#the set and prop design was on fucking point

[vilelittlecritter]

Watched the fallout show...

it did not have the right to be that good.

[wondernus]

— WHY HIM?

SYNOPSIS: armed and ready at 4am, you approach your locked front door to confront the group of loud strangers trying to break into your apartment

PAIRING: fiancé!lsm x reader

GENRE: fluff, humor

TAGS: food mention, inebriated characters, post-bachelor party, brother!hvc

WC: 1.75k

MESSAGE FROM NU: hii long time no see :3 posting a dk oneshot to let you know i'm procrastinating on my final paper draft by drafting a hefty dk soulmate au i've been thinking about writing for a while. also dedicating this fic to @wongyuseokie the la to my ma

A perfectly peaceful Friday night goes to waste when you shoot up from your bed in a panicked state. It’s not the usual cat wanting to leave your room at five in the morning kind of scratching sound that lures you to open your bedroom door in a half-awake state. Instead, shuffling sounds out front and an insistent metal-to-metal sound, which you can only infer as someone trying to break into your apartment, cause you to become extremely vigilant.

Seokmin isn’t picking up his phone, but you keep his line ringing just in case he does. Doubtful that a pair of scissors can do as much damage to the head as a giant wok can, you head into the kitchen to pick up that giant carbon steel wok that you can never seem to fit into any of your kitchen drawers as a form of physical backup before you quietly approach your front door.

However, the fear that once overwhelms your body soon turns into a sigh of exasperation before you can even position yourself to look through the tiny peephole. You can clearly hear the familiar voices on the other side of the door and match each voice to its respective owner. Feeling relieved, you drop the wok on the cubby by the door and hang up the phone.

“Look, I opened it,” the man who was trying to open your door slurs with a dopey smile on his face. He doesn’t seem like he’s talking to anybody in particular. “I’m a fucking genius.”

Almost immediately after that statement, he falls forward and faceplants a couple centimeters away from your indoor slippers. Slumped to the side of his face is his hand that holds a small metal keychain between the thumb and index fingers. It’s a souvenir nameplate keychain from a family trip to another country a few years back whose design reads “Vernon” in all caps. You realize that the man near your feet didn’t even try opening the door with the key.

The actual owner of the set of keys lies on his left side while his entire body is propped against the bushes in front of your place. His legs are still surprisingly in a crisscross position, but you think it’s because his jeans restrict him from being able to unravel from the position. And when you see earbuds plugged up your brother’s nose while his mouth acts as some sort of impromptu speaker for whatever song he has playing through his earbuds, you consider the option of leaving him outside for the rest of the night. What’s even worse is that Joshua, although a little out of it, sits next to his younger friend and bobs his head to the music while lethargically reaching into his brown paper bag on his lap to grab some greasy fries. You think your brother is asleep, but you don’t know if him becoming a speaker happened pre-knocking out or post-knocking out.

“Do I want to ask why you guys are trying to break into my place at 4 a.m. in the morning or should I be concerned that only half of you guys are here?”

“Actually.” the man underneath you groans while he slowly gathers enough strength to sit upright. There is a nasty red mark on the side of his face that he doesn’t seem to know of and mind. “Saying ‘4 a.m. in the morning’ is redundant.” He points at nobody in particular with the same hand holding your brother’s set of keys and stares past your calves.

“Since you’re sober enough to be smart with me, I need your help dragging Vern and Shua into my place before the neighbors wake up and call neighborhood watch,” you gruff before stepping out of your house slippers into the sandals you keep near the door.

It turns out that there are more people scattered about the front of your place.

There is a car parallel parked against the sidewalk with what looks like two people in the car. Someone picks themself off the small grassy lawn on the other side of the bushes and trudges towards the car while pinching their temple.

Wonwoo nods at you when he passes by looking completely sober. Yet, for somebody who usually looks well-put-together, his hair is a mess while the top few buttons of his dress shirt are unbuttoned…no, missing. What remains are the threads that once attached the buttons to the dress shirt. You notice that he grips three different neckties in his hand but still his loose around his neck. Nevertheless, Wonwoo kicks off his dress shoes, steps over Jeonghan, enters your front door without saying a word, and knocks out on your sofa before his legs can make it onto the cushions.

You turn back to your brother. Joshua wipes his fingers on his pants before he squats on the other side of Vernon to help him up.

“Up,” you tell the both of them.

“I can’t breathe,” Vernon whines while allowing the both of you to help him stand. “My nose isn’t working.”

You sigh and yank the wired earbuds by their cords and out of his nostrils and let them drop before the older man helps his friend into your place. Bending down to grab the bag of fries that Joshua forgot, you see a disturbing amount of hair poking through the crevices of the leafy bush. Someone was dumb enough to black out in the bushes and you can’t tell who it is even after peering over the bush to look at the other half of the body.

“Jeonghan,” you hiss at the man who is trying to discreetly walk back to the car.

He looks back at you and mouths “what” while shrugging his shoulders.

You point at the head in the bush.

“It's Jihoon,” he snorts. He takes the paper bag from your hand and walks back to drop it in the wok that you put to the side before walking back to you. “I think he was supposed to give Vernon his keys but tripped and never got back up. Come to the car with me.”

“Why are you guys here?” you whispered. “I thought that you guys had the entire night planned out.”

“We had the entire night planned out. But then DK started crying and we had to end it early because he wouldn’t stop crying. And then all of us sobered up to try to help him but then it just worsened, so we drove here to get you to get him to stop crying. Some of us couldn’t deal with not being able to solve his problem and just started drinking again.”

“Is that why Jihoon is in the bushes?”

“Well, he never was the patient type,” he hums.

A quick look into the car immediately gets you to understand why someone like Jihoon would end up so drunk that he would dive headfirst into some bushes.

There are dozens of used tissues balled up and overflowing in the tiny hanging trashcan attached to the back of the passenger seat in Wonwoo’s car. There are a few in the laps of the two men sobbing next to each other in the backseats, and you make a mental note to help Wonwoo sanitize the inside of his car before he drives away in the afternoon. Seungcheol releases Seokmin’s seatbelt and looks at you with an apologetic smile on his face.

In all of the years you’ve come to know Seokmin, you have never seen his eyes this puffy.

“Sorry for showing up at your place unannounced. That must have scared you. There was a lot going on,” Seungcheol murmurs to you while giving you a quick hug. “We were making toasts to his future during the party until Vernon made a comment.”

“What did he say?” you asked him, shocked that your brother could even make a comment that would bring your fiancé to such a state.

“It wasn’t bad.” Seungcheol stepped aside from the open car door to let you squat next to your lover. “He just congratulated you on getting married but this dumbass took it the wrong way because he didn't mention Donkey Kong over here in the sentence and thinks you’re getting married to someone else.”

“Someone else!” Seokmin chokes out in a sob while slumped over on Soonyoung’s shoulder. “Why him? Why not me?”

You grab a tissue from the tissue box on the center console and dab at your future husband’s face. The traces of his tears wet the thin paper, and you can feel the heat of his skin through the tissue. With the same hand, you push the bangs stuck to his forehead and his eyelids to the side. You don’t mind that he doesn’t seem to know that you’re there taking care of him.

“Aww baby,” you coo. “I’ll get married to you, don’t worry.”

The familiarity of your comfort seems to lure your fiancé to sleep. A little further from you, Soonyoung continues to sniffle while his eyes are closed. You turn to Seungcheol and Jeonghan with your mouth open and eyebrows scrunched together.

“He’s a drunk crier…” Jeonghan’s words doesn’t leave you guessing anything. “And also Minghao opened his mouth during the bachelor party.” He scratches the back of his head as a sign of stress and embarrassment before looking at Seungcheol and cocking his head at the two knocked out in the car.

Jeonghan has the easier job of coaxing Soonyoung awake to walk him into your place. Seungcheol, on the other hand, takes it upon himself to swing the entire weight of your limp boyfriend like a large sack of rice over his shoulder.

“Do you need me to help with anything?” you ask him.

You don’t know what time it is anymore. The sky is getting brighter, and the temperature is warming up. Your partner looks finally peaceful in his sleep.

“Nah.” Seungcheol softly brushes your request aside. “We’ve already caused enough trouble for you.”

“I feel like I should be the one apologizing,” you joke while trailing behind Seungcheol just in case he needed any help readjusting the body.

“You don’t have to apologize for him.” His words are sincere. “He loves you, you know. He cried his heart out just because he loves you. There’s nothing to apologize for. To be loved is to be cared for. Go back to bed, we’ll probably wake up around dinner time.”

“Do you think anybody grabbed Jihoon?”

[melefim]

Hey @netflix honestly how do you expect people to watch your shows and invest their time and money into you when EVERY SINGLE TIME you have something people love you just throw it away?

What’s the fucking point if a show with a 92/90 on Rotten Tomatoes and that’s made MULTIPLE Best Of lists isn’t even given a chance to grow?

Let’s look at some comparisons of a few other recent Netflix shows that got a second (or more) season, shall we? How are they stacking up on RT?

Stranger Things: 91/90

The Sandman: 88/80

Bridgerton: 84/74

Shadow & Bone: 83/84

Wednesday: 73/85

Locke & Key: 68/56

Avatar: The Last Airbender: 61/72

Fate: The Winx Saga: 45/82

So good reviews and critical acclaim won’t do it. Multiple weeks on your top 10 won’t do it, making the Nielsen top 10 won’t do it. Engagement from a devoted fan base won’t do it. I’m curious, what’s the metric here? Just because it wasn’t an instant runaway sensation, it’s not worth it to you? Is that what it takes?

Here’s a hot tip: if you want people to continue to pay for a subscription to your service, maybe give stuff a chance to grow. Maybe invest a bit of time into actually advertising a show before it premiers.

One of the most popular tweets about Dead Boy Detectives when it came out was someone saying they didn’t want to watch it because they didn’t trust you not to cancel it and break their hearts. There were THOUSANDS of people agreeing with it. Thousands of viewers, thousands of accounts you missed out on because people didn’t trust you. So how is this move going to help that?

How are you planning to get people to stick around when one of the best shows on your platform isn’t given a chance? How are you expecting them to ever give your shows a chance when you’re proving again and again that you can’t be trusted to follow through?

Dead Boy Detectives is a great show. It’s a quality product. The cinematography, the lighting, the sound design, the sets, the props, the COSTUMES. The scripts are good, the acting is great, the effects are believable. the cast and crew poured their hearts into it and you can see it on the screen. The characters are relatable and real. This is a show that is rewatchable. A show that is fun. A show that is entertaining. That has a good message, that deals with heavy topics with care and sensitivity. That’s got comedy and drama and horror and mystery. That’s got representation and diversity. That means something to people. Means A LOT to people. But that’s not important to you.

