#some people from my previous course also got in apparently! which is nice :) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

eruden-writes · 2 years

Text

Room & Board - Part 9 (Vampire x Reader)

Anon submitted this prompt: For the prompt submissions a vampire that feels guilty after feeding/attacking someone so they leave obscenely valuable ancient artifacts as payment/an apology?

Part 1 | Previous | Masterlist | Next

🦇 🦇 🦇

Early access to the chapter is available on Patreon!

Or consider “buying me a coffee” on Ko-Fi?

Comments, tags, and reblogs are real motivators for me, too! (●ˇ∀ˇ●)

Also, my inbox is always open for asks, so don’t be shy!

🦇 🦇 🦇

The closing on your new house goes quicker than you anticipate. Hell, it goes quicker than the most hopeful estimates online. You take a week off work for the move. While your co-workers chuckle about backing and moving all those heavy things and then the dreaded unpacking, only one of those really applies to you. Part of your closing deal entailed a hired moving company, the stipulation ironically insisted by the seller.

Once more, the concern of something weird happening flared, but you shoved it aside. Now, all you had to worry about was unpacking.

Which, honestly, seemed a lot more daunting as you stood in your home, staring at all the packed boxes and furniture. The movers had, thankfully, placed much of the furniture in their approximate locations, as well. On the plus side, you had severely upgraded. The amount of things you owned, in that small apartment, would barely be enough to fill your new living room.

Within a couple days, you and Tabaeus had managed to unpack, put things away - likely to be moved a few more times until you two settled on a more permanent place, - and broke down the boxes once more.

Of course, with Tabaeus doing more, they insist on more feedings. Without work the next day, you tend to oblige, especially when he gets the more mind-numbing parts of unpacking done while you sleep.

As the two of you sit on your couch, relaxing after finally getting your TV hooked up and mounted on the wall, Tabaeus turns to you. "So, how does it feel?"

Your eyebrows arch, not quite understanding. "How does what feel?"

"Homeownership," Tabaeus says, with a flourish of his long-fingered hand. "You said it was a rare thing for people your age in this economy?"

"Yeah... It feels a little weird. Like this is all mine to do whatever in and upkeep." You raise your arms, indicating the whole of the house with a sweep. For all your life, even with your parents, you always lived in a rental. Now that your home is yours, it almost seems too daunting to focus on. As your arms fall back into place, you shrug and smile, "It's nice. Not sure I can do it alone, so if you leave, warn me so I can find another roomie."

The two of you haven't spoken much about what transpired in the sewer. With the daunting task of closing, packing, moving, and unpacking, your brain hadn't dedicated much time to it in the earlier days. But most of those worries had been checked off with very little effort from you. So you had certainly considered many facets of that night.

Many a night, you had sat in bed, tired of worrying over the move and shifted to pondering about what you'd found out in the sewer. How the items did stir memories, but Tabaeus still couldn't say if they were his or his victims' memories. How an anti-vampire box lingered among the things, either from Tabaeus's former enemies or as a Plan B should eternity get to be too much.

Your mind often went back to the journal in the anti-vampire box, as well. Something had kept you from tearing it open the moment you got home. You weren't even sure if Tabaeus realized it had been there, among the items.

If they hadn't realized it, would it illuminate some questions? Or would it be the nail in the proverbial coffin for your trust in Tabaeus?

Maybe they had they merely forgotten about it, as they apparently had done with so many other things. Or perhaps they knew it was there and were satisfied it contained nothing incriminating.

"I am not planning to leave your side, any time soon." Tabaeus's calm, firm words stir you from the downward spiral of your thoughts. You focus on them, your heart fluttering at their soft smile.

And then there is that. The quiet assurance that Tabaeus had no plans to leave you. It was at once comforting and disconcerting. Did that confidence extend beyond your comfort? Would they force you to let them stay, even if you were ready to end the arrangement?

You're not sure how to answer them, so you glance away while humming an acknowledgement of their words.

The two of you fall quiet, both staring at the blackened screen of the TV. Somewhere, a clock ticks and you vaguely wonder where it could be. You have no analog clocks that you can think of.

"I think I'm gonna order something to eat." You can't take the quiet anymore nor the phantom clock. With a shove, you push yourself off the couch and to your feet. Turning partially back to Tabaeus, you ask, "You want anything in particular?"

Despite the popular bit of lore that vampires were incapable of ingesting anything but blood, Tabaeus could eat. It wasn't as fulfilling as drinking blood nor as energizing, but they didn't spew at the smallest bite of 'human food.'

Tabaeus makes a sound deep in their throat, as if they have an idea but are hesitant to share it. They shake their head, dislodging whatever they're going to say. You presume it has something to do with your blood. Casting you a smile, they answer, "I quite liked that pizza place."

With a nod, you go to your office to place the order via the computer. It's an extra room on the first floor, with a large window peering into the front yard. Thankfully, the former owner left curtains and blinds for all the rooms, otherwise you'd feel rather exposed in your own new home.

After you place the order - with an extra side, drinks, and a dessert for celebratory reasons - you make your way back to the living room, to Tabaeus's side.

They seem rather quiet, sitting with their shoulders slumped while scratching one nail lightly along the arm of the couch.

With little space between you and Tabaeus, you turn to them on the couch. "Something wrong?"

Their attention snaps to you, as if surprised at your sudden appearance. They must have been deep in thought. A half-smile appears on Tabaeus's lips. "I confess I was hoping you would be a bit more exuberant. I simply need to temper my hopes a bit more, I suppose."

That makes you feel a little bad. Tabaeus had been doing a lot to make this move go smoothly. From being the one to put forth the funds to doing overtime in the unpacking and even making sure the sugar gliders' habitat was disassembled and reassembled properly. If it wasn't for them, you'd be much more stressed and exhausted than you were.

"I'm just still adjusting to having a house," you sigh and shrug, offering them a small smile. "Trust me, I am really happy this all has happened. Just, you know, I'm cautious."

Also true. Somewhere in the back of your head, you were waiting for something to go wrong. Maybe the house falling in on itself - which wouldn't happen, according to the inspectors - or some housing law ripping your new abode away. Or, hell, even just an unforeseen disaster of some sort.

"As you should be," they say, running the back of their fingers down your cheek. The touch sends shivers down your spine and their words, dipped in an almost reverential softness, caress your skin, "Even now, I crave you."

"That's not what I meant," you snort, shaking your head at Tabaeus's forthright desires. Despite yourself, your lips still curl with a smile. The movement of your head unintentionally makes them pull away, though.

"Oh." Their eyes flicker away, shoulders hunching as they realize they misread your words. Pointed ears drooping.

Amusement flickers in you as you eye them. Deep down, you do enjoy their affections, even if Tabaeus hedges into it a little more often than you're used to. It's just scary, knowing what they are and that even they think they were some cruel creature in the past. Although, perhaps your heartbeat speeds not from fright or worry,

But that was then and this was now, right? You had yet to see them do anything terrible. Well, other than mesmerize a rude customer into throwing themself into the mall fountain, but that was pretty minor, all things considered.

The downtrodden expression on Tabaeus's features pull at your heartstrings. They were really looking forward to something a bit more fun, weren't they? Glancing at your cell phone, you decide to indulge them. The pizza wouldn't arrive for nearly 40 more minutes.

Tucking your phone back into your pocket, you swing yourself into Tabaeus's lap. Their eyes fly wide, mouth opening to yelp or ask what you are doing. Their surprise allows you to grasp the back of their head, angling their face toward your neck. An almost imperceptible whine escapes Tabaeus, sending a delightful flare through you.

"Wh-what are you doing?" The question comes out in a hushed breath, as if they're afraid to break the moment.

You angle your head to expose your neck further to them. "You can smell it, right? My blood?"

They fall silent, their fingers digging into your hips where they landed when you abruptly hopped into their lap. Their answer is quiet, almost shameful. "Mh-hmm."

"Well, we are very close. The scent must be so overwhelming." You know you're goading them and skirting a dangerous line, especially as you pull them closer to your throat. But every day had a little dose of danger, living with a vampire. Right? Faintly, you remember how they acted at your old apartment, kneeling by your side and pouting at you. How they reacted to your fingers in their hair and the rough tug on their locks. "You're doing such a good job restraining yourself, aren't you?"

"Yesss," Tabaeus answers in a hiss. You can't help the amused smile that flickers over your lips. It's a little cruel, you know, to taunt them like this. A spark skips down your spine as you feel the briefest brush of their lips as their mouth opens, not touching your throat by oh-so-close. You wonder if they can taste you on the very air.

A sudden, mischievous thought flashes through your brain. Tabaeus is so focused on your throat, your scent, the pump of your blood, it would be so easy to surprise them.

Without further thought for the potential repercussions, you jerk forward and land your open mouth against the crux of their neck and shoulder. A sharp gasp leaves Tabaeus, turning into a strangled moan as you bite down on them. They taste like your soap and dust and something inexplicably them.

Almost at once, you pull back laughing, but Tabaeus jerks into action. The whole world around your blurs as they push off the couch, throwing the both of you to the floor. Their hand clutches the back of your head, protecting it from the hardwood as you land. Your knees angle wide, the weight and length of Tabaeus's body pressing down against your body.

They are strangely heavy for such a lithe creature. Their weight bears down on you, not crushing you but firmly keeping you pinned to the floor.

Your eyes widen at the sudden change, widening further as Tabaeus catches your lips against their own. A sound sticks in your throat, along with a gasp. Their hands are now on your cheeks, fingers splayed and holding your face still. With eyelids fluttering shut and your own hands go to their wrists, though you return the sudden kiss with as much fervor as they offer.

It's suddenly unbearably warm, their tongue demanding in your mouth as your own returns the favor. Without thinking, you nip at their lower lip, eliciting a low guttural sound in their chest. Your already thrumming heart further trips as the vibrations echo through your body, causing your toes to curl and muscles to flex.

Their hips roll against you, their mounting excitement obvious against their strained pants. Excitement flares from your core, up your spine, and spiders along your body. Your back arches, thighs squeezing against Tabaeus's sides. Your grasp on their wrists tightens until your nails are biting hard into their skin.

An urge to touch more of them flares. Your hands slide down their arm, relaxing enough to accommodate the growing curves of their forearms.

Sudden pain sinks into your own lower lip just as your palms skirt the sides of their neck and you start roughly. A whine creeps up your throat, before you taste the tang of blood. Your eyes crack open, lips part with hitched breathing as Tabaeus jerks away. They hover close, not pulling fully away, and stare down at you. The look in their eyes is wild and concerned and a little feral.

Their gaze darts over your face and you watch their tongue flick across their lower lip, scooping up the droplet of your blood. They don't look ashamed, but neither do they look smug. It takes you a breath to realize they're assessing your reaction, gauging if they'd gone too far or not far enough or...

Well, you really don't know. And you don't get a chance to introspect further as your doorbell sings out.

"Coming!" You call out, instantly remembering the delivery order as you shove Tabaeus's face away and scramble to your feet. They let you go, though you feel their red gaze on you the entire way. Trying to shove the knowledge you're definitely embarrassingly super-flushed, you open the door to the delivery person.

They stand in the light of your front porch, sporting the bright orange polo and hat of your favorite pizza parlor. Curls poke out from under their cap and the crooked scar - obscured a little under their glasses - across their freckled nose tickles at your memories. It takes you half-a-breath to realize you know them. "Ewan?"

"Oh, hey! Long time no see," laughs the former co-worker of Milk King Lemon Jollies. As it always did, Ewan's toothy grin sends a little rush through you. Putting your feelings for him into words was always difficult. Calling it a crush sounded painfully juvenile, while just chalking it up to enjoying his charismatic company felt like a lie.

You're aware your flush has impossibly deepened further when the old colleague points at his own mouth. "You okay? You're bleeding."

"Shoot. Sorry,I bit my lip really badly. Thought the bleeding stopped," you instantly ramble out a lie, chuckling weakly as you suck your lower lip into your mouth and press your tongue against it. The heat in your cheeks pique again, snippets of seconds earlier playing through your head.

Ewan doesn't seem to find the excuse weak. Though he does watch as you suckle on your own lip, before seemingly remembering himself. He hands over your pile of boxes, his green eyes flickering to see what little of the house he can from this position. "Jemma told me you scored a house! Pretty awesome."

"Haha, yeah," you offer a weak smile as you accept the boxes. "Just moved in, actually."

"Oh really? Looking for a roommate?" Your face burns hotter as Ewan sticks his tongue out between his teeth and winks.

In a brief second, you consider how to answer. It's a joke, obviously, but you certainly wouldn't deny Ewan a room. Especially if he needed it. You recall how he complained about renting and having to take multiple jobs just to pay bills.

With that thought comes the other things you considered when choosing this house. Namely, the additional rooms and pursuing a romantic relationship with someone while continuing your arrangement with Tabaeus. Your thoughts have barely pondered whether Ewan even seemed the type to believe in vampires - let alone accept your companion - when Tabaeus slips behind you.

"Ah, the food! I am starving!" They reach around you, boxing you into their arms as they play at scooping up the pizzas from your hold. Instant fear flickers in your head, as you angle your eyes up at them. Thankfully, they have tucked their pointed ears into a knit beanie hat.

Your gratitude is short lived as Tabaeus tosses Ewan an easy glance, their cool palms squeezing against your hands. Your skin prickles, catching something almost dangerous in Tabaeus's tone, "Do you two know each other?"

164 notes · View notes

lepertamar · 3 months

Text

Stalking & The Glory of God 2019 vs Revised 2023 comparison

Since it's a short story this is also gonna be just one post! The few changes are still cool enough to have warranted a good bit of rotating in the brain from me though.

to be clear, stalking was published before Birds or Lives, it's mostly only a prequel or comment on Stars and there's no need to wait until after the full series to read it LOL. it's also free and right here.

I've chatted a bit with people who have read the earliest ever version which was actually all the way back from 2016 (this version i have not read since i only discovered this series in late 2021) and learned some things about eg, tamar's characterization, which is so much more boring/bland here than in stars, because it was apparently written before stars. so that aspect is accidental but somehow fits the narrative of stars really well. the 'i didn't have myself...' etc, the way she kind of made herself Become someone blistering and real through her apprehension of an awakening desire etc, sometime in the gap between here and the prologue of stars......it's cool lol. the way safirah here bears so much more resemblance, not exactly in content of personality but in form of metalness and presence, to stars-era tamar, than tamar here bears to her stars-era self.

anyway as usual, new revision changes/additions are in bold, and deleted old things are in strikethrough red

First, a small bit:

Plastered onto the front of one of the cases is some kind of promotional image of two people wearing way too many shiny things. One’s even a demon, as though to say, even a demon can’t help but indulge in what this shop’s got to offer.

I Love Defamilarization So Much. obviously a 'demon' is 'those extremely non-indulgent guys who live apart from society and wouldn't usually be tempted by worldly materialism'. Duh. What else could the term demon mean. anyway it's a nice little curb-cutting before the holy, with it's similar defamiliarized disconnect between irl connotations of term and the in-universe worldbuilding + cultural understanding. The previous version was:

In what Tamar thinks must be some attempt at inclusivity, one’s even a demon. Either that, or she’s just a normal woman with yellow contacts and fake horns, in which case it’s probably the opposite of inclusive.

Which is uhhhh rather cringey and immersion-breaking lol :P Inclusivity even as a concept, let alone phrased in such post-2010s American Leftist sort of language, isn't really a thing on people's minds (or honestly implied to be something being struggled with much) in Sehhinah.

That woman, it was her mouth that was her price for what she did, right?

Just a little tweak that imo does a lot, especially to someone unfamiliar with the series :) the mention of price and 'for what she did' which leaves the punishing vs approvedness of it ambiguous, especially in terms of how laypeople think of it.

It makes her think of the feeling of awe. Or fear. Or curiosity.

changed from

It makes her think of the feeling of awe. Or fear. Or reverence.

Reverence, too, is not a very culturally salient concept in Sehhinah, I can't think of a single other time such an idea was mentioned in regards to G-d. Curiosity, of course, is incredibly Tamar.

“If you were to do what you’re thinking of,” Elīya continues, “you would have to report back to me on any feelings of guilt, and your overall moral sense of the experience. After all, it sounds like you have a little bit of morality these days, from my influence, so you should be able to handle that.” Tamar raises an eyebrow, though Elīya can’t see it over the phone. “Impressive bending of moral codes.”

changed from:

“I’m honestly not sure whether you should go into academic philosophy or be a lawyer,” Tamar says, “what with that impressive bending of moral codes.”

It just slightly allows a pause on just how insufferable Eliya is and exactly what Tamar ran away from and had no idea how to explain herself to in Stars when she did LOL. it also mirrors some phrasing that happens in stars, when eliya or yenatru make an expression tamar can't see.

Couple scenes later:

And their left arm is blackened.

