#but certain plot points just seemed to pop out of nowhere at random times

[general-grey]

by the way, i finished Nadia's route for the first time and I can really confidently say that out of all the routes i've done thus far - Lucio's and Julian's finished, Asra's and Muriel's half done -, this one was the most well put together for me - which is funny, considering Nadia herself is ALSO the most well put together character in the game :')

[prettytoxicrevolver]

The Four Times it Rained with Anthony Beauvillier and The One Time it Didn't

Requested? Absolutely not

Warnings? It's really long with like no dialogue LMAO

Summary: The rain has always brought good things to you and Tito but what happens when it's actually sunny out?

Word Count: 4k

It's really mf long but I promise it's worth it and I'm super proud of it so enjoy! :)

One

When you awoke to the sound of rain pounding steadily on your rooftop your heart filled with glee like a little kid in a candy store. Nothing made you happier than when it rained outside. You loved having the opportunity to sit inside and work all day with the patter of rain smacking the rooftop.

However, today was even better. You had no work and nowhere to be, your all-time favorite kind of rainy day. You always took these days to finish up your favorite books, watch the movies you’ve been holding off on for ages, revel in the ending of your favorite tv shows that have been put off, order in food, and just enjoy the sound of the rain.

It was a cliche, of course, most of your favorite things typically were. It didn’t make you love them any less, in fact, it made you love them a little more. Thinking about how you and however many other people were absolutely content with the fact that it was pouring outside.

And to make things better? Tito had the day off too.

You were a bit surprised when you woke up to the rain and not your best friend either calling, knocking on the door, or just barging straight in like he owned the place. He practically did, always coming over and spending more time at your apartment than he did his own. He certainly wasn’t unwelcome, you loved every moment you got to spend with the left-wing Islander.

Just as you sit up in bed, running a hand through your hair you hear a knock on the door. Knowing it’s no doubt, Tito, at the source, you shoot him a text telling him to come in using his spare key. You listen to the quiet sounds of the rain against the window as your best friend lets himself inside your apartment.

You fall back in bed, pulling the blankets up to your chin, and snuggle deep into the warmth. You hear a quiet knock on your bedroom door before Tito lets himself in. Your head turns, a tiny smile at the sight of your best friend and he reflects it. He makes his way over to you, climbing in bed and slipping an arm around your waist. He pulls you into his chest, pressing his face into your hair and you both sigh in content at the feeling.

You try to ignore the way his hands feel like fire against your skin and how your heart’s steady tempo has slowly increased at the mere thought of him. Gentle warmth floods your body when Tito presses a kiss to the back of your neck, the action causing your heart to act as an elevator, rising and falling without rhyme or reason.

You both fall asleep for a while, the rain lulling you into a tired state and soaking up the rest you both had been sorely lacking after your busy weeks. You awoke for the second time that day to Tito’s hands lazily tracing patterns on your arms.

“Hi,” you murmur, turning in his embrace.

“Hey,” he greets back his tiny smile growing wider. “Wanna watch a movie or something?”

“Getting bored laying here?” you ask.

“Never,” he says, throwing a wink at you that has your stomach doing backflips.

Tito has to turn away from you as his cheeks burn red at your sleep-ridden state. His heart mimics the rain outside a steady patter fast against the rooftop just like his heart against his ribcage. He stands, holding a hand out to you which you take and you let him pull you up and out of bed, leading you towards the living room.

You both fall onto the couch, Tito pulls your legs over his and slips an arm back around your waist. He hated being away from your touch for too long. Your head falls comfortable onto his chest and you’re certain your eyes may flutter shut once more.

Tito peruses the movies before him and ultimately decides on a random marvel one that he’s never seen before but you most definitely have. He watches as your eyes light up at the sight of your favorite superhero on screen, and you launch into the explanation of the plot for him.

He can barely focus, only thinking about how easy it would be to release the three simple words that would change everything. Or press a kiss to your soft-looking lips in an attempt to hush you so he can actually watch and listen to the movie. Unfortunately fear captures his heart a little tighter than the love he has for you.

You turn back to look at your best friend, expecting at least a hum in response, and when you notice his eyes have been on you the entire explanation your cheeks flush. You wondered what he was thinking about, and hoped it was the same thing you were.

“You okay?” you ask, pulling him back to reality.

“Yeah,” he reassures. “All good.”

You nod, a tiny smile on your lips as you look back at the TV. Tito tries to focus for you but he can only think about how much he loves you.

Two

It was a bad habit for you to leave all of your shopping to one day a week. You always ended up running out of something you desperately needed but were too lazy to go out and buy.

However, today seemed to be turning out equal parts bad and equal parts good. The good thing was that you were able to convince Tito to come with you shopping and carry some (he would argue most) of your groceries home. The somewhat bad? It looked like it might rain.

You tried to make your way through the store as quickly as possible, the impending storm looming in the back of your head as you shop. However, your best friend is of no help to you.

"Tito" you call for the billionth time. "Put it back."

The older boy pouts, reaching into your cart to pull out the fruit snacks he just threw in. You smile widely at him, and before you can move the cart once more, Tito climbs onto the front of it.

“Onward!” he yells pointing in the opposite direction and you giggle while pushing the cart slowly along as to not hit anyone or anything.

The rest of the shopping goes just as smoothly, your heart filling up with air similar to a balloon that doesn’t know when it’s going to pop. Sometimes looking at your best friend was too much and you became scared you’d let the feelings spill out all over the floor.

Tito would do anything to see you smile or laugh. It was nothing short of embarrassing himself or nearly killing himself in the middle of a grocery store aisle where he could easily be recognized in the small area of Long Island. As long as your head was thrown back in laughter, a wide smile stretched across your lips, and the promise of a sometimes yelled “Tito!” or “beau!” expelled from you was there, it was worth it.

After checking out, you two split up the bags and start to make the trek back to your apartment. You were beyond glad you had brought Tito along with you, making the trip much easier on you and providing plenty of entertainment along the way. As you walk, the clouds start to rumble and you cast a nervous glance over to the tall brunette. Tito grins back at you, just enjoying your presence, not a care for the impending weather.

A crack of thunder rolls in causing you to jump and pick up your speed. You were about two blocks from your house but the world had other plans for you. Just as you were rounding a block away, it starts to pour.

“Fuck!” you yell pausing in the street.

You look over and Tito is grinning like a maniac, the smile on his lips shooting straight to your heart. You can’t help but reflect it, he looks beautiful rain-soaked and his blue eyes lit up at the wonder of it all.

Tito had always been grateful for the rain. It had always brought good things to him and the world. Right now it easily brought him his favorite thing he’s ever witnessed. Your hair is soaked, plastering messily against your face as you whip around to look at him. A smile bigger than he had ever seen sits perfectly on your lips and that sound that he loves more than anything in the world is there, the laugh that makes his heart rise to the top of the empire state building and teeter over the side with nerves.

God, he loved you.

Without a second thought, he intertwines your hands, grabbing your bags out of your other hand and hauling them into his own. He starts tugging you along, trying to push down the fact that your hands feel like they’re made specifically for him and that he never wants to let go.

You make it back to your apartment, your heart pounding for a different reason for once. When you get inside, Tito drops the groceries by the door and you both turn to each other still giggling quietly. Tito’s hand is still interlocked with yours, his calluses rubbing against your palm and sending shockwaves through your veins.

He pulls you in, his other hand coming to wrap around your waist. Your soaked bodies inch closer until they’re flush and you’re staring into his mesmerizing blue eyes. Your free hand wraps around the back of his neck, your fingers trailing the buzz-cut hair on the back of his neck.

Tito was pretty sure you might be the death of him. Looking down at your soaked state, peering up at him and the movement of your hands, he’s surprised his heart hadn’t stopped yet. He wants to lean down, finally meet his lips to yours, and fall headfirst into a relationship with you without considering any of the consequences.

You were hoping that one of you was finally going to build the nerve to change everything. Your heart is tipping on the edge of wishing and hoping. Just as your noses brush, a loud crack of thunder sounds, and you both jump, the possibility scaring you along with the noise.

Three

Today was not turning out to be a good day. Besides the prospect of rain later, you had barely gotten any work done, your finals were coming up soon, and you hadn’t seen Tito in weeks.

So the last one is slightly exaggerated. You had seen Tito, mostly through facetime calls and the occasional quick stop by but he was mostly on the road and you were sorely missing your best friend. You’d kill to have him here, even if it was for longer than an hour, you’d do anything to have him next to you.

You knew it was somewhat selfish, but you needed him here. Needed his encouraging words, his soft touches, his sweet smiles, just his presence. You knew his schedule though, understood his job and what came with it and you knew he’d never trade it for the world, you never wanted him to.

Tito was homesick. Not particularly for his apartment, or even the island itself, he was desperate to see you. He missed your laugh, and holding your hand, cuddling together late at night, waking up early to your sleeping state, forehead kisses, and his favorite: your laugh. He was desperate for it, the physical version of it.

However, when he heard the Isles were headed home for a quick weekend stint he knew he wasn’t close to heading back to his apartment. He headed straight towards you, his other half even if it was unbeknownst to you. He had decided a while ago that even if you never reciprocate his feelings, you were still his twin flame, his platonic soulmate forever and always.

He headed to your apartment with excitement, checking your location on his phone to see that you were there. In the cab on the way, it starts to rain and Tito can’t help but smile. He had always loved the rain but he was almost certain it had slowly started to become a beacon of good things especially surrounding you.

A wave of calm flows through him when he reaches your front door, he feels like a little kid receiving the Christmas present that they had been asking for all year. He hadn’t even seen you yet and the thought occurs to him that he always wants to come home to you after long weeks away.

You sit in your apartment, flipping aimlessly through your textbook in an attempt to get some work done. The rain plinks softly against your apartment window and the noise soothes you as you try to focus. However, just as you start to, a knock on your door sounds. You’re wary at first but make your way over to it swinging it open without a second thought.

“Anthony-” you breath out, your best friend’s first name foreign on your tongue.

Tito barges in, wrapping his arms around your waist and you instantly slip yours around his neck. You relish in the feeling of him being here and back in your arms. You almost let out a whine when he pulls away from you but his hands trail from your waist to your hands and interlock them.

“Come on,” he says with a mischievous smile on his lips.

“Where-” you start but Tito shakes his head, pulling you out of the apartment and dragging you along.

You’re so caught up in the fact that Tito is here, and his hand has slipped back into yours that all you can do is take in his appearance. Whenever he’s gone for a long time he always seems different but more and more like home to you. When he comes back it’s like your last puzzle piece is put in place and you’re whole again.

You both make your way down the floors of your apartment building until you’re outside. Tito lets go of your hand, stepping out onto the sidewalk and letting the rain fall over him. You watch as a loving smile falls onto your lips, the rain cascades over him, his hair falling flat against his forehead, and an unknowing smile pressed on his face.

“Come here,” he tells you and at first you shake your head no.

Beau was definitely not taking that answer today. He makes his way over to you, slipping an arm around your waist and lifting you into his arms and out into the rain. You shriek as the cold raindrops fall over you and you tuck your face into Tito’s neck.

He sets you down but doesn’t let go, his hand still circling your waist. He nudges your arms until they slide around his neck again, your fingers interlocking at the nape. He grins wildly down at you and your heart fills and fills at the sight. He slowly sways the two of you back and forth, dancing to music only known between you two.

“I missed you,” he says after a few quiet beats.

“I missed you too beau.”

Your swaying moves to a dull rocking back and forth, the two of you focused more on each other than anything else in the world. Neither of you realized it, but when the other was around the whole world seemed to fall away in an instant. There was no use trying to get between the two of you.

Beau leans down, your foreheads bumping lightly and your breath shortens at the proximity of the two of you. He leans forward, his nose brushing yours and for once you’re begging for his lips to meet yours, not caring about what might change between the two of you after.

“Hey! Get out of the street!”

You and Tito pull apart heads whipping in the direction of a car driving right at you. You both laugh at the ridiculousness of it all before heading back inside, the rain only picking up harder.

Four

“One more exam. Just one more final exam.”

You chanted the words over and over again in your head hoping they would somehow motivate you into finishing your work and studying for the last exam you had for the school year. You even went as far as going to the library, deciding to hole yourself up there the entire day to try and get something done.

Tito would text you occasionally, mostly offering words of encouragement as you worked and every time your phone buzzed an unconscious smile reached your lips. Tito had always been your cheerleader and vice versa. You were always there for each other and pushing each other forward whenever you needed it.

Your corner of the library was cozy, you sat, your legs tucked up in the loveseat next to the window. The rain fell slowly down the side of the building and you watched two raindrops drip down, an unknown race there.

Your eyes fall back to the textbook in front of you, flipping through the pages trying to absorb more information than you already have all day. As you work, suddenly a hand appears in front of you, a cup of coffee being placed down on the table in front of you. Your eyes trail up and you find a grinning Tito standing before you.

“Thought you might need an energy boost,” he says sitting down in front of you.

Your heart practically bursts at the sight. Tito had known you hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep recently and was worried about you. However, he also knew you were easily the most stubborn person in his life. If he couldn’t beat you, he might as well support your caffeine addiction in hopes that by the end of finals you’ll finally get some rest.

“Have I mentioned recently you’re my favorite person in the world?”

Tito grins dropping his head down shyly and you take the opportunity to grab the coffee and take a sip of it. You hum at the taste, a soft smile appearing on your lips when you realize that Tito has memorized your coffee order, something no one else has had the energy to do.

“I also wanted to make sure you get home okay,” he says nodding to the ever-growing rainstorm outside.

Your whole body warms at the words, a blush dusting your cheeks. Tito was nothing if not a gentleman and every time a display like this showed, your heart fell further and further into his hands. You place the cup down in front of you, leaning forward to place a hand on Tito’s knee.

“Thank you, darling,” you say and you swear you see a blush on Tito’s cheeks.

Your eyes search his as the only noise in the library is the sound of the rain against the building and the soft sounds of the workers meandering around. You swear gravity pulls you towards each other, Tito’s hand coming up to cup your cheek. His thumb brushes softly against your skin, the contact making your heart freeze and speed up all at once.

“Excuse me loves, the library is closing.”

You and Tito smile and nod at the sweet woman, breaking apart slowly before gathering your things and heading out together.

And One

The sun shines high in the sky, easily one of the nicest days on long island in months. Spring was melting away into summer and the warm air had you dying to get out and visit the ocean even if it was just for a little bit.

While Tito knew of your love for the rain, the breakthrough of sun was welcomed by the two of you. It was unspoken that when the sun had risen, and the temperature broke seventy, you wanted to spend a little time at the beach together.

You disliked the beach normally, not liking the sand that gets everywhere, the obnoxious teens yelling loudly, kids running around without parents, it just bothered you. But you loved the feeling of warm wind running through your hair as you drive, windows down, and the smell of the ocean air.

Tito shows up on your doorstep, and without a word, you two are out the door and heading towards your car. You climb in, hands immediately rolling down your windows and sunroof while Tito picks the music. You had an unspoken communication to go to the beach today and you were beyond excited.

Tito always looked gorgeous to you. In the sun? His blue eyes shine a bit brighter, his smile seeming to reflect the warmth that the sun brought you inside and out. He was breathtaking.

You were a work of art to Tito. Your hair blew back from your face, whipping around the small space. A light smile had been present since he showed up on your doorstep. Your (y/e/c) lit up from the sun and him. From head to toe, he would never grow tired of looking at you.

When you got to the beach, you parked in a spot overlooking the water. The two of you get out of the car, and Tito gestures to the hood. He stands before you, hands placed gently on your hips, and lifts you onto your car with ease, his hockey training coming in handy.

He hops up next to you, settling down on the hood and overlooking the beautiful ocean. His leg touches yours, starting at your feet and following through to your hips. The contact drives you crazy, making it feel like it’s ten degrees hotter as your nerves spike. It’s surprisingly quiet, the ocean rushing in and out before you, a light wind pushing your hair back effortlessly.

Your hands sit in your lap, nervously fiddling together. Tito glances at you constantly, his eyes trailing to your hands and he builds the courage to slip his fingers into yours. At the contact, you squeeze his hand lightly and that gives Tito all he needs.

“Hey,” he says, making you turn to look at him.

His other hand comes up to cup your cheek and you lean into the touch instinctively. His head ducks to meet yours, your noses brushing and your breath catches in your throat. You watch Tito’s eyes flicker back and forth before pushing forward. His lips meet yours and you sigh at the feeling of his lips on yours. Your free hand comes to grip the side of his shirt and pull him as close as possible.

Your breathless the entire kiss, the thought that the older hockey player liking you back finally smacking you full force. His touch lights you up from head to toe and you never want him to break away.

Tito grew more and more confident within the kiss, and his heart continued to balloon in his chest bigger and bigger at your closeness, you were finally right where you were supposed to be.

You pull apart when there’s no breath left in your lungs but stay close. Tito chases your lips pressing another light kiss to them. You giggle at him and he smiles sheepishly, biting his lip slightly and gazing at you with those eyes that had you since you first met. Tito was still on cloud nine at the thought of you loving him back.

“I really really like you,” he whispers and you giggle. He could have said absolutely nothing, he could have kissed you again, or simply kept holding your hand but the words said out loud made your heart do backflips like it was an olympian training for the gold medal.

“I like you too.”

“And I really wanna kiss you again.”

You smile lovingly at him before pressing your lips to his, something that would never fail to make your heart stop.

[xenteaart]

One Faulty Briefcase

Pairing: Five Hargreeves x Reader

Summary: Basically, due to some faulty time-travelling equipment you get separated from Five and end up being stuck in the past on your own. Fun times.

GIF: @jos-march​

Note: This is another part of this AU. Five and reader are in their late 20s here. Hope you enjoy! Pure fluff for you during those dark uncertain times

You’ve been stuck in the past alone for two years now. It was the 15th of May 1982; you and Five were just finishing up one of your missions, nothing remarkable, nothing extraordinary. Getting rid of your mark was quite easy, you’d say almost too easy to hope the mission was going to end well.

“Five, I think there’s something wrong with the briefcase,” you pointed out worryingly, eyeing the time-travelling device with suspicion as the two of you were gathering your things around the motel room, getting ready to leave.

“What do you mean?” he asked nonchalantly, paying very little attention to your concern.

“We landed weird. Not like we usually do. I don’t know, something was just off about it,” you replied with a puzzled frown on your face, recognizing that whether you were right or not, the briefcase remained your only way out of the year you didn’t belong in. Five looked the device indifferently and shrugged, not thinking much of it.

You sat down on the edge of the bed, waiting for Five to be done with whatever it was he was doing, staring at the goddamn briefcase as if it was alive and plotting against you. It was probably nothing. You didn’t get to have a vacation in so long, always on the go, always busy and tense, it was probably just your exhaustion transforming into paranoia. Maybe, all you needed was a day off.

“Okay, let’s go,” Five’s voice snapped you out of your thoughts. You simply nodded and got up on your feet before taking a hold of the briefcase and stepping closer to Five so he could put his hand on your shoulder. Using a briefcase wasn’t exactly rocket science - there were very little ways to mess up. None, to be precise. They were programmed to a certain time period by the clerks at the Commission, and all you had to do was push a button, so, clearly, it couldn’t have been you who screwed the time-jump. But something did, and the very second you pushed that button, you felt electricity go through your veins, making you break the contact and let go off the briefcase.The pain that coursed through your system lingered for another twenty seconds, leaving you shaking on the floor and breathing through what felt like a full-body cramp, and when it finally subsided, you looked around and realized you were still in the motel room in 1982, except Five was gone and nowhere to be seen along with the briefcase.

“Shit. Shit, shit, shit,” you whispered to yourself, your eyes wide open in disbelief that you were actually right to be worried.

The damned briefcase was your only chance to get home. Well, you didn’t really have a home per se but even the flat the Commission provided you and Five with, despite the fact that you barely got to spend any time there with your never ending trips across the timeline, seemed like a better option than being stranded in the past completely on your own.

“Fuck.”

You had no better option other than to wait for Five to show up but with each passing day your hope and patience were wearing thinner and thinner.

There were only two reasons as to why it’s been two years and you still haven’t heard from him - he either just didn’t care about you which was quite unlikely or he was in some sort of trouble himself. Some days you felt very optimistic, knowing full well that Five would never just leave you nor would he give up on trying to reach you, other days anxiety and solitude weren’t doing you any favors, making you believe it was how you were going to live out the rest of your life. In the year that you didn’t belong, doing things that weren’t yours to do, sleeping in a bed that wasn’t yours to sleep in. The most difficult part was living through each day completely clueless about when it was going to end or if it was to end at all.

For the first few days you stayed at the motel, waiting for Five and still full of hope. Thankfully, you had enough cash on you to cover a week's stay. But on the seventh day you woke up and it suddenly dawned on you. You had to go and make a life for yourself because you were staying.

It wasn’t exactly easy since people barely cared about your circumstances, dismissing you like they dismissed any other homeless person. You were invisible to them, just another nuisance with a story they didn’t have time for.

As soon as you completely exhausted your resources and didn’t even have lunch money, you had to spend a few days living on the streets. Sure, being a professional assassin was a relative advantage on your side but you didn’t want to spill any unnecessary blood and only used your skills for mild robberies up until you landed a job at some cafe.

