#desaturate some of your clothes my god

[lowkeyrobin]

TUBBO ; colors

summary ; the world is mostly black and white until you meet your soulmate

warnings & mentions ; language, cheesey end, reader is described to get overstimulated and nonverbal in very excited situations, set in mix like late 2021 around bench trio meetup

genre ; fluff

word count ; 1.5k

masterlist

Meeting up with your friends in real life was like the plot to a corny fanfiction to you. It was so unbelievable, yet true now.

You'd been hoping and planning to make a trip over with Ranboo, but each time, something had gone wrong. Whether it be problems meeting at the same airport or having scheduled other important things prior, school, etcetera. It never seemed to work out until now. Ranboo already got to the UK yesterday, considering you guys sadly couldn't get tickets together so close to the departure date.

Boarding that plane was maybe the scariest thing you've ever done.

The anxiety courses adrenaline through your veins, causing you to nearly stumble over yourself.

The world had been desaturated for as long as you could remember. At least you could enjoy your video games, being in full color. God, it was almost yesterday that Tommy and Tubbo were teaching you all the colors you didn't know yet. It was like training a toddler.

Thank God screens were out of bounds of this weird infection thing. You didn't know what to call if. You loved color, you loved every shade of every color, really. It was that sense of driving out somewhere you don't go often, and you stare out the window to take everything in.

As you sit in your seat, your leg bounces rapidly, your carry-on backpack resting at your feet. You look out the window, seeing one of the wings up in front of you a couple of seats as you mumble to yourself.

"Oh, Jesus Christ, I hate this already"

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Finally, after the longest, and probably most turbulent, flight of your life, you step out into the world, seeing the outside of Brighton airport and it's parking lot. Phil would be here soon to come pick you up, running late due to traffic.

You sit on a bench outside the building, next to the front doors with your nearly month's worth of luggage around you. Your backpack was filled with your laptop, other device needs, and some clothes and hygiene things. Your suitcase, thankfully big enough, heald all your clothes.

You see Phil wave out his window as he pulls up to the curb, shouting a happy hello. You stuff your things in the trunk with Phil's and Tommy's bags, also planning to stay down near Tubbo's at least for the weekend. You then hop in the passenger's seat, being jumpscared by Tommy who was hiding in the back seat.

"Holy shit!"

Tommy laughs, and Phil tries his best to hide the smile tugging at his lips. "Don't scare them to death, Tommy, please"

"Are you so excited right now?" The blonde asks you, you reply with a happy, silent nod, becoming overstimulated already due to the happiness and the chaotic nature of Tommy already, driving you nonverbal. The jet lag and tiredness also did some damage on you, being teleported to a new time zone.

"They're wearing red!" He smiles, "You're wearing red, we're all triplet-ing!"

You all laugh and giggle, which you assume the two were both wearing red. Tommy was wearing his usual red baseball shirt, and Phil had a supposedly red sweatshirt on.

Phil drives you three all the way down to Tubbo's house, maybe an hour of driving max. When you step out of the car and move the seat forward to let Tommy out, you're greeted with a warm hug from behind, gifted from Tubbo.

"Hi! Oh my fucking God, I can't believe you're here!" He smiles, jumping a bit as he looks up at you.

"Hi!" You smile, doing the same as him, wrapping him in another hug just to make sure he was real.

Ranboo, Aimsey, Billzo, and Freddie stand a few feet away, then wrap you guys in a group hug, Tommy and Philza included.

When you open your eyes, now not engulfed by your friends, the world around you was now painted with color. Tubbo's hoodie was painted a nice forest green color, you saw reds, blues, and yellows on Ranboo's hawaiin shirt, and Aimsey's beanie was the famous red it was over the screen.

"Holy shit" You mumble, looking around to take in all the new scenery.

The group look at you in confusion and see your bright stare, able to tell that you'd gained the wonderous sight of color. You hug Tubbo again, just excited to see him before you get your things from the trunk of Phil's car, and he pulls them inside, placing them in the room you'd be sharing with Ranboo.

Phil departs, needing to run some errands and meet up with some other friends before heading to his hotel. He does a little bit where he abandons Tommy and kicks him and his stuff out, and drives off, nearly late for his lunch with Jack, James, and Charlie.

The day is fulfilled with a Halloween stream, and your little friend group being titled the Cricket Crew. You were officially the third, after Aimsey and Tommy, of that group to gain sight of colors, and it was awesome. You never noticed how colorful your wardrobe was, other than outfits you wore on stream.

You don't think about it much, just too caught up with your friends. But the question of who gifted you your new colors stayed on your mind.

It wasn't until you were getting ready to change into pajamas to have a little movie night with Tubbo, Ranboo, and Tommy, who was going to be picked up around 11 by Wilbur to stay at the hotel nearby, that you thought about the color thing again.

Who the fuck is your soulmate?

Clearly it was one of your friends, but you didn't see any mixed emotions between any of them, at least you could mark off Tommy, obviously, Aimsey, and Bill, who made a joke about how he was thankful he wasn't your soulmate earlier. That left Freddie, Ranboo, and Tubbo. There was just so much happening in that moment that you really couldn't pinpoint one of them.

You decide to leave the detective work for later, wanting to enjoy showing your friends the true masterpiece that is The Breakfast Club. You sit down on the couch in next to Tubbo, who was laying sideways as per usual, whom also made sure to move his legs so you had room to sit. Tommy sat beneath you, leaned against the couch. Ranboo sat criss-cross in front of Tubbo, making sure not to block his view.

Tommy made remarks, jokes, and commentated throughout the movie, causing the other three of you to do the same. After the movie, Tommy leaves, leaving you, Tubbo, and Ranboo to watch Tubbo's choice for the next movie, The Lost Boys. He had it on his watch list for some time now and wanted to watch it.

During the first Act, he ends up making a little comment about all the colors and how cool they looked on the screen. You almost didn't catch it at first, but you did. Ranboo hadn't, though, making pulling Tubbo into the kitchen a little more discreet.

Tubbo tries to act dumb before giving himself up, unable to hide from your pressing nature.

"Uh, yeah, when we hugged, I noticed it. I just didn't say anything cause I was scared and I wanted to focus on us being friends and I don't wanna ruin that-"

"Tubbo..."

"Hm?"

You wrap him in a hug, "Sorry"

"For what?"

You shrug, feeling the apology was nessacary.

"You have really pretty eyes by the way" He smiles

You roll your eyes playfully, "Shut up"

"You're supposed to love me! You're my soulmate, you little shit!"

"That's not how that works!"

"Wow, drama" Ranboo speaks from the doorway, leaning against it while holding up his recording phone. "Sorry, I had to record this. I didn't know he'd confess so soon" They shrug.

"Ran!" Tubbo exclaims, cheeks dusting pink.

"You were in on it?" You ask them, which you recieve a nod in response. "You little asshole"

Ranboo raises his hands in defense, "Don't blame me! Tommy was the one to suggest making it special"

You shrug, patting Tubbo's cheek before you three return to the couch. "It was either you two or Freddie, glad it was the best option, I guess"

"Hey!"

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The next morning, around seven or so, you sit on the back porch, enjoying the fresh air and the sunrise, which you could finally enjoy in all it's glory. Hues of blue, grey, pinks, purples, and reds fill the sky in which you stare at. You hear the door open and close with a click behind you, and the familiar brunette best friend sits next to you.

"Why are you awake?" He groans, rubbing his tired eyes, "It's too early"

"Says you. You wake up in the evening, if you're lucky"

"I- Quiet, I won't be taking Tubbo slander"

You look back up at the sky with a little smile, "Isn't it just so fucking pretty?"

"Not as fucking pretty as you"

...

"Get out"

"This is my house!"

[savrenim]

watched the first 30 minutes of the new live action ATLA bc I was Curious and they have already committed three different mortal sins that I can't Not Rant about, spoilers for the first 30 minutes below the cut

1. They rearranged the order of storytelling to open with the Fire Nation attacking the Air Nomads.

And I'm not.... totally sure why? Like, my guess is either "we need to make an immediate dramatic hook for the people who have never seen ATLA before!" or "we need to explain the background for the people who have never seen ATLA before!" But the truth is, people never saw ATLA before it came out, and they were perfectly fine catching on to learning about what happened to the Air Nomads and the geopolitical state of the world in media res!! That is not an excuse!

By opening with The Attack On The Air Nomads, not only do they rob the audience of getting to do my favorite thing throughout, which is the ability to piece together backstory via being told details as the story goes on, but it also..... vastly undermines the impact that That Attack Happening is going to have later in the story. Instead of piecing together tragedy from 100-year-old ruins and getting the moment of "oh god" and imagining it, we're shown it directly upfront onscreen, which not only to me comes across as unnecessary and gratuitous violence, but it means that every time in the story that The Air Nomads Are All Dead is going to come up, instead of it being this weighty thing that we can only imagine that each small detail adds even more to that weight, the payoff was all upfront. We've seen it, there's nothing to imagine, any detail they give us is not adding to our understanding of the tragedy and increasing the tragedy to us at all, it's just a reference to the opening scene.

2. STATUS!!!!!

So 'Status' is a concept that I rant about a lot and am highly sensitive to in writing, probably bc in the gay theater camp day camps the first thing you need to teach your 8-year-olds in improv workshop is How To Respect Status if you want to have at all a reasonable adventure game; otherwise you have kids interrupting the king's big dramatic speech and hence Undermining The King's Authority and the adventure game falls apart but also so you don't get trapped in scenes where you've got two characters yelling back and forth "well I'm [this thing] so you should respect me!!" and the complete lack of respect between them totally undermines what both of them are saying and the fiction falls apart. I kind of joke but not really that I stopped watching Supernatural in like. season 8?? 9?? because there was some episode with Greek Gods and you got to the finale of the episode and Zeus was going "dO YOU KNOW WHO I AM??? I'M ZEUS. I'M A GOD. PUNY MORTAL" and Sam and Dean went "dO YOU KNOW WHO WE ARE??? WE'RE THE WINCHESTERS. WE TOOK DOWN SATAN AND ALSO SATAN'S MORE EVIL OLDER COUSIN. PUNY MONSTER OF THE WEEK" and I went "by day three of camp my nightmare 8-year-olds can do Status better than this. Why am I even watching this?"

In the first scene, the live-action ATLA severely undermines the status of the Fire Nation and Fire Lord and then continuous to do so throughout the entire opening.

The initial scene is some random Earth Kingdom spy running away with Fire Nation plans to attack the Earth Kingdom and getting captured and dragged before Fire Lord Sozin (to be?? monologued at by Fire Lord Sozin of 'HAH you fell into my TRAP, those plans were FAKE, we're attacking the AIR NOMADS' which is just. dumb. kill the spy, don't monologue at him and kill him, but also why the fuck are you letting an Earthbender spy into your presence in the first place???????) which besides the aforementioned letting?? an earthbender spy??? into his presence in the first place????? He:

is not wearing particularly fancier clothes than the other people around him; like, they're okay, but the 'total desaturation of all colors including/especially in the clothing' aesthetic that Netflix has going makes it not look very royal. that shit should have been BRIGHT red or 10x fancier to make up for the fact that it wasn't Bright Red

they are STANDING IN THE THRONE ROOM and INSTEAD OF BEING BEHIND THE CURTAIN OF FLAMES he's just STANDING DOWN THERE on the SAME LEVEL AS EVERYONE ELSE????? WHY ARE YOU EVEN IN THE THRONE ROOM IF THE FIRE LORD IS???? NOT ON THE THRONE?????? JUST STANDING AROUND???? THE FIRE LORD DOES NOT JUST STAND AROUND WHERE IS THE POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE OF THE OFFICE????????????

and then beyond the absolute idiocy and letting a nobody no-name spy into his presence like that and dramatically revealing battle plans fucking idiot deserves to be assassinated for letting a spy earthbender get within three feet of him that's just extremely bad royal security, Sozin personally Murders this Random Spy. with his own firebending hands.

One of the whole things that makes ~the Fire Lord~ so terrifying is the sheer amount of weight around The Institution Of The Fire Lord, the courts and the backstabbing nobles of the fire nation, both the extreme imperial politics and complications there but also the almost deification of the office itself. The Fire Lord is untouchable, I forget if it's fanon or canon that they've got a 'descended directly from Agni / divine right' thing going but if it's fanon at least canon has those vibes, and one of the biggest aspects of the finale of the whole show is the combination of Azula's meltdown making it so that even though she was 'Fire Lady' she.... wasn't particularly scarier because in panicking and banishing everyone she'd totally undermined her own power structure, but also realizing that Ozai was Actually Just Some Dude Who Sure Was Pretty Good At Firebending And A Really Shit Person And Terrifying For What He'd Done With His Power but he wasn't a god, he wasn't impossible to defeat, when push came to shove he was just a firebender and as such his power could be stripped.

Fire Lord Sozin standing on the same level as his advisors and a random earthbender spy, and then doing things with his own hands, instead of, you know, sitting on that throne behind that wall of fire while this scene was happening if this scene really needed to happen in the first place, totally undermines that sort of deification level of status that the Fire Lord is supposed to have. Sozin becomes an Evil Scary Murderer Villain, sure, but what proceeds to be established about his character is. Nothing to set him apart from "a particularly skilled Firebender." Hell not even that, as nothing ever demonstrates that he's substantially more skilled than the firebending soldiers around him!!!!!!!

And it undermines the severity of the threat of the whole Fire Nation to undermine the status of the Fire Lord and hence the Thing That Makes The Next Fire Lord So Scary. hnnnnnnnnnng.

3. Every single character keeps giving extremely stilted monologues about how they're feeling?

It just feels like Bad Writing. And it also kind of feels like incorrect characterizatons? Big "he would NOT say that" mood but also just, like. Aang giving a three minute monologue purely to Appa about how he never asked for the responsibility of being the Avatar, he just wants to be like other kids, that just feels. So Cookie Cutter. So "gotta check off our refusing the call so our protagonist is Relatable!" and also just he would not say that.

This doesn't quite bother me as much as the other ones because it doesn't feel like a fundamental undermining of the narrative and/or the setting but it is Highly Annoying.

anyways defs not worth the watch. 30 minutes of my life Wasted. some of the costumes are kind of nice tho so might go back for the costume refs.

[bradycore]

okay here’s the thing about bloody mary. it’s one of the most essential episodes of one of the best seasons of the show. it’s literally the kickoff for the beloved psychic sam arc, and the way it’s done is BRILLIANT. the rambling is under the cut, but first i’ll say that of course the born-again identity is a fantastic episode. it has sam 1) making a friend and 2) suffering immensely, plus the plot-driven sam elements too, so i’m here for it, i am! but it’s NOT bloody mary.

so you’ve got all the nostalgic classics of this era of the show (which i'm having to cut down on for length oops): familiar lore but a good mystery; the lighting & desaturation, the clothes & hair, the shots that are eerily similar to ones seasons down the line (the ahbl and levee parallels alone, oh my god!!!); salmondean lying out of their asses and failing miserably; the bantering; “it might not be our thing” “when is it ever not our thing”; more lying and snooping; the side character of the week experiencing some genuinely scary shit, like, actual horror-movie horror; lines that are funny when you watch them but horribly ironic in hindsight (“600 years of bad luck”); committing b&e and property damage...you get the gist. and sam comes from all this. you can take s7 era away from sam and still have him, but you can't take away this. the roots of the show are the roots of him.

anyway, throughout it all, sam has nightmares. horrible nightmares that we experience with him, but we think they’re normal, and dean thinks they’re normal, and then sam says he has a secret. and we realize that it’s been building up to something. the pinnacle: sam, eyes bleeding, black veins crawling up his face, trying desperately to kill his own reflection as it tells him he’s inhuman. how many times did we see this happen metaphorically over the next five seasons? how huge is this theme for his character? and right here, right now, late at night in an old antique store in midwestern ohio, this is when it starts, when it’s raw, when he’s face to face not with a random character parallel but with himself and the literal mirrors all around him are the inescapable threat and we the audience have our stomachs drop as we realize for the first time that he’s not the Normal One. he’s the Other. there is something Wrong. you had those nightmares for days before she died.

and his reflection told him it was his fault jess died. and he tells the motw victim’s daughter that it’s okay, you couldn’t have stopped your loved one’s death, you should forgive yourself; but when he gets in the car with dean, he keeps his secret. to be normal, to be safe.

and then that last fucking shot, oh my god, those five incredible seconds of cinema: jess standing on a street corner as they drive away with the classic rock music in the background. continuing to raise the question of his psychicness, and ephemeral as ever in her white nightgown, wind in her hair, staring right at him and then she’s gone. and 15 seasons later he will still be thinking about her, and this moment is the last time he ever truly sees her.

this episode is so fundamental. it captures the essence of old-school-spn sam while having narrative and cinematic elements that set the stage for his character throughout the entire rest of the show. born-again identity is sam with a crisis in a hospital; bloody mary is sam with a crowbar and a secret. born-again identity is one of those episodes that’s about him; bloody mary is one of those episodes that’s the heart of him. and bloody mary deserved to win.

