#subbed version feel like Too Much Change to my brain and i hate change it kinda makes me Freak Out and just. a childrens show is not worth

[like-rain-or-confetti]

5 ⭐️ Recommendations!

Okay, so PLEASE do your research for these because im not taking responsibility. In the same way, i have a look at what i get before i read, i ask you to do the same. I am guilty of not doing enough research, but I have seen people in the past get hate because of the 'why didn't you tell me ___' factor. So... Warning! Some of these books may have smut or generally 18+ content. PLEASE do you research before you read!💙

Self-Help

The Happiness Trap pocketbook by Russ Harris. - this is the condensed illustrative version of the Happiness Trap textbook. There are another two. If you want a smaller easy to read version of these, go for the pocketbook. I was recommended this by my therapist.

101 Essays That Will Change the Way You Think by Brianna West. I bought a physical copy of this book, I loved it so much. Let me paint you a picture. Like I've said before, my mental health tanked after 2020 covid. My life went on hold completely, and there was nothing left. I needed a change of perspective desperately because I'm now 26 years old and I was using an old mental system that protected me when I was a teenager. That doesn't work when you're in your 20s. This book blew my mind and I bought a physical copy that I practically use as a bible. So if you're feeling lost, like life is too hard or simply don't know what you want to do with your life- this book is what you want. It helped me a bunch through therapy and I recommended it to all my friends. It's written by various people, some of which was heartfelt "I wish someone told me this before so I'm telling you now." It's very comforting to me. Like a honest friend giving some honesty as well as not leaving you feeling helpess. Absolutely brilliant. I have mine annotated and still am annotating it to continue creating that new mental system I want to have.

Romance

Flowers for the Devil by Vlad Kahany. - A 18+ historical romance for my peeps! We follow a countess and her forbidden love with the villain of society itself. Set in 1851, making it victorian era romanceeeee! This is one of the most spiciest books I've ever read. Like I was taken aback. I'm not sure if it really counts as 'dark romance' as the sub-genre because it's not the same as other books I've heard of but it's a dark book in itself...and there's romance and an ungodly amount of spice but a very good take on the 'falling for the villain' but I would say do the research first because I did not and I was taken aback by the very veeeery descriptive smut with the borderline stalkery villain.

Beach Read by Emily Henry. Contradictory to my story graph, I am not a big romance girlie... but I want to be. Sometimes, I need a break from the doom and gloom and need an easy, simple book about the wonderous world of love and this one was a hit. Two writers, two different genres, switch genres to get out of their slumps. I give thee grumpyxsunshine trope. Which I have a major soft spot for. A very easy book to read!

Romantasy

Heartless by Marissa Meyer. - Any Alice in Wonderland fans? I love it, and I have so much love for this book that in my brain, it's practically canon. This book follows the journey of the Red Queen before she became Queen of Hearts and how expectations and love can descend someone into madness. It's heartbreaking in the sweetest way and a love story that I still think about on a regular basis. What a prequel take to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

A Dowry of Blood by S.T. Gibson. -Oh dracula fans in the house! Well, it never explicitly states its Dracula but...it's Dracula. This book follows the first wife of an unnamed vampire and his downfall. This is definitely 18+ as far as I remember. There are LGBTQ+ themes and polygamy and themes of having multiple sexual partners. Definitely something you'd enjoy if you enjoy a take of a woman taking back her power. As a vampire lover myself, I ate this book upppp! Old school vampires. ABSOLUTELY CHECK TRIGGER WARNINGS. There are some heavy themes that will likely trigger some people so definitely do your research!

Carmilla by J. Sheridan Le Fanu. I'VE FOUND A CLASSIC THAT I BELIEVE DESERVES THE TITLE OF A CLASSIC. This is a sapphic love affair between a vampire and a human. It's classic vampire description written in the 1800s and its brilliant. I will die on this hill that its a love story. I can't express why without giving it away but this is the OG forbidden love story. It's super short and absolutely amazing.

That Time I Got Drunk and Yeeted a Love Potion At a Werewolf by Kimberly Lemming. So I did an oops and read book 2 before book 1 one the series which I won't lie, didn't do too much damage so no harm really done but this series is HILARIOUS. Book 1 and 2 follow two POC females who just so happen to be besties. (If anyone is looking for more poc books) Each one got drunk and ended up finding their mate. This writers humour is excellent, very modern day and not forced. These books are SPICY just as much as they are funny. So definitely 18+.

Horror

Hide by Kiersten White. Would you like to play a game? So it isn't Saw by any means, Amanda or Jigsaw aren't here and neither is the spooky doll on a trike...but there is a game. This is a deadly game of hide and seek in an abandoned theme park. One week, don't get caught and you'll get life changing money...but they didn't exactly mention what would happen if you did get caught. Mack is one of fourteen competitors, our main girl with a dark past and there's a whole new level of horror to discover the reasons people would ever create such a game. There is some LGBTQ+ themes and I can't say anything more without spoiling. Just know I'm very pleased. There are some triggering themes like death and murder so as usual check this is okay for you to read.

The Last Days of Jack Sparks by Jason Arnopp. -What does the dumb dumb skeptic do? Provoke a demon of course and demons never back down. Jack Sparks is a writer and paranormal skeptic. Working on his new book, he is invited to witness an exorcism (which hell to the no) and his life is never the same as an unknown entity ruins his life one piece at a time using those around him. This is the book for you if you want a read where the main character is not loveable at all. He makes bad decisions and a terrible person to everyone he loves. I'd say there are also found footage vibes as this book is pieced together by Jack's estranged brother who is trying to understand just what happened to his brother. I personally found the story so good that it didn't take away from the plot. I didn't rage read this and hate the story because I didn't like the main character. It was oddly fitting and I definitely intend to read more of Arnopp's work.

Penpal by Dathan Auerbach. -I'll start with this, it's definitely horror/thriller. There's a dash, a pinch, a smidge of mystery in the background but this is no doubt horror. Now, this book made me uncomfortable. This book is my answer to 'can you really get scared of books like you can movies?' Yes, the fuck, you CAN. Our adult main character looks back on the strange happenings in his childhood. It all started with the class of 5 year olds writing letters to strangers and it all just went wrong. So I can remember some trigger warnings that I know will upset people as some of them were a shock. There are mentions of animal cruelty and death, death, stalking and implied pedophilia. Also major spoiler (SPOILER) death of a child. SPOILER #2: Grown man is obsessed with child for years whilst the child has no idea. There's also a mystery to solve. Now you may ask why would I spoil this one and not others...because whilst I could stomach it (much to my surprise) it's a shock and I don't feel right recommending this book, as crazy good as it is, without you being aware that I'm not just hyping it up. These are sensitive topics and whether you know it or not, it'll still be a shocking read.

The Vessel by Adam L.G. Nevill. Another short read and listen I thought this was spooky. It won me over for being spooky. THEN THE TWIST HAPPENED and GUYS...this is a masterpiece. We follow a single mother who has taken up a job as a carer as she tries to support herself and her child after escaping an abusive relationship. The old woman she looks after is brutally mean, like you're-lucky-you-dont-have-family-because-your-ass-would-go-to-a-care-home-otherwise. Her house is old and weird with strange happenings. She's a crabbit, violent old bitch and she...happens to get attached to the main characters daughter. Terrific. This book isn't a regular old haunting. Infact, the living are more terrifying than the dead in this book and the mystery is amazing. I ended up not hating the old lady in the end as you get her back story. And I can't express enough just WTF?

What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher. - A historical horror! So I finished watching the Fall of the House of Usher just before starting this, completely unaware that I once again would be returned to The Madeline and Roderick Usher. This book is inspired by Edgar Allen Poe's stories on the Usher family with a unique twist. A family friend (our main character) has received word Madeline Usher is sick and has come to visit to find things aren't great with the isolated Usher's and their home. Something has taken up residence. What was originally considered a haunting or the results of age is discovered to be a fungus taking over. No, that isn't a spoiler. The description tells you, hehe. It's a short read that's definitely creepy and a lovely mix of seemingly paranormal and zombie vibes.

Found: An anthology of found footage horror stories by Andrew Cull and Gabino Iglesias. - Calling all found footage fans! Same here! So I wasn't sure how this would work as a book. It works. Just as brilliantly. I read this for the Halloween spirit and this is an easy would reread any time of the year. Its a bunch of short stories from various writers and some of the stories are still stuck with me now.

Mystery

If We Were Villains by M.L Rio. Trust the theatre kids to take things too far, eh? This is dark academia aesthetic at full blast. A group of friends, one ends up dead and only the friends know the truth about what happened. They love their Shakespeare as far as I remember. I got recommended this and when I tell you this book takes you on a JOURNEY. It's very poetic and reminds me a lot of 'The Secret History' which is very much in the same genre. If this doesn't convince you- I grew up watching pretty little liars and this was so refreshing. It draws you in the same way but doesn't over do it. Plus you're in on the secrets this time! The twist was exceptional and I remember needing to take a breather before I went to even consider another book. It was perfect.

Thriller

The Sundown Motel by Simone St. James.- I think this was the first book that I read that got me back into reading. It could go in thriller or mystery if I'm honest, but I'm putting it here. You follow two characters. A girl who's Aunt disappeared decades prior, takes the same job in the same Motel her aunt disappeared in hoping to find out just what happened to her aunt. The second being the Aunt and what happened before she went missing. So there are some time jumps but it's rather easy to follow along. I wasn't so intimidated by that format as I usually am. There is an element of paranormal in this book! And I love itttt! A very easy read but did suspect one of the twists...definitely didn't suspect the main twist though.

Fiction

Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi. This book is now one of a series. This book stabbed me in the heart and twisted in my chest...and I ended up thanking it. It's multiple stories. There is a simple, quiet coffee shop with a rumour attached to it. One of the chairs has the ability to make a person travel in time. The book follows a woman who wants to timetravel for reasons you'll find out in her turn and the coffee shops regulars. A definite tear jerker for me that helps you see the beauty of life even in the most painful of times. If you have the ability to go back in time but can't change the past, what exactly is the point? Well, the book will tell you why. So beautiful and an easy read. Again, check for any trigger warnings. There are sensitive themes in this book.

This Is How You Lose the Time War by Max Gladstone and Amal El-Mohtar. So I gave this a five star because the ending was magnificent and I can see why it was hyped up BUT I wouldn't classify this as an easy read. I got confused a lot with the Science fiction elements but I might just be dumb af. So if you're interested, you have to really focus on the book. If you skim read or anything like that. You'll have no idea what's going on. Red and Blue. That's their names. They're spies -I think female if I remember?- and their fighting in the war between the more natural world and the industrial world. Or atleast that's how I perceived it. The book is following Red and Blue's taunting notes they leave to one another in various eras and places but gradually turn into something else. Forbidden love. What I'm pretty sure is LGBTQ+. The ending decked me and so even though I found it complicated to wrap my head around some times, I loved it.

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab. Where... do I even start? So I think if I were ever to get a tattoo. It'd be something from this book. It is an historical fiction/romance about a woman who has been cursed by an entity. No one can remember her. She can't even utter her own name. Yet a few hundred years down the line, someone remembers her. This book is just beautiful. There's nothing else to say. AND THATS ALL IM SAYING BECAUSE THIS BOOK IS SO DEEP TO ME.

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid. A historical fiction following a celebrities lifestory. Evelyn Hugo gives me Marilyn Monroe vibes and how Hollywood was back in the 1950's. A young woman is given an unexpected opportunity to write this timeless actress biography...the truth. Something the public never heard before.

Non-Fiction

Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom. A book Mitch wrote about his old mentor and the advice he had to give on how to live life. It's a short read and incredibly emotional to have the perspectives of life by someone half way or younger through their life and someone who's life is coming to an end.

[majorbaby]

A, B, C, G, N, P, and X for the fandom ask game please! ^_^

thank you :)

cut for length and degeneracy

A - Your current OTP(s)/OT3(s)/OTX(s)

not a big otp guy but hawkeye/trapper is as close as i get.

OT3s are another story... the hawkeye/trapper/oliver thing was the most fun i've ever had writing something and i have plans for building up a little world for them.

hawkeye/trapper/margie - two straws, one girl!

trapper/dish/margie - two girls, one straw! (this is my free-use sub top trapper set-up. alternative OTX version: the one where trapper is had by the entire nursing staff and hawkeye is head of marketing and PR for the event) hawkeye/trapper/margaret were so good together on the show, alcoholics unanimous and iron guts kelly set it up all too well...

hawkeye/trapper/BJ if i'm feeling something a little more fucked up.

yeah... hawkeye/trapper/character-of-choice

would love to deal BJ some psychological damage via cucking fantasy - BJ/Peg/Carl.

BJ/Peg/Trapper lol even I'm too cowardly to write that. but... could you imagine.

B - A pairing you initially didn’t consider but someone changed your mind

answered

C - A ship you have never liked and probably never will (be nice)

i don't hate it, but i'm not particularly interested in radar/any one from the main cast.

G - Do you remember your first OTP, if so who was in it

i discovered fanfiction through x-men so it must've been rogue/gambit, which i still have a soft spot for.

N - Name three things you wish you saw more or in your main fandom (or a fandom of choice)

answered

P - Invent a random AU for any fandom (we always need more ideas)

ok im not inventing it on the spot but i'm taking this opportunity to tell you about "hawkeye's moving castle" the sparkly AU of "howl's moving castle" that is bouncing around my brain. who's sophie you ask? kellye. it HAS to be kellye. not for shipping reasons, but because she is sophie (dedicated, kind, talented but overlooked wallflower) as much as hawkeye is howl (also very kind but pathetic and a lil vain AND let's not forget howl is an anti-war draft dodger...). i'm just. so into it. it won't leave my mind. hawkeye's moving castle!!

X - top 5-10 characters who are yoUR PRECIOUS BABIES AND YOU WILL DIE DEFENDING THEM

bear in mind that by 'defending them' i don't mean always mean defending them from hate. sometimes i'm defending them from what i perceive to be misplaced affection. also disclaimer, this is just for fun, you can think whatever you want about these fake people from the tv, but i'm prepared to defend my interpretations of the following, in order of how firm i am in my position wrt them: 1. hawkeye

2. BJ

3. klinger

4. henry

5. trapper

ask game

[ff2-soda-pop]

i just watched ‘mewtwo strikes back - evolution’ and i am?? conflicted???

[roonilwazlibimagines]

What are some of your scenarios to fall asleep to? 👀

Ahhhh I’m glad you asked !! Also please feel free to share some of yours they can be specific or vague idc I’m in desperate need

I will be going into heavy detail because I can’t help myself I’m sorry and I will put in both normal ones and Harry Potter ones

Also this is just like one big ramble I’m sorry I got too excited I literally turned into that Tik tok sound where it’s like ‘you’re asking me about my theories? I’ve waited years for someone to ask me about my theories’

Update - I think I’m just going to keep updating this as well when I think of new ones because I keep forgetting some

My most recent one is a royalty one where they’re like royalty but in their really prestigious and royal school they were academic rivals and did not get along and after school they like try to go their separate ways until a couple years later their parents force them into an arranged marriage for like the good of the country or whatever I don’t really care!! You can take it wherever you want from there but in case you were interested in mine he fell for her first and kinda gave up on the enemies thing pretty early on but she still made it clear he wasn’t her favourite person and she despised the situation and there is still constant teasing until she meets his sister or friend or whoever who says that they can’t believe how happy he is with them and she feels so bad because she thinks he deserves better and ends up being much meaner to him because she’s an idiot who can’t express her emotions and he gets angry at her because she’s being super mean after they were just starting to get along and they have a big argument and are forced to talk about their feelings and then I can never decide whether they actually like each other when they get married, I feel like either way is fun

I have a thing for royalty so my other one is literally just princess x stable boy and you can honestly take that wherever you want but I will tell you where I took it for some ✨inspiration✨ so I don’t have my drivers license and get really bad driving anxiety so I self projected and made her terrified of riding horses right (I’m so smart I know) and he is like trying to help her ride the horse and feel comfortable and like obviously they end up in love but I created drama because she sneaks out to his birthday party (!!) but his friends don’t like her because they just think she’ll be a snob but he obviously defends her but like it’s a perfect opportunity for a bit of an innocent princess as well

My personal favourite is the two co stars falling in love and like thinking about doing all those stupid interviews from like buzzfeed and all that and I personally love the trying foods from different places thing (like making them try fairy bread - because I’m from Australia and we aren’t that cultured and being mad when they don’t like it because it is my favourite food) and it’s great because i can make the guy any actor I am currently obsessed with 😭 but also like the red carpet opportunities and interviews and fan reactions and it’s very fun also this keeps my brain very busy because I like making it as realistic as possible and figuring out the actors timeline so I can match the story up with it, it’s always really intense, also if you want inspiration for what moving they’re staring in I always go for the live action version of tangled even if I don’t look anything like rapunzel

Another fun one is where one of them is in a band and you have a friend who is dating one of the other members but you don’t like the band and you’re not shy in letting the other members know that and it turns into an enemies to lovers thing but I haven’t really developed it because halfway through I ended up changing it with the fact that they befriend one of the members and like fall for them but the band member like ‘gets around’ and it makes them jealous until they drunkingly confess it made them jealous this one’s a bit of a mess and is tipping into a 2012 wattpad story but it was how I got back into my 5sos phase two years ago because I felt icky about them but I’m still a slut for Calum 😭

Another one I love is moving abroad to study or whatever (idk I just always need a reason to be in America/Uk because there’s no one here in australia) and you make friends with someone who turns out to be related to someone really famous (insert whoever you want) and you meet them and you think they’re the hottest person you’ve ever seen and you get drunk to gain confidence to talk to them and you’re like unashamedly flirting with them and they think it’s cute and you’re funny but the whole little plot twist is that you don’t know they’re famous (famous people love that, trust me, I have about 10 wattpad stories in my library that can prove this) !! And the don’t believe you don’t know they’re famous !! Anyways I took it in a sugar daddy direction but each to their own!

Specifically for Harry Potter though, you ask?

