration period?” Beth asks, digging her face into my shoulder, which makes me reach for her neck instinctively. She rubs her cheek against my back like a lazy cat as she’s enjoying the improvised massage.

“Well, he shouldn’t speak for a few days but singing is another case, maybe one month…” My hand stops.

“What?” Beth screams right into my ear as her head perks up. Okay, so much for my hearing.

“It depends but usually after a laryngitis, you win back your singing voice note by note, beginning from the nether region.”

“Whoa, Camden, you’re getting naughtier and naughtier…”

“Spirits sometimes help…”

“That’s what I’m telling you all the time!” Mike hits the table with his fist.

“… but it’s only symptomatic treatment, if it’s bacterial, antibiotics are the ultimate solution. And… although I definitely do not support anything that kills throat but I know that singers often get a Calcium shot if they have to perform when having voice problems. So... that would maybe help shorten the silence phase.” Judy explains unwillingly.

“So… let’s summarize what you’re suggesting: we bring Ed to an expert, convince the doctor to give him a Calcium shot and swear he won’t sing for a month… and we cancel the show tonight… and then... we’ll see?” Eric looks at Judy for reassurance.

“Kind of… but I have serious doubts if he can let any note out this week. But are you sure the show must be canceled? I mean, what if someone else sang? Stone? You like singing, don’t you?”

Judy, you have a huge luck that I’m not able to ask publicly why you know about that.

“Jesus, no, I’m not a singer.”

“Aren’t you?” she provokes him raising one eyebrow.

“Nah. Plus, I can’t sing while I’m playing the guitar, I’ve already tried it but every time I try sing, I fuck the riffs up.”

“And he cusses every time he talks. He’d be lynched by the crowd in like ten seconds.” Jeff adds. “Anyway, I’m the other one who sings the backup vocals, maybe I…”

“NO WAY!” everybody protests in unison.

“Okay, okay, it was just an idea…”

“A very bad idea. We would end up playing odes about Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, geez…”

Actually, why would it be that bad? He’s like a childhood hero to me. Plus, Stone wouldn’t be a better choice either, our crowd isn’t prepared for a rock cover of The Lumberjack Song.

“No, we have no other choice.”

“Maybe…”

“I SAID NO WHISPERING!” Judy nips my attempt to join the conversation in the bud. I reach in the chest pocket of my shirt because I think this is the right moment to use my latest invention. Beth immediately gets it and jumps in the middle.

“Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, I’m Beth Liebling, your favorite hostess and when I say favorite, I mean it.” she emphasizes the ongoing pun about the meaning of her last name with exaggerated winks. “Many of us have certainly experienced sore throat when swallowing or coughing is extremely painful and speaking seems to be impossible. The lack of communication makes us feel isolated and if we’re surrounded with sarcastic people, unsolved conflicts may result in anger issues.”

“I’m not angry at all, everything’s fine.” Stone smirks.

“But as always, we offer you a solution to tackle these difficulties and to present this incredible product, I ask my handsome partner, Edward for some help.” she pulls me next to herself by the sleeve of my shirt. I put on my dumbest smile and wait for the cue.

“Interaction cards!” she announces with pretended enthusiasm and glances at me. I lift the deck in my hand to eye level and show it around, still with the tooth-flashing fake smile.

“They make possible to maintain basic communication with the simplest messages.”

I present the first two cards with the words “yes” and “no”.

“Give me the “no”, I’ll buy it.” Stone grabs for it. I should have known.

“They also make us capable of expressing our current feelings.”

I spread out the next cards saying “shit”, “damn”, “fuck” and “I love you”.

“Aww. Give me that one!” Mike reaches out for the latter.

“Some of them declare basic axioms…” I wave with the “Pete Townshend is god” card. “No one? No problem, we’ve still got great stuff for our customers: the combined interaction cards!”

I flip through the deck and pick the “Fuck you Bush/republicans/Nazis/racists/homophobic assholes!” card.

“That’s cute, so heartfelt!” Eric presses his hand against his chest and takes it from me with the other one. I keep searching and giggle in advance when I finally pick the “Fuck you Stone!” card.

“Mine!” Judy and Jeff both almost fall out of the booth and then exchange a grin. Although Jeff was the faster, he places the card onto his palm and kneels down in front of her.

“In token of my appreciation, milady…” he offers it to the girl. To my biggest surprise, her first embarrassment evaporates quickly and she plays along.

“I’m always going to wear it over my heart.” she puts it into the chest pocket of her dungaree dress.

“How cheesy.” Stone comments dropping a piece of Emmentaler from his cheese plate into his mouth.

I nudge Beth to show her the card I made for her when she wasn’t looking. When she reads the “I love you, Beth” text on it, she slowly steps to me, laces her arms around my neck and pulls me into a relaxing, soft kiss. I capture her in a bear hug, letting her bury her head into my chest so that I can kiss the top of it and feel the familiar smell of the shampoo she’s used since I met her…

“Booo, the hostess is fucking the stage prop, disgusting…”

“Look, she’s licking the germs out of his mouth, ew…”

I try to ignore the childish remarks of Mike and Stone, luckily, Eric steers the conversation back to more professional questions.

“I guess I have to make a few phone calls, starting with the club, the guys who bought the ticket should receive refund… and I try to get a doctor for Ed, maybe we should try it in Charlotte, I don’t think we could find a specialist here…” he starts thinking loud, getting lost in the current, messy “to do” list he’s keeping in his pocket.

“„Sssooo… since the show has been canceled, I guess we have tons of time for the guitar lesson you asked for.” Jeff changes the topic with a huge grin, without the slightest intention of hiding his joy. And with the definite intention of using every occasion to spend more time alone with her.

“Guitar lesson? From Jeff?” Stone scoffs. “You know he didn’t become a bassist by chance, don’t you?”

“I must admit Stone’s right. There’s a particular reason for it… This bony asshole can’t hold a bass. We tried it, I swear but he ended up with his face in the concrete. If you take a closer look, you can notice that his Les Paul is only a cardboard replica too. He just pretends to play it, actually, it is Scully who plays his parts behind the amps.”

Judy bursts out in a heartfelt laughter, finally, Jeff has figured out that the way to her heart leads through well-played jokes. Possibly at Stone’s expense.

“I guess we could hang out together even tonight…” Jeff recommends with a cautious squint. That’s it, strike the iron while it’s hot…

“Tonight? But what about the show???”

“What show, Stone? We’ve just decided to cancel it…”

“But the supporting act is Tribe After Tribe! You love them, you’ve wanted to see them playing live since Tom Petty gave you their record! I definitely go and watch them!” Stone pouts like a child whose parents are about to call off the family visit to Disneyland.

“Shit… I mean, that’s true, they’re amazing… maybe you could come too…?”

“Nah, I don’t think so, I could finally sleep through the whole night… but we don’t have to do the soundcheck today, we could have the first lesson instead.”

“Hey Camden, you have a lot to learn, no one said you can skip today’s work!”

“I start with turning your volume down…” Judy retorts and turns immediately back to Jeff. “So, what do you say?”

“Sure… I mean, maybe you end up teaching me. But sooner or later, I have to figure out what I’m doing so…”

They both stand up, and as they are walking towards the exit, they keep talking, leaving the sour-faced Stone behind. I can only guess the reason of the change in her behavior… Jeff Ament, you’d better not mess up your chance.

***

„Granny, stop turning your head all the time! I can also hear you when you’re looking straight ahead. Otherwise I mess up your hair!”

“Effie darling, I’m an old woman, I don’t want to be pretty, I just want shorter hair so that I can comb it easier after hair wash.” she answers, of course she can’t help moving her head this time either.

“Granny! What did I just say? Okay, I accept that you don’t care about your look but I don’t lend my name to anything. Plus, if you keep squirming, I might even cut you. Or myself. Geez, I don’t know what happened to your hair after it had turned grey, it’s like barbed wire, maybe I should try it with a machete…” I mutter as I try to straighten her strands with a comb before I start cutting.

“I’ve told you, you can do anything with it, my body is a rusty, old machine, I can’t lean forward in the bath tub or brush it for hours. You could even shave it, I don’t care.”

“Do you really want to enjoy the Seattle rain on your bald scalp? I doubt it. Did you know that dripping ice cold water on the shaved head of prisoners was a popular way of torment in the Middle Ages? And I don’t think Mr. Taylor would like it either.” I refer to her old neighbor with a sly smile.

“Come on, Effie. Peter and I are both basically fossils.” she waves with an embarrassed, short laughter. We’ve been teasing her with him for years but she always reacts with denial, she belongs to the generation of which members think attraction over a certain age is something inappropriate. Or can’t even exist. And if it still does, it’s better to pretend it doesn’t.

“Single fossils!” I point out.

“I know it’s a very fashionable word nowadays but we are both widows, my dear. That’s completely different.” she insists playing with her wedding ring that embraces her ring finger still perfectly. I could stare at her hands for hours, her elegant fingers with strong, even, oval nails, whereas the backs of her hands and her palms are soft and always warm, Mom is convinced that’s the reason why she can prepare the most delicious homemade pastries in the world. The thin, fine, spiderweb-like wrinkles on them are telling the story of a complicated life, every single day adds a newer chapter to it…

“That doesn’t mean you have to live like a recluse, I don’t know why you’re fighting even against the idea.”

“We’ve just put dear Clara in the grave and…”

“Granny, Mrs. Taylor died like… eight years ago???” I whine clipping together a few strands of her.

“To me, it feels like it had happened yesterday.”

“Because with aging, the perception of time is changing completely. It’s scientifically proven. Mr. Taylor is handsome and kind and however much you try to ignore it, he likes you.”

“Sweetie, the head of girls in your age is full of romantic imaginations but…”

“Don’t even try to project it back on me! He trims the hedge in your front yard and peeps from behind the curtain all the time, just to show up by chance whenever you step out of the house! He basically tears the shopping bags out of your hands every time you arrive home from the grocery store!” I confront her with the facts and begin to trim her hair in the meantime.

“Because he’s a gentleman! Our generation was taught how to be polite!” she explains intensely making me grab her head with both hands and turn it back in the right direction.

“Are you trying to say my generation is rude? Anyway, Mr. Taylor is a retired TV mechanic! He could repair that piece of shit old box you’re not willing to replace whenever it gets fucked up.” I play my ultimate argument knowing she has a soft spot for her favorite series. She was mourning after the last episode of Dallas for weeks.

“Effie, you know I don’t like dirty words! Please!”

“Sorry. He could repair that useless device you’re not willing to replace every time it gets fucked up.” I giggle.

“Effie!”

“Granny, just think into it: you shouldn’t make us record the missed episodes and come over if you want to watch them… you don’t like video cassettes anyway and you said you could never learn how to work a video player…” I purr into her ears trying to sound hypnotical.

“It’s rather you who should have a suitor! You’re such a pretty, young, smart girl, I can’t believe you don’t have a boyfriend.”

Oh no. She turned the tables on me. Clever.

“First of all, being single is not a shame, I won’t expire if I don’t get married before I turn 25. I’m just… not interested in anyone right now.”

And by the way, if you’re not studying, not working, and your so-called friends have forgotten about your existence for the reasons above and gave up inviting you at parties and social events, you don’t even have any possible love interest around. Not that I blame them, my high school classmates are scattered everywhere in the country and after I suspended my studies, I kind of slowly drifted away from the college buddies. We hung out a few times after it but I lost track of everything, I understood fewer and fewer inside jokes, I’m not allowed to drink alcohol, which was obviously no fun to them… damn, I can’t even get rid of my waste products without outside help. So at this point, it’s not that easy to meet guys at all. Let alone normal guys who aren’t slackers, heroin addicts and don’t have commitment issues. I mean, bad guys seem to be exciting until you have one. And I’ve had a few one, I always buy their stupid shit and I’m sick of them. Victor is my only friend who still cares and lets me know about must-see shows at RCKNDY but he’s a friend, we’ve never thought about each other with any hint of romantic feelings at that’s okay. To be honest, I don’t even want to be in a relationship only for the sake of it but I miss that little tingle in the chest and the stomach, at least a teeny-tiny, innocent crush wouldn’t hurt…

“I’m sure you have admirers, just no one meets your expectations, maybe you set the bar too high… Ouch!” she lets out a short scream since I manage to pull her hair involuntarily. The “picky girl” card again… this time, I’m not willing to begin a debate with her about that, I’ve done that several times and she just waved me off every single time.

“I think we should rather discuss Judy’s love life, it’s her who‘s surrounded by handsome boys right now.” I change the subject of the conversation, I know I’m mean and if Judy was here, she’d certainly kill me… but she’s not and the end justifies the means.

“I still can’t imagine her in the company of those men.”

Those men. Granny refuses to call the band members anything else. Okay, on sunny days, she refers to them as “those young men”… but Seattle isn’t famous for the frequency of sunny days, as we know.

“They are nice guys, she likes them. And as far as I know, they like her too…” I rather resist the urge to mention Stone’s aversion to her. “Moreover, I heard through the grapevine that one of them liked her more than the others…”

“A suitor? Sweetie, please bring my bag here, now that you’re mentioning that, I want to ask you something.”

I obey, and walk to the armchair to grab it. Like it was so easy.

“Jesus, Granny, are you keeping bricks in your handbag??? It’s a lethal weapon, if you beat someone in the head with it, you can be put in jail…” I shake my head as I put it on her lap.

“Come on, it’s not that heavy. There are a few things in it a woman can need anytime… “ she starts rummaging in the bag and as I peak into it, I can spot a Swiss Army penknife and a small bottle of tear gas spray. I rather don't ask anything. “I know you’ve shown me pictures of those men, magazine articles, posters but you know I forget everything… So I bought something up-to-date so that you can tell me what I have to know about them, especially if it concerns my granddaughter…” she pulls something colorful out of the mess.

“Steel Hammer magazine? Haha, I can’t believe it! You just went to a kiosk and asked for the latest issue of a metal magazine???” I laugh walking back behind her to pick up the threads again.

“Well… I couldn’t remember the band’s name, I just told to the salesman that my grandchild was working with one of the famous rock bands from our town and I wanted to learn more about them. He just laughed and told me this issue was full of Seattle rock bands and I could certainly find in it what I was looking for.” she flips through the pages. “So tell me again the names of those men, please.” she lifts the magazine and I giggle as I look over her head at it.

“Oh, that’s Alice in Chains, they are also popular but… I don’t think you would approve if Judy worked for them.”

“Why? They do drugs, right? I don’t even want to hear more about that.” Thank God. I don’t think I could tell her much about them without causing her a heart attack. “But they must be them!” she puts a picture in front my nose again.

“You’re getting warmer… but… still not hot. That’s Soundgarden, they are good friends with the guys, they’re even meeting them in a few weeks in Texas, I guess they’re playing a couple of shows together. But they are nice guys too, you don’t have to worry. No drugs, no sex. I mean no sex with strangers. Or other bands’ crew members.” I add before she’d make me run background checks and look into their police records.

“And these men?”

“Whoohoo, you’re hot! That’s them, Pearl Jam!”

“They have nice hair! Actually, all these musicians do. And their eyes are clear, I like that. They seem to be honest young men.” Young men. Maybe if I tell enough nice things about them, she’ll even call them “boys”, or even “guys”. ”Who is who?”

“Eddie, Jeff, Stone, Dave and Mike.” I list pointing at each name on its owner.

“And which of them is courting our Judy?” she inquires excitedly.

“I wouldn’t call it courting yet, all I know he’s already asked her out once but I’m still investigating the details, you know how secretive she can be. Anyway, it’s the bassist, Jeff. The second one from left.” I glance over her head again while I collect another strand with the comb and straighten it to see its length.

“He’s very athletic, he looks healthy, that’s good. A strong man. But those earrings and bracelets… does he always wear them?”

I can hear the frown in her voice.

“I guess so. But that doesn’t make him a bad person, body piercings are very fashionable nowadays. Anyway, he’s a Montanan guy, he’s also an artist, he paints I guess. And you see right, he’s a talented athlete, he plays basketball too and he’s an avid skateboarder. It’s not dangerous!” I add quickly since I’m not sure if skateboarding is old enough to be on Granny’s list of approved spare times activities

“His clothing style is weird, though. His chest is almost bare, he couldn’t be cold but then why was he wearing that hat?”

“Hehe, no one knows, he’s just into hats, that’s his trademark.” I shrug.

“I can’t believe Judy likes him. But that serious one with those sad eyes might be her type.”

“Who?” I wrinkle my forehead since I can’t really pair the description with any of them.

“Him. He dresses normally, that’s a nice shirt, no earrings or other weird jewelry. Does he have a tattoo?”

I glance back at the magazine only to see she’s pointing at Stone.

“Hahaha, oh my gosh, no, as far as I know he doesn’t, but if you ask me, he could even be as spotted as a panther, Judy can’t stand him.”

“But he seems to be a nice boy…”

BOY??? Stone?

“Okay, I admit, he looks good and the crew likes him and he’s super talented but he’s an asshole to Judy.”

“Effie!”

“He is! At first he ignored her and then he started acting like a douchebag and…”

“Effie, dear, you know how boys behave in school… they sometimes literally torture the girl they like… maybe he is just immature.”

“No, Granny, this is…”

Luckily, the stupid debate gets interrupted by the ringing of the phone and I jog to pick it up, maybe it’s Judy…

“Hello, Camdens…”

“Hey, Krisha’s here.”

“Oh… hi…”

“So you haven’t been abducted by aliens. You basically ran away from the office last time without any explanation and I’ve been waiting for your call since then… are you okay?”

“I am… I just… didn’t want to seem too desperate or impatient… I mean, managers are busy people, I thought it’d take some time until Kelly gets to watch my pictures…”

To be honest, I was convinced they’d ditch me with some polite lie like “Nice photos but we are looking for something else” or “We are going to call you later”… so I was just procrastinating facing the truth.

“I tied him to his chair and didn’t set him free, I have my methods… which means, I’ve got news for you.” she announces secretively.

“Effie, sweetie… my hair is still wet, would you give me a towel?”

“Just a second, Granny! Look, I’m busy now but could we meet later somewhere in the city?”

“You mean today?”

“Yes… ah, shit, I have an appointment at the hairdresser’s, but maybe after it…”

“I’m flexible, just tell me the place and the date…”

“Okay, it’s…”

***

When I pull down at the address she gave me on the phone, she’s already waiting for me in front of the building. As I lean over the passenger seat to open the door for her, my eyes are involuntarily drawn to the window decorated with kitschy hearts behind her.

“Love Is In The Hair? Seriously???” I frown. “I’d never let my hair be touched by anyone who’s able to make up such a terrible pun.”

“Oh, don’t be influenced by that, the owner is a hopeless, sentimental old woman but the girls working there are real pros!” she shakes her head as she gets in and buckles herself up. “Meg’s got golden hands, she’s the only one who can keep this haystack under control.” she points at her good smelling, fluffy, blonde strands. “I mean, several people have attempted but she’s the only one who’s succeeded without turning me into Dolly Parton.”

“Well, that’s definitely wouldn’t be a fortunate outcome.” I crack up. “But you got a nice perm, truly.”

“Oh, that’s my hair in its natural state. I had only a haircut, that’s all.”

“I can’t believe that! Aw, I’m so envious, I mean look at this mouse tail…” I flick my thin ponytail with one hand, keeping the other one on the steering wheel. “Unfortunately, my hair can’t recover from what I did to it in the ‘80s…”

“Ouch, well, those were tough times... I’m sure Meg could recommend something… you should give her a try!”

“Maybe… I don’t know, somehow I have a strong aversion to beauty salons, that chicken yard vibe freaks me out.”

“Me too! But this place is not like that at all, that’s the other reason why I became their regular client. Meg studied psychology, she always feels without asking if I want to talk or just listen to her or I just want both of us to… you know, just shut up. She usually has good advice for every situation but not in a pushy way… she rather makes you realize what’s the right thing to do… or just points out if you’re about to make a terrible mistake without explicitly saying it.” she chuckles. “I don’t know, it’s like a sixth sense thing, she’s gifted.”

“So she’s a beauty wizard and a guru in one person.” I summarize.

“Haha, exactly. She’s simply a cool chick but for some reason, she has such a bad luck with guys, I don’t know the exact details, only that a problematic guitarist broke her heart.”

“Ha, that invasive species has kinda conquered this town…” I mutter knowingly.

