#literally that’s the last solid plot point I remember and I wasn’t even paying attention to the plot since before the dabi reveal

[itsmeezra]

i havent been caught up with mha for months is bakugou still dead

[duckprintspress]

How can I write quickly?

I (hi, I’m @unforth) have been asked frequently over the years how I write a lot quickly. I’m a pretty fast writer - for example, I wrote the 5600 words of my May Trope Mayhem fill from yesterday in under 2.5 hours. 

First, a little of my personal history for context. I’ve always written, starting from when I was able to string letters into (very poorly spelled) words and (horrible un-grammatical) sentences. When I started trying my hand at serious, professional-level fiction writing, I joined a community called novel_in_90, which was founded by the author Elizabeth Bear. The purpose of novel_in_90 was “to be NaNoWriMo but more realistic.” Instead of 50,000 words in 31 days, it was 67,500 words in 90 days, or 750 words a day. I participated in multiple rounds of novel_in_90 starting in mid-2005, and in 2007 I completed my first (godawful) novel. When I started, even writing a couple hundred words of day took me forever, but it got easier with time. 

During those same years, I also got a job that required I do professional writing on a deadline: I was a grant writer, and I only got paid when the grants won. That often meant working fast under high pressure, culminating in the weekend I wrote and edited an entire 40 pages grant that was due on Monday. I think, if I hadn’t had a solid foundation of “regular daily plodding writing,” I’d not have been able to marathon when the moment came...and it came because I had to, not because I wanted to. However, I learned a valuable lesson: I could. Subsequently, I found that, when I had the time and space and was rested enough to use my brain, I could bust out a huge amount. Like, I wrote an entire 150,000 word novel in 17 days.

My personal record is about 200,000 words in one month (it was the month I wrote that novel; I wasn’t tracking when I did that so I don’t know exactly), 25,000 words in a day, and I’ve topped out around 3,000 words an hour. I do know people who can do more...but not many.

Not everyone will be able to do this. Flat out, I MUST preface the rest of this post by saying that. Some people will find that writing fast fits their brain, and for others, it just won’t, and that’s okay. Fast doesn’t equal better, and it isn’t inherently “good” to write fast. Furthermore, even for those who can write fast, not everyone will find the same strategies helpful. I can share what works for me. Try out one item, some items, or all of these - if writing faster is something you want to be able to do, which it certainly never has to be. Use what works for you, and discard the rest.

Sit in your chair, put your fingers on your keyboard or touch screen, and write. You can’t write 1,000 words in half an hour until you write one word, however long that one word takes. I know saying this is obvious, but I’ve been asked “how can I write fast” by people who struggle to write at all...fast can’t be your priority until you’ve got a foundation of just writing. (Honestly...fast should never be your priority, but it might be helpful to you regardless, which can make it worth learning.)

Start small. Set an achievable goal, and make yourself meet that goal (daily, weekly, whatever) come hell or high water, no matter how long it takes you. Keep the goal small at first; you’re not trying to torture yourself, you’re trying to build a skill. If you set the goal high enough that you consistently fail, you’re not teaching yourself anything. And, if you find the goal IS too high...lower it. There’s no shame in working within your limits. Think of it like starting a new work out regimen: you wouldn’t try to run a 10k at a record time if you can’t run a mile slow. Treat your fingers and your brain the same way you’d treat your legs and joints. Give them time to grow, learn, and improve before you try to push yourself.

Trying to write daily is worthwhile if you want to work on your writing speed, because you’ll be forced to try to fit it in as you’re able - that might be ten minutes in your morning, or an hour in your evening, and it might vary from day to day, but making it daily means you have to fit it in somewhere.

Building skills takes time and isn’t easy. For some people, it will come easier than for others, and even when you’re fast, going from “I can write words fast” to “I can write damn good words fast” takes practice and dedication and accepting constructive criticism - speed alone will never be worth more than writing well.

Having a community can help. Ya’ll will check in on each other, cheer each other on, remind each other that missing a day or a goal isn’t the end of the world, and keep each other’s spirits up. If you don’t know other writerly folks online, I recommend Weekend Writing Marathon ( @weekendwritingmarathon ) as a good place to start (I used to be a mod there). Once you’re trying to work up to larger word counts in a day, remember that even writing fast will take minutes or hours. You can’t write 2,500 words in an hour if you don’t set an hour aside. Make sure you’re giving yourself the room and time you need to succeed.

You will probably never be able to do high, rapid word counts every day, every week, every month. The best runners in the world don’t run marathons every day. Set realistic long term goals.

Work on projects where you have a clear idea of where you’re going. I’m not saying “pantsers” can’t write fast, because of course they can, but if you want to write fast, and well, and coherently, to create a first draft that’s in pretty good shape, you’ll do better if you have a good sense of what you’re trying to accomplish with your story. That doesn’t mean you need to do all your world building up front, or have a complete outline (I never have either). All you really need is what happens next. I tend to plan projects - and write them - one full scene at a time, with only a vague idea what’s going to come after. (I’m personally a “plantser,” and the strategies in this post will likely be most effective to other plantsers.)

Visualize ahead of time what you’d like to write...but don’t get too attached to what you visualize. When I go to bed, I plan the next scene I’m going to compose, often to the least detail. I then forget all of it overnight, at least all the specifics, and I’m left with a general sense and shape of what’s to come. You’ll never be able to replicate the “perfect” dialog you pre-conceive, so give up on trying to. Instead, play through the scene and think about the emotional beats you want to hit and plot points you want to forward. If you keep that in mind, you’ll be able to get the words out faster than if you’re agonizing over every word or regretting the “oh-so-great” idea that you’ve since forgotten. 

Practice different work styles. If writing every day doesn’t work for you, try instead saying, “this is my writing day each week,” and aim for a lot that specific day, and write little or nothing other days. Try writing at different times of day and on different days, fitting it into your schedule. If you’re beating yourself up for not writing when you “should,” it’ll be that much harder to succeed, so instead, as I said for point 2 - set a reasonable goal that fits your life and working style, fitting it around your other responsibilities, and push yourself within that framework, instead of trying to shoehorn into a style that you “think you should” use to succeed. 

Track your word counts, and take notes on how much you did and what project you were working on. If you’re also experimenting with different times of day and different days, make sure you note that too. I personally use a simple Excel sheet (well, Google Sheets, now) - column one is the date, column 2 is “starting word count,” column 3 is “ending word count,” column 4 is “=column 3 - column 2”, column 5 is notes. Pay attention to when you succeed at writing faster, and when you don’t, and consider what factors might have played into your success...and then try to replicate those factors next time you’re doing a sprint. Control as many variables as you can while you’re “training.”

If you find social media distracting, trying getting a web browser extension that prevents you from connecting to websites for a set period of time.

If you find you tend to dither before starting, I find it helpful to run through everything that I might do to procrastinate (check my social media! grab a snack! make some tea! set up my playlist! check my social media again! finish making the tea! check my social media for what I swear will be the last time!), and when I’m done, it’s like, well, I’ve done all those things, I’ve got no choice left, time to write, no excuses left.

If you find you struggle with picking up a WIP, try leaving off in the middle of a sentence at the end of a session, one where you know exactly how it ends - or, leave off mid-paragraph, or when you are positive you know what happens next (and I mean literally next, as in the very next sentence.) It’s much easier to “pick back up” when your first words are super clear. (Do not do this if you think there’s any chance you’ll forget or end up in a situation where you won’t return to your WIP for months!) 

If you find you struggle to maintain continuity across multiple writing sessions, try rereading what you wrote the previous day before you proceed. Resist the urge to edit it!

Avoid stopping when you get stuck, even to do research. Don’t know a fact? Add a comment to your manuscript flagging the relevant text, “LOOK THIS UP LATER.” Can’t think of a word? Put in something you can use the “find” function on easily (I personally use “XX” since there are no words that have a double x in them) and so you can come back later, search for your chosen placeholder, and fill in the blanks. Not sure how a scene ends but know the next scene? Jump ahead.

That said, if you really don’t know what happens next, you don’t do yourself any favors by pressing on. As I’ve said previously, speed alone should never be your writing object. It’s better to slow down, consider your plot, figure out where you’re going, and then write, than to just plow ahead - or at least, that’s better if you want a manuscript you’ll actually be able to use for something at a later point. If you’re truly just practicing, you can also say “screw it, who needs coherence?” and keep going. I’d personally never have finished my first novel if I’d spent a lot of time worrying about making the pieces fit together and yeah, it’s a mess, but it’s a mess I wrote instead of a mess I got stuck on and never completed.

Don’t move the finish line. If you’ve set the goal of 500 words a day, don’t beat yourself up if you get 550 because you think you think you could have done more. If you say you’ll write five days a week, don’t get mad because you DID have time the sixth day but chose to use it on something else. If you make yourself feel like shit when you succeed, what’ll happen when you fail? And when you’re comfortable and really think you’re ready, change the goal - reassess every month, say, and up your goals. While working for speed, trying upping your word count goal without changing the amount of time you allot for working.

Your need to adhere to the above suggestions will change over time. Once, I always had an outline; now I often don’t need one. Once, I wouldn’t let myself stop even to use a thesaurus; now, I find I can look up words without breaking my flow or significantly slowing myself down. This is not an “all or nothing” prospect, nor is it a “do things the same way forever once you’ve found one (1) thing that works” prospect - you’ll experiment, and find strategies that work for you, and then at some point, your needs will change, and you’ll experiment more, and find new strategies that work for you, on and on, as your skills grow. 

To reiterate: writing fast should never be your objective in and of itself! Greater writing speed will come with practice and as a general side effect of improving your craft. Simply being able to write fast is useless; being able to write fast and well will enable you to get more of your ideas out there, so if that’s something you’d like to accomplish, focus on building your general skills and training yourself to be able to use those skills rapidly and in tandem with each other to produce decent writing, in a first draft, at a decent speed.

Once you try, you may find none of this works for you! That’s okay. That’s good! You tried, which means you learned something about yourself and your own writing style, and that too will help you to improve. Keep experimenting, keep learning, and find what does work for you - and accept that no two writers will ever be the same, and one of those differences will be writing speed. Some writers will never write fast, and that’s doesn’t make them any less awesome or valid. And some writers will always write fast, and that doesn’t make them inherently awesome or valid. Only with a suite of skills that suit your individual life, personality, work style, writing capabilities, goals, etc., will you succeed as a writer (for various, personalized definitions of the word “success”); speed is only one of those potential skills, and not one that’s particularly important in my opinion...yet I still get asked about it fairly often, so here we are, these are my suggestions

Go forth, and write some words! <3

[peaches-writes]

naturally

description: there’s something about bang chan, even if he’s not some senior crush you’ve pined over from the very beginning or a friend you’ve known forever, that just makes realizing that you’re in love with him as something that feels right member: chan genre: fluff, slice of life, high school au, college au, friends to lovers au, sports au (off season universe), campus dj au (if u squint), slow burn (?), fem reader word count: 12k wtf warning: explicit language, alcohol, a plot that makes zero sense note: idk what this is it’s so messy anw + @skzwriternet​

Chan came in your life quite late—both literally and figuratively.

The two of you were in the 12th grade when you met, at a time when all everyone cared about were getting into their respective dream universities and establishing a solid group of friends to call back once they’re already on their separate ways. He got stuck in traffic that day and wasn’t allowed entry past the school gates at first because he didn’t get his uniform on time while you and your group of friends were on time in class, completely unexpecting of a new addition to the group as you all worried about the upcoming entrance exams.

“Oh, look at that, new kid.” Minho nudged your elbow and whispered loudly close to you that day, gesturing to the spaces between the curtains of the window facing the hallway. Outside, Chan was being ushered to the faculty room at the other end of the hall by a teacher, head hung low in embarrassment that he stood out with his black hoodie and sweatpants. “And no uniform on the first day—I feel like we should adopt him!”

You didn’t pay much attention to it at first, shrugging before returning to your messy Homeroom notes. An election was to be held at the end of the week and maybe, just maybe, you were thinking about it. “A bit risky, don’t you think? Right before the exams.” You mused out loud, more to the classroom elections than to the transferee.

“Do you think we’ll get him?” Minho asked anyway despite the lack of interest in your tone, leaning on your side of the shared table with a propped up elbow. “Or will Dahyun and Bam’s class next door?”

The answer was given to Minho over five minutes later, when the gentle sound of your Homeroom adviser’s voice was interrupted by a knock on the door. “Excuse me, good morning, Ms. Park!” The faculty head, Mrs. Liu, peered in your room that day with Chan trailing behind with curious eyes. “I’m so sorry for the interruption but your transfer student is now here!”

In front of the classroom, Ms. Park welcomed Chan with a smile and clasped hands. “Ah yes, Bang Chan, finally! Come on in!”

Chan introduced himself in awkward giggles and a slight miscalculated step when he didn’t immediately see the elevated area separating the black board and the first row of desks. “Hi, I’m eighteen-year-old student Bang Chan and I moved here from Sydney, Australia! Please take care of me!” You remembered him introducing himself at Ms. Park’s request before being seated right next to Hansol on the other end of the fourth row.

Minho, who eyed the boy curiously the entire time, sat up properly after and told you, “I’m gonna ambush him at recess. You wanna come with?”

You knew even then that you didn’t have to answer the question because as the bell rang for recess time, Minho had dragged you over to Hansol and Chan’s table as soon as he saw you pick up your wallet.

“Hi, I’m Minho and this is Y/N and we’re about to kidnap you!” Minho exclaimed as the two of you approached the unexpecting boy, earning you wide eyes from him. “If you want to, of course. Y/N’s gonna be class president again by Friday and I’m gonna be fighting Moonbin to the death for basketball captain so we’re clearly overqualified to show you around.”

You remember Hansol toppling over in laughter while you turned away in embarrassment. Not that it was uncommon for the most nonsense things to come out of Minho’s mouth then—in fact, it was quite the opposite.

Fortunately, Chan was easily persuaded. “Uh...sure, why not?” He grinned with relief, pushing his chair away from his desk and picking up his own wallet before following you and Minho downstairs to the cafeteria.

You ended up helping him buy snacks from the cafeteria and showing him around what you deemed as the most important areas of the campus within the thirty-minute recess. Because of the short time, he met your other friends belatedly at lunch.

Chan came in your life quite late—both literally and figuratively—but you suppose it’s not that bad because you’ve been friends ever since.

Minho was ‘disappointed but not surprised’ when Chan tried out for the swim team instead of his basketball team—his words not yours.

Club Week was not actually a week but a week and a half, giving everyone time to either succeed or fail in the clubs they signed up for and move on to the next. Since you were elected Class President, you decided on sticking only to what you considered your most important clubs for senior year: Volleyball and the school paper. Minho, on the other hand, unfortunately lost his ‘fight to the death’ with Moonbin over the team captain title but he kept insisting that it was because he really was fated to be the cheer dance team’s captain instead.

“At least, it’s one less sweaty kid I have to worry about.” You jokingly assured Minho once Club Week was over. You and your group of friends were huddled on your usual table that lunch break, comparing training and review center schedules.

“Ya, what does that mean?”

“It means you’re in two sports clubs and you never shower after any one of them!” Dahyun points out for you across the table, earning her ‘ooh’s and high-fives from everyone. “You should be embarrassed, Mingyu’s on three teams and he literally showers on Febreze.”

“But I do shower, just not as religiously as everyone.” 

“Why not?” 

“Climate change!” 

You turned to Chan amidst the playful chaos, shaking your head in feigned disapproval. “Sorry, they’re five.”

The boy only chuckled. “It’s okay.”

“I’m glad you joined the school paper too, by the way.” You made sure to add, hinting that you saw him at your club assembly the week prior despite the large turn-out of people. “I heard from Jihyo at our last council meeting. Broadcasting, right?”

“Yep,” He nodded with pursed lips and an eye smile. “so you guys will hear me DJ for the rest of the year too.”

“Can’t wait.”

Chan’s first gig as the school radio’s DJ was the Friday that followed, in the middle of your student council meeting. He sounded nervous at first, which made you, Jihyo, and Seungkwan laugh while you were presenting your batch’s initiatives for the whole school year, but he made it out alive—and even included a shout out for you.

“Also, shoutout to Y/N! Thank you for showing me the ropes this month.” His voice echoed faintly through the hallways at lunch break. A pause then followed, what you assumed was Changbin and Jisung scolding him, before he snickered and said, “I guess Minho and Hansol, too! See you tomorrow, you guys!”

Ever since the 7th grade, you’ve made sure to follow each and every one of your closest friends’ extracurricular activies. From Dahyun’s and Jihyo’s recitals to Bam Bam’s and Minho’s competitions and meets, you were always there: half as a volunteer for the school paper and the other half as a cheering friend. It’s your way of looking out for your friends, by standing in the sidelines for support. 

So naturally, with the addition of Chan to your friend group, you always came to his swim meets with a camera, a write-up outline, and a tarpaulin you’re quite sure Minho and Bam Bam didn’t make while sober the night before.

“Like the slogan, dolphin boy?” Bam Bam snickered at Chan as he sat on his designated waiting area right in front of your bleacher. It was the final tournament for the semester and your two other friends have decided on a lazy ‘Let’s go Dolphin Boy!’ decorated in glitters and a Photoshopped photo of Chan’s head in a dolphin. “When are you going on?”

Chan turned to your group and immediately slapped a hand to his face in embarrassment. “Oh my God...”

“To set the record straight, Jihyo and I were studying together last night and Dahyun was at piano lessons.” You held your hands up in self-defense to an eyeroll from Minho. “The poster’s all on Bam and Minho.”

“I know.” Chan mumbled behind his hand, removing it slowly after. “I’m on in five minutes. And what happens when I do get a place on the stands?”

“Then we’ll stand up and wave this harder!” Minho answered this time, aggressively waving the cartolina and causing a few glitters to scatter on your jeans.

“Minho!”

Chan competed in 1500 m I.M. and all the butterfly relays on that day and only then did you notice that he liked competing in them more than the other categories. You took photos and noted the important details with Bam Bam’s agile typing on your phone throughout the event, up until Chan received his mostly gold medals—when Bam Bam and Minho did kept to their word and ambushed the poor boy by throwing the slogan over his head when he asked for a group photo with everyone.

“This is like the Avengers of extended friend groups!” Dahyun joked once the chaos has died down and you’ve managed to get everyone to prepare for a couple of group photos. “Now I’m even more excited for dinner!”

A couple of Chan’s childhood friends also came that day—Younghyun, Somi, Sana, Lisa, and Matthew whom you befriended after over dinner that was Chan’s treat. It looked more like a weird family reunion to you than what Dahyun thought but you laughed anyway as you adjusted your camera settings.

“Okay, you guys ready?” You asked the group once everyone’s settled down, arms slung over each other and bright smiles ready to be taken for Instagram updates. “One, two—“

At the center of the photo, with a big bouquet of roses and several medals, Chan suddenly shifted in his position under Matthew’s and Younghyun’s arms and asked you, “Wait, wait, wait...Y/N aren’t you joining?”

You shook your head, making everyone erupt in protest. “Ya, then who’s gonna take the photo?”

Minho doesn’t exaggerate it one bit whenever he recalls this that Chan literally bolted out of the group to pull in his nearest teammate to take the photo, quickly tugging you to him afterwards and positioning you right in front of him once the group photos were taken. You ended up with his arms and his bouquet draped over you in all of the photos.

With the college entrance exams fast approaching over a month later, you found yourself juggling your academics, cram school, Volleyball training, student council, and the school paper all at once. It was manageable at times, with the help of your teammates and clubmates, but of course there would be days when you would almost fall asleep on the spot at Saturday cram school, in particular.

Chan was no better as he balanced academics and cram school with his own swim training, the school radio, and preparing a portfolio for his talent exams at the Departments of Music for every university he applied to.

Fortunately, you both went to the same cram school with everyone else. Seated next to each other, you bought Chan coffee while he passed you candies and chocolate he would get from his mom through the mail.

“You, uh...” Chan nudged your knuckles with his softly one time, alternating his gaze between your open notes and the formulas being discussed on the white board two rows ahead. “The answer’s 2.”

“Hm?” You hummed tiredly, free hand supporting your cheek as you tried so hard to pay attention and follow along. The day prior was meetings upon meetings that lasted until 8:30 PM, pushing all of your time allotted for homework to midnight since you had to take the bus home. To say you were so tempted to fall asleep then was an understatement.

Knowing this, you saw Chan take the liberty of writing the correct answer on your notes through your half-lidded eyes, poking your knuckles with the end of his mechanical pencil after. “You have the whole solution down but the final answer is 2, silly.” He chuckled softly, discreetly passing you another gummy bear from under the table. “Do you even know what you’ve been writing?”

You nodded even though your brain was barely processing anything, receiving the gummy bear after. “I think so?” You mused out loud, making him laugh. 

“We’ll just have to go through this again later. You should’ve stayed at home and rested if you’re so tired.”

You found out later, when you were much awake to have lunch at a nearby cafe with Chan, that the boy took down the notes for you in a fashion similar to your note-taking technique for you to copy—and that he drew a small dinosaur on the margins of your notebook with a text bubble that said, “You can do it!”

Chan has made it a habit to bring you an extra thermos of coffee and drew little animals on your notebook whenever the two of you were bored ever since.

You showed up at Chan’s doorstep on his first Christmas Day in Korea, not really expecting to see his mom with his aunt on the other side of the door.

“Hi.” Chan mustered up a rather confused smile, growing even bigger and less shy right in front of you the longer he gazed at your own wide eyes and long travel coat. “Y/N, hi.”

“I thought you were—“ You unconsciously gestured to his extended family running around the hallways behind him, furrowing your brows. “Hi, um, should I just—should I just go?”

Chan furrowed his brows, instinctively pulling you closer to the doorway by your arm once he noticed the snow falling harder behind you. “What? Why?” He asked at the sudden proximity. “What’s up?”

His unintentionally blunt tone with the question definitely had you caught off-guard and flustered. “O-Oh, I just thought—I thought you wouldn’t be with your parents and siblings for Christmas so I came over.” You cringed internally at your truthful but rather cheesy answer. “Everyone’s skating at the mall today and I thought of inviting you because I assumed that you’d be lonely here with just your uncle and auntie...”

Another smile, an amused one, settled on his lips as you talked. “Really?” He mused out loud to which you nodded absentmindedly at. “We could go right now, if you want. My mom would probably tell me to bring Hannah and Lucas along, though, if that’s okay.”

Your eyes widened for the second time that afternoon. “W-We can, yeah.” You nodded slowly to both questions, breaking into your own smile.

“Okay, come on in first, then, it’s cold out.” Chan then took you by the same hand inside, closing the door behind him and leading you to the shoe rack for your boots. “My mom’s been looking for you and everyone else since they landed here too! You should be able to stop her from fussing over dinner so much.”

You met Chan’s parents and siblings that day, almost getting stuck in his aunt and uncle’s house because of his mom’s excitement at meeting one of her son’s friends in Korea until Chan smoothly brought up your offer of going to the skating rink with his siblings. You eventually left the house with him and his younger siblings right before Minho could text you that you were taking too long.

“You do know how to skate, right, Chan?” Minho asked when you arrived. He sat between you and the boy in question to rest his feet from racing with Dahyun, removing his skates and stretching his legs forward. “Y/N and Jihyo suck at explaining things she’s already good at and Bam Bam’s a deer walking for the first time so the choices for teacher aren’t really looking so well for you right now.”

When you looked over at him from Minho’s shoulder, he simply shrugged. “Shouldn’t be that hard. It’s just ice and blades, right?”

But it ended up being very much so, at least for him as he ended up reaching for yours and Jihyo’s hands before you could even run off to join Minho and Dahyun on their race. “Okay, okay, I was wrong!” He exclaimed dramatically, gloved hand meeting your own when Jihyo jokingly moved her hand away. “I’m going to fall over!”

“You’re doing fine.” You rolled your eyes in feigned exasperation, holding his hand anyway as you slowed your pace. His siblings then passed by the two of you, giggling over their eldest brother tripping on ice. "Look, even your siblings are doing fine and you came from the same place as those two.” 

“Chan, you’re being dramatic.” Jihyo added to tease him further, gracefully sliding away from the two of you. “‘It’s just ice and blades, right?’ You’ll get used to it!” 

Then, as if for unintentional emphasis, Chan almost tripped at this and instinctively held your hand tighter. “I really am going to fall if I let go.” He pouted, linking your arms together instead. “Can’t you really teach me?”

You unlink your arms, catching his hand again. “Fine, I’ll try but don’t cling to me too much.” You pointed out, laughing when he interlocks your fingers together. “You swim in deep ass Olympic pools back and forth like it’s nothing, ice shouldn’t be that scary to you, you know.” 

With that, you spent the rest of the afternoon teaching Chan how to balance himself on his skates (and getting him out of Minho and Dahyun’s way as the two circled the rink like two roller derby players). He perfected his balance at the end of the day but he still wouldn’t let go of your hand so naturally, you came back next year. 

And next year eventually turned into an annual tradition between the two of you. 

The exam results then came in the middle of your final Volleyball game which was probably not good for your adrenaline levels but everyone found it amusing.

Your team was leading in the final set, 23-22, and you could tell as you delivered volley after volley that your opponent was already losing hope. On the sidelines of the open gymnasium, Bam Bam and Minho held up the ugliest orange cartolina ever with ‘HAIKYUU THAT SHIT Y/N!’ in mismatched marker colors while Jihyo, Dahyun, Chan, Hansol, and Seungkwan screamed their lungs out for your team.

