#gawd every single time I look at her in this scene

[abitohoney]

Why is she so fucking soft and pretty and vulnerable and...?!?!

[saltygilmores]

Thoughts While Watching Gilmore Girls Season 2, Episode 15, "Lost And Found", Aka The Bracelet Has Breached Containment, Aka BraceletGate, Aka QuarterOnAStringGate, Part 6

Five minutes to go. We've finally arrived at the rotting meat of the episode. Since I won't watch Teach Me Tonight (or the episode that comes after it), this is the last episode for a good long while solely focused on Lorelai Gilmore's paranoia. Thank Gawd. I am drained.I have nothing left in me. She has sucked out my life force the way she sucks the lifeforce out of Dean Forrester. Parts 1-5 (!!) and all other episodes can be found in my pinned post.

Out of context, this looks terribly ominous.

Sweaterpaws.

Jess was seriously going to just go home and not even bother to ask for any money (well, he did say "I'll be back to collect it later, I know where you live", like the old timey Italian mobster he is). But he could have used that $5 (I do wish I could tell how much she's holding). Even though Jess must wait on Lorelai's table at his place of employment at least once a day every single day, I wager this is the first time Lorelai has ever paid him or tipped him squat. The boy was too stunned to speak. Better make sure its not Monopoly money or something.

I love how cautiously he takes it. He's such a smart boy, he knows this is a trap.

Time for my favorite #SadBaby joke, one I made up myself many years ago: Why does Jess Mariano love Santa Claus so much? Because unlike his father, at least Santa Claus visits once a year.

You dropped this, my king.👑 The fact that he's so utterly unbothered by Lorelai, making this a completely one-sided argument by an adult with a minor child will always be hilarious to me. Lorelai: Why would you do this? Oh, the DRAMATICS! I would never be dramatic.

WHATEVER WHATEVER WHATEVER WHATEVER!!! How you like them apples?

"Don't whatever me, you ittle jerk! You let Rory run around PANICKED! Thinking she lost her boyfriend's bracelet! She was MISERABLE! DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT?"

You ever wonder if Dean Forrester is perched on a rooftop somewhere with a sniper rifle and if Lorelai doesn't say "Dean is great" "Dean is tall and pretty" "Dean is the best lover I've ever had" out loud at least twice a day, it's lights out for her? It's either that or he's blackmailing her and is going to spill their illicit relationship if she doesn't kiss his ass on the regular, or maybe he used some advanced brainwashing techniques on her (this one is highly unlikely, he's barely literate) there are no other possible explanations for this behavior.

Way to go Lorelai, that's four rapid fire lies, exagerrations and falsehoods in the span of mere seconds. I'm impressed. I think Jess has to be dying of laughter on the inside right now listening to this crazy bitch's lunatic rantings. Actualy, in the second picture, from that angle it almost looks like Milo is smiling lol

Baby, you're so smart. I know you didn't finish high school, but you should still win some kind of award for smartness. #AdmireTheBaby

Lorelai can't call Dean "son", it would clash with his other title, "Rory's Future Stepfather."

Lorelai's face after Jess pointed out Rory didn't miss the bracelet for two weeks. SHE KNOWS HE'S RIGHT. Come on, just admit this kid is right and we can move on with our lives!

Lorelai goes back to the living room to contemplate how Jess Mariano is right about everything all the time.

Okay, since we know Luke isn't getting a new apartment, I'm intrigued. Ahhh, a second Nuclear Luke rant in one episode! It almost makes up for the rotting meat of the previous scene. "Taylor is systematically buying up the whole town! He's gonna turn it into Taylorville! Everyone will wear cardigans and have the same grass height! He's gonna buy the building next to the diner and turn it into a plate shop for freaks without enough brainpower to buy stamps! I walked around in a blind rage. I was crazy. I bought one of those Belgian waffles with the ice cream dipped in chocolate. But I didn't eat it, I'm upset, not suicidal." LMAAAAAO. Oh Luke Danes, I love you so fucking much. "I had your voice going around and around in my head, I heard you saying, "take a chance Luke, make a move! Can't have a single bed! So I bought the building!" Told you Lorelai's nagging wields tremendous power, leading men to emotional and financial ruin.

For a few brief moments, Lorelai is the voice of reason and rationality. She suggests he could back out of the purchase, or barring that, expand the diner or rent the building to someone Taylor really hates, which is an idea I could get behind. Luke has 100k to spend on real estate, huh. I've said this before, I envision an au where Luke signs the paperwork to just get Jess his own seperate apartment. Even he had to wait until his 18th birthday. Jess could contribute to some of the rent and bills and Luke could pick up the rest. Everyone would be happy. I just want Jess to thrive and be happy. I'm going to imagine him thriving and happy.

A moment later, Lorelai is back to her old self. Holy hell, woman. The fuck is wrong with you? Poor Rory! Can Luke front some of that 100k to pay for Rory's future therapy bills, that she'll surely need after the damage you've caused?

I honestly have no idea what the fuck she's talking about. When have they been "thrown together"? When you think about it, Rory and Jess so far have had minimal interaction aside from some brief conversations, the majority of which Lorelai isn’t even aware of, and we're 10 episodes in after Jess' arrival. Do you mean the Bracebridge Dinner? The thing you set up and invited him to? Literally, Lorelai doesn't even know that Rory and Jess interacted in her backyard this afternoon. Or do you mean the picnic basket auction? Where Jess committed the unspeakable crime of having lunch with Rory?

WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? Luke thinks Rory and Jess would make a good pair. Lorelai is so in awe of the power of Jess Mariano that she fears coupling him with her daughter might rip a hole in the very fabric of space and time.

Luke is my favorite Literati shipper.

"If Rory dates Jess, my shnooky-ukkums Dean will stop coming over to my house. Jess Mariano must die."

At least the last minute of the episode brings us one of the most splendid endings in Gilly Girls history.

Promotional poster for my horror movie called The Hollow: Luke Danes' Revenge. He's got a sledgehammer, a troubled nephew, and a thirst for Taylor Doose's blood.

I LOVE how hard Milo flinched when the hammer went through the wall. THIS EPISODE IS OVER. I SURVIVED THE ENTIRE THING. Where's my cookie?!

[negrowhat]

BL/QL ASK GAME : THE UGLY, THE BAD AND THE WORST

I saw that @bengiyo did this and I would like to participate!

The categories are :

Worst soundtrack / weirdest song choice in a BL

I think some of the background music choices in Love in the Air/Wedding Plan were odd, mostly during SkyPrapai scenes. I think in one scene Itsy Bitsy Spider was playing and in their wedding scene some random ass old song was playing too. And I can't remember which BL it was where a Christmas Song kept playing in the background during random scenes.

Most cringe-inducing line (cute)

Pleum to Kevin: "You're lovely, trust me on that. If you weren't lovely I wouldn't fall for you from the first time we met." The cringe the cheese and he was always saying cheesy stuff like that to Kevin but I ate it up because he was sincere and so up front. We stan.

Most cringe-inducing line (actually bad)

Rain to Payu: "If you don't stop being angry you're going to scare your wifey." I hate how attached MAME is to the "wifey" title for her characters. That scene was cute but that line is just ugh. And the subbers like to translate it as "Darling" but we all know the truth.

Most stupid decision made by a character

Yu Xi Gu leaving to go buy salt for that stupid soup. (History 3: Make Our Days Count)

Worst plot line

Whatever the fuck the step brothers in History 4 had going on. I could honestly move past them being step brothers if every single thing else about their storyline was not so messed up. (History 4: Close to You)

The most problematic show you’ve watched

1000% TharnType and I completely own that shit. TT was a hot ass toxic mess and I ate up every single bit of it.

A show people love but you find bad

Dark Blue and Moonlight. I just hated every single thing about that series. I hated the stupid cheating plot. I hated both of the main guys. Hated the acting. But when that shit came out I remember that people just LOVED it.

A show people find bad but you will defend

En of Love: Tossara. People found Tossara boring and I just loved their lil series. I love Gun and Bar and sure the acting was a little stiff but they gave me such a warm and cozy vibe. They were honest with each other and had relevant conversations and were mostly unproblematic.

A show that is just objectively bad but you enjoyed it

The Best Twins. Like the plot made no sense and depending on which couple was on screen it felt like 3 series in one and some of the acting was not good but it was a funny lil series that featured a ton of our faves before they were our faves. Also fucking THOR??? He's a gem.

A bad show that you kept watching because you were intrigued/fascinated

History: Obsessed, because what the fuck even was that? I had to see how they made it out to the end.

A bad show that you kept watching because you were horny

Waterboyy...Earth looked really, really hot in that one, but my gawd I would never, ever watch that series again. Between them revoking that one girl's lesbian card, the cheating, the sexual assault, and Waii's daddy getting together with Waii's best friend I couldn't stomach it. Highkey glad EarthNew didn't last.

A bad show that you kept watching because of that one character

My Gear and Your Gown. That character actually being the ship PureFolk, because otherwise that series was a total snooze fest.

A bad show that you would still recommend

My Engineer. The series was quite literally a mess and almost felt like a fever dream with it's wacky characters and random happenings with the plot (also some people didn't like the main couple) but the series is so much fun and we were given a gem of a ship with RamKing/PerthLay. It's just a fun series.

The character that ruined a show the most

Fucking Wai in Bad Buddy. I just couldn't stand him outing his own best friend to the whole school. That was so fucking dirty and Pran was still trying to apologize??????? I almost dropped the series after that because I knew he would never apologize and still everything would be forgiven.

Most awful character that you hated

Tita Susan from Gameboys the Movie/Gameboy S2. Plern Pleng from Together with Me. San from TharnType. Lee So Hee from Light on Me. Fighter's daddy.

Most awful character that you loved

Type from TharnType. Ritsu from The End of the World With You.

A character that wasn’t awful but that you just don’t like

Ben from Never Let Me Go. Dome from Ingredients.

A hero that should have been a villain

Theo from Enchante. Waii from Waterboyy. Yeon Seok from First Love Again.

A morally bad character you’re into

Denis from The Director Who Buys Me Dinner.

A morally bad character you’re not into and you wish people would stop being into

The younger step brother from History 4. Day from Love Syndrome 3.

The show that disappointed you the most.

Check Out the Series and Even Sun.

The Worst Show of Them All Because of Your Own Reasons

Dark Blue and Moonlight

[bugmin]

finally unpacking my room some more and not to sound dramatic but i think my inner child is in here with me . i got extremely sidetracked when i found my doll from when i was 9 and spent an hour brushing her hair out and braiding it . oh and i absolutely wept after rereading ferdinand like oh my gawd. he just wants to sit and smell the flowers. i understand him. i am ferdninand. also and i found my old teddy bear my (rat bastard) grandpa gave me when i was like 5/6 and it reminded me of when i had that nightmare where it tried to strangle me and the dream shook me so deeply i vividly remember it nearly 15 years later and now im kinda thinking like. oh. yeah. obviously it wasnt possessed by some demon i had to earn the mercy of i was just afraid of my home life and my tiny little pea brain didnt know how to process that fear . i tried every spell on the internet i could find to become a mermaid so i could swim away into the depths and be left alone. it was my biggest wish. give me fins and gills and let me be. now im going thru some more of my childhood books and i think i actually got my wish in a way like i was gifted an imagination so intense and alive that i could run away into these books in a way i would accidentally mistake scenes for real memories like my family wld joke abt how i was never really there , i was lost in my room, i was always halfway gone and i laugh coz its true but i also feel for the little girl who was so afraid of her life she was always looking for a new one to live and where better to look than inside of a book. i still have every single one of my library cards. my signature is different every time. sometimes i dot the i with a star or a heart. sometimes i scribble it real fast so i look mature. i just wanted to be a mermaid. i wanted to be one of the boxcar children. i wanted a magic tree house. i wanted to be a medicine cat for my clan. i did spells so i could swim away into the depths with my fin and my gills . lord i am having some moments unpacking my shit. im gonna give a bunch of plushies to my neighbor who has a little girl. i dont think ill ever forget abt my neighbor holding her in her arms so she can watch the fireworks

[thedevilliers]

Hey, I've been reading your story for a while, and I'm enjoying it very much. Following the De Villiers has been so fun, and you've inspired me to create my own royal Simblr!

Can you maybe share some tips about what to do with your royals? I'll be posting my family within the next few weeks, and I have already planned out several engagements + events, including visits to parks/schools/hospitals, parties, and news surrounding a royal pregnancy. I've also planned out the first arc. I don't know what else to do, and I've barely started! If you have any tips related to the beginning of your Simblr that you didn't cover in your other post, I would so appreciate them. I want to get all this nailed down *before* posting, so my blog is the best that it can be.

Also, if you have any advice on how to make things as efficient as possible (especially regarding posing sims, editing/writing posts, etc.), I would love that! I want to cut down on time wasted wherever I can.

Thank you!! :-)

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺 me?!!?!?! ME ??????? omg 🧍‍♀️ thank u for reading my story 🥺 and AAAAAAAAAAAA your own royal simblr !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ill answer everythin under the cut !!!!! spoilers: it got long sorry

first of all, remember we ALL started somewhere. you can look at my first like... fifteen and even MORE posts and they are BAD. oh my gawd idk why i thought they were good, but hey! i learned things from them. you will more than likely change your mind about certain things from the beginning of your blog to who knows, four months from now. don’t focus and worry a lot on ‘perfection’ and setting up ‘high standards’ from the beginning. treat it like a learning curve! this is something we all do for fun, so don’t get stressed a lot on it. you can always change and adapt things and that’s no problem!

i love lists, so im gonna list a few things of advice/tips basing myself on what you said!!!

i personally don't do engagements anymore, so i can't really help you in this regard of even more activities you could do 🧍‍♀️ what i could recommend for people to get to know your characters' personalities and private lives and grow attached to them, add in BTS posts.

continuing on my BTS’ post thing, they are a GREAT way to show more than what the public sees for your royals. because from a press and public point of view, you don't really know 'what goes on behind closed doors'. they could be all happy in public, but in privatE??!??!!?!?

as i said in my starting out guide, i did have around ~15 drafts done before i started posting. just so i could not stress about “oh my god i dont have any posts for tomorrow”. a LOT of ppl do posts and queue them as they go, and they have MANY posts done and usually they start accumulating and they are MONTHS in advance compared to what they’re currently posting. if this method works for you, you can definitely use it!

please, please please read your dialogue OUT loud. is it possible to say a 2093023902 word sentence without a singular use of punctuation? do people in this age and era really talk this way? also please if possible use correct grammar. just a little pet peeve, it can take a reader out of the immersion your story gives them.

we all have our lil dialogue habits. mine is starting sentences with “oh” and the infamous dash “—”. others use ellipses. just make sure you aren’t overdoing it. for example, doing a sentence like “oh— there you are. i was uhm— looking for you. how—how are you? its—i mean where have you uhm— been? yes—ive—ive been fine. you? i mean— your mom” ....just no 😔 it doesnt read well at ALL

you can always do lil filler posts, dont tell anyone tell you otherwise. post a little simstagram post, a little family portrait, updated portraits post, family hanging out, kids hanging out, etc.

for posing sims, i do try and remember where MOST of my poses are in the ingame list. usually creators’ correctly naming the poses helps a lot. for example i need a Mel Bennet pose; hers are usually ALL in the same spot and have the same lil aqua bg so i can easily find them. sometimes, i dl pose packs VERY specifically for a certain scene. am i gonna use them again? no. so i open the .package file in sims4studio and rename them to “00 for emi scene [rest of the og name” so when i open my game, they are around the top of the list! no more scrolling and i easily know what i need it for.

dont be scared to plan things that are happening MONTHS from now or anything in detail. some ppl dont like planning things in detail, or even dont like planning things AT ALL or things that arent happening say, in over 2 weeks because idk, they get bored. i recommend at LEAST having a list of things that HAVE to happen so you have ‘goals’ and you slowly plan out how you’re gonna get there. at LEAST theres some level of planning there. if you’re posting and PLANNING as you go, there’s gonna be holes. and it’s gonna be obvious.

editing wise, i don’t do much. my reshade does most of the work, i just add in my psd, add text and done! this is easily the fastest thing you will ever do.

if you get inspired by someone else doing, idk, a certain layout for the portraits, them adding little things to their captions, a certain edit, etc. if you want to do something similar and you ARE very much aware you were inspired by them, credit them in the caption. i beg. its free, its the nice thing to do, bc if not its rude.

if you get inspired by a certain storyline someone else did and you notice yours is gonna be similar, go ahead and send them a message to let them know and if they have any tips or feel uncomfortable with you doing this. simply put, if you don’t, you’re gonna look bad. we are all bound to do same storylines, such as assassinations, shooty shooty’s, stalkers, first loves, accidental babies, etc. but what changes is how each person approaches it. no ones gonna do it the same way as you and others. if you CONSCIOUSLY start copying else, stop it. and you could even be unconsciously be inspired by someone else too. it happens! just make sure you are able to look at the bigger picture and realize “hey, i’m doing something wrong”

same thing with dialogue. you like a line someone else said in their story? don’t just... steal it and incorporate it into yours word BY WORD

OVERALL: you can be inspired. give credit where it’s due. and don’t copy because someone else is doing ‘something others like’ and you want others to like your story. no no no !

im adding this AFTER i posted it but, be yourself. in the way you interact with others and send questions, etc. don’t try and copy someone else’s personality because they are liked and essentially absorb them. be yourself and i’m sure a lot of ppl will like you the way you are : D

for my writing dialogue etc, this goes back to my point 8. i use milanote, its free and you get 200 free thingies to use, and i plan out how every single one of my posts is gonna go. so i just have to go ingame and i already know what im gonna do. no thoughts, just taking screenshots. for example, this is how a part of my part 2, chapter 3 posts layout looks like. every square is a post that has what is happening, who is in it, what is gonna be said very vaguely, etc:

11. and the most important tip! don’t compare yourself to others. i did it at the beginning. i think we all did at one point. its not good for you at all. please always remember we all are here for share our lil stories with each other and it’s not easy get a following. you’ll get there and its gonna take time. be patient, be nice!!! and i cant wait to see your story!!!!!!!!!!

[bedtimebrain]

EXO Baekhyun: Cry for Love Part 2

Just here to give a warning on the ending before you get started!! (ref to a/n in part 1!)

Part 1

Let’s go!!!

Characters: Baek x you

Baekhyun finds himself falling for you, but feels he cannot be so selfish to put the burdens of dating an idol upon you. In an attempt to control his feelings, he tries to stay away from you

That night they got to go home early. Reaching home close to 11, Baekhyun decided there was time for some computer games before sleeping.

After taking a shower, he quickly turned on his desktop, setting all his gaming gears ready. Realising his phone wasn’t with him, he went out to the living room to search for it.

‘Ah, found you!’

As he was about to head to his room after picking his phone up from the sofa, he caught sight of your gift that was sitting on the coffee table. 

He can’t help but feel really conflicted, taking a long look at it.

After a good while, he forcefully shook off those feelings and went back in to get started on his game instead.

‘ARGH! what a bad form today’ he took off his headphones and threw it on the table. Ruffling through his hair, he was so frustrated at himself. No matter how he tried, he just couldn’t keep you out of his mind.

Not having the mood to play anymore, he switched off his computer and crashed into bed.

--

In an attempt to push you out of his mind, he busied himself with work every single day for the next few weeks. Every free time he had, he decided to fill it up with more practice, more work instead.

But he had worked so hard (just to forget you) that his immune system gave up on him. He was eventually excused from work so he doesn’t spread the virus to the members.

And the worst thing of it all? It gave him ample time to think about you.

He thought about the way you smile, the way you listened to him when he shared about anything, the way you looked, so attractively, when you made your coffees. Did you think about him? Did another oppa come by?

Sighing, he got up from bed and decided finally to open the gift you gave him from a month back.

The following day, he woke up feeling much better.  But for the whole morning, he felt this annoying nudging inside of him to go see you. No matter what he did, that feeling just wouldn’t budge.

Did y/n put a spell in the tea she gave me or something. 

He was almost going mad from thinking about you. 

Giving up , he told himself 

Just once, I’m going to drive by and look at how she’s doing. That’s all. Then when I see her being all the same, I’ll finally forget all about this, and convince myself I’m just another customer in her daily life.

The journey to your cafe seemed faster than usual today. His heart was beating so rapidly but he kept telling himself over and over 

just once, doesn’t mean anything

and my heart’s just beating fast because im not completely recovered. Yep, sick people get exhausted easily. 

When he had reached , he park his car where he could get a good view of you. 

He was tempted to get out of his car but his mind was in chaos.

they say coffee helps with headache. Maybe I should get one in case I get a headache at home later right?

Then again, his logical self told him

Ya, Byun Baekhyun stop making up lame reasons. Just stay here.

As he was being wishy washy with himself in the car, a customer had arrived at the cafe. Dashing his hopes of having a private time with you.

Perhaps it was fate that he should admire you from his car today instead.

After getting a satisfactory treatment for his love sick heart, he drove away feeling like a small boy being fed with ice cream.

—

After that visit, it only got harder and harder to stay away. He returned again and again.

But he wasn’t the only one. 

There too was another man who kept returning to your cafe, and today was the fifth time he had seen the man, which really annoyed him.

But what position was he to do anything?

I’m telling myself that I cannot have her as my girlfriend but on the other hand im getting irritated she might become someone else’s girlfriend?

He thought of a crude but relatable phrase he heard from somewhere:

I’m really just wanting to ‘hog the toilet bowl without pooping’

His train of thoughts came to an end as he arrived at the company. After getting his car parked , he went to the meeting room where they were supposed to gather.

When all the members had arrived, the staff who was in charge of the album preparation started running through the day’s agenda.

‘Okay guys, we will be doing an additional MV for one of the side tracks. It would be an autumn special MV.

Since it’s an autumn concept, we will be mainly be doing outdoor shoots. There’s only 1 indoor shoot which will be at a cafe. Anyone has any questions ? If not we will start briefing on the storyboard’

Baekhyun wasn’t able to focus on the meeting. What was he supposed to you when he’s so drawn to you but yet wasn’t sacrificial enough either to be okay with seeing you happy with another guy. In fact, it made him scared to lose you when he never had you in the first place.

Baekhyun ah, let her go. It’s good for you and her. Stop visiting her, it only breaks your heart and at the same time make you desire her more. It’s impossible between the both of you..

By the time he was a little more settled with himself, the meeting had already ended.

‘Okay, that’s all we have today. It’s Thursday today... Alright, We will start shooting on Monday since this is quite a spontaneous idea, we might be a bit back on time. We will start with the cafe shoot on Monday at 10am, only Baekhyun and kyungsoo is involved for this as the cafe is too small. We will update the rest on the schedule later.’ --

4 days passed and now he is standing in front of the cafe for his shoot. Reading the signboard ‘Wendy Cafe’.