Well, it’s more like a reddish-brown, with a slight, flickering glow under the skin. But it’s burned, burned horribly—the skin twists and turns, and it’s easy to see how it wouldn’t be usable at all. Adding to that impression is the fact that Safirah doesn’t move it, not even for balance: it really was their price, then. Her breath catches. It’s beautiful. Actually, as Tamar continues to look at it—she’s allowed to, she reminds herself, no one will even care or notice—she realizes that the twists on the skin are actually moving. There are patterns there, patterns of flames and not of flames at all; Tamar squints at it. She continues to watch Safirah’s arm as the debaters take their seats, trying to follow the patterns there. She’s becoming half-convinced that they mean something—

I flipped out about this passage back in this post but the thing is it's not even a revision thing. It's always been there!!! In plain sight!!!. I've read it multiple times before the revision and somehow just never snagged on these things.

BUT that incredible passage is heightened by the deletion of a single also very cringey line that seems to have been shoehorned in to try to reassure the readers (or the author herself) of its 'normalcy', as a virtue, at the expense of narrative power or the power of a price as a worldbuilding element in the culture:

Her breath catches. It’s beautiful. And it certainly doesn’t inspire revulsion, and from what Tamar can tell about the crowd’s lack of reaction, that’s a general fact. Actually, as Tamar continues to look at it—

blech right??? just like those books so afraid of being problematic they're ridiculous. the revision is MUCH better.

she focuses on Safirah’s face, trying to discern if there’s anything in the way they smile that hints at the power underneath them. The power that has burned them, changed them. She looks long and hard, finding her eyes drawn to Safirah’s. They seem hard, somehow. Like diamonds. Then Safirah begins their opening speech, apparently having been spurred to do so by the announcer: “This will come as no surprise to those of you who have read my writings, but my answer to the question posited by this debate is no. Not for myself. Yes, as you can see, I have experienced the glory of God firsthand, here, in this life”—they use their right arm to lift their left, for emphasis—“and that’s not the only thing I intend to experience. I’m one for variety, and if there’s one thing we know about the world after the Resurrection, it’s that it’ll have a lot of that. “Our lives argue for us—they argue for what we want to happen after the Resurrection, what kind of new world, or worlds, I suspect, God will create then. And I want to experience that—I want to experience it all. Heaven is already right here in my arm; in my other arm, maybe there can be something else.” Safirah smiles, sharp.

safirahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ;-;

Another observation that has nothing to do with revision, because it already existed this way before, but i love how much this echoes Lucifer's description of what the resurrection will entail, albeit less gratingly phrased, and, also characteristic of safirah (and of stars-and-lives-era tamar) very casually, unselfconsciously, and self-assuredly packing way more background assumptions that fly in the face of what's spelled out more didactically by other characters, regarding theurgy. (the word 'theurgy' never appears in this short story, the word 'manifested' only appears once and in an oblique manner, and only in Israfil's dialogue).

A friend of mine joked, regarding this:

"safirah, accidentally intuiting the entire plot of sehhinah: "

Another change, are a few words in the angel Israfil's speech:

“I came to existence this way, God’s fire in my veins—and I have loved it, have loved most of all my role in helping make the world, in adding what is of me to what exists physically. Truly, God would not have been able to make any of this without Their angels—and I say that not just to toot my own horn, but because it is true. Their soul is many things, but ground, water, air… are not among them. So of course They could not have manifested those into existence, not without more varied souls.

despite being only a few words off, the original was, on second look, an absolutely BAFFLING and flying-in-the-face-of-all-continuity-and-worldbuilding:

“God made me this way, Their fire in my veins—and I have loved it, have loved most of all my role in helping make the world, in bringing great plans to fruition. Truly, God would not have been able to make any of this without Their angels—and I say that not just to toot my own horn, but because it is true. Their soul is many things, but ground, water, air… are not among them. So of course They could not have manifested those into existence, not without more varied assistants.”

angels as assistants?????? angels as crafted in a certain way for a purpose???????? G-D '''HAVING'''' '''''PLANS'''''???? LET ALONE PLANS THEY PLANNED TO BRING TO FRUITION WITH ANGELS?????????????? all these things are assumptions that are so commonplace as to be unnoticeable in any other fiction or discussion of g-d and angels and creation, but are so, so anathema to everything in the rest of sehhinah they are completely explicitly contradictory to canon and jarringly misleading. and it is TRULY delightful that this series is so specifically a stickler about how many things in its worldbuilding can NOT be glossed by reference to common assumptions.

Tamar looks back to Safirah’s arm. The burns, the swirling burns, seeming to draw her in with their suggestiveness, their hints of what has happened to them… she is so curious….

changed from

“The burns, the swirling burns, seeming to draw her in with their promise of pain and joy both…”

ahhhhhhh <3 just another bit of characterization and worldbuilding rigor: no promises, no specificity, just a sexually-charged word 'suggestiveness', riddling hints, another appeal to Tamar's curiosity, and the ambiguity of whether the word 'them' refers to the burns, or to Safirah, or either/both. The phrasing also echoes Lives, where when g-d Sees tesena, tamar's pov on the shockwave is:

she doesn't understand anything at all and it's a delight to see it, a delight to see it all, but yet she is so curious...

Then more of what i was flipping out about in that other post, most of which, again, was there All Along, only one line at the end has been added in this revision:

God, the patterns of the burn really do seem to be moving—and wait, the glow… oh. The glow beneath their skin moves too, in a different way from the marks on the skin itself. In the glow also, Tamar swears she can see patterns, if only it would stop moving for a second. She wonders if they’re the same patterns as the ones on the skin. Do they complement each other? Do they mean something different? God doesn’t communicate in words, Tamar knows, so they’re unlikely to be letters—but then, maybe, feelings? Or, since that burn in Safirah’s arm is God—is God, Themself, Safirah chose to have part of their body be that great and flaming soul—perhaps it’s not something consistent at all. Maybe it represents whatever God’s thinking about, right now, at this moment, or what if it’s even what God and Safirah are thinking, saying in reaction to each other…?

auuuugh....... ;-;

next up:

She has prayed to God before, of course. Out of curiosity, mostly when she was younger—but though she felt the vague turnings of wheels, the sense of God having a whole bunch of eyes, it all felt distant. Like, sure, praying leads to a feeling of a flurry of flames of flapping wings that responds to your thoughts, but it always seemed just… that? A flame like the sun being there suddenly… but yet no closer than the sun.

But having seen a Holy’s mouth, wreathed in flame… a Holy’s arm, burned to a crisp and still swirling… Tamar grins, watching those patterns, watching them…

changed from:

She has prayed to God before, of course. Out of curiosity, mostly when she was younger—but though she felt the vague turnings of wheels, the sense of God having a whole bunch of eyes, it all felt distant. Like, sure, praying leads to feeling bright light and feeling a response to your thoughts, but it’s not much more than the light from sunbathing. So it never interested her that much. But having seen a Holy’s mouth, wreathed in flame… a Holy’s arm, burned to a crisp and still swirling… well, it turns out that praying is barely even a window into the real experience of God. Tamar grins, watching those patterns, watching them…”

this is a bit more in line with how other characters (yairen, tesena, nam'ir -- and the characters in Lives after the Pillar, but that experience is extremely atypical lol) experience g-d while praying: something big, but with very varied experiences regarding how much meaning could be extracted from that non-holy communication. and the trailing off after 'swirling...' is of course superior.

Safirah sighs, long and rough. They raise their left leg and press Tamar’s chest to the wall with their knee. That done, they remove their right arm, the one that originally did the pressing, from Tamar’s shoulder.

changed from:

Safirah sighs, a long and rough thing, not at all what Tamar might have assumed one of the Holy is supposed to sigh like, if they are supposed to sigh at all. They raise their left leg and with their knee press Tamar’s chest to the wall.

This is another excellent deletion of a more blandly-commonplace, but completely-out-of-continuity-with-the-rest-of-the-series idea of how the holy are viewed by characters in-universe.

Safirah’s laughter fades into quiet giggles, and they look at Tamar and say, “Oh, kid, you were afraid you were stalking?” Tamar isn’t sure if she should answer that question, but she nods slightly anyway. “Not to say”— another giggle interrupts Safirah’s speech—“that you entirely weren’t stalking. Oh, but you were so concerned about it! That’s really sweet, especially when I was half-expecting an actual attack.” Tamar finally makes it to the point where she manages out one word: “What?” Ēnnuh’s nowhere near that dangerous. “Depending on what you’re asking, for starters, I did read your mind, if that answers your question.” Tamar had figured out that much. “Or—well, the other obvious question I can answer is, yes, an attack. Nothing to do with the city itself, just with me. As I’ve directly argued that little to nothing would be lost if the option for Heaven were removed—not that I expect or want such to happen—I’ve been a target for a decent share of nasty letters lately. Now, usually those types don’t actually follow up on their threats, but when I heard suspicious and yet poorly concealed footsteps behind me in an alleyway… I admit I may have jumped to conclusions. As I think I am generally skilled at not doing in the context of writing, debates, and so on, this one included.”

there is soooooo much more suggestiveness here than in the previous version. maybe my jewishness is showing but i just really enjoy the whole idea of safirah being targeted with hate mail because their ideas are considered dangerous or serious enough to warrant it.

the original was a much less interesting and rather clunky 'a mugger, due to safirah reading too many crime novels' rather than 'an attack, due to safirah getting nasty letters (death threats?) about their work':

Safirah’s laugher fades into quiet giggles, and they look at Tamar and say, “Oh, honey, you were afraid you were stalking?” Tamar isn’t sure if she should answer that question, but she nods slightly anyway. “Not to say”— another giggle interrupts Safirah’s speech—“that you entirely weren’t stalking. Oh, but you were so concerned about it! That’s really sweet, especially when I was half-expecting muggers.” Tamar finally makes it to the point where she manages out one word: “What?” Ēnnuh’s nowhere near that dangerous. "Depending on what you’re asking, for starters, I did read your mind, if that answers your question.” Tamar had figured out that much. “Or—well, the other obvious question I can answer is, yes, muggers. This may be a major city, and very Holy-respecting at that, but to someone motivated enough, my arm may read as a weakness to be exploited—or maybe I’ve just been reading too many crime books lately. What I’m trying to say is, I am neither weak nor always the best at thinking on my feet when in an unfamiliar city. Though I think I did well in the debate.”

this is kinda boring imo. lol. it didn't stand out to me as bad or good before, but one of the really fun thing about all these revisions is how i can really feel how much more thoughtful and/or efficiently-packing-in-implied-ideas-and-info basically all the revision changes are! which is honestly really motivating/idea-generating to me if i ever try to write fiction in the future? how to replace anything bland or whatever-feeling with something that holds more information (including just aesthetic/emotional information).

#stalking and the glory of god #sehhinah #sehhinah revisions tag

6 notes · View notes

acaplaya-musings · 26 days

Text

Voiceplay-adjacent Visuals: Way Down

Geoff's cover of Way Down was released on the 4th of June, 2022, and it is one of my 3 favourite videos (no particular ranking/order) on his channel so far! I might hit image limit for this one, I'm not sure, but I'm not gonna try and be conservative with my screenshot taking, because this video is too much fun! So let's go!

This was filmed at Pattycake Productions Studios, and I wanna know who was in charge of/helped with set design for this one. Was it Geoff? Was he the one that made the mess? 😝😂

Ayyyy

(And yes, that genuinely is the track image/graphic for the track on Spotify and other music streaming platforms!)

*looks left, nobody there*

*looks right, nobody there*

"Alright down I go!" 😂

Thumbnail moment! (Also he kinda looks a bit different with his hair like that doesn't he?)

Geoff says in the description of this: "I had a LOT of fun making this one, and I hope ya'll enjoyed it too, despite the um...terrible dancing." It certainly does look like he had a ton of fun with this one, but I beg to differ on the "terrible dancing" bit! He enjoyed himself, he looked amazing, and I love every second of this video! Terrible my foot!

He just looks so happy in this video!!!

Honestly I kinda sorta wanna learn this choreography (or at least parts of it) myself, but I don't exactly have enough empty space in my house to be spinning around a broom like he does at one point here 😅

(And of course I have to give a shoutout to Eli "lighting whiz" Jacobson for the lighting design!)

Speaking of Eli, that's a hella strong eyebrow raise! Eli got competition! 😝

(Also kinda jealous because my eyebrows absolutely refuse to work independently of each other like that, rip)

Right, so the first glove comes on at about 1:24...

(Also lighting change on the curtains in the background!)

Hey there, Jeff! Nothing to see here! 😁

Hi, Jeoph! 😋

I'm not posting a screenshot of it, but if you've seen the video (of course you have, that's why you're here reading this), you know FULL WELL what Jeoph and Jeff are reacting to here 🤣

Geoff really did that, he really put it in the video and everything! (We have to stan, obviously)

Geoff did the chair-walk(?) dance move thing! Not easy to do, especially with chairs like that on a smooth, glossy/shiny floor, and it looks like he only just landed that based on the way it cuts away, but still, I'm impressed!

Jeoph and Jeff are impressed/surprised, too! 😄

And the whole janitor outfit/uniform gets removed at about 1:58, meaning those gloves were worn for just a little over 30 seconds 🤣

(Also nice shirt 👀)

Rip Jeff

Jeoph: Waayyyyy dooowwwnn

Jeff: "wait since when could you sing like that? And when were you going to tell me?" 😂

(Joke stolen from a Youtube comment, just too good)

No amount of screencaps could do it justice but goddamn Geoff's hips do not lie in this video! He got moves! (Sure, he has people to help him with choreography (shoutout to Chris Dupre for this one!), but knowing a choreography routine is one thing; being able to do it and do it well is another)

"Oh uh, hey there boss! What a surprise to see you here! Nothing much happening right now, totally!"

*swoon*

Someone in some Youtube comment, on a reaction video I think, referred to Geoff "flirting with the camera" in this video, and I was like "hey yeah, he's totally flirting with the camera here!" (do it more)

Man, if I had a nickel for every time there was a brown-haired dude living in Florida who was good at singing and sometimes did songs with "clones" of himself, who had different names/nicknames and interacted with each other, well, I'd have two nickels, which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it's happened twice!

(Even weirder is that the other guy used to be one of my previous hyperfixations, and when I eventually got around to watching this video last year, I kind of got a feeling of "oh no it's happening again!" 😂😅)

Yes I love him, what about it?

So apparently the names/nicknames for these three came from the various incorrect ways that Geoff has seen his name spelled. And it's like... okay, "Jeff", yes, I've seen that on a couple or so Voiceplay videos (his name is literally in the description! And there are always comments that talk about him! (but it is still the somewhat more common spelling of the name I guess)), "Goff" is likely just a missed-letter typo, but "Jeoph"? Jeoph??? Who the heck came up with that misspelling? 🤣

"Way onnnnn d o o o w w w n n n n" (subharmonic C1!!!!)

And yes, I've officially hit picture limit, so no screencaps of the mini bonus scene at the end - you'll just have to go (re)watch that part yourself! 😁

Can you believe that Geoff does not only the singing and performing on screen, but also the arranging, producing, and editing for his covers too? And he directs or co-directs them!

This video is 3 minutes of complete and utter serotonin and I love it. I really hope we get to see more of Geoff dancing in 2024, whether on his channel or with Voiceplay. And honestly with the super-wide variety of music content across the two channels, it's entirely possible!

#geoff castellucci #way down #way on down #acaplaya analysis #voiceplay-adjacent visuals

3 notes · View notes

bebepac · 2 years

Text

Trust Fall

This is @choicesmonthlychallenge day 26 for “Sorry” which will appear in bold.

This is also chapter 4 of the Blue Honey Cafe, if you need to catch up please click:

The Blue Honey Cafe Masterlist

The Book: TRR: No Royals Pairings: None, TRR MC is single Rating and Warnings: Teen / Sexual innuendo Word Count: 2647 Song Inspiration: Diva by Beyonce

Summary: Riley goes with with her coworkers on a team building retreat.

Original Post: 05/25/22 at 10:10PM EST.

“I’ve legit never thought I would be a part of a company that did things like this. I’ve legit only seen this mess on television.”

“Well apparently Bertrand got a great deal, for a Team Building Retreat. We get money from Corporate every month to do activities. When Liam left it was my responsibility, it’s hard to figure out what would bring the best turnout. So this is what we’re doing this weekend. This allows us to use up the previous month’s funds and do something big. All the activities Liam does, there’s always a big turnout.”

“Which is why Liam will be taking back over that responsibility.”

“I don’t mind at all.” Liam commented, smiling at the group.

“My SUV seats 4 rather comfortably, if anyone would like to ride with me to Emerald Isle please let me know.”

Liam’s eyes were on Riley the whole time, he hoped that she would be one of the people that would take the offer to carpool.

After his announcement she approached him.

“Would you like a travel buddy? I can ride shotgun and be your Navigation specialist, or keeper of the snacks? Whichever you prefer.”

Liam smiled.

“I’ve got GPS on board cadet, so I think your keeper of the snack foods, and hydration specialist will be what I need. One has to stay hydrated and fueled for a trip across the state.”

“You can count on me.” Riley gave a little salute.

“Good to know Riley.”

