#i guess for me death just seems like the absolute most awful thing that can ever happen

[trans-cuchulainn]

one thing i have been finding with books recently (especially fantasy, and especially YA fantasy, i think) is that so many of them treat life so cheaply. characters die and others immediately move on, skim past it, even if they were responsible or even if they cared about the person. the depth of grief isn't there, and because death is not given the weight it feels like it should have, all of the other emotions also seem... hollowed out, shallow somehow. like, if life is not precious and if these characters are not grievable, why does any of it matter?

and i guess. not every book has to be About Grief™. but books that treat death casually run the risk of making me not care about anything, because the lives of the characters are not valued, are not seen as worth grieving, and so therefore they are not worth my emotional investment, either. it's like they've told me i don't need to care if these people live or die, because none of the other characters will

on the flip side, it means when books DO dig deep into grief and death and the absolute profound awfulness of irreversible endings, i get a lot MORE emotionally affected than i would otherwise because i've got so used to skimming over the surface of characters and never being dragged down into caring, so it catches me out a bit more

[pedroschka]

Flowers

Joseph Quinn x reader

words: 1,7k fluff

Summary: first impressions are the best impressions - and you certainly delivered

A/n: do not get drunk alone in clubs kids! The possibility of a Joe in shiny armor is very low

"I can buy myself floweeers!" belting out the lyrics while moving around the kitchen, attempting to clean the flat but keep stopping midway to give Miley backup with the vacuum cleaner rumbling in the background, humming out the last words when you're done "hmm hm I can love me better hmm"

" I guess I keep them for myself then "

seconds away from a heart attack you turned annoyed to your boyfriend who suddenly stands behind you, ready to give him a speech that there are better ways to get rid of you instead of an early death.

But there he stood with a huge bouquet of your favourite flowers, a cheeky smile on his lips and still clad in his coat, curls sticking on his forehead from the rain outside.

"Happy Valentine's day, love "

Rushing over to him and grabbing the bouquet, nearly blocking your entire view of him, staring in surprise at the various assemble of colours in front of you

You've never received flowers before and certainly not on valentine's day and as it was only your first one together you really didn't expect anything at all - The bar is set so low and yet it seems so difficult to reach

But on second thought it really shouldn't surprise you at all because Joe always goes over and above to let you feel like the most precious thing in his life, from surprise date nights, small weekend vacations, just coming home and a warm bath is ready for you or his homecooked meals, slightly overwhelming you at the beginning and feeling pressured to somehow be able to compete, but it didn't last long for your love languages to balance eachother out, like a well played ping pong match where you express your gratitude in forms of affirmation, simple touches or just enjoying the trip's he planned for you or eating the food he made.

Taking in your appearance,at least the parts not being hidden from him behind the bunch of flowers, his lips turning upwards when he recognised the familiar fabric hanging off your frame and your feet shuffling over the floor in his white tennis socks

"You know this reminds me of our first morning together"

" Please don't " you groaned and threw your head back, still deeply embarrassed of your first impression on him.

~

World turning around you , lights flickering all over before everything suddenly stops and starts rotating in the other direction, holding your arms out in panic and you could hear the distant sound of your own voice in your ears " wooah" . Hands searching clumsily for something to hold onto , fingertips making contact with something soft , stroking the fabric in awe before it suddenly moves away from you

" Hey, you alright there ?" a firm grip holds onto your upper arm and you needed a second to be able to hold your head up , squinting your eyes trying to focus on the figure ,or two in front of you

" I need to pee!"

" Mate she's an absolute goner " hearing the words but not really registering them you started turning away again , swaying your way through the group of people in front of you , mumbling sorry whenever you had a feeling you stepped on someone's foot

" Hey hey , the toilets are the other way , come on "

" nuh uh mum said I shouldn't walk away with strangers"

" Yes wise words….so how about this, I just show you the directions to the toilets and then leave you alone , ok?"

"Okey dokey, lead the way! "

Gentle hands on your shoulders turning your body in the opposite direction, slow but still making the room starting to spin around you again , clinging to the body beside you and letting him drag you through the club with unsteady steps due your high heels

" Ok there we are , you ok walking alone from here ?"

" Course 'am , name?"

"Uhm…Joe?"

" You're one of the good ones joey " patting him what you thought was his shoulder, but instead accidentally slapping him slightly on his cheek , before making your way into to way to brightly lit room

Joe stayed in front of the bathroom, debating if he should go back to his friends or keep an eye on you to make sure nothing happens to you , because Wesley was right, you are an absolute goner .

Getting a bit uncomfortable under the questioning stares from the other women around him, because yes he's aware how he probably looks like an utter creep lurking in front of the women's restroom ,he made up his decision and turned back around but the whiny cry of his name behind him makes him stop in his tracks again.

"Joeeey?"

Dragging his hand over his face and taking a deep breath he makes his way inside , giving the other women inside an uncomfortable tight-lipped smile with a motion of his hand towards your voice

" Yeah I'm here " leaning against the white stall door and trying to keep his voice down , which didn't really matter because you clearly didn't

"I'm stuck"

Taking a double take at this he looked bewildered around him " what do you mean you're stuck?! In the toilet?! " He whisper yelled at you

A drunk snort leaves you " noo silly, in my jumpsuit"

" Uhm do you want someone else to help you in there ?"

" No I'm not comfortable around strangers"

He wanted to tell you that he was a stranger too but instead decided against it, oldest rule, don't try to have an argument with someone who's drunk

" Ok so with what are you stuck with in your jumpsuit?"

" Uhm…my arm ? I think "

"Just try to move your arm upwards out of the opening"

Hearing shuffling behind the door and your annoyed huffing and then sniffling

" It doesn't work " a pityfull whine leaves you, sounding like you're on the verge to cry and Joe starts to panic

" Ok open the door I'm gonna help you "

" No I'm naked !"

" Why the hell are you naked !"

" It's a jumpsuit Joe!"

As if this was explanation enough for him .

" I'm not gonna look I promise "

" Pinky promise?"

" Double pinky promise"

The door clicked open and he quickly wriggles inside, hand over his eyes

" Ok give me your arm "

Your hand grips his outstretched arm and he searched his way around to find the other one, the one which apparently was stuck but comes around something else

" That's my boob "

Quickly removing his hand again and holding it up in panic " Shit sorry , I'm so sorry! it's really hard doing this blind here "

" Ok I guess you can look , just help me "

Taking his hand from his eyes he tried really hard to not look at your naked chest in front of him and instead looked at the arm in question

" Oh love…that's the wrong hole "

To which you started giggling like a teenager over a bad sex joke

Grabbing your arm out of the pants leg and through the right strap, covering your chest again, all while receiving no help from you and just letting him do his thing, which concerns him even more

" There you go "

Giving him a weak thumb up before falling to your knees in front of the toilet seat and emptying your stomach

" Oh Jesus Christ …" he really has to take up the role of a babysitter for a drunk stranger tonight

A few minutes later he shoves a glass of water In front of your miserable figure, sitting in the booth with his friends again who all stared at you in pity

" You have a friend you can call who can take you home ?"

Wesley asked but you just shook your head , on the verge of throwing up again and Joe encourage you again to drink the water

—

Sunbeams stirred you out of your slumber and you groaned as a massive headache makes it's appearance as well, grabbing the nearest pillow and pushing your face into it in misery

"Morning" a male voice makes your grip on the pillow freeze in panic, slowly sticking your head over it to make out the unknown man standing in your living room…but wait your living room doesn't look like this

" Shit shit shit " you tried scrambling from the sofa, blanked getting tangled up in your legs and nearly making you fall into to small table In front of you

" Hey sorry didn't want to startle you...uhm coffee?" The man scratches his neck awkwardly, looking lost just standing there in joggers and shirt, head of wild curls sticking out in every direction

" No thank you " you freed yourself from the blanket before looking down at yourself, nearly expecting to see your naked body but instead you wear a big soft shirt and your feet clad in white socks, blinking up at him in question

" Ah yeah funny story… "

Giving you a quick recap of your drunk mess of last night and how you got yourself staying on an unknown man's sofa in the first place and you hide your face in your hands in embarrassment and shame

" So uhm yeah , I put your clothes in the washer so they're just hanging out to dry now, hope that's ok "

" Yeah yeah thanks , that's actually really thoughtful"

" To be fair I'm not so keen on vomit on my sofa "

You snorted "makes sense, but really you could just left me on this damn toilet, I can only imagine what a burden I must've been "

" I could never! And you were kinda fun to be around after your second glass of water, well before vomiting all over yourself again "

Cringing again you groaned and threw your head back

Hearing him chuckle before asking you again " so , still no to the coffee?'

—

"We're gonna stuck to the "met on tinder " story for our families" you shook your head at the memories of this night while arranging the flowers in a vase

" Wesley already promised to save the true story for his speech on our wedding"

" Good luck getting me to marry you now" you snorted

" Hey it's not that bad "

" You saw my tits 5 minutes after meeting me, on a toilet with my arm in my pants,drunk out of my mind how is this not that bad Joseph?"

" First impressions are the best impressions and they definitely are the most beautiful tits I've ever seen"

"oh shut up" slightly shoving him and his cheeky grin out of your way but feeling your cheeks redden anyway

" So, coffee?"

(reblogs and comments are very appreciated additional to your likes)

[coolsosha]

ObeyMe DEMON BROTHERS, but as Will Wood's songs!

i just love will wood, ok?

LUCIFER

♪She said, "It just feels inhumane to lose this much" / 'Cause when you leave, you know you take more than your love / Just one week of cicada days, we're losing touch / And I know it just feels inhumane to lose this much♪

Jeez, finding a song for him was tough, but i guess i did my best.

Apparently, "Cicada days" is about "that even the most painful losses can teach us something, as long as we persevere" according to some website. And i think it's pretty accurate.

I guess this song works well with all that Lilith death and Celestial Realm situation. Bro literally lost everything but still standing.

MAMMON

♪Please, policeman, no heel-to-toe / Oh please, let me go / Please, policeman, is it a test? / I won't know 'til I'm under arrest / Am I being detained / Am I under arrest? (Yes, you are!) / Read me my rights, please (No!) / I want my phone call!♪

So this song is about "dealing with life difficulties and feeling like you are trapped in a cage by circumstances". I thought that it, again, works well with Celestia drama and with fact that Lucifer was the one who chose everything for them. That would also work for Levi, but pppffft.

Also his brothers are often bullying him, so "feeling like in cage" might suit this well. No one takes him seriously and think that he is stupid, sad.

And oooobviosly Mammon might be in cage because he stole something expensive and hanging out in jail!)

other ones under the cut~

LEVIATHAN

♪One night one flung light through this place / So I run for cover, over, under, left the rind out on the plate / Little heart racing and praying, "Something, keep me safe" / I think it saw my face / Okay, one hungry day / Is nothing come what may♪

Okay, i have absolutely no idea what this thing is about, but according to some people this thing is about "Wanting to have someone near you and struggling with loneliness, but then accepting everything". Which gives some Levi vibes, since he is all "lonely worthless otaku".

But it's actually about a mouse, that's trying hard to live, wishes for cheese, hated just because of it's existence and naively hope that it will get to the cheese moon. It wanted to be friends with everyone, but eventually it gets trapped and killed. That's so hella sad and I've almost cried when i saw the clip, but, also it works well with Levi i guess. Poor dude wanted to be helpful for everyone, but everyone just left him(

All those hunger and cheese themes making me think of Beel, but no, it's not his song for sure.

SATAN

♪...Is there room for me in your cage?/.../ Animals are people too, but these people are animals/.../You might seem behind bars, but friend, this cage is inside out / It's awful out here, Socrates♪

AND

♪I wanna make my murder look like a suicide / But they'll all know, they'll all know / They'll all know that the body's mine / I wanna go anonymous to identify / But they'll all know, they'll all know♪

Ok so "Willard!" is pretty obvious. The singer loves animals a lot more than humans and wishes to be animal too. And Satan is definitely that one type of people who prefer Cats over people.

And "Cotard's Solution" is kinda more complicated. Its about struggling with your identity. Actually Will Wood's "Self-Ish" album has a few other songs like that, but i felt like this one was the one. Satan's identity struggle is a big part of his character as we all know. Since he is a part of Lucifer and all that stuff. And Satan's love for knowledge is also working well, since singer is trying to understand what life is and what it even means.

I was thinking about "Hand me my shovel im going in" or "2012", but i thought this one is better.

