#love this mid 00s period

[noyougirlz]

sarah harding from girls aloud performing "biology" on cd:uk (2005) x

[elliebartlets]

so CNN has these documentary miniseries about each decade that deals with different topics in each episode and I just finished watching the 2000s one about television shows and holy shit? what a time to be alive. out of all the shows they talked about or even briefly mentioned, I’ve probably watched 2/3rds of them and the ones that I didn’t were already on my list to watch. those shows were it. I really think that was the golden age of television.

[the-guilty-writer]

Lazy Genius

Request from Anon: Spencer reid x daughter reader who hates school not because anyone bullies her but because she hates doing the work

Spencer Reid x daughter!reader

Summary: You decide to skip out on a school assignment and your dad, Spencer, isn't happy about it.

A/N: Thank you for the request! Reid x daughter!reader isn't on my official list, but it's something I'm willing to write for 99% of the time. This was a challenge for me to write, as I'm a total school work loving nerd. I could not think of a happy ending for this situation so I left it open for interpretation. All requests and feedback are appreciated.

Test weeks sucked, but not because of the tests. You had no problems with tests. Test weeks sucked because for five days straight all your friends were consumed by school and you weren’t. Sure, you were in AP classes for every subject, but having inherited your father’s genius brain meant that as long as you payed attention in class there was never a need to study. So while everyone else was preparing for the academic apocalypse and your dad was out of town on a case, you were left to binge watch Doctor Who alone and wonder if someone could die of social starvation.

Ding!

Your heart leapt as your phone notified you to a message. Leaning over the table to grab your phone, you prayed it was a message from someone wanting to hang out. Unfortunately, it wasn’t.

Message from Dad:

Hey, Princess. We just got a break in the case so I should be home by tomorrow night. Your Aunt Penelope will be over to check on you later. I love you.

You let out a sigh. Only your father, Spencer Reid, would use proper grammar in a text message. You typed up a quick response and were about to put your phone down when it buzzed again. This time it was an email from a teacher.

Students, if you have received this reminder you have not yet turned in your mid-term paper. Please email me your work by 3:00 PM tomorrow afternoon. Any student who has not turned in their paper by then will receive a zero for the assignment.

Ugh. Not a paper.

For someone whose grandmother was a professor of literature, there was nothing you despised more than English. With most classes you didn’t have to put in any effort- it was all memorization and testing. But English class was just busy work and paper writing. It was dumb and you didn’t want to do it.

You opened your laptop and looked at the grade book. Having a genius IQ made it easy for you to do the calculations in your head; if you got a zero on the paper it would only lower your grade to 84% and if you kept making perfect scores on your quizzes and tests you’d have 92% by the end of the semester.

You closed your laptop and turned the TV back on. It might have been the 17th time you had watched this episode, but anything was better than writing a paper that wouldn’t affect your GPA in the long run.

---

A week went by. Spencer had come home from the case and you knew it had been a hard one for him. As much as your dad tried to leave his work at the office, his job made it impossible for him to not have fears and worries. You knew that the case must have involved kids, because he was being more sentimental than usual- trying to get home before 6 o’clock, trying (and failing) to make recipes from Rossi, double checking that you were still safe in your bed in the mornings before he went to work.

That morning, he hadn’t double checked that you were still in your room, alive and well, which usually meant that the post-case “helicopter parent period” was over. It seemed odd when you got a text from Spencer as soon as class was dismissed for the day.

Message from Dad: Meet me at the BAU now.

You felt all the blood drain from your face.

“(Y/N), are you okay?” Your friend asked.

“It’s my dad.” Your chest tightened with anxiety. The only time your dad had you come to Quantico is if he thought you might be in some sort of danger. But if you were in true danger he would have had your Uncle Derek come pick you up at school, right? You turned to your friends. “I- I’ll call you later. I have to go.” You sprinted towards the metro station, making it through the gates just in time to cram yourself onto the crowded car that would bring you to Quantico.

---

The elevator ride to the sixth floor took less than a minute, but it felt like it lasted an eternity. Your hands were shaking by your sides and you bounced on your toes, willing the metal box to lift faster. When the metal doors finally opened, Spencer was waiting for you.

“Dad, what’s going on?” You stepped out of the elevator and rushed towards him. It all happened so fast that you failed to notice that this time was different from the others.

Every other time you had come to the BAU headquarters because of danger the place was usually swarming with agents from different units, the phones ringing so wildly you were unsure how they kept up with all the calls, and the glass doors swinging open and closed at an alarming rate.

But the hall wasn’t busy, the phones weren’t ringing, and the glass doors stayed closed.

“That’s what I wanted to ask you,” Spencer said. His kind eyes were hard and his tone was stern. In his right hand he was holding a piece of paper. He handed it to you. “Would you like to explain this?”

You took the paper from him and looked down at it- it was your midterm report card. You had nearly 100% in every class except for AP English. Your calculations had been correct; you had an 84% in the class- a solid B.

“You’re mad that I got a B as my midterm grade?” you asked your dad.

“I’m not mad that you got a B as your midterm grade." Spencer remained calm, but you could see the silent anger boiling inside him. “Did you see what you got on your paper?”

You looked down at the grades again, this time, reading the fine print.

Midterm Paper: 0%, F. Assignment was not submitted.

“Oh.” Your voice was void of emotion.

“Why didn’t you turn in your paper?” Spencer asked.

You sighed. “If I keep getting hundreds on my tests and quizzes I’ll get a 92% in the class, which is an A so it doesn’t actually matter.”

“What actually matters is that you put in the effort, (Y/N).” Your father’s gaze grew harder, boring into you as if you were under interrogation. Spencer wasn’t like most parents who got loud when they were angry- Spencer got quiet. He got quick. He got intense. “This isn’t a result of a lack of understanding. You didn’t put in the effort. You had an assignment and you didn’t do it on purpose because you knew you could get around it.”

“Yeah,” you said, your voice dripping with sarcasm. “It’s called being smart.”

“No, it’s called being lazy.”

His words hit you like a bullet. His anger and disappointment you could handle, but never once had your dad made you feel insulted. You knew it came from a place of love and worry, but that didn't make it hurt any less.

Your voice began to crack and tears stung your eyes as you spoke. “Dad, I-”

“I don’t want to hear it, (Y/N),” Spencer said. “Give me your phone. Garcia is blocking every number that isn’t an emergency contact until you get your act together.”

There was no point in arguing. You handed your dad your phone. He gave you a long, hard look before walking down the hall to Penelope’s office, not once turning back to look at you. When he came back, Garcia was following him. She gave you an apologetic look before she left through the glass doors, leaving you alone with your dad again.

Spencer threw his coat on and slung his satchel over his shoulder. You knew that was your cue to follow him to the elevator. The two of you stepped into the elevator together. The metal doors closed in front of you.

A beat of silence.

“I’m sorry, dad,” you said. “I’m not like you. I don’t like doing school work.”

Spencer sighed. “Sometimes we have to do things, even if we don’t like doing them.”

It was such a dad thing to say, but not a Spencer Reid dad thing to say. You tried to keep calm as you said quietly, “it’s still not going to affect my GPA.”

“It doesn’t matter, (Y/N)." Spencer blinked, long and slow. “Nobody likes a lazy genius.”

[asanjou]

oh my god saw your tags i would love any and all quarry lore you have to offer. tell me about her...

