#but FUNNY because me and another guy who writes in our same section basically were parent trap'd by them

[sunfoxfic]

anyway we stan the next editor-in-chief for my student newspaper. she's literally so nice and I love her so much and I'm so excited for her to be EIC

[lavenderbexlatte]

more & more

stray kids 2.6k words female reader insert FemDom!Reader x Sub!3RACHA mature

🖤 warnings: light degradation 🖤

Series Masterlist (Parts 1-7)

connect with me! / masterlist

It’s all three of them. 

When that happened, you’re not quite sure. This is why you hate house parties, hate being messy drunk all on your own. There’s so many people milling around, crashing on couches, watching movies in the low light, disappearing into bedrooms to do God knows what.

You’re leaning on the wall, just watching the room at large. It’s a den, of some sort, a living room. A family room? You don’t know. There are long, worn, slouching sectional couches and a coffee table laden with bottles and cups. A television playing some movie casts a gentle bluish light over everything. It’s the quietest room in the house by far; you can hear loud laughter from the kitchen and bumping music from the backyard. You were content to just people-watch, enjoy being innocently drunk on your own and watching other people be less-innocently smashed.

This isn’t your first solo party, but it’s by far the most boring. Usually by now you’ve made a few friends who’ll carry you through the night, fun to dance and drink with and probably never see again. Not tonight. Up until now, it’s just been you, a series of drinks that you fished out of the fridge yourself, and lots of empty space.

But now, you’re surrounded by all three of them. On your left, Chan, propped casually on the wall himself, like he just happened to be there. On your right, Jisung, looking at you with that stupid grin, the really big one that shows his crooked tooth and pushes up his round cheeks. And right in front of you, Changbin, just regarding you coolly.

You know them. Everyone knows them. It’s far more surprising that they know you.

Because those three, they’re popular. Popular in a way that you didn’t really know could happen on an enormous college campus. Everyone knows them: Chan the music production major, president of the business honors frat; Changbin the creative writing whiz, Model UN president; Jisung, music major, only a sophomore but already leading the music honors society. They formed a project group once for a music production class project, as the legend goes, and the rap song they wrote, performed, and produced went Soundcloud viral. The rest is history. They’re local celebrities now, inseparable and insufferable.

They sit in front of you in your Physics 101 lecture. It’s a science class for nonscience majors, so you do alright for yourself, but you have no idea how these three are acing it the way they are. They talk and joke and write rap lyrics during class; Chan always has his production software open on his laptop, and Jisung is constantly scribbling down verses and bits. You’d think it was Changbin keeping them afloat, but he’s usually half asleep, propped up on one elbow as he nods off.

Not that you pay attention. Not that you care.

You’d care less if they weren’t so attractive. They’re all colored hair and big personality and annoying loud laughs while you’re trying to remember how to calculate redshift, apologies and soft smiles when their chairs bump into your desk.

The four of you even did a class project together once, a small star observation thing that only took a few hours, but it was a few hours of nighttime with them. But you were never close, you never even really talked beyond the basic chit-chat of classmates. You can barely remember their last names. You’re sure they don’t know yours.

So there’s really no reason for the three of them to be looking at you the way they are right now, on either side and directly in front of you, eyes trained on you.

You’re caged in, but you don’t hate it. You kind of like it. Really like it.

Changbin doesn’t say anything. None of them do. You don’t either. You just look at Changbin, your back pressed against the wall. He lifts one arm, all biceps and triceps and shoulders in a tight t-shirt, and rests his palm flat on the wall over your shoulder. He’s barely taller than you, but you feel pinned there, thoroughly caged in. It’s not a feeling you’re used to, and it sends a funny little thrill down your spine.

You break the silence first. “What are you doing?”

Changbin just keeps looking it you. It’s Chan who answers.

“Taking a risk.”

Huh.

You don’t say anything to that, just fixing Changbin with an even stare back. He leans forward, just enough that you think, oh Christ, he’s gonna kiss me.

He keeps coming until he doesn’t.

He veers to the side, right as your eyes flutter shut, and you open them to find his lips on Jisung’s, just a short tender press that leaves Jisung laughing after him. The big arm keeping you against the wall, holding you without even touching you, drops back down, and Changbin leans to the other side. With a little smirk as though he knows exactly what he’s doing to you, he kisses Chan, just the same.

You’re not quite sure what that’s meant to signal to you, or why they’re choosing to mess with you like this, but seeing them be so casual and tender sends an embarrassing wave of arousal through you. You wonder why you haven’t seen this part of their relationship before, if you’ve just been oblivious of it these months sitting behind them.

Chan, Changbin, and Jisung, local celebrities, inseparable bros…more than friends?

Changbin regards you again, grinning smooth and sneaky. He pauses, and you nod your consent ever so slightly, egging him on. With a little huff of a laugh, a little bit of alright, alright, he finally kisses you, all firm pressure and warm confidence. One of your hands goes up to touch him, hold him, but Jisung grabs your wrist as it rises beside him and holds it back down firmly against the wall. You don’t try it with the other hand. Chan will probably do the same.

He pulls away, still grinning. You’re breathless, but clear-headed.

“There’s that pretty blush,” says Chan, cavalier, “You got all pink-cheeked and flustered like that when ‘Bin walked into you in the Starbucks the other week, you remember that?”

You barely do. It was weeks ago, just a brush against you that sent your books tumbling out of your arms when you realized who it was, sneaking behind you with their hand on the small of your back. It had surprised you, more than overwhelmed you, but you do remember your cheeks burning in embarrassment as you collected your books and notes from the floor.

“We decided we wanted to see it again,” says Jisung.

And suddenly it’s clear. They’ve underestimated you. Cornered you at a party, decided it would be easy to get the shy girl from Physics to fuck around with them a little. Three handsome and popular guys, versus little old you. No contest, right?

Oh, this will be fun.

You glance around at the three of them, taking in their expressions and stances, the way they lean into you or away. It’s clear that Jisung is the least sure of himself, whether for his age or his personality, you don’t know.

It’s easy enough to turn toward Jisung, wrenching your arm around his grasp. You lean in close, until you’re practically nose-to-nose with him. He’s always doe-eyed, but right now you swear you can see your own cocky little grin reflected back in his pupils.

“Only Changbin gets to have fun?” you ask, quietly, relishing the way Jisung twitches toward you.

Changbin scoffs, but Jisung surges forward to kiss you, too, much more eagerly. You barely let him touch your lips before you back off, and he chases you as you lean back, giving away his own desperation.

“Aw,” you coo.

He raises the hand that isn’t still holding fast to your wrist, as if you grab you, cup your face, bring you closer, and you pull back all the way.

“No,” you say sweetly.

Immediately, his hand darts back down to his side. Good. Very good. You press your lips to his again, just barely any pressure at all, and repeat your little game, pulling back and making him chase you.

After a moment, Jisung seems to realize what you’re doing, that you’re not going to let him any closer, and he relaxes again, his expression equal parts confused and intrigued. The other two are watching you with wide eyes. Changbin might as well be drooling.

“Sorry to disappoint, but I’m not that easy to push around,” you say, smiling brightly.

“Figures,” says Chan, amused.

He’s still not touching you, hasn’t touched you at all. He’s just leaning there, a warm presence by your side. For some reason, that interests you even more. Maybe he’s going to be a challenge.

“And anyway, we shouldn’t cause a scene in front of all these people,” you turn slightly, meeting Jisung’s eye, “You gonna let go?”

Surprised, Jisung releases your wrist that he’s been squeezing all the while, and you cross your arms over your chest. You turn to face front again, forcing a little more space between yourself and Changbin.

Chan laughs. “You were wrong, ‘Bin.”

“It’s always the quiet ones,” Changbin mutters. “Find someone sweet and quiet, they wanna do you up in shibari and peg you. Every single time.”

He’s giving you ideas, which is dangerous and delightful. You wonder who’s done that stuff to them before. You kind of want to send that person a congratulations card, give them a high-five.

“Must just be our type,” Jisung muses.

Changbin rolls his eyes. “Just once, can’t we actually be into a sub?”

“Cuz that would work so well for us,” Jisung replies. “Another sub. Perfect.”

“So what are we doing here?” you ask, curiosity truly bursting, “What is this?”

“Whatever you want it to be,” Chan says smoothly.

“You’re not just out here preying on innocent girls, are you?” you ask.

You don’t think they are. Everything you know paints them as harmless, more than a little dorky, good-natured and boisterous. But it’s easy to imagine someone less strong-willed than you getting swept away by the charm pouring off these three like Axe body spray off a middle schooler. They probably don’t even know how this looks, cornering someone and planting one on them.

Chan shakes his head, letting his hand wander over to tug Changbin into his side. “Nah. We were out for a few drinks, catching up with some people. And we saw you. Figured it was worth a shot.”

You scoff out a laugh. “Soft dom me into fucking you?”

Chan’s grin is rakish and ridiculously confident as he strokes Changbin’s shoulder. “It’s worked before.”

“Sorry to disappoint,” you say again.

You spare a glance around the room. Nobody has even noticed the four of you doing this very strange dance of power in the corner. The television is still blaring some old comedy, and people still recline on the assorted chairs and sofas. You’re in the clear to keep this going. You smile to yourself.

“I’m not disappointed,” says Jisung. “Are you two disappointed?”

Changbin shakes his head. Chan just keeps looking at you, still grinning bright and confident.

It occurs to you then, what Jisung has just said. About another sub not working out, with the three of them. They must all lean more submissive, then. Even Chan, under this thick layer of brat. You can work with that. He just needs a bit of an attitude adjustment.

So you move toward him, reaching for his face. He leans into the touch, until you move up to grab him by the hair. You remember when he was blonde, earlier in the school year, and an odd bluish grey before that. Somewhere in the middle was a shocking red that only lasted a day, a washable hairspray color. But now, his hair is inky black waves, and you twist your fingers into the curls that flyaway over his forehead and tug gently, tilting his chin up, until he’s backed himself against the wall, palms scrabbling at the wallpaper for purchase.

You just hold him like that, his hair a dark streak in your fist, not even pulling. Just holding him, letting the anticipation work its magic. Before long, he’s squirming ever so slightly in your hold, still meeting your eye stubbornly, pretending that he doesn’t want you to pull his hair, manhandle him more, do something.

“Is this it?” he scoffs.

“I don’t want to come on too strong,” you shrug.

Chan has the boldness to look bored. “You’re not doing anything. Maybe we were right the first time, and you’re just putting us on.”

You tug on his hair at the root, just once, hard enough that he jumps. Your other hand goes to the beltloop on his jeans, tugging his hips toward you just the slightest bit. It’s satisfying to watch him struggle, torn between rocking forward into you and staying put where the hand in his hair holds him up against the wall.

“Hm,” you hum, “Is this too much?”

You’re teasing him, and he knows it, since you’ve barely done anything at all. You can tell that he hates the way you’re patronizing him, from the way his lip curls into a sneer.

“No,” he rasps, “More.”

Changbin makes a small noise from just behind you, a groan or maybe even a moan, but you ignore it in favor of really driving your point home. You tug at the hair in your grip again, harder, and Chan arches that long pretty neck back with the tiniest gasp.

“More,” he says again.

“More and more,” you tease, fake sympathy dripping from your voice.

He nods eagerly, which tugs again at his own hair, making him gasp. You take that opportunity to kiss him, and he responds in kind, keeping his hands neatly by his sides without needing to be told. Where Changbin was measured, trying to impress you, and Jisung was surprised, Chan is eager to please.

You pull back, smacking your lips appreciatively. “Peach flavor, huh? Flavored lip balm. Aren’t you just a sweet peach.”

The way that Chan’s eyes blow wide when you say that is poetry. Oh, yes.

“You like that,” you say, “Don’t you, peach?”

Jisung lets out a desperate little sigh behind you, “Fuck.”

Oh. You’d forgotten that you’re putting on a show not just with Changbin and Jisung’s friend, but their partner. All the more reason to make it a good show.

“Tell me you like it,” you demand.

“I like it,” he says, almost before you’re finished speaking.

“Kiss him again,” comes Changbin’s voice. “Please.”

You oblige, just for a moment.

All at once, you break the kiss and pull away, letting go of his hair and backing all the way out of the little circle they’ve made around you. You take a second to appraise the three of them. Changbin is ruffled, far cry from the guy who’d made to pin you to the wall just a short while ago. Jisung is already hard in his tight jeans. And Chan is just a mess, still pressed to the wall where you’d left him, pink peach-flavored lips swollen from your handiwork.

You turn to walk away.

“Where are you going?” Chan asks, and you’re delighted to hear just a hint of a whine in his tone.

You fix the three of them with your best innocent look.

“You said you wanted more.”

As you turn again and saunter out of the family room(…den…living room?), you can hear the telltale sound of several desperate pairs of feet following you out.

Perfect.

[egcdeath]

a date with destiny

pairing: ransom drysdale x reader

word count: 1.9k

summary: fate brings you to a... questionable man more than a few times. 

warnings: lots of fluff, enemies/strangers to lovers, kind of cringe

a/n:  i swear my new thing is poorly writing every played out fanfic trope on the planet, i'm so sorry guys. maybe hallmark can hire me to write a few movies for them

You definitely could’ve avoided this situation if you didn’t wait for the weekend before Christmas to go shopping for your family’s presents.

You had no idea why your time management had to be so bad, but in the midst of working way too many hours in an effort to get promoted, you had completely forgotten about the fact that Christmas was literally right around the corner. And to make it worse, you had a flight tomorrow that you’d also forgotten about.

You sulked to yourself while walking around Nordstrom, waiting for inspiration to strike you for a semi-decent gift for your mother. The whole world seemed to be out that day, and you watched a plethora of shoppers pass you by, with their sour faces and unruly children. After eventually deciding on a black winter sweater for your mom, you went on your way to the candle section, knowing exactly the brand and scent that your sister would love.

This candle was the definition of a non-negotiable for you, and had been the reason you came to a Nordstrom in the first place, and when you found it sitting on a shelf by itself in all of its glory, you had simply become transfixed.

As you walked toward the candle, you didn’t notice that another customer was going for it as well, leading both of your hands to land on the candle, the absurdity of the situation making you blush. This was just your luck.

“Oh, this is awkward,” you played off the encounter, then attempted to subtly pull the candle your way, and away from the man.

“Yeah, it kinda is.” The man whose hand was also placed on the candle said shortly, before attempting to pull the candle his way.

“Hey man, I’m kinda on a tight schedule, and I really need to get this like… right now. I have a flight in like.. An hour,” you exaggerated.

“That’s too bad, ‘cause I really need this candle too.”

You took a deep breath, only you would find yourself in this kind of situation. “To be fair, I definitely saw this candle first. I’m its rightful buyer,” You attempted.

“Mmm, I definitely had my eyes on it first, so with your logic, I deserve this candle.” The man narrowed his baby blue eyes, and put a hand on his hip.

“Oh my god,” you groaned, hoping that maybe if you acted dramatic enough, he’d leave you and your candle alone.

“Sweetheart, can you even afford this kind of thing? I’m sure your friends or family, or whoever the fuck you’re getting this for, would rather you not go into debt over a candle. Just let me have it,” he responded cooly, as if he hadn’t just called you poor to your face.

You looked at him with an open-mouthed expression, completely shocked at the nerve this man had. “Fuck you, you asshole!” You attempted to yank the candle out from his grip, and you could begin to tell that the man’s resolve was beginning to fall.

“Fine. Take the damn candle. But maybe you could give me a little gift in exchange, and go out with me sometime,” he offered, slipping his now free hand into the pocket of his tan peacoat.

You were honestly shocked by this whole exchange. How did he go from insulting you and calling you poor, to asking you on a date? Men are so weird, you thought to yourself. He really isn’t that bad looking, you also considered. “Eat shit, guy,” you told him before flipping him off, and walking away.

-----

Imagine your surprise when you saw the same man from the store sitting in a local Massachusetts restaurant, with whom you assumed were his family. With your sister sitting across from you, you couldn’t help but be gossipy and point him out.

You scoffed and leaned over to your sister once you saw him, “See that guy over there?” You whispered to her, gesturing your head in his general direction.

“Which one?” she asked. “There are like five guys. Are you talking about the dude with the goatee? That old dude with the grey hair? Y/N! I didn’t know you were a grave robber!” she giggled and poked your side while you rolled your eyes, “Or, are you talking about that sexy beast in the white sweater?”

“The se- the dude in the sweater-”

“Oh yeah, he’s pretty hot. You should go talk to him,” she began to scoot out of her seat.

“No, you idiot!” You whisper shouted to her. “That guy basically attacked me in the store the other day. And then, he had the nerve to ask me out on a date!”

He must’ve felt the two of you’s stare, as he turned around and gave you a brief surprised look, then a twisted smirk.

“Oh my god, Bea, act natural,” You whispered before turning your head so fast that you nearly gave yourself whiplash.

You brought a hand up to your face and rubbed your browline in a fit of embarrassment. You looked down, then began to shovel pasta into your mouth at an ungodly fast rate.

“Oh come on, Y/N, he’s cute. What did he say to you that was so bad that you turned down his hot ass?” She asked, glancing back over at the man who was still occasionally looking over at your table.

“It’s kinda a long story. I’ll tell you later,” you mumbled, trying to ignore the heat steadily growing on your cheeks.

Beatrice shrugged, and a waiter approached your table.

“Ma’am, the man over there wanted me to give this to you,” he said before awkwardly placing a glass of white wine in front of you, along with a ripped napkin with a note and number.

We started off on the wrong foot, give me a call sometime?

Ransom

XXX-XXX-XXXX

-----

You looked at the note for so long, that it would’ve been better off being tattooed on the back of your eyelids.

“Just text him, Y/N,” your sister told you, her sentence a bit muffled by the toothbrush dangling from her mouth.

“He really seems like a dick,” you groaned, before rolling onto your back and throwing an arm over your eyes. Your sister rinsed out her mouth in the ensuite before returning with some advice.

“Well, he’s hot. Maybe you can bring him as a date to the Holiday party or something,” she stated before sitting down on the foot of your bed. “What’s the worst that could happen, Y/N? If he hurts your feelings, you can throw a hot drink at him and walk away. At best, you get a hot piece of ass to be your boyfriend.” she squeezed your calf reassuringly.

