#because the people on twitter really pissed me off with their responses that completely miss the point sjsjdjs

[incarnateirony]

An anti dressed up as a shipper, an idiot, and a terf all walk into the same bar.

It’s the same picture person.

A lesson.

Warning: if the title doesn’t give it away, queerphobic content comes up in this from the other party being documented.

So, some of you may have watched a twitter exercise yesterday.

It started simple: concern trolling white knight “for the writers” comes in to angrily declare fans doing something tagged in support of them about Destiel was “out of line.” She claimed things like “Misha was gaslit into supporting Destiel”, and pulled all kinds of stunts.

She immediately got on a soap box yelling “I HAVE A LIT CRIT DEGREE, I KNOW AUTHOR INTENT” of course implying she knew better than EVERYONE around her how to read text. She then pulled, of all things, @chill-legilimens​​ ‘ article about the network gods gutting the show out of the internet, and somehow misread it SO FUCKING BADLY -- SO FUCKING BADLY -- she thought it aligned with HER. She argued that fans influenced the writers, essentially, and basically pulled the exact opposite of the very clearly delivered message there out. When it was pointed out we know this author and even sometimes help edit their pieces, and she was, flat out misreading it while bragging about how good she is at deciphering text, it turned into a SHITSHOW.

I had watched her give a large group of queer people 2 days of runaround, while they tried to be polite, and similarly tried to prove everything while she proved nothing. Just preached. After 2 days of them exhausting themselves on her, I came in doing my blunt & savage thing, because fuck civility culture when it’s used by oppressors. Of course, she immediately started tone policing, while herself being an arrogant shitbrick the whole way.

She continued to preach author intent and talk down about “headcanons.” You see, she knew the authors very well. Berens’ name was mentioned in passing, and she came back with. “Who’s Berens? Is that the author of the article?” after Deirdre’s name had been directly cited in associated with it about 15 times.

(credit: @judgehangman​ )

But it gets better. She started pulling the “authors have said Dean is straight.” line. Now, at this point, we had already sourced her at least four pieces of information (quite formally too: SPN Official DVD Collection Season 8 episode 13 creative commentary, Edlund and Sgriccia; Dissent Magazine The Attack Queers Bob Berens review; the books in the office with screenshots, and more.) So we issued one simple request: Okay. Source.

For the next-- I shit you not-- 10 hours she bricked the thread to death, finding any and EVERY rabbit hole she could try to venture down. For the first hour or two a few of us tried to actually debate her newly raised points, but still gave reminder that we were waiting for her source. Every tweet was an opportunity for her to drop a 15 tweet thread trying to derail onto a new topic, and often clarifying she had no idea about any of it (Edlund, Sgriccia, Berens, Dabb--who she couldn’t spell the name of--and Deirdre all became an amorpheous blob in her retelling that she swore she looked at sources and wasn’t convinced, while she crossed all the data and comments about the sources). She tried to challenge that anyone could know all the writers and episodes just because she proved she couldn’t, even when multiple people expressed it to her extremely rapidly with not just author and director listings, but cross references on when they overlapped and major elements (like the 15.20 shot 19 tree being the Kim Manners memorial tree). She randomly babbled about Kripke once. Lied her way through and claimed those sources were vague. Etc.

But at some point, I decided, we’re not playing this distraction game. You wanted a debate, you claim you have a lit crit degree, and thus know the entire art is Argumentation. A source, if you’re declaring knowing author intent. One source. Any time she dropped a distraction tweet, I replied to her thread with things like a list of our sources vs her lack of any and a reminder. I installed a counter ticker. How many times had she been asked to either recant her point or give a single source?

Someone made a list of the logical fallacies she used in the argument. It was two tweets long and still missed several obvious ones. That didn’t stop her. Neither did the dozens of requests for a source or a recant. Onwards, she marched, derailing time and again. She brought in a buddy to try to distract, but he fell out real quick when he realized “the burden of proof lies on the arguer” shot him and her both in the feet in record time and he ducked out. 

Other greatest hits came out like “Dubs (Dabb’s) fanfic books”, and calling the ability to list authors and episodes “headcanons.”

Over time, the dialogue shifted: see, she came in trying the snide “enjoy your headcanons” downtalk, but as time and time again she was pulverized on every point about the show, or the authors, or anything else while STILL never even giving a single source to even her FIRST POINT and running distractions, it became a reality-- she was told, “We’ll enjoy our canon and author intent. You can enjoy your headcanon of... Dabb’s fanfic books and Lord Barons and the writers being collective hallucinations and whatever else in your hot takes about the show content itself” and she FLIPPED SHIT. 

As the ticker for sources approached 100, she started becoming flustered. Before that, even, she started repetitively misgendering Ezra (no tumblr to link in), and Ezra screenshot their bio of they/them and asked them to adjust. Ignored. Ezra linked this request and asked it to be addressed again, and again, and again. 13 times. Ezra linked it 13 times. She even replied to several of them. No avail. No change. Not until literally any and every tweet in her vicinity either had “source?” or “address gender?” for her to reply to did she flee there, and write some giant write-around of “oh, I didn’t see this, sorry” but still refused to actually use it. Or “I’ll use the right one now.” No, just completely strickened pronouns from her vocabulary with Ezra moving forward, after not one mistake, not two, not five, but 13 answers.

At this point, I notice a trend: throughout the entire conversation, she had flip flopped on my pronouns, clearly confused as to what to call me. As I generally don’t care (honestly I prefer he but meh), it didn’t ping me as something to react to while she switched religiously between “he” and “she”. But I realized now, despite all of that confusion: she never once thought to use “they.” Also earlier we found tweets of hers that, while now declaring herself bisexual, she used troublesome wording in the past to blur the line on if she was an ally or, as she phrased it “maybe less than 100% straight in the bell curve” in other conversations.

I mutter about this on the side to Ezra and some friends, but continue on towards the 100 ticker that was the goal to show people in this digital terrarium how disingenuous most people you argue with are -- an exhibit for the class. They know they’re lying and have been caught, but will not cede to admit “oops, I guess I was wrong.” but rather stick, unironically, to their own headcanons about things. After all, they vaguely sorta apologized even if suddenly just refusing to use any pronouns at all on Ezra after that. And she’s so quick to disappear into 15 tweet bombs of distraction trying to play victim for being held accountable at this point, we just didn’t jump to a conclusion on that, alarming as it is.

So. You know. Source.

At this point, she RANDOMLY starts evoking the fact that like, How Dare, She Watched Gay Men Die To AIDS, She Is A Great Philanthropist How Dare How Dare. 

I’m sorry, did you just evoke the blood of our dead to run away from the most basic scrap of accountability in what is literally the first wave of a lit debate because for the last 10 hours you have refused to take the necessary steps to move on to the next point? Did you... just... evoke the ghosts of gay men that were genocided to, essentially, pull up a smokescreen and run away from being party to queer erasure? Or even just? Giving a source? or admitting you were wrong on one point in a debate? Wow, you really just did that. 

Naturally, people involved got pissed. Her Sources ticker hit 100, but at this point, all that haunted her was how completely fucking vile and inappropriate that was in this discussion. 

She got blocked. She then tried to glom onto anyone that hadn’t blocked or muted her and run the same argumentation points she had earlier been decimated in the argument with, while yelling “I ship Destiel too! I wanted them to have sex too! Why does this make me the bad guy?” around the block and hoping nobody actually read the thread. She tried to pitch the “headcanons” point of view again, hoping a new audience would lick her boots. She was, largely, ignored; given a few more comments about her leaving the conversation losing all points and only covered in the blood of our dead she was so proud of; blocked by a few more. (unsurprisingly, if you check her actual tweet history, she seems more invested in Megstiel but)

This is when CommaSameleon -- a professor with two lit degrees and a primary focus in teaching the art of Argumentation -- literally -- stepped in. She initially tried to engage the fact that, well, this woman not only can’t argue out of a paper sack but wasn’t even arguing, she was just running in circles and distracting from all the points and hadn’t addressed a single lit point directly while preaching down at people. But Sam, also, noticed something. This woman kept changing things like “queerphobia” to “homophobia.” Sam mentioned this kinda puts off TERF vibes (I think Sam picked up on the gendering thing herself too.)

Her response? Which she deleted since? But Discord’s embed helpfully saved?

Her inacted non-apologies remain weak, especially in any form of debate be it lit or now queer topics.

Oh I’m sorry, let’s recap her viewpoints: TERF is a slur. “They” is made up and should be avoided at all costs. The blood of dead gay men are a token to use in a lit debate you’re avoiding responsibility in. After this, “authors are headcanons” is suddenly not your worst take, but fascinating that you 13 times didn’t even read the blatant ass screenshot. And I mean, these weren’t subtle or easy to miss these 13 times.

100. She had 100 chances, literally, on a timer, to give a source or shut up with her platforming until she had one. Instead, she chose every rabbit hole she could manifest to disappear into, only to be met by another request for a source, and not moving on until we address the first points. We’ve given ours, now you give yours. Instead, you choose this. This is the hill you choose to die on, rather than admitting, “Sorry, I guess I was wrong” or “I guess I heard that somewhere, my bad.” 100 chances. 13 direct QT requests to address gender which she replied to but didn’t reply to until cornered (and still didn’t, truly, reply to), and “TERF is a slur.” Oh, and after waving around the dead men’s blood she also suddenly Can’t Be A Terf Because She Adopted Two Trans Kids. Lord help those children. Or, you know, the more realistic thing is she’s just manifesting all kinds of bullshit at this point to save face, which is probably why she deleted all the related tweets that show she’s a giant-ass TERF.

So anyway, this is very much a lesson on:

Paying attention to how people manipulate conversation to erase genuine discussion and debate.

Paying attention to WHY they do it. Motivation on methods and tactics will clear up a lot.

Figuring out HOW they try to sound woke about shit and when it’s entirely fucking vile and inappropriate to pull

And by all above points, figuring out that these people are among us, and how NOT to let them influence your conversations.

I don’t care if it’s about a discussion on a ship or show or anything else. People do this. A lot. Extremely dedicatedly, if the 100 asks doesn’t make that clear. 

Stop letting people railroad your conversations with disingenuous bullshit.

So anyway in honor of this I made everyone a gif

Use at will. It’s tagged anti-terf if you want to use the search feature on it.

UPDATE: 

Just went and checked. She went and deleted literally her entire side of the conversation, hundreds if not thousands of tweets. Luckily, Ezra mentioned repeatedly -- and I do trust them inherently -- that they were saving the entire conversation, so that zip file exists somewhere. How fascinating, after she accused us that we would want to delete tweets. Someone realized they had a bad look and giant failure all around.

Also, a related anon that links to an earlier part of this conversation I didn’t even document where she was crying about “cis erasure” [x] This shit went on so long I legit forgot about that.

[omegangrins]

Universal took Tremors from its creators after 30 years of work.

TL;DR After 25-30 years making the series, Brent Maddock, Michael Gross, Nancy Roberts, Ron Underwood and S.S. Wilson were kicked out so Universal Studios could make more money off the merchandising before the Tremors copyright expires in 2025.

*****MAJOR SPOILERS**** This will make you sad, angry and frustrated. But there is hope. #StampedeTremors

Soooooo, ever since I blew up and sidetracked a post about David Fincher's Queen Biopic with Sacha Baron Cohen as Freddie Mercury discussing the Tremors 7 ending, I've done some more research on the whole thing. The Graboid hole for this goes deep.

Michael Gross didn't want it.

“There’s a part of me that feels that Universal Home Entertainment might’ve had enough of Tremors. The suggestions that were made in the course of this [movie] made me think maybe they’ve had enough. They came to me and said, ‘What if we ended it at 7?’ and I said, ‘Whatever you choose to do, I’m good with that.'” “That being said, The door is still open for an eighth Tremors. It may seem unlikely by what people see on the screen, but it is possible. There could be an eighth. And if there were, and if it were an interesting story, I would be up for it because Burt is always a great deal of fun. It would depend on his physicality. How much they want me to do. If it’s in another two years, I’ll be 75 years old. So I will continue to hope and pray that I stay in shape, to do what is asked of me – if it is asked of me.”

AND Universal even killed off any ambiguity that he fought for.

"We shot it both ways, where everybody's mourning Burt, and he climbs up over the cliff and looks at all of them in mourning and goes, 'Jesus, God, I'm not dead. And he's really pissed off at them. It's like, 'How would you possibly think...?' But he's bloodied, just he's a mess. He looks like he's been through an earthquake, crushed by a house, but he's alive. And he says, 'You idiots. Of course, I'm alive.'" "They decided it just had this punch. Frankly, I thought to myself -- I didn't express it to them, but I thought to myself -- 'Maybe Universal's getting a little tired of this franchise.' Because this wasn't my idea." "I said, 'I can live with this. Because they came to me. They said, 'Look, you've been doing this so long. What do you think?' And I said, 'Well, as long as we kind of leave the door open.' I mean, I can kind of see an eighth film where it opens with Burt in a hospital bed, in a full body cast and saying, 'I survived.' He could hardly move a muscle. And maybe eight is...if I had a concept for eight, it would be Burt horribly injured, but in a motorized, weaponized wheelchair that has rocket mounts on the side and can leave an oil slick behind like James Bond's car. So nobody can chase him." "I always said, if Kevin Bacon or Fred [Ward] or Reba [McIntire] or anybody [wanted to return], I'd be there in a minute. Just because one, I love Burt, but I always thought of him as this guy kind of on the fringes, and I just came to the fore because everybody else walked away."

https://bloody-disgusting.com/movie/3637682/michael-gross-says-door-still-open-potential-eighth-tremors-movie/

https://comicbook.com/movies/news/tremors-shrieker-island-michael-gross-on-burt-gummer-death/

While Universal ignored how Michael Gross was setting up his son Travis Welker to pick up his torch (Which I'm give or take on Jamie Kennedy yet he brought a Grady-like optimism to the shittier of the series.)

"My reaction was disappointment, as I had planned an entire storyline around his participation."

Even Jamie Kennedy tried to but they wouldn't let him.

"Lot of people have been asking me, so I might as well spill it. I will NOT be in the upcoming TREMORS 7. I had a great time making the last two. But no TRAVIS this time around. But hey you neva’ know what can happen in the future.... have a great time boys! Tdawg out!!!"

https://mobile.twitter.com/JamieKennedy/status/1188981479973347329

After 7 movies and a TV show, nothing more than a spit in the face for the man who carried a franchise. Then when they do the montage at the end, we get clips of Hiram Gummer but NOTHING of Burt Gummer from the TV show. It's 13 episodes of Burt in Tremors that's longer than all the movies combined but yet they don't even include it in the ending montage while including his dead grandpa.

Same with the original creators. Did you know Stampede Entertainment (Brent Maddock, Nancy Roberts, Ron Underwood, and S.S. Wilson) were working on Tremors for 25 years and even had the 5th one written, "Thunder/Gummer Down Under".

Then were told to sit on it for 10 years before Universal eventually told them to eat dirt? That's gotta hurt. It hurts me and I'm not even connected to these movies. All that work down the drain just because of someone's say so. And for no reason. Well not exactly....

Universal knows fans want Tremors merch. I mean, look at how they took #BurtGummerDay from @BabyFarkMcGeeZax. And they want ALLLLLL of that merchandising money. With none of it going to Stampede because it would give them leverage. Not to mention they don't want anyone else getting the idea to make cute monster toys before they can roll out their own line.

Don't believe me? See Universal pull some Hollywood Accounting with Tremors already.

http://imgur.com/gallery/mFNIHV3

Half a billion dollars... completely untraceable. I've tried. Emailed the numbers people and they can't tell me anything unless you pay $50 a film to see the numbers. Which makes me ask, who paid for the numbers on 1,5, 6, & 7? And why only what they made? Not their cost. Same for the numbers on 2, 3, & 4. Why numbers on the cost, but nothing on what it made? It seems weirdly targeted to make it look like the Stampede Entertainment ones only cost money but made nothing.

Then when you find out that the copyright to Tremors will revert to its creators after the 35 year mark, which makes that date 2024-2025 since Tremors was filmed in '88-'89 but released in '90.....

Wellllllll some things start to add up. Especially when you consider it's Universal. They already know about owning copyrights for things long out of due. Ask Dracula, Frankenstein and the Wolfman. Or Nintendo when Universal tried to sue them because Donkey Kong was too similar to King Kong.

Ask Stampede (S.S. Wilson) yourself. They have a Question and Answer page right on their site.

Like did you know you can't find ANY official Tremors merch? But you CAN find tons of fan-made creations. Give it a Google. They don't even list Tremors on the Universal website. Go ahead. Ask them. I try weekly. No responses ever.

https://www.universalpictures.com/about

Even with a longer history, more money made, and amount of sequel potential in comparison to their other films?

http://imgur.com/gallery/ZnXEsI3

Fans are clamoring for more but Universal says no?

Hell, you can watch the TV show for free on the NBC site.

But before my investigating, the episodes were so jumbled and missing it would ruin people's enjoyment.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Tremors/comments/m0wvwu/tremors_episode_9_graboid_rights_is_back_on_nbc/

What about how they made a Tremors series pilot with Kevin Bacon? The only bad thing about it is that they need to pull a Sonic redo on the Graboid at the end but who knows, I suspect it's like that for plot reasons after reading the unaired script.

https://youtu.be/hWU3GpKmIvw

That Universal/NBC/SyFy has proceeded to hide deeper than a Graboid burrows. https://wegotthiscovered.com/movies/tremors-star-kevin-bacon-confused-sequel-series-picked/

Despite no one knowing why. http://imgur.com/gallery/w7rbUvZ

Read the script for yourself if you don't believe me. They've already hidden it for two years. Andrew Miller worked too hard for it to be hidden. And it plays. It works and plays with what's already there while being new and old. Quite good.

Have you seen the Kevin Bacon/Michael Gross commercial featuring them in Perfection Valley? The whole commercial is a sly way to use Tremors WITHOUT actually saying anything Universal would have claim to call copyright on. "Sandworms" "My old co-star" "Trevors". It's a great big middle finger to Universal.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=E_O0K9hmlrw

How about the original script for Tremors 2: Aftershocks. The creators have wanted it seen for 20 years but it took a crazy Larry like me to get it out there. It's got Val, Earl, Burt and Heather in it too. Pretty good too. So good they reused the ending in the TV show episode "Shriek and Destroy".

All these things swirl together and make me wonder more and more. For the plethora of Tremors fandom goes deeper than even me... Like Imgur user @BabyFarkMcGeeZax. They created Burt Gummer Day five years ago through sweat and love alone.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Tremors/comments/mb2rtz/babyfarkmcgeezax_created_burt_gummer_day_and/

Yet what does Universal do? Take the day, plaster it over the end of their hero's death, and not even give a line credit or thank you to @BabyFarkMcGeeZax or a mention on Twitter as they blurb it everywhere.

Ever seen the gif battles about Tremors at r/HighQualityGifs?

https://www.reddit.com/r/GifTournament/comments/luvt39/giftournament_battle_13_round_3/

https://www.reddit.com/r/HighQualityGifs/comments/dtz11k/battle_178_tremors/

How about The Everything Sequel podcast where they discuss how amazing all of The Tremors Saga is after discovering it for the first time. Even going so far as to pitch their own sequels.

https://share.transistor.fm/s/e24901de https://share.transistor.fm/s/bdea7b5e https://share.transistor.fm/s/cf79bbc1 https://share.transistor.fm/s/fac66438 https://share.transistor.fm/s/a90415cd https://share.transistor.fm/s/c0e8153e https://share.transistor.fm/s/6b6572f9

There's so much fan content and people screaming for more Tremors! Like "Perfection, NV", a fan film.

Or this collection of alt Tremors posters.

http://imgur.com/gallery/MgkhnfE

Including the thousands of pieces of fanart.

http://imgur.com/gallery/6f7Txh0

http://imgur.com/gallery/nXG1ph1

The story behind Tremors comics. http://www.enemyofpeanuts.com/2013/03/09/the-short-story-behind-tremors-comics/

Even the new Tremors game. OR games.

https://youtu.be/G6PX1QY2oIc

https://stefanocagnani90.itch.io/tremors-thegame

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tremors:_The_Game

https://www.playfg.com/dirt-dragons-game.html

Look at all this love.

And this isn't even an officially licensed game.

"A fortune", you say? Interesting....

So let's make Tremors 8 Ouroboros with the OG creators back on board.

https://imgur.com/gallery/o2kCFLu

We restart the TV show and end the movies for a while. Just like The Librarians. If Marvel can switch between movies and TV, Tremors can too.

If you think I'm crazy too, just see and know how I've been in this position before. I'm well aware of how this "story" plays out.

I mean, Tremors *does* foreshadows its ending with a sleeping bag. https://imgur.com/gallery/5HexQ

Notice too how you can find little Behind the Scenes for Tremors 5-7 despite a smorgasbord of material for 1-4 and both TV shows.

http://imgur.com/gallery/b4STAkl http://imgur.com/gallery/gSlZ1fC http://imgur.com/gallery/fnFt9MD http://imgur.com/gallery/6mDHTtg http://imgur.com/gallery/4M28quW http://imgur.com/gallery/w7rbUvZ http://imgur.com/gallery/6l0Dogl

And it's not like Universal isn't known for shady business practices. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Pictures

What about how they own the rights to damn near every monster except for Godzilla. And not just the classics like Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolfman, Mummy and Invisible Man. They have Kong, Hulk, Jaws, Michael Myers, The Thing, all the Jurassic Park dinos, all the Romero zombies, Chucky, Casper, Riddick beasts, Hellboy, and Jaegers/Kaiju. These dudes know merchandising rights and they're looking to score the next Poke'Mon franchise.

https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2011/10/24/how-universal-re-copyrighted-frankensteins-monster/

Take a gander at all these articles gushing with love for Tremors:

Why the 'Tremors' Franchise Is Better Than the 'Alien' Movies https://collider.com/why-the-tremors-franchise-is-better-than-the-alien-movies/

As Kevin Bacon's Tremors returns to TV, we explain the entire franchise ​It's way more complicated than you think. https://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a807140/tremors-franchise-series-guide-kevin-bacon/

20 Fun Facts About Tremors https://ew.com/article/1990/07/13/tremors/

Thirty Years After Tremors, Reba McEntire Tells Us Why She's Absolutely Down to Return For a Reboot https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/a30457996/tremors-30-anniversary-reba-mcentire-interview/

30 years ago, Tremors became perhaps the most perfect bad movie https://www.thv11.com/mobile/article/entertainment/movies/film-on-11/getting-reel/30-years-ago-tremors-became-perhaps-the-most-perfect-bad-movie/91-8f6854df-9dcc-4870-ab3a-4f91a658ac3f

How Tremors 7 Succeeds Where Other Horror Movie Franchises Failhttps://screenrant.com/tremors-7-movie-succeeds-better-horror-movie-franchises-reason/

A Complete Rundown of the Entire Tremors Saga https://www.dreadcentral.com/editorials/363290/beneath-perfection-thoughts-on-the-entire-tremors-franchise/

Kevin Bacon Wants to Revisit His Only Film He Ever Re-Watched https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/kevin-bacon-tremors-1234956657/

Look at all this #BurtGummerDay love. That adds up to thousands of people watching Tremors for the first or fiftieth time. And this is only the first "official" year. It'll only grow.

http://imgur.com/t/burt_gummer_day

https://m.facebook.com/groups/2215552755347508/permalink/3124638257772282/?ref=m_notif¬if_t=group_comment

https://m.facebook.com/groups/2215552755347508/permalink/3124638397772268/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Tremors/about

Can you see the Tremors? Can you feel them? Fans want Tremors and they want it from Stampede. http://imgur.com/gallery/ZaVL7Mc http://imgur.com/gallery/f37bEV7 http://imgur.com/gallery/De6DlqQ

After all this time, and all this love, and all this greed, it's time we break Hollywood tradition and give power back to the people. When people can #RestoreTheSnyderVerse or #SaveTheVentureBros, we can #StampedeTremors for #BurtGummerDay.

