#anyway I have. written up the intro part to this post like 3 times now and I am. SO DONE :''''')

[velvet-vox]

Notes of my final Murder Drones rewatch before ep 8

(These thoughts are uncollected and unrevised, proceed with lowered expectations)

Originally, I was about to make a three-part long post before episode eight comes out.

In the first part I would have analysed Cyn's character and showcased her possible depth and ties to N's character arc.

Then in the second part I compared the Doll, Cyn and J trio to Uzi, N and V, showing the parallels between each member of their respective squad, which would then lead to the final part.

Part 3 is my defacto theory on how certain elements of episode 8 would have played out, with J as a main focus in it, due to her being the V parallel, but then, as the day passed, I realised something:

I'm an analyst, not a theorist, and while it could be fun to make a theory on episode 8 to see how right and wrong I was in retrospect, it's not an activity that I'm particularly fond of, plus, while my opinions on Cyn have changed with time (I'm going to get there), the reason why I kind of like her now completely hinges upon head canons that hopefully are going to be confirmed, because otherwise, my opinion on the character could get even worse than what it once was.

One of the main reasons as to why I wanted to realise this project was to see if I could get invested into Cyn in the same way I got more invested into Rebecca with the analysis I've made on her, but why bother doing that when I'm sure episode 8 is (hopefully) going to fill me in on her character?

I'm not finding the time nor willpower that I wished that I had to complete any projects lately, and due to my constant need for perfectionism (need that it's being deliberately ignored in the writing of this post), I just keep shooting myself in the feet.

Anyway, let's just skip the intro and directly segway to the important stuff:

Uzi:

Uzi is a complicated character for me. She was my favourite character in the Pilot and dropped down massively after that, and I never understood why: I came up with a bunch of explanations for myself, such as "her development isn't engaging" and "she doesn't get challenged in interesting ways that isn't just plain torture" and "she's the most enigmatic character in the show, her actions don't make any sense to me", and I was particularly sure of that last one, not in the sense that Uzi was evil all along, but in the sense that Uzi was being written as a twist villain in the same way Goultard from Wakfu had been coded as such before the third season of that series revealed us why;

But this last rewatch finally made me understand what my problem with her was.

Aside from the rushed development, which is something the entire series struggles with, I've realised that there's an extremely subtle layer of complexity to pilot Uzi that her show's self lacks: see, despite Uzi acting like a gremlin at various points in the pilot, one thing that really surprised me about how Uzi was initially characterised is that, aside from her moments of emotional impulsivity, Uzi... is actually relatively chill?

The best way I could describe it is that serie's Uzi to me is a child to take care of; I would act nice, kind, patient to ep 1 through 7 Uzi just to get on her good side so that she wouldn't bother me as much as she bothers her peers, hopefully helping her grow up as an individual and stop acting so horribly, and help her find someone else who appreciates her for who she is, so that I wouldn't have to deal with her any longer, while pilot Uzi is someone I would genuinely like to spend time with as she's secretly a pretty chill gal, even if I would still be afraid of her, just like the rest of her classmates.

The pilot makes it extremely clear that Uzi's angsty teen persona is just that: a facade. It's not the real her. This added a layer of intrigue to Uzi in the pilot, where it felt like there was so much more to her than what we were shown at first;

But nope. The rest of the show comes out and Uzi is just that: a wild, emotionally unstable teenage gremlin-girl, who isn't even at the centre of the story despite all of the screen time that she has.

I always thought that Liam didn't want me to sympathise with Uzi, as I thought his modus operandi was "Make the character interesting, don't make them sympathetic" but as the show went along and it fell down even further into a classical good versus evil plotline (something that requires is own post), it kind of became harder to shrug off how genuinely unlikable she is to me. I like N a lot, and I kinda like V whenever her fans are nowhere to be seen, but I don't really sympathise with either of them, I just find them to be engaging.

I like the Murder Drones cast because they are interesting characters, not because they are good people. Yet, from the way Uzi is written, it feels like I'm supposed to consider her the hero, when in reality, she feels more like an unwilling plumber forced to take out the clog (Absolute Solver) unwillingly.

(Also Doll is a much better foil to Pilot Uzi than she is to canon show Uzi, but that's a discussion for another time)

But that's enough of that. Let's talk about the episodes:

Episode 1 through 3:

I plan to do an in-depth ranking of all 8 episodes of Murder Drones once the ending comes out, so consider these my rapid fire opinions on each and every single one of them.

The pilot is the best aged episode of Murder Drones to me even if a lot of its elements have been decanonised, and it could as well end up becoming my favourite episode of the show when it's all said and done.

Episode 2 is as weak as ever, but one thing that always bothered me about this episode is the ending where Uzi just decides to go back into the colony with Khan.

Now, it's no secret that Murder Drone's everything is extremely rushed, but for most of its runtime, this episode gave me the impression that Murder Drones was going to be a slow burn, long running mystery series, only for the ending to come along and leave me dumbfounded by what the pacing of the show was going to turn into.

Heartbeat is also the only episode where my opinion hasn't changed since first watching it. I thought it was mid at first, and I still consider it to be so.

My thoughts on it are a little bit more complicated than that, but I'm reserving them for the future.

You can slice it however you want, but episode 3 has aged HORRIBLY, it's not even in my top 5 best episodes anymore, and yes, it's exactly because of the focus character of this episode turning out the way she did in episode 7.

Say whatever you want, but to me, the third episode is not an Uzi episode, it's not an N episode, it's barely a V and Lizzy episode and partially a Nuzi episode, and it's certainly not a Khan episode.

For the most part, The Promening is a Doll episode; she's the character the episode is wasting most of its runtime on, introducing her, her parents, making her a mysterious threat; in comparison, the Nuzi and V stuff is mostly secondary, and could have definitely been developed further if the episode didn't have someone else as it's main focus.

Doll:

I never wanted Doll to survive the season; I never wanted her to live, I never wanted her to die, I never wanted her to be redeemed, nor did I want her to stay evil till the end; all I ever wanted, was for Doll to be well-written, and as it stands, I don't think Doll does enough or is explored sufficiently as a character to justify her relevance or existence, especially since a lot of other characters could benefit from some extra screen time, and while a lot of people might think that just bringing her back to life would fix some of her problems, I don't think they really understand all of the underlying issues that come with such a choice:

If Doll were ever to come back, she for sure would get a redemption arc, because what else is there to do? She lost all of her screen presence, she's no longer even remotely threatening, her story is so divorced from our current one to be straight up disposable, a lot of people see her as just a joke after the seventh episode, and in general, she's no longer a credible villain to see on screen.

And yet, I don't think a redemption arc would work for Doll at this point. Her character wasn't built up enough aside from being mysterious for the sake of it, I don't think a redemption arc would work, because it would require too much time for it to work, and time is the one thing Murder Drones always lacked, what makes you think a second season, let alone one episode would even fix?

I'm pretty pessimistic about episode 8, unless it's all one giant ruse and there is, in fact, a second season. The math just doesn't add up, episode 8 can't possibly be a satisfying conclusion or an unsatisfying conclusion done right, I fear it will be one giant clusterf##k.

Cabin Fever, Intermission, and Home:

Episode 4 is about as good as I remember it to be, and aside from noticing a couple of new details useful for my analyses, I don't have much to say about it.

I got the chance to watch @ghoulinfuschia 's Murder Drones Intermission together with the other episodes this time around, so now I finally have the chance to praise it a little bit.

Murder Drones Intermission is a fan made episode of Murder Drones set between episode four and five, made entirely by a crew of fans.

It's an amazing product for what it's worth and by how it was made, and while it's not perfect and I consider it far from possibly being canon, it does fill in nicely into the show's timeline, and improves a lot on some of the weakest story beats of the series. It was definitely a nice break from me while rewatching all of the episodes, and I recommend it wholeheartedly to anyone who wants to check it out.

It's pretty ironic how episode 7 retroactively managed to worsen episode 3 and improve episode 5, but that's genuinely how I feel about Home now:

I'm about to be real with you, Tessa being dead all along was the only tid bit of major character's death that wasn't wasted, as now that I know why Tessa's wasn't the episode's protagonist, I'm much more accepting of the way in which episode 5 played out; it's clear that Liam never wanted us to get attached to Tessa beyond any simple "she's a nice, abused, teenage girl that treats N nicely" type of feeling, also the tradeoff for her death and humanity apparent extinction was well worth it in my opinion, which is something I can't say for V or... her.

But now it's finally time to talk about the actual main character of this episode:

Cyn:

I'm about to say something that I've never thought I would end up saying for real:

Did you know, that Cyn, is an actually interesting character in her own right?

I never did.

Quite frankly, I kind of heavily hated Cyn up until some time ago.

To me, at the start, Cyn was just a cool visual threat that would have hopefully been fleshed out in the future, but then, not only is she still remaining just a one note villain at this point of the show's runtime (aka the "finale"), but she also ended up killing a far more nuanced and slightly more fleshed out antagonist, while also not really doing anything to fulfill the compelling character void left by the aforementioned character.

Hot take: the fandom's portrayal of Cyn as this unbelievably silly creature of pure autism ruined her character, as well as the general discourse surrounding her.

To me, mass murderers should only be blorbified once their first major focus arc in a story has been concluded. It's why I'm fine with the blorbification of characters such as Qilby and William Afton, and I'm not with Cyn.

The thing about blorbifying is that, you are actively distorting canon for your weird fantasies, which is something that I'm fine with, but only once said characters have received their narrative catharsis.

I don't really view Cyn as a serious or heinous threat at this point in time, and that's all due to how much the fanbase ended up babyfying her to no end, giving her the Jax treatment with the main difference being that Jax has had is funny blorbo illusion already shattered, while Cyn still has it at this point in the show's runtime where she should be at her most evil and intimidating yet.

But that's enough of that; as I've already stated, now that we know that adult Tessa was Cyn all along... Cyn has just become such an interesting character to me, not for the mystery and creepiness surrounding her, but for the ways in which she could end up paralleling N.

... If that's actually what's going to happen.

It all hinges upon Cyn actually being worth the hype and the rushed developments, because otherwise, she could go from being my third favourite character to my absolute least favourite.

Episode 6 and 7:

I appreciate the Jurassic Park section of this episode for being a break from everything going on and for setting up the plot twist in the following episode.

Although her section bores me a little bit, I'm just gonna come out and say it: Alice is in my opinion the best humanoid antagonist in the entirety of Murder Drones, and unless that changes in episode 8 (which I doubt, sorry Cyn but I don't have a lot of faith in you), I'll make an entire post dedicated to her detailing why that's the case.

As for who or what I think is the overall best antagonist of the show...

It's the Sentinels, and it's not even close.

I'm still as emotionless as ever when it comes to V's demise. I believe it was stupid, but there are more passionate V fans to talk about it.

And last but not least, I can finally agree with what everyone else has said: Mass Destruction is the best episode of Murder Drones, and for me, it's all due to how genuinely funny it is.

I've become pretty apathetic to Murder Drone's horror elements due to how excessively prevalent and misused they are throughout the course of the series, so now the comedy actually hits harder, and this episode is extremely funny and comedic, even Doll's death is now hilarious to me, even if for other reasons, and the pacing finally feels appropriate now that the show has completely given up being a mystery adventure and fully embraced the end of the world battle shenanigans.

The episode did feel too fast paced when I first saw it at release, but it was mostly because of how slow the previous episodes were, now after a while the pacing finally feels normal, even if the episode is just bombarding me with lore left and right.

Ah.

.

.....

We're doomed.

[wolvertooth]

Did u see the news that sabretooth is confirmed to show up in xmen97 season 2? I'm extremely excited and giddy yet mortified bc of the whole useless [mag/rogue) "romance" 97 adapted/retconned into existence,

even if they had the whole ballroom dance together it was still very obvious they were showing both the implied grooming and the power imbalance mags had over her and seeing as 92 did adapt the whole silverfox flashback+ her death and the team X EP I'm really paranoid that the writers will suddenly tack on unnecessary SA implications both to torture logan and as a way to make sabes cruel and sadistic in a lazy ass way..

*sighing loudly* sorry for the long ask, I'm just really passionate about both their characters as a longtime fan boy and knowing the insane positive reception 97 got I'm just terrified that IF they do add on that implication ppl who like his character will never hear the end of it, or how he should be killed off forever bc he's a mindless murdering cannibalistic booty warrior who stomps on babies and makes kitten tacos on Wednesdays or WHATEVER lame shit they mame him do avoid writing a character that's both evil and terrifying yet charming and a lil sympathetic, God forbid we have complex characters that can still be villians and not cardboard training dummys for the heros to attack 🙄

dunno about the grooming thing, considering rogues in her 20s(possibly even late 20s). i think shes just a grown woman with a case of Wanting That Old Man Carnally. confession -> i havent actually watched past episode 3, cuz tbh i. dont care much for the xmen aside from wolverine. and he barely got to do anything. so all my context is just from tumblr posts.

also i genuinely thought u meant like. sabretooth SAing wolverine in the past. and i was like bro theres no way disney would allow that dw about it👍 then after rereading it a couple times i was like OH U MEANT THE 2003 COMIC THING LMAO. first of all, with the current rating they got, theres No chance they'd go that far. besides, shes alive, and logan knows all that was just implants anyway(i reallyyyy hope they dont forget about the whole implants thing...). second, i dont think morph would transform into sabretooth as a joke if he was really someone who fucked up logan That Bad.

anyway i literally forget that people like him as a Villain cuz im just over here seeing him as the rich merc whos an occasional annoying bastard with a heart of gold and a history of mental breakdowns.. like hes got a bit of a The Mask situation going on with his costume tbh, he'll just get written way more cartoonishly evil whenever hes got that thing on lol

anddd if they do decide to follow the previously established canon(and they likely wont do too much due to him still being on the villains side in the intro, just lemme dream for a sec here), i think him and logan are on somewhat good terms now! last time they hungout he only fought him for like 2 seconds cuz he thought wolverine was picking a fight, then dropped it pretty quick(it was also the episode that revealed any of the bad memories they had of eachother in the past were all just implants). after that, he was last seen without the costume, which is kind of a big thing for his character? i think?

