#not officially leaving hiatus yet unfortunately ;((

[xxtwelvii]

i cannot EXPRESS how much i have missed drawing them,,,

ft ghost au because halloween :DD

[jinnie-ret]

could we maybe get a part two to fallen Angel? Maybe it could have her healing process, like her physical therapy process, and the fan reaction? I just love reading your work :3

fallen angel pt 2

Stray Kids x Ninth Member!reader (Platonic)

content warnings: mentions of injuries (ankle, rib)

genre: fluff, angst

word count: 2.2k

after suffering a nasty fall in a Kingdom performance, Y/N is eager to get back on her feet, only to feel downhearted when she receives some less than motivating news. it's a good thing she has the boys there to support her.

Thank you so much @mynameisnotlaura for this request!! I hope you enjoy! :)

As always, if you enjoy please like and reblog! And my asks are open so be sure to leave in some requests if there's anything you'd like to see!

MAIN MASTERLIST

Stray Kids' Fans in Uproar as Second Member is Removed from Kingdom: Legendary War

With just a few more weeks until the finale of the competition between six boy groups, a second member of the group Stray Kids has been removed from the show.

MNET have released an official statement saying:

"Due to faulty equipment that had not been properly authenticated by outside distributors, Y/N of Stray Kids sustained an injury that has prevented her from continuing in the competition. This is a very unfortunate situation and we wish her a speedy recovery."

However some fans have speculated that it was actually MNET's fault and that they should have checked the equipment themselves.

What do you think? Let us know down below:

Comments:

First Hyunjin, and now Y/N, this is so sad to see our group of 9 go down to 7...

It's clearly MNET's fault! You could tell Chan was angry about something before making sure Jeongin was ok

I wouldn't be surprised if Bang Chan went off at the staff, we all saw how annoyed he was in that one vlive...

Our poor maknaes, I hope they're both doing ok! Jeongin, Y/N, fighting!

I hope the rest of the boys are doing ok, now that they're down two members...

The way you can see the moment things go wrong in the performance and Y/N still manages to keep a calm face!

Okay but you wouldn't have been able to tell that Y/N got injured until they showed it after the performance.

Y/N put her phone down sighing. She was glad there was no nasty comments from what she read but she still didn't feel all too optimistic. MNET had blamed someone else for her injuries, and had also denied her requests of participating in the competition once more. Sure, she wasn't fully healed yet, but they could have let her be a part of it somehow without her dancing too strenuously. And no, she wasn't going to accept their request to just sit backstage and watch. In any other world she wouldn't mind doing so, but she knew that MNET would manipulate their footage and craft a vision that reflected badly on her own part.

It had been a couple of weeks since they filmed that performance, and a week since the episode was released, and Y/N was still on bed rest. Anytime a member saw her hobbling about they'd immediately do the thing she wanted for her, or escort her back to her room. Cutting a long story short, she felt like she was in a hell of some kind. Y/N longed for her independence, which added on top of the reasons why she was feeling so angry and upset and just... jumbled at the moment. It wasn't even like she could hang out with Hyunjin, because when the members left for practice, not before checking up on her of course, she would be left alone in the dorms. Hyunjin was spending his hiatus at home at the moment, but she was excited to see him soon after filming for Kingdom was finished.

Shuffling out of bed, and letting out a harsh breath at the pain that hit her mid section, Y/N slowly stood, now having to hobble across her bedroom floor with crutches, careful not to further distress her sprained ankle. Some say she was lucky it was only a sprain, but really it was a pretty severe one that was she lucky it didn't do any permanent damage.

"You should be in bed," Lee Know sternly said, back turned to her as she entered the kitchen.

"How did you know it was me?" Y/N pouted, letting out a groan as she leant against the kitchen counter.

"Here let me, careful, careful," Han gently supported her weight momentarily, helping her into a seat and offering a smile at her.

"Thanks, Hannie," Y/N smiled at her squirrel like member, turning back to Lee Know.

"Not hard to distinguish the difference between crutches and hobbling, to normal footsteps. Plus you normally run in for my breakfasts but you can't do that at the moment," Lee Know tapped Y/N on the nose as he put a plate of pancakes in front of her.

"Hey... don't remind me," Y/N said, shoulders feeling tense as her irritation was evident on her face.

"Yeah, you'd normally be the first one in here," Seungmin chuckled.

"Stop," Y/N slammed her fork down against the table, feeling bad for suddenly lashing out but she also felt so annoyed at the fact she currently couldn't do less.

"Sorry, sorry, we won't mention it no more, unless you want to, okay?" Felix calmed her down, one hand on her shoulder as the other ran through her hair.

"No, it's okay, I'm sorry, it's just... It's really annoying, I've ranted enough about it, you guys already know what I think about it all," Y/N waved her hand dismissively after her apology.

"Doesn't mean we don't want to hear it," Changbin reminded her, as he always did, being the great listener he is.

"Yeah, plus you know you've got our support and the fans' too, right?" Jeongin quietly pitched in, still not fully awake himself.

"I know, I know," Y/N nodded, taking a bite of her pancakes, humming in delight.

"Good?" Lee Know rose an eyebrow from across the table at her, a satisfied smile appearing on his face when she nodded enthusiastically.

Bang Chan emerged from his room just a everyone was finishing breakfast.

"Come on, time to go!"

"You missed breakfast," Changbin tutted at him, Chan only able to respond with a sheepish smile.

"You have to go so soon?" Y/N asked quietly. She could already predict how her day was going to go. Lay down, watch Netflix, sleep, repeat.

"Sorry sweetheart, got a lot of recordings to do today and we need to practice for collab stages on the show," Chan felt bad for his dongsaeng, he could tell she was feeling lonely, but they all tried their best to keep her in the loop.

"I can't even sing on the tracks?" Y/N asked hopefully, but even she knew that the answer would be...

"No, I'm sorry, you know it could make your ribs feel worse if you do. And you know you've got a physio session today, right? Seojun hyung will come round to pick you up and take you there," Chan reminded her, as she let out a groan.

"Ugh, I forgot about that. At least it gets me out of the dorms for an hour or so," she tried to see the positive side.

"See, not too bad!" Jeongin tried to encourage her, but it fell on deaf ears, knowing no one else would want to be in her position right now.

"Can someone help me to the sofa before you guys head out?" Y/N asked awkwardly. She always was awkward when doing so, feeling a guilt of some sorts that crept up on her in these types of situations.

"If we must," Seungmin playfully rolled his eyes, but was gentle nonetheless as he and Felix supported her onto the sofa.

"You comfy?" Felix double checked, shoving a pillow underneath her lower back to help with the healing of her ribs.

Y/N nodded as she took in some deep breaths, the short walk from the kitchen to the lounge leaving her a bit breathless.

"Are you sure you'll be okay, Y/Nnie?" Han bit the top of his thumb worriedly.

"I'm fine, I've got Netflix to keep me company for now, I'll see you guys later," Y/N didn't even look at them as they left, turning the TV on and hoping to block out her jealousy and irritation.

There was a knock on the door before it was unlocked and Y/N couldn't believe that she had already watched 6 episodes of Modern Family.

"Hi Seojun oppa," Y/N greeted him as he helped her stand and grabbed her crutches.

"Hi, Y/Nnie, how are you feeling today? Ready for your physio?" Seojun said warmly.

"I'm never ready, you know that," she laughed as he helped her out of the dorms and took her to the physio session.

On the way there they listened to some music, and Y/N fought deep within herself to not put her all into singing along. She couldn't make things worse. She wanted to recover as soon as possible.

Throughout the session Y/N herself felt like she was making good progress. Seojun and her physiotherapist, Soyeon, praised her as she did her exercises.

"So, only 2 more weeks left, yeah? Then it's been 4 weeks like you said and I can start working again," Y/N said with a big smile on her face. She was in a good mood from how the session went, which was soon to disappear.

"Yes, I did say 4 weeks, but I also said 4-6 weeks. Unfortunately it seems like your body is taking longer to heal than we initially expected, which isn't anything to worry about but I believe your healing process will be more in the 6 weeks," Soyeon informed Y/N, feeling bad for the younger girl.

"Right, okay, yeah, that's fine... thank you as always, Soyeon," Y/N said with a tight lipped smile and turned to Seojun with a look that said 'I want to go home now'.

And he complied. The manager felt bad, hearing the sniffles Y/N tried to hide during the journey back to the dorms. But knowing the girl, he didn't want to make a big deal of it, and simply passed her a tissue, knowing she would be thankful.

He helped her back into the dorms and took her to bed, letting her rest and feeling slightly reluctant to leave, he eventually did, sending a text to the other Stray Kids members to let them know how she was doing.

'Y/N isn't feeling too cheery. Not a good result to the session today, she's back home now. Could do with some comfort I think.'

And with that, the boys rushed home as soon as they could, not wanting their fellow member to be feeling upset. They knew she was angry, but they hadn't really seen her sadness or tears since the day her injury happened.

"Y/N?" there was a tentative knock on the door.

But Y/N didn't answer, she was too busy being curled up warmly under her duvet, her own sobs sounding muffled to her as she listened to some sad music through her airpods.

"Y/Nnie, hey sweetheart," Chan said softly, brushing her hair out of her face and removing her airpods.

"Adele? Damn she is going through it," Seungmin muttered to himself as he put the listening device to his ear, wincing lightly when Changbin heard and smacked him on the back of the head.

"Go away," Y/N tried to pull the duvet over her head not wanting the boys to see her upset but failed.

"Hey, hey, none of that, what happened at the physio appointment today?" Chan asked worriedly, thumbs swiping away the tears that ran down her face.

"Was it something serious?" Jeongin asked frowning, hoping that it wouldn't be.

Felix sat around the other side of Y/N cuddling her behind gently, for comfort.

"I've got 4 more weeks of this. 4 more weeks of doing nothing," Y/N sniffled, Felix rubbing her stomach in circles with his hand that was draped lightly across her midriff.

"I thought it was 2 more weeks?" Lee Know wondered out loud.

"Me too, but now I'm stuck here like this for even longer. Something about not healing as they expected," Y/N hiccuped on her sobs.

"Calm down, you're working yourself up, it'll be ok, those weeks will fly by," Changbin soothed her as he patted her head.

"I just hate doing nothing. I feel like I'm making you guys do all the work and making you babysit me when I should be pulling my own weight," Y/N confessed after calming herself down a bit.

"It's not like that at all. Plus, we love babysitting our maknae," Han let her know, patting her leg from where he was perched on the bed.

"Speak for yourself," Seungmin joked, making Y/N laugh, and then stop from the pain in her ribs.

"Here, silly, take these," Lee Know handed her some paracetamol to take, shaking his head fondly at her.

"I'm not silly," Y/N sleepily muttered after taking the tablets, leaning back into Felix's arms.

"You are for thinking you're making us do all the work," Chan sighed, still smiling at the girl.

"Yeah, don't worry, there's plenty for you to do when you're up and about," Lee Know said with a devilish smirk.

"That's fine by me," Y/N yawned, eyes fluttering shut.

"She's the only person I know that can sleep so comfortably at the idea of having lots of work to do," Jeongin shook his head with wide eyes.

"Told you, works like a charm," Lee Know laughed quietly at his shocked face.

They all stayed until she fell asleep, leaving just her and Felix in the room in peace.

tagged: @oo-li

[ateez-himari]

Romantic Relationships

"Everyday and night I'm gon' chase you...I'm in love."

.......

ASTRO - Cha Eunwoo (January 17, 2019 - March 31, 2021)

They met shortly after debut through their mutual friendship with Jungkook when he had invited her to a small dinner with other '97 liners as she was already acquainted with a few people present. They were both hesitant to speak to each other at first until the topic of upcoming performances appeared, which then prompted him to ask a few questions about her group and finally broke the ice between them. Having become at ease with one another they exchanged numbers and began texting almost every day, quickly growing close to one another to the point where they took every opportunity possible to spend time together.

Eunwoo decided to make the first move when it came to their relationship and confessed his feelings, a confession the maknae was hesitant to respond to as she was worried about what would happen should they get caught, yet after some reassurance from him she agreed to become exclusive. Despite taking great care in hiding their dates suspicions arose when she was seen greeting ASTRO members rather warmly, specifically her boyfriend, during music shows. Since their fandoms had little interaction between them, the couple was able to constantly wear matching jewelry and he was even able to lend her some clothes without people making the connection.

Unfortunately with ATEEZ quickly rising in popularity her schedule became much too hectic for them to keep seeing each other so they reluctantly agreed to break off their relationship and see what the future holds for them. Despite their separation there are no hard feelings between the two and they are still in contact to this day as they knew it was simply due to their line of work and not the other's loss of interest. For a long while they hoped that the other would reach out to mend their relationship back together yet neither made the first move as they did not want to burden the other with the weight of hiding their relationship.

.......

ATEEZ - Mingi (February 25, 2022 - Present Day)

The two were already relatively close to one another but they grew even more so after the rapper came back from his hiatus, though any romantic possibilities were pushed aside due to the fact that they had been nothing more than friends for around 4 years. One particular night however caution was thrown to the wind when Mingi came into the studio late to find her relentlessly working, his worries turning into their first kiss. At first neither dared to talk about what had happened let alone take part in any sort of skin-ship with each other yet the more time passed, the more unbearable the tension between them grew until one night after a drinking party with the members she ended up blurting her feelings out to him as he was bringing her to her bed. The next morning while the two were on a silent walk he finally brought the subject up, explaining her drunken confession and clarifying that he too felt the same way, that he couldn't stand being "just close friends" anymore.