[dennisboobs]

My god I need to know how you got that pristine perfect vintage look to your joycetoria painting, that is such a beautiful work of art, you're incredibly skilled

IT'S A PAINTOVER!!! I JUST DID SOME TWEAKS TO THE ORIGINAL IMAGE it's just a paintover, i did not paint the entire thing!! i painted their clothes, drew and cloned joyce's dress pattern, tweaked their faces to look more like themselves + used the clone stamp tool on the background to get rid of the original text.

but to match the original image in the parts that i added it was basically just

render > perlin noise (trying to match the original grain) > desaturate that bitch ten times because vicky's sweater is still too brilliantly blue

[izaacs-notdeadyet]

OHHH MY GOD THE WAY MY ASS FORGOT TO POST ABT THIS

Meet Spider-Mortis

(He/Him)

He used to be just a regular Spider-Man before his doc ock fucked up ans bombed the damn world. In the wreckage of the ruins he rose up to become a kind of Robin Hood figure, stealing from the rich in their bunkers hoarding resources to give to the survivors.

For his design I wanted to take a more apocalyptic fashion statement with the classic Spider-Man suit color and design, but also make it feel more mature, like he is going through an actual apocalypse. His color pallet consists of blues, reds, and desaturated greens for his clothes

I gave him two different logos, one a skull with spider legs coming out from it, and the other a radioactive symbol with the spider legs aswell. I decided to put the skull ver on his suit, and use the radioactive one for clothing accents (and also on his bag, not currently drawn)

I also gave him a gas mask because it’s just.. cool (and I like making everything harder for myself)

(⚠️slight gore both written and drawn ahead⚠️)

Now for his villains,

the ones I’ve already drawn are his doc ock and also vulture.

First, Doc Ock

Doc Ock was actually what inspired me to make this, after watching Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man I had a realization about how actually terrifying it could be if the chip thingy failed. Imagine if he ended up just being a corpse piloted by a bunch of robotic arms. That, is exactly what this doc ock is.

Because of his proximity to the blast, he pretty much died instantly, layers of flesh being the only thing left behind other then his robotic arms, who quickly gained control of his body afterwards. I’m not exactly sure how I want this character to act, whether it’ll just be a slight nuisance, or an actual villain I’m not quite sure.

I quite like my idea for his Vulture.

(She/They)

I Imagine her being some kind of anti-villain. They want the complete abolishment of the upper class, and could careless if all the humans left died as long as the rich died along with them. They tend to leave behind most the supplies they come across unless they really need them, the only thing she takes is the lives in the area.

I had a lot of fun with her character design. One of the things I had fun figuring out is how I could keep that aspect of femininity while also keeping it realistic for the apocalyptic environment. I went through a lot of different versions, experimenting with corsets for bust support, and different kinds of skirts etc before coming to my final design (possibly not final design)

I gave them a more lighter color pallet, using brighter greens and browns. I have a bit of an obsession with camo patterns and I thought it would fit with her character perfectly so i gave them camo pants. I also took the boot design straight from Pinterest. (Guilty as charged.)

I added beige leg warmers to match with her top, which I’m not exactly sure how I’d explain it. Kinda like a wrap top? With a strap over stop of it. I gave them this kind of leather cape hood combo, and put it overtop of the bird skull mask (based off a vulture) I gave her. Underneath that she has a white, button up shirt, with the sleeves tucked into gloves, which I modeled after bird handling gloves.

Now here comes the part I love the most. I spend a lot of time researching vultures, and I am in love with the idea that she has a flock of vultures that just follow her where she goes. The idea that they leave behind enough bodies to where the vultures know if they follow them they’ll get food is fucking badass.

Like seriously. Imagine accidentally stumbling upon her camp and you look up and there’s just a kettle (the name of a group of vultures) of vultures watching your every move looking at you like they want to pluck your eyes out.

I also have a few ideas for some other villains

Deadpool (I think it would be quite funny in a setting where everyone is heavily dressed to avoid radiation and injury he’s just in the most revealing slutty outfit known to man)

Kraven, which I could possibly pair up with Vulture for an arc

The lizard, which could quite literally just be a radiated alligator

I’ve considered adding a black cat

Maybe some spin on vemon?

Let me know if you have any ideas I fucking love imput

[ouran-boytoy-fanfiction]

White Plague

tw for plague, mild descriptions of fictional illness, suggestive content, miscomunication, breaking and entering, attempted theft

It was called the White Plague because it made your skin pale, your hair pale, and your bones brittle. It came quickly; no one was prepared, and it soon became obvious that not even the children of the rich and powerful were spared. Business tycoons all but abandoned their children, hiding them away in secluded mansions that seldom saw the sun.

Times were hard, but at the very least they could afford to order supplies online. People like Haruhi- commoners- weren't so lucky.

And so it came to poor Haruhi climbing the wall of the nearest mansion, a dreary and desolate one, the pink (really?) paint faded and smeared with herbal nonsense.

The desperate girl made a grab for the windowsill, had a brief moment of terror, and managed to crawl inside.

Only to freeze- it turned out that this particular room had not, as Haruhi had hoped, been unoccupied.

Luckily, he was facing away from her.

He- he was a blond boy, around her age, tall and very slight.

He was, as much as Haruhi could tell from behind, lovely, but obviously afflicted.

His hair was limp, his legs almost discolored, and his feet more dainty than they had any right to be. He was clothed only in a slip, some sort of prissy affair made of you-wish-you-could-afford-me fabric. Pale- in fact the whole room was made of muted colors, as if it could hide it's master's desaturation.

Master- who else could he be? He was obviously some sort of aristocracy. Haruhi had only seconds to escape out the window before he caught her-

"Oh! Hello there. I didn't hear you come in." Crap.

He smiled, speaking with a soft, gentle voice. He was quiet, almost staying where he stood, but with a if-I-could-be-energetic-I-would sort of energy about him.

He stepped forward, then turned around, showing her the laces of his slip. He waited.

"Uh, bro, do you think I'm going to... dress you or something?"

He laughed. "Well, if you're not a maid here to dress me, why are you in my bedchambers?"

Oh god, this is my chance to not get thrown in jail!

They chuckled nervously. "Uh, how silly of me to forget. Uh. Sure. Let me just get that, master..."

"Oh, you! Did you forge- you forgot my name!?" He pouted.

Oh, he's... actually really adorable.

Wait. If I'm going to dress this guy... that means... OH GOD.

"I'm Tamaki, silly!" Haruhi nodded blankly, carefully pulling at the ties of the slip. It fell, almost drifting, to the ground.

Haruhi bit her lip. Oh god. He's gorgeous.

But... really skinny.

Tamaki tilted his head, like he was already used to people gaping at his bare body. It was a pretty nice one.

Haruhi opened a drawer, revealing pair after pair of lacy, frilly undergarments. Her face turned red. They're really pretty... but really impractical. Does he have anything else?

Next drawer. Socks, stockings, bloomers even. Haruhi pulled out some cute, kitty-patterned boyshorts, and pulled them on him, careful not to touch anything.

He gave her a warm glance. Tamaki's eye's were a washed-out lavender, still enticing but almost glazed over.

Haruhi pulled a house-dress over his slight shoulders, pale pink and lined with the softest fur she'd ever felt. Tying up the laces, Haruhi's eyes met his, and it occured to them how... out of it Tamaki looked.

"Uh... let's get you to bed." Haruhi guided him to the bed, resting him gently there and pulling the blankets over him.

"Mama? Will you stay with me until I fall asleep?"

Aw. He thinks I'm his mother. "I don't know... I'm not your mother, sorry."

He smiled weakly. "I know, Mama. You never told me your name."

"My name is Haruhi," Haruhi said impulsively. "And yeah, I guess I'll stay."

She leaned forward and kissed him on the forehead. He giggled and went to sleep.

[mediacinemtographyartetc]

The pros and Cons of little mermaid.

Before we start- if I had a problem with the cast of the new little mermaid that would make me a huge hypocrite. As I a kid and adult I find myself rewatching these movies for the nostaglia and because of how good they are. And to remind others kindly that Haile is not the first princess of colour.

Meet Rapunzel from Once upon a time, a show that was showing accurate portrayels of Merida/Mulan and yet Rapunzel here is not like her disney counterpart. And no one cared.

And Brandy Norwood did it first...

So my pros and cons of little mermaid and overall critic is more along the lines of Sonic the hedgehog the before and after of his looks- although I wouldn't change the cast of ariel I do have some issues.

If this movie came out hmm about 2015 ish or before I would have no problem.

The Writing is what I have an issue with.

How they handled pinochio, cruella, beauty and the beast is whats making me cringe and know this movie will be painful to watch. Even marvels phase four isn't looking too great as if all the writers dove ship.

So the Pros of Little mermaid-

we need more mermaid movies, the lack of mermaid movies as a whole and what you can do with them. The closest we've had was potc, so it's refreshing to see what they can do, the movement. Underwater etc.

The colour pallete.

Finally her clothes are going to match her, when it comes to Ariel she's the first where her 'commoner' clothes looks better than her dress up outfit. Something they fixed in the sequel by making her dress purple but giving Melody the pink outfit.

Ariel with her red hair and pink dress was a bit of a yikes, to the point where disney marketing tried to fix it- not because of the clashing colour combination but ALSO so ariel wouldn't compete with aurora another princess whose outfit changed between pink and blue- and the blue clashed with cinderlla. So decided that cinderella was blue. Aurora was Pink left Ariel with changing her outfit.

to green.

Now because of skin tone all of a sudden Ariels outfits minus that one pink disaster can FINALLY match ALL the outfits the colour combonation will finally be in harmony. [When it comes to disney I do find myself obsessed with the dresses ^^;]

Thanks to LadySharllin she drew Haile in all the iconic ariel outfits just to get a feel for what it'll look like for the big screen. [Artist]

Now overall she FINALLY suits the pink dress, and most of her other outfits look better too.

But here's the cons that I have of the little mermaid -_-

My critic goes to the producer, the one who is in change of scenary and the overall movement of a shot.

Just having ariel...sitting there singing? Is boring.

compared to its animated counterpart that has MOVEMENT of different shots

When behind the scenes the amount of effort to treat it like theatre, to use movement as a part of acting, the reason why little mermaid was so iconic WAS because of these shots,

God knows I don't WANT the little mermaid to be shot for shot the same, but to have it being similair or trying it's own unique apporach of making it theatrical- I can't help but think that the director was being lazy, that making Haile sit down and sing and no move even though she should be outreaching doesn't reflect well on the movie. It shows that such a well beloved scene of part of your world was treat like a "eh, who cares just sit there and look pretty," Makes you wonder what ELSE have they treat callously?

Pinochio itself has also chopped/ editied the movie to be a husk of what it once was- removing the message the awarness of the dangers of kids not going to school drinking beer/ smoking cigerettes was removed if they did something like that to pinochio what have the done to the little mermaid?

Is this movie going to be empty? Because they'll rely on the actors to lift it?

Next is the colour. It's so desaturated when we know it could look brighter. The most startling colour is the tail so our eyes are drawn down to that instead of her face, her hair should be brighter than that.

Others have issues with the water effects- I don't see the problem with that.

Personally If I could make changes?

I would remove the music all together, with Brandys cinderlla they had original songs if they had different music there wouldn't be a compariosn. My problem with beauty and the beast was when I watched the film the songs would get stuck in my head.

But it was the animated version in my mind, not the actual movie itself.

__________________________________________________________

Now thanks to TWITTER, not the movie itself. But twitter, is a bunch of hypocrites and with the crap they are saying comes across as deeply homophobic.

Little mermaid animation was made by howard ashman. Who died before Beauty and the beast was released, he tragically passed from aids.

Little mermaid itself is ALSO written as a metaphor of a man loving another man, trading away the tail could be seen as trans rep.

Given that the Little Mermaid is ACTUALLY a canon queer story. Means that ariel being a man/trans would be more accurate.

Given that it's twitter that draws lines in the sand on keeping rep seperate from one another. [My problem is with twitter being hypcocrtical- if it was the other way round and we had a movie with LGBT but it was meant as a poc story I would be upset too I do believe in equality if its YES for one group but NO for another thats hypocritcal and its bullshit]

Most believe if it was LGBT it would be more accepted.

But thats a lie. LGBT in disney has LESS rep than POC.

For example,

And thats just Disney, not incluidng episode series like Cory in the white house, thats so raven etc. Or even dreamworks shows like home, prince of egyt movies like think like a man act like a women, name any movie with whoopi goldbirg, chris tucker and eddie murhpy.

BUT compare that to the question I will ask "How many Disney movies are there, where the main character is LGBTQ+"

... Zero.

There is none, so this narrative that LGBT are more accepted that people of colour- thats INLCUIDNG poc-LGBTQ+ is a lie.

Especially with movies where the characters where changed like Annie, the Craft, Charmed, all forgotten.

Even worse when theres an entire MONTH to changing canon characters to poc, because of a lack of representation which fair enough. No problem with that.

But when LGBT project onto characters like Luca and Encanto something that isnt new, we called elsa/merida/ and vanellope queer so we hadn't changed.

But when it comes to projecting onto fictional characters for lack of real rep you would think we would be in the same boat.

But nope, called racist and 'stealing' rep and how whenever black or POC media comes out "tHe LGBT HaS to mAke iT quEer!"

But seeing the reverse that a queer story is made POC, and even told that if it was the other way around we would get that rep?

Clearly not!

Its bordering on delusional that LGBT is told we're above POC that we get more rep when thats clearly not the case.

After Love,simon have we had ANY more movies like that? no.

Having a black little mermaid isn't a problem, hell I wish it luck and given that BRandy did it first and that hamilton and six the musical have a diverse cast- and loving these shows/movies is something I honestly don't have a problem with.

Just don't use LGBT as a weapon only when it suits you. To defend something that in twitters words is taking rep from another community. You guys said it not me HELL this wasn't even my thought process UNTIL I saw Twitter start saying

"Well little mermaid is about a queer man-"

Then in twitters words, thats stealing rep. And hypocritical.

This wasn't my thoughts, I just hate how hypocritical twitter is.

So if anyone gets mad at this, then next time lgbt project don't say they're stealing rep when in your words, little mermaid is stealing lgbt rep.

My point is, defend little mermaid, go watch it. Show support and if it does well then good. But DoN't use LGBT to defend this movie when there is no lgbt in it currently, unless disney will surprise us with making Eric a women and calling her erica then by all means.

I plan on making a whole Cruella analysis on why that movie sucks ALONG with Beauty and the beast, once ariel comes out I'll give a critic.

Lack of LGBT isn't on my radar, as only twiter made that a problem. All in all- with more pros' her tail is lovely and from bits I've seen her movements in water don't look too jank, if I made another post review of it, I won't include the LGBT comment as thats a problem I have with twitter [including ALL of twitter not just speicic groups]

So yeah I wish it well, and I hope to god that haile doll when it comes out doesn't look like a monstrosity like emma watsons did.