HEEHEE so the first toku quarry was the daiei kogyo quarry in yorii, saitama (though i believe it might be owned by a different company now?) and throughout its use as a filming location and i think to this day it's still an active quarry, so it might look different depending on what year the show you're watching is from. from what ive read it's kinda far from residential areas and since it was in use the loud noises from the explosions wouldn't have been out of the ordinary anyway.

read moring cuz i ended up rambling

mt iwafune, the current toku quarry, was in active use as a quarry from the edo period right up until mid showa when concrete became more widely used, so demand fell and production declined. it's kinda hard to find details on when exactly mining stopped entirely, but i found a tripadvisor review mentioning it was still ongoing on the north side of the mountain (the usual filming location is the south side) in 2018. i think it's stopped entirely at this point though.

the cliff stage association (who hold a concert in the quarry every year!) was formed in 1999 and the earliest appearance of mt iwafune im aware of was in gingaman around the same time so that's probably when it became available for location hire! i can't say if it's because the yorii quarry area was unusable or if iwafune is just a more ideal location, but i believe iwafune has more convenient amenities given that it's a closer to the nearby town and it was already kind of a tourist destination for religious reasons. they're about the same distance away from tokyo.

it's been a minute since i watched any ~00 toku but i think the switch from one to the other as the usual quarry was probably pretty gradual because they don't stop using the yorii quarry completely. there's other spaces that are used for filming too that are a bit more built up, for example im pretty sure the place the shinken red vs shinken blue scene is filmed is part of the yorii quarry?

most of my sources are jpn pilgrimage blogs so apologies if it turns out ive said something completely wrong but that's what i know rn!

you can also get your photo taken in front of an explosion in either quarry btw. i think it's also the only way to get into the cliff stage because you can't go in without permission

article

[keanuquotes]

The Enduring Appeal of Keanu Reeves He battles evildoers in 'John Wick 4,' manufactures two-wheel pieces of art, and is worshiped by the internet, but Keanu Reeves swears he's just a normal guy. And he’s got the scars to prove it. Ky HendersonMar 15, 2023 9:00 AM EDT It’s easy to look cool when you’re riding a motorcycle, but it’s hard to look cooler than Keanu Reeves on a brisk, sunny afternoon in Los Angeles. He rests his left hand on his thigh and steers with his right, which gooses the throttle as he weaves around slow drivers. He wears a form-fitting black canvas motorcycle jacket that accentuates how trim he is—even more fit than he appears on-screen—and a beat-up Shoei helmet. He leaves the visor up, choosing instead to shield his eyes with sunglasses the Terminator might wear to a Hamptons garden party. Reeves looks at home and at ease on a motorcycle. He looks cool.

At a gas station stop, he suggests switching bikes. We’re each riding cruisers made by Arch, the motorcycle company Reeves co-founded with designer Gard Hollinger in 2011. The company produces high-end, highly personalized production bikes; I’m on a 1s, the company’s new $100,000+ sport cruiser. Reeves is on an older model, KRGT-1, but it’s his personal Arch, a true one-of-a-kind. It's the only Arch ever painted YK Blue, a color Reeves and Hollinger commissioned based on the ultramarine pigment famously mixed by mid-century French artist Yves Klein. Reeves says all that’s left of the paint is in a tiny can stored somewhere at Arch in case the bike’s paint ever needs touch-ups.

Which it most certainly would if, let’s say, some idiot were to put the bike down in front of a horrified Reeves while riding down the Pacific Coast Highway. Thankfully, there’ll be no lowsides today. Although the bike is beefy, with a 2,032cc V-twin powerplant, it’s easy to maneuver and comfy as a BarcaLounger.

Keanu Reeves stands in motorcycle factory holding blue mug Brian Bowen Smith

Reeves eventually leads us back to Arch’s factory building, which is nondescript from the outside but artfully decorated inside using shipping containers to separate working areas. Metal fabrication is done behind one; customer bikes are lined up in another with technicians hard at work. After Reeves dips outside for a cigarette—the 58-year-old both looks like a much younger man and smokes with the frequent abandon of one—he leads us to a small conference room.

“I like meeting people, but I’m a little reserved,” he warns as he settles into an office chair, looking far less comfortable than he did on a motorcycle. “How much of my private life do I want to talk about? I don’t know. Otherwise, let’s hang out.”

When Reeves was growing up in the Yorkville neighborhood of Toronto, he was consumed with existential thoughts. He discussed death a lot more than the average 11-year-old, for instance—but not because he wanted to die. He just wanted answers to big questions. Perhaps not entirely unrelated to his interest in mortality, he was also obsessed with the biker gangs that periodically motored into the neighborhood. It wasn't pods of dentists letting loose on weekends. It was leathers, patches, menace—the whole deal. And Reeves loved it.

“They looked exotic,” Reeves says. "They looked to me like they were free. Plus the bikes were cool and sounded great.”

Despite his childhood fascination, Reeves was in his early 20s before he first rode a motorcycle. It happened at a movie studio in Berlin—where else?—when he saw a woman on an off-road enduro bike in a parking lot. He approached her and asked if she’d teach him to ride, which she agreed to on the spot. (If you’re wondering why a woman would do that for a total stranger, search “Keanu Reeves in the 80s” in Google Images.)

Not long after he got back to Los Angeles, he bought a 1973 Mk2a Norton Commando, having long admired the classic brand. That bike currently sits in the Arch shop, which is notable for two reasons: One, few longtime riders are lucky enough to be able to hold onto their first bike. Two, over the years Reeves has…suffered some mishaps.

“Yeah, I’ve fallen off a few times,” he admits of the accidents he’s had on a variety of bikes. He takes a swig of water, then corrects himself. “Not ‘fallen off.’ Crashed. I’ve got a couple of hit-by-cars. A couple of going-too-fast. I’ve laid a couple of bikes down but I was riding in the winter, so that’s not really ‘crashing.’ That’s about it. The usual stuff.”

He’s broken ribs, knocked out teeth, sliced his leg open so deep that bone was visible. His most spectacular accident occurred in 1988, only a couple years after that day in Berlin. Reeves was riding alone at night in Malibu’s Topanga Canyon when he took one of the twisties too fast. By the time he came to a stop, he was lying on the pavement wondering if he was about to die. As you know, he didn’t—but he did fuck himself up pretty bad.

“I ruptured my spleen,” he says matter-of-factly. The widely reported version of the story goes that he needed the organ removed, but Reeves says it’s still intact. “They sutured it up and put a Band-Aid on.” He has a gnarly scar running vertically from his sternum down to his belly button, but in the right light it just ends up accentuating his abs because, well, he’s Keanu.

Reeves first met Hollinger through a mutual acquaintance about two decades after that crash, when Reeves wanted a custom sissy bar—basically, a backrest for a passenger—added to his 2005 Harley Davidson Dyna. Hollinger, who at that point was a relatively well-known, well-respected customizer with his own small LA shop, wasn’t interested.

“I knew I could build him the world’s most expensive sissy bar,” Hollinger says, “but I also knew it wouldn’t be satisfying for either of us.”

Instead, Hollinger spent the next five years completely reimagining the bike. He’d work in spurts, changing or adding something, then handing the bike back over to Reeves for months. By the time the bike was finished, Hollinger says, about the only parts of the original Dyna still remaining were the engine and the serial number on the chassis. Today that bike—a chromed-out ride fit for Mad Max—is displayed in the shop, the inspiration for what eventually became Arch.

Keanu Reeves on motorcycle wearing black canvas jacket and sunglasses Brian Bowen Smith

Eventually being the key word. When, during the long process of modding the bike, Reeves first suggested to Hollinger that the two team up to start a motorcycle company, Hollinger didn’t have to think about his answer.

“I knew what a tough business it is, what a challenge it would be—and that it would not be a great investment,” Hollinger, now 63, says with a laugh. “It was a wonderful motorcycle I built and it was wonderful getting to know Keanu, but starting a motorcycle company sounded like a horrible idea.”

Reeves didn’t relent. As the pair became better friends—and as the motorcycle continued to take shape—they’d have long conversations about the realities of starting the company. Hollinger would show up to their discussions with pages of questions written on a legal pad, but what gradually eroded his hesitation was the thoughtfulness with which Reeves described the experience of riding a motorcycle.

Finally, nearly convinced, Hollinger asked Reeves to boil everything down to one reason why they should do something as seemingly crazy as starting a motorcycle company. The actor came up with it on the spot—a reason Hollinger immediately understood, which allowed him to envision the company and its worth as an opportunity to do something meaningful and long-lasting.

“Because,” Reeves told him, channeling the mortality-obsessed 11-year-old kid gawking at dudes on motorcycles, “we’re going to die.”