That evening Riley packed a little bit of everything for her trip. She wanted nice, cool and comfortable clothes for the trip but she was torn about bathing suits. She went to her favorite fashion blogger’s site

to see if she had some advice on it, and of course, she did, complete with pictures. So Riley packed a few tasteful bathing suits with cover ups and none of her “I’m living my best life” string bikini bathing suits for her work retreat. She did not know if there would be a formal dinner, but she did pack a few nice summery dresses and heels which the Fashionista Blogger highly recommended.

When Riley was done packing, her suitcase was heavy with items, but she felt she had planned adequately for multiple scenarios.

Riley arrived early by Liam’s standards, that next morning and she was the first one there that would be riding in Liam’s vehicle.

“I wondered who’s vehicle this was. It’s nice.”

“Graduation gift from my father. Instead of showing up to my graduation, he had a vehicle delivered with a red bow on it to my graduation party. His card said, ‘Enjoy the superior driving experience of German technology’, not happy graduation.”

“Yikes…. But on the flip at least he got you a car. Wish my dad had gotten me a car for graduation or… ever.”

The look on his face made Riley realize the error of what she had just said, her smile quickly fading.

“I’m sorry, your dad must be one of those, that instead of showing up, sends gifts when he doesn’t.”

“Yeah he is. I should be grateful for all the things he’s given me, but my mom is my rock. She has always been there for me. Dad just drops in, when convenient for him. He didn’t want a family, he didn’t want us. He wanted possessions. His contribution to the family wasn’t quality time, it was just money.”

“That’s sad. I’m sorry.”

“It taught me, when I find the woman that’s meant to be my Queen,

I will know how to treat her the right way. Which is basically the opposite of how my father treats a woman. Let me help you with your bag.”

Liam went to pick up her bag and was surprised.

“Damn Woman!!!! What on earth did you pack? You do realize that we’re only going to be gone for a weekend, not opening a new coastal office right!?!?!”

“I didn’t pack that much, but you know, I prepared for all possible scenarios.”

“What a tsunami, fire rain, the zombie apocalypse?”

“Pretty much.”

Liam laughed hard and let out a small grunt as he swung Riley’s bag into the trunk.

“And this?”

“The cooler stays with me. I take my job as Keeper of the snacks and Chief Operating Officer of Hydration Services very seriously.”

“You brought snacks for me?”

“I did. Hopefully you’ll like what I picked for you.”

“I will definitely eat anything you put in my mouth.”

Riley nervously giggled. Liam most definitely had a way with words. The way he looked at her, made her temperature rise.

“You look a little warm Riley, how about, I’ll start the car, and let you cool off a bit.”

Riley nodded as Liam started the vehicle and opened the door for her to get in.

Liam got in the vehicle a few moments later.

“Is this music fine with you for now? Maxwell is going to take over when he gets here with his ultimate road trip playlist.”

Smooth jazz was playing softly on the speakers.

“I really like it.”

“I’m glad.”

Before long Maxwell and Hana arrived and they were beach bound and just like Liam had mentioned Maxwell’s kooky road trip playlist was running through the playlist, it was an eclectic mashup of songs past and present made to make you sing and dance. One minute they were rocking out to Queen, the next song Eminem, and currently they were singing the Village People’s YMCA.

When the song ended Riley went into her cooler. She handed Liam one of the healthy juice drinks she had seen him drink in the office.

Liam tried not to smile as she cracked the seal a little and handed it to him.

“C.O.O. of Hydration Services at your beckon call.”

She had taken notice of his likes and dislikes.

“I think it’s also snack time too.”

She opened the snack pack for Liam.

“Did you really buy me a mickey mouse snack pack with grapes, cheese cubes and pretzels?”

“It’s all the things I’ve seen you eat, and it’s packaged together in one container for traveling convenience. So yes. What would you like first?”

“Grapes.”

Liam knew he was perfectly capable of driving and eating but something about Riley being so attentive to him he loved.

“Thank you Riley.”

“Do we get snacks back here too?” Maxwell asked.

“We can stop at the store for you Max.”

“Even better.”

While Hana and Maxwell were in the store, Liam glanced at Riley.

"Are you seeing anyone Riley?"

"Of course, I'm not blind, I'm looking at you right now."

Liam laughed at her joke.

"Cute Riley. I meant romantically."

"Oh I know what you meant Liam Ryerson. Not currently, but I am taking applications to set up interviews."

"How does one submit an application to be considered if they are interested?"

"Didn't you ever hear the saying never get your honey and your money in the same place?"

"Well, you already told me you're going to take my job."

Riley laughed.

"I believe you to be a woman of your word."

"I am."

"So that doesn't apply here. I would like to be considered for the position."

"And what position is that?"

"I'm very versatile, so any position you need that satisfies the task at hand; I aim to please."

Riley laughed out loud. He was the master of the double entendre.

"Management already has your file Liam."

Liam's smile widened.

“So, when do you think I might be called for my interview?”

“How do you know you’re not already on it?”

“But how do you prepare for a surprise interview?”

“Management will be in touch Liam.”

"But…"

Riley slipped on her sunglasses to cover her eyes.

"Management will be in touch Liam."

When they finally reached the small island resort they were pleasantly surprised at the cute little two person bungalows.

“Before we check into our rooms, I have something special for everyone. Something that signifies that we're a team and a strong one at that.” Bertrand handed everyone packages with their names on it, and all the staff tore into their packages.

“Do we really have matching wind suits? Green suits?”

“Green signifies money which we are all going to make a lot of, and it was on sale.”

“Um if we’re playing red light green light, and these are numbered, I’m gonna have to call HR unless I have 456!"

"This is not The Squid Game Miss Brooks, however, once we all get dressed we do have our first team building activity with another company. Meet me back here in ten minutes."

They met Bertrand in the check-in lobby, everyone in their green jumpsuits.

"We're really doing tug of war?”

“I don’t know how I feel about this. None of you other guys have seen The Squid Game?”

Liam had a big smile on his face.

“Only Liam, Bertrand and I? I’m telling you guys, nothing good can come of this, and how is this team building?"

"Because we're gonna CRUSH the other group as a team!"

Hana screamed as she made throat slicing motions as she stared at the other team.

"Bertrand, they're not wearing matching jumpsuits.”

“They’re not as strong as a team as we are.”

Wouldn’t you know it? Team Mean Green actually took the win. After the game, the Team Builder coach had them all sit in a circle and share one thing about them.

Liam’s was by far the most profound. Liam shared that though he had the opportunity to be the right hand to his father in the family business, he had decided not to. Money did not mean everything to him.

A clear conscience, for an honest job well done, was more important.

Riley looked around the room before she spoke, she decided to share something personal about herself and her life, as Liam had.

“I’ve never lost anyone I considered to be close to me before. I have all my grandparents, even my pet I had as a teenager is still alive. People say loss makes you stronger and develops your character, and I haven’t had any of that. Sometimes I wonder if I’m walking through life with glasses with rose colored lenses, because I feel like life has been incredibly good to me, and nothing truly awful has ever happened to me.”

Now Liam understood why Riley always had a smile on her face, how she was so optimistic, and why he was so drawn to her. She was his polar opposite.

“Good news team, the afternoon is yours to explore and go to the beach, or use the amenities here. This will be your evening to do whatever you wish, tomorrow after team building we’ll have a group dinner at the local watering hole here Sand Castles for dinner and Karaoke.”

Riley opted for the amenities around the bungalows, to relax at, the pool and pool bar. She was sitting on the bar stool in the water sipping her pina colada when she heard Liam’s voice.

“I thought I would be the only one not hitting the beach this afternoon.” He waded in the water over to where she was sitting in a brightly colored Hawaiian shirt that was open revealing this bare chest and finely chiseled physique proving Liam Rys worked hard at the gym and his blue matching swim trunks.

“Mind if I sit next to you?”

“Not at all! It’s hot, and I have my umbrella drink and my floppy hat, nice refreshing water to kick around in. This is nice. Besides, I love to stroll on the beach at night.”

“So if this is my interview can I just say, I too like long romantic walks on the beach.”

“Noted Liam."

When the bartender asked Liam what he would like he opted for a pina colada as well, and mentioned that Riley needed refill. She smiled, letting him buy her another drink.

“You have to have at least one umbrella drink or a coconut at the beach right?”

“Exactly.”

Well, one drink turned into several more during the afternoon and early evening, and the flirting between the two became a little more and more off-color. Riley went to rest her head in her hand to coyly side glance at Liam, but her elbow slipped making her off balance, of all the things to grab, instead of Liam, she grabbed her drink before she fell, before Liam could fully understand what had happened. At the last second though, before she hit the water, Riley lifted her arm. The only thing currently above the water at that point was Riley’s hand and her drink.

When she jumped up the first thing out of her mouth was “Whooo, I saved the drink. That’s all that matters.” she took a sip for good measure.

The people around them cheered.

Liam laughed, “That you did. And we should cut ourselves off. No more umbrella drinks for either of us. Let’s get some dinner?”

“Are you driving?”

“No, we’re going to get something delivered, my treat along with the bottles of water we’re going to drink with our meals.”

“That sounds great.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes but first we finish our drinks. Mama said ‘never waste alcohol’!”

They decided on ordering from the local Mexican restaurant and after their food arrived, they decided since it had cooled off considerably outside, to eat at one of the picnic tables. Liam went to get ice for their waters, Riley went ahead and dug into her food. Liam sat back down and looked through the bags, he paused when his eyes met Riley's.

"What's wrong?"

“Um… Riley, you’re eating my food. I ordered the steak burrito.”

She abruptly stopped mid bite.

“Oh shit! What the hell am I doing? It’s really good though.”

Liam smiled, “Guess the taco salad is mine now.”

“I’m just looking out for you Mr. Washboard abs. You enjoy that salad.”

“Then my steak burrito is feeding those curves. This definitely works out, and besides, that means the next time we have dinner, it’s your treat Riley.”

“I could do that.”

Sounded like Riley just consented to a date with him.

“If this is the worst thing that happens this trip, I think we’re doing alright.”

It was not the worst thing.

“How the hell did you not catch her?!?!” Liam screamed.

“I wasn’t ready! Wasn’t she supposed to give a warning?!?!?!”

“She’s not a falling tree Maxwell, she wasn’t supposed to scream timber when she fell?”

“No! It’s a trust fall, you’re supposed to fall and trust the person standing behind you will catch you.”

“I didn’t know!!!!!! This is why I asked for us not to be first!” Maxwell hollered.

Liam crouched down on the ground next to Riley. She had hit the ground hard and was still unconscious.

“Is there a medic? We need a medic stat.” Bertrand said to the instructor.

“What the hell is happening right now? Are we in World War One??” Drake inquired.

“Can someone get me some pain relieving tinctures from the Apothecary post haste?”

Everyone looked at Riley still laying on the ground.

“I’m fine guys.” she grumbled.

Riley opened her eyes and Liam’s panicked face was the first one she saw.

“You should lie still Riley, you fell hard.”

“Thanks a lot Maxwell.”

“I’m sorry!!! I wasn’t ready!!!”

“I hear that a lot from men.”

“Then you’re falling for the wrong ones. You should try falling for me next time. I promise I’ll catch you. Check out these guns.”

Liam flexed his muscles; A slow smile spread across her lips.

“Double meaning, noted.”

"You sure you're alright?" Liam' s voice was riddled with caring concern.

"I'm fine."

"Let's get you up from there."

Liam effortlessly pulled her to her feet, and Riley still off balance fell against his chest.

"I got you Riley." He whispered.

Riley smiled at him. "Welcome to the second round of interviews Liam Ryerson."

Definitely not the worst thing.

#bebepac writes #the blue honey cafe #trr liam #trr mason #trr riley brooks #trr riley #trr mc x liam #trr mc x oc?#choices fic writers #trr fanfic #trr fandom #choices fanfiction

75 notes · View notes

ecargmura · 6 months

Text

Dog Signal Episode 3 Review - Nature Vs. Neuter

This episode takes a bit of a serious tone compared to the previous two episodes for it talks about an interesting topic: neutering. Because Miyu is a first-time dog owner, he’s unsure whether or not neutering is okay for dogs, so he spends the entire episode pondering about whether he’s being selfish about taking away Singe’s natural instincts or if he’s doing something beneficial for his health later on. I love that this topic is shown through the eyes of a novice pet owner’s perspective and through an experienced one’s.

Nature vs neuter, what’s best for dogs? I’m sure dog owners ponder about this all the time. To be honest, I’ve never gotten my dogs neutered and spayed. The poodles I have right now had already gotten surgery when I adopted them. Before my poodles, I was raising a Shih-tzu that didn’t have surgery. I was planning on getting him neutered, but he had a heart murmur and other health complications that he died rather early. At first, with my Shih-tzu, I was thinking about neutering him because I thought it was the natural thing to do since all dog owners do it. Watching this anime made me realize that it’s actually something that requires much thought, even as an experienced pet owner.

I feel like Miyu struggling on whether he should let Singe get surgery or not really shows how much he cares for his dog. He’s really asking thought-provoking questions understandable for a first-time dog owner. I’m glad that Niwa is there as a neutral ground of sorts. He understands Miyu’s struggles, but he’s also telling him that having Singe getting surgery would be more beneficial for him in the long run. He’s not chiding Miyu for being selfish about his dog, but he’s not supporting his indecisiveness either. I really like that he’s neutral in all of this.

This episode also introduces a new character, Suzunosuke Kubo, a vet. He’s the craziest vet I’ve seen so far. What vet shows off a dog’s testicles to its owner? Though, he does seem to know his stuff, though. I did like how he mentioned the neutering bias present in the West, which shows how some things are viewed in some countries.Though, my only issue with the doctor is that he did NOT talk about stuff like pet insurance, pet protection plans, or anything regarding money with Miyu. I don’t know what vets in Japan are like, but in America, vets LOVE to charge everything (like every healthcare professional in the country). They’re always trying to persuade pet parents to take protection plans or insurance because vet bills are EXPENSIVE. I’m wondering about the money Miyu has. Pet items aren’t cheap. Veterinary bills are pretty much worth a person’s salary. If Miyu is okay with letting Singe have surgery, that means he got good money from working at the bar or he has pet insurance…does Japan even have pet insurance? Also, is it just me or does the vet guy look like Kanechika-senpai from Skip and Loafer?

Other than Miyu’s worries, I do like how there’s continuity in this story as Eguchi does become a customer and student in Niwa’s dog training course. I’m glad, though. I’m so happy that Eguchi does care for Leo and wants what’s best for him and for herself too. It’s nice see both her and her dog improving their relationship—one of my favorite things about seeing people with dogs. I also like seeing that even though Singe got neutered, it doesn’t mean an instant change in habits. I think Miyu should invest in pet pads if he doesn’t want Singe to pee everywhere.

One last thing I liked was how Dr. Kubo was teasing Niwa about hiring Miyu. Apparently, Miyu looks like a puppy and Niwa was denying that he was “interested” in him due to his curly brown hair. Oh, does Niwa have a type? Also, what’s with the sudden BL teasing in this episode? Not that I’m complaining…

I can’t wait for next week when our duo tackles the issues that the Border Collie and its owner has. Though, I think the subtitles for the dog’s name doesn’t match the audio. The subtitles say the dog’s name is Rexy, but the dog’s name is pronounced as Roche (Ro-shee-eh). How does one get Rexy from Roche? Anyways, what are your thoughts about this anime? I feel like I’m the only person reviewing this show, which has both its positives and negatives.

#dog signal #Miyu samura #Shinichiro niwa #Suzunosuke Kubo #Eguchi #Singe #Ourson #Leo #review #anime #anime review #ecargmura #arum journal

5 notes · View notes

houkagokappa · 1 year

Text

I finished Stone Ocean!

First of all I want to talk about how I used to think people were exaggerating when they complained about Netflix Jail ruining the popularity of an anime. I figured that as long as the anime is good people will watch it and talk about it. Well, Jojo proved me wrong.

When part 6 got announced I was sooo excited for it. I saw people talking about it everywhere. When the first batch of episodes was released I saw a few promotional tweets about it, but not much else. The fact that Jojo was released through the Netflix model killed absolutely all hype for it, all discussion, fan works, memes and anticipation for the episodes to come. Some of the most fun I’ve had in the anime community was when part 5 was airing and it felt like we were all watching it together. I kept coming across content of the latest episode and excitement for what would happen in the next one every single week. It’s disheartening how part 6 flew under the radar, despite the initial hype and established fanbase. The only saving grace for me is that I really enjoy binging Jojo and having it on Netflix made it easy for me to download all the episodes on my tablet for a long train ride to a place without wifi for my Christmas break.

Now onto the actual series. I really liked Jolyne as the new protagonist! She’s probably my favourite Jojo so far. Having a female protagonist and a mostly female cast (at least at the start of the series) was a much needed breath of fresh air for the series.