Currently I am obsessed with Regulus Black and for about the past two weeks I’ve been obsessed with the idea of James potter sibling x regulus black enemies to lovers story and then about a week ago I found an actually good wattpad story about it?!?! (I have recommended it here with warnings but I really encourage you to read it if you’re not a minor) but you can also do your own version because I am still doing my own version and will continue to do my own version tonight even if I am obsessed with the wattpad one !! Currently I am up to post Hogwarts and her and regulus are trying to defeat Voldemort and regulus tells her that Peter is going to betray James and so ofc she tells James but James is like ‘how to do you even know this??’ And he is so afraid and gets angry at her and it’s really dramatic and she tells him she’s dating regulus and then he gets super mad at her because she’s dating like one of the most well known and loyal death eaters (even if regulus is sneakily trying to destroy Voldemort) and because he didn’t tell her and it’s very dramatic

My favourite Sirius black idea is also a James potters sibling one, but I never have any good ideas for it and just end up self projecting so if anyone has any ideas, I am begging you, please tell me !!!

My other Sirius black one is one I’ve been working on for like the last 4 years of my life and I probably should write it but who knows, but basically it’s a 10 things I hate about you x Harry Potter story where reader is about a year or so older than the marauders and she is like Kat Stratford (for people who haven’t watched it the best way to describe her is just an angry early 2000s feminist who is like anti dating and fun (kinda)) but she is Lily Evans sister!! And so Lily gets fed up of James constantly asking her out and makes an offhand comment that she’ll date him when her sister goes on a date with someone and James is like really?!? And Lily is like ‘sure’ because she knows her sister will never date anyone at Hogwarts so James tells the marauders and Remus is like ‘if anyone can take her on a date, it’s Sirius’ and Sirius is like ‘no, I’m stupid but not that stupid’ and James is like ‘please I’ll pay you’ and Sirius is easily bribed so he tries to get her to go on a date with him and like she doesn’t until she does and then finds out he only did it because James paid him but then they fall in love? Basically just 10 things I hate about you lol

My next one is with Draco Malfoy and all it is is that reader comes from a pure blood family and they’ve known each other since they were babies and it’s like basically destined they get married but she gets like really upset when he gets the mark which makes for a good cuddling and crying scene and like idk people are probably more creative than me but I just like reimagining scenes from hp but with this new character so like Poa when she gets angry at him about buckbeak or the bathroom scene (maybe she duels Harry?) and she’s so upset about Draco and comforts him, or helping him in sixth year and comforting him or the quidditch scene in the fifth book (weird note, but I’ve always headcannoned that my original character finds out about dumbledores army but doesn’t say anything and like the da knows she knows but she doesn’t tell Draco or maybe Draco finds out and gets angry at her?)

My other one is another Draco malfoy one where James and Lily live and she’s Harry’s younger sister (and Voldemort isn’t a thing) but like there’s still stereotypes and beliefs and such and like it’s obviously enemies to lovers and maybe they get prefect duties together ? (I am a sucker for this trope in Harry Potter) but then when they do date they try to hide it but Harry finds out but doesn’t say anything until they get into a fight at home and he is like ‘well at least I’m not fucking Draco malfoy behind everyone’s back) (in my head they aren’t fucking because they’re still in Hogwarts but you get the idea) and James and Lily are just like ‘WHAT?!’ Like idk I just think it’s funny imagining James and Lily finding out their kid is dating Draco and Lucius and narcissus finding out Draco is dating a potter - so many possibilities!

Update 6.10.21

I also have one for Charlie Weasley !! And basically you’re friends with the twins and like you go your whole Hogwarts life with the biggest crush on Charlie but like he low key doesn’t even know who you are and you want to become a healer and then after Hogwarts there is a position in Romania and you take it because you know Charlie’s there and at first he is like hmmm I think I know you and you explain you’re friends with the twins and obviously he falls in love with you I also took it in a nsfw direction where it’s like major innocence kink because Charlie is just such a dom to me and he like teaches you everything but he makes sure you’re happy and safe and it’s not really like serious sex you’re both just having fun and he kinda introduces you to dom/sub dynamics but you can do whatever is most comfortable

[cienie-isengardu]

axelzp replied to “The Bad Batch”:

I think most people take issue with Omega and TBB due to concerns over whitewashing. Also, what do you have against the explanation of the biochips? Personally, I always thought it fit Palpatine's controlling nature better than the idea of clones just getting a command from some random guy in a hood, telling them to kill the Jedi.

First off, I apologize it took me so long to answer. I tried to explain my reasoning in a short and coherent way as possible, but apparently the years of frustration about this issue needed more space to be properly addressed. So, in advance, sorry for text length.

From all TCW changes done to star wars, the chip-in-brain is one of my top 3 reasons to dislike the whole TV show, despite many of its good moments. I understand why authors chose this sub-plot that allows them to separate the visibly individual "good" clones (thus making them more likeable for the audience / marketing) from the “bad” that kill the Jedi but frankly, I find it a cheap and kinda problematic excuse. Clones were victims regardless of which version people will accept but I really despite the idea that Jedi were their beloved generals and commanders - so beloved that clones actually had nightmares about killing them waaay before Palpatine ultimately won which undermines the whole point of Order 66. 

Jedi could never expect clones to shoot them in the back because they were used to their unquestioned obedience from the start of war. It was common knowledge, repeatedly mentioned in sources like “Jedi Trial” that clones were “bred to war, bred to discipline, bred to obey without question the orders of the powers that paid for their services”. Clones were made that way by genetic manipulations and years of intensive training; an indoctrination that makes clone troopers believe they have obey, no matter what cost.

Some sources, like Clone Wars Adventures’ “Orders” outright show us the mindset of clones:

and We’ve got nothing but each other ad our orders.

Because of that worldbuilding, I prefer Legends take on clone obedience and the Jedi approach to the problem than what TCW created. I talked about it more here, but the general sense is that I feel cheated by the idea of chips that turn people into some “programmed” machines because in such way, TCW erased the Jedi & Republic part in abuse & enslavement of clone troopers, while at the same time giving an unrealistic idea that Jedi were so liked / respected when most of clones did not have any special bond with them. And this is less about if Jedi were good military leaders or not and more that as generals/commanders they didn’t interact that much with common troopers. Because the chain of command doesn’t work like that. I’m willing to buy the close(r) bond between Anakin & 501st because frankly Darth Vader himself from the start was built as someone with better relationships with common troopers / “normal” officers than with most of the high ranking officers presented on screen. I’m pretty sure some other Jedi were caring and liking clones (and vice versa) but it is impossible for generals to know and be so close to all of their troopers.

Above everything else, Legends created an interesting situation in which the Jedi Council / Order knew clones would follow orders no matter if those were right or not and were aware how dangerous it could be yet they still didn’t do anything about it, because the obedience of clones were beneficial for them. Jedi not only took for granted their obedience, they mistook it for respect.

Which really speaks a lot about Jedi's own moral failing and/or lack of understanding the difference between those two terms.

In the Legends sources, there was no need for chips, really, when from the start Kaminoans tinkered with clone genome, created the effective system of “proper” education to mold clones into obedient soldiers and Republic wasn’t really interested to undo the damage done by such indoctrination. 

Before TCW brought the chips and “nightmares haunting clones” there were officially established Contingency Orders for the Grand Army of the Republic: Order Initiation, Orders 1 Through 150. A guideline for unexpected and/or critical situations, so the Great Army of Republic [GAR] would know how to proceed - especially when troopers were given contradictory orders. The orders (also known as Clone Protocols) weren’t secret and there is a big chance that Jedi knew it, if someone bothered to learn the manual. The whole formula of Order 66 was described as:

"In the event of Jedi officers acting against the interests of the Republic, and after receiving specific orders verified as coming directly from the Supreme Commander (Chancellor), GAR commanders will remove those officers by lethal force, and command of the GAR will revert to the Supreme Commander (Chancellor) until a new command structure is established."

And here how the scene played in the RotS novelisation:

That concealed compartment held a secure comlink, which was frequency-locked to a channel reserved for the commander in chief.

Kenobi nodded and spoke to his mount, and the great beast overleapt the clone commander on its way down into the battle.

Cody withdrew the comlink from his armor and triggered it.

A holoscan appeared on the palm of his gauntlet: a hooded man.

"It is time," the holoscan said. "Execute Order Sixty-Six."

Cody responded as he had been trained since before he'd even awakened in his creche-school. "It will be done, my lord."

The holoscan vanished. Cody stuck the comlink back into its concealed recess and frowned down toward where Kenobi rode his dragonmount into selflessly heroic battle.

Cody was a clone. He would execute the order faithfully, without hesitation or regret. But he was also human enough to mutter glumly, "Would it have been too much to ask for the order to have come through before I gave him back the bloody lightsaber. . . ?"

The order is given once. Its wave-front spreads to clone commanders on Kashyyyk and Felucia, Mygeeto and Tellanroaeg and every battlefront, every military installation, every hospital and rehab center and spaceport cantina in the galaxy.

So there is really no “random hooded guy” calling clones to kill Jedi but Chancellor himself using an appropriately secured military channel with confirmation of his identity to issue a legal order in a critical situation (an opportunity created by the Jedi Council themselves who went into the Senate building to kill Palpatine). So why the clones shouldn’t listen, when the order came directly from the Supreme Commander of the Great Army of the Republic? 

Of course, the movie (and novel based on it) alone has this weird addition like “yes my Lord'', what I personally consider as the cinematic way to show the switch from Chancellor Palpatine to Emperor Darth Sidious. Still, I’m willing to give some benefit of doubt about the modification made by Kaminoans and if Order 66 could trigger anything hidden in clone subconscious. But even if there was something, it didn’t erase their personalities or changed the way clones behaved like it happened in The Clone Wars and The Bad Batch.

One way or another, the Order 66 worked out because clones “have no malice, no hatred, not the slightest ill intent that might give warning. They are only following orders”. Which I guess comes down to how clone troopers were presented - or maybe rather how they were seen by other characters in the Legends. As more detached, combat pragmatic, toned down, to some degree isolated from the outside world, less individual. Regardless of what Jedi or Republic citizens thought about clones, it did not make them any less human beings.

And here comes the paradox of The Clone Wars. The TV show made great effort to humanize clones by presenting them as very individual, outstanding people which in itself is a great thing. The names, the tattos, the different paintings of armours, visible variety of behaviour. All great to make the audience see clones as human beings, to get emotionally invested into them, because the more likeable clones were the better for marketing the story (and the cynical part of me thinks it really comes down to making money, isn’t it?)

But this effort became also the trap and the inhibitor chips is the excuse to make such loved, caring and brave characters into the detached clones gunning down the Jedi in Revenge of the Sith. 

The things that irks me a lot about this situation is the feeling like fans started care for clones because they were made into different type of characters than what they were (similar like Anakin’s movie characterization was thrown out of the window, to make him more suitable for fans who wanted the badass typical male hero instead of introverted, conflicted and traumatized young man). The clones get the visible individuality to make them the heroes we should root for, but then there is the “magical” switch that will cut down their heroic deeds because now they are “bad” and stormtroopers can’t have any personality. Which is just… frustrating. 

Don’t get me wrong, I adore how clone troopers get more visible individuality (even if sometimes if felt too exaggerated), but the “not standing out from the group”  was something that kept clones alive on Kamino and I can see why it was used as coping mechanism (the safe option) during the war. I regret that The Clone Wars didn’t show the transition from AotC nameless troopers into such individuals and how much it happened thanks to Jedi, what may help to build the feeling of supposed strong bond between Jedi and troopers. Because frankly, when we met TCW!clones, they already have names, different colors and marks on armor plates and helmets and for all we know, they could create their own “culture” without Jedi influence.

The final part of why I hate the chip-in-brain sub-plot is how it changed clones. Because even if that was a means to force clones into killing Jedi & ensure that Order 66 will be carried on no matter what, it shouldn’t change them into bullies toward their own brothers. But now in The Bad Batch, the clones don’t speak between themselves, are aggressive toward others and generally act like assholes for no real reason. And yeah, I get this may be a cinematic metaphor for a change from “good” republic soldiers into “bad” imperial stormtroopers and most likely something along the way “Republic/Jedi gave you individuality, Empire takes that away” but frankly, Republic did not give anything to clones. It did not acknowledge their human right, didn’t have any plan for their future, didn’t pay for their service or more expensive medical treatment for that matter, did not teach them they could - should - make their own choices.

Now clones are cheering for the Empire because inhibitor chips! They are assholes, because inhibitor chips! They shoot their *beloved* Jedi generals because of the chips! 

And in a way, I get this resolution, the chips make it clear clones were victims. But even without them, they were victims from the start. Except now clones are “programmed” while in Legends the senate (a power paying for their life) officially and legally renamed Republic into Empire and clones were glad for still having a purpose in life. The war ended (thus their usefulness), but they were still needed - still wanted - instead of being put down or closed at Kamino or whatever. I can see why the uncertainty of the future made clones cheering up for the Empire. And frankly, I personally prefer them not caring for the political change (because why should they? It never was their job to *judge* the rightness of their superiors) instead of being “programmed” like some droids and playing the role of fodder to kill for the “good guys”.

Dunno, if I explained properly my issue with inhibitor chips, it just feels to me as not really convincing and a too risky concept in the bigger picture of the things and the fact that Jedi just like that ignored this suspicion matter of Tup and Fives and biochips doesn’t help either. Like I said, I understand why the chips were introduced to the story, as the excuse in the change of clone troopers’ behaviour but at the end of day, Legends worldbuilding will always make more sense to me. I don’t need overly done differentiation of clones to care for them as an individual human beings (and it kinda seems to me like that, clones suddenly became fan favorite when every looks or act differently but not when the AotC literally presented them as an army created to blindly obey Jedi/Republic) and I don’t blame them for sticking with Empire because what better option they had, considering their upbringing and the pathological system in which they lived all their life?

Dunno, I’m biased and may just have allergy to TCW in general.

As for Omega, I’m not really surprised about this concern, especially after seeing TBB’s version of padawan Kanan (that if not for A) some basic knowledge about his backstory and B) Depa Billaba calling him by name, I would probably never have figured out who he was supposed to be). But for Omega alone, I don’t mind her look, because I’m used to Legends!Jango’s biological family in which his mother and sister were both blond haired women and frankly, some “defective” clones (including Rex?) apparently could be blond too, so it seems like Jango’s genome has a recessive gene somewhere for that color of hair. I try to hold my judgment about Omega and her appearance until the full backstory will be revealed because there is still a chance that Fett’s DNA was mixed with someone else's (still I hope Omega is not force sensitive…). I mean, Hunter has heightened senses while Wrecker has almost supernatural strength and both traits seem to be not really human, so who knows what Kaminoans really did with them.

 I understand people’s emotional response to Disney’s approach to characters and their visual look, especially since it isn’t the first screw up in New Canon (the models for characters in general and New Mandalorians especially). I’m totally okay with people’s criticism of that matter and demanding from Disney more diversity and respecting the already established ethnicity of certain groups. I’m aware I may not be sensitive enough to that matter as some other people (even more with barely watching TV shows to have any current and up-to-date comparison to trends in cartoons) and I’m pretty sure more qualified / invested fans already wrote or will be writing soon great metas about that. But the thing that irks me is hearing people saying that Omega *can’t* be Jango’s clone - I don’t like this sort of exclusion based on someone’s look alone. She may not look like Fett or other (male) clones but it is not something Omega chose for herself and does not erase her connection to the rest of the Bad Batch. Being angry at Disney/creators for her look is a different matter I don’t have any problem with.

[vtforpedro]

health update - long post

hi everyone! I think it's been a month and a half or so since my last update I saw a rheumatologist, had MRIs done, and got my results back from my hematologist SO cancer: still undetectable in my blood, check every 3 months and hope it doesn't show up for a long time lol \o/ I don't think I can say I'm in remission until a certain amount of time has passed but I hope I can say that one day MRIs: actually show some possible improvement with the chiari and spinal fluid flow? and if there IS improvement (like the radiologist who wrote the report had the MRI from a year ago as reference and his findings were all 'normal' compared to april 2020, but it was hard to get an answer out of my neurologist and neurosurgeon if there was solid evidence of physical improvement). but yeah IF there's improvement, that is highly indicative of IIH because my neurosurgeon told me when people with IIH lose weight, the chiari often corrects itself because there's less pressure and more room in the skull for the cerebellar tonsils to be in a normal position. regular chiari that you're born with doesn't do that lol so if there IS improvement with weight loss, then yeah, IIH. even if they don't wanna put in the diagnostic code for it without a lumbar puncture sigh lol I hate typing this because I'm so paranoid it'll all go to shit if I talk about it, but there have been improvements as I've lost weight. I seem to have a couple weeks where my head isn't so severe, mostly manageable with a few awful days. then I'll have a few weeks of it being Really Really bad with a few not-so-awful days. which IIH can do this sort of 'remission' thing but considering it was like 24/7 with no breaks for a year I'd say this is moving in the direction I want it to completely changed my diet a handful of months ago and adjusting it still to be even healthier/more fulfilling. I started using the Noom app (paid sub version) cause it's so focused on psychology instead of 'dieting' and building habits that are sustainable in the long, long-term. I really love it so far. the routine of doing it at the same time every day has already made me feel better mentally about my weight loss journey despite my struggles with losing weight, I am officially down 20lbs \o/ they say for improving/curing IIH, you need to lose 10-20% of your body weight. well, 10% down! time to lose another 20, but I don't find it intimidating and I'm not dreading it. it's hard to have hope, especially on really bad weeks, but I'm taking it one day at a time. definitely not cured but I'm aiming for 40lbs more (so 60 altogether) and by then, maybe, just maybe.... rheumatologist/autoimmune disorder results: so I went to a rheum cause I got that positive autoimmune disorder blood test with the possibility of lupus or scleroderma. she said that she gets so many hematology patients because leukemia and lymphoma have blood antibodies, so it will almost always show up as positive on this antibody test and most people actually won't have an additional autoimmune disorder. I don't have a lot of symptoms of lupus or scleroderma according to her, so she told me don't worry about autoimmune disorders for three months. don't think about them. we'll repeat labs then and see what they say. so that's good news so far and I hope it remains that way 15%+ of the population will test positive on the same test without having any health issues, which I found interesting. and I asked since I already have an autoimmune disorder, tho it's endocrine versus rheumatic, if that would also trigger a positive result and she said yes it would! so yeah... I hope by late July I can still say I don't have an additional autoimmune disorder I see a gastroenterologist tomorrow for the bloating/abdominal pain and other stuff I've been having. I have a feeling I'll be given some antacids (or w/e they're called when it's prescription strength) and that will improve. but jfc I'm up to eight specialists now lol NINE doctors are following my health god it's such a shitty feeling especially when I can barely trust any of them. at

least they all believe me now, but it cost me my quality of life and mental health to even get to this point so I'm still feeling pretty fucking bitter and angry about it all you know what's really hard about completely changing my diet + starting new medications/supplements? for some reason at the beginning of all of this when I was experiencing repeated trauma at the ER, my brain developed a phobia of allergic reactions, despite the fact that I've never had one for food/medicine (I'm talking anaphylactic reactions). so now every single new thing I eat, every new med or supplement, I go through panic attacks for days on end thinking I'm going to die before it starts easing. also, anxiety makes your throat feel like it's closing up and that it's harder to breathe already so lmao fun times. I literally never thought about this in all my life and I never even experienced an allergic reaction to develop this intense fear, so you know. fuck doctors for putting me through this when it was all so unnecessary sigh anyway. still can't watch videos, tv, movies, read, bend over, walk for longer than 5 minutes, and can't talk for long either because it'll trigger a head episode. I'm terrified I won't be able to do these things ever again, but I'm still aiming for my goal weight no matter what and I know I can get there bouncing between misery and hopelessness, and slightly less misery and some hope right now, but I guess that's better than it's been for a year, right? sorry for rambling. I feel like a lot has gone on but I've also had the biggest gaps between doc appts in a while which is a relief just because I can't stand being in medical buildings or around doctors anymore completely vaccinated too, so that's another relief, but I'm wearing masks until americans get their heads out of their asses and we start seeing little to no community spread cause I am still immunocompromised. wouldn't it be nice if people like, idk, cared about each other ok sorry! I hope you're all well and healthy and safe. I love you very much and I'm grateful for your support, forever and always! <3

