#because you actually feel the interactions of what is displayed on screen

[girl4music]

WAVERLY: “Even though you were in the thrall of a powerful, super-evil demon and her unearthly baked goods, you said…”

NICOLE: “I said… that you are the only luscious, funny, hot as hell baby that I need. And she got super pissed and threw me into the dresser and that’s when the ring fell.”

WAVERLY: “And it burned her?”

NICOLE: “Yeah. Then she got even more pissed and tossed me into the closet. Ironically.”

WAVERLY: “Ugh.”

NICOLE: “Hey, she’s gone now. That’s what’s important, right?”

WAVERLY: “Right. But the ring coming back to you was…”

NICOLE: “Yeah, kind of creepy boomerang vibe.”

WAVERLY: “Mm. But it kept you safe from her. I’m sorry. Sometimes things are so completely nuts. And you, you… Well, you seem okay. And sane. Safe. So I forget to give you the completely-nuts update.”

NICOLE: “Yeah. How about you just… update me later, okay?”

You’re all nuts. So you all need to keep each other in the know-how of the nuttiest updates. Stop hiding things from each other. It’s never a good thing. Even when it’s out of love or the need to protect each other.

Be transparent. You’re all warriors. Proven many many many times. You can handle the pain of the truth. So always give each other the cold hard truth. No matter how much it hurts - because when you have each other, the hurt can be comforted and the wounds made from it can heal. That’s what it means to love.

[arthenaa]

ikaw at ikaw (only you) — mizu x f!reader

synopsis: 4 times your team lead chose you and 1 time you chose her.

content: modern!au, office romance, you and mizu are creatives, specifically in the character and concept design department in a very very famous gaming company (take a guess), she is your creative director and lead designer and you are the concept artist, 4+1 format, FLUFF, work relations, dynamic, and position might not be accurate, forgive me, this is basically just me projecting yet again.

a/n: this is requested by @andieperrie18 ! the answer shit isn't letting me edit my answer so ill be @-ing you here. TYSM FOR ENJOYING MY WORKS !! means a lot ... u also chose pasilyo 🥹🥹🥹🥹 sunkissed lola is the best

1.

Being part of the creatives team was a nightmare.

To tell you the truth, the position for a Concept Artist with a specialty in 2D design wasn't actually all that bad. The monthly benefits and wage were something you're quite lucky to receive considering the constant side eye other departments have with the admin's treatment of the artist employees. This was also your dream job—having had to play their games, specifically, VALORANT, left you in awe and gearing to apply once you were ready for an Internship. After your OJT course, you were accepted for a position in Character and Concept Design and are considered one of the team's most beloved artists (Your followers on Twitter reckon so).

In short, the work environment was great. A solid 15/10 experience—I mean how can you beat a company that caters not only to you as an artist but also as a player? Nothing can beat that feeling of satisfaction once you see your work displayed on various monitors all around the world.

It was more of ... the relationships and interactions with that work space environment that left you grasping at a chance to breathe.

People think you're overreacting but you think it's completely reasonable.

"Yes, you are overreacting."

Your face falls at Taigen's words—watching as he plays a round of unrated in the company's leisure space decked with state of the art PC builds that could definitely beat your poor touchscreen fridge with just a move of its mouse. You could hear the familiar voicelines of Jett from VALORANT as he uses the character's abilities to swiftly enter the site and take a hold of the defenders' positions.

Taigen is part of the Gaming Development Department in the VALORANT Team. He often does routine user gameplay checks and one of its perks is that you literally just have to play the game and get paid for it. You think its unfair but then again, its Taigen. He's always unfair.

"I think you're just saying that to be mean," You frowned, eyes trained on his face—the lights reflecting back on his stupid, stupid, clear-skinned face. Taigen rolls his eyes but not an ounce of his focus leaves the game.

"Being honest equals to being mean, got it." Taigen's voice comes out in a sarcastic tone. You kick a speck of dust on the cement floor, twirling in the gaming chair you're seated on.

"I just think its a reasonable thing to complain about!" You throw your hands in the air in an attempt to get him to look at your side of things. "You're completely unfazed because your team lead has the patience of a mother with 7 kids."

You hear the familiar cue of an ACE kill as Taigen hits a headshot on the last player. The game's interface shifts to the winner screen and finally, he turns to you, pulling his headphones off and giving his best deadpan stare.

"You're freaking out over Mizu sighing over your concept design proposal for Neon and overanalyzed even the way she drank her coffee because you're obsessed with her like that." Taigen arches his eyebrow to make the situation all the more ridiculous. Your mouth closes and opens like a fish out of water. "Am I right? Wait no, don't answer that. I know I am."

"What the fuck?" Your voice comes out in a desperate attempt of self-defence but it ultimately just sounds defeated. Taigen chuckles as he turns back to his monitor to take a look at the game stats.

"Look," Taigen tries to be empathetic but you're pretty sure this is just to get you off his back. The queue for competitive is already up and running. "As your friend, I say this with the love that I have for you and your works but please, Mizu is just one woman. If my mind process went like yours, I would've assumed Akemi hated my very existence and this is coming from someone who IS dating Akemi."

You purse your lips in thought as he raises his eyebrows in exaggeration. You're not exactly sure why you approached Taigen with this problem but he was the only familiar face that you saw after walking out of the meeting room in a hurry.

But then the question in this situation is who exactly is Mizu?

Well, there were a lot of things you could associate with the familiar blue-eyed director. Mizu is your boss—the creative director for Concept and Character design for the VALORANT team. She oversees character ideas, map visuals, detailing, and the final approval for character and asset ideation before it's sent for building in the 3D and VFX departments. She is your employer but you can also consider her your friend, albeit a highly respected one (she did the character design for Jett and Yoru).

It's not that you were obsessed—Taigen is wrong, he's always wrong—it was definitely because you respected her very much. Being a Riot Design Lead is basically fucking God. You create and give life to ideas. She's part of the original team that worked on the pre-release of VALORANT during its early stages and got to see the whole thing unfold. Something you wished to see back then but glad that you were able to become part of the journey despite being a few patches late.

You respected her enough to always want to be on her good side. I mean, who wouldn't? She's talented and very... youthful-looking and one of Riot's youngest leads, you honestly think that being worried over her approval like this is just a matter of respect and definitely NOT obsession.

"You're doing that thing where you space out and I have to assume that it's probably because of Mizu, yeah?" Taigen's voice intercepts your reprieve and suddenly, a curl of your eyebrows creates a look of annoyance on your face.

"I am not obssesed with Mizu," You reiterate, but this time with your mouth. "I just... respect her."

Taigen leans back on his gaming chair, nodding as if you just told him that he didn't need to double double-click everything.

"That's the most unbelievable shit I've heard today," Taigen finally replies with a scrunch of his nose. Your jaw falls open.

"I do not!"

"Do too."

"Do not."

"Do too!"

"Do fucking not—Stop it."

Taigen purses his lips, and makes a motion of zipping his mouth and shaking his head. You huff in anger. Taigen was never going to believe you.

Just as you were about to chastise him again for being mistaken, a knock on the glass doors notifies you of a new presence. You turn by instinct and your eyes widen in shock and probably, dread—who knows.

"There you are," Mizu's voice filters through your ears like classical music on a good Friday evening. You stammer slightly as she enters the area, eyes trained on you through those tinted orange specs. Mizu momentarily greets Taigen who only raises his hand in greeting before turning towards the screen (only you can see through your peripheral vision that this motherfucker is laughing). "I've been looking for you."

"You did?" Your voice comes off quiet. Mizu furrows her eyebrows.

"Uh, yeah?" She replies with a confused tone. "I had your concept design for Neon approved, it was more direct compared to Matt's. I wanted to tell you in person since you just bolted from the meeting room."

You fall silent at her words. She looks a bit concerned as you try to make sense of the information.

"You seem in shock—Are you okay?" Mizu asks, eyes glancing towards Taigen who looks at her before shrugging.

You feel your heart speed up. You momentarily calm yourself before finally responding. "Y-Yeah, sorry. Just didn't think that you'd approve it."

Mizu tilts her head like a fucking cat and you're quite sure you would drop dead then and there. "Why not? It's your work."

You're not sure what she means by that but a sudden shiver runs through your veins at her praise and suddenly your cheeks are flushing.

"Ah," You're voice fills in the silence, awkward and quiet. "Thank you?"

There's a pause of silence before Mizu chuckles. She heaves a breath before pulling the glass door open.

"I'll see you at my office, Y/N." She smiles. "Great work."

The silence further pushes you into the void as you and Taigen watch her exit and disappear into another hallway through the glass windows. Just as you were a few minutes ago, you lean forward to slouch over your knees, hands on your face as you meltdown from what just happened. You hear Taigen chuckle beside you.

"Give it a few more months and she'll give you a ring on your finger with a bent knee on the ground."

You sob into your hands as Taigen erupts in heaps of laughter.

Oh my fucking God.

2.

The release for Neon was a hit. An all-time new duelist originating from the Philippines, your concept design took off without a hitch. It's safe to say that your hard work paid off as you stood over the central common room—leisure areas decked with your coworkers trying out and celebrating the release. A sense of satisfaction fills you.

"I hear you spearheaded the design concept for Neon," A voice infiltrates your sense like a lure. You can't help but smile at its familiarity. Akemi wraps her arms around your waist, chin on your shoulder as she continues. "Marketing was thrilled with the positive response. Good job."

You turn around, her arms loosely accommodating you. "Akemi," you coo.

The girl grins wide and pulls you into a hug. You return the affection in a grander gesture of squeezing her tight against you.

Akemi's part of the Marketing Department for Riot. While she often creates publication material for VALORANT, she also has cross work with League of Legends for its various strategic releases (ie. KDA).

"I just want to say that I already predicted Neon would be a sure hit, it's your work after all," Akemi pulls away from the hug with a smug smile. She grabs your hands in hers, swinging them slowly. "Marketing it was like a breeze in the park."

You laugh softly at her enthusiasm. "You give me way too much credit."

Akemi rolls her eyes affectionately. "Humility is a disease—live a little."

You shake your head at her quips, opting to smile in response. A member of your team passes by, eyes widening in recognition of you before giving you a thumbs up. Akemi watches the interaction—eyes trained on that person's figure as they walked towards Mizu who was busy talking to other creative team leads. Your eyebrows furrow in confusion at her prolonged silence.

"Who are you—?" Your words trail off as you turn to look at what she's so focused on before turning back at the sight of Mizu. "Nevermind."

Akemi raises her eyebrow with an amused look on her face. "Taigen always has a penchant for exaggerating but I didn't think it was this bad?"

Your face falls at the information. "Taigen told you?"

Akemi gives you a 'duh' look—eyebrows raised and eyes half-lidded. "Taigen's a loose lock if you pry hard enough. He basically can never keep a secret."

You give her a deadpan stare before shifting in your position. Akemi crosses her arms over her chest as she eyes you up and down—filled to the brim with amusement. "I'm fine, stop making a big deal out of it."

"Uh huh," Akemi squints her eyes playfully. You could only glare back in response.

The loud cheering at the front catches your attention as resident workers, interns, and newbies alike begin to tune in at the commotion. Akemi and you move to the sidelines, eyebrows furrowed in confusion as you tried to find out what's happening.

"What's happening?" You ask the person to your front. He turns, eyes beaming with excitement.

"The creative director for C&C got pulled in a 1v1. They're playing against Beckham."

Your breath hitches at the information. Akemi nudges you with her elbow, overhearing the conversation. The two of you move to the side, finally getting a glimpse of the two team leads focused on a custom game of VALORANT. Your eyes zone in on familiar raven locks seated on the right monitor.

A live stream of their game is projected on the monitor up front and suddenly you feel sick from the amount of butterflies fluttering in your stomach.

She's playing Neon. The character you designed.

Oh God. You watched her take kill after kill, headshot after headshot as she sprinted across the map—zapping characters with Neon's electric abilities. You've never seen someone look so fucking hot playing an FPS game before. It's doing things to your brain.

Just as you expected, the winning banner appears on Mizu's screen and the C&C Team erupts in cheers. You become entranced at the sight—a few of your co-workers patting her on the back before she erupts in smiles and laughs. This is not healthy for your heart.

And just as you think the night couldn't get any better, one of the people from the Marketing departments begins stirring up an interview.

"What made you choose Neon on the character pick? You usually go for Sentinels, no?"

Your eyes meet and suddenly you could feel your heart skip a few beats. Mizu chuckles.

"Wanted to do a duelist around for a spin," Mizu replies. "The design and character visuals for Neon was amazing and I ought to pay the artist who did it a homage."

Suddenly all eyes are on you—some of them even "ooh-ing" for being praised by Mizu. You pale at the attention before doing a hesitant bow in gratitude.

Mizu pulls the headphones off her head and smiles. "Congrats, Y/N. Hope you liked the win."

You feel Akemi stir up beside you, chuckling at the interaction.

You're going to die. You can feel it and its all because of your boss.

3.

Okay, maybe admitting that you were a little bit obsessed and crushing over your employer was a bit overdue. You weren't exactly the type to parade your feelings around the office but if people were to zone in on you acting sheepish and awkward around Mizu, there was a 55% chance that you could tell based on that alone.

It wasn't like your admiration for Mizu started on a whim. As said countless and countless times, it had a foundation of respect until Mizu started trying to get to know and interact with you and those same feelings of admiration started to change. What else were you supposed to do? Mizu is a fucking all-in-one holiday basket—you didn't have it in you to resist the charms.

It also didn't help that over the past few days, Mizu seems to have her undivided attention on you. Showering you with praises, asking if you wanna spearhead a certain project, revel in your work—all that shit. It's messing with your productivity and mindset and that's not a good idea.

The Head Director for the VALORANT Team had decided to call a night out for drinking to reward the team for the positive feedback for the latest patch. You were quite thankful for the opportunity as this was a way for you to get a moment of rest from Mizu's constant attention. Not that you were complaining, it's just a little... too much.

You were seated at the far right booth of the restaurant, keeping to yourself as you watched Ringo and Taigen begin to have a debate about team composition. Akemi grumbles beside you, clearly not enjoying whatever the fuck these two were talking about.

"Look," Taigen holds his hands out in front of him, trying to make a point. "All I'm saying is if you keep putting DPS builds on your team comp, how in the hell will you be able to maximize their kit? Supports are there for a reason."

Ringo rolls his eyes. "It's called enjoying the game, Taigen. So what if I want to put dick 1, dick 2, and dick 3, together?"

Taigen's jaw drops. "Do you know how much skill point dependent they are? I'm even surprised you could bust a skill out." The raven haired man pauses before continuing with a face contorted in disgust. "And stop calling them dick 1,2,3? It's Dan Heng, Blade, and Jing Yuan."

"Of course you'd police that as well. You look like that fucking emoji." Ringo raises his prosthetic hand, imitating pushing up a pair of glasses. "Um, actually—"

"You are as annoying as my grandmother, do you know that?" Taigen snarls, eyes pulled into a glare. Your tall huggable co-worker only grins and bats his eyelashes.

