#i want m*ri dead no joke

[jouno-odamybeloved]

Hello hello!! This is my introduction to myself (if you don’t read it don’t worry 😌🙏)

Name: Nadia (enter last name) 🤫

DNI: Transphobia, Racism, Homophobic, (General DNI!)

Likes: Music, doodling, reading (Sometimes, SNACKS, money, BSD <33, Oda, Jouno, Cats, Cosplaying, Richie <3333(My BESTEST/ REALEST friend), My mutuals <33, Most anime’s and cartoons

Dislikes: Too many loud things, People making jokes about my trauma with my father, Not being able to talk the right way :((, People saying that I’m wrong when I have literally the right amount of proof, a lot of people, m*ri, F*kuchi, my mom. People leaving me

Kins: RANPO, Chuuya, Q, Oda, AYA, Kyouka, Kenji, YOUNG AKUTAGAWA, Aubrey (Omori), ect..

Music I relate to: I can’t decide by: ScissorSisters, Art is dead By:Bo Burnham, Inspector Gadget By: London Music Works, Without me By: Eminem, Alien Blues By: Vundabar, Crazy=Genius By: Panic! At the Disco, You’re special (Fallout 4) Dan bull, All eyes on me By:Dr30, Usseewa By:Ado, Liquid Smooth By: Mitski, Lotta true Crime by: Penelope Scott, Blow my brains out by: Tikkle me, And so on and so on (I have way too many to list 😋)

Favorite color: Sage Green/ light purple

Favorite movie: Anything that has plot twists that are actually good (not predictable lmao)

I’m a Sagittarius (I don’t believe in the personality stuff they may be fun but they are so stupid so if you are idek a Gemini and want to be friends with me go ahead 😌)

Favorite song: I cant decide

The 2 I relate to the most in BSD: Is Ranpo and Chuuya 😌

ABANDONMENT ISSUES AND AUTISM 😱🤯🤨 (Very bad communication skills 👍)

please someone hang out with me and ignore my weirdness 💀🙏

ANYWAYS THATS THE END IDC IF ITS SHORTER THAN RICHIES <33 🙄🔪

[venomous--fics]

Anon asked: maybe a continuation of the peter b parker kid thing where they finally confront the mom and get the readers things back 😩💞💞

a/n: ask and thou shall receive! this spent so long in the drafts bc i felt so insecure about it tbh, so any feedback is appreciated! I love seeing messages about what you guys think! really keeps me motivated! also, requests are open

Warnings: mentions of past abuse

Peter was sitting at the kitchen table, constantly looking at the clock. It was almost 5pm, you were supposed to be home an hour and a half ago. Yes, he keeps track of everyone's schedules, yes he knows the exact second you should be walking through the door. He's already texted you, but maybe you had detention. Nah, you were a good student, he highly doubted you'd have to stay after school.

His phone finally rang, and he was way too quick answering it.

"You okay?"

"I need some help."

"What is it?" he was already out the door.

You sighed, knowing he was probably going to give you an earful later.

"Well, it's a really long story, right.. But my mom showed up after school-"

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, I think. Anyways, we got into it on the way home, which is no- Not normal." you adjusted how you were sitting, "And since she was dragging me back to the house, I figured I'd just get my crap and come home, right? Makes sense, saves us the tri-"

"She took you without permission?"

"Technically she is my m-...Parent. I guess, y'know, legally she can do whatever- But..Okay." you began to feel bubbles of anxiety and pain and even resentment form deep in your core, "She locked me out." You rubbed your neck.

"Are you," he paused, looking around at all the faces passing by him, "Still there?"

"Yeah. Unfortunately. I'm sorry."

"What are you sorry for? Don't apologize, you didn't do anything."

"I keep causing problems for everyone."

"Not for me. Or Mj."

It was quiet on your end.

"You still there?"

"Yeah."

"I'll be there in like ten minutes."

"You probably shouldn't."

"Nah, nah." He said, having a sudden wave of anger rush over him, "Let me take care of this."

And true to his word, Peter was there in ten minutes. You hopped up from your spot on the porch as he made his way up to the door and knocked on it as hard as he could. He gave you a reassuring pat on the back.

The door swung open, and your mother seemed awfully surprised and confused to see some random man just standing there. Peter held no emotion has he looked her dead in the eye, "Can we come in."

She opened the door wider so that way you two could step in.

"Go get your stuff." is all Peter said to you.

Wasting no time, and not wanting to be in the middle of a potential argument between the two, you skedaddled to your room. It almost felt like too much to be in there. It looked so empty and barren compared to your room at Peter and Mjs place. Seems really dull. Lifeless, almost. Dust covered every surface, which meant that nobody had ever even bothered to see if you were even still in there.

You heard their voices from the living room, but they seemed so distant, seeing as all you could focus on was every shitty thing that woman put you through.

You remember the day that you got bit. It made you deathly ill, and you just thought you were dying from some sort of allergic reaction to the spider bite. You tried to get her to take you to any doctor or anywhere that could help because all you could seem to see were stars.

Everything then was so loud. Everything was so bright. It was all too much, and you were certain that the reaper was waiting for you. What did she say?

"Suck it up and stop pretending. Everything has to be so dramatic with you."

Or that time you forgot a single item on the shopping list. You got this whole speech about how stupid you had to have been. To forget one item. It was the world's most useless item.

Everything else seemed to play all over again, all at once. Like a waterfall. It should've made you sad. It should've made you cry, or scream.

You recounted all the times you wanted to fight back, or just run away. Leave everything behind and just run until your legs gave out. But you never did. You always found some reason to linger.

The conversation was growing louder where Peter was.

"You aren't going to do this to them ever again. Sign the papers."

You nearly dropped your last belonging on the floor as you scrambled to your door. Papers? He wasn't serious. Well, obviously he was. He just said it.

"Fine. It's not like the-"

"Zip it. Sign the papers."

"Who are you anyways? The law? If so, whatever they've told you is a b-"

"Listen, lady. I didn't ask for any attitude. I told you to sign the papers." he seemed to huff in annoyance, "That doesn't require talking."

"I'm a good mother."

"And I'm the king of France."

"Really. I gave them a good home. I have fed them and kept them warm-"

"Really? You think you did all that? Or are you convincing yourself that you did all that?"

"I am-"

"Can I be honest with you?"

"Ye-"

"I've never said this about anyone, ever. I don't like speaking to or about anyone like this.. Ever, but, you? I think you're a piece of shit."

"Excuse me?"

"Oh, look. You finished signing the papers. I'll take those. Thank you."

Realizing that it was your time to go, you stuffed your blanket into your duffel bag and rushed out the door and down the hall. Peter looked at you, expecting to see at least three bags. But he only saw the one.

"Where's the rest of your stuff."

"Uhm," you shuffled around, pretending as thought you dropped some, "This...This is all my stuff."

"That can't be ri-" He laughed a little, and noting the expression on his face, you saw that he was NOT happy. "That? That single duffle bag is all you have? That's it?"

"Yes..." you took a step back, "This is all.."

"I can't believe it." he said, "You're joking! One bag worth of stuff?"

He turned his attention back to your mother, who, for the first time in your life, actually looked like she got caught red handed, "You're pathetic. Absolutely pathetic."

"But they're so u-"

"No! No, you don't get to talk anymore. You've done enough."

You awkwardly shuffled behind him, in the event that you two had to make a mad dash out the door. That and you needed to not be seen as you tried to hide your almost evil grin.

"The hell is wrong with you? You have this amazing kid, and THAT'S all you've ever gotten for them? And you sit there and call yourself a mother? Absolutely, without a doubt, bullshit. I'd be ashamed of myself to call myself a father if that's all I've provided for my kid. Don't even get me started on you as a person, we made that clear."

It almost felt cursed to hear him swear, seeing as he made it a point to tell you to not swear. Every time you did, you have to give a quarter to the swear jar. Mj was always on your side, though. She'd say a swear that was much worse and have to pay a dollar. Each word had a value.

"Maybe we should just go." you suggested, tugging on the sleeve of his arm, "She's not worth it anymore."

"She was never worth it, it seems."

You finally made eye contact with her, and the look in her eye. It's like she understood, but was choosing to not do anything about the situation. She could look sorry all she wanted, but you knew she wasn't.

"I'm sorry, Y/n. You know that right."

"That means nothing to me."

"I can change."

"If you can change now, that means you could've changed then. You just chose not to."

"But I'm your mother, you should realize how I feel. You should want-"

"You're not my mom. You stopped being my mom the first time you-" You turned towards the door and started walking towards it, "Whatever. You mean nothing to me."

You practically kicked open teh door just to leave, and Peter was right behind you, shouting about how he'd make sure to egg her house everyday, just to piss her off.

"Do you really think I'm amazing?" you asked, the walk home feeling rather quiet.

"I think you're more than that. Just can't put it into words."

"Did you really mean it...That we could egg her house?"

"You want to? There's a store right on the way home."

"How about tomorrow."

"I'll have to clear up my busy schedule. See if I can work in a drive by egging. Well, swing by egging."

"You promise?"

"You kidding? I haven't egged anyone's house since college."

You had so much more you wanted to get off you chest, but you opted to just talk about it at home, with everyone present. You wanted to talk about how you felt about everything, and the papers. Whatever those were. But you were, for the moment, busy laughing about Peter's story about how he used to Egg this one reporters house. Someone named Jonah.

You wonder if Jonah ever put two and two together.

[tiktaalic]

hi sorry i’m so confused about the different eras (bedlund, carver, etc) and i feel like im missing out on some interesting discourse, would you mind explaining the eras and their differences? i would really appreciate it!

for sure!

kripke: showrunner for seasons 1-5. supernatural definitely at its #grittiest wrt stakes, color grading, etc. still preddy silly though! yknow my man eric. starwars in truck stop america. buffy the vampire slayer without women. the x-files but Scarier.

gamble: showrunner for seasons 6-7. sera's a little infamous for what went down on the magicians, which she showran, where to my understanding there was a m/m pairing and then the deeply suicidal one permadied to save his boyfriend or sthing??? idk i didnt watch it. sera was a 27 year old woman who'd been writing on spn since s1 when she was straight out of college so she's. interesting. Sera Fact: she said her approach to showrunning is to blow shit to pieces in the season finale and figure out how to fix it if they get picked up for another season. she's definitely a fan of a) the brothers. cas i dont care about you. b) grit and tragedy. she wrote some REAL famous deanpisodes from kripke era (dead in the water) (faith) (houses of the holy) which imo is why her seasons are such a drag. like in s6 everybody's miserable. no ones having fun. cas isnt there. same w s7.

season 8 carver edlund powerhouse: i will NOT say a word against her. was she messy. was she an oopsie baby. maybe so. best time of my life though.

jeremy carver: 9-half of 11. probably my least favorite era. the whole time i was watching it i was kinda waiting for the episode to be over. yknow. this is where the swallows a fly-ism of spn starts (villains are a direct consequence of beating a previous villain). idk. its just not my fave. i hate s9 when it aired. not enough cas. this is definitely the precursor to dabbification, imo, wrt lighting, plot, and characterization. this is when sam stops getting story bc they didnt know wtf to do in s9 bc they were planning on killing him in the s8 finale and getting canceled. oh and this was the last time they let cas look good. jeremy carver known fan of ripping cas's shirt off and covering him in blood.

dabb: last half of 11 - 15. the riverdalification of supernatural! there are 4 big cornerstones to dabbnatural to me. 1) dean sux 2) seasons incoherent seasons incomprehensible bc the writers team is SUPER diverse in what they're trying to do and dabb's like whatever do what you need to do as long as we're still working towards our Overarching Plot. like the three "main" writers are dabb, bobo, and buckleming which is just. that sure is a team of people who have goals. 3) plots are more insular, more character focused, than "we gotta stop the end of the world!!!" granted they're still stopping the end of the world in most of them but in like. very quiet ways. s11, dabb written dabb finale: dean gives amara family therapy. s12, dabb written dabb finale: cas's son is being born and he's fighting with the winchesters about it and everybody's stressed because the baby tore a hole in reality. s13 finale. dabb written dabb finale. idr like the actual plot but i know the Tension Point was dean saying yes to michael to save jack and cas. s14. dabb written dabb finale. MO. RI. AH. AHHHH. 4) destiel are married at this point in time. like s5? CHARGED. s13? there's no more CHARGE moments but they're raising a kid and dean tells bad jokes and cas rolls his eyes and sighs and dean calls cas on the phone to complain about his mom. sitcom destiel.

this is obv very subjective if u want a more objective summary / more info on any of this lmk!