[dervampireprince]

Don‘t mind your long post at all! It‘s very good to let it all out and express those feelings!! I hope you feel better after telling us about these things and well that’s a lot of trust right there. I hate it when people say that to me but I am proud of you for taking this step <3 I think it’s a good method to follow what your brain AND body desires and gets off on, it sounds healthy! I also believe that if you find someone you would like to have sex with, they will be the type of person to understand how you feel and what’s up with your body, you understand? Because subconsciously you are searching for somebody who accepts you the way you are and I am certain that if you trust your feelings and your gut that you will find that somebody! They will understand how you feel and who you are, I am sure of it <3

Also uuuuh my phrasing perhaps got a bit weird, I was already on ink‘s blog and was drawing some stuff for her, so I’m not her or own her blog I just Uuuh run around here on tumblr and sometimes draw stuff for people

Also hey it’s totally cool if you don’t wanna share your art!! And I totally get you not having any ideas what to paint 🧍 Also you‘re into anime/manga??? That’s so cool, maybe it’s already quite popular that you like anime & stuff on your blog but I have been only following you for?? A month? Idk my brain is a little mush right now, but it’s so cool! Are you still into it even after what happened or did you distance yourself from it? If not you could perhaps list your fav anime, if it makes you feel uncomfortable I analogise and ofc you don’t need to at all, this blog is supposed to be a space of comfort for you and nobody should dare to change that. Just want to say that you are good the way you are and if you ever gonna change, that’s good too. The way you are, the way you have been and the way you are going to be, all of them are going to be enough and fine in their own ways. Idk if you need to hear this but now you did <3

well it's out in the world now and no one's called me gross so far so hey. yeah, i think if i continue to engage with that content just because it causes a physical reaction, but me and my brain hate it then it's clearly not good for me because i just get upset with myself afterwards. there's definitely been some learning with my lately of okay what is a hard limit, what is a kink we like in fantasy but hard limit in reality, and what is actually a kink. that middle category was something i could never feel okay with existing but i'm trying to get there.

i've never mentioned it on here, but yes 11-14 year old me was a fukin weeb. and not only a weeb, but the only music i would listen to was vocaloid. i knew way too much about vocaloids. i drifted out of anime and haven't watched any in years and years and i always put that down to i prefer subbed but also watch things in the bg and can't do that if i'm reading subs. i never thought about maybe i have some bad associations with anime or other content i was consuming at the time but... oh boy you might be onto something. but yeah i'm cool to talk about anime. i probably will always say the original 90s sailor moon first because it was my first proper anime and butterfly effect from that got me into so many other things. yu-gi-oh (the original, 5ds and gx) because that was actually my first anime but i was a little kid watching tv and didn't know what 'anime' or that it was from japan. angel beats. first time i cried at an anime. rozen maiden, i'm such a sucker for the original version of the anime because i collected dolls as a kid and an anime with living dolls?? and a banging soundtrack of baroque pop?? yes please. and some dumb fun ones? space patrol luluco and inferno cop. real stupid but omg. i don't normally watched dubbed but i can't recommend watching luluco dubbed instead because it's comedy and the jokes land better and more suddenly if you're listening rather than reading. it's such a short little anime (literally each ep is 10 minutes) and barely anyone talks about it but its such a fun watch. same with the bizarreness that is inferno cop if you can handle really random stuff. both are little works by studio trigger (known better for: kill la kill, little witch academia, darling in the franxx, promare, ssss gridman)

and thank you for all that stuff at the end there. it's very sweet of you to say and idk to respond to compliments but ❤️

[geek-gem]

Since I’ve had some time for people to see my last few reblogs. Last night since playing Injustice 2...I had this idea. But I went to bed early by mistake. But it was a good sleep anyway...

The idea was what if the Powerpuff Girls were in Injustice 2 as guest characters? Similar in vain of how the TMNT were...but it’s my reimagining of the PPG as I’ve rambled about them before.

Honestly, I feel like I shouldn’t touch capeshit stuff maybe. And that I have wondered of including Archie in Injustice 2. But I feel it wouldn’t mess well. Yet...the Powerpuff Girls...but my versions of them...as guest characters in the Injustice universe? This gives me an excuse to write some dialogue. 

I’ve thought about this and funny stuff like, “Buttercup is a Zack Snyder fan!” and whatever else...time to write this shit. Some of it...seems heartbreaking, mainly I feel with Buttercup or just...I thought more for her. And the heartbreaking idea of Buttercup not only liking characters like Spawn and Batman. But actually secretly admiring the character of Superman. Since the DC universe is likely a fictional piece of media in her world. And the world of Injustice is pretty much a fucked up place.

I will mention DC did some Powerpuff Girls comics for the original show. And even some Cartoon Network crossovers...so...this is almost fitting ha!

So this took a bit, like maybe an hour or nearly two. I forgot. I feel like some of these could be better. I didn’t do much of Bubbles. But I feel like with your pieces of dialogue and especially the final one. It’s like a perfect final burn to me personally.

Buttercup: You were one of my heroes growing up.

Superman: Now I bring justice.

Buttercup: Was killing Billy Baston justice?

-

Buttercup: I’m fine that you killed Joker. But you went too far after that.

Superman: The world’s changed since Metropolis.

Buttercup: That doesn’t give you an excuse to become what you are.

-

Buttercup: I try to keep myself from becoming someone like you.

Superman: Why’s that?

Buttercup: Losing control.

-

Buttercup: Killing Aquaman isn’t gonna bring your dad back.

Black Manta: Want me to tell you that if I murder Utonium and Bellum?

Buttercup:...I’m gonna give you brain damage to make sure you don’t remember anything.

-

Blossom: You’re the reason why Superman became what he is?

Wonder Woman: You know nothing child.

Blossom: Who’s the one that warped his mind after what Joker did to him?

-

Blossom: I actually looked up to you as a kid.

Wonder Woman: What happened then?

Blossom: You betrayed what you stood for.

-

Bubbles: So me and my sisters are probably Titans material?

Starfire: After this audition, wanna get pizza and talk about it.

Bubbles: Oh yes please.

-

Bubbles: So Beastboy could’ve become any animal?

Starfire: Any, why are you asking?

Bubbles: Even a puppy?

-

Blossom: Are you sure you’re not a different version of Mojo Jojo?

Grodd: Who is this Mojo you speak of?

Blossom: Just another super smart evil ape. But he’s smaller than you.

-

Buttercup: So I hear you have some anger issues too.

Raphael: That’s cus I fight angry.

Buttercup: Ah, I can relate honestly.

-

Raphael: Anger management isn’t my strong suit.

Buttercup: I’m the same. Nearly killed a guy who took hostages at school.

Raphael:...well that’s something.

-

Blossom: Do you know of a guy named HIM?

Hellboy: Why you asking?

Blossom: He looks like he came out of Hell like you.

-

Blossom: Did Brainiac collect you too?

Leonardo: Yep. You too.

Blossom: Seems like he’s collecting everybody.

-

Hellboy: I’m not gonna cut you slack if we fight.

Buttercup: I just wanna prove myself.

Hellboy: I think you’ve proven yourself already.

-

Hellboy: You got the devil inside you kid.

Buttercup: I try to control. Thank God for the professor.

Hellboy: Utonium sounds like a swell dad honestly.

-

Blossom: So you’re the brains out of your brothers?

Donatello: Yep, pretty much.

Blossom: At least you’re not the leader. That would be exhausting.

-

Buttercup: So you like fighting games?

Michelangelo: Yeah, wanna play some after this?

Buttercup: Yes! Yes I would!

-

Bubbles: So you like pizza as well?

Michelangelo: Wanna get some after I beat you?

Bubbles: Oh don’t worry Mikey. I think you’ll be paying for it after this.

-

Blossom: Why do I feel like you’re a mix of Sedusa and HIM.

Enchantress: Me and HIM have met before.

Blossom: Oh God, that’s worse to even know.

-

Blossom: I’ve dealt with a woman like you before?

Poison Ivy: I’d like to meet this woman.

Blossom: I’d hate it if you and Sedusa met.

-

Bubbles: What is your problem?

Robin: Let’s this straight, I’m better than you and your sisters combined.

Bubbles: And I thought Morbucks was egotistical.

-

Bubbles: I really don’t want to hurt you.

Black Manta: You’re nothing but a weak, and altruistic young girl.

Bubbles: You really don’t know who you’re fighting, do you?

-

Scarecrow: You know your entire family hates you.

Buttercup: No. They don’t.

Scarecrow: Awww, I touched a nerve there, didn’t I?

-

Buttercup: You know nothing about my family.

Scarecrow: I know you’re scared of becoming like Superman.

Buttercup: You’re really getting on my nerves Scarecrow.

-

Scarecrow: Everyone has something to lose.

Bubbles: What makes you say that?

Scarecrow: What happens to the Powerpuff Girls if their mommy and daddy are gone?

-

Scarecrow: You hate it when your sisters fight, don’t you?

Bubbles: Yeah...it hurts.

Scarecrow: What if they both killed each other?

-

Blossom: Your fear schtick doesn’t work on me.

Scarecrow: How about taking Utonium away from you girls?

Blossom: Don’t you dare touch him.

-

Blossom: Wanna race me and my sisters?

Flash: You sure I won’t be too fast for you three?

Blossom: Oh trust me. You should see us when we play tag.

-

Blossom: Me and my sisters are here to help the Insurgency.

Batman: Then prove it to me.

Blossom: Have you’ve seen how we fight?

-

Sub Zero: Do not ruled by your passions.

Buttercup: So I don’t end up like Scorpion?

Sub Zero: Exactly.

-

Bubbles: Don’t you dare justify what you’ve done.

Aquaman: What I do, I do for Atlantis.

Bubbles: Don’t make me become friends with the Trench Queen.

-

Blossom: What keeps you going even after everything?

Supergirl: Hope. That’s what it is.

Blossom: Finally, a hero who hasn’t gone insane.

-

Bubbles: You’re no hero, not anymore.

Wonder Woman: You don’t know how complex the world is.

Bubbles: Ms. Keane and Ms. Bellum are real heroes than you’ll ever be anymore. 

[entamesubs]

Yu-Gi-Oh! Sevens Episode 12 Sub Release

Hello, hello! First release of this brand new sub group.

Sub file only: click here! Video torrent (720p): https://nyaa.si/view/1274377

All subs are soft subs.

If there are any corrections you wish to make, please put them through the submit box! For questions, use the ask box, but please make sure to read the FAQ first.

Below are extended translation notes for this episode, so spoilers ahead.

------

とんだカッパの川流れ (tonda kappa no kawanagare)

“Even kappas can be washed away by the river.”

I touched on this briefly in the subs with a small TL note, but what Sushiko is trying to say here is that they were careless and only wanted to help, but ended up contributing to Yuuga & co’s plight. She has a tendency to speak in weird sentences or puns (as evidenced by another TL note later in the episode).

お前の後ろだ (omaeno ushiro da)

We had a whole episode on this that I think explained a lot of it, but I want to say that he’s basically trying to tell Kaizo that his name is “Omaeno Ushiro”, but unfortunately it really just sounds like “behind you!”.

偉大なる俺様のターン (idainaru ore-sama no taan)

I translated this as “It’s the Great Me’s turn.”

I wanted to highlight just how highly Roa was referring to himself. If it was just a simple ore-sama that I think a lot of us who watch anime are familiar with, I don’t think I would have added the extra ham in the translation. However, Roa is using a sort of adjective here to directly mean “the Great”, and that’s 偉大なる (idainaru).

To give some context, 偉大なる is what you would use to refer to people like Frederick the Great, or Alexander the Great. I don’t think I would have done Roa justice if I left it at just “it’s my turn” or some variation thereof. He’s really full of himself!

神々しい (kougoushii)

Another word that Roa uses to refer to himself. The simple definition would be “godlike” or “divine”.

In my first draft, I translated his “divine draw” as “godlike draw” in order to follow the same translation I used when Roa says “I... can charm everyone... with my godlike qualities”, but it sounded a little too weird. Just know that both in that line and the “divine draw”, he’s using the same word.

“Would having it really make you feel more ‘majestic’?” (Original translation has been changed, thanks to corrections from Anons!)

This was a weird sentence to try and parse for me. Yuuga is basically asking if that’s really all Roa wants (like “do your ambitions only stretch this far?” kind of feeling). 

The exact Japanese is 「そんなものが君の威厳なの？」(sonna mono ga kimi no igen na no?)

Translated literally, it could be “Is that really your dignity?”  威厳 means something like majesty or dignity. “Is that it?” would have been another way to translate this, but considering Mimi’s “adultlike” comment afterward, I chose to use some more big words to give off the same feeling that Yuuga was.

Safe to say Yuuga was not at all impressed!

Hero of the Dawn - Lydacross

I actually heard this as “Rider Cross” and it is still the name I used in my raw drafts of this episode. Thankfully I found the brain cell to go on the wiki and found it already translated as “Lydacross”, which makes more sense.

You may notice that I decided to go with “Hero of the Dawn” as opposed to “Brave of the Dawn”. This was just my own personal preference.

But even without summoning Sevens Road Magician, he can still kick his ass!

This is very obviously not really what Luke says.

The original Japanese is 「だがセブンスロードを出さなくてもこれなら存分に暴れられるぜ！」

I highlighted the part that I actually paraphrased. Luke actually says “even without [his ace], he can still rampage freely”. I translated this literally in my first draft, but felt as though it didn’t have enough impact. Part of translating is making sure your audience actually understands the words you’re trying to put out.

So in the final version, I changed it to something more colloquial that any English-speaker would recognize in the same tone.

そのときに手巻されたんですね — He rolled his own road.

God I really hate sushi girl.

She’s making a pun here with 手巻する (temaki suru). You may recognize this as a style of hand rolled sushi, which is exactly what she’s referring to.  手巻する can also mean “to handmake” or something to that effect.

Basically, she’s trying to say “he forged his own road after all” or something akin to it. She’s just going about it in a roundabout way and referring to sushi because why wouldn’t she.

I translated it as “he rolled his own road” as an attempt to mimic the pun.

It’s a beatstick style!

Some TCG slang. “Beatstick” refers to monsters with high ATK. A “beatstick style” would be to try and get out high ATK monsters to “beat” your opponent down. A kind of brute force strategy popular in the old days, before the hand traps came into my house and killed my family.

Yuuga isn’t someone who would cheat even if hell froze over!

Luke actually says something more akin to “even if the galaxy turned upside down”, but I felt like “even if hell froze over” conveyed what he meant better for an English-speaking audience.

Goha Duels vs Rush Duels

A minor note, but by “Goha duels” they mean master duels (5 monster zones, 5 spell/trap zones, normal rules, etc).

Nick vs Nikku

Obviously Nick/Nikku is a pun name on the word for “meat” (肉, niku). The reason I decided to translate his name as “Nick” and not “Nikku” was mainly because he just looks too American to have a name like “Nikku” LOL

Luke vs Rook

And finally, the big one.

I tossed around Rook vs Luke in my head for a long time, and while I know the previous subbers who did episodes 1-11 romanized it as “Rook” (mainly because his entire name is a shogi reference), I much prefer Luke due to it actually being a name. It is also what Konami uses officially.

That’s really all there is to it.

[detectiveguapo]

Breathe

Summary: The unbearable loneliness of loving a bad guy takes its toll. 

Pairing: Miguel Galindo x Reader

Words: 2744

TW: mild language, mentions of depression and addiction

---

---

“Let’s go for a drive.”

The rough voice breaks through your thoughts, and your immediate reaction is to grind your cigarette on the pool edge like you’re trying to hide a dirty habit. You release a nicotine-laced breath you’ve been holding and look up with guilt stamped all over your face. The owner of the voice looms over you, hands on his hips and an eyebrow raised. The blue glow refracts off the planes of his face, casting deep shadows under weary eyes. You hate that your insomnia is disturbing his sleep; you know how busy his days are and how stressed he is juggling his work on both sides of the border.

“Where are we going?” You take his offered hand, pulling yourself up so you’re face-to-face with him. He keeps his hand on yours. The water drips down your bare legs as he leads you back into the house. “Miguel.”

“You can’t sleep.”

“Let’s go back to bed,” you offer as you tug on his hand. He stills and looks over his shoulder, his expression soft and apologetic. “I can try.”

With a solemn shake of his head, he squeezes your hand and leads you through the side door into the garage. He reaches for a set of keys with an enamel racehorse.

“Should we get Paco or Nestor?”

“No,” he says. He opens the passenger side door to the red Ferrari convertible — his first car gifted to him by his father when he was barely old enough for a learner’s permit. He’s kept it all these years for its sentimental value; but you don’t recall the last time he used it (or the last time he drove — he always gets chauffeured). “We won’t go too far. Promise.”