I don't think I can take it >.<

[almost-hxlycon]

♡ Happy Birthday to Heartslabyul's cough dad cough beloved vice dorm leader, Trey Clover! ♡

♡ Do not repost or use without my permission ♡

[unfoundhoney]

a sister’s sacrifice ; part three ↠

↠ platonic!c!sleepy bois inc x fem!reader , platonic!c!tubbo x fem!reader ; angst just angst

↠ masterlist

↠ part one ; part two ; part three ;

↠ @leafyturtle @basheverythingyesterday @terribletoothbat @bestioe @junoblad3 @machiebach @ok-honey

when considering the deaths of the people on the dream smp server, yours is the hardest

schlatt was detested by all when he’d died

few people still truly cared for wilbur when he met his end; the man he once was was long gone by then

but you

you never changed

you were a constant for so many & immovably kind to the rest

selfless, giving, caring

even when you just wanted an escape, you came to the aid of your brothers

you gave the ultimate sacrifice & paid the price

everyone mourns you

when the battle is won & dream locked away indefinitely

once everyone has come down from the high of freeing themselves from dream’s reign, the server goes into a state of grieving

there’s no denying your death

they all saw the message in chat

you’re dead

those that were close to you took it hard

niki was narrowly stopped from burning down the bakery you encouraged her to open and helped build

eret put her emotions into work on a memorial in their museum for you

even under the egg’s control, bad & ant put the eggpire aside for you

of course, those who took it the hardest is your family

when ghostbur learns of your death, he’s distraught

he doesn’t quite know how to handle the information

he protects your home & only allows people to enter when he supervises them

tommy took a while to move past his anger & deal with the fact that you’re gone

tubbo ran off to start snowchester

he chose to distract himself rather than truly process his emotions, even if you’d always done your best to break that habit of his

now that you’re not around, who’s to stop him from letting himself be numb to it all?

techno is another one of your family members who chose to barely acknowledge your passing

he became somehow more monotonous & emotionless

and phil

...

there’s no word for a parent who loses a child

wilbur was gone & of course it messed phil up to be the one to take will’s last life but by that point his son was gone

but you

you’d always been such a genuinely good person

phil did so little for you as a father

he was so absent

he never apologized to you for that

he never told you how much he loves & appreciates you & everything you’ve done to keep their family together when he couldn’t be bothered

it’s a few hours after he received the news from ranboo that all the guilt for everything he had ever put you through hit him

he broke down in his kitchen while trying to distract himself by organizing his cupboards

but all he could think about was you

you & your never ending kindness & compassion

he was never a father to you

yet you never hated him

why couldn’t you have hated him?

it would hurt less to lose you if you hated him; it’s what he deserves

he’s unworthy of your love

but he can only dwell so long on you

you are given a proper funeral

you’re buried by the seashore, somewhere between l’manberg and tommy’s abandoned vacation homes in an open field

the sever members plant so many flowers, your gravesite becomes a flower field

but soon, life goes on

it will only hurt for longer to draw out the mourning period

it would do no good for anyone

besides, you wouldn’t want the server to be sad for your sake

techno supposes it’s for the best that you died

he does his best to move on, filling his days with resource gathering and upgrading his tools, weapons, and armor while trying to think through his emotions logically

as much as he liked you

as much as everyone liked you, you were too good

you were the best of them

fate is not kind to heroes

“hello!”

technoblade is not an easy man to sneak up on, let alone scare

the greeting itself isn’t want startles him

it’s turning toward the voice to lock eyes with you

you who is dead

techno is not proud of the sound he made when he saw you but you of all people wouldn’t make fun of him for it

he just stares at you, slowly realizing what’s happened

you look desaturated, the color drained from your clothes

your skin is grey & almost translucent

you’re a ghost

“y/n.”

“hello! who are you?”

techno tells no on one of your ghost form

he even keeps the rest of the server a secret from you

he leads you to your old home & leaves you there w/ ghostbur

he hopes your and ghostbur’s combined amnesia will keep you out of harm’s way i.e. the rest of the server

he visits you occasionally but mostly leaves you be

you live happily with ghostbur for a while

he is very glad to have you back

his memory is nearly as bad as yours, so the story of the server & what happened to you when you were alive is only given to you in bits & pieces that are near impossible to fit together

it was only a matter of time before someone came to visit your house

“...y/n?”

it’s tubbo who finds you first

or he finds your ghost

(tubbo) y/n! oh my god! you’re a ghost! you’ve come back!

(you) hello! *whispers* ghostbur, who is this?

(ghostbur, whispering obviously) that’s tubbo, one of your other brothers i’ve told you about

(you, whispering) oh, right

(tubbo) how long have you- oh, this is incredible! i have to tell tommy! he’s been so sad since you died; he’ll be so glad to see you!

tubbo messages tommy, who is skeptical but reluctantly comes to your house anyway

but there you are

your ghost anyway

which is good enough, honestly

(tommy) y/n!

you catch him in a hug easily, even if you’ve never met him before

(tommy) you’re alive!

(you) no i’m not. i’m a ghost!

techno happens to check in on you when tubbo & tommy are there

bad news for technoblade: you’d told them about techno leading you here

meaning: tommy knows techno hid you from him & everyone else

needless to say, he is not too happy about that

(tommy) you hid her! you kept her away from us!

(techno) tommy, you have to understand-

(tommy) i don’t have to understand shit! you hid her from us! you lied to us!

(techno) tommy-

(tommy) you kept her from everyone! you’re selfish and you’re a liar and you’re horrible and-

(techno) i did it to protect her! she’s been hurt enough protecting others; it’s our turn to protect her. the only way we can do that is by leaving her alone

(tommy) she’s my sister

(techno) your sister is dead, tommy. for once in her life, let her have peace

tommy gives up on techno & goes to you instead

(tommy) y/n! y/n, we can bring you back. we can revive you. well, dream can revive you but he’s in prison so he has to do what we say so we can bring you back. we can be a family again. don’t you want to come back?

(you) ...no

that

...

that isn’t what tommy was expecting

(tommy) what?

(you) if alive y/n comes back, i won’t exist anymore. and i’ve only just got here. i don’t want to go yet

(tommy) don’t you understand how much y/n means to me? y/n has to come back. she has to. she’s so important. not just to me but to, um... tubbo as well! right, tubbo? don’t you want y/n back?

tommy looks to tubbo for some backup but the shorter boy looks away

(tubbo) i think we need to let y/n go, tommy

the betrayal that fills tommy’s chest is soon gone as he locks eyes with techno

tommy knows techno is right

you’re too much of a good person

you’re too willing to sacrifice yourself for others

even as a ghost your kindness is blinding

this server will only drain you of everything you have yet again

he will drain you of everything you are

he’s just tried to convince you to cease to exist to bring back the former version of yourself

(you) i’m sorry. it’s just- i’ve heard there are these really pretty blue flowers in the swamp biome that i haven’t got to see yet-

(tommy) no. it’s fine. i’m sorry. i-... i should go.

tommy leaves your house & tubbo goes with him

even if tubbo caught on a bit sooner to techno’s reasoning, he’s still concerned at his friend’s sudden change in character

(tubbo) tommy... are you alright?

(tommy) ...i really want her back

(tubbo) i do, too. but she’s gone

(tommy) she doesn’t have to be

tubbo can’t argue with that

(tommy) but... maybe it’s for the best

(tubbo) really?

(tommy) yeah.

(tubbo) but just earlier you were telling me about your plan to get the revive book from dream

(tommy) techno’s right, tubbo. all everyone- myself included- has ever done to y/n is take. and she’s given everything

(tubbo) because she loved us

(tommy) as much as she loved us and as much as we loved her... the only thing we’ve ever brought her is pain. i think now... now is her time to rest.

(tubbo) ...that’s very pog champ of you, big man

tommy had planned to visit dream as many times as it took to get the revive book location off of him so he could revive you, but now he’s accepted that he needs to move on

he needs to move on from you & dream & everything dream has put him through

he decides to pay one last visit to dream, put him behind him, & never look back

he’s ready to start a new chapter in his life, one without dream

and the first one without you

but then he’s locked in the prison

two weeks pass

nearing three weeks & tommy still isn’t allowed out of dream’s cell

he’s irritated and annoyed and most of all he’s scared

but he can’t let dream know he’s still afraid of him, that’s why he pisses dream off enough to the point of being beat to death

tommy begs him to stop

but then he’s gone

everything is dark

black

empty

nothing

is this what death is?

conscious in absolute nothingness?

tommy’s feet feel the ground beneath him

his senses come back to him

it’s still dark but he feels as though he can see again

where is he?

heaven?

no, probably hell

or maybe neither?

both...?

what the hell happened?

the first thing to break the silence is the voice tommy has known since he was an infant

the voice of the person who raised him

the voice of the person who has always been there for him

the voice of the person who he has finally let go of

your voice

saying one simple word

“tommy?”

[amidstsaltandsmoke]

51&84 plss you drables are so cute. its like a comfort read

Anon, thank you 😭 that's sweet of you to say and I'm happy that you think so! Thus, here is my gift to you; hope you enjoy it!! 🥰 _____________________ Prompts: “I’m your husband. It’s my job.” & “Come on, baby, up to bed.”

Jon Snow was certain about approximately two things: one, that he adored and cherished and loved his wife more than any other living soul on the planet. And second, that she had to be the most bullheaded, stubborn piece of work he’d also ever come to know. He knew these things could not be, and were not, mutually exclusive.

At present, Daenerys was buzzing around the house, corner to corner, leaving not a centimeter untouched with her magic cleaning sponge, the vacuum practically an extra limb at this point, and a bucket full of various other cleaning supplies.

She had come down with a nasty case of the flu two days ago, and he could not figure out why (for the life of him) she was absolutely insistent that she do this. Actually, he did: her parents were in town, had dropped in last minute yesterday afternoon, and all but demanded they come over tomorrow to visit. Even despite Dany telling them over and over again that it wasn’t a good time right now, that she would get them sick (selflessly leaving out the bit where she was actually, completely miserable).

Jon didn’t much care for her parents, but he was able to survive their get-togethers thus far. Seven years and he hadn’t yet lost his mind in their presence. They were rich, snobby, judgmental arseholes who disapproved of every decision Dany made in her life because she had made them and went against their expectations. Even down to their house decor, or tidiness, which was why Dany was being the way she was right now.

They especially did not approve of her choice of husband, but he couldn’t bother to give any less fucks. She was his, and he was hers, and the Targaryen in-laws could quite honestly shove their phony, one-dimensional personalities right up their uptight asses.

...Maybe he was a little bitter.

Nothing he did could convince Dany to stop. She’d been going and going with barely a break, except when he could distract her enough to do so, whether by luring her into the family room to catch her favorite movie and fibbing a little by telling her it was on cable (it wasn’t, but there was something about them being on live telly that she loved so much, even despite owning the physical copies, which he had put on to convince her to sit her perky little arse down). Or, when he’d set up the extra bed in the guest room for her parents to stay (he prayed to all seven gods it wouldn’t come to that), that he really needed her to go lay on it for a few minutes and be sure it was comfortable enough (because, yes, her parents were that finicky and found no issue voicing their opinions). When she hadn’t come down ten minutes later, he found his plan had worked, and she had passed out.

It didn’t last; she had woken in a panic some thirty minutes later, half-asleep and still muttering that there was too much to do yet.

Multiple times did he attempt to intervene and take over, but she would not have it. And he understood it on a normal day when they might host something; she had certain things she was particular about, and he had his. But this was overkill, even on a normal day. He took to all the other chores, but not without keeping two eyes wide open on her, for fear she would exhaust herself into a coma.

At the rate she was scrubbing away every spec of dirt she could find, he was beginning to worry she’d burn holes in the walls and floors. He was exhausted just by watching her, and he decided he had enough. Her hair was frizzed and pulled away from her face, her skin clammy, her pallor more desaturated than normal and that was with a new golden tan after their mini vacation, and overall, she appeared too frail for his liking.

Jon set down the clothes he had bundled up before he was going to shower, padding over to where she was on her hands and knees, swiping away at the floorboards. “Dany...come on. You need rest, not to be worrying over parts of the house nobody notices.”

As soon as she halted her movements and cut him a glare, which was adorably terrifying despite her condition, he knew she was right, even without any words. Her parents did notice these things, for why he could never and would never even begin to try to understand, but to be reiterated, he gave zero shits as to what they thought.

They lived a perfectly comfortable life, organized messes and all.

Resuming her cleaning, he was shocked by how weak her voice sounded. “Would you rather they nag me about my inability to manage a house - or my life, for that matter - or listen to them ramble about their thousandth trip to the Virgin Islands?"

"If it were up to me they wouldn’t be coming at all,” he muttered, earning himself a look that, this time, read, ‘I know, me too’.

Jon sighed. “I’m goin’ to shower - if I find you down here still at it…,” he cut her his best implacable eye, brows raised.

Dany went to roll her eyes, then winced and squeezed her eyes shut, her fingers rubbing at her orbital sockets. She was so congested that she couldn’t even get snarky with him. Instead, she playfully, threw a wet rag in his direction, but it fell with a sad flop barely two feet from where she was kneeling. She burst into a snotty fit of giggles, whilst Jon simply shook his head at his wife and her heavy red eyes, clucking his tongue. “Am I to take that as you throwing in the towel?”

“Jon!” She squeaked, a nasally little sound as she doubled over, not an ounce of energy in her petite and fatigued frame to handle even that. “Augh, disgusting,” she mused after a minute, grabbing a tissue from the second box that had been attached to her hip and blowing her nose.

“I mean it, Dany - ten minutes. Consider that a warning. No arguing this time,” he jut his index at her, but she waved him off without acknowledging him as if she had the most mild case of a cold and not severe body aches, a sinus headache, chills, and fever. Because her parents had never supplied her with love and comfort as a child, her defense mechanism was to do everything herself as often as possible.

It was still a work in progress; she was better at accepting his help these days (except for now, when her parents exacerbated her need to prove herself, of which she most certainly did not need to do), and she was open to letting him pamper her with all the TLC he wanted to give her. He understood that desire for independence, he longed for it himself, but it was time to take matters into his own hands.

________________________________________

Less than ten minutes later, after a quick washing down, Jon came downstairs, and paused. He didn’t hear any sign of movement at all, and for a moment he panicked, the worst of his thoughts diving into his worst fears that she passed herself out from exertion.

However, to his (sort of) relief, he discovered her sitting and hunched over the kitchen table, her forehead on her arms. As he stepped closer, she produced a towel, the very one she’d tried to assault him with earlier, and flung it blindly across the table. “Yes, that’s meant to be literal this time,” she mumbled in the cave she was hiding herself in.

With a victorious smile, Jon made a quick job of switching off the lights, then tucked one arm under her knees and the other around her back. The deep wrinkle between his brow was immediate. “Gods, Dany, you’re soaked.”

She hummed a pitiful laugh into his neck where she nuzzled. He’d foregone a shirt, and her skin was blazing against his, even through her clothes. “Not the first time you’ve told me that.”

“Seven hells,” he grumbled good-naturedly, “and you’re delirious. Come on, baby, up to bed. Let’s get you a bath goin’ first though, love.”

________________________________________

After some careful finessing, Jon deposited Dany atop the closed toilet seat, then went off in search of clean, dry, cool clothes for her. While the bath filled, he instructed her to stay where she was so he wouldn’t need to worry about her hurting herself with how unbalanced she was at the moment.

He boiled her a cup of ginger sweet tea and water, dumped a couple of ibuprofen into his palm, and made his way back to her. Luckily, she didn’t try to move, and soon enough he was helping her peel away her sweat-ridden clothes and getting her into the bath. Nothing too hot so her fever wouldn’t spike further, but a little tepid.

As soon as her medicine was down and he handed her her tea, she turned her sleepy eyes on him where he knelt beside the tub, freeing one hand to gently scrape over his beard. “You spoil me,” she murmured, a soft smile tugging on her lips.

He took her hand and kissed the inside of her palm, scooting closer so he could do the same to her damp forehead. “I’m your husband; it’s my job,” he said, his own eyes weighing down as she played with the hair at the nape of his neck.

The water had begun to cool shortly after, and a chill took over her. Jon grabbed the thickest towel in their storage closet and wrapped her up like a newborn babe, swaddling her with his arms until the quivering stopped. The medicine still had some time to kick in yet.

Clothed in a tank top and underwear, dry, and warm enough, Dany let him carry her to their bed, setting her down on her side and bringing a light sheet up to her waist. Once the lights were off, he slid in beside her, the pair of them immediately seeking out the other, her back to his front. Jon sat up to lean his head in his hand, using the miniscule light from outside to see her and brush some half dry hair away from her face, running his knuckles down her arm and back up again.

Dany rolled onto her back, her eyes adjusting until she could see him clearly enough. “Thank you for taking care of me,” she whispered. His heart broke, and virus be damned, he leaned down and kissed her plump lips, though she tried (and failed) to weakly push him away.

“You’ll get sick,” she said, her hand cradling his neck.

