#the direction in which the franchise is headed

[reallybadblackoutpoems]

finnegan's wake (1939) - james joyce

"penis war: (bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawanskawntoohoohoordenenthur -- nuk!)"

submitted by @say-duhnelle

[controld3vil]

atreides and bene gesserit

pairing(s): dune 2 cast x actor!reader (platonic), austin butler x actor!reader

synopsis: requested by this ask!

⤷ alt: as clueless as you were about your sister's role, it brought you much surprise and joy to see her on the same carpet as you.

notes: reader uses fem pronouns as she's playing a role as a bene gesserit. reader is also described as wearing a sleeveless jumpsuit. and i really enjoyed lea seydoux's performance and hope to see more of it !! this is also COMPLETELY separate from the first two posts ive made since the readers r playing different characters yeah?

When Denise Villeneuve asked you about the role of Lady Margot Fenring, you were genuinely shocked about his decision. You appreciated his works but have never gotten close to any of his sets before. You have worked with directors who've admired Villeneuve for his imaginative mind. And now, you witnessed his creativity in person for the first time.

The role was small and not as significant as the other main leads. Regardless, your character was just as enigmatic and complex as any other in the Dune franchise. Even though your time was short, it was a fun experience to learn and observe from. You weren't able to meet the entire cast after production, but with the NYC premiere, you were able to link up again.

You heard your name being called out. "Hello! How are you?" The well-known comedian and presenter by the name of Amelia Dimonberg was now beside you. In her jet-black corset dress, her style is chic and elegant. She hands you a microphone with the film's title plastered on it. "You look beautiful!"

"Thank you!" you sweetly recuperate, diverting your shoulders to the sight, cutely. You give a little pose before complimenting her own outfit. "You as well!"

"Do you have a memorable day on set that sticks out to you?" Amelia questions, subtly leaning toward your direction. And now you noticed her detailed eye makeup which enhances her outfit altogether.

"Well- I've had, like, only a few days," You let out a quick sigh. Truly it was nothing to be embarrassed about but you could not help but feel shy about it.

"Mmhmm! So all of them?"

"Yeah, all of them!" With ease, your shyness turns into giddy laughter as all you remember from your times on set. Recalling those tiny moments brought a small smile to your face. "Every day counted for me and that was enough."

"Oh absolutely!" Amelia chides, nodding in agreement. She quickly then moves onto the next question, "How long do you think you could last in the actual desert?"

"Oo that's a tough question," Lifting your fingers to rest on your chin as you try to contemplate an answer. "Ideally no- I feel like I could never recover from the heat."

"Yes yes, the heat's very intense,"

"Yeah- no I don't think I'd ever leave my house for that-" You shake your head nonchalantly, acknowledging how most of your scenes already were indoors. You could imagine how you would do in the desert of Abu Dhabi. It makes you appreciate the cast and crew even more for their effort to make filming more comforting and tolerable.

"Where would be your dream location to hang out? I'm assuming your home then since you prefer to say inside?" The blonde interviewer quickly catches on, eyebrows raising intrigued by your response.

Instead, you hummed bashfully, "Actually I think an oasis would be nice." The camera catches onto Amelia's face, fully fixated on you. "Which fits perfectly if I were to live in the desert actually!"

"Mm yeah, smart choice!" She responds more cheerily. "You can maybe go for a swim, you know-"

"Right right," You give her an playful look, "And you don't have to go thirsty!"'

"Absolutely, the best of both worlds," Amelia chirps, doing the same expression. "So this film centers a lot around dreams. Do you have vivid dreams of yourself?"

"Yes! I've uh- I've had many dreams of myself. I mean, this one, for example-" You turn to the camera, waving with the most adorable smile on your face. "'I'm living my dream right now!"

"You're living your dream right now!"

In another section of the premiere, you were walking down the carpet for press interviews and photography. The set where the premiere was taking place was gorgeously made in the shades of black and orange, the perfect theme of the film. The entire venue was outdoors, allowing you to feel the cold air and be more at ease in the crowded space. There were more paparazzi than you had expected, and you suddenly became aware that you were alone. Without any friend or acquaintance to accompany by, you searched aimlessly for a familiar face.

Then there was a holler. And then multiple more came after, it made you confused really. Your head swerves to the sound of the person you so try to look for and immediately you're struck in awe.

"Anya?!" In an instant, you're seen running towards your sister in the far back of the premiere wall. People were reluctantly used to fast-paced relocations around the carpet. Therefore most did not mind your hasty stumbles through the crowd. It was almost comical how apparent your demeanor changed when you heard her, in fact, videos and pictures caught all of it.

"Hi!" She beams in her white dress robe. Her makeup was glowing, making her skin seem angelic, and sheer without impurities. Her outfit covers her like a nun, covering her head and body in almost transparent cloth. Yet it flows around her so elegantly, almost like she was an angel from the stars. She squeezes your figure firmly, only after releasing to gush about your appearance.

You adored a beige sleeveless jumpsuit. The color is complimented with tiny designs of sparkle. Its seams captured your figure perfectly, as you also wore a gold chain and bulky rings. From the lighting, it looks as though your outfit is shining. And to be completely honest, you prefer comfort over the judging looks of fashion critics. Therefore you wanted to wear something that you could still move comfortably in. Thus you were able to run over to your sister with ease.

Through the other lens and camera, they could pick up some of her words after. "You look so gorgeous! How are you here?!" Anya's expression changes into a perplexed one as she gets a hold of your shoulders, shaking them back and forth.

"I was invited obviously, "You said, mimicking her voice while holding onto her arms on yours. "You didn't tell me you were a part of Dune!" Viewers from afar could tell you were pushing an act, reacting as though you were petrified about how Anya managed to be here in the first place.

"I didn't know you were either!" She giggled, closing in on your right ear. Your sister whispers to you slowly, trying to withdraw from the camera and recordings. "Villeneuve had mentioned something but honestly I just thought it was a joke."

It was your turn to guff. Your mouth opens wide flabbergasted, looking sarcastically offended. "Why would you think he's joking?!"

Anya scoffs lightly, wanting to go further with the joke. "I don't know- I just didn't take his word seriously,"

"Why? Because you didn't think I'd make it into the film?" You accused, eyes widening with a hand over your heart. "You're so cruel."

"So cruel," She smirks up at you, then moves back to be by your side. You see her face forward the flashing cameras, as you do the same. "Come! Let's take some pictures!"

"Your outfit looks beautiful by the way!" Anya Taylor muses, eyeing down at the fine details on your jumpsuit. "It's very... you!"

You give her a nod, before flattening some of the creases, "I thought this color was so exquisite, so I thought it would be perfect for the premiere." You lift your head to look at your sister, before realizing behind her, the upcoming stars of the film were getting ready to take cast photos. "Oh Anya- I think you should go!"

Your sister turns and then gazes back at you with a soft smile. "You should come with me!"

The thunder of cameramen and journalist blurred your focus for a moment. "Are you sure-"

Again the sound of your name is hurdled but this time from someone you haven't seen in a long time. Jessica Ferguson, who too wears a black body suit with veils and bold makeup. She waves her hand almost too eagerly to have you come closer alongside your sister. "Come, join us!"

Videos were filmed of the people gesturing to the cast of Dune in a line. Little by little, the row of people is filled and organized to be in the center of the camera's focus. Some actors had to move spots, due to lack of space or better color semblance on the other side of the row. You stood next to Jessica and Florence Pugh was beside your right, as you tried to stand closer for the picture.

Anya Taylor was on the opposite side, with Austin Butler and beside him, Timothee Chalamet. A noticeable clip taken all over was when the French actor went to greet the English actress, warmly, clasping her hand with both hands as a proper salute as on-screen siblings.

You did not mind the lack of attention. You were happy for Anya for achieving a great role. One with a welcoming cast and crew. It was then your eyes scanned down the row, from Zendaya to Stellan Skarsgard. Then to Austin, whom you've been familiar with since day one. Only him to find your gaze seconds later. You give a little nod and smile before averting your direction to Anya who is already staring at you with gleaming eyes.

You were going back and forth with Jessica and Florence on your travels for a while. From plans reception to favorite desserts, all you three wanted to talk about was food. Paparazzi caught onto your banter quickly and snapped a few photos. You even went out of your way to do silly poses. Followed by Jessica and Florence, then did the same, sticking their tongues out in a rock star kind of fashion. You throw out piece signs, giving a dramatic frown as another flash happens.

Catch-ups were definitely refreshing and fun. Thus why you nearly jump when Austin appeared behind you.

"Oh my gosh, hey!" You stuttered, giving him a quick hug to calm your nerves. "You scared me!"

"Sorry sorry! I just wanted to surprise you!" He leans his head slightly, allowing better eye contact. You felt a few taps on your shoulder and noticed Jessica and Florence scurrying away, with their thumbs up, all goofy and excited.

Your eyes make it back to his. "I would've said hi back at the cast photo, but you were so far away," Shrugging you dismiss your failure as a mild missed opportunity.

But Austin shakes his head in an averted manner. "No- Don't worry about it." You could already sense interviewers and others with microphones closing on you two. You were out in the open, and it's bound to happen. "I wanted to- you know, say hi to you in a less chaotic place."

"I tried looking for you but there's just so many people," You give your costar an exhausted look. It was then a keen young man approached the pair of you. It was the People magazine, as you became aware of the logo alongside their camera and microphone.

"Hey, would you two mind a short interview for People's magazine?"

Truly, this was what premieres were about. The cast and crew meet with fans to show what they have worked so hard for. You brought you no better satisfaction than to praise everyone's efforts. The interviewer then proceeded to have a quick introduction of you and Austin beside you. You both had separate microphones in each hand. Once the video started rolling, you peered at the camera and gave the audience a grin.

"So how are you guys doing? Met all of your lovely cast members yet?"

"Oh absolutely," You emphasized every syllable, nodding. Austin only glances at you in amusement. "It's crazy how many people are here I was so overwhelmed!"

"Yeah, it was pretty crowded," The male actor adds, lowering his microphone slightly.

"Hopefully it will die down!" The interviewer beams. "So what was it like getting to know each other in this film? How was the first day on set like?"

"Oh, well it went very smoothly," You start, staring up at Austin in approval. "Even though my time was short on set, I feel like we had a pretty good rhythm starting out."

"I was about to say! The scenes with Feyd and Lady Margot were really something!"

"Why thank you, we appreciate it," Austin nervously laughs, scratching his ear.

The interviewer takes the lead to discuss your preparation for the role and how it was working with Villeneuve. As new characters, you and Austin both talked about your views on both of your characters. Both are very different yet mysterious to the viewers. Additionally, you two were introduced in a similar scene of the pit fight. The People's Magazine interviewer was compelled to compliment Austin on his opening scene. You knew he had practiced the choreographed fights vigorously. And of which you were lucky to witness on the days that you were present.

"It was completely freeing and different than what I was used to doing," Austin probes, leaning toward your direction. "Were you there for the pit fight?"

"I think I was," You turn, similarly. "I remember watching from afar and thinking wow." Immediately you could sense him eagerly looking down at you with a sly smile. "He was- Austin did amazing with the fight choreography, I was impressed!"

"Was this the first time seeing him in full costume too?"

"Oh yes!" You bonked your hand on your forehead, "He was and I just- couldn't believe it was him!"

Suddenly Austin jumps in, "She was startled when I first came up to her in full costume."

"You came out of nowhere, by the way!" You rebutted, giving him a side glance.

"I didn't mean to," As he tries to reassure his actions, "I wanted to give a good first impression!" It was humorous how playful you two were together despite having dissimilar filming schedules. Though most of your scenes involved Butler, your friendship only became more apparent weeks after working together. It was off and on for months at a time due to being busy in other countries simultaneously.

Eventually, you were able to link up again weeks before the premiere. After waiting a long time to meet up, you almost felt relieved that you hadn't seen your costar in a while.

"And Austin, how was filming with her?! From a character's standpoint, what kind of dynamic do you see playing out?" The People's Magazine interviewer perks up, having the camera transition from his face to Austin's.

"Well I'd say, she's great. You know I've got to meet a lot of amazing people in this film. And," He says your name sincerely, "She's- she's one of those people. I can't say much for Lady Margot and Feyd's relationship- you know there's a lot of that's still not uncovered. We don't really know what's happening but kind of have an idea of something. And to have such a great actress like her, it makes everything feel authentic and- feel the tension." It felt as if you were in a daze, eyes completely focused on his words with such admiration and grace. Before you knew it, you were smiling as if you had won the best possible prize in the world. His compliments to you meant more than you had anticipated really.

Unbeknownst to you, the cameraman had caught your lovestruck expression before directing attention back to the interviewer. "And how about you, Miss Margot?"

"I'd say it's the same," Now looking at the interviewer, only momentarily back at your costar. "Austin's- he's great at all the stunts and acting like a scary dude. Every scene with him was fun to do. Like he's all serious in character but once they yell cut! he's so nice and funny!" Your bubbly laugh breaks as you can feel your face growing hot.

