#high quality five minute edit

[roboyfriend]

diversity win! this gundam is bisexual! (photo source)

[cup-of-starlight-waters]

Okay, let me tell you a story:

Once upon a time, there was a prose translation of the Pearl Poet’s Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. It was wonderfully charming and lyrical and perfect for use in a high school, and so a clever English teacher (as one did in the 70s) made a scan of the book for her students, saved it as a pdf, and printed copies off for her students every year. In true teacher tradition, she shared the file with her colleagues, and so for many years the students of the high school all studied Sir Gawain and the Green Knight from the same (very badly scanned) version of this wonderful prose translation.

In time, a new teacher became head of the English Department, and while he agreed that the prose translation was very wonderful he felt that the quality of the scan was much less so. Also in true teacher tradition, he then spent hours typing up the scan into a word processor, with a few typos here and there and a few places where he was genuinely just guessing wildly at what the scan actually said. This completed word document was much cleaner and easier for the students to read, and so of course he shared it with his colleagues, including his very new wide-eyed faculty member who was teaching British Literature for the first time (this was me).

As teachers sometimes do, he moved on for greener (ie, better paying) pastures, leaving behind the word document, but not the original pdf scan. This of course meant that as I was attempting to verify whether a weird word was a typo or a genuine artifact of the original translation, I had no other version to compare it to. Being a good card-holding gen zillenial I of course turned to google, making good use of the super secret plagiarism-checking teacher technique “Quotation Marks”, with an astonishing result:

By which I mean literally one result.

For my purposes, this was precisely what I needed: a very clean and crisp scan that allowed me to make corrections to my typed edition: a happily ever after, amen.

But beware, for deep within my soul a terrible Monster was stirring. Bane of procrastinators everywhere, my Curiosity had found a likely looking rabbit hole. See, this wonderfully clear and crisp scan was lacking in two rather important pieces of identifying information: the title of the book from which the scan was taken, and the name of the translator. The only identifying features were the section title “Precursors” (and no, that is not the title of the book, believe me I looked) and this little leaf-like motif by the page numbers:

(Remember the leaf. This will be important later.)

We shall not dwell at length on the hours of internet research that ensued—how the sun slowly dipped behind the horizon, grading abandoned in shadows half-lit by the the blue glow of the computer screen—how google search after search racked up, until an email warning of “unusual activity on your account” flashed into momentary existence before being consigned immediately and with some prejudice to the digital void—how one third of the way through a “comprehensive but not exhaustive” list of Sir Gawain translators despair crept in until I was left in utter darkness, screen black and eyes staring dully at the wall.

Above all, let us not admit to the fact that such an afternoon occurred not once, not twice, but three times.

Suffice to say, many hours had been spent in fruitless pursuit before a new thought crept in: if this book was so mysterious, so obscure as to defeat the modern search engine, perhaps the answer lay not in the technologies of today, but the wisdom of the past. Fingers trembling, I pulled up the last blast email that had been sent to current and former faculty and staff, and began to compose an email to the timeless and indomitable woman who had taught English to me when I was a student, and who had, after nearly fifty years, retired from teaching just before I returned to my alma mater.

After staring at the email for approximately five or so minutes, I winced, pressed send, and let my plea sail out into the void. I cannot adequately describe for you the instinctive reverence I possess towards this teacher; suffice to say that Ms English was and is a woman of remarkable character, as much a legend as an institution as a woman of flesh and blood whose enduring influence inspired countless students. There is not a student taught by Ms. English who does not have a story to tell about her, and her decline in her last years of teaching and eventual retirement in the face of COVID was the end of an era. She still remembers me, and every couple months one of her contemporaries and dear friends who still works as a guidance counsellor stops me in the hall to tell me that Ms. English says hello and that she is thrilled that I am teaching here—thrilled that I am teaching honors students—thrilled that I am now teaching the AP students. “Tell her I said hello back,” I always say, and smile.

Ms. English is a legend, and one does not expect legends to respond to you immediately. Who knows when a woman of her generation would next think to check her email? Who knows if she would remember?

The day after I sent the email I got this response:

My friends, I was shaken. I was stunned. Imagine asking God a question and he turns to you and says, “Hold on one moment, let me check with my predecessor.”

The idea that even Ms. English had inherited this mysterious translation had never even occurred to me as a possibility, not when Ms. English had been a faculty member since the early days of the school. How wonderful, I thought to myself. What a great thing, that this translation is so obscure and mysterious that it defeats even Ms. English.

A few days later, Ms. English emailed me again:

(I had, in fact searched through both the English office and the Annex—a dark, weirdly shaped concrete storage area containing a great deal of dust and many aging copies of various books—a few days prior. I had no luck, sadly.)

At last, though, I had a title and a description! I returned to my internet search, only to find to my dismay that there was no book that exactly matched the title. I found THE BRITISH TRADITION: POETRY, PROSE, AND DRAMA (which was not black and the table of contents I found did not include Sir Gawain) and THE ENGLISH TRADITION, a super early edition of the Prentice Hall textbooks we use today, which did have a black cover but there were absolutely zero images I could find of the table of contents or the interior and so I had no way of determining if it was the correct book short of laying out an unfortunate amount of cold hard cash for a potential dead end.

So I sighed, and relinquished my dreams of solving the mystery. Perhaps someday 30 years from now, I thought, I’ll be wandering through one of those mysterious bookshops filled with out of print books and I’ll pick up a book and there will be the translation, found out last!

So I sighed, and told the whole story to my colleagues for a laugh. I sent screenshots of Ms. English’s emails to my siblings who were also taught by her. I told the story to my Dad over dinner as my Great Adventure of the Week.

…my friends. I come by my rabbit-hole curiosity honestly, but my Dad is of a different generation of computer literacy and knows a few Deep Secrets that I have never learned. He asked me the title that Ms. English gave me, pulled up some mysterious catalogue site, and within ten minutes found a title card. There are apparently two copies available in libraries worldwide, one in Philadelphia and the other in British Columbia. I said, “sure, Dad,” and went upstairs. He texted me a link. Rolling my eyes, I opened it and looked at the description.

Huh, I thought. Four volumes, just like Ms. English said. I wonder…

Armed with a slightly different title and a publisher, I looked up “The English Tradition: Fiction macmillan” and the first entry is an eBay sale that had picture of the interior and LO AND BEHOLD:

THE LEAF. LOOK AT THE LEAF.

My dad found it! He found the book!!

Except for one teensy tiny problem which is that the cover of the book is uh a very bright green and not at all black like Ms. English said. Alas, it was a case of mistaken identity, because The English Tradition: Poetry does have a black cover, although it is the fiction volume which contains Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

And so having found the book at last, I have decided to purchase it for the sum of $8, that ever after the origins of this translation may once more be known.

In this year of 2022 this adventure took place, as this post bears witness, the end, amen.

(Edit: See here for part 2!)

[ninzied]

and that's how it works

a co-worker au. based on the prompt: kiss out of spite. ~2.4k.

Alex can’t stand him from the start.

He tries not to actively dislike any co-workers, as a general rule. It takes effort, and time, neither of which he wants to spend on this guy—unless said work has been affected, which, Alex has to admit that it hasn’t.

But there’s something about him that rubs Alex the wrong way the moment they get introduced.

He’s hard-working, Alex supposes, and the quality of the work isn’t lacking. He’s punctual, and to-the-point in his emails. None of those things are an issue. He does make a habit of helping himself to Alex’s office supplies, but a few missing staples and running out of printer paper don’t exactly justify a grudge.

The guy’s personality is, objectively, annoying. He has the worst taste in ties, which to Alex says a lot, and he can’t go more than five minutes without alluding to his pedigree in some way (Alex knows this because he and Nora have made a drinking game out of it at work functions).

Still, it doesn’t explain the weird surge of resentment he gets every time he looks at the guy. And not understanding it might be the most annoying part of all.

He just wishes he knew why.

.

Alex works in the legal department, but the coffee’s way better in HR down the hall, so most mornings he’s using their break room. Most mornings, and at lunchtime too, and in the afternoons more than once until Nora starts cutting him off, which. Fair.

Apparently he’s not the only one who’s discovered HR’s superior coffee, though, because he’s always there too, and always at the same time as Alex. Seriously, can he not? It’s bad enough that they share a cubicle. Now Alex has to suffer the insult of watching him fucking microwave his coffee like some kind of sociopath, too?

“Are you following me?” Alex demands to know one morning, a little ridiculously. He’s aware that HR is not the best place to be throwing accusations around, but he’s kind of had it with this guy. “Because—”

At that exact moment, the door is opening, and Henry Fox is walking into the room.

“Oh, hey,” says Alex.

Henry glances at him the way he always does, that is to say, a little bemused as to what Alex is doing here. But Henry had been his point person when he was hired six months ago, so he must know Alex works here, right? Besides, he’s been coming to drink their coffee every day of those past six months now, and he knows Henry knows this because their breaks usually overlap and the way Henry barely says two words to him half the time is starting to feel kind of personal.

“It’s Alex,” says Alex, because, well, just in case.

“Yes, I’m aware,” says Henry. After a beat that’s long enough to get awkward, he says, “Err. Right then.”

And then he smiles and waves at Hunter, who isn’t even supposed to be here either, and walks over to take the seat Hunter has saved him like they’re all in fucking high school.

Hunter says something smarmy about a new art gallery or what-the-fuck-ever he went to last night, using a slightly too-loud voice that’s clearly meant to be overheard. Alex grits his teeth.

“Oh, I’ve been meaning to go,” says Henry. “What did you think?”

Alex scowls. Fuck, he fucking hates Hunter.

.

“So how’s the transfer going?” asks Hunter one day.

Alex jerks involuntarily and splashes hot coffee all over his hand. “Motherfucker,” he says, and then, because his filter is fully shot now anyway, he glances over at Henry. “You’re transferring? Like, jobs?”

“Oh. Um. No. Departments,” says Henry. Alex supposes that’s all he’s getting—four whole words must be some kind of record—but then Henry continues. “To editing. Starting first thing next week.”

“Oh,” says Alex. “Cool. That’s…a big move.” Literally. That’s, like, whole floors away. He opens the freezer door with his good hand, and wonders what the coffee tastes like up there in editing, if it would be weird to find out sometime. He grabs a fistful of ice.

“Yes,” Henry is saying. “It will be quite the change, and I—wait. Sorry.” He stands abruptly, and Alex stares in surprise as Henry comes over and stops right in front of him. “Please put the ice down.”

“Um,” says Alex. “O…kay?”

“You should use lukewarm water,” says Henry. “Cool, at best. For your hand.”

“Oh,” says Alex. “Right. Thanks.” He turns to the sink, feeling weirdly aware of the fact that Henry is still standing there. “It’s too bad,” Alex says before Henry can decide to sit down next to Hunter again. “Kind of a big loss for HR.”

Henry’s brows knit back together. “Is it?”

Alex shrugs. “To my knowledge, no one else personally escorts new employees to their cubicles on the first day of work. Like you did with Hunter here, for example.” He levels Henry with a grin. “I was there when you showed him around, in case you don’t remember.”

Henry’s expression is inscrutable. “I do,” he says.

Alex makes a point to not look away. “Guess that wasn’t a thing back when I started.”

“Ah,” says Henry. He’s flushing for some reason now. “No, I suppose not.”

Alex considers him. He can’t decide if Henry’s playing dumb, or if he really doesn’t remember that he’d been the one to help hire Alex. Then he decides he doesn’t care, because both options make him feel like something on the bottom of Hunter’s shoe, which he hates.

“Think I’m gonna head back.” Alex looks expectantly at Hunter, who only lifts his mug like he’s still planning on being a while. Fucking fine.

He can still see the two of them through the glass pane in the door when Nora walks by with a stack of folders.

“You okay?” she asks, in a tone that says she’s guessed the answer.

“Fucking no,” says Alex anyway. “What are they even doing? Talking?”

Nora sneaks a peek through the window. “Appears so,” she deadpans. “Talking in the break room. Unbelievable.”

“I know, right?” Alex scowls, then realizes he’s left without his coffee, which makes him scowl even harder.

Nora sighs, then slips her free arm through his. “Let’s walk.”

“Do you think Hunter likes him?” asks Alex. Because—not that he’s spent a lot of time on this—Alex thinks that Hunter does, and nothing is worse than the thought of Henry liking him back because he doesn’t know any better.

Maybe Alex should say something.

Nora is looking sideways at him. Alex isn’t sure why. “I think what Hunter likes is people with a pedigree,” she says. “Anyway, what’s not to like? Henry’s a snack.”

“What?” says Alex. Objectively, Henry looks a bit like an Adonis, but, “That is so beside the point. And just because Hunter’s like Harvard royalty or whatever doesn’t give him the right to come in here and trick people into liking him when—”

“When you were here first?” Nora supplies.

“What?” Now Nora is really missing the point. “This has nothing to do with me, or with Henry. I just meant, like, you know. In general.”

“Right,” says Nora. “I must have misunderstood.”

.

Alex keeps going back to the break room, of course. The coffee’s still better, and he can keep bothering Nora even though she’s transferring soon too (to marketing two floors down, the traitor). None of those things have changed just because Henry is no longer there every day.

The one thing that does change, Alex notices with a dark kind of satisfaction, is that Hunter does not go back to the break room. In fact, he starts bringing his own coffee each morning (Starbucks, which seems very on-brand). If anything, Alex only has more reason now to escape to HR and not spend any more time around Hunter than necessary.

About a week after Henry’s transfer, Alex realizes he’s used the last of the break room’s cinnamon. Again. Goddamn it, he thinks. He’s just spent the morning in back-to-back meetings, he’s getting his coffee hours later than usual, and now this?

He rifles through the cupboards for a second and then a third time just in case there's a rogue bottle somewhere. “Fuck me,” he mutters.

“What’s the occasion?” comes a voice from the door, and Alex turns to find Henry leaning against it. His arms are crossed, and he’s doing that chin-tilty thing that apparently means Alex has zero control over what comes out of his mouth.

“What are you doing here?” Alex blurts.