“Worth it," he declared, giving her neglected lips several more pecks before laying back on his side. "Dany…"

"Mm?" She rolled so she could face him.

“You never have to thank me for taking care of you,” he said softly, tugging her closer, but also trying to be mindful of too much shared body heat would make her fever rise.

“Okay,” she agreed, her voice slightly hoarse.

“I love you,” he whispered against her forehead.

“I love you, too. Even when I’m a disgusting snotty, sweaty, contagious mess?”

“Do you remember our first date?” He smiled into the dark room, a chuckle already bubbling up in his throat.

“I don’t think I could ever forget you trying to pretend you weren’t on your deathbed, just to go on a date with me,” she mused, and he could hear her own grin in her words, her head tilting up so that she could see him.

Ah, yes. The ultimate game of cat and mouse. Daenerys Targaryen had been convinced she would never date again, never give a man a second look for at least another twenty years. Even after Robb introduced the two of them, and Jon was ninety-nine-point-nine percent certain he’d fallen in love with her at first sight, she was reluctant. For six months. But he was patient, and he gave her space while also being conscientious that there was a balance between coming off as far too clingy and seemingly disinterested if he didn’t at least try to find a place in the back of her mind.

Naturally, as was his luck, she finally accepted...and the next morning he’d woken up with a severe bout of the stomach flu. Fate was trying to fuck with him, but despite a trip to the toilet to heave every forty-five minutes, the gods would not win that day. Unfortunately, their plans included dinner, and nothing would stay down in the time leading up to their date. They went to a movie first, and he only had to make two trips to the bathroom to throw up all of his popcorn. When dinner came, it was so physically demanding to keep everything from not reproducing onto the shared table between them, Dany noticed the sweat on his face and kept having to ask him if he was alright

Then his anxiety spiked and he knew, for sure, he would fuck up a very important day by completely freaking her out by his odd behavior. There was bowling, and then they concluded with ice cream, and that did him in. As they took a would-be romantic stroll around the nearby park, the garbage bin never looked so appealing, and that was where he, ironically, definitely fell in love with her. Because rather than run away or laugh at his humiliation, she threw out her (and his) remaining ice cream and rubbed his back as his body seemingly caught up and punished him for holding it all in for hours.

When he tried to apologize between ralphing, she shushed him and told him to stop being ridiculous. Then she took him home and doted on him like a pitiful, helpless little boy (not that he didn’t completely eat it up - not unlike tonight, but roles reversed.

“We’ve come full circle,” he snorted, running his fingers up and down her back.

“I think it was meant to be,” she giggled.

Jon hummed and pressed his forehead to hers, shutting his eyes. “I know it was.”

[sanstropfremir]

Hey, in honor of A.C.E. coming back soon would you mind talking about their outfits and makeup in their Favorite Boy comeback (or really any of their outfits/make up cause their stylists is a god and deserves a kiss on the forehead)? They have some of my favorite styling of any boy group currently. Undercover Byeongkwan in the black and yellow crop top with the pony tail lives in my mind rent free and I’m not complaining. I especially loved the mesh of modern and traditional in Fav Boys.

yes!!!! ok be prepared people this is basically a love letter to a.c.e's stylist, whoever you are please my dms are open i just wanna talk (and maybe also get married, your choice)

(also this is really long because there's a lot of pictures, so sue me)

ok there's three main things i want to touch on here that are all contributing factors in a.c.e aesthetics hitting every time: colour theory, silhouette, and pattern matching. alright let's go!

colour theory

so i won't explain all of colour theory because i’m not as good as i should be with the actual theory, but here’s the basics. colours are divided into groups: primary, secondary, and tertiary. here’s a fun diagram i stole from google:

in centre you have the primary colours (red/blue/yellow), then you have the secondary colours, made from mixing the primary colours (orange/green/violet), and then the tertiary colours are made from mixing the primary and secondary colours (yellow orange/red orange/red violet/blue violet/blue green/yellow green). there are some commonly associated schemes that are known to ‘look good’ to the human eye:

complementary, where you pair two colours directly opposite each other on the wheel (red/green, blue/orange, purple/yellow)

analogous, which is a base colour with accents from the colours directly next to it (red base, orange/violet accent),

triadic - either base colour with accent colours equidistant from it (green/orange/violet), or base colour with split complementary (violet base, yellow green/yellow orange accent)

tetradic - this is essentially a combination of two or more of the previous, usually a double complementary or an analogous triad with a complimentary accent (red/green with red violet/yellow green, orange/blue with yellow orange/blue violet)

now there’s a lot more getting into tone, value, and saturation, but these are the basic hue combinations that we most commonly see. kpop styling sometimes veers wildly from these rules, but they aren’t hard and fast so it usually isn’t a big deal. plus a lot of styling is supposed to be a bit visually overwhelming anyways, so i’m not exactly counting it against anyone. but what makes a.c.e’s styling look so nice, even though it often isn’t that complicated, is that they always stick to a specific palette. like i went all the way back through their instagram and ALL their public appearances are coordinated:

even their dance practice videos, of all things!

this is especially true with their performance costumes:

i'm not saying anything really revolutionary here, most groups get colour matching down correctly, but a.c.e's stylists have really nailed down matching the tone and saturation as well as the hue. here's a couple of examples from concept photos:

complementary - full saturation green base, desaturated red (pink) as accent

analogous - full saturation violet, pink, and magenta with desaturated and black accents

triadic - all desaturated

complementary - full saturation red base, varying degrees of desaturation for accent colours

this is fun, let's do some more! this time from their performance costumes:

analogous (monochrome) - full saturation yellow green, desaturated accents

tetradic (analogous with complementary accent) - full saturation red, desaturated violet/red/blue, desaturated green as accent)

triadic (equidistant) - full saturation red/blue with desaturated yellow, desaturated accents

tetradic (double complementary) - full saturation red/green as main pair, desaturated blue/orange as secondary pair, full saturation yellow as accents

starting to see it? you can do this with pretty much any of their styling; i've watched a lot of their performances and i don't think i've seen a single one that didn't follow a really strict colour palette. (ok there were like two savage stages that were not quite as good, but you can tell the stylist was trying to bring them in line with the current 4th gen styling and it didn't work so it didn't last).

costume colours and lighting

this is an important aside in relation to the mvs. whoever edits their mvs is really good at colouring. a big part of colour theory is tone, which is how 'warm' or 'cool' a colour is. it's super important in lighting; the colour wheel is split in half, with yellow through red-red violet categorized as warm, and yellow green through blue and violet as cool. a really easy way to visualize this in lighting is through the light from different types of lightbulbs: led lights are cool toned (they are often slightly bluish), and old style halogen lights are warm toned (they are amber tinged). tones are a thing that kpop videos seem to have a fleeting relationship with; sometimes they're used effectively and sometimes they are not. a big thing that a lot of kpop mvs do is really quickly switch tones in colouring, without connecting the intentions of the colours. here's some examples: ateez's fireworks mv, and oneus' no diggity mv. the fireworks mv has this really weird desaturated balance between warm and cool tones specifically in the interior shots, where they somehow managed to overblow both at the same time, which ends up making it look like they were trying really hard to make a cool tone yellow. you can actually feel your eyes relax in that first shot that takes them outside, because the balance is much more natural. and the no diggity mv.... i love it but it's so chaotic. everything is on high saturation all the time and there's no real limitation on the palette, established connection between colours or arc in the colour story, so the cuts between colours and shots feel more random than intentional. now lets look at some a.c.e mvs in comparision, first: undercover. for starters there's an immediate establishement of red and white/black, with a mild green accent. then it continues to a stronger green/teal, with brown as an extension of red (same undertone). there's a colour shift at the first chorus, where they are in the analogous full saturation violet/pink outfits that i mentioned previously, but they actually desaturate and de-value the hues with edit in order to have it match the tone of the room. the second colour shift is for the second rap break, with byeongkwan and wow in yellow main on black and white backgrounds, but that same level of yellow saturation only appears at the rap break specifically, it's absent from the rest of the mv. and then there's a third colour shift on the last chorus, where they pump up the blue and magenta in order to emphasize the climax of the song.

second, for something a bit crazier: goblin. it follows almost the same pattern as undercover; starting with a strong establishment of red/white/black, but then it jumps into full saturation green and teal as the other main colours. again there's a colour switch at byeongkwan's second rap break, and after than we start to see that deeper saturation blue and pink/purple more, but the main colours are still red/white/black.

ok that's enough about colour, now let's talk about

silhouette

this is maybe a little bit more vague and difficult to describe, but whatever. silhouette is pretty much exactly the way it sounds, it's the overall shape of the body. clothing and body type play equal roles in how silhouette is perceived, but clothing can do a lot to either disguise or transform the body. now there isn't really that much variation in body type in kpop; it's a microcosm of small differences between a lot of very fit people, which has been normalized as "default" by society at large for the last while. i'm not going to get into body politics here, because we all know that kpop dudes are not the median average male body type, but they are for the sake of what we've been socialized to think of as looking attractive so the rest of this is going to operate from that assumption. and when you have five dudes who are pretty smack in the middle of that slight variation (none of them are the largest nor the thinnest, they're all about the same middling height), you've got pretty much free reign to put them in whatever you want and they'll still look hot. kpop styling has a dubious relationship to actual wearable clothing, but it is all costuming so it's not necessary for it to be wearable everyday clothing. but since view in 2015 there's been a dramatic increase in "normal" clothing as performance costume, and the thing about normal contemporary clothing is that it's actually very difficult to style in a convincing way. because it's the trends that the general public is the most familiar with, it's the easiest for them to pick apart where the flaws are. this is all preface to say that there are often common silhouettes that are popular with specific trends. in 2012-2013 there was that sweater tucked into circle skirt with big scarf trend, in the 2007 was like baggy everything and layered tshirts, etc, and 2018-2019 was big colourful patterned shirts. sound familiar? it should, take me higher came out in summer 2018! now there's a debate here (like with most pop culture and celebrity) whether or not kpop is following trends or setting them, and both points are true, but personally i'm of the opinion that kpop is kind of a median between the two; it's not setting trends because it's often taking directly from the fashion industry and/or other popular culture, but it is popularizing them in a way that said trend may not have otherwise. there's a lot of digressions in this section but i'm hoping this will help you see my point.

using take me higher as a specific example, you can clearly see that a.c.e is sticking to a specific silhouette within the group, which is a boxy/loose upper with a fitted lower. which you can see really clearly in this stage, this stage, this stage, this stage, and honestly pretty much every stage for this comeback. sometimes they'll have a slight variation where one of them is wearing a longer shirt, but otherwise it's pretty consistent. this is actually a really common silhouette for them, because it puts emphasis on their specific style of choreo, which is fast footwork. you can see it to the extreme in their main cactus styling, which goes the whole nine yards, fully making their legs the focus and going so far as to embellish them:

this silhouette also shows up for callin', where they're wearing boxy hip cut bomber jackets, and for the majority of the undercover styling, which is cropper military(ish) jackets. and it's shaping up to be similar for higher, so i'll talk more about it when i get there.

they have a consistant look for the goblin stages too, which is hanbok over a tight fitted underlayer. each of their hanbok are different cuts, which you can see with wow's cropped jacket and skirt combo, but it makes the same shape as the others. and in the goblin mv, most of their looks take a traditional silhouette and pair it with modern fabrics and patterns, and combining modern accessories with modernized traditional ones.

sticking to an internal silhouette is not the common mode for most boy group stylings at the moment. there's usually an adhesion to a specific colour scheme, but i have not noticed the same kind of care taken to silhouette. there's usually an adhesion to a member specific shape, but the general shape of the group is not usually as considered. you can see it in ateez's fireworks styling (yes i'm going to use it again, the styling was very weird and i never really talked about how weird it is). in the intro you've got tight pants, loose pants, short jackets, suit jackets, AND a long jacket. and then it's the same kind of variety in the rest of their outfits. if anyhting i'd say the emphasis was meant to be on shoulders, because of the point choreo; and yunho, hongjoong, san, and wooyoung all have some kind of shoulder padding, but that's only half the group. and the stage outfits are not any better. there's the infamous ketchup packet outfit, this naruto themed styling, this inexplicable bdsm football themed styling, and whatever this snakeskin theme is meant to be. it's all over the place! there's some performer specific shapes (hongjoong with the shoulder pads and hip length jacket, san with crop top, yeosang sleeveless) but if you were to just look at the shape of the outfits regardless of colour and pattern, you'd have no way to tell if they were all in the same group.

ok now lastly, let's quickly talk about

pattern matching and texture

this section won't be as long, but i wanted to cover it because even though it's a small and subtle thing, it does a lot in the visual long run. the general rule with patterns is that you don't combine patterns of the same size. this is kind of hard to explain without a visual reference so here's a few examples:

(not my photos, these are from scott schuman's blog the sartorialist)

small check, even smaller pinstripe

mid-size print on pant, large print on scarf

small shirt stripe, mid-size print on tie, mid-large print on scarf

small print on zip jacket, mid-size on scarf, large plaid on jacket

like all fashion and like everything else i've talked about here, this isn't a hard and fast rule, but it does generally look the most harmonious. a.c.e really nails this in the take me higher stages, which you can see here:

(in addition to using different pattern sizes, they're using different colours as well to make it less visually busy)

(bonus! see if you can name the type of colour stories!)

the goblin stages utilize a combination of texture and pattern matching, where the hanbok are a mix of different fabrics (raw silk, embroidered satin, organza) with different patterns, overtop plain underlayers, or when they aren't in hanbok their outfits are very heavily embellished to add visual interest, but are unpatterned fabrics.

in conclusion: good and cohesive colour stories, emphasis on uniform silhouettes and variety in patterns and textures. they also are very specific with accessories, and use them to emphasize key features.

ok! i think that's all i want to cover for this post, because this is already so long. but i've started on the write up for higher already, so i might get into some of my points here in more detail because i'll be talking about one specific thing instead of like......all of it.

[knight-ingale]

Chapter 1, Leaving the Sun

A/N: hey, it's Knightingale! This is the first chapter of my Twilight fanfiction I started writing this year. I edited this after I posted on my laptop so hopefully it looks better. 2020 is a mess and I just wanted to write some garbage fanfiction. Let me know what you think of it!

---------------- 

You looked out the open car window into the wide expanse of Arizona’s cloudless open sky, a backdrop of perfect blue against the tall buildings placed in the desert of your home state. Soon, your new home would be in Forks, Washington, which differed very much from here. The open sky in Phoenix was ever-present, only gracing the dusty ground and perpetually dying lawns a few times each year with rain an average of 33 times. Yes, you had checked. In Forks, the sky was framed by tall trees when you looked up into the shaded clouds that were nearly always hanging in the air. The rain was just as present as the greenery that covered the trees, raining nearly every day. Phoenix was where you had lived with your sister and mother for all your life. Forks is the home of your father, Charlie. You call him “Dad” to his face, of course, but you had fallen into the same habit as your older sister Bella when addressing him to others as “Charlie”.  Last you had been to Forks was three summers ago when you had made your month-long summer visit to his little home in the rainy forests. Bella, your elder sister, who detested Forks, had put up enough of a fight to convince both your parents to let the two of you stay in Phoenix for the summer, bringing Charlie up instead for a mere two weeks in Cali. Now you and your sister were moving to live with him there!

You were much more excited about your leaving compared to your sister. You hadn’t been to Forks since you were 12 years old. You had often enjoyed your trips every summer, living with your dad for a month felt like a fairy tale. The large forests covered in green was like an alien world compared to Phoenix, as if you had stepped through a faery gate and was transported to another dimension. One filled with trees that held up the clouds, a place full of desaturated buildings full of cozy warmth and forgotten smiles.

