#this will be a SPOILER RESTRICTED ZONE mind you

[uwuprime]

[Joyful Earthspark screams]

[hottpinkpenguin]

Joel Miller X Fem!Reader - Last of Us - Part 8

A/N: read part 1 ! read part 2 ! read part 3 ! read part 4! read part 5! read part 6! read part 7! Taglist: @midgetpottermills @casssiopeia @flyingmushroomss @amethystwonders11 @hiphopdancer101universe @kiszkawagnerwhore @littleshadow17 @rh1nestonecowg1rl @alm0501 @ch4rcuterie @lodeddiperrodrick @amandalove1355 @laurathefahrradsattel @moshpot24x @middleof-thenight @kettlechips3 @happymakercollectorsworld @alainabooks143 @mikariell95 @superbreadsoull @twd-rocks-blog @livmadsen11 @sage-bunn @emmy626 @somenerdyuserr @vitavenio @yjnicks @littleshadow17 @honeybunzzzz @thenovelcarnival @shypositivitywritinghorse @kik51199

Warnings: dark themes; substance abuse; post-apocalyptic dystopia; death of reader's minor child; probably a lot of non-canon details since I've never played the game; not proofread; spoilers if you haven't seen the show/played the game Word Count: 3279 Abbreviations: QZ = quarantine zone; FDRA "Fedra" = Federal Disaster Response Agency

---

Your awareness was in and out, consciousness restricted to your five senses only. You could feel someone carrying you, your weight jostling uncomfortably on a rugged shoulder. You could hear someone talking to you; a voice you knew, a voice that stirred the edges of your memory, but a voice you couldn’t place. You caught freeze framed images of the ground moving beneath the feet of your rescuer, their dark camo pants and black combat boots. You could still taste blood in your mouth, feel it dripping in thick ropes from your lips. You could smell the stench of days old sweat and the damp, musty odor that was common to the open city. 

Time was fractured. Unable to grasp onto any consistent lucidity, you didn’t experience time in a continuous chronology. Just flashes, frozen moments snapping by you like strobe lights. 

At one point, you felt cool water slide down your throat. You gagged on it, the water buttery from all the blood in your mouth. 

A cool compress on your forehead. 

Other voices, hushed and concerned. 

Someone cleaning your hand, a burning sensation as they stitched the ragged flesh together and doused the gash in alcohol. 

A prick in your thigh. 

Pulling up your eyelids, a too-bright light shining into your rolled-back pupils. 

Then, sleep. Deep and dark and peaceful. You slept for a long, long time…

*****

When you finally woke up, it felt like breaking the water’s surface after holding your breath for too long. Your brain shook off the heavy, feverish fog like a weighted blanket. Your mind wove together your disjointed memories, the timeline beginning to take shape.

Someone had found you, in the stairwell. You must have been hallucinating - you remembered calling out for Gabriel. They’d carried you - literally carried you - back to the QZ. You knew you were in the QZ because you could hear vehicles driving past outside. Gingerly moving your neck - stiff with disuse - you noted you were in a windowless room. Something about the cinder block walls and darkness made you think it was a basement. 

You lifted your hand, examining the inflamed gash now cleaned and closed up with neat, black stitches. Someone with medical training had done that. The sewing was too regular to be anything but a professional. The thick Carhart jacket you normally wore on open city runs was gone, and you were stripped down to a clean, dark gray t-shirt. Not your t-shirt, though. In fact, none of the clothes you were wearing were yours. Underneath the t-shirt, you could feel where someone had carefully padded your broken ribs with cold packs, holding them to your skin with wrapped gauze.

You were lying on a bed, a cot. There was a tall cabinet next to you, its doors ajar. You could see medical supplies inside: a huge assortment of differently sized pill bottles, boxes of sterile gowns and masks, loops of see-through tubing, blood pressure cuffs, blankets, sterilized packs of surgical tools, medical-grade needles of all different gauges. Seeing the needles reminded you of the pricking sensation from your leg. An antibiotic, you realized; something to combat the obvious infection you’d been battling from the cut on your hand. 

The room you were in was lit by the soft light of a bedside lamp on a small table next to your head. There was a glass with water and three pills next to the bed. Moving carefully, testing your body, you swung your feet over the side of the bed and sat up on the edge. As you did, you felt a painful throb in your lip. You tested it with soft fingers, instantly recoiling at the numb pain. Your bottom lip was swollen to twice its normal size, you realized, and you felt the rough edges of stitches there too. 

“You bit through your lip.”

