#i feel like this being my personal is hilarious bc i post more off brand ooc unthemed shit on my rps usually where im ‘not allowed’ lol

[bittwitchy]

imagine me actually on a laptop not for gaming but all i do is drop cassie content and leave

[mantequillamcwhoremick]

A penny for your thoughts on the Dikinbaus episode? 👀👀👀

Omg okay so I definitely have to rewatch it like 10082927 times but just to go off of my late night 'delirious from excitement' watch, I am absolutely ECSTATIC at the way the episode treated Butters and gave him a well deserved win.

Butters has evolved a lot over the course of the show, he used to be a 100% naïve and innocent boy who was absolutely clueless about everything mature or terrible going on around him and it was always a very hopeful thing for me to watch him keep going and loving life despite how much the world tore him down on all ends. In a way, watching old seasons makes me miss the old Butters, but if Butters had just stayed the same for the next 20 seasons, he would hardly feel like a real/three dimensional person as he does now.

The changes and mood swings he's gone through, as well as the resilience he's started to build up were weird to watch at first (*COUGH* s20) but then they've started making more and more sense, especially taking into account the Post COVID special and the two wildly different paths his life could go.

That all being said, Dikinbaus was an absolutely satisfying cathartic episode as a Butters enthusiast, because he's just finally embracing things he's genuinely good at and demanding justice from someone who's arguably taken advantage of him the most in the entire show: Cartman.

It's kind of like Butters' version of Wendy's "Breast Cancer Show Ever" episode, where she's often been disrespected in a sexist way by him and no one (no teachers/adults) ever really did something, so she took matters into her own hands. Cartman is always screwing Butters over by letting him take the fall for his schemes, making Butters spend money on his behalf, and Butters has let him get away with it for so long, and so have Butters' parents (and everyone else but I especially blame the adults bc yknow).

This makes Dikinbaus kind of a kickstarter for Butters' "Fuck you, Eric!" moment at the end of Post COVID: The Return of COVID, which is nice to see because in the "Worldwide Privacy Tour" episode earlier in the season, Butters' behavior (after his parents sent him to rework his "brand") reminded me much more of Vic Chaos. It's nice to see these two versions of Butters' future reflect in present episodes, and I'm excited to see more of it in future episodes.

I've been rambling about Butters only but tbh I found the Kenman dynamic in this episode hilarious too. It makes me kind of mourn the respect Butters had for Kenny though, bc I'm sure that after this episode it must've significantly gone down, but honestly I was just happy to see Kenny have some fun even if it was at Butters' expense. Let him be a dumb immature kid fr

The only issue I had with the episode for now is the commentary on mental health days at work and the underlying "today's youth is sensitive and too lazy to work" message, which lacked nuance and just kinda felt like old people complaining. It would've been okay if they'd kept it only to Cartman, kinda like the "there's queer people, and then there's Mr Garrison" thing, but they brought Kenny & other kids into that narrative too so it made me feel a little eh about the commentary. But oh well

Sorry anon, you gave me a penny and I'm throwing a whole thesis on you but I still thank you a lot for asking and letting me ramble. Kisses to you :>>

[cal-writes]

hi, i'm here with a couple of bits for the ask game! ❤️ in general AND specifically 221 Beika Street series. 💥 for both one piece and detco. and ✨️👓🦋🦈📚💛 please! may you have a blessed day, Cal!

damn you did not mess around! lets hope mobile doesnt destroy me trying to answer

i will put this under read more bc it got long!

❤️ What is your favorite line that you’ve written in a fic?

i have many! generally i like my dialogue the best usually so this one is from my most recent one piece wip

-

Kureha scoffs and waves him off. “Oh, please. You’re practically glowing like a young bride. You definitely got laid.”

for detco i loved this exchange in A Matter of Deduction

“For the record, you’re a terrible liar.” Shinichi threw over. Hattori hung his head briefly with a sharp laugh. He shut off the water in the sink and dried his hands on a dishtowel he threw at Shinichi with too little force, causing it to land on the floor between them.

 

“And you’re a terrible detective.”

-

for 221 beika street specifically i loved writing amuro and shinichi being bitchy at each other

“I like him better than I do you.” He told Amuro plainly. It wasn’t much of an achievement, considering, but Shinichi still felt like it needed to be said. Since they were being so honest with each other after all. 

 

“I’m well aware,” Amuro said, chuckling. “I hate you less than I do him.” He was still idly turning pages in the book and Shinichi slammed it shut in his hands.

 

“If you bring your gun here again I will make you regret it.”

💥 What is one canon thing that you wish you could change?

for one piece i think it would be the reveal of why sanji wanted to have to power to turn invisible. listen i have a tough time liking sanji in canon and i thought when it was first brought up that yknow that could be an interesting thing to explore esp with his backstory later with his shitty family like do something with that! and then they were like nah he wants to harass women in the bath. like i pretend i do not see it

for detco its hard bc i think there is so much thats only debatably canon. for me detco isnt really one continuous story so i like to pick and choose with canon anyway. maybe just more queer representation. or any i suppose (the movies arent really canon but the lupin crossover movie has like two or three lines in it that i despise and wish to delete from out universe entirely)

✨️ Out of the comments you’ve received on your fics, what are two or three of your favorites?

there is a lovely person called hikarinomajin (i forgot what their tumblr user name is and cannot find it for the live of me rn) who made a thread on twitter as they read 221 beika street and linked it in the comments and that was a joy to read. they leave lovely comments but that first one and the thread is special to me, ive never had someone make a thread live blogging them reading my writing.

also @blithe-bee is the best hype woman for my wips, lots of comments from her in my google docs drafts that are a huge motivation, i have posted one of my recent favorites on this blog about stabbing zoro being my brand

also a very different but hilarious one is this one on Glue Trap from BnuuyTales, makes me cackle every time

👓 What helps you focus when you write?

playlists! i make playlists for everything. when im starting to get serious about a story i will sit down and make a playlist. here is part of the 221 beika street one

🦋 Which character is your favorite to write?

they all have their unique quirks. i think i feel the most at home in heijis and laws head bc i can project my own way of thinking on it. a bit scattered and a bit overdrive and run on sentences. its the easiest to write as them i think. a few other characters are fun to write though just because i can use a different style. ive really been enjoying writing robin from one piece and my one shot from sonokos pov bc they think very differently and have different focus and expressions

🦈 Which character is the toughest to write?

i really struggled with kaito at first. ive mostly seen the movies for detco in the beginning and hadnt read the kaito manga yet so i felt like pulling teeth trying to get his voice down.

for one piece i tried my hand at usopp recently too and i definitely am not as comfortable in his pov yet as other characters but i could see myself really enjoying him down the line

📚 Is there a fanfic or fanfic writer you recommend?

@the-pen-pot is someone ive been following since livejournal and shes (i hope thats the right pronouns) a great writer! merlin unfortunately isnt my fandom but if you are into merlin im sure her stuff is still great if not better then when i read her fullmetal alchemist fics back in the day

specific fics is a little though for op and detco bc as soon as i start writing fic i will read less of it in any given fandom xD

but here are some favs

i think a classic for detco is a study in scarlette great work by kittebasu

kaishin power hour, great plot and fantastic pace, also really interesting character exploration

for one piece i absolutely loved Cut My Feelings Clean Off by Augment

zoro as the heart pirates first mate, fantastic dynamics here. absolutely love how their wrote law

if you are into grandmaster of demonic cultivation and horror Post Mortem by Cataclysmic_Calamity was a breathtaking piece of work but do be mindful of the content warnings. the climax is so fantastic i read it multiple times

and for some red vs blue fans P versus NP by @glassedplanets

wash and maine in a canon divergent story. one of my absolute favorites, i followed the progress for years and the author recently started writing one piece too! (that ive been meaning to read as well) so definitely check their stuff out. they also make beautiful art

i wish i was better with names bc i know some of these people have tumblrs too that i follow but i cannot remember the names. i just see vague icon blobs when i scroll my timeline

💛 What is the most impactful lesson you’ve learned about writing?

i know its hard especially in this current age of social media but just write for yourself. like i sometimes call writing exorcising things from my brain and i think thats where the passion comes from. dont write for numbers and likes (although those are of course nice too) but they arent a sign of quality or capability.

ages ago on a different website i once did this test where i took the same fic, changed the names into one from a bigger fandom and posted them both. and to see the difference in numbers just based on which fandom or paaring it was from really helped me move on from that mindset of “if there are no comments or likes its bad” sometimes it just means less people have seen it

wow thank you for asking all of them!! this is fun

[fecto-forgo]

rating fandom affection terms for characters because i have nothing better to do

favorite character-simple, straight forward, not bad at all, but it lacks spice and a true demonstration of love, 8/10 gets the job done

problematic favorite-a great term, once again straight forward but in this case about the guy in question being acknowledged as a stinky rascal, 10/10

cinnamon roll-its ok, i was never into it bc idc for those types of characters, suffered a sad fate of eventually becoming a term associated with diminishing characters into just their "cute and pure" traits, 2/10 bc i remember it getting really annoying after a while, it being from old fandom times society wants to forget doesnt help its case

smol bean-same feelings as above, but suffered a more tragic fate that its downfall was caused by 30 years old adults attempting to call themselves smol beans, 1/10 i use smol every once in a blue moon

tol-i honestly dont think this was ever put in proper use, it was created to match smol but taller people (in fandom height standards thats anyone above 5'0) do not give off the vibes fandom people need to want to infantalize them, 5/10 for sounding a bit funny

waifu/husbando-i think someone using those to refer to any character at all should be a red flag, 1/10 someone can get more 4 points if their favorite is of age to be called that

best girl/best boy-can be a red flag but can also be used as a term for "whos your favorite from *gender*?" so it gets a mild pass, 4/10

baby boy (baby)-cute! came from a decently funny meme, 7/10 funny to scream out when youre rotating them in your brain

gay baby-im honestly convinced this wasnt used by a single lgbt+ person outside of like, maybe a gay baby jail joke, 0/10 called me a slur

rat-was funny the first fifty times, 6/10 not horrible but after a while it felt like itd meet the same fate as cinnamon roll

komaeda-i do not know how i feel about this, if its used in a conversation itll either be hilarious or be the worst attempt at making a character summary, ???/10

twink-i keep getting flashbacks to the chubby twink fight in that post about the animal crossing owls everytime i hear it, 6/10 i dont know what it means anymore

sexyman-funny term for us, slur for the characters, im confused if this is even an affection term/10

son/daughter-adorable i love seeing this get used for a character who had family issues, 8/10 just very sweet

poor little meow meow-the specific brand of irony is genius, its like watching a victorian woman throw bread crumbs at a starving orphaned homeless child, 9/10 my friend wanted to kill me for calling lancelot from king arthur my meow meow

skrunkly-meow meow but with a bigger brand of pity, truly like seeing a cat who just got out of a bath and is in misery, 10/10

blorbo-a fine revolutionary term used to fight back against angry ops their posts were getting fandom tags in the fandom app, 20/10 cured my fear of judgement