You’re mother, Renne, broke you out of her daydreams with her voice, 

“Bella,” she sighs to your older sister, “You don’t have to do this.” She glances at you through the rear-view mirror, “Neither of you do.” she looks back to Bella, her main concern, with her sweet, childish eyes. You can see Bella’s face tighten with nervous anxiety in the car doors outside mirror. You knew why she was anxious. As much as you loved her, Renne could be a little… absent-minded sometimes. She wasn’t dumb or dull-minded, quite the opposite, actually. Her mind was always in so many places at once; like a box of little bunny rabbits, hopping energetically from place to place. Unfortunately, this caused her to forget things sometimes. Like having a bag of marbles, but the bottom seam of the bag is ripped and marbles keep spilling out. You can catch them and try to open the pouch and put them in, but you’d still keep dropping marbles. That’s why you and Bella were around, you caught all of the marbles and put them back in the bag before she ran off to a new idea, leaving her little thoughts behind. Bella sighs herself before finally speaking, 

“I want to go.” she lied. Everyone in the car knew that was a blatant lie, but she had said it so often lately, someone who didn’t know her would have believed it. Luckily for you, you had spent the last 15 years with her, you knew your sister and her habits better than she probably did. Your mom looks up to the rear-view again, but you just smile, 

“I’m actually excited to go to Forks, mom!” You playfully glare at Bella as you lean towards her shoulder of the seat, “Besides, I’ll consider this making up for Bells throwing a tantrum and keeping me from Charlie’s place for three years.” Bella scoffs as she rolls her eyes, but she can’t keep the smile off her face, 

“You say that like I’ve forgiven you for pretending to be ‘Bloody Mary’” she jokes. You laugh. You lean back in your seat, letting the relative silence continue, the only hearing the quiet melodies on the radio and the rushing of wind as you neared your first destination, the airport.

When you had reached the airport and gotten your suitcases out of the back. Even between the two of you, there wasn’t much, only a few bags per person. Due to the near-polar-opposites of your parent’s climates, not much of your wardrobe was suitable for Forks’ usual weather forecasts. You and Bella actually had to go out and buy the warmest clothing possible manufactured in Phoenix, which wasn’t much, due to the near insufferable heat of the summer and mild heat that still hung around in the dead of winter months. Once you both had your bags out of the car, Renne turned to you both, looking equal parts loving and anxious.

“Tell Charlie I said ‘hi’” You smile, 

“We will,” You both answer. Your mom grabs one of your and Bella’s hands, 

“I’ll see you soon,” she insists, worry burning in her eyes, “You girls can come home whenever you want- I’ll come right back as soon as you need me!” Bella almost noticeably winces, she knows your mom really loved you both, but she was in love and wanted to spend time with your traveling step-father, Phil.

“Don’t worry about us,” She urges, “It’ll be great. I love you, Mom.” You smile and pull your mom into a hug, entrapping Bella into your cocoon of love with you.

“I love you, Mom.” you murmur into her ear. 

With that, you and Bella set off into the airport’s main building, taking the path familiar to you, one that you had taken with your sister every summer until three years ago.

Going through customs was easy, the only three carry on items being a pair of cheap earbuds, an iPod mini, and a parka. The parka for the predictable forecast of rainy weather, and the iPod to keep yourself entertained during the 4-hour flight. You were delighted when no one was sitting in the third seat in your row, but it was only to be expected. There weren’t many people coming from the blistering heat of Phoenix willingly leaving for the downcast rain puddle that is Forks, Washington.

Once the plane had landed, you and Bella stepped out into the rainy sky of Port Angeles. Charlie, your father was waiting for you both in the police cruiser, like he had every year you visited before. Charlie, being the Chief of Police in town, only drove the cruiser, instead of getting his own car. It made sense to you, why buy another of something you already have that works perfectly? Bella however did not like the idea of being driven around in it. Something Bella had adamantly refused to endure was riding to school in the cop car, “Nothing slows down traffic like a cop,” she complained. Because of this, she was hellbent on buying her own vehicle to drive to school in, regardless of her smaller-than-desired budget.

Charlie welcomed you both as you boarded off of the plane, well, Bella more stumbled. That’s why you had come off first, grabbing her arm to keep her from having a personal encounter with the asphalt landing beneath you. Charlie awkwardly hugged you both.

“It’s good to see you girls,” he says smiling at you both as he pulls away. “You haven’t changed much, Bells. Y/n, you’ve grown taller, kiddo!” he laughs, “How’s Renee?” 

“Mom’s fine, It’s good to see you too, Dad.” Bella answers. Of course, she doesn’t call him Charlie to his face. You smile, 

“Mom says ‘Hi’” Charlie nods and helps you both with your luggage. All of Bella’s things fit into the trunk, as well as most of your own, you only needed to put your biggest case of clothing with you in the back. As soon as you all strap into the cruiser, Charlie makes an announcement,

“I found a good car for the two of you, really cheap.” A car? 

“What kind of car?” Bella asks suspiciously.

“Well, it’s a truck actually, a Chevy.” Oh, a truck. Maybe then it’d be more durable. God knows you’d need it. You didn’t have your license yet, so Bella was the only option to get you to school. If you didn’t want to be brought to school behind the separation grate of a cop car, that is.

“Where did you find it?” Bella asks.

“Do you remember Billy Black down at La Push?” La Push was the little Native-American reservation down at the coast if you remembered right. Billy, Billy… You let out a little “oh!” before Bella can respond.

“He was that guy we’d go fishing with, right?” You remembered him faintly. He lived on the reservation with two, no, three kids. You remembered two sisters, twins, and a little boy. Man, you hadn’t thought about them in years! Of course, that couldn’t be helped, since Bella treated Forks liked it was cursed with the plague for years, enough to stop your summerly visits.

“Yup, that’s him,” your dad confirms, “He’s in a wheelchair now, so he can’t drive anymore, and he offered to sell me his truck cheap.” Bella, ever suspicious of this vehicle, prods further, 

“What year is it?”  You can see Charlie make a slight face at Bella’s question, 

“Well… Billy’s done some work to the engine- it’s only a few years old really,” he tries vainly. 

“When did he buy it?” Bella continues. 

“He bought it in 1984, I think.”

“Did he buy it new?” Charlie sighs at the question, 

“Well, no. I think it was new in the early sixties- or late fifties, at the earliest,” he admits. Bella sigh herself, 

“Ch- Dad,” she starts, “Neither Y/N or I know anything about cars! We wouldn’t be able to fix it if anything went wrong, and I can’t really afford a mechanic-” she rambles anxiously before Charlie stops her, 

“Really, Bella, the thing runs great. They don’t build them like that anymore.” Bella stews in her thoughts for a moment, you break the silence, 

“I mean, if anything, I’m more than happy to get to school in something other than the back of a cop car,” you laugh easily, “I mean, can you imagine, coming to school on the first day in the back of the Chief’s cruiser like a criminal? Talk about a first impression!” Charlie is able to laugh at your light humor with you before Bella asks another question, 

“How cheap is… cheap?” she asks, quieting your laughter quickly. 

“Well, girls, I kind of already bought it for you. As a homecoming gift.” you can see Charlie peek over at Bella before glancing at you through the rear-view hopefully. Already… wow, was the truck free?

“You didn’t have to do that, Dad, I was going to buy us a car myself,” Bella says. Charlie looks straight ahead at the road before answering, obviously trying to get his emotions out without his usual awkwardness.

“I don’t mind. I want you to be happy here.” His last sentence was obviously more pointed at your sister than you. She had never really hidden her… distaste for Forks. Charlie seemed rather pleased the two of you had willingly decided to come live with him for a more permanent amount of time.

“That’s really nice Dad,” Bella says, looking straight out the front window, just like your dad. “Thanks, I really appreciate it.” You smile at the two in front of you, 

“Thanks, Dad!” He makes a gruff sound of affirmation, slightly awkward, but mostly pleased at your positive reaction,

“Well, now, you’re welcome.” You settled against the window and car door and pop your earbuds in their place as you press play on your iPod. You look out through a rain covered window, alternating between watching the terrain run behind you and focusing on the water droplets streaking across the glass, seeing which ones met the bottom first.

Eventually, you made it home. You recognized the curve of the road, seeing a peek of the washed-out color of the white house and dark roof through the brilliant green of the trees. What was the most eye-catching about the scene was the contrasting red truck in the driveway. Bella hopped out of the front with almost excited energy. 

“Wow Dad,” she exclaims slightly louder than her usual, quiet volume, “I love it! Thanks!” You climbed out of the back, pausing your music and stuffing the earbuds into your pocket as you made your way beside your sister. Despite being the complementary color of green, the washed-out fade of the red paint made the truck look perfect in the surrounding environment. It was big and old, but it was sturdy looking, like a little tank. This was definitely one of the trucks that could get in a collision and crush the opposing vehicle like an empty soda can. At least if Bella managed to crash the two of you, you’d probably live!

Charlie calls you both to the back of the truck after accepting your thanks and words of appreciation as best as he could, helping you both unpack your luggage from the cruiser. It only took one trip. Bella carried her luggage upstairs with your dad’s help, and you dragged your own into your room on the main floor of the house. 

Originally, you and Bella had shared the nursery, but around 11 years old, the two of you convinced (or complained, depends on who you ask)  your dad to let you and Bella have separate rooms. Your little room was wedged between the stairs and the living room, the smallest room in the house. It wasn’t bad though. The walls were painted navy blue with old glow in the dark stars stuck all over the popcorn ceiling and tops of the walls. You still had the white garlands of Christmas lights tacked up the to corners of your ceilings, and the lace curtains still hung over the window. Your window faced the back of the house directly into the forest behind. There was enough room for your twin-sized bed and a small desk and bookshelf shoved into one corner, your dresser snug in a corner on one side of your bed, and nightstand on the other. There was an old computer upstairs in Bella’s room, the nursery. Your mom had all but demanded it be there for easy communication. You missed her already.

You didn’t set to really putting your room together, other than putting clothes in drawers and hanging what little you had in the closet. You decided you’d unpack all personal items later, but dug out your backpack. A white canvas backpack with two bottle pockets on the sides and a smaller, extra on the front. You had doodled on it with markers last year, but it hadn’t fallen apart yet so you had been using it this year too. Your now emptied folders and binders took up space in the main pocket; your pencil case and an extra pencil case full of period products housed in the smaller one. Your backpack was set. You decide on what to wear for tomorrow, familiarizing yourself with your new set up in the process. By the time you had busied yourself with the small tasks you could, the sun had fully set behind the cover of clouds.

You made your way upstairs to your sister’s room, peaking your head through the door. Bella had put on her pajamas and was sitting in bed, gazing out into the night. In the low light of the lamp she had on, you could see she wasn’t feeling great about tomorrow.

“Hey Bells,” you call softly. She looks over to you, not bothering to change her expression. She already learned she couldn’t hide how she felt around you, so she stopped trying quite a while ago. “Not excited for tomorrow, huh?” You slide into the room fully, gently closing the door behind you. She sighs as you set down across from her.

“Not really.” She admits. “Forks Highs-school only has three hundred and fifty-seven students,”

“Now fifty-eight,” you interject. She nods and closes her eyes, 

“Exactly. Everyone around here has grown up together- their grandparents were toddlers together! We’re the new girls from the big city-”

“A curiosity,” you agree tiredly, 

“A freak,” she grumbles pessimistically. “I mean, we don’t look how girls from Phoenix should, I know I don’t. I should be tan, sporty, blonde- a volleyball player, or a cheerleader, perhaps- everything people think about when they think of living in the valley of the sun!”

“You know neither of us should ever be let in a quarter-mile vicinity of a volleyball, first of all-” you joke, “and second, I don’t think being sporty or tan would really help anyway. If Phoenix is the ‘valley of the sun’, then Forks in “the valley of rain clouds’. I don’t think a lot of the other white people here are going to be very tan.” Bella manages a genuine, albeit small, laugh. “I don’t think we’d fit in anywhere, Bells, not unless we find people like us.” She sighs, 

“Other people with glitches in their brains.” You shrug, 

“I don’t think its a glitch. We’re just wired differently. Besides, our brains are literally meat-jello full of electricity, some of them are bound to work a little strange, right?” She laughs, louder this time. You give her a side hug before standing up. “Alright, I’m heading to bed. See you in the morning.”

“Goodnight,”’ Bella says un-enthusiastically. You exit the room and call down the short hallway to Charlie’s room, 

“Night, Dad!” He pokes his head out of the door a moment after, 

“Night honey, see you in the morning.” He goes back to his room and closes the door. You trail your way down the stairs and to your room before crawling under the blankets. You were going to need your sleep for tomorrow. After all, you were starting your first day at a new school. Forks High, now at a population of 359.

[transrightsjimin]

@trespassers-will​ ok here we go

i also watched the various videos hidden inside each photo and the videos that were posted today as well and took notes too hjfhk

1. hobi’s room

okay so i thought i would rank jin’s room first but then i saw hobi’s room and i saw that couch nd went OMG okay thats no.1!! i love this interior so so much, like i normally hate orange and blue as a combination but this seems almost more like red and blue and it really reminds me of hopeworld. there’s many pop art-like graphic design posters adorning the walls, showing lines like ‘hope‘, ‘sweet’ and ‘my way‘. the shoes on the closet(?) behind him were disaplayed bc those are the colours we wears the most in his fashion. and then there’s this iconic inflatable clear pink couch and him wearing a pink robe and just GOD what a mood, i want a room like this!! the chair reminds me a lot of the type of fun quirky furniture i fantasized about and incorporated into my drawings as a kid when i was around 8-11, probably because i got inspired by stuff like totally spies and polly pocket, which had all these designs clearly inspired by 60s and 70s space age design but more in pink and purple i guess.

also i hate the search for such stills bc even w safe search on, you still have godawful f3tish drawings depicting those kids from totally spies ending up in search results and it’s disgusting. but yeah it reminded me of that

when i say polly pocket, i particularly mean this quik-clik (magnetic clothes and hair) era in 2005 which was what i had some stuff from. i had that couch / movie night! set and the pool and that

also i just really like hobi’s room because with all the posters and cabinets and clothing items laid out and a carpet and fun colours and whatnot, it really feels like an actual room you could live in, unlike any of the other rooms which feel very empty or too minimalist to me. but YEAH hobi’s room is my fav, i love the way a fuller room feels more cozy and habitable and floaties and inflatable floaties are AMAZING

2. jin’s room

jin’s room is so prettyyyy!! jins explanation of the room was very uhm confident and funny but i love that. the couch looks like a lilac shell, which makes sense as everything else looks very pearlescent. i really love cool-toned pastels like lilac, powder / baby blue, periwinkle and everything just looks like it’s part of a waiting hall for mermaids or something. there’s also gems in it which took me a while to realize bc i only noticed the glass chandelier and lamp but then i saw them in his hand nd on the table. i dont rly care abt gems / jewels but overall i just love how this whole room speaks ‘pretty‘ to me. robes are always a plus. as i was writing this, i was also reminded of hair extension mullet jin with iridescent clothing and all and that is actually my all time fav photoshoot / look of him. him saying he’s the gem of the room makes sense too as he’s sitting in the shell like a pearl. jin pretty pretty mermaid

ok from here on its getting harder bc place 3-8 is not so much abt which is nicer but which one actually makes me feel any emotion bc i just feel too exhausted for excitement over comebacks or anything really. also minimalism doesnt make me feel anything either. but ill try

3. jungkook’s room

ok ive been staring at a screen w few sleep for too long so ill try to go through my ranking faster bc ive been working on this post for too long, also partially bc i cant focus nd partially bc theres some i just rly dont feel much for but i feel bad for ranking one lower than the other or ranking smth higher when ive talked to someone who dislikes a room i like dghkfdf

but yeah i like jungkooks room! its a very intense blue tht might make you depressed if youre in it too long but again i love how theres multiple items stacked in the bg and intense blue lights, and the ceiling looks like it has soundproof padding. its like youre in a recording studio or at some vaguely nostalgic party of a friend of my mom, who had plants in her home nd rock music nd the tv on and was smoking nd it was a bit dark and mysterious. i like it, it intrigues me a bit nd makes me miss going to concerts. also this pic rly just reminds me of 2008-2010 pop music videos where theres always a party and dj and people are wearing sunglasses or something and theres a dance break at the end

4. yoongi’s room

also blue!! the first time i saw this pic it was bc someone sent it to me to say how ugly they thought the decoration / editing looked w the metallic dripping stuff from the couch and whatnot but i kinda like it :( i like his velvety clothing and the light blue in the rest of the room is really pretty. i like mirror themes when done well nd i like how the reflectiveness shows also in the metallic dripping nd metallic spheres and the mirror hes standing on nd the way light reflects on his clothes and from the lamp. only the lamp feels a bit too much like a contemporary art installation for me nd his room already is a bit too empty for my liking nd i had the feeling when i watched the vid of him walking through the room that there was not much to interact w in the room like it was a bit dull. his voice in the explanation videos made it feel more like a place of peace / solitude rather than boredom or loneliness though.