ASMODEUS

♪Where do you get off being so God damn beautiful? / Oh lord. Don't ask me what I mean /.../ I'll never know. I'll never know. I'll never know. I'll never know what it's like / What it's like to love you♪

In this song singer talks about extremely pretty woman, who he is in love with. He is ready to sacrifice himself for her, even if he knows that it's dangerous.

Part from UNOFFICIAL meaning interpretation that i saw:

"Overall, "White Knuckle Jerk (Where Do You Get Off?)" seems to be a portrayal of the intense emotions and confusion that can come with infatuation, particularly when it is unreciprocated. The woman in the song represents a sort of unattainable ideal, something that the narrator desires but cannot fully understand or possess."

I think this song works reaaaally good with Asmo. We all know how much Asmo wants to be the prettiest so everyone would love him. He is taking dietes to keep his form, uses a lot of skincare routine and overall trying to be perfect. Lets take that the "woman" is the ideal that Asmo is trying to reach, and he is ready to go on any sacrifices to be perfect the way how he wants it. So everyone will love him!

and i really like this song.

BEELZEBUB

♪Just like my parents in due time / Imagine me, just like my parents, yeah, right / 'Cause I've made more mistakes than simple empty moments /Each one as out of character as you know I tend to be♪

AND

♪Of the two things we do on our knees / Watch me fold my hands just to crack my knuckles / Well, here is the church, here is the steeple / Open the doors, see all the people / Alright, that's enough, let's get you home♪

I could find something that would suit him more so... uhhh.. "Becoming the Lastnames". Its just some cute song about how singer wants to create family, live happy and accepting responsibility for one's life. And hoping for the best, and working to create a lasting legacy for his family.

I mean, Beel is family guy. I just couldn't find anything better, sorry.

And about Kitchen floor... Well, that song is more about childhood dreams and adult reality, but its also about accepting your past mistakes and trying to work harder in future, so i guess it's not that bad????

Sorry Beel fans, i couldn't find anything better(

BELPHEGOR

♪Hold my hands, we'll dance the twelve step on my grave / I'd kill the man I am for one more chance to be yours, babe / No, I ain't begging, I'm just saying, it's an option / Don't let the latest be the last nail in my coffin / If you need me, I'll be in my coffin♪

AND

♪I am not the sunshine, I am not the moon at night / Well, who else could I be when I can hardly see? / I am not the sunshine, I am not the moon at night / I'm no one if I'm nowhere in between /.../ And if dreams can come true, what does that say about nightmares?♪

These two are just perfect match with Belfie!

The "Vampire reference in minor key" is about feeling dead inside and wanting for someone to save you. And we all know how dead inside own Belfie is.

And "Dr. Sunshine is dead" is about world not being black and white. And the whole Moon/Sun theme along with Dreams stuff is just perfect!

And both of them suit well with attic part! There is nothing much to say about these, they are just perfect.

I also thought about "Red moon", but i couldn't properly understand what it was about sooo...

Idk, tell if you want side characters version idk?

i enjoyed making this though~

[earlgreytea68]

I went to go see "Gatsby," the new musical adaptation with music by Florence Welch that's playing at ART in Cambridge (thank you to whoever suggested I go see it!). This is not the same Gatsby musical currently on Broadway. Such is the joy of a creative property being in the public domain.