*any sexual term*-would maybe be a bit funny if you guys used it for men who actually look pretty for once, 2/10 has ironic potential

slut/whore-very funny if used in a couple of men, otherwise its just awkward 3/10

any graphic paragraph of wanting to fix a man through something such as putting them in rice-a great way to show concern but still hint at being able to laugh at them, 10/10 i tried joking about this with a friend outside of tumblr and she acted like i was insane

will update if i remember more <3

[daydreamrry]

so did the sun article mention her or not? i saw someone say whenever it’s a n article from his team it never mentions her, unlike from her team. //

I was the anon that wrote that and I didn’t notice it at the bottom lol but I’m also not convinced Harry’s team approved that part. Back to the SEO post another anon linked to… what if the Sun added that part in just to boost their own SEO ranking. Editors can change pieces so I bet the Sun added that in. PR doesn’t completely control what is written they just heavily persuade and guide the piece. (I work in PR)

Here’s a prime example what I meant tho. This is an example of something Harry’s team sent in:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.capitalfm.com/news/harry-styles-nick-kroll-dont-worry-darling-gifts/

Notice how it was posted in March of this year but no mention of Holivia just Olivia as director briefly? This publication posts super positively about Harry in general and has done a lot of articles detracting from Holivia. Everyone wants to hate on his team, but hear me out on this theory.

I think his team has been actually working really hard to keep Harry’s brand as disassociated from her as possible while the stunt continues. That’s part of all the winning of awards (not to say he didn’t earn them but a lot of awards are political, esp. Grammys) and why Liam and Ed keeping bringing him up, that’s why Lorde talked about him, and Joshua whoever Olivia Rodrigos ex, and why Jen Aniston wore the same suit as him for People, why Courtney Cox covered his song. Yes all these people get clout from his name but think about how many random people have been talking about him lately??? Why?? Image restoration. All of these people have done nothing but say amazing and positive things about him. PR people talk a lot and it’s not a stretch that they’d be involved somehow in all these random positive mentions. It’s their job to find these connections and positively promote their clients. Why do they care so much about his image?? HS3 baby!! Harry wants to be and his team wants to market him as one of the greats of his time (Grammys, high profile articles with RS and famous music journalists, placement on 500 best albums and 500 best songs?) More than anything Harry wants critical acclaim for his music. They do not want it cheapened by being tied to Olivia. The article today proved it to me. They laid out that he wrote it before her and they will continue to say that and steer album marketing as far from as they can strategically. Think about it. How much press has Olivia gotten not tied to Holivia and how much press has Harry gotten not tied to Holivia? Exactly!

Theory continued: I also think his team reads these blogs and they know that we all think it’s PR. I think maybe they are the ones leaving some of the “it’s PR” comments on the DM and other Holivia articles not the GP. (Go look up what they did for Eroda and all the fake Twitter accounts they made for that marketing push) If everyone thinks the relationship is fake even if stories say otherwise, this angle is better because he didn’t really break up a family/date her anyway. Olivia still gets name recognition and tabloids get clicks. That’s why I think we see Harry being so over it. At first his team wanted to sell the it’s real thing to water down the home wrecker narrative they’ve worked so hard to clear (why he wasn’t looking horribly miserable although still strange in the January photos) but they noticed we weren’t buying it. Now they’re purposely seeding doubt and straight up disconnecting him publicly from her as much as possible. They’re the ones that fed that Page 6 article about him singing about his ex in front of her. They’re trying to make her look bad guys! Why? It’s better for Harry that we’re thinking poor Harry caught up in this stunt with such an annoying person. It’s actually sort of hilarious. And real tea I think Jason’s team is doing the same thing so I doubt there’s any real bad blood between Jason and Harry bts or any of their shared friends. That’s why the subtle shade with the kids and Jason before the Emmys and the classic doodle line. Like damn. She’s probably on the phone so much talking to her PR team about how to salvage any of this and it sells her girlboss image. He’ll still make fun of the situation on SNL but I bet Olivia comes out looking the worst. The only confusing part is Jeff? Why would he hype Olivia on the teaser Instagram story hmm? Why not Harry? Well he’s not gonna tag them both in the post and honestly I think they’re trying to distance Harry from the movie some too bc it’s tainted by her and the stunt. I’ll stand by Harry’s core team who’ve been around being loyal to him. I think tommy is dancing with Olivia like that bc he knows fans will capture it and she’ll look stupid.

I know this is a lot and sounds sort of crazy. I’m not a Larry or any of that but literally this whole thing has been so strange and this is the only explanation I can’t come up with. This is the first relationship I feel is a stunt truly without love or at least some romance involved. I don’t know what happened between them but that weird dancing video and the yacht pics really cemented it as being off for me. I don’t think Harry’s innocent or any of that either. I know he has flaws but I can’t for the life of me wrap my head around why someone who was so horribly paraded through the press with 1D would find themselves in this position again when he hasn’t had anything like this in the press for like 5 years? I know there are some pieces still missing like why did this all start in the first place?? I don’t think Harry would willingly tarnish his image even for a movie role. I don’t believe they were even seeding Holivia back then. I think they had him photographed with Flo stating they were just friends and the article about him being single to get ahead of any costar romance narratives. This was supposed to be a serious project for him. Something else happened that sent us all careening down this path to Holivia hell and it probably involves betrayal of some sort which is why he made that weird statement “thanks to everyone who has my back” at the brits. I’m convinced that DWD was supposed to be a movie to show he has acting range and that’s why he took the role, but it’s become some weird death trap.

link

[mandareeboo]

ok now im curious what your most petty thing is (regarding the dp post)

Oooh boy, here we go! Buckle up fuckers this is gonna be a longer one.

My senior year of high school, I took a creative writing class. Partially because I needed to fill the slot, mostly because I wanted to improve my writing (spoiler: I did not). Now, my high school was a three floor building- first was mostly gym, second was general, and the third was senior lockers and art classes. I spent a good chunk of my schedule senior year on the second and third floor, going between an art class to my earth science (I took that one entirely as filler, but also bc I like science) to my locker and so on.

Creative writing? Creative writing was in the fucking basement. Go to the first floor, go to a corner generally used for health and development classes, to another corner, follow a ramp and some stairs, and boom there it is kind of basement. (Side note but this teacher was REALLY into attendance and would get you in trouble if you were late which was really annoying since basically no other class was in that part of the building).

My creative writing teacher wasn't bad, per se. I've had worse teachers. I had an algebra teacher who delighted in making freshman girls cry and mocking them for it. I had a journalism teacher who would use her class time reporting how Hilary was secretly ill during the election. I had a history teacher say trans people weren't real to an openly gender nonconforming student (I didn't know them well enough to ask for specifics on their alignment, but they were using they/them at that point) and set up assignments just to mock students on the take they were told to make. It was more that she was uncreative and took it out on the kids doing creative writing.

She gave us two books to read. Basically “how I write” by published authors. I don’t remember the first one well enough and I donated it ages ago, but the second was Stephen King’s “On Writing”. It was 3/4′s personal stories about his life and 1/4′s “also write a bit every day”.  I mostly remember the first author bc she had those fake dreadlocks white people do when they destroy their hair and she gleefully told a story about making her son have a meltdown at a party or wedding or something bc he got overwhelmed and she wanted him to learn that “sometimes you don’t get what you want”. So. You know. Not much there.

She also instructed us to write in a journal every day, which she would check every few months or so. It had to be at least half a page. She would leave little comments in every one else’s journals when she checked them, but not mine- I realized pretty quickly she was a bit uncomfortable with LGBT+ content, so I made it my mission to make every journal drabble as gay as possible bc I was bored and she couldn’t mark them WRONG when she just stated we needed to write.

But it doesn’t end there! Through the entire class, we got exactly five writing projects. Stories that follow very specific guidelines that we would then read in front of the class, group proofread, and then have the teacher give final grades for. These things were approximately like a thousand words a piece, and I was writing out my 10,000 word “It Starts off Small” story in class when I got bored, so it wasn’t difficult. 

Our first project was a character going through a difficult decision. Or... something? I honestly forget the criteria. Anyway, I was HYPE. I’d had this idea for a long time now a human choosing between peaceful death or reincarnation, and this gave me the push to write it! I had a whole thing planned with death being a deer and reincarnation being a wolpertinger (bc reincarnation leads to many possibilities, ed boy, so a Frankenstein bunny made sense to me). Anyway I poured my heart and soul into this bastard and, bright eyed and bushy tailed, handed it in. My classmates all thought it was pretty good. Not to toot m’own horn, but there was some pretty bad ones going in, so I thought I’d get a solid B or something.

I got a D. I guess the struggle was too metaphorical, or it didn’t perfectly fit her criteria. I was devastated. Then I was mad. Bc I was a bored senior who thought they’d made something pretty decent for this completely optional class and her refusal to see that really hurt me at sixteen (I was always a year younger than my other classmates, so despite being a senior I didn’t turn eighteen until almost a year after graduation)

Well, fuck it, I decided. I’m going to parody the shit out of this class.

Our next project was a fantasy story. I was bitter and grumpy. The other fantasy stories read aloud were stuff like “yeah this dude fought a wizard and got a girl, then they went home and banged” (this was not hyperbole, he would’ve written and read the smut if allowed, I knew him personally) and “this girl that NO ONE UNDERSTOOD was called CRAZY but this S@!$ cheerleader who Stole Her Boyfriend so she killed them all” (fun fact: the girl who wrote that was my age and a sort of half-friend from middle school. She was a yaoi fangirl who didn’t mind lesbians as long as they, you know, didn’t FLIRT with her or something.) 

So I get up there. It’s the last day of presentations. And I present with a polite cheer. My story is about two magical shepherd type figures who are called Sister Brighten and Brother Dick as they chase down a werewolf who was drunk off his ass and accidentally bit someone else. They then revealed they were basically supernatural designated drivers for the whole town. I made Brighten mention that Dick’s name wasn’t even Richard. I titled it “His Favorite Brand is Grayhound”. It fit every single criteria. I got an A. I could tell she didn’t want to, because there was no comments or anything like everyone else’s, but she had to follow her own criteria.