5. namjoon’s room

ehh i think place 5, 6 and 7 are interchangable at this point. namjoon woulve ranked lowest but i listened to his explanation videos and saw him goof around in today’s video and appreciated it a bit more. the room still looks quite minimalist and not super comfortable, like youre not allowed to touch anything there (which is the same for jin i guess but i dont view that as smth meant to look like a living room). i do like how the wood theme is present throughout each wall nd in various items and w the windows nd use of space it feels a bit inspired by japanese interior design and that that is inspired by his bonsai tree nd love for woodwork, but im not sure. i was actually quite shocked some of his explanations were so short. so yeah i place this 5th bc i like how coherent the theme is but it doesnt feel cozy or inviting nd still very cold to me, maybe bc it looks too expensive or minimalistic in terms of colours.

6. jimin’s room

i like the flowers but also i dont like tiny flowers nd they tend to be the stinkier ones. i kind of like how jimins room feels the most like a grandma one w all the flowers nd offwhite and the lamp and beige i think? but the colours are so muted and if anything it feels like a place for a bridal photoshoot nd im just so bored. i love jimin nd feel bad for ranking a room he curated so low but it rly creates no serotonine in my brain, just melatonine bc im sleepy. i like how the room i obviously quite packed w stuff, but then the washed out colours make everything still look very bleak. hmm. i do like how the flowers reach outside the borders unlike w any of the others’ photos. im about to fall asleep so let me quickly finish this post

7. tae’s room

the picture in the middle behind him is interesting nd i dont know how he made that, nd i do like how he described his room as a place where there would always be enough food for visitors. i know it’s meant to communicate some highbrow, artsy vibe but w the weird editing and lightning nothing looks real in the room he’s in (including himself, like it doesnt even look like hes in the room) and it just looks kitschy instead of artsy. yeah i dont gravitate towards this one, it’s like deep-fried and desaturated at the same time nd i tend to avoid looking at it subconsciously

8. the first room photo

i first posted a long description here why but it disappeared but in short. this photo evokes no emotional response to me other than think of kind of crappy hotel rooms i was in w my parents while on vacation nd we slept in the same room or something nd the beds were awful nd made my moms chronic pain worse. the clothing is very boring and so r the colours of the room. i know bangtan curated stuff but its still the least interesting photo to me, maybe im too depressed to feel anything idk

im sorry this was prob very boring TT_TT i tried my best to make a ranking but i rly dont know nor care as much as i would want to

[in-tua-deep]

I haven't interacted before but I love all your aus and your writing! Reading them a while back got me back into the umbrella academy. I just read your ben saves the day au and everything about it is amazing and also makes me very sad. Do you think Klaus was there or ever manifests himself with his powers or something? It's wonderful where it ends but the whole family together would make it so much happier...

!!!!! thank you!! and thank you even more for asking me about the ben saves the day au bc I actually did have a vague idea on how to get Klaus back in the au and even though your idea with him managing to manifest himself with his own powers is probably way more valid my brain produced a slightly. stranger option lmao

(ben saves the day au can be found right here)

So it’s after everyone has gone home. Ben is left in his apartment with his two cats and also Five who, Ben is discovering, is super super messed up about everything. 

(every day Ben thanks god that Five is living with him and not in the manor where there are about six hundred different triggers floating around)

Ben tells his coworkers that, with his father’s death (which they know about bc of his time off work) he gained custody of his 'nephew’ who Ben would have stolen years ago if he’d even thought that he was in the house (truth) and that Five has multiple issues

his coworkers are very supportive

Ben calls in a few favors and manages to get Five’s existence legalized by claiming that Five is his own son who Reginald managed to get his hands on after the death of the original Five. 

(“I would have been sixteen, Ben.”

“People have had kids younger, and you were a teenage runaway. People would absolutely believe you made bad life choices.”

“Ben!”)

And Ben has friends, okay. His coworkers are all super supportive and swing around with extra food and hand me down clothes from their own teenage kids and other supplies that Ben might need as the sudden guardian of a teenage boy. 

And Five doesn’t even have to do anything to sell the lie, because he’s wary of all of them, flinches at loud noises, and they all see him pocketing extra food when he thinks no one is looking. Five tends to retreat to the bedroom (it’s a one bedroom apartment - him and Ben are sharing right now) when people come over and since Ben has politely asked Five to Not use his powers around his friends until he tells them he’s the Horror on his own terms, Five can’t even sneak to the kitchen or anything

They worry about Ben’s financial situation, taking on a kid on such short notice, but Ben assures them that he’s fine and that he can just use his father’s inheritance money.

(Reginald was a billionaire. They are all legally his children. None of they are actually going to be wanting for money for a good long while.)

So everything is settling down and smoothing out. Ben has custody of Five. Allison is in negotiations with Patrick and is being allowed supervised visits with her daughter. Luther and Vanya are both in therapy. Diego is grudgingly using Reginald’s money to buy a new place that isn’t a boiler room that’s big enough for both him and Grace (and of course to get her charging station to a portable state) and last Ben heard he was looking at somewhere pretty close to where Ben and Five live, which is a nice thought. Ben’s trying to convince Luther to move out of the manor as well and get his own place, and he’s at least thinking about it so - progress.

That’s around the time when Ben goes to sleep and has a really wild dream.

The dream is desaturated, and there’s a little girl on a bicycle. She looks very aggrieved. 

“Are you Ben?” She demands to know.

“Uh,” Ben says very intelligently, because he was not expecting to be interrogated by a little girl in his dream. This is probably Five’s fault because the little gremlin convinced Ben that ice cream for dinner was necessary. Are ice cream dreams a thing? “Yes.”

The girl tosses her hands up in sarcastic triumph, “Wonderful! Then he can be your problem! I have held on for as long as humanly possible, but I’m done. He’s constantly badgering me and I can’t handle it. You idiots already mucked around in the time stream, this shouldn’t cause reality to collapse. Probably.”

“What?” Ben asks blankly, because reality collapsing sounds a little bit concerning. 

“You’ll see.” The little girl promises darkly, waving her hand.

And then Ben wakes up, and he wakes up wheezing because what the fuck, was Five jumping on his stomach like an actual five-year-old right now? He opens his eyes, and meets startled green ones and a mop of curly hair that definitely does not belong to Five. 

“Ben!?” The boy who is definitely Klaus who is dead yelps loudly, startling back and waking up Five who startles bad enough to roll completely off the bed and scramble to his feet.

Klaus looks exactly the way he did when he died. Sixteen years old with a wild mop of hair that Reginald had been threatening to cut for weeks. 

(He looks like Nathan Young in Misfits, y’all. That’s it.)

“Klaus!?” Five yells, making Klaus swing around to stare at Five with equally wide eyes. 

“You can see me?” Klaus asks, incredulously, patting himself down. He’s in the umbrella academy uniform and Ben allows himself a moment to close his eyes and swallow his grief because he is apparently the responsible adult in this situation. 

“Klaus,” Ben says gently, and both boys attention go to him, “Does God happen to look like a little girl on a bike, by any chance?”

“Uh,” Klaus manages, which Ben takes as confirmation.

He pinches the bridge of his nose to hold back the headache (and the tears because Klaus is here and he’s not dead anymore except he was dead and Ben doesn’t have the emotional capacity to deal with this at ass o’ clock in the morning). He pulls off the covers and swings himself out of bed, quickly crossing the room to open some drawers. 

Klaus and Five both watch him warily, but it’s unfounded. All Ben does is grab an old t-shirt and some sweatpants and toss them at Klaus. 

(Klaus doesn’t even lift his hands to catch them, just looks alarmed when they hit him in the face. Ben does not apologize, because he might laugh and if he laughs he will cry)

“It is,” Ben glances at the alarm clock, “Three twenty six in the morning. I am going to call off work today so we can deal with... whatever this is. But that’s not happening at three in the morning. Klaus, get changed, you aren’t sleeping in that. The bed might be a squeeze but at this point I don’t care.”

Klaus is wide-eyed and Ben’s heart aches but he gives a quick shaky nod and just starts peeling off his uniform there and then. Ben crawls back into bed, scooching over so he’s in the middle and impatiently gesturing at Five, who still has his back to the wall like a cornered animal. 

Without taking his eyes off of Klaus, Five slowly creeps back over to the bed. Usually Ben gives Five his space on the bed, but that’s not going to work tonight with three of them so when Five crawls in Ben wraps an arm around his still tiniest brother and presses a kiss against that dark mop of hair. 

Five’s face pulls into a scowl but he doesn’t protest the actions, allowing himself to curl into Ben’s warmth. 

Klaus hovers at the edge of the bed once changed, looking uncertain. Ben’s sweatpants are a bit short on him - even at sixteen Klaus is lanky, but serviceable. 

“Come on then,” Ben says, reaching out a hand because he has two arms. Klaus doesn’t need more of an invitation, rocketing into the bed and crashing against Ben’s side, making the bed sway and Five yelp a protest. 

Klaus’s skin is ice cold (Ben had forgotten his brother’s unfortunate circulation issues) but Ben doesn’t shove him away. Just tucks his arm around Klaus’s bony shoulders and reels him in closer, because his bed really isn’t that big and he doesn’t want either of his brothers to fall out. 

Klaus sniffles wetly, and Ben leans over to press a kiss into Klaus’s curly mop of hair. Five makes a small sound of protest - his need to be an attention hog temporarily overruling his dislike of being treated like a child. 

“Go to sleep,” Ben tells both of his boys sleepily, “We’ll figure things out in the morning.”

He gets some vague confirmation noises from both sides (though Klaus still sniffles) and Ben really is tired because he barely closes his eyes before falling back into the void of sleep.

His last thought before he falls is - Please, god, let this not be a dream.

He wakes up in the morning feeling heavy. This is because Klaus has rolled in the night to be pretty much bodily on top of Ben, his curly hair tickling at Ben’s nose and his elbow kind of digging into his stomach. Five is on his other side, plastered against him. Their legs are all tangled enough that Ben can’t actually tell which foot belongs to him, Five, or Klaus. 

A quick check of the time reveals that he still had a few minutes before his alarm goes off. 

On one hand, Ben never wants to leave this bed. He’s a little bit afraid that moving will make the magic vanish, and Klaus will disappear again, but he also really needs to call work and tell them he can’t come in today. So reluctantly, he shifts to free his hands from the pile and in doing so manages to wake both boys.

It’s a sleepy slow waking up, Five grumbling in a way that Ben will never tell him is adorable and Klaus giving a while as his limbs straighten in a big stretch. They both open their eyes, see each other and Ben, and blink in alarm.

Ben does not want a repeat of the early morning and just shrugs them both off of him, “Good morning.” He greets them as he peels himself out of bed with a yawn. “Give me a minute to call work. Five, show Klaus where the bathroom is - ”

“I know where it is.” Klaus cuts Ben off, and then proceeds to look surprised when Ben actually pauses at the interruption. 

“What is going on.” Five doesn’t even asks, because he seems to have accepted that this is their lives, their cosmic punishment for having superpowers or something. He just looks between Klaus and Ben like one of the will make the world make sense again.

Ben sympathizes. He can feel a full blown freak out building up in his chest - he just needs to call work and then call the rest of the family to come over as well before he can have it. 

“Hold that thought.” Ben says, holding up a finger as he scoops his phone up and walks to the kitchen to make his call.

And he sends the bat signal to the family is a succinct “hey guys please come to the apartment asap klaus showed up in my room last night, five can confirm” which absolutely sets that cat among chickens as the group chat BLOWS UP but ben can’t bring himself to read everything so he just. starts making breakfast.

five and klaus emerge from the bedroom and five has his hand clamped around Klaus’s elbow and Klaus is sort of boggling at the connection and isn’t protesting and five’s face looks tight and ben can see that freak out waiting to happen as well

and that’s how klaus ends up back with the family. God kicks him out because she doesn’t like him, Ben gets the shock of his life, Five is very concerned, and the whole family ends up freaking out

Ben ends up getting a bigger bed because Klaus ends up staying with him and Five

Ben ends up finally coming clean to all his friends about being the horror and that Five is not his nephew but is actually his time travelling brother and also his brother who had powers to do with the dead has come back from the dead

(and yes, these brothers are also the very same brothers he named his cats after - at least Seya and Brat take Klaus’s presence like champs. it’s almost like they’re used to him being around already...)

ben should really consider getting a bigger apartment considering there are now three of the living in there but honestly?? Five doesn’t sleep well alone (which they figured out when Ben tried to take the couch in the early days) and Klaus is an absolute octopus who is constantly marveling at being able to have human contact and Ben really doesn’t have the heart to kick them out of his room so.

(they’re both so touch starved, and they both break Ben’s heart)

but also the bigger apartment consideration might be necessary because every single sibling seems to trot through Ben’s apartment with great frequency. it’s a thing. they all want to spend time with Five and Klaus.

(there’s a heartbreaking moment where Five thinks that because Ben had Klaus back he’s going to kick Five out which they both hug it out over)

they all have to figure it out together and it’s a big mess but at the end of the day

what’s family for?

[artsystranger]

Karma’s Playlist Chapter 1

Karma’s Playlist. Chapter 1. Introduction to the Snow.

Content: Beetlejuice/OC, language, inappropriate beetle behavior, he’s a creep what do you expect, oh my god they were roommates Word Count: 7040 Summary: Karmilla has always been able to see ghosts; something that becomes immediately more troublesome than ever when she makes eye contact with the sandworm-dodging demon-ghost. Author’s Note: I have an actual playlist for Karma. I will be using songs in there as titles for chapters. Sometimes the songs will be very telling on what’s going to be happening in the chapter.

The rain had started in the middle of her shift, something she should’ve expected given how cloudy it had been lately. It was just a light rain, though, so she felt her jacket would suffice for the short amount of time she would be out in it. The sound of the continuous pitter-patter of drops soothed her, letting her mind settle easier into the mindless monotony of her job.

Soon enough, her shift was over and she was able to leave. As she tugged on her jacket, she brainstormed on how fast she was going to have to walk to the bus stop while staying as dry as possible. There were a few trees she could take cover in, but they, of course, only did so much good. With a heavy sigh, wishing she wore a thicker jacket, she pushed through the store’s door and began her trek.

It wasn’t that far of a walk to her bus stop, thankfully. Just around two blocks. With her quick pace and there being so few people out on the streets thanks to the rain, she was able to get to the bus stop cover with her jacket being minimally soaked through. With a sigh of relief, she took a seat at one end of the bench, which had remained dry thanks to the metal cover surrounding it. An older woman sat at the other end, giving Karmilla a smile and a nod.

As she relaxed in her seat, bringing out her phone to pass the time, the rain began to pick up, desaturating the area with it’s dreary greys. It would’ve been much more enjoyable if she didn’t have one last walk to suffer through after the bus ride. Still, the sound was nice and helped her space out and let time pass.

“FUCK!” The shout came from across the street, followed by cackling laughter.

Looking up, Karmilla saw a man standing under a cloth covering that now has a large hole in it, presumably because it wasn’t able to handle the sudden downpour. He was soaked head to toe, staring in disbelief as he continued to stand under the hole. To the left of the man was where the cackling was coming from; a vividly green-haired individual in strikingly odd clothing, pointing and laughing at the victim of misfortune. While his style could by eccentricism, his floating mid-air as he laughed could not.

Karmilla couldn’t stop herself from staring at him, exasperation overtaking her mind. It had been a long while since she had seen a ghost out and about, but never one quite as relaxed or unconcerned as this one. Either he didn’t know about the weird, ghost-eating worms that evaded her supernatural perception or he had a way of avoiding them.

As a whole, ghosts were not a new development for her. She had always been able to see them ever since she was little, even if she didn’t know why. They were few and far between but even the occasional sighting and telling her mom of such had landed her being sent to many doctors to try and see what was going on in her head. Still, the sightings of ghosts didn’t seem to be enough for doctors to diagnose her with any hallucinatory disorders. Something she was very happy to escape.

When she came back to reality, the drenched man had wandered away down the street, leaving the ghost’s laughter dying out slowly before it stopped very suddenly, his interest in that small accident being lost. His dingy shoes rested on the ground as he started looking around, as if trying to decide something. His scanning gaze stopped very quickly when he noticed the woman staring at him.

