#from the budget you can only get ducks this time of year

[themanwhowouldbefruit]

have decided i need to make red lentil dahl or im going to fucking die however i already reached my grocery budget for the month and i have food in the fridge/freezer plus dry goods to get me through to december 1st. so. get hype for december 1st.

[cosmerelists]

Pros and Cons of Stormlight Characters in the Middle Seat Next to You on a Budget Airline.

As requested by anon. :)

1. Kaladin

Cons: His legs are so long. His hair is so luxurious. His shoulders are so broad. This large, beautiful man is not trying to be in your space, but the budget airline seat cannot contain him. Pros: You started what you thought was an idle conversation, but by the end of your flight, he had diagnosed your chronic pain and become your therapist??

2. Shallan

Pros: Well, she's more of a regular-sized human and she's friendly but quiet. She seems to just want to sketch the whole flight, so no complaints! Cons: Why does she keep staring directly at a space across the plane and sketching the creepiest symbol-headed creatures you've ever seen with her eyes vaguely glazed over like she doesn't even know she's doing it holy shit is this a Twilight Zone situation where there are invisible gremlin monsters on this plane that only she can see and is it your imagination or do you hear humming from somewhere

3. Adolin

Cons: Listen, this is a budget airline, and this guy seems to think it's a fancy spa?? He's got the slippers, the posh eye mask, the luxurious travel pillow, some really nice face creams, and he seems to be video chatting with a girl even though the internet on the plane doesn't even work. Frankly, you're jealous and grouchy about it. Pros: Okay, he actually seems really sweet and he gave you some of his way-too-nice-for-an-airplane snacks. You take it all back; this guy is awesome.

4. Szeth

Pros: He is so still. So quiet. Almost folded in on himself. Barely...breathing? Honestly, you keep forgetting the middle seat is occupied, and how rare is that! Cons: You just...you think you'd feel better if he just blinked. Just once. Please.

5. Lift

Cons: You had to sigh just a little when a little kid plopped down next to you. Also, she goes to the bathroom every five minutes, and comes back with food every time. You think she might be robbing people. Pros: She complimented your butt quite sincerely. You've always been kinda self-conscious about your butt! But apparently yours is the "second best she's ever seen." Feels nice.

6. Jasnah

Pros: Like, is it possible for someone to just be really good at flying? She came in, expertly stowed her luggage, sat down elegantly, did her seatbelt, used a wipe to clean up the tray table and surrounding area, and immediately starting reading some thick tome. Do you have a crush on her? You might have a crush on her. Cons: She glanced at the book you're reading, and you know she judged you for it.

7. Wit

Cons: Does this guy EVER stop talking? Pros: Okay, actually, you found him kind of annoying at first, but that story he told you about the temple and the duck might have healed years of trauma? Did you just realize that you don't have to forgive your mom and that's okay?

8. Renarin

Pros: He sat down and you were like, "Okay. Cute nerd. I dig it." Cons: You just wish he wouldn't scrawl foreboding-seeming numerals on the back of the airline chair in front of him. Is it counting down to...just before the plane lands? What does it mean???

9. Amarem

Cons: He came in and was IMMEDIATELY like, "I am taller than you and so I should have your seat." And then he just...waited? Like he thought you'd just comply??? Pros: He seems intent on pretending that never happened. Fine by you. That guy seems like an asshole.

10. Zahel

Pros: He falls asleep, like, immediately and doesn't stir for the entire flight. Cons: He's just kinda stinky.

11. Dalinar

Cons: He sits down and, unprompted, says something like, "In my youth I would always battle to occupy every armrest but now, after reading The Way of Planes, I have realized that it is the journey, not the armrests, that matter, so you can have them" and then you're like, "Dude, the person in the middle seat gets the armrests that's just common courtesy" and then he looks at you and you look at him and it's vaguely awkward the whole flight and nobody uses the armrests. Pros: Actually, after a while you do take the armrest and the tension goes down a lot.

12. Taravangian

Pros: He just kinda seems like a nice old man, you know? Kinda confused about stuff, but harmless enough. Cons: He falls asleep partway through and droops his head onto your shoulder and drools a bit and you know you sound ridiculous but it feels somehow calculated. Intentional. Evil.

13. Sebarial

Cons: The very second beverage service starts he's all, "Bring me a BOTTLE of wine" and you're like, "Oh no. It's one of those dudes who gets way too drunk on planes!" Pros: You know? This guy actually seems pretty jolly and chill. You catch yourself thinking, "I wish I could pretend he was my uncle." You're not sure where that came from.

14. Rock

Pros: He scoffs at the provided airline snacks and gets out this thermos and gives you the best damn soup you've ever had in your life. Cons: He's just a large, warm man. Very large. Very warm. Not his fault, of course, but now YOU are very warm.

15. Elhokar

Cons: Every time there is plane turbulence, he mutters something about how it's the assassins coming to finish the job. Poor dude must be really scared of flying. Pros: You feel a warm, parental feeling growing in you as you look at this sad, scared man. Maybe your mom was right. Maybe you WOULD be good with kids.

16. Eshonai

Pros: This lady is, just, SO excited to be traveling that it can't help but make YOU excited to travel. Like, you always thought plane travel sucked, especially budget airline travel, be she is so delighted by everything that you find yourself thinking, "You know, it IS pretty amazing that we're soaring through the sky right now traveling to a new land." Cons: Cons? No cons. You wish you could ALWAYS see flying through this woman's eyes.

[digenerate-trash]

Yan bailey vs robin can just be the final part of the saga before the next season next year (kidding unless you want to start a new one lmao)

YAN BAILEY VS WHITNEY

Bailey VS Whitney feeds me. Thank you for the food. (And the ask. I don't say this enough I fucking love asks!!!)

AMAB Bailey | AMAB Whitney

Bailey could hear it. The stomp of boots the rattling of those stupid wallet chains. The scrape of heavy rings against peeling wallpaper. He almost wanted to duck out of his office and smash his head through a glass window. But by the time he was seriously considering it, it was too late. The door to his office slammed open the handle smashing into the wall. Bailey sighed. More fucking repairs...

The blonde boy looked smug as he looked over Bailey's office. Everything in here was poorly taken care of, including Bailey. 

"Hey, pops-" Whitney stated taking a seat in the chair opposite Bailey. Making sure to manspread as far as possible just to get on the old man's nerves. "Have you seen my slut around- it's been a couple of days. And, I don't want to be crass but-" Whitney trailed off smirking

Bailey almost collapsed into his own hands. He was too tired for this bullshit. He had work and priorities and budgeting. He didn't have time to entertain a kid he was not in charge of-

"Check the brothel if you want your needs met," Bailey says taking another piece of paper and attempting to file it without looking at Whitney. 

"I don't think the brothel is going to cut it. I've grown accustomed to this particular slut." Whitney says he stretches a bit more before he sits forward in the chair and looks at Bailey. Looking for something...

Bailey doesn't budge though and goes about his work "Not my problem." He retorts but Whitney doesn't seem to like that answer. He's getting less and less playful as the conversation goes on.

Whitney pulls out a crumpled piece of paper from his jacket pocket and slams it on Bailey's desk. "I need to know where they are," Whitney says his tone is darker as he glares at Bailey. 

The poster is grainy. It looks like Whitney made it himself. It's the school picture of you. With your name and a number under it. "MISSING" is written at the very top and it rubs Bailey the wrong way.

After all. You're not missing.

Bailey takes the poster and throws it out swiftly. "Haven't seen them. Sorry-" Bailey offers. But Whitney only lets out a growl. It's like he can smell the lie on Bailey. 

Whitney cracks his knuckles with the heavy rings on them a clear threat and Bailey doesn't like where Whitney's arrogance and cocky attitude is leading them. 

When Whitney throws the first punch Bailey grabs his fist slamming it into the desk and holding it there before pressing the sharp side of his scissors into Whitney's throat. 

Bailey is quick and precise with his actions. He has to be after all with all the freaks in this town. 

whitney and Bailey glare at each other as they sit there in silence. Bailey finally lets go of Whitney and sits back down. 

"Listen. I don't know where they are. But I know when they're scared they head to the woods. Maybe check there." Bailey finally says looking up at the boy.

Whitney dusts himself off and shoves his hands into his pockets he nods at Bailey before he backs off and leaves Bailey's office. Leaving the door annoyingly open on his way out. 

Bailey knows that only one person lives in the woods. And if he's really lucky. Whitney will never bother him again.

[ssruis]

You. 🫵 Go read this. Peak rks. Peak rui.

Obligatory comment-under-read-more Of Shame (ao3 character limit my beloathed)

YOU WROTE THIS SO QUICKLY??? 18k???? Has it even been a month since you mentioned this… You’re cracked. I’m scared and in awe of your power. As soon as I clicked the link in the notes I knew I was about to read peak… I was cackling. The mental image of Rui doing that is so beautiful… Pristine, even. One might say immaculate. Perchance. I got my hat on backwards and it’s time to forget 10 years of positive character growth!!

“I remember.” Guilt. Shame. Sorrow. It had gone badly. He had walked home alone. “Sorry about…I’m sorry.”

> you have such a way of conveying so much with so few words… dagger to the heart

Was he hit by a high speed vehicle?

> high speed door, actually. Happens to the best of us.

A life of solitude, easy and empty. Years of solo tinkering in his room in silence. Finding more ways to enjoy being alone. Not yearning, never yearning. Maybe one day creating something great.

> main story rui & his “I’m fine like this it’s just how life is going to be” mindset ouuuugh… creating because he’s given up on finding something great…

“Such careless design!” Tsukasa huffs. “In a place like that, they should really have some kind of tape so people know to duck!”

“To be fair, most people are shorter than Rui.”

“So that means they should just get knocked out every time they want to enter a room?!”

> as I’ve said before I love the way you write the nene + tsukasa dynamic (even if it’s not the focus here). They’re such an underrated comedic duo… tsk could say anything & she’ll throw out a counter argument just because.

Even a high budget production wouldn’t have props this well constructed.

> and it would have taller doorframes! probably. I love the way you capture how Rui is always always always viewing and analyzing things through his director mindset… everything can be related to shows if you just try hard enough.

“And this is the bedroom back here,” Tsukasa says, pointing through the doorway. Okay, he’s just going to ignore him then.

> he’s so funny. His husband got factory reset and he’s entered overly enthusiastic and fretful tour guide mode out of panic.

Rui stares at his ring finger again, twisting the band around and feeling the metal rub against his skin. Such a quaint sight. 

> “quaint” auugh… main story rui being flung 10 years into the future and seeing that he’s happy and thriving and living in domestic bliss with that obnoxious blond guy & it’s just. Unbelievable and unrealistic in the way that an unearned cheesy “& then they lived happily ever after” storybook ending would be to him.

I only knew you for a couple of weeks, and then we parted ways. And that was a parting that was welcomed by me, if I’m frank.

> nene your spot as tsukasa’s no.1 hater is in jeopardy

Tsukasa makes a face, but it only lasts a moment.

> tsukasa and his refusal to back down or consider failure (unstoppable force) vs rui’s “this guy sucks big time” mindset (immovable object). Tale as old as time.

Rui catches sight of a framed photo up on the wall, apparently a scene from their wedding. Or a show. It’s hard to tell. There may not be a difference.