“Speaking of that, do you know anything about Judy and Jeff? I ran away last time since I felt a disaster coming… she wasn’t even aware she’d been asked out… and since then, we’ve barely talked and she ignored the question when I came up with that…”

“Ugh, to be honest, I don’t know, I talked to Eric about work stuff, we’re busily preparing that free open-air show in May…” I stop since I’m not sure if I should go on. “Of course I talked to Stone as well…” I finally decide to do so but I pretend to be distracted by the traffic in the junction to have an excuse for not finishing the sentence.

“I bet he trashed my sister again, didn’t he?” she unfortunately jumps on the topic without hesitation.

“No… not really… I mean, he’s disapproving about anything romantic between them for sure but not because of Judy as a person… he just doesn’t think it’s a healthy thing right now. But he was obscure, I didn’t even understand what he was trying to say, he was babbling something about deflowering and cabal… he’s showing off his vocabulary all the time, even if it makes no sense. Especially when he’s high, maybe that was the case.”

“Deflowering? You mean my sister?” she scoffs and I can’t do anything but shrug since Stoney was truly vague, almost secretive. “The dude’s got obviously a screw loose.” she underlines the statement by circling with her index finger at the temple. “Anyway, why are you turning in that direction, aren’t we going to the management office?”

“I never claimed we’re going there.” I watch the road with a mysterious smile. “Actually, I realized after having called you that I had an errand to run so I thought you could accompany me…”

“By accompanying you mean kidnapping me and holding me hostage in your car?”

“Maybe. Open the glove compartment, I put there something for you.”

“Now you’re scaring me, is it a gun? Whoa.” she startles since after she obeys me, tons of tapes fall onto her lap.

“Ah, I get it. You’re holding me hostage and make me listen to shitty music, what are these? Tapes of Wham! tribute bands or what?” she asks checking the cases.

“Okay, you just gave me a great idea. The tapes weren’t intended for you, they are demos of bands monkeying PJ, we receive a buttload of them every week. Needless to say they all suck, could you do me a favor by listening to them for me? Kelly insists on me checking all of them, I don’t know why, though, we usually send them a polite refusal… but he thinks they deserve a chance. 99 % percent of them are indistinct yelling to worn-out riffs. What about my constitutional rights?”

“Haha, are you serious? I mean, I don’t really have any proper excuse, I have plenty of time and unfortunately, fucked-up kidneys don’t clog ears but…”

“Just kidding, I meant the folded sheets, maybe they are buried deep, just dig for them.”

“Okay, got it” she groans basically putting her head in the glovebox. “What’s that? Mr. Hugh Mility… Mr. Juan Badapple… Jim Rockford... Dr. Hugh Jeego… Guy Jantic… what the hell is this?”

“Well, since the guys are getting huge, fans are lurking at the hotels, they make up impossible lies to get their room numbers, a few of them even tried to bribe the receptionists… so it became obvious they should use codenames…”

“And who is who?”

“You missed the point, should I maybe explain the concept of codenames? What if you start stalking or harassing them?” I tease her and maybe I’m hallucinating but I’d swear I see an amused smile forming in the corner of her mouth. “Anyway, joke aside, they are pretty obvious, just think a little.”

“Wait, the list goes on… these must be the crew members… Elle Koholic, okay, this must be Carrie. Oh my god, I found my sister’s one.” she slaps herself in the forehead.

“Yeah, no offense but she’s got a one-track mind… anyway, we’ve arrived.” I announce steering the car right to the empty site next to the building.

“Are you willing to finally reveal where we are?” she asks stuffing the tapes back into their place.

“Curiosity killed the cat. Okay, I hope not, Stone would kill me.” I laugh at my own joke, fishing out the shopping bag from the backseat. “Come.”

“I don’t understand a word.” she pouts indignantly while we’re entering the building and climbing the stairs in the semi-darkness.

“I enlighten you very soon, I promise, just follow me.” I turn back to her and we fell silent until we reach our destination. “Here.” I point theatrically at the door.

“What’s this? Are you gonna buy drugs here? Or is this sort of a den of gamblers? Or…”

“Jesus, I thought you’re the adventurous one…” I roll my eyes. “Anyway, you mentioned the species of problematic guitarists… where we’re standing is the cave of a specimen from one of the subspecies.”

“…which iiiis…”

“One of the most complex inhabitant of Earth’s fauna: the rhythm guitarist!” I raise my index finger. “It’s very widespread at bars and concert venues, the male ones are inseparable from their favorite delicacy that is beer. The male living here is famous for his trademark, sarcastic remarks that are not without jokes about nether regions. During his mating season – that includes every single day of the year –, he tries to catch the attention of female specimens with the excessive flipping of his magnificent mane and his repetitive, distinctive laughter. He often leaves the location of mating right after the act, his volatile nature…”

“Wait, are you trying to say…” she cuts me off, getting tired of my improvised presentation.

“Yess.”

“No shit!”

“Yes shit. We’re at Stone’s apartment. Okay, it actually belongs to his sister but she moved in with her boyfriend last year. And Stoney got a gentle reminder from his parents that he should finally leave the family nest.”

“Hey, then maybe me and Judy are super uncool since we live with our mom too…” she frowns offended.

“It’s all about the context, first of all: he turned down Chris Cornell when he asked him to be his roommate. I repeat, Chris Cornell.” I explain, as I begin to fumble with the keys.

“What a fool!”

“I mean, I kind of understand him to a point, his parents are the dearest people I know but turning down such an offer when you’re over 20? Time went by and I think his parents just got fed of him tearing the strings at their attic all the time and coming home in the middle of the night every single day. Even if they have always been totally supportive of him, they didn’t freak out even when he announced he didn’t want to go to college… he started working as an espresso guy in a small bakery at Pioneer Square, he was the worst, by the way, I mean I almost puked of the coffee he made… He quitted that job when Mother Love Bone got signed to PolyGram and… you know what happened later. So he kind of stuck at home, indebted.”

We enter the apartment in the meantime and I take a few steps in the living room to turn on the standard lamp.

“But then, not much before the tour started, his sister let him her place over, he’s a low-key guy so…” I shrug. “Now that they became basically rock stars, he’s planning to buy a small house… his dad is an attorney-at-law with acquaintances at real estate firms, that helps a lot.”

“We had to sold our house when… a few years ago.” she sighs. I don’t ask, I guess it has to do something with her father, Karrie mentioned he’d died a few years ago. “This is a pretty nice place, I thought it was messier. No piles of beer cans, no smell of rotten food…” she remarks walking around the living room.

“Despite your impressions, he’s not a caveman, he always jokes referring to himself as an emancipated guy meaning he can and is willing to do all kind of housework. He can be pretty oblivious, though, which sometimes affects the result…” I giggle and open the windows to let in some fresh air. “His brain works in a weird way, he loses everything, all the time and forgets where he put his personal belongings and therefore never finds them again… whereas he’s pretty good at remembering riffs and melodies.”

“So this place is like a black hole. Anyway, why are we here? Wait, are we going to pull pranks on him? Let’s stick pins in the armchairs, smear tooth paste on the door handles and hide dog poop under the doormat…” she suggests with stars in her eyes. Okay, I have to do something against this hatred campaign before these wicked women cast a lethal spell on him.

“As I mentioned, I have a mission. First of all, I have to keep those poor things alive…” I point in the corner.

“Wow, a private jungle!” she exclaims surprised. “Philodendron, ficus and mother-in-law’s tongue! If someone had told me Stone liked indoor plants, I wouldn’t have believed it.”

“Actually, he sometimes forgets about their existence too. But they are real survivors, they even made it despite his girlfriend’s interesting watering methods… by the way, he even gave them names: Phil Collins, Biggus Diccus and Robert Plant, I guess I don’t have to explain…” I go on with the guided tour while I go in the kitchen to fill the coffee jug with water.

“At least the guy has a good taste in music.” she shouts. She must have found his record collection and the stereo system, I guess if something, this can soften Effie up.

“Yes, he’s surprisingly omnivorous as for musical genres…” I call back although my voice sounds muffled, since I had to basically crawl into the cupboard at the bottom for the bag of the pet food. “He’s pretty much influenced by everything he hears on the radio. Ouch!!!” I manage to bang my head when I straighten up too early.

“Are you okay?”

“I am… just a household accident…”

I walk back to the bedroom with the small bowl full of dry food only to find her staring amazed at the large star chart on the wall.

“Wow. My sister would love this.” she keeps examining it with dropped jaw, only her lips are moving.

“Well, I’ve always known they have much more in common than they think.” I grin.

“Judy had a pretty long phase when she wanted to be an astronomer… I mean, basically her in her whole childhood. She later found out physics and science weren’t really her thing but she’s still obsessed with space exploration and science fictions…”

“As you can see, Stone isn’t that beer-drinking, douchebag barfly type…” I spread my arms to point out that the walls are almost covered with bookshelves.

“Yeah, as far as I can see, he’s pretty much an intellectual asshole.” she narrows her eyes.

“AND NOW… let’s jump to the second part of my mission.” I kneel down and lift the bedspread. “Your Majesty, your subjects are only waiting for you to begin the audience.” After a few seconds of silence, two reddish paws reach out from under the bed, soon followed by a pink nose. Their owner makes sure there’s nothing dangerous in the room in full alert mode, before she crawls out slowly and rubs her snout against my hand reached out.

“Oh my god! A cat! Was she here during the whole time?” Effie screams surprised, sits down cross legged and invites her to herself making smacking sounds. “Hey sweetie… you’re very shy, aren’t you? Come here…come…”

“Effie, let me introduce you Red. Red, this is Effie. Be cautious… she can behave quite wild, especially with women…”

Despite my fears, she slowly moves towards Effie and sniffs her fingertips. After a few seconds of tense hesitation, she lets herself be caressed with that typical vigilance of cats like she was sending the message “I’m here but if you make a wrong move, you die”.

“What a beautiful fur… and those green eyes…” the girl runs her finger along the red-white spotted back. “She seems to like me…” the girl chuckles.

“One more proof that Stone’s theory was right.”

“What kind of theory?”

“Well… he adopted her not much after the forming of the band… she was just a tiny, fluffy kitten but from the very first moment, she’s acted very weird with the girls around Stone. And I don’t mean girls in general, I’m talking about his female visitors, if you know what I mean… she’s been very hostile to girls he’s dated, she’s basically driven away all the chicks he’s got hooked up with… She’s literally jealous of his love interests.”

“Interesting, I’d rather think Stone is a dog person…”

“He is, his family has always had dogs… but with Red… it was love at first sight. I’ve never seen him being as affectionate to actual girls as to Red. Even his voice softens when he’s talking to or about her… so long story short, Stone was joking that they must have been lovers in a previous life and she had been some red-haired girl who’d stolen his heart.”

“And does she like girls who hate him because they mean no competition for her?” Effie wonders as she follows the cat with her eyes who’s now approaching her bowl and gets lost in the deliciously looking pieces of meat. “It’d be an interesting experiment to introduce her to Judy.”

“Definitely, she’s never met a real female enemy of him. Maybe because girls usually like him…” I shrug.

“And is this poor thing the whole day alone?”

“Ugh, it’s a complicated story. When the guys started touring, the Gossards adopted her. Again. But they have to get rid of her, because they all are allergic to cat fur, it wasn’t that disturbing when Stone was at home too and she basically lived in the attic with him and he was the only one really taking care of her… but when he was away and they had do it for him, they quickly had to look for someone else… and then, she got to Regan, our common old friend. They got on very well with each other but then Regan and his girlfriend adopted a dog and to say they weren’t compatible is an understatement. And then…” I took a big breath “…then came the Amber phase. I don’t know if I’ve already mentioned her, she’s his girlfriend.”

“Ouch.” she hisses. “That must have been tough.”

“It was. Due to the beforementioned circumstances, their relationship was everything but smooth… she never adopted her, she just came over to feed her and all but Red was trying very hard to make her life a living hell. She attacked her, scratched her arms, hooked her nails in her tights and ruined her nicest clothes…” I list and I can’t help smiling as I recall their clashes.

“I can’t believe this cutie pie did things like that. It sounds terrible but… hey, are you laughing???”

“It was a dis… a disaster…” I’m already choking of laughter since in the meantime, Red’s innocent face makes me remember the funniest part of the story. “Once she even… oh no, I can’t…” I try to calm down and put on straight face. “Once this little bitch…” Red turns her head towards me like she felt addressed “yes, I’m talking about you… so this little bastard peed in Amber’s heels.”

“Oh no! Cat pee is the worst, it’s a one-way ticket to the dumpster. I mean only if you don’t set everything that got in contact with it on fire.”

“Well, that happened to the heels in question too. But frankly, I don’t blame Red, I myself have played with the idea of doing the same a few times too.” I shrug and have Effie in stitches.

“So you hate her too…”

“I don’t, she’s not a bad person… but she can be so annoying, man… when you have to admire the umpteenth fashion photo of her posing in different clothes, it’s very difficult to seem to be interested.”

“Uhm… speaking of photos… you said you got news for me… I didn’t want to be too greedy, I mean I really like hanging out with you and I’m not doing it only because I want your help and…” she jabbers blushing.

“Hey, easy. The news are that Kelly loved your photos. And Susan Silver too. And they have a great idea…”

[becasbelt]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Pitch Perfect (Movies) Rating: G Relationships: Chloe Beale/Beca Mitchell Characters: Chloe Beale, Beca Mitchell Additional Tags: Fluff, Established Relationship, Post-PP3

Summary:

Beca and Chloe get stuck in a massive traffic jam in LA. Boredom, teasing, and fluff ensue.

* * *

-5:26 PM-

“Come on! Let’s get a fucking move on, people!”

Chloe giggles at Beca’s annoyance with the traffic in front of them. “I really don’t think that’s going to help this situation at all, babe.”

Beca honks the car’s horn and glares at the person in the car next to them when they glance over. “Well it should,” she stews. “This is fucking ridiculous. I hate LA traffic.”

When Beca had kissed Chloe on the USO tour, Chloe’s entire world had changed for the better. After years of dropping hints, Beca finally figured out that Chloe was in love with her and admitted that she was in love with her, too, after opening for DJ Khalid. Fast forward a few months to now where Chloe went to vet school in West Hollywood while Beca worked on her first album. They were both living their dreams, and Chloe was still pinching herself to make sure it was all real.

Right now, though, it didn’t really feel like a dream. They had gone out for a quick grocery run at around 4:00 and were now apparently stuck in rush hour traffic. In the past half hour they’d gone about one mile, much to Beca’s frustration.

“What’s even going on up there?” Beca asks. “Why the hell aren’t we moving?”

“You know how bad traffic can be here,” Chloe shrugs as she scrolls through her phone. “This is nothing new.”

“Yeah, but I feel like it isn’t usually this bad.” Beca honks the horn again, as if that will make the mile long traffic ahead of them move faster.

They sit in silence while Beca stews and grumbles, the sounds of cars honking and the radio playing softly filling up the space around them. Beca cranes her neck to try and see farther in front of her, but to no avail. Eventually, she slumps down in her seat in defeat.

“Well now we’re not even moving at all,” the grumpy brunette laments, putting the car in park. She crosses her arms angrily over her chest.

“Apparently there’s a huge crash like three miles ahead of us,” Chloe informs her, pulling up a news coverage clip from her Twitter feed and passing her phone over to show Beca. “A bunch of semis collided and spilled stuff all over the highway. It’s pretty bad.”

Beca scowls at the device and hands it back. “Great. GREAT. This is just perfect. I love this for us right now.”

“At least we didn’t have any plans for tonight,” Chloe says, trying to sound positive.

Beca just groans and hits her head against the steering wheel.

-5:45 PM-

“Ugh, can we skip this song?”

“Why? You don’t like it?”

“It’s fine, but it’s way too happy for this situation.”

“Well, in that case, I think I’ll keep it on. You need a little positivity right now, Bec.”

“You know, if I didn’t love you so much I’m positive that I would hate you.”

“That’s the spirit!”

-6:02 PM-

“Okay, that’s it, I’m turning the car off,” Beca announces after they haven’t moved in twenty minutes. She turns the key in the ignition, shutting the engine off but keeping the music on.

Chloe raises an eyebrow. “You know, now that you’ve turned the car off we’ll probably start moving soon. That’s usually how it goes.”

“All the more reason to turn it off, then,” Beca replies with a cheeky grin. She reaches down and unbuckles her seatbelt, and Chloe does the same. “You know,” Beca says a moment later, tearing her eyes away from the cars around them to look at Chloe. “If I have to get stuck in a giant traffic jam, I’m glad you’re stuck here with me.”

A grin spreads on Chloe’s face and she bites her bottom lip. “You’re such a sap, Mitchell,” she teases, reaching over to pinch at Beca’s cheek. Beca swats her hand away.

“You see, this is why I never use sincerity,” Beca complains with a glare. “I’m always made fun of whenever I do.”

Chloe softens slightly. “That’s only because I love it so much when you’re sincere,” she says sweetly, leaning in to kiss Beca’s cheek. She pulls back to see a slight blush on the other girl’s face. “And I’m really glad I’m here with you, too.”

Beca grins and looks away shyly, turning up the music’s volume instead of answering.

-6:19 PM-

Chloe huffs and slumps down in her seat. “I’m borrrred.”

Beca, who’s busy answering emails, glances over at her. “Yeah, I know. I heard you the first fifteen times you told me.”

“Well I’m bored because you’re not paying attention to me,” Chloe laments. She sticks her hand out the open window. “I thought we were in this together, but you’re off in superstar land.”

Beca winces and clicks off her phone, setting it in the cup holder. “Sorry, it’s just Theo asking about some stuff for the album.”

A car nearby starts blasting “Elmo’s World” from its speakers, and Chloe is momentarily distracted before responding to Beca. “What does he want this time?”

Beca starts shuffling between radio stations. “He doesn’t like some of the lyrics for the one we’re recording tomorrow, so he was sending over some revisions.”

Chloe hums. “Did you like them?”

“Eh,” Beca shrugs, apparently indifferent. “They were fine. I wasn’t too attached to the original lyrics anyways.”

“That’s good, I guess.”

They sit in silence for a while and Chloe turns her attention back to the car still playing Elmo’s theme song, intrigued.

“Okay, well now I’m bored.”

Chloe looks over at Beca. “Oh how the turntables,” she says, quoting The Office with a raised eyebrow.

Beca rolls her eyes. “I hate that show,” she claims.

“Sure you do,” Chloe says, nodding her head. “That’s why I caught you watching it when I got home the other day.”

“That means nothing,” Beca defends immediately, crossing her arms over her chest. “It just happened to be on when I turned on the TV.”

Chloe hums in disbelief. “If that’s what you’re going to stick with, then good for you.”

Beca huffs. “Well, it’s the truth, so,” she punctuates the unfinished thought with a tongue click.

“You want to watch it right now?”

“…well I guess it couldn’t hurt. Since we’re both bored and all.”

-6:51 PM-

“Babe, this is your song!”

“Okay, we’re changing it for sure this time. Ow! What was that for, dude?”

“Beca Mitchell, don’t you dare switch away from this song.”

“Okay, okay. Jesus, did you really have to hit me that hard?”

“It was a preventive strike.”

“It was mean.”

“Poor baby. Do you want me to kiss it better?”

“I mean… it might make me feel a little better. It’s worth a shot, at least.”

-7:08 PM-

Chloe stifles a grin as Beca slyly places a hand on her lower thigh. She continues to flip through the car manual she found in the glove box like she hasn’t noticed. “Hey, Bec, I think I finally know how to change the time on the clock. They have complete step-by-step instructions in here and everything.”

“That’s nice,” Beca says distractedly. Her fingers begin to draw lazy circles along the bare skin on the inside of her thigh, slowly making their way farther up Chloe’s leg. Chloe clears her throat to focus herself.

“We can also change the display to show what cardinal direction we’re going in, too.”

“Neat.”

“And if you hold down the hazard button for ten seconds, the car will self-destruct.”

“Awesome.”

Chloe snaps the booklet shut. “Beca, you know we can’t start something right now,” she lectures, gesturing down at her lap, and while Beca blushes and looks guilty, she doesn’t remove her hand. “There are literally people all around us.”

Beca shrugs. “I don’t think they’re paying attention,” she says lowly, lightly dragging her fingers along smooth skin. Chloe gulps and resists the urge to spread her legs further. “No one would notice if we just…”

She trails off as she leans forward to place a warm kiss on Chloe’s jawline. Chloe sighs and closes her eyes at the feeling of wet heat moving along her neck. She weaves a hand through Beca’s hair and tilts her head to allow her more access.