..ok i just remembered the recent 97 prequel comics where hes just...#normal villain sabretooth working for sinister and the marauders. 😦😧chat......this better not mean what i think it means..........(CLONE PLOT PART 4?). but theyre also both on a last name basis with eachother so. ❓ progress?

at least the comics didnt forget about team x. so maybe we got a chance at something good

[everythingwillsurelybealright]

OOPS don't mind me, it's a frantically written unhinged Black Butler theory post

IMAGINE.

IT'S THE PRESENT DAY.

BLACK BUTLER SEASON 4 IS PARTWAY THROUGH AIRING.

I know nothing about what happens in the manga but THESE THOUGHTS WILL NOT LEAVE ME ALONE.

AND SO: A POST

I present to you; WHAT'S GOING ON AT WESTON COLLEGE, as pieced together entirely by the parts of the Intro that haven't shown up in the show yet.

LET'S SEE WHAT DO WE HAVE HERE

(1) The lake, and something blood-like coming out of it

(2) A tree growing out of the courtyard, and something rising up out of the ground

(3) The Undertaker's medallions show up several times

(4) Imagery of recreating bodies

(5) The Zombies at the end

SO WHAT COULD THIS MEAN? LET'S TAKE A WILD STAB IN THE DARK.

Put these together and I would guess that the Undertaker is 100% involved in the mystery behind the missing students, but also that it's a direct continuation of what he was trying to do on the Worst Boat Trip of All Time. Ie, he's trying to perfect his process of bringing people back from the dead - not just as zombies like last time but as actual functioning people.

Let's add more screenshots to the recipe!

(6) The four elements of Alchemy show up in the intro - Earth, Air, Fire and Water

(7) The four house colours merge together to make a shining new fire - like they did for the cricket competition cup

(8) The shot of a body turning to ash and a shining soul hovering above the remains

So add these to the mix and I'd guess that the new theory of resurrection is based on where the failure in the old one was. Previously, just altering someone's Cinematic Record wasn't enough to really keep them alive after death, as their body kept moving but the soul was gone.

This time it looks like the process might revolve around destroying the old body altogether (ie, turning it to ash), capturing the soul, and building an entirely new body to house it.

ALSO throw into the mix that the four house colours combine into FIRE, since in Alchemy the soul is associated with the idea of Combustibility

Extra symbols for this could be:

(9) The Whole Diamond in the intro which is then split four ways -

leaving a separate smaller diamond to the side (which would be the soul, captured and kept separate from the four elements that make up the rest of the body)

(10) The diamond is present again when the tree is growing in the courtyard, where the implied undead bursts out of the ground

(11) The newly recreated body looking like it's breathing fire, notably against the same backdrop of the school that was present when the diamonds split apart in the first place

Anyway! This new body should in theory be free of the limits of the Cinematic Record (since the old body is already gone), and because the soul is still intact it could freely return to the new body and function normal.

I suspect the Alchemy theme might also be the conceptual connection behind the old body burning (leaving behind the pile of ash) and the new body (or maybe just the soul itself?) being made of fire, like this:

(12)

So that's what I think happened to the students! They were tests to see if the process worked, hidden by the prefects - who may or may not have even known what the process was for or even if it worked.

Either way, with the reappearance of Derrick at the end of Episode 8 I would say that it does indeed work.

But! Also! The mystery of the headmaster.

He's clearly not really there, or not really alive. This could be for a number of reasons but for now I'd guess that (a) he's partway through the process, so his soul is technically around but his new body isn't finished yet, which is why he never speaks and vanished completely when Sebastian tried to grab him, or (b) the process failed on him, but they're keeping him around as a convenient figure head while the prefects run the school instead.

AND ONE MORE THING?

There's always a hovering question mark over what exactly happened to Ciel in his big dark secret backstory that I assume we learn later, but this OP in particular is giving me a few ideas that are probably hugely wrong BUT CONSIDER

(13) In the courtyard the undead rising up out of the ground is in the middle of the frame, and the VERY next shot is of Ciel in the same place

COINCIDENCE? Yes probably! But also:

(14) The shot of Sebastian holding his cloak protectively over Ciel, who flashes briefly as a skeleton

WHICH IS INTERESTING? Ciel is often depicted as dead or dying, I would assume in reference to Sebastian taking his soul in the future. BUT WHAT IF?

It makes me guess that PERHAPS perfect resurrection has already been performed and potentially it was used on Ciel.

Which would also match the brief sequence when the body burns to ash and leaves behind a ghost, the fire seems to come FROM Ciel

(15)

Which is wild and I don't understand whatsoever. Was Ciel resurrected? Was his soul kept and put inside a new body (and maybe that's why he's so short? He's not growing?) Or did Ciel raise someone else from the dead? Or is there some other mystery behind Ciel's identity that just hasn't been hinted at yet?

EITHER WAY THERE WE ARE. BRAIN WORMS: EXPELLED. ENJOY.

[deliwrites]

𝕄𝕒𝕤𝕥𝕖𝕣𝕝𝕚𝕤𝕥

Welcome to my masterlist

I know it looks pretty empty right now, but I promise I'll be filling it up as time goes on! Maybe I'll even need more posts for that xD. You might have seen, or find some of these on Wattpad. If it comes from the account DeliWritesFanfiction that's okay. That's my account. I've pretty much stepped out of DSMP. I'll finish writing my series Comfort Slut, but I don't know how quick the updates will be. For now there are at least 3 parts to come for it. I'm not editing my Masterlist yet, but if I decided to write for another fandom I'll be changed my masterlist up a bit. I don't want it too get too over crowded

Warning ques: I will add more if I need to!

😈 = Smut ✨ = Fluff 😇 = Safe for Minors 🥹 = Angst 🌶️ = Suggestive 😸 = Hybrid (of any kind) 🩸 = Blood mention 😬 = Indifferent behaviour 💦 = unprotected s*x 🤕 = bruising 🏞️ = public s*x 🎶 = Song based writing

Anyway, these are the people I've written about thus far. (all she/her pronounce unless stated otherwise).

// ANONLIST //

𝐃𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐦

Roadtrip Cafe (being rewritten) 🥹 + ✨ + 😇 Dating Headcanons ✨ + 🩸 + 😇 NSFW Headcanons 😈 + 🌶️ + ✨ Twitchcon Lovers ✨ + 😇 Crazier Things ✨ + 😇 + 🥹 + 🎶

// Series // Weird Circumstances // finished ╰┈➤ Facetime 😈 ╰┈➤ You're Here? 😬 ╰┈➤ I like you 😈 + ✨ + 💦 Comfort Slut (not settled on the title yet) ╰┈➤ Intro ✨ + 🌶️ + 🥹(ish) ╰┈➤ Part One 😈 + 🌶️ + ✨ ╰┈➤ Part Two 😈 + 🌶️ + 🏞️(ish) + ✨ ╰┈➤ Part Three ✨ + 🌶️ ╰┈➤ Part Four 😈+ ✨ + 🌶️ + 💦

𝐒𝐚𝐩𝐧𝐚𝐩

Hickeys (probably going to be rewritten) ✨ + 🌶️ + 🥹(a little I think) Dating Headcanons ✨ + 😇 Thigh kink 😈 + 💦 + 🤕 + 🏞️

// Series // Comfort Slut (not settled on the title yet) ╰┈➤ Intro ✨ + 🌶️ + 🥹(ish) ╰┈➤ Part One 😈 + 🌶️ + ✨ ╰┈➤ Part Two 😈 + 🌶️ + 🏞️(ish) + ✨ ╰┈➤ Part three ✨ + 🌶️ ╰┈➤ Part Four 😈+ ✨ + 🌶️ + 💦

𝐆𝐞𝐨𝐫𝐠𝐞

Kitty Kat (Definitely being rewritten) 😸 + ✨ + 🥹 + 🌶️ (tiny bit suggestive)

// Series // Comfort Slut (not settled on the title yet) ╰┈➤ Intro ✨ + 🌶️ + 🥹(ish) ╰┈➤ Part One 😈 + 🌶️ + ✨ ╰┈➤ Part Two 😈 + 🌶️ + 🏞️(ish) + ✨ ╰┈➤ Part three ✨ + 🌶️ ╰┈➤ Part Four 😈+ ✨ + 🌶️ + 💦

𝐓𝐞𝐜𝐡𝐧𝐨𝐛𝐥𝐚𝐝𝐞

Queen Bee (LONG) ✨ + 😸 + 🥹

// Enjoy your stay //

[parkezra]

✨ hello, beautiful citizens of jongnorp! ✨ how the hell are ya?! my name's ryan (h/h, 25+) and i'm so thrilled to finally be posting one of my eight muses' (yes, i know... i know 😅) intros! first up is one of my all-time favorites, ezra park! he's currently working as an influencer who mostly creates fashion, lifestyle, social commentary, and makeover content, but he'll be expanding his résumé with exciting new projects very soon! 👀 below, you'll find a quick breakdown of his life, as well as bits and pieces of his personality. please 💖 this if you'd like to plot!

1.

to keep things simple, he was born and raised to a rather liberal family in queens, nyc. both his parents made good money, he felt very supported, loved, and accepted, and honestly speaking, he had a rather idyllic childhood. i've written this muse before, but in this update of him, i wanted to give him a less grim upbringing.

however, his brighter history has created new flaws. being that he grew up in a rather privileged environment, it's made him ignorant to many things, and upon moving to seoul, he's been hit in the face with plenty of life's harsh realities. he's on his own now (for the most, part, anyway—his older half-brother is also in seoul), he's starting a career for himself, and it's his first time in a part of the world that's dramatically more conservative than the safe haven he surrounded himself in back home.

is he losing his mind? sort of, but he's doing keep his feet on the ground. he'd love it if you joined him on this new journey he's on!

2.

ezra park is a hedonist. he's someone who'll never say no to another drink, or a second slice of cake, or going home wrapped around the arm of a handsome someone. he's over-indulgent like that, and substantially sensual, as well. he's someone who will catch a man's attention by eye-fucking him across the room, then moments later, appearing only to whisper the most delicate compliment in his ear; hoping that the sweet scent of his breath and the feeling of it ghosting along the other's skin is enough to reel him in for a night of fun.

if there is one thing that ezra park values, it's beauty. why else would he host a show on his channel that highlights attractive men from around the city, mostly by giving them makeovers? why else would he be teaching people how to upgrade their closet with clothing that accentuates their best features? why else would he be interested in ensuring that he never leaves the house looking anything other than immaculate? however, he realizes that, like most things, beauty is subjective, and he aches to discover what others find people, too.

ezra park is an individual, much to the chagrin of his grandparents' home country. he's still not gotten used to the stares of his elders whenever he enters public transit, or the glares he receives from his peers when he's a little too "flamboyant" in a public space, but he likes to think he's learning how to comfortably coexist in a place that doesn't fully understand him. after all, that's kind of all he can do. he made the choice to learn about his heritage and expand his career by relocating, and it's a choice he has to live with now. at least for the foreseeable future.

3.

ezra has a show on his youtube channel where he gives handsome men from around the city (often male models, drag queens, and less often men from off-the-street) to interview and give makeovers to. he asks them questions about growing up in korea, and the knowledge they have on queer individuals, and their opinions on certain topics. in addition to this, he also hosts queer people of korea to ask them, specifically, about their experiences living in the country; hoping to shed awareness on stories told by marginalized voices. these could work as connections!

he's been in the city since february of last year, so it's been around a year and he's likely made some friends! maybe they could be your muses?

he's also likely slept around with plenty of men. he's no stranger to jongtaewon, and even hongdae, so if your muses frequent these areas, they've likely ran into him or ended up in his bed.

does your muse watch his content? do they love it? hate it? have them tell him! it'll be a fun time either way!

i'm honestly down for any and all connections, and this is already so long, so let's come up with something incredible together! 🥺💖

[bd-wlf]

OKAY HERE'S LIKE AN EXTREME DEEP DIVE INTO MY LATEST FIC, LIKE BTS OF THE WORLD AND MY AU BECAUSE I POSTED IT TO AO3 AND IT DID SHIT SO NOW IM POSTING IT HERE-

here's the fic im talking about/will be talking about

So basically welcome to my madness!!

Don't know why i haven't made one of these before but im just hella inspired right now so 🤷

Anyway, Feathers in the Wind is the first fic in this series that i've written and 1) I absolutely adore my baby and 2) please go check it out before reading this. There’s like a bazillion spoilers in this thing, yeah,

Anyway anyway,

Feathers in the Wind starts off with Sherlock and John talking in the sandwich shop below their flat after he comes back from the dead, post-Fall, with no wings and a few new scars.

With this article?? I wanted to do a BTS deep dive into what the universe Is like before I post my other Johnlock fic whenever that happens

This is just the intro, uhm

Basically just a bunch of world building and lore specific to MY wing AU and specifically Johnlock centered. Very Lore Heavy tbh

Just some warnings before I actually dive into it:

○There will be mentions of wing removal/torture

○Mentions of sex and potential sex scenes in the future fics

○potential homophobia in future fics which I'll talk about here

○This is the first time I'm doing something like this so ig just be prepared

So with that out of the way, let's dive into it.

John and Sherlock had known each other for as long as they did in the show which was like 2 ish years before The Fall, and before The Fall Sherlock had beautiful Seagull wings, they had amazing plumage and were groomed expertly. One Time when Sherlock was molting and they both had gotten really drunk Sherlock let John groom his wings. Sherlock’s wingspan pre-Fall was bigger than John's by a couple feet.

For John I was gonna go with Sparrow wings because I like the way they look but after consideration I'm going with Goldcrest wings just because “...A very small passerine bird in the Kinglet family.” Seems to kind of suit him.

Post-fall John's wingspan grew by 2 or 3 feet within the year Sherlock was gone.