Take this hope and fly!

#StampedeTremors

BTS, gifs, and videos of The Tremors Saga. Tremors: The Lost Tapes from S.S. Wilson's personal collection https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1EA9246EF966DDA2

Monster Makers https://stampede-entertainment.com/site/photos/tmm-tremors/ https://stampede-entertainment.com/site/photos/tmm-tremors2/

ADI's creation documentaries https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLR9WUo3tIVnb4CyMR1SLVsxPyBwz1Met_ BTS gallery of Tremors http://imgur.com/gallery/b4STAkl

The making of Tremors https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=m-HUUt21tRA

Inside the Graboid workshop https://youtu.be/YgPuC2tNBpM

Stampede Entertainment's video archive for Tremors https://stampede-entertainment.com/site/category/videos/tremors/

Tremors opening https://youtu.be/gnqPYTOzc38

BTS gallery of Tremors 2: Aftershocks http://imgur.com/gallery/gSlZ1fC

Stampede Entertainment's behind the scenes of Tremors 2 https://stampede-entertainment.com/site/photos/tremors2/

The making of Tremors 2 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fAlqzM0CyPI

Tremors 2 original script with Val, Earl, Burt and Heather. http://imgur.com/gallery/8QaHPRy

Tremors 2: Aftershocks opening https://youtu.be/pVi24Gc0KdQ)

BTS gallery of Tremors 3: Back to Perfection http://imgur.com/gallery/fnFt9MD Stampede Entertainment's behind the scenes of Tremors 3 https://stampede-entertainment.com/site/photos/tremors3/

On the set of Tremors 3 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZhrvkB5nKs

Stampede Entertainment's video archive of Tremors 3 https://stampede-entertainment.com/site/category/videos/tremors3/

Tremors 3: Back to Perfection opening https://youtu.be/UXjdZitldB4

BTS gallery of Tremors the Series http://imgur.com/gallery/6mDHTtg

Stamede Entertainment's https://stampede-entertainment.com/site/photos/tremors-series/

Behind the scenes of Tremors the Series lost monsters. https://stampede-entertainment.com/site/photos/tremors-series-lost/

Cold opens for Tremors the Series https://youtu.be/srB6rZgv_Po https://youtu.be/v3ZkC08rKtg

BTS gallery of Tremors 4: The Legend Begins http://imgur.com/gallery/4M28quW Stampede Entertainment's behind the scenes of Tremors 4 https://stampede-entertainment.com/site/photos/tremors4-2/

On the set of Tremors 4 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bppXVxldTqU The weapons of Tremors 4 https://stampede-entertainment.com/site/photos/weapons-of-tremors-4/

Tremors 4: The Legend Begins opening https://youtu.be/3gDlAEUBesg

BTS gallery of Tremors 5: Bloodlines http://imgur.com/gallery/6l0Dogl

Tremors 5: Bloodlines opening https://youtu.be/t8jrCVI676Y

BTS gallery of the unaired Kevin Bacon Tremors pilot http://imgur.com/gallery/w7rbUvZ

Script for the unaired Tremors pilot http://imgur.com/gallery/UbtTvyf

Trailer for the unreleased Tremors pilot https://youtu.be/hWU3GpKmIvw

Kevin Bacon talks Tremors. https://youtu.be/TAGOlEIR7mA

Interviews with Alec Gillis, Brent Maddock, Nancy Roberts, and Ron Underwood https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjmUAAK3guQ8t6dKzwH9V0RzerkdLr0d1

S.S. Wilson talks his Tremors career. https://youtu.be/ZJhZmty_dKs Making Perfection https://youtu.be/hpCSCQJEmnk

Have a question about Tremors? Find it here and if you can't find it, ask S.S. Wilson yourself! https://stampede-entertainment.com/site/fan-extras/tremors-faq/?include_category=general

And if you love Tremors enough to have made it this far, enjoy a collection of gifs for you to use at your pleasure.

Tremors http://imgur.com/gallery/kPiEe3d http://imgur.com/gallery/5Sb4Vpg http://imgur.com/gallery/1uZxiue http://imgur.com/gallery/NX5r2

Tremors 2 Aftershocks http://imgur.com/gallery/i1IZZf8 http://imgur.com/gallery/krcmrgQ http://imgur.com/gallery/GjTxAg1 http://imgur.com/gallery/DabFZTt http://imgur.com/gallery/QLTStyx http://imgur.com/gallery/P92e1ri http://imgur.com/gallery/IUAvd http://imgur.com/gallery/h8BZ0qN http://imgur.com/gallery/ZQi2KOb http://imgur.com/gallery/WDZdM

Tremors 3 Back to Perfection http://imgur.com/gallery/5ebddmR http://imgur.com/gallery/Rj9fqIy http://imgur.com/gallery/ikzXFbd

Tremors the Series http://imgur.com/gallery/cqSMk40

Tremors 4 The Legend Begins

http://imgur.com/gallery/ufV3of1 http://imgur.com/gallery/zPGBOW3 http://imgur.com/gallery/ri5jLRd http://imgur.com/gallery/y7A3l5D

Tremors 5 Bloodlines

http://imgur.com/gallery/Pmunxjo http://imgur.com/gallery/0yazNVG

Tremors 6 A Cold Day In Hell http://imgur.com/gallery/S4qlPCI http://imgur.com/gallery/Xa2mUsS

Tremors Pilot http://imgur.com/gallery/RXXjbKr http://imgur.com/gallery/kCErQyF

Tremors 7 Shrieker Island

http://imgur.com/gallery/FzpJllb http://imgur.com/gallery/JGweZjH

[bondsmagii]

(cw: I'm about to get real crass about CSA because it makes me real mad and that's how I cope)

the cultural reaction to cuties is infuriating to me, especially how even defenders feel the need to criticise the hypersexualised camera shots for ""normalising sexualistion of children in film"". Like, this is a thing that is happening in real life, right now, folks! Real Life Kids commonly do dances like these, in clothes like these, in an attempt to copy adult women being framed in shots like that! That's basically a good fifth of Tik Tok! The shots being of kids instead of adults is intentionally horrific, because it's trying to highlight that that kind of societal gaze is what pressured them to do the dances and wear the clothes and everything else; to take a thing that we've all come to accept as normal (8 year olds online twerking to songs explicitly about sex) and make us see how horrific it is, so people might give a shit for once. (A real shit, not that Pizzagate-adjacent thing where people only bring it up in service of criticising something/someone they already didn't like, and never exploring why it's so prevalent to begin with). You know, the filmic opposite of normalisation?? It's incredibly disappointing that people's takeaway appears to be: "ew gross, look at how horny this camera is for literal children. Glad this absolutely isn't a thing that happens in real life that I will go straight back to ignoring while patting myself on the back for identifying this media as Problematic

And the idea that "a pedophile could get off to this" makes any sense as criticism! I guess pedophiles only get off to children in revealing clothing, huh? So all children need to do to avoid pedophiles is, uh... *checks notes* "dress less slutty". I *wish* I lived in a world where pedophiles were genuinely waiting on feature films to deliver them a few shots of children in revealing clothing, instead of trading real CP that has caused untold suffering. Sometimes it really feels like people are more invested in weaponising the idea of suffering children in rhetoric, rather than the welfare of real children. It's the same disconnect that makes it impossible to bring up things like early intervention programs for pedophiles without being called a pedophile yourself (a rich thing to call someone who was on the receiving end, and takes about a year off my lifespan every time).

Every time someone brings this movie up, I feel like I'm losing my marbles. Otherwise smart and insightful people seem completely willing to misread it in the most infuriating way possible. It's like it's the Asch conformity test, and I'm the rube in the last chair wondering whether I even watched the same movie as them. It's comforting to see at least one other person on this godforsaken planet comprehending that The Sexualised Children Shots Are Horrific On Purpose in this movie trying to push people out of complacency

honestly go off like I could not have said this better myself. this is exactly what's been pissing me off about the response to this movie and my post about it in general.

the cultural reaction to cuties is infuriating to me, especially how even defenders feel the need to criticise the hypersexualised camera shots for ""normalising sexualistion of children in film"". Like, this is a thing that is happening in real life, right now, folks! Real Life Kids commonly do dances like these, in clothes like these, in an attempt to copy adult women being framed in shots like that! That's basically a good fifth of Tik Tok!

this is what I cannot get my head around. like, people are freaking out over how this movie normalises the sexualisation of young children, but somehow miss the point that it's already been normalised. the movie would not be necessary if this hadn't already become a completely normal part of society. even walking around the shops in town I see children maybe 10 or 11 years old dressed like Instagram models, faces full of makeup, revealing clothing... it's honestly disturbing. these kids think that's acceptable, they think that's what they need to do in order to have worth, and it's terrifying. if I had my own children, I would be terrified for them. the movie is not the problem. why people can't direct this anger and outrage to websites like TikTok instead, I have no idea. probably because that would require actual work, and we all know these people are addicted to outrage and self-righteousness and absolutely allergic to any kind of effort to create real change.

It's incredibly disappointing that people's takeaway appears to be: "ew gross, look at how horny this camera is for literal children. Glad this absolutely isn't a thing that happens in real life that I will go straight back to ignoring while patting myself on the back for identifying this media as Problematic"

people get so offended when they're made to feel uncomfortable. I have no idea why. I'm trying to work out this thought process but it's simply beyond me. it baffles me that people can see something that's actually happening in the world, and instead of getting angry about the actual issue, they decide to attack the female director of the movie about said issue, who is writing from her own experience. like, how in god's name these people managed to miss the point so badly, I do not know. the manoeuvres they had to do to miss a point that big and obvious should make them all automatic gold medal winners in Olympic gymnastics.

(I do think that a lot of people yelling the loudest about Cuties have probably only seen the Netflix promotional poster and then devoured a bunch of Twitter threads highlighting the apparent problems and possibly a view video essays on YouTube showing the most dramatic and out of context shots of the girls, however.)

And the idea that "a pedophile could get off to this" makes any sense as criticism! I guess pedophiles only get off to children in revealing clothing, huh? So all children need to do to avoid pedophiles is, uh... *checks notes* "dress less slutty". I *wish* I lived in a world where pedophiles were genuinely waiting on feature films to deliver them a few shots of children in revealing clothing, instead of trading real CP that has caused untold suffering.

right? like. this point is so fucking useless. by this logic, we should ban everything with photos of children in it. if a paedophile is going to waste time going to see a full feature movie just to see some young girls twerking-- I mean, why would they in the first place? why would a paedophile do that when they can just sign on to TikTok and see thousands of hours of footage of young girls twerking? and if "revealing clothing" is all it takes, what's stopping this paedophile from going to the local pool and watching the kids in swimwear? what's stopping this paedophile from going and picking up a clothing catalogue and flipping to the pictures of little girls in dresses? the fact that people can compare the content of a feature-length film to actual CP fucking baffles me. like. it's actually insulting to compare things like that -- and by extension, any child on the street in a t-shirt or a dress or a skirt or a swimsuit -- to actual CP. like, who looks at a kid and thinks like that? if you want to stop paedophiles being creeps, you'd have to lock kids up in the house until they're 18 and ban all depictions of kids forever. paedophiles are gonna be creeps no matter what, and they're not going to bother with a full film when they can log onto TikTok and comment something creepy on footage of a real life child who might even message back and enter into communication with them. like, damn. why aren't more people getting mad and outraged about that?

Sometimes it really feels like people are more invested in weaponising the idea of suffering children in rhetoric, rather than the welfare of real children.

they are. "somebody please think of the children" is now the rallying cry of the right (all leading Democrats are secret paedophiles, the LGBT agenda is making Our Innocent Christian Children into perverts) and the left (problematic media is Harming Our Innocent Children, everything needs to be censored and squeaky clean so the Metaphorical Children don't stumble across it and think it's acceptable). it's the quickest way to get people outraged and it works like a charm. as soon as somebody starts rallying under the flag of protecting kids, it gives them a fast pass to power and influence. who wants to be seen to not care about kids? who wants to risk being called a paedophile or a child abuser? unfortunately their eagerness to declare everybody such has resulted in it losing its meaning. now when I see someone accused of paedophilia I no longer feel the usual revulsion but instead a tired suspicion followed by hours of research to determine if they are actually abusing children, or if they ship the wrong thing. to put the numbers into perspective, the one and only time I found out somebody was actually abusing minors, I was genuinely shocked because I had never found a true accusation before in oh, six years? which is unsurprising, seems I have been called a paedophile and told I shouldn't be around children because I like a villain from a YA series. as for real children, none of these people give a shit.

It's comforting to see at least one other person on this godforsaken planet comprehending that The Sexualised Children Shots Are Horrific On Purpose in this movie trying to push people out of complacency

that's exactly it right there -- it's horrific on purpose, but these people can't understand that. to them, literature and art and film is supposed to always make you feel good, and if it doesn't it's mean and abusive and you should have warned for it and also you're an asshole for making it in the first place. for people who only consume media to feel good, and only create it to feel progressive and wholesome, it's inconceivable why people would create something depressing or disturbing. because they're consuming media of only things they like, they assume everyone else is. ergo, if you make something nasty, it's because you're into something nasty. if you write about a murderous villain, it's because you want to be a murderous villain. if you direct a movie about children being sexually exploited, you must want to sexually exploit children.

these people cannot understand that art is supposed to teach and inform as well as comfort and coddle. some art is there to make you feel good, and other art is there to make you take notice of injustice and suffering and make you angry and upset enough to want to do something about it. these people do not understand that at all, and with this kind of logic they would try to ban Holocaust survivors from speaking at schools because it's too upsetting to think about, rather than paying attention to the message that such things get across. we cannot change society without empathy, and to experience empathy for something outside our own understanding and experience, we need to come into contact with people who have lived through it. we need to see it depicted. that's how we learn to feel for others. it puts a face to the suffering and makes it easier to stay motivated and stay mad.

but no. these people just want to be nice and fuzzy and safe. that's all that matters to them, and anyone who thinks they're wrong for doing it must be a paedophile or something. right. gotcha.

[chubbyreaderwriter]

Dangerous

Natasha Romanoff x Chubby/Plus Size Reader

Imagine: Everyone tells you not to get involved with Natasha because she’s dangerous but you don’t see it until you get kidnapped. 

Word Count: 2.3k

Warnings: kidnapping  

Masterlist

You groaned as you woke up in the morning from Natasha’s alarm at god knows how early in the morning. You felt her sitting up to get out of bed and you reached out your arm to grab her hand, “No stay, I want my morning cuddles.” You heard her laugh and you slowly opened your eyes to look at her, how did she look so good first thing in the morning? You pouted and Natasha leaned down to kiss you, “You can get your morning cuddles later, go back to sleep, I’ll wake you up when I’m done training okay?” You whined but nodded, wrapping your arms around your pillow to act as a Natasha substitute. You closed your eyes to go back to sleep and you heard the bedroom door click shut. 

Natasha was so sweet with you, it was very difficult to believe that people were scared of her. But when the two of you when public with your relationship, that’s all people kept telling you, “You’re with her? I hope you stay safe,” “Natasha? Don’t you know how dangerous she is?” “Are you serious? You two? She’ll rip you apart if you piss her off.” You had chosen to ignore them, you believed that they were just jealous of your relationship and wanted to break you up so Natasha was single again. 

You had no reason to believe them, yes she was strong and a great fighter but she was one of the most affectionate people you’ve ever met. You loved her and she loved you so you didn’t care what other people had to say about it. You weren’t going to leave her just because some people are afraid of her, that would be stupid. 

You smiled to yourself as you felt yourself being gently pulled closer to someone. Peeking open your eyes, you caught a glimpse of familiar red hair, “Hello again, back so soon?” Natasha chuckled, “I’ve been gone for a few hours, you were just asleep.” You stuck your tongue out at her and she pulled a face of fake shock, “Oh really? That’s how you want to treat your girlfriend?” You squealed as you felt her hands tickling your sides, trying to squirm away from her but she had you held in place with her legs intertwined with yours. “Okay! I’m sorry, you win.” Natasha grinned, leaning down to kiss you, “I always win, now what’s my prize.” 

You blushed a little as you felt her hands sliding under your pajama shirt. It was still a little surreal that someone as hot as Natasha was interested in you, no matter how many times she told you that you were perfect in her eyes. The sex helped a lot, but there were still moments where you thought you might not deserve someone as good as her. She had told you once that she felt the same way about you and it had blown your mind that she didn’t think she was good enough for you. 

Just as things were starting to heat up, JARVIS broke through the sound of heavy breathing and soft moans, “Miss Romanoff, Mr Rogers requires your presence in the lobby.” You mentally cursed Steve for ruining your moment with Natasha as she regretfully pulled away from you, kissing your neck, “Looks like we’ll have to continue this later, babe.” You smiled at her as she put her shirt back on, “You’ll text me when you’re on your way back?” She nodded, “Of course I will, I’ll be back soon. I love you,” “I love you too,” you mumbled to yourself as she had already left the room. 

You stayed in bed for another thirty minutes, spending time just flicking through your phone, mostly twitter and some texts that you had from Tony, who had an obsession with sending you memes of Steve and Clint that he found online. When your stomach started growling, that’s when you knew it was time to get up and go get something to eat. You got up and walked out of your bedroom and headed to the kitchen, not bothering to get dressed, you were fine in your baggy shirt and grey shorts. 

It was weird for the Tower to be so quiet, usually there was someone about, whether it was Clint paying games on an Xbox, Bucky and Steve watching movies from their very long list Tony insisted they need to watch, Peter following around Tony like a lost puppy, Bruce doing some kind of science, etc. At the very least, JARVIS usually had some music playing but it was silent. All you could hear was your own breathing and it freaked you out a little bit. “JARVIS?” Your voice gave away your nerves and it only got worse when you got no response. You tried to calm down, it was probably nothing right? Maybe it was Clint playing a prank on you? 

You walked into the kitchen and had been about to open the fridge when a hand was clamped over your mouth and an arm was slung around your waist. You tried to shout but it just came out as muffled grunts. Twisting your body in all different ways didn’t seem to be helping you get free and you were pushed into the kitchen island. The few seconds you stilled as you dealt with the pain of impact gave your attacker the perfect opportunity to inject you with something. You tried to move away from them but your movements became very slow and your limbs felt so heavy. 

Your eyesight started to blur and you felt the person behind you let go of you but you were too drowsy to run away or do anything. You tried to look at who was in front of you but all you saw was a large black blur. You felt yourself being lifted just as your eyes closed and you drifted into unconsciousness. 

. . .

A heavy pounding was in your head as you woke up, groaning from the pain. You tried to reach your hand up to touch your head but you were restricted. You blinked a couple times as you waited for your vision to come back to you before looking around the room you were in. You were tied to a chair that was bolted to the ground and the room looked like it was made of concrete you guessed, with nothing on the walls apart from the one in front of you. There was a window and a plain door. You tested your restraints by shifting around on the chair but the zip ties wouldn’t break, keeping your arms and legs to the chair. 

You were alone in the room for about a hour, left alone with your thoughts when you saw someone walk past the window and seconds later the door clicked and you watched it open and close behind a man you had never seen before. You didn’t say anything and tried your best to keep a straight face but he probably knew just by looking at you that you were scared. You’d never been in a situation like this before and you weren’t sure how to react. 

The man smiled at you, “So sorry we had to meet like this Miss (L/N), but we’ve received information about your relationship with a Miss Romanoff. We’ve been waiting for her to show a weakness for quite some time and here you are. It was strange to see that you were so easily taken, for a moment, I suspected we were wrong about you. Who leaves their loved ones so unprotected.” 

You knew what he was doing, he was just trying to get inside your head. You knew that Natasha loved you and she thought you were safe in the Tower, this wasn’t her fault. You continued to keep silent, you had no intention of saying anything to him. He tutted, “If you cooperate and tell us what we need to know, you won’t be harmed. Fail to do so and.. consequences will be provided, understand?” You kept still and kept your mouth shut, you weren’t going to tell him anything, no matter what he did to you. 

He sighed and looked down to adjust his tie and shirt before looking back at you, “It’s in your best interests to cooperate Miss (L/N), you wouldn’t want your girlfriend to get hurt now would you?” “Go to hell!” You glared at him, you’d be damned if you were just going to let them hurt Natasha or use her to blackmail you. He smirked, “Ah so she speaks, now you’re going to tell me everything I need to know about Natasha Romanoff and the so called ‘Avengers’ and maybe we’ll let you leave in one piece, hm? I’ll give you some time to think about it.”

You watched as he left the room, keeping your head held high until you were sure he wasn’t anywhere near you before you couldn’t hold back your tears anymore. You had never been more terrified in your life, what was going to happen to you? Would you ever going to get out of here and see Natasha again? Your family? Friends? You took a deep breath to try to calm you down before you completely started panicking. 