Chloe’s eyes lazily drift back open and she’s met with the sight of an old lady in the car next to theirs staring right at them. Embarrassment replaces the arousal in Chloe’s body, and she hastily pushes Beca off of her. Beca looks at her in confusion.

“Uh, people are paying attention, apparently,” Chloe explains, gesturing subtly to the old lady. Beca’s confusion is immediately overtaken by shock and a blush spreads across her cheeks. She waves awkwardly to the lady and pivots in her seat to stare look pointedly out the other window.

Okay, so they definitely needed to keep their hands to themselves in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Chloe files the information away for future reference.

-7:32 PM-

Beca groans and pushes her seat as far away from the steering wheel as she can, stretching out her legs. “It’s too damn hot in here.”

Chloe, who’s waving the car’s insurance papers in front of her face to cool off, nods in agreement. “It really is. Are you sure we can’t turn on the car for a little bit?”

“We’re pretty low on gas,” Beca says hesitantly. “I don’t want to risk running out as soon as we finally get out of this mess.”

Chloe pouts but doesn’t fight her on it. She looks out the window and sees some people ahead of them standing outside of their cars talking and gets an idea. Beca peers curiously over at her when Chloe opens her door.

“Dude, what are you doing?”

“I am getting some fresh air,” Chloe states as she gets out of the car. The blood starts rushing through her legs like normal again while a gentle breeze brushes against her sweaty forehead. Chloe lets out a sigh of relief. She closes the door behind her and rounds to the driver’s side of the car.

Beca squints up at her through her open window. “You’re really going to be one of those people that gets up and walks around during a traffic jam?”

Chloe leans down, resting her forearms on the window sill and sticking her head back in the car a bit. “I don’t see any other options. It’s better than sweating through our clothes in the hot car.”

Beca glances down at her slightly damp t-shirt and plucks at it with her fingers, frowning. “You may have a point.” She turns off the car all the way and pushes open her door, joining Chloe on the road. Chloe claps her hands in excitement.

“It’s kind of neat just standing out on the highway like this, don’t you think?” she asks, turning around in place to take in her surroundings. Beca chuckles and lets her gaze drift to some cars off in the distance.

“It is a small sort of accomplishment, I suppose.”

Chloe takes one of Beca’s hands and tugs her to the trunk of their car. “I’m hungry. Didn’t we buy some granola bars or something?”

Beca opens the trunk and sifts through the grocery bags inside. “Doesn’t look like it, babe,” she says, but sticks her hand in a bag anyways. Her tongue pokes out in concentration as she tries to get a grip on something in the bag, and Chloe bites her lip at how cute the expression makes her girlfriend look. Then, a look of victory crosses Beca’s face. “Aha! I knew these were in there!” Beca pulls her hand out to produce a box of frosted sugar cookies.

She starts attempting to open them while Chloe wrinkles her nose in confusion. “I didn’t know you bought those,” she says, watching Beca fail to open the plastic packaging. “When did you add those to the cart?”

Beca doesn’t tear her eyes away from her challenge. “You were looking at that magazine cover I was on, and I snuck it on the belt,” she says, the struggle eminent in her voice.

Chloe watches her fight the box in amusement for a few more seconds before gently prying it away from Beca’s hands, opening it with ease. She hands it back to Beca with a sweet smile. Beca attempts to look unembarrassed. “Thanks,” she mutters before reaching in and taking a cookie out, shoving half of it in her mouth at once.

They munch on the box of cookies, sitting on the hood of the car. A few people come up to them to make small talk, mostly commenting on how sucky the situation is, though none of them stick around for very long. Soon the cookies are gone, leaving Chloe and Beca to sit in comfortable silence.

Beca reaches over and pulls Chloe’s left hand into her lap, playing with her fingers. Chloe smiles softly and looks over at the brunette, but Beca’s eyes are focused on their hands. Lithe fingers run along the tendons on the back of her hand, and up and down the veins lining the inside of her wrist. Beca delicately rubs her thumb over Chloe’s ring finger with a contemplative look on her face, then brings their hands up to press a kiss to her knuckles a moment later.

Chloe hums in contentment and leans against Beca’s side, watching people ahead of them walking around and conversing with one another. Beca squeezes her hand once, and Chloe’s smile grows even wider.

-8:14 PM-

“Chlo, am I crazy, or is that an ice cream truck?”

Chloe looks in the direction that Beca is pointing in to see that, yes indeed; there is an ice cream truck in the near distance. To make it even more bizarre, people seem to be buying ice cream from the truck.

Beca and Chloe look at each other. They come to a silent agreement and slide of the hood of the car. When they reach the truck, there’s only one other person in line, so they’re able to quickly purchase two cones – chocolate for Chloe, vanilla for Beca – and weave their way through the traffic back to their own car.

They lean against the passenger side door and watch the sun slowly start to sink in the sky as they eat their ice cream. Chloe steals licks from Beca’s cone every once in a while, which her girlfriend pretends to grumble about, but Chloe can tell she doesn’t actually mind.

The ice cream truck starts playing music in the distance, and Chloe smiles as Beca starts quietly harmonizing with it under her breath.

-8:24 PM-

“If I die in this traffic jam, will you tell Theo that I won’t be able to make it to our meeting on Wednesday?”

“You’re not going to die, Beca.”

“I’m starting to lose hope that we’ll ever get out of this.”

“You’re so overdramatic.”

“Oh yeah? Well you’re under dramatic.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“I know. Give me a break, my brain’s fried from sitting here for three hours.”

“Fair enough.”

-8:47 PM-

Chloe glances up from her nearly dead phone and does a double take at what she sees. She slaps at Beca’s arm excitedly. “Bec, people are moving!”

Beca lurches up from her slumped position over the wheel. She rubs at her eyes and blinks groggily out the front windshield. “There is a God after all,” she murmurs in awe, starting up the car.

Chloe whoops loudly as they begin to drive, joining in with the cheers from the cars around them. Beca lets out a victory cry of her own that makes Chloe double over laughing in her seat. Chloe starts belting out “We Are the Champions” at the top of her lungs, and Beca doesn’t even try to protest before she starts to sing along.

When Beca steers the car onto the exit ramp to get off the highway, Chloe lets out a contemplative hum and says, “You know, that actually wasn’t too bad. I think that was a great way to spend our evening.”

“And I think that’s probably the craziest thing you’ve ever said.”

“Okay, rude.”

“It’s true, dude.”

“Hmm. Maybe, maybe not. Either way, I love you.”

Beca grins and reaches out to take Chloe’s hand. “Love you, too, weirdo.”

[smartguyreviewed]

1x6 - Baby It’s You and You and You

Original air date: April 30, 1997

Five episodes in and it’s already Prom™, AKA the most important event in a teenager’s life, right next to that huge rager that the richest kid in school throws post-graduation. Yvette and her episode-appointed friend are discussing possible themes. The blasian girl suggests something eco-related. TJ suggests Star Wars. Yvette has to remind TJ that Piedmont has no money for an IT department or AP classes, so there is no way in hell they can afford anything that doesn’t come from Party City.

Because the Prom™ is the thing, Marcus and Mo are also discussing it and how they have to find dates. Well, Marcus is. Mo has a date in his new squeeze Shirley, played by local vampire Bianca Lawson. She will show up again but will be named Tracy. Jesus be a continuity! 

Marcus is in disbelief that Shirley would be into Mo, as if Mo is hideous or something. She defends her temporary man and says that he is a sensitive soul. Mo then proceeds to plagiarize “My Girl” by the Temptations but replaced “girl” with “Shirl.” Either sis was raised in the wild or she is the adoptive child of racist white parents because there’s no way she didn’t catch that. Although I do love that she told Mo it’s okay for him to cry in front of her. Together, we can all eradicate toxic masculinity! 

After the credits, we see Marcus at the Henderson crib, elated about snagging a date with Mariah and HOLY SHIT, continuity! I spoke too soon. Mariah was the girl Mo and Marcus were fighting over in the pilot episode. She even has the same name and is played by the same actress. Wow. Usually, the only girl who gets mentioned repeatedly is “the wonderous Shaundra.” We never see her. She’s like the Heather Sinclair of the show and it’s obvious that she’s Marcus’s jump off. 

Marcus goes on about how the Prom™ is so important and TJ, who was just offering expensive ideas about his ideal theme, is now dismissing the Prom™ as nothing but a room full of hormonal cases dancing to K-Ci & JoJo. He then says what would later be considered a #mood. Instead of socializing with other people, he’d rather watch Shark Week on the Discovery Channel. Marcus cracks a joke about how you never see black people on those shows and Floyd chimes in saying “we don’t mind lowering them down, though!” And they pound on it! If this were on television today, a bunch of white people would write letters and complain. I love this show.

Yvette is able to see through TJ’s facade. She knows he actually wants to go and labels his feelings denial because he’s devaluing the dance since he can’t go with anyone his own age. Marcus is against TJ going at all because he doesn’t want to babysit. I get it. I’d hate babysitting my little brother also, especially if he’s somewhere watching me dry hump girls.

The next scene, Floyd is discussing a possible roof job with a reverend. It just so happens that during their little chit chat, the Prom™ came up and Floyd let on about how TJ really wants to go but needs a same age date. How convenient that the rev has a daughter named Lily who would love to go to a dance! Gilligan cut to Floyd telling TJ that he has a date for him. Marcus barges into the room also informs TJ that he has a date. I hate that nobody even bothered to ask him first. He even lampshades this and says that Floyd’s action was pushy. Marcus clearly wants TJ to go with Mariah’s little sister because then he would be preoccupied enough for him to try to finger Mariah somewhere without TJ hovering around. He even calls Floyd’s pick a loser. Marcus is hilarious.

TJ actually does something selfless here! He overheard that Floyd sold a lot of slate to that church guy and now he’s getting pizzaid! TJ goes along with all of this because he wants to make everyone happy, exhbiting people pleaser traits. Every now and then, TJ just turns into this, even though he’s a master manipulator. However, TJ’s choice to please everyone goes south because now Yvette has a girl for him. He just went from wanting to veg out at home to now having three dates. To remedy the problem, they bring in Mo and you already know this plan is going to unravel as fast as it was conceived. Mo is wearing a black beret with his otherwise normal 90s garb, laying out the schematics for TJ to have all three women be his date. 

Cut to the night of the dance. Marcus and TJ are mad jittery for obvious reasons. We get a cute little shot of TJ in his three piece suit and Floyd is foaming at the mouth to find his camera but Marcus is not having it. 

Just as they’re about to leave, Floyd says that the rev is coming to the house. Not how they planned but per Marcus, they’re now picking up extra time. However, because Marcus seems to be cursed whenever he speaks positively about anything, Mariah shows up with her little sister. He slams the door in her face.

Now TJ and Marcus are panicking. Marcus opens up the door and lies that his fly was unzipped. They figure out a way to get Mariah’s little sister away before Lily and the rev show up. Then the doorbell rings and guess who? It’s none other than little Penny Proud. 

Of course, like other love interests in this show, Lily went into the witness protection program and came back in season 2 as a hood tomboy named Brandy. Seriously, you could write conspiracy theories for these characters because the writers are clearly too lazy to rewatch episodes. 

The doorbell rings again, only this time it’s Mo, dressed casually and thinking he’s about to shoot the shit with Marcus. Marcus asks why he isn’t at the dance and Mo responds, “That was tonight?” I mean, we all have that one friend! This was particularly funny because he only masterminded the plan yet forgot what night it was. He leaves and says he needs to contact Tuxedo Hut because they have a drive through. Mo is fucking hilarious!

Last but not least, Yvette, in a cheongsam-style dress that I love but is totally cultural appropriation shows up with her pick for TJ’s date and--fucking Christ, Naya Rivera shows up in a future episode as well but as this girl named Kelly that TJ spills a drink on. Here she is with a different name. UGH. I don’t know why I’m even complaining anymore.

Eventually, with one girl being held hostage in a treehouse, another in TJ’s room looking at a computer she doesn’t know a thing about, they eventually come downstairs and complain. Now they’re all in the kitchen with their arms folded looking at TJ. His response? “I overbooked.” I didn’t realize how funny this episode was.

Floyd takes TJ away to explain a very valuable lesson about setting boundaries and encourages him to say no without worrying that he’s disappointing anyone. I am still learning this lesson as an adult, so go Smart Guy for illustrating this so well. 

TJ goes to the dance with all three girls and manages to dance with all of them. Pretty much everyone got what they wanted. Aww, underage polygamy is so cute!

Stuff I noticed:

- Yvette and her bestie are dressed alike.

[twilightofthe]

For the Star Wars questions- 16 & 19. :)

Thank you!!! (y’all this got ridiculously long for two damn questions lol)

Send me a number and i’ll tell u my fave/least fave:

16. Book/Comic (Aight, so I’m actually not a huge comic reader in general, most of my comic knowledge comes from other fans on here posting about them, so this is gonna be mainly book-focused)

FAVE:  Welllllll, since I’m literally incapable of narrowing down my favorite anythings, I’m gonna do faves for both canon and EU novels.  

Canon-wise, it’s a tie beween A New Dawn and Ahsoka.  I know I don’t post about them as much on here, but I truly have a super soft spot for Kanera and Kanan and Hera’s characters, they’re just so GOOD and I love themmmmm aaaaaaaaa.  You get super good insights to how Kanan was running wild and traumatized and trying to repress everything and how Hera was a little naïve but still tough as nails and she had a dream and she was going to make it happen or so help her, ugh I just love how the story showed how they’re strongest as a team working together and I just love character dynamics where the two are so obviously married and kinda snark at each other sometimes but they have each other’s backs through everything and know each other like the back of their hands and uggghhhh this is just such a healthy good ship and such a good book.  The Ahsoka novel is just fantastic all on its own because it shows Ahsoka as a young adult, kinda floundering and lost in this new world, full of guilt over what happened with Anakin and the Order, trying to do what she can to help people and just enduring because she’s a survivor, she was raised (by two argumentative, adoptive parents who love her very much SO SAYETH THE BOOK) to be a survivor and handle herself, but that doesn’t mean she’s not lonely as all hell.  And oof I just fucking adore Kaeden Larte and her relationship with Ahsoka (who absolutely comes back and marries her once the war is over oh yes) and her relationship with Miara and ugh just all of it is A+++++.  E.K. Johnston is just an amazing author in general and her other book, Queen’s Shadow is one of my two canon runner ups because I am in love with her Sabé and her Padmé.  Other canon runner up is A Certain Point Of View, if only for the “Time of Death” chapter.  Don’t get me wrong, the rest of it is also fantastic, but oh god it kills me DEAD OBI WAN DESERVED SO MUCH BETTER AND I CRY I REALLY CRY

EU-wise (oh god, I haven’t even gotten to least-faves yet), it has to be the Revenge of the Sith novelization.  Without a question.  Y’all it’s SO FUCKIN’ good, and in my personal opinion should be considerrred canonnnnnn (look I think the reason they gave for excluding it is that there’s no mention of Ahsoka or Rex or Mandalore or any of the stuff that happened literally the day before which is valid, but I counterpoint that Anakin is a mess with A Lot Going On At The Moment, he could have just forgot?  He forgets most of his morals, all of his common sense, and three of his limbs by the end of the story, Snips could have just slipped his mind! xD).  Anyway, besides the fact that it’s like 99% written in Obikin-colored glasses which really just makes me happy as a person because I love it being acknowledged just how important they are to each other, it really offers a deeper insight INSIDE the chaos going on in Anakin’s head, the mess, just why he falls so quickly and so awfully.  I love it gives the Padmé plot that got cut on screen some validity.  The beautiful beginning and the goddam introductions to Anakin Skywalker and Obi Wan Kenobi are just A++++++++++++++ and oof other people can more accurately describe just how good this book is, but I love it a Big Lot ok?

LEAST FAVE:  Okey doke, here we go....  So firstly for canon, I’m not the biggest fan of how Claudia Grey writes Leia’s character.  She’s a wonderful storyteller and I love her worldbuilding, but just the way she characterizes Leia herself never felt... right, ya know?  Idk, I can’t really explain it, but it makes it difficult for me to enjoy her Leia novelsWarning right now that this is a VERY unpopular opinion and my opinion alone, please do not yell at me!  So as skilled and admired an author Timothy Zahn is, I don’t like the Thrawn books.  I’m sorry, I don’t.  To me, Thrawn is just.... ok so he’s like BBC!Sherlock but in space.  The plot makes a big deal about how “oooh cool and intelligent and Literally Better Than Everyone Else” Thrawn is, but the only way they really show his “cleverness” is by either him solving problems by pulling together information that literally no one but the writer knows and then acting like it was oh so obvious and in front of everyone OR, the story dumbs down other characters to make him look smart.  And maybe it was because the one Thrawn book goes after Anakin/Vader in particular to do the latter is what kinda ticked me off on Thrawn books in general, but y’all, it really ticked me off, because Anakin is like the lowest hanging fruit for an author to pick to make their character look good in comparison, and therefore it is done All The Time (LOOKING AT YOU, CLONE WARS), which I think is lazy and an insult to Anakin’s character.  Look, I am fully aware Anakin Skywalker is a dolt to the highest degree sometimes, but he is ALSO A GENIUS.  He is SMART.  IT IS CANON THAT HE IS SMART.  So when the Thrawn book has Thrawn constantly one-upping Anakin The Useless Doofus (and Padmé a bit!!!) and then doing it again once he meets him as Vader, that just makes me hmmmm.

The canon comics are actually gonna be featured on the list here a bit because if y’all don’t already know my hatred for That One Particular Vader Comic (not the rest of the series run as I have not read it and from what I hear, it’s excellent and I’d probs like it a lot) doing the implication in a dream sequence where it says that Palpatine used the Dark Side to impregnate Shmi and create Anakin, well I HATE IT.  Look, I know the plot was literally about Sidious trying to mess with Vader’s head and that dream shouldn’t be trusted, but it fooled all the fans too and now like 60% of Star Wars fans actually believe Sidious fathered Anakin and I am so damn tired of hearing about that.  Yeah, now that Reylo is canon, that comic’s authors are trying to do damage control by saying that no, Sidious isn’t Anakin’s father and Rey and Ben are not second cousins, but they’re still being mysterious about it and “oh well it COULD be this--” so now there’s just more fans who are digging into that theory just because they don’t like Reylo and I don’t really care for the ship either but I really HATE the entire “Born of the Dark” concept for reasons I can explain more separately, so I’m pissy at that particular comic for spawning it.  I know it’s petty but I do.

EU-wise, well, this is gonna be unpopular too, cuz I haven’t read most of the EU stuff, and from what I’ve heard of it, there doesn’t seem to be much that I WOULD like.  The movie novelizations all seem good, but everything else???  “Obi Wan prequels but guess what, he had a shitty childhood too!” uh, no thanks, the rest of his life sucks enough, I want to see him happy.  “Mandalorian worldbuilding, but they’re all a bunch of stoic, overpowered badasses who are Good At Everything And Better Than Literally Everyone and the plot bashes the Jedi left right and center!” ehhhhhhhh pass.  “What happened after Return of the Jedi, except the Skywalkers still don’t get a happy ending because the galaxy goes to war again, Han and Leia’s son turns evil, Luke Suffers, and Palpatine comes back again!” nah, that sounds too depressing-- oh wAIT :) :) :)(at least the EU actually lets Han and Leia grow old and happy together okay okay that’s enough sequel salt for one day)

19. Outfit

FAVE:  Everything Padmé Amidala wears in the movies.  No I will not narrow it down.  I am in love with her whole wardrobe and I want it. 

 I also love the standard Jedi tunics and tabards and cloak (c’mon, the cloak completes the picture!)  It’s just such a signature and unique look that’s supposed to combine medieval European knight tunics and samurai warrior clothing and just the #aesthetic is oof, just wonderful.

Also Sabine Wren’s armor and its various paint jobs.  It’s just so uniquely her and bright and beautiful and badass in all its stages and yes good I like it.

Also Lando Calrissian’s cloaks!  Swooshy and colorful and good!  I love cloaks!  