> there isn’t a difference. Fully believe they’d treat their wedding like a show. They’re incapable of being normal. show freaks (derogatory) (affectionate)

Tsukasa steps out from the doorway he’s been skulking by for the past ten minutes.

> insert sad ant with a bindle image here

“Okay.” For a second the absurdity almost makes him laugh, but he wills away the smile before it’s too visible. “That’s…interesting.”

Tsukasa drops his stance. Why does he seem disappointed? There’s absolutely no way Rui would have ever entertained something like that, future or past. It’s not like there would be that many poses. He would run out eventually. Though, those did seem- specific. Are there more? No, Rui isn't going to waste his time following that thought process.

> HELP ME they’re so weird!! They’re so weird. I giggled. Rui & his initial fascination with tsk (that never really went away, just changed shapes) & tsk and his 100+ poses that he has memorized and ready to pull out at any given moment.

Like he’s going to be led down a path so softly that it’s already too late by the time he realises the direction is wrong. 

> yes… the tsukasa tenma Stockholm Syndrome effect. Millions fall victim to it each year. Fondly reminiscing on the days where I straight up did not care about him. & now that I’ve spent close to a year as a wxs fan I’m tragically very fond of him. As you can see this condition is incurable.

“Well, maybe it’s just because I know you both so well. It just feels like you recognise each other’s vision well, and that comes across when watching.” […] “I have no idea what you guys are doing most of the time. I’m pretty sure the way you express love isn’t the same as most people, anyway. You communicate best through theatre talk and dramatics.”

> YOU GET IT… you get it. They’re so fucking weird. but they are weird together. And obnoxiously happy about it too.

It’s someone that’s making his voice a little softer, at least. Even if he’s still loud. Rui closes his eyes and tries to imagine Tsukasa speaking to him like that.

> saki mention :)

“I wasn’t upset,” Rui says, looking away. “I was simply being honest based on my observations.”

> me when I lie (to both myself and others)

It’s familiar, but it’s- not right. Of course he wants to take it, because this life everyone is telling him about seems so warm and inviting, but- he doesn’t know how. He doesn’t know how to be both himself and this at the same time.

> ow. Pre wxs he’d been alone so long that he started defining himself by his loneliness to the point where he was like “I’m better off like this actually” and now he’s got all this love coming at him from a bunch of different directions… how do you even begin to trust that. Esp when it’s love for a you that you don’t know… ur mind. Love this part.

Two conflicting things can’t both be true at once. There must be an error somewhere. Is that why he feels like he’s doing something wrong?

> He’s so funny... he’s facts and logic-ing his way to the wrong conclusion but because he’s being “rational” about it he can’t see that he’s wrong or that he is in fact letting his feelings get in the way of seeing the problem clearly.

Rui wonders just how much Tsukasa will put up with before he decides he isn’t worth it.

> already shifting from “this guy is the worst I want him to leave me alone” to “he’s the worst but surely he will leave me because I am too much.” Nene was right when she said he’d fall in love again but she had too much faith in Rui (in that he lasted less than a week before the tsukasa Stockholm syndrome kicked in).

> I really enjoy how you show that he’s slowly falling back into his relationship with tsukasa even if he’s unaware of it… he starts teasing him instinctually

There can’t be that much difference between his old self and the new. It’s not as if he’s acting irrationally or strange.

> he’s so blatantly and confidently wrong… it’s inspiring…

It had been an incredible display, by far his favourite part of the entire musical other than Nene’s performance. “Not really. I didn’t notice it that much.”

> HELP MEEE… really holding onto that hatred with a white knuckle grip, huh.

> When I first read this fic I was like “hmm idk if Rui would hold onto his grudge like this but I can see where its coming from” and then I reread it again (fic so nice u read it twice. Or more.) and realized I was so wrong… it’s not just about accepting that tsukasa has changed, it’s about accepting that his life has improved so drastically. He’s mentally still very “I will never belong with anyone and I have to follow my dreams on my own.” Right after the first time in forever that Rui lets himself get his hopes up & then promptly has them shattered during the main story fight, he’s suddenly thrown into a life where he’s happy and fulfilled and accepted for who he is. Of course he’d try to cling to his dislike of Tsukasa, because letting go of that means letting go of the “I’m incompatible with other people” mindset. (Rui vc) that’s my comfort unhealthy-outlook-on-relationships-&-life and I will not be letting it go. Your mind…

“No, she’s happy to do it. Any of us would do the same, if it was something really important. Nothing is worth more than a friend in need, right? Even the best job in the universe couldn’t compete against that!”

> points at Rui in curtain call

“Rui Rui Rui Rui is your head okay do you feel sick do you feel dizzy are you okay do you know who I am Rui????”

> The little pink thing is here (the crowd goes wild)

“Is it true that your head went whambamow?” Emu asks, pulling back to look at him with large eyes. “And now you don’t know anyone and you can’t remember anything like vshhvshvshh?”

> as always I’m obsessed with how you write her like… you nail the emu typical incomprehensible onomatopoeias but I can still understand what she’s getting at.

“Mmm…” Emu’s eyes stay on his face, searching hard in a way that makes Rui feel oddly exposed. Why does it feel like she’s seeing something that he can’t? “I think you’re definitely Rui, but I’m not sure you’re completely Rui.”

> she knows him so well… even putting her insane ability to read people aside she can pinpoint what’s up with him from a mile away even when he can’t understand himself. Because she knows what a happy Rui looks like and it’s not this.

> semi related but it makes me so happy that yes this is a rks fic but it also includes all of Rui’s friendships and takes a look at his dynamics with them. because you write them so well but also because his friends are so so so important to him… there’s a weird fandom brain tendency to go “romantic relationship > importance of everyone else in a characters life” which has never sat right with me, but especially not for WXS. They’re all friends… they all love and support each other & the dynamic doesn’t need to be romantic for that.

“That’s so sad, you really don’t remember any of our shows…” Emu says forlornly, blowing bubbles into her drink as her head dips.

> so cute so cute… you always write in little actions that aren’t plot relevant but do make the scene feel so much more real and I enjoy it every time…

This is the place where everything ended, to Rui. He tries to picture that happiness, really tries to place himself into that life, but it just doesn’t seem possible.

> “where everything ended” obsessed with that. it’s so true. Forever thinking about that little scene they added in journey to bloom after the main story fight where it shows him looking super upset in his room…

“Is it scary?” she asks. It’s the same tone someone might take with a young child, but somehow Rui doesn’t find it condescending. “Because you don’t remember, and now suddenly you have lots of love from every single direction? And that’s a really big change, right? Especially compared to when you first started making shows with us! You always had a big big wall like kztkzkzt.”

> this made me smile she’s so good with emotions & getting to the root cause of what’s wrong… I love seeing emu written so well…

Why would Tsukasa bother to do this, even though Rui has no recollection of their relationship? It’s not something he deserves. It’s not something he should have. Yet, here it is anyway.

> ohhh that hurts… Rui Kamishiro you sad sad man

“Is that a script?” he can’t help but ask. It warrants an overjoyed expression from Tsukasa, and Rui isn’t sure if he’s made a mistake or not. 

> tsukasa tenma you are never beating the dog allegations.

He finds himself looking away from the page to watch Tsukasa as he delivers his lines, something striking about the way he moves and talks. Everything seems so deliberate, yet fully natural too. Well, of course, this must be something he’s performed countless times, but- still. Rui never imagined his own work would sound like this. It’s usually lost once it leaves the paper, but now it seems- more, not less. Tsukasa is- adding something to it, somehow.

Rui keeps reading his assigned lines, but finds himself getting a little more into the performance. It’s hard to consciously sound disinterested when Tsukasa is filling the air with so much energy. Is this what they normally do…? Rui could believe it. It feels familiar. It feels fun. This isn’t bad at all. Distantly, Rui thinks his future self must not be a very good actor, because it’s hard to stop himself from smiling even as he tries to stay in character. 

> You get it… they’re so odd. Why are they like this. So much of their bond is built off of their shared all consuming passion and love for theatre. Height of romance for ruikasa is creating a show together.

An audience full of ordinary people probably wouldn’t enjoy this. Perhaps it’s something his other self forgot to edit out.

> rui :(

Yes, but also no, because Rui is scared that the feeling in his chest is going to keep developing, keep rising with the liveliness of the room.

> “I can’t catch feelings for the man I’m literally married to. I have to leave” I cannot stand this guy. Aren’t you supposed to be smart rui.

It’s been this long, so an argument was inevitable, this is the start of the divorce era- 

“Your jacket’s inside out.”

> DIVORCE ERA… i giggled

“It’s a different perspective, you know? Asking someone for fashion advice with a decade long memory gap? Oh, that reminds me, did I tell you you owe me ten thousand yen?”

> they’re so funny. Your second priority should be checking in on your friend’s wellbeing after an amnesia inducing head injury. your first priority should always be profit.

Mizuki watches him for a moment, then sighs hard, crossing their arms. “Listen, Rui, I’m sorry to have to tell you this. I know it’s going to come as a huge shock, but try to stay calm, okay? The truth is…you’re gay.”

> took me OUT… mizuki you are so funny

A friendly smile and a wave. Once no longer needed, he’d be gone. 

Every time he had tried to go past that level, every time he’d dared to step closer, things had gone wrong. The shows he had shared as a child had ended no different to their performance at the park. Rui had started alone, realised just how different he was, and then gone back to being alone.

[…]

Those feelings he gets when Tsukasa checks to see if he’s okay, when he smiles at him- they’re temporary. They’re frivolous. Rui isn’t the type of person who can love someone like that. And- even if they’re not- he’s not the type of person who can be loved like that. This life is too unrealistic. It’s too selfish.

> I’m obsessed with this part… even past the main story Rui was still holding onto his belief that he was simply incompatible with people - because if that isn’t true, that means there’s no easy logical reason for why he was so rejected by his peers. It means he’s capable of forming relationships and it means opening himself up to losing something so much more important than surface level friendships with others when the people he loves leave him (because they have to eventually, right?). & even though that belief was unhealthy, it let him believe he was content being alone, but now that he has all these people who love him it actively gets in the way of his relationships. It’s so much easier for him to view his desires as selfish than it is to believe that other people legitimately love him.

Performing with his friends, subjecting others to his ideas and creations, forming a close connection with someone…it’s simply too much.

> “subjecting others” love that phrasing it’s so true… baby rui going “I forced my shows onto other people and that’s why they rejected me” and the way he started to view his love for others as something that’s inherently too much - because it can rival his love of theatre, and all his life he was shown over and over again through rejection that this passion was too extreme. So it’ll probably the same thing if he lets his friends know how much he cares about them, right? (Wrong! He is stupid.)

His voice is eager and inviting like always, and there’s the shine in his eyes that’s always there when he looks at Rui. Not too dissimilar from a dog waiting for praise.

> do we have solid proof tsk isn’t a very human looking dog? There’s no compelling evidence against it. So it must be true.

“But I don’t think that’ll happen!” His vigour returns tenfold as he shoots up, eyebrows pointed down. “And before it got to that point, I’d do absolutely everything in my power to ensure you were happy and safe! I wouldn’t ever want to make you uncomfortable, but- I don’t mind however long it takes! I don’t care if I have to do it all over from the start! I would do it ten thousand times for you, Rui!”