Karmilla diverted her gaze quickly down to her phone, acting as though she was very much engrossed with whatever was on it. She flicked through her screens, looking through different social media to try and distract herself from the green-haired stranger, hoping that he would think she was just looking past him and go on his merry way. She had a feeling this wasn’t the case when she felt a lingering chill begin to hover in front of her. She looked slowly up from her phone to the upside-down, pale face that she had seen across the street. With the sudden closeness, she could very clearly see patchy stubble, which was mostly green, very much matching his darker-rooted to vibrant green hair. With it just being stubble, it seemed that his cheeks were also stained green for whatever reason.

As a smile started to brighten his face, she looked back down on her phone from his dark, trying one last time to ignore him.

“You can see me!”

There was a pause for response, but she just continued looking at her phone, pretending she saw nothing. She’s found that talking to ghosts in public brings nothing but weird stares and trouble. This one was not easily thrown off, however.

“Hey, don’t ignore me!” he shouted, rotating back right-ways up before bending down and almost shoving his face into her’s. She flinched back just a bit, but pulled her phone closer through his cold face, trying harder to ignore him. “Our eyes met! Our souls bonded! Well, maybe not my soul, but- LOOK AT ME!”

Karmilla heaved a sigh, letting her hands and phone fall into her lap before giving in and looking at him. He looked particularly pleased with himself when her eyes met his own again.

“You got some pretty greens there, babes.” He kept his face uncomfortably close to hers, smiling almost lecherously at her.

She leaned as far back into the bench as she could, trying to create some space as she looked off to the side. His cold presence moved from her front to her side, taking a seat on the bench very close to her. From the chill behind her, she could easily assume that he had stretched his arm out to rest behind her. This guy really had no concept of personal space.

“You’re not just gonna sit there and ignore me, are you, babes?” He was facing her, legs spread with an arm still resting behind her back.

Looking down at her phone again, she clicked on the closest thing with a text box and typed out, “Not gonna talk to a ghost in public.”

He leaned over her shoulder watching her type, silently mouth the words as she typed them. The ghost was quiet for a moment, staring deadpan at her phone and then back at her face. “You’re a millennial, aren’t you? Don’t you all carry fuckin’ headphones or something? Just pretend you’re calling someone. You know how to do that, right?”

She couldn’t help but roll her eyes at him.

“Hey, it’s true and you know it! Don’t roll your beautiful eyes at me and act like it isn’t!” He snapped his fingers in front of her face a few times before pointing to himself. “Hey, hey, hey, look at me.”

She didn’t look full over at him, but gave him a sidelong look.

“Talk to me, or I’ll start begging. Ask anyone who knows me, I am very good at being annoying.” The expression he had on his face made her believe that he was 100% serious.

Suppressing an annoyed sigh and seeing as she wasn’t going to be able to get rid of him any time soon, she shifted her legs out so she could reach into her pocket and grab her ear buds. As she plugged them into her phone and connected them to her ears, she could feel the green-haired ghost smiling very contentedly at her.

“You’re pretty easy, huh?”

Her eye twitched as she tried to keep herself from outwardly grimacing. Once she had herself situated in as relaxed a way as she could get, she finally spoke, her tone very deadpan. “Hello?”

“You got a very sexy voice, lady. Such a nice one to come back to, just for little ol’ me.” He relaxed back into the bench, stretching his legs forward. Were he corporeal, he would’ve surely been leaning his head against her tensed shoulder. “Oh, babes, it’s been so long since someone has talked to me and not through me. There’s lots of interesting, juicy conversations out there but, holy fuck, sometimes a dead guy just needs a little back and forth.”

“Sure, but did you need something?” Karmilla did her best to keep her gaze either forward or down at her phone, not wanting to draw anymore attention to her.

There was a short pause between them as the ghost shifted in his seat again, turning himself toward her, the grin reappearing on his lips. “What? A creepy, old demon can’t just strike up a conversation with a sexy lady?”

God fucking dammit. “Oooh, a demon? Then definitely no.” She wasn’t exactly sure if he was serious about the whole demon thing, but there was a lot she still didn’t know about what exactly resides in the Netherworld.

Sneaking a small peak over at him, she noticed a few small changes. His dark eyes had taken up a golden spark while his hair seemed to have dimmed. She could’ve sworn she saw some strands of red coming to the surface. He held a hand against his chest, mocking a shock of pain. He was still grinning, but it looked sharper now. She couldn’t really explain it, but the change in his demeanor was overall more threatening than before.

“Well, shit. Your words cut me so deep.” His voice seemed a bit more rough now too. It’d probably be an attractive thing were she not in public and felt her anxiety begin to well up. Something about her own expression must have pleased him, as the new colors began to fade away and he relaxed again. “You know, your reaction to everything so far is very chill. I usually prefer to get at least one good scream, but-- for you-- I’d gladly skip to-”

“Bus is here,” she interrupted him. During his brief spiel, she heard the familiar engine of the approaching bus. She waited for it to get halfway down the street before standing from her seat, remaining in cover from the rain.

“Oh? And where is that fine ass of yours headed?” His choice of words made her think he was almost certainly staring at her aforementioned ass.

“Home,” she said simply. “I’ll talk to you more when I get there.”

“A lady usually has to buy me dinner before I let her take me home, but for you, babes, I’ll wave it.”

As the bus pulled up, she felt the older lady who had been sitting at the other end of the bench step up next to her. When the doors to the bus opened up, Karmilla gestured her arm forward and let her get onboard first. The older woman thanked her with a nod and a warm smile before moving as quickly as she could to the steps of the bus.

“I woulda tripped her.”

His voice suddenly in her ear made her jump. She had not noticed the cold almost fully encompassing her back, like he was almost pressed up against her. She took a deep, calming breath before stepping into the rain and into the warmer shelter of the bus. Of course, it didn’t stay warm, as she felt the ghost-demon following after her. It was a bit irritating but easy enough to deal with, she guessed. When she found and settled into a seat, she pulled the buds from her ears and phone, wrapping the wire around her hand before shoving it back into her pocket. Even if there wasn’t any jostling from him sitting down, she could feel the cold and see his striped form plopping down next to her.

As she brought out her phone again to help pass the time, she could see him lean over a bit to look and see what she was doing. She had a considerable number of games on her phone, most of which she had forgotten were there but kept because she might go back and play them. To keep herself busy, she pulled up a tapping rhythm and key game. It had music to go along with it but didn’t want to bring any attention her way, so she kept it muted. Scrolling through the long list of songs, she picked one of the faster ones and started tapping away at it.

The ghost stared down at Karmilla’s phone, squinting his eyes as he watched  her thumbs tap quickly away on her phone. “Jesus fucking Christ. How much time do you gotta have on your hands to keep up with that shit?”

With a little finesse, she stuck out her middle finger at him while still keeping up with the tiles as they sped down the screen.

She heard his gasp of mock offense, almost certain that he put his hand on his chest in a similar way to last time. “Well, that’s just downright rude. What a way to treat a new friend.”

His words were enough to make her pause, slipping up enough to miss a note in the game. With that song essentially over, she looked up from her phone and to the side at him. He was still leaning very close to her to watch whatever she did on her phone, but as soon as that stopped he turned his attention to her puzzled face.

“What’s up, doll? I got something on my face?” Just as he said a few bugs crawled out from his hair and ran across his face.

Unsure of what to do, she just stared wide-eyed at him before slowly turning her gaze back down to her phone. Better play a few more songs to wipe that from my memory.

“Ah, come on, that was funny! I coulda done something a lot worse. Like this!” From her periphery, she could see his hand go up to the top of his face and peel it down. Even from what little detail she could make out, she was able to tell there was nothing more to the horror than the grotesque musculature of his face.

Doing her best to communicate in a mute fashion, she made a so-so gesture with her hand, trying to say that it wasn’t so bad. Or, at least, not necessarily worse than the sudden appearance of bugs crawling over his skin.

“You’re not even looking at me,” he said, in mock offense. “You never look at me during.”

Her lips flattened out into a straight line, trying to stop the small laugh that she felt coming to the surface. Karmilla didn’t like admitting it, but his sense of humor was right up her alley. Usually, strangers had a harder time getting her to laugh. Maybe her guard was down because he was a ghost and couldn’t really do much to her, aside from visual-auditory hallucinations and gags.

She looked over to him again, after she successfully held down her laugh. The skin of his face was hanging off of his chin, revealing the muscles and tendons that made up his face. It wasn’t scary or shocking to her, just a little unsettling and surreal as she had never been able to get such a close look at facial muscles as she was now.

“Wow, really?” He had no trouble speaking apparently, even with a lack of lips. “You are a really tough cookie, aren’t ya?” After he finished his words, he slapped the slab of skin back onto his face, pushing and pulling it around to fit back where it was supposed to. “Well. I’m gonna go fuck with someone else now. BRB.”

The green demon pushed himself up from his seat and started striding down the aisle, looking for someone to properly torment with his limited power. At most, he's able to put people on edge and make them more irritable. Essentially, just being an annoying presence. Looking back down to her phone, she started again on another song, putting a majority of attention on it as she waited for the bus to reach her stop. She would occasionally hear the angry grumbling and cursing of another passenger as the demon-ghost messed with him.

Time passed relatively quickly on the bus, reaching her stop just as another round of her game came to a close. As soon as the bus came to a halt, she got up from her seat and made her way back down the aisle to get off.

“Aw, are we leavin’ already? I was this close on getting this guy to break,” the specter called after her as she walked on by, not responding to him. He hummed for a second in thought before fucking with his victim one last time before following after his friend.

It was raining harder now, the cold droplets sinking easily into the fabric of her thin jacket. Keeping her electronics as close to her center as she could, she started her fast trek through the rain. She lived only a few blocks away from the stop, so-- if the crosswalk lights were kind to her-- she wouldn't have to be in the rain for too long. If they weren’t working in her favor and there was no one hurtling down the road, she would book it across the street. Anything to get out of the beating, cold rain.

Minutes later, she was finally able to take cover under the overhang of her small apartment building. It wasn’t the fanciest place, but it also wasn’t the dingiest. The only thing that could be construed as concerning was the ivy growing up the front. Pulling her keys from her pocket, she unlocked the door and pushed her way in, getting a loud buzzing noise as it closed and locked behind her. The inside was similar to it’s exterior, nothing really standing out in the lobby aside from a few dreary paintings and a small grid of mailboxes on the wall. Dredging past it, she started ascending the steps to her apartment. It was days like these that made her wish she had gotten one that was closer to the ground instead of being at the top of the stairway. Given the small size of the building, there wasn’t any room for an elevator to be put in, making it virtually inaccessible to those with physical disabilities.

As the ghost followed her, floating up the steps rather than walking them, he would occasionally divert from the path to sneak a peek inside the other apartments. This one definitely had no sense of personal space so it wasn’t really surprising to her that he would be ignoring her neighbors right to privacy.

Finally reaching the last residential floor of the building, she walked up to her door and started unlocking it. By the time she got it open, the demon-ghost was by her side again, passing through the doorway before her.

“Oh, yeah, just go right ahead. That’s fine,” Karmilla mumbled, finally feeling like she was allowed to speak now that she was home. She followed in after him, closing and locking the door behind them. When she turned back around, she saw him still standing in the short entrance hall leading into the rest of her apartment.

“You know, I did not peg you as a dog person,” he said, still not moving forward.

Even though she knew she could pass through him, she opted for skirting around him instead, not wanting to deal with the uncomfortable chill and feeling that happened whenever you passed through a ghost. At the end of the hall sat her dog. Her tail had stopped slapping against the floorboards as soon as her new ghostly tag-along showed up.

“That’s Bingo. She’s not a fan of supernatural stuff,” Karmilla said as she walked by the alert Malinois, who continued to stare at the ghost. “Bingo, rechts.”

Without any hesitation, the hound stood and did an about-face, walking along her person’s right side as Karmilla walked to her bedroom. Karmilla had a feeling that because of how anti-boundary the ghost was, that he would try to follow her in there to watch her. She wasn’t sure how long he was going to be sticking around, but even if it’s only for a few minutes, she felt she had to set some sort of boundary for him to follow.

As soon as she threw off her jacket and got to her dresser, she saw his green hair pushing through the wall before his head popped out.

She gave him a stern look, something easily mustered by her. “Listen, ah- I don’t even know your name, but if you’re going to be in my home you’re going to have to give me some space. Now, shoo.”

“No show then?” He made a face as if he was contemplating something, looking from her face, down to her chest, then back up again. “Alright. Fine. Because you’re my friend. And friends do friends favors.”

She wasn’t sure she liked where that thought process would end up, nor was she sure where he got the whole idea that they were friends, but at least he slipped his head back through the wall, allowing her to change in peace. Bingo laid down next to her, watching the door as Karmilla stripped out of her wet clothes.

“What is your name, by the way?” she called out.

“I can’t tell ya.”

She paused for a moment before continuing, changing out her normal bra for a sports one and replacing her shirt with a loose band tee. “What do you mean? Can’t or won’t?”

“A big ol’ no can do, babes.” His voice sounded further away that time. She guessed he was looking around. This was only a 1-bedroom apartment, so there wasn’t really going to be anything else to see. “You know how it goes; fuck with higher-ups, get cursed, lose your fun powers, and can’t give your own name to a lovely lady without jumping through hoops.”

During his explanation, she had replaced her wet jeans with grey sweats, snatching the earbuds from jeans before tossing all her wet clothes into a laundry basket in the corner of her room. As she walked out of her room with Bingo following on her right, she pulled her hair from the bun it was before shaking it out. Sitting at the end of her couch that was farthest away from her TV, she could see the ghost sticking his head through the door that went into her bathroom.

“Sounds rough,” she responded, propping her bare feet up on the coffee table as she watched him.

When he heard her voice coming from somewhere different, he brought his head back out from the bathroom and spotted her on the couch. In the blink of an eye, he disappeared and reappeared right next to her on the couch, lay back with his head at the other end, one leg fully up on the couch’s cushions as the other dangled off. He laid the back of his hand over his eyes in a dramatic fashion. “Such woe is my existence. Like taking it up the ass with no lube.”

Bingo growled lightly at the sudden appearance of the ghost on her couch, because of his proximity to Karmilla and the fact his feet were passing through her. A hand on the head was enough to quiet the dog, luckily.

“I’m almost afraid to ask, but why your name?” She tried her best to not react to the cold chill from his foot sitting essentially inside her.

“Well, you know that one guy who made the fish fucker village people and had a giant free-swingin’, octopus head thing? Yeah, my name’s like his cat. You know exactly the one.” Even lying down, he was very animated while talking.

From his description, she assumed he was talking about H.P. Lovecraft. “Yeah, I know what you’re talking about.”

“HA!” He sat up suddenly, pointing at her. “I knew you were a fuckin’ nerd. But, nah, I’m just fucking with ya. My name is nowhere NEAR as terrible as that.”

As he laid back down again, her mouth flattened into a straight line, trying to keep the fact that she thought his roundabout shenanigans were funny. No need to encourage him. “Okay, but you didn’t answer my question.”

“Look, babes, I love talking about me, don’t get me wrong. But I feel like we need a bit more of a back and forth here.” He was using more hand motions to emphasize his point. “You’re learning all of my deepest, darkest secrets, but I haven’t gotten anything juicy from you.”

Her brows furrowed as she looked at him. “All I asked was your name. You gave me your life story freely without answering the actual question.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not my fault saying my name became so complicated.”

“Isn’t it, though?”

There was a pause from him as his mouth turned into a tight-lined, exaggerated frown. “Alright, you got me there.”

There was a long bout of silence between them, one that felt awkward and a little tense. Karmilla took this time to think of a way for him to tell her. He’d probably think that just spelling it out was too boring, so turning it into a game might help it go down better.

“Would a word game work as a loophole?”

He perked up at the sound of ‘game’, almost in a way a dog would when someone would say ‘play’ or ‘walk’. “A game, you say?”

“Yeah, like charades or something.”

He sat up quickly and turned to sit more properly, waving his hand off at the suggestion. “Nah, not that one. I did that last time.”

She gave him a curious look, wondering what exactly that meant. A question for a different time, she thought to herself as she stood up and went back into her bedroom to fetch a pen and a notebook. Walking back into the living room, she plopped back down on the couch before putting her feet back up on the coffee table.