You’re quite certain the cartolina got confiscated by your coach after for inappropriate language, you’re not quite sure even at present because you never saw it again, especially when it was dropped to the ground the moment everyone’s phones started ringing because of an e-mail from school.

You noticed it from the sidelines, even as you and another teammate delivered the final volley that lead to your victory. Chan held your phone with a bright smile on his face, directing it to you after as you and your team huddled for a group hug and greeted the opposite team for the last time.

“Congratulations!” He greeted you as soon as you’ve celebrated enough with your teammates, waving your phone in front of you as he approached with everyone jumping not far behind him. “On both!”

“Both what?”

Before Chan could even answer you properly, you were engulfed in a big hug by Jihyo, Seungkwan, and Dahyun. “You did it!” They exclaimed in unison. “You passed all of the uni’s you applied to! We all did!”

Immediately, your widened eyes and agape mouth sought Chan for confirmation, to which he simply nodded with a laugh and a thumbs up. “No way...” You muttered in disbelief, gaining feeling back in your frozen legs after to jump along with everyone in your group hug. “No shit, no way! Congratulations, guys!”

“Congrats to you too, dude! You won twice today!” Jihyo pointed out, making everyone laugh. “We’re still on for BBQ, right?”

“Well, I can’t be the only one paying now since we all passed the exam!”

You got hugs from the others as well (and an extra one with a high-five from Seungkwan because he was just so hyped about your volleyball game), receiving from Chan last since he wanted a photo with you after.

“We could do a group photo, you know.” You tried suggesting as you held your Finals tournament trophy in between the two of you. Hansol has both of your phones side by side in front of him, adjusting the settings a little before taking the photo.

“We could but that’s for later. I need a new contact photo for you!” Chan insisted. Before you could comment on his ridiculous excuse, however, Hansol was already taking photos of the two of you.

Chan did set a photo of you from that day as your contact photo—specifically the one where you were pretending to dump invisible water from the trophy over him. It’s ridiculous and it still makes everyone laugh whenever Chan’s phone lights up with this photo.

Graduation celebrations naturally came after, as soon as Spring Break was over. Bam Bam threw a house party for your batch that was anything but sober and civil, the clubs each had send-off parties, and the student council planned a Graduation Ball which was mostly just yours, Jihyo’s, and Seungkwan’s excuse to dress semi-fancy and have Chan invite Younghyun to invite his band, Day6, to perform a whole set of their new songs.

You came with your friend group, or at least you and Jihyo convinced yourselves that you did since no one bothered to look for dates. It had been your finals before the Saturday of the graduation ball and, on top of that, the two of you were busy ‘student council-ing’ as Minho worded it, organizing the event with the school faculty and a few parents.

You did dance with everyone by the end of the night too, Minho pulling you along by the hand in a group hug as you yelled out the lyrics to Days Gone By—one of the last songs of the evening. “Finally you can join us!” He exclaimed dramatically, pressing a kiss on top of your head as he slung an arm over your shoulder. He didn’t actually need to worry about spending time with you since you’re all staying in the hotel for the night anyway. “Loosen up, will you?!”

On your other side, you could only hear Chan laugh as Bam Bam proceeded into the center of your big circle to dance, challenging an unexpecting Yugyeom nearby after. He stole glances over to you occasionally, a fond smile on his lips whenever you’d catch him in the act. He actually wanted to ask you to dance but decided against it last minute, growing too shy at noticing that the crowds are mostly dancing in friend groups rather than pairs until it was ultimately time to retreat into your hotel rooms.

“Goodnight and happy graduation, Seoul High!”

Fortunately, however, Chan made up for this by waiting on you after the dance. You stayed behind with Jihyo and Seungkwan for an hour more once the students have either gone back to their hotel rooms or migrated to the hotel lobby to wait for their rides home; Chan was more than happy to lend an extra helping hand as you thanked the staff and made sure that the packing up was done orderly.

“You did well tonight,” He complimented you sheepishly as the two of you carefully packed up the stage’s sound equipment. The microphone he was trying to remove from the stands was still on then, making his voice echo faintly through the hall. “organizing the event and all.”

Your face heated up against the now softer stage lights as you moved the guitar and music stands from the center to the side where a staff member was waiting for you. “T-Thanks, Chan. Did you have fun?”

He simply nodded this time with a sheepish giggle, passing you the microphones after making sure they were properly turned off.

After this, Chan politely walked you and Jihyo back to your shared room with Dahyun just two floors above the one all the boys in your class reserved for themselves

“Night, Chan! Make sure you’re not being too loud with the boys downstairs, okay?” Jihyo bid him goodbye quickly with a small yawn and a mischievous smile as she opened the heavy door to your room with ease. “I’m pretty sure Bam brought that wireless microphone with him again—and it’s probably Mingyu or Seokmin’s idea again.”

“Don’t worry we won’t, I’ll make sure.” Chan nodded sheepishly before waving goodbye to her. Once she’s inside, he then turned to you and said, “Goodnight, Y/N.”

You nodded slowly at him, a little hesitant. When he raised his eyebrows at this, you then suggested, “Um...I know this is sudden and it’s like 1 AM but you don’t happen to be in the mood for McDonald’s, right?”

“Seriously? At this time?” 

“I’ll buy you an iced coffee if you want.” 

So you ended up at the McDonald’s two blocks from the hotel where your graduation ball was held, wrinkled dress suits and all. You talked for what seemed like an hour more, played with the Powerpuff Girls happy meal toy he bought on a whim, and got scolded through calls and text from your friends because you didn’t invite them. Since this day, the two of you have been buying each other’s coffee from McDonald’s.

Bam Bam and Minho both moved further West in the city, the latter sharing his uncle’s old apartment with another friend of his, while Jihyo dorms with Mina, another friend of yours from another school, up North. Besides these, no one made a drastic change to move houses or dormitories from the area your parents considered near since everyone else attended universities relatively near. At university, especially on your first year, you, Chan, and Dahyun mostly stuck with each other; just now with the addition of Lisa who ended up attending the same university and Jacob whom Chan befriended in his classes.

Sometime towards the end of your first semester, when Bam Bam and Minho skipped school to crash one of your semi-finals Volleyball game, your now larger group of friends decided that Chan would ‘take one for the team’ and get a driver’s license for all of your travelling needs. He lost against Jacob and Dahyun of all people in the most intense game of rock-paper-scissors you’ve ever seen. 

Because of this, for the two weeks leading up to finals week, you ended up risking your life accompanying Chan to practice in his aunt’s old SUV. During this time period, he either took you to and from university as well or from your neighborhood to the bar and grill you started frequenting with him and the rest of your friend group. It’s not that he’s bad at driving, his parking skills were just initially a cause of worry for you whenever he was driving in crowded places. 

“Am I close?” Chan asked you on your first day of finals, leaning over your side of the car to check the side mirror. You had your reviewers for your Communications class glued to your face throughout the entire twenty-minute ride but that didn’t stop you from simultaneously being anxious of hitting someone else’s car right in front of your college building. “Can you check?” 

You opened the window and briefly peeked your head out, turning to Chan after and almost jumping at how close he’s gotten. “It doesn’t even look like you tried.” You laughed through your immediate flustered expression, making him lean back in frustration as he prepares to move the car again. “How long have we been here? Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention.” 

Chan pouted, keeping a hand on your head rest as he now carefully re-attempts to parallel park. “Just five minutes.” He mumbles, alternating his gaze quickly between the front and back of the car. “So that means you’ve been studying well this entire time.” 

“Your driving is already good I could even sleep in, it’s just the parking that’s worrying.” You pointed out teasingly, leaning on his hand to glance back at the situation behind you and poking on his new arm bands. “Speaking of, you do know that you don’t even have to park, right? It’s not like you’re going to wait for me.” 

“But I’ll wait for you.” Your eyes met belatedly as Chan finally parks the car. “It’s just 30 minutes, right?” 

“It’s two hours, Chan...” You quirked a brow. “Didn’t I text you that?”  

“Really? Ah, well...I’ll just...” Chan chuckled sheepishly, clearly realizing his mistake at the last minute. “I can totally just hang around, I guess.” 

But the problem was, Dahyun didn’t have class that day, Lisa was organizing a club party, and Jacob was in his own volleyball training. Chan ended up loitering around the swim team for a while and impulsively buying you lunch because he didn’t want to waste gas. 

You bought him lunch when he passed his driver’s license in return. 

“You probably need glasses now.” You pointed out to him as you happily ate your Burger King inside his car. The nearest branch to the driving school he attended had a relatively big parking lot, making the two of you sigh in relief that he didn’t have to parallel park this time. “I’m pretty sure I texted you that my exam was from 10 to 12.” 

Next to you, Chan had his seat reclined and the windows fully open as he sipped on his Cola and munched on fries. “No, I checked it again the other day and you texted 10 to 11.” 

“What?!” When you do check your phones, only then do you find out that you did mistakenly text him 10 to 11 instead of 10 to 12. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry! Should I buy you another burger?”

Chan simply shook his head and snatched the ice cream cup you’ve been saving. “I’ll just take this, thank you!” 

“Ya!” 

The first time the driver’s license actually came in handy was on your first volleyball game as a university student. Chan went on a round trip around the major universities in Seoul to pick up all of your friends which almost caused you to be late to the game but you could barely care then—you were too pumped over the idea of all of your friends coming together to watch you.

Besides, Chan volunteered to be a courtside reporter for the game so you weren’t scolded by your coach alone.

“Good luck out there!” Chan nudged your side with a wink as the two of you prepared to enter the arena with your team. He made sure that he had his microphone off twice this time. “I’d really love to interview you when you win.”

“When have I ever lost in front of you, hm?” You teased with a grin of your own, just as the backstage doors opened to the cheers and drums of your university. 

And, true to your word, you win the game a little over an hour and a half later. With a small trophy passed around from your teammates and the promise of a day-off from your coach, Chan was the first of your friends to approach you.

“And here we also have SNU women’s volleyball team newest recruits, Y/N and Chaeyeon!” Chan introduced you and your teammate in front of the cameras. In the distance, you could see your friends then: Jihyo, Dahyun, Mina, and Lisa holding balloons in the color of your university, Bam Bam and Minho holding their usual embarrassing slogan, and Jacob jumping up and down excitedly over your game’s turn-out. “This is your first game and first win of the season, congrats! How does it feel, you two?”

Your eyes met Chaeyeon’s instinctively to your right, making the two of you giggle shyly. After a mini game of passing the microphones between each other, you eventually ended up answering, “Um, we’re very grateful that our first game gave us our first win as new members as well and we hope that we’ll continue doing even better in the semi-finals!”

“Yes! Everyone’s hoping so too, especially after watching your play today!” Chan commented, clearly going off-topic then by the way you noticed how his mini crew of fellow students looked surprise and even checked their own cue cards.

Once the interviews were over, you were then whisked away by Minho and Jacob—the former to catch up with you while the latter was so excited talking to you about your game.

“Dude you were so good out there! Like that serve on the first set that really riled up the opposing team’s captain? And and that over the net move you did with Chaeyeon! We should have a practice game sometime!” Jacob always talked a million times per second over things that excited him but you didn’t mind, at least now Minho had someone to compete with over who could say the weirder thing.

The interaction placed a rather childish pout on Chan throughout the ride to your promised Korean BBQ dinner, no one but Lisa paid it too much mind.

“Stop pouting you look ugly.” She said to the poor boy with a feigned judgmental face, switching seats with you earlier for the ride to dinner so you can discuss volleyball with Jihyo and Jacob. “Why are you even pouting? Something on your mind?”

“Nothing.” Chan only furrowed his brows and frowned, glancing over to you on the rear view mirror to see you laughing along to a video Minho was showing everyone on his phone.

it’s not Minho that bothered him, everyone with eyes and a braincell have always known that he’s in love with his current roommate.

Jacob, though...you play the same sport and are both equally passionate over it! It definitely made Chan think.

“Nothing looks like she’s having fun, huh?” Lisa mumbled under her breath in response after a moment, breaking out into a laugh when Chan finally glances over at her with a confused look. “Nothing!”

Lisa made sure you sat next to Chan after, dragging Minho and Jacob by the ears to the other side of the table.

On your second year, your favorite junior from your previous school finally entered college. Seungmin was also on the student council, school paper, as well as in the high school baseball team who often practiced with your volleyball team so you basically considered him your ‘child,’ much to his annoyance. Though he attended a university that was nearer to Bam Bam’s and Minho’s, you pestered Chan into driving you almost once a month to his dorm to visit, anyway. 

Chan would’ve said no every time given his own busy schedule but you promised him every time that Felix, a friend of Seungmin’s who happened to come from Australia as well, and Jeongin, another junior you unofficially ‘adopted’ in high school, would also be there. 

“Chan, I need to go to Seungmin’s, it’s an emergency.” You greeted Chan one day right after your afternoon classes. You found him in the library, studying for second semester midterms with Lisa and Jacob which did made you feel bad but you really couldn’t wait for the next bus anymore.

“What kind of emergency?” Lisa asked, prompting you to shake your head. 

“The kids said it’s very bad...” You continued shaking your head frantically and that was enough for Chan to pack up his things and lead you outside to his car. 

When the two of you arrived at Seungmin and Jeongin’s shared dorm, Chan was more than confused at seeing the former sprawled out on the common area carpet with his arms folded over his chest like a vampire while the latter and Jeongin hovered over him with worried looks and mini fans. 

“Is Seungmin dying?” Chan asked you with genuine worry as you approached, which would’ve made you laugh with the choice of words had you not just been vaguely called on short notice to deal with the situation. 

You didn’t get to answer him at first as your first instinct was to sit down next to Seungmin and ask Felix, “We came here as fast as we could. What’s wrong?” 

In front of you, Seungmin groaned in pain and rolled over on his stomach, hiding his reddening cheeks from you. “Y/N, why are you here?” He whined, bringing his arms up to his head to hide his face further. “Did these two call you?”

“Yeah they did.” You answered firmly, rolling the boy on his back again that prompted more complaints from him. “Now, what’s wrong? School? Sports? Friends? Are you okay?”

It took a moment for Seungmin to remove his arms over his face and answer you and it undeniably made you and Chan nervous. When he did answered, it was what you least expected from him as he said, “Y/N, I think I have a crush...” 

A pause then followed as everyone simply stared back at Seungmin who immediately hid in his hoodie once again. 

“Oh for the love of God, Kim Seungmin! Are you kidding me right now?! I came all the way here for this?” You smacked him in the arm once you’ve recovered, finally breaking out into laughs as the other boys toppled over in laughter. Turning to Jeongin and Felix, you then asked, “So why did you call me? You could’ve called Minho, he literally lives three blocks away.” 

Felix and Jeongin glanced over at each other and shrugged. “He said he’s having love problems,” Jeongin pointed to Seungmin innocently before turning to you. “So I thought of calling you. Aren’t you and Chan a thing?” 

This time, it was you and Chan looking at each other and laughing. “No, no, we’re not a thing.” He clarified for you with a dismissive wave. “Y/N’s married in a poly relationship with academics and extracurriculars.”

“And Chan’s secretly a merman so it’s a hard pass.” You finished his thought jokingly, looking over at Seungmin after. 

“You guys, I’m still in a situation here!” Seungmin frowned, lifting his head up to place on your lap. “I’m fucked, basically.”

“Well, since we came all the way here and gas is expensive, do you want to talk about it? Lix and I can cook dinner.”  

With that (and a few more words to get Seungmin off of the floor), you managed to drag the lovestruck boy into the kitchen and cooked him tonkatsu with Felix and Jeongin on your tail. Chan kept him company the entire time, peering over his shoulder as he narrated the story of a certain figure skater he met at his Freshman welcome assembly. “We’ve been friends for a while and I really like them but they’re always getting into trouble!” Seungmin mostly rambled, making you, Jeongin, and Felix snicker with your backs turned.

“All the more reasons to see them often, then?” You suggested, much to Seungmin’s annoyance.

“Won’t I be too obvious? Or too doting? Maybe they don’t like that as much since they’re so independent. Agh, what do I do?!”

“Play it cool like you always do, kid.” You answered simply, patting his head affectionately as you passed by his spot to retrieve a basket of condiments “What do you think, Chan?”

You clearly caught him off-guard then by the way his eyes slowly widened and he instinctively sat up straight. “O-Oh, u-um—yeah, what you said...” He eventually agreed with a nonchalant shrug to cover up his shaky actions. “Don’t overthink it or else nothing happens.”

You re-joined Jeongin and Felix across the kitchenette with a chuckle, nudging Jeongin with your elbow after. “You kids are growing up! Ah, but it still kinda feels like yesterday when you two were just messing around back in high school.”

“We’re a year below you, what are you talking about?” Jeongin pouted, eyes not leaving the side dishes he was preparing. When you don’t tease him further about it with another side comment, he then adds, “Sorry for assuming you and Chan were dating by the way. That wasn’t weird, right?”

You shook your head reassuringly. “No, it’s cool! I’m just curious where you’d get that from.”

“Minho said—“ And that was enough for you to give your aforementioned friend an earful the next time you saw him after.

“So, Chan’s not dating?” Felix asked next to which you nodded at. “Oh, cool!”

“Why? Do you have someone for him?”

Though Felix didn’t say anything more specific after that, Chan was then coerced into a friendly blind date to the movies a week after, you heard it at his new sideline podcast with Changbin and Jisung of all places.

“I—“ Seungmin’s first reaction was to clasp his hands together while the two of you were listening to the podcast episode in YouTube. “I spill out my heart to you guys and over tonkatsu then I find out that this happened right under my nose that night?”

It was a month since his dramatic confession and a little over two weeks since Chan went on the blind date and you’ve been taking the bus with Dahyun to visit the kids ever since. Chan thought he did something wrong but you’ve assured him multiple times that you’re just trying to be considerate of him since he now has an additional person on his plate.

Dahyun also wanted to visit Jihyo and Mina so you decided on commuting with her in particular.

“Ah, well, that’s life—or college...or maybe both.” You shrugged. You often studied in their dorm living room to pass the time if Minho wasn’t up for being bothered with in his apartment—you found out throughout this that studying with a Legal Management major like Seungmin motivates you to go through your rigorous readings. “How’s your crush by the way? Any progress?”

“They want to try speed skating! Do you know how dangerous that is? Not to mention, the legality of it all...”

“This person seems like they get you up on your toes. I like it! Makes things a bit more exciting, don’t you think?”

“It just makes my head hurt.” Seungmin sighed, rubbing his temples dramatically for emphasis. “I can’t help but worry...”

“I think you’re sweet looking out for them like this.” You assured. “But it’s not sports if you don’t get hurt and we both know that.” 

“Then what do I do?” 

“Just look out for them. I’m pretty sure they’re not all that clumsy as you make them out to be—you said they’re an athlete, right?—but it’s still important to be there for support and help when they really need it.” You half-shrugged, not really knowing what else to say. “But not just as someone who has a crush. Be a friend first and foremost—I mean, obviously, since you’re not dating, you’re just friends, hopefully for now. Yeah, that’s it! Don’t overthink it, you’re friends not married!” 

A thought then seemed to pass Seungmin as a small smile formed on his lips. He then pulled his knees close to his chest and leaned back on the sofa behind him. “So, is that how you are with Chan?” 

“What?!” 

“I mean he’s sort of dating right now but don’t you have a crush on him?” The younger boy asked in genuine curiosity. “Honestly, I was surprised that you let him go on that blind date with the Soyeon girl Felix recommended, much less a second date this weekend.” 

“No—I mean no, I don’t have a crush on him.” You refused calmly though your voice clearly shook a little but not for the reason Seungmin thought it was. “We’re just friends. You’re going off-topic!” 

Seungmin’s eyes lit up in interest. “Well, I thought about it so we’re talking about it now! Have you seriously never thought about it?”

“No, but I am now because you brought it up!” You shook your head back truthfully before smacking his arm with your reviewers, making him pout and wince at you. “Don’t do that! You’re like—you’re trying to brainwash me into having feelings or something!”

Seungmin instinctively held his hands up, filled with his own lecture notes, and shook his head at the accusation. “No I’m not!” He pouted at you to no avail. “I’m just saying that I’ve always thought there was something, with how you two are so close.”

“You and I are close, Minho and I are close,” You argued back with a small pout, crossing your arms. “Heck, Bam Bam and I are close and we grew up together since the 4th grade.” 

Again, the boy shook his head stubbornly. “Yeah, we’re all different kinds of close, especially Chan,” He claimed with so much conviction. “You look out for me, Minho, and Bam Bam but Chan looks out for you as much as you do for him, if that makes sense.”   

“See you can’t even reason out properly and you’re in Legal Management.” You scoffed playfully. “I look out for everyone the same way, Chan’s not that kind of special for me. Also, it’s basic human decency, Seungmin. I can’t believe you don’t look out for me back, to be honest.”

Though you came off as perfectly unbothered by this, there was a period when things started became awkward on your end and it frustrated you until the end of your second year. 

Seungmin teased you to no end for it to make up for your equally endless questions about the person he’s taken interest in, Minho kept bringing it up whenever the two of you met or hung out in his apartment, and Dahyun only confronted you about it when it started becoming inconvenient for her as yours and Chan’s mutual friend.

“Chan keeps texting me if we want a ride to Minho’s but I already told him that we’re on the bus right now.” Dahyun showed you her phone on another one of your many commutes to Minho’s side of the city. By this time, it has been two months and three dates for Chan, with your time spend with said boy having reduced significantly. “Are you guys okay? Have you been talking lately?” 

You furrowed your brows and nodded in genuine confusion. “Yeah, why?” 

“It feels like he wants to ask me about you but he won’t say it directly.” Dahyun shrugged, leaning back on the seats. “It kinda gives me the impression that you guys fought or something.” 

“We didn’t fight.” You assured with a small frown. “Nothing happened, really.”  

“Then what is it?” 

It took you a moment to answer as your mind instinctively went to the conversation you previously had with Seungmin. “I...you know when someone points something out to you in a different light and then it makes you think of a lot of things?” When you saw Dahyun nod slowly, you then took it as your cue to admit, “It’s something like that, I guess.”

And like you, it also took a moment for Dahyun to answer. “Well, how do you feel about it?” She asked back as a response. “I think I know what this is about but you don’t have to tell me if you’re uneasy telling me about it.”

And you were uneasy and confused, very much so. “I don’t think I’m feeling anything special about it, really.” You admitted in a smaller voice, finding your attention flitting down to your hands on your lap. “I feel like I’m just thinking too much on what that someone said and how they said it.” 

“Then it’s probably nothing, easy as that. Don’t let people’s words get into your head too much, especially on things like this—if we are thinking of the same thing—or else it’s gonna feel like you’re being forced into having different feelings or think differently.” Dahyun shrugged with a reassuring smile. “If otherwise, even then don’t overthink it too much. Just let things happen as they are.” 

When you didn’t respond immediately, she then took your silence to quickly add, “Anyway, bottom line is, whatever it really is that you’re feeling or thinking, don’t ignore Chan for it. Talk to him about it specifically if it helps just don’t make him feel left out just because you’re on a one-sided awkward situation.”  

It was a tough love kind of advice but Dahyun pestered you about it until she saw you approach Chan first over a week later, when you personally asked him to carpool to Bam Bam’s place for a year-end party.

You’ve never seen Chan’s face light up as much as it did on that day at the campus library. 

“R-Really?” He stuttered out in disbelief and suddenly, all hints of drowsiness had disappeared on his expression. “I mean, c-cool! Uh, what time should I pick you and Dahyun up?” 

“Ah, well, what time should you pick up Soyeon if she’s going to carpool with us?” You asked slowly, rubbing your nape awkwardly as you stood next to his table. 

His eyes widened in surprise before an equally awkward chuckle came out of his lips. “Soyeon’s not carpooling with us.” 

“Hm?” 

“She’s going with her own friends since they’re nearer to her place.” Chan nodded absentmindedly, pulling a chair for you to sit down. You took the place without hesitation, neck heating up in embarrassment over the thought that you seemed too eager. “We’re not actually dating anymore.” 

“Oh?” You furrowed your brows as quickly as your expression almost lit up. “I mean, since when, if it’s okay to ask?” 

“Since last week. I don’t know, we agreed that it’s really...not happening between us.” Chan shrugged nonchalantly, going back to his lecture notes. “It’s cool, though, we’re studying together next week at the new study hall near Itaewon.” 

You nodded, exhaling a breath you didn’t even realize you were holding until then. “At least it’s not awkward or anything.” 

“What about us?” 

You immediately looked up at this, meeting Chan’s somewhat hopeful gaze that had you unexpectedly stammering, “W-what do you mean?” 

“Did I do something wrong?” He pursed his lips nervously, voice growing smaller with each other. “It’s just that we haven’t talked a lot lately—or maybe I’m just overthinking it...” 

You were quick to shake your head, mustering up a small smile. “No, you didn’t do anything.” You assured him gently. “I’ve just been—it’s nothing.” 

“Really?” 

You nodded, breathing in another sigh of relief. “Yeah, I just had a lot of things going on then. It’s okay now.” 

And it really was okay then. Talking to Chan again assured you at the time that you liked him as a friend. You really really liked him at the time as a friend. 