> tsukasa “unstoppable force” tenma… the phrase “I give up” isn’t in his vocabulary.

He can hear the water running, though there’s no singing or loud monologuing today.

> you are so talented at show don’t tell I love all the little moments in this fic that - even through rui’s lens of Hate - show how upset and concerned and wrong footed Tsukasa is. He’s more than capable of covering this up with the “Rui will go back to normal eventually” attitude but he is very clearly (unless you’re Rui with amnesia) Not Having A Fun Time. Tsukasa Tenma and the no good very bad 2 weeks from hell.

“[…] I like sharing stuff with you. Understand?! How can you say we don’t have anything in common?! I like all of that stuff! I like it a lot!”

> this whole speech was so so cute and sweet. I sniled so sneetly. I hate them (said with great affection). When it truly comes down to it Tsukasa is so good at locking in and saying something that’s simultaneously both completely unexpected & exactly what needed to be said. The cost of this skill is, of course, being so super obnoxious all the time and occasionally getting treated like a chew toy/guinea pig/clown by his friends (which is always funny and deserved).

Of course, the decorations and the music and the flowers had been beautiful, but it was that moment that had been the true act of togetherness - being there as he cried. The silent understanding of ‘this is what I thought I would never have’ without Rui ever saying it, and the realisation that despite everything, now they did have it. Understanding without needing to be told. Not just sharing happiness but sharing sadness and doubt and courage too. To be understood. To understand. That’s it. That’s love.

> STOP get out… this is so beautiful and touching… accepting and being accepted and revealing your whole, authentic self and trusting that you’ll be loved and can love in return…

“Oh, really? But it’s okay if you want to kill me off sometimes. I have a lot of good poses for death scenes! And we still have some fake blood left, so that could be pretty useful for that kind of thing.”

> of course he does. Tsukasa Tenma voice “every actor should have at least 5 death poses. I, of course, have 20.”

“Would you like me to include a graphic death for you next time?” Rui asks fondly. “I’ve always wanted to experiment with using alternative means of showing blood, such as through lighting or with props. Potentially using colours other than red, too.”

“Oh, that sounds good! I’ve been working a lot on my core stability, so I think I could hold even a pretty complicated pose for a good amount of time without moving. And I’ve been trying a new stage fall technique if you want to try shooting me through the head…I think something with a bow and arrow could look really good…”

> what is wrong with themmmm going from a super emotional moment to immedietly talking about the most artistic way for tsukasa to die on screen. They’re insane. “‘Would you like me to include a graphic death for you next time?’ Rui asks fondly.” help meee… fondly planning out a scene where your husband dies violently. True romance. They always follow up their normal and/or emotionally vulnerable conversations with deranged theatre talk, thus restoring order to the universe. I think this is one of the best rks interactions in fan works that I’ve read like. They would. They so would. Cheering and clapping so hard.

"Would you love me even if I was made from polyurethane foam?" he asks distantly. Tsukasa’s eyebrows twitch.

“Go to sleep,” he mutters. “If it’s you, yes.”

> they are so funny & annoying I need to hit them with a bat

God this was so good… I love your writing so so much & I was so excited to see this fic pop up. I will save the longer comment for tumblr where I’m freed from the restraints of the character limit but I’m so obsessed with this. Perfectly balanced between sweet and serious and hysterical… an excellent rui character study… exploring his relationships with his closest friends and how they’ve grown and changed… so beautifully written… you have such a fantastic grasp on these characters and what makes them tick. Thank you for sharing… I’m going to be rotating this in my mind for ages…

[samwpmarleau]

fic: clippers

aka 1,500 words of me continuing to not accept bucky’s tfatws hair

Dr. Raynor had recommended it, though Bucky suspects she wasn’t the only person involved. These days, there’s a whole pack of people with say-so over his life, getting their jollies by hanging freedom over his head. She said it might help with people’s perception of him if he looked less like he did as an assassin. If he looked more like the young war hero who fought Nazis.

(Saving the universe counts for nothing, does it? he’d wanted to say but didn’t.)

It had irked him, the suggestion. Perhaps because it wasn’t really a suggestion. Raynor had thought he was resisting just to be contrary. He hadn’t had an issue with dressing like a twenty-first century civilian, after all, nor concealing his metal arm beneath jackets and gloves, so what’s the problem, James?

(That’s different, he’d wanted to say but didn’t. That’s so I don’t frighten anyone. So I don’t get stared at and invite questions people don’t want the answers to.)

All right, maybe part of him was just being contrary, because he’s already at his wits’ fucking end with how many conditions and surrendering of liberties this goddamn pardon has. But as he stands at the mirror, sharpened scissors in hand, it is not contrariness that makes him hesitate.

Nor is it the unfamiliarity of cutting his own hair, for he’s done that many times before, both before the war and since. He’s even got a picture to reference of some duck-lipped model showing off what Bucky can only describe as Generic Modern Man Haircut. He’d be Just Some Guy walking down the street with it, which is exactly what the government wants.

So, he does it both because he must and because any reason he can think of to not do it sounds pathetic, and although it’s not the fresh sort of cut he’d get from a proper barber, it’s serviceable. A few strategic passes of gel to disguise any unevenness and he’d be good to go.

(He’d tried that once, in Romania, having a professional touch up the ends, had even managed to tamp down his discomfort through the shampooing and smalltalk. The minute the man brandished the scissors and approached Bucky’s head with them, however, it was all he could do to not take those scissors and stab the man in the carotid out of pure reflex. He’d made it to the alleyway outside before expelling the street mici he’d had only an hour earlier, overcome by how easy the murder would have been. How natural. How he could have eliminated the entire shop of innocents before anyone knew what hit them. Erase the security tape, if there was one, and slip back into the ghost he was for seventy years. He’d returned in the dead of night to leave an envelope with a note of apology and a wad of lei and, needless to say, from then on the only blades that touched his hair were his own.)

He doesn’t recognize the man staring back at him in the mirror, once all is said and done. Which is a bit ludicrous; it’s a haircut, not plastic surgery, and for most of his conscious life he’d had short hair. This shouldn’t be any different. Yet, still he stands there in the bathroom with scissors in his hand and a sink full of brunette strands, for far longer than is reasonable.

He sucks it up, eventually, adjusts to the new length — or lack thereof. In fairness, some of it is easier. Showers are shorter, his hair tie budget is nonexistent, the drain clogs with less frequency, and he doesn’t look quite so much like a drowned rat when it rains.

Dr. Raynor is pleased when he shows up. She says it suits him, that it makes him look normal, that folks will have a harder time recognizing him as the Winter Soldier.

(They already don’t recognize me, he wants to say but doesn’t. I could be standing in front of a newscast about myself and no one would notice. I spent the better part of a century in the shadows — you think I don’t know how to hide?)

“James,” she says in that self-righteous way she does so well, “this is progress.”

She must be right, for she’s got that fancy, framed degree up on her wall that says she’s right, and there’s the goddamn pardon thing that means he cannot step one foot over the line no matter how ridiculous that line is. He utters a thank-you to her, white-knuckles his way through the session, and continues trying to cobble together a life.

Sam brings it up one day, after Walker, the Flag Smashers, and Bucky’s tentative integration into the Wilsons’ orbit. “Meant to say, looks good, man.”

It’s an innocuous statement, really. Well, it should be. Sam regards him a little too long, a little too probingly, for Bucky to believe that it is, in fact, innocuous. Sam’s gauging his reaction is what he’s doing, so Bucky denies a reaction that permits any gauging at all. The slight frown that appears between Sam’s brows tells him he succeeded.

Sam keeps up the ruse nonetheless, following it up with a playful insult as to Bucky’s cutting skills. He texts him the address of someone who is, allegedly, the best barber in Louisiana, tells him he made an appointment for tomorrow afternoon. Bucky goes. It’s not like he’s got anything better to do these days.

He’s the only white guy in the place, which elicits both stares from the other patrons and a hearty laugh from the barber resetting his station. “Sergeant Barnes?”

“How’d you guess?” Bucky deadpans, earning himself another laugh.

He’s gotten better at controlling his fears, his impulses, so the barber’s array of scissors and razors does not send him straight into the alleyway like it did years ago. The soul food from around the corner stays firmly in his stomach. The barber himself — Marcus — is jovial, considerate, and does his best to counter the uneasiness Bucky knows must be rolling off him in waves. Some good-natured shit-talking to cap things off.

Despite it all, when Marcus asks, “Just maintenance, sarge? Or you lookin’ for something new?” Bucky pauses.

And pauses some more, prompting Marcus to ask again, “Mr. Barnes?”

“Sorry,” Bucky says, realizing he’s a few more seconds of silence away from making Marcus genuinely concerned. “I just, uh …”

“I got a few suggestions, if you need,” Marcus offers. “Bit of fade on the sides, or —”

“No,” Bucky blurts out.

Marcus holds his hands up. “All right, no fade then.”

“That’s not — I didn’t mean —” Bucky takes a deep breath through his nose, exhales through his mouth. “I’m not trying to be rude, it’s …”

Bucky looks in the mirror again. Takes in the same face he’s seen for the past seven months, ever since Dr. Raynor gave him the suggestion-that-wasn’t-a-suggestion. He trusts in Marcus’s talents, that even Sam would find it worthy of a compliment.

(He can’t say he’d turn down a compliment from Sarah either, flirting ban be damned. It’d be Sam’s own fault, anyway.)

“I’m growing it out,” Bucky declares, as much to himself as to Marcus.

“Okay, cool. I can see it.” Then Marcus adds, almost pleads, “I gotta at least clean it up. No disrespect, but did you use a hacksaw?”

Bucky lets his mind drift as Marcus’s twang launches into another story. Half an hour later, he comes away with a list of must-watches and must-eats, plus a full pamphlet on how to not fuck up Marcus’s handiwork. After a generous tip and firm handshake, Bucky emerges from the shop feeling … not strange, exactly, but something.

The unspoken change, once it’s noticed in the months afterwards, garners him a variety of responses from the Wilson clan. When Bucky’s birthday rolls around, Sam and the giggling boys go in on a smorgasbord of scrunchies and clips that Bucky’s fairly certain were designed for a six-year-old girl. More seriously, a tin of pomade that Bucky knows is damn expensive.

For Sarah’s part, several hours later, the pain-pleasure of her knotting her fingers in his hair as she gasps out his name like a prayer is, he thinks, a resounding endorsement.

(Dr. Raynor would — possibly literally — smack him in the face with disappointment if she saw. Walker’d taken care of that, though, of her say-so having any bearing on his choices. Not that Bucky plans on sending the man a thank-you note or anything.)

As it nears his shoulders, Bucky supposes it does make him resemble the Winter Soldier. More than the bright-eyed draftee who gave his life for god and country, anyway, or the subject of the post-Snap government’s rebranding campaign.

Except, in his reflection he also sees the fugitive who’d been coaxed by his elderly neighbor into Sunday dinners of enough sarmale and mămăligă and papanași to give even his metabolism a run for its money. The man who’d been gifted new life, goats, and an affectionate nickname by Wakandans who never once looked at him with fear. The reluctant soldier who stood side-by-side with a talking raccoon and Asgardian god against an alien onslaught.