Marlene’s voice startled you; you hadn’t realized anyone else was there. When she spoke, you finally caught sight of her leaning against a dimly lit doorway at the opposite end of the room. 

“Marlene, my God. What the hell happened out there?”

“Where’s Ellie?”

The sound of Ellie’s name squeezed your heart like a vice. Ellie. You’d left her. A scared, sixteen-year-old girl, and you’d fucking left her.

“I… I - fuck, Marlene…”

The gravity of what you’d done crashed down on you like a pallet of bricks. 

“Where is she?”

Marlene’s voice was cold. You could hear the exhaustion woven into her words. The light barely reached her, but you thought you could see that one of her eyes was blacked. She looked like she was still wearing the same clothes she’d been in the last time you’d seen her. 

“I left her. I couldn’t keep up. I was slowing her down, I thought I was going to die-”

You didn’t realize how true those words were until you spoke them. 

Marlene held up a hand to silence you, moving forward into the dim halo of light the bedside lamp cast into the room. 

“Where. Is. She.” 

Marlene’s words cut like ice, but you saw something more than anger in her eyes. It was fear. She was afraid of losing Ellie. And you knew why. Ellie was the key, the only opportunity any of you had ever known to see an end to the way the world had become. As far as you knew, Ellie might be the only way out. And you had let her wander around the open city.

You hung your head in self-loathing and despair. Hot tears burned the corners of your eyes. 

“I- I don’t know. I told her to go on without me. She left me in that stairwell.”

Marlene nodded; she clearly knew enough of wherever you’d been found to recognize it. Your mind jumped, the sudden realization that someone had found you galvanizing your thoughts. That voice had been so god damn familiar…

“You better fucking hope we find her. Not just for your sake… for all our sakes.”

Marlene turned away from you and strode out of the room. You didn’t miss the noticeable hitch in her step, the way she seemed to favor one leg above the other. It seemed you weren’t the only one who’d been lucky to make it back alive from that ill-fated rendezvous in the open city. 

With Marlene gone, you had nothing but your own regret over leaving Ellie and the dull aches peppered all over your body like freckles to keep you company. Sliding off the cot, bracing yourself on the tall cabinet to ensure you didn’t faint, you moved towards the doorway. The sound of a man’s voice calling your name in that stairwell played over and over in your head, the nagging sense of familiarity driving you insane. You had to figure out who it was. 

You stepped out into the hallway - more gray cinder blocks with bare light bulbs beckoning you to a door at the far end - and practically bumped into him. You smiled, recognizing your rescuer instantly, the sound of his voice matching with his face. He smiled back, and for the first time since you could remember, you felt something akin to happiness.

*****

Hunger pains pulled Ellie out of a fitful, dreamless sleep. Her eyes snapped open, adrenaline at waking up in an unfamiliar place jolting her into hypervigilance. The tension in her shoulders eased somewhat as she recognized the inside of the guard shack that she’d crawled into just past dawn earlier that day. Judging by the angle of the light and the pink stains on the fragmented clouds above her, it was close to sunset now. She was grateful that she’d managed to pass the entire day sleeping: not only did she need it, but it was much easier than trying to keep herself amused for hours. 

She stretched, careful not to lift her arms directly overhead so that any part of her would be visible above the guard shack windows. She knew she was a decent distance back from the QZ wall, but she couldn’t resist detection. If she fell into FDRA custody, Ellie was almost completely certain that she’d be executed under the pretense of being infected before she had a chance to explain. As if in agreement, the years-old scar on her forearm ached. It always did before a rainstorm. 

Rain wouldn’t be a bad thing, she thought to herself as she rummaged through her backpack, digging out a half-eaten granola bar. The more cover, the better. 

Ellie knew tonight would be a make-or-break moment for her. She needed to find a way into the QZ that circumvented FDRA. Ideally, she’d find one of the Firefly routes, which would probably expedite her reunion with Marlene (if she’d survived). Worst case scenario, Ellie would have to risk climbing the wall. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to; and even if she could, she wasn’t sure she’d have enough luck to get up and down two sides of a four-story wall without being spotted. Even though non-gated sections of the wall weren’t patrolled as heavily as the major routes in and out of the QZ, Ellie knew better than to bank on security being lax enough to give her time to climb up the wall, weave her way through the braided chicken wire (which was probably electrified anyways - yet another complication), and down the other side. 