I still have a hard time imagining Jotaro marrying someone and having a child, and seems like it was hard for him too. When part 4 revealed that Joseph cheated on his wife and had an illegitimate son it made me lose all respect for him. I still hate him for it, but seeing how Jotaro also ended up as a fail husband and absent father it’s gotten hilarious how it seems to run in the Joestar family. It’s a horrible character flaw, but at least it’s a huge character flaw and that makes it interesting to see in characters who are otherwise portrayed as the heroes. Of course it also works to downgrade the previous protagonist and letting the new ones shine. That said, the relationship between Jolyne and Jotaro improved a lot during the series and I appreciate the depiction of a father-daughter relationship. They’re pretty rare in anime/ manga/ fiction in general and I wish we’d get more of them!

I knew that DIO would show up again, which I had mixed feelings about. I like him a lot as a villain, but I’m not a huge fan of characters returning from the dead over and over again (looking at you Avdol and F.F.). It cheapens their deaths and the story. Luckily it turned out that all his appearances were flashbacks. I think the part that he played in the story made a lot of sense, he did travel around se recru seducing all those followers so of course some of them would still be around looking for revenge and heaven, apparently. If he would’ve been revived, which seemed plausible at one point, it would’ve been fun to see him again, but it’s probably for the best that it didn’t happen.

Pucci was okay as the villain. I had fun learning about him and his motives, but he got away with too much bullshit. As a whole I feel like part 6 had too many fights and stands that got beaten through some bs method that didn’t make any sense. It was nice seeing a lot of really strong stands, but instead of being defeated “because Araki said so” I wish that they would’ve been outsmarted even if those ways would’ve been ridiculous, or simply beaten to death through brute-force by physically stronger characters. Adding to this, it’s a little annoying when stands suddenly have additional abilities that are a little over-powered and convenient for the situation at hand, but that has always been a part of Jojo so I can’t complain too much. It makes sense for (mentally) stronger characters to get more out of their stands, but I wish there’d be more rules, guidelines or explanations for those powers and abilities.

White Snake had a really cool design that I want to give a special shout-out to. I also liked Made in Heaven. Its powers were cool, probably the strongest in the series so far (except maybe Golden Experience Requiem?) mostly thanks to the global effect. The global effect is something I also enjoyed about Weather Report. I wish we’d gotten more fights with him, I would’ve liked to see all the ways he’d control the weather to win. The frog rain was hilarious, but the slugs and rainbows were a bit much.

I'm a little disappointed by the animation. I can’t remember if it’s always been pretty simple or I simply never noticed how often we’d get a still image with nothing but some mouth movements or a visual effect. I know it’s pretty common in anime, but the fact that I noticed it because those scenes were so frequent or long is a problem. I can’t say that the series was a true joy to watch thanks to it.

I’m also a little disappointed that we only got two openings and one ending, although it’s a very minor complaint. Due to that I got scared when the final episode op started playing without the SFX, but they played me and gave us an incredible callback to Sono Chi no Sadame and all the previous parts! Hearing Roundabout again as the ending made me tear up. I love the generational structure of the series and all the passion behind it and it’s moment like those that remind me of it!

I knew that the universe would be reset, and now that I’ve seen it happen I’m not sure how to feel about it. A little bittersweet? I think I’ll have to wait and see how it affects the following parts. I’m also curious if they’re going to try to one-up Pucci and Made in Heaven. It seems hard, but luckily for Jojo I don’t think it’ll be a necessary goal.

This got super long and I’m sure there’s something I wanted to comment on that I can’t remember anymore. Oh yeah, I’m still a little mushy over how ecstatic Ai Fairouz was for being cast as Jolyne. It was such a huge dream come true for her with Jolyne being the reason she wanted to become a seiyuu and she did an AMAZING job! I was also really happy Mariya Ise got a main role as she’s one of my favourites, even though she’s been taking roles where she dies off too soon :/

All in all more Jojo is always good and I can’t wait for the next part!!!

#my nonsense #ella watches anime #jjba #stone ocean #long post

8 notes · View notes

fadedelegance · 11 months

Text

Hey, look, it’s the reasons I’m quitting my job!

Let me get into what it’s been like working for this financial institution while neurodivergent.

My boss has been a complete twat to me, and that is the only reason I can think of why. One time when I had a social gaffe, she acted like I cussed someone out or said something racist, something legitimately awful like that, when all I did was talk too loudly. When she called me into her office, she said, “Do you want to tell me what you were thinking when you said that?” I felt so ashamed and embarrassed that I burst into tears and had to leave early. What fucking right did she have to make me feel that way when I had no ill intent and didn’t insult anyone on purpose or accidentally?

About 9 months ago, she wrote me up because a coworker completely misunderstood something I said and told her manager she didn’t want to work with me anymore—even though we’d worked together dozens of times without any problems. She was actually one of my favorite people to work with, and we both suffer from anxiety, so we understood that about each other. I was telling her about some anxious thoughts I was having about work, and she thought I was accusing her of causing it, when that wasn’t the case at all. My manager just presented me with the write up and told me why it was happening, right then and there. I was given no forewarning whatsoever—no chance to apologize to that coworker to her face, no chance to tell my side to anyone. Everything was done behind my back because apparently managers being passive-aggressive is perfectly normal and not at all petty and unprofessional. 🙃🙃🙃 That was also my second write up within a month, which led me to believe that this was an attempt at constructive termination. (The first write up I got was for not following a rule that I didn’t even know was a rule. And I didn’t even remember what I did that would have constituted breaking that rule. But yes, just escalate it to a write up. Don’t take the time to explain to me that that’s a rule, and here was how I broke it, and give me the verbal warning not do it again. Just immediately escalate it to a write up. Because that’s fair and makes sense.🙃)

I suspect the reason I wasn’t allowed to train on opening new accounts is because she thinks I’m too socially awkward to be in public, which isn’t at all true. I may be on the spectrum, but there are customers who always come to me when they stop by. I had great rapport with the regulars at my previous job. But no, just ask the bully I work for: I’m horribly socially inept and shouldn’t be unleashed upon the poor, unsuspecting public.

She has made me feel like I don’t belong and don’t fit in and like there’s something seriously fucked up and offensive about me. I have never truly understood what her problem with me is, so that’s all I can think of: she thinks I’m repulsive for being autistic. Of course, she can’t say that because that’s illegal. But she’s immature, unprofessional, and petty enough that that probably is the reason why.

The last straw for me was yesterday morning when she yelled at me in front of a branch full of customers, while I was in the middle of helping a customer myself. I could tell by the customer’s demeanor after that that she thought she got me in trouble and was inconveniencing us somehow. It was sad because she was a really nice lady. I made sure to reassure her that she was just fine and hadn’t done anything wrong. I could also sense that she felt secondhand embarrassment. I know that if I had said that my boss had just made an ass of herself, she would’ve agreed with me. I actually felt worse for that customer than I did for myself. I felt embarrassed in front of her, too, because I was working and therefore representing the organization just like my boss. I felt embarrassed on behalf of our organization.

This is not an exaggeration: out of all the jobs I’ve had over the years, I have never been treated this way by an employer. And, of course, they pay lip service to diversity and inclusion, which, in my experience, is a complete joke. They’re fine with a bisexual woman working for them as long as she’s not autistic.

I typed up my two weeks notice yesterday. We’re off on Monday because we’re closed for Memorial Day, so I will be submitting that two weeks notice on Tuesday. This job has caused me more severe anxiety then the pandemic did when I was in my previous job. I can’t keep living like this. She crossed a line by trying to humiliate me in front of a room full of people, so that’s why I decided that I’m going to quit. I don’t have another job lined up at the moment, but I have a whole list of places to apply to. I’m also trying to see if I can’t get my previous job back. I enjoyed being a Barista, and I was good at it.

I’m terrified about not having steady income for a little while, and not knowing when I’ll get a new job, but like I said, my anxiety has been so bad over the past 14 or 15 months, that I can’t keep living like this. If you don’t have your health—mental, physical, social (and spiritual, if that’s your thing)—what the fuck do you have?

#neurodivergent #autism #working while neurodivergent

5 notes · View notes

goddesspharo · 9 months

Note

if i may: ✦ and ♡ [any fic you’d like]?

✦ what was your easiest fic to write & your hardest?

I'm going to go with the ao3 era because I'm definitely not looking through LJ. Although I will say I was certainly more prolific re: volume in those halcyon days, particularly for Gossip Girl and House (of all things!...as if I was not obsessed with that show for at least the first two seasons) - God, that perfect storm of excellence that the S2 finale with House getting shot leading to Cuddy and Wilson putting House in a Ketamine coma without his consent and then S3 beginning with him running??? CHEF'S KISS. Even though that show went batshit crazy later on, the mileage from some of those storylines was highway level. This show was at its best when everyone around House was doing ethically dubious things in an attempt to get him to stop doing ethically questionable things.

But to answer the actual question: I almost never think any fic is easy while I'm writing it and questioning my decision to write anything at all, but some involve less hair pulling than others. There was a period after The Batman where I got into a nice little groove (after not writing any fic for a good five years, apparently) of feeling like the floodgates opened and I wanted to write tomes, which probably has more to do with loving Matt Reeves' distinctive Selina voice. (The effortless baby to this hot mess of a socially awkward dude she met four seconds ago works only because Zoe Kravitz has confidence for miles.) I think living in a rhythm where the minute's working overtime was relatively easy to write (and shorter after the two previous 10k+ fics I'd written) - it felt easy, breezy while I was writing it and I had a good time.

I'm always inclined to say that the hardest fic is whatever I'm currently working on because it's not over, but in this case, I'm going with against the grain of dystopic claims. As a person who almost never posts WIPs, I'm not sure why I decided a Top Gun Maverick apocalypse AU was the perfect time to start, but I probably would've relegated it to languishing half-finished in my google docs if I hadn't posted it as a WIP so maybe past me knew the only way to get it done was to have external accountability? It was hard to write because I vaguely knew where I was going with it when I started writing it and then had to actually follow through with PLOT that made sense and couldn't go back and change things that I had previously set up. It did force me to make an outline for the current WIP just to avoid that JJ Abrams life, you know?

♡ pick a fic and I’ll pick a comment that made me really happy

Any time a person comments on fic, it makes me happy. There's nothing like that rush when you get one of those [AO3] comment e-mails because it makes you feel like you're not screaming into the void! Of course I agree with the adage that you should write for yourself, but you're also to an extent writing for others (or else you'd never post it, right?) so it's nice when you hear something back. Then it becomes a game of catch instead of throwing a baseball into a tornado and hoping that it'll return someday. I love when people leave lengthy comments with pull quotes and how things made them feel or why certain bits worked for them, but it's also really nice when you get a comment years later with people telling you they still love something you wrote. (Those comments where people are talking about re-reading your stuff? LOVELY.) All of this is a long-winded way to say that if you've ever commented on anything I've written, know that it has probably made me really happy even if it was a sentence.

[ask me about fic!]

#ask me things #we can pretend there is a thought process behind any of this

2 notes · View notes

m0e-ru · 2 years

Text

GSA SL AU: an attempted summary

spoiler warning for p4-p5 and all the spinoffs. trying so hard to tell myself to make a tldr of my stupidt au and not go off the rails and have a Writer Moment and make it too ambitious than I need it to be so here's literally attempt 10948329 of trying to put gsaslau into words

Unlike canon, Izanami goes out there and makes friends with their guinea pigs and a handful of other people which is a really great idea when you don't want your test results to vary. "Yeah I know my job is to cover this place in fog because the people said so. Just making sure." Yeah well now look what happened, you've got 11 different identity crisis episodes every week you idiot.

WHILE being a clown in the real world, they're a babysitter in the TV world taking care of the Shadow selves that you could call it "Midnight Daycare" at this point.

Learning from both lives, Izanami loses their sense of self and regrets a lot of things. Like starting a game where two people already died. Then remembered they told their sister to go kill herself if she remembered anything about herself. And the fact if they continue the game, it won't really end well for the people of Inaba because their whole year—it wasn't even a year actually—of living taught them that yeah okay, maybe hiding from the truth is bad, maybe covering the whole world is a bad idea.

They have people they love and people that love them, so the best solution obviously is to have everyone forget about you, dissolve all bonds and go drop dead with the demon that would've separated from you if they continued to rebel against your duty.

But this is fine because the Power of Friendship always shines through, so they continue to live after being called a dumbass by three different people and now they have more media appearances yay 🎉🎉🎉

--- pre-p4

The apparent backstory to this was the life they had before the two split, which meant they were one whole. "Izanami-no-Mikoto" was the previous deity born from and governed the people of Inaba. With her motherlike nature, she took care of some kid who escaped a hospital immediately after waking up from his coma. The boy loved her as his mother figure although his headmate didn't seem to agree because what happened last time he tried to call some guy a parent figure, huh. This is fine though she teaches him how to be a good guardian if she ever kicks the bucket. Which she kinda does.

She was loved and remembered by all, until her own kid said they hated her guts and expunged her from people's memories and it was as if Inaba never had a nice lady living in it. For the sake of plot devices though, a handful of people still remember her, of course.

--- p4u

It's Golden Week and apparently little mister protagonist Souji Seta never fully defeated "Izanami-no-Ōkami," and the remnants of godly power continued to live on, planning new schemes away from Nami and Marie's notice, who were busy recuperating from uh, the last few months before worlds merged together and humanity would've ended entirely. Well it was gonna happen again because there was this brat who's hosting his own show of a fighting tournament with all the pyrotechnics in the world where at the end the winner doesn't matter and worlds merge together and humanity would end entirely.

Scarfaced redhead Sho Minazuki also decided he doesn't like his mom's kids so he'll just "put them back together" because that's what Kagutsuchi promised. right. Except he's a little prick and told this idiotboy you can't put god's pieces together until you kill each piece individually. Y'know if humans were a lot nicer this never would've happened.

But the Power of Friendship pt. 2 shines through and worlds are back to normal and suddenly there's a house smack dab in Inaba which leads to a forest now apparently inhabited with the strangest family known to mankind.

-- intermission

The weather girl "Mariko Kusumi" makes her debut and rockets her station's viewership in less than a week. There's another bear at Junes which means they're hosting twin gigs now. Some kid has been jumping across roofs causing the "cat tsunami" phenomenon which leaves all local detectives tired and baffled. And it looks like "everyone's part-timer" has more than one helping hand to pass around whenever anybody needs it.

The "Kusumi Household" has been established and has somewhat slowly become a household name itself. A strange house with stranger hallways and the strangest backyard—which is a literal forest. But nobody minds, just come in for lunch or some tea, hope that random fires don't start or a humanoid entity in a striped getup and a scythe doesn't come out of nowhere because some bear got onto a redhead's nerves.

Besides taking care of Inaba, Nami wishes to observe more events of unconscious collectives wishing their own doom, and hopefully prevent or just lessen the damage done just in case the Velvet Room fails to sign a contract with a competent guest. The latter seems to be unlikely, but extra measures are good. And Marie knows well enough the goodness in their heart to know they want to help other deities that have fallen from grace, born into a life that was never good for anybody. I mean why'd they bring the brat home with them, huh.

--- p4d

After a humble visit to the Velvet Room, Margaret lets it slip that her guest is undergoing another trial. He's... stuck in another collective unconscious, actually. Being told not to interfere with his journey this time around, the two hang around the trusses and have their own backstage tour, observing the new game this Self-Proclaimed Investigation Team's found themselves in now.

Taking note of the nature of the world and resonating with an unfamiliar populace, Nami continues forward and laughs at the gimmicks this god of the people tries to pull. They make a few pessimistic jokes in a sarcastic tone which get them more than a smack on the back and a punch in the shoulder.

"Mikuratana-no-Kami" was a peculiar deity, and was defeated with the power of the expression of dance. After watching the concert, the two return to the diety's nebula and see that it is still there... Nami offers guidance as well as urging it to live the life it was clinging on to, just so long as it makes the effort to make its city a better place. So it goes out there as a peppy costume designer and becomes closer to the same girls that inspired it to live.

--- p5/r

Tokyo could perhaps be the worst city Nami's had to visit ever. Okay sure, the new Velvet Room guest may have been directly involved with god as he himself has established a bond as documented in the tome. Sure the game was rigged from the start, nothing surprising about that. Within the jurisdiction of his power, the worlds were coming together again and haunting organic landscape raining red liquid, that's expected.

The false mechanical god has fallen, it should've been over, right? All they had to do was pick up the dinnerware he became, toss him in the blue room and feel the wrath of a girl with a chainsaw, and see what else he could do since something was keeping him alive. But that could be taken care of later, there was Christmas to celebrate at home!

However, just before they got on the last train home, a nasty shiver went up their spine.

It's a new year. Fireworks were lit, greetings were exchanged, prayers were made, a happy dinner was eaten. But with every tomato plant toppled, an excuse for Nami's condition had to be made—although, that was futile.

What do you mean there’s an external power interfering with Inaba’s unconscious? What do you mean you’re carrying the whole burden of keeping it away from home all by yourself? More than enough god life threatening events have happened and you still haven’t learned anything?

A yet to be certified doctor, Takuto Maruki, had once stayed in Inaba to perform Adachi’s psych evals, all from a desperate plea from his wardens to get some sense out of him. The two were even friends from back then. And now, he’s come back to Inaba, to… make it better.