Third year meant preparing for your senior year and going on your Junior Year internship which is probably why Bam Bam scheduled a trip to his hometown in Bangkok in the summer before this. It was just him, you, Chan, Dahyun, Jihyo, and Minho as a kind of mini high school reunion—the small kind of gathering everyone naturally hopes for with the pacing of university life. 

You stayed at his family’s house where his parents offered you the entire expanse of the living room to have a movie night and sleepover in on your first night, right before the overwhelming itinerary Bam Bam planned for the next five days. 

“Rock-paper-scissors for the beds!” Bam Bam announced after your sixth movie of the night. The Meg really wasn’t that amazing in your collective opinion but that didn’t stop you from putting it at the bottom of your To-Watch list just to throw as much nonsensical comments as you can on it. “The expandable couch goes to first, second, and third; the smaller one goes to fourth, and fifth and sixth get the air bag!” 

Unsurprisingly, you and Chan had to share the grey air bag because you simply were just unlucky that night (you accidentally got a Pringles bag that had more air on it than chips prior) and Chan was so sleepy right next to Minho from cramming a passion project with Changbin and Jisung on call. Not that you minded, you were actually glad you didn’t have to put up with Bam Bam kicking you in his sleep or Minho waking you up with his cuss-filled sleep talking. 

“Are you okay with this, sharing an air bed, I mean.” Chan had asked you as you prepared to sleep some time at 3 AM. He was hunched over on the side of the mattress that wasn’t pushed to the wall, laptop perched on top of his area as he continued fighting sleep and finishing his project. Everyone else had gone to sleep earlier. “I can totally just ask Bam for a sleeping bag if you want me to.” 

“It’s okay.” You assured him as you spread the blanket over the entire expanse of the small air bed before sliding in and taking your phone out from under your pillow. “Aren’t you slidi—tucking in too, though?” 

His face lit up in genuine surprise, slowly shifting into appreciation and fondness right in front of you as he caught the concern in your own face despite the phone blocking his view. “In a bit...I’m just making a few adjustments with this.” 

Changbin and Jisung erupted into yells on the three-way video call, their voices bursting so suddenly on Chan’s headphones that he immediately muted them before you could ask or even notice. 

Fortunately, you didn’t. “Oh, then don’t stay up too late, Chan.” You pointed out in even more concern. You knew how he could get whenever he pulled all-nighters, you realized. “We have to start really early tomorrow—or later.” 

He hummed absentmindedly with a small nod as he continued nodding, glancing back up at you again after a moment. “Then you should go to sleep already, you don’t have to wait up for me.” 

“Who said I’m waiting up for you? I’m scrolling through my Instagram.” But despite your teasing tone, you still ended up scrolling through your phone until he finished his project, bidding Changbin and Jisung a quick good morning before ending the call and sliding in under his share of the covers. 

“Okay now go to sleep.” He chuckled tiredly as he gazed down on you, hand accidentally brushing against your own in the small gap between the two of you as he placed it right next to his head. 

“But you’re watching me,” You frowned disapprovingly. “turn around or something.”

“I sleep better like this and what if I closed my eyes and you took pictures even with my back turned?” He feigned a pout, bringing his hand under the pillow as he shifted more comfortably in place. “You sleep first.” 

“You’re so childish.” You giggled, shaking your head stubbornly. “I won’t do that.” 

“As if you aren’t too right now. You’re probably thinking about it.” 

“On three, then? One—” 

“Two—“ 

“Three.” With your cue, the two of you then closed your eyes at the same time, only to peek one each right after. “Ya!” 

You eventually managed to fall asleep at the same time half an hour later with Chan reluctantly turning around for you once you had your eyes closed. He’d only see your sleeping expression a little bit later, when he woke up to use the bathroom at 7 AM and came back to check up on you sleeping comfortably and move more of the blanket to your shoulders. 

“Look at these eyebags, you could carry souvenirs in them later.” Minho chuckled next to you on the ride to your first trip destination after, laughing even more when you swatted his index finger that moved up in an attempt to poke your eyes. “Nightmare? The Meg wasn’t even about ghosts, Y/N.” 

“No, I just slept late.” You sighed, leaning back on your seat. “Chan and I stayed up a little longer.” 

At this, Minho’s eyes visibly lit up and he wiggled his eyebrows mischievously at you, prompting a disgusted look on your face. “Ooh, did something spicy finally happen between you two?” 

“No—and please never do that again, it’s disgusting!” 

“It’s my eyebrows!” 

Minho ended up teasing you throughout the whole trip, anyway, as you and Chan repeated almost the exact same routine every night.     

You had your Junior Year Internship at a media network across the city and though Chan insisted multiple times that he can drive you to work before going to his own at an entertainment company in the opposite direction, you managed to convince him that you really can commute this time and spend the night at Minho’s if you went overtime. No hard feelings this time. 

So with what his presence in your life suddenly lacked in being your everyday transportation, he made up for by spamming you constantly online. 

“This place has Tim Tams in their cafeteria!” He’d send you the most random photos and videos of his day-to-day working in song production at the entertainment company, from actual work-related matters like sophisticated equipment he was allowed to use to the small things like the extensive cafeteria food and his boss’ pet Labrador. “What are you having for lunch?” 

Being a P.A. at a media network, however, was much more fast-paced and required you to be running everywhere on your work hours. Chan understood, of course (hence the sudden influx of dog photos during a particular period that had you working overtime almost every day), but it still made you feel bad for replying so late because, whether you admitted it or not, his constant updates alleviated your stress. 

More often than not, his spams would be responded with photos of you on the subway and video clips of Minho and his roommate who are always practicing cheer dance moves in their living room. “I had three Snickers today but I drank a lot of water so that should count for something!” You often replied, following with a clip of Minho falling on his butt after tiredly trying to land a flip. “This is your Minho update of the day. He’s getting there! I think he’s going to try out for cheer dance captain this year!” 

At the end of the semester, Chan was more than happy seeing you again, so much so that he treated you with lunch and even offered you ice cream after. “You’re going to make up for all the full meals you’ve missed this semester!” He insisted as he picked you up from Minho’s place. The two of you ended up at a ramen house which was a far jump from your usual fast food dates—something you thought about the entire time. 

“I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works.” You laughed but you let him order you food anyway since it was free. “Extra nori and eggs, please!” 

You exchanged internship stories throughout the entirety of your lunch, laughing along to his stories of falling asleep in the middle of work and hearing his endless teasing over you getting starstruck with assisting your favorite artists on the job. You didn’t actually miss out on a lot of his shenanigans (that’s how heavily he spammed you) but you stayed in the ramen house for more than two hours, unconsciously drifting off to different topics and gossiping about your friends until the slight embarrassment of overstaying creeped in.

“Speaking of friends, I haven’t seen everyone else lately too.” Chan mused on your ride back home. He had his CD he secretly produced over his internship period playing on the radio as well as one hand on the steering while while the other fought you over the air conditioning. “I just know that you and Jacob train for volleyball together on weekends, Lisa’s busy with club duties, Bam Bam’s on an exchange student thing and Jihyo recently introduced us to the person she’s dating now.” 

You leaned back in your seat and shrugged, finally giving up on the air conditioning to open the windows instead and admire the Han river on your side of the road. “Well, you know how Minho’s been doing with my updates and I haven’t seen Dahyun in a while too since she’s taking the most classes this semester.” You explained, extending your hand outside to feel the gentle Autumn breeze. Chan, despite being the swimmer between the two of you, thinks you’re crazy for liking the cold better. “As for many many other people I know, they’re either studying really hard or starting work now. Time flies and friends come and go, I guess...” 

When you glanced over at him again, you saw his face scrunched up in thought as his hands blindly found the gear stick to slow down at an intersection. Once you reach the red light, he then meets your gaze, uncertainty in his expression that he tried playing off with a shrug. “Yeah but...is it weird if I said I don’t want that to happen with us?” 

“N-No?” You found yourself answering before you could fully comprehend the question. Clearing your throat, you tried joking it off, “I think you might’ve taken the ‘I’m class president let me show you around’ thing back in high school, Chan.” 

He shrugged, smiling as well at this. “Maybe I did, who knows? I like spending time with you.” 

“I force you, you’re my ride around the city.” You teased, hints of sincerity coming through your tone of voice. 

“But that’s because I like you, isn’t that what people do with people they like?” He said it with so much nonchalance but you couldn’t help but feel flustered at this, a reaction you immediately hid by laughing. 

“You like me too much, it’s going to cause a traffic with all this sentimental stuff,” You pointed out, the cars behind you suddenly honking annoyedly as if on cue. “See? Even the people behind us agree.” 

Chan wasn’t offended, however, not one bit as he continued rambling about liking you all the way to your dorm after. It flustered you at first, especially with how casual he was being, but, as you neared the turn to your dorm outside of university, you eventually caught up with teasing him back about it. 

When you thought about it on your own once he left, you realized that you somehow liked it. It felt very natural—as if it’s something that’s always felt right hearing from him. 

“I like Chan.” 

“Yeah no shit.” Minho agrees absentmindedly, Seungmin and Jeongin nodding along while emptying their take-out boxes. You carpooled with Chan today as he drove Felix and Jisung somewhere to help them finish their term research paper. You were only supposed to hang out with Seungmin and Jeongin but Minho decided to ambush the three of you with Jihyo and Mina on their way to join your group at the younger boys’ dorm. “What else is new, Y/N? We haven’t met up like this in a while so I was expecting something spicier!” 

“No, I mean—” You roll your eyes at him, smacking him with your rolled up lecture notes but to no avail. The boy simply opened his phone to check his messages, frowning when he then comes across a message from Jihyo and Mina informing him that they’re stuck in traffic. “I really like Chan.”   

“Okay, and then?” 

“I’m telling you I actually like someone then you dismiss me.” 

“And I mean that took you a record-breaking three years to say.” Minho points out, finally closing his phone and propping an elbow up on the table to face you properly. “What has you sharing this to us on this fine Saturday, hm? Did you get jealous over someone again and got so insecure that you realize your feelings? Did you get stuck in a really small space, admired his face a bit then realize that you think he’s cute? Which trope is it?” 

You shake your head disapprovingly at him, briefly glaring at Seungmin and Jeongin when the two start snickering next to you before answering, “Nothing, just...we talked lately and I thought that I really like talking to him.” 

“So you don’t like talking to us?” It’s Jeongin teasing you this time as he sipped on his juice box, earning him a crumpled ball of paper on the head. “I thought it’d be more grand like in those K-Dramas.” 

“You flood your crush with Pepero boxes and now you’re talking big with K-Drama confessions.” Seungmin points out, making the other boy in question roll his eyes. 

You open your mouth to speak but Jeongin beats you to it. “Talk to me when you’ve confessed to that figure skater at your university, baseball boy.” He says before turning to you again, placing a hand over Seungmin’s face and dramatically pushing him away by his head. “Anyway, back on topic! So, will you ask him out?” 

“I don’t know, should I?” You frown, leaning back on the sofa behind you with your arms crossed. “Wouldn’t it be weird?” 

Minho shakes his head. “It’s 2020 so go wild, my friend. Anyway, if it doesn’t work out I already got my driver’s license—though I will tax you since you live far away.” 

You roll your eyes, hitting him again. When his roommate passes by, half-asleep and dragging their feet towards the kitchen, you hear them request another smack on Minho’s head on their behalf as if on instinct. “I mean, do you just go for it? What if you don’t feel enough for people for it to work out?” 

A pause then follows in the room, even Minho’s roommate momentarily stopped gulping down water from across the open common area. Seungmin and Minho sigh while Jeongin only raises an eyebrow with the same curiosity.

“Yes, Y/N.” Minho answers after a moment, tsking at you as he does so. This time, you gather the energy to smack him for the fourth time as quickly. “It’s dating not marriage, just see what works and what doesn’t.”

Seungmin opens his mouth to say something else, probably to comment on how Minho doesn’t apply the sentiments to his own love life, but he nods in agrement anyway. “I think it’s like you always tell me: don’t overthink it.” He adds instead, briefly turning his head to Minho after. “But I’m going to pretend you didn’t bring it up first, hyung.” 

Don’t overthink it. Even Jihyo and Mina agreed when they arrived, pestering you into going over your entire rant and dilemma again once they arrived with beer and convenience store food. Dahyun too, but only a little later when Jihyo puts her on FaceTime.

“Just wing it,” She even added to assure you, glitching a bit on video because public library wi-fi has never been better than that.. “it’s just Chan, what could go wrong?”

And really, with Chan, nothing ever does feels like it’s going to go wrong even when the situation has your heart on the line.

“Chan, give me your hand.” You extend your hand out to his side of the car with your palms facing upwards, chuckling when he glances over to you with wide eyes. “I won’t tickle you this time, promise.” 

“So what are you going to do?” He asks as he reluctantly moves his hand from the steering wheel to your hand, alternating his gaze between the road and you on his side in long intervals. “I’ll have you know that we’re about to turn to a narrower road so don’t try anything funny.” 

“Like I said, I’ll just hold your hand.” You feign a pout, bringing your hands down on the compartment in between your seats. “There.”

You won’t tell it to his face right now, of course, but holding his hand is comforting to you.

He invited you to a small film festival for today, a thirty-minute ride to a place he only heard of on the poster for it that he showed you at the start of the week. “Bam Bam’s too busy to come with so I thought I’d invite you since you’re free this week!” He explained over the phone and you knew Bam Bam is really busy when it’s you who Chan is inviting to these kinds of everyday. “They have lots of animated movies on the line-up too so I immediately thought of you!” 

“Your hands are so small.” Chan comments after a moment, shaking your intertwined fingers gently as the car stops at traffic. 

You poke on his knuckles in response. “You just have really big hands.” 

“Your hands are clammy too.” He points out next with a laugh. “Are you okay?”

“Because you won’t turn the air conditioning up, dumbass.” You roll your eyes, scoffing when he doesn’t move his hand anyway. “So why don’t you let go?” 

“Because I like holding your hand.” He shrugs, biting down a small smile. The traffic still won’t move and he takes this as an opportunity to look at you as much as he can. “I like you a lot—even with your clammy hands.” 

“I—” You freeze with your mouth hanging open, finally catching onto his smile. “Ya, what’s with the smile? Did you...did Minho say something?” 

“What? No. I can’t smile now?” And it’s the truth, you find out much later when Chan calls Minho for you and puts him on loud speaker to disprove your suspicions. “Why? What am I supposed to not know until now?” 

You squint your eyes suspiciously at him, shifting your hands around his but to no avail. “That I—I was going to say it first today. I like you too—a lot.” You sigh in defeat, leaning back on your seat and twisting your body to face him properly. The traffic is slowly starting to move again and Chan briefly turns away to move the car, turning to you as soon as traffic permits him again. “It’s a bit embarrassing to say right now, my hands are so clammy and you’re holding onto them the entire time.”

“It’s not because you’re nervous, right?” He asks with the smallest glint of teasing in his eyes which you shake your head at immediately. “It’s just us.” 

“I told you, it’s because the air conditioning’s too low.” You chuckle, finally relaxing your shoulders in relief. Chan then lifts your hands up to the air conditioning unit jokingly, turning up the level with his knuckles. “And it’s exactly why I’m not nervous, because it’s just us.” 

“Me too, to be honest. I’d be freaking out right now if Minho or Lisa or just anyone else peered over our shoulders.” You hear him mumble under his breath in a sheepish giggle. A thought then crosses his mind as he glances over to you, the traffic now moving much more smoothly. “So, I can still ask you if this is a date, right? The cinema’s still five minutes away with this traffic.” 

You pretend to purse your lips in thought, bringing your hands back down once they’ve dried with the sudden rise in temperature. “Isn’t this too last minute even for you?” You tease, making him frown. “Ah, well, better late than never I guess.” 

“I’ll make it up to you on the second date, promise.” He assures you, turning right to your destination. “Jus don’t back out on this being a date now, okay?” 

“Of course not.” 

“So boring.” It’s Bam Bam teasing you this time, Minho agreeing on the side. The one time he’s actually free to hang out and he sasses you throughout the entire night. “I expected more from you two.” 

“It’s...two people dating in college, not a romcom, Bam.” You deadpan before taking a sip of your soju. 

He shrugs from across the table anyway, passing you another bottle. “I guess being in love makes you a little boring. I don’t blame you.” 

You slap a hand up to your forehead while Chan is practically drunk and dying next to you in embarrassment. “Oh God...” 

[thewebcomicsreview]

Homestuck 2 has updated! Christmas is ruined!

Previously, on Homestuck 2: Literally nothing happened, and a non-trivial portion of the patreon supporters gave up and quit. Can this update pull a Christmas miracle and right the sinking ship of Homestuck 2? Probably not, but let’s find out! 

We’re back in Candyland, having completely skipped over Karkat and John talking about Dave’s apparent death, because this comic is only interested in long conversations when they’re boring and not about anything at all. That’s alright, I got the gist of it.

When Karkat is finally gone, John still doesn’t move. It isn’t as though he has nowhere else to go, since there are quite a few places he might attempt to make himself useful, for better or for worse.

So, it appears to be morning now, meaning that John’s son has been missing in a war zone for almost 24 hours and I guess John literally forgot Harry existed?

Prediction: This conversation is going to end in some variant of “Where is our son?” “Oh shit!”

ROXY: hey john can u do me a quick solid

ROXY: actly idk how quick itll be but its definitely solid

ROXY: harry anderson says i just missed u being here but could u skip back on over?

What.

So, I went back and checked, and apparently nowhere is it explicitly said that Harry Anderson was also looking for the Vriskas, so I guess he....stayed home? Which makes sense, I suppose, but maybe a “Stay here I’ll go look for them” would’ve helped. I wasn’t the only one who thought Harry was out looking for Vriska too. 

ROXY: sup

ROXY: follow me

ROXY: well were just going to my room so i guess technically u know the way

JOHN: haha ok.

John follows, trying to shake the ominous feeling he got from what she’d just said. He’d been in and out of this house a lot in the past few days. Why should this be any different?

Is Roxy....horny? Is the solid she’s looking for John’s dick? I mean, that’d make her saying Harry wasn’t available kind of weird, but I think this framing is a fake-out.

...

What the fuck is that lamp, Jesus Christ it’s awful. Just a cat’s asshole, facing the door.

ROXY: r u kiddin me rn egbert

JOHN: i’m not? unless you were, in which case yeah lets say i was also kidding.

JOHN: oh my god, i’m sorry, i don’t know why this making me freak out.

ROXY: i remember our past boot knockin with fondness but that is a situation im not interested in revisiting

Oh hey, it was a fakeout. Good job, Homestuck 2. You successfully implied something just through the art. Art which, by the way, looks a lot better than the last chapter. There are backgrounds and everything. I wonder if Chapter 15 was rushed out due to Hiveswap and that’s why it was so weak?

He’s almost embarrassed by how relieved he feels. So what if his ex wife wanted to hook up? Shouldn’t that be a situation he could navigate? Don’t people like to find solace in human physical connection during dire times? Why did the idea of it make his mind white out in panic more than, say, any number of the traumas he just experienced?

I’m not the biggest fan of the way the narration is going JOHN IS AFRAID OF SEX WITH ROXY LIKE HE’S A TEENAGE VIRGIN AGAIN (LIKE IN HS1!) AND IT DOESN’T REALLY MAKE SENSE PLEASE REMEMBER THIS IT’LL BE IMPORTANT LATER, but okay, noted.

ROXY: u said ur house is gone??

JOHN: yep.

JOHN: completely.

ROXY: jeez

Heh. I like Roxy, still. 

JOHN: so i just sat there, watching, trying to figure out why watching my house burn down felt like i was being released from prison.

If this comic actually uses the phrase “home” and “stuck” in the same sentence I’m turning this blog around and we’ll go right back to Winnipeg.

ROXY: aight then no wind bending just use your mangrit

Roxy flexes, the corner of her mouth pulled up into a familiar grin. John feels his guts, so recently calmed, twist up into knots again. Her eyebrows shoot up and the smile loosens. He must have shown something on his face.

ROXY: ok or just like push when i push

ROXY: we both got sick muscles

ROXY: no other adjectives necessary

I feel unqualified to talk about how hard Roxy is pushing the June Egbert thing.

....Is that the fucking portal from Hiveswap under a tarp? Also hi Candy Callie, appearing in HS2 for the first time. One of the Calliope’s is nonbinary, I think, but I honestly can’t remember and I think it’s Meat Calliope? 

JOHN: do i get to know what that big thing under the sheet is?

ROXY: hmmmmmm no

JOHN: oh ok.

JOHN: are you sure? i mean, it seems like a pretty prominent feature of the room.

JOHN: space.

JOHN: wherever we are.

ROXY: and a totally mysterious n COMPLETELY inconspicuous feature it will have to remain for now

ROXY: we r kinda in a hurry here fyi

ROXY: and by that i mean

ROXY: we are in precisely the amount of hurry that means im excused from having to a that specific q rn

JOHN: right, sorry.

JOHN: i will pay no attention to the object behind the curtain.

ROXY: u catch on fast egbert

Oh thing HS2 has not been great at is that it has a lot of plot mysteries that are supposed to keep us enticed but they don’t really get implanted into the audience’s head (Remember Vrissy mysteriously collapsing that one time? Probably not, she did it off screen and the boys kind of laughed it off). This one’s hard to miss.

JOHN: so... this is all downstairs?

JOHN: it seems like you had a lot of work done.

ROXY: well no not x actly

ROXY: were in the old meteor

It’s kind of weird how this meteor keeps popping up like this. 

CALLIOPE: besides, hUman divorces are even more fascinating than i had ever imagined, and being able to witness yoUrs in motion was an honoUr.

This is an unexpected but not unwelcome direction for Callie to have gone.

CALLIOPE: ah right, right. yoU're probably a little cUrioUs as to where the dickens we are.

CALLIOPE: how much do yoU know aboUt black holes?

Oh, wow, we’re going right there, then. This does seem like a bit of a reaction to complaints HS2 wasn’t shmoovin’ enough, but maybe I’m reading too much into it.

CALLIOPE: no, i mean, what if oUr whole WORLD was inside a black hole.

JOHN: ok.

A’ight, that got a laugh out of me

JOHN: ugh, i fucking KNEW it!

JOHN: i'm so sorry.

JOHN: i'm so sorry that i put the earth inside a black hole everyone. ):

I like this conversation a lot. 

ROXY: iirc at least part of y u got so weepy was the fact that u couldnt believe a version of earth existed where ppl got 2 watch more mcconaughey films than you

JOHN: listen.

JOHN: i simply don't think you all appreciated the gift you were given.

Quite a bit, in fact.

ROXY: ur not gonna enter a weird time vortex and change the trajectory of a little girls life with the power of love

JOHN: aw.

Roxy and John have a good dynamic. 

CALLIOPE: bUt Upon her departUre, the rift closed for good. as far as i can see, there's simply no way for Us to commUnicate with the world oUtside the black hole.

CALLIOPE: i woUld certainly be very sUrprised to find oUt that anyone had managed sUch a thing!

JOHN: ...right.

John’s phone has very good coverage, since he was able to talk to Terezi in the epilogues, as we’re being subtly reminded of here with that ... before the “right”. I wonder if it still works after alt-Calliope left.

CALLIOPE: oUr exclUsion from the overarching coUrse of events which governs all reality means that oUr existence here is liable to dramatic and violent Upheaval.

CALLIOPE: to pUt it another way, becaUse nothing in here "matters", we are likely to be sUbjected to things which are a bit bats in the belfry, for no reason other than it's totally insignificant to the wider canon of reality.

CALLIOPE: and mUch thoUgh i am personally titillated by some of the conseqUences of this predicament, it is a degrading way for Us to live. u_u

Okay, so we are now being explicitly told that living in the black hole is fucking with the characters and is part of the reason they make such baffling decisions, like Rose not telling Kanaya about Yiffy, or naming her daughter “Yiffy” in the first place.

CALLIOPE: we need yoU to free vriska from the clUtches of oUr misgUided friend jane, and bring her here, to the singUlarity.

ROXY: weve been calling it the plot point

CALLIOPE: yes, the plot point is a key part of oUr plan

CALLIOPE: as far as we have been able to sUrmise, the only remaining method for escaping oUr grim confinement depends on leveraging the UniqUe properties of this location to create an event of sUch catalcysmic proportions that it simply cannot be contained within the black hole any more.

CALLIOPE: something SO dramatic, so hyper-relevant, that it becomes ontologically impossible for anyone to ignore it.

CALLIOPE: for that, we need an individUal of sUfficient narrative cloUt, so to speak.

CALLIOPE: and to liberate her, who better than the embodiment of the aspect of freedom itself?

So, the plan is literally for Vriska to be such a Huge 8itch that the black hole itself gets sick of her and yeets Earth C out of its own event horizon to freedom.

This is actually a great plan. 

And that’s Hamsteak. This definitely feels like a bit of a reaction to complaints about HS2, but hey, I dig it, I guess? Definite improvement over the last chapter.

[robotslenderman]

I was talking with @ryttu3k and ended up developing Maddy’s sire a bit, off-the-cuff.

Recap -- my headcanon (and obviously this only works for a Malkavian Fledgling) is that the Cabbie was not actually Caine, he was a Malkavian Methuselah suffering delusions that he was Caine.

So during my playthrough of VTMB he decides he’s going to create a new Second Generation of Kindred to make their own new Antediluvians. He Embraces Maddy, literally gets bored and wanders off, and then joins up with Jack to prank all the Kindred in LA with the Sarcophagus. He gets bored again while waiting for it to pay off, and ends up LARPing a cab driver.