SPOILERS FOR BOTH MUSICAL ANd BOOK BELOW

~~~~~~~~~~~~

The musical was very well done and the singing and dancing were both extraordinary. Just a fantastic cast and good staging and great choreography. But I thought it was really interesting in the liberties it took with the story. It struck me very much as Gatsby fanfiction, and not in a bad way, because I think fanfiction is awesome, but the adjustments it made to the novel's plot seemed like ficcy tendencies. Leaving aside the fact that they made Nick explicitly gay, which isn't such a weird thing to do since that's been a reading of Nick for years, but they also gave Myrtle a backstory and motivation she doesn't have in the book, and that's such a fic impulse, to take a character and make them into more. daisy also got that treatment, with her motivations explained more explicitly.

This made total sense, as you got a clearer picture of all the characters, and the musical was, as I said, well done, but it dulled some of the impact of the book for me. Like, when I finished the book, I was like, Wow, all of those people were awful, and I think that was part of Fitzgerald's point. He didn't want daisy buchanan more sympathetic. He was deliberately leaving that salvation out of his portrayal. For me, it was such a noteworthy stylistic choice that daisy isn't on the page of the story again after Myrtle's death. It was striking. That's not the decision the musical made.

And I didn't think you needed to give Myrtle a sob story past to justify her behavior. I thought Fitzgerald's point was that she wanted to rise up out of the dust because who wouldn't, not that it was a function of grief. Like, I thought part of the point of the novel was everybody is striving to claw to the top but the people already there are never going to let you in and are never going to be toppled either. Idk, it's a complex novel, but that's part of what I took away from it. It's absolutely fine to make every character more sympathetic and deeper, but it's also kind of telling a different story than Fitzgerald was.

The musical is called "Gatsby: An American Myth," and in a way I thought that was actually the musical's point. It's not an adaptation of "The Great Gatsby," it's an adaptation of what we tell ourselves "The Great Gatsby" is about. Which I think is probably different as it moves through time.

The musical was good. I don't actually mean to belittle the musical with this. I guess what I mean to say is it made me realize that the book is really good. Because it made me realize how effectively the book is shaped, such that shifting it around really does make it different. I think the thing that surprised me most reading it is it's actually hilarious? Like, all of the party scenes were hysterical to me. Such spot-on satire. I didn't realize how ironic the tone of the book would seem to me, and I feel like adaptations often play it "straight" (in more ways than one) and earnest.

Also, I just have to say, I've been trying to read more, so I've been reading a bunch of books this year, and above and beyond anything else, F. Scott Fitzgerald can just write. It's not just about plot or theme or meaning -- he can write. You don't get much of his words in the musical, so, if for no other reason, I think I'd recommend the book. One thing I've learned in my year of reading is very few people can write like that. I don't even say this as a fangirl of his, he just can write.

[theromanticrationalist]

Catching up on Young Sheldon. . .

I can't believe Young Sheldon is almost over and Sheldon shall be leaving us for good! 😩 I just hope this finale with George's death and us seeing Sheldon and Amy as an "old married couple" will be worth all this pain!! I am hyping myself up for feeling A WHOLE LOT OF FEELZ. I AM NOT READY.

I was already getting pretty emotional in the A Fancy Article and A Scholarship for a Baby episode. Firstly my heart was aching for my poor baby who was under so much stress to choose which school he would be attending! I was feeling his distress at feeling pressure from all sides (especially since in retrospect we know the decision was genuinely a major life crossroads for him), and I was hating how everyone was manipulating him! It always upsets me a lot when people take advantage of Sheldon because of his naiveté or how his idiosyncrasies make him an easy target. I can definitely relate to some of that, having a similar naiveté as Sheldon and inability to read social behaviors, particularly of those closest to me (weirdly). I think I have gotten better, but mainly I feel like I've just gotten more insecure and socially awkward, but oh well. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

At any rate, I get so upset seeing Sheldon having to struggle with things in a way most people do not and having literally no one understand or acknowledge what he is going through. It might not be scenarios that seem important or vexing for others, but they genuinely and sincerely are for Sheldon, and that is valid. So many people think Sheldon is egotistical, and he definitely can be self-focused and arrogant many times, but come on! This boy is his only advocate! "Well, no one cares that you care," Missy said to Sheldon in episode 10. "I'm someone. And I care that I care. And I care that I care that I care!" To me pretty much sums him up perfectly! Sheldon isn't egotistical, he just knows how to self-advocate (which is actually very difficult for a lot of people) in a world that is difficult for him to navigate! Anyway, thankfully though, my heart was warmed by Dr. Linkletter and Sturgis finally coming around, turning against the awful and shameless President Hagemeyer, and doing right by our Sheldon. Dr. Linkletter loves the annoying little string bean after all! (Like anyone seriously couldn't!) I was very moved by their encouragement of Sheldon, that he had outgrown them, surpassed them, and was going to do great things in theoretical physics and advance science in ways that they never could! It was very touching. My little baby bean is all grown up, and off to destroy maths! 😭 But of course. . . that reveal of Sheldon choosing MIT! 😂😂😂 OMG! That was TOO PERFECT. I was DYING. I absolutely LOVED that twist! Sheldon Cooper is such a stink'in brat! This WHOLE time he was giving Howard (and others) a hard time about MIT, acting like it was a crap institution and that every other university is so far above it - and the only reason he himself did not go there was because of the weather! It was literally HIS FIRST CHOICE. OMG SHELDON LEE COOPER!! 🤣🤣🤣 And I loved how Sheldon Prime was just like "Wait for it. . ." like it was all self-evident his being justified in dissing MIT in the end. It is SO ON BRAND for Sheldon I couldn't take it! Probably the best story twist of this season!

It also made me want to scream because of George travelling with Sheldon to see him off on this new life adventure, and saying how proud he was of him. It is a beautiful parallel to earlier in Season 3 when George took Sheldon to visit Caltech to listen to a lecture by Stephen Hawking, and saying he believed Sheldon would fit right in there. To know that this is probably going to be the last moment that Sheldon and his father have together, and how fitting it should be his father to be the one to see him off, makes me just want to sob my heart out! UUUUUUUUUGH. 😭😭😭 Sheldon and his daddy! THIS ISN'T FAIR!! 😫😫😫😩😩😩💔💔💔 Final random thoughts: - I guess Sturgis and Connie aren't going to get back together. I'm really bummed about that. They were so perfect! No offense to Dale, but Sturgis is kind of the best. IT SHOULD BE STURGIS AND CECE HAVING CUTE GRANDPA AND GRAND BABY MOMENTS TOGETHER! - I go back and forth between being excited for the Georgie and Mandy's first marriage show, to being absolutely devastated that not only will Sheldon not be in it but neither will Missy! - to thinking it might actually be pretty cute. Ugh. I guess I will watch it, but I really don't know how they are going to make a whole show on the concept. I guess we will see! - I am noticing that Sheldon's "brain itch" and focus on organizing and optimizing spaces is developing right when the most change is happening in his family and within himself (puberty). Of course he was always this way, but he didn't used to care about the state of things outside of his own room or his own bubble, e.g. school/dorm/his computer. Now he is trying to order things beyond his immediate needs, and I think that is interesting! These are coping mechanisms and ways he can make himself feel secure and in control. Once again no one around him is taking note of this!!

Look at him! Look at this baby becoming a lawyer in 24 hours to help out his MeeMaw! My heart genuinely broke when Sheldon looked at his MeeMaw with the purest, most guileless, baby kitten eyes saying he didn't want to see her go to jail. DUDE. If I were Connie, I would shape up right then and there!

My Favorite Sheldon Cooper Quotes: Sheldon: "I finished organizing the religious items! I separated them by New Testament hokum, Old Testament hokum, and general nonsense!" Mary: "Also Sheldon couldn't sleep knowing that the room was only half-organized." Sheldon: "It's true! It was like my brain was itchy and I couldn't scratch it! Very irritating!" Mary: "It was. Very." Connie: "Well, I thank you both, but I should be doing this myself." Mary: "Yes, you should, but we are already here." Sheldon: "Great! I'm going to start with the books! I invented my own Dewey Decimal System, but instead of decimals I use fractions!" (The utter pure joy Sheldon gets from organizing things and inventing his own ways of doing it is the most precious thing. Be your truest self, baby!!" Sheldon Prime: "I'm not proud of this, but that night I relieved myself in Billy Spark's chicken coop. Until my wife, those hens were the only females I exposed myself to. . .I guess I could have left that part out. Oh well." (Me screaming and hollering and throwing popcorn at my screen!!)

[thegeminisage]

it's star trek update time. SIGH. monday we did voy's "death wish" and ds9's "accession" and last night we did voy's "lifesigns" and "investigations."

death wish (voy):

this episode made me so angry it's UNREAL. star trek has pissed me off before but the only other episode in the entire series that has made me this mad that i can think of is tng's "violations." i am "violations" mad about it

firstly, to get it out of the way, i went back and skimmed the transcript of the episode. JUST SKIMMING, which means this list could be non-exhaustive, i counted six instances of q being sexist towards janeway, four instances of him sexually harassing her, and one instance of him being racist towards chakotay. like, his "dumb brute" remarks to worf in tng were so horrible but at least he kept those to one or two an episode, JESUS. janeway only corrected him one time, which i guess is because she's "above" all that? because that's how being a Tough Woman works?

like, until now, i have had some problems with voyager, but i can't think of a time, outside of kes and neelix's whole deal, that it felt sexist. whereas it was more surprising when tng DIDN'T feel sexist. and all of the sudden, tng's most annoying character shows up, and the sexism is back in full force. i HATE that

secondly, i know the trek guys missed tng, i know everybody else missed tng, but we HAVE to cool it with the tng cameos in voyager. barclay was fine, actually (weirdly enough?), but q and riker is over the top. q being here invalidates the ENTIRE premise of the show, which is already not being fully utilized. they don't treat it like a voyage - talking about time left until they get home in light years/ real time, a number that should be getting smaller, sacrificing speed for larger concerns, weighing the costs of stopping at this planet to get [needed supply] or rescue [hapless alien] against the cost of how many more years on this ship they will have to endure, worrying about what will happen when they run out of torpedoes or food. we get neelix cooking and a few grocery runs and that's it. but they are still AWAY FROM HOME. the journey back is a real and tangible thing that stands in their way. but now q is looking at them, and q could take them right back to earth before i finish typing my next word, and that's not supposed to push our suspension of disbelief? suddenly that 75000 journey, the first last and only great adversary of this premise, doesn't seem real anymore

as far as q politics go: i don't care because they're pretty boring. that being said, even if i DID care, janeway deciding for the q whether or not another q should be allowed to die ABSOLUTELY violates the prime directive. could sisko preside over a court case involving a huge change to bajoran society? no. so why is janeway allowed to do this? once they made bets on the outcome of this trial she should have opted out. if we can let a planet go extinct to uphold the directive we can let one q rot in jail for eternity.

FURTHERMORE, her ruling on the side of quinn in this trial is bullshit. janeway made a decision to trap all her crew in the delta quadrant in the pilot but it was to SAVE LIVES. her morals, which are a little lofty/at odds with her situation sometimes, were very justified here, because people would have died if she had taken the selfish way out. NOBODY'S life was at risk here - except, arguably, the lives of her crew, some of whom have already died during the long trip back home they're making. there's no justification whatsoever for janeway turning down the temptation of a quick trip home, but especially not so easily. WHICH IS, AGAIN, WHY Q EVEN BEING HERE RUINS THE ENTIRE THING. doing this makes janeway either look out of touch or like an asshole. that on top of the constant sexism made me want to commit murder

also, the q lipstick looked awful.

i did like janeway's like...she took the debate very seriously. and at the end even though she ruled for that guy's right to die she was like i like my mortal life and if you tried it you might like it too think hard before you throw it away. i liked that part. unfortunately, the rest was garbage

accession (ds9)

ohhh this one was SO good

firstly, i have wanted to go back to the wormhole since the pilot and NOT for dumb ferengi reasons. mwah

secondly, sisko my best friend sisko my beloved i'm gonna get into it but i love him so much he's the best guy ever

first i gotta talk about kira......im always so shocked when i remember she's religious because she's SO smart and headstrong and her religion often makes her stupid. this episode had some really really good scenes for her, and i really loved the like. stuff that happens between her and sisko when she loves him as a friend and as a commanding officer but also as jesus. religion adds complexity to that relationship, which is fun. but i do kind of wish she had had to grapple just a LITTLE, like ANY at all, with being misled - she really thought this bajoran guy was the emissary which would have made her wrong about sisko, but then she realized he was fake which made her wrong about him. and she was like well it's ""faith"" it doesn't matter if i was """wrong""" and if it doesn't make sense to you sorry atheists. like, okay, sure, but do you not have a religious crisis when you realized that feeling of total faith was fake and that you were successfully lied to? could we get into that, which would have been more interesting than a "checkmate atheists" moment?

speaking of atheism, sisko. he's not a believer of the bajoran religion, and he was sooo happy to step aside when someone else showed up (until that guy started doing awful shit), and then when he goes into the wormhole to ask WHY the wormhole aliens would spit this asshole out hundreds of years later if he's NOT the emissary they're like "oh because of you :)"

they KNEW that he would become disillusioned about the job hundreds of years before he was born so they concocted a perfect reason to give him a vested interest in keeping it - to protect the bajoran people, right? it gave him a chance to get hard evidence with his own eyes how much they really love him and would do for him, making that devotion feel more like an honor than a burden. but more than that, it's a magic trick for a skeptic. a "do you still think it's sleight of hand NOW?" moment. FUN.

anyway, i'm really interested to learn more lore about those guys. you exist here. they made such an impression on me

lifesigns (voy):

CAN WE PLEASE STOP. HAVING STAR TREK EPISODES ABOUT ASSISTED SUICIDE.

