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gra-sonas · 4 years

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Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Michael Guerin/Alex Manes Characters: Alex Manes, Michael Guerin Additional Tags: Canon Disabled Character, Dogs

Summary:

Alex's face softens. "I know you're careful. Sorry, it's just hard not to worry. But back again to my initial question. Do you know what today is?”

"I don't know, Alex. It's February 13th, so I didn't forget Valentine's Day or something. We ruled out the thing at Isobel's, and it's still Saturday. No matter how much I'm wrecking my brain, I can't think of anything else. Please tell me I didn't forget anything important."

"No, you didn't, no worries. I'll put you out of your misery. What do you think about taking a short trip across town?"

This is my contribution for day 3 of @malex-cupid. 3.3K of fluffy Malex.

Dialogue prompt: “Do you know what today is?”

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“Do you know what today is?”

Michael pretends to think about the answer before he says "Saturday."

Alex rolls his eyes. "Smartass."

Michael smirks. "Takes one to know one."

Alex smirks back. "I'm badass," he says.

Michael laughs. "True."

"Come on, Michael, try again. What day is today?"

Michael groans. "It's that stupid thing Isobel roped us into attending, isn't it? I thought it was next weekend."

"That one is next weekend. Which reminds me, we have to get our suits from the cleaners." Alex pulls a face. He hates wearing formal attire, especially ties. But Isobel would have their heads if they didn't dress up for her fancy party.

"We'll get through it together, and any chance we get, we'll hide in one of Isobel's guest rooms, and I'll suck you off." Michael waggles his eyebrows suggestively. He looks ridiculous, but it makes Alex laugh.

"If she catches us, we won't live to see another day," he points out.

"Well, I'll have to be fast then. It's unfortunate that she also can pick locks with her brain these days."

"You're not going to suck me off in two minutes, if anything I'll claim that my stump's hurting and we can go home early, where we'll take our sweet time sucking each other off."

Michael looks worried. "Has your stump given you any trouble lately? Should I take a look at the prothesis?"

Alex smiles. "No, Michael. It fits perfectly, and for some reason it even adjusts to the occasional swelling? I have no idea how you engineered it, but it almost feels as if the prosthetic becomes a part of me when I put it on. It's incredible, and it has given me that much more quality of life." He leans closer and kisses Michael, soft and sweet. Michael beams.

"I'm so glad. The material is so cool, I'm glad that I decided to give it a try, and now that I no longer need to rebuild a working console, I want to find out what other useful things I can build using it."

"As long as you are careful and—," Alex starts.

"Yes, I know," Michael interrupts him. "No worries, I've been paranoid about hiding who and what I am my entire conscious life on this planet. I won't risk it now just to brag about an invention that includes alien tech."

Alex's face softens. "I know you're careful. Sorry, it's just hard not to worry. But back again to my initial question. Do you know what today is?”

"No, you didn't, no worries. I'll put you out of your misery. What do you think about taking a short trip across town?"

Michael nods. "Sure, I have no other plans for today. Can we drive past the Crashdown to pick up some coffee?"

Alex looks at his watch. "If we call from the car and ask whether Javier could bring our order to the curb, we can do that. But we have to leave now. We have an appointment at eleven."

Michael pulls Alex up from the couch. "Okay, let's go. I'm really curious what you're up to!"

They call the Crashdown from the car and Arturo himself stands at the curb to hand them coffee and a box with heart shaped cookies through the window. Michael tips him generously, and then they're on their way again.

When they pull up outside of a red building fifteen minutes later, Michael's eyes widen.

"Alex, this is the animal shelter. What are we doing here?"

Alex turns around in his seat to face Michael. "Well, I thought we could go inside and look at all the rescue dogs in there, and if we like one, and the dog likes us, that we should take them home for a trial run. What do you think?"

Michael's eyes are wet. "Alex. This is—perfect. So much better than some kitschy Valentine's gift. Don't get me wrong, any gift from you would be amazing, but a dog, Alex. A dog! We've talked about this so often. Why now?"

Alex's smile softens. "Because we talked about it so often. It's pretty obvious how much you want a dog, and honestly, I want one, too. My therapist has talked about a therapy dog in the past, but I think a dog that's ours is even better. It can either stay with me while you're working, or come with you to the junkyard when I'm meeting clients. And if push comes to shove, we have a large yard where the dog can stay on its own for a couple of hours."

Michael flings himself across the car's middle console and pulls Alex into a fierce hug. "Thank you, Alex. Best pre-Valentine's gift ever."

Alex smiles into Michael's shoulder. "Come, let's go inside, I have a feeling we'll meet a very special someone in there today."

They enter the shelter, and a young woman shows them the way to the large backyard behind the building. Three different agility courses are set up, and there's a pool where three dogs are playing with an old football, splashing in and out of the water.

"This is what heaven must look like," Michael says, and the awe in his voice tells Alex that coming here was an excellent decision. He's counting at least twenty different dogs of various sizes, and they all seem happy and excited. He turns to the young woman.

"So, how are we going to do this, Janet. Are we supposed to sit down and wait until a dog approaches, or should we throw a ball or something?"

Janet points at a bench that's set up under a large tree. "If you want to take a seat, I'll get a basket with some toys for you to use and play with the dogs." She leaves, and Michael leads Alex over to the bench where they sit down.

Most of the dogs have stopped playing and running around, they are looking at Alex and Michael instead. Michael takes Alex's hand. "I'm nervous."

Alex squeezes his hand. "I don't think they are dangerous, relax, Michael," he soothes.

Michael laughs. "Not what I mean. I'm nervous because I know one of them's going to be ours, and I want to make a good impression."

Five dogs are brave enough to come closer, their tails wagging. Michael holds his hand out for them, and once the brave dogs are close enough, they start sniffing and licking Michael's fingers. After that it's just one large furry puppy pile with Alex and Michael in the middle, and more dogs joining. They pet as many dogs as they can reach, always careful to read the body language of each of them. But they are all very friendly and excited to meet them.

Janet returns, a large basket filled with various toys in her arms. Some of the dogs start barking happily, apparently, they know what the basket means. Janet sets it down in front of the two men. "Many of our dogs love to play fetch, you can also go over to the agility courses and see what each of the dogs can do."

Michael picks up the basket. "Thanks, Janet, I think I'll go over and play with the dogs. Do you want to come with me, Alex?"

"I'm actually good right here for another moment, thanks. Maybe I'll come over to you later."

Michael smiles at Alex and gives him a kiss. "Okay, love you."

Michael squeezes Michael's arm. "Love you, too. Have fun!"

Michael walks over to one of the agility courses, basket in hand. And like he's the Pied Piper, most of the dogs follow him, yipping excitedly.

Janet turns to Alex. "I'll leave you to it. If you have any questions, I'll be inside."

"Thank you, Janet, I appreciate it." She turns around and walks back to the house, and Alex focuses his full attention on Michael. He's started to throw balls in different directions (no doubt giving some of them a little extra spin with his telekinesis, but there's no one around, so Alex relaxes and enjoys watching Michael having the time of his life).

There's one dog in particular, that seems to have the largest heart eyes around Michael. It doesn't run after any balls Michael's throwing, instead he picks up a plushie from the basked and carefully places it in Michael's outstretched hand. Michael pats the dog's head and tells him what a good boy he is. Alex smiles.

The dog is gorgeous, a little taller than a German Shepard, dark fur and a tail that's wagging a million miles a minute. Alex can picture himself and Michael with the dog in front of the fire. Not a lapdog exactly, but he doesn't mind.

A minute later, the dog leaves Michael's side and while Michael's busy getting acquainted with some of the other dogs, Alex's eyes follow the black dog. He walks over to a sunny spot near the pool, where smaller dog's curled up in the grass, seemingly uninterested in playing with Michael.

Going by the fur marking's, Alex thinks it could be a beagle. He smiles, remembering Mimi's "prophecy". The black dog noses at the beagle's ears and licks them, then he nudges the dog as if to say, "come with me".

It takes another few nudges before the dog gets up (and yes, it's definitely a beagle, an older one by the looks of it), and follows its black brother over to Michael.

When Michael notices the duo, he stops throwing balls and kneels down. "Oh, do you want me to meet your friend? Hello sweetheart." He scratches the beagle behind the ears and the dog almost goes cross-eyed with pleasure. The black dog wiggles closer and buries his nose in Michael's half-open shirt.

Michael looks over to Alex, and Alex smiles. "Guess we're not just picking up one dog, huh?"

"Would that be okay? They seem to be friends, and I couldn't stand to leave one behind, especially since this little lady seems to be a bit older. Do you think we can handle two dogs?"

Alex gets up from the bench and walks over, and the moment he reaches Michael, they look up at him and start nosing at his feet and legs. When they are finished sniffing at him, they look at him with huge puppy eyes.

"Oh, you two, this isn't fair." He kneels down carefully, holding on to Michael's shoulder for balance. The moment he feels stable, he has his arm full of two dogs, one large black one, and a smaller beagle.

They lick his face and almost barrel him over in their excitement, if it wasn't for Michael's steadying hand (and a smidge of telekinesis) at his back. "Thanks," he manages to get out between increasingly wet and enthusiastic doggy kisses.

Michael chuckles. "Guess these two have made their decision. Now it's up to us. Can we, and do we want to adopt two dogs? I know we've talked about a dog, and this morning I didn't even know we'd get one. And now there are these two. What do you think?"

Alex smiles. "You know, we have a big house, an even bigger garden, I don't see why we shouldn't adopt both. They insist on a two week trial anyway, so why don't we take these two sweethearts home with us and see how it goes?"

Michael manages to place a smacking kiss on Alex's cheek without them tumbling over, then he helps Alex stand up. The two dogs stay close to them and follow them back to the house.

They find Janet at the reception desk. She looks up when she hears them approach.

"Oh, that went quick. Did you meet a dog you like?"

Alex realizes that she can't see the two dogs at their feet from her position. "Actually, we met two dogs."

"Two?" Janet stands up and looks down. "Oh, I see. These are Buffy and Lando. They met here and it was love at first sight. They are pretty much inseparable, and since she's basically a senior dog, we'd rather not separate them, I'm sorry."

Alex shakes his head. "There's no need to separate them, we'd like to take both home with us for the trial period. You know, they picked us, and now it's our turn to pick them, and see whether we're a good match."

Janet's smile gets excited. "That's wonderful to hear. They've been here for a while, and the fact that we don't want to separate them has prevented their adoption so far. If you'd like to take them for a short walk, I need about twenty minutes to get all the papers ready. Leashes are over there by the door."

They return from their walk half an hour later, relaxed and smiling. Neither dog's wearing a leash anymore. When Michael notices Janet's look, he says, "She wouldn't leave our side, and he wouldn't leave hers, there really was no point in keeping the leashes on."

Janet nods and hands them a clipboard with several sheets of paper, yellow post-its marking the spaces where they need to sign. Alex grabs the clipboard and takes a seat at a nearby table, while Michael looks at the wall opposite of the reception, where several dozens of photos are pinned to a large cork board. Happy new pet owners with their adopted pets. He can't wait to add their photo to the wall.

Once all the papers are signed, Janet gets two large bags from a nearby storage room and hands them to Michael. "The bags contain bowls, leashes, and dog beds. We don't expect you to buy everything before it isn't clear that you'll adopt the dogs."

Michael nods. "Do they have favorite toys or blankets we should take with us?"

"No, they usually play with the toys we provide. I can put a few tennis balls into one of the bags if you want," Janet offers.

Alex shakes his head. "That won't be necessary. I—uhm, I actually may have bought some toys. And a box of tennis balls." His smile is a little sheepish, but Michael isn't having any of it. "You are brilliant, and I love you." He smacks a kiss on Alex's cheek.

"Alright, you've got my number, in case there are any issues, please don't hesitate to call. If everything goes according to plan, I'll see you in three days for the first mandatory visit."

They smile at her, bid their goodbyes, and when leave, their two new canine family members follow them unprompted.

"I have a really good feeling about this," Alex says once they are back in the car, both dogs comfortably snuggled up on the back seat.

"Me too," Michael admits. "You've made me a very happy man today, Alex. Truly the best pre-Valentine's gift ever." Alex laughs. "It's not just a gift for you, Michael, I'm also a very happy man today. I'm very excited that we're taking this next step." He looks back at the two sleeping dogs. "It already feels like they're part of the family."

On their way home, they stop at the pet store, and pay an obscene amount of money for dog food, bowls, leashes, harnesses, the most comfortable supersized dog bed (suspecting the dogs would rather share then sleep in two separate beds), and way too many toys. They don't care that this is only a trial, they know that Buffy and Lando are meant to stay with them.

When they get home and set everything up, the dogs immediately curl up in the large dog bed together, completely ignoring the two separate beds they put up to give them a choice.

"We already know them so well," Michael says proudly, clinking his glass with Alex's. There's a fire burning in the fireplace, and they're sharing a bottle of red wine that goes well with the pizza they've ordered.

The dogs are snoring, and Alex's and Michael's hearts are full.

Michael goes on a quick walk with the dogs while Alex gets ready for bed. They're trying to keep the dogs out of their bedroom, but it's not happening. Lando drags in the dog bed in before they can close the door, and while they'll have to set boundaries eventually (because there are things they'd like to do in their bedroom without an audience), they won't start tonight.

They place the dog bed at the foot of their bed, and the dogs curl up together. "Uhm, we'll get to that eventually, I guess," Michael says, but then he lets himself being pulled into Alex's arms and they fall asleep within minutes.

It's a quiet night, and when they wake up in the morning, the dogs are already up to drink water in the kitchen. Alex and Michael exchange lazy kisses, until Michael wiggles out of Alex's embrace. "I'll take them out for a couple of minutes, that should do until we can go for a real walk after breakfast."

Alex gets up to pee, then makes a beeline for the kitchen to make coffee before he returns to their bedroom. He snuggles up under the covers, when he hears the front door open and shut, which means that Michael's back.

The dogs enter the bedroom first, and Lando walks up to Alex's side of the bed. He gets up on his hind legs and puts his front paws on the bedframe, like he's extra careful not to step on the mattress.

"Good morning, handsome. You are such a good boy, Lando," Alex croons and pats Lando's head. When he sees something gleam in the sunlight filtering through the blinds, he reaches for Lando's collar. There's a ring attached to it. A ring with an iridescent piece of an alien spaceship console embedded.

Alex blinks back tears and tries to remove the ring from Lando's collar, when Michael drops on one knee next to the bed. His eyes look a bit wet, too.

"Alex Manes. You're not only the man of my dreams, you're the man of my life. We've been through so much, and I love you more than should be humanly – or alien-ly – possible. Would you do me the honor of marrying me?"

Alex can't stop the tears from falling now, but he nods and reaches for Michael. They kiss and hug, and Michael helps Alex to remove the ring from Lando's collar. When Michael puts the ring on Alex's finger, it fits like a glove.

"Michael, the ring is extraordinary, thank you so much. I can't wait to marry you." They kiss again, but before Michael can get up from the floor, Alex pulls a thin silver chain out from under his pajama top he only put on a few minutes ago when he was in the bathroom. There's a ring attached to it. He opens the clasp and lets the ring fall into his open hand. Then he shows it to Michael.

"Adopting a dog with you was only meant to be a first step, I'd been meaning to propose to you on Valentine's Day, though. I just love you so much, more than anything or anyone, and I want to share my life with you. Forever. Marry me?"

"Yes!" Michael's reply is short, but he barely waits for Alex to put the ring on his finger (it also fits perfectly), before he gets up and lets himself being pulled into Alex's outstretched arms. They laugh and kiss and tumble all over the bed, and Buffy and Lando start barking. Soon enough they manage to jump on the bed and join the celebration.

When Alex and Michael adopt Buffy and Lando officially two weeks later, they do so as Mr. and Mr. Guerin-Manes, their wedding rings clearly visible in their we've-adopted-a-dog celebratory photo.

#malexcupid21 #malex #alex manes #michael guerin #rnm fic #malex fic #my fic #buffy manes

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mosaicofdreamsanddragons · 3 years

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Present Smiles

Hello Monkie Kid fandom, I am back and on the Sandy is the original Sha Wujing (or at least a reincarnation that remembers being Sha Wujing) hype train.

Read on ao3 here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/31762732

Sandy liked to focus on the present. There was a lot he could do in the present. Right now he could focus on finding something interesting for MK, poor kid was clearly anxious about something.

Sandy suspected the spiders. It couldn’t be easy to face his fear every day like that.

Pigsy suspected Monkey king’s vacation was reopening old wounds and bringing old fears the surface again. It made Pigsy angry in a way he tried to hide, and so Sandy had lent him Mo for the day and taken the kids off to get them out of his hair.

He’d asked the kids what they wanted to do, and MK’s insistence of going to Flower Fruit Mountain coupled with Mei’s enthusiasm to see the place made it an easy choice.

His own reservations about going to Flower Fruit were unimportant compared to their delighted smiles. If MK was working so hard to face his fears, Wujing could to. And it’s not like his older brother was home anyways

And he could make the overly anxious MK happy by shuffling through the vast amount of stuff in the small house MK had led them too. Hadn’t it been bigger? Something here would surely help the kid calm down. A fun distraction would do more good than a tool right now, so he focused on showing only the most interesting knickknacks his older brother horded in his house.

Not that they did much good.

Maybe he should have taken one of Mo’s fellow therapy cats with them, one that specialized in anxiety.

At least MK had started playing a game now, even if he was approaching it with all the zeal of a lesson.

Then again, he seemed happy to play and confident enough to skip the tutorials. Sandy took out his tea and offered a cup to the bored Mei, but she turned it down in favor of watching MK skip the dialogues with disapproval.

“He’s going to regret that,” she whispered to Sandy, “I skipped the tutorials on Monkey Mash for years and totally didn’t know a basic move that made the game five times easier…”

“At least he’s having fun,” whispered back Sandy as MK entered the store and…

That gentle smile flat and lifeless on a screen, the voice mechanical and garbled not warm and real, closing his eyes when he was trying to instruct in wisdom frozen in place not moving and alive…

…that disappointed frown…

MK was right, Wukong had made this game.

Wukong’d clearly done his best but Wujing's heart ached to see their teacher so close but so so fake

Caught up in trying to mentally fix the wrongs with the stilled image he let MK’s enthusiastic reactions fade to the back of his mind. What would it take to fix the errors of the flat picture? The voice would lack the mechanical background and would take on a slightly pretentious tone when he tried to instruct them, like Tang’s did, chest lightly moving with each breath. But he couldn’t quite animate the pictures in his mind, not without it feeling oh so very wrong.

Perhaps he could start with a base? A living breathing person who he could then imagine the features of his teacher on. Tang would work, there was some resemblance there….

So wrapped up in his thoughts was he that he only barely caught Mei’s statement, “kinda looks like…”

“Tang? I know I thought the exact same thing,” he says with a grin, glad to be pulled from his memories.

“Ahhh, right” says Mei. He’d missed something here, but he didn’t let the nagging sense of some mistake bother him. Time to focus on the present.

The present was a bored Mei and an MK who grew increasingly more frustrated with the game he was playing.

Wujing was ignoring his form on the game, the anger in his 2D eyes who only existed to fight …

Why is that how everyone remembers me? Is this really how he remembers me? As that angry fighter?