LEAST FAVE:  Gonna go with my petty, silly ones first, and those are all of Padmé Amidala’s outfits that are only seen in the The Clone Wars TV show (so not the ones that were based off of movie costumes).  Eh, actually three of them were nice, her orange outfit she visits Mina in, her white casual housedress, and her black slinky Clovis dress.  All of her other series-only outfits made me highkey pissy because they were either A.) Wrong for the situation she was in, B.) Defied the laws of physics and should not have held the shape they did/stayed on her body, or C.) just plain UGLY (the highest crime of all), and for the animators to have the audACITY to put any of those things in the mere vicinity of the most stylish woman in the galaxy is an insult to Padmé, an insult to ME, and an insult to Star Wars as a whole (yes, I am mostly joking, but come on!).  No, I will not give the designers the excuse of clothing being difficult and expensive and time consuming to animate because I have SEEN the fancy, PRETTY outfits of the other ladies of Padmé’s status on the show.  Everything Satine Kryze wore was intricately beautiful as all hell and I loved it.  Riyo Chuchi’s two outfits were lovely and fashionable.  Heck, I’m pretty sure I liked Mina Bonteri’s outfit too.  There were tons of people on that show with stylish clothing!  How hard would it have been for the animators to remember Padmé doesn’t wear exposed midriffs on official government business?  That dresses with no sides or back cannot be sleeveless or they will not stay up?  Not give her hairstyles that looked like either a goddam tuning fork or like Jimmy Neutron’s mother?  That beige jumpsuits are BORING and adding a mauve vest is NOT enough to make it exciting!!!! xD xD xD 

Aight, now in more seriousness, I also hated both of Ahsoka’s outfits in the original TCW show.  Enough people have spoken on why sending a fourteen year old into an active warzone in a tube top and miniskirt is a BAD IDEA, but like it just makes me extra mad when you remember her older and more experienced at Not Getting Pulverized Masters were both in full concealing robes and chest and shoulder and shin armor, so you can’t even pass it off as Jedi not getting hurt as easily.  Her updated outfit was only slightly an improvement because her Masters STILL got at least fully covering robes and arm bracers, while Ahsoka still had her entire back exposed, leg holes exposing valuable arteries and stuff, and a goddam boob window that basically signals “shoot me here”.  Look, I know the animators goofed, and I know how they have learned from it because from Rebels on, they never show her as improperly covered for battle, in the new TCW season both outfits are cute and practical too, but seeing her running around in her red outfits actively impeded and took me out of my watching experience because I was cringing over her having a lack of protection, that it made her that much more vulnerable to injury.

Finally just gotta give a standard raised finger to the Slave Leia Bikini.  Carrie Fisher hated it so I do too.

[minaminokyoko]

Toy Story 4: A Spoilertastic Review

*huge sigh of relief* Disney/Pixar, y'all had me worried.

Truly. Honestly. Not that you guys aren't amazing, but the Toy Story films have a legacy that almost no other franchise period has: three perfect movies, and movies that improved with each sequel. Most of the time, trilogies can't pull that off. Sometimes you get three that are good, but there's a straggler in the bunch, like the original Star Wars trilogy or The Dark Knight saga. Like a lot of folks, I was sweating bullets when they announced TS4 because this is one of the only trilogies where each sequel was friggin' better than the last, and TS3, imo, might be the best Disney/Pixar film period. Honestly, it stands at the top of just animated films period, and so I was very nervous to think about trying for a fourth one.

I am very pleased to say TS4 is a worthy sequel. It's not empty, it's not lazy, it's great. I personally put it on the same level as the first movie. I do consider TS2 and TS3 to be better than this one, but not for a bad reason, simply because it's attempting something different from the previous films. This is another all-positive review for me; all I've got are nitpicks, no cons at all. Disney/Pixar did a great job creating what a friend of mine referred to as an epilogue story. That sounds about right to me. It's like there's a trilogy and an epilogue now to the Toy Story saga.

Overall Grade: A

Spoilers ahead.

-I really want to dive in to talk about the fact that while it might upset some people, this movie is about Woody, almost exclusively, and I actually like that a lot. I don't mind at all that this is a snapshot of dealing with change through Woody's perspective, and you know why? Man. Woody is a fucking great character. Really. To his core, he's a phenomenal, landmark, memorable character. I think as the years pass and people reevaluate what films will stand the test of time, animated or otherwise, people will realize that Woody is such a well-written, well-acted character. One of the things that I think got everyone ugly sobbing in TS3 was the way that Andy described Woody: "He'll never give up on you." That's it. That's why Woody is just such a charming character. He will do whatever it takes to do the right thing for the kids. Every time. No matter what it costs him. And that's why this movie took a big risk in breaking up the Toy Story family, but at the same time, it's giving Woody a path that allows him to do something he loves and that is important to him, and for him to be happy in the process. It's a very surprising and unique but realistic idea that Bonnie, while a great kid, wasn't the kid for Woody. But he cared so much for her that he wanted to make sure she got the right toy that will help her learn and grow. That's...fucking amazing, man. I got choked up. I really did. Woody's heart is so huge. And I love that this movie showed that he's been through some rough stuff and that it was time for him to be able to find his own happiness while still being able to help kids, because that's who he is. He's a leader. He cares to a fault. Woody is such a rich character and I'm really glad they got to focus on him and gave him a good send off. It's quite touching. I hate the idea of the gang breaking up, but the movie does an excellent job of explaining change. I like this motif. Things change. Something you always dreamt of might be different. Or things end and you have to move on and try something else. It's a great lesson for all of us to learn, and it took some serious courage to do that in a franchise so known for its ensemble cast and family. I dig it. I truly do.

-Bo and Woody had me all up in my feels. Oh, man. When she was taken...my fucking heart...oh, that hit me right in the feels. I love how they filmed the reunion, too, that the first time he saw her again they were both having to be inert at the time. That was so cleverly done, and it's so apparent how soft they are for each other. It's really sweet. I enjoyed getting to see their dynamic, even with things being strained between them. The hat thing gets me every time. I love nuance, and Bo pulling down his hat is just the cutest little gesture that sells the entire relationship. I enjoyed Bo getting to be active and frankly badass, because it's super cool to see a girl's toy everyone would think is too delicate to be played with be at the forefront of the action.

-I enjoyed Gabby being a sympathetic antagonist. That's awesome. I always applaud movies that can pull it off. It's easy to write a one note villain. It's much, much harder to write one who has a story and who has something that they want, and that the hero is standing in their way. I also think it's a GREAT lesson for kids growing up. Sometimes the thing you think you want isn't what it seems. There are going to be SO many moments in a kid's life where they've been dying to get something, and it's a big disappointment in the end, or they don't get it at all. Wow. Powerfully done. And the scene with the little lost girl damn near made me shed actual tears. That was nothing short of beautiful. Because that is what it's like for kids. Kids get scared, and sometimes the smallest thing encourages them. It hearkens back to what Woody did on Bonnie's first day, getting her the supplies to make Forky and getting her confidence and creativity up. Fuck, that melted my heart. Gabby's story was fantastic, and touching, and a really good use of an antagonist. I was very, very satisfied with how they handled it.

-Centering everything as one big chase scene, kind of Mad Max: Fury Road in a weird way, was a lot of fun. It kept you guessing and it kept things fresh. I also am really impressed that they managed to unnerve the unholy hell out of me with Gabbie and the puppets. I'm actually not scared of puppets, but the way that they moved was very, very creepy, and I would never have expected it from Toy Story. Nice job, guys.

-Forky is the right balance of being a naive, hapless character without being annoying. I was worried his antics would get old, but actually, no. I didn't hate him. I like that Woody was frustrated, but he didn't hate the little guy and he wasn't jealous of him. He did the right thing and he helped Forky understand what toys are all about, and it's very heartwarming.

-Duke Kaboom was such a treat. I'm really happy everyone is now on the Keanu boat, because I've been a stan for that man since the fucking 90's and it's so satisfying to see others join me. He really is a fun, sweet human being, and his character is delightfully over the top. I loved him. It worked really well with the rest of the film, and I am all about the Keanussance/Reevessance that's going on right now. Keep it up. You're breathtaking.

-Goodness me, I just need to note how gorgeous the effects are. I mean, it's Disney/Pixar, it's always gorgeous, but for instance, the rain sequence in the beginning was incredible. That water...man...they are so exceptional at details and realism all while still creating their own look. Bravo, man.

-The payoff of the little guy getting his high five finally was fucking adorable. This is what makes me love Disney/Pixar so much, too. It's the little things that put a smile on your face. How cute.

Nitpicks:

-Key and Peele were annoying. There. I said it. I fucking hate them both, and they were annoying. But thank God, they were more cameo characters than main leads. Throw them both in the trash, though. Ugh.

-I don't like that Gabby needing to switch out the voice box had zero consequences. That was...odd. And kind of like cheating. I got really excited when Woody allowed it to happen so he could get Forky back, but then nothing bad happened. I thought that maybe Woody's voice would be damaged, go in and out, or he'd be mute, and it would show what a sacrifice he made for Bonnie. Nope. It had no negative consequences, so it almost makes me wonder why they did that. It ended up a moot point, and invalidated the conflict.

-I'm waffling on how I feel about Bonnie just forgetting about Woody entirely. Mind you, this is realistic. This is how small kids work. They move abruptly and often without explanation. But thematically, I sort of wanted her to notice him gone, if only to tie off how I felt about how far Woody was willing to go to make her happy. But at the same time, that's kids for you. Things happen fast. She's going to be happy, and so will the rest of the toys, and that's the most important thing in the end.

-I did actually want a longer scene of just Woody and Bo together, catching up. I don't feel robbed, but I was letdown because I wanted to know more about them since they seem to truly click and feel strongly for one another. I'd have liked to see them just sit and talk for a moment, but the film had too much urgency, so unfortunately we had to keep moving.

I only just got home, so I don't know if other reviews are out, but let me go ahead and say that if anyone is shitting on this film, I guarantee you it's people who don't like change. This film is different and it takes risks and in the end, it is about Woody and not the rest of the toys, so it is going to step on some toes. However, it has earned a spot on the shelf next to the other movies. Trust me, its heart is in the right place and it's still keeping our legacy of films on par with each other. I don't feel that it takes anything away from them, and is simply a send off to a character I think will stand the test of time as one of the greats. I'm glad it was just as worthy as I hoped it would be.

[bsidethetrees]

The guild teases Miraxus and they don’t know the two are already dating AU *^* can you please do it for me?

For what it’s worth, I’ve done something similar before here, here, and here. Plus a bunch others where they’re secretly together that I just can’t think of right now. 

The day was actually kind of boring. That’s what Lisanna thought as she sat around with Natsu and Happy, the feline sucking on a fish head, the slayer rested with his head flat on the table, drooling a bit in his sleep. It wasn’t because everyone fun was gone. No way. Team Shadow Gear was around, all of Natsu’s team, and most of the slayers. Oh, even the Thunder Legion seemed to be hanging about, Bickslow filtering between bothering different women in the hall while Freed tried to smooth over any bridges his friend burned. And Evergreen sat by, at a table close to Elfman’s., but not too close, so that she could make eyes at him, but not too clear eyes, and the inebriated man couldn’t quite tell what he was supposed to gather from this.

Maybe it was just Lisanna was bored. Everyone else seemed to be going about their normal, everyday schedule. Erza was lecturing the lessers in the hall, Nab was trying hard not to be seen so he didn’t end up on the receiving end of this, Wakaba and Macao were smoking their pipes as Romeo sat by, explaining his most recent feat out on a job.

Everything was normal.

And normal was boring that day, for Lisanna.

“Do you guys wanna go on a job or something?” she asked Natsu who wasn’t snoozing so deeply he couldn’t wave her off, but Happy was kind enough to spit out his fish just to truly address her.

“We can’t today,” he informed her. “We already told Lucy no, even though she needs jewels.”

“Then she could come too.”

“But then we’d have to actually go on a job, Lisanna.”

He felt like she was missing the point.

She felt like he wasn’t making one.

“Well, don’t you at least want to do something fun?” she insisted that time. “Happy? Watching Natsu drown in his own spit is about as great as watching paint dry.”

“Oh, I’m plenty entertained.”

“It’s really creepy, cat, to stare at a girl from across the room so pointedly.”

Lucy was back then, taking her place at the table as Happy only glared, finally looking away from where Carla was pointedly ignoring him. But Lisanna was glad to see the blonde.

“Do you think,” she asked quickly, “that you still wanna go on that job? We could go together.”

“Oh, really?” Lucy was quick to nod. “Yeah, we just-”

“Hey!” Happy was even more annoyed now. “You guys can’t go together.”

“Why not?” Lucy asked as Lisanna also awaited an answer.

“Because… You can’t go without me and Natsu! You need us.”

“Awe, Happy,” Lisanna giggled while the celestial mage only rolled her eyes.

“Hardly,” she offered back in response.

“Do too,” the feline insisted. “What if you wanna fly up somewhere real high?”

“I can transform, Happy, into a bird,” Lisanna reminded.

“Well… Natsu, they’re trying to ditch us!”

“Let ‘em,” he grumbled against the table. “You guys keep wakin’ me up.”

“Maybe because you’re trying to sleep in a crowded guildhall,” Lucy retorted though it only got a hand lifted to wave her off.

“Let me go check with sis that she and Kinana have everything at the bar,” Lisanna said as she almost bounced up. But then she noticed Mirajane coming towards her and paled a bit. “Oh, no.”

“Lisanna,” her older sister began in that tone and Lucy cried in lost jewels. “Hey, I had something come up. Do you think that you could cover for me?”

“What could possibly come up?” the youngest Strauss complained because of course she would. Do what her sister asked. She always would. “Mira? You’ve been working all day.”

But her sister just gave her a sympathetic look. “It’s only a few hours til closed.”

“Hours?” Lisanna groaned. “What are you going to do?”

“Something,” Mira told her with a look, “personal.”

Lucy giggled then, into her palm. “Something?”

“Or someone?” Happy asked around his fish head. But Mira was never one for bashfulness and just gave them a look too that more or less confirmed it and suddenly the day got a lot more entertaining.

As her sister disappeared off into the sunset (or at least out of the hall), Lisanna completely balked on any gross barmaid duties (yuck) and instead stood now, at the table with Happy and Lucy, discussing just who it was that Mira was rushing off to go meet.

“It has,” Lisanna told the two of them (plus the snoozing once more Natsu), “to be someone in the hall.”

“Why though?” Lucy asked, taking an uncertain glance all about.

“Because she didn’t have plans before she got here. She only made them a few minutes ago, I bet. And no non-member came in during that time. So, clearly, it was within this building that Mirajane found someone to hookup with.”

But Happy and Lucy sat there, staring at Lisanna.

“You get real serious,” the feline offered, “when I comes to this stuff, huh?”

“This is prime gossip material, Happy. Us Strauss sisters don’t play about that thing,” Lisanna told him. “Even when it comes to one of us. It pains me to have to sacrifice Mirajane, but I would expect, no, hope, that she’d do the same to me.”

“Well,” Lucy offered with a bit of a weary glance, “as long as you’re sure.”

“I am.”

“Okay, so we can knock the easy ones out of the way first,” Happy offered the girls as, now with only bones, he sat his lunch down to stand up, on the table, and take some good glances all about. “Well, Natsu’s here, sleeping, so he’s not goig to be- Unless, is this a long con? Natsu?”

“Just let me sleep,” he complained into his puddle of drool and, well, it’s not like either woman took him as a serious candidate for Mira anyways.

“And,” Lucy took over then, looking around as well, “Wakaba and Macao-”

“Yeah, gross. Sis has standards,” Lisanna agreed. “Max?”

“He stays outside at the gift shop. And Mira’s only been inside,” Lucy sighed.

“Nab?” Happy offered up.

“He’s been hiding from Erza all day.”

“Oh, hey,” the cat offered then. “How do we know that Mira’s not meeting a woman? Huh? We don’t. Maybe she’s meeting Erza.”

“Only if she wants to be lectured,” Lisanna whispered bitterly, a past causality in the swordswoman’s war of laziness.  

“Well, Levy and Gajeel have only been talking to one another and Lily all day,” Lucy move right along as she ran her eyes over each and every table. “Cana is passed out, I think, and Gray is-”

“Gray.” Happy decided it for all of them. “Mira and Gray are sneaking off to go hookup. I’d stake everything on-”

“Gray?” Natsu, suddenly, was animated as he bounced out of his seat. “Where’s that bastard? How dare you…you… What did he do wrong?”

“Slept with Mirajane.”

“Happy,” both Lisanna and Lucy complained because it was a fun game, between just the three of them, but when you added in the risk of others hearing about it, suddenly it was less a game and more bullying. Maybe. Something close to it.

“He what?”

Juvia had happened by in that moment, headed over to where the ice mage was sitting close by to Cana, sipping on a beer and minding his own damn business only for, of course, the stupid Salamander and his two bimbos to ruin his day. Of course. Like always.

“No-” Lucy tried, but it was too late. Reeling this back in had long sailed away.

“I demand,” Juvia yelled as she stalked over to Lisanna, “retribution.”

“So do I!” Natsu for far less noble reasons. “Gray!”

The ice mage hadn’t heard all of it, but enough to know what was going on and didn’t even glance over there.

“I’m not going off to fuck Mirajane. Thanks for putting my shit out there though.”

“You’re welcome,” Happy offered as Natsu tried to think of another good reason to go beat the snot out of the other guy. He decided he didn’t need one (the idea of fighting for Mira’s honor had kinda been a bit flimsy anyways; he really didn’t care anything about those sorts of things) and instead bounded off anyways, to fight with Gray while Juvia regarded Lisanna with suspicion, but let her off the hook. Happy though had just taken to scanning around the room some more. “What about Bickslow? He’s always creeping on women.”

“No more,” Lucy complained with a glare. “You ruined the game. You-”

“What’s the game, huh?” They’d gotten the interest of Macao and Wakaba at least, the latter calling over to them. “Some sort of…wager to see who can sleep with Mirajane?”

“Out of luck,” Macao retorted. “Only open to those who aren’t married.”

“Dad,” Romeo groaned because ugh, he was so embarrassing.

“What a vulgar game,” Carla stifled, over where she sat with Wendy, the young teen looking a bit red, just from the suggestion of it.

“I agree!” Suddenly, Happy was flying away as Natsu finally bum rushed Gray and, well, things were deteriorating fast. “I would never be a part of such a gross game, Carla.”

“I mean, yeah, I don’t think you’d be in the running,” Lucy called after him, somewhat bemused.

“At least,” Erza announced from the center of the hall as she looked on at all of them with evident disdain, “Mirajane is doing something occupy her time. Unlike the rest of you.”

Something, someone. Yeah, yeah. Lisanna didn’t feel like jokes any longer as she continued to scan about. She could hear her brother, now annoyed at the implications the others were making, but she didn’t go off to calm him down because she knew, if she just thought hard enough, then…

“Where,” she asked Lucy, “is Laxus?”

“Huh?”

“He was here,” she insisted. “All the slayers are. I remember thinking that. But he’s gone now.”

“Is he not- No, I guess he’s not,” Lucy agreed as she glanced over in the corner where the man had been seated before, drinking and listening to his music. Still, it was Lisanna’s turn to get a wondering grin out of the blonde as she said, “Yeah, but you don’t think… Mira and Laxus-”

“No fucking way.” Macao blew literal smoke at the suggestion. “Sparky and Mirajane? He’s nowhere close to being in her league.”

“Laxus is in a league of his own!” Freed would not take for such slander. Abandoning smoothing over all of Bickslow’s misgivings, he came over to make his peace known. “There is no one that comes even close to him. He could cast his net right here, right now, and capture all of you in it!”

“What does that even mean?” Lucy giggled softly to Lisanna, but the girl was only thinking hard.

Mira and Laxus…

The last time her sister had a date, the man had been around too. Lisanna remembered, because she had to cover Mira’s shift for her and Laxus had just arrived back and left, suddenly, canceling his request of a plate of food just as Lisanna was taking over for the leaving Mirajane. And the time before that, when Mira had left the house to meet some mystery guy…hadn’t she and Natsu stalked Laxus for the beginning of that day, in hopes of tricking him into fighting the other slayer?

Mira and Laxus…

“Are you okay?” Lucy laughed that time in discomfort and even reached out to pat at the woman’s arm. “Lisanna?”

“Uh, yeah, I am.” She sobered quickly, standing fully. “I have to get back to work. Well, actually start working, I guess. Who knows who Mira’s off with, you know?”

“Yeah, I agree,” Lucy sighed as she watched with disinterest when Erza moved to knock both Gray and Natsu in the head for tussling in the hall. “Probably no one that interesting anyways.”

