#this originally had more dialogue but it was very cringe

[junipvelt]

the monthly authunity propaganda post

[doomsdaybby]

finally posting my contribution to @carolmunson’s cutest writing challenge!

please please please join in if you can!! there’s no pressure, and I had such a good time with this. it made me all giggly and soft, which is something I haven’t experienced to this level whilst writing for a little while 🫶🏻

the scene: a romantic night in at the trailer

props: a throw pillow, vanilla frosting, a small notebook

dialogue prompts can be found in the original guidelines post linked up top!

word count: 3.5k (huh?!!? this ended up a lot longer than I anticipated)

content/warnings: female physical descriptions and she/her pronouns used for reader character throughout, original series eddie (no au), friends to lovers, questioning relationship (unestablished, that weird in between), first date, fluff on fluff on fluff, a little angsty at the start but we lighten up, cringe-worthy flirting that makes my heart flutter, first kiss (🥹!!!!), slightly suggestive (no smut), swearing.

The cool evening breeze sweeps at the hem of your pinafore dress, a fitted denim ensemble that hugs the fat of your hips and thighs, sitting snugly at your waist, paired with a pretty floral long-sleeve.

The trailer park can be spooky at this time of night, especially with a little chill in the air - you have always gotten the creeps standing out here too long. You tuck the two VHS tapes you’d brought along under your arm, a six-pack of Miller Lite beers grasped faithfully in one hand, the other free fingers fidgeting with some loose cotton strands at the end of your sleeve.

Now that you were here for a date, you surely couldn’t just knock twice and waltz in like you own the place, like you usually do. Jesus, your collar is fucking tight. You fumble with your shirt, forefinger raking back and forth over the threads, the thin material somehow not granting you enough precious airflow.

You had never been so nervous around Eddie. Never had you really needed to think about your outfit or your hair or even your goddamn makeup.

But now. Now, it was different. After a slip of the tongue amidst a heated argument over something that you couldn’t even place clearly anymore. One that erupted because Eddie had failed another math test, or another subject similar along those lines. Not caring about his education enough to actually scrape his high school diploma from the bottom of the barrel, one that would soon be a vacant void if he didn’t pull his head out of his ass.

“Why do you even care?!” he had yelled at you, actually fucking yelled. Eddie hated the way you looked at him, eyes laced with disappointment and an anger you didn’t mean; the downturn of your brows and a deep crease at the very top of the bridge of your nose. A place that he had wanted to litter with gentle kisses more times than he could count.

It had shocked him too, the sudden raise of his voice, an air of malice coating the words. Though it wasn’t aimed at you, not really. Eddie just couldn’t bear the idea of you, somebody he cares so much about, being yet another person that viewed him as such a failure.

It had just tumbled out, an admittance of pathetic besotted pining that had built to mountainous heights over the years. A mentos in a cola bottle, the whistle of a kettle on the stove at boiling point, you just couldn’t help it.

“Because I like you!” you had called back twice as loud, though the ferocity was near triple of Eddie’s.

“Like, really fucking like you, Eds” you admitted quieter that time, only able to steal quick glances at his astounded expression - a jarred sort of picture painted on his face, chocolate eyes wide and jaw loose at the hinges.

“You… you do?”

So here you stood one week later, on a chilly mid-March Saturday night, on the front step of Eddie Munson’s trailer - a person who you held near and dear as a friend since middle school and, at arm's length, a kindling flame, always believing that your infatuation was completely one-sided.

Therefore once your romantic desires turned out to be reciprocated, your heart was in your throat and your head spun dizzy in a dream-like state.

Another flatten of the front of your dress, a press of your middle finger to the tacky gloss of your lips, and you were knocking on the front door. Folding your arms over yourself was a grand task to keep yourself busy for a moment - fingers strangled by the plastic casing surrounding the alcohol and tapes almost slipping from under their secure hiding spot.

You start to pick clumsily at the skin just above the nook of your elbow whilst you wait for said date to answer the door. Of course he didn’t keep you waiting long, though it was foreign for him to have to answer the door to you. Eddie appears in five seconds flat, hair perfectly mussed and the waft of his aftershave - the surprisingly good kind, pine and amber - erupts millions of butterflies in the pit of your stomach.

You feel like a dumbass kid, one disgustingly love-struck and naive. A feeling you aren’t overly familiar with, not to this degree. Of course you had your school girl crushes, fawning over your too large poster of Rick Springfield you had pinned up on proud display at the back of your bedroom door.

But with Eddie? It was totally unmarked territory, when you step meekly into his living room, uncharacteristically bashful, it sets alight that same adrenaline rush as if you were diving headfirst into shark infested waters. This was real life, your real life. He wasn’t a chart-topping celebrity you had ripped pages out of magazines for, Eddie was someone you had known only on platonic terms for nearly ten years.

“You look nice. Like, uh, really nice” Eddie compliments as he shuts the door.

“Y’made an effort for little ol’ me?” his grin stretches wide, a real pretty wide, a sort of grin that has never-ending smile lines rippling across his pink cheeks. Eddie matches your bashfulness, a shared tensisity that envelopes the air between you like thick black smoke accompanying the climbing licks of a fire.

You snort, such flattering remarks like this from him in this context was weird, but it felt so fucking good.

“You clean up pretty well yourself” your smile matches his, and it was true. Eddie did make an effort when it mattered; decked out in neat black jeans that unusually had no holes in the knees, the same makeshift handcuff belt, a faded white Van Halen t-shirt, completed with a dark olive green flannel that was cuffed to the elbows as the cherry on top.

The man was looking delicious, the same ripened fruit that tempted Eve in the garden of Eden, but you try not to stare too hard.

“I brought a couple movies,” you say, setting the beers atop the kitchen counter. “We’ve got ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ or one that Harrington said was pretty good, ‘The Breakfast Club’”.

You hold them both up to Eddie, who is smirking, a boyish expression that makes your stomach do backflips.

“Those are two wildly different options,” he snickers for a moment, a small pause before continuing with a mischievous bite, “And Harrington, huh?”.

Your brow raises warily, sensing a playful game of verbal tennis stirring up between you, the atmosphere electric. “I mean yeah, he does work there, Eds”.

“Aaahhh,” Eddie strings with an epitome of understanding, one you’re not certain that you’re following. “Now I know why you were almost a half hour late. Y’been chatting it up with other guys.”

“Don’t be like that,” you scold him lightly, “That’s not even true! Plus, do you really think I'd be here on a date with you if I had the hots for pretty boy?”.

Eddie takes pride of place at the end of the couch closest to you, hair enveloping his face as he crosses the living room.

“Oh? So he's a pretty boy now too?”.

You’re propped up against the kitchen counter, hip to the wooden cabinet, elbow leaning on the counter top. “You are the easiest person to get a rise out of, you know,” there was that smile again, a fond roll of your eyes in hand with the blooming cherry red at the apples of your cheeks.

Plus you’re prettier anyways, by a long shot.

“Hm. Will need to have a talk with Stevie-boy about trying to steal my girl”. Eddie notices the beaming display of pearly whites that earns him, one as radiant and scorching as the July afternoon sun.

‘My girl’.

It lights you ablaze from the inside out, the pound of your heart a booming bass drum in your ears, one vicious and overwhelming, and you suddenly become aware of every single vein and delicate capillary rushing with red hot blood.

“So… movie?” you’re holding up the chunky VHS tapes in either hand, insinuating pointedly to the macabre horror you were both certainly more inclined to, a jiggle of the dull clunk of plastic on plastic.

“Your choice, babe.” Eddie stretches an arm across the back of the couch, one leg swung up onto the well-worn cushion folded into a triangular shape. The space he had left for you was near disastrously tempting, able to fit perfectly cozy beside him, head crooked into the juncture of his neck.

Babe wasn’t new, but tonight it strung velvety smooth across his vocal cords with a much rosier lilt. Of course Eddie notices the bite at the inside of your cheek, the tightening at the corner of your mouth whilst you turn away from him. God, you don’t think that you’ll ever get used to this sort of giddiness.

“You got popcorn?” a wiggle of your brows in his direction and he’s giggling, a noise you hadn’t quite heard, breezy and flippant, overly juvenile but it was endearing.