Ellie hoped and prayed it wouldn’t come to that. With any luck, she’d be able to find herself a decent vantage point and see someone coming in or out of the QZ. If she could just lay eyes on it, Ellie had enough common sense to figure out a way in. Spotting it would be the kicker. 

She greedily ate the granola bar, chasing it with what little remained in her canteen. The light around her had deepened to shades of dark purple. A few more minutes and it’d be dark enough for her to set out. In the meantime, she fished out the pocketknife her mother had left her, tossing it up in the air and catching it by the handle. The glint of the blade rotating in the air was mesmerizing, and it lent her mind some much needed peace. She watched the knife rise in the air, slow until its momentum wasn’t enough to fight gravity’s pull, then descend, all the while turning end over end in languid, smooth circles. Ellie felt her breathing slow to match the rhythm of her knife throws. In and out, up and down, in and out, until she was meditating.

Minutes slid by. Darkness fell, and finally Ellie caught the knife, flicking the blade to sheath it against the handle instead of tossing it back up. It was time.

With a deep inhale, Ellie stood and quietly pushed the door of the guard shack open, slipping out into the dim late evening air. A distant rumble of thunder confirmed the ache in her forearm was right: rain was on its way. 

Moving quietly, Ellie picked her way through the rubble of the blast zone back towards the front gate. The bright floodlights made it impossible to miss, hovering in the darkness right above the top of the wall like enormous golden eyes. They swept their gaze back and forth over the terrain in the same sweeping arcs they’d made the night before, when she’d first found her way to the wall. The night before that, she’d nearly been blown up. The night before that, she’d slept in an abandoned gas station surrounded by surly-looking men who didn’t know anything about her except that she was precious enough to need armed escorts through the network of Firefly outposts to the Boston QZ. Ellie had expected to be in Firefly HQ now, her blood being drawn and analyzed to hopefully produce a vaccine. Instead, she was slinking around, a soft cold rain beginning to soak the hood of her sweatshirt, hoping to see someone using a secret entrance she didn’t even know existed in the dead of night. Although she wasn’t any good at it, Ellie threw up a quiet prayer for luck and safety to whoever was listening to the scared, sixteen-year-old girl with the potential to save the world hiding in the bombed out ruins of north Boston… 

*****

“Where the fuck is Joel?” Tessa’s voice cut through the raucous card game between four of the men she employed as part of her smuggling ring. They shrugged, indifferent to the note of raw rage in her voice.

“How should we know, Tess? You know Joel doesn’t fucking bother with us.” 

Tessa knew they were right, although that fact didn’t make her any less angry. Joel had been almost irritatingly consistent in staying with her every night that they weren’t making a run into the open city for the last four months. Why the change of heart, Tessa didn’t know, and truthfully she was afraid of scaring him away to ask. She’d always wanted all of Joel’s attention, but she’d settled for whatever bone he threw at her. She saw the vacancy in the back of his eyes, even when they were tangled up together in bed, but having his body was better than nothing. 

But tonight, Joel wasn’t anywhere to be found. He wasn’t at his workbench, he wasn’t slumped over drunk in the stairwell of Tessa’s apartment building (where she could count on finding him at least once a week), and he wasn’t playing cards with the only people either of them knew personally. Not that she’d expected him to be. 

“Where’s the last place you saw him?”

Trevor threw his cards down on the table in irritation, helping himself to a swig from his beer.

“God damnit Tessa, I may not give a piss for Joel, but you should really loosen the leash on the poor fucking guy. The last thing a man wants to stick his prick into is a clingy fucking nanny.” 

Trevor was crass, and if Tessa hadn’t been so singularly focused on finding Joel, she probably would have risked breaking her fingers on his square jaw just to see the look of surprise on his face when he realized she’d punched him. Instead, Tessa ground her teeth together and tried to ignore the jab. 

“Trevor’s right, Tess, just leave it.” 

Bobby was as close to Tessa’s number two as she’d let anyone be. He was a soft spoken, shrewd ex-marine who still wore his dog tags and spoke with a gentle, Virginia-southern accent. Tessa trusted him, maybe more than she trusted Joel. She knew she should listen to him. But something in the way Bobby avoided her gaze felt like a challenge.

“Bobby… Bobby, tell me where the fuck Joel is.” 

Her voice dropped low, the accusation clear. Bobby continued to study the cards in his hands, studiously avoiding her gaze.

“I told you, Tess, drop it. He’s his own man. Just let him be.”

Tessa’s nostrils flared. Bobby was chiding her like a small child, and it fucking infuriated her. 

“Bobby, you piece of shit, you owe me one. I’m calling it in, asshole.” 