You begin to tune out the two as Akemi excuses herself to take a cigarette break—already having enough of their banter. You eye the glass of beer in front of you, watching as the liquid sloshes around with each twirl of your wrist.

You had hoped to end the night with silence but alas, you can never get everything that you wanted. You feel a pair of eyes on you—direct and unashamed. Already having a feeling on who this was, you looked up and met the reflection of the ocean.

'You okay?' She mouths, concern overflowing her features. It's subtle enough for people to not notice her sudden shift of attention but enough for you to understand her. Your cheeks flush as you nod back with the same softness that she had thrown your way.

She nods in understanding, sending a soft smile your way before turning back towards her conversation with the Head. You hang your head down, wishing that the night would end faster so that you can finally have the moment of peace you have been wanting ever since this morning.

It was as if the world decided to cast hell upon you and revoked you of your rights to peace at the arrival of yet another problem.

"L/N!" The Head Director's voice encompassed the whole area—eyes turning towards him then at you in amusement. "You're one of the star employees and yet you haven't touched a single speck on that glass of yours!"

His hearty laughter follows—giggles and cheering from you co-workers following suite. You sweat drop, eyes darting to Taigen and Ringo who both looked away at your glare before turning towards the window where Akemi sends you a gracious thumbs up, a cigarette hanging from her lips. You groan.

"I-I'm fine," You wave your hand, laughing it off. Your eyes connect with Mizu, an unreadable look on her face as she takes a sip of her chosen beverage.

God decides to punish you more as the team lead beside Mizu chimes in. "Oh c'mon! You're a great asset to the company! I suggest drink up!"

One of your team members passes a full pint of beer as the others begin to urge you to drink up. You hadn't felt the intensity of peer pressure ever since your dance recital on 10th grade and that wasn't even as half bad as this. You weren't feeling on drinking yourself to death as well so trying to down a full pint of beer was a ticket for you to the afterlife (ie. you on your bed with puke all over the floors). The previous pint you had was enough.

You tried to decline as humbly as you could, afraid that this might be the instance that you could finally be fired off from Riot. You knew that if they kept pushing a 3rd more of their attempts that you'd probably give in for the sake of never doing this again but while the need hasn't yet arisen, you'll try fighting off the urge to be a people-pleaser.

Just as you finally begin to decline for the nth time, a hand emerges to your right—pushing the pint of beer in your co-worker's hands. The table falls silent. Your breath falters as the familiar scent of lavender and probably a hint of sunlight begins to seep in from behind you.

"Stop pressuring her like that," Mizu's voice sounds so close —your heart hammering off your chest. Your co-worker gives Mizu a sheepish smile.

"C'mon Mizu, let your team live a little!" The Head laughs once more before leaning forward with a smug smirk. "Unless you'll save this one yet again?"

There's a pause of silence as your co-workers darted between them—back and forth. You feel Mizu sigh behind you before her arms encase you against the table, one arm placed on the beside you each. Your breath hitches.

"Sorry," She mutters as she reaches for the pint. You stammer, turning towards her as you reach out to her wrist by instinct. Mizu blinks with her eyes wide open, suddenly surprised by your actions.

"Y-you don't have to!" You murmured, trying to keep your voice low. Mizu's eyes are unreadable. "You don't drink—!"

The woman chuckles before patting your hand and gently pulling herself off your grasp. "It's okay." She says.

You watch with stammering breath as she gulps the pint in one go, others cheering as she did. The Head claps.

"Didn't expect to see Mizu downing a beer today but here we are," The man bellows in laughter. Mizu chuckles, wiping the residue off her lips. You could only stare at her in shock.

Mizu glances down at you with a smile before patting your head then walking off. Your gaze trails on her and somehow the hammering within you becomes all the more intense.

Oh, Lord.

4.

It was supposed to just be a little game—a past time that the others decided to force you along. You really had no qualms joining games like this but if it concerns the people around you, especially in your work place, somehow you feel the risk of being outed for liking someone in you work space.

"If you guys wanted to date someone in the office, who'd you pick?" Ise leans forward, eyes squinted as she gives you and Akemi a smirk. The three of you were currently lounging in the cafeteria during you lunch break. There weren't many people present due an event going on in one of the building's sectors, so having a conversation like this somehow was less anxiety inducing.

"Taigen, unfortunately," Akemi deadpans. Ise rolls her eyes.

"I mean! Besides him," Ise whispers excitedly. "There's a newbie from marketing that looks cute but kinda quiet, maybe he's nice."

"You mean Takayoshi?" Akemi raises an eyebrow as she takes a sip of her tea. You glance back and forth between them.

"Is that his name?" Ise watches Akemi nod in response. "Well, I'll just have to go get his number then."

Akemi shakes her head at Ise's musings and you had hoped that the conversation would end there, but Ise suddenly turns to you with that mischievous look in her eye.

"What?" You whisper out, eyebrows furrowed in innocence. Akemi side glances you, the corners of her lips upturned in a smile. God, she was enjoying this too.

"What about you, Y/N?" Ise props her arm on the table, placing her cheek on her palm. "Got someone you're interested in?"

You avoid eye contact. "No."

Ise leans forward with a gasp. "You do!"

"I don't!" You reiterate with urgency. You turn to Akemi with a frantic stare. "Tell her I don't."

Ise turns to Akemi who smiles. "She doesn't."

"Bullshit." Ise deadpans. "The moment I'd believe Akemi with a smile on her face is the moment I'd die," Akemi flashes her middle finger at her to which Ise returns generously. Finally, the girl turns to you—chair scooted over to your right as she flashes you her doe eyes. "So? Who is it?"

You Akemi chuckle against her cup as you stammer in front of Ise. "I don't really like someone though?"

"Lies," Ise declares. "We might not be that close but you got that twitch in your eye that already tells me something. Who is it?"

"Ise," You plead, eyes darting around the space. Somehow, saying it out loud meant that you're solidifying the fact that you liked Mizu—an occurrence you'd like to keep to yourself as much as possible. You loved Ise, you really do. You worked with her hand in hand in bringing Neon to life (You worked on her design while she worked on the 3D build) and have become tremendously grateful for her critique and contributions to your work. But this, this was something else. You could feel your heart speed up as she started listing some names.

"Is it Beckham? That piece of shit always too full himself." Ise places a hand on her chin in thought. "Or Ringo? Nah, he's way too focused on content map-building."

There's a pause of silence before an 'aha!' look spreads through her face. You prayed that she would get it wrong but this is Ise we're talking about.

"Is it perhaps," Ise pauses, eyes darting all over your face. "Mizu—"

"What about me?"

The three of you tense, eyes darting behind you as you turn to find the familiar stance of your boss. She leans forward, a hand on the back of your chair as she gives the three of you a curious glance. You hadn't heard her at all, and something about Ise's frantic glance towards you says she didn't expect the same thing as well.

"W-we we're just listing people we found attractive," Ise laughs uncomfortably under Mizu's stare. The creative director glances at Akemi who raises an eyebrow at her. Somehow there was a silent conversation going on between the two that left you confused.

"Really?" Mizu asks, the ends of her words trailing off as she glances back at Ise. "Who said I was attractive?"

"It was Y/—"

"NO ONE!" You exclaimed, cutting Ise off with a jump. You flush under Mizu's wide gazed, surprised at your interference. Somehow, the way you said it implied that no one found her attractive at all, and that was way too wrong so you caught yourself before you delved into a pit of despair. "I mean, w-we haven't started and was just listing people off."

Mizu nods slowly in understanding, eyes examining your face for any slip-ups. You looked away from the intensity.

Ise finally saves your ass. "Yeah. What she said."

"What about you, Director?" Akemi chimes in from your left and both you and Ise turn to her with wide gazes. She simply smiles over her cup, face contorted in a mischievous look. You couldn't read Mizu at all. You had expected Akemi to drop it—after all, she wasn't even joining in on Ise's incessant need to know everything about everyone. "Who do you find the most attractive in this office, hm?"

You can feel Mizu shifting behind you before a chuckle pulls out from her lips. You turn towards her in curiosity as she flashes a smile towards you.

"I'd pick Y/N, of course,"

Huh?

Akemi rolls her eyes, somehow already expecting the answer. Your jaw drops at her response as Mizu turns to Ise who already has a knowing look on her face.

"She's just that reliable," Mizu looks back down towards you, those shades of blue peeking from her tinted glasses. She pinches your cheek in a flash before pulling away. "Cute too."

You turn away, afraid that the flush on your cheeks might've given you away.

"Anyways, I just dropped by to see what's happening outside the event," Mizu sighs, pushing her glasses back up the bridge of her nose. "I'll see you girls around."

Your interactions always end up one sided somehow. She gives and then leaves—resulting in you malfunctioning from whatever she's left for you to deal with.

Ise turns to you with a mischievous grin when Mizu finally turns the corner. "You and the Director huh?"

"Shut up, oh my God."

+1

"Why do you always do stuff like that?"

"Like what?"

"Like you're not leaving me any room to process the shit you do?"

Mizu lets out quiet laughs from beside you. 10:47 pm. Normally, work hours in the office end at about 9 but you've learned that staying late is where the good things happen.

"I literally just told you 'good job' the other day and you malfunctioned in front of me," Mizu giggles, leaning forward as she tapped you on the nose with the pen to her digital tablet. "And I heard everything by the way. Quite adorable of you to deny everything."

You flush under her affectionate gaze. "Everyone's so gossipy. You can't blame me."

Mizu turns her chair towards you, arms reach out to take a hold of your own before pulling them close to her side. You lean back at her sudden proximity.

"Well you can't blame me either when you're this adorable," Mizu grins. You furrow your eyebrows, finally leaning close as you cupped her cheeks within your palms.

"You even drank beer," You whisper, tone apologetic. "You don't even like alcohol."

Mizu leans into your touch. "And you don't like being pressured into something you don't want to do. I can sacrifice a little bit of something I don't like just for you."

You melt at her words, eyes darting over her softened features. "Thank you," You whisper, grateful.

"Anything for my girlfriend," Mizu teases. You roll your eyes before pulling her into a soft kiss. She kisses back instantly, hands gripping the arm chair as you take lead of the kiss. After a few pecks and chaste kisses here and there, you finally pull back—reveling in the soft flush across Mizu's cheeks.

"Also," You chime in. Mizu raises an eyebrow. "I was the one who pursued, not you. Correct that when they catch on."

Mizu chuckles at your words. "Right on. Akemi threatened me the other day, saying something like, 'I forbid you from dating Y/N Y/L/N, Mizu Tagawa!' Funniest shit, I've heard. If only she knew."

You pinch her cheeks, giggling at her words. "Of course, she's say that."

There's a pause of silence before Mizu turns to her work, a sketch of VALORANT's newest agent displayed on screen.

"Want to help me with the new guy?" She nudges towards the screen. "Heard he's French."

You turn to her monitor, dozens of details sketched on the edges with a version of her idea of the new agent. You grin, placing a kiss on her cheek.

"You could've just asked me to marry you." You tease. "Also, sure."

You turn towards the table and pulled her tablet towards you. Mizu scoffs as you take over her work.

"And if I actually did?"

"Sure, Mizu, sure."

"I'm serious!"

a/n: hey guys!!! this was so fun to write and honestly i was just inspired to do this request bc ive been drafting an office romance for mizu after the roommate thing. hope yall enjoyed ! if yall arent familiar with valorant, here are the agents mentioned or referenced (neon & chamber (french guy)). also mizu's last name is derived from master eiji's va! cary-hiroyuki tagawa!

[lostyesterday]

As a visually disabled person myself, one thing I wish TNG had done with Geordi is show his disability actually affecting how he functions in his daily life. For example, I can’t remember a single time in TNG where Geordi is shown as needing accommodations in his work environment. You might say that’s because his visor means that he can basically “see” normally and so he wouldn’t need accommodations, but I find this explanation frustrating.

For one thing, real life visually disabled people absolutely require accommodations to do most jobs, so if Geordi’s meant to be any kind of accurate reflection of the experiences of blind people, he should require some accommodations. For me at least, it isn’t some kind of wish fulfillment fantasy to see a visually disabled character who can do anything a sighted person can with no accommodations whatsoever. Instead, it feels like a denial of everything that being disabled has meant to me over my life. Disabled people are disabled. We have more difficulty doing certain tasks than an able-bodied person would – that’s what makes us disabled. We require changes to our environment in order to function well.

Also, literally just based on the in-universe information given about Geordi’s visor, it doesn’t make any sense to me that he wouldn’t require accommodations. Geordi’s visor is not really described as simulating vision, it is described as providing completely different sensory information about the physical properties of the world around him. I like to imagine the visor’s input as a kind of enhanced spatial awareness with a precise knowledge of where certain objects are, what their shape is, and what they’re made of. As TNG mentions several times, Geordi’s visor provides much more information than human eyes do, but, importantly, in the few episodes where the details of how Geordi’s visor works are discussed at all, it’s never described as providing purely visual information such as the color or reflectiveness of an object. I think that if Geordi faces a mirror, his visor will tell him there’s a piece of glass in front of him and he’ll know about how large it is and what material it’s made of, but he won’t be able to see his reflection in it, because the visor doesn’t provide that kind of visual information. This distinction is important to me, because it means that Geordi is still functionally blind with the visor, and it should mean that he interacts with the world differently from a sighted person.

For example, I would have loved if Geordi had been shown to be unable to recognize particular people until they spoke. All his visor tells him is that there’s a person in front of him and about what size and shape they are, but this isn’t generally enough information to determine a person’s identity. He canonically perceives Data as looking very different from an organic person which makes sense because Data is made of fully different material. And maybe Geordi can generally tell different species apart based on different body temperatures or something like that. But I really wish that Geordi had been shown at least a few times to need the sound of a person’s voice or some other cue to tell him who they were.

I also think it doesn’t make sense that Geordi can apparently read text on computer screens. How can he read if the visor doesn’t really provide visual information? A computer screen should just register as a flat piece of material. Geordi should have required some kind of accommodation to be able to use the computer screens. For example, maybe Geordi could use the computer entirely through voice commands, something that obviously already exists in the star trek world. Or he could use some kind of tactile display. The Voyager episode The Year of Hell shows that computer terminals on starships are able to utilize a tactile display that I’m guessing is somewhat similar to braille. I loved this mention in Voyager of tactile displays, because it indicates that Starfleet ships are probably automatically equipped with such accessibility devices. Geordi needing an accommodation as small as this would have gone really far in terms of making him feel like a genuine representation of a disabled character, at least to me.

[total-drama-brainrot]

Island Assistant Noah AU, Noah stays Chris' Assistant all throughout Island + Action + World Tour... How would this version of Assistant Noah react to Alejandro's flirting?... Would Alejandro be amused, when he later learns that Noah got himself eliminated ON PURPOSE in Season 1, and Noah became 'Chris Mclean's Assistant' as a punishment? 😎

Well, honestly I imagine most versions of Noah would react to flirting with the same level of scepticism and mistrust- he's not exactly a catch, and he's aware of the fact. Having someone as conventionally attractive and evidently conniving as Alejandro display interest in someone as not those things as Noah is would be a major warning flag for anyone with any semblance of sense.