Wujing wasn’t like his older brother. He didn’t hide himself away from his grief. No, Wujing got angry. So very angry, until he saw the consequences first hand for a familiar-but-not face. And he’d tried so hard to fix that, to let go of the anger, to be more than that.

Bajie, no this was Pigsy, on the ground hurt…again, no not again this was Pigsy not Bajie…and it had been his fault, his fault…and still he was so angry, so angry that this had happened. Longing to punch something, he’d turned to find a convenient tree or pole, only to catch sight of a too-familiar disappointed frown out of the corner of his eye…

…and the anger drained from him. He looked back to Pigsy. Right now, in the present, he needed to help his friend to a hospital. There would be time for anger later.

When he’d looked up again the frown and its owner had been gone, and when he’d come back to search for it all he’d found had been a cat pawing at a flyer for anger management therapy.

He shook his head and focused his attention on the present, which was entertaining Mei. For a few hours she was content to watch MK play and complain about his moves snarkily into Sandy’s ear (somethings run in the family Wujing supposed). But after that she grew restless.

Sandy proposed meditation and tea (he rather thought he’d earned it) but she was more interested in digging through the house for something to entertain herself in the piles and piles of Monkey King Merch and assorted trinkets. So he joined her, letting himself focus on the moment and her enthusiasm, her laughter at his finds, and not the past emotions burning under his skin.

“What is this!” she squealed holding aloft a plush green dragon.

“A seahorse?” he suggested. It did look a bit like a sea horse. He wondered if that was an intentional joke or if the creator had just sacrificed recognizability for cuteness.

“It’s adorable!” she said before tearing through the old chest for more. Soon adding a smiling pig with too big eyes, a Monkey whose head was all out of proportion, and a man with a red beard, mouth too big for his face.

He picked the plush version of his past up and realized the mouth had been stitched over. The difference between the smooth manufactured stitching and the later additions was painfully obvious. Two little curved lines had been added to either side of the mouth with a thread that didn’t quite match and stiches that were too large and uneven.

“Awww,” said Mei from behind him, “He’s smiling!”

“He is,” said Wujing softly, cradling the store made doll in his hand and tracing the his brother’s clumsy correction with his thumb and struggling to name the emotion that was rising inside him and stealing his ability to speak.

“Hey, um” said Mei, awkwardly patting his arm. “Would you like some tea?”

He glanced down at her blurry form, blinking himself back into the present, “That would be lovely, Mei.”

Mei did not, in fact, have a teapot to make tea from the leaves she’d found. In the time it took for her to find one (eventually he’d just left his sitting right on the table for her to “discover”), he probably should have checked what the leaves where. But he didn’t and now Mei was out like a light.

He tucked her in with the plushie version of her ancestor and glanced the other child under his watch. MK was still frantically playing away at the game battering his way through the 2D versions of the past. But as he watched he found himself more concerned with the boys own health then an anger and an old grief. Perhaps later he could convince MK to have some of the tea Mei had discovered, a nap might do him some good.

He filed that away as a plan for the future.

Right next to catching up with his older brother.

#monkie kid #lego monkie kid #Sandy #monkie kid Sandy #Monkie kid Sha Wujing #Monkie kid Mei #long xiaojiao #Monkie Kid MK #qi xiaotian #my fic

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heloflor · 4 years

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Me : “I don’t think I should write characters that are explicitly neurodivergent because I don’t know that much about neurodiversity and I never take the time to know more. If I were to make a character who happens to have neurodivergent traits and call them neurodivergent, I might get it wrong and I don’t want to give a fic with bad or stereotypical representation in it, it’s unfair for those who can and wish to identify with the character. So if I write about a character that the fandom sees as neurodivergent, I will simply try to write them close to their canon personality; and if they happen to have traits that people can identify, I’ll just let other people do their own headacanons around it without touching on the topic myself.”

Also me : “So :

- Vinnie Dakota absolutely adores animals. In the future, all animals are extinct, so in order to see animals, you either get a robot pet or you pay to have some time in a “place simulation” room and order it to simulate a field with holographic animals. Dakota learned about animals through books and often went to the simulation place or bough some stickers and other stuff from the rare places that still sold animal merch. He never got a robotic pet or never kept it for long because it’s too dull compared to a real animal, or should I say his thoughts of real animals.

- During his first mission, Dakota was ecstatic to see animals for the first time and, after the mission, spent a few hours looking at and petting the ones he could. In his house in the future, he has a room in which he displays animal-related stuff he got from his missions through time, like art or figurines or ornaments or even plushies etc. He might also sometimes take pictures of animals and put them with the souvenir he got from the same mission. He takes extra care of the stuff he has in this room and organizes it a certain way. He has the money to have a place with several rooms : as we see in “Picture Day”, once they got fired, Cavendish and Dakota had the money to go to Hawaii for an entire week and without knowing when and how they will get a new job, since Bob Block met them as they were about to leave for their vacation. Also Cavendish mentioned studying for 20 cycles, so this job doesn’t seem like a given. So being a time traveler seems to pay well.

- When he and Cavendish started dating (I headcanon them as starting to date 2 years after meeting a marrying 3 years later, so 5 years after meeting), everytime they went through a century they never or barely visited, Dakota would get a random souvenir, not always animal-related, along with a picture of either him, Cavendish or both of them. He puts these souvenirs and pictures in a different part of the room. The picture we see in their car in “Fungus Among Us” is from a mission in a place they visited before, but Dakota found the situation too funny to not take a picture.

- Every celebration (holidays, birthdays, dates important to them), Cavendish and Dakota would give each other gifts. Dakota always tries to find something related to Professor Time while Cavendish forces himself to break a few rules and go back in time without being ordered to so he can find something animal-related to Dakota. Dakota is always genuinely happy about these gifts, though he learned not to tease Cavendish about the whole “breaking the rules” situation. Those gifts are either stuff like fossils or skulls/bones or they’re stuff related to the culture of the time-period like watching tournaments in ancient Rome.

- When the two get married and buy a place together, Dakota makes sure it has a room large enough to put his growing collection. As time went by, it started to be less about animals and more about what they find during their missions, though the animal part is still very much there. Dakota refers to the room as “The memory room” while Cavendish calls it “Vinnie’s room”. Cavendish doesn’t spend that much time in it, though he absolutely loves the feeling of reminiscence the collection gives him. If he has guests at home, he tries to keep them away from the room. He knows how important it is for Dakota and doesn’t want it to be disrupted. Cavendish tried to get into Dakota’s passion but, while he found some stuff to be interesting, he’s not really into it compared to Dakota.

- After the events of the episode “We’re Going to the Zoo”, Dakota brought back tickets for his collection, along with a picture of him holding squirrels in his arms while another one has its head coming out of Dakota’s pants, near his feet. Dakota went back to the zoo several times and ended up learning what every animal was and in which section of the zoo they were.

- When the two are fired and banned, they only get like an hour to pack all their stuff. So Dakota uses some future deus ex machina technology, making their house surrounded by a barrier that only the two of them can open. That way, nobody can touch the house and, if they were to be able to go back to the future, which seems to be the case if season 2 was already thought of when “A Christmas Peril” was made, Dakota could find his collection intact, along with the rest of the house.

- Once stuck in the past, Dakota kind of gave up on doing a collection. They don’t have enough space and the realization that Cavendish could now die anytime put a lot on stress on him and most of his thoughts were on Cavendish. This stress started to dim out after the events of the second half of the season, when Dakota realized that maybe the world was done trying to get rid of Cavendish, given how the man was able to survive alone for about a month. During the first celebration they had since getting banned, Cavendish bought something animal-related as usual and it led Dakota to wish to start a collection again. Given the space and their current situation, this collection would mostly be pictures that he can keep in an album in a drawer. Cavendish would probably be the one to buy the album after realizing that Dakota started taking random pictures again.

- At some point, Cavendish learns that there’s a petting zoo in Danville and decides to use it as a birthday gift/surprise. Dakota has never been more in love with him than during the moment when he stepped out of the car and saw the place’s sign (with the exception of their wedding and honeymoon).

…aaaannnd I just made Dakota have an hyperfixation, didn’t I ?

Though, to be honest, I really do want to write characters that are diverse, not only in terms of sexuality like I already do but also in upbringing and neurodiversity. Thing is, to write a neurodivergent character, I need to have the answer to these questions : How often do they stim ? What are the most common stims and what is and isn’t considered as such, aka what does the character does in the show that seems to be a stim ? How does the character acts/should act with others ? Which social cues do they understand ? Which ones do they not understand ? How to write a character that you can tell is neurodivergent without having to make them scream ‘I’m not neurotypical’; with instead having the only ‘confirmation’ of it being in the tags ? How to make them very excited about something without falling into the ‘autistic people are children’ stereotype ?

As long as I can’t answer these questions, I refuse to be an idiot and try to write about something I know I will mess up. And while I do have the curiosity and will to learn more, if not simply because I’m curious about neurodiversity, don’t expect me to write about it anytime soon. Right now my priority is to ‘digitalize’ all the dozen fics I wrote on paper (two of them had been in my writing pile for two years, and several for a year) while making the eventual post that comes to mind like this one.”

Edit : So a few weeks after making that post, I started to learn more about neurodiversity because being autistic makes you curious to know what kinds of behaviors are due to you not being neurotypical. And, as it had been pointed out, I’m not using the correct term here. I didn’t give Dakota a hyperfixation but a special interest. From what I understand, the difference is that hyperfixations stick to you constantly for a while (a few weeks or months), leading you to easily hyperfocus on the topic, before you suddenly start to get less invested in that interest. On the other hand, special interests can stick for months or sometimes years. And even if you’re not constantly thinking about your interest, it’s still there in a corner of your mind and you never get tired of it and keep the knowledge you accumulated to talk about it anytime.

So yeah, I gave Dakota a special interest. The reason why I thought it was a hyperfixation is because I see this term be very often associated with ADHD and a lot of people see Dakota as having ADHD. But still, my bad for mixing up the two. And the reason I didn’t edit the post sooner is because it kind of slipped out of my mind until I made a new post today that mentions this one. Sorry for that too.

#Milo Murphy's Law #Vinnie Dakota #Dakavendish #long post #I guess ?#headcanons #bonus headcanon : Cavendish has a mug collection #but never uses mugs #so Dakota uses them #sometimes taking a certain mug depending on his mood #so that Cavendish knows if he's mad or something #me : I don't know shit abour neurodiversity #also me : *was literally diagnosed as autistic*#though that might actually explain it #maybe I want to know more because of my 'collecting info' side #on top of wanting to be respectful #and curiosity

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homespork-review · 4 years

Text

Homespork Act 3: Insane Mindscrew Haymakers (Part 1)

BRIGHT: Before Act 3 proper starts, we see a message from Nanna to John, written in the front of the Sassacre’s joke book from Dad’s safe. The message is somewhat bizarre. For one thing, according to Nanna, the book it’s written in will end its journey on the day she dies...and still carry on for a while. For another, it talks about game elements we’ve encountered already, and hints at more to come. Overall it’s a nice bit of detail, enough to whet the reader’s interest.

You are no doubt reading this as a handsome and strapping young man! Why, the mangrit needed to lift the book is itself a sign of your maturity, not even to speak of the wisdom needed to grasp the nuance of Sassacre's time-tested mischief. I am so proud of you, grandson! How I wish I could have delivered this heirloom to you in the flesh. But I am afraid it wasn't in the cards! For you see, John, like you, this book must yet take a journey! Its journey will end on the Final Day of my life, and even then will continue some. Though I suppose that will be up to your Father. Perhaps he will discuss it with you one day, when he and you are ready. But it is your journey I am writing about to wish you luck! There will come a day when you will be thrust into another world. And once you arrive, that is only the beginning! You will soon delve even deeper into a realm of Warring Royalty in a Timeless Expanse. A realm of Agents and Exiles and Consorts and Kernelsprites. Of toiling Underlings and slumbering Denizens. A realm where four will gather, the Heir of Breath and Seer of Light, the Knight of Time and Witch of Space, and together they will Ascend. John, if only you knew how important you were! I regret my passing came so early in your life. And yet I feel in my heart we have already met. But what I know for sure is that we will meet again! Until then, John, I do hope your Father keeps you well fed!

FAILURE ARTIST: As I said earlier, Hussie has artfully defaced books, including one antique one about an expedition around the world. Defaced books show up again in this comic.

CHEL: Particularly, it implies that Nanna also had knowledge of the game during her lifetime, somehow, and refers to the gathering of four heroes. This is our first introduction to the classpect system, which now rivals Hogwarts houses as a method of personality description in fandom at large. I think at the time I didn’t realise who it was referring to… Anyway.

Next, we officially meet GG, the fourth and final member of our gang, a “silly girl” with a cheery grin, sleeping in a greenhouse full of vegetables and spirograph-shaped flowers. Since she’s sleeping and can’t object, she’s referred to for a while as FARMSTINK BUTTLASS, but she’s way ahead of us; under her hand is a note admonishing the reader and declaring her actual name to be Jade Harley. I think she’s the cutest of the kids, myself - just seeing her first appearance makes me happy! All its weaknesses aside, Homestuck’s pretty great at creating painfully cute character designs and attaching a good range of personalities to them.

FAILURE ARTIST: Jade Harley was considered a “Mary Sue” when she was first introduced. I don’t know why. Yeah, she has a lot of eccentricities and unusual possessions but so do the other characters.

Farmstink is a reference to an old comic Hussie did about this dude obsessed with the stink of farms. Hussie’s early work is really weird.

CHEL: The reader attempts to wake Jade by dropping a pumpkin carved with an animal’s face on her head, but the pumpkin disappears; as we know, WV now has it. Fortunately for the pacing, Jade wakes up on her own. Look closely, and you’ll notice the symbol on her shirt changes each page; that turns out a bit later to be due to her hi-tech WARDROBIFIER. If I recall correctly, Hussie intended to settle on one chosen by reader vote, but ended up on a cycle of three different ones.

FAILURE ARTIST: Jade settles on three icons to appear on her shirt. However, eventually just one icon stays on her shirt. The WARDROBIFIER doesn’t get much use with her, though a later character has the same thing.

CHEL: Jade is also wearing COLORFUL REMINDERS on her fingers, and when the view pans out it’s revealed by the view from the window that her GARDEN ATRIUM is on a high floor. She plays the flute badly for a while in a Flash game; apparently it’s not her preferred instrument. Also fortunately for the pacing, we think, she knows how to use her sylladex, and prefers to set its retrieval function in the form of a memory game because you seem to have a knack for always guessing right on the first try! On checking her reminders, she remembers to wish John happy birthday, gathers some fruit, and heads upstairs by means of a teleporter.

Jade’s bedroom proves to be full of various disturbing-looking plushies, albeit not nearly as disturbing as the Smuppets, hanging baskets and potted plants, a bass guitar, and G-rated furry artwork, including a piece obviously drawn by Dave. Franchises depicted in her toy and poster collections include GREEN SLIME GHOST (the apparent copyright-friendly source of John’s T-shirt and pogo ride), MANTHRO CHAPS (mustachioed human faces on plush animal bodies), and SQUIDDLES (adorable octopi with magnets in their bellies which stick together as Tangle Buddies!). Her favoured weapons are rifles, though she would never shoot an animal, and she has various gadgets on a worktable, including a thing that looks like a disconnected window not unlike those shown in Rose’s book, which she apparently hasn’t been able to get to work.

FAILURE ARTIST: Manthro Chaps is a reference to Hussie’s particularly disturbing set of comics where he plays around with anthropomorphization. Like having an anthro chicken man lay anthro eggs.

CHEL: The comic in question, Humanimals, can be found here; warnings for extreme body horror and general grossness.

FAILURE ARTIST: Jade is told by a forum prompter to Lose interest in fauna and never speak of it again. Jade refuses to in a beautiful little speech but she denies she’s a furry. Oh, if she only knew what was coming for her.

Jade looks out the window and we find out she lives somewhere next to a volcano.

CHEL: The very same one which appeared in the animation at the end of the last act, in fact.

Your grandfather is a WORLD RENOWNED EXPLORER-NATURALIST-TREASURE HUNTER-ARCHEOLOGIST-SCIENTIST-ADVENTURER-BIG GAME HUNTER-BILLIONAIRE EXTRAORDINAIRE. He has taught you everything you know.

Grandpa is heavily coded here and in his appearance a bit later as a Great White Hunter, an upper-class European guy who goes to faraway countries in order to shoot the animals there. Of course, non-white people can certainly do that, but white is what people will immediately picture upon seeing the trope. Also note we have another ridiculously wealthy family here. Since all four of the kids have now been introduced and we’ve had a lot of WSP points from their races and financial statuses already, here we get another HOW NOT TO point as well.

The Country Club Here every single character is white and middle-to-upper class. Unless your novel is taking place in rural Sweden, this will eventually give the reader the eerie feeling that some form of ethnic cleansing has taken place. HOW NOT TO WRITE A WEBCOMIC: 14 WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 7

One could argue that some form of ethnic cleansing is taking place, since these are the kids who are surviving the apocalypse, though that’s not actually fair because there are plenty of other SBurb sessions all across the world which might also succeed.

Jade opens her GADGET CHEST and produces several more items pertaining to her interests, including her computer, which she keeps in a Squiddles lunchbox. Several fortune-telling items are included among them, but according to Jade they are not the source of her abilities. The Magic 8-Ball is apparently usually wrong, responding to being asked whether it’s John’s birthday today with NOT EXACTLY, and the Magic Cue Ball is supposedly always right but is impossible to read, making it completely useless.

FAILURE ARTIST: There’s another Problem Sleuth reference (or rather Problem Sooth) but what’s important is the Magic Cue Ball. Unlike her Magic 8-Ball, it has no window where one can read the prediction. If only Jade had a special vision. Perhaps an eightfold vision.

Jade goes to feed BEC. She has some sylladex trouble until she finally just takes a steak out of her fridge.

CHEL: Once again, the sylladex shenanigans waste several pages.

GET ON WITH IT!: 9

Bec’s identity is as yet unknown, but recall that Dave called him a “devilbeast” in an earlier conversation, and when he suggested shooting Bec Jade said she didn’t think she could if she tried. He also apparently eats nothing but steaks (lucky Grandpa’s a billionaire), so Jade is living on an island with apparently minimal supervision from her guardian and an allegedly dangerous carnivore running wild outside. Like Dave, at this point it seems to be very lucky she’s a cartoon character.

FAILURE ARTIST: Using a special oven she irradiates the steak. Umm, I think Bec can take that but I worry about Jade.

Jade finds and plays her elaborate bass and she’s much better at it than with the flute. During the flash, the camera pulls out and we find out where she lives: in a tower on a small volcanic island with a frog temple in the lagoon. An airplane goes by and drops a package.

Jade uses her super high-tech “lunchtop” to have a conversation with John. Nothing special about that but we see on her chumroll a bunch of unfamiliar handles. Hmm.

CHEL: The unfamiliar handles are listed in the “Trollslum”, which one presumes is a blocklist. I think you have to see just how hi-tech the lunchtop is:

"Jade: Get down to business." (Watch on YouTube)

Hussie’s really coming into his own with the animations by now.