When he gets into the driver’s side and starts the engine, you can’t help but feel like you’re at fault. You hate making him feel like he has to worry about you when he’s already got so much on his plate. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” He asks with a soft smile before he kisses you. “You’ve done nothing wrong, my love.”

---

Somehow you feel like every other thing you’ve done to lead you to this man has been the wrong decision. Sure he’s made you the happiest you’ve ever been. He’s made you believe that you can love someone so much you’d be willing to sacrifice your world just to be a part of his. And yet, here you are overwhelmed with guilt over the fact that you’ve isolated yourself from everyone else you’ve ever loved just to be with him.

Once you’re on the road, Miguel leisurely drives through the bends and curves of the Santo Padre hillside. A long stretch of road opens up and he revs the engine before he bolts through at breakneck speed. As your back presses into the seat, you glance sideways to see the smirk on his face and the concentration in his eyes as he changes gear. Looking at him like this — genuinely happy — brings you a sense of calm. When it’s just the two of you, it reminds you of how much fun you have when you’re with him.

He’s the hand that pulls you out of the deep blue waters.

---

Miguel drives for another fifteen minutes before you stop at a lookout point overlooking the border wall. It’s a sight to behold to see the agricultural side of Santo Padre set in opposition to the vibrancy of light over in Santa Madre. In a way, it parallels the state of your life right now. Isolated up in the hills with just Miguel to keep you sane, while the life you once had continues beyond the metal gates of your new home.

“We need to talk,” Miguel says as he parks the car and leaves it idle. The ensuing silence is like fog — so thick and ominous. You want to wait it out, wait until it lifts before continuing on this conversation. “At some point, you need to tell me what’s going on in that pretty head of yours.”

You smile weakly in his direction.

“Babe.”

You swallow hard, parting your lips like you’re ready to divulge every self-critical thought contributing to your depression. But the words halt at the tip of your tongue. You can’t tell Miguel you’re losing yourself by being with him. You love him too much to hurt him like that. “I need some air.”

---

November in the desert is really no different from the rest of the year, only the nights are colder. The moment you step outside, your body wants to retreat back into the warm leather comfort of the Italian sports car, but you surge on. The ivory silk robe flutters in the breeze. Your bare feet hurt from the jagged surface of the earth. Standing on the edge, you look down below at the rocks — their flat surfaces lit by the pale glow of the moon. It’s a long way down from here.

“Come back.”

He wraps his hand around your wrist and pulls you from the edge and into his arms, wrapping you in a tight embrace. Your arms fall limply at your sides only prompting him to squeeze a little tighter. “Miguel, you’re hurting me.”

“I — I’m sorry.” He pulls away but still keeps you within arms reach, and he presses a long kiss to your forehead. “I just don’t know what I’m doing wrong here. Please tell me because it’s killing me to see you like this.”

“Like?”

“Sad,” he says then chews on his bottom lip. “I don’t know. Depressed?”

Tears — the kind that burn — well up in your eyes.

He kisses one closed eyelid after the other, then he sighs.

“I’m sorry I’m like this,” you say quietly. Memories of the last several weeks enter your brain, and you’re reminded of those sleepless nights, the surface-level conversations over dinner, the lack of motivation to go into town to get anything done. Apart from your job, which you don’t even find to be a refuge anymore because you’ve noticed how everyone treats you differently, you’ve holed yourself up in that mansion on the hill. “This is probably not what you had in mind when you asked me to move in with you. But this is me, Miguel. This is who you get.”

He presses his lips together in a tight line and looks up at the night sky. He shakes his head, refusing to believe you —  wanting to believe the honeymoon version of you. The girl who was falling in love and who could pretend that nothing else mattered, that it was just the two of them against the naysayers. But she’s gone. You left her down in the valley when you chose him over your family. When you chose the cartel over your own brother who died of addiction. When you chose love over principle.

---

Miguel walks back to the car and sits on the hood. He leans forward, resting his palms on his knees, his head hanging low. You can tell he’s pondering whether or not he’s made a mistake taking this huge step with you. It was easier when you started; no one else had confirmation you were dating the leader of the drug cartel. It was all rumours and whispers. Now, you essentially belonged to him.

As your friends and family found out, they began to stay away from you. A lot of them warned you not to fall for his charm. A few, who were never really your friends to begin with, used your connection to try to get something for themselves. If they weren’t using you to get to Miguel, they were leaving you in the dust.

The worst was your family. But who could blame them after the hell you all went through when your brother died from a heroin overdose 15 years ago? Miguel had been in the East Coast at the time, and wasn’t even involved in his father’s cartel business. He didn’t kill your brother, but to your family, he might as well have.

It’s fucked up. You know how fucked up it is to fall in love with him with your family’s history. It’s selfish and weak. This whole relationship is a ticking time bomb, and once it inevitably explodes, you’ll have no one else. And for what? Because he treats you like the queen in his castle? Because he fucks you so good you forget the terrible decisions you make?

Your mother once told you that you’ve given up everything just to be Miguel’s puta. You stay awake at night and tear through an entire box of cigarettes, thinking about what she said and always coming to the conclusion  that she’s right.

How can you love and resent him at the same time? The push and pull takes a toll on the heart, and you’re just so fucking tired of it. You just want to go home, curl up in your mother’s arms where no one ever questions the context of that love.

---

If you were to take away the fact that he is the Galindo Cartel, it changes the context of your love. A businessman recruited your help in offering refuge to the children of one of the men in his payroll — a man working legally as a sub-contractor for the development of the agricultural park. However, ICE caught wind of the fact that the man was not a US citizen, ambushed him on his way to dropping his kids off at school, and imprisoned him in a cage along the border. He was a single dad of two young daughters; his wife had died of cancer only a year prior.

Miguel’s hands were tied as Lincoln Potter and the rest of the DOJ prevented him from getting involved with affairs that concerned immigration. But Miguel wasn’t a heartless man. He used his resources to find you and ask you to help him secure a place of refuge for the man’s daughters. “I heard you were the best at what you do,” he told you upon first meeting you. “So can you help me?”

A man in his power and position asking you to help him caught you by surprise. But it wasn’t the humility that left you speechless; it was this desire to be the best leader he could be by protecting his people and treating them well. It was his heart.

And after that, Miguel just never stopped surprising you.

---

You suppose it’s easy to think of a cartel kingpin as completely heartless. A sociopath who has nothing to contribute to society. And  for people who see the world as black versus white, good versus evil — you can see where they’re coming from, but you refuse to take such a binary approach. You don’t want to come across like you’re idealizing Miguel, because everyone who’s been critical of you throughout your life has said you have the tendency to romanticize your partners. But you strongly believe there’s more to judge in people than the worst acts they’ve done. It’s true he’s all they say he is, but he is so much more.

He is darkness and light, and all the shades of grey in between.

---

Standing in front of him, you place your hands on his hunched shoulders. He stares up at you — sadness swimming in those brown eyes. It isn’t fair. He only wants to be with you, but you’re making it so hard to let him do that when you’re closing yourself off. He’s the reason everyone else abandoned you. He’s all you’ve got left, and you can’t abandon him. You’ve made your choice. As awful as it is to be disowned by your family and to be judged by people who know so little about you and Miguel, you would persist through it all if it means you can continue to love and be loved by this man.

“Te quiero mucho, Miguel.”

He takes your hand and presses it firmly against his lips. “Yo también te quiero, cariño.

You begin to take a seat beside him. A brow raised to ask the unspoken question if it’s okay to sit on the hood of a car that costs more than what most people make in a year. He laughs a little and pats the space next to him, then he drapes an arm over your shoulder. You lean into him and stare out at the night sky — a gradient of black to amber from the lights below.

“My sister asked me not to come to Thanksgiving dinner at my parents’ house,” you say. “She asked me not to come for Christmas or holiday or birthday parties as long as I’m playing house with you.”

Miguel runs his hands over his face and sighs. “Jesus. I’m so sorry it had to come to this.”

“Me too.”

“Is there anything I can do?” He turns to you, eyes pleading for answers. He’s a man of action, who can’t sit idly by as people hurt you and make you feel terrible. But he knows better than to fight back against your family, even though you can tell it’s the equivalent of putting him in restraints. “I don’t want you to lose them.”

You breathe out that last tiny shred of hope. “I already have.”

“I don’t want to lose you,” he admits.

“You won’t.”

“But —“

“— I choose you.”

“You shouldn’t have to make that choice.

---

As the quiet settles, you think now is the time to tell the truth.

“My brother didn’t drown in the Salton Sea,” you tell Miguel for the first time in your relationship. The drowning was a story your family made up because of the shame associated with addiction. Your neighbours knew the story of your brother going to the beach on a summer weekend, and not waking up hours after a swim because of secondary drowning. “He was at the beach that weekend, but he bailed on his friends to try to score heroin. He got caught up in this bad crowd that pressured him into injecting more than he was used to…”

Realization dawns upon Miguel. He knows why people avoid him and don’t like him; it doesn’t phase him anymore. But the unyielding hatred he’s gotten from your family has been a source of confusion for him. Until now.

“You didn’t cause the overdose that killed my brother, but to my family, it’s like you handed him that needle.”

“I’m sorry.” A tear falls to his cheek and he quickly wipes away the evidence.

Wrapping your arm around his waist, you tuck your head under his chin. “It’s not your fault. I would never blame you for what happened. My family can’t understand that. I can’t make them understand that — no matter how hard I’ve tried. And I’m done. I’m so tired, Miguel. I’m so tired.” The sobs start to come out and you’re shaking. He wraps his arms tight around your body, his steady breath soothing the back of your neck.

“I understand now why you need to push me away sometimes,” he whispers softly against your skin. He strokes your hair and rocks you gently against his body. “And I’ll give you whatever you want —  the space you need, the time it takes before you’re better. But please don’t leave.”

“I couldn’t.” You look up at him with tears streaming down your face. “The thought of losing you kills me more than the reality of having lost everyone else.”

Miguel holds your face in his hands and presses his forehead to yours. His eyes are sealed tight as he breathes against your parted lips. Something about sharing the air he breathes makes you feel like you’re enveloped in the comforting thought that you’ll be fine. You’ll make it out of this dark hole and find the light, and Miguel will be on the other side waiting patiently for you. You feel safe in his arms. You know he believes in you. Not this shadow of your former self, but you. And even if you can’t be that person tonight, he’s still here. He’s not going anywhere and he’s not letting you go. He breathes you in and that’s all it takes for you to feel enough. The thought settles you and you curl up into him, letting the steady beat of his heart lull you into sleep.

This love has been worth all the sacrifice.

[tfw-no-tennis]

hxh....MUSICAL

as soon as i saw that a hunter x hunter musical from the year 2002 starring the OG 99 VAs existed, i knew i has to see this...so i set out and watched the nightmare of zoldyck (i would later find out that theres ANOTHER musical, which i plan to watch too)

luckily its all on youtube subbed! in 360 quality...oh hell yes lmao

ok i logically knew this was gonna be a musical but seeing the characters singing is like. a lot. THIS IS SO STRANGE 

musical illumi is played by a woman which is interesting. shes got a good voice 

i think they just panned to killua but it was so pixelated that i legitimately could not tell hvbadjkfbjkdsf

i have no idea whats going on vhbajdfhhajsdf theres a bunch of people falling over on stage...i think theyre dying? who are yall 

oh shit backup dancers?

lmao illumi killed the backup dancers rip.

oh that IS killua lol. s/o to the 3 pixels that are visible 

is this gonna be the zoldyck arc but a musical? lmao

OH WAIT IS THAT KURAPIKA AND LEORIO? i cant even tell lmaoooo

i can 100% tell these are fan subs lmaooo i love bad fan subs SO MUCH it makes a viewing experience even better

this is p much just a musical version of the manga/anime so far lmao i love it 

the way theyre spelling zoldyck is. a lot 

is every character gonna get an intro song. how much of this musical is singing and how much of it is dialogue cause theres defs a range w/musicals 

lmao i love gon leorio and kurapikas interactions even here, they rlly feel like two parents being dragged around by their energetic kid 

i cant even see the set at all so im just gonna assume theres like, the gate and all that behind them, but it all just looks like a dark wall to me lmao

i love singing exposition 

HISOKAS IN THIS???????????????????? oh my lorddddd 

OH i see now in the description that hes played by the 99 VA too lmao i love it 

wow musical hisoka rlly b like [writes himself into the zoldyck family arc]

oh here we go w/the song introducing the zoldycks 

damn grandpa got mad flips 

this is. wild 

its especially wild that alluka isnt here bc she like...didnt even exist yet at this point in the story 

zoldyck family sitcom wow 

i see the gon/killua romance is still going strong in the musical 

oh so they did all the training and goin thru the door stuff offscreen lol

this is actually doing a pretty good job expanding on the canon stuff from this arc lol so props. espec w/showing more of killua being scared of illumi 

oooh this is interesting actually, this is like....an AU where illumi is present during this arc, and how that would change things. And Also They Sing 

the zoldycks are so fucked up lmao 

also i feel like theres some ‘early adaptation’ character weirdness going on, like w/the grandpa, who seems much less intense here than in the anime (at least after seeing him in the yorknew arc), and milluki, who seems like a gag character here lmao

oh my god lmao is hisoka here to visit illumi?

the hilarious irony of illumi telling killua that assassins cant have friends, then going to hang out with his good buddy hisoka

kurapika is the only one here with a brain cell (for now) 

ah yes hisoka and illumi doing their nasty murder flirting thing 

HISOKA IS SO NASTYYYY I HATE HIM tho his actor is very good and smarmy

OH its canary!! is there uh. blackface goin on there. i cant actually tell, what with there being only 3 pixels present at any given time

really love how half of this is just the regular arc but with the characters singing abt stuff during it 

the lady playing killuas mom has a rlly good screeching voice jesus lmao 

ohh i love musical fighting so much

the sound fx on kurapikas sticks are cracking me up

butlers got mad cartwheels

oh theyre doing the coin thing! this is so out of order lmao

oh my god i love that theyre doing like, sick dance moves while coin flipping

ah the zoldyck messenger hawk makes an appearance. i love that thats canon and real

the 12 yr old gay romance is REAL even here 

the subs seems to be translated very literally, especially in the songs, so its honestly not clear what theyre even singing about vbsjkdjhfskjfd

gon and killua singing about each other is adorable tbh. also i love how silva asks killua abt his friends and killua is like yeah i made some friends. and then only talks abt gon ahjsduhfabhskdf gayboy 

ok so the zoldyck arc is like, ending, but theres still an hr of musical left so whats even gonna happen lmao. also where did hisoka go

oh no the audio and video arent synced anymore huvbhjadfbhjsakdf

oooh they asked canary to come w/them, thats cool

theyre having a party??? hvbajdsfbhasjkdf

oh shit??? what did zeburo just do to killua??? WHATS GOING ONNN lol this is UNCHARTED TERRITORY 

OH GOD IT WAS ILLUMI. SHOULDVE KNOWNNN

omggg all their formal outfits....everyone cheering wildly at kurapika is cute 

LEORIO AND KURAPIKA DANCING.....

the fact that both killua and gon are taller than kurapika in this is rlly funny 

the idea that the zoldycks are also highly trained ballroom dancers is super hilarious to think about, even moreso when you consider how isolationist they are 

seriously grandpas got mad flips

also i love leorios outfit 

this feels like a filler arc tbh. and i dont mean that in a bad way!

leorio trying to get kurapika to go to the hot springs with him lmaoooo

HVDSJBJFSBFJHS HISOKAS BACK. IN DISGUISE. OH MY GOD 

hisokas stage presence is fantastic gotta say 

damnnnn dad zoldycks got mad flips too. guess it runs in the family 

props to the actors for managing to keep their wigs on while flipping around like that 

its so fuckgin funny thats hisoka just introduces himself as illumis friend, when this whole arc is all about how assassins Cannot Have Friends 

so hisoka is just here trying to get family approval too huh

gon miming a fishing trip was adorable and realistic...sometimes u get skunked and It Just Be Like That

leorio is rlly tryin to shoot his shot w/kurapika and kp is just Not Realizing huh vbjsdufjbsaukjf

wow leorio breakin the fourth wall like that lmao 

wow so illumi hacked killua. rude 

hisoka and illumi are lowkey hilarious in this 

leorio is rlly sending every signal possible to kurapika and kp is like. No 

leorio: killua is a scary murder baby, but also im adopting him 

kurapika singing abt how weird it is having friends after dedicating their life to Revenge(tm) is v on brand 

HISOKA OH BOY 

LMAOOOO HISOKA IS SUCH A FUCKING SNITCH I CANT 

no wonder illumi didnt wanna tell him abt his evil plan lmaoooo he fucked up even telling hisoka that much clearly 

the zoldyck siblings just staring at hisoka in confusion bc How The Fuck Did This Clown Get In Our House hvbhjdksfnjksdf

you can tell the subs are off when the audience is cracking up but you dont even see a joke there lmao

oh my goddd hisoka using bungee gum to make everyone dance is. hilarious 

oh my god synchronized dancing 

HVBSHDJFBJDSKFHBSJ illumi doing a dance routine independent of hisoka and hisoka being like ????? vhbjsdkhfjkjsdnfkj THIS IS HILARIOUS

supremely funny to me how illumi makes such a big point abt assassins not having friends, yet hisoka is announcing himself as illumis friend w/every given opportunity hvbhajdkdfhjskf

this feels so filler arc i love it. thats so charming to me since the 2011 anime doesnt have any filler (from what i can tell?) 

kurapika and leorio rlly feel like killuas parents here lmaooo

this is all dramatic but kurapika keeps repeating what leorio says and its cracking me up hvbajhkdhfbjsk

i lov this fambly 

ah, even in the musical illumi is still such a manipulative bastard 

i feel like the quality just went down EVEN MORE, which i didnt think was even possible hvbhjkdsfskf. at least the audio is synced w/the video again

illumis got a good evil laugh 

this is the exact brand of dramatic angsty filler content that i was hoping for in this lmao i love it 

oooh more zoldycks 

honestly this is more how i expected the zoldyck arc to go in canon hbshjdkujfkjsfdas

dramatic gay filler angst + somewhat incorrect fansubs = perfection

OH SHIT CANARY 

BRO DID SHE JUST DIE???? OMFG

the subs keep calling illumis power ‘spells’ which seems to imply that illumi is some sort of assassin wizard rather than a nen user hvbsudhfkjsdjgf

come to think of it, what point was the manga at when this musical was written? it has to be pretty early on, maybe just as nen was being introduced

gon boutta go ham on illumi...Get His Ass

OHHHH GON DOING THE ICONIC ARM GRAB....ARM GRAB REPRISE

gon doin the good ole reliable shounen ‘punch your friend and yell at them so they snap out of a funk’ lol

i do love how typically shounen this is. friendship speeches! but delivered by SONG!