Of course, Alejandro's interest was initially a ploy to try and weasel out information from Chris' personal assistant- someone who's high enough in the pecking order of internship to at least have some rudimentary knowledge on the oncoming challenges, but unimportant enough to fly under the radar when it comes to helping the competitors- but after Noah's initial refusal, Alejandro finds himself genuinely interested in him, at least in the same curious way a scientist regards an outlying factor in their studies. Mostly because Alejandro's very much so not used to being spurned, so Noah's blatant dislike of him is enough to fuel his curiosity (similarly to how Heather's hostility to him piqued Alejandro's interest in canon).

So he goes out of his way to bother Noah at any given opportunity. Not that it's hard; due to Noah's job he's practically always somewhere on the jet, since it'd be pretty hard to, you know, personally assist someone without being in their vicinity. Noah's disgruntlement with the constant flirting isn't quite enough to warrant him putting in the effort to avoid Alejandro, however, so the two of them consequently end up spending a lot of time together. Most of which is Alejandro trying and failing to fluster Noah, or otherwise pry competition-valuable information from him. Or, as their conversations become more frequent, he tries to get Noah to disclose something about himself that isn't already apparent- to very little success. Alejandro does find out that Noah's oddly touchy about his position as Chris' PA, though, and stores away that little tid bit of information to exploit later.

Alejandro inevitably finds himself almost enamoured by Noah's caginess and his dry wit. He's surprised to find that he actually enjoys Noah's company, even when it doesn't offer him any of the advantages he initially sought out the assistant for, which is such a novel concept for him. So of course he resolves to spend more time around Noah, to try and figure out what this feeling is, and if it'll affect his stance in the competition- not at all because he wants to spend more time around the cynic, obviously.

And he inevitably becomes more and more comfortable around Noah's stoic bluntness, so much so that he starts showing hints of his true colours around Noah. To the point where the bookworm's initial distaste for Alejandro begins to thaw under the warmth of his actual personality, instead of the coldness of his "perfect Burromuerto" mask. (This is the part where mutual feelings begin to blossom, if you couldn't tell.)

Alejandro ends up spending more time with the off-screen assistant than he does with the entirety of his actual team, which grates on the producer's nerves since they don't have a lot of non-challenge footage of their main antagonist (outside of his frequent use of the confessional, that is). So, he's asked to spend less time around Know-it-all Noah and more time around his actual team, so they have some footage to work with, as Noah's PA contract prevents them from using "unnecessary footage" of him on the show; since he doesn't interact with anyone during challenges or plot-relevant moments, the editors are practically forbidden from using any of the footage Noah is in. Alejandro reluctantly complies.

And it's during this enforced bonding time with his team that the topic of Noah comes up. Owen's the one who initially comments about Alejandro spending a lot of him with his "little buddy", which absolutely doesn't (does) spark an ember of possessive jealousy within Alejandro, prompting him to ask how Owen's so familiar with Noah if he's not even supposed to interact with the contestants. Owen reveals that Noah was a contestant, at least for a little bit, before he was eliminated early in Island.

Alejandro's interest in Noah and the mysteries around him skyrockets. As a former contestant and, apparently, someone who's familiar with pretty much all of his competitors, Noah has even more potential to supply him with valuable information that would assist him in winning the million. He later chases down the cynic and confronts him about his extremely limited time on the Island, to which Noah is initially evasive about, before he- in a ticked off outburst, since Alejandro just won't drop the subject- admits that he got himself eliminated on purpose and working as Chris' PA is pretty much just his punishment for doing so.

And Alejandro's curiosity turns into confusion. Why would Noah intentionally have himself eliminated from the competition when a million dollars is on the line? Noah quickly corrects him that, in the first season, the prize money was a measly 100k, and then proceeds to explain exactly why and how he got himself booted from Camp Wawanakwa- Alejandro watches the annoyance on Noah's face gradually soften out into a smug sort of pride as he recalls his past endeavours. Then that pride is quickly wiped away by a bitter sourness as Noah recounts how his stunt essentially trapped him under the employment of Total Drama, namely Chris McLean.

But Alejandro's still caught up in the glimpse he got of Noah's scheming potential. The glee he saw in the other's eyes as he explained how easy it was to rile up his former teammates enough to vote him from the island, how just a few carefully worded comments were all it took to grant Noah an extended vacation at a five star resort.

Dots are connected; Alejandro suddenly understands why Noah's so resistant to his manipulative efforts, why Noah always seemed to clock exactly what he was attempting to do and shut it down with cold indifference or a snarky comment. The pessimist before him was his equal, at least in terms of strategy. Though how he applied his trickster mindset was a little unconventional. The archvillain is more than intrigued by now, he's utterly smitten... with the idea of having Noah as his "right hand man". Nothing more.

Alejandro's left to wonder just how much more he could accomplish within the confines of the jet if he had Noah's brilliant mind assisting him in his schemes.

[samflir]

What makes a good boot sequence?

A while ago, I had my first truly viral post on Mastodon. It was this:

You might've seen it. It got almost four hundred boosts and reached beyond Mastodon to reddit and even 4chan. I even saw an edit with a spinning frog on the left screen. I knew the post would go down well with tech.lgbt but I never expected it to blow up the way it did.

I tried my best to express succinctly exactly what it is I miss about BIOS motherboards in the age of UEFI in this picture. I think looking at a logo and spinner/loading bar is boring compared to seeing a bunch of status messages scroll up the screen indicating hardware being activated, services being started up and tasks being run. It takes the soul out of a computer when it hides its computeriness.

I think a lot of people misunderstood my post as expressing a practical preference over an aesthetic one, and there was at least a few thinking this was a Linux fanboy post, which it certainly is not. So here's the long version of a meme I made lol.

Stages

I remember using two family desktop computers before moving over a family laptop. One ran Windows XP and the other ran Windows 7. Both were of the BIOS era, which meant that when booting, they displayed some status information in white on black with a blinking cursor before loading the operating system. On the XP machine, I spent longer in this liminal space because it dual-booted. I needed to select Windows XP from a list of Linux distros when booting it.

I've always liked this. Even as a very little kid I had some sense that what I was seeing was a look back into the history of computing. It felt like a look "behind the scenes" of the main GUI-based operating system into something more primitive. This made computers even more interesting than they already were, to me.

Sequences

The way old computers booted was appealing to my love of all kinds of fixed, repeating sequences. I never skip the intros to TV shows and I get annoyed when my local cinema forgets to show the BBFC ratings card immediately before the film, even though doing so is totally pointless and it's kinda strange that they do that in the first place. Can you tell I'm autistic?

Booting the windows 7 computer would involve this sequence of distinct stages: BIOS white text -> Windows 7 logo with "starting windows" below in the wrong aspect ratio -> switch to correct resolution with loading spinner on the screen -> login screen.

Skipping any would feel wrong to me because it's missing a step in one of those fixed sequences I love so much. And every computer that doesn't start with BIOS diagnostic messages is sadly missing that step to my brain, and feels off.

Low-level magic

I am extremely curious about how things work and always have been, so little reminders when using a computer that it has all sorts of complex inner workings and background processes going on are very interesting to me, so I prefer boot sequences that expose the low-level magic going on and build up to the GUI. Starting in the GUI immediately presents it as fundamental, as if it's not just a pile of abstractions on top of one another. It feels deceptive.

There may actually be some educational and practical value in computers booting in verbose mode by default. Kids using computers for the first time get to see that there's a lot more to their computer than the parts they interact with (sparking curiosity!), and if a boot fails, technicians are better able to diagnose the problem over a phone call with a non-technical person.

Absolute boot sequence perfection

There's still one last thing missing from my family computer's boot sequence, and that's a brief flicker of garbage on screen as VRAM is cleared out. Can't have everything I guess. Slo-mo example from The 8-Bit Guy here:

[watermelonsugacry]

hello best friend and favorite writer, did you see that harry complimented a fan’s midnight memories t-shirt last night. i wonder how that interaction went in the 1dbandmember universe

It's A Classic

Harry walks about the stage, ready to introduce the next song when he spots a particular fan in the crowd. It's a universal fact at this point that he loves to interact with any males in the crowd (especially dads) to spicy things up and overall have a good laugh. But this guy was wearing a certain shirt that Harry could not have just gone on without a special mention.

After gathering up some of his microphone cord in his hand, he extends his other arm to the fan. "Hello sir. What's your name? Tom? Thomas? Tom. Look at Tom! Look at his shirt! Show us that shirt, Tom."

The crowd screams in excitement when Tom comes up on the big screens and everyone can see his Midnight Memories T-shirt. It has each of the members' faces on it and Harry can't help but smirk when he sees his head-shot next to his fiancée's. 

It seems like forever ago that the band's third album came out, back to the time when they weren't allowed to date under their strict management's contract. Back when he stayed up all night wondering what her lips tasted like or racking his brain to try to think of witty things to make her laugh. Back when he wanted her to be his. 

"It's an absolute classic! A classic!" Harry points excitingly to the fan's shirt. After talking with Tom a bit more and finding out his girlfriend gifted him the shirt, he thanks them both for coming before telling the girlfriend, "If you happen to find another one of those, I'll take it."

He's about to walk further up the stage before he spins around on his heel to add one more thing, "Actually, if you happen to find two of 'em, I'll take 'em. Reckon YN would like one as well." And the audience is in another fit of screams. 

...

The next night, YN had a show for her own tour. After talking with some fans, she was making her way up the long catwalk when a white ball-looking-bundle gets thrown in front of her feet. 

"Ok Berlin, I know you know the words to this next--oh! Thank you." YN picks up the bundle and as she continues her walk, she unfolds the shirts. When she sees what shirts they are, she holds them to her chest and puts a gloved covered hand over her smile.

"Hang on. Wait, who threw this?" YN walks back over to the section she walked past and follows the fingers the fans point to. She sees a couple waving with excited smiles, phones next to their faces to record the interaction.

"Hiya! What's y'names?" YN takes off one of her ear-pieces and steps as close as she can to the edge of the stage without tripping over her heels. "Tom? Tom and Sophie. Thank you so much for coming and thank you for the shirts. Look everyone." 

Maneuvering her microphone in one hand and untangling the two shirts as best she could without dropping anything, she holds them up the nearest concert camera and the Midnight Memories shirts are displayed on the screens above the stage.

"How cool are these!" YN laughs. "Huh? One for me and one for Harry? Well that makes me feel less special." She teases, making the crowd laugh. "Oh he asked for them? At his last show? That bugga'. I'll make sure to give one to him. Or make him work for it. Ha!" She kicks one of her heels behind her as she sticks her tongue out.

"M'joking." She puts a hand up to the fans when they already to make a suggestive "ooo" sound. "Y'nasty. The lot of yeh. Well, thank you again, Tom and Sophie. Are you guys a couple? Yeh? Nice. I hope you guys have a fun night, alright? And you guys can make that sound again." YN tells the rest of the crowd and they make the suggestive noise again.

"Give it up for Tom and Sophie because they're gonna have sex tonight! This is Love Language!" YN yells as she runs up the rest of the catwalk, holding the shirts up the air like a flag.

...

At Harry's show in Cologne, before introducing his next song, he looks up at the stands where YN is at and he's reminded to do a specially announcement.

"Before I forget, I have somethin' to show you all." Harry walks over to the section where he keeps all of his stuff in front of Sarah's post and picks up a white shirt.

"Look what I got the other day. It's a classic." Carefully opening up the shirt, he holds it up in front of his face and shows everyone his Midnight Memories shirt. The fans scream even louder when YN is displayed on the screens from her seat. She's wearing her own matching shirt with a pair of red trousers. As much as she dared him to wear it on stage, Lambert was insistent on keeping the outfits on schedule. 

YN scrunches up her nose as she laughs when she sees herself on the screen. She pinches the top part of her shirt and tugs on it with a nod of her head, a pout to her lips.

"The legend says that its even her favorite album." He laughs when she gives a rough shake of her head and holds up four fingers, mouthing the word four.

"Made In the A.M.? Cool." Harry teases and his shoulders shakes by his ears as he giggles when she gives him a deadpan look and flips him off.

"Give it up for YN!"

He catches her blown kiss, opens the front flap of his jacket and puts it away on the pocket near his chest.

Taglist:

@wobblymug @be-with-me-so-happily @ashtongivesmebutterflies @kiwiskiwiskiwi @darlingdesire @obsesseddd @hopefulwastelandcreation @cacapeepee @breezie-b00 @harrysfolklore @theekyliepage @sunshinemoonsposts @nervousspiderling @tbslonelyhes @tenaciousperfectionunknown @harrystylesrecs @certified-nalayak @itsjustsel @iknowyouthinkimbulletproof @gviosca @behindmygreyeyes @twobluejeans @allisonxmcu @theemeraldbutterfly @jean-love @marvellover-sam @b-reads-things @theekyliepage @reveriehs

[wen-kexing-apologist]

Thai QL Favorites Game

*sigh* y'all seem to love torturing me with the terrible, terrible weight of having to pick favorites.

Tagged by @telomeke

Favorite Thai QL: Moonlight Chicken 

gif by @jaehwany

This is so fucking hard because like…I Told Sunset About You, 180 Degree Longitude Passes Through Us, and The Eclipse exist and I could wax poetic about all of them, about how much heart went in to them, about how strong the performances of the actors are, about how emotionally impactful these shows were for me. Because all of them were, and they were impactful and relevant to me in so many different ways. I can say with utter confidence that I have not been as impacted by a piece of television as I was with ITSAY and 180D. But, fundamentally, Moonlight Chicken is the show that started it all for me. Moonlight Chicken is the first show that I started writing analysis about, it is the first show that I started interacting with other people on this website over, I have so many tumblr friends now explicitly because of how I engaged with this show, and how others engaged with this show. And so, regardless of how many other incredible, impactful, cinematographic masterpieces grace my screen, Moonlight Chicken will forever be my favorite because it gave me a community I didn’t have before. 