Dead Boy Detectives was THE reason I renewed my account. I watched it multiple times. (See how many magnifying glasses there are after my name up there? Fun fact: I added one every time I watched the full season.) I was even making a list of other shows and movies I was planning to check out. But that’s not happening any more, because I’m canceling my account as soon as this post is up. And I know I’m not the only one.

[deliriumzer0]

Gen Loss' shooting location

I'm super into dead/dying malls so I knew what mall it was as soon as I saw the ending of Ep 2, but I didn't wanna post anything about it until after Ranboo had left NY just in case. I'm not about to facilitate any creepy behavior, you know?

So GenLoss was filmed at the now-closed Galleria at White Plains, which -- fun fact! -- is the same mall used for interior mall shots in the movie Eighth Grade (so everyone who enjoys Ranboo/Bo Burnham connections, there's a fun one!). It opened in 1980 and positioned itself as the mall for "normal" people, in contrast to the more upscale Westchester mall nearby. Sadly, that other mall is still alive & kicking, while this one was closed at the end of March 2023. There are apparently redevelopment plans in the works to turn it into mixed-use (retail + residential) space.

I was too curious about what some of the stores used in the shoot used to be, and how much of what I saw in GL was set design and how much was already in place, so I looked up old directories & photos of the mall to see if I could sleuth some of it out. In case anyone else was curious about the set designers' work, or is into retail history, I figured I would share my findings!

The central elevator area of the mall in GenLoss, and how it appeared in 2019. (Screenshot from the 2019 video linked below)

Apologies for the multiple different angles on this one, but this is all the same area, first in GenLoss (right after Ranboo starts walking away from the panel where Hetch is appearing), then from the Fleabitten Adventures 2023 video, then from the Raw & Real Retail video from 2019. (Couldn't resist screenshotting the drone ad on that last one, lol)

In the GenLoss screenshot, at the far right edge of the Sears entryway, you can see a bit of the painting left behind, so my guess is the GL set decorators got rid of that artwork for the shoot.

The screen where Ranboo first speaks to Hetch in ep 3. The empty store behind them was an American Eagle Outfitters at one point, but it was already closed by February 2023. (screeenshot from Fleabitten Adventures 2023 video)

Here's a before & after of this directory panel. (Screenshot from the Fleabitten Adventures 2023 video)

The store full of "props". In the original store photo (Google's only photo of this shop), you can see how the existing shelves were repurposed for GL. Also way at the far end of the store there's a black & white photo of someone with a basketball that was left hanging up.

I had a hard time finding a closer angle of this Victoria's Secret, but in case you were curious, here's one from the Raw & Real Retail video lol.

Where Ranboo almost left but Hetch stopped them: a Kay Jewelers.

The streamers are sitting in the following establishments: My Kitchen, Bourbon Street Cafe, Sarku Japan, Dunkin' Donuts, and of course Charley's. The last empty storefront was a Burger King before it emptied out. (Photo from Foursquare, cropped by me)

The Dental & Foot Care storefront is unchanged except for the seating out in the open area. It was a rounded wooden bench set as of Feb 2023 (screenshot from the Fleabitten Adventures video), but for GL it was the standard metal benches found throughout the mall. Not sure why.

Going far back enough, this was a Radio Shack. Couldn't find ANY photos of this particular location though, so here's the only photo I could find of what it was in the interim: a dress shop called Gloria's. (Photo from Yelp)

This one is my favorite part. :) As of February 2023 (screenshots are from the Fleabitten Adventures video), the "Heart of the Facility" is this weirdly sparse artsy furniture store called Home Splash. But before this, what the shop's facade was designed for, was...

A Charlotte Russe location. Ranboo died in a fucking Charlotte Russe. When I learned this, I could not stop laughing.

More/Sources:

https://www.reddit.com/r/deadmalls/comments/zupwhw/the_galleria_at_white_plains_ny_in_late_afternoon/

A great youtube video from Fleabitten Adventures walking through the whole mall in February 2023

Raw & Real Retail walkthrough video (from 2019)

A shorter walthrough video from HELLOTHISIS4U

Photos from FourSquare

I didn't cover everything I learned here, just the stuff I thought was coolest (and that I had images of), so please feel free to flood my ask box with questions about what certain things used to be!

[television-bodies]

what's your favorite set design for les mis? alternatively, how would you stage it yourself?

oh anon, you have provided me with the dream question! this is about to be a very long answer.

i fell in love with les mis via the west end production in 2014 and have not been normal about it since. i was lucky enough to see said production, with that staging, quite a few times before the theatre was renovated in 2019 (this was when the revolve was removed and the production was updated to have the same staging as (i believe) every other global production of the show). since lockdowns etc ended i have seen the updated production on the west end a few times now too, and let me scream this from the rooftops: I MISS THE OLD ONE EVERY DAY OF MY LIFE

(i never like to assume people’s knowledge so i will continue here as if you’re not familiar with the key changes, and i apologise if i’m telling you things you already know!)

something that i loved about the original production is that there were almost no set pieces. there were always props, and the odd piece of set as in a wall or something e.g. the gate at rue plumet, but the majority of the settings were created through LIGHTING. examples, i hear you cry! i shall provide. my favourite example of this was in the sewers. when valjean is carrying marius, time was shown to pass as they walked around the revolve with a spotlight illuminating them every few seconds. the actors would change carrying positions in the dark gaps between these lights, so that it acted like a time jump. none of this animated scrolling backdrop screen nonsense they do now. if you haven’t already clocked it yes i am salty about this

lighting also played a bigger part in javert’s death — another point in the show at which they now have a backdrop to act sort of in place of this — the swirling water that he falls into used to be created solely through lighting effects and it was MARVELLOUS. real take your breath away type shit.

the other big point to make is about the revolve, my beloved. it was such a central part of the production but the most important use of it (and one that i see the masses on here mourn fairly often) was that at the end of the final battle, the barricade would slowly turn around to show all of the students dead across it. it was heartbreaking and beautiful and the way they have to literally wheel enjolras’ dead body onto the stage in the current production just does not have anything close to the emotional gutpunch of how it used to be staged. :’(

all in all the original production was much more stripped back visually than the show is now, and i think this served to amplify the power of the acting and singing and the PLOT whereas now it gets me down, because as much as i hate to say this, the current production sort of just looks like everything else. les mis used to be the best thing on the west end by a fucking mile, and it seems (to me) that they have lessened that gap. i understand why other productions of the show — particularly touring ones — would have to go without the revolve, but for the one on the west end, which has been in the same theatre for twenty years, i simply do not see why they thought to change it. change it for, in my clearly strong opinion, the worse.

(i will say here — as vaguely as i can — that i do have a modicum of insider knowledge, and that i can blame this change on cameron mackintosh. but that’s hardly a surprise)

this may all be coming off as very ‘old man shouts at cloud’ of me so i feel the need to say that i do still enjoy the new production — if i didn’t, i wouldn’t have been to see it multiple times. at the end of the day (ha) it is still les mis, and les mis is les mis. it’s always brilliant. i just think it used to be more, and it makes me sad that there’s nowhere to see that original staging anymore. i mean, sure, there are bootlegs. but no proshot? *breaks skateboard* alas, we seem doomed to concert versions until the end of time

thank you so much for the ask! i’m sure you can tell that you hit a nerve with this one lmao but i greatly enjoyed answering it

[nico-di-genova]

A Lesson in Braking

Chapter 2

Read on Archive of Our Own

A/N: hehehehehehe (my only thoughts while writing this fic).

Warnings: NSFW and a brief mention of anti-harm dorm furniture.

“I fucked an old guy last night,” Lance says to Esteban, when he’s lying on the floor of his dorm room, head resting on the Spider-Man pillow he bought Esteban for his birthday last spring. “Behind the Barnes & Noble. Hand job.”

Esteban hums. He’s  sitting at his desk that he’s moved to slot beneath the single small window of his room, curled over his laptop and working on some complex string of numbers. Three weeks into the semester and Esteban is already drowning in assignments – Lance doesn’t envy him.

“He ate my cum,” he continues, picking at a fraying edge of the pillow. When he pulls at the red string it snags on the fabric and then releases, growing longer in Lance’s grip. He should buy Esteban a new one, maybe a whole bedspread to match. The thought occurs that he could buy a matching set, just to sleep on during the nights when he’s too drunk to get back to his own place and crashes in the living room.

Esteban hums again, pushes his glasses further up his nose, keeps clicking away on his laptop so that the number sequence only grows longer. Lance can only catch pieces of it from where he’s lying on the floor, head angled backward to stare up at Esteban as he works. But even the small bit he can see is enough to give him a headache.  

“When I kissed him I tasted it.”

That gets him.

Esteban sighs, leans back in the chair as far as it will go given its anti-tip design – dorm furniture made to prevent kids from hanging themselves from their light fixtures – rubs at the bridge of his nose and then falls back forward with a groan.

“You’re telling me this, why?”

Lance pouts, tips his head further back on the pillow so he can get a better look at Esteban with one arm on the back of his chair, leaning down to stare at him with mild judgement.

“You don’t want to know about the old man sex I had?”

“I can barely tolerate hearing about the normal sex you have.”

Lance laughs. The spider-man plush, also bought by Lance from the birthday trip to Disneyland last spring, rises and falls on his stomach with the movement. Technically, he has homework for his intro to Marketing class, but it’s more fun to laze around on Esteban’s dirty floor, talking about his sex life, than it is to learn about how to make people buy things. Besides, he’s grown up listening to his dad rant about his successes in the industry, so much so that his first word might as well have been entrepreneurship. It shouldn’t be a hard class to pass.

The dorm room is so tiny he almost runs the whole length of it, one foot nearly to the door, his head at the base of Esteban’s chair, one knee propped in the air. One of his arms is spread wide enough that it’s laying underneath Esteban’s bed, fingers toying with the shoelace of a sneaker that’s been kicked off underneath. It’s a familiar sight by this point, Lance taking up space in Esteban’s room, his life, with ease and spreading out enough that he can be found in nearly every corner of it. Esteban always makes room for him, sometimes will join him on the floor when his course load isn’t too much. But junior year is already different from the two prior, kicking off with a speed that is giving Lance whiplash.

He misses Sovi, the freshman dorms that once made him feel caged, but provided infinitely more freedom in that they weren’t tied to the paths that had led them here.

“My normal sex life just involves Pato, you’d rather hear about me fucking Pato?” He asks, smirks, just barely dodges the pencil Esteban flicks down at him.

“I don’t want to hear about you fucking anyone! Get a journal!”