Basically the world they live in, everyone has wings. I literally started drawing this AU in my sketchbook and thought about The Fall and then I drew the fight scene from Feathers in the Wind and looking at it I was like Shittt I have to turn this into a fic NOW and it kind of blew up and turned into this.

Greg has pigeon wings, Anderson has Duck wings, and Donovan has Ostrich wings

Not everyone can fly and society has kind of made it impossible for those who can't, just like irl with any disabled people.

Uh they also have prosthetic wings for people who have been trafficked, lost a wing or two in the service, Literally any reason you don't have wings

Some people get ?? affirming care, where they get their wings removed for whatever reason, there are laws prohibiting that in some places

Some people are born with talons, Mycroft is one of them.

People built a religion around The Phoenix, basically just Jesus in bird person form. Sherlock had to solve a mystery where he embedded himself into the cult for a month. John was not impressed.

Feathers cover their apartment, Sherlock keeps one of John's as his bookmark and John has one of Sherlock's sewed into his coat.

There are trafficking rings around the globe where they traffic “rare” or “exotic” wings and non-consensually surgically remove their wings and sell them on the black market, and then make them fight each other.

Post-Fall Anderson is a bit homophobic but in the future fic I'm writing Sherlock shuts him down real quick, like he normally does but Anderson Post-Fall had that weird infatuation with Sherly that I think he would actually listen to Sherlock tbh.

This actually brings me to my favorite part,

What happened to Sherlock Pre Pre-Fall

So basically from this point on I'm making this shit up.

Moriarty corners him using assassins and such, they bring Sherlock to a room and forcefully remove his wings via super strength?? Whatever the fuck is more logical in your mind and they bring him to the roof where Moriarty is waiting. At that point he's incredibly drained but he's asked to call John. And thus ensues The most heartbreaking scene in the entire show imo.

He ends up falling *wink wink* and dies in the arms of John *wink wink* . But not before shooting Moriarty in the head.

Moriarty Is wingless in my AU, result of trafficking to give that character some humanness

But that also was not the point of his character so fuck it he's wingless because I say he is and uh poetic bullshit.

Moriarty's character's purpose was to be a complete opposite to Sherlock, to seem almost the exact same but then be completely opposite to Sherlock and what he stands for. YOU HAVE TO BELIEVE ME WHEN I TELL YOU THIS THOUGH Moriarty is the exact and complete opposite down to their first meeting

Moriarty blends in and Sherlock does not, he blended in so well he even flew under Sherlock’s radar (not his gay one LMAO) albeit for a hot second but STILL

Moriarty is Impulsive and Sherlock is Logical.

Moriarty is Evil and Sherlock is ehh morally ambiguous but still a little good.

THEY ARE COMPLETELY OPPOSITE

So in my AU when Moriarty rips Sherlock’s wings out it's like he's saying “look! We're the same now!!” And, metaphorically speaking, he's taking away his freedom by stripping him of his wings. Stripping him of a choice to get away not only by taking away his wings but also by putting snipers on John and Greg possibly also on Mycroft.

The three people his cold unfeeling heart actually loves. Not to get angsty lmao

But anyway, Sherlock comes back and shenanigans ensue.

That brings me to my next point.

What yall can expect from me in the future with this!

Like I said, there will be sex scenes in my next fic from this AU. The type of sex scene can range with me from hardcore very detailed to “uhm yeah they-they did it” type of shit lol, it just depends on what mood I'm in..

Along with that I think im strictly doing Johnlock with this, although maybe a little side Marry/Molly lol I don't know I'll just have to see. Marry was just, she was hot don't get me wrong but I just hated her as a character. Imo the writers just did her way dirty tbh.

And like I said there will be a little bit of homophobia in my next fic with this AU, no one like Mrs Hudson will be the one to be homophobic I'll probably just make it a one liner from a side character and be done with it.

I think that covers everything, we'll everything I can remember

So Leave comments of what you think I should add to this or really any feedback is welcome and appreciated :33

[safyresky]

Frostmas Year 5: Behind the Scenes

Prologue | Y1 | Y2 | Y3 | Y4 | Y5 | Y6 | Y7 | Y8 | Y9 | Y10 | Y11 | Y12

[To Read Frostmas: From the TOP on ao3 | ff dot net]

We are writing this one FRESH from the second to last edit of the 2024 version! A shorter one for sure, as this is very much the calm before the storm chapter, but a fun one anyway >:)

Let's fucking GOOOO

Jacqueline's Intro: SO MUCH LORE

So much lore I'm gonna have to tag this as CS Lore and CS FACTS

Anyway

I think this was the first time, when originally writing, that I properly opened with Jacqueline's Intro and recognized it as part of the structure of a Frostmas Year

It was a HUGE lore dump! I toned it down a notch this time around, streamlined it and such, and updated the lore as I've got the frozen heart thing tightened UP

It's a sprite thing, so it's like this:

Sprites

Personified Natural Elements

Two types:

Season (has domain over entire season's worth of elements)

Elemental (has domain over one element, i.e., fire, air, water, earth, flora, fauna, winds, etc.)

Elementals typically classify themselves by their element, but will align with a season as a catch all

The season they align with dictates how their hardened hear manifests

LORE! YAY!

(Also, I wrote this in Word so lets see if the bulleted list stays >:3)

(OMG IT DID. Well, in the editor. We'll see how it looks post posting...)

Fun fact: I did a DnD campaign with my pals where sprites were playable characters, and I made them a race sheet and EVERYTHING. They are DEFFS OP but it's a homebrew--we work on it, lol

And also we only played like, 3 or 4 sessions and then fell out bc we all moved or what have you lol

BUT the dnd-ing DID help me refine sprite lore!

Elemental sprites are WAY more common that seasonal sprites. There are only NINE seasonal sprites in existence these days. WAY more elemental sprites around

The Call NERFED sprites

You can thank Snowy and Heat for that one (as Jacqueline mentions in her intro!)

The Snow Queen and the Winter Warlock are Winter's bio parents, and this was the very first time I dropped their names. They make a proper appearance in The Call!

The Snow Queen stealing children references the original fairy tale in the most Jacqueline way possible

And the Winter Warlock is HEAVILY based on the man of the same name from Rankin Bass's Santa Claus is Comin' to Town. Those movies SHAPED ME. CS Lore originally had RB lore, too! And RB movies did influence CS in general!

So many fun facts and I'm not even through the intro yet! WOW!

I did cleverly link CS when Jacqueline drops the Pyros lore 🤭🤭 I LOVE AO3'S CAPABILITIES, YOU GUYS

I CAN'T DO THAT SHIT ON FF DOT NET!

"It used to be a point of pride for me."

This line almost went "It used to be a point of pride for me. But it's hard to take pride in a lie"

Which is a BANGER of a line, but I am trying to keep the Y10 Reveal under wraps and that's as obvious as Pyros's lament to Blaise in Chapter 15 of CS.

You can see the 2020s influences now, which is very funny given this was all originally written almost a decade ago. I love seeing growth! But that's why Jacqueline is like THE HORRORS and also like NEWSFLASH, JACQUELINE! Which is a reference to one of my favourite It's Always Sunny reaction images:

It's so VERSATILE. Deffs top 10 things Dani quotes (and apparently Jacqueline. Which checks out as we are CONNECTED, muses and such. Oldest OC. Has the most dani-isms. Blah blah blah)

Then there's the "be the change you wish to see in the world" with her being like "YOU can be the change you want to see in this horrible terrible timeline!"

Which is a string of words I see on hellsite a LOT :)

Describing her fit was FUN! You can see it accurately (more or less) in this scrimbly Jacqueline, and also this Jacquie as a meme doodle!

And of course, off she goes to terrorize B-Man :)

Scene 1: Every Day Bernard WAKES UP

Their friendship is so fun to me and me alone 🥰🥰

She's such a sweetie. She's like "I will make things HELL for my brother BUT only if it's okay with Bernard first bc I don't wanna make things harder than they are for him 👉🏻👈🏻"

Him being B-Man, of course

Have you guys ever read Just An Elf by Locrain-Mode? If you haven't, I STRONGLY RECOMMEND IT (hence the link!) It's a group of oneshots based on Bernard and things he is NOT, and each one SLAPS. They write SUCH a good Bernard and B-Man's office just being a mess of paper was low key inspired by their work, lol (Chapter 5: One of Roemer's Singing Elves. I LOVED the idea of B's office just being like a vault/hidey hole. LOVED it)

FAVE B-Man characterization, hands DOWN. I strive to write him that good (and I hope I do! :)

"You should know first hand how frozen sprites get!” followed by "What's THAT supposed to mean?!" Is 100% Jacqueline getting a wee bit defensive on her Mom's behalf (and maybe a bit of Jack's but she's just going to ignore THAT feeling)

But B-Man is very, very right--usually post-hardening a heart, sprites rely on one emotion to get them through things so. Y'know. What'll it be for Jacqueline? ;)

And of COURSE he can see right through the illusion after he's done lamenting lol. He's an ELF. I bet they can see through all sorts of illusions!

“Yeah, I’ll say! I think I may be having a heart attack.” “Do you smell burnt toast?” “No, just betrayal.” “There’s no need to be so dramatic.”

^This interaction is my favourite in this scene, 100%. Bernard deserves to be a lil overdramatic! As a TREAT!

VESUVIUS/POMPEII! This is a fun bit of CS lore. Originally it was that Blaise and Jack were responsible for Vesuvius erupting and destroying Pompeii and Herculaneum, but that has since changed! They don’t talk about it much, only Winter really knows what happened, but take a tl;dr:

FT tells Blaise to go see Jack in Pompeii bc something bad is about to happen, doesn't specify what. Blaise, of course, assumes the worst, as you are wont to do when it's Jack. Takes the day, gets fitted by the tailors, off to Pompeii where he finds Jack who has built a nice little life for himself. He's got lots of friends and is getting involved with local politics, and Blaise is like "is this why FT told me to get over here? Does a bad thing happen if Jack wins? Everything seems fine here" and then BOOM. TREMORS. Jack informs him the mountain may be a volcano but nobody's bothered to check and he sure as shit won't. Blaise checks. Jack follows. Volcano day happens. Blaise saves Jack's life. But they can't save anyone else :(

It's ANGSTY! Can't wait to write it one day! I've already done research for it and everything!

So YEAH that's Pompeii in CS context. And yes, Jack did keep a bust!

"This doesn't feel right" says Bernard. "I should've listened" narrates Jacqueline. "my GOD I love foreshadowing" says safyresky as she types this up…

I think I'll need to make the line " I got up, standing tall and proud in my fluffy socks" a scrimbly. I just doodled it while writing this out and the sketch SENT ME. My god.

Scene 2: Bernard Hams it UP

Aka, the scene in which Dani realizes how ding dang crafty she has made Jack. WHOOPS

Exploring his POV has been fun, especially with the edits I've been making while crossposting, where it's his perspective being told to us by Jacqueline as he recounts to her in the present? If that makes sense

ANYWAY, making the distinctions and adding the little Jacqueline interruptions (see: the line about dwarfs) has been a LOT of fun

As much fun as Bernard had HAMMING IT UP in this scene when he delivered the frozen Jacqueline news to Jack >:3

Love me a Jack moment of clarity! Love having him look through the villain fog for a second like "wait is this…wrong? Fucked up?' only for the fog to be like SHUSH! NO! IT'S FINE! And regularly scheduled villainy is back in play!

Bernard asking why was interesting, because I was also wondering why Jack wanted more deets. And it's a combo of two things: 1) the obvious is she frozen? Ou. Maybe…new ally, perhaps? To get my little theme park business off the ground? And 2) oh shit I froze my bb sister :(

(in villain fog voice) YES NEW ALLY! PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE GUILT UNDER THE ICE!

"And something about that terrified him" man, these blorbos are getting the shadowed fore'd out of them and it is just not hitting, CRAZY!

Scene 3: Jack's a crafty one

That's it that's the BTS for this bit. He's CRAFTY

And YES, knew that it was fake originally but needs want, as we see in the next scene--he needs Jacqueline close by to make sure she doesn't SNITCH (as well as access to her repertoire), and she needs to keep tabs on him, for the GREATER GOOD (as well as for purposes of trying to find a way to prove to everyone that she's right and fix the timeline)

And it only hit me HERE. IN THIS SCENE. THAT HE KNEW THE ENTIRE TIME AND WAS ONE STEP AHEAD OF EVEN ME!

Frostmas is exhausting

Scene 4: Cold Front Face Off at the Dome

Jacqueline channels Winter bc that's all she knows for a frozen sprite that isn't Jack, and felt it'd give best results

She's not wrong but also is not right--frozen hearts are personalized, after all. She wouldn't be sad nor filled with avarice; she'd simply be FULL OF RAGE (spoiler alert, I GUESS)

Fun fact about the Frozen reference: it came out around the time I was working on Crystal Springs for the very first time! It informed a lot of the scenes. In fact, Cold Front reunion had Jacqueline literally quoting Elsa's mantra! Not anymore--I fixed that this year--but thought the throwback here would be funny. DON’T EXPLODE. DON'T EXPLODE. RARGH. DON'T EXPLODE. DON'T EXPLODE--and so on

(The Summer Sprite blood is STRONG in this one)

Look, we all know Santa Jack was certainly…a look. A choice, if you will. Jacqueline's just SAYING what we're all THINKING

Not Jack trying to catch up Jacqueline by egging her on. And then going GOTCHYA. It's so OBVIOUS he's not buying it, it's so CUTE how Jacqueline thinks it works

(maybe it does work a little TOO well given the events of Year 10)

Translator's note: coconut frosts is magical censoring for coconut fucks.

Y'know. These fuckers:

Scene 5: Well played to well played

Was well played on MY PART! One of my FAVOURITE transitions, I LOVE showing similarities between Jack and Jacqueline, ESPECIALLY in an angsty context like this! Something, something, BECOMING WHAT YOU FEAR MOST/DOING WHAT YOU FEAR MOST TO THOSE YOU LOVE~!