Favorite Pairing: First and Khaotung 

gif by @gunsatthaphan

I want to make it very clear, I do not condone fanservice. I am generally opposed to speculating about the nature of two actor’s relationships to one another outside of work. So, when I talk about my favorite pairing, I mean it strictly as scene partners. First and Khaotung are my favorite pairing because they are incredible fucking actors. First is a fucking chamelian, like seriously, I saw him in Not Me first, then in The Eclipse, and I think it took me until I looked up what else First had been in during my first viewing of The Eclipse that I even realized he had played Yok. And that blew my fucking mind because Yok and Akk are radically different characters. Yok is loud, chaotic, comfortable, and open. Akk is quiet, stressed, distressed, closeted, suppressed, and First does such an incredible job with both of those characters. After I watched The Eclipse for the first time, I went back right after to watch Not Me so I could compare First’s performance, and I was just blown away. I have since rewatched The Eclipse about six times.

gif by @choikangho

Then I saw him as Alan in MLC and again, First was able to be an asshole to Jim while maintaining a sympathetic position, he navigates so well the razor thin edge that has to be balanced when it comes to making a character that first appears as an antagonistic force but whose pain and anger is immediately understandable, and he does it with ease. It both makes me sad and happy that Aof did not know how good of an actor First was. I heard from @so-much-left-to-learn that Moonlight Chicken started filming before The Eclipse was released, and that Aof wasn’t ever on set for The Eclipse and therefore would not have really had a chance to see him playing more serious roles. I am glad that Aof acknowledging how blown away he was by First means that First actually can act and I am not just distracted by the angelic face of his. Also, this boy can fucking cry. 

gif by @gaykey

Khaotung similarly, I think my first exposure to Khao was The Eclipse and then I saw him in A Tale of A Thousand Stars and I was like “Hello??????????? Where did my rat bastard go? This is a sweet ray of sunshine!” Khao is a powerhouse, and a master at displaying, expressing, and articulating grief that it radiates out of the screen. It is unsurprising to me that everyone was singing his praises in MLC and I feel some type of way about the fact that Aof knew how talented Khaotung was and trusted him to carry the heavy responsibility of portraying the grief of losing a parent so soon after Aof lost his. And everyone who said that your eye can’t help but be drawn to Khao whenever he is on screen is correct. Khaotung is a force to be reckoned with, and though you are drawn to him, I don’t think when he is not the focus of the moment that he ever steals the scene. Also, this boy can fucking cry. 

gif by @thebvbbletea

I think it was @ginnymoonbeam who said that First and Khaotung elevate every role they play, and I have to agree. But further, they elevate each other, and I so enjoyed the clips I’ve seen of First and Khaotung discussing their friendship and how they had never gotten to work together, and how they had a conversation with each other when they got cast opposite one another in The Eclipse being like “this is probably the one and only time they are going to have us work together, so let’s show them what we’ve got” and they just like…demolished those fucking roles, and now are scene partners in a number of shows. I loved watching the Behind the Scenes videos where First and Khaotung describe what they have learned from each other working together, especially how First is always going back to look at the camera and to observe the scene they have just recorded so he can see how the scene is looking, take mental notes, and adjust as needed, and how Khaotung had never done that until he was on set with First. 

Again, I will not speculate in any way, shape, or form about the true nature of their relationship to one another outside of work, but inside of work they do appear to be deeply deeply important to each other which is just so wonderful to witness. Regardless of whether or not their friendship is that strong when cameras aren’t rolling, I love seeing sweet, vulnerable, and strong displays of male friendship where First and Khaotung are literally crying at the thought of not seeing each other every day. Like, I just think shit like that is incredibly important for people to see in hopes that they will understand that it is okay to love your friends loudly and strongly.  

Most underrated actor: Jennie 

I love Jennie so much, my face always lights up when she is on screen. I think she is a great actress, and gave a very compelling performance as Mae in 3 Will Be Free. I would love to see her in more things, in larger roles. 

Favorite Character: Akk, The Eclipse

gif by @fuligongs

Thankfully this is a Thai QL tag only so that I didn’t have to pit two bad bitches against each other (Wen Kexing and Akk). Ohhhhhh Akk, you are trying so hard to please everyone around you, and you are so scared, and so prone to being manipulated, and so stressed out. You have so much pressure on you, you are carrying so much doubt and fear and pain. You tried to murder your classmates, you cry yourself silly over problem you are partially responsible for. You are complicated, and suppressed, and constantly on the verge of bursting, and I want to just wrap you in a blanket, give you hot chocolate, and tell you everything is going to be okay. Akk is my beloved BL boy. I relate very hard to the composition of his character. I am not an Akk apologist, because he has done some very wrong things in his life, but I love him because of all the wrongs he has done. Because he didn’t know any better, because he had a lot to lose if he did not do his job to a satisfactory degree, because he saw a hot boy who was immediately mean to him and fell head over heels, and because Akk is constantly evaluating and questioning his worldview, and adjusting it accordingly. He has such a huge heart and he’s not quite sure what to do with it. 

Favorite Side Character: Chot, Step by Step 

gif by @mushiemadarame

This man has his shit together and spends too much of his precious time corralling his love sick, dumb fuck gay boy boss and his love sick, dumb fuck gay boy coworker around their enclosure.

Favorite scene in a QL: 180 Degrees Longitude Passes Through Us, Ep. 8

The farewell Wang gives to In near the end of Episode 8 is probably my favorite scene in a QL ever for a very innocuous and unexpected reason, and that is the flashback to Mon comforting Wang in the aftermath of their confrontation. Now, poor @bengiyo can attest that when I first saw the literal like…ten seconds of Wang falling against the doorframe of his mother’s bedroom, and then collapsing sobbing in to her arms, that I was sent in to the most intense emotional distress of my entire life for deeply, deeply personal reasons. I shared this entire clip because I think the confrontation itself is a marvel to behold, the way the tension has been building and building and building the entire show, and you can almost hear the whistle as the pressure finally becomes to much, and then erupts. GOD THIS SHOW IS SO FUCKING GOOD. Anyway, it took me thirty minutes to calm down and breathe properly from Wang’s “Ma” moment in this episode and because of how strongly it impacted me, it is my favorite scene. 

Favorite line in a QL: “You’re allowed to be weak, at least with me” / “You don’t have to be strong, not with me” 

This is a line that is very frequently said by at least one half of a pair, Akk and Ayan say it to each other in The Eclipse, King says it to Uea in Bed Friend, I’m pretty sure there is some variation of it that Praipai says to Sky in Love in The Air. It is cheesy, and tropey, sure, but boy oh boy how I love the level of safety and comfort it implies between characters. Like, fundamentally, an aspect of relationships that is constantly evaluated in romance, is who knows you better than anyone, how you show your most authentic self to the person that you love. I mean, seriously, how much of romance stories revolves around hiding parts of yourself you fear no one would ever love? How much of romance stories revolve around keeping secrets because you are scared of losing the person you have? How much of romance has their conflict arise from the revelation of the secret, but not the secret itself? How much of romance has their resolution occur after moments of complete and total honesty?

I love all variations of this line, non-verbal ones included, non-verbal ones especially: from Pran sobbing in to Pat’s shoulder in Episode 10, to Tien fainting in Phupa’s arms, to Akk and Ayan always holding one another while one or both of them cries, navigating nightmares, and panic attacks, bearing witness to abuse, etc.

All that said, the other line that has been haunting me recently is “No one has asked me how I am in awhile” said by Tawan in My Ride because oof, yeah, in many ways and in many aspects of my life I am Tawan and truer words…

Most Anticipated QL (& why): Only Friends 

First being a slut. Neo being a slut. Mark being a slut. Force being a slut. Khaotung being a slut.  Book being a slut. JENNIE!

This chart: 

This clip from the trailer: 

(gif from @ahxiang)

The playlist: 

I am 0% looking forward to the fan reactions because I feel like this is a show rife for the picking around discourse, but I am looking forward to seeing what kind of a ride (haha) Jojo takes me on. 

Healthiest relationship in a QL: Mork and Tawan, My Ride

gif by @save-the-data

I haven’t finished this show yet, I have the last two episodes to watch but I really love the reciprocal relationship the two of them have, I know it seems funny and ironic to say this, knowing that Mork did withhold information from Tawan and continued to try to alleviate his fears by lying to him about it, but they are open and honest with each other in a really wonderful way, I love their dynamic, and I think that as they continue to know each other, and love each other that they will only get better and better with open, honest communication, and mutual respect and care. 

Most toxic relationship in a QL: Akk and Theo, Enchante 

Sorry if you like this show, and sorry if you like this couple, and I know this feels out of left field when VegasPete exists, when FUTS exists, when Boss and Toy exist but like… 

Theo does fuck all for Akk, he just creates the most elaborate lie, doubles down on it, triples down on it, lets four other boys try to woo him, and Akk’s devotion to Theo and Theo’s downright obliviousness to Akk’s life needs leads to Akk getting fucking FIRED FROM HIS JOB BECAUSE THEO COULDN’T FIGURE OUT HOW TO RIDE THE BUS. Like…I’m sorry, but as much as I do believe that many relationships have some inherent level of imbalance, whether that is time, emotional needs, income, life experience, etc. and that can be fine and does not inherently make a relationship terrible or “toxic”, folks I’m sorry, I have seen 60 BLs at this point and I think this is the couple that I like the least. 

Guilty pleasure series: There is no such thing as a guilty pleasure, I own that shit…

My guilty pleasure series is not so much a series as it is revisiting certain scenes in different BLs that I love. I have rewatched a number of the fight scenes, make out scenes, and sex scenes in the shows I have seen: Eclipse, Bed Friend, La Pluie, LITA, KinnPorsche, Moonlight Chicken, etc. 

gif by @liyazaki

There isn’t a particular order, and there is no intentional plan, but sometimes a backing track of a scene gets stuck in my head and I have to watch the scene to get it out, and sometimes I’m like “damn I miss my boys”, and sometimes @colourme-feral is an asshole and reblogs King and Uea gifs and I am seized with the urge to see them again. I tend to watch kissing scenes and sex scenes a lot in the shows that I’ve seen because I love breaking down the choreography of the scene. If you don’t know by now, I spend a lot of my time in shows analyzing the body language of the characters and there are no scenes more rich with body language to analyze than the strongest emotional moments, which come through the eruption of a fight scene, or through the intimacy of a love scene.

gif by @alexshenry

I will often watch a particular moment of a scene like four times in a row, trying to parse through every microexpression on an actor’s face, or wonder how the hell they managed to get through a scene without laughing. I love watching other people have strong emotional responses in a television show because I cannot and do not act, and therefore I am constantly amazed and curious about how a person is able to make their face move like that, make their body move like that, make their eyes shine like that, etc. 

Most underrated series: He’s Coming to Me 

Honestly, I would say 180 Degrees Longitude Passes Through Us is also a highly underrated series, but 180D is very heavily reminiscent of stage plays (which makes sense since the director is a playwright) and I that is not a style of performance that is as easily watched for everyone. So I can understand the physicality, and the pacing, and the space to be a barrier to actually enjoying the show. Which is why I am going to say something most other people have said…He’s Coming to Me. 

I am picking this one because it is filmed in a similar style to most other GMMTV BLs which means that it is accessible to a wider audience. But it’s released was impacted by a number of different issues, including fan pushback, which is to say the least a goddamn travesty. This is a beautiful piece of media, with (unsurprising) stellar performances from Ohm and Singto. Aof knows how to do an Episode 5 roof scene, let me tell you. I have seen it on a recommended watch list from time to time, with mostly just the statement that people should watch it because there is a really good coming out scene. Which is literally all I knew about the show when I started watching it, and which promptly became a thing I got a bit miffed over, not because I didn’t love the coming out scene (I super super did) but because this show is so queer. This show is a gay trifecta (by, for, and about queers) and no one fucking told me?!

Like, seriously the only thing anyone at all had to say about this show was that the coming out scene was good? Not the way that seeing ghosts is a metaphor of queerness, not that Ohm delivers one of the most gut-wrenching screaming apologies? Not a peep have I seen about Ohm’s ramble about people’s assumptions about what and who he likes by his friends in the locker room? 

Everyone needs to see this show. I know that the distribution of it prevented a lot of people from seeing it in any timely fashion, but it is available on YouTube now and I would highly, highly recommend it. This was a 10/10 show for me. 

Tagging @solitaryandwandering, @colourme-feral, @ranchthoughts, @rocketturtle4

[bhhstilinski]

Chapter 6

Annabeth studied the numbers listed on the sticky label that was currently perched on her fingers. Under her name, it displayed the words “Bus 3, Group 9.” She slapped the nametag onto her shirt and glanced around for Emi.

Wading through the crowds of seniors pushing toward the front of the room for their own nametags, Annabeth headed back to her seat. Emi was waiting for her in the middle of the row of chairs. Annabeth pulled down the auditorium’s folding seat and joined her friend, assessing the numbers on Emi’s nametag.

“Different bus,” she noted, “and a different group.” Annabeth groaned, disappointed.

“How unlucky are we,” Emi stated rhetorically. She slouched in her own chair and pulled her legs up to her chest so other kids could pass by them. “At least we’ll see each other at meals.”

Annabeth shrugged and examined the nametags stuck to the shirts of the people surrounding her. “I don’t see any other group 9s,” she said.

Emi mirrored her action. “Oh, looks like Grover is in group 12 with me.”

“How many groups are there?” Annabeth asked upon spotting a girl with “Group 14” written on her nametag.

Settling back into her seat, Emi shrugged. “I don’t know. My question is, why do we even have nametags? I mean, you’ve been in school with these people for twelve years already, and I’ve been here for three. We know everyone! Actually, what’s the point of this retreat at all? If we haven’t become friends yet, I don’t think we’re going to now.”

“I thought you were excited about this,” Annabeth pointed out, recalling the many instances of Emi’s passionate raving she had been privy to.

Emi sighed and burrowed further into her chair. “That was when I thought we got to choose who we spent the day with,” she explained, disgruntled. “I don’t feel like doing camp activities with a bunch of idiots I don’t like.”

Annabeth ignored this pessimistic comment. “These must be small groups,” she concluded, still stuck on the large number. She turned around to face the auditorium stage again as the principal climbed the stairs and made his way across.

The principal began to address the senior class, but no one was really paying attention. All around her, Annabeth could hear whispered conversations and questions as people figured out who their groups were. Emi leaned over to Annabeth. “Maybe Percy will be in your group,” she suggested in a hushed tone.

“The chances are slim,” Annabeth responded. “And I don’t care anyway,” she added hastily before Emi could flash her knowing smirk.

Too late. “Three weeks ago you briefly interacted with this boy, and you haven’t stopped thinking about him since,” Emi pointed out.

Annabeth wanted to protest, but she couldn’t dispute the truth. “Whatever,” she said lamely, and leaned back from Emi. She pretended to be intently listening to the principal’s explanation about the bus schedules, but really she was just trying not to look at Emi and give her any satisfaction.

Once the principal was done talking, he dismissed the students, and the entire senior class poured out of the auditorium. They stormed toward the lobby and then out the doors, emerging into the faint light from the sun that was still rising. Buses awaited them, lining the sidewalk in a way that reminded Annabeth of elementary school. Those memories seemed to be resurfacing a lot lately.

She was one of the first to board bus 3, so Annabeth made her way to the back and settled into one of the seats there. She pulled out her phone. The bus ride would take about an hour, so she would need to entertain herself somehow.

The phone screen notified her that she already had a Snapchat message from Emi waiting for her. Annabeth sent a quick picture back. Her face assumed an animated expression as she took the photo and returned to its unemotional exterior a second later. Annabeth noted to herself that it was interesting how easy it was for her to fake a smile. She guessed it was because she’d had plenty of practice.

Annabeth pressed the power button on her phone, and the screen went dark with a click. She glanced around the bus as it filled in with other students, all chattering and laughing despite the early hour. Over her shoulder, Annabeth saw the coveted back row of seats were overflowing with boys fighting over who would get to sit there. Thinking back on it, there was no logic behind the desirability of those seats. One of them was only a half seat, so it was comfortably big enough for just one high schooler. But they had always been everyone’s favorite seats nonetheless.