You thought it was a nice change since you were never exactly happy with working for the Commission in the first place. Serving meals and talking to customers felt like a much needed vacation - the job was simple and almost relaxing, especially compared to a job of a hitman. Being a waitress, however, didn’t bring you nearly as much money as you needed to cover your rent so you still robbed occasionally, always making sure no one got hurt.

Five crash landed in some dark alley, even though mere seconds ago it was noon. The briefcase became too hot to the touch, so hot it was painful to hold it, so Five hissed and let go of it instantly. It didn’t explode like he expected it to which was really good news, it meant it was still working but obviously needed fixing.

Luckily, Five Hargreeves was a bit of a genius so he was bound to make things right eventually. But for now he was also thrown off the original course, landing just a few years later, in 1990.

The Commission didn’t seem to care about the accident much. Of course, they could send another agent to scoop you both and bring you back safely but you were nothing but tiny cogs in a grand machine, and you were replaceable. Watching you two on an Infinite Switchboard, the Handler lit her cigarette with a sinister giggle, curious about how you were going to figure it out. She would probably help you if there was some out-of-the-ordinary case that she’d need Five to take but for now everything was rather peaceful, tedious even, and the Handler fancied some entertainment. Plus, any agent could take the job she had planned for you both, so there was truly no hurry.

As soon as Five found a safe place with no one around to distract him, he began fiddling with the wires inside the briefcase, hectically remembering everything he’d learned about them in Orientation. There was no easy fix to this and he was probably going to need some time to come up with the solution but he already had a few options in mind so it was time to get started.

It was a slow lazy Sunday and you were already at work, all dressed up in your uniform and in an unreasonably good mood. Maybe it was the sun outside that made you a little happier and a titch more oblivious to your circumstances or maybe you actually enjoyed living a normal mundane human life, or maybe it was both. Either way, you felt pretty alright for someone who got stranded in the past with no chance of seeing the person they loved the most.

The place you worked at was usually pretty crowded on Sundays, so you had barely any time to be reflecting on your life, too busy running around with plates and drinks in your hands.

One of the hit songs started playing on the radio and you couldn’t help but dance to the happy tunes that felt so appropriate for the warm bright day outside.

“Come on, don’t let me down this time,” Five whispered, rolling up the sleeves of his shirt and wiping away a few drops of sweat from his forehead. He took a few seconds to assess his work, making sure he didn’t miss anything and the briefcase was all done and ready. Needless to say, he’s tried contacting the Commission numerous times by this point but all he got in response was silence, so he gave up on that idea eventually and tried to repair the device on his own.

Five pushed the button.

This time, the landing was even rougher than before, quite literally making him smash into the hard unwelcoming asphalt and split his eyebrow. But he did land somewhere so it could probably count as progress.

Your shift was coming to an end as the city was slowly immersing into the pink colors of the evening sky. As Five entered the cafe, you were still waltzing between the tables almost carefree, mouthing the lyrics of some random song and moving to its beats like no one was watching. He recognized you right away, your posture, moves and physique too familiar to overlook. You’ve spent more than ten years together, after all.

When you finally noticed him just standing in the middle of the hall, your heart dropped and so would the plates you were holding if you hadn’t been quick enough to catch them. You froze for a good ten seconds, staring Five right in the eye, too scared to believe it was actually him and not your imagination playing tricks on you. As you put the plates down on a nearby table with a loud bang, you ran towards Five and squeezed him in a deadly tight hug, almost making him lose his balance.

“What the fuck, Five,” you said with a gasp of relief, your words half muffled as you buried your face in the crook of his neck, “How did you find me?”

“What? I didn’t. I just popped in for a coffee before looking for you,” he uttered, frowning. Only as you pulled away, you finally noticed that Five was still wearing his work suit, and the stains on the fabric were a clear giveaway that it was the very same suit he was wearing on the day you two got separated, “Wait. Why is your hair so long? And what are you doing here?”

Now you were both confused. Properly confused.

“What?”

“What?” he mirrored your tone, still gazing at you as if he was solving a riddle. And then it hit him. “What year is this?”

“1984. It’s been two years.”

“No, it hasn’t.” and it was true for Five, it’s been less than a week in his timeline, so he either miscalculated the jump or the briefcase’s navigation system was more corrupt than he had anticipated.

“Yes, it has, smartass, look around,” the words came out a lot more snappy than you would have liked, and you took a deep breath, then wrapping your arms around Five again and pulling him closer, clearly reluctant to ever let go just in case.

“Not sure if I want to attempt getting us back with that nonsense of a briefcase but we’re both here now so that’s good news,” he muttered, closing his eyes and shaking his head a little as he returned your hug and held you close. You smiled weakly and chuckled, giving him a quiet “yeah” in response.

Five’s body was warm against yours, and you couldn’t help but let out a shaky breath at the realization of how much you’ve missed him. He rested his hands on your waist in a protective manner and simply stood there, letting you enjoy the embrace as the entire cafe was silently staring at the pair of you with utmost confusion and almost fascination.

“You know what that means, though?” you asked quietly, unable to resist a smug grin.

“Hm?”

“I am now four years older than you instead of two.”

“Oh, God. I’m never gonna hear the end of this, am I?” he rolled his eyes in response as he was gently rubbing your back in calming circles.

“Nope.”

-

The consequences for the Handler were going to be disastrous because Five was already getting about a dozen ideas on how to make her pay for her inaction and there was no force on planet Earth that could stop him.

-

a little sequel to this fic here

[silver-wield]

tbh after playing the remake, I get the appeal of CA, because it's a familiar manic pixie dream girlfriend type love story. It even plays into the tragic boy loses girl trope which helps frame it as some grand romantic story. and yeah they're cute, and they definitely have a special connection. I think I could ship it if not for the whole rest of the story. It's a relationship that has the potential to become romantic, but it doesn't exist in a vacuum. 1/5

The remake is doing a great job on untangling a lot of the ambiguity the OG left us with. Yes, Cloud could develop feelings for Aerith and vice versa, but the remake is planting so many seeds that confirm he currently has feelings for Tifa (which she reciprocates) and I don't think it's possible for any feelings he might develop for Aerith to overcome these feelings he has harboured since childhood. 2/5

Unfortunately those feelings are something he cannot fully understand because of his comprimised mental state. But you can clearly see that his deep affections for Tifa and desire to protect her stay with him despite that (as can Aerith). The problem with the OG (other than having to potray this incredibly complex subversive nuanced story through text and polygons) is that the LS scene recontextualize so much of who Cloud is, but by that time people had already made their conclusions. 3/5

With the remake you can see them trying to fix this by having a constant thread of romantic undertones to all of cloti's interactions. The CA relationship meanwhile is potrayed with these moments that play into romantic tropes and expectations. The bridge scene is flashy and grand and draws the attention, but it doesn't carry the substance that a single hand-clech does. 4/5

It's meant to be a smokescreen to the real story - just as Cloud is not the hero you think he is, the love story is also not the one you think it is. And that's what makes FF7 so great. It's all about the subversions of what you expect - it's about the truth underneath these grand and compelling illusions that is complicated and real but still just as beautiful. 5/5

Okay, first off I don’t see how anyone can play Remake with Cloud being biggest mood around Aerith and find that appealing. Personally I think it’s the most toxic and harmful behaviour in the entire game when he’s alone with her and she’s literally trying to force him to act like her dead boyfriend. There is zero appeal in that and it’s not cute how she behaves, it’s arrogant and self serving. Like I said in a different post (or maybe a tweet) both Sephiroth and Aerith use Cloud to fulfill their own selfish desires. Sephiroth needs Cloud to destroy the planet by getting him the black materia, and Aerith wants Cloud to emulate Zack so she can fool herself into believing he didn’t die. In both cases what Cloud wants doesn’t even factor into things. That harmful dynamic doesn’t give them a special relationship. It mirrors Cloud’s relationship with Sephiroth in that it hurts him. Aerith and Sephiroth are two sides of a coin and the whole isn’t anything that benefits Cloud. Even after they’re both dead they continue to harm him through their obsession with him. It’s only at the end of AC when they’re both truly gone from his life completely that he’s able to smile and be at peace. He has no stalkers in DC and that’s why he’s so cheerful. He gets to live happily with Tifa and not worry about ghosts coming after him. It has zero potential to become anything because to make that a thing, you need to totally destroy everything else about the story and characters themselves. You have to take away Zack being Cloud’s best friend and saviour, at which point he’s just dead. You have to take away Tifa being his motivation to become a soldier, at which point he’s dead cause Sephiroth still comes to Nibelheim and burns it. Point is, there is no way that dumdum dinghy is possible without removing Cloud and most of his personality from FF7, at which point he’s just a pretty face, so people should just go write AU fanfiction and admit they wanna bang the pretty boy and not deal with his canon personality and story. 

There wasn’t any ambiguity in OG because 7R is FF7 and the devs have said multiple times the story is the same as before. The problem back then was a poor translation, bad advertising and people refusing to follow the narrative to its proper conclusion. Cloud at no point in OG or any of the compilation could develop feelings because it’s shown in the entire compilation that he has always and will always love Tifa. Before Crisis he loves Tifa. Crisis Core he loves Tifa. OG he loves Tifa. AC he loves Tifa. DC he loves Tifa and Remake he loves Tifa. There’s zero room for anything with Aerith because his entire character arc is consumed with his desire for Tifa. It’s literally shown in the damn game that he’s in love with her. So, no, there never was any chance for Aerith, and I’m tired of people trying to entertain one by saying “if she lived”. Sorry, not sorry, if she lived Cloud is still in love with Tifa, so he never would, could or want to develop any feelings for Aerith. 

Cloud loves Tifa. It’s the goddamn plot. 

There isn’t any problem with the lifestream scene being the big reveal at that point in that game. The problem, again, is that people refused to follow the narrative to its logical conclusion and got hung up on their dumbass headcanon about Aerith. The entire premise of the game is built on illusion vs reality and yet some people still refuse to wake up and see reality. The game spells it out for everyone. They got so triggered over her dying that they acted like the game ended at that point instead of it carrying on and reaching the actual true culminating arc where we find out Cloud wasn’t himself this entire time. People seem to think Aerith dying is the plot and that she’s the main character or something. It’s Cloud’s game. The plot revolves around him. That’s why the lifestream scene is the apex of it. 

It’s Cloud’s story, not Aerith’s. 

I’ve pointed out several times how Aerith’s optional scenes in Remake show that Cloud is barely even a fixture. Her language of flowers you barely have Cloud in shot while she’s doing all that talking. She’s basically talking to the player. Her optional dress scenes show the illusion for what it is. That bridge is tiny and yet in the red dress is looks like this massive structure. I laughed my ass off when I spotted it. The pink dresses perspective shortens drastically for each one, with the funeral dress having Cloud standing nearest to Aerith, so that one’s probably closer to reality than that ott scene with random fireworks and fans popping up from nowhere. Not to mention the fact Aerith’s entire figure is padded out to fill that dress and she’s got hair extensions in and a ton of make up and the ost is actually called a mess of makeup or something like that and not a certain gaudiness. I mean, Madam M tried to turn Aerith into Tifa to win the bride contest and beat Sam. The game makes things very clear that the illusion is Aerith and the reality is Tifa, and players can’t turn Aerith into Tifa to make Cloud notice her no matter how hard they wanna believe they can. Her resolution literally has her repeating her OG lines from the GS about how Cloud isn’t himself, but she also arrogantly assumes he fell in love with her or would because she’s arrogant. It’s a character trait that again mirrors Sephiroth’s arrogance. It’s what gets them both killed in the end. Aerith underestimates Sephiroth and Sephiroth underestimates Cloud. 

And we already saw what Cloud had to say about her declaration cause he only ever refers to her as a friend and didn’t show any romantic behaviour when he rescued her. Unless “Yep” is the height of romance now. It’s not that the romance isn’t the one you think it is. It’s that it’s the one you ignored and acted like wasn’t important because you hate the heroine. Tifa and Cloud are together from start to finish, but because people decided the pink girl was more important they acted like Tifa had no right to what was hers from the beginning. She didn’t get between Cloud and Aerith. There never was any Cloud and Aerith. It was always Tifa. She just took what was always hers and kept it. 

Anyone who doesn’t understand that should try playing the game cause it’s clear they didn’t.

[argylemnwrites]

Change of Plans - Part 1

Pairing: Drake Walker x MC (Riley Liu)

Book: The Royal Romance (An It Couldn’t Wait Another Moment universe AU, set nearly 3 years after that epilogue)

Word Count: ~3000

Rating: PG-13 (just some adult language)

Summary: Living in NYC in March 2020 is redefining normal for Drake and Riley. Life doesn’t always go according to plan during a pandemic, after all.

Author’s Note: Ummmm, I tried to avoid writing this. I really did. But as I was sitting down to do some detailed outlines for the It Couldn’t Wait Another Moment sequel, all my brain kept wanting to explore was COVID-19 content in that universe. At first, I just bullet pointed some head canons, hoping that would be enough to scratch the itch. But it wasn’t. The fact of the matter is if you’ve read anything I’ve written, you know I’m all about grounding the Choices characters and stories in the real world to a certain degree. So to write an AU where Drake and Riley live in New York City and not address the horrible crisis that city is facing just didn’t feel true to me as a writer.

That being said, I understand fanfic is often an escape from the real world. I understand that addressing the current pandemic at all might not be your thing, even though I don’t take it to any truly sad or tragic places. So, no worries, this is an AU inside my AU. This will not be an “official” part of the sequel. It’s its own little two-part piece that inches a bit more firmly into the real world than the actual sequel, Why Are We Still Waiting?.

So, tagging all my usual It Couldn’t Wait Another Moment taglists, but no hard feelings if this is just a little too real. I will mention that this does hint at or reference some events from the prologue and the first couple of chapters of Why Are We Still Waiting?, but it does not spoil the core content of the story. Plus, to be fair, it’s not like I write things with big plot twists really. Much like It Couldn’t Wait Another Moment was essentially a Drake character study, Why Are We Still Waiting? is a Riley Liu character study, and I’m not really sure you even can spoil those.

Alright, I’ve rambled in this AN for far too long already. In case you skimmed and missed it, Trigger warning for coronavirus discussions.

Drake glanced up from his laptop as he heard the locks click on the apartment door, Riley and Anderson walking through a few seconds later. Riley unclasped Anderson’s leash and hung it on the hooks Drake had installed, followed by her coat and her keys, before sliding off her shoes and going straight into the kitchen to wash her hands. The space next to their door had become their “dirty zone.” For now, they weren’t changing all their clothing when they got back inside, but Drake was thinking that doing so should probably be their next step.

Taking Anderson out was now basically the only time either one of them left the apartment. With Riley being furloughed from her PR firm on Friday and Drake working from home for all of last week, there really wasn’t any other reason to do so. At the moment, they were doing okay for food and whatnot, but Drake was not looking forward to having to deal with that in the upcoming weeks. He wasn’t sure whether they should switch to just getting delivery that they could safely reheat, but exposing themselves to a new driver every couple of days, or if they should risk making a trip to Foodtown and stocking up for a few weeks just once. Deep down, he knew the latter was the better option, but neither of them had been to a bodega or grocery store in the past week, and he was kind of dreading it now that more people were starting to take this seriously since the schools were closed. Maybe he could pull out the box of five masks he’d bought when he was sanding down and repainting the dresser and see if he had one left for each of them.

For the past four days, with both of them with nowhere to be, they’d alternated who was leaving the relative safety of their apartment to get a little fresh air with the dog. Even before that, Riley was just going to work and coming straight home, and she’d been riding an old bicycle she bought from a coworker to avoid the subway. But now, she had nowhere to be and neither did he. On her first day at home, Drake had been reluctant to have Riley go out at all now that she didn’t need to do so. He’d seen the news stories about the hate crimes popping up against Asian Americans, and it seemed like an unnecessary risk. But he knew that he wasn’t going to be able to convince her to essentially become a shut in while he left the apartment a couple of times every day to walk Anderson. Plus, as she had pointed out, she was still in her 20s and wasn’t a former smoker, so by all accounts, she was medically a lower risk than him. Still, he got nervous every time she left and always felt a little better when she came back.

Overall, Drake knew things could be a lot worse for the two of them. Because of his conversations with Liam, he’d been slowly stocking up on nonperishables for the past month or so. He had not only a permanent job, but one with a law firm that allowed him to work from home. They had a one bedroom, not a studio, so Riley didn’t have to stay silent during his Zoom meetings with his boss or team. But losing Riley’s salary was certainly not great for them. They’d be okay for at least the next month, but going forward, things might get a little tight. Not only that, but Riley was clearly going stir crazy already, with no one to see and nothing to do. Well, nothing to do except send emails and make calls to Texas to postpone their wedding.

In the grand scheme of things, Drake knew that postponing a wedding was a minor loss. In fact, if that was the worst loss that they suffered at the end of all this, they would be very fortunate. And now that the president had banned travel from Europe, there was little chance of the majority of their already small guest list being able to make it. But it still sucked, particularly since they’d already had to postpone last year. 

He and Riley had talked about it last week, after the travel ban came down. Even though the wedding was seven weeks away, it had just seemed like the smart call to start cancelling things now instead of waiting until the last minute. The original plan had been for him to make the needed calls and whatnot since he was working from home, but since Riley now had infinite free time, she’d contacted everyone except his mother and aunt, who he had called over the weekend. His mother had been confused at first, saying she didn’t understand why they needed to postpone already and that she was sure it will have all “blown over” by May. Aunt Leona, on the other hand, had seemed pleased by the decision, telling him she was glad he wasn’t bringing that “Chinese virus” down to them from New York. Drake wasn’t sure whose response was more infuriating.

As Riley flopped down on the couch next to him, she let out a loud sigh. When he’d been working out of their apartment and she’d still been going into the office, they’d tried to maintain some distance at home. It had been pretty difficult, though. Although this place was way bigger than her old studio, they still just had the one bathroom, and obviously they were still sleeping in the same bed. Drake had known it had probably been smart of them to spread out as best they could, but he was kind of relieved when Riley had just curled up next to him on the couch this weekend, saying that it was stupid to try and pretend that they were even coming close to effectively socially distancing from one another. Plus, now that she wasn’t going into work, they basically carried the same risk of exposure. 

Although she was sitting next to him now, she didn’t make any move to actually touch him. Sensing she wanted to talk about something, he moved his laptop from his knees to the coffee table in front of them. Sure enough, her head landed in his lap not even a full minute later. This had become her habit over the years, to lay down on the couch and put her head across his lap whenever there was something she wanted to talk to him about, usually something serious that she didn’t want to deal with but knew they needed to deal with together.

“So, everything’s pushed back to November 7th,” she said after a couple of moments of silence, “We had to put down another deposit with the florist who was a real asshole about it, but the band, the photographer, and the caterers were really accommodating.” Her fingers traced random patterns across his forearm as she spoke, but her eyes remained closed, almost as if she couldn’t bring herself to look him in the eye and see their shared disappointment reflected there.

“Thanks, Liu. I’ll call Mom tomorrow and let her know.” 

“I did try for October, but the caterers and the florist didn’t have any availability.”

“November’s fine. If the weather’s shitty, we can just have the ceremony inside the barn and the reception in the house. Our guest list is tiny, anyway.”

His statement hung there in the air. There was kind of this unspoken agreement between the two of them to just be matter of fact about postponing. It was a global pandemic. It had to happen. Being upset about it wasn’t going to make things any better. But sometimes, it just hurt, thinking about all their planning and excitement that was just on hold again. The scattered pieces of wedding favors and leftover invitations and the planning binder that Hana had started for them that were visible in every corner of the apartment didn’t help either. They were now mixed in with stacks of dog food, rice, and paper towels, a grim blend of the future they wanted with their new reality.

They didn’t even have any place to tuck the wedding crap out of sight at this point, as their closets and cupboards were filled to the brim with extra supplies. But without a car, Drake had just wanted to make sure they could minimize trips out if… no, when shit really hit the fan. And it’s not like they had that much storage space in their apartment anyway. But now they would have to live with constant reminders that they couldn’t get married and their lives were essentially on hold. 

He at least still had work to distract himself with. Now that Riley had cancelled everything, she really didn’t have anything she could focus on to distract herself. He just felt bad for her. “I’m sorry, Liu.”

“For what? None of this is your fault,” Riley said, her eyes popping open and gazing up at him, her hand continuing to trace patterns across the skin of his arm.

Drake sighed, dropping his head to the back of the couch and staring up at the ceiling. “I guess I feel guilty that I didn’t get us to Cordonia when I could.” He had been contemplating calling Savannah or Maxwell and seeing if they could come stay with them for a while. Leave the crazy population density that was New York City. Staying at the palace would mean bad optics for Liam, but he figured at least two of the three adults at Ramsford would probably be okay with hosting him and Riley and Anderson. But while he’d been weighing their options with Riley, Liam had closed all flights into Cordonia except for citizens returning home. Since Riley had never become a Cordonian citizen, they were out of luck. Drake knew that if he asked Liam, he would grant Riley some sort of royal exception, but he wasn’t going to put Liam in that position. The last thing Liam needed on his plate was making an accommodation for Riley.