Our third was a conjoined effort thing so I didn’t pull any fuckery there, but the fourth one was about common myths and spinning them into real or fake. One girl did the hook-handed door handle thing and the boyfriend ended up above his truck hanging (somehow???). I think someone did the age-old adage of a haunted wedding dress? I kind of read through those presentations. 

Now, I’m salty-salty at this point. I wasn’t expecting His Favorite Brand is Grayhound to get me a good grade. I half-assed a lot of it. I am in full Not Happy Teenager at this point. I grab a daddy long leg and settle in.

My fourth story of the year is “Paperskin.”

Paperskin is about a boy named Billy with the thinnest skin membrane ever. Just full on body horror. You could see his teeth behind his lips. Billy gets bored one day and wanders out of his house, tries to kick a soccer ball, and breaks a leg. As he’s laying in the grass a daddy long leg bites him- and his skin is so flimsy the fangs sink in and he dies. I’m actually still pretty proud of Paperskin. It’s a horrifying, Edgar Allen Poe of a monstrosity, but it made people squirm, which was the point. The teacher is clearly a bit unnerved at this point, but she gives me another A. 

I wrote a more “normal” story after that of a contentious objector forced to house kids going to see if any confirmed soldier deaths were any of their parents as my final one and I could feel her spite as she gave me a B.

So, yeah. That’s the story of when I tormented my creative writing teacher with The Gays and my weird ass sense of humor after she called one of my best works at that age a piece of shit.

 Here’s a google drive of these bad boys, because yes I do still have these things. I turned these fuckers in for grades, people.

[appleflavoredkitkats]

i feel like tftsmp has so much potential to be more enjoyable than it is bc we want to see cc’s that we like interact with other cc’s that we don’t get to see them interact with as much. if there was a smaller cast that allowed cc’s to talk to each other rather than a focus on a huge build and events that take place there, i feel like that would be more compelling to watch. that’s why i think i personally like the lost city of mizu so much. there was a reason for them to be touring the whole build and have it specifically be treated as a tour and for a majority of the ep, everyone was there and everyone got to interact and talk with each other. there was still an end goal in mind, but imo at least it didn’t feel as much like it was dragging bc of the interactions we got. (i could be viewing this through rose colored glasses since it’s been a While since i watched this, but my point stays the same lmao)

also!! i think another reason tftsmp falls sort of flat for me is because the characters the cc’s play aren’t really,,,, compelling. like. they’re boring. especially recently, they don’t get to talk enough to have specific character traits and stuff, so it just reads like it’s the cc but toned down and with a different name. there are a few exceptions to this, mostly in past eps, but most notable to me is technoblade, actually. his characters are almost always my favorites because they’re super obvious caricatures that play off a part of his actual personality or branding (royalty/being super rich but with no nuance, being good at fighting but also being lazy, not being good at talking to people/standing up for himself but with no other traits to balance it out, that kind of thing). they’re memorable, and they’re fun to watch. i think it also helps that twice he’s been like. the “leader” of sorts and not a part of the supporting cast which does give him more room to do what he wants

sO. i guess basically, what i want is smaller casts for each tftsmp with varied cc’s that allows them to interact more, less emphasis on the builds and more emphasis on the interactions and their reasons for being there, and more concrete characters that aren’t just more bland versions of the cc or the cc essentially saying “im x” a few times and calling it a day (i absolutely adore him but i’m so sorry punz i’m looking at you and your “i’m a jock” thing from the haunted mansion 😭). all in all tho, i think there’s so much potential, karl just has to look at what people actually enjoy about tftsmp and focus way more on that (and yeah it’s really,,, not the builds that we look forward to, sorry karl fjdksks)

ALL THIS! SUPER AGREED. i can’t say much more than what i’ve said in previous posts, but you really hit the nail on the mark with this one. it’s definitely the cc’s we get interested in, but because of the sheer quantity of cc’s per episode, there’s not even any room for interaction. the pit, easily, is one of the worst episodes, and if not, the worst, because even if they had good characters, there was never really any time they got to showcase themselves outside of a pointless battle. the gold in tftsmp always comes in with the interactions, so seeing characters just. stay silent for the entire thing is just very painful to watch because we’re BEGGING for more. each world in each episode will be a one-time experience because tftsmp is an anthology where the worlds don’t get revissited, so if they make characters, they HAVE to bring out the best of them or else us viewers would feel like we’re left hanging.

the best characters too in my opinion are like, what you said, techno’s. he’s fully committed to his bits, and he’s also quite funny as them as well! i think fundy and quackity also get props for their characters because they are immensely hilarious as well, and ranboo gets props too because he’s good at improv in general. ranboo i think is amazing because he’s really good at the “yes and” aspect of improv wherein he can easily bounce back in conversations. i do think other cc’s are like these cc’s as well, but they only get to shine in smaller casts, like you said.

[copperbadge]

luxanna-banana replied to your post “It looks like Lurie Children's has several Foundation/fundraising jobs...”

I bet your fundraisers LOVE being compared to Bond. XD

It’s honestly not an inappropriate comparison. One of the things I like about working with fundraisers is that they are fundamentally incapable of allowing things to be awkward. The best fundraisers are never at a loss for conversation and never make you feel uncomfortable -- it’s a very bond-suave kind of deal. For a person who is anxious about conversation and frequently awkward, it can be very soothing to know you’ll be in a meeting/sharing a cab/having a meal with a fundraiser. 

That said, it is funny watching them switch it on and off -- some of them are naturally charismatic but for some of them it’s a very specific act, and when they’re done with Being A Fundraiser they turn it off and turn into super hilariously awkward weirdos. 

francesweyr replied to your post “So, if you have noticed that I’ve been a little quiet lately – and I...”

I sometimes wonder if becoming a manager turns you into a jerk or if biding your time to let your inner jerk flourish is a prerequisite for promotion. Take care of yourself and good luck.

I think it’s often a function of the company you work for -- if certain personality traits are valued by the company, certain people float to the top by specific virtue of being assholes. Self-promotion really does get one to the top a lot of the time and it’s generally a symptom of narcissism. One of our current senior managers is a delightful person who just works her ass off, and one of them is an incompetent asshole who is very good at kissing ass and throwing other people under the bus. 

siancrosslinisback replied to your post “It looks like Lurie Children's has several Foundation/fundraising jobs...”

Holy shit, they cut you down from a 10 man to a 2 man team and *haven't even listed the positions yet????* Yikes and also I hope you find a better place soon!

Not quite that bad -- our 10 person department is down by four, but the department is split into two teams and unfortunately my team took the hit, so we are down from six to two. So we have six of 10 employees total, which isn’t awful, but my team is missing four of six. And since my team does much of the ACTUAL WORK while the other team mostly theorizes and writes white papers, it’s a struggle.  

It wasn’t a big deal when only one person was out, but we’ve had three leave within four weeks of each other, which is a pretty big deal, especially since one was a manager and one was a senior analyst like me. We’ll hold it together for a while, especially since the manager mostly shoved all her work off onto someone else and is thus not a huge loss, but if one more person leaves we’ll be in genuine trouble. 

levynite replied to your post “You know, it’s so joyous to see new canon arrive and reignite a...”

gomens make me think of japanese gomen

Honestly I don’t care for it, but it seems to be the way fandom is trending and who am I to buck a trend :D 

lem0ncakes replied to your post “I’ve gotten both my fandom and personal email inboxes down to under 10...”

Last time I tried to do that my email blocked me because of “suspicious activity”. I do have over 10000 unread emails so I that could be why...

iamshadow21 replied to your post “I’ve gotten both my fandom and personal email inboxes down to under 10...”

You did good. I have 120 tabs open right now.

Both of these comments gave me genuine cold sweats. My very specific brand of anxiety would never allow me either of those things. I have 5-10 pinned tabs at any given time but if I end the week with unpinned tabs I have to go through them and close them down or else I would just freak the fuck out. And I can’t deal with unread emails, I have to at least read them.

crofethr replied to your post “It looks like Lurie Children's has several Foundation/fundraising jobs...”

Sam, I missed something and the mobile app is being a shit so I can't find anything relevant in backscroll- are you job hunting? Bc if so, my sister just mentioned that her (nonprofit) employer is hiring both on-site and remote positions. Let me know if I've interpreted correctly on limited info, lol, and I'll get you a link if you need it.

LOL yes I am job hunting. Definitely hit me up with the link, feel free to email, copperbadge at gmail.com, or leave a comment with the link. I’m especially interested in remote positions, since Chicago’s job market for my field is pretty empty right now. 

[onceuponamirror]

hi! A while ago you mentioned how you subscribe to the belief that your personal experience should be priorized above than objective "truth". I just find that super interesting (esp. when it comes to shipping and our engagement with the media we consume) and I wonder if you could expand on that, bc I'm currently taking a class that touches very heavily on the subject =)

i’d be happy to! but i should clarify that it’s incredibly subjective and really, really depends on circumstance. feel like it would go without saying, but i was referring to storytelling and narrative. just want to emphasize that, because objective truth vs experience is more complicated in the real world, especially vis-a-vis racial/gender prejudice/bias. and that’s a whole other conversation.

(occasionally it also can work in terms of actual interpersonal relationships and communication, but, i digress)

anyway. in high school i read a book called “the things we carried” by tim o’brien, which is a war/anti-war collection of short stories. in the chapters, he would take you through a war experience, presented as a memory, and at the end of the chapter, he would sometimes reveal if it was actually a “true” recollection. at first i was annoyed, but then i realized what he was saying was:

fiction can be relative. the experience you personally had interpreting something isn’t. because you felt it, you made it real, for yourself. that’s the skinny. it’s what i feel the entire point of storytelling is—what matters is whether you’re moved by the content, whether you experience things alongside the characters, and sometimes no matter the cost, even if it’s a lie to your reader. 

it’s sort of a parallel of death of the author, which is the theory that the creator’s intentions and motivations are moot once they’re received by an audience; that each person’s personal history informs the way they absorb/react to text. this happens in either circumstance.

the difference is that sometimes a content creator is upset by different interpretations by the audience, whereas someone like o’brien did it deliberately to best tell his story; sometimes something was better explained by a dream-like metaphor that didn’t actually happen smack dab in the middle of a “nonfiction” book. so in the case of it being deliberate, it’s in the service of the story; it’s the unreliable narrator. 