“Actually,” Eddie jumps up from his spot on the couch, the shabby fabric already indented with a shadowed figure, remaining perfectly vacant until the owner returned.

“I thought that we could make chocolate chip cookies. You like cookies, right?” He pulls the multitude of ingredients from the cupboards and fridge, a stockpile threatening to topple from his arms. You watch him fondly, head propped up on the heels of your palms.

“I wrote the recipe down in this notebook. Debbie a couple doors down wouldn’t let me borrow her cookbook, said I couldn’t be trusted. Not sure if they’ll turn out any good but, yeah,” Eddie peers at you doe-eyes as he scratches the back of his head, fluffy locks exaggerated. He had washed his hair, it was always a dramatic transformation when he did. You were special.

“You made all this effort for little ol’ me?” you perk up, eyes swimming crystalline, brimming with the kind of tenderness only you could omit. Eddie chuckles, flipping open the notebook to decipher his rushed scrawling decorating the lines in smudged black ink.

So you did bake cookies together, a welcome ease to the tautness that strung tight in the air. You could get used to this, pottering around the kitchen, knowing Eddie on this entirely new plane of existence. You bump hips and snicker like kindergarteners, swiping off stray puffs of flour that somehow managed to settle under his eyes, allowing your thumbs to linger there for some selfish moments too long.

“I ran out of like, the nice cups, is this okay?” Eddie hands you the now chiller beer on ice once your baked goods sat safe and sound on the oven rack, a rather ghastly looking E.T. printed onto the cool glass. The picture was chipped and scraped in parts, appearing crummy considering the movie was still fairly new, though you didn’t mind.

You survey the glass up at your nose, rotating your wrist clockwise and opposite, lips form a downturn when you realise that the poor friendly alien had been decapitated without the tender loving care it obviously needed.

“It’s perfect”, you exhale a brief laugh lightheartedly, patting the cushion beside you, and Eddie spared not a moment more before he dived onto the couch with a similarly shabby looking glass in hand, though this one was embellished with a flaking Lord of the Rings design.

Now you were lounging together, taking up that place beside Eddie you had peered at so ardently earlier in the night, his hair brushing your cheek and the trailer enveloped in a cushy blanket of navy, apart from the blaring flickering white of the television screen.

Your head rests against his collarbone, his own tilted downwards so that his jawline was cushioned by your crown. This kind of more intimate contact came with a natural ease that neither of you had expected. The longer the clock ticked by, spending time together like this went from the sensation of that first crisp splash into the deep end of the pool that froze you to the bone, slowly, to the comfortable warming lull of floating down the lazy river.

You could float down the lazy river hand in hand with Eddie for the rest of eternity.

You weren’t sure how long you both enjoyed each other's company, the closeness, the minor skin to skin contact - long enough to empty your first cups of beer. But the awful smell of something burning soon seeped in from the direction of your precious cookies in the oven.

Eddie’s head shoots up when yours does, two noses sniffing up at the air. Eddie darts for the kitchen, and low and behold, behind the dirtied glass of the door and swaddled in smoke, were some very cremated looking cookies.

“You didn’t set a timer?” you questioned him, following close to his heels as he allows the smoke to billow free. The kitchen area quickly enfolds with the smog, stinging your eyes and catching at the backs of your throats. It was only a matter of time before the noise of the movie was drowned out by the alarming smoke detector.

“You said you would!” Eddie asserts, dumping the blackened cookies into the trash bearing an extremely puppy-like look on his face as you’re fanning the detector with a dish towel.

He sets the now empty tray back on the counter, winces at the high pitched ringing whilst pressing his finger to close off one ear. With another few bats of the rag, the alarm finally shuts off, and Eddie stands hand on hip just staring at you.

You shrug your shoulders, a pitying purse of your lips when the boy's face falls, brows pinching ever so faintly. You could kiss away every sad face he ever pulled.

“You have any vanilla frosting?” you ask lightly, shuffling through the cabinets only to find a couple tins of canned soup and a box of half eaten cheeze-its. Eddie observes the ingredients you had packed neatly away next to the sink, unfortunately not enough remained to make another batch.

“I don’t know where you think you are but I can assure you that I don’t,” his voice is sterner than he intends, crossing his arms, pissed off at himself that he had messed up what he wanted to be a perfect first date.

“Sad,” you respond dryly through a suck of the teeth, tilting your head back and towards him, almost swinging from the handles of the cabinets. “I could eat that shit with a spoon”.

Eddie grimaces, “and you… like that?”.

You mirror his expression, glossy lips stretching into an open-mouthed half smirk, arms folded and shoulders slumped forwards, turning full bodied to step gradually into his personal space. You have to crane your neck up some to meet his eyes, ones as dark as a piping hot shot of espresso.

“Eddie, it’s okay,” you assure him when his spread fingers skate lightly along his clothed ribs, a self-soothing action you were well accustomed to, one that shatters your heart a little. “The grocery store might still be open, we can go get some ice cream”.

You run your own fingers along the tops of his arms, brushing beneath the cuff of his sleeves. Your touch was soft, delicate, fingertips glacial compared to the flush of his skin. Eddie Munson was on fire.

“Hey…” You press the palm of your hand to his cheek, stippled a carnation coloured pink due to the light buzz of alcohol, plus the fact that you were touching him so tenderly had his pulse point racing. It was an innate response, to reach up and press the plush of your lips to his cheek, barely an inch or two from the corner of his mouth.

“I’m having a really good time with you, okay?”.

“Okay…” Eddie murmurs back, a low melodious noise as one large fervent hand closes over the one you held to his face. You think that he is about to return the favour, maybe draw you into another one of many tight hugs you had shared before.

Except by the way Eddie tugs at your sleeve behind your elbow, his arms unraveling to welcome you chest to chest, you swallow over a dry throat in the moments it takes you to catch up.

Eddie’s lips are soft, you already suspected that by the pouts you were a victim to over the years, fleeting thoughts of what they would feel like pressed to yours.

His body invades yours, the kitchen surrounding you bleeding into a shadowy blur, bleeding hazes of the movie scenes bursting into crimson and neutral coloured supernovas. Your hands are buried in his shaggy brown locks before you could even register your movements, pinching at his roots at the nape of his neck.

It was desperate. It was downright addicting, the way he tasted. His lips tacky with your glassy strawberry flavoured gloss, smearing to the corners with every open mouthed part. It was a shot of heroine in your veins and the highest of highs Eddie could never dream of reaching, a hit like no other.

The ice wasn’t just broken, the entire frozen lake was smashed to smithereens beneath your feet. Though you cut it short before anything can get too hot and heavy despite the sting it spikes right at the center of your heart.

“For the record…” he interjects, a tiny whisp of a kiss pressed to the end of your nose, “I think you’re sweet enough. You don’t need any frosting” Eddie smirks when you part, tone less cloudy and more challenging, that lost puppy-dog expression replaced by a playful and troublemaking smugness.

Your lips seal together in a tight line, despite his atrocious attempt at some romantic banter, neither of you could keep it in for very long, and you both burst out in reams of laughter.

You push him away at the chest, though your hands certainly linger there, basking in the physical contact that you now craved more than ever. “Never say that to me again! Come on, loser. We have a movie to finish”.

Your attention no longer settles on the teens in peril before you, the guts and gore no longer piquing any iota of interest. Eddie’s hands were all over you, though not in a sinful sense. It was suggestive, sure.

The tap tap tap of his fingers at the inside of your thigh, an absentminded tick to distract Eddie’s racing mind. His nails skimming the tender ticklish flesh at the curve of your neck, catching the thrumming artery and the muted hitch of your breath, up behind the back of your ear and down to brush at your collarbone beneath your shirt.

You’re turned into him now, a casual position where you could both hide behind the throw pillow and giggle through a particular jumpscare.

“Stop making me nervous” you mutter, his grin lengthening twice as wide when he notices that you’re smiling too.

“I'm making you nervous?” he nuzzles his nose under your cheekbone, pressing further into you to trap you at the corner of the couch, one hand grasps at your shoulder whilst the other strokes small feathery circles just above your knee.

