#anyways idk why it took me so long to post the updated versions here these were from awhile ago

[taxi-boi]

I JUST REALIZED I NEVER POSTED THE UPDATED VERSIONS OF THESE

BLUH

the sillies :)

[rubra-wav]

I had this interesting scenario where Vox one day becomes exhausted from his rivalry with Alastor after realizing that the one-sided interactions were becoming old. He later meets the reader (who can also be a part of the hotel) who starts hacking into Voxtech's database to troll the company for shits and giggles. This catches Vox's attention and he's pissed about it. You can do what you want for the rest but they continue to have this rivalry to the point where it's very well known around hell. From an outside perspective, there is just back-and-forth angry banter but there are moments where they're just;

Reader: *appears on screen* Hey Box head, guess who found some good blackmail with your name on it- Vox: *Is so close to having a breakdown, he had a bad week.* Reader: Oh shit- did something happen, are you okay? 😰

They hate each other but they don't hate hate each other. This can be taken as platonic or romantic. I sent this request to someone else but I wanted to share anyway.

Vox x troll/hacker reader: Why So Blue? (Oneshot/concept version)

Why So Blue fic Masterlist

A/N me when I get to write Vox getting utterly humiliated by a troll-y hacker demon 🫶

I changed about the order of stuff as things happen a bit and took creative liberties with this one - sorry if it's really different then the thought you originally had.

(REQUESTS ARE CLOSED, THIS WAS FROM THE LAST TIME THEY WERE OPEN)

Update: This was really well-received, and several people have requested a part 2. I've decided that I will be writing it properly from the start in a proper chapter kind of way rather than in this format so it makes continuity kind of work better rather then the drabbl-y format used here.

Cw: SFW, romantic, enemy's to lovers type beat, references to one-sided radiostatic, also references to staticmoth, mildly suggestive in one part 💀, gn reader, mostly light-hearted - idk if it qualifies as quite hurt/comfort lmao

- It was just a normal morning for Vox when you first showed up.

- As usual, he booted up for the day, got changed out of his casual clothes, and made his morning coffee.

- As he walked into his computer room, absentmindedly sipping his coffee while looking at his phone, he sits down in his desk.

- Then promptly spits out his mouthful.

- When he finally looks up at the screens around him, he's mortified to see a muted video of himself passionately (and very drunkly) singing and dancing horribly from last night while he was out with Valentino and Velvette.

- Posted on Sinstagram from his own account.

- Hundreds of comments flooded in underneath it; laughing, saying it's cute, complimenting his singing, and talking about the caption underneath with curiosity.

- The caption reads; 'For someone who talks so big about being ahead technologically, it was awfully easy to hack old Boxy here LMAO'

- Vox flips out instantly.

- It doesn't take long to take down the post, change all of his details, and post an official apology for his lack of professionalism with a hypnotising message to forget the whole incident occurred at all. He also does a massive comb over for any other breaches and changes all of his systems to be even more impenetrable to a potional attack.

- He calms down, and the incident fades away to the back of his mind.

- But then it happens again.

- Another morning, an employee is rushing into his studio as he wakes up properly, telling him this time that someone is somehow broadcasting Rick Astley's 'Never Gonna Give You Up' to the entirety of hell at 6 am, interrupting every one of the scheduled programs.

- There's a message in big letters on the bottom of every screen in hell, under the god forsaken video and song playing, saying, "What is love~? - U" Underneath them.

- And that's how it starts, the infuriating thorn in Vox's side that is 'U'. No matter how hard he tries, you're constantly undermining his efforts to keep you out of the system and tormenting him in ways that aren't necessarily malignant but are extremely damaging to his image as the overlord of technology.

- For some reason, he's the only Vee you seem hellbent on coming after as well. Vel finds your pranks funny or cute when they don't inconvenience her, and Valentino just likes to prod Vox into getting angrier further.

- He just cannot work out what your motivations are at all. Is it truly that you just want to piss him off? He doesn't understand why someone with such clear skills would simply use them to taunt him and leave him messages to unveil as he undoes whatever you do.

- It vexes him even farther when these messages from you that you leave for him to decode start to sound borderline flirtatious, which makes him feel all the more humiliated.

- He is a grown demon, skilled businessman and entrepreneur, an overlord, and yet you insist upon calling him things like Box, Boxbabe, Boxbitch, and even babygirl of all things for some goddamn reason.

- The back and forth goes on for months, and 'U' quickly becomes a long lasting meme, several people, much to Vox's horror, shipping you two together and even partaking in ship wars as to whether Vox x 'U' is better then Vox x Val.

- Theres one day where Vox quickly puts his phone down after reading a rather concerning expert from what is certainly explicit fanfiction between the two of you, even him deciding that that's enough internet for today while just sitting staring off into space silently for a solid 10 seconds.

- Vox's sleepless nights pouring over his code to try and keep out your attacks, him glitching out whenever he finds infuriating messages left by you, etc. Begin to become routine and he just anticipates the consistent blows to his pride you give him at every turn.

- A weird, unconscious part of him deep down begins to enjoy your rivalry, almost wanting to see what punches you pull out next to disarm his constant losing battle to keep you out, but it gets squashed down the second he becomes aware of it.

- The rivalry is always at arms length, but sometimes he has to stop himself from replying with the same vaguely flirtatious tone you take on whenever he experiences a small win against you.

- He fights to make sure he doesn't have any potential of getting too into it.

- Things take a different turn, though, with the double blow of Alastor coming back and his on-off relationship with Valentino once again going up in flames.

- After stopping his usual monitoring of all things going on in hell online and in real life as picked up by his cameras, he presses his face into his hands with a long, exhausted groan as he fights crying.

- All the people he was actually interested in were as unrequited as per usual. He always tried so hard with Alastor, but as always, he never got anything but met with the clear reminder they would never be anything more.

- And, of course, any potential of anything more happening with Val was completely off the table. It would be stupid to even think about anything real with him.

- He shut his eyes, putting his screen on the desk in front of him.

- Was he just not worth it? Was that it?

- He startled when he heard the familiar crackle of the speakers coming to life around him. It was rare he ever heard your voice coming through his speakers, you usually preferring to just leave messages, however you decided to surprise him tonight apparently.

- Your blurred out face appears on the screens, only showing the lower half of your grinning face.

- "Oh Boooooxybooooy! I found some world-shattering cringey shit you did 2 months back, i-" You begin singing out, before stopping, seeing by his expression.

- Vox was trembling, looking as if he was about fall apart at any second. His monitor was dulled, red eyes half lidded with pixelated bags forming under them, his bottom lip slightly quivering around his sharp teeth.

- "What the- fuck- ....are you alright?" You asked unsurely.

- Vox finally snapped out of it, realising that you were here witnessing him in a way that was very much not something he wanted you of all people to see him in. His mask slid back on, but it was hardly convincing.

- "Of course it is. What the fuck do you wa-ant. I've got shit to do." He inwardly cursed as his voice glitched slightly. God fucking dammit why did you have to show up.

- He watched your lips on your mostly blurred out face slightly curl as you hummed, clearly not buying it.

- "You wanna stop with the lying bullshit and tell me the truth, Boxhead?" You somewhat chided him, your hand coming into sight as you leaned your cheek onto it. Vox let out a growling sound, going to spit some vitriol at you, but was cut off as you absentmindedly made your next comment.

"Felt you once again have a fit about the radio demon going online. Lights in my house and the houses out my windows started flashing and shit. Is it hi-" your brows shot up and eyes widened, this hidden behind the censorship as you watched Vox, leader of the Vees, your rival, let out a shuddering breath and actually start crying comically pixilated tears right before your eyes.

- Vox's claws gripped into his desk as he grit his teeth as he let out a gasping breath he fought to stifle. He was so goddamn exhausted that he just couldn't be assed to keep it all up anymore. It wasn't like you hadn't seen rather unsavoury things he'd been trying to hide anyways.

- "No shit it's about Alastor. It's always about him. Does it get you off knowing I can't get with the guy I have always wanted no matter how hard I try? There. Are you fucking happy now?" His voice cracks as he snarls the words out at you.

- You let out a long humming sound, as if thinking. "I mean, not really. I'd only be happy if you were this upset over me, not some old hazbin radio announcer who fell off years ago." You shrug with a slightly sad smile.

- Vox squinted at you, confused.

- "I mean, come on, I'm your rival too. Why neglect me so much in all this?" You press your bottom lip out in mock sadness, tone mocking again. Your words are true despite the joking tone however, it did bother you that he always seemed so much more ready to go running after the most obviously aroace man you think you had seen in your entire fucking life.

- Vox couldn't believe what he was hearing, hot embarrassment caused his monitor to start heating up a bit, painting animated flush over his cheeks. "Oh, stop taking the piss, U. Fuck off." He scoffed, rolling his eyes, looking to the side in irritation.

- You chuckle at him, shaking your head and causing the thing blurring your face to shake with it. "Is it really that hard to believe I'm into what we have going on here?" Your voice is still lined with the usual tone you take on with him, but much less so.

- Vox looks back at your blurred, smiling face incredulously. "Yes." He growled, blinking his tears away as he regained his composure a bit.

- You sigh heavily, rolling your eyes. "Ooookay, well, once you're done riding the coattails of a man who will never want you, come hit me up, Boxhead." You say through smiling lips, before abruptly pressing 'hang up' on the call so he didn't have time to actually respond.

- Vox sat in bewildered silence, not able to react properly as his brain felt as if it was working on low resolution comprehending what you just said.

- His face heated up the more he thought about it, heart beginning to hammer in his chest as he laughed in disbelief. No way. No fucking way.

- But you had said it.

- Despite his usual pessimistic nature, he allowed himself to actually believe it, chuckling.

- He looked over to his phone as a notification sound rang out to see a photo of himself presumably just now; flustered, eyes wide in disbelief and unfocused while staring off into space, a crooked grin on his face.

- It was captioned as follows; 'POV: local pathetic radio simp finds out other rival actually wants him'

- "FUCK." He yelled out in embarrassment, knocking out several of his monitors with a surge of electricity.

I loved writing this sm omfggg.

There's definitely part 2 potential to this one, but it would have to be in a while w all the other stuff I'm gonna get to first.

Masterlist

[lil--nuggett]

Hey guys, so if you know Baldur's Gate 3 this is an AU for that with Hardenshipping but it's really fucked up. I will explain why it's fucked up below the cut.

Maxie is a High Half-Elf Warlock (his patron is Groudon), and Archie's a Human Fighter <3

Also I just realized this is the first time you have seen me draw Archie seriously lmao my bad guys I'll try to draw him again soon

I took a ton of inspiration for various things for these designs, including Guile for Archie's armor bc I love Guile sm!!

(More info and our dumb AU lore under here - No BG3 Spoilers I promise <3)

I'm going to tell you this now... this gets really fucking crazy and honest to god I know I'm going to have a hard time explaining this. It WILL be quite long and I WILL be yapping.

This AU is really just something we did on impulse and it's really fun to mess around with, so I'm hoping you all will enjoy the concept as well :)

I'll try to explain it simply as I can. I thank you in advance to all who sit here and read this ily sm if you read it all <3333

Anyways, okay so imagine how one could do a bg3 AU for these two fuckers...

And throw it right out the window because you'll never guess how me and my friend have done it.

The Backstory:

This all started when my friend decided to play BG3 for the first time, and he jokingly said to me "Should I make Maxie our main character??" and I replied "I you want, but I won't force you" and thus BG3 Maxie was created, and his misadventures began.

Now your probably wondering (if you've played the game) what about the guardian?? Who did we make the guardian?? Well, we made Archie the guardian. However, I did not know just how wild this idea would get within the next few days.

So, eventually we realized how crazy the BG3 lore actually is (it's a like fucking DnD campaign idk how we didn't realize this beforehand), and so, we jokingly started our own "AU Lore" that ties in with the BG3 Lore.

If you really want to know, I have an entire note in my notes app dedicated to keeping track of what happens. It is very long.

The Parasite:

Now, if you've played the game or know anything about it, you know about the Mindflayer parasites. Well, one fateful day, me and my friend joked that the Parasite in Maxie's head was this little freak who looks like Archie.

The two have no correlation other than looks, its completely coincidence and it's not a mimic situation. The Parasite "Archie" does nothing but talk nonsense to Maxie all the time, and initially the bit was that he only talked about Fortnite. All because I made the joke that the dream realm in game looked like a fortnite update. By now, that bit has fallen off (thank god), replaced by just general nonsense and lies.

Also he fucking looks like this:

Weird little freak. This is just one of his talk sprites I have, this is just his neutral expression.

So basically it's:

- Maxie was supposed to be on a Geology research trip, but instead he got dragged into the Parasite issue with the rest of the companions. He really just wants to get home to Archie.

I am the one who handles everything for Maxie in this AU, I do his voice, I handle his lore, etc.

- Parasite Archie is this 1 foot tall, neco arc-esque version of Archie that sits on Maxie's shoulder and tells him nonsensical things. He also says Maxie's name wrong, he says Maxie's full first name and pronounces it as "Maximilliam" instead of the "N" at the end. For Maxie it's like handling a toddler but the toddler fights back, doesn't shut up, and threatens your life. He also has a ton of his own lore that my friend continously adds on to, so I can make another post with just the parasite's part of things.

My friend handles everything with the Parasite himself, comes up with the lore, does the voice, etc. I simply keep track of it.

- The "dream visitor" version of Archie is not real either. It's linked to the Parasite in ways that if I get into it, I will spoil a good chunk of the game. Sorry. Just know you can consider this and Parasite Archie kind of as one in the same almost.

- The REAL Archie is still at home, completely unaware of what's happening, while Maxie is fighting for his life. He does miss him, though, and hopes he gets home soon. He and Maxie are only boyfriends, they haven't gotten married yet. (They also haven't been through their rivalry yet, as this all takes place before that happens.)

Sorry for the convoluted yap sesh, I just have more art planned for this stupid AU and- God I cannot possibly just post this shit with no context. Like, I'd have to explain it eventually so I might as well do it now beforehand yk 😭😭

I might do separate posts with our HCs and some silly conversations that have happened between Parasite Archie and Maxie if you guys would want that :)

Also, I do have all of the sessions from where my friend plays the game recorded and I'll be sure to post some clips of what Parasite Archie sounds like eventually, possibly with snippets of my shitty Maxie voice in there as well. You'll get to see the talk sprites in action with that, too.

[your-ne1ghbor]

A cut scene from my Wish rewrite (FW: dead bodies) (Long Post)

Sooo I have written out an old draft of the story from Disney's Wish that was just called "Wish Rewrite" (how original). In that original story, I was just making up the story as I went along, but only stopped because of my modivation being in the drain plus the story didn't feel like something personal from me, so I scrapped the whole thing and stared from scratch.

I do not regret doing this, this allowed me to explore the characters and world building more than just head diving into rewritten territory without putting much thought into it. But....

The was always this one scene that I keep looking back on. For now, it is cut from the TKoRaT AU, but I might reconcider it, just might update or fix the scene so it would make sense, since it just didn't when I kept thinking about this particular scene, including with context. Or maybe still have that idea, but in a different context.

To give some insider to the very old draft of my story, Asha was a princess ofc and still the adopted daughter of the king and queen. Their meeting was very different from what we have now, where Asha was an orphan and ran away, only to bump into Magnifico and he took her in. Meanwhile, from what you guys know, Amaya claimed to "found her at the kingdom's doorsteps" (nahh they killed her parents). Maggy and Amaya were also VERY different from the current versions of them. It sorta reminds me of @annymation's Maggy and Amaya in a way. Anyways, the magic and the people were different too, where Maggy put on a "mAgIc" spell that made the kingdom look all happy, sort of like a mist to hide what is really going on in the kingdom. Like from the Percy Jackson novels. Idk like I said, sorta made it up as I went along. The story stopped around when Asha and Amaya have a conversation about Asha's current state on learning magic and it kinda ended there. PLus, the old story DID NOT have maggy building the kingdom himself, rather, it was passed down to him from generations.