“Ugh, fine,” you huffed. “I’ll text him tomorrow.”

“That’s my girl!” Beatrice cheered, then placed a kiss on your forehead. “‘Night, Y/N,”

“Goodnight,” you mumbled before attempting to fall asleep.

-----

The funny thing about you, is that you were a master procrastinator. So after a day and a half, you’d put Ransom’s number into your phone, but had contemplated so many different opening texts, that you’d just completely given up. Besides, you had your parents’ holiday party to be attending and to be caring about.

You did some final touch ups of your makeup, before heading downstairs, and watching guests arrive from a safe spot in the kitchen.

Sometime after talking to about seven of your childhood friends, you felt a large hand press against the satin material of your short, red, tie-waisted dress.

“No way, girl I see everywhere?” The man who you know knew was Ransom, asked.

“It’s Y/N. Hi, Ransom,” you bit the inside of your cheek to hold back your laugh at the absurdity of it all, the fact that he was standing in your parents’ home, the fact that he was literally everywhere you went, and because you’d never in your life been called ‘The girl I see everywhere.’

“Why didn’t you ever call me? I mean, not even a text? Also, why are you following me everywhere?” He inquired, moving to stand in front of you.

“Well, I uh.. I forgot. Sorry, I’m a super busy woman. And I also live here... sometimes.. so if anyone is following anyone else, it’s you following me,” you tried to say this confidently, but something about Ransom really threw you off your game.

“You live here? No way. Is this like your family home?” He asked, and you nodded. “So our parents have been friends this whole time, and we had no idea.” He gestured to a doorway, where your mother and his were talking with flutes of champagne in hand.

“This just keeps getting weirder and weirder,” you said quietly, mostly to yourself.

“Maybe, this is just fate. We’re meant to be together, and that’s why we keep seeing each other everywhere,” you raised an eyebrow and tilted your head when he said that to you, genuinely confused at why those words would come out of his mouth. “Oh, lighten up. I’m just kidding,” he said with a bemused smile.

“You have a weird sense of humor, Ransom.” You told him plainly, trying to act disinterested, though you were rather endeared. He definitely saw right through you, as he gave you a little grin before he began to speak again.

“So tell me about yourself.”

-----

After a few too many drinks, you were walking down the sidewalk, hand and hand with Ransom as you searched for any sort of restaurant that could be open at that hour.

Finally, you found a quaint and rather empty 24-hour diner with its lights on. The two of you sat down in a booth, and struggled to contain giggles as you sipped from mugs of stale, lukewarm coffee. Why you were giggling, you weren’t completely sure.

“You know what, Ransom, once you get over the asshole-ness, you’re not that bad,” you reached out a hand, and set it on top of Ransom’s, that was idly sitting on the table.

“Wow, thanks,” he chuckled, a dark pink dusting his cheeks.

“Why did we even come here?” You groaned, “No offense, but this coffee tastes like ass,” you whined,

“And how do you know what ass tastes like?” Ransom burst out giggling at this.

“Shut up. Are you twelve?” You pretended to be annoyed with him, before giving in and laughing along with him. “Can you take me home?” You asked with puppy dog eyes.

Apparently, one for the dramatics, Ransom tossed a $50 bill onto the table, then stood up from his seat at the booth to swoop you up in a bridal style.

“Ohhh my god,” you slurred as he carried you out the door, then eventually set you back down on the pavement once he became tired.

-----

While you walked up to your doorstep, Ransom stood on the sidewalk, watching you contentedly. As you got to your door and turned around, he gave you a big, goofy smile and a wave.

“Well, what are you waiting for? Come in with me,” you invited. It was safe to say, Ransom happily obliged.

[bao3bei4]

kpop music videos that gave their fans sexual brainworms

OR accidental fetish pop and its fringe fanbase: meditations on gendered desire 

large warning here: i am someone who has been into kpop for the past 10 years. however, i have always been an extremely casual fan. i do write fic, but not rpf. if any of that makes you not want to hear me talk about kpop rpf (or you don’t want to hear about it in general), please keep moving.

anyway, obviously pop is corporate, soulless, and manufactured. but sometimes some truly bizarre shit gets past the committees and destroys a generation. these are their stories.

the video that started this is all is got7’s just right, released july 10th, 2015.

yes that’s all 7 members of got7 (one is out of frame) shrunken down for your viewing pleasure. they live in your room and tell you you’re just right. 

this sheer fetish power of this video is nerfed only by how utterly sexless it is.

they’re styled like and dance like this. it’s a totally unironic sendup of the seminal work that preceded it by four years, “what makes you beautiful” by the white kpop group “one direction.” the chaste energy of the whole thing makes you legitimately wonder if the good people at jyp have just never heard of microphilia. (during a dramatic reading of this piece, here a friend interjected seriously, “i think it’s korean culture not to talk about things like this, fetishes in the workplace.”)

it’s for the best, honestly, though because the actress in the music video is lee ja in, who was 11 when the video was shot. considering that the members themselves ranged in age from 18-23 at the time, i think it’s actually very impressive that we only have to cancel one. 

you receive absolutely no prizes for guessing that it’s jackson wang we’re sending to social justice prison. why’d he do this? no one asked. 

at any rate, got7 fans, or “gans” (they actually call themselves igot7s which is too twee for me), have much to think about here: all 7 very small members of got7 sneaking into their room, possibly weird age play, and jackson wang eating a very large cake.

let’s see what they actually did. 

twitter was actually very tame. the most charged thing i found was (unsurprisingly) from a bts fan (“ban”). i don’t actually know what it means, but i think it means something.

so, of course, i turned to the internet’s last bastion of free speech, where you can say whatever the fuck you want and receive cheers, or as the kids say, “kudos.” that is, i read fanfiction. 

for those of you who don’t know your herstory, i started my journey at Asianfanfics.com, where, at the time of writing, there were 12,067 got7 stories. i want to start this by saying that i think feminism won, because someone was paying real human dollars to advertise their irene/wendy fanfiction on a banner ad, which is quite possibly a win for women for everywhere. 

anyway, Asianfanfics.com’s search engine sucks ass (i kept on finding stories about different combinations of bts members worrying about their weight and being reassured by another member that were entitled “just right”), so i decided to look through all got7 stories written between july 2015 and december 2015. 

but, alas, not a single got7 microphilia fic to be found. 

also, some genre commentary while i’m here: i think the stories i respect the most are the “[y/n] is a ordinary girl who’s assigned to be got7’s manager! can she make them into superstars? as sparks begin to fly, can she keep it professional?” like fuck yeah that sounds like a kickass dating sim. it almost definitely already is one. i salute all the teens around the world for buying into the fantasy of dating a boy band member that they themselves sell you. 

however, i don’t think i respect the “[member a] and [member b] are mafia/jocks and nerds/college students/high schoolers” concepts. in my opinion, the whole fantasy of boy band member is their personas, their hidden real personalities, their celebrity, and the show business setting. find a different intellectual property if you wanna write about school. i even respect the “yugyeom drank girl juice [not estrogen] and turned into a sexy girl” story more, because at least it knows exactly what it wants, and also because they’re all still boy band members. well, band members. shout out to yugyeom. 

so, anyway, i looked elsewhere. at the time of writing, archive of our own only had 11,645 got7 stories, but it does have a better search, so it effectively has more. as an aside, i think it’s so funny, and mildly disorienting at first, that archive of our own separates the “music & bands” section from the “celebrities & real people” section. boy band members aren’t real people. 

the first problem i encountered is that only 20 or so stories were written within a year of just right’s release. absolute cringe gans. don’t you care about your boys? there were zero stories tagged “vore” or “microphilia” either. stories containing the word “tiny” that were rated either “explicit” or “mature” were all normal (“normal”) size fetishization rather than, you know, just right. 

however, i learned my lesson from twitter. i realized that what had happened was that watching this video had created sleeper agents, just waiting for their activation phrase. that activation phrase? bangtan boys. and yeah, lo and behold, there was one! unfortunately (fortunately?) it had nothing to do with got7, let alone just right, so i’m not going to talk about it.  

basically what i learned is that this video may have actually been very normal, and my brain has just been destroyed by being too online at a young age. 

however, there are plenty more videos in this genre. i present to you exo wolf, a banger from may 30th, 2013. i say banger, because in a comedic inversion, it’s actually fucking terrible. 

this video is pretty self-explanatory in terms of why it might induce certain responses. 

let’s get the formalities out of the way. this video, the member who’s getting cancelled is kai. he has braids in this video :/

also skating on thin ice: xiumin and chen. guys what was up with the whole exo-m thing? like, we’re gonna have a cpop subgroup, but it’s going to be part chinese members and part korean members that we’ll give a chinese name? unsurprisingly, the three exo members who have departed from the group are all chinese. they weren’t able to stand the microaggressions probably. but xiumin and chen remain uncancelled as an official chinese apology for five thousand of years of on-and-off invasions of korea. sorry guys that was kinda fucked up. our bad! 

anyway, there are basically three avenues for exo fans to take: 1) humans with wolfish characters (usually wolf pack dynamics, which even wolves themselves don’t fucking use so i think all of you should shut up. the real omega here is your brain), 2) werewolves (duh), and 3) wolves with human characteristics (i.e. standard furry fare). 

exo themselves let all these possibilities exist at the same time, superimposing them over each other, which is very woke and egalitarian of them. let’s see what the people decided. awoo.

Asianfanfics dot com had many stories in this vein. i feel very validated that this time i was able to correctly predict a fetish. that said, briefly returning to my earlier comment regarding alternate universes: it’s intense psychic whiplash reading about these vampires and werewolves, and going okay okay luhan is a vampire this that whatever, and then seeing the actual real performance photos the author attaches at the bottom of each chapter. bro i forgot these were actual people.... it breaks immersion so bad... i’m sorry, i just can’t believe that any of these dancing boys are having weird vampire sex with wings or whatever. 

archive of our own also had many stories in this vein. and i think there are some important difference between the two sites worth talking about. 

first of all, i think the higher engagement rate of archive of our own really enables some of the authors to get super bold. it makes Asianfanfics.com seem a little quaint, actually. like the wordcounts are waaay longer, for one. it’s uncommon for a story hosted on Asianfanfics.com to be more than a few thousand words long (most of them could easily be published in the new yorker), whereas some of these archive of our own people have written full length novels about if the members of exo were werewolves. i guess it’s just intensely demoralizing for the aff.com crew to get, like, three comments per story. 

the second big difference is that i’m noticing more common themes between the ao3 crew’s writing. like stan intertextuality, or plagiarism, or whatever, but they seem to be implicitly engaging with each other’s characterizations, storylines, and tropes. i think it is because they probably all follow each other on twitter. (i have been active on twitter for three weeks now so i am an expert on fanfiction twitter.) 

anyway, like not that i am a particularly big gan (cannot even list all the members), but these people seem to have reached a very specific consensus on how jackson wang, for instance, would react in a variety of situations that really surprises me? if i were to sit down and write a got7 story, i think the fuckboitude, the douchebaggery is a big part of his charm. not to be nationalist or anything, but for god’s sake, he’s from hong kong. but these people have him as very sensitive, lots of protective instincts. not that i understood what anyone on aff.com was doing with his character either, but they did all seem to be doing different things. “kudos” to that, i guess.

but: exo. wolf. i searched the “wolves” tag. this filtered the list down from 33459 stories to 52 stories. and the “wolves” tag was very different from the aff.com “wolf” tag. for the most part, aff.com liked stories where a member was a wolf (usually shapeshifting), feral boy, lots of y/n, lots of y/n dating a feral boy who is secretly a wolf. 

ao3 really, really, really likes alpha/beta/omega stories. sorting by the most popular stories, only five on the first page weren’t a/b/o. and one of them was a cis f!baekhyun story, so i think the intended effect was communicated. anyway, let’s talk about some of the themes. 

first of all, i’m disappointed. today’s bonus cancellation is of ao3 “wolves” writers. why the fuck are you drawing so heavily from european wolves?? there are wolves in asia!! you don’t need to keep giving their packs and ranks weird latin names. i will kill you. i hate italy. korea literally has a native wolf. i hate all of you!!! if you want to write caucasian wolves go watch that dumbass cw show!!!! my god. 

the second theme (the first one was white supremacy) is that no one wants to be a wolf who fucks. i think that we need a sex positivity movement, or something, for omega rights. like, are all of you doing okay? you’re queering misogyny by inventing new genders to oppress. another level to “no one wants to be a wolf...” is the “who fucks” part. there are so many consent issues. and not even in like, a sexy intentional way? in a “i genuinely do not think this author understands how their writing comes off” way. unfortunately i am sensitive to untagged sexual coercion, and there was a lot of that.

at any rate, the aff.com wolves were at peace with being wolves, very self-actualized. the ao3 wolves know that every minute they spend alive on this bitch of an earth is suffering, and also sex.

the third theme is the evolution of y/n. y/n, who, in a startlingly woke move for aff.com, is almost always korean, is a girl main character stumbling into love, boy bands, and wolves (i think it’s because aff.com is oldschool kpop fandom, so therefore heavily asian itself in userbase). but y/n is not the main character in ao3 stories. she is the straight best friend. in what i think is a hilarious move, ao3 authors invert the gay best friend paradigm to give the gay main character a straight girl as best friend. she usually calls him “a gay,” she has lots of thoughts on boys, and she knows his sexuality better than he does and before he does. (sidebar: if all the men are gay, and all the women are straight...)

there’s a really fun twist to this, though, because the main character is always a self-insert in fanfiction. but where older fanfiction like aff.com was at peace with this and literalize it via y/n shenanigans, modern fic writers who haven’t finished distangling their complicated relationship with wanting to be a man who loves other men instead simply imbue their main character with their essence. a little voodoo doll sehun, with a lock of y/n hair. 

this creates a deeply ambivalent relationship with gender in these stories. the main character is usually an omega, but one who resents being an omega. their body and its parts is usually described, if at all, as ostensibly intersex (except more offensively), but in practice, these discourses inscribe a trans body. (nb: i think cis writers approach this in a really fucked up fetishizing way, but i hope by this point we know that that goes without saying) it’s incredibly straightforward to read this, and see the underlying desires and fears in a heady cocktail of unfiltered writing that’s deeply confessional. you know when freud had people say whatever the fuck they wanted and figured they’d eventually free associate into releasing their subconscious into reality? yeah. 

okay, and while we’re on the topic, let’s talk f(x) nu abo, released on may 4th, 2010. 

this is a blitzy, maximalist, amped up dance hit that even has its own applause and cheers built in. it’s so fucking annoying, and i love it. 

this song is on here because the second most popular kpop a/b/o story on ao3 is called “nu abo” except it’s about bts. that’s offensive enough in its own right. write something about f(x) (702 works). when will women win the right to have their own self-lubricating holes.

anyway, even though f(x) is probably innocent in all of this, i’m still cancelling amber liu. 

for queerbaiting. who told her to look like ruby rose but hot? and for what? i’m also cancelling her for racism, but that wasn’t in this video. 

moving on to a double feature: vixx voodoo doll and vixx chained up, released november 19, 2013 and november 9, 2015 respectively. this is because while voodoo doll is more formative, i think the fans who write fanfiction today got into kpop more recently, so we are casting a wide net.

anyway, voodoo doll is jam packed with weird pseudo-medical imagery, blood, vivisection, bondage, puppet shit, femdom, sharps, piercings, asphyxiation, dollification, stabbing/penetration metaphors, and a really sick and catchy dance. god that looks like the list of tags on the a/b/o wolf stories. 

for this song, we’re cancelling you, for being way too into this song when you were 13.

vixx voodoo doll made me goth i guess! insert that pic of the your music saved me sign, except it saved me from getting into emo or pop punk probably. 

chained up, comparatively, is much more tame. the only thing of note about it is that there are around 10 completely different chokers and choker looks the members wear in this music video. also they’re singing about being chained up, but that seemed a bit obvious. 

we could argue that voodoo doll is gay while chained up is gay (derogatory); that voodoo doll is queer while chained up is gay; that chained up is a sensitive masterpiece of omega4omega sexuality. but we’re not going to. 

we’re going to talk about what voodoo doll fanfiction was and was not. first, Aff.com had plenty of it. however, i was extremely disappointed to see that much of it did not hew to the spirit of vixx voodoo doll. my god, the voodoo doll becoming the one preying upon you disgusts me. the fantasy of the voodoo doll is that of absolute power. the idea that the doll itself has agency? instantly breaks the fantasy. i’m even not into voodoo dolls and i’m offended. 

i also don’t think it’s part of the voodoo doll fantasy to release the doll. the only story on there that involved Y/N kidnapping vixx members like in the music video was unavailable because the author deactivated their account. come back qxeen what did you see. 

i think this got off track, actually, in that i was mostly wondering why these people imprinted differently onto vixx voodoo doll than i did. like i don’t think you’re supposed to actually like straightforwardly absorb the morals and aesthetics of music videos like it’s propaganda. however, it’s more entertaining if you do. i hope ao3 doesn’t let me down. 

out of the then 5932 works in the vixx fandom (the least out of every group so far, excluding f(x) because they’re women), 59 of them included the word “voodoo” somewhere. that’s 1%. i legitimately can’t tell if that’s high or not. 

after some more cursory reading through the first page of popular results, my big takeaway is that people watched that video and wanted to be tortured and enslaved? but not, like, in a sexy way where the torturing is the point, the way where the point is to suffer bravely and beautifully, to endure the world’s harms like jesus on the cross, and then to fall into the arms of a beautiful boy who may or may not be the one hurting you in the first place. 

there’s a certain predictability to these fantasies. like it’s not even masochism, which would be fun at least, it’s literally just like the desire to be beautiful, even as you suffer. and i do find that a little boring. (but, i mean, you can’t help being a woman!)

sidebar: on chained up. what’s interesting about chained up, is that most of the then 38 “chained up” works (likely because the video has no storyline) are about the members fucking during chained up promotions. no one’s ever actually chained up, but whatever. it’s fine. it’s fine! 