“Eddie!” you exclaim, sitting up and away a fraction from the warmth of his side, grabbing the throw pillow within your reach to swat at his chest.

“Baby”.

Your eyes light up, a startle shaking in your chest, releasing a whisper of a gasp you didn’t mean to. Eddie tilts his head to the side, closing the gap between you a little more, eyes heavy lidded and they twinkle with the reflection of the screen across the room.

His voice is low, muttering to you as if he’s sharing a secret. “I can call you that? baby?”.

“If- if you don’t stop that right now, Munson, we’re gonna have a problem”. Christ, he’s making you fucking tremble.

“Oof, and we’re back to last name basis,” Eddie feigns offense, palm to his sternum in a false wound of his ego. Though he’s impossibly close now, lips meer inches from meeting for a second time, and you can almost fucking taste him again.

“My girl seems to work pretty well on you,” his breath skims the bridge of your nose, cheap beer and spearmint.

“If you’re trying to make this go somewhere that you shouldn’t be…”

Eddie inhales a dramatic breath, clutching at his shirt. “How dare you suggest such a thing! I would never dream of taking advantage of such a sweet thing as yourself. I am a gentleman!” he proclaims, all gun but no smoking barrel.

“You’re talking out of your ass, Eds” you’re in stitches, a saccharine candy-coated chortle that knocks the wind from the space between your ribs, comedic horror plastered all over his face.

Then you’re pulling him in by the collar before he can utter another word.

now it’s time for me to read the whole freaking masterlist!!! 🫶🏻 let me know if you enjoyed!

[cskv11]

Any doodles of bill or unrelated drawings you wanna share? I like your blog a ton, I'd eat your art like a four course meal, man!

Hi!!!! I'm not gonna lie, this made me cry a little hahaha, it makes me very happy to see that people enjoy the little thingies I create, I appreciate your kind words, really!!

As for doodles and other stuff apart from what I post, I'm not very active right now, since I'm more focused on the requests I get (it helps me a lot to get out of my comfort zone) so what you see on my blog is pretty much what there is.

If we're talking about blog related stuff, I've got some scrapped material, like for example:

That one request I got of Dipper watching with Stan "The Duchess Approves" was originally supposed to be a comic, but I considered it excessive:

(There is no dialogue because I changed plans before I had started to write them, haha)

This one I couldn't find the inspiration to finish:

And this one is from a short comic I didn't have time to finish:

The funny thing about it is that I got a request of a drawing about literally the same topic, but with Bill in it instead of Mabel. (If you can guess the context of this panel, I'll have no choice but to finish the original version).

This is a very rough initial sketch of a little thing I thought would come out as funny but have never polished it:

I have also explored some older Dipper and Mabel desings (these are super rough, they make me cringe when I see 'em), for a super secret project that I don't know if it'll ever come to light:

And that's all the Gravity Falls related stuff that I've got! For now, of course...

And to finish, these are two of my favorite non-fandom related drawings that I've made:

I hope these tidbits of my work are good enough to serve you a good meal!

Thank you again for your words, you made my day!!

[sillyshrimps]

Detail that makes me feral:

When being overtaken by the paradise protocol AI Turo twitches and shakes violently, whereas AI Sada's eyes flicker and her crystals seem to form tears.

It seems like such a small thing but it really capitalizes on the differences between them.

Sada is obviously magnitudes more outwardly emotional then Turo. When she tries to fight against the program it's her emotions that make it through, the fear in her eyes, the distress on her face. She wants to reach out to the kiddos, get them to understand that this is far too dangerous and not in their control anymore. But she also doesn't want them to be scared. Even if she's not the real Sada she has her memories. She remembers holding Arven in her arms. She still feels that bond with her son. She doesn't want to see the fear in his eyes. She doesn't want to him to feel this incredible trauma that she's had to push onto him but there's nothing she can do to stop it.

AI Turo on the other hand is trying to regain control of his limbs. If he could just stop his arms from moving. Turn his head away from the target. Just anything to stop the release of the miradon that had already killed the only human he has ever known in person. Miradon has taken his only real companion from him and in this scene he's trying to prevent it from taking the human he sees predominantly in his memories. Locking up his own joints and pitting muscle against muscle as he fights.

They both lose of course.

There's alot to be said of them and their memories and how it effects their view arven. But let's not skip over the fact that Turo/ Sada are likely the only humans they've ever known, and the raidons have likely torn them to shreds infront of their eyes, and left them alone in a dusty lab at the bottom of the deepest hole in paldea to stew on those memories for years. (And with the raidons they probably had to clean the blood off of) Now they're being used by those humans they once knew and trusted and were their only companions to repeat such a gruesome killing on four innocent and literally defenseless children. All this from someone they remember and speak of fondly.

I have to say that at the start I was really bothered by Turo being overall so rigid, almost indifferent compared to Sada. But then, I learnt to appreciate this difference and worked around it to shape my own headcanons. This is why I don't feel like many of my headcanons apply to Sada as well. I mean, she's always smiling, has that fiery grin on her, while Turo always looks so focused, no time for jokes. He never smiles throughout the game and the only time he does, well... he's a little cringe!

It might be because it's a robot (although it doesn't apply to AI Sada), but I like to think it's because this is the way the original Professor was. Always very serious, very focused on what needs to be done, no time for jokes/laugh around. After all, we are told by Clavell how he used to work so hard that he would fall asleep in his lab. I bet he didn't even attend social events whenever they organised them.

He's not very good at social relations either, doesn't always say the right thing/hurts people's feelings by accident... a little mess when it comes to interact with other humans!

With this, I don't want to say he never smiles or doesn't know how to do it. I believe he does sometimes, but always in a very subtle, contained way.

I got carrried away talking about my Turo hcs, but what I actually want to say is that I love how you read that moment for both professors, pointing out their differences and giving them an explanation. It's a little treasure considering that they have the same dialogues and storyline; I refuse to believe they are interchangeable to the point you could say the same hc is valid for both.

On the second part of your ask, you surely triggered some tears there! Anytime I read Professor&AI Professor analysis I prick up my ears.

Yes, it's extremely heartbreaking to think they had to fight so hard against the will of the only person they've known all their life. And yet, I still feel like they don't hate the Professor; they still respect them and feel sympathetic with them. As I said in one of my previous posts about Turo and his AI, I'm pretty sure the latter has witnessed the worst of him, and wished it could help him somehow, not to achieve his dream but... to set him free from it.

Also, it's extremely telling how both the AIs decide to travel to the future/past to honour the original professor's dream; in their betrayal, they were eventually still loyal in a way.

[blues-valentine]

Honestly I think hsmtmts s1 started with very typical idea of Ricky and nini being the boy/girl next door, Childhood friends that date kind of thing. With Gina and ej being the mean, scheming counterparts. It was so obvious from the posters and their costumes. But I guess none of the writers anticipated what a force sofia Wylie would turn out to be. She has a presence that just demands attention. She's the best actress of them all, best Dancer and her chemistry with Joshua is on another level. Plus the character of Gina turned out to have fascinating layers. All this combination outshined nini. Nini and Ricky were originally supposed to be main characters and though Ricky stayed a main character throughout the show, nini, never felt like a main character to me, even in season 1. She was sweet and good and had a straightforward arc that wasn't nearly as interesting as other characters. Plus she had no flaws. Ricky had issues, he had flaws that made him interesting. Same with Gina and ej.

And I feel the same with rini. They were sweet but kinda bland. Portwell were much better, interesting and deserved better treatment from the writers. And rina is rina. Sizzling chemistry. Best ship.

This is no hate to olivia, my problem is with nini. Honestly I completely forgot she was part of this show in season 3 until she showed up in last episode.

I had this in my drafts and I remember responding to it but forgot to post it.

I think the show marketed themselves as very typical Disney in the way that you could kind of tell what narrative archetypes the original core 4 were supposed to be, especially if you relate it to the movies. Nini as the girl next door with so much talent but didn’t believe in herself until she’s suddenly the star of the show. Very girl underdog narrative. Ricky as being her first love and the cute dorky guy that doesn’t put effort but somehow is magically talented, plus the network promoted them as their “Troy and Gabriella” so the audience was supposed to believe they were their rightful successors. Even some of the posters promised that “love triangle” between EJ/Nini/Ricky as a relevant plot and we know that wasn’t the case. And just by the posters and trailer you could’ve guessed Gina and EJ were the “antagonists”. But as I said, it was a marketing tactic because tropes and love triangles sell, and I was also a bit too skeptical but ended up genuinely surprised.