"Well I appreciate you liking my humor," Austin pokes fun at you, fanning a little air towards you.

You mutter a soft thank you! before continuing, "And he's dedicated you know? I remember one scene, a little spoiler, where Feyd is about to be tested by Lady Margot, and I just couldn't do it! I couldn't keep a straight face!"

"Really?!"

"She just kept breaking, I don't know why," The actor shrugs, his attention closely drawn to you. "We had a few takes on a few days."

"We did! We did!" You gave a big frown, "You just have a really distracting face."

"Do I?" Austin asks, between the lines of teasing and coolly.

By the time, other premieres had occurred, people were still focused on your interactions with Austin Butler. Your chemistry on and off screen on the carpet was hilarious. And with how polarizing your characters were, it made many clips of your shared encounters gain attention.

A few short videos were recorded after the People Magazine interview of you and Austin, bashfully talking behind the stage. The two of you went back and forth whispering in each other's ears about what was unknown to the viewer. Through a bird's eye view, the video also catches you hugging your arms before zooming in on Austin's placing an arm around your figure.

Another clip that had been reposted many times was when you both took duo pictures together. As you comfortably shift your weight on one leg, as you turn to have your side face the flashing paparazzi. Whilst the Elvis actor stands beside you at a pleasant distance, doing the same pose to the other side. There was one instance where you lifted your head to make eye contact with your eyes instantly brightening. As Austin's smile widened, only to blow air in your face.

[lovebugism]

hi bug! Can I request you a ditzy or shy!reader where some girl flirts with Steve in front of her maybe at Family Video? Little angsty because she feels insicure of herself? Thank you🩷

ty for requesting!! — steve doesn't realize he's being flirted with because he's so in love with you (ditzy!fem!r, hurt/comfort, 1.6k)

You color in a scribbled heart with enough vigor to break the pink crayon in your hand.

Steve always hangs your drawings in his locker in the Family Video break room, so you tend to take your art pretty seriously. ‘Cause there’s absolutely nothing humorous about the two stick figures holding hands — each of them vaguely resembling the both of you — that you’re passionately scribbling behind the front counter.

He’d watch you work your magic on a piece of lined scrap paper if he could. He’s too busy tending to a regular now. Mia, he thinks, or maybe Maia. She rents movies every week, but according to the system, she doesn’t watch a single one of them. 

“Well, what do you recommend?” she questions with a smirk on her painted lips, leaning her elbows on the counter until her chest juts out.

Steve leans slowly backward and tries not to cough at the overwhelming scent of her fruity perfume. “Uh… I don’t know,” he answers with an unenthusiastic shrug. “I usually just watch whatever.”

The girl squints her dolled-up eyes. “You don’t have a favorite movie?” 

Steve ponders the question for a moment. ‘Cause he doesn’t have one, really. All his favorite films are your favorites because he spends the majority of movie nights watching you instead.

So, at a loss of how to answer, he tells her your first choice. “The Star Wars movies are pretty alright.”

“Do you have them here?” she wonders.

Steve nods and points her in the other direction. “Yeah. In the Sci-Fi section.”

“Can you show me?” the girl questions with a hopeful glint in her pale eyes. Everything about her sparkles with mischief, like a predator hunting for prey. Stealthy, like a ninja, Steve would’ve called the approach a couple years ago. Long before he found you.

He’s more into forthright proclamations of love these days — bubblegum pink lipstick stains pressed to his cheek and handmade pictures drawn in crayon.

But, for the sake of Keith totally reaming him for not helping a customer, Steve nods and rounds the front counter. “Uh. Yeah. Sure. Follow me,” he urges halfheartedly, sparing you a forlorn glance as he goes. You’re much too distracted to see it, though.

You’re too distracted to notice most things, really.

That’s why Robin’s angrier than you are about the whole thing. She exhales a big huff and stands across from you, peering over the tower of tapes there. “God, he’s so oblivious,” she groans.

Your hand freezes as you color in Steve’s vest. You glance up at her with wide eyes, heart sinking at the annoyed look on her freckled features. “Huh?”

“Steve. That girl’s been drooling over him for five minutes, and he hasn’t even realized.”

Your brows pinch. “What girl?”

“The one that’s hanging all over him,” Robin answers, nodding her head to the other side of the store. The girl in question lingers at Steve’s side, a little too close to be casual. She hangs on every word he says — which certainly can’t be a whole lot, considering he knows next to nothing about that Star Wars franchise.

“I thought she was just being nice,” you shrug.

“She was flirting with your boyfriend,” Robin corrects in a monotone. “It was disgusting. I’m pretty sure her flirt got all over my pants.”

You look back at the two across the room. Steve tenses when the pretty redhead presses her chest against his arm. For the sake of not making things totally awkward, he forces himself not to shrink away. What had seemed virtually innocuous to you now makes your stomach ache. 

“She’s so pretty…” you observe quietly to yourself. 

Robin only scoffs. “Yeah. If you’re into girls like that.”

You don’t know exactly what she means, but it makes you lean slightly forward in interest anyway. “Do you think… Do you think Steve’s into girls like that?”

“No,” Robin answers, features twisted like it’s obvious. “He’s into girls like you.”

For the first time ever, you find that slightly hard to believe. Why would Steve ever pick you over someone like her? The way she smiles is pretty. The way she laughs is pretty. Even the way she talks is pretty.

And what do you have? A couple of stupid crayon portraits?

A strange feeling sears your chest when Steve and the pretty girl walk back to the counter. He must’ve told her a joke or something ‘cause she tips back her head to laugh loudly in response. Jealous tears sting your eyes accordingly. You take your art and your box of dull crayons and scurry off to the break room.

“I can help you check out!” Robin offers, suddenly very chipper. 

The redhead’s face twists. “Oh. I thought that—”

“Steve’s needed in the breakroom, actually,” Robin tells her when the stranger’s pleading eyes flit to the boy beside her. “I can handle it from here.”

“Wait— What’s in the breakroom?” he wonders obliviously.

“Your girlfriend, dingus.”

Steve blinks once. The sudden lack of your presence makes his chest ache. He stalks off to find you without another word.

The redhead, Mia or Maia or whatever, doesn’t bother to disguise the shock painting her dainty features. “Girlfriend?” she echoes, quiet with disbelief.

Robin nods and takes the tapes from her hands, knowing she’s only renting them ‘cause she thought Steve liked them. The scanner beeps as she rings them up. “Yeah. He’s kinda in love with her, turns out. It’s disgusting.”

The conversation fades the further Steve gets down the hall. He opens the door to the back room with a grating squeak. The rusted hinges screech again in protest when he swings it shut behind him. He finds you slouched over the table, vehemently scribbling with vibrantly colored crayons.

He can’t help but smile at the sight of you. “Whatcha doin’?” he lilts in place of a greeting, sliding back a chair to sit across from you.

“Nothin’…” you mutter distantly.

Steve folds his arms over the tabletop and rests his chin on top of them. It bobs with every word. “Why’d you leave me, huh?”

You shrug with a faint I don’t know type of sound.

“Can I see what you’re drawing, at least?” 

He grins and reaches for you without thinking — because you always let him see. Needless to say, when flinch suddenly away from him, it scares him far more than it should. You scramble to cover the paper with your arms like you’re doing something wrong. 

“No,” you answer in a mousy voice.

A chuckle spills from Steve’s mouth. “What? Why? You always show me.”

“It’s stupid…”

“It’s not stupid! I love when you draw stuff for me,” the boy insists with a lopsided smile, distantly surprised by your sheepishness. The pretty pink grin slips from his mouth at the crestfallen glint in your eye. He softens without thinking. “What’s wrong? What happened? Did— Did Robin say something?”

“No.” 

“Then what?”

You avert your eyes from his prying ones, feeling half-suffocated beneath his honeyed gaze. You start to color again with an absentminded hand, if only to have something else to look at. “You’re just…” you trail off, shifting uncomfortably in your chair. “You’re too pretty.”

He laughs before he means to. “What?”

“You’re pretty, and I don’t like that other people get to look at you,” you confess quietly, coloring in Steve’s hair with the ‘deep golden’ crayon. “It’s not fair— No one else should think you’re as beautiful as I do. I don’t like that.”

Steve props his chin on his palm and hides his grin behind his fingers. He reaches for your busy hand with his free one to get your attention. “Well, you know what?” he starts when your eyes flit up to his. “You’re the only one I want looking at me. So what everyone else thinks doesn’t really matter.”

“It is when they’re drooling all over you,” you answer with a scrunched nose.

Steve can’t help but scoff out a laugh. Those words have Robin Buckley written all over them. 

“Last I heard, Rob was giving that girl what for, so… you don’t have to worry about that anymore,” he tells you, both to soothe the misplaced jealousy and to make you smile. He thinks it only half works. “Can I tell you a secret?”

You perk up at that. Steve grins and leans in close like he’s about to confess something serious. His dark eyes twinkle with mischief. 

“I’m so stupid in love with you that I forget other girls exist sometimes,” he murmurs in true secret-spilling fashion. “And when they’re… drooling all over me? I don’t even see it. ‘Cause all I’m thinking about is how I have my own girl back home. And that I’d much rather have her drooling on me.”

“…Am I the girl?” you press in a tiny voice, just to be sure.

“Yes, baby, I’m talking about you,” Steve chuckles. “You should know that— You’rethe one drooling on my pillow every morning.”

Your nose scrunches sheepishly. “You’ve said that word too many times… It doesn’t sound real anymore.”

“What’s that called again?”

“Semantic satiation,” you answer without missing a beat.

“Well, now I’m gonna tell you I love you ’til you’re semantically satiated,” the boy teases with a knowing squint in his eyes. “‘Cause I love you.”

“Steve.”

“I love you.”

“Stop,” you say, sterner now, though your gaze still glimmers with something soft. Your eyes follow his form when he rises from the table, shifting the short distance to sit in the chair closest to you. “Steve, stop—”

“I love you,” he repeats, anyway, taking you into his arms and smacking a dramatic kiss to your warm cheek. Between each innocuous peck, he mumbles, “I love you— I love you— I love you—”

Steve doesn’t stop kissing you until he hears you giggling again. The pretty sound brightens the dull breakroom. And all he can think about is what a lucky schmuck he is. To get to kiss you and make you laugh forever.

[laurentpark]

Behind Closed Doors — Yoo Jimin

pairing: karina x aespa! reader

summary: you and your girlfriend managed to keep your relationship a secret and away from the public eye, but that doesn't mean people are convinced you two aren't inlove.

genre: fluff

warnings: none

Being bored inside the dorm's bedroom with no one else in it but yourself, you decide to open youtube in hopes to find something that could cure your boredome. You furrow your eyebrows and tilt your head to the side, seeing a certain video sparking your interest.

"Hm, what is this?"

Karina and Y/N being madly in love with each other for seven minutes 'straight'

You let an amused laugh escape from your lips and examine the thumbnail of the video; It was you and your member, Jimin, known as Karina in the kpop industry smiling while looking at each other, lovingly.

Why not?

You thought to yourself before clicking on the video.

Scene 1

"So Y/N I've heard you're a massive fan of the harry potter franchise?"

After the interviewer mentioned the name 'harry potter', she managed to grab Y/N's attention and nodded her head, squealing in excitement. The girl then proceeded to go on a four minute rant about the entire franchise.

Jimin gazed at her the entire time, listening to every word her member said with a loving expression and smile placed on her face.

Jimin didn't even noticed how she was staring at Y/N the entire time until her member looked at her with a confused expression.

Once they made eye contact, the leader immediately looked away, avoiding her gaze and dropped her smile.

"Why did you look at me like that?"

"Like what?"

"Nevermind."

Scene 2

"Is it starting?"

"It is."

"Hi everyone!"

Y/N's cheery voice greets everyone who was watching their v-live. It was just her and Jimin at the moment since the other members have already fallen asleep.

"Pipe down, they might wake up." The leader refers to the other members and scolded Y/N, which she laughs and apologises for.

Jimin furrowed her brows, confused to why you were covering your face with your hands during the live. She turns to look at Y/N with a concerned expression.

"Why are you covering your face? MY's can't see you." Jimin comments.

Y/N shrugs her shoulders, still covering her face. "I'm not wearing any makeup, I look ugly."

The leader shakes her head and gently brings Y/N's hands down, to reveal her face, no longer covering it.

"You look beautiful." Jimin couldn't help but smile after seeing her member's face getting red at her comment. "You are beautiful."

Y/N smiles back at her leader and holds her hand. She looks back at the phone, seeing the comments go wild after witnessing their wholesome moment.

Widening her eyes, Y/N drops Jimin's hand. The leader looked at her offended, but Y/N gestured to the phone.

Jimin snapped back to reality, realizing they were on live and smiled at the camera nervously.

"Anyway-"

Scene 3

"This is so pretty!" Y/N comments after a certain bracelet caught her attention at the store.