But ofc, I always think ahead of these stories and concidered what the ending fight to be like or at least one of the fights between them. And during the one of the fights...well.....let me lay it out for you the best I can:

It is a 2v2: Asha and Star verses Maggy and Amaya. Maggy and Amaya got the upper hand on star and drained half of their powers. Star, legit unable to keep most of himself together, him and Asha retreat to somewhere in the dungens to hide and think of a new plan. They hid in a secluded room that Asha never knew was there before.

The room was cold, and barren. With a very faint smell that smelt like rot (we learn what that is in just a second). Star even mentions reconizing a sense of stars being here, but also not. Asha, using the wand that was given to her from Star, illuminates the room ...buttttttttttttttt......

Expecting to find like it being a armory or some sort of rest room for the soldiers guarding the dungens, they instead find bodies.

Bodies of all of the missing people that would have been illuded to from early on, where when people question the king and queen, they are never to be seen again. This is where they end up. Leaving the bodies in a room, to be later on forgotten about. It wasn't just dead bodies of all the recently missing people, it is a room of dead stars. The dead stars are hanging from the ceiling, somewhat like a trophey room of what they captured and killed. This is kinda the reason why the kingdom was passed down from generations, they are dead stars from long ago, slaughtered by the early kings and queens of Rosas. This was basically a hit of reality for Star, for this made them realize why the Stars dont go to earth to grant wishes anymore. They get taken advantage of, only to be murdered later and then forgotten about.

You can kind of see why I cut this. Not only does it not make sense to me personally, it kinda breaks the story. Why are there no guards guarding that room? Why do the kings and queens have a room filled with dead people when they can easily just toss the bodies into the ocean or smth? WHY DOES ASHA NOT KNOW THIS WHEN SHE HAS BEEN LIVING AT THE CASTLE FOR 11 YEARS???? (she was 6 when they found her) Did Maggy and Amaya murdered stars before? Have they captured one? Is that why they were so presistant on catching star? To have him as some sort of trophey? It just didn't make sense....but it also just drives home the point that Amaya and Magnifico aren't to be trusted AT ALL. It also does up the stakes: If Asha and Star fail to beat Maggy and Amaya, they will end up in this room to only be forgotten about later on.

But as of the current state if my AU, this just doesn't work. Maggy and Amaya do not have a room filled with dead bodies. Why the fuck would they want all of the dead heretics be staying in the kingdom doors when they can just burn the bodies, toss them into the ocean/river, ect? Plus, Maggy built his kingdom, not had it passed down for generations. There wouldn't be any dead stars hanged up like a trophey. But just because it is cut, does not mean I can change it.

I have been overthinking how things would work in the kingdom, especially concidering that the people are really empty without their wish, and get even more depressed after their wish is crushed. Soooo wouldn't drive them to do..........yk??? I dont wanna mention it since ik there might be sensitive people reading this, buttttt you get what I'm saying right???????

Idk Im just overthinking man. Might use this idea, might not.

But this was at a state and I still want it too, it was going to fall under the horror aspects of the story or still have it be unsettling to read. Although this would have driven that point home, it should make sense, and it didn't. Thats why I cut it for now. And it might say that way since I don't really see the use of needing this when we have a bitch that literally thinks they are doing the right thing, that ends up hurting the people around them and already has a pretty scary design if shot correctly and I am still figuring out the story and overthinking EVERYTHING 💀💀

BUt hey what do I know? The story is still in the works as Im driving myself insane over the fucking magic system and characters and worldbuilding AHHHHHHHH

Anyways, this is just a random tangent. Plus, wanted to spill some beans of this old old story for some reason idk man-🧍‍♂️

[phxntomhives]

Welcome to my sideblog

That has most likely become my main one. But idk how to change main and second one. So yeah. So if you see @phxntomhives-98 it's still me. I just don't know why sometimes I can't switch accounts and sometimes I can.

I will try to keep this blog mostly related to Kuroshitsuji and twst but who knows what I will like next. From memes (mostly repost because I am not that funny) to theories you can find anything here.

I am not spoiler free BUT I try my best to protect the new fans and hide things under the cut. Unfortunately, I am human, so you may run into spoilers, I am truly sorry.

I am 25, she/her pronouns, INTP. I would love to get to know more people in the fandoms I am in, but eeeh my social skills are lacking. So feel free to hit my dms, I don't bite I promise. I am trying to make more moots/mutuals pls

Here most thing you can find me posting about/comments etc (under the cut because it became long ops)

Kuroshitsuji/Black Butler

Sebaciel shippers do not interact. I will just block and move on. If you see me liking one post tagged like that it's because I am stupid and I don't always read the tags, pls let me know and I will fix the problem.

Now that the important part is over: I AM SO EXCITED FOR THE NEW SEASON AAH. The Weston College arc is my favourite so I am very happy and it feels so nice to see my children here :3

I am up to date with the manga as well, so if you need to cry with someone, I am here. Sobbing.

My fave is Ciel, and Lizzie slander shall not be tolerated (half joking, you are free to dislike her but I am ready to fight at any time to defend her).

A couple of things you may want to check? If you are bored???

New manga chapter comments under: #Phxntomhives Kuro manga yapping

Analysis/theories

"The Parade of Battlers" song analysis

Finny grew up (chapter 211 spoilers)

Short analysis of the GFantasy May cover

The unlucky fate of the P4

Silly theory of the cricket's ending dance

Edgar sure is very much unlucky when it comes to life decision...

About Lizzie's anger (reblog theory)

Chapter 209 crack theory (to welcome denial)

Short analysis of Bluewer talking to Ciel during the Midnight party (from a reblog)

Headcanons

P4 headcanons

My kuro AU, kuro AU pt 2

Gregory scream headcanons (kind of angst)

Pandora Hearts

Very new to the fandom and I understood like half of it. Anyway it's beautiful and you all should read it! Come cry with me!

Here some fresh thoughts after I read the last chapter

Headcanon to hurt my soul

Vanitas no carte/The case study of Vanitas

Up to date with both anime and manga! And not so patiently waiting for each update. I miss them, I hope for a new chapter soon.

Twisted Wonderland (JP SERVER)

Up to date with main story and eons behind with the events ops. No I do not know japanese, tho I am trying to learn, but I started the game when that was the only version avaiable and I will not start again on eng server sorry. (Technically I have started but I had no more space on my phone and one had to go)

If you are curious about what I think about the story check #phxntomhives twst yapping (because I plan to type a lot and refuse to keep updating this list it's supposed to be pretty after all)

Theories

Events are canon. Part 2: wish upon a star.

Silver gets a title copium.

Tokyo Aliens

READ IT LEGALLY. FOR FREE. HERE I TELL YOU HOW.

WHY IS THERE NO FANDOM IT'S SUCH A NICE STORY. PLEASE GIVE IT A CHANCE.

I AM LIVING OF HALF A POST AND FANMADE TRANSLATION. HELP.

Parallels between Tokyo Aliens and Negai no Astro

Spoiler/Analysis from scans: chapter 41, chapter 42, chapter 43, chapter 44, chapter 45, chapter 46, chapter 47, chapter 48 (After I added these I basically took over the tags plsssss)

Dr stone

It's appearing more on my feed so I had the feeling I had to add this lol. I love it dearly, I finished the manga and I need to catch up with the anime. I am extremely worried about the rumored (?) new volume that is coming ngl

Negai no Astro

Damn, I am hooked.

Parallels between Tokyo Aliens and Negai no Astro

Aaand honestly many more, feel free to ask! If it helps, here is my not updated because it takes forever MyAnimeList! But I probably missed many of them so really, just come and ask.

I may drop some suggestions to read too sometimes, here they are

Suggestions for you <3

Why you should read Merry Marbling

If you like Negai no Astro or Tokyo Aliens PLEASE CHECK THE OTHER SERIE MENTIONED.

[deiitaelric]

Soulmates bakudeku / kirikami au part 9

Part 8

“What time is it? I wanna go home” Kirishima asked, looking at his feet.

Izuku took out his phone and tapped it’s screen. “It’s too early” He unlocked the device and the photo from before was still on the screen. “Uh. I told you I was going to find out, but I don’t know how. Should I just come out and ask?”

“That would screw up the mood. And honestly, I don’t know if I wanna know”

“That only would lengthen your suffering if they’re truly a thing”

Kirishima made himself small inside the hoodie. “Maybe we’re just misunderstanding everything”

“You started this” Izuku said, but he sighed. “If you don’t want me to ask, then what? Why don’t you do something? Just talk to him. Flirt a little”

“I can’t do that! If they are dating that would be so wrong”

“Kiri, think about it. They didn’t tell us, so even if it’s true, we don’t know”

“Well, yeah, you’re right, but...” He sighed. “I’m gonna go get another drink first. Want something?”

“I’m fine”

But it wasn’t true. And even if it were true, he wouldn’t be fine for long. The two blondes were walking his way, Denki pulling off the hoodie and moving to lay it on the ground.

“My fucking hoodie, man”

“Sorry. Here” He said to Izuku, who took the hoodie though he didn’t know why. “Where’s Kirishima?”

“Getting another drink”

“And he left you here alone?”

“Yeah?” The question had caught him off guard. Was it really that surprising?

“Uh. So… Yeah, you two… Hmm-” Izuku tilted his head. What was Denki getting at? They two, what? Denki turned to Katsuki, who met his gaze with a dangerous glare. Fuck, Izuku loved that glare. But that wasn’t the point. Denki turned again to face him and kept studying him.

“What?”

“No, nothing” Denki shrugged and Katsuki rolled his eyes. Denki leaned against the wall and started counting with his fingers. “I’ve hugged eight people”

“Good for you” Katsuki congratulated sarcastically.

“Did you hug eight strangers tonight?” asked Izuku, just to clarify.

“Yep. I wanted to hug people, so I hugged people. Do you want a hug?”

“I… don’t know? It that okay?”

“We’re friends, of course it’s okay. But it’s okay if you don’t want to, there are plenty people here”

“No, I mean, we can hug… I just-”

“Yay!” And Denki threw himself into Izuku. Katsuki watched them as Izuku rested his hands on Kaminari’s back. Denki was now only wearing a shirt, so his bare arms were touching Izuku’s. Katsuki felt jealous, but it didn't make sense, right? Izuku already had a stain, so he could touch him. He could hug Deku or rub his hair. But how? How was he supposed to bring himself to take the risk? He was in love with Izuku, but Izuku was someone else’s soulmate. It was hurtful enough this way, not knowing how soft he other’s skin was, or how it felt to hug him, or the texture of his hair. Things were already painful enough.

Denki released Izuku and came back to Katsuki smiling. “I really like hugging people”

“Tell me about it” Katsuki rolled his eyes for what felt like the millionth time that night. The number of times Denki had hugged him wasn’t low. Katsuki’s eyes fell on Izuku, who was gazing back, frowning, but the eye contact was broken when Denki fell on him.

“Come on! Don’t be so grumpy”

“You need to stop doing this, Kami. For fuck’s sake. You just don’t throw yourself at people” Katsuki admonished, pushing Denki away, though he grabbed the blonde’s arms so he didn’t lose his balance.

“You’re the only one complaining”

“Tch!”

“Don’t ‘tch’ me. And like you always say, stop touching me” Katsuki released the shorter, realizing he was right. But who cared, anyway? They looked at each other, frowning, Katsuki silently scolding him with his glare.

“Hey, where’s Midoriya?”

The blondes looked up at the newly arrived Kirishima, confused. Izuku was just there. But, looking around, no, he wasn’t there. When did he leave?

----

Izuku dodged between people, not looking back. He felt unshed tears burning at his eyes. If he’d thought he was prepared to see Kacchan with someone else, he could not have been more wrong. He stopped after he finally passed the last of the stragglers and sank to the ground, rapping his arms tightly around himself. He noticed he was still clutching the hoodie. Kacchan’s hoodie. He stuck his face in the fabric seeking for comfort and found it smelled like Denki, and realized he expected it to smell like Kacchan.

A buzzing pulled Izuku out of his thoughts. He pulled his phone out of his back pocket and opened the messenger app, reading Eijirou’s text.

Kiri: “Where are you?”

Me: “I needed to leave”

Kiri: “Are you still at the party?”

Me: “Yes. But I need a moment alone. Sorry”

Kiri: “Hey, I know they’re touching, but it doesn’t mean anything. We touch each other because we are friends”

Me: “But he’s not like this with anyone”

Me: “Kacchan, I mean”

Kiri: “I will ask, okay?”

Me: “Just don’t”

Kirishima looked up from his phone at the two boys. “He’s still here somewhere”

“Why did he leave? Was it because I hugged him?” Denki asked, with a worried expression on his face.

“You hugged him?” asked Kirishima, raising his eyebrows.

“I hugged eight people. Wait. Nine” Denki corrected himself, looking back at Katsuki. “Well, ten. Fuck fate, huh?” Denki laughed weakly and Katsuki seemed to agree, shrugging lightly with one shoulder.

“What?” Kirishima asked, curious.

“Uh. Nothing. It’s my motto now”

“And what it means?”

“It’s… just that. Fuck destiny. I don’t care anymore, so I’m just gonna do whatever I want” A dark-haired man from the group beside them looked at him, exclaiming. “Well said” as he raised his drink. Denki met the can with his own and sat beside him. They started talking and eventually the dark-haired boy asked something that Kirishima, who may or may not have been eavesdropping, was dying to know.

“Do you have a stain?”

“Nope. You?” Denki angled himself to face him a little more.

“Yeah, but it didn't end well”

“Oh my gosh. Is it that possible?” Denki’s face was a mask of shock, and Kirishima was sure he looked much the same.

“Having a stain doesn’t mean you have to stay with them. In my case, well, there are people who considered other things to be more important than relationships” the man shrugged. “And that doesn’t mean I can’t date anyone else” The boy glanced up and down Denki’s body and the latter smiled at that.

“Kami, stop,” Katsuki barked as he pushed Denki’s head away from the ravenette. “Come here” Before Denki could object, Katsuki had pulled him to his feet and out of hearing range of the man still sitting on the step, so they could speak privately.

.

Part 10

Author note: my editor is not having the time to look at it lately, so... Do you prefer I’ll keep updating here anyway, unedited, so you can finish the story sooner... or do you want me to wait until I have it edited?