You had been left alone in that room for a long while now and you were tired, hungry, cold and your muscles were sore from being kept in the same position for ages. If it couldn’t get any worse, that’s when you heard the gunshots. They were muffled from how thick the walls were in this place but you still heard them. You felt your heart race faster and faster as they got closer and closer and you kept a close eye on the window. 

A scream left your mouth as you watched someone get shot right outside your window and then a familiar face looked inside. You were so relieved to see Natasha’s face. She kicked open the door and rushed over to you, pulling a knife out to cut the ties holding you down to the chair. You started crying again, feeling so happy to see her, “I was so scared, but I didn’t tell them anything I promise.” Natasha held you against her as you cried, “Shh, it’s okay, you’re safe now. Let’s get you home.” 

You sniffed and let her help you stand up, your muscles aching after sitting down for so long and being knocked out. You walked out of the door and you felt uncomfortable since you didn’t have any shoes on but it was a price you would gladly pay to get out of there. You covered your mouth as you saw blood all over the walls and some on the floor, all around dead bodies as Natasha held your hand and dragged you out the building. 

Your voice was barely a whisper as you looked around, “D-Did you do this?” Natasha turned to look at you, “They took you from me, they had to pay.” It felt wrong to blush from her words but you did anyway, she sounded so possessive and you didn’t want to admit it but you liked it. Natasha saw how you reacted and smirked, pulling you closer to her, “You like this side of me don’t you?” You couldn’t speak, not finding the strength to say anything so you just weakly nodded. 

Natasha grinned as she hurried quicker to pull you to safety in the form of a quinjet that was waiting outside for you two. As soon as the doors closed behind you two and the pilot took off, you felt a lot safer. Natasha sat next to you and wrapped her arms around your waist, “I promise you that you will never have to go through this again. I will keep you safe this time, I’m so sorry baby.” You saw how badly this was affecting her and you turned to lean into her embrace, “It wasn’t your fault, I’m just glad to be back with you.” 

When you were back at the Tower, the first thing you did was go get something to eat from the kitchen, you were starving. You didn’t care that Natasha wanted you to get checked over by Bruce for any injuries, you hadn’t eaten anything all day, or however long you were gone for. You had started eating a sandwich you made when you felt yourself being picked up and thrown over someone’s shoulders, but you recognised that behind, “Steve! Traitor.” He chuckled, “Sorry doll, Nat’s orders.” You groaned as you were carried down to Bruce’s office, “I thought you were the leader?” Steve shrugged, “So did I.” 

It didn’t take long for Bruce to do a few simple tests and once you were given the all clear, you left to go to your bedroom to see Natasha sitting on the bed, looking as though she was waiting for you. “Bruce gave me the all clear so no need to worry.” Natasha didn’t say anything, she just stood up and walked over to you until she had you pressed against the door, “You know you’re mine don’t you?” You blushed and nodded, “Mhm, I’m yours.” Natasha grinned, “Well it seems some people still don’t so it looks like I’ll have to make it more obvious for them.” 

You gasped as you were pushed over to the bed and onto your back, Natasha was on top of you within seconds, kissing you passionately. Yeah okay, so she might be very dangerous, but you loved her and it was kinda hot. 

[iaintyourbro]

Shipping Makes Me Question My Sanity

I learned about the FFVII waifu wars after playing the remake. I played the OG many moons ago, replayed it a few years ago, but really got interested in the character dynamics after playing FFVIIR. 

I foolishly looked up “Is the remake pushing Cloud and Tifa more?” I found the shipping wars... That I never knew existed. 

You see, I played the OG and it was pretty clear to me that the story went a certain way. In fact, I didn’t even associate FFVII to romance. 

FFVII was a story about a villain who was pissed off that a grunt killed him, so he finds a way to come back from the dead through clones that his father made to fuck with said grunt and get revenge on all the humans that wronged his Mother. 

(This is my explanation in as few words as possible, because we all know explaining FFVII would take multiple posts). 

So why did I look up my question about Cloud and Tifa? Well, I was shocked at how they presented them. I didn’t remember this from the OG. Like I said, I didn’t associate FFVII to romance like I did with VIII, IX, and X. Those were clear. FFVII didn’t have this as a main theme. FFVIIR created extreme sexual tension between Cloud and Tifa. 

I remember when you finally found out Cloud wasn’t a SOLDIER, that he actually DID kill Sephiroth 5 years ago, and that he did come to save Tifa - he fulfilled his promise. The part when the main theme plays and he takes his helmet off... chills. Even now, I love that part. Still, I associated this with us finally getting answers to some of the weird shit that happens earlier in the game. And I was way too young and dense to understand the Under the Highwind scene. 

Needless to say, I wanted to see if others had the same impression. It seems they did, and those posts were then overpowered by the other side. “Yeah, I used to ship Cloti, but the remake made me see that it’s clearly Aerith.” What? What did I miss? 

So I questioned my sanity a bit. I played every quest - I did both Tifa and Aerith’s discovery quests. Until the point we get back to Tifa in Wall Market, I still was kind of iffy on how they were presenting Aerith and Cloud. They removed a lot of stuff from the OG that was a bit more direct from Cloud’s end. They also removed a lot of the jealousy scenes between Tifa and Aerith. Seems they gave all the jealousy to Cloud in other scenes. 

Cloud clearly is soft with Tifa. He remembers The Promise, he calls her beautiful, you have no choice but to give her the flower. No matter what choices you make with Aerith. He still gives her the flower. He gets jealous whenever he even thinks a guy is talking about her in a romantic/sexual way.

Then I see things like “Cloud was so emotionless and mean until Chapter 8″. HOW? And this goes beyond Tifa. Cloud had a ton of character growth during the first 3 chapters, and it continued on until Chapter 8. This was not something where he suddenly turned nice to Aerith. He had a ton of people help him out before.

Take Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie. Cloud was a dick to them. I mean, he really was. I was sad for Wedge, cuz I think he’s so nice, and Cloud was just mean to him. By the end of Chapter 4, he’s much nicer to them. He’s left out of their celebration, and I think maybe this was a reference to him as a child. He thought he was better than the other kids (except Tifa). He treated everybody like shit (except Tifa) in the first three chapters and Barret told him to gtfo. 

Jessie made sure to let him know she wanted him there. Now, I’m not a fan of how thirsty Jessie is. I mean they REALLY slam it on you how bad she wants to get with Cloud. Cloud then says what I was thinking “Are you seriously that desperate?!” Yes, she is, and it’s obnoxious, but I think it’s a hilarious addition to the story. However, I think it was a light bulb moment that he would be included if he was a bit nicer to people.

Cloud and Barret start getting along more as time goes on as well. This is all before Chapter 8. So I actually have commented on these posts... “Did you play the first 7 chapters? Did you play the rest of the game?” There’s so many points during FFVIIR where Cloud clearly has character development outside of what Tifa and Aerith do. 

They ignore this. That’s my issue. The ignore everything else in the story. They ignore reality, so that makes people like me question themselves.

It reminds me of a personal situation with my job. We had a really bad leader. Like, cruel, mean. And he got away with it for a long time. You can say, “just leave”, but I think anybody with a family knows that’s not as easy as it sounds. Not when you rely on your job for not only income, but benefits, retirement, and stability. Not when changing buildings causes months of legit mental breakdowns (imagine changing companies completely?). So, it wasn’t really an option.

The worst part during all of that was knowing and seeing the reality of what was going on and having people flat out try to tell me that what I was seeing wasn’t true. I had conversations with other co-workers who started to question their sanity. Is it us? Are we the problem? Are we wrong? What are we missing? And that’s tough, especially when it goes on for so long.

In the real life example, there was a resolution earlier this year, where finally the guy was fired. And a lot of people were fighting him. More than you’d think. But they were scared, so they had to be careful. This is real life, not a game, so the stakes were much higher. The truth all comes out after this type of thing, and it was actually worse than we thought. There was a lot we missed, and a lot we just weren’t aware of. We weren’t crazy - there was just a group of his followers trying to brainwash us in to thinking he was great. 

The shipping wars give me the same feelings I had during that. I question my sanity and don’t get what I’m missing. This is beyond how you interpret the LTD. This is legit ignoring parts of the story as it’s presented. SE put these Cloti moments throughout the Remake to make a point. They have Aerith say things to make a point. They even have Aerith stop making moves on Cloud after Tifa comes back and she sees the obvious “thing” between them.

There are tons of analysis on multiple scenes and how Cloud reacts. Facial expressions tell a lot, so does voice acting. There are reasons they put these scenes in. There are reasons they are part of the main story and not part of side quests. There are reasons that the devs responded the way they did in interviews. 

The Ultimania clearly talks about Cloud’s feelings. The OG talks about them. 

So why do I still feel upset when I see these? Well, for one, the posters that say “I was a Cloti until..” in most cases are probably shipping the other side, but this is a great way to make people question themselves. It may make new fans not enjoy the story as much.

Then you have Twitter. And it’s a shame, because there’s some great fanart on Twitter. But, you can’t search for “tifa” without seeing some really bad posts. And it’s the same accounts over and over. There isn’t a large amount. 

The entire goal of these posters is to fight people who don’t agree with them. They also start posting similar complaints about a week after the Cloti side makes them.

The most recent being that Cloti fans are going after Nojima and it’s not going to change anything. What? I saw a similar post about the C////erith side about a week or two ago. Why are Cloti’s going after Nojima? So I went through some of his posts. I found one where he posted about FF7R. The only Cloti posts I saw were thanking him. The C///erith ones were over the top trying to say how it was all C///erith and there was no Cloti in the remake. One even said that “millions of fans want Aerith to survive.” No, I’d say the majority of fans want the original plot points to stay. 

Nojima himself liked a fanart of himself... where they called him the Cloti king.

So where are the Cloti’s going after Nojima? I only saw praise... 

The next new one is that C///eriths aren’t racist and Cloti’s are. I’ve seen this argument in reverse as well. It seems they scope out some things and repost them in the opposite argument. 

I just don’t understand the extreme nature. You can ship who you want, but you can’t erase parts of the story to make it work. Why even bother playing the game? The romance aspect is SO SMALL in the OG. 

In the remake its a bit heavier, but it’s different times. Sex sells. Let’s add some spice to the game, and they did. I felt no sexual tension between Cloud and Aerith. Jessie tried HARD. The only mutual tension felt was between Cloud and Tifa. That deep, dear lord please do something to release this tension, feeling. Cloud and Aerith had cute little moments similar to a Disney movie or a kids movie. Tifa and Cloud had the moments you see in more mature things. 

Some of these moments are optional - the resolution scene you can technically avoid every time you play if you choose to. The Clotiscrew tunnel roll is a bit harder unless you KNOW you can avoid it and/or are terrible at the game. You literally have to try hard to mess up to not get that scene. 

The Clotiscrew tunnel scene is also hilarious to watch people react to. Cuz you do feel like you need to take a quick walk to cool off from that heat. Even my husband who doesn’t give a shit was like “wow, yeah, okay, that’s... intense.” 

It didn’t have to be, it could have been a roll and release, but he holds her and says “You okay?” in that soft af voice THAT HE ONLY USES ON HER. Her response is equally sexy. Then they get up and stare. Once again, not necessary.

All the “unnecessary” touching that goes on is fun to point out. People are still finding moments, I think. During battles, in the background during other scenes. They’re making this a point. They make it a point to show shots of those two during other scenes in the game. They aren’t being subtle anymore. 

So I don’t understand how you can erase all of that. 

The other side has a small group that is completely shitting on Tifa to do it. I don’t see that as much on the Cloti side towards Aerith. I’m not saying it doesn’t exist, I bet it does, but it’s not as easy to find. Almost EVERY shipping fight has something about Tifa’s boobs, Tifa not telling Cloud about his past, something. They make stuff up in some cases.

All of this is a way to recruit people to their side. To “convert” them. I feel bad for the streamers who like Tifa and you see a group come in to try and “correct” that thought. Why do they care so much? 

Maximillian Dood doesn’t seem affected by those opinions - he’s a great supporter of Tifa as a character. He was very happy with the way they handled the remake, and that says a lot. He also has some great reactions to parts of the game. He also is a more experienced streamer, it seems.

My thoughts are... the Remake has blown expectations on how it was supposed to go. Probably a lot of fans assumed they’d make a point to build up Aerith as the love interest... but they didn’t. Tifa is in almost every chapter (2 is the exception). She is referenced multiple times in Wall Market - especially if you actually listen to the lyrics for Midgar Blues. Why place that song in during that part? 

So we go to the attack mode of survival here. They’re going to change as many opinions as possible. They’re going to make people question themselves. Make people feel bad. 

The reality is, there’s a clear cut story - they’re making it that way. There’s multiple hints that there isn’t going to be a love triangle. There’s multiple hints that Zack is going to be a thing in the Remake. They’ve definitely put it on more heavy that Aerith still loves Zack. 

I can only hope that things are made clear. That this can stop. I still say people should ship who they want. Hell, I ship Vincent and Lucrecia (this was my only romantic love in the OG back then...). However, canon is that Hojo and Lucrecia married and had a child. I wanted Vincent to secretly be the father so bad, but he’s not. That doesn’t ruin the game for me, at all. 

It would ruin the game for me, in a sense, if they completely pull a 180 in Part 2 and try to “remove” all of the stuff from Part 1 from a character dynamics perspective. It would feel wrong for Aerith to tell Cloud not to fall in love with her, tell him that everything isn’t real if he does, and also have her back off completely after Tifa is back, and then all of a sudden throw herself at him. It would erase all the friendship scenes between Tifa and Aerith.

And how could you just “turn off” Cloud’s attentive nature to Tifa? It wouldn’t make sense. It would ruin it for me because that is legit trying to erase parts of the story.

I don’t think that will happen. But I still get anxious when I see shit on the internet.

[ugly-anastasia]

Not Ready to Make Nice | Sinnie + Tonee

Annie takes Simba up on an invitation that he really didn’t offer her, and some other guests overhear...

@simba-bonfamille-lyons @inperfection-ashlee @foreverydinger

Date: 19 July 2021 TW: A brief (not graphic) mention of murder

ANNIE:

So... there had been a lot more behind that "Wow! Yum!" on Twitter. Honestly, Annie wasn't sure she was even supposed to be engaging with Simba. For, like, legal reasons or whatever. But she was kind of pissed at Mummy anyway for getting herself in enough trouble that she couldn't give Annie more financial help, and she also didn't really care about whatever shit had gone down between Mummy and Simba. Simba was popular and well-liked in town. Annie needed to be on his good side.

So she called the babysitter to look after the kids for an hour (their cuteness could be useful, but the risk factor of them completely trashing Simba's house was too high), stopped by the Moon Market and picked up a prepackaged steak and kidney pie, transferred it to a cute little ceramic dish, and drove over to the address she had managed to wrestle out of an old classmate. Easy.

"Hiya!" Annie said in a chipper, and very American, voice. "I was in the neighborhood and I just couldn't resist. That food on Twitter looked so yummy."

SIMBA

Simba had been cooking all day. Well, most of the day. He'd taken a trip this morning to the local mosque in NTO to deliver meat that he'd bought from the butcher's and to attend prayer with his mum. But, after that, it had been an all day cooking affair. It was holidays like these that he missed Nala most, but he was grateful for all the friends and family he did have.

He was looking forward to seeing everyone later. It was always nice how many people showed up to his Eid gatherings. The show of support from the community was always bolstering. Especially right now, with the Blackwells hanging over his head.

At first, Simba didn't recognize the voice. Or the face. (Was there something off about it? Or had it just been too long?) He had a smile on his face as he turned from chatting with Ashlee, reaching out to take the dish so that he could put it with the rest of the food, but then he recognized who it was and he stopped dead.

"What are you doing here Anastasia?"

TONY

Did Tony celebrate Eid? No. Did Tony like food, especially free food? Yes. Plus maybe he could get in Ashlee's good graces again if he just made himself available to her. It was hard seeing the lack of recognition there in her eyes but there was little he could do about it aside from just... replace it with new memories.

So he sat in Simba's house with a plate of food, on his way to make conversation with Ashlee and Simba, when he heard the voice ring out into the room.

It couldn't be...? Anastasia fucking Tremaine?! What was she doing her?!

"Uh-oh," he mumbled, glancing Ashlee's way.

ASHLEE

Ashlee both kind of hated the open invitation to the house and enjoyed it? She didn't like to seem like she enjoyed it. A lot of the time if people did come it was people she didn't know or didn't like and after socializing and eating for a bit she'd escape either to her room or out with the girls.

She was getting used to it more and more though.

At least until Simba froze in his tracks and the half smile she had on dropped as well. Bristling quickly. She didn't know who this person was but there was very few people that made Simba react like that. Infact she wasn't that sure if she had even since him not interact with a smile for someone that showed up.

And she didn't like being confused.

"Uh-oh what?" Ashlee questioned hearing the kid that walked up to them. What did he know that she didn't?

ANNIE

Great. She had an audience. One thing never changed about Swynlake: nobody could mind their own business. Ever.

But having an audience meant that everyone could see how goddamn gracefully she would handle this. Including the random-ass teenagers watching from the sidelines. Anastasia glanced at them uneasily before she put on her biggest, sweetest smile for Simba.

"Aww, you don't have to be so formal! I actually go by Annie now. Way easier to say." She winked. "But to answer your question, I had a bit of a disaster in my personal life, dunno if you've heard, and I thought I really ought to come back to my roots. Leave the big city, come back to this cute little town and reconnect with the people who made me who I am, you know? I'm so glad you threw this little party. I'd love to catch up."

Maybe those random kids could help her. "Hey there!" she said, waving. "Y'all know Simba?"

SIMBA

Simba's nostrils flared slightly and he had the horrible, irrational instinct to step in front of Ashlee and keep her away from "Annie."

It wasn't, necessarily, fair to Annie. After all, she hadn't even been in town. Already left for college by the time her mother helped cover up his father's death, but her proximity to Rodmilla Tremaine made him uneasy. He had trouble trusting lawyers these days, but he was pretty sure everything that he'd done with InterPride was wrapped up in a neat little bow.

His arrangement with Rodmilla was much less official. He would not be surprised if she'd sent her daughter to try and make amends. To soften him for her own return.

Honestly, he had no idea how much Annie even knew. That didn't make him feel any more hospitable.

"It's not a 'little party', it's Eid. A religious holiday and celebration," Simba bit out. "And this is Ashlee Tomassian, my--" Simba actually wasn't sure what to call her, considering everyone in town already knew her situation "--daughter. And her friend."

TONY

Eesh, the whole room was starting to feel tense. Tony remembered Annie from secondary and, if his memory served, she was not exactly the best companion to most of the school. It had made for some good stories but Tony wasn't sure those were the types of stories that belonged in Simba's adult home.

Now her little American lilt and smile was... unnerving. He glanced at Simba's face and then Ashlee's. Yeah, definitely not a good situation in front of them.

"She's actually a--" Tony stopped his explanation that she was a native to Swynlake both because she answered that herself and then when she turned her sights on the pair of teens.

Y'all know Simba?

Tony grimaced at the question. "Uh... Yeah.. He, uh, taught at the secondary school for a little bit and he's... um... Simba? How do you not--"

Just shut up, Tony.

ASHLEE

There were so many things Ashlee wanted to comment on.

A little party - she didn't celebrate Eid but she knew better than to call it a little party. Especially when she knew how important this was to Simba. That's after all why she was here and why she tried to learn about it.

The causality of 'y'all know Simba' Of course Ashlee knew Simba, she was insulted for a moment this woman didn't even know who she was.  How did anyone in this town not know Simba.

Her lackadaisical mannerism. For someone who put Simba on guard, that was what bothered her the most.

And not that Ashlee ever slouched but she stood taller, a cat ready to hiss. That familiar defensiveness that caused her to lash out, to fight (with words at least).

But just for a moment Ashlee's defenses fell glancing up at Simba's introduction of her. It wasn't a word they ever used but she wasn't mad at it. She softened just for a moment. But then it was back up again because who was she truly? To walk in like this.

"I don't think there's anyone in this house that doesn't know Simba." Ashlee agreed glancing at the guy trying to place his name. He was her friend as per Simba and she would keep face and go with it better to not disagree with the person you were fighting with.

ANNIE

Anastasia could sense the hostility. She wasn't oblivious. Even the more subtle callout coming from the kids. Well, fine, she thought. she would just have to kill them with kindness. After all, what did a couple of uni kids know about her?

Unless Simba talked about her. Jeez, could that be possible?

High road, Annie, she told herself.

"Riiiight, my b! Who doesn't know Simba?" she laughed, maybe a little too loudly. "Good to know you run this town just as much as ever. A regular Mr. Mayor, aren't you?" Anastasia looked around at the rest of the crew. "Allllrighty then, are we gonna hover in doorways like vampires at a cookout or should we get this party started?"

SIMBA

Simba had glanced at Ashlee, feeling weird because they'd never really discussed that and it was kind of a big thing and he didn't want her to think he was trying to replace or erase anyone in her life. It was just--he cared about her as more than a ward or a responsibility. It wasn't as easy as it was with Kiara, who was and always would be his cousin. Though their relationship was obviously more complicated that.

Yallah, this was not what he needed to be thinking about right now.

Instead, he watched this Tremaine try to take a step further into his house and he felt himself bristle.

"I think it's best if you left, Annie," Simba told her firmly, though he kept his voice low. He didn't want to make a scene, but he also did not want a Tremaine in his house. Simba had spent the last four years trying to learn forgiveness and finding it almost impossible. Not that he blamed Annie, but he had no idea what her motivations were and he would not take any risks.

TONY

Tony wondered if Anastasia had ever learned how to read a room because her current behavior pointed to no, not really.

Simba was clearly tense, a sight that wasn't common here in Swynlake, and Tony couldn't help the messy teen energy inside him that was a little intrigued by that.

What? No one ever said Tony was mature!

"Hey, Ashlee, isn't this holiday about community? I, uh, don't know if bringing bad energy in here is a good idea, do you?"

ASHLEE

Okay maybe this kid was okay, she really did need to figure out who the hell he was? Maybe in Nemo's grade? Maybe a new transfer? That was something to worry about later.

Smirking Ashlee grinned at him and then up at Annie "I wouldn't think so. I'm already feeling the mood drop in general. Instead of coming in it might be better to head out and get fresh air. Plus if *My Dad *doesn't think it's a good idea for you to stay I imagine a lot of people in here might think the same. Don't you?" She really wished she had his name at the moment that would be helpful.