“Probably,” Lisanna agreed though, inwardly, she knew, oh, she fucking knew, “not.”

[trans-girl-sora]

Sorikai Fan Kid Snippet

We were talking about KH fankids in the kh discord I’m in and I came up with like. A bunch of KH gen 2 kids and I have a lot of feelings about all of them, so here’s Sorikai and their kids lmao

(I may also write up all their details that I have later as well, we’ll see)

The swirling dreams slowly started to die down, consciousness slowly returning to Sora as he groaned, flopping over in his bed, reaching out with an arm and groping blindly at the sheets, huffing to find them empty and cold.

“Ngh,” he groaned, rolling back over and opening his eyes, yelping in surprise and gasping, the girl standing over him folding her arms. “H-Hama, don’t DO that!” he sputtered and she chuckled softly. “Ugh, god, kiddo, you’re gonna give me a heart attack.”

She rolled her eyes. “It’s almost 8, dad.”

“Oh, shoot,” he frowned, fumbling with his phone to check the time and sighing, lying back against the bed. “Where’s mom and pa?”

“Pa already left for work,” she explained. “Mom’s down making breakfast.”

“And she told you to go wake up the ‘lazy bum’?” he grinned, the corner of the twelve-year-old’s mouth quirking up in a smirk.

“She said she wanted you to drive us this morning.”

“Did she tell you what happens to kids who SCARE their dad awake?” he grinned and her eyes went wide.

“Daaaaad-!” He grabbed her around the waist, laughing as she groaned, kissing the top of her head as she scrambled against him.

“Sorry, Hama, them’s the rules!” he laughed, ruffling her red hair as she huffed, taking several steps back and raking her hands through it to try and tame the fluff he’d ruffled into it. “Alright, alright, I’m getting up,” he yawned. “Can you go tell mom I’ll be down in a few?” She nodded, rolling her eyes again and ducking out of the room. She really was Riku’s kid. Obviously she was also Sora’s kid, but not in the same way. She’d adopted so many of Riku’s mannerisms, it was eerie. The stoicism, the careful disdain against getting too silly. He chuckled, shaking his head and standing, stretching and catching his eye in the mirror.

When had he gotten so old?

He frowned, holding out a hand to summon his keyblade, pristine as the day he’d gotten it, 18 years ago. It was all so long ago, now. He can’t remember the last time he’d fought a Heartless, or seen one of the black cloaked figures. It reminded him of all the adventures they’d had before falling into the doldrums of normal life. He wasn’t sure which he preferred. 

He let the keyblade fizzle away in a shower of light and grabbed a shirt and some jeans, retreating into the bathroom.

A quick shave and the brush of his teeth later and he made his way down the hall, poking his head into the kitchen, Hama already sitting down and eating with her brother, who caught Sora’s eye and waved happily.

“Hi dad!” he grinned.

“Morning Jack,” Sora smiled, turning to face Kairi who had her hands on her hips. “Uhh, morning, hun?”

“C’mon in and eat, you lazy bum,” she sighed, chuckling and shaking her head and he smiled, kissing her cheek as he passed by her, sitting at the table with the kids, grabbing a plate of pancakes and starting to dig in. After a few more minutes, Kairi joined them, starting in on her own food just as Jack finished his.

“Oh man, dad, I’m so excited,” Jack started, grinning and his sister snorted at his enthusiasm. “There’s gonna be so many new kids - cuz Destiny Island Middle has kids from like FOUR elementary schools - and Kelley said she’d show us around, and they have a HUGE library!”

“That sounds awesome,” Sora beamed. “You’ll have to tell me about some books you find and maybe we can get them for home.” Jack’s sky blue eyes went wide as he grinned, sparkling with excitement. “And you’re gonna actually do HOMEWORK, right Jack?”

“Y-yeah!” he stammered, laughing and blushing. “I mean I’m gonna try to do the homework…”

“Don’t worry,” Hama chuckled. “He’s got english and history, I’ve got math and science. Two peas in a pod.” Jack grinned as she held up a fist, the two fist-bumping and Sora smiled, watching as the two laughed. Back on the island, he and Riku had clashed a lot - never anything serious, but it was always a game of one-upping one another, competing and trying to be the best.

Hama and Jack weren’t like that, and it was probably for the better. They were teammates, cooperating. He looked to Kairi and they shared a smile. The three had raised their kids good. It was more evident every day.

“Oh shoot, I gotta go pack my backpack!” Jack said, jumping up and starting for his room before pausing and grabbing his plate, passing through the kitchen and tossing it into the sink with a clatter.

“Jack, do not throw dishes!” Kairi called, sighing and Sora snorted, rubbing her shoulder lightly. “That child is gonna be the death of me, Sora.”

“You know he takes after you,” he grinned and she crinkled her nose, sticking her tongue out at him.

“And you,” she retorted. “...but yeah I guess mostly me.” He laughed and she smiled, Hama shaking her head and grabbing her plate and Sora’s, who’d finished eating, and taking them to the kitchen, before retreating to her own room.

“How are you feeling?” Sora asked, smiling and squeezing her thigh gently.

“Sad?” she chuckled, resting her arms on his shoulders, kissing his nose softly. “I mean not as sad as the first day they went to kindergarten, you know? It’s still just school, and we’ve done that before. But this is MIDDLE school, and next is going to be HIGH school and then college, and… god we’ve gotten old, haven’t we?” He frowned, cocking his head and looking her over. Her green-blue eyes studied his, her red hair pulled back into a ponytail, face dotted with more freckles than when they’d first grown up on the island.

“You don’t look a day over forty,” he grinned and she groaned, pushing him away, laughing.

“You asshole,” she laughed, pausing to close her eyes and shake her head, Sora joining her in laughing and kissing her cheek before standing and stretching. “You’re driving today, by the way,” she pointed out and he deflated, sighing.

“I know, Hama told me,” he huffed and she smiled, picking up her plate, glancing down the hallway before gently taking the front of his shirt and pulling him into a kiss. His eyebrows went up, hands unsure of what to do before finally resting on her waist as he kissed back, letting his eyes fall shut, probably letting it go on a bit too long-

“Ewwww,” the two kids groaned in unison, Hama making exaggerated gagging noises as the two pulled away, blushing and laughing.

“Oh my god, hush you two,” Sora laughed, pulling a giggling Jack in close to ruffle his hair, Hama dodging out of the way as he reached for her, grinning and sticking her tongue out at him. “You almost ready, hun?”

“Yeah, yeah, jeez,” Kairi grinned, pulling her purse further up her arm and nodding at him. He spun on his heel, grabbing the keys, and led the kids out to the car, heading away from the house and down the street.

“So you two have everything?” Sora frowned, looking in the mirror at the two of them. “All your books, and your binders, and all your pencils and stuff?”

“Yup! Got it all packed,” he grinned, patting his backpack.

“And Hama, you’ve got the lunch money for you two, and you’re not gonna lose it?” he asked, and she held up her wallet, Sora huffing but nodding. “And your phones are charged in case something happens, or if you need to get in touch with me while you’re at school?”

“Yes dad,” the two said in unison, their tones exhausted.

“And do you two-”

“Sora,” Kairi chuckled, resting a hand on his arm. “They’ve got it. They’re twelve, they’re not toddlers anymore.”

“I- y-yeah,” he sighed, smiling softly. “I guess that’s true. I just… worry.”

“Don’t worry, dad,” Hama said, lightly kicking the back of his chair. “Jack and I can handle ourselves. And even if we couldn’t, we’ve got each other. We’re gonna do fine.” He wanted to cry, but instead he just smiled wide and nodded. Kairi smiled as well, resting a hand on his leg, knowing the look, and sharing the sentiment. They were so proud of the two.

They pulled past the school and Hama frowned, tapping Sora on the arm.

“That was the front of the school,” she pointed out. “Dad, that’s where parents are dropping off their kids.”

“Oh, I know,” he smiled and she groaned.

“Oh no... Dad please, are you two really gonna walk up with us? It’s the FIRST DAY of MIDDLE SCHOOL, you guys are gonna embarrass us!”

“Calm down, Hama,” Jack snorted. “Nobody’s gonna notice us. ...Plus we can just run once we get out of the car,” he grinned mischievously. 

“Hama and Jack, you two better not run off when we pull over,” Kairi chastised, Hama already starting to laugh as Jack tried to muffle his own laughter. “I know for a fact they have snacks in the lunch line, and if you run off we won’t give you money for any.” Hama opened her mouth to retort, then paused and frowned, Jack laughing at her as Sora pulled into a spot.

“We’re gonna walk you to the door, and I want a hug from both of you, and then you can go,” Sora explained, getting out of the car, the other three following suit as they started to make their way up the sidewalk. “I’m not gonna be a big dork or anything, I promise.”

“Dad, you’re always a big dork,” Hama chuckled, elbowing him and he puffed out his cheeks.

“You really gonna bully your old man?” he frowned and she giggled, rolling her eyes and looking forward, waving excitedly. Sora looked up and smiled at the bright redhead with pink eyes waving back.

“Hey look, it’s the Terrible Twins,” the girl laughed as the group approached, leaning on Jack’s head who huffed, while looking up at Sora and Kairi. “Good to see you, Mr. and Mrs. … uh…”

“Just Sora and Kairi is fine,” Sora laughed, rubbing the back of his head. “Good to see you, Kelley. Where’s your mom?”

“Oh she’s on her way up, I ran off,” Kelley grinned and Hama put her hands on her hips.

“See, dad? Naminé lets Kelley run off.”

“Now hold on,” Naminé panted, finally coming to a stop next to them, resting her hands on her knees as she caught her breath. “I didn’t LET Kelley run off.” Then, to her daughter, “You’re going to kill your mother, you know that, Kell?”

“Yeah, I know,” she snorted, giving Naminé a kiss on the cheek and turning to the others. “You ready to head inside?”

“Yeah!” Jack grinned. Then, “Oh!” He turned and hugged Sora hard, moving to Kairi as well, Hama giving Sora a half-hearted hug which he responded to by wrapping her in a big bear hug and swinging her around as she blushed and pushed away from him.

“Daaad!” she groaned. “I thought you weren’t gonna be a big dork!”

“I’m always a big dork,” he grinned, sticking his tongue out her and she did the same in return.

“We’ll be here at 3:30,” Kairi called after them. “If you’re off before then, text me! Both of you!” She huffed, watching as they disappeared into the crowd, and then into the school.

“They’re growing up,” Naminé smiled softly, then turned to the two with a smile. “It’s been a while.”

“Hey, yeah, it has,” Sora chuckled, leaning in for a hug, Kairi doing the same after him. “How’ve things been with Kelley?”

“Good,” she smiled with a soft laugh. “She’s… definitely different than me.”

“Yeah, she seems really upbeat,” Kairi pointed out with an energetic gesture with her fist. “And you’re always kinda…”

“Subdued?” Naminé smiled.

“I was gonna say boring,” Kairi teased and Naminé laughed.

“I suppose a bit,” she admitted. “Did you know that DIMS has a soccer team?” she chuckled. “She didn’t get in last year, but she’s been practicing all summer for it.”

“Very different from Ms. ‘books and drawing’ Naminé,” Sora pointed out and she smirked.

“Very true. But I’m glad she’s getting out there and being happy. And, being a freelance writer means I get to go to all of her games, which is also a plus.”

“You’re such a good mom,” Kairi grinned, bumping against Naminé who flushed and laughed.

“I just love my daughter,” she shrugged, then paused. “How’s Riku doing?”

“Oh, he’s good!” Kairi smiled. “He’s at work right now, but he’s doing good.”

“He still works at that self-defense place he set up?” Naminé asked, trying to hold back a smile.

“Yeah,” Kairi sighed, Naminé unable to hold back laughter, Sora chuckling along as well. “It makes good money, at least! But I think that’s just that he’s a borderline celebrity more than anything else.”

“True, yes,” Naminé laughed, wiping a tear from her eye. “And how about you two? Any interesting career changes since we’ve last spoken?”

“Nope! Going to DIU, though,” Kairi beamed. “I’m thinking maybe nurse or veterinarian? I haven’t really decided yet, but I’m not at that point yet so it’s alright.”

“That’s wonderful, Kairi,” Naminé grinned broadly, glancing to Sora.

“Oh, n-no, I’m just a house husband at this point,” he replied, laughing softly and frowning.

“That’s wonderful too,” Naminé said, hand on his shoulder, meeting his eye. “If you find something that will make you happy, go for it, but holding down the house, taking care of the kids, that’s admirable and wonderful, Sora.” He flushed, smiling and nodding as she pulled away, sighing and straightening her skirt. “I should be getting home soon,” she frowned, pulling out her phone. “Though I do think it’s been too long, and I DO want to talk to you to more soon. And not just in an ‘empty platitude’ sense, I do miss you three.”

“What about Rox and Xion?” Sora asked as Kairi got her own phone out to show to Naminé for the contact info.

“We hang out on occasion,” Naminé hummed, typing in their numbers as she talked. “Kelley likes to hang out with Ollie. Says it gets him out of his shell.”

“Oh yeah, how’s little Ollie doing?” Sora grinned.

“’Little Ollie’ is two years older than your own kids,” Naminé smiled, arching an eyebrow. “And he’s good. Skittish, and a bit timid, as always, but good.” She finally clicked her phone off, pocketing it and giving Kairi another hug. “I’ll have everyone over next week for a game night or playdate or something,” Naminé chuckled. “Any excuse to get us all under the same roof to drink wine and talk.”

“Drinking wine? Aren’t you like 18?” Sora grinned and she scowled at him, chuckling and turning, waving over her shoulder as she left. “Jeez, she got…”

“Hot?” Kairi blurted, then paused. “Oh. No I mean- she’s uh, poised?”

“That’s a good word for it,” he laughed. “I would’ve said ‘fancy’.” He paused. “So you think she’s hot?”

“Oh my god shut up,” Kairi groaned, Sora laughing as he led them back to the car, headed home to wait for their children, and Riku, to return home.

[lapzidorus]

Nothing for Nothing

Wha!? Where did everything go? Just a moment before, that car rammed straight into ours, and now it's just me, floating here in darkness stretching as far as I can see – not that I can even see my hands right in front of me because there is no light. I am still wearing my long-sleeved jacket and jeans, though, which was originally to avoid attracting too much attention. Am I dead? Is this what it’s like after you die? Am I just stuck here in eternal suspension, or is my fate still yet to come?

   Something taps the edge of my shoe, and I pull my leg back out of reflex, barely holding back a gasp. I peer down and see nothing still. I reach my foot back out and feel a hard, flat surface – a wall? Or perhaps a floor to settle on! When I reach my hand over for a feel of the texture, the rest of me suddenly plops onto it. Yup, it’s a floor – a cold, though smooth one.

    Relying solely on my touch, I position my hands and legs with care, taking my time with getting up. Once I'm on my feet, I tread forward slowly, reaching my hands out to feel anything in front of me. This goes on for a few minutes before my scrawny arms can’t take any more of the strain and I need to set them down. If only I had exercised more. I sink my hands into my pockets and continue walking, stopping every now and then to feel around the floor in front of me. Where am I anyway, and why is everything so dark?

    Several more uneventful minutes pass by before I decide to sit and rest my tired legs, seeing no more sense in continuing. My mind has gone numb from lack of stimulation, so I might just go to sleep right here. I slip my hood on and lay my head down, doing my best to get comfortable.

    Soon after, though, an assortment of crackling and crunching sounds starts up all around me. Oh, now something's happening! Well, what is it?

    These noises grow slowly louder over a minute or so, bringing my ears moderate discomfort, until they abruptly end. A few seconds after that, a large, round cluster of hexagonal holes, towering at about four times my height, brightens up before me in a crystal-y green color, making me step back in surprise – and turn away in horror. Ugh, I finally see something, and it happens to trigger my mild Trypophobia! At least now I know I haven’t gone blind. What even_ _is it, anyway?

    Once I can bring myself to stare fixedly at the unpleasant sight, my first observation is the source of its light: six closed-up hexagons twice their size of the others surround the edges of a deep hole. Also visible are six dark, bladed wing-like appendages protruding around its sides, and a thick tail of a similar shade that the creature appears to be standing with.

    I then hear the entity speak. “Hhellloooo!” Its swaying, high-pitched voice and its jovial tone fall into an uncanny valley between welcoming and threatening, which is accentuated by the disorienting echoes that bounce randomly around us.

    My mind is falling into shambles! Where am I? What am I looking at? Why are things playing out like this? Was I being watched the whole time? Oh, how stupid I probably looked! What’s going to happen next?!

    Hold on! This could all just be a lucid dream; but my dreams tend to be much faster-paced than this, though. Oh wait, I was just greeted by this thing; I should probably say something too!

    I manage to cough out what seems like the most appropriate question to start things out. “Wha-…who are you?”

    "Ahem." The entity’s voice becomes more controlled, and the echoes settle within it. “Why, I am an overseer of sin, who keeps track of the unforgiven sins of every individual I am assigned to.”

    “S-so-” I tremble at my next words. “-am I…i-in hell?”

    “Nooo, not quite,” the overseer corrects as if trying to comfort me, their wings drooping down a little. “You might consider this your own personal ‘purgatory.' Every sinner has one, constructed and designed specifically for them whenever their life is put at risk."

    My eyes scroll across the surrounding expanse, the only light still being the overseer’s eerie luminescence. I guess this _does _match my propensity for anxiety; just gazing into it threatens to fill me with paranoia of something jumping out at me.

    The overseer continues, "Due to the exclusivity resulting from this system, we can generally only meet up with one person at a time; thus, there must be a bunch of us since many people can die at once, as you may already understand.” Way to rub it in, huh?

    I turn back to the overseer. “So, w-what now?” I ask, feeling slightly more at ease knowing I am not (yet) in hell.

    The overseer proceeds to slither around me as they begin, “Here, you are to reflect back on all of your unforgiven sins and confess them to me personally; this is specifically for your sake as I already know precisely what you're guilty of.”

    A large larva emerges halfway out of one of the overseer’s holes, causing a squeal of fright to just barely leak out of my lips. The overseer then comes to explain, “For each valid sin you properly admit to, no matter how small, one of these little sweeties will pop out to greet you from the hole corresponding to that sin. It seems, however, that this one can already sense your fearfulness, darling.”

    Yeah, I am quite the nervous wreck. “Yeah, heh heh, I do make that aspect of me clear, don’t I?”

    The overseer lets out a creepy, yet also innocent-sounding little chuckle. “Now, if your self-assessment turns out to be fully accurate, you get to decide your own punishment! How does that sound, hmm? We figured if a sinner understands where they went wrong, they might know how they ought to suffer as well, so it’s the least we can offer down here, hm-hm!” They finish their circle around me, their seemingly endless tail keeping me fenced inside, and return to their original height and position.

    So I can choose what happens to me? Does that mean anything so long as it’s bad? What are the rules on all of this?

    “Now, as a fair warning,” the overseer notes, their tone turning a tinge more serious, “we are in full power to bestow our originally planned punishment if we deem yours unfit.” They lean forward in a rather intimidating fashion. “Do you understand?”

    I nod my head in short, meek bobs. “Yes, I understand everything.”

    “Alright then!” they announce with returning cheer, wings thrusted upward. “Let’s get started.”

    I think it over for a bit before I know just what to say. “Okay, well…I’ve done nothing.”

    The overseer’s wings flap oh-so-slightly. “What’s that, dearie?”

    “I did nothing in my life to get here. What I mean by that is, I-I should’ve done stuff but didn’t. I had grown to fear the feelings and consequences of failure, defeat, and disappointment at an early age, so I never took up any tasks that weren't in my direct way like, say, obligatory school assignments, nor did I seize any social outlets. I also couldn't stand up for myself in the oddly few times I was picked on; I_ did_ learn to blend in very well, though."

    The larva wriggles slightly up and down, presumably in excitement. “Very good so far,” the overseer interjects. “Now please, continue.”

    As I allow my repressed feelings of guilt to resurface and guide my words, my delivery smoothens and boldens, and I begin to gently pace left and right. “Furthermore, I held back from speaking my own mind except whenever I was forced to. Even if I shared my own thoughts, though, I wouldn’t have much to say ‘cause I refrained from developing any opinions or beliefs beyond the bare necessities, if that makes any sense. On that note, I was afraid to be skeptical of things, but I was also reluctant to hold faith in them; I wouldn’t commit myself to any side or any_thing._ I became complacent, unsocial, unproductive and, quite frankly, sort of lazy.”