For the dramatic effect, he even blinked his eyes again to make sure his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him. What in the world was this sorcery called fate... It felt abit weird for him to be here for work when he was normally here for his romantic pursuit. It got him into a little of a panic and shock when they alighted from the van.  He wasn’t expecting to see you, since they normally made sure the set was cleared completely for set up before the members even arrive. Though his heart felt it would really be nice to see you, he also heaved a sigh of relief that he doesn’t have to think about what to say to you since you wouldn’t be here.

Entering the cafe, kyungsoo and baekhyun greeted everyone politely and got ready for the set with the help of their make up artists. 

‘Annyeonghasayo Baekhyun ssi, Kyungsoo ssi. I am the director for the MV, Lee Taemin’

Quickly getting up, they bowed politely and returned the greetings.

‘Could I just explain the set to the both you right now?

So basically in today’s set one of you would be a barista, and one would just be a customer….’

The director trailed on with the briefing,

But there was something bugging Baekhyun. Baekhyun could swear there was something really familiar about this man; like he had seen him somewhere before. But he just couldn’t recall exactly right now.

‘Ok, We will have kyungsoo ssi as the barista and Baekhyun ssi the latter. A real barista will be coming in later to help you out kyungsoo ssi, don’t worry’

Finishing his brief, the director turned to leave. Then it finally clicked in Baekhyun’s mind.

Oh gawd, he’s the guy that keeps visiting y/n

Thinking it through, it now absolutely make sense.

When he arrived, he was thinking how were they even able to find this cafe for use?

He thought to himself, surely you and Director Taemin must be really close if you were willing to let your shop to him for use. 

ah, but im sure y/n would let me use it too if i had asked.

He can’t help but feel a little salty instinctively. 

Suddenly across the room, the director exclaimed

‘Y/N you’re here!’

At the sound of Director Taemin calling your name, his heart skipped a beat and he immediately turned his head around to find you walking through the door. And was absolutely taken away

You were not in your pony tail or your white button down shirt with a black apron. You were not in the plain make up you normally put on either.

You came through the door wearing a mid length denim skirt and a white v neck with a green khaki coat that ended at the bottom of your skirt. Your long hair sat nicely at the front of your coat.

Though he had seen a fair share of cute, pretty and sexy girls in the entertainment industry, you somehow still took his breath away. 

As you moved across the room with Taemin, his eyes unconsciously followed where you went. Till when Kyungsoo shook him, was he finally able to tear his eyes away from you.

‘Baekhyun ah, I was talking to you , were you listening?’

‘Ye Ye, what did you say?’

They went on discussing about some of the other schedules they were to be having, until a familiar voice caused him to freeze.

‘Hello, I’m y/n, I’m the owner of this shop. I heard Kyungsoo ssi would be the barista actor? I’ll be the one teaching you later’

Kyungsoo looked up and greeted you politely while Baekhyun was still in a daze.

Seeing how he didn’t respond, you greeted him with a bright smile

‘Hello Baekhyun ssi’

Without waiting for Baekhyun to respond, you asked Kyungsoo to follow you to behind the kitchen now as there wasn’t much time to learn.

Watching you and kyungsoo walked away together, he mentally hit himself in the head. 

oh shucks she must think im a real jerk now. Making friends with her, then not coming here for months and the next time we meet i didn’t even greet her. 

Argh kyungsoo, give me my time with Y/N.

Though he was feeling a little lousy about the situation, he knew there was nothing he could do about it. He sat at corner table inside the shop while waiting for his scene set up to be completed.

Looking at you and kyungsoo, he had a monologue with himself 

though i really like her, i should probably let her go. the smile on her face, though i am confident i will be able to give it to her, but what if i bring more sadness than happiness?

The both of you having fun made him so jealous. He started imagining you with another guy, you with Taemin? He hated that feeling so much, but he had to accept this. He told himself, he must.

About 2 hours later , he was done with his shoot and all could break for lunch. Over lunch time, you and kyungsoo stuck together as time was tight. Kyungsoo couldnt practice using the coffee machine earlier when baekhyun was filming. 

Not once did you look over at him or even seem to think about talking with him. It was as if you guys were strangers.

Ah, great, this is how it should be like. She’s better than me at this. While i’m over here suffering about how to forget about her, she seem to be getting along just fine. She’s completely acting like she doesn’t know me.

Not being able to stand being around you anymore, he annoyed his manager hyung to drive him back to the SM building first. Coming up with some crap excuses that were questionable. But his manager hyung still sent him back since there was still time to spare before kyungsoo was done.

On his ride back, he set his resolve to let you go but he told himself 

no matter what, we were once friends that could count on each other. i don’t want to end up hurting her, and making her lose more hope in friendships. 

I’ll go back tonight to find her.

--

At about 5.30 pm, kyungsoo sent a text message in their group chat that the filming has ended. Receiving that intel, he got ready to head off to your café. The production crew would need at least another half an hour to pack up anyway. He had ample time to get there.

As perfect as he had planned, when he arrived, the café was already cleared of the production team, but the lights were still on. He knew you would still be cleaning up after everyone left.

Out of courtesy, he knocked on the glass door, causing you to jump in surprise instead. Smiling at him, you beckoned him in.

‘Why are you back here?’ You asked while sweeping the floor.

‘It’s been a long time, isn’t it nice to see each other again?’ He asked casually, but he could feel his palms sweating already

You looked up at him and smiled without replying as you continued cleaning up.

‘So how are you? I’m sorry I haven’t been here for really long, EXO’s comeback is coming soon we are really busy ….’

Before he could even complete his sentence, you cut him off

‘Yes I know. It’s all on twitter and I watch your group’s vlive too. I know you guys have a lot to prepare and are really busy. Don’t have to apologise’

Though he knew you truly meant what you say, it broke his heart a little. He wasn’t really sure what to say anymore. But he wanted to ask this since the start

‘Why did you rent your place to be an MV set? Did you know it was for EXO?’

‘It’s just a favour I’m returning to Taemin ssi. He only told me it was for EXO when he asked for my help last week. But anyway, it’s really nice to see you being serious at work. Now I know why you have so many fangirls~’

‘Are you my fangirl now then?’ Baekhyun asked and waited expectantly.

‘Why? Are you going to give me your autograph if I said yes?’ You put aside the cleaning cloth and washed your hands while replying him jokingly.

‘Anyway, I’m done, shall we go?’

You grabbed your bag as you asked. As you walked right passed him, he reached out to grab your arm without even thinking.

Hesitantly, he started

‘Hey actually, I came today because I have something to tell you’

Staring right into his eyes, you replied

‘I kinda knew it already. Why would you suddenly come back here after not being here for so long. And the fact that you’re here at this hour… You’re definitely not coming here as a customer right?’

Looking at him with a hard expression, Baekhyun was surprised to see something other than ‘manners’ or indifference on your face after all this while.

‘I’m really sorry. I don’t even know how or where to start. I really liked your company, the friendship we had meant a lot to me. But as we got more comfortable, I don’t even know when... but....to be honest..

I started falling for you. I didn’t know what to do, can you understand this?’

He loosened his grip, letting your arm slowly slip out of his hands.

‘Remember the day you gave me the gift? I went home feeling so conflicted. I want us to be together so bad, but I know I can’t even promise you a regular and peaceful life, much less a stable relationship now. The weight of dating an idol, how could I put that upon you? ‘

‘You’re right, I could never carry that weight’ you reply came through like a stab to his heart.

He broke his eyes away from you momentarily. But you continued,

‘All this while, I thought I had done something wrong when I gave you the gift. I wondered why you didn’t come back, I thought we were friends, that’s why I even mustered up courage to get a present for you. But you never came back after that. I thought could it be that Baekhyun ssi started finding me weird like all my bullies last time? Was I over doing it? I asked myself that every now and then, worried that my desire to want to be friends with you may turn you off instead.

Sometimes when you tell funny stories, inside I thought how cute this guy is. When you were serious, I thought even though you’re so cheeky on the outside, you’re a man inside having to carry so many burdens. I wanted to say more, do something for you all this time, but I was worried about so many things.

Eventually when you stopped coming back for a while, I felt heart broken. 

But I used the time to think it all through. What did I want with you? A friendship? Something more? And I decided it’s best to not desire anything at all. I could never handle it if one day I want something more that neither of us could give each other’ 

Though you tried so hard to control, tears rolled down your cheeks. It hurts him to know he was the reason for your tears. 

He reached out to wipe your tears away, and you let him. 

‘Baekhyun ssi, I… I’m sorry too’ 

Overwhelmed with emotions at all the confession and looking at your beautiful face that leaned against his hand, he couldn’t hold back anymore, He closed the gap between both of you and gave you a kiss on the lips. A kiss so light it barely lasted a few seconds.

Heart beating fast, he pulled away slightly, his face still so close to yours. ‘I’m sorry for being selfish right now. But I want you to know this is how I feel.’

Before he knew it, your lips pressed against him once again. Briefly, then pulling away, you pushed him away, putting some distance between the both of you.

‘Me too. But Baekhyun-ssi...

Sometimes love isn’t about possessing, but giving

So I’ve told myself it’s okay for me as long as I can see you and support you in my own way. Be it your albums, shows, or whatever it may be.

My café doors will always be open for you as long as you need a listening ear or even just coffee....

Don’t be sorry. I understand, I just want to be the safe space you can still go to, rather than your burden.. If we were together.’

He could tell you were trying hard to manage a smile just so he could feel better. He moved closer and pulled you into a hug. 

‘I know you said not to be sorry, but I’m sorry ... And thank you’, his voice akin to a whisper

After a long pause, you returned his hug, and at your touch, he was at the brink of tears. You were possibly his once in a lifetime, but here you both were, giving up on each other, for each other.  He tried so hard to hold back his tears, but they streamed down eventually 

He rarely ever cried, but for you… If he couldn’t have you, at least he should be allowed to cry for you. 

He tightened the hug and could only wish for the night to never end. 

——-

Was hella hard to write this, sorry for this really tragic ending.

But partly writing it this way because I guess as fangirls one of the best things we can give our favs is a safe space to be real with us. Love isn’t about possession. So let’s love them right ok☺️

On a side note, was shook at his fan sign convos. Especially the one he said though he said it’s ok if we leave him for a while because it’s difficult to wait, he didn’t actually mean it.

What a sweetheart!! All the more makes me feel like he might really respond this way if he is faced with this kind of situation (as in this fanfic)?!

Anw hope you guys enjoyed this !

Tag(s): @wooya1224

[blonde-toddy]

Random and Not So Random thoughts while watching Bridgerton: Season 1, Episode 6

It has taken me a while to do this. But I write this shit down so....

I wonder if they got busy in that carriage.

Probably.

Ok Clyvedon! Y'all are definitely not in the square anymore.

Aww Mrs. Colson. You're so proper and ready to show off and he's just trying to break that back in.

Gahh that place.

Ok Simon, go off!

Aw we're really just diverting there.

You really don't want to know Hyacinth.

Eloise is not here for the shits.

Oh, Colin. You fucking idiot. The one time Violet and Anthony are in agreement.

Colin you happy, dumb boy.

Brothels though?

Colin has a point. He is older than Daphne.

To be fair Colin and Daphne are both getting okie doked.

You horny mfs. I love it.

"You are already Duchess of all this." Yes please.

Ooooh that flip and the way he patted at her hips. They are too good.

Aw Daphne is trying to be proper and Simon is like "fuck all that."

Your Graces.

Jeffries dgaf about this damn honeymoon.

Oh Daphne, she just wants to show you around without YOUR commentary.

Redecorating? Didn't she say she did a bunch of improvements?

"A perfect Duchess." Ok you shady bitch.

Yeah that nursery shit is coming back.

All dressed up and no where to go.

"You're so far away." He wants his WIFE!

They have no chill and the staff don't know how to react.

Mrs. Colson absolutely does not approve.

Girl he hates that place. Gut it!

This man and the way he takes off gloves. Good fucking gawd.

Their poor staff.

I swear I swear I swear that man man is living, breathing, dripping seduction.

Well shit take it outside then.

Queue the rain.

Yes. Remove the wet clothes. ALLUM!!!!!

He is the king of playin with it. And I fucking love it.

"Do you like this?" Fuck yes! Talk. To. Me.

I wonder how many orgasms this man has caused.

"Tell me what you want." Keep talking, yes.

And by "you" she meant that dick.

"Does that hurt?" No boo, it sure doesn't.

But your ignorance on the subject does. Him taking advantage of your ignorance also does.

I love love love Simon but I'm having a harder time with his evasion now that they're actively getting busy.

She's bound to figure it out though, right?

Ahh they're still hot af to me.

Oh shit they're still going.

That picnic. Omfg. Flippin that ass like.....

Head on a ladder?!?!?! Get you some Daphne. Oh sweet Simon....

Sex on a ladder too.

They're really like "fuck the staff." And the staff is like "haha, keep fuckin."

Don't go there Mrs. Colson....

Welp.

That shoe dropping. Gawd yes.

Daphne really went from knowing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to getting that Grade A like a beast.

Though Simon is obviously a withholder, the man is sexually attentive and attuned to her physical desires. He comes to please, indeed.

That tangle.

Ok, girl tell Rose your business.

I do love Rose. I want more of her.

"His physical inability to have children." Oh the sting of lies and ignorance.

"Difficult entanglement." Go head Rose.

Oh Colin, you fucked up lil buddy.

Hyacinth is a treasure.

I like that Violet does try to be supportive.

Penelope and her passive aggressive ass is saucy.

She's mad af.

The sisters do crack me up.

Penelope is dripping salt.

Oh Eloise. They really are putting you out there homie.

Awkward Marina.

Portia is mf hyped! She is all about that social climbing.

But she's gotta negotiate the bag before she pop tags on new Dresses.

Aw shit Marina caught Delacroix. Her French accent was a bit cartoonish.

Curious Eloise.

Oh children.

Oh poor oblivious Daphne. Simon, help your wife.

A fucking tie. Bitch they gotta kill them to eat them. Simon, again, help your wife. Tell your wife THINGS!

Y'all fucking dumb off all that sex and living in la la land apparently.

Well somebody liked his evil ass daddy.

Diplomatic Daphne.

Another sprinkle of kids....and pregnancy too.

I saw that longing look.

Aww she's worried he's hurt by being around children. If only you knew.

"I thought only of you." Really, mf?! As you keep up this lie.

She's so optimistic about her circumstances.

He's lucky he's beautiful. And that I pity him a bit. Because he's a motherfucker.

How did you get so lucky? Well you're lying to your wife and she doesn't know how sperm works sooooooo there's that.

What a beautiful expansive scene though.

Penelope is PISSED.

No belly yet.

Passive. Aggressive.

Oh this dinner is so awkward.

Portia you are not subtle at all.

Anthony is still CLEARLY not here for this engagement.

Oh is she about to snitch.

Well shit. She's kind of snitching.

Aww. He thinks your such a good friend, but hes got this.

You're sneaky and he's stupid.

Marina is hustling.

Eloping is always a grand idea. Colin you fucking dummy.

Marina is so relieved.

Aw where's Simon?

Sad Daphne is not a good look.

Grouchy workaholic Simon is not a good look either....but he does have a lot of responsibility in all fairness.

Mrs. Colson is so sick of Daphne.

Homegirl is just trying to find her footing. At least Rose stays supportive.

Have I said how much I love Rose?

Damn no one wants to talk to Daphne.

Aw she's befriended the pregnant lady with the screaming toddler.

I'm glad someone is finally explaining shit to Daphne. She can't grow if she don't know.

Too busy for his wife now......I'm not liking this vibe.

Aw she's trying to hash it out with Mrs. Colson.

Oooh she's looking for guidance about Simon.

He really hasn't told her shit about his life.

The power dynamic of their relationship is frustrating.

All this talk of being barren.....

She misses Simon's mama.

Strong seed got her thinking!

Penelope you sneaky, lying ass....what are you up to?

She has hope yet again. She about to expose her mother.

She ain't giving up.

Marina is damned and determined to marry Colin.

Oh Marina went there THERE.

You're gonna see your wife, Your Fucking Grace.

Stressy Simon is such a grouch.....but I'm not judging. I'm the same way.

But when they're affectionate, fuck.

He really just tossed her up on that desk like "Fuck work."

And he proceeded to fuckin work that mf thang.

How many people in the world are fucking like crazy right now because their significant others stay turned on by this show.

If I were not single, I would most definitely be pouncing on my partner ALL. THE. TIME.

Ok. Back to the show.

That was a mighty aggressive pull-out.

Relatable Simon. I too like foods after fucks.

Oh shit Daphne connecting the dots.

Rose out here saving the day like usual.

Well at least Daphne knows where babies come from now.

Everything is about to shatter, amrite?

She can't even hear a word he says. She feels so betrayed.

The piglet.

Dat ass though. And those shoulders.

Yeah that's gonna be a no tonight.

Oooh and now he wakes up without her.

She's fucking heartbroken.

The man she loves took away her choice with his deceit.

He allowed her to believe he was unable, not unwilling.

Would she have married him if he told the truth?

He was ready to die about the shit and still lied though.

All he ever had to do was tell her the whole fucking truth.

Everything this WOMAN knows about love and sex, she's learned from this man (and the real MVP Rose). He has literally taught her everything from the start of her sexual awakening. He knows better than anyone how ignorant she is regarding literally ANYTHING sexual in nature. I know he's insanely damaged, but this fucking hurts.

It's a unique feeling of unease and helplessness when you feel or realize you don't have agency over your own body.

An absence of the option to consent if you will.

I know this is a show, and I suppose it's doing its job because it's getting me deep into my thoughts and feelings. And I sure as a mf ENJOY THE FUCK out of watching them literally breathe in the same room with each other....among the many other things they do onscreen together. I guess I'm just heartbroken too. Shit. Plus y'all know I love tf out of my girl Daphne.

Ok back to the show again. This episode is fucking with my emotions.

Daphne is stewing!

But fuck if this isn't romantic as a mf.

These 2 fuck me up every time!

JPOLND - The End. That's this song. And this song is perfect.

Yes y'all! Rip them clothes off.

Daphne looks wild as hell. Carnal. She has a carnal look about her.

Ok bitch. Climb that mf tree then!

Is she anger-fucking him?!

Either way, he's loving it!!!

This song really is perfect.

Oh shit she's not letting up.

Fuck.

This shoe dropping?! Gawd NO!

She was literally like you took my choice so I took yours.

These fucking two.

He's hot with it for good reason for sure, but she is going in!

How the fuck could you think she knew how this worked when she didn't know what masturbation, let alone sex was until you got a hold of her?

YOU. PLAYED. ON. HER. IGNORANCE.

Maybe this conversation should have been had before y'all got naked.

They're both right in their own ways.

But they are absofuckinglutely wrong in so many of their own ways too.

He didn't ask for her pity and she didn't ask for his betrayal.

They are tearing me apart right now!

Big Sean said it best. "I guess drama makes for the best content."

I'm still rooting for them. I love growth and we still got 2 episodes left. They can't stay stuck like this, I'm sure.

Oh hey Whistledown.

Aww go to your friend.

Wtf is going on?

Are they all trying to kill me?

Aw fuck. Marina has been blasted by Whistledown. It's over.

Pure little Colin.

Oh Simon is heartbroken and Daphne.......she's desperate for a baby.

"Can the ends ever justify such wretched means?" That's a great question Whistledown. I'll have to get back to you on that.

I will close this with happiness because I refuse to accept this heartbreak.

[lizacstuff]

I'm sure others will ask this but what are you thoughts on the episode of SCK?? I love your in-depth analysis lol. I personally loved it!!! Also can I just say that the edser/hanker chemistry is off the charts lol. If this was the first episode I watched ever, without subtitles, their scenes would be a giant neon sign that says "THESE CHARACTERS ARE MADLY IN LOVE!!!". Eda was beyond cute/in love/adorable in this episode with serkan, girl has got it bad and I wish she didn't have her stupid grandmother and these insecurities in the way ahhh. I really love the Ayfer/Aydan duo, they're fun when they're together and Ayfer wasn't annoying like the last few EPs. Also, Balca can go choke lol, I'm so glad Serkan didn't fall for her trap for him to stay over!! He was like nah come to the party (my girl is waiting!!!). Was serkan about to tell Eda that he had to stop by her house? He seemed really nervous. ANYWAYS, I love EdSer and am going to go watch their scenes 1000x before next week 😭🥰

Thank you! I love Edser too!!!!  Like you, I enjoyed this episode, though it was despite some of the narrative issues (that I posted about here.) There were good, meaty Edser scenes, which is why I watch this show. Once again I'll start with the non-Eda/Serkan thoughts and then get to the feelsy stuff at the end.

Babaanne's introduction did not disappoint. The actress has the right energy for the role. I guess we now know why Eda has been adamant about cutting her out of her life, Babaanne is next level controlling and vindictive. We'll have to see how she develops and what her endgame motives are. Does she want her revenge more than she wants her granddaughter and daughter in her life? Or does she think if she wins and arranges everything including an advantageous marriage for Eda, Eda will eventually go along and decide it's awesome and reconciliation will come about that way? *evil laugh* She doesn’t know her granddaughter at all if she thinks that’s a possibility. 

(more under the cut)

I enjoyed her non-Balca scenes, especially when she was going toe-to-toe with Eda. That scene in Serkan's old upstairs office was intense, both actresses really brought it and kudos to Eda staying true to her defiant character. No one pushes her around. Prepare yourselves to see her waver a bit, I'm sure it's quite jarring to see your loved one in jail and know that he's there because of you, but she'll get to the point of fighting beside him. I have no doubt.

It was nice to see Ayfer protecting Aydan and Seyfi, it made for some great comedy and it was a good change after all of Ayfer's annoying, unrelenting negativity in general and about the Bolats. We'll see what happens between the two now that they appear to be vying for Chef Alexander's attention. Nesilhan just cracks me up when she's portraying Aydan play acting, the stilted voice she takes on is always hilarious to me, like when Ayfer was introducing "Aisun" to Serkan.  As we move forward, though, I want to see some badass Aydan. She  was introduced to us as a force of nature, so I hope we see that woman, a woman who will go to the mat for her son and Eda, emerge at some point. No hiding from Babaanne long term. Everyone needs to gear up to fight!

Peril and Engin got married! Their scene at home was really well done and gave me a bit better insight into them and why they might work. The only thing I was disappointed about here was that Serkan was not their witness. He counts them as some of his only friends and they didn't call him? Come on, show!  They could have easily structured the ep to have him get the call while there was chaos at his loft that morning and it would have been the perfect excuse for him to grab Eda and head to the wedding leaving the moms and Babaane to Chef Alexander.  It wouldn't have changed anything about the episode because Eda still could have gone to do her thing after the wedding and everything else would have been the same, except it all would have had a bit more heart. Missed opportunity there. 