And maybe it’s silly to put so much stock in something as simple as hair. Maybe Bucky’s value system is in worse shape than his ability to tell fact from fiction when he wakes from a dream (a memory?).

But when he stares into the mirror with the Louisiana heat sticking hair and clothes alike to his skin, a house full of scampering feet, bickering, and hot breakfast just outside the door, it is not the Winter Soldier or James Barnes The Upstanding Member of Society that he sees. He sees himself. Just himself.

“You good, Buck?” Sarah asks when he comes downstairs, worry in her eyes. “You were in there awhile.”

“Yeah,” he wants to say — and does, because he can, because it’s the truth. A smile creeps onto his face. “I’m good.”

[kylesvariouslistsandstuff]

Some Mouse House news today. One story is true, the other *might* be true.

Today, Sean Bailey steps down as head of Walt Disney Pictures. The studio of Disney's massive film division that does all the live-action movies, and in some cases, animated tech demos that look like real-life simulations. Ya know, THE JUNGLE BOOK (2016) and THE LION KING (2019)?

He singlehandedly ushered in the whole remake craze (on top of saying some very weird and obtuse things about the animated classics they are largely based on), whilst trying to launch new franchises out of over-budgeted risky movies, and suffice to say? I'm more than happy that his replacement is Searchlight Pictures' David Greenbaum.

Greenbaum will now lead a combined Disney Live-Action/20th Century Studios effort, while Matthew Greenfield continues to lead Searchlight. This is a very smart move I feel, as Searchlight were usually quite good with budgets. They greenlit several outre and unique movies. Most recently Yorgos Lanthimos' POOR THINGS, which I loved. In the weirdest sense, and you'll probably think I've lost the plot in saying this, but... The $35m hard R-rated sci-fi black comedy with plenty of sex scenes felt more in the spirit of "Disney" - creative, game-changing, and bold - than a lot of the titanic-budgeted seemingly-noted-to-death movies released under the mainline "Disney" name in the recent years... That's quite something!

(Maybe it's just something of a shock to see a movie simply made by a FILMMAKER come out Disney. After all, when Walt Disney saw TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD in 1962, he was floored by the film and lamented... He wish his studio could make a picture like that.)

So yeah, as you can tell, I'm thrilled with this move. I feel that the output of the "Live-Action" end of Disney hasn't really been for me for a long time, creatively, and maybe Greenbaum will course-correct. Take a chance on different filmmakers, let them come in and make a really cool movie that isn't buckled under notes and mandates that attempt to make the proceedings "more Disney" - whatever that means. Less things like ARTEMIS FOWL and LION KING and this TRON-in-name-only sequel with Jared Leto, more stuff like the first PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN and assorted smaller movies. These things don't have to be $150m+ behemoths, either.

This move has been a long-time coming, I feel, especially after the film division lost money on HAUNTED MANSION and live-action LITTLE MERMAID, in addition to seeing diminishing returns elsewhere.

(And hey, on the off chance... Maybe we can see another Muppets movie get off the ground, haha.)

Sooo... As for the other piece of news...

Apparently Pixar is working on a movie called DUCKS.

And it's a full-blown musical, too... A first for Pixar...

Right now, this is all coming out of the rumor mills and I feel it should be taken with a grain of salt. Much like that soccer movie set in Barcelona that they were supposedly developing around 2018.

What's interesting is that a locked Facebook account and a locked Twitter account have been made for a "Pixar Ducks" thing. So maybe... Yeah... Maybe DUCKS is a movie in the works at Pixar. Or it's a short.

Some have pointed out that this news arrives a little after the release of Universal/Illumination's animated duck romp MIGRATION, which brings up the pairs of yore: A BUG'S LIFE and ANTZ, FINDING NEMO and SHARK TALE, RATATOUILLE and FLUSHED AWAY, the ill-fated NEWT and RIO... But really, sometimes great minds think alike. Remember how we had three animated movies about Sasquatches/yetis from September 2018 to September 2019? SMALLFOOT, MISSING LINK, and ABOMINABLE?

Sometimes it just happens...

I've also noticed people saying "Wait a minute, what about COCO? Wasn't that a musical?"

COCO, when it was coming out, was carefully described as a movie that was about music, not so much a "musical". I don't see COCO as a "musical", myself.

You see, I feel musicals inhabit a heightened reality of their own. Typically, in musical movies, when characters start singing, everything else around them is engaged. Like the whole block or the whole neighborhood or the whole area was prepared for this moment, and are going along with it. For some people, that's weird. "Why are they all singing? Imagine doing THAT in real life!" That's the point of musicals, I feel. The singing is the characters' feelings, their world, their point of view. These movies don't follow a literal reality, and that's what has always made them and their theatre counterparts so special for so many years.

COCO, by contrast, is about musicians. They pick up a guitar or instrument, and when they play music and sing, it's not of a heightened reality. Everybody else goes about their business, the whole block isn't singing- You get where I'm going with this, right? There's a clear difference between COCO and BEAUTY AND THE BEAST.

Some 30 years ago, when Pixar was working on TOY STORY... Their first ever feature film, they specifically didn't want to do a musical or something with an "I Want" song. A little list of rules, so that they wouldn't make something similar to what Disney was doing post-OLIVER & COMPANY. Many of the other animation studios were mimicking that formula as well, as evidenced by all the SWAN PRINCESS and FERGULLY types that were being released all throughout the '90s... It's understandable that Pixar and their tight-knit culture wanted to avoid that at first...

But we're in 2024 now, and Disney Animation has long balanced out musicals with non-musicals (BIG HERO 6, ZOOTOPIA, RAYA, etc.), while other studios have tried other kinds of musicals that don't try to recreate what Howard Ashman and Alan Menken perfected circa 1989. Like the SING movies, those are jukebox musicals, the TROLLS movies are more like pop musicals than they are Broadway...

So, some three decades after the release of TOY STORY (assuming that this film comes out in 2026 at the earliest), yeah! Pixar making a musical isn't so far-fetched. What this studio brings to that genre remains to be seen, but I'm interested nonetheless. They could possibly re-invent it in a very cool, fun way. I just find the title to be curious... Ducks... Talking animals... It seems very basic, but there's a lot we don't know, so I'll wait til I hear more. It could be about, say, duckpin bowling for all I know.

My other question is... Who is directing it? I know that the following filmmakers have pitched or are working on films at Pixar:

Brian Fee (director of CARS 3)

Enrico Casarosa (director of LUCA)

Domee Shi (director of TURNING RED)

Dan Scanlon (director on ONWARD and MONSTERS UNIVERSITY)

Kristen Lester (director of Sparkshort PURL)

Rosana Sullivan (director of Sparkshort KITBULL)

Aphton Corbin (director of Sparkshort TWENTY-SOMETHING)

Daniel Chong (creator of WE BEAR BEARS, storyboard artist on CARS 2 and INSIDE OUT)

Their schedule currently looks like this:

6/14/2024: INSIDE OUT 2

06/13/2025: ELIO

03/06/2026: Unknown

06/19/2026: Unknown

TBD 2026: TOY STORY 5 (likely summer)

So, logically, this could be their spring 2026 original movie while TOY STORY 5 expectedly takes the prime summer slot. Maybe! Perhaps it swaps spots with something else, I don't know.

We do have a D23 Expo coming up this year, so maybe we'll learn what Pixar's post-ELIO films are that aren't sequels. If DUCKS is real and it's moving along quite nicely, then that should be the one. We shall see...

[megidonitram]

Everyone's Running From Something (ch.1)

A Baldur's Gate 3 University Professor AU

Rating: M

Quick Summary: Astarion and Gale are two University English professors precariously mentoring a troubled 19-year-old and falling in love.

💖Main Pairing : BloodWeave,(Astarion/Gale) 💕Side Pairings: Shadowheart/Nocturne, Karlach/Dammon, Wyll/The Dark Urge, Tav/Tav 💔Past Pairings: Gale/Mystra, Astarion/Sebastian, Astarion/Tav

Master List | Ao3 | Next Chapter =>

**Please see Master List Entry for Full Content Warnings**

⏰Chapter Warning⏰ None

Astarion stared in mild consternation at the particle board desk that had been haphazardly squeezed into his office. Half his things -reference books, picture frames, a school flag one of his students had given him because “he didn’t have enough school spirit”- sat in a pile in the corner of the room. He very distinctly remembered his office being in one piece when he left for winter break.

“Jenevelle!” He yelled.

Professor Shadowheart ducked out of the breakroom with a mug of marginally drinkable Keurig coffee clasped in her hands. “I’m glad to see you too Astarion, how was your break? Did you successfully avoid your family?” She chirped with deeply ironic affability.

Astarion ignored her. “Do you know what happened to my office?”

“Oh, that? Yes, admin let us hire a new English professor to handle rhetoric and technical writing courses since Karlach decided she only wanted to stay part-time.” Shadowheart replied. “I thought you were on the hiring board- shouldn’t you remember this?”

“I know we have a new faculty member. I want to know why my office has been torn apart.” Astarion fumed.

“Provost said we didn’t have the office space for everyone in the English department to have their own office, so he said two of us would have to double up.” Shadowheart shrugged. “He thought you should be the one to share because you have the biggest office.”

“And I wasn’t informed about this because…”

“We were told not to let you know because you’d throw another fit in the dean’s office.”

“I’m the senior chair of the department, I shouldn’t be sharing my office with an adjunct- can’t he take Karlach’s office? It’s not like she needs one, she only teaches two courses a semester.” Astarion huffed. “Or he could be with you since you’re both teaching the entry levels.”

“My office was a literal broom closet before I started here!” Shadowheart shot back. “I don’t have room to meet with students, let alone share the space with another professor- but if you don’t want to share an office so badly, I’d be willing to trade with you.”

“Absolutely not,” Astarion replied. “Your office smells like bathroom cleaner.”

 “Then it looks like you’re stuck…”  Shadowheart sighed. “I’ll see you at the humanities all-hands.” She turned on her heels and went back to her office.

“Remember this moment when you need someone to drop a course so you can get another creative writing class on the roster,” Astarion grumbled.

He scrubbed his hands over his face and let out an exasperated sigh before he set to picking through his things to figure out where his colleagues had put everything. He liked Gale well enough as a professional, he seemed gregarious and personable, the kind of lecturer who could keep a student’s attention, and he was a lot more technically minded than any of the current faculty- but that didn’t mean he wanted to share a fucking office with him.

He should have known there was going to be a catch- there always had to be a fucking catch with admin. Balduran University was a business school through and through and put very little stock in any of its humanities departments- especially not into “dying fields” like English or literary studies. Usually, the English department didn’t get a cent more funding than absolutely necessary, and even then, their budget was constantly scrutinized to ensure it was actually necessary. He’d done a frankly unscrupulous amount of begging for years to get another full-time English professor in their threadbare department- everything short of just walking out and letting admin scramble to pick up the pieces. Of course, they would give the department the faculty member they’d been asking for and refuse to provide him with a space to work.

Astarion noticed a particular book from the pile of discarded things and turned it over in his hands, trying to place where he’d gotten it from. It was a collection of Paul Verlaine’s poetry in the original French, with a chipped yellowing dust jacket. It felt eerily, heartbreakingly, familiar, but he couldn’t place quite place it. He flipped through the slightly brittle pages to see if there was a passage or annotation that might jog his memory when a polaroid stuck in the dust jacket fluttered to the floor.