    A second larva slinks out from a different hole while the first one thrashes about more violently. “Yes, yes, darling! Spot on!”

    “My mom eventually caught on to my inactivity, however, and had me join a co-worker’s son and his friends on a trip to someplace I forget. Of course, I couldn't conjure up the strength to resist the order. They were a diverse group, though, I must admit; I probably could’ve made at least one new friend if I tried.

    “Anyway, after our light at an intersection went green, the driver forgot to look both ways, and all the passengers were too busy with themselves or each other to see another driver speeding through from our left. Admittedly, though, I kind of only caught them from my peripherals myself despite my well-developed observational skills. Now, I knew I had to alert everyone in the car, but my lips clammed up; I guess a part of me winced at the supposedly unflattering image of a quiet person like myself suddenly shouting out to "Look out!", so how about we just add pride to this list, too, while we’re at it?”

    At this point my guilt and shame become so overwhelming that I can't look at the overseer anymore, and instead I gaze downward with my fingers gripping my hair and face. “Augh, that would’ve been my turning point; I could’ve saved all those people and started making progress with myself, but I went and blew it, all because I was so cowardly and selfish and pathetic that I couldn’t get myself to actually talk to people or accomplish anything my entire life!”

    I wipe my dampened eyes and cheeks on my sleeves and look back up at the overseer. What a mess I probably look like right now. “And now, here I am,” I sob, swinging an arm open to gesture, “pouring out my soul after it’s already too late for any more such chances. If only I became like this when it still would’ve mattered; I might've actually grown to love myself more.”

    Once I've calmed down, I can see that a peculiar arthropod now rests in the central hole. Could that represent-?

    “Well done, dear,” the overseer congratulates. “You’ve recapped all of your sins with perfect honesty, including the one running behind all sin: pride. Now, your newly found confidence can still serve one purpose.” They lean down in anticipation. “It’s time to choose your punishment.”

    “Nothing's going to happen to me,” I answer in a weak breath of defeat, “not good or bad. What should I reap if I hadn’t sowed anything in the first place? It’s best that you just leave me here to wither out in total isolation.”

    “Hmmm,” the overseer mutters in a jarringly ominous tone. “Perhaps you’re not quite as fun as I’d hoped.” They begin to back out, their tail pulling back out from around me and their light beginning to faintly flicker out. Well, here comes total darkness again.

    Once the overseer vanishes from my sight entirely, those weird crunches and crackles from earlier return, this time they gradually muffling out over time until they are gone once more. A loud, but gentle ting then goes off high above my head as if for closure.

    So...did I choose the right punishment? I figured they would’ve wanted a punishment that corresponded with the deed. It could be that mere isolation isn't severe or intense enough. If that’s the case then, what awaits me now, and how long do I have to wait?

    My next thought makes my heart jump: perhaps the punishment has already started! They might've unleashed a demonic beast of some sort to ravage me for all eternity. Or maybe I'm doomed to forever experience unprompted jump scares with no way to brace myself for them! Oh, the stress is killing me already! I think I’ll just lie back down again; maybe the torment won’t be so terrible then.

    I slip my hood back on and lay my whole body on the floor before shutting my eyes. If only I had the chance to make things right.

    If only I were able to escape this crazy nightmare.

    A bright light suddenly hits my eyelids. I prop myself up with my left arm and protect my eyes with my right hand, letting my hood slide off the back of my head. I note how the light is white. This isn’t a trap, is it; some scare to strike home how there's no hope of getting out? Well, whatever, then; there's really nothing left for me to lose.

    I move my hand aside to see what looks like a huge gash in the supposed ceiling. This opening – and the light emanating from it – seems oddly devoid of the desolation that had enwrapped me since I got here, which I sort of sense burning away. When I stand and take a step forward, I feel my feet lift off the floor, taking me by surprise. I look down to see my blurry reflection on the floor, and half a smile cracks through one cheek. Could I really be receiving grace after death?

    As I am drawn closer to the light, a soft blanket of silk envelops my body, and I close my eyes and lift my head in preparation; it looks like I am being granted salvation! No longer will I waste away my days leaving zero impact wherever I go. I can now become a lively individual who expresses thoughts and emotions in earnest, generates healthy social connections, and learns to feel legitimate love in all of it's forms!

    My new life begins here! 

[btobscenarios]

#2: You Meet Them

*Number of Members: NOM*

NOM: 4/7

Sungjae:

Thank God that you were able to enter the venue with no problem. There were a few hunderd people outside the gate and the artists were having a hard time entering the premises.

Yes, I pulled a few strings with my uncle who was the manager of the event. I was able to get a pass to backstage but he wasn’t able to secure me a seat, which meant staying here.

I plumeted onto a seat near one of the main areas. I was so excited to see these wonderful idols that I love so much. They are all so talented and gifted that I praise their efforts to be in this industry. It’s very difficult, I presume. I’ve been to a lot of these events, thanks to my samchon, and I can see their stress and hardwork.

So far, this is the most exciting back stage experience ever! Blackpink and BTOB are here and they are my absolute favorite!

I wish that BTOB would cross dress again. They’re so cute when they do that and it kind of makes them hot too. Aigo, can I just rest for a minute? It’s really hot in here.

I’m wearing a thick coat and long sleeves with matching tights. Luckily I brought my extra clothes inside my backpack. I just needed a place to change. I looked for a good two minutes but I couldn’t locate a restroom. It was so frustrating to talk to people who pretend to not here a thing and pass by me everytime I ask a question. Ugh! Jjajeungna!

I return to the place I was sitting a few minutes ago and noticed there was a dressing room at the end of the hallway. I approached the room and knocked slightly and opened the door a little. There was no one inside so I took the opportunity to change inside. I placed my bag on a chair a few meters away from the changing rack that was designed to barrier from the people around while you’re changing.

I was changing into my short shorts when I realized that I forgot to put on my cycling shorts under. I was behind the light brown couch that was placed at the back of the room. It was facing the door. I was in the process of pulling up my cycling shorts when the door flew open. I realized that I wasn’t behind the barrier and I was half naked so I fell to the floor, with half cycling shorts on.

“Omo!” I said, as I fell to the floor. I quickly raised the cycling shorts to my waist and pulled up my actual shorts on.

“Who are you?” A male voice asked, when I looked up it was Sungjae from BTOB. Oh shit, BTOB’s Sungjae saw me in my panties! How embarrassing! This day couldn’t get worse!

“How did you get in here? Are you a fan? I’m going to call securi-”

“Andwae!” I whisper-shout, trying not to cause anymore trouble. I show him the pass from my samchon which stated that I’m actually allowed here. “I’m permitted to be backstage.”

“Yah!” He said so casually. “You’re allowed backstage but why are you in my dressing room?”

“This is your dressing room?” I said, dumbfounded.

“Ne,” he nodded. “Why were you changing here?”

“Joesonghaeyo, Sungjae.” I bowed a little, “I didn’t know it was your room. I’ll leave now.”

“Hajima.” He stopped me, “Your lucky that it was my room that you entered and not Eunkwang hyung’s.”

I chuckled at his remark, “Remind me not to tell him what you said when I see him.”

“You know Eunkwang hyung?” He asked, his eyes widened..

“Ahni.” I shook my head. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t tell him.”

“Yah!” He cautiously grabbed me by the arm. “Don’t tell him.”

“Wae andwae?” I was trying to hide my smile behind my acting.

“Aigo,” he started pulling me towards the couch and made me sit down. “Just don’t tell him. Sit here and don’t come out until I come back.”

“But I’m going to watch the show!” I cried softly.

“Aiiish, okay…” he said, defeated. “Stay close to me, okay?”

I nodded, stood up and ran away. He realized what I was doing and followed in my steps. We ended up having a game of tag during the practice of BTOB and the other members were having a hard time finding Sungjae.

Peniel:

I hate being on my period. I think every girl does. It’s annoying but there’s happiness somewhere in between. It’s when I buy myself a bunch of a sweets and just eat it by myself.

It’s 9:45 PM and I am craving some Nutella, ice cream, candy… I could go on and on about what I want to eat. Omo! I also want some cheesecake. I’m going to die if I don’t go to the store to pick some stuff up.

I told Rhea, my dormmate and friend, that I’ll just buy something from the grocery and asked if she needed anything.

“Ahniya,” she shook her head and smiled. “Gwaenchanha.”

I nodded and prepared to leave. I got my motorcycle and went to the grocery.

Lucky for me that there were no long lines in the counters and I just spent a longer time in getting the sweets that I craved.

When I reached the chocolate isle, I searched for Nutella. It was something on the top of my list. I needed to get a bottle of it. A few minutes passed and I found it. It was on the top shelf and there was one left. I’ve never been so happy in my entire life. I went on my tiptoes and reached for the last bottle of Nutella. Only a few more streches and the Nutella will be mine! When the edge of my middle finger hit the bottle, it was gone in a second.

I looked at the person next to me and saw a guy wearing a hoodie on and cap. It was evening, why was he wearing that?

“Yah!” I said, “That’s mine!”

He chuckled, shook his head and said, “Ahniyo. This isn’t in your hands.”

“I was reaching for it!”

“But you didn’t actually get it, right?”

“Yah! I really wanted that!” I pleaded, slightly shouting because I started getting annoyed by what was happening.

“I already ate expired Nutella for the past week and I need a new one, okay?” He explained and I was actually mad right now. Was I not getting the Nutella?

“But I can see that you’re quite annoyed right now,” he pointed out. “I’ll give the Nutella to yo-”

“Yes!” I excitedly screamed. “Jeongmal gomawoyo!”

“But you have to do something for me in return.” He slightly smirked.

“Mworago?” I asked, my eyes getting big. “What do you mean?”

“I’ll give this to you if…” he paused for a few seconds. My fingers couldn’t stop fidgeting. What did he want me to do? “…if you give me your number and go on a date with me.”

I raised my eyebrow and thought for a second. Nutella for a date with this cute boy. Why not? Did I want to or was it my hormones saying yes?

“Okay sure. Do you want to get some coffee right now?”

“Jinjja?” He asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Coffee? Sure. Let me just get a few more things and we can go to Starbucks. I’m Peniel.” He reached out to me, asking me to shake his hand and I did.

What was I thinking?

Eunkwang:

It’s not fair. Why did everyone have great bodies and I needed to work hard for it?

Every free day that I had was spent in the gym. But when I spent a full day at work, I usually went to the gym at night. There was little people at the gym during this time, which was better than having a jam packed gym in my opinion.

A few other individuals was here and there. I wanted to start in the weights area but there was a few guys there which turned me off.

I went to the treadmill instead. It was the easiest I could do, even though I was kind of lazy to exercise today.

I started using the treadmill at a low speed, increasing it after a few minutes. I wasn’t in full focus because I didn’t realize that my finger was on the speed increase button and I put a lot of pressure on it. It made the machine at full speed and I wasn’t able to keep up and slid off of it in a swift motion.

I screamed at the accident that I caused for myself. My back hit the ground, hard. I groaned at what I did and held my hip. I felt a bit dizzy and I couldn’t pull myself up.

“Aigooo!” Someone held my arm and pulled me to a sitting position. “Gwaenchanha?”

“Ahniyo.” I was still holding my hip, thinking why did I do this to myself. “My hip is sore.”

The guy chuckled, made me lay onto his side and said, “I saw what happened. You hit your hip on the floor particulary harder than other areas.”

“Where you staring at me?” I teased.

“Ahhh,” he stuttered. “Andwae! I wasn’t.”

“I’m kidding.” I giggled, “I think I can stand up now.”

“Ahni, rest for a while.” He told me, “You might get a blood rush to your head and I wouldn’t want that to happen.”

I smiled at what he said, he wa sweet and his hair was really pretty looking.

“I think you’re okay now.” The guy said as he pulled me up and asked for my name.

“Ahh, jeo neun (Y/N)-ibnida.” I introduced myself. “And you?”

“I’m Eunkwang.” He said, smiling. His cheekbones were so prominent and high.

“Oh, gamsahaeyo Eunkwang-ssi.” I smiled and squeezed his arm.

“Maybe you want to exercise together next time?” He suddenly asked.

I smiled and nodded. “That would be nice, maybe next time you could keep an eye out for clumsy me.”

We ended up laughing more than we exercised.

Ilhoon:

The park was very nice during the day. Lots of people were passing by and my friend prepared a busking area for us. The sun was around but didn’t hurt as much because of the cold breeze that passed by every few minutes. The weather was actually good for once.

There was a small basket infront of us and she held a guitar on her lap. I was standing behind a mic stand that was connected to a travel speaker.

She started strumming the guitar and I prepared my verse. The first song we sung was “Stay” by Blackpink. They are one of my favorite girlgroups ever! The song was sweet and it made me calm.

As I sung the last verse, a lot of people had dropped some change. We weren’t here for the money, it was just a bonus for us to be honest. My friend and I loved to perform to people and we did this for exposure and practice to be in front of a crowd. Our dream is to be an idol and be able to perform to a bigger crowd. I’m on the shy side so I need practice, more than she does.

The park was quickly eaten by the darkness the night provided. The moon illuminated from afar and the groups of people who passed by lessened and lessened. By 6:30 PM, we had finished the session and started packing up. When I picked up the basket, I stepped back and accidentally tripped on a rock. My body was in okay condition, so I was able to fix myself up. I didn’t fall onto the ground but the contents of the basket was all over the ground.

“Aiiish,” I whisper under my breathe. “Don’t mind me, I’ll pick it up. Just continue what you’re doing.”

I continued picking up the coins and other things that was inside of the basket when someone appeared in front of me. I was surprised that I spilled some of the coins that I just picked up.

“Aiiish,” I growled, “What’s wrong with me today…”

“Gwaenchanha?” The person said, still helping me.

“Ne,” I said, looking at the guy who was talking to me. His face was glowing, his teeth was bright and his eyes twinkled. “I’m okay, Illhoon-ssi.”

“Oh,” He said, slightly taken aback. “I’m guessing you’re a fan?”

“Ehh.” I said, jokingly. “Your songs are okay.”

His mouth was ajar and it made you snort at his awkwardness. “I’m kidding, yes, your songs are great.”

He scratched the back of his neck, “Your voice was really nice too.”

You paused for a few seconds. Did he just complement you? Was this is even real? What was happening? I’m not good at receiving complements and I usually just laugh it off.

“So, you were watching our session, huh?” I crossed my arms and raised an eyebrow, “did you drop anything?”

He smirked, “Yes, I did. Make sure you find it, okay? I really like your voice. You should audition at Cube Entertainment.”

I nodded, not knowing what to say after.

“What’s your name?”

“I’m (Y/N).”

“Ilhoon,” he replied, “but you already knew that. Make sure you contact me so I’ll be able to help you. Your talent is amazing, (Y/N).”

After a minute, Ilhoon left. I looked at the basket where the tips were and noticed there was a piece of paper standing out.

I picked up the paper and realized that there was digits written on it. Did he leave me his number? Eotteohge?

Word count: 2280

[christinamirabilis]

gay ask game for gays only (stolen from @fakeking)

doing this myself cos i’m bored and i don’t care

1. describe your idea of a perfect date?  okay like, perfect date that is (currently) unrealistic would be an extended overseas vacation with my love - somewhere warm but with lots of exciting things to do - culture, shopping, nightlife - i’m thinking like mediterranean europe, south america, thailand.  skinny dipping, lazy days lying in bed all day in a room with open French doors leading out onto a balcony with a nice view over cobbled streets and a warm breeze stirring the sheet white curtains, sitting outside a café eating delicious food, buying cool shit at the markets... just, yeah, travel.  perfect.

but otherwise, i guess like honestly my favourite thing to do is to go to a bar somewhere with outdoor seating where it’s warm, and we get antipasto platters and sangria or pizza and margaritas, or just whatever, food and drink, and we sit for hours and chat.  there’s a bar on the waterfront that has a bunch of beanbags out on the lawn and you can order food and drink and i went there once with soph and it was really nice even though we ended up having a fight later that night and it was awful, but i wanna go back there next summer i think, with a cute girl who loves me and isn’t planning on leaving lmao.  but anyway.

2. whats your “type”?  honestly i don’t really know like i just really love girls?  all girls?  i mean i guess i like girls who are curvy or a little on the chubby side, with an “alternative” look in some way - crazy hair or tattoos and piercings or just in the way they dress.  girls with loud laughs and big appetites and dirty minds.  i mean, i’m pretty much describing myself here, i’m aware of that.  there’s probably something ominously freudian or whatever in the fact that i’m attracted to girls who are similar to, but better versions of, me, but it’s whatever.  

3. do you want kids?  yeah i think i do.  it’s something i go back and forth on.  it’s not something that i absolutely need to be happy - i have dated people in the past who have not wanted children and honestly it’s more important to me to be with someone who i feel is my soulmate but who won’t have kids with me, rather than someone who i don’t love as much but who will?  but yeah i do want kids, i think, but i’m not sure, and i’m not set on it?

4. if you do, will you adopt or use some other form of child birth? well i’m definitely not getting pregnant myself.  if my partner wants to get pregnant, that would be fine, although i’m gonna have to get over my phobia of pregnant people lmao.  but i think my first choice would be adoption, purely because there are so many kids in the system who need a loving home, so i feel like it would be better for the world if i could make a tiny difference by adopting some of those kids?

5. describe the cutest date you’ve ever been on? ah man i don’t even know.  i’m just thinking about all the things i did with sophie and it’s making me sad so i’m not going to answer this one haha.

6. describe your experience having sex for the first time (were you nervous? or was it easy peasy?)?  i mean, yeah, i was nervous, but more than anything i was kind of like, “oh wow, this is really happening,” because it was a girl who i’d been on one date with and then we met up in town a few days later and i went home with her.  i was mostly worried that i tasted bad?  but i personally didn’t struggle with it like it just felt natural, and i was pretty stoked that i made her cum several times on my first time, like, i was worried i would be “bad” at it or whatever.

7. are you a morning time gay or night time gay?  night time gay.

8. opinion on nap dates?  good.

9. opinion on brown eyes?  good.

10. dog gay or cat gay?  i like both.  i am bipetual, if you will.  but if i had to choose, cats - but only marginally.

11. would you ever date someone who owned rodents or reptiles?  of course, except probably not snakes, but there are no snakes in new zealand.  but i love rats, and i don’t mind lizards and stuff.

12. whats a turn off you look for before you start officially dating someone?  if they’re polyamorous, non-monogamy is my only absolute dealbreaker - and in my experience, the consequences of trying non-monogamy have, for me anyway, been disastrous.

13. what is a misconception you had about lgb people before you realized you were one?  well, to be honest, i’d never ~met~ a gay person, to my knowledge, like, no one that was openly out (although in hindsight i had probably met a few) - and certainly no one that i had more than a passing interaction with, until my friend nic came to the therapeutic community i was living in.  and it was such a shock to me to meet someone who was so openly gay and so confident and unashamed?  because, to me, i had nothing against gay people, but i just felt like i myself couldn’t be one, there was shame to it somehow (a lot of this is tied into my ptsd, it’s hard to explain without going into all of that which i don’t feel like doing) - and i expected that other gay people would similarly be ashamed, like it was some kind of illness that they couldn’t help and they didn’t choose and that they’d rather be straight if they could.  and yeah, so it was a shock meeting nic.  but it was life changing, because it gave me room to consider what i had been in denial about for so long - that maybe i was gay too.  so i’ll always be so very grateful to nic for being in my life in general, because we went through recovery together, but particularly because she allowed me the opportunity to become my true self, and that has been more liberating than anything.

14. what is a piece of advice you would give to your younger self?  i guess to not worry, and that things will become clear to her when she’s ready - and to not worry about why she doesn’t find boys attractive and what might be wrong with her, and especially not to do the dangerous and self-destructive things she did (sending nudes to and sexting a boy she had never met, which could have gone horribly fucking wrong - and for all i know he might have shown all of his mates, but this was prior to social media and smart phones so it wouldn’t have been that bad, getting herself into a situation where she was date-raped at a party, trying to organise anonymous sexual meetings with strangers on the internet) to try and FORCE herself to feel attraction to men.  and that there’s no shame in being gay.

15. (if attracted to more than one gender) do you have different “types” for different genders?  i’m gay af.