When they officially entered a romantic relationship it seems as though there was more freedom in their skin-ship, though not enough for fans to notice, the rapper leaving his hand on her waist, their hands unconsciously gravitating towards each other or even a simple hug where his hands seemed much more comfortable on the curves of her body. A few slip ups failed to evade the fandom's eyes however such as their near kiss during one of their tour's concerts where the rapper seemingly forgot their relationship had to be hidden, Himari sitting between his legs whilst his hands rested on her thighs during a logbook and even the vocalist's lack of hesitation when she danced against him during the Waterbomb Festival. The borrowed clothes and matching jewelry within casual wear could not slip past their keen sight either, bringing more attention to their ship with most ruling it as the simple fact that they are very close friends like most group members.

[zoomzooml]

Attention please

Basically TFCheesy is getting it's own sideblog.

Some of the worldbuilding post will be reposted in there ( and probably remastered a bit) and in future it will be developed there.

This blog I'm leaving stricte for fandom things and basically everything that's is not TFCheesy.

Also TFCheesy is currently on hiatus, because I have to take care of some other things unfortunately. Asks are still welcomed but it may be a while before I answer them (which isn't exactly new but it may get worse-- sorry)

So people who are still interested in this project please follow

✨Official TFCheesy blog✨

there isn't anything at all yet but I wanted to already redirect interested people so yeah

[thisaintascenereviews]

How Martin Johnson Beat The (Night) Game

Boys Like Girls released their self-titled debut album in 2006, and it was a smash hit of a record, at least depending on who you talk to. A few songs from that record were minor hits, such as “The Great Escape,” “Thunder,” and “My Hero/Heroine,” but the album was mainly big in the emo / scene subcultures. The band was huge at that time, and from 2006 – 2012, they were big in that world. Hell, their second album, 2009’s Love Drunk, included a feature from an up and coming artist by the name of Taylor Swift (who was well on her way to being the biggest artist of all time). Their self-titled debut is an underrated classic of that scene. It’s aged remarkably well, but in a nostalgic way. There’s a kind of fondness for their brand of cheese-laden, corny, and oddly endearing pop-rock, but that record is a masterclass of pop-rock songwriting. Unfortunately, they fell off by the early 2010s, and understandably so, since the emo subculture was starting to wane in popularity, and that type of pop-rock / pop-punk wasn’t very popular in the mainstream anymore, so the band went their separate ways. They never officially broke up, but they hadn’t released music in more than a decade. That changed in May of this year when the band released comeback single “Blood And Sugar,” and that song is an absolute pop-rock banger, showcasing the band’s ability to craft a fantastic and earworm hook that never leaves your head, unless the thing that’s replacing it is another hook from this band.

Another thing that made that song so good (and the other couple of singles they’ve dropped since) is frontman and principle songwriter Martin Johnson. Johnson has had a very fascinating career in music, because after being the frontman of a very popular band for a handful of years, he turned his talents to songwriting for many popular artists over the last decade, such as Ariana Grande, Avril Lavigne, Hannah Montana (yeah, he wrote a song for the Hannah Montana movie), Gavin DeGraw, Daughty, Jason Derulo, and many more, but in addition to that, he also had a solo project of his own – The Night Game. Releasing his self-titled debut album in 2018, The Night Game caught a lot of people by surprise because of how (and how well) the album emulated sounds and ideas of the 1980s. The lead single “The Outfield” is almost like a lost gem from the mid-80s with its new wave sound and larger than life hook. The rest of the album followed suit, and it reminded me of one of those albums that sounds like an unearthed gem from a bygone era. Johnson also released Dog Years in 2021, and I just found out about that record a few weeks prior to writing this piece, as I’ve been heavily listening to Boys Like Girls’ new singles, but I’ve also gotten heavily obsessed with The Night Game. There’s been a real love for 1980s nostalgia, especially music and movies for some reason, over the last decade or so, and Johnson tapped into that nostalgia for this project. I wanted to talk about both records in some capacity for a couple of reasons: one, they’re good and they’re worth hearing if you haven’t listened to them yet, and two, there’s something to be said about a frontman of a once-popular band making music that’s honestly kind of better than his original band. The Night Game is kind of what makes the new Boys Like Girls songs so good, because you can hear that 1980s influence on those new songs. The Night Game is to Martin Johnson like what Soul Punk was to Fall Out Boy frontman Patrick Stump; when Fall Out Boy went on hiatus, Stump released a solo pop record, also weirdly encompassing a lot of ideas and sounds from the 1980s (but instead of going with new wave and alternative music, he went with Michael Jackson and Prince), and when Fall Out Boy got back together a couple of years later, you could hear the influence of Soul Punk on their new material, because they started to get very pop-friendly. Even on their newest album, you can still hear traces of it, especially with the band moving into an amalgamation of soul, rock, pop, R&B, and many other styles of music. It was almost shocking hearing Johnson with The Night Game, because certain people didn’t take him seriously with Boys Like Girls, and to an extent, I get it. They were a very teenage-oriented band with sappy and cheesy lyrics, but The Night Game is much more adult, both in terms of its sound and lyricism. Hell, Johnson himself sounds fantastic on these records, and his voice got a lot better within the handful of years since he released a record with Boys Like Girls. Not only did his voice get a lot better, I really wanted to highlight these records, because this is a great example of a project that really showcases a songwriter’s strengths. If you really enjoyed the pop songwriting of Boys Like Girls, you’ll like The Night Game, but a lot of these songs are genuinely great pop songs that have very slick and catchy hooks. Johnson knows his way around a hook that’ll get stuck in your head, and he’s only gotten better with time, as a lot of these hooks are razor sharp. Dog Years, his sophomore (and seemingly last) album from 2021, is a bit more varied, as it includes elements of R&B, pop, alternative, soul, and more styles than just 1980s new wave and alternative, but the hooks are very strong, nonetheless.

Martin Johnson isn’t quite a household name, but you know his work, whether it’s with Boys Like Girls or with The Night Game. I wanted to talk about these albums in a way that’s less of a review and more so in a way that’s merely promoting them, because these are great albums, and Johnson is a very good songwriter. I don’t have a lot of negatives to say, other than some of the lyrics on these albums aren’t great, but they aren’t bad by any means. A lot of the lyrics on these two albums are about relationships gone awry, but that’s nothing new for Johnson. Fans of 1980s alternative, pop, and rock should really check these out. If you remember Boys Like Girls being cringy, bad, or generic pop-rock, I’d recommend three things – listening to their debut again (and try to look at the record from the perspective of someone that would have loved it back then), listen to The Night Game’s records, and then listen to Boys Like Girls’ new songs, specifically in that order, because you can hear the improvement and the progression from those records to these new songs. These records are catchy, fun, and interesting, even if they aren’t the most innovative or introspective. I can still admire great and catchy songwriting, and that’s exactly what Martin is good at, so if Boys Like Girls drop an album this year, you bet I’m going to be listening to it.

[astriiformes]

For the writers ask meme: 1, 2, 17, 35

1 - Do you know how you want the story to end when you start, or are you just stumbling through the figurative wilderness hoping to find a road?

I usually know how stories will end, but not necessarily where, if that makes sense. There have been exceptions in both cases, but usually I have some idea of how the central crisis will be resolved and general emotional beats I want the ending to have, but not exactly what that's going to look like. The former gives me something specific to work towards and lends emotional coherence to the work as a whole, but even when I'm working towards a particular ending scene, I don't always have a totally clear picture of it.

Like, I knew "Several Witches Are Typing" would end with the team getting back to Willow's house and her dads discovering them, but hadn't necessarily fleshed out everything beyond that when I started the story. Sometimes I'll even have really specific details pinned down but be missing another big, important chunk (by the time I actually started writing "Aurum Horizontale" I knew Keyleth was going to give Percy the friendship bracelet made from the fragments of his exploded gun, but wasn't entirely sure if Percy was going to leave with Vox Machina or not -- an uncertainty that I ultimately realized he would have himself, so I dug into that).

I don't like having nothing though. The stories I don't have a clear ending for are also, not coincidentally often the stories that end up abandoned. Every time I think my excitement at the start is enough to propel me through, I end up being wrong.

On the flip side, the stories I do have endings in mind for are the ones I hang onto for years and years, and am confident I have a shot at actually finishing even when I've taken long hiatuses. I know exactly how "I Breathed a Song Into the Air" is going to end, as well as the transgender Marty McFly WIP I've had in my drafts for ages. I also have a pretty solid idea of the ending of my trans Caleb Wittebane fic ("Go Down to the Netherworld, Plant Grapes) and the TOH Sherlock Holmes pastiche that I haven't even officially started writing yet. And I'm working on defining the ending to the longer of my two Pentiment WIPs ("Beharren ist Eine Kunst") for exactly this reason, so hopefully that can lend anyone interested in those stories some hope even if my updates are uh, inconsistent.

2 - Talk about a notable time a narrative or character has looked you dead in the eyes and said “fuck your plan, here’s what we’re actually doing.”

Usually this happens because they've decided to make the story longer (or I've misjudged how long a scene would actually be...)

Unfortunately the best example I had of this was a fic I'm still contemplating ways to rework -- I had a oneshot I was working on mid-S2/S3 TOH hiatus that collided with another idea of mine and had the potential to be a really interesting, long story, but ultimately hit me during something of a writing slump, and the show restarted before I got much of it written. I'd love to at least clean up the original oneshot into something postable one day, but would have to scrap a lot of my favorite parts of the longer story now since I don't think it can be repurposed into something I like.

Alas. It was a really cool thing to have happen (writing two things at once and realizing there was enough fascinating thematic overlap to turn it into a single story if I played my cards right) and I hope someday it happens with a fic I can actually get off the ground.

17 - What is your favorite line you’ve ever written?

A more recent example, but I'm awfully fond of this one from my Pentiment exchange fic, "Long Upon the Land" (Paul, my boy Paul)

It wasn’t fair, and the older he grew, the more he found the gentleness and piety he’d always tried to cultivate tested by the bitter serpent that had curled itself around his heart, whispering that one day he ought to spit back “Fathers, provoke not your children to indignation, lest they be discouraged,” with a less-than-righteous venom the next time he was told obedience was a virtue.

35 - Tell us about a character who’s very different than you who you love a whole lot

A recent one, but I am extremely fond of Magdalene Druckeryn, even as someone who is a lot more like Andreas myself. She's so incredibly stubborn and plucky, an a lovely example of how to do female protagonists in historical fiction that are constrained by the position of women in society but don't let themselves be completely limited by it (and, have lovely and encouraging relationships with other women of the same time period instead of falling prey to the idea that "interesting" historical women have to be an exception). The game gave her such incredibly demanding shoes to fill as an Act III protagonist and she does so wonderfully. I lack her particular brand of snark and courage -- my own looks quite different -- but I love her, and I'm loving having a fic project where I get to write her, too.

[daphinteresting]

Blog Officially Closed. :(

Hi, DaphInteresting here.

I have come on here to announce that I have decided to close my tumblr art blog here indefinitely. :(

From this post onward, I will not be posting any more art or any posts on this blog. I have a few reasons of why I’ve decided to make this decision and if you’re interested to know them, please read onward from here.

Firstly, with being a self-employed worker, I’m very busy on a daily basis and the most difficult thing I find about sharing my artwork online is having to run so many SNS accounts. So, to reduce my stress level and to keep myself from facing a complete burn-out (which can be a nasty thing to occur) I feel like I have to limit the amount of accounts I am running here. Unfortunately, within having this account on hiatus, I thought over it and saw that tumblr would be the one I would have to let go. I have had a tumblr account since 2011. A very long time. I remember it just like it was yesterday when I first opened this blog. This very blog holds a special place in my heart since it is one I have had up for such a long time. I had good times here and so very much appreciate the support I got on my art that I had posted here. This blog will always and forever be cherished in my heart, even with me having to close it now.

Secondly, tumblr was once a good blogging site in it’s time but as you all should know it’s faced some problems in it’s time as well. These problems still go on to this very day. The porn blogs... This has been a ever-growing problem with tumblr. At one point, tumblr said they were going to fix the problem by getting rid of these type of accounts but yet to have done so. If anything I see more porn blogs following me and interacting on my posts than ever before, even sending me weird, inappropriate videos, and messages often. It’s horrible, and I’ve pretty much grown tired of it at this point. It seems tumblr isn’t going to fix this problem since this has been going on for a while now, or maybe they can’t since there is just so many of these accounts that they are unable to get rid of all of them. Either way, enough is enough. Tumblr has no doubt gone downhill because of this problem

Many users had already left because of this problem, making the site feel a bit empty, overall. I won’t fully leave tumblr as I still have two non-art blogs that I use here from time to time, just to blog on as I enjoy blogging. But still, I will not make it a priority of posting my artwork on this site anymore. Out of all my blogs I have, this one gets followed by porn blogs the most. It’s super unfortunate since this is my second most popular blog that I own. I worked hard on it to get the many amount of followers that I have. It really sucks at knowing that some of those followers are probably spam and porn accounts. But whatever.

Thirdly and lastly, I’ve noticed something which is also a huge problem with using social media to promote your artwork on in general is there is so many art thieves out there. It’s just getting worst by the day where there are ones who come to steal my artwork and repost it without my permission. No credit given either. They even come to sell my art without my permission and make a profit out of it. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. I had already recognized that this would be the danger you’d have to face when posting up your artwork through social media. That it’s likely to get stolen but it just so sad and pathetic that we live in a world with people who won’t do the right thing. All I want to do when I post MY artwork is show it to people who will respect it and appreciate it, not come to take fame and fortune from it. I work too hard on all of my illustrations and 'I' myself like to get recognized for it. ME. I could go on a long lecture about this but this obviously isn’t the place and time for it. Bottom line, I think the more I reduce the social media accounts I post up my artwork at, the less it can become stolen where it gets into so many people’s hands to do whatever they want with it. These thieves are desperate too as they will come to even take your art with even watermarks being all over it. As I said, it’s very sad and pathetic. But it’s also a sad reality that we have to live with too. Stealing is clearly a problem even outside the internet, where people often get robbed these days wherever they are at at any time of day. Totally and utterly out of hand.