Henry raises an eyebrow. “I could’ve been asking you the same thing for the past six months or so, but I haven’t.” He uncrosses his arms and comes over. “Would you believe me if I said I came here for the coffee?”

“No,” says Alex, with absolute certainty. “You don’t drink coffee.”

Henry blinks. “I could,” he argues after a moment, then straightens a little. “In fact, maybe I planned to start today.”

“Uh huh.” Alex gestures for him to have at the machine. “Do you even know how to use it?”

“Can’t be that difficult,” says Henry. He gives the machine a dubious look, and Alex doesn’t mean to but he starts to laugh.

“Here, I got it. Was about to make some for myself anyway.”

“Ah.” Henry looks abashed suddenly. Even the tips of his ears have turned pink. “Suppose you’ll be wanting this, then.” He pulls a ground cinnamon bottle from his pants pocket.

Alex shakes his head in disbelief. He could actually kiss Henry right now. “How did you—?”

“Well, you were running low last I was here,” says Henry, like that’s a totally normal thing to have noticed when Alex has never seen him touch the spice rack once. “Figured you'd be out by now, so I nicked some from the break room upstairs. No one’s been using it there anyway.”

The shock on Alex’s face makes him backtrack. “Sorry,” he says, flushing an even deeper pink now. “I—didn’t know you’d be here. You’re usually, um. Earlier. I can return it, if you’d like.” He says all this in a rush.

“No, it’s great,” Alex says emphatically. “Don’t you dare take it back.” He’s still staring a little, but that can’t be helped. Henry knows how he likes his coffee. And Henry had planned to restock the cinnamon without Alex ever knowing.

Henry clears his throat, looking around them. “You didn’t bring Hunter with you today,” he notes.

“No,” says Alex immediately. “God, no. And I don’t bring him anywhere, he just. Shows up. Honestly, I can’t stand the guy.” Shit. Maybe he shouldn’t have said that.

“Oh, thank Christ,” Henry says, looking immensely relieved. “Now that I don’t work in HR anymore, can I just say how little I enjoy his company?”

This is way better news than when Henry had first reached out to Alex with his offer letter and starting salary. He grins. “You can. In fact, please say more.”

Henry looks rueful. “I really shouldn’t.”

“It’s just that—” Alex sobers a little. “He was the only person you seemed willing to talk to.”

“It was easier, for me.” Henry takes a breath. “I feel less shy around people whose opinion of me doesn’t matter as much.” He pauses, something meaningful in the way he looks sidelong at Alex now. “I do want to be better about it.”

Alex nods, considering this. He tries hard not to smile. Probably not hard enough. “I can work with that.”

.

“You do realize neither of you work in this department,” says Nora, pulling food from the fridge.

Henry sips the tea Alex has just made him. Coffee, turns out, had been a lost cause. They’re both leaning against the counter, elbows not-quite-touching but getting closer to it every day, by Alex’s estimation.

“Do any of us, at this point?” Henry muses.

Nora shrugs. “Fair.”

“Just don’t tell You Know Who,” says Alex.

“Who’s You Know Who?” Hunter asks from the doorway. He has a confused smile on his face as he looks from Henry to Alex back to Henry again. Normally the sight of Hunter fills Alex with the most profound irritation, but now he’s feeling kind of pleased.

That’s right, he thinks smugly at Hunter: Henry is mine.

Huh. Suddenly things make a lot more sense now.

“Hey, did you get my email about the museum opening this Friday?” Hunter asks Henry, and Alex bristles instantly. Did Hunter not get the look Alex just gave him?

“Ah,” says Henry awkwardly, and it would be endearing if he didn’t also look so deeply uncomfortable. His awkwardness now is so different from the bashful kind of awkward he used to be around Alex; honestly, Alex can’t believe he’d never been able to tell between the two until now. “Actually, I’m—”

“Going,” says Alex, “already. With me.”

Henry looks at him in happy surprise. “Really?”

“Really,” Alex says firmly. And then, because he likes how dumbstruck Hunter looks right now, and because Henry doesn’t pull away when Alex puts an arm around his shoulders and he really, really likes that too, he does the only thing left that makes sense to him, which is to lean in and kiss Henry. He kind of feels like he might die when Henry kisses him back.

Fuuuuuuck.

Henry’s eyes are still closed when Alex leans back. He’s dimly aware that Nora has shooed Hunter out and closed the door behind them. He’s more acutely aware of how Henry licks his lips, then opens his eyes with an oddly vulnerable expression and says, “Alex, please tell me you didn’t just kiss me for Hunter’s benefit.”

“What? No. I mean—not exactly.” Fuck. Why can’t he use only the words that he needs? “The answer’s still no, but I might’ve used it as an excuse if I’d kissed you like two weeks ago. But that’s not why I kissed you just now, and it’s not why I’m going to kiss you again.”

“Oh, you think you’re going to kiss me again, do you,” Henry says with a hint of a smile, lifting his chin in a kind of challenge that Alex does not intend to back away from.

“One-hundred-percent,” he says, then pauses. “Unless you plan on reporting me to HR.”

“Honestly,” says Henry, “I might have to report you if you don’t.”

“Well, we can’t have that,” Alex says, very seriously, and he pulls Henry back in.

[jflemings]

— birthday wishes

pairing: jessie fleming x reader

synopsis: you make sure jessie has a good day for her first birthday in portland

warnings: a lil suggestive & not edited

a/n: a lil smth smth for the birthday girl (i don’t rlly like this ending but fuck it we ball)

contrary to popular belief, jessie actually really liked celebrating her birthday. she liked that her mum always baked her a cake when she was growing up, she liked that you made the effort to always give her flowers and she liked it when her and her sister designated a time to facetime. the thing that she liked most of all though, was being able to have all her favourite people in one place,

this year was different though. jessie’s mood had seemed to get deplete the closer her birthday got. she had been adjusting to the move well enough but she didn’t exactly have the time to get really settled before she was off win team canada for the gold cup, the semi final loss leaving her more restless then when she left.

still, you made the effort to at least attempt to make this birthday feel somewhat normal. you bought her a bouquet of pink tulips and baby’s breath from a florist you spotted one afternoon on your way home from work, a lego flower bouquet set that the two of you wanted to build together and a proper, high quality photo album so that all of her favourite photos she’s taken can be in one place.

you sneak back into your shared bedroom with her flowers in one hand and coffee in the other, placing them down on a flipped cardboard box that your girlfriend had been using as a makeshift bedside table, before pouncing on her. you practically jump onto her back and lay yourself down flat on top of her, placing your head on her shoulder as she awoke.

jessie, in all her sleepy-faced-bedheaded glory, flashes you a smile as you trace patterns on her back through her sleep shirt.

“good morning birthday girl” you whisper quietly to her “how does twenty six feel?”

“not any different than twenty five” she rasps out whilst beginning to roll over onto her back. you slide off her effortlessly before she pulls you into her, one arm wrapping around your shoulders whilst the other hoists you onto her chest. she wraps both arms around you protectively and tightly, leaning her head on your own as she lets out a content sigh.

you reach over her as best you can and grab the bouquet “your birthday flowers madam”

jessie gives you one of her famous soft smiles “thank you, they’re beautiful” she praises gratefully, sniffing them before taking them from you and placing them on the ground, grabbing your torso so she can guide you up the front of her body, kissing you sweetly and slowly.

you pull away from her and lift your arms so that they’re on either side of her head “only the best for my girl” you say before taking advantage of the position your arms are in and pulling yourself up so you’re straddling jessie’s hips.

“as much as i would love to lay around with you all morning, you” you emphasise by poking a finger into the canadian’s chest “have training and then lunch with the girls, and i have work that needs to be done.”

jessie rolls her eyes and trails her hands up your sides “just five more minutes” she exhales “i don’t feel like getting up yet”

you swing your leg over jessie and roll onto your side of the mattress, sitting and then standing in one swift motion. you then walk to the end of the bed frame-less mattress and grip the bottom of the duvet that jessie is comfortably under “if i let you lay here for five more minutes then i’m going to feel the need to lay down with you, which will then turn into morning sex, which means that when janine comes to get you in about an hour not only will she be interrupting us but she’ll also be late because you won’t be ready” you explain pointedly, finally ripping the blanket off your girlfriend.

jessie shivers slightly at the sudden loss of warmth before sitting herself up on her elbows and forearms “i’ll be quick, promise” she smirks amused, raising her eyebrows in an almost challenging way.

you’re almost half convinced, her position on the bed paired with the confident smirk she doesn’t wear often slowly drawing you in. you tilt your head in faux thought, slowly leaning down and propping your knee up near her feet, planting your hands flat on either side of her legs. you hover for a moment and open your mouth to say something before a blaring alarm sounds off through the room.

jessie rolls her eyes and picks her phone up, quickly turning the alarm off and tossing it to the side. by the time she’s done that you’re up and halfway out the door.

“y/n” she draws out frustratedly “five minutes!”

“your coffee is going cold jess”

——

jess huffs as janine pulls up to the curb in front of the home she shares with you. lunch had gone longer than expected and although she appreciated the fact that the team celebrated her birthday with her, she had begun to miss her ex teammates even more.

“you tired jeffery?” janine muses “wouldn’t wanna be, y/n’s probably gonna keep you up all hours of the night”

“ooookay!” jessie hastily says as she reaches for the door handle “thanks for organising lunch, i had a really good time”

janine nods and smiles before reaching behind her seat and handing jessie a cobalt blue gift bag “this is from me and sinc” she says just as jessie opens her mouth to protest “and don’t say that we didn’t have to because we know! we just wanted to give you a little something”

jessie takes the bag off her teammate carefully, opening the door at the same time and awkwardly sliding out. she gathers her training bag, phone and gift bag before shooting janine a wide, genuine smile and shutting the car door. as the midfielder walks to her front door she notices the warm light peaking through the windows.

it’s not dark outside but the sun has started to set, so she finds it odd that you’ve already turned on the lamp in the front room. she thinks nothing of it as she opens the door and steps in sideways before kicking it shut, slightly cringing at the loud slam. when you don’t scold her for slamming the front door, like you had always done, she becomes puzzled.

magenta light that she hadn’t seen from outside bounces off the walls and the smell of sandalwood slowly invaded her senses as she begins to creep into the main living area. you’re still no where to be found and she’s about to call out for you when she stops herself, her jaw going slack and eyes going wide.

next to the window on the furthest wall hangs her canada and chelsea jerseys that she received for reaching one hundred games, underneath multiple framed photos and trinkets sit on top of the buffet, a birthday banner and balloon numbers two and six find themselves near by. the magenta light is coming from a lamp that you had at your place back in london and next to it sits jessie’s burning sandalwood candle, other bits of decor like potted plants, a ceramic mug with miscellaneous pens and pencils, unread books and small collectables have all found homes in her home. her home that wasn’t like this when she reluctantly got up this morning.

she hears the bathroom door open and watches you round the corner, a towel messily drying your hair as you hum to yourself. you haven’t seen her so she places her things down next to the kitchen table, slightly startling you.

you just about jump out of your skin when you hear the unknown noise, dropping the towel and placing a hand over your racing heart “jessie fleming! you scared the absolute shit out of me” you exclaim half out of breath “you could’ve announced yourself when you walked in”

you pull a ladybug patterned gift bag out from under the dining table as you walk past and place it in front of her, nodding in the direction of the bag “open it” you say giddily, practically bouncing on your toes as you watch her reach into the bag.

she pulls out a plain white faux leather photo album that’s bound by brown leather strings and the lego flower bouquet set that the two of you had said you’d wanted to build together once you got settled. she opens the photo album to reveal a photo that was taken of her, niamh and zećira on her birthday last year.

the three of them were dressed nicely and standing in your old kitchen before everyone went out for dinner. you had taken the picture on a cheap disposable you’d had for ages so the film was a bit discoloured and jess and niamh were both laughing at zećira’s expense after she’d almost tripped over her own two feet, but it was one of you favourite photos of the three of them.

jessie looks to you with tears in her eyes, and she watches your mouth quickly turns into a frown. you reach for her without a second thought, already thinking the worst “are you okay? did something happen?” you ask concerned, pulling her into you and wrapping your arms securely around her body.

“no i’m good” she mumbled weakly, sniffling slightly “you did all this today?”

you nod “did the bathroom as well, thought it might de stress you a little bit” you explain softly “why are you crying jess?”

jessie shakes her head and detaches herself from you “i’m just so tired” the canadian mumbles “and i just love you so much.”

you run your hands up and down her biceps “too tired for cake?” you ask cheekily before moving to the fridge. jessie watches you pull out a white frosted cake with small red hearts littering the surface, placing it down and allowing her to see 26th piped on with black icing. you reach into a drawer and pull out a brand new pack of colourful birthday candles, quickly sticking the red one in and lighting it.

“make a wish birthday girl” you say whilst pushing the cake almost directly under jessie’s nose.

she quirks a brow “what? no birthday song?”

you shrug “i figured janine would’ve had the whole team singing it at lunch, thought you’d be content with hearing it once”

the footballer nods in agreement and closes her eyes, blowing the candle out in one go and waving her hand to disperse the smoke. you tilt your head curiously, leaning your forearms on the dark wood of the dining table “you didn’t even make a wish!” you exclaim.

jessie rolls her eyes and sits down, patting her lap so that you can sit on her “i did make a wish, thank you very much.” she defends as you oblige happily and throw your arms around her neck. once situated you swipe your pointer finger through the frosting and holding it up to her mouth. she licks the icing off your finger and snakes her hand up your back to hold your neck, pulling you down to her level so she can kiss you.

the kiss is sweet but hard as she holds you delicately whilst swiping her tongue on your bottom lip. you smile and open your mouth, adjusting yourself on her lap so that your body is facing more towards her.

it feels like the two of you sit there making out for almost an eternity before jess pulls away to come up for air, her lips pink and slightly swollen “wanna know what i wished for?”

your lips ghost over hers “if you tell me then it won’t come true”

the hand that was holding your neck slides down to cradle the small of your back whilst jessie’s other hand runs over your thighs aimlessly. she shrugs and the same smug smirk that she wore this morning returns to her face “i’ll just show you then”

in the blink of an eye she’s hoisting you up and standing quickly before racing off in the direction of your bedroom. you giggle loudly at jessie’s sudden burst of energy and quickly become grateful that the two of you don’t have a bed frame when she pins you to the mattress.

