#and i'm sure i'm gonna change it about a dozen times more before posting

[sabraeal]

Say What You Mean (Mean What You Say)

[Read on AO3]

The first of my annual Holiday Gifts this year! Of the two AnS pairings chosen, Suzuri won its place by a landslide, though this concept just squeaked by over the next chapter of Out of Context. As promised, this piece is inspired by @onedivinemisfit​‘s fabulous Suzuri art (sorry I let her keep her stockings)

Suzu’s sponging off the last runny bits of pork grease from his hands when Yuzuri hooks her chin over his shoulder to sigh, “You’re unbelievable, you know that?”

It’s certainly not the first time he’s heard it-- hell, it’s not the first time he’s heard it from her, specifically. But this time he furrows his brow as well as his napkin, tossing it into the bin as he grumbles, “I haven’t even done anything.”

“Except be a weirdo!” Her hand sweeps out from under her cloak, jabbing at the crumpled paper. “You are the only person alive that asks to have his dumpling wrapped.”

“I don’t like getting my hands greasy!” He holds them out, clean front and back, only marred by a few ink stains and a recent burn from the forge. “Do you want to put greasy hands back in your gloves? Or-- or smudge up a whole page of notes because you forgot a spot? I don’t think so!”

“Just shove it in your mouth like everyone else.” Her elbow bumps into his as he falls into step beside her. “It’s not hard!”

“Why do I have to change how I eat it?” He’s close, close enough that their hands skim past each other, and ugh, it would be exciting if he wasn’t just so used to it now. The whole being on top of each other and nothing happening thing has been his every day for months now. “I don’t need to burn my whole mouth just because none of you can accept how superior my method is.”

“It’s not though.” She groans, gloves scrubbing down her face. “It’s just weird.”

“The lady didn’t act like it was weird,” he insists, his shoulder nudging into hers, trying to make a little room. It’s not like they’re in some little alleyway, meant for only cats to squeeze through; it’s Pavilion Street, and still she’s right on top of him. “Didn’t even say anything about it! Just wrapped it up all nicely, like she’d been doing it all day.”

White wool flares out, making room for Yuzuri’s arms to wearily lift. “Because you’re one of her best customers, Suzu! She’d probably tuck it in for a nap too if it kept you coming back.”

He blinks at her, mild for a moment, before he finally offers, “I think if there was something odd about it, she would say so. She’s sort of the dumpling expert, don’t you think?”

Her arms drop, the one closest to him tangling up in his elbow before they get their personal space all sorted out, him on one side, her on the other. Again, she’s too close, her eyes heavily lidded, like she’s contemplating the number of ways she could make a fall down the stairs look like an accident.

“I think,” she says, so slow, like she’s savoring the words, “that there’s really no one else like you, Suzu.”

His mouth works for a moment, stymied. “Is that a compliment?”

There’s few people who can glare from the corner of their eyes, but Yuzuri’s talented enough to be one of them. “No.”

For only being a single syllable, it’s a palpable hit-- to his pride at least. Suzu grunts, but it only mists into the air; there one moment and blown away another. His fault for asking, really, when he already knew the answer.

As if he wasn’t smarting enough from her antics, Yuzuri lodges one of her bony elbows into his side-- sharp enough to puncture armor, let alone his delicate stomach-- and surges past him like a dog off her lead. “Are the tents up already?”

Suzu blinks, tearing his attention from where Yuzuri bounces on her heels to a cluster of yurts huddle off the side of the road, their pennants snapping with every sharp gust. He tallies up his mental arithmetic-- oh, what he wouldn’t give to be able to offload this busy work onto Kazaha too-- to arrive an answer that becomes more obvious the longer they stand there beneath the snow and lamps. “The winter festival started three days ago. At least by my count.”

“Three days ago?” Her eyes round, incredulous. “No way? What were we even doing?”

That, Suzu knows off the top of his head. Or, well, his alibi at least. Shirayuki cornered him in the commissary Friday morning, spinning him some yarn about that weird perfume they’d found a year or so back, and a friend who would be in trouble if they couldn’t concoct something more useful from it than a law suit waiting to happen. They’d spent the entire weekend locked away in the lab, subsisting off the food Obi would drop in front of them and sleeping on couches, only stumbled out of their stupor this morning. He’d spent five house face down on his bed before turning right back around to the lab.

What Yuzuri was up to, well-- he’s stumbled over her making eyes at too many scholars between the greenhouse beds to let his imagination run rampant. Speculating about what she might do on her own time is a one way ticket to ulcers.

Instead, he shuffles closer, squinting at the sign propped up by the street. “2000 dir for forty-five minutes?” He lets out a whistle. “Don’t see that every day.”

“Really?” She crowds him, hunkering down until his arm brushes something too soft to be her side, and-- and he just doesn’t think about it. For his own good. “High or low? I never know what’s a good price for these things.”

“It’s all overpriced,” he informs her, strained. “But this is usually what they charge for fifteen minutes at its peak hours.”

Now it’s Yuzuri who squints, focused honed to a point. Shirayuki calls herself a granddaughter of a bar when they balk at her for matching them drink-for-drink or remembering the filthiest verse of a drinking song, but whenever Yuzuri gets like this, snuffling out a deal the way pigs do truffles, she might as well be the daughter of a market stall.

“Do you think there’s something wrong with them?” she asks, only half paying attention. “Someone spilled something inside? A kid threw up? Caught a couple doing--”

“No.” Whatever euphemism she’s about to invent, he doesn’t need to live through it. “I think it’s timing. The lamp festival is where they make their most money, and solstice night too, but between them, well...not many people are going to stop for a quick sit-down when they’re worried about getting dinner on the table.”

“You know...” Yuzuri straightens, smoothing out the wool of her skirt. “I’ve never been in one.”

“Oh really?” He blinks, levering himself upright. He would never have guessed, considering what scholars liked to use them for. “Me either. At least, not since I was a little kid. Never thought it was worth it to sit on some pillows.”

She’s silent. Not in the shy way of someone who’s run out of things to say, but impatient, like someone who is saying quite a number of things very loudly, just not with her mouth. Unfortunately for the both of them, Suzu’s never quite perfected the art of listening with his gut rather than his ears.

Her eyebrows ratchet up an octave, intent as she informs him, “And we just had dinner...”

“Oh.” He glances back to where the tents are pitched, firelight limning their flaps. “Did you want to go in?”

All at once, her shoulders sway into his, eyelashes fluttering as she hums, “Oh well, I mean, if that’s what you’d like to do...?”

He shrugs, fleece itching at his neck. “Not really.”

This time, her silence in thunderous. Enough that even he can feel the vibration of her expectations.

“But if you’re interested, it’s a good price,” he offers, tucking his hands in his pockets so they don’t tremble. “You kept me company all evening, so you deserve a treat.”

“Well,” she hums, sweeping by toward the nicest one. “If you insist.”

“This is nice.” It’s a mistake to have come in here; something Suzu had known intellectually before she’d badgered him into it, but had forgotten until he sees her toe off her boots, stocking feet disappearing into the plush pile of the carpet. She sinks down onto her knees, so close her skirt flops over his knee, and he swallows hard enough to crack walnuts. “Really comfy.”

The air’s suffused with incense and spice, and it makes the air thick, heavy like a favorite blanket. It makes the space smaller, more intimate, and they’re not on a date, they’re not, but--

It’s hard to hear that rational part of his brain when she curls up close, arm burning a stripe along his shoulder where they both rest against the cushion.

“Y-yeah.” It would be a tactical mistake to grab a pillow; a nice girl, one like Shirayuki, might assume he was getting comfortable, but Yuzuri-- she knows too much. He’d have to suffer a sly smile at best, and at worst-- well, one of them is going to be sitting through these forty-five minutes, so he’d have plenty of time to contemplate just why he deserves to be doing it alone. “Even nicer than I remember.”

“Did you come here often? As a kid, I mean.” Her knees tilt, no longer squeezed against her chest but sprawling into his lap. “These always seemed a little touristy to me. I would have thought people from here would pass them right by.”

“Well, now I do, yeah. But when we were younger, my parents always took us to the tents. It was part of the Light Festival!” His mother has sworn there were a good two years where he refuse to nap unless she brought him, piling pillows on top of him until his snores were loud enough to hear through the down. “My sister’s a little older than me, so once she got big enough to keep an eye on me, they’d pay for all of us to go in on our own.”

“Ah, I see.” Laughter fizzes beneath her words, threatening to bubble out. “You three were a handful.”

“How could you say that?” Suzu presses a hand to his chest, eyes painfully wide as he insists, “I was an absolute angel.”

Yuzuri tosses her head back, giggles spilling out from her like water from a bath, overfull and decadent. If he thinks about putting his mouth right there, where her pulse thrums beneath her winter pale skin, well-- that’s no one’s business by his own. Not like he’s hurting anyone else letting himself get stung like this.

“We really thought we were getting away with something too,” he admits, watching her from the corner of his eyes. It’s so rare to see her unguarded, each glance feels like it’s stolen, a part of her he was never supposed to see. “No parental supervision! We could make as much ruckus as we wanted! And in the end we mostly ate candy.”

“And your parents got fifteen minutes to themselves.” Her laughter’s barely contained, leaking out in drips and drabs every time she looks at him. It’s worth it for the way she smiles though, as if he’s telling the joke rather than being one. “That’s one to keep in mind.”

His heart makes a desperate bid to end his misery, lodging itself somewhere in the vicinity of his throat and holding position in hopes of a good choke.

“It stops working at a certain point,” he blurts out; it’s a miracle his voice doesn’t crack from the strain. “I mean, when kids get older. Once we were all able to walk around on our own, it lost it’s shine.”

She hums, and oh, he can feel that right in his bones, rattling both his teeth and his thoughts. “Makes sense. If you’re already allowed to run wild, these things probably feel more like a time out than a privilege.”

If Suzu had been gifted with the self-preservation the Powers That Be-- whoever they were; not his business-- chose to gave small rodents, that’s where this particular topic would meet its end. Or even if he possessed the sort of conversational skills that had Shirayuki shipped hither and yon for king and country-- perhaps more literally than anyone could be comfortable with-- it might fade into something else. An observation about work, a comment on the pillows, a question of how long she thought they had left-- anything, so long as it wasn’t--

“People would go when we got older though. Much older. For dates. Pay for fifteen minutes and then see how far you could get. Not that I--” there’s no way to complete this sentence that doesn’t lead to shame and mortification and possibly a brand new way to get slapped, but he can’t stop talking, not now that he’s unplugged this particular drain-- “I didn’t do it. I mean, I would have, if it’d been an option, but I wasn’t really--”

Yuzuri sighs, loud enough it should rattle the tent. “This is ridiculous.”

“What do you--?”

The silence between his heartbeats stretches for hours when she rises to her knees, swinging a long, bestockinged leg around his hips. She looms over him, utterly implacable, as a goddess beholding their most underwhelming devotee. He must try to stammer through a question-- his mouth moves, even if the ringing in his ears drowns out the sound-- but she merely grips his coat in one slender hand, and stoppers up his mistakes with her lips.

It’d be paradise, if he didn’t jolt back like an idiot. “W-what?”

Her clutch on him squeezes tighter, Yuzuri’s brows knitting with the kind of consternation that usually results in plots getting reassigned. “What?”

“You--” it’s hard to think when every molecule of sense is trying to abandon ship-- “you kissed me!”

Suzu’s never been the sort of person who can convey thoughts with his eyes alone, but when Yuzuri glares down at him now, it’s a whole seminar on his stupidity. “Yes?”

Maybe he’s earned it, when his only question that elbows its way out of his mouth is, “W-why would you do that?”

She recoils, all that divine confidence expelled from her like life from a corpse. “Did you not want me to?”

He may not have a finger on her, but he can feel her slip from them. Her weight retreats toward the boundary of his knees, like she might leave, and he-- he can’t let that happen. His hands fly up, hooking around the convenient curve of her hips, and hold her steady despite their tremble.

“Of course I do,” he blurts out, heat licking at the tips of his ears. It’s mortifying to be known like this, but he can’t care, not when the phantom pressure of her lips still lingers on his. “I just don’t know why you would want to!”

She blinks, those pale eyes of hers so wide he could fall in. “It just seemed like the thing to do! We’re on a date, aren’t we? So I thought--”

“We’re on a what?” He has to be hallucinating. Maybe Yuzuri’s right, maybe the dumpling lady hates him, and she’s laced the paper with--

“A date,” Yuzuri repeats, incredulity building with every letter. “We’re on a date.”

His grip must tighten; he hears her squeak as he splutters, “Wha--? S-since when?”

The stare she fixes him with could level the whole quarter, let alone a man’s pride. Good thing Suzu’s never had any to begin with. “Since you asked me!”

It’s his turn to blink, confused. “Since I what?”

“Since you asked me.” She huffs, folding her arms just under her chest in a way that is utterly distracting. Or at least it would be, if she wasn’t already in his lap, lips flushed from kissing him. “You came up to me at my desk just after lunch and said, Shirayuki’s showing off our work and Ryuu’s at the outpost for inventory, want get dinner, just the two of us?”