(ironically, i guess the main difference is the definition of death of the author itself lmao—does it matter what was intentional? philosof etc) 

as it applies to fandom—and here’s where the two theories kind of blend up a lot—i feel like it shows up most in arguments of “canon” and shipping wars. does it matter if x ship never comes to fruition, was never planned, never even in the writing, but two actors had some chemistry or there was a moment in the direction, etc? the whole notion of fandom is that the content has a hand off to the fans, which somehow leads to a lot of elitism and false hierarchies over who then “gets” the most content. 

but those who are unrepresented or uninspired by the canon often seek to create their own out those tiny moments, and that’s what makes their experience outweigh the “truth” of the story. it changes shape and form by those who want to relate to something else, and what those people experience/feel is absolutely no less than what is felt by those getting “canon” content. 

it’s funny tho because—and this is just like, my personal brand of nerdy, i’m going off topic slightly—historically, stories have been changing hands and taking new forms and branching off one another for…forever, basically. i mentioned this in a recent post, but cinderella, for example, has roots in both ancient greece and 9th century china. things like the silk road and the roman empire traded a lot of stories around, and in many ways, the content gets owned by whoever is told it. each person brings their own personal experiences and culture to the story they share, which informs the next, and the next, etc. 

the concept of death of the author has existed for centuries (PLEASE read this historian explain how there were legit king arthur fanfics in the 1500s—the traveling bard was a thing because each storyteller had their own version, and came to town with a new but familiar fan fave. that’s why shakespeare as an “original” bard is hilarious)—but it’s only in modern times that the stigma appeared.

(i would guess partially because the ability to directly engage back with the author/actor/etc has changed and blurred the lines. we all have role models who have had impacts on our lives through the work they put out but what a person means to someone doesn’t entitle them to “content,” because a real person’s life isn’t…..content. it’s their life. i think you prob know what i’m referring to.)

(i’m also NOT talking about plagiarism, which is something totally different and is straight up theft of direct text, etc. “you know it when you see it”) 

tl;dr, 

so in terms of storytelling, “objective truth” loses to “personal experience” because truth is a narrative relative. in a story, regardless of what, say, i-the-author am expressing for myself, what you-the-reader feel makes it real for you. 

then an audience inherits whatever story they’ve been told. how the individual interprets it and retell it is the birth of another. 

fandom/fanfic are new phenomena only in the sense of their accessibility of scale, but that they’re basically, basically iterations of the oral tradition that have existed as long as language has. the nature of storytelling is that it changes hands and becomes someone else’s story that they expand upon and modify. and again, and on, and forever. 

anyway. that was rambly and possibly not very clear. hope it answered your question! i’d love to hear what you’re discussing in your class! 

[upslapmeal]

So on Monday I went to Rachel Bloom’s concert in London which was honestly so much fun, and I said I’d make a post about it so here are the Hot Deets™

Rachel talked between songs, a significant proportion of which was done in an accent that would make Dick Van Dyke proud, and I’m not going to be able to remember everything so I’ve made a list of the songs (minus whichever ones I’ve inevitably forgotten) in (roughly) the order they were performed and I’ll just mention any notable things I remember. Oh and it was 6 years ago to the day that Rachel and Aline first met!

Period Sex

a strong opener, of course

she changed macys.com to primark and everyone lost their minds

‘primark sounds like a brand of pregnancy test’

Oh My God I Think I Like You

‘that was barely a song, we wrote that in about 20 minutes so here’s an actual song’

We Should Definitely Not Have Sex Right Now

this was based, naturally, on Rachel and Adam Schlesinger’s electric chemistry

I’m A Good Person

she preceded this with a hilarious story about how when she and her husband were in London for the first time, she got him to watch Mary Poppins which he hadn’t seen before, and all he took away was that Mary Poppins spent the film gaslighting two children

‘the way they talk about it being real after all in Mary Poppins Returns is EXACTLY how people talk about repressed memories of that time uncle Bobby had a little too much to drink’

this had the seamless link to the song of her saying that she may have ruined our childhoods but she had something to tell us, except she misread the planned song order so the band started playing........not I’m A Good Person

♫ say it, tell me I’m a good person wait no not yet I have a whole bit I wanted to do ok say it or I won’t stop making fun of your accent: ‘I’m from the north’ ‘I’m from the south’ ‘and I’m from the fucking SEEEAAAAAAA!’ ♫

Feeling Kinda Naughty

Sexy French Depression

‘this is a song about Europe, which you may not be part of any more?’

I was going to stick a video of the story she told beforehand here but I can’t work out how to without uploading it to youtube

but basically it was the story of her husband trying to get takeaway soup from a restaurant in Paris that refused to give him takeaway

..........it was funnier than that sounds

Friendtopia

they bought on two audience members to sing the Heather/Valencia parts and Kat Burns taught them the dance!

Kat was a sweetheart and checked we all understood what y’all meant

we got her ‘have a good show!’ before they started the song

We Tapped That Ass

Adam and Ethan Eubanks (the drummer) sang this while Rachel and Kat danced

Rachel, sitting on stage putting on her tap shoes while everyone else waits: ‘you know I really should have worked this into the act’

then at the end she got Kat to help her with a bit she messed up during the song until she got it right 

What’ll It Be

unlike putting her shoes on, taking her shoes off was worked into the act in the form of Adam singing this

it was the first of several times the audience all shone/waved our phone torches

It Was A Shit Show

full video of this here

‘if anyone wants to sing this to someone tonight then go for it, you know they’re not the one’

The Math Of Love Triangles

Pete Gardner and Scott Michael Foster appeared to sing the professors’ parts and the audience lost it, all the people I could hear near me clearly had no idea they would be there and it was the first song to get a standing ovation

Jazz Fever

if there was just one of Rachel’s pre-CXG songs I wanted her to perform then it would have been this so I was delighted

I Love My Daughter

Let’s Have Intercourse

sung by Scott ‘I may have drunk too much last night so can you all sing the high notes for me bc there is physically no way I can hit them rn’ Foster

at the end he put a condom on one of Rachel’s fingers and she gave it to someone in the audience

except apparently it was drenched in lube which was then all over Rachel’s hands, making getting the mike off the stand for the next song trickier than it should have been

‘it turns out that lube makes a great cuticle cream’

A Diagnosis

Gettin’ Bi

the bi flag flown high was, in fact, a union jack

Scott was (not played, was) the saxophone solo

I Go To The Zoo

either they got the volume wrong at the start or they wanted it to feel like we were in an actual club but it was so loud at the beginning you couldn’t even hear Scott sing

Rachel and Kat were the animals, Pete was Ron and not-Susan

Fuckton Of Cats

Sports Analogies

Pete sang (mostly - there were definitely a couple of lines that should have had words but came out badadabumdapdaadaa) the Josh lines

naturally they added a final line about how football isn’t soccer

The Darkness

another time the audience all shone/waved our phone torches, apparently the first time that had happened for a performance of this song

‘singing about the darkness to an audience that’s literally giving me light is pretty fucking moving’

Ray Bradbury/Stacy’s Mom Mashup

I knew they’d performed Stacy’s Mom at some of the other concerts they’ve done but it wasn’t until this concert that I made the connection with Adam Schlesinger

this was the ‘‘‘‘last song’’’

‘I need to tell them there will be an encore, Adam! IF I DIDN’T THEY MIGHT LEAVE’

You Stupid Bitch

all the little side comments in this song work so well with it being an actual song performed live to an audience

we did know this one! we did sing with her!!

honestly what better way to close the show

Towards the end Rachel, Kat, Pete and Scott posed for photos based on themes suggested by the audience - zoo, horny angry tango, and group hug:

And that’s about it! Afterwards everyone except Rachel (at least while I was there) popped out to spend a bit of time at the stage door but the group I was with was too far back in the queue to say hi. I did, however, get my Broom Darryl pin passed up the queue to Pete when he came out so he got that and put it on his hat. But the whole thing was just such a Good Time, 10/10 would recommend if Rachel Bloom performs anywhere near you. Or even not that near, I can confirm that it’s worth the flight.

[firebirdsdaughter]

Ryusoulger Raw post #1…

… Will there be a #2? Who knows! Not me!

But I’m rather tired and I got really excited, so here ya go.

Spoilers abound.

In no order, and I apologise for any nonsense that may ensue:

We just go straight into the opening again. How they decide that? Flip a coin?

Recap the previous … Yay, Touwa’s not dead. I’m so shocked. XD

I’m kidding. But I don’t know why we needed Melto to tell us that.

Banba’s doing his arm folding thing again. Oh my god he’s pretty. DX

Kou smile!

Naohisa is back! And I still think I’m spelling that wrong…

Come to think of it… Who the hell did he take that stuff to? Where was he? Are he and the Elder in cahoots?

Actually, that’s… Not impossible.

Already know that it turns out they need a sample to make the antidote, so I presume that’s what he’s telling them.

Oh. Oh, yeah, pretty sure I was right. He looks gorgeous, but Banba is very much in pain right now. I mean, from his point of view, he just got told he destroyed the only way to save his brother. That’s gotta hurt. And he’s probably already blaming himself for letting this happen in the first place…

Ah! My little green gremlin son! DX

I already want to hug Banba, but now I really want to hug him. He looks so upset… All these kids have their own brand of puppy dog eyes, I think.

Poor Kou has spent roughly half of this two parter rushing after Banba whenever Black runs out the door abruptly. XD

Is… Is mushroom crayon man starting his own YouTube channel?

Gods, I really love mook suit actors in Sentai. Can always count on them for comic relief and just going all out in getting dramatically beat up.

Big Brother Mode –– ACTIVATED.

And now, in which, were it not for outside circumstance, Crayon would be dead.

The fact that Kou was like ‘likelihood I find Banba trying to kill something indicates I should transform even before I find him’ is hilarious to me.

I love the fact that Asuna and Ui spend the entire time sitting up and Banba spends it standing. Like, what, we couldn’t let these three lie down, too? I mean, I guess Touwa was the one who was bitten, but… Did no one really think to get Banba a chair?

Then again, would he have sat in it?

HOW DID KOU OPEN THE DOOR?

Banba is glaring like ‘if I wasn’t in literal agony right now and actually dying, I would so be killing all of you for this humiliation.’ Boy does not like having to be carried. XD

Shocked Kou is really cute and I want to pinch his cheeks. ^^

Banba might be dying of poison, but he still has to be grumpy. It’s his brand.