Related: 2023 Arch 1s Sport Cruiser Is the American (V-twin) Dream

There have been many jokes made over the years about Reeves being a dummy, but after spending about 8 seconds with the guy it’s obvious he’s keenly intelligent. I mention that I read lots of sci-fi and fantasy books as a kid, which prompts him to ask whether I have opinions on several titles, followed by recommendations to read several others.

Thing is, his idiosyncratic public persona—which is sort of like Ted (not Bill) if Ted were a little more shy and a much better dresser—isn’t an act. Reeves isn’t trying to fool his critics or fans. And he isn’t really putting on an act in an attempt to prevent people from knowing who he is. He’s just this very singular, introspective, likable person who happened to become a pop culture icon.

All of that said? He can be pretty goofy. His physical mannerisms are sometimes at odds with what he’s saying, like he’s being controlled by feuding puppeteers. He speaks haltingly, stopping and starting and stopping again, often all in the same sentence, as he considers what exactly he wants to say or, just as likely, what he doesn’t want to say. More than once over the course of an afternoon he giggles—yes, giggles—at something he says or thinks, placing his cupped hand over his mouth like a theatrical school child hiding laughter; the gesture is as strange as it is endearing. He's somehow both laconic and verbose, calm and keyed up.

Although Reeves has long been known as “The internet’s boyfriend,” he’s currently dating—sorry, internet—acclaimed visual artist Alexandra Grant. The pair first collaborated on the 2011 book Ode to Happiness after having known each other previously; in the following years they collaborated on other projects and co-founded the small book imprint X Artists’ Books. Their romantic relationship began about five years ago but only became public knowledge two years in, when they arrived at a red carpet event together.

When asked about Grant, Reeves leans back in his chair as though trying to put both metaphorical and literal distance between himself and the idea of discussing his personal life.

So, uh, maybe it’s best to make it about bikes: What’s Grant’s opinion of Reeves’ (occasionally injurious) motorcycle fixation?

“She used to have a motorcycle, so she’s fine with it,” Reeves says. Then he pauses, as he so often does, seemingly considering whether to say anything more. “She hasn’t ridden in a while.”

Despite his lifelong love of bikes, Reeves hasn’t ridden them much in his movies. There’s a brief scene in the landmark 1991 indie film My Own Private Idaho. There’s some riding in 1996’s Chain Reaction, including one scene in which he manages to outrun an exploding hydrogen reactor. He’s technically on a bike in John Wick 3 while battling bad guys, but that was all done while stationary in front of a green screen. He has no interest in shoehorning Arches into his movies, though a couple of Arches are featured in the futuristic 2020 video game Cyberpunk 2077, in which he also played a major role.

Reeves says there’s a brief motorcycle scene in the upcoming John Wick 4, a movie whose eventual existence might have been laughed at when the original film debuted. Despite the series’ current status as an unstoppable franchise juggernaut, it originally wasn’t even planned as a franchise—and it certainly didn’t appear destined to be one after John Wick received a somewhat tepid theatrical reception in 2014.

“It had some success in the theater, but it really became more popular in second viewings,” Reeves says. “So the studio asked if we wanted to do another one.”

Reeves does more than just kick unbelievable amounts of ass in the movies; he’s also had a hand in plotting out the sequels. The genesis of the third and fourth installments, he says, took place while he and director Chad Stahelski were on the road promoting the second and third movies, respectively.

“Generally, Chad and I cook ’em up while we’re doing press tours,” Reeves says. “We talk about what we’d do next if the current film does well. I’m like, ‘I want to ride a horse and do a horse chase!’ And Chad says, ‘Yeah, we can do it in Central Park!’”

Reeves says he doesn’t know what comes next for him, but John Wick 5 will almost certainly be an option—if he wants to do it. He’s currently developing a TV series, and maybe he’ll make the motorcycle road movie he’s long thought about making. He’ll also no doubt continue riding bikes and growing Arch because he loves doing both.

He says he may continue BRZRKR, the comic series he co-writes. He won’t stop helping others via his philanthropy (he declines to discuss other than to say it’s “in health and the arts”). And he’ll burnish his already-glowing reputation as, in his words, “a pretty respectful and considerate person,” because that’s how he likes to treat people.

“I’m just,” Reeves says as his mouth curls into a smirk and his arms shoot out in front of him as though he’s pleading to be believed, “a normal guy.”

via keanuworld

[johaerys-writes]

I love disasters!AU so so so sooooo much. It added ten more years to my life expectancy. I wish to see your writings forever, if possible.

Anyway, I have a question! How old are Patroclus and Achilles in 2024, roughly? I assumed they'd be in their late 30s or early 40s by now, and wanted to make sure.

And do you have any hcs about them in their 20s, 30s and 40s that you don't mind sharing? Like, are they still together? I goddamn hope they are. What do they do for a living? What are their relationships with their parents and friends? Any hc would be sooo welcome! Have a nice day!

First of all, I love you for sending this ask dear anon 🫶 Any opportunity to talk about my favourite boys adds ten years to my lifespan LOL don't mind if I do

So the age question is kind of tricky because you're a walking disaster and yet- isn't set during a specific time period. Like the Phthia years have a 90s vibe, and the Athens years have a late 90s-early/00s vibe, but I never really had a specific year in mind. It's just vibes mostly lol. But like, assuming we start in the 90s, then I think in 2024 they'd be late 30s, early 40s. And of COURSE they're together, haha. I honestly don't see these two separating at all in that AU, not even as a joke. They're each other’s ride or die and I'm not saying it's exactly healthy (oops 🤣🫣), but I highlyyyy doubt either Achilles or Pat would even consider the possibility of taking a break.

As far as jobs and studies go, Achilles finishes his Architecture major in Athens, then probably does an internship in an architectural firm while Patroclus works part time as an usher in a small theatre and also as a theatre production assistant whenever the opportunity arises, helping making props and procuring materials and generally just running errands for the crew and the director lol. Then they move abroad for Achilles to do a masters degree (in their mid/late 20s?), I was thinking probably Italy, and Patroclus of course follows him. After a bunch of coaxing and convincing, Patroclus accepts Peleus' offer to pay for his studies as well, so the two of them spend a couple really lovely years just studying and travelling Italy and seeing all the sights and eating ALL the food and gelatto etc, and generally having the best of times. And then eventually they come back to Athens where Achilles opens up his own architectural firm (with daddy's help ofc), and Patroclus does his PhD in dramaturgy and starts teaching shortly after (hot professor Pat PLS 😩🤲)

As for the relationship with their parents and friends: they both have a really good relationship with Peleus, better than they did when they were younger. Turns out now that they're older Peleus is great for taking them to expensive restaurants and teaching them about wine and stuff, or taking them on boatrides (with his divorce mini yacht LMAO). Thetis is also in Athens and Achilles does see her often, most times on his own, sometimes with Patroclus. Pat and Thetis are not besties by any means but they get along for the most part. But I still don't think Pat ever truly warms up to her tbh, and Achilles doesn’t push it.

They still often go to Phthia for the holidays so they see Ajax & co, Menelaus and Agamemnon both stayed in Phthia as well so they see them too. Odysseus returns from time to time but they lose contact with him after several years. Dio and Briseis do actually get back together after college for a couple of years, but it just doesn't work out unfortunately, much to Diomedes' disappointment 😅

So yes Achilles and Pat are definitely together by the time they're 40, definitely living together, definitely have amassed an army of dogs at this point haha. Like shortly after the main fic ends they get another dog, and by the time Laika sadly passes away, they already have at least a couple more. And it just snow balls from there. Eventually they move into a bigger place with a yard somewhere in the northern suburbs of Athens, and they just have their cosy little life with their dogs and their vast collection of books, and it's just really really nice for them :')

[cheritzteam]

[The Ssum] April Fool’s Day 2023 Event Announcement

Hello, dear lab participant.

We bring you news on this year’s April Fool’s Day events.