“Oh.” His thumbs make nervous circles over the ridge of her hip bone, soothing him even as she squirms beneath his grip. “I thought you’d take that in a friendly way.”

There’s a noise she makes, a dull buzz that reminds him of how cicadas are described in books, their drone warning of heat to come. Only this sound isn’t about the weather, it’s about mortal peril, and oh, it looks like he’s about to meet it head on.

“Why would I think that?” she snaps, balancing her weight between his knees. “Just the two of us is clear date talk! If you wanted to make it friendly, then you should have said, as friends.”

“Because you have every other time I’ve asked!” Sweat and fleece combine to make an untenable state of affairs under his collar, but he can’t spare the hands to even tug at it, not unless he wants to risk her escaping. Which he can’t, not when they’re so close to-- to something. Hell if he knows what it is, but its different, at least. “We’ve been out to dinner, just us, maybe...a hundred times! The as friends seemed very heavily implied.”

“Well--” it should bother him that she’s bothered, that her confidence is flagging, but her shoulders hike up, and all he can focus on is how kissable she looks like this, vulnerable and incensed both-- “it seemed more like a date this time! You must have done something different!”

“I didn’t do anything!” he insists, not knowing why he’s doing this, just tripping his once chance to kiss Yuzuri right at the starting line. He was half asleep when he spoke to her, it would have been simple to say that maybe a little of his hopes slipped through but-- but it would be a lie, and for some reason, it feels important not to make this easy, to make her have to work for this already enthusiastic yes. “I said the same thing I always do!”

“Well, then maybe--” Her words sheer off, all the fight gone out of her as a faintest, most delicate pink blooms over the apples of her cheeks. With a voice so soft he nearly misses it, she mumbles, “M-maybe I’m the one that’s different.”

He stares, eyes so wide he can feel their whites drying in the air. “W-why? Did you drink something in the lab? Huff something? We were working with that perfume only last night, you know. If a bottle doesn’t have a label, you really should do more than waft--”

“I’m not drugged, Suzu,” she snaps, pink blazing to crimson. “I just like you, that’s all!”

“O-oh...” He turns that over in his mind, once, twice. “I don’t understand. Are you sure you didn’t--?”

“Shut up!” Pain blooms right between his eyes, but it’s not until her hand falls back that he realizes-- she flicked him. “It’s not new! I’ve...I’ve felt this way for a while.”

“W-what?” It’s times like this where he’d pinch himself-- not to wake himself up, but so that he can enjoy the dream-- but he doesn’t dare move his hands, not when she feels like she could turn to smoke and sleep at any moment. “But-- when? No, why?”

She sighs, nothing short of aggrieved. “Sometimes I wonder that myself.”

“I don’t...” He licks his lips, mouth far too dry for even this muttering. “I don’t get it.”

“You don’t have to.” There’s something steely in her when she meets his eyes, braced. “Are you trying to say you’re not interested?”

Her hips move, but not in the direction he wants them to. No, they’re moving back, like she means to slip off his lap entirely, and--

And he can’t let that happen. “No!” he yelps, grip tight enough to force a groan from her. He’ll apologize later. “I’m-- I’m super interested. I’m just...confused. Really, really confused.”

Her head tilts, considering. “Whatever,” she decides with a heavy sigh. “I can work with that.”

Suzu means to ask with what, but he only has enough time to take a breath before her lips brush over his, no longer demanding an answer but teasing it out. When he leans in, it’s...tentative, not quite trusting the floor to hold him, or this dream to let him stay. But she’s real beneath his fingers, her gasp echoing against his chest when he pulls her hips closer. A dangerous fact, considering how close she is to-- to stuff. And things. Dick things.

But he can nearly forget about that when her own hands thread through the thick morass of of his hair, palms molding to his scalp as she pulls him into meet her, all those shy flutterings suddenly finding purpose. It’s no longer a question but an answer, one he groans out when her tongue flicks out over his bottom lip, coaxing him to open for her, to let her past, and oh-- he does not need to be asked twice.

It’s getting unruly beneath the belt, but he can’t find the will to care, not when her hips cant into his, grinding down when she finds the hardness he’s been hoping she’d miss. He bucks up into her, cock pressing at the seam of her cunt, and he-- he can’t remember why he’d ever want to hide this, something that could make her jaw go so slack, that could make her moan as he licked into her mouth--

“Wait!” He’s already screeched to a stop, like wheels on and iron track, but she shoves him for good measure, arms trembling as she holds him at their full length. “Wait.”

Even that hint of a plea has him twitching under his trousers, but it’s easy to put that aside. “Did I do something wrong?”

He hopes not; this is part he’s familiar with. The stuff past here...it’s a mixed bag.

“No, no. Definitely not...that. It’s just...” She narrows her eyes, suspicious. “You’re good at this?”

“I mean, I’ve kissed before.” And more, but that seems good-time limiting to mention it. At least right now.

“Well, okay, sure,” she huffs, flushed. It’s a good look on her, better than any time he’d seen her like it in the stockroom. “But you’re supposed to suck, Suzu! It’s supposed to be a sign of my love and devotion that I’m even putting up with your tongue in my mouth! Not-- not...”

He should be insulted, but instead he’s only intrigued. “Not...?”

She grumbles, tugging him against her mouth for a kiss that goes from playful to purposeful in a breath. One he must have stolen from her, since she’s left panting against his lips, “Not wondering just what I’d let you get away with in this tent.”

“Ohh.” He moans into her neck, practically whimpering as she grinds down into him, the pleasure so intense his whole spine tingles with it. “That does sound good.”

She tugs on his coat; this time, it frees the top two buttons. “I didn’t tell you to stop.”

The last two pop open before he can gather himself enough to manage, “Good point.”

The fire may be cracking merrily in its pit, but it’s a chill that racks through him when Yuzuri wrangles his coat off him, his skin pimpling beneath the thin linen of his shirt. It’s hard to mind it though, when all it takes is a flex of his arm to pull her against him, her warmth seeping through even the thick wool of her dress. She giggles against his lips, and that helps raise the heat even more, each gasp and sigh she makes as he kisses up her neck raising the temperature of tent a whole degree.

"How is this?” he asks against her skin, nipping just beneath her ear. “Does this strain your love and devotion? Or--?”

“You’re impossible,” she huffs, hands skimming his shirt up and over his shoulders. That’s colder still, but oh, he’s too hot to care, crushing her against him as he nibbles down her jaw. “It’s a-- ah, don’t stop-- turn of phrase.”

“Is it? Because it sure sound like you-- haah!”

He’d had a whole plan to sound smug, to really enjoy this power he held over her, not matter how small, but well-- it’s nothing to the thrall she has him in the second she draws her dress-- chemises and all-- up and over her head.

“Problem?” she asks, so innocent, as if her breasts aren’t right there in all their glory, their tips dusky brown against the cream of her skin. His mouth waters, desperate to wrap around one of those stiff little peaks, but she pushes back off his lap, dragging him with her as she lays flat on the carpet. “Anything I can help you with?”

She highlights her eagerness with a hand to his cock, pressing against his full length, the sensation only survivable due to the thick fabric of his trousers. A thing he’s coming to resent with every lazy stroke of her palm.

“Fuck,” he pants. “How long do-- ahh-- you think we-- oh, shit-- have--?”

“I don’t know.” It’s terrible how much her coyness is doing it for him, making his cock’s confinement almost unbearable. “Enough time to have a little fun, as long as you can keep it down.”

“Great,” he manages, and then does his level best to swallow a tit whole. 

“Suzu!” Her finger scrabble at his back, at his belt, but he doesn’t have time for that, not when the soft flesh of her breast is plush against his mouth, nipple hardening beneath the pressure his tongue. “Suzu, I-- ohh-- that’s-- please--”

He’s not strong the way the guardsmen are, their muscles bulging in the yard with every swing of their sword or flex of their wrist. But he has weight on his side, plus the wiry strength it takes to haul soil from one end of the campus to the other, and with those things combined, he’s got momentum going for him too. In a motion smoother than he deserves, he tucks himself underneath Yuzuri just as she pulls up above him.

It’s not what she wants-- or maybe, not what she’s used to. She grunts, wriggling on top of him, trying to roll them back the other way--

“Trust me,” he murmurs, letting go of her breast with a pop. “I can do more for you down here than I can up there.”

Her brows furrow, skeptical. “What do you--”

“Here.” He hands her a pillow, guiding her hips further up his chest. Her stockings are woolen, itching as she inches up, but the underthings they’ve clipped to are silky, making the whole movement a seduction in itself. “You’re probably going to need this.”

She frowns at it, then frowns at him. “What for?”

“Well...” He shrugs as he hooks her knees above his shoulder, guiding her cunt so close to his face he can smell her even through her drawers, musky and sweet even still. “You’re the one that said we’d need to keep it down.”

“But what--? OH!”

Suzu doesn’t so much see the pillow raise as hear it, her moan muffled as he traces his tongue through the slit cut in the silk, her taste already thick in his mouth. He wants more though, needs more, raising his thumbs to bare the little bud at the tip of it. There’s few bedroom activities Suzu could call himself confident in-- he’d only had the one girlfriend, after all, and not for long enough to do more than check a few boxes-- but this one--

Well, there was a reason he’d had that girlfriend for months instead of weeks. He fits his mouth around that small nub, gentle at first, barely touching at all, but with every gasp-- Suzu, please. Suzu, yes-- he tugs a little stronger. Her thighs quiver beneath his grip, and with a gasp that goes straight to his cock, she pitches to all fours, face buried in the cushion.

He grins against her, testing his teeth-- oh! oh please-- before nosing lower, nuzzling aside the soft folds of her cunt to lap at the wetness dewing there. Or at least, that should be-- he’s used to going slow, to using lips until fingers are needed to help over the finish line, but Yuzuri is soaked when he licks at her, twitching and sensitive and so near the edge he twitches in sympathy.

“Do you need more?” he hums, fingers skimming over the crease of her legs, catching in the silk of her drawers. It’s a pity he can’t see her cunt tremble, but he feels it just fine against his lips. “Do you need me to help you?”

“Please,” she gasps, only half muted by the pillow. “I’m so close, Suzu, please--”

He presses a kiss to her stomach-- she groans, frustrated, but she’ll have to forgive him for being a little proud of himself. He’s got her right up to the edge without even using his fingers, a personal best.

“Suzu,” she says, more firm this time, almost lucid, and well, he can’t have that.

Her slit is dripping when he licks a stripe up it, his fingers sliding into the last knuckle with no more effort than slipping into a bath, and-- “Oh,” he breathes, dick twitching uselessly. “You weren’t kidding about being close.”

She’s tight, her muscles hugging each stroke of his fingers as if they were a scalpel and her the sheath made for them. It’s impossible not to think about what this would feel like against his cock, grasping him so tight with every thrust, and-- and it’s him who can’t wait this time, putting his mouth right over her mound and sucking until she gasps, hiccuping right into a moan the pillow barely catches.

Intellectually, Suzu’s always been aware that his skill with his mouth is above average-- again, enough to make weeks into months-- but it’s not until he watcher her now, squirming and sobbing through her orgasm that he understands. This is hardly her first time tipping over this particular precipice-- his whole first year here was stumbling into her trysts at, er, crucial junctures-- but when she sits back, hair askew and eyes dark, he’s pretty sure this may have been her best.

“All right,” she pants, tugging at his belt. “Now you.”

He might come from that right there, but in the next breath, a voice calls through the flap. “That’s time, ma’am! Please come out and--”

The flap opens, and, well, Suzu’s sure he’ll never forget that face.

“We definitely are not the only people to use those things for sex,” Yuzuri mutters darkly, adjusting her cloak. It’s still askew, and so is her dress, but it’s passable at serving its function now. “That carpet is made to be laid on.”

“He’s probably peeved he didn’t get to charge us a premium for it.” Suzu sighs, slipping his hand into hers. “Oh well. It was fun while it lasted, wasn’t it?”

“You’re the one who didn’t--” Yuzuri blinks down, watching his fingers weave between hers. “Oh, is this what we do now?”

It’s strangely confrontational, the way she asks, but Suzu just shrugs, squeezing tighter. “Isn’t this what couples do?”

“Couples?” she murmurs, confused.

His elbow knocks into hers. “You’re my girlfriend now, right?”

It’s like he’s knocked the winds straight out of her. “Oh. Oh.” She swallows, loud enough that even he can hear. “Yeah. I guess so.”

“Then yeah.” He smiles down, enjoy the way she pinks, gaze skittering away. “This is what we do. As long as it’s good for you.”

“It...it is.” She clears her throat, picking up a quick pace. “You could have found a more romantic way to ask, though.”

“Huh?”

Yuzuri rolls her eyes. “Ugh, never mind.”