I definitely agree Ricky and Nini’s romance was very bland and I was not rooting for them at all even on Season 1. I found them so cringy, very Disney cooking cutter and they were clearly not right for each other. I was attracted to Gina’s arc from the start so imagine my surprise when she went the opposite direction of what she was marketed as and then developed a way more interesting character arc. However, I do think the show failed Nini because she could’ve been more interesting. I liked her but I agree her arc was too straightforward and a bit too boring at times only saved by Olivia’s voice but there’s a lot of people that still don’t get her arc at all, which is why they still ship her with Ricky even if it was literally against Nini’s character growth.

Funny enough, when I watched 105 I ended up feeling like Ricky and Gina had so much potential and their chemistry was interesting but I wasn’t sure if the show was going to follow that up because it wasn’t very Disney like. Very rare do Disney shows follow the second lead romance pipeline. And I am so glad I was wrong because Ricky and Gina elevated the show by having them develop a very tension filled arc and it did felt very much 00’s coded so I ended Season 1 feeling like they had to go there at one point because it would be a wasted potential. By Season 2, I was sure they were endgame. No questions or doubts. The narrative made it very known and I never doubted that for a moment.

So, PW was just as bland to me, the narrative was forcing them badly with obvious and cringe dialogue. It lacked subtlety, it was very much in your face. As if they wanted you to ship them so hard and were overdoing it. But not even in a good way – there was not care or thought put into their scenes. The music, the implications. It was not done in a way that screamed endgame. And them also being a thing when Ricky and Gina were not speaking was a plot device to keep the endgame in the won’t they/will they situation-ship. I still believe it was a mistake to put them together because it was clear it wasn't going to last and their dynamic worked best as platonic. EJ worked better when he wasn’t put into a situation to be Gina’s plot device. PW was a mid-game ship and was treated as such. The narrative wasn’t hiding it. It was there for Gina to experience her first relationship before she gets with Ricky since their build in narrative has always been about second chances, the right timing and opportunities. I think they deserved a better closure on Season 3, but I am glad they eventually got it on Season 4. However, they were always meant to be a plot device and I didn’t expect anything else from it. The people convinced they were endgame clearly didn't want to see the show for what it was saying.

Rina just had the it factor to me. It was very reminiscent of the old ships in which their story line wasn’t too straightforward and it was told by the parallels and foreshadowing which is a huge factor as to why Ricky and Gina had such compelling arcs individually and together. Ricky being the stability Gina needs and Gina being the person that pushes Ricky forward by taking him out of his comfort zone. They give each other what the other needs and wants. That’s what their storyline has been about since Season 1 and nothing compares to their chemistry. It was undeniable since the start even when some people wanted to deny it.

[cleolinda]

Varney the Vampire: A Preface

I want you to think back to what it’s like to reread your old work from years ago—your old stories or poetry, your old school papers, or even your old tumblr posts. Sometimes you’re actually kind of pleased, sure, but I want you to really go back and locate yourself in the heady cringe of that feeling.

In related news, I'm going to pick back up with the Varney the Vampire recaps I started in late 2010 CE. I got about nine chapters in, and then something, who knows what, derailed my life, as things tend to. Like, I'm used to this, it happens with the regularity of a lunar cycle. But I like writing about vampires (clearly), and since I feel like Dracula has been tread pretty thoroughly in recent times, I figured I might go back to something different; we had some lively discussions about Varney back then.

But 2010 was a time before A Lot of Things happened. I was in my early 30s at that point, so I won't say, "Oh, I was so young," but I had a very different energy as a blogger 12-13 years ago. So I've decided to rewrite the recaps a little—some more than others, some not much at all. I just feel like I have a really different perspective on the first chapter in particular, in 2023.

As before, I'm using the full, unabridged text. It is hideously long, something like 230+ chapters, but go big or go home, I figure. The thing is, I was using the files hosted at the University of Virginia, and now you can only get those through the Wayback Machine, but they are still usable for now. I have various backups saved, but I do want you to be able to see that I am, as ever, Not Making It Up.

I'm also not going to quibble anymore as to whether James Malcolm Rymer or Thomas Peckett Prest wrote this behemoth. Per Wikipedia sources, scholars seem to agree that it was all or mostly Rymer. When it's mentioned that they figured this out based on his dialogue style, I went... yeah, that checks out. Because it sure is A Style, and I'll be honest, the repetitive filler dialogue in chapter 10 was such a speedbump for me that I just threw up my hands and said, "I don't know how to recap this. Something I can't remember now is going on in my life and I Cannot. I no longer Can."

Well, it's the 2020s and we're gonna. Like I can't tell you how much stress I do not have about this. I've had covid three times and also spinal surgery. Varney the Vampire can no longer hurt me.

To start, this ordeal has a preface—apparently written upon the occasion of collecting the serial into book form—wherein The Author expresses his gratitude for "unprecedented success of the romance of Varney the Vampyre." First off, Rymer uses "vampire" and "vampyre" interchangeably, because fuck me for caring about consistency, I guess. Second, as Wikipedia notes,

It first appeared in 1845–1847 as a series of weekly cheap pamphlets of the kind then known as "penny dreadfuls." The author was paid by the typeset line [YEAH, I NOTICED], so when the story was published in book form in 1847, it was of epic length: the original edition ran to 876 double-columned pages and 232 chapters. Altogether it totals nearly 667,000 words.

For comparison, all of Lord of the Rings plus The Hobbit is 576,459 words. I sure do blanch every time I see those numbers! It's fine. We're gonna be fine. Back to the preface:

The following romance is collected from seemingly the most authentic sources, and the Author must leave the question of credibility entirely to his readers, not even thinking that he is peculiarly called upon to express his own opinion upon the subject.

"Seemingly" is doing a lot of work here.

Nothing has been omitted [for real, nothing down to the tiniest fly-swat has been omitted] in the life of the unhappy Varney, which could tend to throw a light upon his most extraordinary career, and the fact of his death just as it is here related, made a great noise at the time through Europe, and is to be found in the public prints for the year 1713.

I've seen more than one Dracula multimedia art project where people recreated the letters and diaries and recordings in the book (have you heard my whole thing about how Dracula actually was a cutting-edge techno-thriller back in 1897?), but I've never heard of anyone creating ARG-style media for the Totally for Actual-Fact Real tale of Sir Francis Varney the Vampire, and I think it would be hilarious if someone did.

I won't belabor the entire preface, but what I do want to touch on is Rymer's mention of "unprecedented success." Varney is actually standing on the shoulders of a vampire giant, and it's not the one we would think of. Nowadays, our big touchstone—the influence so great that most works either evoke it or take the trouble to say "Our vampires are different"—is Dracula, obviously. Which was published exactly 50 years after Varney, in 1897. But Varney's touchstone is Polidori's short story "The Vampyre" (1819). And for most of the 1800s, this was everyone's touchstone. Per Wikipedia (which I'm going to lean on for how concise it is, but I concur with this from my own research as well):

An adaptation appeared in 1820 with Cyprien Bérard's novel Lord Ruthwen ou les Vampires, falsely attributed to Charles Nodier, who himself then wrote his own dramatic version, Le Vampire, a play which had enormous success and sparked a "vampire craze" across Europe. This includes operatic adaptations by Heinrich Marschner (see Der Vampyr) and Peter Josef von Lindpaintner (see Der Vampyr), both published in the same year. Nikolai Gogol, Alexandre Dumas [note: I have the Ruthven play he wrote around here somewhere] and Aleksey Tolstoy all produced vampire tales, and themes in Polidori's tale would continue to influence Bram Stoker's Dracula and eventually the whole vampire genre. Dumas makes explicit reference to Lord Ruthven in The Count of Monte Cristo, going so far as to state that his character "The Comtesse G..." had been personally acquainted with Lord Ruthven. [...]