I have the first half already posted on AO3 and I'll update there only the edited version, so... and I also can edit the text in here when it's edited, so you can reread in here the edited version. Idk! Help! Let me know what you think is the best way! ILY

[harrysdimples]

evermore track by track review (reaction?)

you know what time it is babieeeeeee......

willow

lovely little plucky guitar. I like the piano arrangement in the background. her vocals sound really lovely in the chorus and in the back of the second verse. i’m going to try and judge this as a separate project from folklore because it’s supposed to be just a complementary project but inevitably there will be comparisons. the 1 as an opening track is probably my preference over this I think on first listen. the bridge (?) is probably my favourite part of the song before the 90s trend line lol (just takes me out the song, kinda like the tweet line that’s in the lakes) but her vocals and how mature her voice sounds are just really light and airy and it’s nice to hear. but this is a lot more rhythmic than most of folklore which is something I appreciate and has enough dynamics so that you’re not bored, although the outro could’ve maybe been shortened a bit (but that’s a nitpicky thing lol). that’s her man!

ok I realised half way through happiness that I HAD PUT THE ALBUM ON SHUFFLE BY ACCIDENT WHICH IS BLASPHEMOUS AND SOMETHING I HATE DOING. I apologise sincerely lmao every song after this is in order with the album track list.

happiness

love a synth. ‘I can’t face reinvention’ ok bitch call me out ??? the lyrics are very lovely, as always. what’s/who’s this about ? lmao. it’s very pretty but not sure it’s going anywhere? more instrumentation could’ve maybe elevated this song just because I feel the lyrics are so flowery and beautiful that they deserve to either be in complete isolation (like from the dining table’s production) or some grandiose orchestral arrangement to properly show off how great and genuinely heartbreaking they are. I have no doubt at some point i’ll lie in the dark at some point and sob to this though loooool.

champagne problems 

ah bitch. the opening line already got me. again, the lyrics on this one are cutting me deep and I really like the production in the second half of the song, it really picks up the song when I was worried the production wasn’t going to be for me. the background vocals and harmonies are lovely. I think the lyricism of this song is so important and reminds me of what jack said in the long pond sessions about people with mental health issues never receiving proper recognition for just doing as okay as they can be because to other people, it’s either not enough or they just don’t get how difficult it is to maintain that level of ‘normalcy’. The idea of people dismissing things as ‘champagne problems’ is so poignant when you think of the fact that so many people disregard mental health issues until they’re directly affected by it in some way and treat others as outsiders/bad apples/something to only remember as a cautionary tale and to be forgotten otherwise. the numbness of trying to feel things (like going on the train) and participating in life and trying to believe that you deserve something good, a relationship, love etc but knowing that people are only waiting for you to fail so they can inevitably move on is so sad. my favourite out of the 3 tracks so far.

gold rush

good old jack antonoff production. girl how many people are wanting to get with joe ???? I really like the lyricism again, and the ‘what must it be like to grow up that beautiful’ bit kinda reminds of olivia’s instrumentation for some reason lol. I wish this hit a little harder because it’s on the precipice of greatness but doesn’t get quite there for me, kinda like the archer. loved the production, but I had anticipated it to have this big build up which it didn’t quite hit for me. I am listening to this currently at night with my blinds shut but I know that when it’s in the daytime/sun this will sound so good, so i’m excited to replay this one. update: it’s the next day and I LOVE this.

tis the damn season

hm. this one was pretty middling for me i’m ngl. I don’t think i’ve had enough love/life experience to really relate to this that much (which isn’t taylor or the song’s fault obvs) but I found it hard to ~connect to and the production didn’t really excite me enough to feel too passionate about it. very much enjoyed the “So I'll go back to L.A. and the so-called friends, Who'll write books about me, if I ever make it” line though lol!

tolerate it

I really like this. really encapsulated the feeling of trying your hardest to meet someone’s expectations of you/your relationship and fitting yourself into parameters to suit their needs/what they want and yet you’re still considered on the outskirts of their life. Trying desperately to make that person care as much as you do for them, but in reality your actions just further the reasons why they don’t want you and why your actions are ignored/silently belittled. Feels like this is a good companion piece to a lot of the folklore tracks and could’ve fitted on that album yet is still different enough to stand out. will def be coming back to this.

no body, no crime (feat. HAIM)

ok so taylor’s having her before he cheats moment?? someone should be working on a mashup asap. you know i’m a sucker for country yeehaw bops so i’ll definitely be playing this on repeat lol, so far probably the most upbeat track along with gold rush and this is probably my favourite track so far. the storytelling through the lyricism is fabulous and I really love the little production elements like danielle saying “she was with me dude” lol, I don’t have a lot of experience/references for “real” country music so if this is a little corny idk but I like it anyway lmao

dorothea

this was a sweet song, might be completely off the mark with this interpretation, but I sort of viewed this as taylor speaking to her younger self and telling her how she can always go back to who she was after becoming too enchanted with fame and the troubles that come with it/experiencing the consequences of fame, and that inevitably it’ll be okay in the end. a nice reassuring, pleasant song. not sure how much replay value it’ll have for me personally but I appreciate it :’)

coney island feat. the national

I like this for the most part. I think it’ll be a grower but I can see this moving up in my ranks once I listen to it a bit more. the second half of the song after the bridge is definitely better than the first and I really like it, but the first half isn’t my favourite. I think within some of the lyrics there are some clunky lines and I’m not sure how well the dueting partner works (idk if that’s aaron dessner or someone else?) but I think another softer (?) male voice could’ve gone better with it, or just taylor herself. the instrumentation and production on this song is fantastic though and I really love the bridge (although the idea of joe and taylor coming together to write about all of taylor’s exes makes me lol)

ivy:

the chord progression really reminds me of like 80% of folklore and idk if this track was “necessary” even though she’s perfectly entitled to her art obvs. but in the context of the album idk if this was needed, probably the most filler-like of all of them so far (for me personally). it’s sort of like a long poem to me and the subject matter of infidelity is always interesting when taylor covers it, but idk, this didn’t do too much for me on first listen

cowboy like me

this feels like a movie or video game soundtrack song, I always appreciate a good guitar solo and the instrumentation in this song is great. I don’t know how much this goes anywhere until the bridge but I love the line “now you hang from my lips, like the gardens of babylon, with your boots beneath my bed, forever is the sweetest con”. I think this has the potential to be a major grower on me though purely bc of how melodic it is and how “vibey” it is.

long story short

yeah this wasn’t really for me. I can appreciate it’s objectively a well produced song with some good lyrics, it just didn’t really click for me sadly upon first listen.

marjorie

yeah so this made me sob. as some of you may know I lost my grandma two weeks ago suddenly so...yeah, this song just really hit me. this is a beautiful track.

closure

what is going on here on this day lmao? reaaaaaaallly not a fan of the production and the synthetic (?) drums that were used on this track and I don’t think the use of repetition in the chorus’ lyricism really works that well here. idk it just feels a little unfinished to me

evermore feat. bon iver

I think this is too lyrically dense for my brain to properly intake after the long road it took to get to this track lol so I think i’ll need some time with it. I don’t think bon iver’s addition works as well as exile but I like the second half of the song which he’s in, in comparison to the first half, it does kinda feel like two songs put into one though. taylor’s vocals sound nice though. 

in conclusion:

favourites: tolerate it, gold rush, champagne problems, no body, no crime, marjorie

in between/grower: cowboy like me

meh: tis the damn season, willow, doreathea, evermore

didn’t really like: ivy, long story short, closure

I feel like i’m going to be crucified for saying this but this feels like a lover-fied version of folklore ajfkhsas if that makes ANY sense to anyone but my own brain. I said when I did this same kind of post for folklore that the album did what the concept for lover tried to do (the love letter to different kinds of love) 10x better and I was happy to see this kind of direction from her. I still love folklore and I think it’s a true piece of art and it ranks high in my tiers of taylor albums, but this just kinda misses the mark for me for the most part (on first listen). It’s very lyrically dense, which is nice, but much less accessible than folklore to me in terms of melodies and the overall structure of some of the songs, which is again, fine, but not necessarily what I had anticipated going into this album and generally usually isn’t my thing. for all that i’ve said about jack’s production in some songs on previous albums of taylor’s, his presence here is missed imo. I’ve expressed that I don’t particularly enjoy long albums because eventually the flow of the album is lost, and that is true here. around the ivy/long story short stretch it kinda loses ground which is a shame because there is some beautiful lyricism in there, but it’s even more susceptible to risking being brought down by the sequencing when it’s a sister album to another project and will end up being compared to that and the tracks there. given the style of music this is in, the fact that it’s a sister album and so long, it’s got a lot against it and I don’t know if it manages to overcome those hurdles for me personally. It’s like what harry said about sequencing, the track listing is so important imo to the purpose and arc of the album that you want to tell and I feel like there could’ve been a lot more “editing” of this project to make it stand up to the highs of folklore imo, or potentially editing down folklore to combine it with some of the really strong tracks on evermore like goldrush, no body no crime etc. I don’t know if the narrative of this album is unique enough to stand against folklore and some of taylor’s other albums for me. I will be returning to these songs for sure, but the sequencing and overall structure of this album kinda lets it down. I can’t help but ponder if this album will age well in comparison to folklore, or both albums will age well with the narrative fuelling it being created in quarantine and as a product of boredom. if folklore wins AOTY at the grammys (which it seems it’s secured to at this point), it’s going to be tied to the “corona year” so it’ll be interesting to see where these projects end up and how well received they are in years to come vs taylor’s other projects and how they’ve aged. we’ll see! i’d probably give it a 7.5/10 in comparison to the 9/10 for folklore. 

[lizzybeth1986]

Quick Thoughts on The White People Waambulance, Chapters 18 and 19

• Sorry this QT is coming out so late, guys. I regret to say my heart wasn't really in this one...and it hasn't been with regards to my QTs for a while. This one might be my last, unless we count me finishing them off for the (not rewritten) Book 1. It's been two years since I began, and the last two books made the process honestly really exhausting.

• I clubbed the two finale chapters together because I really couldn't be bothered to do separate ones for both.

• In fact...I won't be doing any of what I have been doing for my QTs so far. I'll be honest to you: I usually do multiple replays, the last few in tandem with the other routes on YouTube. I go through the scenes one by one. I keep note of differences and variations and carefully choose screenshots that will reflect the gist of the scenes.

But I couldn't be bothered to do any of that this time. I pressed the "continue" and then the "end book" buttons as soon as I finished my first run of those chapters. I'm drained, guys. And I don't think I'll be coming back to the TRH series at least, not even for Liam or Hana or Kiara. Maybe my mind will change by the time the second book comes out (update from present-day Lizzy: no it didn't) but I'm not counting on it. And you'll probably know why by the time this QT ends.

• TW: Discussions on racism, both fandom racism and from within the narrative. The last section of this QT is going to be...pretty heavy, guys.

There's also going to be a lot of anti-Drake, anti-Olivia, anti-Madeleine and anti-Penelope content here, so if you like any of those characters...well, you've been warned.

The ensuing post is going to be LONG, and I know a lot of you have good reasons not to deal with long posts, so here's a tldr:

1. The TRR writing team stick to their weird obsession for jobless whiny white men.

2. Read this book once and you'll feel like you're drowning in an ocean of white tears.

3. WOC continue to get scraps from the writing team, even as they boast of being diverse and inclusive. In fact, they're regularly treated as mere tokens, exotic eye-candy or non-entities, while their behaviour is measured on standards that are very different from their white counterparts (this happens in other books as well).

...okay I wasn't expecting for the tldr to be long too 😅

• Me @ my QTs then:

Me @ my QTs now:

• I'll probably be finishing off my TRR Book 1 QT series when I'm a little less burnt out, but for now this is where it ends, I guess.

• So...here is to summarize the last two chapters: Accident happens. LIs mad. Paparazzi sad (but largely get away scot-free). MC and baby safe. At the Council meeting Kiara slam dunks the murderer of Liam's mother with the style and elegance this fandom still refuses to acknowledge her for. The MC is nice to her for like half a second. Last Apple Ball. New clothes for everyone as if they had a Diwali bumper sale the week before or something. Godfrey is somehow responsible for the security (who thought this was a good idea) and seeing the Auvernese Royal Guard outside our doors is SO not-creepy.

We get to see if we impressed our Auvernese and Monterriso allies enough. Bradshaw compliments Kiara for like half a second. Olivia sees the dude from the Q&A session (Jin) at the Ball and (if you pay) you get to see her catch, interrogate and lowkey flirt with him.

Leona and Bianca make it to the ball (where is Bartie Sr. Where are Xinghai and Lorelei. Where is Regina) and this time the narrative makes sure to shoehorn a plot element into their presence here: Leona is there so we can do something about the reveal that she constantly ratted us out to the press for money. ("oh look! Walker Ranch was plot related after all! We have a reason (albeit a flimsy, paper-thin one) to set 9 whole chapters in Texas. Even though we had to literally come up with this bit in the last minute, because really - all we wanted to do as a writing team was nut collectively over Drake Walker")

(I also can't believe that between the time I wrote this line and the time this QT finally came out - they literally found a way to re-fucking-write Book 1 so they could nut collectively over Drake Walker earlier)

• Why were we required to dress down in Texas for these assholes when they couldn't even bother to dig up their Sunday best for this ball??? Oh right, they're Walkers. Hypocrisy runs in the family.

• Good thing is you can choose to banish Leona if you want. She's angry about it for a second then accepts it and leaves. But like what is the point of banishing her when she hardly even bothers to come there in the first place? She's not going to be bawling her eyeballs out saying "boohoo, they threw me out of this country that I spent like five minutes in and never even wanted to visit in the first place".

• Bianca is present at the end of Chapter 18 mainly to deliver to us a plot point at the very last minute: a clue about where we could find proof about Queen Eleanor's murder. Bianca mentions conversations Jackson had with her, and a secret room somewhere. Her leaving the palace and abandoning her children is addressed, and the MC gets to berate her. It's...short.

• Why this important piece of information was given to Bianca when idk LEO could have pitched in and spoken about it, no one knows. Oh wait. I keep forgetting. Bianca is Drake's mother. That's why.

• Okay so Amalas valiantly found out about Leona's involvement in this and gave us tangible proof via photographs. But we're kiiiinda forgetting that the scrutiny and privacy invasions were happening even before we hauled ass to Walker Ranch? Who was responsible for those? Who was the "source" that the Chapter 17 paparazzo was referring to, the one that mentioned they would triple the price for more photos of the Queen/Mother of the Heir (Coz like why would she do that. She's already broke)? How did Amalas come by this information so easily and why was she really that invested? Why is no one asking these questions? Why isn't the group asking these questions? Why are they stupid. Jesus, they're all so stupid. HOW ARE YOU SO STUPID, SQUAD.

• Shortly after they get rid of Leona and Bianca, the rest of the group give the happy couple a choice of toys for the nursery - and that's our final nursery purchase. You can either go for the corgi - which is on brand for the series by now I think - or the lion, which is seen as very Cordonian.

• More party shenanigans. We're nice to Kiara for another half-second. Kiara arranges a photoshoot for us. The team can't pretend to give a fuck anymore about its fans so they will ask us to pay for an edit that I've seen millions of edit-creators in the fandom do wayyyy better. Like let's be honest - compare the engagement shoot pics (messy as they were) to the shoots we eventually got this book. You can see the difference. You can tell which one required more work.

• Anyway, if you choose this scene you wind up going back to the ballroom, dance with your spouse, aaaaand it's time for another diamond option. This time your spouse gives you something you've been craving (mousse parfait for the Liam MC, chocolate chip cookies for the Hana MC, handmade chocolates for the Maxwell MC and a choice between bacon and a veg version of it for the Drake MC. Damn, team TRR. Your favouritism is showing). The couple also writes a letter to the baby that the child can read growing up, in a bit of a parallel to Eleanor's letter to Liam that we see at the end of the chapter.

• After this, Liam reveals he has been pondering over what Bianca said, and wants to find out where they could find that secret room. Cue Liam's own flashback scene for free. Godfrey bringing to Queen the same goblet that the RoE MC found in a flea market in Book 2 for Regina (or perhaps just a similarish one). Liam and Eleanor reciting a rhyme that turns out to have clues for the secret room.

• To give the team credit, they seem to have (finally) put some thought into this. Like this actually feels like Liam's scene. Not one that delivers information about his family but is really about another character. They seem to incorporate all the things Eleanor seemed to be known for - things that were hardly addressed in the books when it came to talk of her. She is shown with a love for books given that books and poetry form an important part of the clues she leaves for Liam. One of the books is about foraging, which is unsurprising considering her love for gardens that was established in Book 1 of TRR.

• So...like...nice job but why was practically everything about Eleanor (including the way she'd stand up to Constantine, her displeasure at the sound of Godfrey and Bartie's names, her nature that Liam not only inherited but also learned) left only for your finale? Why no buildup? Why was I seeing you lot constantly pandering to Drake's family the entire time? Why do I know way, way more about Jackson than I do about Eleanor whose story this WAS? Why is she and her son suddenly getting this burst of attention at the tail end??

• They still manage to push young!Drake into a scene focusing on Liam and Eleanor, so we can see how Eleanor's teaching of how to be a responsible royal began to make inroads into Liam's way of thinking. It's the ultimate irony, that Liam took his mother's advice so much to heart that he lets Drake stay in his home, eat his food, and complain about those dastardly nobles to his heart's content for free.

Poor Eleanor in her grave is like

• Very fitting, how Constantine's proposal to Eleanor happens in the hedge maze, very much like Liam's first declaration of love in Book 1.

• If you're married to Liam, you get an extra letter that's addressed to Liam's future wife. She clearly knew her days were to be numbered by the time she gave birth to that second child at least.

• Lmao @ how the team somehow managed to remember that Eleanor would have been Leo's stepmother too. He's mentioned a couple of times. They didn't have enough time to develop a sprite for young!Leo but somehow had all the time and resources to make one for young!Savannah who had literally no purpose in Drake's flashback scene? Hmm. Hmm.