[bebepac]

Six Sentence Sunday 05.02.21

Original Post Date:  05/02/21 at 10:35AM  EST

This past week has been a long one for me.   I’m still in the running for the new job which I am really happy about, and quickly approaching my vacation time I put in.  I secretly have a feeling , that I’m going to find out about my status for the job that I got it on on my vacation.  So I can put my notice in my first day back.  I have done the best I can for that place.  It’s time for me to see what else is out there.   I’ve given it more than enough time and to improve and worked as hard as possible.  

Here’s what I have posted in the past ten days or so in case tags have been suspect:  

The Meet:  Chapter 2:  The Double Date Mistake

Fast Forward:  Birthday fic One Shot:   Ri-Liamo de Bergerac

Mia’s 🌎 World: Special:  Pop’s 🌎 World

So amazingly I do have some new stuff for you all,  most of it written yesterday so don’t judge.  

Down Low

The Meet: Chapter 3

The Book:  TRR

Pairing:  Liam x Jilian  (Liam x F!OC)  Leo x Bebe? (Leo x F!OC) 

Status:  Still in the Writing Process

Bebe had found really cheap VIP tickets to Goodnights  Comedy Club, for a weekend activity for her and Jili. There was just one caveat.  They just couldn't be used  for a high profile act.

"Maxwell Beaumont? We've never even heard of him. He doesn't even sound like he would be funny."

"Worse comes to worse Jili we get a meal and some drinks, and I'll heckle the guy. We got $100 tickets for $25 each."

“When you say it like that… really not bad.”  

When they announced him, Maxwell ran out on stage. Right off the bat, one could tell Maxwell had incredibly high energy.

He smiled at the audience.

"I know this club is jam packed for the discounted tickets, and not because of my name. So if you don't think I'm funny, remember this: Your cheap ass got what you paid for. You have only yourself to blame."

There was a soft smattering of laughter throughout the venue.  

“He’s right.”  Bebe chuckled.  

By the end of Maxwell's set the whole audience was cackling and laughing at his side splitting  jokes.

"I'm so glad we decided to go to this comedy show.  This  was hilarious! This guy is going places."

"Your show was hilarious Maxwell." both said to him as they posed for a picture.

"Please call me Max. Thank you so much ladies. I am so glad you took a chance and came out tonight."

He was definitely going to be famous someday.

"We got to book a rideshare so we can get home."

"No we don't. I have us a ride already."

A black SUV pulled up to the curb, and Leo jumped out.

"Good evening ladies.”

Leo opened the passenger side door and back door for the ladies to get in the car.

Bebe let Jili get in the back first.

Leo saw her smile.

"C'mon chivalry ain't dead. Who have you been hanging with Bebe that made you think it was?"

"So what are you doing here?" Jili inquired.

Before Leo could speak, Bebe answered for him.

"Leo was in the neighborhood. He was generous enough to offer us rides home."

“Okay.  She raised her eyebrow at the two of them.  Something was up between them.  Jili knew it.

"I'd better be getting a ride tonight too." He mumbled under his breath.  His attention turning to Bebe as his fingertips ghosted her bare leg.

Her eyes met his. She winked and gave a subtle nod in affirmation.

Leo's smile widened.

Derby Girl

The Life of Riley: Book 2

The Book: TRR

The Pairing: Liam x Riley

Status: Still in the writing process

Riley thumbed through the racks.

"If I may?  I did notice his eyes fall on this dress here.  It looks to be your size, and that color would look like heaven on you."

"Pink is my favorite color."

"Then you should try it on."

 Deena, had made the palace boutique an oasis for Riley.

Riley tried on the dress staring at herself in the mirror.

"His face is going to be just as pink as that dress when he sees you. That dress was made for you. And since you're going to the derby try this as well."

She gave Riley a white hat.

The hat didn't quite stay on.

Riley laughed. "Big hair goals and hats don't generally mix."

Deena laughed.  "This is true. I think Dolly Parton said it best, if someone tells you your hair is too big. Get rid of them, you don't need that kind of negativity in your life!"

"That's a plan!"

Riley decided though to be the "Derby Girl" for the day she would straighten her hair.

Birthday Celebration

Mia’s 🌎 World Special: A Birthday Fic

The Book:  TRR x The Freshman

The Pairing: Mia x Jaiden (TRR MC x M!OC)  / Chris x Emily

Status: Still in the writing process

“I know I shouldn’t feel a little upset about this, but I kind of am Emily.  How do I tell him that?”  

“He’s really close to his family Mia.  Some people only wish they had that kind of relationship with their parents.  My Grandmother raised me and losing her was really hard.  I wish I had a positive relationship with my parents like he does, and like you do, but I don’t.  And besides, he asked you to be a part of the tradition he does with his family.  That says a lot Mia. I think you should focus more on that part. You should let this one go and let him have this, and just do this for him.”

“I know.  That’s a big deal, I get it.  He wants me to be a part of something he’s only done with his family.”  

“And he wants to do Karaoke this weekend?”  

Mia laughed.  “Yes, that's how he wants us to celebrate his birthday.  I already have a song picked out for him.”  

“It’s something adorably sweet isn’t it?”

Mia smiled.  

“It is.  And you’re singing backup for me.”

“You two.  I swear you are so disgustingly cute sometimes.”        

“Oh you’re the one to talk.  You and Chris wore matching tee shirts when we all went to six flags.”

“So we wouldn’t lose each other.”  

“There’s two of you, how the hell can you lose each other?!?!?!?!”  

“Well…..it made sense when he bought the shirts and told me that.”  

[ofieugogyshz]

Fic;; Memories: Riolu II

Word Count: 1500

Warnings: None

Summary: Another call done, and another moment spent being assessed by your newborn Riolu.

Takes place sometime after this fic. | Which is preceded by this fic.

(Series Masterpost)

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

Lance and I had talked for a long time. I listened as he shared some updates about his job, his training, the clan, and I shared with him updates from my journey. My heart would lurch in my throat at times when I looked at him. And I'm sure he knew it, too, because my emotions could be read like an open book. But whenever he got me talking about something that happened over here, I would forget about my feelings for just a moment, caught up in whatever the topic had come to. The only thing I didn't share with him was updates about the Riolu that my friend, Blaze, had gifted me. Lance had remembered however, and asked me about it.

I had it sitting behind the chair, but it poked its head up every so often to see who I was talking to. When the phone call ended, I hung up the receiver, letting out a huge exhale.

<<Your heart went really fast! You were really nervous, when this conversation started. But now you're fine. Why is that?>>

At least, that's what I think it wanted to say. It was hard, sometimes, to communicate with it through our bond. It was only a few months old, and still learning how to read me.

The inquisitive stare it gave me was more than enough to set my cheeks flushed.

"A-ah, that's-- that's because--!"

<<He is my namesake, right? Daddy's trainer said he was naming me after an awesome person that you loved!>>

I felt my face burn so hot, it must've been red like a Charmeleon. My voice cracked, nearly shrill from the embarrassment.

"Th-that's!!! It-- I-- He--- Oh, it's not any of your business, Riolu!!"

<<I thought I was named Lance.>>

I felt like crying. This was going to be so embarrassing and difficult to explain.

"Y-y-you a-are, b-b-b-but--! I, uh…" I couldn't help but fumble around with words, embarrassed and ashamed at myself for being unable to say the Riolu's name, seeing as it was named after my crush. It tilted its head at me, unable to understand the mixed up emotions within me. The internal struggle. I don't blame it-- I couldn't either.

<<Did you want to rename me?>> It sounded dejected.

"Oh." That hadn't occurred to me. Officially, we couldn't overwrite the information for a Pokemon's name if it was registered to a different trainer. For some reason, the system that the PCs, Pokedexes, and Pokeballs all shared didn't support that. (Of course, that didn't stop many trainers from referring to our Pokemon however we saw fit.)

"I… Hm." I had never thought about it. I loved nicknaming Pokemon, and that was partly why my Riolu had been nicknamed at all. And I didn't want to offend my friend, who had gone through all the trouble of finding one who felt right for me.

<<You calmed down?>> Riolu tilted its head the other way now, still struggling to understand me.

"It wouldn't feel right. I'm sure Blaze meant good when he named you that, and not just as joke between friends. Your namesake is… an amazing trainer. He's very compassionate towards his Pokemon, and --basically-- a hero. He helps stop crime or other bad things from happening, and he's very sweet, and surprisingly patient, and I think he's understanding, too. He's," and I let out a short laugh. "He's been determined to help me think better of myself, too. Someone like me, who can't even…" I stopped suddenly, letting the sentence taper off. I let out a huge sigh, fighting the impulse to finish that sentence.

<<Are you dating him?>> It was a very innocent question.

"WH-WH-WHAT?!?!?!?" I screamed, earning a few rude stares from others in the Pokemon Center. I devolved into completely incoherent babble for a moment.

"I-I-I--aha...ha-- h-he-- n-n-n-no…!!---m-me?? Hahaha--" I flailed, waving my arms wildly before screaming into the palms of my hand. My face felt hotter in that moment than any fire Pokemon I had ever trained. I groaned, whimpered, whined --even a shrill, squeal-like sound--, unable to coherently give this tiny, relatively newborn Pokemon an answer.

"W-what makes you--- wh-where w-w-w-would y-you-- w-why??!?"

My brain had short-circuited, but, somehow, Riolu had sensed where I was trying to go between all the stammering and stuttering.

<<Pika told me. She said you have a crush on him. That you want to go on things called 'dates'?>> There was a pause. <<What are those?>>

I turned around to look at my Pikachu, who turned away from me, whistling.

"P-Pika….!!!" I made a fist, shaking it. Some of it in anger, more of it in flustered frustration.

<<What is dating?>>

I buried my face in my hands again, this time a muffled scream held within them.

"I-it's…." I let out an annoyed sigh. It was a struggle just to even speak the words, especially right after your own Pokemon asked you about your crush. "It's w-when y-you… y-you really like s-someone. And t-they do too. L-like you, I mean. A-and y-y-y-you… Y-you b-both…." I let out another muffled scream, this time out of frustration. "W-Why do I have t-to tell you any of this a-anyways?!?!"

Riolu sulked, flinching back a little. I immediately felt bad, sensing its recoil from the shout.

"I-I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that--I mean, I don't know what I meant it like, but-- n-no no no, umm…. Pika!" I turned around to my Pikachu. She was still pretending not to be involved, flinching when I suddenly called her out. "Y-You explain it, you brought it up!!!!"

Pika let out a sigh of relief. She must've thought I was going to punish her somehow, but at the moment, I wouldn't've been able to think of anything even if I wanted to. She turned around, hopping up onto the seat, and began explaining in her own Pikachu language whatever Riolu was asking of her.

I sighed, and picked at the dead-ends in my hair. I couldn't understand the exchange, but I could sense the growing curiosity from Riolu, as well as the feeling of its curiosity being sated.

I wanted a relationship. I wasn't going to lie about that. But I messed up when I was a kid, and I'm pretty sure I had that avenue closed off because of that immaturity. I still had a crush on him, and I was lucky. He still let me talk to him. It hurt, sometimes, talking to him. I wanted to tell him again that I liked him. I really, really liked him, like a whole bunch more than back then. Now we had a good friendship. I knew more about him than when I had blindly charged ahead, led on by a silly notion of how I thought dating worked. I was scared to lose that friendship with him, if I blurted out my feelings once more. …..Hell, I'm sure it was obvious that I still liked him, no matter how hard I had tried to quelch those feelings. Except, now, instead of a forced notion of what kind of person I should like, it felt more natural. I wasn't liking him because I thought he'd make a good boyfriend. I was liking him for him. Something I was convinced no one would like me for.