anyway, here, more than ever, the nature of desire is stripped bare. i’ve written before [elsewhere in the unreleased tshirt cinematic universe] on how kpop boys are, through fandom, re-formed as white, or more strongly, i guess, blank slates. it’s really interesting to me how so much of this dynamic of projection is enabled by the fact that they’re asian men. they’re infantilized, feminized vessels; they’re seductive, but childlike, oblivious to their own charms, so nonthreatening; they have uncontrollable desires for sex, they’re scared of sex. and above all else, white women submit themselves to them, insert themselves into them. basically kpop fans tend to rework old school yellow peril and emasculation fantasies to reenact their own desires, often white, often cishet on them. 

what i am saying is that there’s another thesis about forced feminization and its racialized subtext in here. obviously gender is a racialized construct to begin with, but like it’s fascinating to argue that when white women remake asian men according to their own desires, that is, into themselves, they (hopefully) unintentionally echo these old fears about the sexual order.

it illuminates, it seems, the underlying dynamic in the denigration of asian men, which is of course the fear of miscegenation. now, my breathtaking ability to make everything about me aside, miscegenation is interesting because it presents a racial synthesis, beginning to collapse and trouble the artificial designations of purity. so we make asian men into white women, and end up with an unsettling hybrid. i’m sure this has deep implications for me personally.

but i think we already knew that quite a few of these people had yellow fever, so let’s talk about the gender dialectic at play. basically, the above dynamic, of making men into women (whether literally, in body; or subjectively, in mind; or even relationally, as they are objectified into passive vessels for your desire) coexists with the ostensibly converse dynamic, in which the straight women desires to be a gay man. these aren’t necessarily in conflict: it could easily be that these are different writers writing different stories, that both are ways of expressing discontent with existing in a raced, gendered body, or even that the end product of both is the same.

it’s been a while without a picture. all of you now have the legal right to hunt and kill me for making a d&g joke.

anyway, what i want to talk about is how these two fantasies can coexist. that by making a man into yourself, you can speak on your own desire in a passive way. my normal interest is analyzing forced masc fantasies (albeit in chinese opera lol), and they bear little to no resemblance to this kind of fantasy. this kind offers plausible deniability, of course, because wanting things is embarrassing. but also the fantasy isn’t about wanting to be a man, it’s about having no choice but to be a failed one. the gender pessimism running through these stories is palpable. basically andrea long chu wants what wolf fanfiction writers know: everyone is an omega, and everyone hates it.

at any rate, this racialized dynamic is one that i wasn’t sure how to bring up throughout this piece, mainly because there is no definitive way for me to tell the race of any individual writer, beyond just like the clear and present vibes that i receive. but i think it structures a lot of the fantasies contained in this essay. (i felt more comfortable bringing up the gendered dynamic, because it was fairly trivial to find out the current gender of the person writing each story i was reading.) 

obviously we should return to the specter haunting this conversation: the very much alive david eng. i think this sort of argument is familiar to readers of racial castration, especially his chapter on m. butterfly. btw sorry for mentioning that play 2 out of 3 posts on this blog. i have problems.

let’s talk about the parallel imagery between the depiction of gallimard’s final speech and the fanfiction i’ve described above. in it, gallimard makes himself into his own dream woman, dressing in yellowface and robes, the costume of puccini’s original madame butterfly. and he laments his lost love:

there is a vision of the orient that i have. of slender women in chong sams and kimonos who die for the love of unworthy foreign devils. who are born and raised to be the perfect women. who take whatever punishment we give them, and bounce back, strengthened by love, unconditionally.

in that, i see the self insert, and i see the sufferer of vixx voodoo fic. the fantasy that gallimard has about asian women is repeated, this time about asian men and a helpless identification with them. and on some level, gallimard’s women do have something very compelling to identify with: they suggest that there’s a way to endure white male violence without sacrifice, and even more potently, to enjoy it on some level.

but onward to the titular racial castration. eng argues that gallimard’s wilful ignorance of song’s true gender is a psychic castration -- song’s masculinity is diminished so that his own can be enhanced within their relationship. this, eng believes, acts out “richard fung’s contention that in western imaginary ‘asian and anus are conflated.’” this process stabilizes the relationship between the asian man and the white woman: they occupy the same place within the sexual dyad. 

this is, i think, why some people are addicted to writing from the bottom’s perspective. again -- not implying that irl bottoms don’t exist or that bottoms are psychically castrated lol -- but rather that you can fantasize about this ideal asian man that you can come to embody. in kpop rpf, rather than it being between a white man and an asian man (unless someone’s started writing chad future fic), it’s between two asian men. so this transformation is performed. whiteness is always intruding and so i think eng is helpful here to making it visible again. 

this essay isn’t a callout or actual cancellation or anything like that, i do wanna be clear. i guess i just like talking about fantasies, even the embarrassing ones, and where they come from. i think oftentimes in fandom spaces, we write a lot of stories off as idfic, and i think virtually every single one of the stories i referenced to write this fairly uncontroversially fall into that category. but i think calling something an “id” something or the other naturalizes the satisfaction it gives as purely instinctual and unconscious, when i do think there are deeper narratives at play. while i didn’t ever actually reference the base here (sorry), i do think it’s worth talking about how real world power shapes & maintains the superstructure, and thereby our fantasies. 

anyway in conclusion, maybe i was the one with sexual brainworms the whole time.

[winxlava]

Where Fate: the Winx saga fails

As a winx fan of 14 years (in and out), this fate thing is really scandolous. I’ve seen lots of ups and downs the winx fandom. As I’ve watched all of the development that fate had, I've had some thoughts, but I’ve waited until I watched everything.

This is going to be a reaction to all 6 episodes of Fate the Winx saga. This is coming from a fan of the og show so expect lots of comparisons.

If this bothers you, please don't keep reading. A lot of this is only my opinion. If you like it and think its great, that’s good! I’m not here to ruin it.

There is a list of what I liked most near the bottom of this post. Spoilers Ahead!!

Anyway, back to the post.

What made the Winx work

Lets start with the basic idea of Winx. Bloom, a normal girl, finds out that she has magic powers and is from another dimension. Seems like a simple concept? Well, Seasons 1-3 (and 4?) expanded this idea to the max.

Likeable characters galore and lots of fun, fashion, and magic.

For a lot of us that’s what sold the show. 

So lets talk about tone and why its so important 

The idea that teenage girls were exploring a world we could never see or experience. And the darkness that came with it.

Remember when Daphne, bloom’s dead sister, clung to life to help bloom figure her life out? When bloom became evil and nearly killed all of her friends? When Flora drowned to save her sister, only to get enchantix? (Actually all of enchantix was like this). When Musa gave up seeing her dead mom to save the world? When nabu died?

The show was full of these small, intense, dark moments. That’s what made winx special. The light came with dark.

By making the show dark and “eDgy” it takes away the impact of the dark moments. I’ve been saying this since the beginning. 

Point of view and how Stella is affected 

Stella was very misunderstood in the remake and it shows. The thing is, Stella was the first entry point into the magical world in the original show. She carried Bloom and her parents to Alfea. She was the transfer point to a whole world for the audience.

Her spunk and optimism and snark made her a fan favorite, but that’s not what made her character work.

She was Bloom’s first friend, and because of the that, we saw her in a good lens. She was reckless, but a pure heart nonetheless. She was confident, cunning, and powerful. 

It was because we saw the good in her first that made us like her. She was good before she was bad in our eyes.

The remake takes all of that away. She’s just a generic mean rich girl now. To be honest, Stella is accurate, but the way she was introduced put her in a whole new light. In this version, she is annoying and trifling, seemingly taking the place of Diaspro in her liking for sky.

Also she hates her mother? Stella would never! She loved both of her parents dearly and was mad simply because she felt they never loved her as a result of their divorce; they never talked to each other and she felt split between the two of them. (See Stella’s nightmares sequence season 1 :https://youtu.be/wuvyw0OHA6A?t=129). She was lonely and her father, though he loved her, spoiled her with gifts instead of the love she desired. 

You see this side of her when Chimera comes in and tries to take her place in season 3. Her worth is tied to what she has and looks like. Her title as a princess rules her.

Not only that, Stella learns about “commoners” through her friends. She was spoiled and never saw people who couldn’t afford things; it was new and she was a bit rude about it, but can you blame her, she was always put above everything else in her home country.

https://www.youtube.com/post/UgzCfOQ696rvwa51Z_J4AaABCQ?lc=UgzCDSxfcNaP9XogBSB4AaABAg

https://www.youtube.com/post/UgzCfOQ696rvwa51Z_J4AaABCQ?lc=Ugxl_sOsUSGBXEwagxJ4AaABAg

^^ These are comments of people saying similar things.

Stella also vents to Sky a lot in the remake. She seems like she is chasing him pitifully, something og Stella would never do.

Edit: Check the “liked” section; she has been upgraded to sort of like in episodes 5 and 6.

Aisha

They did Aisha dirty as well. (Just like Bonnie from Vampire Diaries, why am I surprised?) I would write a lot here, but someone else summarized it well:

https://rainbow-whitewashing-jar.tumblr.com/post/639787632624369664/its-just-there-is-so-much-background-on-aisha.

https://www.youtube.com/post/Ugx4WL5rIPTS1suGOed4AaABCQ

Tldr: Aisha was a very lonely princess of Andros. She only had one friend growing up but then they moved away and she was lonely all over again. She copes with her princess duties by being great at sports and even beating some of the men! She stood up to her parents when they wanted her to be arranged married, until she fell in love with Nabu HERSELF. She decided her own future from that point on.

Also, her relevance to the plot has been dwindled to being Bloom's right hand man; the black best friend sterotype! What a let down for one of the PRINCESSES of the original!

She had her own goals, drive, and motivations in the original! She did things for all of her friends; she definitely wasn't only driven by one person!

And she was closer to Musa than Bloom that's for sure!

Bloom

The fact that bloom transforms before everyone else gives bad vibes, considering that one of the reasons she was insecure about magic was because everyone of her friends was better than her and could transform. Why would she feel insecure when they are all around the same level?

The theme of sisterhood

Ever notice that none of the girls had the same taste in guys?

Bloom liked goody guys like Sky and Andy. Stella liked guys who were fun and flirty like Brandon.

In fact, none of the girls ever fought over a guy, they fought over things that actually mattered like someone being rude or a mission gone wrong.

That's what made them relatable. They weren't petty about guys and they mostly respected each other's relationships.

https://www.youtube.com/post/Ugz6TEOmGRV2Cfqy12F4AaABCQ?lc=UgwhLsToVbhLDYpFphB4AaABAg

^^ Look at highlighted comment

Not only that, but the winx represented a positive sisterhood. They stood by each other and respected each other; they never let men come between them and shared their power with each other.

Only the trix, the bad sisterhood, fought over men and power. The trix were foils to the winx and what they stood for! That's what made them some of the best villains in the series!

Instead of that, we get useless relationship drama! 😒

And that brings me to...

Stella/Sky/Bloom & Riven/Dane/Terra

What was the point of Dane? I'm still asking myself that question. He doesn't really do anything except act as relationship fuel for a love triangle.

Don't get me wrong, the representation is needed. But he adds nothing to the real plot at all except that Terra thinks he likes her, and he has a crush on Riven.

In terms of the Stella and Bloom love triangle with Sky, apparently she BLINDED someone because they flirted with sky. What?!? Stella isn't that cruel at all. The show clearly flanderized her to a cruel mean girl so....

Edit: Check the “liked” section; she has been upgraded to sort of like in episodes 5 and 6.

Lets not forget about “diversity”

Male fairies did exist before Fate:

https://www.youtube.com/post/UgziTWMf44kv0fkDt8x4AaABCQ

https://www.youtube.com/post/UgxWAFZRmqt_k3iBMhZ4AaABCQ

Flora/Terra, Musa, and Whitewashing

Terra and Musa are wonderful! Their actress' do a great job; their personalities are so similar to the original (except for musa's mind abilities and Terra's talkative personality)! Whenever one of them interacts with the other main cast, you feel actual friendship chemistry between them!!

But there is an elephant in the room: the whitewashing. If these characters were the correct race, they wouldn't be in this critical review.

Terra isn't flora, but her character was clearly based on her! Also, she has a cousin named Flora, so Flora is clearly in this universe.

??

Why change her race and swap her out! The personalities are spot on, which makes it even more disheartening to know that they would rather replace two POC characters with white characters who essentially are the same people and have the same plot importance.

What a shame and low blow that is! Especially since I am a black woman myself!

Sky and Riven

Them being bros make no sense really. Before they were more like enemies who were forced to work together.

Why are they friends?? What's the backstory?

Other than that, sky is pretty spot on. He's the pretty boy with good intentions. Not interesting but not very boring either.

Riven is cringy like I feared. He was also sort of cringe in the og but because of the darker setting in the remake he just feels even more so.

Other Criticisms:

- we gets some pretty cringy dialogue (mostly from riven). Some of the clingy dialogue (not from riven) ironically could have worked in a lighter setting and become "campy".

- The fact that there are no wings for 5 whole episodes, just makes the entire thing feel like Witches or something...

- why does everyone have the dead parent trope??

- no tecna

Things I do like:

- bloom missing her parents and feeling left out

- Musa and Sam before Musa and Riven (hopefully)

- Terra in general

- Terra’s dad and brother

- Musa in general

- Stella funny quips

- the scenery is gorgeous

- Stella's clothes are so fashionable! She has great outfits!

- Sky and Bloom taking during the party and/or being friendly with each other

- the magic cgi looks good 👍

- the rooms of the girls dorms and the castle looks great on the inside

- Aisha's personality

- Farrah Dowling is good as well

- Bloom is pretty spot on

- Stella's mom's powers are awesome

- imagine the genocide plot but with the happy fun show vibe and with the trix. The trix want to get revenge on faragonda for killing their cult, who wanted to revive the ancestral witches or something💥💥💥

- Stella in episodes 5 and 6 is cool

- the inclusion of the witches of aster dell (Beatrix said she was born there = witch)

- the inclusion of musa’s mother’s death

-Her transformation was lackluster to me, but I appreciated the effort to include it.

Conclusion

The pacing was all over the place to me; it felt like some episodes lasted forever and all of them seemed to have the vague theme of : be careful who you trust.

By trying to separate the winx from the og and have them have "their own lives" (which they already had), they ruined the intriguing backstories the characters already had in the og. Some were somewhat kept, but others were kind of left in the dust *cough*Aisha*cough*.

They took away with made them special: the teamwork, love, and friendship that brought them together and made them stronger. *They try it in episodes 5 and 6, but to me it just falls sort of flat.*

That said it isn't completely bad, it's mediocre at best, but it isn't Winx and that's that.

Edit: I know that it’s not supposed to be winx per say, but it has characters from the og and even the “winx” name in the title!

Credits: WCD channel on youtube, rainbow whitewashing jar on tumblr, and Youtube videos by the official winx club youtube channel.

[taleofharrison]

Stuck | Michael Clifford

Summary: The boys try to do something special for the reader’s birthday while on tour but it might take a quick turn into something more.

Warnings: No just the friends to lovers prompt and rusher!reader because I love BTR (me? including Big Time Rush in yet another one of my works? I bet no one saw it coming).

Requested: No

Word Count: Around 1500

A/N: IT’S MY BIRTHDAY TODAY! so this kind of a request I did for myself, the original idea for this was to write 5sos x platonic!reader but it became friends to lovers with Michael. The BTR songs I mention can be found here, here, here, here and here

MASTERLIST HERE

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY” four voices exclaimed waking you up in a quite abruptly way making you forget you were in a bunk in a tour bus hitting yourself with the bunk above yours.

“Ouch sorry” Ashton said “anyways happy birthday to the best tour mom ever”

“Yeah and don’t tell my mom Ash said that” Luke chirped in making you smile.

Even though every time your four best friends had to go on tour begged you to come with them sometimes it just wasn’t possible for you but this time you managed to make time for this tour and whenever it was possible for you to join them you looked after them, stopping them from getting too drunk after a show in case they had to do interviews or something important the next morning or making sure their show outfits were ready before or during soundcheck. You loved and cared for them and they loved and cared for you it was the most beautiful friendship you could ever have.

“Thanks guys” you smiled again with a sleepy voice “how come you woke up before I did?”

“Well we wanted to do something special and surprise you” Michael explained “we can stop near a bakery and buy you a proper cake but for now you’ll have to settle for the last package of Oreo we have”

Calum handed you the package it had a piece of paper pasted to the envelope it said “HAPPY BIRTHDAY” with markers of different colors and their signatures it was the sweetest thing they could’ve done for you.

“You don’t have to buy me anything seriously this is enough” you replied opening the package.

“But we want to” Michael spoke again “You do so much for us”

For a second you lost yourself in his eyes, you had fallen for one of your best friends and after months of denial, thinking it was a stupid crush and it would fade, two weeks ago you finally admitted that you had fallen for him and how could you not? He was sweet and dorky and everything you’ve ever wanted.

“Uh you know what I’m going to get ready for today” you put your Oreos on your bunk “you can eat some if you want”

You left them and went to the back of the bus you closed the door the sound of Big Time Rush began to come from where you were now. Michael smiled of course you were listening to BTR when getting ready he thought it was sweet.

“I think the best birthday present you could give to her is telling her how you feel” Ashton suggested taking a cookie and putting it in his mouth.

“I-what?” Michael gasped “how do you guys know?”

“Mate you’re not very good at hiding your feelings we all noticed” Calum chuckled “don’t worry she’s just as oblivious as you are”

“Can you guys speak lower?” Michael whispered “I can’t have her hearing this”

“She has Big Time Rush sounding as loud as possible from the bluetooth speakers” Ashton laughed “she must be too busy enjoying herself dancing like crazy right now. She’s not going to listen to any of this”

Michael nodded he had a point the song playing was If I Ruled The World and it was your favorite BTR song and by now they had it memorized too “Do you really think I should do something about it?”

“Yep” Luke quickly answered “I can’t stand another conversation with her and about you”

“She told you?” Michael questioned again eyes wide open.

“Dude you know we are close” Luke shrugged “remember that I introduce you guys to her. Of course, she told me!”

Luke was the only one who knew about your crush on him you begged him not to tell the other boys but of course they found out by themselves and nobody had to tell them everybody around you knew but Michael. Maybe they were right it was time to do something about it.

“I’ve been thinking about this for quite a while now” Michael said “maybe we could add a song to the setlist tonight just for her birthday”

They didn’t allow you in the soundcheck which was weird they always wanted you there to be their number one during every rehearsal you immediately brushed it off “Maybe they are planning something silly for my birthday” you thought and kept playing with your phone and listening to music in the tour bus.