I hate the ‘poisoned’ Toku makeup, but even it cannot stop Tatsuya from being amazingly beautiful. XD

Hmm… Well, Melto just said something that made Banba think of something. Not sure what though.

Smiley Kou! ^^

Congrats, Melto! You have now been promoted to being directly addressed!

Banba, I’m sure you have something important to say, but… Do you have to almost threateningly lurch over here to say it?

Why are y’all goofing off like this all of a sudden?

Crayon, don’t break the fourth wall, you disturb me.

Okay, given context, what I think Melto says is that Banba told him where he found the Minusaur before.

Context bc the two of them immediately run there.

Crayon says something about ‘otoutou’ but I don’t know if that meant what I thought it meant?

Dude, I know you’re goo, but… Seriously? Don’t put your hand in an untrained animal’s mouth.

You go, boys! ^^

Aaaaand… Melto’s down!

Actually, though, out of all of them, Melto’s the one being most crazy whilst dying of poison… Like he got back up and was fighting untransformed. Yes, Kou let himself get bitten, but let’s give Melto some credit, too.

I really think Banba would have been more inclined to wait and give them more of a chance if it weren’t for Touwa. But Touwa is the most important person to him in the world, and, coupled w/ his other trust issues, he’s scared to rely on, essentially, strangers for this.

But, more importantly, where was he keeping the sword??? In his sleeve?

Same place Akashi kept Zuuban, I suppose.

Yeah, this is a perfect storm of Banba is afraid to trust or have faith in anyone else and the fact that the person he would absolutely sacrifice everything for is at risk.

I really want to know what Banba and Touwa say in this scene… Like, I think I get what Asuna says, she’s saying that she has faith in Kou and Melto, and they should, too, but… I dunno. Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe it’s Maybel––wait, no.

But, like… Banba seems like he’s having some sort of dramatic reaction to what Touwa is saying? And whether that’s just floating drama bc they’re all dying of poison and he’s desperate to save his brother or whatnot, or if there’s something big here… I wanna know! DX

Pretty sure he’s saying if they all die there’d be no one to stop the Druidon. But I still think that he’d be more willing (even if only incremently so) to wait it out if it were just him and/or some combination of the others. Touwa being in danger (and him probably blaming himself for part of it) is likely throwing him even more off balance.

So, we all know from the magazine that Banba doesn’t trust anyone but Touwa bc he was betrayed before, and I definitely think this is setting up the path to that being revealed? If that makes sense? Hopefully they do it steadily/don’t wait too long.

Tatsuya still rocking the awful poison makeup like a boss. XD

I feel like you can see the switch flip when Asuna brings up believing/trusting the other two (at least, I presume that’s what she’s saying?). Like, by the end of her speech, Banba almost looks like he’s having war flashbacks or something? Esp when Touwa weighs in… I dunno how to describe it. Maybe after I’ve rested.

Oh, baby… He’s so upset and scared and in pain. Like, no, don’t stab the nice animal lady, but I do get you’re not rational rn…

That took tremendous effort. Like, he’s having to force himself to rely/something sort of like trust others. (I don’t think we can quite call it trust yet)

But he definitely looks like he’s having some sort of trauma reaction to the concept of ‘trust.’

Aaaaaand… Kou is down!

Aaaaaand… Kou has a dumb plan.

Throwing the sword was not necessary. You could have forced it to bite the sword.

WHY. WHY KEBABS. WHAT. WHAT IS EVEN HAPPENING.

Also, nice save, Tyramigo!

Yes, yes, I see the Gold foreshadowing. But how deep does it go?

Melto’s like ‘I was afraid of you before, but not in that outfit, and not while I’m dying of poison.’

But also, WHY.

Banba can’t do anything w/out looking majestic. It’s in his contract. He’s the Knight of Majesty for a reason. XD

I feel like the other four are giving a speech, and then Banba’s just like ‘I’m only here bc I am thoroughly pissed off!’

I love MirNeedle and his honking noise.

He spin!

Double sword attack, while Banba and Asuna each get their own thing.

Also, only Touwa’s gets a cool name. XD

Touwa gets payback. ^^

Ui’s so perky. God love you, sweetie. Acting like you weren’t dying two minutes ago, too. <3

WHEN DID THEY GET IN THE AIR???

I feel like the sword is about to eat me…

For a balloon thing, that was pretty tame, actually.

Banba says something, and then Touwa, I think, something like, ‘don’t you mean ‘thank you’?’ and then Banba gets awkward and it’s SO CUTE! DX

Smiley Kou again!

Kou is like ‘we’re friends!’ and Banba is like ‘oh no, he’s adorable’ but then immediately switches back to ‘I’m sorry, you must be a level 4 friend to unlock my tragic backstory.’

Like, he literally stares at him for moment, like… I dunno. I’ll have to think more about what I think that moment means. He looks kinda… Shocked?

Then he, like, has to recollect himself to brush him off.

Did he just say that all in one breath?

Touwa’s shrug there tells me he either doesn’t know anything about the betrayal, or doesn’t know how badly it effected his brother. My guess is the former.

Love how the trio are already getting fond of Banba’s standoffishness.

They’re teasing her, but I can’t figure out about what…

Oh, I’m sorry, mr Elder whose wig doesn’t match? Are my sons not included in your cryptic prophesying? Well fine then. I’ll do it myself. XP

And believe me, they don’t want me doing that, so you’d better include my boys in whatever it is.

Well, the sisters are def suspicious, way frillier than I thought they’d be, and there seems to be a mind control plot? Wonder how the brothers are going to react to the apparent situation?

Sigh. Watching Sentai live is so painful. Now I have to wait until next week. DX

That’s all, folks! Digital chocolate torte for anyone who read all that.

Really tired, don’t have much else to say. Even more curious about Banba’s backstory. Pettily annoyed that whatever dramaticness the Elder was musing on at the end apparently doesn’t include my sons. (Petty, I know, but they’re Ryusoulgers, too, shouldn’t they be part of whatever yours prophesying? XP).

So, anyway. Curious about what these sisters are up to next week. Seems like their voices control people, or maybe I’m misinterpreting. Still loving this series.

Very tired.

[jq37]

well. that was it.

**spoilers for prompocalypse  part 2**

Y'all this is it. The end-end. The last recap, at least for Fantasy High.

I honestly could have gotten this up yesterday but I wanted to give myself a hot sec before it was really over. 

But, no way out but through. Let’s get to it. 

We start back up right where we left off with no break in between. Cast still freaking, Brennan still gaping. 

“What the Fuck.” –Brennan 2019

Anyway, Kristen once again appears in corn heaven and she’s very not chill about it. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. On the plus side, she runs into Doreen in heaven who is young and hot again (which I’m sure Fig would appreciate knowing) and also apologizes for her traumatizing speech to Adaine during her death.

Helio playing beer pong. I wonder if that was always a facet of his personality or if Brennan just decided to yes-and all of Ally’s suggestions of him being a frat bro.

The angels being like, “Please be nice to God. He’s our dad,” was kinda adorable. 

“Why are you dressed like a weird stripper?”/“It’s too hot in here. He’s the sun!”

So while the gang has been living out Breakfast Club + Stranger Things, Aguefort has been Weekend and Bernie’s-ing Heaven apparently. I want to say wild, but tbh that’s pretty on brand for him. The wild part is that he was able to knock out GOD. Like, how even?

Aguefort tells Kristen that Sol is one god of many and she says, “Cool, I always thought that,” as if this is new information but, living in a D&D world, shouldn’t she definitively know that already? Like, the gods in fantasy worlds are pretty blatant about letting their presence be known and there are clerics/paladins who aren’t Heleoic but still have powers. 

OK I have a bone to pick with Ms. Kristen Applebees. You get a chance to talk to the primordial source of all divine power and magic and you (1) ask who you’re allowed to bone and (2) create a TERRIBLE god. Just truly TRASH. She created a reaction gif god. It’s not even a physical representation of the concept. Like, I thought she meant something like Yass from Wreck it Ralph 2 but no. Just a literal Yes! Like, you can trash talk Helio when you come up with something better, girl. Also, wild that you can just…walk into a room and do that. Like you have to knock out Sol first but still. Wild.

“You’ve created a new deity and already you’re fed up with it. I would say that’s par for the course.”

I low key thought Kristen was going to get the option to deify herself. I think because I had just rewatched The Gamers: Dorkness Rising and that figures in to the plot. But, thinking about it, she wouldn’t have gone for that I don’t think.

Aguefort flipping out at Kristen saying that friendship is the greatest magic of all, and rightfully so. That’s BS.

Since when does Kristen have dog tags?

Anyway, as we all suspected, the chronomancy line from episode 1 wasn’t a random line of dialogue, it was a chekhov’s gun. 

I mentioned this in an earlier post. Brennan didn’t seem too concerned that the party was wiping and I think this is why. I think he had two paths for this fight to take. In one, Riz successfully rolled for police and like 6 helpful NPCs plus his mom show up. That’s enough to beat the dragon without dying and Aguefort shows up having Die Hard-ed his way out of heaven. In the other, Kristen dies, goes to heaven, and basically that same series of events happens. Chronomancy saves the day. I think he was shocked because the roll dovetailed so perfectly with the story beat. 

“Is Arthur Aguefort black? Hell yes. My brotha.” Gonna be honest, I basically had that same reaction when they showed his character portrait in ep 1.

Kristen and Arthur jump back into the battle and Arthur gets possessed by Mr. Gibbons. I guess he’s just been hanging around as a ghost this whole time? Because this seems to lend credence to the theory that that’s who possessed Fig in the arcade but didn’t we see him go to the afterlife (which, I have a question about that too later). But I feel like that must have been Brennan’s way of sidelining him for the fight so they didn’t have like a level 20 wizard making it too easy.

“Oh, and Jawbone!” Murph loses it. 

Jawbone stuck in Goldenhoard’s mouth like that meme of the dog smiling, stuck in a fence.

Gorthalax is like, “I don’t feel great sleeping next to this dude.” Fig meanwhile is all, “I wanna sleep between his legs.” She says this at least twice. 

So everyone just have a freaking picnic and takes a nap in the middle of this fight. Can’t say I saw that coming exactly.

Fabian tries to stab Dayne, who is already dead, during the time stop.

“What the fuck do they teach you at this school?”

“Are you talking about the time thing or–”/“Yeah Gorgug! The time thing!.”

“We’re gonna kill this motherfucker, sweetie.”

I love Sklonda so much.

Jawbone is a salad guy.