I've decided that Ferit is a catch. At the beginning of the show he was just so naïve, that he seemed foolish, but he's really turned into a sweet, upstanding man. You hold on to him, Ceren. The irony in his relationship with Serkan is just outstanding to me, because ALL of this started because Serkan was willing to upend his own life (and Selin, Ferit and Eda's) will the sole goal of keeping Ferit out of his business, and now here we are 24 episodes later, Selin is long gone, Eda is the love of his life, and Ferit has turned into a solid, trust-worthy business partner and friend who is putting Babaanne in her place on the first day. Love to see it. 

Balca, that snake just gets more unhinged as we go along. Good GAWD. WTF is wrong with her? Her eventual comeuppance better be big. I'm really to the point that I can't enjoy any scene that she's in, it's just too maddening, because neither Serkan nor Eda are taking her seriously enough. Which I realize they don't know what we know, but dang I hope Serkan is finally connecting the dots because her behavior is not normal. As Eda says, who gives a gift like that to their boss? Who calls their new boss instead of the police when there's an intruder in the house?  By now he should be able to figure out she's manipulating him.  

Also how was she not daunted when she called and Eda was there?  What did she think would happen when he came to get the gift when he had Eda to get home to? On top of everything else she's shameless and delusional.  As for the gift, that was creepy AF. Did she seriously think that her boss, who she's known a week, would be romanced by that?  Or any man for that matter? Did Selin give her the impression he was so arrogant that this would be the perfect thing for him? As much as I want less of her on screen, I would like to know the thought process behind that embarrassing monstrosity. Because it was not a savvy move. But the good news is that no one was more creeped out by it than Serkan Bolat. It seemed to really unsettle him, which it should. It was nice to see Eda getting over her jealousy, perhaps that came with her decision to try and move forward. Before she was in this state of flux, deep-down wanting Serkan to be hers, but not being able to admit that and feeling an outside threat during that confusion. 

I saw some criticism of Eda because she was openly mocking and dismissive of Balca. However, while I agree her behavior was a tad immature at times... Balca was totally asking for it.  She's been at the company for mere days and her weird, manipulative, obsessive behavior is totally inappropriate. Also if she didn't take a hint from Eda opening mocking her, Eda picking out her gift from Serkan, Serkan deferring queries about his NYE plans to Eda, Eda being at his house when Balca called, I think we can safely say that Balca in unaffected by any of Eda's behavior, thus Eda isn't hurting anyone. While Balca is over here, claws out, trying to start a war. Balca is the villain here, not Eda for recognizing and making fun of it.

Despite the emotional inconsistencies between Eda and Serkan in this episode, during one scene they were hot, the next, one or the other was cold without rhyme or reason, there were many great conversations. I really enjoyed their conference room scenes in particular. Serkan confident and calming her down, Eda being enraged by Babaanne, but listening to him and letting him calm her down. 

His little Eda Bolat coffee cup gag was priceless, he did succeed in both diverting her and flirting with her in one suave move. Also a nice bit of foreshadowing there, which there was a lot of this episode. Not just this and the bouquet catch, but also every single one of their domestic scenes. 

As I said in this post, the rewrite, or whatever happened this episode, did cause some pretty big emotional inconsistencies from scene to scene. I know most people loved the scenes when Eda went to find Serkan, but it was a little whiplashy for me.  We go from Serkan being calm and collected and happily flirting with her about being Eda Bolat at the office, to a short time later him being moody and standoffish with her at his house? It's understandable that he would be upset at her suggestion that she leave the company, but I would think the man that broke her heart for her own good, would understand why she might think of  leaving in order to get rid of someone who is threatening him! 

It just felt like a weird time for him to hit his threshold with her, especially since this was when they were supposed to be heading to Paris (huge writing fail that there was no "Oh I guess we have to postpone Paris" throwaway line).  However, perhaps that was accelerated for him in the face of a real threat?  Like if it was just another day he's fine with her waffling and their little contract game, but he feels in his bones that this is go time and he needs to find out if she's ready for what's coming?  (Look at me finding reasons for the inconsistencies as I answer this ask, lmao).

Then the shaving scene was interesting. She starts by saying "Leaving was a dumb idea, I'm still here, I'll be by your side," which YAY and seems to me to be a huge step forward for her.... but then he doesn't feel it. Why exactly, didn't he feel it?  So then she transitions to the biggest head scratcher of the episode for me, and I really hope it's a translation fail. She basically references the movie they saw and says,  "If I could erase all memories of you, I would." Um... what? Is she really saying to him she wishes they never met? I sure hope there was some modifier in there, like "bad" memories only or something. It seemed way harsh and inconsistent with their feelings for one another. However, once he starts talking about being a machine before meeting her and his heart being too heavy without her, the dialogue is pretty great. He really bares his soul and she reciprocates with intimacy.  The second half of this scene is absolutely lovely. 

The visit to Aydan's house was interesting.  At some point I'm gonna need Aydan and especially Ayfer to step up when it comes to Babaanne.  Ayfer ran scared the whole episode and it's just not fair of her to leave the burden on Eda. Hopefully, she'll get there. There was a reason Babaanne told Eda not to tell Ayfer about the threats, and threatened harm to Serkan and family if she did so. I'm guessing Ayfer may be better equipped to deal with her mother than was suggested in this episode. The conversation about Eda running from her grandmother as a child and losing the bracelet was very affecting and well done, and thankfully Serkan was out of his sulky mood and in full-on supportive boyfriend mode. Phew, good to have you back, Serkan.

That throne Babaanne brought in was something else. Worth a good laugh. However, I feel like it highlights a few cracks we've already started to see in Babaanne's scary façade. First, there's the one I just talked about, with Babaanne not wanting Ayfer to know what she's up to, so we now know who might be successful in opposing her or might know things that could shut her down.. her daughter. Then this ridiculous throne move had to be her way of unsettling everyone, but as we see that fails with Serkan. He's pretty unflappable when it comes to her nonsense antics. 

Then Babaanne singles out Balca as her ally, which on one hand, it was astute of her to figure out who was the outsider, ripe for the picking, but she straight up choose the wack job, who let's face it, is not going to be all that competent of a foot soldier for her, because she has no allies and she's not in anyone's confidence. Plus she made that critical error with the present being so off-putting to Serkan. Balca might be able to cause problems, but she can’t get Serkan to transfer his affection for Eda onto her, so her usefulness here is limited. Babanne needed to try and fool someone like Melo, Ferit or Leyla. Prey on the nice ones who might try to be accommodating just so everyone gets along. 

Anyway, I loved the Edser scenes in the office, he brought her lemon water! My heart.  And I loved the meeting with the inner circle. Serkan has a plan! Of course our boy does, he wouldn't be Serkan Bolat if he didn't. It's always fun to see how much they all trust him to lead them through these tough times. He will once again emerge victorious. It just may take some time on this one

Note Blaca wasn't invited to that meeting, someone already can sense she can't be trusted. In the meeting later with Babaanne, I loved how Eda was sitting next to Serkan at the head of the table, totally squared off against her grandmother. That blocking was not by accident. It showed them facing her. On the same side. Together. United. That's what we call foreshadowing and that's how they're ultimately going to defeat her. Together. 

It's interesting to me that earlier in the day when Eda tells him maybe she should leave the company he gets upset, but when she shows up at his house and straight up says they can't be together, he's completely calm and is his normal confident self, talking her into staying the night with his usual ease. I'm thinking her manic rambling about him getting tired of her and her grandmother separating them was just too obvious of an emotional spiral after an exhausting day (that lasted 47 years and multiple wardrobe changes) so he didn't take any of it to heart.

As for the reason she needed a place to stay, WTF is Ayfer doing letting Babaanne stay in their home??  Kick her out for the love of God. I don't mind, since it gave us this fabulous sleepover, but come on woman, at one time you were strong enough to remove your niece from her which could not have been easy, where is your backbone now? Find it. Fast. 

LOVED LOVED LOVED every second of domestic Edser. How cute are they? Serkan wheeling her dinosaur suitcase was so adorable. And how cute is it that he bought hot chocolate for her? And THEN, THEN when they went to look at the stars? My heart melted clean out of my chest when he said, "I'm already looking at the most beautiful star."  Remember in 13 when he asked her, "How are you real?" and she basically told him to be careful or she'd get spoiled and expect that kind of romance all the time? Well apparently the romantic robot has an endless capacity to generate heart-stopping one-liners so she really needn't have worried. 

Eda's phone call with the girls was another whiplash moment for me. So wait... all episode her trepidation has been around her grandmother interfering or Serkan getting tired of her, but now she's back to wondering if he can change? Ne? And she isn't articulating what she wants him to change, or talking to him about change at all, only asking her friends if they think it's possible?? The change thing made perfect sense to me in eps 20-22, because she was coming off of his lie that broke her heart, but now I can't figure out what she wants from him. I think this is another casualty of whatever writing changes happened in this episode. I really hope the writers pull it together and figure out what the character's headspace is and stick with it. It's one thing to yo-yo from episode to episode, but to yo-yo scene to scene is too much. 

I know that they're trying to create suspense for whether she would meet him to ring in the New Year, and start fresh, but there are much more elegant ways to do this than constant retread conversations that don't make sense in context with the scenes that came before. Honestly, this episode had a LOT of wonderful scenes and humor and heartfelt moments, but it also felt like a franken-episode,  like if different writers were assigned different scenes and then they assembled the episode without going back to smooth out the tone and emotions.

That leads us to Serkan discovering Eda in the bath. What do we think was going through his mind there? lmao. He looked exceptionally pleased and he did the jokey flirty thing, taking a mental picture, but then when she comes downstairs in her jammies, he has gone into stone-cold work robot mode. I suppose the best I can guess is that he knew she was confused, he knew he had convinced her to stay under the guise it would be platonic and the "last time." 

He's always been a gentleman with her. So perhaps he felt compelled, for her sake, to keep it in that place, but seeing her in the bath send him into overdrive and the only thing he could do is throw himself into work to make sure the situation didn't go any further before she was fully ready? That's my best attempt at explaining it.  Still she was flirting hardcore with him when she came downstairs, it feels like that was the moment he's been waiting for since episode 19, and he let it sail by.  Ah well, at some point soon both their engines will be revving at the same time and we’ll finally get to the sexy times. 

The next morning was 100% adorable. Serkan Bolat serving breakfast in bed. I swoon!  What a sweetheart, because I'm pretty certain that Serkan does NOT like crumbs in his bed so this was a big gesture. And you could see how much she appreciated it, despite teasing him about the portion size. Eda, that breakfast would have been just fine by me, but if the girl has a big appetite, so be it.

Also, Edacim, it would be a lot easier to buy your "confusion" if you hadn't brought him a heartfelt gift that would have taken a good while, like weeks, to procure and then sketched in it for him!!!!  She had to have been planning that for some time.  Anyway, a very sweet gift and one of those moments where actions speak louder than words. We all want to hear Eda say the words "I Love You," but she just said it very loudly here in the form of this gift. Even if she wasn't fully aware she was saying it. It's obvious where her heart is, she just has to give herself permission to follow it.

This ep also brought the funny when half the cast of characters barged in on Edser’s little love nest. Good for both Eda and Serkan for refusing to be a part of the subterfuge for Babaanne. I'm hopeful we're going into a secret relationship/engagement storyline, but at this point I like that neither were cowing to her. Eda is an adult and it's nobody's business but her own where she stays the night! 

It cracks me up that Eda and Serkan were discombobulated by the intrusion, had the silent #married conversation, and headed upstairs together. Mostly because they are the two in the dark, what are they going to figure out by going upstairs alone? What they really needed was to talk to any of the other people to find out what in the hell was happening. Not that I blame them for wanting to escape that scene together. However, what was beautiful was their connection in these scenes. They were functioning as partners, as each other's person, as the one each turns to when they need support (or escape).  And that's really saying something since they were in a room full of the people they're both closest too.

Finally, I'm glad they spoiled the final scene in the fragman, because I would have been too stressed watching Balca's psychotic efforts in keeping Serkan away from the party, and Eda, if I hadn't known he would make it.  As it was, it  was too much to watch. They've done absolutely nothing to make her even a little sympathetic. I feel zero empathy for her, I don't understand why she's willing to take these risks. No man is worth it, girl! Especially not a man you just decided you wanted because of his initials!  The character needs to serve her purpose and go. Soon.

As for Serkan making it in time, THANK GOODNESS. I don't think Eda could have handled being stood up again. Even taking her call was a mistake. That's why we have voicemail, Serkan. And clearly he should have called the police on his way. I sincerely hope that he finds out the break-in was a fake and that's what makes him realize what level of crazy he's dealing with. I assume, because he didn't know what else to do, he left Balca in his home and that's what he wanted to tell Eda right before the police arrived. I shudder to think what damage she might do there alone. Installing a hidden mic or camera for Babaanne? Going through his things? Planting more items. Ew. If that spec is right the place will need to be fumigated.  

Serkan's gift was, of course, perfection. Talk about love in gift form, and did you notice that one of the charms was an "E" and one was an "S"? A sweet, heart-felt detail and a nice little nod to which initials really matter on this show.  Interestingly, after a full episode of inner turmoil, once Serkan arrived, Eda seemed to be all-in. She was bubbly and happy to see him and definitely acting like he was her date. And then the hug! Finally! They've obviously been physically close in recent post-break up episodes, for example elevator, pottery, dancing, skating, but what a relief to finally have this pure, intentional display of affection from her to him. Also a cheek kiss! This show, I swear it makes me grateful for the most chaste of moments.

As I said in another ask, I think the, "Will you be my girlfriend?" was in Serkan's head. We didn't see him say it, she didn't respond and the audio was hollow like it was a thought or memory or dream. However, what I can't answer is why we heard that. Why put it in there? We know he wants them to get back together, so that line doesn't inform the audience of anything they don't already know. So maybe proposal foreshadowing?  On the other hand, there is the line earlier in the episode that was voice over added after the fact (when Edser are in the small conf room and Serkan says he’s going home) so maybe they added the audio after the scene for some reason? I don’t know with this episode anything is possible. 

Then, of course, Babaanne ruins their moment with her evil plan. Next episode will she be sitting on her throne stroking a hairless cat Because it feel like Babaanne may like a bit of evil aura to surround her. Anyway, next stop... jail! I'm honestly excited to see how the next ep plays out. We're going to go through some things, so prepare your soul, but I honestly think we may end the ep in a better place. (new cliffhanger notwithstanding) We shall see. 

[be-the-spark-flyboy]

Migraine

Call It What You Want (6/?)

Series Masterlist

Pairing: Med student!Poe x Reader

A/N: OH MAI GAWD we’re finally getting somewhere with the plot can you believe???I apologize for the slowest of slowburns ever also I rlly am sorry for hurting Poe like this but im not done yet oops

Chapter Summary: Bby isn’t feeling so good :(

Warnings: swearing, fluff (finally), then angst immediately after oops

Word count: 1.7k

Poe walks into the living room as Finn and Rey watch him drag his feet, dropping face-first onto the couch. 

“Did you do it?” Rey asks. Poe nods his head, his face still pressed into the cushion.

“Do what?” Finn asks.

“You didn’t tell him?” Rey questions Poe.

“Nope,” he says, voice muffled.

“Tell me what?” Finn asks again, getting confused.

“How did it go?” Rey completely ignores her boyfriend, too invested in the news Poe was about to divulge. 

“Excuse me! How did what go? What did y’all do?” Finn was getting worked up at how they were ignoring him.

Poe props himself up on his elbows. “Didn’t make a scene because, guess what? She’s already seeing someone,” 

“What the hell, man!” Rey exclaims, further confusing Finn. He was so close to shaking one of them by the shoulders demanding answers.

Poe continues unfazed by Finn glaring daggers at the two of them. “Didn’t even have the decency to end it with me first,”

“Did you break up with Sarah?” Finn exclaims, finally catching on. Poe nods. “Oh finally,” When two sets of eyes fix on him, glaring, he clears his throat and says, “I mean, oh shit, how are you feeling?”

“Like shit,” Poe whines, dropping his head back onto the cushion. A part of him had hoped he would feel better after breaking up with Sarah, but it only left him feeling more down than anything. He should’ve just listened to Finn and ended it before it got so out of hand. Well, at least he has one less thing to worry about now.

—-

Poe groans when hears a soft knock from his bedroom door. He thought Rey and Finn had already left for the dental appointment. But then, when did they ever knock before barging into his room? 

Poe had assured Rey that he’d be fine when she asked before leaving, but the migraine was really kicking his ass. He couldn’t even stand without feeling like he was going to fall over or throw up, he tried to sleep but the pain didn’t let him. So he there he was, sprawled across the bed on his stomach buried under the covers.

“The door’s open,” he grumbles and the door opens. He lifts his head from the mattress, watching you walk in. Suddenly, Poe becomes very aware of how his unruly curls stick out in every direction and how he looks like he hasn’t slept in days because he hasn’t. He blinks, wondering if he was hallucinating all of a sudden.

“Hey, Poe,” you greet him watching him squint back at you, blinking blearily. The curtains are wide open, sunlight shining straight into his eyes. You walk over to the window and draw them close.

“Thanks,” he gives you a shy smile, finally snapping out of the daze. “What are doing here?”

“Oh, Rey called. She said you weren’t feeling so well and that she and Finn won’t be around for a little while. So I volunteered to babysit,” You smile at him.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Poe replies, not even acting like he was offended that you called it babysitting, too busy trying to suppress the giddy smile growing on his face. You care about him.

“No offence Poe, but you really don’t look like you’re doing great,” You did have a point.

Poe dramatically flops back onto the mattress, groaning. “I feel horrible,”

He hears you chuckle at his antics, striding closer to him. You kneel by the bed and he adjusts his head to get a better look at you. “Did you eat anything yet?”

“Nope, I feel nauseous,” He presses his face back into the sheets. 

“Can I get you something? Maybe soup? It’s a little more light,” You suggest.

“Okay,“ the smile fully stretched across his face. The migraine didn’t seem to bad all of a sudden.

---

You’re back at the dining table, the same spot you took the first time you stayed over at the apartment. Laptop open before you, skimming through the lecture contents. 

You couldn’t help but feel bad for Poe when Rey had called you asking if you could keep an eye on him for her. Rey was bringing Finn along to her dental appointment, way too scared to go on her own. It wasn’t like Poe couldn’t take care of himself, but she felt bad leaving him alone anyways.

You had a lecture at that time but fortunately one of your classmates were willing to share notes so you thought it wouldn’t be too bad if you missed just one lecture. You didn’t tell any of trio, knowing how they’d hate to be the reason you miss out on your class.

Poe was asleep in his room upstairs. The soup you gave seemed to be doing fine with his stomach, thankfully. Rey had called to tell you that they were taking more time than expected at the clinic. You had no problems with staying a little longer.

You hear the door swing open upstairs and Poe emerges in the kitchen a few moments later. “Feeling better?” you ask him.

“Yep, much better, thanks to you.” Thankfully, he turns away as he fills a cup with water because you definitely don’t want him to see how your face briefly warms up at the compliment.

Poe joins you at the table, and you can’t help but think of the previous time you were in that position. You weren’t unaware that spending more time with him was only going to make things worse for you. If you had any sense of self-preservation you would’ve made yourself scarce around him. You did try after new years eve. It still escaped you how Poe managed to befriend you so quickly while you took forever with anyone else. You just felt drawn to him.

Poe quietly sips on his water, unaware of your inner turmoil as you blankly stared at the screen. You know you’re only going to fall harder and end up hurting yourself. You really should try harder to distance yourself from him.

---

“I used to have a massive crush on Finn back in middle school,” Poe confesses. You and Poe lay under the throw blanket on the couch, reruns of some old show playing on the TV, but neither of you are watching it. Poe suggested a game, 21 questions, claiming he was bored and it was the only thing that could entertain him. So much for distancing yourself.

The questions started out innocent, plain boring, like what’s your favourite colour? then quickly escalating to at what age did you loose your virginity? Before you know, your laughing with him on the couch clutching you half-empty mug, Poe’s empty on laying in the coffee table.

“What?” The way your eyes widen comically draws a laugh from Poe. “Does Finn know?”

“I’m pretty sure everyone knew, I wasn’t exactly subtle. Its embarrassing,” That triggers more laughter from you. “In my defense, everyone had a crush on Finn at one point,” Poe watches you laugh at his expense, smiling brighter, feeling lighter than he had for months. He would recount every single one of his embarrassing childhood memories if it got you laughing like that. He’s in so much trouble. “Okay, your turn,”

An embarrassing childhood memory. You have a plethora of those. You sip your coffee pondering, which one to share? Placing your mug on the coffee table, you lean back into the couch and Poe rests his head on your shoulder. The silence stretches as you remain like that for a few more serene moments, game forgotten, only the sounds of the characters on screen punctuating the otherwise peaceful night. 

You turn when you hear Poe whisper your name, your eyes lock on his and you can’t seem to look away. He holds your gaze as he looks up at you, making you feel so exposed with those big brown eyes you never knew could be so piercing. He looks like he’s about to say something, then decides against it.

Instead, he tilts his head up, brushing his lips against yours, breath fanning your cheeks as he ventures further when you don’t pull away. His hands cradle your jaw, touch light like feather on your skin. Your eyelids flutter as his thumb caresses your cheekbone.

You’re kissing him before you mind catches up with your actions. His tongue brushes over your bottom lips then against your own, wet and warm, tasting sweet like the coffee he had, black, with three sugars.

An arm winds around your waist, pulling you into his chest and you follow blindly. The warmth emanating from his chest and feeling of his heart thundering beneath your palms. You could loose yourself in it. In him.

Almost just as soon as you had him, you’re ripped away from him when the sound of a key turning in the front door lock jolts the two of you apart. “We’re home!” Rey sings as she and Finn walk through the door.

Oh fuck. What did you just do?

You scramble up from the couch, quickly making up a shoddy excuse before throwing yourself out the front door, your belongings haphazardly gathered up in your arms, leaving all three of your friends stunned in your wake.

---

“Damn, Poe. What did you do?” Finn asks closing the door after you.

The way you were kissing him one moment and then suddenly disappearing the next almost gave Poe whiplash. “Huh? Why do you think I did something?” Both Finn and Rey gave him a look full of disbelief. “We might have kissed,” he utters the last word like a whisper. “And she just ran out like that,” he says flailing his arms in the direction you disappeared in. Did he go too far? You wouldn’t have kissed him back if you didn’t want to, right? Fuck, what did he do wrong?

“Did you tell her you broke up with Sarah?” Rey asks him. Always hitting the nail right on the head.  

“Oh, oh no,” he didn’t, it never came up and he didn’t even think of it. 

“You fucked up, son,” Finn interjects, grimacing like he was feeling second hand embarrassment from the whole situation.

“You didn’t tell her by any chance?” Poe asks, turning to Rey. 

“Why would I tell her? Do you think we got nothing better to do than sit around gossiping about friends?”

“I’m an idiot,” Poe says, more to himself to anyone else.

“The migraine sure messed with your mind,” Finn chuckles.

---

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[gayenerd]

The Band You Love To Hate By Tom Lanham of RIP  (There’s no date on this but I would say 1995 or 1996?)