Astarion’s stomach lurched at the sight of the young man smiling up at him, relaxed and innocent as he lounged in the grass. His long ash-blonde hair spilling to one side over his shoulder, warm brown eyes gazing fondly at the person behind the counter, champagne silk button down undone just-so…

“I think we lose something when we don’t read an author in their original language.”

“And what am I losing when I read Verlaine in English?”

“Ça alors, the beauty- no, the music of the words. The English does not sing the way French does.”

A cautious knock at the door jolted Astarion quite rudely out of his thoughts. He grabbed the Polaroid off the floor, shoved it back into a random page in the book, and whirled around to see Gale standing stiff-backed in the doorway, clutching a box of his belongings. God, he was dressed like he was playing an English professor in a community theater play: Argyle vest, half-moon glasses, a tweed jacket with elbow patches and everything.

“I ah… didn’t mean to startle you.” He said with a nervous smile. “Jen told me we were sharing an office, at least temporarily.”

Temporarily in the sense that one day, one of them would eventually retire or die.

“Yes, that's apparently what I heard too,” Astarion replied. His eyes landed on the box in Gale’s arms. He hated this already. “Do you need help moving stuff up?”

Gale’s face lit up as he set his first box on his desk. “I do, actually! Thank you!”

Astarion grimaced when Gale turned his back. He’d offered out of courtesy, but he didn’t actually want Gale to take him up on it. He set the poetry book on his desk and pushed it out of his chair. Maybe a little bit of air and exercise would do him good. He followed Gale down the hall and up the stairs to the ground floor -Balduran U kept all its least loved departments sequestered away in the basement.

“So, have you been teaching here long?” Gale asked. He turned down the wrong hallway, and Astarion stood and watched as it slowly dawned on Gale that he was lost. He sheepishly turned on his heels and limped back over to Astarion.

“Ten years of my life wasted in that squalid little basement.” Astarion sighed. “I would tell you to get out while you still can, but I’m tired of suffering alone.”

Gale chuckled. He had a congenial chuckle like a talk show host. “It can’t be that bad, surely.” He said, “Or else someone as bright as you would have jumped ship by now.”

Astarion pounced on the compliment like a house cat. “You think I’m bright then?”

“Oh, I know you’re bright,” Gale replied. “You did your due diligence before you offered me this job. I did my due diligence before I accepted it. I read some of your published work, it was very impressive.”

Astarion swallowed back a pleased smirk, running his tongue over one of his canines. “Flattery will get you everywhere, Dr. Dekarios.”

They stepped outside into the dreary grey staff parking lot in the middle of the dreary grey of January. Gone was any of the merriment of the winter holidays, now all that was left was the cold bite of the wind and a few skeletal trees. Gale clicked the unlock button on his key fob, and a squat black hatchback with a bumper sticker in the rear window that said ‘Life’s better with a calico’ flashed its headlights.

“So why do you stick around if you find this place so disagreeable?” Gale asked. He popped the trunk and picked up another cardboard box filled to the brim with books.

“I’ve become quite attached to having a work visa,” Astarion replied frankly. He picked up a much lighter box of desk accessories. “And I suppose some of the students can be quite rewarding to work with- being a smaller program means you get more of an opportunity to form personal connections with the kids in our degree track… if you’re into that kind of thing. I personally get tired of all the recommendation letters they ask me to write.”

That and there was a certain level of anonymity that came with working at a small university. No one outside the city -outside the neighborhood really- had heard of Balduran University, and no one really cared about it. News stations never covered random happenings on campus for a quick local interest piece, so there were never any articles mentioning Astarion’s name and job title in passing to make their way back to people they shouldn’t.

“Ah, I did notice you had an accent!” Gale glossed over Astarion’s snippy comment as naturally as if it hadn’t even happened. He shut his trunk and started back for the office building. “Do you mind me asking where you’re from?”

“I grew up in Central London,” Astarion replied shortly.

“That’s quite a long hall. Do you get back home often?”

“Not if I can help it.” Astarion shuffled his box around in his hands to catch the door for Gale. “I’ve never gotten along very well with my family. We have an irreconcilable… difference in lifestyle choices.”

That was the understatement of the century.

“I’m sorry to hear that. I honestly can’t say how I’d get by if I didn’t have my mom.”

A woman with a pleasant face and an ankle-length floral skirt -probably an early-ed major- held the door to the stairwell open for the two of them. Their footsteps echoed off the polished concrete.

“I hope you’ve managed to find peace on your own, at least.”

“I’ve found ways to fill the void-” Astarion stepped backward through the door to the arts and letters wing and stopped so abruptly at the site of the large bald slap of muscle in gym shorts loitering outside his- and Gale’s- office door that Gale almost barreled into him. Astarion was rapidly approaching his surprise quota for the day.

“Dr. Ancunín!” Minsc bellowed, too chipper for the first Monday back from winter break. “Man I was looking for! How was your holiday? Good, I hope.”

“It was fine, Minsc. What are you doing here? Is something wrong?” Astarion fought the urge to dash past him and check his e-mail.

Minsc, infuriatingly, looked past Astarion to give Gale a big stupid grin. “Hello! Are you a new friend of Astarion’s? He does not get those very often.”

 “I’d like to think we’re friends!” Gale replied, and Astarion rolled his eyes. “I’m Gale Dekarios, the new English adjunct.”

Minsc whisked the box out of Gale’s hands as if it were full of feathers. “Very heavy books, Dr. Dekarios!” he said, “heavy books make a strong mind like heavy weight makes strong muscles.” Minsc gave Gale a handshake so firm Astarion was half surprised it didn’t bounce Gale off the ground. “Is pleasure! I am Coach Minsc, I am athletics director of martial arts program.”

“The -ah, the feeling is mutual,” Gale replied, wrenching his hand out of Minsc’s grasp before he broke fingers. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”

“Right!” Minsc lit up and turned back to Astarion. “Xenia came to practice today. Have you talked to her?”

Astarion’s jaw set tight. He was afraid Minsc was here to talk about her. “We haven’t spoken since Christmas.” He said, trying to stay measured. “The last I heard, she wanted to take a leave of absence this semester.”

“Is what I thought to. Her shoulder is still in cast.” Minsc replied. “She says her request to suspend financial aid package was denied. She cannot take break.”  

White hot rage surged through Astarion’s body. He tasted iron in the back of his throat. It was far too early in the semester to get kicked out of the dean’s office for causing a scene- but it was also far too early in the semester for this kind of fuckery.

“Who’s Xenia?” Gale asked.

“She is sophomore student,” Minsc replied. “Very bright but very troubled. She had… episode last fall-”

“She can decide if she wants Gale to know about that when she meets him.”  Astarion snapped. He loved a bit of student gossip as much as the next bored faculty member, but Xenia was a… delicate case. Astarion had been plenty of students’ favorite professor throughout his career, but very few were ever as vulnerable with him as Xenia was. He handed Gale’s box of office supplies back to him. “I’ll be right back.”

Astarion turned on his heels and headed back to the stairwell. He needed to have very serious -and perhaps explicit- words with whichever authority figure he could corner in their office.

[27dragons]

New Year Countdown: Dec 19

Well, why NOT have a Geraskifer Library AU?

Dec 19 - Geraskifer - Library AU - Mistletoe

Geralt came up from the basement archives, his arms full of heavy volumes, only to find his path to the reference desk blocked by a stepladder.

On the very top of the stepladder was Geralt’s boyfriend, stretched to the limits of his not-terribly-impressive height to reach the library’s high ceiling. The stretch had caused Jaskier’s shirt to come untucked and reveal a stretch of pale skin that made Geralt’s mouth water.

On the other hand, these books were really quite heavy. “Jaskier,” he sighed, “what are you doing.”

“I’m decorating!” Jaskier said cheerfully. “It’s almost Christmas, you know!”

Geralt knew. He wasn’t terribly excited about it, but he knew. He looked around for help, but Yennefer was helping a patron. “The library is already decorated,” Geralt pointed out.

“Yes, well, no one consulted me, and some vital things were left out.”

Geralt frowned and looked up at the ceiling. Jaskier was attempting to fasten a bit of greenery to the ceiling tiles. “Is that mistletoe?”

“Well spotted!” Geralt couldn’t tell if Jaskier was being sarcastic or if he’d just been spending too much time in the children’s library and hadn’t quite shaken that overdone enthusiastic tone.

“We left out mistletoe on purpose,” Yennefer said as the patron left. “There are already too many people trying to make out in the stacks, we don’t need to encourage them.” 

“That’s why I’m hanging this one out in the open,” Jaskier said. “And at the entrance to the reference desk, so only people who work here should pass under it!”

“You think that will stop them?” Yennefer wondered.

“Well, no, but at least this way I have plausible deniability.”

Yenn and Geralt exchanged a long-suffering look. Unlike Geralt, Yenn was slender enough to squeeze through the tiny gap between the ladder and the side of the reference desk. She took three of the books off the top of Geralt’s pile, lessening the load significantly.

Geralt managed a smile for her, and she glanced around quickly before planting a kiss on his cheek.

“Oy! Jaskier complained. “Where’s mine? I’ve been under this mistletoe longer than either of you!”

“I can’t kiss you,” Yennefer said. “Your face is all the way up there.”

“You know what isn’t?” Jaskier suggested, waggling his eyebrows.

Geralt rolled his eyes. “Save it until we get home,” he put in. “And take down that stupid mistletoe.”

Jaskier huffed. “Fine, spoil all my fun.” He pulled the sprig free and put a hand on Geralt’s shoulder for balance as he jumped off the ladder.

Yennefer plucked the mistletoe free of Jaskier’s grip.

“You’re going to throw that out, aren’t you?” Jaskier sighed.

“Of course not,” Yenn said, She tucked it into her hair, where it somehow managed not to look ridiculous. “I’m going to take it home and put it in a new place every day for surprise kisses.”

“Can one of those places be over the bed?” Jaskier wondered.

Yenn hummed thoughtfully. “If you’ll finish the ordering for the digital library today, so I can get them all turned in on time,” she bargained.

Jaskier brightened. “I’m on it!” He folded the stepladder and tucked it under his arm and practically speedwalked toward his office.

Geralt stepped behind the reference desk and dropped the rest of his stack of books with a sigh of relief. “Those weren’t getting any lighter,” he said. Then he eyed Yenn. “Orders aren’t due until next week.”

Yenn winked one violet eye at him. “No, but if he can get it done today, then that gives me a few days to pare down his list to something that actually fits our budget, and he’ll be too happily sexed to complain.”

“Hm.” Geralt eyed the sprig of mistletoe in Yenn’s hair, then ducked to kiss her before turning back to his duties.

Maybe not all Christmas things were so bad.

[popculturebuffet]

Screwhead Fiction Double Feature: Army of Darkness: Ashes 2 Ashes Review: 50% Groovy (Comissioned by WeirdKev27)

Happy Halloween ya Screwheads! Like last year we're taking a look at the evil dead courtsey of my good friend Kev, though trimmed down this time: we're only taking two looks at the king himself baby, but two that i'd be bound to eventually, both attempts to start an EviL Dead Universe from scratch. First up is Dynamite's Army of Darkness: Ashes 2 Ashes.