The reason why all the Kindred in LA are on edge is because he constantly emits a very mild Dementation aura.

(I figured that a Malk pranking people and being delusional made more sense than “Caine is literally your personal cab driver because of... Reasons, I guess?” although obviously it only works with a Malk Fledgling.)

So, stuff about this particular Methuselah, whom I will just refer to as “Cabbie”:

He has a very tenuous grasp on reality -- a lot of the time, he is intensely brain foggy, although he very rarely ever seems like it if you talk to him.

His brainfog, combined with his delusions, is why he has such a short attention span. He basically feels stoned all the time, even if his body and brain are perfectly imitating whoever he’s having delusions about.

These delusions can last from a few seconds to decades at a time, and some of them are recurring. Some of them are random, some come back in specific contexts.

He just has this constant sensation of being crowded by other people, like he’s standing in the middle of a packed crowd, and their ideas and personas blend and leak into him. 

But it’s also very psychic -- when he’s in a delusion, he essentially acts exactly as the real person does with no foreknowledge of them whatsoever. Speaks the same, knows the same languages, acts the same, etc.

Due to this he keeps accidentally advancing other Kindred’s and Methuselahs’ plans, thinking they’re his and having psychic knowledge of them. The Methuselah that are still around (such as Marcus Vitel and Mithras) know him well enough they just let him do it and consider it a stroke of good luck when he shows up.

But it always freaks out the younger Elders when this random person turns up, pretends to be them, makes their life easier for them (or makes the same mistakes said Elder was about to make and therefore makes things harder for them), and then vanishes again.

So yeah, Marcus Vitel, Mithras, et al know him. He doesn’t know them (his brain is too fried most of the time to really remember any of them except when he has a rare lucid moment), but when he shows upthey’re like “ah yes, it’s that guy, may as well take a few nights off and let him handle things for me until he wanders off again.” They often take notes on what he does, what results he gets, and whether he incorporates other delusions and what those personas then do -- it can be very illuminating and he often speeds up their plans for them if he’s playing a whole cast of people when he drops by. (”Ah, he thinks he’s Queen Anne now, so I’ll be able to find out if she’s plotting something based on how he acts!”) They usually don’t even get mad if he blows things up in their faces because that’s just sort of a consequence of it, and he wasn’t going to do anything they weren’t anyway -- they just treat it as a warning that they were about to make a mistake. His presense is usually only a problem when he shows up thinking he’s their enemy, in which case they just point him somewhere else or distract him until he moves on.

Every now and then, every few decades to a century or so, he’ll suddenly end up lucid and it’s like waking up from a multi-decade drug and alcohol binge. “I did what? wtf.”

He accepted long ago that he’s completely out of his mind 99% of the time. He just goes with it. He’s just relieved he somehow manages to survive.

He’s the most dangerous when one delusion lasts long enough to see a payoff on a scheme.

When he’s not delusional he’s usually in some kind of dementia.

Sometimes even when he’s delusional he can deliberately invoke his delusions to advance the plans of... whoever his chief delusion is at that moment. Say he thinks he’s Mithras and Mithras wants an artefact, some part of his consciousness is present enough that he can then invoke, say, Beckett. He then logs into all of Beckett’s shit, acts completely like Beckett, gets the Thing in a Beckett-y manner, and oh look now he’s Mithras again.

Maddy inherited a lot of his traits, although they might manifest differently:

Maddy is constantly overwhelmed with voices. Cabbie is overwhelmed by feelings and sensations of other people, like his consciousness is crowded by ghosts. He is simultaneously aware and unaware of this.

Because of this, both of them are quite spaced out a lot even if they don’t seem to be, and have short attention spans. Maddy often can’t hear other people (or even her own thoughts) over the voices and so never has any idea what’s going on and has trouble doing anything that requires active thinking and mental problem-solving, and for the Cabbie the feelings of these other people are a lot more solid and real to him than actual reality and so dominate his perception.

Both of them struggle to absorb information because of this, and both heavily rely on their oracular abilities to compensate for it. If they have to deliver a message, it’s fine they didn’t hear the actual message because they’ll just... magically be able to deliver it anyway. Handy!

Both are oracles; Maddy gets her info from voices that sound like the people who know that information, or through just talking and channeling the information. Cabbie gets his info from these spectre-like “people” he feels crowded by, and channels the information through thinking he actually is them.

Cabbie usually takes on the speech patterns of whoever he thinks he is, but when he’s lucid he speaks in exactly the same way Maddy does.

Both enter full-on psychosis/dementia when tired and hungry.

[christianslaterreview]

Mobsters (1991) dir. Michael Karbelnikoff

Synopsis:

Charlie 'Lucky' Luciano, portrayed by Christian Slater, is a young, working class Italian whose family is being terrorized by the Mafia as his father owes money to one of two main bosses, Don Faranzano (Michael Gambon). Luciano teams up with three of his boyhood friends to overthrow Don Faranzano and the other boss, Don Masseira. The film follows the boys as they quickly rise to top and become embroiled in Mafia politics, love stories, and personal conflicts that threaten to ruin lifelong friendships.

Review:

This is going to be a hard review for me to write because I really don't care about this movie. Like, at all (I mean look at my shitty synopsis lmao). Usually I'm so ardent about my reviews because I so desperately want the film in question to be good. Typically, Christian Slater's films have just enough about them that's good that elements of them are not only salvagable, but sincerely enjoyable. They're also usually just bad enough to remain interesting. Bad enough to make me care.

Mobsters, however, was so formulaic and devoid of any actual substance that the end product feels like a parody. It was so clearly hitching it's wagon to the popularity of other films in the same genre such as Bugsy and Good Fellas, but in their hurry to piece together some semblence of a film before the trend fizzled, they forgot that a movie needs elements beyond snappy one liners, empty banter, period costumes, and pretty faces with famous names. The audience is rushed through most of the narrative with focus only given to a handful of major plot points - but this is of course only when we're torn away from the laughably long and gregarious sex scenes which are peppered throughout the entire film to really help move things along - so all the opportunities to truly get to know the characters, their drives, their vulnerabilities, etc. in compelling B-plots or excellent pacing of the A-plot are nowhere to be found. The result is a film that feels like it was developed purely for flashy, promotional material with the story being tossed inside this hollow, pandering concept as an afterthought.

One of my main issues with most films is the pacing. I expect every film to have Tarentino level pacing where the story is slowly teased out in a seemingly chaotic but methodical progression. Tarentino is the fucking master of knowing just how long to let a certain plot point sit on the back burner before bringing it back full force right before you forget it ever happened. He knows just how long to keep the camera focused on one character's face, how long the back and forth dialogue needs to continue before bursting into action, how long to keep the audience waiting before a reveal (if the reveal ever happens). And before I get totally lost on this tangent and end up becoming a Tarentino stan blog, my point is that Mobsters fails in every single one of these devices.

Instead of feeling like 2hrs passed by so quickly because I was just that engaged, the run time of this film felt unbelievably long because literally nothing of real interest happened until about an hour into the movie. Right off the bat, we're thrown into the drama as Luciano's Mother and Father are assaulted and threatened by one of the main bosses, Faranzano. But rather than feeling like we're being poignantly acclimated to the brutal setting of this story, it just feels sudden and awkward, like a cheap, theatrical bid for emotion and drama. Granted, this might not be the screenplay's fault per se. None of the actors did a particularly solid job throughout this film, which did end up weakening whatever elements of Mobsters could have been salvagable.

After this point, the movie just rushes through introductions in a series of montages with a voiceover by Slater in his ... "accent". The movie barely has time to get on it's legs before we've already reached the next milestone in the boys' story as they're making a name for themselves as bootleggers. However, instead of actually demonstrating the struggle, the danger, the politcs of rising to the top, we just get another expositional montage with voiceovers. Have fun trying to remember what overlapping whispers are important plot points and which ones are just a little flavoring to show the glamorous gangster lifestyle the boys are entering into.

The stitled, awkward pacing of this film can actually be broken down to a pattern if you were paying close enough attention: major plot point, expositional montage mentioning specific Thing, the Thing happens in literally the next scene, 12 minute long sex scene, and repeat for 2 hours. It doesn't make for a very compelling narrative at all.

Additionally, the characters themselves were so one dimensional and poorly acted (sorry Christian :/ ) that not even they could save the movie. The accents were cheesy as hell, but even worse than those was the dialogue which consisted of banter and one liners that wanted so badly to be insidious and clever, but only ended up sounding like borderline nonsensical gangster jargon that was regurgitated by memory from someone who had seen Good Fellas once. And when the dialogue wasn't an unsuccesful mimicry of shrewd banter, it was equally meaningless, psuedo-artfilm dialogue. But instead of using dialogue as a device to allude to greater themes and deepen both the emotional and philosophical landscape of the film, everyone's dialogue was just a series of free floating, psuedo-intellectual lines that when strung together, didn't actually make a conversation or even develop the characters themselves.

Which is yet another problem with Mobsters. Although the characters are based upon real life historical figures, the characters themselves are barely developed on screen. Everyone's personalities are almost indistinguishable from one another because every character is so one dimensional. Despite the bounteous material the writers had to work with such as Lucky Luciano's righteous anger at the injustice his family and others have faced, Lansky's battle against the anti-semitism he faces, or the political landscape of the time controlled by the Mafia, all the characters are still underdeveloped caricatures.

The main focus of the film could have been the conflict that exists between Luciano's desire to see an end to the vicious reign of the Mafia while also seeking to be the Ringleader himself. It could have been a slow burn film focusing on the strategy and politics of attempting to dethrone the cities two biggest mob bosses. It could have been about how Luciano's and Lansky's friendship developed and devolved throughout their enterprise. It could have focused on literally any number of things to help anchor the story in a main conflict. But instead, the focus of the film flits from politics to personal drama to love scenes with only the cast of characters to connect the threads. None of those plot points were artful B-plots that helped flesh out the story and the characters; they were pitiful, unskilled attempts at creating a world to immerse the audience in without having any knowledge about how to effictively do that. As a writer, you can't give equal attention to all the different threads throughout a story otherwise the audience doesn't know what the main point is - that's why they're called B-plots.

Moreover, Mobsters used yelling really loudly and dramatically as a superficial plot device over and over again and each time it did nothing but made me want to hit mute for a moment or two. Syd Field's put it best when she said "All drama is conflict. Without conflict, there is no action. Without action, there is no character." However, what Karbelnikoff doesn't understand is that conflict is not just people displaying extreme emotion; there needs to be substance behind what is creating this conflict and that the audience needs a chance to become invested in the storylines and motivations the conflict is contigent upon. People aren't moved just by emotion itself; people are moved when they can empathize with a character's struggle. But we can't do that unless the director takes the time to walk us through the world they've created so the stakes actually seem real.

This film is chock full of scenes where characters that don't seem to have a reason to fight are fighting. I'm sure it's supposed to demonstrate what a rough business being a mobster is and how the pressure of ambition and the ever present threat it might overtake you, but instead it just makes the characters seem volatile and juvenile to the point that I don't even want to sympathize with any of them.

Lastly, this wasn't even a beautiful movie. Just like a Marvel movie, every shot was obvious, straightforward, and boring. In a movie that is all about the excess and glamour and violent opulence, you'd think the cinematography itself would reflect that. Instead, I wasn't surprised or moved by a single shot throughout the whole film. The overtop villains had such potential for unsettling, aggrandizing angles but every scene felt about as creative as watching talking heads.

And my very last bone to pick with this film is the ENDING. It felt like they decided to toss in a random moral to the story solely for the purpose of offering some kind of closure. I mean, to be fair, there's no other way they could have wrapped it up since the entire film is just a series of loose threads. But it was just the perfect way to punctuate the end of this wishy-washy movie (about MOBSTERS) with a vague cliche sentiment of "can't we all just get along?"

To me, Lucky Luciano is perhaps an anti-hero. I empathize with his desire to seek retribution and justice and instigate egalitarian politics, however, he doesn't seek to eradicate the institution of the Mafia, he just wants to run it *differently*. This could have made Luciano a supremely compelling character, but the movie never really frames him as a good guy or a bad guy. He is just kind of matter-of-factly presented to the audience with no real commentary. So by the end of the film, the fact that he's painted as this feel good hero within the last few minutes felt contrived and meaningless.

If Luciano's aim was to be the biggest mob boss around while also instituting a more egalitarian regime, why wasn't that the main focus of the film? It's definitely brought up, but it isn't given the focus it should have. We just knew that he wanted to overthrow the other bosses, but didn't delve into what his visions for the Mafia were or how much his desire for success was consuming him.

So the ending sentiment of the movie being "and then the bad guys were dead and a really Nice Guy became head of the Mafia and everyone was treated a lot nicer :)" felt juvenile and cheesy.

Mobsters gets a total of 1 Slaters out 10 Slaters. I'm not prepared to give it a zero, but I have no justification for that because, news flash, my rating system is wholly subjective and based on what I feel inside my heart. I will not be accepting criticism on this point. Thank you for understanding.

[blogs-of-our-lives]

           I’m sorry to say this, but this may very well be the last of the Blogs of Our Lives post.

           :(

           I’ve had a lot of fun writing for this, but it’s just not what I want to do with my life. And as much as I enjoy it, it’s taking time away from other creative projects. For my tens of viewers, it’s not the end of a chapter, but the beginning of a new one. Thank you all for reading, and believing that I can make something wonderful and funny out of trash. I just want you all to know that deep down, from the bottom of my heart, no matter how much love I have for you all, I will never ever ever love you as much as I hate Brightburn.

             Brightburn suuuuuuuucks. It sucks sucks sucks. I couldn’t wait until later in the post to say that. I had to lead with how trash the movie was, and now I’m going to spend the next couple pages explaining why it’s trash. It’s so bad that I – shitty movie connoisseur, who is making himself watch Days of our Lives and write about it – hated the movie so much that I decided to write a whole paper about it just to prevent someone else from being tricked into seeing it.

           I will start with the only good thing about the movie. The concept. Brightburn is about a young kid (I’d estimate about sixth grade) who discovers he has super powers akin to that of a god. He has super strength, he has super speed, he can fly, he can shoot lasers out of his eyes, and he’s almost indestructible. Essentially Superman. It’s not a particularly original idea, but I was intrigued with the fact that the kid seemed to almost immediately become evil. This isn’t particularly farfetched. In fact, psychopathic traits are fairly common amongst children. The brain isn’t done developing, and in some senses the child is a psychopath. Kids simply grow out of it. Luckily, kids are small, they’re weak, they can’t drive, they can’t vote, and they can’t even get a movie ticket to an R rated movie like Brightburn, which I refuse to grant the respect of italicization. The amount of damage a kid could do is extremely limited. So the idea of a middle-schooler with superpowers is kind of terrifying. Imagine a child without empathy who you can kick your ass. If you tell them to go to bed, they can throw you through a wall. And it’s not a one in a million chance the kid will be a psychopath. Plus, when I was a kid I used to think when it rained somewhere it rained everywhere. It blew my mind that it was raining in my hometown but not in my friend’s town. When my dad was a kid he was terrified of this movie called Killdozer. About a bulldozer that came to life and killed people. In his words, “What are you going to do, hide from it? It’ll just bulldoze everything.” Kids are idiots.

           Side note, I hope it’s not lost on anyone that I italicized Killdozer but not Brightburn. It’s intentional. I respect a movie about a killer bulldozer more than a $12 million movie.

           Anyway, that was the only good part of the movie. The concept. Now I’m going to tear it apart, starting with the pacing. Nobody really knows or cares about the pacing when it’s done right. When it’s done wrong, the movies often feel like they stagnate or are rushed in parts. Brightburn is one of the worst examples I can think of. The buildup just drags on and on and on and on. By the time [SPOILER ALERT] Brendon (or whatever the fucking kid’s name is) turns evil, we had been sitting in that theater for a solid hour. Maybe more. That’s two thirds of the movie (including credits) that was spent just building up. So now, when we finally get the action payoff, it felt like the movie was rushing to the end. The kid destroys most of the house, kills four people, and then blows up a plane in like twenty minutes. It’s like trying to write on a piece of paper and running out of room so you have to make the letters smaller and smaller to fit on one page. But it’s a thousand times worse than that, because the paper had a set length. You could plan out where the letters needed to go and how big they can be. A movie isn’t made with a length in mind. So it’s like reading a sentence but the letters get smaller and smaller for no clear reason. It felt like they didn’t know how to end the movie so they just threw some crap together and tried to play it so fast we wouldn’t realize how trash it was.

           On to the acting. I have no real complaints. The mom and the dad did pretty good jobs. Even the kid did a decent job. At times it was pretty weak, but I think most of that was on the writing.

           Fuck the writing. The Chekov’s guns of the movie were stupid and obvious. In one of the first scenes, the mother whistles during a game of hide and seek in order to get him to whistle back, like an off-brand Marco Polo. My editor literally leaned over to me (like two minutes into the movie) and whispered “I bet that’s going to come back later.” It did. Later on in the movie, the dad comments to the mom that it was strange Braxton had never broken a bone or even got a cut. Like two scenes later, the kid finds his space ship and immediately cuts his hand on the metal. Sure enough, it comes back later in the film, in a way so stupid that I’m going to struggle to put it into words. The mother jumps to freedom from her house and somehow cuts her hand during the fall. She looks at the cut (which is shaped exactly like Bryson’s and positioned in the exact same place), looks at the barn where the spaceship is hidden, looks back at the cut, and says (I’m paraphrasing) “The spaceship! It’s the only thing that can hurt him.” The biggest sign of a bad writer is when the characters think about what they’re about to do, say what they’re about to do, and then do it. JUST DO IT. I remembered the garbage scene from earlier in the film that established the only thing that can hurt him. Who was that line for? Children who weren’t paying attention? The film was rated R. Maybe they assumed the only people they could trick into seeing this trash were too stupid to follow a plot. And yes, I’m one of the idiots they tricked into watching it. Jokes on them, now I’m tearing their movie apart on my blog with tens of readers.

           I’ve told you guys about I, Frankenstein. The movie was worse than that. At least the writing in I, Frankenstein, while bad, followed a formula. There was never a point in which I rolled my eyes, it just in generally wasn’t particularly good. Brightburn, on the other hand, was aggressively bad. It was like all the different facets of a movie (acting, special effects, writing, pacing, visuals) had a competition to be the worst part of this dumpster fire of a film. I’m being too hard on the special effects. They were just wildly unmemorable, not actually bad. But somehow, incredibly, Brightburn was even worse than the sum of its parts. At a certain point, I looked up and started watching the blinking light of the fire alarm. There wasn’t really a pattern to it. I was fascinated. At another point, during the resolution of the movie, a man sitting behind me got out his phone and made a phone call. And you know what, I don’t blame him. It wasn’t like he was taking away from the experience. I was glad he was having more fun than me.

           Something I didn’t realize until now, when I looked up Brightburn on Wikipedia to trash how much money went into making it ($6-12 million, so honestly they used the money pretty well), was that it’s called a “superhero horror film.” I took a class my last year in college about Horror as a genre, and the running theme of the class was the question what is horror? I’ll define horror as best as I can, and you are all free to agree or disagree as to whether or not it’s true. I personally do not consider Silence of the Lambs to be a horror film, though it is scary. It’s a crime film. Even if the film contained supernatural elements (like, say, if Hannibal Lecter was a ghost and rather than breaking out of prison he comes back to life), it would still be a crime film. On the other hand, I consider the movie Friday the 13th (the 1980 film with Kevin Bacon, not the trash remake) to be horror. Even if the film contained no supernatural elements, it would still be a horror film. Friday the 13th Part 1 doesn’t actually contain anything supernatural, but if I mentioned one that does (Parts 2-12) I wouldn’t have gotten the opportunity to remind everyone that a young Kevin Bacon not only dies in this movie, but also has a sex scene. It’s arguably his strongest performance.

           Returning to my point, a universal part of horror seems to be the haunting. It doesn’t need to be a ghost haunting, it could be a human haunting as well. I’m sure it exists, but a movie about a stalker could easily be classified as horror, depending on the tone of the movie. Hell, The Gift was a great horror movie, and nothing supernatural or even particularly out of the ordinary took place. Looking at IMDB’s top 10 horror movies of all time, it lists The Evil Dead, The Exorcist, The Shining, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween, Alien, The Thing, Nightmare on Elm Street (trash), Psycho, and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Of these movies, I haven’t seen Psycho, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, or The Exorcist (at least not all the way through). In every single one of the films I have seen, the characters are haunted by some kind of being. In some movies, they’re hunted by it, and in others (particularly the Exorcist), they’re tormented by it. But either way, a haunting is an essential part of every movie. In Silence of the Lambs (IMDB rated it as the 14th best horror movie, naturally), the killer never haunts the characters. He’s a menace, a killer, and a danger to everyone, but he doesn’t haunt them.

           Brando from Brightburn never haunts anyone, except for a ten second scene where he spies on his crush, which was honestly more cringey than creepy. So no, it’s not a superhero horror movie. It’s not a horror movie. If you want to call it anything, call it science fiction. The kid’s an alien, for Christ’s sake. Isn’t that like the number one test to see if you’re watching sci-fi? Right now, if you google “horror movies,” Brightburn is one of the first 10 images to appear. THIS IS UNNACEPTABLE.

           I’m sure I’ve talked about this before, but horror has always been a trash genre. I don’t want to give off the impression that I’m the horror equivalent of a comic book nerd writing about how The Avengers ruined my childhood and it was all wrong because they got one detail wrong from the source material. [Side note: I really enjoyed Endgame, and at the time of writing this, it is the number one highest grossing film of all time, and honestly it deserves it more than the trash blue cat people movie. It was a really satisfying ending to one of the largest franchises of all time]. Even the golden years of horror, the Friday the 13ths and the Nightmare on Elm Streets and Halloween, are all just… pretty good. The writing was competent, the music and cinematography were original and not bad, but it’s not particularly scary, and it looks like every horror movie will eventually become that way, except for the ones that rely on cheap jump scares. That’s the nature of horror, I suppose. It preys on a current and relevant fear, and as that fear becomes irrelevant, so does the movie. So when I complain about modern horror, I complain about the cheap, shitty writing that goes into by uncreative and unoriginal people that disappoints everyone. Modern horror is an easy paycheck. It’s cheap and it’s surefire. The Brightburn garbage raised $30 million dollars on a budget of $6 million. Pet Semetary, Crawl, and Annabelle Comes Home raised a collective $366 million to a collective budget of $66 million. That is a fucking absurd return on investment. None of these movies (except for Crawl, kinda) did anything different. Pet Semetary was a remake. Annabelle Comes Home is a continuation of the Garbage Cinematic Uni-garbage-verse that spawned from The Conjuring. So horror has become a yearly money-maker for big production companies. Just put out some trash that will surprise (not scare) people, and watch the dollars roll in. Financially, this is the golden age of horror. They can make anything with a jump scare and make MILLIONS.

           I don’t know what the point of all this is. I’m not telling the genre to do better, because it’s doing pretty fine. Midsommar and Us both got pretty good reviews. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark looks pretty good. It’s not like all the talent dried up. There’s still plenty of creative and original people working on horror movies, and they’re making some really good stuff. I guess it boils down to me hating Brightburn on a deep, personal level, and I’m not really sure why. I watch tons of trash. As I type this, I’m looking at my collector’s edition DVD set of Under the Dome. It’s garbage. Truly truly terrible. But there are scenes I liked. Shots I liked. It was made by people who were bad at what they do, but they were still creative. There’s this one episode where the government tries to blow up the dome, and everyone inside thinks they’re going to die. All the characters, thinking they have minutes left on earth, all finally do something. The plot unravels into something much, much, much simpler, as all the characters stop lying or trying to hide their motives. Everything untangles for just a moment, and after they survive the blast unharmed, it leaves the question what next? Sure, the conflicts were childish and silly, and the character arcs were (to put it nicely) poorly handled. But they tried to do something well, and for just a moment they struck gold. There’s nothing like that in Brightburn. There’s not a single scene that I can look at in the movie and say you’re on to something there. Keep working. If I were given the script and a blank check and told to write a better one, I would strip it down to the foundation. I wouldn’t rewrite it, I would delete everything except the core premise and start over.

           It just really really hurts, having to type out that this movie was worse than Under the Dome.

           I know it’s too late to convince anyone not to see Brightburn. And that’s fine. Sometimes the world moves too fast for you to make a change. But I just want you to know deep down how much I hate that movie. I resent it for wasting my time, my energy, and my money. It’s worse than Days of our Lives.

           Fuck you, Brightburn.

           Thank you for reading. It means a lot to me.

[raspberryparker]

someday | one

college!au spidey x fem!reader

← previous | series masterlist | next → word count: 4,818 summary: peter is suffering and failing english. that’s it, that’s the plot. warnings: see masterlist (graphic-ish description of injuries) read it on ao3 add yourself to my taglist!

━━━━━━━━

   There was nothing Peter could do about the fact that his brain was literally decaying.

   Okay, not literally. He may have had a headache, but he was pretty sure that his brain wasn’t actually rotting. God, he could almost hear Professor Williams correcting him on the use of the word. How insufferable.

   But that was just more proof, further evidence to back up his (very poor) argument. He couldn’t even use words correctly; how could anyone expect him to pass English? There were so many more important things he could have been focusing on.