Eyes wide as a barn owl's. Spines stiff with anticipation, like a hungry scorpion. The two teenage girls sit stock-still in their booth at a posh Berkeley diner, practically bursting with excitement, but without the faintest clue how to handles it. Clueless, you might call them. A few feet across the linoleum aisle--with his back to them, oblivious to all the oh-my-gawd facial expressions--sits the object of their adulation, dressed in unassuming black jeans, black T-shirt, shredded black Converse, and a beat-up black baseball jacket. But even with his once-green dreadlocks tamed to a short black business cut, Billie Joe Armstrong--yes, the snaggle-toothed MTV ragamuffin from megaplatinum neo-punkers, Green Day--is as easy to spot as Michael Bolton at a Rogaine convention. Although the kids want to leap up from their seats and race over for an autograph or a jittery hello, they don't dare. Instead, they're forced to deal with their seething emotions as if they were eating post-tonsillectomy ice cream: a lot of numb gulping and a quick pain chaser. This is the blessing of being Billie Joe Armstrong. Alas, it's also his curse. By the time you read this, the irascible little rocker will have turned 24. And exactly two years ago, he and his wacky bandmates--drummer Tré Cool and bassist Mike Dirnt--lolled around the trashy basement flat they shared, getting stoned and sneering at the idea that Dookie--their just-released "sellout" on big-time Reprise--would ever amount to more than a nice drink coaster. Fame? They were more preoccupied with their bong collection, stacks of rock 'n' roll bubblegum cards, and a thriving sea monkey tank displayed prominently on a window-sill. Most of their furniture had springs poking through--they didn't care. Armstrong regularly picked boogers from his gold-ringed nostril and then flick them onto the scary shag carpet--what did he have to worry about? Too bad he couldn't have foreseen the all-too-near future. Green Day happened to be in the right place at the right time. The three-chord slam-a-rama Dookie--a pop-edged return to decade-old punk ethics--became the surprise hit of '94, going on to sell over 11 million copies. Armstrong, accustomed to frenetic club performances, began translating the group's infectious energy to larger and larger venues. Demand continued to grow at a staggering pace; Green Day fought back. They turned a satellite MTV Video Awards performance into a "spit-cam" fest by urging the crowd to gob any camera lens it could ("[The cameramen] tried to make it look like it was cool, but it wasn't"). Last October, Armstrong and company issued their 32-minute follow up, Insomniac, almost as an afterthought, with little promotion, a visually offensive video (for "Geek Stink Breath") and--at least initially--a strict no-interview policy. Simultaneously, they ditched their high-powered Cahn-Man management team and are now virtually managing themselves. Along the way, Armstrong married his long-time sweetheart Adrienne and last March fathered a son, Joey. In typical down-to-earth fashion, the couple spent their honeymoon a few blocks from home at Berkeley's prestigious Claremont Hotel, not on some exotic island. Beginning to see the problem here? How does a street-smart kid from humble beginnings skyrocket to world-class notoriety and yet--with his music in millions of homes and his privacy suddenly a right that needs defending--still adhere to the simple ideals, the simple lifestyle that spawned him? Is "successful punk" an oxymoron? Insomniac provided few clues--it was more of the same slacker-ennui sentiment, more defeated, disenfranchised grousing set to speedy, memorable hooks. Or, as Armstrong barks in the aptly-dubbed "Walking Contradiction," "My wallet's fat and so is my head...I'm a victim of a Catch-22." And that, in essence, was the topic this tortured artist wanted to discuss at the diner. The old "be careful what you wish for" adage. The classic "problem with success is finding someone to enjoy it with you" truism. Armstrong, who takes occasional sips from a vanilla milkshake, but mostly stares morosely at the floor, seems to be dealing with superstardom in a relatively normal way. Don't be fooled by the steady stream of negative vitriol that follows; he's analyzing it, breaking it down, figuring out ways to disconnect his kinetic career. Or at least turn down the volume for awhile. 

RIP: We know what's going right. But what's going wrong? 

BILLIE JOE ARMSTRONG: Lots of things, really. Actually, when I came here today, I said I didn't wanna talk about anything good, because I don't really have anything good to talk about. Goin' on tour pretty soon--don't really wanna go. Just because I've been kinda torn. I wanna stick around at home. I don't like playing arenas, and I realized I didn't know what I was getting myself into on the last tour, but I went into it being positive and getting excited about it. But I didn't realize that I was the kind of person to whom it's too much of an event and not really a personal thing anymore. And I started to realize how much I liked being the background music to this scene at the club. And now it's.... I dunno. People expect so much. It's cool and stuff, and it can be a lot of fun, a really good experience. But when you play that many arenas.... The first time we ever played those big kinds of shows at the Shoreline (Amphitheater in Mountain View, California), there was weirdness--we were playing for a lot of f?!kin' people. And I hate to say it, but sometimes it just feels like another gig. We played every day, 50 gigs this last leg, and it just wears on ya. There's all these people, and they think "Alright. I paid my $15--you better impress the f?!kin' shit outta me right now!" And I realized that for Joey, the rock and roll touring life is not a good atmosphere for a kid. I tried to make it to where it would be, bringing lots of his toys out. But there are no familiar surroundings for him. And he likes all the attention--people come up and say hello to him every day, people who are on tour with us. But he doesn't have his own room or a home to go to every day. So, no more touring for Joey. 

RIP: Turned on Regis and Kathie Lee this morning to find their gossip columnist dishing dirt on Green Day. How Insomniac didn't do nearly as well as predicted, how it was a disappointment to the label. A failure, supposedly. 

BJA: Well, it's like, we didn't set up this record. We didn't. We didn't do any promotion beforehand, we completely quit doing interviews, and basically we just wanted to go on into it. We weren't even sure if we wanted to do a video. And then when we did a video, it got yanked from daytime rotation because people were getting grossed-out by it. So I think we did alienate a lot of people. So that was expected, that it wasn't going to sell a lot of records. 

RIP: NOFX have taken it one step further. They refuse to talk to press, make videos, pander potential singles to radio. They don't want to get any bigger. 

BJA: I dunno, maybe I'm just getting jaded or something. But I just got cable again and I can't stand anything. Six years ago you could hear something that was different and know that it was different. So it'd be "alternative" or whatever. But now it's like you get this Joan...Osborne? With the ring in her nose, waving the alternative rock flag, when she's just...not, ya know? And I'm thinking, I hate all this music that's coming out now--the past year was just hell for music. But people are buying it, so then I'm thinking, Maybe they're the ones that are good and I'm the one who sucks? I just don't know if I really wanna be involved in the rock world anymore at all. Period. I don't necessarily have anything against a big record company or people who what to join up with a big record company. It really is right for some people, but more and more, I don't think that I'm really meant to. And I hate to sound like that, because I don't like taking things for granted. I don't like to talk about my problems when there's some kid struggling in his garage somewhere saying "F?!k him! He's just taking it for granted. Shit, I wish I could do something like that, but I'm just stuck here in Biloxi, Mississippi, and I can't even get a gig." I'm so confused right now. 

RIP: It must be odd to know that, with all those millions of albums sold, drunken frat boys are probably staggering around to your music right now. Your audience grew far beyond your control. 

BJA: Oh, totally! We became what we hated. Which is, the people I despised in high school--and now--are buying our records. We initially became a trend, so there was no way I expected to sell as many records with Insomniac as with Dookie. That's one of the biggest-selling records of the decade. We get slagged by the punk rockers, and it's like, I don't blame them. If you draw that much attention to yourself, that's what you're gonna get--attention--and it's not personal anymore. 

RIP: Ever think about giving it all up? 

BJA: There isn't a day goes by in the past year and a half that I haven't thought about quitting. I went to this party on New Year's Eve, and this band Juke, and another band, the Tantrums, played in a friend of mine's backyard. And a lot of my old friends showed up, and everybody was just dancing. And I was dancing, and getting really muddy, and I was having a great time. I can't remember the last time I sat down and listened to a record from beginning to end and felt this incredible spine-chilling music. And it's because I haven't been able to go out and watch bands play at my free will. I'm not gonna live in a closet, I'm not gonna vegetate myself. 

RIP: But it has to be difficult, when tons of kids know your face. You're on your way to Michael Jackson-dom, where you have to wear a disguise in public. 

BJA: If you think about the Beatles, at that time all people had to go by were the photographs on the records and every now and then a television appearance. So when they'd come to town, people would just flip out--it became this huge public event every single time. Whereas now, everything is so saturated kids don't even have to leave their home to go to a show anymore. They can sit in the comfort of their living room, and your favorite rock star is gonna be entertaining you while you sit down and have your microwave burrito. 

RIP: The Milwaukee cops weren't pleased with aspects of Green Day's Milwaukee show last November. Why were you arrested? 

BJA: I dropped the pick and--actually, I even forgot about it--I just mooned the crowd, which is pretty harmless compared to what I've done before. And I wasn't even thinking about it--I just went out and started playing again. Then I went backstage and was hanging out with Adrienne, and this guy Jimmy who does security for us goes "Come on--there's a car waiting for you outside right now. You've gotta get out of here!" I said "What's wrong?" and he said he didn't even know. So we get in the car and all of a sudden about ten cops come walking over, fully surrounding the car. So the guy puts the cuffs on me, throws me in the car, and I get tossed in the holding tank for two, three hours. I wasn't in the bullpen--I was in with the other ones, the not-so-bad ones. They made me take all my jewelry out. And my shoestrings, so I wouldn't hang myself or something. I dunno. I just don't know how to fit into rock music anymore. I don't know what I like about it anymore. I don't like anything about it anymore, to tell you the truth. To tell you the real truth, I'm a pretty miserable person right now. I'm totally depressed, and my wife can vouch for that because she's around me. In fact, she's the only person who's really around me. I dunno, the whole thing with the mainstreaming of punk rock. I just feel lost in the whole thing...I don't really know...I don't wanna...I dunno...It's miserable, it really is. It's f?!ked up. 

RIP: For every original voice that comes along, there will be countless mad signing dashes for any and all sound-alike artists, with no thought given to the artist's longevity. Just throw the record out quickly and hope it sticks. 

BJA: The thing is, a lot of musicians have gotten so comfortable with this big so-called "Revolution in Rock Music" over the past decade. First it was like, "F?!k the corporations! F?!k the corporations!" And then people just sorta got cozy with that, and forgot that these bands are getting lost in the shuffle. And I'm talking about the ones that never get noticed at all and just get kinda bitter. The 15 minutes of fame is getting shorter and shorter. And now music is totally going backwards--the first half of this decade, there were a few things going on that were interesting. It wasn't my favorite kind of music, but it had a sensibility about it. If you think about Nirvana and Pearl Jam and that whole Seattle scene, and even the Offspring--there was this thing going on that was more honest, in a lot of ways. It wasn't like, beer, drugs and pussy, like what went on through the '80s with all the hair bands. But now what we've got is Hootie & the Blowfish.... 

RIP: Who are probably a lot like you. They seem like nice, regular guys who--through no real fault of their own--are suddenly assimilated into pop culture. 

BJA: Yeah, but that's the problem, is that they are nice regular guys. And they're totally comfortable with that, and they sort of put that out, to where they don't really have...I dunno, there's a certain amount of attitude that, say, someone like Cobain or Vedder has that they don't have. But it's becoming way not...real anymore or something. Maybe not real to me. It's just turning back into what it was in the '80s. It's like, "Hey, everyone! We're Huey Lewis and the News!" I dunno. Maybe nobody knows what the f?!k I'm talking about anymore. 

BJA: I get so irritated by people. I think I'm more bitter than I've ever been in my whole life, to tell you the honest truth. I think Insomniac is much more of a bitter record than Dookie. And I think the older people get, the more they kinda get angry. I think a lot of people feel like they get cheated by lief somehow--no-one is ever completely satisfied. There's maybe a few. But I mean, I'm in a place where I don't really wanna be. It's like, sometimes I feel like we're losing our passion for playing music. And that's the f?!ked-up thing, when you lose passion for what you love, then it's like, Is this marriage headed for divorce or what? 

RIP: Theoretically, you can fight back a couple of ways. Like Cobain, you could make a record almost calculated to offend all the bandwagon-jumpers. Or take as much time off as you'd like. Who says you can't go live on a desert island for two years? 

BJA: That'd be nice. I'm just not enjoying life right now. I'm really not. I'm so cluttered, I can't even speak. Yeah, I do feel like I'm getting old, and I'm kinda bitter about that. I'm not excited about being onstage anymore, and I was really trying to convince myself that I was. Really. Before we did this last U.S. tour, every time I did an interview--I don't know if you read the last Rolling Stone piece--I was like "Yeah! I'm excited! I wanna play these arenas!" and stuff. And then just every night, it started sucking, it felt like a routine or something. It felt almost choreographed in a lot of ways. And I was yelling "f?!k you!" to people, but I didn't know who I was yelling "f?!k you" to anymore. 

RIP: Last time we spoke, you said you went out of your way to change every single show, make each one different. 

BJA: Well, I think it's just the stress of getting up in front of all those people all the time, every day. It's like, "Do I really feel like downing another f?!cking pot of coffee and a bottle of wine before I walk onstage to do this again? Just to get myself ready to go?" You know, for all those people. And every night I always do something different and stupid. But at the same time, it'd be really cool to just say "F?!k you!" to people and like, walk off. And then they'd get it. It's like, "I'm really telling you to f?!k off this time! Time to pack up and go home." It'd just be so nice to start from scratch again. 

RIP: In many ways you can. That's the music-making system trying to program your behavior. And obviously you've broken quite a few rules already--you don't even have to be talking to me right now, actually.... 

BJA: Oh no. I really wanted to do this interview, just because the last interviews that I've done, I've been miserable, and I was pretending not to be. I really was, I was lying. Not to the reader, not to the person I was doing the interview. But I was lying to myself, convincing myself that I was really happy with how everything is going. 

RIP: So you always knew what you wanted, and now you've got it, in spades. You're having trouble figuring out what's next? 

BJA: I didn't even know what I wanted back then. I really didn't. I didn't know if I wanted to be huge, totally successful. I never knew that. I was struggling so hard even to sign that f?!king contract--when I was sitting there, I was contemplating, "Should I just run outta here right now? Am I making the biggest mistake of my life?" A lot of people say, "You're totally disillusioned with what money can do for people," but money never meant shit to me. There's something very passionate to me, very romantic, about living on the street in a lot of ways. Just because I really like my lifestyle back then. I was totally content, in retrospect. A lot of it has to do with the fame. I dunno, I'm trying to talk right now and just totally stuttering. 

RIP: It's not like you chose music--it chose you, and you can't help it. 

BJA: Yeah, it's cool when people really get it. But what a lot of people don't understand is that we're a band that's been around a lot longer than people know. And that's the thing. The difference between this and what happened between Kerplunk and Dookie--in a year, I got married, I had a kid, and I sold 11 million records worldwide. That can do something to ya, ya know? 

BJA: Sometimes I think it'd be cool to just hang out with my friends, drink beer, smoke cigarettes. The more I think about it, the more I'd be really happy with that. I don't think that we're feeling quite like a band anymore--that's one problem we have. There was this certain rock 'n' roll underdog think that we always had--we always drove for something, always drove from town to town in a small van. And you know, I f?!kin' like touring like that--it's like culture shock, really, driving around in a van, setting up my amp when I get there, and playing. That's rock 'n' roll, that's what it started out as. A bunch of sweaty pigs in some tiny f?!kin' bar having a hootenanny, that's what punk rock was to me, that's what drove me to it. I love rock music in its simples, rawest form. And I think we're the only band, really, that plays rock 'n' roll. 

RIP: Has all this put a strain on your old friendships? Do your pals treat you a little differently now? 

BJA: When I come up to friends I haven't talked to in a while, there's a weirdness. And the ones who are really close to me don't really bring up anything, but that thing is still there; it's still in the air. And sometimes I'll just not say anything the whole time we're hanging out. I'll be totally quiet, because the only thing I'll have to talk about is my band, and I get so sick of talking about my band and myself. So I'll just be quiet, since that's the only thing there is to me, except for my son and my wife. 

RIP: Pretty soon, you'll be boring everyone with slide shows--"There we are at Yosemite!" 

BJA: Ha! Adrienne was telling me the other day, "When you were in there dancing with all your friends, while the band was playing, you were so happy because you were so in your element." And I've even gone as far as saying we're not a punk band anymore. But no matter what, that's still gonna stick with me forever, because I love the music, I love the energy of a new band coming out that creates this sense of urgency about 'em. I'll never be able to kick that habit. I love hangin' out with my friends who have small fanzines--kids just writing their guts out about whatever the hell's bothering 'em, and putting it on a Xerox machine and then handing it out for a quarter apiece at shows or at a party. All I wanna do is just try and work it out. I was sitting there the other day, counting all the records that the Replacements put out, stuff like that, Dan thinking how [Paul] Westerberg totally came across to his audience and did everything, everything that the wanted to do in music. He wasn't extremely successful for it, but the guy has influenced people, and a lot of 'em don't even know that they are influenced by him. All I wanna do is just write good songs and stick to it. I wanna develop--not being experimental--but go into different styles, go across my boundaries of the two-and-a-half minute punk song with a three-and-a-half minute jazz song, or maybe get into a little bit of swing or rockabilly. 

RIP: With such staggering success, you could walk into Reprise and tell 'em you're doing an album of saxophone solos and they'd allow you that creative luxury. 

BJA: Well, I never wanna be that experimental. I don't wanna get into synthesizers and shit like that. The thing that was cool for me with Insomniac was that I think we definitely set a foundation for ourselves, because we put out our hardest record to date, totally in-your-face all the way through, and now we're able to go anywhere we want. We can do that now--we do have that going for us. That is, if people are still interested. Which is kinda weird for me to say.... 

RIP: Your craft will always remain the most important thing of all, even if you're just writing for your own amusement. 

BJA: Yeah. No matter what, I'm gonna be writing songs for the rest of my life. I mean, I already have a shitload of new songs right now. But I just wanna do some other things with it. We've sold a million of Insomniac so far. But I definitely want to be respected as a musician. Well, more as a songwriter than as a musician. I wanna be f?!kin' normal, is what I wanna be. The thing is, I've seen so many freaks and so many weirdos and crazy punk rockers and drunks and junkies. But for a lot of those people being weird is easy. It's so easy to be strange--the hard thing is to try to be normal. There's no such thing as normal, ya know. 

RIP: How's your mom feel about all this? 

BJA: She's kinda worried about me. She doesn't know what to think of everything. We have a hard time communicating with each other, just because I don't like to talk about it that much. So she feels like she has to walk on eggshells around me all the time. 

RIP: You buy her anything cool once the money started rolling in? 

BJA: Nah--she doesn't want anything. I've asked her. She's been living in the same house for over 20 years, and she's content living there. But I did give her a trip--she went to Hawaii, her and her boyfriend. And I think travelling is really good--if you paid for someone to travel, so they can go and explore and see some things they've never seen before. But I think that's probably where I get it from. I get so content with not having much. And then you get all this stuff, all this attention, and you don't really know what to do with it. You don't know how to channel it. 

RIP: Most outrageous thing you've bought for yourself? 

BJA: I got my car primered! And one thing I did do was build a home studio. So I've been recording all my friends' bands for free. I produced this band called Dead and Gone, and Social Unrest, Fetish and the Criminals. And I have this side-project called Pinhead Gunpowder--nothing's up with it right now, but we played at the beginning of '94 a few times. RIP: Sounds like you've got more than enough pressure valves to let off the steam. Still, do you worry about death? 

BJA: Yeah, I do. But I have too many reasons to stick around. One is my son and my wife. And I don't feel like I'm finished yet. I'm not done, ya know? And the beauty of it is that death is forever and your problems aren't. And that's why I'm talking about my bad shit, because you vent that, you get it off your chest and you can move on to something else. There's gotta be a positive side to all this--so you just sort of try and dig it out. Get rid of all the bad--out with the bad air, in with the good air. 

RIP: You said about Green Day that you think your "bandwagon is coming to a close and all that's gonna be left is just a band. Hopefully." So then will you start writing happy songs? 

BJA: I thought about writing a totally sarcastic song called "I'm So Goddamn Happy," just talking about how happy I am. Actually, I'd like to put out a double record--I'd like to put out tons of music. But I never wanna become an egomaniac. I just wanna keep things down to earth, so I think it's really important for us to take a long break after all this stuff. We just put out two records back to back, one year after another, and now we can sit back and work on ourselves as people again. So we don't parody ourselves. And it's so hard to be a father and a musician at the same time. If I get into one thing and I pay close attention to it, like if I'm with Joey and I start neglecting my music, then I feel like I should play more often. So I start playing my music, and then I'm going, "Am I neglecting Joey?" So it becomes hard to do everything at the same time. 

BJA: I wanna create a very mellow and sound atmosphere for him, because I don't wanna make any mistakes for him--I want him to be able to make his own mistakes. And even when it comes to swearing--I don't cuss in front of my kid. I'd rather him get it from some dirty-mouthed kid at school. Then at least I'd know, I could go "Thank God--my kid is in a real world and he's learning these things from his surroundings." That'd be a good thing. Because the best things you ever learn are the things you learn in kindergarten. 

Finally, after more than an hour worth of gut-spilling, Armstrong suddenly observes four brace-faced girls, each no more than 12 years old, idling over by the cash register. They're there on the pretext of getting change. In reality, they just want to ogle punk icon and pin-up darling Billie Joe, stare at those caterpillar eyebrows and chiselled cheekbones up close. Another oh-my-gawd event. "I gotta go--it's gettin' weird," the reluctant rocker whispers, literally leaping up from the booth. "I can feel eyeballs all over me already...." And as fast as that, he's gone. "Was that...was that...B-B-B-B-Billie Joe?" stammers one swooner. "No," says the waitress, with a subtle smile. "That was just some guy who usually eats here alone, nobody famous at all. You know, just an average guy." A little white lie to herd the young 'uns out. But nevertheless the truth.

[bxoken-heartss]

Put a Little Love On Me: C.V Part 2

(Y/N): Your name

(Y/E/C): Your Eye Color

(Y/L/N): Your Last Name

' ' ': Switch of scenes

~ ~ ~ : Line by Line Lyrics scenario ending.

// //: Lyrics

Warnings: Mentions of self harm, drinking mentions etc etc

Pairings: Christopher Velez x Reader

Words: 5600 +

Part 1: HERE.

A/N: I know it’s been LIKE 7 years approximately since i typed down the first part. But, I’ve had online classes and crappy assignments..But! HERE IT IS! And once again...I’m SORRY! But I hope you ENJOY! :)

Honorable Mentions: @wwecncowhydontwetrash @calypsocnco​ @cnco-hoenesty​ @papichriscnco​ @richardscurls​ @h-bea92​ @zabdielmuch​

//We wrote and we wrote till there were no more words

We laughed and we cried until we saw our worsts//

Chris sat down in front of his desk in his room, his heart heavy and burdened, yet a weird sort of  emptiness filling his heart. He spoke nothing as he heard his heart slowly beating..each beat filled with an aura of pain at an in-rhythmically ugly pace.