This “actualization” by a horrid beast of a parasite takes a toll on already existing deities. Either they’re wiped out entirely, or they are given the mercy to live in a lie as their human heart’s desires are answered.

After a sermon and a bit of counsel, Nami gets the OK to visit the world outside of Inaba and continue their research, although from very much worried individuals. They could not come near this “Lab of Sorrow” lest their life be forfeit. But they go station to station, while persevering such an oppressive force upon them, to see this empty paradise, meet a few other friends along the way, meet with “Trickster” little miss Lavenza puts her faith in, and is generously ushered home through the otherworldly means of the room between dreams and reality, mind and matter.

The Trickster pushes through and succeeds in knocking some sense into his own friend. His Eden has collapsed and is free from godly power. The, now taxi driver, brings a few friends along to the new Tokyo for a cup of coffee, in which he is counseled over all the new trauma he’s caused himself the past few months. It was an interesting lunch indeed, having three gods at a table in a humble cafe.

Nothing against Maruki, but Nami didn’t really want to see Assathoth’s stupid shiny crucifix esque face again. But /strangling gestures/ it’s fine. it’s okay. Maruki can take care of it.

--- p5s

It’s summer now, surely everyone can catch a break from hearing about humanity unconsciously trying to destroy themselves—until news breaks out that a hot new A.I. in town’s making its way into people’s lives—and heads.

Lavenza is curious of the new trial her guest will undertake, Nami shares the same sentiments. But they are badgered into taking a rest now that their sister managed to convince the city to ban said A.I. from Inaba’s cyberspace. It’s a precaution. “What about Mikuratana?” oh, it’d see a Jail coming out of nowhere and abolish it immediately (LAZER EYES). It’s had more than enough from the last worldwide fiasco, and it didn’t want to worry Kanami and the girls again.

Nami follows a steady pace as per request of their loved once and watches the new emmanuel as she makes her mark across Japan. They also watch the “Phantom Thieves”’s every now and then, wondering where their cross-country roadtrip’s gone now. They too keep a close eye on “Sophia,” while her own story makes this god’s heart ache.

Ichinose reminds Nami of a number of somebodies, to say the least. The Demiurge is defeated and Nami hears the echo she sent to her sister. While the world crumbles around them as the Thieves leave, Nami stays with a fragment of the deity for a little while, hoping to convince her to let them help.

She is brought to Inaba to start anew. It was helpful that no one was too familiar to her when she was a big-shot A.I.. After much time, she returns to her “family” to make amends, while she is accepted back with love. Although she is worried this boomer of an individual may no longer have a digital assistance, she keeps her word to be a good companion, just like Sophia.

--- pq

Mockingly titled “Godhunter” by a crucifix shaped freak of nature, Nami and their family finally settle. It’s been a while since they sent their boy and brat to check on Shirogane-kun back at Yagokoro to investigate the so-called “Midnight Site.” The brat was disappointed over learning a woman landed more hits than him in his entire lifetime (he never killed anybody) while the boy was enthusiastic over the Kirijo model android that could turn into a bike. In fact, he came home that day rushing to contact Labrys about it and whined when she couldn’t do the same thing. But she was heat tempered and had an axe that doubled as a jetpack so it’s fine.

It occurs to Marie that she should talk about them. Them? The ones she met while she was still a resident at the Velvet Room. Chronos—Zen, she means. He was a good friend long before they even split into two, and it made her snicker he had gone through the same thing. But his was out of love, apparently. “Selfishness,” she remembered him say, but she didn’t think so.

He was fine from that point on, finally having ushered that girl’s soul to where she needs to be. However… her head started to twist and ache remembering this next bit. Maybe living in the Velvet Room had its fair share of side effects—maybe due to the fact it doesn’t follow time as normally as reality.

She told Nami of “Enlil,” maybe she’d be a new one to introduce to their “deity rehabilitation” they have going on. Margaret complies with this request and assists Nami in meeting her; where the woman was busy watching her life on repeat, where it ended bittersweetly in “farewell” every time.

Nami knows they won’t remember her as per the rules of this “reality” Margaret had warned them about, but they will know why a lady in white would have come to Inaba all on her own.

Enlil followed the charming deity’s invite and visits Inaba in a time she desired—one that wasn’t too far from when Hikari fell into her realm… which apparently wasn’t too far from the Nami that visited her in her piece of a movie theater.

Truth be told, this lady may have been the easiest to assist out of… every other deity Nami had helped. She was kind, she was sweet, she learned from her mistakes, she helped others, she was lovely. The air around her smelled like lilies as she stood gracefully with her hands together. Sure, she was still figuring herself out too, after… who knows how long she’s been watching her biographical movie on repeat.

This may have been a problem for Nami.

#persona 4 spoilers #p4 #// not tagging all of the spoilers since theyre under cut anyway but. yeah theyre all here #ゲッー #gsa sl au #sulululat #izanami persona #⛽️🌫#// i tried bullshitting it as much as possible but it backfired and you can see it get more sophisticated at the end. 2k words babes !!!#// i proofread. only a little bit. my tenses are all over the place as always <3 #// WELL that's the whole scope of gsaslau i managed to flesh out. i dont have much 3 thoughts yet. sorry #// oh yeah since i never published much of post-p4 writing i do use 'nami' . making a point that mims a nickname i like to use #// if this doesnt make sense /flails arms/ ask me about it i guess #// except the last one. for whatever reason naglil lined up so much with whatever i had planned for izy so. why dont i take advantage of th #// this and haunt mim of their past or whatever

5 notes · View notes

llycaons · 2 years

Text

notes from notw read-along ep2 (pt 1), or: wow, fans of this book really need to branch out

listen to the podcast here

so one of the hosts is a PhD candidate at Johns Hopkins. we know this because he brings it up regularly, as if worried we'd forget

he starts off with a story about how he taught a class on Tolkein and casually dropped the fact that it was so well received he got an award. all essential to his point, of course, which is that a professor asked him a question. and now he gives us this question back. is this book like, good?

anyway mr. johns hopkins immediately calls PR a twat for having a pronunciation guide but since that's actually very common and normal in fantasy and widely appreciated amongst readers, he got some resistance from the other hosts. I personally like pronunciation guides!

I think he has a lot of substantial critique to give but he's so full of himself about it, which is hilarious given the podcast's critique of PR

fun fact: it's not 'the kingkiller chronicles" it's "the kingkiller chronicle" just the one. which yeah, it is just one in-universe. but damn that's annoying

so our story starts in the town of, I shit you not, "Nawerre" which is apparently pronounced like "noire" but looks a hell of a lot like "nowhere" to me

his inn is described as very generic, with meaningless words describing a flavorless setting but "the vibes are nice"

MC'S FIRST WORDS IN THE BOOK ARE "ACTUALLY" that's so funny

fun fact number two: PR said he wanted to make "an entirely new kind of fantasy" and "a story unlike any other"

you know what's actually a story unlike any other? hunter x hunter. and even togashi drew inspiration from the work of araki and his stand magic. you can't act like you're not drawing on any previous work here pat your entire magic system is practically taken right from earthsea, a vastly superior work in every single way

because when uklg write she actually...says things

also, there's half a theme of stories about stories and framing devices...black sails did it better

so when mc's identity is sussed out the (super cool) mc delivers a monologue that had me cringing even as a 15 year old...behold the ultimate reddit copypasta

“I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the University at a younger age than most people are allowed in. I tread paths by moonlight that others fear to speak of during day. I have talked to gods, loved women, and written songs that make the minstrels weep. You may have heard of me.”

I don't have an issue with big badass boasts but this is SO funny ohhh he ~loved women~ really impressive you know who else loved woman? gomez addams and he wasn't nearly as weird about it

iso yeah this is not effective for several reasons

first is that we don't know the context for any of these things because we just started the book. no, we haven't heard of him. because we just started the fucking book. and the guy he's talking to...does he even respond like he's impressed? I don't think he does?

well I'd rather die than go check because I hate this book so someone else will have to let me know

the second reason this doesn't hit is that he's the one telling his story. there's a difference between a legendary figure having tales told of them and someone telling you directly they're hot shit

between seeing what impact they've had on other people/actually seeing what massive things they've done and just...being an innkeeper saying "oh yeah I was this legendary figure trust me" I know which one is stronger

see: cql opening on the entire cultivation world shouting about the yiling patriarch being dead. the entire scene is in chaos and he's obviously the one that made it happen. he has a title. he has notoriety. everyone knows about him and hates him. when he thinks to himself "you dare kick me?" when he first wakes up, it's believable because we have the context of fearful cultivators telling tales about him over a decade after his death. he's widely respected, feared, and copycatted, because he WAS that much of a big deal

third reason this monologue sucks is that it's badly written. it flows well enough, but the choices of words vary in formality and scale, leaving some accomplishments far more impressive-sounding (university line, moonlight line) and leaving others sounding like absolutely duds (talked to gods, LOVED WOMEN)

even "spoken with gods" would have sounded better

a male character bragging about how good he is at sex with women is literally one of the worst traits he can have. unless he really just means loving them. which like yeah? I hope you love the women in your life? is this a thing to brag about?

PR trying to make a new guy going "he's really hot and cool and he knows stuff and he's so smart he outsmarts the teacher and he had red hair and he's a genius musician also and he's SO good at sex" in fact you've just described about 8 million power fantasies. nothing wrong with a fun oc like kvothe. but not much original about it either. rand al'thor meets most of those and he's the jesus figure in a far more impressive series

one of the issues in making a genius character is that imo you kind of have to show them being so smart because just saying "he's really smart guys trust me" kind of falls flat

for intelligent characters, consider death note: a gripping psychological thriller that's always interesting to watch because the characters are all doing 4D chess and trying to guess each other's next move and manufacture events to work in their favor. but it doesn't have to be a crime drama - having characters think ahead, be creative, problem-solve in a variety of ways, and come to conclusions quickly also works. shit, you can also just look at ritsu from mp100 escaping the claw base at the end of s1 with nothing but a spoon, some weak esper kids, and his wits. read any of mr. darcy's letters in pride and prejudice and watch how effectively he communicates his nuanced and complex thoughts

one of the hosts, bless her heart, gently forwarded the idea that it was kind of nice the protag went through a lot of trauma and came out really confident, and that she hadn't seen many protags like that. and I respect that inspiration through the fictional character and I know this story is dear to her so I'm not criticizing, but my goodness. there are so many protags like that chief. watch some shonen

I don't think I could be part of a podcast that tore my favorite book apart.

PR was asked during an interview "What woman screwed you over so badly that you came up with Denna?" and he didn't really answer but he did admit she WAS based on someone he knew which is. absolutely horrendous given the way she's written and treated and how she's like the only major female character in the book. what the fuck is his problem

I had to go on reddit to confirm that so please don't ask me anyone I'm not going back to a site that praises him for that answer using the word "indeed"

the remainder of the section details PR's control issues regarding how he wants people to read his story (by having kvothe interrupt and telling the audience how to feel)

for the record I remember I read this part of the book easily enough. I don't think I really enjoyed it, except for in the rare moments PR restrained himself, when he actually provided some emotional impact

for example, the mc talks about running away from gangs in the city as a young child. he says "one time, they caught me" and for once did not elaborate. and that actually had an effect on me because then you have to imagine what happened to him because he never brings it up again, which is understandable

but I did not enjoy this book. it was not funny or original, none of the characters were interesting or likeable, and the worldbuilding was only occasionally entertaining. it's a very bland story and I don't know why it's so popular

anyway I've seen crit role and I agree with the one host's assessment that PR expects people to center him when he speaks

massive ego, as we now know

in conclusion his fans need to watch more anime and then maybe they'll calm down. on the other hand, I don't know if I want people who are PR fans to be consuming anime

austen already has a ton of rabid fans they should definitely read austen

anyway...see you next time for part 2

#listening to this podcast I was just like oh his fans need to consume something besides #vaguely northern european inspired tapetop rpgs and western fantasy books written by men #immediately.#if you see this in the tags dont come after me #the fact that you like this book is on you #kkc lb

2 notes · View notes

sapnapsimparc · 1 year

Text

based on boyf

George swore to himself to only go on Tinder for a day, and to only swipe right on people he really wanted to get to know. He didn't even tell Karl about his new go at the dating app, because Karl would get over-excited and force him to swipe right on everyone.

His first three matches went down the drain after a ''hi whats up'', and he gave up - exited the app and went to sleep.

George had a family gathering the next day. As he was getting ready, he went to skip a song on his phone he noticed something that wasn't there before: a match and a message notification from tinder.

He all but fell over himself to open it. There was only one person who he swiped right on last night that wasn't an immediate match.

The guy went by the name ''Dream'', he was quite a few years younger than George but based on his bio, he seemed... average? And that was exactly what George was looking for. Someone, who didn't try to overcompensate with lies to seem interesting. Someone who was as much an Average Joe as George. From his experience with dates, he gathered that ordinary people were often more interesting than Extremely Cool And Rich And Fancy™ people.

So, George was excited to see what his dream guy (pun intended) could've texted him. He didn't disappoint.

Dream: Hi! I am working on a study on cybersafety and my topic is how handsome men like yourself may be able to confuse face-recognition apps, or if it's just my eyes. Would you please go on a scientific date with me to help me figure it out?

George giggled to himself. Soooo incredibly corny but miles better than a ''hi how (big) are you?''

George: always happy to help a researcher out!

And so the conversation started, and would've continued on for hours if George didn't have to leave to the gathering.

Dream: Of course! I totally understand, go have fun! I wouldn't expect anyone to miss out on family fun for me :)

George went to the gathering, head in the clouds, and as he got home, his first thought was to message Dream. They talked well into the night, even though they both had work in the morning.

The next day hit George with a lot of tasks with short deadlines, but he still managed to ask Dream about his plans for the rest of the summer.

Dream: Nothing much honestly. I have the week off, then it's back to work as always. I would love to go on some nice dates though haha

As busy as he was, George only got to reply on the way home from work.

George: I hear that! A nice date never hurt nobody :D

Dream: So what do you say? Should we have one?

Now, don't get George wrong, but he found this a little forward. Then he thought about their messages the previous night: George had dinner with his sister on Tuesday. Dream was going to a concert on Wednesday. That only left Thursday as a possible option, or...

George: I can offer up my Thursday afternoon, if that isn't too far away? Or like. Right now haha

Though he was kind of hoping Dream woukd choose Thursday, because he was sweaty and tired, he also really wanted to meet the guy. He kind of hoped that if he turned out to be no fun, it would come out sooner rather than later so he doesn't waste any more time on him.

Dream: I mean I haven't shaved in three days and all I did was lie around with my cat today, but I kinda like the rush. Give me 20 and I can be anywhere you want to meet.

So that was decided.

They went to get dinner at some restaurant dedicated for tourists, which also meant they (Dream, specifically) paid a lot for their food. George promised to pay next time, and they agreed on ditching the tinder messages for an exchange of phone numbers. George got home happy and hopeful that night, immediately messaging Dream.

George: I had fun tonight! Thank you for dinner :) hope to see you soon again!

And just like that, the next date for Thursday was decided.

Dream: you said you liked indie music right

George wasn't expecting a message from Dream on a Friday night, since he knew Dream was out with his friends, but apparently that didn't stop him from thinking about George. It felt like a massive step in the good direction from anyone he dated before. And he even remembered the type of music he listened to.

George: yeah!

Dream: there's a folk punk? indie? whatever festival at the Park this weekend, would you want to go?

Dream: the friends i'm with rn were saying they would go and i'd love if you joined :)

Deep breaths, no freaking out over already meeting friends. They still have two dates before that. It's okay. They will be fine.

George: i was actually eyeing that one for a while now!! I would love to, if i'm not in the way of anything :]

Dream: great!!! and maybe... if you feel like it, yknow, you could spend the night at mine after?

George typed and deleted and retyped his next message at least 4 times before Dream took it as his cue to get back to his friends.

Dream: you can decide at the concert, no rush :) i'm gonna go take care of drunk friends now, see you Monday :) good night!

George: have fun! xx

While he felt kind of bad for not really replying, he could not wrap his head around the fact that This Man. This guy he met on tinder not even a week ago. He was already asking him to stay over. Like, in theory, he knew that on the fifth date (does a concert with friends count as a date? Oh my god his friends will be there!) it's okay to. Sleep together in every sense of the word, but George had never really gone beyond a second date. He was new to this.

Their dates during the week went well. Dream got him a rose for their third date on Monday, they sat in a park looking at dogs and talking for hours. On Wednesday it rained, so Dream took him to a weird scrap metal exhibiton that they both weirdly enjoyed and then went to get waffles together. As they sat in a corner booth and talked about potential next dates for rainy days, George noticed tinder still being open in Dream's phone browser. It wasn't that big of a deal... right? It was only their fourth date. Surely that is still okay for Dream to use tinder, maybe meet other people. Right?