this lady like yeah i'd rather die than go back to my own body, my life in that body was intolerable, vs worf's brother being like my life as a dishonored klingon is intolerable, vs the other q being like yeah boredom for eternity is intolerable, kill me. what was IN the fucking water hold on i have to look something up. one second i think okay yeah terri schiavo was in the 90s. that was what was in the water. alright. that was a really fucking depressing wikipedia article i just skimmed through

ANYWAY, my favorite part of this episode was finally getting to see trek's version of mars, which i have wanted to see for a long time now. it was extra cool that it was set against this 50s convertible and the 50s music. i thought that was bomb as hell. absolutely fucking obsessed. the rest of the episode was just okay

firstly, unintentional aroace doctor vibes. like under one hand we can't be doing that to nonhuman characters anymore because of The Stereotypes (i'm not aro but i'm ace so i'm allowed to complain about this) under the other That Dialogue. "romance is not part of my program and i don't want it to adapt right now because i don't like what's happening to me" and all the talk about how utterly indifferent he was to her appearance whether she was holographic or in her real body

also, hi, sorry, she's gonna name him SHMULLUS after her UNCLE? i thought we were trying to be romantic here!

tom paris chakotay confrontation...you know what, i'll get into it next episode. i will say though i was like damn why didn't they offer us any closure on that at all?? i do kind of like that we have arcs in voyager, unlike tng - this, the spy, seska's baby, etc.

the real problem with this episode though is don't vidiians steal organs from people? usually only people who are living? without their consent? did that guy not WEAR that one starfleet officer's face? b'elanna's trauma response in the beginning was sort of played down but she was the ONLY objection i heard. no, it's not this lady's fault she is sick, and she may not have PERSONALLY done any organ stealing, but she knows where they come from. she's complicit. i was shocked that we didn't even get into it

you could have done one of those really good trek ethical debates on this, i think. this isn't what happened, but let's just say when she was a child she got those organs without her consent either. and when she gets older she just gets used to it - or maybe she doesn't, and advocates for willing donors only. if she said she only received organs from willing donors, would the crew believe her? would you? if this is a new stance, and b'elanna has something she needs but refuses to give it up, would this lady be tempted to take it? NOW you've got some meat to this episode - it's particularly good if she does dodgy stuff and the doc still loves her. um unfortunately that's not what we did though

investigations (voy):

FINALLY some good fucking food

firstly, can i just say, poor fucking chakotay. this is like the THIRD time he's been tricked by a spy. we HAVE to stop doing this to him, he's going to get a complex. i do like that it was tuvok who advocated for tricking him though because theyre worsties <3 tuvoks mad he didn't get first officer no matter what he says

secondly, this entire episode should have been from neelix's camera's pov. that would have been soooo fun

neelix and tom paris really are friends now..........incredible that raising a puppet lizard baby can bring men together in this way

the most exciting part of this episode was cathy figuring out about .5 seconds into it that tom was a double agent rooting out the spy and then both of us gaslighting ourselves into going "no way he genuinely left" and then back to "omg he's definitely a spy" like by the time we got to the reveal we were in fits. even tuvok was gaslighting neelix. neelix was like mr vulcan we have a spy and tuvok was like nah. i love when he calls him mr vulcan btw i wish they had more scenes like the bath thing tuvok makes such a good straight man next to neelix

this also makes me feel a huge amount of relief over tom paris in general, and his tentative redemption. i liked when he said he wasn't gonna be annoying anymore and was so disappointed when he went back to doing that. but it was a trick! he tricked me. they literally got me like i'm chakotay

neelix was RUDE to keep putting the doctor off for his news show btw like maybe EYE wanted to learn about the klingon glottis. honestly!! that said, i also didn't think he had it in him to straight up murder a guy either that also really shocked me

also, hi again to seska, who is still pregnant with somebody's baby. still REALLY hoping it's chakotay's!!!

NEXT TIME: just voy's "deadlock," since we are also watching star wars :/

[sombritas-des]

Hey!! I really like ur writing!!!

For the scars one i imagine that whenever the beheaded gets a new vessel or body to inhabit they both take a good long look at it and try and figure out what the scars came from before it died. Like the both of them don't know so they just guess and try and use the information to maybe prepare for what's coming up. - Like if the body has a lot of bite wounds they'll be like "ah, bad dogs ahead" or if there's more modern signs of damage like stabbing or slicing or whatever theyll be like "ah, bad people ahead"

This is assuming they're just sorta walking around going from place to place, which I feel like they'd do.

I'd also imagine that it's pretty hard for the beheaded to actually scar up, cause a dead thing won't really produce the proteins to make that happen, so they like, staple it together until it holds up yk? So all of the beheaded's scarring is really nasty and kinda fucked up since it takes so long to actually heal over. But drifter has med packs so most of their scars are more surgically taken care of ykwim? Like drifter disinfects their wounds and tools and beheaded is like "eh whatever" Idk I just really like the idea that beheaded is all fucked up cause it makes me feel like I'm still loveable lmao (⁠´⁠°̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥⁠ω⁠°̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥⁠｀⁠)

Anyway, I love how soft they are with each other. like of course I'll love you when your scarred, not in spite of your scars, not because of your scars, but because I love all of you, including your scars. AUGH I'm biting the walls

ALSO (sorry this is getting long but I literally have nobody to talk to about them) like, the first time drifter sees beheaded after a combat situation he's like "HOW ARE YOU NOT DEAD!!" and beheaded's like "that ship has sailed lol" and for the first time in their life (death? perpetuation of consciousness??) the beheaded is treated gently and they're stitched up with care and bandaged with love. And they like, don't know how to react because it's never happened before and they're like "this is a waste of time and resources" and drifter is like "you're never a waste to me" auhgh.,, im ill about them

- e (I hope ur chill with me talking about this at u)

aah thank you so much, means a lot i do my best when writing! also ooh long!

Yeah “scars” was something weird to be fair but i like your analogy, i do agree with you,both of them would check on the new beheaded body to most likely gather information, also something that i added as a hc is that, the beheaded can sense or re-live the source of dead of the body, that ones is explained in “rebirth” another short ramble i wrote, they don’t feel the pain but rather the emotions.

As for the mending on the injuries, i kinda roll with the idea that somehow behe could try to preserve the body they inhabit, as in dead cells probably the healing flask do exactly that, regenerate the cells of the cursed vessel . Most of my rambles take place in drifter’s universe, the land of light, in that matter probably the same medicine that drifter uses can do the same effect as the healing flask from the beheaded cursed island.

So! how they heal/mend…funny i do thing the cells mend themself with time, slower but they do, the cells mend  the injury as an awful made scar but that's only when the beheaded let stays with the body long enough to heal, which is rare or was rare before meeting the drifter.

Drifter mending the beheaded cuts or injuries, bro i melt everytime i think about it, they absolutely do so and in such a careful yet precise way is almost enduring, those scars mend wonderfully, clean and close in a way that only a soft discolored mark can be seen, those are the beheaded favorite scars.

oh! but of course that the first time they do ,goes something like this..

-------------------------------------------------

The Drifter knelt beside the Beheaded, concern etched on his face as he examined the wound. The Beheaded, however, seemed almost disinterested, his gaze drifting off as if focusing on something far away.

"Hey, behe, I need you to stay with me here," the Drifter said, his hands gently probing the injury.

The Beheaded's response was a nonchalant shrug. "It's just a body, Drift. It's not like it matters." the beheaded sign 

The Drifter's expression turned stern. "It matters to me. You matter to me."

He began to clean and dress the wound, his touch gentle but firm. The Beheaded winced slightly, but it was clear their discomfort stemmed more from the Drifter's fussing than the actual pain.

As the Drifter worked, the Beheaded's gaze wandered, his thoughts seemingly a thousand miles away. The Drifter noticed and hesitated, unsure how to reach the Beheaded beyond his detachment.

"You know, I used to think it was just a body too," the Drifter said, his voice soft. "But then I met you, and I realized...it's not just a body. It's a vessel for your spirit, your heart. And I want to help you protect it."

The Beheaded's gaze snapped back to the Drifter, a flicker of surprise in their core. For a moment, they just looked at each other, the tension between them palpable.

Then, in a small act of defiance, the Beheaded reached out and touched the Drifter's hand. "Fine. Help me, then." the beheaded sign defeated

And with that, the Drifter continued his ministrations, the Beheaded's reluctant acceptance a tiny crack in his armor.

-----------------

ah…those dumas, gosh i love them

and no worries!! i love talking about them, i adore them deeply like ooof.never hesitate to come here and aks or chat about it, also i appreciate a lot you coming and telling me about how you felt with my tiny rambles means a lot! (ง ´͈౪`͈)ว

also you filled my head with new ideas..thats dangerous

anyhow! thank you again!

[echantedtoon]

Dragon's Treasure Ch3 Guilt Weighs Heavy

Guilt. Remorse. Regret. Sorrow. Fear. Panic.

All of that weighed on a person's shoulders can be hard. He should know. After all that's what he felt for the longest time. Between being treated as a suspect by the police and other people to seeing your limp for being rushed back to the Wyndon hospital via emergency ambulance. And he didn't even get to know how you were even feeling until much later. Didn't feel relief until much later. Between being proven innocent he was taking care of Leon's little brother and those surrogate siblings of his until their families could arrive or Leon got out of the hospital with his own trainers, preparing himself for the final battle of the Champion Cup which would still take place within a month's time, and worrying himself nearly to death with the public rightfully being on edge about the whole situation. Thankfully the Vice Chairman seemed to doing a great job calming down most of the public and setting focus on rolling things back to normal already and he'd help in anyway he could which was posting as normal and remaining calm and helping as much as he could with the investigation of the Hammerlocke lab to speed up the process to get his town back to normal. It was the least he could do for the people of Hammerlocke. Sometimes he'd even take the small trio of Leon's to go visit him at the Wyndon hospital. They always seemed so happy to see him and Leon in turn was ecstatic to be able to see them as well. It made him feel a bit better knowing he wasn't being useless at least..not like he was back at his gym when you were emergency flown back to the hospital...

...

He had heard you were going to be fine. You had been knocked out cold for nearly a week and you woke up with a goose egg on your noggin and a massive headache, but x rays and doctors confirmed there was absolutely nothing to worry about. By some Arceus given miracle you had even avoided a concussion. But just in case they planned on keeping you in the hospital at least until the Champion Cup was over. 

....

Well that was a huge relief off his shoulders at least. But it still didn't stop him from feeling downright awful about the whole situation. He should've known- HE SHOULD'VE BEEN THERE!! Those kids were in danger because of him! He didn't arrive in time to help Leon! He didn't suspect anything! He LET you go by yourself and you ended up getting hurt! Leon ended up getting hurt as well! He didn't get that black eye and multiple bruises by himself! What was the point of being top gym leader if he couldn't even do that-

"Rai-Rai?"

He never expected to have Piers find him sitting in one of the halls rubbing his face. When his deep ocean blue eyes looked up to meet electric blue ones he found someone with pale skin and monochrome hair staring back at him calmly. Piers was standing there long hair cascading down his back and his arm still in the sling from accidentally fracturing it during the battle. Just another thing he was responsible for. After a silent moment of the two staring at each other, Raihan put on a smile and removed his hands from his face sitting up to look at his friend.

"Hey, Piers! Wasn't uh..Wasn't expecting to see you here. Shouldn't you be resting up?"

"Tch." The lanky man scoffed before looking at him. "M' tired o' laying down all the time. Layin' down would drive me madder than a starvin' munchlax." His brow rose. "But m' assuming you're 'ere ta let those blokes visit Leo right?"

Raihan again smiled, nodded, before pointing up the hall at a specific room which just so happened to be Leon's room. "They're in there talking more than a flock of chatots. No doubt they're excited for our rematch in a week."

"Oh yeah. I almost forgot 'bout that. Guess you're really pumped up for it. Who knows? Ya might even become Champion this time."

"Haha...Uuuh. Yeah."

Silence. 

Piers waited for the dragon leader to respond..but beyond that he didn't. He just looked down to the floor away from the other man's gaze and went silent again. This wasn't like him. Right now Raihan would've been going on a boastful rant about how THIS time would be the one where he took the Champion title and become the first ever Champion to use all dragon types and so on and so forth, but he didn't. He didn't even look at Piers anymore.

"Oi. Ya alright there, Mate?"

"Yeah...*sigh* Yeah. Just a bit tired from babysitting six kids on top of training for the battle I guess."

".....Feelin' guilty huh?" Raihan's head snapped up wide eyed- "It's obvious. I can read ya like a bloody book." His brow rose again as Raihan opened and closed his mouth like a flabbergasted magikarp. "That's why ya ain't lookin' at me."

"H-How did you-"

"Let's call it personal experience." He took the moment to slowly sit down next to Raihan who blinked at his serious face. "And it's kind o' a good guess. You 'ave been dealin' with a lot lately haven't ya?"

After a long moment of a surprised pikachu face, Raihan sighed through his nose and his hand reached up to rub his tired face. "Yeah. Well you're not wrong about that bud. With Leon out of commission most of his responsibilities fall onto me..or at least the jobs that the Chairman didn't take up. Good thing I didn't get the whole shebang right?"

"There's bags under your eyes," Piers bluntly stated which caught Raihan off guard for a moment.

"Well ouch. That's harsh."

"Usually IM the one who's tired and has the bags." One finger from his good arm gently lifted itself up to point at his own eyes that were totally normal for once. Being in the hospital with nothing else to do, he spent most of it sleeping so for once everyone was able to see Piers without his signature tired look with his hair down in wavy locks. Compared to Raihan who looked like he hadn't slept for a month, it was certainly strange. "So that means something's keepin' ya from sleep." 