OK so I know people were shipping Sklonda and Gilear and it was like, “But how would that work with the height difference?” so Brennan, the absolute madman, decides to pair her with the GIANT DEMON???

Adaine about Gilear: Cucked again.

Everyone treating the DRAGON like a JUNGLE GYM.

“It’s basically Jeb Bush’s Campaign.” Ally, with the fury of 1000 suns: EXCUSE ME?

“I bless, [Riz], your mom, and [Fabian.] Are you the only ones with vendettas?”

“I think we’re all pretty blessed.” Gorgug/Zac is so good.

Adaine, who has all the wisdom and intelligence points of the entire party at the moment: You need to stay safe because the reason that we died is that you died. 

The shot that shows everyone on the giant dragon and then the foreground fuzzes out and shows Adaine a safe distance away in the background is hilarious. 

Ice guitar pick. Sweet.

Yeah, Siobhan really shoulda got healing potions out of her jacket, not the freaking wand. Hilarious. The only thing helpful about that was it hinted he was vulnerable to frost damage which they could have guessed. 

I wonder what Brennan had in his notes about the freaking city in Adaine’s jacket. It’s wild they weren’t more curious about that.

I low key loved Emily buffing Murph the whole fight.

“Hell yes Sklonda!”

Ragh: Giving a gay pride speech./Adaine, who doesn’t want to get knocked out again: STAB HIM IN THE DICK DUDE.

And, speaking of, OWWW.

Fig shapeshifting to Dayne. The hell Emily!

And another eye gouging.

Fabian is incapable of doing a single thing without doing some ridiculous parkour stunt first. 

Kristen,not twenty minutes after Riz said it would be crazy to go inside the dragon: Can I climb inside the dragon’s mouth? (Adaine: KRISTEN!)

Gorgug saving Skonda and Riz going, “Thanks for saving my mom!” from across the room.

Brennan is narrating the epic final battle and what cool thing everyone is doing and Kristen is just being digested. 

Riz was my second choice for the coup de grace until it turned out that Kal ate his dad and then he was my first choice. Riz!!!!

What a badass moment for him. The image of him casting a shadow on the wall is super dope.

Everyone flipping off Kal as he dies.

Riz and Sklonda are making dragon casserole bay-bee! 

MURPH FAILS WITH BARDIC INSPIRATION AND BLESS AT A 12 DC.

Aguefort. What a chaos monster.

“I fucked that bird! It is my paramour!”

Hold up, hold up, hold up. Did Kristen’s freaking Yes god kick Sol out of his own freaking heaven? WHAT?

I love that what Adaine got out of this experience was, “Wait, so my powers are bullshit?”

“Everything in this world is bullshit, Ms. Abernant.” Preach.

“So is the sun just a yes now?”/“Maybe.”

Literally 6 cop NPCs. Like they all seem like they’re morons but I’m sure it would have helped!

“Fuck it dude, it’s worth asking.”

“Are you my dad?”/“I was about to ask you the very same thing.”/“What?”

“TAKE HIS EYE. CUT OUT HIS EYE. YOU WANT ME TO BITE IT OUT FOR YOU?”

Brennan really likes the word bud.

Freak the fuck out all the time and just fuck things up. 

They got their ice cream later! And Adaine says thank you to Basrar, even though he’s not even there.

Adaine as the 7 freed maidens (way to go Sandra-Lynn) are re-killing Goldenhoard: Us and them are the only good students.

Gorgug’s nat20! What a WILD time for the dice to give that to him.

“You gotta ask. I ask everyone if they’re my dad.”

Gorgug’s dad (Gorbag) has just as low an intelligence score as his son. It’s hilarious but also sweet.

THE VULTURE

I thought that Digby and WIlma just found Gorgug in the woods? Maybe I’m not remembering right. I would guess that was their version of the stork story but they straight up told him what docking was so…

“Do any other federal agents want to step to Arthur Aguefort on the grounds of his school?”

The Aguefort way!

I wonder what Sam has to say about her former BFF selling her out like that and also getting murdered.

It seems like Gorgug was put on the guest list for hell by accident (his relieved reaction was adorable) but I thought that was orc heaven?

Interesting Gorthalax still has pull in hell when he’s a high school coach now.

BILL BILL BILL BILL BILL BILL

How did he watch the fight? Do they have pay per view in hell?

“I doubt Cathilda will end up here.”

Bill is just such a maniac. I love him so much. I wanna say I can’t believe that killing the devil dril tweet was serious but I can. It’s Bill.

Bill and Fabian having a casual convo in HELL.

Oh my God, Fabian’s mom stabbed Bill’s eye out and he proposed on the spot. No wonder Fabian is so into Aelwen. It’s in his DNA.

What a dope ship.

I can’t believe Emily tricked me into thinking that her end speech wasn’t in service to some nonsense. She held it together for so long but I should have known bc it’s EMILY.

“Young lady, I have no idea who that is and I’m telling you right now yes. I will make whoever that person is vice principal.”

Adaine: Uhhhh….we should find Zayn.

Aww, Zayn’s parents were also terrible elves. 

Unwanted Wingwoman Kristen Applebees

lol at Adaine casting Ray of Sickness on everyone suggesting she date ghost Zayne. Great callbacks to the early eps all around. 

Don’t @ me, but Adaine w/ a ghost boyfriend who also had terrible elf parents might be kinda sick.

“Tomorrow, we’re gonna start training you on how to actually swordfight.” Uhhh, I kinda love Fabian’s mom now?

She literally hasn’t been sober in 15 years. Icon.

“I didn’t know you spoke Tornado.”

Siobhan’s late season tendency to just flip things/people off is hilarious.

Wild that Adaine’s parents just legit DITCHED her that hard and she was like, f ‘em. Clean break.

“She’s helping me spread something.”

Gorgug has so many friends now!!!!!

Lol, Fabian’s whole journey has just been about becoming captain of the Owlbears.

Riz got his PI License. 

Lou and Fabian immediately being so mad at the idea of his mom (Hallariel?) getting with Gilear. Emily/Fig having an equal but opposite reaction. 

“Mama, I will kill this man.”/“I’ll kill you first, it’s not up to you.”

Sandra-Lynn gets with Jawbone. Did Brennan just roll to pair up everyone?

Also, the group is almost all related or quasi-related now. Gorthalax got with Sklonda which makes Fig and Riz sorta siblings. Gilear got with Hallariel making Fig and Fabian sorta siblings. Jawbone sorta adopted Adaine and he got with Sandra-Lynn, again making Adaine kinda siblings with Fig. Plus Fig claimed Gorgug as a sibling a lot of eps ago and if Kristen sticks with Tracker then she’ll marry into this mess. Crazy!

Fabian totally dipping on the sequel hook because he’s gonna be busy trying to break Aelwen out of jail.

I’ve been keeping up with the fanart but there was some in here I hadn’t seen and it was super dope!

I’m so glad we had the after epilogue-epilogue. It was a very nice send-off.

Adaine using her oracle authority to get Zayn back into school! She’s so good. 

Lol and she helped Basrar so he can grant other wishes. I love that this is the NPC that she decided she was going all in for.

Riz and Adaine join AV club! Idk why I love that detail.

Riz cutting off Adaine’s very good question about her jacket w/ his PI talk.

“They’re our rivals.”/“Into it.”

“Is ‘The Ball’ not your real name?” I love Fabian so much.

Zac doing Gorgug’s excited crack-y teenage voice when he’s just concentrating on that and not playing the game is so adorable. He’s just so sweet and enthusiastic and a good kid.

“Guess that tin flower worked, huh?” I cry.

I love that Gorgug’s happy ending is basically just that he has friends now. And that’s literally all he wanted starting out. 

“FIG! GO TO BARD CLASS!”

Aww, Ragh and Gorgug are friends now.

I knew it! I at some point pitched the idea of Ragh ending up with one of the AV guys so he would be w/ someone who had enough intelligence to keep him from dying and I’m 90% sure it’s somewhere on my blog but I can’t be bothered to find it right now. But anyway, he’s in the lgbt club w/ Ragh and Kristen so it’s def a possibility! 

“My bitch sister? Don’t you fucking dare.” (lol, if that happens then the group will be even more related)

Fabian considering recruiting the Cubbys for his rescue attempt of Aelwen.

“Gilear!” I love that Fig loves Gilear now but still calls him by his first name.

And that was Fantasy High! 

I have at least two more posts in the hopper: And epilogue retrospective type deal and also the official JQ37 ranking of all the adults in Fantasy High.

Thanks for sticking with me this far you guys. I can’t draw to save my life and I don’t really do fic so this is the one little way I can contribute to this thing I love so much. 

It’s been real and I’ll see you all soon for an epilogue because, no surprise, I have more things to say. 

[wctkins]

ok yall ive never made a sideblog before so this may go rough but ! u kno what 2019 is about us facing our fears ok. in other news this is my new Child callia ( um hi i’m cali ty’s mun if u didnt know ) . i was gonna write out a whole gr8 intro but honestly got lazy lmfao whats new ?? under the cut is the usual, wanted plots and stats and whateva ok xoxo

BASICS !

name:  callia ( beautiful voice ) bianca ( after her mother ) donatella ( after donatella versace ) watkins ( welsh surname ) nicknames: calli, cal age: twenty three birthday: november 3 1995  zodiac: scorpio hometown: melbourne, australia occupation:  head engineer at a green tech company  hobbies: working out, partying, watching jeopardy, drawing, reading, trying new foods, going for walks in central park family: emil watkins ( iron ore mining magnate ) , bianca watkins ( socialite )  style inspo: kendall jenner, elsa hosk, rachel green, 90′s drew barrymore, bella hadid muse inspo: donna pinciotti, monica geller, tai frasier, mylene cruz, fallon carrington ( career wise )

HISTORY !

