#and its a weird juxtaposition of having everyone look at you while not wanting them to

[greyeyedmonster-18]

(i also...have talked alot about sharing content on here. and intention and what needs to be shared and what doesnt.

it'd be easy to say "im not creating" and call it a day. but the truth is, I'm writing and making and creating all the time, it's just nothing I'm sharing. its nothing i want to share publicly online.

ive been dialing back, on a smaller scale. painting on the walls of my home and opening the curtains from my windows; opening the front door.

writing poems and musings in the margins of my notebooks in them middle of class and letting my neighbor look over and read when they get bored.

embracing intimacy)

[starrysharks]

how do you go about creating characters and designs and a story for them?? im an aspiring character designer / storyteller and i looove your designs so im curious!!

when it comes to stories, i always try to imagine something that turns common tropes/things on their head ! like for ultimate excalibur, as its focused heavily on naval stuff, sailing and pirates, instead of regular ships on the sea, its all in space ! and for reassassination, the main character is a teenager, but her dramas are all mostly focused on assassinating people while juggling exams and rumors, so i guess it's kinda like a juxtaposition? for my stories i always get a lot of inspiration from other media (ult. ex is inspired greatly by the premise of one piece and other media and reassassination is very loosely inspired by panty and stocking), so it's good to broaden ur horizons when looking for new things to watch/play/read - you could find a new story idea from that!

for designs, i focus on three things: character personality, profession, and cool/cuteness factor. for example, musa marine - she has a bright and energetic personality, so her colors are bright and sunny (yellows and blues), she's a pirate, so her clothes are rugged, and she's more cool than cute to me, so 'cool' pieces of clothing are added like her big hat. other 'cool' character traits include V-CON's shades and clyde's scarf, but cuter characters like mina have other design traits like a starfish hairpin (who is also mina's manager!) i like to call these specific design traits 'the key point' - to me, theyre what make the designs unique! i use a mental 'cute - mix - cool' scale for that, but you don't need to if you don't want to! its just a weird thing i like to do ^_- but stuff like that is just the beginning!! when designing characters you have to take into account how they'll look next to everyone else in the cast - even if they have a similar color pallete to another character, they have to look unique while still being obvious as someone from your story's universe ! like, if i gave savory animal ears and plunked him into ult. ex, he'd look out of place because his sharp design and darker color scheme clashes with everyone else. speaking of sharpness, shapes are really important too! for my own designs, i like to take one or two shapes and apply those to as many aspects of the design as i can - like in my deep cut designs, i tried to focus on sharp, triangular shapes! shape language can help accentuate personality especially if you have a more cartoony/anime artstyle ! :D there are lots of people who are better than me at explaining character design/story stuff so i'd suggest you look at other guides or watch videos on how to write + design! also, this is just a me thing, but if i see a design or a story that i really like that inspires me to draw/write something, for the first few weeks/months of the development, i like to wear that inspiration on its sleeve if that makes sense? like it'll look *very* heavily inspired as it starts out - this is because i know that as the story develops, the characters/story will be redesigned to look unique ! like, when i first started writing starsaints carnival in 2021-ish, all the characters looked like rip-offs of characters from worlds end club lol ,, but as i redesigned the characters (3 times!!), they now all have (imo) unique designs while still looking inspired by wec!!

that's pretty much it about character design and story, sorry this is so long ;w; ,,, i just like talking about characters and stories,,, hope this helps !!

[polyghostfacehours]

Any hcs for billy boi? Nothing in particular, just whatever you got up there.

OHOHO I have so many headcanons for Billy boi no worries. If you ever want to know of anything specific, I gotchu.

Make sure to look at my Billy Loomis Masterlist for some more!

General Billy Loomis Headcanons:

Billy both hates himself and thinks he's also better than everyone.

It's a weird juxtaposition, because he does have some degrees of narcissism and quite the ego and confidence in himself. Yet at the same time, thoughts of all his flaws run through his head constantly as stares at the ceiling at night.

Billy plays the radio in his room constantly, and ever since his mom left he seldom turns it off anymore. It drives his dad crazy and he doesnt care.

Billy isn't rich like Stu, but he's well off enough. He had a cellphone in 1996 after all.

Billy's mom leaving was a catalyst, and I firmly believe his sociopathic tendencies were a coping mechanism.

That being said, he was always a bit disturbed. His mother smothered him and had some sort of undiagnosed psychosis, and his relationship with his dad wasn't great. This negatively affected him growing up, and his mom leaving was just what had him snap. More HCs on his home life Here.

When his mom left, he would call local hotels from a phonebook he got from the police station for weeks on end. He never found her. He's since burned that phonebook.

So, in canon, I feel like Billy definitely didn't love Stu and was using him for sure. But I personally absolutely hate that idea, so that will never apply here sorry lol.

Anyway, Billy falls in love with people and not genders. He develops intrigue that turns into romantic interest over time that develops into sexual attraction. While crushes weren't that rare, love was. He had a crush on Sidney, but the only person he ever genuinely fell in love with was Stu. More HCs on Billy's romantic and sexual preferences Here.

Hot take, but I don't think Billy hates anyone in his friend group until after his mom left. He always thought he was better than them, sure, but his thoughts on Sidney and Stu were positive and Tatum and Randy were neutral (though Randy annoyed him a lot with how bad he was macking after his girlfriend like step off bro wtf.)

But then his mom left and Roman's video was seen and then his thoughts turned to These.

Billy's room has a lot of blacklights.

Billy was not a gamer and thought video games were actually lame as fuck BUT would've loved horror video games if anyone introduced him to them and I will die on that hill.

He'd be a huge Silent Hill fan.

Billy remembers the names of his favorite celebrities and the two he loves the most are Anthony Perkins and Jodie Foster.

He thinks Jamie Lee Curtis is overrated lol.

Ironically enough, slashers are his least favorite horror genre, although he still likes them. His favorite is psychological horror, because he feels its Deep(tm) and he's a lil pretentious.

While he loves horror movies most and is a movie snob, it's not like he doesn't like any other genres. He also enjoys Mystery, Thriller, and On the Run movies. He also likes non-history and non-animal documentaries.

Billy actually cares a lot about his looks. He knows he's hot and he takes pride in it. He'll also use it to his advantage.

He genuinely thinks the greased hair look and middle part is sexy as fuck and keeps it until he's like 30. Then he starts looking like Skeet's look in Jericho. And once he hits his 40's he starts growing out his facial hair.

He's a picky eater, but he is open to trying things out to see if he'll like it.

Gaslighting and manipulation come so second hand to him, a lot of times he doesn't even realize he's doing it tbh.

Billy actually isn't as misogynistic as I like to portray him lol. He doesn't hate women, just has that typical 90's male mentality on them. He only killed Maureen and Sidney for revenge, and Tatum was likely Stu's idea (but I hc it was Billy's bc he realized he was in love with Stu). If I'm being honest, Stu is the more misogynistic one in canon, for multiple reasons lol.

Billy really likes when he intimidates people. It makes him feel powerful. He's the kind of person who'd rather be feared and respected than liked.

He prefers people shorter than him. Stu is the exception, not the rule.

Billy hates the beach. He prefers rivers or pools. Especially rivers. Something about being in water surrounded on both sides by nothing but forest feels cathartic to him. Makes him feel like no one else exists in the world except himself and whoever else is with him there.

[hanibalistic]

#AE5B75 | LEE DONGHYUCK.

genre | fluff

word count | 1602

warning | none​

note | two characters who dance with each other>>>>>>

you were surprised to see haechan at prom.

albeit, you only saw him when the party was done and over, and all that was left of the grand school hall were fallen balloons, a bunch of scattered confetti, and the abandoned moonlight cascading through the seeps of the red curtains. you were still intrigued to see him at the school prom, or at least the end of it.

"what are you doing here?" you called out to him who stood alone in the center of the stage, staring up at the painted prom banner lonesomely. when he turned around and saw you, you gestured toward the vacant room. "everyone already left. what are you still doing here, lee haechan?"

haechan furrowed his brows for a moment when you spoke his name, finding it alarming that he has no recollection of ever seeing you before. but just as he was about to accidentally humble himself and ask how you knew him, the memory of his past three successful comebacks flooded into his head.

right. he debuted in nct already so of course you knew him.

being trapped within the unfamiliar school walls and having supervised fun amongst the classmates he could barely name strangely made him forget he was a million-dollar selling worldwide idol.

"that's not a complicated question, lee haechan," you chimed in the thoughts inside his head and promptly stopped the train on its tracks.

slowly feeling his element come back to his body—he had somehow lost his usual self during the suffocating party, haechan relaxed his muscles and shifted his position to appear more lenient and suave rather than confused and shrunken. that was who he is, truly, after all.

charming, witty, confident, and famous—those were who he is.

"i can ask the same about you," he said as he placed his hands behind him and leaned his torso forward, a pointed smirk on his face. "the party is over, what are you doing here?"

you rolled your eyes at him. how great to see him regain his instincts! you liked it better when he appeared lost and, if you could admit, adorable. "i am here to clean up this mess. now you! what are you doing here?"

"just..." haechan hummed after he nodded at your answer, and he kept quiet for a while because he wasn't so sure why he stayed behind.

he could have left when everyone else was piling out those double doors, waiting to go home or to take after-prom pictures out in the schoolyard. his friends at the dorm were probably worried about him, his manager probably wanted him to head to practice for the upcoming dream comeback rather than attending a stupid prom party, and the group's driver probably fell asleep waiting for him outside in the van. all the odds went against him staying behind, but he did anyway, and he wasn't so sure why.

"you needed a breather?"

he met your gaze. you were staring at him with indifference, or even boredom, if he could ever hurt his ego enough to admit anyone is bored within his presence. it was a problem he rarely had to face, though. he was a very interesting, and attractive, boy! even if his antics and humor aren't appreciated, his face and voice usually are!

yet, somehow, you looked at him like he was just some commoner. the juxtaposition of your indifference toward his charms and calling him by his idol name irked him on—how do you feel about him? why should he care how you feel?

"oh god, the idol life really got you a little suffocated up here, huh?" you chuckled humorlessly as you twirled your index finger near your temple in a circular motion.

haechan pressed his lips together with inward frustration, one he was trained either not to show or only show it attractively. he was fading away, he could feel it. his confidence and egotism were leaving him the more you looked to him as a madman for never continuing the conversation.

but how could he not? you were hitting all the right spots! appearing at the right time, asking the right questions, and suggesting the right answers.

most importantly, you looked to him like a boy. a strange boy who stayed behind at the end of a high school prom party, a weird boy who couldn't answer a simple question, an awkward boy who furrowed his brows too much on the first encounter. you looked to him like he was just a normal boy; no sparks, no admiration, no love. just indifference and polite kindness.

haechan hasn't felt like a normal boy in a while. he needed that.

"you're being too tense, we need to let you breathe a little."

you dropped your phone in a solo cup you found near the edge of the wall before you put it on the stage. music played from the speaker and echoed through the plastic cup, spreading a catchy english song he has never heard before through the empty hall.

taking a few steps back, you placed your hands on your hips and nudged toward where he stood. you beckoned him down the stage after a brief moment, clearly inviting him to join your one-person party.

"come on, don't be shy!" you said, waving him down again. "i used to be bad at dancing too, but you get better as you get into it!"

the confusion that once riddled through him vanished the second you verbally assumed his inability to dance. he flashed you a visibly offended look—wrinkles appeared between his eyes, his brows once again pulled together, and his lips quirking upward into a false smile.

him? being bad at dancing—being shy about dancing? never! not once!

"excuse me but i am not bad at dancing!" he exclaimed defensively as he hopped down the stage.

you raised your brow in faint disbelief, and when he went ahead to prove his point by free-styling, you tilted your head and watched quietly. impressive musicality and non-recycled moves, a hint of swagger and the perfect expressions—haechan moved to the music as he would in the practice room. he moved flawlessly and routinely.

and that, he has yet to know, is not dancing.

"you're not dancing, lee haechan." you stopped him softly with a shake of your head. "you're performing, showing off. that's not dancing."

"i don't know what the hell you are talking about," he argued.

"there is literally nobody but me here!" you yelled as you threw your arms up. you were beginning to kick your feet and twirl to the beat of the music. "those idol dancing has got you so robotic, you forgot what dancing is really about!"

he hasn't forgotten. he never really knew in the first place what you claimed dancing was truly about, and therefore it warranted his disbelief and slight anger in you seemingly belittling his entire career. he was planning to stay stubborn about it for the rest of his life until you, suddenly and boldly, dove near him with a twirl and took his hands in yours.

"dance with me, haechan!" you said with a hearty giggle, possibly feeling joyous from seeing his widened eyes.

donghyuck followed your erratic movements, feeling shy and rather invasive at first but slowly easing into touching you after a while. he has one hand daintily at your waist and the other holding yours, and you two turned and stepped across the hall in a rhythm that occasionally went with the song and occasionally went against it. you stepped on him, multiple times, and he tripped over your feet, multiple times.

it was disastrous, dancing like this was like raising hell from heaven. but oh, oh lord, it felt like he was falling in love.

moving his hand above your head, bringing yours along with his, he spun you and watched you laugh when he pulled you close to him. you two stepped from side to side, jumped and skipped, spun in circles, and glided across the hall.

donghyuck only grinned at you with unnoticed affection pouring out of his eyes like a flood, and you would never see it dancing under the dim moonlight.

then he realized. he realized what dancing is all about.

it was never about being synchronized, or being flawless, or memorizing all your moves and executing them perfectly. it was about feeling free and being silly, it was about expressing the good and the bad inside you, it was about breathing through your limbs and letting the air take over your body.

"isn't this great?" you asked between pants. "this is dancing, haechan!"

donghyuck licked his lower lip and glanced down at yours for a brief moment. his heart grew spikes that threatened him, but your laughter told him it was okay. he could fall in love, he was allowed to fall in love, he could be in love like the movies—with dancing or with you.

he could fall in love. he could just breathe.

"donghyuck," he said once, and he squeezed your hand to keep you a little closer. "you can call me donghyuck."

stomping on the ground, spinning until your head drowns, and holding onto each other to share the joy through your veins. a new song played and donghyuck hummed along as he guided you across the dance hall, and that was all there is to this night. 

it was just about letting a stranger you met after midnight teach you how to dance, and realizing that dancing felt like falling in love with said stranger.