[sassypossumm]

First Editions

The manager of one of the most illustrious coffee shoppes in London, and a mysterious grumpy businessman (who may or may not be some kind of mob boss). What could possibly go wrong?! Right....

"Stop looking at him like that, it's creepy!" Margary leaned over, hissing in your ear. Brushing off the unpleasant sensation you leaned back and gave her a dirty look. 

"I haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about, Margary!" Grabbing several paper towels, you began furiously wiping up a wet spot on the counter. Folding her arms, she raised a brow and gave you a knowing look. 

"Don't think I haven't noticed how you've been staring at him every time he comes in! And don't try to deny it!" Clenching the towels in your hand you closed your eyes and clenched your teeth. She wasn't wrong. Much as you hated to admit it, you'd developed something of a... fascination for the older British gentleman who'd taken to coming in everyday now.  

And every morning he ordered the same thing. A plain hot earl gray tea, cream on the side. Then he'd do the same thing, every day. He took his tea and sat in the exact same chair at the exact same table, every day. And every day you watched him shake open the paper. And he sat there for exactly forty-five minutes to the dot. Never a minute more, never a minute less. Then he'd neatly fold and crease his paper, tuck it under his arm, return the empty teacup, and thank you in that clipped accent of his, and he'd walk out the door. 

In the weeks he'd been frequenting the shoppe where you managed, you'd exchange a handful of words with the man, and that was a generous estimate at best. And yet, somehow, you'd become fairly well acquainted with the stodgy man. 

For starters, he was wealthy. Disgustingly if you had to guess. From the way he dressed to the way he carried himself, he exuded confidence and that old-world charm that seemed to be going rapidly extinct. His appearance was always meticulous.

He didn't dress in a flashy manner, that had you supposing that he was a self-made man who valued his money, and preferred to invest in the quality of his garments rather than simply following whatever was the idiotic trend of the week dictated by the self-proclaimed fashion gods.  

In summary, you were besotted. 

"I swear, you've got some serious daddy issues, or a major grandpa kink." Margary's voice dragged you out of your thoughts and back to your present reality. Coffee.  Strong coffee at that. Your shoppe prided itself on the special blends you brewed. It was rumored that even members of the royal family popped in from time to time, discreetly of course. Tossing the towels in the bin, or trashcan as you'd say back home, you threw Margary a wry grin. 

"Maybe it's a little bit of both, Marge." You chuckled at her scowl. You knew she hated that nickname, which was precisely why you continued using it. 

"He actually remembered your name today." She teased, bumping your hip playfully as she passed to wipe down the tables. 

"Yeah, yeah, big whoop." Rolling your eyes, you opened the cash register to make sure you'd have enough funds to make it through lunch. Business usually tapered off around 12:30, meaning you'd most likely be able to dash to the bank and back without being missed. 

Margary hated holding down the fort, but hey, perks of being the manager, right? Flipping through the fives, you were so focused on counting and facing the bills, initially you didn't notice when a customer came to stand in front of the register. He cleared his throat. 

"I'll be right with you." You said politely, glancing up absently. Him. Your throat constricted and your grip on the bills tightened. "Mr. Lannister." Your voice sounded a pitch too high even to your ears. Stuffing the bills back into the drawer, you slammed it shut just a bit more forcefully than necessary. A ghost of a smirk crossed his face, but before you could fully appreciate it, his features fell back into their usual passive refrain, and he slid the empty teacup across the counter. 

"You're finished early." The words left your mouth before you could stop them. You felt a telltale flush creep up the back of your neck. He did smirk this time. You reached for the teacup, utterly mortified. You weren't supposed to keep tabs on how long customers spent in the shoppe. That was creepy, right? 

"Yes, I've unforeseen matters to attend to." 

Your heart jumped at that. He was talking to you. Sure, it was vague and a bit cryptic, but Tywin Lannister was actually talking to you. And while his expression remained impassive, something in his eyes told you he wasn't exactly pleased to have his schedule messed up. 

That you could understand. As a rule of thumb, you yourself were a creature of habit. If your plans were screwed with, it had the strong potential to through your whole day off. 

"Well, I hope it resolves itself." Offering what you hoped was a conciliatorily smile, you placed the teacup in the mess bucket and turned to take it to the dishwasher. 

"Oh, just one moment." You turned expectantly. He flipped open his brief case and fished out a book. A very old book from the looks of it. "Here." He held out the book and you took it gingerly. "I recall we were discussing the classics," 

"We were?" You blurted without thinking. Mr. Lannister soured at your outburst. Pursing your lips, you waited for him to continue. 

"Perhaps I heard you and your friend discussing it in passing, regardless, I recall you mentioning that you'd never read 'Anna Karinina'. To be quite honest I found such a notion appalling. Most likely the result of the poor education system in the states." Your head span like a dervish under his barrage of words, you hadn't been aware he was even capable of so many. "Nevertheless, that is neither here nor there," He continued, shutting his briefcase. "You now possess a copy, and I expect you to read it." His eyes pierced through you with the order. 

"Yes, sir." You murmured, your ears burning under the heat of his gaze. 

"You seem intelligent. And an intelligent woman should be well read." He tapped on the cover of the book for emphasis. Your mouth went dry, and you found it impossible to tear your eyes away from his. You were vaguely aware of yourself nodding in agreement. With a final curt nod, he left without so much as a look back. 

Looking down at the book, you actually took the time to look at it. A first edition copy of 'Anna Karinina'. 

"What did he say? Come on, tell me!" Margary rushed over, animated and full of questions. 

"He... gave me this." You gestured to the book and handed it to her without a second thought. The shock of the encounter had left you a little hazy. 

"This is a first edition, those aren't cheap!" She looked at you and narrowed her eyes. "What else did he say?" 

"I think I need to sit down." The blood rushed to your head, and your knees wobbled. Margary placed the book on the counter and grabbed your arm. 

"Easy, girl, come on, easy does it." She pulled out a chair at one of the tables and you sat with a heavy thud. "I observed," 

"You eavesdropped."  You looked at her pointedly. Margary huffed. 

"I eavesdropped. But I couldn't hear much." She grumbled, tapping her nails on the table. "But I saw how he looked at you." 

"How did he look at me?" You squirmed in your seat; not certain you wanted Margary's undoubtedly accurate insight. Somehow it might make it... real... tangible. She leaned forward and looked at you seriously. 

"He was practically eye fucking you through the entire conversation." She said with a bit more gravitas than you'd have liked. Pinching the bridge of your nose, you willed your head to stop spinning. "What else did he say?" Her tone was gentler this time, concern shining in her eyes. You sighed heavily and propped your chin in your hand. 

"He said I seemed intelligent." 

"He's seducing you." She concluded. Your mouth opened and you looked at her as though she'd grown a second head. 

"Margary, be serious! A man like Tywin Lannister," 

"My point, exactly." She cut you off, adamantly. "A man like Tywin Lannister, with his reputation, and his well-known disdain for Americans, no offence," 

"None taken." You waived a hand dismissively. "Continue." 

"When a man like that starts handing out expensive books and compliments, that's as good as him propositioning you." 

"Well, he sure has a funny way of going about seduction, and what do you mean, reputation?" You look up at her before closing your eyes and rubbing your temples. 

"You honestly haven't heard the rumors?" 

"If I had I wouldn't be asking, would I, Margary." If you'd opened your eyes at that moment, you'd have seen the nasty look she was giving you. 

"No need to get snippy with me." 

"Sorry." You sighed, dropping your forehead to the table's surface. Placated, she continued. 

"He's a terribly mysterious businessman, few people actually know how he makes his money." 

"And naturally people imagine the worst and flap their gums." 

"Flap their gums?" She blinks, confused. You cracked a small grin. 

"Gossip, Margary, gossip." 

"Ah, I see. You and your American idioms." She shook her head. "All I'm saying is... tread lightly when dealing with the likes of Tywin Lannister." She reached out and squeezed your hand. Your grin turned wry, and you returned the squeeze before releasing her hand. 

"I'll keep that in mind, besides," Pulling away from the table you stood up and shrugged. "What's the likelihood I'll actually end up in his bed?" You both chuckled. 

[wonwooslibrary]

svt as boyfriends ♡ joshua edition

member: joshua x reader genre: established relationship, bullet points word count: 738 summary: joshua's boyfriend things ;) warnings: mentions of food and i think that's it! let me know if i missed anything! author's note: y'all i am almost two whole days late with this oh god it keeps getting worse. i am...very tired haha i've been working a lot to build up some money while i'm not in school so yeah. i lowkey forgot about joshua/taehyung day until i opened twitter and saw people talking abt shua and i was like WAIT THAT IS TODAY anyway moral of the story i'm tired and need a break but here is the joshua fic we've all been waiting for! ily all and enjoy <3

He lowkey gives the vibes of like. The foreign exchange student bf with a relationship with a deadline 

He’s the silly bf!!! 

He’s also one of the members I see the least as a boyfriend so this is going to be interesting to write…

Quality Time 

Mans is a fan of everything fr !!! He absolutely loves spending time with you and your shared group of friends 

Loves doing silly little activities with you like making bracelets and painting 

He might just be the artsy bf we all want 

Joshua loves to go to different places with you like thrift stores, arcades, cafes, literally anything as long as he is with you <3

Loves the feeling of mixing his friend groups - the day you meet his friends aka his brothers he will be imploding with love for everyone 

Is the “i get bored easily” bf so y’all gotta be doing like ten different things at once 

Will totally ask you to dance or just close your eyes and be with him when a slow song comes on at a party / get together / playing music at home 

Words of Affirmation

You totally call him Joshy or Shua and he loves every minute of it bc he thinks it’s cute 

“Darling, would you like to get coffee with me tomorrow morning?” SCREECHING 

Believes the relationship revolves around pet names (ie. baby, sweetie, darling) he's adorable 

Is always proud of you and encouraging!!! 

Likes to leave little notes for you around the house. Maybe by your favorite drink in the fridge that reads, “I got these for you. stay hydrated, love” 

At the beginning of the relationship he was so formal with you, that it took him saying “I love you” for the first time to relax for five seconds LOL 

Physical Touch

Joshua loves handholding ‼️

This man always wants to have some sort of contact with you, whether that be holding hands, linking fingers or rubbing your back

Loves having you sit on his lap or lay your legs across his 

His go-to move when you are in public is linking your pinkies together (how cute :3) 

Leans on you when he laughs because he cannot sit still 

I feel like Joshua would like. move his fingers on your leg in the way of playing piano keys but with guitar if that makes sense? Like where the frets are? Idk

Is also the type to be scared of touching you in front of others until you explicitly tell him that it's okay

Acts of Service 

Loves doing the chores for you

“Hey, baby, I'm gonna fill my water bottle. Do you need me to fill yours?” 

Or even a, “hey i borrowed your car, but i filled the tank before bringing it back” we love a man who can afford to fill a vehicle’s tank at this point in time

Likes to bring you lunch once or twice a week --- he’ll make it himself and pack it in a cute little bag and everything 

Helps you in little ways like folding the laundry or helping you pick out outfits on those days that you struggle to do anything 

Is always there for you when literally anything happens. You need someone to help fix your car? He’s on the phone finding a shop. You can’t reach a high shelf or your back hurts too much to bend down to get something from a low cupboard? He’s right there ready to help

Gift Giving 

I touched on this a tiny bit earlier but !! handmade jewelry omg he would make matching bracelets for y’all or even a necklace or earrings for you if bracelets interfere with your job

Always buys little trinkets that remind him of you or your relationship 

“Hey I found this little glass rose decoration and it reminded me of the time i got you flowers when i asked you out the first time” 

HE WILL ALWAYS HAVE THE CUTE SHY SMILE WHEN HE GIVES YOU SOMETHING TOO as if you’ll ever tell him that you dislike something he got for you 

He would also love if you gave him gifts too like, “hey joshy I got this little container that can help you keep your beads organized” and he’s melt into a puddle of goo onto your living room floor 

Also gets something for you (usually your favorite snack or drink) when you’re especially sad or stressed out - like a super gift instead of his regular daily gifts or something 

Idk just know he’s really sweet and enjoys crafting

[sweetmariihs2]

Do any of you guys have this specific art in high quality or know where I can find it?

I tried to edit the bigger one but it didn't worked, plus I made it in five minutes

That's the og version

I'm gonna make a Cedric sticker sheet to print and add to my sketchbook, and I'm also for some reason collecting all the art he's in (just for fun). I already searched for this pic for hours and more than just one time, and I can't find it in a good quality.

[1800titz]

Teaser for chapter 6 ! (ꈍ◡ꈍ)

I was reading this part back to edit, and the whole time I was like, LOL. Isla, Isla, Isla. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

“You will count, and you will thank me, and you’ll ask for another, so,” he takes a step, approximating a good position for a swing, the handle of the strap in his gloved grip. Harry clears his throat and provides an example for her to mirror, “S’gonna go, ‘One, Sir, thank you, Sir, may I have another, Sir,” he rolls his shoulders, and bobs with his head as he drones into the following number for sequential clarification, “Two, Sir, thank you, Sir,’ yada, yada. Yes?” 

It’s simple stuff. Pretty elementary shit. His instructions are crystal, and yet, somehow, Isla still manages to find a way to entangle some form of lippy something into the mix. He shouldn’t have put it past her. 

The young woman says, after a moment of lull, “What happens at three?” 

She bites into her cheek and purses her mouth. Harry can’t see her face, but he knows she’s either smiling or making a poor attempt to stifle it. The mirth is pretty short-lived. That part sort of follows the trend of his patience. A crease works its way over the dominant’s brow bone, the predecessor for an eye roll. Isla doesn’t expect it when, after a beat of silence, the strap makes contact with her backside. Instantly, she winces, her hips canting forward. 