Jimin, who was the one holding the camera looked over at her member's direction. "Then buy it."

Y/N first checked the price and lets out a defeated sigh, "It's too expensive. Let's look around a bit more."

Jimin frowned once she saw Y/N putting the bracelet back, "You sure? It seems like you really wanted it."

"I'm sure I can find something much more cheaper. Let's just go."

She takes her leader's hand and drags her away from the store and Jimin lets her. Unbeknownst to Y/N, Jimin looks back at the store, taking note of it's name.

cut

The camera focused on the group, arriving at the airport. The aespa members waved and bowed at the countless paparazzis and fans who waited for their arrival.

However, there was something that caught the fans attention after watching their NYC vlog.

Y/N was wearing the bracelet that she wished for during time there.

Scene 4

"My most prized possession?"

Y/N reads the comment on her live out loud, while taking a big bite of the pizza that she ordered. She thinks for awhile before looking down at her bracelet and smiled at it.

After munching down her food, she lifts her arm up so they viewers could see the bracelet.

"This bracelet because someone very special bought it for me."

After the comments flooded her with the question to who bought it, Y/N laughs at them and answers,

"It was Jimin-unnie. Who else could it be?"

Scene 5

"Y/N-unnie, alot of people are curious. You're really pretty and we were wondering what's your ideal type?" The fan questioned her, through the fan call.

"Hmm..." The girls thinks for a moment, before replying, "Someone caring, hardworking, and thoughtful. That's it."

"I see..." The fan trailed off before continuing, "Do you have Karina-unnie in mind?"

Y/N bursted out laughing, covering her face so they won't see the pink tint that's starting to appear on her cheeks after hearing the fan's witty comment.

"I'll leave that up to your imagination."

Scene 6

Karina glared at the male model who posed with you for the givenchy shoot, her jaw clenching once the model placed his hand ontop of your head. A snort can be heard beside her and she turns to the side to see her member, Winter pointing at the camera directly at the leader.

"Karina-unnie, what's wrong?" She teased her.

Jimin pouted her lips and turned away from the camera and soon walked out, so she wouldn't have to see Y/N with the male model again, leaving Winter laughing at the leader's action.

Scene 7

"Y/N, don't you look beautiful for tonight!" The male interview complimented her look for the Cannes festival.

Y/N stopped by and smiled at him, "Thank you! I'm so nervous because there's so many famous people here but I'm also really excited!"

"Oh, pretty girl. Don't be nervous! We all love you and I'm sure you'll shine like a jewel this night!"

"Thank you so much for your kin- oh!"

Karina interrupted your interview by giving you a quick kiss on your exposed shoulder, leaving her lipstick mark on it before walking away.

She looked at the leader with a confused expression, before turning back to the interviewer with a confused smile.

"Oh, I didn't know you and your member were dating. Seems like she got jealous didn't she?"

Y/N widened her eyes and immediately shakes her head. "No, no! We're just very close friends."

The interviewer didn't seem too convinced and narrowed his eyes at you out of suspicion but went on with the interview anyway.

"What are you watching?"

After the video ended, Jimin appears out of nowhere inside your room. She walks over to your bed, and you moved so she could get more space. You showed her the video you were watching with a giddy smile and she laughs at the title.

"Do you really think they're convinced?" She asks you, wrapping her arms around behind you and places her chin on your shoulder.

"There's alot of videos like this." You chuckle, scrolling down the recommendation page. Blinking in confusion, you tilt your head to the side and show her a thumbnail of a certain video with you and giselle.

"This one's about me and Giselle."

"That's ridiculous." Jimin states, rolling her eyes in annoyance and holds on to you tightly. "The videos should only be about me and you."

You giggle when you felt her pressing wet kisses against your cheeks.

"Do I have to make our relationship more obvious and be much more affectionate to you in public so that the videos can only be about you and I?"

"You get jealous too easily, you know that right?"

"Can't help it. Everyone's trying to steal your attention away from me."

[sstrwbrryccke]

— sweetly spoiled | sub choi soobin

tags: rich reader x sugarbaby+broke soobin, financial dominance, gn reader, this was super fluffy until the end, porn with feelings, anal sex (can be interpreted as pegging), overstimulation, window sex, cum eating, hair pulling

not proofread 😭

you’re a hardworking rags to riches, new money type of billionaire. it started from taking over a failing business to investing into real estate and now a multibillion franchise. through sheer hardwork, will and a keen eye, you were one of the youngest billionaires in the world. you were rich beyond belief, rich but lonely. suffering from the many losses of your family members wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t as if you could make genuine friends in this industry.

meeting him was a total coincidence, you were picking up some late night snacks at a convenience store- just because you’re rich now doesn’t mean you forgot your roots, the convenience store was quick and cheap after all. there you spotted him, tall yet nervous at the cashier, fumbling in his pocket for money to pay for the ramen cup. money which he seems to not have, he sighed, about to return the item before you stepped in to buy it for him. financial dominance at its best, really. when you glanced his direction, met with his shocked face, the first thing you noticed was how seriously cute he was, a man that was 100% your type. wide bunny eyes with pretty pink lips, when he beamed a smile at your kind action, you felt your heart flutter. but that was all it was, a random encounter with a very pretty stranger. he thanked you and you waved him off, the two of you parting ways.

☆★☆

and to be honest, he didn’t come up on your mind that much after, you were a busy business person after all. hours of paperwork and meetings filled your mind as the weeks passed. but one day, your assistant called in sick, and you felt maybe that was your sign to take a rest for the day too. but left alone in your penthouse apartment seemed to only perpetuate how spacious your living space really was. even your personal butler had taken a vacation. so huge, alone, isolated and quiet. when the ticking of the clock was too much, you decided to take a walk to escape the mundanity of your solitude. but he caught your eye again, wearing plain clothing and crouched next to the door of a cafe? you approached him, curious. the sudden shade made him glance up, his eyes instantly lighting up in recognition.

“oh! it’s you!”

he seemed happy to see you, and you instinctively smiled along too.

“what are you doing here?”

he seemed sheepish at the question, craning his head and shaking his hair with an exasperated gasp. it was cute, he was cute.

“i just got fired from the cafe.”

it was such an unexpected and ridiculous answer, you heard yourself snicker. he was embarrassed, lips pouted.

“how?”

“i let a few stray cats and dogs in.”

you snicker again, he instantly shot up to defend himself. reminding you how tall he was.

“it was raining!”

the two of you end up talking, and you invite him to another cafe to chat. of course you paid for everything, you insisted. he was shy at first, very thankful and grateful for your hospitality. what an obedient and well-mannered boy. eventually, through more talking and prodding, he opened up. he was called soobin, and soobin’s adorable looks matched his personality. he was endearing in every way that word could mean. he ranted about his university and disastrous job history, and he really really had a penchant for being broke. seriously, how was it possible for someone to be this financially unfortunate? every time he tried to earn a living, something prevented him, like god’s divine will if you were religious. first job at a restaurant? broke 20 plates in one go. second job as a waiter? the restaurant got struck by lighting and went bankrupt. the list goes on.

when he finished, he was sheepish again at your shocked face, sipping on his mocha awkwardly. you pitied him, honestly, you could tell he was innocent to the qualms of the world, and you really wanted to take him under your wing…

except, what was stopping you?

“uh… sorry for ranting. i normally don’t talk this much.”

he meekly commented, suddenly all shy, back to a very introverted mumble. you just shook your head at him.

“i’m listening to you willingly, aren’t i?”

your tone was stern, he instinctively straightened his back as if preparing for you to reveal something big to him, maybe you were going to shoo him away? you took a moment to stare at him, observing his features. looking at him closer just made him so much more attractive, and you could listen to him talk for hours, even if he didn’t talk. just his presence had soothed you of all your troubles.

“soobin, do you want to be my sugar baby?”

he blinked at you. and you thought you would have to explain the concept to him until his face darkened a deep red, fingers fiddling together. maybe he wasn’t as innocent as you thought he was, maybe you should’ve expected it, but it only made your desire arouse more. there was a moment of silence as you let him contemplate the choice.

“so?”

you break his train of thoughts, and he jolts up, shoulders tightly bunched together as his wide bunny-like eyes lowers. he whispers something you couldn’t hear.

“……that.”

“use your voice, soobin.”

“does that mean we do that?”

slightly taken aback by his question, so that was what he was thinking. he was secretly a pervert, wasn’t he? you grin at him, leaning forward.

“someone’s getting his hopes up, isn’t he?”

to your surprise again, he nods obediently, and your grin widened. being alone wasn’t so bad after all.

☆★☆

it took him awhile to get used to the sugar-baby lifestyle. and for some reason, he was more endearing after becoming your sugar-baby. despite how broke he was, he really wasn’t the type to thirst for money. even being awful at receiving gifts sometimes. he had already been so thankful at you covering his living costs, so anything extra made him jittery and blush, profusely thanking you. not to mention, sex with soobin was beyond wonderful, he was just as obedient in bed as he was in his daily life. you found out later he gave his virginity to you, and that honestly made you turned on and ready for 10 more rounds.

you learned more about soobin’s hobbies too, and one thing you note is how much of a nerd he was. when you give him a very hefty and large allowance, he mostly uses the money for games, mangas and anime subscriptions. even though you insist many times that you give him enough money to buy all of that and way more. he seems to be more than satisfied with just those items.

gradually though, he really takes over your life with his presence, and it was only more apparent when he moved into your penthouse apartment. (even though you offered him a separate apartment, you learned he was a rather clingy person) you found yourself buying more shelves to display his manga collections, catching up to his favourite animes when you have time so you guys can watch together on movie night. he’s an introvert to the core, so he often prefers to stay in the penthouse rather than go out. not that you mind, it was nice to spend the night cuddling with him after long day at work, plus you dote on him extensively, if soobin wanted to stay in, you were going to let him stay in.

and you didn’t know life could get this happy until you entered to the smell of freshly baked goods, a smiling soobin poking his head out from the kitchen. god, who needs michelin star chefs when you have a cute bunny boy? and damn was it was the best cinnamon roll you’ve ever had in your entire existence.

eventually, your work finds out about soobin too, it first manifested in drifting rumors of a mysterious partner you had. then it became plain obvious when you straight-up brought soobin to your office one day. it was a bizzare sight, a man dressed in a hoodie sitting in a room full of men and women in suits. he mentioned he was curious about your work, and next thing he knew, he was in your limousine driving to the high skyrise building.

another time you brought him to those socialite parties, which was really just a fancy name for ‘rich people getting drunk asf’. he was so adorable, muttering to you about how nervous he was as you adjust his bowtie. he wore a grey asymmetrical suit jacket, you had it tailor made for him. you would hold him by the waist and kiss his worries away, reassuring him. and just as you thought, it went great. though soobin wasn’t talkative at all, just smiling beside you as you’re approached by another acquaintance. you two had fun though, you would snake your hand around his waist and whisper to him while gesturing to another rich nepo baby.

“and that one over there, that blonde hair? oh yeah, definitely a wig.”

“stop- that’s mean!”

but he was giggling with you, his eyes creasing into sweet crescent moons. the night passed smoothly, and the two of you retreat back to the penthouse apartment again. there you sat on the bed, freshly showered. soobin comes out from his shower as well, wrapped in a towel. he seemed embarrassed again, at how scantily dressed he was.

“stop hiding yourself, i’ve literally seen you naked soobin.”

“nope, who knows when you’re going to get horny and attack me.”

he shook his head teasingly, his wet hair tousling around. you raise an eyebrow, standing up to walk to him and he instantly starts laughing and apologising while backing away, knowing that once you take action you weren’t going to stop.

“hey i was joking!! i was jokin- AHHH!!”

you go for his hips where he was the most ticklish, and it didn’t take a lot of wrestling until he was under you, huffing and giggly. cheeks red, puffy eyes beautifully curved with his smile, his dimples in full show. touching your knee was something hard, as well, and you smirk at him.

“and i’m the horny one?”

with just the right amount of teasing and edging, you get him squirming and moaning, begging softly for you to touch him more. you haul him up, and he seems to wake up from his submissive daze when he realises you brought him right up to the massive windows of the penthouse. naked and exposed, leg spread embarrassingly far apart as you make him bend over- using the glass as support.

“w-what if people see.”

“let them.”

you whisper in his ear and he visibly shivers. you thumb at his lubed pink hole, dipping in and then dipping out, he becomes more and more desperate with each passing second. when it was clear you were going to keep playing with his rim, he softly whines, glancing behind him to look at you. bunny eyes wide and pleading.

“use your words soobin.”

“mmm… please.”

“continue.”

he gulps, nervous. he was so turned on he felt like he could come with any type of friction.

“spoil me please.”

oh, and you were going to spoil him alright. he was your pretty prince and you would genuinely buy him the earth if he wanted to. hurray to capitalism and this pretty boy. you kiss his nape as you insert a finger. he squirms and clenches his thighs, trying his hardest to hold it in because you hadn’t given him permission yet.

you insert another finger and begin to pump them in and out, purposefully hitting his prostate to push him over the edge. he comes without a warning and he sputters, his thighs trembling.