FAILURE ARTIST: Dave has sent her some messages begging her to wake up and unfortunately one line has the f-slur in it.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 7

In the end, he decides she’ll probably forget what he says.

CHEL: Begging her to wake up” doesn’t exactly cover it.

TG: youre asleep again arent you TG: or do you even know if you are TG: i still dont know how that works TG: its like nothing means anything

Apparently Jade sometimes talks to him while she’s sleeping.

FAILURE ARTIST: There’s a little flash where you can listen to some of Dave’s tunes. When you’re done with that, you can join her in looking at mspadventures.com. A crude John wearing a wizard hat is sitting on his lawn with the caption

It begins to dawn on you that everything you just did may have been a colossal waste of time.

What the hell is going on here? Is Jade reading what John is doing right now?

CHEL: I think it’s just a fourth wall joke, but it’s certainly accurate, considering our GET ON WITH IT count.

FAILURE ARTIST: Next, we get this flash called Midnight Crew: Act 1031. If you are watching it in 2019, the song playing is Dead Shuffle by Mark Hadley. However, the song was originally Nightlife by Bill Bolin. Unfortunately, Bolin had a dispute with Hussie over Hussie using music that Bolin considered WIP. Bolin blew up and called Hussie “unprofessional” and in a very professional move posted a photo of himself giving the double deuce. It’s a shame this happened since Nightlife is a jauntier and more appropriate tune.

CHEL: The Midnight Crew, to be specific, are gangsters with card-themed names who bear a striking resemblance to WV, living in a mysterious purple city full of towers, pitted against the Felt, another gang of odd-looking green fellows who wear bowler hats with numbers on them, in the colour schemes of a set of pool balls.

Hussie did make reference in the previous page to a “weird tangential intermission [which] clearly advanced the plot in no way whatsoever”, implying that it actually is relevant, and the purple city and its shiny black beady-eyed inhabitants look very familiar, but since as far as we know at this point the Midnight Crew is just a comic-within-a-comic, you know which counts get added to.

GET ON WITH IT!: 10 WHAT IS HAPPENING??: 2

Just for the record, the leader of the gang is named Spades Slick, and yes, we’re aware that “spade” is a slur against black people, which makes it slightly unfortunate to be applied as a name to a black-shelled alien creature. However, we’re not counting that as PROBLEMATYKKS because Hussie and the Crew’s original writer certainly did not intend that. It’s not that commonly used a term from what I’ve seen, the playing cards would be the more likely immediate association, and with the other characters being Clubs Deuce, Hearts Boxcars, and Diamonds Droog, it’s just an unfortunate coincidence. If he was a black human, then I’d object more strenuously.

FAILURE ARTIST: Jade talks with Dave (I think the conversation is a repeat?)

CHEL: Yep.

GET ON WITH IT!: 11

FAILURE ARTIST: Finally, we get the flash we’ve been waiting for: Dave strifes with his mysterious guardian. Or rather, he strifes with Lil Cal while Bro is a speed blur.

BRIGHT: Unlike the other strifes up to this point, the reader can’t do anything other than watch, because Bro slices the command box in half right at the start.

TIER: In the world of Homestuck, the parental units are overall just really weird! Like dad Egbert severe overabundance of cakes and mom Lalonde's drunken dysfunction. It's overall all hilarious, fitting with the tone and humor of the story well!

But then we have our lovely outlier. The one, the hated, The. Bro “a huge bastard honestly” Strider! A.K.A basically the one guardian whose questionable parenting gets the Real Consequences treatment later on in this tale. Peculiar that.

CHEL: Now, under most circumstances, an adult man beating the hell out of a barely-teenage kid, on the precarious rooftop of a high-rise building no less, would be horrifying. However, Bro chooses to hit Dave with his puppet, which… is frankly hard to take seriously. Obviously it would still hurt if a real person did that, but it looks so stupid that the immediate assumption is that it’s a joke.

BRIGHT: Particularly when earlier strife moves like Rose’s ‘Empty Suicide Threat’ were intended to be humorous. This is about on the same level as that, in terms of severity!

TIER: Being smacked around by the flopping noodle limbs of a freaky puppet is honestly hard to take seriously. Hell, this entire sequence is chock full of outlandish “Rule of Cool” bullshit and I am Peeved that I was apparently supposed to look at this sequence of ridiculous events and go “OBVIOUSLY THIS IS FUCKED UP AND ABUSIVE”.

ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?: 7

CHEL: I could kinda see that with hindsight from the rest of the comic, but definitely not “OBVIOUSLY THIS IS A LOT MORE FUCKED UP AND ABUSIVE THAN THE OTHER AWFUL FAMILY CIRCUMSTANCES”, which is what was apparently intended. And we also get another HOW NOT TO point, which we’ll give now even though the official “reveal” comes much later.

A Novel Called It - wherein an abusive parent exists Bad parents are everywhere in unpublished fiction. Whole cities of abusive fathers and sneering mothers live in the pages of books that can’t be sold. While occasionally, and notably in the horror genre, this sort of material can be made good (Carrie, V. C. Andrews), most cruel parents in fiction are just as much fun as they are in real life. HOW NOT TO WRITE A WEBCOMIC: 14

That damn puppet gets creepier every time, admittedly, more so now that Bro is moving so fast that the thing appears to be dancing on Dave’s head under its own power. Dave’s expressions look more annoyed than afraid or hurt, however, in my opinion.

FAILURE ARTIST: Anyway, we go back to Jade. Rose is pestering her.

TT: I require a font of frighteningly accurate yet infuriatingly nonspecific information. TT: Do you know where I can find a wellspring of this sort?

Very business-like, isn’t it? Rose and Jade’s relationship is a big missed opportunity in this comic. They’re more like friends-of-friends than friends.

CHEL: I don’t know, that sounds to me like how Rose talks to the boys too; facetiously formal. Still, they don’t converse nearly as much as the boys do with each other or them. Male writers in particular tend to do this, and it’s not entirely their faults. People are socialised to think women talk a lot more than they do, so he probably didn’t notice.

TIER: A real shame honestly, we were fucking robbed of some peak interactions between a sunshine flower child and a “dark and brooding” baby goth. Fucking. Robbed.

FAILURE ARTIST: We find out that Jade was the one who had the idea of playing Sburb. She had told Rose that the game would answer some of Rose’s unnamed questions. Rose wants more information on this Big Day. Jade says the game will not be what Rose thinks it is and will answer questions Rose hasn’t thought of yet. On that mysterious note, Jade says goodbye.

CHEL: We check in briefly with Rose in the present, confirming that she’s found the secret passage and is escaping the fire, bringing the corpse of her cat along with her, then to John, who is doing much worse. The ogres (the giant tusked imps) have cornered him, and while he flails frantically about with his Pogo Hammer it doesn’t do much good. They beat the snot out of him with the old Sassacre book and the tire swing, then send him flying into the abyss; fortunately, Nannasprite is able to catch him on his bed and provide healing, allowing him to flail uselessly at the ogres again and get beaten up again, ad infinitum.

Back in the desert, a giant worm-like creature emerges from PM’s bunker and chows down on the cart full of mailboxes. PM is displeased, and puts a hand on the hilt of an ornate black sword.

Cut back to the FAQ, which John has found time to edit with information about the punch card system. He doesn’t know if anyone is left alive to play the game, but Rose asked him to add to it, so he will. He’s figured out with his 133t h4x0r 5k1llz that the captcha code on the back of the cards is converted into a binary-based pattern on the cards, 0 being blank and 1 being a punched hole. Overlapping the cards functions like a bitwise AND operation, causing both to be enacted. The 48-hole card system allows for 300 trillion combinations, but John lampshades the fact that this couldn’t possibly cover every conceivable captchable item, and that various combinations of overlapping cards would just produce the same combination. This is just adding to my conviction that the system ought to be reworked; the totems alone would probably allow for a much wider range, if one gets down to the atomic level of their shape. Then again, those would be a lot harder to merge… Still, I’m sure there’s some way to work it.

BRIGHT: This section was kind of surprising to me because up to this point we haven’t had much if any description of John being into coding, so the section came out of left field somewhat. Not bad, necessarily, just jarring.

CHEL: Actually, he did mention in his intro that he likes to program, albeit not very well, he had some coding books on his shelves, and the icons on his computer are named in a way which implies they’re some of his attempts at coding. However, this interest never really comes up again later that I remember.

Meanwhile, the secret passage Rose followed led to her mother’s laboratory, which bears the logo “SN” with a stylised atom and a spirograph pattern in the loops of the S. It seems Mom Lalonde knows more than she’s letting on about the game. Inside the laboratory is an enormous HUBGRID of devices into which the laptop can be plugged.

FAILURE ARTIST: Rose uses that ol’ r-slur when she says she won’t go on the pad so that’s another point.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 8

CHEL: Jade uses the TRANSPORTALIZER to travel most of the way down to the ground floor, but not all the way down because the one on that floor is blocked. As she walks down the last couple of flights of stairs, we see Grandpa’s own collections of stuff; taxidermised animal heads, suits of armour, mummified corpses (made by pasting in photographs to the cartoon background, it’s creepy as hell), and his BLUE BEAUTIES, or the DAUGHTERS OF ECLECTICA; sun-bleached portrait photographs of beautiful women. On the final floor, we are confronted with the thing blocking the final portal; a gigantic preserved monster with a white head and green serpentine body. It took me till just now to figure it out but I think the white part is supposed to be a human torso on the snake tail; at first it just looked like a snake wearing a stocking mask. That’s what happens when the humans don’t have arms.

Jade thought she had logged off from Pesterchum, but suddenly it pings again, and here we are introduced to an entirely new section of the cast. We’re probably not spoiling anything by not being mysterious about them at this point in the fandom’s history, but just in case, we’ll stick to doing the reveals when the comic does. The person talking to Jade is one of the names from her TROLLSLUM, under the handle carcinoGeneticist; they gloat about being “BETTER AND SMARTER THAN YOU, FOREVER” when asked how they’re still contacting Jade after being blocked, and mock her about today being “FINALLY THE DAY YOU FUCK EVERYTHING UP”. Angry, Jade blocks them again.

FAILURE ARTIST: I had forgotten that “they” appeared so early.

CHEL: Well, “appear” is stretching it; the TROLLSLUM only make contact through Pesterchum for a while yet. And when they show up, we’ll have both plenty of skilfully-written points to pick out and plenty of counts to apply.

#Homespork #homestuck #literary critique #sporking #Let's read #let's read homestuck #homestuck let's read #homestuck review #homestuck meta #homestuck reread

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luupetitek · 5 years

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I did the thing! Lately a lot of artists post their 10 years of art progress meme, to celebrate that we're starting a new decade. I liked the idea, so I made my own \(*´▽`*)/ 10 years! Who could have thought! My art journey is of course longer, but those are probably my most intense art years x3

More about my art journey under the cut!

2006/2007 was the moment I discovered manga and anime and after joining the fandom, I started writing fanfics and slowly drawing more often. I was inspired by all the stories I could watch and read and by all those cool characters. I also get to know more people who also liked to draw. My first love was InuYasha, and right after was Death Note, which you can see even here ;) I joined my first art community, deviantART, in 2008. Thinking about making my own manga, but I've never drew any page, staying on the first stage of planning everything.

In 2010 I was still drawing. Drawing even more. All the time! Usually on my lessons :v As you can see, I drew mostly traditional, usually fast pencil sketches, or more fancy, inked and color pencil ones :v But that was the year I got my first graphic tablet! It was terrible, but I was happy I could finally draw digitally... with Paint x'DDD oh my good, yes. My first graphic program was window's PAINT. Still it was fun! But, as you can imagine, my works weren't too good quality (you can see them in the scraps, lol), and i didn't have many tools to work with. So I stayed with my fancy Faber-Castell Polychromos color pencils 😎 I was no longer writing fanfics. Nonetheless, I didnt stop writing at all, I started chat rpgs with my friend! Beginning with Death Note characters.

2011 was the year I started thinking about my art carrier even more seriously. Taking some private and class art lessons. Not for too long, but I was introduced to other art styles, mostly realism. Still practising digital art and my own art style too. I also started doing commissions this year!

2012 I changed my high school for a school with an art class :D I also started taking some private lessons from a skilled artist, who could teach me not only traditional, but also digital art and liked manga too. I think that's the year I made my biggest and probably mostly visible art progress. I was drawing ALL THE TIME. I was no longer using Paint, but Paint ToolSAI and then Photoshop. I got a Wacom Bamboo tablet (which I still have and use up to this days). But what's even more important: I was not only drawing, but also observing. I was looking at photos, at people around me. Noticing how their bodies move, how do they look like, how their body parts and their clothes look like. Drawing from references and from the world around me, sitting in a subway and drawing people sitting next to me. I was learning the anatomy, shapes, gestures, shading. I LOOOOOVED sketching and making full pencil pictures! And still, even though I don't draw traditionally anymore, sketching is my most favourite part form the whole drawing process cx Oh! And that's the year I started to play on a rpg forum with a ttly original story and when Drill was made! ♥ My first true original character, that I'm proud of and that I still love~

2013 was busy with my preparations to get to the art university! I still drew a lot, mostly the rpg characters and some practice sketches, but now also big format pencil and paint pictures for my portfolio. I felt in love with aquarelles 😍 and was practising them together with pencil sketches and digital art. I also did my first, short animations : > And did a project with the whole movie clip for the Disney's song "I'll make a man out of you"! I had a lot of fun AND I GOT ACCEPTED INTO MY DREAM COLLAGE!!! ＼(≧▽≦)／ Like, seriously, it was my goal since my middle school, when I first saw their ad in a subway, lol

2014 More art! More digital! More aquarelles! More OCs! Generally the only thing I was drawing that time was rpg characters and uni projects xD Started experimenting more, connecting traditional art with digital art

2015 Same, just drawing those OC's in many ways and having fun~ RPing a lot and... OH! Is that? Yes it IS! It's RAVENIA! It's the year when Vasdorl was born ٩(♡ε♡)۶And my love for drow ofc!! I was introduced to DnD and fantasy and there was no going back from that path. I joined the drow community on tumblr and discord to meet more people with the same interests.

2016 IT'S RAVENIA!!!!! And the real start of the drow era! That's also the year when "Vicous Vasdorl" comic started! And when I began working on my BIG "Escaping the Underdark" game project, as my final uni project ♥ I came back to doing commissions and developed my comic "simple style"

2017 More drow! More Ravenia! More Vasdorl! And of course MORE OF MY GAME, that was taking most of my time as I already was too late with it. It was such a big project for just a one person and I had to take a one more semester to work on it. Drawing all days and all nights. Generally I was just waking up, working and going to sleep and that was my life back then. That was also the moment I learned how to do good digital sketches, as I was drawing A LOT. Especially while working on my animations. (Drawing them traditionally just to remake them digitally was too much time-consuming. So I completely stopped doing it. I was abandoning my pencil, and replacing it fully with tablet pen). AND I DID IT!!! I graduated with the highest grade possible and I finished my game! \(^ヮ^)/ I started doing plushies and chibis and went more into doing commissions.

What about those last 2018 and 2019 years? I guess you know them well. I had more problems so I stopped doing my comic and focused on doing commissions. Doing commissions and from time to time drawing our dear Ravenia characters but I didn't stop in my journey here. Working on comms was a perfect way to experiment more and go out of my comfort zone! Drawing many different things, many different characters and of course backgrounds! Which I always hated doing and now I don't have anything against. Experimenting with light and perspective. Mastering my skills and my anatomy knowledge. Making art trades and gifts. Having fun with you on streams x> Just trying to push myself a little bit more foreword and learn something new with every picture~

Woha, that's a really long description xD' But for the TLDR people: It was a long journey! But I'm very proud of it! Starting from manga and anime, with traditional works and doing mostly fanarts. And slowly going to digital fantasy, not using any traditional techniques anymore, to draw my and my friend's OCs. I spent most of my life on making art, 12 years on deviantArt, 5 years on being here and sharing it with you and 10 years on learning as much as I can. Still learning and trying to improve even more!

Thank you for being with me through that time ( ˘⌣˘)♡(˘⌣˘ ) And hopefully we will be able to continue it through the next 10 years! Let's see what the future holds ;) ____________________________________ You can find me on: (@Luupetitek) Deviantart | ArtStation | Mixer | Ko-Fi donations

#meme #luupetitek #10 years art progress #progress #improvement #2019 #art #artist #story #info #progressmeme

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nicomoviewatchinpsychopath · 5 years

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Sonic the Hedgehog Movie Review

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG: VIDEO GAME BASED MOVIE IS FORMULAIC BUT OFFERS PLENTY OF FAST-PACED FUN FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY AS WELL AS LONGTIME FANS!

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: *** out of 4

The world’s fastest hedgehog hits the big screen in Sonic the Hedgehog

PARAMOUNT PICTURES AND SEGA

The blue blur (or Blue Devil as the movie calls him) makes his big screen debut in Sonic the Hedgehog, based on the beloved Sega video game franchise of the same name. Believe it or not out of all the video game franchises, my favorite is and always will be Sonic the Hedgehog and have been a proud supporter of the hedgehog since childhood.

Granted, it wasn’t until after Sega became a third-party developer for consoles like PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo when I became a fan of the blue hedgehog, but ever since I got my hands on the Nintendo GameCube port of Sonic Adventure 2 as a kid, my Sonic fandom was pretty much instant. I’ve played many of the video games both old and new, watched all the cartoons, read the comic books published by Archie Comics at the time, and I owned several action figures, plushies, and other Sonic merchandise throughout my childhood…in fact I still have most of those even to this day.

I’ve been clamoring for a Sonic the Hedgehog theatrical movie for years despite video game film adaptations usually being critical and/or box-office poison. But given the popularity of Sonic especially during the 90s when he was rivaling Nintendo’s Mario franchise who already had a theatrical film released in 1993, I’d assume one would have been made back then or at the very least in the early-late 2000s when Sonic Adventure DX: Director’s Cut, Sonic Adventure 2 Battle, and Sonic Heroes as well as the hit Saturday morning anime series, Sonic X were released, I was so eager for a Sonic movie that a couple of friends and I got together and made movies of our own when we were kids (They sucked BTW!).

After years of waiting and Sonic making a few big screen appearances prior in Disney’s Wreck-It Ralph movies and Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One, the beloved hedgehog finally gets a movie of his own which leads us to today. The film is directed by newcomer Jeff Fowler in his directorial debut, produced by Neal H. Moritz (Fast & Furious franchise, XXX, 21/22 Jump Street), and executive produced by Tim Miller (Deadpool, Terminator: Dark Fate) and is a live-action/animated hybrid (Yep, just like Alvin and the Chipmunks and The Smurfs), which had me very worried when it was announced back in 2014 and was even more worried and disgusted when the first trailer came out last year which had an absolutely atrocious design for Sonic, fortunately they fixed it.

So, how does Sonic’s first movie hold up? Honestly, while I can’t call it the Sonic movie I wanted as a child, I had a fun time with it. It isn’t a perfect representation of its source material and the plot is pretty generic, but the charm of the film’s leads, humor, and subtle references to the games that inspired it are enough for me to overlook that flaw.