Another groan from Raihan. "Well the duties and playing babysitter would do that for you." He chuckled which ended in yet another groan. "My mind feels like it's out of my body and all over the place running around screaming a hundreds different thoughts and feelings at me. It's exhausting."

"Yeah. That's exactly how I feel a lot o' the time too. M' sure Leo appreciates everythin' you're doin' for 'em. Especially when those lil blokes are concerned." 

"Yeah. I'm sure he'd do the same for me if I was in his position." And just like that any form of a smile left from him. "I mean...I guess I didn't help his situation to begin with or anything else really. It's the least I could do as top gym leader."

"...Hey. Y'know it's not your fault for what the bloody rose did-"

"I know, I know. Everyone keeps saying that but-...Rrrrrrah!" Piers blinked as Raihan leaned back in his chair, head up, and grabbing his head with a growl that resembled an angry deino. "It's so frustrating!! I don't see how you can do this every day!"

"Eh. It's a livin'. But I'm serious though. It's not your fault at all-"

"I KNOW!!....I know but-..Ggrraaahh." His arms flopped back to his sides as he sighed, still facing upwards. "I-...I didn't know this would happen."

"Neither did I. Or Leo. Or the Vice Chairman. Or anyone else who wasn't involved in it, Mate. There wouldn't 'ave been any way you coulda known. So don't be hard on yourself for not being a mind reader. What's important now 's repairin' everything and getting things back on track. No one's hurt and all the bad guys are behind bars, so the worst that can happen is ya mopin' 'round right?"

Raihan still stayed silent for a long moment before huffing which ended in a smile and semi-relieved smile on his face. "*sigh* Yeah...You're right. What's done and done and I can't change that but I can install better security and make sure nothing like this happens again!"

"There ya go. Everythin's fine and everyone's alright. We can all use this ta improve n' move on." Electric blue eyes narrowed just a little bit at the dragon lord before humming. "...N' Y/n's doing pretty ok too." In an instant, Raihan's face snapped up wide eyed and back towards his friend who gave him a knowing look. "Just ta let ya know."

"I didn't bring her up."

"I know."

"You did that."

"I know."

"Haha." Piers's brow rose as the man nervously laughed and looked away. "I didn't even speak her name once. Why would you feel the need to bring her up?"

"Oh. No reason. I just thought since she was here too you'd like ta know no one that was there was hurt...Why? Are ya upset about 'er-"

"NO!!" His loud voice vibrated down the hallway startling a nurse a little ways from them and silence followed suit. .....Piers's brows rose further. "I-I me-mean-...Ahe. Hahaha!" He gave a wide smiled and looked away waving a hand quickly. "W-Why would I be upset!? She-She-She's ok right?!"

"As fit as a fiddle, Mate."

"Then why would I worry about her? That's ridiculous! Everything's alright so there's no need for me t-t-to worry. Sure m-maybe I haven't been able to see her and a-apologize in person with all the stuff piled on me but that's not the point! T-T-The point is that she's ok and I don't have to worry about her! Nope not at all!"

......

"What if I sit 'ere and keep an eye on those kids while ya see her?"

He snapped to him again instantly. "You'd do that!?"

Piers nodded. "It's not your fault but if ya really feel like ya need ta talk to 'er then I could-"

Piers jumped as am orange bandanna blurred past him and up the hallway away from them excitedly making the goth blink. "THANKS PIERS! I OWE YA ONE, BUDDY!"

"....." He blinked again ....before sighing. "Oh boy. Does he have it bad."

[chuplayswithfire]

Hey man, I'm using a throwaway because I've found a lot of the ofmd fandom really hostile lately and don't want anyone in my main's dms. I'm really not trying to like, be a coward or anything.

I really like your blog and you seem like a cool person, but I was honestly kind of disheartened when I noticed you dismissing the death threats and other awful messages a lot of people (particularly Izzy enjoyers, yes, but I know they're not the only ones) receive.

I understand that that kind of hostility existing might go against your view of this fandom and the world in general, or that maybe you even think these people deserve the things they're told, but I REALLY doubt the multiple people I've seen speak out about this issue are all lying about it or making things up. It just seems like a lot of hoops to jump through just to assume that, when the simpler explanation would just be that at least most of them are real.

Hell, I have a screencap of a mutual of mine receiving their first anon hate telling them to kill themselves for liking Izzy, but since that person was cowardly enough to go on anon I guess to you that's fake too? Like, is it really so hard to accept that this stuff is happening? Or do you really think so lowly of people who like a fictional character that you think they're all liars and master manipulators making shit up for fun?

Even if you ignore the death threats, there's someone on multiple sites right now commenting really awful stuff on people's Izzy art, many of said artists being minors. This I do have proof of. Like I've seen this person tell a black gay man he was a racist and a fujoshi for liking Izzy and drawing art of him?? Seeing this kind of behavior, I have a hard time believing death threats or suicide baiting would be out of the question.

It just really hurts seeing you dismiss experiences like that. I'm probably coming off as unhinged writing all this to a single person, I guess I just think you seem cool and reasonable so this took me off guard. I'd like to apologise in advance if anything I said was upsetting, I'd just like to hear where you're coming from with this.

I hope you have a good day regardless, sorry for making you read all of this. Appreciate you.

Just to get this out of the way, I fully doubt the veracity of this statement because you're a throwaway account. I haven't been on tumblr for 10+ years to be rocked by someone rolling up to me with a terrible sounding story without anyway to verify it. I'm just meant to trust you, an anonymous stranger, that all these horrible things are happening.

Now, do I think there are tons of hateful messages being sent out and about to various fans of various characters? Absolutely. Of course it is. My anons are closed because of the hateful messages I received, which racketed up to being told various ways I should be killed or that I should kill myself once I told the anon that I would not be sharing their messages. Of course that's happening to many other people.

What I personally doubt is that some of the people claiming to receive hate, are actually receiving hate. And frankly, when its anonymous, I have to maintain skepticism because 1) anyone can send themselve anons and 2) anyone can stop anonymous harassment by turning off anon. I'm an example of that. When someone is receiving tons of hateful anon asks and refuses to just turn off anon, I'm naturally skeptical.

But going back to what I said about doubting people - I am again confident that many people have received hateful messages. However, when I see, for example, a person with a total of less than ten posts, less than five of which are about OFMD, talking about the barrage of hateful anons they've received for liking Izzy, I'm doubtful. When I see artists talking about the hate they've received for their art, and then I look at their art and they've been whitewashing, I'm doubtful. When I see fanfic authors lamenting the hate that they've received, and I check the comments being made and they're about how the content of a chapter or story is racist, I'm doubtful.

Ultimately, do I believe this fanom has hateful anons? Yes. Do I think many people are making it up because they believe it strengthens their position? Yes. Do I think *anyone* who claims they and the people around them are uniquely bullied for liking a particular character is being obtuse? Yes. Some fans of Izzy are undoubtedly getting unwarranted and cruel comments. So are Stede and Ed fans, so are fans of the whole show, so are people who post about hating the show. Not to be flippant, but it's the internet. I'm not going to just believe someone because they said something on the internet, but while I have sympathy for people experiencing the distinctly shit feeling of "my inbox is full of hateful comments", I'm also not going to pretend I don't raise my brows when some of the people I see pushing that idea the most are people I see making racist ass commentary.

In short: I am a cool person, I'm glad you like my posts, because I do not know who you are and cannot investigate your claims I do not trust your account. I'm simply too cynical to not raise a brow when people start voicing that they're the most hated people within a fandom just because they like a character.

Getting hate sucks. Sending hate is shitty. Unfortunately, it's part and parcel of the experience of being active on the internet.

[adultswim2021]

Aqua Teen Hunger Force #86: "Fry Legs" | May 17, 2009 - 11:45PM | S07E08

Does this episode have legs? Let’s find out, my tasty little swimmers.

In this episode: Frylock’s loneliness gets the best of him, so he invents a new pair of robotic limbs, adorned with pick-up-artist style dragon boots. He also took his fries out and replaced them with realistic human hair. His plan is to call a computer repair woman so he can seduce her with his fryish charms. It doesn’t work, and it’s very apparent that it’s never going to work. She is simply not interested in this unwanted attention. Since Frylock is so level-headed and smart, he gets the message very quickly and decides to leave her alone.

PSYCHE!! He doesn't do that at all. Later, Frylock shows up a restaurant where she and her partner, Ray, are having dinner. Ray tries to stand-up to Frylock, who ruthlessly murders him with his eye lasers. The computer lady is of course, completely traumatized. Frylock makes off with Ray’s remains so he can harvest his organs and whatnot for another horrible gambit at appearing attractive to her, by placing his (too large) brain in his sewn-together body and pretending to have come back from the dead. 

The first time I saw this, I remember thinking that perhaps they went a little far with making Frylock such an unrepentant monster in this episode. He’s usually the voice of reason and only resorts to using his eye lasers when he absolutely needs to, just like me. But his inability to meet women has been a running thing in this show, and there really aren’t a whole lot of female food products that can talk in this world. His only recourse seems to be convincing, or now straight-up tricking, human women into being with him. One scene has him admitting to stalking the woman by bugging her home. I still think they took his character too far in this direction, but I care less. I guess we all just need to face the facts that Frylock had that in him this whole time. 

This one has a great cameo from George Lowe playing himself playing a cop. George’s appearances are typically drawn to look like him, which is why I worded it confusingly. He’s funny here, even though he’s fairly leashed as far as Lowe goes. Speaking of casting: the computer woman is comedian Natasha Leggero and Ray is voiced by Matt Walsh, also from comedy. They are pretty good too, so that’s nice. Lotta pretty good stuff going on here as far as performances go. 

The end of the episode involves the woman revealing to Frylock that she’s a CHUD, like from the 1980s horror picture of the same name. It does undercut the darkness of the humor a tad; the idea that Frylock is just interfering in the lives of a normal couple would seem inexcusable, but then it turns out she’s a monster who violently eats Master Shakes, so she’s no stranger to being gruesome. I might actually prefer it if they just leaned into the awfulness of Frylock’s actions, which is mostly portrayed as being genuinely horrific. Shoulda ended with Frylock just going to prison and being shanked to death.

This one’s weird, but I don't hate it. I was sorta expecting to find that this episode was particularly hated by fans. It’s one I see that pops up in “worst episode” lists, but it has enough defenders that I wouldn’t single it out as the single most-hated episode. It’s up there, though. Or, down there, rather. Messy, but it’s got a couple laughs. Okay, that’s enough from me, BYE!!!

EPHEMERA CORNER:

[turqrambles]

I Read A Berenstain Bears Book Where They Fight Joe Camel, Make Fun of Liberal Activists, and Discuss Farmer’s Rights

Who doesn’t love the Berenstain Bears? They’re named things like “Papa Bear”, whether they’re called Berenstain or Berenstein has been cited as a commonly found instance of the Mandela effect, and one time they ate a bunch of tasty junk food in that one book that everyone only remembers because the illustrations look cool.

Actually, I don’t love the Berenstain Bears. If I had to make a tier list of family friendly forest critters, I’d put them right at the bottom tier underneath characters like Buttons & Rusty and Yogi. I could probably take on both Brother and Sister Bear in a fight if I had to.

I do, however, know an awful lot about these horrible mammals, probably because I read weird books like this. Follow me in my journey through The Berenstain Bear Scouts and the Sinister Smoke Ring, their anti-smoking PSA. It’s a journey that gets weirdly Libertarian!

I reread this book because, by sheer happenstance, I knew two friends besides me that read this book as a kid so I had to report back and read "The Berenstain Bears Book where they fight Joe Camel" just to see if it contained any buried treasure.

At first glance, this book's contents seem easy to guess. It's a chapter book about the Berenstain Bears, and their lesson for the day is "smoking will destroy you mind body and soul". It's not a book you would read for fun, oh no. This is a book that's given to you by a parent or a teacher to teach you a hard life lesson before you ruin your tender developing lungs in a middle school bathroom after the cool kid with all the piercings dares you to.

For the most part, the book is exactly that. We get the peer pressure from the gang of cool kids - named the Too-Tall Gang, and their clubhouse is made out of stolen car parts because they're COOL - and we even learn that Brother Bear has been hanging out with them and smoking for a bit (which, sadly, is never seen in any of the illustrations, probably to preserve the branding) and doing things like hiding his smoke-smelling clothes from his parents, all while his sister watches on in mute horror.

Later on, as the adults are telling him not to smoke, he even gets to visit a cemetery while an old grandpa bear tells him that his loved ones smoked themselves to death.

(almost every tombstone is a bear pun)

See, that part is fine. That is a fine lesson to learn. If this book just kinda kept to that tone of storytelling - maybe have Brother Bear's health start to be negatively affected by this, maybe deal with the psychological effects that smoking does to the brain - then maybe it wouldn't be the absolutely bonkers product that I subjected myself to.

Oh no, instead this book slides off the rails by making the Bear Scouts deal with all levels of tobacco production, and the cracks really begin to show during the part in the beginning where we have to spend time with Farmer Ben, who called the police on some protesters marching on his farm because he decided to grow a bunch of tobacco plants on a completely random whim.

(...)The scouts were in an awkward position. They knew that smoking was very bad for your health. But Farmer Ben was a friend of theirs. After all, it was Ben who let them convert his old chicken coop into a clubhouse.

He turned to Ben. "Ben, you're right about one thing. They may not come onto your property. That's trespassing. But if they stay on the road, they can protest all they want. It's called Freedom of Speech." He turned to the protesters. "Miss Stickler, you and your protesters are right about tobacco and smoking. It causes death and disease. No question about it. But it's a legal crop, and Ben has every right to grow it if he chooses to!"

Okay. We need to slow down here.