Trust or no trust, Tessa refused to be denied like she was a nosy little sister. It was true, Bobby did owe her one. Tessa had never expected to call in the favor she’d earned by sneaking in Bobby’s wife Tricia past the wall so he could have a proper goodbye before he shot her clean through the temple. Tricia had been infected, bit on the arm. Normally, Tessa’s policy was to drop anyone who got bit on the spot. It was an understood rule in Tessa’s ring: a bite gets you a bullet. It wasn’t personal, and it wasn’t cruel. It was just business.

But Tricia and Bobby were different. Back when Tessa had been capable of feeling things like loyalty and affection, she’d called them friends. So, when Tricia had a bad run in with a clicker and took a chomp to the bicep, Tessa had broken her own code and snuck her back through the tunnels so Bobby could see her. It had only given Bobby maybe twenty minutes before Tricia had started convulsing, her eyes rolling back in her head, the fungus crawling its way up the side of her neck. Tessa had let Bobby end it for Tricia, a final courtesy she’d extended him. And for it, he’d sworn her an I-owe-you. Tessa hadn’t ever felt like she’d done much worthy of a favor - it simply felt like the right thing to do, at the time. But now, Tessa was a different person. Shit like friendship and morality didn’t matter as much as the transaction: what you needed from others, and what they charged you for it. If this was the price Tessa paid to find Joel, she’d gladly make that trade.

Bobby finally turned to look at her, his expression profoundly disappointed. Tessa hated that she saw pity in his eyes. 

“Don’t fucking give me that look Bobby. Just tell me where the hell Joel is.” 

The room had fallen into a tense silence. Tessa could hear the faint simmer of Bobby’s cigarette as he took a deep drag on it. He turned away from her, shuffling through his cards again.

“He went to see Marlene’s crew. Tracking down some woman Marlene lost on a run a few nights back. Left out one of the subway tunnels looking for her in the open city. That’s all I know.” 

Tessa’s insides felt like they’d turned to sand. Hearing it hurt more than she’d imagined. She’d always wondered if that was why she didn’t see anything in Joel’s eyes except the shadow of a love she knew wasn’t for her. She always wondered who Joel dreamt about at night, whose face he seemed to search for in everyone he saw, whose voice he wanted to hear whispering his name. Now, Bobby had as much as confirmed it. Joel Miller, the man who didn’t care about anything or anyone - not even the woman who’d gladly burn the world just to keep him warm - had made his choice. And it wasn’t her. 

She backed out of the room, unable to feel anything except the crush of hope suffocating under the echo of Bobby’s words.

Moving on autopilot, Tessa was halfway down to the old sewage aqueduct before her mind caught up with her feet. Marlene and her crew favored the T tunnels, but Tessa liked the sewer pipes. They were deeper than the T tunnels, harder for the infected to get to from the surface, and there were more of them. Tessa had no idea how to find Joel, or where he’d gone. If she’d been thinking rationally, she probably would have started with trying to track down the Fireflies, see if she could speak to whoever had sent Joel out into the open city and get a sense of where he’d gone. But Tessa’s decisions were all instinct, bitterness and spite. She didn’t much care if she found Joel, or when. All that mattered now was getting out of the QZ. The walls felt like they were pressing in on her, the weight of her own foiled expectations threatening to drown her like quicksand. She just needed to get out, needed some fucking space. If she found Joel, maybe she’d shoot him. Maybe she’d find you instead, and shoot you too. Or maybe she wouldn’t find anyone at all. 

At the end of the day, Tessa didn’t give a shit what she found, as long as she could put some distance between her and the memory of who she’d let herself believe Joel Miller was.

read part 9 here

**let me know if you want to be tagged in future chapters! ty to everyone showing this series so much love! <;33

[technetiumai]

Postcards to Penelope

I’m starting a new project! And I’m hoping to find some helpers/collaborators!

I’m psyching myself out a little with posting this, so I’m just going to put what I wrote in the description of the interest form (here’s the form, btw: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSecj8EbP26XDPjpqyqhsgjlMjA4GaMZjc-dTPiSCdEcl5Q3Ow/viewform?usp=sf_link). So if you read this, you don’t need to worry about reading that. 

I’m looking for people to participate in the execution of a fic told through postcards sent to willing members of the fandom, with history slowly being released online in the form of Penny and Shepard's notes to each other in road atlases, cryptozoological texts, VW bus manuals, and the manuscript pages from books they've written/are writing together.