In England, James Planché's play The Vampire, or The Bride of the Isles was first performed in London in 1820 at the Lyceum Theatre based on Charles Nodier's Le Vampire, which in turn was based on Polidori. Such melodramas were satirised in Ruddigore, by Gilbert and Sullivan (1887); a character called Sir Ruthven must abduct a maiden, or he will die.

Back when no one gave a shit about copyright, Polidori's work was spun out into a cottage industry of knock-off stories and plays, an entire horror zeitgeist. Lord Ruthven was, for 78 years, who you copied, who you riffed on, who you parodied, what Count Dracula is to us now: the archetypal vampire. The Big Guy. And Varney is clearly cut from his cloth—the ostensible gentleman who worms his way into the lives of respectable, unwitting people. Unlike Dracula, there's no foreigner Othering, no "historical basis," no undercurrents of contagion and infection, no ambition to make the world his wine-press, none of that; Ruthven is a simpler figure, but the dominant one of this time no less. He is a stranger who shows up in the middle of London high society, icy and distant, his eyes “dead grey”—stern, yet somehow compelling when he cares to be. And when he cares to be, you're in trouble.

And this is the cultural consciousness when Francis Varney shows up.

[Chapter one will go up sometime this week, March 8-10 or so.]

[oscconfessions]

hi hi!! so, a while ago I was randomly watching an osc tiktok compilation on youtube. the video was pretty good, lots of cool funny stuff in there, but near the end there was a video of someone voicing over a bunch of cringey osc content. it was your typical badly drawn comics and weird questionable art; I wasn't really expecting to see anything absurd in there and was just passively watching while chuckling.

I watched the video change to the next image and it was my own freaking art. a single panel of a comic I drew a few years ago when I was 14 and posted in an art book on wattpad. I have no idea why or how it was taken from there and posted to tiktok, but there it was. I had totally forgotten I made it, but here it was now in a random youtube video right before my very eyes.

the panel was out of context but that made it worse. I watched, utterly horrified, as the equally horrified person voicing over read the dialogue: "Grassy thinks Basketball looks sexy!"

I swear, I promise there's a good explanation for that cursed sentence. It was something about a word Grassy overheard and he didn't really know the meaning of, it was supposed to be a funny joke. I don't even really remember how it fully went but I PROMISE I wasn't a weirdo and I probably wouldn't have made it like that today, or maybe at all.

that doesn't change anything though. I just watched someone react to that drawing inside of a cringe comp. I have never wanted to quit the OSC before but oh my gosh did I consider it after seeing that. and, and the video. it has over 100k views. one hundred thousand people saw the horribly out-of-context thing I made. there might be even more views on that video now and who knows how many on the original tiktok video.

for the rest of my days spent in this community I will forever be haunted by this. it was the very first time I've ever seen any of my art "in the wild" and it was in the worst way possible. I'm still astounded by it even while writing this. I was going to post this on anon but I realize there's no point, the video is easily findable and so is the art. I apologize to every person who had to see that singular image.

.

[doujin-and-drop]

Gyaku Shaun Sai Hanri / Ace Arftorney ENGLISH PATCH (VER. 1.0)

PLEASE NOTE THIS IS VERSION 1.0. THE EXTRA BONUS CASE HAS NOT BEEN TRANSLATED YET. THIS POST WILL BE UPDATED WITH A VERSION 2.0 DOWNLOAD ONCE THE BONUS CASE HAS BEEN TRANSLATED.

Thank you all who have waited patiently for me to translate this game! It was a lot of fun. Please support Cheshire, who now goes by Oota Manta, for creating this game! (here is his pixiv - MAJOR R-18 WARNING)

For this game to run properly, you MUST either set your computer's locale to Japanese or use a locale emulator.

EDIT: SPRITE PAGE.

DOWNLOAD LINK (INTERNET ARCHIVE)

Below are some translation notes (spoiler warning)

This was my first ever major translation project. Since it spanned the time of almost two years, the quality of the translations may increase as you play through the game. Nonetheless I have gone back and redone a lot of the earlier dialogue with the help of a friend to make it sound more natural in English. If you find any errors or typos, you may leave an ask and I will correct it in a patch update.

In order to keep the spirit of an actual Ace Attorney game, several things were changed. Most notably, the characters names.

Names:

稲刈たんぼ (Inekari Tanbo) is Phoenix Wruff. People familiar with the Japanese Ace Attorney names may recognize that this name is nowhere near Naruhodou Ryuuichi. That's simply because this character, as with Edgewurrth, were not actually named after the main characters of the original series. I decided to change this given their clear homage. Inekari Tanbo literally means "harvesting (a) rice paddy".

条框蓮司(レンジ) (Jyoukamachi Renji) is Miles Edgewurrth. To be honest, I don't think there is a pun in his name. At the very least, I had trouble thinking of what it could be. If somebody knows, let me know. The most I can figure is the first kanji in his name can mean "streak", and according to Cheshire, Edgewurrth was supposed to get the white streak of hair, not Abe, but he didn't like how it looked on the former.

萬舞 (Man Mau) is Krystal "Kris" Balle. Her name means "10,000 dances", hence her English name.

濡沼 ウキモ (Nuranuma Ukimo) is Ashley Goodhead. Ukimo doesn't seem to have much significance as a word, although it could be related to 浮き which means to float, as in like, floating in water. I say this because the other parts of Ukimo's name, 濡(Nura)沼(Numa) refer to being wet and to swamps.

If this is true, why the name choice? Well, it's very complicated...

濡 Means a little more than just being wet. It also can mean being wet in the sexual sense. There's also the word 濡れ衣 (Nuraginu) which means to be falsely accused of a crime (literally and archaically "wet clothes"). Both these I would say fit Ukimo, not only because of her story position of being falsely accused, but also, well... just look at her design. It would be naive to claim there's nothing sexual about it.

沼 has some connotations among gaming, interestingly. It can mean being addicted to something (that something being a piece of media, typically) or being "swamped" in a game, i.e being stuck and unable to progress.

Now, this meaning of the word has only come into play somewhat recently. Like, 2015-ish. Which makes it sort of inapplicable, since Gyaku San was created around 2003.

A different slang use of 沼 that was used around this time was 池沼 which means, basically, the r slur... in a way? It's used to make fun of "weird" or "cringe" behavior, typically present in those with mental disability. It's a homophone of 知障, which does mean "mental disability​".

With all this in mind, I had a very hard time piecing together a name for Ukimo that would feel at home in Ace Attorney. Especially because I don't know the full extent of what Cheshire had in mind when naming her.

Ashley was chosen given that, to me, it is a very "popular teenage girl" name. "Ash" would also make her closely related to "Phoenix". (Get it? LOL). I almost debated on making any use of ウキモちゃん (Ukimo-chan) be "Ash", but decided it would be kind of weird...

Goodhead was chosen for several reasons. It, of course, is a clear sexual pun, but it is also a reference to James Bond, something I feel could encapsulate some of the slang meanings of 沼 (media obsession) while serving to imitate Ace Attorney's love of pop culture references. "Goodhead" could also be taken literally, as in meaning she has a good head on her shoulders, which would refer to her being innocent; the "false accusation" meaning in her name.

It was the best I could do. Orz.

阿部伊知郎 (Abe Ichirou) is Abe Founder. He kept the first part, although his last name became his first name, and his original first name means "The one wise son". However, without the kanji, "ichirou" can mean to fail your college entrance exam. Considering that he lies about going to a prestigious college when he actually went to a average one reminded me of this, so his last name was chosen to hold similar meaning. "Founder", as a noun, can mean someone who establishes something, and typically this is used with positive connotation. However, as a verb, it can mean "failure", which I think is apt and captures this stark contrast meaning.

Many things in the game were changed to better be understood by a Western audience, such as obscure Japanese pop culture references and suchlike. The backwards poster bit was the hardest, but I managed to pull it off. In short, Ashley's - or Ukimo's - poster originally was a reference to an old Japanese song (likely) that had さんさん(san san) written. When read from the back, さ looks like ち(chi). The "look dood" poster said 犬さんぽ in the original, which means "dog stroll". But when read from the back, it looks like 犬ちんぽ which means "dog penis". I did my best with this, haha.