Ashlee also probably didn't need to throw that title in there but it worked.  And Ashlee knew the power of words and there was nothing that this woman could say that would change her mind as long as Simba wanted her out of the house.

ANNIE

Anastasia looked from Simba to his two little minions and back to Simba. Well. She had at least expected him to be polite, maybe a little passive-aggressive. So the comments caught her off guard, and for a moment, Anastasia's jaw dropped.

But just as quickly, she put on that same sugary smile as ever.

"I'm not gonna lie, I'm mighty hurt. I guess I got a little too used to southern hospitality," she said, then giggled in that tinkling tone of hers. "Y'all enjoy the pie, alright?"

SIMBA

Simba, honestly, wished that Ashlee and her friend weren't here. If they weren't, he could've handled this a lot more firmly. Told Annie exactly why she wasn't welcome. Made it clear that if she approached his husband or Ashlee or any one else in his family, or went snooping around InterPride, he would make it his business that she left Swynlake as soon as possible.

Also, he didn't need kids sticking up for him and getting caught in the crossfire. He remembered how cruel and cutting all the Tremaines could be with their sharp tongues. Simba had underestimated them for petty once before. He wasn't going to do it again.

This also meant that her smile caught him off guard, some of his anger deflating. He hated when people messed around with people like this. It made him feel like he'd overreacted, or was making things up.

Also, he was pissed that he couldn't enjoy the fact someone had called him Dad and meant it. (Kiara used to do it, but mostly as a joke.)

His eyes stayed hard. "I'm sorry you feel that way," he said, his voice betraying that he didn't feel that sorry at all. "Ashlee, go put the pie on the table, please. I'll escort Annie out."

TONY

Tony couldn't stop his own grin from spreading at Ashlee's quick and sharp tongue coming out. It felt like forever since something like this had happened.

This wasn't to take away from the clearly strong familial moment that was happening with the pressure of this situation but Tony felt like it was probably better not to focus on that given... not his circus not his monkeys, you know?

"Someone was real quick to forget how Swynlake works," Tony chuckled at Annie's confession of feeling slighted. "I can help you with that, Ashlee."

ASHLEE

Poor thing. Not.

"Someone was real quick to forget they are not entitled to someone's forgiveness or hospitality." Ashlee agreed daring Annie to say something about it for just the second Ashlee had left in this conversation while she took the dish from Simba. If only they could just toss the food but that wasn't what Eid was about. So fine she would put it on the table.  "Bye bye Annie."

Nodding her head for the guy to follow with her.

With just enough distance. "Sorry what's your name again?

ANNIE

This was going to be a lot harder than Anastasia had thought. Maybe she had jumped in too quickly. Maybe she should have started out small, rather than chasing down the lion's den (heh) from the start. Anastasia didn't get it. Should she not have made the vampire joke? These Gen Z kids were so particular about that stuff nowadays...

Or maybe it was just that they trusted Simba.

She waited for the kids to leave before narrowing her eyes at Simba. "Simba Lyons, I have been nothing but pleasant and kind to you," she said simply. She wasn't going to beg for him to let him stay. Anastasia had a little bit of pride left. But she felt the need to point that out. "I'll be going soon, I promise, but we really can't let bygones be bygones?"

TONY

Tony snickered as he stood from his seat. Honestly, he'd missed being a petty teen sometimes. Stretching his Mean Kid Energy for just this moment felt refreshing.

When was the last time he'd gotten in a fight? Had it been Phineas? Damn, that had been awhile.

"Later, Annie!" He called over his shoulder as he fell into step behind Ashlee. His heart gave a pang at the question despite knowing it was coming.

"Tony, Tony Rydinger. I'm an upper sixth form."

ASHLEE

That made sense and why Ashlee didn't really recognize him. She wouldn't if she was about two years ahead of him.

"Ashlee Tommassian. Though it sounds like you already knew that. Thanks for jumping in and helping there. I don't really know the story but if she pissed off Simba, she deserves whatever she's getting." Ashlee mused setting the dish on the table among the many many other dishes. "Did you want to grab something or maybe try to listen in some more?"

SIMBA

"It's Bonfamille-Lyons now," Simba corrected her swiftly.

He kept his body blocking her from being able to walk off the dias. Simba didn't often use his larger frame to intimidate. He knew that he was tall and broad and that he could easily look threatening to others. (Not to mention how some people might just assume it based on the color of his skin.) He always walked tall and proud, but his movements were always loose and easy.

They weren't now. He was drawn up to his full height, shoulders straight and lowered. His arms were crossed over his chest.

"And no, we can't. I would prefer if we just stayed out of each other's way, if you are planning on being in town for an extended period of time. And stay away from Ashlee and my husband. And especially my mother. She doesn't need any reminders about what your mother did." He kept his voice low, away from prying ears.

He didn't do this for Anastasia either, but because he didn't want everything that had happened dragged back up. His failures, how blind he had been, how easily manipulated.

TONY

"Right, uh, you're friends with Nemo and Ian. Ian's my roommate." He explained swiftly. It was the easiest way to wave away the odd fact he knew about her. He had connections.

"It's nice to actually meet you, though. They both have a lot of nice things to say about you." He glanced at the food on the table then shook his head. "I mean, I definitely wanna find out what Simba and Annie are doing out there. She's gonna be a menace I'm sure!"

ASHLEE

Ashlee nodded at the names, for a moment she actually felt bad she didn't know him or even of him, after all if he knew Nemo and Ian, the latter enough to live with him. Then again Ian was friends with Eilonwy and Ashlee was still struggling on her insistence of being friends. It made her bristle feeling like Eilonwy wanted something more. That her kindness was fake.

At least Tony had a little mean streak in him.

"They better or they would get an earful from me for spreading lies." Ashlee grinned. "If we want to be sneaky it's best to head around the back and just listen from the side of the house."

ANNIE

Anastasia couldn't keep this up much longer. It was so much easier to fight with people online like this, where they couldn't see your face, or to fight with the other moms at playgroup back in Nashville. At least everyone had the sense to pretend like they were being nice while, underneath, they wanted to rip you apart.

But there was only so much of Simba's direct approach that Anastasia could take.

Her voice dropped a few octaves, and her old accent crept in slightly as the facade dropped. "You leave my mother out of this. You and your little company already succeeded in ruining her life, so you don't need to go ruining mine, too by turning this town against me." Anastasia stuck her chin in the air stubbornly, her expression shifting to an ugly scowl. "Fine, though, I'll stay out of your way. But I would appreciate if you would have the decency not to humiliate me in front of the children. Seeing as I'm not going anywhere. I live here now, and I'm going to get my life back. You're not getting in the way of that.”

TONY

Tony nodded, glad to follow Ashlee's lead. It was nice not to be the one in charge of a situation. He'd been befriending way too many introverts as of late. Spending time with Ashlee and her friends was a whole different experience to what he was dealing with here.

"Oh Ian's anything but untruthful," Tony chuckled. "Perfect. You show me the way and I'll keep quiet. I feel like this town is so boring sometimes for drama."

ASHLEE

It had been a long time since Ashlee had snuck around. Unlike her old home Simba and Berlioz gave her the freedom she needed as long as she was vocal with them and she was, never feeling the need to not be. Anything she asked or brought up they listened. Even if it was far inbetween. And she was still nervous to do so.

"You're not making the right type of friends if you're looking for drama. Secondary has probably gotten much duller as of late."

But that didn't mean she wasn't good at it. Quick and light on her feet and everyone was busy talking to really pay attention to two kids slipping out the back.

TONY

"You're telling me!" Tony sighed wistfully. "Honestly might need to stir some shit myself if I want to stay awake in school this year," Tony complained.

This was something he couldn't really complain to Ian about because his more soft-around-the-edges friend was not the type to understand this feeling.

He leaned close to the wall as they both headed to where they could snoop on the feuding adults in peace. He winked over at Ashlee conspiratorially.

SIMBA

Ah, there it was.

Simba didn't feel even a little bad, In fact, he was relieved that she was showing her true colors. It made all this so much easier for the both of them.

"I won't get in the way of it as long as I don't have any reason to," Simba told her. After all, he could recognize that Annie might have had nothing to do with everything. She had been young when Mufasa had died. Hardly even an adult. And it wasn't like Rodmilla to involve her precious daughters in her criminal dealings.

"But let me make one thing extremely clear: your mother ruined her own life when she knowingly covered up a murder, so don't blame me for her moral failure."

ASHLEE

Ashlee settled herself against the corner of the house, she didn't need to turn around to know Simba's voice though for a moment she did think she needed to double check he was the one talking.

She knowingly covered up a murder? Ashlee mouthed to Tony. What the fuck had actually happened, who covered up what and were they in jail was the important piece.

TONY

Tony's eyes widened at the words. Honestly he had some... guesses... but also this was Swynlake and shit happened all the time so trying to guess who was murdered seemed like rushing to conclusions.

He shrugged at Ashlee, just as confused and concerned about what could be happening.

ANNIE

Jeez. Well. If Simba was going to just put it out there like that, Anastasia wasn’t going to hold back either.

She didn’t like the word “murder.” It was so dramatic.

“She did what she had to do,” Anastasia said vaguely, because she wasn’t sure if people might overhear and wouldn’t that be the final disappointment, for Anastasia to land Mummy in jail. How fitting. And... Anastasia didn’t really know the details anyway. But corruption and scandal was part of the Tremaine family history, like any other core value. “You don’t know what it’s like to be her. Or me, for that matter. Life isn’t all sunshine and roses, and sometimes when an opportunity presents itself, you gotta take it. And I’m sorry people got hurt, but that’s... life.”

Not exactly the idealistic, cheery image Anastasia put forth online. But cynicism didn’t rake in the money or influence the way her optimistic go-getter attitude did.

ASHLEE

Ashlee actually felt like she was going to be sick. To speak so casually of murder, to chalk it up to that's life it reminded her too much of her own Dad. Who cared about who was hurt if it meant the end result was what you wanted.

And maybe that was hypocritical of her considering her own past and her part in what she had done with the girls but this was just frightening. But there was a difference, Ashlee at least liked to think there was a difference, she wasn't as bad at this woman. (Who sounded different? Was that in her head?)

SIMBA

Simba's hand clenched into a fist by his side. He felt his anger spike--a wild thing inside of him, so loud it was almost frightening. It made him want to reach for a drink. Thankfully, there wasn't any inside and he couldn't disappear from his own party.

Besides, he wasn't going to break his sobriety streak for a Tremaine.

Nor was he about to get in a physical altercation on his door step. Though, he wanted to. No doubt.

How could she--

That's life? People got hurt? His father had been murdered. Taken away from him and he had blamed himself for years because of Annie's mother. She had ruined his life just as much as Taka had.

"Get off my property," he snapped at her, his voice rising up enough that he was sure people through the open door behind them could hear it. He refused to shout, but it wasn't far off.

He had plenty of more choice words for Anastasia Tremaine, but it was a holy day and he had a family and friends and community to celebrate. Even if this conversation had put him in a black mood and he just wanted to go upstairs and lock himself in his room.

TONY

Tony felt anger flare in his own chest at Anastasia's words. He couldn't imagine anyone saying that that was just life. Excusing literal murder! He thought back on anything he knew of Anastasia or her family. In truth he had paid little attention to the girl in secondary and now he was seriously regretting it if he was missing this information.

This can't be happening, right? He mouthed to Ashlee. Tony couldn't help but feel a little frightened. If they were dealing with someone that unhinged was it wise to leave Simba alone with her? Was it wise to be eavesdropping on her?!

ANNIE

Anastasia knew Simba hated her family’s guts. But she only knew it in a vague sense. All the shit with Taka had gone down while she was back in Nashville, and it had only affected Anastasia in the sense that now Mummy couldn’t take the whole family on vacations to Nice and Aruba and Switzerland anymore because of her stupid new nonprofit job. The way Anastasia saw it, the details didn’t really matter, but the reality was that Simba had taken something from her that she believed she was entitled to.

But Anastasia wasn’t good in confrontations the way Drizella was. Anastasia’s style of fighting was subtler, quieter. If Drizella were here, maybe she would have a cutting line or a scary threat. All Anastasia had was her practiced ability to shut down her feelings.

She took a step back and stared at Simba, nodded, and then smiled. “Enjoy the party,” she said, the twang returning to her voice. “I’ll see y’all around.”

And with that, Anastasia turned on her heel and returned to her car, hoping Simba didn’t notice the slight tremble in her gait.

ASHLEE

Ashlee wished she didn't know, she wished she could have gone on believing this was some stupid petty drama, it was as simple as a 'my fam doesn't like this person so i don't like this person'. But this ran so much deeper than she could have thought.

Shaking her head Ashlee struggled to form words. I don't know but we should go. it was just go where? Simba would come in soon, Where was Berlioz, hopefully he could help Simba cause that was heavy and Ashlee was not the one with the ability to help. They could escape to her room? Yeah that was probably best. Grabbing Tony's hand she pulled him back toward the back door and swiveled up the stairs quickly. "What the hell was that????"

TONY

Oh his head was reeling at this whole experience. He blinked when Ashlee grabbed him but allowed the tug to lead him inside once again. He hadn't been to her room in Simba's before so it was somewhat of a jarring moment of him realizing this was a big deal.

"I don't know! I knew she was from Swynlake and her family had some beef with people but not that!" He admitted. "She was known as kind of a bitch but not a murder-excusing bitch!"

ASHLEE

Ashlee didn't even know what to say, she really wished they hadn't done that. It kind of gave her the creeps and it was way too close of a comparison to her Baba for her.

"We can't say anything. We don't know what the hell any of that meant or how it effects Simba." Tony better not open his mouth and spill unless they knew more.

TONY

Tony took a deep breath to try to steady himself. When he had said this year was going to be boring he hadn't considered finding out about literal murder. And now Ashlee was expecting him to keep this between them?!

"Jesus, yeah, I get it. What are we gonna do, though? Are we just, what, waiting to find out what's going on?" He shook his head. "You okay?"

ASHLEE

"Nothing, Whatever that was is old and dark and does not need to be touched by us." Maybe not even that old considering she was maybe Simba's age. But she knew they knew too much. Maybe she would find out from Simba at some point, or maybe not but she wasn't letting Tony in much. What she knew was that Simba was good and she trusted his judgement on whatever the hell that was. 

TONY

Tony frowned at Ashlee's words. It seemed like the sort of response that was, well, responsible and adult... and Tony, despite all of his efforts, wasn't really either of those things. He wanted to investigate, wanted to do something to get to the bottom of.

"I... guess so... I mean.. I s'ppose we're still... young." Don't think about how long you've been on Earth, Tony. "Jesus.."

ASHLEE

"It's not about being young, it's about getting involved in whoever covered a murder. I'm a performance major, you're a secondary kid. We're not equipped to handle that. And I already went through one shit storm involving the courts. I sure as hell don't want another. Not to mention Heresay, the fact we don't have the whole story and its not like we can just walk up and ask someone." Maybe she could, but she didn't think she had a right. "It's not like I believe Simba is part of a massive cover up." (Hopefully) "So it might already be dealt with, you know." 

TONY

Tony didn't like the response, didn't like the way he knew Ashlee was right. He took another steadying breath because, really, she was entirely correct. They were kids despite... every complicating part of Tony's life and curse.

"Yeah, right, of-of course.. Yeah, um, Simba's resourceful and-and powerful... If he had any way of settling this he would. We just gotta... trust the adults." Sure, that wasn't Tony's strong suit but he could try. "Are you okay, though? Like, is there.. anything I can... do for you?"

ASHLEE

Ashlee really hoped it was as simple as it was already taken care of. She really really did. Flopping down on her bed Ashlee sighed covering her eyes. No more spying for her. It wasn't worth it, if this was the outcome. Especially considering she didn't know if she could hid it on her face when she eventually faced Simba.

"It's fine I'm fine. we should just wait a few and head back down. Worse comes to worse they think we're making out or something up here." Which no but it was the lessor of a few evils right now.

TONY

"Gotcha..."

Tony sat down on the floor beside the bed so he wouldn't crowd her. This was ridiculous. Swynlake constantly churned out so much drama! He supposed he shouldn't be freaked out but it was.. jarring.. to see people he'd gone to school with involved in such heinous things.

"Well I would hope Simba has more faith in you than that," Tony laughed softly, a little forced. "But I can see where the concern comes."

ASHLEE

"Probably if only cause I've had a few dates with Michael since prom." And Ashlee was not the cheating kind or even had enough people she was interested in anyway.

Ashlee sighed looking up at her ceiling. Did she ask Simba or not was the question now.

[wilhelmfink]

09.01.21. - 12:36am

Hi.

I don’t even know if anyone I used to know still uses this website or sees my violently infrequent posts, but tumblr has always been my safe space - especially in my lowest points.

Last time I was here, I was bedridden, sobbing nonstop for days on end, dragging my feet to the T to get to classes that I ended up dropping out of, and drowning my thoughts out with Crybaby. I let myself feel everything because I knew that was how I would get through it. 

Now. I am stuck in a state of disbelief, betrayal, confusion, loss. Once again, a boy promised me forever. Except this time, he gave me a Tiffany ring to prove it, not even two years into our relationship. He moved states to be with me. Uprooted his life, left his family and friends, to be with me, because he said we were forever. Opposites attract, but we could make anything work. We were alike in all the ways that mattered.

Secretly, I was always afraid that one day he’d remember his midwestern, suburban roots - the ones I buried - and he’d want to leave. Which is something I swore I’d never do for a man. 

Four years later. This summer was tough, after I got the job and started making money. At some point I got the ick. It seemed as my life was falling into place, his came to a standstill. He was working insane hours at the gym, to no avail, because his company pays their employees like shit. Knowing that it would never really get better, he made no concrete moves to move on. He went through the same lackluster phases of applying for jobs as I did, which looking back on, of course I understand. It’s extremely overwhelming, especially to someone with ADHD, and it’s easier to say “I’m fine where I am, I’m getting by, I’ll just do this later when I really need to.” When your job is mentally and physically draining to the point where you can’t properly take care of yourself outside of it, where on earth are you supposed to muster the energy to write cover letters and apply to jobs?

However, I’ve been through it before, and I broke out of it. I took steps to better myself and dive back into my passions, and that’s when everything started coming together. I assumed that with my experience, I could help him. But he wasn’t listening, wasn’t letting me, and all the while without my knowledge, he was spiraling.

I had the ick because he wasn’t doing anything to help himself despite my best efforts to help him. I guess I wasn’t as attracted to him because he lacked overall drive, which he eventually picked up on. It was disappointing seeing everyone else in our lives get their shit together, to watch his life continue on as it had for the past three years - like he was fresh out of college, always broke, and barely getting by. After my career began, it just wasn’t the same. My patience started to wear thin, and I was being rude. I have a problem in general with being mean to people I’m extremely comfortable with, which is bad. I lack a filter, always have. It got progressively worse with him, though, which I knew, and would try to work on, but then he would piss me off or disappoint me again. All of his interests annoyed me. I loved him, but I rarely liked him.

Then I went away for a week and was able to clear my head. I had the chance to miss him for the first time in years. I came back ready to start again, eager to look for apartments together and finally move on to the next step of our relationship.

If it wasn’t obvious, the day I came back he aired out all of his concerns about our compatibility, his distaste for New York, and his worsening depression, and it honestly caught me by surprise. I thought I was the only one experiencing and burying doubts. However, after our first honest conversation in months, I jumped to creating an action plan - what can we actively change going forward to support each other and ourselves more? I am not one to give up. The only reason I never brought anything up earlier is because I assumed it was all because of a bad PMS cycle and I wasn’t in my right mind, which was partially true.

But the bottom line is, I never would have given up. Because that’s not what you do when you promise someone forever.

However, he did.

Sunday was a perfect day in virtually every way. I felt clean, excited, refreshed, in love. When Monday came, he arrived home from work sick to his stomach with the guilt of having such a wonderful day previously, and basically ended it. I wasn’t aware that’s when we “broke up”, but that’s what he told our roommate that night - after I requested that nothing be final until we had a night apart to think.

One night turned into two. A night he was supposed to spend with his friends he ended up sleeping at his female coworker’s apartment without telling me. Without even thinking about telling me. If I hadn’t had his location, I probably still wouldn’t know. I was nauseous for a week straight. Honestly, I’m still nauseous. Especially because I don’t know if I can trust him about what’s happened, when no one else in my life seems to.

Above all, I didn’t think we were officially broken up until we were moved out of the apartment we live in together. Dating a libra is fun because they never want to have the hard conversation or give it to you straight. They live a double life, feeding you little lies to keep you happy and worry-free, while they do god knows what behind your back.

This was always a problem when it came to smoking. But now that it applies to potentially cheating (would he even consider it cheating? I certainly would, considering the words “it’s over” were never said and we were happily together less than 12 hours earlier), I have been a wreck.

I just never thought this would happen to us. I escaped back to Virginia to get away from all the traces of him, which is difficult when your entire lives are intertwined. His name is always on the tip of my tongue. When I’m alone, he’s the first person I want to call. When I’m scrolling through twitter, he’s the first person I want to show all the funny tweets to. And that’s the worst part of it, is losing your best friend. That one person who is always there for you no matter what.

I’m numb and nauseous over the fact that the thing we built for over four years could change so quickly overnight. That it could be so mindlessly disrespected in a matter of hours, minutes even. I genuinely don’t know what to think or what to do with myself, because the person I’ve been so in love with has completely disappeared. The body he used to be in is still walking around somewhere in New York, but everything is different and it’s killing me.

I might not be a sobbing pile of bones this time around, but it feels so much worse. The stakes are higher. The years were longer. Our love was so strong and felt so everlasting, up until a week ago. I can’t approach this time as open-armed as the last, because I have a job and bigger responsibilities now. If I think about it as heavily as I did last time, I would be permanently sick - or, worse than I already am.

I am just so sad and empty right now. I am grateful for my friends and family that have surrounded me, but boy... everything hurts all the time. I can’t even put this whole situation into words. But this was a start, and you know I’ll be back.

[wolferals]

🌍parallel universes**🌍

arón piper imagine

!SEXUAL CONTENT!SMUT!

*

*

„Hey you." you greeted Arón the second you walked in the door and saw the handsome actor sitting on his bed busy with his phone. He looked up for a quick second and nodded at you. Apparently he was VERY busy.