So yeah, there you go. My reasons for closing down my beloved DaphInteresting art blog here. I like to think the reasons I gave here are understanding. To be honest, I feel like tumblr won’t be the only social media account I close down either. In the future, there will be likely more until the point I’m probably only using one or two social medias to promote my artwork at. I see it as being the less the better. Just have to narrow down my options. :P

Overall, with the ‘toxicity’ put to the side, of course, I still like to thank all the genuine supporters of my work here as tumblr isn’t clearly just filled with porn blogs and porn users. You ones are very cherished by me and I appreciate you all so very much. If you are a genuine follower of my work here and would like to keep updated on it, you can follow me on the social medias that I run with my art at now. This is currently the only social medias I’m posting up my artwork at until another announcement is made that I come to close another one again. Look through the ‘keep reading’ below to access them. Furthermore, if you want you can even follow me on them. I have put all my art and posts here on private so only this post will come to show when you visit this account. I decided to not leave up any of my art and posts because really there would be no point to do so and plus it could help to reduce the stealing of my art while at it. 

Again, thank you to all the supporters! Out of 430 followers, if you are not a porn or bot blog out of that and came to follow me because you genuinely liked my artwork and wanted to keep up with it, again you are very appreciated. I would love to have your continued support on my other accounts if you’re interested to continue to see and follow me throughout my art journey. ❤

With that said, I bid farewell to this long-lived account. 😢

Ko-Fi Page @DaphInteresting

[ineveraskedforanyofthis]

5/21/22 - I’m Back with Vol. 6 and a Secret Schedule!

Hey again, everybody! It’s been a while.

It’s been about 2 months and I’ve had a lot of time to think. I should catch everyone up to speed.

First, some of you might have noticed that I’ve touched up the Mangadex page a bit during the interim with better resolution cover art and adding what the final chapter is. 

Also, about that final chapter, it’s not actually the chapter called "Hissaku." I found out where the official serialization of the manga by Shinchousha is: on a website called kuragebunch.com. There, there’s actually an additional chapter that’s not in the Amazon Kindle version of Volume 12: a chapter called, "Yarika" which isn't even a part of the final 12th volume. Don’t worry about it though! I was able to get the raws for it so I’ll be able to scanlate that in due time as well.

Second, you might be curious what brought me back from the seemingly “indefinite” hiatus. I think you all deserve an explanation for this selfish new development...

In my previous post, I claimed that I felt my Japanese translations weren’t up to snuff and that I was going to take a break to take a side-gig in order to get better. Unfortunately, this did not pan out well. I’ve been learning as much as I can through Youtube videos and analyzing both “anime trope” Japanese and actual spoken Japanese in comparison to my own translations. This, along with the natural passage of time, has made me think that my previous superstitions were more of an overreaction. As the overburdening feelings have passed, I feel like I can just continue where I left off whether or not if I’ve actually improved my Japanese translation/scanlation skills... I hope my scanlation will still be enjoyable for you, the readers, and still holds true to the original version's meaning and style.

Another big reason I came back is because I’ve got “the itch” again! Just like when the anime left such a big hole in me that I just had to read the manga (and then learn Japanese and scanlation to spread it to English-speaking audiences when I realized there were no on-going scanlations at the time...), I’ve recently come up with another surprise plan! (And it’s not like this scanlation plan has gone terribly wrong yet, so I hope that nothing happens for this one either!)

SAVE THE DATE: October 13th!!! Can you guess what it is? Trust me, it’ll be worth it!

The plan is that Chapter 47 reveals something really, really special and I want all of us to know about it before it happens on October 13th! However, I’ve only uploaded up to Chapter 29. There’s so many chapters in between which is why I’ve set up this tenable upload schedule! I’m sure the surprise is really obvious but, if you still don’t know, I guess we’ll just have to wait until Chapter 47 comes out to know for sure!

Third, I’ve been considering having my own versions of Chapter 1-7 just for posterity’s sake (so everything is in a complete package all prepared by me...) This would bring up many complications. The first complication is I couldn’t fit it into the schedule unless I forego my humanity; so, I’ll just leave it for after this current schedule. Another complication would be the big jump in quality. Honestly, I feel like I’m a much better scanlator now than when I started out. If I made Chapter 1-7 now and a reader had to subject themselves to a sheer dip in quality from Chapter 7 with my current skills to Chapter 8 from when I just started out... I wouldn’t want that for anyone. Unfortunately, to fix these “time continuity annoyances,” I would have to revise my beginning chapters as well so that there’s no jumps in quality. Again, this would take way too long, so I’ll leave it for after the current schedule.

And I think that’s it! I’m glad to be back. Please let me know what you think about anything I just posted and please let me know any tips or criticisms you have that could help me improve myself or my scanlations. Like the schedule says, I’ll see you all with the beginning of Volume 6 next week! (Text translations for Volume 8 might be late...) Bye!

-agnyS

(P.S. I'm goin' to cry baby tears when we get to the end. I can already feel it now.)

(P.P.S. Curious individuals might have looked up the manga on kuragebunch.com to try and get ahead of the curve as some of the chapters there are free to read and... Trust me, it’s not worth it right now, I think. I, too, have succumbed to my own curiosity, and I did look at the entirety of the last chapter. On top of being all in Japanese, nothing made sense. With only what we know now, it wouldn’t be as impactful/meaningful than if we just all wait. So, absolutely do not cheat, okay? Thanks.)

[adiwriting]

Sunday Mornings 7/?

Notes: Hope you guys are still enjoying this thing 7 weeks in! If there’s every any domestic Sunday morning bliss you want to see, hit me up! We’ve got plenty of time left in hiatus for requests. 

Week 7: 

Michael wakes up to the sound of his phone going off and he reaches out quickly to silence it before it wakes Alex up, too. Unfortunately, in his rush to silence his phone, it also ends the incoming call. He pulls the phone to his face to see what on Earth had somebody calling him so early in the morning that even Alex isn’t awake yet. 

The missed call is from Liz and that’s when Michael notices that he has 4 text messages from her. 

Liz (4:05am): Are you awake? I need you to come get me. 

Liz (4:10am): I get that you’re sleeping, but my towing options are slim and all involve me calling either a misogynistic pig or a racist one. 

Liz (4:20am): I’m gonna get murdered out here. 

Liz (4:25am): Please don’t make me call Max for help, I’m not ready to see him yet. 

Michael immediately calls Liz back and she picks up on the first ring. 

“I thought you were in California,” he whispers, trying not to wake Alex. As carefully as he can, he crawls out of bed and grabs the first pair of pants that he can find and throws them on.

“I was, I’m back,” she answers. “Or… almost back. My car broke down just outside of San Patricio.” 

“Damn.” 

He instantly knows what she means now about being scared to call anyone else. The guy that runs San Patricio’s sole shop is such a notorious racist that even those who grew up in Roswell know not to ever call him. And the only other shop in Roswell besides Michael’s is run by a family of sexist pigs who are currently in the middle of a harassment lawsuit. 

“See, I’m going to end up in some creepy House of Wax museum if you don’t come,” she whines and he chuckles softly. 

“You are not, I’m coming to get you,” he says. 

He grabs a shirt from the dresser and steps out into the hall. 

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” 

“Ping me your location,” he says, moving to grab a pair of sneakers from the entryway. “It’ll take me a bit. I’ve gotta drive out to get a tow truck before I can come to you. Are you okay? Do you want me to stay on the line?” 

Michael hears her sigh of relief and knows in his heart that this is the right thing to do, even if the idea of leaving Alex naked in bed on a Sunday is the last thing he truly wants to do. 

“You don’t need to,” she tries to say, but Michael doesn’t buy it. She sounds nervous, even though she’s the toughest, most self-sufficient woman he’s ever met. 

“Give me a minute, I’m just going to tell Alex where I’m going,” he says. 

He doesn’t bother hanging up the phone, but pulls it away from his ear. When he turns back to the hallway, Alex is already standing in it, leaning against the wall. He’s got his crutch in one hand and is rubbing his eyes with the other. He’s in nothing but a pair of boxers, looking adorably confused and groggy. 

“Where are you going?” Alex complains, reaching out his hand to try and get Michael to come back to bed. It’s tempting, and Michael wants to, but he can’t. 

“Liz needs my help,” he explains, gesturing towards the phone in his hand. 

Alex blinks a few times and his body tenses as he becomes more alert. 

“I thought she was still in California.” 

“She’s back. And I’ve gotta go get her. She’s on the side of the road, I can’t just leave her there.” 

“Did she say what was wrong?” Alex asks. “Why is she back? Did something happen? What about her research?” 

“It’s too early for so many questions,” he complains. 

“Sorry. What’s wrong?” he asks. 

Michael just shrugs. “She just said that her car broke down.” 

Alex nods and moves into the living room to grab a pair of sweatpants and t-shirt that had been left on the floor last night in their haste to undress each other. 

“What are you doing?” Michael asks, confused as he watches Alex sit down on the couch and start to dress himself. 

“Going with you,” he says, looking at Michael like he’s lost his mind. 

“But it’s Sunday,” he argues. “You’re supposed to stay in bed all day.” 

“No, it’s Sunday, I’m supposed to be with you all day,” Alex counters 

“Smooth, Manes. Real smooth.” Michael smiles uncontrollably. He should protest. Let Alex go back to bed and assure him that he’ll be back in time for breakfast, but he doesn’t. 

Alex moves back into the bedroom and comes out holding his prosthesis, his liner and sock tucked under his arm. He moves towards the door. Michael gives him a curious look. 

“I’ll put it on in the car,” Alex explains. 

He sets the prosthesis down so that he can slip his shoe on. Once he’s done, he rubs his face one more time and runs his hands through his hair, making it stand on end even worse than before. He looks utterly adorable and Michael is going to make sure he knows it, just as soon as they get back home from picking Liz up. Because no matter what Alex might say, Sundays are most certainly for staying in bed all day…

“We’re just giving her a tow, right?” 

“Right,” Michael assures him, grabbing the keys from the hook. He helps Alex back up and takes the prosthesis from him so he can navigate better. Then, he opens the front door and follows Alex out, locking the door behind him. 

“Did you ping your location yet?” Michael brings the phone back up to his ear to ask. 

“You sneaky little brats,” Liz says, sounding shocked. “You got together and neither of you told me?!” 

Michael is confused for a moment before he remembers that Liz is on social media even less than he is. Meaning, she’s not on it at all. So she has no way of knowing that Alex is his boyfriend now. The few times they’ve talked since she’s been gone, they’ve stuck strictly to science related topics. He hadn’t thought to tell her, and clearly, neither had Alex. 

“Uh, yeah?” he says, unsure how to read her reaction. Alex is one of her best friends and Michael likes to think that Liz and he are friendly enough, but maybe she’ll be mad about the Maria of it all? 

“How long has this been going on?” she asks. Michael glances at Alex who takes the phone away from his ear and puts it on speaker. 

“How long has it been official or how long has it been going on?” Alex asks as Michael waits for Alex to get his seatbelt buckled before turning the truck on and pulling out of the drive. 

“Both. Obviously,” she says. 

“We got back together seven weeks and three days ago,” Alex says, causing Michael to do a double take. 

“You counted?” he whispers. Alex shrugs. 

“Nerd,” he teases, fondly. Alex just winks at him. 

He sets the phone between then and starts the process of putting on his leg. 

“We’ve been on and off since right before graduation,” Alex explains. 

“Maria told me that Michael was your museum guy but I didn’t know it was ever more than that night… wow.” Michael hears Liz whistle then rattle off something in Spanish and it’s far too early to try and translate. 

“Is she pinging us her location?” Michael asks. 

“Tell Michael that I’m trying but it won’t locate me. I barely have enough bars for this phone call to go through,” she explains. 

“And you all gave me a hard time when I suggested we all get chipped,” Alex says, giving Michael a look that has him rolling his eyes. 

“Because I’m not a lost puppy,” he grumbles. “Just help her figure out where she is,” he adds, effectively ending the discussion before they can get into that argument again. 

He zones out as Alex takes the lead on walking her through looking for mile markers to help them figure out her exact location. Which is good, because by the time they finish with that, they are at the junkyard and Michael is rushing into the office to grab the keys to the tow. 

“GPS is saying we’ll be there in 40 minutes, so you know that means Michael will get us there in 30,” Alex says, as they both climb into the tow truck. 

“Perfect, plenty of time for you to give me the gossip,” she says and Michael groans. 

“It’s too early for this, Ortecho,” he complains. 

“You’ve been banging my best friend for years and I didn’t know,” she argues and then her tone completely changes to one of concern when she says, “Did Maria know?” 

Alex grows visibility tense at the mention of Maria. While they are all working on being friends, there’s still a ways to go before things are 100% again, and Michael is well aware that there’s more that happened with Maria and Alex’s friendship than he’s entirely aware of. 

“Bring up Max, that’ll shut her up,” Michael says. 

It’s not too early for Michael to translate the next thing that Liz says. He’s had all the Spanish curse words memorized since he was a kid. 

“I’m trying to be supportive here, you don’t have to be an ass,” she says. 

“Starting with congratulations and avoiding talk of exes is usually a good place to start,” Michael counters, refusing to feel bad. 

“Of course. I’m sorry guys,” she says, honestly sounding it. “I’m just surprised. Of course I’m happy for you both. So long as you’re both happy.” 

Michael looks over at Alex, who reaches out for his hand and smiles softly before saying, “Immensely.” 

Fuck. Michael loves Alex so much. He wants to wax poetically about it for hours, but he’ll save it for when Liz isn’t on the other end of the line… But when they get home, Michael is going to have some serious words with him. 

Alex licks his lips and Michael has to let go of his hand and look at the road if he wants to avoid crashing. He shakes his head, forcing himself to focus. 

“For the record, Ortecho,” Michael says. “Alex and I haven’t been banging for years. We make love.” 

That earns him an amused chuckle from Alex and a shocked one from Liz. 