< ① My Ssumone… is a Ssumbirdie(?) >

While the task force at the Forbidden Lab was inspecting PIU-PIU,

they've accidentally tampered with one of the most advanced systems inside...!

Now, PIU-PIU appears in a suit looking drop-dead handsome!

Just what has happened to PIU-PIU?

Enjoy your date(!) with PIU-PIU on Twitter!

During the event, the date's story will follow the choice that receives the most votes.

Share your thoughts on your date with PIU-PIU on social media!

Mid-date reviews and post-date reviews are both valuable love research data.

We’ll give out 100 Aurora Batteries each to a total of 10 lucky lab participants✨

Event period : 27th of March 2023 (Mon) KST ~ 2nd of April 2023 (Sat) KST How to participate : Share your thoughts on your date with PIU-PIU on your social media with the hashtag #TheSsum_Special_Ssumbirdie Winner Announcement : 6th of April 2023 (Thu) KST *Only posts on Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram are eligible for the event. *You will be disqualified if you steal other people’s work, even after being selected as a winner.

< ② City of Free Men : Celebratory Lab >

For the following period, a Celebratory Lab📚 in commemoration of April Fool’s Day will open in the City of Free Men.

Join other lab participants in voting for the best April Fool’s Day prank,

and aim to become Top Lab Participant for the prize of 200 Aurora Batteries!

Celebratory Lab open for : 26th of March 2023 (Sat) 9:00 am KST ~ 2nd of April 2023 (Sat) 8:59 am KST Criteria : Number of supports in a post (5 lab participants will be chosen per language) Winner Announcement : 6th of April 2023 (Thu) KST *Posts will still remain after the event period, but you will not be able to write new posts. *We will count the number of supports accumulated at the event's end.

< ③ In-game Seasonal Content and Access Gift >

Log in to <The Ssum> on April Fool’s Day to ring a special phone call📞 and get his photo memento📸.

The winner of this year’s April Fool’s is…?

Seasonal Content open for : 1st of April 2023 (Sat) (based on your account timezone) Seasonal Content : April Fool’s Phone Call + April Fool’s Photo Memento *You can check past Seasonal Content anytime in your Milky Way Calendar and Album after unlocking them. In-game Access Gift : 15 Aurora Batteries + 3 Aliens(?)

Have a delightful day with The Ssum🤹‍♂️🎭

Thank you.

Cheritz

[owlbelly]

@winkingvoid said: 

femmes can be venomous; i'm glad folks are finally talking about it more. it's gotten so harmful how much it's tainted the public queer/trans narrative it's still somewhat rare to see any non-femmes represented for more than a token I'd like to think times will change for the better <3

i mean. just to be clear my issue is not with people who consider themselves "femmes" (who, in my experience, are shitty in exactly the same numbers as people who consider themselves any other flavor of gender. some people are just shitty)

it's with the weird seesaw thing that continues to happen in queer/trans cultural spaces - having been out for almost 25 years i've seen it rock back & forth multiple times - where different gender groups go through periods of feeling underrepresented or unfairly treated within their communities & there's usually a big push for "centering" and "uplifting voices" then a period where that's like. the only people it's cool to hear from or talk about. followed usually by a backlash & a swing in the other direction! femmes vs. butches/mascs, trans men vs. trans women, etc. it's exhausting. & it's not as though it's not a real thing happening or like people don't have real reasons to be upset about who's "represented" or has social power, it's just that it's a miserable repeating cycle rather than a real examination of power dynamics with any nuance.

also imo it very rarely maps onto whatever's going on in mainstream culture/media with regard to queer & trans people. like it's always been hilarious to me that the standby is "butch lesbians are the cultural stereotype so we need femme lesbians in movies/tv/etc." but if i asked you to point to an actual butch on a big screen, lmfao. or the thing where most trans-focused mainstream media is still only ever about trans women, but in actual queer/trans spaces & orgs it's often heavily skewed towards trans men & transmasc folks now (which is a change that i also saw juuuust begin to happen in the mid-to-late 00s). ofc "representation" & "visibility" are double edged too & don't make people safe.

anyway as an extremely agender person who still can't escape getting shoved to one side by cis & trans people alike, i would love to see this shit even out eventually & i would love even more for people to just let go of the whole "war of the sexes" divisive nonsense, we literally do not have to reproduce that cishet dynamic in a "progressive" way :')

[ms-m-astrologer]

Cosmic Events: July 2023

Executive Summary: not too horrendous.

Lunar Phases

Monday, July 3, 11:39 UT - Full Moon, 11°19’ Capricorn

Not a horrible chart - Jupiter/Taurus is helping to ameliorate things.

Thursday, July 6, 16:30 UT - Disseminating Moon, 29°21’ Aquarius

Monday, July 10, 01:48 UT - Last Quarter Moon, 17°36’ Aries

Thursday, July 13, 19:05 UT - Balsamic Moon, 6°08’ Gemini

Monday, July 17, 18:32 UT - New Moon, 24°56’ Cancer

This, on the other hand, could be difficult. Something we thought we were done with (power struggles?) comes back for another round.

Friday, July 21, 21:20 UT - Crescent Moon, 13°51’ Virgo

Tuesday, July 25, 22:07 UT - First Quarter Moon, 2°43’ Scorpio

Saturday, July 29, 13:01 UT - Gibbous Moon, 21°10’ Sagittarius

Void of Course Moon

Sunday, July 2, 13:33 UT (Sagittarius) - 17:20 UT (Capricorn)

Tuesday, July 4, 16:45 UT (Capricorn) - 17:30 UT (Aquarius)

Thursday, July 6, 13:42 UT (Aquarius) - 17:33 UT (Pisces)

Saturday, July 8, 18:22 UT (Pisces) - 19:19 UT (Aries)

Monday, July 10, 23:11 UT (Aries) - 23:55 UT (Taurus)

Thursday, July 13, 06:11 UT (Taurus) - 07:26 UT (Gemini)

Saturday, July 15, 12:35 UT (Gemini) - 17:13 UT (Cancer)

Tuesday, July 18, 03:06 UT (Cancer) - 04:39 UT (Leo)

Thursday, July 20, 14:08 UT (Leo) - 17:13 UT (Virgo)

Sunday, July 23, 04:06 UT (Virgo) - 05:54 UT (Libra)

Tuesday, July 25, 15:05 UT (Libra) - 16:55 UT (Scorpio)

Thursday, July 27, 22:36 UT (Scorpio) - Friday, July 28, 00:24 UT (Sagittarius)

Saturday, July 29, 23:51 UT (Sagittarius) - Sunday, July 30, 03:44 UT (Capricorn)

Most of these are around four hours in length.

Retrograde/Direct/Etc.

Venus/Leo starts the month in her pre-retrograde shadow, and stations retrograde on Saturday, July 22.

Ceres/Libra starts the month still in her post-retrograde shadow, which she exits on Saturday, July 15.

Jupiter/Taurus is in its pre-retrograde shadow all month.

Saturn/Pisces is retrograde all month.

Chiron/Aries stations retrograde on Sunday, July 23.

Neptune/Pisces is retrograde all month.

Pluto/Capricorn is retrograde all month.

Eris/Aries stations retrograde on Friday, July 21.

Ingresses

Monday, July 10, 06:51 UT - transiting Pallas Athene enters Virgo

Monday, July 10, 11:40 UT - transiting Mars enters Virgo

Tuesday, July 11, 04:11 UT - transiting Mercury enters Leo

Wednesday, July 12, 16:56 UT - transiting Mean North Node enters Aries, transiting Mean South Node enters Libra

Sunday, July 23, 01:50 UT - transiting Sun enters Leo

Friday, July 28, 21:31 UT - transiting Mercury enters Virgo

Opportunity Periods

Friday, July 7, 04:47 UT - Saturday, July 8, 19:19 UT. “This long OP is a positive opportunity for the arts, meditation, having fun, and helping others.”

Thursday, July 13, 01:24 UT - 07:26 UT. “The Last Quarter Moon provides the perfect chance for a productive time of finishing ongoing projects.”