The film follows Sonic (voiced by Ben Schwartz-Parks and Recreation, The Other Guys, The Walk), blue anthropomorphic talking hedgehog from another dimension with extraordinary speed who travels to Earth to escape from those who want to capture him and harness his power. However, when he accidentally causes a power outage while hiding out in the town of Green Hills (Get it?), Sonic is targeted by the government and the tyrannical mad scientist, Dr. Robotnik (Jim Carrey-Ace Ventura 1 and 2, The Mask, The Truman Show) who plots to use Sonic’s power for world domination.

This forces Sonic to team up with Green Hills sheriff, Tom Wachowski (James Marsden-X-Men franchise, Enchanted, Westworld) who agrees to help Sonic on his adventure to find his missing bag of magical rings that have the power to get him home. Of course, while getting into all sorts of trouble along the way. The film also stars Tika Sumpter (Ride Along 1 and 2, Get On Up, Southside with You) as Tom’s wife Maddie, Adam Pally (Happy Endings, The Mindy Project, Iron Man 3) as Wade Whipple, and Neal McDonough (Star Trek: First Contact, Band of Brothers, Justified) as Major Bennington.

Overall, Sonic the Hedgehog probably isn’t the movie longtime fans wanted, but it still manages to be an entertaining and fun adaptation in its own right. It’s easily one of the best films based on a video game alongside Pokémon: Detective Pikachu and The Angry Birds Movie 2 and shows that we’ve come a long way since the dark days of Uwe Boll’s directing career.

As mentioned before, the plot is nothing special and rehashed from other kids’ movies however what sets this apart from things like The Smurfs or Masters of the Universe is that Sonic and Tom do have a strong chemistry together. It’s amusing to see them interact with each other on their road trip, cracking jokes, getting into trouble, and over the course of the film they learn more about one another thus making you care more for them over ANY Smurf or Chipmunk.

While there are a few jokes that don’t quite stick the landing, the humor for the most part not only made me laugh but there were moments in this movie where I laughed hard. Whether the film was poking fun at the entire Sonicfranchise, a particular running sequence that’s obviously a reference to the Quicksilver scenes from the X-Men movies, or Sonic breaking the fourth wall similar to Deadpool, I was laughing while also admiring how clever some of these jokes are, and let’s not forget Jim Carrey as Dr. Robotnik, but we’ll get to him momentarily.

The redesigned Sonic is a lot better than what we could have gotten, he doesn’t have those ugly small eyes, questionable muscular arms and legs, or the terrifying human teeth anymore. Now, his appearance is more faithful to the source material recreating the hedgehog’s cartoony nature but is different enough to stand out from the rest of the character’s previous designs and be its own unique creation, this is a really good design for Sonic and had the filmmakers went with their original version, this movie would have crashed and burned even harder than Sonic ’06.

Besides Sonic being more appealing to look at now, he’s also just as entertaining to listen to, Ben Schwartz while he’s far from being a replacement for Roger Craig Smith, Ryan Drummond, Jason Griffith, or even Jaleel White, does a solid job providing Sonic’s voice and captures the cocky, arrogant, but good-natured attitude Sonic is known for having. He actually almost sounds like Ryan Drummond’s Sonic voice without sounding like a cheap impersonation. Moving on to Sonic’s new friend that doesn’t have two tails, James Marsden as Tom, his performance is decent even though he doesn’t quite make as big an impression as Ben Schwartz’ Sonic and especially Jim Carrey’s Dr. Robotnik. With that said, he gets some funny lines once in a while and as mentioned before has good chemistry with Sonic, so yeah, believe it or not James Marsden was partnered up with another CG animated character and this time came out with his dignity unlike his performance in Hop.

Jim Carrey as Dr. Robotnik owns every scene that he’s in, he’s no Mike Pollock and is a radically different Robotnik than from the games, but Carrey’s energetic and wildly animated personality shines through and gives a million percent whenever the crazy evil genius is on-screen. He’s certainly a lot better than Dennis Hopper as Koopa from the Super Mario Bros. movie.

Hopefully, this movie will be a hit during its theatrical run because I’d love to see a sequel especially if it introduced other Sonic characters like Tails, Knuckles, or even Shadow. Don’t make this like the recent Power Rangers movie, I need my big screen version of those characters!

Whether a fan, newcomer, or just looking for something fun to take the kids to, Sonic the Hedgehog should make everyone happy. It’s not perfect but it has enough action, wit, and charm to make it worth checking out. You’ll be “Up, Over, and Gone” before you know it.

For more movie reviews please visit: https://moviewatchinpsychopath.blogspot.com

#sonic the hedgehog #sonic the hedgehog movie #sonic #jeff fowler #ben schwartz #james marsden #jim carrey #sega #paramount #paramount pictures #neal h. moritz #tim miller #original film

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flyswhumpcenter · 5 years

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Bad Things Happen Bingo! The event where you send me requests according to this marvelous card! (Red cross is the completed prompt, character headshots are prompts I’ve already filled. Green deltas are for requested prompts.)

I'll fix what's broken.

I'm not even sorry for writing this much Inazuma. I love Inazuma. I need to catch up all the years I haven't written content for it.

Also, yes, this ship? I ship it. It has a lot of my soft spots combined into one neat little burrito I immediately fell for it. I wish Akane was better written than what the anime gave us, sure, but it won't prevent me from imagining things and rely on a lot of personal interpretations. Thus this fanfic, which was supposed to be much grittier and edgier and stuff, with more focus on Akane being a more cunning spirit than she lets on, with a ton of regret and an insistence on the theme of fixing and patching things out.

You know what my mind told me instead? "ngh... soft..."

So instead, we all get fluff. I'll see if I can't fit the original idea somewhere, I still have 600-ish words written for it. I restarted this fic like 4 times before finally sticking with this version lol

but like see you soon for more angst on the flygon channel

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Dawn of a New Day

Summary: Akane watches over a dear friend.

Fandom: Inazuma Eleven (Ares/Orion continuity; post-canon) Ship: Akane/Haizaki (pre-rel, implied, can be read as platonic)

Wordcount: 1.5K words

Event hosted by @badthingshappenbingo

AO3 version available here.

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It’s not so bad, it’s going to be fine, Akane repeats in her mind. It’s not so bad, it’s going to be all fine.

Easier thought than applied, sure. The rational part of herself knows it’s not bad: people just happen to need surgeries, sometimes, and this one wasn’t anything bad. The surgeons looked fairly relaxed about it, the nurses told her it’d be fine, that it was nothing to get this worked up about. Yet, even knowing this, she was still worried: it was still a surgery, it wasn’t just like getting a flu shot.

Still, in her heart, not getting worried is impossible. She cares about her friend too much not to be scared he won’t open his eyes again, stolen away from the world by a malevolent spirit. They’re too young to go to sleep forever, she figures, and she squeezes his fingers inside of her palm with even more strength now.

It’s funny, when she thinks about. Ryouhei has gone through so much, much more than her in fact, having fought against an enemy much bigger than he was, having faced adversaries coming from the entire world and helped save its order with strong teammates; and yet, she’s worried he won’t ever wake up from a surgery a lot of people have gone through just fine. It’s irrational, paradoxical in a way, but the feeling won’t go away, and she still has a vulnerable picture of her best friend right before her eyes.

A nurse occasionally shows up to tell her she should be moving around and not stay on that chair, that it’ll be all well and good. Akane doesn’t bulge: she’s determined to be there for him as much as possible and, frankly, she doesn’t feel like she needs to go for a walk, she’s over that. Patience is the one thing she’s always had that she can put towards anything she wants and that’s a liberty she won’t give away for anything. She’s determined to stay here, this much is sure.

She appreciates the attention and recognizes some of the nurses passing by. She sometimes chats with them, they reassure her, she observes them do a few things here and there: changing an IV bag, updating vitals on their notepads, taking temperatures and pulses. She doesn’t say anything about that, lets them to their job: she’ll have to pay them back too, someday, but they’re less close to her than Ryouhei is, so she thinks of them as secondary thanks. She’ll give them flowers in the near future, she swears, because they often compliment those she brought to put in the vase of the room.

His room isn’t unlike the one she had to stay in, except it’s meant for two and the other patient isn’t here anymore. She’s seen him leave when arriving with the bouquet and a rare plushie she’s grinded at the claw machine for, packing his things away and slipping a “have a nice day” at her before disappearing forever from her sight. It leaves her alone with the passing nurses and her friend, whose hand she holds even if she starts having a cramp from having her fingers in the same position for so long, watching the time go buy on a clock, looking at the sky through the window, glancing at him and smiling to herself about how peaceful he looks like this, both eyes visible.

It’s a rare sight of tranquillity, now that the things that caused them turmoil are over. He deserves this rest from the world.

She has lost track of time passing, more focused on staring at his chest rising and downing softly, slowly under the covers. It’s an innocuous detail nobody pays attention to, usually, yet she can’t help but find it soothing to watch now. It has a different meaning, here, giving this attention more sense. It’s a vision of serenity, of calm after a violent storm. It’s a gentle warmth she welcomes.

To be honest, Akane spent so long merely watching the window with an empty soul and eyes staring into the void that she doesn’t mind finally spending time for something dear to her, hitting home. This is an unconventional way to spend time with a childhood friend, sure, but this she also can’t mind: in a way, it’s like Ryouhei felt, watching over someone and never getting an answer. The main difference is that she was certain he’d wake up sooner or later, even if she nourished all those irrational worries, when he never knew when she’d do so, if she’d even wake up someday. She’s glad and relieved to be able to say she’s won over her previous ailment and is currently making up for all the time and the lies.

Her eyes flutter, tired. She finally glances at a clock: it’s already fairly late in the evening, nearing the very early morning. Visiting hours are closed, but she’s been allowed to remain: perhaps her already existing links with the nursing staff allowed her to do that. She’s going to fall asleep soon, even if she doesn’t want to, starting to lack in energy. Ah, that’s a shame… She’d have at least liked to be there when he’d wake up. Not that he’d need her to remember why he’s here, simply because she wants to be the first to say him hello in the morning.

She should have drunk coffee before getting here, but she doesn’t feel like getting up and fetching a can downstairs. What if he wakes up while she’s gone? She doesn’t want that, does she? She’ll remain by his side, now, so she can finally be truly forgiven and make up for her mistakes, clutching the plushie close to her chest.

She still ends up falling asleep, eventually, slowly dragged into Morpheus’s arms. Her dream is nothing out of the ordinary: it’s abstract and colourful, as she walks around a beautiful garden with fountains made out of crystal shimmering under the summer sunlight. She always feels like she’s been here before, but never knows why, the reason remaining in the shadows of the nearby forest she used to be trapped in. It’s peaceful and calm, gentle like the breeze going through her untied hair.

She follows a golden path, the breeze still blowing through the meadow, flowers slowly dancing to it as they perfume the air. The prize waiting for her at the end of the path always changes and, this time, it’s a familiar pair of eyes she carelessly runs towards.

It’s already shining outside when Akane finally comes to, eyelids fluttering back open, the discomfort of sleeping in a chair making itself known in the background. The first changes she notices are on her: she now has a jacket on her shoulders, whose scent has never been hers, and there’s a cushion in her back. Someone’s undoubtedly been there while she was out. It’s a given, considering this is a hospital.

She hasn’t moved much in her sleep, she realizes, considering her hand is still in the same place as it was before she fell asleep. She doesn’t dare move it as she otherwise stirs to further wake up, immediately greeted by a familiar voice.

“Tch, don’t tell me you’ve been here all night…”

It’s groggy and obviously tired, most likely still tinted with some anaesthetics. It’s accompanied by a smirk on his face, eyes half-closed.

“Good morning, Ryouhei,” she replies with a smile, noticing her own voice to still sound tired and not entirely awaken yet. Maybe he’s only woken up recently too.

Despite his hostile words, which lack the bite he tried to put into them, he puffs, “good morning, Akane.”

She takes his hand in hers, trying to shake away the lethargy she feels in one of them.

“Go to bed, you look like crap,” he tells her again, but his fingers trying to hold hers betray him.

“I’m happy to see you’ve not changed while I was asleep.”

“Tch, like I even would… That’s just a tiny operation…”

To her slight surprise, Ryouhei loses his smirk.

“Wait… You did stay here all night, did you?”

“I did! It was the least I could do after you’ve watched over me for so long!”

He tries to shove his head in his hand, but the way he’s positioned makes it funny to watch.

“I told you that it was fine… You didn’t need to do that, geez… ”

“Maybe I didn’t need to, but I really wanted to…”

The hint of red she sees on his face makes her swoon on the inside, like she’s getting tickled under her skin. A weird, yet not uncomfortable feeling.

They shortly fall into silence, neither of them speaking, as she watches the sun rise from the window, peeking through the curtains. The dawn is beautiful.

“…thank you, Akane,” she hears getting mumbled by a boy looking the other way.

“It’s nothing,” she replies, hands closing in on his.

It tastes like childhood again.

#inazuma eleven #inazuma eleven ares no tenbin #haiaka #miyano akane #haizaki ryouhei #caretaking #comfort no hurt #fluff #bedside vigil #soft #hospitalization #otp: revenge with the face of a teddy bear

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jjpmoans · 6 years

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50 Questions Tag

Tagged by @prettywordsyouleft and @itsallabigmess bcs these two unnies really love me

1. What takes too much of your time?

Social media (yes that includes tumblr)

2. What makes your day better?

These days, Jinyoung. Lol okay so I am a very talkative one. So yeah, talking to someone will immediately makes me feel less stressful.

3. What’s the best thing that happened to you today?

Just now @itsallabigmess made an exception for me to write a GOT7 fic asdfghjkl I FEEL A LITTLE TOO OVER HAPPY

4. What fictional place would you like to go to?

I think almost all my friend would have guess this. Hogwarts. Because the food there seems to be endless and really, I’d love to try eating both drumsticks in my hand and I want to put an incantation to whoever tries to hold me from eating.

5. Are you good at giving advice?

Well, I think I am. Judging from how my whole family turned to me when they wanted to share their problems. Also when I gave advises, I always stresses this one thing “Listen to understand, don’t listen to reply” and that implies to me too. And honestly, I listen too much and sometimes when people just don’t want to change, I feel really annoyed BECAUSE WHAT IS THE POINT YOU WANTED MY ADVISE???? Okay I think I’m good. hahahhahhaha

6. Do you have any mental illness?

Horny 24/7 is that a mental illness? lmao no I’m not that bad but I think I need to get married. NOW.

7. Have you ever experienced sleep paralysis?

Not yet. In my country, people describe sleep paralysis as you got crushed by some spirit (ghost to be exact) and yes it is scary and I hope I would never experience it.

8. What musician inspired you the most?

I’ve been thinking a lot and though I really want to say GOT7, I’d say EXO. Partly because I was there since early times, but also, the amount of success and loyalties they have received are really unbelievable. The secret of EXO’s and BTS’s popularity which leads them to win daesang in every award is their fans. And I really hope ahgase can be like them. I’d be lying if I say our fandom is really hardworking when it comes to award season. I’ve seen my friend bullshitting EXO and BTS bcs whenever any of them is nominated in the same award of GOT7, automatically, GOT7 will lose. And no joke, army and exol are really monsters during award season. And I hope us ahgase can be like that too. I know got7 said they didn’t mind but Jinyoung once said that he want to know how those groups can win daesang easily and he thought got7 need to work harder. smh I’m emo. sorry this got longer than it should.

9. Have you ever fallen in love?

I do. Hahahahhahaha yes I do.

10. What’s your dream date?

Well for me, just talking with each other is a date. I love to know small details because when I love someone, I just want to know everything about him. But okay a dream date? Amusement park. Yes you need to know which ride makes me scream like a girl and which makes me scream like a mad woman.

11. What do others notice about you?

I’m very talkative (that really shows lol). And I don’t know how to refuse when someone ask for a help or anything. I always tell myself to treat people the way I want to be treated.

And they said I’m too nice. Yeah I figured that too hahahahhaa

12. What is an annoying habit you have?

Refuse to listen when I’m angry. I feel annoyed because I know I’m wrong but I’m angry but I don’t want to hurt people. So I’ll say “Sorry, I’m very angry now but I know I’m wrong. Just, I’ll be okay later so we’ll talk later”

13. Do you still talk to your first love?

Yes and no. Our last conversation was he wanted to meet me. But ever since then, no other conversation.

14. How many ex’s do you have?

Can’t relate lol

15. How many songs are in your playlist?

Here’s the thing. I have a lot of playlists. Phone playlist, laptop playlist, joox playlist and youtube playlist. So I don’t know how many of them.

16. What instruments can you play?

Non existent.

17. Who do you have the most pictures of?

My phone? Now? Jinyoung smh this is all Tumblr’s fault lol.

18. Where would you like to go before you die?

Mecca. I’d like to die there if I can.

19. What is your zodiac?

Virgo. And please, someone, please help me calculate whatever thing it was (sun sign, moon sign and all) I never knew those things and it irks me when I don’t know it hahahahhaaa

20. Do you relate to it?

Well I did some research here, Virgo firstly is a virgin and yes I am. It says that virgo is very supportive of people in their lives and even strangers, that is me. I’m a critical thinker bcs I personally hate when something goes wrong. but lol hardworking, artists and remembers everything? Not even close. I’m a lazy ass, I draw a cow but it turned into a pig and I am hopeless with my memory.

But one Virgo thing about me, yes I am an overthinker hahahahhaa

21. What is happiness to you?

When my family reunited.

22. Are you going through anything right now?

Family problem. Mom just got heart attack, dad married another woman, brother on crisis with mom, sister just stabbed my back, aunt made everything worse. It’s been three months into 2019, every week, another family problem popped up. But we are trying, I tried to fix everything, another role which the smallest child has to take upon responsibility but I’m fine. Just, tiring.

23. What’s the worst decision you’ve ever made?

applied for the wrong scholarship and wasted an opportunity to fly to New Zealand for study.

24. What’s your favourite store?

Food stores. Any of them. ARE MY FAVOURITE ahhahahhaha

25. What’s your opinion on abortion?

Because I’m a muslim, I am against abortion. Here, in my country, abortion is done because it was done out of wedlock and they feel embarrassed. So, it irks me bcs if you can think to have sex, you can’t think that there is possibilities that you can get pregnant? And to kill your child bcs you wanted to cover it, is unacceptable. But again, it is personal choice.

26. Do you keep a bucket list?

I have a few but not enough to be a bucket.

27. Do you have a favourite album?

Honestly, if favourite means I have listened to all songs in that album, it’s EXO The War album.

28. What do you want for your birthday?

A freaking big plushie. I love to hug big plushies. But no one ever wanted to give me that for my birthday. And now, I’ve been searching for a big squirtle plushie or snorlax plushie (yes jackson and jaebum)

29. What are most people’s first impression of you?

okay this one lol they said I look scary and they thought I’d be the grumpy one. Well, if you meet me when I’m hungry, I have the tendency to be one.

30. What age do you seem according to most people?

I don’t know anymore. An aunt asked me “Are you the one who got married?” when it was my sister smh

31. Where do you keep your phone while you’re sleeping?

next to my pillow bcs I need to charge it.

32. what word do you say the most?

me? I say “shit” a lot lol

33. What’s the oldest age you would date?

well I would say I definitely date anyone as long as they are not the same age with my dad.