It is current day 2023, and Shepard and Penelope have been travelling around the US doing magickal research for several years. Penny heads back to the UK for a short period of time, leaving Shepard to fend for himself. He takes this opportunity to do more in depth research into the quiet zones.

What I need:

Primarily---Postcard Recipients:

People (US only for this part of it) who are willing to have postcards sent to them, and post them somewhere where other members of the fandom can see them once they've received them.

The fic works under the conceit that Penelope has spelled scraps of paper with her name on them for Shepard to paste to his postcards/letters to her, so that they will arrive in the mail wherever she happens to be.

The actual people receiving the postcards will be supplied with these scraps so that they can use them to cover their real addresses.

The reason it is restricted to the US is because that's 45 cents/postcard vs. $1.45. I'm pretty bummed about that, but it is what it is.

Yes, Shepard is using US postage and it is still reaching Penny in the UK, it's part of the spell, roll with it!

Secondarily---Lore Contributors:

If there is anyone unable or unwilling to participate in the snail mail portion of this, I am going to need to go

deep

into lore, particularly of the American folk legend, urban legend, cryptid, and American-maybes-and magickal-places-(which I have taken to calling 'maples' in my head)-that-we don't-know-about varieties, and am hoping that people may be willing to collaborate with that portion of it.

This role can take up as much or as little of your time as you want. It does not have to take up any more of your time than you might spend talking about fan theories on discord (or indeed any time at all, if you change your mind about participating), it will just take place in Google Drive documents or rather than discord or tumblr, to avoid spoilers for anyone not participating.

I will have documents laying out what I am using as accepted canon within this universe and documents, that will be able to be edited by anyone with a link, that will contain particular questions that I specifically am trying to answer within my story and any ideas that anyone involved wants to contribute.

If it seems kind of silly that I'm trying to take extra steps to crowd-source this part of the fic (which it kind of does to me, which is why I bring it up) I am basically trying to write the entire history, metaphysics, physics, etc. of the entirety of the magickal US (and extending into the rest of North America), which I don't think I can do alone, nor do I think I should.

Anyone contributing will be given credit, and if this project, or portions of it, are posted on AO3 they will receive joint writing credit/the fic as a gift/credit in the notes, as they see fit.

Anyone who has any ability to give sensitivity input as to the inclusion of Native American legendary creatures and locations would be particularly appreciated.

You can not be a lore contributor if you are receiving postcards.

Tertiarily---Agent of Chaos:

If anyone wants

even deeper

involvement in the project, I'm looking for one person who might want to be a full collaborator. I'm very interested in the idea of a person playing a third party magickal force, where I am Shepard and Penny (and the postcard receivers are also Penny, to a certain extent), and this collaborator is acting as a force to prevent/confuse/f*ck with Shepard and Penny's communications.

This person and I would workshop what exactly the role of this person would be.

I imagine my writing a bundle of pre-written, pre-addressed, pre-stamped post cards to this person, and they do.... something? Like I said, we'll workshop it XD. This idea is clear as mud to me, but I love it enough I just wanted to put it out there.

Unfortunately this will possibly also need to be someone in the US? (But we can talk about it.)

Where the lore contributors will only have special access to world-building elements, and postcard recipients will only be engaging with the story as it happens, if there is an agent of chaos, they would likely either be instrumental in the creation of the entire plot, or would at least be aware of it (or at least as aware as I am XD).

Here’s the interest form again: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSecj8EbP26XDPjpqyqhsgjlMjA4GaMZjc-dTPiSCdEcl5Q3Ow/viewform?usp=sf_link

People who expressed interest (in the form of ‘eyes’ and ‘zoomeyes’ reactions on discord 😂): @martsonmars @raenestee @skeedelvee ... I guess that’s everyone who’s tumblr I know.

[taketwoinink]

SOOO I RANDOMLY WANTED TO DIVE IN CHARACTER PSYCHOLOGY OR WHATEVER!

Contains spoilers for seasons 1-4 of Miraculous, proceed with caution

TODAY I wanna talk about ~ Nino ~

If you haven't watched the show, what are you doing here this isn't going to make a lot of sense.

From the beginning, we know a few things about Nino.

He normally sits at the back of the classroom

He doesn't seem particularly talkative

Adrien is his closest (and for a while perhaps only) friend

He's socially awkward

He's kind of shy

He definitely breaks out of his shell (hehe, shell) as the series goes on

Particularly what I want to get into is his relationship with Adrien. He offers to be Adrien's friend after learning that the other boy has none. It seems like before this point, Nino didn't have friends either.