Drake felt Riley’s head leave his lap, and soon her hands were on his shoulders, giving them a gentle squeeze. “Drake, we both were unsure if it was the right call.” 

He just shook his head. She could have had Maxwell to spend time with while he worked. Anderson could have gone on walks safely across the grounds and vineyards. But he hadn’t been decisive enough and now it was too late. “I should have seen the writing on the wall.”

“Look at me.” Her voice was firm and carried enough of an edge that Drake complied, tipping his head back to find Riley kneeling next to him on their couch, staring at him with eyes that were somehow intense and sympathetic simultaneously. “We both were concerned about flying right now. We both were unsure about being in a house with both a baby and a toddler and possibly bringing the infection to them. We both wanted to wait to see what would happen. I don’t know why you insist on taking the blame here when we both weren’t sure if heading to Cordonia was the right call.”

“I just wish there was a way to protect you from this.”

She shook her head, “You think I don’t want that, too?”

“I know, Liu. I just feel like…” he trailed off, unable to finish his thoughts. He could have never imagined a situation where he couldn’t take care of her. Keep her safe. But there was nothing he could do about any of this. It just made him feel so powerless.

“Me too, Drake,” she said, tilting her head and sliding her hand down his arm and twining their fingers together. “But nothing else to do but ride this out. Well, that and hope we don’t drive each other too crazy over the upcoming weeks,” she added with a little chuckle. “What time do you think you’ll finish up today?”

“I dunno,” Drake said with a shrug. Since he was a naturally early riser, he’d been getting up and started on his files for the day hours before Riley was waking up, trying to get his work done by mid afternoon most days so that she didn’t feel banished to the bedroom too much. He knew she felt like a distraction to him when he was working, and though he didn’t want to admit it, she kind of was. “By 3:30, I’d guess.”

“Okay,” she replied, letting go of his hand and bouncing off the couch. “I guess it’s time for me to read up on my insurance options. I’ve been putting this off, but it’s probably better to sign up sooner rather than later.”

Drake frowned as she rounded the corner and went down the little hallway to their bedroom. He’d not thought about the fact that her being furloughed might impact her health insurance. He probably should have. Getting way better health insurance when he’d gotten hired as a permanent employee had been a big deal, after all. This employment-connected health insurance thing still just felt strange to him, though.

A thought occurred to him. He minimized the folder of digital files he was reviewing and cataloguing, pulling up instead a search engine. He landed on the city clerk’s website a couple of minutes later, scanning over the requirements, then checking the time. This could work.

“Hey, Liu!” he called out, striding over to the bedroom. Her laptop was in front of her as she lounged on her stomach, Anderson curled up right next to her. She glanced up as he reached the doorway.

“What’s up?”

“Let’s get married.”

She blinked a couple of times and pulled her head back slightly as she cocked it to the side, “Uhh, sounds good, but that was kind of already the plan.” She waved her left hand in the air, his grandmother’s ring catching the light intermittently. “I mean, I’m glad you still want to and everything, but seeing as I did just spend the whole morning rescheduling our entire wedding, I would have been pretty pissed at you if you changed your mind.”

Drake shook his head and rolled his eyes. “No, let’s get married tomorrow.”

Riley’s eyes widened. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah. We can go down to the city clerk’s office now and get our marriage license so we can get married tomorrow.”

“Where is this coming from?”

Drake walked over and sat down on the bed next to her, pointing toward her laptop. “You were going to go on my health insurance after the wedding anyway, right? So let’s do that now instead of having to pay for shitty coverage for you.”

She gave him a gentle little smile, closing her laptop and sliding up onto her knees next to him. She placed one hand between his shoulder blades, rubbing gentle circles before she spoke.

“You are a very sweet marshmallow of a man, you really are. But I know you. And I don’t want you to feel like we have to rush to do this now. We’ll be fine if we wait for the lovely wedding we planned down on the ranch with all of our friends there.”

He shook his head, “I want to do this. The question is, do you?”

“You don’t actually want to do this.”

“Of course I want to do this! You think I give a shit about who’s there or what we wear or if we have the right flowers or what we have for dinner?”

“Yeah, I do. Drake, you may not be much for pomp and glitz, but this wedding that we’ve been planning for years now? I think it matters to you. I think you want Liam and Maxwell and Hana and your mother and sister and niece and nephew there. I think you want to hear our friends toast us and to see Maxwell make a fool of himself on the dance floor and to have Bartie be the ring bearer and that’s okay. It’s okay to want to celebrate with everyone. We can wait until we can do that. This doesn’t have to just be a... logistical arrangement.”

Drake paused for a moment. She wasn’t wrong, exactly. Those were things he wanted. But right now, they seemed like little, insignificant details. 

“Look, Liu. You’re right. The thing that prompted me to think about marrying you right now was the practical reasons. But as everything becomes a total shit show, I just feel like the only protection I can offer you is this one. And in an ideal world - sure, I would want the nice little wedding we planned in Texas. But the world has changed a whole fucking lot in the past couple weeks, and nothing is exactly ideal anymore. And if my choices are waiting almost eight months to have the wedding we planned or to marry you tomorrow, I pick marrying you tomorrow. Because, yeah a wedding down on the ranch with our friends sounds great, but the whole point of that wedding is that I get to be your husband. And that’s all I really want.”

She gave him a warm smile and kissed him deeply, sliding her hand up his back and threading her fingers through his hair as his hands fell to her hips. After a few moments, she pulled back.

“So, you aren’t going to look back with regret and feel like we rushed things?”

“I’ve been ready to marry you for years. This doesn’t feel like we’re rushing. It feels like it’s about damn time. At least for me.”

Riley nodded, glancing down. Drake followed her gaze to her left hand, resting gently on her knees.

“It’s not a rush for me either.”

“So, what are you thinking? Should we get married tomorrow?” Drake asked, grabbing her hand in his, staring at her downturned face for a few seconds before she looked up and met his gaze.

“Yeah,” she said, a wide grin sliding onto her face, “Let’s fucking do this.”

Permatag: @ravenpuff02 @octobereighth @drakewalker04 @kimmiedoo5 @speedyoperarascalparty @mfackenthal @lilyofchoices @thequeenofcronuts @jamesashtonisbae

The Royal Romance/The Royal Heir: @kingliam2019 @sirbeepsalot @texaskitten30 @princessleac1 @ladyangel70 @dcbbw @yaushie

Drake x MC only: @jovialyouthmusic @iplaydrake @gibbles82 @drakewalkerisreal @riley--walker @notoriouscs @butindeed @addictedtodrakefanfic @drakesensworld  

It Couldn’t Wait Another Moment: @wickedgypsymoon @thesumofmychoices @cosigottahavefaith @thequeenchoices @katedrakeohd @feartheendlesssummer @ao719 @ooo-barff-ooo @sunnyxdazed​  

[willow-salix]

Here's my offering for the second FabFiveFeb with the awesome @gumnut-logic focusing on the gorgeous Gordon. I used two of the prompts. Enjoy!

Selene's eyes cut to the side away from the book that she promised John she'd read but was continuing to boggle her brain.

He was there again, hanging around near the bedroom door, haunting the hallway, stalking the sleeping quarters of the house. And it was getting annoying, she'd have to do something about it. It was hard enough to concentrate on "Unlocking the Universe" without the constant distractions of the sighing, whining, moaning apparition outside. 

The figure moved past the door again, looking in at her. She tossed the book aside and sat up. 

"Gordon! What the hell is wrong with you?" 

The sun lightened, tousled blonde head popped around the door frame. 

"Oh, Selly, are you done reading?" 

"Well I am now."

He bounded in like an enthusiastic puppy, dropping down on the end of the bed, forcing her to move her feet quickly out of the way. 

"Did you want something?" 

"No, it's all good." He glanced around, his eyes taking in the new editions to his brother's room. Since Selene had been in his life John had definitely lightened up, growing more comfortable in his own skin and spending more time with them all but, even though Selene had gone shopping with Grandma and Virgil to pick out a few things to make herself feel more at home, John's uniqueness still shined through. 

They had all wondered if Selene would take advantage of John's suggestion that she redecorate his room, but they should have known better. Selene never acted as you would expect her too, very much like all the women in their lives. They were used to strong women that never followed the crowd, Kayo, Grandma, Penelope, it stood to reason that anyone the brothers met would be just as special. 

John's posters and star charts were still on the walls, but a few new types of chart had joined them, ones that showed the phases of the moon and its meanings, the sun and the solstices and the constellations related to star signs. 

Her books were intermingled with his own, her clothes were in his wardrobe mixed in with his,  items of makeup and toiletries were scattered around his bathroom and little interesting trinkets and her divination tools had joined his collection of space rocks, awards and celestial models on his shelves. The room had been softened with the addition of softly glowing lamps, fluffy blankets, a squishy armchair that Selene liked to curl up in and a couple of house plants. 

But the most interesting item to appear was what she called her altar, a small, scarf draped table nestled in a corner near the window. It held her tools, candles, crystals and other interesting things he didn't know the use of. The room now smelled of sweet incense and warm candle wax instead of its scent of furniture polish and occasionally John's shower gel. 

He had expected the room to feel different, but he could still sense his brother's presence in there even though he was currently up in Five. Somehow they had managed to blend effortlessly, a natural evolution of the two. 

Gordon would never admit it but he had moments of intense jealousy when he saw the two of them together. Not that he begrudged his brother the happiness he had obviously found, nor that he saw Selene as anything but a much loved sister who often seemed like a female Scott, put there to worry, boss him around and force him to eat. 

No, he just wished he had the same thing. It seemed rather unfair that his brother could manage to meet someone in such a random way and find his perfect partner when, try as he might, he could never seem to get any closer to the one who held his heart in her perfectly manicured hand. 

He sighed, his shoulders slumping. It seemed that every time they got close to their moment something or someone got in the way. 

"Spit it out."

He jerked out of his musings. "What?" 

"Whatever it is that you're thinking so hard about," she reached out and smoothed her thumb down the scrunched up skin between his eyebrows. 

She was right, he had been hovering, mostly because he was trying to get up the guts to not only ask for help but put his plan into action. He guessed it was now or never. 

"Sel, I need your help with something, call it my birthday present."

Selene sat up a little straighter. "OK, obviously I'll help with anything, unless it's a prank on your brother, in which case I'll still help but I'll deny all knowledge and throw you under the bus in a heartbeat."

"Good to know," he grinned, her teasing as always, putting him at ease. "Promise you won't tell anyone about this either."

She touched her hand to her heart and drew a little cross. "Cross my heart, I won't tell a soul."

"OK, first I need to show you something, but we're gonna need transport."

                                        ***

Selene's nose was pressed against the window of the little sub, her eyes drinking in the sight of the world outside. 

"Wow…this is just…wow." She had never expected there to be so many colours illuminated by the powerful lights of Four. A moving rainbow of waving, pulsing, rippling beauty that covered the sea floor, building up into what could only be described as an underwater garden. Mounds of coral in all colours created a hilly backdrop for the shoals of colourful fish that swam lazily around them. 

"Better than space?" Gordon nudged her playfully with his elbow. 

"I will never admit it to your brother, but it might just top it. This is incredible, I mean, I've never even been scuba diving."

"You've never…" he shook his head in equal parts amazement and disappointment. "That's it, I'm teaching you to dive. It's amazing, you know John used to join me a lot, he likes to skindive," he saw the blank look on her face. "Where you dive without a suit, just with an aqualung and flippers. He helped teach me to swim you know, Scott wanted to throw me in and let me work it out for myself as Dad did to him and Virg, but John was insistent that he help."

"That's so cute."

"No it's not, it's manly and the complete opposite of cute."

"Sorry, not cute at all, you're right," but her grin said he would never change her mind, she was just humouring him. 

"We're nearly there," he said, changing the subject. "It should be around this area, I worked with Dr Forsythe at the Living Oceans foundation, who specialises in Coral Reef conservation, the results ended up being pretty positive."

"Is that where we're going now?" 

He nodded. "You should start seeing some any minute now."

It was nice and quite interesting to see the way Gordon handled his craft. It was nowhere near as big, fancy or fast as the other Thunderbirds, but he acted like it was an extension of himself. She was used to seeing Gordon as the playfully mischievous one that she often caught plotting something, or out on a mission when he was all seriousness with the odd burst of light. This was different, this was his element and he was beyond comfortable. It was nice to see him so relaxed and happy. 

The first flicker caught his eye and he paused, his finger pointing the way. Her eyes followed his directions, growing wider as she saw the result of his months of effort. 

"That… is truly amazing, boo. She'll love this."

"So you'll help me get her out here?" 

"Oh, you can count on it."

                                     ***

"I do so enjoy our little shopping trips," Penelope tucked her arm though Selene's, "you always find such interesting little shops that I would never have thought to look in."

They had wandered all over Union Square and were now making their way down to the bay, Selene having had a nice little restaurant recommended where they could have dinner. 

"I love that dress you got, you suit vintage, it will look beautiful on you. I just wish my style suited it a bit more, but we can't all be blonde and beautiful."

"Oh hush, I happen to know a certain space monitor who thinks you are the most beautiful woman in the world."

Selene smiled, catching sight of their destination. 

"And I happen to know an aquanaut who thinks the same about you," Selene pointed down to the beach where Four sat, surrounded by people. 

The shock on Penelope's face was a sight to behold, it took a lot to surprise her, but they had definitely managed it. 

"Don't keep him waiting."

"But what about dinner? What will you do, Parker isn't returning for at least four hours?" 

"John's picking me up in an hour in my car, we've got a date night. Now go," she gave Penelope a gentle push towards the railings.

Feeling uncharacteristically unsure as to what she was doing and rather ambushed, Penelope slowly descended the steps down to the beach. She had absolutely no idea what was going on, why was he even here, on his birthday of all days, when he should be celebrating with his family. 

The back hatch of Four opened to reveal a grinning Gordon. He cambered out, stretching to his full height but instead of the standard blue uniform he was dressed in smart, grey trousers and a plain white shirt with not a palm tree in sight. His usually messy hair was brushed and an attempt had clearly been made to tame the unruly mop. 

"Lady Penelope."

"Gordon, happy birthday."

"It is now, and also," he reached back into his craft and drew out a bouquet of pink roses, "happy Valentines day."

Penelope could feel an uncharacteristic blush warming her cheeks as she took the flowers. 

"Will you do me the honour of being my Valentine tonight?" 

She nodded. "I'd like that very much."

"I've got something to show you, care to take a little trip with me?" 

"How could I turn down such an offer?"

She took his offered hand and climbed aboard. 

                                     ***

Penny had been under water more times than she could count, being an experienced diver and having a car that was more than waterproof, but nothing compared to sitting beside Gordon Tracy as he piloted them deeper into the ocean. 

He'd programmed in the coordinates and left the small craft on autopilot as he produced a picnic basket from her favourite London deli, filled with all her favourites. 

She would never have believed that he had it in him to put together such a romantic gesture, he'd likely had a little help since Selene was obviously involved, but she found she didn't really mind. 

It was nice to be alone together, especially with no chance of interruption bar an emergency. No nosy Parker to wedge himself between them, no darling Bertie to demand their attention, no rescuees to reassure, no brothers to interrupt. Just them and the quiet peace of the ocean. It was rather blissful. 

Now that they had time to talk they made the most of it, chatting between bites of crusty bread, tangy cheese, succulent grapes and a very palatable white wine, catching up on their lives the past few months. 

She looked more beautiful than he had expected, dressed down in casual jeans and a cosy sweater, clothes that one wore to go shopping with a friend rather than to a society event. It was strange but most definitely not unpleasant to see her out of her comfort zone and designer clothes, to see the real woman underneath. This was the one he'd wanted to get to know, the one he was drawn to. 

Penelope found her gaze drawn over and over to the gentle curve of his lips as she watched him eat, recalling just how soft they had felt during their one, brief kiss. She hadn't planned it, she'd just been overwhelmed by everything, seeing him back on active duty after his brush with death had been emotional for her and she'd thrown aside all decorum, giving in to the urge. Now she wanted to be able to do that again, wanted to lean in, close the distance between them and lose herself in the unique presence that was Gordon Tracy. 

He blinked his big caramel eyes at her and she was done for, she inched forward as he did the same...BEEP… 

Gordon leapt back into the pilots seat as they neared a reef, growing instantly more serious as he took back control of the little craft from the autopilot now they had reached their destination, steering it expertly past clusters of coral and waving fronds of exotic underwater plants and little darting fish. 

Gordon watched her eyes drinking in the sight of the reef he'd so lovingly helped to cultivate, to save for future generations. 

"I've been working with a guy specialising in marine conservation breeding, basically breeding hardier fish with those that are endangered, trying to create new breeds that will survive the changing climate."

"Oh really? That's fascinating. Were you successful?" 

Gordon didn't speak for a second, guiding the nose of the sub around a particularly large group of pink puffy anemones. There they were, still in their shoal, lazily swimming, almost exactly where he and Selene had found them two days previously. 

"You tell me," he nodded towards the small, genetically perfect saddleback butterflyfish. 

"Oh my," Penelope stared at the fish, their bodies sparkling in the light of Four's high beams. There was only one way to describe the shine of their scales, the way they seemed to be a silvery pearl colour one moment and with a flick of their body you saw a rainbow of colours…

"Iridescent," she whispered in awe. "I have never seen anything so beautiful. And you helped create them?" 

Gordon smiled proudly, watching his babies swimming happily around the craft as they floated gently through the shoal. They were graceful, unbothered by their presence, seemingly curious as they came right up to the glass to investigate. "Yep, I got to name them too."

"You did? What are they called?" Penelope tickled her finger against the window, laughing with delight as a fish followed her movements, booping its nose on the glass. 

"Well, obviously they have their species name of Chaetodon Ephipippium but in English," he paused, slightly embarrassed now that he was here with her. He took a deep breath, remembering what Selene had instructed him, be bold, be brave, be daring."In English it's a Pretty Penny."

She blinked, unprepared for the wave of emotion his information provoked. He'd named them after her. These beautiful, unique creatures he'd created would forever be a reminder of just how special he was. 

"That's…well…it's very flattering, and they are certainly very pretty," Penelope turned her head, hoping he wouldn't see her blush. She didn't know what to say, how to react. 

Gordon's eyebrows drew down in a frown, did she not like them? Had he been wrong? Be bold, be brave…He reached out a hand and cupped her chin gently, turning her back to face him. 

"Do you not like them?" 

She covered his hand with hers, managing a shaky smile. "No, I love them."

"Then what's the problem?" 

"We can't, we can't do this, not now." She gently pulled his hand away and set it aside. 

"Why not? Give me one good reason?" he refused to let go of her hand. "Just one. Tell me you don't want me and I'll back off."

"What about finding your father? The launch of the new Zero-X?" 

"That isn't a reason not to, that's a reason to take every chance we can and act on it. We don't know what we're going to find up there, if we will even find anything at all. If this and International Rescue itself has taught us anything, it's that life is too short and too unpredictable to waste opportunities by being cautious and scared. You have to grab your happiness with both hands."

"This could change things between us, and not for the better." 

"Or it could make it more amazing. Look at John, he took a leap of faith and I've never seen him happier. I want that, Penny, I want that with you."

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small jewellery box, opening it to reveal a natural pearl, carved into the shape of a seashell, strung on a delicate gold chain. 

"What do you say Valentine? Will you be mine?" 

His handsome face was full of hope but also wariness, fear of rejection. Would it be so bad to risk her heart on one such as he? Gordon was a joker, he rarely ever took anything seriously, but here he was, the most sincere she'd ever seen him.

He was one of the good guys, he saved people, he didn't hurt them. He was worth taking a risk for.

"Tell me you don't want me," he whispered again, a plea for her to tell him the truth. She was powerless to resist. 

"I can't," she whispered back as she moved closer. 

His lips brushed hers in the softest of kisses, his mouth catching her little sigh of relief as his arms slid around her waist, pulling her closer. There was no one to interrupt them, no one to tell them no, no one but them. 

No matter what happened in the future, good or bad, they would always have this moment, they would have each other, and the world would have the pretty little fishes that floated outside their little sub of solitude. 

[mst3kproject]

Iron Warrior

 Why yes, there is a fourth Ator movie!  Technically, this is the third Ator movie.  Whereas Ator, the Fighting Eagle, The Blade Master (aka Cave Dwellers) and Quest for the Mighty Sword were all made by Aristide Massaccesi (aka Joe D’Amato), Iron Warrior was made by Alfonso Brescia (aka Al Bradley).  Massaccessi supposedly hated it because it wasn’t true to his vision for Ator or something.  Myself, I was kind of intrigued.  What would a different take on Ator be like?

Well, I don’t know how he managed, but Alfonso Brescia pulled it off.  He made an Ator movie that makes even less sense than the other Ator movies.

The evil sorceress Phaedra used to rule this land, but then some fellow witches (I’m gonna call them Bellerians) banished her into darkness and installed a puppet king. Eighteen years later, however, Phaedra’s sentence is up and she has returned, with a legion of skull-faced minions and an indestructible cyborg named Drogar.  They kill the king and kidnap his heir, Princess Gianna.  The Bellerians therefore call upon Ator to rescue her, which he does, and then the Bellerian Leader tells them they must go on a quest to retrieve the only thing that can defeat Phaedra and free Drogar, who is also Ator’s brother, from her clutches – the Golden Chest of the Ages!  With that in hand, they head back to be crowned King and Queen of wherever this is, only to learn too late that Phaedra replaced the real Golden Chest with a fake!