34. What’s the youngest age you would date?

idk I never thought on dating a younger one. But if I do, maybe 4 years younger bcs damn, if I make it 10 years, my date would be 12 when me here is 22.

35. What job/career do most people say would suit you?

something which requires me to talk a lot.

36. What’s your favourite music genre?

K-Pop.

37. If you could live in any country in the world, where would it be?

South Korea. New Zealand. Anywhere but Malaysia lol.

38. What is your current favourite song?

Say you won’t let go - James Arthur

39. How long have you had this blog for?

I had this blog for a few years. But just becoming active just recently hmm I don’t know the exact date. But I know it started after I interacted with @prettywordsyouleft

40. What are you excited for?

Food. and sponsored vacation

41. Are you a better talker or listener?

A better talker. but also a pretty good listener

42. What is the last productive thing you did?

Last sunday, i climbed a 200m hill to get to the view point. It got me panting like a dying cow.

43. What do you want for Christmas?

While I don’t celebrate Christmas, I welcome gifts. Any gifts would be fine lol (make sure its food)

44. What class do you get the best grades in?

High school? Chemistry. College? Mathematic. Now? Nothing hahahahaha

45. On a scale of 1-10, how are you feeling right now?

5 and exhausted but tomorrow? 10 BECAUSE A JINYOUNG IS COMING

46. What can you see yourself doing in 10 years?

10 years I just hope that I am already working and saving money to go on vacations and can sponsor my family on vacations too.

47. When did you first get your heartbreak?

2009 when I discovered that dad has another wife. I was 12 and just got my exam result but dad wasn’t there. He was never present for any of my achievements in school. Turns out he has another child the same age as me and he puts her before me. Since I was born, I was always put second.

2011 when I liked a guy but he hated me awh teenagers. He said I’m too fat and how dare a fat girl like me tries to like him? He was my first love.

48. At what age do you want to get married?

When I am ready. I have a dream wedding, so I would work hard for it to happen.

49. What career did you want to have as a child?

Idk I always change it lol today i’ll say teacher and next day I’ll say ballerina. Yes I spent my whole school life giving different careers when teachers asked me.

50. What do you crave right now?

Food bcs I’m on diet and hell those food porns are getting on my nerves.

Phew it was a good time answering all these questions and it drains my energy lol. So for this, hmm I don’t know who to tag. But i’ll go with this one @sevenpeaches @riceeater22 @tuanyiems @kpopchangedme @kpopstories @starhibiki @ongsung @sehunsmybae (yes I always saw you) and everyone who want to do this! of course, you are not forced to do this

#jinyoungmoans join tagging game

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ariahearthockey · 5 years

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Love Me, If You Will - Chapter 3

Prologue | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2

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Fandom: Men’s Hockey RPF

Pairing: Sidney Crosby/Evgeni Malkin

Tags: 2017 NHL Playoffs, Concussion, Memory Loss, Medical Inaccuracies, Unexplained Medical Conditions, Alternate Reality, Time Travel (sort of), Pining, Fluff, Porn With Feelings, Happy Ending (sort of)

Soundtrack: Dancing On My Own - Calum Scott

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Chapter 3

He feels odd walking down the familiar hallway towards the locker room in the PPG Paint Arena. Everything looks as it should be and yet, it feels somewhat difference. He has just finished a brief chat with Sully in his office, relaying the good news after his follow-up check-up with the team doctor. As expected, Dr Vyas has cleared him to play in game five but not before he is reminded to keep a look out for any more symptoms. He has decided not to enclose his issue with his messed-up memory, and it is arguably the most conflicted he has ever felt. It feels a lot like a betrayal of trust to the management, but with the playoff on the line, too much is at risk.

On the drive from their house to the rink, he has some time to think about the matter on hand and he has decided not to let anyone know other than himself and Geno. He is still shaken about it for sure, but years of practice has allowed him to compartmentalise his fear and do what needs to be done. And what he needs is for this to not interfere with his chance to go for the Stanley Cup with his team.

It took him more than half an hour in the staffs' parking lot to convince Geno. Geno has looked so offended when he has first suggested to keep it a secret. Geno was absolutely appalled and almost recruited Brisson to talk some sense into him until he begs Geno not to. He talked to Geno with as much sincerity as he could muster, reasoning with Geno that there would not be a quick fix to his condition. What if Dr. Vyas decided to pull him out for the rest of the playoff? What good will that do to the team?

And Geno had been so angry that he said to hell with the playoff because everything else pales in comparison to Sidney's health. Sidney would have been really touched by that, that Geno is genuinely scared for his sake. If only he wasn't a selfish bastard.

He pried further into Geno's weakness and used it to his advantage. He pleaded Geno to understand his desire to keep playing, telling him how much it would mean for him if he could raise the cup over his head again, how happy it would make him if they could kiss the cup again and bring it home together. And that if his memory never comes back, then at least he could have this, and they could build new ones together. It was a cheap shot, borderline manipulative to be taking advantage of Geno's kindness like that, but he was desperate, and it did get him what he wanted. Geno's reluctance was torn down bits by bits, and finally crumbled down when Sidney promised to come clean right away when he feels any worse.

So, as of right now, the secret is safe.

In a moment of honesty, he is willing to admit that he has never been as shaken as he has. He is somehow thrust in the center on an entirely different life that he knows nothing of. He has a husband and a beautiful, doting 3-year old daughter. Sofya, the child who is rightfully theirs through surrogacy. He is still not done digesting the fact that his own sister has volunteered to donate her egg and carry the child to term. It feels all too weird at first, but when he sees the picture of his—their daughter—on Geno's phone, he has never been more thankful. Dressed in tiny hockey gears, bright smile on her face, and clutching a giant penguin plushie in her tiny arms, she is just a ball of sunshine that makes him want to weep. A little bit of Geno and a little bit of him, she is just the perfect little miracle that melts his heart through and through.

And then he wonders to himself, how could I have forgotten my own child, as sweet and as beautiful as her? And all that has accomplished is making him dispose of any doubt he has for keeping his condition under wraps. This whole thing about not remembering is messing with him quite a lot. He can't seem to shake off the gnawing feelings his guts. It grows stronger with more stones being turned, and he can't ignore that something is disproportionately wrong with him. He thinks that it is his body trying to tell him something, that maybe his time as a hockey player is dated. That thought leaves him petrified and that further pushes him to make the most out of whatever time he still has.

He doesn't know what to expect when he pushes the door into the locker room. It smells just as it should be right after every practice session and just as loud too, maybe even louder. The picture of twenty over something men in all states of undress is a comfortable norm to him and for brief moment, he feels at home for the first time since he woke up. He doesn't know why but he comes in, prepared to feel somewhat out of place, but the warm greetings and lame chirps from his teammates give him a sense of familiarity he didn't know he craves until now. It calms him.

Geno is already out of his gear—thankfully with his undershirt still on—when he makes a beeline over to Sidney. He ducks down to give Sidney a chaste kiss on the mouth and hears some of the guys in the room hollering at them to get a room or something along that line and Geno chirping back. He doesn't know what to make of that little display of affection, nor he has the time to, because his mind is still reeling with it as he is being escorted back to Geno's stall. It isn't much, just a brief touching of lips on lips but it is enough to keep him stunned for a bit. The guys don't seem to bat an eye to see their captain and their alternate kiss, which tells him that it may be something of a frequent occurance.

Oh, yes. Of course it does. He just remembered that he and Geno have been married for five fucking years. They are practically one of the old married couples now.

"Sid, talk with Sully okay?" Geno asks and he almost can't hear it when the younger guys throw a couple more dirty chirps their way that comprises of their sex life. Sidney blushes and nods at Geno as a respond before they are once again interrupted, this time by Cully who comes by and gives his back a couple of friendly pats.

"Hey, babe. Good to have you back in one piece. You scared the hell out of a lot of us when you stayed down on the ice, especially your protective Russian bear over here."

"It's true, I can attest to that." Chimes Phil who looks like he has just came out of the shower judging by how his hair matted on his forehead. "You know, this guy here looked about to hurl when you went down and it took three of us to physically stop him from going over to make Niskanen pay."

Sidney chuckles when Geno grumbles disapprovingly at the two babble mouths and to his surprise, he finds Grumpy Geno kind of adorable. "Well, it's really just bad luck that he got me that way. It's just how it is, right? I don't think it was on purpose or anything. It's just ill-timed, is all. I think he left me several texts, probably apologising, but I haven't check them out yet, so."

"Ill-timed my ass! More like perfectly timed to me, man. If he hits any harder, who knows if it's gonna end it for you right there and then, huh? I don't know about you guys, man, but Flower definitely agrees with me, right Flower?"

"Huh?" Flower looks up from his lap where his helmet is on, and takes a few moments looking back and forth between Kuni and Sidney to catch on to what is being asked of him. He tosses a roll of tape onto the bench and smooths his long fringe away from his eyes. "Oh, yeah. For sure, man. Sid, so glad you're okay. What Nisky did was so not cool and I'm gonna make sure he knows that we're very upset with him."

Sidney frowns because Flower is usually not much of an instigator but he must say, he is curious to see what Flower would do to show his dissatisfaction. "Thanks, guys. I really appreciate it. I'm sorry for making you guys worry about me. But hey—it's game four. You guys are gonna kill it tonight, eh?"

"Hell yeah, baby!"

"You bet your gigantic ass we will!"

"We're gonna take this game for you, man!"

"For Sid!"

"Watch and learn, boys. I'm gonna make Ovi cry like a baby tonight."

To say that Sidney is touched by the support from his teammates is an understatement, especially when Horny make his way over without a word and gives him a tight, bone-crushing hug. It lasts longer than any ordinary locker room hugs should be, and probably longer than Geno has liked because it has him practically prying Horny's arms away to end it. When they part, Sidney thinks he caught a glimpse of Horny's watery eyes before he heads out of the locker room. At that moment, he thinks himself as the most privileged guy to be surrounded by these group of good people and he is grateful.

He stays in the room while he waits for Geno to come back. Geno is with Dana in the equipment room, sorting out some issue Geno has on his pair of new skates. Some of the rookies come to him and they talk for a bit, mostly asking how he is doing and talking about how to improve their plays. Shearsy—who is also out for concussion—sits quietly beside him and listens when he comments about Jake's wrist shots.

It is nice to be having these talks with the boys. It makes him feel like he is contributing something to the team, as much as it distracts him from searching for answers that never seem to be there. For what it is worth, apart from being called Mrs Malkin every five minutes or so—all in good fun, of course—the team is still more or less the same. They are still the same driven group and he wants nothing more than to help them achieve their best game, regardless if he is playing or not.

Optimistically, everything will return to normal once he regains his lost memories. But realistically, the brain is quite a fickle thing and God knows what will happen to him in the near future, if his health will deteriorate drastically at some point. Whichever way his health leads him to, he wants to be able to look himself in the mirror and says that he has done everything he can to help his team be the better team.

"Okay, rookies. Time's up. I'm take husband back now."

"Come on, Geno. Don't hog Sid all to yourself, man."

"I'm hog because I'm put ring on it. Now fuck off, Olli."

Geno squeezes himself into the space between Olli and Sidney and pushes Olli's blonde head away. Olli pushes back playfully and it makes Geno loses his balance a little, causing him to land onto Sidney's lap. Sidney catches a lapful of Geno and his hands flies up to Geno's waist on instinct, just as Geno wraps his arms around Sidney's shoulders. He has to bite back a moan when Geno moves to sits himself more comfortable and—probably not deliberately—grinding onto his crotch. He can't help the blush that rises when the rookies give them some horrified scandalous looks.

"Oh, come on. Really? Stop with the foreplay, dude. You know we can't unsee this, right?"

"Don't be baby. You see worse." Geno snarks at Jake as he make a show to tease the watchful eyes around them by tracing his hand slowly down the line of Sidney's spine. Sidney can't help the shiver that wrecks through his body and hides his profile behind of Geno, shielding his blush that is unmistakably colouring his cheeks.

"Ugh, don't remind me. I'm still trying to bleach that image of your naked ass out of my brain."

"Hey, is good ass." Geno counters and defends his ass further when the rookies shakes their head in disbelief. "You not believe me? Wait, I'm show—"

"Yeah, okay. I think we're just gonna go now and leave you two to it. And Sidney, try not to drain too much out of Geno, okay? We kinda need him tonight? Alright. Good talk, team. Dismiss!"

It is amusing to see how fast the rookies can disperse at the threat of seeing Geno's ass. Just in a few minutes time, Sidney finds himself alone with Geno in the room, with Geno still perched comfortably on his lap. He is in no hurry to get Geno off, and he will never admit it to Geno, but he is starting to lose feelings in his legs.

"Sorry for long wait. I'm make sure Dana do job."

Sidney glances up and stunned to have Geno's face just inches away from his. "It's fine, G. New skates, I know how it is."

"Yes. Dana say Sid worse than me."

Sidney shoves him away with a firm push and laughs a little guiltily when Geno lands on the carpeted floor with a thud.

"Hey, why Sid push me? What I'm say?" Geno asks as Sidney straightens his suit and heading for the door.

"Yeah, keep playing dumb, Geno. Come on, I'm hungry. Hurry up or I'm leaving without you." He shouts over his shoulder just as the door closes, and hears Geno chuckling lightly on the other side of the door.

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#sidgeno #fanfiction #Love Me If You Will #ariahearthockeywrites #men's hockey rpf

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Text

The Phancast Transcript - Episode Two: Fan Tourism

00:00 Opening & Listener Questions

Julia: Hello and welcome to the Phancast, I’m Julia aka ineverhadmyinternetphase on Tumblr and on AO3 and myalgicjulia on Twitter and I am joined by…

Jane: Jane and I am agingphangirl on Tumblr, Twitter and AO3

Charlotte: And I’m Charlotte and I’m charlottekath on Tumblr.

Jane: So this is episode 2 and at the end of the last episode we asked you to send us questions and comments and things that you would like us to talk about so we are going to go through a couple of those now.

Julia: So we got one from someone called missllamaparty and they said:

‘Hi. 💕 I listened to your first podcast, and I thought it was really interesting and I genuinely enjoyed listening to all your thoughts. I personally haven’t been a fan of Dan and Phil for long, I actually subbed to Dan after the channel name change. Because of that, I’m worried that I won’t fully understand or appreciate Interactive Introverts. Also, I’m going with two friends, one who is also a new Dan and Phil fan and one who I can barely stand being in the same room with now. Any advice?’

Well I’d say if you can’t stand being in the same room as someone then maybe you shouldn’t try and make plans with them

Charlotte: On the other hand though, you’re there to watch the show not talk to the people next to you, but also everyone there is a fan so you could talk to some other fans you meet.

Julia: Yeah, we’re going to be completely spoiler free by the way so don’t worry about that but we have been to the show several times together and we saw people making friends with each other and chatting to each other - people in the interval were making friends.

Charlotte: In terms of understanding it TATINOF was very old school reference, but Interactive Introverts would be fine if you’d only been a fan for a couple of months, it’s all current and relevant things - I mean there's the longstanding Dan and Phil references to...not really spoilers but like to houseplants etc, those things that are iconically Dan and Phil

Julia: No if you’ve been watching them for at least a couple of months then you’ll know everything that comes up in Interactive Introverts - I can’t think of anything that you’d be new to, and even if you were new to it in the context of the show it makes sense anyway so I really don’t think you’re going to be missing out on much.

Jane: Yeah it's really a new Dan and Phil show, TATINOF was really a round up of that phase so if you’ve been a fan since the big rebranding as it were you’ll get everything that's in the show. Being a new fan but having people to go with is amazing, like when I was new it took me a while to make friends in the fandom and I don’t know if they are friends you have in real life or ‘phans’ but I think if you made plans with this person when you did enjoy speaking to them and now you don’t enjoy speaking to them you won’t really need to worry - there’s so much hype and excitement you’ll just get swept along with it.

Charlotte: Also you don’t have to talk about anything personal, like just talk about Dan and Phil. I swear I could talk about Dan and Phil - I don’t have any enemies but if I had an enemy - I could talk about Dan and Phil with my enemy.

Jane: It's always easy to talk about Dan and Phil - we created an entire podcast just to do that so..

Julia: So Charlotte - what was the second question?

Charlotte: So anonymous who signed off as (K) on tumblr had a couple of questions for us, firstly what is your fav dan vid, phil vid, and joint video? Julia what’s yours?

Julia: My favourite Dan video is How I Nearly Blinded Myself because I just can’t watch that video without laughing it’s beautiful! I also think its a prime way of Dan telling a story, one thing i really love about Dan is his ability to tell a story and his ability to kind of draw a picture for you and How I Blinded Myself is a really good retelling of something going wrong and wrong and wrong and not getting any better…

Charlotte: And the pistachio muffin at the end!

Charlotte, Julia & Jane: (in sync) And I ate the pistachio muffin.

Charlotte: I was like so happy for him in that moment.

Jane: Yeah I felt that on a visceral level.

Julia: That’s what I mean I think it makes you react in that way because he is such a good storyteller. My favourite Phil video is A Very Sleepless Night with Phil because I really like the sleepless night with Phil videos, I know there is some controversy over whether or not they are actually filmed at night…

(Others laugh)

I know that but I enjoy them because I do have slight insomnia and when I cannot sleep I put them on because I find them really comforting and refreshing - like what weird things does Phil do in his free time, just show me more of this I enjoy it a lot. My favourite joint video is Google Feud number 2 because Dan is toddler in that video there is no other way to describe him he just throws a tantrum and beautiful.

Charlotte: It’s so funny

Julia: Watching Phil react to that is just really funny. So those are my favourites, so Jane what about you?

Jane: Well I did have I Nearly Blinded Myself as my favourite Dan video written down.

Julia: Sorry!

Jane: I feel like I shouldn’t repeat so I’m just going to go with another Danecdote thing so the Bahamas video which I’ve forgotten the name of temporarily - fake fan! That sort of thing where he takes an instance that has happened to him and spins it out into a sort of a skit story time but without all the drama - I was going to say it’s not dramatic but this is Dan we are talking about so it is a little bit, but that sort of video are my favourite ones. But I will use the Bahamas video as a stand in. My favourite Phil vid this was difficult for me because I like quite a lot of them but I think I’m going to go with Viewers Pick My Outfits.

Charlotte: Stole my one.

Jane: Did I? Sorry! Maybe we should have had a conversation about this before. I mean arguably Dan is also there but it was nice I think it was the turning point to Phil being as confident as he is these days? I hope he does a repeat with his quiff - not likely to happen.

Julia: That’s just you being a Phil stan.

Jane: So badly. My favourite joint video I know on our Tumblr about page I put Monster Pops which is very good but I think it’s We’re Moving Out! It changes constantly. I’ve rewatched it a million times, it’s really nice, I think we’ve all spoken about this before but they sort of had to make an announcement because it was a huge thing and people would have noticed there was a difference but they didn’t have to do it in that way. Charlotte what about you?

Charlotte: So my favourite Dan video…well both of the ones you picked I would have said but is probably Daniel and Depression because it was so well done and I just have no criticisms of that video, I’ve rewatched it a million and one times and I’m just really proud of him for that. For Phil I would have picked Viewers Pick My Outfit but it’s all because I think that was one of the start videos of Phil having his new found confidence and I think one of the defining moments for me is actually in the slime video when he says like you’re not my mum and Phil is just out there doing what he wants to do and not caring what his viewers or other people think of him and that's just such a nice refreshing change to see, he just seems so much more happy with himself and his content now. And for the joint video it has to be the pastel edits because there is this one moment where Phil hands...