[sanctus-ingenium]

I'd looove to hear a little about your worldbuilding process if you don't mind sharing. How do you go about it? I know you have shared in a few posts already but just wanna know moree. Also where did it all begin? What inspired you? (eating it all uppp!!!)

hi!! I know I wrote a big long thing like last year or the year before about the process to making a setting but I cannot be arsed to find it rn so here's some disconnected thoughts

Overall I don't really make Headworlds or Worldbuilding Projects the way a lot of people do (which is why u keep hearing me say 'setting' over and over) because mainly what I make are stories in the order of characters -> plot -> world. those three things have to serve one another in that order of importance, so the world itself bends to serve the narrative. for example, ultimately idgaf where the holy beasts' skeletons come from, that is not important because the beasts are basically just a big plot device to serve the story. i can make some post-hoc justifications for their existence (and i did) but at the end of the day it will not and does not matter how they work or where they come from. the world is full of mysteries that will never be solved because the characters are not in a position to solve them. aside from a single border conflict, the world outside the mezian empire is nebulous and unimportant.

I don't enjoy working in a world -> narrative order because what I want to produce isn't just a series of info posts or artpieces about a setting, but a closed and self-contained story which is the justification for the entire world's existence. Headworlds that are all world and no character don't interest me.

So basically in the process of worldbuilding, I have to serve the story. A while back I made a post about continental history around Inver, all these wars and occupations and schisms and so on. All of those exist solely to provide a particular political climate, justification for Aquitan's theocratic structure, and the spread of the southern church north into Inver. I already had the idea of this church, that it would be integral to the country as a main political faction, so now I have to figure out how it got there and the political ramifications of that. It's all worldbuilding for sure, but it's a support structure underneath the story about how that church eventually changes world history, because i wanted to write a story about a church lol.

I guess if I wanted to explain The Process for a world -> characters setting i'd just be giving you How To Write A Story 101 lol. But basically: I think of a concept which interests me (big mechs yay). Then I think of a conflict that might arise (where does the fuel come from? who controls that supply? what might that do to the concentration of power in this area?). Then I put a character in what I consider to be the most interesting position to observe the effects of this conflict (a knight, an enginesmith, an exile), and honestly the main plot generally writes itself after that. I extrapolate the hook from that.

In terms of characters, I try to avoid calling them 'ocs' because in my mind 'oc' tends to be a very static stand-alone thing. Like I couldn't make a useful ref sheet of my characters because they are all changed by the story. I couldn't say 'he has a carefree personality' because in a few chapters no he fucking won't. in the same way i struggle a LOT to talk about my Siren setting which as close to a specbio 'headworld' as i'm ever gonna get, because I am worldbuilding in vastly different time periods at once in a world which is always changing, i can't make a post about for example a map of Siren because that's just a map from one era, I'd need to make a dozen maps to show how things change, how time affects it all, etc.

Because nothing is ever static and everything is in flux, pretty much the only way I can handle a setting like this is, again, just to focus on a few small stories centered around a cast of characters separated by time (i have... 4 distinct stories in Siren. maybe more). this is actually a frustrating barrier to me sharing any information at all about this place lol i'm the struggler

Where did it all begin? When I was 11 I used to write stories in my copybooks in class. There has never been a time where I was not making stories and where my stories were not the only important thing at all to me, superseding literally everything else. I learned how to draw digitally in 2011 because I wanted to draw my characters.

What inspires me? Everything lol. I actually don't have time to Consume Media much, I struggle watching movies or tv and I mostly hate video games because I would much rather be productive and sitting and watching a screen feels like a waste of my time. but I like reading books because I can take them with me on my phone. I get ideas from all sources but mostly non-media sources, like obviously mythology but also my history with the church and my scientific education. Usually nonfictional sources interest me the most (i was going to write a whole story that was a post-apocalyptic plague plot based on canine transmissible venereal cancer haha and even to this day that's where "the Immortal Hound" title comes from, little easter egg in inver)

[reasonsforhope]

Your blog is a literal god send for me, I’ve been feeling so depressed, pessimistic, nihilistic and cynical at the state of the world right now and my fear of if I even have a future, but your blog is absolutely what I needed right now, so I can’t thank you enough. I’m just so happy to see someone who is hopeful and positive and not pessimistic, and it makes me legit want to cry tears of joy. How are you able to stay so positive and optimistic despite everything going on?

<3 <3 <3

As for how I stay optimistic and relatively positive? Lots of effort and hard work.

I'm not naturally an optimist. I spent most of my life (and certainly my adolescence lol) being pretty angry and cynical.

It's not that I never feel depressed or despairing about the state of the world. There's fucked up shit happening, indisputably, and hey, I'm trans, it's been a rough fucking year for that. But I guess I try to focus on the difference between passing moods and baseline worldview.

Some of the main ways I moved my baseline worldview to be optimistic and hopeful:

A lot of reading and looking at data and in-depth stories. The headlines never give you enough of the story - hell, most news articles don't these days, because they're so skewed toward negative news

Especially reading/looking at good news sites (I have a masterpost of good news sites here). There are good things happening everywhere that you never hear about. Mostly, you only ever hear about the good things when there's been a huge setback, which sucks!

I'm basically not on social media. Nothing except Tumblr, Facebook, and LinkedIn, and I only ever go on FB and linkedin briefly for business. It's fantastic, can't recommend ditching social media enough

I made sure I was doing something to help (aka I started this blog. I would also volunteer but my disabilities and a lot of logistics make that complicated)

My job involves reading a couple dozen self-help books a year lol, not gonna lie that def helps

Taking a long perspective of time. It often doesn't feel like it, but statistically, this really is the best time to be alive. (Here's a fantastic essay about many of the reasons why.) People really gloss over how much most of the past kinda fucking sucked to live in. 50% of all people used to die before their 15th birthday, for basically all of history until the past 200 years!! Imagine having to live with that. Imagine all of that pain and grief literally everywhere. I'm really happy about living in modern times, actually!

That last point is esp helpful to remember for me because I'm 100% for sure on the list of "people who would've died in childbirth" pre modern medicine (and my mom would've died having me, too). It was modern times or nothing lol

The vast majority of the world has spent the past 300 to 500 years being absolutely brutalized by white people and/or the West. There's still a lot of fallout to fix and colonialism to uproot, but I genuinely can't wait to see what people and nations will achieve with sustained self-rule and significantly fewer massive atrocities

Solarpunk and hopepunk stuff

I'm gonna make a whole post about this at some point but the fact that we eliminated scarcity in the past few decades actually changes the entire fucking game for the world (literally it's not a zero sum game anymore) and for the future. We're allowed a bit of a learning curve I think

I listen to the Rent soundtrack a lot and go "well you know what being trans right now sucks but being trans at the height of the aids crisis would've been way fucking worse" lol rip

Meds! Meds. Antidepressants and antianxiety meds unfortunately don't work for everyone (yet!), but also thank fuck for meds

Progress almost always happens in slow, tiny increments, with a lot of stops and starts and setbacks. You have to always remember that there are always people fighting somewhere, and if they're stopped, there will always be more people to pick up the fight in the future

[hollowed-theory-hall]

The Riddle of Tom Riddle: Part 2/?

(Part 1, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7)

Voldemort Isn't Insane, At Least, Not in the Way You Think

Horcruxes and Dark Magic don't cause insanity and physical deformity the way Dumbledore implies, and I can prove it.

So, first Dark Magic doesn't make you go mad

So, first off, let's just set the record about Dark Magic not causing the changes in appearance we see in Voldemort and neither does it cause insanity. (I'm talking of run-of-the-mill Unforgivables here, I talk about Horcruxes more in-depth later in this post)

Now, what other character we can be sure practiced Dark Magic... Bellatrix, of course.

And, as a matter of fact, we do get a look at her before she goes to Azkaban:

The dementors placed each of the four people in the four chairs with chained arms that now stood on the dungeon floor. There was a thickset man who stared blankly up at Crouch; a thinner and more nervous-looking man, whose eyes were darting around the crowd; a woman with thick, shining dark hair and heavily hooded eyes, who was sitting in the chained chair as though it were a throne; and a boy in his late teens, who looked nothing short of petrified. He was shivering, his straw-colored hair all over his face, his freckled skin milk-white.

(Goblet of Fire, page 594)

She is clearly not deformed. None of the Death Eaters show any sign of physical changes to their appearance or behaviour due to Dark Magic in general.

the woman with the heavy-lidded eyes looked up at Crouch and called, “The Dark Lord will rise again, Crouch! Throw us into Azkaban; we will wait! He will rise again and will come for us, he will reward us beyond any of his other supporters! We alone were faithful! We alone tried to find him!”

(Goblet of Fire, page 595)

Bellatrix is sane and coherent before Azkaban. I believe most of her baby talk and more manic behavior we see in the series is caused by her time in Azkaban. While she was definitely loyal to Voldemort to a fault — she wasn't laughing maniacly in a baby voice like in Order of the Phoenix...

So, it isn't Dark Magic that made Voldemort snake-faced, so, maybe it's Horcruxes...

Second, Horcruxes don't make you go mad either

So, I talked about Horcruxes a bit here. But not about their effects on the person casting them.

So, let's try and trace the moments in time we meet Tom and count his Horcruxes. If his Horcruxes were indeed the cause for the change in his appearance, we'd expect to see a gradual change after each one in his appearance and behavior, if they indeed caused his insanity.

So, the first account we have of Voldemort is from Slughorn'smemory in 1943:

Half a dozen boys were sitting around Slughorn, all on harder or lower seats than his, and all in their mid-teens. Harry recognized Voldemort at once. His was the most handsome face and he looked the most relaxed of all the boys. His right hand lay negligently upon the arm of his chair; with a jolt, Harry saw that he was wearing Marvolo’s goldand-black ring; he had already killed his father.

(Half-Blood Prince, page 494)

As Tom is mentioned wearing the Gaunt Ring, we know this memory takes place during his sixth year, after he made the Diary and the Ring into Horcruxes already. (Why ask Slughorn about them if he already made two? Well, I'm gonna write a whole post about that don't worry)

But the point is, 2 Horcruxes in and there are no discernable changes in behavior or appearance. Harry actually describes him as very handsome, so clearly, he isn't snake-like yet.

The next time we see Tom is with Hepzibah Smith in 1956, the thing is, this memory doesn't give us much since it's before he killed her to make his third Horcrux, so we should expect nothing to change.

That then leads us to jump straight to 1967 and his job interview with Dumbledore. Between the talk with Slughonr about Horcruxes and this memory, Tom added 3 more Horcruxes to his collection (the cup, the locket, and the diadem).

So, we should expect to see a drastic change in behavior and appearance, and, well:

Voldemort had entered the room. His features were not those Harry had seen emerge from the great stone cauldron almost two years ago: They were not as snakelike, the eyes were not yet scarlet, the face not yet masklike, and yet he was no longer handsome Tom Riddle. It was as though his features had been burned and blurred; they were waxy and oddly distorted, and the whites of the eyes now had a permanently bloody look, though the pupils were not yet the slits that Harry knew they would become. He was wearing a long black cloak, and his face was as pale as the snow glistening on his shoulders. The Dumbledore behind the desk showed no sign of surprise. Evidently this visit had been made by appointment.

(Half-Blood Prince, page 441)

Tom's behavior throughout this interview isn't any different from what we've seen in his interactions with Dumbledore up to this point. So, I'll take that as a no, for Horcruxes causing insanity as he showed no sign of gradually deteriorating with each one.

And as for his appearence, yes, we see a change. But something about the wording bothered me. Harry referred to his face as looking: "burned and blurred; they were waxy and oddly distorted". This is a really off way to describe a face.

And it actually reminded me of a different description from Harry for a different memory:

And it happened all over again: The dense fog filled the room so that Harry could not see Slughorn or Voldemort at all; only Dumbledore, smiling serenely beside him. Then Slughorn’s voice boomed out again, just as it had done before. “I don’t know anything about Horcruxes and I wouldn’t tell you if I did! Now get out of here at once and don’t let me catch you mentioning them again!” “Well, that’s that,” said Dumbledore placidly beside Harry. “Time to go.” And Harry’s feet left the floor to fall, seconds later, back onto the rug in front of Dumbledore’s desk. “That’s all there is?” said Harry blankly. Dumbledore had said that this was the most important memory of all, but he could not see what was so significant about it. Admittedly the fog, and the fact that nobody seemed to have noticed it, was odd, but other than that nothing seemed to have happened except that Voldemort had asked a question and failed to get an answer. “As you might have noticed,” said Dumbledore, reseating himself behind his desk, “that memory has been tampered with.” “Tampered with?” repeated Harry, sitting back down too. “Certainly,” said Dumbledore. “Professor Slughorn has meddled with his own recollections.”

(Half-Blood Prince, page 371)

Memories can be edited and when they are, they become fogged and blurry. Slughorn's memory is clearly very crudely edited, but a master Legilemence like Dumbledore could surely do a better job of it.

Because Dumbledore has an agenda with all these memories, he needs to convince Harry to be ready to die to kill Voldemort — that's his end goal. And as such, yeah, he could reasonably edit Tom's appearance. As he seemed to have.

So, do we have a different source about Tom's appearance during the First War, because the next Horcrux after the diadem is Harry?