• They somehow manage to find the twin to the RoE MC's gifted goblet that Godfrey gave Eleanor the night she died, and Liam reveals that he's been obsessed with poisons enough to know that it wasn't the drink that was poisoned, it was the cup itself. Everyone is shook.

• Love that extra little detail about Liam's obsession with learning about poisons and how it's a sign of how deeply Eleanor's death affected him. But tell me honestly if you remember this plot point coming up even once before in any significant way. Even during the one time a person is poisoned in the previous book (by the laws of karma, the victim in this instance is Godfrey's only daughter) Liam shows very few signs of this "obsession". At a time when he has also lost a father. Convenient how something that could have added more depth to Liam is kept aside until there's a scene where his knowledge is required. Convenient indeed.

• I kind of understand why Liam acts on impulse, okay. The man just discovered who murdered his mum, at least some amount of irrationality is allowed (esp considering he hardly got to express ANYTHING when his goddamn father died). But you'd think Liam's friends would hold him back and help him think this through? Convince him that there are more effective ways to confront and get a confession out of Godfrey who after is in charge of security at the moment? You seriously think charging into the ballroom and suddenly stripping this man of his titles is going to actually work??? You couldn't figure out how to make him vulnerable instead so that he wouldn't be able to escape???

• I mean like, sure, one could always rationalize it all as "well see Lizzy, they needed a dramatic end to this story and they needed to wrap this mystery up quick". But there were other ways they could have spread it out than make it all sound so...so random. And you bet we all know why the narrative had to scramble around last minute to solve this. It's because we spend half the damn book in a dilapidated ranch with a shit family!

• Anyway, Godfrey escapes...and the MC tells her spouse that she's going into labour after...two contractions? Um. Okay.

• So. That ends Book 1 of this new series. And with it my QTs, for this series at least. My QTs for Book 1 (the OG, not the rewrite) might continue, but I'd need to repeat my failplay again because I lost most of those screenshots 😭

General Thoughts on the Book:

• So far, this is what I can see as happening in the next book:

- The birth, obviously

- Any extra perks from our purchases (ie. the nursery and the garden)

- Subplots involving the LIs' conflicts regarding parenthood and their own childhoods

- The mystery behind Eleanor's death isn't quite over yet, nor is the truth behind the constant paparazzi presence in TRH. Leona was the scapegoat this time around, but how did Amalas get all this information so quickly?

- Where is Eleanor's other child? Olivia's investigations may or may not lead to that answer. I'm pretty sure Jin might be involved as well.

- Another possibility is that Madeleine may give us important information since she was potentially aware that Eleanor was pregnant at the time.

- The mystery behind Jackson's death and what he knew regarding Eleanor's condition.

- What part did Bartie Sr have to play in all this? How involved was Constantine in the murder (if in fact he was)? What more dark secrets will we learn about Constantine, Godfrey and Bartie Sr during this time? What ultimately caused the breakdown in Constantine and Jackson's relationship, since Drake mentions Jackson being around when Regina was Queen as well?

- Speaking of Regina, how involved was she in any of this? We know she was Godfrey's cousin-in-law and Bartie Sr made a comment on her during the announcement about the heir, and that she married Constantine a couple years after Eleanor's death, but was she aware of any of this or was she largely out of the major plot and brought in later to cement Godfrey's position and power?

- I'd mention the possibility that Lorelai could know something, but they didn't really give anyone connected to Hana any time at all, so I have my doubts.

- Operation Swan, and possibly a visit to Monterisso. Liam's younger sibling must be in one of these places but my guess is on Monterisso.

- I'm guessing the team will write a nice wedding for Penelope and Ezekiel next book, while Kiara continues to get scraps from the same team.

- Drake and Olivia will continue to eat into the plot. Madeleine will join this unholy trinity as well because they've set the stage for her to have plenty of angst.

With that over, these were my thoughts once this book was finished:

WHERE ARE THE DUCHESSES?

Remember how, back in Book 3, we all marvelled at the number of women in this country who were in positions of power? Adeleide and Emmeline were powerful duchesses while their husbands were secondary figures, and Joelle though married into a noble family is an influential artist and - according to Liam - the embodiment of King Fabian's values. It seemed like, despite the underlying sexism and racism in the story, women were at least at the forefront of Cordonian politics.

This is virtually gone in TRH1. Godfrey (who wasn't even interested in Krona in the first place, much less Cordonia) and Landon (whose only concern seemed to be Penelope, leaving Emmeline to manage the duchy) have a seat in the Council. In fact we never even see either of these woman in the book. I can maybe understand the logic behind not appointing Adeleide, but the fact that Emmeline is passed over for her far-less -qualified husband is a mystery to me!

Also, has anyone noticed how white-male-centered the whole Eleanor story is? Notice how we never see Eleanor's friends, besides Jackson? We never see any of the courtly ladies of that era? She's the Queen. She'd have her own court. I find it impossible that Eleanor would have no interactions of importance among her own goddamned court, that Joelle, Emmeline or Adeleide wouldn't even be mentioned in her story thus far. It's fascinating that forget being part of her story - these women are largely forgotten in the book itself.

(Note: It's also important to add that none of Kiara's family - besides Zeke - makes an appearance this book. At all. One member of Penelope's family and one member of Madeleine's family is in the council, but we never really see or hear anything from Kiara's, even though Hakim was Constantine's old friend and Joelle could have easily been connected to Eleanor, given that Eleanor was exactly the kind of ruler Joelle would have loved and respected.

While we're on that subject, Lorelai could have been connected to Eleanor as well - considering that we know next to nothing about her years in Shanghai. There were ways Hana's story could have been tied into the overall plot as well that were largely ignored. The fact that both the main and secondary WOCs presented opportunities for better plot and story, and despite that they were largely ignored in the books...I think that says a lot. But I will get into more of that in detail in a different section).

LI SPACE AND STORY

• Now...as we all know, The TRR/TRH series is primarily a romance-focused book first, with an underlying plot about royalty and politics. So it makes sense to evaluate the book based on what it gives its love interests. That includes the number of scenes they get, and the kind of focus their story is given. So...here's the rundown of how that goes in TRH Book 1:

Liam: Overall, not too bad. He gets one individual scene, a free and paywalled childhood scene (though the free one is essential for the group's realization of who killed Eleanor). The letter his mother writes to Liam includes an extra section towards the end, meant for the MC who marries him. However, we must note that a lot of this "attention" was thrust into the very final chapter of this book, and 99% of the same book didn't exactly make an attempt to explore his inner thoughts on anything - his mother's death, the dealings with the foreign countries, his political activities. Eleanor being pregnant came from a scene that made Olivia the center of attention, the MC had the opportunity to ask him how he was feeling only once or twice, and most of the time the narrative relegated it all to "the matter is still being investigated". It's a slight improvement from the absolute lack of concern the MC and the narrative showed about Liam's emotional state post his father's death in Book 3, but not much.

Variations wise, the team did step up on the basic ones for most of the LIs, so clearly we've moved past the days of seeing cut-paste scenes and the likes of Liam and Hana saying "I'm so dumb in love with you". However, in playthroughs where the MC is Liam's wife and Queen of Cordonia, her lack of genuine concern for her country and lack of curiosity about the place she's ruling, sticks out like a sore thumb. The fandom loves to highlight how the plot is "written for Liam" or is "easier in Liam's playthrough", but besides his own child being the heir, nothing else from Book 3 onwards seems like it was particularly written with him in mind.

Drake: Hoo boy. So 2019 was clearly the year that many people didn't believe me about Drake eating up space, and the year they had to eat their words because in TRH it was too obvious to be ignored. On an overall scale you cannot avoid the extra perks even his LI scenes got - his Valtoria scene in Chapter 4 was longer, set in a different place and he was allowed to expand on his decision to say yes to Liam's request in a way Hana and Maxwell never were. We learned way more about his familial relationships and dynamics than all the LIs combined. His childhood scene was the first to be given variants depending on whether the MC was his wife or not. His sister's wedding takes up almost half the book, leaving little to no space for either the intrigue, or even the pregnancy that was supposed to be THE most important part of the book.

An insane amount of retconning was done to emphasize strongly on the "marshmallow" part of his personality, having him state time and again that for the MC he can even "sport a tutu if you said you had a thing for the Sugar Fairy". Part of these changes could be attributed to the backlash the team got for having him call a pink cake "girly".

There is a strong possibility that Jackson might be explored further in the second book, and it's no surprise considering that he's the one parent that is most talked about in the series. The book looks like it was truly written with Drake in mind, with a heavy dose of Olivia, and everyone else was added as a bit of an afterthought.

Maxwell: Pretty awful treatment for a character that the head writer of the team claims to like. He has no individual character scenes, and one childhood scene where his older brother Bertrand is given more focus. Ironically, Maxwell was more wary of Bartie Sr in TRR Book 2 than Bertrand was, but somehow they changed this little detail so that Maxwell could be written out of his own story.

His LI scenes were also not given much effort - some were badly written, and some scenes (like the free ones) showed little to no variations between the friendly and romantic playthroughs. One that comes to mind is the baby announcement photoshoot, which was so poorly done it added nothing of value to the character or the relationship.

Like the last book, Maxwell isn't allowed much development in TRH1, and he's still forced into a largely "court jester" role in the story. This reflects very poorly on him in certain situations, such as the chapter where we finally get glimpses of his book. The aim was to be humourous and light about the events of the series, but he comes out of it sounding thoroughly insensitive towards his friends, none of whose consent he took to write this self-centered pile of garbage.

However, there is hope that they might do things a bit better for him next book, if the rewrite of him in TRR 2.0 was anything to go by. However, it would be awful if they tried to do a better job of him and then left out Hana. Speaking of which...

Hana: I'm going to begin this section with a comparison to another character, someone who should have been treated as a secondary character - Olivia.

Olivia in this book has 2 character scenes (they're very plot driven, but they also explore her outside of her friendship with the MC and dynamic with the group). The spy scene with Auvernese royalty, and the scene with Jin, the Auvernese spy. An entire chapter is spent in her duchy (by now we've seen Lythikos four times and I'm now sick of the place), and she winds up taking over Maxwell's Q&A scene as well.

So that's technically 2.5 scenes AND a childhood scene that revolves around her even though it's about Liam's mother. In addition to this, Olivia also gets her own mini-book, The Royal Holiday, that revolves (again) around her duchy and has the group clamouring to give her attention when no one else wants to.

Here are the stats for Hana, who by virtue of being an LI, is also a potential co-protagonist in the series:

Nothing.

Zilch. Zip. Zero. Nada. Nothing.

She has one childhood scene that is part of the group's scenes - a beautiful, heartbreaking one that serves as a slap in the face to anyone who'd dared to be dismissive of what she went through earlier - but none after that, and no individual scenes either. The team - in one of their most offensive choices this book - force a storyline where she has fertility issues just so the MC can be the one carrying the child, and the same MC can opt(!!) to ask about her well-being after two days. The same MC has the chance to whine about not getting pregnant soon enough in front of Hana.

There have been a few efforts made to make the MC appear more caring towards Hana: she can angrily defend Hana against Isabella's jibes, and she can make Hana relax for once during the baby shower (unlike the wedding reception where the same MC treated her like a bridesmaid). The MC even gets to tell her wife that she should never consider herself secondary or unimportant.

All of these are nice, but at the end of the day they're all scraps. I'd equate it to how we're allowed to give Kiara compliments on the final two chapters, but the white women around her still get a far bigger chunk of space, story and attention dedicated to them. The team have a pattern of adding these tiny tidbits that will temporarily satisfy stans while still maintaining the status quo, and that's precisely what's happening here. Its important for us to understand this. Underneath all this surface concern and all these scraps, Hana is still getting dust in place of actual story and characterization. And given that they made ZERO major changes to Hana's scenes in TRR 2.0, I'm not expecting that to change.

As for the book in general...I don't have to go into why this book is a mess, do I? We all know. We've all witnessed how disproportionate the writing has been and while I'm glad more and more people recognize what I've been seeing since Book 3, it's sad that it took 9 whole chapters in Walker Ranch for so many to understand exactly how much space Drake has been eating up for no good reason.

BLACK HOLES AND WHITE TEARS

I'll begin this section by talking about Drake Walker. He's the most prominent sign of the larger problem.

Drake Walker is what I call a Black Hole LI. And yes I mean black hole as in the one that exists in space (Beckett from TE also fits into this category). He is the kind of LI that sucks up everything. Love. Light. Joy. Common sense. Other characters' spaces.

He is the kind of love interest that will have Liam's traumatic experience centered around him. The kind of love interest for whose problems - largely created by his mammoth ego - we have to resolve in Shanghai, the home of the lone female LI. While that same female LI gets nothing, and then disappears in a subsequent chapter. The kind of love interest whose love confession can take precedence even over the MC's own issues (remember the Beaumont House chapter in Book 1? The one that took place the day after Tariq nonconsensually kissed the MC? 98% of the dialogue revolved around Drake's feelings. Not about the faulty lock, not the possibility that the MC's security had been tampered with - Drake's feelings). The kind of love interest that was given an entire extra wedding and artwork for his mother in Book 3 itself - none of which were given to any other LI.

A Black Hole LI is totally the kind of LI that would get 9 whole chapters in their home while we have never even visited the homes of the others since the early books of the previous series.

This wasn't something that began just this book. It's been a constant since Book 2, and you can even see signs of his story gaining way more importance in Book 1. It's also not something we can - in all honesty - blame simply on finances and fan popularity: the writers confirmed Drake to be one of their favourites, and attempts to give his scenes additional perks (eg plot elements pushed into both the Whiskey scene and the Beaumont Office scene) happened long before they could make any conclusions about his popularity. I bought the Beaumont Office scene to find out more about that family. I bought the Marshmallow scene so I could find out more about Liam and Hana's conversation post Coronation (remember - Hana was never even allowed to speak about her return to Cordonia because that scene was given to Drake). I bought the Italian Restaurant scene to learn more about Liam's assassination. The funny thing about all these three is that these were their stories to tell, yet Drake is the focus. Quite a few of Drake's initial scenes sold because the team consistently made the effort, consistently ensured that the information from his scenes would benefit us in the long run. The narrative allowed for Drake to have his own story, and additionally let aspects of his story overshadow that of the other LIs' (see the examples I've given above). Even though he has very little of value to contribute to the larger story (no job, his friendships are shallower than a wash-basin, and no genuine communication with any commoner in the story - only endless whining).

The treatment Drake gets that no other LI does, is a problem in itself, but it also is a small part of an even bigger issue. He isn't the only white character who gets this sort of attention and detail to his story.

Take Olivia, for example. Started out as a rival to the MC, before her sad sad childhood and her genuine love for Liam was revealed in the Book 1 finale. Over the course of the story, her role changed from petty rival to Warrior Duchess to reluctant bff. Over the course of the original series, Olivia became one of the most prominent characters in the story, on par with the male LIs. I'm not sure how many people realize that Lythikos is the ONLY duchy in the kingdom we've seen thrice (four times if you count Holiday). To give you an idea of how big a deal that is, here's how many times we've visited other duchies besides the capital and Applewood:

Fydelia - 2

Portavira - 1

Castelserraillian - 1

Ramsford (the home of our sponsors!) - 1

Hana's mother's home - Never.

Lythikos has a detailed familial and cultural history, and I wouldn't be lying if I said we know more about this one region than we know about the entire country of Cordonia. And honestly for me, the obsession with this one duchy has reached saturation point. Lythikos is not Cordonia. Lythikos is not all there is to Cordonia or even the only place that should matter. Yet it seems the team is more than eager to flog that horse until there's nothing of interest left.