This had major editing done. Like, once I knew Jack saw through the farce, I couldn't have any of the old 'he bought it' drivel. Jacqueline, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry you think you got away with this and that he actually knew the entire time 😬

He just needs to make sure he knows why she did it, which is really Jack for 'making sure she's not on to me re: resort thing yet'

Scene 6: YET ANOTHER NEW BOP TO THE RECOUNTING!

I thought Y4 would be the last one, but Y5 surprised me

This one was fun. Thanks to the people who voted in the poll so I could figure out where they were, lmao

Hit you with the COLD FRONT feels and then a banger of a Jack line RIGHT AFTER

Seriously, I am really loving these little retelling segues. I just hope they don't make the blast to the present in Y9 less jarring!

Scene 7: cookies and cocoa

Crystal Springs has a time zone! I believe it's -8:30 hours? I'll have to double check, I know I wrote it down somewhere and I'm pretty sure it's a crystal springs fact post too 🤔

I checked! It's -8:30 GMT :)

"I'm not doing a sport!" She actually IS doing a sport. Bother-your-brother-on-purpose-athon, specifically

"It was for the greater good, I told myself. I was a big, frosty liar" FACT! More foreshadowing at play here, huehuehue >:3

"It’s like wading through molasses" THE STRENGTH I EXERTED TO NOT PUT A BIT IN HERE ABOUT THE BOSTON MOLASSES DISASTER IN 1919 IS ACTUALLY ASTOUNDING.

Scene 7.5: B-Man's…house?

So, sometimes, when I write, I do say the thing I want to write out loud and that's how we get organic moments like "He was all ‘what’s all this then’ and I was like ‘this is who I am now!’ and he was all ‘oh cool let’s make a deal’ and ‘bleh all is forgiven’"

Jacqueline is just having a TIME

I think I have seen in most fics Bernard always being in the Workshop, but I picture him having a nice lil tidy house just outside of the main hub of the shop! For some odd reason, despite thinking it is a bungalow, in my head I picture TWO sets of stairs up. What the fuck is up with THAT

But anyway, that's why I have Jacquie tease B about his house--when does he ever use it? 🤭🤭

Translators note: "snow queen PLEASE" is magic censoring for bitch PLEASE

Frostmas only gets swears when Jacqueline is thinking, not when she is speaking--UNLESS she is out and about in the world, so if she says a swear she is NOT in Crystal Springs! Fun fact for you all tonight :)

Scene 8: Jacqueline's discovery

I originally wrote it so short and jumpy because I thought the chapter was getting too long at 7k words

TOO LONG. CAN YOU IMAGINE?

I added a whole 5k words. And that was AFTER getting rid of some lore drop! AH!

I think though that I like it like this now! I don’t have the patience to go month by month to see how Jacqueline has been irritating Jack, and the quick, punchy summaries make the conclusion one HELL OF A PUNCH

Okay this is the last scene and I'm OVER this and said the funny things I wanted to say so I am CALLING IT HERE. ENJOY Y5 BTS AND ENJOY THE 2024 EDITION OF YEAR 5, WHICH WILL BE FORTHCOMING 💖💖

[sparkledfirecracker]

For writer meta asks - 1 & 3 please. 😘

I must compliment you on the talent to pick out the questions with the longest answers 🤣

1. Tell us about your current project(s)  – what’s it about, how’s progress, what do you love most about it?

Current projects, do you have a minute? I’m currently working on multiple projects.

Viking Freezy, the second chapter is written, but I’ve handed it over to a mutual to be mean and give me a brutal opinion as I feel like it’s missing something. Freezy is horrible and reader has been picked out to marry him, but her heart is with Curtis. I love this story, because all the rage I’ve felt during a particular period of time is pumped into this short series (5 chapters total when I finish it). It’s difficult going back to it, but it’s almost finished on paper, just needs editing.

Mob Freezy, I’m late to my own challenge, what else is new 🤣. He’s a little softer and he’s set his eyes and mind on something he can’t have. Of course he doesn’t listen and we’ll have to find out if his cousin won’t hang him up in his own warehouse. What don’t I love about this story? It brought me one of my closest online friendships when one door closed and another opened. Teacup and Freezy would’ve never seen the light of day of it wasn’t for @wakingbeauty. He’s soft, mean, cute and possessive. I truly love it, plus he’s part of the family of mayhem, which makes things even more interesting 😆

Another challenge entry, also late, but I had good reason for this one. Diner!Bucky, it’s almost finished, I just need to write out the smut. I don’t want to say too many things about this one, as I want most of it to be a surprise, but I can admit that @rebel-stardust will be popping my Bucky Barnes cherry with this story. I’m terrified to publish this one as I’ve never written anything for Bucky before. But it’s a wip that deserves daylight, it’s been in my vault of wips for over a year now and finally gained purpose because of a challenge.

Resort CEO Andy, the first chapter is also almost finished and for the first time in a very long time I’m going to make a deadline for a challenge. He’s the director/CEO of the fitness resort and he’s got his work cut out for him with the rugrats working for him. We’ve already met Curtis and Johnny thank to @chase-your-dreams-away. But we’ll find out what Andy does on and off business hours himself soon.

A cheesy Jake Jensen story, also another that needs finishing for my own challenge 🤣. Jake is obsessed with reader and is a total geek about it too and reader loves to play games with him. There’s nothing Jake wouldn’t do for her. Colin had to take one for the team and be mean, but it had to happen otherwise Jake wouldn’t get his shot.

The last one is something I hopefully can do and start posting this year during December. It’s a fun way of celebrating my birthday month, but I’m not revealing what it is yet, as I might have to hold on to it for another year. The process is long and I’m struggling with coming up with a few things 🤣.

Mean!Lloyd who is a Harvard Football player, he’s absolutely despicable. It’s an enemies staying enemies story, no happy ending on the romance front. Mean was my monthly theme this month, but I’m loving where it’s going. Just need to finish editing the intro to the story and sort out the sloppy blowjob and steamy live stream in order for it to be finished.

3. What is that one scene that you’ve always wanted to write but can’t be arsed to write all of the set-up and context it would need? (consider this permission to write it and/or share it anyway)

There are two scenes for my Family Affairs series. It’s a brutal torture scene and a drug bust, I have it in mind, and I’ve attempted to write one of those, but it’s fighting me. There’s so many elements and people in these scenes it’s hard to figure out who goes where and why.

So naturally I’m resorting to watching The Sopranos, The Godfather, Sons of Anarchy, Mayans M.C., Goodfellas, Mickey Blue Eyes, etc. to give me some inspiration.

[mysteriouswolf]

POKEMON TIMEEEEEEEEE

im gonna come up with some now but ill probably have more that i think of later that ill send another ask for (you can do the same for me if you have others i wanna talk about pokemon lemme talk about pokemonnnn)

also imma take a few of yours :P

these are gonna be written poorly and very repetitively just bear with me lmaooo

also feel free to add an explaination to any of these! i didnt always write it but if you wanna share feel free :3

Fav pokemon! any number doesnt have to be just one

Fav ash companion in any season

fav ash pokemon in any season

fav ash pokemon in xy

fav ash pokemon in sun and moon

fav team rocket pokemon in any season

fav gym leader in any season

fav ash rival

fav pokegirl

fav legendary pokemon

pokemon you wish was real

fav pokemon pokedex entry (if you have one)

fav pokemon type

dream pokemon team

fav rotom form/varient

fav pokemon battle from the show

fav/comfort episodes

list these from fav to least fav: mega evolution, bond phenomenon, z move, gigantamax, and terastallization

fav show character overall

what pokemon do u think would be the most useful/beneficial to actually exist

fav of ash's unique battle techniques, or at least one that stands out to u

fav game

just an overall how was your experience playing? whats your favorite thing about it?

fav show intro

least fav pokemon overall

least fav of ashs pokemon

least fav companion

part of the show you wish you could rewatch for the first time

OH MY GOD IM JUST REALIZING I FORGOT TO ANSWER THE WHY PART OF YOUR FIRST Q IMMA DO THAT WHEN IM DONE EATING LMAOOO

ANYWAY ILY HOPE YOU HAD FUN BYEEEE

GEOOOOO HELLO :D

OKAY SO LIKE I'VE MENTIONED BEFORE I DO HAVE A TIER LIST....somewhere. I don't know where it went. So I'm going to name them all off the top of my head :3

First ever favorite was leafeon or Arcanine so they both hold a very special place in my heart

MIMIKYU AHHHH HE'S SO ME FRRR

Luxray cause *pretty*

Rockruff and lyconrock <3

Ninetales!! I adore foxes and she is just. RAH.

Litten

STOUTLAND MY BOY

LANA OR BONNIE I HAVE A SEVERE ATTACHMENT TO BOTH OF THEM but Lana probably wins for this one my absolute lovely silly girl akgkakgj I love her so much <3333 she is also peak character design. To me.

It's a tie between Fletchender (idk if that's how you spell it) and Rockruff and pikachu lmao

FLETCHENDER

ROCKRUFF

AHHHH this is so hard- but it's probably gotta be James' martinie (also don't know if that's how you spell it) from sun and moon cause that pokemon loved him so damn much

Mistyyyyyy

Like besides team rocket? Because team rocket is first, and tbh a lot of the other ones don't really stick out to me lmao but that might just be because I haven't watched it in awhile

Lanaaaaa

Ooooo okay. Design/character wise it's poipole, but I used to watch this series on YT which was basically ARK but with Pokemon instead of dinosaurs and they had a ladios and ladias I got very attached to so yea :) OH AND ZIGARDE IS HE A LEGENDARY? I think he is. But I don't know specifics tbh lmao. Love him tho. Lil squishy.

Uhm. All of them. HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO PICK JUST ONE- okay but if I had to choose it'd be Rockruff + lyconrock (I get both cause they're evolutions I'm so smart) cause snuggly dog/wolf I love. And Stoutland. OH BUT WAIT WHAT ABOUT A FLYING POKEMON THEN I COULD FLY. HOLD ON. Okay I have just looked at literally all the flying Pokemon because I got carried away and here's my favorites that I feel like you could probably ride:

Noivern

Corviknight

Talonflame

Salamance

All the legendary birds + their galarian forms especially

Aerodactyl my beloved <3

Okay so I don't really but I dunno if you've seen that post where that one guy as a kid bred tons and tons of lapras because it said they were endangered and then I'm like 90% pokemon actually changed the entry to be that they used to be endangered but they're not anymore and I just. I love that so much.

Grass or dragon probably

Oooo okay I'm gonna go for a mix of powerful + my favorites:

Lycanrock

Mimikyu

Arcanine

Eevee (but like specifically Eevee from Let's Go because she gets so op by the end of the game it's insane)

Luxray

Ninetales

Rotom Dex :3

I don't think I have one tbh

Oooo okay. Most of these are gonna be aloha ones- the one where they visit the Pikachu island and there's like 10 million different Pikachus, the XYZ one that's all of them in a flower field (chespin and eevee in that episode are so cute AHHHH), the one with Lana and Mallow trying to find Grandpa Forest (Drampa) using bittersweet

Actually the way you listed them is in order of my most favorite to least favorite lmaooo (starting with mega evolution as my favorite)

Lana, Bonnie, or Ash

Hmmmm see I have three different outlooks on this- the coolest, the most useful, and the best for humanity.

Coolest would be a flying ride pokemon like Articuno because we could all literally just fly around everywhere in giant birds. How sick would that be.

Most useful would be ditto without a doubt BECAUSE he can shapeshift into anything. You need another helping hand? Dittos got you. You need fire to cook something? Dittos got you (Charmander or fire type). Need a pokemon that can lift a ton of weight? Ditto. It just works for everything.

Best for humanity would be Drampa. By far the kindest Pokemon in my opinion. We need more of that

Hmmm like in what way? Like z-crystal type stuff, or the way he acts with his pokemon? Cause I absolutely love the way Ash acts with his pokemon in battle (usually) and he generally just cares so much about them and doesn't push them too hard and AHHHH. Just. Yes.

Favorite game is Pokemon Snap (the new one) lmaooo- I don't care it's not a traditional game I have hundreds and hundreds of hours on that game it's insane I love it sm- that's the one where you get to travel to all different regions and capture photos of Pokemon and there's lots of different courses you get to go on- and as you level up a course you can photograph pokemon doing different behaviors, and try and get them to do different things by playing music or feeding them and I just love the animations in that game and how cute they are and just AH. YES. LOVE.

Besides the og one, probably the XYZ theme song or the original alola one

ALSO THOSE STUPID BITCHASS MONKEY ONES AH I HATE THEM JUST IFSJDJFJSJ BAD BAD BAD BAD LIKE THE RED GREEN AND BLUE ONES THEY ARE BAD. Honestly I don't really like most of the monkey pokemon besides smeargle. Jinx I also hate.

Uhhhh that snowball ass one. I forgot it's name

Goh

All of alola

OKAY THATS JT I THINK LETS GOOOOO WOOOO THANK YOU FOR THE QUESTIONS GEO :DDDD

[theghostpinesmusic]

Alright, I was putting off dealing with this beast of a video yesterday, but now I think it's time.

The backstory here is that in addition to surprise-announcing a four-night run at the Capitol Theatre with their new drummer two months before the start of their summer tour, Goose also had a surprise theme for night two of the run, which was also the night of the lunar eclipse: they would play through their 2016 album Moon Cabin in its entirety (with a few theme-appropriate songs at the beginning and end of the show to round things out). This resulted in a) us getting to hear Cotter play on a lot of "classic" Goose songs for the first time and b) lots of long jams, since turning one CD-length album into a three-hour show necessitates a bit of stretching out.

The centerpiece of the show arguably came in the first set, with this nearly 50 minute "Into The Myst" -> "Arcadia" pairing. I'm a huge fan of both songs, but haven't yet written any posts about either.