“¡Ay! Mikey! Okay,” she says. “I didn’t realize.”

“Well now you do,” he says. 

He’s not really sure why it even matters. It never has before. For the past twelve years, he’s kept his relationship with Alex between he and Alex, and yet… It matters. It’s like Alex said last week, it’s annoying that people just assume their relationship couldn’t possibly be deeper than a consistent hookup. Like the fact that they are two men makes their love story somehow less than. 

“Well, I won’t push anymore,” she says. “Clearly it’s a sensitive subject. But just so we’re clear, whenever either of you are ready, I’d love to hear your story. You both deserve the world and if you found that in each other, then that’s wonderful.” 

“For somebody who doesn’t believe in romance or love, you seem to have no problem wishing it for others,” Alex says, an unspoken question lingering in the air. 

Liz sighs. “Yeah, well… It’s not that I don’t believe in love. It’s just that my love stripped me of my agency and then didn’t fight for me. So… Max can screw himself.” 

“Liz,” Michael says seriously, cutting off whatever sympathy Alex is clearly getting ready to respond with. “Take it from somebody who gets it more than you’ll ever know. The people you love will hurt you. They’ll make decisions without you that impact your life. It sucks. It hurts. But it doesn’t hurt more than being alone. Forgive him.” 

“But—” 

“No,” he cuts her off, before she can give an excuse. “Forgive him.” 

“He hasn’t even apologized,” she says. “He didn’t come after me. He just let me go.” 

“And you left,” he says, not unkindly, but he’s also not about to let her change the narrative. Michael did that too many times and it got him nowhere. He loves Max and… yeah, he won’t ever admit it to her, but he loves Liz too. So he won’t let her make the same mistakes he did. 

“Michael is right,” Alex cuts in. “Max has his own list of ways you wronged him too. And if you both let it, that list will keep you apart for years. It’s not worth it. Not when you really love somebody.” 

Alex unbuckles his seatbelt to slide over in the truck, so he’s right next to Michael and can lean his head on his shoulder. Michael wraps his arm around Alex and holds him close. 

Liz is silent on the other end, and that’s fine. Alex and Michael give her the time and space she needs to take in what they’ve just said. 

Alex reaches up to thread his fingers through the hand that’s holding him close. Michael places a kiss to the top of his head. 

“I love you,” he whispers. “Thank you for always coming home.” 

“Thank you for giving me a home to always come back to,” Alex whispers back. 

It takes them another hour and a half to get Liz’s car to the junkyard where Michael promises he’ll fix it tomorrow, even though it’s his day off. Then Liz refuses to take no for an answer, insisting on cooking them breakfast as a thank you. They get stuck at the Crashdown for a while, catching up with Rosa, Arturo, and Liz. By the time they are finally back home, it’s just after 11, and yet, it doesn’t take hardly any convincing to get Alex to climb back into bed with him so that Michael can make good on the promise he made to himself this morning. He spends the next several hours making sure Alex feels fucking worshiped like the vision he is.  

Tagged: @callieramics​​ @redstalkingdeath​

As always if anyone wants to be tagged, let me know!

[mikroparadise]

this is long overdue...

knowing my luck this isn’t going to reach that many of my followers but I figured I should make this post anyway.

I’ve been away for quite a while now. Some of you might have noticed that I kind of just disappeared and never even officially went on “hiatus.” The reason for that is basically, I’ve just had a lot of shitty shit going on in my life that caused me to 1) stop writing for almost a year now, and 2) almost completely disappear from tumblr and group chats, etc. I’ve tried to come back a couple times but it just hasn’t stuck, and the last time that I was really actually active on my blog I dropped some hints that I wasn’t doing well in my personal life, particularly in this ask, and that I would tell you guys about it eventually and just haven’t gotten around to it because my situation still hasn’t completely resolved, but I think it’s about time. So here it goes:

I won’t get into why, but a few years ago I got myself into a marriage that I have regretted almost every year since. And I won’t get into every detail, but suffice to say, it’s been shitty. I’ve been telling myself I was going to leave for years, but every time I backed out because of various reasons. I was afraid of what other people would think, I was afraid of losing the friends that I had made through my husband, and I was afraid of the confrontation of telling my husband that I wanted a divorce, among other things. Then over the course of 2019 and the first half of 2020, things in my marriage got much worse.

(I was contemplating on elaborating, but I’d have to put trigger warnings and stuff so if anyone wants to know more, my asks are open.)

Suffice to say for now that it became apparent that I had to get out. It took a couple months to coordinate in secret, but in July I was able to get out. I packed up all my earthly possessions, stuffed them into the back of my ‘05 Subaru Outback, and moved 6 hours away to a new city.

The situation with my marriage has remained largely unchanged since then, besides me moving across the state. Unfortunately when my husband starts begging I’m putty in his hands, hence how I managed to stay with him all those years while wanting to leave, so I haven’t gotten the divorce yet and we’re still “talking about it”. Most of these past 8 months I’ve spent in limbo, being torn between feeling bad about leaving, thinking that he’s changed and wanting to move back, and realizing that there is a good chance I’m being manipulated into going back and that nothing will have changed, and that I’d be right back where I started.

Couple that with being completely on my own for the first time in my life and the stress that comes with that, plus the pandemic, and I’ve just been totally drained of any energy that I could have put into my blog or working on my multiple WIPs. Things have started to level out though. I’m pretty sure of myself, I’ve had some time to recover mentally from all of the psychological not-niceness that I was put under, and I’m pretty optimistic about my future, so I think it’s about time I come back. I’ve even gotten over my writer’s block and real tangible progress has been made on my main WIP!

On that note, though, I’d like to end this post by giving a shout to my literal rock, @shadowsremedy. I have not a fucking clue what I would have done without you. You were there for me when I was losing my grip on reality, you reminded me who the fuck I was, and you gave me the strength to get the fuck out of that situation. I have no idea what I did to deserve a friend like you, but I’m grateful. I love you 💖💞💕💗💖💞💕

[radramblog]

Shameless self-promotion (kinda)

I’ve kinda been meaning to talk about other things what I do, so here’s a bit of that, I guess. I should probably get used to talking myself up, seeing as I am actively on the job hunt at the moment.

It’s worth noting that even as this post is titled “self-promotion”, this blog is really the only public content I am making that is just me, myself, and I. The things I’m going to be discussing have me contributing, but I’m not like a lead organisational entity or what have you.

It’s also worth noting that these are some instances of some Niche Nerd Shit. So keep that in mind. If you don’t like Magic: The Gathering or Pokemon, I’ve got bad news for you.

Might as well go in the order I just put up.

Commander’s Herald is a website that I believe was formed kind of as an offshoot in part to EDHREC’s Articles section, as a hub for deck techs and columns about MTG’s Most Popular Format (it’s official!). I’m not sure how well this is going to go for them, but it’s been chugging along since the start of the year without having the backup EDHREC has of, you know, being attached to an incredibly useful database, so fair enough.

I am not a writer for Commander’s Herald, to be clear. I don’t know if I play enough of the format to really contribute something useful on a weekly/fortnightly basis, even though I do talk about the game weekly on this very blog.

What I was a part of was the CUT! series run by one Travis Stanley on the site. It’s effectively a contest about creative deckbuilding under tight-ish restrictions- as an example, the first round required a deck with only Standard cards, 10+ Artifacts, and a Commander (or pair) from Commander Legends. It’s been really interesting how these have turned out so far, and the concept sounded really fun to me, so I put myself down to be part of the…show?

Many months later, I got my shot in as part of the fifth heat (though I think each round is completely separate), tying in to the release of D&D: Adventures in the Forgotten Realms- thus I had to build a deck with a commander built around that. I’m not going to go into it that deeply, since part of the contest is writing up a 800-900ish word dech teck to go with the list, but you can find the article here.

My Drizzt Do’Urden list did, in fact, make me go to the finals, for which the post (and new decklist and post) can be found here. It’s probably too early to tell at time of writing, but it looks like I have a solidly commanding (heh) lead to win that too with my Minn list, so that’s pretty sick.

I do enjoy this sort of creative build challenge a lot. It’s reminding me of my first Cube build, where my options were heavily restricted because of, well, myself (and yet it ended up not being cheap), and it gives me a great excuse to strut my particular brand of deckbuilding. In this case, to a somewhat larger audience than this blog gets.

Speaking of slightly larger audiences, I suppose I should talk about the podcast I’ve been on, The Writer’s Locke.

While I’ve mentioned the Nuzlocke Forums multiple times on this blog, I haven’t really gone into the weeds of it- I’m thinking of making a much grander post about it in future. But I am a longtime lurker of said forums, and due to the marginally increased presence of Aussie dorks, gravitated towards the writers/storylockes corners of the site’s membership.

In case it wasn’t obvious from me maintaining a very silly blog for a decently long time, I’ve felt for a while that writing was probably my most viable creative outlet, and as a result, I’ve felt for a while that I should contribute something to this corner of the internet, considering how much it means to me. Unfortunately, I’m about as confident in my creative writing skills as I am my saxophone skills (in that it’s been a very long while since I tried and I’m not sure I had any promise then), I’m terrible at starting and committing to projects, and I’m pretty shy, so I haven’t really gotten anywhere on that front.

However, an opportunity arose when some of said Aussie Dorks started to organise a podcast by and for the membership of this community. A half-audiobook half-discussion series that is utterly and extremely devoted to niche Pokemon fanfiction. For the first season, I ended up in the latter (discussion) half of that spectrum for three episodes, bringing somewhat of an outsider’s perspective to the whole thing- after all, even if I have been part of the community for many years now, that doesn’t mean I know jack or shit about how to write things and what makes stories good. (I mean, I know a bit, but yknow). I’ll link the forum posts for those episodes here, though they should be available on most podcast-based platforms:

-Episode 8, where we discussed Protagonists,

-Episode 9, where the topic was, of all things, Gijinkas,

-and Episode 10, which was about Worldbuilding.

The second season of the cast is still ongoing, albeit after a bit of a hiatus (life happens, baby), and for this one I’m signed up not as a discusser but as a reader for one of the fics that makes up the audiobook section of the podcast. In particular, I’m reading Carousel, a very low-Pokemon high-feelings, nonstandard sort of piece, and I believe the one that headlines every episode in the season. Like, for some they’ll just do a couple chapters and leave the rest for you to go through, such that we can show off multiple people’s voices and multiple people’s writing in one season of podcast, but seeing as Carousel has relatively short chapters and neatly fits one per planned episode of the cast, we’ve just got me doing the whole thing of it.

Being on a podcast, even one as ultimately low-key as this one, has been a bit of an interesting experience. Recording those discussion segments with Rainey and Garchomp (who also happens to be Carousel’s writer) was a lot of fun, and though it’s a bit more stressful, I am having a good time lending my voice to the story. If nothing else, it’s decent practice for D&D and the like, though I’m still convinced that my voice for Suicune (iirc she’s supposed to sound, like, “smoky”, which is not a thing my voice does) is pretty terrible. Considering how awkward the protagonist is, though, I think I’m a good fit for that at the very least.

I wouldn’t actually know, though. I haven’t listened to any of the episodes with my voice work in them. I know not liking the sound of your own voice is fairly common, since you don’t sound how you think you do, but I find hearing my own voice bloody abrasive. I was thinking about writing a whole post about it, actually, but I guess this is that. I was kind of hoping that this whole process would get me more used to it, but that hasn’t happened so far, obviously. I would like to be on a more casual podcast at some point, it seems like a lot of fun, although adding to the legion of white_dude_with_podcast.wav feeds isn’t really something I’m the most interested in.

Oh right here’s some links.

-Episode 1, where I read chapter 1,

-Episode 2, chapter 2,

-etc, etc. We’re currently up to the 6th episode of the 10-episode season, for reference.

I guess that’s it, there’s only really the two of them so far. Ultimately, while I’m much lower on free time than I used to be, I would like to be producing more I the realm of #content. As long as it keeps being fun and interesting, I want to be doing it. I guess it’s just a question of how long that ends up being, and how I find myself doing it.

But I think that’s a problem for future me.

[gdsplay]

Don't get me wrong I'm on your side but I don't think it's that simple.. you can't compare top's scandal to sr's. You just can't. Bs is so much bigger, so much more complex there's so much going on, so much the judges/police need to uncover and understand before they can make a decision. Of course the trial is going to take longer. Apparently they'll try to wrap it up by the end of June but who knows. It doesn't matter either way. His stans will continue to cry about his innocence and mistreatment, no matter the verdict. I just hope he'll have the decency to stay retired and keep his mouth shut. And that the members continue to do the same. If they ever choose to come back they'll show that BB is still BB as four, reassuring our part of the fandom, disappointing the other part. It's tricky. It's not black and white. And at the end we don't and will never know what happened, who is innocent or guilty or supportive or not. We can only go by the facts and (as little as it is) rn all we officially know is that BB has resigned as four, hopefully (and probably) with plans to come back (at Coachella lol). A piece of advice: don't waste your energy fighting ot5s, as tempting as it might be, it's not worth it. They're set in their ways unfortunately.