“Cheeky,” Harry scolds, placing his free palm onto her hip to coax her back into position, “I hope you got it out of your system.” 

“You love when I’m cheeky,” she quips under her breath, sounding a bit miffed despite the strain of her voice, no doubt from the strike. 

He smacks her again. 

“Two, Sir—“

“Ah — no,” Harry shakes his head, “Skipped a number.” 

There’s a pause and then a high whine of complaint, just as he’d expected, “But that was two—“

“How d’you count?”

“What?” 

“How do you count?” the male repeats, this time enunciating each word, slow and crisp, like she won’t comprehend it otherwise, “From one to five. Count, for me.” He twists the stem of the leather paddle in his grip, gaze cast upon it, and his tone only varnishes the words as he tacks on, patronizing, “Surely you know how to do that.” 

“Of course I know how to count — what kind of—“

He folds his arms over his chest as he steps over to the side of the chair, resting his hip against it to peer down at her, “So, do it. Count. From one to five, out loud.” 

For a moment, Harry just watches her jaw set, a minute motion that gives away everything he needs to know, and he’s aware that she’s probably ogling the tilt of his head through the lace with venom. Begrudgingly, Isla complies, “One, two, three, four, five.” 

“Lovely,” the praise, in response to her half-hearted compliance, doesn’t lack its typical notes of condescension, “Little less attitude next time, but. S’one, two, three, innit?”

Isla chews into her lip.

“Not two. Doesn’t start with two. So now, we’re starting fresh,” he pushes off of the chair and winds back around her, and the dangle of the strap from his priorly crossed arms morphs menacing, “Clean slate. Start from one.”

The reinforced leather falls, and her breath hitches, but her voice is impressively even. “One, Sir. Thank you, Sir. May I have another, Sir?” 

“Absolutely.”

She asks, and so he gives.  And the thing with Isla — Harry thinks, perhaps his most favorite quality about Isla in play, is that she has this nonsensical moxie, this unwavering resolution. It’s sort of admirable, but mostly just a headache — in a good sort of way. She’s like a sexy headache, which is a first among many firsts. Because Harry likes that he has to manually chip at her stubborn resolve — he likes that she doesn’t just fall in line. It’s not a very sensible decision, on her part, because it could go so much easier for her if she were to just follow the rules. 

But that’s no fun, according to her. Harry gets it. 

So when she says, “Two, Sir, thank you, Sir,” and it’s followed by a pause and then a quieter, “yada, yada,” he’s not entirely surprised. 

He digs his tongue against his cheek. “Excuse me?” 

Isla chimes, a bit louder, and this time with no break, “Two, Sir, thank you, Sir, yada, yada.” 

In response to his obnoxious sigh, the submissive bursts into a self-satisfied string of snickers. And then those snickers morph into a gasp of helpless pain as Harry places his arm over the small of her back, holds onto a love handle to keep her in place, and gives her three hard ones in succession. 

“Yada, yada,” he scoffs. 

“That’s how you told me to count!” Isla complains, shrill and (characteristically) incorrigible, “That’s how you counted two!”

“Your smart mouth is going to keep you here all night,” Harry advises. 

“You know what, that’s fine. Thank you, actually. It’s a very smart mouth, just like the rest of me is smart—“

She twists when another blow lands, a soft, resentful sort of “mmph” plucked from her vocal cords. She follows that up with a steely, exaggerated, “Ow.” Like he’s supposed to feel bad about it or something. 

“Ow? Good,” Harry tells her, instead, “Seems that’s gonna be your favorite word for the night. If you were smart, you’d start counting proper.” 

He waits a moment, and then smacks her with it again. 

Isla screws her eyes shut behind onyx mesh and netting, her voice riding the edge of strained, “Seven—“

Never has she heard him sound more incredulous. 

“How in the world did you get from two to seven?” 

[7grandmel]

Todays rip: 18/01/2024

MAGFest 2019: SiIvaGunner Presents - High Quality Ripping

Season 3 Featured on: MAGFest 2019

Presented by Nape Mango, Omknee, ShonicTH, Chaze the Chat, Harmony Friends, Trofflesby, Craz Xexe, Agent

Yeah, okay, this is cheating in a lot of ways - this is not on the SiIvaGunner channel, and its obviously not even a rip. But I felt it necessary to commemorate, as I mentioned briefly in Because I Love You, its finally time for MAGFest once again, and the SiIvaGunner team is to host their own panel there tomorrow! And in the spirit of that, I want to just...talk about SiIvaGunner and MAGFest, at least for a little bit. Because the first two panels in particular, the ones that marked the beginning and end of Season 3, are some of my all-time favorite videos associated with the SiIvaGunner channel.

A big part of the identity and gimmick of the channel itself, as you're likely well aware, is the bait-and-switch - to present it as a faceless entity simply uploading video game music, only to instead feature jokes, shitposts, edits, and so forth. Part of maintaining that kayfabe, then, is to intentionally obscure who makes what behind the scenes, to keep the real people under wraps for those who aren't going to dig deeper, in order to further sell the illusion of being an official VGM upload. The team does of course still give credit when its relevant, as any rip can be featured on an album be given full credits there, but just that degree of separation alone between casual fans and ones willing to download an album has probably led to a few too many people being unaware of who made their favorite rips. Back then, I typically fell somewhere in the middle - I wasn't actively using music listening software and thus missed out on listening to albums for a long time, but was still aware of some of the big names you'd see in comments sections, saw some shoutouts from Twitter, the works.

Yet with the two MAGFest panels of 2018 and 2019 respectively, it felt like the first time that the magnitude of what SiIvaGunner is and how much it means to people was revealed to me for the first time ever. The uploaded recording of the 2018 panel, posted by Chaze's own account, features a shot about seven minutes in that turns the camera to the crowd - and it's an absolutely packed-full room of nerds just like me. And even though I've never been able to go to any of these MAGFest panels due to travel costs and complications...just seeing how many people truly do care about SiivaGunner, in such a tangible way, something more than a number...it resonated with me, yknow?

Beyond that, these panels are just such fascinating pieces of history for the channel, such good time capsules in so many ways - and that's in a lot of ways why I chose to highlight the 2019 panel in particular. Rather than discussing the upbringings of the channel, it features members of the team reminiscing and going through Season 3's timeline of events in particular, going into surprising detail into the thought process and direction the various pieces of the year took - while also giving insights into the production of the Christmas Comeback Crisis, King for a Day Tournament, and more. I feel like with the turn from Season 3 to Season 4 Episode 1, you can really notice that the idea of "hype" for SiIvaGunner content becoming so much more prominent, so much more deliberately handled by the team, which is made all the more evident by the King for Another Day Tournament reveal live on stage.

Man, look, it's an hour-long panel, and there's so many small things that I still remember from it, despite last having seen it five years ago. The members talking about their favorite rips, giving a round of applause to all the rippers who couldn't come join them at the panel or on-stage, the very funny last-minute rips made to "celebrate" the channel being terminated a day earlier (one of which I've embedded as the Bandcamp link), and even some slight discussions on what SiIvaGunner as a channel means to the team, what it represents, and what their goals have been overtime. And, of course, the fucking incredible PowerPoint hijinx with Inspector Gadget, which I am 100% going to take as confirmed canon that Gadget's level of sentience and awareness of the real world is just the same as Woodman's and The Voice.

I have, of course, been told a number of times that I overanalyze SiIvaGunner, that I'm uncovering depth that's clearly not intentional, looking too much into a silly meme channel. And sure, I'd admit that I do overthink things to a degree, anyone who read Vote Responsibly!! should be able to tell you as much. Yet its stuff like these in-depth behind-the-scenes looks, these moments of getting a face and a voice to attach to the works, that really just felt super validating to me even back then - that the intentions and goals of the channel that I myself had picked up on were in fact some sort of direction that the team itself were steering toward. And though Nape Mango does indeed declare in this very panel that "Everything is a coincidence with SiIvaGunner", I'm forever in awe at just how good the team has been at lining those coincidences up into something genuinely incredible.

We SilvaGunner, We Rip.

[simple-seranade]

NEW OLI VIDEO AND I AM FEASTING

i love oli’s videos so much. i don’t care how long it takes for them to come out, they’re always so high quality!!! and the editing is just my cup of tea, it’s absolutely amazing! not to mention i’m laughing my butt off 90% of the video, he’s friggen amazing and so is the episode

now for my more in-depth rambles!

• oli immediately went to Pix to get a handle on the dragon situation. they are best friends your honour

• “parenthood? in this economy? not in my christian empire!” so where on earth is jesus fitting into the empires lore and is he scott of rivendell /hj

• top tier parenting advice. yet again he went to pix, and pix defied all odds by giving horrible parenting advice. i adore the funky archaeologist. he appears responsible but if you talk with him for five minutes it is very obvious that’s not the case

• on a related note i’m going to make a list of how good each of the empires would be at parenting now. i’ve decided.

• shelby. shelby i love you. you don’t get paid enough for your impromptu doctor work lol

• OLIEDDIE CRUMBS! Let’s goooo

• Oli and Sausage are also besties. i love them. Sausage is somehow more responsible than Pix and i love that for both of them

• THE ANIMATION???!????! WAS SO GOOD?!?!?! IM IN AWE?!?!?!

• i want to quote more jokes but then i’d be quoting almost every line from the video, it’s amazing

• THE BABY IS SO CUTE I AM GOING TO D I E

also i can’t explain why but this episode fed my trans oli headcanons for some reason so take that as you will

as usual, the oli orionsound upload does NOT disappoint. very proud of the legend for putting out another top tier episode, i will be rewatching it an ungodly amount

[scifrey]

Cling Fast: Chapter Eleven

By Losyark

The Sandman (Netflix with some sprinkling of comics canon, and Gaiman Cinematic-Literary Universe canon) Dreamling (Hob Gadling x Dream of the Endless | Morpheus) Complete PG-13 (for now) Unbeta’d

Somehow, the summer and Hob's brush with the glitz and glam (more like the sleep deprivation and hurry-up-and-wait) of The Biz comes to an end. The first week of classes start up, and as he promised Morpheus, Hob eschews sleep in order to review the texts, and write the syllabuses and prepare the lectures that he didn't have time to over the summer. Morpheus only throws sand in his face and drags him down into the Dreaming twice, when Hob hadn't caught so much as a cat-nap on his junky office sofa in over forty-eight hours.

It's a strange thing, Hob muses, as he entertains his colleagues with stories of his time on set, to have done something so intense and life-altering, and have no one really know it even exists yet. The footage is in editing, and Hob is no longer needed. He is, in essence, utterly dropped and forgotten by the production.

Harriet understands what he means, and joins Hob at The New Inn every few evenings. She talks him through what she calls "show-drop," or the intense lonely misery that comes after living so closely and bonding with fellow artists so deeply, only for everyone to suddenly and completely part ways. He regales her with tales of the places he's been and the ordinary, everyday people he's met. He promises to read over her newest publication for inaccuracies, and she in turn gives a guest lecture at his uni on archeology and historical recreation for screen media.

He reunites with both of his co-presenters only twice in the month of September: once, to record ADR (basically re-recording dialogue that was muffled or of poor quality, trying to match his voice to the synch of his own mouth), and another time to get dressed up in their costumes for the last time and spend an afternoon shooting promotional posters and images.

He wears the black-and-scarlet velvet ensemble into the Dreaming that night.

Morpheus is playing host to a contingent of new gods seeking to curry favour with Dream of the Endless. Hob misses a good proper balls, and Morpheus is impressed that he still remembers all the steps to the cotillion. The gods all have names like Media, and Mr. World, and have been thought into being by humans. They fawn and flatter over Dream's human (but not mortal) consort, insincere and desperate for a solid place in the world's pantheon. Hob wakes up feeling like he's covered with greasy fingerprints and takes the hottest shower he can stand for at least an hour.

Hob hosts the wrap party at The New Inn, closing the pub for a private party. Patrick and the new kid pull out all the stops, proud of their little local celebrity, and pull out all the stops in the kitchen. Though he wasn't able to track down the fey food artist, Hob connected his team with the food artists, and everyone enjoys venison pasties, and hyppocras, buttered beer and snow, fruit and meat pies, and lots of marzipan shaped like Gadlen House.

Morpheus acquiesces to Hob's wheedling, and attends the party as Hob's partner. He's prickly, and taciturn, but everyone is in high enough spirits that they don't mind Hob's introverted goth boyfriend. And nobody seems to remember that he looks just like one of the stunt team.

Harinder surprises them all by arriving with a USB stick loaded with the first episode and a pocket projector. Between them, Hob and Patrick get the karaoke speakers and a ratty old projector screen cobbled together. Patrick makes sure everyone has all the beer, wine, coffee, soda, and various other cock-or-mocktails topped up, they dim the lights, and let it rip.

The crowd cheers and jeers, hollers and laughs, and as the credits on the first episode roll, everyone stands up and claps for at least five minutes straight.

"What did you think?" Hob asks Morpheus, leaning close to whisper in his lover's ear under all the clapping and celebration.

"It is wonderful. Engaging and cinematic in a way that the previous incarnations of this program have not been. And you make a very appealing and handsome leading man," Morpheus adds, flicking a look at Hob from under black lacework eyelashes that promises wonderful things once he's asleep.

Hob snorts. "I'm hardly the lead, Duckie. There were two other people on the screen too, you know."

 "You have created something to be proud of," Morpheus pushes. He slides his hand into the pack pocket of Hob's jeans, not to fondle or squeeze, but to simply hold him close. Hob feels admired and cherished. "Humanity needs its fantasies, to make its reality a better place to live, and you have created a very admirable fantasy indeed."

"You don't have to butter me up by quoting Sir Terry at me," Hob protests with a laugh.

Morpheus only quirks a smirk at him. 

Then Glenn and his wife crash into them with tipsy glee, Glenn shouting "Did you see that? Did you see that! That's a bloody BAFTA in the bag, that is you mad, wonderful, beautiful Doc Bob, you!"