"Myst" was one of my "first favorite" Goose songs, back when I was still getting familiar with their catalog. It and "Creatures" are maybe the most notable examples of the part of the band's repertoire that dips into electronica/EDM territory. Back when I first started listening to the band, these two songs really set them apart from the other jam bands I was familiar with and so I gravitated toward them. And yes, I know that the Disco Biscuits and Lotus and Spafford exist and that Goose didn't "invent" jamtronica out of whole cloth, but still. They were/are good songs and I did/do enjoy them.

"Myst" tends not to get jammed out very often (with a few notable exceptions), but it usually features a sort of breakdown after the main song that slowly gets built back up to the song's peak-y outro over the course of a few minutes while staying firmly in "Type I" territory. This version is...not that.

If Goose has a "hit" song, it's probably "Arcadia." It's catchy, the lyrics are fun and good but also a little allusive, and it's designed to end with one of those bring-the-house-down resolutions that we jam band fans love. Like many, many other Goose fans, what made me a fan in the first place was watching the band's 2019 Peach Fest performance on YouTube, and in particular that "Arcadia" grabbed my attention and is still a version of the song I come back to almost five years later. It's also on Alive and Well, which is cool.

Improvisationally, "Arcadia" tends to follow a similar path as "Myst": the band plays the song proper, drops down into breakdown mode, and builds momentum and intensity back up to the song's peak. There are a ton of great, unique versions of this song out there, though, and I'd argue that the journey to the destination varies much more with "Arcadia" than it does with "Myst."

I'm excited to dive back into this particular section of this particular show because I actually had some weird video/audio problems with this show originally when livestreaming it, and so I missed a bit chunk of this "Myst" and part of this "Arcadia," and spent most of the rest of the show playing catch-up technologically. The show as a whole definitely warrants a full relisten on my next big road trip or something, but for now, of course, I'm "just" covering this 47 minutes of it.

I always love getting to see Peter ham it up during the "Myst" intro. I also always love when the song's intro drops into the verse chords. It takes awhile in this version, as the whole band jams over the intro for longer than usual. But it's cool, because there's some great Trevor/Rick interplay during this section. Eventually, the "drop" happens at 3:45 and we're off and running.

The little solo break in the middle of the song is way more bass-heavy than usual, as Rick lays back a bit after seeming to have some sort of guitar/tech malfunction right before (?). Hard to tell from the camera angle what was going on.

Anyway, we make to the end of the composed part of the song at 11:25, and immediately the move into the jam is a little different than usual. Instead of a drop into a breakdown, Cotter starts playing a quick beat and that makes the transition instead. I like Peter's pecking at the Vibe here. I also like that there's no pretense of playing the rest of the song the "normal" way: the band immediately swerves into weirdness with no hesitation.

Something about this section of the jam (Rick's noodling, the rhythm both drummers lock into) sounds very Dead-ish to me. I love how much the camera focuses on Cotter early on because he's killing it during this part.

Also, Peter being a ham again at 15:05.

I know I'm probably getting a little repetitive at this point about this, but what strikes me (again) about this first section of the jam is the patience the band shows in slowly exploring this space. Certainly, a lot of Goose jams from earlier years also stayed in this or that sonic space for five or even ten minutes at a time, but there was often little feeling that they were developing particular ideas or moving toward something; instead, it often felt like the rest of the band would just settle into a background that Rick could play guitar over. If there's ever been anything about this band that I've been inclined to criticize, it was that. It seems to have sort of...gone away...since last fall?

For example, nothing much has changed dramatically in this jam by 18:00, but there's a sense that we're picking up momentum, aided by small changes in what Cotter and Peter in particular are playing. Moving forward not by a sudden key change or dramatic tonal shift, but by slow degrees. It's cool. It's also a major way in which New Goose is reminding me more and more of Phish: not that they're "copying" Phish's sound (as naysayers will often say, naying), but that their improvisation is taking on more and more of that smoothness and hive-mindedness that I love so much in the best Phish jams.

A great example of this is at 21:00 or so here, where Rick locks on to this neat, looping riff that ends up sort of serving, through magical telepathy, as the end of this jam section: when we come out on the other side a few seconds later, Cotter is playing a much more driving beat and then the rest of the band moves to match him in intensity. Pete moves over to electric piano shortly after and we've achieved full-on Bliss Goose Mode for the next few minutes.

Wow. This was the part that I missed when watching live and it's really, really good. When you can hear the crowd screaming over the webcast you know the band's really tapping into something.

Rick finally turns the hose off at 27:00, a full sixteen minutes after the jam started. If there's one tiny complaint I have about this nutso jam, it's that they don't return to the end of "Myst," which is usually a pretty badass, cathartic moment. Again, it's a tiny complaint in this case, though, because instead we get a really smooth segue into the spacey intro for "Arcadia."

The jam out of "Arcadia" starts around 31:55. At 32:05, the camera catches Peter feeling the groove, and it sort of seems like Rick picks up on his reaction and drops out as well, letting the rhythm section do its thing for a bit. You know me: I'm never going to complain about a Trevor solo. Goddamn. Eventually the rest of the band joins back in around 33:25.

This funk breakdown bit is pretty typical of the type of jamming the band does during Arcadia, but this version has some extra oomph to it, in my opinion. Part of that is probably Cotter adding a different touch to the percussion section and, again, it almost feels like Rick is trying not to play that much, letting everyone else come through more clearly.

I really like the riff that Rick locks on to at around 36:00. I think he does, too.

Peter moves over to the clav at about 38:30 and while this doesn't dramatically change the tenor of the jam right away, it certainly makes it crunchier and seems to at least start driving the band toward a build. It takes another two or so minutes for Rick to warm up to Full Shred Mode, but by 42:00 the whole band is going full speed, Peter's banging out something crazy and dissonant on the piano and we're well on our way to a classic "Arcadia" peak.

If you're not familiar with "Arcadia" already, the jam usually builds up tension until it releases into a minor key progression that is the actual ending to the song. So you get, in a sense, two huge peaks for the price of one in most versions. Which is probably why everyone likes "Arcadia" so much.

Here, the change happens at 43:57. I really like Cotter's swinging during the early part of this build. It's one of those many little things that he does differently that makes old songs like this one feel new in a cool way.

The smoke machines are a little intense and I'm not sure how I feel about them. This "Arcadia" peak, though, is fantastic. If your ears get burnt out on Rick losing his mind, listen to Trevor instead.

And that's the story of how Goose turned two five-minute tracks from Moon Cabin into a forty-seven minute cave diving expedition/ear slaughter!

[theonlinebrat]

Intro: Loneliness

Dear whoever ends up reading this,

Nice to meet you! I'm Naomi, and I'd like to officially welcome you to my personal blog. ☀️

Originally, I had been posting these letter-styled posts using Blogger, and in Spanish because it’s my mother tongue. Then I decided to post them on Tumblr instead, and write them in English because… well, why not?

If I had a dollar for every time I’ve redesigned or made major changes to this thing, I’d be having a shopping spree by now.

Anyway, brace yourself for a journey full of my view on diverse topics, explained in the weirdest ways.

So. The day I had first written this particular entry was February 7th, 2023. The word "February" automatically makes me think of Valentine's Day every time, even right now.

I mean, since the Industrial Revolution, we're pretty much bombarded with propaganda about romantic love and common gifts, like chocolates, around that time of the year from the day we're born, so it makes sense to see it that way, right? You know, like how we associate December with Christmas. Well, unless you don't celebrate it due to religious or cultural differences, of course, so you get the Christian version of the picture.

Ironically, thinking about Valentine's Day also made me think a lot about how lonely life gets once you realize that, after all, you're not just an extension of your mother, but your own individual person. And it's a process most of us don't even remember going through because we were babies the moment it happened.

My elders used to say something about this along the lines of "You are the only person that will be with you for the rest of your life". Which isn't a bad thing at all, it's actually great news for the self-love industry!

Kidding.

Though, this way of viewing life can get a little sad if you think about it enough. Like, we can't even consider it a fact that our parents, unconditional love and all, will be with us forever in most cases. And I'm not just talking about them passing away before we do, or moving out and far from them.

In my own experience, for instance, there have been a few times when my mom and I had big fights that convinced me for a week or so that I'd lost her, which in turn helped me realize we can't take anyone for granted.

I may have described a very specific type of case, but overall it's still a grain of sand in the desert of statistics.

Back to the point, since I share about fifty Facebook memes a week, I can no longer find this one that described how being in your early 20s can get ✨ supalonely ✨, as Benee kindly put it, because your childhood friends become busy with college, work, fitness, relationships, and, well, trying to put their lives together.

Or something like that, I have long-term memory issues on top of that.

Never in my life have I been part of a large group of friends to assure you this is completely true, but I've heard that it's normal for those to start going their separate ways during this period due to conflicting schedules, get-togethers that can never take place, falling out of touch, growing apart due to differences, etc., and so most are left with only a third of the people they used to hang out with.

In fact, I saw this happen with my cousin M's friend group - there used to be like 10+ of them that she told me about in high school, but now that they're all college-aged I've only seen her hang out with 3 of them consistently. Until she moved out of the country, that is.

I mean, it's totally valid to drop a relationship with anyone who no longer vibes with you as you continue to grow as a person, and there are also people like me who kinda don't like (hate) messenger apps and are difficult to stay in touch with.

But, if it's so easy for someone to stop talking to you even if it's just to ask how you're doing once a month and leaving it there, I guess you just weren't really destined to be more than acquaintances.

People can choose to prioritize themselves or other aspects of their lives before us as their friends, which sounds awful for the person who's being abandoned, but oftentimes it's a healthy thing to do. It's just another ugly part of human life.

As EXO's D.O. sang, «People come and people go», which is a solid paraphrasing of that one Heraclitus' quote about rivers. And, yes, that’s the only EXO’s Love Shot lyric I can quote as someone who can't speak Korean yet.

On the other hand… this is more of my biological father’s point of view, but as a man in his 40s who still has 10+ years-old friendships with more than 10 people, I'd believe in him when he says that true friends would never be "too busy" to make plans with you.

Then again, he also said humans could live off 5 hours of daily sleep with no issues once, regardless that there are actual studies that prove otherwise… sometimes, and only sometimes, I am worried for that man.

Well, as I was saying, this year, I'd say I'm in that very situation in which most people you've met sort of moved on past you, and you're no longer aware of what's going on in their lives, yet you don’t care enough to chase after them either. It takes two to tango, and I refuse to do a simple walk alone.

There are no more than 10 people I can consider close to me because I don't go out that often - too expensive! -, paired with my eternal problem with messenger apps.

The funniest part is that 4 of these potential 10 people are family members, plus my boyfriend, whom I've been living with for a year now, so he's technically the only one I choose to speak to on a daily basis. And only 1 of these 10 people is a childhood friend.

Though, I wouldn't have it any other way.

It’s rather worrying for me when someone has a larger ratio of childhood friends to college or work friends.

Most adults tend to have trouble going out with their college or work friends due to different schedules, thus it can be hard to spend time with them outside of the context where you first met.

If someone hangs out a lot with their childhood friends and still doesn't feel like they’ve outgrown them, despite their strong emotional ties and social stability, they might have lower adaptability and maturity than the average adult.

In my case, it seems I don’t have the adaptability nor strong emotional ties. Plus, as a person who tends to be viewed as “weird” or quiet, making new friends is not that easy where I live.

Much like when moving into a new school, a new town, or a new anything really, it's easy to feel like people just don't want to add any new close friends to their list nowadays - and I don't mean the IG ones.

And as if things couldn't get any worse in the loneliness department, being able to meet a new friend is NOT the most challenging part, but the one that follows.

Talking.

Imagine - maybe both parties do want to get closer to each other. However, neither one nor the other person knows what to say, or there might not be enough trust between them to tell for sure what can be shared and what not. Ideally, of course, you'd want to avoid that, and get yourself friends you can be your authentic self around and have all sorts of conversations with.

But nooo, "it takes all sorts to make a world", said God. Maybe.

I mean, I can't be the only one who has experienced fewer instances of making new lasting friends than those where the other person is never the first one to strike a conversation while I keep making the effort to send them messages every so often to stay in touch, and then one day I stop putting in the work and the other person doesn't even budge; as they say, better alone than in bad company, huh?

The more the latter case happens, it eventually becomes exhausting to be nice to people who most likely will forget all about you as soon as you stop trying to connect with them.

Luckily, there still are nice souls out there like my ex-coworker, Angel, who wishes me a Feliz Jueves every Thursday up to this day. I haven't even watched Neon Genesis Evangelion to understand the meme/reference, but appreciate the thought a lot!

Can't blame people for being cautious nowadays, though. I totally understand why someone would be hesitant to welcome a new face into their lives, considering most of us don't know what others' true intentions are when approaching us, and that I've even insulted people (mostly men) over that - to be fair, you'd be surprised at the number of dudes sliding into pretty girls' DMs only to test their luck with their crappy rizz.

You could say that what ultimately inspired me to expose myself to the endless possibilities of the Internet by sharing my thoughts and feelings online was a combination of my love for writing stuff, my little regard for what non-friends think, and a dash of loneliness due to being physically isolated from humans that are not my boyfriend with my dropping out of college and landing a work-from-home job, along with the previously mentioned stuff that's made me less keen on socializing ofc.

I could've used the journal my boyfriend gifted me a while back to do this or post shorter, almost cryptic versions of these in X (Twitter), but I had always wanted to have a blog very specifically. I just didn't know what to write about up until earlier this year.

Now, Blogger has been an awesome platform to work with, but time constraints require me to opt for one that's more accessible for… well, everyone. So why not create a space here where I can express myself and maybe even find or inspire others who might be feeling the same way?

So yeah, that's the line of thinking that led me to inaugurate a blog with a pen-pal meets music playlist theme going on.

I really really hope you enjoy your time here, and can't wait to hear from you one day!

Until next time 🌝

- N

[paradife-loft]

In the blood orange sky

Well. Does anybody remember a couple months ago when I made this post? Because apparently I’ve been thinking about it a fair bit.