16. who is an ex you regret?  ugh i don’t know, like, i have been through some awful shit with some of my exes, but i don’t regret any of them, because they all taught me lessons about life that i took into my next relationship, and into other situations, and i have become a better person as a result - and i have very fond memories with all of them, even if things did go really sour at the end?  particularly my last relationship - it was by far the most painful and chaotic relationship i’ve ever been in, towards the end, and i have so many regrets about how things went and how i should have done this, and shouldn’t have done that, but i don’t for a moment regret being with that person, because i loved her so much (and still do) and i have had some of the best experiences of my life with her and wouldn’t trade it for the world.  so yeah, i don’t regret any of them.

17. night club gay or cafe gay?  both, depends.

18. who is one person you would “go straight” for?  ugh you know i feel like i always have an answer prepared for this, until someone actually asks me?  i used to say kit harington but now i’m not sure?  fuck damn i was literally talking about this with my boss last week, but i can’t remember who it was.

19. video game gay, book gay, or movie gay?  book or movie.

20. favourite gay ship (canon or not)?  ah i’m not really into the whole ship thing but i guess clarke and lexa because that’s the first one i can think of.  OH and i definitely ship daenerys targaryen and asha/yara greyjoy - i know it’s never going to happen but it’s nice to imagine.  emilia clarke is my number one celebrity crush - she doesn’t know it yet but she’s gonna marry me.

21. favourite gay youtuber?  literally could not give a single fuck about youtubers.

22. have you ever unknowingly asked out a straight person?  not to my knowledge, like, i have only ever asked out people who i have been talking to on dating apps tbh.

23. have you ever been in love?  yeah.

24. have you ever been heartbroken?  oh god yes.

25. how do you determine if you want to be them or be with someone?  honestly i don’t!  the only way i can know is if i date them for a little bit?  sometimes it’s both and that’s okay too.

26. favourite lgb musician/band?  ok so i had to google a list of them to make sure i didn’t miss them.  my very favourite is jónsi, cos he’s the lead singer of my favourite band sigur rós.  also i love david bowie, and i like sia and beth ditto.  also apparently jackie cruz, who plays flaca on oitnb, is also a singer - and bisexual!  so that’s exciting.  there’s a whole bunch of people on that list who i didn’t know were queer.

27. what is a piece of advice you have for young / baby gays?  take no shit from straight people - live your truth and stand up for yourself.  but also, keep yourself safe - this is more important than anything else.  lastly, don’t let terfs and racists in the community get into your head - we are a minority, we MUST stand up for other minorities as well.  some of us are also trans or people of colour, and we must protect and uplift them.  we have to be better.

28. are you out? if so how did you come out?  i am completely out now, but it was a process over a couple of years, because it was really fucking hard.  i am now openly gay, to the point that i’ll mention it in passing to strangers if it’s relevant, assuming i feel safe to do so.  but anyway this is a long story, so settle in.

i never voiced the thought that i might be gay until i was 20, during group at the therapeutic community.  i thought i was possibly bisexual for a long time, but in retrospect i think i was trying to compromise with myself, that being bisexual was somehow more acceptable to me than being gay.  but yeah, so after that i didn’t tell anyone again until i was nearly 21, when i was having dinner with my best friend sarah and another good friend from high school, heather.  i remember it vividly, because heather said about how she’d been in a relationship with a girl while she was on study exchange in scotland.  i got up abruptly from the table, went to the bathroom, nearly threw up, and then came back, and they both asked me if i was okay, and i said that i might be gay.  it was really scary because at the time sarah was studying to be an officer in the salvation army and i was scared that she would no longer want to be friends with me, but of course she is a perfect angel and it was no problem at all.  after that i went on a date with a girl while i was living by myself in napier, and then i freaked out and ghosted her, which i feel bad about.  i was also out to my friend mixx, who i met on tumblr that year.  and after that, i didn’t come out to anyone else until i was nearly 23.  i had moved down to wellington to start university, and i had to do summer school for six weeks to do a refresher music theory course, so i was sleeping on my sister’s couch for six weeks.  i hung out with her friends a lot, including her flatmate (her ex boyfriend who was now her best friend, who had come out as gay), and one night i was sitting out having a cigarette with his boyfriend, and i just told him i was gay, and that i was scared to come out, and asked him not to tell my sister.  and then a few days later i was in the car with my sister and i just kind of blurted it out, and she was like, “mate, i’ve known that for years,” and i was kind of offended because i thought i had been really good at hiding it and that she assumed i was gay because i hadn’t had a boyfriend like maybe i just didn’t want one?  haha but it was fine.  and then a week or so later we went up to hawkes bay to visit my parents, cos jen had to take her car up there so dad could sell it for her, and i told my parents while we were eating chinese food, again spur of the moment, and my dad was unfazed but my mum kind of freaked out a bit, i remember her dropping her fork and there was fried rice all over the floor.  and she rang her best friend crying, and the friend was like, “oh man, i thought you saw this coming, i sure did.”  like, she wasn’t upset that i was gay, just that she hadn’t known, and apparently everyone else she knew had.  and i think she did struggle with my being gay to begin with, it took her a long time to adjust, but she seems to be okay now.  and then i didn’t bother coming out to anyone else, i just let the grapevine do the trick/liked lgbt pages on facebook and posted photos of myself with girls.  but apparently my extended family didn’t figure it out and it all came out when we were all at my cousin’s 21st about six months later, but everyone was chill and unsurprised about it.  and since then i have been very open about it, because, like, i had been in recovery for years, but i had been really stagnant, and coming out was the catalyst i needed to truly become well.  i mean, i nearly died later that year cos i had a really bad psychotic episode and tried to kill myself.  and i had another bad episode two years later, but that was related to ptsd.  so neither of those was related to my sexuality, and i do honestly think that being out for me is a protective factor - i don’t have the added complication of trying to hard part of myself while also grappling with illness, so i have been able to recover faster?  i don’t know.  anyway that’s such a long wall of text i’m so sorry kudos to anyone who read it.

29. what is the most uncomfortable / strange coming out experience you have?  ugh honestly most of the experiences i have had have been positive or at least neutral.  i know one of my aunts doesn’t approve - she’s a hardcore salvation army person, threw a massive tantrum when my parents let me read harry potter as a kid - which is hypocritical as fuck because when my (male) cousin came out she sent him a text saying that she still loved him and was proud of him, but she has never said a word to me about my being gay.  although she still treats me the same as she always has so i guess it could be worse, i just have very little patience for her in general.

but probably the worst experience i have had was when i was 23, newly out to my family, had just moved into a hall of residence, and was scared about making friends because i had been pretty much out of society for five years - three years in hospital/residential and then two years of living first by myself and then with my parents, working at a supermarket and with only one friend.  so i was scared, i was still forming my identity as a lesbian.  anyway, a group of girls who lived on my floor decided to adopt me, and i hung out with them for a few days and it was really nice.  i went to an o-week party with them, and on the way back to the hall they decided it would be hilarious to go to a strip club (they were all 18 or 19 so y’know).  i went in but i wasn’t really feeling it - i’m not really a fan of strip clubs and i didn’t have any money to give the dancers but i didn’t want to be in there NOT giving them money.  one of the other girls looked visibly uncomfortable so i asked her if she wanted to go and wait outside until the others were ready to leave.  we were chatting, and she was like, “yeah, i just feel uncomfortable being in the presence of naked women,” and i was like, “fair enough, i don’t mind cos i’m gay, but i don’t really like strip clubs.”  after that she turned really frosty but i didn’t think anything of it until they all snobbed me at breakfast the next morning - turns out this girl goes to one of those evangelical megachurches who think that being gay can be “cured”, and she told the others that she didn’t want me hanging out with them anymore.  think she might have made some shit up about me to make them not like me either, lovely thing to do.  it didn’t matter because i made other friends in the hall, including probably the only two other lesbians living there, but it still hurt.  but the funny thing about it is this homophobic girl was my next door neighbour, and i knew it made her uncomfortable whenever she ran into me in the hallway - and i made a point to occasionally take girls home and have very loud sex with them, knowing she’d be able to hear hahahahahaha.

30. what is a piece of advice for people who may not be in a safe place to express their sexuality?  just do what you gotta do to survive - you’re no less queer if you can’t be out.  find someone you trust that you can talk to, so that you’re not alone.  it won’t always be like this - one day you’ll be able to live your truth.  just keep holding on.

[shysweetthing]

Onsen Katsudon

So in my fic "We Call Everything..." there's a point where Katsuki Hiroko teaches Victor how to make a proper katsudon. Do I know anything about how to make properly authentic katsudon? No, because I'm not a katsudon authenticity expert.

But I watched YoI, said, "Man, katsudon must be delicious," tried two online recipes and said, "Hmm, these are pretty good, but they are not exactly 'food of the gods' good. What am I doing wrong?"

I then spent months (I wish I were exaggerating) reading about katsudon,  experimenting on katsudon, ordering katsudon at Japanese restaurants, making all kinds of katsudon mistakes, and figuring out what I did and didn't like. I also thought about what tools Yuuri's mother would have had available to her in the making of katsudon.

Lo and behold, here we are--shysweetthing's katsudon headcanon recipe. I have no idea if this recipe is authentic, but I do think it's delicious.

Having spent months perfecting the recipe to my exacting personal tastes, I might as well share it. I used this recipe as my jumping off point.

I know this recipe is going to sound horribly elaborate, but that's because I'm picky, long winded, and I added in a lot of irrelevant asides. If you (a) have the right ingredients in your kitchen, and (b) have sufficient practice, you can make a full-fledged katsudon (excluding the rice, the dashi broth, and the onsen eggs, which I'll explain below) in about 20 minutes, which honestly isn't bad for THE FOOD THAT GODS EAT.

There are a bunch of pieces to this, so I'm going to break it down.

Dashi

I'm not going to tell you how to make dashi broth; I'm just going to make a plug for learning how to simmer things in dashi because (a) it's way better than frying them, and (b) it's super-delicious.

This is very complete description of how to make various kinds of dashi.

At this point, I make dashi broth in 12 cup batches. Half of it turns into miso soup, and the other half gets tossed in a container in the fridge and used for cooking. Annnd now I'm going through 24 cups of dashi a week. (I had made dashi exactly twice before I started making katsudon--cooking with it is addictive, delicious, and good for you.) If you have to make dashi just to make katsudon, you will be in the kitchen forever, I'm sorry, good-bye. On the other hand, if you make dashi in the morning twice a week while you're eating breakfast, katsudon is super-easy.

Onsen Eggs

Onsen eggs are eggs that are made by tossing an egg in an onsen for about 45 minutes to an hour and a half. Most of us do not have an onsen near enough to use this particular method on a regular basis, but we can make do.

If you happen to have an immersion circulator (and who doesn't??!) (just kidding) (this is for the Victors among you who have no issue buying/keeping ridiculous kitchen equipment) (and me, I have an immersion circulator, I am ridiculous), you are basically making an egg 63--that is, you're cooking an egg sous vide (sorta, in the shell is sous vide?) at 63º C for about an hour. (Here is an incredibly in-depth explanation of the process of sous-vide egg-cookery. ) If you're doing it this way, I recommend cooking the eggs at 63º C for 65 minutes--this gives you a smooth, velvety, texture to the eggs.

For those of you who don't have an immersion circulator or an onsen, you can follow the recipe here (just for the making of the eggs, skip the sauce stuff): http://www.justonecookbook.com/onsen-tamago/ 

EDIT: See this discussion for a lengthier talk about eggs and the recipe linked immediately above. 

Yes, this sounds like a PITA. I usually make a ton of onsen eggs all at once and then store them in the fridge. The ones I don't use for katsudon, I reheat for breakfast: just place it in a bowl of warm water while you gather the other breakfast items, and then crack it on top.

You will probably want to make your onsen eggs ahead of time, or budget extra time for constructing dinner.

As a note, the better your eggs are, the better your katsudon. If you can get reasonably good eggs, please do so. It's not going to completely suck if you have the cheap eggs, but the difference between meh eggs and perfect eggs is massive.

Tonkatsu

Ingredients: 2 pork cutlets appx 1/4 C arrowroot starch, potato starch, or wheat flour appx 3/4 C panko bread crumbs salt and pepper either 0.75 beaten eggs or 1.25 beaten eggs (bear with me on this), but for now, pretend it's 2 beaten eggs, okay?

(you might need to preheat your oven to 350º F).

1. Start preheating your oil. You can either deep fry your tonkatsu, or get a frying pan and put about 1/2" of oil in it. You won't want it too hot. 2. Take your pork cutlets. Make sure they're reasonably large. I kind of like mine thin and wide, so I pound them to about 1/4" thick. 3. Salt and pepper them. 4. Beat 2 eggs in a bowl. Now, get another smallish container. You're either going to pour off about .75 worth of egg or 1.25 worth of egg, depending on what you choose in step 6. You don't have to be super-exact on this. Just set that bad boy aside; you'll use it later. 5. Dredge your pork cutlets in your starch of choice. (I like arrowroot starch--it feels crispier? But don't go out of your way to buy it if you won't be using it. Regular flour is fine.) 6. Dip in egg, then dip in panko, then re-dip in egg, and re-dip in panko. 7. You don't have to dip in panko twice; I just like my tonkatsu with Extra Crispiness™, and since this version of katsudon doesn't soggify the tonkatsu, it's worth it. If you aren't going to double-dip on the panko, you will only want 0.75 eggs worth; otherwise, you'll want 1.25 egg for dredging in. 8. Drop your panko-crusted cutlet in the oil and fry on each side until golden brown. 9. Remove and set on either a wire rack or a paper towel to drain for about 3-5 minutes. 10. NOTE: you don't want your panko to burn (yucky) but you also definitely don't want raw pork in your tonkatsu. The first time or two you make this, you should probably slice your tonkatsu open in the middle after resting to see if it's done. If it isn't, drop it in the preheated oven for 3-10 minutes (3 if it's mostly done; 10 if it's still super pink). The exact cooking times depend on how thick your cutlet is, what altitude you're at, etc., so, sorry, you'll have to use your best judgment. Don’t overcook because a dry, chewy pork cutlet does not attract many top-level skaters. 11. Whee! You're done. Set your tonkatsu aside and move on to...

Katsudon

Ingredients 2 tonkatsu 2 onsen eggs (warmed as described above, if you made them a while back) 1/2 yellow onion, thinly sliced the leftover beaten egg from the tonkatsu a generous handful of peas. Frozen is fine. ~1 C cooked rice (I prefer using high-quality short-grain rice, because it gets a lovely chewy texture that contrasts nicely with the crispiness of the pork and the softness of the simmered onion, but also because I can make 2 cups and use the extra for onigiri because I'm lazy like that). furikake

2/3 cup dashi broth 1.5 T honey (to taste) 2.5 T soy sauce 1 T mirin

If you want to top it with something, chopped green scallions or shiso are always a good choice, but you don't have to do anything.

1. combine the last 4 ingredients (dashi, honey, soy sauce, mirin) in a sauce pan. Simmer and stir until combined. JUST FOR THE RECORD if you are like me, you might be saying, "hmm, SOME dashi is good, so isn't MORE dashi better?" The answer is NO. DO NOT ADD MORE DASHI UNLESS YOU WANT WATERY KATSUDON. You don’t have to use honey--sugar is fine--but I just think honey has a fuller flavor. I use less sugar than the other recipes because I cook the onion longer. 2. Add the onion and stir. 3. Cook until the onion is slightly translucent. This is what slightly translucent looks like:

4. Add the peas. This is how many peas you should add:

5. Keep simmering. 6. While you're waiting for the onion/pea/dashi mix to cook fully, put the cooked rice in the bowls, and then sprinkle with furikake. (You can skip the furikake if you want to, but I like it, so.) Slice the tonkatsu. 7. You're looking for two things here. First, you want the onions to be translucent and cooked in the dashi to the point where they taste of dashi. Second, you want to stir until the dashi broth is slightly thickened. You will be able to tell that the broth has thickened sufficiently because when you move the onions around, it will take just a few seconds for the broth to spill back into the spot that was vacated. I tried to make a gif to show what it looks like, let's hope it works.

(maybe this fixed it?)

8. You'll notice that many other katsudon recipes tell you to put the katsudon on top of the onion/dashi broth mix and then pour the egg on top. NOT THIS ONE. THIS ONE DOESN'T DO THAT. It's so much harder to control the temperature of the pork when you're cooking it some random additional amount, for one, and for another, you just made a delicious crispy piece of tonkatsu, and you're gonna throw it in broth and steam it? UGH. YOU'RE DECRISPING YOUR TONKATSU. Also, unless you are a freaking GENIUS with a spatula you'll never get it out of the pan looking good, because that's just not how the rest of us mortals work. 9. Once you've achieved sufficient debrothening (don't know what else to call it), pour the reserved egg over the mixture, stir it around, and then pop a lid on top. Cook for a minute, then divide the onion/pea/dashi mixture between the bowls. At this point, there should be just enough dashi liquid remaining to get the rice mildly seasoned, but not so much that it'll be swimming in liquid. 10. Place your perfectly cooked, juicy, crisp, totally not soggified tonkatsu on top of the onion mix. 11. Now take your onsen egg. Carefully crack it and pull a good-sized piece off the shell. Upend the egg over the tonkatsu. The egg should just spill out of the shell on top of the tonkatsu. You may want to slice the yolk so that the golden runny yolk coats the tonkatsu. 13. (This does not decrisp the tonkatsu; egg isn't as liquid as broth, and you're not steaming it. It just entangles the egg with the pork.) 14. Serve immediately after winning Grand Prix Final gold medal. This is what the final product looks like:

[theboykingofhell]

(acting anon from earlier!!) i read ur whole thing and its FILLED with rly good info ty!! im british and im looking to start getting into acting but i always shyed away from it in schools etc cause there's always be a dance side to it and :/ no ty id rather eat nails than dance ever. but im rly interested in the acting techniques n stuff u mentioned and id defo read as many posts abt it as u wanted to write :0 ty for your time!!<3

OK YEAH now that i actually have time and by that i mean i have no time there’s like three things i’m supposed to be doing rn but i want to stall starting them lmfao I’MMA TALK MORE ABOUT THIS RN

imma be real i cant remember all the things i mentioned in that post i wrote and i cant be bothered to go back and look so IF YOU EVER HAVE A SPECIFIC QUESTION LITERALLY ASK ME ANY TIME

oooooooooooh... yeah.. love... babe.... go to acting schools lol it’s not even JUST the fact that they literally teach you how to act but. you. need to network. god. especially since you ARE british, acting schools are very important because a lot of companies will pretty much hire you based on what school you went to. just the short amount of time i was there made this VERY obvious that it is VERY hard to get picked up by a company if you haven’t gone to school, and getting picked up by a company is how you get consistent theater work for YEEEEEEARS...!!! also, usually a school will give you a rly good chance to network by having some sort of showcase at the end where you can get in contact with a bunch of agents and the more famous the school, the more agents see your work and try and help you out!!!!

and, like... the whole dance bit is just a hurdle you’re gonna have to jump. it’s def rly important to just partipate in the classes, you don’t have to be GOOD but it gives you just that little bit of awareness over your body and your movement that you might not have had before and that’s rly important, especially on the stage!! i felt the same way about singing but, man, the more you work at it, the more mangeable it gets. and you don’t want to have this grudge on you forever because it’ll really limit your work :/

but i mean man you don’t actually have to, there’s no set way to become an actor! if you find work, you have that work, it doesn’t matter how you get there t b h. i just think it helps and the more skills you acquire, the better of a chance you have to get that work...