You went straight to his kitchen after putting down your bag in his room to just grab a quick snack after class.

His kitchen was always super messy so you spend some good five minutes cleaning before you actually went on to make yourself a sandwich.

But as you looked into his fridge you figured, simple toast with jam would have to do. How did this guy not starve?

Then you grabbed your sandwich and walked back to his room where you sat yourself down next to him just to see what he had been up to. While eating your sandwich you were watching him scroll through twitter. All the posts were in Spanish so you didn't quite know what was going on but Arón seemed pretty stressed out about something.

„You okay?" you carefully asked and scanned his side profile. He didnt look at you, he just kept scrolling. You noticed his uneasiness. His left hand had grabbed the sheets rather roughly, you could see the veins on his hand popping out.

„Arón?" you asked again but didnt get a response at all.

You kept on watching him internally freak out for a couple of minutes until you were done and grabbed his phone and slammed it next to you on the mattress.

„Whats wrong?" You sounded pissed off but you were actually just concerned.

Arón leaned his head back against the wall before finally looking at you for the first time this afternoon. „I fucked up." he simply said and ran his hand through his curls.

You looked at him in confusion and then responded:"What happened? What did you do?"

He gave you a sad look. After, he took a deep breath and turned around to face you completely.

„When I was dating Juliana (sorry if thats your name), you remember? I sent her this one picture. Only one! And she leaked it and im fucked. Everyone saw it."

You could see the tears forming in his brown eyes.

„Okay." you spoke and grabbed his hand. „Dont worry! Its gonna be fine. Its just a damn picture. What exactly was on it? Your face too?"

He shook his head. „But my tattoos."

You breathed in heavily before continuing:"Its okay, Arón, really. Its just a picture. Doesnt say anything about you. They know you're not sending shit like that to random people."

He laughed a fake laugh and said:"Y/n its a fucking nude. Its my chest and my fucking dick. Do you think they're gonna forget about it? No."

You just looked at him for a while because you werent sure what to say.

„You have to ignore it. They will stop talking about it tomorrow because something else will be more interesting, thats how twitter works. Just calm down please."

He nodded slowly and took another deep breath.

„Just please dont go on Twitter and ignore anything related to that. I dont want you to see that."

You nodded understanding and pressed his hand a little tighter. „Its gonna be alright." you spoke quietly and pulled him in a tight hug. He seemed to appreciate it since he pulled you really close to his chest and placed his flat hand on the back of your head.

„You're a good girl." he whispered and dug his head in the crook of your neck. To be honest, not the smartest choice of words since all you were thinking of now was this picture.

But the way he said it sounded so innocent, he wouldn't have meant it to be dirty.

„You wanna watch a movie?" you suggested as you let go of him. „Hm. Im not really in the mood. Can we listen to some music por favor?" he pouted and looked at you with big eyes.

„Of course." you replied and lied down on your back.

He did the same and put his arm around you so he'd be more comfortable.

„You okay?" you asked once again after he was just staring at the ceiling for a moment.

Arón simply nodded, his eyes not leaving the wooden ceiling. It felt good to be with him. Alone for the first time in a while, it was always someone around, you never got to talk to him, only him.

You then decided to put on some comforting music to maybe calm him down a bit since he was so drained.

Over the course of the first 3 songs you guys were just laying there, no one said a word. Until Arón suddenly spoke up.

„Do you ever think about if theres another world somewhere where all the people we know, and us are different people? Maybe we're friends in this other universe, or we dont know we exist at all."

You turned your head in confusion to his sudden philosophy.

He turned his head as well and you both ended up looking deep into the others eyes.

„Maybe... maybe we're older in the other world. Maybe we're even a couple or married. Maybe we have kids together, got divorced after 10 years and now we only see each other because of the kids. And maybe you've had another guy after the divorce who's treated you better than me. Because I'm sure I'd be the reason for our divorce."

On the one hand you were touched by his cute words but on the other hand it made you laugh how deep he suddenly got, talking about the both of you being an old divorced couple.

„You're crazy." you grinned and looked back at the ceiling.

Slowly you closed your eyes and fully concentrated on the music.

It was silent for a bit until you heard his voice again.

„Maybe i messed up in the other universe, maybe the other Arón ended up alone because he missed his shot, maybe he didnt use the chance to kiss the other y/n when the perfect moment had come. You'd be happy with another man and I would regret not kissing you all my life."

You opened your eyes. Just to see his face inches away from yours.

None of you said a word.

You kept staring into his deep brown eyes while they got closer and closer. He carefully leaned in and you were more than ready to feel his kiss.

„May I?" he whispered against your lips.

With a little nod you accepted and a moment later you felt his plump lips softly pressing against yours.

You expected his kisses to be rougher but you loved the way he kissed you that moment.

The kiss didnt last long, he pulled away and leaned his forehead against yours.

„You're all Ive ever wanted y/n. And im sorry, if you dont feel the same way thats okay. I just didnt want to regret not doing it." he explained in a soft tone before looking at you again.

You didnt know what to think that second but all you knew was that your body craved him. Your soul was screaming for his touch.

So you did what you had to do.

You pulled him down on the back of his neck to kiss him a little harder this time. He seemed surprised but kissed back immediately. He made you feel alive again, after your last sad relationship you didnt want to be in love again. But this boy made you fly.

After making out for a bit, you wanted more. You tugged on his shirt, telling him to take it off. He pulled away quickly and looked at you. „Are you sure you want to do this?"

You just nodded, your body shaking from the inside. You wanted him to love you the way no one ever did before.

Arón skillfully tore off his shirt and threw somewhere in the room. He then carefully took of yours, looking down at you in awe. „Bonita." he whispered and started planting soft tender kisses on your collar bones, neck and your boobs.

„Joder." he cursed as he kept kissing down your exposed stomach.

You started moaning quietly when he reached the hem of your pants. „Can I?" he asked again.

It killed you how sweet he was. You always thought he'd be the kind of guy to rip your clothes off in a second and fuck you rough but he wasnt acting like that at all.

Slowly he slid your jeans down your legs and threw them on the floor. Afterwards he climbed back on top of you to kiss you softly again. You could feel the passion in the kiss.

„Are you ready?“ he whispered while grabbing a condom from his nightstand. Quickly you pulled down your panties and sat up so he could take off your bra for you.

„You‘re so beautiful.“ arón murmured and grabbed your boobs carefully just to place a kiss on your lips again.

„Lie down bebe.“

You did as he said and lied down on your back. You looked up at him with lustfilled eyes. He looked so beautiful kneeling inbetween your legs, in just his boxers. His abs were glistening in the light and his curls were falling perfectly on his forehead.

You just waited for him to start you didnt notice that he took off his underwear meanwhile.

„Ready?“ he asked again and looked down at your exposed body while he was holding his surprisingly big dick in his right hand.

You nodded and couldnt stop staring at his cock that was already leaking precum into the condom.

„Alright babe.“

You were so horny by now you couldnt wait to feel him inside of you.

Slowly and very carefully he pushed his length in your pussy. You hadnt had sex in a long time so it did hurt a little bit. But nothing you couldnt handle.

He was staring into your eyes while his dick drove further into you inch by inch.

„estás bien?“ he whispered and held onto your waist.

With a simple nod you agreed.

„Can I move, does it hurt?“

You sat up a little bit. „Yeah you can move. Its okay.“

He lied fully on top of you just to see you closer.

„If it hurts tell me.“

You nodded yet again.

And then he pulled out an inch just to push his dick back inside of your walls. And it felt so damn good.

He continued in a slow pace and you softly moaned out. But eventually you needed more and told him.

„More.“

He grinned and started fucking you faster. Your eyes rolled back into your skull and you moaned our.

„Yes please.“ Arón grabbed your left hand just to place it next to your hand, intertwining your fingers.

„You‘re perfect.“ he groaned while his thick cock was pistoning in and out of you.

With a moan you replied to his statement.

„Baby you feel so good.“ he moaned out loudly. Very loud to be specific. His deep raspy voice threw you over the edge. Your back arched, your eyes rolled back and a loud high pitched moan left your mouth.

„Cum for me baby.“ he encouraged your orgasm and placed kisses on your neck as it hit you like a wave.

He really did make you feel like you were in heaven.

„Im close too honey. Ride me please.“ he suddenly begged after you had calmed down from your orgasm.

You just nodded and watched him pull out and you both switches positions. Carefully you sat on his dick and leaned forwards to hold onto him.

„Hmm fuck so pretty.“ he moaned and bit his lip when you slowly started bouncing up and down his thick shaft.

This angle made it possible for him to go even deeper.

„Bebesita. Faster por favor.“ he groaned and threw his head back. You tried to fuck his dick as fast as you could, just making yourself moan out loud.

Arón had grabbed onto your waist with one hand, and bit his other hand to stop himself from screaming out loud.

You could hear his muffled moans which only encouraged you to go even faster.

„Baby fuck im gonna...“ he tried to speak but his high was faster and his hips started to twitch and his mouth fell open.

A long deep scream left his mouth the second his orgasm hit him. You could feel his hot cum fill up the condom inside of you and it satisfied you to the max.

His body sank down into the mattress again and all you could hear was his hard breathing and your own heartbeat.

Without saying a word, you got off of him and lied down with your head on his chest and his arm around you.

He breathed out loudly and turned his head to face you.

„Joder.“ he laughed still out of breath. You smiled at him and replied:“I know.“

He pulled your sweating bodies closer together before pressing a soft kiss to your forehead.

„Thank you.“ you smiled at him.

„What for?“ he looked at you in confusion.

„For kissing me.“

He laughed, grabbed your face and kissed your lips once again.

[coliverxxx]

#PleaseTreatChenleFairly

Summary: Exactly how it sounds like from the title.

Pairings: Chenle x Everyone, Chenle x Reader, Everyone x Reader

Angst: Angst, Comfort

Words: 4,209

Warnings: None, hopefully

A/N: A couple of days ago, this hashtag trended on Twitter and this was pretty much how I reacted to it and also how I wanted to react to it if I had the chance. I know I said Chenle x Reader but when I wrote this, I kind of wrote it like the Reader represents the NCTzens. Of course, we can’t all be that person but I’d like to think this is what everyone will do if they can had it happen to Chenle under their watch. Because Chenle doesn’t deserve to be treated differently and unfairly from the rest of the members. He works hard to bring us quality music and performance like the rest of them. He’s not even my bias and yet I feel so bad how they treated him that I even wrote some four thousand words because that’s how bad I felt and I needed to let it out.

Please Treat Chenle Fairly

Because of the nature of your work, you have worked for contracts and extended contracts with several entertainment companies and through luck or lack of it thereof (it was luck, you wouldn't really fool yourself) you met, worked with a lot of times, and became close with the kids of NCT. It hasn't always happened with everyone you worked with but they have managed to piqued your interest through their obvious talent, extraordinary bond, and boisterous laughter (especially when together) that unconsciously or not, you would join in. The way they laugh when huddled in the same room was probably what did it for you, especially when they were laughing at one another's individual strangeness (which sort of makes them human and that's probably what paved their way to your heart).

However, you were particularly soft with the babies from their youngest average age unit, especially after Mark left and they all seemed a little lost with no one among them to call "Yo, Dream!" anymore. It has always been engraved in your being to be a little more accommodating to their needs, a little more ready to extend a helping hand whatever they may need, and a little more protective. Sometimes, the older ones — Jungwoo, because that boy could always use a little more love and he'd have the extra space in his heart to take it all, and Ten, just because he liked pestering you, most of the time — would complain about you being a little more doting, a little more giving to Renjun, Jeno, Haechan, Jaemin, Chenle, and Jisung but you knew they were all just empty complaints because they probably do more and would do more than you if needed.

That's how precious the Dreamies, all of them, were to you and the boys.

Which was why you couldn't help the fire that was burning inside of you, the tightening of your chest, the heaviness of your breathing, and the overall pissed-off frustration of your mind when you logged into Twitter to check the updates from fans about the boys' 'To You #3' but instead of Jaehyun trending about asking Taeil to be with him even until they were forty or fifty, you saw another hashtag that was trending that you never thought you'd see at around one or two in the morning.

#PleaseTreatChenleFairly

At first, you honestly thought it was something simple like letting Chenle be the ending fairy of their live performances or something. Of course, as much as you didn't want to lose anymore sleep, you couldn't stop your finger from clicking the trending hashtag and seeing what it was really about and what really happened because this was Chenle. If it was a hoax, that would probably be better. But if there was something that happened that made fans all over the world to trend that hashtag, you needed to know because Chenle — or any of them — does not deserve to be treated unfairly.

With curious eyes looking for answers and overly anxious fingers, you scrolled down the top tweets. You might not understand Chinese even if your life depended on it which regrettably was the reason why you could not understand the post of Chenle's biggest fan club but you could clearly see. You could clearly see the images from their album of a group shot that Chenle was stupidly cropped from.

Your mind was racing because you worked with Super Junior back when they have thirteen members. You still worked with the group even now that they have nine active members left. You worked with Girls' Generation when they both have nine and eight members. You even worked with groups from other agencies with significantly more members. Which was why you couldn't understand no matter how hard you try to think of an explanation why they could inadvertently crop Chenle out of this own group photo in his own group album.

They were six members! Six ridiculously good-looking and talented members. Six good people who has an average age of twenty years old bringing more smiles into this world than probably who you wanted to blame for this huge fucked up mess. Six members. Six.

You stared at the photo through your phone. As much as you were understandably mad at this, when you read the tweets of the fans, you were more sad than mad. Imagine being Chenle's fan ever since he was a child, five or six. This boy was a music protege, a naturally gifted young boy with a very beautiful voice, who came from China, trained for a few months, and debuted in a foreign country he could only speak a little at that point. Imagine how heartbreaking his fans felt when they saw the boy they loved purely with all their heart cropped out in his own fucking album. You wanted to cry and you also wanted to hunt down whoever was responsible for this and rip that person's head off (okay, figuratively, you weren't a murderer, but can that person at least be transferred in another department because he/she/they clearly wasn't/weren't cut out for this).

It was impossible to retrieve every single ordered album and replace it with a right one, one which didn't have such animosity of cropping Chenle out of the group picture. You tweeted and retweeted several tweets. You wanted to do more than that but it was two in the morning and you couldn't see the kids until at least the following night. You tried watching 'To You #3' again but you couldn't concentrate on Jaehyun's words for Taeil anymore and that wasn't right. You tried rewatching Dream and 127's reaction to 'Ridin' music video but it wasn't as fun as you first watched it. Because you couldn't keep Chenle out of your mind.

Then, you saw their uploaded 'The Stage' video. Somehow, with all the content since that afternoon until evening, you either completely missed that or delayed watching it for a better time. It's not like you could watch while doing your thing at the toilet or when you were chatting with a client once the videos were uploaded. (But then again, that would still depend.) You thought it was something to tear your mind off the unexpected but probably already timely hashtag because you understand the fans, especially Chenle's fans, have kept quite for so long. But it wasn't. You didn't even need to see it from the tweets (but you saw later when you checked again to torture yourself) when you shouted to yourself, "Where the fuck was Chenle's message to Jisung?"

No one could tell you it was already finished after Haechan's message to Chenle. No fucking way. Because Taeil said his message to Taeyong. Because that's how it was supposed to be. The last member was going to give his message to the first member. So what, all the first members now who would give their message don't deserve their own? "Are you kidding me?" you frustratedly wanted to throw your hands in the air but you stopped yourself because you would look ridiculous even to yourself and you would not stoop down to the level of these people who were doing this to Chenle. You would not, however, not do anything though. You tweeted a bit more and might have reached the maximum daily tweet capacity because #PleaseTreatChenleFairly deserved to be trending. Because if they could not treat Chenle fairly, they might as well be called out on it. You would not keep quiet. Hell no.

You weren't sure how you fell asleep that night (or morning, depends on how you look at it) but between reading through #PleaseTreatChenleFairly, another hashtag began trending which was #재민버블 (Jaemin bubble). You would not stand another unfair treatment or another slander involving your children. Surely, the company wouldn't appreciate something burning in front of its building at three in the morning. It was ironic because you were still frustrated with Chenle's unfair treatment. Knowing yourself, it would last long, depending on how the company treats Chenle from now on. It could last years. It was during times like this when you were grateful that you work with them but you don't work for them. Perhaps the only reason why you keep working on this goddamn company was because of the boys. Seeing Jaemin's message for their fans sort of slowed down your self-destructive process of committing arson and that lulled you to sleep.

It was strange how you could be affected negatively by some people (as indirectly as it may be because this wasn't Chenle's fault, certainly not, it was the damn company and the people who worked in that album photobook, you needed that cleared up) like their pain was also your pain, that cliche, and be calmed by the exact same people, like their happiness and achievement was also your happiness and achievement. What do they call that nowadays?

The first thing you did the following morning was check #PleaseTreatChenleFairly though and you wondered if your tweet capacity had replenished by then. It was still trending when you were having your breakfast, when you were getting ready for work, and when you were leaving your place.

Your work, you were glad, with how demanding and time-consuming it was, took most of your brain energy the entire day that you barely even glanced at your phone. You were finishing up something very late when you walked past the practice rooms and heard some shuffling in one of the rooms. You didn't need to hear clearly for you to know what song was blasting through because it was safe to say you'd probably hear 'Ridin' more than a working person could. (Well, you might not be checking your phone for messages, or tweets, for this matter, but you were streaming a lot. How could you not? The boys deserved the world. You knew how much hard work they put in their music and in their dance. This was just something you needed to do.)

You peeked inside, careful not to disturb anything that might be going on, and was not surprised when you see them practicing even at eleven in the evening. They were in the middle of promotions. Surely, the logical thing to do in their free time, as little as that may be, was to rest, but they were still practicing. You wanted to scold them, you wanted to call them out and tell them to pack up and go home, but you stopped when you saw Chenle dancing with such power and intensity and suddenly, you wanted to cry. You were an adult working in one of the biggest companies in the country at the moment, watching a group of boys with an average age of twenty-years old dance at almost midnight, and you were tearing up.

Crumbling, you forced yourself not to. You ran to the nearest vending machine and bought drinks enough for maybe, the whole twenty-one of them. You were desperately trying to distract yourself. When you came back, when it seemed like they have taken a little break, you took a deep breath and opened the door, showing yourself with the drinks.

They were stunned a moment when the door opened but recovered easily when they saw your face. Unsurprisingly, Haechan and Jaemin were instantly approaching and attaching themselves on you like glue but you expertly dodged them and went to Chenle who was sitting on the floor. He seemed a little surprised at first because whenever Haechan and Jaemin would glue themselves on you, it was almost impossible for the other members to hug you until you would literally tear them away when you needed to go already. You weren't sure how to keep your emotions in check but you have been with them for quite some time already and during these times, none of you really needed to say anything.

That's why you just hugged Chenle. That's why you just did the thing you wanted so badly to do since last night.

It was expected when he seemed startled at first but easily relaxed when he realized you were the one hugging him. And then, Chenle was the one who crumbled. You thought it was a blessing for when some people don't allow themselves to crumble and in a way, make room for those who were holding out for so long to do so. These people don't always have the luxury to go down, to feel bad, or even just to feel. (The luxury, and also the time.) And by disabling yourself from that chance, you were giving it to them. Chenle didn't cry or anything like that, he didn't even sob, but he held on to you like a baby koala would, tight and not letting you go until he was almost sitting on top of you, face hidden and buried on your shoulder, arms tight around you.

They weren't blind and they weren't holding their phones just for the sake of holding them. Of course, more times, there were a lot of things to ignore in the Internet, but when some things literally have your name in it, it was hard to ignore. Even if they wouldn't talk about, or comment on them, it didn't mean they never saw it or it wasn't affecting them. Most of the time, they don't exactly have a choice.

Your arms were as tight around Chenle as his arms were around you. You weren't surprised when you looked at the other members, none of them was speaking and was only looking at you and Chenle, but everything was crystal clear in their eyes. Renjun's eyes were frighteningly mad because he wanted to take action but knew he couldn't. Jeno was frozen and speechless because he probably didn't know what to do but god knows how much that boy wanted to do something, especially for his teammate, a brother. Haechan wanted to say something to lighten up the atmosphere but he didn't want to disturb the peace he knew all of them were desperately grasping for since last night. Jaemin's eyes were soft, so soft, because he wanted to hug Chenle and give him the same affirmation and console him just as much as you were doing and was just glad you were there to do it when he wouldn't receive it from them because he didn't want to worry anyone. And Jisung... a part of you wanted to tear yourself from Chenle to hug the youngest boy because he was sobbing. He was trying to keep it as quiet as he could but even when he was furiously trying to wipe the tears, it was obvious that the thing that happened to Chenle was affecting him just as much as the older boy. Actually, when you looked at them with their heads and shoulders down, you could say the same to all of them. If you could just multiply yourself and hug each one of them.

You closed your eyes and just tried focusing on holding Chenle for now because you knew he needed it the most right now. You didn't know how long you stayed like that but you opened your eyes when Haechan said, "Chenle, don't you think that hug's long enough?" It was light and was supposed to be cheeky but you looked up at Haechan and saw the exact expression he was holding a while ago. He was still worried. Actually, they were all worried.

Carefully, you moved a little to take a peek at Chenle's face, to see if he was listening but to your surprise, his eyes were flittering, his mouth was slightly open, and when you listened closely, his breathing wasn't hitched anymore like when you first hugged him. Close enough though, it broke your heart to see stray tears in the corner of his eyes. You turned to look at Haechan and the others and mouthed, "He's sleeping."

"Oh," Jeno softly said, suddenly moving to one of the lockers inside the practice room and coming back with a retrieved blanket. He easily draped it in Chenle, and you, since you and Chenle were basically tangled together, with a thin smile. "He finally slept, huh?"

You looked from him to the other members, waiting for an explanation. You knew comebacks were frustrating and exhausting but they could always sleep in the car, or in between schedules. It wasn't ideal but they need to make use of what was given to them no matter how small of a time that may be. Sadly, that's just the way it goes for them, and other idols, sometimes.

"He hasn't slept since yesterday," Renjun said, sighing, and sinking on the floor a couple of feet away from you.

"I was telling fans to sleep last night but it was actually for him, too," Jaemin continued, sitting across you with Jeno. He looked down at his hands and muttered, "He shouldn't have seen that."