And also thinking about... maybe doing a thing? A thing that involves writing various vignettes as I’m moved to, very low pressure, but all in the same continuity, about sequences of various events that are related to one another and a central premise...? So kind of maybe like a “multi-chapter fic” as they call them, but y’know. No particular goals for “finishing” something, or requiring they be in chronological order or any other strict structure binding them together. Just exploring things for fun, and I’ll see where it goes!

But yes, so, I have written a bit this week that I think does what I would like for a first portion of something like this, and... here it is!

1.4k words, Xiyao, post-canon, dark-ish mystery/intrigue/character and relationship exploration I guess?; warnings for injury and general unpleasant body stuff, and also unpleasant mental health stuff, and also discussed off-screen (mass) murder.

*

When he comes to this time, he is sitting - propped up in the gentle rays of early sun against something he can vaguely identify as soft, with enough give to cradle his shoulders. That alone is a departure from each time previous… and Jin Guangyao supposes he ought to be thankful he continues to wake up at all; that his condition upon doing so this one time at least is no longer face-down, body practically smeared into the dirt.

An unpleasant prickling in one of his legs prompts him to open his eyes again, lift his head from where it’d fallen back against a pillow. His neck throbs with the motion. He sees a pair of hands - familiar enough that the distortions between his sight now and his memories cannot help but unsettle him - moving steadily with needle and thread through a deep rent in his left calf.

Ah. That would explain that particular discomfort, then.

Viewing the sight on top of feeling the muted, distant sensation it evokes, gives him the perverse and contrarian instinct to kick out and abort the effort of cleaning him up as it’s only partway done - but he recognises well enough that it would be a waste, and even now he isn’t so far gone as that. And he doesn’t want his leg to remain ruined. And to repair it himself now would be… possible, but far more difficult.

All arguments he has to pull out in front of his mind’s eye, like a text one might recite, to convince himself not to protest this time; but he does hold himself still, does remain for the time being a silent, compliant patient.

(Not entirely still, he must admit: his eyes follow the tiny shifts in those hands, trying to reconcile the absence of both manicured care, and the unique pattern of callused ridges he had memorised once upon a time. And yet more important, more incorrect when compared to the state he is familiar with: Lan Xichen has never known how to sew.)

(And yet. And yet.)

He presses his lips together as Xichen approaches the completion of the task, drawing the words he resents needing to speak up like pitchers of water from a drying well. They crowd his tongue, sour the inside of his mouth.

"I take it you found me quickly this time, after your target was done with me?"

Lan Xichen starts when he hears his voice, head jumping up and eyes round. Jin Guangyao had not taken him to be so absorbed that he hadn't even noticed him waking, but -

(He should have, perhaps.)

Xichen's expression hardens into something resigned after that, the dam holding back a great dredged mass of displeasure. Pain and anger in a hundred or more shades, silt and loam and sand.

"You tore apart the gravesites of three prominent clans, scattering the bones, and then did the same with the bodies of their living families when they came to drive out the robbers who defiled their ancestors' remains. The entire village has been terrified since last night. The news was not difficult to follow."

Jin Guangyao resists the urge to close his eyes, staring down the spray of blood to his face with the same dispassion he once used to with regularity. He is out of practise, however: he can't stop the reflexive flinch in his mouth, or his one remaining hand. It curls stiffly in the blankets pushed to one side of the bed pallet.

It’s not that he hadn't expected something along these lines, from the moment he’d woken up and taken in his surroundings. He hadn’t particularly relished the anticipation of hearing it, and so allowed himself a few moments watching Lan Xichen work in silence before disturbing him, it’s true - but he regrets the pain and exhaustion on Xichen's face and in the set of his shoulders and limbs more than he cares to spend his sympathy on another (inevitable) group of dead strangers.

He glances down at the long column of stitches holding the greying flesh of his leg together around the bone, and wonders which hapless, doomed villager from this new feat of resentful destruction had managed to inflict the injury.

"So it didn't require all that much searching, then. Nobody was angry with you, stealing away with the corpse that had killed all those people instead of burning it?"

"Not enough to express it to me. I imagine it helped that I spent several hours in the interim helping right the disturbed graves, and set wards around several of the neighboring houses," Xichen replies. Stress still lines his eyes, flickering more prominent like a candle flame as he speaks. Reconstructing the sequence of events implied, Jin Guangyao feels a twinge of - something - surprise, or hurt? he can't quite say - that Xichen had apparently seen fit this time to seal him away and then leave him, presumably alone, for some significant time afterward, while he tended to the village. Even though it was presumably an effective distraction, not to mention well-deserved.

"I was intending on returning this afternoon, to add more wards to some of the other houses, and suppress any other spirits roused in the process,” Xichen adds. Half an afterthought, half an explanation.

The emotion, whatever it is, crystallizes into a spike of irritation. "Temporary wards aren't going to be enough to turn away a determined corpse-raiser of this strength if he has unfinished vendettas against anybody left there," replies Jin Guangyao, snappish.

Lan Xichen’s lips thin. "I would still prefer to comfort some of their fears, however unrealistically, in the time before the problem has been solved, than leave them with no help or explanation at all after such a loss."

Jin Guangyao knows this. Agrees with it, even; it had been one of many principles they shared in the nighthunts they used to investigate. If Lan Xichen is frustrated at having to reiterate such a thing to him specifically, rather than in general, it doesn't show amidst everything else on his face.

He does stand though, turning away from the bed, tucking the medical supplies he’d been using back into their pouch and going to check on an iron kettle perched over a fire.

“Where are we?” Jin Guangyao asks, preferring the abrupt change of subject to a continuation of the prior topic. Xichen glances back at him - not for long.

“The abandoned house of one of the walking corpses I suppressed a few months ago,” he replies. He pours hot water into a skin, tying it off, and then another steaming portion into a tea pot - drab by Gusu Lan standards, but still likely worth more than the entire roof they’re under. “Don’t get up on that leg yet; you’ll split it open.”

Silence clouds between them, as Jin Guangyao stops shifting his way toward the edge of the bed pallet and lets the leg stretch out in front of him, holding back his weight against his arm. His fingers itch.

He’s asked Lan Xichen before, how long he’s been living like this, although not in those terms; and Lan Xichen has responded only with obvious deflections, despite giving perfectly cogent answers to less savory questions, such as how he’s managed to take a room at an inn with a resentment-spilling corpse in tow. There are many people in need with no one else to turn to throughout the countryside. A simple glamour works well enough when neither the inkeep nor other patrons are cultivators. Spending nights at the house left abandoned after a prior nighthunt certainly sidesteps the minor inconveniences of the latter, but leaves him even less sanguine about the former.

Would you rather neither of you were here at all, and in all likelihood even more people were dead? his own mind poses snidely, while he sits and watches Lan Xichen putting the hot compress over his lower leg, manually drawing up the blood in his body toward the region. He sips the cup of medicinal brew pressed into his hands, despite strong doubt in its capacity to do anything now for him in particular.

When he can acutely feel the spiritual energy circulating through his through him - pushed by Xichen’s intent and core, urging tissue to repair itself in the same way it would in a living body - Jin Guangyao finally admits the need to push on the issue of what they both have surely understood by now.

“I need to come with when you leave,” he says. He doesn’t make it a suggestion.

Lan Xichen closes his eyes, and Jin Guangyao’s still heart seems to squeeze like a vise. Go back to Gusu! he wants to yell; fuck the villagers, and fuck whatever further bloody deaths he won’t be conscious enough to care about causing.

Lan Xichen only nods, like it pains him. “Yes. I suppose you do.”

[tarosin]

the great adventures of y/n and ranboo

this is an extra part to the great adventures series

summary: part two to the angst imagine (the not so great adventures of y/n tommy tubbo jack and ranboo) it’s a happier ‘ending’ please read what is written in bold

this is an “alternative ending” around 15 years into the future this doesn’t mean this is actually how the series is going to end im writing it now and including it as part of series as their friendship is already established i can confirm y/n and the group are going to have a happy ending when the series eventually comes to an end this also does not mean the series is anywhere near the end i plan on continuing the series as vlogs come out, i feel the need to confirm this now love between y/n and ranboo in this imagine is completely platonic

it had been about a month since you last streamed whereas ranboo continued to stream a few days after the fallout as he wanted to make sure you were going to be okay. even though ranboo knew this huge fallout would eventually happen, it still hurt him, especially since he knew there was no way to prevent it, the four of you in the same house mixed with the stress of being some of the most-watched content creators made living rather difficult. it was like walking on eggshells as you didn’t want to interrupt someone's stream, then there was the additional stress of obsessive fans finding out where the four of you lived, you still remember that day very vividly. you were sat in between tubbo and ranboo watching the office whilst Tommy was in an interview when you received a message from your mod.

Chris: hey y/n I received this message earlier I don’t want to scare you, but maybe get the locks changed. someone sent a message claiming this is your address *image of message from ‘fan’*

it didn’t take long for tubbo and ranboo to receive a message from their mods saying the same thing

“holy shit...”

“chances are Tommy has the message too. we shall go check around the house when Tommy is done with the interview.”

luckily no one ever showed up to the house, but the fact some people were so obsessed to the point they found your address was enough to put everyone in the house on edge. and now it was just you and ranboo in the house. you didn’t feel safe as even though ranboo promised to not let anything happen, you didn’t wanna risk it.

“we should move. there’s no point in having such a big house for two people, what are we going to use the extra space for heh? hide and seek with people who have our address. no thank you. I say we move leave this mess behind and start completely over, hell I’d feel safer in the us and that’s saying something”

ranboo agreed the house didn’t have the happiest memories attached to it anymore, it hurt walking past the hallway as it would bring back the memory of him crying into the crook of y/ns neck whilst tubbo left the house.

“let’s do it, I’ll do an early stream then we can look for houses. go take a shower. I’ll stay close to the door so you’re safe, then you can stay in my room whilst I stream, you can join me if you would like.”

“you’re being very protective all of a sudden...let me guess you got the message from our mods announcing the obsessive fans are at it again?”

“go take a shower.”

“no.”

ranboo ended up picking you up, carried you to the bathroom and turned the shower on before putting you on your feet.

“quick shower I’ll see you later.”

and with that he left the room shutting the door behind him, 30 minutes later you got changed and followed ranboo to his room ready to join him whilst he streams

“hey boo, can I join you? I kinda wanna get into streaming again.”

“I'm so glad you asked, I was going to do a face cam stream, if that’s okay?”

“of course.”

you grabbed his mask and glasses whilst he locked the door so you were both safe. “here you go.”

“thank you.”

the pair of you started the stream and it was honestly going well, you were having so much fun you forgot about all the negative things currently going on, you began to understand why ranboo continued streaming as for those 2-4 hours of streaming it felt as though everything was back to normal. 3 hours later the two of you ended stream and Twitter went crazy. tweets ranged from fans talking about how ranboo was streaming with you, how Tommy was in chat, and how tubbo was modding as people who mentioned anything about their address being leaked were banned by tubbo. the one thing that caught ranboos eye was fan art and a picture of you both from the stream captioned ‘they’re platonic soulmates your honour’ ranboo went as far to like, retweet and comment on it.

ranaltboo: glad you liked the stream it was great having y/n back, think I might make them play tattletail next stream

definitelynoty/n: isn’t that the Furby game that terrified you in 2021? bring it on boo!

Twitter went crazy over this interaction, you had finally come back to social media after months of being inactive, and it looked like you were here to stay. a month later you and ranboo moved out of the house and sold it to your aunt and her wife and their three adopted children, you explained the situation and even changed the locks for them all before they moved in.

“Please do tell us if anyone shows up who shouldn’t be. we changed the locks as you were aware- oh hello little one.”

you noticed one of their children decided to cling onto your leg

“I like your hair it’s colourful!”

“Indeed it is.”

“WOAH A GIANT!”

the little girl let go of your leg and ran to ranboo asking to be picked up, unsure of what to do he looked towards you. however, you were too busy laughing about the fact he was compared to a giant.

“I'm so sorry uh if you want to pick her up you can, you don’t have to.”

“pick me up, tall man... I want to be taller!”

ranboo ended up standing next to you with an arm around your waist whilst the child sat on his shoulders happily playing with his hair.

“ranboo do not drop that child.”

“I didn't- I didn't plan on it y/n.”

eventually, it was time to leave and the child reluctantly let go of ranboo.

“bye-bye!! hope to see you soon!”

soon enough you were at a smaller house, far away from the old house, leaving behind the negative feelings. it could only get better, a week later the pair of you had settled into the new house, it finally felt like home. you and ranboo were now streaming full time again, safe to say the two of you were thriving and closer than ever.

“so I’m thinking if I hit the sub-goal today I’ll let chat pick what colour I dye my hair.”

“make it higher, and I’ll let you cut my hair.”

“Are you being serious? oh my god!”

a few minutes later you took to Twitter to announce you were going live.

y/n: kidnapping children in the sims with ranboo psst check the subgoal.

within 20 minutes you had hit the sub-goal, chat ended up picking another random neon colour for your hair.

“right hair dye and the cutting stream will be this weekend, now let’s go back to kidnapping.”

tubbo, tommy, and jack felt awful for what happened and went back to the house where you used to live, hoping to see you there so they could apologise, tubbo knocked on the door only to be met by a young child.

“my sister watches you on twitch!”

“oh that’s lovely.. are y/n and ranboo here?”

an older woman came to the door.

“oh no, I’m sorry dear they both moved out, but they left this box and said to give it to you if you returned.”

“do you know where they moved to?”

“I'm sorry dear, I'm not allowed to tell you that information for safety reasons.”

“I understand, thanks anyway.”

they ended up going back to jacks where the three of them had been staying.

“We should open the box.”

tubbo opened the box and emptied the items onto the floor, inside was the rocks y/n handed tubbo from every trip, photos of the group, a necklace y/n had gifted to Tommy a day before the argument, and a hat y/n had taken from jack during a trip to a zoo.