We had a more natural relationship now, as friends. ...Well, as good of one as I could manage while freezing up whenever we talked, blushing madly, until I could forget for a moment during a conversation that I had a crush on him. It was hard.

"Emotions suck," I muttered.

<<I want to meet him.>> The thought came unbidden, and it took me a moment to realize that it was Riolu who thought-- well, felt-- it.

"A-ah, I-I don't think we could do something like that!!"

<<Why not?>>

Why not? Why not indeed. "B-because! H-he works! And-- And he has the league!"

<<But I want to know his feelings for you.>>

At that comment, I felt myself freeze up, like I was made of ice. I felt so cold, scared of that notion. Of finding out if the answer had changed in our few years' friendship. If it was completely hopeless. But at the same time, my face had heated up. Because what if it was changed…. What then? What do we do then?

<<Sarah?>>

I felt a gentle tugging on my hand. I looked down to see Pika and Riolu looking up at me, concerned.

"O-oh. Sorry if that alarmed you."

Riolu felt confused. It didn't know how to interpret that or my emotions.

<<You felt really scared. It looked like Thunderbolt!>> Riolu told me, waving its arms as it described the aura wave to me. I pet it gently on its head, a quietly confused noise coming from its mouth this time, rather than our bond. “Ri?”

-

"If you want to understand Riolu better, you might want to try asking the Sinnoh Champion, Cynthia, for advice. She has a Lucario."

"Y-yeah, m-maybe. I'll try that."

That was the last thing Lance and I had talked about, before we ended our call.

[thepinkwriterr]

Lurking In Derry // Richie Tozier Chapter One

I love my brother,even if he had lost it a little after Georgie died.

Yes,died. Bill still holds onto this fantasy that Georgie is alive,I don't. He still believed Georgie is out there.

The upside to being Bill's sister is his friends. The downside is also his friends.

I love them,sometimes. Eddie is sweet,but can be annoying. Richie is annoying and talks too much,and is only occasionally funny.

Stanley is sweet and tells me lots about cool birds,but he's kind of a pussy. I wish Bill had some more friends. But,it's not like I had any.

I skipped hanging out with him for a day,and he gains two more friends! Beverly Marsh,who is rumoured to be a slut,and the new kid,Ben.

The next day Bill said he was going down to the quarry to hang out with his friends.

I agreed,because I wanted to meet Beverly. I didn't believe any of those rumours,and she looked really nice. Plus,she was gorgeous!

When we got down there all of the guys had stipped down to their underwear and were hocking loogies. I rolled my eyes. I wasn't going to participate.

After Richie and Eddie bickered,for the hundredth time that day,they decided it was time to jump.

"Who's going first?" "I'll go." Beverly announced before jumping into the water. The guys followed her until Bill and I were left.

"You go last." He jumped into the water. I took off my shirt and shorts,then stepped onto the edge. I looked over at the water. I looked at them all before I jumped off.

The cool water splashed around me as I landed. I popped back up and moved my wet hair out of my face. "I think I see a turtle!" Eddie cried. "Shut up Eds." "Don't be mean Richie!" Beverly slapped his shoulder.

We splashed around in the water a little longer. "Hey,uh-we're gonna have a chicken fight,you wanna be my partner?" "Sure." I smiled at Richie. I got on his shoulders,and smirked at Bev.

"You're going down Marsh!" It takes thirty seconds before Beverly topples into the water. I get off Richie's shoulders and give him a high-five.

"You were great!" Richie grinned. "You too." I grinned back. Wow,he's being nice for once.

After a while we went back up to the rocks,and Beverly and I layed on towels,soaking in some sun. The guys were sitting around,staring at Bev.

We got to talking about how strange Derry is. Ben told us facts about the town,and we were all starting to piece together the puzzle. There was something in this town,something evil.

When we were going home from Ben's,I was happy to finally lay in my bed.

Today was eventful. After I ate dinner I took a shower,then went to bed. I couldn't sleep,although I was very tired.

I started thinking about Richie. And Stan came into my mind as well. Then the happy memories from today is clouded by Georgie.

I wondered how someone could kill a kid like that. How could someone do that to an innocent child? He has people who love him,people who miss him. Need him.

I remembered the last time I saw him. He asked me to play with him. We played space man with his toys. The space cadet,G. Denbrough,made it to mars.

My last words to him were "Goodnight space cadet."

I smiled and turned off his light after he laid in bed.

Silent tears streamed down my face as I thought about it.

That was the last I will ever see my little brother. One day here,the next,gone. This is the first time I cried since he died. I've been too proud to. I miss him though.

I try to not to think about him. I start to feel a strong inclination to check his room. Like he'll be there or something. To quiet my brain,I do.

I get up and walk to the room that was in between mine and Bill's. I open the door and turn on his lamp. I sit on his bed and look around at the room. It's untouched.

Toys were still at the foot of the bed. Out of the corner of my eye I saw something out of place. There was something in the corner.

I squinted to see without my glasses,and saw a small figure. "Mac!" No...It can't be. "Georgie?" I asked. This is ridiculous,I'm probably just hearing things.

"Mac, why did you leave me?" "W-what?" "You left me! And IT got me! Now i'm dead!" "I didn't leave you!" "You did! It's all your fault!"

This is ridiculous,Georgie is dead. My mind is playing horrible tricks on me. "You're not real." I sighed.

I got up and closed the door behind me. I went back to my bedroom and laid in bed. I felt uneasy. After half an hour I gave up with sleep. I just closed my eyes and relaxed. Try to salvage my energy.

Right as I felt on the cusp of falling asleep,a loud banging interrupted me.

Bill was at my door immediately. "I s-saw G-Georgie." He confesses as he sits on my bed. "You did?" Bill nods.

"I did too. I went to his room and saw him in the corner. He told me it was my fault he di-went missing." "He t-told me I would f-f-float." I hugged Bill.

It had always been the three of us against the world. Just me,George and Bill. "It's gonna be okay."

"I s-saw a clown too." I furrowed my brow,"A clown?" "Y-yeah." I just hugged him again.

I don't think our minds were playing tricks on us,I think something evil was the cause here.

"C-can I s-sleep with you t-tonight?" I nodded.

When I woke up in the morning Bill was gone. I went downstairs,quietly.

I didn't want to leave any evidence I was here. I was afraid of my own house. I saw Bill sitting at the kitchen table,looking at a map.

"M-mom and Dad l-left to Grandm-mas." I was confused as to why they would leave so suddenly,but it didn't matter. They're barely parents anyway. After Georgie died,they kind of ghosted us,and it only got worse with time.

I went back upstairs and got dressed. I pulled on a striped shirt and some high-waisted shorts. I put on my converse and went downstairs.

"I'm going to hang out with some friends." "B-be careful." "I will Billy."

I closed the door and embarked to the park. I wanted to just sit around and do nothing.

"Where ya' goin' Denbrough?" I heard a familiar voice ask. I ignored him. "I said,where ya' goin' Denbrough?"

"Henry,do you really have nothing better to do?" "What was that slut-Brough?"

"Just leave me alone." He backed to the side of a brick building,and rested his hand on the brick behind me.

"What are you doing today? Going to hang out with those losers?"

"I-I l-like my loser friends." "You're starting to sound like your b-b-brother." "Henry,please." "Please what?" His face was getting closer and closer to mine.

"Please let me go." I begged. "What will you do for me if I do?" He smirked. "Henry,just let me go." "I'd bet you'd do anything. You're a slut just like Beverly,aren't you?"

"Please,let me go." I implored. "She said let her go." Henry turned to who said that.

"Let her go." The voice demanded. "Get out of here Loser!" Henry yelled. I couldn't see who it was because Henry was blocking my line of sight.

"Come on man,just leave her alone!" I was trying to figure out the voice. "Why? Is she your little Loser girlfriend?"

Alright,who is it? "Let. Her. Go." "Why?" Henry smirked. "I said let her go!"

The boy ran at Henry and threw him to the ground.

"Richie?!" He punched Henry in the face. "You're dead Tozier!" He yelled. Richie and I immediately sprinted away.

"My house,now!" We ran as fast as we could all the way to my house,slamming the door behind us.

I put my hands on my knees and leaned over,panting and out of breath. Richie did the same. "Where's Bill?" He asked,leaning against the wall. "I don't know." I heaved.

I looked over at his knees,they were bleeding.

"Oh my god Richie,are you okay?" "It stings a little." "Sit at the table,I'll back in a second. I ran upstairs to hallway closet and grabbed the first aid kit.

I raced down the stairs got to Richie's side quickly. I kneeled infront of him and opened the kit,pulling out the things I needed. "It's going to sting."

I dabbed the cotton ball across his knees as gently as possible. He winced,breathing in sharply. "Sorry." I went to the next knee and dabbed it gently again.

When his knees were cleaned up enough I put knee bandages on them.

"Y'know, Mac, I always dreamed of you on your knees for me." He smirked.

I stood up,"Beep beep Rich." I stated before going to the kitchen to throw away the trash.

I walked back to him and noticed he was holding a note. "Bill went to help Beverly with something. She said it was important."

"I hope he kisses her,they've been denying their love for each other for like three years." Richie laughed. "Do your knees feel better?"

"Yours won't when I'm done with you." "Beep beep Richie!" I exclaimed,but still laughed.

I hate his stupid jokes,but I would be lying if I said they didn't make me laugh.

"There's the smile I was going for." Richie smiled,sitting next to me at the kitchen table. "Do you want something to eat? I'm starving." "Yeah,what do you have?" "Uh...I'll go look."

I went to the kitchen and opened the pantry door,pulling out a bag of pretzels. I grabbed a couple bottles of water and went back to the kitchen.

"Thanks." He grabbed the water from my hand. "Do you wanna watch a movie or something? Bowers is probably still out looking for us,and I don't want you to get your ass kicked."

"Sure." He simply replied. We went to the living room and I put Beetlejuice into the VCR.

"Bill and I used to love this movie." I smiled as I sat on the couch next to Richie.

A few minutes into the movie Richie turned to me,"Mac?" "Yeah Rich?" "How does it feel?" I furrowed my brows in confusion,"What do you mean?"

"How does it feel to be...Perfect?" I laughed,"I am far from perfect Tozier." "You have parents who actually care about you,your brother would kill anyone for you,you have great friends,being nice looks so easy to you,everyone loves you,"

He stops to sigh,"You're so smart,you're b-" "Richie,wait. Where is this coming from? You're great,and you have a great life." "How?"

He looked utterly confused. "You have the same great friends I do,you're hilarious,everyone loves you-"

"No. Very few people even like me. My parents don't even look at me,I'm not even sure our friends like me."

"Richie,we love you." I hugged him tightly,wrapping my arms around neck and burying my face in his neck.

He hugged back,wrapping his arms around my shoulder blades. "It's okay Richie." I whispered in his ear.

He took his arms off of me and I took mine off of him. He looked deep into my eyes for a few seconds before leaning in and pressing his soft lips into mine.

I was surprised,and maybe even a little grossed out at first. I mean,this is Richie Tozier! Trashmouth,foureyes!

But it just felt so right. His warm,soft lips on mine. Just as soon as he done it,he ended it.

He pulled away quickly and looked away. "I-I'm sorry." He scratched the back of his head. "Um...I'll go." He stood up to leave and I grabbed his arm.

"Richie!" He turned around,confused I wasn't revolted. "It's okay. I liked it." I rubbed the back of my neck,nervous for his reply.

"You did?" "Yeah." I smiled. "I did too." He sat back down on the couch. "Do you wanna go upstairs and-"

"Yes!" "I was gonna say listen to records." "Oh. Sure." He followed me up to my room. When I opened the door and walked in,

Richie looked around at my walls,looking at all of my art. "Did you make all of this?" "Mhm."

I hummed while putting on a record. "It's really good." He complimented. "Thanks." I smiled,sitting on my bed.