“s-sorry! sorry! i didnt mean to! im sorry!”

he begs profusely, legs still feeling the aftershocks of his orgasm. but you weren’t done with him just yet, he chokes down his words when you continue to finger his prostate, overstimulating him and making him squeal out in both pain and pleasure. he comes again, very close to the first one, and the white substance spurts onto the window.

“messy baby, you’re making so much trouble for the cleaners. bend down and clean that.”

he knew very well that you had cleaners who wouldn’t even blink an eye when wiping cum off the window. but he obeys as he always has. his weak legs was going to give up on him anyways, so he bent down kneeling on all fours, ass in the air as he awkwardly licked the salty cum off the window. doesn’t mean the work was over for you though, because you join him, aligning your length with his hole as you push into him. he moans loud at the sudden intrusion, arms giving up on him as he slips down on the floor, perking his ass up further.

“did i tell you to stop? keep going.”

he whines, trying to support himself but failing, so you give him a helping hand, your hand gripping the back of his hair and you pull his head back until he’s craning his neck. you swipe a finger at the remaining cum, bringing it to his mouth, feeding it to him, making him swallow.

the whole process was so arousing, it only took a few more thrusts until he was coming again. this time though, the overstimulation was too much and soon enough he was sobbing and crying. you chuckle, he was such a baby, but maybe it was your fault for spoiling him so much. you gently embrace him, thrusting into him softly until you orgasmed as well.

you pull out and coo at him. his body trembling and spasming. you use a wet towel to wipe down the both of you, until he refused you movement by hugging you tightly. it takes a moment to get back to bed, especially with an oversized koala clinging to you. but the two of you flop down, and you take the moment to caress his face. he was sleepy, but registered your soft touches with a satisfied smile.

“want to go shopping tomorrow?”

he hums, shuffling closer to you until his face was in the crook of your neck.

“mm i just want to stay in.”

you snicker. and you have never felt so much warmth in your heart.

[cleolinda]

The Scariest Movie I Ever Saw in a Theater: The Ring

I'll tell you up front that the story I'm going to tell you is about "The Ring (2002)," in the sense that it is about The Ring in the year 2002.

See, I don't know what The Scariest Movie Ever is. A quick google says that the consensus is The Exorcist (I haven't seen it, because I never felt like scheduling a day to freak myself the entire fuck out). But horror is specific, and not just to a person, but to a time and place, even. When I saw The Shining as a teenager in a well-lit living room with other people, I didn't even really flinch, but I bet it would play very differently to me now. I don’t think The Ring is at the top of anyone’s list, but twenty years ago, I had a personal interest in it—at the time, I was running a dinky little Geocities site devoted to movie news. Links curated and compiled from all the other, bigger sites I followed—basically, it was the linkspam format I have used on multiple platforms, including here on Sundays. And so, as someone who followed theatrical releases pretty closely for two or three years, I saw the trailer for The Ring, and I immediately knew it was going to be huge.

To locate you in time, this was just after three self-satirizing Scream movies and the Overcomplicated Serial Killer films of the '90s. The Ring was something completely different: chill aqua-blue color grading a good 5-6 years before Twilight; a mournful Hans Zimmer score; no jokes, no quips; and a slow, inexorable sense of doom. Grief, even, given that the movie begins with the death of the main character's niece. What immediately struck me about the first trailer was 1) the melancholy of it, and 2) how much it doesn't explain. Onscreen, you get the title cards,

THERE IS A VIDEOTAPE IF YOU WATCH IT SEVEN DAYS LATER YOU DIE

Concise! Understandable! A woman (Naomi Watts) is freaking out upon discovering that her young son has just watched it! Admirable job setting up the premise and the stakes of this entire movie in thirty seconds flat, without even any dialogue. That's all you need to know, and thus, the remaining minute of the trailer can do whatever it wants, and what it wants to do is be fucking weird. Echoing voices, TV static, a closeup of a horse's eye, ladders, a girl with dark hair, people reacting to things we don't see, drippy doorknobs, rain. Characters don't give us the whole plot in convenient soundbites of dialogue (like they do in a later trailer); we just hear lines, overlapping, murmured out of context—

did you see it in your head? she talks to you... leading you somewhere... showing you the horses... you saw it. did you see it in your head? she shows me things. Everyone suffers.

That you saw it has lived in my head ever since, and not once have I charged it rent. But the "best" part is Naomi Watts screaming at the end, because you don't hear her voice; you only hear this heartless telephonic beeeeeeep. It's 2002 and I'm watching this trailer, thinking, I have no idea what the fuck I just saw. This is going to be huge.

And it was, to the tune of $249 million on a $48M budget.

At risk of recapping what you might already know, Ringu, aka Ring, is a media franchise that spiraled out from a trio of Koji Suzuki novels into Hideo Nakata's film Ringu (1998), a landmark of Japanese horror, plus several other movies, some TV series, many comics, and even a couple of video games. The overarching story is about a murdered girl/vengeful ghost named Sadako Yamamura whose rage and pain have created a cursed video tape, you watch it and you die unless you pass the tape around like a virus, seven daaaaays, etc.

The "ring" in question is the rim of a well. Keep that well in mind.

The movie I saw is the U.S. remake, which itself had two sequels. (The iconic Sadako is now named Samara Morgan. Keep her in mind, too.) Director Gore Verbinski moved from The Ring to Pirates of the the Caribbean (!), and so Hideo Nakata himself would direct The Ring Two. I... honestly have only seen the first one. And I was right, it was huge, and it kicked off the American J-Horror Remake genre, for better or worse. But what gets forgotten about The Ring is its marketing campaign, which I followed pretty closely for my doofy little news site.

It was inspired.

The story of The Ring is partly the story of the sea change in the media landscape—how we watch movies. And the story of its marketing is a picture of the very last years before social media changed the wilderness of the internet into something that feels so big, like a billion people could see anything we say, and yet so small—only a tame handful of places to say it, owned by three or four companies, and corraled by algorithms.

Back around 1997-1998 or so, I worked at a video store (Movie Gallery, where the hits were there then, guaranteed) for about a year and a half. By the time I left, we had started adding DVDs to the VHS tapes on the shelves, but we hadn't replaced the entire stock. Video stores might have transitioned fully to DVD by 2002, I'm not sure, but people still commonly had both VCRs and DVD players in their homes. And I remember that The Ring was sold in both formats when it eventually hit home video. Which is to say—you know the analog horror genre today? Marble Hornets, Local 58, The Mandela Catalogue?

Analog horror is commonly characterized by low-fidelity graphics, cryptic messages, and visual styles reminiscent of late 20th-century television and analog recordings. This is done to match the setting, as analog horror works are typically set between the 1960s and 1990s. The name "analog horror" comes from the genre's aesthetic incorporation of elements related to analog electronics, such as analog television and VHS, the latter being an analog method of recording video.

Okay, but this is just what home media was like, and 2002 was at the very tail end of that—boxy black VHS tapes that degraded with time and reuse were just how we lived. At the same time, I'd been using CDs for music since about 1991, and all our software installs came on CD-ROM discs; a "mixtape" by that time had shifted to mean a rewriteable CD rather than a cassette tape. In college, I—well, I'll plead the Fifth as to whether I downloaded mp3s via Napster, but I was also taping Mystery Science Theater 3000 on VHS over the weekends. It was Every Format Everywhere, All At Once, and we kept half a dozen kinds of players around for them. Here in 2023, we stream and download everything invisibly, unless we choose to engage in format nostalgia. (I've already run into the problem of Apple Music deleting songs I really liked, due to this or that licensing issue, because I was really only renting them.) The year The Ring hit theaters was the edge of a last shimmering gasp of physical media where iTunes had only come into being the year before, and iridescent discs were still mostly what we used, but cassettes, both video and audio, were still viable. And so, people did not think it was terribly weird when they started finding unlabeled VHS tapes on their windshields.

Movieweb, quoting TikTok user astro_nina:

"Their marketing strategy was essentially 'let's get this tape viewed by as many people as possible without these people being aware of what this is, sort of raising intrigue," she says. One way they achieved this was by airing the tape, which allegedly marks its viewers for death within seven days, as a commercial with no context. The video would air between late-night programming "with no words, no mention of a movie, for like a month...so people would run into it and it would just go on to the next thing, and people would be like, 'what the f--k is this?'"

I remember seeing the Cursed Video as an unexplained ad at least twice, by the way. That TikTok also indicates that DreamWorks straight-up sent copies of the tape to Hot Topic stores, as well as planting them under actual movie theater seats. While running my movie site, I heard at least one story of someone finding a tape on the sink counter of a restroom at a club. Did the marketing department actually plant tapes in bathrooms—or did a freaked-out recipient leave it there, hoping to dodge the "curse"?

(I haven't embedded the Cursed Video here, by the way—but I could have. If you'd like to see the American take on it, you can watch both the full version and the shorter variant that appeared in the movie itself. A text description of what the fuck you're even looking at is here [content note for both: blood, insects, animal death, body horror, and suicide by falling]. The original version from the Japanese film is shorter, and it's eerie rather than gruesome.)

BUT WAIT, THERE WAS MORE: DreamWorks had something of an alternate-reality campaign going with a handful of in-character websites. This was only a year after Warner Bros. ran the groundbreaking "The Beast" ARG for A.I.: Artificial Intelligence: "Ultimately, fifty websites with a total of about one thousand pages were created for the [A.I.] game." (I lurked in the Cloudmakers Yahoo group.) Marketing for The Ring did not go anywhere that in depth, nor did it need to; it was both a smaller film and a smaller story. I saw at least two “personal” websites (seemingly amateur and a little tacky, like my own), but the one I particularly remember was about someone who owned/trained horses? I'm not sure if it was meant to be the actual Anna Morgan character—Samara's mother—or maybe someone who had noticed that the Morgans' horses were disturbed? I'm not even sure anyone even remembers this but me. Reddit users dug up a few other archived websites, but they're about Sadako, the curse and/or videotape; they aren't as subtle or character-oriented as the site I remember. (Honestly, I wonder if weird shit like "What Scares Me" or "SEVEN DAYS TO LIVE" were made by fans rather than a marketing department, but who knows.)

[The “About” page from Seven Days to Live on the Internet Archive.]

[The entirety of An Open Letter on the Internet Archive. “UPDATE” is a now-blank pop-up. I would bet $5 that it was originally a pop-up of the cursed video.]

I need to point out here that Facebook did not exist in 2002. It would not exist for another two years, and Twitter wouldn't exist until 2006. Even MySpace was not a thing until the next year. I didn't start my Livejournal until October of 2003. What we had, for the most part, were independent forums and blogs. We also had Creepy Internet Fiction like "The Dionaea House" and "Ted the Caver"; their use of the blog format, of people out there seemingly living their lives until something fucked up went down, gave the stories the shape of reality. And it helped that these blogs had comment sections, sure—sometimes more story unfolded there—but for the most part, an author could "abandon" a blog, and you'd just find the story there via word of mouth. Like the Ring blogs I remember, it wouldn't seem strange if no one replied to you, whereas today, you'd have to hire a writer to sit on Twitter, or Reddit, or even Tumblr, and interact with people in character. Could you do something like The Ring's mysterious, weird-ass blogs today? Would anyone even notice?

So: It's 2002, my head is full of Alternate Reality and eerie images and you saw it, and I'm hype as hell to go out and see The Ring. I'm perfectly happy to go see movies by myself, so I went in the early afternoon (best time to get a good seat). The movie ended up being a sleeper hit, and the first weekend, the public was still sleeping on it, so there were only 7-8 other people in that theater, grouped in maybe two clusters. I was off in my own little pool of darkness in the upper right quadrant. Functionally, once the lights went down, I was alone.

Despite some middling reviews at the time, The Ring is something of a horror classic nowadays. If you want a scary movie this Spooky Season, check out The Ring. Or don't, because it nearly killed me.

We're at the last, I don't know, third of the movie? And Our Heroine has tracked down the origin of the Cursed Videotape to some creepy mountain motel or whatever. SPOILER, it turns out that it was built over the Cursed Well (everything in this movie is cursed) that Our Villain was thrown into—that's why Sadako/Samara is a vengeful wet murder ghost crawling out of TVs now. While investigating this decrepit hotel room, intrepid journalist Rachel and her, who is it, her ex-husband? her kid's dad, idk, discover the well under the creaky old floorboards. And then, wouldn't you know it,

NAOMI WATTS FALLS INTO THE WELL

NAOMI WATTS FALLS INTO THE FUCKING WELL

THAT'S WHERE SAMARA'S BODY IS

[The rather slapstick moment when Rachel falls into the well. Does not include what actually happens next.]