Adrien pushes Nino out of his comfort zones, both directly and indirectly. He encourages Nino to ask out Marinette -- that's a direct push.

Nino also goes out of his way to try to help Adrien out though, doing things he's probably never done for anyone else or would have dreamt of doing, such as going and talking to Adrien's dad to try to get him to let Adrien have a party -- that's an indirect push.

It's clear from this that Nino really cares about Adrien. He's also probably the only one of Adrien's friends who truly understands how much of a douche his father really is. Nino has had the most direct conversations with Gabriel and seen his nastier side.

So it's obvious I think that Nino has little respect for Gabriel and doesn't like his treatment of Adrien. He sees how Adrien deflates in Gabriel's presence, how little free time Adrien gets, how unhappy Adrien is.

Now Adrien does not talk about his problems, but that's a dissection for another day! Long story short, Gabriel sucks and has not raised Adrien well at all.

So here's Nino's perspective.

You have Adrien. Sweet, radient (hehe radient), ball of sunshine who has been smothered and restricted by his father. He's unhappy, he wants more freedom, he wants to experience new things.

ENTER THE SEASON FOUR FINALE

big spoilers ahead

To Nino, Adrien is finally going to get what he's always wanted. He's going to get to travel the world! And with Lila! Who as far as Nino is concerned, is Adrien's friend and truly has his best interests at heart. It doesn't cross Nino's mind that maybe Adrien is going to be unhappy with this for a couple reasons.

He doesn't properly understand Adrien's home situation and what it's really done to him

He doesn't understand what it is that Adrien actually wants

He doesn't know that Lila's a liar, a harasser, and a jerk

So he really is excited for Adrien and rooting for him. I think his excitement over this has a big effect on how everyone acts around this situation. Nino is Adrien's best friend, surely he knows him best?

I think this also goes a bit to explain how Alya acted in this episode. Marinette is known for going a little too far when it comes to Adrien. So yes Alya knows that Lila is a liar but she doesn't really know how Adrien feels about Lila.

Also she wants to be a supportive girlfriend. She wants to have Nino's back here and she's a little doubtful of Marinette because well... sometimes Marinette does go too far when it comes to Adrien, even if Lila is a problem that needs to be stopped.

What Adrien REALLY WANTS here is to be loved. Where does he get his love? His friends. And Ladybug.

If he travels the world he loses both of those. AND he gets stuck with Lila who is clingy and makes him uncomfortable.

And that's what Nino doesn't see. And that's what Adrien doesn't know how to say.

He wants freedom yes, but he wants freedom for him to choose, not just physical freedom away from his house.

SO! The point of this?

Nino is legitimately a good friend who is a little bit short sighted, who doesn't properly understand the nuisances of Adrien's life and childhood (which is understandable! Adrien doesn't talk about it (for also understandable reasons) and Nino has no other good way to gain information on it). He wants the best for his bud and thinks that a month long trip around the world is something fun for Adrien that will let him bond with Lila, a good person and a good friend.

Anyway I had these thoughts earlier today and wanted to put them into words. Might do a dive into Adrien (and maybe Marinette's!) and his reasoning for what he did in this episode and we'll get back to that!

[greenorangevioletgrass]

tl;dr being woke is bullshit if it’s not intersectional.

some of you might know that it takes a lot to get me mad, so something must have been really wrong to have made my blood boil like this.

earlier today on twitter, Kristen Gray, a queer black American woman tweeted to promote her eBook on moving to Bali and living her new hip, coastal life in her $400-a-month treehouse with her girlfriend-- and how you fellow foreigners can have that, too, even with the current COVID restrictions (she’ll hook you up with the agency that she hired *wink wink). she raves on how cheap everything is, how LGBTQ+ friendly is, how accepting we are of black people, and just how wonderful everything is, really.

all good things, no? no.

here’s a few reasons why us Indonesians are pissed:

Bali is going through gentrification at an alarming rate. the average local salary is equals to $177/month(!!!) and locals are struggling to keep up with rent and bills, let alone buying property.

Bali is still within the red zone for COVID. as of now, hospitals are overcapacity-- people line up for days to get a bed or a ventilator, and so many have died waiting.

let’s not forget, Indonesia overall have just reached yet another record of 12,000+ new COVID cases a day! 🎉

Bali, and Indonesia in general, is still homophobic as fuck. there is no law protecting LGBTQ+ rights. no political figure or party who’s openly fighting for our rights. nothing. the only reason they felt it’s queer-friendly is because they are surrounded by other expats with their precious dollars and euros. nobody poor would fuck with money. and trust me, if you’re in trouble for being queer, we’ll let you know; we’re the first ones to be fucked over.