He looked at the things around my room. "You have a really cool room." "Thank you." He was being uncharacteristically nice.

After he got done messing with the things in my room he sat next to me on my bed. "Your room is so clean." I laughed,

"Yeah,it's supposed to be." "Mine isn't." "Well you're a guy." "Bill's room is clean." "That's because he has a sister." I joked. He laughed.

We sat in an uncomfortable silence for a few minutes before I asked,"When you said that thing about your parents,is it true?" "Yeah,"He scratched the back of his head nervously,"They don't really care about me." "Why do you say that?"

"They don't pay attention to me." "Oh. I-I'm sorry for bringing it up." I looked at the ground. "It's okay."

We were silent for a few minutes until I asked,"Richie?" "Yeah?" "Do you like me?" "I-uh-yeah-maybe-uh-only if you...do."

He was so nervous,very odd for Richie. He was usually confident,even when he knew he would be rejected.

"Richie,just say yes or no." I laughed.

"Yes." You smiled at him. "It's okay if you don't-" You interrupted him with a second kiss.

It was a simple peck,but got the point across. We heard the front door open and close.

Richie quickly got off of me. We both wiped our faces and sat on the floor.

I pulled out a school book from the bookshelf behind me and opened to a random page.

I pointed to a passage in the book and started reading aloud. Bill walked up the stairs and directly to my room.

"Muh-Mac?" "Yeah Bill?" He stood in the doorway and looked at us. "When d-did you g-get home?" "Half an hour ago."

"I t-thought you w-were going to h-hang out with s-some friends?" "I was on my way but Henry tried to murder me." I laughed,"So Richie helped me out,and in return I'm helping him study."

Bill nodded. "Y-you okay?" "Yeah." He walked to his room and shut the door. "You're a great liar." He smirked. "Thanks Trashmouth." He rolled his eyes at my nickname.

Word Count: 2568

[blaperile]

Homestuck Epilogue(s) - Prologue (page 1)

I've just read right until the end of the first Prologue page. Under the Read More are my initial reactions!

Oh boy... it's time. Time for the Epilogues... assuming it's available yet and/or the link on homestuck.com doesn't lead to a VIZ Media buy link for a book form of the Epilogue, I could also see that happening. xD plainWonder also had a good point that perhaps the first part of the epilogue will simply be the snaps we already saw on the MSPA Snapchat. ...Snaps almost feels like a weird thing to say now. I think they've just gotten a way darker meaning for me ever since watching Avengers: Infinity War. xD ANYWAY, without further ado, here we go!!! *clicks link* Hehn, kind of looks like the start page of an all new adventure! And yay, looks like the epilogue IS indeed simply on the website itself and not externally, for I see a command leading to the next page! *hovers over link of > Start and sees URL* www.homestuck.com/epilogues/prologue ....SERIOUSLY??? PFFFFFFFF, typical Hussie right there. Only HE can give an epilogue a prologue. xD Oh boy this is gonna be a long epilogue isn't it. The question is, how much of it is available here already? And what is the prologue even going to be? Will they just be the snaps we've already seen? I'm very curious where this is going now. > Start ....HOLY FUCK. Archive of our own parody??? Or an actual Archive of Our Own "fanfic"???? Oh jegus god. We've truly come full circle now that Hussie is doing a parody of a website famous for housing Homestuck fanfics. Looks like Andrew collaborated with a few people? "Rating: Mature" Sounds about right! "Category: F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi, Other" Sounds about right! "Fandom: Homestuck" Sounds about right! "Characters: John Egbert, Rose Lalonde, Dave Strider, Jade Harley, Jane Crocker, Roxy Lalonde, Jake English, Dirk Strider, Barack Obama" Sounds about ri...WAIT A SECOND. PFFFFFFFFFFFFF Hell fucking yes xD "Aradia Megido, Tavros Nitram, Sollux Captor, Karkat Vantas, Kanaya Maryam, Terezi Pyrope, Vriska Serket, Gamzee Makara, Eridan Ampora, Feferi Peixes, Aranea Serket, Meenah Peixes, Davepetasprite^2, Calliope, Caliborn, Lord English, Original Male Character(s), Original Female Character(s)" Well if this isn't a joke, I'd be VERY happy to see Eridan and Feferi again along with the rest of the gang! Aranea though!!!! That's got me very curious. Is she alive (as in, dead but not double dead)??? I know that was really ambiguous on whether or not she was double dead or not after being killed by GO!Condesce. Kind of sad the other A1 Trolls aren't on the list. Hmm, mention of Davepetasprite^2 but nothing of the other Sprites! Makes sense if this is mainly taking place in the Furthest Ring. Wait a second.... I only just noticed how Equius is the only A2 Troll missing from this list!!! And no true separate mention of Nepeta either. Oh man. Looks like Arquiusprite (who should be on Earth) is also sitting this one out! ...Equius got voided out. :P I also find it very interesting how Caliborn receives a separate mention from Lord English! Are we going to see something from the fight that took place between Caliborn and the Kids? ...Wait, that DID feature Arquiusprite though, who is missing from this list. HMMMMMMM And oh boy, what should we expect from the "original male character(s), original female character(s)"????? Are some of the people from Universe C going to factor into this? Assuming we can take this list of characters seriously... which I kind of doubt considering Barack Obama is on the list. xD ...THOSE CONTENT WARNINGS. OH MY GOD. Oh god I love this already. Kankri would be so proud. :P "The Economy" ==> I got that reference! xD I love all the Gamzee related content warnings. "Trickster Mode" I DARE YOU HUSSIE "Ten years after their adventure began, the heroes are enjoying a well-earned retirement on Earth C. But John still has one last choice to make." HOLY SHIT. 10 years later?! That's... 2 years later from the last thing we saw from John, when he celebrated his 21st birthday and was challenged by Caliborn! Wait... 10 years after the start. THAT'S NOW. It's frickin 2019!!!!! Oh hell yes, Andrew has made it catch up to reality once more. HELL YES. What is the "one last choice" John has to make? To go after Caliborn, which will presumably get them trapped inside the Plot Hole (which is still a term I love to use)? Jeez... that probably means it's also already been so many years since Terezi left. I can't recall on which of John's birthdays it was. Was it his 17th? 18th? I'll check that later. In the contents there is only a "Prologue" link... Oh boy, is this going to lead straight to Archive of Our Own? *hovers over link* www.homestuck.com/epilogues/prologue/1 Nope! Unless this redirects, we're staying on the Homestuck website. *clicks on link* AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH Oh god WALL OF TEXT. Looks like... this really is going to be like a "fanfic", without any images?? I suddenly feel like we're reading one of Hussie's recaps and/or Rose's walkthrough. xD "It starts with a crack. Everything else rises up from that like steam: a trembling thread that cuts through space in jagged lines, splintering the void into razor-sharp shards of putrefying leptons and quarks popping apart like raw eggs in a microwave." Only Hussie could write a sentence like that, ahahaha. Seems like he's talking about the cracks in the Furthest Ring? Are these... going to turn out to be, like,  notes taken by his self-insert who was also right there in the Furthest Ring? :P "raw eggs in a microwave" Well, that explains the "eggs" content warning. xD "At the center of that hole the edges can be heard fraying. Pandemonium, as continuity buckles in the middle and the two ends come smashing together. Around the hole, ghosts scream. They claw at the dying borders of their dreams with fingernail-chipping desperation." Dang, these descriptions are giving me shivers. It reminds me of the sight that Terezi saw in the Furthest Ring and sent to the others on Earth. "At the center, that distortion turns into an eerie music. That’s where the cacophony ends—the shattering, the screaming, the squelching, the sounds of elemental particles being torn apart like string cheese shoved through a meat grinder, then dumped down a strangely melodious garbage disposal." Okay I'm sorry, but I can't help but think of the garbage disposal in Dave's appartment. ...I was saying that as a joke, but now that I think about it actually, this reminds me of how I once made a theory of how that disposal scene was some foreshadowing for the creation of Lord English, mostly because of the Saw and purple Smuppet stuff, but now suddenly the garbage disposal element comes into mention here too. HMMMMMMM "This is the end of everything. This is the end of Paradox Space. You..." Oh man, where is this going? Is it going to turn out there's some kind of other realm beyond the Black Hole that all of the ghosts got sucked into? Like, a true kind of afterlife? "Your name is John Egbert, and you have just had a terrible, deeply pretentious nightmare. You snap out of bed, soaked in sweat, your heart hammering like a fire alarm. It is just as you feared." And suddenly we're John! Has the images Terezi sent them been leaving him with these kind of nightmares? Eeesh.... "You’ve been dreaming in anime again. And you have no idea what it could mean." ...OH GOD DAMN IT HUSSIE YOU BRILLIANT BASTARD. XD "> Look outside just to make absolutely sure the world is not ending." And suddenly we're in Act 1 all over again. :P "The only sound you can hear for miles is the wind skimming the hollows of your neighbors’ pipe homes." Oh hell yes, reference to the wind skimming the void. And heh, at least that last part confirms we're really in the present now where John lives in his salamander neighborhood, not that we're actually somehow back at the events of Act 1 or something. "It’s a normal day in the salamander village, which you refer to as Salamander Village because the damned salamanders never bothered to give this village a name, you guess." ...I could see that. xD That must mean there are like hundreds or thousands of those kinds of villages, hahahaha. Really mustn't be convenient for any non-Consort people trying to navigate over there. :P "Beside your pillow, your phone is vibrating. Rose is calling. The screen of your phone reads 9:30 a.m. April 13, and also the number forty-six, which is how many text messages your friend left you while you were sleeping. A bit excessive, even for her." Rooooooooose! Okay, that's a huge relief to me. I kind of feared they'd all completely drifted apart in the past few years and hardly heard from each other anymore, so I'm really glad to see Rose talking to John is apparently still a thing. And that she's still apparently as wordy as ever. :P I wonder if we're gonna get a dialog (or Rose monologue) now? "Answer the phone" Oh hell fucking yes, here comes some sweet, sweeeeeet dialogue/monologue! "ROSE: Since when are you known to operate your telephone? JOHN: since... i don’t know. has it really been that long since i called? ROSE: I can’t remember the last time. JOHN: neither can i. anyway, what’s up?" Awwww, okay that's sad to hear. I take back what I said earlier, looks like they really don't hear from each other that often anymore. :( "ROSE: Am I correct in presuming this April Thirteenth will be as uneventful as the last? JOHN: yeah, i don’t want to do anything this year. i hope that’s ok." Looks like he still feels the same way like the past few years. D: I feel so sad for John. This really doesn't feel like a happy ending for him. If only he still had his Dad... "All over the neighborhood, the little dad-salamanders are putting on their little rumpled hats and picking up their little suitcases and kissing their little families goodbye for the day" Okay, on one hand the comparisons with John's own family situation are really sad, but I can't help but ROFL that Rumpled Hats are still a thing in this society. "You’ve always been confused about what, exactly, they contribute to the global economy. But it’s pretty cute how much they love playing at being suburban businessmen." Hey, there's where the Economy content warning came from! And it didn't even have to do with Barack Obama! xD "The silence over the phone is growing awkward. You’ve stalled long enough. You decide to just come out and say it." Oh boy... what is he going to say? Something about how sad he is with the current situation? "JOHN: i’ve been dreaming in anime again lately." PFFFFFFFFFFF, JOHN. JOHN NEVER CHANGE. We're getting some hella sweet new quotes here. :P Also, I'd find it really funny if it turns out he's been dreaming of the events of Act 7 which, from our perspective, were rendered in anime form. "JOHN: i have no idea what it could mean. ROSE: I see." Rose, looks like you've found someone to psycho-analyze again! xD "JOHN: whenever i have these dreams, everything’s breaking apart. JOHN: millions of people are screaming and dying. JOHN: i mean, dying permanently. not the kind of bullshit dying that we’ve been doing a lot over the years." Okay so he WAS actually dreaming the stuff we read at the beginning of this prologue then. I love how he calls "their" dying bullshit. " JOHN: what do you think it all means? ROSE: What do I think ‘what’ means? JOHN: what do you think it means that i’ve been dreaming in anime? ROSE: I don’t have the slightest idea what it means that you’ve been dreaming in anime, John. ROSE: To be honest, I... You wait for Rose to finish her thought. She doesn’t, which is troubling because you have never known Rose to leave a thought unfinished in over ten years of acquaintance." That's... indeed quite troubling! Normally this kind of thing is truly Rose's specialty. What's going on over on her side? I mean, it did seem like there was more she wanted to say than just "happy birthday". ....Thinking back to the content warnings... is Rose or Kanaya pregnant??? I don't want to put too much trust into those content warnings though. :P "ROSE: I held out for as long as I could. I figured your birthday was as good a time as any to let you know. JOHN: let me know what?" HERE IT COMES!!!!! "ROSE: It’s crept up on me, these last couple of years. ROSE: Gradually enough to ignore as it was happening, but I can’t anymore." ...Wait what??? Oh god, that does sound different from having a baby. Oh man, please don't tell me she wants to divorce from Kanaya. D: "ROSE: Lately the visions have been overwhelming. JOHN: visions??" Ohhhh, visions! Huh. What kind of visions? About Caliborn? About what's happening in the Furthest Ring? Something else? "ROSE: Would you mind flying to my apartment, so we can continue this in person?" Wait a second. She lives in an apartment now? Looks like unlike John she didn't stay in her old house! Interesting how she moved into an apartment, like Dave originally lived in. "You move the phone away from your ear and assume an expression you haven’t practiced in years. It is the look of a man who actually has something to do." Dang, he must have been getting REALLY bored all this time. That time alone on LOMAX must have been peanuts compared to this. "As you hang up the phone, a familiar feeling settles over you. A feeling of...standing?" ...Has he been floating the entire time? "Standing, and being alone. In your bedroom. As a young man. On your birthday." OH SNAP. I got the reference now. xD "A young man stands alone in his bedroom. It just so happens that today, the 13th of April, is this young man’s birthday. Though it was twenty-three years ago when he was given life, and ten years ago when he was given a name, it feels like it is only today that he will begin to understand what all that means. That young man is YOU, John Egbert. What will you do?" HOLY FUCKING SHIT. OH DAMN. OH SHIT. THAT IS WAY FUCKING EPIC MAN. This is giving me HELLA goosebumps! I'm VERY curious about that final part means, about "understanding what all that means".... Okay, this seems like a good place to end for the day, but I'm VERY excited to start reading the rest!!! Homestuck is BACK IN ACTION baby! Last Edit: 1 minute ago by Blaperile