''Punz, hi, hello. I am panicking and I need you to calm me down and also to not tell Karl'' he rushed out in one go as soon as he got home from the waffle place. Well, they walked a bit afterwards and Dream walked him almost home, but he called Punz right after.

''About the panicking or about the reason?''

''Both. Neither. Just. Don't tell Karl anything, yeah?'' George made him promise. Punz may have been Karl's boyfriend, but he was also George's friend since third grade. Karl might be his best friend, but Punz was also just more chill.

''Spill, then'' Punz said, and then listened to George ramble on about Dream and their dates (drates, as Punz dubbed them), and the glimpse of tinder George saw.

''You know it's always better to talk it out with the person, right? I don't know why he still has it open. He does know though. He is the only one who knows. You should ask him before you drive yourself insane, yeah?'' And so George did just that.

George: why is my friend asking me how to message people on tinder i have literally never messaged anybody first

He decided a little lie never hurt nobody. No friend of his was asking for advice, but he hoped he could turn it around somehow.

Dream: i would offer up my opening line but it's mine, trademarked and all

George: and i'm guessing you use it often?:D

Dream: not anymore I don't ;) my research has been carried out, thanks to you

That kind of soothed George's worries, but still left the question:

George: why do you still have tinder open then?:D

Dream: i do?

Dream: guess it got buried under all the other tabs on my phone, closed it now :)

And just like that, George had no more worries. Yeah, this could work. He would be open about his feelings and confusions, honest as can be, because if there's one thing he learned from Tinder dates, it's that if you pretend to be someone you're not you will end up hurt. If this Dream guy can navigate George's early worries, they probably will be going strong for a long time.

George: i hate to be like this but ive had the worst headache all day, would it be a problem if i only came for like. lovejoy and then left? at least you can hang with your friends in peace haha

Dream: oh you poor soul :/ are you sure you still want to come? headaches are no fun

George: Lovejoy barely ever plays anymore so it's not something i would miss for any reason, and i also would love to see you again today :]

Dream: i would be happy to see you too :) I'll be there with the guys from 5pm, Lovejoy goes on at 6:10 say i'll meet you by the entrance so i can lead you to the right stage?

George: sounds perfect! and sorry again about not staying long :[

And so George tried not to take too many painkillers during the day so he wouldn't be too woozy, and got ready on time to be at the Park by 6.

0 notes

casual-video-transcripts · 1 year

Video

youtube

“Fine, I’ll Talk About ‘How You Like That’” by mera

Transcript by CCKN is under the cut

[0:00] [Avatar: The Last Airbender narrator] Previously on Avatar…

[0:03] [mera] This video is over.

[0:05] April was okay.

[0:06] But next video

[0:07] Justin Timberlake (singing): It’s gonna be May!

[0:10] mera: So I’m a rat liar.

[0:12] First things first, make sure you know how to register to vote.

[0:15] If you live in the United States and you are an adult,

[0:17] which I know most of you are,

[0:18] I’m including my links from my previous post

[0:20] alongside some new ones including

[0:22] a guide which will teach you how to register.

[0:24] Check those out below.

[0:26] This is by far the most requested video that I have ever made.

[0:30] So it seems people want to hear some of my thoughts breaking down this song.

[0:34] But at the same time, I think it's fair

[0:35] that there are people who just want to

[0:37] be happy that Blackpink came back at all.

[0:39] So let's break this into sections.

[0:40] The first part of the video is for discussion, analysis, and potential criticism.

[0:46] And the second part is for people who just want to celebrate the comeback.

[0:49] You're in control of the content you consume and how you consume it.

[0:52] Should you decide to watch the whole thing,

[0:53] you are responsible for yourself

[0:55] and your method of reaction.

[0:57] Treat your time on YouTube well and

[0:58] don't force yourself to listen to

[0:59] something that may bother you.

[1:01] [Old Spice Guy] Hello ladies.

[1:02] Look at your man,

[1:03] now back to me.

[1:04] Now back at your man,

[1:05] now back to me.

[1:06] [mera] Primarily this review is bizarre because

[1:08] I have very little to say about the song itself.

[1:11] It's functional and if you love this song

[1:12] I can see why and I couldn't be happier for you.

[1:15] As long as you're aware as a consumer

[1:17] what your money does,

[1:18] there's nothing wrong with liking stuff.

[1:20] I’m so glad people enjoyed this.

[1:22] Initially How You Like That reminded me

[1:23] a bit of a TroyBoy Production

[1:25] but with a lot more air.

[1:27] It has that tin can sound that YG has favored since 2014.

[1:31] A lot of elastic in the beat during the chorus.

[1:33] Regular assortment of bells and whistles in the production

[1:36] make it sound nice and shiny but not too overbearing.

[1:38] I love the way the beat gasps with Lisa.

[1:41] It sounds really nice.

[1:42] It makes that chorus a bit fresher.

[1:44] But of course when How You Like That came out,

[1:46] I got a ton of comments that I am just

[1:49] now reading through and almost all of them are saying,

[1:51] “The formula!

[1:52] The formula appears again!

[1:53] Ride! Ride for the dreadfort!”

[1:55] I’m going to play the montage,

[1:57] but if you want to skip it you can.

[1:59] I’ll leave the skip time on the screen right here.

[2:00] That being said,

[2:02] if you've done the required reading,

[2:04] you already know.

[2:05] [On- Screen Text: Also, apparently some people didn’t realize that I was using “onomatopoeia” as shorthand for the full phrase: “onomatopoeia or secondary phrase” and thought that I just didn’t know what onomatopoeia was. Guys. Shorthand exists. Chill. Still, I changed it for you so you won’t get confused.]

[2:11] mera: Every chorus is made up of the same three components.

[2:13] Number one a key phrase, usually in English.

[2:15] Number two is repetitions of onomatopoeia or a secondary phrase.

[2:19] And number three is a cycling pattern of electronic notes.

[2:22] Blackpink (singing): BOOMBAYAH

[2:25] YAH YAH YAH BOOMBAYAH

[2:26] OPPA

[2:28] YAH YAH YAH YAH YAH YAH

[2:31] BOOM BOOM BA BOOMBAYAH

[2:32] Jisoo (singing): Huiparam

[2:36] Jennie (singing: Uh hui param param param

[2:37] Blackpink (singing): Can you hear that?

[2:38] Lisa (singing): hwi parapara para bam

[2:39] Jisoo (singing): hwiparam

[2:41] Jennie (singing): Uh-

[2:42] My love is on fire

[2:45] Lisa (singing): Now burn baby burn

[2:46] Jisoo (singing): Buljangnan

[2:48] Blackpink (singing): Uh-oh-uh-oh

[2:49] Jennie (singing): My love is on fire

[2:53] Lisa (singing): So don’t play with me boy

[2:54] Jisoo (singing): Buljangnan

[2:56] Jennie (singing): Hit you with ddu-du ddu-du-du

[3:00] Blackpink (singing): Ah yeah, ah yeah

[3:01] Jennie (singing): Hit you with that ddu-du, ddu-du, du

[3:04] Ah yeah, ah yeah!

[3:07] Jisoo (singing): Dududu dudududu

[3:09] Jennie (singing): Forever young

[3:12] Forever young

[3:15] Blackpink (singing): Blackpink is the revolution

[3:16] Jennie (singing): Forever young

[3:20] Jennie (singing): See you later, boy, see you later

[3:22] See you later, boy, see you later later

[3:24] See you later, boy, see you later

[3:25] Lisa (singing): Would have, Could have, Should have, Didn’t

[3:27] Jennie (singing): See you later, boy, see you later

[3:29] See you later, boy, see you later later

[3:33] Blackpink (singing): Let’s kill this love

[3:36] Lisa (singing): Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah

[3:39] Jennie (singing): Rum pum pum pum pum pum pum

[3:42] Blackpink (singing): Let’s kill this love

[3:45] Jennie (singing): Rum pum pum pum pum pum pum

[3:47] Rosé (singing): I don’t know what to do without you

[3:50] Yeah hey hey

[3:53] I don’t know what to do without you

[3:55] Yeah hey hey

[3:58] I don’t know what to do without

[4:01] You you you

[4:03] Jennie (singing): Ha how you like that?

[4:07] You gon’ like that that that that that

[4:11] Lisa (singing): How you like that?

[4:13] barabim barabum bumbum

[4:14] Jisoo (singing): How you like that that that that that

[4:20] Lisa (singing): Now look at you now look at me (ah)

[4:21] Look at you now look at me (ah)

[4:25] Rosé (singing): How you like that

[4:27] Jennie (singing): Look at you now look at me (ah)

[4:29] Look at you now look at me

[4:30] Look at you now look at me

[4:33] Rosé (singing): How you like that

[4:34] mera (speaking): Does this pre-release pay off for a year of waiting?

[4:37] No, but it’s not awful and I think

[4:39] a couple of people want me to say that it was.

[4:41] I found the vocals to be very soothing

[4:43] and I was giddy to hear Jisoo’s wine-dark voice

[4:46] poured all over this song.

[4:48] The vocal combinations spiced the song very nicely,

[4:50] particularly during the pre-chorus and the chorus.

[4:52] And the member order is more properly developed this time.

[4:54] The lyrics are fine.

[4:56] It’s a bit corny here and there

[4:58] and lacking rhyme in a lot of places,

[4:59] but there was a lot of infighting in

[5:01] the fandom about the lyrics.

[5:03] Half of the fan base was saying

[5:05] the lyrics were secretly really deep and meaningful,

[5:07] and the other half was saying that

[5:09] lyrics shouldn’t matter in a song

[5:10] so stop analyzing.

[5:12] So you have the fan base choosing

[5:14] the two most polarizing sentiments

[5:16] as defenses for the lyrics.

[5:17] And all that proves is that

[5:19] the lyrics aren’t overly meaningful or

[5:20] there would have been some sense of

[5:21] consistency in the reactions,

[5:23] and honestly that’s fine.

[5:26] It’s a badass “look how cool I am” kind of song.

[5:27] It doesn’t need to be lyrically deep.

[5:29] My biggest overall problem is

[5:31] How You Like That never really commits

[5:33] to any of its bits.

[5:34] It’s not just the lack of rhyme scheme,

[5:36] it’s the super short verses.

[5:38] The bridge and ending needed

[5:40] another chorus to not feel so anti-climactic.

[5:41] How You Like That has

[5:44] a lot of really good ideas floating around,

[5:45] but once they start knocking up against each other,

[5:48] the song becomes clunked and boxy.

[5:50] But overall I will say

[5:52] How You Like That is functional.

[5:54] It got people excited which was its job.

[5:56] How You Like That made me realize that

[5:57] I may have outgrown Blackpink in a way

[6:00] I haven’t with other groups from the third generation.

[6:03] When Blackpink debuted when I was in high school

[6:04] and seeing a bunch of badass young ladies

[6:06] with great hair, designer clothes,

[6:09] and “I don’t give a damn” attitude was awesome to me.

[6:10] It made me feel confident

[6:13] to walk down the halls and listen to Whistle.

[6:15] I feel for the trap that YG laid

[6:18] by siphoning out 2NE1

[6:20] and leaving behind a vacuum for that kind of girl power.

[6:22] It’s been four years since Blackpink debuted

[6:24] And Blackpink hasn’t grown with

[6:26] their audience the way most other groups have.

[6:29] The groups that I love from the third generation

[6:30] all experimented with new sounds,

[6:33] updated their images,

[6:34] brought new ideas to the table,

[6:36] took risks, and became multifaceted artists.

[6:39] They didn’t cater to trends as much as

[6:41] they released songs with thematic messages and personal lyrics.

[6:44] On top of that, their new music sounds current,

[6:46] Not like something you hear back in 2016.

[6:49] But Blackpink is doing exactly

[6:51] what they did during their debut.

[6:53] And that’s why the formula has become so obvious.

[6:57] On top of that,

[6:59] the members themselves have grown as entertainers

[7:00] And How You Like That puts them back

[7:01] in a box that they’re better than.

[7:02] Blackpink has been reliving Boombayah

[7:04] for four years and that is a long time

[7:07] to milk the same cow.

[7:08] And you can hear it in the music quality

[7:10] which should be the most important thing.

[7:12] They keep re-slotting themselves back

[7:15] into that debut demographic space,

[7:17] capturing whatever batch of teenagers are present that year.

[7:20] It’s a constant cycle of “catch and release” with their audience,

[7:23] substituting out age groups of fans in a way

[7:25] that other groups don’t have to.

[7:27] There is no other fandom with so many scores of

[7:30] “Why I’m No Longer a Fan”,

[7:32] “Why I Unstan Blackpink,” “Why I Left the Fandom”,

[7:34] as well as tons of in-house fighting between fans.

[7:38] The fandom is in constant growth and shrinking pains.

[7:41] Much of Blackpink’s current fans are

[7:44] new fans who are significantly younger than the old fans

[7:46] so there’s always tension between the two.

[7:50] Solo stans are rampant in the fandom

[7:51] And they only increase as new fans pour in,

[7:53] who are more vulnerable to the marketing.

[7:55] The first two years or so of Blackpink’s fanbase

[7:57] didn’t have anywhere near as much tribalism and self-destruction.

[7:59] That’s not to say everyone who was a fan

[8:03] from debut is now gone.

[8:06] Not at all, rather YG Entertainment is so desperate

[8:08] to keep a stranglehold on their debut demographic

[8:11] that their original audience have

[8:13] outstripped a lot of the emotional

[8:15] and parasocial connection that Blackpink can offer.

[8:17] Blackpink doesn’t grow with their fans and in consequence,

[8:19] ends up shedding them like dead skin.

[8:23] This is part of the reason why YG has to lie

[8:25] when Blackpink’s tours don’t sell out.

[8:27] It’s why their Instagrams are more active than their Spotifys.

[8:30] I also believe it’s become obvious that

[8:32] YG’s idea of teenage girls as a demographic label

[8:35] is more and more inaccurate to the

[8:37] teenage girls who love Blackpink and look up to them,

[8:40] which is why some of the catering done within that structure

[8:41] just comes off as juvenile.

[8:44] And every time we speak about this,

[8:46] every time I say something,

[8:48] people say I’m disrespecting the members’ hard work

[8:50] as if I want them to starve.

[8:52] And yeah, the obvious answer is that

[8:54] just because your fave did something,

[8:56] doesn’t mean it should be left untouched by feedback.

[8:58] But the more important answer is

[9:01] this isn’t Blackpink’s real work.

[9:03] Blackpink’s work is in a stolen journal

[9:05] that held Jennie’s handwritten songs and

[9:08] in the projects that Rosé promised her fans

[9:09] just for YG to push them into the vault.

[9:12] The only people disrespecting Blackpink’s work is

[9:16] the faceless executives in YG and the people who blindly line their wallets.

[9:20] How You Like That is the physical result of

[9:22] the members’ hard work being stifled.

[9:25] They create music and they are punished for it

[9:27] And How You Like That’s success is

[9:29] only going to reinforce that system.

[9:31] The truth is, if you ever want to hear the songs Jennie wrote,

[9:35] you have to stop giving YG your money.

[9:38] Well that was depressing.

[9:39] So let’s talk about my favorite parts of this era.

[9:40] Jennie: “Jisoo, [I] love your dance.”

[9:42] Dance for me! Ah!

[9:44] Jisoo: Yes!

[9:48] mera: This is the cutest shit I’ve ever seen.

[9:50] The engagement between the member and the fans in this era

[9:52] have been some of the best in a while.

[9:56] Jennie and Rosé just seemed so relaxed and confident.

[9:59] Rosé: “Rosé, how are you so pretty?”

[10:00] Hehehehe.

[10:03] mera: Last year, everything related to YG felt very tense and uncomfortable

[10:07] and the girls seemed trapped more than happy,

[10:09] but these past few weeks have been so relieving.

[10:13] I forgot how good it was to see their face[s] again.

[10:15] I don’t know anything about high fashion, clearly.

[10:16] I just thought that Jennie and Jisoo looked particularly perfect.

[10:20] Everything about these looks is just so fresh to me

[10:23] with the exception of this wig on Lisa.

[10:25] It makes her look 13 at her first anime convention

[10:27] dressed as a Vocaloid and Lisa deserves so much better than that.

[10:29] The short hair on Lisa is so cute and

[10:32] I’m so glad that she’s promoting it during the lives.

[10:34] She is the prettiest Edna Mode to ever exist.

[10:38] I wanted to like the colder lavender wash in Rosé’s hair

[10:40] and I think as a color it suits her.

[10:43] It makes her cheekbones look elegant.

[10:45] But I feel like her hair is beyond damage at this point

[10:47] and it just makes me a little sad.

[10:50] But I did come out winning because

[10:52] she did get some longer bottoms this time.

[10:55] Thank you, Rosé,

[10:56] you have never let us down.

[10:58] I hope she’s feeling better

[11:00] and knows that people are going to love her no matter what.

[11:01] Last year was just so uncomfortable.

[11:03] The four of them seem to put their time off to good use.

[11:07] The energy is there during the performances.

[11:09] Jisoo has been my favorite part of the performances.

[11:11] She’s clean, she’s calm.