illumis main hobby is butting in at the worst possible moments 

HISOKAS BACK OH BOY

hisokas playing card blocked killuas hit hvbhjakdhsfjnakdsf thats like in jojo when those manga blocked dios knives 

wow the whole zoldyck squad is here

ooh forbidden zoldyck lore lmao

killua: mom u guys are lame im joining this much cooler family now. bye 

i love how hisoka is just weirdly lurking around for all this zoldyck drama lmao

silva seems like such a bro in this but i feel like hes rlly not like that in canon vhauidfhbsjhdkjfk

oh nope there he goes w/the evil laugh lmaooooo

sorry dude but leorio is his dad now 

gon sniffing zeburo hgbajkdfshbjkdfjnsjdk oh my god

oh hell yeah some synchronized main character finale dancing 

actor showcase! everyone loves kurapika which, same 

ah so the director of this musical also directed the sailor moon musicals, which i didnt know existed but of course that exists...thats funny considering the hxh mangaka is married to the sailor moon mangaka 

anyways that was fun honestly!!!! i fuckgin love musicals, and musical adaptations of non-musical source materials can be like, SO different tonally, but this honestly felt like a fun filler 

it was really interesting seeing something based on the canon from this early on - as i said above, some of the characterizations (like the zoldycks) seems a bit different than we’re used to, but others were spot on - like hisoka only showing up intermittently to sow chaos and do nothing else vhjkadhbfhkjdsfnj im assuming the yorknew arc hadnt happened at this point, but hisokas actions in this musical were hilariously similar to how he acted in the yorknew arc, so, props. 

plus it was cool to see the ‘what if’ factor w/hisoka and illumi also being there, espec illumi interacting w/killua bc its so wildly different from how killua reacts to any of his other family members - hes clearly scared of illumi, in a way he isnt w/anyone else, and that was done well here w/the scene where illumi threatens killua’s friends to get killua to listen to him

also the angst was honestly great, and there was some REALLY sweet wholesome parts that i loved. and the music wasnt half bad either!!

i think the VAs did a great job playing the characters - hisokas VA was especially great (and i really loved kurapika too). gons hair was not very similar to how it looks in the show so it was a little more obvious that he was being played by a grown woman, but still a great performance. 

anyways fun times, i love musicals and this was a fun ole 2000s filler shounen musical adaptation

[just-my-sickly-pride]

The Old College Try || Brian May x fem!Reader

PLEASE NOTE: THIS IS A RE-UPLOAD OF A FIC THAT I POSTED LAST YEAR TO A DIFFERENT BLOG. I DID NOT STEAL THIS; IT’S MINE. The version on my other blog has since been made private. Minor changes have been made.

summary || of all the new experiences you thought you’d have in your time at college, falling into an extended friends-with-benefits situation was not one of them - but you wouldn’t have changed it for the world. you and Brian had tried every kinky thing you could think of. except calling Brian ‘daddy’, of course, because, y’know, bleugh. you both thought the idea of that was gross. so gross. right? modern day au. college au.

rating || explicit. 18+ only. do not read if you are under eighteen. there’s a bit of what i’d like to call platonic fluff? but mostly smut. daddy kink, choking, some slight dom/sub dynamics, but not much.

word count || 6.9k. this was clearly written back when i actually used to write reasonably-sized fics.

author’s notes || i’m re-uploading this because i have a part two written and ready to be uploaded. i’m sorry the gif below is so big but it’s just too pretty!

masterlist

     If someone had told you that, within the first few months of starting university, you’d have made a new friend who would quickly become more than a friend, you’d have said that that someone had no idea what they were talking about. You weren’t interested in dating, at least not at this point in your life. You just wanted to focus on university, at least for the first year.

    If that someone had clarified what they’d meant by ‘more than a friend’, you would’ve been equally as confused.

    Well, maybe not that confused. You’d been attracted to Brian the second you’d first clapped eyes on him, when he’d asked if the seat next to you was taken in your second lecture of the day. In fact, after that first hour, you’d thought you’d probably develop a crush on him — but, surprisingly, you didn’t, even after the two of you became friends. Great friends, actually. You shared similar interests, and you could talk for hours about absolutely anything. He was good fun to argue with over silly, trivial things, like where the best place to keep ketchup was, or whether it was acceptable to drink wine out of a cup. And he was always open for late-night conversations about life and the universe. And you loved making him cringe. Your favourite way to do it was to say that his love of animals revealed he was actually a furry. Or saying that he had a foot fetish. You found it hilarious how easy he was to wind up. He did not.

    So yes, above all else, you were friends.

    You’d just added a little something extra to the mix along the way.

    You couldn’t remember how exactly the whole ‘with-benefits’ component to your friendship had started, but you could remember very clearly when: three months into uni, into being friends, and you’d both been at a mutual friend’s party. You’d both been drinking, and you’d been flirting, like you always seemed to be, and then, next thing you knew, you were making out. You’d spent the rest of the night making out, actually, and then Brian had come back to yours, where’d you’d made out even more, but with less clothing. You hadn’t slept together, but you’d fallen asleep in the same bed.

    And the next day, things had seemed… completely normal. Nothing had seemed to change between you two at all. It wasn’t as if either of you pretended the night before hadn’t happened, but more that it just didn’t need to be something really that worthy of note. It had happened, it had been fun, and that was all there was to it.

    The next time you two had gotten drunk — at your place, playing a dumb drinking game while watching Zootopia, of all things — the same thing had happened. Except, this time, you’d gone all the way. And it had been great. No awkwardness, no pressure to impress. The next day, again, the dynamic had remained the same.

    So, after a brief conversation to clarify things, you’d settled on friends-with-benefits.

    That had been two months ago. It wasn’t a secret, per se, but you weren’t exactly rushing to tell anyone. You actually had no idea how many people knew. 

    But what you did know was that, while neither of you had had a friends-with-benefits arrangement with anyone else before, you were both fucking good at it.

    It hadn’t taken long at all for things to become more adventurous in the bedroom. Every time the two of you slept together — which, given that you were both young adults who had needs, was fairly often — you were experimenting, trying out new things, almost in competition to see who was the kinkiest.

    Which was new, again, for both of you. You’d never thought of yourself as particularly kinky, and Brian had told you he’d never really considered anything more than just vanilla sex. But one day, during a lecture, you’d found yourself staring at his hands, and had wondered what they would feel like wrapped around your throat.

    As it turned out, it felt incredible. And so had been just about everything that had followed after it.

    You were staring at his hands now, as he fiddled with the lid of his water bottle. You were at lunch with your friends at uni, celebrating the end of a painful three-hour lecture, but you’d zoned out of the group conversation long ago.

    Brian’s hand drifted down the side of the water bottle lightly, deliberately slowly, and you could tell without even looking at his face that he’d caught you staring. His fingers glided back up the water bottle, and curled around the top of it, and you chewed on the inside of your cheek.

    Brian’s hand flexed around the water bottle, tightening, and you squeezed your thighs together. You shot a glance up to his face. He wasn’t looking at you, instead politely engaging in the conversation, but he had a small smile on his lips. He knew he was getting you hot under the collar with just the movements of his hands, and he was enjoying it immensely. You simultaneously hated that it was so easy for him to tease you, and loved that he enjoyed doing it.

    You sighed, sitting back. “I’m just going to the bathroom,” you said, completely cutting off whoever was talking; you didn’t care.

    You stood up, leaving your belongings there with your friends, and walked to the bathrooms. There were two sets of bathrooms: the food court ones that everyone used, and the much quieter ones that were in the building next door, down a corridor. There were no security cameras there, either. The bathrooms weren’t abandoned, exactly, but you could have about five to ten minutes of privacy if you were lucky.

    You leant against the wall of the corridor, tugging on the sleeves of your shirt, rubbing your hands together, bubbling with nervous energy.

    Brian rounded the corner an agonising two minutes later, and you said, “You’re a fucking menace,” before he grabbed your hips and pinned you against the wall, kissing you hungrily. You knew you had barely any time — not even a minute — before your friends started getting suspicious, so you made the most of it.

    Well, the most of the twenty or so seconds you were given. Someone exited the bathroom, and you and Brian sprung apart from each other, and you looked down at your hands, pressing your lips together to stop yourself from laughing. The guy who’d left the bathroom mumbled, “Sorry,” and hurried past you.

    You and Brian shared a glance, and then you started laughing. Brian covered his face with his hand, shaking his head. “I…” He sighed. “The number of times that we’ve gotten caught by strangers… And it never gets better. It’s always horribly awkward, every time.”

    “Maybe we should just stop making out at uni then,” you said.

    Brian lowered his hand, looking aghast. “That’s out of the question. What am I meant to do, wait till the end of the day?”

    “Maybe we should,” you said with a shrug. “Maybe we should stop making out basically every day. It might make things more… rewarding. Or at least interesting.”

    “I don’t think I could last an entire day,” Brian said. He rested his hand against your collarbones, applying just enough pressure to push you back into the wall, and his thumb moved to press against the front of your throat. Your lips parted instinctively. Brian’s eyes were on his hand — he’d told you that he liked how his hand looked against your skin — and your eyes were on his face. The concentration and heat in his gaze, coupled with the feeling of his hand, was enough to make you squirm with need.

    But now was not the time, nor the place.

    You sighed, letting your head fall back against the wall and your eyes slide closed. “Bri,” you said slowly, a warning.

    “Mm?” Brian said, his warm voice low.

    “We’re in public.” You opened your eyes, and lifted a hand, placing it on top of his, gently taking it away. “We have to go back.”

    Brian was tense, his jaw clenched, and you smiled. “Come on,” you said. You spoke lightly, but you knew that Brian would obey you.

    Brian breathed out sharply, and he turned away from you, rubbing his eyes with one hand. “Fuck, I want to fuck you so bad,” he growled. “Fuck.”

    You felt that all through your body, but you just took his wrist and went to leave, dragging him after you. He stayed stuck to the floor, his eyes boring into yours, and you could see the gears turning in his brain, knew he was seriously considering grabbing you and taking you into one of the bathrooms.

    You knew he wouldn’t. You both had limits, and actually fucking at uni was not on the table for either of you.

    But still. The fact that Brian seemed damn near overwhelmed with desire — desire for you — made you feel like the most powerful motherfucker on the planet.

    It also helped that you just tugged on his wrist again, just once, using barely any effort, and he became unstuck, following your direction without another word.

    “Maybe later I can dig out the old furry suit,” you said as you headed back to the food court, making your voice as sensual as possible.

    Brian snatched his wrist back as if in disgust, but you could tell he was trying not to laugh. “Jesus, you know how to kill the mood really fast.”

    “I don’t know what you mean,” you said, blinking at him innocently. “Don’t you want to see me in my suit? It’s a badger one. I got it made just for you. I thought you’d love it.”

    Brian shook his head. “I hate you so much.”

    “Maybe we can try something even better tonight,” you said, giving him a pouty, sexy look that you knew looked ridiculous. “Something new. What do you say, Daddy?”

    Brian’s step faltered, and the wildly taken-aback look on his face made you laugh. You skipped ahead, sliding back into your chair, and Brian joined you soon after.

      A week later, you and Brian were in your dorm, books and textbooks and pens and laptops strewn all over the living room floor as you tried to study. Brian was always much more studious than you were, so it helped to have him there to steer you back to your books when your focus strayed. Unfortunately, having him there served as the worst distraction you could’ve had.

    After about fifteen minutes of you mildly irritating him, flicking his pen as he tried to write, poking him in his side where he was most ticklish, making stupid noises at him and demanding some kind of response, he’d sent you to the kitchen to make a snack and get you both something to drink.

    You hummed to yourself as you waited for the popcorn to microwave, scrolling through Instagram on your phone. You came across a horrifically awful meme, and you laughed. “Hey, Bri,” you called. “Dude.”

    “What?” Brian replied from the living room.

    “Come look at this meme. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen.”

    “Just send it to me.”

    “No, come look at it.”

    You heard Brian sigh melodramatically, and soon he lumbered into the kitchen, stretching out the kinks in his muscles from sitting on the floor. “All right, show me.”

    You showed him your phone, and he looked at it for a second, then his eyes flicked to you, accompanied with the most intense are you shitting me expression you’d ever seen on another human being. “That’s horrendous.”

    You giggled. “I know.”

    “I can’t believe I walked all the way in here for that.”

    The microwave dinged, and you went to get the popcorn. You almost burnt your fingers, but you managed to get it out of the oven and peel it open.

    “Ouch,” you said as you grabbed a few pieces and tossed them into your mouth. “Bri, open up.”

    Brian opened his mouth, and you threw some popcorn at him, not aiming at all. It went all over him and the floor, and he sighed as you laughed. “God, you’re so fucking annoying,” he said, the corners of his mouth quirking up.

    You shimmied your shoulders. “I know,” you said happily, trotting past him. You paused in the kitchen doorway to shimmy again, this time adding your hips, wiggling your butt at him, and then continued to the living room with the popcorn, getting comfy on the floor.

    “You can’t just shake your arse at me,” Brian protested, following you. “That’s not fair.”

    “You called me annoying,” you said. “I can do what I want.”

    Brian groaned. “You’re so…” Before you knew it, he’d fallen to his knees beside you, snatched the popcorn bag from your hands, and captured your lips with his.

    You still got a thrill when you kissed him, even after two months. It felt naughty, in a way, like there was something taboo about it. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that everyone else you knew was getting into relationships, or wanting to get into relationships, and your arrangement with Brian was the antithesis of that. Maybe it was because you wasted so much time doing it, when you should’ve been studying, or working on an essay. Maybe it was because you’d never been so physically attracted to another human being before that there had to be something wrong with you, didn’t there?

    Brian kissed you deep, kisses that were slow and controlled and drove you insane. You tried to go for his jeans, but he straddled you and grabbed your wrists, pinning them to your sides. Every time you tried to take some of the power back, escalating things or speeding them up, Brian just didn’t rise to it, didn’t take the bait, and it was so frustrating you wanted to scream.

    Brian pulled back just enough to end the kiss. You tried to continue, but he ducked his head, as if to kiss your neck, so you let your head fall back, but he just pressed a single, infuriatingly light kiss to your pulse point.

    “Oh my God, I hate you,” you growled.

    “Oh, I’m annoying you, am I?” Brian said, beyond smug, and you wanted to kick him in the ribs.

    “You fucking… This is entirely different,” you said. “You—“

    Brian licked a stripe up your neck, and you felt the air leave your lungs like it had been sucked out with a vacuum.

    “You bitch,” you said, but it came out sounding breathless and needy.

    Brian chuckled, and you felt him bite your neck, softly, teasing.

    Your lust-addled brain was scrambling to find a way to get control of the situation, to not let Brian win, so you fell back on instinct: making Brian feel repulsed. “Are you imagining I’m a hedgehog? A sexy, spiky hedgehog?”

    It worked a treat. Brian recoiled, letting your wrists go, his nose screwing up. “Why? Why do you do that?”

    You leant into the bit, refusing to back down. “What about a fox?” you said, giving him a salacious smile, putting your hands on his chest. “Want me to put on National Geographic?”

    “You disgust me,” Brian said, sounding more tired and exhausted than anything else, and it delighted you.

    You leant forward, into him, smoothing your hands up his thighs, your lips hovering just over his. “What do you say, Daddy?”

    Brian went very still. He swallowed.

    You paused, confused by the lack of reaction, and pulled back. “What?”

    Brian’s face was red. “That was… uh. Um.”

    “Sorry,” you said. “Nickleback?”

    It was your safeword. Nothing kills the mood like Nickleback, Brian had said when he’d suggested it.

    “No,” Brian said stiffly. “Not Nickleback.”

    Wait. “Did you… Do you like me calling you Daddy?”

    Brian blinked, looking away, and he cleared his throat. “I— Well—“

    You took a moment to consider this, and then, taking it slow, so Brian had time to refuse if he wanted to, you kissed his neck just the way he liked, and he let out a breathy moan, one of his hands coming to twist itself into your hair.

    You slipped your hands under his shirt, your nails scratching up his back, and your kisses moved down his neck. You bit at the hollow of his throat, making him moan, and you murmured against his skin, “You gonna fuck me good, Daddy?”

    Brian let out a shaky breath. “Jesus Christ.”

    You broke out into a smile of victory — it was always a bonus to discover a new kink, whether it was yours or Brian’s — and Brian roughly pulled you away to tilt your head up towards him, and he kissed you so passionately it made your head spin.

    As if you weren’t wet enough, he let go of your hair to wrap his hand around your throat, and your stomach leapt with anticipation. He began applying pressure, and it felt so fucking good that you stopped kissing him, just feeling the way your body reacted, the way your veins fizzled with adrenaline as your fight-or-flight instincts kicked in, the way your airway opened to try to suck in as much air as it could, even though Brian wasn’t even restricting your airflow.

    When he let go, the effect on you was instantaneous. Nothing turned you on more than Brian choking you, and it never failed to send you in a kind of frenzy. You grabbed onto Brian, kissing him, biting him, shoving your hands up the back of his shirt and clawing your nails down his back, just as he liked it, and he responded in kind, gripping your hair.

    Brian broke the kiss, your foreheads pressing together, your eyes still closed.

    “How long do we have the place to ourselves?” Brian asked.

    “What’s the time?” you replied, blinking your eyes open.

    Brian’s grip tightened on your hair — he was irritated that he had to let go of you, and you loved it — and he leant back, craning his neck to look at the clock on the wall. “Five to five.”

    “It’s a Tuesday, so that means Lucy finishes later,” you said. “We have until about… ten past six.”

    “Good.” Brian swooped in to kiss you again, but only for a moment; he got to his feet, wincing as his knees cracked, making you laugh, and he took your hands and helped you to yours. You made your way to your bedroom, having to pause your journey every so often when either you or Brian got too handsy and you couldn’t resist making out again, but eventually you made it, and Brian wasted no time in throwing your shirt off.

    “I have to admit, I’m surprised,” you said as you easily slipped Brian’s shirt off him - you had to go on your toes to get it over his head - and dropped it to the floor.