[owl-eyed-woman]

Pacific Rim Uprising: A Comparative Review

A miracle has occurred. Pacific Rim, the brainchild of Guillermo del Toro that bombed in the US but soared internationally for a total box office gross of $400 million, has, against all odds, managed to get a sequel. Am I dreaming? Pacific Rim: the movie (and now franchise) that could.

But though the existence of a follow-up to this underdog of a movie (if a Hollywood blockbuster can be called that) is certainly miraculous, we must ask ourselves if a greater miracle has occurred: Is Pacific Rim Uprising actually good?

The answer is no… and yes. Wait, let me be clearer. This is a bad movie… and I dug it. OK, this is still confusing. I guess ‘patchy’ is the most accurate word here. The patches mostly consist of giant gaping holes of badness, but there are patches of (relative) goodness.

Let’s get this out of the way: Uprising is, in most ways, not the Pacific Rim we know and love. Set 10 years after the first, sporting a new director along with an almost entirely new cast, it is unmistakably a departure from the first one. Yes, it still has giant robots and giant monsters and they do indeed punch each other, but it is a fundamentally different movie in so many ways that it isn’t really surprising to find that something essential has been lost in the sequel.

I almost feel bad comparing Pacific Rim Uprising to its predecessor. As special as Pacific Rim was, I do typically believe that movies should be judged on their own merits… but it is a sequel and such comparisons are inevitable, so screw it, I’m doing it anyway.

Before we can unpack what Pacific Rim Uprising lacks, we first need to understand what made Pacific Rim so beloved.

Pacific Rim was special from the start. Guillermo del Toro, a man who has made a career out of penning revisionist love letters to cherished nerd genres, somehow managed to get 200 million dollars to make a big budget ode to monster movies and mecha anime. This once-in-a-millennia, stars-aligning act of providence made Pacific Rim, from its inception, something to behold and treasure.

But to suggest that the improbability of Pacific Rim’s existence is what makes it so special, is to do a disservice to Guillermo Del Toro and the film he created.

On a purely surface level, Pacific Rim has some of the most striking visuals of an action movie in recent years. Pacific rim could have just skated by on the novel prospect of trashy anime and B-movie visuals paired with the polish of a Hollywood blockbuster. Instead, Guillermo del Toro paired this already enticing spectacle with what can only be described as an explosion of saturated rainbow. In a time when The Dark Knight-inspired grey was the norm, Pacific Rim was a sweet, candy-coloured treat for sore eyes. I would even argue that the neon wonder of Guardians of the Galaxy and Thor: Ragnarok have the bravery of Pacific Rim’s psychedelic colour palette to thank.

But the uniqueness of Pacific Rim goes much deeper than its admittedly stunning surface. What makes Pacific Rim stand, maybe not above, but most definitely apart from the crowd, is tone and theme.

At its heart, Pacific Rim is a silly movie. Its premise is ridiculous, its spectacle is over the top, it’s big budget, b-movie, anime trash. In the hands of a lesser director *cough Steven S. Deknight cough* this kind of movie would most likely be couched in a form of defensive snark and detached irony, as if embarrassed by its own frivolousness; the implication being that a movie like Pacific Rim is an indulgence we can partake in, but only if we feel guilty about.

This is what makes Pacific Rim so refreshing; it isn’t ashamed of itself. Every ridiculous line, every overwrought emotion, every heroic sacrifice and every earnest declaration, contains not one ounce of shame or cynicism. Instead, Pacific Rim oozes self-love, pride and, perhaps most unexpectedly, gravity.

There is always an urge to dismiss the often-simplistic conflicts and relationships we see in movies like Pacific Rim as mindless fluff, but Pacific Rim just won’t let you. Every part of this movie is delivered with a feeling of weight and import. An elbow rocket may at first seem like a throw-away sight-gag, but honestly, Pacific Rim takes Jaegers, and, by extension, their elbow rockets, seriously and you should too. They are trying to cancel the apocalypse and you need to get on board.

In this way, Pacific Rim doesn’t just make sure you get invested in the movie’s characters, robots, monsters and endlessly goofy dialogue; it makes sure you respect it.

And honestly, as much as I’ve been playing up the more outlandish parts of Pacific Rim’s premise, it’s hard not to respect the truly weighty and revolutionary ideas that Pacific Rim contends with. Its central conceit shows every nation banding together to save the world in a utopian vision of internationalism and global co-operation. Its puppy dog-like characters love each other with all their heart seemingly from the second they meet, truly trusting each other with theirs lives and innermost self. Its Jaegers are literally powered by emotional understanding and compassion between human beings. Every part of Pacific Rim expounds a far too rare faith in humanity’s potential for positivity, idealism and empathy.

In a movie ostensibly about revelling in the apocalypse, Pacific Rim was, in actual fact, creating a utopia by showing us how humanity’s fundamental goodness could save the world. So needless to say, it is deeply disappointing to find that these things that made Pacific Rim so memorable and, dare I say, important, have been abandoned by the sequel.

The most obvious change is, unsurprisingly, the visual style, as the rainbow extravaganza of Pacific Rim is traded in for the grim, muted greys of reality. To be fair, Pacific Rim Uprising is not entirely devoid of colour, but it isn’t soaking in it like the first film.

In the scheme of things, it’s not a devastating loss, but it is indicative of Pacific Rim Uprising’s biggest problem: its decision to trade in the flavour and uniqueness of Pacific Rim for the bland, the generic and the safe.

Thematically, the internationalism of the first movie is still present implicitly in the diversity of its cast, but the unique positivity and unabashed idealism of the first film has been abandoned. Ideas of empathy and interpersonal relationships are inextricably woven into the premise of Pacific Rim, but these elements never really congeal into any coherent message or ideology; it has lost the unique voice and lofty ambitions of Pacific Rim, so it never feels like Pacific Rim Uprising is trying to say anything other than ‘friendship is good’ and ‘let’s save the world’.

Tonally, the child-like sincerity and self-respect of Pacific Rim has been replaced by generic snark and detached “edgy” humour. Mostly, this tonal shift is just boring and predictable – scenes play out emotionally like you’d expect, characters react with defensive sarcasm and contempt, the humour is crude and forgettable. It plays like a typical, middle of the road blockbuster, content in its mediocrity.

To be fair, it doesn’t not work, it mostly just exists, but it also leads to some bewilderingly bad choices when it comes to humour, especially when it involves the younger members of the cast. A joke about a cadet’s plastic surgeon father goes on for far too long and somehow, in 2018, the triumphant blast off for battle is accompanied by, of all things, the Trololol song.  

That’s not to say all the sincerity or joy has been lost – a scene where the team bands together to rebuild their Jaegers hits the right blend of cheesy and awesome, and Jake and Amara’s bond is, at times, quite sweet but in the context of such a snide movie, these glimpses of sincerity seem awkward and unnatural.

Let me put it this way. In Uprising, a Jaeger, the awe-inspiring feat of human ingenuity and mechanical embodiment of empathy and co-operation, flips a kaiju the bird.  This is the what Pacific Rim is now.

It’s appropriate that Pacific Rim Uprising shifts the focus to a younger generation of cadets, because Uprising kind of reminds me of being a teenager. It wants so badly to be detached and cool, but it’s far too desperate and unsure of itself to ever truly be considered ‘hip’; it embodies that awkward teenage posturing we all thankfully escape in adulthood. Contrastingly, Pacific Rim exudes the confidence of an adult, secure in their interests and themselves, and in that, effortlessly achieves the coolness Pacific Rim Uprising so desperately seeks.

By now, I think I’ve made it clear that Pacific Rim Uprising is pretty bad, but the thing is, I actually do think there’s some good in here!

But before I get into that, we need to once again, return to the original Pacific Rim, because I haven’t been entirely honest in my assessment. Though my glowing praise at the beginning of this review may suggest an intense, fangirl-ish love of Pacific Rim, in all honesty, I actually don’t like it that much. I appreciate it, I respect it, and I do enjoy parts of it, but there are fundamental flaws that prevent me from truly loving it, specifically, character and plot.

When it comes to Pacific Rim’s characters, the word patchy once again comes to mind. There is some genuinely strong character work in this movie - Mako Mori was rightfully praised at the time for being a well-rounded and interesting female character with a character arc separate from the men around her – and then there is some bafflingly incompetent character work, namely, Raleigh, the protagonist of the film, is fundamentally uninteresting.

Part of this can be attributed to the dearth of charisma that is Charlie Hunnam who seems unable to imbue Raleigh with any emotional depth, but even setting this bland performance aside, Raleigh just feels like countless other mediocre male leads. He’s got a tragic backstory related to a dead family member that he still hasn’t gotten over and he needs to learn to let someone else into his heart before he can save the world; I’ve seen this plot in most uninspired video games.  

But to be fair, just because this setup is cliché doesn’t mean it couldn’t have been interesting; Pacific Rim is, in many aspects, an example of this, elevating classic genre tropes through thoughtful execution and smart, progressive additions.

This only makes it more perplexing that Raleigh remains so conventional, with no real twist or update. Even the most interesting part of his character arc, that is, the difficulty of reconnecting emotionally with others after a loss, falls flat since Raleigh never seems to struggle with this. Once he agrees to re-join the Jaeger program and meets Mako, he instantly accepts her as his co-pilot and his arc is resolved.