Haechan sat on your other side but much closer than Renjun's distance. "But you can't blame the fans. They've had enough," he said to no one in particular but it was Jeno who sighed loudly, a little exasperatedly. "Someone please make Jisung stop crying," he added, scowling a little for effect but they all knew they were as affected as what was happening as their youngest. They just couldn't cry all at once for Chenle because what would you even do then?

"He always... worked so hard," Jisung croaked out in between his silent sobs, covering his entire face so no sound would come out. He didn't want to wake up Chenle but he couldn't stop the tears he was holding. He wouldn't say anything, he wouldn't tell them it was hurting, he would smile at them as if everything was fine because he didn't want them to worry and add to the stress they have because of their comeback, but they knew better. And yet, they couldn't do anything, and perhaps it was the reason why Jisung couldn't stop himself from crying.

They all looked pretty miserable and you wanted to tell them they all worked so hard, all of them, each one of them, but Chenle was still sleeping on your shoulder and you wouldn't want to wake him up, not after what you heard from the others.

Suddenly, Renjun was standing up and getting more blankets from the lockers. Alarmed, you looked at him as he was approaching back at your little party and mouthed, "What are you doing? You're not sleeping here."

"But Chenle's already sleeping though," Renjun answered in a quiet voice.

"I just want to let him sleep for a while," you tried explaining in hushed whispers, panic immediately rising to dangerous levels for you. "But you guys can't all sleep here. You need to go home and rest properly. I can drive Chenle home later."

You stared at them because they obviously weren't listening, already building their little circle around you, with no pillow, just blankets around themselves. It was almost like a sleepover. Jeno had the nerve to look at you for a while and asked considerately, "Do you need extra blanket? Are you warm enough?"

"Guys, I'm serious," you were already speaking at this point in your normal voice, but still careful not to wake Chenle up.

They weren't listening. As far as they were concerned, they were already in their sleeping positions around you and Chenle. You couldn't let them sleep here but you were not a ninja, you couldn't multiply yourself and drag each one of their tired asses home while sleeping cradling Chenle in between your arms. You gave up when Jisung gave you one last pointed look, as if making sure Chenle was still sleeping and alright and safe and no one was going to hurt him, and pulled the blanket above his head.

You stared at the bag of drinks you bought for them, untouched and losing their coldness, wondering how you would explain to their managers tomorrow why they ended up sleeping in the practice room with you. They would probably let it slide, since it was you, but you were more worried about their sleeping comfort and getting their much needed rest than explaining to the authorities. Explaining to the managers was one thing, explaining to the other older members were another (based on previous instances when you had a sleepover with Dream because you promised them you would as soon as they got their first win and talented babies as they were got it quickly). You could already hear Johnny's exaggerated questioning and Mark's excessive worrying (because he knew, you knew he knew, and he would probably be there with the lot of you if he didn't have his own hectic schedule), but this time, you wouldn't blame them. They all have pretty good reason as you knew if Dream had a good grasp of what happened, the older members had more than good grasp. They were probably trying their best to stop Taeyong or Doyoung or Mark from calling out their own company in their own ways.

You were lulled to sleep with the thought that you might never be enough to protect all of them, but they've also got one another's backs and that's pretty good coverage already.

Four hours later, Chenle felt something wet touching his finger and mildly stirred from his sleep, blinking his eyes several times to figure out why he was literally sleeping on you in the practice room. You looked like his make-shift bed that was warm and hugging him back and briefly, he wondered why couldn't you be his bed from now on because he didn't want another sleepless night. He looked at his finger and realized the drinks you brought them lost all moisture and have made a little pool beside you. He stared at your face, slightly opened mouth, and loose arms around him, wondering how someone could sleep sitting uncomfortably like that with a legal adult as big as him weighing on top of you.

As if on cue, you suddenly tightened your arms around him again, effectively crushing him in a hug, and whispering, "Don't worry, Chenle. We love you. We will always protect you." His face was crushed again in your shoulder and he knew you were sleeping when you said that but he bit his lips to keep himself from crying because he knew even when sleeping, you meant that. Why else would you sleep in such insufferable condition if not?

Probably being lulled to sleep again, your arms loosened around him and he was able to lift himself off you since his legs were beginning to numb being in the same position for a few hours. Your back was leaning against the wall, your body facing forward, that Chenle didn't expect what he saw when he turned around and realized it wasn't just the two of you who slept inside the practice room. On his right side was Haechan, bundled like a ball, on his left side was Renjun, sleeping soundly with his body facing the wall, on his back was Jeno without a blanket, Jaemin with two blankets, and Jisung with a blanket to his face. His mouth hanged when he saw everyone in such uncomfortable sleeping states when they could have gone home anytime, they could have woken him up, they could have told him to sleep at home (which he couldn't, he tried but there was no sleep when the world seemed to be telling you weren't worth anything, maybe even sleep), but they stayed.

They stayed, Chenle realized. Renjun, Jeno, Haechan, Jaemin, Jisung, and you. He couldn't stop the helpless whimper that came out of his mouth, but it wasn't helpless like he didn't mean a thing, it was helpless because he knew he meant something and that you and the people sleeping around him was proof of it and thay you guys were going to prove to him over and over again.

You blinked your eyes and saw Chenle's back, his head hanging low, and you gently pulled him back into you and softly said, "Chenle, sleep some more. I'm going to drive you guys home later so your managers won't scold you."

Chenle dipped his head on your already drool-stained top because of him and you only hugged him tighter. He didn't say anything, he didn't need to, because he was shaking and probably biting his bottom lip to stop himself from crying the tears he probably thought he didn't deserve to cry. After a while, when you were almost dozing off again, he whispered in broken syllables, "Thank you."

You brought one hand to his head, gently patting his hair, before hugging him again, making sure he was comfortable, and saying, "You deserve the world."

You weren't sure why you said that but aside from hugging him, that's what you wanted to tell him the most since yesterday. It was unfair how someone who could make millions smile by his voice and his smile was being taken away his own smile. You knew he didn't deserve that. He deserved the world.

[delaneytveit]

Satellites Part 13

WHOOOOO we’re halfway thereeee! OOOHHHHH (Actually we’ve been a little bit more than half way for a bit) but don’t worry, there’s still A LOT of story to get through. If you guys enjoyed this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it, please consider buying me a coffee! 

Oh and I’m on twitter! if you want to give a follow, or watch me scream into the void about Lance in tactical gear, that’s the place! 

Twitter - sfw -> @/spacemom_laney | nsfw -> @/15_agentwash

ko-fi - ko-fi.com/delaneym_15

 ( Part 12 ) ( Satellites Master Post ) (Part 14) 

The team left at 0800 the next morning. Allura had convinced, after quite a long time, Blue to let her pilot. Though it was clear that Blue was not happy about it. The only lion that was missing was the red one.

Keith had chosen to stay behind, to much confusion of the team. Though Lance could vaguely guess why. He felt guilty. Keith had been the one to bring into question Lance’s ability to complete missions, and even though that wasn’t his intention, he knew that it still hurt Lance.

Their relationship was rocky as it was. Neither of them really knew where they stood with the other, what they were to each other, and it seemed that the present situation had complicated things even more so.

Lance was refusing to talk to Keith, and it hurt. He hadn’t meant to indirectly ground the sharpshooter. He had only wanted to voice his concerns to Allura, positive that she would be able to do something for Lance that he couldn’t.

Normally, the only kind of confrontation Keith would be willing to face was violent, but he didn’t want to fight Lance. He wanted to apologize. To take responsibility for what was happening to Lance. He owed him that much at least.

It wasn’t hard to track the Blue Paladin down. He had locked himself in his room since breakfast. It was a good thing Keith knew the code by heart.

Punching in the code, he was relieved when the door whooshed open revealing Lance sitting at his desk. Keith could hear the volume of the headphones from where he stood, which made him cringe. The EDM music that Lance listened to was loud enough, didn’t anyone warn him of blowing out an eardrum?

Keith knocked twice before taking loud steps towards the boy, hoping that they would be loud enough to let Lance know that he was there. Lance’s anxiety had spiked dramatically since his return and it took one accidental sneak up by Pidge to inform the team that it was vital for Lance to know that you were coming, so as to avoid a swift punch to the face out of panic.

“What do you want, Keith?” Lance sighed as he removed his earphones. He swiveled his chair to look at the red paladin, arms crossed as he leaned back in his seat.

This was it, Keith had been rehearsing his apology for hours now, trying to make it sound as genuine and coherent as possible. Though at the very moment, what ever award winning speech he had come up with beforehand had vanished as those hard blue eyes stared into him.

“I’m sorry.” he blurted out, cursing himself for his lack of grace.

He immediately dropped his gaze, eyes staring at the floor. There was only a tense silence between them, and Keith begged his mind to come up with something, anything to put an end to this crushing feeling.

But of course, his mind, nor his mouth could seem to work correctly.

It was Lance who broke the silence instead.

“For?” he asked, the question forcing Keith to look up and face the boy. Blue eyes met his once more, a questioning brow raised as Lance waited for Keith to answer.

He could do this.

“I shouldn’t have told Allura about all of this. I- I didn’t know that she would take you off of missions. I should have talked to you and voiced my concerns to you, you didn’t deserve what Allura did to you and it's my fault that it happened. And I am so, so sorry for that.” He was rambling, he knew he was. How did people do this? How did they apologize?

He was only stopped when Lance held up his hand.

“I appreciate the apology, I really do. And to be honest, I’m glad that you told Allura. I don’t think she would have found out if you hadn’t. I’m not mad at you Keith.”

“You’re not?”

Lance chuckled a little, running a hand through his hair.

“I mean, I am a little bit. But I think I’m more pissed at the situation in general.” Lance leaned forward, perching his elbows on his knees. Looking down at his clasped hands, Lance spoke “You guys are right, I’m not okay. I haven’t been for a while and no matter how much I pretend that I am, I’m just hurting myself. I’m not getting better.” he sounded so...broken. Lance never really talked about himself, at all really. Superficial things, sure. Like how he got barely any sleep, or that he missed his mom’s cooking. But he never really talked about things deeper than that. Keith hadn’t really noticed until now, but Lance had been hiding a big part of himself away this entire time, and it only came out at his most vulnerable times at night.

A year ago, Keith would have thought of the way that Lance talks about himself as vain, but now he knew that it wasn’t really the case. Lance has been putting on a mask this whole time.

“But we don’t have time. The universe doesn’t have time for me to get better. It's a long ass process that Voltron can’t afford.”

He was right, of course he was right. Lance was vital to Voltron, even if he didn’t really see himself that way. He still knew that Voltron needed him. It was even more present today with Blue’s little tantrum about having to take on Allura as a pilot.

“But is the universe really more important than having you here?” That was what Keith was most afraid of. Lance had always been the self-sacrificial type. He couldn’t argue that he himself was any better, but Lance seemed to take it to a whole new level. The paladin would miss sleep and meals to make sure that everyone else was taken care of. He would jump in front of a bullet in a second to spare the others. On one occasion Lance had bounded into a burning building to save a few children stuck on the third floor, that had been the worst as it only reminded Keith of how he lost his father. He couldn’t lose Lance too.

“Keith-”

“No, Lance. Listen to me. The universe is not worth you throwing yourself away like that. What you need time to heal, what you went through was fucking terrible. It's no wonder you have PTSD from it.”

“We are the literal Defenders of the Universe, I can’t just not do my job!”

“I’m not asking you to stop being a paladin! I’m asking to for once in your life put yourself first. We need you, I need you! You need to let yourself heal from all of this because there is no Voltron if you continue to let your own health fall by the wayside!” Keith meant every word of it. They needed Lance. They needed him to come back, to be the best he could be, and as hard as he was trying right now, this wasn’t it.

“I’m worried for you, Lance. I can’t lose you too.” Keith’s voice was so small, he himself almost didn’t hear it. But he knew that Lance did, as the boy stood up from his seat and walked over to Keith, instantly wrapping his arms around the shorter one.

“You won’t Keith, I’m not going anywhere. I promise.”

Keith breathed in the scent of ocean and sandalwood of Lance’s detergent, and thanked whatever higher being was there that Lance had insisted on buying his own detergent all those mall trips ago. The pompous asshole had good taste in soap, and it comforted Keith easily.

“Just promise me you’ll at least try.”

He felt Lance take a deep breath.

“I am trying, Keith. I’m trying every day.” If Keith felt the shaky breaths or the wetness on his shoulder, he said nothing. It was clear that Lance needed this as much as he did, maybe even more. “I never wished I was Shiro, more than I do right now. He’s been through everything and he’s able to handle it all so easily.”

Oh, absolutely not. There was no way in hell Keith would let Lance talk about himself like that.

He pulled away from their hug, to much of his own dismay, and held Lance at arms length. Violet eyes bore into icy blue ones. The eyes that he could get lost in, but now as not the time to think about that, Keith.

“Lance, you said it yourself. WHat Shiro went through and what you went through was completely different.”

“But-”

“No. You really think that Shiro would be in any better of a state than you are now after being treated the way you were? I have no idea the extent of what they did to you, but I do know that it had to have been absolute hell. You don’t get to compare your pain to others, just because they seem to be doing better than you. Your pain is your own, so stop being an idiot and just acknowledge the fact that those guys are assholes!”

Keith was most definitely not expecting a chuckle from the Blue Paladin, but he assumed it would be better than the alternative.

“That was good, Mullet. You come up with all that yourself?”

Keith rolled his eyes. Of course, leave it to Lance to make a joke about a serious conversation.

“As a matter of fact, I did. And I’ll say it again. As many times as I need to for it to get through your tiny brain.”

“Hey! I’ll assure you my brain is of average size. Some may say it's even above average!”

It was Keith’s turn to laugh.

“Yeah, I’m sure it is.” he joked offhandedly, letting his grip on Lance’s arms finally fall.

Lance fixed him with his characteristically famous smirk that Keith knew could only mean trouble.

“Want to know what else is above average size?” Lance waggled his eyebrows knowingly as Keith facepalmed.

“Oh my god, Lance. No!”

[sibyl-of-space]

havent angsty long-posted on here in a while lol it’s like i am in 3rd year of college all over again

Well, no thanks to fast and reliable testing, I am at least fairly sure I actually do have Covid. I still haven’t gotten my test results and it’s been a week, but I have a headache typing this because I over exerted myself by performing the highly taxing tasks of... taking a shower, cooking something, and sitting upright instead of lying in bed (as I have been largely doing for the last 2 weeks). So at the very least I’ve been able to communicate with my workplace and am now at an understanding that I should just take this week off too because if sitting upright for extended periods of time makes it hard to breathe, that is perhaps, slightly concerning.

So instead my anxieties now are about the fact that literally contracting Covid was actually in the long run beneficial for my mental health because I’ve been able to just... rest, and play some video games, and rest some more, and sleep, and edit photos, and watch other people play video games. I’ve gotten to just. Relax. I haven’t had the chance to relax since before the pandemic started, because I work at a nonprofit that helps homeless people and that shit doesn’t stop being necessary in a crisis. And it’s compounded by the fact that I work in IT and we had to basically throw together enough band-aid and duct tape solutions to get everyone set up to work remotely, which was hard as fuck to do, and now we are still going in part of the week to help serve meals shifts because we don’t have any volunteers.

(That is like 90% definitely how I contracted it, a few weeks ago I worked a meals shift with someone who was not-so-subtly coughing into his mask next to me and it was not the phlegm-y cough but the ‘ah i am just clearing the old airways’ cough. Why are you working a meals shift to serve the homeless if you have symptoms OH MY GOD. Anyway.)

My workplace is not organized in the best of times, which made it interesting but lively and was largely endearing even if it was somewhat frustrating. But now, it is just driving me up the wall. I have felt at the end of my rope mentally for about 2 straight months with no end in sight. And now the more literature that comes out indicates it could be YEARS before the USA is able to approach anything resembling normal because of this, and I do not think I am mentally capable of handling this kind of environment for that long.

My team is GREAT. I love them. This organization put out the only legitimate IT starting position that did not require 3-5 years of previous experience, paid me MORE than a fair starting wage, and is just all around great at treating me like a person and I’ve learned so much from them. I am so thankful. But the organization as a whole is managed like, well, basically a shit show that makes me honestly miss the well-oiled shitty corporate bureaucracy that was my first job out of college. I’ve been considering applying elsewhere for ages now, but... well first of all I feel like I need to at least have worked a full year here before moving on (it’s been about 7 months presently) for it to count for anything, and also, well it has been very nice actually being treated like a person in a 9-to-5:30 office position and I don’t know how much I’ll be seeing that if I sell out and work for some tech startup or whatever the hell.

Up until now I have had a sort of... promise I’ve kept to myself, where if I am not fulfilled and start to actively dislike and resent my job when I wake up for it in the morning, that I will move on from that job. I have held on to that. My first job out of college was an excellent source of stability for me as a recent college grad, but when it reached a point it was stressing me more than it was supporting me, I moved on. I then worked minimum wage (note: minimum wage was $15/hr at this point so my income was only actually decreasing by $4/hour because administrative assistants do not get paid what they are worth. Now bay area cost of living is fucking stupid, but minimum wage in this circumstance was actually livable for me with the bonus of having my parents’ health insurance.) at a fabric store - I stayed there for 2 years, longer than I’ve ever held a position, and while partly I left because I had more or less finished learning what I had hoped to learn from my coworkers, the store was transforming away from that kind of community DIY vibe it started out as and turned into a kind of etsy wine mom vibe that didn’t click with me as much anymore, and also I was turning 26 and would lose my health insurance through my parents.

So I took the next several months taking my first real break from constant responsibilities/employment since pretty much ever, focused on speedrunning Tales of Symphonia and eventually started studying for a baseline IT certification so I could try and get a job that was more appealing to me than administrative bullshit, which I hated so much. My closest friends I made in my first corporate job out of college were people in QA and IT, so I decided to try and make that a reality. I studied my ass off for a couple solid months, took both tests for the A+ certification, passed, and started applying to jobs. And now here we are.

My frustration stems from the fact that I want to continue working with the people who took a chance on me when I was very green and had no experience, just 2 tests under my belt and a willingness to learn. I really do want to continue learning and growing here. But the environment, through no fault of anyone’s, has been just grating on me. I honestly believe that if I quit they would all completely understand, but I don’t WANT to - I want to stick it out, partly out of pride (this organization has such high turnover, I have already outlasted over half of the new users I’ve onboarded.....), partly to repay the team that has invested in me and treated me like a human being, and partly because I know more experience is necessary if I want to land another job anywhere else.

But boy, am I drained. I was literally hoping I had Covid because it meant I could get 2 weeks off work. And here I am, finally got Covid, am taking 2 weeks off work, and yet I still feel bad about it because a damn test hasn’t come back making me feel validated about it and I’ve still partially convinced myself I’m being a drama queen.

And this break from work is just making me dread the prospect of YEARS of this kind of uncertainty. It’s been so nice just kind of being able to do things at my pace, but it took me actually contracting The Plague to actually get this kind of relief.

Anyway, a few bright sides... first, my tortoise is adorable and doing great, so there is that. (Just looked over and saw her doing something cute. I love her.) Second, I will continue to rest this full week, and next week there is a good chance I will feel more empowered to tackle a workday with the perspective of fresh challenges as opposed to just some monotonous daily grind, after having this time off. Third, if I continue to feel nothing but dread and frustration regarding work, I think I should stick to that promise to myself and give a deadline to when it’s time to start looking elsewhere and move on, because no organization is worth my mental well-being. And lastly, I’ve re-visited OoT for the first time in a really long time (handhelds are about all I can do at the moment), and that was really special.

I’m still fucking pissed that there is pretty much no chance I’ll be able to go to France this Christmas with my roommate and girlfriend. I was so excited to have a paycheck where I could afford to do something not just for myself but for the people closest to me, I routed our flights so we had layovers that would let us connect on the main flight together and paid extra so we could sit together, I was SO excited about this because I spent almost EVERY Christmas in France as a kid because of my family and I miss it SO MUCH, I was so so so excited to share these intimate memories with people I really care about, but the USA is a fucking dumpster fire shit show so who knows when I’ll be able to actually do that now. I haven’t cancelled the flights yet but I’m coming to terms with the fact I’m going to have to do so. Hopefully I can get a refund and we will just have to go next Christmas, but I’m still really fucking upset.

Not even going to comment on how much of a shit show the USA is in general. I feel completely helpless. Another 4 years of Trump is literally a catastrophe we can NOT permit but the current DNC platform looks like it is going to fix about, oh, FUCK ALL, so at this point it feels like there is no hope unless we literally start busting out the guillotines. Every time I see an Elon Musk fanboy on Twitter some of my remaining faith in humanity crumbles. Then I think about how people have been protesting EVERY SINGLE DAY for the right of Black people to LIVE and NOTHING is being done about it. It’s both exhausting and terrifying.

In conclusion, I would like to stop living through a major historical event, please and thank you.

[orionsangel86]

So, after a long conversation with super-powerful-queen-slaynna, whom you can thank for me sending this message, so like... if you like it good, if you don't blame them, I do want to apologize for assuming you were saying people can't talk about Destiel, its shippers and how much they dislike it in their group chats. That's what the post came off to me, as if you were policing what people could and couldn't say in these GC about Destiel. Slaynna made me realiza that you meant your post as a 1/2

warning to Destiel shippers who might wander into them. I understand this, because whenever a Destiel shipper follows me, I make it a point to warn them my blog might not be a positive space for them precisely to avoid this sort of unplesant interactions. It also came off as you were invalidating and dismissing the bad experiences people might have had with misbehaving Destiel shippers, which I'm sure you're nice enough NOT to do. My beef is really not with you, or Tink, or any other Destiel 2/?

meta writer, my beef is with shippers who are genuinely hateful and do hateful things. You simply came off as you didn't believe there are Destiel shippers who do these things at all. That say, I won't apologize for venting to like-minded people about my utter dislike for the ship, because we do in fact do that. But I don't think it's fair you walked in on us at that point and extrapolated that's all we do. BTW there is in fact an Anti-Destiel GC and the irony is, if you had walked into that 3/4

one 24hrs earlier, you would have in fact found people gushing about Megstiel and Sastiel, LMAO. 4/4

...