According to the end credits, ‘script continuity’ was the job of somebody named Mirella Gamacchio.  I can only assume she was drunk as shit the entire time, because this movie is nothing but a series of “wait… what just happened?” moments.

There’s a bit where Phaedra decides to kill Ator before he can rescue Gianna.  She can’t just Thanos-snap him out of existence because the Bellerians have taken that power away from her, so she takes the form of a beautiful woman, lets him rescue her from random thugs, sleeps with him, locks him in a cabin, and burns the cabin down.  That seems like an over-complicated plan, somehow.  Also, Ator escapes by hiding under a wet bear rug.

To kill the king, Drogar telekinetically makes all the decorative weapons mounted on a wall fly into him and run him through.  Then Phaedra replaces the dead king and the kidnapped princess with imposters who look nothing like them and nobody at court seems to notice.  Later, Ator fights Drogar in the same weapons-adorned room and I kept waiting for the psychic stabbing thing to happen again, but it doesn’t.  Instead, Ator and Drogar throw spears at each other and keep catching them.  Finally Drogar throws two spears at once, and Ator catches one while Gianna pops up out of absolutely nowhere to catch the other, despite never having the slightest hint she was able to do something like that!

Later later, Gianna gets kidnapped by the skull-faced minions and thrown into a dungeon where her father is hanging in a doorway, with the spears still through him but apparently still alive.  He begs her for help, and then she suddenly reappears in Ator’s arms wearing a green dress instead of the red one she’s had on so far. This is one of several occasions on which I was absolutely sure that the ‘Gianna’ we were seeing was going to turn out to be Phaedra in disguise, and in this instance I was especially certain about it because green is Phaedra’s colour.  I was wrong. Even at the climax, when I was absolutely convinced the whole thing had to be a trick, the woman who looks like Gianna was always the real Gianna.  I think.

After Phaedra gets the chest, Ator and Gianna are halfway through their coronation ceremony when suddenly Ator’s in the middle of nowhere surrounded by Sand Nazis, and Gianna’s dangling off a cliff with Phaedra sitting there mocking her.  How did that happen?  Phaedra tells her that life is an illusion, which for a moment left me wondering if anything in this movie really happened?  Perhaps the whole bit when Gianna was in the green dress was just some kind of dream?  I have no idea.  Anyway, Ator beats up the Sand Nazis and then goes and shoves a torch down Phaedra’s throat, which turns out to be her weakness for some reason.  Where did that come from?  I dunno.  Then he has just concluded that Gianna must have fallen and died when he hears her calling him, and goes to untie her from where she’s sitting on a rock.  They embrace and Gianna smiles in an evil kind of way, but as far as I can tell it’s still the real Gianna because we next see Phaedra captured by the Bellerians again!  They sentence her to something else and then giggle in delight because Ator and Gianna have fallen in love.

I don’t know why Ator was worried about Gianna falling to her death anyway, because there are several points in this movie in which one or both of the couple plummet into a bottomless abyss only to wake up completely unharmed.  This is slightly plausible when they leap off a cliff into the water, but what about when they fall from a rope bridge into a deep canyon and wake up lying on rocks in a cave?  Are they indestructible?

Drogar is supposedly indestructible, which means the moment when Ator is forced to run him through is one I expected to be another trick. After all, the same thing happened earlier and Drogar just collapsed into a pile of clothes like Obi-Wan Kenobi. No, this time he’s actually dead, and Ator takes his helmet off and finds another Miles O’Keefe underneath. I think we’re supposed to assume that Phaedra discarded Drogar because she no longer needed him?  I’m sure it’s supposed to be a tragic moment when Ator has to kill his brother, but Ator didn’t seem particularly reluctant to do so.  I also think the helmet removal is supposed to remind us of Luke Skywalker’s little vision quest moment in Empire Strikes Back when he found his own face under Darth Vader’s mask, but I cannot suggest a reason why other than ‘the writer thought that was neat’.

What is even with the Ator-has-a-brother thing?  Wasn’t Ator raised by stick merchants in Solachek along with a sister he eventually married?  Fuck it, I’m gonna assume Ator is like Maciste, and his backstory resets with every movie.  The way the movie works out, the ‘brothers’ thing is never important anyway.  It’s treated as if it’s going to be – we know the revelation is coming from the opening scene and we’re teased with it a few times along the way, but when it actually arrives it has no effect on the plot whatsoever!

So yes, Iron Warrior tries to make you feel many things, but the only one you actually feel at the end of the movie is intense confusion.  The characters never have any personality so you can’t get invested in them or their relationships.  Elisabeth Kaza as Phaedra is having a fabulous time hamming up the evil, but everybody else has their Very Serious Movie faces on and mostly just looks bored. The special effects are basic at best, and the music sounds like an early 2000’s PC game loading.

Costumes and hair are bizarre.  Ator has traded his mile-high meringue hairdo for a tight braid that makes him look weirdly like Alicia Vikander on the Tomb Raider poster. Gianna has a hairdo that looks like a centurion’s helmet and wanders around the wilderness in a filmy red dress with her nipples visible right through it.  The leader of the Bellerians dresses like a budget Queen Amidala. Like previous Ator films (or Deathstalker and the Warriors from Hell), there is no sense of any attempt to build a consistent world.  They just threw together a bunch of stuff that looked cool.

The movie was shot on the Maltese island of Gozo, and makes the place look like it’s made entirely of barren rocks.  There are lots of neat formations and forbidding cliffs, and it’s all very spectacular.  Unfortunately, it’s also very obvious that we’re seeing the same neat rock formations and forbidding cliffs over and over again.

As far as analyzing the movie… I don’t think I can do that. There’s not really enough substance there to analyze.  The closest Iron Warrior comes to doing anything meaningful is when it tries to use a furry toy ball as a symbol of the bond between brothers.  When we meet Ator and Drogar as children, they’re chucking this tribble at each other through some ruins, and it reappears a couple of times in attempts at foreshadowing.  The problem is that there is no bond between Ator and Drogar, and the fact that they’re brothers is, as I said, ultimately unimportant.

The impression I get from this movie is that it was written by somebody who had no idea how to tell a story.  The writers, Steven Luotto and Alfonso Brescia, have clearly seen movies (they’ve definitely seen the original Star Wars trilogy) and know that they have things like attractive stars, special effects, stunning revelations, and dream sequences, but they don’t know how to put those together into a plot, or what purposes they should serve within one.  The result is completely incoherent.  To my own astonishment I totally understand why Massaccesi hates this movie.  Ator, the Fighting Eagle and The Blade Master might have been made up on the fly, but they still made more sense than this!

[mobius-prime]

249. Sonic the Hedgehog #180

Oh, come on, cover page! There's no way in hell Sonic would end up as friends with Eggman! This has the same vibes as when older cover pages would try to tease something like "Has Sonic the Hedgehog actually died? Find out in today's issue how super dead he is!" Like oh, sure, of course he's dead! I totally believe you, Cover Page of a Sonic the Hedgehog Comic!

Preparations for War!

Writer: Ian Flynn Pencils: Tracy Yardley! Colors: Jason Jensen

Eggman is back to take revenge for his victory being stolen away from him last week, hoping to use his latest invention to upload a virus to Nicole's systems to take her out and leave New Mobotropolis vulnerable. Sonic, however, isn't even totally interested in fighting Eggman, as there's something more pressing to worry about right now.

Inside the castle, the Council of Acorn is having their first meeting to hear Dimitri's testimony about the danger of Enerjak. By the way, it's worthwhile to list off who's on the council: Elias of course, then Uncle Chuck, Rotor, Rosemary, and to round it off, Hamlin, Penelope, and Dylan! Nice to see these guys again, it's been a long time! No sign of Arlo, unfortunately, but he was the only one out of these four to end up injured outside of battle, so we can assume he had to retire and go back to being a civilian. Anyway, Dimitri tells the story of his initial transformation into Enerjak and how he was eventually stripped of his powers, a story which to his credit he tells frankly and with no attempts made to minimize what a power-hungry tyrant he was. He then admits that once his cybernetics started to fail after Knuckles' sacrifice to save him from Mogul, he in desperation went to Finitevus in the hopes of continuing to hold onto his life and regain his former power. However, when he realized that Finitevus betrayed him and was looking for a different candidate to become Enerjak, he came straight to New Mobotropolis, hoping they'd be able to put up a sufficient fight against this ancient and evil force. Sally, who's standing down on the floor to help hear Dimitri's testimony, immediately offers to mobilize the Freedom Fighters to go to Angel Island, but the council vetoes this in favor of keeping their own city safe first. Dimitri then suggests the Chaotix since Angel Island is their home, but the council still seems reluctant - and Charmy, who's been listening to the proceedings the entire time from within an air vent, reports all this back to Julie-Su, who adorably is using her cybernetic dreadlock as some kind of communication device.

Outside the city, Sonic has finished relaying what he knows of Enerjak to Eggman, who true to form is mostly concerned with the idea of someone else finishing off the Freedom Fighters before he himself can get to them. An exasperated Sonic offers Eggman a temporary truce - to work together to defeat Enerjak as a greater threat before going back to being at each other's throats. Eggman decides to agree in the creepiest and least-trustworthy tone possible, which of course makes Sonic leery.

Sonic is somewhat disgusted with himself for even agreeing to form an alliance with Eggman in the first place, but with that problem out of the way, he begins to rush back into the city to let everyone know of the new situation. However, Nicole pops up to warn him that the Chaotix are currently busting some heads at the airfield looking to jack a plane to Angel Island, so he runs over there to do some damage control. Meanwhile on Angel Island, Fiona (sporting a new black leather look) and Scourge call Finitevus with an update on the situation between the island's various factions. The dingoes, still led by General Kage, are making a move on the last of the echidnas, while the Flame and Frost Legions of the Dark Legion have called a truce between themselves to go after Finitevus, feeling he's a bigger threat to their plans. Finitevus thanks them for the update and tells them they can basically do whatever they want from here on as he doesn't need any more info, so Scourge dutifully sits his butt right down against a tree to "enjoy the show" while Fiona becomes frustrated that he's not taking this seriously, as she thinks Finitevus is way too creepy to trust. Maybe should have considered the kind of company your new boy-toy is keeping before running off with him, huh, Fiona? Back in New Mobotropolis, Sonic does his best to subdue the Chaotix without actually hurting any of them, while trying to convince them that they need a plan before they rush to Angel Island. Wow, if Sonic thinks you're rushing a little too quickly into things, you know it's serious. However, Julie-Su doesn't feel his opposing them is justified.

At this moment Sally shows up to talk to them all, agreeing that running off to Angel Island without a plan is a bad idea and informing them that Nicole's sent a probe there to gather information. Julie-Su becomes hostile and angry, certain that Knuckles has already been captured or worse by Enerjak and that waiting for info from a probe isn't going to help, but Sally isn't finished speaking.

Well there ya go, Julie-Su! See where a little waiting gets you? However, things are a bit worse than they perhaps realize - as Scourge and Fiona suddenly find themselves with a front-row seat to Enerjak returning in a blast of golden light - but if it isn't Dimitri in that golden armor, then who is it…?

Sonic Rush Adventure (High Stakes on the High Sea)

Writer: Ian Flynn Pencils: Tracy Yardley! Colors: Stingray GW

Welcome to yet another one of those "we're gonna tease this upcoming game and make a version of it canon within the comics but not actually adapt the entire game into comic form leaving people who haven't played the game totally lost" stories! This time, we're looking at the very beginning of Sonic Rush Adventure, starting off with Sonic and Tails waking up feeling woozy after a storm caused the Tornado to crash onto a beach. Out of nowhere, a small raccoon zips up and immediately tries to recruit them as her "swabbies" so that they can all sail and explore the high seas. Literally, this happens within half a page, this girl ain't messing around. Sonic and Tails are understandably baffled and get her to slow down long enough to explain what she's going on about, so she introduces herself as Marine and tells them that they've landed on Seagull Island, and that there's a band of roving pirates that's been looting this island in search of treasure, something that actually gets the two Freedom Fighters' attention.

Who is the individual that's stolen this giant pretty gem? Why, Johnny the Robot Pirate Shark, duh! Apparently he's some… speedy guy or something, blah blah blah, look at this point we know that Sonic's designated rivals tend to always be Fast Guys with a penchant for proving that they're faster than Sonic, and clearly this Johnny is just the next in a long line of other speedsters looking for a challenge. Naturally, Sonic is ready to go to battle for the Chaos Emerald (hey, how did it get out of Feist's clutches within the Special Zone, anyhow?), and… the end?! Come on, I know these little adaptions are always incomplete, but they didn't even show Blaze! She's literally one of the main characters of the game! I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised, though. Sonic Rush Adventure has always baffled me because every single promotional description I've ever seen for the game makes it seem like some random action romp where Sonic does nothing but fight pirates, instead of an actual sequel to the first Rush game where Blaze is an integral part of the plot. The good news is that I think this is the last one of these weird non-adaptions, as far as I can remember at least - from here on they're replaced with the "In Another Time, In Another Place" stories, which we're not gonna bother covering due to their non-canon status.

[ghostmartyr]

after all sh*t that happened in the manga do you still believe ymir is alive? because it's kinda hard to believe it anymore

According to the past two years of my life interacting with people, it was hard to believe in the first place.

Meanwhile, here we stand.

In a post-Porco world.

Yeah, I think Ymir is alive.

Worse than that, the past month has led me to decide that Ymir is NPC Farmer Guy. We aren’t just in casual, ‘hey this seems odd,’ theory territory anymore. We’re popping wheelies on tin hats.

Even worse than that, Ymir being NPC Farmer Guy is directly tied into how Historia is actually hiding Eren’s leg stitched to her stomach, and in the coming chapters Ymir is going to discover Hange and Levi and bring them back to the house only to discover thunder and lightning very very frightening bursting out of Historia Alien-style, and that’s how Eren accesses his extra life.

You might ask why. Not as a question, simply as a statement in response to that collection of words. You feel the word in your soul, and it goes far beyond what any explanation could offer.

Allow me to provide an explanation.

Our story begins with Ymir being pronounced dead after consenting to provide her life to Marley, the government entity responsible for stoning her and turning her into a titan for decades.

She volunteered for this? We hear the person who ostensibly ate her asking.

Absotively, comes the answer from the person whose life she saves twice over with this decision. In payment I have delivered a letter. All is well, and my guilt complex shall not touch upon the eaves of trauma I ought to have delivered upon mine own shoulders.

In the midst of ocean, reading that letter, the object of its love holds the parchment aloft, and proclaims softly, with feeling, is this to be the end of this fuckery? Where is the rest?

The omniscient plot, moving on from such petty concerns, pronounces her pregnant in sheer defiance of her entire arc revolving around breaking damaging cycles, and declares that enough of that.

Anguished and enraged, the inheritor of the Jaws our dear volunteer crossed paths with

dies without the fact that he ate the friend of the people he’s attacking ever being a blip on anyone’s radar even a little.

I’ll stop now, because as much fun as this is, I can’t keep up that style very long, and every once in a while someone who hasn’t heard me rant about this comes along, and I do try to be like. helpful.

The basic point is that Ymir’s death is strange. You have a character whose primary motivation is to fuck fate and fuck a pretty girl (and fuck suicide too), and she consents to die. She consents to die in a way that gives her enemies power. She consents to die to save the lives of two boys who will continue to receive nothing but abuse from being alive in the system they’re trapped in.

Ymir does not save Reiner and Bertolt. She rescues them from titans, but helping them go back to Marley is not a rescue in any sense of the word.

People are killed in unsatisfactory ways all the time in this series.

That is very different from agreeing to it.

Ymir receives nothing for her trouble. Reiner delivers a letter for her that only needs to be delivered because she’s in Marley’s clutches, and he nearly dies before he manages that. Bertolt does die in that same battle.

There is no functional purpose to Ymir’s death. Past delivering her letter, Reiner thinks about her sacrifice once. When Galliard brings it up. Guilt over other things drives him, but not over her. He and Bertolt are depicted as grateful, and obligated to honor her wishes, but they are not conflicted over whatever became of her.

Her death’s greatest influence on the plot is that Galliard has the Jaw Titan.

Which basically means nothing. He’s dead. Family memories, and the memories of the most recent holder, pass on best for most Shifters. Falco has neither link to Ymir. She’s just another dead random, without even the chance for the angst of her friends doing battle with the person who ate her.

The function of Ymir going with Reiner and Bertolt is that Marley has an extra Titan to play with, and Ymir is removed from the plot.

War Hammer explicitly establishes that the writing was down for inventing a new Titan for Marley to play with. What, then, is the effect of Ymir exiting the plot?

Her letter provides motivation for Reiner in RTS, but past that, anyone could have eaten Porco’s brother and been later fed to him. As an individual character, Ymir being the participant provides nothing, except the question of why someone who is so aggressively against suicide would agree to die for a cause she has no reason to ally herself to.

No one mentions her. She comes up in Eren’s flashbacks of her conversation with Bertolt, but no one outside of Porco (once) (in the scene implying her death) talks about Ymir.

Much in the way that a grand total of zero of Historia’s friends think about her pregnancy, but we’re not going there because this post is exhaustive enough as it is.

As a character, she might as well not exist. In fact, if she didn’t exist, Historia’s arc would be much simpler. Historia wouldn’t be pushed to find her own motivations and cause, and going along with everyone wanting her to bear children for the sake of her kingdom’s future could slide along the excuse of Krista being too close to her heart to let go of.

In theory though, she exists. So where are her contributions?

Historia.

She exists in the heart of Historia’s arc.

The arc which, by all implications presented, is in shambles.

Her eyes are dead, and she’s stated to be pregnant. She stares at the stated father with no interest, edging on despair, while the myth that theirs is a love story is passed to the higher brass.

Historia protects kids. Giving up her autonomy so that a child can bear the burden of her generation’s failures is such a strong violation of her character development that any justification for it would have to be a few chapters long to even approach counting as honest development.

Both Ymir and Historia’s arcs, as they stand, appear to be precise counters of everything they want. Which can be effective, but the story is asking the audience to accept a narrative where these characters abruptly turn their backs on their beliefs, and how sad it is, oh well, nothing to be done. Isn’t it tragic.

I think that’s about the stupidest waste of time I’ve ever been asked to consider a legitimate use of story.

I am not, in any way, kidding when I say that I think Historia’s arc, if this is where she’s intended to land, works better without ever having Ymir involved. Keep Historia in her overwhelmed depression with her need to please people, and this outcome still sucks, but it doesn’t betray anything fundamental about the character.

I also believe, if Ymir is dead and done contributing, her character is an empty cutout existing for nothing except the progression of the plot, serving the need of certain characters to survive rather than a character’s internal desires.

“You’re going to kill yourself, the ultimate act of submission. Is that how much you want to please the people who treated you like a nuisance?! Why are you trying to hurt yourself?! If your will is that strong… then shouldn’t you be able to change your fate?!”

A character who says this consenting to die, granting her tormentors a powerful weapon against the people she loves, is an egregious violation of character.

There isn’t enough time (any) showcasing that change for it to be tragic. There is no reason for it except that she’s written to make that choice.

Isayama does not write his characters that way. Whatever horrible things happen to them, there is always something you can point to that provides a clear explanation. When there isn’t, we have Eren, where we all look at him and think, “good golly gee this is fucked up, can’t wait to hear why.”

We trust, when things don’t make sense, for there to be a why.

In-universe, the only reactions we have to Ymir’s death are, “uh. are we. sure that’s all? no one finds this strange?”

Historia looks at her letter and asks if that’s it.

Galliard looks at his new memories and asks about her volunteering.

Reiner says yep and goes about the rest of his miserable life.

Nothing to see here.

Sure, the only two people who mention it are left with proverbial question marks about their heads, but there is absolutely no reason to think that anything other than what we said happened happened.

None whatsoever.

So that’s step one.

Accepting that Ymir’s death is fucking weird.

Step two is presenting a plausible escape.

Also known as presenting the jackass known as Zeke, known expert in magically getting away with conning people into doing what he wants by figuring out what they want.

Zeke knows, by RTS, that the Reiss line is royalty. Reiner and Bertolt deliver to him a girl who writes a love letter to the last living member of that line.

(That girl is mysteriously missing from Reiner and Bertolt’s reunion with Zeke. Bertolt’s dead, and he’s everywhere in flashbacks, because it makes sense for him to be there. Ymir, in a scene she definitely existed in, based on canon, is nowhere to be spotted, even in a passing mention.)

Ymir and Zeke are in the same place at the same time. There’s room for conversation. There’s room to find out what they’re after.

Ymir wants freedom. She can’t ever really have it, tied down to the Jaw Titan, but she wants a life beholden to no one. Plus Historia.

Short of keeping her sedated for the whole trip, turning her death back into a murder, Ymir’s going to have opportunities to escape. She put in some nice face time for Reiner and Bertolt’s sake, so they get to live, but now she can skedaddle.