Lance muses, “I guess there was also that one guy a few weeks ago. From that party in Q,” the building a few doors down from Esteban’s. It sat on the shore of the lake and far enough away from the central hub that university police tended to overlook it. Esteban had called Lance four beers deep a week into school and told him to get there quick, didn’t specify where ‘there’ was, so Lance had to use Find My to even locate him. When he’d pulled up the party had been in full swing on the third floor, and he was welcomed into the cramped apartment by Esteban who reeked of alcohol and weed. Lance ended up fucking one of the guys who lived there, riding him hurriedly and enduring the guy keeping a sweaty palm pressed to his mouth so he didn’t make too much noise in the room they’d locked themselves in.

 Esteban squints at him, “You said that guy was shit.”

“He was.” He came first and then didn’t even bother to get Lance off.

“So why the fuck would you want to talk about it again?”

“Because you don’t want to hear about the good old man sex.”  

Esteban’s nose crinkles in disgust, “Well how old was he?”

“I didn’t ask.”

The mechanical engineering is quickly forgotten, Esteban spinning around fully in his chair and staring at Lance with wide eyes. Lance grins up at him innocently, flutters his eyelashes, scoots over on the pillow as a silent invitation for the man to join him on the ugly blue carpeted floor. Esteban doesn’t take it, yet, Lance is still confident he can convince him.

“How old did he look?”

“I don’t know, forties maybe?”

“Forties?! What the fuck, Lance!?”

“What?”

The deadpan stare Esteban gives him isn’t new, it’s pretty standard actually. “You are insane. And stupid.”

Lance, because he likes testing his luck, pushing at the boundaries of his and Esteban’s friendship, seeing where the line is so he can be prepared for when it snaps, keeps going, “I’m seeing him again tonight.”

He wishes he’d been filming, just so he could preserve the way Esteban’s eyes get impossibly wider. Finally, Esteban gets out of the chair, but he doesn’t join Lance on the floor, instead he paces the length of the room, hands held on his head and mumbles a rapid string of words that Lance doesn’t quite get but he thinks are mainly swears.

“You are joking, yes? Tell me you are joking.” Hands on his hips, towering over Lance, he looks like a giant. Tall and lanky with big eyes behind his wire-rimmed frames.

Lance hadn’t been. He’s been texting Fernando since late last night, ignoring calls from his dad in the process. So far the conversation has consisted of little substance, just enough to establish that Lance is a junior, Fernando is retired, and lives in one of the mansions on the other side of the lake that is right outside Esteban’s prison cell-sized window. Mainly they’d talked about Fernando’s cock, how Lance is upset he didn’t get to see it, taste it – how he’d like to return the favor preferably outside of the backseat of a car and somewhere a bit more comfortable.

He wants to be called beautiful again, reverently, spread out on silk sheets and spread open by Fernando’s fingers. He blames the accelerated horniness on the dry summer he’d just had, the time spent at his father’s house with little else to do and no one to hook up with because Lawrence had insisted on spending as much time as he could with Lance. They’d gone to the track to watch a few races, the office where Lance was meant to be shadowing, galas and banquets, and the golf course most mornings so Lawrence could ensure Lance actually had something to show for the tuition he was fronting. Lance knows it was mainly a last ditch effort on his dad’s behalf to maintain their relationship, before Lance slipped off back to Florida and began predictably sending him to voicemail. Which is why he had even bothered enduring it in the first place, when he just as easily could has gone off to the Mykonos with a group of guys from his frat.

He'd refrained from debauchery all summer, was paying the price for his abstinence now. But, like always, the cost was something to which Lance paid very little, until the bill began to raise eyebrows, as Esteban’s now are.

“Lance. Tell me you are joking!”

“Why would I be joking?”

Esteban glares down at him, while Lance sprawls out further across the thin carpet, concrete flooring beneath digging into his shoulder blades, and smiles. It’s wide, lazy, slow to draw across his face. The sort of shit-eating, self-assured, smirk that Esteban hates.

“It was good sex, Este! He did this thing-“

“Stop! No! Stop! I don’t want to know.”

Lance stops, goes quiet, but continues to smirk. In his pocket, he feels his phone vibrate, probably Fernando again. They’re meant to be meeting in a few hours, once the suns gone down enough that being outside doesn’t make him feel like he’s melting. When Fernando can take him to the bar in the shopping plaza nearby and treat him to a beer before he fucks him senseless, as he’s been promising all day.

He doesn’t tell Esteban this, figures he’s maybe traumatized him enough for the day. Instead, he changes the topic to Esteban’s course load, feigns interest in the math still open on his laptop. Esteban is all too willing to explain it to him, to turn his attention away from the phone Lance pulls from his pocket and grins at with cheeks turning red.

Fernando has sent him a photo of his outfit, button of his slacks undone, zipper pulled low,  hand holding the waistband below his hips. He has a tattoo on the inside of his forearm, close to his wrist, something Lance hadn’t noticed in the dark of his car last night, but that he now can’t draw his eyes away from. It’s a cross of some sort, produces the sort of sacrilegious thoughts that he can’t linger on for too long for fear of losing his religion.

‘Wear something nice,’ Fernando’s text says, when he manages to read it.

Lance doesn’t own much that fits the description, other than a suit he saves for formals, but he figures it maybe doesn’t actually matter that much. Fernando promises to rip whatever it is off of him anyway.

Esteban throws another pencil at him when he tries to show him the photo, holds his hand up to block the view and then lands the writing utensil right on Lance’s nose.

------------

His dad calls when he’s fresh out of the shower of his own apartment, steam curling in the air around him and his phone vibrating steadily against the granite countertops of his humid bathroom. He answers before it goes to voicemail, figures he owes his dad this because it’s the third time he’s called since that morning, and he doesn’t want to risk pissing the man off too much.

“Hey,” he says as he’s wrapping a towel around his waist, slicking his wet hair back out of his face with his free hand. He leaves the phone on speaker, lets his dad’s voice fill space as he busies with getting ready.  

“I’m going to assume you’ve been ignoring my calls because you are going to class.”

He only has one class on Tuesday’s, and it’s finished by noon. Advanced golf merchandising, a pointless elective where he’s meant to be learning the management of a retail location. He takes notes, enough to retain the important bits, but he already knows management isn’t where he’s going to end up. His dad would secure him some corporate position within his company before that was even an option. Which, he doesn’t want either, can’t stand the thought of being forced to wear a shirt with a collar every day.

“Yeah, I just got back from campus,” he lies, he’s been hiding out at Esteban’s since class ended, it’s seven now. The lie comes too easy, but the truth would only hurt the both of them – that Lance is avoiding his father because their conversations hurt more than they help these days. That Lance is growing, but it’s in a direction away from Lawrence, from the idea of who his dad thought he would be.

His dad wishes Lance were still small, and Lance wishes that too, but only because when he was a child hurting his dad only resulted in a brief scolding. Now it leads to awkward silences that neither of them know how to fill.

“Class is going well?”

“Um, easy so far, yeah.” They’re only three weeks in. “Other than this financial accounting class, it’s brutal.” He’s already had to ask Esteban for help, already knows he’s going to need to visit the library for tutoring.

He wipes steam from his mirror with the palm of his hand, catches a glimpse of his dripping reflection. Somehow, he needs to assemble himself into something relatively attractive within the next ten minutes, only for it to most likely come undone the second he slides his helmet over his hair. There’s a twisted sort of humor in him wondering how best to style himself for Fernando, while he’s on the phone with his father, pretending to care about classes that had stopped being fun once Lance realized they were actually supposed to lead to something.

“You spent all summer looking at the books,” Lawrence says. Which is true, but it had made more sense when things were hands on. Now it’s just a jumble of words and numbers on a whiteboard, a professor who knows the course is meant for weeding out those who are too weak to continue, and who looks at Lance every time he shows up late with a knowing sort of disappointment.

People didn’t used to look at him like that, it’s a growing sentiment the more Lance stumbles.

“Yeah, I know. It’s just- it’s different. All reading and equations and- I don’t know. I’m not a numbers guy, dad, you know this.”

“You got it pretty well while you were here.”

Only because he’d felt his dad’s eyes on him the whole summer, felt the pressure and the weight and need to prove he could do something. His professor doesn’t bother to look at Lance once he’s sat at a desk, which means Lance zones out, doodles designs in the margins of his notes and then wonders why the numbers don’t add up while he’s doing homework later.

“It’s different,” the exasperation in his voice is audible, he pauses where he’d been drying his hair with a towel pulled from under the sink. Closes his eyes. Breathes. “But I’m trying. I’ll- I’ll figure it out.”

“I know you will, Lance. I didn’t say you wouldn’t.”

They’re being careful around each other, the eggshells just beginning to crunch beneath their feet. Neither one of them want a fight and Lance can feel the tension of it through the phone, the tightening of something in his chest that threatens to break every time he speaks to his father now. This is why he lets it go to voicemail.

Fernando texts him, he sees the notification come through as he’s staring at the phone, hands braced on the bathroom sink. Probably asking if he’s on his way. Lance’s hair is still dripping water in cold tendrils down the back of his neck, a puddle forming on the carpet at his feet. He hasn’t even bothered to find an outfit or brush his teeth.

“Look, dad- I- um, I gotta go. I have a, uh, a study thing with Pato-“

“Oh, okay, yeah. I’ll talk to you soon.”

Lance closes his eyes again, bows his head, tries not to care about the hurt that’s audible in his father’s voice and finds that it somehow manages to dig between his ribs anyway. He hangs up before there’s the chance for the line to fracture further, and then he busies himself with texting Fernando back.

‘You are still coming?’ Fernando asks.

Lance says he’ll be there soon, and then he focuses on the toothbrush in his hands, getting himself ready, and ignores everything else.

-------------

“I need a drink!” Lance yells over the music, leaning further into Fernando, who holds him up with ease. “A shot!”

Fernando’s hand on his waist tightens when Lance rocks on his feet. They’re standing in the press of bodies on the dance floor, people on all sides. The crowd makes it easy for Lance to press against Fernando, the flashing lights adding to the disorientation. No one notices the way Fernando’s got one hand gripping Lance’s hipbone, the other on his ass, tucked into the pocket of his jeans and cupping the curve of him.  

They’re the same jeans he’d worn last night, pulled from the crumpled heap on his floor and slid back on because he couldn’t find anything else. If Fernando has noticed he doesn’t say anything, too distracted by the white linen button-up that Lance wear, only half done-up and exposing nearly the full expanse of his chest in the multicolored lights. Lance knows it puts the chain around his neck on full display, makes his collarbones stand out, shows how broad he is, and produces the impressed reaction Fernando had exhibited upon first seeing him.