I want to clarify a few issues. I’ve seemed to of attracted the wrong idea. I am no where close to comparing Seungri’s crime to T.O.P’s scandal. My apologies if that’s how my post applied to some of you reading it. I am glad you mentioned this so I can clear that up. My point of opinion was meaning: T.O.P receiving a probation for small marijuana usage that could NEVER compare to Seungri’s perverted docile self who still has yet to have an actual prison sentence or any final announcement of legal trouble is ridiculous. It is unbelievable to sit here and think how one that isn’t anywhere near problematic to receive a sentence while the other still walks freely having a longer wait. This whole trial should not be taking this long. Last year reports announced they would make a final decision by May of 2020. It’s never ending. As far as I’m not even close to being worried on seeing his mug shot of a face he will not be returning anywhere, not even social media usage. He’s done, ruined and hated. He may have his fandom of brainwashed idiots to March behind him but sooner or later they’re going to get a taste of reality with not hearing from him again. That is why I said consider your precious court hearings and photos as the last you will ever get of him. I do enjoy to release my feelings about the whole situation still occurring, thinking how I never could’ve assumed this fandom would stoop so low for not paying attention or looking into his direction like the other members for them to pull this act and sincerely think they ‘have’ to support him when they barely did before all of this mess it’s quite hilarious but pathetic to witness. I could careless if anyone of those criminal supporters try and bite back at me, their reality is coming closer than they think. Bigbang has proved all ready that they can still be ‘Bigbang’ without ex-member. Yes even without content. I have no worries of their success to continue on. My main issue is watching the four of Bigbang receive such backlash and hate for a cause they had no business or involvement in. That is where the angers seeps in. That comeback is needing to drop to really fix their image the best way possible and escape having Seungri linked to them. I hope there is a cure for this fandom when that time comes of their return. They’re so lost anymore it’s hard to think they could change. Maybe they will pack their bags and leave if they can’t process seeing Bigbang stand as four. The newborn vips of all active vips should be the most aware. Due to the mass inactivity of most vips I think it’s safe to say that they are the sensible one’s who don’t stand behind seungri staying far away from being either pushed away or tired of the constant drama filling encounters they’ll also stay silent on their hiatus.

[clumsyclifford]

Hoooooow about Oh, Calamity for Mashton (or Muke if you got tired of the Mashton content) for the prompts?? Am I doing this right? 😅

ana you did it perfectly here it is sorry not sorry this is really emo that’s what you get for giving me “it’s such a shame that we play strangers” so really this is your fault

-

Michael sees Ashton for the first time in two years at an after-party, of all places.

It's for an awards show, the Grammys, Michael is pretty sure, but he's not here to be awarded, only to give one out. Michael doesn't know what compelled the Grammys to ask 5 Seconds of Summer to deliver one of the awards, especially since they haven't made a new album in three years, but now it's the after-party and Michael doesn't care. There's free booze, and that's all he needs to know.

He's just pulling away from a conversation with Taylor Swift, during which she'd complimented his new hair color and offered to set him up on a date in successive breaths, to which Michael had replied thanks, but no thanks, he's not really looking to date right now, but he'll keep her in mind if he ever decides to pick it up. Taylor had just smiled at him. 

The party is loud; all parties are, which is why Michael tends to steer clear of them. He probably picked the wrong profession, being this sensitive to loud noise, but whatever. At least onstage he feels he has a purpose; onstage, people cheer for him, and he feels important. Here, he just feels like he could be squashed underfoot and nobody would even realize.

It's as he's turning away from Taylor, in search of more alcohol (like that's what he needs), that he spies a familiar head across the room. Familiar in a gut-wrenching way; familiar but also very much not. Familiar in a way that makes Michael want to throw up.

He pulls out his phone, unsure of what his plan is. Maybe he'll text Calum and Luke to warn them. Maybe he'll just call an Uber, pull a dine and dash on this party. He hadn't known Ashton would be here. He wouldn't have come if he had.

But before Michael can decide what he's meant to be doing on his phone, Ashton's turning around. Michael meets his eyes accidentally, and is somewhat disappointed by the fact that Ashton doesn't look surprised.

(Okay, so Michael had literally been onstage during the show, but still. He wishes that Ashton would flinch, like Michael is now.)

Then, to Michael's great dismay, Ashton starts walking towards him. Michael flickers his glance to the person he'd been in conversation with; it's Halsey — Ashley — and she's trailing behind him.

Well, fuck. Michael can't very well ditch with Ashley right there. She'd immediately know something was up, and Michael has done his level best trying to pretend like nothing is up, and like this is fine, and like he doesn't care that Ashton left the band.

(What the fuck is Ashton even doing here? He's not supposed to be in the music industry anymore. That was the whole point.)

Michael stays rooted to the spot until Ashton is within arm's reach. 

"Michael," Ashton says. "I wondered if you'd be here."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Michael asks, trying not to sound terse.

Ashton looks a little hurt anyway. "Nothing, I just…nothing."

"Hey, Michael," Ashley greets him. Michael gives her a cursory nod, which might be rude, but he doesn't care. His heart is off-tempo, and he's under imminent threat of having a heart attack, and Ashton's still standing there, closer than he's been in two years but still not close enough.

"I'm surprised you're here," Michael adds, to Ashton. Ashton inclines his head.

"Yeah, ah, Ashley invited me," he says. 

Of fucking course she did. Michael wonders if there's something going on between them. Then he hates himself for wondering. Then, because he's drunk, he asks, "As a date?"

"As moral support," Ashley says, arching an eyebrow, which unfortunately does not answer Michael's question. "My boyfriend couldn't come."

Michael wants to shout, so you chose Ashton? Except that does answer his question, subtly, and Michael is pretty sure she knows exactly what she's doing, so he lets it go. Ashley's too clever for anyone's good, and Michael's really drunk.

"I'm gonna go get another drink," Ashley says. "Either of you want anything?"

Literally all of the alcohol in this room, Michael thinks, but they both shake their heads, so Ashley gives them respective nods and then disappears into the throng of people.

Michael looks at Ashton, overwhelmed by the space between them, and waits. After everything Ashton did, he thinks Ashton has earned the privilege of starting any conversation he intends to carry with Michael. 

Ashton does, clearing his throat. "So, uh. What are you up to these days?" 

He doesn’t say I haven’t seen any new 5SOS music lately, but he might as well. 5SOS isn’t officially on hiatus, although they probably should be. That would be better marketing than “Sorry, we just don’t really know how to find our sound again without our drummer doubling as the heart of the band, and we’ve written hundreds of songs but releasing any of them without Ashton would feel like betrayal.” The band hasn’t had that conversation yet, but Michael knows it’s what they’re all thinking. Nobody wants to be the one to say it, least of all Michael. He knows that Calum and Luke look at him differently now, that they know that he’s taking Ashton’s leaving harder than he should be. 

It’s been two years, but standing in front of Ashton it feels like it’s been two weeks, and the bleeding starts anew. Michael’s weak, exposed and vulnerable, prepped and ready for Ashton to sink his claws back into. He hates it. He hates Ashton.

“Nothing much,” is what Michael comes out with. “Just — taking a little break to work on music, and ourselves.” A break you could have been a part of. A break that might have helped you heal. A break that might’ve meant you wouldn’t leave the fucking band.

Ashton makes a jerky motion that might be a nod. “That sounds nice.”

“It is,” Michael says, although it isn’t. “Uh. What about you? What are you up to?”

God, this sucks. This whole conversation sucks. This party sucks. Michael hates that he's standing here, three feet from a man who used to be his best friend, or — his something, something meaningful, and they're playing strangers. No, actually, worse; they are strangers. Michael doesn't even follow Ashton on Instagram anymore. He can't bear to.

(Or maybe he doesn't want to know — if Ashton's happy or sad, if he's found his new purpose in life, if he has a new girlfriend or boyfriend or best friend. There's a very specific brand of hurt that comes from watching someone you loved with your whole heart love someone else.)

Ashton rolls his shoulders, shrugging. "Honestly, a lot of different things. I do a lot of yoga. And I've been working on my cooking skills. I'm thinking about — I don't know." He presses his lips together and shrugs again, more halfheartedly. "I don't know."

"Well," Michael says. "Sounds like you're being very productive with all your new free time."

Ashton's face tightens, and Michael recognizes the simmering flame in his eyes. "Michael, don't," he says. 

“Don’t what?”

"I thought we could be civil. It’s been two years."

"I'm civil," Michael says. "I'm not the one who left."

"It's not that simple and you fucking know it," Ashton says angrily. "And I'm not the one who completely cut ties with you."

"What, like I was supposed to keep in touch and update you on the tour life you'd deliberately left behind? Excuse me for thinking you wouldn't be too keen on that."

“You thought I wouldn’t want to stay in touch with my best friends? The people I considered family, really?”

“Good to know you’d leave your family.”

"Jesus, grow up, Michael," Ashton snaps. "Just admit you were immature about it."

Michael fumes. "That's really fucking rich coming from you. You're the one who cut loose the minute it got serious with us!"

There’s a moment of silence, and Michael regrets saying anything. Ashton stares.

"You're not the reason I left," he says, and all of a sudden the fire is gone from his voice. He blinks. "Is that what you really think? Michael, you're the reason I almost stayed."

"Almost," Michael repeats. His chest aches. His heart hurts. "But you didn't stay."

"You would have preferred for me to keep pretending to love a job I had begun to hate? To keep touring when it was physically hurting me? To press on and ignore my own mental health? Really?"

Michael stares at him. "No," he says. "Obviously not." He knows why Ashton left, and he knows that being angry about it makes him an asshole.

(Sometimes he thinks he's like a wounded animal, and he keeps lashing out, keeping the injury fresh on purpose. It would be worse, he's sure, to let it heal, to forget the way he loved so hard, and hurt so bad.)

“We could have talked about it,” Michael says sullenly. “You could have told us something was wrong before you decided to leave. You could have fucking warned us.” 

"Look, Michael, I know I hurt you," Ashton says. Michael hates him, the way he sounds so sincerely apologetic. "I wish leaving the band didn't have to mean leaving you."

"It didn't," Michael says. Too late, he realizes it sounds like he's arguing that they can still fix it, when Michael is pretty sure they can't, and regardless he doesn't want Ashton thinking that that's what Michael's after. It's not. It's not.

(Is it?)

"Yes it did," Ashton says. "But I'm still sorry. For hurting you. It's the worst thing I've ever done. I don't think I can ever fix it, but — I never really got to tell you that I'm sorry. So." He spreads his arms. "I'm sorry."

Ashton can't fix it, Michael wants to say. He wants to say fuck you, you arrogant bastard. He wants to go back in time five minutes and call that Uber. There's fire under his fingertips, but he's looking at Ashton and he doesn't know if the fire is fury or desire.

"I've missed you," Ashton adds nervously.

"Don't tell me that," Michael says. "Don’t — you can't miss me. You left."

Ashton looks so profoundly sad at that. "Okay," he says. "I won't tell you."

Michael wishes he hadn’t spoken at all. Every single part of him is in pain. He thinks he's going to wake up with sore arm muscles from all the effort he's putting into keeping his arms by his sides. He wants to believe he'd deck Ashton right there, but it's just as likely he'd grab Ashton's hand and never let go.

"This is hard for me," he admits, curt. "I don't know what to say. You just apologized, so I can't very well be an asshole anymore."

Ashton huffs a nervous laugh. "I know," he says. "I don't know either.” He hesitates. “I like your new hair color. It suits you."

Michael wants to ban Ashton from complimenting him, but he's just banned Ashton from saying he's missed him, and if Michael carries on like this Ashton won't be able to talk before long, and the conversation will end.

(Isn't that what you wanted? Michael's subconscious points out.)

"Thanks," is what Michael says. Then, more idiotically, "I miss you, you know."

"Miss me, present tense?" Ashton asks.

Michael nods once. "I've missed you since you left. I still miss you. I don't even know you."

"I thought that was what you wanted," Ashton says, voice small in the large, loud room.

"It was. But also wasn't. I don't fucking know, Ashton." He throws his hands up, desperate for anyone to try and put his sentences together for him so he doesn't have to. It's late and he's drunk and it's Ashton and Michael has always been awful at expressing himself. He pulls a hand through his hair. "I just don't like that I don't know you. I used to love you and now I don't know you. It sucks, okay? I don't expect you to fucking understand."

"I understand," Ashton says. Michael stares at him. "Kind of."

"What do you mean, kind of?"

"I love you," Ashton says, calmly, like he's not dropping a fucking bombshell at Michael's feet. "Present tense. And it sucks that I don't know you. Anymore."

"You — fuck you." Michael squeezes his eyes shut for a moment. When he opens them back up, those hazel eyes are still just in front of him, matter-of-fact. "You can't fucking love me without knowing me."

"Yeah, you'd think, wouldn't you." Ashton gives a mirthless laugh.

Michael opens his mouth to argue. Then he closes it, because he has no argument. For all the shit he talks, he knows too well what Ashton means. He doesn't really know Ashton, either, and has done a bang-up job pushing down his feelings the last two years, but Ashton's here now and Michael's in love with him, strangers though they are. Michael is in love with Ashton now and forever. He never really stopped.

"Well, why don't you get to know me, then?" he says hesitantly. Ashton blinks. 

"What?"

Michael holds out a hand. "I'm Michael Clifford. I'm in a band called 5 Seconds of Summer. I like playing video games and guitar, in that order. You are?"

Ashton blinks again. Michael might be hallucinating — he's had a lot to drink tonight — but Ashton's eyes look glassy, almost…teary. Michael shakes away the thought as Ashton slowly reaches to shake his hand. "I'm Ashton Irwin," he says. "I used to be in a band, but now I'm a session drummer and I spend a lot of time cooking and cleaning. Nice to meet you. Again."

"You sound like a nice guy, Ashton," Michael says. It's been too long to keep holding Ashton's hand, but Michael doesn't want to let go. "I'd like to get to know you better."

Ashton flexes his fingers and his hand falls out of Michael's grasp. "I'd like that," he says. "Do you want to get out of here? I know you don't like parties."

Michael finally realizes what Ashton had meant by I wondered if you'd be here. He tries to bite back his smile, because he still feels the looming sense of danger, but fails. Ashton disarms him, always has.

"Okay," he says. "Sure. I think there's a twenty-four-hour pizza place near here."

Ashton smiles. "Wouldn't expect anything less."

Ashton texts Ashley that he's leaving while Michael calls an Uber, and then they make their way to the exit, and Michael feels like his head and his heart are in temporary harmony. Maybe he'll regret this when he's sober, but probably not. It's Ashton. It's Ashton. This could be a new beginning, and Michael feels lucky to have even had a first beginning.