[blysse-and-blunder]

In lieu of a long weekend

sunday, may 19, 2024 ~ 11:30pm

technically tomorrow is a day off but the nice thing about grad school is that means essentially nothing for me, and tonight still feels like a sunday night—but it was a beautiful, mostly work-free weekend up until now

reading i forget now whether i mentioned this in my last ilcb, but last month i listened to the audiobook of jenn lyons’ the ruin of kings, which means that now it’s time for the sequel! started these huge fantasy epics on the recommendation of @booksmithereens, who has yet to steer me wrong—but i will say that upon first getting started, I didn’t especially follow (or care) all that much about most of the world building, especially since trok starts in with a lot of slavery and physical / sexual violence. upon second read-through, because i did go back with the ebook as soon as i finished listening to trok the first time, i think i was able to take more pleasure from the characters’ dialogue—there are very funny moments—and from the originality of certain features of the series’ take on deities and magic. i’m 28% through the audio book of the second novel, the name of all things, and i adore that we’ve got a new snarky editor leaving footnotes and editorializing comments, and that we have a new female pov character who really adds to the (intentionally) one-dimensional view of her we were given in the first one. these are good companion books for when i’m toiling in the hollow knight mines (have i explained how i have hacked boss fights for myself by turning off the game sound and instead relaxing, listening to an audiobook, and just getting to focus on the visuals—the flow state this induces can last for. hours. and has yet to get old), and they are another worthy entry in the dragons/magic/demons/swords/prophecy type fantasy canon.

watching finally finished (screaming, cringing, laughing, etc) season one of the white lotus with g and @hematiterings. all things considered, an easier ending than i feared, weirdly? i lost count of full-body cringe reactions (from sheer gut-churning dialogue, not the way kids use ‘cringe’ these days) at like 10, and then we started season two (which we’ve all seen the first few episodes of) and the counter had to start over at the beginning. still fun though. still fun.

also watched the first three-four episodes of dungeon meshi! which i thought were excellent, but i now have just enough context to be really actually affected by casual spoilers, so i may have to blacklist it here on the blue hellsite for now, and watched episode 4 of house of the dragon this evening whilst folding my laundry. i am holding out for when this show introduces the new lead actresses because I have seen their interview in gifs going around and i would like to see it. so far though, i’m distressed by the politics and bored by the action, as is to be expected from a game of thrones show.

listening hmmm chappelle roan Hot to Go has been stuck in my head for a while now so let’s go with that. initially I thought the lyrics to most of her new album really didn’t live up to pink ping club (see my 2021?2? Ilcb where i went on at *length* about how good that song is) but you know what, we’re capable of admitting when we’re wrong and this is one of those times. H! O! T! T! O! G-O!

playing i got the sharp shadow charm in hollow knight today! Nosk and the enraged guardian have been kicking my ass by turns. i had so much geo I had been carefully carrying around and reclaiming every time i died because millibelle had her career pivot and closed my account 😝 and i finally lost it today. Alas. but since there was nothing i could buy at any of the three vendors i visited, it was all going to end up in the fountain anyway.

making this was a little while ago now, but i finally did it, i made a recipe following a b. dylan hollis video! the coffee loaf from 1959– surprisingly, i had all of the ingredients on hand (including powdered milk?!) and i was so excited by this that I didn’t stop to ask whether i *should* make this caffeinated baked good. recipe worked well, the consistency was great and all, but a single square inch of it and i feel like i’ve single-handedly drunk a pot of strong coffee. this is a me problem, i’ll grant you, but it is amusing to me that i’ve made a cake I physically cannot eat too much of in a single sitting. it is drying out in the fridge as we speak. heart palpitations aside, i am proud of it though.

working on it occurred to me today to look back at the timeline i made for myself at the beginning of the month, and i’m four days past the first deadline on it without having even really touched the chapter itself. blargh. sent two emails yesterday, and two that had been worrying me the day before, and worked a bit on the newsletter today. chipping away at things.

[genderoutlaws]

🍁 November Outlaw Streams 🍂

Instead of doing a full media rec list this time I’m just going to be streaming double features throughout the month! 💛 We are going to be doing these streams on Zoom. Since I had to pay a subscription fee to make this available to more people I wouldn’t *mind* if a few of ya tossed me a dollar if you attend (not at all required or expected tho!)

All double features will start at 8PM EST, with a pre-show starting about half an hour beforehand.

November 6th - Hitchcock Homos

We will be streaming Rope (1948) and Psycho (1960) - two Hitchcock films featuring queer (coded) villains

Rope is an adaption of a 1929 stage play written by Patrick Hamilton, better known for his work Gaslight, and based upon the real life killing of Bobby Franks by two students in 1924 — though I’ve found nothing about a known relationship between the actual killers. The play explicitly features both main characters as gay, while the film remains a bit more subtextual. The homosexuality is still strikingly present for a film of it’s time, perhaps due in part to the story and screenplay being developed by two gay men, Hume Cronyn and Arthur Laurents, and Brandon being portrayed by gay actor John Dall in the film — perhaps due to it’s adherence to the Motion Picture Production Code, where queer themes remain tragic or villainous. I can’t go without saying how visually stunning this film is. Filmed to mimic the style of the original stage production, we are on one set for the entire duration, viewing the story in real time, with only four visible cuts in the entire runtime. It’s an absolute treat of gay-and-homophobic cinema. /// SUBTITLED

Psycho is the first of many films very loosely based on the crimes of real life grave-robber and killer Ed Gein, who was discovered to crossdress with the victims’ body parts. (Most films based on the events take extensive creative liberties.) While horror had been playing with queer themes for some time, Psycho launched a wave of Geinian gender transgression based horror films, indulging in public fears of transvestites and transsexual women as lurking manipulators and body snatchers in a long enduring conservative moral panic. This paired well with its depiction of dissociative behavior in the killer, capitalizing on transphobic and sanist stereotypes that entwined gender transgression and a fractured sense of self and/or reality. Just as complicated and problematic as Rope, and a classic cinematic delight all the same. /// SUBTITLED

November 13th - Leather Is Everything!

We will be streaming Cruising (1980) and Bloodsisters (1995) — fantasy and reality in the leather community

Cruising my contentious favorite! This film is about a kinky gay murderer picking off other kinky gay men, and an innocent heterosexual Al Pacino going undercover in the leather scene to solve the case. It’s camp. It’s cringe. It’s actually pretty decent. It was picketed by gay activists at the time, so extensively that the dialogue was largely dubbed over due to loud protesting drowning out the production’s audio. It also features gay people in the leather scene, many of them regulars of Mineshaft, who happily joined the cast as extras and background performers. But only the white, muscular ones allowed on screen. It’s a strange erotic fantasy in some ways and - perhaps accidentally - a surprisingly poignant reflection on gay life in others. /// SUBTITLED

Bloodsisters is a documentary surrounding the SM / Leather community in the San Francisco area during the 1990s. It features interviews with a variety of leatherdykes interspersed with footage of needleplay scenes, tit torture, fundraisers, leather titleholder contests, and impactplay demonstrations. It expounds on alternating sides of intra community debate, the reality of death and holding a life in your hands, isolation from the greater lesbian feminist community, roles, love, lust, fisting. And it is so fucking 90’s. /// NO SUBS :(

November 27th - #JustGirlyThings

We’ll be streaming Jawbreaker (1999) and Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022) — two modern horror comedies with sapphic overtones

I haven’t seen either of these yet and honestly know very little! I’ve heard the girlies are gay and murderous though and that’s enough for me. /// SUBTITLED

I’m so excited to watch these with y’all :o)

UPDATE : I am sadly going to have to cancel the last stream this month bc I really need to pick up another shift n make me some more money 😭 Im sorry guys I promise we’ll stream jawbreaker and bodies bodies bodies some time in the future ! </3

[ungaroyals]

20 Questions For Fic Writers

Awww. Thank you for tagging me @toffeelemon! 🫶🏼

How many works do you have on Ao3?

52 works. There are a few orphaned ones floating around out there though.

What's your total Ao3 word count?

545,518

What fandoms do you write for?