I go absolutely rigid in my seat. Naomi Watts is splashing around this dark-ass death swamp of a well and I know, with as much certainty as I have ever known anything in my life, that Samara is about to pop up in all her pasty, waterlogged glory. All the sad creepy dread, all the desperation to figure out what the fuck all that shit on the tape was and stop Samara from killing Rachel's son, all the horrible contorted victim faces, all the alternate reality I’ve been soaking in, it has all come to this. I have to leave the theater. I cannot be having with this. I have to be gone from this place. My legs do not work. I cannot feel them. I am frozen. I want nothing more in this life or any other to get up and leave this cavernous pitch-black room, and I cannot. I start praying for death. I want you to understand that I am not trying to be flippant or humorous. This is genuinely what went through my head. I was too scared to even think, "You know, you could just pray to pass out or for motion to return to your limbs or something." No, I sat there in The Ring thinking, Please for the love of all mercy just let me cease being.

You know that scene in Mulholland Drive (also starring Naomi Watts)? Winkie's diner and the EXCRUCIATING tension? It was a little like that, except I wasn't watching it, I was experiencing it, and Samara was my dirt monster out behind the diner.

Except that the jump scare didn't actually happen. I mean, yes, Rachel finds Samara's body down there, but—I don't remember exactly, please don't make me go watch it again to tell you what actually happens. It's played more sympathetically on Rachel's part, as I recall, and she and her ex get Samara's body out so that she (Samara) can have a proper burial.

And then it turns out that this is not the end of the movie. It turns out that Rachel has Fucked Up.

I think I was relatively okay through the rest of it, although the climax is Samara emerging from a TV in her full glitching swampy glory to scare [SPOILER] to death. I don't recall praying for death twice. There's a point when you're so exhausted from fear chemicals that you're like, yeah, this might as well happen. Bring it, Soggy. I did have a hard time prying myself out of that seat afterwards, though, and my mom says that when I got home, I had the classic thousand-yard stare. How was the movie?

"It was great," I said, and I meant it.

I've seen things that were objectively scarier (I watched much of The Haunting of Hill House from behind a pillow, to be honest), and it's not like I've never experienced fear in real life. But I respect when a movie that can make me feel so intensely, and there's something weirdly precious about the way horror is a safe roller coaster, as it's often been said. So I love telling the story about The Time The Ring Nearly Killed Me—a movie that actually made my body stop working—and I love thinking of how embedded in a specific time and place that movie was for me. The last gasp of VHS when the Cursed Videotape still seemed plausible; the way the internet was still wild and weird and free; where I was in my life, keeping up so avidly with all the movie news, and finding myself in such a little pool of darkness early one afternoon. It's the scariest movie I saw in a theater; that's the alchemy of circumstance.

[justpoliteconversations]

Apple Merchant [BOTW!Link x Isekai!Reader] (Part 1)

In which Isekai!Reader becomes a merchant, and unintentionally Link's benefactor.

Even more self-indulgent trash. The usual.

PART: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6

Masterlist

TW: Nothing worth mentioning.

Disclaimer: Don't own The Legend of Zelda franchise.

---

Being transported into a video game was not as dramatic as the media had led you to believe. For one, there was no bright, all encompassing light nor the feeling of a thousand worlds ripping themselves asunder. Instead, you had taken one step out of your door and crossed the threshold into an endless field of tall grass.

Panic should have taken hold by that point, but it didn't. You'd later learn it was just postponed by the shock of it all. At the time though, you'd simply taken stock of the situation, scanned the horizon for civilization and started in on the first plumes of smoke you found in the distance.

You'd been lucky. So incredibly lucky it had been a village that you'd landed near and not something more sinister. That you had decided against going near the waterfall or towards the forested area where a clear path was etched into the hillside.

You hadn't known that yet though. Instead, you'd taken the most direct route and hiked up the steep grassy slope heading towards the plumes.

Near the top you'd taken a short break beside an apple tree, admiring the perfect shape of the fruit hidden throughout it's low hanging branches. How large they were, and how brightly colored.

You'd taken one, struggling to pull it from it's stem. You were surprised by just how heavy it was when it finally did give way; more akin to holding a watermelon than an apple and as large as a grapefruit.

It was strange, but you figured it was just a variety of apple you were not familiar with, or perhaps you were heading towards a farm that was working on a new type of apple for the market.

You decided to save this one for later, in case the place you were heading didn't have resturants or take card payments. The surrounding land looked pretty rural, so you wouldn't be all that surprised if they didn't.

As soon as you'd thought it though, the apple disappeared. No light or sound or anything to indicate the unnatural occurrence, just popped out of existence.

It should have startled you, and it did, but you didn't panic. Not yet. That would come later. Right then, it was almost like you were dreaming.

In the top left corner of your vision a flicker of red came into existence. A simple line of words ended in an explanation point that pinged at your subconscious.

[New Item!]

And you'd thought, 'What a strange dream.'

---

Four years later, and you knew this was most certainly not a dream. The panic had passed, the initial pain of loss and separation had eased. The confusion of a new language and culture had settled into smooth integration.

The easy acceptance of the Hateno people helped a great deal with that.

Honestly, it helped that the population was as small as it was. While some cultures would shun outsiders upon contact, the scarcity of new blood had made your arrival quite the welcome event. Even if you were a human.

Perhaps even because you were a human. It was hard to tell sometimes. Your round ears were equal parts admired and awkwardly avoided in polite conversation.

You tried not to think about it too much.

The bottom line was that you had been transmigrated into Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Your head now contained the equivalent of the Sheikah slate and the differences in product quality here and your world was, to put it frankly, wacked. The metabolism and durability of the region's residents was even more so.

The apple you had picked up the first day had lasted you two days. Each bite was equivalent to eating two apples. Eating a whole apple was enough to make you sick. You'd watched a hyrulian child munch down three of them with no issues, and then ask for dinner.

Your conclusion; Magic. Hyrule was very similar to your own world, but the addition of magic had fundamentally altered the biological makeup of it's inhabitants.

It wasn't a difficult conclusion to come to. Hell, one of the farmers had even given you a brief rundown on the magic quality in the soil once, explaining the emergence of Hearty foodstuffs. It was an eye opener for sure, though a welcome one.

However, things got complicated in your case. The addition of gamer like attributes seemed to alter the world around you to an alarming degree. Nothing too noticeable thankfully, but still noteworthy.

Things you picked or put in your inventory had a way of coming back within a few days. This, you'd learned, was not the norm. A harvested field stayed harvested until it was replanted. A picked apple stayed gone until a new one grew from another bud.

Things did not just reappear after enough time away from them. Hyrule did not have that type of magic, though it would seem you did. Which, honestly, was fine by you. It helped you make a living at the beginning.

Food, you found, was a precious commodity. The game made it seem easily accessible, but in reality it was a hit or miss depending on the season. Late spring through early fall was bountiful, but the rest of the year was downright miserable.

People here lived on what could be grown locally. When things stopped growing, people started struggling.

Not to say most residents starved, but the cost of a bale of wheat went up drastically in the winter. Nevermind the cost of fresh fruit, meat or anything not pickled or preserved.

The game never showed this side to Hyrule. The part where these magical people with their high metabolisms suffered during the lean winter months. How they worked and saved all year just to break even through the cold season.

Winter might have been the time of hardship, but it was your golden goose. It was how you made a living, how you came out ahead.

Anything stored within your mindslate stayed perfectly preserved, untouched by time nor the effects of decomposition. And added to your unusual effect on the world, it allowed you to amass a literal shit ton of resources.

At first you'd make daily trips around the village gathering enough materials to ensure a place at the inn every night. Anything would do. Wheat, crickets, apples, the occasional fish, even fairies.

(Strange that one, how your mindslate just stored living beings like that. They were the one thing you didn't mess with. Just let them sit in there, as far from your mind as possible.)

You cut grass with your rusty sword, hacked down small trees with your equally cheap and rusted ax, roamed the nearby woods for mushrooms, beetles or lizards. Occasionally, you'd even find a more unusual item. Like a sword or shield just laying in the grass.

You'd try not to think of how it got there.

You gathered resources for a living, and the shop owners came to know you as the Apple Merchant. It was sweet actually, and it seemed to endear you to some of the residents.

Perhaps they appreciated that you were trying to make a life for yourself among them, not just begging for handouts. Or maybe it was pity for the foreign human who didn't know hyrulian common well. Hard to tell.

When winter came that first year, is when you realized the full breath of your situational advantage.

One year. That's all it took. One year to become one of the wealthiest people in the village.

And they didn't even realize it.

A bundle of carrots purchased cheaply during the height of harvest season sold for five times that amount in the winter. A bundle of wheat, nearly seven. And meat was something else entirely. Rare enough during the warm season, it became worth its weight in gold the moment winter set in and creatures ventured to warmer regions.

Winter was a literal Godsent.

And the next winter was even more profitable. Now armed with the foresight of experience, you planned your life around it. Bought overflow harvest in bulk, bought out traveling merchant's wares without a second glance.

You prepared, and you thrived. Your bare threat clothes became wool, your worn shoes became comfortable soft leather. You bought a horse, then three, a wagon. Hired guard detail.

Became a merchant. The Apple Merchant; written in clear hyrulian script across your wagon.

By the third year, you were in Lurelin, Kakariko, and every stable and small settlement in the southern reaches of Hyrule. Damn near made it to Gerudo too, before the logistics of such a trip set you back.

You made it though, on your forth year. Reaped the benefits of being a well stocked merchant in an inhospitable place like Gerudo desert. Never made it to Gerudo town though, but the outlier villages more than made up for that.

Life was good. It was profitable. You could even say you were happy.

Then it happened in the early spring of the fifth year. The Shiekah towers rose.

It was nothing that should have concerned you. Link had finally awoken from his 100 year slumber as he was meant to, and his story would continue on without you. Your paths would probably never cross. You were just one of the thousand's of merchants making a living all across Hyrule.

You were nobody in the grand scheme of things. You were someone completely removed from the big picture.

Until you weren't.

And it started with a missing apple.

---

Now I return to the shadows to rest.

[imyourbratzdoll]

𝒃𝒂𝒏𝒂𝒏𝒂 𝒄𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒎𝒑𝒊𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒅𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒏𝒕 𝒇𝒂𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓

🍓the strawberry shack masterlist🍓

summary - john has been stressed while on the road, hiding from the supernatural wasn't the easiest job, but thankfully a certain sign caught his eye.

warning - smut, being used, gloryhole, swearing, creampie.

18+ only please, the gif and headers I use aren't mine.

Warnings and Reminders - Please do not plagiarise, copy, repost/republish, adapt, or translate any of my work on any social media platforms, apps, or third-party sites. The only platforms I post my work on are: Tumblr and Wattpad. I do not own any character of any franchise (Marvel etc.) All my works are fiction and may be dark or triggering content: READ ALL WARNINGS BEFORE PROCEEDING.

John had been on the road for a long time now and he was in some desperate need of release. At first, he thought he needed it through a hunt, but after killing a nest of vampires, he could still feel that pent up frustration. It was gnawing at him, he had fucked his fist, not wanting to bother with finding a woman and still it didn’t work. Not until he finally came across a flashing sign that read ‘The Strawberry Shack’, something pulling him towards it. 

He parks his car, turning it off before he gets out, checking his surroundings before he enters the building. John checks for anything weird or supernatural as he walks up to the front desk. “Hiya sugar. What can I do you for?”

He stares for a while, “I heard this is the place for release?” The woman nods.

“What kinda release you looking for? We got oral or…” Before she can finish her sentence, John slams his money down. Something coming over him as he hears this.

“The second option.” She directs him to which door he needs to go through and with determination, John storms toward that area. Making his way through the door and surveying the room before he sets his sights on you and makes his way over. He feels his pants tighten as his cock strains against them, groaning, John quickly unzips his jeans and takes out his throbbing member. “Hey, sweetheart. I’m just going to use you for a bit if that’s okay.” 

You whimper, feeling your cunt throb from his voice and his words. “Uh huh, use me please.” 

The moment those words slip from your lips, John lines himself up against you. Pushing in slowly with a groan, feeling your tight walls squeeze around him. “Fuck, sweetheart. You feel amazing.” The sound of slapping fills the room as John begins to pound into you, gripping your hips as he uses your body as promised. Your juices leak from your tight hole, coating his cock and your thighs. “That’s my good girl.”

You moan, gripping the soft bench underneath you, you bury your face into the pillow, practically drooling as John continues to fuck you, pounding into your g-spot like there’s no tomorrow. Your head flies back as your arse stings, John’s hand moves away after slapping your cheeks and watching your arse ripple.

“Don’t hide those pretty sounds, sweetheart. I wanna hear you.” His hands grip your hips again, going harder and faster if that’s even possible. You moan freely and loudly, not being able to see the smirk on the man’s face. “Good girl, such pretty sounds. Are they all for me?” He grunts, slowing his thrusts as he watches his cock slide in and out of you, white coating his base. 

“Yes, yes! All for you!” John groans, hips snapping as he slams his cock deep inside of you, fucking you until he feels his balls tighten and his tip twitch. Your walls squeeze him as hot cum spurts out of his thick tip, coating your walls. You follow suit, juices squirting out, covering him. “Ahh!” 