Against his better judgement, Michael reaches for Ashton's hand in the backseat of the Uber, and Ashton just laces their fingers together and doesn't let go.

(Michael loves him, present tense. And he's pretty sure Ashton knows. It should scare him, because Ashton's hurt him once before for being so vulnerable, but he can't help but fall again and again, every time.)

[subtlereferencetomyinterests]

Communication Issues (AT:TTSIMBCMEOAYSFIL)- Chapter Two

Ao3,   MasterPost,   Chapter One, Chapter Three

Relationships: (eventual) Romantic Analogince

I’m finally back from my impromptu hiatus!!! My laptop, like, just fuckin broke... but now I’ve got a new one so it’s okay!!! And the first thing I did with it was make these little characters Hurt.

Warnings: Repressing Emotions (k i n d a), food mention, self-isolation/avoiding one’s friends, general angst, cursing, unreliable narrator (maybe??? by that I mean Logan is stupid and has no idea what’s actually going on.) 

Word Count: 5,244

To the best of your knowledge, the three of you are close. To see the facts: you, Roman, and Virgil spend the majority of your time together, partaking in a number of activities that all of you find fun. Comparing your time with them to how much you see, say, a friend like Janus- it becomes apparent that the three of you ought to be considered ‘best friends’. 

However, you had preferred to be 100% certain of this, as you like to be with all things. It was a few weeks after Roman’s New Idea when you finally gave in to this preference (more of a need, really). You asked outright the nature of your dynamic with them.

Roman laughed at you. The abashment you felt was, unfortunately, a very familiar thing.

‘Is the idea of us being best friends really so humorous?’ you challenged, masking the sting you felt with indignation. Virgil had elbowed Roman sharply, explaining to him that you were seriously asking. His laughter stopped at once. ‘Of course we are,’ he’d said. ‘I thought you were kidding, because it seemed so obvious,’ he’d continued. 

All you could manage was a small ‘Oh’. 

So, yes, you’ve determined that your bond is more meaningful than on average. That hardly irks you; it’s a positive thing, in fact. It’s been good for you to have some kind of affection, even if the thought still makes you want to roll your eyes. It’s what’s just beyond that affection that’s causing an itching beneath your skin when the three of you ‘hang out’, as you so often do. That itching, those crawling little mites figuratively burrowed under your skin- it’s all been prevalent in your interactions over the past weeks.

Go over the facts, then, Logan. 

Fact one: You aren’t used to intimate friendships.

Fact two: You have established an intimate friendship with Roman and Virgil

Fact(?) three: Roman and Virgil’s intimacy with each other is quickly turning away from ‘friendship’.

This brings you to the evidence, which gets a little fuzzier; some conclusions might have been jumped to, but you find that irrelevant.

Evidence (?): They share these Looks. A Look when Roman says something abhorrently stupid, but when Virgil jumps to insult him he sounds nothing but adoring. A Look when Virgil comes up with a particularly creative biting remark, and while Roman is just as quick to fire back with a playful tease of his own, there’s that obvious elated expression of pride that he holds just for the anxious trait. 

That on it’s own wouldn’t amount to much, you’ll admit, but you’ve always been a careful observer of body language (out of necessity, given how words fail you when there’s subtext to be found). Their hands brush frequently, to the point where it cannot possibly be incidental. They not-so-subtly lean into each other when they probably think you aren’t looking- though perhaps you shouldn’t be looking anyway. While you are well-accustomed to platonic physical affection in not only your relationships with the two of them, but with all of your ‘coworkers’ (the bulk of it coming from Patton and Remus, predictably), Virgil and Roman’s physical affection exudes such romantic tension that you’re surprised Roman himself isn’t going haywire, because of the overload of feelings that fall into his area of expertise.

Your third piece of evidence comes from just last night. You’d returned from the kitchen, arms loaded with snacks for you all to share, only to find Roman threading his fingers through Virgil’s hair while the embodiment of anxiety carefully sketched on a folded sheet of paper. Virgil’s eyes had flicked up briefly, widening when he saw you as though you hadn’t only left the room for seven minutes and twenty-three seconds.

“Oh, hey,” he greeted with a tiny wave. Something odd and envious and just a bit bitter simmered in your chest, but you denied it whatever it seemed to be hissing for. You gave your friend a nod, setting down the food you’d brought onto the coffee table and seating yourself a good few feet from him and Roman on the couch. 

“V and I got bored waiting,” Roman explained, “So we’re doing a little art collaboration. The rule is that we aren’t allowed to see what the other one draws until it’s done!” He seemed enthusiastic about the game, and Virgil was clearly invested in his work. You saw no reason to interrupt them, quietly deeming your original plan to watch blue planet together defunct. But you could still contribute to this new activity! You knew plenty of art history, thankfully.

“There’s actually a name for that- it’s called Exquisite Corpse. The term was coined by surrealist artists in 1925.”

Roman waved his hand, almost dismissive, and your heart- figuratively- sank. 

“Yeah, yeah, in Paris, I already know. Yves Tanguy, Marcel Duchamp, et cetera et cetera. Art’s my whole thing, remember? Do you wanna play or not?”

“Oh, I- I don’t care for drawing,” you have never understood and will likely never understand most forms of visual art. 

Roman shrugged, but before he could respond Virgil was folding up the piece of paper and handing it to him, blank side up. The vigilant trait pushed his bangs back and shook out his shaggy hair, which stuck up at odd angles due to Roman’s tangling.

“Whatever you want, L. You can put on that documentary you were talking about now,” Virgil said, reaching for the food piled up on the table. Your first instinct had been to agree, of course, and get back to the original plan for the day. As you took the remote, however, you couldn’t help but notice just how close they sat, plenty apart from you. It felt like a fitting analogy- and you’ve always had distaste for analogies.

“That’s alright,” a lie, “I’m feeling rather restless now- I think it would be best if I got some work done with this energy,” a half-truth. 

You’d left before they could respond, trying to ignore the envy seething under your skin. It didn’t even make sense- you hated having your hair touched! While the history was interesting, Surrealist art did nothing but frustrate you! You don’t like drawing games, or people’s hands on your face, for goodness’ sake. 

Presently, you stare up at your ceiling and reflect on your friendship, feeling it all start to click. You do not want it to click. You push your glasses up on your forehead and press the heels of your hands against your eyelids, soaking in the ache that results from the pressure. You’re so fucking sick of thinking, thinking, thinking- but the other option is leaving your room- which you’ll have to do very soon anyway- and interacting with other people.

It’s easier to handle with everyone else around to distract you, rather than just Virgil and Roman. Easier, but not easy. You groan, pushing yourself into a sitting position and letting your glasses fall back into place. You cannot just stew here forever, much as you’d like to.

Yet- It doesn’t make sense. You don’t want to see Virgil and Roman, sitting as close as they do now, dancing around each other so frustratingly. But you want to be around them so much that you feel you can’t help it, desperate to be caught between them like usual. But, no, you don’t!

You wish they could figure themselves out and actually get together, to save everyone the headache- but is that even really what you want? For them to officially be romantically involved, thereby distancing themselves from you even further? And then you’ll truly be the ‘third wheel’, as it were? 

What do you want, you ask yourself repeatedly.

  For things to go back to normal, you answer yourself. 

You shake your head, no, because what does that even mean? Do you want them to not have feelings for each other, just so they’ll pay more attention to you? Now that doesn’t add up at all, because first and foremost you want them to be happy. Happy, and also spending time with you as much as each other. Yes, that’s closer to the point, you think. You want that closeness to be equal between the three of you, that makes perfect sense. So, logically, it follows that what you want is-

What you want is… 

God, no, God, your eyes widen and your fists clench and, fuck, you almost shake as you try to hold back the encroaching realization.

You want-

There’s a knock at the door. 

You breathe shakily, your hands tensing and untensing. There’s a knock at the door. The door of your room, because you are in your room, sitting on your bed. You’re here, and now, and you can breathe.

Dazedly, you stand, moving as though you’re wading through honey. You swallow back whatever feelings had been building in you only for the moment. You aren't willing to actually harm yourself by repressing them, merely holding them at the reigns in order to actually function enough to talk to whoever’s come knocking.

You click the door open, pulling it back to see a worried Patton. You are immeasurably relieved that it is him specifically.

“Heya, Kiddo. It’s been a while since any of us saw you today. I was just coming by to let you know we’re about to start picking a movie for tonight. Do ya feel up to joining us?”

That’s something you appreciate about Patton: he keeps in tune with others’ emotions with almost supernatural accuracy. Remarkably high-empathy being a power granted to him by his aspect, he knew when things were off, and he knew when someone did or did not want to talk about it. He didn’t barge up to your room and throw the door open with the enthusiasm he might usually express if he saw how you were uneasy, knowing that such an action could be overwhelming. Rather, he was checking in, quietly offering you an out if you needed it. 

But you’re about to directly contradict yourself about that appreciation! Because this means that you have to decide what you do; because you maybe kind of want to be forced to see your friends, rather than forcing yourself to avoid them. You aren’t exactly sure you have the strength to be around them on your own, but you can’t imagine a fate worse than isolation in the wake of this emotional discovery that you totally aren’t focusing on right now dammit answer Patton.

“Yes, I must have been a tad preoccupied today. I’ll be down in a moment,” the answer’s out before you think about it. You regret it, and also you don’t. 

Patton grins warmly at you, obviously relieved, and promises to wait for you to head down before they start. He disappears back through the hall and down the staircase in an instant, humming tunelessly as he walks.

It’s only after arriving downstairs that you become entirely sure that you’ve made the wrong choice. Roman is practically in Virgil’s lap, his head tilted into the facet’s neck while they playfully bicker with each other. When he spots you, his head shoots up, and he waves you over. In an amazing example of self-control, you sit one cushion away from the pair.

Throughout the night, you keep your eyes trained to the screen, trying to ignore however sappy Roman and Virgil get. You need space to think about this issue and find a way to solve it, and they need more space from their little tricycle anyway. 

The movies pass in a blur. You think Virgil tries to say something to you before you go upstairs, but you don’t catch it. Your ears are ringing.

<<<???>>><<<???>>><<<???>>>

It’s predictable as hell, considering his semi-self-isolation before The Incident, that Roman is desperate for attention. He’s, in the simplest terms, clingy as fucking fuck. Something that’s mildly less expected than that is just how little you mind it. If you’re honest, with all the hugs and brushes and small comforts, it kinda rocks. Which might be an odd way to describe emotionally and physically intimate friendship, but hey. Shut up. 

You and Roman’ve become a little attached at the hip because of this- though you hold tightly onto the excuse that it’s just cuz you want Roman to get the attention he needs, and totally not because you actually like the affection, too. You know the truth, though. The truth that it all… fulfills something in you, something that’s been craving attention that you didn’t even know about. It’s weird. Not bad, just weird.

You digress; the point is that you and Roman have a Thing With Touching, and that’s not exactly a shocker. Something you’re only recently coming to notice, however, is that this preference is one shared by your other closest friend, Logan. You could’ve sworn he’d be touch averse, and while he definitely has very specific boundaries (he wouldn’t tolerate touches to his hair, neck, or most parts of his legs), he’s exactly the opposite of averse, he’s just way too stubborn to initiate anything or admit it.

Who knew that only knowing a grand total of six other beings for your entire life- most of said beings disliking each other for a good portion of that life- would leave everyone involved more than a little touch-starved? 

Oh well. No time like the present to fix that, you figure. This is all just your long-winded way of saying that whenever you’re in the room with Logic or Creativity, you’re 99% guaranteed to have at least one point of contact with them. 

Which totally wouldn’t be a problem, if you weren’t falling irrevocably in love with both of them. But, unfortunately, you totally are. 

When everything started, it was just Logan. He was too considerate and too goddamn caring not to make you feel things, the bastard. He understands you, almost perfectly, all the time- even though people understanding you completely goes against your aesthetic- and you feel like you get him all the same. In a way, your love for him makes sense. It always has, really, all the way back when he gave you that first glimpse of friendship. It’s always been Logan.

And that all would be horrible enough on its own, but then Roman blind-sided you with his teary eyes and deeply-rooted insecurity. Neither of these are technically ‘attractive’ traits, but dammit if you didn’t find yourself sympathizing to a painful extent. You not only comprehended his (gradually lessening) pain, you’re also surprised to note just how badly you want to help him through it, if only because you knew that you really could help. You can’t bear to watch Roman suffer, because the both of you, despite all the differences, are exactly alike. You find sympathy in his sadness, and affection in his joy. 

It’s disgusting.

The plan was simple; you’d keep all the feelings inside, and then one day you’d die. You’d hold them all at bay and let the infatuation fade to a dull ache against your ribcage, settling into a bittersweet friendship with the two temperamental traits. It’s easy to push down when all six of you spend family time together, hell, you hardly break a sweat when it’s just the three of you, because you can just use one to deflect off the other! You are a fucking pro at ignoring your emotions.

Then movie night happened. You have no clue what specifically did happen, but you’ve managed to track the weird behavior back to that evening. Logan was stiff as a board all night, sitting as far as he could from you and Ro. He didn’t even look back at you when you tried to talk to him before he left. He didn’t answer the door when you tried to check on him later. 

To say that Logan hadn’t left his room since would be a gross oversimplification. Oh, he’s venturing out, alright, but strategically. He comes down for meals. He comes down when Patton, Remus, or occasionally Janus ask for him, indulging them without complaint. Sure, he’s conveniently busy whenever it’s you or Roman knocking, but he’s already done so much with everybody else that day. No one could be concerned, because clearly Logan wasn’t avoiding anything.

Yeah, bullshit. He’s just diverting everybody else’s suspicions, but you know him too well for that.