Olivia is the only character who gets an entire mini book that revolves around comforting her and making her feel better about her background and origins. I don't think we've ever given Hana this much attention when she left her home for us. Or when she was being bullied by Madeleine. Or when she was the other bride in that grand wedding. Or when we received the news that carrying a child to term would be dangerous for her body. Or --

We were given an entire mini-book to comfort Olivia - the woman who continued to call Hana "damaged goods" and " a failure" for not marrying a man, while Hana's friend/wife stood by and watched. The woman who didn't have to think twice before making snide remarks about an equally skilled courtier who never did her any harm, only because she could get away with it. Istg when I heard that most of the court snubbed her during that first event in Holiday, this was my reaction:

Like girl I feel bad for you but at least now you know how it feels to be held responsible for shit beyond your control!

Hana, in the meantime, is forced time and again into situations that would break most people - but with very little payoff. Her arc with her parents was given a resolution that confirmed that Hana could only be considered worthy if she was useful. She was made to interact time and again with the woman who harmed her with such glee in Book 2. The MC - as a friend or as a wife - is at best neglectful of her issues and at worst someone who uses and discards Hana as she sees fit. And now...in her romantic playthrough she's given a storyline that doesn't allow her to bear children easily, and the MC spends less than two minutes to actually check on her. Hana is one of the co-protagonists, yet a side character given the treatment she should be getting. One could technically blame finances for the way she's being treated too, but keep in mind that the bad treatment goes as far back as the Applewood chapters in Book 1. Technically a time when she was bringing in money.

I get it. Olivia is a fan favourite. Many in the fandom wanted her to be an LI, the writers didn't, so they carved out this middle path where she'd have a major portion of the story anyway. But keep in mind that a lot of this attention came - and is still coming - at the cost of Hana. The team pretty much gave Olivia what they'd been refusing to give Hana all along.

On a smaller scale, you see similar patterns with the secondary characters - especially the women of the court. Madeleine and Penelope had elaborate backstories designed to make people forgive and sympathize with them, and Kiara - even though her backstory in Book 1 was inherently tragic and deserved to be handled sensitively - was given validation with great reluctance from the team, and with no consequences if we treated her cruelly. Even now, the team has only tossed Kiara a couple of scraps in the final chapter, while already setting the stage for Madeleine to get her own tragic "patriotism" arc for TRH Book 2, and a possible wedding for Penelope in the near future.

The difference here doesn't just lie in who gets attention and who doesn't. It lies in how the MC is supposed to view these women as well. A lot more sympathy and understanding is automatically extended to the white women, and the MC faces consequences if she fails to acknowledge their pain. Far less sympathy is offered by default to the black and the Asian woman - the MC may be friends with Hana but a huge chunk of their relationship is mostly about the MC benefiting from Hana's skills without giving much in return.

Even though their misdeeds are acknowledged and spoken about, both Madeleine and Penelope are written in such a way that the problems they're currently facing matter more than anything they've ever done in the past. Hana is made to sweet-talk Madeleine despite being bullied by her in a previous book. The MC herself never gets ANY opportunity to directly address what Penelope put her through in Portavira, because what the MC went through matters less than Penelope's condition.

Compare this to the relatively small scale of Kiara's "misdeed" (being honest about not continuing with an alliance - I'm surprised people think this is an actual thing to be offended about!), and the way the MC is allowed to mistreat her sans consequences afterwards. We're even allowed to call Kiara a snob in the books - which isn't at all true if you look at any of her scenes in canon - and constantly make fun of her desire to learn (in fact, if anyone in the series could be called a snob, it would be Olivia). If I were to sum up how a woman of colour is spoken about in the books, vs a white woman - this screenshot would do the trick:

(Notice how none of the options to speak about Penelope allow us to speak rudely of her, yet in Kiara's case we're allowed to make judgements on her as a person. In Hana's case, while we don't exactly drag her the way we can drag Kiara - we get precious few opportunities to actually defend or support her when others talk rubbish about her).

When you explore the series overall, it's impossible to ignore the casual racism that makes disrespecting people of a certain race/colour easier than on another. It's impossible not to see where the narrative chooses to give consequences to an MC who treats a white woman badly, and where it allows the very same MC to suspect, and then (optionally) gaslight, a woman of colour a couple chapters later. It's impossible not to see which people are meant to be respected despite their bad behaviour, and which people can still be treated badly despite their better behaviour. It's impossible not to see a pattern emerging.

This is not even a problem that plagues only the TRR series. From TCaTF to ACOR to Platinum to even MoTY, there is an ongoing pattern of discrepancies between the way white people and people of colour - particularly women - are treated. Many POC characters are placed in situations where it's easier for them to suffer/die/be shown disrespect, than it is to show them kindness or mercy. MOC are regularly either exoticized (Prince Hamid is the most glaring example of this) or placed in very traumatic situations for which the payoff isn't always going to be that great (I know this happens to Dallas, but I don't know about the payoff for Syphax).

WOC particularly suffer quite a bit in a lot of PB novels, in comparison to their white counterparts. Rowan Thorne of TCaTF, as a character, didn't deserve for her death to be made easier than her survival (in contrast to Diavolos, who was given far more opportunities AND will live simply by virtue of allying with Kenna), any more than Kiara deserved to be interrogated by the people who should have been concerned for her safety or Xanthe deserved to be shipped to slavery. All this, while a Vanessa (who is in a position of power and who plays an active role in rendering the MOTY MC financially helpless) gets a diamond scene where she "explains" her situation and a Madeleine doesn't even have to hear about her bullying from her victims.

The fandom, too, has contributed to this on a number of occasions. Speaking specifically of TRR, how many times have we seen Hana being dragged on Olivia posts? (also, if we were really measuring Olivia by the impossible standards that we held for Hana's characterization, Olivia would appear pretty damn one-note too: after all, 80% of her characterization consists of knife jokes). How many times was Hana being looked at with disdain for either her niceness or the poor writing for her, while the same fandom would regularly coo over a nice-presenting Penelope (whose characterization is one of the most inconsistent in the series)? How many times have we seen Kiara being called a creep/obsessed for merely looking at a man, while almost no one judges Olivia for kissing a man without his consent? How many times have people forgiven a traitorous Penelope and hated on a far more innocent Kiara in the same breath? How often did the fandom hate on Liam for accepting the MC's advances after she rejected him, yet not say a word when Drake did the same thing? How many times has Maxwell been loved for his humour and childlike nature while people of colour with a similar personality (Lily from Bloodbound, for example) were hated on instantly? Clearly, there have been more instances of people in the fandom sympathizing automatically with the white character, than with characters of colour. Time and again, brown and black characters - particularly women - have been required to match up to impossible standards (if they're nice they're boring. If they don't like the MC they're <insert every gendered sexist insult you can think of here>). The standards are far more relaxed for white characters, and they're often given more breathing room and to most of what they want without the constant judgement that black and brown women get. The standards set up for both are grossly different.

Racism is a beast that assumes many forms - and not all forms of racism will appear obvious to some, especially when such stereotypes are so normalized in media and popular fiction that we almost accept it at first. Almost. To get to the root of why there's such an imbalance in this series - among others - we need to first acknowledge the sexism and racism that are such a vital part of its narrative, and that its fandom regularly buys into and (sometimes unwittingly) promotes.

At this point, it's important to understand that having queer characters or characters of colour simply exist in the books isn't enough. Token rep can be found in PB's books by the dozens, but at the end of the day it means nothing if there is a constant reluctance, over and over and over, to treat those characters with the same care and sensitivity that they treat their white ones (or their "exoticized brown" ones).

• Like I mentioned earlier, I won't be playing TRH from this point forward, but I do hope to finish my TRR QTs soon. I have a LOT of thoughts! If you'd like to be tagged on those, do tell me!

[itsclydebitches]

Lovely Good Omens fandom! Many of you have asked for/mentioned having a text version of the Yelp reviews, which if I were a better person I would have remembered to include in the first place. Better late than never? So here’s a version below and I also threw this up on AO3 so there are options. For the record, I’m not at all trained in transcribing visual media, so if anyone wants to add to/edit/do whatever to this post, especially to make it more accessible, you have carte blanche to do so 👍

Also I typed this up in a hurry so, as always, apologies for any typos. 

Tagging: @lethargicdolphin, @marithlizard, @pearwaldorf

A.Z. Fell and Co. Antiquarian and Unusual Books 

Recommended Reviews 

Lindsay F. 

London, United Kingdom 

71 friends

3000 reviews

9874 photos

So I slipped into this place because I spotted my ex across the street and would have rather chugged a cocktail of bleach, lighter fluid, and a condensed solution of all my middle school years then talk to that asshole. Owner was on me the second I walked through the door and I thought he was gonna be one of those ‘Either buy something or get out’ types. Nah. I spilled the story, said I really wasn’t looking to purchase anything, and he LIT UP like nobody’s business. He gave me tea and promised I’d never run into my ex again. Which is a super sketchy promise on its own and also should have been hilarious coming from a guy a century behind in style.

...Kinda believed him though. 

Marina G. 

London, United Kingdom 

0 friends

33 reviews

48 photos

Pretty sure this guy wants a library, not a bookshop. I mean, he’s nice and all when you first come in, but trying to actually buy a book? Good fucking luck. He’s too busy to see you right now (for the record he’s super bad at pretending to be busy). Or claims that this book has already been put on reserve (then why wasn’t it in the reserve pile...?). Or the price suddenly jumped an obscene amount. Or he just straight up hems and haws until you get fed up and leave. I watched him pull a novel straight out of a woman’s hands once when she claimed that price was no object and she wouldn’t be leaving the store until she’d purchased it. You’d think she was trying to kidnap one of the guy’s kids!

So yeah. Feel like popping in to browse, maybe take pictures for your research, all while making quiet conversation with someone who quite frankly knows his stuff? This is the place for you. Want to actually buy something? Go elsewhere. Pretty sure Fell doesn’t even own a cash register. At least I’ve never seen one. 

He wants a library and I’d honestly tell him as much if he didn’t scare me just a little bit...

Aaron S. 

New York, NY

68 friends

212 reviews 

337 photos

I stayed here for three days once. Found a bathroom off the romance section and a chair hidden away in the back. Way comfier than my mattress at home. Mostly played iPhone games and kept real quiet at night. Experiment ended when I popped out for breakfast and didn’t make it back before a random 10:00am closing. Don’t think the owner ever realized what was up. 

Hana S. 

London, United Kingdom 

112 friends

115 reviews

208 photos

I really love this place. I’ve been coming here since I moved to London, about twelve years ago, and it’s one of the most soothing bookstores I’ve ever had the pleasure of visiting. Yeah, you hear talk of weird things going on at Fell’s, but really? We could all do with a bit more quirky in our lives. And Fell provides that in spades: Annual plants that never seem to wither, let alone die. The smell of incense mixing with cocoa. Strange books tucked horizontally into the shelves, feeling like they have a touch of magic to them. Nonsensical conversations taking place in dark corners (I’m talking candid chats about the apocalypse and whether angels could actually bless all the rains down in Africa. I swear Fell and his boyfriend are the religion Mythbusters or something.) I’m going to sound like a total nerd here for a moment, but it feels like some sort of liminal space. You know when you were a kid and you were just desperate to receive your Hogwarts letter? Or find your own wardrobe to Narnia? That’s what walking into Fell’s feels like. Like you’ve finally found that portal and can stay as long as you like, provided you don’t try to take anything back with you into the ‘real’ world. Hell, maybe that’s why he won’t let anyone buy his books. 

Robert T. 

Union City, CA

4 friends

26 reviews

3 photos

There’s a snake?? In this shop?? A reALLY MASSIVE SNAKE????? What are y’all doing talkin’ about your meet cutes and shit someone call pest control!

Malini D. 

London, United Kingdom 

0 friends

48 reviews

99 photos

I’m not gonna pretend I have anything to say about whether this is a good bookstore or not, but if you ever want knitting help you should definitely stop by. Mr. Fell knows an absurd amount about crafts for a guy who looks like my grandpa and he’s now replaced Youtube as my go-to for alleviating “Omg please fix this how the hell did I manage to reverse the pattern??” panic. For the record, I didn’t just wander up to a random bookseller one day and demand that he help me salvage the ruins of my first sweater. I’d taken a seat inside to wait out a storm, had my messy sleeve stuffed into my purse, and he’d offered the help. Bit of a bastard about things like gauge and color--not everyone wants to wear tartan, dude--but you get used to that. He means well. Said I should come back to show him the finished piece, which I did. Things just kind of spiraled from there. He’s an absolute treasure trove of knowledge once you get him talking and a muffin to boot. If he were twenty years younger and in any way straight I would have asked him out in a heartbeat. As it is I’m considering setting him up with Grandpa. 

Tiffany L. 

London, United Kingdom 

132 friends

312 reviews

34 photos

I’m not really a book person myself but I followed my wife in with our seventh-month old and was kinda embarrassed when he started making a fuss. Normally I’m full Badass Mom mode while in public--I’ve got a kid to feed, change, sooth, and you all can damn well deal with it--but this place was so quiet Liam seemed extra loud in comparison. I was about to take him back out when a man appeared out of nowhere. The owner I guess, based on how some of these other reviews describe him. Older gentleman with clothes out of some period piece. Anyway, he scoops Liam into his arms like he was born for it and started bouncing. Our fussy, temperamental, drama queen Liam settled in an instant and my wife got to browse to her heart’s content. I don’t know how he did it, but that man is an absolute angel. Full stars for that moment alone. 

Gillian L. 

The Hague, The Netherlands

283 friends

256 reviews

60 photos

Anyone know if the old Bentley parked out front is for sale? 

Update: It’s really, really, really not 

Billy H. 

Austen, TX

40 friends

2073 reviews

774 photos

QUEER BOOKS QUEER BOOKS QUEER BOOKS QUEER BOOKS QUEER BOOKS QUEER BOOKS QUEER BOOKS QUEER BOOKS QUEER BOOKS QUEER BOOKS QUEER BOOKS QUEER BOOKS SO MANY QUEER BOOKS!!!

Gabriela G. 

London, United Kingdom

3 friends

22 reviews

1 photos

Run by this delightfully frumpy guy who sometimes hands out biscuits from a sewing tin like my gran used to. He asked me if I was looking for anything in particular and I told him my name was Jared, I was 19, but sadly I’d never learned how to read. I have NEVER seen a man more confused in my life. 10/10 would meme him again. 

Colie A.

Enola, PA

201 friends

2778 reviews

10382 photos

I’m setting the record straight here since there are a bunch of reviews claiming it’s just London folklore: there is a snake at A.Z. Fell’s. Must be an exotic pet he usually keeps upstairs because I’ve only ever seen it twice. Is it big? Yes. Scary? Fuck yes, but I’ve never seen it do anything more than give a warning hiss at this drunk who wandered in and started yelling. (Are snakes good guard dogs? This one is.) The other time he was just chilling on top of one of the shelves. Snoozing, I guess. I asked Mr. Fell if I could pet him and he said maybe after he woke up, but then I had to get to class and all. 

Afraid of snakes? Steer clear. Otherwise I’d really recommend popping in and seeing if he’s around. Idk, maybe I’m just a snake fan but he looks super sweet and chill. Life is short. Boop the snake snoot. 

Jeremy W. 

London, United Kingdom 

86 friends

409 reviews

12 photos

I live down the street from A.Z. Fell’s and let me tell you, this place is spooky as fuck. All sorts of weird lights and noises coming from it. At all times of the day and night too. Either this bowtie wearing bookworm has one crazy sex life or the place is haunted. Jury’s out on which. 

Heather Ki. 

London, United Kingdom 

0 friends

3852 reviews

1 photos

This shop smells. Not that old book smell either, oh no, but like something is molding. I took my little Johnny in here to try and get him interested in something other than those damned video games and I walk into what smells like a whole cloud of toxic mold! My boy has a weak constitution as it is and if he comes down with anything I will be pressing charges, you mark my words. 

Jo. W. 

London, United Kingdom 

32 friends

410 reviews

61 photos

Hey, does anyone want to talk about the fact that this place burned down last month? As in, completely up in flames, I saw it happen, nothing but a smoking husk afterwards? Does no one else remember this??

Tiggi N. 