But okay, what if she doesn’t have to?

Zeke presents it very easily. When Reiner and Bertolt watch her sign her life away, it’s with solemnity, but a confidence that isn’t their job to save her from.

What if there’s a way to free herself from the Jaw Titan’s limitations?

It’s that drug of hope that dreamers like Ymir can’t quite let go of.

It’s that drug of another pawn on his side that Zeke knows better than to abandon.

The Queen of Paradis has no reason to bargain with him. As a matter of fact, even in the future, their links are downplayed. Eren does not tell his older brother that the other living member of the Eldian royal line is a personal friend. He says “something” happened to unlock his memories.

Ymir gives Zeke a bargaining chip.

Zeke gives Ymir a shot at a life free from all of this.

Spinal fluid transfers aren’t convenient (biting a person’s head off is just plain easier), but Porco can be under his control. Failing that, he has his Volunteers with a vested interest in keeping their hostage alive. They’re willing to try to keep her alive. Is Ymir?

Then Ymir’s memories transfer to Galliard in the process, and that’s just perfect, because that doesn’t just give them a hostage; they have a compliant hostage.

“Hang out with this girl on a farm for a year, then we could not care less about what you do.”

My original version of this theory brought up photos, and that’s still an awesome thing to use, but you know what’s better? Dangling Ymir right in front of Historia, showing her exactly what’s what, and putting an amnesiac Ymir in a position she’s fine agreeing to for now; make sure the girl’s pregnancy (or ‘pregnancy’–the Yeagerists being in on this could go either way) goes smoothly, and don’t let her out of your sight.

Historia won’t want to leave Ymir. Ymir won’t remember why. She won’t really be the same person.

(The old Ymir would have know this. One more reason to leave her backstory in a letter. Historia’s a kind idiot. She’ll try to bring her back, even if it doesn’t make sense.)

Then at the same time you’ve got Eren being in way over his head, and he’s aware enough of Historia’s situation that he figures there’s a way for them to leverage this a little. He’s going to be doing some really stupid stuff, and he could really, really use a save point, and Historia needs to look like she has some extra flesh under her shirt anyway, so it’s not like this really changes her life quality for the near future…

(None of Eren’s friends are happy with Eren, but Historia was probably unhappiest first.)

Cutting off that style now.

I really don’t know why Eren’s amputated leg getting stitched to Historia’s stomach would make any kind of sense to anyone thinking any kind of clearly, but no one’s thinking very clearly in canon, so I don’t have to know yet the logic of how the individuals get to certain spots.

In other words we’re leaving Watsonian for Doylist again.

The concepts of this are really very basic. Eren’s as dead as Zeke was when that titan found him. There’s precedent for using another living being as an incubator. Titans are Eldians. Historia’s Eldian. Founding Titan + royal blood can probably stretch that deus ex machina a bit further.

That would give a reason for Historia to keep up the pregnancy look; she really does have something vital under there (her actually having a kid adds. it really adds absolutely nothing to the story. it doesn’t.).

Then we have NPC Farmer Guy. All we know about him is that he feels like he owes Historia. Getting him to provide a lovely backstory, then shipping him off far away, is pretty dang simple. He owes her.

Ymir’s just here because a bunch of people told her they would kill her if she didn’t play house with a hot pregnant girl for a year. The hair dye is weird, but so are the death threats and how much this royal babe seems to hate her.

It is at this stage of the post where I look at all of this and think this has got to be the most ridiculous crack I have ever deigned to put in a post, so I think I’m just going to present this in the way I thought of it, without trying to reverse engineer it into sense.

Right now, Eren’s dead, unless he’s not, and about to revive. That doesn’t really change the Ymir of this all, so it’s incredibly not relevant, but damn it guys, I can make all these threads dance together.

If his body’s fucked, traveling along Paths to get him out of the disastrous battlefield he’s landed himself in is a valid option.

The only other place any plot could conceivably be happening is with Hange and Levi. Who are out in the wilderness.

So okay, here’s the idea, right?

Eren vanishes from Shiganshina.

Chaos.

Hange and Levi are rescued by the shadow of NPC Farmer Guy, and brought back to the house. Historia helps, Levi bleeding all over the place, when suddenly, lightning stomach shocks.

Alien scene commences.

The audience asks why in the fuck we’re being subjected to this.

The answer is laughter.

But at the end of it all, suddenly, you’ve got room for plot that isn’t just Shiganshina being full of titans. again.

You have Eren in the same room with a benign presence with royal blood. You have the Commander of the Survey Corps staring down at both of them. You have very clear evidence that lies have been sprouting freely from everyone, and you’re in an isolated house in the middle of nowhere. There’s no reason to keep the secrets going. Anyone who argues there is will probably find themselves with another bullet through their head.

Then in the corner, you have Ymir, who is evidence that people can survive passing on their Titan. With Hange, leading research specialist of Paradis, sitting right there.

All of Paradis’ legitimate authority in one room, secrets unveiled, and time demanding that they all hurry the fuck up and do something about this.

Solution?

Founding Titan.

Second solution?

Founding Titan magic to wake up Annie so she and Historia can trade places so Eren can make the Founding Titan go zoom zoom.

Complications?

Eren still doesn’t tell anyone why the fuck all of this is necessary.

We’re getting off task.

Anyway, that’s the whole mad theory, but the reason why Ymir has been assigned NPC Farmer Guy’s position is very simple.

The assumption here is that she’s alive, and a hostage.

She’s a very boring hostage if she’s nowhere she can interact with the situation.

NPC Farmer Guy’s face is hidden the one time we see him in the present.

Either it’s just a dramatic cue that means nothing, or there is something about that face that has deeper implications. For the purposes of me going absolutely berserk with nothing to feed my brain on, my current theory is that his face is hidden because it isn’t NPC Farmer Guy at all.

There’s either a Reveal there or not, and if there is one, and Ymir’s alive, why the fuck not?

We keep hearing the story’s ending. This is the time to consolidate plot details, not spread them out further. All of this combined gets a rogue team of operatives with legitimate power, a serious scientific discovery with massive implications for their future, deep emotional strife between every member, and a time crunch they’ve got to fight while all their friends are trying not to die.

You can tell me I’m on crack, but you can’t tell me crazier things haven’t happened in canon, and you can’t tell me this wouldn’t be a fucking blast.

.

.

.

Is any part of you glad you asked, anon?

This will be pried from my cold dead fingers.

Thank you all for your time.

(Remember when this theory was less drugs?)

[abundantchewtoys]

HS Epi: Meat p22 reaction

So, John was doing something vaguely relevant to the plot.

Does that mean that whatever that was in the wallet for him to find, wasn't relevant? Or did Dirk really skip to a point in the future in his narration? I'd think that if a living person was captchalogued in the wallet, that'd be plot relevant.

If so, I wonder if it's more than one. But we're not likely to catch up with both Aradia and Terezi in one go. Also, I doubt Vriska somehow captchalogued herself in this wallet to escape the clutches of gravity. Well, except maybe if after reverse engineering the code for the wallet, she also alchemized a regular wallet besides the 8-ball/wallet combo.

But that makes me think of something else. I wonder what the max storage space of the wallet is... If it's functionally infinite, they have a functionally infinite singularity of questionable intent that might be in need of cleaning up at one point. :P Though it's doubtful.

---

"You’ve been drifting so long that you’ve lost the ability to objectively judge time or depth or distance. It’s getting hard to think about yourself as an objectively limited being. The boundaries of your skin begins to thin and disappear." Oooh, is it the lack of milestones in that plane, maybe, that's causing this introspection? Or is it just part of his ascension to his ultimate self?

"If your perception expands beyond the meat sack of your body, then are you really an individual anymore? Why shouldn’t we become gods? Why shouldn’t we become one God." Sounds like something Dirk might say - I know, funny because Dirk IS saying this, in John's stead. Alternatively, if Alternate Calliope is really malevolent, this might be her motivation to devouring everything ever. She wants to become UNIVAC.

"You scrunch up your nerdy face and furrow an eyebrow. It seems you aren’t enjoying this train of thought." John's intrusive thoughts are next level.

"Sorry, dude. That’s what’s on my mind right now. I’m having a phenomenological debate in my third ear that’s way more popping than your little hero’s journey into the belly of a quarter-life crisis." For a minute I thought he meant he was debating this with Kanaya, but he put her on hold so I was like: :? Then I realized he said "third ear", I guess that's something akin to the mind's eye, in that he's currently using the narration for his internal monologue.

"It turns out you don’t have time to worry about the voice inside your head, because you hear one outside of it." Ooh! Someone living, one we expect to be out here? And there Dirk goes, burying John's emerging awareness again, for a moment.

"At first you don’t think it’s real." ... Please don't be Alternate Calliope.

"MEENAH: yo blue guy MEENAH: get the shell down here"OOOOOH! She's alive!! ... Well, no, she's still dead, but you know. She survived Lord English, and the Black Hole. Girl's really got spunk. So, that brings her back in the running for candidates for John to give the ring to. ... Speaking of. Did John just, like, shrugged off Lord English's tooth, or is the poison still in his body?

I'm glad we saw her, it means that more people could have survived that were around before the battle (alive or dead), as well as the B2 kids that died during the battle! But uh... What even is still sustaining their existence? I mean, the dreambubbles were created to house them, only Sollux was able to leave through mumbo jumbo class/aspect magic.

"Your whirl around, upside down. You look up, then down. There she is." Hah, yeah, no point of reference, no gravity, so indeed, she could have been every where, relevant to him, that's also why she shouted "down here"!

"She’s clinging to a random server beacon, looking a little the worse for wear but still grinning. You float on down to greet her." Tsssh, she located the server running the LE code??? What could they even do with that, anymore. (How did it even survive.)

At least, I'm guessing it's that server, not the server hosting Rose's walkthrough. :P

So yeah, uh, that server was connected to Doc Scratch's study. In the Green Sun. ... Has it become a non-letal shortcut to Alternate Calliope now?

"JOHN: thank god. i was beginning to think that no one else was alive. MEENAH: im not alive" Hah! Ba-dum tssh.

"JOHN: oh right. sorry. JOHN: i’m glad to see you, is what i meant to say. MEENAH: same MEENAH: i fuckin guess" Yeah, not many of her friends will be left, probably. If any.

"She narrows her blank eyes. Her mouth twists into a frown. Not quite a concerned one, but close enough. You’ll take it." Is she noticing John has become an adult? ... Or yeah it might just be general concern, the situation is alarming enough. I wonder if she knows about Vriska? And what that exactly means to her, 16-year-old Vriska probably being dead for good.

Oh boy, but this is so cool, she's got potential for just as much as the Condesce, who had ties to Lord English. I wonder if she'll be instrumental in the final stages of the epilogues, if Alternate Calliope ends up being the/a end boss.

Can't shake the idea I'd like her to end up on Earth C, but then she'd not have a good role to play in a utopia, I think. But then what is her role in the story from here on out, exactly.

"MEENAH: damn buoy ya look like S)-(IT JOHN: yeah, i know. JOHN: i suffered a mortal wound, and then i threw up on myself." He didn't get better so much as that he walked it off.

"MEENAH: waterboat lord english MEENAH: he bite the bullet or what JOHN: yeah he’s... JOHN: he’s pretty fucking dead. MEENAH: whale MEENAH: theres that at least

There is definitely that, at least." Must feel like an anticlimax to Meenah too, probably. She wasn't around to see the guy bite it that was responsible for their own universe being forced to be scratched.

"You were kind of hoping you’d discover a survivor you could have an actual conversation with. Not that you aren’t glad to see Meenah, but you don’t /know/ her, and she’s not who you were really looking for." Funny how Meenah grew on John so much, what with how she ran him through on at least two occasions. I was thinking at first John was looking for Vriska, but that's just an automatism, a left over from when John still felt something for her. Of course, I forgot about Jade.

"That reminds you. JOHN: hey, uh... JOHN: mee... JOHN: fish? JOHN: (christ.)" Is that supposed to be a fish pun in her name, him using one cause he knows she likes them? Or is it that Dirk may remember Meenah's name (hearsay, in his case, since he's post-retcon - then again, ultimate self), but not John. :P

"JOHN: have you by any chance seen jade around? MEENAH: who da fuck is jade"PFffff, hah! Now she gets a chance as well to broadcast her ignorance in the names of the people in the other parties. 'THEY'RE ALL NAMED CARLOS AS FAR AS I'M CONCERNED.'

"JOHN: i mean, REALLY? JOHN: you don’t know jade?" The time she spent a lot of time dreaming in the dreambubbles was before the A1 trolls ever became relevant. On the three year trip, the indication seemed to be they just met a lot of A2 ghosts from alternate timelines in their dreams.

"JOHN: jade’s like, a big deal? JOHN: i thought you were kind of important too?" Well, different circles. Top of class vs. top dog on the play yard.

"MEENAH: you didnt even know my name dog" He knew you were an alternate to Betty Crocker, though. :P

"You’ve never been accused of having stellar people-reading skills. But even you can tell the look on her face says it all right now." Well, just be glad he isn't Jake, or even a death glare wouldn't suffice.

"JOHN: wait a minute. JOHN: do you even know MY name? MEENAH: uhhh" Pfffff, hah! Actually, valid question. What with how she referred to even her friends by last name (okay, that's because they weren't revealed yet), and had all those nicknames for them (and Karkat and Aradia)... Maybe she's just really bad with names.

"MEENAH: like MEENAH: joke? MEENAH: joke somefin" Wrong bespectacled nerd, but I can see why she'd mix them up. :P Close enough, though!

"JOHN: joke is my biological father. JOHN: i mean JAKE! JOHN: jake is his name." No, I think jokes might actually have fathered you. :P What with how he's a trickster and all.

"Halfway through this exchange, Meenah pulls out a small, clamshell-shaped accessory kit, and begins to file her nails." This is starting to turn into an awkward schoolyard conversation between classmates that don't really know each other.

"She almost dislocates her jaw by yawning the moment you mention Jake." Which is funny because Jake could've dislocated her jaw when he pounced on her when he thought she was past Condesce. :P

"You decide to do her, as well as yourself, the favor of completely ruling out the possibility of eliciting any valuable information from this person." No, Dirk, I do think she still has an ace up her sleeve, even if she doesn't even know it yet. But at least maybe now they'll acknowledge the server?

"MEENAH: i aint moved from this floatin hunger trunk lookin piece of shit since i got my bass kicked" Hah, yeah, it does look like a fridge, in Andrew's art style. :P

"JOHN: well, you’re the first i’ve seen too. MEENAH: oh" I wonder who she might have wanted to find, besides Vriska.

"JOHN: so what’s your plan now?" Don't think she has any left, now. You'll have to lead, Johnnyboy.

"JOHN: you just gonna hang around here, in the middle of nowhere, doing nothing forever? MEENAH: thats what ghosts is most good at aint they" It wasn't what she set out to do, initially, though! She hates inertia.

"JOHN: you don’t have to stay here. JOHN: i can take you back with me, to my planet." Aha! It would have all sorts of implications, of course, since she didn't "win" by any measure. So the victory state would not account for her presence. It won't happen just yet, of course.

"Meenah stares at you for an uncomfortably long time. She looks you up and down, like she’s making certain calculations. On the one hand, spending infinity clinging to a fridge-like space computer circling a black hole sounds like a drag. On the other hand, will her coolness and street cred be able to survive any prolonged association with this dumb blue nerd? That’s what she could be thinking, you think. You hope not though, because if true, it would hurt your self-esteem." I give Meenah more credit than that - her attitude is part of a facade - but she could indeed be thinking exactly that. On the other hand, she might actually genuinely not know if he's "fo' real", one, and two, what she'd even do on his planet. ... Also, is John really asking a girl over to his place? He truly IS an adult. :P

"She finally appears to make up her mind. MEENAH: naaah" Hah, as if it's a drag for her. And what's her motivation then?

"MEENAH: ok for one thing genius MEENAH: im dead" Well, that's not a problem, though she wouldn't know. John still has the Ring of Life with him. But I wonder what the other reason is.

Hah, Blaperile points out that Meenah at one point told John specifically not to give her the ring, cause she didn't like how she turned out as Condesce. Right, she might think living is no longer her thing. Which is hilarious for a Life player. Still think John might make the proposition.

Also, she thinks she might not fit in with the others, but she doesn't have to worry. They're all disasters, one and all.

"MEENAH: i wont even last on your planet ill just like MEENAH: fade away or some shit MEENAH: i dont know what happens to ghosts in real places actually but ima guess it goes somefin like that" See also: what ever happened to Aranea after Game Over. :P

"MEENAH: anyway while you was floatin there i came up with my own plan" ? There's not a lot of options here, really. The Black Hole... Mugging John... Lazying about...

"JOHN: what is it? MEENAH: cmere MEENAH: gonna whisper it to you" Option A) she screams. Option B) she mugs him for the ring. Option C) she'll stab him again, assuming he's another hologram self.

"You lean in rather credulously, and bring your ear toward her cupped hand. MEENAH: (nerd)

You pull back, unamused by the prank. What is this, you think. Fucking amateur hour?" Hah, chances are high she just swiped the ring. Or the wallet. Once a Thief... But heheh, still funny how Meenah likes to prank. Seems like Condesce and Sassacre really found one another. :P

"MEENAH: reel cute you wanna be my savior blue boy MEENAH: but the fact is you already helped me out MEENAH: got everyfin i need from you MEENAH: sea ya round sucker! 38)" She putting the ring on now? But uh, she'd spawn on Earth C, right? Or right there?

"She’s laughing her ass off. Before you can react, she jams the button down on the beacon and opens the server. She jumps into the hatch and the door snaps closed behind her." ... What! WHAT??? ... She's not in cahoots with Alternate Calliope, is she? She might just be trying to defeat the end boss herself. At least, if the server still leads to where the Green Sun used to be.

"Oh shit." ... It doesn't lead to Dirk now, does it?

"I think I know what just happened. You might want to check your pockets." So, if she took the wallet and not the ring, that means what's inside the wallet is relevant to the plot!

"Sure enough, it’s missing. The Ring of Life you stole back from Aranea has been re-stolen. Bitch just picked your pocket. You got played, man." Wow. So she's actually decided to go through with getting resurrected. ... Although it could actually be for Alternate Calliope, but then what would even the implications of her resurrection be?? It would be a parallel to how Condy worked for LE. But if there's two alive Calliopes that ended up on Earth C, I suspect there might be an impersonation at one point.

Yeah, so if both wear a Ring of Life/Void... Maybe that'd have funky repercussions as well. Not to mention they're both versions of the same "ultimate self" - although 'our' Calliope's not a god tier, there might be a bleedover again, like with Jade. But Alternate Calliope might want to dispose of Calliope, if she wants to become the only version of them. Then again, she did specifically tell her other to go and enjoy life.

---

I wonder if it'll become relevant at any point that having everyone in the dreambubbles follow you would supposedly grant you the boon of resurrection. Since there's so few people left out here, it seems like it could have become a feasible thing to do. In fact, it might be that this is represented by Alternate Calliope's resurrection, if events really play out like that: Meenah might be the only other ghost left. Unless there are still the other A2 ghosts we're missing, from the character list.

[lightsandlostbells]

Skam NL episodes 4 and 5 reaction

This is incredibly late but there was no way I was not going to write about Engel’s detour into waxing hell.

Episode 4

Clip 1 - Piesiepoepselaar

Isa and Kes are lying together in the morning and it’s very serene. He’s had the same nightmare as Jonas did in the original, though I think the context is different … russ is like a thing that Jonas objects to on principle, would Kes be against just taking a city trip?

He’s like, “You took off your shirt and made out with everyone, boys and girls.” Lmao, I don’t think Isa is going to get that wild in Tallinn.

Isa replies that she’ll only take off her shirt for Kes. So this isn’t really a hint of an actual problem or any condescension on his part, they’ve re-purposed this exchange into some purely flirty interaction.

This cute moment is interrupted by Isa’s mom unexpectedly popping in. She calls her daughter “pissing pooper”? Hands down the best/worst nickname I have heard a parent call their child. And of course Kes loves it.

Clip 2 - Orgy preparation

Isa gets a call from “Pap” soooo her dad is still kind of in the picture?

Engel bounds up to Isa, she looks very happy to see her. And when Janna and Imaan come up, she also looks happy to see them. Engel is so cute.

Except LMAO, GOD. She addresses Imaan with “Salaam-Alaikum,” and seems a little proud of herself, as if she Googled “how to speak Muslim” over the weekend. So I guess instead of being an outright exclusionary racist, she’s going to be like … a well-intentioned white ally who goes too far and ends up othering her Muslim friend by not treating her the same as the non-Muslims? That’s a pretty interesting take. It certainly puts Engel in a better light than Vilde, since she is trying to be inclusive rather than rejecting Imaan, but it also explores Imaan’s struggle with having to deal with people treating her differently than her peers, or changing their behavior toward her since she’s a Muslim.

Imaan is just like “.... Hi.” I feel like at some point she’s going be like, “Look, you can just treat me like you’d treat anyone else.”

Janna starts coughing, and at first I thought she was trying to salvage the awkward moment, but she’s actually gesturing for Engel to look over yonder because GUESS WHAT, a certain dude is climbing the stairs.