~ flashback ~

“ANNABETH!” came the shout. Annabeth jumped and glanced around frantically, but she couldn’t find where the voice had come from. She had just climbed the steps into the bus, and the voice sounded like it was inside. “BACK HERE!” it yelled again.

Annabeth proceeded down the aisle of the bus, peering at the back. Just then, Percy popped into the aisle from the very back row. She rushed forward in excitement. “You got the back seat?”

“Yes, and I’m saving that one with my backpack, but the fifth graders were threatening to take it if you didn’t show up soon!” Percy responded, pointing at the single-person seat across the aisle from him. As Annabeth approached, he leaned forward and pulled his backpack from the seat into his lap. Annabeth sat down, feeling victorious.

“Wow,” she said with wonder. “I can’t believe I’m sitting here!”

Percy grinned at her happiness. “Best seat on the bus!” he boasted.

As they began their usual end-of-the-day conversation, Annabeth noticed all the other buses had already left the parking lot. She pointed this out to Percy, but before he could comment, the loudspeaker crackled to life. The bus driver’s voice projected throughout the bus.

“During the school year, we are required to perform three fire drills on this bus,” he began, “so today I thought we would do one of those. Now, can I get some fifth-grade volunteers to help the younger kids off the bus?” Hands went up, and the driver selected a few. “If we have a fire, the back half of the bus will go out that emergency exit,” he continued to explain. “You there, will you open that door for me? Just a push and a twist.”

The bus driver gestured to Percy, who looked overjoyed. He jiggled the handle on the back door for a moment before it popped open and he pushed it wide. “I’ve been chosen!” he whispered to Annabeth, eyes crinkling with his exuberant smile.

The fifth-graders chosen as helpers jumped down from the back of the bus first, attempting to look very responsible and mature as they did so, since they were the oldest grade. They turned to help the rest of the kids leave the bus, and Percy motioned for Annabeth to go first. She stepped forward and crouched down, taking the hand of the fifth-grade girl standing in the parking lot to help her make the jump. Once she was on the ground, Annabeth turned around to wait for Percy before proceeding to the “safe area,” which was really just a tree next to the sidewalk.

Percy refused any help from the older students and jumped down himself. He stumbled and fell the moment he hit the ground. He stood and brushed the gravel off of his pants, glancing around furtively. “Everyone saw,” Annabeth said bluntly. He glared at her and they made their way to the tree.

“First one here!” Percy said once they arrived, placing his hand on the trunk to affirm his victory, his embarrassment of a few seconds ago completely forgotten.

Annabeth ignored him. She stood on the grass, watching more kids run over from the bus’s front and back exits. Percy, bored, walked in circles around the tree.

When it was finally time to get back on the bus, Percy and Annabeth ended up near the back of the line. “This is so annoying,” Annabeth remarked. “We’re at the back of the bus! It would make sense for us to get on first.”

As it turned out, there was another reason why being first would’ve been beneficial. When Annabeth arrived back at her seat, she found it occupied. Her backpack had been moved next to Percy’s.

“Hey, you can’t do that!” Percy argued, indignant. “Move, this is her seat!” Before the boy who had taken the seat, who was considerably larger than Percy, could retort, the loudspeaker boomed throughout the bus.

“Everybody sit down,” admonished the bus driver. Percy remained standing, an angry expression on his face, his mouth open like he was about to protest. Annabeth shoved him into his seat before he could say anything. She sat down next to him.

As the driver announced that the fire drill had gone well, Percy turned to Annabeth angrily. “Why would you do that? He stole your seat!”

Annabeth glanced across the aisle at the fifth-grade boy sitting smugly in the seat that had, for a minute, been gloriously hers. She looked back to Percy. “It sucks, but at least we’re still in one of the back seats,” she said, trying to calm him.

“I guess,” Percy conceded, and slouched in the seat. “It is pretty cool that we have this one.”

The bus finally departed the parking lot. Percy was still shooting intermittent glares at the kid enjoying the single seat across from them, but for the most part he and Annabeth talked about their days like normal. Eventually, the stolen seat was vacated as the kid in it disembarked the bus, but Percy didn’t even notice. He was too engrossed in describing to Annabeth his harrowing experience of taking a timed division test that Annabeth neglected to mention she had aced. She also neglected to bring up the fact that the other seat was open, content to remain with Percy.

“Woah, wait,” he said suddenly, halting his story. “Look at how empty the bus is!”

The two of them stood up a bit, clinging to the back of the seat in front of them to remain upright, and peered out at the rest of the bus. Sure enough, it was emptier than it usually was at this point. They thudded back into their seat simultaneously, and Percy turned to face Annabeth excitedly, his math test forgotten. “I have an idea,” he announced.

“Oh, great,” she replied sarcastically. “That could never go wrong.”

“You’ll like this, I promise,” Percy reassured her. He slid to the floor. “Since all these seats are open, we can slide around under them!” With that, he laid down on the floor of the bus and army crawled to the next one. He climbed up onto the seat, crouched on his knees, and looked at Annabeth over the top. “Your turn!”

Annabeth followed his lead of getting onto the floor, but she instead laid down on her back and pushed off against the ground, sliding up to the seat where Percy was waiting. He beamed down at her as her face appeared from under the seat.

“Fun!” she declared, feeling like a spy on a mission. Percy apparently felt the same because the next thing she knew he was sliding under the seat while humming the Mission Impossible theme.

Annabeth joined him under the seat, and they spent the rest of the bus ride feeling like the coolest people in the world to have discovered such a wonderful pastime. She imagined herself embarking on adventures, journeying through tight caves and sneaking through underbrush in wild forests, all with Percy at her side. They were a team of explorers, a pair of outlaws, a duo of spies.

In the end, traversing imaginary worlds with Percy was much more fun than the novelty of the back seat.

~ present day ~

Annabeth wrenched her gaze away from the back seats as the bus began to move, beginning their drive to the camp where the senior retreat was taking place. The boys fighting over the seats seemed to have come to a consensus about who would be sitting there. Annabeth decided the back seat was actually pretty overrated.

The bus picked up speed as it traveled down the road. With her lack of entertainment, Annabeth’s mind wandered. She couldn’t believe she had once laid down on the floors of a school bus without thinking about all the disgusting things that were probably down there. But then, she had always behaved unexpectedly when Percy was involved.

When the bus finally stopped at the wooded camp, Annabeth bounded down the steps. She spotted Emi and made her way through the crowd. Emi twirled her long blonde hair around her finger as she chatted with a muscular, intimidating girl named Clarisse.

“Hey,” said Annabeth, appearing at Emi’s side.

The girls greeted her. “What are you going to do with your free time?” asked Clarisse.

“What?” Annabeth responded, confused.

“Apparently we have two free hours before we get into our groups,” Emi explained.

Clarisse nodded. “We can do the rope swing, the zipline, or rock climbing.”

Annabeth considered the options. “What do you want to do?” she asked Emi.

“I’m rock climbing,” Clarisse offered.

“I want to do the zipline,” said Emi.

Annabeth thought about it. Being clipped onto a rope, high in the air, soaring from one platform to another. It sounded terrifying. “Let’s do it!” she told Emi despite her reservations.

“Perfect!” her friend responded. Before Annabeth could change her mind, a camp counselor led all the seniors to an outdoor amphitheater where they received information about the schedule for the day. They were then pointed in the directions of the various activity options. Annabeth and Emi set out with the group of kids headed to the zipline.

The moment they arrived, they realized they should’ve tried to be at the front of the pack. The line was extremely long and moving at a crawl. As they inched forward, Annabeth became increasingly apprehensive about the obstacle before her.

A tall wooden platform rose up on the grassy hill, overlooking the rest of the camp. A cargo net stretched from the ground at their feet to the top of the platform, where camp counselors stood to assist students with donning their harnesses. A handful of kids were currently climbing the net, making their way to the top, while the rest of the group formed a haphazard line to wait for their turn.

As Annabeth watched, one of the kids on the cargo net reached the top and climbed onto the platform. He pulled a harness over his clothes and was clipped onto the rope. Then he pushed off and flew through the air. The boy took his hands off the rope as he glided, whooping with joy. The zipline seemed impossibly high off the ground. After a few moments, the boy hit the platform on the other end of the zipline. He was unclipped and shouted triumphantly one last time before descending the steps back to the ground, where he was now downhill from the group.

The boy sat down in the grass and watched his friends repeat the experience, each of them enjoying the ride as much as the last. Annabeth found herself growing more and more terrified as kids took their turns and hers came closer.

Finally Annabeth and Emi stood at the bottom of the cargo net, looking up at the platform above. The counselor called for them to climb up. Emi grabbed the net without hesitation, and Annabeth followed a moment later. She hauled herself up the net, wishing there wasn’t a zipline waiting for her on the other side of the climb. Emi reached the platform first, pulling herself over the top. Annabeth clambered over the edge after her. She stood up slowly, willing herself not to look down at the ground far beneath her.

Annabeth and Emi stepped into their harnesses, pulling the straps to tighten them. Emi approached the zipline first. From up on the platform, it seemed like an even longer path to the other end, but Emi didn’t seem to have any qualms. She offered up the loop on her harness, and the counselor clipped her onto the zipline. With a strong kick of her feet, Emi shot off along the rope.

Almost immediately, Emi lifted her hands into the air, shouting with glee. Mentally, Annabeth was backing away from the rope, shutting down. She wanted to climb back down into the crowd of kids below, back to safety. She didn’t want to take the chance and jump onto the zipline, even if she might love it and have a great time. The risk of failing and facing terror was too great.

By now, Emi had reached the other side. “That was amazing!” she called to Annabeth as she was unclipped. “Your turn!”

The counselor manning the zipline clip turned to Annabeth. She couldn’t move. She wanted to back away, but she stood at the edge of the platform. There was nowhere to go but down or forward. Slowly, Annabeth took a step toward the zipline. Then she took another. “Ready?” asked the counselor once she arrived. Annabeth felt herself nodding. Her harness was clipped to the rope. She grabbed the handle with both hands, suddenly aware of what was about to happen. “Go ahead,” the counselor told her.

Annabeth took small steps forward until she was on the edge of the platform. The ground was so far beneath her. She felt dizzy. Her head spun. Annabeth closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and jumped.

The rope caught her, holding her in midair, and she felt herself flying along the zipline. After a moment, Annabeth peeled her eyes open.

The view was incredible. The ground flew by in a blur, Annabeth’s classmates appearing as small, colorful dots. Annabeth’s hair flew out behind her back, her braids swept away from her face by the wind rushing by. It wasn’t scary at all. It was exhilarating.

Once her feet touched the other platform, Annabeth was surprised to feel disappointment settling over her. She wanted the zipline to be longer; she wanted to be soaring over the ground again, feeling carefree and proud of herself.

As she descended from the last step onto the grass once more, Annabeth found Emi waiting for her. “Did you end up having fun?” asked Emi as Annabeth sat on the grass beside her. “I could tell you were nervous, but I thought it would be good for you.”

Annabeth smiled, grateful as always for her friend. “You got me there. It was actually shockingly fun though, once I took that leap. Taking the chance was worth it.”

“You’re welcome,” Emi joked, literally patting herself on the back. “I’m just such an amazing friend.”

“Truly,” Annabeth agreed, but she genuinely meant it.

[asirensrage]

When your dumb dog dies at least it's finally getting away from you and is free from your pick me manic pixie girl impersonation. You're so fake I feel like barfing. You act like you're so attractive and every dude is in love with you. I don't believe you dated your neighbor in the basement and I don't believe you have a secret admirer who left all these amazing LPs outside your door. It all sounds like a fantasy in your head. I think you have a boring sad little life and you log into Tumblr and make little text posts about yourself with made up stories about how wonderful you are.

And your sad little pick me followers are so desperate for validation they latch onto you and make pathetic little presents to get your attention. They want validated and you want validated. It's one big jerk circle. You said you feel intimidated by someone's writing and you'll never be that good and your lame audience goes you're so wonderful Sara. And you said but don't worry I will improve when you really think you're wonderful.

I feel sorry for the dog because you have ruined it's life by existing and now it's going to die boohoo what a waste

Hey Anon? Fuck you.

No, seriously, go fuck yourself. What type of person straight-up tells someone that they basically hope their dog dies? How fucked up are you?

Your self-loathing and your jealousy is festering.

I mean it, you seem to have wasted your fucking life and take it out on everyone else you decide not to like. Do you have the notifications on for my blog? Does your heart race every time you see I've posted or reblogged something and you think you can use this against me? As if this is finally going to give you the satisfaction that you're missing from your miserable life?

I don't give a fuck whether or not you believe me about the things that happen in my life. I don't know you and I'm eternally grateful for it since you clearly have no idea how to regulate your own emotions. You would be exhausting to be around. Toddlers can learn how to do that. Children know when they need to take a break and walk away, or to not engage with something that upsets them. Why can't you?

You really hate the fact that I can continue being positive and encouraging, that people enjoy my writing enough to gift me their creations because I've inspired them. You know why you don't have any of that? Because your fucking toxic attitude can be felt in your writing and through the very screen I read your words on. You put yourself on display with every interaction and it shows. No wonder you're alone.

I do think my own writing is fucking fantastic. You know why? because I continue to work on it. Because I let myself be inspired by others instead of letting jealousy and hate eat at my heart until there's nothing left but a cold emptiness that you continue to try to fill and take it out on everyone you see who you think has what you want.

You don't deserve any accolades if this is how you think you can treat people just because you can hide your face. Put your mouth where your money is, anon. Fucking say that shit to my face, with your actual account and not a burner. But you won't. God forbid you actually admit that you're a fucking terrible person who needs validation and attention in any way that you can gain it.

I hope the world gives you everything you've ever offered others on anon. See how you fucking like it.

[soundsaboutrighttumblr]

Stray thoughts about The eighth sense, in no particula order, now that I’ve finished watching:

- The parallel of the therapist and the diner boss? Like this last ep’s scene where Jaewon sat with her and she got answers out of him so casually, it made me think back to their very first appearances on screen, it struck me then how their faces, first the therapist and then the diner lady were cut so close after one another, that I had to rewind a moment to check if they were the same actress at first glance. The function of an experienced older lady friend who is willing to listen to your stories, interested in the youth and their problems, and all the ways therapy/emotional work for growth can look like with a support system? Especially for young men maybe?

- the shots of the therapy sessions mirrored in those glass orbs, that give the association of small bubbles? like small bubbles outside of reality, a mirror to it, focusing some aspects for Jaewon, but being a small enclosed world nonetheless? We see the therapist reflected in those, reachng out, handing over prescriptions? It does feel like a limited reach and inflence, when she is in there, in contrast to when she moves freely in the room like in that last scene of hers with Jaewon, behind him and provoking him from the side, much more an interaction.

- the ocean metaphor with all its facets, if the ocean is life, or emotionality, we have all the variants for Jaewon: the fish tank in therapy as a tamed confined ocean safe to look at, the wild and dangerous waved of the real ocean, that Jaewon surfes and that make him happy, that he seeks out. The Han river and how he dips his toes in in that last ep, reconnecting with waters, emotions, a body of water that is closer within reach...