Monday, July 17, 18:02 UT - 19:02 UT. This is 1/2 hour before and after the New Moon. “If you have something important to start around now, this is a great time to do it.”

Thursday, July 20, 01:51 UT - 14:08 UT. “This OP is a great time for self-improvement, investments, or anything that will help support you later.”

Thursday, July 27, 21:06 UT - 22:36 UT. “This short OP is good for anything from the arts to getting in touch with others.”

Saturday, July 29, 23:32 UT - Sunday, July 30, 03:44 UT. “The Sagittarius Moon loves to play, but it is versatile and useful for other interests as well.”

Sunday, July 30, 03:44 UT - Tuesday, August 1, 02:13 UT. “This long OP is great for productivity and leadership, especially if you are familiar with strong Pluto energy.”

Et Cetera

The big event is the shift of the Nodal axis, from Taurus/Scorpio to Aries/Libra. Pluto will be very, very tightly square to them - starting now (mid-June) and lasting through mid-September, really. The whole planet needs to address issues of vast trauma (Pluto) which keep us stuck in certain modes of unhealthy behavior (South Node).

[hpowellsmith]

Hey! I love seeing all your very exciting and intriguing posts that give us little glimpses into your writing & game making processes. I was wondering how you found/find the coding side of IF?

I'm currently having to do some on my IF course and hateeeeee it. I have always hated coding and find it's really ruining the fun of the writing for me. I'm wondering what your experiences have been and if it was a hurdle you had to overcome (or not!)?

Ahhh thank you so much, that's really kind! and apologies if this ends up posting after your course is done!

I'm fortunate in that my dad was in game development when I was young so I had computers at home growing up in the 90s/00s. Although I haven't had formal training beyond IT lessons in Year 9 I messed around making websites when I was a young teen, and then I taught myself to make mods in my mid teens. So when I started using Twine in earnest in 2014 I was coming at it with a head start... which is a massive issue in tech and games and really highlights how important accessible tools are for people who aren't programmers or who otherwise don't have that kind of foundation (and although I'm confident with a bunch of IF tools, I'm very much not a programmer!).

Soapbox aside! Everyone is different and I love hearing about other people's processes but what I like to do is:

Figure out the plot and branches, usually on paper, sometimes digitally, with bullet points or mind maps/branch diagrams

Create functional code before writing, with placeholder descriptions/dialogue. Check that it works as intended, playing through and/or using automated testing depending what engine you're using. (With ChoiceScript this is when I check difficulty balance using RandomTest. With Twine or inky, I check for errors as I go, then playtest. Other software's functionality varies but either way I'll do some sort of testing to check it hangs together.)

Write prose and/or dialogue. I'll sometimes realise I need to rethink something in the code or add, remove or move something. But because it's all placeholder and relatively short, it's not too unwieldy to shuffle around as needed.

Playtest and revise as needed.

I didn't use to do it like this - in my earlier IF projects I wrote and coded at the same time, but that ended up being less efficient and more difficult. I still do small sections like that, such as when adding stuff at the writing stage, but I've settled on this method because it means I have a clear line between "design mode" and "writing mode" rather than trying to cover both at once, which suits my brain. I also find doing the design/code stage like this means I notice and troubleshoot plot or mechanics problems more quickly.

My wife does a similar method for her ChoiceScript projects but she finds it helpful to alternate coding and writing in shorter cycles. So she'll plan out a chapter, code a chunk of it, write an early section, code a later chunk, write some more, and so on like that. It means her brain doesn't get fatigued by longer periods of solely writing or coding, and the variety keeps up her momentum.

I do recommend trying a variety of IF tools if you haven't already because you may find one that clicks for you better than others! I hope the course has gone well, and good luck!

[formulinos]

hello and welcome to the final results of the tournament! we've had over 920 votes in the last round and all categories were pretty close, i think! now it's time to reveal the results and what better way to start than to honour the contestants that might have not made it to the final round, but were still influent enough to warrant some crying when they got eliminated. let's check out the first category right after the cut!

the trailblazers of f1 are not only a source of inspiration with their determination and sheer will, but also a sweet refreshment to the women loving portion of the fandom. these ladies were spread out thinly through the decades, from 1958 to 2014, but they have left a mark enough to be here today. here are your nominees:

Susie Wolff [sole exception to the no test drivers rule] Maria Teresa de Filippis  Lella Lombardi  Divina Galica Desiré Wilson Giovanna Amati 

unfortunately, only one of them can win! and with 70,4 % of votes, Formula One's Best Girl is...

Susie Wolff! no one is immune to the latex dress power after all. 

our next category is devoted to the hay-as-safety-barriers old as balls portion of formula 1. these are some of the stars that braved through the circuits between the 50s and the 70s and have managed to make a name of themselves, either by their talent or, most importantly, by their good looks, which is what we're trying to assess here today. our nominees for hottest classic driver are:

Jacky Ickx Jim Clark James Hunt  François Cevert  Jody Scheckter  Dan Gurney

and... with 33,2 % of votes, Formula One's Hottest Classic Driver is...

Jacky Ickx! with a bone structure like that he made everyone wish they could speak a little french.... je porte lunettes de soleil...... oui oui baguette.....

this is perhaps the funniest category that someone suggested (@howdysebby, to be more precise) and the reason why i split the categories between "eras" of f1 instead of decades. in here, we're supposed to honour the brave men who refused to drive and spent a night barricaded together in a room, sharing mattresses For The Sake Of The Sport (it was for a good reason, but you have to admit the intricate rituals of it all anyway). while we can't have ALL of the strikers here - even because some of these wouldn't get even a vote - here are the fittest amongst them, as your nominees:

Elio de Angelis Niki Lauda René Arnoux Alain Prost Didier Pironi Andrea de Cesaris Riccardo Patrese

time to check the results! with 28,4 % of votes, your Formula One's Hottest Striker is...

Alain Prost! as much as Alain and Elio were close, this could only go to the brain behind the operation.

our next category is about The Cinnamon Apples of F1 for many of us who started watching F1 during the period between the late 90s and the early 00s. their driving on track was tight, their levels of empathy for other human beings was tighter and their abs were the tightest of them all. here are your nominees:

Michael Schumacher Damon Hill Mika Häkkinen Jacques Villeneuve Fernando Alonso Mark Webber Giancarlo Fisichella Eddie Irvine

(looking at this list idk why i forgot to add kimi in it oop)

with a grand total of 32,6 % votes, the Hottest Y2K Driver of Formula One is...

Michael Schumacher!!!! Because nothing screams "hot" the same way that "7 championships" and "war crimes" does! (photo is an homage to my mom who usually said he is a "shrimp" - you have to rip the head off and eat the rest)

we got to our current times. this is the mid 2010s, mostly Drive to Survive generation of drivers we currently have. with a few exceptions, they mostly have at their hands a plethora of social media profiles where they make continuous efforts to advertise themselves as Figures of The Sport, which includes, of course, the occasional cheeky thirst trap. the nominees for hottest liberty media driver are:

Daniel Ricciardo Jules Bianchi Antonio Giovinazzi Carlos Sainz Jr Nico Hulkenberg Jaime Alguesuari Pierre Gasly Esteban Ocon Lance Stroll

with 37 % of votes, Formula One's Hottest Liberty Media Driver is...

Jules Bianchi! he should have definitely been able to take more advantage of the era we're in, and he will never be forgotten <3

well, right now it's the time to give a little shout out to the guys that we didn't remember to add to the qualifying roster. they weren't there when it mattered, and when it didn't matter anymore, people were like "why isn't Guy here?". even though i warned a few times i was still taking nominations. oh well. here are your nominees:

Stoffel Vandoorne Max Verstappen George Russell Christian Fittipaldi

ok, to be fair i'm pretty sure someone nominated stoff and i forgot him. he's ok, he won the FE title this weekend anyway, he won't mind it. i would also like to take this moment to publicly apologise to valtteri bottas who i have been thirsty for since last year, yet somehow i forgot to add him both to the main tournament and to this category. i'm so sorry valtteri i'm still a big fan of your butt!!!!!

ok, time for the results. with 39,5 % of votes, Formula One's Hottest Forgotten Driver is...