[how-queerious]

*reaffixes clown shoes* *adjusts wig* *honks clown nose*

HERES HOW BUDDIE CAN STILL WIN

(this is 90% shitpost. i honestly speaking think ana and eddie are quite cute as a couple, and shes a really lovely character who they better not relegate to only a love interest)

(breakdown below the cut because holy hannah this post got LONG)

okay so first lets state the obvious. We all know the juxtapositions between buck and ana in regards to chris; "he needs to know his limitations" vs *researches/helps build an adaptive skateboard for chris* being the long established of the two, while the latter is the not being ready for ana to meet chris vs whatever that whole domestic scene was when eddie came home from the date (WHAT WAS THE REASON). Ana either holds back with chris or (inadvertently) makes eddie feel insecure in his parenting (eddie feeling like he isnt being realistic with chris, or tht hes pushing too hard/hurting chris with moving on after Shannon's death). Buck however encourages eddie in his parenting, helping eddie figure out how to adapt the world for chris rather than forcing chris to adapt to the world/give up on things that he cant do like the other kids, and reassuring him that chris will come around, being there for both of them. it feels off to me that despite all of these contrasts, eddie and ana are supposed to be endgame over buck and eddie.

second point of mine is shifting over to buck. i hope that buck and taylor don't end up romantically involved, and i dont think they will. a point that was emphasized in 4x08 (our reintroduction to taylor) was not buck moving into romance. his character's focus was in his friendships; with albert, with eddie, with chris, and with taylor. its even emphasized that taylor is in need of a friend, not a partner. i dont think with how their interactions went, and with their history, that those two will end up as partners. that, and buck could really use a friend outside the 118. this has been emphasized. as much as i don't like taylor from s2, she seems to have grown a lot (not unlike buck) in the past 2 years. she and buck could make really friends, something that both they and everyone in the world could use.

my third point kinda circles back to the parallels/juxtapositions thing. the waves of buck and Eddie's friendship versus with their respective romantic interests are intriguing. buck and eddies friendship started off with tension between buck and eddie before being very positive, dipping at the lawsuit and coming back afterwards. each of their relationships romantic interests have done the opposite; initial attraction, followed by tension, followed by a more positive period. neither have gotten to another true tension point (though perhaps you could consider what happened with taylor in 4x08 such, but its much less significant that say the lawsuit or the shit that happened in dosed). this is less of a true point and more of just an Inch Resting thing to note.

my next point circles back to something i brought up in the first paragraph; buck and Eddie's very domestic scene following eddie and Ana's (frankly speaking kind of weird) date. until buck mentions the date, that scene very much reads as romantic. the way buck comes around the corner, and they way he looks softly at eddie throughout. the much more natural way eddie smiles around buck in that scene, and the gentle and fond tone he uses throughout. this scene following ana mentioning that there hasn't been anyone since shannon, and eddies reaction to her saying that, is very odd. the order that scenes fall in and the fact that buck is always there for eddie and chris seems to be no accident, and its well worth considering.

my final point centers around my literal favourite character in the whole of television; christopher diaz, who i would walk through hell for. speaking of walking through hell for chris, do you know who else would do that? eddie and buck. everyone at this point knows The Scene™️ in the searchers. eddie nearly directly saying the buck loves chris like his own kid, and heavily implies that chris and eddie both feel the same way about the matter. despite the fact that ana was already chris's teacher, the relationship between her and chris of them doesn't even come close to the beginning of his and bucks. couple that with the skateboard incident, buck watching chris during the date, and chris and bucks (heart-rending) conversation following chris running right to buck? you have a very interesting view. notable other scenes include chris at the station while they wait for pepa to get off work, and the scene where eddie unplugs the wifi following the Hildy shenanigans.

anyways, like i said at the beginning of all this, everything of what i said here was 90% shitpost. as much as my heart wants it, i dont believe that buddie with become canon ( :[ ). i do love ana, and taylor doesnt seem nearly as bad as she used to be (also they are both very hot and i am a simple woman).

[snickiebear]

yo nadia <3333 i'm bored in my online classes and u reblogged the questions thingy at the right time lmao, so get ready: 1, 4, 5, 9, 10, 17, 23, 24, 28, 30!!!, 34, 38, 39, 40 (the intimacy of being understood) (imma stop here lol) (also i'm sorry u're not feeling well, ily and hope u'll feel better soon!! <33333)

ELE ILY. (and thank you, i’m stayin home today cause,,, yeah. i appreciate you sm.) you’re the literal best, i adore you. 

1. How long ago did you start reading fanfiction? Writing fanfiction?

The first fanfiction i read was for The Lunar Chronicles when I was like 11?? and it was 100% on accident and it scarred me because it was a hardcore porn one with a period kink and i was like WHAT IS THIS??? OH MY GOD???? LMAOOOOO i didn’t pick it back up until i was 13-14 and really got into the Fairy Tail fandom. I still reread my favorites on ff.net cause i love them. 

As for writing, I wrote a horrible, terrible x-men fanfiction when I was twelve. (my friend still brings it up and REFUSES to delete it so it still gets comments and views, that shit HAUNTS ME ELE.) then tried again for Fairy Tail, posted like two chapters before taking it down cause i wasn’t really feeling it. And then I posted The Intimacy Of Being Understood and here we are. 

4. Link your three favorite fics right now.

OMGG okok 

@murd3rm1ttens ‘s The Problem How Time Works IF YOU HAVENT READ THIS YOU GUYS NEED TO HOP ON IT ASAP. MITTEN’S WRITING SO SO SO SO GOOD. SAKURA AND INO ARE TOTAL BADASSES. KAKASHI IS A SIMPPPP. ITS SO FUCKING GOOD. 

@mouseymightymarvellous ‘s We Were Screaming In Color (Only A Possibility) yes, yes I KNOW. i always point into mousey’s direction but i WILL always advocate that everyone reads her fics, they’re literally so beautiful???? i just happen to be rereading WWSIN rn 

@safelycapricious ‘s Shaking Up And Breaking Down series. I found this like?? idfk but i’ve been raving about it ever since. ALSO CHECK OUT THEIR FICS IN GENERAL. 

fuck i have more than three but also check out @ambivalens999 ‘s Masks

i do wanna make a fic rec thing where i just rav about my favs,,, might do that later or sum

5. What are your fanfic pet peeves? Do they have a huge effect on whether or not you decide to read something?

Omniscient third person. I don’t like it. Like I can understand that it can be a little hard to stay in one person’s perspective but, in my opinion, if you can, it shows how disciplined you are as a writer. Plus, i just get so confused when I go from A’s thoughts to suddenly what B is thinking about A. 

When writers use ‘ ‘ instead of “ “. When writers put thoughts in ‘ ‘ instead of just italicizing them. It’s small things but like they just bother me sO MUCH. most of the time i can ignore it and try to enjoy but other times i just dip. 

9. Tag 3 fic writers you think are underrated/unknown in the fandom/fanfiction community.

@espoir-et-reves !!!!! THEIR SHISAKU FICS ARE SO SO SO SO SO GOOD. And they have a warring states one going on THAT I AM SO OBSESSED WITH. 

@writer168 idk if they’re really “underrated” but THEY HAVE SUCH GREAT FICS ON AO3. Like theres an AU with sakura, kiba, and shino that i reread constantly because it just. is. so. fucking. GOOD. and they posted a new one that i’m YELLING about. 

@eggtoasties okay they only have 2 in the naruto fandom (one shisaku which is still ongoing) BUT THEIR WRITING STYLE IS SO NICE?? I ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT. I still go back and reread their shikasaku one cause UGH i can’t get enough. I love it. 

10. What’s your favorite fandom, pairing, or character to read fic for?

Fandoms: Naruto, Soul Eater, The Old Guard, ATLA

Parings: KakaSaku/ShikaSaku/ShiSaku/MultiSaku, SoMa, Joe X Nicky, Zukka

Character: SAKURA. I will read anything with Sakura as the main character and her being a fuckin badass or becoming a badass. I love her.

17. How obsessively do you sit and stare at your fic after you’ve just posted and wait for feedback?

aha.. haha.. well. I check my email like three times an hour. its the first thing i check in the mornings too. I’m literally a whore for praise and literally eat up feedback like its going out of style. I also reread a lot of my stuff because i make so many mistakes and spelling errors, or the spacing is weird oR SOMETHING. plus, literally any and all comments make my day, i go back and reread them cause they just make me feel so tingly and warm like “wow. this person enjoyed the fic/my writing enough to tell me. thats HUGE!”

23. What’s your absolute favorite trope to write?

Angry, feral, bloodied, morally gray women. They aren’t bad guys, they’re probably the good guy, but that doesn’t mean they cant be fucking raging at the world with raw knuckles and blood on their teeth. I just love an angry woman who struggles with her emotions and just has so much inner conflict but that doesn’t take away from her character or badassery, it adds to it. 

24. What’s a trope that you’d like to never hear about as long as you live, let alone write?

The fake dating or miscommunication troupe. LIKE GUYS JUST TALK. AND TELL EACH OTHER OMFG. the entire like obliviousness of “nah they dont like me” while the They holds their hand and kisses their cheek. MOFO WHAT. it makes me so impatient and like mad HAAHHAHA. its probably because i’m a pretty confrontational person so seeing stuff like that just “cmon bro, USE YO HEAD.”

28. How do you deal with writing pressure (ie: pressure to update, negative comments, deadlines, etc)?

I have yet to receive a negative comment! Which i was really surprised about tbh. As for deadlines or pressure to update, i just kind of do whatever. I do set goals, but i set them flexible enough that hey, if i can’t do it, that’s okay. 

I have a lot of mini goals, like “i want to write this chapter and get it done this week” and then the large goal is “FINISH BY END OF MAY” so i have time. 

Actually, now that I think on it, the entire pressure to update thing is probably why i’m waiting until I have all of OL&W written to post it weekly,, cause well. I wouldn’t wanna leave you guys waiting as I tried to write and work out the next chapters and stuff, you know?

30. Post a snippet from your current WIP without context - no more than 300 words.

AAAAAA YOU KNOW I LOVE THESE AHAHAHAH

Have you seen the way the dead dance, World Breaker? They roar, half mad and starving. Do you not wish, do you not hope to see them twist and bend and dance to your will?

Shikamaru snarls, looking behind his shoulders to where his Shadows lay. “Patience.” He spits. “Is of the essence, Things of Ancient. Know your place as the dark you are.”

34. How much of yourself and your life experiences do you put into your writing? What do you think your readers’ image of you is?

None of my experiences match up to anything I write tbh,,, probably the only thing that is me in my writing is maybe the emotional turmoil? I’m pretty emotionally and mentally mature because from a pretty young age i started forming my own opinions, started looking into the world around us and being like “dude what the fuck this is not what disney advertised”. Then i started talking (read: arguing and debating) with my dad about a lot of it. So, like emotions are kind of hard for me. Like i’m pretty good at controlling them or understanding them, but still. idk its hard to explain ig.

Like the weight of stress, the anger, the sadness. It’s kind of therapeutic to write. Cause i don’t know how to put those feelings to verbal words so writing them really helps. 

As for my readers’ image? Probably like some kind of hunched over figure typing away in the dark with a maniacal grin on their face. I honestly don’t know AHHAHAHA but it is fun to think about. I think they’d see me as someone with potential but a lot of room to grow and someone who is imperfect but in a charming way LMAOOOO

38. What does your writing process look like? How chaotic is it on a scale of 1 (very tame) to 10 (you can’t handle this kind of chaos)?

I’m gonna be real honest. Its probably like a 2. I’m a bit of a control freak so I almost always go in chronological order, my writing is pretty linear. Unless, i get bored and jump to one of my fav parts. It's pretty much i sit down, i open the doc, read over my notes and just start writing. 

It’s a little boring to explain AHAHAHA but once i get into the groove of things its really fucking great, I can like feel myself in the world, I can feel what i want the characters to, i love it. I catch myself mouthing the words as i type too, which i find hilarious.

39. What’s something about your writing that you pride yourself on?

I rather like how raw my writing is sometimes. Which might sound really vain, but i do like the way i word things or describe things. I love juxtaposition and repetition, or making a good ole circle back to some minute detail that wouldn’t stand out until i repeat it at the end and you’re like “omg” AHAHAHAHA.

Like those little poetic snippets or certain wording i just sit back and go “damn thats kinda good nadia! go you!’ HAHAHA  

40. How did you come up with the idea for The Intimacy Of Being Understood?

AAAAA this fic is like my first child, my pride and joy LMAO

so the idea initially came when i was reading some fic, idk if it was even naruto, but i was like “i don't like this, but i do like the rain symbolism.” And I knew i wanted to write something kind of slow paced, something a little sad and angsty, but would show KakaSaku slowly but surely falling in love.

Idk if you’ve noticed but a lot of my fics, the pairings don’t change each other dramatically. They accept each other as they are and then they grow with together. Like that acceptance is something i just love writing, its so subtle, it isn’t something you declare. Its simply “I am going to love you. I am going to love you despite your flaws and faults. I am going to love you unconditionally because I know you, I understand you, and there is nothing you could do to drive me away.” 

The fic kind of wrote itself after that first scene. I kept going back to the rain, go being ghosts, and resurrection, and the small epiphanies one gets. I wanted to focus on each character’s growth with each other. They didn’t find light in life because of each other, but with each other. And i think that’s my favorite thing about that fic. 