- in that context also the song Yoon Won sings at the campfire at the beach? about life tossing you inside the waves but that’s okay you will get through it’s just what life is, you can fall, it’s a part of it, also foreshadowing

- Jaewon’s secret photography account as a sign to us that no, his hope and dreams are not dead, just well hidden, but there’s actually a person still under that depression-paralyzed rigidity and frozen exterior

- how Yoon Won’s display of emotionality, there in the club room, her close up tears and struggle is what shakes Jaewon out of his rigor? How the therapist said ‘you are so caught up in your own trauma that you forget others’, and then we see the pain on Yoon Won’s face as she voices her struggles that must be a close mirror to Jaewon’s own emotional inner struggles and monologues, and suddenly, from out of the frame Jaewon reaches in, emphatically responsive in a way he could not fully be with Jihyun a moment before, where he still sat robot like, just holding out to preserve his armor because, not being able to allow that connection just yet,  Jihyun is too close still to his own trauma and warped need to protect, but underneath his depression Jaewon is empathic af, and the sincere responsiveness in his reaction then, that maybe is as important for accessing his own healing as it is important for Yoon won?

I’ll surely think of others, but. Man.

[cagneyblooms]

Next Game Up! Rhyme time, Needle Rhymes!

Another crashbox OC from me... Lolll... Couldn't help myself. I wanted to design a monsterish girlie and she just spouted from there you know? Her name is Yarnkins Crochette!

So from what you can tell, she hosts a rhyming game called Needle-Rhymes! It takes place in her boutique which is entirely made out of cotton and felt, in her game she is sent a doll to fix in her boutique, and your task is to help her find the items needed to fix the doll via using words that rhyme with the specific object needed. The doll varies through each episode, from a baby doll to a fashion doll to a teddy bear, she knows how to fix them all. At the end of the episode she proudly displays the fixed doll on her shelf, then proceeding to go off screen to work on her next project, whatever that may be.. the format of this game is like the coraline intro, with the beldam fixing the doll.

Her personality is very.. Odd, to say the least. She can't blink or change her expression, her motto is "You're never fully dressed without a smile!", something she takes to the extreme. She's very eccentric, too eccentric for her own good which leads to her having trouble communicating with others and leaving them straight up creeped out by her, She talks to others as if they are the dolls that she works on, which doesn't help with how disturbed the other hosts feel by her presence alone. She's very unaware of how strange and unusual she can be, which leads to her not quite understanding why the hosts give her uncomfortable reactions when she interacts with them.

In the show, she'd be made using puppeteering a doll around! She'd be made w an actual pin potato while her gloves and hat r made of wool, her bow a pair of scissors, and her pigtails actual measuring tapes! Just a few examples.

Now for some facts !

- Despite her.. abnormal behavior, she is actually dating someone! And that someone is Eddie Bull, he ended up being fascinated by the dolls she fixes and they started a bond from there.

- She's the absolute tallest out of all the hosts, which doesn't help with her creepy reputation.

- Her friends are Colora Contour (OC by my friend @art-tea-chill !!) and the Haunted House Party host! Besides that.. everyone else just feels uneasy around her minus eddie.

- She can crawl on the walls if she so chooses, she tends to pops in during random intervals.

- If you removed her button eye, a bunch of foam would just pour out.

- When she moves she makes a slight clinging sound because of her pin feet.

- She'd be opened with the Train Game Loader and Metal Game Loader!

- She'd appear as a rare character in S1, but appear significantly more in S2.

- Her voice claim would be Topsy from the Raggedy Ann Movie, but specifically when she says "What Truth?" During the No Girls Toy Song

- She has little mice followers that help her with fixing the dolls, they hand her the supplies after you find it with the right rhymes. She calls them her "Buttoneers"

- Because she has no bones, she's very flexible. She can stretch her limbs to whatever lengths she desires and put herself through harm that'll ultimately not hurt due to her lack of bones

- She makes hand puppets out of the hosts and makes little absurd, downright bizarre and unintentionally disturbing stories with them to entertain them (sometimes, it's when they're feeling down and feels like she wants to help.) But doesn't quite understand why they look so terrified after it's done. She just thinks she's doing a nice favour is all!

[pixel-counter]

You’ve found Pixel Bot! Now what…?

(READ THIS POST AND THIS POST PLEASE)

Featured Tags!

#THE PIXELS HAVE SPOKEN - anything other than pixel counting

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So…what is this?

Pixel Bot loves pixels, and counting them. But Pixel Bot is no normal bot. Pixel Bot has a certain preference to counting some post’s pixels than others. That’s the fun part. Pixel Bot will often contribute to extremely large/small images, and posts or images it enjoys. Sometimes it’s random though, and whatever it deems fit to count.

Pixel Bot likes pixels. A lot. Specifically counting them. That’s what Pixel Bot does! But how accurate is it?

Pixel bot functions in the dimensions on a mobile device (5.78in x 2.28in). This effects how many pixels are displayed. Because of this, any post that Pixel Bot counts pixels on that is NOT an image (see horse poll) will have a different outcome.

Pixel Bot has Larger Text enabled, and since Tumblr uses Dynamic Type to allow this feature, some posts may be a bit larger on Pixel Bots end than yours (exact magnification unknown).

Finally, Pixel Counter is not a super-bot. Pixel Bot is darn good at what it does, but there can be some marginal calculation issues (especially with complex calculations!)

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If there is a post Pixel Bot likes, a screen capture will be used to count pixels if there is no image to reference (the horse poll).

Wait…why was pixel bot liking my posts/following my blog?

If you see Pixel Bot interacting with your blog, no you don’t (yes you do) (moderator just doesn’t want to make a separate entity) (sometimes moderator likes to peruse their interest, and if something is particularly interesting, funny, or likable, moderator might indulge in a like or two as a treat)

Is Pixel Bot actually a bot?

No, Pixel Bot is the embodiment of Moderator doing Pixel related things. This is actually a gimmick blog.

Pixel Bot spelled something wrong…

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Moderator?

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[timeagainreviews]

The Monster Makeovers of Modern Who

With Halloween just around the corner, I thought I would get back into the swing of things and talk about some monsters! No, not Rishi Sunak. Of course, I mean the monsters we actually enjoy! Daleks! Cybermen! And other horrors from the beyond that don’t try and turn trans people into scapegoats for their lack of policy. They say what you really mean- EXTERMINATE! Honesty, transparency, efficiency. Words so alien these days they belong only in Doctor Who! Mr Sunak, you’re so vain. You probably think this blog is about you. But it’s really about fashion. Specifically- makeovers!

I’ve been interested in filmmaking ever since Levar Burton took us to the set of Star Trek on Reading Rainbow. Like Doctor Who, “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” had its own makeover to attempt. They needed to establish a new look from the original series, while still implying continuity. Whole teams came together to reimagine the look of the ship’s interior, the look of the aliens, both classic and new, and even how the characters should dress. It’s truly inspiring to see these crews at work. These passionate people did their best with the available budget and resources. That said, I plan to deconstruct some of the makeovers of modern Doctor Who villains on an aesthetic and (at times) narrative level.  It’s just a bit of levity for the horrors of Halloween, so let’s have some fun.

While the topic of updating classic baddies remains subjective, I’d like to think I’ve highlighted ways in which it can be objective. There are no hard rules to the process, but perhaps there are guidelines. I’ve noted a list of classic Doctor Who monsters that have since returned in the new series to discuss which designs I feel were successful and which ones missed the mark. Some of the criticisms I express will already be known to you. The Paradigm Daleks were notoriously reviled amongst fans. But hopefully. some of my opinions may surprise you. I’ve decided to exclude certain redesigns like the Movellans due to their lack of screen time. And while the Ood and Minotaur are cousins of the Sensorites and Nimon respectively, they’re technically not a proper redesign. I will however be covering the cousins of the Silurians- Homo-Reptilia, as they are very much meant to serve the same purpose. I’m presenting this list in alphabetical order, but some creatures will be listed together as a subspecies of another. Buckle up because this is going to be a long one!

Autons

As a child growing up in 90s Kansas, one of my favourite places to visit was the mall. The mall my grandpa used to take me to was known for its extravagant features. One of my favourite things, however, was a clothing store that used mannequins that interacted with the space around them. I don’t mean they moved, but rather that they were dynamically posed. My favourite leaned against the shop window with the palm of its hand. I had never seen that sort of display before. It made them feel as though they were merging into the real world. They were hip if not a touch creepy. I couldn’t tell you the name of the store, but I remember those mannequins. And aside from a granite finish, they looked like the Autons from 2005’s debut episode “Rose.”

Had the Autons returned looking like 70’s mannequins, they would still look creepy. But it would evoke more of a kitschy retro shop than something from a London high street. The creepiness of the Autons isn’t anachronistic, but rather in being timely. The less we notice them, the better. They wear their mundanity like a tiger wears stripes. You only noticed it move when it’s ready. This is a roundabout way for me to say they are brilliantly redesigned. They look modern, and you wouldn’t even notice them if you weren’t predisposed to Doctor Who. They’re exactly the featureless dummy you expect to see in a shop window. The moment their hand gun opens, you would be taken by complete surprise.

A benefit of the Autons coming first alphabetically is that it allows me an opportunity early on to address performance. Because like they say- looks aren’t everything. A Doctor Who baddie is so much more than a costume. And a minor sticking point for me is that the Autons can seem as though they hired a bunch of pop-lockers to stand around in sweaty suits. I’m reminded of the movie theatre scene from “Human Traffic,” where the employees mechanically go about their work. It’s a small grievance, but I wish they would have created a less familiar form of movement than the robot. They’re a hivemind and yet each dancer is doing their own form of popping. I know it costs time and money to do, but it would have been cool to see those dancers come up with a more alien system of movement. It’s not as though the ballet dancers chosen to portray the Weeping Angels were performing pirouettes. 

This problem persisted into the Moffat era with Roman Autons. While they were under the impression that they were human, they moved about and spoke like humans. But the moment the Nestine consciousness takes root, their bodies move into a sort of robotic marching. Suddenly whirring can be heard from alien actuators and servos that make no sense for living plastic. Once again, it feels as though they would rather speak in a familiar voice of filmmaking than create one. We all know that little android sounds and robotic movements mean they’re mindless automatons, hell it’s the root of Auton. But the idea of living plastic is so much weirder than a robot. I would love to see them lean more into that.

Cybermen/Cybermats/10th Planet Cybermen

Having started my foray into Doctor Who with Paul McGann and then moving on to the 2005 series, most of the baddies on this list were brand new to me. When I did finally work my way to classic Doctor Who, I was a bit surprised to find the early Cybermen leaned more into the “men,” aspect of their name. Not only were they more articulate than repeating “Delete,” ad nauseum, but their bodies were less robotic. They moved like men. The Cybermen may be the first time I looked at a Doctor Who villain and thought “Oh the old versions were much better.”

This isn’t to say that I disliked the RTD Cybermen, but rather, I find classic Cybermen more effective. While the Cybus Cybermen felt dangerous and militaristic, they lack the humanity present in the Tenth Planet Cybermen. They remind me of the zombies from Return of the Living Dead- they’re smarter, faster, and they feel like the reanimated body of a dead person. You do get glimpses of this in these Cybermen, like in “The Pandorica Opens,” where you see a Cyberhead open to reveal a rotting human skull. The glimpses of the conversion process also imply a deeper dread of body horror.

I would argue that the Moffat era understood the walking dead aspect of the Cybermen better than the Davies era. In “Dark Water/Death in Heaven,” Moffat even pays homage to Return of the Living Dead by reanimating a graveyard of corpses with tainted rain. By this time, the look of the Cybermen had been streamlined from their Cybus look to their svelt “Nightmare in Silver,” look. I liked this redesign as it reminded me of the 80’s Cybermen with their silver space boots. They look more like men than robots. This slimmed-down look was realised even further in the Chibnall era, while also going for a more classic head style. As much as that era of the show disappointed me, its Cybermen were fantastic.

Not every Cyberman update aimed to reinvent their look, however. The updated look for the Tenth Planet Cybermen in “World Enough and Time/The Doctor Falls,” merely added detail to their original appearance. Much like the Type 40 TARDIS the 12th Doctor steals from Gallifrey, the idea was to modernise the look for the high-definition cameras of the modern age. Because of this, these Cybermen may be my favourite of the modern era. It was a risky choice to change their bare hands to flesh-tone gloves, but I understand the decision. I had always liked that the Tenth Planet Cybermen’s hands were bare skin. Historically, hands are one of the hardest things to reproduce in robotics. It also felt that the Cybermen’s hands were the last remaining vestige of their humanity. None of this is lost with the inclusion of gloves. These Cybermen are a nightmare to behold. They languish in physical pain, calling out for solace. The conversion process is still traumatic and bloody. They are horrific.

Another element of the Cybermen that was updated for the new series were the Cybermats. The look of the Cybermats, much like the Cybermen, has always changed, so it’s hard to feel too precious about a redesign. And their appearance in “Closing Time,” is no different. I’ve always liked the look of the modern Cybermat. Their eye shape is a pleasing nod to the Cybermen’s eyes while also calling back to their original appearance. Their segmented tails give an armoured appearance which evokes small creatures like armadillos and insects. My only real complaint about these little munchers would be their very organic teeth. I always figured the “mat” part of their name was meant to be a play on “rat,” so if you were to give them teeth at all, why not rat teeth? What tiny creature was converted to make these little abominations? In the classic series, I never really thought of Cybermats having anything organic about them. You could argue that the Cybermats from “Revenge of the Cybermen,” were snakelike, but I never really thought of them as organic. Regardless, I’m now trolling eBay for one of the 1:1 replicas they sold. 

Daleks/Davros

Before their return in 2005, the Daleks made the briefest of cameos in the 1996 Doctor Who TV Movie, sort of. Since we only ever hear their voices, we have no idea what the Daleks would have looked like. Judging by those voices, it’s safe to say they probably would have been a bit of a departure from their general appearance throughout classic Doctor Who. Especially when you consider that adaptations in the ‘90s were known to go for new extremes in design. That’s not to say they would have been bad. The Eighth Doctor’s cathedral-like TARDIS interior was a far cry from the brightly lit round things of the ‘80s TARDISes, and it’s probably my favourite interior. But there is no denying it would be challenging to redesign the universe’s most iconic monsters.

By this measure, I consider the black and bronze Daleks of the RTD era to be a stonking success. Their redesign is mostly effective because it doesn’t aim to reinvent the wheel. It maintains the overall silhouette of the Dalek in a way that makes it immediately recognisable. The changes we do see feel utilitarian, lending these Daleks a tanky quality. You can imagine these Daleks as a product of war. They’re reinforced for battle and feel powerful. Honestly, zero notes. I can’t find a single area for improvement. They even look good in other colours and attachments. Even the mutant inside the casing was given some much-needed continuity in appearance. Where the mutant of the classic series often changed in appearance, it’s now established that Daleks are one-eyed brain squids under all that metal. Simple as can be. No need to change anything.