(Others giggle as Charlotte is predictable?)

...Dan the glowing unicorn and Dan’s like urgh why are you handing me another prop and then he gets it and it starts to glow and he gets very amazed by it and he’s looking at and he’s so distracted that Phil puts up the parasol behind him and it hits him in the back of the head and everytime that happens it just cracks me up, it’s beautiful. It's just like every single thing Phil hands him Dan’s like urgh I don’t want this and then as soon as he gets it in his hands he’s like oh this is amazing, I want these tattoos…

Julia: It just proves that he is soft and not edgy at all.

Charlotte: It’s just hilarious I love it. Also it’s Phil handing him a plushie and there is a history of Phil handing Dan plushies.

Julia: Yeah.

Jane: Oh, don’t do this to me.

Charlotte: You know he’s kept that on the top shelf somewhere.

Julia: Let’s move on before we break Jane.

Charlotte: Sorry, okay, so the next part of the question was ‘what do you guys think about the way Dan and Phil share individually - I mean how open they are, things off limits, giving opinions, online personas?

Julia: I think that they’ve become more open about their relationship, the way they live and what they do day to day, they’ve become a bit more open about that but they’ve done it on their terms which is what I like and why I feel comfortable. They are showing us things that are not just persona heavy anymore - like TATINOF was so persona heavy and they’ve moved on from that but they’ve done it on their terms and they’ve taken control of the situation and I think that’s really interesting because it’s not longer us trying to forensically try to find out what they’ve done and constantly stalking down everything they do (I mean we do still do that but not in the same way as before) but they are letting us in as much as they want to.

Jane: I think I agree with you a bit Julia but it's not so much a shedding of personas because I think that when they started they didn’t like sit down and discuss and construct these fake people they were going to be online and I think as they’ve said before they’re just themselves but turned up to eleven because they are trying to be entertaining, and I think now they are just a bit more defined about themselves about which parts are included in that.

Charlotte: I think K worded the question to about individually and I think that is really interesting because they both are at different levels of openness and what they want to share - like Phil will talk about family life but for Dan that’s off limits and Dan will talk about other personal things and Phil well, he has actually become more open when it comes to his anxiety, but they still are at slightly different levels but I think maybe that works for them and they need to keep that so they have that individually as well.

Jane: I agree, I think also what’s really interesting is the way that they’ve changed their boundaries like Dan obviously did a big statement that he was rebranding and living his truth and all of these huge moves, whereas Phil has just taken smaller and smaller steps until the only really big climax was actually he changed his hair but if you look at it it’s actually so much more than that. He’s a completely different person to who he was back then he just hasn’t made any grand gestures like I’m a completely different person from now on, put everything that used to be me in the bin and set it on fire.

Charlotte: That just sums up their personalities and who they are as people - Dan is a fan of the grand gesture and sweeping statement.

Jane: Exactly, but what it’s meant is that as Phil didn’t make any grand gestures and any giant leaps if he’s wanted to take anything back at any point, and I don’t know if he has but as I haven’t noticed - but that's the point - you won’t notice because he hasn’t said this is a turning point, this is the line in the sand and once we’ve crossed it we can never go back whereas Dan has done this a little bit and I think I think - well I’m speculating - but I think sometimes he gets a little scared of doing those thing and then he tries to go back over the line and it’s not always successful because he’s made a grand statement of something he’s going to do like DITL he’s going to start running the next year and then he doesn’t do it and then everyone mocks him for it. There’s always these grand I’m going to do these things and then if he doesn’t not only is he guilty to himself he is guilty to everyone else he has told he is going to do it.

Julia: Phil is definitely a lot more subtle, and that can aid him sometimes in that there's never as much drama surrounding him as there is surrounding Dan in the fandom, and for whatever reasons whether that’s good or bad I think there it’s definitely due to the way that they present themselves.

Charlotte: Right, well the final thing they wanted to know was what do we think of Dan and Phil’s future? Career, relationship etc.

Jane: I’ve written one thing in my notes and it’s just that it’s not the end, exclamation mark because I’m fed up of reading that, like everyone speculating it's the final tour, everything will change after this, but its not in the future it will just continue.

Julia: Yeah we’re following real people’s lives and their lives aren’t just going to end after the tour they are going to continue living and doing things and there’s still going to be an interest in what they are doing

Jane: I hope they diversify, I hope they do things that they enjoy more.

Charlotte: I hope they do some more seperate things, this merch has been really interesting in that they have got different creative ideas and I think it would be really fun for them to and explore this, like Phil’s always been interested in reality TV whilst Dan is interested in documentaries - do stuff like that separately as well, they both have the clout in the media industry now to start branching out if they wanted to so if there was things they were interested in learning how to do or being part of it’s not completely out of their reach.

Julia: Yeah and they’ve got the platform to go off now, they’ve sold out two world tours, they’ve got a status now so I think they would be respected in doing other things. Also they kind of caving the way…

Charlotte: Caving?

Julia: Caving the way?

(All laugh)

Julia: Leave me alone I’m tired

Jane: Was it carving and paving?

Julia: Yes carving and paving...caving?

(All laugh)

Jane: Caving the way, anyway, sorry carry on.

Julia: They are used to paving the way for things because they were the first YouTubers to do a tour in the way that they did and they were the first YouTubers to do the radio in the way that they did.

Charlotte: Jimmy was on the radio before them wasn’t he?

Jane: I’m not sure…

Charlotte: I’m pretty sure Jimmy was on the radio before hand.

Jane: Yeah but he’s been doing radio since his student days.

Julia: Well Dan and Phil were definitely early in it..

Charlotte: And like presenting the Brits etc…

Jane: Also I don’t know if Jimmy was ever billed as a YouTuber doing radio, I think he was just a radio presenter who happened to do YouTube whereas Dan and Phil were Internet Takeover, they are YouTubers who just happen to do the radio.

Charlotte: Whilst their career is really interesting, what do I think is going to happen in the future? A DOG AND A HOUSE! Goddamnit that's the content I’m here for!

Jane: I’ve already made my thoughts on that very clear!

Charlotte: I recommend everyone goes and reads Jane’s fic The Brochure because that’s what’s happening.

Jane: Yeah that’s our theory

Julia: It’s taken from a conversation the three of us had one night and Jane said I’m going to go write this and we were all like YES!

Charlotte: Although they could build a house…

Julia: Are we going down that rabbit hole?

Charlotte: I don’t know why they’d build a house, but they could build one..but the dog, the dog is really important.

Julia: The dog is so important! We’ve seen them around dogs, we know they want dogs.

Charlotte: I’ve been completely disappointed this year - slightly unrelated - but Tom and Lance had a baby, and I was expecting really fucking good baby content and I’ve had no baby content. Just the back of the babies head. I’m just so thoroughly disappointed I just need Dan and Phil to get a dog so Dan can do so many good instagram stories of the dog - dog first walking, dog first sitting on pillow, dog first going down the stairs, dog first walking into the bathroom - i want it all.

Jane: Who does the dog love more?

Julia: I’ve written a fic about that.

Jane: Dan trying to have rules for the dog but Phil spoiling it

Charlotte: The extra dog toys Phil would buy

Jane: Oh so many! Do they do dog toys on Firebox?

Charlotte: Why don’t firebox just hire Phil as a designer? Can that be his new foray, he seemed really good with merch. Can he just get a line on Firebox?

Julia: I’d buy it.

Jane: Yeah, hashtag get Phil sponsored by Firebox please

Charlotte: Right what was the last question Jane?

Jane: So the last question comes from phantasticflops on Tumblr otherwise know as Maike - I hope I pronounced that right. So the question was actually in reply to the post and ‘So, I’ve been more or less loudly screaming into the void for a dnp podcast for a couple of years now. Initially I wanted them to do one just because I really miss the radio show and enjoyed the audio book so much (but what would they even talk about??). But this might be so much better. I don’t have any actual friends in the phandom, I have people I talk to occasionally and really like, but nothing deep or solid) and my irl friends, although some know and support me in this, obviously have no interest in listening to me talking about them, so this is probably the closest I will get to an actual (not including tatinof and ii where I was able to talk to people irl about them unashamedly) in depth discussion about them with likeminded people. And then they went on to say some really nice things about how they are enjoying the podcast. So yeah, I think I read it and I got a little emotional reading it because it was really nice and that was the same for me, I didn’t have any actual friends in the fandom before I met your two so it is nice to talk IRL with people.

Charlotte: Yeah it’s different from having online friends, or I’ve been in fandoms where I’ve just been a spectator and I’ve not communicated with anyone and it’s fine but occasionally but it’s kind of nice to have people to squeal about to when they do something.

Julia: Yeah the three of us plan a PINOF viewing party every year

Charlotte: Every year?? Like it’s been going on multiple years?? Just the one!

Jane: We’ve done it once!

Julia: But we have plans to do it a second time and I’m planning to keep you both for a long time so it can become an annual tradition. My point being it is nice to have IRL friends to do this with because I’ve never had that before really but it's nice to have people in my city.

Charlotte: All my friends in the Hannibal fandom were other academics and I could only talk about Hannibal sounding smart, like there was all this pressure to make really good media studies observations about the show and the showrunners and I couldn’t say anything like look theres Will in his underwear which was kind of what I wanted to do.

Jane: I agree with both of you but I think equally you can have a really good time in fandom without IRL friends you don’t need people to talk to, it doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy fandom in the same way, and you can’t enjoy Dan and Phil in the same way because there is a good community on Tumblr if you look for it - it doesn’t have to be just you shouting into the void you can talk to people. I mean we all just started commenting on fic, and talking to each other and instant messaging and stuff like that so you don’t always have to have IRL friends. And there’s always people doing projects like this, or other things people making fan videos or fan art or fic and other fan activities that you can get involved in and then talking to them about that. And group chats and discord servers and whatever else it is young people do these days! I think the community is hard on Tumblr because it only really lends itself to having your blog and your dash of people that you’ve cultivated of people you want to follow and you can only talk to people in that way if you reblog it so it doesn’t really lend itself to very well, so I think you have to work for it a little more but its still definitely doable.

Julia: Yeah I think it all just starts with sending a message, reaching out to somebody is the scariest bit - like leaving a comment on somebody’s fic or sending them a message on Tumblr or DM-ing them on Twitter or whatever it might be. Taking that first step is really scary but it does need to really nice things.

Jane: Yeah and next time you want to say something nice about somebody and you go into their ask box to do it - don’t put on anon and then they will see your username and then they will want to be your friend, I mean it worked for Dan so…

Julia: That is true.

Jane: And for all of us

Charlotte: I also think sometimes IRL friends who aren’t in this fandom but are in other fandoms are just as fun to talk to because you can compare fandoms, hear about what's going on in theirs - like me and my cousin are both in fandom but she’s in different ones at the moment but we can still squeal about the things we enjoy to one another, and is nice to see your friends excited for the things they enjoy.

Jane: Absolutely. I’ve got friends who I met in the phandom who are now vaguely not in it and are reading other things but I still talk to them about Dan and Phil whenever they do something and they get it because they were here but they are not necessarily as invested as they used to be, but then they squeal at me about stuff to do with their fandom and I find it really interesting because…

Charlotte: Unless it’s BTS

Julia: Hey that’s rude!

Jane: I’m sorry there’s too many of them I can’t, I’ve tried.

Julia: They are a great fandom to be part of I’m a strong proponent for the BTS fandom right now.

Charlotte: You do you in the corner.

Julia: They’re great!

Jane: They’ve had a long fic out of you so now you need to come back to us.

Julia: I never left! I’m still doing this podcast aren’t I? I still take part in everything Dan and Phil do, I still stalk them as much as you do!

Jane: So I just want to go back to the first bit of this question because I think we dwelt on the second part a bit too much, but them saying that they would like a Dan and Phil podcast - I’ve always thought that as well and I think it would be a great move.

Julia: Yes!

Jane: Because they had the radio show which was amazing.

Julia: And the audio book.

Jane: And the audio book which is also good.

Charlotte: And you know their live shows are just like podcasts as they keep telling us, if they could bring the live shows back from the dead life would be good.

Jane: And it would combine all the things I think/I assume that they don’t like about liveshows, like having to do them at a certain time, they may get into a ramble and want to edit it out later, with a podcast as evidenced now you can go off on a ramble and then edit it out later. So yeah I think it would be a great format for them honestly, like they could just sit down and have a chat for an hour, like it wouldn’t even have to be that structured.

Julia: I’ve said this before and I said it last time, I would literally listen to them read the phonebook so they literally could do anything in that format and I’d be all about it.

Charlotte: Yeah and I love the audiobook I’ve listened to that numerous times. The best bit is Phil recounting his university days every time I listen to it it makes me laugh so much I have to run down an alley and sit on the floor and laugh because I can’t school my face into something that is acceptable in public

Julia: I listened to it the first time on a four hour train journey and I think the person next to me regretted their life choices because I was just giggling to myself the whole way and squealing into my coat like this is such a good thing.

Jane: I do enjoy the audiobook a lot but I have to skip the fanfiction section

Charlotte: Same

Jane: As we know I’ve never read them, I’ve never watched the videos (here and here), I’ve never listened to them read it. I know what they’re about because I’ve heard people talking about them but I’ve never read them or heard them read aloud and I do not intend to! I don’t want to read their fanfiction about themselves thank you, I don’t know why its just a thing that I don’t want in my life. So yeah they are the only chapters I skip, occasionally I have nearly, I fall asleep to audiobooks quite frequently so I have to make sure I start at a chapter after those so I don’t accidentally wake up and it’s playing or put a sleep timer on so it ends before I get there because I don’t want to wake up in the middle of the night and have Dan and Phil narrating whatever it is they wrote in those fic.

Julia: It’s interesting because that for me was the moment that I felt definitely okay with writing fic about them because they’ve done it so clearly they don’t mind like moralistically they have no problem with it so I’m going to write fic about them because they did!

Charlotte: Can I just stop you there because I think we are going to do a mini episode about this topic after we got an email from Amber about the ethics of reading and writing about real people so I think we should hold this discussion for next time.

Julia: You are correct!

Jane: MIni episode coming your way soon because I think we all have a lot to say about RPF and consent and things like that

Julia: Yes thank you to Amber for that email it was really interesting to read about and we definitely want to make a minisode about this

Charlotte: Yeah we don’t want to skim over it, we want a bit of an in depth discussion for that one.

Jane: So that’s all the questions we recieved if you want to send us questions you can send us them in asks on Tumblr or reply to the post, send us an email or you can even record a question and send it to us, all the details are on our Tumblr page.

Julia: Yes and they will be in the show notes for this episode as well

Jane: So do we want to move onto the next thing.

Charlotte: JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE

Jane: Every time

Julia: It’s never going to end now.

24.45 Previously On Dan & Phil

Julia: Okay so now we’re going to look at this month on Dan and Phil, so we got quite a few videos from them this time around one being the Overcooked 2 gaming video which I thoroughly enjoyed because it was absolutely hilarious watching it devolve into awfulness

Charlotte: I think it's just the fact that for the first three minutes they were just rambling oh look Dan’s wearing a hat, oh look at this and at this, Phil picks up the phone and pretends to call reception and I just died.

Julia: Its that moment where Phil’s on the phone and Dan’s holding a bag of crisps and I was just looking at the screen like what am I watching?

Charlotte: Or when they talk about how they could potentially do this as a Dan vs Phil but obviously they don’t go on to do a Dan vs Phil so if you were a new viewer and you saw that bit with no context…

Julia: You’d have no idea what was going on.

Charlotte: We could potentially do this as ‘noises, noises, noises’ and then they just carry on.

Julia: No explanation.

Jane: To be honest I watch every video and I’m still not sure if I know what's going on

Julia: My other favourite moment from that video is when Phil says he’s going to control and Dan’s like right you have to tell me to do everything then, I’m not going to take a step, I’m not going to pick up a thing, I’m not going to use my brain, I’m just going to sit here until you tell me exactly what to do and just turns into a toddler again - I just really like it when Dan throws toddler tantrums, can you tell?

Charlotte: It's because Phil’s just told him to dial down the Gordon Ramsey

Jane: My favourite reaction to that was like ‘I didn’t swear’ because they’ve obviously had a conversation about demonetization and Dan needs to stop swearing because there are all those categories now, so what's included and what's not and they just want to tick that there is no swearing in this video for once

Julia: What’s so funny is that Dan’s so proud of the fact he didn’t swear, like ‘you should be proud of me’ but you’ve been yelling at Phil for 10 minutes

Jane: Yeah you haven’t considered the fact that you’ve been yelling pretty consistently for a while, demanding things over and over again

Charlotte: Also we got the random shot of the room afterwards when they showed us their suitcases

Jane: Yeah that wasn’t necessary on any level but I enjoyed it

Charlotte: Yeah I was like thanks for that, that’s the content I want

Julia: That was entirely Dan being like look at our messy hotel room, look at Phil being a mess

Jane: I’ve just got images of Phil trying to find the cable going through both suitcases chucking things out

Charlotte: And the other thing that we got was the most recent one which was the Sims video

Julia: Which I loved because I love the Sims series, I watch it regularly, it's one of my favourites bits of content that they put out

Charlotte: It was interesting video??

(All laugh)

Jane: So many things were said

Charlotte: Yeah I’m not to sure if Dan was correct and we’ve all be asking for less Dab and Evan and more Dil?

Jane: I don’t know where he’s got that from

Charlotte: Oh my favourite bit of it was when I clocked that when they cloned her that she had been added to their family and there was a full minute and a half where they didn’t clock it then suddenly….

Julia: My favourite thing about that is as much as I want to get a dog, is that don’t give them responsibility because they will just pass it away as soon as they possibly can, they were like no we’ve made a clone, we don’t want the responsibility of having a clone so we’re going to put her back away where we don’t have to deal with her anymore. Its like guys, responsibility, your actions have consequences….

Jane: At the beginning of the vid when they said Phil had been playing it to level them up and then they come back I was half convinced at that point that point in the video that actually they’d cheated up those levels but later on, I can’t remember the exact thing they say, but it's quite obvious that Phil has been playing it and Dan’s just been watching him play it, because Dan now understands all the dynamics of how they can get the employees at work to do things and he says something about how we’re always making you do stuff and I was like that’s not been in an episode so you’ve been playing together so it’s not just been Phil doing it, and it’s really cute.

Charlotte: Yeah because that’s the first time that they’ve acknowledged playing the Sims off camera isn’t it?

Jane: Yeah...I do wonder if they’ve ever done it before, people have speculated that they may have done

Julia: Yeah if things don’t quite add up or seem a little bit off like maybe they were playing it and did a bad save and so went back to where they were before

Jane: Do you reckon they’ve ever killed Dil and had to go back to an earlier thing?

Charlotte: Probably at the beginning

Julia: I wouldn’t put it past them because they really struggled with doing anything at the beginning. My other favorite thing about that video is that they were both in Phil’s merch and it just warms my heart when they do things like that.