Dutch William has a very long coat and seems more like an artsy edgy hipster kid, maybe, than a regular king-of-the-school fuckboy. His head is down so we don’t get a full view of his face, it’s like he’s ~mysterious and gives no fucks.

That blond dude from the party, Gijs, is part of Dutch William’s (Noah’s) crew, of course, and nods in recognition to Isa. They’re like, HOLY SHIT, Isa, what happened there?

Apparently one of them (Gijs or Noah) the wildest parties, with orgies. And not some weak-ass orgies where people sit in the hot tub together. Full-on power orgies with naked bodies. Janna sure knows her orgy classifications.

Engel’s facial expressions when Janna mentions orgies, lmao. This little frown.

The girls are like, “There’s a party this Friday,” and Isa’s like “...OK?” Imaan has to explain that Janna and Engel want Isa to flirt with the guy so they can get in to the party. She takes Isa’s phone and does her thing. Well, that’s interesting because Imaan doesn’t seem so invested personally in going to the party? I mean, there’s no real benefit to their city trip. Is she doing it because Janna and Engel want to? Like she wants to be in with these girls and have friends?

Janna is amused and laughs at Imaan’s liking all of Gijs’ pics. Engel just seems stunned. A Muslim did that???? Maybe she had Imaan all wrong. Maybe she needs to consult Google again.

Clip 3 - BUY YOUR OWN GODDAMN FRIES

Isa, Kes, and Lucas go out for food. Isa is the only one to order fries, and when she asks if they want fries, they’re like nahhhh. IMMEDIATELY my bullshit detector went off. They’re going to steal her fucking fries, aren’t they?

At one point the word “EVEN” is visible through the window, heh.

Lucas has injured his left hand, which I am assuming is a thing the actor did IRL and they had to explain it into the story. Kes roasts Lucas about his injury (which happened while skateboarding) and Lucas is like, “At least I take risks.” Yeah, some of those risks will apparently involve fucking up your friends’ relationship?

Kes asks Isa if they’re going to hang out at her place, I am assuming just the two of them, while Lucas gives Kes a long look. Actually, those are some high-quality Looks that Lucas has been serving to Kes. Make sure this show gets to season 3, okay? So he can put his pining face to good use.

Kes says the whole thing about Isa’s mom not knowing about him, and that Isa is ashamed of him, and Lucas is like, well, she’s right!

But of course Gijs is now sending her messages about Isa’s IG stalking. Just as Kes is offering to cook for her and her mom. Isa, let him cook for you! That’s more proactive than any Jonas has offered yet, right?

Gijs is turned on by Isa stalking him. You know, I’ve never just how many kinks the P-Chrises have, like he’s into nerds, being stalked, pretending to be the Eva’s dad/mom/whatever ... he’s just up for anything.

Lucas mentions that Isa has too many new friends, maybe even a new boyfriend, and THAT is some snake-ass shit, planting that seed out there. Even if he’s just talking shit and kidding. He doesn’t know he’ll be kinda right, but man, will Kes remember that when shit hits the fan? Kes seemed so indifferent though, like he’s all “lady friends” and not taking it seriously. 

I WAS FUCKING RIGHT, THEY STEAL HER GODDAMN FRIES. Taking advantage of her distraction while messaging Gijs. 

This is the realest shit though, like nothing Jonas and Isak said about Eva’s involvement in russ compared to this disrespect. Teenage boys are the WORST.

But yeah, there’s not nearly as much putting down of Isa’s friends or activities (since who is gonna be like “it’s so CAPITALISTIC that you want to take a fun trip to a city”?) apart from some passive-aggressiveness about Kes not meeting Isa’s mom and Isa being too popular. Still, it feels less mean, and Isa didn’t seem as attacked. 

Clip 4 - The most important conversation I’ve ever heard

The title of this clip was “full bush baby” and I was like … is that really going to refer to what I think it is? Like either we are talking about a small primate, or someone’s private hedge maze.

I love Janna looking like a hot mess in every scene. Like she literally rolled out of her bed, which is an ostrich nest, and went to school. She’s telling a story about opening a beer in class while Engel looks bothered about something in the background.

OH MY GOD, Engel looks troubled not because of any angsty Noah pining or Imaan drama or any of what you’d expect, but because she shaved her pubic hair and it itches. WE STAN.

…. Is this taking the place of the birth control conversation??? Instead of Engel asking about birth control, she wants the girls to tell her how they remove their pubic hair? 

I am not remotely surprised that Janna is a full bush baby.

Imaan saying she dyes hers red, white, and blue = MY LOVE.

Engel takes that completely seriously judging by her confused little face. Engel’s life is 90% confusion.

Janna says if she waxes, she can wax a lightning bolt. Please be a Harry Potter reference. (You know, I’m sure wizards have hair removal spells and all, but I’m imagining someone being like ACCIO PUBES and ripping out everything at once.)

Engel is nervous about waxing. Oh my God, instead of the nurse, are they going to go for a bikini wax together?????

Isa gets a text. Turns out they’re going to the party! Engel gets excited and starts throwing out outfit possibilities.S he rambles a bit and then Imaan does the “shhh, you talk too much” moment. 

Now it feels a little out of place, because Engel, while not behaving perfectly, has been way less of an ass to Imaan? And I get that this is for Engel’s own preservation, sort of, but they’re not trying to gain social capital at the level that Vilde and Sana were. The OG girl squad wanted to attract cool people to their bus and hook up with popular boys; NL girl squad isn’t concerned with getting cool people on their trip, and while they want to go to parties, they don’t have this firm objective of hooking up with the popular dudes. So the moment seemed a bit out of nowhere. I mean, Engel rambling about her outfits is tedious, but harmless.

Imaan has some gorgeous lashes, by the way.

Clip 5 - This is a very serious show

Oh my God, they DID go for a bikini wax. So is the state of Engel’s pubic hair going to be a plot point? Does she want it to look groomed for him? 

Okay, I’m laughing that Norwegian-style bush is a heart (ALT ER LOVE), French pubes are a mustache, and Dutch hedges are … flames? A flower? A flower for the ladygarden.

THE GRAVE IMPORTANCE OF THIS SCENE. The music and the cherub mural really add to the atmosphere.

Janna talks about an ass wax because of course she does.

I love that you hear a scream from the other room. Perfect.

I laughed out loud that Engel just shakes her head and runs. And that Imaan puts her arms around the girls and eggs them on.

I like Skam to have a plot and all but I would thoroughly enjoy 10 episodes of just random calamities in pubic hair removal.

Clip 6 - Orgy time

OH DAMN, I LOVE

This is my favorite episode 4 (or equivalent) power walk other than the original. I LOVE it. The song choice! The girls look like they’re having a blast. Engel jumping on Liv’s back!!! Imaan yelling in sync with the rooster crying!!! 

ESPECIALLY with the juxtaposition of this badass power walk, the girls getting hyped and feeling cool on the way to the party - because yeahhhh!!!! Young and free, bitches!!!!! - with the pause where they’re actually standing in front of the door, debating over who has to ring the bell. That’s utterly beautiful, I love it. Expectations vs. reality right there. 

Liv being like “It’s open,” lol.

Engel knows Olivia and company, I don’t think they said how?? Because we knew how Vilde knew Ingrid. But I mean, they go to school together, soooo. (Or did Engel get kicked off a city trip group?)

Janna, you promised an orgy, and this is a bunch of teenagers drinking and dancing in a basement. The clothes are most definitely on.

I was spoiled for Janna’s making out with a girl, but I still got hella excited when she and this girl were sticking out their tongues at each other.

Lmao, is Engel rambling about her car malfunctions to Noah? Maybe Imaan was right to shush her.

Also, Engel’s dad is in the picture. Or was, at a certain point.

Okay I don’t know if maybe this is fashionable for Dutch kids, but I love that Noah is wearing this baggy old man shirt. 

And that his kiss with Engel is a little awkward.

Who is this kid. Why is he like this.

Lmao, Liv telling Isa to talk to Gijs about Tallinn so he’ll leave. Does not bode well for their city trip if that’s what she thinks?

WHOOPS, Isa forgot that dinner with Kes was supposed to happen.

Gijs does not know Tallinn is a city, so he’s like, “Who’s Tallinn?” lmao.

JANNA AND THAT GIRL GOING TO TOWN, YESSSSSSSS

So in terms of Skam remake wlw content, I believe we have:

Skam France: Alexia is bi. Of course I appreciate this but they haven’t really spotlighted it outside of like one or two comments, and they don’t really integrate her sexuality into the story or into the dialogue even when it would be relevant (which is a big problem with Skam France as a whole). It’s canon by the actress’ Word of God.

Druck: Mia is bi. In canon she “doesn’t like labels” and is shown to make out with Hanna, though that was for telling off Alexander. Bi by word of God.

Skam Austin: Shay takes Isak’s place in the story, having a crush on Megan which is her character’s motivation. This is the biggest wlw content, clearly, since Shay will hopefully get her own season. The character is a lesbian and her sexuality plays a role in the story, plus I’m pretty sure the actress is a lesbian herself (and is a black lesbian so we have intersectional diversity).

Skam NL: Janna makes out with a girl at a party. HOPEFULLY she isn’t straight and this isn’t just a drunken makeout because girls kissing at a party is hot. I hooooope.

Hmmm, you know what? I actually buy Imaan’s throwing water at Olivia a lot more, because Engel has at least tried to be nice to Imaan. Like I understand that Sana is fiercely loyal and once she’s on your team, she’s with you 110%, so once she’s with the girl squad, she’s ride or die. But assuming Imaan was throwing water at Olivia because Olivia called Engel a slut, I get why. Engel has been awkward and othered Imaan but she’s tried to be nice. (But for Engel, you know she’s going to be like WTF?)

I love this closing song as they run away into the night!

Is it wrong that I kind of like Noah so far? Because I get that he’s likely going to come with all of William’s bullshit, but ... he’s fucking weird, man. 

Episode 5

Clip 1 - Making a family party awkward

Kes’ sister is a cutie!

Oh, I love that we got a little glimpse of his family? His mom, and his grandparents.

This really changes the tone of this scene from the original, because Eva goes over and encounters Jonas when he’s just hanging out with his friends and being passive-aggressive, and it felt like having the boys there made Jonas ramp up his attitude. Kes appears to be relaxed, he’s having a good time with his family. I wonder if these are the actor’s real relatives? The boys look like they could be his brothers.

But Kes does get in a passive-aggressive comment about her friends, and he’s been ignoring her for a few days.

Also, Lucas isn’t part of this moment where they’re ganging up on Isa, when the Isak is typically snickering at what’s happening.

We cut inside where relatives are having a pleasant time while the Youths fight. We don’t hear their argument but I mean, we know what they’re talking about.

Kes is like, “I forgot about the dinner,” as if he’s not upset, which makes Isa storm out, and his family notices that she’s upset.

Isa is out on the street and she once again puts in her earbuds and listens to music to get out her feelings. I like that as a stress release/coping tactic/whatever you want to call it for her.

This is a Sigrid song, by the way! “Strangers,” a totally appropriate song for relationship dysfunction and dismantling the perfect movie romance. Really interesting with Isa’s somewhat romanticized view of love - sometimes you just know, that’s how it’s supposed to be, etc.

Is Kes going to run out after her?

Nope, he doesn’t run after her. Not like in the movies. Isa just does a walk down the street. She’s not happy but it seems like listening to music steadies her a bit and gives her an outlet for her emotions so that she’s not a total mess.

Clip 2 - Engel does not know how the pill works, sigh

The title of this clip was Het is Zover and there was a still of Liv so I was like … are we finally headed down this f/f romcom route? Het is Over? (I know, I know, it has an actual meaning in Dutch.) But it ended up referring to something heterosexual, lmao.

I like Isa’s little toucan key chain.

Isa is not in a good mood, Liv looks fondly at her girl and asks about Kes. Liv knows what’s up with 17-year-old boys.

Engel pops up and says it’s time for her and Noah to go to the bone zone. Isa is like, that was fast. So I guess they are going down this sex storyline; the wax was a fun bonus.

Engel being like “I know It’s Time because I DMed with Noah all weekend and he’s perfect” - God help us.

Engel asks for the pill like she’s asking for ibuprofen, and when she says eh, it’ll be nothing then, Liv is like nuh uh, you’re going to the doctor. Thank you, Liv.

Engel gets them to agree to go by offering a bottle of wine each. When Isa tells Liv that she (Liv) doesn’t even drink, Liv is like, two for you, right? WHOOOOOOA. True love right there.

I had the worst thought and wondered if Engel’s failure to get her pubes waxed is going to lead to Noah making a shit comment about them later, like when Engel confronts him. Because teenage boys think girls should be completely hairless, like porn stars or babies! 

Clip 3 - Isa can’t sleep

Isa is watching a video on her phone when she gets a notification about something her dad posted. It’s a little kid getting a swimming certificate, so I’m guessing that’s her dad’s new family.

Isa gets up to go sit on her mom’s bed. She asks for a foot rub, which her mom gives her, until her mom starts asking about Olivia and Tess. Then the feet come back up to Isa’s chest.

Her mom’s like, I’m just trying to show interest. Isa is probably thinking that’s more than her dad does. She extends a leg again.

Perhaps that’s why Isa opens up to her and tells her she has a boyfriend. When she tells her mom his name is Kes, her mom doesn’t comment on it being Olivia’s boyfriend’s name or anything, so maybe she didn’t know Kes and Olivia dated? 

Isa asks her mom whether she thought she and her dad would be together forever, and then when she change her mind. Isa’s mom says that sometimes things go differently from how you expected. I really like this scene. It goes in with Isa “just knowing” that you’re meant to be with someone, as mentioned in episode 2, and then this reality that crashes in on you. It’s awesome that they tied in these elements of Isa’s absent father and divorced/separated parents, Isa’s relationship with her mom who’s locked out of certain elements in her life, and Isa’s relationship with Kes to the overall idea of being with someone forever. I think Isa questioning the nature and longevity of love could end up being a really satisfying part of her arc. I can’t wait to see the final clip of the season; I hope they modify her speech to Kes so that it fits with all these moments and what she’s learned.

She gets back into bed and apologizes to Kes for being a bitch sometimes, because obviously she doesn’t want their relationship to end, and then stares at the ceiling with that one damn glow in the dark shooting star.

Clip 4 - Doctor visit

The girls go to the doctor with Engel. Liv and Imaan entertain themselves by playing with a model of a torso. Kes and Isa make up via text, he says he loves her even when she’s angry.

I love that Engel looks small in that big chair against the giant window, truly mimicking how overwhelmed she must be feeling.

Where’s Janna? I have to say that I look forward to her reactions on anything vagina-related. 

I guess she had to miss the fun because she had to make up for being late to German, but it’s really cool how Imaan volunteered to join them considering I think the Sanas usually sit this excursion out.

The doctor comes out and IT’S A MAN THIS TIME??? Oh fuck!

I mean I know plenty of women don’t have a problem with a male OB-GYN, but for a girl who’s perhaps afraid to get a bikini wax, I think she would be a little shy about talking about birth control with a dude.

This doc is handsome, not gonna lie. I can’t imagine if that would make it more or less awkward. I do think that it’s less awkward with your friends, so good call, Engel.

The doc is asking Engel some basic questions and Engel answers more confidently than I expected, so good for her. Imaan rats out Engel by saying she’s only known the guy for a week. Well, maybe it’s not the wisest choice, Imaan, but that means Engel should definitely be on birth control!

Liv also shares that Noah sleeps with the whole school, and the doc mentions that the pill only helps with pregnancy, not STDs. Bless him. I mean he’s just doing his job, but bless. This is a good message to include on the show.

OH MY GOD when that doc brought out the dildo for the condom demonstration. He was completely matter-of-fact and professional but geeeeez I would have found this to be the most embarrassing thing at 16.

Clip 5 - CONDOMS, ENGEL, CONDOMS CONDOMS CONDOMS

The girls evaluate condom choices. Strawberry, banana, glow-in-the-dark. Don’t get the banana ones. I love real bananas but artificial banana flavor on anything is a gamble. 

I can’t tell, who said that king-sized wasn’t for Noah? Janna? I want to give her an award.

This clip was so short but I loved it! Just sweet and funny, wonderful girl squad dynamic, adorable.

As an aside, please watch the first 30 seconds of this scene and imagine it with Engel as Rose, Janna as Blanche, and Imaan as Dorothy.

Clip 6 - Engel’s softcore fashion fantasy

Janna has the right idea by blowing up a condom into an elephant trunk.

Janna doesn’t remember anything from her first time. That bit never stops being alarming, tbh.

Janna is also adamant that Noah needs to do his best and make sure Engel has an orgasm. Good job, Janna! That’s something I’ve always wondered with the Williams of the show: do they actually try to make the experience pleasurable for the Vildes? Because Vilde is like, “It was great!” but she’s also speaking from inexperience, and she might just be overcompensating, who knows? I mean, I don’t think she would actually tell the girls if it sucked.

Engel doesn’t know what an orgasm feels like, she doesn’t know how to get wet, she doesn’t want to get horny. Look, everyone should learn at their own pace, but my professional opinion is that this poor girl should take some time on her own before sleeping with a random dude she has known for a week. 

Who hasn’t even arrived on time to get laid. Oh God, please just blow her off completely? Don’t make us and Engel go through this again. Lesser of two evils.

Janna eats a banana. I just wanted to write that.

Liv is there to administer horny-making fantasies to Engel. Lmao, Isa had to get up off her chair and go sit on the bed next to Liv while Liv is talking dirty. I wonder why….

Ohhhh my God. This fantasy of Engel’s? WOW. It is really not “allowed” within the Skam format but honestly, fuck it, this is too weird not to appreciate. This is some ’90s music video realness, I expected 98 Degrees to walk out. Except it mostly focuses on Engel’s attire and makeup and hair, so maybe it’s more like a perfume ad?

Lmao, Engel getting turned on by herself more than Noah really stands out when you see the visual.

Janna tells the anecdote about getting turned on by donkeys, but it was supposedly just a whole other village that had the donkey kink rather than her. Bless her.

The girls need to get out because Kes is supposed to arrive, but of course, when Isa opens the front door, it’s Noah, come for his booty call. Isa’s mom is really cute in how she’s excited to see “Kes.”

Engel is? “Not my girlfriend.” Noah, you dumb fuck. Why do you need to clarify that shit to someone’s mom who you’re only going to know for like two seconds?

I mean, it’s foreshadowing as to Noah’s fuckboy ways, and that Engel will get her heart broken, but duuuuude quell your ass down.

Isa is like, nah mom, those girls tripping on the stairs and babbling weren’t drunk! Lol, sure.

When Isa calls Kes, it absolutely sounds like he was at a party with the level of background chatter. You hear Olivia’s voice clearly but they’re definitely surrounded by people.

Of course Kes is not coming, and Isa’s mom overhears enough on the phone conversation to realize. She tells her that they can eat, just the two of them. I really like Isa’s mom, she’s cute.

Great sad closing song.

General Comments/Social Media

Engel stuck Liv’s own song on their Tallinn playlist and Liv’s like, time to delete that! 

I love Janna naming the group chat weird stuff, and everyone acknowledging that group chat names are never normal.

This remake makes my heart so warm! The girl squad is so lovely and fun. I adored the pubic hair side plot, lmao, and the twists on the doctor visit and the condom retrieval. Little moments like that with the girls have made the dynamic so entertaining.

As for the boys, I think Lucas is a fantastic Isak. Kes has his typical Jonas S1 dickhead moments, but he’s also got charm, and God help me but I am enjoying Noah’s whatever-the-fuck-ness. Like I’m aware he’s going to be a creep, but currently I like taking the piss out of him and his wardrobe and attitude. 

As I mentioned previously, I think they’re doing some great moments with Isa’s character arc and tying in her family issues to her relationship issues, and having her talk about love or question love in the abstract. 

I am not Dutch, so feel free to correct me if I missed anything.

If you got this far, thank you for reading!

[marichci]

( KIM JUNG EUN, 20, she/her) - That’s MARI CHOI, I hear that the CLAIMED DAUGHTER of APHRODITE has been here for TWO years! I also hear that they’re COURAGEOUS & RESOURCEFUL, but that they’re also TWO FACED & BITTER! 

Theme song: Seashore - the Regrettes [ playlist ] Zodiac: Capricorn [ dec 30 ]

bio, hcs, powers, etc under the cut

-  Mari has its origins from the ancient Korean language. It's original meaning is "mountaintop" but it also means "good, the best, the first, etc"

[ PINTEREST ]

BIOGRAPHY

‘You look like your mother. If only you actually were her.’ Those were the last words her father said to Mari before she stormed out of their penthouse in the middle of New York City, about two years ago now.