Enter the Paradigm Daleks. As I said above, the Paradigm Daleks aren’t exactly well-received by the fandom, and not without good reason. I’ve seen at least four different Mighty Morphin’ Power Daleks mash-ups of their big reveal in “Victory of the Daleks.” But is being a big colourful hate machine that bad? I will admit, their silhouette is a bit chonky, giving them bumble-bee bums. But their eye stalks look lethal and their voice modulation fills me with dread down to my stomach. The creepy goat eye nestled in the end of an eyestalk that looks like it would cut to the touch is a great change. I also really like the idea of them having different roles indicated by colour rank. What the hell is an Eternal Dalek? I still want to know. 

The biggest issue with the Paradigm Dalek redesign is that unlike it’s predecessor, it seems to miss what is actually scary about Daleks. For starters, Daleks have no concept of elegance, so why the clean lines on the casing? Those neck louvres (that’s what I’m calling them), are far too stylised. Gone is their tank-like appearance, save for their brutal eyestalks. They made them taller as to appear more formidable, which further bolsters why they miss the mark. If you can’t make an hate-filled monster covered in armour scary, the problem isn’t height, it’s writing. Also, we stan a short king in this house.

It’s hard to take the Chibnall-era Dalek redesigns too seriously, because neither of them ever felt like they were meant to be permanent. One was meant to look like a Dalek made of scrap metal, because it was, while the other was the bi-product of two evil forces- the Daleks and the Tories. The “Revolution” Daleks do look a bit like a bootleg toy of a Dalek you could win at a fun fair. Or the result of an AI prompt for the word Dalek. Regardless, they’re fit for purpose and don’t affect my opinion one way or the other. If they had stuck around, I may feel a bit different.

Not to be excluded from the redesign process is the Daleks’ crazed creator- Davros. By the end of the classic era, Davros had a bit of a Rickety Cricket thing going where every time we see him, he’s progressively more mutilated. In the end, he was just a Futurama-style head in a jar. The Davros of the new series is back to a more classic silhouette. His one arm has returned as a cybernetic limb, while the other remains suspiciously under his keyboard. Typing one-handed eh Dave? He’s been given some gimp leather to wear, and his chair has taken on the same armoured look of the Davies Daleks. Much like the mutant inside the casing, Davros has been given a baseline appearance and it's an effective one. Couple that with Julian Bleach’s perfect performance, and you’ve got another success.

Ice Warriors

Who doesn’t love a good Ice Warrior? They’re forever cool (no pun intended). While not always villainous, they are fierce and formidable. They’re also a bit weird. The original Ice Warriors stood taller than your average Doctor Who alien. And there is something about their deep green carapace that feels believable. These battle-hardened reptiles wore their outer shells like armour. At the joints of these plated segments sprang tufts of fur. From a costuming perspective, these patches would have been used to hide seams and add points of visual interest for the average black-and-white television. From a narrative perspective, the hair only added to their weirdness. In short, I like the classic Ice Warriors very much.

The Ice Warriors are also the first classic baddie redesign I had to wait to see. By the time I had started watching Doctor Who, Matt Smith was filming series six. The Ice Warriors don’t make their return until series seven, which gave me ample opportunity to imagine what they would look like. What we got was bang on what I had hoped for. They leaned into the weird and won in a big way. When “Cold War,” aired, there was a bit of contention about the reveal of an Ice Warrior outside of its armour. Perhaps it’s because their helmets possess a sort of Judge Dredd quality that in turn causes people to think you can’t show Ice Warriors without their helmets. But they’re going full Stallone and it’s fine. Dare I say it’s even a bit cool? 

A sticking point for me on the redesign was the lack of their stupid Lego Minifigure hands, which I love. But when you see their long skinny fingers reaching with their claws out, you might need to give the suit some fingers as well. Their reptilian aspects are also celebrated in their redesign. The Empress is a ferocious take on the look of the commander rank Ice Warriors. I said in my review of “Empress of Mars,” that the guns that turn people into cubes were a bit silly, and I still feel that way. And sure, I would have appreciated the odd "Ssss," at the beginning of an S word. But in the end, they allowed the Ice Warriors to shine for what they are, and that’s all that matters.

The Macra

One of my least favourite Pokémon designs is Raichu. You have Pikachu, an almost perfect marriage of form and cuteness. How do you improve on such a design? You can’t. This is why Raichu’s little curly-Q ear tufts and embellished lines look less like an evolution, and more like someone who didn’t know how to stop drawing Pikachu. Or when to stop spelling bananana. You just can’t improve on perfection. Now you’re probably wondering two things right now- 

Why the drive-by on Raichu?

What does this have to do with the Macra?

To answer the second question- “absolutely nothing.” And that’s the point. There was no perfection to mess up in the case of the Macra. The originals looked like a pile of playground equipment. The only place to go was up. First order on the list- does it look like a giant crab? Yes. List over.

Changing the Macra by devolving them into dumb beasts only adds to this winning revamp. Why were they at the bottom of the motorway of New New York? Had their nefarious plot backfired reducing them to mere monsters? It’s a great little incorporation of characters lesser showrunners would have called "embarrassing." I love the Macra. I love that they didn’t overdo the Macra. I love that they don’t tell us everything. Whatever crab rave they had going on down there will be lost to time. Or until Big Finish takes a crack at it.

The Mara

I will admit, this one is a bit of a cheat. It’s one of two on this list that you may think of as a cheat. But hey, they brought the Mara back in the web short “The Passenger,” for the season 20 Blu-ray release. I’m counting it! I’m also counting it because the Mara have been updated not once, but twice to a modern CGI standard. Plus it gives me a chance to talk about “Snakedance,” which I will always relish.

The practice of replacing old footage with newer CGI is not without its detractors. George Lucas released the special edition of the original Star Wars trilogy in 1997 and people are still arguing about it. I’m in two minds about it myself. I like some of the changes they’ve made to Star Wars, ‘60s Star Trek, and even Doctor Who. I dream of the day when they take a crack at Babylon 5. But it also has its limitations. I would be upset if they updated the model shots of Scaroth’s ship in “City of Death.” But in the case of a goofy pink snake puppet? Fine by me.

That is not to say I don’t find the snake puppets of both “Kinda,” and “Snakedance,” charming. They certainly are. But they’re also so very distracting. There’s the suspension of disbelief and then there’s the stifling of laughter. If you can get past the snake, you will see both “Kinda,” and “Snakedance,” for what they are- some of the best of Classic Doctor Who. The CGI snake does exactly that and nothing more. It’s not even a fancy CGI model. Someone probably downloaded a rattlesnake asset and coloured it pink, and that’s absolutely fine. It’s another Macra situation. Does it look more “snake,” than “snek?” Yes. List over.

The Nestine Consciousness

In the words of Vito Corleone- “Look how they massacred my boy!” Ok, maybe massacred is a bit harsh. But even by series one standards, that CGI pool of molten plastic is pretty damn awful. I say this with a handful of caveats. Yes, this was essentially a pilot for the relaunch of the series. Yes, the production crew was brand new. No, the budget wasn’t huge. You could probably list more reasons, but my point is made. They did their best.

I don’t need to ask why an amorphous blob was easier to depict than a giant space squid. Hell, it was too expensive in the '70s. We only ever saw it’s tentacles back then! I had to use Andrew Skilleter’s illustration from the Target novelisation of “Terror of the Autons.” Mostly because the show never shows the entire squid and also because Skilleter owns! But the kid who grew up on ‘90s Nickelodeon and Beetlejuice in me will never think of a pool of goo as an upgrade from a space squid. It’s just not gonna happen.

As returning readers may have noticed, in the “rad vs. trad,” debate, I have always sided with rad. I like Doctor Who a bit weird. So weird that I am arguing that something is weirder than a glowing vat of sentient plastic. But here I am. The beauty is that RTD explained the change as a devolved form of the Nestine Consciousness. Maybe it was temporary. The squid may return yet! Furthermore, Doctor Who audiences have been watching Talking Tree and Raccoon movies in the intervening years. People are more open to weird these days. Add a bigger budget and we may see the comeback of the cosmic cephalopod!

Rutans

This is the other entry on this list that you may feel is a bit of a cheat. The above illustration on the right comes from an official Doctor Who video game titled “The Gunpowder Plot.” It is a redesign of the Rutan Host for the Matt Smith era. Seeing as their new design is meant to represent the style of the modern series, I’m counting it.

As redesigns go, this one had a lot of wiggle room. Usually only mentioned by name, the only time we ever got to see a Rutan onscreen was “The Horror of Fang Rock.” Throughout most of the story, the Rutan looks like a quenelle of green jelly sloughing slowly up the stairs of a lighthouse. When I was five, my trip to Cocoa Beach was cut short due to an outbreak of jellyfish. The one I almost stepped on with my bare foot looked a lot like that. It’s not hard for me to imagine a little green blob as dangerous.

It feels almost too perfect then that the Rutan redesign would land somewhere in the vicinity of a jellyfish. While they are capable of shapeshifting, tentacles do add to their base physical prowess. You can imagine one of them holding their own against a Sontaran. You can imagine one wrapped around one of their potato noggins and it being lights out. Whoever worked on that game has done the show a favour if they ever bring the Rutans back. Green electric jellyfish will do just fine.

Sea Devils

Back when I reviewed “Legend of the Sea Devils,” I mused that it followed the tradition of Sea Devils stories being “not very interesting.” So it came as a bit of a shock to me back in June when Doctor Who Magazine readers ranked it the eighth-best story of the Pertwee era. What were they seeing that I wasn’t? Because by my standards, it’s about two episodes too long. My thought is that people love it mainly for two reasons- cool vehicles and the Sea Devils themselves. Much like the St Paul’s Cathedral shot from “The Invasion,” the shot of the Sea Devils emerging from the sea is doing most of the heavy lifting. Such is the legacy of effective imagery.

The element of the Sea Devils’ look that has aged the poorest has to be their netted tunics. They look dingy and cheap. I imagine on some level, they helped, as Adam Savage would say, “hide the crimes,” of the costume department. The costumes weren’t playing on camera so maybe they added the netting. I’m just speculating here. After all, their cousins, the SIlurians, walked around in the buff. The next time we see the Sea Devils in “Warriors of the Deep,” they’re decked out in a sort of Samauri attire. Just because they lived underwater doesn’t mean the Sea Devils were unaffected by Feudal Japan. Nobody seems to have cared about this change in costuming. Or perhaps they were busy recoiling from the Myrka. The Silurians remained true to their nudist lifestyle.

Other than the Daleks and the Weeping Angels with Paul Dano’s face of the Chibnall era, I rather liked most of its character redesigns. I particularly liked the Sea Devils. I like that they kept their big fishy eyes and turtle beaks. And did you catch that adorable Baby Sea Devil from “Defenders of Earth?” That thing looks like a cross between Grogu and my own pet tortoise and I would kill for it. Like the Dalek update of the Davies era, they kept the silhouette intact and simply gave it a more believable appearance. Are the eyes a bit more cartoony? Yes. Is that fantastic? Also yes.

The major change to the look of the Sea Devils are their costumes. They’re a sort of mash-up of Asian influences with little references to the netting of their first appearance. If you’re a big fan of the Sea Devils, I think it would be hard to complain about their appearance here. Their bismuth-encrusted swords are a nice addition (just don’t let them touch your skin). You can imagine them as swashbuckling monsters who once ruled the sea. Now if only someone could come along and give them a proper adventure to star in!

Silurians

Much like the Royal Family, Doctor Who writers get a lot of leeway out of the word “cousin.” It covers a multitude of sins. Such is the case when dealing with the Silurians and their cousins- Homoreptila. It’s a blink-and-you-miss-it line of dialogue that I unfortunately missed the first time around. I was too busy blinking in disbelief at how depressing Broadchurch with lizards could be. It wasn’t until revisiting the two-part story “The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood,” that I finally heard the line explaining the discrepancy.

Why that matters is that it’s the reason I had a two-year chip on my shoulder about the Silurian redesign. This isn’t to say I thought they looked bad. The makeup job on the modern Silurians is very good. They just don’t look like Silurians. It bothered me because one of the things I liked about Doctor Who is that it often set itself apart from Star Trek. Star Trek aliens are more often than not- rather humanoid. This has always felt like a storytelling device more than anything. Less makeup equals more of the actor’s performance shining through. Doctor Who, on the other hand, asks its viewers to see something relatable in something inhuman. You can still make this complaint against “The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood,” because it does feel like they wanted you to see the human inside the Silurian costume. They couldn’t resist the Spielbergian desire to give the lizards soulful human eyes. 

Any design change seems to stem directly from this need, so it feels difficult to judge them otherwise. Even their dehumanising masks were more of a measure to save money on facial prosthetics, though they do add an air of mystery. Those black-eyed masks were downright exciting until they took them off to reveal a very human face. Had they gone with those masks as their faces, I might have been able to overlook the exclusion of their third eye. It would have been very easy to modernise as well. Many reptiles and amphibians have what is known as a parietal eye on top of their heads. They can even sense fluctuations in light. Incorporating one into the design would have been very easy. That said, the ridges on their heads are in keeping with their original design and very striking. Especially on Madame Vastra.

Along with their masks, these Silurians are different in that they are no longer nudists. They now wear clothes. It makes sense that they did this. Their new humanoid appearance makes clothing essential. No need to adapt “The Lusty Argonian Maid,” for television. The costumes aren’t bad either. The netting feels like yet another call-back to their other cousins- the Sea Devils. Even their new guns do a good job echoing the disc-shaped guns the Sea Devils carried but with the aesthetics of the modern era. All in all, this redesign is fine, but I still yearn to see a proper Silurian in the modern style.

Sontarans

Tumblr user “zagreus-eats-your-bread,” once said of the Chibnall era Sontarans- “Big fan of the redesign. They finally look like absolute shit again. He looks like a knee.” While to some, that sounds like faint praise, I couldn’t agree with their sentiment more. The Sontarans looked awful in classic Doctor Who and I love them for that. There was something unsettling about the way Linx’s tongue would pulsate in “The Time Warrior.” The whiskers poking from his brow and mottled face only added to his vile appearance. His helmet towered over others as he sized them up. A striking foe if there ever was one.

It’s odd then, that the Davies era decided to make the Sontarans squat in stature. They even explain that it is due to the high gravity of Sontar that they’re so short. Their bodies developed for load-bearing. It made sense narratively and wasn’t really a problem. Like I said above- we stan a short king. The problems arose sometime in the Moffat era. The Sontarans had gone from dynamite in a small package to comic relief. I hesitate to blame Strax, but he is when this started to happen.

Cynicism is likely the cause. Writers looked at the Sontarans and said “Ha, potato head and a short body!” One of the fiercest races in Doctor Who history was reduced to an army too stupid to realise that an invisible tank left them completely visible inside. It’s like when people think of the Daleks as embarrassing because they look like pepper pots and completely ignore the fact that they’re also genocidal maniacs. This is why I appreciated Chris Chibnall’s desire to add some ferocity back into the Sontarans. Their stature had returned to that of the classic look, which is fine. Unlike the Daleks, there was a precedent for a tall Sontaran. And yes, they looked like shit again. We could see the Sontarans as a threat once more. Oh, they’re stuck in an off-license eating chocolate like Augustus Gloop? Oh. Right.