(i RLY suggest lamda, it’s a hard school get into but it’s one of the best if not the best and also the education is beautiful and ALSO lamda-trained actors get the most consistent work because the uk just nuts all over itself about lamda-trained actors)

BUT YEAH. ACTING TECHNIQUES. GONNA FINALLY ADD A CUT LOL

i’m only gonna talk about these vaguely cuz tbh i’m not as ~studied~ as i should be because i’ve been far too lazy until now to actually sit down and read acting textbooks but HERE’S THE GIST....

stanislavsky is like... pretty much the most well-known most taught acting technique. so many of the other techniques you learn BUILDS on his work. there’s a huge range of shit that he’s got to offer because his and later similar teachings are SO focused on realism (which tbh is a very new thing in acting), but some of the most important is stuff like emotional recall and objective work aaaaand character building by using yourSELF and projecting it onto the character. it’s a very psychological form of acting and it’s... MY BASIS but not actually my fave!

now, a lot of parts of it is very useful. emotional recall, for one, is SUPER nice. it’s a very good way to build that vulnerability up, tear down a lot of walls and explore how to summon emotions up....

my first exercise with stanislavsky, i remember them making us lie down and pretty much meditate, and then you listened as the teacher described a bunch of things: your favorite beach as a child and what it felt like, all these sensory memories about the smells and tastes and sights of the beach. and then it moved on to the night of your first kiss, your first love, and then your first loss. a nice basic range of basic emotions, and then you build on that.

stanislavsky (and stuff like uta hagan who wrote a RLY great book that i havent finished reading yet but it’s a GREAT way to rly build on the technique) rly encourages taking yourself and putting it into the character. SO!!!! if your character is going through their first break-up, summon the feelings and memories of your first break-up and push that into your lines, so on and so forth.

the big criticism with stanislavsky and all the techniques like them is that it COULD be very unhealthy for you... considering it’s all about reliving and reliving old memories. and i agree, i mean, one of my favorite plays and one of my monologues of choice for auditions is from a play where the main character is kidnapped and raped, and i’ve been kidnapped and raped before so i am CONSTANTLY and purposely triggering myself just to perform that monologue well. THAT AIN’T RIGHT! helps tho! 

(stuff like method acting falls under stanislavsky and his successors strasberg and stella adler, so....! you can see why not everyone fucks with it)

MY criticism about stanislavsky, which is why it doesn’t work as much for me, is that it’s very VERY heavily text-based. uhhh THIS IS LONG ALREADY SO SOMEONE SEND AN ASK ABOUT OBJECTIVES AND I’LL EXPLAIN but they want you to do a lot in the moment that makes it very distracting if you don’t have this process pinned down and that’s AGGRAVATING FOR ME ANYWAY

chekov is another technique that’s interesting, again not a fave but VERY helpful. this one builds character more from the outside in, it’s all about like... a lot of very subtle details that you can add to the background to add color to your performances. a lot of it is about atmospheres, attitudes, body language, and how that affects your character and how your character is thinking through the scene. it’s VERY reactionary and very fun because you don’t have to think NEARLY as much. 

pretty much you form... gestures, or moods for your characters, and instead of perfoming an ‘action’ (stanislavsky thingy, i’ll explain that in another post i guess), you’re using this ‘gesture’ to explain yourself. it is far FAR more abstract than stanislavsky, which is a lot more technique and exact, and it’s very vague, which does make it very hard for people. it also doesn’t stress realism like stanislavsky and company does, so it’s not as popular at the moment!

 meisner technique is my second favorite technique and kind of hard to explain because i haven’t rly gotten a comprehensive course in it yet besides a few workshops and activities, but it’s a technique that stresses STRESSES ‘listening’. that’s something you hear a lot as an actor, it’s one of the hardest things to really get but it’s also, truly, the essence of good acting. you can’t be a good actor if you don’t listen, because if you don’t listen, you’re not in the moment, and if you’re not IN the moment, you’re just... reciting lines!!!

it’s so hard to explain so i’mma link a cute video i just found because it shows a lot of variety and also shows the actors messing up a lot and it’s cute omfg

it focuses a lot of repetition (either of the same one line for each person or they’re both doing the same line back and forth) which forces the actor to not think about what’s being said but how it’s being said. you’re stuck in the moment because you KNOW what you’re gonna say, you don’t have to worry about saying anything else, all you gotta worry about is what the other person does and how you’re gonna react to it. if they suddenly start screaming in your face UHH YOU’RE GONNA SCREAM BACK HOW DARE YOU? and it’s automatic and SO natural and that’s why i love it, because you don’t have to THINK through it. you don’t rly think through your life like they make you do in other techniques, so i adore the ability to not have to do that on stage.

however i’ve never gotten far enough in the technique to find out how to apply it to a set script but it might just be about building that openness to just... DO and BE and let whatever happens happens, which is NICE

LAST THING THAT I’LL TALK ABOUT IS FUCKING GROTOWSKI YE  S. ok so a lot of techniques overlap, so by this i’m also talking about lecoq and peter brook’s acting techniques. it’s all physical theatre which is all about the GROTEQUE and like UGH there’s so many fascinating things honestly just google ‘theatre of cruelty’ because it’s FASCINATING

the emphasis is... not rly on realism altho the acting i’ve seen come out of it is the most realistic i’ve seen? it’s rly gritty and about accessing the most... EXTREME of emotions, it’s about rly grasping human nature and twisting it and bringing it on stage. peter brook especially (who has a book called the empty stage or something like that that i got to read) stresses that... theatre shouldn’t be about costumes and sets and whatever, it should be just about the actor, and that you can do a PERFECTLY GOOD show with a completely empty stage, with just the actor in the center.

it also has an emphasis on YANKING the audience into the show and being very interactive and like... nothing’s held back, it should be hard to watch, THEATRE SHOULD BE CATHARTIC AND FUCKED UP AND YES.

so physical theatre involves pulling emotions from the body through your movement. life isn’t just about the mind, after all, your body holds emotions through it, there’s chemicals and hormones and what your body does on its own and against other bodies and just. again, hard to explain so HERE’S SOME COOL VIDS THAT SHOWS DIFFERENT TECHNIQUES AND COMPARES THEM ALL

i lied there’s one more technique i wanna mention: it’s called alba emoting! it, again, builds on the idea that trying to access emotions through the brain is UNHEALTHY AND DANGEROUS and that you can, instead, try and access it through the body! how???? cuz emotions are PHYSICAL. you feel sadness and anger and love and whatnot in your gut and chest and through your head and all through every nerve in your body, right????? so why not try and mimic that for the stage???

it’s SUPER COOL because! what you do with alba emoting is: affix yourself a certain way. it involves certain body postures or positions, certain expressions sometimes... EVERY time it depends upon a different breathing pattern... and all you gotta do is do it. and your body doesn’t know better, it gets tricked into it...!

so, if i were to alba emote fear... it’s hard to describe through text rather than do it but this one might be the clearest one... part of the positioning is to have your hands up in front of you, as if you’re trying to ward someone off or shield yourself. you have your mouth open, you have your eyes stuck to the floor in a submissive sort of way, (there’s more that i cant describe but then) you start to make yourself hyperventilate by taking short, quick breaths through your mouth. after a few seconds of this, your body just starts SHOOTING adrenaline through you because it starts thinking WHOA SOMETHING BAD’S HAPPENING I’M AFRAID?FUCKFUCKFUCK

and that continues until you stop! you can stop at any time and then just go. you get left with a ‘residue’ (which is very chekov in nature in that it ‘colors’ your performance) where you can just act and do the lines and do your actions (stanislavsky) without worrying about needing to push any fear into yourself because it’s THERE, it’s PRESENT and whatever happens in the scene will either alliviate it or make it worse!!!

it’s a BEAUTIFUL way to prepare for a scene right before you go on stage too omg. last semester we were doing julius ceasar, and there was a scene where i had to play a servant who just witnessed a murder and just. go in and beg for my life and the life of my master. so i did the fear emote, and then my friend (playing my master at the moment) decided to talk to me in character and give me the order to throw myself in front of the murderers and LMFAO by the time i ran on there i was like fucking in tears i was so terrified HA

THERE ARE SO MANY MORE TOO IT’S SO FUN YOU JUST GOTTA GO AND SEE WHAT WORKS FOR YOU WHOO!!!!!! HOPE THIS WAS FUN AND HELPFUL YES

[stileshale]

What are your thoughts on teen wolf? especially writing wise? I have stopped watching regularly around 3b and I wasn't too convinced by what I've seen here on tumblr about the rest of the episodes, in particular 6x10...

i will always have a special place in my heart for the characters i love that the show gave me. i still blog about teen wolf, i write fic, and i enjoyed s1-3a. saying that, i don’t particular enjoy what the show became, or look back on the experience i had as a fan with much nostalgia (i think we were v much used and abused as a fandom online, for sure). i love my part of fandom, though.

short answer about the writing... it was terrible because

1) there was a complete lack of planning and follow through

2) we love this idea/actor/theme for 30 seconds but oops now we don’t

3) they completely misused their social media as a way to a) explain away/correct plot holes in their own writing and b) encourage viewers to watch a show they implied to be many things that it turned out to... not be any of

long answer

as a disclaimer here, i watch a lot of tv, i watch stuff on cbs, abc, fox, cw, bbc, tbs, p much something from every network, and i’ve seen the highs and lows of writing through comedy, drama, medical, supernatural, and everything inbetween. i’m not a professional writer, i am only a consumer. i have, however, over the nearly 20 years of watching shows as a fangirl (where i’ve been into something i follow religiously, and then later became involved in online forums) honed my tastes and opinions. on average i watch 15 shows a week, last year it would have been 21 around february time, but i’ve cut six shows including 3 i started this fall and dropped because of writing issues similar to that of teen wolf, or it just got terrible, either way). i have totally tried to rationalise what teen wolf did and i just... can’t. 

to elongate

1. the whole “let’s throw everything at the wall and see what sticks” approach is terrible. the best thing about breaking bad was that everything was planned to the very minute details. lost only picked up again when they were given an end date and suddenly had to come up with a plausible endgame. every season teen wolf has started off with a new plan, a new theme, and then it’s fallen apart because they’ve quite clearly changed their minds about something and either dropped it completely (they’re especially bad about dropping characters and never speaking of them again, or even acknowledging they were there in the first place), or made up new stuff to fit their new plan (scott is the true alpha so he can move mountain ash, kate is a werejaguar <___< ) the follow through with anything has also been stunted, and really, none of the characters have actually learned or improved much in six seasons, they never focus on character development, it’s always “i’m cured now” or “we can’t be bothered to give him a storyline so we’ll de-age him for a bit” when lydia started in season one she was head strong and intelligent and supposedly not interested in what boys thought, and then throughout the seasons it’s seemingly been the opposite with her having a new love interest every season, and then spending all of season six whimpering about stiles? kind of wasteful. don’t get me started on adelaide saying cora was only introduced to take stiles’ v card (her words, not mine) but doesn’t that say a huge lot about the writers intentions and also their shitting on the whole concept of female characters at the same time. “she’s there to sleep with stiles.” ugh.

not to mention they’ve joked about not being able to keep up with their own timelines, unsure how old any of the characters are, forgetting the characters have school/work/should be in prison, introducing siblings, changing history, forgetting actual canon...

2. kinda leads on from 1. where they would introduce an idea or a character and then totally lose interest and instead of trying hard to give them depth or something to do or going somewhere with the concept, they’d just drop it? see, parrish as a hellhound, kira as a kitsune, even way back when with stiles as a spark, a cool idea for thirty seconds to fit in with the plot and then... whoops it never happened, what are you talking about there was never a whole season about japanese culture, that season was about stiles conquering his internal battle with his own psyche telling him he’s never going to be good enough because we always make his dad out to be a total dick to him (surprise, his dad’s called noah, which we know you’ll hate because we dragged it out like some sort of magical plot twist, and also HIS dad is a dick so it’s okay he’s always told stiles he’d rather have had scott as a son) WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT FOXES FOR? THERE WAS NO FOX. THERE WAS NO TREE TRUNK. BANSHEES? THE FUCK? LYDIA JUST SCREAMS EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE AND SOMETIMES HAS MAGIC POWERS. but then doesn’t. pfft it doesn’t actually matter.

 or worse conveniently fix it/disappear it. it was tiring to watch and be confused and wonder why they were treating you like an idiot as a viewer. like the show is on mtv sure, but at least awkward stuck to a clear timeline. awkward covered where characters vanished to. we never actually even got clarification on basics like... why did deaton never want to help derek in season one... even though he was the hale emissary? what did emissaries have to do with anything by the next episode as nothing ever happened with that whole theme... why did stiles have a magic spark... where did cora go... how did she come back and how did the alphas find her before derek... why did the alphas originally start a war with derek, kill off his pack but then decide they didn’t want derek and just wanted scott... why did scott let deucalion walk off into the sunset? WHY IS PETER STILL NOT IN PRISON FOR THE MURDER OF HIS NIECE? these questions are all like three seasons old but that’s all i have and they still bug me. i can’t believe the show has never covered any of these huge issues. it’s lazy. everyone likes consistency, nobody likes writing leaving this big wink like “you don’t really care about this do you???”

again, with the big deaths, the characters they did kill off all had opportunities not to die, they could have had different endings, but each time their death was used to create man pain, probably one of the many reasons i’m not as big on male characters (they always need something to prop them up and make them more heroic and tragic in the long run), and that writing? erica, boyd, allison, was cruel and unnecessary. it did nothing for the show, and it lessened the writing. it actually made it worse when they tried to defend it, because they’d been going on about it for so long before hand as if it was a new and exciting toothpaste they’d all just gotten “now even whiter than before/now with even more death!!!”

the fact they hadn’t planned out a season without stiles (despite knowing dylan was out) and so instead of giving all of the other characters a chance to grow and learn and develop they literally wrote a whole season about stiles (after all of 3b, and from what i can tell most of s4 and s5 was about stiles). every character seemed to be focused on this missing person. the whole season was based around a character that wasn’t even on screen. and all because std fans were promised a big beautiful season of std??? gutted.

3. leading to point three! teasing your internet fanbase with ~thrilling and huge deaths to look forward to all season! using tumblr to answer questions about the plot holes/characters/encourage you to watch for the return of characters and not actually ever going through with it on screen. the teasing. the baiting. the flat out refusal to learn from your own viewership (when more than happy to use their gifs, use their images, their fanfics and their ideas) and then act as if the fanbase are the ungrateful ones. to try and join in with memes and tbt and a bunch of other infuriating actions that made even the actors uncomfortable. the tweets, the writers creating more drama even now, six seasons in, jeff saying “oh yeah if hoechlin had stayed on we’d have tortured derek some more with a fake julia (????? dick) haha i hope the internet doesn’t kill me for that one” as if we’re a bunch of deranged lunatics instead of just fans of a character that deserved better? like he knows what’s up. he’s a grown man. he knows they fucked up, in so many areas, and yet he’s just not willing to learn from it, or acknowledge it, he’s just always said “well if they don’t like it, they shouldn’t watch”... 

i guess we didn’t.

[darkcloud-kcalifornia]

Well, I’ve got a bit of time this morning until I have to start a 6 day work week (ugh…) so let’s get the ponies out there.  This is “Surf and/or Turf”.

* The CMC are officially on Map duty now.  Neat. Though I wonder how they’d take it if just one or two of them were summoned rather than the whole group.

* A mission to the hippogriffs of Mount Aris even!  …I still haven’t gotten around to watching the movie.  Also, I hope Twilight can get the three out of class for a while if they’re having to travel to other countries.  Well, Twilight probably would think of making sure they have their homework.  But there’s also the potential problem of parent/guardian permission.  I mean, Rarity probably wouldn’t mind having a small vacation from Sweetie (assuming she’s having to look after her again), but AJ can be a bit overprotective at times, and heck if we actually know anything about Scootaloo’s parents.  Er, from the show at least.  For all I know there might be stuff in the comics and novels, but it’s never certain how canonical those things are.

* Huh, just noticed that Big Mac is getting cozy with Sugar Belle in the opening.  I guess that isn’t just getting retconned out of existence?

* Ah, so Twilight is being the adult supervision for this one.  Or at least trying to.  Normally I’d say that she needs to let the Map’s current chosen handle things on their own, but even if she does trust them with the friendship problem they’d probably still need somepony there to take care of lodging and meals and whatnot.

* Smooth, Sweetie. Way to remind your friend they are maybe sorta it’s kind of vague crippled.

* Is AJ embellishing stories?  Bad Element of Honesty!  Bad! Maybe.  Like I said, I still haven’t gotten around to watching the movie.

* Or it could just be Applebloom taking creative liberties.

* That awkward moment when you realize you’ve been called in to deal with something that has nothing to do with your specialty.

* Yeah, specifics would be nice.  But one of the things everypony else has had to learn is that the Map is kinda lazy about that.  But also that they’re gonna stumble on the problem sooner or later.

* Also, would using “griff” in ways such as everygriff or anygriff also be something that could apply to the griffins?

* Terramar was it? Probably getting that wrong. Also, nice to see how the species change over.

* Twilight is fully intending for this to be 90% vacation.  Everybody can see it.

* Also, it’s interesting that they apparently split the kingdom after the Storm King’s defeat. Do they consider themselves to be one kingdom still, or are they now two separate but closely allied kingdoms?  And if so who is ruling the hippogriffs?  I know that Silver Stream was sent from Queen Novo, but I have no idea where she lives now.

* I’m noticing a lack of stairs in this city.  Just a bunch of ramps.

* So they hold celebrations on how awesome they are every weekend.  OK, on one hand I can understand the excitement to be able to take their natural forms again after being seaponies for, um… (*psst* how long were they down there?) a while, but every weekend does sound like it’s taking things way past too far.  And if Terramar’s reaction is any indication those that still spend time as seaponies aren’t entirely comfortable with it.

* Though come to think of it the CMC are experts in helping beings discover who they truly are, so this actually would explain why the Map called for them.

* Heh, hippogriffs drink from steins.  This certainly won’t be twisted by fanartists.  Also, ew, salmon juice.  Wait, does this mean Twilight is going to go non-herbavore while still in pony form? Or is she going to have something else?

* Sweetie is in her happy place right now.  Though I will admit that from what little we’ve seen the Harmonizing Heights actually do seem pretty nice.  I mean, I wouldn’t care to try any mountain climbing while there, but the valley portion is very nice.

* And the nature of the problem is revealed.  Terramar can’t make up his mind on where he wants to stay.  And apparently family is a part of the issue too.  I… can actually see something like this as being a problem that would logically arise from a situation like the hippogriffs.  Not everybody is going to want to go back, and this is something that could potentially split families, and while you’d want the family to be together you’d also know that trying to force that could cause some members to then be unhappy about where they are, which could then lead to strife due to feelings of not having had a choice.  Not sure if this is where the episode is going with this but I’m liking the implications and setup thus far at least.

* Yeah, can’t blame Terramar for being disturbed that the CMCare happy to see he’s got a problem.

* Ouch, dad in one place and mom in another.  Yeah, that’s the drama right there.  Plus he’s not sure where he actually prefers being but feels he has to choose.  I get the feeling the episode will end with him deciding he doesn’t have to, but it’s still a pretty well set up situation here.

* Ah!  Pro-con listing.  Well, it might work, but I doubt this will be solved that easily.

* Well, nice timing by Twilight as the CMC are gonna need a species change here, but at the same time… of course you’re here on business Twilight.

* Scootaloo can finally move in 3 dimensions freely.  Changing back is gonna suck for her, isn’t it?

* “No excuses, this time you’re staying for good”?  Yeah, can’t see how this wound up being a huge problem for the kid.

* Also, I just hope Twilight thought to waterproof the permission slip.

* The thought just occurred to me that this episode might be serving as a metaphor for kids who are having to deal with split custody from divorced parents.  If that’s what the writers intended then I gotta give them major props for going there, even if via metaphor.

* Oh hey, the ponies cutie marks wound up on their dorsal fins.  Neat.

* The worst words a teenage boy can hear.  “Baby pictures”.

* Well I think we know what Sweetie and Scoot’s feelings on the matter are, but really it’s Terramar’s feelings that have to be considered here.

* OK, now I really wanna see fan art of Twilight trying to win the screeching competition.

* Ugh, Scootaloo made a porpoise pun.  In song. You go sit in corner and think about what you’ve done young lady.

* I wouldn’t be surprised if this has happened to the CMC before.

* Well, at least it seems like an amicable split between Terramar’s parents.  And the other hippogriffs and seaponies.  I’m guessing showing this to Terramar will be how the CMC show him that he doesn’t have to choose between worlds.

* And so the problem is solved with a lot of reasonableness and apologies on both sides. Congratulations to the CMC for a successful mission.

 Well that’s the end of the episode.  And I have to say that this is probably my favorite one of the season thus far.  The scenery was gorgeous, the only idiocy taking place was very believable considering the ages of the CMC and didn’t last very long, it not only served to show off the worlds but also had some very interesting character moments with Scootaloo, and the moral was something not only sweet, but could potentially really help kids that are going through a rough time.  Excellent episode, all around!  No complaints here.

 Except for the porpoise pun. GET BACK IN THE CORNER, SCOOTALOO!