I wanted something raw and real and just something beautiful. I’m actually really proud of it tbh. Would i go back and rewrite/edit it? Oh of course! I’d do that with every single one of my fics, but i’m not gonna cause i think its in its rawest form right now. :))))

ask me shit plz

[iridescentides]

i watched the ep twice bc i didnt take notes the first time BUT. hsmtmts 2.04 thoughts under the cut

gina first. my favorite part of the episode was when she admitted that she feels out of place living in someone else’s house and that she wanted a bigger part in the play. i was SO worried they were gonna just let her happily sideline herself in a “yay she learned her lesson about not being the center of attention” kind of way bc i would not be able to handle that two seasons in a row. let her be angry!!! she has a lot to be upset about

the gina/carlos conflict was awful bc theyre making carlos unreasonably annoying this season. last season he was nice, he was enthusiastic, not competitive and just rooting for other people. idk why they needed to flip him so drastically to being spoiled, rich, selfish, pushy, and bitchy. and on top of that i have not been vibing with the pieces of dialogue theyve been giving him this season just to score woke points. its so unbearably obvious that even though hes a brown gay character, he was written by a white gay person who thought, on some level, that he was giving the gen z kids the #hashtag representation they wanted. his delivery of every line that screams “remember, im mexican” is so awkward, it doesnt land well, and im begging them to stop. they want so badly to commodify his character and parade him around as a “look how diverse our show is!” thing and im so so sick of it bc you can tell, with all the surface-level pieces of dialogue, that they dont actually care at all

(”look around, theres not a lot of me at this school” we GET it, this show wants to be glee so bad)

im honestly starting to slowly ship rina less and less. in season one i loved seeing someone make gina happy, especially since she had no friends before opening up to ricky. but now its just a whole mess and i wish she would love herself a lil more to realize that its not worth all this stress. he made a choice and no amount of conflicted moments of eye contact is going to fully take that back. im not necessarily against love triangle plots, but i HATE the whole “women wait around hopefully while male character, whose decisions have already hurt multiple people, makes up his mind” bullshit

that being said, gina handled the situation like a CHAMP, im dying over how quickly she was able to mask her pain and make the joke about the twix bar. im love her

we were absolutely ROBBED of an ej/big red performance this episode!!! i am at my LIMIT we better get gaston next week or i will riot

on the ej train, him not getting into duke was extremely predictable. we all kinda saw that coming and knew that would be his main point of growth this season. im glad they didnt wait super long to do it. now please @ writers i am BEGGING you to give my man more screen time than one scene per episode

its very odd that they keep making mr mazzara have emotionally tough conversations with the students. i will do a parallel gifset of those once the season ends. i liked his convo with ej for the most part, but he really didnt have to beat him over the head with the “youre an emotionless robot” thing again. its clear ej is gonna throw himself into av club or whatever (even though at the end of last season that was supposed to be big red?) and discover that he has a lot going for him. because he does, he literally has everything going for him, thats why they had to make his “problem” not knowing himself. bisexual ej caswell ftw

i love the parallels between ej and nini this episode? i think since the beginning ive felt that there was a lot about them under the surface that was similar. it was interesting seeing ej tell nini about duke first, instead of the obvious choice of ashlyn. i wouldve loved to see how that scene wouldve gone with ricky, gina, carlos, or big red though bc each reaction and attempt at comforting him wouldve been so different. i didnt love that nini had to be pulled away from the conversation, but im glad they can still talk to each other after everything that went down. and i love the juxtaposition of ej’s convo with mazzara directly following nini’s convo with miss jenn bc theyre essentially the same.

speaking of, i loved miss jenn in this episode. her stories are always so funny, but i loved seeing her care so much for nini and guide her, like a teacher. i loved how she pointed out that everyone who loves nini just wants her to be happy

im glad nini is leaving yac bc there was no good way to keep that up honestly. but im pretty annoyed that they were so obvious about it? like, they immediately made it the worst place in the world without exploring it very much. the place is super unrealistic, ive never been to drama school but im sure it wouldnt be like that. no creative arts place for KIDS would be so impossibly limiting. plus the weird bluish coloring in comparison to the nice warm tones of the rest of the show was, again, a dead giveaway. why send her to the school at all if it wasnt even gonna matter?

even though im glad nini left yac, im NOT looking forward to the way miss jenn is about to bend over backwards to put her in the play somehow. she plays obvious favorites and im so annoyed

(sidenote: nini just? decided to leave yac without consulting her parents??? ummm)

granted is a very good song, one of my faves so far

ricky deciding to tell nini he wants her to stay was stupid. what did he think that would accomplish? who in their right mind would drop out of a good school for you?

i loved when nini said yac was missing something, and miss jenn said “ricky” and nini said “you.” that was so so sweet and cute

i think the kourtney/howie thing is gonna grow on me. i hate amatonormativity so im not a big fan of them introducing a whole ass character exclusively so kourtney can have a love interest, but i loved the gesture he made of bringing her the pizzas and her flashcards. i feel like kourtneys love language is acts of service, and she was literally this meme when he did that for her:

i liked seeing ashlyn try to be there emotionally for gina! i want more of them together

overall this episode was okay. not enough songs, and i wish they were spreading out the emotional conversations through the season instead of packing them all into literally one episode, but what we did get was pretty good.

after watching the preview i see that next weeks episode is gonna be about carlos’s party, and i love party episodes. BUT i hope that after that ep we finally get an advancement on the north high stuff! i dont give too many fucks about lily, but i wanna see my son asher angel

[starryevermore]

paradise island: a review

A note before we begin: everything above the cut will be spoiler free and will just be my general feelings about the story as a whole, the writing, and if I’d recommend it. Everything below the cut will include spoilers to explain my feelings about the story.

Rating: 3/5 stars

Visiting the North Shore had been a bizarre and unsettling experience, to say the least, but when they got home after vacation was over, he was going to suggest to Colby that they make a video about it.

Hell, no. Even better. Write a book. Videos melted away after a while, but a book? Books and stories solidified on the conscious mind forever. (91-92)

Overall, I enjoyed this book. I generally enjoy stories like this, but there were a few moments throughout the novel where things just fell a bit flat. 

While I was reading, I made a few notes, the first being that there was a weird juxtaposition between talking about more adult topics (drinking, women, sex, etc.) but in an odd, almost kid-friendly way. Some of the word choices were interesting, such as constant use of “fancy-pants”, “hottie”, “goofball”, “oddball”, and “doofus”, as well as the one moment where Colby said he hated “dicky” people and the moment where Sam said Colby was about to have an “emo-ruption”. (Though I did laugh a lot longer than I should have at “emo-ruption”.) It felt like they were still trying to make the story appropriate for their younger fans by using more kid-friendly language, while also appealing to their older fans by being like “look!! we drink!! and ooh look, we talked about smoking weed 👀🤪”. I wish they would’ve committed to one or the other, because it added an odd sense of disjointedness to the story that could’ve been easily resolved.

The other big thing I made note of was that there was a lot of “tell, not show” throughout. There’s a heavy focus on dialogue to progress the story rather than seeing into the boys’ inner thoughts and using other means to find out information. (I’m not one to talk, though, since I also focus more on dialogue than description.) It sometimes made it difficult to fully get into the story. I struggled with developing a picture of what the Belle Estate looked like, or what the other characters (beside SNC, Nate, and Alex) looked like. In terms of the boys, it seemed very reliant on us knowing who Sam and Colby are and what they’re all about (which is fair, since probably 99.9% of people who bought the book are fans of them but, if they want success outside of their audience, it could’ve been more descriptive in that regard). 

As for the big twist at the end, it was a bit lackluster. I’ll go more in detail on this in the “spoiler section”, but it kind of diminished everything that had happened throughout the story and left me wondering “what was the point?”. 

I was excited when I’d heard that the story was told through both Sam and Colby’s POVs, but, I’ll be honest, I saw little difference between Sam’s chapters than Colby’s chapters. The most difference was the almost stereotypical portrayal of Sam being the logical one while Colby being the emotional one. Aside from that, they were almost indistinguishable from me and I often had to flip back to the start of a chapter to remind myself of who’s head I was in.

Since that was all critical, here’s some things I did like:

I feel like, while the inner monologues were a bit lacking, Gaby did make up for it by making the dialogue between the boys really realistic to them. In this regard, she really nailed the portrayal of them. 

The depiction of the paranormal things was really great. I feel like those parts were the ones I could get most into the story. The way Gaby wrote them was so interesting and pulled me in. I wish there was more of these moments throughout the story, because I think they really showcased who Gaby is as a writer.

The convo where Colby called Sam “Velma” and then Nate asked if Colby was “Fred”? I really enjoyed that because (a) Scooby is my favorite thing in the whole world and (b) I chose Sam and Colby be Velma and Fred in my moodboards a month ago so just a lil fun moment for me.

Just how meta the book was. Like, the quote I included at the top? I laughed for way too long when I read that. 

There was a nice sense of nostalgia throughout, specifically when they brought up their YouTube channel, their Vine days, them being arrested, wining a Teen Choice Award, and Corey and the Shadowman. It made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, and reminded me of how proud I am for how far they’ve come.

*slight spoiler here* Speaking of being arrested, there was a moment where SNC were contemplating escaping to the beach and they had a conversation if it was worth being arrested again. I really loved that, especially with how much fans joke about them inevitably being arrested again.

This is more for the person who designed the cover, but holy shit?? I loved it so much?? 

I don’t know if I would have picked this book up if it didn’t have Sam and Colby’s name attached to it. I will say, though, I finished the book in one sitting, which is pretty rare for me nowadays, so it was engaging. I think, overall, it was a great story with a great concept but it could’ve been fleshed out more. In some ways, it almost felt like this was a draft rather than a completed novel. 

That being said, for SNC’s first book and Gaby’s first time working with the boys, it exceeded my expectations. If they were to continue writing books together, I imagine it will get better and better as they get more used to each other and potentially open up more so that their characters become a more accurate depiction of them.

Overall, the book’s not something you really need to race out to get. I think, if you have a gift card or there’s some sort of deal or you need to spend a little more to get free shipping, it wouldn’t hurt to pick up Paradise Island. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t a great, top-tier novel in my opinion. That being said, if you do pick it up, I think you will enjoy the book.

Spoiler Avenue

The characterization of all four of the boys is a bit 2D. Sam’s logical and wants to keep the peace, Colby’s emotional and more of a wildcard, Nate’s focused on his schoolwork and flexing his vocabulary, and Alex? Well, I couldn’t get a good read on Alex until he sells out SNC at the end of the novel and even then, he didn’t feel so much like his own character, more like someone just present to further the plot.

Speaking of characters, the introduction of Trey was...meh. I wish we could’ve gotten more insight on why Colby was so adamant about not liking Trey and why Nate was so gung ho to ditch their plans to go to the North side of the island for this guy they barely knew. Finding out that Colby didn’t like Trey because he said college was the only way to success was such an odd thing? Like, undoubtedly there’s been many people who would’ve said that, so does Colby also dislike everyone who’s said that or is there a more specific reason he didn’t like Trey? Just...👏🏻 more 👏🏻 inner 👏🏻 thoughts 👏🏻 please 👏🏻 and 👏🏻 thank 👏🏻 you 👏🏻 

@golbrocklovely​ brought this up in her review but Colby’s fixation on the  mermaid statue of a 16-year-old was really odd. It probably wouldn’t have been as odd if Amy was aged up a bit to 18, but as a 16-year-old with the descriptions that were given? Yeah...not the vibe.

I also wasn’t a fan of how so many things plot-wise was just...told to the boys. They could’ve found some newspaper clippings or something, anything to make them put in a little bit of detective work. But for so much information to just be handed to them? It got old, and almost lazy. 

The big twist being that all of the paranormal stuff they’d encountered being a hallucination? God, that was so fucking annoying (though I did go back afterwards from the moment that they first arrived at the Belle Estate—starting as early as page 36—and it felt incredibly obvious knowing now that it was all drugs, so props to Gaby for dropping that many hints early on). To spend so much time making all of this scary shit happen just to turn around and say “HAHA JK THE BOYS WERE JUST TRIPPING BALLS” was such a cop out. It would’ve been more terrifying for it all to be real, make the boys question their beliefs and the reality of there being something out there that they didn’t quite understand. Though, there is something terrifying about not knowing you’ve been drugged and having hallucinated that vividly, but I feel like it didn’t quite fit in with the story. 

Alex betraying the boys? So interesting! This was one of the few things that made sense in terms of them being drugged. But then when he was betrayed when Pauahi (who’s name was misspelled a few different times in the book) escaped? Ugh, amazing. We love instant karma like that. 

Going back to the “tell not show” thing, I wish the sacrifice at the end would’ve been more detailed. For all of the paranormal stuff to be written off as a drug-induced hallucination, I would’ve loved if Gaby had leaned more into the horror of being used in a human sacrifice. There was more of a focus on Colby bargaining for his life, which is fair, but I would’ve loved to see more of the pure terror there.

That being said, the way Trey finally snapped out of it? *chef’s kiss* Loved that shit so much. And I loved the fact that Trey stayed behind in the end. It added a nice eeriness to the story that had been lacking since they debunked the paranormal shit as being hallucinations. 

Again, going back to my overall, thoughts, I enjoyed the book in general. Some things could’ve been fleshed out a bit more to reach its full potential. I wish they leaned more into the paranormal aspect and had more descriptions to balance out all of the dialogue, but other than that, I did enjoy the book and don’t regret buying it. 

[jade4813]

The Lies We Tell Ourselves, Chapter 2

Fandom: Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist

Title: The Lies We Tell Ourselves

Rating: PG (I’m assuming it’ll stay there?)

Pairing: Zoey/Max

Synopsis: Max would do anything for Zoey. Including posing as her fake boyfriend to give her father one last “big moment” to celebrate with her. Nothing could possibly go wrong. After all, it’s only his heart that stands to be broken. Right?

Author’s Notes: Takes place after Zoey’s Extraordinary Glitch.

Chapter 1

“You know, we should probably get our story straight before we go in,” Zoey remarked later that evening as they walked slowly along the sidewalk to her parents’ house. She didn’t seem to be in any hurry to reach their destination, and he was sure that she was dreading the decisions that lie ahead concerning her father. Of course, he knew she was probably also nervous about their planned subterfuge. He couldn’t say he felt entirely confident in their plan, but since he couldn’t do anything to take away the pain of the former, he would do everything he could to carry the weight of the latter.

He slipped his fingers in hers, running his thumb along the soft skin along the back of her hand. “Which part?”

Making a soft sound in the back of her throat, she began to swing their arms back and forth – a gesture that would have seemed casual and even playful if her tension and anxiety didn’t lead her to all but rip his arm out of its socket. “You know, like how long we’ve been dating. How we started. All of it. Basically, the whole story.”

Max stumbled, pretending to catch his foot on a crack in the pavement but using his forward momentum to pull her to a stop. This wouldn’t do. If she couldn’t relax into the lie a little, they’d never pull it off. Pretending to be lost in thought, he shifted his hold on the paper bag he was carrying and reached over to rub his sore shoulder. “Two weeks. We’ve been dating two weeks.”

“Why two weeks?” she asked with a slight frown.

He shrugged, thankful that he still could. “It’s long enough that we would have had time to decide we’re serious about our relationship and it isn’t a mistake. But it’s not so long that it’s weird you didn’t tell your family about us sooner.”

She took a moment to consider his logic. “All right. So how did it start? Why did we decide to start dating after all this time? Who made the first move?”

He pretended to give it some thought. “Well, clearly, you hit on me because I’m irresistible and you just couldn’t help yourself. Serenading me by singing George Michael’s ‘Faith’ underneath my window in the middle of the night may have been a little much, but it got the point across.”

She rolled her eyes at him, but she was grinning when she tugged on his hand and demanded, “Come on, be serious!”

Max sighed, his smile slipping. The truth was, he knew exactly how they should say it started, but he suspected she wouldn’t like it. It’s fake. It’s all an act, he reminded himself sternly. It doesn’t mean anything. He had a feeling he’d be reminding himself of that a lot over the next few weeks. With that thought firmly in mind, he said gravely, “All right, all joking aside, that one’s easy. I hired a flash mob to tell you that I’m in love with you. You were – understandably – a little freaked out at first, and you weren’t sure what you wanted. But then you decided you wanted to give this – us – a shot.”

A flash of pain crossed her face, and she tried to pull away but he didn’t release her hand. “Max, please. I didn’t –”

He shifted closer, needing her to understand. “No, wait. Hear me out. I promise you that I’m not saying this to hurt you or to make you feel guilty. That’s the last thing you need right now. But the best lies have some truth to them. It makes them easier to sell and easier to remember.” It would also make it less likely that they would inadvertently tell conflicting stories if asked something they didn’t expect. “If we base our fake relationship on something that actually happened, when they ask you where you were when it happened, or what song I sang, or what you said when the song was over, you won’t have to remember a hundred lies.”