“what the fuck!”

“holy shit!”

“they really kept all these in hopes we would come back?”

“and now we’re too late.”

it was now the weekend you and ranboo were ready to stream, you stood leaning on ranboo who was significantly smaller than you as you lowered the chair he sat on.

“starting stream...now.”

after the starting soon intro played, you explained what was happening to any new viewers or people who didn’t watch the stream.

“so I’m about to become Edward Scissorhands...I love that film can we watch it later?”

“yeah mhm sure!”

you didn’t know this but your ex best friends were watching and ever so often would show up in the chat.

“so boo, what are we doing with your hair today?”

“just a trim please darling?”

“This is y/ns hairdressers you get what I’m capable of!”

you ended up doing a pretty good job of cutting ranboos hair, even he was impressed.

“I didn’t doubt you for a minute!”

“mhm sure thing please don’t mess up my hair tall one!”

soon enough you had the dye on. 45 minutes later you left to wash it off, leaving ranboo to entertain stream,

“chat I think I missed some of their hair it’s okay, I own scissors, I’ll just cut it.. speaking of they did a great job, didn't they? I honestly expected them to mess up.”

a few minutes later you joined ranboo again and spent the next few hours talking with chat. tubbo, tommy, and jack stayed the entire time. they loved the fact you and ranboo were able to stay close after what happened, Tommy noticed you were still wearing the necklace he got you many years ago and spammed them chat with him tubbo and jack

Tommy: THEYRE WEARING THE NECKLACE!!

jack: so what? they clearly don’t wanna talk to us.

tubbo: shut up listen to them.

“chat why are we spamming platonic soulmates?”

“they’ve been saying it all over Twitter, look on trending y/n.”

you started to blush slightly at all the amazing artwork soon enough the stream came to an end, after saying goodbye the pair of you sat together going through fan art. unfortunately the one that caught your eye was this one twitter post where the artist had created a drawing of a piece of paper with you, ranboo, tommy, tubbo, and jack, however the paper was ripped separating you and ranboo from the others, captioned ‘it was never meant to be’ this clearly upset ranboo as he took off his mask and glasses placing them on the desk before going straight to his bed.

“boo…are you okay?”

“Are you tired of me? are you going to leave next?”

“what? no of course not! I could never get tired of you, why do you ask?”

“everyone else has left..i thought they cared about us, i knew it would happen eventually and i couldn’t stop it, i’m sorry, y/n, please don’t hate me.”

you sat on the edge of the bed looking down at the floor,

“come here.”

you watched him roll over to face you.

“you know there’s no one else who I'd rather spend the rest of my life with, right…if i hated you i wouldn’t have moved house with you. it’s not your job to fix everything and make everything better, you’re a streamer for christ sake not a therapist.”

“i guess so.. can we watch that thing you were on about for ages.”

“edward scissorhands? “

“mhm!”

you could tell he wanted to be distracted, so you agreed and put the film on, towards the end you began to get upset due to how overwhelming everything was.

“Why are you crying?”

“poor Edward.”

“come here.”

ranboo pulled you into a hug you laid there crying into his chest, he knew that wasn’t the reason you were crying, but he wasn’t about to make you tell him, luckily it didn’t take long for you to stop crying as ranboo quickly distracted you.

“ranboo..”

“yeah y/n?”

“I feel bad i didnt realise how much pressure was on you whilst everyone was arguing.”

“Hey, it’s okay, is that what’s upsetting you?”

“mhm.”

“don’t blame yourself, i’d do it all over again to keep you safe and happy..then again i didn’t do a good job on keeping you happy.”

“you did..you were always there for me even when i gave up on social media, you shared your room with me after i started receiving creepy messages from that obsessed fan, hell you even went on adventures with me even though it was clear you hadn’t been sleeping, just so we could spend time together and forget about what was happening. you mean a lot to me boo.”

“i love you.”

“i love you too bud, I’m tired.”

“go to sleep, it’s been a long day.”

“okay.”

“you just staying there?”

“yes.”

“oh, oh okay, goodnight.”

about a year later the two of you were still thriving, ranboo got you a promise ring a few months earlier.

“heh what’s this for?”

“as your best friend i promise to stay by your side and keep you safe and make sure that you’re happy, in other words you're stuck with me till the end of time.”

“boo…i really don’t know what to say.. thank you so much!”

“you don’t have to say anything!”

you ended up going out to buy him a promise ring when he started the stream and decided to take your cousins with you now that they were a little older. ranboo was doing a facecam stream when the door slammed open revealing you covering your three younger cousins ranboo not realising you were hiding them from the camera, instinctively stood up covering the camera

“ranboooooo!”

“yes you three and y/n ,what do you need?”

“we would like to watch a film!”

“Okay, i’ll go put one on, y/n will you entertain chat?”

“sure thing boo boy!”

once they left you sat fixing your hair forgetting you were wearing the ring chat noticed this and went crazy, so did Tommys group with tubbo and jack.

tubbo: that’s a ring, right??

jack: yeah looks like it.

Tommy: holy shit I always thought if anyone was gonna get married it would be tubbo and y/n, they were inseparable.

tubbo: hilarious.

jack: it could just be a ring, no one mentioned marriage tommy!

Tommy: we should congratulate them.

jack: at least let them explain fucking hell.

soon enough ranboo came back into the room,

“sorry one of them found it hilarious to steal my glasses...”

“they’re little shits i swear to god but i love them.”

you both noticed chat going crazy and both looked at each other before laughing.

“i'm sorry, i can’t take you serious in the mask and glasses!”

“i can’t take you serious with neon hair, but here we are!”

“rude!”

you and ranboo quickly put an end to the rumours,

“no we’re not engaged or married, it is a promise ring. no they’re not our children, they’re y/ns cousins they just spend a lot of time here..chat stop calling me and y/n parents and comparing us to phil that’s not..that’s not how it works okay!”

“parent arc!”

“y/n, don’t encourage them!”

“it’s a little bit funny!”

soon enough the bit came to an end and eventually ranboo ended the stream.

“hey boo look what i got you”

you handed him a little black box, inside was a ring similar to yours

“i promise to always stick around and be here for you”

“oh my god”

ranboo tackled you into a hug thanking you several times for his rings. you and ranboo were living your best life meanwhile jack, tommy, and tubbo were stuck dealing with the guilt of what happened, but they’re weren’t giving up that easy. they wanted you both back, that’s when you received a notification, tommyinnit has sent you a message request: hey y/n can we talk..please?

taglist

@dumb-chaotic-bi-energy @uselesssapphickitten @l0ver0fj0y @etheriaaly @xx-smiley-xx @hawarun @kylobensgirl @cawcaw-pretty-thing @reverse-iak @renleicrashed @augustine-is-joy @c1loudee

[shrunkupthejams]

@multi-lefaiye since you asked, here's some stuff about camilla marie!! (and because i could not just pour my heart out about my babygirl in the notes, i made a post :) it's so very rambly..)

camilla is the original babygirl, my very first oc <3 i won't get into her origins here because i cover that in her wip intro (which im going to post soon!!), but she's very dear to me and has been with me since i was 12.

bit of basic info:

she/her & ae/aer/aem pronouns

she's an agender lesbian and is okay with using feminine descriptors (daughter, girl, woman, etc.)

she's a sun fae!! which is a fae who is the child of zola, the sun goddess. it's a surprisingly common thing for faefolk to be directly related to zola, zolit, or solya. (zolit and solya are the moon god and goddess.)

ae's also a mage

so, her backstory is that she was swapped with a changeling at birth and adopted by riven alderbranch, a traitor to the fae courts. im not going to say who her second biological parent is tho because it's more fun if it's secret. but anyway, her adoptive father is riven (he/she). after stealing away from the fae courts, riven ended up being adopted into a werewolf pack in northern astelle, and that's where she and camilla live now. while it's technically a werewolf pack, they've adopted so many people into their family that less than half of the pack is comprised of werewolves. (because i refuse to use the stupid inaccurate alpha/omega/whatever shit in my werewolf world building. i read something about werewolves adopting people into their packs and went yeah i'll base my world building around that.)

camilla's story is a lot of found family. living in a werewolf pack, she grew up in a massive farm house full of people. everyone in the pack is family to her, even the more annoying kids around her age, like dean mayweather (she/they). also with growing up in the pack, when ae goes to magic school in vermagne, ae basically adopts her new friends into her family.

one of such friends is cameron darcy (she/they). camilla WILL fight anyone who is mean to cameron.

aer other best friends are jaimie tuckerr (he/him), arabella fyr (xe/she/they) and nickodeemus fyr (he/him), all of which ae grew up with. arabella and nicko are twins (arabella's older). jaimie and camilla are practically joined at the hip.

also, im no longer sure how (ig someone in the pack knows and taught the kids), but camilla knows how to sword fight and has so much fun with it. it's like aer favourite pasttime. even more so when she convinces jaimie to sword fight with her.

other than sword fighting, at home a lot of camilla's time is dedicated to helping run the farm that the pack owns. a lot of that time is spent gathering plants and roots, tending gardens, harvesting, preserving food, and cooking for the pack (because there's like. 25 people in the pack? at least?). everyone plays a part and lends a helping hand. they have a few livestock animals, their farm is mostly gardens and orchards. their specialty is hibiscus!! which they sell at the market in nachelte, a port up the calley from their farm. camilla LOVES iced hibiscus tea with orange slices in it. she chooses to spend most of her time in the orchards or in the forest gathering roots and local plants rather than in the kitchen, mostly because the kitchen is where dean is most of the time.

why dean and camilla have beef, i don't know, but the conflict is fun to have.

rather than using a wand for magic, camilla uses rocks and stones, which is quite common in astelle!

another very dear person ae met at magic school is her girlfriend, althea miel (she/her). her parents are beekeepers from fenreille. jaimie is partially the reason they ended up together, because he noticed althea's very obvious crush while camilla was obliviously crushing on althea. althea and camilla are just. really sweet together. also i think althea might have mildly prophetic dreams because i have written a few eery dream scenes for her. we love foreshadowing via dreams!

also very important to me about camilla: she has adhd! i did that before i even realized i had adhd and brushed aside the thoughts of vague wondering about why the adhd symptoms i had her exhibit in my writing felt so relatable. the adhd is just something that i feel like makes so much sense for her. she's also dyslexic.

gender is also weird for her. ae doesn't really feel gender? like she's okay with certain gendered terms, but she has no attachment to it whatsoever. she never thought about it much until jaimie came out as trans, and when did think about it, she shrugged and went "nah, not feeling it. i don't need one of those."

and on final thing about her, at one point i toyed with the idea of her being a bit of a bully, and ig it stuck in a few weird places because she's down to fight pretty much anyone, and there's this one kid at magic school, mirth, that she would 100% beat up. canonically, not yet sure where beating him up fits into the story, but camilla really wants to beat him up. like he's a bit bitchy and pathetic, but i can't say i get why she wants to heat the snot out of him so bad. one of life's great mysteries /hj.

edit: here's a picrew i forgot to add! i think im going to make aer hair shorter tho because hair is important to fae and when she finds out who her bio dad is she cuts all of her hair off except her sacred braids because she's pissed at zem.

and that concludes the ramble! ik it was disorganized and a bit all over the place, but i hope you enjoyed!! :D

[stormblessed95]

Memories 2016: Disc 4

So I asked awhile ago when I said I was going back to watch every memories DVD they have released so far, if you would be interested in commentary from me as I did so. There were a lot of people who said yes, so here we are! I have officially watched BTS Memories of 2016. Here are my thoughts as I went. There were 4 DVDs in this one. The posts over first 3 discs is already up and on my masterlist. Reminder that these aren't going to be smoothly written out thoughts. You get these like I'm live reacting, texting my bestie or live tweeting. Lol it'll be in like bullet point format sort of, just... a commentary post as I go. Lol Hope you enjoy anyway! Let's go!

Disc 4:

On Stage Asia Tour:

They went to 10 cities (Seoul / Taipei / Macau / Nanjing / Osaka / Nagoya / Beijing / Manila / Bangkok / Tokyo) for this tour. It was an extension of their 2015 HYYH tour. The tour kicked off in Seoul on 160507.

Track List:

1. Run

2. Danger

3. Autumn Leaves

4. Tomorrow

5. Butterfly

6. Outro: Love is not Over

7. Outro: House of Cards

8. Intro: What Am I To You?

9. Boy In Luv

10. Save Me

11. Fire

12. WAB pt 2

13. Cypher pt 3: Killer

14. If I Ruled the World

15. Silver Spoon

16. Dope

17. Boyz with Fun

18. Attack on Bangtan

19. No More Dream

20. Epilogue: Young Forever

21. Whalien 52

22. Miss Right

23. I Need U

We start in June with the boys in Taipei. A minute into the video and we have jikook playing games already. Lol little wrestling robots game. Jimin bragging he won too much and JK saying it's only because I let you win (something he started doing with frequency in 2015) and then doing a rematch where he wins super quickly. Lmao poor Jimin.

This was also the same time as rehearsals for this concert that we see jikook practicing their COA performance. And JK mimicking Jimin on his 333 dance and immediately turning to check to see if he made Jimin laugh (he did 😊). Maknae line crazy dance times together in between stages 🥰

In Macau is where we get the iconic Sope skit with the recorder music that Hobi plays with his nose and Suga can't help but giggle over. And they thank their fans for the gift of such a luxurious recorder

I will never understand why they film them eating meals or snacks right up in their faces. I really don't need to see it and dang, let them eat without risk of accidentally inhaling the camera too with how close they get 🤣 the dance party from how good the snacks were though and excitement for the concert was adorable.

In Nanjing (July), Love seeing Jihope help the others perfect the choreo and picking out little things they can do to make the overall performance better. Main dancer things 🥰 and then vmin taking a break between rehearsals and the concert to play basketball together!