By the time of the concert the boys surprised with a cake singing happy birthday to you as funny and as out of tune as they possibly could making you laugh and smile.

“We told you we’d get you a proper cake” Michael smiled “now blow your candles and make a wish”

“Thank you, guys, so much” you said before blowing the candles.

“What did you wish for?” Michael asked.

“Not telling” you smirked “not going to come true if I tell”

“Well let’s eat some cake we have to get to the stage in around half an hour” Luke said.

After your small, improvised party the guys rushed to the stage you of course stood by the side of the stage watching your best friends having the time of their life.

“Cause I’m really not fine at all” they finished amnesia it was followed by the deafening sound of the fans screaming.

“Hey guys” Michael spoke “so tonight it’s a pretty special night because Y/N’s here and it’s her birthday today” and the fans screamed even more. They loved you and even considered you the fifth member of the band because of how pretty your friendship with the boys was.

“She’s a big fan of a band called Big Time Rush and she’s been begging us to do a BTR cover for a long time now” you rolled your eyes at Mike’s comment you weren’t begging you just told them it’d be pretty cool if they did just one song “and since today’s her birthday we are going to surprise her by finally singing one of their songs”

That’s why you weren’t allowed in the soundcheck “Put your lights in the air and please sing this if you know it this is Stuck”

“But I just keep getting…” Mike sang looking at you.

“Stuck, stuck” the boys joined him with harmonies his eyes never leaving yours.

“But I’m never giving…” Michael face went back to the crowd this was the first time in the whole song that he took his eyes off you.

“Up, up” the boys joined him again for the last part of the song “Thank you guys!”

Again, the fans were screaming a lot of them may not know the song, but the song was basically a Michael solo with beautiful harmonies, and it was something they couldn’t experience live every day.

“The next song it’s from our new album CALM” Luke said to the microphone as Michael changed guitars and the iconic sound of Easier filled up the place.

“Can’t sleep?” You asked Michael he was sitting on one of the sofas at the back of the tour bus.

“What are you doing up?” he questioned.

“I can’t sleep either” you sat next to him “great show tonight by the way I really enjoyed the cover section today…thank you”

“Well the four of us wanted to do something special for you…”

“I knew it was your idea” you interrupted him “I could tell it was your idea. It just screamed Michael to me”

“Yes, it was my idea” he said smiling at you “it was nothing I know how much you love those guys I just had to do it and I know someday they’ll get back together and we will collab with them and you can finally meet them then”

“What choice of song” you changed the subject “when I ‘begged’ you to cover a song I told you guys would do a great version of Shot In The Dark or Til’ I Forget About You not Stuck”

“I know that Stuck is one of your favorite songs and I know that you think it’s underrated because a big part of the fandom only recognize Boyfriend as a love song” he explained finally looking at you, you could’ve sworn you saw his eyes shine in the darkness “I know because I listen to you complain about it and this song had a message I really wanted to give to you that’s why I chose it”

“Michael, do you really feel that way about me?” you asked looking down.

“Yeah I do for quite a while now” he answered with a breathless laugh “and I-I think you feel the same?”

“Did Luke tell you?”

“No, he didn’t” he said “actually Ashton told me to do something about it”

“Ashton knows!?” you screamed whispered.

“Apparently everyone knows” he chuckled “but us”

You thought you had been careful and not too obvious about it and of course Luke hadn’t told, you could trust him with your life.

“Can I kiss you?” Michael questioned after a moment of silence.

You just nodded and when his lips touched yours it felt like a thousands fireworks in your stomach it was magical, it was perfect and even though you birthday ended about 3 hours ago it was the best present ever.

“Sorry it took so long” Michael breathlessly said once you pulled apart.

“It was worth it” you smiled leaning to kiss him again. 

Guess your wish came true

(GIF not mine) 

[bi-bard]

Do You Ever Stop to Think About Me?- Emily Prentiss Imagine (Criminal Minds)

Title: Do You Ever Stop to Think About Me?

Pairing: Emily Prentiss X Reader

Song Drawn: Dorothea

Word Count: 1,687 words

Warning(s): Mentions of feeling abandoned, broken promises

Summary: Memories were strange things. Some feel like they’re forgotten in seconds, others seem to last a lifetime. When the source of (Y/n)’s longest lasting memories rolls back into their small town, how will they react?

Author’s Note: I got halfway through this and realized that I basically wrote some very weird version of the first season of You... oh well. Please consider supporting my Ko-fi account. It would mean a lot to me. If I know there are people interested in it, I’ll get the monthly donation part set up. 

Buy me a coffee? https://ko-fi.com/khoward0

If you want to know more about my Taylor Swift writing challenge, click here!

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“It appears that the FBI has just arrived on the scene of the latest crime-”

I popped my head into the living room when I heard the news. I had been trying to keep up with the latest string of murders in my town. Not only had they been a strange occurrence in a town as small as ours, but they were also incredibly graphic... at least that’s what the news was saying.

My heart felt like it stopped when I saw who got out of the car. Emily Prentiss. I’d be damned. I hadn’t seen her in years. Some of us moved from city to city... or country to country while others stayed in the same town their whole life. She threw a quick “no comment” at the reporter’s question and walked into the house with some of her coworkers.

“Wow,” I mumbled before checking the time. “Oh, shit.”

I had work that day. A librarian in a small town wasn’t the best gig in the world but it paid fine and I got to be surrounded by things I loved. 

I was sitting at the front desk, checking on which books were overdue and which ones had just been checked back in.

“Excuse me,” I looked up to see Emily and two men standing there.

“Emily,” I said, furrowing my eyebrows. “Emily Prentiss... I don’t know if you remember me. I’m (Y/n) (Y/l/n).”

“(Y/n),” she repeated, smiling at me. “I remember you, I promise.”

I stood up, walking around the desk and hugging her. 

“This is Agent Morgan and Dr. Reid,” she introduced. I shook Morgan’s hand and waved back at Dr. Reid. 

“What can I help you guys with,” I asked. 

“We were wondering if you’d seen anything odd here recently,” Agent Morgan explained. “Maybe a man coming here a lot suddenly. Maybe you’ve talked to him. Probably close to your age, awkward, most likely white.”

“I can’t think of anything,” I said, biting my lip as I tried to think. “We don’t have many regulars and when we do they tend to stick to themselves.”

“Did you know any of the victims,” Dr. Reid asked. 

I shook my head, “Not personally. Some of them would come in here every now and then but I tend to be a bit of a fly on the wall when no one needs my help.”

“Here,” Emily handed me a card with her number on it. “Keep your eyes open, call me- I mean- us if you see anything.”

“Do you have security cameras,” I looked back over at Reid and nodded. “Can we take a look at them?”

I nodded, stepping back behind my desk so I could hand him a key, “This will get you into the room. It’s in the back right corner. Door says ‘Security,’ you can’t miss it. We have backlogs for a week so I don’t know how much you can get off of it.”

“Thank you,” Reid and Morgan walked off. 

“Emily,” I said, touching her arm. “Am I in danger?”

“I... I don’t know.”

“Emily...”

“The other victims look like you, the library is the center of the hunting ground. Yes, I’m worried about you. Keep your eyes open. Don’t go somewhere private with someone you don’t know. Just... please be safe.”

“I’ll try,” I nodded. Emily was about to walk away. “Hey... I don’t know how long you’re going to be in town after this but... if you’re able... do you want to go out for drinks? Catch up?”

She grinned at me, “That sounds really nice.”

“Okay,” I chuckled awkwardly before grabbing a spare piece of paper, quickly scribbling my number down before handing it to her. “If I can help you guys anymore, let me know.”

“Okay,” she nodded. “I’ll see you later.”

I nodded. She walked back towards where her coworkers had gone earlier. I sat down at my desk, trying to stop blushing before going back to work. I spent about twenty more minutes working before I saw Dr. Reid walk out quickly while talking on the phone. 

Agent Morgan walked over and handed me the key, “Thank you for your help.”

“You’re welcome,” I replied. Emily waved at me as she and Agent Morgan left. 

I had stood up to go put some books on the desks. It was slower today than usual but it gave me more time to get my work done. I only left the desk because the library was empty. I popped my head out from behind a shelf when I heard the door open and close. I saw a man standing by the desk.

“Can I help you,” I asked, walking over to the desk. 

“Hey,” he said, waving at me. 

“Hi,” I chuckled. “Can I help you?”

I was caught off guard by the man jumping at me and holding a knife to my neck. I stuttered over some words, scared out of my mind.

“Come on,” he pulled me closer. “We have a date tonight.”

--Time Skip--

“Listen, just let me go, and we can talk about this,” I said, trying to not cry in front of him. 

“This is the only way,” he replied as he finished tying me to the chair. “This is the only way for us to be together. All those girls. The ones who wanted to take your place.”

“I...I...”

“Don’t you remember,” he asked. “You always were so kind to me. Whenever I came in, Mondays and Fridays-”

“The Fantasy section,” I mumbled.

Agent Morgan said that he would awkward but this man was as casual and confident as a man his age. I saw him each week. I gave him a wave as I did with everyone. How did that turn into him think I loved him?

“I’m so happy that you remember,” he cupped the side of my face. I noticed the knife in his other hand. “I love you.”

I knew very well that it would’ve been very bad for me to reject him. Knives were scary.

“I love you too,” I replied shakily. He smiled, tilting his head at me. 

I was terrified. I didn’t know how long I was going to have to do this or if I was going to be able to. I tried to force a smile at him.

I shouted when the door was kicked open. Agent Morgan and Emily walked in with their guns drawn. The man stood behind me, knife by my throat. 

“Hey, hey, put the knife,” Emily said. “You love (Y/n), right?”

“Yes and you won’t come between us,” he shouted. 

“But killing them would,” she reasoned. 

“Please,” I begged quietly. “If you love me, you’ll listen to them.”

“But-but-”

“I’ll never get to see you again if I’m dead,” I continued. “Please. For me.”

I let out a sigh as he moved the knife away from me. Agent Morgan stepped forward, handcuffing him after the knife clattered on the ground. The man watched me with a smile as he was led out. Emily walked over and started untying me.

“So... how about that drink,” I tried to joke.

“You’re being funny,” she asked. “You just had a knife to your throat.”

“I must be trying to avoid it by using humor as a coping mechanism,” I said, rubbing, now untied, wrists. “That’s a thing, right?”

“I don’t know about immediately after,” she replied, finishing untying my ankle. “Can you stand up?”

“Yeah,” I nodded, standing up. Emily supported me even though I was standing. “So... that drink?”

“My god,” she laughed as we walked. “Get cleared by the medics and I’ll go for that drink tonight... if I can clear it with my boss.”

“Deal,” I said. 

Emily passed me over to the medics with a grin before walking over to talk to some man in a suit and scowl that looked like it hadn’t moved in years. The medics checked on me quickly. I wasn’t too concerned. I hadn’t actually been hit but I could see why they needed to check on me. Emily walked back over just as they were wrapping up. 

“Good news,” she said. “My boss has encouraged me to go. Is (Y/n) going to be alright to go?”

“Should be alright, everything looks normal and they aren’t describing any pain,” the EMT nodded. I stood up and thanked them. 

“I know this lovely restaurant,” I started rambling. Emily just smiled and nodded.

--Time Skip--

We both thanked the waitress as we handed back the menus. I looked at her and grinned.

“I should thank you for saving me,” I said, trying to break the awkward silence between us. 

“It’s my job,” she shrugged. I raised an eyebrow at her. “You’re welcome.”

I chuckled at her, shaking my head for a moment. Another moment of silence took over the conversation. I looked down at the table.

“Can I ask you something,” I tilted my head at her. She nodded. “Did you ever think about me after you left?”

“Of course I did,” she replied. “You were one of my best friends ever. You made yourself very hard to forget.”

“Oh,” I chuckled. “I never forgot you either... you were... gosh... a little more than a best friend.”

“What?”

“Emily, we made out, you were my first kiss, you took me out on a date,” I said. “You don’t remember?”

“I do but I didn’t think about how much you’d hold onto that... we never really talked about it.”

“I haven’t left this town in years, not much else to think about,” I chuckled. “I guess I was scared that you had gone off, found cooler friends, forgotten about me... and I was just here. Stuck. Waiting for someone to make me feel the same way you did.”

“I didn’t forget about you,” she replied. “You have my number now... maybe we could keep in touch when I leave. I’d love to show you around D.C.”

“I’d like that,” I grinned, blushing a bit. 

Emily waltzing back into my life may have been one of the best things to ever happen to me.

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[ecto-american]

I was doing some research for a fanfiction, and remembered this line from Reality Trip, which got my criminal justice self all excited because of the implications. So have some analysis from a rambling autistic with a criminal justice degree.

“Daniel Fenton, in accordance with the Federal Anti-Ecto Control Act, Article 1, Section 1, Sub-section A, you're under arrest.”

Y'all, this is kinda wack? It means, on some level, there has been a federal judgment within the world of Danny Phantom that not only acknowledges that ghosts exist, but has an entire fucking act describing specifically the course of action in a sense. Lots of acts will kind of be this vague overarching thing with various random acts thrown into it, but the name along with the article one, section one subsection a dealio implies that this entire act focuses on ghosts. I say act and not law btw, because those terms are not necessarily synonyms.

Not only does this confirm that there are acts (at least one anyway) in Danny Phantom that specifically talk about ghosts, but kind of really and truly cements that the Guys in White are actually a federal government agency, rather than them simply acting as one but really being a private company of sorts or being some local state government program.

And with laws about ghosts, it means that legally, the government had to define what exactly a ghost is as well as their rights and lack of rights, and that they legally acknowledge, as a nation, that ghosts exists. While, of course, we don’t really ever get to see this act, and as far as I know, it’s literally Never talked about again, this scene means that this act applies to Danny. For a quick refresher, this happens after Danny is exposed, and so this act still applies to Danny despite him being outted as a half ghost. A scary sidenote is before this scene and line of dialogue, the agents told Danny that he was coming in for questioning and experiments.

So what might it possibly say? If there are any acts that we can potentially base what this act possibly would say, I would probably guess it’d be similar to the acts used for minorities within the United States. And I say these kinds of acts because they’re specifically acts that discriminate towards a group, and that have used various reasons to justify how they are not human, citizens or have any legal rights. If the agents’ lines were correct, these acts probably gave them justification for doing inhumanly cruel things to Danny.

Of course, Danny could be arrest for something totally different and not for some anti-ghost reasons. At this point in time, he’s still kind of half-loved, half-hated publicly as people are shown to still believe that he stole during the events of Control Freaks and the mayor incident of Public Enemies, but if he was under arrest for any of those crimes, the agents would have said that. And I refuse to believe this is an oversight of the writers, because they would have found any nitpicky thing and made it a funny situation where the agents went on and on and on about this endless list of crimes that the ghost boy has committed until Danny roundhouse kicked somebody. And no, it’s likely not because the Guys in White are only interested in Ghost Crimes. As federal officials, which they are confirmed to be, they would have arrested him for everything and have to basically fistfight the other government agencies investigating his Non Ghost Crimes.

So what exactly is he under arrest for? No clue obviously, and it’s hard to really even guess. Article 1, Section 1, Sub-section A for most acts are basically describing what the act’s going to be before it moves on to detail that. I think this is an oversight of the DP writers, lord knows we get enough of them, but it could also potentially highlight the Dumb factor of the Guys in White that we would see them sometimes exhibit, where instead of properly referencing the piece of legislation he’s under arrest for, they just blurt out the first section of that law.

And who wrote this act? It could be anybody, of course. Anybody within politics. It also begs the question as to exactly when this act was written and when it was put into effect. I’d wager it heavily depends on when the Guys in White came into effect, as they are clearly acting under these laws. Which begs the question: how many pieces of anti-ghost legislation are there? Who’s writing them? There’s potential that there are literally lawyers who are literally experts in ghost law. Keep in mind that in the beginning of the series, there was a lot of skepticism that ghosts even exist.

This honestly leads me to propose a new headcanon: The Guys in White are a very new government organization that spawned after the events of Public Enemies. To preface this and clarify, in order, the Guys in White appear in only five episodes: Million Dollar Ghost, Double Cross My Heart, Reality Trip, Eye for an Eye, and Livin’ Large.

Evidence to support this theory:

They only show up four episodes later in their first appearance in Million Dollar Ghost. Public Enemies seems to also be the first episode in the series that shows a massive onslaught of ghost attacks. I would guess that this is the ghostly event that probably spawned the act in question, which may have called for the organization of the Guys in White. Prior to this, ghosts were basically shown that they’re unconfirmed to exist on a public level. Even Jack, our lovable and excitable ghost hunter who’s been doing this since his college years admits in Mystery Meat that he’s never seen a ghost until that point. Jazz mentions that Harriet Chin in Bitter Reunions lost her job for writing an article about ghosts because she was laughed for writing about something that was more for “the national enquirer”, a conspiracy theory newspaper that nobody really takes seriously.

Why are they there during the events of Million Dollar Ghost anyway? If they’re a new organization, they may need that money or are cashing in on the publicity of the event to spread their name, or they’re just starting out and have no real clue where else to go. Only two of them even showed up anyway. The only other groups there are very small ghost hunting groups: literally two young adults on scooters, another set of young adults with a tiger fueled by anxiety and a van, and FentonWorks. And while they, out of all of them, clearly have the most advanced technology, they’re about on the same skill level as the other ghost hunters (getting captured and tricked and such just as easily). Danny even was just as “haha” about them as he was the other hunters who had showed up.

Their technology in Million Dollar ghost is nothing in comparison to the literal jetpacks and planes and four wheelers and armor they get several episodes later. Their funding increased when they proved ghosts exist and more ghostly events happened, and they likely proved their competence in some way. Especially when we see that they have been catching other ghosts (like Skulker in Double Cross My Heart and Lydia in Reality Trip) and gathering important information on ghostly artifacts (Reality Trip).

It would explain why they don’t really show up that often in the series, especially during major ghost events where they really should be there, such as the ghost king invasion of Reign Storm. They may have not secured the funding or manpower to really do anything just yet. Note that Reign Storm happened in between Million Dollar Ghost and Double Cross My Heart, which is almost a 20 episode gap. Their skills, knowledge, ability, technology and apparent funding jumped massively between these episodes, and it kind of stays about the same consistency for the rest of the show.