She clearly wasn’t convinced. Dropping her gaze to the ground, she shifted her weight back and forth and protested, “But even if we have to base it on something that actually happened, we don’t have to say it was that. We could pick something else, like –”

“Like you and I came up with the ridiculous idea to sing ‘Pressure’ together at a huge meeting with SPRQ Point’s founder, and you realized when I was playing air piano next to you that you wanted to spend the rest of your life with me?” he offered in a lighthearted tone, afraid she was about to suggest their relationship started after she sang ‘I’m Yours’ to him. Because the truth was, he hadn’t been able to believe she was actually singing a love song to him at first. And for a few minutes after she sang her heartsong, he really had let himself hope that she might feel the same way about him that he felt about her. That she wanted to pursue a relationship with him, when she was ready. That she had realized that she loved him.

For Mitch’s sake, he could pretend they were dating. But that memory was one that would always be a little bittersweet for him – the moment he thought had everything he ever wanted, just to lose it a little while later. He was still trying to come to terms with the fact he’d only been lying to himself. He couldn’t imagine the pain that would come if he offered up that lie now as the truth.

But while she could read his emotions through song, she couldn’t read his mind. “What about when I –”

He would give her anything she asked for. Almost. “Zoey, no. Please. I think I know what you’re about to say, and…not that. Anything but that.”

Feeling raw and exposed, he tried to deflect back to humor. “Anyway, whatever we decide, I’m fine with everyone thinking you found my singing so romantic that it fake-swept you off your feet and you couldn’t help but pretend-date me.” That’s it. You can’t afford to forget that it’s all fake, Max. None of this is real. He hated that she still looked so serious and so sad, so he continued to joke, “And you know, so far, fake dating isn’t all that bad. It’s like having all of the companionship with none of the pressure to actually buy you something for your birthday.” She didn’t need to know that he’d had her birthday gift picked out for the past three months.

She snorted, rolling her eyes at him, but some tension left her shoulders and she seemed relieved by the shift in tone. “Oh, yeah? So what’s that?” Stretching up onto her toes, she tried to peer into the bag he was carrying.

He twisted his upper body, pulling the bag just out of her reach. “Hey, now! This isn’t for you, it’s for your parents! Our relationship may be fake, but your mother’s pot roast is real.”

He could tell she wanted to glower at him, but a tiny smile hid at the corners of her mouth, undermining her attempt to appear fierce. “One of these days, we should talk about the fact that you’re almost funny, but you’re not actually funny,” she scolded him.

He crinkled his brow and pursed his lips, his face a study in exaggerated contemplation. “Hm. I don’t know, Zo. You always seemed to find me pretty funny before.”  

Zoey sniffed, tossing her head back as she strove to meet his lighthearted mood. “I was only pretending. As your real friend, I didn’t want to hurt your feelings. But now, as your fake girlfriend, I feel like it’s my duty to tell you the truth.” He felt an odd sort of twist in his chest when she presented him with that juxtaposition – real friend, fake girlfriend – but he forced himself not to let it show. Instead, he focused on the fact that her voice had cracked a little on the word “girlfriend.” Was it just guilt that she’d be lying to her parents, or was she concerned they wouldn’t be able to pull it off?

Max wished he had more time to come up with some way to reassure her, but he knew her parents were expecting them for dinner. He didn’t want her to be late, so he resumed their slow pace towards Max and Maggie’s.

Her voice was subdued when she continued, “All right, so, um…how…how serious are we?”

I’m pretty sure I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Nope. That wouldn’t do. It’s an act. It’s an act. It’s all just an act. He would get those words through his own thick head if it killed him. Trying to retain the lighthearted mood between them, he replied, “Clearly we’re pretty serious since you told me I’m not funny.” He grinned when his joke eliciting a laugh from her for the first time that evening.

“Max, that was a terrible joke! That was a dad joke level of terrible joke! And you know what I mean! You and me. Our fake relationship. How – uh – how serious is it?”

He looked away, not sure what she meant. She couldn’t possibly be asking him if he was planning to fake date anybody else at the same time, could she? One fake relationship at a time was enough for any man! Particularly when he was hopelessly in love with the – No. Do NOT go there, Max Richman. Stifling a groan of frustration at his own stupid head – and his own stupid heart – he returned his attention to her and replied, “It’s pretty serious, right? I mean, isn’t that the whole point? You want your dad to think that we’re in love?”

Zoey made a soft sound of distress, pulling him to a stop again, just when he’d been about to turn onto the walk up to her parents’ front door. “Max, you know what I mean! Are we – do – have we –”

In the faint light of the nearby streetlamp, he could see her cheeks flush red and suddenly realized what she meant. “Are you asking if we’ve had sex?” He would have stumbled for real this time if he could even move, but his entire body had gone numb at the thought, and he was desperately trying to ignore the image that came immediately to mind. It’s fake. It’s not real. It’s all an act. It’s fake. It’s fake. Oh my god, it’s fake. “Please tell me your mother isn’t going to ask if we’ve had sex, because that is a conversation I am not sure I’m ready to have.”

“Of course not! I’m just trying to get a,” she paused, waving her hands in the air between them as she searched for the right word, “a baseline for our relationship. I think you’re different with someone you’ve had sex with than someone you haven’t, don’t you? Even if it’s just fake sex.”

God. Just hearing her say sex was the most erotic thing he’d ever – NO! IT’S FAKE IT’S FAKE IT’S FAKE IT’S FAKE IT’S FAKE!

He could not let himself go there, even in pretense, so he feigned an affronted gasp to cover up for his pained groan. “Absolutely not! What kind of man do you take me for? I will have you know, Zoey Clarke, that you better not be fake dating me just for my body!” That was okay, right? Mentioning his body? It was the kind of teasing that couples did all the time! Wasn’t it? Fake couples. Because none of this is real. Oh, god. There isn’t a song about fake dating, is there? Or not wanting to be fake dating? No, wait! Don’t even think about it! If you think about it, you might start psychically singing it, and then she’ll – she’s looking at you weird. Is that what she’s hearing? Is she hearing you sing to her right now? Quick! Think of something innocent! Um..uh…Puff, the Magic Dragon, lived by the sea…

She shot a quick look at her parents’ house and then back to him. As she always did when she was anxious and uncomfortable, she spoke a little too loudly when she joked, “Yeah, but…it’s not a bad body.”

Lived by the sea, and frolicked in the autumn mist in… Wait, had she just said what he thought she said? His mental soundtrack skipped abruptly to a different song. Oh, look into my eyes, you will see. What you mean to – Max, NO. He couldn’t imagine what she saw on his face because she blanched, while he was pretty sure he made a sound something like, “glahurk.”

“I crossed a line, didn’t I? I just thought, if we’re going to pretend to be a couple…couples joke like that, don’t they? And I –”

“It’s fine,” he reassured her. Don’t tell me it’s not worth tryin’ for. No. He had to stop this. He didn’t even like Bryan Adams! You can’t tell me it’s not worth dyin’ for. Gritting his teeth, he stared into her eyes and took two long breaths, trying to slow his racing heart and remind himself what he was even doing here.

He was here because Zoey needed him. And she needed him to be her fake boyfriend much more than she needed to be burdened by his real feelings right now. He was here because he was willing to do whatever it took to make Mitch happy in his final days.

Feeling once again clear, calm, and focused, he tucked his free hand under her chin, stroking the curve of her jaw with his thumb, his touch so light that he wasn’t sure if he’d imagine the softness of her skin. His voice was barely above a whisper as he said, “Of course it’s fine. Couples joke like that all the time. Even fake couples. I was just surprised, that’s all. This fake dating thing is going to take a little getting used to, for both of us. But we can do this. Together. Okay?” She nodded, but she still looked uncertain. “There’s something that’s still bothering you. What is it?”

She sighed, a tiny puff of air that lifted the stray strands of hair that curled across her cheek. “There is something, but it seems like too much to put on you, when you’re already doing so much for me already.” When her eyes darted away, he didn’t press her for an explanation; he just wanted until she was ready. “When I went over to see Mo earlier, he was there with Eddie. They, um, they kissed, and I was wondering if you – if you thought –”

The butterflies in his stomach went into overdrive as he realized what she was asking him. Were they going to have to kiss to sell this fiction? Could he even do it? Fake kissing wasn’t exactly the same as pretending that their movie nights had been fictional dates. Fake kissing was exactly like real kissing – only in this case, without the love. He honestly didn’t know if he’d be able to kiss Zoey and not let himself believe on some level that it was real. He wasn’t sure he could kiss her and not want to forget that, for her, it was all an act. He could kiss her, but she wouldn’t really be kissing back, and he wasn’t sure his heart could take that.

“Oh. I – I –” he stammered.

Before he could even begin to think of what to say next, he heard Maggie call out from her front porch, “Zoey? Is everything okay?”

“Oh, thank god,” Max breathed, grabbing her hand and leading her up the walk. They could hardly talk about how to navigate fake kisses with her mother looking on. Of course, they would have to address the issue eventually, but he needed a little more time. Or a lot more time.

His relief at Maggie’s interruption was genuine, so the bright smile he threw her as he escorted Zoey through the front door wasn’t entirely feigned. “Hey, Zoey said you didn’t mind if I join you all for dinner tonight. I hope it’s not an imposition –”

“Of course not,” Maggie reassured him quickly as she leaned forward to give her daughter a quick hug. “You know you’re always welcome here, Max.” When she stepped back, she took the bag he offered her with a small measure of surprise. “What’s this?”

“The flowers are for you, the wine is for dinner, and the ridiculous amount of gelato is for Mitch. A new place just opened down the street from my apartment, and I thought he might want to try it out. I may have overdone it a bit. Everything I’ve tried there has been so good, I couldn’t decide which he’d like the best, so I asked them to surprise me. The girls behind the counter picked their favorites, and I got a pint of each.”

Maggie laughed, juggling his bag. “Well, thank you. That’s – that’s very thoughtful of you. I’m sure Mitch will love them. He’s just in the other room, if you want to go in. Zoey, do you want to help me find some room in the freezer?”

“Ah, sure. Be right there,” Zoey murmured, hesitating by Max’s side as her mom disappeared around the corner. “That was really sweet, bringing all that for my dad. Was that because of our situation, or –?”

He smiled down at her, shaking his head slightly. “No, that really was just for Mitch. I actually picked them up a couple of nights ago, but I haven’t had a chance to bring them by.” Wrapping his arm around her waist, he leaned towards her and whispered, “Now, driving you crazy by not letting you get a peek into the bag? That was just for fun. But if you want to grab some gelato on a fake date, I’m sure I can arrange that.”

“It’s a fake date,” she said with a chuckle, elbowing him gently in the ribs before following her mom into the kitchen. Max’s gaze lingered on her until she disappeared around the corner. As he moved into the living room to join Mitch on the couch, he couldn’t quite hide the smile she left behind.

As she entered the kitchen, Zoey joined her mom at the refrigerator, where she was grabbing items to assemble a cheese plate. “How can I help?” she asked.

Her mom turned, letting the refrigerator close behind her. “Oh, you don’t need to worry about this. I’ve got it.” A beat of silence followed, in which Zoey waited for the other shoe to drop. “So, that was very sweet of Max, bringing all that gelato for Mitch.”

And there it was. “Yeah, he’s a thoughtful guy,”  she agreed, leaning against the counter as she grabbed a handful of grapes and added them to the tray, more to have an excuse not to meet her mother’s eyes than anything. When she first formulated her plan, she briefly considered letting her mom in on the truth. In the end, she decided against it; even if her mom understood what she was doing and why, she didn’t want her parents’ last days together to be tarnished by lies.

“Zoey,” Maggie said firmly, waiting until her daughter met her eyes to ask, “What is going on with you two?”

“What? We’re just friends!” she protested. Now that the moment was upon her, she wasn’t sure how to sell the lie.

Her mother arched her eyebrows. “I saw the two of you outside. You didn’t look like you were just friends.”

This was it. She either had to commit to this entire fake dating scheme or she had to pull the plug right now. She lifted one shoulder in a halfhearted shrug, her fingers toying idly with the discarded wrapping from the wheel of brie. “It’s…complicated,” she admitted – quite possibly the most honest thing she would ever say about this situation. Before she could second-guess her decision, she blurted, “Max and I decided to try dating. We have been dating, I mean. For a couple of weeks.”

If her mom was surprised, she didn’t show it. “All right. Well…how’s it going?”

She huffed, tossing the discarded wrappers aside. “I don’t know. Great!” Was that overselling it? “Good? They’re going…fine.” Maybe that was underselling it. She didn’t know! She wasn’t a great liar at the best of times, and this was hardly the best of times. Trying to recover, she explained, “It’s just complicated. You know, he’s my friend. He’s my best friend. I can’t help but think…if things go wrong…and also, you know, with this thing with dad, is this really the best time to be worrying about a relationship?” For someone who had come into the kitchen determined to lie, she was confessing a little too much of the truth. Scared of what she might say next, she snapped her mouth shut, pressing her lips together.

“Oh, Zoey,” her mom said, wrapping an arm around her. “I know this is difficult, but you know, whatever happens with your father, he only wants you to be happy. That’s all he’s ever wanted. All either of us have ever wanted. If Max makes you happy, then I think having him in your life right now? It couldn’t come at a better time.” She leaned back and brushed some hair off her daughter’s face. “What happened with Simon?”

She scoffed. “Oh, that is over,” she reassured her. “Completely. Totally. Nothing to worry about there.” Certainly nothing like her singing a sexy song to him – mere minutes after singing a love song to Max. Inadvertently breaking Max’s heart. And then kissing Simon in his office. While he was still engaged. And then avoiding him so they couldn’t talk about either the song or the kiss.

Talk about complicated.

“Hm. Well, as I told you before, whatever you decide, your father and I will always support you. We never wanted all of this to keep you from living your life and experiencing all those wonderful things we knew were ahead for you, like falling in love. I’m just glad you’ve finally realized you found the love that you were looking for.”

Zoey’s head paused mid-nod as she processed her mother’s words. That was a weird way of phrasing it, wasn’t it? Why not just say that she’s happy Zoey found the love she was looking for? “What do you mean, that I’ve finally realized it?” Maggie scoffed, picking up the tray and heading into the living room. Temporarily forgetting Max was waiting for her – and she might not want him to hear what her mother had to say – she followed quickly behind, swiping the bottle of wine on her way out the door. “Mom?”

“Well, come on, Zoey! It’s been obvious the two of you have been crazy about each other for years! We just honestly wondered if either of you would ever open your eyes and see it.”

“What? I – we – n-no! We aren’t – I mean, we are, but we weren’t –” she stammered, feeling her face grow red as she met Max’s eyes. His startled expression melted into a self-satisfied smile. Then she saw a quick flash of some emotion pass his face, but he looked away before she could figure out what it was. When he looked back at her a moment later, his expression was masked with a smile that didn’t quite meet his eyes. Meanwhile, Zoey wanted to curl up into a ball somewhere and hide.