We do, Voldemort himself:

“Nice costume, mister!” He saw the small boy’s smile falter as he ran near enough to see beneath the hood of the cloak, saw the fear cloud his painted face. Then the child turned and ran away. . .

(Deathly Hollows, pages 295)

In this memory Voldemort shows mercy to a muggle child, not killing someone whose death isn't necessary — another point to him not being insane.

As for appearance, well, his face scared the child, but, it's hard to tell why. I'm sure JKR intended us to assume it's because he looked snake-like, but, again, no Horcruxes were made between the interview in Dumbledore's office and this scene, so he shouldn't be any more distorted. And while Harry's description in the interview memory isn't flattering, it isn't horrifying either.

Therefore, my assumption is that Voldemort is staring at this little child dressed like a pumpkin with the most impressive death glare the child has ever seen and this kid actually thinks, Tom is going to kill him. Which, well, it's a fair reason to be scared, I'll give him that.

His white hand pulled out the wand beneath his cloak and pointed it at the door, which burst open.

(Deathly Hollows, pages 296)

"White hand" doesn't say much. Tom was always described as pale and nothing odd about the skin texture is mentioned.

I'll add, that magically speaking, at least, according to the way I believe Horcruxes are made, it makes no sense for them to effect one's appearance and sanity negatively. Well, making them isn't pleasant, but they won't make you lose your intelligence and coherence.

So, what's up with Voldemort?

Well, I'm getting there.

For his appearence, my assumption was always that Pettigrew butchered the resurrection potion (when making a potion or alchemical concoction the mindset of the brewer matters. If Pettigrew was adding Nagini's venom without thinking of it as a soul component but as a body component, it can cause the changes in appearences we see). It can also be affected by the unicorn blood, which we don't really know the negetive effects of.

As for the insanity... When talking about insanity in fiction the conversation is sometimes very shallow. the word "insane" is just used to describe any character people don't understand, or that acts somewhat unpredictably. But if we look at insanity as a concept, as in a mental illness or delusions of some kind, they always have consistency. Both in fiction and reality.

Say, if a person believes they are a butterfly, they would always believe they are a butterfly. All their actions and behavior would stem from that delusion. We would expect them to try and drink from flowers, or try to fly — because that's what butterflies do.

Voldemort doesn't have that.

He doesn't have a consistent behavior pattern I could chuck to insanity and call it a day. No, Tom Riddle is a more complex character than that and I feel calling him "insane" is a cop-out from analyzing his character properly.

I'm gonna make a full post about it and what exactly is going through his mind, but I wanted to cover the insanity claims first.

[sleepanonymous]

Hello!! I'm sorry if you've already answered this, but I was wondering how early you queued up for your ritual? Mine is in a few days, and I'm not sure how early to plan to be up and out the door. I would love to get barricade or close to it if I can! I was also wondering if you had any other tips for waiting in line for a while? Hydration and SPF are definitely gonna be a priority for me.

P.S. I always see you answering questions for others here in a very thorough and non-judgmental manner, and I really appreciate the positivity you bring to the fandom! Thank you for being around and creating such a welcoming space. It's one of the biggest reasons I've stayed interested in engaging in the fandom side of things.

Hi, thanks for the question! I think I have answered this on Tumblr already, but I don't mind talking about this again lol, especially since I think it was only in a comment on a post and not an actual post. I never mind going into details either. And thank you so much, there are some really shitty spaces in this fandom 👉👈🥹 I'm just trying to help keep the vibe on Tumblr friendly and welcoming. Nearly everyone here has been super lovely, so I'm lucky to be part of this side of the fandom 🖤

In Phoenix my friend group (four of us) showed up a little after 5:30 in the morning. There were four people ahead of us who lined up at midnight and 3:30 am. Because the pit was so small for the Phoenix ritual (I'm guessing 200 people max), only about two dozen people were in line by eight in the morning and every single one of us was on the barricade. This will be different for every venue depending on how it's sectioned off (pit vs seats vs lawn/grass etc.). So for a larger venue with a bigger pit section, you'll likely see more people lining up earlier in the morning.

The venue itself was extremely hospitable and allowed us inside the lobby area to use the restroom and refill our water bottles, except during soundcheck from around 3:00 pm to 4:30 pm. Obviously that's a venue thing, and not something I had ever experienced before, but you may get lucky, especially if the venue has security hanging out with the line in the daytime. Another tip if you haven't checked already, see if there are Fast Pass options for your venue that you can purchase as an add-on from Ticketmaster or through the local box office. Regardless of what time you show up or your number in line, those with a Fast Pass will always get through the doors first.

What I did before I knew that using the venue for water and bathrooms was an option was check out the surrounding area on Google maps. The Arizona Financial Theatre is in Downtown Phoenix, so there were a number of restaurants and I think a CVS within a half-mile that people from the line would occasionally visit (it also gave us a reason to walk around the venue and check out the tour busses lol). If this is an option, you can also scope out the venue the day/evening before the ritual; this is especially helpful if there's another concert going on that day, so you can see where the line forms for your venue and what the sunlight situation is like.

Since I didn't drive and I showed up to the venue using rideshare, I made the mistake of wearing my ritual outfit and makeup the entire day. It wasn't awful, but I am now sporting fishnet tan-lines on my legs 😆 What others did was show up in their pajamas or general street clothes, and closer to doors they changed into their ritual outfits and did their makeup in their cars. That's probably the only thing I would have done differently, to be honest; bring your outfit with you, and dress for the weather accordingly that day. Keep an eye on your weather app, especially if you're travelling and unfamiliar with the area you'll be waiting in. Also, check to see what time the sunrise happens in that location, because that's what made my friends and I decide on lining up at 5:30. No band is worth getting harassed in the middle of the night for, especially if you're in an all female/femme group.

Something that goes nicely along with SPF and hydration is earplugs. I bought knockoff Eargasm earplugs off Amazon since I knew I'd be going to a festival and 2 concerts within a week and didn't want to go deaf. They worked amazingly for me, in the pit at SNW, on the barricade in Phoenix, and at the back of the venue in Albuquerque, plus I didn't have to deal with my ears ringing for hours after.

This last thing isn't so much of a tip, but! Since you'll have the time while waiting and you're trying for barricade, learn the lyrics to an Empire State Bastard song or two. Specifically the last song of their set, The Looming. It's one of their more "chill" songs and has clean vocals. One of my friends started singing it back to the band during her second ritual of the tour, and Simon (the singer, and also likely one of baby Vessel's influences) got so happy he pointed her out in the crowd. Then you can make some British Millennials™️ very jealous by boasting about how the dude from Biffy Clyro pointed you out in a crowd.

This also isn't much of a line tip either, but if you're planning on filming/taking photos, use ESB as your test subjects to tweak your camera settings. That way you're not fumbling so much with your phone while Sleep Token is on stage.

[acaplaya-musings]

Voiceplay Visuals: This Is Halloween

So obviously I'm not the only one who loves talking about Voiceplay and analysing their content, but I wanted to do something a bit different from the kinds of analyses/reactions that other people do, both on here and on Youtube (and music theory isn't really my forte anyway). So I'm planning on making some posts just focusing on the videos (and Geoff's as well, eventually), rather than the music arrangement or vocals or anything like that. My credentials are being a Drama Kid during my high school years, and experience with this sort of analysis from my time in other fandoms. I'm not planning on doing every single video, and though I'm gonna go chronologically from mid-2017 onwards (why not earlier? Because Reasons). However, since I yesterday finished a fanfic based on Voiceplay's cover of This Is Halloween, (which I studied a fair bit to get details right), I might as well start there!

Oogie Boogie pumpkin just outside the front door! (And a Jack Skellington one on the other side I believe?) These pumpkin also shows up in the spooky Halloween realm the group are transported to after eating the candy.

Credit to one of the comments which said that Earl is wearing a cow onesie and Eli is wearing a rooster onesie, which more likely than not is a callback to their (extremely hilarious) Chicken Song performance. (J is wearing a CatDog onesie, I think Geoff is wearing a giraffe onesie? And I'm not sure what Layne's onesie is meant to be)

Again credit to a commenter (different one), pointing out that Eli deadpan elbows Layne in the back, pushing him down after he eats the candy (likely a not-so-subtle acting cue or something like that, but still very funny once you notice it)

The return of the Jack and Oogie Boogie pumpkins, along with some other creatively-designed Jack-O-Lanterns! Peep the one on the far right, a little more towards the back; its 'eyes' say VP, and its mouth is the Voiceplay logo!

Also a little bit of foreshadowing, whether intentional or not: when Layne wakes up, one of the first things in his line of sight is the axe resting on the hay bales...

First of all, how many pumpkins were carved just for this video? Because a lot of effort went into making all those different designs for sure (and no, I'm not part of Voiceplay's Patreon, as the tier that lets you see behind-the-scenes stuff is like $8.50 AUD per month, rip). And second of all, this is a decent shot of how the group starts out upon waking up. J None is wearing a yellow plaid flannel quite similar to The Wolfman in Nightmare Before Christmas, and Earl is wearing denim overalls, like the behemoth character. Eli's outfit is of course representative of the Mayor of Halloweentown, but no spider bowtie or "Mayor" rosette (would've loved to see it, but eh no biggie). Layne I will get to in a moment, and Geoff a little bit after that.

I can't be bothered getting a better picture of it but Eli's half-concerned half-weirded-out face after J's helium-like vocal line is very amusing to me

On the "eyes glowing red" line, Earl's eyes (which are white at this point) flash red for a very brief moment, basically blink-and-you-miss-it.

The colour-change on Eli's left eye is so subtle that at first I didn't notice it at all, and then I only noticed it later on in the video, and only now, doing this analysis and taking a dozen screencaps, do I realize that it happens way earlier than I first thought (which explains why he takes his glasses off at this point I guess) (so uh, that's a minor inconsistency in my fanfic but it's fine)

Shoutout to the makeup/SFX people who helped with this video honestly, they did a super good job, genuinely!

(In which the frame-by-frame scrubbing technique comes in real handy)

An interesting choice to have Layne go through a sort of "half-transformation" stage, where he has a horn and red eye on one side of the face, while the other side of the face is normal. I like it though!

People have said that Layne is meant to be the devil (who is in fact another Halloweentown resident, but honestly I think he's meant to be Lock, or at least a combination of the two, because this what the two characters look like:

See how Layne resembles Lock more? In the outfit choice if nothing else (Also he's kinda sorta got the right face shape for Lock imo). Also, Lock wears a red trick-or-treating mask with horns on top!

Earl is really distressed about his hair falling out (not that I can blame him, really)

This shot/moment is probably one of the ones that stands out to me the most (other than Certain Other Ones for Other Reasons that I will get to in a moment), because J comes across as pretty mournful here, like he knows what's happening but he's feeling really sad/regretful about it? (Also I only just noticed Eli's face in the background and I'm not sure what to make of it 😅)

"pog" is not a word in my vocabulary 95% of the time, but this is basically just Pog faces right? (Geoff and Layne probably have the most fun of the group in this video ngl)

(Also I haven't yet touched on Geoff's transformations but I love the contouring work on his face!)

My god this video is comedy gold when it comes to pausing/taking screenshots

I daresay Eli ends up one of the least recognizable of the group by the end of it (other than J), and I wanna know how long that took to do

Geoff is the only one in the video who gets an outfit upgrade (Good For Him)

They didn't bother being movie-accurate with Geoff's vampire appearance, and honestly I'm definitely not complaining. (they made him hotter)

Layne did the music arrangement, but Geoff was in charge of the video production. How much say did he have over his own costume/appearance I wonder?

Visually speaking at least, nobody is even paying attention to him, they're just like "yeah that's just Geoff, normal behaviour, nothing new" 😆

I can't get a decent picture of it but shoutout to Layne doing a silly little run around the pumpkin stack, love that for him

Another small moment that a screencap wouldn't do justice: even as a vampire, Geoff still does his little self-conducting hand motions, which you might notice as he walks around the pumpkin stack, in the shot right after his "filling your dreams to the brim with fright" line

Also love Geoff's little almost-Elvis-like moves in the background for a brief scene. I know multiple commenters have mentioned it, but I'm yet to see a reactor notice it

Suddenly Layne is Concerned(tm) about Geoff's vampireness it seems?

Also for someone who very much adores this guy, it took me an embarassingly long time to realise that Geoff's face at this point had become paler and his hairline had changed (and actually now that I type it up here, I think that might even be a wig? Oh dear)

I don't really have anything to say about J's full transformation, but it would be unfair of me to not include him as well, and it's definitely a *very* impressive costume. Almost like one of those rubbery fully-covering-the-head costume mask things, but like it's his actual face?

Is that tattoo real or fake, because I literally have never noticed it in any other Voiceplay video, but it's very realistic! (For that matter, what aobut Earl's upper-arm tattoo that kind of looks like a ring of barbed wire?)