They really only seem to have one department, and they have really low employee numbers for a government agency. There’s no talk or implications or having multiple departments or anything, such as research or technology. Even during the SWAT invasion during Reality Trip, there’s only like twenty or so agents there. In Livin’ Large, there’s only about seven there, and two are the Agent K and O that we know. They play a lot of roles, from researching, questioning, gathering information, tracking down criminals, getting information from the Fenton’s lab, technology things in FentonWorks, etc. Of course, this is a staple for many law enforcement jobs where you have many tasks, but they seem to be playing the role of detective, computer analysis, and police officer at minimum given the wide variety of things we see them do. As somebody who’s worked in three situations where the company/program was very new, it’s incredibly common for a new company that’s still finding it’s groundings to have a very blurred job line. Or they’re heavily underfunded, but look at the goddamn jetpacks they get, look me in the eye and tell me they’re underfunded.

The lack of basic ghost information. In Livin’ Large, they want to destroy the Ghost Zone. It’s apparently very obvious that you Can’t Do That, but the Guys in White seem oblivious. While you can argue that they’re just fucking dumb, it may be more reasonable to assume that they simply just don’t know.

There’s no dialogue (that I can find) prior to Million Dollar Ghost to suggest they exist. There’s also no dialogue from Vlad, who would have known and been wary of such an organization had it been around for years, to suggest that they’ve been around a while. Jack, who also is open about how much he admires them, would have likely said something to. But I am willing to chalk this entire part up to simply poor writing.

“But Danny knew who the Guys in White were when they showed up in Million Dollar Ghost!” Yeah. He also knew who the other people were, and I heavily doubt that they’d be as big of a deal or name as the Official government branch. It’s very likely that they all introduced themselves when they showed up.

[kinetic-elaboration]

July 17: 2x26 Assignment: Earth

Finally finished up S2 of TOS yesterday. That was... a rough episode tbh. I’m just gonna say it: back door pilots are bad! They’re bad. If I wanted to watch that other show, I’d watch it.

Wow, they’re just really jumping right in, huh? “Here we are, on a routine mission into the past, using a time travel method that we invented nbd.”

Investigating desperate problems in the year 2020...2016.... no wait 1968.

Ooh, Spock in the transport room today. Does he have a whole extra random station there? That’s so weird; I’ve never seen that before. It’s like hidden in the corner.

Cat!! Cat!!

What a good actor. I’m still bitter that wikipedia has a whole section about the casting for “Isis the cat” that talks entirely about the human who played Isis for 2 minutes and nothing about the talented feline actor. Where did they find her? How did they teach her to act?

She has a lot of thoughts about Kirk.

I wrote down “Scully, you’ve got to see this” in my notes and I’ve already forgotten what it refers to lol. Some moment that I thought would fit well with my favorite x-files meme.

Change history, you say? Spock is intrigued. ...Admittedly, Spock is often intrigued.

“What if it turns out you’re an invading alien from the future?” Honestly...let him invade. You’re not supposed to be here anyway.

I’m pretty insulted by this. The aliens went through all this trouble to help in 1968...where are our alien helpers NOW?

The cat straight up attacked his face.

Kirk is so fond of Spock being fond of the cat.

“It’s a lovely animal. I feel myself strangely drawn to it.”

Kirk is way too confused by Seven--an allegedly human person with super-human abilities that he says come from aliens--and yet, he’s met Charlie X so??? Is this not the same?

Kirk’s got the whole crew checking in on zoom.

(I actually do like this sequence of him getting video calls from different parts of the ship.)

“Weren’t orbiting H-bombs a huge problem in 1968?” Looks at the camera like he’s on The Office. Not the subtlest bit of writing in the “social commentary” genre. I do say this with love, though. I always enjoy when they comment on contemporary problems.

“He has a totally perfect body.” Lol don’t distract these two bisexuals.

[soft meowing]

“The prisoner has escaped.” The way this is shot, it looks like he’s talking about the cat.

Hmm, I do love the decor. Very 60s. This honestly immediately feels like a different show, and a much more dated show; even when the Enterprise time travels, it tends not to time travel to... office space.

Love the little sounds the computer makes.

So is Isis supposed to be one of the fancy aliens? It’s never explained but one must assume she is.

Aw, he’s petting her paw.

So I assumed the cats sounds are real, but just dubbed. They’re not lol. Which I guess isn’t surprising: this cat makes a lot of noises! They were provided by a human voice actress.

Damn.... I want a secret bookshelf that turns around to reveal a super computer with a big screen. “Computer... play Netflix.”

That’s what Seven does in his spare time.

The computer is an AI. “Beta 5 snobbery” lol.

Where are OUR alien overlords to stop US from destroying ourselves before WE can mature into a peaceful society?

This is really masterful exposition lol. Not forced or awkward at all.

ST sure does love the snooty female computer trope.

“Get us the proper costumes.” Yes, get Spock his Requisite Hat.

Omicron IV....that’s one of the names they use in Futurama lol. Such nerds.

Another excellent Spock Hat.

I love Seven’s various IDs. Great style. I wish my driver’s license looked like those.

“Who do you think you are?” He hasn’t decided yet. That’s why he was shifting through his IDs.

Seven is not smart lol. Like, he should have figured out way faster that this lady isn’t one of the Alien Overlords. He asks her the code question, she doesn’t understand it, and he... assumes she’s just really in character? Dude, that’s what the code questions are for!!! To help you identify people! Otherwise you could just straight up ask: are you an alien?

Instead he’s like “oh, you silly alien, you’re playing with me,” and then is forced to trap her, reveal his whole mission, and ultimately ensnare her in his plan.

I want that typewriter. Voice recognition typewriter.

"My incompetence has made you aware of very secret devices." Well at least he knows.

Trained cat!

The alien overlords were killed in a random car accident. That’s ironic.

Oh look, a real rocket!

Brown pants + short sleeved shirt + tie is such a Classic 60s look.

This security guard doesn’t think it’s weird that this random dude has a cat with him? Is this part of Isis’s alien power?

Except for the part where it’s a weapon, it’s pretty cool to see all this build up to, like... launching stuff into space. Exciting.

Isis likes to be on shoulders. Just like Little Guy.

New hat for Spock. His outer wear hat, and now his fancy hat. There is something to be said for this ep, and that is Kirk and Spock in suits.

Amazing how they literally launched rockets with computers that old. Like seeing the big bank of primitive computers is totally wild. We put people on the moon that way! Amazing.

“Meow.” Lol, Isis is stressed so she’s speaking like a cat. That’s a pretty funny joke actually.

Seven is so incompetent. If he’d just let the Enterprise help, Scotty could have fixed that rocket issue in like 3 seconds.

Lol everyone’s just pulling Gary through space. Now on the Enterprise. Now in the office.

Why does this computer have a hug black screen if it only displays images on the small white circle?

"Spock and  I in custody. Main characters, doing nothing, knowing nothing, totally useless and irrelevant. I have never felt more helpless." Literally what is even the point of them today? Does Spock even have lines outside of ��I like the cat”?

Isis is jealous of Roberta. Is she.. in a relationship with Seven lol?

Uhura is listening to everyone in the world. She probably has a universal translator on, but I do feel like this scene implies she just...understands all the languages.

So now the warhead is armed and heading to somewhere vague... in other words, everyone has collectively made the situation worse.

....Or this was Seven’s plan all along? To scare people into ceasing to be so careful with nuclear weaponry? As someone who knows humans better than this guy, I think this is a dumbass plan.

“That’s why so many people in my generation are kind of crazy and rebels.” Same, sweetheart.

Really this is just a story about bad communication. If Seven had told Kirk his plan upfront, Kirk would have helped him. And if Kirk weren’t so insistent on involving himself in something just because he happens to be somewhere he probably shouldn’t be, we wouldn’t have this issue either. The hubris of everyone.

Overall, just a really forced narrative imo.

Or that’s how it was supposed to be lol. The Irony of time travel. By it’s nature, everything has already worked out.

Kirk and Spock are like “You’re welcome. Peace out.”

Honestly... Isis was the only good part. Such a talented cat actor!! Or trio of cat actors, I guess. Had to do all those stunts and stuff.. .amazing. I also liked the concept of Isis. How she turned into a human later just to troll Roberta. How she’s never really explained--one must assume, an alien? Plus I pretty much never get tired of human + animal teams where the animal makes animal noises and the human just understands and answers in English.

As a stand alone sci fi concept...it was okay. Kinda dated by now. The alien tech was nifty and Roberta could have grown on me. Maybe even Seven, though he left a lot to be desire. That said, the narrative relied a lot on people getting in each other’s way for no reason, which I find very frustrating.

But as a Star Trek episode....no. The main characters were just nuisances on the side lines!! I’m not even sure what Kirk’s mission here was--to try to figure out what Seven was doing? And stop him if necessary? But he never really decided if it was or not, until the point where not trusting him would basically cause a nuclear war? I don’t know, I found it all very frustrating. The melding of the original show and the spinoff was not smooth.

If I were watching this in 1968, I’d feel very cheated. THIS was the season finale? That’s it? I don’t even get a real Star Trek episode and now I have to wait months for anything new?

And what I get after all that waiting is Spock’s Brain?? I’d be tempted to quit. If I had a tumblr in 1969 I’d be writing multi-paragraph rants about how the best show on television has completely nose-dived lol.

But then there’s The Enterprise Incident, which is one of the best episodes... I don’t know, man. It’s a conundrum. I’ve only seen maybe half of season 3 but from what I remember it’s very uneven: some of the best eps (The Enterprise Incident, For the World Is Hollow, Day of the Dove) mixed in with some of the worst (Spock’s Brain, The Paradise Syndrome), plus some that are good concepts but shoddily executed (The Way to Eden). So we’ll see what I think about it when I see it all in one piece, in air date order.

[thebibliomancer]

Song of the Dark Crystal liveblog pt 28

Song of the Dark Crystal by J.M. Lee because after all of that, Kylan finally has a bell-bird bone to make a super-duper magical firca out of.

Last times on book: Kylan, Naia, Tavra (stuck in a spider), and new party member Amri saved the Grottan Clan from millions of angry spiders who wanted their caves back. Also, the spiders got their caves back. Good compromise. They also trapped skekLi the Skeksis Satirist on top of a mushroom and found a bell-bird bone so Kylan can make a special flute that will help warn all Gelfling about the Skeksis drinking them. Everything is coming up Kylan, really. All he has to do now is make a magical firca he has no idea how to make and come up with a warning.

Chapter 28

Kylan makes a magic firca. And gets lethally embarrassed by Amri.

As Team Kylan is leaving the corrie, they find urVa standing watch dramatically.

The Archer’s mane danced in the wind where it was not tied back in braids and topknot, and he faced the direction of the breeze to take its scent.

The most dramatic urRu? Maybe.

Naia asks urVa if they’ll see him when they come out but he tells them no.

“I traveled this far in search of my others, little Drenchen,” he replied. “I found one, but it seems he will stay here. I must move on. We will meet again. Someday.”

“Are you all right? We fought skekMal... I was worried we would harm you as well.”

urVa shook his head. When he did, the wind blew his mane from his face, and Kylan saw a wound on his cheek and eye, in the same place where he’d struck skekMal in the Dark Wood.

“What is done is done. The suns turn.”

You’re a chill guy, urVa.

urVa gets ready to head out but asks the Gelfling that if they see any of his “urRu others” to tell them to meet him in the valley.

Huh! So the urRu are all just kind of spread out and urVa is seeking them. I think in the show’s conception of things, the urRu tended to gravitate toward the Valley anyway and the Wanderer was the Wanderer because he’s the one who stood away longest.

The Gelfling find themselves in another tunnel, although a short, well-lit one and as they go Naia muses out loud about the state of things.

“The Skeksis live together in the castle... They have power there, because of the Crystal, and because they are all in one place. The Mystics are alone. We found urVa trapped in the Cradle-Tree. urLii was in the Tomb of Relics. They had power over skekLi with their song... but only because he was outnumbered. If all the Skeksis were to overtake urVa alone, or urLii... if they all came to rescue skekLi, and only urLii was here to guard him...”

“But if the Skeksis come to get skekLi, they’ll have to defeat urLii, right?” Amri asked. He held up two fingers in parallel. “But if they defeat urLii, then won’t skekLi also be defeated? Right?”

“Either way,” Kylan put in hastily, “urLii stayed behind by his own will. He seemed confident he could contain skekLi safely. We have no choice but to trust him. We have our own journey.”

So this is something I’ve been thinking about since Aughra said what she said about how Skeksis and Mystics could counter each other.

Its very unequal! The Skeksis have a bunch of societal power, the Crystal, a sweet castle, and strength in numbers! The evil that Skeksis do is therefore a lot greater than the good that the Mystics do!

Anyway, the Mystics are pretty lucky that the Skeksis just avoid them out of sheer ‘ugh that guy!’

The Gelflings finally exit the caves and tunnels in a pretty beautiful area.

The mountains here were soft and undulating, not jagged and rocky. The air was clear, blowing flurries of leaves and sometimes white and pink petals by, and Kylan thought he heard the sound of chimes. It was beautiful and gold and green, but the scene left something to be desired. Kylan frowned deeply. Their belongings were back at the entrance to Tide Pass, including the Book of Raunip, the pearl amulet, and Tavra’s sword. The others were quiet, too. No one wanted to be the first to bring up the subject, but it was too important. They couldn’t just leave their things, not with the journey they had ahead.

But Naia sees an arrow sticking out of the ground which makes her burst out laughing.

Cool guy that urVa is, at some point he found their stuff and moved it over here for them to save them a trip. Nice!

Really streamlining this part of the narrative, urVa!

Kylan retrieves the Book of Raunip, turns to the section about Gyr’s Firca, and gets really in the zone!

He forgets all the terrors and troubles of the past couple days, all the worries and wounds accumulated, and even forgets his cool friends as they give him space and quiet to work in.

All he saw were the sketches of the firca and the hope it had to offer. It was like every other firca he’d ever seen or played, with one mouthpiece, which split into a fork. The pipes on either end of the fork were carved with three finger holes, one for each finger when held properly in two hands. Firca were made out of many materials, each with a slightly different voice. Most were carved from a single piece of wood, though many were made from forced reeds. The Sifa were known to make theirs from the prongs of welhorn shells, and their firca’s voices came with the ghostly roars of ocean waves. The firca was the most common Gelfling instrument, and perhaps one of the simplest, yet the many materials used in its creation also made it one of the most varied. It could play single notes as well as harmonies, while still being small enough to dangle around one’s neck.

That’s so many firca in one segment.

I’m glad that we’re getting background on the importance of the firca to Gelfling culture but its a bit funny to me that its coming at the very end of the story after all this journeying to find a special firca. Although it makes sense for it to happen now because Kylan has the bone and he’s pondering the enormity of the task.

The bell-bird bone is already forked and a little bigger than your av-er-age wooden firca. Kylan feels lucky that Amri found the Last Bell-Bird Bone in the entire mountain and that it happened to be the correct shape and not broken.

A single bone could have been used to make a flute but Kylan decides that a single flute wouldn’t have had the same impact, remembering joining urVa and urLii’s song.

No, a pipe or flute would not have been the same. The firca was special. It could play two notes at once, leaving room for a third. What that third voice was, Kylan didn’t know, but he felt instinctively that it had to do with the legend of the bell-bird. The birds that sang and the mountains sang back. Perhaps, if the bell-birds sang with two notes, it was Thra itself that sang the third part. Perhaps the firca was so valued by the Gelfling because it left a place for the very voice of Thra.

Rule of Three: the planet.

Kylan doesn’t even have any tools to sand the bone or carve the holes but he knows that if he doesn’t make the firca now, he’ll lose his courage to even try. What with it being an irreplaceable only bone left in existence.

SO HE USES DREAM-ETCHING

My god, it just keeps getting more and more versatile a skill!

It was established that dream-etching put out a lot of heat since it basically just burns things into surfaces. So Kylan just focuses the heat of dream-etching onto the surface of his thumb and rubs the jagged edge where the bone broke and he just sands it smooth with dream-etching heat!

Amazing!

The vibration of the etching heat made the bone sing in a high, resonant key.

Also, amazing.

Kylan takes all afternoon and until Naia returns with dinner.

Naia looked over his shoulder, and he opened his hands. Lying in his lap was a white firca, sculpted and smoothed to the finest detail. He hardly remembered making it, or at least, he recalled none of the moments. As his head cleared from the focus, he realized he had gone into a kind of trance. His fingers were blistered and sore, but the product of his dedication was perfect, as if he had transformed the bell-bird bone into the instrument it had always been meant to be.

Naia declares it beautiful and Tavra agrees, adding that she wished she still had Gelfling ears so she could hear him play. Because when he played the bone, it sent her flopping to the floor.

Kylan apologizes again for turning her into a spider but she’s having nothing of it.

“If you hadn’t, I would be dead. And I would not have had the chance to see the two of you succeed as you have. For this, I am only grateful... Stop berating yourself for doing the things your heart calls you to do.”

You’re a good, Tavra.

Amri cooks dinner and puts one of his alchemical pastes on the fish Naia caught which causes Naia and Kylan a Concern but it turns out enjoyable.

Kylan hangs the bone firca around his neck because after going through this whole Song of the Dark Crystal book to get it, its his most precious possession and he’s not letting it out of his grasp.

While they eat, Naia suddenly remembers that note Kylan gave Tavra and then Amri and asks what was in it. Hey, tying up that loose end!

Kylan tries to say that hey that loose end doesn’t matter lets forget about it! but Amri saved the note and he pulls it out and dodges Kylan’s attempt to stop him from reading it.

“Dear Tavra,” he began to read. Kylan interrupted in a hurry, hoping to drown out Amri’s reading.

“I guessed that whatever was controlling Tavra couldn’t read. That it couldn’t read the note on the rock wall, so it had the spiders try to conceal the message -”

“... I write to you on behalf of Naia, and Gurjin, and those others whom you have helped since leaving Ha’rar on an errand for the All-Maudra...”