“It looks like you guys have been a couple of steps ahead of us the whole time, but I’m glad we finally caught up,” Max interjected smoothly over Zoey’s incoherent stuttering. He scooted around the chair to wrap an arm around her waist, pulling her against his side, and she took a deep breath and leaned into him, grateful for the comfort of his presence. Staring down into her eyes, he murmured softly, “It took me longer than it should have to realize, but I couldn’t go on pretending I’m not absolutely crazy about Zoey for forever, could I?”

It’s all an act. He doesn’t mean it. Well, he might have meant it, if it weren’t all an act. But we already agreed that anything we said to each other right now doesn’t mean anything. Don’t forget that this was all your brilliant idea.

She realized he had fallen silent, probably waiting for her to say something in response. But she was too lost in his eyes to think of something to say. Her gaze fell to his lips, and she wondered – not for the first time in the last few months – how it would feel to kiss him. Sucking in a breath, she swayed closer to him, silently urging him to meet her halfway, but he released her and stepped away before their lips could meet.

“Where’s David and Emily?” he asked abruptly, taking the bottle from Zoey and heading to the wine cabinet to grab a few glasses.

Zoey hoped his apparent rejection had gone unnoticed, but she caught her mom throwing the two of them a quizzical look as she replied, “Oh, you know how it is. He got a little tied up with work, but they should be on his way. In fact, I think I hear them at the door now.”

And as easily as that, the moment was lost.

[neverheardnothing]

rewatching joe iconis and family lincoln center performance at 4 am instead of packing or sleeping just to feel something and i have so FEW and so MANY thoughts and yall are gonna hear em all. no i will not put this under a cut. im going to be an absolute bastard about this.

i love the story joe tells about why he's singing mitb as the first song so much. like. the spite of it all. the defiance of it all. the pride of it all. the dig it or fuck off and disappear of it all. the joe iconis of it all. 

“i know exactly the song im going to sing as my first song at the american songbook series.” i love that he highlights the fact that this is the american songbook series.

then immediately jumping right into broadway here i come with molly hager, the other song he is most known for!!!

every time i think about this performance i think about how this was the first (?) time this song was performed by them since the closing of bmc.

and then lance rubin comes up to sing try again. which is the only time that i know of that anyone but joe has sung this song.

i remember a remark made during watching it live that having someone else sing the song made it seem so clearly more about joe and his career. but also having lance sing it immediately makes me think of bbh closing early which yeah is part of joe’s career but also lance’s.

and also the line “if you’re an actor and another actor gets the part you auditioned for” reminds me of how lance found the auditioning process of acting and the whole [not acting part] of an acting career to be terrible which is why he quit to then become an author and the juxtaposition of him singing try again is Something. but also he DID try again he is just applying his efforts to a different creative field and it’s working out great for him. good for lance rubin.

lol i haven’t even talked about the actual performance aspect of this song anyways it’s very different from the two versions ive seen of joe doing it. he plays it a lot more comical. i love it.

sidenote not specific about this performance, but i love love LOVE the line and the music at “use the stairs, walk to the street. see the people, feel the heat, and apply yourself again.”

and also the line “when they cast you out to sea, there’s a lifeboat manned by me called try and try again” will never not make me think of bsol/last on land and bonus lance was also in that show! it just keeps circling around.

everything about these past 3 songs performed at this venue in this set list order in this moment at joe’s career is honestly so wonderful. like you had a songs about an anxiety attack, a suicide/loss of self in success, and repeated failures before this song all sung by individuals. two of these songs were written at points where joe felt frustrated/sad with his career. one written in the aftermath of specific frustration about the first closing of be more chill. one an actual song from bmc. like what a SETLIST for your first three songs! fucking michael in the bathroom, broadway here i come, and try again. truly something.

THE WHISKEY SONG!! i love hearing joe sing so much. while i think we can all agree he’s not the most skilled singer there’s something special about hearing a composer perform their own work. he adds like 3 levels of charm to make up for lack of singing skills lol. just a very charismatic guy.

lance rubin back on tamborine for the next bit of the song and he’s like laughing through it. not completely sure what he’s laughing about honestly but this Is a comedic song (after 3 real downers of songs) and also joe was playing it up.

jared weiss down on the floor with his guitar playing along. that’s its own bullet point.

audience cheering as more family members start coming on stage! i love that the band is getting cheers. love that!!!

the camera isn’t on him but from the audio, nick blaemire is presumably running around giving high fives to people in the audience.

i can’t exactly tell with the camera angle and the lighting but i think that more family members get up from different seats in the audience or at least enter in the back and walk through the audience to get to the stage during this instrumental break. reminds me of how joe loves theater that physically touches you. giving you high fives in this case.

love liz lark brown. she plays it pretty like. frenetic and frazzled. love it.

amara, badia, danielle, will, and nick are just chillin sitting on the steps of the stage. 100% contributes to the vibe of this song. top fuckin notch.

SOMEONE screams AH during the drunk part of the song and i cannot figure out who but it gives me so much life.

jared pulling lance down to the floor with him.

jason going “man.... this place is a dump” like i LOVE the irreverence.

everyone actually getting back up and also converging On the stage during the (kind of) acapella break.

and now your whole gang is up on the stage at the fancy ass appel room singing your what sounds like a mostly upbeat fun song but is actually about self medication with alcohol and it’s a fucking jam. i love the 3 solo songs and then bringing in everyone for a big group number.

sidenote not about this specific performance: the lyrics “i’ll pour some more and then—AND THEN?—i’ll pass out and then—AND THEN!” the and thens were not on the things to ruin album and i wonder why not ALL the time. was it just deemed extraneous? or was this an innovation after the album was recorded?

i love that you can see the band singing along.

yesterdays / i can’t relate. i love this song i fucking love it. i love the synthy keyboard that was an active choice made. which means that joe is not the one accompanying jared in this song.

jared: i hate today. joe: *snorts in the background*

“i like music you can hold” -> old records black suits, susannah’s obsession with music which was of course in vinyl format back then

will once said hearing lgw was very exciting because he’s first and foremost a fan of joe’s so he was hearing a new joe song for the first time and the world got just a bit larger and i think about that quote a lot in relation to this song because i was like Oh i Get What He Means now because this is the first new joe song i heard since like getting into his work and i felt that world getting a bit bigger.

jared’s monotone chorus on top of the girls underneath is so good. it’s so fucking good i cannot.

liz lark brown velociraptor fuckin classic. specifically in this performance the weird ass electric guitar noise at “there’s a dinosaur” is SO good. i love it.

i know people say Trans Vibes from next song (jeff) but this song also gives me trans vibes. i think joe inadvertently writes stuff trans people relate to because of his propensity to write for People Who Are Different.

people cheering as will takes off his jacket hell yeah.

i am way more used to the jeremy morse version of this song and really consider it more his so it’s so fun to hear will sing it.

i love the canon of the “oh”s so much.

after will sings “i go to the window looking out and what do i see? myself just staring back at me.” and someone in the audience AUDIBLY goes “oh.” like what a MOMENT. way more subtle than when someone screamed “WHAT” at the “naked korean girl” reveal during the pipe night performance but on the same tier of Great Audience Reactions.

smooth fuckin gliss bro i love it. arms out by side. i love it.

Classic Jason Sweettooth Williams Singing Helen. but this time they added like some REAL like. oh god i have no idea how to describe it. electric crunchy electric guitar noises. and it’s so good.

i havent mentioned this yet but in the background of every song people who are not in it or are backup vocals are just sitting and jamming along and it’s so nice because me fuckin too.

honest to god just have to give a timestamp for this but bullet point for whatever the fuck eric is doing in the background here.

will and katrina circling each other singing directly into each other’s faces. so good.

the Unexpected dynamic change and following crescendo i am Living.

katrina rose dideriksen riffing up top. yes. YES.

joe starting to play helen sharp and then forgetting part of his introduction to the song is so good.

the inevitable laughter at any performance of this song at “it is not lost on me you’re all here at my show”

i know nothing about the movie death becomes her so i honestly always just think about joe when this song gets performed. also thinking about how in the youtube premiere of this song, joe was talking about how lauren was shouting out the names of all the musical theater composers joe is jealous of.

right place/wrong time. i read a bsol review a while ago about how katrina rose dideriksen was underutilized and gotta say i Agree holy Shit let her sing More.

i also remember how joe once said this song felt the most personal to him and that he cried when writing it

police siren piano.

the first time in this entire song they sing in sync is at the line “i wonder if his/her life is just like mine” and i just start screaming.

when eric and katrina turn to each other for the first time and start singing At each other!!!!!!!!!!!

honey! thinking about jen ash tep talking about how Each performance of this song gets Wilder and Wilder.

love it when nick just gets off the stage and starts singing to people in the audience. apparently one of the people was will’s mom lol.

ACAPELLA BREAK!!!!!! joe just fully gets up from piano and starts WILDLY clapping along!!!!

woman of a certain age! i remember when the live show happened the album had not come out yet and then when the yt premiere of it happened it Had been out for a week or so.

piano note elevator bell

the electric guitar is doing some fucking weird ass things in this song and i am living so fucking much for it.

the riffs badia does are so fucking incredible i immediately paused this video to go and watch her sing big fat ruby again just because i wanted more badia content.

the story behind old flame is so good and joe waiting until the last fuckin moment to give her the song is so fuckin funny.

i love love love these types of joe songs that are like 7 minute long story epics like right place/wrong time and the actress and ammonia and old flame.

“the best way to get past the past is to shoot it in the head” and then the audience cheers and i fucking love it. my commentary is getting shorter. it’s 6 am and i’m tired can you tell. i also just had a lot of thoughts about this early on and less thoughts about later on.

revolution song. the deep ass fucking electric bass is So good i Will go apeshit. like honestly that might be my favorite smaller detail of this song. like i imagine if i were in the room it might be loud and deep enough that i could feel it In my chest. like you can Feel the revolution coming.

i love the faster tempo revolution song has in the cabaret version.

i also love the cabaret specific lines of “evolution in the institution”

joey is a punk rocker was honestly not ever on the list of songs i thought would get performed here but im so glad that they did. like the obvious choice would have been veins for annie golden but they went this route. obsessed with this choice. obsessed with the fact that amphibian replaced this song as the act 2 opener. obsessed that annie is the one singing this.

i am never not screaming about wave and yall know this. just throwback to me losing it in the tags in a reblog of picture of the wave passage going on about how it really does mirror joe’s career and bmc specifically. and again this song being performed for the first (?) time since bmc closed makes the “so today on a hill in las vegas” and onward part SO fucking sad i literally just started crying. the entire song being in past tense up until that part. i will just go die now.

will in the yt premiere talking about texting the line “our energy would simply prevail” in the leadup to bmc coming back.

find the bastard. for some reason when this happened live i thought it was gonna be outlaw that was performed. 

i swear to god it is literally physically impossible for me not to AT LEAST mouth along to “what’s your name, what’s your name” during this song

NAMES ARE FOR ACCOUNTANTS.

MY NAME IS AWFUL LONG AS IT’S THE LYRICS OF THIS SONG.

the goodbye song. it’s never not sad. i love love love that this song is the final song every concert. i also love the recent lore of finding out that penny dreadfuls was the encore song at concerts before they became too long and it had to get cut.

finally gonna mention the background car lights. what a beautiful backdrop.

also since im always on my wrol bullshit i love how fucking clearly you can hear him at the end

accelerando accelerando accelerando. insert [joe iconis peaked when he wrote the accelerando in the goodbye song post of mine].

katrina singing an octave up is always SO fucking impressive i am so impressed by her voice she is so fucking good i love her so much

the bows are so fucking sweet i love them.

goodnight it’s 7 am.

[semi-imaginary-place]

I started watching deca-dence

1: oh what was that called. there’s a name for this tech aesthetic.... also the city is floating on monster goo which is also their energy resource... is that really a good design?????? why is there open access to the monster goo i mean those kids are totally going to fall in. Oh boss dude’s a super secret agent thing. lots of reveals this ep. That action sequence at the end was really cool but wow i do not like those squishing sound effects. also, of all the livestock to raise, why cows??? per pound of protein, cows are horribly inefficient especially when land and resources like water are scare.

2. We have a post apocalyptic society and they kept bagpipes of all things??? I’ve noticed this in fiction and perhaps this is true of real life but sustained conflict coincides with the glorification of the warrior/soldier social class. oh god and now the creators are doing a post moderist take, yay capitalism. this is a good take on the isekai “transported to a game world”/mmo lightnovel genre (see past post). what makes something “real” I was playing of a ttrpg around that concept... mikey’s got all the flags to die horrifically and be part of kaburagi’s tragic backstory. lol kaburagi got turned into a mod. There’s also something dehumanizing and horrifying in managing a society like this all to maintain the status quo. so let’s see if I have this straight, the remnants of capitalism made deca-dence and then a bunch of little robot people who are incentivized via a game system to destroy the squishy monsters. the city design makes sense now it wasn’t made with things like safety or efficiency or any regard for the residents in mind, it was made to look cool. Living in a fuel tank is exactly the type of bullshit to expect from a videogame.

3: kurenai has the vibes of that one cool npc that the the main character out grows to show how strong you’ve become. (the trope is rife with misogyny. who was the one that talked about it? ... femfreq?), wonder what the show will do with it. good job deconstructing the instant expert trope. lit. unregulated capitalism. what is corporations replaced government but for little cyborg people. curious about this minato guy. the 175 years until decommission or whatever makes me wonder how long all of this has been going on. on the screen with the eurasia bubble, were other structures, so i wonder whats happening elsewhere in the world.

4. the game trailer style shots.... the juxtaposition of the tankers discussing battle strategy for a life or death situation, with the cyborgs excited for the next raid event and talking about the game’s story is real good. its a revolving door of mood whiplash. oof dramatic irony since the entertainment corp also seems to control gadoll numbers. Why do none of the Power wear armor? oh right aesthetics and game logic, i answered my own question. I was thinking about this for a little while but kaburagi really does have the set up to be an isekai/mmo light novel protag so I’m really glade we have natsume as well. If done improperly her character type can get kind of annoying, the show did a good job of humanizing her which is important since so much of the disconnect between a game world and a lived reality hinges on her. why isn’t altitude sickness a problem for anyone?

5. yikes. saved twice within the first 10 minutes. maybe dont charge in there natsume. and it was the cool lady too! oh shit limit release. now the stakes are up. isnt kaburagi totally going to get his little head chopped off and the his little green battery extracted.

...

...

...

6. I’ve always had a soft spot for the struggle against the inevitable and unmovable. i was wondering how they were managing the squishies population. just where is this lake? what weird ass hazing system has kaburagi ended up in... is this the slow part of the anime? where they save up frames for the finale?