Charlotte: Well that was the other thing that’s this month in Dan and Phil - Phil’s merch!

(All cheer!)

Julia: I’m so excited

Charlotte: It’s so good!

Jane: We’ve all ordered some!

Julia: Yeah we did a big joint order

Charlotte: He dropped the merch when we were on the tube trying to get through London

Jane: We had to stop on the platform to have a look at it and have a bit of a scream and then we were looking at the hoodie and the pins and I was like has he not done a tshirt, no wait he has done a tshirt and we clicked on it and the photo loaded, and we were all like try new things!

Julia: It was a good moment

Charlotte: It’s so nice and it's so Phil and it’s so thoughtfully done, even the website down to the about page he’s put in so much effort in this.

Julia: Yeah the handwritten note is really adorable, it’s such a nice touch and it’s such a thing that Phil would do

Jane: I love how all the things go together, but they’re not really samey, it’s not like the same thing copied a million times, and there’s not like loads of it there’s just enough of it

Charlotte: Yeah it’s like a little pocket collection, and it all matches like it has the same aesthetic and it has some running motifs and stuff, I really really like it.

Jane: There's a tiny throwback with lion

Julia: I know, I love that

Jane: It's really, really nice because obviously Dan did his throwback with the eclipse t shirt, yeah I really really like it - that try new things t-shirt is my favourite

Charlotte: I’m so excited for that to come

Jane: Apparently it's really, really soft. Someone got one from the pop up shop and was tweeting about it, I don’t remember who that was - really sorry - but yeah they were saying it’s really soft

Julia: I can’t wait til the fox jumper arrives, like as soon as I saw Phil wearing it I was like I’ve made a good life decision by ordering this object, I need it.

Jane: I’m so glad they’ve moved into the ceramic pins market because I love them

Charlotte: Yeah you have loads on your bag haven’t you?

Jane: Yeah I do.

Charlotte: I really liked Phil’s merch, it was better than I was expecting.

Julia: But the socks sold out before we could get them which I’m mad about because I wanted those cactus socks, because they are such a Phil object

Charlotte: His merch sold out fast

Jane: It did, I’m so proud of him

Charlotte: Tha must be a good feeling because he’d really put a lot of care and thought into the designs

Julia: I think that's why it took so long to get here like he really did put thought into every single object although I’m still laughing at the fact they really did take those photos in a bush. So he put thought into it but also they did that.

Jane: If you laugh at anything, laugh at the fact he did a countdown of one day. Did you see me reblog that Tumblr post, that was the best thing.

Charlotte: Maybe he didn’t do a countdown because Dan was so offended when he said he was going to do a countdown in that live show and Dan was like what?? We’ve got other things to do, how dare you! And it's like chill, its a countdown on Twitter, it's not going to interrupt you filming your LA show

Julia: I also love when Phil said oh my merch is coming tomorrow and Dan was like but you had all those GIFs ready and he seemed so sad that Phil wasn’t going to get a chance to use them.

Jane: He still did use them.

Julia: We tried to guess when the merch was dropping based on the GIFs and how many of them there would be and we guessed midnight and then it dropped at like 7 when we were travelling, frustrating.

Charlotte: That was bad timing. So yeah, hopefully this means Dan will do some more merch afterwards if this sells well.

Jane: Yeah.

Julia: That would be nice

Charlotte: Because I really preferred Phil’s but I love Dan’s aesthetic so MAKE SOME GOOD MERCH

Jane: I said it last time but if he did some nail polish or like a candle like something different which I know is more difficult to do

Charlotte: Yeah but it's hard to do socks and Phil has managed it

Julia: Yeah there are ways around it, I think Dan just had his ideas around him merch set for several years and so when the opportunity came to do it, he was like I’ve got all these ideas even if they are a bit outdated, but I think he will do an update, not that I hated what he did its just..

Jane: I think he was just aiming at a different target audience that I am, like that particular selection of items.

Charlotte: I’d like some more joint merch, you know with just the D&P like the hoodies and on the back of the phone case, if that's going to be moving forward their subtle branding I like that.

Jane: Yeah if they just put that on the top left of a t-shirt I would wear the heck out of it

Julia: I do like that they’ve both gone slightly more subtle with their merch, it's not like Dan and Phil written everywhere.

Charlotte: Yeah but Phil’s is not subtle like it doesn’t have anything on it like just a plain t-shirt, Phil’s is like full patterned across everything but its not..

Jane: It doesn’t say AmazingPhil

Julia: Yeah like it’s got foxes all over it but it’s such a Phil thing to do

Charlotte: Like the Try New Things design is amazing.

Jane: It's much more adult which is what I like because there’s not like a cartoon lion which obviously as an adult you can still wear that but…

Charlotte: Its cartoon foxes instead!

Jane: Maybe it’s just me, but if I’m at work and we have a dress down Friday I could wear the Try New Things t-shirt to work, I wouldn’t feel weird about that like I’m not going to get anyone being like what is it? It’s just a cute t-shirt with a slogan on it that’s inspiring and motivational.

Julia: I did do a university presentation that counted towards my grade in the galaxy t-shirt and nobody clocked it

Jane: I just like how its a bit more, because you know I’m old in fandom terms, a little more my age demographic

Julia: Janes branding is old and tired

Jane: I’m fine with this

Charlotte: What’s my branding?

Both: Jingle jingle jingle jingle

Charlotte: Bad jingles? Thanks.

Jane: Also getting really high pitched when you’re excited about things that happened in videos

Julia: Yes that is also what Charlotte does. I don’t even want to ask about what my branding is. Coughing in the corner probably.

Jane: Talking about Yu-Gi-Oh when nobody wants to hear about it

Julia: Rude!

Jane: Defecting to other fandoms

Julia: Let me have my other fandom interests but I left Yu-Gi-Oh a long time ago, let me live!

Jane: Then stop talking about it! (Laughs) We were going round Forbidden Planet yesterday and we saw a Yu-Gi-Oh thing and I was like not now Julia

Julia: Shh! It was Yu-Gi-Oh and I liked it, it's part of my past but Jane was like but you’ve moved on to better things. You’re offending everyone in the Yu-Gi-Oh fandom.

Jane: Sorry Yu-Gi-Oh fandom. Apologise if you’ve stumbled here and I don’t know how you’ve got here, I’m sorry.

Charlotte: So the final thing we wanted to talk about that they’ve been doing is the end of the US tour, and now they are in Australia

Julia: And their instagram stories are still going on, although Phil definitely timed the ones the ones on the flight, I don’t think they were actually from when they were in the air

Jane: Half of me things maybe he’d done them all, didn’t have WIFI and then got WIFI or delayed or...either way it was really funny. I think they are just used to delaying posts when travelling so people don’t know where they actually are at any given point which is smart, but it was still hilarious when it came and it was like you’ve actually landed 10 hours ago Phil

Charlotte: I’m glad they are keeping up the instagram stories like we are getting a lot of content

Julia: Although I will question why they were annoyed by the cold on the beach when Australia is in winter right now, do they understand about hemispheres and seasons?

Jane: No

Charlotte: I mean do they have any warm things other than their merch? Are the jackets the warmest things they have?

Jane: Where’s the snazzy yellow jacket.

Charlotte: Yeah Phil’s raincoat!

Jane: That would have kept you warm on the beach, not that I’m complaining about him being in the denim jacket though

Julia: Your Phil stan is showing again Jane

Jane: Sorry!

Charlotte: The US tour just felt so fast I can’t believe that bits over already

Julia: It was so intense how many shows they had in so few days, they went hard on that bit.

Jane: I’m glad they’ve got a couple of days to relax now, is it the 19th the next show?

Julia: I don’t know, that’s bad

Jane: Their in a different time zone so!

Charlotte: It’s just the fact that in the last live show they were talking about thinking about going home, like it’s coming to a close soon.

Jane: Yeah, it is.

Julia: It’s going to be strange!

Jane: There’s not that many shows left and then there’s the TBC ones at the end obviously. The elephant in the room.

Charlotte: Hmm, yes.

Jane: Yeah we don’t know what’s happening, we just have to take it at face value, they’ve said they are working on it so let's assume they are working on it.

Charlotte: Yeah

Julia: Exactly.

Jane: No doom and gloom

Charlotte: I’m hoping now they’re doing some travelling in some countries that Phil’s never been to before like New Zealand and India we’ll get some Instagram stuff from there.

Jane: The India IG stories are going to be so good!

Julia: Also I really want them to go to hobbiton in New Zealand

Jane: They’re so tall!

Julia: I know but it will be so good!

Jane: It will be like Gandalf arriving without the need for perspective.

Julia: That’s why it would be so good, I need it!

Charlotte: They are so big!

Jane: Ooh they should recreate, you know that one they did at the Brits?? Where they were stomping through the mini London.

Julia: That was Phil’s picture for ages wasn’t it?

Jane: Was it?

Julia: On his Facebook? On his personal facebook. Not that I have his personal facebook.

Jane: I don’t know Julia, I’m not a stalker!

Julia: Rude!

Jane: No it was probably just before my time.

Julia: Maybe it was before, but it was his profile picture for ages on Facebook, it was going round Tumblr though I didn’t find it…

Charlotte: Isn’t now it one of the pictures from the dog calendar?

Jane: The green one isn’t it? With the plants and the trowel that was under his bed?

(All laugh)

Julia: Also they filmed the LA show of Interactive Introverts and they’ve said it will be released at some point for everyone to see which I’m really really excited about.

Jane: Everyone is speculating Netflix, which is good but I really want a DVD with extras and behind the scenes.

Charlotte: I don’t own a DVD player.

Julia: We’d get one, we could get one for this.

Jane: I think my only problem with it being Netflix is that it’s really cool that lots of people will see it, if they can get same day worldwide release which I don’t know how hard or easy that is but it would be that it doesn’t exist like permanently, like I can’t own that, so I’d like it to be somewhere where I can own it like not even something tangible but you know like a digital download?

Julia: That’s true, so you know you’re not going to lose it.

Jane: Yeah because I’ve been burned before by Netflix getting rid of things. I add things to my queue like oh, I’ll watch that later and then I don’t and then it’s gone forever. I’m hoping that it is somewhere that lots of people can access it as well because obviously there is - especially if they don’t get the TBC dates - a lot of places where nobody has been able to see it and obviously no matter how many places they go to there’s always going to be people who can’t go because they don’t want to actually go to a show or it’s too far away or they can’t afford to go, whatever, like I think it would be nice to put it somewhere where everyone can see it.

Charlotte: They’ve implied that it’s going to be a fast turn around which would be really nice actually.

Jane: Yeah I hope so.

Julia: Yeah because then we don’t have to worry about continuing to try and remain spoiler free.

Charlotte: I also think that they’ll want to finish it so that will be the end of the chapter of Interactive Introverts and they won’t want to drag that out for 2000 years.

Jane: And if they did it, if they do it a few months before Christmas, then if anybody want to then they could ask for it as a Christmas present.

Julia: Yeah that’s true.

Charlotte: They need to get it out they way before Spooky Week, PINOF and Gamingmas.

Jane: Yes, that is true

Charlotte: Yeah that latter bit of the year, it needs to come before those.

Jane: So September, end of September seems like a good time, would be good for them to release it but I’m sure they’ll release it ‘when the time is right’.

(All laugh)

Charlotte: Oh, when the time is right. Yeah.

Jane: Sometime in the soon.

Charlotte: I wonder what will come first, a DINOF video or the stage show.

(Others groan)

Charlotte: Sorry, sorry!

Julia: We don’t want to talk about DINOF videos.

Jane: No, no we don’t.

Charlotte: No we don’t need to go there.

Jane: Let DINOF go for a bit.

Charlotte: Right shall we move onto this week's topic?

Julia: Yes!

Jane & Julia: Jingle, Jingle, Jingle! (Laughing)

Charlotte: There you go, you guys did it for me, so much for branding.

41.03: Topic of the Week - Fan Tourism

Charlotte: So this week's topic, we wanted to talk about Fan Tourism, kind of because we came down to London to to the Day In the Life stuff (based on these videos) and so we thought it would be interesting to discuss.

Julia: Yeah we’ve literally spent the last day going round London and doing exactly what they did in DITL. So yesterday we went all round like Covent Garden, and we went to Forbidden Planet...and we tried to go to the Starbucks and then then Starbucks was closed down.

Jane: It was so upsetting, we came round the corner and it has all these boarded up windows with signs like ‘we’re working on refreshing your store’ and it was like ‘Nooooo!!!! We’ve come so far!’

Charlotte: And now the thing is the inside is going to be completely different.

Jane: I wonder if it will still have the same condensation problems?

(All laugh)

Julia: I just like imagining you walking in like I like this new refurbished Starbucks but do you still have condensation problems?

Jane: I would really like to go and draw a Christmas tree on your window.

Julia: Yeah but it led to some really interesting conversations about being fannish and how that works in person and how these places take on a new meaning because Dan and Phil have gone there, like normal tourists don’t come to London to go to specific Starbucks

Charlotte: Or to go and hug the ‘Google statue’

Julia: Or refer to it as the ‘Google statue’

Charlotte: Oh yeah it has nothing to do with Google

Jane: Or to go and hang out around the astrology shop and have the person inside be like what are they doing out there, why are they taking so many photos of the front of our window?

Charlotte: That must look quite strange.

Julia: It must, but I’m interested in how this has become a thing that fans do to feel closer to Dan and Phil, like even when filming the DITL was probably something to Dan and Phil that they did like four years ago and they don’t hold the same significance to those places that we do as viewers.

Charlotte: Well 100%, they didn’t film near where they lived, it was somewhere in Central, this is not places that they go to all the time they just seem to have wandered round Covent Garden pointing out places and yet these places have been given significance by the fandom.

Jane: It’s been really cool to go places that are otherwise insignificant like a Starbucks in a random corner….

Charlotte: Or a random pub

Jane: Yes a random pub, or like a bit of art that I’m sure has a lot of actual meaning that the artist intended it to have but not just that some ex-emo tried to hug it once. Like they didn’t expect people like us to turn up and actually hug it.

Julia: Or to go in the black telephone box which had a woman outside it who looked so confused. There was a beautiful photo of Charlotte standing doing peace signs and this woman is just staring at her like what are you doing???

Jane: I think there was a lot of that yesterday like, what are you doing?

Charlotte: There’s points like when we were in Piccadilly like that is an actual tourist spot where people are - Dan and Phil actually comment on it - taking photos of big advertisements so we go there and take the pictures too and become literally the tourists they were talking about.

Jane: Yeah but there’s another layer on that like we are not doing this because of the tourism of the place we’re doing it because of Dan and Phil going there which is just odd.

Julia: It’s an interesting way to do fandom, because it’s not like buying merch, it’s not doing something that they’ve put out there for fandom to consume, it’s like going along with something that they did and feeling closer to them because of it.

Charlotte: Well it doesn’t benefit them, we’re not consuming anything directly related to them anymore.

Jane: Yeah there’s this travelling places and going places that they’ve gone and you feel a bit closer to them, or somehow them going to those places is like a recommendation that it must be good?

Charlotte: I mean look at where we are going tonight.

Julia: We’re going to a sushi restaurant that we know Dan had his birthday at..

Charlotte: And Phil had his birthday at…

Jane: Phil’s in 2016 and Dan’s in 2017…

Charlotte: And it’s the same building that the Duck & Waffle is in which is where they take Cat so…

Julia: We know they like this spot and we’re going there because we know they like this spot.

Jane: Yes and we’re going to spend all of our money because of them because it is very expensive!

Charlotte: Yeah we had to book two months in advance just to eat some sushi.

Jane: Yeah and even down to we worked out which cocktails they may or may not have ordered…

Charlotte: But it’s fun!

Julia: Yeah it’s about feeling closer to them but it’s also about feeling part of something I think, like there’s this secret hidden meaning that when we do these things we are part of a secret group, like not exclusionary like we are part of something…

Jane: Like we’re in the know, like you go to these places and everyone else just views you as being a bit strange in public maybe or enjoying a nice restaurant for what it is but we’re there like oh thats the seat where they sat…

Julia: Or that’s the corner they took the photo in because we also did this with Jimmy, we went to The Ivy Cafe which we know Jimmy goes to quite a lot

Jane: And he geotags that so…

Julia: Yeah he did geotag that so we didn’t completely stalk him!

Jane: He put it on Instagram so…

Charlotte: He geotagged it and I happen to live close by so we went and it was fun!

Jane: It’s a really nice place actually!

Julia: It’s really nice, but when we were sat there we were like oh that’s the corner he took the photo in and we were matching the artwork and Charlotte went to the toilets and came back and was like I saw the dogs, wait not the dogs, what is it?

Charlotte: The owls! There are owl photos in the bathrooms.

Jane: Honestly if that table of mums hadn’t been there I would have probably gone over there to have a ‘look’ at the paintings on the walls. Oh what a nice painting!

Julia: It’s just a nice feeling about being in the know about something and having an extra meaning to where you are.

Jane: Yeah these places are nice by themselves like going to places in London, but having it be a fan activity is also really nice.

Julia: And it translates to what you buy too, like we all own Dan’s horn hoodie because we were all like it looks really comfy - and it is really comfy - but we all had this feeling of oh now we own something that Dan owns independently, or people who listen to the same music that Dan listens to feel like oh now I feel closer to him because I’m listening to what he’s listening to.

Charlotte: Or like when people who don’t live in the UK want to try Ribena because they talk about Ribena all the time, there is always layers.

Jane: Or maltesers!

Julia: I’ve definitely sent Maltesers to an American friend to be like look this is what they taste like.

Jane: Yeah I’ve given them to friends in other countries before.

Julia: And its nice to have that extra feeling of closeness to them.

Jane: And it's not always something that they’ve directly bought like like a branded item like sometimes you get stuff that just reminds you of them like..

Charlotte: Your compression socks!

Julia: Yeah I was saying earlier, I have to wear compression socks because of part of my health condition and I was looking online for some and there was one that was black with white lines crossing it and another that was red with black dots all over it and they looked exactly like Phil’s ladybird jumper and Dan’s jumper with the lines….

Jane: The grid jumper.

Julia: Yeah and I was like I can’t not buy these, so I now own compression socks that are Dan and Phil related. I’m also crocheting a blanket and I was using this wool that was like black with gold specks and I was looking at it like this is a really Dan object…

Jane: Like his phone case…

Julia: Yeah and then I ran out of wool and needed some more so I needed some more and was like I’m going to buy a blue and green one so it can be a Dan and Phil blanket and like nobody else will know that but to me it has that meaning.

Jane: Yeah I get that sort of thing, it’s like a way to be stealthy fannish.

Julia: Yeah like without it being obvious to other people, but other people in the know might be like…

Jane: And it might just be something you acknowledge to yourself as well, like I’m trying not to mention the fact I bought grey jersey bedding and my partner doesn’t know why I bought it but thinks that it’s cool, and that’s not something that everyone else is going to see, I mean grey is obviously the colour scheme of my house anyway but yeah I have maybe a subtle nod to the bedding that Dan has.

Charlotte: I just love that your partner doesn’t know.

Jane: He likes it though!

Julia: Will he listen to the podcast though because he might know now.

Jane: He listened to the first episode but he might not listen to this one.