He doesn’t work in the commons anymore. He doesn’t rise up in the living room, accompanied with a laptop or a kindle or what have you, just to have the quiet company of someone else while he works. He doesn’t seek you out to explain something he read on Tumblr, and from the looks of it, he doesn’t attempt to infodump about poetry with Roman anymore. And the nail in this coffin is this: when you attempt to confront him, he plays dumb. Logan plays dumb.

Logan avoiding you means two things: 1. one of your most trusted friends who you’re absolutely besotted with won’t talk to you, which is its own special kind of agony- and 2. you spend the majority of your time totally alone with the other friend that you are in love with, which is obviously not ideal.

By this point, you are well-acquainted with the various personal problems of your ‘co-workers’. Statistically, at any given point at least one side is having some kind of an emotional crisis. You figure that it’s best to get a headstart on solving this one, before you can talk yourself out of it. 

But obviously you can’t do it alone.

“Roman.”

The side in question shrieks, spinning around hastily with wide eyes. You don’t even blink, staring him down from the kitchen doorway until he has the sense to stop screaming. He cuts himself off with a cough, clearing his throat and returning to whatever it was that he was doing. After an appropriate awkward silence, he shoots you a sheepish smile. 

“Oh, ha- I- I didn’t see you there, Virgil,” he huffs a tiny laugh, his mouth twitching. It’s such a soft little expression, a bit embarrassed but mostly- Dammit, Virgil, you’re here for a reason! Keep it together, you useless homosexual.

“I guessed that, yeah,” you trudge into the room, lifting yourself up onto the counter beside the stove. “How are you?”

He pauses for a moment. It’s a simple question, but the both of you understand its true significance. You’re expecting an honest, no-nonsense answer as to how he’s been feeling. It’s sort of a system, to help prevent all that bottling up of emotions that you’re all so used to. 

“I suppose I’m… a little out of it. I got rather caught up in sculpting for a good few hours,” as he explains, you notice him absently digging clay out from under his nails, “So I figured it was time for a lunch break.”

“Good,” you tell him, because it’s important that he hears things like that. He’s staring vacantly into the water that’s beginning to bubble on the stove, but you know he will return the check-in question to you in his own time. Technically, you could have just walked in and began with what you really wanted to talk about, but this method gives the conversation a more clear-cut structure. Greeting, followed by question-response, followed by question-response; it’s properly outlined. 

“What’s going on with you, then?”

“I feel like garbage,” you see him blink in surprise, but he waits politely for you to continue. “I’m worried. I mean- I'm usually worried, but in this specific circumstance, I’m worried about-”

“Logan?” He looks up when he says it, his gaze searching. 

“Yeah- um, yes. You noticed it, too?”

“Oh, please,” there's an obnoxious clanging as Roman idly swings around a slotted spoon, “I may not be as observant as you nerds, but you could stand to give me some credit.”

You settle him with A Look. He huffs.

“Okay fine! I only caught on when he… ugh, it's embarrassing, but we like to write. Together. On Wednesdays. But he’s been ditching.”

You already had a hunch about your friends’ little poetry sessions, as neither are particularly subtle about anything, at all, ever. It's super dorky, but it’s a very them thing to do. This development is concerning, to say the least.

“Wait, then why haven’t you brought it up?” 

Roman squirms a bit, clinking his slotted ladle against the stovetop repetitively. You regret the interrogative tone that found its way into your voice.

“I didn't want to be, you know, needy. He said he was busy- and like, it was a little sketchy when he was only busy when I wanted to hang out- but- I just assumed he’d maybe gotten bored with it. I didn’t want him to get even more distant with me, so I didn’t say anything.”

Well, okay, you totally fail at not being distracted by that. Scooching a little further down the counter, you bump Roman's hip with the side of your foot.

“Hey.”

He doesn't look up. 

“Roman.”

He groans, throwing his head back and glaring up at the cabinets.

“I know! Saying it out loud, alright, I know he wouldn't do something like that- it's just- I forget sometimes, Virge.”

You don't ask him to elaborate. He doesn't need to. He shifts away from the stove and drops his head onto your shoulder, leaning against you. 

“But if you've noticed it too, then something must really be wrong, huh?”

You give a short laugh.

“Yeah. He's upset about something, I can tell. It’s fuzzy, though, that’s the weirdest thing. It's like, I can feel the anxiety from, but it's being overpowered by something else in there. I have no idea what, so it's gotta be out of my jurisdiction.”

He hums curiously. 

“What’s the plan then? Drag him out of his room and make him hang out with us?” Roman's voice rumbles against your shoulder, and it's so comforting that you can't help but hook a leg around his waist to keep him near you.

“Great idea, I'm sure that he’ll really appreciate that,” your sarcasm (hopefully) takes the impact out of your downright cuddly nature. Roman is unfazed.

“That is literally what the both of you did to me mere months ago. I'd say that turned out pretty well, hmm?”

He tilts his head to the side, dragging out the hum with his face pressed against your neck. It's a concerted effort to snark at him instead of purring from the feeling. 

“I doubt that L would appreciate something like that, just because you- Jesus,” you cut yourself off when Roman fucking nuzzles you, ew gross- “Oh my fucking God, can you- prrr- can you st- prrrrr- stop for one second? You're- re- rerrrrrr- distracting me!” You push him off of you, feigning disgust. You don’t want to, but you have to at least try to stay on track.

He just chuckles, dropping away from you if only to take his food off the stove. 

“Sorry, sorry, it's just so hard to resist. You’re a kitten!”

“I know you're God-awful at genuine conversations, so I guess I'll let it slide this time.”

You see the offended look spread across his face, and hastily hold a hand up to interrupt.

“Logan.”

“Right, yes. Logan.”

“I mean, what would he say?” you drag your hand down your face, wracking your brain for any of his advice that you could apply to the situation. “He’d be all ‘the logical course of action would simply be to confront me, Virgil, because I am a stubborn little bitch and I will dance around the issue indefinitely,’” You nod, satisfied with both your impression and the conclusion it brought you to. Roman shoots you a comically wide grin.

“That was scary, how much you sounded like him.”

You shrug, offering a hum.

“So we should just… what? Walk up to his door, knock knock,‘what’s going on with you, man?’, and see what happens?”

“As crazy as it sounds, maybe this would be easier if we didn't prolong it for three weeks and complicate it like we do with everything else?”

There's a clatter as Roman struggles to reach the top cabinet for a bowl. You drop down from the counter, reach over his head, and hand it to him. 

“When you phrase it like that, I suppose it sounds obvious,” he takes the ceramic and fills it up- without a thanks, the bitch.

“Okay. We do that, then.”

“Okay.”

You hover in the kitchen, watching him grab his meal and begin to walk away. He tosses his head over his shoulder, giving you a look that you can't quite place. 

“Are you just going to wait there while I eat my lunch? We’ll go up in a few minutes, but I'd rather not pass out from lack of blood sugar in the middle of what's sure to be a whole production.”

“Oh- right.”

<<<???>>><<<???>>><<<???>>>

At your knock, there is absolutely no response from the other side of Logan’s door. You knock again- not so much as a footstep! You push down your immediate frustration at the nerve of him, knowing that you must keep your cool (but you also know that he has everyone’s knocks memorized; he knows it’s you!). 

You spare a glance to Virgil. He stares back at you, lip worried between his fangs, hands twisting themselves at his sleeves. He’s slouching so much that he looks nearly as short as you. 

“Is it… is it that bad?” your knuckles are still barely pressing against the inky-blue door, lingering. He nods. 

“Fuck, dude, whatever he’s feeling is intense. But, I can’t figure out what the hell it is,” he makes an attempt at whispering, but it sounds more like screeching TV static than anything. 

He’s in there, and Virgil isn’t the only one who can sense it. It’s electric; whatever Virgil isn’t picking up on seems to have fallen into your domain. Unfortunately, it must be one of your non-primary side functions, because you have no idea what the specifics are. You curse the fact that you aren’t nearly as in tune with these things as he, by design, is. 

“We gotta get in there, Roman.”

The use of your proper name startles you. You grind your teeth, turning his suggestion over in your mind a few times before shaking your head sharply.

“You were the one that said we needed a subtle approach, you- Virgil,” you catch yourself before a nickname slips out, trying to share in his sincerity for the moment.

He gives a shaky sigh.

“I- I know what I said, but- Fuck, Ro, it’s bad.”

Now, it may be just because you’re a contrary bitch, but you have flipped on your original stance as well, leaving the both of you at odds. The worse this feels, the more you need to hesitate. If he’s avoiding you- both of you, the mini-him in your head reminds you, mind your mental filtering- then there's a reason for it. A reason to do with anxiety and you, which could easily be the ‘passion’ part of you, and that gives the strong implication that he’s deeply angry and hurt. In which case, you know that you could easily do something to make it much worse. You are very good at saying the wrong thing.

And so. You stare blankly at his door. Immobile.

Virgil elbows you.

You wrap your knuckles against the door and send him a glare. He groans, ramming his shoulder into yours.

“Okay, Roman, out of the way-”

“I’m getting some bad vibes-”

“Yeah, me too, that's kind of the point!”

“Well, there’s no reason to get snippy!”

“I don’t need a reason anyway, now move-” 

At a light shuffling from behind the door, you both snap your mouths shut. It’s dead silent as you wait, more patient than you've ever been before, as the muffled footsteps draw closer to the door. They stop just short of it, and for a moment you don't breathe.

“I can hear you,” came a muffled, barely-audible rasp. 

You fall against the door at once, pressing the side of your face into its cool surface. Virgil appears beside you, his claws suspended just above the knob. They hover like he’d be burned if he touched it. His voice is carefully measured, and he nearly sounds normal when he speaks.

“L, buddy, can you let us in? Can we talk?” 

You nod along, realize that he cannot see you, and then enthusiastically proclaim your agreement with the statement instead.

There's a long pause. You fear that Logan’s left again.

“Is this… necessary?”

“I’d really like to know why you aren't talking to us, so yeah,” you try not to snap, you really do, but you can tell that you’ve failed as soon as the words leave your mouth. You hope he'll understand how you really meant it. 

There's a sigh, and yet another silence. Virgil makes eye-contact with you, face twisted up with concern.

“It was not my intention for you to think me angry with you, if that's what you’re worried about.”

“That’s not it, Lo,” well, Virgil can speak for himself, because you were kind of worried about that. “I know something's going on. I know you.”

“Virgil,” his voice sounds much clearer, closer, as though he's pressed against the doorframe like yourself, “Virgil, your voice.”

“Don't know if you can tell, man, but I'm pretty anxious right now. And I know that not all of it is mine.”

At the next lapse, you don't wait for Logan to speak.

“Specs, hey, listen to me: I don't have a clue what's going on-” you let yourself smile, knowing that he can hear it in your voice, “Which is kind of my usual state, really- but the point is, it doesn't matter. We're here for you, no matter what. The three of us- best friends, right? Bee-eff-effs.”

“Best friends forever,” he mutters.

“Ah! I’m glad you agree!”

“No- it’s- I was correcting you, abbreviations have no place in verbal conversation- especially in place of simple phrases such as that one.”

“There he is,” Virgil chuckles, the distortion finally edging out of his throat. 

Logan sighs. You hear a bump.

“I suppose, if you two are really so concerned,” the lock clicks, “Then it would only be hypocritical of me to refuse to speak with you on this matter, given how I encourage you to do the opposite almost constantly,” the knob twists, pushes forwards an inch, halts abruptly, “Although… I can’t promise you full transparency. I don’t- I don’t think I’m quite ready for that conversation.”

Well that is ominous. But, then again, progress is progress.

You step back, and the door swings open. 

You fail to stifle your gasp.

Logan stands in the doorway, his head up, spine straight, and his hands behind his back- his usual stance. The posturing does nothing, however, to hide just how bloodshot his eyes are behind his glasses. He trembles, almost, when he looks from you to Virgil, and then back again. As soon as you meet his gaze, he glances down to the carpet, tapping his foot on the floor compulsively. It’s a state you’ve seen him in plenty of times, but the knowledge that this time you were somehow responsible for it pushes daggers under your skin. 

“Well,” he falters, “Come in, I suppose.”

[simside]

Hi! I’m alive!

Unfortunately I’ve started working at Home Depot, hence my absence, & I have had little to no time to play sims lately as all I do nowadays is class work & work. I’ll have to go on an official hiatus until around September, but then I should be back into the swing of things! Have a good summer everybody, & I’ll see you in the fall!

I also have some screenshots I’ve yet to queue, but I figure I’ll wait until I’m committed to being active again to post them. I wouldn’t wanna leave on some weird cliffhanger, things are about to get good!

[real-jaune-isms]

RWBY Volume 7 Chapter 8 Rundown

Another fantastic chapter, and a real nail biting way to leave us hanging for an extra week of holiday hiatus. I have many thoughts about this one, lots good but some more foreboding. So, with this very late edition to my ongoing efforts to review the Volume, and a warning that I will be focusing on events one group at a time rather than cutting back and forth like the episode does, let’s begin. 

The chapter opens on Team RWBY plus Oscar gathered to look at the invitation to the dinner party Weiss is holding. According to his public statement on the news, Jacques says this is an act of kindness to soothe hostilities as he transitions into his position on the Council, but they know this is pure intimidation and Weiss even calls it a hostile takeover. The other council members have been described as scared and seemingly easy to persuade one way or the other, and if Jacques is good at anything it’s talking others into doing what he wants. So Ironwood will be on full blast here, with his rival having full control of the conversation rather than getting to open up about his actions on his terms. Weiss is still in disbelief that her father won the election at all, and they entertain the possibility that Salem’s influence had a hand in this. He’s not the type to get involved in her brand of evil, but he WILL do whatever he has to to get his way. So Ruby thinks they should do whatever they have to for the sake of proving his misdeeds. Team RWBY will go to the party and Weiss will sneak off to look around for clues of anything fishy. Afterall, no one would question why she’s walking around in her own house. Weiss looks like she doesn’t want to do that, but she will anyway. She’s a brave girl. 