   Like the fact that that he had finally kind of gotten used to the head rush that came with sitting cross-legged on his ceiling for five hours. He’d been steadily increasing the time he spent up there aimlessly scrolling through his Twitter feed, trying to see how long he could last. It was his own personal experiment of sorts—Peter was a scientist, after all. He had hypothesized that he could only last about three hours at most. But to his surprise he’d managed to go a solid four and a half before he gave out and threw up all over the floor of his dorm, though not before falling into it. His room reeked of bleach and Windex for a week. And after days of hard work and the sheer power of his unrelenting stubbornness, he’d finally managed to go the full five and walk away from it with little more than a headache and seeing a few spots. He wasn’t sure what he could do with this information but he was more than ready to find out.

   Those were the kinds of things that occupied the space in Peter’s mind. That and an innumerable amount of calculus formulas and chemical compounds and on and on and on. If he just started writing all the information he stored in that little Parker brain of his, he’d fill an entire collection of encyclopedias without even trying. Now, with that in mind (feel free to groan at that awful joke), did it seem reasonable that he should pay any attention to try and compare two completely different plays from an era that should no longer concern anyone in this day and age on their employment of dramatic irony?

   If one were as sane as Peter—although he could almost guarantee his sanity was diminishing by the day—they would undoubtedly agree with him when he said absolutely not. But frankly, it wasn’t up to him.

   And so that was how Ned found him: cross-legged on the ceiling, with his back against the wall above his bed, his face as bright as a ripe tomato and with a worried expression that seemed to be carved in stone. But he had every right to freak out. He was failing English.

   “You know, that’s not gonna help.”

   Ned dropped his bag on the floor next to the spot on the carpet that was whiter than the rest, and then fell back onto Peter’s bed with a soft grunt, folding his arms under the pillow behind his head and gazing up at his best friend’s face about a foot above him.

   “Nothing helps,” Peter groaned, unfolding his legs and stretching them out along the ceiling, the rough surface catching softly on the denim. “You know, I’ve come to think that maybe ending it all might be my only option.”

   “Oh yeah, you could do that,” Ned mused, feigning deep thought. “But then who’d take over for the one and only web-slinger?”

   “God, I hate it when you have a point.”

   As if he actually considered it, even for a second. If there was anything more unbearable to Peter than trying to write about anything even remotely related to his English course, it was the thought of not being around to be the friendly neighbourhood super hero he’d promised to be. He had a city to protect. But it was also a long running joke between them that Peter would one day swing up high over the streets of New York and then neglect to catch himself on the way down. He couldn’t remember when it started.

   Peter stood then, stepping a few paces to his left in order to drop off the ceiling without landing on Ned, and with a quick flip he was on the proper side of the world where the normal people were. His head throbbed, all the warmth that had gathered there beginning to flow back down to where it was supposed to be and the pressure behind his eyes subsiding. He glanced at Ned, who had closed his eyes and looked rather peaceful on Peter’s unmade, messy sheets.

   “So have you thought about what you’re actually gonna do?” he questioned.

   Peter sighed. “Nothing. That’s what I’m gonna do.”

   Ned sat up then, looking at him incredulously as if he’d just told him that there were vines sprouting from his ears. “Dude, you gotta do something.”

   “Says who?”

   “Says the school. You know English is mandatory, right? They won’t let you enroll next semester if you don’t pass.”

   “So I’ve been told.”

   Peter peeked at the clock on the small desk across the room, and though it was almost completely obscured by loose papers and notebooks that he never thought to put away, he still saw the bright green block numbers displaying the time. 4:43 PM. Nearly time to go.

   As he rummaged through his school bag looking for the new prototype webbing cartridges he’d designed, he felt Ned’s gaze on him from the way the hairs at the base of his neck stood on end. The feeling that Ned wanted to say something but couldn’t bring himself to was making the air around Peter palpable. He felt the tension on his skin, eyes nearly watering at the way it stung the inside of his nostrils and he detested the way it made his mouth feel like it was stuffed with cotton balls. Though his heightened senses saved him from getting killed on a nearly daily basis, they always seemed to act up at really, really inopportune moments. Such as this one.

   He felt Ned’s words before he heard them.

   “Do you need help?”

   Peter frowned, his brows coming together. “What, like a tutor?”

   “Yeah, or something like that,” Ned replied. “I’m asking because I know someone, you know, if you ever manage to swallow your pride and accept the fact that you can’t get out of this by yourself.”

   “Ouch.”

   “I believe this is what the kids call ‘tough love’.”

   Ned looked at him for a long time. Now that he was right side up it was easy to pinpoint all the warning signs that there was something terribly wrong. The bags under Peter’s eyes had always been there; those dark crescent moons etched into the creases there by many nights spent swinging through the streets of the bustling city, stopping crime whenever it had the audacity to crop up, had become a permanent feature on his face. But there was something else, something far more concerning in the way his shoulders stayed perpetually close to his ears, an undeniable tension tugging his entire frame upward as if he was being pulled up by a tight string.

   And when he turned to face Ned once more, the crease between his brows that had been there since he’d been sitting on the ceiling was still present, if not more prominent. He was only nineteen, but Peter was going to end up with wrinkles soon if he didn’t stop frowning all the damn time.

   “I’m worried about you.”

   His expression softened, his features relaxing at his friend’s words. “I know.”

   “You look like shit,” Ned continued, though his tone held the same care.

   “I know.”

   “You’re so frustrating.”

  Peter smiled, plucking the mask of his suit off his desk and flipping it so it was facing the right way again, hiding the circuits and wires that lined nearly the entirety of the fabric. He brushed his arm across the desk, clearing space and knocking papers, books, pencils, rolls of solder and even a sock to the floor in the process. If looking at him wasn’t proof enough that something had been troubling him, then one only needed to step into the catastrophe that was his dorm. But to be fair, did anyone keep their dorm sparkling? He didn’t think so. He fished the red and blue suit out of the top right corner of his small closet and smoothed it over the area he’d cleared of clutter. Ned watched as he carefully slipped the cartridges into their holders at the hip.

   “I’m serious though,” he pressed on, not missing the way Peter’s ears twitched in annoyance. “I’ve got a friend who could help you.”

   “I barely have money to buy food, Ned,” Peter sighed. “I seriously doubt I’d be able to afford a tutor.”

   “She owes me a favour anyway. She wouldn’t make you pay.”

   He turned back to face Ned, eyebrows raised. “What makes you think she’d even be willing to help me?”

   “Oh, please.” With a roll of his eyes, Ned reached into his back pocket and pulled out his phone, scrolling through what Peter could only assume was his contact list. “Would I even be friends with someone that cold hearted?”

   “I don’t know, last time I checked we were still friends with MJ.”

  “She’d punch you if she heard that.”

   “Countin’ on it.”

   He held up the suit by the shoulders then, the baggy material looking drab and uninteresting and frankly kind of ridiculous. Throwing it on the bed at Ned’s feet, he tugged the hem of his ESU hoodie up and over his head, his t-shirt and pants coming off shortly after. He discarded the clothes on his floor with little regard as to where they ended up. Ned moved around him as Peter tugged on the loose suit. He set up his laptop on the desk and pulled a textbook out of his backpack. This part of their routine was easy, comfortable even. It had integrated itself into their lives just as easily as everything else did.

   Peter tapped the spider emblem on his chest, sucking in a quick breath as the material of the suit formed to his body and hugged his limbs. He turned to grab the mask but found Ned already holding it out to him, a worried expression on his face.

   He took it carefully. “Thanks.”

   Ned only nodded, swivelling around in Peter’s desk chair and opening up the textbook he’d placed next to the laptop. Something was off and it was making Peter’s skin crawl more than usual. He looked carefully at the back of Ned’s head, his words only being held back by his teeth and his tight jaw. If he opened his mouth, there would be no stopping. But what the hell, right? Ned was his best friend.

   “Give her a call,” he said finally, and Ned turned to him with a smile. “If you think it’ll help, I don’t see why I shouldn’t try.”

   “I hope you know I’m doing this for your own good,” he grinned, pulling his phone out again and looking for her contact.

   “Yeah.”

   Peter would always admire just how much his best friend had matured since sophomore year. Sure he still geeked out over Star Wars and comic books (but then again, so did Peter) but there was no doubt in his mind that Ned had simply… grown. As person, as a best friend, as his guy in the chair; Ned went from nervously helping Peter with whatever ridiculous idea he’d had that week to either fully supporting him or calling him a fucking idiot when he was being one. Ned was the one person he could always count on to be there for him.

   “Hey,” he called, his foot on the windowsill and hand gripping the frame, backpack slung lazily over one shoulder. “You’re here if I need you, right?”

   Ned smiled, tucking his earbuds in and firing up the laptop. “Yeah, always.”

   Peter grinned back, slipping on the mask and throwing up a peace sign before he jumped out the window of his dorm. Luckily, his dorm only faced an alley between the residences and no one was around to see him crawling up the side of the brick.

   When he reached the rooftop, he sat for a moment admiring the autumn sunset, the warm orange hues washing the city with vibrant yet calm energy. Though he knew that this was but a mirage, and New York was nothing if not a complete disaster, he couldn’t help but think of a city at peace. Maybe one day he’d accomplish it, and hang up the webs one last time. But he doubted it’d come any time soon.

   “Pete?”

   “Yeah?”

   Ned’s voice was soft through the comm system, and Peter could almost hear the frown on his face. “Be careful, yeah?”

   Peter grinned, his heads up display focusing and zooming in on a group of men standing near the edge of Washing Square Park, a scared looking girl at their feet and trying desperately to back away on her hands. Why were they always stupid enough to assault someone in broad daylight in the middle of a park? They were almost begging for a beating.

   He webbed his backpack to a wall in the alleyway below him, then shot a web at the next roof over and pulled himself forward, landing gracefully on the balls of his feet and using the momentum to launch himself into the air. His head buzzed with the rush of air whizzing past his ears. He flipped once, twice, then landed in a crouch in front of the girl, fingertips on the ground with one arm extended to the side to help his balance, shielding her from the attackers. He could’ve sworn they could see his smirk through the mask, because their faces paled comically.

   “Always am.”

━━━━━━━━

   “Hello?”

   “Listen, you know that favour you owe me? Yeah, I’d like to cash that in now.”

   “Oh I’m great, Ned, thanks for asking. How are you?”

   “Y/N….” Ned whined, dragging out the last syllable. “It’s important.”

   Y/N laughed, switching her cell phone from her right ear to her left, and pressing it in place with her shoulder as she poured herself a cup of coffee. She finally felt that she had room to breathe now that midterms were over and she had the weekend off from work. The library staff room was warm and cozy despite the chilly November weather, so all she really wanted to do was sit down on the couch with one of the new fiction arrivals that she’d unpacked that afternoon for a good little while, but she’d been interrupted when her phone rang.

   The strong yet comfortable smell of bitter black coffee filled the small room, and she watched as the cream she poured into her mug swirled and mixed with the dark liquid. “Alright, alright. What’s up?”

   She was so positive of the fact that Ned was beaming that she would have bet everything she had on it, and when he spoke she could see his silly smile in her mind’s eye.  

   “Okay, so, you remember Peter, right?” Ned asked, and Y/N frowned as she opened the fridge door to put the cream back.

   “Haven’t met him but you’ve told me about him,” she said. “Childhood best friend or something, right?”

   “The one and only. Anyway he’s kind of in a tight spot right now.”

   “How so?”

   “He’s failing English.”

   Y/N smiled knowingly then, settling down on the rather ugly but still surprisingly soft beige couch in the centre of the room, the bright blue mug in her hands warming her to the bone. She knew instantly what the phone call was about and what Ned was going to ask of her, yet she feigned ignorance. Why? For her own amusement, she supposed. 

   “And you called me because…?”

   “You’ve been talking about wanting to tutor people on the side… right? But I figured you might want to test how comfortable you are doing it before you start charging people.”

   “And you’re suggesting that Peter would be my guinea pig?”

   “...Yes, in a way.”

   “Is he okay with that?” she asked, setting her phone down on the small foot table in front of her and putting the phone on speaker. She was all alone in the staff room, and there were only a handful of students and two other staff members in the building at the moment so she wouldn’t need to worry about disturbing anyone. That, and her neck was starting to ache.

   Ned’s sigh confirmed her suspicions, that he had somehow convinced Peter into agreeing to being tutored even though he didn’t want to. She wasn’t sure why, but Y/N felt her stomach tug at the thought. But that was ridiculous—she didn’t even know the kid.

   “I kinda had to beg him,” he admitted rather sheepishly. “He’s just… so stubborn and it- it’s infuriating. They’re not gonna let him back next semester if he doesn’t pass this time because he failed both times last year but honestly, I feel like he doesn’t even care.”

   “Hmm.” Y/N knew the type of person Peter was just from the little information Ned had just shared with her. He was headstrong and stubborn, but only made time for things he enjoyed and had genuine interest in, which evidently did not include English. “What’s he studying right now?”

   “Double major in Chemistry, and Molecular Biology and Biochemistry.”

   “Jesus. That gave me a headache.”

   “I know, gross, right? I always told him he should’ve done Com-Sci like me, and maybe he’d be less stressed, but he never listens to me. He’s actually the smartest person I know when he wants to be, but when he doesn’t…”

   “Yeah, I get it,” she sighed. “Well, I’m free all weekend if he wants to meet up at the library. I was gonna stay far away from this place since I have a few days off, but I’m afraid I can’t abandon my books for too long anyway.”

   “You have no idea how much this means to us, Y/N,” Ned sighed. “Thank you.”

   “Yeah, yeah,” she grinned, mostly to herself though since no one could see her. “I feel like this is more important to you than it is to him, though.”

   “That makes two of us. Hey, can I give him your number?”

   “Sure, go ahead. Tell him to text me, yeah?”

   “He will. And if he doesn’t, I’ll make him.”

   Y/N giggled at that, sipping on her coffee and relishing in the warmth that slid down her throat. She dreaded leaving the library and stepping into the cold autumn air. She wanted to stay holed up on that couch forever. “Alright, dude, I gotta go. I’ll never leave if I stay here any longer and I still have to read a couple chapters of a new book tonight.”

   “Yeah, for sure. I’ll see you around this week?”

   “My door’s always open for you,” she smiled, knowing that Ned’s dorm room was only a few floors below hers and he’d often pop by to visit her while she studied. “See ya.”

   “Bye, my guy.”

   Y/N wondered if everyone felt that odd silence after hanging up a phone call, that lingering stillness that felt a little too quiet, especially when she was alone. It made the skin of her arms prickle with goosebumps and she shivered, putting her things back into her backpack and tugging it onto her shoulder. Quickly knocking back the rest of her coffee, she grabbed her scarf off the hook on the wall and laid it lazily around her neck once, still too warm inside the building to put it on properly.

   As she stepped out of the staff room, the warm atmosphere of the library engulfed her once more and she smiled as she stepped toward the main desk. Carol, her boss and the school’s head librarian, was typing away at the computer and busy signing out a laptop to a student. Y/N slid behind the desk, grabbing a copy of the new book she wanted to read and began to sign it out to herself on one of the unoccupied desktops as Carol thanked the student and let him know that he needed to bring the laptop back by the following evening. When she was done, she glanced at Y/N with a smile.

   “Oh, tell me how that one is,” she said when she saw the book. “It caught my eye but I’m not sure if I’ll have time to read it. If it’s a worthwhile read, however, I’ll make time.”

   “Will do.”

   Carol was a kind woman, who looked so stereotypically like a librarian it almost made Y/N laugh when they’d met. Her greying auburn hair was always tied into a tight knot on her head, and her wire-framed glasses were always slipping too far down her nose. She wore cardigans and capris pants almost everyday, and Y/N was pretty sure she only owned one pair of beige shoes. But she was caring and sweet, never shushing anyone when they laughed too loudly or if they swore when they dropped a particularly heavy encyclopedia on their foot. She was one of the main reasons Y/N liked her job so much and never said no when Carol asked her to come in a little bit early or stay a little while longer. She was practically her second mother, and the library was her home away from home.

   “I’ll see you on Monday, dear?” Carol asked as Y/N picked up her shoulder bag.

   “No, actually,” she grinned. “I’ll see you this weekend.”

   “Oh?”

   “Yeah.” She looked at her Converse clad feet and the fraying bottom of her pant legs, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “I’m tutoring a friend of a friend as a favour. He’s failing English and, you know me- I have an obligation to make everyone enjoy literature.”

   “You and I both,” Carol smiled, the crinkles on the outside corners of her eyes folding and making her look like a sweet grandmother (she totally was sweet, though a grandmother only to her cat’s kittens, perhaps). “I do hope you go out and enjoy yourself this weekend, though. Every time I see you, you have your nose stuck in a book. And you know I do encourage that but you should really stretch your legs, go out and have some fun.”

   “I find reading very fun,” Y/N smiled, tucking the book into her bag.

   “Oh, I’m well aware.”

   She turned, walking backwards toward the library doors so she could wave to Carol. “See you soon then!”

   “I’ll be here, as always,” Carol grinned.

   It was dark when she stepped out of the building, the cold air hitting her like a wall and chilling her to her very core. She hugged her school hoodie around herself, tugging her scarf tighter and tucking it into the collar. The only downfall of studying at Empire State was that since the campus was in the centre of Greenwich, it was spread out over quite a few blocks. It would be a fifteen minute walk back to her dorm building, even if she cut through the park. So Y/N tucked in her earbuds and set off, stuffing her hands into the soft pocket of her hoodie and trying to keep as warm as possible.

   By the time she arrived to her building on 7th Avenue, her fingers were numb as she held the keycard over the sensor. She was sure her nose looked like a cherry tomato with how cold it’d gotten on the walk. Making a mental note to buy herself a pair of mittens for the upcoming winter, she stepped into the elevator and hit the button for the sixth floor. She estimated it to be a little past 10 PM, considering her shift ended at 9:30 and she’d spent some time talking to both Ned and Carol before she left. But luckily, that meant there would be nobody in the common room.

   Setting her bag down on the couch in her floor’s common lounge area, she took out the lunch she’d forgotten to eat and sat down with her book resting on her knees and her sandwich in her lap.

   She’d spent so many nights this way, it almost became routine for her now. She nestled into her usual corner, facing the glass walls that allowed her to see out into the hallway and took a bite of her food as she turned to chapter one. She yawned, already used to feeling tired after work and figuring that a good book would help her relax.

   And relax she did.

   Y/N was unsure just how much time had passed when she woke with a start, her book clattering to the ground next to her with the movement of her body.

   “Shit,” she muttered, picking it up and making sure that no pages had bent when it hit the ground. She glanced at the clock on the wall. 4:07 AM. God, had she really been there for that long? There was a kink in her neck where it had lolled back in her sleep, and she rubbed it as she took in her surroundings. It seemed like no one had been in the room since she’d arrived.  

   It wasn’t until she looked up, however, that she really startled.

   There, in the hallway on the other side of the glass, frozen like a deer caught in headlights, stood a boy who looked like he’d been beaten within an inch of his life.

   Y/N’s breath caught in her throat as they gazed at each other, both equally shocked. It was then that she realized that it was the sound of him almost falling flat on his face, but catching himself against a wall with a sharp, pained shout before he landed that woke her up. He was still gripping the wall, knuckles white with the sheer force of his grasp, his other arm clutched around his ribs. Neither of them expected the other to be there.

   He looked like he’d been hit by a bus. Or maybe hit by a bus, but then the bus turned around and drove over him another three or four times for good measure. One of his eyes was swollen shut, the skin around and under it beaten blue and purple, and yellowing at the edges. The blood from his crooked nose dripped onto his mouth and chin, down his neck and staining the collar of his t-shirt, which had some ridiculous math pun on it that Y/N would have rolled her eyes at if she hadn’t been so shocked by the state of him. His arms were littered with what looked like bruises in the form of fingers, as if someone had grabbed him and thrown him around. There were cuts and bruises all over the rest of his face, and his short brown hair stuck up at an odd angle as if he’d just taken off a beanie. He wore a backpack that looked like it was one throw to the ground away from ripping at the seams and, for whatever reason, he wasn’t wearing shoes.

   They both sat in silence until he looked away, his shocked eyes then taking on a droopy, tired expression as he limped down the hall, his hand still supporting almost the entire weight of his body against the wall. His bare feet dragged against the hall floor, leaving dirt and blood behind on the linoleum. Y/N choked on her breath as she exhaled, not having noticed that she’d even been holding it.

   What the fuck? What the fuck?

   She scrambled to her feet, the book now long forgotten as it fell to the floor once again, and she fumbled with the doorknob as it slipped in her sweaty palms. When she finally got the door open, she stared down the hallway in the direction he’d gone, but she was met with nothing but an empty corridor.

   Where could he possibly have gone that fast?

   She stepped carefully and quietly, making sure to keep her footfalls as light as possible, as she walked in the direction she’d seen him go. She passed each door, looking for any sign that he might have been there, when finally she stopped in front of one with blood on the silver handle. Glancing up at the name tag that adorned every door, Y/N swallowed the dry lump in her throat and her eyes widened as she took in the name.

   Peter P.

   Oh dear God. What the hell did she just herself into?

━━━━━━━━

A/N: i’m so sorry but this is going to be the slowest slow burn in the history of slow burns, maybe ever. hope ya’ll are into pain. 

ALSO i spell everything the canadian way, ya know, with ou’s and shit... if that bothers you then whoOps sorry

← previous | series masterlist | next →

tags: @psychedelicmagnum @jazmins-main-hoe

message me to be added to a taglist or add yourself (updates coming steadily through november) or send an ask/comment to give me some feedback! x

[kalico-to-the-letter]

REVIEW // RWBY | 6.1 | “ARGUS LIMITED”

AKA the one in which I find solidarity with the Grimm’s hatred of rail transportation. Don’t talk to me about trains and how they ruin my days, or else I might also transform into a giant feathery chimera of darkness and breath fire on you.

Welcome in to my review of Volume 6, Chapter 1, entitled “Argus Limited”. We are back in business for another winter, coming through with yet another season of my incredibly unwieldy and low-reach style of conveying my thoughts on this show I love. 

In this episode: bitter feelings, Partings of the ways, and Oh my goodness, I have missed the RWBY dynamic.

Look at this girl, by the way. This is the face of a girl who knows she’s finally being given some work to do in this show.

A LOT OF PROMISE: WHERE IT WAS NEEDED MOST, AND NOT A MOMENT TOO SOON

In this era of episodic writing, premieres (and finales) exist in their own kind of world, somehow connected to the body of the season by virtue of proximity and story threads, but oftentimes separated completely by tone and mood and direction. More of a mission statement underlined by style, flash, and signature moments, rather than an actual episodic narrative.

RWBY has been part of this as well, which is why I bring it up. Last year’s premiere had a foot in that territory, and I’m sure you all remember the utterly pointless food fight in the Volume 2 premiere (that’s OK, I had to look it up as well).

But while this Volume 6 premiere looks like it’s not doing a whole lot, scratch a little beneath the surface and you’ll realise that holy shit, a lot happened in this episode. And they pulled it off very slickly. I call it low-key good storytelling.

Let me explain.

This is an episode dominated by three action pieces, all on a single set. This itself doesn’t seem like much, but it actually keeps the narrative very tightly focused, and affords us great opportunity to get acquainted with the setting; outside the train, we only visit Adam’s location and the station. I expected it coming in, but this is the least jumping around the show’s format has used in years, and to actually see the tight focus in action again is different to merely speculating about it. Not to mention that we get something different out of each visit to the action pieces. The action beat in the middle of the episode offers an alternative angle to the in medias res action of the opening, and adds to it, while of course the ending serves a purpose which is simultaneously connected and separate with its partners.

It is in between these scenes – and even during these scenes – where, if you pay close enough attention, one can see the subtle plot and character machinations working to service the episode as a contained story, or possible matters for the future. These things aren’t being buried, but it requires some thinking about to put together.

We can see the character dynamics shifting and revealing themselves, particularly in the little bit of grinding between Yang and Blake, who clearly have still not addressed their deeper issues with each other. And even that gets a little bandage wrapped over it when they are able to come together and click seamlessly as teammates in combat.

We can see the fundamentals of this plot. The crew, just two weeks removed from the last finale, are transporting the relic they retrieved from Haven to Atlas, at the behest of the ever enigmatic Oz. On the train to their destination, they are attacked by Grimm. Team RWBY, Oscar, and Qrow are separated from JNR. They meet a strange elderly woman, who reminds me in every way of Legend of Korra’s version of Katara with high-tech glasses. It’s literally that simple, but the structure of the episode makes it so that it doesn’t feel as bare as I’ve just outlined.

One other such important machination is the possible rehabilitation of Ruby Rose.

It was the biggest thread in my preview for the upcoming season, and I won’t run it into the ground again here. Essentially, Ruby has been one of the least interesting characters throughout the run of this series, and has been eclipsed by her teammates in character depth, which is not what you want for your main heroine.

And this episode takes real strides to correcting this. Like Ruby taking the lead in the fighting. And diffusing the negative energy in the train. And formulating a decent and thoroughly self-sacrificial plan to keep the civilians safe.

How hard was that? Now Ruby’s the hero of this episode, and you have a solid base on which to build for her going forward.

Maybe.

It could all still be for nought. They could find a way to completely undo her newfound credibility, and it wouldn’t be that hard. But let’s err on the side of optimism, shall we? This show is generally pretty good with carrying and developing these kinds of threads as the seasons roll on.

OBSERVATIONS:

Adam is basically that guy you have no choice but to turn down, because you’ve got your own shit together and he is an anchor to a lesser version of yourself. Then he can’t handle it and gets head-deep in his fuckshit bag. Blake, stay winning. 