This emotional hollowness also impacts Pacific Rim’s greater plot issues. Pacific Rim’s plot is mostly passable, with a straightforward story propped up by the novelty of the premise and world. However, Guillermo del Toro seems to be aware that to make Pacific Rim great, he can’t just rely on the inherent coolness of giant robots and monsters fighting. To this end, he has intentionally foregrounded human relationships in the very premise of the film with the idea of an intense, emotional connection required for Jaeger co-pilots to control their mech – its ingenious really! But that only makes it more disappointing and bizarre that Raleigh’s arc is so devoid of emotional depth. This setup for emotional conflict never really pays off past the halfway point of the film, with next to no internal conflict between Mako and Raleigh after they drift together. They face external threats of course, like Kaiju, Stacker and an angry Australian, but there is no conflict between our main characters.

That’s not to say there is no emotional conflict in this movie; Mako struggles to reconcile her respect for her adopted father with her need to define her own destiny and avenge her family’s death. But as amazing as Mako is, she isn’t the main character. We’re stuck with Raleigh, a bland, white man who is the hero despite the fact that his female co-star is so much more compelling and, well, heroic.

The other threads in the film are similarly hit or miss. Idris Elba kills it as Stacker Pentecost but the Australian Jaeger pilots are mostly annoying and the resolution to Yancy’s arc is perfunctory and unearned. I honestly loved Newton and Hermann but many people found them grating, and the other secondary characters, while memorable, remain fairly flat, sketched out in broad strokes rather than elaborated upon with depth or nuance.

I still think Pacific Rim is a great, nay, important movie, but I also think we must acknowledge where great movies go wrong and, conversely, where terrible movie go (somewhat) right, or perhaps more accurately, go wrong again but in a slightly different direction.

?) Thus, we once more return to Pacific Rim Uprising. In regards to the film’s protagonist, Raleigh has been cast aside and traded in for a newer model in the form of John Boyega as Jake Pentecost, which, unsurprisingly, is a good decision. As a character, Jake isn’t anything we haven’t seen before, but there are a few things that elevate him above his archetypal beginnings.  John Boyega’s performance makes a huge difference. Unlike Charlie Hunnam, he has genuine screen presence and acting skills to boot, imbuing what could be a flat, cliché role with character and vivacity - he is a speck of salt in an otherwise bland and flavourless movie.  

But to give props where its due, Jake’s arc is just better constructed than Raleigh. Thematically, Jake has more going on than Raleigh; he starts off as a party boy avoiding responsibility to both his family and the world and learns how to move past his father and sister’s death and become the leader the world needs. Already, it’s a stronger base for a character than Raleigh’s, but what really makes Jake work is how he genuinely struggles with what path he should take; he tries and fails, he makes mistakes, he grows, and because of this, when he finally gets his heroic moment as both a leader and a surrogate brother to Amara, it feels earned and makes the earlier struggles actually mean something.

Did I just praise Pacific Rim Uprising? Well, don’t get used to it, because, like its predecessor, Pacific Rim Uprising can’t seem to get a handle on its ensemble. This leads me to the worst part of the movie: the cadets.

The cadet plot line didn’t have to be bad. On a meta-textual level, it makes sense – just as the cadets are aspiring to take over from an older generation of Jaeger pilots, so too is Uprising is taking on the mantle of the original Pacific Rim. On a more basic level, who doesn’t like stories with training montages and burgeoning camaraderie?

But even the most basic elements of character development are absent from Uprising. The cadets have screen time, they appear in scenes and they say things, yet it is all done with no greater purpose or pay-off. For Generic Teens, 1 through 6 (i can’t remember their names and I refuse to look them up), they remain half-baked, under-developed and pointless.

The cadet storyline needed not just re-writing, but some actual writing, because if the filmmakers don’t care about the cadets, why should I? In the end, the only real function the cadets have is to be an attentive audience for John Boyega when he delivers his Pentecost brand inspirational speech.

But as angry as the mishandling of the cadets makes me, I am only saddened by the film’s mistreatment of their female characters.  

Pacific Rim was a feminist film with some caveats: while Mako became a minor feminist icon because of the (sadly) uncommon amount of respect and care given to her arc, she was still the only female character in an otherwise a male-dominated film.

One might think then, that Pacific Rim Uprising, with its noticeable increase in female characters, could challenge the first movie on the feminist front, but apart from Amara (who is fine), every female character is under-served and disrespected.

The most cursory and useless of them all is the ‘character’ Jules. I’ve put quotation marks around ‘character’ because her only character trait is ‘happens to be into Nate’. You see, the filmmakers wanted some sexual tension, along with some bro-conflict between the two male leads but they didn’t want to go to the bother of writing an actual character for these bros to lust after. So they didn’t. You could edit her out of the movie and lose nothing. It is unacceptable to so callously write a woman like this.  

They do better with Shao, the imperious and imposing head of Shao Industries. She works well as a fake out villain, but when she takes a more active role in the third act, she is denied the development and screen time needed to make me truly invested in her. Yes, it’s a cool moment when she pilots Scrapper and saves our heroes, but her appearance is more of a convenience than any culmination for her character.

But what of Mako aka the best character in the whole franchise? Mako returns for a bit as Jake’s older sister and shines as the new boss of the PPDC, before being killed off in the first act. Mako, a character who was never defined by the men around her, has been reduced to fodder for male character development. Need I say more?

I can’t help but imagine what could have been if Mako hadn’t been fridged, and she’d been the one to pilot Scrapper and save her brother and Amara’s life in the climax – what a moment that would have been! Or, if not this, imagine if they had truly fleshed out Shao as a character with an arc. Or, why not simply have two Asian female leads treated with respect they deserve? But maybe I’m being unrealistic (if it’s not clear, this angry sarcasm).

But despite these numerous flaws, I still really enjoy this movie, if only because, unlike the first movie, I was never bored by the story.

Pacific Rim had a great world and premise, but its plot was too straightforward and predictable. Pacific Rim Uprising, by comparison, has a sense of mystery and several reveals that genuinely surprised me. As much as I bemoaned Uprising’s generic tone, for most of the film, I really had no idea where it was going, and that’s not something to be dismissed.

Admittedly, Uprising’s success in this realm is indebted to the original Pacific Rim and the skill with which Guillermo del Toro built its world. It’s because of this strong foundation that Uprising is able to take this franchise into new and bold places, expanding on the world of Pacific Rim in exciting ways, like all good sequels should! We get to see how the Jaeger program proceeds after the threat has seemingly disappeared, as well as new drone tech looking to supersede a human workforce, the repercussions of human-kaiju drifting and kaiju-jaeger hybrids! This is all fascinating stuff and I’m actually getting excited just thinking about it. It reminds me of why I was so desperate for a sequel in the first place.  

Yes, most of it is handled clumsily and it’s still plagued by character and tone issues, but the core ideas and worldbuilding are strong enough that it still made the film worth watching. And sometimes, you even get glimpses of a good movie in there; seeing the effect of kaiju-drifting on Newton, the reveal of Alice and how his and Hermann’s relationship had changed, was so satisfying and well-done it shocked me (I’ll stop here before I start fangirling about Newmann).

This is all supported by some stellar action scenes. Earlier, I bemoaned the loss of Pacific Rim’s rainbow colour scheme, but to the film’s credit, what it sacrifices in visual innovation, it makes up for in clarity and thrills. The fights are faster, the monsters are bigger and every Jaeger has a sword. Like all good action sequels, Uprising ups the scale, the spectacle and the challenge, and lives up to the inherent coolness of watching two giant things fight each other.

There’s a scene in Pacific Rim Uprising, just before the final battle, where the Jaeger pilots and cadets combine broken parts of various mechs in order to build a working Jaeger to fight with. In the film, it’s a triumphant moment, but it’s also the perfect metaphor for Pacific Rim Uprising: it’s a mess of a movie made with broken and disparate parts, that may function, but not as a cohesive whole. Many choices are bad. Some choices are different. Some choices are good. It is the definition of a mixed bag.

But honestly, at the end of the day, I’m still left with a smile on my face, and an eager, grabby hand reaching back into that mixed bag for more.

I hope they make a sequel

(but Uprising bombed at the box office so...) 

[bill-denbro]

can’t fight this feeling | part 3

( gif not mine. )

↳ table of contents: part 1 part 2 part 3  ↳ pairing: bill denbrough x reader au ↳ summary: Bill asks Gretta out; will it be a success? New drama ensues, weird feelings evolve which everyone can't help but feel. ↳ warnings: cursing and my ~shitty~ writing ↳ a/n: THIS IS AN AU BTW, inspo: movie 'flipped' and the song 'can't fight this feeling' by REO speedwagon/cover of the glee cast. my writing is so shitty i wanna cri… sorry for the delay ;( I got rlly sick and yeah, but im better now! AND 100 FOLLOWERS WTF AHHBSHSHS

You're a candle in the window On a cold, dark winter's night And I'm getting closer than I ever thought I might

BILL

12:02 pm 

    "Are you ready Billy boy?" Richie gives me a pat on the shoulder, giving him a thumbs up, he grins. We were standing at the corner of our cafeteria, with me debating whether I should actually do this stupid idea.

Should I really?

I sighed and whispered, "T-This is to make [Name] s-s-stop annoying me. Do t-this for you and your f-friends' sake, Bill."

"Are you talking to yourself, Bill?" Eddie asked while I nodded slowly.

"I'm fucking nervous, okay?" 

"3 more minutes until the other students pile up in the cafeteria," Stan glanced down his watch, while Eddie looks around. There we saw [Name], Beverly Marsh and Ben Hanscom seated at their usual table. The trio laughing away at what [Name] (I assumed) said.

12:04 pm

    The four of us spot Gretta with her friends, all of them laughing. "There you go Billy boy! Gretta Keene in the flesh!" Richie yelled out, pushing me harshly in front. 

Everyone's eyes were now boring over my lanky figure. Gretta and her friends stopped dead in the tracks, while she shoots me a smile.

"Fucking shit R-Richie," I spat out, glaring furiously at him. "Y-You were too f-fucking loud, now everyone's looking at me."

Stan stands there, an expression I can't really explain. Eddie gives me a thumbs up, with Richie howling. "Yes, Billy! Bill my man!"

I take a step forward, awkwardly smiling at Gretta. "Hey Gr-Gretta, I want to a-a-ask if you would like to go to the movies w-w-with me later?"

The people around us started to gossip away, and I glanced over my shoulder to look at [Name]'s expression, only to see her with a sour face.

"Yeah sure Bill," Gretta gives me an ear to ear smile, nodding. 

Smiling at her, everyone's attention then dispersed, chattering away to their own set of cliques.

Gretta walks away with her friends, one of them looking at Stan and mouthing out, 'Date me!'

Richie slings an arm around my shoulder, with Stan replying to her with a, "Thanks, but no thanks." Eddie grins at both scenes unfolding in front of him.

"That was a success!" Richie keeps his arm around my shoulder, the four of us walking towards our usual table. 

"Should've seen that look on [Name]'s face," Eddie shakes his head, while I grinned.

"Thank me, Bill! Thank me!" Richie exclaims while we all take a seat. I shook my head, laughing.

"Well, this might finally end our misery! [Name] will finally stop annoying us!" Eddie raises his hand for a high five, which I happily obliged.

“When I raise for a high five, no one high fives me!" Richie whined while Stan rolls his eyes at him. "It's because you like fucking raise your hand after 5 to 10 minutes, dumbass." 

"When I raise for a high five, no one high fives me!" Richie whined while Stan rolls his eyes at him. "It's because you like fucking raise your hand after 5 to 10 minutes, dumbass." 

Richie's pushes his glasses up, to prevent it from falling. "You're right! High five!" Richie raises his hand once again, while the rest of us blankly stared at him.

"Oh, yeah. . . oops," Richie puts his hand down, and putting it on his neck instead, scratching it a little.

"U-Um yea, n-now going back to the whole 'm-making [Name] s-stop annoying u-us'," I started, while I look around to look at [Name]'s reaction. 

"Oh, shit Bill, she was so fucking disappointed!" Richie laughs loudly. 

Relieved.

That was all I felt; relieved. Relieved that she won't bug me much anymore. Relieved that after how many years of her chasing after me and me always running the other way, she'll finally distance herself from me. 