We finally see an exterior shot of the Schnee Estate as the limos pull up front, and it’s just as sprawling and impressive as we had guessed. Ironwood and Winter are there with Penny of course, as are Team RWBY, JNR and Oscar came too, and even Qrow and the Ace Ops. Winter wouldn’t be caught dead smiling here though, which Ironwood cracks a joke about. The doorbell is rung and the doors open to reveal... Whitley, playing the part of gracious host with sickening false sweetness. It would seem dear Klein was fired, likely for helping Weiss escape. So that’s even more guilt for her to deal with. They all go inside, with the General, Winter, Penny, and Clover splitting off to meet with Jacques at the table proper. Qrow and Clover have a cute little exchange about wishing them good luck, before Qrow practically gets ‘nam flashbacks upon being offered a glass of wine. He heads off to patrol the grounds instead, and the remaining Ace Ops follow suit. Harriet warns the kids not to wander off or break anything and to be ready if called upon. Yang has a different set of guidelines in mind however, and Weiss heads off to go snooping... before being stopped at the stairs by Whitley who wants to brag about how he’s the heir now and she’s the runaway disgrace come crawling back. This one-sided conversation drags on for a while before JNR decide to cause a commotion to get him off Weiss’ back. Nora get a tray stacked high with food, and she and Ren “accidentally” bump into each other to send the food flying right onto Whitley... or it would have. Unfortunately a woman looking to get some hors d’oeuvres walks in front of him and gets the food all over her dress. Fortunately, she had a glass of wine and tosses it on Whitley when she freaks out over getting such a mess on her. So Whitley leaves to get cleaned up while Weiss is trying not to show any emotion that might suggest she was in on that and RBY laughs to themselves. Great job, JNR!

The General and company are greeted by Jacques himself and sit at the far side of the table from him, with two council members, Councilman Sleet and Councilwoman Camilla, sitting by the Schnee patriarch. Robyn Hill was even invited to the party, and sits halfway between the two sides in a subtle show of her allegiance being up for grabs. Jacques is playing gracious host better than even his son had, and says Robyn was invited to discuss the concerns towards the kingdom, of which they seem to have a lot. Before James can even propose a topic to start with, Jacques starts pointing venomous fingers at Penny, asking if her being there is in everyone’s best interest considering what the public believes about the recent massacre. Ironwood tries to set the record straight with what has been officially confirmed as the truth, but his words are a bit morally questionable. Oh sure, saying the footage everyone is freaked out about was doctored is fine, but he says Penny is completely under his control. That’s not how you refer to a subordinate, it’s how you talk about a machine like one of his drones. She is a living person with a soul and will of her own, you asshole. You don’t control her, you employ her. She can speak for herself and her own actions. Granted, she may not have the debating skills to keep up with a master manipulator like Jacques, but really neither does Ironwood. As a very clever podcast has pointed out, this is a job for soft skills, which Ironwood does not have a lot of practice in what with his job mostly involving ordering people to do things and making strategies for battles. The man would do quite poorly against Vizzini from the Princess Bride. Speaking of the bastard, Jacques springboards off of Ironwood’s phrasing to call into question exactly how much the General has control over. 

The scene shifts back to the kids but when we see the dinner table again it is now Councilman Sleet pointing out that they have given Ironwood free reign to act as he sees fit for the last few years but with the way things are in Atlas right now that may have to come to an end. They need him to cooperate and to feel like they can keep him from acting on any outlandish military motivated impulses that might endanger the kingdom at large. And when you think about it, this is an oddly laid out political system. There seem to only be 5 council seats in total, and it’s been established that as both general of the military and academy headmaster Ironwood holds two of those seats. The position Jacques now holds on the council is especially important since a manipulator like him could get the other two on his side to outvote anything Ironwood proposes. With all the secrets James has been keeping about who they’re really fighting and how Atlas might become the next Beacon, the council thinks there is no danger to the kingdom thus embargo is pretty much pointless and should be lifted.  After all, there is no immediate threat from another kingdom, they had no connection to the attack on Haven, and it’s been proven that the robot soldiers attacking at Beacon were hacked and thus they are not at fault. So all the embargo is doing is hurting their relations with the other kingdoms. This news is exactly what Jacques wanted to hear, since that means he can start selling Dust and earning money again. And Robyn apparently hasn’t been the biggest fan of the border closing either, since it’s been hurting the people within the kingdom every bit as much as it has hurt how the rest of the world interacts with them. The least these people deserve is an answer as to why they’re suffering. Jacques takes this opportunity to dig even deeper into Ironwood’s decision making and recent activities. If there are no leads or apprehended suspects for the warehouse rally massacre or the string of anti-Ironwood public figures murdered, the military seems quite ineffectual at keeping the people safe. Clover tries to play it professionally and say they can’t divulge the classified details of ongoing investigations like that. But their host points out there have been an awful lot of “classified” things that no one is being told about. To the surprise of a now in the know Robyn, the council has no idea what the Amity Project is for and have every reason to worry it’s a pointless waste of time and resources. As usual, the General tries to keep things vague but reassuring in saying that the Amity Project is going to help with the problems they brought up, but it’s very important that he not go into much detail about it. Jacques calls into question Ironwood’s very real problem with trusting others to know what he knows. Winter had been growing more and more agitated as accusations and doubts were thrown at the General, and at this point she SNAPS much to Robyn’s subtly smirking appreciation. Jacques Schnee can buy just about anything he could ever want in this world, but trust has to be earned. I almost wish we could look back and see her “Volume 4″, the point in her life where she broke under her father’s domineering pressure and realized she had to escape to make her own life like Weiss had. Unfortunately for her in the moment, this outburst is exactly what her Papa had been hoping for. If Mr. Schnee has to earn trust then so does Mr. Ironwood. And after everything he’s done as of late, ol’ Jimmy has burned through what trust he had without doing anything like catching the criminals plaguing the Kingdom’s streets to earn more. Winter is appalled that she has made things that much worse for her boss, and leaves for a bit to calm down. Penny comes out to find her fuming quietly in a hallway and tries to have a heart to heart. But Miss Schnee’s habit of saying exactly the wrong thing isn’t over yet as she implies that Penny is incapable of understanding how she’s feeling on account of, y’know, being a robot and not having emotions that can get the better of her like her’s did. At the very least, Winter realizes her blunder and apologizes, clarifying that this situation is bad only for her because she’s grown up here and had to deal with Jacques controlling her life for so long. Penny did not live that life and thus doesn’t know about how bad those experiences were. Winter thinks she had sounded like a petulant child back there, but Penny shows wisdom beyond her youthful innocence and thinks what Winter did was totally fine and natural, a human response. But Winter has been conditioned for so long by both her home and military life to think that speaking from the heart is a bad thing compared to staying in line that she sees this as a problem. Penny admits that Winter is right, she DOESN’T understand what Winter is so upset about. That kinda feels like a zing at the older woman’s mindset, saying her way of thinking about the contents of her heart is wrong and she should let herself be more open. And I hope Winter learns from that.

Weiss wanders the halls and passes a room where a wall is lined with many Schnee family photos. Weiss standing by her father, Whitley playing the piano, profile shots of Jacques and Willow (as her name is confirmed to be in the credits) on either side of the doorway from what we can assume by her veil was their wedding day, and Grandpa Nicholas Schnee himself in a suit of armor and a red cape. Lots of eye candy, and it lasts about 5 seconds. The other photos seem to be of places, like the entrance to the now abandoned mine and what I assume is a view of the city from a distance. Weiss gets caught off guard by a butler walking the halls whom she thanks for their hard work and walks by on her way to her father’s office. But once she gets inside and closes the door behind herself she finds a surprise waiting for her. Mama Schnee!!!! And she looks quite beautiful, in a white shirt and blue waistcoat combination with a belt just above her hips, a pencil skirt and a jeweled cravat. Her hair hangs over her left shoulder in a low ponytail that everyone has identified as the dead anime mom hair and her pale blue eyes have a few lines under them I am perfectly willing to believe are more from the stress of living with Jacques than any kind of significant aging. Now seems as good a time as any to introduce my classifications of the four absolute waifuTeam RWBY moms whom have all had at least a few seconds of on screen time. Summer is the lovable sweet mom who tucks you into bed at night and reads you a story and makes sure you get a peaceful good night’s rest. Raven is the hot mom you might want to sleep with. Kali is the spunky and flirtatious mom who might want to sleep with YOU. And Willow is the hard working mom who tries her best to keep her family together and doesn’t get enough praise for it, whom YOU want to tuck into bed and make sure she gets a peaceful good night’s sleep. She seems to be in her physical prime, though we see mentally she can’t quite compare... or can she? Some of her first lines are trying to give an excuse for why she’s not socializing at the party, blaming it on not feeling well, but here’s the saddening part. She calls it Weiss’ party. So either she’s so out of touch with the world around her that she doesn’t know who/what the party is for... or she thinks this is still the night of Weiss’ charity concert from Volume 4 and she’s missing that after party. Either option paints a despairing picture of her mental facilities. And the bottle of vodka in her hand shows right off the bat what the trouble is. Weiss seems all too used to her mom’s excuses and forgives her quickly, knowing she has no ill intent. Willow gets enough clarity and mindfulness to wonder why Weiss came to Jacques’ office when he’s elsewhere, and Weiss bluffs that she’s come to retrieve something she left in here. That seems to jog Willow’s memory that Weiss herself had left not so long ago, and the tone of voice is heart wrenching. As the same wonderful podcast I mentioned earlier points out, this realization hits her with a sense of “oh I forgot something important again...” and you can’t help but feel a little sorry for her. She’s in this deep rut of drinking to cope with her sadness, and that keeps her from being there for her children so she only grows more sad. That isn’t to say she’s helpless or dumb. Weiss admits she needs to check her father’s computer and that she has suspicions he’s done something awful, and Willow has enough wit to quip that the family has come to assume that conclusion at this point. Weiss is a bit curt and says that some of them are actually trying to do something about his ill intentions, and Willow only responds with a tighter grip on the rim of her cup and a glare before chugging vodka straight from the bottle. 

It has been brought to my attention that even the label of her vodka has a fairy tale origin, it being called Six Swans. The inspiration comes from one of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, of a princess whose six brothers are cursed by a witch and turned into swans. The only way to break the curse is if she can sew six shirts out of nettles in six years without making a single noise lest her entire effort be undone, a task she dedicates her life to. A different king is taken with her beauty and takes her for his wife, though misfortune and cruelty befall her at the hands of his mother and she is accused of witchcraft. With no way of defending herself or else her still continuing efforts will be ruined, she is sentenced to burn at the stake. The night of her execution the shirts are very nearly done and she brings them with her, only for her swan brothers to come flying in since the six years are up, and get the shirts thrown onto them lifting the curse. However, she hadn’t finished one sleeve so the youngest brother is left with a swan wing for the rest of his life. The princess is now allowed to talk and defend herself and with the help of her brothers they reveal the old queen’s evil deeds and get her burned instead, but still.. that’s an imperfect happy ending if I’ve ever heard one. And it may shed a little poetic foreshadowing for what may happen with our youngest Schnee child here... maybe he won’t get out of this as unscathed as his sisters? Who knows?

Regardless, Weiss looks sad and even a little guilty when her mom starts drinking, and then Willow lets her in on a little news that would make her task a bit harder: Papa Schnee has been locking his computer as of late. But now her brilliance shines through, as Willow reveals she has set up surveillance cameras in the office and every other room of the mansion that Jacques doesn’t know about. And it’s very likely that even Watts wouldn’t know about them or to try and disable them. So as luck would have it, she has a video of Watts and Jacques meeting up to talk back in episode 4. Though Willow’s motivations for putting the cameras in aren’t that grand. She did this to keep her family safe, so they can keep track of the madman they call Father, in case Willow ever had to... well she doesn’t finish that sentence but I have a few guesses. If she wanted to escape like Weiss she could keep track of where he is so she can avoid him. If he ever started being more abusive and she needed proof to show the police. But instead of worrying Weiss with grim possibilities Mama Schnee worries herself with if Weiss has come back to stay, and she asks as much. Weiss firmly and confidently says she has not. And Willow is glad, tearfully proud that her daughter has found a life outside of her father’s tyranny. The two awkwardly avoid eye contact for a moment while the mother wipes her eyes. Willow then tells Weiss about a man coming by and hands over her own Scroll. She worries Jacques is involved in something worse than even he realizes. Not worried for him, obviously, but for everyone else who may be affected. Chief among those she worries about is Whitley, whom she prompts Weiss not to forget about. Weiss tries to argue that Whitley wants nothing to do with her... but Willow tips the whole perspective on its head. Why would he want anything to do with his sisters? They went off to academies and left him alone in the house with a diabolically controlling father and a mother too drunk and scared to stop him. It’s a little sad that she recognizes she’s part of the problem, but she isn’t wrong. She didn’t help much. We all hated Whitley so much, thinking he was a little brat who wanted to be just like his dad, but really he was just adapting to survive. The Schnees perfectly show the 4 types of fear reactions in how they handle Jacques; Weiss: Fight. Winter: Flight. Willow: Freeze. Whitley: Fawn. As Willow leaves the room, Weiss stares in curiosity at the video and wonders just who her father has gotten mixed up with.

Fittingly, we cut to Watts himself standing under an umbrella in the rain, on a rooftop in front of a holographic billboard. He’s scrolling through all the systems he can now control thanks to his deal with Jacques, and settles on the most dangerous option. With a tap of his thumb, all heating systems in Mantle shut off and the rain turns to snow. At first people seem a little entertained and delighted, a safe and surviving preschooler even calling to his mom in glee as he looks out his window. But I’m quite sure it’ll be a dangerous blizzard in no time. Watts means to freeze Mantle to death and frame it all on the “malevolent” city of Atlas that have been screwing over Mantle for a while already. 

Let it snow indeed...