He felt horrible...He just wanted to escape from this ugly unwanted reality..Writing music was his way of temporary escape from reality..a temporary refuge when things went downhill..

After a heavy workout and a hot relaxing shower, he sat down to write something onto his journal..

He carelessly opened the journal, flipping through the pages slowly as he reached a fresh new page, a fountain pen in his hand as he sat and thought about what he could write about to relieve or rather ease the stress and anxiety building up in him..

He wanted to write something..he really wanted to..but a wave of hopelessness washed over him as he had written a few "Love" related lyrics..

They sounded fake...forced..ingenuity lacing its lyrics..He tried again..but he just couldn't...for she was the only thing that bounced back into his mind..

She was the melody...the inspiration behind all his lyrics..but she wasn't his anymore..

The thought of her in between someone's arms..her new man kissing her..holding her close to him..

The thought of her being happier with someone else who wasn't him hurted him more than he could admit..but a part of him also happy now at least someone would treat her the way she deserved to be treated..

Christopher tried to clear his head..No! He didn't need her! He could obviously move on the way she did..She moved on..rather too quickly..at least that's what the media and all the tabloids said...

He began to write again but there were just no more words to write.. Just mere emptiness and silence fills the air..

The page was empty and dull just like his heart..

                                              ~ ~ ~

Y/N couldn't pinpoint on a single moment where she was the happiest with Chris..Every single moment gave her weird yet such long lasting memories.

"GUYS I'M BORED!" Y/N yells as she walks into the boys' studio

"Hi bored...I'm Erick! Nice to meet you! How are you doing today?" Erick asks beaming at her

"Ha ha ha! Very funny pretty eyes..." Y/N replies as she rolls her eyes and claps her hands sarcastically

"Oh come on! That was a good one! Right guys??" Erick asks as he hopefully looks at the boys

"I'm not going to respond to that." Richard comments as he lazily lays on the couch

"Are you done with recording for today?" Joel asks as he sits next to her slinging an arm around her missing the look of jealousy that had stayed hidden inside Christopher's brown orbs

"Yeah...Had a quick meet and greet and did a bit of recording! I'm done for the day! What about you guys?"

"Recording is still left...and we'll probably have a quick Twitter session or something..probably" Joel comments as he looks at her

"So none of you are free??" Y/N asks

"Shawty...as much as I'd love to spend the day I've still got parts to record!" Richard says

"I'm done for the day!" Zabdiel says as he suppresses a yawn

"Zab...Come with me we can go and have fun!!" Y/N pleaded

"Nope mi amor... I'm going to sleep." Zabdiel says as he lays down on the couch

"Chris! Ah! My favorite boy! My darling!" Y/N says as her eyes brighten up

"Hola Hermosa..." Chris comments as he sits next to her

"Chris honey...come on let's have a day out together!" She says

"Couldn't resist me even for a day huh nena?" Chris asks, obviously flirting

"Of course..I couldn't resist your face.. You are so insanely good looking..how could I?" Y/N replies, flirting back ignoring the way how quick her heart thumped against her chest

Y/N began talking to him about the most random things and every time she did Chris interrupted her...He knew it always made her pissed..It was something he always did...but he couldn't resist! She was absolutely ADORABLE when she got mad..

"And then I --" Y/N begins as Chris cracks another uncalled joke in Spanish as Erick laughs to it as he engages in a conversation with Joel.

"CHRISTOPHER BRYANT VÈLEZ I SWEAR TO GOD THAT I WILL CHOKE YOU UNTIL YOU DIE IN MY HANDS!" Y/N yells

"I'd rather be choking you Mami.." Chris replies as he smirks at her as her face flushes into a dark shade of pink

"Gawd..Can't y'all just date already? There's so much sexual tension between you two...Like get laid already and date!" Richard comments rolling his eyes, Erick furiously nodding

"Well..Err..." Chris begins as he nervously laughs

"YASHEL shut up before I kill you!" Y/N warns

"He's got a point...I mean you guys flirt so often that we'd feel weird if you both didn't date.." Joel says

"No! Joel not you too!! Zab...Your friends are being mean to me!!" Y/N complains

"Too late.. he's already asleep.." Joel says as she looks at a sleeping Zabdiel

"You guys are just being dumb.." Y/N comments

"We're being honest..you label it as dumb.." Erick counters earning a eyeroll from Y/N

"Whatever guys...Chris! Are you free? Please tell me you are!" Y/N asks

"Well...My recording for the day is done so I guess?" Chris answers

"Please...let's just go somewhere! I'm so tired of merely sitting around in my studio for hours...a small break would be good right?!" Y/N asks him hopefully

"Yeah I guess.." Chris replies as he rubs his neck awkwardly

"Are you sure you wanna go? You seem dis- interested..." She asks him

"No no... Absolutely not Hermosa.. I'm absolutely ready..Just let me get a hoodie and some shades and inform Ali about it then I'll be all good to go!" Chris comments as he walks away

"So did you finally manage to get him go on a date with you?" Joel asks as he  looks at before heading towards the recording room

"Joel we are just hanging out cause he was free...nothing more nothing less." She replies rolling her eyes

"Okay I was just inquiring.." he says exiting the situation

"Oh...you mean one out of your many dates!" Erick says as his eyes gleam with adoration

"Could you just shut up for once Erick?! I told you we're - -" She begins

"Yeah, just friends...I get it..When are you going to realize that you just perfect for each other and just- -" Erick begins as Chris enters the room

"I'm ready Hermosa...Can we leave?" Chris asks interrupting Erick

"Okay sure..If my best friend wakes up by any chance and ever questions about my existence, just inform him that I had gone out with Chris.." Y/N tells Erick as she walks over to Chris

"Will do! Now go already and enjoy the day!" Erick replies as he pushes her onto Chris' arms

They exited the studio as paparazzis surrounded them, their security quickly making way for them as they quickly slid into her car.

"Where do you want to go Miss. (Y/L/N) ?" Y/N's driver, Henry asks (change his name if you don't like the name)

"Well to that less crowded carnival round the corner...And ask the others to stay away..We are heavily disguised so it won't be much of a problem." Y/N comments

"Are you sure Ma'am..I've been given strict - -" he begins

"I'll take the blame in case anything goes wrong trust me!" Y/N reassures as she put on a heavy coat to cover her disguise as Chris helped her with it.

"Thanks Chris..." Y/N says as she shoots him a grateful smile

"Of course Mi Amol..." Chris comments as he returns the gesture.

                                                 ' ' '

"Aren't you excited CHRIS?!?" Y/N asks as she looks at Chris whose eyes beam with happiness

"OF COURSE!!!" Chris yells excited as he looks at her excitedly

"Then let's g- -" She says but interrupted halfway as Chris grabs her arm and pulls her into the crowd

                                                 ' ' '

Time had gone so quick that Y/N almost thought her eyes were playing tricks with her when she saw the sun setting.

They had almost finished off all the attractions in the carnival..All the while Chris was just busy taking numerous pictures and videos of her, her giggling and laughing all the while.

"Hermosa...Look at that! I want that!!" He says as he points at a huge teddy bear in a stall.

"Aren't all these enough?" Y/N as she points at the bag of goodies and all those little toys Chris had gotten

"Nope...just one more...besides who doesn't like teddy bears?" He asks

"True but are you sure you want- " Y/N begins

"Hello? Yes...Yeah three soft balls? Cool enough!" Chris speaks as the person on the stall hands him over three soft balls

All he had to do was aim and get the soft ball into the basket that was next to teddy bear.

"Now watch me Hermosa..How I get that teddy in one throw!" Chris flaunts as he begins to aim for it. "But wait..Before that, I think you should kiss my knuckles.." He says finishing off

"And why's that necessary Chris?" Y/N asks her tone filled with sass

"Err..You know...for good luck! You technically just make people around you happy...so I figured that you would have some sort of good luck within you..So I thou- -" He begins

"I understand Chris...You don't need to explain..I was just messing with ya!" Y/N interrupts him as she holds his knuckles and presses a kiss onto his knuckles eliciting a soft blush from Christopher.

She quickly ignored the way her cheeks heated up as she gives him a shy smile, Chris slowly returning her the gesture.

"Go on Chris...try again..Let's hope it works!" Y/N comments as she looks at him

"Yeah okay!" Chris says, the soft ball falling inside a basket that stood next to a stuffed elephant.

"LOOK CHRIS! Elephants are cool too!" Y/N beams at him

"So boy do you want this or do you want to try again?" The stall keeper asks him

"Another try please.." Chris answers disappointed

"Chris you don't need to win the teddy bear specifically..it's  -" She begins

"Just wait Hermosa...This time I'll get it in!" Chris says as he held the last soft ball.

Y/N holds Chris' knuckles as she pressed a soft kiss onto them, Chris' knuckles still laying lovingly in her palms. Chris smiles to himself softly not wanting to retreat his knuckles from her touch

"Err..Chris?" She says, gaining his attention.

"Yeah sorry! I was- -" Chris begins

"Come on Velèz! I know you can do this!! I BELIEVE IN YOU!!!" Y/N cheered

Chris nodded his eyes gleaming with determination...He took a few breathes and threw the ball again and bam! It went inside the basket next to the teddy bear he had wanted.

"YESSS!! YOU GOT THAT IN!! CONGRATULATIONS CHRIS!!" Y/N cheers as she hugs him, as he wrapped his arms around her and enjoyed her embrace.

The stall keeper handed the teddy bear to Chris who instantly took it after thanking him.

"I wouldn't have won it without your good luck.." Chris comments

"Nonsense! Your aim was perfect! That's why you got it!" Y/N replies smiling at him

Chris took a hold of the other things in Y/N's hands as he handed her the teddy bear.

"It's yours now.." He says as he looks at her

"But you won it...and you wanted it!" Y/N replies

"No..I knew how much you loved teddy bears and considering the fact that you were my good luck charm..I think you deserve this" Chris says

Y/N blushed softly..He paid attention to every little thing accidentally slipped out of her mouth.

How she wished you had the guts to tell him how she really felt. She stood on her toes as she pressed a kiss on his cheeks.

"Thank you.." She whispers as Chris looks away blushing as he nodded slowly

                                           ~ ~ ~

Every little moment with Christopher was filled laughter and joy..Barely was there were moments she had seen Christopher wasn't happy...That night was probably the first time she had seen him..sad and broken..

It had happened on unfortunate midnight...Y/N had a sleepover with Zabdiel and the rest of the boys at their place after a very tiresome movie night..Everyone retired to their rooms at midnight as it had started off from 10 in the morning that previous day...

Y/N had obviously chose to share a bed with Zabdiel because the guest room was too messy and she was downright exhausted to clean it up...And Zabdiel had always loved cuddling onto her tiny petite figure ever since they had sleepovers from back when they were friends..

She had woken up the 2:00 a.m or so as she felt thirsty. She sat up, carefully removing Zabdiel's arms off her as she practically forced her drowsy self off her bed as she sleepily walked outside the room and towards the kitchen. She grabbed a glass of water and drowned it down her throat quickly quenching her thirst...

She walked upstairs and was about to enter Zabdiel's room when she saw dim lights flashing inside Christopher's room, beams of light radiating from the half closed door. She raised her eyebrows and walked towards his room.

'Was he that exhausted that he didn't have that much of the energy to switch off his bedroom light?' She thought as she slowly enters his room without causing any noises.

She looked around the room but Christopher wasn't on his bed...His bed was neatly folded and didn't seem crumbled at all...Hadn't he slept at all? She looked around and was about to call out his name when she hears muffled yet heavy sobs.

She looked around the room again as worry cascaded her face..She heard the sobs again as she walked towards the source...The sobs growing comparatively louder each time she took a step closer in a quiet pace.

She slowly opened the bathroom door as her eyes widens in shock as a teary eyed Christopher stood in front of the mirror..Her eyes scanned him as she noticed a blade in his hand, her eyes widening in shock as he reflects the same and tries to hide the blade.

She angrily storms upto him as she looks at him with pure hate..She picks up the blade and throws it out the window from the window located inside the tiny bathroom..She then walks upto him as she grabs both his arms, inspecting it. A soft scar was imprinted on his arm.

"I'm- -" Christopher begins

"JUST WHY? WHY CHRIS??" She asks, her tone filled with hate and pain at the same time as she quickly patched up the scar

"It's nothing.." He trails off as he looks away

"Well it has to be something CONSIDERING the fact that you were try to kill yourself!!" Y/N yells

"Please...JUST..Just leave! I don't want you to see- -" Chris says trailing off

"Why...Just why would you do this Chris?" Y/N asks, her eyes brimming with tears

"Why would you care?"  He asks her as he looks at her, his chocolate brown orbs instantly losing all the warmth it had ever possessed.

"CHRIS! Why wouldn't I- - I obviously do! Chris- -why would you ever - -" She begins

"I can't take this anymore...It's hard and sad..being HATED by millions..Feeling unwanted... talent-less..undeserving.." Chris interrupts her halfway as he looks down

"Says who Chris?" Y/N questions

"Who doesn't? Everyone hates me..I- -I can't do anything right..No one's there when I honestly need them..I don't blame them too considering how much I mean to them. So I just thought if no one liked me for who I was..why live?  It won't make a huge difference whether I lived or no- -" Chris begins as a harsh slap interrupts him

Christopher's eyes widen in shock as he lifts his hand covering his cheek as it stung in harshness and pain.

She looked at him, her cheeks flushed with sad and angry tears as she glared at Christopher

"How- -How could you?!? Do you even REALIZE what would have happened if you..." She begins but gets interrupted by her tears and her shortened breaths

"I'd never forgive myself Chris! I love you too much! How could you even think about this?!?"She finishes off

Christopher's eyes widened as those words processed in his head but cut short when she pulls him into a hug. His tears fell softly as he shivered slightly

"I'm scared...Please..help me..Just don't leave.." Chris stutters

Y/N said nothing but held his cheeks with her hands and pressed a passionate kiss on his forehead and the cheek where she had slapped him.

A simple gesture...which meant something to both of them deep down inside...yet they thought the other didn't feel the same and pushed it into the back of their heads.

"I'm right here Chris...I'm not going anywhere..I'll always be there for you.." She says as he listens to her beating heart.

                                                   ~ ~ ~

//Is it wrong that I still wonder where you are?

Is it wrong that I still don't know my heart//

"C- - CCa- -a- -n I h- -have ano- -ther o- -on - one lad?" Y/N asks, her eyes glossy as she slurs off

"Miss...you've already had an unhealthy dosage of - -" The bartender begins

"I'M A LEGAL ADULT! I'M PAYING YOU FOR THE DRINKS! WHAT'S YOUR FXCKING PROBLEM?!?"  She screams at him as she interrupts him

"But Miss..." He begins

"I SAID GET ME ANOTHER ONE!" She shouts over the blaring music

The bartender reluctantly poured out another drink onto her now empty glass...

Y/N looked around as the place blasted off with various songs she could barely recognize. She glared at everyone and everything as she smoothly half emptied the glass of drink.

She gazed around the room to find couples dancing..couple talking..couples kissing.. and making out in their drunk state, but they had one thing in common..They were all happily in love..

She cringed at the word love..she was absolutely disgusted with the feeling.. She absolutely hated it...But deep down inside...she knew she was lying..somewhere down there..

But a part of her sad..and selfish..Why couldn't she have a happy life? Why was it always her that suffered? What had she done to deserve something like this? Why did it have to be her?

She laid her head down in the wooden table in front of her..She softly wiped away the mindless tears that had managed to slip through her eyes, her sobs as soft as mere whispers..

What sort of a therapy was this? Drinking away so as to ease the pain? She knew how unhealthy this was..but yet here she was..doing the same..

Everyone likes things that aren't good for them..or wish for things they could have..

Finding a coping mechanism trying to escape the painfully true reality...Her thoughts wandered around freely and yet again..it all returned to that one person...Christopher...

Was it wrong that somewhere in her heart she still secretly yearned for his presence next to her??

He must have probably moved on...Enjoying his life with those one night stands and hookups..or maybe even better..a steady girlfriend capable of making him feel loved and deserved...just the way like she used to make him feel once upon a time..

She felt her heart beating..Was it even alive after the amount of unspoken pain she was going through? Was it even hers in the first place? The beats were soulless and un-melodious.. What was happening to her heart? Where was the beauty and happiness in it?

Was it wrong she didn't want to move on and put aside her never seeming to disappear feelings apart and grow up?

                                                ~ ~ ~

//Are you all dressed up but with nowhere to go

Are your tears falling down when the lights are low?

Another Friday night tryna put on a show

Do you hate the weekend cause nobody's calling?//

She found herself heading towards her closet as she threw on a fancy t-shirt and a pair of denim jeans as she stopped herself midway..

Weekend nights were always date nights with him...Despite however busy they turned out...they'd manage to spend quality time together..at weird yet wonderful places..

'Y/N get a bloody grip of yourself!'  She mentally warned herself.

She changed back into her pajamas as she sat on her bed, her frame leaning towards the headboard of the bedroom.

Her work for the day was done...She had informed her manager, Charles that she was absolutely exhausted and couldn't manage working any longer that day..

She was tired...absolutely tired mentally..Bottling up her feelings were hard..

Zabdiel had come over to her place every single day and texted her every single hour of the day he could to help her...Just so she could talk it out..

But she just didn't talk anything..She talked about daily routines and anything and everything apart from Chris.

Usually after any break up she had, she would talk things out and cry it out to Zabdiel and he'd console her. But this time...she just couldn't and didn't want to be consoled..as if she wanted to keep cry and keep hurting herself..because deep down inside she still wants him beside her.

But what was she supposed to talk about when she herself didn't know how she felt? How could she explain him a feeling she herself couldn't understand?

She hates crying..Hated crying around anyone..So when the day changes into night and when the world or the city was asleep...she used it as an opportunity to let down her guard down and let the tears fall down freely...

She cried and cried till her heart ached with the familiar hidden pain striking hard with every real tear that slipped down her cheeks.

Weekends were always associated with beautiful memories ever since Chris had been a part of her life..now all that filled her weekends were just tiresome, painful tears and put down her daily facade.

                                           ~ ~ ~

//I've still got so much love hidden beneath this skin//

Oh how she hates feeling like this.. But the heart want what it wants.. and that was the feeling of being whole again..and no one was capable of doing so apart from..him...no matter how much ever she tried to deny it..

//Will someone put a little love on me

Put a little love on me//

She felt miserable...Absolutely annoyed, frustrated, stressed and all the negative emotions she had ever experienced in her lifetime washes all over her..all it once..the pain intensifying as every little wasted, endless, lifeless tear washes down her cheeks for the millionth time in the same minute..as she aggressively wipes them off, her cheeks burning and her arms sore from wiping away the still falling tears

Her sobs suppressed yet her heart screamed and ached in pain which mere words could never explain..

//When the lights come up and there's no shadows dancing

I look around as my heart is collapsing

'Cause you're the only one I need

To put a little love on me//

Drinking so as to forget..more like to ease the pain..wasn't a solution. Y/N came home drunk at irregular times mostly drunk at the dawn of every morning. An extremely unhealthy coping mechanism but that was her escape from the real world...

She needed to get back to get back to work..so she tried to relax and calm herself down...she couldn't crawl into a corner and mop about someone who never loved her in the first place..

Taking early morning walks, calm and relaxing music blasting in both her ears as she jogged around a very less crowded park with some shades and a hoodie to mask her identity seemed like a temporary refuge..

She sat down on the bench after 5-6 rounds of her quick walks.

She wiped off her sweat with a towel she had carried in her mini bag as she quickly emptied a bottle of water down her throat.

She leaned behind as she lazily stared at the people who walked by... And all she could see was couples..Old age married happy couples...Middle aged couples with their children.. Just couples in general!

Was it Valentine's Day already? or was she seeing what her heart truly yearned for as she had pictured Chris and her holding hands and walking together...whilst they were dating.

The times they spent together were too good and precious to be forgotten.

Her heart felt like she couldn't take it any longer..she felt her heart shattering slowly but heavily..She bit her lip softly suppressing her pain for the millionth time in the past two months.

The insecurity and longing for him hitting her harder every single time.

                                                ~ ~ ~

//Last night I lay awake

Stuck on the things we say

And when I close my eyes the first

thing I hear you say is

Put a little love on me

Put a little love//

Falling asleep was almost impossible.. He was already a soft sleeper so he most definitely wouldn't be able to sleep with a heavy head and an empty heart.

Christopher changed into some comfortable outfit as he came out the bathroom freshened up...

He turned off the lights..all apart from the lamp that stood on the night stand. Christopher laid down as he draped the blanket around himself, as he forcefully shut his eyes to gain some well deserved sleep.

But how could he when he was in so much pain he himself couldn't understand the reason for?

His eyes snapped open as he laid down in his bed..he stared at the blank ceiling..

He felt so deprived...Deprived in all ways..physically, mentally and emotionally..He was always frustrated, annoyed and always snappy.

He never intended to damage or yell at everyone but...he was just confused and didn't understand what in the bloody world was he feeling?!?

His heart and mind still was stuck on her...and everything she said...And in a flash he remembers all the beautiful memories she and him had shared together...

"Nena smile!" Chris screams as he clicks another Polaroid as she lets out a surprised yell

"Chris..I wasn't ready!" She pouts sadly

"But mi Amol...You always look beautiful..." Chris says as he wraps his arms around her waist

"Chris you are so cheesy!!" She giggles as he picks her up kissing her nose

"But you love me right?" Chris asks laughing

"Of course you dork!" She says as he kisses her

                                         ~ ~ ~

//When the lights come up we're the

only ones dancing//

Y/N absolutely loved dancing.. She'd use any opportunity she could get, she'd drag one of the boys and dance along with them.

Any random song would play and she'd start dancing slowly..urging one of the boys to join...

Richard would volunteer to but Christopher would instantly rush upto her and awkwardly dance next to her.

Her face would instantly brighten up and they'd dance until their feets would give in...They even had an adorable "couple-ish" dance they had devised together.

After they began dating they had begun this sort of unspoken tradition i.e whenever one of them felt sad and didn't want to talk about it..the other would play soft, calm and a sad melody and slowly walk up to the other person and softly begin dancing with them...

"You ready to talk now honey?" Y/N asks as he comfortably rests his head on the crook of her neck as they moved together in sync

"No..not yet..I..I..I jus- -" He begins

"I understand..." She replies interrupting him as his arms wrap securely around her waist "I'm here for you.." She breathes out, Chris's heart clenching at her reassurance as they slowly danced in the silence

Even whether the days were the best or the worst...whether they were the last two people in the world..whether the world hated them..at the end of the day what only mattered was that nothing or no one could change the fact that they were immensely in love with each other, completed each other, accepted and understood each others' flaws and loving them even more...