I love the pointed irony of Weiss returning to Atlas after spending an entire season trying to get out of the place.

It’s touching that Ilia got some kind of closure out of her time with Blake, even if it almost certainly wasn’t the kind she was originally after. Also, what I would have given to see Blake roast the boy Neptune even harder for trying to hit on the “wrong tree”. I wasn’t even that mad at the Sun stuff, since it was him basically realising what he should be doing (and should have been doing from the start).

I’m still not sure how I feel about Oz/Oscar. There is still something off-putting about that character, even though the show went to pains to help him along last season.

I have so many emotions just seeing Team RWBY chilling together again. I feel like Weiss and Ruby are practically bonded at this point. Yang and Blake looks like a promising storyline to pay attention to this season as well.

GRADE: B+

“Argus Limited” is a premiere buzzing with typically well-coordinated action beats, but don’t let that be all you take away from this episode. The storytelling here, while low-key, subtle, and perhaps lacking a little in plot substance, should not be underestimated in its effectiveness – especially for the character of Ruby, who finally gets a chance to be important, rather than just having the show tell us she is. Watch out for how this develops. – KALLIE

[kylosrehn]

aos for the ask meme. or, if you've already gotten that (or you just wanna do both) the wider MCU.

the first character i ever fell in love with: Skye. Or Ward. I can’t really remember which came first. Probably Skye because she was so relatable and quirky and positive but I also loved grumpy pretending-not-to-care SO Ward. 

a character that i used to love/like, but now do not: Skye… or Daisy I guess. I started losing interest around halfway through S2 with the whole Afterlife plot (and then just stopped watching the show altogether after the S2 finale lol) but S3 was the one that really left a bad taste in my mouth. And the start of S4 with emo vigilante Daisy. I don’t dislike her, but it’s a far cry from the love I had for her in the early days. Same with Jemma, actually. I really liked her in S1, this cute, quirky if slightly awkward scientist willing to bend the rules when she believes it’s the right thing to do. Afterwards things got… complicated. I like her more on her own, outside of FS scenes (which, when does that ever happen?) Can she/they ever have a storyline that doesn’t involve saving the other one? For science? No?

a ship that i used to love/like, but now do not: Hmm… I don’t think I have one? Once I decide I like something, I fall for it pretty hard. lol. I guess Daisy/Lincoln. That’s a funny one, because when they sort of started flirting in S2 I liked the idea of them together, and I thought they had a lot of potential. But once it actually happened I wasn’t into it at all. It felt kinda rushed and I just didn’t really see any chemistry between them. It was an ‘expectations vs. reality’ sort of thing for me.

my ultimate favorite character™: Oh gosh… Fitz, I guess? I mean, obviously I’m trash for Ophelia but I actually wasn’t all that fond of the whole Aida arc at the beginning… I liked her more in the Framework, and all the potential she had as a human (or Inhuman, whatever.) It’s funny because he sort of grew on me. I admittedly didn’t pay much attention to him in S1 because I was so wrapped up in Skyeward, but once they killed that storyline and started developing his character from the nerdy sidekick/comic relief to an actual, fleshed-out character dealing with brain damage, then yes I became involved. Still mourned the untimely demise of Skyeward in S2 though.

prettiest character: Fitz or Ward if it’s more ‘handsome’ pretty. Out of the ladies… Daisy, I suppose? Also Stephanie Malick because personal bias - yes I’ve loved Bethany Joy Lenz since One Tree Hill and they totally should’ve let her stick around for longer than two episodes god damn it.

my most hated character: I’m not particularly fond of Jemma. Or what they’ve done with her, I suppose. But god damn it if there’s one character I hate it’s Ruby. Really glad that arc is over.

my OTP: This one’s pretty obvious. Skye/Ward and Fitz/Ophelia. Hehe. 

my NOTP: Fitzsimmons sorry not sorry.

favorite episode: (In no particular order): 5.14, 4.16 and 1.17. Self Control and, frankly, all the Framework episodes, are strong contenders, but that’s my podium. 

saddest death: I’ve got to say Fitz. Mostly because it was so sudden and I honestly wasn’t expecting it at all. I genuinely didn’t think they’d have the balls to kill off one half of FS, especially on-screen. I was literally expecting him to miraculously pull through and just have his legs amputated or something. It felt so surreal. Of course, then they brought CryoFitz back into play so really it was all just one big cop-out (figures) but the shock factor was definitely there. It was just the right amount of sad and downright distressing and even unsettling, with the way he didn’t fully comprehend what was happening and just…slipped away. I also really liked how they didn’t cheapen the moment by making it all about FS, which was… honestly such a nice surprise? I preferred the shocked and unaware approach they took, and how he spent his last moments with… kind of the two most unlikely people - May whom he hasn’t ever really bonded with, a relationship which is made especially awkward by their experience in the Framework and the ‘super villain interrogation’ in 5.15; and Mack, who literally told him days or even hours earlier that he needs ‘fixing.’ It was all very weird and bizarre and surprising, and definitely felt like a solid punch to the gut. At least, until they straight up announced they’re going to essentially retcon it… Eh. Also, Ophelia? Maybe less sad and more just downright disturbing and gratuitously violent and graphic. 

favorite season: If Season 1 and 4.16-20 and 5.14 could somehow be merged into one season… that would be it. lol. Overall, I have to say S1. Most people hate it and call it the weakest season and, sure, it felt very formulaic and had this predictable ‘monster of the week’ format at first but it was genuinely enjoyable to watch. Every other season after that I just found myself getting angry at something. lol. I actually liked pretty much every character in S1 to some degree and because nothing was set in stone or made explicitly canon yet, there was a lot more freedom shipping-wise. There was no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ ship, or ‘no you can’t like this character because of X, Y, Z’ it was just whatever you were into. For a while it seemed like pretty much all combinations of the Bus Kids ships had a decent chance of sailing. That’s a pretty damn good feeling. 

least favorite season: Hands down Season 5. I wasn’t a fan of Season 3 either (though admittedly I did like certain episodes/aspects of it) and Season 2 could’ve done without that whole ‘Real SHIELD’ plot but Season 5 takes the cake. I mean… seriously. It was a let down, especially after the hugely successful Framework arc (the show’s strongest point so far imo.) So naturally there was a lot of expectation and it kind of fell flat. They had maybe 2 or 3 strong episodes. The rest was riddled with plot holes, blatant fan service, lines that sounded like they pulled straight from fanfic, radical and often inexplicable shifts in character behaviour from one episode to the next that could be classified as borderline character assassination, frequent lack of continuity, too much time spent on characters that ultimately turned out to be irrelevant/got quickly killed off, writers seemingly forgetting what had happened in literally the previous episode, etc. There’s really no excuse for that mess. lol. Not to mention the at times pretty obvious budget cuts and the lack of decent lighting which made the space pod downright unwatchable at times. Really feels like the weakest, most disjointed and confused season of all. Which is a shame. Because it could’ve been great. But it just really… wasn’t.

character that everyone else in the fandom loves, but i hate: I don’t want to say Jemma but… Jemma? I guess part of the problem is that I feel there tends to be a discrepancy between the actual canonic on-screen representation of Jemma and fanon Jemma, at least in my experience. She (and Daisy) seem to get put on this imaginary pedestal a lot of the time and given leeway and all these concessions that other characters aren’t allowed. Sometimes I think I hate fandom’s approach to and treatment of certain characters more than I hate the actual character. Also, Mack and Bobbi? I feel like they’re pretty massive fandom faves as well and I never really got invested in them. I don’t hate them, they’re just… Meh. 

my ‘you’re piece of trash, but you’re still a fave’ fave: Leopold, the ultimate trash fave. Hehe. He’s just so deliciously messed up and complex and it’s so much fun to explore all of that. He’s like the one villain AOS completely unintentionally got right. Magnetic, charismatic, complicated. Sure, he only ever really shows up in about five episodes but in those five or six episodes they build a really solid character. We’re not told or shown everything, but that’s the point. Sometimes the implication is enough - and it’s super fun to fill in those gaps. And those suits. I mean, c’mon. lol

my ‘beautiful cinnamon roll who deserves better than this’ fave: Literally no one on this show is a cinnamon roll anymore. lol. I think Ophelia easily could’ve had a really satisfying redemption arc if the writers were actually willing to get into that instead of just shelving their more complex characters and turning to the safe option of ‘let’s kill the baddie.’ Ward could’ve possibly been redeemed too (up to a certain point at least) but I guess part of his appeal is that he didn’t want to be? Uh… and out of the still alive ones (kind of??), Fitz. He’s had a really tough time literally since S2. I also liked Mace and Radcliffe and I kind of wish they got to stick around for a bit longer.

my ‘this ship is wrong, nasty, and makes me want to cleanse my soul, but i still love it’ ship: Fitz/Ophelia. Obviously. I guess one of the more weirder ones is Hive/Stephanie. That’s… not remotely canon (I mean, I guess they kissed? lol) but in my headcanon Framework verse it is. Let’s be honest, there’s probably tons more because I always latch on to the more obscure stuff, but I can’t really think of anything else at the moment.

my ‘they’re kind of cute, and i lowkey ship them, but i’m not too invested’ ship: Philinda and Mackelena. I don’t ship either but I guess I can kind of see the appeal and I wish them all the best for the sake of the shippers because both of these pairings are frequently overshadowed by… well, the main ship. I can totally understand and sympathize with their frustration. 

[im-fairly-whitty]

10 Starters

Tagged by @slusheeduck for the “10 Starters Challenge.” Essentially taking the first line of 10 of your fics/works (or the first paragraph to get the vibe of it.) 

It was so so much fun digging through my story trunk and remembering all these fantastic projects! Here we go:

1. The Arbrel

My very first novel, started this one when I was fifteen and it's a loose mess of a plot featuring people who have animal-based superpowers. 

Unfinished and always will be. 

Mitch dashed down the alley, his stolen prize grasped tightly in his hand as he weaved around crushed cardboard boxes and jumped over loose piles of leaves. The cold October air bit through the holes in his jeans and the hood of his sweatshirt slid off, baring his short dark hair to the chilled twilight of the Minnesota evening.

2. Dr Who fanfic

I thought Coco was my first foray into fanfic, but then remembered an old Dr Who self-insert drabble I wrote forever ago. 

For some reason I've forgotten, it seems to have been part of a homework assignment.

A package of gluten-free spaghetti, that’s all I had wanted when I walked through the automatic doors of my neighborhood Smith’s. Instead of procuring my pasta as according to plan, I now found myself precariously perched upon the ice cream freezer.

3. Honey Rubies

There was a spooky story contest at a Haloween party I attended in high school. Wrote this oneshot from the point of view of a disturbingly cheerful clinically insane murderer and swept away first prize no contest after completely terrifying my friends. 

Maybe available for posting if requested.

I love my white chair, it is solid and secure and always there. I know it is always there. Around it spreads a beautiful field of emerald grass that stretches to a horizon of blue that soars up to form a ceiling of azure far above my head. I call this place Amy. The first Amy was a person, not a place, she was always there too. Until one day she wasn’t.

4. Hitman for Hire: Unfinished Business Only

A story about a hitman who takes business from spirits with unfinished business, killing their murderers so that the spirits can move on before warping into dangerous poltergeists like the one that killed his mother, who was a psychic. 

I only ever wrote the first chapter of this one since I decided I wasn't comfortable jumping down the dark rabbit hole that this story would require (it would definitely be an M rating and I don't like wandering past pg-13), but I do love the chapter a lot. I could be convinced to post what I have already if requested, but will likely remain unfinished.

“... and once the ladder tipped I fell right on the fence below. It was a two-story fall! And then my idiot brother-in-law just watches me bleed out, a piece of rebar through my neck. You ever bled to death? Like, it’s quick, but not that quick.” The lanky man rubbed a hand on his neck, grimacing.

5. How to Hate the Planet Earth 

An alien scout has just finished her report that the Earth is ready for harvesting but is feeling guilty about having doomed the planet and its population that she's come to love. Now with three days before the end of Earth she recruits a depressed and confused art student to help her find all the reasons to hate Earth to make her feel better. 

A finished 30k romp of a story featuring a one-eared cat, a retaliatory gang, and an overall "Good Omens/Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy" vibe. Could possibly be convinced to post, but it’ll need editing first.

Taking a sip of coffee Hinge picked up her pen with new resolve, focusing on the bitter taste. 

The native’s addictive stimulant of choice, “coffee...”

She took another sip of the disgusting, awful, really despicable drink. 

...causes headaches if the habit is not sustained...

Her next sip had an extra taste of vanilla.

...which isn’t hard, since the delicious...

Frowning she crossed it out and tried again, taking another swig, savoring the nutmeg. 

The terrible, not tasty, not amazing nutmeg she had discovered yesterday while taste-testing all the different kinds of flavors you could order.

6. Never City

A dystopian retelling of Peter Pan, Sixteen-year-old Peder isn't happy when the Tinker asks him to kidnap two young boys before the government does. He and his group of robotic lost boys prefer to stay hidden in the shadows of Never City, but he agrees anyway. He doesn't want the government to trap the minds of John and Michael Darling in digital "lifechips" like they did with the lost boys Peder now cares for. 

 It’s a full and polished YA novel manuscript I was shopping around to agents last year, but not sure if I'm going to anymore since my writing has improved a ton since then so I’m feeling stuck in limbo with this one.

Peder had plenty of experience reviving the dead, he just needed to work a bit faster than usual tonight.

7. Nightmare Knight

There is a man that’s been in Samantha’s dreams for months now. No, not “the man of her dreams,” literally a man, always in the background, just casually watching her from a distance every night. She’s never able to talk to him, so when he shows up at her house one morning to offer her an apprenticeship as a nightmare slayer, she’s more than intrigued. Her real life is a dead end as far as she’s concerned, and maybe she sort of had to lie to her new mentor and kind of run away from home, but she’s not going to let anything keep her from taking full advantage of this chance to escape her real life. Little does she realize that in the dreamscape, her devil-may-care attitude will lead to attracting all kinds of devils who DO care, unleashing exactly the kind of monsters she’ll be training to kill. By the time she does realize it, it might be too late.

I have a full finished novel manuscript of it but am currently rewriting it.

“I am dreaming. I am paying attention.” Samantha said aloud, focusing as hard as she could.

8. Hillbriar

Dani Hillbriar, youngest of three, has enough problems in her fifteen-year-old life before she wakes up coughing sparks one morning, not to mention the scaly rash on her shoulder. Turns out that her brother, sister and father are having the same unexpected health issues, which reaches a terrifying crescendo when her brother Marcos sprouts giant leathery wings right in the middle of the living room. Turns out that Dad's crazy uncle has left the family a huge property in the middle of Montana in his will, an apparently magical property that happens to comes with the ability to turn into a dragon in order to protect it. Something that neither Dani, her family, or the dragon community at large are at all pleased about as the family is pulled into the secret-ridden politics of the Hillbriar family that have been covered for years. 

A novel I have planned out but is mostly unwritten, I'll be working more on it sometime.

It's not like like I woke up planning to burn my house down, I'm not a freak. It just kind of happened.

9. For Whom the Bell Tolls - Coco

Baby's first real fanfic (not counting the Dr Who drabble). Ernesto De la Cruz a year post movie decides to pay Miguel a visit to give the kid a taste of what regret feels like.

It had been a year since paradise had turned to hell.

10. The Way You Keep Me Guessing: Coco Teacher AU

Yall know this one. Here’s the first line of the first chapter I did for it. Imelda was still angry with Hector, meaning that when he was late to the welcome-back assembly she couldn’t text him to see where he was. She’d maintained complete radio silence for three months now despite his best efforts and was very proud of herself for it.

***

If you’ve got 10+ works to choose from and the fancy hits you, go ahead and tag yourself! This was a lot of fun and is making me itch to get back to some of my original works projects.

[cowboypossume]

sdfghj I'm so sorry for coming back to this so late I am living in Tumblr bliss without checking my inbox but a) babe is totally fine I love that!! and my names aru (no a, you were close though!!)

yeah I'm like...halfway ash through the book? Simon snow needs a break but I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR YOUR OPINIONS EVEN IF THEY WEREN'T GOOD

AND SORRY FOR NOT RESPONDING TO YOUR DMs I'm really bad at messaging I'll try to get better!!!

hey hey don’t sweat about the dm thing ! the inbox is something i can learn to do :D !!! but ok you and spoilers throughout literally the entire and this is gonna be a lot and unedited (mostly) because BEHZYZTGZYSHSYHZUENEUSBS IM SO U P S E T

undeather the - - - - - - is when the spoilers stop

ok, ok, getting striaght to the point. it’s so horny. it’s so horny. and for W H A T ? WHAT THE FUCK WAS THE REASON FOR IT TOBE T H A T HORNY? AND EVEN THEN ALL OF THE SEX STUFF WAS SO V A U G E ? LIKE EVERY TIME SIMON AND BAZ WERE TOGETHER IT TYRNED INTO SEX AND YES OK AS AN ACE I G E T HOW MUCH SEX CAN COME UP, BUT LIKE, ENDYXHZYGSHSYZGE WHAT WAS THAT?? IT WASNT EVEN WELL WRITTEN! IT WAS JUST SIMON BEING LIKE “i want more but it’s not enough” AND LIKE NOT REALLY ELABORATING ?? AND THEN THEYD BE SHARING A CUTE MOMENT THEN *bam* HORNY AGAIN? OK ALSO AS FAR I KNOW RAINBOW ROWELLE IS A CIS HET STRAIGHT WOMEN .. BABE WE DONT NEED THAT MUCH SEX BETWEEN THE MLM RELATIONSHIP??? AND THEN WJEN THEY ACTUALLY KIND OF EVEN HAVE SEX ITS SO V A U G E (AGAIN!) ITS NOT UNTIL SEVERAL PAGES LATER I REALIZED THAT THAT TIME WAS ACTUALLY SEX VS ALL THE TIMES IT WASNT? I DIDNT LIKE IT !!

ok now that i’m done being upset about how fucking vague it was, i also didn’t like how it was used as a metaphor for simon wanting to actually try in a relationship? yes it’s important to try in relationships and compromise and try when you don’t want to, that’s important, obviously, but like ,, you’re allowed to have your own believes about sex. that doesn’t have to be the soul focus of your relationship. baz himself even admits that they “have bigger things to worry about”. there are ways to show growth in a relationship without sex, and even if you do, IT DOESNT NEED TO BE THAT VAUGE?? AND OFTEN? simon felt overwhelmed in those positions and then was like “ok lol i’m done with anxiety and just gonna try now and no more anxiety :)” it felt like to me? and then bam bow horny. ALSO. ITS NOW CANNONICAL SIMON HAS A BLOOD KINK ????

ALSO! THAT SCENE IN THE SEWER WAS BAZ BEING LIKE

“please fucking stop about asking me to drain you. i’m makes me so uncomfortable and scared and stop.”

and simon was like “but it’s hotttttt”. WHAT ?? BABE WE DONT HAVE TIME TO UNPACK ALL OF THAT.

WHICH BRINGS ME TO NEXT POINT: WHY? WHY THE FUCK DID SIMON GROWL??? W H A T?? WHAT THE FUCK?? WHAT THE FUCK WAS HIM G R OW L I N G WHEN HE SPOKE??

and ok something i didn’t fit in before was all the weird ways the kissing scenes were described? i’m from america so maybe it’s like a dialect thing i don’t understand, but constantly hearing “i shove my nose into his face” while they were kissing was so weird?? like shove, similar words i frankly don’t want to remember, we’re used all the time? and for what? hmmm??? what was that?????? i cant express to you how of a fever dream this book was?? but ohohoho i have more to unpack.

penny to me always felt like the token diversity friend when it wasn’t in her point of view (and even then pushing it) and so i didn’t love her character. but!! her and simon’s friendship was realistic. i could get behind that. HOWEVER. THIS BOOK TAKES THAT AWAY. SIMON once is like “give me space” and then she’s just like “ok” and i feel like their friendship never got repaired at the end? i stopped really paying attention because fucking shit i was so tired of the constant sex between baz and simon that i zoned out most of it so maybe it did but ,, i don’t think it did. i’m pretty sure she got with shepard and then he got with baz and then that was the end of the friendship because ✨ooooo we’re dating people✨ thing. which ,, isn’t how it happens??

and while we’re here: i didn’t like the penny and shepard ship but whatever it felt like it was inevitable like female x male loki so i was like “huh disappointed but not surprised” feeling when they kissed. if you like it, cool great (/gen), i didnt and that’s swaggy but, ok, the plot of shepard being engaged to a female demon who i think wants to fuck him in hell only to be resolved in like 2 pages of a monologue so penny and shepard can get together was ?? so WEIRD ??? like what was that ?? how did that develop their relationship? idk it was so weird.

but ok back to simon and penny, i kept reading and reading and reading on so i could maybe get to at least talk again and then,, they didn’t? they just didn’t. they never made up their friendship and i get that you lose friends along your life. believe me i’m the last person you have to drive that point home to. but,,,,, god i hated that their friendship ended. for WHAT REASON DID IT END?? simon said he needed space, penny respected that, got a boyfriend and simon did too, so no longer theyre friends? something i liked about this series was the group dynamic all of the books had. no matter who’s pov it was in you could tell who each character was because it was unqiue. you still could in this book so i’ll give credit where credit’s due. however THIS BOOK WAS LIKE 3 ENTIRELY DIFFERENT STORIES WITH NO CONECTJON REWLLY ?? WHICH IS FINE I JUST ,, didn’t get that in the first two books so ,,,, why is it here ?

and ok something else while i’m criticizing is: i don’t love her writing style. i didn’t like how in book one i got “here’s an introduction to my magical word told through past tense and memories and so hopefully you’re all caught up now” which i was willing to overlook because just because i don’t like the style means it bad. at least this book didn’t do that but idk didn’t love that aspect.

ok back to the three stories: i love agatha being a bisexual goat care taker. that’s it literally she should have been the main character. like deadass i loved her story so much. that’s it that’s all /pos.

ok but! simon finding his family was cool. i liked that he got that. the pacing of the scene where he finds out was a little rushed for me but, then again, based on my writing i can’t really critique on that so … liked it, enough. idk how to elaborate. wasn’t the worst part of this book but doesn’t really sit well with me.

and i’m so confused about simon’s wings. he does want them and constantly brings up his surgery and then all of a sudden ,, doesn’t? i think? the last chapter is so vague and simon mentions being on the fence about it and i understand that we as the reader don’t need to know everything about what the future holds for these characters but also ?? beudhyzhsgsbeysyzb babe he brought it up like all the time and can i please get a solid answer ??

aLSO. WHY DID SIMON AND BAZ BREAKUP ONLY FOR THEM TO GET TOGETHER 5 CHAPTERS LATER?? WHAYDYXYZGWH WHAT WAS THE POINT OF WAYWAYRD SON IF SHE JUST DID THAT???? LIKE WHXGXYVZYZHE YOU MADE THEM STAY TOGETHER WHEN SIMON WAS BEING AN ACTUAL DICK FOR AN ENTIRE BOOK (which i will defend until the day i die those scenes weren’t an OUNCE of how horny this book is), THEY BREAKUP, AND THEN GET TOGETHER AGAIN?? NOT EVEN 100 PAGES AFTER THEY BREAKUP??? SHZGZGZYSGSU W H A T? WHAT? I DONT GET IT? i don’t get it.

i kept waiting for the scene where everything came together and it never came. then the epilogue didn’t clarify anything either.

i don’t know. there’s more probably i just didn’t enjoy this book. i would have given it a 5/10 the first time i read it but the more i think about it the lower that number goes so ,, yea not a good time.

- - - - - -

so! that’s a lot! completely get it if you disagree :D. you’re allowed to like a book even though i don’t. and also i have no energy to edit this so enjoy me screaming about it !

[marypsue]

Something Borrowed, Something Blues 1 / ?

Part One / Part Two / Part Three / Part Four / Part Five / Part Six / Part Seven / ?

New year, new WIP! I figured I'd start the year off right with the...uh, long-awaited? sequel to Reincarnation Blues! Special thanks to @seiya234 for helping me plot and outline this baby.

Yes, it starts with a scene you may have already...seen. Bear with me. We're going places.

I'm also on AO3 as MaryPSue!

...

“So. Season two. Any ideas about how to start it off with a bang?”

There was a general shuffling of papers and buzz around the writers’ room table. Zelda, unsurprisingly, was the first to speak. “Well, the viewers are still losing it over Bael. I thought -”

“Just a moment,” Ian interrupted. “Do you guys think we can hold off on having Bael show up again until the finale?”

Around the table, the team exchanged looks.

“What, like…like a horror movie, kind of suspense build, sort of thing? Yeah dude, that makes sense,” Ricardo said, but he still sounded uncertain. “But - all the way to the finale? That seems like too long, man. Now he’s shown his hand, wouldn’t Bael be trying to kill Stella, like, constantly?”

Ian blinked. “What? Why would he be trying to kill her?”

The look Zelda shot him was one Ian knew she only turned in his direction when he was being particularly inscrutable or ridiculous. “We did just literally finish the season with him using Sam as a puppet to try to drop her down a bottomless pit.”

“Yeah, but Stella doesn’t know that’s Bael! We revealed him to the audience through Alcor, but she still doesn’t know he even exists. Why would he try to kill her? Think about his endgame, guys.”