This book, this children's book designed to tell children that smoking is bad and will kill you, felt the need to spend some time with a tobacco farmer and let everyone know that it's well within Farmer Ben's right to grow a bunch of tobacco plants because tobacco is a legal plant to grow and that golly, he sure does feels upset that these people are yelling at him. Nevermind the fact that it's established that Farmer Ben is the only farmer in Bear Country and, due to the nature of these books and how these lessons are taught, a large portion of the schoolchildren only started smoking AFTER the only farmer within the area decided to start growing it.

And before you ask "well maybe they present the moral quandary of 'just because it's legal doesn't mean it's right' using Farmer Ben as a framework?", they don't. This is the last we see of Farmer Ben. Not once does anyone talk to Farmer Ben and ask him why he decided to grow a bunch of tobacco plants in the community. Cigarettes are purely terrible death sticks but Farmer Ben is a pillar to the community even though he's making the key ingredient.

Honestly Farmer Ben should count his blessings that no one torches his crops in the middle of the night. Why don't you ask one of the parents of the Too-Tall Gang kids how they feel about this, Farmer Ben.

Speaking of late night shady dealings, there is also a con artist bear named Ralph Ripoff (a regularly reoccurring character, and someone who would’ve been a tumblr sexyman if tumblr existed in the mid-80′s when the TV show was airing) who manages to convince several tobacco CEOs to start doing their business in Bear Country, probably on account of all those locally-grown tobacco plants that Farmer Ben helpfully planted and is within his legal right to plant.

The CEOs are named Mr. Wheeze, Mr. Tar, and Mr. McSnuff - because of course they are - and their cigarette mascot is named Moe Moose. Ralph Ripoff tells that, sure, selling cigarettes directly to children is illegal, but there's nothing illegal about making your mascot really cool and marketable to children.

As you can tell, this book is a direct commentary of the Joe Camel controversy of the 90's, and just when you think the book has reached Peak Wacky the moment it has a high school parade dedicated to this cigarette mascot complete with someone in a moose costume blowing smoke rings while wearing stilts...

...it goes the extra mile and Ralph Ripoff reveals a giant state-of-the-art billboard of a massive Moe Moose that can move its giant mechanical arm and smoke real smoke rings.

Don't worry, though. Ralph Ripoff doesn't get the same gentle treatment that Farmer Ben gets, for the Bear Scouts first lightly and legally protest smoking by making a bunch of anti-smoking buttons and flyers (uh huh, seems like something normal kids would do, I'm with you so far, book) and then they get one of the protesters from Farmer Ben's farm to hack and reprogram the robotic billboard so that the massive forty foot tall Moe Moose spells out "Smoking Kills" in front of a bunch of tobacco industry representatives and seemingly nearly asphyxiate Ralph Ripoff in a cloud of black smoke in the process. (WHAT)

Listen. I know Ralph Ripoff is named "Ralph Ripoff" but we can't apply the "what he was doing was technically legal" logic to Farmer Ben and then try to kill Mr. Ripoff for creating a dystopian robot billboard that somehow has the ability to spit out tobacco smoke. Ain't no rule says a dog can't play basketball.

Before they do this, they have to get one more dig at protestors by doing the whole “haha isn’t it wacky that this activist wants to chain herself to things”.

Bear Country has exactly one liberal living there, apparently.

There's also a scene where Brother Bear challenges the Too-Tall Gang to a foot race and the cigarette-addicted teens are so winded and out of shape from their destructive habits that they have to be put on oxygen tanks by some nurses that are standing by. You know, great stuff.

In short, I almost can't rate this. This book trips over its own messages a couple times, and honestly, the whole tobacco industry subplot just makes this whole thing feel like a fever dream, but damn it all, it is an exhilarating read as an adult.

And remember, if you want to stop tobacco from taking over your small community of bears, maybe don't wait until there's a giant robot billboard blowing smoke into the skyline before doing something about it.

Maybe listen to HER next time.

[lilithsmom]

Goodbye 2022, you were a good one

It is January 2nd 2023 - at least for the next 42 minutes.

I’ve posted a lot of pictures but no real updates about life. So here’s a little catch-up on how the rest of 2022 went.

I guess I should start with the fact that today marks 6 months of being with Carlos. I’ve never been happier. I love our love so much. We’re so good together and to each other, and we both say exactly what’s going on in our heads to the other. It feels so comfortable, I am forever going to be in awe that I found this kind of love. I never thought I was worthy of it. We had so many adventures and we’ve already discussed our future adventures this upcoming year, safe to say I cannot wait. More camping, more off-road adventures, all the things I used to do alone but now with the love of my life.

Kayli is moving in in March. Jesse is moving out and I know there’s a whole post about that so I won’t go on and on but I think us not living together anymore will be for the best. I’m excited to revamp the apartment, and to see Kayli more, and just have fun hangs. Most of our hangs have been in my apartment anyway so now she just won’t have to drive home. I feel like the vibes are just going to get so dang cozy.

I am a godmother now. Kristine gave birth on 11/11/22 to Mikaela Aviana Charlton. She was suppose to be born a Sagittarius but she decided to arrive early and be a Scorpio with a Gemini moon. I truly cannot wait for her to grow into a little person with her own personality. I flew home for a weekend just to meet her and spend time with Kristine and Rae. They are really killing the parenting game, and give me some hope that I can do it too but I know I wouldn’t be able to do it without Carlos. Carlos is like Rae in that he’s the calm chill parent and that’s exactly what I need to balance me out. Kristine seems so happy though, she’s become so emotional since becoming a mom and I absolutely love to see it. 

I hosted thanksgiving and christmas at the apartment. It was just for Carlos and his roommates but still. It was so exciting and fun. I was very awkward on Thanksgiving but then Christmas was a breeze. I really love cooking for so many people and watching them love what I’ve made. Thanksgiving was a roasted chicken, Roasted vegetables, honey butter rolls, green bean casserole, stuffing, pumpkin pie, and apple sauce cake. Christmas was roast beef, onions au jus, Asparagus with whipped feta, mashed potatoes, more honey butter rolls, maple carrots, and a gingerbread cake.

Christmas in general was a hit. We celebrated noche buena at Carlos’ and he made Dominican food which was delicious. I could not stay up to midnight without napping. It’s going to be a challenge in future years, I can already tell. But Carlos got me a knife sharpener as his joke gift because I always have dull knives, a pet cam to watch Lilith while I’m away, and a pinned death’s-head hawkmoth. And his roommate’s got me gifts too which was the sweetest. He loved my gifts for him as well - a purple TC Tugger shirt (made by me), a personalized cookie tin with never ending refills, and a gold chain. He hasn’t taken the chain off since I gave it to him and it makes me so happy that he really likes it.

My birthday was also a good day. While I got the birthday sads the day before and found myself sobbing for no real reason, my actual birthday went well. I reserved brunch at the Lumber Baron Inn and we ended up being the only guests which was very fun. Then we went to the Kirkland Museum of Fine and Decorative art which was just so cool, and then the Denver Nature and Science Museum which was also very cool. Their Gem and Mineral exhibit is so freaking cool. And then we had dinner at Ocean Prime. I thought it would be a nice cap off to the year since that is where I went in January for my first solo dinner. 

I could gab on more and more but now it’s only January 2nd for 16 more minutes and I’m quite tired. But it’s safe to say 2022 has been a great time and I’m excited for what the next year holds.  

[tb-gerschutz]

Chapter Ten

Word Count: 5,055

Trigger Warning(s): some romantic tension, descriptions of something evil (specifically Balor, but it gets pretty dark), possible cursing, etc.

Summary: Whiskey and Veronica have some fun while at the ski lodge...

******

Of course, the war against Balor was all I could even think clearly about. It’s been running through my head ever since I first got involved in it two years ago. Balor Devlin is the baddest, most dangerous monster I’ve ever had the displeasure of encountering, and he somehow succeeded in getting in my head. I mean, he’s only in my head because I know what he’s capable of. He’s capable of plenty of awful things, most of them being large-scale. 

He wants to instill fear wherever he walks. 

But in all of his attempts to draw out the fear that I have against him, he has failed multiple times. I’ll admit it. I’ll admit the fact that I am scared to death of Balor and what he’s capable of doing. He’s the most dangerous person I’ve ever come face-to-face with, but I’m not going to show my fear toward him. That would only amplify the fact that he’s winning this fight.

That is definitely not going to happen! Not on my watch!

Meanwhile, Whiskey and I had finally arrived at our suite, and it surely did not disappoint. Our suite was so spacious that it could possibly fit a small family. A small, rich family, that is. All the amenities—all the items that were inside this very suite—most likely cost more than me and my twin’s births combined! It seems like only rich, aristocratic assholes could afford staying here for an ungodly amount of time. 

And lucky for Whiskey and I, we’re able to stay here until we have to flee dastardly Balor again. 

“You’re sure you were able to pay for us to stay here?” I asked. “I mean, it’s so huge and grand and—and wonderful.”

Whiskey chuckled. “Yes, sugar. I’m absolutely sure. You wanna know how I’m absolutely sure? Well, I’m the one who put my card into the thinga-ma-bob to pay for it!”

“Thinga-ma-bob?” I questioned incredulously. 

“Yeah. The thingy that reads the credit cards—that thingy—oh! Never mind!” Whiskey answered. 

I laughed as I flopped onto a big sectional couch that was made out of brown leather. Surprisingly, it was very comfy. So comfy that I most likely could fall asleep on it. 

“Whiskey, you gotta check this couch out! It’s so comfy,” I said out loud. 

One of Whiskey’s eyebrows arched upward. “Really?”

“You would think that leather would be kinda sticky and not very comfortable, but it is, Whiskey!” I claimed. “It’s almost like sleepin’ on a cloud. A white, fluffy-as-fuck cloud.”

“Fluffy-as-fuck cloud? That’s a new one,” he said. “I’ll have to keep that one in mind.”

I shrugged. “Well, I told the truth, didn’t I?”

“Yeah. You did—and I’m proud of you for that,” he answered. “Honesty is the best policy. And I’d much rather you be honest with me than not. Then, we won’t get ourselves in a bigger shithole than we’re in right now.”

“Glad we recognize the same thing,” I said depressingly.

“Recognize what?” Whiskey asked.

I sighed. “That we’re in a huge shithole.”

“Well, it’s the truth,” he said. “We’re in a big shithole. Have been for a while now, and if we don’t get out soon, then we’re pretty much fucked.”

I nodded solemnly. “I know,” I responded simply. 

He gently held my face within his hands, looking deep into my eyes as per usual. “But don’t you worry, Rocky. We’ll get through it. We’re gonna win this war.”

I smiled just slightly. I had just the slightest hope that we’d win, but in this dark era where Whiskey and I are on the run, I’ve lost some of the hope I used to have. I guess that’s the way people think. They hold out as much hope as they can in the beginning, and once the dark of the tunnel starts to collapse onto them, they think there’s no hope in sight.

That’s why they give up and surrender under a power greater than them. 

You see, the thing about heroes is that—they always do what’s right, even if the pressures of evil power are struggling to break them down and failing to make them surrender. They don’t give up until there is widespread peace and order across a given region or the world, for that matter. But they keep their struggles and loss of hope concealed from those who believe in them. They have this added pressure of bringing hope to the innocent and not failing them, so they keep the struggles concealed so that the innocent don’t express concern or worry over a second coming. 

A second coming of untimely death and ruin.

But I don’t consider myself a hero, by any means. Despite what others may think, I’m most certainly not a hero. I’m simply someone who’s concerned about the safety and future of the world. I want to be able to have a safe, secure future, and I’m sure other innocent lives around the world would agree with me. That’s why I feel pressured—or obligated—to team up with Whiskey and stop Balor. He’s a very dangerous individual, one that is considered the Devil personified.

And if we don’t stop him, then he’ll bring the world to a ball of flaming ash. A real-life iteration of Hell itself. 

I don’t want that to happen, mainly because it’s such a cruel, inhumane idea to have. How could one have such a dark thought like that one? I certainly can’t fathom having such an idea, and it goes to show how twisted one can become and the consequences from such. 

So in all seriousness, I’m not a hero. I’m just someone who feels the need to protect herself and those who are innocent. Heroes simply stop the villain to get a traditional storybook ending and keep saving the world as part of their way-of-life. Not me! I just want to save the world once and guarantee the safety of everyone for as long as they shall live. 

“Rocky?” I heard Whiskey’s voice call out. “Rocky. Earth to Rocky!”

I snapped back into reality once he called that out. “What? Oh! I’m so sorry, Whiskey. I’m so sorry.”

“For what? Doing something harmless?” he questioned. “Rocky, I ain’t gonna light a fire up your ass because you did somethin’ completely harmless. Spacing out is harmless. Actually, I know that spacing out is a major sign of anxiety. But I ain’t gonna light a fire up your ass because you did somethin’ harmless.”

“You ain’t mad?” I asked.

“Why in the hell would I be mad at you, sugar?” he responded. 

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s the anxiety-riddle part of me. I’m not sure.”

He patted my shoulder and smiled, showing that he accepted me for who I was, even though I may have several flaws to my name. “That’s okay, sugar. I love you just the way you are.”

God, Whiskey! Why do you have to be so goddamn irresistible? Just when I think I can put you out of my mind, you somehow waltz right back in. Damn you, Whiskey! But of course, I mean that in the best of terms. I love Whiskey so goddamn much, and I don’t know what I’d do without him. He came into my life so unexpectedly, and I thank God every day that he did. 

Without him, I’d be digging myself a deeper hole than I’m already in.

“Now, come on. Get your snow gear on,” Whiskey said. “We’re going skiing.”

“I’ve never done that,” I replied. “Can we also snowboard?”

Whiskey nodded. “Of course, princess.”

God, he’s such a sweetheart! I don't know what I’d do if he wasn’t in my life. I’d tell you what. I’d probably be dead! If not for Whiskey, then I’d probably lose my mind so much that I’d wither away slowly or suddenly. Without him, I’d either become stupid enough to get myself killed or stupidly allow my demons to basically force me to kill myself. Whiskey is my life support, my rock…and without him, I wouldn’t be in this world. 

“Come on, sugar. Hurry up,” he prodded impatiently as I waited by the door. 

“Don’t get your knickers in a twist, pal,” I said. “I gotta get my snow gear on. Sorry if I don’t wanna freeze my tits off!”

Whiskey chuckled. “You know I’m just fuckin’ with ya, right?”

“Yeah, I know,” I answered. “I just don’t wanna ruin the vibe and make things awkward.”

“Sugar, don’t worry about that. Even if things are awkward between us, I’m still gonna love you,” he explained. “I mean, to be honest, I haven’t loved anyone this much before, and if I did, it’s been a long, long time.”

I raised my line of sight to meet his eyes directly. “Not even your high school sweetheart?”