He’d bought Lance his first drink, and then the first requested tequila shot, leaning on the bar top and staring at the exposed column of his neck as Lance tipped the liquor back and downed it with practiced ease. Lance had seen the way Fernando’s eyes had darkened as his adams apple bobbed, looking from the corner of his eye just to see the response that would be elicited with the movement.  

“What do you want?” Fernando asks now, hand on his hip coming up to pull Lance down to him so his lips just barely brush over Lance’s ear.

He shudders, breath stuttering when Fernando’s fingers tangle in the hair at the nape of his neck and pull just enough that there’s the promise of something better later. He’s been teasing Lance since Lance first arrived, the ghost of a touch, a tongue tracing over the sweaty line of his neck, enough to have him hard in his jeans but never doing anything to solve the problem.

It’s the most public foreplay Lance has ever engaged in, even if everyone is too drunk or too involved in their own games to even notice.

“Vodka?” Lance yells, knowing he probably seems young for only ordering shots, but he’d only just turned twenty-one last October. Most of his experience with alcohol has been bagged wine fountained before entry to a party or the mix of Kool-Aid and whatever liquor could be procured into a giant tub for jungle juice. Shots are simple, uncomplicated, and he knows he can handle them. Plus they hit fast, or at least feel like they do, give him the liquid courage needed to grind against Fernando as Pit Bull blares around them in the crowded bar.

The Keys is a mixed sort of space, half occupied by college kids who were too lazy to drive all the way to Rusty’s and half-filled by the locals who are looking for fun outside of their mansions. It means he and Fernando don’t draw attention, Lance fits in with the group of kids in their backwards caps and low cut shirts, Fernando blends with the guys in their pressed button-ups and black slacks. He just looks hotter than the others, the pants hugging his waist and ass well, clearly tailored. And the peak of a tattoo Lance gets on the back of Fernando’s neck as he follows him back up to the bar, Fernando’s hand around his wrist towing him through the crowd, separates him enough from the older guys smoking cigars outside on the patio. He wants to know what the tattoo is, slide Fernando’s shirt off his shoulders and trace the ink with his tongue.

But that’s for later, for now he lets Fernando guide him, lean him against the bar top, slide a hand back into the pocket of his jeans because the shape of his palm over his ass is becoming familiar. He flags down the bartender, orders two shots of Vodka and then they tip them back together. Lance can feel how flushed his neck is getting, wonders if the red of it is spreading to his chest, his cheeks. His hair that was still slightly damp from the shower is frizzing in the humidity of the packed space, falling over his forehead.

Fernando stares up at him, lips wet with vodka and his own spit when he licks them, Lance follows the movement, starts to lean forward like he intends to taste the lingering alcohol himself. Fernando stops him with a hand on his chest, fingers splayed across bare skin, index finger dipping into the hollow of his clavicle. Lance shudders, Fernando feels it.

“Let’s get out of here, yes?”

“Yes.”

Lance can’t drive his bike, just drunk enough that he knows he couldn’t keep his balance. Instead, he climbs into the passenger seat of Fernando’s Aston Martin, and deposits his own keys in the cupholder, casting a forlorn look back at his gear in the backseat. The same seat he’d come undone in last night, now occupied by his motorcycle helmet with the sticker of a cat waving the Canadian flag – something Pato had found online and ordered because ‘it’s Canada, Lance! You know, you!’. Fernando had asked him about it when he parked earlier, traced the outline of it before Lance had taken his helmet off, lifted Lance’s visor so he could see his eyes more clearly as he did so.

When he looks back at Fernando in the driver’s seat the man is staring at him. Lance knows what it looks like when someone wants him. He knows the way Pato gets all slack jawed and dopey-eyed, eyes flicking to Lance’s lips every two seconds even though he wouldn’t even try to kiss him. But Fernando’s look of want is different, more demanding and all-encompassing. He looks like he’s plotting the best course of stripping Lance out of his clothes before they’ve even reached their destination, like he is thinking of the best way to take him apart.

Maybe it’s because he’s more experienced, or maybe it’s because he’s less. Lance doesn’t know enough about him, anything really, to know if he is the first man Fernando has hooked up with or not. They still haven’t found much time to talk, or maybe just haven’t wanted to make the effort. Lance is okay with that, his idea of foreplay is not long discussions and get-to-know-you’s. He doesn’t have the patience for that, much prefers Fernando’s method of cutting to the quick and easy of it.  Which Fernando does when he leans across the console enough to grab Lance by the chain around his neck and pull him in for a kiss.

Lance is still not used to the kissing, just opens his mouth and lets Fernando’s tongue slide into it because he’s not practiced enough. He’s okay with letting Fernando take control, likes how he doesn’t have to think about it, just follow. Fernando tastes like vodka, and Lance swallows the familiar taste of it when their spit mixes and he can no longer tell whose is whose.

When Fernando pulls back Lance tries to chase him, is stopped again by a hand on his chest, firm and unyielding.

“You are still okay with coming to my place?” Fernando asks, and something in the way he says it is slightly sobering. It makes Lance remember his bike two spots over, prepared to be abandoned for the night and hopefully still there come morning.

“Yeah. Definitely.”

“I will drive you home, instead. If you want. Up to you.”

“No. No I’m good. Trust me.” He’d prepped himself in the shower and everything, knew what he was getting into before a drop of alcohol ever touched his tongue. “I’ve been thinking about this since last night.”

Fernando eyes him, glances down at his chest where his skin is still red and hot and bare against his hand.

“Okay. God, you are beautiful.”  

The praise shoots straight to Lance’s cock, has a quiet moan escaping him, something he only just barely manages to bite back with the press of his teeth into his bottom lip. Fernando catches it anyway, grins like he’s realized the praise wasn’t just a one-off from the hand job last night, but something Lance actually enjoys.

"Don’t worry, pretty boy,” he promises, “Make you feel better soon.”

[tothosewhoyearnforit]

everything i like about chaehyun

-finally got down to writing again ! and there's a second part coming soon w the release of the giddy MV. just need to got thru it once and make sure everything seems okay and i'll be all set to release it. so sorry i haven't released much fics, writing blocks really stall me a lot.

(P.S. I havent finished my sullyoon fic so...)

-2 separate scenarios, oral, sneaky seggs, creampie, i love chaehyun lots

-1957 words

You’ll never forget the continuous fits of laughter, the questioning looks from your relatives and the amount of solitude you faced after making the decision to take fashion design instead of the more popular courses like engineering or finance. But you knew that any of your classmates from back then would kill to be getting sucked off by Kep1er’s Chaehyun in a props cabinet while the MAMA awards were still going on. 

Sure your job was at risk, but you were known to be such a serious and consistent worker that it was hard to imagine that WakeOne would fire you. 

“What are *guhk* you thinking *guhk* about oppa? Do my tits not *gawk* interest you anymore?” Chaehyun says, slobbering all over your dick, a fine mess of saliva and precum coating around her mouth and dripping off her chin, just like her purity. 

“Of course not baby.”

That was the only answer. Otherwise you would never have gone so out of your way to get Chaehyun in this dress. It literally highlighted how well endowed she was on the red carpet. An elegant white dress, sleeved on one side and cut rather deep down the middle to reveal her cleavage, while the other supposed sleeve was cut such that her entire left arm was exposed, along with some of her breast. 

“Was just thinking about something for a moment.” you calmly said, caressing her cheek with your right hand as her face bobbed up and down.

“I hope it wasn’t Xiaoting or Shiro you’re thinking of… You were staring at them like a fucking wolf.” 

She lets your drool-slicken meat out of the comforting moist warmth of her mouth and strokes it with a tight grip to emphasize her slight discontent with your sudden spacing out session. It was such a power move. It was painful, sure. But it was ironically also pleasing, feeling 10 times better than what your own hands could deliver.

“Agh! Alright alright! Calm down Chae…”

“Hurry up! Manager-nim is going to come find us if we’re not back soon !”

“Yes, yes, this is like the millionth time you said that, as though you’re not the one who dragged me into this crusty, musty room as soon as you got back from the red carpet.”

You pick up the girl bridal style and place her on the leather couch lying in some obscure corner of the room. Then, you peel back the dress like a white cocoon to reveal the butterfly underneath, Chaehyun’s large mounds. You then position yourself on top of her and place your cock in the valley between her two mounds and automatically, Chaehyun knows to press both tits together, sandwichkng your cock between them. You then begin thrusting your hips, the beautiful mounds of flesh rippling with every time your cock emerges from her cleavage, rubbing against her collarbones. It’s a truly mesmerizing sight really. Super easy to lose yourself to your reflexes of just pistoning your hips to and fro as you admire every little thing about Chaehyun in this dimly lit room. Her perky breasts that gave you so much trouble when deciding what outfits to wear, her perky nipples that you were pinching and playing with, her perfect face whose eyes were staring sluttily at you. 

She sticks out her tongue and tilts her head down. And now with each periodic motion, the head of your dick would come into contact with the warm moist muscle, delivering a whole new flavor of sensation to an already extremely pleasing dish. 

“Paint my face baby.” 

The sensory overload at this point was too much. One, two more thrusts and on the final emergence of your cock from the comforting vice grip of Chaehyun’s breasts, a torrent of cum flies onto her face; her nose bridge, her puffy cheeks, over her closed eyelids and onto her tongue. 

“Fuck! Chaehyun!” is all that manages to come out from your mouth as you throw your head back, allowing your high to wear off.

Yet another moment of your stylist ingenuity has occurred, this time glazing Chaehyun in another white. 

“Amazing as always Chae.” you say, finally dismounting her and handing her a bunch of tissues from your pocket.

-

-

-

Fast forward to about 2-3 months later, and it’s time for Kep1er’s 3rd comeback, Giddy.

Yet again, you find yourself stuck in a musty room, this time you know for sure that it’s a cleaning storage room. But you really couldn’t control yourself. Sure, you were the one who ordered all the baseball themed outfits, and they were all amazing. But Chaehyun, when she started posing for the photoshoot, she got into poses that were simply far too seductive, it was as if she was posing for you. 

For the first pose, she raised her hands like she was stretching. Nothing spectacular, until she turns her head back to look at the camera and sticks her butt out. When the photo came out on the preview television, it was a masterpiece of a picture. Her slender arms were on full display, but they also helped to lift the baseball jersey up ever so perfectly such that her tummy was exposed from the front. To add a touch of maturity to the photo, she sticks out her butt and shows off her god blessed hourglass figure. God, you just wanted to go to town on that voluptuous butt she had.

Then, the next picture gets shown on the preview screen.

Chaehyun now had her hands behind her head, fingers running through her hair which now had silver streaks running through. Once again, the shirt moves up with her arm movement, revealing her tight midriff. The look on her face was one of pure lust and seduction, and when you turned from the screen to look at the girl, her eyes were locked onto yours, screaming to you, “Come get it.”