I basically watch the This Is Halloween opening scene from The Nightmare Before Christmas every October, and same with the What's This scene in December, but I had never actually watched the movie in full until December last year. So basically when they had the axe-in-the-head moment in the movie I was like ohhhhhhh so that wasn't just a random moment that Voiceplay dreamed up for the video! (I had a similar moment with the Mr Hyde character and his Mini Mr Hydes in his hat in the movie, but in relation to Voiceplay's Kidnap The Sandy Claws video)

When Elizabeth Zharoff/The Charismatic Voice reacted to this video, she said that the kid at the end (Layne's nephew, apparently), was "adorable". Meanwhile Mortius' reaction to the end scene was "oh I didn't like that! It makes me feel like I'm next!" 😂

Also suddenly just realized that the "real world" scenes are in a different aspect ratio to the "spooky dream realm" scenes? Possibly intentional, but also possibly just due to them using two different types of cameras for the shots.

And that's a wrap! I was hoping to get this done and posted last night but it took longer than expected. Hope you enjoyed it, as I'm thinking of writing up at least one or two more now, and scheduling them for daily releases. See ya!

[saunteringvaguelydownwards]

what are the fics you’d consider required reading (as you said in the tags of another post) ? any fandom i’d say for required reading or if there’s too much, for warrior nun ?

*heavy sigh* I had this post 90% complete when the power went out at my house and I had to rewrite the whole thing.

I'm gonna give you a scattershot approach, one fic for a few different fandoms, different types of fic, and hopefully something resonates.

🦗 (Recommend any fic, wild card!)

Avengers/MCU - The Infinite Coffee and Protection Detail series by owlet (tumblr?)

Set immediately at the end of CA:TWS, Bucky's scrambled brain does a hard reset and decides his new mission is to protect Steve, covertly. Meanwhile, he kinda gets adopted by the senior citizens that live in the shitty apartment building he's crashing in while he learns how to be person again. It's snarky AF, touching, funny, great action, fluffy domestic Avengers Tower stuff. There's some Stucky eventually, but it's not the primary focus and doesn't really show up until like the 5th story in the series. There are 7 stories, and a Q&A with the author.

OUaT - The Secret's in the Telling by @the-pyrophoric-one

Emma is being pranked by a thief while living in the mansion with Regina and Henry, and there's also magic fuckery afoot. This story is just neat. It's tightly-plotted and funny. I can't actually say too much because the whole point is that there's a mystery to solve and I'd hate to spoil it. Even when I had kinda figured out what was going on, I still had no idea how it would end. It's told from two different POVs, so it's fun to reread the first part once you know the ending. Apparently there's also a sequel, but I don't believe I've read it yet.

R&I - Calamity Jane Meets Dr. Isles, Medicine Woman by @jobethdalloway

Rizzles 1800s western AU. Maura is a fancy lady from Boston who moves west to live with her fiancé Garrett Fairfield, Jane wears pants, drinks whiskey, and roams the countryside as Jake Wyatt, an outlaw who's hunting for Charles Hoyt, the man who killed her parents. The immersion in this AU is stunning, the characters feel true to the originals while allowing for how things would change given the time and circumstances, and the buildup from their unconventional meeting to friends to more is a lovely and authentic slow burn. There's also a completed sequel, but it's still on my to-read list.

The 100 - Lightning Only Strikes Once by fiona_249 (tumblr?)

Lexa gets shot and dies, Clarke climbs to the roof of the building, gets hit by weird lightning, then suddenly she's back on The Ark, about to be sent down to Earth with 99 other teen prisoners, and no one remembers the events of the past year besides her. The ultimate fix-it fic. How do you fix your mistakes while still trying to keep the good things that happened? Balancing future knowledge with ripple effects, how much can you change before you don't know what's going to happen anymore? What do you do with a second chance? I think I've read this fic at least half a dozen times.

Warrior Nun - What If I Told You I'm a Mastermind? by @sapphicstacks

Avatrice actress AU. Ava is an unknown actress working as a bartender, Bea is a famous but reclusive actress making a comeback after several years away from the spotlight, and they get cast together in a sapphic love story. You ever read a story and go "JFC, will you two just talk to each other?" Yeah, the reason is because all of the healthy communication got requisitioned for this fic. It's incredibly wholesome and overwhelmingly romantic and also ridiculously hot. Like, prep a cold shower or make sure you're somewhere private when you read it. There's a regularly-updated WiP sequel.

[simtanico]

Are the creators whose sliders you're modifying aware that you're doing so and re-uploading them to your account? I'm asking because, following what happened in the community, I want to make sure I'm not contributing to the violation of anyone's TOU.

So this is gonna be a little long! I got things to say:

Yes. Mostly. The answer is really depends on whether the creator is still around. My updates usually deal with sliders that are pretty old.

The only time it was not clearly sanctioned was for Pu+Chi House’s sliders. Their tou doesn’t allow it. However, I’ve updated and I’ve iterated that I’ve uploaded for archival purposes and will take down if told to.

I could care less about clicks and if someone has uploaded other things for archival purposes, then I usually just link back. What's cool about this community is not letting CC fade into obscurity! I hope whenever I'm not here anymore, that my cc is still available for you all. Something I try to do with my slider master list if find working downloads before I resort to doing it myself.

With creating, I try to practice all this with the intention of sharing with the community and never claiming work that is not my own for complete transparency. Every original creator is named and credited clearly. I make sure that TOUs allow changes or conversion (when it comes to S4 conversions). And I've said it in posts before but yeah I would absolutely take things down or refrain from posting if creators do not approve.

The updates I make, while not revolutionary in any way, I hope are at least transformative enough to warrant me being able to upload them myself.

If you're not sure what good faith, grey faith, and bad faith entails in this community, a lot of current creators got together and kinda wrote out what that might entail. It's a good read and is only meant to tell you what the consensus is generally!

I've had my things reuploaded without my permission, and I've actually allowed it in cases with regional access and all that. Nowadays, I'm aware I can't control everything, which is why I don't put every single person who uploads my sliders in huge packs on blast.

And for me it's really simple: While the creator is still active and openly has their downloads available, there's really no reason to be reuploading works of a non-transformative nature.

But people are gonna do what they're gonna do.

The times it's really a community issue are when people don't do what's listed above or are not completely transparent with use of previously existing cc or code, which is exactly what happened these past few days.

Credit was not outright given (not without a weird non-apology), it was not transparent how transformative the mod was (kept the code mostly the same), and they uploaded and zipped up dozens of creators work behind a paywall for the sake of "convenience" which actually just does more harm than good when the collection contains outdated and possibly buggy, older, or incompatible modifications.

So IMO, it's not just about the TOU re-uploading and all that. It's about behaviors that don't exhibit bad faith with creating!

What it comes down to is being able to listen to others and do what's right. We only have each other to answer to.

That's all I have to say on the matter. If you're new, welcome to the community! I do hope that you're going directly to creators and getting their stuff the way they would like it distributed and downloading from people who don't charge you money for recolors or tuning files. :)

[aprillikesthings]

Now that I've spent a good day thinking about how hot it is when Catra is a terrible person corrupted by setting off a portal, I'm ready to go back to (re)watching her try to be Good lolol

well okay more than one day.

I mean I literally spent the last four? five? days listening to songs off The Downward Spiral over and over while thinking about Catra and practicing my makeup for my Catra cosplay and ordering more of the things I need for it; like literally just staring off into space at work between phone calls thinking about Catra

I'm totally a well-adjusted middle-aged adult, thanks for asking!

Shit where did I even leave off

Oh right

SO HEY if you're new here, I've been rewatching all of the 2018 She-Ra, and I started doing it for fic-writing reasons but predictably I have become deeply obsessed. Anyway these posts sometimes have a lot of asides and commentary and references to other stuff and dumb jokes among a ton of screenshots, also (and it feels odd saying it this close to the end of the show) it's a RE-watch, so there's often spoilers for later bits of the story, also I keep trying NOT to just describe the entire plots of the episodes but I keep failing lol

s5 ep7 Perils of Peekablue

Adora's trying to become She-Ra (without an immanent threat) and then Bow and Glimmer distract her, and then the door opens on Catra and

I literally did a YES YES YESSSS AHAHAH out loud bc this is the point at which Catra just starts OPENLY FLIRTING, as opposed to just uhhhh flirtatiously taunting I suppose lol

like you're SITTING IN HER LAP

Also while rewinding it to watch again I paused it at the most hilarious moment

look at Catra's FACE

help I can't stop laughing but also look at Bow's expression

Glimmer: omg I'm gonna get to see my dad Catra: *gets up and leaves*

But also I make this face when a cat leaves my lap before I wanted them to:

Anyway they're a day out from arriving at Etheria

Adora's trying so hard

BACK ON ETHERIA

YAY IT'S THIS ONE

the intro finally changed!! I can't get a good screenshot but now when Catra (with short hair) and Adora (in She-Ra's new get-up) are fighting they stop much faster and they're both smiling omgggg

and there she is!! with everyone else!!

okay I'm going to take way less screenshots etc of the underwater speakeasy thing because let's be honest: that part of the plot isn't what I'm here for lol

But yeah they're going to the speakeasy thing to get Prince Peekablue who can see to the edges of the galaxy and can maybe tell them where Adora and the others are because they don't know what happened

Oh also Spinarella is chipped and Netossa is realizing something is off/weird about her but doesn't know what

Oh hey! You used to work for Huntara in the Crimson Wastes

Sea Hawk has pissed off approximately half the people in the room it seems (by lighting their ships on fire at some point)

Scorpia and Perfuma are the cutest and I can absolutely see how they end up together

In my fic I originally had Adora talking to some kind of therapist but I wasn't sure they existed on Etheria, and last week I edited that bit so Adora is talking to these two (which makes the conversation more fun AND easier to write anyway)

Perfuma: "Scorpia. You should do things not because you're good at them, but because they make you happy." THAT IS ONE OF MY LIFE PHILOSOPHIES thank you Perfuma you're 100% correct and I tell people this ALL THE TIME

Mermista: "I might've set their boat on fire. Just to see what it felt like."

Sea Hawk:

lolol

YESSSS I love this scene

Perfuma makes a flower, throws it to Scorpia as she sings, and she blushes and tucks it into her hair, these two are so sweet and cute

oh god I forgot that when "Prince Peekablue" get stung by Scorpia they go through the last half-dozen shapeshifts before turning into a (passed-out) Double Trouble.

lolol instead of "cash cow" it's an insult to poor Catra

Anyway they have the info the Rebellion wanted!

Horde Prime is pissed and has blockaded the planet, also half the people at the speakeasy were chipped....and now so is Mermista, though nobody realizes that yet

But also the phrasing of "She-ra stole his little kitten away" is just amazing

But also the last they heard, Adora and Bow and Entrapta had left to rescue Glimmer, do they think Double Trouble is talking about Glimmer here or what

(which. they did. they just also went back for Catra.)

Netossa realizes her wife (and most of the people around them) are chipped D:

And a chipped Mermista is gonna drown them all

oh shit Micah is also chipped

Entrapta gets the comms working!

"The Rebellion's been compromised! Horde Prime has them! We lost, I'm so sorry! We lost them!" --and then the comms go to static

AND CREDITS!

[danganronpasurvivoraskblog]

So how are you gonna start the next arc like this?

//I knew I was going to get upset about it when the change was implemented, and as you can see by my toxic af messages previously, I was right.

//I've taken some time to think about it since then, and I need to just make a couple of statements.

//The ask box will remain open, but this will probably be the last you hear of me for a while until the day I announced I would start posting the next chapter of the story.

//As for what's going on, in the face of this new editor with it's 30 image limit completely fucking over my typical style and sequence of posts (for asks it's not a big deal, but for story posts and especially long answers, it's a problem to my entire setup, and as you can imagine, I am not ok with that) I have taken some time to come up with a plan going forward.

//First and foremost, I'm not going to stop writing just because the designers of this website lost 90 braincells as well as the nerves in their eyes and ears. As stupid as these changes are, I'm fully aware that there's nothing I can do about them, and I'm not going to stop this blog's progression, or stop answering asks just because of these difficulties.

//In the past, when these changes happened, I overreacted and complained like a child. I apologize for those instances, and I've worked towards bettering myself. That doesn't mean I can't still take issues with these changes, because they are stupid, but don't let my misdirections as a human being affect your enjoyment of my writing. I will keep this blog going.

//Right now, I have come to a few solutions. Initially, I said I would move the story posts at least, to a different website. However, I retract that statement, because doing so would require my readers to sign up and create new accounts on totally different websites that they might not use for anything else.

//The CURRENT plan is that there are a variety of mods available on the internet that allows you to use the old Tumblr editor. If I can find one that bypasses the limit, I'll be golden.

//Failing that, as much as it sucks to think about, my only remaining option is to suck it up and use the new editor. As for the image limit, it may result in me having to split the story up into multiple different posts a day to get the full chapter done.

//The reason why I wished to avoid it is because with Tumblr's horrible navigation system, made WORSE by the current changes, is that it'll be hard to order all the posts together. I could repost my own posts to continue, but that also clutters the blog with meaningless posts, so I'm hoping to avoid it. Plus, it's only a matter of time before reblogs get hit with the "SHIT CHANGE" laser, so it's not a long-lasting solution.