George Russell! his allergy to upper body clothing came in clutch for this one!

this category is very dear to me because i never met my father. these drivers in particular have acquired a reputation amongst the fandom as Dads We'd All Like To Fuck, if that's your thing. here are your nominees:

Nigel Mansell Gilles Villeneuve Graham Hill Keke Rosberg Stirling Moss

with 42 % of votes, Formula One's Hottest Dilf just has to be...

Nigel Mansell! Il Leone strikes again with the dad bod and the moustache that makes anyone say "daddy? sorry. daddy? sorr-"

the same way there is a market for dilfs, there has to be a market for twinks! they made their mark in the Hot Drivers Market of formula 1 thanks to their wrinkle free looks and relative lack of testosterone. while some of them have since grown into their man looks, we still fondly remember their twink era. perhaps a second way of looking at this category would be "Best Gender", but then again some drivers would be missing. here are your nominees:

Nico Rosberg Mick Schumacher Yuki Tsunoda Zhou Guanyu Lando Norris

alright, let's go! with 34,1 % Formula One's Hottest Twink is:

Mick Schumacher! I think many of us fell deep into his blue eyes....

it's time to highlight the electric hotties of Formula One history. they came to f1 and they flopped, even if we don't want to admit it. however, as we all know, one of the hottest attributes in any person is their ability to persevere and these guys weren't afraid of challenging themselves in formula e. as a reward, they reinvented their careers, looking pretty hot while doing so. let's take a look at our nominees:

Jean Eric Vergne Andre Lotterer Jerome D'Ambrosio Pascal Werhlein Lucas di Grassi

with 44,2 % of votes, our Hottest Formula E Driver is...

JEV! It's not a scandal to anyone that this would go to the only 2-time champion of FE.

at last, to wrap the hall of fame, we have a bonus category. this was supposed to be optional on the tournament poll, so i'm VERY sorry to those who didn't want to vote for it and had to, i forgot to unmark the "obligatory" box since it was late when i made the form. this is a Senna specific category only because so many of you misunderstood the open box question and recommended it as a category instead of your "Hottest Classic Driver" nomination hahaha! so, just for banter, here are your nominees:

Twink Toleman Senna Lotus Senna McLaren Marlboro Senna W*lliams Senna

let's go! with 58,3 % of votes, the Hottest Senna is...

McLaren Marlboro Senna! world championships and team rivalries are very hot indeed.

well, this marks the end of our Hall of Fame categories! thank you for participating so far, stay tuned for our podium tomorrow! 

[mywifeleftme]

322: Rival Boys // Animal Instincts

Animal Instincts Rival Boys 2014, Tiny Records (Bandcamp)

Rival Boys were an Ontario indie rock band active in Toronto from the late ‘00s to the mid ‘10s. They were a three-piece comprising sibling vocalists Lee and Graeme Rose (on bass/violin and guitar, respectively) and drummer Sam Sholdice, with a sound somewhat like Vancouverites Mother Mother on a blue day. (Whom, as an aside, I have discovered are now way more popular thanks to TikTok than they ever were at the time—they have 8.3 million listeners a month on Spotify, which is like… 38 times more than the New Pornographers.) Both Roses affect a mewl somewhere between Violent Femmes’ Gordon Gano and Sarah McLachlan, with Lee’s more powerful bellow usually taking the lead. In conjunction with the cold mountain violin that periodically sweeps the floorboards, it gives their otherwise youthful affect a nostalgic somberness. They were emphatically a rock band though, capable of kicking up a surly crunch: they didn’t have the dance rhythms of the Metric/Land of Talk acolytes who were all over CBC Radio 2 (the national public alternative music station) at the time, preferring to lope along like the Pixies.

Rival Boys were no longer a going concern by the time I moved to Toronto in 2017; I discovered them when I found a CD of their 2009 EP Life of Worry in the basement of an Ottawa house I shared with a friend who’d known somebody in the band back in high school. It was the first time I can remember coming across a group remotely in my social radius that struck me as unequivocally good. I listened to that five-song EP to death for a few years, and I still think they really nailed their sound with it; as a result, I had kind of a chilly response to their 2014 farewell Animal Instincts when I found it at a punk flea market. They’d shed just a touch of the raw-boned vulnerability that had made their loose, imagistic lyrics cling like a thin flannel against a harsh wind; a bit less bite to the guitar; a hair less heedless urgency to the vocals. The serviceable cover of Wolf Parade’s “I’ll Believe in Anything” seemed on the nose; the new rendition of EP highlight “Construction Work” didn’t make my heart stagger around like the original.

But listening to it now, I think Animal Instincts’ real sin was just not being the record I’d fallen in love with. Life of Worry is special, but there’s plenty to like on the LP. Opener “Fortune” edges the hell out of the listener before finally giving us some of Lee in full thunder; “Young and Old” is a showcase for the close harmonies, wet-eyed violin, and martial drumming that were Rival Boys’ most distinctive element; “Don’t Bloom” gives us a little of everything Lee does well, flowing from a distracted, introverted croon to a high wail that arcs like a flaming arrow at a Viking funeral. On this listen anyway, even the new version of “Construction Work” is doing it for me. There’s a nice closure to the fact that it was both among the first and last things they cut: the original with its blazing, desolate frustration sweeping into a folk reel outro that feels like transcendence; the revision more brittle, reserved, like people on the cusp of leaving adolescence behind giving it one last go, the quieter outro never quite taking off but settling into a low, churchy organ drone. It feels like a dignified goodbye.

Which the record in fact was, although it may not have been clear at the time. Graeme dropped out of the music scene altogether; Lee was quiet for a few years, but soldiers on with the very good Ace of Wands; I’m not sure what Sam’s up to these days. Time moves on—it’s 15 years since the EP, 10 now since the LP. I’m sure for the band members and their fans it feels like barely half that time, like finding a book you set down just the other day covered in dust and all your friends so old all the sudden! If ‘00s indie music can be said to have been about anything, it was surely about digging deeper into the experience of being alive, celebrating the wild joy of it while you can, making something of that. Rival Boys surely made something, and it’s nice to have something physical of it to keep.

322/365

[positivelybeastly]

Have you ever wondered if Hank would be better of without the X-Men?

So, this is an interesting question, and I hope that this answer is similarly interesting - mostly because it starts, like most interesting answers, with, it depends!

I think that when Hank was just first starting out as an X-Man, as a member of the Original Five X-Men, it was a genuinely good environment for him.

Yeah, he was a seventeen year old involved in superheroics far beyond his logical grasp, but it was very much to his benefit that he was with people who understood what it was like to be ostracised for powers and gifts that you were granted by birth, that you struggled to control, that you had to hide to get by.

He wasn't really, truly fulfilled as a normal high school/college student - he kept having to hide just how brilliant he was, both physically and mentally, for fear of sticking his head up above the parapet and being kicked back down. For all his flaws as a mentor, Professor Xavier was an intellectual equal (at first, anyway) for Hank, someone who could meet him on that level and engage with and nurture him.

And it really can't be understated just how good it was for Hank to make friends his own age, because he really just did not have that many of them beforehand. I can name one, Jennifer Nyles. That's it.

So Bobby was obviously an amazing anchor for him, and Scott and Warren ended up being good, stable friends who, at least at that juncture, were good influences on him, keeping him focused - I also think that Warren, especially, would have been a very stabilising presence for Hank, as the only other physically mutated mutant he had seen up until that point (not counting Bobby, who can turn his Iceman form on or off).

Once he'd gotten over his thankfully brief period mooning over Jean (fuck off, Bendis), they ended up becoming extremely good friends, too - their shared emotional sensitivity and capacity for compassion and love made them really good friends, which is something you see come back quite a bit in the 90s and in New X-Men.