                                               ~ ~ ~

//I look around and you're standing there asking...//

Chris has had enough! Enough of this endless denial. Enough of being in this confused traumatic state he was undergoing right now.

He just couldn't do this anymore..He just likes her so damn much. Her absence was almost driving him insane. As if, he can't live without her.

He misses sleeping and cuddling along with her..his strong arms wrapping around her petite figure as their breathing synced...

The stolen kisses before any stage performances, random make outs in the middle of nowhere, passionate kisses and just soft pecks..Christopher cherished and wished for all of it back again..all only from her..and her alone...no one else apart from her!

He just wants her beside him..right now..tomorrow and just..forever. He was tired..tired of wasting tears and the unexplained heaviness and yet ironically empty feeling in his heart.

For the first time...He admits. He admits that it was him who was wrong in this relationship.

Admits it was his fault he didn't make her stay. Admits that he was just scared to lose her because she was too precious, amazing and only deserved the best..and he just felt..he wasn't good enough for her.

What if he was good enough for her all the while long? What if he was oblivious to the fact that maybe somewhere after all...Maybe all this while all she wanted was him?

He lied. He lied that he didn't care and it didn't tear him apart to see or rather just merely imagine her in someone's arms...Someone who wasn't him..

Nobody...no one else could compare to how he felt around her..He could never feel whole again without her by his side...his Y/N...She was his all the time..it sounded cheesy and haywire cringy but he didn't care cause that was all he needed was her...

Because at the end of the day he LOVED her...His eyes almost widened at his own shocking confession.

He never thought he'd ever be capable of feeling..not a romanticized sort of feeling...He never thought he could love someone like this..

His eyes swelled up with tears..yet again..for the first time today..honest and non stop tears.

Christopher choked on his own tears as they carelessly fell down as if endless..the ache in his heart worsening with every harsh sob..only this time..they weren't suppressed. He let it out...all of it out..he couldn't bottle up his pain any second longer!

She wasn't coming back...She just wasn't...and there was nothing he could do about it...no tears could bring her back...she was just gone.

"Chris..." he heard a voice barely above a whisper

God...he was going insane...second by second...He was hallucinating. He could almost hear her melodious voice..the way his name slipped out of her tongue..But why couldn't he believe it? Maybe because it wasn't practical enough..something so artificial yet felt real at the same time.

His vision was blurry as he let out painful tears as his breath shorten with every harsh sob...

And all of a sudden, he feels something physical...rather someone hugging him...

"Erick...not now...please leave.." He says, his tone desperate.

"It's not Erick..Wonder Boy..it's me.." the presence replies

Christopher's eyes widened. No one ever called him that except..

He instantly opens his eyes..Brown orbs met (y/e/c). The same orbs he had fallen in love with.. rather the same ones he was still in love with..

"Y/N- -?" Chris asks stuttering in disbelief

Y/N looks at him as her lips curl into a sad grin which was a mixture of all the sadness within her, Her face bearing a heavy, sad emotion...so vulnerable and broken yet she tries to stay strong

"Yes...I know you don't- -" Y/N begins but interrupted as Chris crushed her into a bone breaking hug

"I'm- -I'm sorry babygirl..I really am... It's all my fault...I can afford to live with the fact that I'd never ever sleep with you like that...or not being able to kiss you whenever I need you..but I just need you in my life..as a friend at least...I need you in my life somehow!"  Chris stutters as tears fall down

"Chris... I'm sorry too.. It's- -" She begins as Christopher silences her clinging onto her

They didn't need words...nor any sort of explanation or apologies..They sob quietly in each others arms.. but this time the tears are happy. Just each others' mere presence was all they needed.

"J- -just don't- -Just don't leave me..please...Y/N..." He sobbed as he held her close afraid that if he let her go once more.. she'd disappear forever from his life..

He still had so much love hidden beneath him...and he wanted to shower all of it onto her..and her only.

After a while of mere sobs filling the air she pulls away slowly from the hug as she gazed into his eyes, him mirroring her actions. His eyes held so much love within it...and it was all for her..

"You're the only one I need.." Chris says, never looking away from her beautiful orbs

"Put a little love on me"  She replies

"You're the only one I need.." Chris says again, his tone certain yet shattered

"So put your love on..me" She breathes out as she places her lips on his with nothing but her undying love and passion she forever held for him.

[buzzdixonwriter]

A Long But Not Pointless Ramble In Which We Discuss Sci-Fi Flicks

We’re gonna ramble around a bunch of connected topics, so pour yourself a cuppa and enjoy the ride.

. . .

I’m a big fan of 1950s sci-fi B-movies.

Years ago, when I was chatting with the late film historian Bill Warren on this, he made a pertinent observation:  1950s sci-fi B-movies tend to be more fondly remembered than most better mounted and more professionally executed sci-fi films that came afterwards.

There’s a couple of three reasons for this:

The shock of the new -- most of those films pioneered a brand new genre and style, looking far different from previous genre offerings such as Flash Gordon or Things To Come.  As such, they score branding points by being first, even if later examples are better made.

They possess a certain naïve charm -- by and large they’re not sophisticated nor exceptionally well thought out (though when they do demonstrate flashes of intellect, it’s always a delight).  One feels these films are being made up on the fly (and in a certain sense, they were; see (1) above) and in an odd manner they prove more innocent and thus more fun than those that came later.

Most of them were cheap -- this combines with points (1) & (2) to force most 1950s sci-fi B-movies to focus tightly on one idea / one image to sell the film.  As a result there’s a startling clarity of vision in even the most flimsy of productions that’s lacking in later, more elaborate movies.  The weaker examples of this genre are those films trying to cover more ground than their cheaper cousins.

. . .

Two cases in point:  Jack Arnold’s Tarantula for Universal is a technically better made movie than Bert I. Gordon’s The Spider for AIP, but Tarantula loses focus, dawdling about on character development and sub-plots instead of concentrating on the big ass spider.

The Spider is far weaker in the script / performances / production value departments, but who gives a %#@& ? -- it’s got a big ass spider tearing up the countryside for most of the picture.

Not to put down Arnold and his effects crew’s efforts; they ingeniously figured out a way to not only get their tarantula to realistically crawl over uneven landscapes but actually cast a shadow as it did so, heightening the realism.

Gordon, conversely, simple shot his spider in front of still photos; the shots look as crude as they sound.

But The Spider delivers what Tarantula only teases:  An attack by said big ass spider on a population center.  Tarantula famously ends with an uncredited Clint Eastwood napalming the monster in the desert on the outskirts of town; The Spider actually goes rampaging through its town, and features one of the most iconic shots of any sci-fi movie:  As the big ass spider bears down on her, a terrified woman slams her car door shut on her skirt and in her panic tries to tug it loose instead of simply opening the door again.

George Lucas crowds the screen with thousands of furiously dogfighting CGI starships and that lacks the gut punching impact of that one simple terrifying shot. 

. . .

An even more pertinent example can be found in the oeuvre of Irving Block and Jack Rabin (I know, you’re going “Who?”  Patience, young jedi; all will be explained below).

Block and Rabin (along with Louis DeWitt, their silent 3rd partner) ran a small special effects house in Hollywood in the late 1940s-50s with an interesting strategy for drumming up business.

They’d devise an interesting yet inexpensive (i.e., clever but cheap) special effects technique, build a story around it, then pitch that story to low budget movie producers with the proviso their firm would be hired to do the special effects for the final film.

This resulted in a number of low budget sci-fi films built around the kernel of an interesting visual, and while they night not have been great examples of the cinematic art, hey certainly created a number of memorable scenes and images from little more than scotch tape and rubber bands.

Unknown World was their take on Jules Verne’s Journey To The Center Of The Earth (no dinosaurs but then again, no Pat Boone, so they came out ahead on that one); Atomic Submarine pitted the US Navy against a UFO; Kronos featured a wholly unique alien invader; and War Of The Satellites staged an epic space opera on a bargain basement budget.

All noteworthy 1950s sci-fi B-movies, but ironically it was the film where their strategy failed -- or rather, only proved 50% successful -- that stands out.

Figuring out how to make footprints appear as if by magic, Block and Rabin devised a story about a spaceship landing on a planet of invisible monsters (as they pointed out, the great thing about invisible monsters is that even the cheapest production can afford millions of ‘em).

Their agent sent the pitch around to all the usual suspects at that time in the low budget indie film universe but, learning another studio not know for low budget sci-fi wanted to hop on the band wagon, sent it there as well.

That studio bought the idea, thanked Block and Rabin for their input, but said they’d let their own B-movie unit team handle the special effects,

And that’s how MGM made Forbidden Planet.

. . .

Today Forbidden Planet is a much beloved classic of the genre, but when released it proved a bit of a disappointment.

Oh, it made money (then and now, studios refuse to fund a production unless they already know in advance they will recoup their expenses and make a profit in advance of actual production) but it didn’t do anywhere near the business they hoped.

Part of this was timing -- it came out after dozens of lesser / cheaper films crowded the market -- but part of it is paradox:  It’s just too damn good.

No bones about it, Forbidden Planet was a B-movie for MGM.

In terms of overall quality, however, any MGM B-movie is bound to look like an A-picture from any other studio, and that’s exactly what happened here:  A literate, dynamite script; solid performances; top notch production values; bursting at the seams with ideas and incidents and details.

Sci-fi fans loved it, mainstream audiences not so much.

What sci-fi fans perceived as a groundbreaking classic, mainstream audiences viewed as:  Flying saucer something something something robot blah blah blah invisible monster.

What audiences today remember when they think of Forbidden Planet is the single most iconic element of the film.

Robby the robot.

He’s what sticks.  Robby made a big enough impression to star in his own follow up feature a few years later (The Invisible Boy) as well as guest star appearances on The Twilight Zone, Lost In Space, Columbo, and scores of other movies / TV shows / personal appearances.

Pick an iconic element. Stick with it.

. . .

The trick to doing memorable sci-fi movies is keeping the key visual elements down to as few sharply defined items as possible.

Star Wars (i.e., the unnumbered original release) is even more crowded in detail than Forbidden Planet but it holds its iconic visual elements down to a crucial handful:  Masked villain in black.  Laurel & Hardy robots.  Friendly yeti.  Glow swords.  Big bad artificial planet.

Every other visual element serves those, and while they provide detail and texture, they aren’t distractions.

Seriously, jettison the plot of the original Star Wars and reconfigure it from the ground up with those elements and it still winds up pretty much the same film, just set on different worlds.

This is why later films in the series, despite bigger and bigger revenues, lack the memorable freshness and emotional clarity of the original (getting cluttered up with superfluous characters and vehicles inserted just to sell toys doesn’t help, and I post this as one of the original writers for the G.I. Joe and Transformers series).

To reiterate: If you want to make an impression, less is more.

. . .

We’re going to amble on over to a parallel path and talk about ultra-low budget / no budget / homemade / hand-crafted / DIY film making, particularly in the sci-fi arena.

I watch a fair amount of lo-to-no budget sci-fi on Amazon Prime and YouTube.  Many of these are done for pure love of the genre and the film making process, and from that POV of producers and participants just wanting to have fun, they’re modestly enjoyable.

From the POV of actual good film making and sci-fi…not so much.  (There are exceptions and we’ll get to one of those; patience, young jedi…)

The overwhelming bulk of these films -- features and shorts -- are pretty derivative.

I don’t mean “unoriginal” the way 80-90% of professionally produced media is unoriginal, I mean “derivative” as in trying specifically to re-create something someone else did first…

...and better.

And this is in addition to the plethora of Star Trek / Star Wars / Dr. Who / superhero fan films out there; those are a separate though related phenomenon.

Rather, it’s the unmpeenth Alien ripoff / the 400th E.T. variant / the latest Mad Max clone / the most current example of last decade’s biggest hits.

They’re generally not that good taken on their own, no matter how much fun the makers are having.

For me the nadir of such films are those done by film makers imitating bad movies by deliberately making a bad movie.

Don’t do that, folks. 

Please. 

Don’t squander time and talent doing substandard work.

I’m not saying don’t make the kind of film (or draw the kind of art, or write the kind of story) you want to make; I’m just saying don’t deliberately make a piss-poor job of it.

Block and Rabin may never have made a truly good movie but not because they weren’t trying!

Cheap films?  Yes. Exploitable films?  Yes.

But films meant to be as good as they could make them.

There’s an MST3K notorious bad 1950s sci-fi movie called Teenagers From Outer Space.  Tom Graef, its writer / producer / director / editor / co-star was a former film student wanting to break into the big time so he made this cheesy movie to the utmost of his ability.

And lordie, it ain’t good…

…but by gawd, he was trying.

The folks who make deliberately bad pastiches of substandard B-movies were always a sore point for Bill Warren.

“The original film makers weren’t trying to make a bad movie!” he’d rave.

So please, don’t do deliberately shoddy work and try to explain it away by calling it a “parody”.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a parody, and everybody in it is aiming for the centerfield fence, turning in A-level performances.

I know it’s fun making models and cobbling together costumes and props and sets from junk, and recruiting friends and family to have fun making a movie, and if your audience is just going to be those friends and family, fine.

But if you want to be seen and appreciated by a wider audience, have some respect for them…and your own abilities as a film maker.

. . .

All of which brings us in a roundabout fashion to The Vast Of Night, a recent ultra-low budget sci-fi film that asks the non-musical question “What would a Twilight Zone mash-up of X-Files and Close Encounters Of The Third Kind look like?”

“Pretty impressive,” is the answer.

Let’s start with the Achilles’ heel of most lo-to-no budget DIY productions:  The cast.

The Vast Of Night enjoys impeccable casting, a;; the way down to the most minor roles.

I can’t stress enough how important this is for small productions.

Actors give you more bounce for your buck than anything else on your budget.  Good actors can make mediocre material bearable, they can bring good material to full blown life.

In The Vast Of Night’s case, the two leads -- Jake Horowitz as Everett, an all night DJ in a tiny late 1950s New Mexico town, and Sierra McCormick as Fay Crocker, the local substitute late night phone operator -- play off each other with delightful on screen chemistry.

No kidding, I’d watch these two characters go grocery shopping for an hour and a half, that’s how well Horowitz and McCormick play off each other.

Next, the story.  Obviously story and screenplay come before casting, but in the final analysis an okay story is far better served by a good cast than a good story by an okay cast.

Screenwriters James Montague and Craig W. Sanger do a good job with their script for The Vast Of Night.  As noted, it’s far from original but is fleshed out with enough distinctive elements to let the cast find plenty to work with.

For aspiring film makers, the script is typically the least expensive part of the process, and if you don’t like your draft you can always chuck it out and start afresh,

Finally, it’s okay to look inexpensive but don’t look cheap.

You can get away with a stark cinema verité style if that’s what the material calls for but you need to keep a consistent style and tone throughout.

A lot of DIY films do themselves a grave disservice by spending a lot of time / energy / money on a prop / costume / special effect that calls undo attention to itself by being so much better than everything surrounding it.

Director Andrew Patterson keeps things stylish while clamping a lid on its budget; this good pre-production planning pays off with a consistency of style and tone that helps keep the audience engaged, their disbelief suspended.

The Vast Of Night is what I refer to as a “minimum basic movie” i.e., the lowest bar you should shoot for with your own film making.

It’s far from a deathless classic, but it’s a fun ride.

And speaking of fun rides…this ramble is o-v-e-r.

  © Buzz Dixon

[gem-rewatch]

SU rewatch- S1E7- Bubble Buddies

Our first Connie episode!! I was super excited to get to this one, mainly because Connie is one of my favorite characters in this show. 

Her growth as an individual throughout the seasons is so, so good- and despite becoming an integral part of Steven’s busy chaotic life she never comes across as “just the love interest” or “entire life revolves around Steven” like female characters tend to do in plenty of other shows. This show- despite being told exclusively through Steven’s POV- still respects the fact that Connie has her own life separate from him and Gem stuff, giving glimpses into her relationship with her parents, her school life, and giving her plenty of hobbies, likes, and dislikes. I really appreciate that.

Okay, so first off I wanna talk about Steven and the glow stick. So, he saw this cute girl watching the parade drop her glow bracelet, and saves it in the freezer just in case he ever sees her again right? And it was a big Beach City boardwalk parade, likely with lots of tourists there watching, so there’s no guarantee that he’d ever see her again. Even with this, he still holds out a spark of hope that he’d be able to give it back. Which, is just who Steven is- he’s a hoper and a dreamer. 

And like the world’s best miracle, there she is. Right there. Sitting on the beach close to his house, reading a book.

(As an added note, Connie ran out to on obscure corner of the beach away from the boardwalk to go read a book in peace. She probably wanted to get away from her overbearing, overprotective parents for a bit to relax.)

Oh my- oh my lord, it looks like he’s doing the Bigfoot pose. I desperately hope this was intentional.

But Steven. Steeeeven. Honey. Are you really gonna have your first line be a tacky pick-up line??

Steven: “It’s a smooth ride.” (after absolutely digging his wheels through the sand. GAWD.)

Honestly it’s probably good that Connie’s first impression of Steven was him being a complete doofus like this rather than his bad attempts at flirting like a leather studded biker.

But gawddd even on first watch it’s made explicitly clear that this is someone Steven’s seen from a distance before and wants to get to know. This poor kid just doesn’t know how to... actually do it.

Steven: “It’ll mess up my funky flow!”

He doesn’t seem to need any so-called ‘funky flow’ talking to anyone else in town- in fact, he’s about as extroverted as they come. This kid would willingly converse with almost anyone. Almost. His awkwardness about this one person drives home the reality that Steven probably thinks she’s cute and doesn’t know how to deal with that sort of crush stuff yet. Because let’s be real- with anyone else, this wouldn’t be a problem. He’d just bound up to them in all his enthusiasm as if they were already friends. 

Garnet: "We won’t watch.”

She says, as she adjusts her glasses. 

She already can sense what’s going to happen anyways, she doesn’t need to watch. XD

He’s already eaten through the cookie cats, and he grabs the same little glow stick that’s been seen in the freezer in episode one. A nice continuity detail.

(Although I do wonder how much time has passed between Gem Glow and now.)

Steven: *testing out different vocal inflections* “Hi! My name is Steven. Hi! My name is Steven...”

Having to script out introductions to ease one’s nerves about talking to someone new is literally so relatable. The story of my life. It’s reassuring to see a traditionally extraverted character do this too.

Ah yes, the protective bubble overprotective Pearl’s always dreamed of enveloping Steven in. Thank god he can now summon one himself.

Assuming nothing else happened off screen, this is the third weird gem thing Steven’s ever been able to do in his life- after summoning his shield once and attempting to shapeshift. Thank god it’s a helpful one this time. 

Connie: “What... happened?” *Steven pauses for a short moment, considering.* Steven, casually: “I’m magic!”

Now, for Steven... Beach City has been his whole life. Here, the handful of locals have lived alongside Gem weirdness for long enough that they accept it without question by this point, with a sorta “it might as well happen” attitude. Because of this, I get the sense that he’s never actually had to explain anything before.

And so, as awkward as they come, he info dumps.

Steven: “Well, half-magic. [...] I’m a member of the Crystal Gems, we fight monsters and protect humanity and stuff-”

Connie, bless her heart, just sorta shrugs and goes “okay” to all of this. But hey, there’s no reason to deny the existence of magic when it’s all around you!

All of THIS scene is gold:

Steven: “That’s Lars. We’re basically BFFs.”

Lars: *making fun of the kid by slathering his tongue against the bubble’s surface like an utter loon, who as a result actually appears less grounded than Steven at the moment*

This is not the only time Steven tries to get his point across by playing pictionary and drawing an over-complex picture that literally no one gets the meaning of. It’s an ongoing habit, apparently.

Nice cameo of Obsidian’s sword! Makes you wonder how it got all the way out here. Also, is this an actual sword that Obsidian forged in their lava mouth, or is it a fake sword made exclusively to be a part of the fusion temple (before it was crumbled a bit)?

Connie: “Now we’re going to suffocate or starve at the bottom of the ocean, and only my parents will notice, because no one else cares about me! I’m gonna disappear without ever making a single friend!”

This scene makes me genuinely hurt. Connie is so lonely that one of her biggest fears/regrets at this point is dying without anyone caring what happened to her. 

What we know about her and her parents tells me that they’re just... so sheltering that she’s had barely had time to socialize with anyone. It’s left her timid, so anxious about meeting new people that it literally took Steven knocking right into her to save her life to get her to say hello. All she wants is one good friend, someone who will stick around, someone who will remember her-

And then comes along Steven. A boy who saw her drop a glow stick, and cared enough to save it in case he ever saw her again. A boy who remembered her, who wants to know her.

...a boy who’s. Apparently getting down on one knee to ‘propose’ friendship to her. XD

Hey, whatdya know? I guess diamonds really are a girl’s best friend.

Jokes aside, this is such a sweet moment- 

Steven: “We could be friends!”

It’s exactly what Connie needed to hear, and it’s exactly what he always wanted- to get to know the girl from the boardwalk parade more.

As a final note, Steven blushes so hard when Pearl and Amethyst are gently teasing him about Connie. Honestly I think the fact that Steven has a canonical crush on Connie is about as blatant as they can make it from episode one. 

That being said, most of all he just wants to be a friend. I’m thankful I’ve never sensed any sort of “possessive, jealousy” behavior from him when it comes to Connie which automatically sets Steven Universe as a show apart from like, pretty much every other kid’s show with a crush between guy and girl best friends. (I’m lookin’ at you, Star vs. the Forces of Evil.)

They’re friends first, and he respects that- and thus I respect him.

[chasingshhadows]

alex manes y’all

(ep 7-11 meta thread)

I haven’t seen enough meta about Alex Fucking Manes so I’m just about to go off mmk.

I was flailing like, seconds into the scene where Alex confronts Liz and I didn’t really ever stop flailing because holy shit where have they been hiding Alex Manes?

I know, I know, y’all told me that he would done fuck me up but I very much thought he already had. I did not realize there was so much more to this man and that every bit of it would send me screaming in glee.

From that scene with Liz in ep7 through to the end of ep10, Alex Manes came out like a wildfire burning through a field of bullshit - no weed was left unscathed. Like he is hands down the most Actual Badass character on this show, and possibly that I have ever seen. Like, I am reeling. 

(note: I kept this focused on Alex and his thoughts and processes, and as such, concluded before Alex goes to see Michael at the end of episode 9).

also anyone that thinks Alex hasn’t been given a storyline yet is just, not watching the same show??

i saw the sign

I’ll start with that scene with Liz because it is the first real glimpse of what is going on with Alex day to day. He comes seeking out Liz on behalf of Maria. These three were best friends in high school and considering the reunion scenes we got in episodes 1 & 2, we have a pretty good idea that none of them have spoken much, if at all, for most of the last 10 years. 

But they were best friends who grew up together - there’s a lot that can change in a decade, but it didn’t change them - or at least, Alex has decided that he won’t let it. He starts hanging out at Maria’s bar - making a clear statement that he isn’t going to let things between him and Guerin keep him away, he has a right dammit no matter how many times Guerin has passed out there in the last 10 years - and trying to rebuild that friendship. 