London, United Kingdom 

32 friends

33 reviews

24 photos

Has anyone read this guy’s opening hours? I included a photo above: “I open the shop on most days about 9:30AM perhaps 10:AM. While occasionally I have opened the shop as early as 8, I have been known not to open until 1.” Absolutely insane. This guy’s a madman and I love him. If anyone actually manages to get into this place please let me know because I need to shake Fell’s hand. 

Mackenzie J. 

City Centre, Manchester, United Kingdom 

807 friends

2592 reviews

13218 photos

I told my girlfriend this shop’s got a snake named Anthony and she didn’t believe me. Going back for proof next week. 

Update: got the snake selfie!!!!!!!!

Penny O. 

Chicago, IL

87 friends

557 reviews

16 photos

Caught the owner snogging some hot twink behind the cookbooks. Well done, my dude. 

[artificiary-fr]

ok so arti’s unnecessary opinion time

Just wanna give a disclaimer that these are just my sort of thoughts in general, and are in no way an attempt to demean, attack, or cause drama about any artist or staff member, or community member. Just kind of what I’ve observed and come to the questions/conclusions of. I got a little opinionated at the end but I tried not to single anyone out save for I think, one unnamed example? 

I’ll put everything under the cut here, because I know I have a tendency to get wordy (and spoiler: It did. This is a super long post, I’m sorry). So, here we go...

TL;DR: I like the gene, I’ll wait for the revamp before giving a concrete opinion, there were definitely some issues, I appreciate that staff took note/action, more communication like this or the dev streams is good (though communication between staff/community is a Thing unto itself of which I probably have a Disliked Take on and that was the really long part that isn’t necessary to read)

Okay before anything: the familiars. They’re super pretty! I like the recolors, and now I’m gonna have to grind the Kelp Beds for those boss fams. Dang. I love the kitty golem recolor.

With that out of the way, here we are - the subject of today’s discussions... Glowtail.

So, my first opinion: It’s not a bad gene! I can see some curious use for it, certainly. But there are some problems with it (and yes; I am aware staff has addressed this and pulled it to fix those problems! That’ll be more relevant later on here c: )

Note One: I think I do understand why it is a gem gene. Yes, design/thematically it does appear to fit the bill of a Baldwin Gene more. But I’d like to posit it’s the completion of a gem-gene set - Wasp/Bee/Glowtail. So in that regard, it makes sense!

Note Two: My personal opinion with the gene is that I like it, but it feels... hm. Plain isn’t correct. Like it’s missing something, I guess? I wish the segmenting was a little more prominent, and that the glow or gradient had a little more glitz/glamor, maybe some glitteries around the hips, to really sell it as a gem gene. I do like the glow we have on the other bits of dragon like light reflection, though, because it adds a little bit of dimension! All in all however even so, I do like it, and I won’t cement my opinion until we see what their updated version looks like in the future.

Note Three (The Problems): The art errors. What... what happened here?

As we’ve noticed, male snappers and male tundras are the two big offenders, with large chunks of color erroneously sitting outside the lineart quite noticeably. There is also part of the ‘glow’ (the aforementioned light reflection) that doesn’t make sense - being on parts of the dragon where it shouldn’t be, like on the front of wings where the tail is not in front of said limb, but behind.

But like... how did this not get caught before it got posted? Was it a time crunch, or it just... didn’t get quality checked before this happened? It’s really unfortunate. :c

Something I do with my art - and this is just my own process/thoughts - is when I’ve put down the base color, before I do any shading/highlights/big details, I pop a layer underneath the entire drawing and fill it with a high contrast color to the palette. That way any bits where I missed coloring in - or didn’t clean up outside the lines - becomes super noticeable, and I can fix it then instead of being a problem later. Maybe doing something like this before throwing the gene through the color automation process would’ve helped?

Last Note:

I feel like part of why these errors went unnoticed is because of how often, and sometimes how rushed, some of these updates have been - and this has been more noticeable in this year than otherwise. Is it because of community dissent with wanting more updates creating more crunch? Due to low-attention reticence creating a need for pushing more ad revenue / more “come to the site there’s new”?

I’m unsure, but it’s unfortunate nonetheless. I think staff, and FR as a whole, would benefit from like... hm. How to word this...

Maybe taking more time on updates / a more extended schedule so things aren’t as crunch (of course this being said, I don’t know what the workload is like so I can’t even say if crunch is applicable), and more open communication? Like how the dev streams were going - that was pretty well liked and everyone I know got pretty excited to see em and how the art was doing. It also opened up the avenue for more open communication / more nuanced opinions or thoughts.

---

But herein lies the huge issue, I think, with communication. This is the part where I’d like to reiterate, this is just my observations, and is not intended as an attack, a vaguepost, or deliberate callout at anybody. There’s no malicious intent here. This bit could also be construed as drama I suppose, and I apologize for that because again - not the intent. Just my take.

I’ve noticed posts going ‘no drama please’ or being tired when new updates come out of like, ‘oh boy here comes the negativity’ so I don’t think it’s just me who’s seen it, but have you guys noticed when anything new comes out, there’s an immediate rush of extreme salt and negativity?

And I don’t mean posts where its like “it’s not for me” or “I don’t like it but here’s [detailed/explained reason why]” - those are the nuanced opinions I mean. Those are fine. I mean the ones where people in forums, or on the more prolific drama blogs, are just.... mean/empty? Like “FUCK staff I hate how lazy they are with this it’s shitty looking” - that really vocal generally super salty in general minority of the community. Just hate without explanation, or just kind of aimless generalized attack/complaint.

I think that’s where communication with Staff fell off the bandwagon. The really loud, really vocal minority of folks who throw super salt or yell “This Sucks You Suck” completely overshadow the people who are well intentioned with sharing their opinions or problems/criticisms. The toxic bits and really vitriolic words are what gets seen and noticed. I think this is the majority of what gets heard, which is why communication got so closed off / shut down unless positive, in recent times. Do I agree with that? No, I don’t either - but I’m just looking at this from the outside. Idk how staff feels or thinks.

And this goes for both people who don’t like the content, and people that do.

Remember that the Keel thread got locked because someone who was white-knighting started getting real nasty with people in the thread, and going to extremes insulting artists who did mock-ups to help visualize their thoughts/opinions and was just being a real douche?

What I really wish was that we could have more open communication. Some of the things I really liked to see were like: Dev Streams, Community Updates/Q&A, Opinion Polls, That Update Progress on Breed/Gene Progress from a while back. All of that was excellent. And I like to see the community responding in well thought out ways! I like to see staff more hands on too! We’re only human and love this site and our dragons and want to see it at it’s best - but they’re also only human, and make mistakes, and we don’t know what’s goin on in there, just out here.

Trello is a really good way to kind of show that communication, and is transparent, but isn’t free-to-use for businesses, so... of course I also don’t know how Stormlight Workshop runs their business/hours so I’m just blowing hot smoke. But anyway, I think everyone would benefit from slowing down and opening up. If things are going slow, that’s okay - if Staff opens up to the community and says “This is taking longer than expected, but here’s upcoming releases / current in-progresses” I think we’d be like oh okay things are happening and it’ll be nice! As compared to everyone gets super antsy, nothing’s happening, no-one is talking... and then we get hit with a bunch of updates, some of which, like today’s, have... issues.

Of course then I worry that with more open talking or “we’re experiencing delays” the more vitriolic will get even angrier/saltier which doesn’t... help... but I mean... yeah. 

ANYWAY so I’ve written a full dissertation essay here without really intending to (see? I warned y’all! I ramble/don’t shut up ahahaha) so I’m gonna just stop myself here before I start going in circles. This last chunk I don’t really know what the meat of what I was trying to say was, now, I think. Sorry about that. It was just “here’s my stream of consciousness” apparently ^^;;;;

Have a good evening y’all! Thanks for listenin’ to my (rant?) if y’all made it this far. You’re appreciated and thank you for letting me bend your ears! Stay safe in this crazy world, hang in there, and have a good one!

[1ddiscourseoftheday]

Thurs 9 May

The zladdin video came out today! Zayn and Zhavia duet on A Whole New World while wandering around Central Park and gazing out over rooftops. Zhavia gives a serviceable and pleasant enough performance but Zayn just warbles and soars and elevates the song, it's everything you might have dreamed Zayn singing a show tune could be! Fantastic! Info about the other songs on the soundtrack is out so it looks like just this one for Zayn alas, but it's the one we wanted! I mean we actually wanted Zayn to BE Aladdin, and by we I mean everyone who has commented on his posts, but this is nice too. We're told that he personally selected Zhavia for the collab; I'm still maintaining it was for her name. There's also a Spanish versus available ("Un Mundo Ideal") with Zayn and Becky G, which explains that confusion AND maybe a separate Portuguese version as well? Neat.

As the world speculated about Harry and everyone he went near the other night (Alessandro, Jeff, Kendall especially with big media coverage on that one) and whispered about his gay coding, Louis "hold my beer" Tomlinson busted on the scene to take his rightful place as king bear, and just straight up tweeted about Larry! At like 4:30 am London time (not home? jet lagged? too much red bull? jolted awake from a dead sleep with sudden urgent need to reclaim his throne?) he tweeted lyrics from a Catfish and the Bottlemen song, cool cool very on brand, probably the standout song on the album, NBD! Until you realize that the first word of the song is literally LARRY which honestly is not something you see every day and I'm sorry but I utterly reject the possibility that he just didn't know all the lyrics to the song or that he didn't know what any of it would be taken to mean. Now THAT is a true reach! This was A Choice.

So listen that was a big ass obvious move in a week of little moves, I think we need a quick SBB recent activity round up here. We got Louis in skull clothes twice recently, May 4 and May 7. On the 4th Eleanor was there and we got chicken-wrapped-with-Parma-ham, on the 7th Eleanor was there and within 24 hours he added some interesting new songs to his playlist (Laurel Wreaths, really?) and basically tweeted "Larry". It's all about that balance, baby, but if you ask me this seesaw is tilted pretty heavily towards Louis having fun talking about his baby... Like how long has he been sitting on that tune? We know he's been listening to that album for ages. In any case I don't know what his new promo cycle is gonna look like but I feel we can definitely say it's ON and we are getting that content!

Today in content: a beautiful behind the scenes from the show in Birmingham! Louis is in the aforementioned skull clothes (track pants) rehearsing, planning, hanging out, being cute. We see him with a nice wine glass full of possibly vodka red bull, or maybe just red bull, just like at TXF, raising the question; does this classy bitch just travel with wine glasses? Amazing. He also wears the merch we still can't buy thanks for that I'm not crying at all, and sings along to another C&tB song (for those who were distressed about the other lyrical content of the Larry song this one is also about a relationship and it's not sad, it's about making it through.) And! He is back on the MTV schedule with what looks like the real goods finally... or maybe not. The schedule clearly says "Brand New Video" for Fri but then talks about the Miss You vid so....? And they have the Louis Tomlinson and Friends program relisted for Sat which you would think would be new(ish... from March anyway) content if it actually airs this time, except it says it's him talking about collabs so isss it current? MTV have been shady af idk man. Frankly I don't think they have new content. Anyway also Helen Seamons (Louis' stylist) posted a studio pic of Louis' guitar, why? Idk.

An update account reported that Back To You had been taken off Louis' song lists on some platforms which prompted all kinds of interesting speculation but long story short it's not true so whatever.

Jeez I was hoping to get caught up with some backlogged Louis interview stuff today but he just keeps hitting us with new content! It's too much! So v briefly- he talked about playing guitar on tour ("I won’t feel like I’ve done what I want to do musically until I’m on stage playing guitar" I'M DEAD I CAN'T WAIT), he says he plays guitar in the video, he said TOU was ready to go before TXF, for like 6 months before it came out, that TXF took up more of his time than he'd anticipated, that he'll start by touring smaller venues not because he can't fill big ones but to hone the craft (of being a solo performer). Probably the most interesting interview yet, but alas so many content so little time helllllp.

Anyway yeah so the tabs are real excited about Harry and Kendall being in the same place but with nothing more than that to work with they're just straight up embarrassing themselves- a highlight? A pic of her phone screen, which is clearly and visibly a dog, like yes an actual canine, a Doberman to be exact I believe, and headlines about her having a pic of Harry on her screen. I'm ??? At least they know who he IS- at least two outlets now have announced that he's the father of the royal baby and mama Anne joins us in finding it hilarious. Harry himself has apparently been messaging with photographer Tyler Mitchell, who he publicly followed post gala, raising hopes for him to work on HS2, and he (Harry) showed up at the Strand bookstore in NY (miles of books!) and took a cute fan pic. Whatcha reading Harry?

Lottie posted a pic of herself and Gemma and some other influencer friends titled "the whole crew", yikes sorry Eleanor, Liam posted a beautifully lit photo (captioned "new light") that, some have noticed, echoes the colors and light of Zayn's new video (which was shot in the same place as Polaroid btw) nicely, and while Niall stans continue swooning over yesterday's pics he's busy promoing Soccer Aid and chatting about model life ("I AM FASHION")

[rainybears]

Island Tracking Spreadsheet 1.0

Hey so I just put together this (still pretty rough tbh) Island Tracking Spreadsheet because I wanna play new horizons now and I needed to do something about it, and also I like making spreadsheets to keep track of things, but I figured some other people may be interested in using this. But also it could very easily be adjusted to be used for New Leaf or honestly any AC game I think? Right now it has sections for:

General Island Info

Islander (player) Info

Current Villagers

Past Villagers

Fish, Bug, Deepsea Creature, Fossil Collections

This part is blank except for a few examples bc those lists most likely won’t be available until the game has been out for a lil while

Tbh there’s a good amount of this that is just based on assumptions (dream address, fish sizes/bell worths being static, etc.), but that’s why this is version 1.0 lol

If you wanna use this, just save a copy of it to your drive! Also under the cut I’m gonna put some previews of each page and explanations on how they work bc it’s gonna be long

Ok so first up we have the Island Info Page:

This one’s pretty straight forward with a spot for a screenshot of your town, some self-explanatory stuff, columns for the things in your town, and a spot for your map.

Next is the Islander Info:

Since we don’t really know how the tools are gonna work I just kinda left a pretty big space for you to keep track of which ones you have (the stuff written in is just examples, idk what the actual options will be). 

For the house expansion section, each room has 3 squares under it where the first square is the base room (first build the house/first add that room), the second is the first expansion of the room, and the third is the second expansion. To check these off, just type a “/” into the little box and it’ll automatically change color. Alternatively, to clear it out, just delete the contents.

(The lil portrait of my future character is from here!)

Next is Villagers!

I have Sterling as my example because he’s my favorite. Again, pretty self-explanatory here; right now it’s set up so that there’s 10 slots for villagers, but to add more spaces, just select the whole section (you can shift-click the image and the notes to get it all at once) and copy and paste it further down.

And now Past Villagers:

I chose Klaus because he moved into my New Leaf town about two inches from my house and destroyed my paths, flowers, perfect peach trees, and future flower arch locations in like 2014 :–| but anyways, this is essentially exactly the same thing as the current villager section, except it now has a “move-out date” slot.

Next is Fish:

Okay so this is kinda set up for you to fill it out as you go, but I think once the game is released and I can get my hands on all this info, I’ll post an updated version with all the concrete dates/times/sizes? 

The boxes in this one work the same way as the house expansion boxes, to fill them in, just type a “/”. There’s 7 boxes; one for each shadow size, and an additional one for a fin for the sharks. It’s also set up for you to type a “-” (or anything. you could type a bunch of “~” to show it wiggling if u want) in each box to show eel shadows. 

Boxes for the months are exactly the same as all the others.

The columns for if the fish has been donated/caught automatically change color if you type “yes” or “no” in them, otherwise they’ll just stay blank.

Ok moving onto bugs:

Same exact thing as fish, except there’s a column for if you need to do something/use another tool first (like how in NL to get a centipede, you have to strike a rock with the shovel to get it to pop out).

Deepsea creatures:

Again, exactly the same, but no special columns this time. 

And finally, fossils:

idk why I took such a big screenshot for this one lmao, but it’s exactly the same as before but a lot fewer columns bc you just dig em up (unless they expand upon it??).