7. i just realized that kaburagi purposefully chose dog faced characters twice in a row. like he can choose to look like whatever he wants and he good, i feel comfortable looking like this. good for him. How did they punch a hole in the wal anyways, mechanically? with gadoll? We’ve see that they can either change the projection surrounding deca-dence, or actually have full control of all material int he bubble. oh kabu-san you are finally starting to think. but its not the gadoll that are the root of the problem, its the deca-dence system. btw since cyborgs run on the green juice which i think is made from gadolls??? how does kabu plan on fueling everyone. he hasn’t thought about it has he. of course the gadoll have a kill switch. do the tankers have one...?

8. a setup episode. my heart was racing during the avatar retrieval part, so much tension. jill is great. not sure why kaburagi doesnt just tell natsume whats going on. i do think it’d be a shock and a lot to take in just like when the gadoll reset on the mountain, but it’d make coordinating much easier. as is taking her along while not telling her whats going on doesnt feel right. also the green slanty eyed cyborgs given me bad vibes from the start, after all he’s the one that told mikey about removing the limiter. I’m kinda sad we only have 12 episodes so we have to enter the finale already. i would have loved to see the tanker teams, natsume and fei, and minato and kaburagi relationships fleshed out.

9. YEAH YOU SHOULD HAVE TOLD HER EARLIER. so she would have time to process all that world shaking information not in the middle of the operation when it could cost her her life! also doesn’t this mean all the cyborgs still alive are now trapped in the waste disposal place.

10. i totally forgot about that tunnel. that said it looks kinda fragile, how’d it survive the explosion? And how did the robo crew get a hideout?? jill is amazing. she’s like a wizard. Natsume just doesn’t get a break, no ones explained to her the cyborg-avatar thing. I’m too invested in this show to analyze anything.

11. holy shit i wonder what the last few episodes were going to be about. they’re going to black hole the whole place. also we can finally hear pipopi! I thought it a bit funny pruple nose seemed to be taking advice for them but really eh was taking orders? so minato did the tremendously stupid thing of logging out and then hopping on a shuttle to get from orbit to deca-dence so he could talk to kaburagi face to face. even if they take out the gadoll, that doesn’t stop the deca0dence system from having a kill switch on the bubble.

12. POMDOROSA DID THE END SCENE ART. it really is 7 degrees of separation, they have a tumblr here. right as the natsume flashbacks started, I knew what was going to happen. Was it really safe inside the drill thing?? ah whatever. Kaburagi really went all out and busted himself huh. He probably didn’t actually need to use so much force that it’d break decadence. ah I’m rambling. I binged watched this show in 1 day. i started tearing up at the natsume flahsbacks... I dont remember what i just watched it was pure experience. I do wonder whats happening on other continents.. Jill! I can’t believe it took you 3 years to organize your files and find kaburagi’s backup! well i mean its realistic but still.

Deca-Dence is very good, like not even talking about the thematic stuff the execution in both animation and writing are both really good.

[secret-diary-of-an-fa]

The End of Year Awards Are Back... and This Time, It’s Personal!

And so we approach the end of 2020, the year that never really began. On paper, at least, it looked incredibly promising. There were lots of great movies slated to come out; culture seemed slightly less paucity-riddled and pointless than usual; good things were in the air. Then COVID happened, and basically fucked everything. Actually, that’s not quite true: my personal year has been fucking spectacular. I’m in a long-term relationship with a gorgeous woman for the first time in forever- no more abrupt trysts and stolen moments for yer humble narrator: I’ve got a sumptuously plus-size lady-friend who actually wants to spend substantial amounts of time me (and has knockers you could sled down, were you so inclined). I also started a Youtube channel where I upload performances of magic tricks I’ve designed and a few people seem to quite like it. Oh, and I’ve written four novels, with a fifth well on its way to completion. Unfortunately, that’s my life, not the life of our civilisation and culture as a whole. The fact that bugger all happened in that makes this end-of-year round-up a little hard to write. With that in mind, I’m going to hand out the gongs for 2020, but I’m also going to do my usual dodge of giving end-of-year awards to things that I discovered in 2020, even if they came out the year, decade or century before. It’s not like any right-minded person gives a hoot about my opinion anyway. Right then, everyone clear on the rules? Then let’s roll up our sleeves and plunge elbow deep into the fetid trough of our decaying society to ferret out the best and worst of the Things That Humans Have Done Recently.

The ‘I Like It Because It Confused Thick People’ Award for Best High-Concept Sci-Fi Movie... … Goes to the sterling Tenet, a spy film that used entropy inversion and symmetric, opposite-direction timelines within the same physical space the way most spy films use hacking and guns. Christopher Nolan films are always intricately constructed and meticulously-executed, but this one must have had Japanese Master Puzzle-Box Makers crying into their breakfast cereal. Is breakfast cereal a thing in Japan? I honestly I have no idea. For some reason, all I can imagine is a sort of dry kedgeree where all the ingredients that aren’t rice have been removed. But I digress. For all its intricacy, Tenet is actually really easy to follow once you’ve grasped the basic premise that there’s a machine that lets people move backwards through time, and that this makes them appear to move in reverse to the rest of the world while they perceive the rest of the world as moving in reverse. Nolan maintains a mastery of cinematic visual language that makes even the most abstruse concept easy to wrap your head around. Nonetheless, following Tenet’s release, dumb people took to the Internet on mass to complain that the film was confusing and stupid, never once realising that their inability to conceptualise time in non-linear ways was their own failing, not Nolan’s. I find that refreshing. It’s nice to see a sci-fi film that’s actually made for smart-cookie sci-fi fans and doesn’t give a hoot if it alienate thickos.

The Award for Most Inexplicably Compelling Web Comic… … Goes to Questionable Content. I originally started reading Questionable Content because I’d heard that the female lead and love interest was a plus size lassie and that shit’s my jam. However, the art style makes everyone look like a skinny indie-type, regardless of their actual, in-universe size, so it doesn’t do much to titillate my Fat Admiring Titillation Centres. And yet, I’m over five hundred ‘episodes’ in and still reading. The thing is, I couldn’t tell you why for the life of me. Maybe it’s the hope that the art style will evolve to the point where the people look like actual human beings with different body types (but then, why would I care unless I was invested for some other reason). Maybe it’s the fact that when I get one of the many, many obscure band or pop culture references, I feel a little buzz of kinship with the writer. Maybe it’s the fact that it takes place in a universe where robots and superheroes are things that regularly happen, yet most of the strips are just normal people chatting shit in a coffee shop and the slice-of-life narrative/sci-fi setting appeals to my sense of juxtaposition. I don’t know, but I find it really compelling to the extent that I’ve pissed away entire days reading it. I have a horrible feeling that it’s a short step from this to really angsty hentai. If I start singing the praises of that, somebody please shoot me in the crotch.

The ‘Forest Gump Debating Peter Andre’ Award For Most Sustained or Elongated Instance of Stupidity… … Goes to Donald Trump. I was tempted just to award this gong to his entire presidency, but that wasn’t just stupid: it was also venal, corrupt, horrifying and punctuated by terrible moments of low cunning. So, instead, this award goes to his ‘soup’ rant. For those of you who missed it, the former President of the United States spent a really, really long time (in the run-up to the election) wittering on about protestors throwing cans of soup at police. What was dumb and weird about it was that he appeared to be extolling the virtues of soup as a siege weapon, going into really specific detail about how it was better than a brick because it could be thrown with more force, finishing with the utterance that protestors would just argue that “this is just soup for my family” if they were caught with the cans… which is phrased wrong in such a subtle and inhuman way it’s hard to imagine that anyone actually ever said it, at least in those words. I have no idea if protestors in America were throwing soup cans at police (which would be entirely justified considering how many innocent people American police have murdered in cold blood quite recently) or if this was a fantasy dreamed up by the former president in the cloudcuckooland that is his diseased little brain. Either way, the connected rant was balls deep in dumb.

The Most Disturbing Unintentional Impression of Vincent Price Award… … Goes to the narrator from One Step Beyond, a Twilight Zone-esque anthology of weirdness that purports to be based on true events and has to be seen to be believed. The stories are oft-disturbing instances of spooky-inflected human drama and can occasionally be quite disconcerting… until they’re book-ended by a dude who sounds like Vincent Price reading a children’s book in a really earnest voice. It’s weird and no, it didn’t hit our screens in Space Year 2020, it dates back to Ye Olden Times of the 1950s or 60s, when men were men, women were women and technincolour was a distant dream that could get you strung up for witchcraft. Nonetheless, I only encountered it this year, so it’s getting its prize. I warned you I was going to pull this shit, but you foolish fools didn’t listen.

The ‘It’s Not Gay If I Don’t Clench’ Award for Cognitive Dissonance… … Goes to Amazon Prime, the content-making branch of evil, tax-dodging, anti-monopoly-law-breaking megalith Amazon. You see, while Big Daddy Amazon is off being incredibly sinister and worrying, like a shifty vampire hanging off the economy’s throat, the creative people at Amazon Prime are busy making or acquiring some of the flat-out best TV ever committed to a streaming-service, from the extra-weird slice of fun-pie that is The Tick, to the entertainingly horrifying cultural dissection of The Boys to the utterly unique Carnival Row, to the superbly adapted American Gods. It’s a bit like discovering that Geoffrey Dahlmer single-handedly created a body of artistic work to rival Vincent Van Gogh’s when he wasn’t pouring acid onto the brains of emotionally vulnerable young adults. It gives me a headache.

The Clint Eastwood Award for Most Effective Older Gentlemen… … Goes to Joe Biden, for unseating dipshit in chief Donald Trump with the casual badassery of a Wild West gunslinger shooting a baddy (probably played by Leonardo Di Caprio) in the balls. I mean, he’s not the best Prez America could ask for but a) as a Brit I don’t have to care and b) anyone who ousts Trump gets mad props from me.

The ‘It’s a Pity Everything Else is Shit Now’ Award for Best New Ongoing Series… … Goes to my own Youtube series, Victor The Magician, in which I claim to be a reality-hopping, interdimensional wizard on an endless quest to… perform magic, basically. I’ll admit that the quality is super-variable (Youtube algorithms and their constant demand for fresh content be a harsh mistress, etc., etc.). However, when I’m good, I’m really good. If you’re looking for a punch-line other than the fact that this whole bit is a self-promoting plug, it’s this: my Youtube series really was the best thing to come out this year. Not because I’m great or anything, just by default. A promising year really did turn into a cultural wasteland the moment COVIDius Rex reared its scaly head.

The Zombie Ian Curtis Award for Most Crushing Disappointment… … Goes to Rick and Morty Series 4. As I think I’ve said before, it was still good, but it just didn’t reach the dizzy heights of nihilistic lunacy achieved in series 1-3. I think the problem is that the audience is meant to learn something from Rick’s poor choices, even if he doesn’t, because the creators saw the amazing success of Bojack Horseman and decided they wanted a slice of that sweet, tangy deconstructionist pie. It worked up to a point in the climax of Series 3, but having made their point, the showrunners probably should have moved onto a different point. They forgot that the appeal of Rick Sanchez is his combination of ‘entertaining car-crash of a human being’ and ‘unstoppable superbeing’. Push him through an arc and you risk breaking the thing that makes him and the show so endlessly watchable. Rick, unlike Bojack, just wasn’t built for heavy introspection. Also, the team hired on new writers who were less than familiar with the characters, setting and subtext, and that’s always an invitation to disaster.

The Special Sir Mixalot Award for Posteriority… ...Goes to… my girlfriend and glamorous assistant, Mystic Miss Terri, who’s arse is gorgeous and majestic.

The ‘Are They STILL Making That?’ Award for a Show You Forgot Existed And is Now Back… … Goes to Supernatural, which never technically went away and whose final series is apparently being broadcast on one of the 4 channels (though who knows which one, any more), It’s kind of nice to realise it’s still out there and be reminded that there are still people who care deeply about what happens to it. It’s like when you remember ‘oh yeah, [insert cute animal here] actually exists and isn’t just an internet meme. That’s nice’. Also, it’s good to see Jared Padelacki working steadily. It can’t be easy to find acting gigs when most producers just want to shoot you and mount your antlers over a fireplace.

The Irritating Magician Award for Something That Just Won’t Fuck Off… ...Goes to this blog entry, which is three pages long in Word. Good grief. Bye y’all! See you next year, assuming that the last few days of 2020 don’t culminate in a civilisation-destroying attack by giant space-ants. If that seems worryingly specific, let’s just say that- as Leonard Cohen would say “I’ve seen the future and, brother, it is murder”… by giant space-ants.

[trashyslashers]

Literally anything you want to write, involving Danny Johnson, I love how you write him!!!!!

Here you go!!! It was fun writing for Danny in a way that wasn’t him just tormenting tf out of reader.

———————————————————————————————————–

Click 

The sudden, soft sound from somewhere behind you caught your attention almost immediately, and instantaneously set you on edge. You were the only Survivor currently at the campfire as most others were in trials; the handful of those that weren’t were trying to steal some rare time for themselves by meandering through the surrounding woods, leaving you completely alone and isolated. 

It was incredibly rare for a Survivor to have the campfire all to themselves, and it was a constant toss up of how the time alone would be: either peaceful, considering that they didn’t have to deal with the arguments or sour moods that some of the others brought to the table, or absolutely nerve wracking as you had no one there to watch your back. An alone Survivor was not only a very uncommon occurrence, but also an incredibly dangerous one seeing how their solitude made them much more vulnerable to the leering eyes of any passing Killers, something you always feared whenever you found yourself alone for more than a minute.

You felt that that exact fear was becoming reality as the feeling of eyes boring into the back of your head became increasingly apparent as you sat, frozen on one of the many logs surrounding the campfire as you kept yourself focused on any distant sound your ears could pick up. 

It’s just your imagination, you told yourself. You aren’t used to the complete silence - your brain is making you hear stuff that isn’t there. Surely, you were just creeping yourself out - working yourself up over nothing as you were so unused to the silence and solitude. 

At least, that’s what you tried to convince yourself of.

Click

Click, click 

Again, this time from more to the left than last time. What was that? It was a vaguely familiar sound; one that you know you’ve heard before but were struggling to determine where exactly from. That by itself creeped you out, but not nearly as much as knowing that you - probably - weren’t alone out there anymore. 

Who could it be?“Jake? - Meg?” You called out tentatively, straining your ears to pick up on any sort of responding sound. Those two usually spent a fair amount of time out in the woods, right? Jake was a pretty solitary guy and admitted that he felt more at home in the woods than anywhere else, and Meg often went for runs to pass time. It had to be one of them.

No answer. Only another soft click, almost directly to your left now.

Your head snapped to the side, your eyes scanning along the dark wood line for any indicator of who else was out there. Despite not seeing anyone or anything, your anxiety didn’t relent in the slightest and you prepared yourself to run as it was starting to feel like you were in some sort of danger. A fair amount of Killers were able to sneak around undetected - the Wraith being the first one to come to mind, whose ability to cloak himself was often the bane of your existence. He was rarely seen outside of trials though, right? There’s no way it was him - he was probably the most solitary of all the Killers. The Pig? No - she wasn’t the type to really stalk Survivors outside of trials. Myers. Your heart froze in your chest once that thought crossed your mind. It has to be Myers.