Indonesia still has an ongoing case with our own black people: here’s a carrd on West Papua (spoiler alert: it ain’t pretty.)

Bali is NOT some magical island. It is a real place with real people and real culture and real livelihood they’re stomping on for the sake of your “escape.”

but of course, upon learning this, woke american twitter were not listening and quick to say that this is an act of oppression against a triple minority-- woman, black, queer- who are simply looking for an escape.

*takes a deep breath*

i’ve always found it interesting to study about racial and identity politics (particularly in the US context) and how it may or may not be related to us all the way in Indonesia. but here’s what i learned:

the world doesn’t revolve around you. privilege and oppression in your definition may be different from ours. when kristen moved to indonesia to not be oppressed, she effectively also becomes the oppressor for taking advantage of a developing country’s poverty to achieve her fantasy high life.

if you were a guest, you don’t just barge into someone’s backyard and eat their fruit and tell your friends that we have good shit; they should come over and try it, when the host themselves can barely feed themselves with what they have left???

and look, i’m not here to compare who’s suffering more. i’m here to kindly ask you, friends from developed countries, to just be mindful wherever you go. i know that you mean well. i know that the first reflex is to defend yourself. but listen to what we are saying. we are struggling alongside you, and neither of us is more important. and i am sure we can find a way to have peace within ourselves without causing unrest to the other.

together.

[sixthwater]

All of Us Are Dead: Your Actions Have Consequences

As someone who is Saturn ruled, this is not the first time that I ended up being drawn to a series that had karma and morality be a heavy theme written into a series (throwback to my small character analysis for Girl From Nowhere). This will be another astrology driven analysis of the series and it's characters. If you want to see my actual opinions on the series, it can be found here on my main blog. So let's combine my two favorite things and get into it.

[Spoilers for the entire series ahead]

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The Writing

As I said in my personal review of it, I'm not sure if they did this on purpose or were just going for a semi-realistic approach to an apocalypse, but I noticed that it had a very....Capricorn like feeling to it. There's this notion that people who have a Saturn influence feel more restricted because the feeling of Karma is much heavier and more present in their lives (in their eyes) as opposed to others. Imagine you have a Saturn person and a Moon person decide to slack off on their homework that's due the next day. The Moon person will not suffer that much in the direct/literal sense, whereas the Saturn person might experience the teacher being deeply disappointed in them and then this reaches the parent and then they get scolded and handed a punishment--all from one piece of homework. It's not that the Moon person is not being affected by this, it's just playing out differently. For the Saturn person, these lessons start off young and they don't necessarily stop unless they can reframe their mind. It makes the person believe that they always have to be operating from a perfect or morally 'right' point or they will be delivered some type of punishment. And that's exactly what happens in this series.

A scientist's son is harassed and bullied until he can't stand it anymore > The Scientist decides to make a virus that will cause his son to fight back, causing this whole apocalypse

Jae-ik, despite being on a mission, continuously stopped to help those in need > was rewarded with a more efficient means for transportation and when nearly killed by the military, was transported to a 'safer' quarantine zone that was more stable than the danger zone

Ji-min begins to harbor rage against zombies after discovering her dead parents and holds the adults in the country accountable for not coming to rescue them > Ji-min & Hyo-ryeong pair up and when Hyo-ryeong slips, Ji-min abandons her as a zombie is catching up to them > Ji-min is Immediately surrounded and killed

and there are millions of other examples, large and small, of 'karma'. There really is no right way of judging what is a good or bad move, especially in the apocalypse, but you get the general idea. They even cover the sense where the Saturn person starts to operate from the stance where they believe they have to always be in the right, or the bigger person--maturing from an early age. In the gymnasium, after the fight, Joon-yeong states that if anything goes wrong, he'll take responsibility, and what does he do after he gets bit because of his plan?

Well. He took responsibility.

They also use this aspect when we pull back into the perspectives of the politicians and adults, obviously. We'll see multiple times that they have to sacrifice those that they love for the greater good, or you can feel the tension and insinuate as much:

There are a lot of other topics I want to touch on that I feel also relate to Saturn in terms of stepping up, adulthood, and other gritty things, but considering this pulls from real life, I personally feel uncomfortable using them as my cool neato astrology post so if you like astrology and you were also paying attention, then let me know!