Charlotte: Do you think that one of the other things that appeals to people about doing things or buying things that Dan and Phil have is that it keeps them very relatable and very close to us, like for lots of celebrities and even other YouTubers who flaunt their lifestyle the things that they do are so inaccessible so you couldn’t copy your favourite movie star, you couldn’t go to the restaurants that they go to, you couldn’t buy the things they buy because it’s just completely out of your budget and reach? Whereas I think with them, yes they go to some slightly fancier restaurants and yes Dan has some more expensive clothes but they haven’t really changed from when they started.

Julia: It’s their original interests but elevated, like we still love going to the cinema but now we go to a cinema that gives us fancy popcorn.

Jane: Yeah but it’s even like other YouTubers, I won’t name names, but other YouTubers…

Charlotte: You can name names

Jane: Well like Joe Sugg and his ilk, they all go to clubs and they’ll do like the VIP bottle service which fans could never hope to create because unless you have a name you can’t get on that VIP list and you can’t do those things. But yeah like Dan and Phil might go to some fancy restaurants and they might have fans might be priced out of it but it’s not an exclusive experiences, it’s not like you have to be a celebrity to do those things, you can go and do them, they are within reach.

Julia: I think that's probably why they do so well, is that they are still relatable, like you don’t look at them and think OMG they’re rich millionaires even if they are

Jane: I mean I don’t think they’ve changed like we’ve heard it from multiple people that they’re just like really nice and really lovely like regardless of how much money they have or how famous they are or what their numbers are or anything like that.

Charlotte: Yeah like some of the other YouTubers are look look at my flashy cars, look at this etc and these are things you can’t emulate even if you wanted to.

Jane: Whereas Phil is like look at this golden pig that I bought.

(All laugh)

Jane: And nobody wants that.

Charlotte: What is the story behind the golden pigs and the moon room mirror?

Jane: I’m going with the theory.

Charlotte: It just cracks me up like why Phil, why do you need that object.

Jane: Yes.

Charlotte: Although Phil’s just such a good millionaire to be a fan of because he just buys so much crap like you know when you’re on the Internet and your like I wish I could buy this but obviously within my budget I can’t buy this or I can’t afford to pay my bills, well Phil doesn’t have this worry so he sees a pair of slippers made of grass and is like I must have these and there is nothing stopping him. It’s great I can like live vicariously through his weird purchases!

Jane: He is the 3am purchase we all wish we could make.

(All laugh)

Jane: Sorry that sentence was not formed correctly and it sounded like I’m trying to buy Phil at 3am.

Julia: Knowing you you probably are to be honest.

Jane: If I could I would. Amazon prime next day delivery.

Charlotte: Dan would not be pleased about this.

Jane: He could come too!

Julia: Shall we move on?

Charlotte: I don’t know is there anything else we wanted to cover I feel like we’ve missing some of the things we discussed earlier but…

Jane: I think we could probably talk about how we get things because Dan and Phil endorse them by talking about them but they are not an official endorsement but we don’t necessarily feel the same way about their actual brand deals because they don’t feel like they are actually related to Dan and Phil.

Charlotte: I mean we know they’re not, like I’ve downloaded some of the app games they’ve sponned..

Julia: Charlotte means that she downloaded Love Nikki when they uploaded that video like 7 months ago now and plays it every single day and has not missed a day since then.

Charlotte: And has spent quite a lot of money on it. But I don’t relate that to them at all like I know posted that video but they never picked that app up again and I’m under no false impressions that they did, it’s very different when they are doing the brand deals. The only thing I can ever think they had a brand deal with a they use is Crunchyroll. Like I genuinely think they use Crunchyroll.

Julia: Yeah I think there is a difference between it being something that they do in their daily lives and fans picking up on it and them doing a brand deal.

Charlotte: Like for instance, if I had to say what cereal I associate them with whilst they’ve done a brand deal with Krave, I don’t associate cereal with them I think of Jordans Crunchy Crisp or Crunchy Nut Cornflakes because they’re the ones we’ve seen them eat. So it’s a slightly different thing - brand deals vs what we know they use in real life.

Jane: Yeah which is why I think that before there were rules about having to tell people that it was a brand deal that sort of thing worked, I think I’m talking even pre-YouTube when you would just have celebrities drop it into conversation in interviews and stuff that this was the brand of cologne they wear like you know Marilyn Monroe saying she only sleeps in Chanel No.5. or whatever perfume it was, it was aspirational selling because people that people looked up to were using these items and therefore if you had that item you might be able to get that lifestyle or be like that person, or be closer to that person. Whereas now because the rules have changed and they have to tell you that it’s a brand endorsement, it may well get you to click on that app game or check it out just click on the link and download it because they might get better link with that brand or more money for their forever home but the choice to keep that app on your phone is because you have played it and enjoyed it and it’s not I’m doing this because I think Dan and Phil play this game.

Julia: That's very different, it's interesting to me because people want to use influencers to sell their things but in selling their things they are doing it in a very different way to fans that just find something they like because they want to be like Dan and Phil, like I don’t think people or we certainly don’t buy their games or look into what they sell because it’s them that’s doing it we might do it because we are interested in what they are, but when it comes to stalking them or going where they went…

Jane: Stalking them!

Julia: You know what I mean!

Jane: Not literal stalking, please don’t put this in the court of law as evidence

Julia: Not actually stalking, just what we did yesterday like going round doing the DITL, like that has a very different feeling to downloading stuff because they played it.

Jane: And we’re going places that anyone can go, like if they go to somebody's house we’re not just going to force our way inside somebody’s house.

Charlotte:...Welll….

Jane: It’s just going to be where they were so those things are accessible, but I know what you mean like you wouldn’t do things just because they did it because it was them.

Charlotte: Like if it wasn’t something that they opted to do themselves. It’s a bit different when we know they are being paid to do it. Like I’ve downloaded all the app games but i don’t really associate them with Dan and Phil anymore.

Jane: But that’s not to say I resent YouTubers or anyone else for doing brand deals

Charlotte: Well it is a good portion of their income so for a lot of them

Jane: And I have had things recommended to me and I’ve been like this is good, and I’m glad that that happened

Charlotte: Yeah I’ve watched a few more like lifestyle vloggers recently and I’ve actually bought a couple of things on their recommendation so I guess maybe I’m just not the brand audience that Dan and Phil are targeting some of these games at maybe I’m not the ideal customer.

Jane: I mean we are slightly outside of their demographic

Charlotte: At least for their paid brand deals.

Jane: So with recommendations of things in mind, should we move onto our recommendations for fanfiction?

Julia: That is a smooth way to get into it!

Jane: Smooth segway.

Julia: Yeah let's move onto our fic recs.

56.50 Fanfic Recommendations

Jane: So we have a bit of a theme for fic recs for this month, but then we’re also going to give some that we’ve been enjoyed recently, but the theme is when Dan and Phil are tourists or when they are not in London or Manchester or somewhere we would say is home for them in whatever universe that happens to be in the fic.

Julia: So I’ll say mine first I picked two that fit with the theme where they are tourists, one ‘So Many Stars’ by @transdimensional-void which is a really long fic that is really slow burn but it’s my most reread fic in this fandom I just went through this phase where it was all that I read and all that I talked about and I absolutely loved it to pieces. The rough premise is that Dan and Phil are teachers in Japan, Dan is new there and Phil has been there a while, Phil is actually in a relationship with somebody else when Dan turns up and it’s his feelings about Phil and Phil suddenly realises he has feelings for Dan and it’s an exploration of their relationship. Plus the descriptions of Japan made me want to go there even more than I already wanted to so I think that was successful.

Jane: I think two scenes really stay with me from that fic, and it was a while ago that I read it, but it was one with the hot springs I believe and then there was one where they go on a trip or something...an educational trip? And they are in a room and they put the sleeping mats down

Julia: Yes!

Jane: And they are far apart and then they get closer. Those two scenes stick with me because I think the descriptions are really immersive.

Julia: Yeah I think the writing is really exceptional in the way that the author describes the scenes, like I have a really clear picture of that fic when I think about it.

So that’s one of my recs, my other fic rec is ‘Letters in Bold’ by snsk who I’m aware that I recced last time but I just really love their work, I just think their writing is really good. This one is set in Malaysia I believe, and it’s a really lovely, fluffy fic - it’s a proposal fic but more than that it’s just an exploration of Dan and Phil’s relationship and they are so in character in it, I was rereading it earlier just to remind myself and they were so in character, I was giggling and laughing as I read it. I could hear their voices in it and it’s like a calming, warm fuzzy blanket fic. It’s just so warm and soft and lovely.

Jane: Is that the one of the beach with the shell?

Julia: Yes!

Jane: I remember it, it’s a good one.

Julia: I just think it’s really warm and happy. Charlotte do you want to do yours?

Charlotte: Yeah my tourist ones, so my first one is not just one fic it’s actually a series…

Jane: Always with the loopholes!

Charlotte: I’ll pick two out of it commonemergency or @nihilismdan‘s ‘as is ever so on the road’ which is their tour fic series that they’ve been doing and there is something about the way they get inside Dan’s head, like not just even in this tour series but in all of their fics - sorry I’m really just going outside the recs her - but it is just perfect and I love it, but particularly ‘confide in the low light’ which is set in Russia and the most recent one which was set in Vancouver which was ‘give me one night (you’re going to see me in a new light’ which was a really good exploration of Dan sort of coming to terms with tour winding down and thinking about the future, it was just really perfect and so I’m really, really enjoying that series

My second one is for travel and tourist is, well it’s not really travelling as much but it’s Campfire by @waveydnp

Jane: Loophole!

Charlotte: Shh! They go camping, I don’t know how far from Manchester it is but they are definitely not in Manchester. So it was written for one of the fic fests I think and I really like it because it’s 2010 them and ridiculously in love, and when I first saw it i was thinking Dan and Phil and camping?!? Can’t really envision this but it’s exactly what would happen if Dan and Phil went camping and were struggling to put up the tent and everything just being a bit of a fail because they are not outdoor humans, and also I love any fic that explores relationships with Phil’s parent’s and Dan so I do quite like that as a background to the fic. And what about you Jane?

Jane: So my first one is ‘Slumbering Heart’ by @cosmogenies, I think I’m pronouncing that correctly. So it’s sort of a slice of life fic where they are on holiday, well Dan is on holiday with the Lester clan and Phil’s got some sunburn then they go for a walk along the boardwalk and they get some fried dough and there are a lot of themes of Dan not being able to express what he is feeling at that moment and Martyn and Cornelia are there and there’s a lot of parallels drawn between the two and there’s some illicit hand-holding in public and how Dan feels about that and it being an act of bravery where it shouldn’t be and it’s really just a nice piece that explores their through processes in this tiny moment between them in Florida.

My second one is ‘english countryside - 08.25.17’ by @nihilist-toothpaste, this is a really introspective piece from Dan’s point of view whilst on a train journey from Edinburgh back home and it’s written in three parts and it’s detailing the exact train trip that you would go on. I think there are two that you could take from Edinburgh back down to London and this one goes along the coast and it’s early morning and there’s footsey, and Dan’s journaling and Phil’s trying to give him privacy to do that whilst reminding him that he is there, and they listen to some music together and it’s just really calming and the imagery in it is really lovely. There’s also this moment in it sort of towards the end where Phil’s taken a photo of Dan looking out the window and he toys with the idea of putting it on his Instagram and he relates back to how he did it in Singapore, how he just put a photo of Dan on his Instagram, and I was just rereading it today so I could talk about it on the podcast and it reminded me they do that all the time now…

Charlotte: Yeah it’s changed!

Julia: It’s normal now.

Jane: It’s not an event for Phil to share a picture of Dan on his instagram or vice versa, they do it all the time.

Julia: It’s interesting how they’ve moved on.

Charlotte: I mean literally they went to Russia and Dan was like here’s some site seeing things and here’s Phil on an escalator, like this doesn’t even have anything touristy in the background, this is just Phil on an escalator.

Julia: Yeah like them appearing on each other’s instagrams now is so normal now, like you don’t even question it when it is just the other person.

Jane: I think the stories allow for them to do that a little more, plus like I love how we know now unless it’s very obviously a selfie that we know that the other one has take it!

Charlotte: I just love that moment in the background of one of Tomska’s vlogs where Phil’s taking the pictures of Dan and he’s just moving his head around and Tom is just like I can’t, I can’t with these two.

Julia: That’s a good moment.

Jane: Also when they are on the top of the mountain in the first one, where are they?

Charlotte: Denver.

Jane: Was it Denver?

Charlotte: Yeah it was when there was Sarah and Martyn up there.

Jane: Yeah and they go up the thing and Dan’s doing a video but Phil doesn’t know he’s doing a video and he’s all like sit on the rock, do the thing, so that’s obviously a normal interaction if Phil didn’t clock that Dan was doing that for a video.

Charlotte: It’s quite sweet.

Julia: It’s a good moment.

Charlotte: So Julia, what was your favourite current fic?

Jane: Or one that you are enjoying at the moment.

Julia: One that I’m enjoying at the moment is Flares by @huphilpuffs, which I’m only a couple of chapters into so far so I don’t completely know the whole plot but I am really enjoying it and the writing is really immersive. Also, for me personally I find it quite relatable because in it Dan suffers from fibromyalgia and it’s basically an exploration of him leaving university because of his Fibro and not being able to work well even though he does get a job but he’s struggling and Phil comes along as his roommate and Phil’s kind of the only one that understands a little bit what he’s going through and actually tries to help him. And I suffer from M.E. which is really similar to fibromyalgia so it really nice to read a fic where some of my issues that you don’t normally read about suddenly come up and it’s wonderfully written as well and I think the characterisation is really good, like I really like the way that she is exploring Dan so I would definitely rec that to anyone whether you have a chronic illness or not.

Jane: It’s nearly finished isn’t it?

Julia: I think so.

Jane: I can’t wait, because then I’m going to read it all.

Charlotte: There is also a good time stamp - the pride one - for it as well.

Jane: Oh yeah that’s in the same universe isn’t it.

Charlotte: Yeah that's in the same universe and had a really cute ending.

Jane: I didn’t read it because I was waiting for Flares to be finished.

Charlotte: Remember to go back and read it, it’s definitely worth it.

Jane: We’ll put notes to both in the show notes. I don’t know why I pointed downwards, we’re not on YouTube.

Charlotte: No we’re not on YouTube.

Julia: So Charlotte what about you?

Charlotte: So my current fave, I’ve realised we’re reccing the same author is by @transdimensional-void as well and was actually finished this morning and it’s called Wifey. It’s a genderswap one that deals with transphobia where Dan is trans or gender non-binary and Phil is a girl and they both work at a Mall, Dan or Dani work at the MAC store and Phil works at the apple store and they end up meeting on their lunch break. But it's interesting because it plays with, well they don’t do YouTube but it’s not their full time careers but by the end of it they have both sort of cemented their relationship, it’s their first good and healthy relationship with one another and also gone if in a different direction with their careers and it uses lots of canon details. I finished that this morning and I’d totally recommend that to anyone but I’m also going to be cheeky and say @waveydnp Dee and Fi series.

Jane: I love that one.

Charlotte: I’m just really enjoying this trend in fandom to play with gender a little more and I really hope that we see a bit more because I love thinking about Dan and Phil and bringing gender into the question brings up many questions like what would be the situation, what would be the impact that it has and I think that's fascinating.

Jane: I think the Dee and Fi does that, like they are literally YouTubers in that, they just happen to be women, like nothing else has changed yet so many things have changed like how their audience interacts with them, views them, how popular they are and I think it is a bit of a commentary on our society and how we view things like that. Yeah it’s really good.

Julia: So Jane, what about yours?

Jane: Mine is Love Yourself by @imnotinclinedtomaturity, so it's not finished yet but Dan a musician and Phil is a YouTube/barista and works in a local coffee shop just down the stairs from Dan’s flat and it has all of the things that you would expect from that dynamic. Dan’s in a relationship at the start with a really awful woman and things slowly develop over time and it’s just one of those fics that you sort of just know what you are getting and it’s really, really good and I’m really enjoying it, it’s just really fun to have something like that. Plus it’s really well written and the chapters are really long so whenever I get a chapter in my inbox and I’m like excited that I’ve got that to read later. And there's lots of cute things and we’re getting to a really good part.

Julia: Yeah I keep seeing that one come by on my Tumblr dash and meaning to click on it.

Jane: Yeah it is really good and we’re all eagerly awaiting to find out what the album is going to be that Dan’s writing, it’s really good. So that’s what I’m enjoying at the moment.

1.08.31 What We Are Looking Forward To & Goodbye

Jane: So that’s it for this episode.

Julia: Yeah that is it for this episode but we will be back next month and we’re looking forward to whatever else is going to happen this month with Dan and Phil, what kind of things are we expecting?

Charlotte: Well the end of the tour, I’m hoping now they’ve got a much slower schedule they might do a little more touristy stuff on the way and especially since they are going to countries that Phil’s not travelled to before, and Martyn and Cornelia have joined them instead of the other merch team, because everyone else has headed home but now we have Martyn and Cornelias so hopefully we’ll get a few more touristy, hanging out as couples dates.

Julia: Seeing what else happens with the tour and how it ends will be interesting I think and how they make is accessible for everyone.

Charlotte: And finally getting back to our timezone!

Julia: Yes!

Charlotte: That’s going to be good!

Julia: Although I am enjoying waking up to them doing things

Charlotte: Yeah it is nice to have Instagram stories every morning.

Jane: Yeah it is, we might by the time we have the next episode know where the filmed show is going to be released.

Julia: That’s true.

Charlotte: Oh and isn’t there a second gaming video that had already been filmed that they talked about in the last live show? They mentioned the Sims and then they mentioned something else as well.

Jane: Oh did they?

Charlotte: So I’m assuming there is a new gaming video very, very soon.

Julia: Which is exciting.

Jane: There will probably be some more live shows because they still haven’t announced the winners of the giveaway yet.

Charlotte: This is true.

Julia: Liveshows will continue to be a mess.

Jane: I’m interested to see how the shout-outs will work, I thought they’d just start doing them at the end of gaming videos the way that they have been but maybe they’re going to do them main channel, I don’t know. We’ll see, we’ll see how that goes.

Charlotte: So next topic that we’re going to look at will be fandom and the fourth wall.

Julia: Yes so we’ll be looking at how much Dan and Phil should know about what we’re doing and where the line should be where they don’t know what we are doing

Jane: And equally how much we should know about what they are doing I suppose.

Charlotte: I think it works both ways, so we’ll be recording that and our minisode where we’ll be talking about..

Jane: RPF and consent

Charlotte: Yeah from Amber’s email.

Jane: Yeah, so that’s it.

Julia: But there will be more from us.

Charlotte: So if you have any questions or comments, asks or anything from this episode you can send them on email, on Tumblr or tweet them to us, and if you want to record an audio clip we can put it in the next episode and likewise if you have any thoughts about fandom and the fourth wall you want to share with us beforehand you can send them to us

Julia: Yeah we’d love to hear from you and we’ll include as many people as possible - probably everyone to be honest.

Jane: So that’s it, thank you very much for listening and we’ll see you next month, bye!

Charlotte: Bye!

Julia: Bye!

#transcript #the phancast #podcast

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