John gently pulls out, watching his cum leak out of you, he tucks his softened cock back into his jeans and zips himself up. The tension has finally left his body and he doesn’t feel so frustrated anymore. “Thanks for that, sweetheart. Maybe I’ll see you next time.” He gives your arse a light tap before leaving, keeping the mental image of his cum leaking out in his head as he heads back to his car and drives off. 

thank you for reading!

feedback and reblogs are greatly appreciated.

[toa-archive]

Usually whenever any new artwork from Trollhunters specifically turns up, it's someone's blog or a non-english website. To date that's been a Chinese fan wiki, a Mexican blog, an Italian Disney site and a Brazillian website. These you can't really look for deliberately, you trip over them hopefully before any decay or removal sets in. The other sort which is more common for the entire franchise is artwork will sneak onto existing portfolios which has happened a lot in regards to one particular artist. Those tend to be weekly checks as it happens so frequently you want to grab them before they vanish back into the void.

This next to never happens on artstation particularly post their decisions regarding AI and tearing down any pro Ukraine artwork. Rustam Hasanov however at some unknown point did it anyway and this is just one of the surprises that came with it.

Source

What makes this even more interesting is that this is not the first evidence of Claire having Morgana like colours for her armour. Yingjue Linda Chen posted these which suggests the idea stuck around before settling on her now signature purple.

Source Tumblr for tumblr reasons is breaking the direct link to the image, it's on the top row.

Bar the body of the purple armour (The head is the 2D artwork with the helmet added), none of these are in the artbook. Enjoy and run riot!

[weirdmarioenemies]

Name: Fish Bone

Debut: Super Mario World

Fish Bones are—hey! We’ve already talked about you, and very recently at that! We love you, Fish Bone, but it’s time to stop hogging the spotlight!

Name: Fishbone

Debut: Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards

There we go!

It’s that funky fresh time of year where all the strange Mario creatures retract into their holes to make way for other, stranger beasts, and boy is Fishbone strange!

Fishbones are the reanimated skeletons of dead fish, and golly, what a great skeleton to have! Just three boomerang-shaped bones and two hollow eye sockets. No spine, no discernable jaws of any kind, just pure, abject salminimalism! I bet you wouldn’t even know these were bones if I didn’t tell you, and yet they still manage to evoke a fish skeleton so well!

But whose skeletons ARE they? While we don’t have any direct confirmation, it feels pretty likely to me that we have the skeletons of dear old Floppers on our hands! There’s a common fish enemy in most Kirby games called Blippers, but Blippers are entirely absent from Kirby 64, and Floppers are a lot thinner and pointier than them anyhow!

But even with that in mind…wow! This still only barely looks like it could be in a Flopper. Just a wonderfully abstract skeletal structure all around. And it only gets weirder from here!

There’s a reason for the peculiar shape of Fishbone’s head! Rather than hop or jump around like most water-based enemies, they shoot their skulls at Kirby for damage! (Don’t worry, it grows back!) Why, you may ask? Well, they provide the Cutter ability, which in Kirby 64 looks like this!:

Most underwater enemies in Kirby don’t give abilities, since Kirby typically can’t inhale while in water (understandable!). He can do this in Kirby 64, though! With them shooting their heads to attack and being fairly common, this makes Fishbones the most Cutterest enemy in the whole game, even more Cuttery than Sir Kibble himself!

They are, in fact, SO Cuttery that Miracle Matter’s embodiment of said ability looks a lot like Fishbones!

They STILL couldn’t get enough of Fishbone, though! If you inhale and carry it over your head, you can shoot its skulls yourself! Due to the way Cutter works, this is actually MORE ideal to use when you’re underwater, since using the ability makes Kirby sink!

Sadly, they reverted how Cutter works after this, and with Kirby going right back to spitting bubbles underwater, Fishbones didn’t stand a chance ): Despite its awesome design, it just joined the foray of thousands of other Kirby 64 enemies to never see the light of day again.

But who knows? Maybe it will appear in a future game, just like beloved Plugg, and grant the Cutter ability once more! After all, the Kirby franchise has finally started begrudgingly acknowledging that Kirby 64 did, in fact, exist.

And I think that any enemy that can say they could be combined with Ghost Knight to inexplicably let Kirby create a giant toothy maw out of his arms, deserves a second chance. :)

Before you ask, no, there’s no way Fishbones could come from the only OTHER bony fish in Kirby 64, Blowfish, either. As for why, let’s take a gander at the scrapped enemy Blowfishbone herself!

“Oouuughh…I am–I’m so, so many bones…ooohgghhgh…”

Thank you, Blowfishbone.

(All gifs taken from the Strategy Wiki!)

[thekingofwinterblog]

Why Maka and Crona works so well together

Probably my favorite part about any series is relationships between characters, what dynamics they have, how shared history drastically affects how they act together, and one of the reasons i love shonen so much, is how great the genre is at taking a relationship of mutual enemies, and flipping it on its head through two very disconnected souls suddenly developing a shared understanding, and a new and powerful bond blossoming from that.

Naruto and Gaara, Luffy and... Everyone, Izuku and Todoroki, heck series like Hajime no Ippo pretty much runs on this kinda dynamic. Even Fairy Tail, which didnt exactly start off great, and only got worse, managed to squeeze out one absolutely excellent character using this dynamic in the form of Gajeel and his relationship with the rest of the fairy tail crew.

In Soul Eater, this method of storytelling is used, speciffically to create the single best relationship between characters that the franchise ever made, in the form of Maka and her rival turned bestie Crona.

I'll leave a full analysis of why the actual fight that formed this relationhip was the series highlight for another day, as what i wanna focus on here is analysing what it is that makes this relationship so great post Crona's heelturn.

What makes Maka and Crona's relationship such a special thing, both in universe and from a storytelling perspective, is that both of them compliment the other perfectly, and helps them to grow... But it's not really spelled out the way that a less talented series might do.

Now with Crona, the way Maka helps in development and growth for the demon swordmaster is pretty obvious.

Timid, shy, afraid, and would much rather stay inside a dark safe, dark shell. That is how Crona starts the series, and doesnt exactly lose these qualities once Medusa's direct influence is lifted.

But that is not what Crona actually wants.

What Crona wants is to connect with people, but is way too terrified to try, as well as risking failing while doing so.

Crona needs someone who is willing to prod and poke, but also to show gentleness while doing so.

What makes their relationship hit so hard from day 1 is how Maka understands Crona completely, and is willing, and wants to give Crona the help and support to break the hold of Medusa. But not only that, Maka WANTS to be around Crona, valuing their relationahip enough that she is willing to stand up to Shinigami to defend Crona if necessary.

Maka thusly serves as Crona's anchorpoint, the center of all character growth and developments. She brings out all the best qualities out of Crona.

But the thing is that this goes both ways, because while the way Maka brings Crona out of the dark shell and into the Light, Crona does the exact same, just in a more subtle manner.

Maka at the start of the series, is a girl that is absolutely defined by her flaws, and all of those flaws are rooted in, not too dissimilar from Crona, fear.

"I wish all of you would just die!"

The total breakdown of her parents relationship, personally witnessing her father's many affairs, and not at all having come to terms with her mother abandoning her, has left Maka with a fear of many, many things.

At the start of the series, that fear manifests itself as being terrified at Soul abandoning her, her being completely unable to find it in herself to try to make up with her father, and her inability to confront the fact her mother abandoned her.

All of it comes together and it brings out all of her worst qualities.

Her hyper agressiveness, her short temper, her complete and total inability of giving her partner and friend soul the benefit of the doubt, and so on.

It also manifests itself in several moments where Maka's fear of danger hamstrings her, like when the sheer power of Stein's soul brings her to her knees, or when her hesitation to using Soul as a weapon(out of fear that he would get hurt) during her first fight with Crona ended up with him having to block an attack in human form, which drastically inreased the actual damage he would have taken as opposed to if she had just blocked the standard way.

Even when Soul was gravely injured, this fear also manifested itself as her being completely unable to really show how devastated she was over how badly he was hurt on her behalf before she was alone with the unconcious Soul.

She was afraid of her father, of stein, of anyone else seeing just how hard things could hit her.

This is not to say that Soul and Maka had an absolute trainwreck of a relationship at the beginning of the series, quite on the contrary.

They have a relatively functioning relationship, where they act as nagging siblings, or a bickering old married couple, but there is always that ugly side of their relationship hiding just under the surface, all fueled by Maka's flaws and fears.

But there is also the opposite, moments where the two strengthen each other, or take the bullet for the other if need be.

But what their relationship does not have, is Soul helping Maka truly grow past her flaws.

Maka at the start of the series and the person she was when she faced Crona a second time was a braver soul than she was in episode 1, but she had not grown past her flaws, merely become hardened, strengthened by expiriences.

Her truly changing from the girl dealing with the aftermath of her parents divorce, into the young woman that would defeat Asura, began in that basement surrounded by pillars.

After their shared experience of connecting to the other's souls, and understanding who Crona was deep down, Maka does something she hasn't truly been able to do since her parents divorce.

She shows genuine, honest compassion and kindness withouth the fear of rejection.

Compassion, understanding, and giving someone the benefit of the doubt.

It all begins here.

This is the point where Maka really begins healing from her parents divorce, where she is finally able to truly bare her heart to another person again withouth the nagging feeling in the back of her mind that she is setting herself up for failure, that was always the big problem with her and Soul's relationship.

Crona is not the only source of Maka's development in the latter half of the series, but it all began here, and Crona keeps bringing out all of Maka's best qualities just by being close to her.

Maka brings out Crona's kidness, bravery, and a deep, deep wish to connect with everyone else, while Crona in turn brings out Maka's compassionate side, her kidness, her understanding side, all of which she had very deliberately buried at the beginning of the series.

And it all culminates in the sand pit, where Maka discovers that her faith in Crona ultimately was misplaced, and she got backstabbed, just as she always feared... And rather than fly off the handle, she reacts with a display of tough love... That is rooted in understanding, and compassion.

She forgives Crona, because she understands. She knows Crona, and she knows just how deep down the scars Medusa gave bites, and so she reacts with understanding, she gives Crona the benefit of the doubt, and her support, a far, far cry from the impulsive and angry girl who screamed that All men should just die in epsiode 1 after feeling hurt by Soul's seeming betrayal.

And when she thinks Crona is about to die, the girl who was once absolutely terrified of showing anyone around her how she felt when she tought Soul might be about to die in a similar situation, and kept it all in, no longer does so, because such display of stoicism to keep face, rather than show the people you care abouy you actually love them, wasn't really worth much to begin with.

Maka Grows a lot over the course of Soul Eater, but the development that really, truly matters, is all rooted in her relationship to Crona.

Understanding, forgiveness, the bravery to take the moral high ground, to show how you truly feel rather than keep up a facade that isnt really you... To happily take the risk of being hurt by opening your heart because you know the warmth and joy that only comes by opening yourself to another person... It's a side of her that only Crona was able to bring out, the same way that only Maka was able to bring out the best aspects of Crona.

And that, is why they have the best relationship in Soul Eater.

[giveamadeuschohisownmovie]

Looking back at the older Saw movies, I’m wondering now if the series would have a better reputation if it had been treated more like an anthology. Because the two best movies in the franchise (1 and X) are the ones that could stand on their own, while the lower-tier ones are the ones that deal with the convoluted timeline.

I’m thinking something along the lines of Scream in which it’s the “same” villain, Jigsaw, but with different people in the role. There was a different Ghostface in every Scream movie, which worked for that franchise. Maybe Saw could’ve done it like that.

In fact, just off the top of my head, here’s how Saw could’ve looked as a semi-anthology:

Saw 1

* It’s the same

Saw 2

* It’s mostly the same, but John Kramer has to die at the end of it (he probably dies from Eric Matthews’ beatings). Saw 2 ends conclusively, as if this was the end of the franchise.

Saw 3

* Takes place two years later.

* Jeff and Lynn Denlon are the subjects.

* The story is centered around a copycat Jigsaw, who is revealed to be Amanda Young. Amanda secretly became John’s apprentice and has now taken his place.

* Amanda escapes at the end.

Saw 4

* Takes place simultaneously as 3.

* Daniel Rigg is the subject.

* Here, it’s revealed that Amanda was working with someone, meaning there were 2 copycat Jigsaws the whole time. The ending reveals that the 2nd copycat is Mark Hoffman, one of the lead detectives.

* Mark gets away and picks up Amanda, who has just left the game from the previous movie.

(NOTE: I want to emphasize that even though this takes place at the same time as 3, this movie is meant to be seen as a standalone. You don’t have to watch 3 to understand 4 is what I mean)

Saw 5

* Takes place a few weeks later, brings together the events of 3 and 4.

* Amanda and Hoffman put together a new game (the five-become-one teamwork trap) while trying to avoid the police.