If your curious both why Army of Darkness of all three movies has such a sprawling comic line and why it dosen't bear the Evil Dead name as most media would from the 2010's onward that's simple: RIGHTS ISSUES BABYEEE! Much like another faviorite horror franchise of mine, Chucky, the rights are split due to Rami using a diffrent studio each time and while The Evil Dead and Evil Dead II eventually ended up lumped back together, Army of Darknesss so far hasn't, requiring coperation to use any of it's parts. As such Ash Vs the Evil dead choose to leave Army of Darkness out to avoid high costs on an already high budget show, and this comic exists as Universal or whoever owns the Army of Darkness brand could just lisence it out.

So thanks to the prologue these comics can use the cabin, the book, Linda, and all that but nothing specific from Evil Dead's 1 and 2, while having free reign to use anything from army of darkness. It's also why the now defunct Space Goat Publishing was able to make an Evil Dead II comic, which i'll be covering later this halloween season. Also tangentially related tangent but why HAVEN'T we had an Army of Darkness Vs Chucky crossover? I mean come on, the two are made for each other. We've honestly seen criminally few Chucky comics and general and given Ash has thrown hands with Herbert West, classic horror monsters and more, it only makes sense for the two to go at it. Come on someone anyone make this happen.

Speaking of publishing, to my suprise while i couldn't dig up much about these comics I did find out something fascinating: Dynamite, the comics company that publishes army of darkness comics to this very day, was BUILT on the back of this franchise. While they had to run it through Devils Due Publishing for the first two mini series their success lead to COUNTLESS more comics and Dynamtie getting more properties like Red Sonja, becoming a licensed comics machine over the years. Originals wise it's best known for Project Superpowers, an Alex Ross lead revival of various public domain golden age heroes and the Boys, aka the thing that haunts my nightmares at night after having to review it for Kev Last year.

Unlike Boom or IDW Dynamite is a company i'm not really experienced with, having not read an Army of Darkness comic till now as I hadn't seen the movie till last year, quite the screwhead I know. It dosen't seem to be a bad company and in fact will be publishing the Gargoyles and Darkwing Duck Comics this year, they just never seemed to have properties I cared about original or otherwise and I had to be paid to look at the boys for damn good reason

Yeah that's also so those of you who only watched the show know it's JUST the comic. I hate having to specify every time.. but i'd also hate for the actually GOOD efforts those boys running the show are putting in to get mixed in with the sludgey source it comes from.

Rami and Campbell arne't involved in these, likely because they weren't asked and Campbell seems very unahppy his best friend wasn't remotely consulted and this just.. happened without his consent. I don't judget the comics nor those who worked on them for that, or even Dynamite as if you have a shot with the boomstick, one that ended up being the backbone of your comapny for a long time, I cna' tblame you for not firing it into some screwhead. I do blame Universal for being fucking awful in this case, so I got that going for me.

And thus with all this preamble out of the way we have Ashes 2 Ashes

A 4 issue 2004 mini series picking up exactly where Army leaves off. It's written by Andy Hartnell, a comics writer known for writing the comic Danger Girl which I have not read and drawn by Nick Bradshaw. Hows it hold up almost 20 years later? Let's rev up our chainsawas and find out

We open cleverly, with the exact opening narration from Army of Darkness, covering a very truncated version of Evil Dead 2, i.e. Ash took Linda to the cabin, she didn't make it, he got sucked into a sky hole and wound up in the middle ages. The comic then recaps Army of Darkness itself. In short for anyone who missed my marathon of the films last year or is just a fan of this blog and is just reading this for completions sake, all two of you: Ash Williams was an average guy who went up with his girlfriend Shiela to a Cabin in the Woods wooo-oooo, only to accidently raise the dead. At least his car was fine. This was via the Necronomicon Ex Mortis, the book of the dead, an eldritch tome clearly made out of human skin that unleashes an army of darkness hoping to swallow humanities souls to take over the world, as you do. Ash was able to stop them the first time but got sucked into a sky hole and ended up in the past. After a breif touch of slavery and fighting in a gladiator pit, he worked to try and seal the book, failed specatucarliy and helped King Arthur kill a bunch of people, romanced a woman named SHiela and came back via some words having said them wrong. Thankfully this isnt' the directors cut so he did come back to present day.. but took some deadites with him, shooting one, making out with a lady.. and that's where our story picks up

In this version things aren't quite settled as Ash soon finds that the deadite he fought at the end isn't the only person to come back. The Wise Man, an old man who was basically their verison of Merlin has come to the present. In natural Ash Williams fashion he didn't say the magic words when going back to the present right.

This is also where my big issue reading these first two issues crops up: Nick Bradshaw's paneling. To explain here's a sample from this very scene)

As you can see for some reason his panels go left to right, then right to left with no arrows or clear visual trickery to get yoru eyes to move that way. You CAN make going all around the page work but your eye HAS to be able to follow it or you get situations like this. It's why when most artist's do something like this it's for movement and to really spice things up , not for ash pushing an old man around. It's a problem that isn't in EVERY page but pops up way too often.

The art style itself is decent, but I do think lacks in places, as while I do think a cartoony art style can work for a comic adaptation of a live action work, as seen with IDW's awesome ghostbusters comics i'll hopefully get to cover at some point, the art here really just dosen't seem to have enough balance between realism and expression at times. It's not terrible, but it's not exactly amazing either and often undercuts just how horrific the deadites were which, even in the more comedic Army of Darkness, are one of the most iconic things about this franchise.

Story wise it's decent and the premise is out and out brilliant: See while Ash DID come back to S-Mart turns out he was a few days early, and he soon finds that out from the Wise Man .. and from seeing his past self and Shiela get in the Delta. It's simple but brilliant: Ash has a chance to undo everything if he can get there in time, but both the fact he NEEDS the loop to close as intended and send his past self back so Army of Darkness happens, and having to travel through the woods on a motorcyle with The Wise Man riding sidecar make it hard.

That said while the premise is great… the comic doesn't make full use of it. Part of this I understand: with the rights issues their hands were tied and thus they couldn't exactly have Ash having the full adventure he should via time travel, with basically all of Evil Dead 2 having to happen off panel for this to work.

Sadly another thing holding it back is charcterzation issues. The comic dosen't just take after Army of Darkness in what it can use but in how Ash is portrayed. There is a it of a gap between his personality in Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness. In the former he's a bit of a goofus, but also badass, and understandably terrified. While the latter two carry on to Army of Darkness, he also takes a sharp detour into dumbass ville, the Ash of AOD being more impulsive, selfish and dumb, causing the entire second half simply by getting the words wrong. As such instead of having Ash properly reflect on his second chance to save linda we get the wiseman refering to her as the cure for his "beaver feaver"

And him spewing out catchprhases, snark and suptidity. He's still Ash so we still get plenty of badassery including him destroying some woodland creature deadites on the way, and it's what keeps the comci from being out and out bad: while the art dosen't do it favors, ther'es still enough of the Rami-Style slapstick magic here and htere to go around> ti's not as good, again I don't think the artist quite got how to capture the deadites, but it's still not terrible.

So we end issue 1 with our heroes escaping and with issue 2 we jump forward a bit to the awesome equipment shed from Evil Dead 2, one of the most iconic locations. They even have the Freddy Kruger glove which kicks ass.. and provided a nice back door for later as while Ash hasn't gotten to fuck with the Chuck just yet, he did square off with Freddy and Jason, something I do intend to cover one of these days.

Ash rechainsaws his hand , having used the prostetic from AOD he built till now, which I admit is anothe rlost opprotunity as they don't homage the shot from evil dead II of him putting it together but him emerging ready to go only to nearly chop off the wiseman's head is classic evil dead stuff and helps make up for it.

What sadly can't be made up for is him seeing Linda again and trying to save her.. onlyf or it to turn out to be the evil dead. And then snap into trying to kill her like the love of his life turning evil on him AGAIN is no big deal. Sa'll good bro.

See this is where trying to use the style of writing fo AOD for EVERYTHING really weakens the film. Dont' get me wrong, while I prefer Evil Dead II, Army of Darkness isn't bad at all, and i'ts more goofy adventure movie tone likely meshes well later down the line: you can have ash do weird shit like team up with Barrack Obama and Xena, fight Herbet West or hunt down dracula. That's fine. Those stories likely fit the tone of AOD. But you really can't go back to the cabin and try to act like none of that shit hurt ash or traumtized him. He lost all his friends, and Scotty, the love of his life, and then MORE people on top of that. While Evil Dead II was more of a comedy April's death was played for horror and it was still scary and heartwrenching at times. You can ballance the pathos of Ash'es torment by the dead with him getting into a looney tunes battles with his own hand. It can be done. It's why this franchise keeps coming back from the dead again and again and I don't judge all the comics after this on this one and look forward to trying some. Trying to put dumb horny action hero ash in the palce of tormented but still awesome goofy hero ash just dosen't work.

We do get a decent if flawed sequence next, and one that explains the title and you likely saw coming: Ash Vs Ash, with Past!Ash assuming Present!Ash is a cabin hallucination. It's a good setup for a fight and gives us this amazing image

And has plenty of great moments, from Past!Ash cutting off his future selfs chainsaw hand, to the old wiseman fumbling around, to a dual wielding past ash … ramming himself into a corner. IT's great stuff. Problem is they DON'T really make the two ashes that easy to tell apart. initially I thought there were NO differences but Past!Ash has his shirt torn. But the two still look so similar it's very hard to tell whose who aside from the dialogue, which for an action scene isn't really ideal. It was easier to follow this go round but I shoudln't need an instruction manual to read a comic book.

That said this is where the comic goes from very clumsy, hard to follow and wasting opportunity to fun and enjoyable. The first issue and 2/3 of an issue aren't TERRIBLE, but this last half is more suited for the wacky tone their going for while still not forgetting how seroius or horrifying this situation is. Ash bumbles with the book.. and instead sends them to the alternate ending, a horrible wasteland ruled by the dead. There's also some slave women because this was the early 2000's and every other comic assumed you needed boobs in there or geeks would throw it out a window or something.

It does work well to both impart on Ash "Hey moron, shit be serious", and to trust the wiseman. We also get this gem of a line

So ash agrees to follow his lead to finding the sealing place of the necronomicon, then he'll do the hard part. So they plan to book a plane , with a great line from Ash...

While ash's evil hand from the past follows them.