“At the time, I loved her very much,” Whiskey responded, “but that was an era that took place a long time ago. Now, I’m learning to live in the moment and not focus on the past. And living in the moment now means loving and caring for you, just like my sweetheart would’ve wanted.”

“She would’ve wanted you to care for someone else?”

“She would’ve wanted me to be happy,” Whiskey clarified. “She would want me to live in the present as much as I can and not focus so much on the past.”

He ran his finger along the side of my face as gentle as a feather. “And if she were here right now, she would’ve loved you.”

“Really?” I asked. 

He nodded. “Absolutely. She would’ve loved you because you made me happy. You changed me, and she would’ve loved you for that and so much more.”

Whenever Whiskey would mention his past love, I would fight so hard not to cry out uncontrollably. Such a sweet, caring man like Whiskey deserves the world, and to lose the love of your life and your unborn child is just—just devastating. Losing anyone you were extremely close with is detrimentally upsetting. 

I mean, look at my life, for Christ’s sake. 

I lost my twin brother when I least expected it. He and I were best friends, the typical “two peas in a pod”...we were attached at the hip. Without Devin, I was completely lost and insane, and I’m sure if he were alive today, he’d say the same thing about me. We were each other’s rocks, best friends, supporters—Hell, we considered ourselves closer friends than I had in high school. Devin was the only friend I needed.

And with him gone, I—I really don’t know who I am anymore. 

That was, until Whiskey somehow waltzed into my life. Never in a million years would I have imagined someone like Whiskey to come into my life. I never thought of it! Maybe it was because I was too consumed in my own dark thoughts to even try to think about love. For the longest time, I grieved Devin’s death. Most people would tell me to let it go and move on because it happened so long ago.

“It was just your twin brother. Move on,” they’d say.

Well, I can’t move on! And I don’t think I ever will move past that. Devin was not just my twin brother, but he was also my best friend, my biggest supporter, and so much more than that. How the hell am I supposed to move on when the person I grew the closest to has been taken from me far too soon? It would be different if I lost an acquaintance or someone I wasn’t all that close with, but this is my fucking twin brother we’re talking about.

He was the closest thing I had to happiness before Whiskey came along.

And to have him taken from me is just—is just devastating. I don’t plan on moving on from that ever again, but I’ll promise to make the guilt and grief much easier and less painful to cope with. And how do I plan on doing that, one might ask?

By hunting down and killing the person who was behind all this.

The person who was behind Devin’s murder, and the person who could’ve orchestrated it all—They don’t deserve to live another day here on Earth because of that! They killed my twin brother, which meant that they very easily earned a one-way ticket to death’s world…The darkest Hell imaginable. They deserve to live there for the rest of their Godforsaken days, and I don’t care how they get there.

I just want to be the one that escorts them to Hell myself. 

* * * * * *

I later decided that it wasn’t worth it to just wallow in my grief’s shadow any longer. I had to put my mind off of it if I were to continue fighting valorously against Balor and his dark, cruel empire that he rules with a fiery, iron fist. So in order to put my mind on something else, I went along with Whiskey to the snowy slopes to snowboard, ski, and whatever the hell else snowy adventurers do here. 

Very quickly, however, Whiskey turned on a one-eighty and decided to snowboard with me, despite wanting to ski. It’s terrible that he didn’t have his skiing equipment. 

Shame. 

We stood precariously at the top of one of the biggest hills at this ski resort. No one knows exactly what it was called, but after looking at the path ahead, Whiskey and I had our own name for it.

“Diamondback Run? Really?” I questioned, my voice muffled by the tight scarf over my nose and mouth.

“Well, yeah,” Whiskey said. “Judging by the slope of this thing and by warning signs we already passed, it looks like it’s a black diamond run, which means it’s for advanced skiers and snowboarders. But don’t worry. I have faith in the two of us, given our expert coordination.”

One of my eyebrows hooked upward. “You really believe that?”

“Well, sure. It’s better to have enough confidence than either too much or none at all,” he answered. “You have too much confidence, then you get cocky. Too little, and you’re timid enough to not engage in death-defying risks. Some confidence can carry you a long way, but it has to be at a level that Goldilocks herself can deal with.”

“Not too much, not too little. It has to be just right,” I concluded.

He nodded. “Exactly.” He adjusted his gloves so that they stayed secure on his hands. “Now, are we gonna run this or not?”

“Of course we are!” I exclaimed, allowing my snowboard to fall onto the snow below before strapping my feet to it. “Momma didn’t raise no bitch!”

“I can tell,” Whiskey commented. 

After much bantering, Whiskey and I finally strapped ourselves to our snowboards and took off down the Diamondback Run. I was scared for only a hot minute, but once the adrenaline started to course through my veins at a high rate, I was perfectly fine. I was perfectly fine with going down a decently steep hill. It was the first time—in a long time, actually—that I finally felt free. Free to let go of my God awful past and just—live. I don’t think I’ve ever truly lived in ages. Not since Devin’s death.

I could feel the cold, bitter wind bashing itself repeatedly against my face as both Whiskey and I zipped down the slope quicker than the speed of light. It felt liberating to go down that decently steep hill and just let loose. It was like all my life’s troubles sort of—detached themselves from my shoulders and disappeared temporarily without a trace. It felt very relieving, to say the least…and if I did something like that again, I certainly wouldn’t complain.

Once Whiskey and I got to the bottom of the slope, we both turned to our sides so that the boards would scrape against the snow, stopping us in our tracks. I was disappointed that it all had to end, but I knew that I could—very easily—do it again. Again and again until I was exhausted. 

I exclaimed with great joy at the moment the two of us stopped. “Ooo-ee! That was great!”

“You really think that risky-ass hill was a great thing to snowboard down?” Whiskey asked.

I nodded. “Fuck yeah, I do!” I detached the snowboard from my feet temporarily. “Let’s try something more dangerous.”

Before I could march a single inch up the slope and off to another, more dangerous one, Whiskey grabbed my wrist and yanked me back. “Ah, ah, ah. Not so fast, sugar.”

He yanked me back so hard that I actually fell backward, with my back and ass landing on the snow behind me. Whiskey was damn lucky that I was wearing the proper body protection, or else I would’ve froze my ass off. 

“Damn you, Whiskey,” I said through fits of laughter. “Damn you.”

Whiskey shrugged as if he was proud of himself. After trying to keep his beaming, boastful manner, he eventually descended into fits of laughter as intense as mine. We were just having the best time together, provisionally forgetting about the war we were fighting. It made me feel free from all the danger that Whiskey and I were facing, even if it was only for a little bit. 

* * * * * *

A couple hours passed, and Whiskey and I had already completed four runs on the most dangerous hill at the lodge. Even though it didn’t have a name, Whiskey and I called it “Hell’s Descent”, mainly because of its steep, unpredictably dangerous nature. It has crazy twists and turns, and the steepness of it made the run even more dangerous. 

Whiskey and I were right in calling it “Hell’s Descent”. 

We were back at our lodge, warming up from a bitter day on the slopes. I was curled up on the leather couch, warming up next to the roaring fire in front of me. Whiskey, meanwhile, was warming his hands up after putting some more firewood inside. I offered to put the wood in, but my attempts had failed.

“You’re a princess, sugar. You deserve to not lift a finger,” Whiskey said, protesting my intentions. 

Of course, I nearly melted when he called me a princess. Hell, I melt when he calls me any pet name. That’s why I relented to Whiskey’s command, only because he utilized my biggest weakness against me. I felt bad for not helping, but that’s how I was raised. I was raised to be someone who helps any opportunity they get—to be a helping hand. So when I met Whiskey and started receiving princess treatment, it felt awkward because all my independence—all my helping nature—wasn’t able to be put to good use. 

I’ve gotten more used to it over time, but I still haven’t quite made it a habit.

After he gave me my peppermint hot chocolate knowing damn well I love that shit, Whiskey decided to explore our suite for a while. Why he did this, I have no idea. But I didn’t want to move, especially considering that I was already cozy and curled up on the couch. I wasn’t going to move!

“Shit!” Whiskey exclaimed. “Sugar, did you know we have a hot tub in this joint?”

I looked up suddenly, careful not to spill my hot chocolate all over me. “Do we really?”

“Fuck yeah, we do!” he responded excitedly. 

Being extremely cautious to not spill my drink, I shuffled my way over to the sliding doors in the kitchen, where it led to a wooden back deck. And right there I saw it—the hot tub! Goddamnit, Whiskey. You were right.

“Fuck yeah, baby! Let’s go!” I exclaimed. 

That’s when I chugged my drink down, setting the empty cup on the counter and hurrying up toward upstairs. “Hold on a sec. I’ll be right back.”

“Wait a minute. Where you going?” Whiskey asked.

I glanced back at him, grinning mischievously as if I’m up to something. “I’m gonna dive in that mothafucker, so I’m getting my bikini.”

“The black one?” he asked hopefully.

I nodded. “Yep.” That’s when I continued my way upstairs to put it on. “And no! I don’t need any help this time.”

I could hear Whiskey groaning in disappointment. “Damn it!” he exclaimed.

Not too long after, I came back downstairs to try and jump into the hot tub. Before I could, however, I came into the kitchen to meet up with Whiskey again. As soon as I emerged in that black bikini, his jaw dropped so much that I thought he’d have to pick it up off the floor. He was paralyzed in place, probably because of shock. The shock of seeing me in such a revealing outfit. 

“Hot damn!” he exclaimed.

“I’m gonna take a guess and say you like it,” I said. 

His right eyebrow hooked upward. “Like it? I love it! One, black is a really good color for you. And two, it makes you look so hot!”

I smiled after getting that compliment. I don’t believe I’ve smiled like that in a long, long time. “Really?”

“Duh, sugar! I’m so lucky to have such an amazing, hot girlfriend like you,” he said. “I couldn’t imagine being with anyone else.”

“Aww,” I said, hugging him tightly. 

We only hugged for a brief amount of time before peeling ourselves off each other. I didn’t want to—I wanted to be in his strong, muscular arms forever—but I had to. “Now, please get out of my way. I got a hot tub callin’ my name,” I remarked.

I turned to go dip into the hot tub slowly, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw Whiskey leaning in the doorway. He had his hand in his back pocket, as if he had something in there. It didn’t matter to me because I thought he was feeling for his phone. I didn’t think much of it because I had other things on my mind other than the reason why Whiskey has his hand in his back pocket. That’s inconsequential to me. 

“How’s the water, sugar?” he asked from afar. 

I exhaled. “The water’s perfectly fine, Whiskey. Wanna come in and join?”

He shook his head side-to-side. “Thanks but no thanks, sweetheart. I’m not a—hot tub kinda guy.”

“Please,” I begged, drawing it out for a long time. “Do it for me. Pretty please.”

It took him a while to think about it, but Whiskey finally relented. How did I know that he gave in? Because he chuckled so lightly that I could barely hear the “damn you, Veronica” under his breath.

“Fine,” he said. “Give me a couple minutes to change, and I’ll be right out.”

I had to wait for what seemed like forever before Whiskey emerged once again, but this time, he was only wearing black swim trunks. As soon as I saw him, I was immediately dumbfounded, evidenced by my jaw dropping suddenly out of shock. In all the couple years I’ve known Whiskey, I never once believed he could wear such a thing. 

Maybe it was because I never really dreamt of it. I had bigger things on my mind other than imagining Whiskey in just swim trunks. 

“Damn!” I exclaimed. 

He chuckled. “And I’m gonna take a guess and say you like what you see.”

“You’re stupid for thinking that I like what I see,” I added. “I love it, Whiskey! I absolutely love what I see.”

Whiskey ran his tongue along the inside of his mouth, trying so hard to hold back a very loud chuckle. He already knows that I’m unhinged as hell, and hearing me say that definitely didn’t convince him that I’m sane. 

“You’re damn lucky that you’re good-lookin’ and damn smart,” he said. 

I shrugged. “What can I say?” I remarked. “I’m good at getting people to tolerate my crazy ass.”

“Sugar, I can tolerate a lot of shit. Dealing with your crazy ass is nothin’ to me,” he said. “If I can be with it for the rest of my life, then I certainly wouldn’t complain one bit.”

I bit my bottom lip decently hard to keep myself from smiling such a huge, goofy grin. But hearing Whiskey’s comment sparked a new pair of set thoughts in my mind, and they were extremely conflicting. 

Goddamnit, Whiskey, I first thought. What the hell did I do to deserve you?

See? So innocent, right? I innocently don’t know what I truly did to deserve having Whiskey as a boyfriend. Before I met him, all I did was go through the motions of life, which became significantly harder after poor Devin’s sudden death. Meanwhile, Whiskey was probably living his best life, fighting international threats and traveling all over God’s green Earth. 

But my second thought was considered more of suspicious pondering than anything. All the possibilities of what Whiskey could be up to ran through my head. 

What’s going on? What does Whiskey have up his sleeve? What’s he hiding? Why is he acting like he is hiding something?

Maybe I’m simply losing my mind. I’ve been doing that since this gruesome war with Balor started. Sure, he’s gotten into my head and made me afraid of him, but I’m not gonna let that show. That’ll only make him more powerful and have him gain more of an advantage over us. I have to stay strong in order to eventually win this war. If I don’t, then Whiskey, myself, and the rest of the world are fucked.

Completely downright fucked.

So Whiskey relented and ended up joining me in the hot tub, slowly dipping in as he tested the temperature of the water. As he might’ve already figured out, it was hot. Decently hot. Mind you, I’m considerably tolerant of scalding hot water, since I typically take hot showers every couple days, so I’m comfortable with burning hot water. I don’t know about Whiskey, however. He may have interacted with it long before he met me, but he may not prefer it like I do. 

And that’s fine. 

“It’s a little hot, don’t you think, sugar?” he said as he finally got into the hot tub, the water submerging his body all the way up to his upper torso. 

“Ah,” I commented. “It’s fine.”

His eyes widened. “Fine? Sugar, this is blistering hot!” He reached over to grab my hand and examine it. “Are you sure that you ain’t burning up?”

I smirked. “Whiskey, I’m fine. I’m used to hot water. This—this is nothing.”

I guess Whiskey was satisfied with that because he didn’t give me any more fight. “If you say so, sugar,” he said. 

For a while, we decompressed in the hot tub, allowing our tense muscles to relax. It’s something we haven’t done in a long, long time. Ever since we started the war against Balor, we’ve been running around like headless chickens, and we’ve never had the time to truly relax. Sure, this war has always been in the back of our minds, but right now—right now is a rare occurrence. A rare occurrence where we could finally relax and temporarily forget about the stress we’re under. 