    “What?” Brian said, his hands going to your belt. The conversation was put on hold as he ducked his head to kiss you, and you moaned into his mouth. You both managed to undo each other’s belts blindly, but you had to separate again when Brian struggled with the button on your jeans.

    “I didn’t know you that was a — thing, for you,” you continued, watching Brian’s fucking gorgeous fingers finally undo the button and yank down your fly. “Y’know. Being called Daddy.”

    “I…” It was Brian’s turn to watch you work on his button and fly. “Um, neither did I.”

    “I thought you—“ You finished your task and began shoving your jeans down your legs, and Brian did the same. “I mean, the other day, last week, whatever, when I called you Daddy, you looked, like, not at all happy. You made a face.”

    “That was not an unhappy face,” Brian said. “That was a— a ‘wow, I did not expect to like that’ face.”

    You laughed. “But we always make fun of people who say ‘Daddy’ unironically. Everyone jokes about it all the time. Especially Roger,” you added, “but you do too.”

    “Yeah, I know,” Brian said. “But the way you say it, I just…” He abandoned the thought to finish taking off his jeans.

    You bit your lip, watching him, waiting until he looked at you. When he did, you gave him a slow smile, basking in how transfixed he was by you, and you murmured, “Daddy.”

    Brian shuddered. “Yeah,” he said weakly. “Yeah, like that.” He hesitated. “Do you— It isn’t too weird for you, is it? You don’t have to—“

    “Dude,” you said, stepping over to him. “I wouldn’t say it if I wasn’t okay with it. Honestly, at this point, it would have to be something mind-blowingly weird for me to not be okay with it.” You cupped the front of his underwear and gave him a squeeze, and he clenched his jaw, his eyes dark on your face. “Whatever turns you on, baby,” you said with a wink.

    Brian gripped your hips, tugging you against him. “You turn me on,” he said. “Jesus, I— I’ve never met anyone who turns me on as much as you do.”

    “Really?” you said, your fingers and toes tingling with excitement.

    Brian nodded emphatically. “God, yes,” he said. “It never even occurred to me before you that I could just always be mildly turned on all the time just by being around another person. Especially not someone I’m, y’know, not romantically interested in. But the number of times I’ve thought about you when I’m—“ He cut himself off, glancing away, rubbing his jaw. “Um. Yeah. You… Yeah.”

    Your heart was galloping, and your thoughts were occupied only by the desire to get Brian naked. “What do you think about?” you whispered.

    You slipped your hand into Brian’s boxers, and curled your hand around him, jerking him off, not enough to frazzle his brain too much, but enough to get him interested.

    He still wouldn’t look at you, closing his eyes, making a sound in the back of his throat.

    “I bet it’s hot,” you said. “You think about fucking me hard? Making me scream like you always do? You’re so good at it. You always fuck me so good.”

    Brian’s breathing grew uneven, and his hand went back to your hip. He was holding onto you like it was the only thing keeping his knees from buckling.

    You kept your touch light, not changing the pace.

“Do you think about choking me?” you said. “Think about how hot it makes me? Think about how perfect your hand looks around my throat? Maybe how pretty I look when you tie me up and I’m all spread out for you. Maybe how fucked-out I look when you fuck my mouth. I know how much you love it. Do you think about that?”

    “Fuck,” Brian groaned.

    “Do you think about my nails down your back? How pretty and red your skin looks all scratched up? Maybe all the times I’ve sucked you off when our friends are in the room next to us, and you have to put a hand over your mouth to keep yourself quiet.” You tightened your grip just slightly, and Brian hissed, trying to buck forward into your hand, but you slipped your hand from his boxers, leaving him bucking into thin air, and he moaned.

    “Is that what you think about when you get yourself off?” you prompted.

    Brian nodded wordlessly, and went to kiss you, but you moved out of his reach. “You gonna use your words?” you teased.

    Brian moaned again. “God.” It almost came out in a whine of frustration, and you felt warmth run down your body all the way to your toes. “Yes,” Brian ground out, finally opening his eyes. He had such pretty eyes. Dark and bright. “Yes, fuck, I think about all of that. I think about you in every single— scenario you could imagine. Literally whatever you can think of, I’ve thought about it. Because you drive me mental. And none of it compares to the real thing, which I’m really fucking hoping we’ll get to within the hour, if you’ll stop fucking about.”

    You grinned. “You’re so patient with me,” you said. “I’ve trained you well.”

    “I’m getting increasingly less patient,” Brian muttered.

    You took one of his hands, bringing it to your face, slowly. You let his fingers rest against your lips. “I’m sorry,” you said, though you weren’t sorry at all.

    Brian’s eyes were focused on your mouth. Watching his face, loving how horny it made him, you opened your lips, sucking two of his fingers into your mouth.

    He moaned, biting his bottom lip. “You look fucking incredible doing that,” he murmured as you swirled your tongue around each finger. His other hand moved to your back, his fingers ghosting up and down your lower spine.

    You let his fingers slide out of your mouth to say, “I love doing it. I love your hands.” You ran your tongue up his fingers and drew them into your mouth again, feeling the texture of them.

    Brian’s other hand came to rest on your collarbones, his thumb against your throat. A promise. You felt excitement fizzle through you. “Good girl,” he said softly.

    You paused. You’d never heard that one before.

    “Sorry,” Brian said immediately. “I don’t know why I said that. That was too much.”

    You let the new words sink in. You liked it.

    You pulled off his fingers again. “I don’t think it was, Daddy,” you said.

    Brian’s mouth fell open. “Oh my God,” he breathed.

    “Unless you think it was,” you added quickly.

    Brian shook his head. “No,” he said. “It— it sort of… works, doesn’t it? With me calling you — when you’re calling me…”

    “Call me that again,” you suggested. “We can always veto it at any point.”

    “That’s true,” Brian said. “I’m— It feels a bit weird calling you that, like, right now, so I’m just going to— I’ll wait.”

    You nodded. “Okay. But I liked it, I think.” Brian’s fingers still rested against your mouth, and it was nice, in a strange way, to have them there. “It was hot, y’know, in the moment.”

    “Good,” Brian said. “Otherwise that could’ve been—“

    “Awkward, yeah,” you said with a laugh. You kissed his fingertips. “So, you gonna choke me, or…?”

    Brian snorted a laugh. “You’re not exactly delicate, are you?”

    “Never have been,” you said happily. You took his wrists, guiding his hands away, and leant in to kiss him.

    You ended up on the bed somehow, with Brian kissing you while he held your wrists down above your head. If you’d had more time, you would’ve used the scarves that you kept in your closet for just this purpose — you hated wearing them, so you were glad that they were useful for something — but time was ticking, and both of you were anxious to move things along.

    Brian had to let go of your wrists to move further down your body, tearing off your bra and giving your boobs the love they deserved.

    You made a soft sound of pleasure, scratching your nails up and down Brian’s back where you could reach, and along his shoulders, and Brian tensed at the sharp pain of it, but you knew it wasn’t too much. You’d only ever had to stop when you’d almost made him bleed, and even then it had been you who’d noticed it, not him.

    Brian went to move further down your body, but you tugged him back up, shaking your head.

    “No?” Brian said.

    “Choke me,” you said.

    Brian nodded eagerly. “Yeah, of course.”

    “Choke me, Daddy,” you added with a laugh.

    “That is funny,” Brian said, “but also, please say that in your sex voice.”

    You quirked your eyebrows at him, and then grabbed his hand, pressing it against your throat. “Please choke me, Daddy.”

    Brian sat up and leant over you, then applied pressure on your throat, and your eyes slid closed, your head tilting back. “Yeah,” you breathed. “Yeah, Daddy, just like that. Feels so good.”

    “Fuck,” Brian muttered. His grip tightened, and you whined.

    Your mind went quiet, focusing only on the feeling of Brian’s hand around your throat. You couldn’t have thought about anything else if you’d tried.

    Brian released his grip, and you felt your heart jump.

    Your eyes opened. Brian was watching you with an expression you knew well, his cock pressed against his stomach, leaking pre-come. He looked delicious.

    His hand stayed where it was.

    “More?” he said.

    You nodded. “Please, Daddy.”

    “God, that’s so fucking hot,” Brian said, and did as you asked.

    He kept his grip tight on your throat for so long that your body’s instincts really kicked in, giving you a surge of adrenaline that, in any other situation, would have made you panic. But not right now. Right now, it did something very different.

    “Good girl,” you heard Brian say, and you whimpered.

    He let you go, and you gasped, almost trembling with need. “Fuck me,” you demanded. “Fuck me literally right now, dude, I’m not even joking.”

    Brian chuckled. “Choking you always works. Every time.”

    “Yeah, because it’s really hot,” you said bluntly. “I’m like a waterfall down there right now. Get your dick in me. God.”

    Brian laughed, and you batted his hand away to sit up, grabbing onto him and kissing him. You fell back onto the bed, Brian coming with you.

    He was laughing against your lips, but you didn’t care. You did care, however, when you felt his fingers nudging at your entrance, and you nodded. He pushed a finger into you, and you spread your legs, making a muffled sound of frustration.

    Brian pulled back. “What?”

    “Hurry up,” you said. “Get those fingers up in there.”

    You didn’t exactly help speed things up; you kept distracting Brian, nipping at his lip and neck, raking your nails up his back, taking his cock in your hand and jerking him off.

    By the time you assured him that you were ready, you were both sweaty, breathless messes, and Brian’s hands shook with adrenaline so badly that he dropped the condom as he was trying to open the packet.

    You, again, weren’t helping.

    “Come on,” you whined, kneeling behind him, pushing his hair aside to kiss his neck, your hand curling around his front and squeezing the base of his cock.

    ”I’m trying,” he said. “It’s a little difficult when you’re— Got it.” As he rolled the condom onto himself, you moved your lips to his ear, kissing the bone behind it.

    “You gonna fuck me good, Daddy?” you murmured. “I’m so ready for you. So wet for you, Daddy. All for you.”

    He shuddered, a full-body shiver that made you grin.

    “Done,” he blurted, and turned around to shove you onto your back.

    You laughed, bouncing as you hit the bed, and Brian pounced on you, kissing you deeply. He took a brief pause to lube himself up, and he pushed into you soon after; although the burn was familiar, you still took a few moments to adjust the further he sank into you.

    You threw your legs around his hips, and he began thrusting into you, and you wondered how the hell you’d gone your whole life up until a few months ago without him fucking you.

    Soon, he panted into your ear, “Can I choke you?”

    “Yes, fuck yes,” you said, and he paused, getting to the right position, making sure he could keep balanced, and then he was fucking you again. One hand came to press on your throat, and your eyes slid closed.

    You’d come just from this before — Brian fucking you nice and deep while he cut off the blood supply to your brain. It didn’t happen all that often, and neither of you ever expected it to happen, but once or twice it had.

    You could feel yourself teetering on the edge now, very nearly almost there, but you knew you’d need more.

    Brian let your throat go, and you made a sound that was halfway between a moan and a gasp, and then his fingers were at your clit, and he said, “Good girl, Jesus Christ,” and no one was more shocked than you when you came unexpectedly.

    Brian’s hips shunted forward at the feeling of you pulsing around him, and he moaned, and you were panting like you’d run a marathon, jerking from the aftershocks of your orgasm.

    There was a moment of confused silence. You weren’t sure if you should be embarrassed or not.

    “Did you just come?” Brian said, his voice pitched high in surprise.

    You nodded. “Yeah,” you said breathlessly, pressing your palm to your forehead, staring at the ceiling. “Oh, God.”

    “I thought I was going to finish soon,” Brian said with a laugh.

    “That was… wow,” you said. “Okay. All right. I didn’t even realise I was that close.”

    Brian hummed, and leant down to kiss the hollow of your throat. “It was sort of hot,” he said. “If I’m being honest.”

    “Yeah?” you said.

    “Mm.” Brian’s tongue brushed over where his lips had been, and your shoulders tensed, a light giggle slipping from you.

    “Stop it, I’m ticklish there,” you said.

    Brian kissed further up your neck. “Am I all right to keep going?” he said in between kisses. “You’re not too sensitive?”

    “If you can make me come again before you’ve finished, I’ll buy you your groceries for the next two weeks,” you said.

    Brian paused, then lifted his head. “My groceries, or my household’s groceries?”

    You thought about it. “Just yours. I’m not made of money. And it would be a little suss if all of a sudden I was forking over, like, all of my savings to pay for a fortnight’s worth of food for four guys. You’d send me broke.”

    “I don’t think you’re going to have to worry about it too much,” Brian said. “I was pretty close already.”

    “Fine,” you said. “Two weeks’ worth of food. For the entire gang. If I come again before you do.”

    Brian laughed, shaking his head. “Yeah, all right. Already prepared to lose this one.” He kissed you, and you rolled your hips up to his, and he picked up where he left off.

    You spent the next couple of minutes floating in that grey area of arousal, feeling turned on beyond belief, but knowing that you weren’t going to come. It didn’t matter, though, because you were more than happy where you were, and you also knew that you wouldn’t have to pay for a shit-ton of groceries.

    Towards the end, though, you felt the beginnings of something within you, and, okay, maybe you did really want to come again.

    You could tell Brian was close, and you urged him to go faster, harder. “You’re fucking me so good, Daddy, yes,” you panted.

    Brian groaned. “I’m…”

    You clenched around him, and his rhythm stuttered. “Come on, Bri,” you murmured. “You’re so close, I can feel it. Come on. Daddy. Daddy, please.”

    Brian cried out as he came. You grinned, and let Brian take a moment before you rolled both of you over, so you were straddling him. His arms flopped out to the sides, and you laughed.

    Your second orgasm was just out of reach, an itch you wanted to scratch, but it was easy enough to ignore, for now.

    Brian ran his fingertips over your thighs, looking beautifully dishevelled. “How are you?” he said. “Do you need me to—“

    “No,” you said. “No, I’m good.”

    Brian squinted at you. “Are you lying?”

    “No,” you said. “You don’t have to do anything. I’m fine.”

    Brian sighed. “Right. All right.” He sat up and helped you dismount, then discarded his condom in the bin across the room. He climbed back on the bed and shoved your legs apart.

    You gave him a quizzical look. “What are you doing?”

    “Eating you out,” Brian said, like it was obvious.

    “You don’t have to,” you said, unconvincingly.

    “If you don’t want me to, I won’t,” Brian said.

    “Well, do you want to?” you said.

    “I always want to,” Brian said.

    “You don’t even want to take a break first?”

    “How many times do I have to tell you,” Brian said, getting comfortable and kissing the inside of your thigh. “I’m not done until you’re done.” He kissed your thigh again, much further up. “And are you done?”

    You debated your response.

    Brian’s kiss moved even further up. “You going to be a good girl for me?” he murmured, looking up at you with those dark eyes, and you felt your stomach jolt with arousal.

    “Not done,” you blurted, shaking your head. “I’m not done.”

    Brian huffed a laugh, and you let your head fall back.

    This — Brian eating you out — was something, amongst other things, that the two of you had perfected down to a T. Usually it wasn’t something that happened straight after sex, but you’d done it before. And anyway, you were both very adaptable when it came to sex. Specifically, sex with each other.

    Brian could just about slide three fingers into you without any further preamble, and his tongue really was something divine. You curled your hand into his hair, giving him murmurs of encouragement, you breath catching whenever he got just the right angle, just the right pressure.

    It didn’t take long. You felt it building and building within you, and you breathed, “So close, yes, that’s it.” Brian knew exactly what to do, exactly how fast to go, and then your back was arching, and you came with a gasp and a cry.

    Brian peppered kisses to your stomach, and you pushed at his shoulder. “I’m fucking ticklish, dude, stop it,” you said, squirming, and Brian crawled over you, landing heavily beside you on the bed.

    “Done?” he said, raising his eyebrows.

    You reached over and wiped off his face with your hand. “Yep,” you said. “Thanks, Daddy.”

    You’d said it just to make him uncomfortable, and it worked a treat. Brian made a face. “Eugh. Not like that. Sounds weird if you say it like that.”

    “Like what?” you said, feigning ignorance.

    “Like I’m actually your dad and I’ve just, I don’t know, dropped you off at school.”

    “What if I called you just ‘Dad’?”

    “I would never speak to you again. And immediately get a restraining order.”

    You laughed. “What about—“

    “I’m going to stop you right there,” Brian said. “Before I regret ever telling you anything in the first place.”

    You shuffled onto your front, letting your arm fall across Brian’s waist. “Can we just skip the lecture tomorrow?” you grumbled. “Let’s just stay here and have sex.”

    “That’s a very appealing suggestion,” Brian said, “but I don’t think our future selves would be all that pleased when we don’t know anything for the exam.”

    “We never know anything for the exam,” you said. “Everyone always has to teach themselves everything anyway.”

    “Well, be my guest, if you want to stay home,” Brian said. “But I’ll be going.”

    “Maybe I’ll just sleep with someone who’s available, then,” you said.

    “Feel free.”

    “Maybe Rog.”

    Brian made a face. “Gross.”

    You grinned. “In your bed.”

    “All right, no, I know for a fact that Rog would never have sex in my bed. That’s crossing a line.”

    “Would you have sex in his bed?”

    Brian thought it over. “Maybe. If it was you, then maybe.”

    You raised your eyebrows. “Oh?”

    “That wasn’t a challenge,” Brian said. “I don’t want to have sex in Roger’s bed. I’m just saying, if there were no other options—“

    “We’re definitely going to have sex in Roger’s bed,” you said with a grin.

    Brian groaned. “No.”

    “Okay, I’ll just have sex with Roger, then.”

    “No!” Brian groaned even more loudly. “Then he’ll never shut up about it.” He paused, and then said, “Actually, he makes a lot of Daddy jokes. I’m curious now - do you think you could do some recon and figure out if he’s into it, too? I bet he is, the hypocrite. If you could, it would bring me so much joy. I’d be eternally grateful.”

    You laughed. “We’ll have to see about that one.” You sat up, and climbed off the bed. “I’m going to shower. You can join me if you like, but you don’t have to.”

    “I’ll shower after,” Brian said. “We always end up wasting water when we shower together. Which completely defeats the purpose of showering together.”

    You shrugged. “Up to you,” you said lightly, heading to the bedroom door.

    You hadn’t even opened the door when Brian blurted, “Okay, fine, I’m coming.”