And that’s it! If anyone has any suggestions on things to add, please send me an ask bc it’s past midnight where I am and I probably missed some stuff bc I made this in like 2.5 hours.

[giffingthingsss]

Dump of Chucky

Yes, I am still having chucky thoughts. It’s a thing. So here’s a dump of Chucky thoughts that have built up in my head.

A Couple Counter-Complaints

One thing that fascinates me is how a lot of people miss things or don’t understand basic things. 

Now, granted, I’m not going to sit here and say this franchise makes perfect sense and has perfect continuity and perfect acting always and no plot holes. lol  But like I’ve said before, it’s a killer doll. Just go with it. The things that delight me outweigh the things that don’t. 

The voodoofordummies.com explanation in Cult.

If you don’t know by now that Mancini never had the greatest respect for the whole voodoo thing, and that the Cult line about the website was the updated version of the Bride of Chucky ‘Voodoo for Dummies’ book, then I’m not sure what to say. 

Some people thought it was stupid convenient, but given that Mancini was basically saddled with the voodoo and this was a Bride of Chucky reference, I think it spent about as much time on an explanation as I would have expected.

Although I do think he’ll have to sit down and figure out some structure going forward, or this is going to get way too complicated. 

The look of the dolls in Cult

It’s established by the doctor that they are currently making these dolls and selling them at Hot Topic. Whether the movie they were making in Seed actually got made or not, I don’t know, but obviously Tiffany is going and getting whatever is on the shelf currently and putting Chucky in it. They don’t have to look exactly like they did the first movie. 

It’d be hilarious actually if Tiffany as Tilly did make the movie and was getting a cut of the Chucky merchandise profits. lol 

Mancini could go so meta, but has to hold himself back after Seed, I’m sure. 

Although I do think it would be possible to do it while still keeping a dark tone. Humor is great, but dark humor, etc... 

I have no desire, for example, to see the return of the Glen doll. But I’m not totally opposed to them in human form. Long as they keep it dark.

The thought of murderous Glenda, a red-headed teenage girl.... Maybe it’s just seeing Fiona as the actual Seed of Chucky that makes me think seeing movie Seed of Chucky in her murderous glory could be so dark and fun if they cast it right. 

It took Chucky a long time to get revenge on Sarah. 

First of all, the Curse backstory obviously didn’t exist until they wrote Curse. So good luck making everything fit perfectly. I think it fits enough. 

But secondly, Chucky was a little busy. The original parameters were that he had to put his soul into Andy and only Andy before it was too late. The first movie takes place over the course of what, a week, maybe? Then he’s toast for awhile. 

When he wakes up he again has to find Andy. That might take another week before he’s toast again. Then a lot of years go by with Chucky out of the picture entirely. 

When he wakes up again, he has to find Andy. Realizes he can choose another kid once he’s already there. Dies again. Is gone for a long time until Tiffany brings him back. 

So he’s actually been alive for, what, a month total since he put himself into the doll? A month out of twenty plus years.

By the time Bride rolls around, and Andy is no longer his only option, a lot of time has gone by. Who knows where Sarah is. Chucky’s priority is still to get out of this doll. He’s running around with his old flame for a couple of weeks maybe before they both die again. 

Seed. Still focused on getting into human bodies. Chucky gets overwhelmed by his family responsibilities. They say they’re leaving him and he gets very angry. ‘Nobody leaves me!’ (I feel like this line is supposed to be a reference to something, but whatever it is, I haven’t seen it. as it is, it could work as residual betrayal issues). He tries to kill them, or at least her. Par for Chucky’s course. Glen kills him instead. Mostly. 

Chucky is dismembered at least for a number of years. 

The end of Seed is the first time Chucky expresses that he’s gotten used to being a doll, actually kind of digs it, digs that he’s an infamous serial killer doll, anyway. So for the first time, he’s no longer focused on going into a human. He still will later on, but it’s not like a do or die thing anymore. He’s cool with whatever. 

So, really, the only time he had a moment to even try to track Sarah down was between Seed and Curse. And if you want to headcanon, you can say that part of him making up with Tiffany was him pleading commitment issues because of this chick. So Sarah becomes like their little marital therapy project. lol

As for Sarah, she likely thought he was dead this whole time. She was in the hospital for awhile, I’m sure. And then had her life to deal with. Not to mention being mentally unstable. She probably wasn’t super caught up with the news of the day. And obviously didn’t stay in Chicago.

The one thing I wish they would have tied in in Cult was that Nica’s mother was mentally unwell. Nica could have said her family had a history of mental illness. Make Nica’s ‘snap’ more believable to her and everyone else. But it might have been too long and clunky, idk.

Oh, no, not the stuffing!

A lot of people upset that Mancini broke doll innards continuity in Curse. If I really cared about doll innards continuity, maybe I would be upset too. Idk.

As it is, I actually do think that those moments would have looked super weird with blood and guts all over everything. I do think the look of it fit the mood of that particular movie. Mancini chose what looked best over anything else. I’m cool with it. Obviously not everyone is, but whatever. This isn’t really a defense. It totally was broken continuity. I just didn’t care. 

‘The first three were awesome and the rest sucked!’

Everybody has their own tastes. The first three were very simple, actually. In overall structure. 

I can see people not liking things getting overly Muppet Movie in Seed, but by the time we were done with three movies with the same basic plot, I was ready to see something different. I am confused by people who want to see the same movie over and over again. 

The last two, to me, are the darkest and most interesting. Nica’s story is the darkest in the franchise. And Curse had the creepiest Charles Lee Ray scene, imho. 

Also, Chucky’s a person. He’s a complete sociopath, but he has more than one layer.

And for the record, Chucky was always funny.

‘You could just kick him!’

A non-horror person, here. I am not a fan of this series because Chucky scares me. He doesn’t. But that’s not the only reason to like him. He’s just a fun character. It’s like watching a btvs-style villain.

I do think he has to be dark. I do think you have to take him seriously. Making the human characters compelling is the key to that. Making the audience care that they might die.

But I don’t sit there and wonder whether or not I could beat him in a fight. 

Was Malcolm possessed or not? 

I thought it was obvious in the end that he was not, and thought that was kind of a cool moment, actually. But some seem really confused about it. 

He took on a Chucky personality, but was not actually possessed. That’s why he only ever stands there looking sinister. And why Nica!Chucky is like, ‘in your dreams.’

Why did Madeline throw Chucky and him into the grave though? I have no idea. 

But that segues into another Chucky thought that I’ll put in another post. 

[theseaver]

Adventures with GSC’s Nendoroid Face Maker, Part 2

Part 1

Ordering Costs and Shipping Times

I know if I was reading this, I’d want to know the logistics of ordering right about now.  So here we go!

The faceplates themselves cost 1480 JPY = 13.15 USD.  As far as I could tell, there wasn’t a shipping cost to ship them within Japan, or the shipping cost was built into the price.

Once the faceplates arrived at the DeJapan warehouse, I paid 2100 JPY = 18.66 USD.  I used EMS shipping, which was pretty middle of the road when it came to costs.  There were both more and less expensive options, but only a few hundred yen in either direction.  No real reason why I chose EMS, I just know I’ve had good experiences before.  I appreciated DeJapan’s transparency here, because using AmiAmi or GSC, they never estimate all the different shipping options for you.  The cost is always a surprise when they demand the payment.

What I didn’t appreciate is they tacked on a 100 yen “consolidation fee” when I submitted the form for the faceplates.  Supposedly, there was an option to opt out of this, but I didn’t know and the consolidate option is the default.  Basically, if you’re expecting multiple items, they will pack it all up in one box to save you shipping costs.  It’s very nice, but I only had the one order and still had to pay the fee anyway because I checked a box incorrectly.  Oh, well.  I’ll be more careful next time.

So you’ve ordered your faceplates and you’ve paid!  How long can you expect to sit next to the mailbox, eagerly awaiting your delivery?  I ordered my faceplates on October 11th.  The DeJapan blog had estimated 2 weeks for the NFM to make the faceplates and ship them, so imagine my surprise when the NFM emailed me on October 15th to say (I can only assume, since it was in Japanese) that my faceplates shipped!  DeJapan emailed on the 16th (LATE at night, so for this and the next few emails, it was the next day in Japan) that my items had made it to their warehouse.  This was when I had to confirm that I didn’t want to consolidate my order.  On the 17th they requested my payment to ship, and on the 18th they confirmed that my package was on its way.  (During this three day span, I took the requested actions within 15 minutes of them emailing me every time, but it still took another 24 hours for them to move to the next step. Not complaining, just giving you a clear idea of the timeline.) I received the package October 23.

So, to sum up, if you didn’t want to read that long-winded explanation:

I spent a total of 3580 JPY, or 31.81 USD, on the two faceplates. The faceplates took about 12 days to be delivered to my house.

Maybe $31.81 seems like a lot of money for two faceplates.  Heck, it’s like half the price of a whole new Nendoroid, depending which one you’re looking at.  But... I take pictures of my Nendos and update my Tumblr almost weekly.  I figured I’d get some good use out of them.  Or maybe they would look horrible and this was a waste of time.  But at least I could help educate some other people out there.  

But you’ve waited long enough.  Let’s get into...

The Faceplates’ Arrival

Alright, the moment we’ve all been waiting for!  I grabbed some scissors, opened my package, and...!

Okay!  I’m not going to lie, the first time I opened that box, it was pretty exciting.  After staring at an animated version of my product for almost two weeks, it was super cool to see it in 3D laid out in front of me.  My first impression of the faces was really positive, especially Victor’s face, which I expected to look super weird with that light blue pupil.  I was so happy the actual face didn’t turn out that way!  Alas, though, my excitement was to be short lived.  Let’s compare.

So that’s NFM Yuuri on the left and Real Yuuri on the right.  I don’t know how well it comes across on the pictures, but the eye color is way off.  Real Yuuri has these reddish-brown eyes, and NFM Yuuri’s are definitely more brown-brown.  Also, the skin color is pretty different, too.  NFM Yuuri (and Victor) have a pinker shade of skin than their genuine counterparts.  Next time, I’d scale the eyes up a little bigger, too.  And... idk, the eye shape still gets me.  It’s pretty close, but... something’s still off.  Let’s look at Victor.

NFM Victor on the left and Real Victor on the right.  Again, you’re going to have to take my word for it here... those eyes look suuuuper aqua in real life.  Like, way, way more green than this picture shows.  The eyebrows, which I could not get thick enough no matter how hard I tried, are this weird brown-grey in real life.  And, again, the skin color isn’t quite right.  The eye shape is pretty spot on, though.  I can look at this face and tell it’s supposed to be Victor.

Quality

Both faceplates came with head bases and neck joints, pretty much everything that you need besides hair.  Of course, I have enough head bases and neck joints already attached to my Nendos, but it’s always nice to have extras.  Here’s a view of that noselessness I was talking about before.

(Real Yuuri on the left, NFM Yuuri on the right)  You can see the skin difference a little better there, too.

It’s pretty clear that these eyes were printed on.  They have a grainy, almost pixel-y look to them when you get up close.  They’re definitely lesser quality than official GSC stuff.  But you have to get pretty darn close to notice.  From a normal distance, it looks fine.  You can also see the weird brown-grey of the eyebrows better in that picture.

Both faceplates fit pretty well into the existing Nendos.  Let’s take a look, maybe they’ll look better with hair.

The Finished Product

NFM Yuuri on left, Real Yuuri on right.  With the glasses on, it’s becomes clear that the eyebrows needed to be raised a bit, because right now they’re hiding behind his glasses.

NFM Victor on left, Real Victor on right.  He’s a lot closer to looking real than Yuuri is, I think.

Final Thoughts

I dunno, guys.  I think they look like bad bootlegs, personally.  I don’t really know how to salvage these.  I don’t think I’d use them on my blog.  They look too weird and they’re squicking me out.  I might have to call this one a wash.  At least I got a good blog post out of it, and it was really fun.

How I wish the NFM would just let you use the eyes of characters that are already designed!  I wish I could just take Yuuri’s face and change the expression.  I’m sure that would violate all GSC’s licensing agreements, so legally they couldn’t do it that way.  But it would have turned out so much better for me.

Now, does this mean I wouldn’t recommend the NFM to Nendo fans?  Actually, I fully intend to use it again.  I have a face saved already that I plan on ordering.  But here’s the thing: it’s useful for crazy faces only.  Weird ones.  Sleeping ones.  Blushing ones.  Face tattoos.

But if you’re like me, and you’re trying to make a serious face to replace an existing expression, you’re better off going in a different direction.  Personally, I may try to find extra official faceplates and repaint the smile.  I think I’d have better luck.  We’ll see.

Part 1

What do you think?  Are these faces passable or creepy?  Have you used the Nendoroid Face Maker yourself?  If so, please send me a picture, because I love seeing Nendoroid customization.

[rkyooa]

damn, rookies.

okay children, here we go.

i’m putting this under a read more cause, well, this isn’t going to be completely positive, in fact it’ll probably be a good 50/50 positive and negative. we’ve been asked to write about rookies for this fifth year anniversary. it’s amazing that this rp has lasted so long and seems to be the only active, successful roleplay on tumblr to have any kind of significant longevity, so i feel it’s only right to be honest when writing this. rookies has done a lot for me, and this includes both positive and negative things. each person’s experience is different, some will have really great experiences and some will have really negative ones, some will fall on the spectrum in between. i’m definitely in between. i’m gonna do this in a ‘rookies has taught me blank’ kind of way, just so that i can keep a silver lining in the picture, even with the negative. if you relate, then great, let’s chat and bond over it. if not, i hope my experiences help you so you don’t have to go through any of the same hardships i have. 

here we go

rookies has taught me resilience. it’s the first thing that comes to mind, because as much as this community has some amazing people who are supportive and uplift others, there is some really toxic stuff that has happened within the walls of this roleplay. sometimes it’s out of our control, and bad stuff just happens, and that’s okay, so long as we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and move on. upon joining rookies, i had made yooa and hugo. hugo was a muse already conjured and in the works before he had officially joined, and he was in all honestly, made specifically for a friend’s muse here. yooa was plotted to have a long term ship from the get go as well, and both ships were integral parts of their muses. i lost both of them, nearly at once, and it quite literally took a chunk out of me. i never blamed the roleplayers for doing that, because i understood why they needed to leave. getting upset at them wouldn’t have changed anything either, so i just accepted it. i won’t say i didn’t suffer from it though, because i most certainly did. for a while i had no idea what to do with hugo. yooa, she had a bit of a purpose, because she wanted to be a model and an idol, but hugo especially was so hard to come back from on. failed ships or people leaving happened multiple times after that as well, but because of the initial loss of people i thought would never leave, the impact wasn’t nearly as bad, i was able to weather it and accept it, and move on ic. now i’m so understanding and don’t really get hurt when i lose ships or rp partners, i’m able to just be okay with it and look forward to the next ship or thread or endeavour. i’ve applied this to strictly ooc things as well. i’ve lost friends within rookies. people have stopped talking to me because of things that have happened concerning rookies. it sucks, i don’t like it, but i accept it. i’m becoming more and more thick skinned and level headed by the day. i can take blows and dish back kindness now, and i’m pretty proud of that. the only thing i’m still struggling with is the amount of netizen smack talk or belittling that suho got during the mgas. everyone loved to hate him, and while it’s just unofficial ic stuff, it did still get to me, hence why i stopped writing on my own netizen (and have since even deleted her account). the reason that specifically got to me is very unique to my situation. yooa and hugo got signed after what’s considered pretty long waits. there have been longer, obviously, but 8 and 6 months is still pretty long. they were both signed quietly as well, and haven’t had any special trainee projects or debut notices or anything like that, they’ve simply had their training as private trainees and that’s been it. i’ve never complained about that, because i get that others have been here longer than me, are more deserving of the spotlight, or sometimes that’s just how the cookie crumbles. i had a third muse before suho that was taking even longer to get anything. she had an audition with kt that failed, that’s about it, and i had had her for a pretty long time (rip rkyukji i miss you terribly but your true fc is dead and reubvleiwubds i just can’t play you cause of it otherwise you’d still be here kicking ass and taking names). now, she didn’t get scouted with chococon and i did complain about that, but in retrospect i realized her charisma was way too low to be street casted hence why i made suho with his insane charisma level and percentage.