ok so if yall haven’t seen the show yummy mummies on netflix gd thats my new addiction / guilty pleasure o shit that show’s hilarious. callia’s family is fully based on carlos and maria ( maria’s this random selfish bitch who’s obsESSED w versace and herself like go watch fr ) so callia grew up wearing only designer, mostly versace and burberry clothing. she didnt rly care when she was a small child but as she started growing up she started like ?? getting shit on by her other for being a regular child & wanting to play when her mom just wanted her to be decor essentially

had a pretty lonely childhood tbh spent most her time with her terror of a mother bc she wasn’t rly allowed to go hang out w other kids & was never involved in school activities. like essentially she only went to whatever prissy academy so her mom could show off her new car or her daughter’s outfits & brag to other moms lmfao

tbh didn’t give a shit about the brands and labels despite their house being covered in head to toe versace everythING she was more interested in sports and actuaL hobbies ?? so she wanted to play sports but wasn’t allowed bc goD FORBID she get a bruise or smth on her perfect skin. so she just started working out on her own in their home gym and found it was a rly good escape from her fam

another method of escape her mother’s grip was by delving into her studies. she was always top of her class and worked so dang hard ( but like also could afford the best tutors and education lmfao) so sis basically could get accepted wherever she wanted to go for post secondary

eventually she was able to convince her parents to let her study abroad for a year in nyc going to stay w her cousin #jessegrove where she was ! finally ! able to escape the clutches of her awful mother and her pushover disconnected father. she told her mother she was going to use the year as research for a career in modeling or fashion or smth bc she knew it’d cater to her moms interests but rly she just needed to get tf out of melbourne and live a normal life

she’s lived in nyc ever since ( since she was 18 - she’s 23 now ) and wanted nothing to do with the expensive brand names she’d grown to despise. so she found herself a condo ( def spent millions on it bc god forbid bianca watkins’ daughter living in anything under 5mil) but didn’t want it to be anything crazy bc she was so over that lifestyle so its def luxurious but very basic and minimal compared to what she grew up with

got into columbia’s earth and environmental engineering program bc she figured she ought to do something good with her smarts and her parent’s money so she went to school to get a degree & got a sweet job at a green tech company where she basically gets to do whatever tf she wants bc she’s the head engineer & makes fat stacks 

PERSONALITY !

during the week goOD luck convincing cal to leave the office like she basically lives there but she loves it ??? or shes at home doing facemasks and binging on reality tv like weekday vs weekend shes a completely diff person

weekends like......u better watch out. having grown up so isolated and sheltered callia has come to LOVE the nyc nightlife scene like she will get blackout one night and be ready to get drunk at brunch the next. shes not usually the life of the party moreso bc she enjoys just being a shit disturber and finds it fun lmfao

experiences maJOR fomo

she rly tries to be nice to everyone stemming from a deep need to have friends and be liked lmfao and is overall v approachable and friendly

can come across as fake tho bc she tries to be so nice she won’t disagree w people unelss they’re waY off from her own ideas

is v politically engaged & cares alot abt the environment so she’s vegan, walks most places, will 10/10 give a ted talk if anyone asks more deeply abt her job

honestly she wears mostly like simple clothing. like she just buys what she likes, whether its at h&m or at prada she has a distaste for exclusively brand wardrobes. def mostly walks around in high top converse and levi’s jeans 

WANTED PLOTS !

roommates ! the apartment linked above has 4 bedrooms so i’d loVE for 3 lil old roomates :’) 

hook ups / fwbs ! all that pent up stress has to come out somewhere lmfao shes tryna get laid at every turn so imma need a bunch of hook up plots ok no specific gender ( unlimited )

best friend ! the mary kate to her ashley, this person understands her inside and out & tbh knows her better than she knows herself. def knows about her crazy mother & can put up w the rants ( open )

friends from college ! they prob have wild stories abt college parties & have seen one anohter at their worst. preferably someone who went to columbia also ( open )

mutual dislike ! they think callia’s annoying and preachy, she thinks they’re rude and devil’s spawn bc they’re not as passionate abt environmental issues ( open )

exes ( she ghosted on them ) ! pls ok pls i need many !!!! cal’s so willing to adapt her personality to fit w whoever she’s with so she prob would be rly lovey dovey and make it seem like they were perfect for each other and meant to be but she low key lied abt everything, her family, her background, her feelings for them, etc. she prob thought they were ok but wasn’t rly into them besides for sex. so eventually she just got so invested in her work she ghosted on them ! i imagine them dating for a while too like maybe a year & they never met her family or rly got to know her bc she was hella guarded ( open ! )

exes ( on good terms ) ! they dated when she was new to nyc - she was like oooh an american they were like ooh an australian & tbh their sex life was gr8 but they didn’t rly have much going except for that so they called it off. they’re still friends & sometimes laugh abt the relationship ( open ! )

current fling ! they’re hanging out , might be moving towards exclusivity but aren’t there yet, its casual ( open ! ) 

sibling like relationship ! she never had siblings so she always felt like that aspect was missing from her life. she prob treats them like a sibling, asking if they’ve eaten and keeping up to date on their life. she cares alot & has good intentions but can sometimes be seen as over protective and pushy ( open ! )

ok yall im tired of writing this shit props to yall who do like literal essays, bullet points are even too much for me. LIKE THIS n ill slide into yo dms ok thanks for coming to my ted talk

[thechampagnecircus]

The Bikini Dilemma

Alright ladies, it’s summer. Actually, it’s almost half over already -- ahhh! Therefore it is the season to bust out the bathing suits.  Other than the dentist, a tax audit or a Pap, bathing suit shopping can be the biggest groan.  This is coming from someone who LOVES shopping.  I do. I have zero shame about it.  But bathing suits have always been tricky.  They are the demon that brings all the insecurities to the surface.  Who’s with me?  I have had a personal goal of feeling confident in a bikini this year for the first time in a long time.  I don’t mean, a tankini or rashguard top.  I am talking about the quintessential two piece.  It has been at least six plus years since I have worn one.  This does not mean that I will be turning my back on my one piece wonders, because they are the bee’s knees.  

A couple of things come into play here.  First off, I am 35 and the debate of what is appropriate whirls around in my head. Even though I am still clinging to a couple pairs of cut off shorts that I still give zero F’s wearing. The majority of times I am in a suit is at the lake surrounded by my family; my step sons, in-laws, you get the picture.  This makes me hyper sensitive to what types of suits I like to invest in, especially when envisioning a two piece.  This leads into the second thing, which is, I am rather busty.  It’s hilarious to think I always thought I had a somewhat small chest, until I got properly measured five or six years ago only to find out I am actually a 32DDD.  I was shocked, and it was no wonder the 34 B bras I had been wearing since highschool felt and looked like crap.  If you haven't gotten measured at a reputable lingerie shop, do it.  It changed my and my ta-ta’s life.  

Those two factors aside, the glaring elephant in the fitting room is overall body image.  I know I am not alone here, we are our own worst critics.  Truly.  Our inner judgey bitches can be very mean to us, especially when it comes to summer clothing and swimsuits.  One of the reasons I love Fall Fashion the most; layering and coverage baby.  But I digress. We tend to look in the mirror and see the flaws; too much extra something here, cellulite there, one boob is bigger than the other, birthmarks, spider veins, you name it.  It is as if our bodies are a Vegas strip of neon faults.  We really need to be kinder to ourselves.  We all can’t be Gisele, but we are beautiful in our own way.  As long as we wear things that fit right, and exude an inner confidence to feel beautiful.   I have been working on being nicer to myself, while eating better, and hitting the gym.  But I am your typical female, I have one bloated day and I feel like the world is ending. Ahem, period week, I am looking at you. It is definitely an ongoing saga.  

Having said all that, I bought said suits online this year, officially under the guise of Covid, when really I was just avoiding fitting rooms like the plague.  This didn't help my cause, so a lot of trial and error took place.  Also, I apparently missed the memo that all bathing suits are now up-your-butt cut and $100+ for just the top.  Both of these facts were a bit of an obnoxious shock.  However, amidst the hunt I found two and in the process unearthed my new favorite brand. Vitamin A. A bit pricey, but gorgeous, minimalist and high quality. While they sat in my closet, they acted as a motivation leading up to our first trip to BC earlier this month.  I was excited to put it on and pair it with a dry glass of champs by the water.  By some small miracle I did not fall back into my self conscious ways. I wore them with pride and remarkably I reached for them more than the latter.  It was a major breakthrough, and although I am no Victoria’s Secret Angel it was the first time I felt like I did when I was 18.  

Our second trip is approaching and I hope I can carry this spirit through.  Try it, you might surprise yourself.  Like a bandaid, quickly rip off the mindset that holds you back from feeling beautiful. Posting this photo makes me feel vulnerable but I am proud to say I am able to embrace my body and this new itty bitty, teenie weenie, white and navy striped bikini.  Summer will be over before we know it, let’s show some skin, be sexy but classy, and most importantly feel confident. Long live Summer :)

Copyright © 2021 Carly Eddy.

[anima-contritum]

SMFDR magic!au headcanons

A/N: as promised, i give to you the smfdr boys featuring angsT. im currently still working on the fic so stay tuned y’all because i might do another hc post with other characters (; and as always, enjoy (and check out my girl @11wolfpup11 because she’s my co in this). sidenote: Luna Andre is my oc and is John Andre and Peggy Shippen Andre’s daughter. all ya need to know for now is shes a freckley, sassy cutey that will do anything for her fam and a-a-ron

Thomas:

Death Wizard

dis poor boy can kill or weaken any living thing with just the touch of his hand

hell, any part of him is almost toxic 

and he hates it more than anything, I mean who wants to be friends with someone who can’t give hugs or even the smallest gestures without the fear of dying at his hand?

honestly, no one really fucks with him

most avoid him at all costs besides James, but sometimes that’s a good thing

he can also sometimes talk to spirits and the dead as his ability is often linked to the dark arts, but the ghosts and such have to be the ones to contact him first

it scared the shit out of him the first time it happened

one of the other students’ dead grandparents reached out to him in the middle of class and he flipped the fuck out

but he himself has yet to hear from his own parents...

sometimes other students call him the Grimm Reaper

This boy would give anything to have a new power

he tries hard not to use his powers because someone either gets hurt or ends up passing out in the middle of class

he shoves it all down but because he’s so damn powerful (one of the most powerful in the school) but it leaks out anyways

it usually just kills nearby plants in which James fixes

most times he wears a lot of thick clothing and black leather gloves to keep himself from hurting people

when he first found out what he could do, he accidentally killed his parents

no one mentions it unless they literally have a death wish

either way, he’s tried so hard to try and erase the power from his soul

he’s tried spells and potions and chants and even tried to sell his soul because, i mean, if he doesn’t have a soul then he wouldn’t have any magic as magic always originates within one’s soul

James didn’t let him out of his sights for weeks after that

Did i mention he loves attention and affection?