We start issue 3 with the story all about how the Wisemans life got flip turned upside down. WHy he didn't tell Ash on the drive to the woods or from the woods to the plane, I don't know. It's simple yet horrific: thanks to Ash's time shenanigans EVERYONE from army of darkness but him got possed, includnig SHiela whose in a skimpy outfit because again, need that boob quota or shit's going out windows I guess. At presnt in a plane Ash is destracted by a creature on the wing which Wise Man oddly dosen't take seriously but at least goes to the pilots.. giving us THIS franchise all time great gag

Like I said , the back half of the story picks things up, and really fits the comedic tone way better, witht he wiseman accidently blowing a hole in the plane and our heroes finding an unsettling face growing out of a tree stump

Freshly Cooked Face leads them in the right direction to some cliffs, and we get a nice heart to heart between Ash and the Wiseman, with Ash admitting he may not be able to protect him, while the Wise Man assures him "I shall not die by your hand for int he past or the future I shall always be your friend" which is both sweet… and poor phrasing as he gets stabbed in the back by the hand Knowby style. It's heartbreaking, as Ash silently digs his grave for two panels.. and then .. we get this

THIS is what I wanted from the first half: Ash dealing with the sheer weight of what he's been going through for the last few days. And not just this story: given the timeline the events of the Evil Dead Trilogy ALL occured over a week at MOST, with the first two occuring over TWO DAYS. Remember in that timespan everyone Ash knows dies, and even cutting it down to just Linda as Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness did, and this comic goes with, he lost the love of his life, had to fight his hand, went insane, got possed, got unpossed, and watched a bunch of people die, then got flung back in time, enslaved, fought more deadites, and came back only to set of fthese events. The guy has had maybe a few moments to relax over this nightmare of a day. So him breaking down again felt.. right. He lost someone AGAIN, coudln't save someone AGAIN and by god if he coudlnt' do that much he'll fucking end this if nothing else.

We soon get some fun but enough time was spent on him mourning Wise Man that it dosen't feel like mood whiplash. We get Ash Indying it up, which i'm happy for: i'm sure had Rami had the budget he would've done somethign like this and Bruce still got to fight a mummy with the previously covered Bubba Hotep, but ash growing a giant beard then fightin ga buncho f mummies just.. reallyf its with the franchise. As does more hand slapstick of course. We also catch up with past ash as he finishes army of darkness… and as his hand slinks of to become MUMMY EVIL ASH

This is what I meant: you either gotta go full tilt rediculous, if still with some depth or sink into the horror and while they tried doing the former it dosen't work with a cabin in the woods, as said cabin has so much trauma for Ash it's weird he's not more phased by this. In contrast S-Marts Employee of the month carving his way through deadite mummies? MUMMY Ash? That.. that is truly

So we're onto the final issue, with Ash trying to force his way through a puzzle. Naturally this results in no air, and I mean how's he going to breathe with no air, how can he hear when we ain't there, no air. No air. Also little green ash's because FUCK YES.

Ash eventually puts the book in a slot for it but the ole Williams Luck strickes again adn it instead takes things outside.. and he's too busy to go play fetch as Mummy ash has rasied an army of the dead, and while we get a cool fight between the two including Ash suckering The Bad Ash with his mechanical fist, he's soon overwhelmed as they beg him to join us and die. He quickly plan chainsaw's his way out of it but by the The Bad Ash has the book.

Just as it looks it for Ash… cue… Ash as hsi past self rides in with Arthur, the Wise Man and a whole fuckload of guys on horses to turn the tide, stabbing his evil self in the back. Wait shoudlnt' this be called Ashes 2 Ashes Funk 3 Ashes? Eh, Sematnics I guess. The two ashes time merge and we get a kickass battle as Arthur clears the way for his best bro Ash.

With the Wise Man's advice, ash creates a ring of fire to cast the present day book into hell, cleverly using the gas cap from his chainsaw to ignite it aroudn the bad ash, sending him and his minons straight to hell…. and into one pissed off Imps office I assume.

So we end with everyone going back in.. and Ash being ash forgot to toss the book in. We also get a great bit of the wiseman, when ash dosen't show his alternate future self, realizing he's dead. Ash rides off into over a hundred more issues as we end this series.

Ashes 2 Ashes is a VERY uneven mini series: The first half wastes a BRILLIANT premise both due to rights issues out of it's control and tonal issues VERY much in it's control and has very messy paneling in a few spots, but the second half is a fun, kickass adventure tale in the style of Army of Darkness that more than makes up for it. The art is passable, nothing special but nothing that drags it down. Overall if your curious it's a quick and fun enough read to be worth the time and not a half bad way to kick things off. Not the best start these comics could've asked for, but still pretty groovy. Next time we take a look at another attempt to start over again with only one movie to go off of later this month. Until then follow for more reviews, consider joining my patreon, sorry I havne't been read morning lately (I didn't know the whole continue reading thing was just on the dash, my bad, ) and thanks for reading.

[adamwatchesmovies]

The Dragon Spell (2016)

I see low-budget animated films make the same mistakes made over and over again. I don’t understand why. I’m not saying the people behind The Dragon Spell aren’t talented but they had to know they didn’t have Toy Story 4 money, so why do they and their kin try to reach for the stars when they could so easily go for the cookie jar on the counter instead? Clumsily written, ugly and stiff, I wonder who could sit through this movie and honestly say they had a great time.

Years ago, a ferocious dragon terrorized the world until a tanner named Ciryll (Mike Pollock) defeated it. Now, the dragon’s spirit lingers in the body of the sorceress Siringa (Melissa Schoenberg), waiting for the day when it can re-claim its true form and resume its reign of terror. Meanwhile, Cyrill's son, Nicky (voiced by Kate Bristol) is determined to live up to his father's glory. When he and a magical talking bat named Eddie "The Magnificent" (Allen Enlow) accidentally travel through a portal to another realm, they embark on an adventure to return home.

Trying to scratch together a synopsis for this film must have scraped at least a couple of months off of my lifetime. I feel like I’d need to go on and on to properly explain what this movie is about to make you understand why the writing is so bad. The film begins with a promising flashback showing us the tanner defeating the dragon. It’s all done via stylized, 2-D animation and looks great. Cut to the main story. You assume the dragon was killed thousands of years ago, that what we just saw was one of the cornerstones of the vast library of myths and legends this world has to offer, but no. What we just saw happened less than a decade ago. The tanner? He’s still alive. The dragon’s skin? It’s just up in the rafters of his home. When the camera shows it for the first time, Nicky wows. What? Why? Has he never seen it before? It’s been in his house since he was born, hasn’t it? The wizard, Adler (William Tost), knows the dragon’s spirit is after the skin but he hasn’t gotten the monster slayer to destroy it for…. reasons. Keep in mind, this is the first few minutes. This gives you a hint of the sort of penmanship we’re dealing with.

While the textures, hair, etc. are detailed and professional, they’re slapped on top of ugly character models. You get strong “Local grocery store chain” vibes from everyone. Objects don’t have weight, the bat’s anatomy is all wrong, and a flying wooden ship sails through the air like its pilot is a pro when they’re actually at its wheel for the first time. The dragon, meanwhile, moves as gracefully as a duck on land. It doesn’t make any sense as a deliberate choice. Even as something incidental, it’ll have you scratching your head. The people at work HAD to know this wasn’t going to work. I don’t mean story-wise, I meant visually, someone had to - at some point - say “Hey, are we sure the art director isn’t perpetually drunk? these designs don’t work together at all.” The worst offender is Rocky (Alyson Leigh Rosenfeld) and her sidekick, a female squirrel so grotesque you swear there’s something wrong with its genes. There’s a twist about Rocky that’s so badly fumbled I had it figured out, then second-guessed myself just before the actual reveal. It’s one of those movies that’s so predictable it circles around again to surprise you, except when we’re talking about the witch, whose ultimate role in this story is so obvious it would’ve earned the writer a big, fat, red ‘F’ from their teacher.

Conceived as a comedic adventure for kids, the only time The Dragon Spell is funny is when you listen to the lyrics of its only song. I don’t know what’s going on there. The words make no sense in any context. Key verses include:

Nothing can go wrong if you know the animation

Life is a movie and you’re the animation

Sometimes life can be like a lead hole

Let your life play out like a movie

Live the life shine it every day

Make your movie with the computer of the day

...

Yeah. You read that correctly.

While these make for some laughs - the equivalent of a delicious cheeseburger in the middle of a barren wasteland - it’s not enough to recommend the film, even as something “So bad it’s good”. Though the screenplay isn't good enough to make me think slam-dunk character designs and movements would've made a difference, that's a big issue with this film - and others like it. The film is too ambitious for its budget and can't compensate with "easier" elements of the filmmaking process. By this, I mean the writing, songwriting, voicework, etc. the kind of things a single, hardworking and dedicated person could polish off on their own. If you can't get the animation down, you have to make up for it in another department.

The Dragon Spell only lasts 85 minutes but it feels like so much more. I can't even say that it's enlightening or educational as a failure. It's just dull and disappointing. “Magical lands have their downsides” indeed. (English Dub, May 27, 2022)

[matthewcahill]

Teaming up with someone who’s fully qualified

Summer can be a good time to focus on marketing. With autumn rapidly approaching, people can often mull over their futures while sitting on a beach or sunning themselves in the back garden.

In other words, that dream job which they desire might be dominating their thoughts. But, how do they achieve that wonderful goal? The use of the Miracle Question can be so powerful that it can really make dreams come true.

Teaming up with someone who’s fully qualified and really knows their stuff can create a positive therapeutic alliance that can power someone all the way to success.

Perhaps now is a good time to focus on looking at Google AdWords and putting aside a budget to help boost your profile.

It might only be a few pounds a week but boosting your Facebook posts can make all the difference as it allows you to specifically target your audience in a set area.

Likewise, writing regular blogs for your website can allow a potential client to get a feel for who you are and what you can do.

The old adage of getting to ‘know, like and trust’ someone comes to the fore and your writing can start to create change in a potential client who’s looking for help.

The rudimentary brain: automated responses

Strawberries, ice cream and an ice cold drink of something refreshing. The perfect ingredients to mull away a few hours watching the thrilling tennis finales at the weekend.

If you missed it then a 20 year old Spanish player broke a 20 year old convention by taking the trophy away from one of the ‘Big Four.’

Fans will know the past two decades has seen the event dominated by Djokovic, Federer, Nadal and Murray. That all changed this year and now a new name can be etched onto the silverware: Carlos Alcarez.

Any successful sporting participant knows their discipline will require a whole heap of determination and focus. Early morning runs. Late nights in the gym. And, perhaps, most importantly: the correct mental approach.

In other words, negative thinking can really ruin our game. Think about the number of times you saw a player demonstrate ‘brain’ thinking. Either with angry cries of frustration or throwing their rackets to the ground.

I think a lot of us can remember John McEnroe’s infamous 1981 cries of ‘You cannot be serious, man!’ New York attitude hit leafy suburban London. Blighty reeled in shock.

Day One of Wimbledon had heated up to the point of a major meltdown. The Daily Mail (then priced at 12p) splashed it all over the front page with pictures of the tennis star breaking and kicking his racket.

His energy release arguably helped his game. McEnroe went on to win the match. And Wimbledon. The three time Wimbledon winner remains no stranger to centre court as his accent can often be heard emanating from the commentators’ box.

Perhaps McEnroe’s win is an exception to the rule. In the main, if a sports’ person can maintain their cool during a competition then our training shows us they have a greater chance of success.

In other words, if we allow our brain to dominate our thinking then we let negativity start to creep into our mindset. In the sporting world, this can be hugely problematic.

Think about it. Sports’ people train their  brains to work in a largely automated fashion. Someone throws a punch and the well trained boxer can duck, dive and weave their way out of trouble. The rest of us would be left lying on the mat.

Hot wiring that level of automated responses into the brain requires a series level of discipline and training.