And that’s important. That’s Alex trying to take back some of what he’s lost in the last 10 years, take back what his father stole from him. Maria’s friendship was important to him and he wants it back and he makes enough of an effort that Maria, who up to this point we had seen only being very chipper and warm and optimistic even around just Liz/Alex, opened up to him about some really dark shit going on in her life.

And here Alex is, going out and fighting for her. Not playing nice. Cutting through Liz’s excuses and making it clear exactly where she can shove them. Liz was also his best friend and this is him fighting for that, too, though in a way that is entirely unique to Liz and how she needs to be handled. 

Gawd his sass. “You know that nobody believes that excuse, right?” WOW he is not taking shit, got damn. The way he moves his eyebrows, tilts his head, the way he blinks his eyes when he makes a point - it’s all those little things that finally, finally give us a glimpse of that fiery little goth boy from high school. And I for one am so glad he’s still here.

And you see Liz is thinking the same thing - he says “Sometimes, Liz, you gotta be a human being, too” and the look she gives is all “Wow I missed you.” 

And he spends the rest of the day with his friends, giving Maria the quality time she’s been missing for a decade. He’s putting in the time and the effort to repair their friendship - you see him even putting in special time with Mama DeLuca. At multiple points Alex sits alone with her, chatting away. She was probably the only mother figure he ever knew - both his and Liz’s mom’s were MIA. He laughs through Mimi’s predictions of a puppy (ummmmm, please??) and played cornhole and used his presence as the glue that held them together. He’s trying. 

Sidenote: Alex Manes being incapable of sitting in a booth correctly is the queer representation we fucking deserve, y’all.

barely breathing

I have only actually shouted while watching this show a handful of times, and the loudest by far was in episode 8. Holy shit. Alex swings and I squealed. I woke up my cats. They weren’t happy, but I was thrilled. 

I have an addiction and it’s the way adult!Alex speaks to his father. The sarcasm. The bite. 

And before we actually talk about these scenes with his father, let’s talk about what led to them. Because by this point Alex has been home a few weeks and he’s spent all of them working on his friendships and, now we learn, investigating his father. The amount of information he’s gathered takes time. And he’s invested it, just like he did with Maria. 

Alex Manes is a patient man - when he achieves his goals, he wants to have earned them, wants to do them right. 

And here, in this scene, this is where we’re seeing 20+ years of patience paying off. This was planned, crafted, and perfectly executed. This is what happens when Alex Manes is in charge. 

Alex is smart and he’s spent 20 years learning how to manipulate from his father. And he got better at it than him. He’s lulled Jesse Manes into a false sense of security - played by the rules, followed orders, did his job as a soldier, but still let his father think him weak bc he didn’t want him to know what was coming.

The just, absolute sunshine in his voice when his father wakes up, that smile. 

This is a man that knows he holds all the cards. That knows he’s already won. He won the moment he knocked Jesse over the head - this is just the afterglow.

How many times do you think Alex ran this speech over in this head? He goes over every detail - explains clearly and concisely all the ways Jesse Manes fucked up. All the ways he failed. 

“You’re the flaw, Dad.” 

Okay we need to talk about this line because wow. Just wow. This is a boy who was beaten and mistreated since childhood because his father thought he was defective. Alex was the flaw in the family. Alex paid the price for his father’s hatred, again and again. The boy he loved paid that price. 

And Alex was patient. Alex was thorough. He was meticulous in his revenge.

What happens next is both really infuriating and really therapeutic. Because Jesse makes a valiant effort to gaslight Alex, to make him doubt what he knows, to twist reality in his head - I did this to protect you, I had an obligation to keep you safe.

And then we see the first crack in Alex’s perfectly orchestrated coolness. How dare Jesse Manes claim to have ever done anything to protect Alex. He isn’t falling for a single syllable of Jesse’s bullshit, and he throws all those lies right back at him, cuts through the insincerity, and gets to the heart of the matter, the real truth.

That’s Alex’s superpower (one of them, anyway). His ability to just shut out all pretenses and masks and say the things that need to be said. I could say here how appropriate this analogy is because Michael Guerin is definitely his kryptonite, but this isn’t about Guerin (yet).

“I want to destroy the thing that you love. And I wanna make you watch.”

Okay, I lied. This is definitely about Guerin. What Jesse did to Michael was just one of the traumatizing things that boy went through that night, but it was the capstone atop years of trauma for Alex, ending in Jesse not just ripping away, but shattering the only truly good thing Alex ever had that was all his. Liz and Maria were his but they were also each others’ - Guerin was just his and Guerin taught him that touch can be soft and gentle and intimate - and Guerin loved him. And Alex loved him back.

Jesse destroyed that and made Alex watch. 

And that’s what makes this moment so utterly satisfying. Seeing Alex finally take the control. Seeing Alex finally turn the tables on his dad after a decade of waiting for the right time and laying the groundwork and now weeks plotting. He’s earned this.

“Why are you trying to frame Michael?”

MICHAEL. HE CALLED HIM MICHAEL. Y’all why the fuck have I not seen more talk of this because it is important. 

This is Alex feeling wounded - this was the one thing he didn’t prepare for, to go on the offensive against his father going after Guerin again. He had a battle plan, he had all the cards - and then he saw Michael’s face and for the first time since he confronted his father outside the bunker, he wasn’t the one with all the control. 

But he takes it back, quickly. His father tries to gaslight him again, spin lies in his ear, manipulate him and brainwash him, but he made the mistake in his word choice (though, I would argue, that mistake or not, Alex wouldn’t have taken a single drop of his shit). 

“Do Not talk to me about unprovoked violence, do you hear me?”

Did you get chills? I got chills. This is one of the most satisfying lines of dialogue I’ve ever seen right up there with That Line from Love, Simon. Alex Manes is absolutely and entirely done with tolerating even another second of his father’s lies and abuse and he for once has the ability to shut him down, and boy, does he use it. The volume in his voice, the power - and I mean, he’s angry, but it’s not even that he’s angry, ya know? 

It’s that he is in charge now and he is not putting up with that shit. Not anymore. They’re playing by Alex’s rules now. He knows exactly what his father is really doing and he’s ending it.

The little twist and settle he does when his father stands up is a Challenge. It’s a Dare. It’s a request, even. Alex Manes is a soldier and he has been trained and been to war three times. He knows what he can do. His father, probably, also knows. Alex’s body language says “please, do something stupid so I have an excuse to put you down.” 

And Jesse Manes, while absolutely an evil man, is not a stupid one. He knows he’s lost this battle. He takes his gun and leaves.

And that look that Alex gives as he walks away? 

That’s him wondering “Why doesn’t this feel better?” 

He just accomplished the goal he’s been working toward for 20 years, and actively for at least 10. He finally got the best of Jesse Manes, got to see the look on his face when he ripped away his hateful farce of a legacy, he finally won. All those years, all that effort, all that pain has finally paid off. 

But he doesn’t feel better, not really. Not the way he expected to, or the way he wanted to. Not enough. And we could talk about how defeating your enemies is never really as satisfying as you expect, because it doesn’t erase all the pain and trauma they caused, doesn’t take back what they did. 

And I think there definitely is some of that - Jesse Manes had been stacking weights inside of Alex for 20 years. Brick by brick, layering on top of one another, until he felt so heavy with hatred that he could barely see past it. And sending Jesse away? That definitely knocked down some walls, but those bricks didn’t disappear; they’re just rubble on the ground. They’re still heavy. 

But more than all of that, I want to think, is that even though Alex won this battle, his father still got one good shot in before he fell. This look is Alex bleeding from an open wound. This is Alex knowing he now has to confront the fact that Michael Guerin was on the top of his dad’s alien watch list. 

Regardless of his father’s bigotry and hatred, aliens are real. And based on what he saw in those files, there’s some pretty solid evidence that Guerin is one of them. 

songs about texas

It’s been six weeks since Alex ran his father out of town. Six weeks of strengthening his relationships with Maria and Liz. Six weeks of poring over all of his father’s research and data, digging into the depths of his work. Six weeks of trying to find some detail which rules out the conclusion “Michael Guerin is an evil alien.” 

But he hasn’t. In fact he’s probably only found more and more information that at least puts Michael Guerin firmly in the not of this world category which makes sense when he thinks about it, the sex really was out of this - and he does not know how to handle that fact.

But he’s dealing with all of this quietly. Keeping the focus on Maria and Liz and trying to be there for them - Maria especially. 

And then Guerin walks into the bar and Maria gives him exactly the excuse he’d probably been looking for to saunter on over and - 

Alex can’t deal with this, not right now. And he’s not really sure if it’s more because of the things that he knows or because of the things that he doesn’t but he does know he can’t be here right now. Not with him, not with all the things he can’t say.

Alex isn’t blind. He knows how Guerin (still) feels about him. He sees exactly what all of us see when Guerin looks at him - and he’s already admitted what those looks do to him. They pierce through years of walls and armor right to the heart of the person he thought he’d lost that night and he aches to let Guerin be right that that Alex is still there.

But Guerin himself isn’t that same brilliant, broken boy Alex fell in love with all those years ago, at least not in the ways Alex has convinced himself matter. 

I talked about this a bit here, about the principled, honor-bound man Alex has tried to become, to spite the abomination (yes I was a sterek shipper shut up) of one that his father was. That person doesn’t let emotion (love in his case, hate in his father’s) get in the way of doing what’s right. If he lets himself be with Guerin, alien or not, he’s letting his emotions rule over principles and excusing behavior that he sees as morally wrong. 

Alex’s morals and principles are what he believes foundationally set him apart from his father. They’re what make him different than his father, what make him better. He thinks any compromise of those rigid rules will be the first step in becoming his father. (I personally believe - and feel anyone that knows him would agree - that what sets him apart from his father is not his principles, but his compassion, but this isn’t about what I believe.) 

And my partner in pain Riley discussed here, too, the reasons Alex believes he shouldn’t get to be with Guerin. He’s spent 10 years refusing to forgive himself for what happened to Guerin that night - he knew it wasn’t really his fault, it was his father’s, but still... Guerin wouldn’t have gotten hurt if not for Alex. He may blame his father for what he did, and blame his father for his own guilt, but he still blames himself for putting Guerin in his father’s warpath.

And considering the timing and the severity of what happened, and the before and after of Michael Guerin that Alex is getting to see, he fully believes that the reason Guerin stayed in Roswell, the reason he turned to drunken bar fights and crime, is because of what happened. This boy who had all the potential in the world spent 10 years wasting it and Alex thinks it’s his fault. He thinks he destroyed Guerin’s life.

So no, Alex doesn’t get to have Michael Guerin, no matter how much Guerin wants him. He doesn’t get to be happy with someone he broke. 

But he can’t let Guerin see any of that. Because Guerin is his kryptonite and one whiff of “not your fault” or “I forgive you” and Alex will crack. 

If he cracks around Guerin, he will shatter. 

So for all those reasons, Alex has to push Guerin away. Has to. Has to make him believe it’s over. It’s what Guerin’s asking for, anyway. 

So.... anyway now that i hurt myself with all of that. The next time we see Alex is when Cam pulls him over and I just really want to highlight all of the things Cam tells us because it’s pretty fucking incredible.

“You did serve two tours with the highest regarded air expeditionary group, and you were recommended for the Air Force Medal and the Air Force Cross, and that was before your injury. Something your dad should be proud of, except all three of your brothers have medals, too.” 

And we already know a couple of other things: he served one additional tour and he’s an accomplished codebreaker. That’s a lot, for one man, to pull off in 10 years. As far as we saw, he was totally focused on his music at 17, so any computer skills were honed after that fact. Honed, well enough in fact, that he’s hacked Russian and Chinese intelligence, on top of being deployed three times, twice essentially with honors. They are not messing around in making it clear just how much of an absolute bad ass Alex is, just by resume alone.

When Kyle shows up with his little recap, we learn that Alex hasn’t brought him in until now. He knew Kyle was in the know, but everything he’s been doing the last 6 weeks, he’s been doing without Kyle. Which means he’s not sure he can trust Kyle - after all, he knows how manipulative his father is. But he brings him in now bc he needs a doctor and what little he’s seen of Kyle since he got back leads him to believe that Kyle has enough morals to give a shit that people are dying.

And Alex has already decided to disbelieve anything his father has said about these “evil” aliens - because believing that means believing that everything he shared with Guerin 10 years ago (and even two months ago) was a lie. And he refuses to let his dad take that away, too. 

And then Kyle says “angry cowboy” and hooooo, boy, if looks could kill. He doesn’t deny it, doesn’t argue, but he does convey in the most visceral sense “Don’t.” 

But Kyle does anyway and when he insinuates that Alex’s motives could be anything but pure, anything but principled and right, he shuts that right down. 

“I didn’t ask for this legacy. Did you?”

And that’s what it is for Alex, right to the core. The family legacy, the one his father was always shoving down his throat while simultaneously telling him he wasn’t good enough for it, is something he never asked for. He doesn’t want this, but he is a man of responsibility and whatever shit show his father was running is his responsibility to fix. Whether he wants to or not. 

People are dying and unlike Guerin, that is not a gray area. His father was an evil bigot who was most certainly using this project for selfish reasons, but that doesn’t change that there have been over a dozen, alien-involved murders. 

And Alex is going to do something his father couldn’t do in 10 years - he’s going to solve those murders. He’s in charge now. 

*deep breaths*

Because Kyle extends an olive branch - this is a lot, let’s grab a drink. And Alex cuts him off, gets right to the truth. It’s his superpower, remember?

“My father listed Guerin and his friends as threats.”

So before I go on, I want to point out one detail here - Alex is the only person in this entire town for whom the three of them are “Guerin and his friends.” He’s the only one that centers Guerin - Max is the deputy and Isobel is the socialite, but to Alex, Guerin is the one that matters. (this is one of those - we all knew that, but it’s nice to hear it anyway things). 

Anyway. “I didn’t want to believe it.” This is significant. Because here is a man who has become a mathematical and computer genius in the last 10 years. He is all strategy and fact. But he’s admitting that this, Guerin’s danger, and involvement in all of this, is something he didn’t want to believe. 

But there have been fourteen murders. And then Alex does this:

He looks so lost. We’ve never seen Alex Manes look like that. Not when facing down his father as a teenager, not when trying to explain what he wants to Guerin, not when Mama DeLuca blipped out of touch. We’ve seen him scared, we’ve seen him angry, we’ve seen him vulnerable, but we have never seen him look so utterly disoriented. He is completely without direction - any path he chooses, someone gets hurt, and on all of them, at least one of those people is either him or the man he loves - and on most of them, both.

In his pursuit to “destroy this thing his father loved,” he’s placed himself in a position where he’ll now have to do the same thing to himself. Again. 

He thought he destroyed Guerin’s life once before, and he’s lived with that guilt, hoping that if they could just stay away from each other, they could both move on. But now? Now he’s being tasked with not only destroying Guerin’s life again - from which there would be no hope of recovery this time - but also the lives of the only two people Guerin cares about. He’s being asked to do the impossible.

And then Kyle suggests talking to him and somehow? That seems even more impossible. 

"I can’t go in there blind.” 

Guerin is Alex’s one weakness, his kryptonite. Guerin looks at him with those eyes and says those things and whenever Alex is around him, he’s teetering on the edge of a cliff, never entirely sure he wants to stay on solid ground, no matter how devastating that fall would be. 

And for the first time since he handed Michael Guerin his brother’s guitar and Michael spilled out this naked truth that exhibited just how broken he truly was, Alex isn’t sure he can trust Guerin. 

Because that’s never been the issue right? Since he came back into town, his reservations are entirely his own - there’s too much history, too much trauma, he can’t respect or support Guerin’s lifestyle. But if he caved, if he let Michael in, there was never any real risk, other than to his own self-perception. He doesn’t have any real defenses against Guerin, but he never truly needed them.

Until this moment, until the reality and weight of 14 murders settled on his lap.

And now the idea of walking in there defenseless? It scares him shitless. And not because he thinks Guerin will hurt him.

He’s worried Guerin will confess and Alex won’t be able to do what needs to be done.

He’s worried Guerin will give him those eyes and say those things and Alex will be rendered just as helplessly in love as he always has been.

So this is the Alex that shows up at the junkyard. This Alex that has finally confronted for himself exactly how incapable of being rational he is when it comes to Michael Guerin. 

This Alex has finally realized that all those things he’s feeling for Guerin, all the things he wants - they’re not in the past. They’re not a relic from high school or the ignorant desires of a teenage boy. They are real, and they are profound, and they are now. They are not something he’s going to be able to walk away from, not anymore.

So he shows up at that junkyard ready to face them. He’s not sure if he’s going to have to fight for them or against them, but he’s ready to fight whichever it ends up being.

*breathes in*

In conclusion, Alex Manes is a beautiful cinnamon roll, too good, too pure y’all. Alex Fucking Manes.

[lunawings]

King of Prism SSS episode 7 commentary (Leo)

So this episode is the opener for what I know as the theatrical “Part 3″ ... and boy what an opener.... By the time it was over I was like “T-That was only the first one... BUT IVE ALREADY FELT SO MANY THINGS..” 

Having this as the first episode of the three has been pretty difficult because it’s just such a rollercoaster. I’ve actually been hesitant to see go Part 3 more just because I know I have to get through this episode right off the bat. And not because I think it’s a bad episode OH NO ITS JUST... SO MANY... FEELINGS.......... 

I got to go to the midnight showing for Part 3, and I honestly think that has an unfairly high influence on how I feel about the episodes. Part 1 and Part 3 I saw at the midnight showing and I loved them. Part 2 and Part 4 I saw at 8 am when I was exhausted and miserable and I ended up thinking Part 2 was weaker than the others, and Part 4....................... uhhuhh we’ll get to that later, anyway--

So when I translated the original story about Over the Rainbow crossdressing for Miss Kakyoin, I honestly did it just for that two second reference in episode 3. I had no idea this was also going to happen. So when the first second of Part 3 opened on the theater screen with this I was like OH. MY. GAWD. YES. YESSSSSSSSSSSS. I’m gonna cry already. (Little did I know what was coming up later in this episode....)

Also this was the point where I began to realize some of these episode are taking place in the past/out of order. Because SSS starts off in the summer, but the Kakyoin Fest usually takes place in May. So either this is a Rainbow Live retcon, or this episode is taking place in May. (But I suppose there’s no particular big reason that can’t be possible. Well one small one maybe...) 

So this is Rinne’s first appearance in SSS, right? (Outside of her silhouette in the OP.)

So... I don’t really think it’s a spoiler to tell you she will appear again, under.... vErY DiFfeRent CircumStanCes........ 

And I just wonder if like, when we get to that moment, someone who is watching only SSS who has never seen Rainbow Live or Pride the Hero is gonna be like “Oh that’s the girl from the beauty contest.... wait..... WAIT WHAT IS HAPPENING.... “ 

Oh lord. 

Anyway. 

This scene is a whole lot of fun in cheering because we all have our green out and are cheering to Freedom, then it... stops.... then it starts again ahahah.... 

I love Taiga in the background here. It’s clearly intentional. 

I wonder if he actually believes what Kazuki says here or not. But you know what. I don’t think it matters because I think this scene has about zero influence on how he reacts next. I mean, if Taiga actually realizes Kazuki’s just doing this to save face, well then.... hell yeah he’d want to help defend Kazuki-senpai’s honor! And if he believes him and thinks crossdressing and winning a beauty contest is an honor for Edel Rose.... hell yeah he’d want to follow in Kazuki-senpai’s footsteps ahah ha.......... yeah see it literally doesn’t matter........... For Kazuki-senpai!!!

Yeah see this is definitely post-episode 3 Taiga. He definitely changed in that episode after becoming honest about his feelings for Kazuki. So this is the only stupid little thing that makes me question when this episode is taking place since the Nebuta Festival is in August ahahah ha.... (Well maybe he realized long ago.)

Wait woah woah what’s going on here with the subtitle. I thought I saw someone else’s screenshot of this and it was an upside down “A”? Is it just my computer? Is it really like this?

BTW I actually never had any idea what they were saying here before, neither did I pick up that it was probably a reference to μ's because in the theater you just cannot see anything on that newspaper because it’s on screen for like half a second.

If I had, maybe I would have realized that..... 

......Both Kakeru and Shin’s outfits seem to be a reference to the original Love Live! I had a little subconscious inkling in the back of my mind that I knew where Kakeru’s outfit was from and it probably wasn’t Pretty Series. But Shin..... Shin..... for the longest time I kept trying to think what coord this was. Because it does look like it could easily be a PriPara coord, doesn’t it? But after other folks started pointing it out, yeah it does look like they were trying to rip on the “Bokura wa Ima no Naka de” outfits goddamn it hahaha.... Well, it makes sense because there are people who worked on both Love Live! and Rainbow Live. 

But yeah I swear if they had only made the skirt plaid I would have gotten it. The plaid skirts are such a big point of that outfit for me. 

But still anyway, if anybody can think of a Pretty Series coord which is similar to this (or can make one on the 3DS).... um.... hit me up................ now..........

OH COME ON MINATO you can do so much better than this.... For Miss Schwartz you actually found a look that worked for you.... 

I mean sure he looks like someone’s mom but isn’t he. 

The moment when I was like “Welp, maybe Taiga’s straight after all.” Such a mystery, this kid. 

MINATO AND YU OMG

This moment goes by so fast I literally missed it my first two showings but OMG it’s my favorite joke in this episode and one of my favorite visual jokes overall I crack up uncontrollably every single time. Ahhhhhh you poor boys....  

Welp someone hasn’t watched PriPara but I think we already knew that from Kakeru’s “Glowstick Cage”. Still, I really think you’d be able to figure out this is clearly a catch phrase but WHATEVS

I think my reaction echoes most of the community’s reaction as being “are they gonna say the thing--THEY SAID THE THING” 

As much as I want to feel bad that Leo feels like he has to do this, it’s just too funny. And not to mention adorable. 

How “masculine” Leo somehow ends up being EVEN CUTER than natural Leo, I will never be able to explain but OH LORD HE IS. (I guess just, the more he tries to fight it the stronger it is....)

He’s not lying. 

................ no..... noooooo.......... *buries face in hands*

So. Okay. Okayokay. Sorry we gotta pause here oh boy. 

Ever since the Pride the Hero era, Tsurugi was always my favorite member of The Shuffle. Especially since I realized that even though we could see him failing the training machine in the first movie, he still made the group. It was my headcanon that it was because Kokoro, Mondo, and Mitsuba helped him rise up and overcome his challenges until he finally made it. I saw him as the Otoha of the group. A sweet lovely boy who somehow got mixed up in all the corruption of Schwartz Rose AND SOMEHOW he survived. 

And then this happened. 

His feminine personality. It was all an act. IT WAS A LIE. Just created to add the right appeal to The Shuffle. AND I FELL FOR IT. 