* The movie ends with Hoffman betraying Amanda and shooting her dead, only for him to fall for one of Amanda’s booby traps (the closing walls trap that killed Strahm). So, 5 ends with Hoffman getting smushed as Amanda bleeds to death.

Saw 6

* Takes place a few years after 4 and 5.

* Detective Zeke Banks is the subject.

* A new Jigsaw copycat - also known as the Spiral Killer, to distinguish them from the other Jigsaws - pops up. The ending reveals that the new Jigsaw/Spiral is William Schenk, one of the detectives working the case.

* Schenk gets away with his crimes, setting up the 7th movie.

Saw 7

* A direct continuation of the 6th movie.

* William Easton is the subject, but has more of an involvement with Jigsaw/Schenk.

* Schenk dies at the end of it, but not before taking Easton down with him.

Saw 8

* Takes place a year after 6 and 7.

* The subjects are Bobby Dagen, his wife Jill Tuck-Dagen, and their family and friends.

* First twist: Just like the original series, Jill is revealed to be John’s ex-wife.

* Second twist: This Jigsaw is revealed to be Melissa Sing and that the reason why she’s testing Bobby, Jill, their family and their friends is vengeance for her husband’s death (Detective Steven Sing).

* Bobby and Jill survive while Melissa is arrested at the end.

Saw 9

* At least takes place several years after the 1st movie. The timeline isn’t as important for this one.

* Revealed that Dr. Gordon from the first movie did survive since John saved his life. Instead of asking him to become his apprentice, John allows him to return to his life. However, his life since surviving the bathroom trap has been horrible, leading him down a downward spiral.

* Main story: When Gordon learns his colleagues have been involved in a scam targeting the terminally ill, disgusted by their actions, he decides to put them through a series of brutal tests.

* Basically, in this alternate timeline, Gordon became a Jigsaw copycat through his own volition rather than John recruiting him.

* Gordon escapes at the end and decides to retire from the Jigsaw role.

Saw 10

* Takes place a few weeks after the 9th movie.

* Focuses on a manhunt for a Jigsaw copycat (assumed to be Gordon). It’s only at the end that we learn Gordon was in an entirely different state during the events of this movie.

* The new Jigsaw is revealed to be Logan Nelson, the coroner who appeared earlier in the movie. Since Melissa and Gordon were one-off Jigsaws, Logan is set up to be the new main Jigsaw.

/

/

/

You can read the revised, semi-anthology timeline like this:

The John Kramer arc is 1 and 2

The Amanda and Hoffman arc is 3, 4, and 5

The Spiral Killer arc is 6 and 7

8 and 9 are standalone movies

10 is the beginning of the Logan Nelson arc

Even though the movies do lead into each other, the arcs are meant to stand on their own and the timeline is much less convoluted. Also, not everything ties back to John, which I feel would give the franchise more creative freedom.

[chaotic-tired-fox]

Resident Evil obscure facts PART 3

Since y’all like these so much

(Probably the last part since I really scraped the bottom of my brain here)

Part 1 Part 2

☠️ Hunk telling Nighthawk to go and leave him during RE2 4th Survivor is the first time we see him respond with any emotion or concern for anyone else other than his mission.

☠️ Nikolai and Sergei Vladimir were friends and fought together in the soviet war.

☠️ Sergei Vladimir and Ozwell E Spencer were also old friends which is how Sergei came to rule over the UBCS in the first place. He was completely loyal to Spencer.

☠️ Chris bulking up between Code Veronica and RE5 was a direct response to Wesker being able to beat him so easily. He wanted to get stronger despite Wesker possessing superhuman strength.

☠️ Claire and Leon have a really shaky relationship thanks to Leon’s loyalty to the US Government. He doesn’t deviate from this until RE6 when he decides to defend Helena Harper and sympathises with her actions.

☠️ The knife Leon carries in the RE4 remake is the same knife Marvin gives him in the RE2 remake

☠️ Jake Muller said he was trained by an unnamed mercenary, some speculate this could have been Hunk as he became a mercenary after the Umbrella trials in 2003

☠️ The metal band Ice Nine Kills made a song based on the Resident Evil franchise called ‘Rainy Day’ (and its very good I recommend)

☠️ For Hunk to snap necks the way he does would require a hell of a lot of strength

☠️ Umbrella Corps (which is canon) set after Resident Evil 5 has voice lines from Wesker in it which implies he may be still alive.

Quote: “The circumstances of my death were greatly exaggerated.”

☠️ In Resident Evil 4 The Merchant’s eyes are blue but glow yellow in the dark/at night. In the Remake he doesn’t do this.

☠️ Luis Sera was Catholic which was the original religion of the village before Saddler moved in.

☠️ In Operation Raccoon City Nikolai has a scar on the side of his face but in the Resident Evil 3 Remake he doesn’t

☠️ Chris’s height was changed from 5’11” to 6’2” in later games

☠️ In Resident Evil 7, Ethan loses his left hand, in RE8 he loses his right.

☠️ ‘Master of Unlocking’ is perhaps the most well known ongoing Resident Evil reference not only in the series but many other games as well including most recently as an achievement in the game ‘Killer Frequency.’ You’ll find it most commonly as the name of trophies.

☠️ In Resident Evil 3 Remake RPD, Carlos makes a quote about cameras being used to kill monsters which is a reference to the Fatal Frame series.

☠️ Also in the RE3 Remake, we never truly find out who Nikolai’s client was and Jill never does the ‘detective work’ on it either. It’s theorised that it was Sergei Vladimir as he is the only person Nikolai had any kind of contact and relationship with.

☠️ There is an unofficial Resident Evil 4 inspired puzzle game on the Switch called Safe Room where you organise items into differently shaped grid boxes. Perfect for those that enjoy the satisfaction of good inventory management.

☠️ Crimson head zombies are a mutated variant of regular T-Virus zombies that can happen sometimes if you ‘kill’ them. But they are actually the midway point between a regular zombie and a Licker. (Note the sharp claws)

☠️ Rebecca’s coffee order is an iced caramel macchiato

☠️ Extra fact: I write Hunk related short stories on AO3! I’d love if you checked em out! The link to my fics is HERE

Death Island spoilers below!

☠️ In Death Island, Chris and Leon have matching watches

☠️ As of Death Island, all five of the main characters have been infected with something and cured.

☠️ Chris mentioning Piers in Death Island is the first we’ve heard of him since RE6 (and it hurtttt)

☠️ It’s implied that Chris finding Leon in Vendetta and bringing him back saved his life. We see his mood has greatly improved since then

☠️ We don’t actually have an answer for when Leon and Jill first met but it could have been around the same time he met Chris in 2010

☠️ Once again the trend of Leon crashing every vehicle he touches continues!

[iwanthermidnightz]

This was a very good article! I loved hearing Kristen’s (and Jodie Fosters) perspective as a queer trailblazer. Inserting some snippets below 🤍

To get to this point, Stewart’s weathered more than a decade of unrelenting media scrutiny, first about her straight relationships, then about her gay ones, as she figured out her own identity. She leveraged her global stardom from the “Twilight” franchise not to become a superhero or a lifestyle guru, but to fuel an astonishing run of acclaimed independent films, including “Clouds of Sils Maria,” “Still Alice,” “Certain Women,” “Personal Shopper” and the Princess Diana drama “Spencer,” for which she earned an Oscar nomination.

“Whenever I hear that she’s doing something new, I’m so curious to see what it is, because it’s going to be a movie that hasn’t been made before,” says Clea DuVall, who directed Stewart in one of her only Hollywood films during this period, Hulu’s 2020 release “Happiest Season,” the first lesbian Christmas rom-com backed by a major studio. “She really is so herself. And I think that’s why so many people respond to her the way they do — because she is so authentic.”

By the time Stewart stepped on the stage of “Saturday Night Live” in February 2017, she’d spent the previous two years trying to convince the press that it was OK to write about her relationships with women, rather than resort to the vexing practice of referring to her girlfriend as her “gal pal.”

“It wasn’t even like I was hiding,” she says. “I was so openly out with my girlfriend for years at that point. I’m like, ‘I’m a pretty knowable person.’”

But even with that posture, the media’s “gal pal” dog whistle triggered a deeper, more painful history of intrusive curiosity about Stewart’s sexual identity. “For so long, I was like, ‘Why are you trying to skewer me? Why are you trying to ruin my life? I’m a kid, and I don’t really know myself well enough yet,’” she says. “The idea of people going, ‘I knew that you were a little queer kid forever.’ I’m like, ‘Oh, yeah? Well, you should honestly have seen me fuck my first boyfriend.’”

It’s worth dwelling on this point: For almost the entire history of Hollywood, queer actors dreaded the public discovering who they really were, and that fear kept the closet door firmly closed. “Because I was gay, I really retreated,” says DuVall, who came out publicly in 2016. “Even doing a teeny tiny movie like [the ’90s lesbian cult favorite] ‘But I’m a Cheerleader,’ people immediately were like, ‘She’s gay, how can we out her?’ I wanted to stay small.”

Stewart, though, went big, with a monologue on “SNL” about how President Donald Trump, in 2012, obsessively tweeted about her relationship with Pattinson. “Donald, if you didn’t like me then, you’re really probably not going to like me now, because I’m hosting ‘SNL’ — and I’m, like, so gay, dude,” she said to wild cheers from the audience.

“It was cool to frame it in a funny context because it could say everything without having to sit down and do an interview,” Stewart says before running through the kind of questions queer actors have had to consider before coming out publicly: “‘So what platform is that going to be on? And who’s going to make money on that? And who’s going to be the person that broke it?’ I broke it, alone.”

A few days later, I mention Stewart’s “SNL” monologue to Foster over the phone, and she lets out a big laugh. “I never knew that,” she says. “What a wonderful, funny, wry, modern way to be honest to the world. That’s just awesome.”

As Stewart talks about her “SNL” experience, I think about how no stars of her age and stature ever came out when I was growing up as a gay kid in the 1980s and ’90s. So to have her professional trajectory not skip a beat feels like real progress.

When I tell her as much, she takes the conversation in an unexpected direction. “Because I’m an actor, I want people to like me, and I want certain parts,” she says. “I have lots of different experiences that shape who I am that are very, very far from binary. But I did get good at the heteronormative quality. I play that role well. It comes from a somewhat real place — it’s not fake. But it’s fucked up that if I was gayer, it wouldn’t be the case.”

I try to clarify what she means: “So your career maybe would have suffered after coming out had you not affected a performative femininity …”

“… that I know works to my advantage,” she admits, nodding. “That’s why I’m fucking stoked about ‘Love Lies Bleeding.’”

Stewart didn’t let that scandal, as intense as it was in the moment, stifle her. Instead, she grew to fully embrace her queerness in her public life — like bringing her girlfriend, screenwriter Dylan Meyer, to the Oscars in 2022. “It’s not that I wasn’t scared,” Stewart says. “It was just that there was no other way to live.”

She’s even started to recognize that the most ostensibly heterosexual thing she’s done, “Twilight,” has its own queer sparkle. “I can only see it now,” she says. “I don’t think it necessarily started off that way, but I also think that the fact that I was there at all, it was percolating. It’s such a gay movie. I mean, Jesus Christ, Taylor [Lautner] and Rob and me, and it’s so hidden and not OK. I mean, a Mormon woman wrote this book. It’s all about oppression, about wanting what’s going to destroy you. That’s a very Gothic, gay inclination that I love.”

I ask Stewart if she understands how much her decision to come out has also made her a role model for LGBTQ people. She cackles. “Oh, you have no idea,” she says. “Every single woman that I’ve ever met in my whole life who ever kissed a girl in college is like, ‘Yeah, I mean, me too.’ I’m constantly joking with my girlfriend. I’ll be sitting there and be like” — she whispers — “‘She’s gay too. Everyone’s gay.’”

It can be easy to forget just how rare this still is, a giant movie star living such an openly queer life. “It feels like a generational thing, where I’m watching somebody make the leaps that I didn’t think I could ever do,” Foster says.

After fiercely guarding her privacy for decades, Foster came out publicly at the 2013 Golden Globes, and has just now played her first explicitly gay character in the 2023 biopic “Nyad.” Talking about Stewart has put Foster in a reflective mood. As our call is coming to an end, she offers this unprompted insight: “I get a lot of questions about who I was and what I represented in the industry, and was I — I don’t know …” She exhales. “Was I helpful in terms of representation? I’m sure there’s a 12- or 13- or 14-year-old when I was making movies as a young person who said that I had something to offer to them in their life as a queer person. I had to do it my way. I had pioneers to help the way, who I’m grateful for. And now people can be grateful for Kristen for being the pioneer. I’m just — I’m grateful to her.”

This sense of communion with the wider LGBTQ tribe is why Stewart has dedicated herself to embracing the fullness of who she is as a bro-y, butch-y queer woman in her work as an actor and, come hell or high water, a director.

“I was like, ‘I would like to be on that team because we need each other,’” Stewart says. “I didn’t want to be left out anymore. It was this whole world that I didn’t realize I could explore.”