“- I had to test it, so I used -”

“I know it must be very difficult for you, having been betrayed by the Skeksis in the most painful ways. I wanted to let you know that we all care for you and that, should you need us...”

“So I used what I had on hand...”

But there was no stopping Amri, so Kylan put his face in his hands and waited for it to end. Amri stood before Tavra, Naia, and all the stars and moons above, reading for all to hear:

“... simply call on us. For especially I admire your courage and your loyalty to all that is good and right, and even if I’m unable to put these sentiments into words to say to you directly, I wanted at least to give to you this promise in words that stay. Your friend, Kylan.”

Oh my gooooooooood, the boy really did it! He wrote his feelings in a letter so he wouldn’t stumble over his words! This precious bean! This poor, mortified Gelf! Everyone’s grinning at him!

Naia is saying that she’d learn to read just so she could read it if Kylan ever wrote her anything “sticky-sweet” like that.

This poor boy!

Kylan justifies that after he saw “Tavra” talking with a Skeksis he needed to be sure whether it was Tavra or not so he gave her this letter that he’d prepared ahead of time. It’s such a personal note that if it were Tavra and she could read, she’d definitely react to it.

Tavra finally pipes up, after sitting silently as poor Kylan was mortified to death, to agree that it was a clever plan.

I’m thinking that she didn’t want to pile on so she just stuck with the narrative Kylan is trying to emphasize.

Despite his conviction that she would have reacted to his letter had she been able to decipher it at the time, the All-Maudra’s daughter showed no reaction now. Kylan wasn’t sure which he preferred.

This poor boy!

And when Kylan fished the letter out of the fire and gave it to Amri, he knew something was up because no way would a Vapran princess be illiterate.

The topic changes to Kylan’s relief, so he brings up his ideas for the Big Message that this whole quest has been about.

He’s been thinking a lot about it. They can’t just use a normal message because Skeksis can read Gelfing but not all Gelfling can read Gelfling. How vexing. But urLii reminded him of dream-stitching in the Tomb of Relics.

So his idea is to dream-stitch the message into some innocuous symbol that the Skeksis won’t notice but a Gelfling will get a dream-fast when they touch it.

And since he accidentally dream-stitched “the dream of her mind to the spider’s body” he’s prettyyyyy sure he can do it.

“I will deliver the message that begins our fight against the Skeksis.”

Heck yeah, Kylan!

So with that so declared and the final chapter of this book setup, the party sleeps under the stars. Although Kylan has trouble sleeping because there’s so much anticipation for the following day.

A blade of grass moved to the side near his cheek. It was the only sign that Tavra had joined him, silently picking her way across the tips of the grass as he might hop along the pathway stones in Sami Thicket. She said nothing, balancing on the stalk of a grassflower like a tiny, delicate acrobat.

He waited for her to speak, but she didn’t. There was simply a shared quiet - an acceptance - and then she left, not one word spoken.

When I first read this bit, I got so mad. I thought Tavra was going to leave the group, just vanish in the night because spider and so Kylan could play the bone firca without worrying about the effect on her. I was like TAVRA C’MON WE KEEP LOSING PARTY MEMBERS!

But on another pass, I think this is Tavra accepting his letter and his sentiments.

Aww, friends.

[m39]

Hiveswap: Act 2 review

It’s the end of November. The shitshow known as 2020 will soon come to an end. So why not talk about Hiveswap: Act 2 for a minute? As I said days ago, Act 2 didn’t suck major ass. Overall I thought it was pretty good. Unfortunately, like many games, it also has some bullshit in it.

Just to warn you up before we start: While I’m not gonna talk about major spoilers from the game, there still will be topics that might be considered as one. Proceed with caution.

Byers-Tier of Awesomeness(positives):

Let’s start with the story. I kinda enjoyed it. It starts off slow but when it reaches the 2nd act (as in, the train), it gets better. We get the target location to get there and we are under the time limit to do so. So yeah, a solid motivation to go forward, and it makes sense what we are doing with the train.

The characters, however, are probably the best thing in Act 2, particularly our two main protagonists. I fucking adore Joey and Xefros! I adore what they do! I adore the dialogues between them! I fucking adore them! I fucking adore them!! I!!! FUCKING!!! ADORE!!! THEM!!!

As for the rest of the cast, it was mostly good. I kind of expected that the characters would act differently than in Friendsim(since you know, different people were writing them), but most of the time, I think they were acting like in the Friendsim. Sure, some of them could stick up for more time and there is definitely one troll who overestimated hER WELCOME but I’ll talk about it later.

There isn’t really much to talk about the graphics about it. Both backgrounds and characters look amazing and props to the artists for a fantastic work.

The soundtrack is still God-tier. Then again, it’s James Roach and Toby Fox (with some help from Clark Powell). These guys can make gold out of thin air. My three favorite music pieces were the first three variations of Ticket to Ride (the last one especially was stuck in my head for a long time)

Now let me show you some of the highlights from the game (particularly, the train ones):

The first act (before the train): The bug lusii from Charun’s and Zebede’s hives and the train station. Their design is awesome and I want to pet them.

Rust/Bronze wagon: It was kinda hard to choose the highlight from this section since it’s pretty short but I think I’ll go with Skylla. Her smile fucking broke me!

Gold/Olive wagon: The wagon itself was the best part of this section since it reminded me of the trains (railbuses to be exact) I used to take in the past. Asides from that, there is also Konyyl.

Jade/Teal wagon: Ignoring how the trial was a chore, Tyzias was a fucking savage beast in this game and I fucking love her for that. The best part was how she and Joey basically straight out humiliated Tegiri for being such an attention-seeking failure of a Tealblood. Stuff like this makes Tyzias the best troll out of her caste (in Hiveswap of course).

Blue/Indigo wagon: Amisia.

…

What? You want me to say more? NOPE! There is nothing else to add. Amisia is still the best! She was an adorable, murderous child back then, in Friendsim, and she’s still the same child now. I fucking love her!

I’m not going to talk about what happens in the third act because, you know, spoilers, but let me tell you: it gets fucking intense.

Septic Tank of Caliborn’s Yaoi Filth(negatives):

Unfortunately, Hiveswap: Act 2 is not all fine and dandy as you might have guessed. It can be infuriating sometimes.

Let’s start with the most obvious con: The trial in the Jade/Teal wagon. It drags the game out for way too long. When I was playing the game, it was around 10-11 PM when I reached this wagon. I’ve decided to finish Act 2 the next day after finishing that part of the game. Unfortunately, it went on, and on, and on for so long that I’ve decided: Fuck it! and stopped when I reached the recess. Sure, there are some funny moments like the one I’ve mentioned before but when you create a segment that feels like it’s ten times longer than it actually is, shows that you need to triple-check your in-making game before releasing it.

Now for my personal worst aspect of Act 2: Elwurd. Good, fucking, GOD!!! I fucking hate this one-note character for being such a plank of wood! The fact that we have to overly rely on her of all the trolls pisses me off even more! I’m serious, we are forced to ask her for help like three to four times to go further! Let me show you an example: You receive an item that you have to show to another troll. To make it look more convincing, you need Remele to cover it in paint. Now here’s the catch: In order to get the painted item, directly talking to her will do shit! Seriously! You have to talk to a plank of wood with I’M GAY written all over it to actually get help from Remele!!

OKAY! TIME OUT! CAN SOMEONE TELL ME WHICH ONE OF THE WRITERS DECIDED IT WILL BE A GREAT IDEA TO TURN JOEY INTO A FUCKING SIMP?!?! Is it because they want to develop Joey in terms of her sexuality?! Well, I don’t think it’s a good idea to use someone who’s attitude screams GIMME DA PUSSAY every time there is a dialogue with her!! Like, for fuck sake, Tegiri was more enjoyable to watch! Hell, Zebruh, of all trolls, was more bearable than Elwurd! And we are supposed to hate his guts!! You could have make Joey ask for help from the other trolls that didn’t really shined in this game but NO! You are forcing us to pick the most boring one for help over and over again!! GOD FU-

technical difficulties

Okay, this rant was going on for too far. Let’s change the topic.

For some unknown reasons, Zebede and Charun were not in this game. Like, we saw them on promotional media and I saw that they were probably finished so the reason why the rest of the cast was in Act 2 but not them is nonsensical.

Although the artwork is still amazing, it feels rushed and unpolished in some places. For instance when Joey and Xefros are passed out, instead of the animation of them waking and standing up, they just… POP And now they stand up.

…

Okay?!

Also I would prefer for items to be more usable.

And that’s basically all stuff that I have to say about Hiveswap: Act 2.

Before I’ll end up my review, however, there is one last elephant in the room that needs to be said about: the credits that weren’t implemented when this game was released a few days ago. While the reason behind this decision can be considered reasonable (as is, avoiding a backlash until the hype wents out) since some of the fans can be considered complete nutcases straight out of Arkham Asylum, the decision itself overall feels hyperbolic to me. I saw many artists who were showing the assets from the game that they were working on, and they were proud of their work. They wanted to share it with fans and they were greeted with a very warm response from the fans. It basically looks more like it was about the writers and directors not getting a backlash for the decisions they created since some of them were working on the highly controversial Epilogues and an even worse sequel to them. If that was the case, then why not just have the credits from the beginning but without the directors and writers until around three months pass? There! Problem solved!

Summary:

Despite the trial, despite Elwurd being Elwurd, lack of two characters and the overall roughness, Hiveswap: Act 2 is still a very good game. While I don’t believe anymore that any of the future installments will give us the same level of magic that Act 1 did, I was still satisfied with what we got.

Before I’ll finally take a break from Homestuck for a long time, let me tell you something. The beginning of the game with the train in the background felt like this:

After finishing it, the atmosphere changed to this:

I’ll let you feel it for a moment. >:]

See you all next time.

Bye!

[yet-another-saberface]

Story Headcanons: Orleans (Prelude - Section 2)

This was actually very interesting for me to write, since as I went on, I found more and more that it felt natural for Eva to be passive. At first I wasn’t sure why this felt so right, until I realized that I was having Eva dissociate herself from the present circumstances. While this isn’t a fic - so you don’t really have access to every thought going through her head, I hope that that comes across in this, even though I don’t have much personal experience with dissociation caused by past trauma.

That said, this is a relatively slow start a singularity, but I hope you guys enjoy it! I got it done a lot faster than expected, but I can’t say for sure when the next part will be done... Let’s just get to it!

Prelude

We should all be thankful that it is Fou who has taken it upon itself to wake Eva up, because if it was literally anyone else, she would likely be having a minor panic attack once again. After all, dreaming of evil Servants and people being burned alive is… Unnerving, to say the least. But she wakes up to Fou, meaning that Eva immediately tucks every disturbing theory about that dream away for later in favor of thinking about how damn adorable Fou is.

When Mash comes in, she’s surprised that Eva says she slept really well. While that’s not entirely true, since Eva was having to put up with what she’s classified for the moment as nightmares, she did go to sleep and wake up at reasonable hours for once, which is unusual. When Mash remarks that she’s glad Eva is finally getting sleep, Eva merely responds by saying that anyone with half a brain would sleep the night before they’re supposed to time travel to save the world.

Unlike many other times Eva’s had to sit through explanations, she pays extremely close attention to the entire briefing, wanting to make sure she doesn’t miss a word. She may be a theory expert, and she may have interrogated everyone she could about how Chaldea’s systems work, but there’s still room for her to screw everything up. Lucky for her, the rules around travelling to the singularities are a lot looser than normal rules for time travel that have been proposed in theory - this is because singularities will dissipate after you take away the source, which in this case is the Grail. Knowing that, Eva takes that as a permit to do whatever the hell she needs to so long as she gets the Grail out, which takes quite a bit of weight off her shoulders. Now she doesn’t have to worry about accidentally killing someone that needed to live in order for all of human history to proceed as normal.

She’s a bit concerned at the prospect of having to summon within the singularity - since there might not be catalysts, and she might be forced to do a normal summoning again - but she’s assured that if the summoning circle is properly established, she should be able to tap into the FATE system as smoothly as she does at Chaldea. Upon learning this, that concern promptly vanishes. Eva returns to being all determination.

We’re actually going to assume that Eva had been introduced to Da Vinci before this moment, since on our timeline it’s been at least a week or two in between singularities, and Eva spent a good few days of that time in the command room, not sleeping. There’s no way she hasn’t met Da Vinci yet. She accepted Da Vinci’s physical appearance really quickly, especially after hearing the reasoning behind it. To her, it makes perfect sense that a Heroic Spirit, given the chance, would choose their ideal appearance as their form when summoned. Also, for our purposes, we will be using female pronouns for Da Vinci. (I reblogged a post about trans characters in Fate recently that offers a basic explanation of why I will stay firm in this decision.)

She’s very grateful to actually have a coffin for rayshifting this time, to say the least. The last thing she wants is for there to be a mishap and for her to die in the process. So she hops in there without hesitation and and rayshifts away to save humanity.

Section 1: Land of the Hundred Years’ War

This time, Eva’s reaction upon safely rayshifting is not to panic. She’s once again glad to find that Fou tagged along - even if it means having one more life to protect along the way. And she’s very grateful that it appears they’ve landed in a very peaceful area this time - the seemingly endless rolling fields is a welcome change from everything being on fire. It doesn’t hurt to breathe, the breeze makes sure that the sunlight won’t cause her to overheat, the sky is gorgeou- The sky.

And… There’s a big ring of light in the sky. That’s not normal. However, without concrete proof on what it is, she can’t even begin to try to trace it back to anything she already knows about. Even Roman admits that he doesn’t have any real idea, which isn’t very helpful.

There it is again. She’s forgetting something. If she could just remember it she’d know what’s going on. But she can’t remember… Why can’t she just remember?

She does her best to not focus on how annoying that is, snapping back to the moment as she and Mash begin the trek towards the nearest civilization… If there is any. Fortunately, they do run into what appear to be humans - French soldiers, to be exact. She’s glad that there are humans this time around, but still warns Mash about trying to interact with them at all. They don’t know what’s going on here yet. And they don’t exactly look like they’re of the era. There’s a fairly high chance that they won’t be able to negotiate.

Sure enough, they end up having to fight them. Eva is already sick of this. It clearly wasn’t that we aren’t speaking French. We should have just avoided them in the first place. I told you we should have just not tried to approach them…

Of course, she does make sure to check in with Mash after they get out of there, since every fight leaves both of them at risk of further injury. She was fortunate enough this time to not have to do anything that put her at risk… But the same can’t be said for Mash. Things seem to be okay, though.

Why the hell would they think following them is a good idea? They just fought them. That’s a horrible idea. But she’s also not in charge, so the least she can do is follow orders and try to mitigate potential damage.

Section 2: Chase the French Soldier

Upon reaching the fort, the sheer amount of injured immediately sends Eva’s mind into overdrive. The war is supposed to be having a respite at the moment. Yes, the possibility of there still being skirmishes is still there, as Mash points out, but this doesn’t look like the result of skirmishes. Skirmishes leave people with mostly minor injuries that’ll heal, at worst, in a month or two, given the time period. Maybe some people get major injuries. Skirmishes don’t leave a fort crippled like this. Skirmishes don’t put soldiers on such high alert that they attack the second there’s even a tiny chance of a possible threat. Yes, she and Mash look strange, but they weren’t displaying hostile behavior. If the war was truly in respite… Wait. What if the war isn’t in respite?

Lucky for them, the soldiers don’t attempt to attack this time around, and her theory is confirmed, be it while bringing in another complication. There was no peace treaty, and therefore no respite. But that’s because the king got killed by evil Jeanne d’Arc. While England having retreated is good - less enemies to deal with - she starts worrying very intensely upon hearing all of this. She knew history would be screwed with but this is more than that. This is history being warped so badly that it’s almost unrecognizable.

And then there’s another attack, seemingly out of nowhere. Great. At least they didn’t provoke this one. And oh great more skeletons look at that. Kill those, make sure everyone’s okay, done. How many times is she going to have to do this? At least fighting actual servants is well… Interesting. Dangerous, but it requires a lot more thought than just bashing piles of bones.

Eva is actually somewhat skeptic about the Jeanne situation. Her coming back from the dead is something she can believe, after all, Servants exist. But for her to come back and actively attack France? That just doesn’t seem right. Heroic Spirits record heroes at their best, or what they’re remembered for. Jeanne is remembered as a saint, as a savior of France. It doesn’t add up. And then there’s the change in physical appearance the soldier mentions…  It could be linked back to it, but it could also be a dead giveaway that this isn’t actually Jeanne, but rather someone posing as Jeanne. Or Jeanne was corrupted in some way, like what happened in Fuyuki. But the circumstances here seem very different, so that’s less likely.

It doesn’t matter what the truth is, all of those are bad, and they need to save France regardless of which it turns out to be.

And then there’s the wyverns. Those… Should not be there. So let’s make them not there. At least they aren’t skeletons. Of course… They fly. That’ll make things difficult. But she can manage-

And oh great another person showed up. Not a person. A Servant. On their side. Well that certainly happened faster than last time. The stress Eva’s was feeling dies down a little at the prospect of more allies. This is a bad situation, but at least something good has happened.

And then the fight actually starts. It’s… Surprisingly short. Between the soldiers, Mash, and the other Servant, she barely has to do anything other than give orders and heal the wounds afterwards. She doesn’t know how to feel about that. Either those wyverns weren’t all they were cracked up to be, or Mash is just stronger and better prepared than she was in Fuyuki. She’d like to think it’s the second option.

Mash gets her to genuinely giggle with the mention of attacking Roman as revenge for the sweets. It’s funny to think about but well… Probably not the best idea. She might laugh, but she’ll also be sure to tell Mash that she doesn’t think it’s necessary. Of course, if Mash wants to take it upon herself… She’s free to do so, provided she doesn’t kill Chaldea’s director.

And look at that it’s Jeanne. At this point Eva really doesn’t feel like she’s… You know. There. She feels like her body is there, but mentally, she’s not. She’s not back at Chaldea either. She’s not back in the normal world. Her mind is just… Observing. It all feels foggy, like she’s drifting in a void, and just going along with what other people say because she doesn’t feel like fighting back. She doesn’t feel like being there. The last time she was there, she got hurt. The last time she really fought, it only made things worse. There’s no harm to going with Jeanne. She doesn’t seem hostile right now. It’s the only lead they have.

We’ve got tags!