There I saw [Name] [Lastname] no longer cracking up jokes and smiling, but instead I saw her with a glum expression on her face. . . something I never really witnessed seeing before, until now. She always held a smile on her face, whenever I was around. Or maybe I was just focused on the annoying things about her, that I don't get to see her true self.

"Don't you think we went too far, guys?" Stan asks while I continued to look at her, not noticing the glares that Beverly was shooting.

"What do you mean, by too far Stan? That idea was fucking great!" Stan hisses at Richie, while Richie raises his arms in defense.

"I don't know, okay." Stan shrugs his shoulders, an unknown expression plastered on his face. "Do you think she actually deserves this?"

Bam!

From the feeling of relief to guilt. Why did I feel so guilty? Was it because all he said was true? 

[NAME]

     "And then I told my mom, 'noooo not my cereal!' With so much sarcasm, and she was like 'you can do better than that!'" I joked in front of Beverly and Ben, waving my hands around randomly. Beverly chuckles, while Ben laughs. "And then—" I started again, but was cut off with Beverly pointing to my back. "What?" Turning around to see what her fuss was all about, my mouth formed an 'o'. There I saw my Bill being pushed in front by Richie Tozier and yelling out, "There you go Billy boy! Gretta Keene in the flesh!" No, no, no, I chanted over and over in my head. This can't be real! I see him walk towards Gretta, an awkward smile on his face. "Hey Gr-Gretta, I want to a-a-ask if you would like to go to the movies w-w-with me later?"

No! SAY NO!

"Yeah sure Bill," Gretta gives him an ear to ear smile, nodding.

My smile left my face, a crestfallen look dawning over. Feeling my heart crumple into little pieces, I stayed put in my seat.

“He’s such a dick [Nickname],” Ben gave me a sad smile, while I felt a small salty tear escape from my eye.

I always knew he never liked me; always managed to hatch a plan to ignore me, but this was too much. Was he really that oblivious, to ask out the girl who keeps making fun of Ben, Beverly and I?

“Is he gone?” I asked Ben, while Beverly was busy sending glares to them. Ben nods, “They’re at their usual table now.”

“I just wanted to be friends with him, but he’s always been a dick to me, but why?”

Ben puts his book down, takes my juice box and takes a sip. “Maybe he secretly likes you, and by ignoring you, it makes him think that his feelings will fade. But it doesn’t actually, ignoring you makes him feel even crazier.”

Beverly turned to look at us, pleased with Ben said. “That might be true, [Nickname].”

I shook my head, still unhappy. “He will never like me, it’s been how many years since I tried getting his attention, but he never gave me a glance. . . And you know what?”

Ben and Beverly stared at me, while I sighed.

“Maybe, I should just stop trying, you know? It always leads me nowhere.”

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[ralphmorgan-blog1]

Army Base Stew for the Amerasian Soul

On existing as reminders of the trauma of U.S military occupation in Korea

Youtube / Seonkyoung Longest

Budaejjigae is always served in massive pots. Kept piping hot on a Butane burner, the dish is meant to be shared with a table full of people.

With a name that translates to “military base stew,” this dish is largely made up of cheap, processed food. Korean ingredients like Neoguri ramen, kimchi and rice cakes are mixed in with seemingly contrasting American ingredients, such as Spam, hot dogs, and Kraft cheese. It’s often eaten by students and young adults in Korea as a form of inexpensive comfort food.

During U.S military occupation, “camp towns” started to form around the gates of American army and air force bases. The Koreans that lived and worked in these towns often depended on U.S soldiers for the bulk of their income, whether they were bar owners, tailors, or one of the thousands of Korean women who provided sexual services to U.S soldiers. These towns didn’t just develop on their own, either — the South Korean government, backed by the U.S, encouraged the development of camp towns and coerced Korean women to provide sexual labor for American soldiers in order to ensure their stay and improve the economy.

Some people regard budaejjigae as the original Korean-American fusion dish. Others just consider it a bad memory.

***

I grew up in Songtan, a former Korean camp town surrounding a U.S air force base. Like many other “Amerasian” children, I attended an American elementary, middle, and high school on the base along with other American military brats.

Unlike many of the white and non-Korean families who chose to live in on-base housing, my mom vehemently wanted to live in downtown Songtan. Her argument was that we wouldn’t be able to order all the yummy Korean delivery foods, like jjajangmyeon and fried chicken, if we lived on the military base.

It wasn’t until later that I realized this was an excuse. There seemed to be an unspoken acknowledgment in my family that my mom simply wouldn’t be able to assimilate into typical military spouse communities on base— the book clubs, potlucks, and church gatherings comprised mostly of Christian, American, English-speaking women (usually white, with some exceptions).

This enclave carved out of the Western, patriarchal culture of military life seemed unwelcoming to her. Instead, she removed herself almost entirely from it — and yet she still stayed within proximity, making friends with other Koreans who lived and worked in the camp town, from bar owners to street vendors to other Korean military wives.

Together, they formed their own enclave under the influence of U.S military occupation.

Every morning, my school bus would pick me up in downtown Songtan and take me to the gates of Osan Air Force Base. There, a helmet-clad soldier with a rifle would step on our bus and check all of our military ID cards that marked us as “dependents”.

Walking through the front doors of my typical American school, along with a hundred other atypical Amerasian military brats, felt like jumping from the ocean into a fish bowl. We suddenly found ourselves in a bubble, closed off from the rest of the world, but still able to see out into it.

***

In 1945, after over three decades of brutal colonial suppression, Koreans finally saw independence from the Japanese empire.

Koreans found themselves seized from Japanese colonial rule and almost immediately thrust, once again, into the control of foreign nations. Like children fighting over a room, the United States and Russia each claimed half of Korea’s territory. The north, backed by the Soviet Union, would be led by anti-imperialist communist Kim Il-sung. The south, backed by the United States, would be led by staunchly anti-communist, right-wing authoritarian Yi Seung-Man, who had succeeded in winning what many considered to be a rigged election.

The Cold War had begun, and Korea found itself, through no choice of its own, caught in the middle of it.

“The Korean peninsula would serve both as a living laboratory for technologies of domination and as a site of contestation over the United States’ fantasy of itself as a nation of saviors.”

— Grace M. Cho, Haunting the Korean Diaspora: Shame Secrecy and the Forgotten War

The magnitude of death, trauma, and destabilization that affected the Korean people during and after the Korean War is still immeasurable. Even official statistics don’t always account for the massive loss of civilian life.

During the war, the U.S-backed authoritarian leader of South Korea, Yi Seung-man, committed massacres against his citizens to suppress communists, leftists, and anyone who opposed U.S military occupation. Meanwhile, the United States launched a brutal aerial bombing campaign against North Korea that killed 20 to 30 percent of the population, an incident that has been compared to attempted genocide. Even in the South, mass killings like the No Gun-Ri Massacre left men, women, and children dead at the hands of U.S soldiers, who were instructed by officers to kill any civilians in the combat zone without discretion.

The war never really ended. In 1953, the Korean Armistice Agreement was signed, ensuring a ceasefire between the two countries and officially establishing the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) at the 38th parallel.

***

The city of Uijeongbu, near the U.S army base Camp Casey, takes credit for the invention of budaejjigae. I often visited my friends there, where the dish is a local staple. Restaurants claiming to have served budaejjigae since the end of the Korean War lines the alleyways.

“The stew had long been the stuff of my nightmares. A stew gone wrong. A stew so laden with Spam, hot dogs, American cheese and other “food products” that it had become a perversion of Korean cuisine, indeed, a perversion of real food. Since it represented both the U.S. military occupation of Korea, and my own hidden past, I never thought I could bring myself to eat it.”

— Grace M. Cho, Eating Military Base Stew

Food scarcity, especially a shortage of meat, was a severe issue for Koreans during the war. U.S military bases, on the other hand, seemed to be overflowing with food that would end up in the garbage. The solution? U.S military bases began allowing Koreans to purchase bags of the leftover food. Sometimes hungry people would simply scavenge for it in the trash, occasionally finding inedible ingredients like cigarette butts. To this day, Koreans still joke that you can find cigarette butts in a pot of budaejjigae.

Coincidentally, the birthplace of budaejjigae is prominent for another reason that’s also related to U.S military occupation. In 2002, an armored vehicle operated by U.S military soldiers struck and killed two Korean schoolgirls while returning to base in Uijeongbu. Despite the requests of the South Korean Justice Ministry, the soldiers were tried in U.S military court, where they were found not guilty. The complete acquittal of the soldiers reignited anti-American and anti-U.S military sentiment that had been bubbling in Korea since the war.

The aptly named “military base stew” owes its very existence to the traumatic consequences of war and foreign intervention. The unlivable circumstances caused by the Korean War and prolonged U.S military occupation— massive civilian casualties, loss of infrastructure and industry, widespread famine, rises in sex trafficking and sexual violence— led to circumstances that required Koreans to survive on scraps of food left by their foreign occupiers.

Now budaejjigae is occasionally touted as a symbol — sometimes of the collision of two dynamically opposed cultures, and other times of the trauma of U.S military occupation and post-war poverty.

***

U.S military presence in South Korea continues to this day, with 28,000 to 33,000 troops still stationed on the peninsula. The former “camp towns” are now cities in their own right.

The areas surrounding U.S military bases are still heavily peppered with clubs and “G.I bars”, many of which serve as a front for brothels. Historically, the women who worked there were derisively referred to as yanggongju.

Yanggongju. Western princess. The literal translation is much kinder than the actual interpretation of the word — the most accurate equivalent would be “yankee whore.” Any Korean woman who kept the company of American soldiers could have this word hurled at them, whether they were married to one, lived with one, or served them in bars and brothels.

“She is the woman who simultaneously provokes her compatriot’s hatred because of her complicity with Korea’ s subordination, and inspires their envy because she is within arm’s reach of the American dream.”

— Grace M. Cho,

It was often the so-called yanggongju who were able to acquire the ingredients needed for budaejjigae. Many of the women would sell American food products that they received from soldiers. At one point, there was a thriving black market in South Korea for American food products. Even one of my Amerasian friends admitted to me that his mother dabbled in the market, selling American beef and Kraft cheese when they were short on money.

***

Pearl S. Buck, the author of The Good Earth, was the first to coin the term “Amerasian.” Eventually, the word became the official term used by the U.S state department to describe the children of American military service-members and Asians (usually women) in the country of their station. I have not yet encountered another term that describes this specific group of people.

Amerasians have widely differing experiences of social stigma, racism, colorism, and political and social disenfranchisement. For one, Amerasians from the Philippines have been repeatedly excluded from legislation that allows overseas Amerasians to immigrate to the United States. Not only that, but there are currently an estimated 30,000 or more “Kopinos” (children born to a Filipino mother and Korean father), the majority of whom are unable to receive assistance despite being legally entitled to child support under Korean law. In an ironically similar circumstance to the American soldiers who left Korean women with Amerasian children, Korean men indulge in relationships with Filipino women and leave without taking responsibility for their families.

Almost all of my friends from school were Amerasian, with few exceptions. We related to each other on many similar experiences — the food we ate at home, the things we did for fun off-base, the Korean and American holidays we celebrated— while simultaneously leaving so much unspoken.

None of us ever brought up or questioned the history and circumstances that led to our seemingly contradictory lives — American kids with Korean heritage, living on Korean soil, learning American history and culture that didn’t even acknowledge our existences or the intergenerational trauma we inherited.

You would have thought that it was merely a coincidence that we all happened to have Korean mothers and American fathers.

Though it occasionally felt isolating, I had a community of sorts. Unlike Amerasians who grew up in Korea with single mothers or were placed in orphanages, we were able to attend U.S Department of Defense (DOD) schools on military bases.

In other words, we had the immense privilege of assimilating into American culture— if we wanted to.

***

Since the Korean War, more than 160,000 Korean children have been sent overseas for adoption. A disproportionate number of those children are mixed-race or were born to single mothers. It was all too common for American servicemen to father biracial children with Korean women before leaving the country once their military tour ended.