...............

I guess Joji isn’t the only liar in Schwartz Rose. I guess, Schwartz Rose just naturally attracts that kind of people huh. 

Well, from this moment on Tsurugi was not my favorite anymore. 

For the record, my favorite member of The Shuffle nowadays is Ace. And probably subconsciously has been since episode 5? But I actually didn’t come to realize that for.... a few more episodes...... So we’ll talk about it then.

Right now we have to talk about.... wait... wait no no no no no no no

You ever have one of those moments when time just kinda stops and everything just kinda... spins around you........... that was this moment for me at the midnight showing....................

Sorry I have to interrupt again to mention this. They revealed here Leo’s dad supposedly designed all these characters.

Well OK, but the thing is in this universe supposedly PairChams and stuff are actually real. 

So how can they be designed by Leo’s dad?

Welp, my theory on this is Leo’s dad either was a prism star, or just has a lot of prism sparkle in him, and he secretly just draws exactly what he sees. 

I think the phrasing is a little weird here. It’s more like Leo didn’t even particularly realize he was a boy. (Or what his gender was at all.)

(Yes they are wearing mini-Fortune Party CRs.)

(Yes this is also our Young of Prism reference.)

.......I really like this episode but...... this part is just so hard for me..... it’s just...... a bit too real............. but I applaud them for it the same time but.... it’s just.... it’s hard.............

People take out yellow and cheer for Otoha here, but at first I was just so distraught after the proceeding scenes it took me until maybe my 4th or 5th cheering show to actually join them.... just trying to get the energy and to come out of it and like oh it’s Otoha.... oh where are my concert lights.... oh where is yellow..... oh it’s over...... ................. (ahh it’s just.... so sad........)

Okay so now that we’ve gotten this far, I can finish my train of thought about the order that the boys joined Edel Rose.

I think it’s safe to assume Yukinojo was probably first. His episode revealed that he liked prism shows since he was really little, so he probably entered his first year of junior high? I think Kakeru was already in junior high when he found out about prism shows so he probably transferred in anywhere from 2012 - 2014.

Yu and Minato I think probably joined at the same time in April 2015. Because when we meet them in the first movie they are both 1st years (in junior high and senior high respectively) and we know from Minato’s episode he was never in the junior high division. 

Then Leo joined sometime not too long after that, and finally Shin.

Taiga is the only mystery, because his flashback only features Kazuki and there is nothing to particularly date it. In my head I’m gonna throw him in there after Kakeru but before Minato/Yu though. 

......Anyway.

Leo’s reactions as he meets each of the boys, and vice versa, are just... SO INTERESTING to me and reveal so much about him and the other characters. So I’m sorry but. We’re basically gonna take this frame-by-frame....

Oh gosh oh no oh to think that because of his experiences in life, Leo is just so conditioned to the point where this is the first thing he says directly to any of his new friends I just I.... *chair squeak* excuse me I need a moment.

*walks out of the room*

*comes back after several minutes*

Oho gosh okay okay sorry where were we

AND HIS FACE when he realizes Kakeru called him cute and clearly meant it as a compliment I just I *chair squeak* I may need another minute we’re like ten seconds into this scene and it’s already just--

OHHHH MANNNNNN

I’m pretty sure Leo’s extreme reaction here isn’t because he’s upset at not being called cute. It’s because, once again, Leo is just so conditioned because of everything he’s been through. He took one look at Taiga and probably saw him as the exact archetype of a person who usually bullies him. 

But he was wrong. 

Taiga, the actual purehearted softie that he is, had absolutely no idea his words would have such an effect on Leo. And once he realizes, he PANICS, and says absolutely anything he has to in order to fix it as fast as possible.

TAIGA

I LOVE YOU SO MUCH 

I’d also like to note what makes this scene even funnier is that Taiga is using a Tohoku slang word for “cute”. (This is a younger Taiga who hasn’t quite lost his northern dialect yet. Also sort of a northerners bonding moment for the two of them maybe?) 

So Taiga being attracted to Leo is a thing I guess. But.... but does it really count as being gay with Leo, like I mean.....?

Well.... Taiga being asexual is probably ruled out at least.

Anyway.

Out of all of them, Leo’s encounter Minato might just be my favorite.

First, Minato reaches out his hand intending to shake Leo’s. 

But Leo, probably being just.... so desperate for human contact at his point, sees this and actually reaches up and grabs Minato’s hand with both his hands instead. 

If you remember, Leo being too touchy-feely with other boys was one of the reasons he was bullied. Probably moments exactly like this.

But Minato....

He doesn’t flinch. His expression never changes. Instead he’s just like, oh you remind me of my sister. Like it’s the most normal thing in the world. 

And he probably thinks that’s kinda nice that it will be like having his beloved sister around. 

shfsfshl;dsaSDJGSOGSAG+J

Yu doesn’t care who Leo is as long as he thinks he’s cool. 

Sounds about right. 

Gonna say the obvious here but YUKINOJO WHAT ARE YOU DOING 

How he just immediately powers down and goes into kabuki practice mode when nothing has been happening for 30 seconds..... 

I have things to say about this encounter too but we’ll get to it later. 

My favorite comedic line in the episode. 

Yukinojo is somewhat oblivious about gender norms himself eheh. 

I love the juxtaposition of this line with this scene. It’s not a coincidence surely. 

Leo kind of just made a fool of himself here, but the other boys had almost no reaction. They were all just kinda like “huh”, and instead of “this Leo kid is a weirdo” it’s “Yukinojo what did you do” hahahah. That, is acceptance. That is Leo finally finding a place where he can belong.......... Until.....

Oh boy I’m sorry we gotta go on another tangent here. A dark one. 

Throughout SSS it’s pretty clear that Shin’s arrival had a big impact on everyone, but it probably had the biggest impact on Leo.

Edel Rose was the first place in his adolescence where he was able to find acceptance. 

And I think it’s safe to say, that without Shin to bring everyone together, Edel Rose probably would not have survived.

And if that happened.....

Leo would have nowhere to go. 

I really shudder to think about what might have happened.

And I don’t think it’s a huge exaggeration to think that Shin joining Edel Rose... may have actually saved Leo’s life. 

So when you really stand by and take all of this into perspective. 

All of a sudden how attached Leo is to Shin. His over-protectiveness, his jealousy. It.... it starts to make a lot more sense. 

So from this moment on I decided I won’t fault him for it anymore. I can understand.

Oh gosh okay I know it’s hard to come out of that with this, but....

Y.. yay Christmas Party! This is going to come up again in SSS, but since people are going to be talking about it now I’ll talk about it now. 

The Christmas Party is an event which happened in detail on the Prism Rush Main Story and was the first time the boys all performed together as a group and debuted Dramatic Love. 

And yes, at the same time it is also an analog to the real live Music Ready Sparking concert, which was the first time the voice actors all performed  together in real life. Those are the outfits they wore in the real concert, and the same pose they used for promotional materials.

They actually re-drew it for the anime in the performance outfits instead of the concert T-shirts. 

(The outfits aren’t a secret anymore, and no need to sell T-shirts ahah....) 

WHAT. THEY FIXED IT. Okay I SWEAR in the theatrical version of this there is a continuity error here where Leo has his pigtails in this back shot, but his hair is down from the front. I paused here to take a screenshot so I could mention it then I was like wait whaaaaaaaaa. This is the only time I have noticed a blatant change between the theatrical version and the TV version. (Other than the new endings.) It makes me wonder if there’s anything else I missed. 

PFFT. 

I guess “yes” isn’t the worst translation, and who am I to talk since I don’t translate “IIZE” at all. But it drains the flavor out of it whenever I try. 

If you’re not aware, “IIZE” was the scoring system in the boys’ PriPara from Idol Time, DanPri. The joke is that it’s like a masculine version of “iine” which was the scoring system in the regular girls PriPara, and still is in PriChan. Probably the most literal translation of “iine” is “likes” since that’s what they call the like button on Facebook/Twitter. But yeah it’s a bit of a journey to understand this I suppose.

Iize = burly likes 

? ? ?

He’s just.... he’s just so weird........... Tsurugi why...............

(Yes, Mirei hair and Bunny Magician coord from Prism Tours. Sorry I’m skipping over pointing out some of the PriPara references on purpose since this post is just so long as is.)

PFFFFFFT okay okay. Okay. OKAY. Okay. 

I know this is probably just in here for a throwaway joke but OHHHH lord.

We saw Alec compete in a beauty contest on Prism Rush before in the Street Beauty No. 1 event, but not on purpose as Louis basically tricked him that time. To think he’d come this close to doing it on purpose, and in his Mom’s clothes?...... ohhhhhhhh wow

If this really almost happened, then I guess Alexander’s riding the same train as post-episode 3 Taiga nowadays isn’t he ahah. 

And finally we get to the prism show. But oh gosh, I have to say I do not like his initial outfit. First of all it’s supposed to be a boys’ outfit but it’s.... not.... I guess they were trying to go for a Peter Pan thing or something, but it just registers strongly in my head that Peter Pan is usually played by a woman and like. I just wish they would have made this outfit a bit more masculine to highlight the change that’s gonna happen. The least they could do is take off the earrings. 

Not to mention form-fitting stuff does not work for Leo. It highlights how small and child-like his body is, and they even do a butt shot and just NO no please no why. STOP. Okay, my only criticism against this episode is that. Had to say it. 

When you need a character to clarify this you’re doing it wrong. 

But anyway, moving on. 

This. 

When we got to this moment, I just.... I felt.... such a great vicarious weight lifted off my shoulders. It just felt so good to finally, finally see this. It’s been a long time coming. 

Okay, let’s go back. Way back. 

During the first movie, when we first met Leo. In the bath scene he introduced himself using “boku” (a male pronoun). He was presented as wanting to be more boyish, and Yukinojo’s little protege. And I said OK, and I accepted this for face value. For a while. 

But then about a year passed, and this CD came out. 

And I went woah. This was the first point when I began to realize things might not be quite as they seemed. Leo is just straight out wearing girls’ clothing here. As oblivious as he is, nobody can be quite that oblivious. 

So the whole theme of their duo song is mutual respect, and it clearly introduced for the first time the irony of Yukinojo and Leo’s relationship in that although Leo looks up to Yukinojo, in truth Yukinojo wishes he could be more like Leo because Leo is the feminine ideal he’s striving for as a kabuki actor who does female rolls. 

Well okay, but the thing is. 

Leo supposedly wants to be more masculine, but... but....

When he first meets Yukinojo, that’s not the reason he attaches himself to him. 

Leo picks the most feminine member of the group to model his ideal after. Not someone rough like Taiga, or built like Minato. He picks Yukinojo. Yukinojo. 

And that’s when you start to realize.... Nothing Leo has said has ever matched up with what his actual actions are. 

Sure, he talks a lot.... but....

What has he actually done to try and become more masculine since King of Prism started? 

Even when he purposely sets out to dress masculine in stories on Prism Rush (like in his initial PR story for one), he always ends up picking out feminine clothes somehow. 

Although he once introduced himself using “boku” to Shin, it’s pretty much exclusively become “watashi” over time hasn’t it?

His Pride the Hero subplot was enjoying his (arguably) feminine hobby of clothing design. No masculine quest subplot there. 

And we even got to the point where SSS opened with him wearing a frilly pink shirt in one episode and pigtails in the next. 

The more time Leo spends at Edel Rose, a place where he is accepted, the more he slowly opens up and starts acting like himself again. 

So if you’re thinking this came from nowhere, you haven’t been paying attention. 

Still, I was really worrying about what was really going on inside him a lot before this episode came up. And then. Finally. FINALLY. 

This episode should be seen by not just King of Prism fans. Not just Pretty Series fans. This episode should be seen by everyone. 

GAHHHH I’M JUST.... SO HAPPY.............. 

I LOVE YOU TOO

I think just looking at these screenshots and taking it all in is making me tear up more than in the theater. 

Okay so. When I saw Leo’s coord for the first time, my immediate thought was Laala’s first PR....

If you think maybe something else is a better fit though let me know. 

So I actually think this score for Leo is fair. He only did two non-connecting jumps, and as this episode revealed he is the least experienced member of Edel Rose. (...Like I said before Shin... Shin is a special case........) I really like how their shows are actually accurate to what their skill level would reasonably be. 

But it also just makes Minato’s higher score more of a mystery. 

I love, love how this contest has progressed from year to year. Rinne -> Kazuki -> Leo -> ??? 

It may take us until we get to the next generation to get another winner, but someday I hope we see one.... 

YES this is obviously PriPara ahah but in canon it might be “Prism Land”? Ahah.

Okay, the end! 

The post is over!

The end!

Why are you looking at me like that?

It’s over!

Thanks for reading!

.............

.....................

Okay. Since you’ve somehow stuck with me THIS FAR, I’m going to talk a little more about how this episode effected me personally and why it’s important to me. 

The depiction of bullying was just so frighteningly accurate, and I feel like other people who have been through something similar would probably agree.

5th grade really is the year. 

It’s right around that time when gender rolls really seem to solidify. All of a sudden lines are drawn. The girls become more girlish and the boys become more boyish. 

It was around that time that I also noticed, that I didn’t like the same things that other girls my age liked. Other people noticed too. 

My gender issues weren’t as profound as Leo’s, but I just wasn’t interested in things like clothes or boys yet. I still wanted to watch cartoons and play in the dirt and stuff.

Going into middle school, I also tried to pretend. But it didn’t work. 

And I didn’t have any friends for a long time. 

But then something happened to change that. I got more involved in music. Specifically marching band. Music and performing brought me together with a rag-tag group of people from different grades who didn’t know my past, all working together to put together a performance. That sort of activity (music, sports, etc.) builds bonds between people that surpass normal friendship. And eventually, through those sort of bonds, I found myself around people who accepted me even though I was a bit different. Gradually, I learned it was okay to be myself. 

So just watching Leo make friends though prism shows.... just oh my god.... that’s me. 

I kinda joked about Leo being my self insert character in King of Prism before, but man. Watching this episode. It just got so... SO much more real.

*deep breath* 

*exhale*

Wow. Okay.  

[satchaccuss]

SWJFO sure FEELS short at least.

This, like much of everything else I spew, is a rant. Sry.

Oh and there will be spoilers ahead for the game, so: sry.

Finished Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order yesterday (2019-12-01) and am now in the regular post-playthrough depression that always hits when finishing a game with no replay-value. Ooooh! Yeah I know some are gonna be mad at that, but it’s MY truth! The fact that the game doesn’t even have a new game or new game plus mode really drags. I bought it 2019-11-18, but because I was busy it wasn’t fully downloaded until 2019-11-22 and then I didn’t start playing until the next day and let’s say I then played maybe 3 hrs per day, let’s say everyday...then the game is around the 25 hrs mark, however: did I feel like it was time well spent? No. Did I feel satisfied with the ending? No.

Did I want to keep playing? For no reason? F*ck No! I mean I already got every secret and collectible before the final mission, so there is literally no reason to keep playing! This is the reason why dark souls has new game and new game plus modes, there is nothing to explore and do if you have already done it all! But if you get to play the game again, while keeping all outfits and weapons: you get some damn fine looking shots of your character looking awesome during boring-ass scenes you’ve already seen before! Honestly, the story was kind of meh in the end and the outfits were too few and the ponchos didn’t make any sense and the fact you don’t get to customize the colour of “you know what” until basically the end of the game just sucked all in all! Why wouldn’t you implement a “new game” mode in a game like this?! (I’m pretty sure the first one is just called “new game” and then the one after that is called “new game plus”, I think that was how dark souls did it at least, I can’t speak for the other games in the series tho it could have changed).

Seeing Cal wearing the outfit I chose and using the lightsaber I customized throughout the entire games cutscenes would be a much needed alleviation of a moderately boring story honestly... (But why can’t I change Cere’s saber piece on the other side?! I had to pick her piece for the other side too to make it look cohesive, and I didn’t like that, I didn’t want that, but it looks dumb otherwise!)

Yeah yeah, it isn’t as short as a usual indie-title, but it isn’t a Fallout game for sure, I mean I am still playing Fallout 4 every now and then because of all the shit you can do and all the different perks that can change your playstyle too... and because you can customize your character to look how you want and say kind of what you want and have it kind of matter and... *sigh*. 

Why is this Star Wars game so good but so bad at the same time?

I liked that you could change the buttons... I didn’t like that you couldn’t re-bind all things to new buttons. I mean having the shoulder button be block/parry only works in dark souls where the shield actually felt like it was there and oh it’s hard to explain, but it didn’t work for me in this game, so I re-bound it to the B-button and made dodge the Y-button. However, I didn’t know that the game f*cked itself and took away the “drop ledge”-button as well when I changed B. Luckily I, through my massive brain’s incredible problem-solving skills, managed to figure out I could manually re-bind the drop-button to my dodge-button (Y). I did google it first tho and got no useful information: instead I got a f*ck-ton of same-y sounding whining about pc-keybindings, which, for a console-user like myself: is f*cking useless! Apparently not a single other soul had had my issue! In the end, like I said, I figured it out, but still: The fact that the game didn’t warn me that I had consequently un-bound another command as well when changing the dodge-button was really shitty. Oh well. ...the game making X and B (because of my changed buttons no doubt, but still), the way to do double saber attacks was f*cking hilariously dumb tho and the fact that I couldn’t change that attack to other buttons really irked me let me tell you! I had to release the camera and steer sticks both during the fight that the game wants you to do it to push both X and B at the same time to perform the stupid attack! I literally could never do it again after because it was a hassle to let go of the left stick to awkwardly hold the controller somehow and push X and B down at the same time, my word! A useless attack since I could never do it smoothly. Not really the games fault, but still. Anyway...

...why was Cal a ginger?! You can’t have a ginger wear a red or pink outfit! It clashes! Couldn’t they at least have made his hair more of a brow-ish shade to ensure it would go with most colour-schemes. Ginger doesn’t go with red or orange because it is red-ish or orange! Then again: colour-wise most of the ponchos didn’t work with the under-outfits either so, gah! Who designed the cosmetics in this game!? It never quite looked right to me. 

...why was Anakin in it? I fail to imagine Anakin letting the empire murder children for no reason, yeah yeah: he murdered the kids in the temple that one time, but... he came back to his senses to rescue his son in the end tho right, so... Yeah ok, maybe not, but... I just don’t understand how torturing the kids make them inquisitors either, wouldn’t they just kill themselves right when they had the chance instead of actually doing the empires bidding after all they’d been through because of it? If Trilla was so angry at Cere for letting her get captured at all by giving up her potential location, why did she join and why did she stay? She could’ve killed her at practically any point, but didn’t and then she ended up dying in the end while kind of maybe kind of “forgiving” Cere anyway... I am confused as to how murdering force-users and kidnapping them and torturing them is even a viable plan at all, but then again I ain’t evil so... Sure sure, less potential jedi and all, but if one can turn to “the dark side” at any point then you can get off of it too at any point can’t ya? and if the kid was tortured to join you and stay, wouldn’t they be more likely to just f*ck off your “dark side”-shenanigans the moment you are out of earshot? Yeah, they make it sound hard, but I have no idea how this shit is supposed to work in the first place so what the heck do I know! Why is the “dark side” a thing in the first place? I thought the force was an all powerful omnipresent-kind-of-thing that moves through everyone and everything, why/how does it have a “dark side” if it is everywhere at all times? Technically, wouldn’t the ppl NOT force-sensitive and the ppl NOT using the force be the ones on the “dark side” of the force? They are the ones that don’t affiliate with it and can’t “feel” it after all... Technically the ppl on the “dark side” aren’t actually on a “side” of anything, they are just happening to use the force for evil. I can perhaps understand why the idiots in charge want something to blame, like our religious ppl inventing the devil, but the ppl that actually feel the force would know that there’s no such thing as a “dark side” of the force, right? And yet everyone, even Luke in that second new movie was all like “Oh my gawd Ray, you went immediately to the dark side, whine whine whine!” But the whole thing with you Luke was that you embraced balance, right? I mean you were all: green lightsaber but all black outfit and was so badass when ya rescued Han! It wasn’t Anakin that brought balance to the force like the prophecy Obi had had said: it was his son that managed it, right? Or was that retconned? ...anyway.

I feel like swjfo was so short and for the amount I paid for it, it sure as shit doesn’t feel worth it in the end. I mean, I was so shocked when I started up the game and was gonna load my save and saw that we were 54% or something through the game and the main story had barely picked up any pace!

This definitely felt more like a prequel to another, better, more story-rich and exploratory game. 

I hope that they are making the next installment where we as Cal explore balancing the force and get to use force-lightning! (I was so disappointed you never got to learn that in this game, it would have been cool... if the game was longer and there was more to do and more things to fight and such!) The fact that Merrin joined so late in the story was dumb, but a hope that they will make the next installment where we together with her and the other crew get a bigger cooler ship and get to explore the world to get rid of the empire together and learn about the force and such too together and maybe romance her or something too I guess, but a male option for the rest of us that don’t want to see that straight shit would be nice too of course. But if their story progresses nicely and their chemistry grows naturally, I wouldn’t necessarily mind in the end if they go steady with each other. 

Seriously tho, a warning from the game that there would be no more perks to be unlocked when I’d unlocked all of them would’ve been nice! At least an option to sink the extra points you could still get into health or force-meter or lightsaber attack strength, (kind of like in Asscreed Ori where ya could add points into increased arrow-damage or melee-damage of a small percentage indefinitely almost. I was literally expecting that to be the case with this game but nope!). Anyway, the second game should focus on us and the crew expanding our operation of defeating the empire by: gathering allies and tools and experience too I suppose and it should also focus on Cal beginning to research mastering all aspects of the force, maybe together with Merrin. Merrin herself should learn about the world and also learn it really wasn’t the jedi that were the cause of her loss and pain and grow as a person and grow closer to the og crew too. Not sure how to end that game tho.

The third and last installment should be one where we actually get to eradicate the empire and actually rebuild the world and potentially the order too. One where we get to actually find balance and get to use a red lightsaber and use force-lightning too without being evil! (That might be more of an end-game goal for the second game tho: Cal masters some of the many aspects of the force and gets to use force-lightning, but not enough to satisfy us maybe, so there’ll be a reason to play the third one or something lol). So: use a red lighsaber and more cool force powers including force-lightning and “master the force”, all the while also working to finish eradicate the empire. Maybe some world-building choices where we decide if or how the new jedi order should be and we become a council member and do council business and such. It could end with the entire world open too us, with little quests of minor significance but it’s something to do scattered around the planets and places on the planets, we get to “build bridges” with the ppl were are to protect as part of the new jedi order and heck, let me decide what should happen and then you just make the game for me yeah Respawn?

...anyway, final thoughts:

I am done with the game and have no reason to keep playing it. This makes me kind of sad, but in the end: the story was unsatisfyingly short and uninteresting and the ending left much to be desired. But! There is very minimal hope (knowing EA) that there will be more to come. Let us hope.

End of rant.