Okay, I’ll give you pointers for being bold enough to come explain this in my ask box, and I commend @super-powerful-queen-slayyna for reaching out to try to calm the stormy seas. I am most likely not going to make any further comments on that post anyway because it has blown out of control and has escalated into a full blown ship war post which I never wanted when I sent it. It’s now Destiel shippers and my friends trying to defend me or people blatantly calling me names and using unnecessary language which I am not even going to acknowledge or give the time of day as I don’t go in for that sort of childish name calling (unless you count my use of the word bronly but some things I think even we can agree are a necessary evil).

My post was a response to my own hurt and irritation at coming across two GCs, one for Sastiel, and one for Megstiel, which were both recommended to me by Tumblr, which were not tagged as anti-Destiel that I could see, that appeared on the surface to simply be places for people to discuss and squee over those ships. In both GCs I saw nothing but hate and lies and other upsetting comments about Destiel and Destiel shippers. It was extremely disheartening to see that in what on the surface appeared to be safe spaces. Because here’s the thing, these shipper GCs should be safe spaces. I have friends that are multishippers, that like Sastiel (and even the odd few who like Megstiel even though admittedly I don’t anymore.) There are plenty of other people out there in fandom that might like all three ships (I’d imagine those people simply want Cas to have all the love in which case SAME). 

To get one point very clear, I don’t actually care if people hate Destiel. I’m not going to preach to anyone about Destiel unless someone comes to me directly or comes scrolling my blog. I always tag Destiel so anyone who uses Tumblr blacklist should be able to avoid my blog completely. I would never intentionally go looking in an anti Destiel chat group. I’ve seen it all before anyway and it’s the same old arguments that really don’t affect my shipping preferences or my beliefs. 

What annoyed me was that those GCs were not anti Destiel chats. They were Megstiel and Sastiel chats. They were places where impressionable young Megstiel and Sastiel shippers could come across, who have zero feelings towards Destiel, and find themselves being told a bunch of lies and nasty crap about Destiel shippers and the ship. They are places where Destiel shippers who like to ship those other ships too might come across and suddenly find themselves isolated and alienated, which only perpetuates retaliation from those Destiel shippers and potentially causes the hate that you stress is so virulent among Destiel shippers to begin with.

My post was a warning for multishippers who are also Destiel shippers or at least Destiel friendly, that those GCs were being used to spread hate about Destiel. It was also an FYI to the people in those GCs that their hatred was very much public, in case they weren’t aware. I tagged the ships because I wanted people who ship Megstiel and Sastiel to see it, especially if they are Destiel friendly, because yeah, I’d want them to avoid those GCs.

Yes I then got snarky. I claimed that this does kinda prove a point because no Destiel GC that I’ve seen includes a bunch of hate and nastiness aimed at other ships. Sure, there is a high chance that there are hateful Destiel shippers out there. There are certainly a lot of bitter people on Twitter who piss me off when they scream queerbaiting at the writers so yes, of course there are bad eggs. I was shocked that from what I saw, there was no squee or shared theories or excitement about the ships, just page after page of hate aimed at Destiel shippers. So yes, perhaps I happened upon both convos right when those topics cropped up (which would be rather coincidental) and perhaps I had just missed the topics that I was interested in checking out - the theories, the meta, the spec... That’s what I was interested in. Since these GCs are a way to keep a finger on the pulse of what the fandom might be thinking in terms of the show and shipping and I was curious. Believe it or not I actually like to keep an open mind even though Megstiel is something that gives me a bad taste in my mouth ever since I sat myself down and truly thought about it. 

I generalised. I know I shouldn’t have done that, but those GC convos pissed me off. I don’t know a single Destiel shipper who would spend hours of their day just ranting about how awful Megstiel shippers are and how much they hate the pairing. I HAVE debated with friends about the suspected infiltration of the Megstiel ship by Bronlies who are using Meg to get Cas out of the way and to be spiteful towards Destiel shippers. This IS something that has been happening in recent years and I think even you admitted that in one of your replies to my post.

I also wasn’t trying to invalidate your experience with hate. I would never do that. The one thing I will say about anon hate in particular is that you don’t know who it is coming from. I occasionally get anon hate but I certainly don’t immediately assume it’s a w*ncest shipper just because I can’t stand w*ncest. Getting a message in your ask box that says “go kill yourself” is horrible, believe me, I know. But if that’s all it is, you can’t assume the sender was a shipper at all. Unless the message was “I ship Destiel and you can go kill yourself” you just can’t assume. If you have had actual Destiel shippers come and attack and threaten you and send you those messages directly then 1. I am so so sorry because no one deserves that kind of abuse, and 2. I hope you exposed them if you could. Because if there is one thing I have learnt about the Destiel shippers in MY circles, it’s that we find that kind of behaviour completely unacceptable and we WILL call it out from our own side if we see it. 

The reason I have such a high opinion of Destiel shippers being the “nice” people in fandom is simply because I have never seen that kind of behaviour from them. I interact with a lot of people. I have seen Destiel shippers get overly passionate, I have seen them get upset and angry when people lash out at them. I have seen them turn bitter and negative and go off on rants about the show. I have seen them dog pile on an anti’s post to provide evidence against a false claim “Kripke said he’s straight” and I thought it was a bit much... but it wasn’t hate. It was a reaction to years and years and years of being laughed at, called delusional, mocked and ridiculed by all other sides within the fandom. Destiel shippers are desperate for validation. They are desperate to disprove the lies. If people actually listened to us, or read the countless posts that have been written clearly providing evidence and sources to disprove every lie and false claim against Destiel perhaps we wouldn’t be so defensive. That’s what happens when you’ve been gaslighted for 11 years. 

But regardless, I’m not here to get involved in shipping wars. You’ll continue going on hating Destiel, and I will continue going on and, well, not hating, but very much disliking Megstiel in canon (though I have read some very sweet Destiel fics where Meg is Cas’s best friend and enjoyed the characterisations there.) 

My post was never to gatekeep and stop you from ranting about Destiel. Rant away to your hearts content. As I said above I really don’t care if people hate it. All I ask, is that you keep that kind of content in places that are clearly labelled as anti Destiel. So that should a Destiel shipper want to check out a Sastiel or a Megstiel GC, they can do, without feeling completely unwelcome and hated on just for enjoying Dean and Cas’s relationship as well. I really don’t think that’s too much to ask. All it takes is one tag right? Create your Megstiel GC and by all means rant about Destiel in it, but please just tag it as Anti Destiel.

Thank you for reaching out to me and explaining your side of things. I do appreciate it. 

[signoraviolettavalery]

I’m new to the Roswell New Mexico fandom and I have noticed people,you, don’t really like the creator Carina and I was wondering why.

Ooooh boy. Would you like those answers in alphabetical order, chronological order, order of egregiousness, or order of how much they piss me off? 

I have a lot of issues with Carina, as do a lot of other people. Obviously, not everyone agrees with me, and some of my answers may be controversial (they’re the subject of biiiig debates in fandom). I have no intention of re-opening those debates, so what I write below is a summary of my opinions (many of which I know are shared by at least some others in fandom) for the purposes of answering your question. I’m also putting it all under a cut, because it’s a lot of negativity that some people may want to skip. 

I mention a lot of tweets and interviews in the answer below; I, frankly, don’t want to go searching for and linking to each interview and tweet (and also, Carina has me blocked, for reasons I’ll get into), but everything below has a source that I can find if you super want to read it yourself. 

So, here goes.

Firstly, Carina pisses me off because she is a white, straight woman who is writing about oppressed and marginalized minorities and, quite frankly, doing a bad job of it. She brags constantly about how progressive her show is, how much she wanted to include people of color and comment on things like immigration, how important the Malex storyline is to her, etc, etc, but doesn’t seem to be capable of (or care about) the delicacy, nuance, and care such issues require.

In a panel she did on Roswell (at ATX or NYCC, I think?) she talked about how she had qualms writing about marginalized people from identities she didn’t belong to; she said she was plagued by the question of “should I even be doing this?” Which she then immediately answered with, “but we’re doing it!” and that was that, and that seemed to me to be such a flippant way to answer the question. Like, you’re writing about people whose experiences you don’t share and your response isn’t “I’m going to do research and talk to people,” it’s “eh, I”m doing it anyway”? 

Then there’s the fact that when it comes to representation, Roswell has done a really really shitty job, engaged in harmful tropes, and thrown its characters of color under the bus. Carina insists that she consults with a lot of advocacy groups when writing about the experiences of undocumented immigrants and Latina characters, and yet. Liz simply forgives Max in the span of two episodes, even though he covered up her sister’s murder and was responsible for subjecting her family to racially-motivated hate crimes for a decade. Max, a white man, at no point acknowledges his privilege; he just pouts and whines when she rejects him until the Latina who was fucked over by his use of privilege just...forgives him. It is, in my opinion, incredibly indelicate and kind of insulting. She made the south Asian man (the only Asian character on the show, in fact) the borderline pedophile serial killer who violated Isobel for years, was creepily grooming both Isobel and Rosa, and murdered a bunch of women. She made the only black woman on the show (Maria) the plot device for an entire season: Maria had no storyline. She was there to give information to Liz when Liz was solving Rosa’s murder. She hasn’t known about the aliens all season and was thus excluded from the major show narratives. Her one defining character trait (her loyalty to her friends) was completely thrown away in order to make her a plot device for Malex (because let’s face it, Miluca won’t last and Malex will get back together). Narratively, she was thrown under the bus. 

And then there’s the queer representation, which...don’t get me started. She keeps talking about how much she loves Malex and how they’re her favorites, but she’s also very explicitly said that she finds happy relationships boring and that she uses fiction to work out her own trauma, which means that she’s essentially likely going to put the only same-sex ship on the show through an interminable amount of tragedy (because that’s what queer viewers absolutely need in this day and age). 

Plus, the idea of a straight woman using a fictional same-sex relationship to work out her own issue makes me really, really uncomfortable, because she’s made it clear that she fundamentally doesn’t understand the queer experience. She says she consults with advocacy groups when she’s writing queer characters (she won’t actually name these LGBT advocacy groups, which doesn’t make me sideye her at all), but I have doubts about whether she listens to them. I mean, she said, after the season 1 finale aired, that Michael going to Maria has nothing to do with her being a woman, even though she also explicitly said Michael wants something “easy,” and a same-sex relationship in Roswell, as it’s presented in canon, can never be easy. Roswell is canonically a homophobic, bigoted town, and Malex’s trauma stems largely from homophobia. Their relationship issues stem (not entirely, but largely) from them being the victims of homophobic abuse and a homophobic hate crime. Being with Maria means Michael never has to worry about any of those things, and the fact that Carina doesn’t seem to conceive of this is mind-boggling to me. 

Then there’s the fact that Maria...basically outed Michael to Liz, and this doesn’t seem to be a problem. Of course, maybe they’ll address it in season 2, I don’t know. But, Carina basically wrote a woman who has been best friends with a gay guy for more than a decade as casually outing someone (when she tells Liz that Michael is Museum Guy). The fact that this is a problem doesn’t seem to cross her mind for a second when she tells Liz, even though this is information Michael has never told her himself and they’ve known each other for a decade. It’s not something Carina’s ever mentioned in the numerous post-finale interviews she did. And frankly, it doesn’t matter who Maria outed Michael to; the fact that she’s capable of it when best friends with a gay guy in a town like Roswell, when Maria has been written as a loyal and understanding friend up to now, again suggests to me that Carina just does not comprehend the queer experience. 

(Also, technically, all the Isobel/Rosa hints, then it turning out that actually Noah was possessing Isobel, screams queerbaiting to me)

And then there’s the mess that is the love triangle. I’m of the camp that things that it’s complete and utter bullshit that contributes to the stereotype of bisexual people as promiscuous, though I know there’s people who think it’s good representation. It shows that she’s more interested in her particular (and frankly, kind of esoteric) storytelling preferences more than she cares about representation or continuity. The love triangle is, frankly, really badly written, and nothing about Maria developing “feelings” for Michael (or him for her, honestly) is in any way believable. Maria getting with Michael behind Alex’s back requires throwing out Maria’s only character trait (her loyalty and commitment to being a good friend). But Carina ~has~ to have her love triangle, characterization or continuity be damned. 

Speaking of storytelling, Carina is kind of...a bad writer. Look, I love the characters on Roswell, and I love the world she created, and it had some truly beautiful moments. But let’s just admit the season 1 plot was a mess. There were so many plot holes. Who knows what? Does Alex know Liz knows about aliens and vice versa? Does Alex know about Rosa, or just about aliens? Why did they spend episode 9 establishing that Alex is taking over project Sheppard to find the alien serial killer, only to have him be missing from the episode (1x11) where they find the alien serial killer? Does Alex know that it’s Noah? If Michael’s hand got broken right before he went to cover up Rosa’s murder, why did Liz think it couldn’t have been Michael “because his hand was broken then”? If Isobel is an event planner (a busy and demanding job) how did they manage to cover up her being missing for so many weeks? If Malex went straight from the museum to the toolshed, when did Alex have time to tell Maria about Museum Guy? What is Alex’s rank? (it changes from the pilot to the show). I could go on. Like, I just don’t have a lot of trust in the narrative going forward, in character and emotional continuity, in a fulfilling story for the characters I love, given that Carina seems to have a basic inability to so much as google (”my entropy changes”? that makes no sense), let alone write a story that makes sense. 

Part of the reason she’s not a very good writer, though, is because she doesn’t seem to like criticism. She insists she listens to it from people who matter and whose judgment she trusts, but, um, the mess that is the narrative suggests otherwise to me. The fact that she wrote in the love triangle suggests otherwise; it screams to me that it’s something she just had to have, regardless of whether it made narrative sense. She also literally blocks fans on Twitter who give her any kind of criticism. I don’t mean hate and vitriol, I mean criticism. She complains about how she, a public figure, a showrunner with a show that has millions of viewers, wants to log in to twitter and only see positive things and have fun interactions with friends. And I get it, criticism can be exhausting. But her job is literally to bring viewers to the CW. It is to tell a good story, and, if she wants to be as woke and progressive as she insists she is, it is to listen to different people - including fans. If she wants to shoot the shit with friends on Twitter, maybe she should get a private account. But I personally believe that she can’t use queer and marginalized characters to work out her own trauma, with no understanding of those people’s experiences, and then demand that people only ever praise her for it. It reminds me of the debate about criticism in fic comments, actually: some fic writers don’t want any negative comments. Which is fine if you’re writing fic for fun. Carina’s a professional writer with a TV show, who is getting paid. Insulating herself from literally any and all objections from the audience she’s writing for is, in my opinion, stupid, and also incredibly self-centered if she’s writing about people who’s experiences she doesn’t share. 

Honorable mentions, probably not worth getting into: 

She has like, a really creepy crush on Michael Vlamis, and even though she’s technically his boss, she’s constantly basically...thirsting over him on Twitter and Instagram in very uncomfortable ways

Max’s little speech to Michael in 1x11 about how he felt “everything,” every part of the abuse Michael suffered, and how guilty he felt about it, was just absolutely horrifying and tone deaf. Max, a character with great privilege, basically making all of Michael’s abuse about himself and how guilty it made him feel and acting like he can in any way share or understand Michael’s experience was just in every way gross, but clearly intended to make Max ~compelling~ and get the brothers to start talking and become closer and it just again shows a complete misunderstanding of the experiences of people less fortunate than her. 

Which, in short, all means that I have absolutely zero faith in Season 2. I’m not in the least bit excited for it. I think she’ll completely let us down, and I expect a lot more of the same tone-deafness and lack of nuance in relation to complex issues and marginalized characters. I think she’ll put us through the wringer, emotionally, for the sake of writing angst rather than telling a good story. 

Anyway, hope that answered your question, anon. 

[facepalming-since-chernobyl]

Troll’s main problems with 4x01

Let’s start with „Kara’s show”. I get it, Mel was on Broadway, so her time was limited and it’s going to get better…. Is it? They introduced 4 new characters in this ep (two are main, two are so called cannon fodder). So, we will get at least 10 more I think plus Russians… wait, “Kazniacs”, my bad.  This ep was PACKED with characters, storylines and action and still I feel like not a lot happened. Because instead of doing something, they talked. Kara talked with J’onn 4 times I think? And if you think about it, they could deal with it all in two? What brings us to Kara.

“I don’t appreciate you questioning my judgment, which has been forever sound and has never led to our situation getting catastrophically worse” – this is what Kara said to J’onn. And later, we learn he was right since the beginning. Because you know, a guy with hundreds of years of experience vs 4 year of being hero. What pains me here, it’s Kara ignored J’onn and his advice, because she felt everything was fine, the world was at peace and everything was cool. And she wanted it to stay like that. By stubbornly sticking to her opinion. What is super childish and immature and I don’t expect behavior like that from a main character in freaking season FOUR. We can argue if her sticking to her mirages fucked up and caused more shit that could have been prevented (aka president’s exposure, J’onn’s friend death etc). And again, Kara feels not developed again, when she is going to mature? AGAIN? With that many storylines and characters?

What leads us to Kara’s ego. Because her flowery and optimistic idea of world at peace sounds like self-stroking her ego. Superman is out, world is on her shoulders (suddenly it’s not too much weight?) and she is responsible for it. Hate crime against aliens means she is not that good, huh? So, let’s ignore it! Because for sure it will help… Once again, I don’t expect behavior like that from a hero on this part of the series. I kind of feel: Kara =tumblr/twitter, J’onn Mahatma Gandhi = common sense. Also, Kara, sweetheart, you are loved by peasants because you are slender, beautiful, superpowerful goddess, who kicks asses and saves the day. And well… you are white. Basically, you are a cast above a cast of the privileged. And in s3 you had to throw away your heritage, mother and Kryptonian life to become “happy” and “at easy”. What it says about American immigrant policy – I do not want to know. And this is totally off when we look at the mentorship storyline.

Aside of the fact Nia is basically Kara’s clone, that needs constant pep talks and transfers us to the good ol’ times of season 1 (sarcasm), I see two problems here. First, Kara is not Cat. Sorry not sorry, she is not even close of the level of maturity, experience and self-awareness. J’onn clearly showed that she still needs pep talks (it doesn’t matter it’s journalism or not). Also, in s2 she sucked as a reporter and Snapper was right. She had potential and the spirit but she lacked the most important thing aka objectiveness and the ability to keep your emotions at check. And in s4, suddenly, she slays as a reporter (this is the same off-screen shit they did to Mon-El between s2 and 3, it’s called sloppy writing). I simply don’t believe that Kara can ask important questions and listen to them and suddenly be a stubborn thick-head five minutes later. Secondly, writers want to “fix” her failure as Mon-El’s mentor. The problem is… that was not a complete failure. Being a mentor means you teach and help but you learn from your student too. You confront and you are confronted. Mon-El gave opportunity to face her flaws, her xenophobia, he kept her on her toes, he challenged her. Yes, she sucked as a mentor but she’s learnt so much from him (and he from her). From the first ep, I got an impression, Nia is going to be a sweet, adorable, Kara’s worshipper and well, does Kara really needs another person who is going to pat her ego? What she is going to learn from Nia? (btw, Nia is cool and I’m sure they are not going to screw her character). And the last thing, if we are going to get more “make a tsunami!” lines, I’m turning alcoholic.

The other obvious thing – Kara is still extremely easily outsmarted. She constantly forgets she’s faster than, for example, fucking BIKES. She can use her superhearing when she wants, but forgets it a disadvantage too. I know, it’s this kind of writing, but it pisses me off.  I know fighting humans and fighting Reign is two different things but it still hurts, when you think about the battles from s3. And here we have, Kara screwed by two idiots. Yay.

Last thing about Kara – I’m not surprised she is happy, optimistic and moved on. It’s different than in s3, when she thought she had killed Mon-El. She knows where he is, she knows he is alive. Cool. Let her be happy (still, I am bitter as fuck that they could mention Sam or talked about Winn and the Legion, but Brainy misses his “friends”. Well, at least we are not baited, but the fact they erasure him like that is not nice).

Moving to the thing that pissed me off like nothing else. RUSSIA. Oh wait, not Russia, because they can’t piss Russians now, yes? Voting is coming, right? That’s why we got real Madrid (that was Budapest, in Hungary, but whatever, who cares about xenophobia, right?) and “fictional” Kaznia. The problem is, it’s Russia. Sorry not sorry. “Spasiba”? Old babushka wearing a COAT in the fucking summer? Fur hats aka ushatkas? Vodka? Friendly reminder, Red Daughter was “promoted” on twitter with hammer and sickle symbol. Smooth. Subtle. Etc. Basically, they are going to fucking swim in the worst Eastern European stereotypes. Usually, I ignore shit like that, I know American shows are made for American audience, but seeing this crap on Supergirl simply hurt. As a show that talks a lot about “beacon of light” and hope, it looks like it’s only for specific people, living in a specific country. The rest can get fucked.

What is funny (sad?), because this season focus on alien immigrants and their rights. I mean, do you see the shit? They are going to show us how hard life of aliens in America is, how they will fight for the rights - and it’s connected to modern American policy and situation - and in the same time they are shitting on Eastern Europe, using the most annoying stereotypes. And yes, I “believe” Russia-Kaznia is not going to be the big, communistic bad of the season :)

Other small things. James. Dude, stop being the macho, because you are not and let Lena do her shit. Lena. Honey. Stop doing shit behind people’s back. Also, are we again with the Lena is playing Lilian, who is played but in the end we realize Lilian played Lena, but Lena…. Should we also forget that Lena invited a device that can allow people searching for aliens? Also, TALKINGGGGG. Brainy. Dude, I know you are comic relief, but I feel your calculated comic-relief is going to start to annoy me in ep 2. This ep was not funny, btw. Villains. Smartass, dumbass and Darth Vader – call me excited and I will kick your ass.  

I don’t know guys. Maybe I’m salty and bitter, because I have heard the reviews were nice and people enjoyed it, but here I am, smelling incoming bullshit.

Feel free to add more.

[crystal-ingle]

Scottys Gonna Kill Me Pt.2- Heath Hussar Imagine

Request:hello lovely!! i absolutely loved the imagine you wrote me!! and i was curious if you would be into writing a part two? maybe one where scotty finds out and he gets really mad at first but eventually calms down and becomes cool with it? ps yOUR WRITING IS LITERALLY A1

Word Count:1231

Warnings: Nothing but a few swear words (:

Note: Thank you guys for all of your support! Also REQUESTS ARE OPEN

Enjoy!