@contractgreen @panyum @withanina @campanulabell @delfinaschiffer @princessaslan @armageddon25 @patproductions @xviicprc @eldritch-flowers @rankeluck @areeta9 @bitter–edge @uncommoncritter @blackcherrybombbomb @bluefiren7 @dtgvxg​ @velkiibo​

[nellied-reviews]

Succulent Rat-Killing Tar Re-listen

Hey! So, I’m new here, but I’ve recently been re-listening to the podcast Wolf 359, and I'm obsessed again, so I kinda wanted, in true Self-Indulgent fashion, to record my thoughts about it, see what stands out now I know how the series plays out. I don’t know if anyone will actually want to read this, but I enjoyed writing it, at least!

If any of you don’t know Wolf 359, but are still, for whatever reason, reading this, a) you should go listen! It’s a sci-fi podcast with some awesome characters, and a really great balance of creepiness, wackiness and actual plot. But also, b) I will be posting spoilers here, sorry. It’s been a while, so I think they’re pretty much fair game now? But just so you’re not caught out: here be spoilers.

With that cleared up, then:

Succulent Rat-Killing Tar

In which we meet the disaster that is Douglas Eiffel, Hilbert blows things up, and the Hephaestus receive a strange transmission from deep space.

In some ways, re-listening to this episode was an odd experience, because the characters don’t quite feel solid yet. It’s the same in a few early episodes - tonally, they’re just really different to a lot of what comes later - and I don't think that’s bad, per se, especially since there are things, on a re-listen, that connect this to later episodes. But this episode is particularly weird, I think, even for the early episodes. 

Gabriel Urbina actually talked about this in the writing notes he posted to his Tumblr, how he conceived of Wolf 359 as a one-man show, and  what we get here is basically the Doug Eiffel! Show, with what are essentially cameo appearances from the others. As a consequence of this, Minkowski, Hera and Hilbert don’t get much characterisation, and even things like their voices seem ... odd? Hera, especially, feels more like Space Siri than the snarky AI we know and love, while Minkowski... eh, I don’t know why I don't like her here, but I remember not liking her when I first listened to it either. I think she sounds kind of flat, like she's not quite a real person?

 It’s probably good, then, that Eiffel comes onto the scene fully formed and really freakin' funny. Zach Valenti is a funny man, and he kills it here, from the very first lines. I particularly love how much information he gets into his opening monologue. He takes what looks, superficially, like a lazily-written infodump - because seriously, who would start their log like that on day 448? Does Eiffel open every single log like this?! - and just runs with it. It's such a ludicrous thing to do, and the whole reason I buy that yes, Eiffel totally does just sit there every single night talking to himself, is Zach Valenti’s performance. It's so good, guys, seriously!

On a side-note, I am also endlessly amused at the way in which Eiffel’s utterly bonkers decision to narrate his boring chores like an exposition-heavy radio show gives the Dear Listeners ammo later on. Like, if Eiffel were not such a fundamentally ridiculous character, they would not have his voice to contact the crew. So much of the plot just hinges on Eiffel being a dumbass, and I can respect that.

Besides the fact that he’s this weird, lovable dumbass, we do also get some nice character moments for Eiffel. For one, it’s buried under a lot of funny stuff, but we get our first hints at him having an addictive personality - his love of cigarettes certainly hits differently when you know about his past with alcohol.

There are also, sticking to things I picked up the first time round, hints that Eiffel is perhaps more competent than he lets on? Certainly, he kicks into a different gear when the transmissions come through - the goofing around stops straight away, and he genuinely seems keen to make contact. I like that, I think.

That said, he blows his moment of competence by ignoring the signal and getting coffee. For such a pop culture-savvy guy, he sure falls hard into the "I’m sure it was nothing" trap here. Ugh, Eiffel. Come on. You’re better than this.

I’m not complaining, though, because it does give us time to listen to Alan Rodi's beautiful music. Words cannot convey how much I love it. I don’t know if it's just nostalgia from last time I listened to Wolf 359, but hearing the music again here nearly made me cry, genuinely. I especially love the acoustic piano. I think it'd be easy to go with a technological, electronic sound for a podcast set in space, so the choice to use a more traditional, old-fashioned instrument like a piano is a pleasant surprise, grounding the show in something older and more Earth-bound, and providing the same kind of connection to Earth history and culture that the old music does at the end. You've got electronic bleeping going on, sure, which adds a layer of space-y weirdness to it all. But it's still, underneath the noises, something lovely and comforting and nice. So congrats, Alan Rodi. You made a 30 second coffee break into something really beautiful.

Then we're back and Minkowski has Eiffel reading Pryce and Carter - another mainstay of the show being introduced right there - and then Hilbert's lab is on fire. This whole section is solidly funny, and I especially love the tone of the Pryce and Carter entries. From the muzak in the background, to the disturbing, sort-of-aphoristic style of the entries, which kind of feel like something from Welcome to Night Vale, to the fact that this book seems to have no structure and is just one giant, non-user-friendly list, everything about this is hilarious to me. I also noticed the reference to the idea that somebody might be in space for disciplinary reasons. Which totally won’t be relevant later. Nope. Definitely not.

Hilbert, although his voice is much less growly than I’m used to, feels closer to his later self, character-wise, than the others. He’s maybe a bit too dotty, but then again, literally everything he does during this season is a front anyway, so I'm willing to give that one a pass. Stuff blowing up is always fun, either way, and it also introduces another idea that will stick around: the idea that everything on the Hephaestus is either broken or is about to break. Mentions of a power outage last week, in particular, suggest that this ship is already... less than shipshape.

And the we get the episode's climax, the arrival of the alien message which turns out to be... an old transmission of The Entertainer, by Scott Joplin?

And look, I think this was what sold me on Wolf 359. Sure, it took a while to find it's feet. But this moment was what convinced me that hey, I'll hang around a bit longer. Because it’s such a smart choice. 

Already, by having an audio drama series whose main character is a communications officer, and whose plot centres round him using radios and making audio logs, you have the ingredients for an intensely self-reflective, metatextually interesting show. It makes us think about radio and broadcasting and how sounds are transmitted through space. 

But by using a real recording of The Entertainer, something from the very earliest age of radio, with its gramophone-y crackle, you’re widening the scope, linking us all the way back to the birth of recorded sound. And Eiffel's joy at it all, his glee at finding a connection back to Earth, is a reminder of the power recorded sound can have. Eiffel, listening to Scott Joplin, is transported somewhere new and intriguing. Meanwhile we, listening to some podcast about stars and toothpaste and spacefaring dumbasses, are also transported away from our lives and our world. It’s a lovely idea.

Of course, I could be reading too much into this. It could just be that the piece is out of copyright, and hits the right balance of strange vs. familiar.

Either way, it makes for an ending that’s beautiful, wholesome and surprisingly sweet. I’m charmed, particularly, by how earnest Eiffel seems when he’s talking about how the music makes him feel. After spending a whole episode goofing around, it’s a refreshing change of pace, and it made me smile the first time I listened to it. This time round, it feels a bit more bittersweet, I think. We know that Eiffel won't be going home for a good, long time, after all.

In any case, it's a solid end to an episode that, while it has its issues, still mostly holds up. A surprising amount of plot-relevant stuff is established. Eiffel, at least, is properly introduced. And I get weirdly emotional about radio shows. Nice job, Wolf 359.

 Miscellaneous thoughts:

Eiffel not understanding Hilbert when Zach Valenti voices them both is peak comedy and you can fight me on this

 Eiffel joking about everyone on the ship have “series trust issues”. You ain’t seen nothing yet, hun.

The noises they made for Eiffel slurping coffee are so gross and childish I love them

Ooh, when he’s mocking Minkowski, Eiffel pronounces her name right!

Eiffel calling Hera “sweetheart” ^-^

Hilbert passing the explosion off as a hairdryer omg

[uncultureddirt]

Waiting (3/3) - Mark Lee fic

~REQUESTED~

“I have to do something about this.”

PART ONE ||| PART TWO

He thumbed through the book recklessly, quickly passing over the dog-eared pages and sighing helplessly. Mark told himself that he didn’t know why he felt so frantic to get this project done. It was Friday night; he knew he had the entire weekend. He really wasn’t worried about finishing it. No, his mind was whirling for another reason. Subconsciously, he was denying how he felt and attempted to avoid confronting his emotions again. He tried to direct his energy into something productive to distract himself, which ended up being his English project.

But as he held the book in his hands and stared at the words before him, his distraction began to fail. He was reading the words, but not understanding them. All the letters and blobs of ink seemed to collide, come together at the edges, bounce off each other, and nothing registered in his head. 

And then his plan collapsed altogether, because his mind replayed the concluding moments of class that day anyways. 

After a long class of writer’s block something finally came to him; an idea had finally danced across his brain. He began writing frantically as the fear of this thought escaping him had presented itself and there wasn’t much time left before the dismissal bell would ring. But mid-sentence he was stopped, the thought was gone. He forgot it altogether. It wasn’t because he had a poor memory; he was just easily distracted, and something more important had taken hold of his attention. 

Mark felt your eyes on the side of his face. He felt your stare. He noticed you stopped writing and out of the corner of his eye became aware of your gaze shifting to him. He fought with himself to ignore it, and act like he didn’t notice. But, truthfully, he enjoyed being the center of your thoughts for a while; he wanted to prolong that experience. The downfall of that wonderful feeling was that he couldn’t focus. He imagined you looking at him, thought about what you were thinking, and played over hypothetical situations in his head where he would turn to you and apologize, telling you what he was truly thinking. His mind was swimming far from the once relevant sentences on his page; he had drifted too far from the land and was lost completely at sea. Lost completely in the thought of you. It was funny; he appeared not to care, or not to notice, when the reality was entirely different. 

He shook his head, bringing himself back to the present, back to his room with Romeo and Juliet held tightly in his grasp. 

~

You walked into Darten’s class on Monday morning silently and wondered if Mark finished his section of the presentation. 

You were a bit of a control freak when it came to group projects, always making sure everything is beyond perfect, but this time you did not have the slightest clue what Mark prepared. Maybe he didn’t prepare anything at all. 

You saw him walk in and sit down, fumbling through a stack of index cards. You saw his mouth moving as he flipped through them. You could tell he was nervous. 

‘I guess he did prepare something.’ 

You sat back and watched as the presentation before you commenced. You couldn’t recall what Luke and Jamie had talked about. For all you knew, the whole thing could have been in French. You spent the time somewhere else. Your mind drifted to laying on the back of your car. You swore you could feel the breeze dragging over your skin, and as you stared up you were met with a clear sky, the sun bathing what felt like the whole universe. You turned to your left to see his face, Mark’s face, and he was smiling. He was happy. He placed a hand on your cheek and looked to your mouth. You felt your stomach swirl. A light feeling had consumed you and held you hostage. You wanted to stay there. Remain in your hazy daydream. You wanted it to be real. But as Mark began to bring his face to yours, you were brought back to the classroom.  

The sound of clapping filled your ears. You looked around, seeing your classmates begin to applaud as Luke and Jamie took their seats. You were confused for a moment, then utterly disappointed. You looked across at Mark, hunched over his cards.

That’s all it ever was. A daydream.

“Y/n, Mark.” Mr. Darten called out. 

You looked across the room and met eyes with Mark.  

Smiling softly, you nodded. ‘Maybe that would chill him out.’

You and Mark made your way to the front of the room. You stood in front of Mr. Darten’s computer and began typing, searching through his shared documents to find your presentation. 

‘Sorry if this is basic Darten’

‘Found it,’ you said internally. You had named the document, and you thought it was a national treasure, ‘Wow I’m funny.’

“Y/n stop laughing at yourself and start presenting please,” Mr. Darten said, teasing you from the back of the room. He had his feet on the desk in front of him and his signature mug held tightly in his hand. 

You moved next to the board, opposite of Mark. He looked flushed as he bent the index cards in his hand, trying to outlet his nerves. You noticed. 

You were first to talk, so you began, “Hello guys, today we will be talking about probably the most recognized Shakespeare work, Romeo and Juliet. Our goal was not to bore you with the plot, nor revisit ideas you’ve heard every time the names Romeo and Juliet exited your mouth,” you made eye contact with Darten and raised your eyebrows as if to say, ‘told you so’. 

You tapped the title slide to bring you the actual presentation. You weren’t the best public speaker, but you felt good this time. Confidence had washed over you and you spoke neatly, with clear inflection and perfect articulation. You began delivering your findings passionately, walking through thematic elements and symbols in a way you hoped was different and appealing to listeners. 

You reached your last slide and stumbled on your words slightly as you remembered the boy standing next to you. He would be speaking in a few short seconds. Your content was running out, and it was time for you to pass over the stage. You clicked the next slide; it turned into a photo of a girl sitting in front of a window. There were no words, just the picture. You turned your head slightly. You had no idea what he prepared. 

He glanced at the white cards in his hands, and then he tucked them into his pocket. “I chose to look at characters, and uh, how their external actions, remarks, even physical appearances correlated to what they were, uh, feeling on the inside.”

He began speaking about the photo on the screen and did so for the next seven pictures. He analyzed each photo gently, touching upon the subject’s face and aligning it with their internal thoughts and emotions. Each picture was to represent a character in the story, and it all matched elegantly. The words flowing from his mouth were colorful and potent; they filled the room in a way you’ve never experienced. Who was this boy? Since when was he so knowledgeable? Since when did he understand feelings so well?

He tapped the screen once more and two photos came up, side by side. It was a boy laying in a field, his face touched by the sun. He seemed calm and relaxed. Peace was flowing within him. Next to the first image was the same photo, but it was dark. The sky was cloudless, but absent of stars. The boy lay beneath the blank sky, and he no longer looked tranquil. Without sound or expression, a coldness was conveyed through the picture; a sadness stained the screen. 

You looked at Mark as he spoke. You no longer felt like you were a part of this project, you were an observer, a member in the crowd. 

“Romeo’s a very interesting character to me. Upon my initial reading I um, I was confused why he was so dramatic. He seemed fragile and conflicted. In Shakespeare’s time, men were never traditionally portrayed as weak, let alone their cause of weakness being inflicted by a woman. It was very different, and I couldn’t understand why he was so, uh, soft I guess?” Everyone laughed quietly at Mark’s word choice, and you did too. He started again, “Romeo was experiencing love and heartbreak, two things that can’t really be seen, but can be strongly felt. The only way to properly express this was to completely defy the norm and break the toxic male archetype. By showing a male acting this way, Shakespeare properly depicts the power love has on an individual.”

You weren’t sure if you were dreaming. You couldn’t tell if your brain had drifted helplessly back into your hazy daydream. Mark, who couldn’t say ‘hi’ to you now, was standing before a group of people and describing the depths of love? You shifted your weight, moving back and forth as you listened to him speak. His words were entering your ear softly, and then a string of words, so familiar to you, exited his lips. 

 “I mean love does make you act all strange.”

Your eyes widened and you stared at the floor in front of you. It all was coming back, the day at Sunbelt’s. Your conversation in the parking lot, the way he laughed nervously when he talked, and how the wind pushed his messy hair back. Every detail about that day came back with those words. 

“Your thoughts can switch very easily. You can move from a place that feels warm and inviting, to one that feels familiar, but changed and cold, like these photos. The boy isn’t changing his location, it’s simply the time of day; the passing of time can transform a place and transform feelings. A confident boy like Romeo, faced with love and heartbreak, acts strange. He fumbles his words, he spends his days thinking of her, he can’t seem to focus because she, uh, Juliet, is uh all he sees,” he paused for a moment and you looked over, noticing his face grow red. Slowly you realized it wasn’t the book he was talking about. After recollecting his thoughts, he concluded the presentation and smiled softly. 

 “I mean love does make you act all strange.”

His words replayed themselves once again. 

You looked back at Darten who nodded approvingly. You knew you guys killed it, but you had no clue how. Your dialogue was limited for weeks, but you guessed that Mark’s mind wasn’t as absent as it appeared. He must have been thinking about it a lot, and it showed. You were happy for him. You wanted to tell him, but you didn’t know how. 

‘Holy shit, Mark. What in the hell just happened?’ you thought to yourself as you went to sit down. You sat at your desk antsy to talk to him, to ask him questions, to say sorry for being so short with him. You wanted to say so much, but you didn’t know where to start. 

~

“Hey!” you shouted at Mark. You were walking to your car after class and you noticed him quite a bit ahead of you. You didn’t mean to yell, it just escaped you, impulsively. 

He turned around, confused at first, but once seeing you he looked slightly surprised. 

“Hey!” he called back. 

You furrowed your brows as he stood frozen, “I don’t like yelling, can you come here?” Your voice grew louder as a car passed by you, concealing your words. 

“What?” he shouted back.

“Mark come here!” you yelled. 

He mouthed an ‘oh’ before lightly jogging towards you. 

Once you two stood face to face, it became too real. All the words you had inside vanished. You felt your heartbeat quicken as you stared at his face, your ears swirling with the words from his presentation. You didn’t know why, but you were slightly out of breath, “Um, where did all that come from? Like all that you said?” 

He pulled the index cards he was flipping through before and handed them to you. 

You felt frustrated, “No like where in your head did all that come-?”

He interrupted, “Go to the one that says ‘last’.”

You flipped through the cards, confused as to whether he really understood what you were asking. Your eyes gazed over his messy, boyish handwriting until you saw the card he was talking about. Every card preceding it was packed with markings and covered in highlighter, but this one was almost empty. Your eyes scanned over the words slowly.

‘Talk about your feelings.’

You looked up at him. His face was serious, maybe even partially embarrassed. Mark kept his eyes fixed on the gravel. His heart was racing, you just had no idea. You opened your mouth to say something, but his voice beat your words. 

“It’s what I wanted to say to you. I guess it was harder to say to your face than to the class,” he stopped and looked at you, "because uh, they think I’m talking about something fictional written on a page by some old guy, something I don’t feel for them. It’s hard when you’re looking at me. I guess I was waiting for the right time, and then the right time became an excuse because I was scared. I started to forget what I was even waiting for.”

You felt your heart burning a hole through your chest. He was only confusing to you because he was confused with himself. He was wrapped up in a feeling he didn’t know how to feel, nor how to express. 