And so you did.

“Couldn’t control yourself huh oppa?”

“Fuck, you’re so fucking hot Chaehyun.”

Her back was against the door as you ferociously dove into her mouth, engaging in a passionate kiss. The taste of her strawberry lipgloss is ever so strong on your tongue. In the meantime, your hands were reaching underneath the baseball jersey and under the bra that were struggling to contain her massive breasts, fondling with the fleshy mounds. 

You turn her around, pressing her against the door as you push yourself up even more against her as she wiggles the butt you were admiring not too long ago against your enraging boner. 

Then, in an act of pure horniness, you pull her pants and undergarments down in one fell swoop, and bury your face between the two cheeks of flesh.

“Ahh! Fuck! Oppa wait…! Slow down!”

But of course, you heed no attention to her pleas for you to slow down. The first thing that you do upon the access of her lovely moons in front of you, was motorboat your face within them. It was customary really. Whenever the two of you were alone in hotel rooms, you’d pounce on an unsuspecting Chaehyun and bury your face within her ass and smear her lewd scent all over your face.

The next thing you do is run your tongue across both her asshole and her slickening pussy, allowing your taste buds to coated in her taste. After that, you’d focus solely on her asshole, this time letting your tongue explore deeper.

“Ahhh fuck…” she whispers, trying hard to contain her pleasure inside this cramped cleaning room. 

You’re so consumed in your hunger for her that you start pushing her buttcheeks up and apart for easier access, and after a certain point, all that’s supporting her is her leaning against the door as she pretty much sits on your face. Thankfully, she’s not a very heavy person. Or maybe you’re just really strong. Or maybe you’re just way too horny and your testosterone levels are absolutely going through the roofs. 

“Shit ! This position is so..! Fuckkkkk!”

A shower ensues from above you as her squirt gushes out like an overhead water sprinkler. You lap up whatever golden nectar you can while she dismounts your face. Sweet. Just like her smile.

“Just fuck me already…I need your cock so badly right now…”

Finally, you’re able to free the shackled beast. In the blink of an eye, your pants and underwear are at your ankles. Chaehyun bites her lip and watches hungrily as your cock springs free. You line your rod up with her folds, rubbing your tip around, teasing her a bit, before repositioning your hands to hold her hips. Then, you slowly thrust your hips forward, cock slowly finding its way through her tight pussy. 

A sigh of relief. From both of you animals in heat, carnal desires finally quenched.

Your hips automatically know what to do next. Withdraw, and repeat the same motion, this time faster. And with each thrust of your hip, she lets out a moan. Finally finding a satisfying rhythm, all that can be heard is Chaehyun’s controlled moans and the sound of her ass rippling as your hips collide with it. 

“Fuck, Chaehyun. I’ll never get tired of this pussy. So fucking tight, every single damn time.”

“And it’s all yours daddy.”

A pet word. Something she had never used before in all your few years of knowing her. But it drove your mind insane, knowing that you had already placed a mark of ownership on her. She was all yours to use. Your little fuckhole. You sped up your thrusts, not following a rhythm anymore but chasing your orgasm. Soon, it was whimpers that came out of her mouth as the smacking of skin got faster and faster.

“Fuck ! Fuck ! FUCK !” 

Your thrusts start to get more and more intense, her face and breasts pressing against the door, while her hands grip onto it tightly. It was lucky that nobody had come to find either of you, but that really wasn’t your main concern, you just wanted to plant your seed deep within Chaehyun. Looking down at the mesmerizing ripple of her cheeks, you take a hand and slap her left ass cheek hard. 

“Annngh!” 

A super lewd moan erupts from her mouth, and you’re sure anybody walking down the hallway could have heard this too. A red mark forms on the spot you struck her. 

“You like that, slut ? You and you’re fucking beautiful ass, always tempting me.”

But Chaehyun can’t reply. She’s drooling on the door, her mind a flurry of pleasure. All that is coming from her mouth are moans and unintelligible mumbles. 

You start to feel your climax reaching. And with three more deep, deep thrusts, pushing your cock as far as it can go into her alluring pussy. Her pussy clamps down on your cock and she cums yet again. 

“Ahh fuck… So big…”

Your cock, on the other hand, deposits your baby batter deep into her womb.

“Take it all in, cumslut.”

You stay inside for a good while kissing Chaehyun’s back profile as she takes it all in. If you could, you would stay there forever, cock inside her comfortable pussy, but alas, you have to come back to reality.

Slowly withdrawing your cock, streams of cum flow out of her pussy and trickle down her thick thighs. She looks back at you and you know she’s about to do something slutty yet again. Her hand comes from under her and using her index and middle finger, she spreads her pussy open for you to see the complete mess you made inside her. She fingers herself a while before collecting your jizz on her digits and putting it inside her mouth and sucking them clean. 

“Thanks, daddy.”

[zedif-y]

“So,” Joel says. “D’you think Tango would talk to me if I broke the bow again?”

Which, obviously, is a joke. Obviously. He’s a blummin’ actor, for goodness sake. He can handle an audience of one.

Even if that audience is Tango. And also– not quite an audience, is it, when you’re just two people having a conversation–

Grian pauses, looking up from where he's been checking Joel’s outfit, one hand tracing a seam. "Joel," He replies, deadpan. "You are not breaking another prop just ‘cuz you're bad at talking to people." 

Joel bristles, oi! “I’m not bad at–!”

"Then talk to him like a normal person!" Grian retorts, rolling his eyes. He focuses his attention back on the costume, "Pretty sure he'll notice and chew you out for it anyway. I'm doing you a favor by telling you this, really." Joel scoffs.

He’s choosing not to reply to that, by the way. It’s a choice.

Joel lets Grian do his thing, double-checking his costume until Joel’s arms grow tired of staying up, pinning stuff into place and calling Cleo over for makeup stuff. Joel lets his mind drift, letting Grian lead him in front of a vanity mirror– Ah, look. His handsome face.

Joel studies his reflection for a moment, turning his head this way and that. And just before Grian leaves–

“…Would he really get mad?”

Grian pauses in the doorway, “Huh?” He frowns for a moment, squinting, then sighs. “Yes, Joel. You’re not that cute.”

“Oi!”

Grian lets the door shut with a click, his cackling muffled as he goes. That little…

Joel huffs, glowering at his reflection.

“Not that cute,” He grumbles. “I’m plenty cute. The cutest.”

Someone knocks on the door. Cleo pokes their head in, “Hey, Joel.”

“Hey,” He hasn’t stopped glaring at his reflection. “Don’t ask about Grian.”

Cleo lets herself in, “Wasn’t going to,” She says simply. “Now stop sulking and let me do your makeup.”

With great effort, (not really) Joel relaxes his face, his features smoothing out.

He looks good, is the thing. No matter what Grian has to say. Joel looks– good. Attractive. Drop-dead gor– whatever. The point is, he’s handsome, and he could woo whoever he wanted. Definitely.

(He thinks of Tango, gold-spun hair catching the stage lights, red eyes dark as wine.)

…Probably.

Joel bites the inside of his cheek. Ugh, he’s gonna be thinking about that all day, won’t he?

Stupid Grian. 

—

(“Cleo,” Joel starts. “Am I hot?”

The brush on his face stops.

“The fuck?”)

—

He breaks the prop again.

In his defense, it was still mostly an accident. Mostly.

"How."

Joel squirms a little under Tango's gaze, hoo boy. 

He holds up the broken prop bow, "Ehh, the uh. The thing is, I keep, like, using too much strength on it?" He grins, straightening his back. "You know, 'cuz I'm so strong and stuff. Happens uh, all the time, you know?” At Tango’s silence, he tacks on, “…It's annoying."

Tango raises an eyebrow, unimpressed. Joel's grin goes lopsided, withering under the look.

"I– uh," He thins his lips, runs his tongue over the front of his teeth. "...Sorry?"

Tango’s tail sways a little behind him, His arms are crossed, just. Looking at him.

Okay, Joel thinks, palms starting to sweat. Maybe Grian was right.

“You realize I’m not even a props guy, right?” Tango asks. Joel swallows. “Official title’s set designer.”

Joel is so fucked.

“I knew that,” Joel manages, still clutching the damn prop. “Just– you helped me fix it last time.”

And the time before that. And, also, the time before that.

…Joel’s sweating up a damn storm over here.

Eventually, Tango sighs.

"C'mere, I've got something for ya."

Joel's eyebrows leap up. He follows Tango as he leads him deeper backstage, past costume racks and other stage tech-y stuff– none of which Joel can make heads or tails of.

His mind races with questions, half of his brain going why is he leading me all the way back here while the other half is really trying not to ogle at Tango’s–

"There it is," Tango says, jolting him out of his thoughts. He scoops up what looks like a small toolkit, holds it out to Joel. "Here, for the next time you manage to break that poor bow again."

Joel opens his mouth, closes it again. He just stands there, dumbfounded and cheeks burning with shame, "I don't know how to–"

"You've seen me do it like five times, haven't you?" Tango asks, teasing. Joel's going to die. "You're a big boy, you can do it."

What'd he just call me, "Right," Joel squeaks, "That's– Right. Yeah."

He reaches out to grab it–

But Tango pulls it back, his grin growing wider.

"Wha–?"

Tango tilts his head, "There are better ways to get my attention, you know."

Joel's heart leaps into his throat.

He’s so fucked–!

It must show on his face, too, because then Tango laughs and it would've been a win if it weren't at him– "I'm serious, man! You didn't have to do all that stuff– You thought I wouldn’t notice?"

Tango shakes his head, gives Joel the toolkit. He closes Joel’s hand around it with his own.

Joel's breath hitches in his throat– Tango’s touch burns but in a good way, like sunlight on skin, like– 

"It's not like you needed help getting my attention, anyway."

If this were a movie, Joel thinks this is where he’d hear a record scratch.

Hold on. Rewind. What?

Tango looks surprised, “Did you really not know?” 

“I–” Joel closes his mouth. He’s trying to form words, honest, Tango’s hand is just so warm– “Would you believe me if I said I knew?”

Tango laughs, (Again! Joel’s mind crows.) “It wouldn’t be your best performance, I’ll tell you that much.”

“Answer’s no, then,” Joel replies, strangled. A pause. “No as in, I didn’t know– oh gosh, I hope I’m reading this right–”

Tango’s hand falls away, amusement twinkling in his red eyes. Joel tries to remember how to breath.

Tango’s lips pull up into a smile, “You know, you’re way different off-stage.”

Ouch. “Sorry to disappoint,” Joel blurts out, a faint sting in his chest. Tango’s eyes go wide.