Harriet, with her wife and son, aren't far behind. Then there are toasts, and drunken heartfelt speeches, and someone figures out how to get a whole mess of electro-tudor remix music pouding on the speakers, the tables are pushed aside, and people are reeling and ducking around one another with unashamed joy.

And Morpheus lets himself slip into the background, contentedly supportive and admiring.

Sweaty and exhausted in the best way, Hob pulls Shami outside sometime around midnight to gift them a small posey of bellflowers and agrimony, as well as a beautiful antique cloak pin. It's a unisex piece, carefully etched with beautiful Tudor knotwork, and set with chips of a dark tourmaline gem that would set off Shami's eyes nicely.

Hob had rescued it from under the floorboards of the Gadlen House nursery. Hob had been poor and penniless enough in his life that even when he was wealthy, he had the foresight to secret away little stashes of treasure, just in case. Fletcher hadn't stolen every treasure, and Hob did find some time alone to wander and snoop during the shoot after all. He'd managed to smuggle his sword out too, by pretending it was just a prop.

Hob didn't tell Shami that the brooch once belonged to first Eleanor's brother, then Eleanor. He doesn't tell Shami that he had hidden away the favorite of her pieces after her death with the intention of one day gifting them to Robyn's bride. Hob doesn't tell Shami that Robyn had never married, but Hob likes to think that Eleanor wouldn't mind him sharing her treasures with the incredible person who had brought her back to him in so many vital, wondrous ways.

All he says is "Thank you. You have no idea what it means to me to know that I have her diary and his sketchbook, safe and preserved, forever."

When they come back inside, Morpheus is waiting in the shadow of the door to snatch Hob to his side, and ensure that nobody gets the wrong idea about the soon-to-be famous television presenter and the digital archivist slinking in from the autumn chill together.

*

Hob takes great delight in goading Morpheus to live out the fantasies of celebrity popping up in the dreams of so many young people these days by making Morpheus promise to walk the red carpet on his arm.

Though, Hob realizes as soon as Morpheus appears in Hob's bedroom that night, he's made a grave miscalculation. Hob's mouth immediately goes desert-dry. 

Morpheus wears boots with higher-than-usual heels so he has at least two inches on Hob, the vain peacock, and his hair crests even higher. He's wearing a beautiful black-on-black damask suit with a waist-length blazer-fronted cape, trimmed with red velvet lapels. His boutonniere easily the size of his whole hand made up of (Hob's app tells him) angrec, cape jasmine, and both blue and pink convolvulus. He's wearing a single silver-and-ruby drop earring. And the eyeliner. By god, Hob can't die but he damn near expires on the spot when he realizes that Morpheus is wearing such perfect, knife-blade sharp winged black eyeliner that it would make a Vogue cover makeup artist weep with envy.

He puts Hob's own tired brown suit to shame. Morpheus seems to agree, because with a twist of his wrist, Hob is suddenly wearing a sharp, slim-cut hunter-green three piece (Morpheus' favorite color on him, clearly), with black shirt and a matching honest-to-god cravat. Instead of a boutonniere, Morpheus has decorated Hob's neckcloth with a small, rectangular ruby on a golden stickpin sculpted to resemble ivy.

"This isn't the Oscars," Hob says, but it's not a protest.

The night is warm enough and Hob's shoes are comfortable enough that the two hour walk to Hither Green and Gadlen House is a pleasure, and it means that Matthew gets to join them all the way to the front gate.

"Aww, come on, Hobsie," Matthew wheedles from Hob's shoulder, preening his hair out of its carefully pomaded fall. "The boss showed me the opening shot. It wouldn't be half as good if I wasn't in it."

"True," Hob allows, as they wait from the back of the line for their turn to present their ID badges and gain entry to the park.

Security is tight at Gadlen House tonight, and every who's-who of the entertainment world has been invited. Most of them aren't sure what they're there for—it's just the dinky little premiere of a dinky little docuseries after all—but the muckity mucks at the BBC had insisted, and, Hob's sure, they're all going to be really glad they were part of the first wave of outlets who get to break the big news about the quarto.

The plan tonight is to screen the first episode followed up with a bit of a talk from Harinder and a thirty minute Q&A with Hob, Harriet and Glenn, and then a presentation from Shami about the future of digital archeology and historical document interactivity, and then, when everyone was thoroughly bored to tears—ten minutes of uncut footage of Hob and Glenn goofing around and cataloging the contents of the Gadlen Fell Crate Papers, until Glenn goes parchment white and starts screaming like a little girl.

At which point, the experts at the V&A would be stepping in to present the actual quarto to the press, Hob is sure social media is going to lose its goddamn mind, and Hob plans to take full and unashamed advantage of his lover's eldritch nature to sneak away before anyone tries to buttonhole him.

Matthew tugs on Hob's hair threateningly.

"Yeah, okay," Hob relents. "But stand on the very edge of my shoulder, like that, yeah. Glenn taught me this for photos—always make sure there's empty air around your body so you don't look squashed against another person. And you can't come into the house, this is just for the outdoor carpet, okay?"

"Okay!" Matthew croaks. "I'm gonna be a star, baby!"

Matthew holds his head high, puffs and smooths the lay of his feathers and, if a raven can suck it in, then he's definitely sucking it in.

"You spoil him," Morpheus says indulgently.

Hob takes his hand and entwines their fingers. "I spoil you both, and I don't see you complaining. Now, shhh, Matthew."

The bored guard at the door doesn't even glance up at them as he takes and checks Hob's work badge.

"Gadlen, plus one?"

"Yes," Hob says.

"Have fun, guv." He waves them through and is on to the next person who has just arrived behind them.

Past the gates, Hob is met with event PAs and coordinators who eye up Matthew, but don't say anything. They're probably used to way weirder things when it comes to celebrities, and Hob is hardly that.

They're asked to hold a moment, as the small group before them—Harinder and the direction team, it looks like—clears the first bank of photographers and reporters. Hob takes a moment to marvel at the way that Gadlen House has once again been transformed.

The drive has been overlaid with low metal risers, smothered in a literal red carpet. On one side, the press is contained by long strands of red velvet ropes which protect the grass. On the other, an eight-foot wall of temporary flats has been erected, uplit to ensure the repeating pattern of BBC Historics and National Trust logos are visible in each photo anyone takes.

Up by the house, the front courtyard has been transformed into a little cocktail bar, elegant stand lights showing off the fountains to best advantage, and penguin-suited waiters in absurd tudor-era bonnets with ridiculous ostrich feathers circulating with trays of champagne.

Hob's been told that the grand entry hall has been filled with tiered seating and a large cinematic screen, and a podium from which the evening's host will crack tired jokes and try to keep folks entertained between setups.

It's all a bit much for a silly little historical docudrama, but Hob knows what the prize at the bottom of the crackerjack box is. He knows it will be worth all of the hullabaloo.

"Alright," the P.A. at the top of the carpet says, after conferring with someone on a headset. "When I say go, walk out to the middle of that first group. My colleague there—see, he's waving—he'll let you know when you're good. Pose for the cameras, and speak to the reporter on the carpet. She'll ask you two or three questions, might have you give a spin. Then my colleague will pass you on to the next one down the line. Feel free to decline to answer any questions you don't want to, and don't let the bird shit on anything."

"Excuse you—" Matthew squawks.

"Go!"

Morpheus takes Hob by the hand and swivels forward like he's planning to seduce the whole crowd.

He probably is.

"Doc Bob!" someone in the crowd shouts, and another says "Sir Gadlen!"

"You're off by three," Hob calls back, and the scrum chuckles, charmed.

The new PA introduces the reporter, and Hob vaguely recognizes her from one of the late night chat shows.

"Mr. Gadlen, and Mr…" 

"Oneiros," Morpheus offers up.

"Right-o, sir," the PA says. "If you'll both just stand here…"

They do and Hob is not even remotely surprised that Morpheus knows how to work a camera. He must be tapping into the dreams of every model on the U.K. right now. He tugs Hob into a few poses subtly, and Hob feels like a complete tit but trusts his lover to do right by him.

The reporter asks about Hob's experience on set ("Uh, yeah, cool, really cool," Hob answers to his mortification); what he's wearing ("McQueen," Morpheus intones); and if the bird is real or a fashion accessory.

"Real!" Matthew protests.

"Real," Hob echoes, resisting the urge to reach up and pluck out one of Matthew's tailfeathers. "And an excellent mimic when he wants to be. He insisted on coming along."

"How adorable! Is he friendly? Can I pet your crow?"

"Raven," Hob corrects. "And technically, it's his bird," Hob says, jerking his thumb at Morpheus. "But Matthew likes me better."

"Matthew would appreciate your attention, yes," Morpheus allows magnanimously. "Pet his breast, or gently along his beak."

And that is how Morpheus becomes boyfriend of the year for figuring out how to keep all the attention off of Hob and his terrible interview answers, and Matthew becomes the unequivocal favorite of the evening.

They event organizers even open a window in one of the turrets of the great hall so he could sit on the sill and watch.

*

A few hours later, Morpheus and Hob sneak away just as he planned, ducking under the red velvet ropes and putting his lock-breaking skills to the test to break into his old bedroom. Morpheus takes care of the security system and cameras without needing to be asked.

"Do you think they forgot that they left the good mattress on the… ha ha!" Hob chortles gleefully. "Look, they did!"

"You know, you never properly slept in this bed, Hob," Morpheus ventures, with exactly zero innocence or nonchalance.

"No, I did not," Hob replies with a cheeky wink. "Help me christen it?"

"Gladly."

*

The revelation of the missing Shakespeare play is enough to shoot the fame of the series, and its presenters, into the stratosphere. Because Cardenio was found in Hob's Gadlen Fell Crate, it technically belongs to him. So every A-list Shakespearen actor, dramatist, and acting troupe in the country is banging down his door for a look at it. Hob very quickly, very wisely, and very generously donates the damn thing away to the National Trust. Let them manage its preservation and loaning rights, and make top dollar on the licensing fees besides. They deserve the boost in funding and fame.

Still, every reporter, Elizabethan scholar, and entertainment news anchor wants a piece of Bob Gadlen the Sixth. Hob does all he can to reorient the spotlight onto Harriet, and Glenn, and Shami. By the end of October it's gotten so bad that Hob has resumed teaching all of his classes online so he can avoid the paps on campus. Patrick has to hire a bouncer for The New Inn, and Lucienne steps briefly into the Waking world to act as Hob's legal protector and manager.

As a creature who has read literally every book there is to read on law, Lucienne is ruthlessly efficient. By the end of the month, Hob has gone back to being a nobody professor and a person of non-interest to the media. Occasionally someone recognizes him on the street and asks for a selfie, or comes up to him in a cafe when he's on a date with Morpheus. 

And memorably, a few days before All Hallows Eve, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts makes the mistake of inviting Hob to give a guest lecture. They're clearly thinking (as far as Hob can tell) that because the quarto was found among Hob's things, Hob must be some sort of expert must be some sort of Shakespeare expert. And he is. But not in the way they expected.

And that's how a cadre of venerable professors, a few A-listers who think they can get away with the ballcap-and-glasses disguise, and two cohorts worth of young hopeful actors are treated to a pacing, ranting diatribe against the boyfriend-stealing wannabe, an exaltation of Kit Marlowe, and an incredibly powerful moment-by-moment narration of what going to see a play at The Curtain (a far superior theater to The Globe in Hob's estimation) smelled like, sounded like, looked like, and felt like.

"Not helping your mission to stay under the radar," Harriet texts him, with a link to a video, two days later.

Hob, Morpheus and Matthew are upstairs in Hob's flat, working their way through a bowl of discount Tescos candy—Morpheus' sweet tooth strikes again—and carving neeps into lanterns whose light Stingy Jack can roam the world by. Stingy Jack-o-the-Lantern is real, it turns out, and as close to a friend as anyone can be to Morpheus. The guy deserves some turnips with faces in them just for that alone, Hob figures.

Apparently one of the RADA students had recorded the whole thing and has created a supercut of Hob's most creative, Elizabethan, and devastating insults to the bard. Matthew asks him to replay it for him on the phone four times before Morpheus gets in a snit and goes on his own rant about how important Midsummer was to his political alliances with the Fair Folk.

Talk then turns to Shaxbeard's lost son Hamnet, and as fathers of dead sons, they agree wordlessly to change the topic.

*

Fall shades elegantly into Winter. 

Hob finishes his term and is buried in snowdrifts of essays and exams to mark. He meets up regularly with Harriet, politely declines with all the force in his Immortal body when the BBC asks him back for a second series, and teaches Matthew the rules of Football. ("The good one, birdbrain, not that handegg you used to watch when you had thumbs.")

And then, one quiet evening when it's just Patrick, New Kid, and the two of them in the pub, Morpheus reaches across the table, takes Hob's hand, and asks "Are you happy?"

Hob, who had been thinking about whether or not he wanted to subject himself to the humiliation of adding Elizabethan Manor to next semester's syllabus as non-compulsory but recommended viewing, blinks a few times as his brain catches up to Morpehus' question.

"Yes," Hob says slowly, sitting forward and giving Morpheus his full attention. This feels like a far more serious question than it sounds. "Why do you ask? Are you?"

"Very happy," Morpheus says, but then sighs like that's the greatest misfortune an anthropomorphic personification can endure.

"Okay. But forgive me duck… you don't sound like it."

"I am very happy, and that is the problem," Morpheus confesses, slumping in his chair.

This worries Hob even more, because he's never seen Morpheus slump in his chair before. He lounges, he reclines, he luxuriates, he sprawls, he reposes. He does not slump.

Hob squeezes his hand reassuringly. "I'm listening."

Between them, where Patrick can see, Morpheus wills a Meadow Saffron into existence. Hob is pleased with himself that he recognizes it on sight, after so many hours spent studying his floriography texts.

"Dearheart, no," Hob says, plucking the flower out of Morpheus' fingers and laying it on the seat beside him. "That's not true at all. Your best days are yet to come. You have me now."

"I do have you," Morpheus agrees. "But… I fear that you do not have me. Not the way I would like it."

"You're right here, duckie."