Primarily Young Royals, but there are a few others like Stranger Things and Shadow & Bone

Top five fics by kudos

1. In Another Life 2. I hate the way I don't hate you 3. summer of love 4. Hotel Suites and Twisted Sheets 5. After the (visible) kiss -- Part of the Missing Moments series

Do you respond to comments?

YESSS! Always!!!! I'm so thankful to people who pause to comment on my fics. I wanna show how much I appreciate them.

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Technically In Another Life was supposed to be a one shot where they didn't end up together at the end. But people convinced me to write them a happy ending. So probably that, haha.

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Hmmmmm, probably In Another Life??? Maybe? Because like, no one else is hurt by wilmon being end game.

Do you get hate on fics?

I have gotten hate before. One time it was to the point where I just took the fic down cause people thought it was horribly OOC, and I mean, they were correct, lol. More recently, though, I've seen some rumblings around Hotel Suites and Twisted Sheets because of the character Adam. Some people have said there's potential for it to be romanticizing abusive relationships or a character "saving" another character from that type of situation. I don't see the story that way, but to each their own I suppose.

Do you write smut?

Oh so much of it.

Craziest crossover:

I've never actually written a crossover fic.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge! Thankfully.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Sadly no. I wish I was talented enough to speak more than one language so I could translate some of my fics.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes! I have!

All time favourite ship?

Of course it's gotta be wilmon. But I'll always have a space in my heart from Joey and Pacey from Dawsons Creek, lol.

What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Dancing With Our Hands Tied. That poor fic. She'll never get finished.

What are your writing strengths?

Oooft. Uh, I think more recently I've been surprising myself with writing original characters. People seem to connect to them a lot. So for now I'll say that.

What are your writing weaknesses?

Remembering to slow down and set the scene. I always ALWAYS have to go back and add a bit more detail to create atmosphere and environment. And even then, it's usually very poorly done, lol.

Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

I don't mind ittt, but I do find it kinda cringe when it's strictly used during intimate scenes. If it feels natural for the character, then yes, fly at it. But idk, it gives me the ick in some fanfics.

First fandom you wrote in?

I think it might have been Once Upon a Time fanfic about Captain Swan.

Favourite fic you've written?

I think it's gotta be summer of love because it was the first fic I properly plotted out by myself (with some help from my betas), and motivated myself to write all the way through. Plus, with the time jumps, I'm constantly surprised at myself for being able to make it make sense.

I'm tagging @lollygirlpops and @lovelierbitsoflife 💜

[hotcat37]

I loved your list of recommended bojere fics! Maybe a part two of your personal favorites?

Thanks sm for the support anon!! It's tough to pick favorites when there's so many amazing Bojere fics out there but here are a few ones that rlly stayed with me!!

by @puppetmasteronastring !! The follow-up parts to this fic are also excellent as well but ngl the original hits different. Jere and Bojan (+some friends) spend midsummer together and the tension between them finally breaks 👀 Their relationship is so tender in this and even tho they don't officially get together in this one you can just tell they were made for each other <3

by anon!! Some sub/dom with Bojere where Bojan is rlly into the idea of Jere talking Finnish during sex but Jere thinks it's cringe haha The concept itself is humorous but it's so well written and it's rlly sweet to read about Bojan and Jere communicating in regards to their sex life and making sure the other is comfortable 💖

by @mitochondriencocktail !! Absolutely iconic fic. It starts out as a sexy hockey AU but it quickly escalated into a genuinely investing story about Bojan and Jere struggling with their deep feelings for each other. Their dynamic is so fun and interesting in this and the chapter where they sit in McDonald's together and talk for the second time rlly lives in my mind rent free😔💖💖 My only criticism is that we missed out on Jere in a skirt 😤 (but we did get Bojan in it 😏)

by maevenn !! Born From Seafoam hits different. Bojere meet on vacation in a very cringe but hilarious way. Jere is so endearing in this and i love how Bojan just goes along with his shenanigans <3 It's rlly quick paced but it perfectly captures that holiday excitement and how quickly things can escalate between two strangers that immediately hit it off. The descriptions of summer and the environments and Bojan's feelings for Jere are just incredible and I really am hoping it'll get finished some day :")💕

by anon !! This was one of the first Bojere fics I ever read so it's very nostalgic to me. Jere accidentally implies he and Bojan are together during an interview, cue the fake relationship trope 🙏 It started off rlly humorous but then it became more and more emotional as they start to develop real feelings for each other and the angst is fantastic!! This one is also unfinished but it doesn't end on a cliffhanger or anything so it definitely doesn't take away from the experience

by anon!! Bojan comforts an upset Jere after the finals.... It does include voyeurism (by Loreen of all ppl lol) which isn't really my thing but it was so well written and tenderhorny that it didn't bother me reading it :) The smut is great and so is the dialogue (+I just love possessive Bojan in fics lol)

by Don't _forget_peanuts !! Felt nostalgic for some more ESC era Bojere.... The tension between Bojan and Jere reaches a boiling point backstage once the finals are over 👀 Bojan's inner dialogue is so fcking funny and the build-up to the smut and the actual smut itself is just....phew 😋 Bro wanted that Käärijussy

by anon.... Sorry I just had to mention this fic. The massive impact (✈) this had on the fandom needs to be recognized. Quotable lines, heart shattering angst...the author being a fcking menace lmao You have not reached the depths of the Kä iceberg yet if you haven't read this fic

[charles-rxwlands]

Again, madam Webb was not that bad. If you made me choose between watching thor love and thunder, morbius, or madame webb again, I would choose madam webb - easy decision..

thor love and thunder hurt my brain. in my humble opinion, madame webb had some substance to it

and I see a lot of people complaining about how cringe the teenage girl dialogue is but as a teenage girl, i think it's more accurate than most films ive seen.

as a die hard fan of both the comics and spider man, I think madame webb was a very good nod to both of these and the spiderwomen variants are actually very interesting. madame webb was an origin story for these girls so LET THEM FLOURISH

imo this movie provided so many pathways for marvel to take... they could really take advantage of this and turn it into something great but we all know the industry hates promoting female led movies, bringing me to my next point: the marketing

the piss poor marketing for this will always haunt me. everyone wanted this movie to be horrible and flop and it almost feels like the team behind it wanted it to fail as well.

[celinou]

Thanks @lenorelovesmax for tagging me 🤍

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 2, currently. Well, more like one and a half baked scene that has no context, to be more accurate.

2. What's your total AO3 word count? 194.036 words.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos? I have like the one fic, the other thing has 2 kudos. So... - A Walk in Chiaroscuro (354)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? Yes, absolutely. It's pretty rare when I don't. I like to tell people that I appreciate their support and comments or to answer questions they might have about the story or the choice I made.

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? I don't do angsty endings. I'm too old and too jaded by life to appreciate them anymore. I'm at a point in my life where I need to know there's hope and happiness at the end of the line.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? I'm guessing there will be some kind of repetition since I've only published Awic... Soooo, it's a Walk in Chiaroscuro! ...but if you want to know about the ones that I keep in my drawer never to see the light of AO3, the happiest ending goes to Let's Write a Love Story (it's a Homestuck fanfic)

8. Do you get hate on fics? No. I'm writing in a mostly dead fandom so far and for kind of a rare pair so, people have been starved of content. They were so nice and sweet to me in the comments.

9. Do you write smut? I wish! I don't have the chops for it but I so wish I could write good smut! Honestly it's something I really want to push myself into exploring. Unfortunately your girl is a bit too vanilla in her taste which makes for poor reading. I don't fear being bad... I fear being boring, you know?

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've ever written? I've never done that, no. But who knows what future will lead me to write.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? No. I don't have enough reach to be the target of theft.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? Nope. And tbh I don't have the patience to translate it myself in my native language.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Could have... but no. There was an attempt at a joined project for Dragon Age but, unfortunately, it didn't work out in the end. I'm not abandoning the idea of writing for Dragon Age but I'll probably go in a very different direction since it would be a solo project.