[11:14] I might be alone in this but this era for me was Jennie and Jisoo.

[11:17] Both of them have seems really comfortable and relaxed.

[11:21] Jennie’s hair might be my favorite she’s ever had

[11:24] and her smile is my favorite coping mechanism in these trying times.

[11:27] This is a Jensoo era.

[11:28] I don’t accept constructive criticism.

[11:30] Lisa and Rosé did such a number on the ensemble parts to the dance.

[11:34] They were both sharp and fluid

[11:36] and that was a great contrast to Jisoo and Jennie,

[11:38] who were laxer and slower to boil.

[11:40] All together, the energy pulsed in

[11:42] perfect harmony this time.

[11:43] And you can tell how hungry they were.

[11:46] I think they sank their teeth into the style of the era.

[11:49] I liked Sour Candy.

[11:51] The galactic in-between space sound is just what the song

[11:54] needed to bridge Blackpink’s higher, sweeter voices

[11:56] with Gaga’s lower regal tone.

[11:59] It’s a great marriage of opposites.

[12:03] It’s smooth until it’s scratchy, it skitters until it slides,

[12:05] and that auditory commitment to the theme

[12:08] made the song addictive on multiple levels sour and sweet.

[12:11] I know there was some discontent about the chorus

[12:12] but I personally really liked it.

[12:14] It has that Gaga touch.

[12:15] The vogue, the runway sound

[12:17] that I really like about her.

[12:19] The song is weightless in the best way and the chorus releases

[12:21] all that pressurized air

[12:24] like a hatch to a touchdown spaceship.

[12:26] I think Rosé particularly suits the song the most

[12:28] and her lines are my favorite.

[12:29] The ambiance of the song reminds me of another runway-type

[12:32] So I made an edit.

[12:34] Enjoy.

[12:44] Todrick Hall (singing): Nails, hair, hips, heels,

[12:46] Ass fat, lips real

[12:48] Purse full, big bills

[12:50] Bitch, I’m a big deal

[12:52] Legs, legs, face, eyes

[12:54] Thin waist, thick thighs

[12:55] You, me, you wish

[12:57] New phone, who this?

[12:59] Pussy, puss, puss, give them cunt, cunt, cunt, bitch

[13:01] Mama, yes, god, then you pop that tongue, bitch

[13:03] This whole club is my runway, run, bitch

[13:05] Y’all five, four, three, twos, I’m a one, bitch

[13:07] Girl, what did that girl just say, girl?

[13:09] Ooh, girl, I don’t dance, I work (Work)

[13:12] I don’t play, I slay (Slay)

[13:13] I don’t walk, I strut, strut, strut and then sashay (Okay)

[13:17] But I don’t work for free (No)

[13:19] No, that’s not the tea, hunty (No ma’am)

[13:21] So make it rain on me (Me)

[13:23] And I might let you see

[13:24] What you gonna let them see?

[13:25] My nails, hair, hips, heels

[13:28] Nails, hair, hips, heels

[13:30] Nails, hair, hips, heels

[13:32] Nails, hair, hips, heels

[13:33] My nails, hair, hips, heels

[13:35] Nails, hair, hips, heels

[13:37] Nails, hair, hips, heels

[13:39] Nails, hair, hips, heels

[13:42] 24/365 gives out what Blackpink House

[13:44] attempted to do but

[13:45] couldn’t within the confines of its platform.

[13:47] I couldn’t click with Blackpink House,

[13:49] not because I thought it was boring but

[13:51] because it felt uncomfortably staged.

[13:54] I could feel the company too strongly

[13:56] in [Blackpink] House and it made the girls feel like

[13:58] products in a creepy fishbowl lens.

[14:02] 24/365 clears that out and while it’s obvious

[14:04] that there are cameras there,

[14:05] the girls just feel more comfortable going

[14:07] going about their business

[14:09] and they find clever ways to continue filming

[14:10] in a style that’s less intrusive.

[14:12] They let their friends or their colleagues

[14:13] do the filming or they

[14:14] set the camera up somewhere far away.

[14:16] It’s a nice idea.

[14:18] 24/365 shows off the sides of Blackpink

[14:21] that we desperately want to see off-stage.

[14:23] The hard work that’s the backbone of their career

[14:25] the camaraderie of the members together,

[14:27] And the comfort of their individual lives.

[14:28] It’s brilliant marketing

[14:30] and it also lets the members

[14:31] go outside their prescribed boxes

[14:33] from Blackpink House.

[14:35] I’m specifically focusing on episode 1

[14:36] since episode 2 was mostly more

[14:38] behind the scenes promotion for How You Like That.

[14:40] Lisa is at dance practice giving us

[14:42] a taste of the work that presumably went

[14:44] on during hiatus.

[14:46] Jennie is managing both the professional

[14:47] and her private life with a friend.

[14:49] Jisoo and Rosé have a pottery date in a rainstorm.

[14:51] It is genuinely good entertainment

[14:53] and a fantastic way to let

[14:55] the members produce more character-based content.

[14:57] Watching Lisa’s dance practice allows us

[14:59] to reacquaint ourselves with her work ethic.

[15:01] Letting her work with an instructor

[15:03] is a very humbling image.

[15:05] It shows she’s eager to learn even at her level.

[15:06] It’s a good combination of

[15:07] professional and showing off without

[15:09] being pretentious.

[15:10] Jennie’s section of the story is a very

[15:12] good balance of professional and personal as well.

[15:14] She’s got a good narrative going from

[15:16] nervous beforehand to efficient at the moment.

[15:18] Watching her work her career lets

[15:20] the audience sees her dedication but I think

[15:22] The shopping trip is the real treat.

[15:24] Her comfort and her humor are more

[15:25] palpable and the background commentary

[15:28] puts her at ease,

[15:29] which is something I think Jennie fans

[15:30] particularly enjoy from her.

[15:32] The pottery story is by far my favorite

[15:35] and it’s not just because Jisoo is there,

[15:36] but Jisoo makes everything better.

[15:37] It’s nice to see a segment

[15:39] entirely disconnected from their work life

[15:41] and this feels like a quiet isolated moment

[15:43] inside their lives with no stress.

[15:46] Rosé is flat-out hilarious.

[15:48] She gets very intense about the most random of details.

[15:50] The cactus, the teacups, the rain,

[15:53] especially their pottery assistant.

[15:55] Her little flirtations here and there are

[15:56] both sweet and charming and

[15:58] She comes off as such an angel in this video.

[16:00] One of the reasons Jisoo is my bias is that

[16:02] She brings out the best in the members

[16:04] and it’s sometimes a bit aggravating how

[16:06] overlooked her people skills are.

[16:08] She’s a naturally disarming person with

[16:10] very good humor and conversation.

[16:12] She presents herself beautifully in public

[16:13] while also coming off as personable and casual.

[16:16] It’s a perfect mix.

[16:17] I loved her in this video, she’s just – ugh!

[16:20] There’s nothing quite like Jisoo.

[16:22] One more quick thing before I go.

[16:24] While I was gone one of my videos had a small spike

[16:25] and it’s the one discussing

[16:27] the history of the villain bandwagon

[16:29] that was pushed onto Jennie during 2018 and 2019.

[16:32] Some people have expressed confusion

[16:33] about the contents of the video

[16:35] especially the few minutes in which

[16:36] I discussed the dancing controversy in 2018.

[16:38] So just to make it clear,

[16:41] No, I do not think that Jennie deserved any of the

[16:42] harassment she received

[16:45] nor do I think that she is a villain

[16:46] and I stated as much in the video.

[16:50] Rather that video was a discussion about the unfair narrative that

[16:51] developed around her and the pieces of history surrounding it.

[16:54] I do think and I do state in the video

[16:56] that I could sympathize with fans who

[16:58] felt worried or even disappointed by

[16:59] some of the performances,

[17:01] that there were consumer consequences to

[17:02] the incident that did damage to her,

[17:04] and that constructive criticism is

[17:06] important for all idols that we care about.

[17:08] I also took the time to explain in full

[17:10] why the bashing she received was deplorable

[17:12] and that the company that should have protected her

[17:15] instead abused the situation to make money.

[17:17] The problem I’m seeing with

[17:18] some engagement of that video is that

[17:20] a couple of fans seem to think that

[17:21] me discussing that part of her career at all

[17:23] means that I somehow agree with the way

[17:25] she was treated for it even when

[17:27] I explicitly stated the opposite and

[17:28] pointed out why it was objectively

[17:29] immoral for people to bash her.

[17:32] Picking and choosing which of my words you want

[17:33] to hear and then spread that distortion

[17:35] is directly forcing a narrative that is

[17:37] exactly what the video was rebuking.

[17:39] I included as many parts of her career

[17:41] as I could to help people

[17:42] understand where the bandwagon came from

[17:45] and why I believed it was unfair.

[17:47] Me saying a thing happened is not me

[17:49] giving my opinion on it.

[17:50] The reason I made the video

[17:52] was to make a case in defense of an idol I admire

[17:54] and look up to.

[17:55] Because I felt she was being unfairly

[17:56] slandered in a broader industry narrative.

[17:59] People are asking why the title is like that.

[18:01] Honestly, the quotation marks around a word in a title

[18:03] means that it’s facetious.

[18:05] And I know a lot of you grew up with the internet

[18:06] so I shouldn’t have to explain that.

[18:08] That’s just a basic reading skill.

[18:11] I have loved Jennie for years.

[18:12] She is not a villain to me but she’s a

[18:15] hero from when I was a teenager and

[18:17] the narrative that was assigned to her

[18:18] deserved to be dissected and refuted.

[18:21] So once again here are the final

[18:22] sentiments of the video are the ones

[18:24] I have believed and stated from the very beginning.

[18:26] Many people genuinely forget how loved

[18:29] Jennie is by the other members of Blackpink.

[18:32] The way Jisoo, Rosé, and Lisa talk about her

[18:34] and interact with her

[18:36] speaks volumes about what she’s like

[18:37] behind the scenes.

[18:39] They love her, truly and not just them,

[18:41] but other idols as well as Irene and Nayeon.

[18:43] I’ll leave this off by saying that

[18:45] I admire Jennie for coming through the other side,

[18:48] and I hope this villain narrative

[18:49] is finally buried in the dirt.

[18:51] These last few sentences are for my subscribers

[18:52] because I have been gone

[18:55] for over 50 days now.

[18:57] and I’m really sorry about that.

[18:58] Thank you guys so much for waiting for me

[19:00] to get better and supporting me

[19:01] through a rough period of my life.

[19:03] I’ll talk to you soon.

YouTube Channel: mera

Video Description:

A belated reflection on How You Like That.

1:01 - 5:55 HYLT Discussion + Potential Criticism 5:55 - 9:39 Analysis of Era and BP Disscography 9:39 - 16:21 YAY Comeback! 16:21 - END Closing Thought

How to register (and find out the deadlines): https://www.usa.gov/register-to-vote

Figure out your options based on your state, and be aware of restrictions due to COVID-19: https://vote.gov/

Black lives still matter, my guys, so here is the carrd and the other open links I've been using: https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/

Black Lives Matter Donation Box: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/ms_...

Black Visions Collective: https://www.blackvisionsmn.org

Reclaim the Block: https://www.reclaimtheblock.org

Minnesota Freedom Fund: https://minnesotafreedomfund.org

Campaign Zero: https://www.joincampaignzero.org

Breonna Taylor Petition: https://www.change.org/p/andy-beshear...

Tony McDade Petition: https://www.change.org/p/black-lives-...

Zoe Amira's fundraiser is closed, BUT, check these out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqUKm... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAZgT...

📌 Pinned Comment by mera:

Special thanks to Laeeqa for explaining the music video controversy, specifically regarding the use of the Hindu deity Ganesh during Lisa’s rap. In the month it took me to review this, the image had apparently been removed from the video, but no formal announcement has been made by the company. The problem involved placing the statue of the god on the floor, a place of disrespect, and using a religious deity as a prop. On top of that, the scene mixes pseudo-“Arabian” imagery with pseudo-“Indian” imagery (quotations because I’m sure they are not accurate depictions of either) which can definitely contribute to the idea that different under-represented ethnicities are “all the same”, when they aren’t. While I’m glad the statue imagery was removed, I hope the team will issue a formal statement. I’m not sure what Lisa’s religion is, nor do I think it’s her fault, but the placement of the statue was nonetheless hurtful, unnecessary, and cavalier, and could contribute to the normalization of appropriation and objectifying cultures for aesthetic payoff. Thank you guys for the information. I did accidentally post this comment twice.

Here are some sources for anyone looking for more information: The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/11/world/asia/blackpink-ganesha-kpop-cultural-appropriation.html

Pinkvilla Entertainment: https://www.pinkvilla.com/entertainment/hollywood/how-you-blackpink-under-fire-after-ganesh-statue-was-found-beside-lisa-k-pop-bands-new-mv-545102%3famp

Republic World: https://www.republicworld.com/amp/entertainment-news/music/blackpink-yg-entertainment-edits-out-lord-ganesha-idol-after-flak.html

📣 Disclaimer and preface: None of the videos I transcribe belong to me. They belong to the content creators and the crew behind the videos.

I'm just someone who wants to provide video transcripts because the auto-generated CC feature on YouTube is.... not great most of the time. Plus I want to provide a way for people to understand and enjoy these videos. My transcripts may not be 100% as I am not a professional.

For this video, I focused mostly on the speaker with some on-screen text included. For an expanded/complete version that includes the captions/texts on screen, I’ve created a Google doc that you can access by clicking here.

If there are any corrections you would like me to make, let me know in the comment section of this post.

💬 Personal Notes: Hi everyone!

I was gonna do Camp Nanowrimo project but I ended up being interested in watching YouTube videos more than my writing project that I ended up abandoning said project. LOL 😂

Anyways, I heard that Blackpink is going to comeback this year so that pumped me up to do another old video I like by mera.

This one may take long because of how many notes I would have to incorporate but it is also slightly easy considering a good portion of it is lyrics and captions/text on screen. The most time-consuming part of this is definitely the timestamps but the auto-captions seem pretty on point so far.

If you like this video or any other video from mera, please support by watching her videos on the YouTube platform and through other means by her.

Before I close the post, I want to thank the sites below for being a helpful resource for my transcription. If you are able to, please support the sites I have used as resources whether it is through monetary means or through helping them out with songs. If there are other methods of aid for them, please let me know and I’ll update the post.

Color Coded Lyrics [Tip/Donation Page][Ko-Fi]

Popgasa [Song Request Page]

Genius [Shop]

Oh, and also, if ya like, check out Blackpink’s latest album, Born Pink. All the songs are on YouTube and on music streaming sites. 😘

Last but not least, be kind folks. Please. To everyone. And to yourselves.

Thanks all for now. See you in the next post.

P.S. - Go check out BlackPink’s YouTube channel and the members’ individual channels that I will list all below. ❤️

BLACKPINK

Jennie

ROSÉ

Lisa

Jisoo

#mera #blackpink #bp #CCKN transcripts #jisoo #kim jisoo #jennie #jennie kim #rosé #roseanne park #lisa #lalisa manoban #how you like that era

0 notes

tailsrevane · 2 years

Text

[theme park review] halloween horror nights 29 (2019)

this year’s halloween horror nights will be my third! it’s turned into a pretty awesome tradition for me and one of my partners. we went to halloween horror nights 29 in 2019 on our first date. and i just love that this was the case? it combines one of her biggest special interests (theme parks) with one of mine (halloween). how perfect is that?

2020’s was, of course, canceled due to the early stages of the covid-19 pandemic when the powers that be were pretending to actually try to prevent its spread. we went again in 2021 with her husband and our mutual partner (who is also my fiancx, it’s okay if you need to draw a diagram to follow this), and this year we decided to go again just the two of us because we had such a nice time together the first time.

anyway i’m a giant dork so i figured i’d share some review-shaped thoughts on the previous two before i leave for this year's.

we actually got to the park a bit early to check out diagon alley and ride gringotts before halloween horror nights actually started. obviously me and harry potter aren’t really friends anymore given j.k. rowling’s entire deal about people like me and my loved ones, but i gotta say as a theme park experience what i was able to see was pretty damn impressive. i just wish it were for literally any other franchise. but yeah we rode a pretty cool rollercoaster (it was tame enough for me, a noted rollercoaster wimp) and i tried butterbear which probably everyone needs to do at least once if they used to be fans of that benighted book series, and we got to see the dragon shoot fire out of its mouth so yeah now i never need to go back there again.