A quick blur of white passed your peripheral vision, and right away you realized who it was. 

No, they were shorter than Myers. 

“Danny, you’re an asshole, you know that right?” 

Of course he knew it, and it wasn’t like he’d give a shit that you thought he was an asshole - he was well aware of the fact and had no intention of changing it. 

That’s also part of why you loved him. 

“Did you get any good ones?” You asked, the slight hint of a laugh on your voice though you were hardly amused. Danny’s pulled this kind of nonsense several times before, but you’ve yet to get used to it. He always managed to make it much more ominous than it needed to be by creeping around the foliage - he’s admitted in the past that you were his favorite out of all the Survivors to go after and scare, especially since you two became involved with each other.

Danny was a collector; everyone knew that by now, and his favorite thing to collect were photos of both dead victims and soon-to-be victims alike - with you being his favorite subject. He’d shown you his growing assortment of photos he’d taken of you, Polaroids upon Polaroids of you in various situations and scenes, and he seemed especially proud of the ones that were taken without your knowledge. At first you absolutely hated it, but you grew fonder of it as time went on.

It was endearing in a weird, creepy way. 

You stood up from your seat, making your way towards the treeline to meet him as he slunk out from the cover that the trees provided. His steps were much quicker than yours were, and once within arms reach you couldn’t stop yourself from reaching up and draping your arms around his neck and shoulders as best you could. 

“You never answered me, you know.” You said teasingly, your voice low as you tugged his mask up so you could see his face and press a kiss to his chapped lips. You briefly worried that one of the other Survivors would show up and see the two of you like you were - but it didn’t really matter if they did, did it? Sure, Survivor and Killer relationships were….. taboo, to say the least, but it’s not like they weren’t allowed. A handful of the others knew about your involvement with Danny and while they weren’t exactly too thrilled with it, they didn’t treat you any differently or scorn you for it. 

Your attention was brought down to Danny’s hands as he fiddled with his camera, watching as he clicked through about five recently taken photos of you. Most were from a distance and hard to make out, but one was a close up of you sitting, with your front turned towards the camera and your eyes wide, probably taken when you were looking out into the woods to try and see who was out there. The glow from the fire illuminated your skin warmly, and something about the juxtaposition of the darkness behind you with the brightness of the fire made the photo incredibly alluring. 

You looked nice, if you were being honest. 

“I think that one’s probably my favorite, out of every single one you’ve ever taken of me..” You laughed quietly, your arms still resting over his shoulders as he nodded in agreement. His reluctance to talk was unusual seeing as how usually it was the exact opposite and he’d refuse to shut up, but you didn’t want to pry and hurt his pride by asking what was wrong.

You had a feeling, though. In rare, tender moments with him in the past he’d admitted that he, to a degree, missed Roseville, that he missed his old life. Of course, he came to the Fog willingly and enjoyed the killing that the Entity let him do, but he absolutely hated playing by its rules and missed being able to just… run amok and go about his business as he pleased. You assumed that creeping on you and the occasional other Survivor outside of trials was his own way of reliving his old life, and you had no intent of interfering with that.

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Psycho Analysis: Christmas Special Villains

(WARNING! This analysis contains SPOILERS!)

Much like I did for Halloween, I wanted to do a bunch of one-shot or at the very least minor Christmas villains, which presented me with an interesting problem – most Christmas specials don’t really have villains. Usually the main obstacle to overcome in any holiday special is some sort of emotional fault of the main character, a lack of belief in the spirit of the holiday, or something to that effect, and when there is an actual villain, it tends to just be ones from the show at large with a Christmas-related scheme. Like I’m not doing Princess Morbucks or the Kanker sisters for this.

Luckily, There were a few I was sure on, and I managed to scrounge up a few more to deliver five lovingly-wrapped holiday villains. We have:

Mrs. Claus from The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy

Ghost Writer from Danny Phantom

Robot Santa from Futurama

Edna Jucation and the Faculty Four from Codename: Kids Next Door

The Woodland Critters from South Park

Here’s the most interesting thing: Despite Christmas stories tending to lean more towards internal conflict and self-reflection, when they do have actual, tangible threats like these, they tend to be honestly and genuinely great. This is in stark contrast to A lot of the villains from the Halloween specials, who tended to just be big scary baddies without much oomph to them.

Actor: Mrs. Claus is portrayed by Carol Kane, an incredibly prolific actress who you may know best as Valerie, the wife of Miracle Max from The Princess Bride. And much like in that film, she manages to be as enjoyable and funny as the guy playing her husband, which is a tall order indeed – in that film it was Billy Crystal, and in the special it’s Gilbert Gottfried.

Ghost Writer is portrayed by Will Arnett of all people. This was post-Gob Bluth but pre-Batman and BoJack, so while not unknown by any stretch it’s definitely weird to go back and see him in a Butch Hartman action cartoon of all places. He does a great job, as to be expected; when has he ever done poorly?

In his first appearance, Robot Santa was voiced by none other than John Goodman. Normally I’d say Goodman would be perfect for the role of Santa, but… this one’s a maniacal robotic serial killer. It’s a wonderfully jarring juxtaposition. After that, John DiMaggio gave Robot Santa a voice for his other appearances, and he does a good job for sure. Obviously he’s no John Goodman, but really, who is?

Edna Jucation is voiced by Candi Milo, and the Faculty Four are played by Dee Bradley Baker and Darran Norris; Baker is the Unintelligible Tutor and Thesaurus Rex, while Norris is Mr. Physically Fitastic and the Human Text. These are all top-tier veteran voice actors, and they do a fine job, but I can’t particularly say they really make any of these characters stand out or be memorable, which is a shame.

As to be expected, the Woodland Critters are voiced by Trey Parker and Matt Stone. Big shock there. Even less shocking is that they are perfectly funny as these depraved animals.

Motivation/Goals: Out of all of these, I think it’s really fitting that Mrs. Claus is the one with the best motivation. As the HEAD head vampire in the North Pole, she has turned Santa into a vampire and put a halt on Christmas because she is overworked and exhausted, having to do all the household chores all year while Santa only works one night. It is absolutely, perfectly understandable that she snapped… but apparently this isn’t even the first time, as Santa mentions at the end this has happened on multiple prior occasions. You think he’d treat her better after the second or third time, but then we wouldn’t have a plot.

I’d say that Ghost Writer and the Woodland Critters are tied for the next spot; both of them have solid reasons for doing what they’re doing. Ghost Writer was just a humble author trying to finish a Christmas story in time for Christmas, but unfortunately this caught the eye of the extremely Scroogey Danny Phantom, who absolutely hates Christmas due to traumatic events caused by his family fighting on Christmas in the past. Danny, in a moment of incredible callousness, blasts the poor ghost’s manuscript to bits and then proceeds to rub it in, which drives GW to breaking the annual truce and using his powers to torment Danny by trapping him in a Christmas story where he and everyone else can only speak in rhyme. It’s honestly hard to feel sympathy for Danny here, but GW does take it a bit too far.

The Woodland Critters, on the other hand, are just utterly depraved… but that’s to be expected seeing as they are the creations of Eric Cartman, inhabiting a Christmas story whose sole reason for existing is to make Kyle look like a tool. In the story, they get Kyle knocked up with the Antichrist. You see, there master is Satan, and they want nothing more than for his spawn to be born into the world. They really just exist as a reason for Cartman to rip on Kyle for being a Jew at Christmastime, as Kyle himself points out in their debut episode.

Edna and the Faculty Four are a bit simple and amusing, as is befitting of a gimmicky villain from The world of the KND. They team up with the Delightful Children because Substitute Teacher’s Day is virtually unknown compared to Christmas, the kind of absurd, wacky reason for villainy you’d expect from a world where some of the most feared supervillains include an evil dentist and a vampire who spanks people. Robot Santa is likewise extremely simple, yet effective: every Christmas he flies down to Earth to punish the naughty – which is everyone except Zoidberg. This is due to a programming oversight that left his standards set way too high, so no one can ever measure up. Except Zoidberg. There’s really not much more to him than that, but really, does their need to be?

Final Fate: Mrs. Claus is redeemed at the end of the special thanks to Billy, who helps her understand the true meaning of Christmas and who heals her husband so that he can apologize. Things seem like they might work out for real this time because now Malcolm McDowell’s vampire is around to help with tidying up, so hooray! Happy ending here!

Ghost Writer gets thwarted because Danny picks up an orange; as Ghost Writer never watched Drake & Josh and thus didn’t realize that “door hinge” is an acceptable rhyme, he was unable to continue writing his story and got beat up by Danny and his rogues gallery and then thrown into Walker’s prison for breaking the yearly truce in the Ghost Zone. At least he got to complete his book?

The Woodland Critters go out when Santa comes in and blasts them away with a shotgun… but since they are technically fictional characters, they show up in Imaginationland to cause problems. Still, it’s reassuring to know they can be taken out with simple firearms.

Edna Jucation, the Faculty Four, and Robot Santa really don’t have any canonical final fate; they just get defeated and then go on their merry way. In Robot Santa’s case, he actually showed up quite a few more times after his initial appearance to wreak havoc, but the Faculty Four and Edna were entirely oneshot antagonists.

Final Thoughts & Score: Christmas honestly fares a lot better than Halloween does as far as I can see. The villains tend to be a lot more thematic, or at the very least they have more personality and thematic function. Halloween doesn’t really have any sort of core themes to work off of as opposed to Christmas, which has a lot of reoccurring themes in works based around it. Still, most of these characters just settle on being funny.

Mrs. Claus and the Woodland Critters are the best of the bunch here, and both earn themselves a spot on the Nice List with a 9/10 each. Mrs. Claus is just a lot of fun, mostly because of the fact she has legitimate grievances on top of being a unique twist on the character. Mrs. Claus as a vampire overlord who commands hordes of vampire elves? That’s the sort of creative wackiness that Billy & Mandy delivered on. The Woodland Critters are just funny, plain and simple, acting as the sort of amusing subversion that could be expected of from South Park in its glory days as well as being totally in line with Cartman’s personality. These are the exact sort of original characters I’d expect from a guy who ground up a kid’s parents and made them into chili, what with their blood orgies and ultraviolence. Amusingly enough, they score a point higher than Cartman did in his own Psycho Analysis, which is mostly due to their limited appearances meaning that they stay remarkably consistent, where Cartman tends to be whatever an episode needs to be, be that hero, anti-hero, or villain.

Next up are Ghost Writer and Robot Santa, who both get 7/10. Ghost Writer is a very amusing oneshot, but it’s honestly weird that out of all the Villains from Danny Phantom, he’s the first one I talked about. You’d think it would be Ember or Vlad or something… at any rate, he’s an amusing antagonist, but he’s also one who it’s hard not to view as being in the right, especially since Danny was just a jerk to him completely unprovoked due to his own personal hangups with the holidays. As usual with fun ideas on the show though he was only ever used once, which is a real shame but at the same time understandable; his gimmick really only works with Christmas, so it would have been weird shoehorning him into another episode’s plot. For what he is, he’s fun.

Robot Santa has a similar problem, not really being able to function outside of Christmas specials, but his few appearances leave him as an amusing antagonist who never really overstays his welcome. He’s not as entertaining or engaging as, say, Mom, but he definitely offers some laughs with his hilarious concept and his ridiculous levels of bloodlust. Points t him for helping out the heroes in the first Futurama movie too.

That just leaves us with Edna and the Faculty Four, and the Faculty Four just manage to scrape onto the bottom of the Nice List with a collective 5/10. They don’t really have much character or personality, especially when compared to the heroic Marvel pastiche that is Elfa Strike, but as brief amusing gag villains meant to pay loving tribute to the Fantastic Four, I think they’re decent. Edna is not so lucky; she’s a bit obnoxious, shrill, and doesn’t really correlate to any sort of Marvel character, which is baffling since the entire episode is one big love letter to Marvel comics. Sad to say, but she’s landing smack dab on the Naughty List with a 2/10. She doesn’t even have a cool gimmick!

I suppose that wraps it up for Christmas special villains. Doing something like this is tough, because it really makes you sit back and wonder what sort of Christmas villains you should put on. Obviously I avoided any theatrical film villains, but that did leave one particularly glaring omission of a villain from a holiday special… a big, green, unpleasant omission. He’s a mean one, for sure...

[liquidmcgarnagle]

Que piensa; What do you think?

The diner was just another hole-in-the-wall built in to the Tower District.  One young and very beautiful woman was the only one on shift tonight even though there were seven people at the bar, and nearly all the booths were full.  He felt disgusted with the fact that she should have to put up with this as he snapped his finger in the air for service.  He hoped she hadn't actually seen him do it, but she was there right away with a fresh face.  

“Are you survivin' the night?” he asked.  “This place is packed!”  

 “Well, I like to think that I'll never get jaded, but I do get a little from a friend.”  She places her left pointer curled against the right side of her nose.  The thumb presses against her cheekbone and outward, opening her nasal passages and she sniffs cleanly in.  “It ain't so bad, just gotta keep on keepin' on ya know?  More coffee?”

“Thanks...” he squints at her chest, taking time to look without seeming pervert-y.  “Delia?  Delaila?  Diladid?  No wait...”  She chuckles.  He tilts his head to the side like a bird getting another vantage point for its food.  You know how they do.

“Cute...” she wants to roll her eyes, but she does so rapidly enough that no one notices.  Hard to fake sarcasm on the go.

“You know I can never tell when someone in the,” he air-quotes “service industry is having a good time with me, or just after tips.”  Gretchen sinks lower in to the booth reading Nietzsche.  It almost pissed him off the type of stuff she was reading these days, like she would start dressing in all black any minute now.        

“Ah, gotcha” double-tapping a click to his teeth like a check mark.  She worked hard even though she had substantive support.  He hated waiting on people; she must put up with a lot.  Jesus, He knew the owner too, and he was a dick.  Literally... his name was Richard.  

“So, you good then?”  she sniffs.  He can still see a little bit of white Halloween in the crevice between her thumb and forefinger.  He was always observant regarding psychoactives.  Why?  It was like something like that always finding him and staring straight in to his eyes.  Staring him down almost

“Um, naw, we're ok.  You doin' ok honey?”  She took off quickly emptying the coffee pot in to three different cups.  

“Miss, I had decaf” one of the patrons at a booth said.

“Then just drink a little bit Henry,” she retorted.  “Besides, I've always given you regular... you tip better when I sneak ya some.”  Henry shrugged his shoulders.  

“Don't address women, like that, or anyone for that matter.  It can be perceived as demeaning Dad.”