“We’ll do it like this then,” she started, flipping open the notebook to a blank page and turning it horizontal. “I guess a letter. If I’m right, you tell me where it goes. If I’m wrong we’ll do a little thing of truth or dare. Good?”

A smile curled his lips. “Oh? Adding some stakes for moi?”

“Yeah, why not. Might as well make it an actual game, you know? Now, how many letters?” She laid the notebook on her lap so he wouldn’t have any problem seeing it.

After scooting close enough to her that they were touching shoulders, he started mouthing the letters counting the letters on his fingers. “Uhh, eleven.”

She drew eleven evenly sized lines on the paper. “Alright then. S.”

It takes a moment for it to click with the ghost before seemingly going over it in his head. “Go fish.”

She sighed, writing down the letter under the lines so she wouldn’t say them again later. “Not ‘go fish’, but I will choose ‘truth’.”

“Boring. Ah well.” He leaned back, stretching his arm out to rest behind her. “Much as I love just callin’ you ‘babes’ and ‘sexy’, I’d love to know to be callin’ out.”

“Don’t get any illusions that anything could or would happen, buddy,” she responded quickly with side-eyed, half glare before looking back at the page. “My name is Karmilla Nazarian. You get the surname as a freebie.”

“Karmilla, Karmilla, Karmilla,” he repeated, trying out her name. “Karma’s a good nickname for you. It even has its own-”

“Yeah, yeah, Karma’s a bitch and all that,” she cut him, tapping her pen on the journal. “Any ‘f’s?”

“Rude to cut off a guest like that, Karma,” he said as he leaned forward and shifted around so he could look at her unamused face. He could only guess how many times she’s heard that classic line in her life. “And that’s a hard no on the ‘f’, babes.”

She groaned in annoyance this time, looking up at the ceiling and blindly marking down ‘f’ in the used letters row. “Truth again, I guess.”

He tapped his chin in thought as his eyes wandered around the room before landing on her again. Then down a little lower. He kept his eyes there even as Karmilla turned her head back to face him. Completely unashamed, he turned his eyes up to her and grinned. “What cup size ya packin’?”

“Wow, you really do not shy away that shit, do you?” The question was rhetorical, asked in an astounded state of mind.

“What can I say? I know what I like,” he said cooly with a shrug. “Now, spill.”

With a few moments of hesitation, she answered. “I’m a C. Happy?”

“Very.” The wide, pleased smile on his face definitely attested to that.

Rather than going for conventional letters this time, she went with ‘x’. Third time’s the charm, right? Or maybe not, given the look her ghostly guest was giving her. Fuck.

Taking her feet off the coffee table and slapping the pen and pad down in their place, she stood up, careful to not step on Bingo and turned to face him with her hands on her hips.

“You know what? Fuck it. Dare.”

He was amused by her sudden change in attitude, giving her a toothy grin. “You’re a competitive one, aren’t you?”

“Just give me a dare already, chucklefuck.” She had to admit, she did have a competitive streak. No matter how often she would try to play it cool in any sort of game, after a few bad turns her attitude would sour and desire to throttle people would kick in.

He did, indeed, chuckle at her words. “I gotta say, I am loving this color on you, babes. Very hot. Now, why don’t you show me how flexible you are?”

The glare on her face became harder, almost looking like a snarl had she decided to bare her teeth at him. She did growl at him a little, so there’s that. “What? You don’t want me to do a handstand while singing ‘I’ve got a lovely bunch of coconuts’?”

“Not for this one, but thanks for the idea.” God, she wished he was tangible so she could punch his stupid face.

Moving her feet to keep her balanced and from falling over, she started bending slowly and fully backwards, making an arch with her spine. All the while, she kept one hand up to flip her ghostly ‘pal’ the bird. As she went back, he tilted his head to follow her until her hand finally reached the ground. He would go over there, float above her and tease her, but he knew he was already pushing it with her this go-’round.

Straightening his neck back out, he slapped a hand on his chest. “Oof. Babes. If my heart was still beating, it woulda stopped just now.”

Getting back up was a slower process than bending back, but she made it without having to lay on the ground. She walked back over to the couch, dropping down back into her spot with a bit of a bounce. Grabbing the journal and pen again, she grumbled to him, “Fuck you, we’re doing the next letter.”

He laughed at her words, ready for the fun to continue. Seeing her getting frustrated at the game she proposed seemed to scratch an itch for him. It wasn’t as good as when he scared the daylights out of someone but it was still fulfilling. The added bonus to it all was that he could actually talk with someone. It had been a good long while since he had that chance with someone who wasn’t dead or a 1-dimensional clone.

The game continued on with Karmilla guessing the wrong letter a few more times before she finally got one. When she finally did, she was probably too ecstatic. Not jumping up and down ecstatic, but the quick, in-your-face yell of ‘fuck you’ before moving onto the next letter. By the end of the game, he learned a lot; the black padding she had lining the walls of her apartment was to save her neighbors the trouble of having to listen to her blaring music and her singing along with it; she’s slept with a good few people, gender never really coming into play for her; she’s always been able to see ghosts and knew more about the Netherworld than the average breather should know. There were a few more dares involved, none of them fun for her but all of them entertaining to him.

Eventually, the game came to an end, much to Karmilla’s relief. With all the letters lined up on their spaces, she stared at the pad.

“Beetlejuice?”

He leaned more forward at the sound of his name. “It sounds very nice when you say it. Why not give it to me a few more times?”

She gave him a suspicious look as she closed the journal and tossed it on the coffee table with the pen she was using. “Why?”

The smile on his face tightened. He was probably a little too eager with his words. Standing up and walking through the coffee table, he started to pace slowly in front of her, watching her eyes follow him. “Oh, you know. Curse stuff. Can’t say my name, can’t talk to the living, can’t get summoned and get all my powers back.”

She shifted herself on the couch, tucking herself comfortably into the corner as she watched him. “It’s that easy?”

He stopped his pacing and looked at her with a tight-lined smile. “Is it, though? Usually, someone would think the whole ‘living people can’t see me’ would be a pretty big kink in a plan to return to full power.”

She mocked his expression, inadvertently making him laugh. “Whatever. So, I guess the summoning requires your name? Is there more to it? Sacrificial lamb? Blood of the willing? Sacrificial virgin?”

“You could bring a virgin to me, though there wouldn’t be any blood letting. Unless they were into that, then maybe a little blood letting.” His words earned him a disgusted look from his friend, which just made him smile all the more. “Lucky for you, there’s no ghosty mumbo-jumbo you gotta deal with. Only thing you gotta do is say my name three times in a row--” he held up three fingers to emphasize his words-- “Nothin’ in between.”

She gave a small hum of contemplation as she nodded at him. At least, there’s no murder involved. Unless, that’s something he planned on doing when he’s ‘summoned’. From what she’s seen so far, she’d just assume he’d be more of the practical joke type that might sometimes end with someone getting hurt. Still, she hasn’t known him for more than three or four hours now, so there could still be a lot under the surface she hasn’t seen yet.

“What will you do when you’re back at full power? What exactly happens?” Better to ask up front than try and be clever about it. All she could hope for now is that she could spot any lies he tried to use.

“Would you believe me if I said it was to become a better part of the community and help those in need?” Beetlejuice put on his best attempt at an innocent expression, batting his eyes at her. The visual itself got him a half-smile from her but also a shake of her head. He dropped his little act quickly. “Didn’t think so.”

He sat on air, crossing one leg over the other and put his hands on the top knee, like he was trying to sit pretty. She wasn’t able to describe the voice he was doing as anything other than a peppy lady at an interview. “Well, what I really want to do is have some fun. Ya know, go out on the town, wreak some havoc, scare the daylights outta people, and maybe throw in a few dismemberments to spice it up.”

Her eyebrows arched up as he spoke, putting more thoughts of what exactly she let follow her home. Nothing harmless, that’s for sure. “Yeah, I’m definitely not going to do that.”

He groaned dramatically, rolling his head to emphasize his eye roll. “Uuugh, but why? We could have so much fun together!” He stood up from his air seat and took a few steps towards her. “And you look like a gal who could use it.”

She opened her mouth to object to the last part, but in all honesty he was right. The most she ever did was work, college, home, and dance and sing with Bingo when she’s drunk. “Causing harm to people is not fun.”

“Unless it’s someone who really deserves it.” As he was about to take another step forward, Bingo growled. He did a quick, mock growl back at her before continuing on, staying in place this time. “And you didn’t say ‘no’ to the havoc wreaking and the daylight scaring, so-”

“It’s a no to the whole thing, Beetlejuice,” she said flatly, looking him right in the eye. She noticed that hearing the sound of his name made him perk up, his hair seeming to brighten in color and the air around him feeling more electric. At least, electric enough that she felt a tingle in her limbs and warning bells going off in her head. “Listen, I just met you. I don’t know you. I don’t know why you’d think I’d help you out.”

“Because we’re friends?” He said this like it was the most obvious thing to him. Come to think of it, she had noticed that he had referred to her as a friend every so often between the come-ons and general sexual harassment.

She let out a long sigh, letting her head fall back to rest on the cushions of the couch, trying to think of what she should say. When she finally had it, she brought her head back up. “Don’t wanna break your heart, dude, but I’m pretty sure we’re not friends. There’s no real basis for it, other than I’m the only one that can see you.”

He deflated a bit at her response, but continued trying to keep up his relentless attitude. Of course they were friends. How could she not see that? “We made a connection! This is destiny or fate or whatever the fuck it is. You talked to me!”

“Didn’t have much choice there.”

“You brought me home with you!”

“You would’ve followed me anyway.”

He paused again. “Both valid points. But come on, Karma! You’re not really gonna leave a dead man hanging, are you?”

She didn’t respond, just leveled a deadpan stare at him.

Dammit, lady, you’re killin’ me! He bit the inside of his lip as he tried to think of a way to convince her. He thought he had been very good and friendly thus far, but he may have come on a little strong with her.

“Alright, alright, okay,” he started as he came back to the couch, walking through the table again to sit next to her, facing her as fully as he could. “What if I prove myself to you? So, you can trust that I won’t be going out and killing randos on the street. Unless you want me to, then I totally will. But I’ll behave! As much as I can, anyway.”

She continued just staring at him, but thought over his words. Until she noticed him starting to do his best attempt at pleading puppy dog eyes. She’d hate to admit it, but the longer she stared back at him the more she felt his look getting to her. God, he’s really good at playing up being pitiful. Doesn’t help that he probably genuinely wants a friend. Fuck. Something about her eyes must have softened because she could see a small smile coming back to his face. God dammit, now it’s cute.

Karmilla had to break eye contact with him, losing out in the battle of wills. Curse her empathetic heart. “Fine, I guess.”

As soon as she relented, Beetlejuice jumped from the seat up into the air in a cheer, going higher than normal physics would allow. He landed on the coffee table facing her. “Oh, babes, thank you! You are not gonna regret this one bit!”

God, I hope not, she thought to herself as she pushed herself up from the couch. “Make yourself at home, I guess. I need to walk Bingo, so I’ll be back in a bit.”

He turned as he watched her go back to the counter where she had left her keys, seeing her pocket them and grabbing a leash, the dog following alongside her. “Want me to come along, my new best buddy?”

Karmilla attached the leash to her dog’s collar before pushing her feet into the shoes she had been wearing earlier. “No. I’m not gonna be long. Like I said, just make yourself at home.”

He shrugged even though she wasn’t looking before falling back and laying on air before floating gently down to the couch, hands interlocked behind his head. “Whatever you say, boss lady.” Oh, sweet, sweet freedom here I come.

He looked over and watched as she picked up what she needed, hooking up her dog and walking out the door. The click of the lock bolting into place was very audible even in the sound deadened room. As he continued to stay reclined on the couch, he looked towards the TV. Probably should’ve asked her to turn it on before she left. Live and learn. Well, maybe not live. The point stands that without his friend here, there was nothing in the apartment that would help pass the time more easily.

“Well--” he jumped up from the couch suddenly, taking a few steps towards Karmilla’s room. “Time to complete the invasion of privacy before I gotta dial it back.”

[benchowmein]

just watched the first hobbit movie and

by god they really thought people wanted an extended 10 minute framing sequence so we could see frodo instead of, like, a depiction of bilbo’s everyday life as a young hobbit, and of the shire generally

bilbo is played so weirdly (there’s that bit where gollum says he’ll eat him and martin freeman was like oh okay i’ll react like i’m in the office) and like 90% of that could’ve been solved if they’d just hired someone who could play bilbo better. stuntcasting just because sherlock was big at the time doesn’t mean much when you’re adapting one of the best selling novels of all time and also one of the most successful film trilogies of all time a decade ago

if we got to see some of bilbo’s normal life instead of the weird opening sequence that would make characterising bilbo as being pulled between bagginsian and tookish tendencies a lot easier, and that’s important for many reasons, the biggest one of all being that the plot doesn’t work if bilbo is characterised as standoffish and uneager to please anybody when that’s like his driving motive in the book

also the first like half an hour of this movie effectively takes place in the interior of bag-end, some shots of the shire would also have differentiated that. also bilbo’s skin looks weirdly yellow idk if it’s my tv screen or his clothes not suiting martin freeman or the makeup but that definitely isn’t his usual skin tone

the comedy from the book is leeched out in favour of like...jokes about burping and snot...and like LOTR wasn’t popular with preteen boys because of the toilet humour lol just make jokes that stand up by themselves

the misty mountains song was gooood but idk i never thought of the dwarves like they are in the film AT ALL. also i get WHY they showed us flashbacks of erebor falling to smaug (and erebor pre-smaug) but if they were going to make it exposition i don’t know why they couldn’t make it be an opening narration done by a dwarf. i guess they didn’t want it to be too similar to galadriel but i mean they also randomly inserted her into the film for no reason so

for god’s sake the trolls are obviously meant to be west country, not cockney, if you’re going to be classist at least represent more than one accent

the overindulgence in epic fight scenes is why this film is 3 hours long. every scene is three times longer than it should be. i guess the general criticism is that the hobbit is a children’s book and they’re trying to make it like lotr but still...the action sequences still don’t hold up! arwen taking frodo to rivendell is genuinely a wonderful scene rich with action and with high stakes, as is frodo and the boys outrunning the wraith, and they’re just chase scenes! don’t bother if they don’t hold up by themselves is what i’m saying

can i just say that the grass in this movie was way too green...like everything looks so fake and fantasy compared with lotr and i am certain the weird frame rate has something to do with that...

also the extended flashback to the battle outside moria...not good...like how many battle sequences do we neeeeeed

richard armitage looks so weird as thorin and WHY IS HIS BEARD SO CLOSE! big bushy beards are so obviously a sign of strength for dwarves (they even have a “may your beards never grow thin” line in the book) so why does thorin, a character who is ostensibly image-conscious and proud, trim his????

radagast was weird and that’s coming from someone who stans radagast from the pithy little tolkien wrote about him. also the bit where he sees sauron is stupid as is the fact that he cares about this one hedgehog when the foxes and birds are also dying like i get it but whatever. also the daughters of ungoliant are weird and idk why they’re there tbqph

thunder battle!

the great goblin is the worst character in this whole film and idk why they had him sing a song that wasn’t in the book (i’m pretty sure) when there are lots of good songs to pick from.  sorry you don’t want this film to be seen as low-brow so you won’t have the wargs speak or sing but you WILL have this goblin sing in falsetto about killing dwarves? get over it also why is he so BIG

the gollum bit was really good especially the bit where bilbo is going to kill him! i also like how gollum has his little pocket but if you want you can imagine he is wearing the ring on his dick

the escape from the goblin caves is a bit trashy but also fine i guess...its like a weak lotr scene but in the hobbit that’s wonderful to me. if they make a lotr theme park i have no doubt that would be in it (though moria is the more obvious choice)

the ending was sooo drawn out and i am concerned that the next film will just retcon thorin’s apology to bilbo for being mean, and obviously his final downfall is a direct result of his greed and avarice so he’s just going to immediately forget the lesson learned when he tried to kill azog

why is azog here honestly and why does he have symmetrical scars like he’s been whipped or something idk idc lol

oh boy the gold in the final smaug bit looks fake...i guess that’s because obviously that much gold will never look REAL to us without it actually being real or whatever...but could they not have desaturated it or something...

apparently desolation of smaug is better but i am...aware that the battle of the five armies will be awful because honestly how can you possibly turn like 5 pages of book into 3 hours of film