"But I should like to be here more. I want to sleep beside you, Hob. Properly sleep, not simply watch you drop off and then step into my realm and resume my function while you rest. I want to rest with you. I want to wake with you. I want—to be greater than my function and at the same time, less. I want wholly outside of it. I want to be… where you are. Where I am happiest."

"Wait, let me get my head around this. Is my boyfriend Dream of the Endless or Morpheus, the God of Sleep? Am I sleeping with whole diamond, or just one facet? Is that what worries you? Because I don't care…"

The pained look on Morpheus' face makes it clear that Hob is way off the mark, and he trails off, waiting. Rare for him, Morpheus hesitates before he answers. He opens his petal-pink mouth, draws a breath, licks his lips, closes them again, then does it all again. Hob waits him out, massaging the tense tendons of Morpheus' palm with his thumbs.

Finally, Morpheus says: "How would you feel if I was neither?"

Hob blinks, digests what Morpheus has said, decides it doesn't make any sense any which way he turns it over in his mind, and says: "Come again?"

"What if… I were not Dream of the Endless. Or Morpheus the God of Sleep. What if I was… just a man?"

Hob sits bolt upright. "What's wrong with your voice?"

"Nothing. I merely… perhaps it is foolish."

"No, go on," Hob reassures him, trying to adjust to the new, less bone-vibrating timbre of Morpheus' speech. It's fine. It still sounds like him. Just… different.

"A child comes," Morpheus murmurs eventually. "Conceived in the Dreaming, made of dreamstuff."

Hob blinks some more as his brain buffers. "Are you pregnant?"

Morpheus chuckles wryly. "No."

"Oh. okay." Hob licks his lips, digesting this. "Wait, am I pregnant?"

Morpheus laughs gently. "No, Hob. The child grows in the heart and fantasies of a woman who… well, the details are a story for another time, I think. But the babe will be a fine heir, I should think."

"An heir?" Hob blinks some more, and takes a few sips of his beer to cover as he tries to catch up. Morpheus sometimes drops strange scruffy things into his lap like a proud kitten, and even after all this time, after all he's done and seen, Hob still needs time to readjust his reality to encompass the offering. "An heir?  God's wounds, are you dying?"

"No, Hob. The Endless do not die." Morpheus meets his eyes earnestly, then lifts their entwined hands to kiss each of Hob's knuckles. "But this facet has… reached its natural conclusion."

"So you are dying," Hob repeats, distress wringing through every fiber of his body.

"I assure you, no," Morpheus says. He rises from his seat, scoots around the table and pulls Hob against his chest to soothe Hob's building panic. "Do you not think that my sister shares the same love for me as she does for you? What she has bargained for you, she has agreed to provide for me as well."

"I'm not following," Hob admits, clutching at Morpheus' ribs.

"Gods come and go. The old fade and new ones are thought into being. You met some of them." 

Hob swallows hard enough that he feels his throat burn. "Yes."

"Morpheus the God of Sleep is… fading. This world no longer needs a classical, old-fashioned, ancient god of dreams. Dreams are different now, and they need a new avatar to shepherd them. And so another God grows within the womb of human imagination. Do you understand?"

Hob looks up at Morpheus, and he knows he's trembling, knows he frightened, but Morpheus is wrapped around him, keeping him steady.

"I think so." 

"When this child is born, the facet that you know as Morpheus will cease to be Endless, and simply become… human." A smile, beatific and contented spreads over Morpheus' face. "An Immortal human, yes, but human all the same. Think of it less as death and perhaps more as… retirement."

"You'll be like me," Hob gasps.

"Yes."

"You'll be with me," Hob adds, excitement replacing his fear. He straightens to meet Morpheus' pleading eyes.

"Yes. Unless you'd prefer—"

"Fuck that," Hob says, clinging to Morpheus. "You'll be moving in with me upstairs, that's what'll be happening."

"If that is what you wish."

"That is abosu-fucking-lutely what I wish," Hob confirms, then surges up to press his lips against Morpheus' in a claiming, hungry, possessive kiss.

"Then it is done," Morpheus says, when they part. Another bargain struck. Maybe the last.

Fuck me, Hob thinks, and wishes he could manifest an avalanche of roses, roses, roses.

Morpheus must see his fantasy, because rose petals begin to tumble from the empty air around them, drifting along the table and clinging to Morpheus' hair. Hob laughs, enchanted and elated.

Patrick's gonna take one look at the floor and kill him on the spot.

The thought makes Hob want to kiss Morpheus again, so he does.

"This is, forgive me, a dream come true," Hob laughs, when they eventually break off. He may also be crying, he's not sure. All he knows is that he needs to flag down New Kid and get them to pop some bubbly. "This is sorta everything. All my hopes and, well, now my Dream, too."

“Entirely. And if I am your Dream,” Morpheus asks reticently. “Will you, in return, be my Hope?”

"Absolutely," Hob says, and leans across the table to kiss Morpheus. "For as long as you want."

"For forever then," Morpheus agrees. "Or have you not heard? One cannot kill hope."

THE END

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[tinyozlion]

TinyOZlion's GW Episode Guide for People Who Aren't Gundam People: Episode 01 - “The Shooting Star She Saw”

ᕕ( ᐛ)ᕗ OH boy oh BOY! It's time for PGW's first episode analysis! Let’s get started!

First let me pop in my 20 year old VHS tapes! ...Wait, I can’t. I don’t have a VCR player anymore, huh. Well, okay, let me just pop in these 20 year old DVDs! ...Nope, I can’t, computers stopped having disc drives in them. So... I guess. Uh.

Okay. Listen. Hear me out: I’ve bought this entire series on TWO redundant formats already. I’ve bought every manga. I’ve bought posters. I’ve bought model kits, I’ve bought figurines, I’ve bought toys. 

I HAVE PAID MY DUES TO YOU, BANDAI! NO MORE!!

–80 minutes and 2 seeders later– 

Wow, so this is the Blu-Ray edition huh? Let’s check it out, how different could it bbbvvhOLY SHIT

It’s so…… crisp.

This feels intimate. I shouldn’t be seeing the Gundams like this. They’re… they’re so… clean.  I don’t recognize any of these people without the artifacting, the scan lines, the VHS blur.

I can see all the cel jitter??

No… NO! This is wrong. This is DISRESPECTFUL.

God never intended 90’s anime to be viewed at 1080p! It wasn’t DRAWN in 1080p!

And yet… the color quality…  that seductive line definition … 

Fine, The Crispness, you win. I’ll watch my anime in high definition, but I WILL NEVER FORGET MY ROOTS!!!!!!

...Actually fuck that, this is gorgeous and I’m never going back. If I ever have a few hundred bucks burning a hole in my pocket I guess I’ll just buy it AGAIN. To be responsible.

OKAY. Now we can start.

Note!: While this Episode Analysis is sort of 1/2 walkthrough for new viewers and 1/2 refresher + commentary for returning Wing fans, what it ISN'T intended to be is a full episode summary (for really good episode summaries, you can go here!) However, I am going to be going over this particular episode with a fine tooth comb, because episode 01 is by far the worst offender of the series. It’s got it all: bizarrely worded dialogue, mistranslations, delivering a bunch of new information to us by taking it out of the fridge and pouring it directly down the back of our shirts...  Later in the series I will be grouping episodes together to cover more ground, but this one is a doozy, so it’s getting its own solo entry. Get ready: The pacing of this first episode is BONKERS. Things are going to move very fast, and a lot of new concepts are going to be dropped in quick succession.

*Ahem*

With high expectations human beings leave earth to begin a new life in Space Colonies. HOWEVER– (the way Optimus-Narrator says “However” lives in my brain as a permanent sound bite) the United Earth Sphere Alliance gains great military powers, and soon seizes control of one colony after another– in the name of “justice” and “peace”. The year is After Colony 195– Operation Meteor: in a move to counter the Alliance’s tyranny, rebel citizens of certain colonies scheme to bring new arsenals to the Earth, disguising them as shooting stars. HOWEVER– the Alliance headquarters catches on to this operation... 

This intro is actually very succinct, clear, and to the point– IF you already know what to expect from this genre. (In my section on the history of Gundam in Japan and North America, I talked about how Wing's opening exposition was written based on the assumption that everybody watching would already be familiar with the basics of the Gundam franchise, so all that needed to be explained for Wing was what was departing from the original.)

--The main takeaway from the exposition is that A) There are Space Colonies, B) The earth is oppressing them via its military, using big robots to terrorize the small squishy people living in the space hamster wheels; and C) during something called “Operation Meteor”, an unspecified resistance group from the colonies sent secret weapons to earth. 

Earth Big Military Bad, Space Colonies Oppressed, Space Colonies Send Five Mystery Weapons To Earth To Do Something About It.  Okay we’re all caught up. 

--Oh, what are the big robots? They haven’t been introduced yet– presumably because every single person watching this Gundam show already knows what Mobile Suits are, and knows that a Gundam is a big, special Mobile Suit, right? Unless you’re me, and nine years old, and watching it for the first time in America in the year 2000 AD. So just in case you're me from then and I'm me from now, let me clarify: the big robots are called “Mobile Suits” and this is a show about them. They aren’t Transformers, they need a person inside to make them go.

Let’s meet some of them, shall we?

--In this really very pretty opening sequence, we are shown the five mysterious capsules shooting down to the big blue marble that is earth. Fun science note: compare these to the Apollo command modules, and other vehicles designed for reentry! 

--We cut to an Alliance surveillance satellite. The crew has picked up the Secret Colony Weapon Gashapons on their radar, but have no idea what they are. It’s probably just space debris, but just in case it’s Something Bad, they decide to let the closest available military person know about it, so someone with guns can deal with it. 

--It is indeed Something Bad, and the military person they tell about it already KNOWS it’s bad, because he’s a main character and his name is Zechs Merquise. He’s the handsome fellow wearing a strange helmet/mask.

He is immediately dismissive of the Alliance satellite crew, because to him it’s obvious that space debris wouldn’t “ride the wave course to earth”. I have tried my best to identify what a “wave course” is, to no avail. I’m assuming that here it means a standard or safe path for reentry vehicles to take. 

(EDIT: It turns out "wave riding" is a thing from Zeta Gundam! It is indeed a procedure mobile suits use to "surf" with a heat-shielded device for safe atmospheric reentry! Now we know!)

--As alluded to by the Narrator, the Alliance (or at least, this particular and very significant group of people currently associated with the Alliance) does in fact know something about Operation Meteor (or “M”). They being to close the gap on the one capsule out of five that they can catch up with. 

–And here’s our first round of confusing dialogue! Goodie!: 

Zechs: “One would do just dandy. A hired front line soldier mustn’t rush to battle.” Soft-Spoken Zechs Groupie Who Doesn’t Get A Name So I Will Call Him “Milo”:  “That’s quite the bold statement, sir.” Zechs, chuckling: “I told you. I am a True Soldier.”  

–Now, what the fuck does any of that entail. Allow me to explain:

Firstly: Zechs indicates that catching up with only one capsule is fine (or “dandy”), because Zechs suspects this encounter will lead to combat of some sort, so even if it WAS possible to catch up with more than one capsule, it would be risky to engage multiple targets of unknown abilities. “A hired soldier” would be especially unwise to do so, because they’re not fighting for anything particularly meaningful– they’re just there to do a job, and why be in a hurry to die for your salary? 

--This is our first introduction to Zech’s ethos on fighting and what it means to be a soldier, or “True Soldier”. This is also our first introduction to one of Gundam Wing’s Big Important Vocabulary Terms! Which you can find explained in detail in the Dictionary Section.

Unfortunately for us, “Soldier” and “True Soldier” will sometimes be used interchangeably, but they mean very different things. 

Zechs is a man deeply concerned with chivalry, honor, and purpose– the morality and aesthetics of combat. A “soldier” might be someone paid to fight, enlisted with no particular goals, or deployed on a mission that doesn’t involve them– but a “TRUE Soldier” is someone fighting to prove something, to advance their goals, to test their own limits in battle with a worthy opponent, to discover something about themselves in the process of fighting. 

Soldier-I’ve-Named-Milo gives him a Look™ and says “that’s bold of you sir” because Zechs is most certainly not a hired soldier-- as we'll soon learn, he's OZ's ace pilot (more on OZ later), known for his exceptionally fast reflexes and high speed MS combat, which has earned him the moniker "Lighting Count". So while he isn't actually the type to jump into things before understanding what’s going on-- unlike some other people we're about to meet in this episode-- not rushing in combat isn't really what he's famous for.

Also, he’s being kind of a prick! Calling everyone else hired guns and then doubling down by reminding them that HE is a True Soldier?? Yikes!

...Or at least, that’s how the scene reads in English.

First-Episode-Zechs is really laying it on thick for us. And if you’ll take a quick peek behind the curtain with me: Zechs isn’t written this way past this episode. Or really, past this HALF of the episode.

But, if one is looking for an in-character explanation for this dialogue as it stands, it’s possible that First-Episode-Zechs is a glimpse into what a cocksure ace pilot raised on Treize’s idealism (more on that later) is like, right at the peak of his so-far spotless career, and in the last moments he’ll be able to afford this kind of unbridled arrogance before the world conspires to humble him. 

Honestly, that would be in keeping with the way ALL the characters are depicted in these early episodes: each naive or overconfident in their own way, not yet having been forced to challenge their ideals.

–But! this might also just be one of many localization fumbles. A fan translation of this scene indicates that what Zechs might actually be trying to say here is more like:

“No need to chase after more work than we signed up for, we’re all just grunts on the front lines together after all”

and Soldier-I’ve-Named-Milo is therefore responding to him more like:

“That’s a bit cheeky of you to say, Mr. Best-Friends-With-The-Colonel Ace Pilot The Lighting Count Merquise.” 

(...I’ve lamented this before but it’s DAMN HARD to find alternate translations of GW's script, and I'm limited by being a feeble monolingual English speaker. If you’re reading this and have more expertise than I do on this matter and want to share your insights / sources, please know that I'd sign over my soul to see them.)