14. What's your all time favorite ship? I... don't have one... Yeah, I'm not much of a shipper at the core. I mean I did write for Caulscott but I practically ship Max with everybody in LIS so... I was more interested by Nathan's potential as a love interest more than the ship itself. Outside of LIS... I can't think of any ship rn, I'm afraid.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will? Tough question. If I abandoned a project I don't consider it a WIP. It's a dropped thing that goes in the reusable idea bin... and if I'm still working on it, I don't go into thinking I won't finish it. So, it's hard to say really. To not leave you with such a vague answer, I'll give you this: the fic I planned to write about the Hidden Object Games series Dark Parable, that never took off and never will (for I have better/much more attractive projects to work on). It's a dropped thing. But now you can see I have weird and obscure taste.

As for original projects: I have a Horror RPG project that probably won't ever see the light of day, called: The Clockmaker. (because I realized I'm shit at pixel art, tragic)

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic? Hum... No. I don't mind people doing it but I tried it myself in my pirate epic and, let me tell you, I'm not that good a multilingual as to be witty in more than 2 languages. I found what I wrote cringe af when I read back my text in the editing phase and scrapped it all out.

19. First fandom you wrote for? Homestuck. I started writing fics very late in my life. (I wrote original stuff before that)

20. Favourite fic you've ever written? A Walk in Chiaroscuro. Because it's the only fic I went into unafraid to write what I wanted without thinking about who might read it. And to this day it's the truer work I've put out. Not the most personal by any stretch but the one I indulged in the most. And I'm so proud of it. Flaws and all.

I tag @sourrind and @momochizoey if you feel like doing it. And everybody who'd want to as well, consider yourself tagged, friend!

[justafriend-ql]

Thai BL Favorites List Tag Game

thank you to the lovely @firstkanaphans for tagging me! the original prompt list was created by @thatgirl4815. let's get into it!

(note: i'll try my best to not make this entire list about never let me go, but you know who i am)

favorite bl: never let me go (nobody is surprised) it's unique, innovative, the first gmmtv bl series based on an original script rather than adapted from a novel. the lovechild of cringe 90s thai action dramas and BL tropes that p'jojo flirts with or fucks with depending on how he's feeling. palm and nueng live in my head 24/7 and the cinematography of the series drove me to learn how to make gifs (something i would not recommend you do if you value your freetime lol)

favorite pairing: palmnueng :) power imbalance, social expectations, and simmering sexual tension that all breaks loose at the seashore. duty turned to devotion and loneliness turned to love. two 18-year-olds whose life circumstances couldn't be more different yet find mirror images of their own insecurities and lack of self-worth in each other. clinging onto each other only to let go in the name of love. but always returning to each other, their other half, their soulmate. literally everything i could ever want in a pair. bonus: they kiss each other like they actually want to.

most underrated actor: sing! he's great in comedic roles (had me wheezing with laughter in unidentified mysterious girlfriend). but completely slayed as todd in not me. toddblack scenes make me genuinely sick. i would love to see more of him in dark dramas. also you really just have to respect his dedication. he survived infamous early series like slamdance (he was paired with drake) and put his whole pussy into the puppy play in warp effect.

favorite character: palm pannakorn jannaloy my most beloved boy. breaks my heart and heals it at the same time. he's just such a fundamentally good, kind person. and pretty much nothing in his life makes that easy. eternally self-sacrificing, without much love for himself but so so much love for others. even when they leave him behind. look! the very first gif i ever made was of him - see below and kindly disregard the quality.

favorite side character: pa jindapat out of all the series i've watched, pa is probably the character i relate to the most. that's why she's my pfp! i love her messy buns and glasses and over-sized t-shirts. she just feels very real in all her interactions with pat and her cluelessness about her very big crush on ink. the little tremble in her voice in the dark room scene when she tells ink "i liked it. i liked it so much i thought that i was special to you" makes me tear up. she's funny and she's bold and she holds her ground and i love her. very much.

favorite scene: the farewell dance - never let me go, episode 9 there's no dialogue. just music. grief-stricken palm and nueng dancing slowly, somberly in a motel room palm will wake up alone in the next morning. nueng knows he's leaving; deep down, palm probably knows too. their steps slow and palm seeks comfort in a kiss that quickly turns desperate because they're both hurting and the only thing that will numb the pain is each other. the feeling of tears running down palm's face forces nueng to pull away. the look on nueng's face as he wipes palm's tears away is possibly my favorite thing phuwin has ever done. he looks so goddamn heartbroken and guilty, because nueng feels like palm's brokenness is his fault. also one of my favorite performances from pond - and he was in the hospital earlier that day!!

favorite line: "i love you. and i want you to love yourself too." ayan to akk; the eclipse, episode 12, part 1/4. speaks for itself i think.

most anticipated bl and why: dangerous romance although i'm definitely excited for only friends, i have a soft spot for underdogs and this series seems like one (especially if it airs at the same time as only friends). i love perth especially and both chimon and him are crazy talented actors. i hope despite the silly title of the series, the script gives them something good to work with. and i hope that "i hate you" kiss in the rain from the pilot is better in the actual series lmao. the bts photos are making me super excited! also: viewjune let's gooooooo

healthiest relationship in a bl: heartliming these two make me cry. really just the epitome of finding a safe space in another person and providing them with a safe space in yourself. everything about them is beautiful. the amount of effort and care they put into learning how to communicate with each other is incredible. i love that they fight alongside each other. and: "i love it when i'm with him" - sometimes it's really as simple as that.

most toxic relationship in a bl: going to second @firstkanaphans here and say tharntype this almost feels like a cop-out because it's so obvious, but it's true. nothing will ever excuse the things tharn did to type without his consent, and type's internalized and externalized homophobia wasn't dealt with satisfactorily in my opinion. there are good kernels in every story, but the bad overwhelmed the few good ones in this series for me.

guilty pleasure series: love by chance guilty because it's mame and i don't love how aggressive they make ae (the sweetest, gentlest boy) toward the end. to be honest i skipped everything except for the aepete scenes when i watched this so i can't comment on the rest. but i often find myself returning to episode 4, in particular, because ae's feelings realization journey is lovely and soft and seeing baby perth and saint is always a treat. i liked it enough to gif it, so...

bonus! most underrated series: my only 12% created this bonus category so i can beg you to watch this one if you haven't. trust me and suffer through the bad haircuts and slow burn. i knew it was different from other series when seeiw cries while watching a queer movie with his sister, recognizing his own feelings onscreen, then sneaks downstairs to watch the rest by himself in tears later that night. that experience is so fucking real. this series seared me with its portrayal of the nostalgia and grief of childhood friendships and eventual separation, and the role reversal post-reunion is so well done it makes me insane. i was sobbing in my room at 4am and that's the best review i can give a series.

i had a lot of fun doing this and i hope if you read to this point you got... well, something, out of it. tagging @cankersoregirl @first-kanaphan @feralmuskyscentedhoepran @akkpipitphattana @ayan-sukkhapisit @nongnaos and anyone else who may like to do this!

[dramaspecial1004]

After finishing Bed Friend I scrolled through the reviews on MDL and while I can of course agree that the editing was terrible and some scenes jumped so much it was confusing to no end. I also have to say that I started this series with zero expectations and had a blast in the first couple of episodes because of cringe acting, weird dialogues, more or less consensual sex (Uea was completely drunk) and no logical connection between the scenes.

Then things started to get serious real quick. I was not ready for the childhood sexual abuse. Actually I wouldn’t have started the series if I knew about that. But suddenly Ueas actions and how he behaved made completely sense. And yes, it is not uncommon as a victim to find the same type of people again in their life.

And here comes King the saviour of the day and probably best written character in a long time. He accepts Ueas rules, when he makes a mistake that triggers Uea he actually apologizes and makes sure it never happens again. This boy is ready to jump in front of a truck for Uea as he is very soon only having eyes for him. A small slip in jealousy happens but again he apologizes. And then he becomes nothing but supportive. He gives Uea all the time he needs, accepts all of his demands, agrees to everything Uea wants and just stays by his side whenever Uea needs him to.

So before I am getting dragged away even more from my original point: This drama deserves a better rating and much better reviews! Heck dramas with really toxic relationships have better reviews and ratings… and this was just beautifully handled despite obviously a very tight budget. I can wholeheartedly recommend it to everyone.

And btw Net and James have an amazing chemistry! Net did an amazing job in my opinion, I liked his acting very much!