Mari Elle Choi is the daughter of a rich Korean diplomat who worked for the Korean embassy in the US. Their home base was mainly in New York, but he traveled a lot, taking his home schooled daughter and her nanny/tutor with him. Before she came to camp, Mari had no actual place to call home, since New York didn’t seem much like home either. Paris, Los Angeles, Washington, Seoul, Amsterdam, New York, Beijing; every city she ever went to was just a passing acquaintance. The only two constants in her life were her father and her tutor, who was like a mother to her. Or at least more of a parental figure than her father ever was. Mari was a footnote in his life. Aphrodite had been the peak of his love life. She’d left him broken and with a child he didn’t want. After her, he’d searched for the goddess in every women he had an affair with, which were a lot. He didn’t spend much time with his daughter, Eventually even Mari’s tutor, probably the only person she was actually attached to and who had ever shown her genuine love and who she dared to love because she trusted the woman wouldn’t leave. That changed of course when her relationship with Elle’s father went south and so at 18, Mari lost the only real constant in her life.

All of this piled up made her lose trust in people. They always leave in the end right? The evening her father kicked Mari’s tutor out of their lives, they’d just come back from some fancy event that had to do with her father’s job. Mari’s father travelled a lot between Asia and America, but this particular time he’d been sent to Europe for about a week. Italy to be precise. Monsters are even more of a hazard there than back in the states of course. However, back then Mari had no idea she was a demigod. She got in a fight with her father about his affair with her tutor, and as a result she stormed out of their hotel suite onto the streets of Rome. All these years she’d been protected by always being surrounded by tons of security and changing locations so often. She’d never go out on her own, always having her tutor or a bodyguard with her. Now she ventured into the winding streets of Rome, only to be met with a trio of Empousai. She narrowly escaped, using the charmspeak that she had developed as a young child in a manipulative environment. She did end up with a scar, now a long white line running from her hip to just above her knee.

She had to go to the hospital of course, to the annoyance of her father. He’d never known her mother’s true identity, only that he’d never met a women like her. Ironically he had always described her as divine or a goddess. Mari also had trouble reconciling what had happened with the reality she knew. Besides, her father had always reminded her of the importance of keeping his image intact. They were supposed to play perfect family at any events, to the point where Mari told everyone her mother had died in childbirth. 

So when it came to telling people what had landed her in the hospital, she twisted it into something more easily to grasp for any normal human being, including herself. The story as she told it was that she was attacked by three random homeless girls, some sort of robbery gone wrong. However, a satyr who was disguised as a nurse at the hospital picked up on the plot holes in the story that didn’t make sense to anyone else, but where red flags to him. When Mari’s dad had left - admittedly not very long after Mari had arrived at the hospital - the satyr convinced her to come to camp, even if she was very sceptical at first. She mostly agreed because she didn’t want to stay with her dad anymore, blaming him for her tutor leaving. She told him it was some kind of boarding school and rehabilitation centre, and he agreed to let her go because well, he wouldn’t have to hire a new tutor or extra body guard in that way.

She got claimed by Aphrodite pretty much the moment she stepped into camp. Some kind of cruel irony, she had never thought much about any gods existing, let alone that she was a daughter of one of them. And then especially the goddess of love, she hated it. It only further made her believe true love is a sham. If there are love gods managing every move, plotting people’s lives? Then love surely just isn’t real. However, in the past two years she has learned that her mother stands for much more than just romantic love, and though she still doesn’t believe in love, she has become a bit softer towards other kinds of love. Her siblings, who showed her what family is supposed to be like for the first time, helped with that too. It’s still something she struggles with however, and also with the stereotypes attached to being a daughter of Aphrodite.

HEADCANONS

- Mari carries two knifes with her at all times. They’re made by the Hephaestus cabin, and she helped design them. They’re very thin and easy to hide under clothing, like the hemline of her skirts for example. If she has any more spots where she can hide weapons, she often adds a butterfly knife or other small blades. - This habit has originated from the attack that lead to her being brought to camp. She felt utterly out of control, terrified and helpless in that instant. Before that night, she’d just been a rich kid who hung out more with her father’s colleagues and bodyguards then people her own age. She’d never had to fight before. After the initial shock of arriving at camp had faded, she threw herself into a busy training schedule, and now she is very skilled at hand to hand combat. - She could be an assassin at this point, if she wanted to. She knows how to hide weapons, she knows how to use them so subtly that no one notices. She’s pretty deadly, but it’s not in her nature to actually go down that path. - Since her entire childhood was spend practically friendless, she has trouble interacting with people her age sometimes, though there are a few exceptions. Like the girl she met at a fancy event in nyc shortly before she moved to camp, who later turned out to be one of her sisters (cough amiria cough). It has also gotten better since she has arrived at camp and is surrounded by solely people under 25, instead of solely people who are 35 and older. - However, she is very well versed in pop culture, because social media. Duh. - She is fluent in English and French, and conversational in Korean, Italian, German, Chinese, Spanish and Dutch, just from overhearing it while visiting those countries so often. - Since she spend most of her life playing the role of the perfect daughter, and still has to take on that role occasionally when her dad drags her to events to keep up his image, she has learned to be very charming. This was also how she developed her charmspeak abilities from a young age. - At camp she often lets that facade drop however, and you’ll get a more straight-to-the-point version of her. - Besides being pretty badass, she’s still very feminine. She’ll kick your ass in heels and a skirt, basically. - If you wake her up too early she’ll kill you. Literally. She sleeps with a knife under her pillow after a certain instance of one of her eros cousins thinking he could bring her breakfast on her birthday. He regretted that.

POWERS

- they have magical control over clothes, makeup, and jewelry. they are able to change it's colour, shape, material, etc. the only thing they can't do is summon anything out of nowhere. - they have the ability to temporarily change their physical features. (rare) - they have the ability to speak fluent french. - they have the ability to make makeup appear on others or themselves. - they have the ability to curse people so all of their clothes are two sizes too small for them for a period of time. (saps energy) amokinesis:- they can sense when someone is in love and who they are in love with. - they can make people temporarily fall in love with them. charmspeak: (rare)- selected children of aphrodite can influence other with the strength of their voices.

[suchagiantnerd]

28 Books, 1 Year

Well, 2020, amirite? Staying home with a 4-year-old and a baby really decreased my reading time, bringing me to my lowest total ever since starting this blog. Here we go!

1. Her Body and Other Parties / Carmen Maria Machado

I rarely feel stupid when reading fiction, but this collection of short stories left me feeling pretty stupid. Machado's writing is visceral and gorgeous but what she's trying to say is mostly beyond me. Overall, the collection (as evident by the title) looks at the ways existing in a woman's body is fraught. Sometimes we want to escape our bodies, often our bodies are harmed or taken advantage of against our will, sometimes our bodies fail us. But as for the more nitty-gritty takeaways, I couldn't get there. One story in particular is staying with me. In it, Machado invents new summaries of each and every episode of Law & Order: SVU, telling a tale of a living, breathing New York City that requires regular blood sacrifices and in which everyone has a doppelgänger. I liked it, but definitely didn't get it.

2. Moon of the Crusted Snow / Waubgeshig Rice

This wonderfully chilling read takes place on a remote reserve in Northern Ontario. Over the course of a few days, cell service stops, the internet goes down, and the power goes out. With no communication possible with other communities, the reserve's residents can only guess at what may be occurring down south. As autumn creeps toward winter, the snow piles up and panic sets in. Eventually, a visitor arrives via snowmobile and confirms the residents' worst fears about the state of civilization while also asking to stay on in the community. Can he be trusted? Will others follow? This was a tense page-turner looking at the importance of community, preparedness and leadership.

3. Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar / Cheryl Strayed

Dear Sugar's advice to a person who didn't know whether or not he wanted kids is what turned me onto her. The answer was perfect. For someone on the fence, there is no right answer, no wrong answer. But there was a simple beauty to the way she said this. In this advice column collection, Sugar answers questions about love, parenthood, friendship, loss, death, finances, education, hopes and dreams. She insists again and again that we open our hearts and give forgiveness a chance while still maintaining healthy boundaries. And through her answers (and anecdotes) she showers love and care on so many devastated readers who are often writing to her as a last resort.

4. Girlfriend in a Coma / Douglas Coupland

We start the action with a Breakfast Club-type group of teens at a party in 1979 Vancouver. One of them, Karen, ends the night in a coma and doesn’t wake up for 16 YEARS. Also, turns out she was pregnant, and gives birth while in the coma. Richard, her boyfriend, raises their daughter with the help of his parents and friends, and by the time Karen wakes up again, the world has gone downhill. Not long after she wakes up, everyone starts falling asleep and dying except for the original group of friends and Karen’s daughter. I liked this novel as I’m a sucker for everything dystopian, but I also had to ask WHY? Why this random group of teens out of all the world? Why did Karen have to be in a coma for so long? How does it tie into the apocalypse? I still don’t know guys. I still don’t know.

5. How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence / Michael Pollan

Back in the 1960s, research on LSD was banned thanks to a moral panic. But today, scientists and therapists are starting to study its uses again. Pollan takes a deep dive into the future of LSD, psilocybin (certain mushrooms, and if I remember correctly, a substance that a certain toad secretes?!) and DMT, taking various trips himself with the help of trained guides. His vivid descriptions of each trip were the highlight of the book, and I find myself, someone who has never tried anything other than pot, wanting to try microdosing in the future.

6. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine / Gail Honeyman

The first of two contrarian reviews this year, I really didn’t like this book. I found Eleanor’s character and quirks completely unbelievable, and even discovered a little hole in the plot demonstrating that she can’t be as out of touch with pop culture as Honeyman claims she is (which I can’t reveal to you because it’s also a spoiler). I think my issue is that as far as I know, the author is not neurodivergent, whereas Eleanor is. I think this does a real disservice to readers, and would much prefer to read something like this by a neurodivergent author.

7. The Story of the Lost Child / Elena Ferrante

I finally finished the Neapolitan Quartet series! The fourth and final book finds Elena and Lila in their thirties and follows them until they’re in their sixties as they navigate professional successes and failures, new aspects of motherhood, relationship woes, and a fraying friendship. The dynamics of the friendship at the core of this series speak to me so deeply and captures so much about the passion, tension, tenderness, and competition that lurk within a longtime platonic relationship.

8. The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle / Stuart Turton

Dare I describe this as Downton Abbey meets Black Mirror? Aidan Bishop wakes up on the same date and in the same setting every day (Blackheath Manor on Evelyn Hardcastle’s birthday) but as a different guest or employee each time. Each night, Evelyn Hardcastle is murdered. Aidan quickly learns that his task is to find the murderer, using the different skillsets and vantage points he inherits with each subsequent body. The tension! The twists! The gorgeous setting! I loved this winding, wild novel.

9. You Were Born for This: Astrology for Radical Self-Acceptance / Chani Nicholas

If you are an astrology lover and don’t know who Chani Nicholas is, you’ve been living under a rock! Follow this woman! Her practice and guidance is so inclusive - feminist, anti-racist, anti-transphobic, body positive, and all about how to discover and lean into your gifts and talents while keeping in mind the greater good and working toward a more progressive society.

10. An Ocean of Minutes / Thea Lim

I started reading this dystopian novel about a pandemic right at the start of the pandemic! Maybe not a wise decision, but it didn’t matter, because this book is a beautiful, moving read. In the near future, young couple Polly and Frank find themselves stranded in Galveston, Texas, when a deadly virus begins sweeping across the globe. Frank gets sick, and the only way that Polly can pay for his expensive life-saving treatment is if she signs up as a bonded laborer and travels to the future (yes, time-travel exists!) The couple agree to meet up in 12 years (which will really be just a few short days for Polly). However, Polly is send an extra five years into the future, and Frank is nowhere to be found. The worry I felt! Polly’s loneliness and confusion in the future! Will they find each other again? Oh boy, this was an emotional ride!

11. Where the Crawdads Sing / Delia Owens

The second of my two contrarian reviews this year, I also really disliked this book, which everyone else and their mother seemed to adore? It was bad! The plot felt really contrived, the characters were two-dimensional, and I felt icky about the author’s two Black characters and how the protagonist, Kya, interacted with them. I don’t think Delia is informed enough about the realities of the Black experience, then and now, to responsibly write Black characters. Also, the ‘twist ending’ was a snooze fest. The one redeeming factor was the author’s palpable love of and knowledge about nature. I really did enjoy reading about the coastal habitat and sea life that the Kya loved so much. Oh, what’s this novel about, you ask? It’s a combo coming-of-age / murder mystery set in the 1950s and 60s.

12. The Skin We’re In: A Year of Black Resistance and Power / Desmond Cole

Cole is a Canadian journalist and activist shining a much needed light on racism in this country. In this book, he highlights one incidence of systemic racism in action per month during the year of 2017, focussing on police brutality, harm caused by school boards and educators, the Canada 150 celebrations, and unjust immigration policies. This book packs a punch and Cole’s writing style is really accessible. It’s a great entry point into learning about the realities of racism in Canada.

13. Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds / Adrienne Maree Brown

I absolutely loved this book, though I find it hard to pin down. At its core, it encourages us to think more deeply and holistically about nature, social justice, and community. Brown is heavily influenced by Black sci-fi / dystopian master Octavia Butler, specifically Butler’s ideas around “shaping change” while living through change. It’s full of gems of wisdom, like this quote, which is one of my favourites: “Imagination is one of the spoils of colonization, which in many ways is claiming who gets to imagine the future for a given geography.” As Brown also writes about, and which we can really see in this moment, we are currently living through the tail-end of a dying society, imagined by a small few. What could we create together if everyone’s imaginings carried equal weight?

14. From the Ashes: My Story of Being Métis, Homeless, and Finding My Way / Jesse Thistle

Thistle’s emotional and turbulent memoir begins with a loving memory of his time as a little boy at his maternal grandparents’ home. Not long after, his parents moved the family away from their Métis community and Jesse and his two brothers soon end up in the foster care system. This experience, though relatively brief, absolutely traumatized all three of them. Later, they end up living with their paternal grandparents, who love them deeply but are extremely strict, which doesn’t work for Thistle. He hits various rock bottoms, battling with addiction, trauma and homelessness at the intersection of racism. And somehow, he manages to break free of these harmful cycles, go back to school, and become an academic and best-selling author.

15. Policing Black Lives: State Violence in Canada from Slavery to the Present / Robyn Maynard

I would call this a must-read for Canadians. Maynard breaks down exactly how Canada surveils and punishes Blackness despite its claims of inclusivity and tolerance. She explores policing, yes, but also social work, education, immigration, and education and it’s impossible not to see the levers of systemic racism at work everywhere. Fair warning though, this is a more academic text and requires real concentration.

16. Jhumpa Lahiri / Unaccustomed Earth

This collection of short stories (the last being more of a novella) was gripping. I somehow fell in love with almost all of the characters. Lahiri writes people so skillfully. I felt their longing, hope, sorrow, grief, excitement. Most of the tales take place within the Indian community in Cambridge, Massachusetts, but some stories take us further afield. Lahiri picks a key relationship to focus on within each story - daughter/father, sister/brother, two roommates, childhood acquaintances - and lays them out gently under her microscope for us to see in all their intricate complexity.

17. Midnight Sun / Stephenie Meyer

Did you guys know I’m a Twihard? Having read all the Twilight novels (multiple times) way before I started this blog, this may be new information. But I’m a huge, pathetic fan and though I love Jacob, I will always be Team Edward. So OF COURSE I had to read this extremely long-awaited book, which is actually Twilight, but from Edward’s point of view rather than Bella’s. It was genuinely enjoyable, but not filled with nearly enough sexual tension for my liking. And of course, never ever read it unless you are also a Twilight fan.

18. The Sun and Her Flowers / Rupi Kaur

It’s Rupi being Rupi! I legitimately enjoy Rupi’s poetry, but I don’t love it. Some of the pieces really resonate, and others do nothing for me. But I do think she’s an important voice for young women, and specifically young women of colour. So much of her writing is about reclaiming your power, honouring the older generation of women who sacrificed so much and received nothing in return, and learning to love yourself in a society that is constantly trying to hurt you. Her poetry is always an uplifting read.

19. Conscious Creativity: Look, Connect, Create / Philippa Stanton

I’ve been following Philippa on Instagram for years as I adore her flat-lays and domestic foraging arrangements (if you follow me on IG, you may have seen my colour-themed #DomesticForaging homages to her work!) So when she published a book outlining her own creative process (and containing tons of her gorgeous photography), I had to read it. Stanton has included lots of activities meant to light your creative spark and inspire new ways of looking at things. She also writes about her experiences as a synesthete (someone who may “see” music as colours or who may “hear” shapes), which was fascinating. This is a book I’ll certainly go back to when I’m feeling uninspired. Want to follow her on IG? Her handle is @5tfinf.

20. Turkey Trot Murder / Leslie Meier

Guys, this review is the start of something BIG. Brad knows that I love to read books that are “in season” (I don’t want to read a book set in the summer during the winter, etc.). So he bought me this very niche Thanksgiving mystery novel to read in October. It’s alllll fluff, and very much in the “so bad it’s good” category. It also turns out that Leslie Meier may be one of the most prolific authors of all time, and so Brad signed me up to her “book of the month” fan club for my birthday this year, meaning I get a new, seasonally appropriate Meier classic each month. (You should also know that the “book of the month” fan club is entirely made up, and the letters from Leslie are actually written by Brad, and yes, he has designed a logo for the letterhead.)

21. Haunted House Murder / Leslie Meier and Lee Hollis and Barbara Ross

Wait, what? THREE authors? Yes, some of the Leslie Meier classics are actually novellas, so they are combined with novellas by two other authors into these seasonal collections. Also, Lee Hollis isn’t even real. Lee Hollis is in fact TWO PEOPLE, a brother/sister writing duo! So there are four authors involved in this spooky little collection. They all take place in small-town Maine, so yes, the settings are adorable and the plots are terrible.

22. Autumn / Karl Ove Knausgaard

I think I would describe this memoir (?) as a collection of magical noticings. While his wife is pregnant with their fourth baby, Knausgaard starts writing letters to the unborn child, telling them about, well, everything and anything. That project turned into this book, in which the writer observes everyday things like hands, toilets, fog, petrol, and snakes, and finds the beauty and wonder in all of them. Reading this book left me feeling very inspired and wanting to try and develop this skill in myself as I write.

23. The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century / Kirk Wallace Johnson

Back in 2009, Edwin Rist stole HUNDREDS of dead birds from the British Museum of Natural History. That fact alone is mind-boggling (how?), but it gets wilder. He didn’t steal them for nerdy science reasons, he stole them to sell to the Victorian fly-tying community. Yes, flies as in the things you attach to fish hooks. And no, not flies that will actually be used, but flies that are constructed as a hobby and art form. Wallace Johnson does a great job of conveying Rist’s obsessive passion for fly-tying and the desperation many fly-tiers feel as they try to track down increasingly rare and protected feathers from exotic (or extinct) birds. The author also has a journalist’s nose for sniffing out lies and half-truths and even tracks down Rist himself for a sit-down interview. I was riveted throughout the whole book, which lives at the intersection of history, science, mystery, and psychological deep-dive.

24. Yule Log Murder / Leslie Meier and Lee Hollis and Barbara Ross

The seasonal fluff dream team is back! And yes, a yule log features prominently in each novella. Once as a murder weapon, and once as a suspected murder weapon! These books also feature real recipes, some of which actually look pretty tasty!

25. Empire of Wild / Cherie Dimaline

This was a chilling page-turner and the second novel of Dimaline’s that I’ve read and devoured. She’s quickly become one of my favourite authors. In this story, Joan, a Métis woman living in the Georgian Bay area, is at the tail-end of the worst year of her life. Almost a year ago, her husband Victor disappeared into thin air after a rare argument between the couple, and Joan’s been searching for him ever since. One day, she wanders past a Christian revival tent in a Walmart parking lot, and the minister is the spitting image of Victor. She manages to have a brief conversation with him and it appears he has no memory of her or his prior life. Yet, in her gut, she KNOWS it’s him and resolves to return him to himself (and to her). This slow-burning horror novel weaves in the Métis myth of the Rogarou, a werewolf-ish creature who walks lonely roads looking for victims, to great effect.

26. Eggnog Murder / Leslie Meier and Lee Hollis and Barbara Ross

Another seasonal romp in which this time, the eggnog is the murder weapon in TWO of the stories! TWO PEOPLE IN TWO SEPARATE STORIES DIE FROM DRINKING NUT MILK EGGNOG AND NOT KNOWING IT WAS NUT MILK AND SUFFERING FROM A NUT ALLERGY. Anyways, I actually made one of the included recipes this time - eggnog muffins - and they were truly delicious!

27. Watch Over Me / Nina LaCour

This is a beautiful and haunting (both literally and figuratively) YA novel about the way trauma from our past follows us around, haunting our present. Mila, who’s just aged out of the foster care system, lands what seems to be a perfect job helping to teach younger children at a farm in Northern California. The farm is owned by an older couple who’ve become somewhat famous for taking in dozens of kids from the foster system over the years. Upon arrival, Mila falls in love, but soon starts to notice strange things about the way things are done on the farm, while also suffering from PTSD related to her own childhood traumas. Is there something sinister going on, or could this beautiful, isolated place become the home Mila’s always longed for?

28. Phases / h.duxbury

I started writing poetry again this summer, and quickly found lots of other poets sharing their work on Instagram. @hduxburypoetry (a fellow Ontarian, too!) quickly became one of my favourite accounts to follow, so when i learned that she self-published a poetry collection, I had to grab a copy. Her work is heavily inspired by nature and the changing seasons, which I’m a sucker for, so I really enjoyed it. Her poems also delve into grief, loneliness, love, and growth.