    You shot him a smile over your shoulder. “I wasn’t even trying to change your mind.”

    “I think you were,” Brian said, as the two of you headed to the bathroom.

    “I don’t think I was.”

    “Hm, I think you were.”

    You rolled your eyes at him. “You’re so annoying.”

    Brian laughed. “Ah, how the tables have turned!”

    “Shut up,” you said. You swatted his hip. “Get in the shower.”

    After the shower, you both got dressed and went back to studying. The popcorn was cold, and your roommate Lucy complained about the mess on the kitchen floor when she got home.

    Nothing had changed, and it was perfect.

[overthinkingkdrama]

Jona’s 5 Worst Dramas of 2019

A couple words about this list. I’m making this for fun. If a drama you love ended up on this list, it doesn’t mean that I hate you or I think you’re stupid or have terrible taste. But these are dramas that inspired strong negative reactions in me for one reason or another, whether that be disappointment, rage or disgust.

I’ve only included dramas that finished airing in 2019 in my selection process. If you have some dramas that hated, feel free to share them in the replies or send me an ask. It’s fun to complain about things for some reason.

Also, I have included major SPOILERS in a couple of these. So read at your own peril.

Dishonorable Mention: Melting Me Softly

I sincerely tried to limit myself to only dramas that I--for whatever misguided reasons--finished in their entirety for this list. Mainly because I don’t think it’s fair to brand something as the “worst” of anything without actually giving the thing a fair shake. That’s the only reason Melting Me Softly isn’t higher on this list. But I felt that it wasn’t right to leave it off entirely, if for no other reason then out of respect for the fallen Ji Chang Wook stans out there who lost their lives trying to make it through this trash fire. Somebody needs to stand up for those brave soldiers, out their gifing trash dramas while people like me are safe and sound on our couches, watching the tag like it’s a train wreck.

I made it through only two episodes of this drama, and despite my goodwill toward the majority of the cast, they were two of the most bafflingly bad hours of television that I forced myself to sit through this year. From what I could tell while side-eyeing the drama on tumblr and twitter it didn’t improve much over the course of the run. There were a couple steamy kisses that I enjoyed in clip form, but I don’t think it would have been worth the brain cells lost to sit through any more than that.

Bottom Line: Painfully unfunny, overwhelmingly expositional with no character development, confusing pacing and sloppy editing. Two episodes was two too many.

5. When the Devil Calls Your Name

It pains me to put this on the list because it was just last year that a Jung Kyung Ho, Park Sung Woong collaboration (Life on Mars) ended up in my top 5. And giving credit where it’s due, the two male leads seem to have a great deal of fun working together and I believe that all the actors gave this drama everything they could and sincerely tried to make it work. That’s one of the things I like about Jung Kyung Ho, he picks unique, risky projects that either pay off in a big way or fall flat on their faces (like the amateurishly written and edited Missing 9) Unfortunately, this script just too messy and too bizarre to work. Ha Rip as has a deeply frustrating character arc. He’s such a self-centered jerk for the vast majority of the drama, which is fine for a Faust type story if it’s written with conviction, but every time you think he’s started to turn a corner or grown as a person he reverts back to his old ways. The writing and tone are whiplash inducing. Plus the vague “soul mates” relationship between Ha Rip and Kim Yi Kyung seemed to want to have it both ways, flipping between implied romantic potential and a father/daughter dynamic, which made me quite uncomfortable.

Bottom Line: This drama’s bizarre mythology and world building barely makes any sense at all, but at least they’re easier to follow than the character development. Attempted something unique, but couldn’t pull it off. The OST is super dope though.

4. Love in Sadness

When I watched the first teasers I got the distinct impression that this wasn’t going to be a good drama, or at best it was going to be a guilty pleasure, but at the time when I started it I was hungry for a melo and there wasn’t much airing to hold my attention so I started it on impulse. I think in this case I got what I deserved for continuing to watch something I didn’t think was very good.

The first few episodes were actually pretty gripping and intriguingly dark, but that petered of quickly and the drama became and infuriating wheel spinning exercise with barely any perceptible plot development from episode to episode. The protagonists in this are all so stupid that in the final few episodes the female lead gets kidnapped not once, but multiple times because she keeps meeting her unstable husband alone. Plus nobody in this drama seems to know how to call the police when a madman is waving around a gun. It probably wouldn’t have made me so very mad except that in the last few episodes the writer became unaccountably preoccupied with how sad the psychotic, wife-beating husband’s family life was and how lonely and pathetic his life was when he wasn’t allowed to stalk, assault, and psychologically terrorize his wife. Seriously, in the last leg of the drama the villain is the only character who gets any character development at all. The drama pulls out all the stops to try to make use feel sorry for him. It’s disgusting.

Bottom Line: When a drama about a woman trying to escape domestic violence becomes completely preoccupied with painting the abuser as tragically misunderstood, you’ve got some serious problems.

3. The Lies Within

If it wasn't for the last two episodes this drama would not be on this list, but that isn't because it was in any way an exceptional drama, or that it otherwise would have ended up on my best list. Without the last two episodes The Lies Within is a merely adequate thriller, somewhat heightened by the brutal nature of the premise. I picked this show up largely to fill the void that was left by WATCHER and it was more or less successful, plus it helped that I liked the cast. However even at the beginning this drama I felt like it had some pretty glaring tone problems. There were parts of the drama that were standard OCN dark and gritty thriller, and there were other parts that felt like a campy police sitcom. The humor, when it does crop up in this drama always feels super out of place. But then that last big twist happened and man...I can't remember the last time a drama made me that angry or cratered quite so hard with a twist.

[And this is where I spoil the HELL out of this drama...]

Before this drama decided to go all M. Night Shyamalan in it’s last two episodes, there seemed to be at least one, if not two really reasonable candidates for the kidnapper. Actually all the ground work they’d done up to that point would seem to have pointed to Young Min and if he had turned out to be the perpetrator, I would have completely bought it. Instead they decided to blow everyone’s mind by making the kidnapped husband complicit in his own kidnapping and dismemberment. Which might seem like a shocking twist until you think about it for even half a second.

What it winds up doing on a narrative level it makes everything the characters have done to investigate this series of crimes up to this point feel pointless, resulting in a huge anticlimax. It makes the ambiguous figure of Seo Hui’s husband not only hopelessly stupid, but also cruel and unsympathetic. Because he thought somehow simply sharing the information with her would put her in more danger than threatening and psychologically terrorizing her into investigating the very people he was theoretically trying to protect her from. The explanation that he was already terminally ill doesn’t to anything to mitigate the stupidity of his plan for me. Seriously, you couldn’t think of any solution aside from cutting bits off yourself and sending them to your wife in the mail? I could rant about this ending at length, but I’m going to try to stop here.

Bottom Line: As far as I’m concerned, if you choose to sacrifice the emotional and narrative coherence of your story for a cheap and dirty twist to surprise the audience, you deserve every ranty review you get.

2. Love Affairs in the Afternoon

I’m really not sure what possessed me to watch this drama to begin with. That I continued to watch it is on me. The fact that I watched it despite hating the shallow characters, the thin story and the abortive message at the core of the drama is simply a lapse of judgement for which I shouldn’t be forgiven. Why did I do it despite not having a single nice thing to say about this show? Well, there are two reasons. I was curious to see if they would do anything compelling with one or two of the characters, (specifically the serial adulteress housewife an the broody artist) and I was surreptitiously watching this drama at work and it was really easy to follow the plot while only actually keeping my eyes on the screen about half the time. I watched the last episode before the subs were available and had no trouble understanding what was going. Which could be a sign that my Korean is improving, but is more likely a sign that the writing was so predictable and simplistic that you could follow it if you didn’t speak the language at all.

[Spoilers beyond this point.]

It’s my understanding that in the Jdrama that this is based on all of the characters basically wreck their lives and end up miserable, pointing toward the emptiness of the lives of these people who try to find fulfillment through extra-marital affairs. If that’s how this drama had ended, I still wouldn’t have enjoyed the execution but I could have respected the intent. But in this watered down Kdrama-fied version all the couples’ issues are resolved in the whitewash of a last episode time skip that makes the suffering and bullshit that led up to it feel completely pointless.

Bottom Line: Maybe this level of trashy, uninspired tripe would be somewhat justified if the chemistry between the leads had been better, but somehow they even managed to screw that up. The leads are just bad, vacuous people, a fact which is rendered all the more unforgivable by them being utterly bland. Everybody needed to divorce, nobody deserved to end up happy. Please be wiser than me and avoid this one.

1. Memories of the Alhambra

Initially, I was on the fence about even producing a “Worst List” this year, because in the past few years I’ve tried to be better about dropping dramas the moment they start to disappoint me, rather than hanging on to them and winding up burning myself out. I wasn’t sure if I’d have enough material to write this list, or at least not enough material to make it worth reading. Then I remembered that Memories of the Alhambra finished airing in January of this year (2019 was impossibly long, wasn’t it?) and I thought, “Aha, I can make this work.” I knew at once this drama was going to be the shitty tinfoil star atop my Christmas tree of suck.

I’ve already written a full review of this drama, where I got about as mean as I felt I could reasonably be. You can go read that if you like, I’m not going to retread all my many complaints here. What I will say is that Memories of the Alhambra took my mixed-to-favorable opinion of the writer, Song Jae Jung, and turned it to a negative one. She’s someone who clearly has a lot of interesting high concept ideas, but the execution is just not there. You can hook an audience with a concept, but you have to keep them with craft and structure. 

Maybe the industry can be blamed for that. Maybe she just has a hard time ending her stories, or maybe writing on a deadline doesn’t agree with her. Whatever the reason, I can no longer trust her to deliver a satisfying story. And that’s deeply saddening to me, because Queen In Hyun’s Man is in my top 10 favorite dramas.

To be front-to-back terrible is one thing. The joke’s at least half on me for bothering. But to have potential, to have an interesting hook, a budget, a cast, but then to be either unwilling or unable to live up to that potential feels like a con. That’s how I felt about his drama, like I had been willfully deceived by special effects and flashy editing, all orchestrated to disguise a narratively bankrupt, unsatisfying drama.

Bottom Line:  Is Memories of the Alhambra objectively the worst drama on this list? No, it’s not. Is it the most disappointing? Absolutely, it is. And that’s the more heinous crime, in my opinion.  And that’s why it’s my worst drama of 2019.

[earnest-jumping]

For the asks— do all the even numbers!

107.58

That’s so long, fuck- ok here we go!

2. I am outgoing until I can’t mask anymore, or I have a sensory overload.

4 I like to think I am easy to get along with!

6 ,,,Attracted as in romantically? I have no idea. But in a platonic way, similar interests, concern for my wellbeing and happiness, understanding and knowing of my limits and able to compromise!

8 Real life, no one. But Drake Mallard lives rent free in my mind

10 My roommate! We are very similar in many ways and we have some similar backgrounds, so we talk often about them and everything going on right now as well.

12 current 5 favorite songs: Vices by Mothica, Garden Song by Phoebe Bridgers, A Letter To Time by Livingston, Peace by Taylor Swift, and Cherry Wine by Hozier!

14 I believe in miracles. This world is too random and spontaneous for things people deem miracles to not be, ya know? But I don’t believe in luck. Circumstance plays into it, as well as pure chance.

16 Oh, fuck no. I would not kiss them again

18 My guy I can’t even tell you what was really a crush and what was heteronormativity forced on me from grade school onward. So... no?

20 I live in a dorm and I fuckin love my neighbors rn. On one side they’re both enby like me, and on the other they’re super sweet and polite!

22 I really want to visit Europe. Classic american answer, yeah, but I love history and theirs is so much more interesting than ours

24 My favorote part of my daily routine (that is consistent, student teaching and classes are nuts) is spending time doing homework and hanging out with my roommate at the end of each day, before she goes in to work the night shift. It’s calm and gives us a chance to catch up!

26 When I wake up I usually groan and fall back asleep for another ten minutes. I make sure to have a few alarms set so I don’t sleep through the morning!

28 My roommate. We’ve known each other for three years and she doesn’t judge me or make me feel uncomfy- it’s really nice as someone with autism to be able to live in close, constant contact with someone who you trust and are comfortable around!

30 Hmm...maybe? Marriage isn’t something I’ve ever truly thought about in a realistic sense- sure, I’d imagine a wedding and what mine would look like if I had one. But I’ve never imagined actually GETTING married to someone.

32 I will not have a threesome with celebrities because I am ~traumatised~ and do not like sexual intimacy

34 I don’t play sports, but when I was little I was part of a gymnastics class!

36 I have indeed liked someone and never told them. It was honestly for the better lmao

38 I don’t think I can really describe a dream person? I’m not very keen on having a list to check off when looking for a partner. If anything, though, I’d say trustworthy and caring.

40 I’m already out of high school lol. I’m in my junior year majoring in Early Childhood/Special Education!

42 Being extremely quiet for me usually means sensory overload, depressive thoughts, or my rejection sensitive dysphoria rearing its ugly head. Most of the time its a mix of the three.

44 Trip to puter space > bottom of the ocean, any day. DEEP SEA SCARES ME!

46 I’m paranoid that everything I’ve ever done in my life is all for naught, and I’ve faked everything about myself subconsciously.

48 I have been drunk before! My seven year old self accidentally drank a full margarita instead of the kiddie version my grandma made with sprite instead of alcohol.

50 The color of the last hoodie I wore was grey!

52 One thing I wish I could change about myself is I wish I didn’t have so much weight. It’s not fun trying to navigate the world as an afab nonbinary person with people telling you it’s “just because you don’t like your body”.

54 My favorite store is Walmart for groceries (broke college students holla) and Torrid for clothes! (They have cuter stuff than anywhere else, and carry my size always)

56 My favorite color is Blue! Kind of a dark sky blue, like sky blue 3 or 4

58 I just had some Hershey’s candy drops as the last thing I ate!

60 In fourth and fifth grade I won two school writing competitions and got a trophy for it 😌 I wrote about the Titanic (thank you special interest)!

62 I have never been arrested, and I’m not planning on it any time soon lol

64 My first kiss was a dare and I hated every second of it cause the guy was an ass about it until it happened (he’d been badgering me for weeks)

66 Uhh I’m gonna be honest and say no? As much as I love my tumblr friends (ayy hi guys) I’ve known my friends in real life for longer and those bonds are just, amazing and so strong.

68 Tumblr > Twitter, any day.

70 my best friends’ names are: Emili, Autumn, Maggie, and Erin

72 My towels are grey

74 I have many stuffed animals- uh probably seven or eight.

76 Not answering this one lmao

78 My favorote ice cream clavor is Graham Central Station from this place called Bruster’s! It’s really good.

80 I am wearing blue pajama pants because ~comfy~

82 My favorite movie is Coraline! I watch it repeatedly

84 Mean Girls > 21 Jump Street

86 Nemo is my favorite character from Finding Nemo!

88 The last person I talked to today was my roommate

90 I love my baby brother Reid!

92 I am not currently in a fight with anyone.

94 I own three sweaters/hoodies- I need to get more!

96 My favorote actress is and always will be Kiera Knightley.

98 I do not tan a lot- naturally or artificially. I just burn #whitepeopleproblems

100 I am feeling *tired*. A bitch is exhausted today

102 I regret everything from my past

104 I don’t tend to miss people that much? I’m not good with emotional connections to people that last after they’re gone.

106 I feel like I’ve broken my mother’s heart- for coming out, for rebelling, etc.

108 I should be working on homework but I am not.

110 I have indeed liked someone so much it hurt- in the sense that liking them was not good for me and led to a lot of heartache.

112 The last person I cried in front of was my parents, and it was not on purpose lmao

114 I’ve been out of my state lots- Florida, South and North Carolina, West Virgina, Delaware, Massachusetts.

116 Nope, not currently listening to music.

118 I fuckin LOVE chinese food

120 I used to be afraid of the dark, not anymore. I love it now.

122 Cheating is NEVER okay.

124 I do not believe in love at first sight- I barely believe in love 🤷🏼

126 I am indeed currently bored

128 I would love to change my name- legally and personally. I’m not sure “Ryn” is suitable anymore

130 I don’t like subway. Not a fan of sub sandwiches

132 The last person I had a deep conversation with is my roommate

134 Pfft, no. I can’t count to one million my brain wouldn’t focus that long

136 Due to the fact I live in a community dorm hall, I sleep with my door closed and ~locked~

138 Straight hair

140 Winter > Summer

142 My favorite month is October! Atlanta Pride, my birthday, and Halloween! Plus it starts getting colder!

144 Dark>Milk>White chocolate, in that order

146 Since it’s now morning, yes today has been a good day so far

148 My favorite quote is anything that has to do with being a decent fucking human being

150 The first line of the page is “You were right”.

[x--daughters-of-darkness--x]

Myrkur: the strange and surreal journey of Amalie Bruun

From hanging out with Martin Scorsese and Billy Corgan to appearing in a Michael Bolton video, Myrkur's Amalie Bruun is a black metal star like no other

An old painting hangs on the wall of the compact, one-storey house an hour’s drive out of Copenhagen that Amalie Bruun calls home. It depicts a blonde girl lost in reverie as she walks a grass path high above a fjord: a scene that’s elemental and ethereal at the same time.

The picture, by noted Norwegian landscape artist Hans Dahl, belonged to Amalie’s late grandmother, a refined woman who smoked cigarettes from an ivory holder and drank gin and tonic on a Friday morning. Amalie’s mother used to say that it was Amalie in the painting. It’s not hard to see why.

“I had a connection to it from before I can remember,” says Amalie today, as we sit at a dining table in a living room that’s one part uncluttered Scandinavian stylishness, one part hygge-style cosiness. “The album sounds like the painting looks.”

The album she’s referring to is Folkesange, her third as Myrkur, the one-woman  project she founded in the mists of the early 2010s.

Where Myrkur’s past releases have bridged worlds – black metal, post-rock, blackgaze, classical – Folkesange is different. This is traditional Scandinavian music played on traditional Scandinavian instruments, sung predominantly in Danish. There are some covers, some originals, though there’s not a trace of metal in the music or the vocals. It’s all there in the title: Folkesange. Folk Songs.

That Amalie Bruun is releasing an album of sometimes beautiful, sometimes melancholic Scandinavian folk music really shouldn’t surprise anyone who has followed her journey. Partly because that aspect of who she is has always been present in Myrkur’s music – all she’s doing with Folkesange is separating it out.