@infinitywakanda

6 Amazing months of my life have passed. Dating Heath has been challenging and the only person to realize and catch on is of course the only person you would expect, Zane. At first we received a shocked response then he became so into the idea. We were about 2 months into our relationship whenever Zane questioned us because i started coming over a lot more often to hang out with Heath. We realised how careless we were being and needed to dial it down a bit. Scotty still has no clue and i'm pretty sure he’d still kill me to this day.

Not seeing Heath was a rarity since we’ve dating he's usually around the house or we’re hanging out, but he was in Florida visiting family and i couldn't travel with him to visit because someone would surely catch on and Zane also went out to visit but is taking Scotty for a surprise for Heath. I feel bad for not telling scotty but i'd like to keep my boyfriend living. I look up after scrolling through tumblr looking at the Heath tag and Kristen looks at me weirdly.

“So Y/N when are you gonna admit to Heath and you dating.”

I look up shocked. “What are you talking about Kris?”

“Honey im not stupid.” she laughs. “I see the way you guys look at eachother and the stubble winking Heath thinks he’s doing isn't going unnoticed. Also you’re both always taking pictures together not to mention the background and lockscreens. AND you’re looking at his tag on tumblr and saving a lot of his pictures.” she looks up and laughs at my expression. “Also i'm pretty sure everyone but Scotty has caught on. Don't worry though i wont tell him.” she smiles.

“Thank god someone finally confronted me besides Zane. Don't get me wrong i feel bad for not telling Scotty but i know he’d be so angry and i honestly love Heath more than anything. He’s made me feel like a princess and im literally head over heels for that stupid man.” I sigh and hug the couch pillow.

“I honestly see the same emotions out of him towards you. Scott may be mad but he can't be mad for long you’re like his sister.”she stretches and grabs the TV remote.

“Yea. Thanks for not telling him Kris.”

“Of course. Now lets order pizza and watch tv.” I laugh and agree.

Around midnight Kris passed out so i put away the leftovers and headed to bed. Before i could get settled in properly i received just the phone call i've been waiting for.

“Hey babydoll how’re you?”

“I’m amazing now that you’ve called. I miss you. Did you tell everyone i said hi?” i smiled

“Of course i did everyone says hi and that they can't wait to officially meet you.”

“Trust me i can't wait either. So i have something to tell you.” i looked up nervously.

“Well what is it?” he laughs.

Oh how i love his laugh. I smile “Apparently Kris and the whole crew know except scotty.” i laugh as Heaths bedroom door opens.

“What don't i know Y/N?”

Heath turns around and then looks back at me.

“Hi scotty. So uh how was your flight.” i say adding a nervous laugh at the end.

Heath gets up and waves at Zane and then looks Scott in the eyes and proceeds to kill our cover. “Me and Y/N have been dating for 6 months going on 7. And before you say anything just know anything you say isn't going to change my opinion because i love her more than you'll ever know. She's someone i want to spend the rest of my life with.” He looks over at me and then back to scotty.

Scotty looks over at me completely pissed. “So when were you going to decide to tell me? Never? I specifically told you “dont date him he’s not got his priorities straight” and you go and do it anyways. I should've know-.” i interrupt him.

“Okay before you go and become an asshole why don't you think of this. Heath has changed he doesnt party, he cares for me, he makes me feel wanted and amazing more than anyone's ever done for me. I don't want to hear this nonsense scotty so talk to me when you can accept that i'm completely and totally in love with Heath Hussar.”

Heaths smiles brightens but scotty's is completely gone. He doesn't respond and just walks out.

“I'm gonna go to bed Heath. I love you. Bye Zane.”

“Goodnight babe i love you too.” with that i hang up and lay in bed wondering what's going to happen.

I wake up the next morning with a text from Heath.

“Hi baby i know you’re asleep but i wanted to leave you a message. I wanted to let you know everything i told scotty was true and more. You’re my princess and my everything i don't know what i’d do without you. Don't worry about scotty too much i'm sure he’ll get over it. But anyways goodnight darling and sleep amazing i love you more than you know.” i smile so big and reply.

“Good Morning my handsome boyfriend. I LOVE YOU SO MUCH. You have no idea how happy i am with you and that i went against his wishes and pursued our relationship. He’ll have to get over it because i'm not leaving you. You’re the only one i want to spend the rest of my life with. Have an amazing trip message me when you can.”

Heath Hussar is definitely my prince charming and scotty will have to get over it.

The boys arrive home today and Heath mentioned scotty lightning up around him.

Upon arriving home scotty looked at me and walked passed without saying a word which kinda hurt not gonna lie. I brush it off my shoulder and grab my keys to go see my baby.

It was around 10:30 whenever i got home and was walking into the door with heath in tow because he was spending the night. Everyone was in the living room but scotty, they weren't surprised to see us together because we posted instagram and twitter photos finally exposing ourselves.

Me and Heath were laying in bed watching netflix whenever a knock on my door happened.

“Come in.” A guilty looking scotty walked in.

“Listen im sorry. Kristen knocked some sense in me and im incredibly sorry. I had no place telling you who to date i only did it because i care about you and i hate seeing you get hurt.” scotty looked up. “ And i'm sorry Heath i should’ve seen you could settle down for the right girl.”

Heath laughs “Its fine i can see where you were coming from i was a horrible person at the time but she's proven people can change.” he kisses my cheek.

I laugh. “Honestly it's fine scotty i wouldn't expect a different reaction from you.” i get up and hug him.

“All i have to say is, Heath dont hurt her.”

“I wouldn't think about it i happen to love her too much.”

And so thats how my best friend found out i was dating one of his best friends.

So i guess Scotty isn't going to kill me.

[pride-vns-blog]

LGBTQ VN Week: Day One! (6/18)

Welcome to the first day of my LGBTQ visual novel recommendation week, in honor of Pride Month 2018! Every day from today (June 18th) to Sunday (June 24th), I’ll be talking about four visual novels with LGBTQ themes, characters, and/or creators that have stood out to me and explaining a little bit about why I like them! I also reached out to a handful of those VNs’ developers and talked with them about their work, so you’ll be seeing a casual interview tagged onto the end of every post, too. ✨

To kick things off today, I’m highlighting four visual novels that are practically bursting at the seams with personality, all in their own ways — Saturn’s WORST DATING SIM, Obscurasoft’s Coming Out On Top, Brianna Lei’s Butterfly Soup, and Madeleine’s Inverness Nights! 

Hit the jump to read about watching Animal Planet with punks, beta-testing hookup apps, Mario fire alarms, and why it is that so many visual novels seem to use character archetypes.

One note before we get started! This list isn't meant to be reflective of "the objectively best LGBTQ visual novels" or anything like that, which I want to be ultra-clear about upfront. It's not a list of all the ones I've ever played, either. There are plenty of visual novels with LGBTQ characters/themes that have been recommended to me frequently — while I was working on this list and over the past couple years — that didn't make it onto this list because I couldn't afford to buy them, or because they just weren't for me when I did buy them, or because of a million other reasons.

To give an example of this in action: I barely have any originally-Japanese language visual novels on here, because the number of M/M ones that get translated is already so low and already nearly 100% commercial, and I'm way more inclined to pay for M/M than anything else. (Reason: I'm gay and I like looking at hot guys.) For the purposes of this list specifically, I've also cut out a fair few BL-marketed VNs — from both Western and Eastern developers — that skirt around the issue of whether or not the protagonist is gay/bi/etc awkwardly.

I also tried to limit myself to one VN per team, picking the ones I thought were best representative of their output and leaving space to mention other works of theirs that I'd liked, with the aim of keeping this list from being totally dominated by studios who'd put out a lot over a long period of time. And then personal taste for other genre and content details comes into play, so it cuts out even more from what's left! In the originally-Japanese BL category alone, that left me with a single nominee, which was... Well, you'll see!

Basically, I went over a lot of different options to settle onto a list that's ultimately only supposed to be things that I, personally, would recommend! And I don't want to recommend things I didn't enjoy, one way or another. Nobody wants to sit through multiple paragraphs of a slog where I'm trying to talk about a game I didn't actually like (or, in plenty of cases, a game I couldn't afford) without acknowledging that I didn't like it. To be totally honest, that sounds like it would suck to try and write.

So if your favorite LGBTQ visual novels aren't on here, but you want to give people an excuse to play them, I'd love to read anyone else's personal recommendation lists! I'm not a journalist or a reviewer and this isn't anything close to a formalized games review blog that I'm planning to update ever again; I'm just a VN dev who felt like sitting down and making a list of other LGBTQ VNs I liked one day, so I went and I did it. And I felt like giving those other devs a platform if I was going to talk about their work, so I took my own Patreon earnings to pay for as many as I could, then I went and did some interviews, too.

Thanks for sitting through (or skimming, as the case may be) that wall of text! Without further ado, let's talk WORST DATING SIM!

WORST DATING SIM (SATURN)

Itchio Tagline: “MRGRGR.” Genre(s): Slice of life, shitpost. Release Date: January 22nd, 2018. Content Warnings: Brief depiction of blood; violence.

Out of all the visual novels I’ll be covering over the next week, WORST DATING SIM is the only one I haven’t seen nearly all the content for, and not for a lack of trying! Saturn’s debut visual novel, a challenging conversational simulator where a punk named Etsuji decides to follow you home and hang out with you purely because he can, features a grand total of 69 ways you can get a GAME OVER. By and large, these endings come at the hands of your newfound friend (?), who’s got a temper and a sensitive streak a mile wide. If Etsuji doesn’t like what you’re saying, he’ll knock your lights out, and you’ll get booted back to the title screen.

The way WORST DATING SIM doubles down on this challenge is by intentionally removing Ren’Py’s default save feature — if you piss Etsuji off, you’re back at square one, period. You have to either somehow retain the information yourself or turn to someone else’s successful run for help, because it’s deliberately designed to be done in a single playthrough without reloading. Even a fair few jokes in the script, like “I’m sure in several alternate universes he’s punched my lights out, but so far I’m safe,” are dropped in to acknowledge the fact that beating WORST DATING SIM is more akin to powering through a run of Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy. (But don’t worry, the Skip Text function is still there to help you out!)

As someone who does turn to guides frequently to find out what I’m missing on my third or fourth playthroughs of visual novels, I assumed from the start that at some point that I’d want to find a walkthrough in order to see any real endings. But the sheer charm of Etsuji’s responses and, to be completely frank, how much fun I was having just trying to scale Etsuji’s emotional mountain meant that I never really hit that point while playing. WORST DATING SIM’s distinct personality struck exactly the right chord in my brain that made me want to keep playing by myself, tunneling away at it persistently, and it made the ending(s!) feel all that much more rewarding.

WORST DATING SIM is available now for free on Itchio, and you can follow Saturn on his Itch.io or Twitter (NSFW) for updates on more potential WDS content or his other upcoming visual novels.

COMING OUT ON TOP (OBSCURASOFT)

Itchio Tagline: “The erotic comedy gay dating game that'll make [you] laugh, cry, and get a little boned up! Hot dudes included.” Genre(s): Comedy, romance. Release Date: December 10th, 2014. Content Warnings: Nudity; mentions of homophobia; sexual content; seriously there’s a lot of sex in this.

If you’ve played M/M dating sims in the English language sphere any time in the last five years, you’ve probably heard of Obscurasoft’s Coming Out On Top — drawing more from the Western tradition of porn by and for gay men than anything else, it tells the story of newly-out college senior Mark Matthews and his run-ins with hot guy after hot guy (after hot guy, after... you get the picture). With the help of his roommate Penny, he also takes on the hookup app scene and delves into a sea of bonus dates funded by Kickstarter backers, which were released steadily from January 2015 to December 2016.

Coming Out On Top’s steady stream of humor never goes so far as to be totally derailing from its focus on sexuality and Mark’s genuinely sincere approach to relationships, casual or otherwise; Obscurasoft manages to infuse the numerous sex scenes with enough awkwardness, humor, and personality that actually playing through them back-to-back feels less like a string of pinups and more like scenes Mark is actively involved in or growing from. As a character, especially one whose archetype has gotten a lot of mileage in gay porn since the dawn of mankind, it’d be narratively easy to let Mark remain a generally undefined slate for players to project themselves onto.

And while there is a degree of personalization, especially when it comes to how blatantly horned-up some of the dialogue is compared to other options the player can choose, Coming Out On Top is still very distinctly Mark’s story. His specific insecurities from years of being closeted don’t vanish as soon as he comes out, and hookups don’t always work out for him the way they might in ten minute long “first time” AVs. His grades still matter, and his friends still exist, and he’s still got his own sense of priorities the player can disregard (at their own fish-related peril) or see through on the slow climb to the end of his senior year.

Coming Out On Top is available now for $14.99 on Itch.io, and Obscurasoft’s website; to get early updates about what they’re working on next, you can follow their News & Updates blog or their Twitter.

BUTTERFLY SOUP (BRIANNA LEI)

Itchio Tagline: “Gay girls playing baseball and falling in love.” Genre(s): Comedy, slice of life. Release Date: September 16th, 2017. Content Warnings: Parental abuse; violence; racist language; homophobic language; ableist abuse and slurs.

The strength of Butterfly Soup’s personality, from beginning to end, is founded in its four point-of-view characters — kindhearted Diya, reckless Min, sharp Noelle, and carefree (?) Akarsha. As a group of ninth grade friends with different priorities and different reasons for joining their shared baseball team, which are as obvious as the hugely-varied color schemes of each girl’s clothes, they play off of one another easily. Lei uses her fair share of actual memes, but never ones that feel like the speaking character — usually Akarsha — wouldn’t say them, which holds true to the rest of Lei’s dialogue writing. It feels distinctly ninth grade without ever being mocking or trivializing the way everything is so extremely important all the time when you’re a ninth grader.

Part of that strength definitely comes from Lei’s willingness to lean on each character’s archetype and unpack it at the same time; Diya’s physical strength and sheer skill, combined with her reluctance to talk to strangers, could have easily seen her shoehorned into a much more detached character than she’s written as. Instead, she’s thoughtful, expressive, and deeply concerned with the people she cares about, even if she can’t always necessarily communicate that to them very well through her ever-present anxiety. Exactly how their own differences manifest and each of the three other girls’ reasons for being that way are slightly trending into spoiler territory, but I think Diya’s fellow main characters also each have their own similarly-smart tweaks on familiar archetypes that make their joke-filled banter all that much more personalized and memorable.

Although there’s a lot to love about the positive, hilarious moments in the protagonists’ everyday lives, one of the things that I think worked just as well narratively were the scenes that required all those content warnings up there. They're very much going to be a YMMV situation for different players, especially with my own caveat that my relationship to dysfunctional families is coming from white Irish ex-Catholicism rather than those two specific Asian cultures’ values — trying not to give any spoilers about which characters I’m referring to, here! — but in-text, they’re never situations without any future, because we can see that future where the group has each other, and they always have room in the moment to be angry, or upset, or hurt without the narrative itself punishing them for failing to be perfect. Instead, they get to play baseball and fall in love and set off fire alarms, and they do pretty okay.

Butterfly Soup is available now for free, and you can follow Brianna Lei on Itch.io, Twitter, or Tumblr to learn more about her upcoming work.

INVERNESS NIGHTS (MADELEINE)

Itchio Tagline: “Every relationship ends.” Genre(s): Historical fantasy, drama. Release Date: June 30th, 2017. Content Warnings: See Itch.io page.

There are a lot of things about Inverness Nights that worked for me in a way I don’t know that they would have in another visual novel — in particular, Tristram’s character is difficult in ways that pretty directly pertain to some of the content warnings linked above, and I was personally interested in seeing the text unpack that bit by bit. The eventual turn the story takes further on in your playtime, to try and phrase that in a way that isn’t super spoilery, was something I personally didn’t mind taking a little longer to get to.

Curious to hear what its developer Madeleine had to say about the story, their thoughts on character design, and what they’re up to next, I reached out to them for an interview!

IVAN: Thanks for having me, Madeleine! To get this conversation started, how would you sum up Inverness Nights to everyone reading this?

MADELEINE: Inverness Nights is a game about queer isolation and the importance of queer community outside of romantic relationships. Set in 18th c Scotland you play as Tristram Rose, an immortal gay man who has just broken up with his mortal boyfriend, and decide how he’ll cope with the loss as someone unable to tell the world around him that he’s magical and queer.

Sounds spot-on! And definitely a great summary of all the things that made it super appealing — to me, at least, haha. Before anything else, I want to note that it's been just about a year since you released Inverness Nights! Congratulations! How's the experience been, and what particular highlights or lowlights over the past year stand out to you?

It was good actually releasing a game, I enjoyed that part a lot! Aside from that, I really appreciated a couple of thoughtful reviews it got where people connected with it as a game where being queer is difficult, but not bleak. I think that because AAA games love tragic gay stories indie games can sometimes feel they need to be ultra-positive to balance that in the other direction, which is cool, but as someone who likes stories that’re more in-the-middle it was a gap I wanted to fill. There was a good reaction to that, albeit a quiet reaction. It’s a very ‘first game, niche game’ complaint but the lowlight would probably be that not many people played it — however, there are a lot of understandable reasons why it worked out that way so I’m not too hurt overall.

Haha, getting something finished and released is definitely a great feeling; I'm personally really glad you stepped in to fill that niche, as someone who likes things that are honest about their characters' pain without feeling exploitative or endlessly hopeless! In the fantastic (but spoiler-filled) Medium postmortem you wrote on your process, you say that "an important part of marketing visual novels is selling your characters"; the postmortem goes into that in fairly great detail, especially as it pertains to ensemble casts, but would you care to expand upon that observation in the scope of the visual novel genre (and how you're keeping it in mind for future projects) a little bit here?

People make fun of visual novels sometimes for their reliance on archetypes — you know, look up the average dating sim and you can probably tell in an instant who the bad boy is, who the smart girl is, so on — but when you’re selling a character driven game to people, you can’t give away the cast’s backstories and quirks up front or there’s nothing to play for, so you’ve got to find some sort of shorthand to suggest what an audience wants will be there, and that usually comes back to telling them which archetypes you’ve got. When I started Inverness Nights I kind of laughed at that reliance on archetypes and tried to do something different but I learnt the hard way why it’s important. At the moment I’m finishing a game called Catacomb Prince with my didn’t-quite-finish-it-for-a-jam group Skeleteam, and when our character artist Roxy was doing the designs I gave her very broad notes on who the cast were so they’d be more archetypical. Consequently we have a very recognisable cool girl/frat boy/petite NB slate of romance options that people’ve connected with waaay more easily and way faster than anyone did with the IN cast, which I think speaks to why it’s a sound approach.

I definitely agree in the importance of finding a good balance with archetypes; I've had people who've instantly bonded when I invoked "shy genius" or "lovestruck best friend", which ironically has given me a bit more of that freedom in telling their stories more uniquely! Could you shed a little light on what Catacomb Prince is, without too many spoilers, and what your storytelling influences for a visual novel like that have been?

Catacomb Prince is a Gothic comedy; you are Prince Vitali, trashy heir to a fantasy Renaissance kingdom, and you have woken up dead five years after a raging party. Your parents still expect you to inherit the throne despite your new skeletal appearance, but your kingdom’s laws require the King to be married. Find love, find your killer — or die again trying.

It’s mostly inspired by Animamundi: Dark Alchemist, which is an old kitschy BL VN about a guy named Georik taking up alchemy to make a new body for his decapitated (still living) sister while hiding his hobby from his friends. Animamundi has some very gloomy stuff happening but it’s so over-the-top about it that it loops around to being a very funny game, and I wanted more experiences like that in the world, so here we are. There’re also some aspects of other goofy Gothic stories in there, like Hammer Horror movies and EC Comics, though the romance aspect of it means it’s not all rib-ticklers all the time. We took care to make the love interests more than just fodder for jokes and/or horror. They’re complete, kissable people, with flesh and everything.

I am not doing a good job of easing up on the skeleton jokes but please believe me on that last point.

Glad to hear the love interests have skin! Not super fussed about that, personally, but I'm sure some players would have logistical concerns about things like skeleton-on-skeleton kissing. (I'd like to go on the record and say I'm pro-skeleton and extremely pro-skeleton puns, so I'm waiting with bated breath to get to play as your not-breathing protagonist.) Other than what we'll be seeing in Catacomb Prince, what kind of genres and themes are you interested in exploring more of in the future?

After Catacomb Prince I’m going to work on finishing an IF game I started last year called Captain Dracula, about being the last survivor on a submarine after your Captain reveals he’s Dracula. That’s also a comedy. I spent three years making Inverness Nights so taking a breather to make funny games for a while seemed like a good plan, and I’m really into classic horror, so I’ve gravitated in that direction with it. I’ve also got a regular no-pictures no-choices fantasy novel I’m several drafts through at the moment which I’ll hopefully be releasing later this year. Once those’re off my plate, I’m keen to try making either an 80 Days-style narrative travel game or a Clock Tower-style point-and-click horror for a change of pace. I want to do something that’s more about exploring a place; I do academic stuff as well as indie development and all my academic work has been on how we explore places in games, so it feels weird that I haven’t made anything that utilises my research.

It sounds like you've got a lot coming up! I'm looking forward to seeing how you can combine your academic studies with your fiction work, which already have such strong settings of place from the get-go. And last but not least, what LGBTQ visual novels from other developers would you like to recommend?

It's IF rather than a VN but I love Heart of the House by Nissa Campbell, which is a Gothic game about an exorcist trying to remove an evil presence from a Victorian manor house, and maybe also wooing some of its residents. It’s very atmospheric and you can be NB, two things I like a lot. With caveats I’m also really keen on Animamundi (like I mentioned earlier — fun, funny MLM but warning for violent horror elements and sexual abuse), and The House in Fata Morgana (a dark romance about a trans man trying to rescue his girlfriend from a cursed manor, there’s an extensive content warning list on its website). Lastly, on the lighter side, Butterfly Soup and The Duenkhy are both good VNs about queer people making friends :) probably play them when you need to smile after all the grimmer suggestions I’ve made.

Awesome — and thanks again for your time, Madeleine! It was a pleasure.

Inverness Nights is available now for $12 USD, and you can follow Madeleine on Twitter or Itch.io to keep up with all the skeleton romances and Dracula adventures they're setting their sights on next!

Thanks to everyone who read this far! Keep an eye on the Twitter thread or this blog for tomorrow’s post, where I’ll be talking about four more visual novels that I think do some crafty things with their creative design!