Well, there you have it! As for my 2020 faves, my top three reads were:

Empire of Wild

Unaccustomed Earth

Emergent Strategy

[bhintatta]

Omegle Tales

Thanks Kartik for A2A

Qurantine proved to be the the the reason which made Omegle, once again the go to site for bored ones around the globe.

Warwrick Maths Professor- I expected this guy to be some teenage nerd, it’s not that common to find people with interest as ‘maths’. I opened up with Maths is gay, this guy didn’t say anything. I tired to seem smart by throwing some words like ‘you know complex analysis and group thory huh’, fella replied with ‘lol, who doesn’t’.

Later he mentioned he’s a professor at Warwrick University, he was realy into maths and entered college when he was just 17 (I did the same but I’m dumb). Ahter this basic introduction we talked about 3Blue1Brown, Numberphile, ZachStar (Major Prep) and other similar ones. Especially about 3Blue1brown’s video in which he plots the graph of COVID-19, algorithm and his approach.

Later he explained a better algorithm, he helped his students to design at University. I didn’t get most the things he was talking about but I kept humming along, pretended like it was obvious ‘yeah, that one is better hmmm’.

I got bewildered in buzzwords which I dropped earilier to look not complete outsider from the mathematical realm.

In the end he asked ‘You wanna keep in touch?’

Damn, that was a shit load of ego boost.

We talk about Modi on discord sometimes (okay, once).

E-Thot

After getting tired of bots spamming me to join their discord servers and “M27 horny” incel fellas, I changed my interest tags and bumped into this fellow Indian warrior who was in search of SeXtiNg. Then I reavealed that I trolled him becuase he was getting virtual BJ from a straight guy. #Mr.Prankster

This guy could feel the resentment and fear of dying virgin from my replies, he turned out to be omegle equavalent of Actor Varun Pruthi for me.

After some deep conversations like asking about my dick size and reason for being virgin, he gave me a proposal I couldn’t turn down. He turned sherlock mode on and started planning how we would execute this mission impossible 7.

It was time to explore my feminine side, I became his bi-sexual friend and he added me into a group chat and introduced me to this nymphomaniac. The dots started to connect, everything was connected, my dick size became my identity.

Objectification of women was an alien concept for me but now it wasn’t.

The first text popped up in chat ‘Do you suck a lot of dicks?’

Yup, that’s how the mafia works. I tried to ignore gay vibes and defended my masculinity by proclaiming myself as “Top”, followed by ‘squiddle my diddle’ to elucidate my intentions about what I was looking for.

I tried to act like a player and DM’d her, expecting some lame reply. Still I don’tknow why but she started speaking french, I mean c’mon. I can’t even speak english properly and you are flaunting your french. But I didn’t say anything, she was enjoying pussy-privillage.

Hardly two minutes passed and she sent ‘show me’.

Okay, that was quick, even our Indian boys don’t ask for bob-pics this much fast. *Incoming video call* adrenaline and cortisol nibbas rushed into blood, anxity bar was full . What if there’s some guy just trolling me or it’s a scam where she’ll record and blackmail me. I’m aware that no girl would want my nudes when they have unlimited supply of unsolicited dick pics but still I was scared and declined the call.

Now my friend cum pimp messaged and assured that there’s nothing sketchy. I was determined to see those majestic boobies for which I was lured into all this

I muster up the courage and call her and surprisingly she picked up immediatly, A dark screen shows up, my speculations were about to be the reality, I was sure that now someone from other side will say ‘chutiya bnaya’ laughingly and flash his penis before hanging up the call.

I had a sigh of relief when I heard her. Just like that Naughty America intro, her whispring voice ran a wave euphoric tingling in my whole body, the stress which was piled up earlier vanished. It was nothing less than ASMR voice, never thought my name could sound this much sexy.

She said: Show me now.

I was confused for a moment, show what? I wasn’t a salesmen who will just reach out to his bag and grab a full fledged erect penis to show her. I mean yeah, we go around popping random boners at un-expected places but this was just way too fast.

Things don’t work like this, at least mine doesn’t.

After explaining her about my need of visual stimulation to raise the bar for her, we did something (not going to explain).

As I explained earlier, she had a luscious voice, everything she said was arousing and surely it served its purpose. But she also wanted me to do dirty talk and *moan*.

So here I was saying Oh yeah (….) in my Punjabi accent which sounded something like “O jeh, phakk it bebi”.

Somehow she was okay with it and later swithched to Hindi for obvious reasons. Later she expressed her desire for a dominant male to treat her like a slave, call her all the cuss words one can imagine. All those hundreds of hours spent in watching BDSM were going to pay back, I started articulating my ideas for the script which will make me look like a chest-thumping alpha male.

It was showtime, I started shooting blend of swear words originating from both Hindi and Punjabi lexicon.  My delivery was flawless, each gaali filled with emotions, my accent added inroduced a whole new dimension to it. She was awestruck, probably after witnessing my command over the art of profanity.

At this point I almost forgot what the actual fuck we were supposed to do, my inner toxic-tenager was ragging to destroy the opponent like it used to do on facebook in good ‘ol days. My erection was gone, I was sitting there in front of camera, holding my flacid shlong.

I’ve to admit she was very supportive, even after all this she didn’t leave. She giggled when I apologized for all the mess, and decided to revive the fallen one.

She came up with this idea of using a pen to visualise as mine and proceded to give virtual BJ. To make things more realistic she decided to add an extra aspect of sound, which sounded something like this- “dok-dok-dok-dok”.

I was trying hard to control my laugh but then out of nowhere she said ‘Chod bhen ke lode’.

At that moment I lost it.

After laughing like an retarded chimp, I was certain that she will say fuck off and block me but again, she proved me wrong. She did call me immature but wasn’t mad,

[noahreviewsthings-blog]

What Exactly is American Horror Story: Cult Going for?

What exactly is American Horror Story: Cult going for?

Is it trying to be a rebellious political show, trying to force a certain agenda, or is just an unorganized, strongly acted and lazy show? My money is on the latter.

For American Horror Story, it hasn’t always been this way. Season one started out with a star-studded cast, with the thrills and mystery coming with no stop. The concept of having a murder house with the souls that died in it, trapped with nowhere to go, is a fantastic idea and one that should be recognized. Season two might have slowed down and began to bite a little bit more than it could handle, but a serial killer played by the killer eyebrow man himself (Zachary Quinto) is more than enough to forgive the overstuffed plot. Season three, might be tied with the best season. A proper 80’s horror film vibe, mixed well with talented actresses, and interesting character developments, make for one of the more memorable seasons.

Now, with Season 4, this is where things slowdown in the department of making sense. With an interesting point of a killer clown, a freak show filled with abnormal human beings, and still great star power from all the seasons, this is where the foundation started to crack. Having a freak show season, is a pretty safe bet to do anything wacky and weird that one could possibly do. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a move that paid off very well. Sloppy storytelling, unreliable character developments, and a weak second half were ultimately the biggest things to drag it down. Killing off a popular villain in the first few episodes of the show, should show more about the season. Progressing, characters were simply killed off for the act of being killed off. Adding in a subplot of trying to have there be a new buyer for the show, and ultimately having murders just for murders. Still, strong characters help this from not being the worst season of the shows run life, but only the telling signs of what was to come.

Moving forward, it was told that Jessica Lange was not returning and instead Lady Gaga was going to take the place of female star power. A sad move, but still having Kathy Bates, it’s not something to be too upset about. Season 5, set inside a hotel, started out like most seasons of the show: interesting and exciting. Drawing inspiration from earlier seasons, the show seemed to now be finding its own groove, making it more familiar while also showing its known creativity. Evan Peters had always been a high point for all the seasons, but playing a famous serial killer that notoriously used a hotel to murder his victims? How could you really get bored from that? Of course, as the episodes go on, the show had found a way to get bored. The story now becomes too bloated for its own good, mixing in random lovers, moving certain characters around to be involved and then to not, and killing off truly great segments. The night in which all serial killers can come back and visit, is the best part of this show. Famous murders such as Richard Ramirez, Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy, and the unknown killer himself, the Zodiac Killer, all make appearances on Devil Night, which gives the show a lot of wiggle room to cram in a very interesting subplot. While this subplot was only there for a few episodes, it still stands out as one of the bright points of a rather overzealous season, having no true ending.

Season 6 had a lot going for it. I mean, if you have the balls to completely hide your entire plot and drop promos that relate to classic horror movies, you’re going to create a lot of buzz. Roanoke is an interesting season because the act of adding a reality ghost show, into a fictional show, is a large jump from what was less realistic seasons. The season starts off incredibly strong, having the excuse to incorporate more talented actors by having the actual victims telling the story and having a dramatized recalling with hired actors. This was a good excuse to involve more great actors, such as Cuba Gooding JR, and really have the season create a more recognizable tone. Being able to connect with the victims of a red mooned slaughter, mixed with the great imagination of a rural and lonely area, and having genuine thrills throughout, gave the show a different tone that it couldn’t create before. Finally, something original and well written was presented before us, and there were no questions to be asked. Of course, the ghost show like story telling could only last for a half a season, and where else could they possibly go next? This is where the excuse to have too many talented actors comes to an end. Random problems begin popping up for the characters, love affairs that seemed to be very forced, random villains for no reason, and overstretched episodes began to show that maybe the only thing that was really thought through was the first half of the season. Still, 6 seasons in, and only 3 were not as strong, there remained optimism for the show.

Now, we’ve come full circle. American Horror Story: Cult is the newest and latest season to come to us from Ryan Murphy and co., generating a lot of buzz for its known political references, it seemed to be almost unaware of its own timing. Regardless of what side anyone is on nowadays, it’s a common agreement that politics in fictional worlds is tiring and overdone. If it had known to play itself last year in place of Roanoke, maybe we would be in a different light. Two episodes in, and the story is sticking to its roots and not giving the entire plot away in the beginning. Commonly, you must stick around for the first few episodes for the show to start making sense, just like any other season, but looking at this from every standpoint, I’m not sure where it can possibly go. Mixing in the paranoia of election night, and then hopping on the train of clowns, the show seems to be sticking to a very simple formula, that is unfortunately a little too uncreative. Maybe it’s just bad timing, but coming out three days before the nationwide release of the film IT, it seems to have brought back the clowns into the story for no other reason than excitement. Clowns are again starting to freak people out, after having a long slumber from just mildly creeping people out over the 2000’s. A cult idea is something that has always been a sort of underlining feature for the show. A secluded group of people, having bad things happen around and in their own circle, and then someone else more randomly coming out of nowhere to take the blame for the bad things happening. Sarah Paulson and Even Peters are to be commended on their acting chops of this season, because they are playing some of the strongest characters yet. Evan Peters, playing an over the top Trump supporter, with the racism that ignite Twitter for a solid 3 days. Hateful, angry, and charismatic is the game he plays, and can hit on all three of his acts. Sarah Paulson, playing a worried and strenuous liberal, can convey her own personal pain through her phobia’s and panic attacks that surround her character. Everyone else in the season, so far seems to just… be there. The story goes back and forth through a rather simple plot point, while also trying to mix in the confusing cult that seems to be terrorizing everyone near the family, while also disappearing and not existing?

Look, maybe I’m being too hard on the show and maybe being a bit premature to judge the season. I’d be willing to accept that I was a dick and I was wrong if this show turns around and is a rather good season, but I’m gathering the feeling that this show is becoming more and more ambitious for its own good. 

Still, there is time. A lot of it. Hopefully by the end of this season I’ll be writing a long article on why I’m sorry and why American Horror Story is the best show to ever exist, and why I should never judge a show by two episodes in. Who knows with this show.

[thedramafilesblog-blog]

Appearing before the Dramacourt: The Universe’s Star EP 03

***If this is your first time browsing The Drama Files, please read The Rules section first for our reviewing and rating system***

Issues:

Whether date montages should include time sequenced trips to the beach and junk food.

Whether the “what happened to Byul” plot line makes sense.

Whether the stabbing incident was realistic.

Whether holding a guerrilla concert after your agency screws you over is a reasonable thing to do.

Whether Woo Joo and Byul’s backstory is believable.

Whether it makes sense to make a “life-for-a-life” deal with a Reaper.

The Rule(s):

Absolutely. Especially when the cinematography is a great as in this drama.

Yes. It makes sense. It’s also kind of nice how the drama didn’t vilify the guy who killed her but gave him a chance to redeem himself.

Ehhh….For dramatic value and plot development it makes sense, but it was grasping at straws in terms of realism.

Totally. It’s like a giant “F U” to the agency.

Maybe? Not sure tbh.

In a way yes it does. If, to restore balance to the universe, a life has to “go up” then it doesn’t matter which goes up as long as one goes right?

Analysis:

RedRosette J: Okay. So we’re at the last episode already (these episodes might actually have been segmented into smaller ones too…it really depends on which sites you watch on). I’m not gonna lie: I cried. (*sniffles*) And it has been A WHILE since a drama made me cry.  And then I just sat there not knowing what to do with myself after it ended. This drama has really been exceeding expectations and really hitting all the points. The previous episode was a bit slow, but I think that this episode really did a nice wrap up. There were certain things that were a bit WTF? but in the grand scheme of things, those can be overlooked. I think what I liked most about this drama overall was how well the characters were written. Everyone actually had a reason for being there and they all got their endings nicely wrapped up and resolved. It was very well written. I was actually just gushing to Jubiemon about how pretty the whole episode was too and that I was having trouble deciding what to screenshot! Absolutely beautiful and the OST was very well done, not too overpowering and at just the right amount to give you all the feels. Suho, to his credit, I think tried his best to convey a dude haplessly in love, but again, fell a bit flat to me. But honestly, it didn’t even matter because the bulk of the drama was carried by the female lead Jiwoo anyway.

Jubiemon J: Okay, I cried too! I agree that I haven’t cried for a drama in a while, but the ending here was so bittersweet. I did like how they showed their couple life quickly and didn’t bore us with unnecessary romantic scenes or random rivals showing up! I also overall enjoyed how everyone was connected in some way and that’s partly why she showed up as a human. As Redrosette mentioned, the OST and cinematography were great. The director/writer (they were both the same in this case) has a very distinct way of filming and I loved it. It was very artistic and beautiful to watch. I agree too that Suho probably needs more experience in acting as a guy who is crazily in love. However, at least it seemed like there was “some” chemistry between the two leads.

All about dem awkward love confessions

How pretty is this?

How cute were these two?

When you know your girlfriend well LOL!

Blessed friendships

Issue 1: Whether date montages should include time sequenced trips to the beach and junk food.

RedRosette J: There’s just something about the beach that really does it for me. Date montages should always be at the beach. I loved how this particular montage used the natural backdrop to its best. There was a sunset shot, night time shot and a daybreak shot, which is really when a beach is at its best. Absolutely beautiful and really created a nostalgic vibe. Its the best. I mean who doesn’t want to run around the beach and eat junk food with the guy they’re in love with? This drama though…really catering to fan fantasies….

Jubiemon J: I’m personally not a super big beach fan, so whether or not a shot is shown at a beach doesn’t affect me much. The eating junk food at the beach was cute! Although practically speaking, I think eating stuff at the beach can be gross. Sand getting on your food? Wind blowing harshly on your face? Seagulls coming at you for your food? Sand getting on your clothes even with a towel underneath your bottom? Getting crazy cold at night? We all know how beaches can get so cold at night. I’m probably one of the minority that thinks this way. Speaking from a viewer’s POV while watching this scene, it was nicely done.

Sunset

Night

Dawn

How cute is this?

Awww

Issue 2: Whether the “what happened to Byul” plot line makes sense.

RedRosette J: I saw it coming a mile away, so it wasn’t a huge shocker to me but I think it makes sense. Guy accidentally kills girl, Guy feels so bad, Guy takes care of girl’s sick mother and becomes a paramedic to save lives. The viewers were also fed tidbits of this plot and I liked how the whole thing wasn’t shoved in your face in the last minute in a desperate attempt to wrap things up (*cough* Hwarang *cough*). I liked how they didn’t vilify the paramedic guy and gave him a chance to redeem himself. The whole thing was just an unfortunate accident, so to me the plot line makes sense. I also liked how the drama focused on this incident (Byul’s death) and how it impacted so many people in different ways: the mother, the paramedic, the doctor etc, and used a cause and effect angle to tell the story. To me, it was a believable plot line.

Jubiemon J: Yes, I think the drama dropped many good hints for us to know what really happened. I agree that this was done well and so we were convinced of the fantasy element too. I did also like how Byul at first couldn’t forgive the paramedic guy. That’s realistic! The guy did kill you! Her unforgiving nature does make her character more believable. Usually she’s shown as that type that gives her all to her friends and lover. Later, it was nice that she had some closure and realized that hating wasn’t the way to go. I’m also happy that the paramedic found closure too.

Nooo poor mom!!!

Forgiveness is hard

Issue 3: Whether the stabbing incident was realistic.

RedRosette J: We’ve already explored the sassaeng situation in the previous reviews of this drama, so based off that, the stabbing incident could be a little realistic? I mean I’ve heard of celebrities getting threats and stuff from obsessive stalker fans so it makes sense, but I think in this case, it was a last ditch attempt to move the plot forward. It does make sense that Woo Joo had to get stabbed/die/be injured seriously so that Byul could make a deal for his life, but I just wish they’d thought of something a little bit more interesting. I do think that it lacked a bit of realism though…

Jubiemon J: I agree that the stabbing was a bit unrealistic? I really don’t think security would be so relaxed these days. However, seeing how there’s a fantasy element where they are grim reapers, then perhaps they are able to fool security somehow? I’m probably stretching it, but I agree that the stabbing incident could have been replaced with something else.

When you know shit is about to go down…

*gasp*

Issue 4: Whether holding a guerrilla concert after your agency screws you over is a reasonable thing to do.

RedRosette J: Totally. I mean we already know that Woo Joo has a huge fan following so even if the agency totally screwed him over, this is a totally plausible outcome. Not sure if it had to be in her junkyard, but still quite realistic. Guerrilla concerts are actually quite commonly used as marketing things so this part was totally realistic.

Bureaucracy can suck it!

Issue 5: Whether Woo Joo and Byul’s backstory is believable.

RedRosette J:  This backstory felt a bit unnecessary tbh. It’s like when dramas are doing a perfectly fine job of having the characters fall in love with each other and then go ahead and introduce the pointless childhood connection. I mean, did we really need to know that Byul was his #1 fan when he was starting out and that he was responding to her letters and wanted to date her? I don’t know if that part is believable at all. Also, her letter was super creepy. I doubt any pop star wannabes are going to go date the person who proposes marriage to them in a fan letter. That’s just weird tbh. This part, the drama could have done without.

Jubiemon J: I think the drama did want to explain how the two actually fell for each other, so it didn’t seem like she loved him out of nowhere and he too. However, I did feel like this connection was out of the blue like RedRosette mentioned. It would have been nicer if they had been introduced as classmates or what not instead of her being his number one fan. Perhaps they were always chatting online? That’s likely given technology these days. Falling for someone online and then meeting them? I’m just not sure about the fan letter thing and him falling for her because of that.

Issue 6: Whether it makes sense to make a “life-for-a-life” deal with a Reaper.

RedRosette J: This drama bested me with this. I didn’t see it coming. The whole the Reaper dude’s daughter being the one that Byul “saved” thing. It was an interesting take on the “trading a life” situation. I think it made sense for the character to trade her time for the girl’s time because she was dead either way and had nothing to lose. It was interesting how all the characters were tied to each other in some way too and I liked how this drama did it without making it too cliche (especially how her Reaper boss man was the paramedic’s dad). I’m not a huge fan of sad endings so this really came out of nowhere for me. I was expecting them to resolve it and for her and Woo Joo to live happily ever after. Oddly though her having to leave seven years later without any regrets seemed like a much better ending than a happy one. It’s very reflective of the realities of life and how you don’t always get a happily ever after…but at least they had that time together. (*sniffles*)

Jubiemon J: I should have suspected that the little girl she saw was going to make some impact! Like Redrosette, I didn’t see this twist coming. I did like how you can’t have that perfect ending and there are some trade-offs that you must make. Byul came back to life when she wasn’t supposed to and to extend that, she’d have to do something in return. I understand that this ending becomes bittersweet, but I guess that’s life. The one part I didn’t really enjoy was how Woo Joo seemed to know about her being a grim reaper and what not without any explanation? It was like he was psychic and understood everything?!?! I wished they had a scene where he and she had a good chat. That part was a bit lacking.

Literally making life or death deals

*hugsies*

Such a cute proposal

Sealed with a kiss!

Bye Bye Puppy :(

Cute kid.

Conclusion: Appeal Allowed.

Rating: 4 = I’ll Give You A Hug (Yes. It’s getting hugs over cookies because it’s just so sad and totally deserves a hug and because everyone did such a good job on it!)

File No: The-Universe’s-Star-EP-03 Appearing before the Dramacourt: The Universe’s Star EP 03 ***If this is your first time browsing The Drama Files, please read The Rules section first for our reviewing and rating system***