//To make it a bit easier, if I do resort to this, I will be posting the link to the next part of each chapter in links at the bottom of each post. I will also be adding a #story tag on these posts to make them easier to find. I should have incorporated this a long time ago, but my slow dumb ass didn't think it was necessary.

//With all that said, if anyone has links to any useful mods, or any alternative solutions I could use, I am more than open to suggestions. So if you could leave those in either DM's or in the ask box, I would appreciate it. Assuming they work, you would LITERALLY be saving my life.

//And potentially the lives of other blogs like this one who are suffering because of this bullshit. I'll definitely be sure to share your advice to whoever may need it, like Aliza or Bubbles.

//Ultimately, there's no great solution to this, but this is the unfortunate position that Tumblr has put us in. And as much as I hate it, all I can do is take my licks and keep going.

//I want to take this moment to thank you guys for being such a supportive and kind audience. People like you are a dime a dozen, and I hope to continue to get your support for the foreseeable future.

//This story isn't finished yet.

-Mod

[juantheashura]

Update Info

Soooo, as I said in the previous post, the Chapter 5 update will be coming out in around two weeks. It's a shorter chapter than 4, only around 35k words or so, but when you combine it with the reworked prologue and some of the rewrites in Chapter 4 (nothing too serious), it should still be a fun time.

It's going to be full of fighting scenes and discussions and accusations and yelling and “holy shit you let Gloria's health get HOW low? The press isn’t gonna like that!” that I hope you will all enjoy (Just between us, but I'm starting to think Gloria might be a little sketchy...). In the meantime, I've already posted these on the forums, but I've got a bunch of out of game content that I hope you'll enjoy. In order, there is:

A bunch of snippets of content from Chapter 5, mainly dialogue and such.

One of my posts about the 'Seer's Musings', which are short snippets I write from the perspective of a character that you'll meet in Chapter 9 who knows everything that's going on.

Three articles. The first one is written from the perspective of the Cretan President during WW2, who met Seeker, the Broken King, and learned the truth (on his own!) about the history of the world. The second is from the perspective of Crete's first Treasurer, the man closest to the Blitz Queen and the Broken King. And the last one is from the Broken King himself, from the records he writes down to show the Queen, once she awakens.

Anyway, check below the cut if you'd like to read that! Oh, and before I forget, I'm planning to have Forlorn's portrait/commission alongside the Chapter 5 update. I'm not sure yet, since it's finals season and all, and Twitter is going through a... situation, to say the least, but even if not, the loneliest being in the whole world will not be too far behind.

'Hello, demons. It's me, ya boy!'

Seer's Bit:

“It would be impolite, I think, to lay the blame upon the dead. And yet I believe that it must be done regardless. It’d only hurt you, in the future, if I were to downplay the truth.”

“What do you mean?”

“The world, as it exists today, is arguably due to a single existence. America, the whole of Europe, Africa itself, perhaps even Oceania, as distant as it is, would not even remotely resemble what they are now. It… I suppose it is ridiculous. For the world to seemingly only exist due to the whims of a poor, adopted child that lived in the Mediterranean more than a thousand years ago.”

“… You talk of the Queen?”

“Yes, I do. Of the woman that saved a whole island from extinction, that carved a kingdom of her own while tumbing her nose at an empire, and who has had that same kingdom outlive any and all that surrounded it, while becoming a bastion that even the might of half a dozen empires has yet to crack.”

“An exemplary leader, if everything we’ve learned is to be believed.”

“Ha, perhaps. But exemplary does not equal perfect. The Queen had her flaws, and nowhere else is it as keenly seen as with her chosen companion.”

“The King? But I thought they loved each other. It’s the whole reason he’s seeking her revival, isn’t it? How is he a flaw?”

“Hmm… I suppose calling it a flaw is too much. But it’s a lack of foresight, or a mark of overconfidence, at least.”

“I don’t follow.”

“The King is a beast. When the Queen first found him, he was an even wilder one. He didn’t know of morals, of laws, not even of how to eat anything except what he hunted and burned. He didn’t even have a name, so unaware of society that he only knew of the merchants he stole from, and the troops sent to put him down, all broken at the feet of a beast raised by the laws of the uncaring African deserts. It was the Queen that changed him from that to a monarch revered even a thousand years after his disappearance.”

“How?”

“By beating him bloody. Not that he took it quietly, of course. They both bear the marks of that fight. A sign, maybe, that they were each other’s from the day they met. Regardless, the Queen won in the end. For some reason, one not even I know, she didn’t put him to the sword. Instead, she had him join her, and together they saw the world. She taught him history, geography, arithmetics, what was right and wrong, and even the languages she so adored. It was by her side, and through her efforts, that the King became who he is.”

“Those all sounds like good things, though? I don’t see the problem.”

“The problem is that the Queen was a child. A more educated one than the King, perhaps, but she was as much of a child as him. A child, educating a child. Do you see the problem now? The Queen did not reform her King. She taught him her biases, her desires, and that the only wrongs that existed were the ones she disapproved, not the ones the rest of the world considered. The King’s morality is not one of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. It is one of ‘what the Queen likes’ and ‘what the Queen dislikes.’ The sole reason Constantinople was not turned into a crater, and Crete the capital of an Empire spanning from Lisbon to Vladivostok is that she never asked for it. The Queen did not vanquish the beast. She only tamed it, buried it beneath chains she forged. And now…”

“And now?”

“And now the Queen is dead. She has been dead for a thousand years. And though the King’s devotion is no less strong, the chains that bind the beast within have not survived intact. And unless you see the whole East Coast turned into a wasteland as a good thing, that is a problem.”

“You’re saying the King will revert to what he was like before?”

“I am saying the King is a beast. For a thousand years, that beast has been content to starve, content to see the world beat on it even though it only tries to regain its mate. The chains on its neck have made sure of that. But now? Now, centuries have passed since those chains were put down. Now, the ones who think themselves masters of the world prepare to march on the Queen’s dream. Now, an enemy he cannot see or understand makes the world think of him as an enemy. Now, that beast sees itself cornered, with its ward threatened, and only foes around it.”

“And threaten a beast enough…”

“And it won’t care where its teeth sink, only that it can rip off the limb.”

— The Musings of a Seer, a Warning on What’s to Come.

The three articles:

Hope this at least tides you over! Or at least, that it manages to entertain you a little bit. Don't worry, we'll get back to the badass heroics real soon!

[mlobsters]

supernatural s12e12 stuck in the middle (with you) (w. davy perez)

unfortunate that that song has forever been associated with that reservoir dogs scene in my brain

not sure why this scene reminds me of the movie diner (1982), paul reiser on the brain and a group i guess

DEAN [leaning across the table to talk to Cas] Oh, dude, she is into you. WALLY Mm hmm. MARY Dean… DEAN No, this is good. We’ve been looking for teachable moments. This…

i dunno why i have such a bad attitude about the show right now. partially attributable to my overall depressed ennui situation.

ok so is this scene a reference to reservoir dogs? i recently saw the madonna discussion roundtable diner scene thing from the beginning of the movie (haven't seen in 20+ years) and oof. i didn't particularly enjoy the movie when i saw it originally and my feelings have not improved

job going sideways and bloody, set to an old song, certainly tracks with tarantino. it was a good scene, they say staring dispassionately. cas is leaking

and the title cards and jumping around in time. okay. guess we're really going there

s12e12 / s2e17 heart

ahh how things have changed/not changed (incl my screenshotting habits).

s12e12 / s1e22 / s2e1

well that sound effect when he flashes his eyes is a blast from the past. had to go find out if they did in fact use it for azazel way back when and look at that, yes. i associate it with the title screens more - so i included that too. giving my brain a little pat on the head. *rawr*

very drama, very nice shot. is that the spear of destiny? i thought that was at the bunker. did they do anything with it? can't remember. (lalala the blog search OF COURSE didn't return that post when i searched for destiny. or spear. fucking tumblr fix your shit i'm begging you)

s8e17 / s12e12 / constantine (2005)

WALLY I-I just mean, I-I heard the sales pitch– money, gear. It all sound swell, but someone walks up to you and offers you something that sounds a little too good to be true? I wonder, what’s the catch? MARY Since I’ve been working with them, we’ve taken out more than a dozen vamp nests, four werewolf packs, and a ghoul who was eating his way through Arlington. We saved a lot of people. WALLY Right. So you do trust them.

one way to deal with the american hunter problem i guess, earn the trust and turn them into cannon fodder

WALLY You meet them fancy Men of Letters? SAM British Men of Letters? DEAN Yeah, they got gear, but, uh, you know they tried to kill my brother.

reminds me a bit of how sam is willing to stow baggage for practical reasons, mary willing to work with them if it's for the greater good

from s9e22 stairway to heaven DEAN And the last time you had this kind of juice, you did kill humans and angels, and you did nothing but lie to me and Sam about it the whole damn time! SAM Can we, uh -- can we take this somewhere else, guys? Will you stow the baggage, Dean. Look, we've got a case. Let's work it. Cas, did you know the angel in that video?

--

SAM Wait, Mom? Uh… I just wanted to make sure that, um… you’re okay. I mean, I know… you never really wanted this. MARY Since when is life about getting what you want?

kind of a throwaway comment but also hits a little too close to home

s12e12 / s4e22

thought it might be the same painting as what was in that little fancy jail zachariah put him in during 4x22 but no, different spearing

really, show. i feel like they've done this pulp fiction sight gag before?

s5e14 my bloody valentine

lol they did, it was a soul in the briefcase

mary gonna own up to all this?

CROWLEY Your friend was stupid. You’re all… Do you know what you’ve done? Does the name Ramiel mean anything to you? SAM, DEAN, AND MARY: No. CASTIEL Yes. SAM What? CASTIEL Ramiel, Prince of Hell.

this is me throwing my hands in the air. sure, why not! never mentioned before but hey another harder-than-usual to kill baddie. did we know azazel was ... a prince of hell? also chuckled that when searching for prince you do get the canon discrepancies page about the inconsistent effect the demon knife has on various ranks of demons

and more pulp fiction, polishing a pocket watch for no reason

the lance of michael, i see. so this is six years ago crowley gives it to this prince dude, which would be s6? after michael was tucked away in the cage, he snagged it? and we're gonna retcon in some explanation of how crowley ended up with the king of hell job while multiple members of royalty were out and about

CROWLEY I don’t have friends. I make deals with those I can use. Every kingdom needs allies, even Hell. RAMIEL Allies. Is that what you call three humans with one good liver between them and a busted up angel?

snorted but also, mary got an alcohol problem too? unless sam's doin it on the side

CROWLEY I admit they don’t sound like much. But every Armageddon, every bloody, “this is the end of all things,” a Winchester stopped it. Like it or not, they’re an asset we can’t afford to lose.

crowley selling it well (but also, facts. they might start the armageddon, but they will also stop it)

CASTIEL No, you listen to me. You– Look, thank you. Thank you. Knowing you, it… it’s been the best part of my life. And the things that… [inhales sharply] the things we’ve shared together, they have changed me. You’re my family. I love you. I love all of you. Just please… please, don’t make my last moments be spent watching you die. Just run. Save yourselves. And I will hold Ramiel off as long as I can.

oh now cas gets a dramatic deathbed goodbye that won't stick

DEAN Cas, no. CASTIEL Yes. You need to keep fighting. SAM We are fighting. We’re fighting for you, Cas. DEAN And like you said, you’re family. And we don’t leave family behind.

admit i giggled at sam's like, it was a little too cheesy earnest. and tried to not giggle at dean's line. it's just too much! the music, the delivery. rousing

so mary is so committed to keeping whatever she stole from him, she's willing to role the dice and fight him? maybe that was the plan anyway. too tired to think this through :p

and crowley gets to save the (cas) day by figuring out the cure is breaking the spear of destiny the lance of michael, ok

conveniently, mary gets a pass on having to explain stealing the thing. god i do not like the homage to tarantino movie music either, what a surprise.

MARY That’s not good enough. I lost a friend. I almost lost one of my boys. KETCH And we apologize– MARY Shut up. Anything like that happens again– anything– and I will burn you down. All of you. KETCH Is that a threat? MARY It’s a promise.

has mary adopted cas too? and i like mary staring down this asshat like a boss

the colt???? oookay.

i know that voice, is it my true lucifer love mark pellegrino??? he's so much better at being creepy

LUCIFER [laughing] Ah. I know that look. Sam and Dean have got you down. Well, I still can’t believe that you’re working for the Dukes of Haphazard. Do you really think they care about you? I mean, think about it, Crowley. They kill your kind. It’s in their blood. And you know… you know… it’s only a matter of time before they come… [singsongy] for you.

dukes of haphazard lol

so they had to keep him in some elaborate cage in hell before, but now he's trapped in some little kennel in the topside "palace"?

this episode might be a record. took 2 days to get through it and probably 4 hours total. too much shit i felt the need to comment on or needed to look something up for. for the literally zero people that will ever read it. wait no, 1 person! i will read it and reference it

[evesaintyves]

Writing challenge: Remus/Tonks, 1 Behind the scenes: 3, 4, 19

that was the prompt I was most worried about, tbh! i wrote about it recently (but briefly) in All the Bricks in the Wall. but I'm still gonna try to write something and post it tomorrow! thanks for the request!