“Well, shit, maybe you should start calling me Mr. Dad?”  He was slightly embarrassed at the remark, but maybe she was right.  The times were changing and change made him very uncomfortable.  He thinks about all the changes in his life that he fought tooth and nail against and how they bit him in the ass.  The change happened and he didn't like the fight.  Ugh, he thought.  He missed not caring.  He missed the booze.  He missed the fun times he thought he had.  

“Are you familiar with honorifics Pop?” she asked snootily, knowing he had no idea.

“What do you think daughter?” curling roughly the way he called her to show he was a little pissed off at the educational lecture he was about to endure.  

“In Japanese culture, politeness is key.  After the feudal era, the status of people was highly important to contrast the lack of order during war.”  Stephen rolled his eyes.  Pissing him off gave her fuel for some reason; medieval fuel for a modern era.  She would 'sophen' him up a bit to get him pissed off enough to go to work today... this time.  

“So, honorifics are expressions of respect and endearment like the nature of a relationship when people talk with each other.  Like, if I was a student and you were my teacher, I would refer to you as senpai.  You would call mom, mama-chan.  I would call someone in a grade below me kohai.  You would refer to everyone around you as bozu cuz you hate everyone.”  She enjoyed teaching her father random stuff at random times.  He couldn't take it otherwise.  Knowledge had to be peppered on to him as if from the mill.  She couldn't tell him this or else he would figure it out and be shut out permanently; or at least until he forgot.  

“This is too much shit honey... fuck... shit... goddamnit...” he smacks the table hard, rattling the dishes.  You hear the spoon next to his daughter's cup of coffee.  She drinks it black referring to it as Mississippi Mud.  Mmm, smacking her lips every time she takes her first sip.  She falls in to her seat.  'that ain't right he says to himself.'  

“I am only saying that this is another way to think.  And it's nice, right?”

“Yes.  Yes it is Gretch.  But that kind of stuff would never fly here.  Everyone is just sitting in their own shit, thinking their better than everyone else, waiting for the right time to strike when the iron's hot and the people, ripe for the picking.  Let's talk about something else.  What'd you do in school today?”

“They had us take apart owl pellets.”

“What the hell are those?”

“Ok, you know, owls catch mice and eat 'em and stuff?  It's not like they have a knife and fork with their bib tucked in when they go to town,” she eyes how ridiculous her father looks with his done in.  It would be nice if the whole Beethoven look was still the style, but it's not.  “Well, they regurgitate whatever is left over from the carcass.  Owls eat the rodent.  Then, after their body sucks all the meat and nutrients out of it,” she imitates vomiting “Ughaah ughaah!”

“Oh, that's cool!  Not!  Haha,” he laughs at himself tritely.  “What the hell's the point?  I feel like they are wasting their time with this kinda shit.  My taxes pay for someone to go out, catch fucking shit-ton of owls, and go through their shit?!?”  

“Our tax dollars daddy.” responding slowly to make sure he doesn't feel so alone.  “And besides, that's not how it works.”

“Whatever,” he looks away and throws his arm in the air.  

“Alright what else?” he regretfully asks, but these are his fatherly duties, to know what's going on in the life of his offspring, especially at such an early age.  It's only our current cultural climate of capitalist consumerism that has begun to lay the tile of family disruption.  

“Well in health class after seeing all of those fucking STD's!  I find that sex can be summed up into this: 'a stinky yellow discharge.' And that's on both sides!” she doesn't care what she said.

“I told you to stop swearin' like that Gretch.”

“I like to think that I have a spice rack that sits on my tongue.  You haven't taken me Costco for a while.  And I'm all out of “like, really? damn and cun---”

“Stop right there young lady!  Goddamnit!  Sometimes I wish your mother was here to teach you how to speak proper.  But then I remember how big a' cunt she is.” looking off in the distance he moves his eyes towards her to make sure she knows he's fucking with her.

“How else am I supposed to put some flavor on what I say?” snickering.  

“You're smart, I know you'll think of something.”  He sighs with his forearms propping up his entire upper-torso.  He feels the weight of being a father in his brain.  It's emotionally exhausting.  What were the payouts?  What was the reason he had a kid in the first place?  Oh yeah.  

Such weird juxtaposition.  The dissociation of church and state.  The association between church and state.  Dangle the lusty lace in our faces while those we were supposed to love tell us what we think is wrong.  Just gotta explore.  Just gotta find out... find out... find out... for yourself.  

“You need any money for school tomorrow before I forget?” Stephen asks her squarely, and then immediately nonchalantly.  Gretchen looks around, slightly unsure, slightly disgusted, but she says something anyway.  

“I don’t know.  Look at everyone.”  Stephen looks around.  “What, you don’t see it?”

“See fuckin’ what?” he tries to take out the meat of the fuck as he speaks.  

“Look at how sad they all are.  We all come here to get something.  To get something we have to give something.  We feel bad that we have to have this exchange; always feeling that we’re being cheated, scammed, or not getting our money’s worth.  This has given life to this negative connotation with even receiving something for free, like ‘What do you want?’”

“This is the way the world works Gretch.  Scratch my back, I scratch yours.  Quid pro quo.  Nothing is free, except freedom.  They like to say it isn’t but that’s just one more piece of bait.  Tradition!!!”  he imitates Fiddler on the Roof.  

"I don’t want to accept it.  That cannot be the final say of how we turn out; hating the fact that we have to get together just to hate each other through barter.  And then!  And then we retreat back to whichever hole we found to hide from them,”  she is enamored with the anger and logical emotion she produced.

 “Look, I just don’t want people thinking I’m a deadbeat Dad.”  An obvious tweaker stumbles in like an electron firing in every direction.  The camera speeds up and slows down, like in Donnie Darko as the montage music plays.  The camera pans for the first time through Middlesex school depicting the main characters how the director wants you to see 'em.  His body parts flail while still seeming like he's about to fall over any second.  He walks toward the bathroom and stops dead.  He turns around looking at Stephen.  He collapses with his ass out and his elbows on their table, jumbling the words “How much?”

Stephen sticks his hand down his pocket, grabbing an ugly wad of cash and lots of change.  Gretchen grabs her backpack and stands on top of the trampoline-like pleathery booth.  She weighed practically nothing compared to the bounciness of the seat.  Stephen turns with the fist full of money and plows the presently degenerate right in the face as the cash flies everywhere.  The faces of the patrons all looked up at the scene, like a frozen applause.  Gretchen jumps in to the air towards her father as he's shaking his fist in painful disgust.  “Gretch!” he yells. “Fuck that hurt!”  He catches her and tucks her under his arm like a football; she and the backpack flailing beneath at the mercy of her father's panicked and happy gait.    

The camera pans upward: -25 to -32.5 degrees, quadrant IV of basic geometric circumstance...    Aside from the third dimension, vantage vector is at y=-1/3x +1, where the y axis presents the door, and the vantage point is just a few feet in front of and below Stephen and Gretchen; with Delia halfway out the glass door, waving the coffee pot in her outstretched and snowy appendage.  This is slow motion of course...

He says panting in run “I wish that pot pie place hadn't close hun.”

“I know Pop, we'll find another place soon.  I'll find somewhere we've never been before.  A unholy, holier hole in the wall, K?” her voice staccatos with every bounce, like when a baby is trying to make noises when you bounce it on your knee.  It sounds funny.  

“Fuck, that's the third place this week.”  

“I know Dad.”

You know I love you Gretch.  Everything ”

“I know Dad.”  They are both smiling while he sprints heavily away with his most prized possessions.

[grinwolfe]

Ok ok ok

I've had this fanfic in my head for a while and I'm not sure if I'll ever write it because I've never been much of a writer but I want to share my idea anyways.

It's a Lucifer/Supernatural crossover.

Let's say it starts in the supernatural universe when the boys are on a hunt, probably something like a werewolf or vampire, a cliche monster. I think it could be in any season since this would be an identical setup to the French mistake, unless we use Jack who is notoriously bad at controlling his powers.

I originally went with the idea that only Sam and Dean get sucked into Lucifer's universe, but I think Castiel getting dragged along too makes a better juxtaposition to the angels in the foreign universe. Trouble is, the monster gets sucked through too, and they land in a wide alley.

In the confusion, the monster succeeds in overpowering the boys and tearing off. They give chase, guns/machete/angel blade out until they reach the street, which is packed full of people and a few beat cops hanging around too, so they act natural and hide their weapons.

They figure out they're in Los Angeles, Sam tries to call Jack to let him know what's happened but the number is disconnected. Castiel tries to sense Jack but he can't, which naturally makes them all concerned. The brothers have contacts all over, LA is no different so one of them starts calling to find backup, since they don't have the impala with all the hunter gear and FBI disguises. Every single call is a wrong number. Up a creek without a paddle they decide to find a place where they can use a computer- internet cafe, library, wherever.

About 6 hours later, Detective Decker is called to a crime scene, Ella examining a recently savaged body and Lucifer consulting. Ella remarks on the uber weirdness, how it seems almost animalistic, the strength that would be needed to rip the poor soul apart. Lucifer cracks jokes, like he does, but not much else can be made of it until the coroner can examine further.

About 20 min previous, the boys were sitting in a cheap hotel room. While very similar to their own universe there have been enough differences for them to cotton on that they're not in Kansas anymore which they all find very distressing. Castiel is mollified to find he is still an angel and still has all his abilities. Dean bought a radio and some other supplies and has built a police scanner. As per previous supernatural episodes, they know that they will need the grace of an archangel to get back to their own universe, but they absolutely must kill the monster before they go. Sam has searched and found no mention of Hunters, Men of Letters, or monsters at all, besides the normal mythos that always exists. They pick up the call for the recently mentioned deceased, and decide to go see what's up.

They find themselves standing in the crowd of looky loos, and standing out as well since they're the tallest and wearing plaid in LA. Dean wants to pretend to be agent with the fake badge in his wallet but Sam stops him, reminding him it's a different universe and their badges might look very different from what they look like here. While they're arguing in undertones, Castiel slips under the police tape to get a closer look. He makes it about halfway there before Ella or Decker stops him, tells him off for interfering in a crime scene and to get back past the line. Cass got close enough to see that it was a monster victim and returns to the brothers, which Decker notices and makes a mental note to remember them because they were suspicious. Then the regular canvassing of the victim's friends family and coworkers starts. Ella notices a street cam aimed at the crime scene. Lucifer does... Lucifer stuff. Drama, impetuous attitudes, good ol' Luci.

The boys are feeling particularly fucked back at the hotel. No weapons, no car, no disguises, and how do you track a wandering monster in LA besides following the bodies? Castiel tries to contact Heaven on angel radio, if there is one in this universe, but he gets mixed results. There was definitely a divine influence in the world, most likely a heaven but Castiel can't be heard and what he does hear is unintelligible, possibly a difference frequency and/or code.

I'm not entirely sure on this part, but I expect Dean is drinking at a bar, alone or with any of the others. Either someone overhears that they're in trouble or they look upset enough to prompt a conversation. When they explain vaguely that what they need is nearly impossible to get and that they haven't got any friends to back them up, they are told about a nightclub owner who grants favors, occasionally the impossible one. The boys aren't sure about mingling in a foreign universe but if this man called Mr. Morningstar can get the other ingredients needed for the spell, then it can't hurt to try, can it?

Ella and Decker and Dan are reviewing the CTV footage and even though it's barely been caught in the upper left corner, its obvious this perp is acting inhuman, which they believe is a mental illness or a weird drug interaction. Once they go back to their desks Lucifer returns and Ella describes the attack as if the person was a movie monster, to which Lucifer replied that it might look that way but not to worry, his father destroyed all the monsters centuries ago.

The boys go to Lux, which is mostly empty since it's so early. A few girls are dancing, sam and cass are doubtful about getting legit help here but Dean enjoys the atmosphere. They ask the bartender for Mr. Morningstar. The bartender tells them he's not seeing anyone right now. Sam says that they need a favour. The man says they'll have better luck getting his boss's attention later tonight when all the guests come. Cass says it's urgent, a matter of life and death. The bartender reluctantly picks up the phone and calls upstairs to Lucifer's suite, who agrees to come down to deal with them.

The first thing Lucifer does when he sees them is comment on the plaid, asking if they just came from a hunting trip and asking Castiel if he is an accountant. He was going to turn them away but once seeing them in person, they were the perfect combination of weird and sexy to keep his interest. They say they hear he's the man to come to for favors and that they need supplies. Lucifer prompts them to get to the point. Sam tries to prepare him, that it sounds ridiculous but it's really important that it's all authentic. They list off the ingredients needed to send them back, sans archangel grace. Lucifer asks 'what on earth do you need all that for?' And points out that everything they've asked for is priceless if not impossible to find. He asks again what they want it for, and for that matter who are they, and the boys give up, getting up to leave because explaining that they're from another universe will just get them laughed out anyways.

Before they take a step Decker comes in and calls out 'Lucifer!' The boys freeze and Decker comes down, apologising for interrupting and Lucifer waves her apology aside. As she comes up to him to talk the boys all turn back to him, and cass pulls out his angel blade. Lucifer wonders what they are really up to, they seems to have extensive divine knowledge. They ask him if he's lucifer to which he confirms. They continue checking and confirming that he is indeed the fallen angel. Decker realizes these men were at the crime scene and sees the angel blade sticking out of the end of castiel's sleeve. Before she can say anything Dean draws his gun on Lucifer. It's all a kerfuffle, decker is trying to talk the boys down and then Maze walks in, and Castiel can see her true face so he let's everyone know, which surprises Lucifer and he asks how does cass know? Cass replies that he's an angel. Lucifer asks which one? Cass gives his name and Lucifer disagrees since knows his brother castiel and this man was not it. Maze says that cass doesnt look like an angel but he also doesn't look right as a human. Angel possession is talked about, which is in the SpN universe but not Luci's. Probably play around with the idea that Angel's in this universe can have their own bodies because they are a product of two very different beings, light and dark, while castiel is just made from light and frequency. Maze says he looks like something huge and alive got shoved up inside a human shaped jar. Sam reminds Dean that they will need Lucifer's grace to get home and they lower their weapons reluctantly.

Lucifer at some point shows off by showing his wings which astounds the boys. Castiel is urged to try it and for the first time the brothers see cass's black wings. The brothers admit that they're both working the same case, that its a monster they brought over from another universe and what its specs are- decker is getting fatigued by two revelations in one day.

Regular shenanigans continue. The boys are determined to hate Lucifer but the more time they spend with him the more they bond: dean with good food, alcohol and women, sam with insider history lore and bad jokes, castiel with Lucifer's clear affection for decker and his desire to protect humans. There will be karaoke at some point. The boys help with the case, meet Ella and hit it off. They meet Dan and really don't. There are clashes in methodology, decker sees the fake badge and the brothers explain that they dont get paid to save the world.

And I dont really know after that point. Obviously they kill the monster and get home, and that they wish they could have this Lucifer instead of theirs. Anyone is welcome to this story, if you want to do something with it. I'm great at starting but I lose interest once there's work to be done.