[burst-of-iridescent]

Hi! I love all your posts regarding atla and deep diving into Zuko and Katara's relationship-those analysis's are *chief's kiss* perfect

Anywho, I hope you don't mind me asking, but I'm guessing you heard about Bryke wanting to expand the atla universe, and will be creating a new movies, one of which, with the Gaang as adults, but as far as I know won't have any of the returning head writers like Aaron Ehasz..

so my question is: do you think there is any hope for these movies? Because to me I feel like it might just be a fully animated comic (we all know how those turned out) & just be 2 hrs of Katara and Aang saying "Sweetie" back an forth. Yes I'm still saltly

frankly? no.

and that's not even me saying it as a salty zutara shipper who doesn't want to see kat.aang as an established relationship. i doubt how good these movies are going to be because bry.ke have little-to-no understanding of their characters, especially katara and zuko, and at least since atla, haven't shown the self-awareness to hire a writer's team that can compensate for their shortcomings. i've said it before and i'll say it again: they have great, creative ideas and an excellent eye for stunning visuals and an immersive world. but when it comes to the nuances of characterization and story-building, they cannot do it on their own. lok proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt.

but more than bry.ke, these movies are also emblematic of a larger problem that i see in multiple franchises: the subordination of creative, meaningful storytelling in service to shameless nostalgia cash-grabbing. ask yourself, do we really need a story about the adult gaang? most of the main plot threads that they could've expanded on from atla have already been (mostly badly) answered in the comics: what happened to ursa, azula's potential redemption, decolonisation, industrialisation vs tradition, the founding of a new air nomad legacy, zuko's struggles as fire lord. any new story would either have to retcon previously established "canon" or put a new spin on old themes. the latter of which i severely doubt bry.ke's capability to pull off, particularly if any level of nuance is required.

atla is slowly but surely heading in the direction of star wars/harry potter/the mcu in producing new material just for the sake of making money instead of truly adding something impactful to the canon. the fact that absolutely no new atla material since the show itself has ever managed to live up to the original is proof that the franchise has no idea what it's doing.

and before someone comes at me to say that it's impossible to ever live up to the original - just take a look at the hunger games revival happening right now. the ballad of songbirds and snakes has been received so well because it isn't just a shameless cash-grab. it's a valuable contribution to the series that expands on the universe and themes of the original trilogy, giving more depth and nuance to the original books instead of detracting from them. because collins adds to the canon only when she has something meaningful to say, and for a franchise that she could have milked to absolute filth, that restraint reflects not only her integrity as a creator, but the value she places on the stories that she tells - which in turn makes her readers value and respect them as well.

and that's a lesson that i think every single storyteller should take to heart. if you want to be respected as a writer, you have to respect your characters and your stories first. because if you, the creator, don't... why should anyone else?

[justpoliteconversations]

Apple Merchant [BOTW!Link x Isekai!Reader] (Part 6)

Plans are being made. And Link is facing his demons as well as he can.

Still taking time to inch my way back to full speed. Things are getting better though and I can feel my fingers itching to write more and more. Still riding the joy of pure indulgence with a feel good favorite. I can never stop myself from rambling in this one.

Part 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6

Masterlist

TW: Choosing not to display warnings. Read at your own discretion.

Disclaimer: Don't own The Legend of Zelda franchise.

---

Finally back in Hateno after several weeks of long, uncomfortable (sand infested. lizalfos infested) travel along the coast (doing your standard business. gathering what supplies you could for Link), and you were ready to just slip into bed for the rest of your life. Maybe even retire early. Ensure you never have to see another damned lizalfos for as long as you live (you won't, but the thought is there).

But it was simply not to be. You'd barely crossed the gates into Hateno proper and already you were planning (reluctantly) an even longer trip into territories you'd never (well. not never. but not for long) thought to venture to. And honestly, you weren't looking forward to it.

And by the look on Skim's and Adino's faces, neither were they.

Not even a day after returning to your home village you'd broken the news to your guards that you were planning a trip towards Goron territory. Though, if you were lucky and utilized your resources wisely, you might never even have to set foot in that brimstone hellscape of a volcano (you hoped).

You'd thought once (some years ago), that maybe it would be a place you should visit. The Gorons were known to be friendly to travelers. The paths were littered with unclaimed mineral and gemstone deposits. And the infrastructure for travel was there thanks to the thriving tourism industry in the area.

It'd seemed like a wonderful idea when you'd started planning such a venture in your early days of merchanting. Back when you were still riding high from making your first small fortune and were still relatively unaware of the world at large. Of its challenges. Of its dangers.

That was until you started gathering information on the hazards in the area, and your opinion of the region took an immediate and drastic turn.

The high death rates associated with heatstroke, dehydration and smoke inhalation were concerning enough. But learning that the volcano occasionally erupted (killing dozens, even hundreds of travelers when it did), and was infested with talus' (over 40 confirmed sightings. nearly 20 unconfirmed). It was enough to put you off.

Skims and Adino knew this. You'd made it a point to explain to them why you wouldn't be heading that direction ever (but apparently not ever, because here you were. planning). No matter how much money could be made harvesting minerals or trading with the locals.

Not the produce trade though, despite what one would think coming from a land known for its lava lakes and frequent wildfires.

The volcanic soil was actually an excellent source of fertilizer (which you wanted. in bulk. as much as you could shove in your mindslate). Making the region around the volcano one of the more prosperous lands for growing crops and herbs. Even when compared to the more central settlements of Hyrule, right on the bread-belt of the land (if you were willing to risk the guardians, that is).

It was a region a farmer (and merchant) could make a fortune, if they were lucky enough to hit brown gold. And If one was willing to take staggering losses everytime the volcano blew its top. And there would be losses. There always was when mother nature got involved with the lives of mortals.

No. You had been eager to get into the fish and cloth (and sand) trade. So close to the volcano, magma deposits were unusually close to the surface in the surrounding lands. And while this created the most beautiful hotspring (entire lakes worth) tourist attractions, it also limited the amount of life-sustaining (and fish-sustaining) water sources in the area. Which, in turn, limited the number of local fisheries and livestock flocks the land could sustain.

The constant presence of ash and volcanic runoff also poisoned much of the water sources in the immediate areas around the mountian. Further adding to the lack of available water sources for fish and livestock (and people too, for that matter. Hence, the sand. A natural filtering agent for locals in the area) to live off of.

So. Fish and cloth (and sand). Those had been your plan a couple years ago. Until the reality of the territory's dangers made you reconsider. And later, dismiss the idea all together.

Knowing this, of course Skims questioned your sudden interest in the northeastern part of Hyrule. A territory you had said yourself was not worth the risk of death and revenue loss to expand your business ventures into.

You had been honest with them, of course (you were always honest with your most trusted guardsmen. when confronted, at least). Though not necessarily forthcoming with the details. Which, frankly, was par for the course as far as your more private dealings were concerned.

"I'm looking to acquire localized goods for an important client." You offered in way of an explanation, letting the things you hadn't said speak volumes. And, of course, Skims merely nodded. Still looking doubtful, but willing to accept your reasoning as your own without contest.

That was another thing you liked about him, other then his fierce loyalty and care. Easy going at the best of times, accepting at the worst. You never had to worry too much about Skims poking holes in your reasonings or explanations. You just needed to pay him, and he was willing to turn a blind eye to your eccentricities.

Adino, on the other hand.

"It's a waste of damned time no matter how important this so-called client of yours is. Just use the stable system instead of draggin' us along to that Goddess forsaken hellhole." Adino snapped, irritable still so soon after the previous trip (the bite a lizalfos nearly took out of his rear near Highland Stable not having helped his already sour attitude). Narrowing his eyes at you with suspicion.

Which was fair, honestly. In any other situation, letting the stable system deliver your desired product would have been the most efficient (and cheapest) way for such a limited and precise order. What would take several months of travel for a merchant (yourself included), the system could get delivered several weeks earlier. Maybe the same amount of time, or slightly longer than originally calculated, if the weather turned unfavorable or a blood moon cluttered up previously clear roads with monsters.

Without knowledge of your mindslate or the connection you have with Link (the previously mentioned client), it does sound like a bullshit reason to undertake such a dangerous journey out of the blue. Especially when there are safer and more cost efficient methods to achieve the same results (sort of). But the fact of the matter is that the system would not be quick enough to deliver your order before Link begun his journey towards Death Mountain.

(And it would be soon. Already there were rumors of the Zora Domain's endless rains easing at the boarders.)

Tally up the timeables, and getting the merchandise yourself was the only feasible way to get ahold of what you needed when you needed it. Where the stable system would require a two way trip to acquire your goods, you needed only one way to get it yourself (and add the slate's instant delivery to Link, and you're set). It was the only way to guarantee you'd meet the rapidly approaching deadline.

Also, you didn't trust the stable system to be as discerning as yourself when choosing suitable product. While you didn't doubt they would put forth their best efforts, you acknowledged that a delivery guild probably had limited knowledge of advanced spell craft and their associated counterfeits.

You couldn't afford to make any mistakes when it was The Hero of Hyrule's life you were working to secure.

Only the very best would do for Link, after all. Even if you had to put in the footwork to ensure it.

You smiled tiredly at Adino, noting how his thin brows were pulled into a deep frow. How his eyes flickered over your road-weary face and sagging posture with veiled intent. Searching and prying and worried. Lips pulled down in displeasure.

He was worried for you. Keeping secrets (something you'd seldom done so openly before. something you'd rarely done, period). Taking seemingly unnecessary risks (something you'd never done at all before this little proposal). All behaviors that were definite red flags. All behaviors that were concerning. Especially coming from someone like you (who you'd become).

And you loved that about Adino. How quietly observant and caring he was when he cared enough to try. Even if he acted like a prickly little cactus most of the time.

"Trust me. I wish I could just let the stables handle this." You'd begun, meeting Adino's (and Skims) gazes as you continued. Sighing. "But this is something I have to do myself. It's important to me."

Skims nodded, having already accepted your reasonings regardless. And slowly, reluctantly, Adino nodded too. Still looking as surly as ever, but willing to back down quietly so long as you were in possession enough of your thoughts to acknowledge the strangeness of your current plans.

"Thank you." And you meant that. Even as the next words hurt your very soul. Perhaps even more than the damned sand (yeah right). "I'll pay you triple if you agree to accompany me as my bodyguards." Skims' and Adino's eyes lit up at that, and you could practically see the rupee signs swimming within them. The bastards.

And somehow Red was suddenly there as well, looking just as bright-eyed and eager as she nodded along with the boys.

Your brow twitched. And Red grinned. Far too many teeth caged within blood red lips.

You sighed.

'Damnit, Link. Why do you cost me so much money.'

---

Sitting on the edge of the Zora Capital's Central Reservoir, Link held the slate in his cold-numbed hands. Looking out over the misty landscape laid out far below, cushioning the shining zora city in its translucent shroud.

The divine beast calmed at his back, as was the spirit still trapped within its confines (patient. kind. understanding. even in the face of death and heartbreak).

His fingers tightened on the slate's smooth edges at the reminder. Knuckles turning white from the pressure of his grip. The chilled ache of his bones a painful burn against his exposed flesh and skin.

His shoulders begun to shake. He wanted to sleep in his own bed, with his own pillow and his own blankets. He wanted to bathe in his shiny round bowl of a bath with his nice smelling soaps and hair cleansers.

He wanted to go home.

He was afraid to go home.

But no. That wasn't true. Not really. It wasn't that he was afraid to go home (to his home. to your home).

It was that he was ashamed. Ashamed of what he had lost. Ashamed of how he had failed.

Seeing Mipha's face (and that was her name. Mipha. the zora woman he may have once loved. not some nameless face peering out of her tomb with sad, accepting eyes) had finally made him understand the weight he carried upon his shoulders now. The burden of his past failings.

And he didn't know how to reconcile these feelings. Of who he was, and the pain he'd left in the wake of his death.

And who he was now, and his inability to grieve these people who had once meant so much to him. And who, in some ways, still did. Even if he couldn't remember why he felt as such. Even as the guilt tore him apart at the seams.

Far below, in the dark waters of the Domain's endless web of rivers. The flashing white of paper slips beneath a rising current. The ink fading into the darkness of the depths.

---

AM,

Thank you for everything you've done for me. Without you, I don't know if I'd have the strength to continue on. Knowing so much has been lost because of my failure.

I'm afraid of what I'll find if I remember who I used to be. I don't think I can be the man so many remember.

I don't want to be him. He's dead. I'm not him anymore. I'm me.

Is it selfish of me to just want to be the man I am now?

I'm sorry I couldn't be stronger for you and everyone who ever believed in me. I'm sorry I don't want to remember how to be strong.

I hope one day you can forgive me.

-Link

---

Back to the shadows to rest.

I forgot the tags before sleeping! Sorry Babies, I know you already found it, but I'll still tag you regardless!

Tagging: @littlepanda7 @2000babies