Jin dancing to ARMY singing songs before BTS even takes the stage 🥺 I love that they get to feel so much love. RMs inspiring little speeches before they go on to his members, do our best! And then we just got clips of total chaos and I want more please! Lol taekook piggy back ride, everyone hyping Suga up for his verse by patting him all over and jumping, Jimin swinging in between TaeJin, Tae on JKs shoulders, Tae's Boyz with Fun dance... I'm noticing a common factor in this craziness being Taehyung 😂 love him.

Tae2Seok proposing to ARMY during their ending mentions. Lmao dangerous idea to give out my guys. 😂 followed by their talks to the camera at the end with Jin continuously proposing to Jimin (somewhat aggressively lmao) before JinJiKook all ask ARMY to marry them too. What is this?! What was the joke? 😂

In Osaka now! They were all so excited during rehearsals and cutesy teasing Tae about how often he said "now" during his VCR recording. (He did say it a lot lol.) Man, rhey also are making Jimin dance on every show! Either showing parts of Fire and the 333 dance before, but now it's Butterfly 😂 and ahh the way JK looks at him while he sings so Jimin can dance everytime. So fond. Such a big smile. And this time Jin did it too!

Jimin jokingly holding Jin back from giving the camera kisses for the end of show mentions. And then Jikook have been doing so many of their camera talks together lately. Lol "the youngest teased me so much today everyone" lol okay Jimin. They are so cute. Followed by Jin and Jimin reacting to JKs celebrity bromance show, which I have already made a post over here too.

Nagoya concerts! Yoongi being so professional and working with the sound techs over what should be higher/lower for instruments and Members voices. Being so knowledgeable and so cool. And then JK following him around in tiny and mimicking everything he says giggling softly to himself and at the camera 🤣 "suga hyung won't scold me" indeed.

Lmao right before the concert. JK is trying to talk to the camera and Tae is just belting his lungs out across the room everytime he tries to talk 🤣 jin sharing how backstage is like a war zone as they have all 7 members trying to get changed and their hair/makeup freshened up in just 3 minutes but that he always finishes first.

Jikook playing together before rehearsals on day 2 with silly dances 🥺 Jin proposing to ARMY AGAIN and the editors being savage lmfao "Jin became cringeworthy" rude omg 🤣 everyone teasing Joonie for his Day 1 Day 1 chant the day before. Lol and at the very end, Jimin jumping onto JKs back when they are leaving the stage before giving his ending mentions to the camera. 🥺

Beijing concerts. I'm not sure what Jimin was dancing too in the middle of rehearsals but JK was loving it. Jimin was going hard too! Lol during their rehearsal break we saw Jimin cracking up laughing while filming a video of Hope, which he later posted to Twitter for us. And the way they have meetings together before every show to hash out exactly what minor things need to be changed depending on where they are performing and give reminders on how to give the best show. They work so hard it's crazy.

Beijing is where we had RM, Jin and Jimin all take turns dancing part of the Butterfly choreo to either JK or Tae singing acapella. Something they have been doing this whole tour, switching it up. But this was the iconic one where JK was watching Jimin dance with all the love in his eyes while singing

RM ended up suffering from over heating and having trouble breathing and couldn't finish the concert. It was heartbreaking but also very touching watching JK and army fill in for his rap verses and Suga take over for the speeches. They did a really good job though. And they were all so worried and concerned when talking to the camera afterwards, especially Jungkook, who couldn't even really think of anything to say, just kept looking off to the side, like he was wanting to be able to just go check on his hyung. They love each other so much. It's never the same if one isn't there.

Manila shows, end of July finally. Jikook walking to the stage with their arms around each other 🥺 and Jin is always acting the cutest on his way to their stages!

Lmao JK playing around with sunglasses and acting silly while the stylist Noona is trying to shove clothes at him and help him get dressed quickly for the encore stage. He is NOT making her job easy. Lmao these stylists all the patience of saints, I swear! The rapline hyping each other up on stage will never not get to me! And they were all so hype for the NMD dance break too!

Everyone was soooo excited by the crowds reactions. JK saying ARMY was his energizer. The hyungs all smiling super hard and being so thankful. Tae just shouting love you to the camera for army over and over. Jimin crashing his interview and jumping on Tae's back this time. Lol they were all so happy after this show!

Bangkok shows now! (160806 now). The amount of Thai food they had on a spread looked amazing and the short impromptu eat jin video we were gifted as well! Jungkookies smile hearing ARMY screaming before they go on stage 😭 Tae giving using his hand to give flying kisses from Jin and JK both. So cute

Yoongi walking off stage so tired he basically just skips saying anything to the camera. 😭 someone let him take a nap soon! We also see the staff taking JKs mic off and him holding his arm like it hurts. Then when Jimin comes up while he is talking to the camera to give him a back hug, he knocks his arm a bit and JK is obviously in pain. Jimin then practically forgets all about the camera, trying to figure out what happened and what hurts. While JK spends just as much effort trying to pretend he is fine and to distract Jimin from it, including teasing him and when Jimin says he is getting old going, but you are only 22? Lol before they walk off together. I'm sure Jimin did not forget about his arm and wanting to find out what happened either. It was cute the way JK wanted to not worry him over it though.

Toyko tour stop! Hoseok, our dance leader, scolding JK for not properly checking his in ears and sending him off to fetch them again. Lol I love that side of Hobi too. Jimin spent almost this entire video with black hair, and is now back to blond for Toyko! And Yoongi has darker auburn type of hair now!

Hobi dancing to JK singing Tomorrow this time! And TaeJin dancing to Fire! And Jin is letting the whole "Nikonikoni" thing GO. Lmao TaeJin are sitting back stage with their arms around each other and Jin is STILL going on with "Nikonikoni" into the camera and during when he danced Fire. Lmao is this where Tae picked it up from for his iconic line in the middle of Attack on Bangtan that sent Jimin into a laughing fit so hard he missed his lines to sing after that? 🤣🤣

Day 2 shows everyone preparing to get on stage, stretching all serious. Captions "everyone relieves stress in their own ways" cuts to Jin acting a fool and big smiles all silly. Lmfao Jimin walking up behind him watching him with the fondest smile, and trying not to laugh. And JK practicing the choreo the same exaggerated way with Namjoon walking up behind him with a smile and then a nod to the camera 😂

Taes voice during Boys with Fun will always be one of my favorite things! Plus his improvised dance moves that the rest of the group then copies afterwards! And Tae being RMs biggest fanboy during his Save Me verse!

Jin and Tae hanging out under the stage waiting for their cue to enter, Jin blowing kisses to Tae and Tae rapping along with the verses above.

The way that everyone encore stage included Miss Right where they passed out little merch balls from baskets, throwing them into the crowd was adorable. Even more so watching them skip around stage with the baskets and half the time someone ended up wearing said basket on their head when it was empty. Lmao surprisingly, it was usually the rapline who wore the basket hats so proudly!

The utter CHAOS that broke out right after Hobis ending mentions to ARMY and Otsukare started playing and everyone went crazy on stage dancing and jumping around to it. Lol just for RM to bring it back down after a bit with being the last to give his greetings and making everyone cry saying "we would have no most beautiful moment in life without you." And Jimim giving his backup dancer friend a big hug when they all came out before everyone joined hands for the final bow😭

Hobi ending the DVD off with a super sweet speech about the tour admist all the staff cheering like crazy for the members so sweetly.

And that wraps up Memories 2016! This was amazing and their hardwork, as always, is so highlighted and soooo admirable. One of my favorite things was seeing Namjoon greet ARMYs in their language everywhere they went. The dedication he has in making everyone geel welcomed and special is so beautiful. In conclusion, I love them. Thanks for letting me share my thoughts! 💜

(No Gifs/photos are mine)

[absolutebl]

This Week in BL

April 2021 Part 3

Being a highly subjective assessment of one tiny corner of the interwebs. 

Ongoing Series - Thai

Second Chance Ep 3 - this is proper YA, they are dealing with actual high school issues, picking uni, first crushes, online dating, etc... We even got a senior prom trope which almost never happens in Thai stuff (just the freshman uni competition variant). Standard plot pacing means PaperFah’s kiss was too early, might indicate we’re moving to uni in the second half of the series? Tropes included: let me feed you, hand hold, black & white striped shirt, floppy drunk & first kiss. 

Y-Destiny Ep 3 - the first MaxNat ep. Such fun to see them playing different characters. This one is enemies to lovers, tutor/student, but it’s using the “poor little rich kid loose cannon” archetype. Nat is doing his best, but it’s leaving me cold. Lots of tropes tho: boyfriend’s closet, floppy drunk, pillow clutch, the loom & water bottle. 

Lovely Writer Ep 8 - solid installment, good use of many tropes. I really like the leads and I’m glad there isn’t much side dish action, SibGene gave us: punish, touch your face, boyfriend claiming, kissing, sleep cuddling, symmetry, rooftop, cheek kiss, hand hold, and pillow clutch. 

Call It What You Want Ep 3-4 - couldn’t find the subs, don’t really care, will watch if it crosses my radar, otherwise I’m just not into it.  

Brothers Ep 11 - the “everyone wants Chol” show continues (but WHY?), he and Tri are cute together, and now I kinda just want Prab to end up with the twins. I’m confused by the teachers, but Boston showed up (from UWMA), and my boys KhunKaow got together (YES!), so I’m ultimately delighted with the episode. 

Fish Upon The Sky Ep 2 - the makeover happened, and we go from cute with glasses and braces to cute without them. (I’m reminded of those 90′s Pygmalion teen movies where the girl has glasses + ponytail and then *GASP* does not and *GASP* she’s HOT. This was the BL version.) Meanwhile, writers better be careful with Pi, he’s getting too tsundere to like. Did you see they gave AJ a 2gether music intro & pick up line? Well, it’s actually his brother JJ who plays Ohm in 2g. I cackled. GMMTV - you so cheeky. 

Ongoing Series - Not Thai 

HIStory 4: Close To You (Taiwan) Ep 5 - half way point. My poor confused babies. It was a really sweet episode... if what happened before hadn’t happened in the way that it had. Also, these boys have a GREAT friendship but are probably the worst advice givers ever. 

Most Peaceful Place (Vietnam) Ep 3 fin - so cute! Our boys confessed and got together. There was an adorable mutual kiss (I love me a mutual, like Ingredients). Afterwards, they actually seemed to communicate with each other about both sex and their relationship. OMG. How original for BL! This was the last episode, so the series is short, but I still enjoyed it very much. RECOMMENDED. 

My Lascivious Boss (Vietnam) Ep 1-2 - oh boy this one is rough, we started out with homophobia child abuse and moved on to family drama + drunken dub-con one night stand. But production values and subs are better than normal for Vietnam (You Are My Boy levels) + our queer babies are out & proud + it’s higher heat + I’m weak. So I’m watching. 

Word of Honor (China) Ep 25-27 - honestly not much happened, lots of back story. Things are looking dire for the ghosts unless they can turn the Scorpion (I LOVE HIM, he’s my precious deadly baby). Don’t know how they managed to make loosing a battle with an immortal sword god ex-friend cute... but they did. Did some calculations and at 36 eps, mathematically speaking, ep 30 will be the equivalent of a standard BL ep 11. Should I be scared for next week? 

Nobleman Ryu’s Wedding (Korea) Ep 1-2 - it’s so effing adorbs, soft bois do old fashioned tropes like arranged marriage + evil stepsisters meets the more modern fake relationship + secret identity in a surprisingly comfortable mix. It launched with baby is a floppy drunk, forced proximity, performative I saw you feed him, and some fun gay panic. It’s a lot lighter and faster paced than I was expecting, but this is Korea so I don’t know why I’m surprised. 

Stand Alones 

K-pop band OnlyOneOf dropped a new MV that is basically BL bait, using many of the tropes we know and love. I promise I’m not trying to lure anyone into K-pop I just thought it was interesting how consciously they’re yaoi dipping. 

Spin-off We Best Love Fighting Mr. 2nd, Shou Zhen | the Only Love Letter Once Written (SERIOUSLY WITH THE TITLES TAIWAN?) anyway there’s a something or other 25 minutes featuring Pei Shou Yi and his boy that aired Friday. It’s about 10 minutes of reboot footage with 15 min of new content, mostly set in the past. It entirely rests on Chih Tian Shih’s acting, fortunately for us he’s great. However, it doesn’t substantially change or add to these characters’ arcs from the finale of WBL season 2. I don’t know if there will be more or if this was just an extra footage fan service. 

COLOR RUSH GOT ITS MOVIE!!! Okay this is almost the tipping point for me to get Viki Standard. It’s listed at 1:56 minutes long but the original series had only c.120 running time - that is a lot of new content. Although i was disappointed by To My Star’s movie I loved Wish You’s, so I am hoping Color Rush got Wish You level treatment. That said, I feel Color Rush the series is damn near perfect already, hard to improve on perfection. 

Breaking News

Close Friend the series got an updated trailer featuring MaxNat (no subs) so if you like them in Y-Destiny or in Why R U get ready for them to play different characters again, this time for a sports romance segment. Like Y-Destiny, Close Friend looks to be another series of vignettes (Original trailer) coming April 22. 

2gether the movie (Thai trailer) was intended release April 22 but is now postponed due to a surge in C19 cases in Thailand.

Tell the World I Love You, a Thai BL movie that was supposed to release last week, is similarly delayed.  

My Ride has been postponed indefinitely with no airing date. 

The Miracle of Teddy Bear got a teaser vid, no eng subs. 

Gossip

Thai BL actors Nanon (Bad Buddy), Yoon (YYY), and Mark Siwat (LBC, Bite Me) have tested positive for C19. Press releases stated they’re fine, tho filming has paused fore their various projects, obvs. (No word on whether Nanon’s current project was Bad Buddy or not, although it seems likely given his recent Arm Share episode.) 

Next Week Looks Like This:

Some shows may be listed later than actual air date for International accessibility reasons.

Upcoming 2021 BL master post here.

Links to watch are provided when possible, ask in a comment if I missed something.