But mainly because Amalie Bruun has lived more lives than most other people. That, as much as anything, is what puts her out there on her own.

Two life-changing things have happened since Myrkur’s last album, 2017’s expansive and brilliant Mareridt, both inextricably linked.

One: Amalie Bruun got married. Her husband, Keith Abrami, is a fitness instructor and drummer with American death metal band Artificial Brain. The pair became romantically involved after Keith began playing as Myrkur’s touring drummer.

Keith is around, though he stays in the back bedroom today. This is because he is attending to the second life-changing thing that has happened to Amalie recently: the couple’s nine-week old son, Otto.

If Mareridt was the product of the vivid nightmares its creator endured before making it, Folkesange was defined by pregnancy and the impending birth of her first child.

She describes motherhood as joyous, though in her case the elation is edged with sadness. She discovered she was pregnant soon after she started writing the new album. “But I miscarried,” she says simply.

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We ask if she’s OK talking about this. She nods, and explains that the miscarriage pushed her deeper into making Folkesange. A few days after entering the studio with producer (and Heilung co-founder) Christopher Juul, she discovered she was pregnant again. And that’s when the emotion really hit her.

“I was totally out of it, but in a beautiful way,” she says. “I wasn’t my normal human self. I become something else.” She laughs. “Very nauseated.”

She noticed that her vocals were different. “I never felt so in tune with singing as I did then. I had this power and this clarity, which was crazy. But it was the exact place to be, recording folk vocals with this new life growing in you.”

There were worries, of course, as well as other emotions. One of the songs on the new album, Gudernes Viljie (English translation: ‘The Will Of The Gods’) is about the miscarriage. “There were conflicted feelings, dealing with both this new life and this guilt feeling of this other life that never happened,” Amalie explains. “It was never a heartbeat, but you still feel like a mother. It was very intense.”

Amalie Bruun grew up listening to Scandinavian folk music. It resonated with her on a different level. “With my spirit,” she says. “It’s like in England: you have that singer-songwriter folk tradition, it’s historically ingrained. It shapes who you are, even if you don’t know it. Because it’s folk music, it’s told by people for people. So it’s inherited into the spirit of a population.”

Half of Folkesange’s 12 tracks are her versions of songs that she grew up listening to, while the others are her originals, though you’d be hard pushed to tell which is which. “This is a record that I wish had existed when I was young,” she says. “And it doesn’t exist, so I wanted to make it.”

Music, folk or otherwise, is in her blood. Her father, Michael Bruun, is a retired musician. He was semi-famous as a pop singer-songwriter in Denmark in the early 80s. “But he was not interested in fame,” says Amalie. “He’s shy and misanthropic.” Does she take after him? She smiles. “I do. Sometimes I wish I didn’t but I do.”

Her mother, by contrast, was a Jungian psychologist. “She tried her best not to bring her work home, but she did. You get analysed every day.”

As well as folk music, Amalie loved classical music as a child. She learned piano as a toddler, took up violin at five, and eventually attended music college as a teenager. “I wasn’t pushed into anything. It was all my choice. I was never interested in anything else.”

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The first metal record Amalie Bruun fell in love with was Transilvanian Hunger, Darkthrone’s sub-lo-fi black metal masterpiece. Before that she’d listened to the stuff teenagers listen to: Nirvana, Björk, that kind of thing. Aside from her older brother’s Metallica and Judas Priest records, she’d never listened to much metal.

“Usually that transition takes years, right?” she says. “But all of a sudden I hear Transilvanian Hunger. It reminded me of classical music.”

“The Starter Pack” is how she jokingly describes Transilvanian Hunger today. “If you like that, a lot other black metal sounds really pleasant. A lot easier on the ear.”

When she was 22 years old, Amalie Bruun bought herself a one-way plane ticket to New York and started another life. It was the city’s rich and romantic musical history that drew her there: the poets, the punks, the freaks, the superstars. She arrived with no cellphone and nowhere to stay.  “I didn’t know what I was doing,” she says. “But that’s what New York is. You just go there and see what happens.”

She found a place to stay with friends of friends from back in Denmark, and walked all over the city, giving her demo CD to venues. “Just piano music,” is how she describes what she was doing. “Me singing little melodies.”

She played anywhere that would have her, in front of whatever crowds were there. “Oh, it wasn’t the cool people,” she says. “It was definitely uncool. But it was never about fame. I just wanted to go out and earn my stripes a little bit.”

In the early 2010s, she met guitarist and co-vocalist Brian Harding, and they put together Ex Cops. Based in oh-so-trendy Brooklyn and playing shoegaze-inflected alt-pop, they basically screamed ‘hipster’.

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She recoils at the suggestion. “I fucking hate that,” she says vehemently. “I hate the whole hipster thing.”

Ex Cops were ultimately small fish in a big indie rock pond – their main claim to fame was that their second album was executive-produced by Smashing Pumpkins major domo Billy Corgan. Amalie liked being in Ex Cops, but she liked the music industry a lot less. Or at least the part of it she where she found herself.

“I would be in the studio, working on ideas I had written and people would say, ‘Let’s just let Amalie get it out of her system,’” she says. “I was so offended by that. There were comments on what I would wear, whether or not I could have armpit hair in photos. It takes away your agency as a musician and as a woman.”

There were two Amalie Bruuns while she was living in New York. Or rather, there was one living two separate lives.

There was one Amalie Bruun who was making music with Ex Cops and dipping her toes into the world of modelling – she appeared, raven-haired, in a Chanel advert directed by the legendary Martin Scorsese – and, even more bizarrely, alongside 90s crooner Michael Bolton dressed as Forrest Gump in a video by spoof R’n’B group The Lonely Island (Bolton was dressed as Forrest Gump, not her).

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Then there was Amalie Bruun the black metal fan. She mentioned her love of the genre in Ex Cops interviews, even if she sounded almost apologetic about it. “I was,” she concedes. “People thought it was too weird.”

Few people picked up on the references anyway, let alone knew that she was quietly working on a project of her own in the shadows: Myrkur.

She had been writing folk melodies on the violin for years. Gradually she added more and more metal elements. Once in a while she dared play it to other people.

Eventually word reached underground metal stronghold Relapse Records, who released her self-titled debut mini-album in 2014. Back then her identity was a mystery: she was as much apparition as musician. “I wanted the music to speak for itself,” she says of her anonymity, as if it’s the most obvious thing ever.

But mysteries don’t stay mysterious for long these days. When someone joined the dots and uncovered her other life as one half of a trendy Brooklyn indie-pop band, the keyboard warriors went into swivel-eyed overdrive. She was a fake. A poser. Worse, a woman – one who’d dared gatecrash the testosterone-heavy sausage party that is the black metal scene.

“I was blissfully unaware of it,” she says of the negative attention she initially attracted. “Then it was, like, ‘Why am I being hated by people who don’t know me at all. At least get to know me.’” She shrugs. “It didn’t affect me much. I was there to play music, not fuck around with all that stuff.”

She has a theory: that people objected to the fact that she’d worked with Kris ‘Garm’ Rygg, frontman with former black metal avant-gardists Ulver. “Honestly, what really pissed off a lot of people in the beginning was that I did work with some of the Scandinavian black metal artists that they look up to. I think that was very annoying and provocative to that crowd.”

Not that she was a woman? She thinks carefully.

“I think it’s the fact that I didn’t follow the rules of how women in metal should behave. I’m not the first woman in metal, I just did it a little bit more my own way.”

Anyway, she says with a faint smile, she wasn’t above a little button-pushing herself.

“I was never deliberately provocative,” she begins. “But when I realised how little it took I did take a bit of pleasure in it. I knew that if you post a picture with Attila from Mayhem, then they’re just going to go off. But it’s not like I did that just to piss people off...”

If Mareridt silenced the haters, or some of them at least, then Folksange, with its absence of volume, will probably fire them up again. Amalie Bruun couldn’t care less if it does. She has more important concerns. Such as her new life, as the mother of Otto.

She’s not pretending that motherhood won’t impact on how she approaches her career. There will be no big world tours around Folkesange, for one. “You can’t pretend it doesn’t play into it as a woman. Maybe as a man, it’s different. I know a lot of metal musicians, they have kids and they continue the same life. That’s cool, but when you’re a mother you can’t do that. I want the two sides of my life to co-exist.”

Has she worked out how that will work?

“I don’t know yet how that works.”

Is she looking forward to it?

“It’s nerve-wracking.”

Is she worried?

“No, I’m not worried. I’m in control. It will be how I plan it to be.”

With perfect timing, the sound of a baby crying drifts from the back room. Amalie gets up and returns a few seconds later holding Otto, a tiny bundle of nine-week-old humanity.

It’s only then that you realise how unique Amalie Bruun, and Myrkur, is: not just a woman operating in such a male-dominated field, but a mother as well.

Before we leave her and her family, she says that she’s looking forward to following up Folksange with “another metal-style record with distorted guitars”. But for now that’s in the future. Another chapter, another life.

[anahera-sdm]

Hotel Del Luna (2019) Thoughts

Warning: will contain spoilers. I suggest you watch the drama first to relate with what I’m talking about because it will be messy.

Disclaimer: Everything written only reflects my own thoughts. There’s a possibility of incoherence. Forgive me, sometimes my brain is all over the place.

Ever since IU was announced as a main lead for this drama, I have been looking forward to it. I have enjoyed IU’s other dramas especially her most recent one in Netflix - Persona. Yeo Jin goo is an actor I like but the last drama of his that I was able to finish (and barely at that) was Orange Marmalade (2015). I couldn’t get into his next dramas after that and ended up dropping them. 

After seeing the plot and the fantasy tag (I always have a soft spot for fantasy dramas), as much as I enjoyed and looked forward to new episodes of its predecessor, Arthdal Chronicles, I also could not wait for it to start. 

Additional warning: Everything is all over the place and this is going to be a lengthy post. I wrote everything that I wanted to talk about right after watching the subbed version of the last episode but there is no proper structure. I apologise in advance if you decide to read everything.

I don’t even know where I should start. The Hong Sisters really did well with this drama - the years spent on it was worth it. That ending was, I can’t believe I’m saying this but I was so satisfied even though they didn’t spend much time together in this life. I was expecting a bittersweet ending when the drama started anyway. I loved the ending and that reincarnation scene (although it is not definite but just an ‘eventually, it will end up that way’ scene) was everything to me. I don’t know why but I loved how they didn’t try to extend Man Wol’s time with Chan Seong (example, releasing her from the hotel and making her human again). It was enough for me because Man Wol also spent enough time suffering. Her time with Chan Seong, although brief, was good enough because she experienced the love she needed and she gets sent off full of it.  

That twist at the end though, how Chan Seong was chosen by Mago - I’m crying. Chan Seong was definitely a reincarnation of someone from her past. They were actually acquainted during Man Wol’s childhood - and he was the one who introduced her to the guesthouse of the moon. 

So now, let’s go to the other parts I really wanna talk about.

One of the reasons why I got hooked and invested with Hotel Del Luna was the fact the way they executed the comical elements despite the horror and drama tags. Additionally, the music and the CGI were really well done. The soundtrack really gets me.

The other reasons, well, IU can really pull off Jang Man Wol - a protagonist who can be ruthless, has a slightly bitchy attitude, crooked (but her actions can be justified) and holds a deep resentment. Yet, she has her cute sides too; all the Kim Joon Hyun moments were a sight to see (her obsession for the restaurants he’s been to, enjoyed it! Later we find out her obsession to find good restaurants were actually influenced by Chan Seong who went to the past! Mind blown!). And her fighting scenes were so cool. IU’s eyes are really expressive in my eyes - 

Appreciate.

I love how despite being crude in her ways when it comes to dealing with the grudges of the souls she’s helping, there is an underlying meaning to it - example, Hyun Joong being able to graduate because of the money donated by his friend. And, I can’t blame her for loving money and wealth. After all, that was what she didn’t have when she was living. I have to add that one of the things I look forward to every episode was IU’s outfit changes. She looks so good in everything! [I actually couldn’t stop myself from buying some of the stuff she wore. Hold your horses, I can only afford the cheap ones like the earrings and hair clips from Get Me Bling that she wore. And I wanna do a face palm because I accidentally bought 2 sets for one of her earrings so now I’m like, what do I do with this?]

The bickering between the leads together with that comical/mischievous soundtrack, pure gold. It’s easily one of my favourite moments. It’s just really funny how sometimes Jang Man Wol is left without words because Chan Seong is right.

The more I watch this gif tho, it starts to look weirder to look at so don't watch it more than 10 times.

I also like how they dealt with Man Wol’s back story - not giving the viewers everything in just one episode. Instead, it was spliced and distributed nicely throughout. Oh but gods, I was a wreck when everything was laid down - Chung Myung’s sacrifice... I just can’t. And how he was with her as a firefly since the beginning... My heart... I actually forgot that scene from the beginning until they showed it again. I though it was just an artistic shot. I actually wanted Man Wol to go with him to the afterlife when it was finally time for him to go. When she escorted him, I wanted her to walk with him during that moment. But at the same time, I can see that there was only a one-sided love left between them because Man Wol spent so many years resenting him that there was no love left. When she finally learned the truth, the only thing left in her was forgiveness and that was the only thing she can offer. The CGI on the bridge to the afterlife though, the aesthetic, props to the CGI team.

Can I just talk about how the actor grew on me? Like, omg, I’m now looking forward to any drama he’s going to be on. [Note: I have since seen him in a new drama, The Great Show (I was watching it because of Lee Sunbin (one of my favourite actresses)) and he’s the teen version of the male lead! I screamed when I saw him.] I should check him out on his previous dramas but when I saw the list of dramas, I don’t think I’ll get into them yet.

Help my heart, their story is so sad.

Helping Kim Seonbi /Kim Si Ik solve his grudge was really fun to watch. And the ‘fact’ that he was the writer of those stories almost all Koreans know, what a twist. Man Wol really cared for him despite not showing it to him - how she tried to find a way to solve his grudge and how she cried after he finally left. 

Choi Seo hee’s story was an unfortunate one but it added more flavour to the already flavourful drama. Those who value family ties or still have crooked views when it comes to family lineage will resonate with her story and perhaps have a change of heart.

Hyun Joong; I love how they gave more depth to his story. That it was not only because of his sister that he was staying as a hotel staff but deep inside there was a resentment. When they wrapped his story up, all I can do was to smile wistfully. His story arc with Yuna was a great addition despite their bittersweet goodbye.

The Sanchez story arc; I... I... He was such a fun character and a good friend to Chan Seong. I sincerely thought they were going to get rid of his character when he went overseas to oversee the funeral of his girlfriend. But we got him back and see another side to him - a rather relatable side where if one loses a loved one, they would find ways to reconnect or hold on to any sliver of hope that they’ll be able to once more be able to talk to them or give them something. Probably, not making sense anymore, but if you’ve lost a loved one before, you’ll get what I'm talking about. After finally getting over it, well, he was not the same Sanchez after that but there was growth in his character.

Mira and Young soo. A twist of fate, these two. Enemies in the past life but became lovers in their current life. Their bitter fates became sweeter this time around. I can't entirely hate on Mira’s past life because her next lives were spent repenting (although it wasn’t shown). Her currently life was finally rewarded, if you can call being with Young soo in her current life a reward. I kept on thinking Mira was just like Chan Seong (not a rich person) but I was so surprised to learn her parents were kimchi factory owners and that Young Soo ate those kimchi since young. 

Mago - easily my favourite character. Wait, characters. Because of how many personalities/sisters she has. Really have to give mad props to the actress. She is just so good. Probably my favourite sister has to be the pink sister and then the eldest. It was so funny when they were having a meeting discussing about the new hotel owner and mentioned the ‘poor’ sister still stuck in Joseon dynasty.

Ah, the cameos in this drama. I can’t not cover that.The amount of cameo is just, whoa! This drama is so rich with it. Some really memorable ones to me are: Kim Won hae (as a corrupt mayor), Lee Joon Gi (as an exorcist; Park Il Do hahah, The Guest feels (I ought to make a post on my thoughts about this drama soon); can’t forget the Scarlet Heart feels too), Lee Si Eon (as an astronaut; I couldn't help laugh at the scene), Lee Yi-kyung (as an actor who can’t really act; Waikiki feels!), Kim Joon Hyun (as himself; I screamed because the first few scenes didn't show his face), Park Jin Joo (as an imaginary spirit), Sulli (as the granddaughter of Chairman Wang), Nam Da reum(as a water deity; I really don’t like the fact he’s younger than me; kidding. He’s a talented kid.) Hwang Young Hee (as IU’s previous manager; she’s a really good actress) and Kim Soo Hyun (as the new owner of the hotel; He renamed it Hotel Blue Moon. I’m telling you, I hyperventilated when his scene came. Such a good way to end the drama - at least for me. Hotel Blue Moon as a drama please!)

For the last episode, I wanted to watch it during the actual broadcast time but I actually calculated the time wrongly (thinking I'm 4 hours ahead but actually just 3 hours; good thing I checked the site). I missed the first 25 mins of the actual broadcast. But I eventually re-watched it with subs and came to write this post). I can only understand roughly 80-85% of the dialogue for the raw version but even then, I was bawling - all the goodbyes; it was so sad but so satisfying at the same time because they were sent off really well. From Kim Seonbi’s to Choi Seohee’s. Painful to see the goodbyes but also very heartwarming; how they finally come to resolve their resentments, came to realizations and tied up loose ends - it was so beautiful. The relationship between the Hotel crew was just so precious - Jang Man Wol crying as she realises how she’ll miss them. Feels. Feels. Feels. 

Overall, I learned so many things in this drama and came to certain realisations such as treasuring the time you have with others, don’t take it for granted. One day, when the time to say goodbye comes, you won’t regret anything. Also, even the people who did bad things in their life can have the chance to live a better one in the next once they have paid for those wrongdoings.

This drama was a perfect blend of comedy, drama, horror, fantasy, romance. In terms of food, it satisfied my cravings. Watching this drama was one of the best things that I did this year. As much as I want to talk more about this drama and cover more areas, I should stop here. All in all, I would say, I really loved this drama. I’ll definitely go back to watching this when I have nothing else to watch. P.S. I ought to make a Jang Man Wol inspired look but when I tried, I failed. 

I’ll miss you, Jang Man Wol-ssi.

Rating: 10 / 10

Re-watch value : 10 / 10

Soundtrack : 10 / 10