It's also telling that it's when he leaves the X-Men here, he ends up fucking up his life fairly quickly, falling into bed with a Secret Empire spy and turning himself furry in a fit of intellectual hubris - he needed them to occasionally drag him out of the lab and remind him, hey, Hank, the rest of the world still exists! If he'd had Bobby, Warren or Jean present to keep his head screwed on, he genuinely might not have done such a dumb thing to himself - or if he had, he would have been with people who could've helped.

Where it gets a lot muddier is when it comes to X-Factor in the 80s and then just the X-Men from the 90s all the way up to, well, now. The problem is that Hank is . . . Hank is really useful. He's often the heart of the team, so he's the guy that a lot of people come to for advice about their problems, or, at the very least, someone who feels the need to care for people who are having problems (you see this a lot in New X-Men, where he's constantly taking it upon himself to be there for people).

But he's also the big guy AND the smart guy - he's, like, three parts of the Five Man band group archetype all in one, which is honestly why you see him almost constantly on the flagship X-Men teams, like X-Men Blue in the 90s, the New X-Men in the early 00s, the Astonishing team in the mid 00s, etc, he's just useful on a team.

But the problem is that Hank has a really hard time looking at a problem and saying, no, I can't solve it, or, no, I don't have the time to do that, or, no, that's not something to do with me. He's just not wired that way. He's inclined to help. He's inclined to try. He's inclined to study and poke and prod and heal and learn. He's been like that since he was a child, when he was dismantling bus engines on the school lawn - this happens because that, that happens because this, because because because - he wants to know. He wants to solve.

So, what happens when you give him problems he can't solve?

He tried so damn hard to fix the Legacy Virus. He tried so damn hard to fix the Decimation. He threw himself into the problems, he pushed himself to his limits, he did things he knew he shouldn't be doing, he put himself in danger, he put others in danger, he didn't think clearly - because I need to solve the problem. I need to help. I need to fix this. Because if I can't, no-one can.

And the problem is, on the X-Men, that's generally true!

There is no-one on the X-Men who can do what Hank can do! The instant the news came in about the Decimation and just how real and far reaching it was, who did everyone look to? They didn't look at Cyclops or Emma Frost or Wolverine for solutions, they looked at Hank, and he thought, well, if I can't do it, who can?

Genuinely, back in 2005, who stood a chance of fixing the Decimation? Look at the X-Men rosters. Look at the list of the 198. Who the fuck can solve this? Maybe Mr. Sinister? MAYBE? And that's if you trust him to?

And that pressure is just so ugly and unpleasant and crushing for Hank, because Hank is a social butterfly. He loves to talk to people, he loves to make people laugh, he loves to get vocal, repeated affirmation that he's good, that he's a genius, that he's loved, that he's cared for, because he's so frightfully insecure and anxious and dysphoric. And the instant that you shut him in a lab or send him out on a mission by himself, it's like you're setting a pressure cooker on the highest setting to see how long it takes before it bursts. He needs a social life.

Even when the X-Men spurned him after the failed intervention (which, fuck, that could be its own post), they STILL had to go back to him! Ororo Munroe, goddess of the elements, mistress Storm, the leader of the X-Men, told Hank that she was contemplating giving him to S.H.I.E.L.D for crimes against time and space and nature in Uncanny X-Men #600. And yet, the instant the M-Pox happens, who does she turn to?

She turns to Hank. Poor, dependable, unable to say no, Hank.

You see it even again in Rosenberg's Astonishing X-Men. Havok doesn't know who to talk to about his weird dreams and tech problems, so who does he go to? Does he talk to anyone at the Xavier Institute? Does he talk to an Avenger?

No, he goes to Hank. Who's living a completely normal, happy, academic life at Harvard. He's trying to heal Banshee from the Apocalypse infection. He likes to eat Portobello Patty Melts.

Within five minutes, Reavers turn up and start shooting up the place, and Hank loses his job.

Because Havok, like every other X-Man, has a learned pattern of behaviour - if you have a problem, go see Hank. He'll fix it.

Suffice it to say, this is not a good thing for Hank. No wonder he fucking cracked. No wonder he just started losing it. No wonder the version of him we see in Battle of the Atom has lost his wits. He has to be the doctor, scientist, biologist, mechanic, engineer, armchair psychologist, pathologist, linguist, chemist, physicist, pilot, athlete, genius, to basically an entire community of people.

By this point? Yes, Hank would absolutely be better off without the X-Men. Hell, I feel like he was better off without them from 2009 onwards, where you can see an appreciable difference in how happy he is to be working at S.W.O.R.D versus how he is at the Jean Grey School or on any of the X-Men teams he joins after that point.

This also highlights why he's so different on the Avengers and Defenders, why he's so much happier and goofier and light-hearted - it's not just because his boyfriend Simon Williams is around (though that certainly helps), it's because they usually have, like, four geniuses on a team at any one time, and it lightens the load. He doesn't have to be every genius under the sun, he can afford to just be the big strong guy and take it easy a bit. The positive reputation and public affirmation that comes from being an Avenger versus an X-Man certainly doesn't hurt, either.

There's also a weird, distorting effect that Hank's years away from the X-Men has caused - he was one of the original X-Men, so he has tenure and prestige, and he's generally one of the oldest around, so he knows what he's doing, but he also missed out on a very long period of time for the team (1974-1991) where a lot of very strong friendships, like Kurt-Logan-Piotr, Jean-Ororo, etc, formed, so he doesn't have that bond with them.

There's a distance.

Everyone knows Hank, but not everyone knows Hank. There is such a clear, defined difference between how someone like Scott or Jean talks to Hank, versus how someone like Kitty or Ororo does. I really don't think it's a coincidence that if you look at who's around when Hank is dying in All-New X-Men, it's mostly people who know him but don't really know him - it's Logan, it's Ororo, it's Kitty - so when he says he's fine, even as his heart is bursting in his chest, they believe him. They don't know how to tell if he's really fine or not. If that had been Jean, or Scott, or Warren, that would not have happened.

But what about Bobby, you cry!

What fucking about Bobby. The guy has the emotional sensitivity of a brick, and I'm firmly of the opinion that he and Hank stopped being truly close friends during the Utopia era, when Hank tried to emotionally confide in him about his PTSD and Bobby just told him to sit and spin on it. You compare how they are in Defenders and X-Factor or 90s X-Men with how they are during the JGS era, and it's night and day clear that they're not close anymore.

But that's yet another discussion, for another time.

TD;DR: the X-Men were a good place for Hank initially, but as time has gone on, and the mutant community's problems have become increasingly more dire, they've become a profoundly toxic environment for him. He doesn't have fun, he doesn't have many close friends there, and they treat him more and more like a utility as time goes on. When we get our resurrected Beast back in a few months, I hope he goes back to the Avengers and never returns.

[zaenaris]

Have you headcanon about Reset Timeline? About Kokonui who have no traumas?

well, I think that without the trauma and the fire their relationship would be so much "easier"

Tbh, I love all their versions but their final TL version is probably the one I am relatively less fond of since we know nothing about them, but I have mostly cute headcanons since without the trauma they "lose" what they made their story interesting in context but hey, probably their story would have been equally interesting in the reset TL if we'd have the chance to see it (but Wakui was burned out, I understand why he wanted to close the story asap)

Back to the headcanon

their relationship, as I said would have been easier and while, for sure, it's not easy to be a queer young boy in Japan in the mid '00, at least this time they had Akane & Shin & Takemichi to help them realizing it was ok to be in love with their best friend

I kind of headcanon that, in the others TL (where the fire happens), they start their physical relationship before their romantic one, as some sort of friends with benefits/situationship, because the attraction (and the love) has always been there but, due to their traumas, it was difficult to deal with it and to express their feelings in a more healthy way; in the reset TL, I know everything would have been so much more "linear", confession, kiss, and so on

Akane is the best big sis/sister in law and always helped them when they were figuring out their feelings

while they had their "rebellious" phase, since we know they were still in BLACK DRAGON even in the final TL, I guess that, once again, it was Inupi's fascination with Shin and Koko just followed Inupi because he wanted to be with him, as usual

Inupi still admires the first gen BD, but Koko low-key doesn't like them lol (he's jealous of Shin in particular lol). His jealousy get better in time, (especially when he realize the BD are on their side and support Inupi's relationship with him) but at the beginning while he's happy Inupi got his dream job, he was sometimes sad that he couldn't stay with Inupi more, while he was with Shin.