CHARISMA IS THE MOST IMPORTANT SKILL, ROOKIES TAUGHT ME THIS, IT’S THE ONLY REASON SUHO WON AND IF YOUR MUSE HAS LOW CHARISMA YOU BETTER FIX THAT OR YOU’LL BE WAITING AGES AND AGES TO GET SCOUTED AND ONLY KT WILL TAKE YOU. LITERALLY LEARNED THAT ON YUKJI AFTER READING AN OLD POST ABOUT WHICH SKILLS EACH COMPANY SCOUTS. 

anyways, suho doing well on the mgas and winning was the very first time any of my muses had ever been in some kind of spotlight, really. for the first time ever i was genuinely being rewarded, and everyone was just shitting all over it. had yooa or hugo gotten something special i probably wouldn’t have cared that the netizens were always like ‘idk why suho is special, what’s with this junmyeon guy, he aint even talented, he’s not that good looking, etc.’ but because it was the first time something special was being done for me as a mun here, i took it to heart. it was like i wasn’t allowed to enjoy it, because someone else’s muse wasn’t the one in the spotlight. i still remember waiting up until 5am to see who the winner was, and when it came down to suho and haknyeon the tlist blew up with support and rooting for haknyeon, and then when suho was announced the winner? dead silence. i had never felt so hated within this roleplay before, and i felt the need to say sorry for him winning. bianca worked very hard to give all of us, and me, a very special experience, and all i could feel was remorse and regret by the end of it, which i’m sure wasn’t her intention. carly mentioned not understanding why i thought everyone hated suho - this is why. the moment one of my muses had some kind of attention or spotlight, people were mad, upset, whatever. it... really sucked. i feel really anxious and nervous whenever i mention his mga win in a thread now cause i’m worried i’m upsetting someone with it. i still have to work on this, but hopefully i become resilient to this too. i’m sure, if and when yooa or hugo becomes public or debuts, that the netizens will have things to say about them as well, and i just have to be prepared for it to be bad. people will be petty, they’ll be mean, it’s just how life is sometimes. all i can do is correct my own ways and try to build up a thick skin to it.

rookies has taught me dedication. a bitch has done her trainee replies and evals on all three muses every single week since each other has been signed. that’s right, i do fucking 6+ replies a week, every week. that’s sort of unheard of (except for kyle lol) and it’s shown me my unhealthy level of perfectionist tendencies i have, haha. my non-trainee threads have really fallen to the wayside, which sucks and i need to fix that, but after i’m done all of my trainee replies i’m just so tired. i’ll work on it, i promise, but a bitch is tired she does her replies every week cause she won’t be able to sleep if she misses an opportunity for an achievement she wants. i have goal pages set up on each muse that shows which achievements and what levels i want for them. i update them with my point pages every week, and boi there’s a LOT on there that i want to do. missing a week? it makes me panic because that’s another week on top of everything that i’ll need to get my muses where i want them. the fact that suho is so chillaxed about his training and debuting helps so much because my perfectionist ways reflect in yooa and she will literally murder me if i miss a week on her. i also started an rkresource thing (that i desperately need to update) and even though the mods probably have their own version of it i still kind of like seeing where everyone is at. i’ve got some competitiveness in my personality so part of me really wants to see my muses raise in rank in some areas. it kind of keeps me motivated? and i hope that it does for other people as well, haha. it’s not pinned to my twitter anymore but i think someone posted a link to it in the rkresource tag so! its the leaderboard doc. i also update my points every week cause i need to know where my muses are at, which apparently is also really rare? not even kyle does that lol but i know if i leave it i’ll get lost and mess up the tracking so it’s really just for my own sake of being bad with numbers. i lowkey add everything up now and then to make sure i’m on the right track. 

rookies has taught me how to keep muse. yooa is my longest running muse by far. not many know this, since i’ve been around nearly two years now, but i’m actually notorious for getting bored and losing interest in a muse. i’ve had a lot of muses in my time, more than 100, or even 200 at this point. they always sort of completed their story though, and i’d get so bored on them that i’d go inactive or drop them. these muses in rookies have goals, purposes, aims, and they don’t die. yooa is such a strong muse, as is hugo (suho is eh tbh but he’s there), and i know there’s still so much more for her to do and accomplish, so many paths to explore, and i deeply thank rookies for giving me a place where i can have two whole muses who refuse to die no matter what. that’s such a rarity for me, so thank you rookies. you’ve given me two very precious muses that i love with all my heart. no matter what happens ooc with other muns or even the mods, my love for these two muses keeps me from leaving and dropping, i could never do it.

rookies has taught me loving friendships. i have met some very special people here. they are few, honestly, but they are gems and i would never have known them without rookies. the person who has impacted me the most, honestly, is clara @rkwendy / @rkjohnny. this girl, i don’t think you guys realize how beautiful of a person she is. we aren’t best friends, but we’re close. clara has listened to me bitch, both about real life and things within rookies, even people she cares about, and she has not left my side or held anything against me. there are so few people in this world that could do that. she didn’t even push me to like anyone she liked, she let me realize my faults and errors on my own and she was supportive and proud when i realized them and voiced that to her. i try my best to be there for her as well, but i don’t know if i’ll ever be able to be there for her the way she has for me. i’ve got an extremely beautiful ship with her as well, that i hold near and dear to my heart, because as mentioned before i get bored easily, so doing slow burn ships has never been my forte, but wendy is just such a beautiful, layered, intriguing masterpiece of a muse that hugo and i fell completely in love and have been hooked ever since a year ago when the burn first started. it doesn’t matter how fast or slow the replies come, the muse is still there and strong for the ship and i am so thankful to her for being an amazing writing partner. another friendship that has impacted me, and i dont think she even knows or realizes this, is rose @rklisa / @rkyeri / @jinsoulrk. we started out really rocky, and we had some issues that were a good chunk my doing. literally, i came at her over the pettiest, stupidest thing (and i realized she was even right to begin with lol i was such a dumb ass), and then there were things ic that i was taking to heart ooc and it became an ooc issue. i didn’t really handle that well either. the reason i’m mentioning this is because it taught me to see my own faults and own up to them, and even try to change them. if i hadn’t been dumb, rose and i would’ve probably started getting along a loooooong time ago, cause the ironic thing is she and i like a lot of the same groups and share a lot of the same opinions both on irl groups and songs, and ic and ooc rookies things. i’m very excited to be among the new gen royal girls with her and to hopefully have our muses (WHO ARE FINALLY GETTING ALONG! YAY!) debut together one day. that’s obviously way off since luxe debuted this year, but eventually it’ll happen, and i look forward to the queens of sexy concepts yooa and lisa owning the stage together. i’m not mentioning many people because i don’t think there’s a need to. i’m just singling out people who have impacted me and taught me things (minus the mods, that’s sort of their job when muns go astray. thank you carly @taeminrk, lol, you taught me a valuable lesson too when i came at you over something i shouldn’t have and i still regret that to this day. i appreciate you forgiving me for that.) i will also mention ani @rkmiya / @rkmin / @rksohee / @rkchungha because she helped me through a really tough time when i was triggered (unintentionally) by someone in a group chat. we bonded a lot through that, and she’s been there to listen to me rant and complain ever since, haha. she also made me feel very welcome when hugo first joined nova, she hyped me so much and it meant the world to me because it made me feel like people were excited to have me around and to roleplay with me. i had heard horror stories about nova so i was really scared when i decided to have hugo sign. i was tweeting out ‘anything but nova’ during that whole thing but then he got nova and i wanted to cry, die, and pee myself at the same time. i ended up deciding to go for it (it’s only TWO YEARS LOL) and it ended up being the best decision ever. i started off on the right foot though and that’s all thanks to ani. i owe her big time for that. lastly, i’ll mention nic @rknahee / @rkjei / @rkobon. why, you ask? because she has restored my faith in people being trustworthy. especially recently, rookies was teaching me not to trust people. i’ve been very vocal about not being okay as of late, but people kept taking me for granted and just doing whatever they wanted and expecting me to still be there at the end of it no matter what they did. it’s been getting really tiresome and annoying, especially when those people get shocked and upset when i finally put my foot down and express my hurt. nic has taught me that there are people out there who genuinely care and will be there, and can be trusted. she’s gone through similar things to me with other muns, so maybe we’re both just jaded and tired and we can’t be bothered and that’s why we get along so well and trust each other so much. there are days where i wish i could take all of her pain and just put it on myself so she can smile and be happy and not worry about anything. she’s a genuine sweetheart and whoever comes for her will feel my wrath!!! i love her a lot, and always will <3 there are some people i’ve known since before rookies who are still my good friends now. lyn @rkxsnn / @rkavery (your damn urls i swear to god), jen @yujurk, and stef @rkohsehun, don’t think i forgot you guys. i love you to the moon and back. lyn is my ride or die, soulmate, best friend. jen is someone who reteaches me the value of not giving a shit all the time. stef is my fucking wIFE and i will mURDER for her. y’all are great, mwah, i love you <3

[[ amendment! i can’t believe i didn’t mention kyle @haseulrk / @seulgirk / @rksejeong. probs cause you’re a mod too and i was trying to stay away from that cause i don’t want to seem kiss ass LOL but you’ve been a wonderful friend that has taught me it’s okay to rely on people sometimes. i want you to know you can always rely on me too, whenever you need it. you’re a candle in the darkness, with you there will always be light <3 ]]

rookies taught me anxiety. aight, now here’s some of the nasty negative stuff i was talking about. rp in general has given me anxiety, something i never had or experienced before it. rookies festers it a lot, sometimes to an unhealthy point. i can’t help it, rookies is part of me now, i’ve invested so much time and effort into this place, so i can’t leave, even when the place is literally affecting my health. it sucks when i need an escape from all the bs happening in real life, and then i come here and it’s just more stress and hurt, and that’s when the anxiety rolls in cause then i no longer have a safe space. that’s just not the point of rookies, and i doubt the mods want that to be the case for anyone. it’s just tough when there are people i know i won’t ever get along with here, people i know who don’t like me for whatever reason (and still hold a grudge to this day even though they talk about how people shouldn’t hold grudges) or stuff like what happened with suho in the mgas happens, and i can’t do anything about it. mods can only do so much too. i kind of just expect people to not like me at this point? and i worry myself into a place where i feel like the whole world is against me. it’s super unhealthy, but honestly i don’t know how to fix it, it is what it is. it’s a part of me and my rookies experience, and it probably always will be, so like a lot of other stuff i just have to accept it. there are muns that i’m trying to get on better terms with and i hope i get good outcomes like i did with rose (she made the first step though i don’t take credit for that). for some of them, though, it’s very clear there’s just no reconciling, or their personality will just always clash with mine and there’s nothing to be done about it. all i can do is stay civil and keep striving for better outcomes. and i gotta remember to breathe. 

rookies has taught me clarity. i’m way better at seeing where i’m going wrong now. within the past year i notice that when i’m upset i’ll go and bitch in a safe space, or at least what i think is a safe space, but when that person i bitched about bitches about ME and it gets back to me i’m upset about it. kind of hypocritical, and i realized it. so i don’t hold grudges or confront or anything. everyone gets annoyed with people whether they’re close or not, and bitching about them sometimes doesn’t mean we hate them or they hate us. we just gotta VENT sometimes, you know? in retrospect i know i’ve come off as two-faced in some situations, but i’ve learned my personality really well and i know that if i want to tackle a situation with a level head and clarity, i need to blow off the steam out loud elsewhere first. i need to yell to someone who is impartial and won’t lecture me so i can get that off my chest, then go to the person in question and be calm when talking things out with them. in the moment clarity and level-headedness is slowly but surely starting to come as a result of this, and it’s mostly been situations in rookies that has taught me this. 

i keep rambling on and on, this post has been super huge haha, but i guess the main point i’m making is that rookies has taught me a lot of self growth. am i perfect? nope, and to paraphrase a recent conversation with my dear mother, i don’t want to be perfect, i have flaws and i like them, but i also am proud of the person i am becoming. if you hate me or dislike me, that’s perfectly fine, if you like me or love me, that’s fine too. if you’re indifferent, great! lol. rookies has taught me to accept all of it. it’s kind of sucky that rookies has taught me to just accept all the bullshit in life, but in a setting like this it’s hard to escape all of our flaws being concentrated and emphasized here. muses are a part of us and it gets pretty sensitive. having everything so concentrated and intense here, though, has taught me to be more resilient and accepting, and i get to apply that to real life. it’s also made me pessimistic, and to paraphrase a recent conversation with my asshole brother (who is super slytherin and waayyyy more optimistic than i am, and i’m a freaking gryffindor and pessimistic af, who is the real set of good guys rowling? i’m also a ravenclaw though so maybe that’s got something to do with it lol) that makes me dead wrong and i need to look into that, cause everyone inherently wants to do good. i wish i could see things like my brother lol but i’m jaded. one more thing to work on? maybe next year i’ll be more optimistic. if you’ve read all of this, holy hell go get a life friend, but thanks! let’s chat and plot sometime, because we all know rookies aint going anywhere~

sincerely, roe

@rkyooa / @rkhugo / @suhork

[ibeerlydrink]

Jesus gave me a hit… So I took another one

I feel like this is a good introductory story to commemorate returning to Tumblr.

Last night, I learned from a friend , that the last girl I dated (who, yes I was heartbroken over, and yes I still have a soft spot over) is now doing

P O R N O G R A P H Y.

Everything went static like a tv disconnected for a little while..

Anyway.

I suppose I need to build to my post title.

But recap so far:

-Ex that dumps me

-ends up doing porn (I find out from a “former classmate” of hers)

-white noise

-summary done.

Okay.

So after a while I for some reason grabbed my graduation gifted family Rolex from my old man, my cross necklace and my Rolex pendant necklace. Just to get in some mood. These material things help me with confidence.

Anyway.

I was bone dry on my last juul pod (I know...just.. keep reading) and I’m just desperate for something to take away this edge since I’m not really wanting to re open a can of worms I had just left behind and forgotten about. Soooo

I went into my boxer drawer (you’ll see why just relax) where I hid my AirPod size case holder which was (scent-proofingly well) housing a thc pod I had left a couple months ago. I saved it to remember what kind it was and never tossed the pod.

Well, I switched out the juul with the other kind of pod... and starting ripping and it STARTED RIPPING BROOO.

I go to my window and cough in surprise but mostly in joy and (quickly stoner off my buttox) guessing that, with the cross necklace maybe god saw me and my particular situation and knew instantly who I was (since he created my soul ig? Idk semi religious and spiritual ig) and did some ‘holy miracle’ and gave me a rip... here’s why I believe that.

I had another full rip.

A second full rip.

Someone up there just looked out for me and honestly, I believe this is that one ‘miracle moment’ I’m going to have but it’s not all Disney version where life instantly turns around with magic, but rather my choices and my decisions with my life. A blessed wake up call.

Side rant:

It’s disappointing to have been told you were loved by a person, and then that tell that person you love them, then said person leaves you for untold reasons, but you have both have been put through so much it would have been fair to know what made the problem as bad as it was... but the truth was something they would hide..deep deep truths stayed buried deep deep down.

The actions she showed me and the words she told me early on were angelic and pure affection with sincerity. But then became so aggressive they were hostile and violent. I didn’t know the sunflower smile I had seen would poison me with toxins, rooted deep enough to my heart...., and then never give me a cure for the sting it left behind.

So in summary of my long (very stoned) story, I just want to welcome anyone who comes across my page be prepared for wildly sad, cringey, happy, funny or other mood having posts.

Jesus gave me a hit, so high I could have fist bumped him

Update: after I finished putting this together,

I tried again... and had one final rip.

I’m at peace now. Gn

Another update:

This girl has literally become my lifetime record holder of ‘the one girl I wish had never existed in my lifetime’. It’s a special category I made up just for her. No matter how bad someone may be, she set the bar so high that it is a once in a lifetime achievement...