“That’s not what I meant!” His tail lashes in panic, “You’re– you’re a completely different person on-stage, you know? Which I get is the point, you’re amazing, just…”

Joel blinks. Is his brain melting out of his ears? It feels like his brain is melting out of his ears.

It echoes in his head, you’re amazing.

A faint red dusts Tango’s cheeks, “…I think I kind of prefer the real deal.”

“Oh,” Joel says, voice faint. Tango’s blush deepens.

“I just made this weird, didn’t I–”

Joel’s brain kicks into gear, finally, “D’you wanna go out some time?” He asks. His hands shake, just a little. “Cuz I think you’re bloody brilliant, Tango, so if you’re gonna be saying stuff like that,” He swallows. “You better at least let me take you out to coffee.”

Tango’s grin is blinding, “Only if you promise to stop breaking props.”

Joel laughs, a giddy rush in his chest.

“I promise.”

(At the back of his mind– Take that, Grian!)

—

Somehow, somewhere, Grian just sneezed.

[ipushedthewrongbutton]

Imma do this final vent and then I’ll shut up about it.

This was a dumb move, from every possible perspective.

In the og goodbye video, they really made it sound like they were doing the streaming service because they wanted to go bigger, make cooler videos, really see what they could do and let their creative vision take the lead.

Growing as an artist is what you do when you Already Have The Money To Do So. You don’t tell your audience “give me money and then I will use to it to make cooler bigger things”. That’s not a streaming service, that’s a kickstarter.

They didn’t have the numbers to pull a streaming service off either. “We think we’re ready for television quality content” no you don’t. Sorry, no you do not. Television quality content means 30-50 crew per project, means at least 4-5 production being worked on at the same time, and at least 4-5 productions being broadcast at the same time. Watcher has maybe 2 series they upload simultaneously and they have 25 employees TOTAL. Not even CLOSE to tv levels of content, who the fuck do you think you are???

Did they really think all 3 million of their subscribers were going to follow them on this? Including kids, whose spending is dependent on their parents? Including the casuals, who only subscribed for the occasional video? Including people for whom $6 dollars on another streaming service just isn’t an option? Why DIDN’T they poll this, was this being a surprise really that important??

AND why would you completely cut off another revenue? Even if YouTube is restrictive, it’s still another source of income. Cutting that off completely is… bold.

Especially since in the apology, they let it slip that no, actually, it’s because Watcher is on the brink of having to close up shop because they’re not making enough money with just the patreon, the merch sales, the ad reads, etc.

So… one of those is a lie. Or at least part of the truth.

But let’s assume they are in financial trouble, then this was still the dumbest they could’ve done.

Welcome to the entertainment industry where we follow 1 giant fucking rule: Kill Your Darlings.

Fellas, pals, amigos, bros, dudes. If your projects spend more than what they make, it’s time to downsize. Not upscale. Cut the shit that’s spending the most money, start concentrating on how you can conserve without having to fire your crew. Put the projects where you have to fly out and buy new stuff all the time on the back burner, you can get back to them once you actually have the money for them. Work with what you already have. You have a MASSIVE studio space, fuckin use it. You HAVE sets, you HAVE props, you HAVE talent and you have ideas. Start workshopping all the crazy and shit ideas you thought weren’t gonna work and start thinking how you could make them work with the lowest possible budget you can have. Your audience is there, they’ll watch whatever you throw at them. Now is the time to go crazy and see what sticks. You HAVE viewership. Collab. CONSTANTLY. Get it the fuck out there that you exist. A lot of people had no idea a patreon existed, mention it ALL THE TIME. To the point that it becomes annoying. Do it!

If your studio is becoming too expensive, get rid of it. Sorry, kill your darlings. Move some shit around in Steven Lim’s tesla garage, put up some green screens, this is where you work now until you can afford a studio in LA again, you dipshits. Editors can work from home, sound designers can work from home, writers and researchers can work from home, meetings can happen in someone’s kitchen or living room.

And finally: be transparent. Be honest to your audience and communicate. “We’re sorry to put Ghost Files on hiatus, however we can no longer justify the cost of traveling to locations.” The majority of your audience will understand and show patience. The part of your audience that matters will wait and enjoy your other wacky shit in the meantime. Hell, they might spontaneously start their own kickstarter because those who can, will want to support you financially, if you’re just hONEST WITH THEM.

As a business, you constantly have to choose between your financial stability and that of your employees, your vision and the future of your company and what you Want to do with it, and your integrity, the trust between you and your audience. (Especially that last one, businesses can’t pretend they don’t have a relationship with their audience, that’s not how business works, guys.)

When you’re in financial straits, one of those has to go. Watcher chose the latter, they should’ve picked the middle. Their grand television quality ideas can fucking wait, if money is a problem.

Look, I’m an artist too. I had a vision too. But it was either my creative vision or being able to afford food and rent. Creativity can wait, creativity will always be there once I can support it. Living comes ALWAYS first. Asking my audience to fund my huge artistic dreams though, with only the promise of something cool, NEVER even crossed my fucking mind. That’s what donations are for, that’s what the patreon is for.

They apologised. And good. But this was a dumb decision from the goddamn start. There were like 500 steps in between and they skipped all of it. And for what? For money? For grand ideas? For greed or for hubris? How many of their original subscribers are actually gonna come back? How much money did they lose with this stunt? If they really are in financial trouble, this MASSIVE risk -which is what it has always been- might just be their downfall. And it’d be 100% their own fucking fault.

[justa-moth]

this is an incredibly niche thing that will appeal to maybe like one other jrwi fan, but:

what crew i think various riptide characters would be on if they were tech theatre kids

because why not :]

Jay: - oh Set Crew for SURE dude - shes the head carpenter - she knows how to use every tool in the shop - she's the one helping the newbies learn said tools - she'll yell at you to be safe but also do the worlds most unsafe things - she probably gets thrown on fly rail alot and is bitter about it because she'd rather move stuff on stage

Chip: - Set - Now he might not be great at it - but he would just really enjoy using the power tools - (and Jay would be on his ass about it constantly because he is Not safe like at ALL) - he probably gets put on like the super heavy set piece for a scene change and will do nothing but complain about it

Gillion: - ok this one was hard - i dont think hes set crew - but i do think hes usually been crowned the official Heavy Set Piece Mover - just because hes the theatres resident Strong Man - honestly i think he's scared of most of the power tools tbh jhkfsdjhk - he's probably just general stage crew, aka just the jack of all trades guy that any of the crews can use if they need an extra hand - (however he never helps any of the crews that require like a steady hand, like makeup, costume, or props, just bc of how big and clunky he is hjkfsdjkh)

Queen: - probably props or makeup/costume - theyre utterly terrified of ANY power tools and will avoid the shop like the PLAGUE - she probably really enjoy just sitting and working on small details for props while they blare music - (she is also the person in the theatre with the BEST music tastes, literally the best rehearsal playlist) - you look away from queen for maybe an hour and he will come back with the most intricate and beautifully designed prop - and it ends up having maybe 5 seconds of screen time and will have to get deconstructed once shows over

Gryffon: - okay so he's the guy that everyone thought would be the resident strong man when he joined the theatre. - and while technically he is, this poor man finds a way to break fucking anything - working on a set piece? it will crumble when he walks in the room. - working on lighting? they lamps will explode - he's the murphys law man. if anything could go wrong, it Will if he's in the room - its gotten to the point where every show the theatre does a ritual to the Theatre Gods in hopes that gryffon's powers of Pure Destruction may be nullified long enough for them to actually get shit done - he probably just gets put on fly rail because thats the only thing he hasn't managed to break

Alphonze: - Lighting / Sound for SURE - i would trust this man to operate the board - he's literally a god at programming cues, hes always on time - he cuts the mic out the SECOND the actor leaves the stage, he gets mic problems fixed INSTANTLY - if somethings wrong with a light, he IMMEDITAELY knows how to fix it - he is essentially the Antichrist to gryffon's destructive power - its the Theatre Superstition that if Alphonze and Gryffon are in the same room for too long it'll cause a singularity

Lizzie: - Set or maybe even Stage Manager - she's probably stage manager, but like only hangs out with techies - because being in the room with the cast and their songs for too long makes her just actually wanna die - shes super chill, but then tech week hits and she means BUISNESS - her ass gets things DONE - they could be in any stage of the creative process, and lizzie will find a way to speedrun it in the best and most efficient way possible

Caspian: - Makeup / Costume - like i imagine him helping people do their makeup in the dressing rooms before show - he would also be that one poor head costume manager helping the main character with the worlds most stressful quick change - or the poor mf who has to speed safety pin someones clothes together because it ripped mid performance

Marshal John: - literally THE set guy, aside from Jay - you need something heavy moved quickly? get john - power tools broken? get john - literally any problem that could easily be solved by a Big Strong Man? john. - he, like gillion, is the other Resident Strong Guy - however all prop people know to never get NEAR him, because this poor man has a way of literally just breathing on a prop and causing it to shatter - he's just big and clunky and can't handle delicate things

Drey and Finn: - the resident Uncles of the theatre - they don't work there - but theyre there to support their Kids TM - drey probably donates random pieces of furniture to the set department - and finn makes BANGER meals for the crew when it gets closer to performance - and they work like 12+ hours without eating - finn will MAKE SURE these poor kids get their nutriants

Earl: - in the same vein, he's also just one of the resident Uncles - once before a performance earl didn't make them juice - and literally Everything went wrong - so now everyone is convinced that Earl's juice is Magical and Blessed - and if the theatre doesn't get blessed by his juice, everyone fears for their life - Earl uses this to his advantage, and will actively threaten people to drink his juice by saying like "if you don't drink this i'll make sure that chandelier breaks right before the finale!!" - and the poor set crew kids just start SWEATING

[melonteee]

Since you brought up the OPLA den den mushi… I honestly think they’re pretty unimpressive as far as animatronics go. Both in their construction and how they’re used in the show.

Not only are the den dens far less articulate than the animatronics seen in shows of a similar caliber (see: Farscape) but they don’t even achieve the level of articulation of most hand puppets. To me it sums up what sums up how the overall production just seemed to have weird priorities; $10,000 a pop to give these snails realistic skin textures, human lips with moisture glisten, human hair, and off-putting bloodshot eyes only for those elements to be squandered on lifeless mouth flaps.