For the behind the scenes asks:

3. Do you write fics from start or finish, or jump around?

i often write scenes as they come to me, at least in rough draft form, and set them aside while i'm organizing my thoughts about the entire fic. a lot of the time it's a single vignette or exchange that gets the ball rolling and the rest of the story is developed around it. and sometimes what i've written gets chopped up and mixed around so it ultimately wasn't written start to finish, but when i set out to get a chapter or a fic done it's straight through before i lose momentum, other than an occasional placeholder.

4. Do you outline before you start writing? If so, how far do you stray from that outline?

extensively! i sometimes do multiple stages of outlining, starting with the general beats of the story and progressing to a hastily-written, typo-strewn, no-caps, low-punctuation story-lite which then gets rewritten for real.

i don't want to give anyone the impression that i'm like a super-organized writer - i'm not. the outlining is necessary to keep me from digressing too much or going down rabbit holes, which i have a tendency to do. and i also just like to have a balanced-feeling story with a structure that's satisfying and make sure the themes and thoughts i want in there get where they need to be.

often in the course of outlining and writing the substance or scope of the story will change abruptly and drastically. i have dozens of abandoned outlines in my notes app. i'm not great at sticking to my own plans.

19. Who is the easiest/hardest character for you to write about? Why?

i had an interesting conversation about this with @turanga4 a while ago, about how as someone who tends to overthink things, characters who tend to under-think things are harder to write. i feel like this can extend to a lot of different qualities, like characters who seem more tactile/kinesthetic than verbal or characters who are arrogant or impulsive.

the example we talked about was Ron Weasley, but i encounter it sometimes in writing Tonks. i see Tonks as impulsive and having somewhat black-and-white ideas about how the world works - she's young, she's basically a wizard cop, etc. the advantage with Tonks, at least, is that i've been a 20-something woman with a complicated romantic life, so at least i get that part?

[blujayonthewing]

Hello, can you tell me about Indigo??

oh man the TRUTH IS there isn't very much more to tell than this post about them, aahah ^^;; They're a one-shot character, so they don't necessarily NEED a lot of background or rich depth or anything (not that that's stopping me from giving them any tbqh, but since I'm not sure when I'm gonna play them again they're not high priority for it either per se). I do know that before they took to the seas, they lived in the mountains studying druidry, astronomy, astrology, and jewelrymaking under a crystal dragon (they're a one shot character, go big or go home tbqh) which I'd actually love to flesh out more at some point-- I had a lot of the basic idea for Indigo's interests and personality before looking at feats got me to look into gem dragons, and I was actually a little surprised at how well crystal dragon lore felt like it fit Indy's Vibe :3

They took up sailing out of a desire for a change of scenery; with their extensive background studying the stars it was pretty easy to get into navigation. At some point their ship was attacked by pirates and they were pressed into service, and it was FRANKLY a huge relief because it turns out sailing with merchants is fucking boring. Their motivations for piracy are very much the Romanticized Golden Age Piracy kind-- freedom, adventure, treasure, excitement. Basically, they're pirating on a lark. They're a little bit of a scallywag and a chronic bullshitter-- they've got dozens of stories about what happened to their missing eye and they're always giving obviously shitty and made up horoscopes, but they take their jobs onboard seriously even when they seem to have a laid back and lackadaisical attitude about it.

Because they're adventuring For Funsies, and partly due to their background, their idea of treasure is a little esoteric-- they're interested in weird things, or rare things, or pretty things, or things that were particularly challenging to get; their ship takes on the name of any ship she conquers in battle, and I think Indigo is more keen to attack ships with good names than good cargo, haha. They're companionable and enjoy sharing company with the rest of the crew, but they also cherish the solitude of the crow's nest, and spend a lot of time looking at the stars.

[lalal-99]

43, 54, n 82 for the Drabble thing please!!! With Hyunjin 😩💜

43 "Do you trust me?" 54 "You're doing so well. Just a little more." 82 "Really? Because your pussy is saying something different, sweetheart."

Hyunjin x afab!reader | established relationship | explicit sexual content | exploring kinks | 3k words

Synopsis: When your boyfriend introduces you to the beautiful world of ropes and blindfolds, you can't wait to have him show you all that he knows.

Smut tags: soft-ish dom!hyunjin | bondage | fingering (f. receiving) | oral (f. receiving) | edging | vaginal penetration | light bdsm | light breath play | nipple play

Note: Uff… Honestly, I enjoyed writing this maybe a little too much. This is my first venture into bondage (and light bdsm), so please be kind. I'm not a pro and if there are any mistakes, please point them out to me.

Tumblr works on a reblog system. Please consider reblogging this post so that it can reach more people. Thank you :)

_____________

Just a taste

"Do you trust me?"

"I… I do."

And you really did. You trusted Hyunjin more than you had ever trusted anyone before him, but your answer still sounded unsure.

"I'll need you to sound a little more enthusiastic and less scared for your life," he chuckled, his finger softly running over the curve of your cheek.

"Sorry. I'm just a little nervous."

In your head, everyone doing this for the first time had to be at least slightly scared. Because what if the ropes neatly binding your bare arms behind your back cut off the blood supply to your hands? Or, what if the ball gag beside your almost naked body made it so hard for you to breathe that you'd fall unconscious? Sure, Hyunjin seemingly had a lot of experience with this kind of stuff. Still, things could go wrong.

"I want to do this. With you," you assured Hyunjin as you took a deep breath to calm yourself.

"Good."

The smile appearing on your boyfriend's face told you that he finally had enough consent to do this with you. Or rather to you. And honestly, you were extremely excited about all of this.

Ever since the two of you had decided to dabble into the more kinky side in bed, you found yourself intrigued at the thought. Up until now, your sex life had been vanilla, if anything. Apparently, Hyunjin had a lot more experience in this field, and you were more than willing to have him show you what else the bedroom had to offer.

"Remember what we agreed on?"

"Of course. Green – everything's good, yellow – slow down, red – stop. I'm well aware of how traffic lights work." You rolled your eyes at your boyfriend. He must have already explained the system to you a dozen times.

"Getting bold already? Maybe I should leave you bound like this for an hour or two – see how much of that is left in you after," Hyunjin pondered as he took the ball gag while readjusting beside your limp body. Your eyes opened wide at this threat, a deep chuckle leaving his lips. "On second thought, I can just gag you. That will certainly shut you up."

As you eyed the object laying over his fingers, you swallowed hard. This, for some reason, was the part you dreaded the most. Hyunjin noticed your changing demeanour, immediately discarding the gag on the bedside table.

"Or, we can just leave this out. We can always come back to it another time."

"Thank you," you spoke almost silently as you relaxed.

"Don't thank me just yet. I'm still gonna use this." He held up the blindfold, scooting further up the mattress and eventually landing beside your upper body. "Head!" he ordered, and you obeyed, lifting your head so he could put the fabric over your eyes. "See. Much easier without your bratty commentary, isn't it?"

The moment your sight was taken from you, you fell into a dream-like state, all your other senses heightening at the loss of light. You could still see shadows through the thin material, but that was hardly enough. The room was dark as is, and by adding the blindfold, you were pretty much blind.

"You look absolutely divine like this, do you know that?" His hands ran over the cups of your new bra – the only thing cladding your body besides your panties. Because it was a special night – you diving into this unknown world of bondage and letting someone else control your body – Hyunjin had gotten you a new set of black lingerie. It was one you would have never bought on your own, the amount of money ridiculous to you for how little fabric it consisted of, but he had insisted on it. And he liked it, so what the hell. "You look even prettier than I expected."

The mattress below you dipped as Hyunjin got off the bed, opening his belt buckle and letting his pants fall to the parquet floor. At least that's what you assumed from the clicking noise you heard. He made his way through the room, seemingly shutting the drapes further, before heading back to your body.

"Do you know how often I dreamed of this very moment?" Hyunjin questioned as you felt his long fingers hover over the skin of your stomach. You flinched at how suddenly he had appeared beside you; You couldn't be sure where he was situated at any given moment. "You, giving yourself to me completely, letting me take control over your perfect body."

As his hands roamed over you – first your stomach, then your neck and chest, almost touching but never closing the gap – you felt goosebumps rise all over your body. You could feel his presence even without seeing him or hearing him talk.

"Can you feel the rush of excitement? Not knowing what I will do next or where I will touch you next?" Hyunjin questioned as his hand pulled down your bra, leaving the cups lingering below your unsteady breasts. A gush of cool air hit them as Hyunjin blew against them, a shiver coursing through you. You just knew he was smiling proudly at your reaction. "It's suffocating and intoxicating at the same time, isn't it?"

"Hyunjin, please!" Your voice couldn't have been above a whisper.

"Begging already? Guess all it took was taking your sight from you," he pondered before sticking his tongue out and letting the tip of it run over one of your nipples for a second. As quickly as it was there, making your back arch and your legs squeeze together, the stimulation was gone again. A frustrated groan left your lips. "Exhilarating, isn't it?"

Hyunjin drew away from you completely as the cold took over you immediately. The second you couldn't feel him all over you anymore, a desperate whimper left your lips as you realised that this most likely wouldn't happen as fast as you had anticipated. And yet, you were intrigued.

How long would it take him to finally give you what you craved? And more importantly, how long you would be able to take it?

Because you wanted to be good, and last; For Hyunjin.

Too bad you didn't know just how long he would be able to control his own urges just to set yours on fire.

_____________

Your throat was hoarse, making it so hard to swallow. All the saliva had dried up at the constant denial of pleasure, your body weak as you felt yet another high approach.

It was close, so close you could almost taste it as Hyunjin's face was pressed up against your heat, lips soaked from the wetness as though he had swallowed it right out of your mouth. The sounds emitting the lustful scenery below you were nothing short of arousing.

Hyunjin's lips wrapped around your clit, tongue circling it as though he was born to pleasure you. His fingers relentlessly pumped in and out of your core as they kept their pressure against that sweet spot inside you.

Right now, right at this moment, you were sure you had never been so close to your sweet release, desperate whimpers escaping your lips like a mantra. Your hands, which were still bound behind your back, pressed up against your spine, nails digging into your own flesh as you tried not to have your boyfriend notice just how close you were. Because, maybe, if he didn't know, he'd finally let you come.

Unfortunately, you weren't doing that good of a job preventing him from noticing as his fingers stilled inside of you, his mouth withdrawing from your heat just as you were about to hit the sweet peak.

"No! Please, Hyunjin!" you groaned frustratedly as a single tear fell from your eyes, running down your cheek. You had been so close, your body silently pulsating as though he was still touching you.

"You're doing so well. Just a little more."

Maybe if Hyunjin had told you just how long he wanted to tease you – how often he planned on pushing you so far and letting you crash right before you could finish – it would have been easier to take it. The suspense was probably the worst part about all of this, as you expected this to finally be the end with every time he brought you right to the edge.

"I can't… I can't take it!" you tried to convince Hyunjin, though he reacted the same way he had done the last handful of times you had assured him you were at the end of your power.

"What colour?" The question you dreaded more than anything at this moment made you swallow as you felt some saliva pooling in your mouth. For a second, you debated lying, telling him that you actually couldn't take it anymore, though you just couldn't bring yourself to it. Somehow, you couldn't lie.

"Gr-" You were cut off as you felt his fingers pick up their pace inside you again. "Fuck! Green. So fucking green."

"That's what I thought," Hyunjin smirked as he pressed wet kisses against your thighs, his tongue slipping past his lips every few centimetres. "You're so good for me."

"Please, Hyunjin. I need to come. I can't take this any longer," you tried yet again, feeling him move further up your body as his fingers kept their slow pace inside you.

"Really? Because your pussy is saying something different, sweetheart." Hyunjin's lips wrapped around your nipple, sucking firmly at the flesh as the tips of his fingers hit your sweet spot again, making you arch your back against him. "Can you feel how perfectly your walls wrap around my fingers, almost swallowing my whole hand?"

"Ugh," you groaned as he swapped nipples, giving your second one as much attention as he had given the first one.

"You've been so good for me. I feel like I should reward you."

When you felt Hyunjin move even further up your body, you expected him to finally give you a taste of the real deal, replacing his fingers with his length. He had gotten rid of his briefs some time ago, his painfully hard erection brushing up against your leg every once in a while. When his free hand made its way behind your head, untying the blindfold, you were as disappointed as you were relieved.

Not exactly what you had hoped for, but it was something.

"You look amazing this fucked out. I could watch you all day."

When Hyunjin's plump, wet lips met yours in a heated kiss, a sigh left your mouth. You hadn't realised that you hadn't shared a kiss yet until it finally happened, and somehow, this made your situation a little more bearable.