So, just as most of us don’t think about walking or breathing, the well trained athlete doesn’t need to concentrate too much on the mechanics of their chosen field.

They know they can achieve their goals. They just need to maintain their focus. Throw their focus and they’re facing trouble.

Muhammad Ali knew how to win fights. ‘The Greatest’ would be good at goading his opponent causing them to lose intellectual control and become negative in their thinking. Ali would then steamroll his way to victory.

In short, the intellectual part of the brain needs to remain in charge. If we allow the  brain to take over then it starts to struggle with being able to do what we’ve programmed it to do. It’s focus meanders elsewhere. And a sense of failure creeps in.

The brain can really be our Kryptonite. Programme it well and look after it then all is good. Equally, if it’s thinking spirals downwards then things might not go quite so well for us…

For our clients, this process can be centred around reducing their stress bucket levels by regular sessions with you and by listening to your CD (or similar) between meetings. Low stress bucket levels is surely crucial for sport.

The rower focusing on problems with the rent is easily going to lose their stroke. Their  brain is so pre-occupied with a potential survival issue (shelter) that it can’t do what it needs to do.

Maintaining the patterned behaviour that it’s learned during months and months of training becomes too much when it’s also worrying about other things. The result? A loss of a relaxed state of concentration. A ‘crab’ gets caught and a Regatta is lost.

We can make all the difference in helping sportspeople to stay on top of their game by working with them to reduce their stress levels so their  brains can simple get on with what they do best.

A film with a twist

Sticking with a sporting theme. Have you seen the new Orange advertisement on social media?

We are, of course, not plugging any particular product here but we’re suggesting it’s certainly worthy of a viewing. If you don’t want the ‘plot spoiler’ then look away now!

In short, Orange (France) have produced an advertisement which celebrates football. Watch the first minute and you’ll hear French commentators celebrating goal after goal after goal. Not a footie fan? Stick with it as the second minute becomes enthralling…

The editing team rewind the footage and you can watch as they erase the players and replace them with the ones who actually scored goal after goal after goal.

In short, the genuine footage was actually showing the French female team and not their male counterparts.

With the incredible pace of technological advances, the film shows us how easily our brains can be tricked into believing one thing when the reality is completely different!

If you would like to trains as a Hypnotherapist you can take the first steps here.

Read More

HYPNOTHERAPY TRAINING PROGRAMS IN LEICESTER

[songliili]

OOOOH LILI!!! tell me about “your body is the sistine chapel” wip!!

oh boy am i glad you asked about this! it's gonna be long so bare with me.

it's a known thing by now that dean was supposed to be tattoed and a smoker from ep one of spn, but the budget was too low for fake tattoes so we didn't get that.

it always felt stupid to me cause like they could've made his tattooes hidden by his clothes! like have him in a shirtless shot in ep one (there's the occasion too, when he washes up after being covered in mud, just have him putting his layers on!) and then call it a day until the next time you have to write him shirtless. and then as the show progresses and gets more money maybe add some tats to his forearms, since those are the only thing we see often enough (there's not many shirtless scenes, or even in short sleeves tbh!)

so one day i think two years ago now? i went on a whole rant about this and came up with a timeline for which tats dean winchester would get. at first he'd get them in placese easily hidden so that john doesn't know, but then there's a injury in one of those parts and john finds out, so he starts getting them in other places too, but still hidden (no arms), and then after john dies he gets some there too.

i have a super detalied spreadsheet with placement, meaning, and age for each tattoo, this image for the visual of where in his body every tattoo that i came up with is placed. (yes, the yellow dots are tattoos too)

and this fic has the lines that i am most proud of, i think i'll never write something as good as these words and i am very okay with it.

Years later, when he's in bed with Cas, his head resting over the moth and his hand tracing the anti-possession tattoo lines, basking in the after sex glow, he asks the angel.  "Did you take care of my tattoos when you rebuilt me?"  "Of course, Dean." "Why?"  Castiel stays silent for a while, and Dean thinks he won’t get a reply. Then, Castiel gets up on his elbow, to look Dean in the eyes. He stares back, his hand caressing his lover’s arm. "When I held your soul I could see its beauty, I could see why they called you the Righteous Man,” the angel’s hand slides across Dean’s chest, resting it over the mark he left all those years ago, “but when I saw your body I was… in awe. You decided to decorate your skin with beautiful art, to honor the people you loved with it. You treat your body as a weapon, but your body is the Sistine Chapel. It is a place of worship, and you graced me with the privilege to do so.” Dean ducks his head, trying to hide, but Castiel has other plans; he sits up and grabs the hunter’s face with both hands, keeping their eyes locked. Castiel's eyes are shining with tears, but he's smiling, he's happy and Dean can only see love swimming in the sea of the angel's eyes. “I didn’t know this at the time; what moved me to restore your frescoes was the desire to keep you whole, to celebrate the artists who you entrusted with painting your walls forever. I was and will always be your curator.” Dean cries and can only kiss him, his beautiful angel. The day after, he adds new ink to his skin.

i don't have much more written and i still need to figure out some designs for some tats, but i'm going to try and post this for dean's birthday on the 24th of this month. we'll see what happens, but i really hope i manage, cause i love this fic so much and i don't want to let it rot in my folder forever.

WIP tag game

[cannibalcharon]

I’m just about to turn thirty. I have short hair. I like to walk on the beach, and sit at bonfires. I like camping. I like go hiking, and bird watching. I like to go bowling but I’m not very good at it. I love bbqs, cookouts and potlucks. I’m love playing with my little cousins, nieces and nephews at family reunions. Hide and seek is my favorite. I liked singing in church when I was little. I like sunny days, rainy days, and watching thunderstorms. I love the sandy dark soil of the PNW, and the rich red clay of the south. I like fried chicken, and potato salad. I’ve eaten a mayonnaise sandwich and liked it. I like listening to the rain on the tin roof of my grandmas mountain cabin. I love my mom, my grandma, and all of my whacky brothers. I’m the middle child. I like my older manual Hyundai. I can change my own oil, and change a tire. My brothers are mechanics, and one’s gonna be an engineer. I’m the shortest of my siblings. I have my fathers eyes. I had a tío George growing up and he loved to throw parties. My dad and I spent a lot of time in the garage. He taught me how to work on cars. I loved dolls when I was little. I liked dinosaurs, Polly pockets, Barbie’s, Lego’s and Bionicles. I had a platinum beanie babies membership from my mom. Our house had a farm. We had chickens, horses, goats and raised pigs to butcher. I know how to butcher chickens, quails, pheasants and water fowl. My favorite meat is duck. I name all my chickens. I’m a cat person. I wanted to be a veterinarian growing up. I’m an optician now. I sometimes overspend at the thrift store. I thrift all my clothes and furniture. I love to collect books. I’m a sucker for romance and mysteries. I grew up loving Lord of the Rings, and Indiana Jones. Independence Day is one of my favorite movies. I love horror movies, and horror games but I’m too scared to play them. I’ve read the Bible cover to cover three times. Ive read the Silmarillion twice as many times. I forget my glasses a lot. I like to go to the grocery store with a friend. My favorite cuisine is from Korea and Japan. I almost got married once. I’ve lived with roommates, I’ve been homeless, and I’ve moved back in with my mom when I’ve had to. I used to show with 4H at the local fair every year. I had a Belgian draft named Tank. I helped him conquer his fear of water. I have a fear of drowning. I own a gun. I like to go to the archery range. I’m excited to be getting baby chicks in the spring. I’ve only been clubbing once. I’ve been sober for a year. I loved red wine and dark beers. I’d always get the porter on tap at the roadhouse. My family lived in the same valley for five generations. I love my stepdad. My cheeks get freckles in the summer. I cry if pets die in a movie. I cried when Rue died. I like being nice to people. I make folks laugh. I and my family use words like “yall,” and “y’all’d’ve.” I get annoyed too easily sometimes. I got a 4.0 in college. I switched my major twice now. I studied biology. I know advanced biology. I like to research sociology and statistics. I was an accountant once. I try to keep a strict budget. I hope to buy a house some day. I’m excited to plan my next wedding. I loved running my community garden. I know how to test soil, and repair it. I love the farmers, truckers and tradesmen in my family. I love working with my hands, growing my own food, making my own things. My wrist aches when I draw or stitch. I’m a person. I’m neurodivergent. I’m trans. I like being helpful to strangers. My favorite color is blue. I don’t need you to love me, I love me. I’m me, and I’d like the freedom to be me. I just want to live. That isn’t radical. I just want to live.

[the-corset-witch]

Upon actually sitting down and organizing things and not just replying to people on my phone, I actually have 8 paid readings in total, so I went ahead and organized all of them into an order, made a base schedule. I will hopefully make some more headway on those tomorrow. It won’t be until next weekend (18/19) that I have days off, and honestly, that first Saturday....  I don’t think I will be doing a damnnn thing.  

I have taken the 10 Wands I got today and decided that in order to continue forward and not fall into pitfalls or spill any responsibilities, I will try to get ducks in a row, so a lot of tonight was spent doing that. I not only got the readings organized, their PDF templates filled out (just waiting for the cards to be pulled and interpreted now!), but I began outlining what I hope will end up being my weekly routine using my google calendar. I am trying to envision what my ideal life looks like in these coming months, I think we all have that ideal life that might be far off, I know I do, but I need an ideal life that I can live right now, so that’s what I am trying to find.  

So far what I have is Mon-Fri, I want to wake up at 7a, which is ~1.25hr before I have to leave for work. This should give me time to do the morning card, maybe some light stretching and yoga, and just in general mentally prepare/physically prepare for the day ahead. I want to eventually devote my Tues/Thurs to paid readings (if/when applicable), with weekends being kind of a free for all, readings if they’re there, or plans with friends maybe, just whatever I want on those free days. I usually do my errands on Sunday during 9a-11a (most of the population near me goes to church and this frees up the stores--usually). Beyond the weekly, I want to look at each day, and just kind of see what magic I can find in an ordinary day.  Where can I set time aside to work on a garden or go for an evening walk (once its not frigid)...  

Reading this finance book has made me see time as a commodity that I don’t necessarily want to “budget”, but I do want to look deeper at how I am spending my time because this is a resource that I can’t make more of. Whenever I’m struggling financially I try to tell myself “the best thing about money is you can always make/earn more” but you can’t do that with time.

I feel like analyzing my time, how I am spending it, what I am getting out of what I am spending it on, this will be a major theme of my next lunar cycle. This one is drawing to a close as we begin to move with a waning moon, and I know that for me, this year is about looking forward. I was really struggling in 2022, and it was really, really touch and go for a while there toward the end. I am 💯 leaning into the cliche “new year, new me” type of deal for 2023. I honestly have to. I have to build a better year, I have to make this better; if I don’t no one will. And I don’t have the excuse I had last year of being abused by a narcissist while also going through a heart wrenching and soul crushing divorce. And god, I gave that narcissist every spare second of every spare day I had, and every part of my life suffered as a result, and because every part of my life suffered I fell down deeper into this pit, and naturally that was right where he wanted me because to whom did I turn to in the darkness? The nasty shadow of a person who had built the pit as his home. I will never get back all the time I gave to him, and I will never get back everything else he took from me either, but at least I can begin to be more critical of what, and who, I give my time to.

[wayvisionsc]

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