… unless i want to see the islands of adventure part of harry potter world at some point which, let’s be honest, i guess i might as well at some point. j.k. rowling fucking sucks and whatever love i once had for those books was totally sucked out of me like by a dementor’s kiss, but i like theme parks and the harry potter stuff at universal is just a kind of a historically amazing theme park experience, so i should probably check it out once and then never go back.

before you even get to any of the queues, one of the most readily-apparent changes for horror nights is that much of the walkable area of the park is divided into themed “scarezones” with outdoor sets & props, as well as costumed scare actors. despite my enthusiasm for the whole thing, i scare kinda easily so i was often hiding or half-hiding behind my partner (gaining partial cover, in d&d terms), and to my delight this seemed to encourage the scare actors to target me specifically, and obviously that’s kinda exactly what i wanted anyway so it worked out pretty well! (this also happened in the haunted houses, but idk, it seemed even more obvious in the scarezones!)

the first scare zone we encountered at the entrance to the horror nights event was zombieland: double tap, because i guess that was coming out shortly after horror nights? i saw zombieland in theaters with some friends in college and enjoyed it at the time but prior to rewatching it for this silly little review i hadn’t seen it again since, and i hadn’t seen the sequel at all, but i still really dug this scare zone. there were some burned out cars and whatnot to give you the feeling of walking around in a zombie apocalypse, and the scare actors were all covered in blood and zombie makeup and did a really great job scaring people. even though zombieland is hardly my go-to for zombie movies, it’s pretty hard to go wrong with zombies as a scare zone theme.

aside from the rob zombie one which i think we skipped, the other scarezones were all original concepts and i really enjoyed all of them! vikings undead was exactly what it says on the tin. viking zombies are like torturing bound prisoners and whatnot, and yeah obviously that super worked for me. the other two were the vanity ball where surgeon “artists” turn people into living works of art and the anarch-cade where a blacklit arcade was full of scare actors clad in neon-lit clothes and wielding neon-lit weapons.

all of these really added to the ambiance of the whole thing, and really made it feel like a much more complete experience instead of just like waiting in line for an hour or two, doing cool halloweeny stuff, and then walking through normal universal studios stuff to get to the next line and wait in line for another hour or two and do another cool halloween thing. especially since a lot of the queues went through hilariously non-halloweeny areas like the jimmy fallon race through new york or the curious george playground. we had a kick talking about how scary those sorts of things were gonna be while we were queuing through them.

of the licensed property haunted houses, stranger things was a pretty easy skip because it had huge lines and i loved the first season but lost interest after that. i don’t think we made it to the universal monsters one, which in retrospect i kind of regret but that’s okay!

we actually started with the ghostbusters one, and it was a really great warmup because it obviously wasn’t too scary or anything but they clearly put a lot of effort into it. it started strong with an awesome recreation of the library scene complete with moving books and even slime on some of the shelves that you could touch. again this wasn’t particularly scary but it was still a heck of a lot of fun.

as far as other licensed property houses, we also checked out the killer klowns from outer space one and the house of 1000 corpses one, mostly because i had seen both movies when i was doing a horror movie challenge on letterboxd. both of these houses… sure were haunted houses based on these two movies!

honestly my ulterior motive for wanting to check these out aside from familiarity was that both movies had a ton of bondage imagery and i figured that might be reflected in the houses, but it mostly wasn’t the case? but the killer klowns one in particular had quite a bit of obvious effort put into its production values and really did reflect some of the rather impressive set design of the movie. there were also some pretty cool effects with uv lights and blacklights, as well as some great jumpscares involving airhorns and sudden loud air jets, so that was awesome. also, both of them had fairly cool facades at the end of their queues, whereas the ghostbusters one was just kinda in a giant studio building with no real exterior decorations, so i guess that’s exactly one (1) thing they did better than that one.

but by far the actually scariest of the licensed property haunted houses was the one based on jordan peele’s us. either this one or ghostbusters was definitely my favorite of the licensed properties ones, though they’re super hard to compare since they were going for drastically different experiences. the scare actors in the us house were on point. like, i basically knew going in what one of the last scares was probably gonna be, and it was basically exactly that, but it still totally got me.

i learned that first year that the real stars of the haunted houses were the ones not based on any properties, though! the ones we experienced were:

nightingales: blood pit, where roman gladiatorial games have been attacked by a race of opportunistic predators that look like humanoid vultures. i loved that a good portion of this took place in the gladiators’ prison, but the scenery through the whole thing was just super impressive.

depths of fear, which is kind of like the aliens franchise but underwater, with fish-like parasitic monsters attacking an underwater base. i super love underwater settings, so this was for sure one of my favorites.

yeti: terror of the yukon, which i wasn’t super looking forward to since “you’re in the northern wilderness and there’s a yeti” didn’t really sound as exciting as the other scenarios but the execution on this was so phenomenal i ended up really enjoying it anyway. and a lot of the scares really got me! especially the ones where the scare actors waited until i had already passed and jumped out from behind me. and the “outdoor” portions were just super impressive.

graveyard games, where some kids defaced a graveyard and now the ghosts are hella pissed at them. you get a lot of imagery related to the backstory in the queue (once you got past the kids zone the line started in, that is, lmao). i don’t have as much to call out about this one as i did about the others, but it was another example of them just going all out with the design of the setting and the costumes and everything.

halloween has been my favorite holiday for the longest time, but i frequently found myself in the position of not really having anything to do on or around halloween, so i love that this has become a tradition for me & my partner. that first year is also just a really special memory, it was just really cool being there with her and like… killing time in line together and all that good gay stuff. i can’t wait to go back.

#halloween horror nights #halloween horror nights 29 #halloween #universal studios #theme parks #the wizarding world of harry potter #zombieland #zombieland double tap #ghostbusters #killer klowns from outer space #house of 1000 corpses

0 notes

ynscrazylife · 2 years

Note

Can I request a SuperCorp x reader where reader is the youngest member of Superfriends? And Kara and Lena are like her parent-figures. And then one day she gets severely injured in one of their missions. And then it's up to you what happens next. Thank you!

Our Daughter

Summary: Kara and Lena admit that they think of Y/N as a daughter after a solo mission goes wrong.

Authors Note: Thanks for requesting!

Request to be on a taglist (or multiple) here! (Taglists are at the end of the fic)

Main Masterlist | DC Masterlist

PSA: Do NOT copy, steal, translate, plagiarize, republish, etc any of my works on Tumblr or any other platform. Also, do NOT claim any of my works as your own. All of these works are either requests I’ve gotten that people have wanted me to write or original ideas I’ve had for works. If you happen to take inspiration from anything I’ve written and want to write something inspired by that, please a) ask me first and b) IF I say yes, credit me as inspo in your post by tagging me and link whatever work of mine that inspired you. Thanks.

@/mundodeseriess

Being the youngest in any group came with its own set of consequences, but being the youngest in a group full of superheroes? The consequences were even bigger. Y/N’s parents had been big investors in L-Corp, which led to Y/N meeting Lena. She heard about internships at CatCo through Lena’s girlfriend Kara, and met Nia there when she got accepted, being fresh out of high-school. Y/N had been planning to go to college, but that didn’t go as planned.

On a lunch with Nia, a supervillain decided to attack the street they were on. When Nia had to suit up, Y/N got involved, too. The supervillain hit Y/N with some device that was meant for Kryptonians (clearly he had been expecting Supergirl), which altered her DNA. Having been rushed to the DEO, they were able to stabilize her, but the technology they used combined with the device ended up gifting her powers.

From then on, Y/N was quickly pulled into the group of the Superfriends. Opening her eyes at the DEO to see the concerned faces of Lena, Kara, and Nia was a forewarning for what was to come, in hindsight. Everyone respected Y/N, but they also cared for her deeply. Of course they cared for each other all the same, but when it came to Y/N? Perhaps it was due to her youth or her inexperience with fighting, but their concern shined brighter with her.

They always checked up on Y/N a little more than they did each other and hit a foe with more force if they had injured Y/N first. Y/N herself was no stranger to this — it had been a little bit difficult to adjust to at first, but it was comforting when it wasn’t annoying. At her core, though, she appreciated it. It was nice to have a group who cared so much about her.

Y/N loved them all, but Kara and Lena were especially important to her. They were her mentors, after-all. Lena helped her navigate her normal life with all these changes and Kara trained her and taught her to use her powers.

With all that guidance, Y/N had become an excellent superhero. However, there was a reason that she was in a team. Sometimes, certain enemies were too big for just one person to handle. Unfortunately, Y/N had to learn that the hard way one day . . .

It had been a solo mission because it was expected to just gather some intel on an uprising anti-alien organization. Apparently, this organization sought out to experiment on aliens, under the disguise that they were helping them rather than what they were actually accomplishing: hurting them. Y/N had taken on the mission due to not having gone on a solo one, if you don’t count patrol, for the past couple weeks. The plan was simple, anyway.

Some DEO agents had gone on a mission the previous week to bust one of the enemy’s headquarters. It had been a success, but they had been too occupied apprehending their enemies to gather the intel. That’s where Y/N came in. She was sent in to collect it.

Unbeknownst to her and the DEO, a couple enemies managed to slip away. They had been watching their now damaged HQ and when Y/N arrived, they pounced. Her comms went dead, and the DEO — with Kara at Catco and J’onn and Alex having a day off — struggled to figure out what went wrong. By the time they got a team to her location, she had fought off the enemies and gotten the intel. She had just enough time to, whilst dazed, tell them what happened before she fainted due to injuries.

J’onn got the call at Kara and Lena’s apartment with the rest of the Superfriends. They were all chatting and laughing while waiting for Y/N to get back from her mission. When J’onn saw a DEO agent calling him, he was unfazed. Maybe a little annoyed because it was his day off, but he suspected it was just a routine update.

“Hello?”

“Hi, sir. Um, I have an update on Agent Y/L/N’s mission,” the agent on the other side said. He sounded intimidated, but that was to be expected when talking to the director.

“It went well, I assume?”

The long sigh worried J’onn, he admitted.

“Sadly, no. Some of our enemies had gotten away the last time and they ambushed Y/N. Somehow, she managed to fight them off and grab the intel, but sustained serious injuries. She passed out when a rescue team got there and is in med now — still unconscious.”

J’onn froze at the news, just about forcing himself to turn away so his face wouldn’t give anything away to his friends. “Understood,” is all he got out before he hung up, taking a couple deep breaths in attempt to process this. His youngest agent was unconscious and injured. How had this happened? Was she alright? Many scenarios ran through his head.

J’onn cleared his throat when he turned back to the group, face becoming stoic. Everyone quieted upon seeing him, straightening up.

“J’onn, what is it?” Alex asked, crossing her arms. She had a knack for reading him.

“The mission didn’t go as planned. Y/N’s hurt,” he said, nearly avoiding a voice crack. He hated to have to break the news to them. The words felt disgusting on his lips.

Everyone reacted differently, but all with concern. Alex and James became more alert, Nia got noticeably worried, and Winn confused. No one was more concerned than Kara and Lena, though. Although they never said this to her or the group, they considered Y/N a daughter. How could she be injured?!

Kara would have flown to the DEO right then and there if not for Lena’s iron grip on her hand.

“Come on, let’s get going,” J’onn found himself saying, naturally falling back into his leadership role. No one else would get them going so it was up to him. Not that he minded it, making sure his family was alright was a welcome distraction from his worries about Y/N.

The team gradually made it to their feet, wandering out of the apartment, appearing lost. No one was really paying that much attention to the real world, even J’onn. Large parts of all of them were preoccupied with their own worries and thoughts. It was a miracle that no one got lost on the way to the DEO.

It was only when they actually stepped through the DEO doors that the team became more alert. They made a beeline for medical, with J’onn leading and Lena and Kara rushing forward to fall in step beside him. When they arrived, the doctor on-call welcomed them in as she explained Y/N’s state. Lena took it upon herself to actually pay attention, allowing Kara to stay sealed away within her own thoughts.

The doctor made it abundantly clear straight away that Y/N was expected to make a full recovery, which made Lena’s heart sink. Anytime any doctor led with that, it meant that the patient’s injuries were extensive at the minimum. When they rounded the corner and saw Y/N lying in a hospital bed, looking so fragile with an IV hooked up, they all saw it first-hand. Kara gravitated towards her, settling herself in a chair next to the bed and taking Y/N’s hand. Lena sat on Y/N’s opposite side.

The doctor continued, mentioning an injury to Y/N’s left arm, right leg, and how they checked for a concussion and didn’t find any symptoms but she might’ve hit her head and oh, her ribs were sure to be sore as well as some bruises and cuts and fresh scars she was now wearing.

The list went on and on and it almost made Lena physically dizzy. She began to think that it might not ever end, and kept willing the doctor to just stop talking, be quiet. When she did and she took a deep breath, Lena found herself exhaling. Finally, it was over. Y/N was going to be alright and they’d stay by her side.

“When will she wake up?” Nia asked quietly, dragging Lena out of her thoughts. She glanced up at Kara to see the blonde blinking and returning to the present world as well.

“It shouldn’t be long now,” the doctor answered, which relieved them all. “However, since it is getting late, we’d like to limit the amount of visitors in here.”

“Lena and I will stay,” Kara volunteered quickly. Lena didn’t disagree, but couldn’t hide her surprise at hearing Kara’s raised voice. Kara must have noticed it too because she turned towards the team, not bothering to hide the tears that were in her eyes. “Please.”

“Of course,” Alex was the first to say, with everyone else nodding. She stepped forward to pat her sister’s shoulder comfortingly, and then looked between her and her practically sister-in-law. “Try to get to some sleep, okay?”

Neither woman answered, because neither woman were sure they’d be truthful if they had answered. Alex knew that, but she decided not to push. The group thanked the doctor and asked her to let them know of any updates before making their departure.

The doctor left the room with them, but not before informing Kara and Lena that a nurse would be around to check on Y/N in around a half hour. When the door closed, Kara let out an audible breath — of relief, of exhaustion, or of a mix of both, Lena couldn’t quite tell.

“She’ll be okay,” Lena repeated the doctor’s words, but it was more for herself than for Kara. She was content to observe Y/N, wanting to know of all her injuries so she could best help when Y/N woke up. She took note of a bandage on her forehead with a little bit of red visible.

“I know,” Kara murmured, her gaze also not leaving Y/N’s form. Needing to do something, anything, she resorted to rubbing Y/N’s hand with her thumb. Maybe even unconscious, Y/N might register it and might take comfort in it.

It had been five agonizing minutes of waiting before Kara’s voice sliced through the silence. “I don’t know how to explain this, but . . . I feel like Y/N is the closest I’ll get to having a daughter.”

Lena found herself smiling. “I feel the same way,” she agreed, happy to finally be voicing it.

After a moment’s pause, Kara found it in herself to tear her gaze away from Y/N and face her wife. “You think she feels the same way?” Then, the Kryptonian added, “Thinks of us like parents, I mean.”

Lena pursed her lips as she considered it. Just as she began to open her mouth to answer, a hoarse, quiet voice making its best attempt to be loud interrupted:

“I do.”

Both Lena and Kara’s heads snapped to the voice’s direction, where they saw Y/N wearily blinking up at them. She managed half a smile despite the immeasurable pain she was in. Lena instinctively reached out a glass of water that was probably no longer cold and raised it to Y/N’s lips, the latter taking generous sips.

Swallowing, she cleared her throat and eased herself up in the bed a bit, now looking between the two women she considered mothers. “You have been, ever since I started my superhero gig,” she answered, giggling — then wincing.

Kara blinked, her eyes becoming alert in a flash. “What is it? Do you need me to call the nurse or the doctor?” She asked, going to rise out of her chair. She only stopped when Y/N squeezed her hand, effectively calming her down.

“I’m okay. It’s probably gonna be like this for a little while,” she said, to which Kara confirmed by nodding.

“You really are like our daughter, Y/N. We meant it,” Lena persisted, wanting to make sure she knew.

Y/N looked over at the brunette and nodded, her smile growing into a full one.

“I’m really happy you guys are with me,” she said.

“We are, too. What happened, sweetheart?” Lena asked gently, making sure she wasn’t being pushy. She wanted to know since she couldn’t keep her curiosity at bay any longer, but also did not want to start pressuring Y/N.

Y/N’s gaze focused on her lap as she explained, talking slowly, especially through the hard parts. When she finished, Kara leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her forehead.

“We are so proud of you. You did amazing,” Kara said, and Lena nodded in agreement.

“I did learn from the best,” Y/N said, looking from Kara to Lena and vice versa. Then, as an afterthought, she added, “And a little bit from the DEO handbook, I must admit.”

This made Kara and Lena laugh, and the three smiled and laughed until they fell asleep.

Permanent Taglist: @natasharomanoffismywife @hehehehannahthings @paulawand @blackbat2020 @cerberus-spectre @kathryndimitrescu @snipyloulou @big-galaxy-chaos @cc13723things @passionswift @drayshadow @amaryllis23 @storysimp @lamieshelmy @fantqsha @galacticstxrdust @a-lil-bit-nuts @marvel-to-infinity @maryseesthings @lovelyy-moonlight @dumb-fawkin-bitch

DC Taglist: @stephanieromanoff @basiclesbianbitch @hi-i-1 @mmmmokdok @snipyloulou @acertainredhead @cc13723things @thanossexual @avengersz-biotch @un-name-d @bentleywolf29 @ss @pleasantbearscissorstoad @wandaswifeyforlifey @thatoneshykid13 @lazyloki @inluvwithfictionalwomen @marrymemcgrath

504 notes · View notes