“Whiskey, I gotta ask you somethin’ serious,” I spoke up. 

His head slowly turned to me, while his eyes softened with concern. “Yeah. What’s goin’ on?”

I sighed. “Do you ever get tired of me? Do you ever get tired of seeing my face?”

“Why in the hell would you ask me that?” he asked incredulously.

“I mean, we’ve been attached at the hip since—since we started going on the run from Balor,” I added, “and I just think that you get bored of seeing my face every single day.”

He briefly shook his head before setting his sights on me again. “But why, sugar?” he asked. “Why would you ask me that sorta question?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s always been in the back of my mind, ya know? I thought about our relationship and wondered about different scenarios if they played out differently than they did now. What if you get bored of my face? What if you leave me?”

He reached over and placed his hand on the side of my face, feeling the strong jawline that I inherited from, most likely, my father. His eyes softened and sincere, Whiskey didn’t even flinch when he gazed into my eyes and deep into my soul. 

“I am never going to get tired of that face,” he stated firmly. “This face—it brings me comfort. It helps me a great deal to forget about all the darkness and pain I struggle against. And I thank you for that. I love you so goddamn much, Veronica, and if I had the chance to spend the rest of my life with you, I would.”

“Oh, really?” I asked genuinely. 

He smirked mischievously as he grasped the back of my neck tightly, pulling me forcefully and aggressively into him for a passionate, vigorous kiss. One of his hands entangled itself into my hair, grasping it tightly and pulling on it. His other hand, meanwhile, was gently on my waist, running up and down my side and back. 

I was left breathless as a moan escaped my breath and landed on his lips. It wasn’t the first time where such a thing happened with me and Whiskey, but it definitely caught me off-guard. It always does. 

This encounter between Whiskey and I lasted a decent while. We only broke apart once the air in our lungs was completely non-existent. 

“Yes, really,” Whiskey whispered in a low tone. 

And from that moment on, I knew that Whiskey was cooking up something. Maybe a mastermind plan that I had no idea about. But the big question is: When does he plan to enact this plan? Does he plan on carrying it out now or later? 

Deep down inside, I hoped that I’d spend the rest of my life with this man. He’s the picture-perfect gentleman that God sent my way. He’s everything I wanted and more in a man, and I thank God everyday that Whiskey came into my life in the way that he did…

…and I hope that Whiskey—the darling man that I perfectly imagined—stays in my life as long as I live.

[phoenixcatch7]

Ladies and gentlemen please welcome to the stage my newest hero forge model!

Good grief this colour scheme fought me.

This is an au (?), a crossover between ff7 and Belle/The Dragon and the Freckled Princess, which takes place half in reality, and half in a futuristic virtual world simply called U, where the main character (Belle) debuts as a singer as a way to process the trauma of her songwriter mother's death. The technology of U enables it to create virtual avatars that 'draw out the user's hidden strengths', whether they like it or not.

As you might have guessed, this is what a young sephiroth stumbles upon, finding an escape from the labs and something captivating he's never heard before - music.

The vr world is always something that's absolutely fascinated me, and the expressive, vibrant, community based world in belle is really different to the normal scifi dystopian armpit of society that it often gets presented as, so of course I loved it immediately. Much closer to the real world comparison of vr chat than what the scifi novels present it as XD.

But the themes of escape and being thus able to process trauma is something else, that I really wanted to explore with sephiroth. I've made a couple of aus already, but this is the first one I've knuckled down and designed.

It's a pretty young sephiroth, starting just before/at the start of ever crisis and the wutai war, but in U he's aged up just enough for people to let him roam unsupervised, as it seemed to do for belle. I'm thinking late teens/vaguely androgenous first year at uni kid.

I made the build a lot slimmer and a bit shorter than his adult self, and all round a much less intimidating figure, less passively scary and off putting. Give this kid a chance to not stand out so immediately. And with the themes of finding yourself, processing trauma, I thought it'd be very interesting to think about how that might present, as reclaiming bodily ownership and autonomy. To this end, I added the tattoos, the sleeve on the arm (I was thinking a wing or animal? But I like the vague patterns, the tattoos most meaningful part is its existence as decoration), and the face markings as a nod to the original belle, who becomes an aunt/mentor figure during the story. And a piercing or two and a couple rings 🤭

The black and white hair, because I couldn't bear to get rid of the white entirely (and he should own it) and as an idea of what his hair might have been without jenova cells - both hojo and Vincent have black hair. Tied back a li'l fancy so he can have some pride and effort in his appearance, expose his face a little more without hiding it behind those awful bangs. I imagine it longer than the model goes, but eh. The eyes... I dithered over slits, or blue eyes, but in the end green is just his colour, you know? But a way to escape those unique pupils, the inhuman, the strange ones, I imagine it's something young him would jump at the chance for. Just to be normal.

The wings, they represent the wings of his safer/seraph true form, with that purple stripe rather than the fade but hero forge doesn't do wing patterns (yet) :(. Coming out of his lower back rather than his ribs like his black wing does, I'd put more but his hair needs some presence XD.

The outfit was a TRIAL but we got there. I wanted something modern and sorta k-pop young idol, but practical to fit his standards. I eventually managed something that struck that balance, I'm a lot happier with it than I thought I'd be! It's something you could see simultaneously on a strobing stage and on a final fantasy battlefield lol. Please imagine as many belts as you want! The headpiece thing is supposed to be one of those head mics, but it didn't convey the vibes so I gave him a proper mic as a prop ^^.

If you look at the gloves (white to og sephiroths black) - and the pendant - you'll see tubes of mako coming in and out of his arms. This is a nod to the fact that he (is heavily traumatised and objectified) was, as far as he knows, made up of mako, a weapon, a tool, made to find the promised land of infinite mako for shinra, charged up with it like a battery, woven into his dna, more cyborg robot than human all his life in the sterile labs. Again, it's ✨self expression through acknowledging and processing trauma✨

I'm also sooooo delighted with the face, the expression, I really am!! I wanted to try and capture a muted wonder and triumph, a brightness in the eyes. He's just performed his first proper song to the roaring applause of the crowds, proving his worth on his own without the labs, without slaying hundreds for a war other people believe in. He's built an identity outside of shinra, and it's good.

I tried to make it look like young sephiroth kinda sorta, but I'm face blind so if you've read this far, tell me how I did XD?

[tardytothesimspardy]

(Re)Introducing the Simovitch Family!

I'm sure it was a really funny joke

Okay, so I have technically made the Simovitch and Newbie families before, but soon after I realized the fact that Skip is child when Bob and Betty are teenagers, so in this family, the Brokes are older. It will never not be weird to think about, but here we are.

Currently, I've just been playing the Simovitches, because the version of the Newbies that I made were already married, but these guys are not. Because of that, I am having quite a bit of effort trying to toe the line of "get married already oh my god" and "take your time, it's fine", and it's as frustrating as it sounds.

Luckily, Fatima does have the romantic trait, so she autonomously has initiated things between herself and Vadim a few times.

So that's nice. Vadim seems to be more the type to have things happen to him, rather than him really doing anything to make things happen, but he does have the lazy trait so that tracks.

Speaking of Vadim, he is a scientist, so I get to go to work with him and watch him do fascinating things, like talking to a robot over literally any of his coworkers.

When the two of them aren't at work, I have them visit the lounge, because they live so incredibly close to it, and I've decided to have Fatima take up the piano, and Vadim take up singing.

Vadim is definitely a lot more confident with his bad singing than Fatima is with her bad pianist skills, but they were getting plenty of tips from passersby, so I guess they couldn't have been absolutely awful. (They were pretty bad though)

Based on the description of Fatima, provided from The Sims 3, I've imagined that she is a very sociable person, but there is a not-very-small part of her that wants to have lots of friends so that she can bring them over to her house and show it off. She definitely enjoys meeting new people, but she also would very much like to show off her incredibly expensive furniture. They don't currently have a lot of expensive things, but they do have a dishwasher, which is more than what I usually give my Sims.

Since they never got a welcome wagon for some reason, I've had Vadim and Fatima attend the festivals and go to parks to meet people.

But there was one instance where a random Sim waltzed up to the front door and just lingered there, didn't knock on the door or anything, and so Fatima naturally invited them into her house and went about befriending them.

So far, I have had the two of them (Vadim and Fatima) go on one (1) date, which was incredibly impulsive of me. Fatima almost completely missed a day of work, but I think the screenshots were cute so it's fine.

I kid you not, this picture in particular is just,,,, it's immaculate, I adore it so much,,, ughhh ;-; <333

I ended up having them have their first kiss, but they are not officially dating yet.

Not for dramatic intentions, I just don't think that's what people typically do. I wouldn't know, but that's what I've picked up.

A while later, the romance festival was going on, and the most notable thing that happened is that Fatima managed to get a fear of death from eating perfectly fine pufferfish.

Also Vadim got this sparkler and it was pretty cute.

[thegeminisage]

star trek update time! saturday we did ds9 "sons of mogh" and voy's "dreadnaught" and last night we did ds9's "bar association."

sons of mogh:

:/

i keep waiting for worf to feel like he belongs on ds9 instead of tng and it keeps not happening. the klingon stuff on tng was always a little dry for me, but the klingon stuff on ds9 has always been really good! unfortunately, now that worf's here, it's gotten a little dry again. even the episode with kor was a drag near the end.

don't get me wrong, i love worf, and he was one of my favs on tng, but on ds9...aside from data, nobody on the tng cast can shine a candle to the ds9 cast. even quark beats them all (again, except data).

also, the entire plot of this episode was so horrible. basically worf was like yeah i HAVE become soft and human. so true. anyway!

like, firstly, again, WHY are we having sisko yell. i could buy him being pissed and it was kinda fun for him to go off like this but it's also lowkey shitty. this was a culture thing. i guess at least he didn't do a picard god could you imagine

like i'm not saying do a picard. i do not advocate for kurn killing himself. but why did we write that forced amnesia or death was the only way...like, someday there's gonna peace in the klingon homeworld again and kurn won't be able to enjoy it because they're effectively killing him one way or the other. what about his daughters?? like worf was all "we can protect the empire in our own way" and that could have been kurn's reason to live...getting his daughters to safety with worf's adoptive parents could have been a reason to live...he had them, we just chose to do whatever this was

i did like dax and worf flirting, and i think she's a good choice for him bc of all of curzon's connections with the klingons, but i don't think WORF is a good choice for DAX because he's so damn stiff and uptight, and there seems to be nothing to his personality beyond that. was he always like this on tng? it's funny for a gag sometimes but the rest of ds9 has Depth. come on!!

i did think it was fun that he was like yeah a klingon should be able to see the decision to kill in another person's eyes instantly. let's do more shit like that

dreadnought:

GIRL THIS EPISODE STRESSED ME OOOOUUTT

doomsday machine of voyager fr. 1. big machine that cannot be stopped 2. have to beam out right as it explodes 3. personal stakes for either decker or b'elanna 4. STRESSED ME OUT!!!

firstly, i love that this thing not only personifies b'elanna's hatred of the cardassians but also her skill at what she does. she programmed it with so many failsafes SHE HERSELF was only barely able to stop it. the cardassians wouldn't have stood a chance. and now she's a different person but the weapon is the same

mention of chakotay/b'elanna past shenanigans. mwah. i love that he covered for her ass without missing a SINGLE beat.

tom paris was very nearly annoying in this episode but he managed to stay on the right side of the line and not blow it with b'elanna a second time. he was really niceys when janeway almost sacrificed herself

SPEAKING OF. JANEWAY ALMOST SACRIFICING HERSELF. the way there was no tuvok in this episode and then he decided to stay behind with her WAAHHHHH. he can't be jealous of chakotay anymore HE didn't get to almost die with janeway

loved the mention of voyager's war machine reputation again. both funny and hot

the only thing i didn't like was that they FORGOT the doctor. that's so mean :( i did also maybe a little bit forget him bc i was stressing out but i'm not on the fucking ship with him am i!

bar association:

i was braced for the worst here because ferengi episodes are often so awful but i actually really enjoyed it

rom my new best friend and union man. wow <3 i can't believe they're giving him like. development and an arc. the most minor of fucking characters...o'brien did absolutely nothing on tng for YEARS and in ds9 the comedic 1-dimensional character starts a union and quits his job to make his relationship with his brother more healthy?? hello???

not only that but even though he didn't know union leaders can DIE going in once he found out he did not back down. i was so sure he would waver when bribed, or waver when his brother got beaten up, and he DIDN'T. girl i would waver if MY brother got beat up. rom didn't give a FUCK

loved also o'brien and worf brawling and julian getting tossed over a table. these things just happen. he's so light and tossable.

the part where odo read off tng episode plots was really funny. poor worf. i wish he hadn't moved to the defiant...literally girl you are going to have to get used to it here for MY sake

i do also feel like this episode helped me understand quark a little...he's a control freak because that's his way of like, handling people? like, he's in charge of everybody which means he's responsible for everybody so he has to control what everybody does. rom and nog work at his bar and nog doesn't go to starfleet. his mom doesn't sell snail farms or whatever the fuck. he's """protecting""" them as though they're assets, though he doesn't ever think to protect them from himself. it's not sympathetic exactly, but it is at least consistent

when rom and quark were yelling at each other and rom was like "YOU WERE MAKING ME FEEL DUMB SO YOU COULD FEEL SMART!" insert gif of dutch killjoys going "STOP MAKING ME FEEL SMALL SO YOU CAN FEEL BIG" like that's so funny but it literally is the same dynamic

TONIGHT: voy's "death wish" (SIGH) and ds9's "accession." ik the first one is a q episode...get his ass outta here. he's so unrealistic. like why can't he just zap them home etc. stupid.