But they also just don’t work in how they’re framed by the show. In the original series, the Muppet-like simplicity of the den dens’ designs is used to help sell that the mundane whimsy, which combined with how characters treat the den dens makes their relationship with humans feel mutually beneficial. The live action though? If the “kill me” expressions weren’t enough, it’s clear that the directors treated the den dens as set props instead of living animals in the context of the world, and that bleeds into how the characters interact with them. The only characters who use den dens in the whole show are antagonists, Nami’s ear bud den dens sputter and squeal in pain after being submerged in salt water and she throws them back in the water in annoyance when they don’t work, and worst of all Garp flips his desk in a tantrum with his den den still on it where it gets smashed on the floor. Replace the den dens in any of these scenes with a carrier pigeon or a ship cat and the tone suddenly shifts into a huge “fucking YIKES.”

Which to me is a crying shame, because the prospect of seeing Muppet-esque den dens and similar creatures was kinda the only thing that piqued my interest. One Piece is absolutely a series where you should be able to visualize the characters having in-depth conversations with most Jim Hensen creations, but it feels like the show’s budget is already bursting at the seams given how this same issue is prevalent in other areas of the production. I can already tell that the existence of the den den earbuds means they’ll likely phase out the den dens at some point in favor of having characters talk into the middle distance. The Golden Den Den Mushi that triggers the Buster Call to Enies Lobby might end up being a Golden Bluetooth if the series gets that far.

Yeah it feels like the Den Den Mushis were treated so cruelly in the live action, which is just adding to the 'edginess' of the world I guess ??? And it's a shame cause when Sanji crushed the radio in water 7, Oda got someone asking if the Den Den Mushi was okay, and Oda said don't worry! The radio isn't actually the Den Den Mushi, it's just placed on it! So Oda has taken very careful care in his own world to not hurt these little snails, but it feels like the live action just shoved them in not to world build but...like you said, just as props HHH

And yeah the lifeless form of the Den Den Mushi animatronics really aren't that impressive are they, the original Den Den Mushis have little arms that flail around while they openly laugh and scream and cry. Every time a Den Den Mushi got a distress call and acted it out in the manga/anime, I remember thinking "good job little snail." But the live action Den Dens are so...nothing?? They just don't even feel like living creatures lmao

The live action Den Den Mushis feel like a good sideshow attraction where u can let people talk through it for the mouth to flap, but otherwise...why in the world spend 10k (or whatever it was) per Den Den Mushi if you could just make a hand puppet, or even include some CGI, for a LOT cheaper and have MORE movement and expression??? Like you said, the priorities of production were bizarre.

[tarynisbunhead]

Man, CGI has really ruined Hollywood.

I've said how much I hate CGI in the past. How at this point I can't see the movie but just CGI blobs, or how about the fact that CGI takes away jobs like Make-up artists and costume design? "Hey if the computer can do it, why bother to wear the costume at all?" This is why corporations now turned to AI, and it's backfiring.

So why even bring this up? This summer I decided to watch Young Indiana Jones Chronicles again. I watched the first half of volume one, so far the first four adventures follow 10 year old Indiana Jones as he travels the world with his parents and tutor. Eventually the series tackles what happened to Indy's mother and the bitter relationship between father and son but as for right now Professor Jones is traveling and lecturing. This series was released in 1992 and as a kid when this series was released I didn't miss an episode, it was one of my favorite shows - why the fucking hell is Hollywood stupid now? This isn't some crummy nostalgia trip because I have the set and watch it on occasion, in the last 20 years Hollywood has given us reboots and self inserts, I'm not entertained watching someone's fan fiction play out.

This show starts off with a monologue explaining how Indy got to be an adventurous kid, and how he ended up with his dog. It then slides into how the family started their trip around the world - their house is a Victorian style house so you know the rest of this will be shot on location. Even as a kid I loved the location shots and costumes, I wanted to go back in time and wear Mrs. Jones clothes, I thought she was so pretty.

Okay now first of all, Professor Jones. George Lucas had to know after releasing Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade in 1989, and having Sean Connery as Indy's father, that wasn't going to be easy. The actor, Lloyd Owen, not only has the look but his acting style follows Mr. Connery. Right down to saying "Junior!" almost exact.

Shoot on location or green screen? I understand budget, but if you were given the money to show off the beauty of a country, why destroy it with computer generation?

I mean even the silent film Phantom of the Opera, that music hall set was designed using sketches. People thought that scene was filmed in an actual music hall. Lucas filmed on location in several episodes, using props that fit the time period, with 10 year old Indy the journey began in 1909.

Props and costumes really make a difference in transporting the audience back in time.

But even at that, through the series Indy meets several historical figures. Some show up several times like T. E. Lawrence and Howard Carter, so of course they had to look like the person they were portraying but what about Sigmund Freud? Tolstoy? Even a young Norman Rockwell?

This is the first episode, Carter and T. E. Lawrence are at a digsite. The crafty thing about Lucas is the characters mention King Tut so yeah you're gonna see these guys again

Here's a young Norman Rockwell

Here's Puccini, the opera composer who gave us Madame Butterfly. I watched the episode last night and didn't realize just how much it showed the actual Puccini - in the episode he went after Indy's mom, the real Puccini was a womanizer so there was no holding back

You can say I'm nostalgic and defend 2024 Hollywood but look at Who Framed Roger Rabbit that was released in 1988

Or how about Dick Tracy, released in 1990

Then there's Rocketeer in 1991

And then the same year that Young Indiana Jones Chronicles was released to TV, there was Newsies - 1992

Can we go back to movies and TV shows that look like the time period they were set in?

[xannador]

Please don't give up. I'm sure this is just a bad trend that will go away like NFTs.

I'm afraid that's not the case.

NFT's were intrinsically worthless. Their value was derived from there always being a bigger idiot to buy them from you. Once they ran out of idiots, the pyramid scheme collapsed. AI actually has a variety of different applications that can create value. Not all of them are bad. It can and will be used in the medical industry to find and recognize diseases and other afflictions much faster. It has its uses in software for programmers to write their code more quickly and with fewer mistakes. And so much more, no point in listing them all off.

It is just a pattern recognition software. But it is extremely powerful. And it is going to reshape almost every single industry, not just the media. It will do some good. And it will also cause an incredible amount of damage.

So no, this shit is never gonna go away. Not unless a solar flare fries all our technology in a single cataclysmic event. But until that happy day, we're going to have to deal with it and protect ourselves from it.

I think the people who create art or write for no reason other than the joy of it have nothing to worry about. Photography didn't stop people from painting either. But if you want to make a living from art/writing/animation or want to grow an audience... yeah you're probably fucked. You'll be forced to learn to use it or be left behind.

For what it's worth, the one thing technology has never been able to replace, and never will, is humanity itself. You cannot form a fulfilling social connection with a robot. AI can't replace communities. And tech bro aren't interested in infiltrating tiny fringe niches and fandoms with their piece of shit bots.

AI isn't able to entirely replace us artists and writers just yet. I have played around with AI to see if I could use it in any shape or form. But the moment you ask it to do something specific and be consistent in any way, it just completely falls apart. It can't generate consistent character designs or settings or props. It doesn't understand camera angles or perspective at all. You can't make edits or small/specific changes either. Cause it doesn't fucking know what it's doing or making.

This might change. The technology is getting better and better everyday. I think it is inevitable before AI can generate images of characters/environments in any style, from any angle, with any expression, etc. And we'll be fully redundant. It might take a month. Maybe a year, maybe longer. But it's coming.

Just not today. So I say enjoy whatever time we have left.

[pluck-heartstrings]

My mind is in shambles, I hope you know that. Here I am tangled up into like 3 different gauges and types of threads trying to determin the difference between steel grey and platinum and what becomes a hand and what becomes a dress while making her look like a creature of distinct parts. Should I double strand some cool pastels into her dress to make an Aurora affect ton mimic sun and moon taking on sun rise and set adjacent coloring? Or try and make her as acurate as possible with flat coloring so my brain doesnt itch? Maybe I could try and ombre her skirt in an attempt to make her face as striking as possible? Like a singular blinding star in the sky. Do I use micro thread for a tiny, figurine like statue, or more versatile larger gauges that look messier but allow for more variety, but a floppier plush like design? How much do I have to pay you for a reference sheet or should I go all and just freehand her a dress design? What color is the gem on her circlet I cant find a reference?!?! I know its non canon but she's about to get my ballet slipper pattern feet and become and en point queen. I could streamline the design by forgoing feet altogether and make a stand and thick skirts and pose her and straight up make like 10 of her! GOLDEN PRINCESS PLUSH! Oh my god, sleeping beauty dress split in sun and moon colors I can't. I feel a deep connection with Sun to the point of pulling my hair this princess has me in a death grip. Her aesthetic got me quaking. *her god damn head is a nightmare!!!!!!!* I've got a third of a two year project left to do *that I was paid for, and can not put on hold* or else I would be elbow deep in dragon scale patterns trying to make 3D eyelashes!

And part of this design process is trying to like... reverse enjineer Fazco type branding. What parts of ger are most marketable and thus, simplified and emphasized? With her and sun being the only two without "cool accessories" my brain wants to go whole fucking ham into the rose prop that will most likely be her signature and remove her legs so her skirts can become an inverted rose. I'll bet they'll be all over her merch.

Ima go die now. Or lie down and shake from overstimulation. Princess fixation always be hitting at 2 am.

Nelly I'm shaking you. I'm kicking my feet in a furious attempt to keep it together.

If there was a head of merch at Castle Faz I'd hire you in a heartbeat. You understand. /italian gesture hand/ No matter what happens Castle Faz is still a FazCo business and they'll do whatever it takes to make a profit.

Shitty little cheap plushies of the Princess? Fly off the shelves. Every little girl either buys one of the Princess cap crowns or a plush. Their parents bring them back to Castle Faz because the doll basically disintegrates with too much playing so they have to return to get a replacement. But the die-hard fans that follow the company and turn a blind eye to all the mysterious circumstances of the past? Those are the ones that shell out BIG BUCKS for the high resolution, hand painted figures. Especially one of the newest character in their lineup, the first in however many years. The Princess isn't well known yet, but if the business does well then she'll be the marketing face for the brand.

Her aesthetic is platinum, with an array of subtle colours. Picture fine particles of glitter that catch the light and refract into a multitude of colours. Because of her simplistic mask and hat, she looks good in all colours. That means her merch can change often, and it does! Dress up Princess dolls with changeable outfits for every occasion, holiday, theme.

See now you got me goin'

[saltygilmores]

THOUGHTS WHILE WATCHING GILMORE GIRLS: S3/EP4/ONE’S GOT CLASS THE OTHER ONE DYES (PART 2)

Luke and Lorelai both have "unique" approaches to conducting business, I'll give them that. This chapter was rough for me to write for some reason and then I LOST my draft partway through and had to rewrite everything! Some things that are happening:

-Lane attempts to initiate a conversation with Mrs Kim about her new band. She loses her courage before Mrs. Kim presents her with applications to strict Christian colleges. -Michel suggests that the honor of being named a Successful Person in Business is a low bar to clear when Lorelai's only business competitor in Stars Hollow is a presumably homeless and/or mentally ill fellow who scours the streets for change with a metal detector. I mean, yeah, he has more ambition and a better work ethic than Lorelai does.