The faces around the table were still blank. Ian met Zelda’s eyes, hoping for understanding from the writer who was practically his second brain, but she just gave her head a shake so small it barely disturbed her bubblegum-coloured hair.

“I thought his endgame was to kill her. And Alcor. And open the gateway to the Dungeon Dimension, and unleash his true power and wrath on the world, and finally get caught up with Political Intrigue: But With Dragons,” Chris piped up, and Ian pressed the heel of his hand against his right eye.

“Yes, but that’s what he wants you to - Do you remember how we decided the Dungeon Dimension had to be unlocked?”

“With Alcor’s power, yeah.” Zelda tapped her pen against her lip piercing. “That makes sense, that Bael would want to keep Stella alive to use her to persuade Alcor to open the gateway - but then the bottomless pit doesn’t -”

“Sheesh, you guys, are you all brain-dead today?” There was a dull pressure building against Ian’s prosthetic, not quite an ache yet but definitely threatening to become one, and he could swear he caught a whiff of ozone and…margaritas?

Ricardo made a face at Zelda, who sighed. “Sorry, boss, but whatever you were plotting really didn’t come across this time.”

“What? But -” Ian shook his head, blowing out a breath that was halfway to a laugh. “We were all on the same page setting up the season finale! We all knew where this was going, right? It’s obvious.” It was, a series of simple, shining steps to world domination. They’d all brainstormed over Bael, talked his goals and motivation and personality to death - did they really not see - “Stella was never really going to fall in the bottomless pit. That was why Sam got to break through and save her, remember? It was just to show her how little Alcor really cared about her, that he could just let her fall!”

“But he does care about her,” Chris pointed out, and Ian could just strangle the guy with his own trachea, he really could. “So that’s not going to -”

“It doesn’t matter if Alcor really cares about Stella or not! Jeez, were you paying any attention when we hashed out Bael or were you just taking a nap that day? All he cares about is whether Stella thinks Alcor cares about her.” Ian leaned forward expectantly, letting out a sigh when the confused faces didn’t instantly morph into looks of realisation. Zelda looked like she might be catching on, but Ian could almost see the wheels spinning uselessly in all of the others’ heads. “Look, fine, I’ll spell it out for you. Stella’s only in this because she thinks Alcor is a good guy, that he’s on her side. Alcor would do just about anything to keep Bael locked up and the world safe, Bael’s not an idiot, he’d know that after Alcor locked him up in the first place. He’s not going to pin all his plans on another demon, even a weirdo like Alcor, being enough of a stupid sap to let him out just so one puny human doesn’t bite it a couple years early.“

He paused for a moment, feeling a hollowness growing under his feet with every note Chris scribbled in his binder and every tap of Zelda’s pen against her lip ring. "But humans are a whole bunch more sentimental, and a lot more gullible. All Bael needs to do is convince Stella that Alcor’s using her, that she can’t trust he’s got her or humanity’s best interests at heart - and Alcor himself will help out with that, he’s not exactly the most forthcoming guy, and he’s been keeping some pretty big secrets - and Stella and her soft, tender little heart will go running straight for somebody she thinks she can trust. Another human who she already loves, who understands what it’s like to be under a demon’s control - another human who’s still under a demon’s control, because no matter how powerful love might be or what it might be able to conquer, he still didn’t put a time limit on his contract with Bael. And because of her deal with Alcor -”

“Stella can use Alcor’s powers,” Ricardo said, looking like Ian had just pulled the tablecloth off a fully-set table without spilling a drop from any of the wineglasses.

“Wait, do you mean Sam didn’t actually get control back from Bael in the last episode?” Chris asked, and Ian reached for his coffee mug, only to find it missing. 

“Of course he did, but only because Bael let him. That’s why that line to Alcor about love not conquering all and the code about fine print! Didn’t you -” Ian cut himself off, hearing his own voice very quiet in the suddenly-stifling stillness of the meeting room. “It’s really obvious, isn’t it?”

“Obvious? No way, man!” Ricardo was grinning ear to ear, spinning his pen between his fingers. “Having Bael use Stella to set him free is an awesome idea! The hard part’s gonna be driving that wedge between Stella and Alcor naturally and hinting at Bael being involved so it doesn’t look like it came outta nowhere when the reveal hits, but doesn’t give the game away too soon… That’s evil genius at work, man.”

Ian managed a smile, but it refused to stay on his face for more than half a second.

“Yep. Coffee,” he managed, pushing his chair out from the table and giving it a nasty shove when it caught on the carpet and refused to move. “Keep talking.”

...

Zelda cornered him in the office kitchen, drumming his fingers rhythmically against the counter as he watched the coffeemaker drip erratically into the pot. “Are you…feeling all right?”

Ian stopped drumming. “Hm? Fine! Haven’t had my coffee yet! Eye’s kind of aching, but it does that sometimes! Yup, everything’s peachy, if this coffeepot would just hurry up -” He slammed a fist against the counter, and the coffeepot shook. “Evil genius. I’m -" 

He took a deep breath, let it out slowly, uncurling the fingers of his fist. Zelda was giving him a look that was somewhere between weirded out and seriously alarmed, but there wasn’t a trace of pity or fear in it.

"I’m a jerk,” Ian said, instead of whatever had been running around his head. It took effort to cut the train off, but he managed it. “I should apologise to those guys. Not their fault I didn’t share enough of the plan. I gotta remember that even if this is my show, it’s not just my show.”

“Yeah,” Zelda agreed, reaching around Ian to grab the carafe and pouring herself a mug of the coffee that must have been brewed earlier that morning. She stirred in a spoonful of whitener, meeting and holding Ian’s gaze. “Look, is something going on? Because that didn’t seem like usual story frustration. And I mean we all know you want it to be perfect, but that sounds like a pretty solid plot to me, so I doubt it’s the problem.”

Ian glanced down at his hand splayed against the counter, then back up at Zelda. “You think? It’s not too obvious?”

Zelda shrugged. “Well, you stumped your own writers, so I think even your famously dedicated fans will have a little trouble with this one if we play it right. Seriously, boss, you gotta cut yourself some slack.” Her voice was heavy with admiration as she said, “I don’t know anybody else who would’ve come up with an idea that makes that much sense and is still such a challenge to figure out, right off the top of his head. It’ll be a really satisfying reveal if we build it up right and get all the pieces in place. We’ll work out how to make it amazing for the show.”

Ian blew out a breath. 

Zelda tapped her spoon against the lip of her mug to shake off a few drips of coffee before dropping the spoon into the sink. “So. You still wanna talk about it, or -”

“Absolutely no way,” Ian said, and watched relief wash over Zelda’s face. “No, I just needed to take a breather. Get some perspective. But thanks. And sorry for calling you all brain-dead.” He somehow managed a smile that didn’t seem forced or too tight. “You’re the best henchmen an evil genius could ask for.”

Zelda’s grin was bright and gleaming. “We do our best. Now come on, you’ve got a bunch of henchmen to apologise to. And we’ve got a secret evil plot to…plot.”

…

The ring was distracting.

Mira kept having to stop in the middle of typing to look at it, the sparkle leaping out and catching her eye. It was strange - it wasn't like she wasn't used to wearing bright, sparkly, eye-catching jewellery. But then again, none of the jewellery she was used to wearing had been an engagement ring.

Her engagement ring.

Maybe it was normal to not be able to look away from your own engagement ring. Mira wouldn't know. This was the first time she'd ever had one. She was pretty sure, though, that it wasn't normal to feel a little bit sick every time you looked at it.

She forced her eyes back up to the screen. It wasn't like she wasn't happy about it. She was thrilled! Ecstatic, even! Not even a teeny, tiny little bit...nervous. That’d be silly. Because there was nothing to be nervous about! She was marrying the man she’d fallen head over heels in love with, the man who loved everything about her, no matter how silly or unconventional, the one other person she’d trusted with the...stranger side of her life, and who hadn’t run screaming in the other direction when she’d done so, the man who’d literally put out his own eye for her, the man who’d been completely willing to die for her - 

Nope. Absolutely nothing to be nervous about there.

Mira huffed out a sigh, trying to make her eyes focus on the blinking cursor in front of her. It was almost hypnotic, the little black bar vanishing from existence only to reappear again, and again, and again...

"He's doing it again!"

Mira's strangled scream nearly covered the sound of her chair collapsing to the floor, backwards. Thin air caught her before she slammed into the ground, a soft cushion of nothing that she could feel herself sink, slowing, into for a moment before she hit the point where the air bounced her back upright. She abruptly spun around, fixing Alcor with a glare.

"What did I say about popping up behind me when I'm working?"

Alcor at least had the decency to look sheepish, though it was a little unnerving with his gold-on-black eyes. "Not to. But, Mira -"

"Ah," Mira interrupted, holding up one finger in front of the demon's face.

Alcor let out a breath Mira hadn't seen him take, slouching forward in midair to dangle by the little batwings sticking out of the small of his back.

"Sorry," he muttered, to the gold-tipped toes of his shiny black shoes.

"Apology accepted," Mira said, settling back in her chair. "So what emergency needs my special touch this time?"

“Your boyf-fffffffffiancé. He’s doing the thing.”

It took everything Mira had not to roll her eyes.

“We talked about this,” she said. “Actually, we’ve talked about this, like, multiple times. I’m pretty sure we had an entire giant fight over this. You might remember it? It ended with Ian losing an eye...?”

“That’s not fair,” Alcor grumbled, sinking lower in the air, crossing his arms over his chest and pouting like a little kid. “You know that’s not what I’m talking about.”

Mira let out a long, slow breath that she had to work hard to keep from turning into an exasperated sigh. “Right, right. You trust Ian. It’s Bill you’re worried about. Et cetera, et cetera - look, would it kill you to just be happy for me for once?”

She regretted the words as soon as they came out of her mouth. Mira huffed out another breath, shaking her head and holding up a hand before Alcor could say another word. “No, no, I’m sorry. I know why, and I know that was outta line. I’m just -”

Alcor nodded, and shot Mira a rueful smile. “Yeah. The whole wedding thing’s a little overwhelming, huh?”

“It’s a lot overwhelming!” Mira slammed both hands down beside the keyboard. “Why is there so much that needs doing? And why do I have to do it? Don’t answer that, I know it’s because Ian’s got a major deadline coming up and I was the one who decided we should try and book the Castle on the Hill and have a tea party theme and I know Rosa’s been a huge help and my parents and his parents are trying to help and we’ve got plenty of time and - !”

She stopped, breathing hard, realising that at some point she’d thrown both hands up in the air. Alcor had sat down cross-legged in midair, leaning his chin in one hand as he watched her rant.

“Okay, I came here to talk to you, but it sounds like you might need to talk more than I do,” he said, when Mira stopped and dropped her arms into her lap. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Mira muttered, glaring down at her ring. “I hate wedding planning.”

“I don’t think there are a lot of people out there who just love it,” Alcor said, reasonably.

“Noooooo,” Mira admitted. “But it’s getting in the way of anything nice I want to do with Ian, and this deadline I’ve got coming up, and - it just sucks." She huffed out a breath over her top lip, staring at her bangs as they fluttered in the draft, and then turned back to Alcor. “Okay. I think I’ve got it out of my system. Hit me. What’s Ian done now that’s freaking you out?”

Alcor took a deep breath in, opening his mouth wide, and then huffed it back out again, his shoulders drooping as his mouth fell shut again. 

“I just ran what I was about to say through my head before I said it out loud, and it turns out it’s really dumb,” he admitted, and Mira couldn’t help but laugh.

“Well, you could say that about a lot of things you say,” she said, as gently as she could manage, hoping Alcor was picking up on the gentle teasing in her words. 

“Yeah, ha ha ha. Has anyone ever told you that you’re hilarious?” Alcor asked, crossing his arms over his chest. “Because they were definitely lying.”

Mira stuck her tongue out at him. Alcor stuck his out in response, forked end waggling before he tucked it back into his mouth.

“You should keep an eye on Ian, though,” he said, after a moment, a note of seriousness bleeding back into his voice. “I mean, it sounds really dumb to be worried about him because he’s too good at his job - but, just, look out for him? He seemed really upset about this plot twist he planned that none of his writers picked up on, and I don’t think it was just because it was probably too convoluted for Gisnep.”

Mira pressed a hand to her forehead, covering her eyes. “Are you spying on my boyfriend again.”

Alcor’s wings flared. “No! Well. Maybe. A little.” 

“Okay, I see a simple solution to this problem. Step one: don’t spy on my boyfriend.”

“Miraaaaaaaa,” Alcor whined, dragging out Mira’s name. Mira ignored him. 

“Seriously. None of us need this right now. You’re just going to worry yourself into another fit of paranoia and do something that’ll set all of us off and we’ll all end up regretting it. Just don’t even go there, okay?” She turned back to her keyboard, huffing out another breath. “I know you’re going to bring up Area 51 when I say this, but - it’s not gonna kill you to trust him a little.”

Alcor didn’t respond. Mira didn’t look to see whether he was still there, instead turning her attention back to the seating chart. This would be so much easier if she knew whether Mythri was planning to bring a date, or a dragon.

...

"Writing your resume?"

Ian looked up from the drawing table, blinking a little to bring Xander into focus. "Hm? Oh, no, just - drafting. Scripting. Making hilarious jokes that'll probably never see the light of day thanks to Standards & Practices. Idly daydreaming about world domination. You know."

"Artist stuff," Xander agreed, with a grin. "I finished those colour keys for the haunted lumberjack camp, and you're the only other person left in the building. You planning on heading home anytime tonight?"

Ian managed to muster a smile. "Nah, there's a couple jokes here that still need tightening up, some lines I'm not sure about, and this is going to the animators in the morning. I'm just gonna stick around until I'm either sure they're good enough or I'm delirious enough with sleep deprivation that they start looking good to me."

Xander huffed out a laugh, raising a hand in a wave goodbye. "I'll drop by your office and wake you up before your first meeting, then. Night!"

"You're a lifesaver," Ian called after him, as Xander started down the hall.

He stared at the storyboards in front of him until he heard the alarm beep and the door slam behind Xander, the boom of the heavy steel echoing through the empty studio and picking up eerie, off-key harmonics in some corner somewhere. Then Ian sighed, pushing the boards aside.

A little rummaging in his desk drawers (under the piles of Mizar the Magnificent code keys, napkin sketches and notes, fan letters, business cards for people he'd forgotten to call back, hate mail, business cards for people he didn't want to call back, letters from people who really, really wanted him to know about the highly specific sexual things they wanted to do to Stella's pet platypus, and his emergency shaker of chocolate sprinkles) revealed a hard-bound book, rather shabby with age and poor maintenance, labeled MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST.

The book was so old that its maps still showed California as all part of the mainland, and it was written in a dialect that was a slog to wade through even for somebody who read codes quite literally in his sleep, but even though most of its scant number of pages were dedicated to things that really were just myths, it was still one of the best resources he'd found so far. Even the trawl he'd done online (on his work computer, under the pretense of researching demons for MtM) hadn't been able to turn up much information on the supposedly-infamous Bill Cipher.

This might have been because, according to the slim volume in Ian's hands, the demon's 'official' name in the pantheon (pantheon? Demons were beings of chaos and nightmares, spawning and devouring each other throughout eternity, sometimes going dormant for centuries at a time, what single-life-spanned idiot had thought they could catalogue all of them?) was not the incongruously mundane Bill Cipher, but the much fancier-sounding Triangulum. Still sounded stupid and fake to Ian, but whatever.

They said to 'know your enemy'. Ian still wasn't sure who 'they' were, but he had to agree. He'd been researching Cipher ever since Mira had confessed she still had nightmares about what had happened last year. The more he knew, the better he could avoid ending up in situations like - well, like the one he'd ended up in earlier that day. If he knew more about Bill Cipher, more about what he'd been like and how he'd worked and what had made him tick, maybe Ian would've been able to tell if the plot that had fallen together so easily in his thoughts had really just been the product of creative inspiration, hard work, and firsthand observation of the way demons did business, or if it was...

It didn't help that it was impossibly frustrating to research Cipher. And not just because of the scarcity and age of the resources that held even a scrap of actual information about the thousand-year-dead demon, or because Ian had to keep his research a secret from Mira so she wouldn't feel any worse than she already did (there was no hiding anything from Alcor, but he still tried). Because...

Well. If Ian was being honest, because it still felt like he ought to just know. 

Rationally, he knew he shouldn't expect it, but - he still should be able to just reach out and have all the knowledge he needed, right there at his fingertips. He'd always felt that, one way or another, but... Alcor might have taken the memories of the things Bill had known, but he hadn't taken the memory of how it had felt to know them. Sometimes Ian still had dreams about rising above everything, looking down, seeing it all finally slotting together into a perfect pattern below him -

"You can't keep doing this to yourself," Ian muttered angrily to himself, grabbing the sprinkles out of his desk drawer and shaking out a handful. He shoved them into his mouth and slammed the book open before his nerve could fail him, picking back up in the section where he'd found the first mention of Triangulum.

[a-weird-blog-in-general]

ITH Medieval AU

Hey @pika-ace remember how you told me OH so long ago about this idea? Medieval times, right? Well, consider this my gift to you, b/c I love you and you deserve the best so I kind of went wild with this one.

OK see here's what I did; considering that there's the Fantasy AU very heavily based on magic/and the supernatural, I figured that a more historically based AU would be interesting for a Medieval one. So, with a bit of dabbling in research, let's say the time period is centred more so around the 1300's, in that space between the High and Late Middle Ages.  Now, for the sake of the AU, some historical events are rushed or just happen at a different time than historically recorded; it's just to selfishly move the plot along b/c oh boy shit happened. Do note that the actual historical events don't HAVE TO be the real ones. Like at some point I bring up the Hundred Years War; it doesn't have to be the Hundred Years War. And as much as I've tried, there's sure to be historical misinterpretations on my part, and I ask you to forgive me if that is the case as you read on Setting: Vaguely European? A great deal of this AU is based on the European Middle Ages, and the historical events mainly surround Europe, but like I never explicitly state any locations so....? It's up to you if you want to leave it all vague or not. Also catch me with that symbolism yo. (Seriously if you want to ask me questions about places, details I included, things that happen; there's probably a symbolic reason behind it or a parallel somewhere)

Vanessa

Peasant turned knight

Came from a small farming family, part of a larger community owned by an ageing Lord

Father was a knighted commoner => taught Vanessa how to properly use a sword and told her stories of brave knights who fought off hordes of foes => gets sent off as part of a militia against another Lord and dies in combat

The conquest of the manor and the Great Famine of 1315-17 forces them off the land and move into another manor => that's when Vanessa meets Nina

Vanessa's mother, struck by grief at the loss of her husband and of their one mode of income

Vanessa, fueled by spite and anger, tired of being reduced to meagre peasantry jobs, decides she's going to work for knighthood

She and Nina are probably 12-13 at this point => Nina sees Vanessa from the church doors playing with some boys and she's curious => at some point they run into each other in front of a statue of St. Michael (foreshadowing if ya squint) and they talk, Vanessa reveals that she's trying to be a knight, and Nina wants to help her

Nina cuts Vanessa's hair (not too short now but just enough b/c she can't wear her own armour yet) and she teaches Vanessa how to read and write, and they both spy on boys to copy their mannerisms

Vanessa manages to get the attention of an old knight who's interested in seeing this youngster grow (he's probably going to be an original character) => he knows Vanessa's a girl in disguise but he doesn't mind all that much really; she can fight and she's got guts and that's all that matters => he teaches her huntsman/military stuff, and makes her his Squire

It's when she becomes his apprentice/Squire where she starts wearing armour, esp. the closed helmet to hide her face.

As a Squire she has to master the "Seven Points of Agilities" (riding, swimming, wrestling, fencing, stuff like that ALL WHILE WEARING ARMOUR) => Vanessa gets buff af 

She gets knighted at 19 (the actual age is around 21 but a Squire can be knighted earlier)

She establishes herself and reputation in a jousting tournament (the thing with the horses and the lances and you gotta knock the other knight off) => See here's the thing about tournaments; knights can get injured and/or die in these things => her mentor is probably injured during a melee (it's like a free for all where the last knight standing wins) and she takes his place during the joust and wins => eventually she may earn herself a place in the Lord's Court (opportunity to get further acquainted w/ Benny who's also a knight)

(I LOVE the idea of Vanessa saving Usnavi so!) => First time she meets Usnavi she saves him from rowdy riff-raff who where threatening w/ violence and she makes it a thing to visit and protect him from trouble and potential accidents (you'll see why), extends to keeping Sonny out of trouble => in return Usnavi offers "the mysterious knight" food and a bed if she ever needs it

She ends up taking in Sonny as her Squire (he got into some serious trouble with the authorities; the church or the Lordship, one or the other or both, Pete was involved)

Nina and the Rosarios

Family of metalworkers; Kevin's a blacksmith and Camilla fashions/repairs jewellery

Nina's in training to enter the clergy => both Kevin and Camilla know it'll elevate Nina's social status and the Catholic schooling will give her something of an education => the hope is that Nina one day will be the church Abbess (kind of like Head Nun, the "Mother" if you will)

They made Nina a simple rosary with a little gold cross as the pendant; she wears it on her wrist all the time

She's so modest and humble, not just b/c of the religious teachings but also b/c she's grown surrounded by people who respect her mind but know she'll never actually become anything b/c she's female 

Nina wants to be more so involved with the political happenings

Student of Scholasticism (it's basically trying to apply reason/logic to faith by holding arguments over contradictory things) => she's not very sure how she feels about it; faith and logic, try all you want, never really come together in a way that pleases everyone and the teacher's authority is always seen as superior regardless; but the practice promotes questioning and critical reasoning

Learns medicine and offers aid to knights => how she meets Benny => he gets scratched up confronting another group of knights, trying to impress Pete; Nina's the nun who happens to answer the door

Time period is characterized by persecution and expulsion of religious minorities (the inquisition/Crusades anyone) => Nina's their voice to the Catholic Church, promoting acceptance and change (this girl is going to change the world) => eventually w/ the emergence of several religious/scholar factions, plus a greater awareness of the history of the Catholic church's actions, (I feel that) Nina would want to break away from the church

She's got a lot of conflict with Faith, ethics, and the Church

Benny

Full-fledged knight w/ Pete as his Squire

Actually of Noble blood but he wasn't firstborn so he doesn't inherit much, barely anything so he had to make a name for himself

Went through the whole Page to Squire to Knight process

Claims Pete as his cousin so he could be taken as Benny's Squire

He's a member of the Lord's Court => when he and Nina have a solid friendship he tells her about the happenings and she offers advice => he's like her mechanism to access the court

He's impressed and eventually infatuated with her intelligence and wit and he believes she deserves the world but she's so modest

Benny's father was part of the Inquisition against the Beguine (female Catholic extremists characterized by self-mortification of skin by whipping, nasty stuff)

Benny's kind of in support of some of the Inquisitions (HEAR ME OUT FOR A SEC) => the Inquisitions were formed to have some kind of system to investigate cases of supposed heresy b/c the public would straight up kill people they thought were heretics. Some REAL fucked up stuff happened, and we're not justifying the actions here.

As for Benny's reasons: 1) His dad was in it and Benny was like 13 what kid doesn't admire a dad they see as a hero and 2) He understands that the point is to prevent injustice and unjust persecution, and he holds it to that ideal; Nina's perception is based more so on the Crusades, which she personally didn't approve of => potential conflict when they have that conversation

Eventually, he's called to serve in the Hundred Years War or what will be the Hundred Years War (or whatever your personal variation may be)

Has a preference for the Rosario family and highkey it's apparent that he's made himself their personal protector => lowkey it's to get on Kevin's good side b/c he's not so happy that Nina's hanging around so many knights, so if Benny manages to impress him he'll (hopefully?) be a bit more accepting of Nina hanging around Benny

Probably took an arrow to his arm once b/c split-second decision he used his arm as a shield and he tried to walk it off => that earned him a smack from Abuela Claudia

The relationship between Nina and Benny is very much based on chivalry and courting => Benny's a poetic type (coughcough their duets coughcough), but he doesn't have that artistic touch => Pete's basically his wingman even if Benny denies it, and they both argue over lines (case Benny writes poetry for Nina let me have this plz) d what sounds better; where Benny excels in language and describing the literal with flowery words, Pete's good at imagery and metaphors => Nina saves every single one

•Usnavi

Candlemaker (HEAR ME OUT) => "I illuminate the stories of the people on the street" sound familiar? => This is entirely selfish I just wanted to pull Usnavi away from the "grocer" role and give him a role with a bit more symbolic significance

He makes the best candles b/c they don't smell that bad (candles were typically made of tallow which is like animal fat and smelled nasty when burned) => I imagine it's a mixture of beeswax and kitchen fats and the wicks are threaded with materials like cinnamon (which would have been expensive so only a little bit) so they give off a better smell than burning fat => typically made for the church and they don't pay that much

Also makes wax figurines => typical stuff like figures of saints and animals but he's got a collection of figurines of people he knows (Sonny, the Rosario's, Abuela Claudia; he can never get the mysterious knight to look right)

When he was being threatened and Vanessa saved him, the rabble was going to throw hot wax in his face; Vanessa blocked it with her shield like a badass

He vaguely knows the mysterious knight by reputation alone but now he has the chance to actually know them personally and how? Can he possibly??? Repay them?? => every time the knight visits he tries to hide the tallow smell and makes them a meal, and learns that they like the smell of cinnamon so he gifts them one of his cinnamon candles

Trying to teach Sonny how to carry on the business; o/c Sonny doesn't want to => Sonny makes the candle too big and uses too much wick so the flame comes out huge and the burning candle makes a huge wax mess

When Sonny gets in trouble Usnavi reluctantly has to allow Sonny to be Vanessa's Squire; he sees it as the mysterious knight so he believes Sonny's in good hands

Meets Vanessa as herself thanks to Sonny => Sonny knows Vanessa's catching feelings and Usnavi's very interested in the mysterious knight that is Vanessa, so if Usnavi meets Vanessa and realizes that they have the same character, he'll put two and two together and see that they're the same person (except Usnavi's real fucking dense about it)

Sonny

Frisky little boy who becomes Vanessa's Squire

Wants to be a knight but Usnavi doesn't want him to and in theory, it shouldn't be possible b/c they're not nobles or rich or anything

Pete tells him stories about travels with Benny and Sonny's jealous™

Accidentally gets caught up in a problem between a noble and Usnavi => Sonny punched the noble in the face b/c they made a snide comment about the smell; Pete helped => the noble was a relative of the Lord and they're threatening to punish both Sonny and Pete; Pete gets out of it b/c Benny pops up and talks him out of it; Vanessa comes in with the whole "he's my Squire" but noble's not going to take that excuse so they demand proof from the Lord himself => Sonny insists that the only solution is to let him be Vanessa's Squire and Usnavi goes through w/ it; it's that or a public flogging so....