Tommy boy puts on this sort of ‘bad boy’ aura to push people away but deep down he just wants affection

he never shows it in public but when he and James are alone in their shared dorm room, he’ll let James put flowers in his poofy curls and rant about how much he hates how Professor Hewlett gets sidetracked so easily in class

he’ll make sassy remarks in class all the time just to get the attention

and most times, it’s hilarious

emphasis on most

but he still always has a soft spot for his best friend

My boy trusts James Madison more than anyone else

because of James’ counteracting power, the two sorta just fit

Thomas is able to take his gloves off around him and be comfortable, mostly in the setting of their dorm

it took him a while to be able to do that kind of stuff because for most of his life he didn’t touch anyone

but when James assured time after time Thomas’ powers don’t affect him, eventually he became more himself around James and allowed himself to be comfortable with touches and pretend he doesn’t feel his pulse quicken and his heart jump in his throat bc fuck he loves his Jemmy

Sometimes it’s not enough

there are some instances where Thomas looses himself in the pure amount of strength his power has and James has to be the one to pull him back

and despite James being equally as strong, it still weakens him

Thomas never forgets those times...

he’ll lock himself away from everyone, including James for days

it’s like his power surges in him, begging him to release darkness and death on every damn student

it’s hard to control it and it comes in big waves, usually in correspondence with his anger issues because

this poor boy gets mad pretty fast

but James is still always there for him

he defends Tom and protects him

through it all, it always seems like they were meant to be

James:

Life Wizard

can bring most things to life and heal wounds 

although depending on what the thing is or what kind of wound depends on hard it is to actually resurrect or heal

he really likes to heal plants and can even spawn lil flowers and such 

he’s honestly the cutest flower boy

if he passes a dying tree or wilting flower, he always stops and makes it the most lively, beautiful thing he mostly does it with what Thomas accidentally kills

he takes pride in it but sometimes his gift can be a burden

when he first discovered them he revived someone who was dead while he was at damn funeral

it was a shit show

The most puRE

he wears these round glasses and is the quiet type in classes

if he notices someone upset or nervous, he leaves them a flower on their desk as an anonymous person but everyone knows it’s him

he has his own garden in his dorm along a window on his side of the room and checks it over every morning

he knows how much Thomas tries to avoid his garden in fear of killing it but he trusts him to not do it intentionally

Thomas sometimes gives him skulls he finds in the woods that surrounds the school and James likes to fill them with flowers and put them in the garden

“That just takes away the intimidation purpose of it, Jemmy.”

“Shush, you love it.”

usually he can pick out the days Thomas will be moodier than usual and makes sure to put on his favorite show and give him all the love and affection he wants

and yes, he loves putting flowers - usually violets - in Tom’s hair

his favorite flower type to grow are blossoming flowers because he likes the way they just bloom

Even though he pure, he fierce 

don’t let appearance fool you

he may be a smol cute little guy but when it comes to people talking crap about Jefferson or shutting down his own brilliant ideas and works, he will throw down

there was this one time he “accidentally” had a giant vine wrap around another student, hanging him on a ceiling fan

he’s very methodical and cold in his fierceness but combined with Thomas’ brutality and kill-first-ask-questions-later attitude they’re kinda known as people to never get on the bad side of

Aaron:

Shadow Wizard 

this bean can control or manipulate shadows and darkness to his will

in some ways he can even travel through shadows but he has to envision just exactly where he want to go and its kinda complex

but he can also use his power as a dark art even though he doesn’t prefer to do that

he mostly uses his powers to create shadow puppets and mimics that are mindless, dark creatures that are harmless and normally gentle that he can control (though he prefers not to most times)

everyone’s a little bit intimidated by him though because of his mysteriousness and just... dark aura

He loves his shadow puppets

he summons them to help with simple tasks or for company

sometimes, he sings with them for his own entertainment

it helps to avoid his loneliness

(Shadows: we dream of a brand new start, Burr: but we dream in the dark for the most part)

or he sometimes uses them to eavesdrop and sneak around because why not?

his favorite ones looks like a raven that perches on his shoulder as he does his work

Not the most social person but loves the hecc outta his friends

Aaron generally has two main friends - Luna Andre and Theodosia Prevost 

Luna and him have been best friends since the very beginning, instantly connecting. they both came to Flilria around the same time so it was easy to gravitate towards each other in terms of cluelessness and such

before he met Theo, Luna was basically all he had as he was an orphan even before he knew of his magic

but Luna’s family kinda adopted him almost since Burr and Luna were so close they had become like siblings

but despite that, she’s kind of a bad influence mischief wise

even so, they both hate bringing attention to themselves and often to try to stay as neutral as possible in the eye of the public, but they share their true opinions to each other in private

overall, they’re hella close sometimes too close

Luna was the one to introduce Theo to Aaron and they all are a cool friend group

even though poor Luna is a third wheel

Ah, yes. young love ft. competition

Burr always makes it his goal to be at the top of the class

and Theo just happened to be his top competition

before he met her, he hated her because she always made it so hard to keep up and maintain the number 1 title

they would always glare and tease each other when they made eye contact in the halls or in shared classes

but once Luna formally introduced Theo to him and they set aside their little competition, they really clicked

Aaron had never felt more alive when he talked to Theo

it’s all very domestic and private since they both hated the notion of PDA

[trubilee]

7 min freewrite prayer (5.15.20)

last night was rough.  i htink i had this one long vivid dream bc right before, i finished spending 1 hour+ torturing paul with my long account of what happened 10 years ago between me and this one college friend-turned-enemy who to this day represents the source of so much of the insecurity that in some years i don’t even recognize and in other years are still so deeply in me it feels like i’m just cloistered by it, this thick heavy blanket of shame that drapes over me like a shadow <?>  i don’t even know.  i was actually tempted to write an entire personal piece about his one friend who 12 years later gets so under my skin, but a few lines after i started typing notes i decided not to bc i thought, i don’t want to give this guy more importance than is actually merited.  i do not want to memorialize him in any way when he was such a small sliver of a sliver of my story.  it felt not right to do that, as though he were some figure who touched my life (whether good or bad) or something, who my narrative has to account for in any way.  that guy, yes, the only friend where i felt compelled to block his posts from my FB feed bc i felt so scorned and diminished and mocked and weirdly betrayed by him at the demise of our friendship.  bc he was original, and he was funny, and he was a great friend to those he cared about (which included me, and i had priority even, especially when he liked me--”no, i ...  really liked you,” he had clarified when confessing awkwardly in my dorm room-- and even after i started dating his best friend, but ending a couple years later around the time when his best friend and i broke up), and he was good at adoring and worshiping and describing you in the most thrilling and endearing of terms.  and he called things years before they ever became cool.  he was always, always calling things that nobody had ever heard of, and i mostly thought he was just making stuff up, but on average i’d say that in 9 out of 10 callouts he was onto something years before it ended up on the more mainstream culture websites and art shoutouts.  he had strong opinions.  strong judgments.  insults that were as harsh as they were precise.  he was selectively principled.

but he was also petty, and even though he was good at worshiping and groveling and being pride-less if he liked you romantically or wanted to be your friend, he was also so spiteful and bitter and vengeful even if you slighted him in some way that got to him.  and as hilarious as his social and psychological experiments (esp. on the girls he liked) were, he was manipulative and wholly un-honorable about persuading girls with boyfriends or girls who were vulnerable from having broken up with their boyfriends.  

and above all, he fronted.  he fronted so hard.  he would have moments and moments of being totally vulnerable and borderling aegyo-ish and tender and dear.  but everythign he said and did was mostly characterized by all his fronting.  endless name dropping.  the hustling to get this person to come here and that person too and oh just let me know if you want X’s from this company or this artist or this hip hop group because i know someone there and i can get you X and Y.  H used to do the best impression of him on the side, and i still snicker when i think of it now:  “yo i know someone at seven jeans, just let me know and i can get you stuff from there.  seven jeans, true religion...”  (keep in mind these were hot brands at the time.)  it was nonstop.  the hustling and fronting and name dropping to the point where i was just repulsed by him sometimes.  (and so was, i imagine, the beautiful girl who he finally dated and who dumped him and seemed to have significantly broken him for all of senior year.)

anyway, now it appears that he is in fact very successful and semi-famous in his own right and extremely well-connected in exactly the thing he set out to do from the first time i met him.  he knows celebs and global designers / artists, writers, and culture makers up and across the highest and coolest of brows in the city.  this guy who i feel like ended up hating me and everything he thought (whether he was right or wrong or a mixture of both) i stood for.  and as i was telling paul, bc he hates me and looks down on me, all his friends--the celebs and designers / artists, writers, culture makers, the art-politics-culture creatives leading the way from where they stand--they hate me and look down on me too.  and “i’m such a loser, paul...”  lol.   

i dunno, maybe i do need to write about this after all lol.

i dreamed that i was at...  a house gathering of some sort, like a cozy non-rushed one, and for some reason my the an ex S was there, and so was the girl E who he sort of in a way left me for and even jumped right onto a long engagement-bound relationship with, like a frog hopping off one lilypad to another (sort of a strange pleasant way of characterizing what at the time felt like being shat on and then flushed down a toilet and then dragged out the street gutter and back into another nearby ditch to rot).  that side story and side ending aside, in my (stupid, to the point where i wonder if it’s even worth writing about) dream i ended up somehow sitting with her, sitting RIGHT with her, and weirdly telling her all these things i had thought all these years and said to her in my head.  this girl i had never met but who haunted so many of my thoughts.  i guess i felt really comfortable talking with her because the S thing does not bother me anymore, i don’t flinch or even twitch inside at that sort of thought.  it’s more his friend / my former friend (see above...) that i still have baggage about.  and anyway as i was sitting with E i told her how those 2 years were really hard for me.  how when i saw her and who she was, i felt so inferior and small at the time, because i could totally see why someone in S’s shoes would fall in love with her, because i would too.  and i even sort of asked out loud, that i wondered why she had to come in the way she did, come onto him if she knew he was dating someone--i asked her this as if we were friends or something, as if she owed me anythign at all.  and in my dream i remembered that E had actually broken off her engagement with S (a fact which, when i found out about it years ago, had brought me much vindication and glee).  and she actually sheepishly told me she’d gotten a face transplant (it was like a portion of her cheek or something, so nothing cosmetic-affecting) and S had gone with her to the operation--meaning S had made the sacrifice of transplanting his own cheek into hers.  and she realized through that whole operation and him supporting her no matter what episode that she did in fact love him and want to marry him after all.  and when i heard that something in me sort of fell as i looked at her and then over several feet away at him, and i didn’t feel like i was her friend any more and i had to fake it after that, uncomfortably act unfazed by their reunion, and i was trying to think of how i could leave the party, until i woke up.