As a result, these women were left to raise their children as single mothers while facing harsh social stigma. Meanwhile, the South Korean government searched for a wayto quietly remove hundreds of thousands of mixed-race children by opening up international adoption. The presence of these children were associated with Korean sex workers, camp towns, and U.S military occupation — as a result, they were considered undesirable. Many Korean mothers gave up their mixed-race children to orphanages for international adoption, believing that their children would have a better life overseas. This was especially true for Afro-Amerasians, who were less likely to pass for Korean and experienced the intersecting effects of anti-blackness and cultural stigma against mixed children.

When discussing the stigma that mixed-race children and their mothers experience in Korea, the blame is often placed on Korean culture and society for preaching a narrative of racial purity or for being historically patriarchal. While these are accurate observations, it’s important to consider the role of collective, intergenerational trauma reaching back to the Korean War and Japanese colonization. Just as the term yanggongju is fueled by generations of anger toward the United States for aiding in the loss of Korea’s autonomy and independence, so is much of the discomfort, shame, and disgust expressed toward Amerasians.

To many Koreans, Amerasians are a living reminder of the trauma caused by U.S military occupation in Korea. Amerasians exist as living proof of the existence of the yanggongju. In her book, Haunting the Korean Diaspora: Shame, Secrecy, and the Forgotten War, Cho describes the yanggongju as an unspoken, ghostly memory — a specter left over from a traumatic past that reaches back to years of foreign invasion and institutionalized sexual violence affecting Korean women.

***

“Aigoo-ya, they probably sending money to their family,” my mom would say. She was talking about other Korean women married to American servicemen, probably one of the mothers of my many Amerasian friends.

“Mimi-chan, you know I come from rich family, right?” My mom scowled. “I married your daddy because I love him. He come from poor family, you understand?”

I didn’t understand why she would tell me this. I already knew my dad was poor. He was the son of a janitor and a truck driver and grew up in rural Oklahoma. He enlisted in the military right out of high school and was stationed in Korea, where he met my mother in the camp town — likely in a “G.I. club.”

And I certainly knew my mom had been wealthy — she would never shut up about her grandma’s rice fields, even though she never saw a cent of her inheritance because she had the misfortune of being the only daughter in her family.

As a child, it seemed mean-spirited to me. Why ridicule women who are just trying to survive? I thought. Why ridicule my own family because they grew up poor?

Now I realize that she had been plagued with a complex cocktail of emotions. Resentment, anger, pride, and most of all: fear. Anger at the stigma that she had to face for marrying an American servicemen. Anger at her country’s loss of autonomy to the United States and the trauma her parents and grandparents went through. Resentment at the loss of her inheritance and the loss of her family’s support. Pride in the face of people who assumed that her family must be relying on my white American father’s money when, in fact, it was the other way around.

Fear, the immense fear, that her daughter would grow up to know the word yanggongju. That I would grow up to learn what so many people think of children like me. That I would learn to hate her and hate myself.

Some women in this position keep silent. Perhaps by leaving the past unspoken, it will simply fade, just as the Korean War faded into the Forgotten War.

Other women, like my mom, desperately want to take control of the narrative. She wanted to make sure she was the first to tell me her story, the way she saw fit.

I’m not like them, she seemed to say. I am someone. Which means you’re not like them, either.

Recently, I told my mom that I’m making arrangements to study abroad in South Korea for a semester. She’s still strongly against the idea of me returning there.

“You better not go to some G.I. club,” she yelled at me. “I don’t want to see you at some place like that! You hear me?”

The fear that I would repeat history. Girls become lovers who turn into mothers.

***

Mom’s 부대찌개 (Military Base Stew)

Ingredients

Jin Ramen

Kimchi

Spam (sliced long and thin)

Ground beef

Hot Dogs (chopped thin diagonally OR cut into octopus shape)

White onion

Green onion

Tofu (sliced into thin rectangles)

Dukguk (thin sliced Korean rice cakes)

Kraft American cheese slices

Gochugaru (Korean chili pepper flakes)

Gochujang (Korean chili pepper paste)

White rice

Optional: Baked beans, Mandu (Korean dumplings), Chicken broth

Directions

1. In a shallow pot, put the kimchi, ground beef, white onion, ramen noodles (with the contents of the flavor packet and vegetable packet), and about a tablespoon of gochujang at the bottom. Add the chicken broth as well if needed. (OPTIONAL: grill or pan fry the sliced hot dog)

2. Pour as much water as needed for the broth (about 2 ⅓ cups for each person being served or for each pack of ramen used).

3. Throw the sliced spam, hot dog, green onion, and tofu on top. If you’re using mandu, throw only a few on top and make sure it’s submerged in the broth. Sprinkle over with gochugaru.

4. Budaejjigae is traditionally cooked on a Butane burner or hot pot right on the table in front of your friends and family. If you don’t have a hot pot or burner, just cook it on the stove. Bring the water to a boil and then let it simmer once the noodles, dukguk, and mandu are tender and cooked.

5. While the stew is still hot, add a couple slices of Kraft American cheese on top, and baked beans if you’re using it. Serve with a bowl of white rice on the side.

Original Article : HERE ; This post was curated & posted using : RealSpecific

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Army Base Stew for the Amerasian Soul was originally posted by News - Feed

[ootb-posts]

On the Road to BeeCon 2017: Interview with Thomas DeMeo

Thomas DeMeo is Alfresco's Vice President of Product Management. He was already with us in BeeCon 2016, and he is ready to join us for a new BeeCon this year. We are very glad he wanted to spend part of his time to answer our questions. Do you want to know more about his role at Alfresco? In this interview, he talks about bicycles on the road, priorities on the roadmap, his favourite books, rock music and Spinal Tap.

In the three years that you have been the VP of Product at Alfresco, what are you most proud of accomplishing? What has been the most fun?

First of all, the 3 years have gone by in a flash! I think what I am most proud of is taking the great work that came before me and elevating that to the next level for the community, partners and customers. Prioritizing the build out of the platform with richer capabilities, integrations, UX, mobile, and developer and architect-centric items like APIs, developer environment, tools, benchmarks, richer docs have all made it easier to get value from the broader Alfresco platform. Extending the integrations into adjacent systems, leveraging IaaS and providing the right tools to reduce what we call "Time to Value" are all very important to me. While there is still much to do, and we always want to do more, the fun part of this is working with others in the ecosystem who are equally passionate about the product to make an impact which touches so many around the world. It's fascinating to see how many people use the overall Alfresco platform for everything from exploring the universe, making people healthy, to everyday client interactions in banks and retail. This is very satisfying.

What is the most difficult part of defining a product roadmap?

As in life, it's about priorities and what to focus on with limited time and resources. It's keeping your eye outwards in the market to see the macro trends, while dealing with micro decisions day to day. It's connecting the higher level vision and objectives for where we want to be, and translating that into the meaningful steps along the way to get there. It's listening a lot more than talking, but having a point of view, being comfortable with the unknown, and asking "why" many times to get to the root problem. It's always a balancing act between what you want to do and what you can afford, while trying to keep multiple constituents happy, each with different goals. The roadmap itself is just an artefact of all these competing priorities, values and decisions. I honestly believe that a good PM is both a blessing (we get to help people!) and a curse by never being satisfied as we always want to do more and know where our short comings are. That said, It's also a role where you can make a difference, be creative, and have a "seat at the table" for making meaningful impact. I would rather be at the head of the table than have others do it for me so it's also the best job in the world!

What are the best channels for Alfresco to get feedback from its users, partners, and community? How does that feedback influence the product roadmap? What other things influence the roadmap?

The quick answer is to engage in all communication methods (community forums, UX research, early access programs, events like BeeCon, developer days, meetups, etc.) as each provides a different level of conversation. As I mentioned before, a good PM has to use their ratio of ears to mouth wisely. It's 2x!. Modern product management today is a lot more fluid, agile, inclusive and scientific. You don't need to be the "smartest person in the room" or own a magic crystal ball, you need to be good at listening, observing, asking the right questions, challenging assumptions and balancing your point of view with input from all sides. This input from all of constituents (partners, community, customer, end users, etc.) and personas (end users, admins, developers, architects, partners, CIO, etc.) is needed to test a hypothesis, iterate, learn and build evidence to support a point of view. But as the market is dynamic and users' needs change, it's a constant dialog and like any good relationship, it's built on communication and conversations like this.

Why is it so hard to upgrade Alfresco? What is Alfresco planning to make it easier?

Being open is a benefit, but also a responsibility on all sides. While it's great one can do anything on top of Alfresco, without the proper guidance, we see situations where environments are either not optimally set up or extended, and this could make an upgrade challenging. We have invested in both technology and training to make this easier. First, each release of Alfresco and Activiti have provided more APIs than the previous and the guidance in items like the SDK, api-explorer.alfresco.com, docs.alfresco.com, reference architectures (etc.) are intended to make it easier to have a maintainable environment. Second, we have both certification and training that Alfresco offers to everyone that covers being a Alfresco Certified Engineer, Alfresco Certified Administrator, Alfresco Activiti Certified Administrator and Alfresco Process Services Certified Engineer. There are many options at https://university.alfresco.com/ It's come a long way in my 3 years.

We were pleased that you attended BeeCon 2016. What were your expectations attending that conference, and what surprised you? What are you looking forward to this year?

As I mentioned previously, conversations with members of the extended community are always rewarding. I love hearing different experiences and points of view about this shared passion of building a great product that makes an impact in our world. The range of use cases, configurations, integrations and extensions is always great to see. I'm looking forward to the unexpected this year, seeing something new and different that perhaps we didn't even know was possible built on the new capabilities provided in the last few versions. If you see me, don't be shy, I'd love to see what you are working on.

We are aware that you love music. Do you play any instrument? What kind of music do you enjoy the most?

Yes indeed, I started playing guitar when I was an early teenager and have played, on and off, ever since. I like the creative part of it, it's a good "right brain / left brain" activity. Even after a long day, after ~ 15 minutes of playing, my energy level jumps back up and I am refreshed. Having grown up in the Boston area in the 80's, it was all about classic American and British rock, and I leaned more towards the heavy side of the spectrum. Good riffs, heavy groove, interesting arrangement, melody and tone, that's what it's all about for me. That's the style I like to play too.

If you could play music with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be?

Jimmy Page, he was a big influence growing up. The variety of style, depth, alternate tunings and good ol' rock & roll never gets old. Even as a person, he leads a good life, glad he is still with us and still doing his thing. A very close second would be Eddie Van Halen, or Angus Young, Robert Johnson, Jimi Hendrix, Steve Ray Vaughan, dang, I can't decide. Don't get me started...

You have worked in product management in a number of high profile software companies. If software product management was not a career choice for you, what else do you think you would have done?

Similar to Nigel Tufnel, I'd work in a shop of some kind, maybe in a haberdashery, or maybe like a chapeau shop. You will have to google Spinal Tap quotes to get the joke, or better yet, see the movie.

What is one dream project you have thought about pursuing apart from your professional life?

My passions are family, technology, music, cycling and travel. To paraphrase Elon Musk's approach, who advises to look at the overlap of two or more areas where you are an expert to explore opportunities, it would be in those domains. The landscape changes quickly and there are always areas to innovate and find new ways of adding value.

What books have influenced you such that you would recommend them to the Alfresco community? We are interested in both professional and non-technical books.

There are so many books that I have enjoyed, but here are just a few of the more product related titles I recommend to those I work with. As a PM, of course this list is in order of priority :-)

"The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change"

"The Four Steps to the Epiphany" by Steve Blank

"The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses" by Eric Ries

"Inspired: How To Create Products Customers Love" by Marty Cagan

"The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail (Management of Innovation and Change)" by Clayton M. Christensen

"Consumption Economics: The New Rules of Tech" by J. B. Wood

Thomas DeMeo will be giving his keynote "Power of the Platform" at BeeCon 2017 on Thursday 27th of April, at 09:00, in the Auditorium. Don't miss it!