He's a troublemaker; he's brash and charges into conflict just to protect someone => Vanessa tries to teach him that he doesn't have to punch everyone in the face to demand attention and solve a problem

Sonny and Pete complain to each other about trying to get their respective lovebirds together

Crafty with mechanisms; he and Pete mess around with random things and make tiny catapults that break after one use but it's fun

Probably broke his sword twice; first time it was funny, the second time it was serious™

Writes poems for Nina; it's more so out of emotional attachment => they're not as eloquent as Benny's but they're sweet and Nina saves her favourites

Abuela Claudia

Your local herbologist who practices apothecary

Lives next door to Usnavi and Sonny (or as close to next door as you can get; more like reasonable walking distance) => supplies Usnavi with the herbs to weave into the candles

Has wisdom and knowledge beyond her years => she's seen war, the rise and fall of monarchies and empires; she's seen stuff => wise elder™ tbh how has she lived so long

Literally, the only one everyone trusts as a midwife

She's got this unchallenged respect where it's like she'll make you food and tell you stories but you don't cross her. You just don't

Has a collection of odd trinkets stored away, the most impressive and beautiful being a little crown of feathers, collected from birds that hang on her roof => she ends up giving it to Vanessa

Some say she's just a smart old woman, other's claim she's a witch => she is persecuted at some point and accused

She passes away peacefully in her sleep one day => the accusations are still strong with the public and so they burn her body

Pete

Squire with an affinity for art

Very crafty with his hands, can work out fine details

Was hired to make the small stone figurines of the Saints for the church => realized stonework wasn't for him

Was caught stealing pigments for paints and the shop owner turned him in to Benny => they were going to cut off his hands, Benny intervenes and makes up a lie about Pete being his cousin and he's let off the hook => Pete doesn't want that to happen again and through conversation he learns Pete doesn't have anyone watching out for him and he's kind of just fending for himself, so Benny offers to take him in as his Squire

At first Pete didn't want to => too restricting and he doesn't see himself as a "knight/hero" type of character => Sonny convinces him to accept for two reasons: 1) it'll be cool and awesome and he'll go on adventures and do awesome knight things and 2) He'll be able to tell Sonny all about it and (maybe?) put in a good word with someone to let him be a knight

Pete and Benny got that teasing sibling relationship going on; most of the times they go to see Nina and/or Abuela Claudia it's b/c they were showing off and did something stupid

Daniela and Carla

Innkeepers who don't take shit from anyone

Daniela's widowed, which allows her to own the albeit small property

Carla owes a debt to Daniela, and that's why she's employed; no one knows what the debt is, and no one wants to really know

All secrets and dirty details are shared in those walls => good stories and very good gossip

Vanessa worked there for a while => Daniela and Carla assume she's working somewhere else b/c they don't see her around much

No one messes with either of them or any of the employees => anyone tries to get a little too close to comfort, they'll be out back in the middle of the night barfing up their insides

Notorious reputation

Now the plot... where is it? Y'all can branch it off in whatever direction you'd like, but if I was to go on about my idea, we'd be here for a while and it'd read more like a literature essay b/c I got symbolism and parallels stuck up in my head. But this is a good start, I believe. Delving into it might take a bit more time.

[gotgifsandmusings]

GoT 7x07 Musings

My initial reaction to “The Dragon and the Wolf”

Available for $49.99 at Macy’s!

Well, I was wrong last week, and how the hell was I fooled again? I thought the fact that people were paying attention to logic over spectacle meant criticisms might last, but wow. No. Rave reviews for probably one of the most plodding, unmotivated, illogical episodes of the show. The only time I wasn’t bored to tears was when I was pissed off (Theon), or literally LOLing (Bran-bot).

Let’s dive in. Or you could read Jess’s much more coherent analysis first.

Cheryl’s Landing

This entire thing, the whole sequence showing Deadpan’s troops marching and how impressive everything was, just reminded me how little sense them negotiating for a cease-fire even means

WHAT ARE THEY WORRIED CHERYL IS GOING TO DO

do they just want her to grind her troops down too? Because they didn’t ask her to do that

is Deadpan that attached to Dragonstone?

they literally brought a wight and got one of Deadpan’s dragons killed so they could have proof, so Cheryl would just sit her pretty head on the Iron Throne and…keep on keepin’ on

D&D must be paid by the word “cock”

I really don’t want to dive into the other walk-and-talks. Of course Pod’s dick arc continued. Of course Brienne and Sandor chummed it up about Arya (actually that one worked fairly well). Of course Tyrion and Bronn…I don’t even know. D&D are not half as good at writing these scenes as they think they are.

I loved the pit being an abandoned colosseum (wtf were the Targs *doing* with their dragons) way the hell away from the city.

That’s some nice stadium seating! 

I actually thought it was dumb of Deadpan not to show up with just Drogon. That could be her mount. Pretend the other two are resting. Bringing 2 dragons would just raise questions, like it did.

Cleganebowl is coming guys. Pushing towards healing is a DUMB arc.

It was physically painful to have a scene with these two powerful-ass queens sitting while the menz patiently explained the situation.

Anyone want to venture a guess who Euron was playing this week? I think I’ve got my impression of him down at least

So. Okay. The wight acted not like a wight’s ever acted before, but whatever; props to Jonny for bringing a visual display to the quarterly review.

Here’s the thing: Cheryl and Euron already knew about the Golden Company, which meant Cheryl and Euron already knew they weren’t going to take part in whatever kumbaya truce they were angling for

This means LITERALLY EVERYTHING THAT WAS SAID IS USELESS until the Cheryl/Larry breakup

Cheryl asked Jonny not to take any sides. If he had said yes, what would she have done with the Golden Company, exactly? They’d still be coming. So it was a meaningless request of no purpose. Or did she think offering her aid would lead to that outcome, in which case…what would she have done with the Golden Company, exactly? It doesn’t sound like she was ever actually going to offer her aid (how would that have worked, by the way?), especially the way she told Larry about her deal with Euron…so why was she asking for this? Was it just so Jon could get chided about being stupid so he could then assert that his dad was kind of cool for being honorable?

You can keep playing logical loopy loop with that question, just like the Tyrion/Cheryl convo was a big loopy loop.

Cheryl touching her belly to play Tyrion was super clever in isolation, except the reveal she was playing him still leaves the question like HOW DO YOU FAKE FIGHTING THE ARMY OF THE DEAD? Also they didn’t even ask Cheryl for that. What did Tyrion *want* from her, exactly? What does anyone want? AHHHHHH

The Jonerys sexual tension was laughable. Deadpan was regarding Jon like a moron.

Wow just look at that crackling chemistry.

Could Missandei have like…done anything? She and Grey Worm didn’t even get a moment wth?

Cherry Bomb’s explosion was so unmotivated. Cheryl was making decent points, especially since after the force, with Jon and Deadpan’s alliance, they’re fucked. This was no worse than blowing up a sept and that this was the straw that broke Larry’s back was seriously moronic.

I did like the snow on Larry. Makes me wish we had gotten AFFC adapted.

Dragonstone

It’s not worth talking about the scene that existed to be like “however will boatsex happen?”

The Jon/Theon scene kind of pissed me off, though I know it worked for some people. It’s not even really Theon being a captive of Ned’s so “YOU SHOULD LOVE HIM” is an odd message. It’s that our whole fucking justification for Sansa’s rape-revenge arc, other than making her the player she needed to be (I’m going to hurl), was that it was more dramatically satisfying to have Theon rescue a real Stark and right that “great sin” of betraying them.

And remember how at the beginning of S6, it actually seemed like the Theon/Sansa relationship was…something? But then he had plot things to do and fucked off in favor if his “real” sister, because fuck thematic significance?

My point is, out of all the ‘Starks’ to forgive Theon, it was *Sansa* who specifically mattered, as horrifying and awful a decision as it was, and they just punted out anything between them so Theon could get screamed at and triggered by his blood-relative sister. And after all that shit, they NOW try and pull back in the Stark Significance and how if Jonny gives him a nod of approval, it’s all fine? No. Fuck that.

Also fuck to bloody hell the scene of Theon winning over the Ironboors by HAR HAR not feeling anything when he gets kneed in the crotch, and proceeding to punch a guy to death (or whatever)

It was Larry stopping a sword with his golden hand, but even less tasteful. Especially in the same episode with the worst-written eunuch jokes heard to date.

Winterhell

I mean…what’s to even say? Sansa was playing Batfinger this entire time? Or did she decide the guy needs to be executed *after* Arya threatened her life (in private) because that could win over her little sister’s loyalty

Or was Arya in on it, but you never know when Batfinger is hiding in the floorboards

When was Bran in on it? Did he seek out Sansa, complement the dress she wore the day she was pulled from her horse in the King’s Landing riot, and then tell her all his dirty deets? Did Sansa ask him to do her a solid because Arya was trying to kill them?

At what point was Arya clued in? Was that political show in the hall something she knew about?

And why was this whole drawn out thing to punk Batfinger necessary anyway? Did she think it’d be more dramatically satisfying if he was surprised? He’d probably have been surprised if she did it at the end of last season, because she had the Lysa Card in her pocket for YEARS now, not to mention he sold her to the Boltons and lied about it to everyone

Okay. Cool. Batfinger is dead. Hoisted by his own petard…or something. Except not at all

D&D’s desire to keep us guessing until the last minute is just more of this “omg here’s the twist” writing where everything seems random and unmotivated. Sometimes there’s a satisfaction in a well-executed plan that we watch unfold, and shit.

Also, is Sansa just that over Arya threatening to literally kill her? “Eh, you’re strong.” It was nice seeing sisters *not* wanting to kill each other for a scene, but the fuck?

That said, glad to see a continuation of the sith robe in Winterhell

But who wore it better?

Boatsex montage ft. Sam and Bran

Sam sidling in is the funniest thing I’ve seen in a while. And of course Bran emotes for him more than any of his family all year.

I want a montage of Bran telling people he’s the 3ER and them all shrugging “I don’t know what that is.” Sansa did it best

Bran literally just…opened his mouth and expo-dumped. This is “that’s my father!” but extended for like 5 solid fucking minutes

Also it’s amazing that Sam took in anything Gilly was saying about Ragger because hmmm….wouldn’t you think that kind of thing NEEDS FOLLOW-UP?

Okay okay. So. Ragger annulled Elia which means Rhaenys and Aegon were legally speaking, disinherited. And I guess this means that Ragger is now forfeit of any parenting duties? He just really likes the name Aegon and is free to pass it on to Lyanna

She’s not even pregnant! Or if somehow she was, women die in childbirth! Who the fuck disinherits their kids when they’re the heir of a throne in a feudal order? He even had a boy named Aegon already! WHAT THE FUCK

The power of love compelled him to say “fuck all” to the line of succession and piss off the entirety of Dorne? Ragger is kind of lucky the war broke out…

”They were in love.” Good guy Ragger doesn’t kidnap 15-year-olds…he makes sure to woo them first (god the power differential there)

Now for boatsex itself, which was shown over this crapshack montage. Deadpan and Jonny didn’t even SPEAK before this. They’re just like…bored, and then they fuck. There’s sweet music and a voiceover *about* love, so it must mean they’re IN love?? How does that work? All I could think of was this.

Where was this love supposed to have been built? The caves? That time Missandei shipped it? I’m so confused.

Then as if to confirm this was just Jonny and Deadpan trying to fuck away the hours (why not, honestly? Get some.), we are treated to Tyrion outside their door looking like…hurt that this means they’re not going to play Scrabble with him or something

And the Wall came tumbling down

Ice magic + fire-made-flesh = blue fire that’s super hot. Okay.

This looked nice? I think? Kind of hard to take dragonriding Shogun seriously, but the effects were good

Whatever fear I used to have of the Army of the Dead is gone. They showed it to us too early or it’s become too similar to “generic forces of bad” a la orcs in ROTK or something. They’re just dudes, shuffling over. With percussive music.

I have to find a way to cut this to the Curb Your Enthusiasm theme like I did last year.

What a waste of a season.

Top 3 nitpicks:

Zombie!Gregor’s mere existence in a scene about the danger of the walking dead

Dothraki are a two week ride from Winterhell. Just…don’t give us numbers D&D. It’s not helping

Grey Worm and the Unsullied being TOTALLY FINE after Euron’s fleet had shown up at Casterly Rock like, weeks ago? Is this even a nitpick??

[your-friendly-neighborhood-sc00t]

Ben 10 Reboot Review/Rant

aka: Why This Show Sucks

aaka: 333 Follower Milestone Special

Ah, how I have absolutely dreaded the day I have to write this review, or at least start writing it. Your boy Sc00t here, and welcome to my review of the Ben 10 Reboot.

Also, y'all too good to me, can’t believe over 300 people actually follow me and like seeing my trash. Thank you all for following, and I hope you guys continue to enjoy the content on my blog, ^^

I’ve been putting this off for quite some time now, for obvious reasons, but it’s time to finally crack down on this shit.

So, surprisingly, I actually did something I NEVER DO for shows I don’t like,

I actually watched multiple episodes for the sake of this review, DESPITE how painful it was to watch. I didn’t wanna judge it based on one or two episodes, so instead, I saw FOUR.

Yup, almost an hour of this horrendous show, just to write a stupid review.

There’s ALOT to cover here, so I’ll try to do it in an orderly fashion, and try to address all of the various issues this show has. For now, let’s start off with:

1: The Length of the Episodes Ben 10 OS (Original Series), AF (Alien Force), UA (Ultimate Alien), and OV (Omniverse), despite their differences, all had one thing in common:

All the episodes were a good 22 - 25 minutes long. This allowed plots to develop and flow at a steady and reasonable pace, nothing was rushed, and more effort was put into the production of them.

In the Reboot episodes average at 11 minutes, like a Spongebob episode, which results in a shitty premise having to move along quickly just to make with the little time they have. This was also very obviously done to save money, 11-minute episodes with simplistic, shitty plots are significantly easier to produce that 24-minute episodes with proper pacing and decent/good plots. Short running time + incredibly cheap animation = profit and easy mass production of trash.

2: The Pacing

As I’m sure you can tell, the pacing of each individual episode is GARBAGE, it moves along so fast, that if you’re not paying full attention to the show, you actually won’t know what the fuck’s happening at all. And the running time isn’t actually the problem at all. We’ve seen shows convey their plot efficiently with the same exact running time, just watch any episode from the first three seasons of SpongeBob, and you’ll know precisely what I’m talking about.

3: The Animation

The animation in this show is the WORST we’ve seen in the franchise, it’s just so simplistic, flat, uninspired, and just down-right stiff at times. Action sequences just don’t flow well at all, and the designs of each and every character looks like it was slapped together in just a few minutes. I mean, just compare to ANY of the previous series’ animation, compare to other cartoons, and then just see it for what it is, and you’ll find that no matter how you look at it, it’s fucking terrible, and LAZY.

4: Forgettable Villains

The various antagonists that appear throughout the series are bland, poorly designed, and are just so damn forgettable. I can’t even remember one name of any one villain from this show. They never left any sort of impact on me at all, and there isn’t anything even remotely interesting about them. The original series had many memorable and interesting antagonists, that had well fleshed out personalities and goals. Vilgax, Kevin, Hex, Charmcaster, Dr. Animo, Ghostfreak, and all these other foes that Ben faced off against posed a real, genuine threat to him, and here lies another problem. The Reboot’s “antagonists” are not intimidating in the slightest, and actually don’t serve as a true threat to Ben at ALL. They’re pathetic to watch, really.

5: Max is Irrelevant

In the Original Series, Max was an extremely prominent character, and was often just as involved in the plot of the episode as Ben and Gwen were, and the plot twist at the end of Season 1 where it was revealed that Max is a Plumber and that he fought Vilgax in the past was a great plot point and reveal, it added more depth to his character, and made him more interesting. But in the Reboot, he is almost entirely absent in some episodes. Basically he’ll just show up at the beginning of an episode, preach about some moral that Ben completely ignores, and then just is either hardly shown, or not shown at all for the rest of the episode. He’s become irrelevant, and doesn’t affect the narrative of the story at all, He doesn’t play any sort of significant role at ALL.

6: Gwen and Ben’s relationship

One of the shittiest decisions made in the design of the show, was to completely fuck up the well-established dynamic of Ben and Gwen, in the Original Series, they’re two cousins who constantly bicker and sass eachother, but they clearly cared for one another, and had many tender and compassionate moments that effectively fleshed out their love for one another. Gwen was also the more rational-thinking and logical of the two, and never actually supported Ben’s utter stupidity or rash decisions. Reasonably so, in the sequel series’ they’ve matured and have grown out of their constant arguing and sass, but still tease each other from time to time. In the Reboot, however, Gwen, more often-then-not, completely INDULGES Ben in his poor decision-making and stupidity, to the point where I’d say she’s nearly as ignorant and doltish as he is. Gwen is simply far too nice and encouraging to Ben, which utterly destroys the original dynamic portrayed in previous series’

7: The Aliens

With all the painful problems with this god forsaken show, I almost forgot to talk about one of the most important parts. The.

Aliens.

They just look so fucking shitty in the new animation style, and some of the new design choices for them just make absolutely no sense. Like, why is Upgrade PURPLE instead of GREEN? The Omnitrix is black, green, and white, so it, y'know KIND OF JUST MAKES SENSE FOR UPGRADE TO BE THESE COLORS. And why the fuck is Stinkfly some stupid-ass looking bug-themed Superhero? Why doesn’t he ACTUALLY RESEMBLE SOME TYPE OF BUG. It just makes no sense, why these things were changed. And to be perfectly honest, one of my favorite Aliens from the Original Series, Ripjaws, was actually taken out from the roster in exchange for Overflow, or Waterhazard, or whatever the hell that water-themed fuck is named. He’s a bland Alien that should’ve never even been involved in this series to begin with, he wasn’t part of the Original 10. ANOTHER, issue with the Aliens is the voice-acting, alot of them are actually portrayed by voice actors I like, John DiMaggio, Greg Cipes, Josh Keaton, Travis Willingham, etc. But the thing is, their voices, don’t even fit them, at all, so whatever they spout out of their mouths, just sounds awful. In all previous series’ the Aliens’ VAs fit them perfectly, and alot of them had some pretty badass voices. Basically, when you assign a VA to a character, it has to sound as if that voice could ACTUALLY come from that character. If the voice isn’t matching the face, then we have a clear issue. It’s not so much as the voice acting is bad in the Reboot, but it’s just doesn’t fit with the Aliens. But interestingly enough, they were sure to find the worst possible voice actor they could find for my favorite of them all, Heatblast. His voice used to be so fucking badass, and that was because he was voiced by Steve Blum, a veteran VA, the voice fit the character PERFECTLY. In the Reboot however? They got some fucking Disney Channel actor, Daryl Sabara. I didn’t even know of this guy’s EXISTENCE, until I looked at the cast of the Reboot. This guy’s, voice is incredibly obnoxious and irritating, which is the EXACT OPPOSITE OF HEATBLAST’S VOICE IN FOREGOING SERIES’. One more thing I’d like to point out, was them switching Wildmutt out for Wildvine, again, this is another decision that makes no sense. WILDVINE WAS NOT PART OF THE ORIGINAL 10, he doesn’t even show up in way later in the Original, so why is he replacing one that was at the very start of the series? AND FINALLY, we come to our last issue. The transformations are pathetically animated, it genuinely looks as if he is being covered in some large alien suit, IT DOESN’T look as if he’s actually BECOMING that alien, and that’s a big problem when he’s supposed to, y'know be literally morphing into them.

8: Stiffness

One thing to notice throughout various episodes, is that conversations, and the overall voice acting, feel really stiff, and carry absolutely no weight, kind of like a piece of cardboard. There are even extended scenes of pointless dialogue that don’t affect or further the plot of the episode, in any sense of the word.

9: The Intro

Ben 10 (2016) has without a doubt the least amount of effort put into it’s Intro. You see some green asteroid “crash” into Earth, suddenly you see Ben wearing the Watch, he slams it. And we see the 10 Aliens, introduced in a similar, but poorly executed fashion. We hear “BEN 10” being chanted in the background for a solid 11 seconds. Suddenly we see Ben giving Gwen and Max low-fives, and then runs forward.

End of Intro

Now, does it sound like I described alot of shit? Not really, right? That’s because nothing actually happens in this intro, it conveys nothing, and is just lazily slapped together. I remember the Original Series’ intro, it was a catchy theme song that quickly explained the premise of the show in it’s first 18 seconds. The intro goes on and shows actual interesting shit, like Ben transforming into some Aliens, and some nice visuals. The Reboot’s intro shows us the bare minimum of what they could ACTUALLY be showing us, instead of them quickly jumping on screen for a tenth of second, why not illustrate at least one of their abilities with a short clip? The Original’s does this incredibly well in the last 10 seconds, briefly showing us the capabilities of some of the Aliens with incredibly short clips, you could actually be impressed by what you were witnessing. The Reboot’s intro is just so mundane, and devoid of any sort of interesting material, and it’s the only intro in the franchise that’s SLOW-PACED. All of the previous entries’ intros have been fast-paced. And while you may consider Ultimate Alien’s to be slow, it quickly scrolls through a large variety of Aliens while playing epic music, that’s fast enough, and certainly impressive enough for me. The Reboot’s intro is in-fact, so bad, that when my sister watched it, she actually started LAUGHING. And when you’re cackling at an intro that is CLEARLY not trying to be funny, well then, you’ve got a pretty shitty opening.

10: Ben’s Character

Okay, now I know Ben has always done stupid shit in all of his incarnations. However, his character seems ridiculously dumbed down in the Reboot, and he just seems as mindless as ever, in the other series’ we saw how he wasn’t always a goofball kid, he took himself and those around him seriously at times, and we were able to respect him as a character for these moments. Like in Alien Force, in the episode: “The Gauntlet”, there’s a scene where Ben stands up to Cash, not by using force, or the Omnitrix, but with words, he simply calmly and intelligently calls him the fuck out, and walks away. It was a well-written moment, and showed a deeper, more mature side of Ben. And in the episode “Framed”, where Ben doesn’t finish off Kevin even when he has the perfect opportunity to do so, knowing that he isn’t worth it, and showing a more compassionate side, even to a dangerous enemy. Ben doesn’t have any moments like this at all in the Reboot, and it really takes away from his character, he essentially becomes a one-dimensional character, that really doesn’t have any defining characteristics outside of being a goofball kid.

The Verdict:

Ben 10 (2016) is a clear attempt to appeal to a much younger audience, of what Man of Action assumes to be 6 year olds with short attention-spans that don’t give a flying fuck about depth, good animation, and proper storytelling. This show wasn’t made with any genuine thought or care, it was made to sell toys, and make money, while utilizing as little resources and time as possible. Not only does this show fail as a Ben 10 cartoon, it fails AS a cartoon in of itself. It insults every aspect of what makes good animation and a good show, and is just disgusting as a product. And I’m afraid that the only positive thing I am capable of saying about this show is that it isn’t Breadwinners, and that’s about it. So, yeah, don’t watch this show.

End of Review/Final Words Anyway I hope you all enjoyed this review, (if you even read it) and I know I’m late as fuck on reviewing this steaming pile of horse shit, but I promised it months ago, so I wanted to get it out for you guys, plus, I was in the mood to get pissed about something, and believe it or not, I actually enjoy writing these, they’re fun for me, and I hope they’re fun for you to read as well. And if you disagree with every little thing I said, and you ACTUALLY enjoy this show. Then that’s perfectly fine, you’re entitled to your own opinion, and your own interests, but I wanted to get mine out in the open, so I hope you can respect my opinion as I will respect yours. What other reviews can you expect from me in the future? Well, I currently have two game reviews in the works, but it may be quite some time before they are done, considering how incredibly lazy I am. But who knows? I’m sure I’ll find something else I hate, and either review or give my thoughts on it in the future.

Once again, if you actually made it to the end of this review, I heavily appreciate you taking time out of your day just to read me bitch about some stupid cartoon.

And I’ll see ya around, :P