Koko is very nervous when studying for university admissions, their last high school year is very stressing for Koko and he's afraid this could ruin his relationship with Inupi, since he realizes he's not always calm and relaxed; after all, they've always been together since they were children, but now they're growing up and they know they'll walk different path

Inupi knows it as well, but he's happy about the future for both of them since he knows he'll work as a mechanic as he wanted and Koko will go to uni, so yeah, it will be different, but this doesn't change their love. He knows it's a stressful period for Koko and he does his best to support him

Koko wants to be with Inupi when he'll learn if he was admitted to the university he wanted, so when he finds out he did it, he can't believe it at first, but Inupi knew it he would have been admitted already and kisses him

they start living together after Koko graduates uni

we know that at some point Koko and Kisaki start their activity together and while it's not really Inupi's field, Koko trusts very much Inupi's intuition when he had to deal with new customers or collaborators (just like he read tarots and such before making important decisions lol)

when they buy their house, it was agreed they'd have a garage for the bikes and a separate one for the cars

they probably got a cat and a dog at some point

they love to spoil Akane's daughter, they adore their little niece

[advestager]

I feel like saying Josuke doesn't have any daddy issues whatsoever isn't entirely fair (I've seen some fic and comics go further into how he and his mom might have been treated due to the circumstances of his birth that were pretty compelling) but people who act like he grew up without any father figure are definitely off base imo. Every single adaptation and extra material have always had a focus on his close relationship with his grandpa for a reason!

see, that's precisely the thing. it is literally impossible to be a grown up human without having internalised some sort of illogical Feeling about oneself or the world – but fandom as a whole tends to just assign arbitrary ones to characters based on stereotypes rather than what they actually are like.

i do think josuke feels some sort of way about his lack of a father growing up, but that's as inevitable as joseph himself (or giorno, or jolyne, or even jonathan) having feelings about his own dad, and yet somehow jorge's absence does not get brought up despite joseph and josuke's fairly similar upbringings. the fact is that most of western fandom tends to view the JJBA characters through a (white, usa-centric) lens that simply does not lend itself to a fair or accurate reading when most of the cast is either POC or from an entirely different cultural background. that's why i'm so resistant to label josuke as having 'daddy issues'; the term means something entirely different to me than it seems to do to most of the fandom, based on all the fic, comics, and discussions i've seen (and had) about the topic. it's not exactly like the organised crime aspect of VA, but it fills me with a similar kind of frustration. i don't think one needs a degree in cultural studies or history or whatnot to enjoy a silly series about people punching each other with slutty soul-ghosts, but it's exhausting to see the same thoughtless, very specifically westernised takes being regurgitated over and over as Absolute Truth until the characters are so flanderised they seem nothing as much as a caricature of their original versions. i love transformative works as much as any other fan creator, but i also happen to like the source material. it is infinitely more interesting to me to think about what kind of relationship josuke might have to his heritage as a mixed-race person, or his identity as the son of a single mother or the obviously cherished and spoilt child of a family such as his own (especially in a place and period like canon's late-90s/early 00's japan), than to hear yet another iteration of 'haha, josuke has daddy issues' where the person saying it has no intention of analysing that premise beyond the puddle-depth obvious.

at barely sixteen years old, even as interested in high-end fashion (and as very much part of a working class family who could definitely use the nest egg) as he is, josuke's immediate reaction to being told his missing father is incredibly rich and wants to take care of him is to say that it's not necessary, and he's fine as he is. sixteen. i worked as a teacher with kids as young as a year old and people as old as mid-seventies; that kind of ease of mind is one-in-a-million and not something you'll find on someone who fits fandom's definition of 'daddy issues'. he's not angry at joseph, he's not grasping for money, he hardly even wants to find out more about the missing part of his origins. his only thought is to wish he wouldn't be the reason other people were hurt, and to protect his mother once there is a risk she might find out and be distressed about it. his entire morality system is (from what i remember of canon) mostly based around the question What Would Grandpa Do?, with some leeway allowed for the temper he clearly got from tomoko and for the fact that he is, again, a big and slightly spoilt sixteen year old.

so yeah. it might not sound fair to say he doesn't have daddy issues, but i don't think the terms fandom's operating under are fair to start with, so i'd rather recuse myself (and my interpretation of the character) from it all til we're playing the same game. the sandbox's wide and wild, and the block and mute buttons are there for a reason, so i'll just stay in my corner writing about higashikatas wielding their feelings like sledgehammers til my mum says it's time to go home.

[neallo]

So...................... i Mello holds Near hostage in one of your fics, WHICH ONES IS IT?!

LMFAO i love the energy of this ask. thank you. extremely chaotic but also endearing.

to answer your question: the fic you're thinking of is i want to hold you (hostage), and it hasn't been posted yet!! i'm still finishing it up, though it's about 3/4 (I HOPE!!! it's already 16k words 🫣) of the way written. i want to, at the very minimum, start posting it by the end of meronia week; i expect it's going to be about 3-4 chapters. i'm not going to try to describe it in depth here, as i'd rather keep some elements a surprise, but it's a canon-divergent story centering around Mello during his mafia era, and it takes place about a week or so before we see him show back up in canon.

just for fun, i'm going to toss the first few paragraphs below ❣️ there's also a playlist you can find here, if you just want to get a sense of the vibes ✨🎶

————

Mello wakes to the sound of his 9:00 AM alarm going off, the mid-morning sun throwing stripes of light across his bedsheets from how it peeks through the gaps in his blinds. His hand gropes towards the clock on his bedside table, clumsily seeking out the off button as he blinks sleep from his eyes. The beeping ceases, and Mello sighs, sagging backwards against his pillows again. He can’t recall what he dreamt about, though from the lingering wistfulness clouding his mind and weighing down his limbs, he could take an educated guess.

His apartment is quiet; he’s alone. Every single morning since he moved to LA, he’s woken up alone. The only exception was a little over a month ago now, but that wasn’t in this city or this apartment or this bed, which he supposes he should be grateful for. It would have been worse if Mello had seen his face in this light, his cheek resting against this pillow, the curve of his shoulder peeking out from these sheets. In the quiet, Mello’s own minuscule movements sound loud, as does his breath. Normally it doesn’t bother him, but some days it’s more noticeable than others, and today is evidently one of them.

After a few more minutes of soaking in dilute, nebulous angst, Mello forces himself to get out of bed and go to the kitchen, puts on a pot of coffee and sets about making himself breakfast. The window over his sink faces a busier street than the one in his bedroom, so the silence is a bit thinner here, miscellaneous sounds leaking through the old glass. It helps ground him a little. He’d picked this apartment specifically for its soundproofing, because the last several places he lived all had paper-thin walls, while the brick construction here means he can’t hear his neighbors fucking or people on the sidewalk below shouting at each other. Obviously he prefers it that way, but the silence is foreign after so many years of living in an orphanage teeming with other noisy children and a good year and a half after that spent either sleeping on the streets or in run-down shitholes. For a short period of time after moving here, Mello entertained the idea of getting a cat, mostly so he would have something living and moving around in the same space as him, but it seemed selfish to bring a fragile creature into the kind of life he leads.

Of course, that didn’t stop him from trying, once. Not with a cat, but with—

His coffee starts to brew, mercifully interrupting his train of thought before it could go off the rails. As he cracks an egg into a hot, buttered pan, Mello calculates what time he needs to leave to make his flight. Just thinking about it soothes him a bit; in three hours, he’ll be boarding a plane to New York, and in six more, he’ll have landed at JFK. The sun will have set on the east coast by then, and by the time he gets to his hotel, he should be ready to sleep. Dreamlessly, if he’s lucky.

(Mello has been short on that specific type of luck, lately.)