You felt words exiting your mouth; you weren’t sure who was controlling them, your brain suddenly worked separately from your body. “Your presentation was perfect. I secretly hoped it wasn’t about the book,” he laughed and looked down, “and it’s all okay. I like you Mark, even when we didn’t talk. I still liked you.” 

He bit the inside of his mouth to stop from smiling, “I like you too.” 

The air was still after he said it, but not in an awkward way. You both were basking in the words that still sat in the air. Words that you both waited for so long to hear. There existed some sort of comfort within all the silence, within the faded sounds of cars leaving the parking lot, within the cloudy voices of kids walking out of the school, within the small space between you and Mark.

The End.  

[marcholasmoth]

OSRR: 2283

i did a bunch of work today. kinda exhausted.

i attended and took notes in class, i cleaned my room and went through my wardrobe to get rid of stuff in the first real clothing purge of the last like five years, and then i did all of the assignments that were due for earth science before 6pm, which was weird for me bc i usually do them after everything else during the day. but i had time, so i did them early. i also listened to two sections of math lecture, so i can do homework for that section tomorrow, and maybe get a head start on the rest of my exhaustive list of homework for each day of the rest of the semester. quite literally, i made a list. numbered it, put in all of my assignments and when i'd do them, so i have it all laid out in front of me so i can keep to the schedule, because if i fall behind any more i will not finish the semester. but i have to, and i have to have something to show to my professor tomorrow to let her know i'm not giving up, but that instead it's my mental inertia that is really preventing me from being productive. mental inertia is what i'm calling my brain's unwillingness to do a single fuckin thing on any given day. because of the definition and practical understanding of inertia, it means though that if i want it to move, i have to move it myself. i have to push it. because that's really what i'm dealing with - an unwilling blob of disaster that has a decent ability to function if it ever gets off its ass. so i need the motivation to push that blob until it starts sliding. lots of principles of physics here: inertia, forces, static and kinetic friction. yknow, the drill.

anyway, i'm proud of myself for today, even though it feels like i missed doing stuff. breaking things down into specific details helps me, so having a day-by-day calendar that goes line by line telling me what i need to do on a given day will help me push my dumbass brain into gear. it's a variation, i suppose, on the block method of task organization andrew tells his clients about. sticky notes worked for a semester. a detailed planner worked really well for a semester. so now, straight-up pads of paper will have to work for the rest of the semester. i need to rotate my methods so i don't get complacent and ignore things, like i can easily do if things are uniform and are exactly the same. which is why a list is easier i guess, because yes it's all supposed to look the same, but it's a different visual thing than a wall of brightly-colored sticky notes that end up blending into the faded yellow wall. which is a problem i have. so. i'd like to go back to the planner thing, but that also worked best when i was on campus and not stuck at home for school stuff.

also i talked to joel a little bit today. sort of a normal interaction: he asked me if i wanted to fight, i begged for death, he said no, i said why, he gave some bullshit answer, then we changed the topic. kinda funny tbh, that's sort of our way of checking in on each other. it allows me to actually tell him how i'm feeling, and while he doesn't give up much information himself, a lot of it is supporting me and my nonsense and buffoonery as i simply exist as a ball of Anxiety™ that stress-cleans and vibrates in place as i contemplate the tasks i must complete. today was an anxiety day, so i told him. [it's nice to tell someone things about my emotional state and for them to take me and what i say at face value instead of trying to break me down into pieces of "drama" and "not drama," because that's what my mom does. if i feel too much, her first response is "what's real and what's drama," or "you're being dramatic," or some other equally bullshit gaslighting of my emotional state that's fuckin fragile in the first place. like, listen linda. "what's real" all of it. "what's drama" none of it, you moldy peach pit. i feel what i feel, and you are not allowed to tell me that what i'm feeling isn't real, so shut your mouth and sit the fuck down, you melted stick of unsalted butter.] but yeah. joel actually listens and i love the shit out of him for it.

and lastly, i watched a christmas movie. by myself. before thanksgiving. but. in my defense, it was about a struggling writer at a writing conference who ends up repeatedly unknowingly bumping into the keynote speaker, a published author of whom she happens to be a fangirl in increasingly embarrassing situations at first. and then they're paired as writing buddies for the conference, and he gives her pointers and they banter and work together and it's just really cute and the Drama occurs when he's trying to tell her he's the author but she keeps rushing to go somewhere and it's the keynote and the author walks in and it's HIM. THE DRAMA. THE BETRAYAL. THE YEARNING. and then he comes to her dad's house and surprises her on christmas day with a letter from a publisher bc her revised copy of her manuscript was really good bc of all the help he gave her and the experiences they shared and all the good stuff and she said it was basically a happy ever after, to which he replied, "i guess it is." and then she says, "so kiss me already," and points to the mistletoe above them and it's SO CUTE AND SWEET AND I ALMOST CRIED.

but anyway, i feel like a hypocrite because christmas!! shouldn't!! happen!! before!! thanksgiving!! that's!! a!! rule!! and i HATE IT when people put up christmas decorations in early november, but at this point i'm accepting that it's something that gives people joy so i really shouldn't step on that. it's just. learning to accept that people enjoy certain things and i should encourage them instead of rag on them for it. i'm not perfect. i'm still learning. and i want to be a kinder person to people, more loving and accepting and supportive, and i'm slowly overcoming my own hatred of things as i grow and distance myself further from the shit that made me this way. i'm learning! if i make a mistake please tell me gently, because i want to be better but i also have RSD and i WILL shut down and tear myself down forever if i am told harshly bc that's just how i am. i'm trying to get over it a little at a time by accepting things as time goes on, but in the meantime i need help. so that's all, i guess.

thanks for reading and for caring, i love you guys and i hope you're enjoying things that being you joy, even if other people give you shit for it. i will do my best to support you!

also if you're in the US and are of voting age and are registered and haven't already voted, GO VOTE TOMORROW. some states have same-day registration, so bring an ID and go register if you need to. this election will determine our futures - i know so many of us are in circumstances that would be harmed if we had another four years of the racist orange peel in office now, so i know many others who may straight-up die because of it. we need protections. we need to have our rights protected. we need to have our lives protected. and we can't do that with the damaged candy corn in office for any longer. he'a already fucked with us enough. we can't afford any more of it. now i'm just angry ranting. please, go vote for joe biden. politics is like public transit: if there's no train going exactly where you need to go, you don't just not get on the train. you take the one that gets you the closest, and work your way from there. that's joe biden. and, if biden does indeed win, our fights aren't over. we have people we need to protect from the conservatives and racists and white supremacists that exist goddamn everywhere. we need to keep reminding people that it's our responsibility to take care of one another in every way we can. there's a laundry list of things that needs to be fixed; unfortunately they won't happen all at once. so we have to keep fighting, no matter who's in office. VOTE.

VOTE.

[madllamamomma]

I Think I Have a Problem.... (A personal true story).

So as the title suggests, I have a strange problem…. Just as a warning, this is about my view of my younger self. It is about religion, and gender identity. This is not how I see the world anymore. It was how I told how the world should look. If you are offended in any way, please know this is a vent post and nothing to hurt anyone else. This is just what happened to me as a child. Shit….. This is about to get very long winded, so buckle up and here we go… *takes deep breath*

So a little backstory on your Mother Llama: I was raised in a weird backward ass “Independent” Baptist church most of my young life. If you guys don’t know what those are, be thankful…. But I guess I should explain it the best way I can…. they are a borderline cult. Yes. I said it. I’m not sorry. It may sound like an extreme accusation, but hold on. Just listen to me.

Now, I have no problem with Christians, or religion. You should believe whatever you want to believe in…. I do however, have a problem when religion is used as an excuse to not educate minds about the real world, force them to not let them think for themselves, and when someone questions any of it, they are punished or shamed for it instead of thinking about an answer. If you can’t tell, I am still a little angry about that shit. Imma try to keep on topic here….

I wasn’t taught science (real science anyways, it was all about ‘creation’ bs—OH! And being anything but a cis straight person was compleltly unexceptable. Woman were the weaker sex and were made to raise babies and take care of the husband. Men were superior and should be taken care of.) nor about World history or about other cultures, other than biblical of course. And when they were mentioned, they made them look evil and behave like heathens because they didn’t believe the same as they did. Everything changed when I went to public school half of fourth grade when my family moved to a different state and there wasn’t any church school like I went to. I learned a lot those years, that ‘The World’ wasn’t as bad of a place as they said it was. It was vast and had many things to offer. (No, not the World, Dio’s stan power from Jojo’s bizarre adventures—that is what our pastors called anything outside of the Baptist approved realm. Something ‘Worldly’ was basically something sinful and ungodly and therefor was bad and wrong).

So this may seem like a strange Segway in to what I am actually getting at, but I had a huge crush on this boy back when I was young and it started when I was about 12 or 13 years old and ended when I was 16. He was the same age as me, and he was the son of a pastor of a small church of about 20 people, mostly military families— we will call him.... D.... for dick...

I thought for a long time that I ‘loved’ D. I thought that ‘God made him for me’ (yes I really said that and it hurt to even write it). I really thought I knew what love was back then, but I was very wrong.

D was homeschooled, he didn’t have many friends and was also a navy brat like I was. So, naturally, we got along very well, and I would hang out with him at his house sometimes. We mainly played video games I was terrible at and he would always bet me. But I liked hanging out with him, so I didn’t care if I won or not. My heart for some reason was totally head over heels over D. And he liked me too for a while… or at least I thought he did… He however never made a move. I always thought D was just too shy, and didn’t know how to ask me. Any time I tried holding his hand, I’d chicken out. It was a stalemate. But this particular church did a thing where people had to court. Yes... COURT someone, not DATE (Courting is where you had adult chaperones keeping an eye on you two, you were never really alone. Ever, because apparently you can’t be trusted?). When we both turned 15 yo, D started a private Christian school. Being the awkward girl I was, I never told him how I felt, I just waiting for him to say something. Time passed, and I still waited and waited for him to ask me out.

But here’s the thing! He didn’t know the real me.

I was in public school, in middle school, and I started to become a weeb. Like a super cringy weeb that didn’t like anything else but anime—I was also kinda emo/punk kid thought I was edgy. (Yeah rock music was bad too, it was ‘Worldly’).Not a very good mix for Baptist I know. At school, I was one person, and at church I was another.

Well, being an anime fan meant I was exposed to a lot of things like the LGTB+ community for the first time. A lot of my friends at the time started to come out other than straight and that was very new to me.

During that time, I soon was starting to secretly question my faith, my understanding of my own sexuality and gender. Like, maybe people liking the same sex or both is actually not a bad thing after all (if you haven’t seen any of my works, hopefully you guys know that I know better that what I was taught—I am a proud fuckin’ ally! I still consider myself cis-straight, but some days I feel like I’m bi-curious, and that’s ok! It took me a long time to realize that, but I’m here now. Gender roles are dead and stupid.)

So here is the kicker~ One faithful day we had a guest pastor join us for a few weeks from another church. This mother fuckin’ nasty ass old white man from Alabama came with his ‘perfect quiet godly’ wife. Who badly ever spoke a damn word. She always just sat in the corner all ‘ladylike’.

—Oh!!! Another fun fact, I didn’t wear pants for a year when I was 10 yo becasue that was considered “cross dressing”— I’m dead fucking serious. My parents then decided after attending sporting events and stuff like that to drop that ludicrous lifestyle, becasue it was stupid. So, Outside of church, my family and I still wore pants and shorts and whatever, but in church we pretended that we didn’t wear anything but modest skirts, dresses, and long culottes. (That’s a little damaging…. don’t you think? Telling people your one thing, when in reality you're not like that at all??)

Anyways— I hated skirts, especially wearing them in the state we lived in, it was way too hot and I’d get chafed (these had to be knee length or longer btw). And of course that guest preacher would preach about the sins of women wearing pants, but I didn’t care. I wore them for so long, it just made me angry anytime someone would bring that up. I liked my jeans and I was starting to become a rebel teen who gave less than a fuck and started to speak my mind. Which was dangerous to that community…. Also I had a bad tendency of not keeping my legs together when I bent down, and one time I accidently showed my underwear (that’s really embarrassing btw, it’s not cute, it’s not funny, it’s awful when you're 14 yo-- really any age actually).

So, one day I wore a long jean skirt for a youth outing with the church. I was required to wear it, but I always wore leggings underneath so I wouldn’t accidentally show my undies if I fell down or the wind blew it. This fucker had to say something about it. The old man turned to me with a wrinkled smirk as I was passing by him and dared to utter, “Now, don’t you feel most femine and ladylike in that skirt? I’m sure Jesus would like seeing you like that.”

My shoulders clench up tight, my brow furrows. All I can remember seeing is fucking red and actually trembling with fury. (This was happening in my pastor, D’s father’s, own living room mind you.) D was there watching as I blanched about ten shades of red in anger and embarrassed because that prick of an old man called me out in front of everyone. I turned to him and half shouted, “NO! I don’t!” I could see my pastor’s mouth drop to the floor as I began to completely obliterate this old man. But I couldn't stop myself as I started to further cut into him. “—I hate wearing skirts! I don’t feel ladylike! In fact, they make me feel vulnerable! What if some guy tries to rape me! They won’t have any problem getting to me!—Why is something with a whole on the bottom more ladylike than something that actually covers me?! I like pants! They are comfortable and they make me feel safe! Why is that a sin to wear something that is more covering?!?! I’m not cross dressing, my mom bought them in the girl’s session!! [Keep in mind that was a long time ago, I don’t feel like people should care about what section they get their clothes from, wear what you want] And what do you know about wearing a skirt?! You’re a man! You try wearing them! They suck! You need to stop telling me what I can and can’t wear! I’m not dressing like a whore for wearing something with a crotch!! SO LEAVE ME ALONE!!” Everyone in the living room was just stunned at my audacity to dare speak to this pastor like I did. But he was so fucking quiet after that. And I stormed out of the house and the guest pastor never spoke to me again about it. Luckily my mom came and picked me shortly after that. She was angry too after I told her what happened. That old fuck singled me out and I was pissed off. I was a teenager and that shit was embarrassing!

But I made the mistake of showing my true self. I think after that moment, D stopped liking me after that.

Some shit went down south with my parents behind closed doors of my household, and eventually they got divorced. They left the small church because the pastor didn’t approve of it. Pastor said that my parents just needed more counseling but he didn't understand that they just needed to not be together. Sometimes you can’t make things work. Especially when your dad is a toxic piece of shit that only cares about himself.

Anyways, everyone in my family left the church, but I stuck around that shit-hole just to see if D would ask me out. I was so desperate, I felt like I waited forever, but really it was like 2-3 years, and I felt like I couldn’t give up. Eventually D and I turned 16. He started to become distant and a little mean towards me and I became confused and started to realize the worst. Finally, I was tired of waiting so I asked his older sister if he liked me on the way back taking me home. I could see it in her face, that she didn’t want to have my heart broken, but reluctantly she told me no. He actually liked another girl at his new private school and was going to ask her parents to court her instead.

I was so devastated.... It hurt so much, I cried myself to sleep that night, and most of that week I was very sad.

Obviously, after that, I stopped going to church entirely, I couldn't show my face anymore. Finally let myself question my faith, sexuality, gender roles, and humanity all together. And realized that religion was stupid (in my opinion at the time) and I came u with the conclusion that people can be sheep. I was a sheep for a long time. And I refuse to be one ever again.

High school was very enjoyable after that, and I let myself grow and started to love other religions and world history, and tried to stop being so judgmental of others and what they felt like. I even got into a relationship with a sweet boy around my age.

Eventually in college, after a break-up with my high school sweetheart, I reconnected with D via FB. Apparently, the church went under and his parents moved away to Greece to be missionaries or something. D still lives in the same town I’m in, but graduated from a “Christian academy”—not Catholic, Christian. Catholic colleges are accredited at least. But he basically told me he was a secret “bad boy” now. He lost his virginity in highschool, (like I did) and he was totally trying to booty call me. Not even hiding it either! He was like, “Hey, Llama, you wanna fuck?”.

And I was like, “D! You broke my fucking heart when we were young! Don’t you remember that???”

And he was like, “Oh no! I had no idea! (the fuckin’ liar). Well, we can fuck now!~ *wink, wink*”

🤨

This is where I was a jerk.... Because he broke my heart. I led him on, told him I would meet up with him at his house to sleep with him, and just didn’t show up—ghosted him ever since. The worst part about that, is I still don’t regret doing that to him. I hope I hurt his feelings and felt like an ass like I did.

So years have passed, I consider myself as a rather successful woman now. I’m 27, I consider myself Buddhist (I am a terrible Buddhist I know), I am an Occupational Therapy Assistant and I have a great husband (I married the guy I was with in high school). And he loves the real me—the crazy closet weeb, cartoon watching, creative, expressive, me! The person who also writes fanfiction about a romance novel and he is fine with it. Because he is a huge nerd too and we are both nerds together.

My husband is my best friend and I don’t know what I’d do without him. When I write about Rhemi and Muriel, I draw a lot of inspiration with our conversation we have and how relationship dynamics are and I think it makes the writing more authentic and makes them feel a bit more real.

I love my husband more than anything… So why do I keep dreaming about that stupid asshole that just liked the fake me? D was and always will be a total tool. He is like the basic bitch of a man. And yet I still find him creeping in my dreams and I try to cheat on my husband with him in them. I wake up feeling totally terrible and weird after them too. D is a terrible fucking person—the worst person you can be in my opinion—The kind of person why lies and tells people one thing, but hides the fact that he’s really just a nasty fuck boy. If you are one, just be honest! Don’t tell another woman you're a good christan man, when really you’ve slept with not just one, but multiple girls! That how you get fucking STDs! I hate being lied to, and I’m sure other girls do too! So I guess that’s why I do, because I felt like I was lied to my entire life. Then again, why should I even care?! Why do I feel like I still obsess over him? I hate him so much now! So why do I even care? Why do I still find myself stalking him on social media? Why does it even matter? Why do I want him to see I’m happy without him? Why do I want him to see what he could have had with me? We were just stupid teenagers! Why did I care so much? Why did it hurt so much when I found out he didn’t like me?! It’s been over a decade, and we didn’t even really date! Why did this affect me so hard? …. FUCK!

So yeah. That’s my long ass rant for you all… thanks for coming to my ted talk.