Hyunjin pushed his tongue into your mouth after a few seconds, meeting yours immediately as you felt his fingers speed up below. You had almost forgotten about them in the softness of the moment, though when his thumb danced over your clit you were quickly pulled back to reality.

Your lips opened in a hopeless attempt to catch some air as you felt your next edge approach slowly but just as certainly. Hyunjin bit your lower lip as he pulled at the flesh, his eyes focused on your facial expressions. A smirk spread on his face when he noticed just how much frustration your eyes held.

"So beautiful." That was all he said before his fingers sped up, pushing against the same soft spot inside you again. How Hyunjin found it so effortlessly every time, you couldn't tell. All you knew at this moment was that no one had ever made you crave your release as much as he did. "How much do you hate me right now?"

"So, so much. I hate you so much," you answered as your nails dug into the skin over your spine again, the muscles in your arms threatening to rip the rope any moment. That's what it felt like, at least. Obviously, you could have never literally broken through the thick material keeping your arms in place behind your back. "But.. Fuck.. I love you. Please, Hyunjin! I need you."

As you stared up at him in so much hatred and adoration that it could last for a lifetime, you saw something change in his features. Somehow, you declaring your love for him while begging him to let you come was doing something to him. Even though you weren't capable of forming coherent sentences at the moment, your mind started racing, trying to make this revelation work for your benefit.

"I love you so much. I need your cock inside of me right now." Hyunjin's lower lip was caught by his teeth, as you realised it was becoming harder for him to control himself. "Please, fuck me, Hyunjin. I never needed anything as much as you, burying your cock inside me. You feel so good, made for me."

"Fuck."

That just one word could turn things around was a surprise, even for you. You had expected Hyunjin to withstand his urges through more than simple begging. Maybe, since it was the first time you did this, he decided that he should go easy on you. Perhaps he was too riled up himself to keep going. No matter why he decided to finally give in to your pleads, you felt so relieved when he did.

The second you his fingers left you, his length replaced them, slipping in as easily as ever. Other than his fingers, his cock hit every single part of you, enforcing the fullness you had felt before.

"You're taking me so well, baby."

You threw your head back at the praises, finally feeling some sort of ease take over you. His lips soon came to your throat, kissing their way over the hot skin as you got closer and closer to your release.

Your legs wrapped around Hyunjin's back so he couldn't draw away if he were to change his mind. There was no way you'd let him edge you even one more time when he felt so perfect inside of you.

"I'm so close," you told him more as a warning than a request, though he seemed to have a different idea.

"Not yet. Hold it!" It was an order – one you didn't want to disobey, too scared of what he'd do to you if you did. If there was one thing the past hour had taught you, it was that easy just wasn't Hyunjin.

"God, please, Hyunjin." As you were begging for him to give you permission to release, you felt your walls begin to crumble. You were shaking so bad, your eyes rolling to the back of your head as you tried to hold it. Which was so hard, seeing as you had been prevented from coming more times than you could count.

"Just a little longer, baby." You could tell that Hyunjin wouldn't need that much longer to join you, though you doubted that you'd hold it long enough. Just one wrong move from his side, and you'd be falling. You were clenching all over his dick as tears started streaming out of your eyes from how desperately you tried holding back. "Tell me you love me again. Tell me how much you need me!"

"I need you… like… I need air to breathe..." Forming coherent sentences was becoming more and more impossible with every passing second. When Hyunjin's hand came to your throat, softly pressing against it, you felt him twitch inside of you. "I love you so much, baby..."

"Now, baby. Let go!"

As if his word was your command, you let go that second, hitting your peak as forcefully as you had never done before. Your body shook uncontrollably – you almost believed you'd never stop spasming from how hard your orgasm hit you.

Hyunjin's name left your mouth, over and over again, as he released your throat from his grip. The air filling your lungs paired with the delicious taste of your high was a sensation you were yet to have witnessed.

You felt Hyunjin come inside you, his release almost as feral as yours. His hair stuck to his forehead as droplets of sweat hit your body below him. When he pushed his lips up against yours, you closed your eyes as he stilled inside of you.

It took you a while to come down from your high, maybe minutes – you couldn't have been sure. When Hyunjin finally released your arms from their restraints with a simple pull on the rope, you realised they weren't as numb as you had predicted. Apparently, Hyunjin was more of a pro than you had imagined.

"You okay?" The concern in his voice made you smile.

"I'm more than okay," you assured your boyfriend as you pulled him down for an innocent kiss. Your heart was still beating way fast as you took another second to catch your breath. "I had no idea you were this good at all of this."

"I'm full of surprises," he shrugged as he pulled the duvet at your feet over your sweaty bodies. "So, you liked it? It wasn't too much for you?"

"Are you kidding me? Had I known you were capable of all this," you gestured to the ropes discarded on the floor beside your bed, "we would have tried it way earlier. I really think you got me hooked."

"Sweet. I already can't wait to show you some of the other stuff I'm into." His fingers traced the lines of your face as you looked at him in confusion.

"Wait. There's more?"

The look of amusement on his face was answer enough.

"Oh, baby. There is so much more I wanna show you. This was merely a taste of all the beautiful things I wanna do to you."

[acaplaya-musings]

Voiceplay-adjacent Visuals: Unshaken

Geoff's cover of the song Unshaken from the videogame Red Dead Redemption 2 was uploaded on the 10th of March, 2024, i.e. a month ago for you reading this. I wasn't quite sure at first if I was going to make a Voiceplay-adjacent Visuals post for this video or not, but I waited a couple-ish days (it released on a Sunday morning, and I'm currently typing this on the following Tuesday night), had a think about it (and watched it about half a dozen times, 5 of those just in its first day of release), and decided "yeah, I can talk about this!"

So let's get into this!

Ho boy, that's one hell of an opening shot (and yes I know I said the same thing about Jack's Lament), and we linger on it for like 5 seconds as well!

(Howdy there, Daryl!)

Original thumbnail/Spotify image alert! (And this was the image Geoff posted a week earlier on his Community tab as a little sneak peek, like he really gave nothing else away ahead of time)

For a red hot second (hah) when I first watched this video I thought there was gonna be a red tint to the visuals the whole time, but thankfully no

Did you notice how the screen expands at the same time as the lighting changes? Very neat!

Also interesting that the lighting on Goff, Daryl, Jeoph, and Jeff (more on them in a minute) is not just plain white or yellow; it's almost definitely green. The red lighting has not disappeared, as you can tell from the background, but it gets (mostly) cancelled out in the foreground by the green lighting, because red and green are of course complementary (opposite) colours. But also, red can be associated with danger and warnings (and it's in the title of the videogame of course), and green can sometimes be a "spooky"/"eerie" colour, particularly the bright neon kind. Things to think about!

(And of course, the credit for lighting automation goes to none other than Eli. Thanks Eli! (though I assume Geoff had a fair hand in coming up with ideas for lighting design as well).

If you're reading this, you almost definitely know that this video is technically a prequel to Geoff's video for Ghost Riders In The Sky - here, we see Goff, Daryl, Jeoph, and Jeff as living human cowboys, before they became ghost cowboys. I made a side-by-side comparison post not long after this video dropped, which you can find here

I am of course, quite pleased to see the return of the "Geoffettes", and if you've been following my Voiceplay-adjacent Visuals posts (the last of which was written at least a few weeks before this), you'll know I was keenly anticipating their next feature in a Geoff video. What I wasn't expecting, however, was to have a video that was in fact, just them! Jeff, Jeoph, Goff, and Daryl, but no Geoff! A bold move, to let them do a video all by themselves, but hey, I'm not complaining! 😁😉

Jeoph takes lead vocals for most of this one (technically a primarily-visual observation, for obvious reasons), which is interesting, as he was the only one of the four "brothers" in Ghost Riders to get a proper solo part (the "cowboy change your ways today" line). I wonder if the connection is deliberate/intentional?

(Also Jeoph's got charm, I'll give him that)

I'm assuming that is in fact the same coat that Daryl wore in Ghost Riders In The Sky, since all the other costume pieces match up, but because of the lighting, it looks like a different colour. In Ghost Riders, it seems to have a bit more of a reddish tinge to it, but with the green lighting here, it looks more like a regular brown.

Also because I didn't mention it in my Ghost Riders post, I'll mention it here instead: Thanks to the leather coat (and a bit of extra clothing layering underneath I believe), Daryl looks like he's got a bit of extra "heft" (weight/muscle) on him compared to the other three riders, as pointed out by someone in the comments section of the Ghost Riders video

Oh yeah and there's this golden light backdrop as well, which is quite nice, and I feel like there's some sort of meaning/intention behind this as well, but I haven't quite figured it out yet, rip

Also if Daryl's the largest of the group, at least by a small margin, then I'm saying that Jeff is the thinnest, at least a little bit.

Back to the harsh red lighting for the chorus!

Oh yeah and then we get more of a cool green lighting backdrop for the second chorus - sorta fitting for the lyrics about the whispering pines.

Also I just realized I haven't yet said a word about the set design, which is honestly criminal of me because it is on point. All the props are so cool, like the lanterns and the horse saddle on the far left side, and it definitely nails the Old West theme!

(This was of course filmed at Pattycake Productions Studios, so shoutout to them for their help/collaboration!)

(This shot is more representative of how Daryl's coat appears in the Ghost Riders video in reagards to colour)

Interestingly, Goff doesn't get any solo/lead parts in this one, and also I can't figure out whether he's left-handed in this video too or not. He's holding a large gun (rifle? musket? idk I'm Australian) in his right hand, but I can't see a gun holster on his right hip, so I'm assuming he has a holster on his left hip like in Ghost Riders (and I know Jeff kept his underarm holster in this video)

If I may step "out-of-universe" and talk reality for a hot second, I love the fact that even when Geoff is portraying 4 different cowboy characters, the rings stay on the whole time, for every single one, and so does The Necklace (you can only see part of the necklace chain in shots of Jeff, Jeoph, and Goff here though). Like truly, his jewelry (all of which is a symbol/representation of his love for his wife <3 ) only comes off in the most exceptional of circumstances (like having your hands and chest spray-painted to turn you into a skeleton, for example)

On a completely different Doylian note, how the frick does Geoff Castellucci's hair work? Watch this video, and look at the colour/shade of his hair. Then go watch Wicked Game, the video released just last month, and do the same. And as a bonus, go watch Sleeping In The Cold Below. Seriously, is lighting more powerful/influential than I thought, or does he use colouring products sometimes? I swear I'm gonna be talking about this in many posts to come this year, lol rip.

Jeff is my favourite in this video, though I can't help but love them all 😁

And peep the underarm gun holster I mentioned!

Handsome pretty boy <3

Also love the fact that since Jeff's shirt didn't have any buttons on it to leave undone, he left a button undone on his vest instead (Geoff and his "Clones" are nothing if not consistent 😆)

Lighting change!

"Will the hunter be hunted by the smoking gun?"

Jeoph removes his hat, which in a lot of media is often associated with acknowledgement of death, and the way he holds/looks at his gun here makes me think that Cowboy Jeoph has in fact killed somebody (in this essay I will...)

(Also Matthew "Bucky" Buckner is credited as "special consultant" for this video. Did he help out with the use of the gun props or something? (they are just props, right?))

"Amidst the crash of the-"

Love the sudden light flash to match with the sudden line pause, like a flash of lightning, and it kinda sounded like there was a subtle thunderclap there too!

You know I love a good passionate belt from Geoff (or one of the Geoffettes) in a video 😄💜

It's quite different tone-wise, but this bit reminds me of Geoff's Shenandoah video, with two of the Geoff clones seemingly conducting with each other at one point. Go rewatch that video after this, you'll see what I mean.

Also either it's just me, or for most of this, the self-conducting hand movements are kept quite minimal/subtle, only increasing moreso here at the big climax of the song/video. I'm gonna have to watch this video a few more times to confirm, but it adds to the more sombre vibe of the video imo (like obviously we know how the story ends for the four of them here, and it's not exactly a happy ending)

Go off Jeoph!

I also wish to know if there's any particular meaning/significance behind Jeff taking off his hat early on in the video and then putting it back on at the end (other than the thought that only just came to me right now, in that it's very similar to Jeff in Folsom Prison Blues, removing his glasses early on in the video, and then putting them back on at the end.)

Honestly love this final shot, it's very cool 👌

There is one thing missing though: the gramophone logo at the end! It's not there! The video just goes straight to the Patrons list! It's not even at the very very end! Did Geoff just forget? Is it some subtle symbolism connected to how "Main Geoff" isn't in this video? I guess we'll just have to wait and see whether or not it shows up at the end of the next one!

And here I was wondering whether or not I'd have a lot to say about this video or a lot of screenshots to take! Guess I had no need to worry after all! Geoff once again knocked it out the park, and yes, as I said at the start, I watched this 5 times in one day! The arrangement is very impressive, as we've come to expect from Geoff, and though I predicted this would be a Low Bass Cover the moment I realized this would be a Western-style song/video, this was still ridiculously low. Geoff pulled out all the stops for this one, and I love it!