-Luke is reluctant about the speaking gig and Lorelai threatens to embarrass him by singing badly in public if he does not comply. He may as well refuse since she's going to embarrass him on a daily basis no matter what he does anyway? -Luke says he went to Stars Hollow High for three years. Huh? I thought he's lived in The Hollow his entire life? High school is four years long. Did he move, drop out or graduate early? No explanation was given at this point in time.

-Luke has "no good memories" of high school. Join the club. -Luke asks Lorelai if she's ever been diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder. No, the answer you're looking for is no. She is unmedicated and dangerous.

My beloved Tomatos Sign is missing! You'd think it was because after 3 years the prop department noticed the spelling error and took it down to fix it. You would be wrong. It'll return shortly to be Tomatos for several more years. Should I ask that Valerie Campbell lady (as "key set designer" is her title, I believe) why it took 5+ years for someone to notice one of the most visible props for the entire run of the series had a spelling error?

Lane is interesting. Yes, she is naive in many ways, that's a given with her upbringing. But she is also painfully self aware and highly intelligent. She is definitely not stupid. She fully realizes how desperately boxed in she is by her neurotic mother. She makes the effort and takes risks to live life on her own terms even though it usually seems futile and AmyShermanPalladino is always lurking around a corner waiting to shatter all her hopes and dreams. Rory on the other hand is such a pathetic people pleaser and so desperate to keep her mother happy that I think she's blind to the fact that she's actually in a similar situation, Lorelai just masks it under the veneer of being a "cool young mom" and Rory is content to remain more stagnant. I have more thoughts on this subject but let's not make this into a rambly mess. On with the ShitCircus.

I can't believe it looks there's another fucking festival going on in the background. I am grateful some of these seasonal events exist because it helps me keep track of where we are in the year. There's pumpkins, it's fall, the Thanksgiving episode is still a ways away so I can assume it’s early October and Rory would have just had her 18th birthday.

Lane and Rory on their way to harrass Queen Shane at her place of employment. Minimum wage in 2002 was $5.15, by the way. Look at that Rory, someone your age has a JOB that makes MONEY.

Stars Hollow, the land where nobody has seen a tv show produced after 1975 but the references to modern pop and rock music flow like wine.

Alexis really does have some spectacular defeated/fed up with everything facial expressions in her acting playbook.

Sure her customer service skills aren't the greatest, but if Lorelai Gilmore is allowed to leave work in the middle of the day to shop for coffins then Shane should be allowed to read a Seventeen behind the counter and ignore Rory. Her manager, Cynthia, is pretty chill and will look the other way if Shane slacks off. Reminder that while Rory knows who Shane is, Rory has barely been a glint in the corner of Shane's eye. Any time that Shane and Rory have shared the same space, it's been when Shane runs into the diner, makes out with Jess, and doesn't look back. Because she is a god damn superhero.

It's unlikely Jess and Shane ever use their tongue for talking either so I doubt Jess has told her who Rory is. So to Shane Rory is just some random customer who is staring at her weirdly like she's trying to melt her with her eye-beams.

Look at that exemplary customer service. Better crown her Employee of the Month now, before Jess offs her and throws her in the lake next month.

Dirty white aprons with tomato can accessories are the newest sensation on the 2002 Paris Runways. Luke Danes, fashion icon. Time to go to class. Lorelai is there to play Fashion Fairy Godmother. Upstairs we go to get him out of that sweaty flannell.

That's so filthy. L&L barge into the apartment without knocking to find Jess in the middle of pulling up his pants. Walking into any room that a teenage boy might occupy is a risky game, but Interruption seems to be Lorelai's biggest kink.

I know Jess is just a poor little street urchin but can we get him some clothes that fit for once? In 2002 Milo was so smol a stiff breeze could have blown him away. He's wearing a belt and it's not working. Those pants are so baggy they could fit 3 Milos in them. Not that I would mind if his pants fell down. Looks we're on Gilmore Girls Time today, where down is up and right is left as Luke and Lorelai are about to give speeches at Stars Hollow High in the middle of the school day but Shane, Lane, Rory and Jess are not in school and no one cares, so it's Who The Fuck Knows O'Clock.

Stars Hollow High: Jess is not graduating because he never went to class. Luke: How could I possibly know that? Jess settles into a chair with a chemistry textbook. Our Child Labor Kingpin here Luke Danes tells him to go help Cesar downstairs. Jess says his education is more important than Luke's desire to use his nephew for cheap child labor. Luke disagrees. Luke goes to change in his bedroom leaving Lorelai, Jess, and a cloud of awkard silence to mingle in the other room. Luke has a book on his shelf called "Forty Days" but i can't find anything with that title. It sounds kinda erotic, tbh. Lorelai says she's gone swimming with Luke and has seen him shirtless before. Que? Jess: Have you seen him with his shirt off lately? He's really let himself go. Lorelai: *Sneers and ignores him. (to Luke): And lose the baseball hat! Jess: I think his head will fall off without it. Lorelai (snarkily): I think he'll be okay. You wanted Jess to talk, right? You're going to continue bitching to everyone you know that Jess Mariano only speaks in grunts like a caveman unlike your little fucking English scholar there Dean Forrester, right? He just lobbed you two funny quips in a row (and you love funny quips!) but now you're silent and giving him a dirty look and a nasty attitude. WHAT DO YOU EVEN WANT, WOMAN? MAKE UP YOUR MIND! WHY SO SILENT QUIPPY! WHAT DID THIS CHILD EVER DO TO YOU!

I'm just gonna sit here and read my little Chemistry book, and one day I'm gonna make 40 kajillion dollars when my books are made into blockbuster movies, and I will own you, Aunt Lorelai. I will own you.

Lorelai doing the Fry squint at Jess when he asked if something was wrong, because she refused to make conversation with him.

Speaking of Gilmore Girls Time. Let's stop the clock for a minute here. Moments ago, Shane was at work. She rang up Rory and Lane, and they left immediately. The scene then cuts to Lorelai entering the diner and then after he gets a brief lecture about his clothing choices, Lorelai and Luke start to head upstairs so he can change. In order for Closet Girl to be Shane, her shift would have ended seconds after she finished with Rory and Lane, and then she would have to immediately run down the street, sneak upstairs to Luke's apartment without him noticing and would only be seconds into servicing Jess as Luke and Lorelai are about to walk in PLUS he would need time to hide her in the closet and pull up his pants and appear cool calm and collected. I know Shane is a slutty superhero but could she really put that off in just a few minutes? Conclusion? It wasn't actually Shane in that closet and Jess has a rotation of girls who skip school with him to service him in his uncle's closet.

[monsieuroverlord]

NYX #1 Thoughts:

It was alright, very Kamala/Ms. Marvel and Sophie-focused. It was a decent set up of the premise, and I'll keep an eye on it.

Spoilers:

The Krakoan is Julian Keller/Hellion as everyone called it. Just in case anyone missed the leaks on Twitter.

Him and the rest of Cuckoos are apparently working with Empath, and the current implication is that he may be amping up and/or twisting their post-Krakoa emotions.

Anole, we didn't see much of, other than he's a bartender now.

Not only is David teaching, but he's also a tenure-track professor.

As someone who works for an American university, I'd be so curious to see how that happened. I mean, at least for the department I work for (very research-heavy stem field), its a LOT to negotiate tenure-track, even with years of experience and a Ph.D. Its like a 3-4 day marathon of presentations, wining-and-dining, meetings after meetings, tours, and a red-eye flight back home. You basically gotta meet everyone in our department and not only show that you know what you're talking about, but also that you won't be an asshole to the established professors (I know this, because I'm the one assisting in organizing everything and making sure the right faculty shows up on time to give a lab tour to the applicant, lol)

I think in some areas, you can get away with an M.S. degree for tenure, but in most cases, its Ph.D.

And that doesn't even mean you are guaranteed to get tenure. There's a whole other review process for that.

Anyway, Sophie is right to call it out here. It does kinda feel like a hand-out. I wonder if that will come into play later?

I'd like to see David's point of view first, though. Maybe there's a secret plot where some of the faculty are evil and its an anti-mutant trap to lure him into a false sense of security. But he's too smart for that and plays them. I don't know.

Or maybe he got his P.h.D. That'd be dope.

I don't trust David's new boyfriend. He hasn't said much yet, but I don't trust him.

This issue is heavily focused on Kamala's point of view, and strongly features Sophie as well. It makes sense, as Kamala is the "newer mutant" in a sense, and serves well to introduce the reader to the setting and potentional storylines to follow.

Sophie and Kamala also have a budding friendship, and I think it's very cute.

I think the next issue at least is supposed to shift to Laura's point of view.

We also don't see too much of Laura, and she didn't appear to be in the college class? Maybe she joins later, or is a guest speaker, I don't know. OR maybe she's going undercover?!?!

We did get this pretty image on the opening page:

Laura only runs into Kamala while she's investigating a mutant terrorist attack.

I love her new look so much. It's very fashionable and actually makes her look distinct from Logan while she's still clearly a Wolverine. Props to the designer.

And now Marvel needs to free Akihiro from Hellverine psuedo-death-ressurection and give him a unique outfit and/or codename too. Thank you.

Laura really only says this though:

I don't know how I feel about her characterization here. I mean, its not the worst thing, but it lacks context for me.

I mean, what is Laura doing? Where is Gabby? Is Akihiro still dead and she's surly with grief? (because Hellverine hasn't finished yet and we don't know how that will end) Does she feel like she has to pick up the pieces and play hero because Logan fucked off to the Canadian Wilderness again?

I have many questions about my girl and her general well-being.

In general, I'm currently on the fence about her characterization. It could go either way.

I suppose we'll have to wait until next issue ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

In summary, it was a decent set-up. I read the X-Men Monday interview, so there was nothing that surprised me. Art is very good.

Also, this is me being a grumpy old bastard, but I hate the QR code pages they're doing now. Just print the damn page. I tried the scanner on both my phone and tablet, and it kept redirecting me to a broken link and I get a "500 Internal Error" message. I have no idea what that page is about. I personally don't like this concept of secret QR code pages and is irritating.

For digital reading, its more okay, but I also buy physical copies. I don't want to have to whip out my phone and/or tablet just for a gimmick to get the full issue. And who knows if the website eventually goes defunt years from now and then the QR codes are rendered useless. Then what?