–On a side note, I love how super crunchy Zechs’ voice is in this first episode. As one astute comment I read once suggested: you can tell Brian Drummond was coming down from playing Vegeta. He still had some of that ol’ Saiyan phlegm in him.

– And now for a brief interlude from our scifi high-politicking to witness some relatable familial drama!

I appreciate this contrast! The important takeaway from this scene is that Relena is the daughter of Vice Foreign Minister Darlian, an important dignitary who mediates between the Earth Sphere Alliance and the Space Colonies. They’re on their way home from one of his frequent business trips to space. 

A vague spoiler, but I find it bittersweet how Zechs is unaware that Relena is on the shuttle about to be caught in the crossfire, and by showing up, he is saving her life.

OMG IT’S HAPPENING. IT’S HERE. IT’S TIME TO TALK ABOUT THE “BATTLE SEED”:

Zechs: “So that’s their little battle seed, all ready to sprout into new battles.” Soldier-I’ve-Named-Milo: “Ha. Operation M.” 

--I get the feeling that Milo is used to Zechs-isms by now and is just like “Oh lieutenant, you kidder,” whenever he says some wild allegorical shit he just made up. 

Anyway, here’s the thing about “battle seed”– this is obviously an idiom that we've done poor service to. But in the original, it’s apparently “Battle EGG”, or perhaps, “EGG OF WAR”. Does that help? No? Well that’s all I’ve got for you. Sorry.

Soldier-I’ve-Named-Milo: “It moves just like a bird…”

Aw, Soldier-I’ve-Named-Milo, you’re so cute when you talk about the enemy death machine. Of course it moves like a bird, it hatched out of a Battle Egg! 

Soldier-I’ve-Named-Milo: “Let’s wake him up with our machine gun!” Zechs: “No. No machine gun for him– Shoot him down!” Otto: “But, Lt. Zechs…!” Zechs: “We were told the purpose of this operation was to bring in the weapon, but it’s not the weapon, (the real target) is the fighter pilot inside!”

Now, I know “don’t shoot him with the gun, shoot him DOWN with the gun” sounds stupid, but really he’s just saying “No warning shots.” 

Whatever kind of new technology they’re up against, strafing it with a machine gun would be like hitting it with spitballs. What they need to do is get the enemy craft out of the air and capture the pilot, and the carrier ship’s machine guns just aren’t going to cut it. --Which is why Zechs is about to hop out and try and fuck it up with a Mobile Suit.

Fucking things up with a Mobile Suit is what Zechses like best. 

--It is worth noting that Zechs immediately clocked the pilot as the most dangerous and valuable part of the enemy operation (because of course! Pilots are warriors, and warriors have honor, and a warrior’s honor is proof of humanity’s worth). Mind you, this is moments BEFORE they see the actual Gundam, but nevertheless, this is a significant value statement that will be important throughout the series: It’s the people that matter. It’s always the people that matter. The weapons are secondary. Even if superior technology grants someone an edge in battle, a weak person behind the controls will always betray themselves.

This is partly why Zechs doesn’t use the Aries MS that’s designed for flight, despite this being aerial combat; he goes in his preferred Leo suit, which is your bog-standard humanoid canon fodder Mobile Suit used as ground troops. This seems like a suboptimal choice, but Zechs lives by the idea that a good pilot can overcome the limitations of their machine. 

And this is put to the test literally the instant he drops. 

–The unfortunate aspect of this scene happening in Episode 01 is that the viewer will have no context yet for exactly how absolutely, impossibly, ludicrously impressive this stunt is. Zechs not only isn’t dead after this, but he manages to fuck up a Gundam using a Leo, which is testament to exactly how much of badass this guy is. 

Oh hey speaking of which check it out, it’s a Gundam. 

–Two of Zech’s backup squad are instantly blown away in one shot from the Wing Gundam. This is barely commented on, and I think that’s one of the bigger mistakes of this episode.  Those two guys aren’t named, and Zechs’ only remark is that it's "not too shabby" / "unbelievable". Considering how much the death of his subordinates weighs on him later, this seems remarkably flippant. 

Soldier-I’ve-Named-Milo: “Are you alright?” Zechs: “Yeah. Sorry to worry you. I did everything I could.” 

See? That’s the kind of rapport Zechs and his subordinates usually have; they keep it professional, but the people who work with Zechs respect him immensely, and as their officer he tries to do right by them. 

Zechs: “There’s no bright future for soldiers scurrying for their reward.” 

This is a fancy-pants way of expressing disdain for the Alliance sailors who weren’t involved in the fight, but were more than happy to claim the spoils. In the fan translation of this episode he literally says “tell them the treasure sunk at these coordinates”. To him, these are just pirates after loot, not True Soldiers. 

___

We just talked about Zechs for a long time. Now let’s talk about Heero Yuy.

Unfortunately for our first Gundam pilot, he took a long, precarious, silent shuttle ride all the way to earth only to be discovered immediately by the Alliance military. He fails to shoot down the civilian carrier that's seen him, and then he fails to shoot down the OZ mobile suit carrier ("Wait" I hear you say, "OZ mobile suit carrier? What's OZ? Aren't Zechs & co. from the Alliance?" Aha! Sharp-eared listener, you miss nothing! Have no fear, we will discuss OZ shortly).

Heero barely has time to dry out the wings of his Wing Gundam before he’s blindsided by OZ’s ace pilot and crashing his infinitely valuable Mobile Suit into the ocean. He makes it out alive by the skin of his teeth.

Not a great first day on the job for our boy Heero! Bad luck meeting Zechs Merquise first thing upon entering earth’s orbit. 

But a surprise encounter with OZ's top pilot notwithstanding, this... probably could have gone better, right? Why would our first introduced Gundam pilot be so cavalier about crashing and burning the second he makes it to his destination? Why would he recklessly reveal his Gundam and pick a fight on a stealth mission? And what’s with this giddy energy he’s got after making a fresh kill? Heero isn't exactly a cheerful guy; he only seems to laugh when he's exhilarated about having gotten away with something. This is one of those times, and it is his very most unhinged cackle. Finally, he gets to DO something. Feels good. Feels right. 

...It’s almost like this boy has zero sense of self preservation and no investment in his future; shooting down enemies for him is a game with no stakes.

–For the returning Wing viewer: if you're familiar the gist of Operation Meteor, remember that it would have been slated to happen directly before the series started; that’s when all the Gundam pilots (at the urging of their Doctors) independently decided to steal their Gundams and ignore the original premise.  So Heero just recently made off like a bandit with the Wing Gundam. He stole that motherfucker right out the display case. His primary objective at the moment isn't primarily to take down OZ and the Alliance (though that's obviously the long-term goal), it's to make sure the Barton Foundation DOESN’T get the Gundam. So really, getting shot down immediately upon arriving on earth isn't the worst thing that could happen. Heero smiles when he finally sees the earth because it means maybe this will be over soon. Mission accomplished. Now all he has to do is die! :)

___

Relena Darlain’s father is a very important, very busy man who never has any time to spare for his daughter, even on her birthday, and in this telenovela of her own life, she’s going to graciously pretend like this doesn’t bother her and make her strong, independent, teenage girl way home on foot, narrating her predicament out loud along the way. She’s the main character, after all, the center of the world. Her troubles are the only troubles that are real.  

*Record scratch*

 Lying there on the beach is someone who is actually in trouble. She’s the only one here. She HAS to help. 

___

–Alright, okay. I see what you did there, Wing.

--The gentleman in Napoleonic cosplay is Treize Khushrenada. He is a Major General (for now) in the Alliance military (for now), and his eyebrows are so big because they are full of secrets.

He and Zechs are best buddies forever and ever, they have matching charm bracelets, and they can finish each other's sandwiches. Whenever these two are on screen together I am going to have to decipher every. single. word. because Treize and Zechs are ALREADY cryptic bastards, and when they're together they talk in friend-speak where only half of what they're communicating actually gets said.

Just this once, as a treat, they are having a fairly intelligible conversation. First one's free.

...But really Treize, taking a call DURING the performance? Bad form old chap, bad form. 

SIDE NOTE: Based on the teeny tiny figures, this could maybe be Petrushka? And I desperately want this to be Petrushka because:   

It means Treize has good taste 

Petrushkranada 

–To put this conversation in perspective: Gundanium is a very sophisticated type of semi-metallic ceramic-like compound that can only be refined correctly in outer space. Think of it as something you’d have to spend all your faculty funding on to buy a gram of for your science department. Suddenly, someone rolls up with a six-story building made out of the stuff. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me” is the only appropriate response.

Treize: "Something like this never would have happened if you and I had been in OZ 15 years ago; that much is for certain."

--If I may humbly direct your attention to my Policy of Ignoring Stupid Shit, this one of the many reasons why we are going to glance at Zechs and Treize's canonical ages, do the math, realize that 15 years ago, Treize and Zechs would have been 9 and 4 years old respectively, and then we are going to gently slide those numbers into the garbage and crank them both up to a respectable adult age in our minds.

--OH RIGHT! OZ!! Remember, we were going to talk about OZ? Well, Treize is going to tell us about it here in a minute, I'm going to tell you about it now, because we need to know what OZ is in brief before we can make sense of this exchange:

OZ is a secret paramilitary organization hiding inside the official Earth Sphere Alliance military. As an organization, it's responsible for a great deal of clandestine political skullduggery and foul play that has left the Colonies and Earth in a state of easily-manipulated perpetual turmoil. OZ has been around for a while-- that's because its even MORE clandestine and sinister parent organization is even older. In its current incarnation, OZ is hiding out inside the elite mobile suit division called the "Specials", which Treize commands. In addition to being the Special's commander, he personally trained many of its top members when he was serving as an instructor at the Lake Victoria Military Academy. Zechs, and a number of other important characters we'll meet, all graduated from this academy under Treize's tutelage, and now serve him as elite mobile suit pilots in the Specials. Which is OZ. Which is the even more shadowy and sinister organization beneath that. It's a turducken of villainy.

What makes the Specials / OZ noteworthy in the ranks of the Alliance is that they are given free reign to act on their own initiative in combat. They don't answer to the Alliance military, they answer to Treize. This pisses a significant number of significant people off.

Treize pisses a significant number of significant people off. He's under the age of 65, which makes him an infant in the ranks of the brass. He's got elusive, powerful aristocratic backing that makes him untouchable. His followers are fanatically, and I mean FANATICALLY loyal to him. And he has the absolute chutzpah to be really good at everything he does. GOD he's the worst. His eyebrows are insured for $10,000.

--When Treize is lamenting that he and Zechs weren't in OZ fifteen years ago, he is referring to a very, very important sequence of events that began around AC 180 (give or take, if you're following my advice about stretching the timeline); events that brought the Earth and the Colonies within an arm's reach of unification and peace, only to be catastrophically and violently ripped apart, to the detriment of both.

(This is a very important date for Zechs, in particular. It's a very important date for the Gundams as well.)

Treize is making the point that if he and Zechs had been in charge back in the day, well, all this revolutionary sentiment wouldn't be necessary. We would have handled that mess far more sensibly, wouldn't we, Bestie?

-- Zechs has already absorbed this subtext and skips ahead to say "Gundams are on earth." Emphasizing that yes, shit really is popping off. The thing we heard scary bedtime stories about is real and it's happening and we get to be the ones to deal with it. Exciting times we're living in.

Treize: "I'm sure you're aware, but this is an important period. Do not do anything to anger the Alliance." Zechs, smirking: "I fully understand."

The Gundams aren't the only scary thing under the Alliance's bed. Lots of volatile elements are about to collide, all at once, very soon. Treize is just giving Zechs a wink and a nudge-- hey, I know you already know that big things are afoot, I trust you not to rock the boat too early.

--Oh! For the record, OZ stands for Organization of the Zodiac. You may have noticed that the two standard Mobile Suits we've been introduced to so far were called "Aries" and "Leo". OZ is inseparable from the history of Mobile Suit development, and all of its MS are therefore constellation-themed. ...But it's also just straight up a reference to "The Wizard of OZ", because OZ's signature mascot is--

--A LIIIIOOON!!!

...Yes! Thank you Tinylion, now we know why you're here. Back in your teapot now, sweetie. There you go.

--It's a lion, and the insignia for the OZ space corps is the Tin Man. The series lead scriptwriter Sumisawa loves him a book & film reference, you will find them all over Wing.

___

–Gosh, Treize is so SASSY in this episode. Look at this delinquent, showing up late for War Class because he was at a concert and on the phone with his boyfriend. Here he is giving lip to his supervisors, answering questions with totally undisguised disdain. He can’t keep getting away with it. He’s a naughty, naughty boy. Someone should teach him a lesson.

–God yes, General Septem. Fuck yes. The best worst voice acting in the show. Iconic. Immortal. Powerful. Showstopping. Brave. Go off, Nappa. 

-VALUABLE KHAMBET RESAWRSEZ

–Treize is sitting at the war table like a fox in a chicken coop, biding his time and thinking: “I don’t owe these complacent, arrogant fools answers for anything. They haven’t left their desks in decades. They’ve never seen the cost of human life first hand. In the depths of their ignorance they think they’re the ones who can steer the course of the future. Hilarious. Thank god for Me.”

__

MEANWHILE: Relena is still on the beach trying to figure out what to do with this sick feral cat she found.

The TNR crew finally shows up with a kitty crate but the cat wakes up and tries to chew its own head off in self-defense. Having failed to die, it bites everyone, hijacks their car, and gets the fuck out of Dodge. 

“Ma’am have you had all your shots?”

Relena is not listening. Relena is introducing herself to the Heero-shaped dust cloud that’s still lingering in the air, because what the fuck else are you gonna do. 

__

Oh hey look it’s more Gundams!

The Gashapons of War have touched down in different parts of the world and set to work wreaking havoc immediately.

Unbeknownst to the Alliance or OZ, any appearance of coordination between the Gundams is an accident– none of them have any idea there are other Gundams besides their own. 

They’re all in the same position as Heero: they refused the original premise of Operation Meteor and now they’re on borrowed time fighting whatever enemies come up on their radar. Each of them thinks they’re in this alone (except for Quatre, who has groupies). 