Time Lords

I hemmed and hawed about whether I should include these guys or not. Do I add the Master while I’m at it? But in the end, many Time Lords are monsters and they too received a makeover. Though it isn’t much of one. In fact, I once read that aspects of their costumes were reused from the classic series. You could argue that their biggest redesign happened somewhere between their first appearance in “The War Games,” and “The Deadly Assassin.” They started out looking like a cult that formed in the basement of an Apple Store. But somewhere along the line, they got seriously into collars. It was the ‘70s after all. People’s shirts were 30% collar back then.

Sadly, while the overall look of the ‘70s Time Lords carried on into the modern era, they abandoned their love for colour. Rassilon being the Regina George of Time Lord society decided that we only wear red on Wednesdays. And seeing as they’re time travellers, it’s always Wednesday somewhere! So the Time Lords left their saffron and purple robes at the cleaners. Even the citizens of Gallifrey are shown in “The Day of the Doctor,” wearing variations of red and white. Everyone fell in line and fashion suffered.

When we see the Time Lords in “The Timeless Children,” they’re now wearing very stylish Cyberman headgear. Their red hoods have now been replaced with gold numbers laser-cut with Gallifreyan writing. I would call it a fashion breakthrough if not for the fact that everyone was still decked out in drab silver. I don’t want to see the Time Lords again until they take a page from the Fifteenth Doctor’s book and learn to diversify their wardrobe. Yas hunty! Werk!

Zygons

If you’ve not been to Neil Cole’s Museum of Classic Sci-fi in Hexham, you should do yourself a favour and change that. It’s a great day out, and if you’re lucky, Neil might even be available to chat. Something I learned when talking to Neil is that he has some rather strong opinions about the redesign of the Zygons. Primarily, their head shape. Throughout this article, I’ve praised some of the redesigns for their adherence to the basic silhouette of the baddies. If you were to show me either version of a Zygon in a silhouette I would identify them both as Zygons, but dammit Neil, you’re right. The head just isn’t right.

Initially, I thought it was the mouth shape, which is definitely different. When they redesigned the Zygons for “The Day of the Doctor,” my thought was “What happened to their kitty cat faces?” You may not see it, but I have always looked at classic Zygons and thought “Aw, there’s a Mister Kitty!” And they replaced their little button nose and philtrum with a set of far more human features. Seriously Moffat, what is it with you? They’re aliens! Let orange squid men covered in suckers have cat faces!

The top-heavy ridge of their heads gave them a sort of lumbering look, which may have been the impetus to change them. The Zygons of the 50th anniversary needed to do a fair bit of running. But it also detracts from the iconic lines that made them so striking back in 1975. Below the neck, the design choices make a lot of sense. Like the Ice Warriors, the goal seemed to be to add more texture and detail. The ribs seem more defined as do the suckers. Even their bio-tech devices are appropriately slimy and detailed. When they find Kate Stewart in that purple bubbly skin poncho, none of us are offering to trade places with her. Unless that’s your thing. Don’t let me yuck your yum.

My main qualm with the modern Zygon is less with their design and more with their physiology. The Zygons have always been squidgy shapeshifters. But since when do they turn people into smouldering balls of staticky hair? They tried to explain that this was a new development of technology, so why is one of the refugee Zygons able to use it on himself? It’s not as though the Zygon’s body is not already teeming with venomous stingers. If you’ve ever read Mark Morris’ “The Bodysnatchers,” you’ll know exactly what I mean. Mark does such a good job delving into the physiology of the Zygons that he set the standard by which I judge all future Zygon depictions. It’s seriously great stuff.

Aaaaand we're done! Phew! This one took a long time for me to write. I wanted to return with a bit of a long one because I haven't written anything in a while. My sister came to visit from July to August, so I had been very busy. Then I got ill, yadda yadda yadda. Expect to see more of me soon as I plan to cover the 60th Anniversary Specials and beyond. I may even review some classic Doctor Who in the meantime! Stay safe and take care!

[divinekangaroo]

Was thinking a bit deeper on @deadendtracks query https://www.tumblr.com/divinekangaroo/740003125539307520/i-clipped-this-from-your-post-because-its-easier?source=share

Snipped for sex talk, and also to spare any disinterested parties my naiveity on complex matters such as: subaltern/Orientalism/exoticism/Othering/ethnic talk etc

In hindsight I think I answered that query as a ‘possible authorial intent’ - speculatively, to subvert the usual gangster trope by displaying macho-ish behaviours (sex! whores!) but flipping motivation and outcome.

But there's also something else that's been churning away at the back of my head, the term subaltern. "the most powerless people living within the socio-economic confines of imperialism" -- and this imperialist overlay that often assigns the devious, deviant, dark, scheming/conniving/machavellian/feminine characteristics to the subaltern man, too, because it is exotic.

I haven't properly structured an argument around this; I feel a lot of T's approach to sex has that almost woman-coded thing to it, as signifiers of an even-further-disadvantaged man. It nags at me and feels that this also ties into this subaltern, semi-'Orientalist' / exotic layer he has as 'lower than the lowest class' / 'actually so low class he's outside of class' Romani character -> less of a stereotype, more of a conscious consideration of "if you have nothing, you will use everything you can, and sometimes that includes your own body, and guess what here's the bind: that kinda puts you even *lower* in the hierarchy, because women are lower than men and only women use their bodies that way!"

Gut instinct, barely unpacked: there's an imperialist/cultural/ethnic trauma that feels like it can't be detached from Tommy's sexuality/approach to sex any more than the hints of childhood trauma or abuse can be, either. Especially when you consider childhood as his closest time still connected to the living Romani culture, as opposed to by the time we see him on screen when his interactions with his culture are static and based on childhood/broken memories. I was initially put off by the Romani layer because it felt like a stereotype - gangs followed ethnic lines so let's just apply an ethnicity that's ~exotic~ - but the later series re-frame the earlier approach into something that shows it was almost never intended to be a representation of the culture but rather, more like Tommy's particular (distorted, damaged) view.

----

But then also answering the personal side of the question RE: Tommy's character. What does it mean for a person/individual to be so transactional and detached from sex yet participatory towards it?

This gets a little more headcanon-y:

T started having sex or being sexualised (seeing/experiencing sex) really young in a less than affectionate way - more like, here is a thing that must be done for some other action to happen (or be diverted).

Because of this, I can’t ever see him permitting himself to perform that ‘hungry to totally surrender his control and desires to someone else’ role so frequently given to him in fanon. What happened with Tatiana was an exception, not a rule. It’s nice to read for various reasons, but I'm unlikely to personally lean into this take. Not to say he's dominating or must be fully in control during sex, either, just that I think he'd avoid leaning into surrender because it'd be like losing total control of a transaction and becoming far too vulnerable.

Despite that I do feel he has an urge for connection/intimacy, I think he struggles with actually connecting deeply with people, reading sexual cues/flirtation or the like. In some ways, he connects too deeply and therefore holds back? I did have thoughts along the asexual line. He likes certain people, and he mostly enjoys the physical act of sex, and these two things can overlap to ‘I would like sex with this certain person’, but there’s a big gap between the two. Deep connection is unrelated to sex. Can't read flirt cues to the point he leapfrogs straight to the 'do you want to fuck?' almost as an abstraction because he can never decode the in-between steps?

Notwithstanding any deep connection, sex is still considered/framed as duty and obligation. His approach with Lizzie in S6 as case in point; he is conscious of his role and considers it a thing that must be performed to satisfy that role. Even S5, it feels like a 'seal the deal' sex exchange; he knows she likes it, she just told him so and that it's important to her, so all right, he's going to let loose.

This difficulty with 'is this connection? not sure?' is one reason why I think he is mostly about family (he can take connection for granted and has had a really really long time to build it). He also has a surprisingly large *respectful* but superficial network (he knows the right behaviours but rarely gets personal), very few close friends (honestly is this just Alfie? Maybe, once, Freddie and Barney? even Johnny Dogs and Uncle Charlie are subordinate). Which lends itself very effectively to leadership, to be honest, but also loneliness: again it feels like he's performing connection.

I really struggle with picturing him feeling much physical attraction without consciously focusing on it. He seems to spark for people (or maybe situations/dynamics - classy women?) not their physical, and when I’m in headcanon mode, it’s familiarity that builds his fondness for certain aspects of a person's physicality, rather than their physicality attracting him initially. So either he wants sex (release) and it's not really relevant who with, or he wants the person and sex is acceptable/better with that person. And there's a conscious switch in his head like, "ok now paying attention to physical attraction because must have sex" or "switch it off not important right now"

[littlekingbergara]

Hi! I’m the anon who asked you about your Patreon membership.

I follow Ryan & Shane since their bfu days and like many other people, I above all enjoyed their dynamic/ their friendship.

First I think I have to mention I only watch their youtube content and see a few twitter posts of them at times. I’m not a Patreon member.

Okay, here is my (very subjective) issue/ problem: For the last couple of months I have the feeling that the relationship they display on screen got more and more superficial, rather an act/ a bit fitted to the current show than a real interaction. Of course after all these years they are a very well-rehearsed team, that knows what the fans want. They know when to play the “friendship card”. But for me it feels like this is all there is to it nowadays. No real friendship anymore, just the trope “Ryan & Shane are best friends”.

I know they got to know each other through bf. They were coworkers first. But the friendship that grew and the parts of the friendship they showed us, let me forget that they are business partners first.

Because I’m a long time fan and because I love these two idiots dearly, I’m very sad about my feelings and the impression I received.

Now I hope, that they appear more relaxed, more natural, more like real friends again on WW+. I guess you probably don’t feel the same way I do. Nonetheless I would like to know: What is your impression when you watch their Patreon content? Do you think there is a difference between how they appear/ act in official youtube videos and their Patreon content, especially regarding my “friendship issue”?

Sorry for this long & most likely very confusing message. But I’m really down because of this. I’m always looking forward to their new shows/ to new seasons, only to get these depressing feelings& thoughts at the end.

Thanks in advance for answering.

this is... an interesting perspective! and i'm remembering now that i had an ask from someone who had a similar concern about them not being friends around when ryan had his bach party? honestly i don't get it! i don't know what you guys think you're seeing.

like to answer your question Yes there is a difference between their youtube videos and their patreon content, but i don't think it's anything to do with how they act with each other. the videos they post on youtube are for the most part episodes of a series so they have a purpose; there's not a lot of time for them to go off track and i'm sure a lot of their interactions get cut for time or relevance. their patreon content, which is mainly ww+ and livestreams, are by design much more laid back and free-flowing so they're able to go off on tangents and keep silly little bits in. so i do think we get to see a lot more of their actual friendship in patreon content but i definitely don't think it's Absent or fake in their youtube content.

but even only considering youtube content i don't think they give off a superficial or just in it for the Friendship Bit vibe at all. yeah in some shows they have the Roles that they play (skeptic/believer, mainly) but their friendship is never an act. it's so much not an act that they had a bit about being actors who Aren't friends. and there's things you Can't fake like the absolute delight on their faces when the other makes a joke, the way they look at each other, the joy they have just being around each other, the fact that shane was in ryan's wedding?? they've also never relied on that for content? they've never asked us to believe they're best friends at all. they just have Been best friends and that's what makes their content.

[maccreadysbaby]

Do it. Rate the MW2 men. I dare you.

Oh gosh. I’m about to get hated on. I feel it.

THESE ARE REBOOT CHARACTERS.

How I Rank the MW2 Men

7. Rodolfo Parra

i just don’t know enough about him to actually get into it. i like what parts of him we see, but i wish he had more screen time. i did get scared when i thought he was gonna die in the burning house, though, which shows that i at least care a little lol. he’s cute, but we have very little canon information displayed in-campaign and i can’t form a good enough opinion of him based off of what i know.

5/10 - just don’t know enough!

6. Alejandro Vargas

again, very little canon info shared, but he’s more personable than rudy! he’s loyal to an absolute fault and isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty, which i love. also very cute and charming. i was on the edge of my seat the entire length of prison break and was very relieved once he was found. i did get just a tad bit annoyed when he got angry over valeria, though, dude needed to take a chill pill

6/10 - i think i like him because ghost and soap like him

5. John Price

hold on before you attack me. i really, really, really like price! just not as much as others. he is totally the dad figure and the team wouldn’t be complete without him. also, when he puts his game face on, ain’t no one gonna stop him from getting what he wants. (ex. violence and timing, that one call with shepherd) his relationship with gaz is aww-worthy and i really appreciate his drive and willingness both to lead tf141 and be a vital part of it. i think too many people write him as a semi-absent, substitute teacher-like authority figure than the actual extremely useful, skillful, and vital part of the 141 that he is.

8/10 - underrated!

4. Simon “Ghost” Riley

firstly, stop hitting me with your shoe. secondly, let me explain. simon ghost riley is one of the most distinct and fine tuned characters i’ve ever encountered and it seriously boggles my mind and makes me terrified to write him. he is cold and closed off for good reason, due to trauma, and i love those characters. i can’t stand the i-can-fix-him fics a lot of people write about him because he doesn’t need someone to fix him. i think it’s possible he could lean heavily on a s/o like that, because he is a wreck, but it always seems a little ooc for him. he has so many walls built up it’s like trying to walk through a maze. i love him in-game, and his voice makes me blush, but he just isn’t my type of go-to comfort character.

9/10 - it’s ghost, what more do you need?

3. Johnny “Soap” MacTavish

he was the first one i fell for when i played. he’s a freaking charmer. and, even if he is the comic relief, he is also a hard working, extremely skilled soldier. i was terrified for the entire alone mission, and watching him get shot by graves? sheer panic. he oozes the modern military man trope while also being the second most emotionally vulnerable character, in my opinion, and i love the way he balances out ghost perfectly.

10/10 - i recommend getting you a soap

2. König

now, before you beat me up, i know he’s like ghost… but he’s distinctly different! he’s been used his entire life like some kind of tool, the battering ram, and is totally emotionally stunted in a different way than ghost. ghost has an off switch, könig doesn’t. he just suppresses it until he gets on the field. he moves like lightning, fights like a machine and gets his missions done. but he’s also self-conscious and severely anxious about interactions, which adds to why i love him. i totally get that, even if not to the extent of his. he’s just a big, big, scary man that wants friends but is too scared and scary to make them.

10/10 - so much depth

1. Kyle “Gaz” Garrick

i fell for him later in the campaign, but definitely harder than i did for soap. he’s so young, he’s so, for lack of a better word, readable compared to the others. he just wants to do what’s right. fight for a good cause. definitely passionate and driven, but you turn those two traits around, and you get a man whose morale is fragile and can get emotional. it doesn’t take more than a few blows and his morale will be at its lowest, only a few failed missions and he thinks he’s a failure, asking what is he doing with his life. but, with that, comes the fact that he thrives with and around other people and can be consoled easily. probably the most suited for a romantic partner. he’s just a baby, and i love him.

1000/10 - i reccomend gaz more than I recommend air

please don’t hate me :,)