However, just because the pilots aren’t coordinated doesn’t mean the mysterious people giving them orders are. But we'll learn more about that later.

--- Let's meet the rest of the Gundam boys!

–Duo: LEEEEROOOOY JENKINS we only get old memes in the colonies –Trowa: New phone, new name, new Gundam, who may I ask is calling –Wufei: Stealth missions are for casuals who can’t fight their way out of impossible odds. Skill issue.  –Quatre: I am literally begging you to not fuck around so I don’t have to make you find out.

Speaking of Quatre: Hey! If this were a different series with a mature audience rating, this scene would be unmentionably gruesome! 

___

-Awww, Soldier-I’ve-Named-Milo is bad at math! He’s just like me for real. Anyway, there are (4 + 1 = 5)....Five. Five Gundams total.

-Zechs correctly makes the assessment that the game has just changed, and it’s about to get extremely serious very quickly. 

___

And now, the moment we’ve all been waiting for: 

Spicy feral kitten arrives at Relena’s school. Relena is more confused than ever, but now this is officially a Mystery. She likes mysteries. She likes Mystery Boy. He’s the perfect foil for her, the main character, in this YA novel that she is the protagonist of. 

Feral Mystery Boy suddenly makes it 100% publicly clear that he has no interest in playing nice, or in playing at all. Mystery Boy leans in real close, and says a thing that you might hear from, say, a guy in a black suit you accidentally witnessed murdering someone in a back alley, who then followed you to school.

The telenovela of Relena’s life is hitting its mid-season dark plot-twist, and 

She.

Is

Loving. 

It.

Tune in next week for Episodes 2 - 3! 

~TinyOzLion, out.

[blubberquark]

How Not To Do A Podcast

Don't have a web site: You don't really need one is this day and age. People find your podcast on Spotify, or on Apple Podcasts, or on YouTube. If you put your episodes up on YouTube, don't need hosting or a domain or a home page!

Don't link to the RSS Feed: If you do have a web site, you can just not bother with a public RSS feed. People on Apple podcasts get your episodes from Apple. If you want to post the episodes to your Web site, just embed the mp3a in blog posts! Don't give the hoi polloi access to the RSS feed, or they might steal your content, or worse, drive up hosting costs by downloading all the mp3s at once!

Don't bother with show notes: Show notes limit your reach. They don't show up the same on YouTube and Spotify, and you can't embed images in a pinned comment. Even worse, show notes lead people away from your podcast or the app. Alternatively, treat show notes as required reading. If you must have them, this is the way to get the most out of your show notes. Refer to the show notes all the time, and tell our audience to just read or listen to the linked stuff. Don't bother excerpting or paraphrasing things from elsewhere on the Internet. People are on a PC, they can click on links! In the show notes, don't bother adding context either. When your listeners have listened to the episode, they will know what the links mean.

Talk about your editing process and audio setup: Did you just buy a new mic? Are you recording on your laptop microphone in a hotel room? Don't just apologise for the audio quality, tell your listeners that normally you would record on the same hardware that NPR uses for This American Life. Talk about how you bought a new Mac Studio Ultra with 128 GB of RAM for editing the pauses out, and that time you had to interrupt the interview because your guest opened the door to accept a package delivery.

Keep introductions to a minimum: Your listeners have listened to the previous 500 episodes in chronological order, so they know what your podcast is about and who is hosting it. Don't start your podcast episodes with the name of the podcast, or introductions where every host says "Hello, I am Alice" "And I am Bob. This is the Alice and Bob send cryptic messages podcast. Today we're going to discuss PGP." This stuff is lame. Just say "Hi, here we are again, how has your last week been?" or "We're back! Sooo..."

If you really have to introduce multiple speakers, just have one host name everybody. Instead of repeating what the podcast is and who is doing it every time, start the episode with frequently updated information like upcoming meet-ups, listener feedback about the episode before last, how to reach you on twitter, your new mastodon instance, and current Patreon goals.

Use .mp3, .aac, or .wma: As long as the bit rate is high enough, people won't notice. Your goal is to reach as many people as possible, so an old file format like WMA is the best. For audiophiles, also have a feed in FLAC format. In the past, 250MB episodes would have been annoying, but everybody listens on YouTube and Spotify anyway (they do the transcoding for you). If they don't, maybe the 250MB per hour will make them reconsider.

Episodes should least at least 80 minutes long: Sometimes time flies, sometimes you need a lot of time to get to the point. People love to listen to the Joe Rogan Experience, which is sometimes 3 hours long. If your guests have more to say, don't record a bonus episode, just ask yourself: What would Rogan do?

Chapter marks work against you: Chapter marks let listeners skip past the ads, but they also let them skip past the part where you announce the next listener meet-up, the new URL of the t-shirt store, and ways to contact you. It is of vital importance that in five years, people who listen to your podcast will be familiarised with the old twitter handle you used to have, the old coupon code for RAID: Shadow Legends that doesn't work any more, and the listener meet-up in downtown Mariupol.

Frequently upgrade your web site: Like I said, it's usually not worth having a web site. But if you do, you need to

keep it fresh.

To do this, you should frequently update the URL of your home page, the URLs of blog posts where users can listen to individual episodes in their browser, your commenting system, your domain name, and the character encoding of your transcripts.

Listeners love banter and personality: Don't read from a script, because that sounds lame and stilted. Don't even have an agenda or written notes. If you want to talk something out, do it live on air. If you talk to a co-host or a guest about the topic or the ground rules for the episode, then do that live on air, too. If you go off topic, or if you have to spend a minute googling something during an episode, if your dog barks, a host goes on a tangent or if there is a package delivery at the door, just say "we'll edit that part out" and then leave the whole thing in, or edit but leave in the bit where you say "we'll edit it out in post". That joke never gets old. Asking your co-hosts about the topic of today's episode gives your podcast personality, rich texture, and entertainment value. The key is to be your raw, unfiltered self. Anybody can read from a script, but only you can answer the door for an Amazon package.

Listeners love drama: If somebody sends you a mean tweet, don't ignore it and move on. Use it! Read out all the mean tweets on your podcast. Make them a regular feature. Ask your listeners whether they agree! They will shower you with sympathy and engagement. If you don't have enough twitter drama to go on, you can invite guests for drama: Get people from twitter onto your podcast. I know, it sounds like a threat when you have twitter beef with somebody and ask them onto your show where you can edit them and you have an audience that's on your side, but you're reasonable here. You can say "twitter is such a terrible format for this, let's hash it out somewhere more appropriate". In the best case, you win the twitter argument without actually having to record the episode. You can just say in your podcast they didn't want to debate you.

Don't record episode 0 or -1: Back in 2005, it was customary to record an "episode zero" as the first thing in your RSS feed. There was even a cool service (now defunct) that aggregated all every "episode zero" from feeds into a feed of upcoming podcasts. These days, you record a trailer for your podcast and that is inserted into feeds of other podcasts at Wondery, Tortoise Media, and Serial Productions. It's passé to have a 15 minute introduction to an upcoming podcast.

Similarly, it used to be customary to record one or more "negative" episodes where you just check out your recording equipment and get used to the process, figure out which segments and interview formats work. You're a professional though. You don't need to get used to hearing your own voice.

You can go the extra mile and scrub everything but the latest 5 episodes from the feed.

[appears]

M(A)DE IN JAPAN

It's Ayumi Hamasaki's birthday on October 2 and we're extending the celebration in true ego-maniacal, splashy celebrity fashion, by drawing out the festivities for an entire week! Each day I will briefly discuss a totally random item chosen (not by me) from my Ayu collection. Prepare for praise, disappointment, and controversial opinions backed by love and respect as we take a casual look back in this blurry snapshot of her career. Happy Birthday to our Party Queen, Ayumi Hamasaki!

As of this writing, it has been six long years since Ayumi Hamasaki released an original studio album. Her last release of any new material was an EP put out four years ago. The empty space in between is the longest that she has gone without releasing new material, though we did get a few digital singles (in my opinion, the best of these was "23rd Monster," a surprisingly aggressive and energetic track worthy of Secret or GUILTY-era Ayu). It will be interesting to see if, considering the passage of time, the new album she has scheduled to be released this fall (but looking like it will be winter) will jolt Ayu out of the rut she has gotten into, and which this album has on full display.

To begin with, no singles were released to promote the album, an abrupt turn that began after 2010's triple-A side L. That single effectively switched the knobs off on a faucet pouring regular and rapid single releases, of which there were anywhere from 5-7 a year at the peak. The average eventually fell and then came to an end when only one physical single was released in 2013, followed by two final singles in 2014, the very last of which was Zutto... / Last minute / Walk. Interestingly, no digital singles were released in support of the album either; instead, the album was announced Beyonce-style, dropping abruptly onto the exclusive AWA Japan streaming site in 2016, and released physically on CD one month later. Many of the songs follow what is now a familiar template for Ayu fans: a gleeful mix of exuberant hard rock mixed with arena-sized ballads and tempting outliers -- songs like the joyous, techno-infused "Summer Love," followed by the trance-inspired "Many Classic Moments," one of many Tetsuya Komuro-penned covers Ayu has recorded in her career, this one originally a hit for globe. While the two make a nice set, they really do embody the term "outliers," especially on an album that is purportedly making a statement about nationhood and identity.

Consider the amazing opening track "Flower," with its harmony of traditional elements and very modern electronic influence. It's an exhilarating launch into an album, but one that loses steam as we get to the Timothy Wellard-written tracks like "You Are the Only One," or the hackneyed "Mr. Darling." It really speaks to the lack of focus that plagues many of Ayumi's late-career albums, from the kitchen-sink excellence of ones that insisted on reaching as wide an audience as possible with running times into the obscene, to even shorter ones like these that opt for a comfortable brevity. Despite the lack of vision and novelty, though, it's still an Ayu album and is still produced by some of the greatest mixers and engineers that a company like Avex can afford. It sounds amazing, with a high quality production value that makes even listening to the most melodically annoying songs pleasantly tolerable. I wouldn't say this album is as good as the surprise that predecessor A ONE turned out to be, but it's perfectly fine if your expectations are accordingly realistic and modest for an artist on her seventeenth album in the eighteenth year of her career.

This album was released to streaming before being released physically in five different versions: 2 exclusive Team Ayu editions with either a Blu-ray or 2 DVDs, limited edition CD+DVD and CD+Blu-ray editions, and a regular CD-only edition. Each version has different cover art, none of which are great and like many of Ayu's recent releases, feature a pretty bland, neutral-toned head shot. The Team Ayu editions, available exclusively to fan club members, included additional footage of the LIMITED TA LIVE TOUR at Zepp Tokyo along with music videos from three of the tracks. Limited edition BD/DVD editions included only the three music videos and their short making-of features.

While at the point that this was released I was pretty fed up with the same old sound from Ayu, it admittedly has a few really solid songs on it, and while more Ayu is never a net negative, it's nice to see her scale back on the many useless interludes that have marred many of her older albums, even if that's due to her diminishing status in the industry or loss of unlimited permission in the studio.

Based on the few singles and the short EP released since this album, I don't think that Ayu is interested in evolving as an artist anymore. Accepting that has been tough, but I tend to focus more on what she's able to do within her chosen space now (and we might not like it, but she’s sort of earned it, right?). It doesn't let her off the hook, but rather, alters the equation I use to judge the music by both heightening certain thresholds (melody, style, production, vocals) and lowering others (personal expectations, novelty, comparison to her previous work). And as always, I never close the door on the chance to be completely blown away or delightfully bemused, certainly not by an artist who once had the ability to do both easily. I might come off like a cranky, disgruntled fan at times, incapable of appreciating anything new, but far from it -- I am immensely excited for the new album and look forward to it in all its beautiful, flawed glory.

Happy birthday Ayu, and thank you for eighteen years of some of the most wonderful music I have had the privilege to listen to, critique, praise, dislike, and love!

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Larry Fessenden's BLACKOUT Coming to Limited Edition Blu-ray from Dark Sky Selects 9/24

Dark Sky Selects is proud to announce the Blu-ray Disc release of BLACKOUT, the Rotten Tomatoes Certified Fresh film from independent horror master Larry Fessenden. With only 1,000 available as a site exclusive on DarkSkySelects.com, the Blu-ray Disc features commentary with Larry, a 76-minute behind-the-scenes featurette and more. The thriller centers around a fine arts painter convinced that he is a werewolf wreaking havoc on a small American town. BLACKOUT marks the reunion of Dark Sky Films and Glass Eye Pix, two iconic companies that have brought fans some of the greatest genre films of our time.

Dark Sky Selects is proud to present BLACKOUT from horror auteur Larry Fessenden to Blu-ray Disc featuring a Limited Edition O-Card with exclusive artwork and 12-page booklet with introduction by Fangoria's Phil Nobile Jr.

Writer-director Larry Fessenden has created some of the most original and memorable independent horror films of the last 25 years, from Habit and Wendigo to The Last Winter, Skin and Bones, Beneath and Depraved. His latest, BLACKOUT, ranks among his most chilling and thought-provoking works with a cast that includes: Alex Hurt, Addison Timlin, Motell Gyn Foster, Joseph Castillo-Midyett, Ella Rae Peck, Rigo Garay, John Speredakos, Michael Buscemi, Jeremy Holm, Joe Swanberg, James Le Gros, Kevin Corrigan, Marshall Bell and Barbara Crampton.

Earning rave reviews on the festival circuit, BLACKOUT marks the long-awaited reunion of Dark Sky Films and Larry Fessenden's Glass Eye Pix, two iconic horror companies that brought us contemporary classics such as Ti West's The House of The Devil and The Innkeepers, Jim Mickle’s Stake Land and Adrian Garcia Bogliano's Late Phases.

The collectible BLACKOUT Blu-ray Disc will also include:

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BLACKOUT is the second of many iconic Dark Sky titles that will be available this year. Additional limited-edition releases of fan favorite films and merch will be announced throughout the year, which will only be available direct to consumer at DarkSkySelects.com.

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