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Character Analysis

A.K.A. I just assign random natal placements and aspects to these people

Cheong-san

Okay this one is a little difficult but there are some possibilities. Without a doubt I'm sticking him with a Libra sun or Moon, and Definitely a Taurus or Scorpio Venus. I think I want to lean more towards a Libra Sun because he is very contained but also Not Really??? I'm not here to figure out his entire chart though honestly. I want to give him a Libra Sun though because I realized through viewing that a lot of characters, and even me as a viewer, project onto him at times? It's not fully projection, but it's a mix of sometimes he's just Quiet and I can't tell if that's the writing or who he just is as a character. However if it's people that he's close to and cares about, then he's very active, passionate, protective, and it's giving me Taurus-Scorpio axis. He also tends to offer himself for solo missions a lot before people even suggest it and that's cardinal energy to me, because 1. a Fixed sign would think that's stupid, and 2. a Mutable sign wouldn't have a one-way thought process and end it there. So then to narrow it down he's not a Capricorn because just like the fixed sign point, they would also say his ideas are pointless and risking his life and Aries is too high energy for him. Cancer would be the Second shot after Libra, because everyone in the group gravitates towards him in a way. For the Taurus-Scorpio axis-- look. I have both of those influences, and a bunch of Scorpio influenced relatives/friends. There is no getting around some of the claims that when we love someone, we love them and it's a little intense, but in different ways. I think I want to give him a Taurus Venus, because he's very quiet in the way he moves, and it's more of about knowing On-jo and having a Very Special spot in her heart that no one else does. He only gets sour when that status is threatened and not whenever she's generally close to other people. Depending on other mixtures, it can make him more clingy for attention, so I think he has some air and earth, but he's definitely snarky and cheeky when dealing with hurt feelings because remember in Episode 1 when she was asking for help and he was answering but Not Really. When you know someone with Taurus/Scorpio Placements, you can tell when they're holding back because they will want the best for you but if they're being sore about something they Cannot help it. I think he definitely have 4th house placements though because of, you know.

On-jo

Pisces. This girl is a PISCES. I don't know where so maybe she's just influenced by Neptune but the amount of times she stressed that she just wants her friends to be here and for everything to be okay and she just wants things to go back to normal--it's a normal response but even when everything was Fine, she was very like....airy? At the end she's the one who always remembered to visit the grave for her friends (as far as I know, maybe others did too, I would have to imagine?), and then made sure to get Su-hyeok because she assumed who it was that lit the campfire and even remembered that conversation throughout the mess they were in. She's a very sentimental person, but also very sensitive. She might have double water somewhere in her big three, I don't want to say she's a water sun water moon, because she was able to pull the survival information out, so either her sun would be placed somewhere stable or aspected well like in the 9th house because that would strengthen her Pisces sun? Anyway all I have for her is Pisces <3

Dae-su

Cancer with Sagittarius Moon I Said What I Said.

Nam-ra

Harsh Moon-Saturn aspect to hell and back. Or a Saturn in 1st. She was so fun to watch because all I was doing was analyzing her and I am such a softie for kids with bad families because me too bitch. I already confirmed it the second she said her mom basically paid for her position in episode 1, but then when they were around the campfire and she said that she never hated them and then they all awkwardly said they kinda did like yeah......yeah that's the Saturn huh. I Could also go with a Moon-Asc aspect but I'm not sure if that fits her too much, because she's more about containing herself, not so much she feels uncomfortable expressing herself in the same way she comes off. Saturn in the 1st is all about not feeling like you're doing enough in the eyes of those that matter to you sometimes, and you end up presenting yourself in a restricted manner, however they want you to (which is usually, perfect). The way she described her interactions with her mom was horrible, but it fit both of these perfectly. She could also have a Mars that's intercepted if we're using placidus, or just a Mars that's in Fall or Detriment, because every single time she needed to fight she was very contained, and she couldn't really bring her full power out, which we know is Much stronger than what she showed when looking at Gwi-nam and Eun-ji. Then with how she looked at the end of the series, she probably was able to master control over herself, so that's what makes sense when it comes to that placement. I want to stress that it's not like she's naturally emotionally void, but she just Learned to be this way. I think her chart would probably look pretty normal and besides her mars, probably very chill but she was just taught to be somebody for someone else, because she also noted that no one cared to get to know her multiple times which is why she was paired with Su-hyeok, because he eventually kept trying.

Ha-ri

Definitely Node or Chiron in 4th. I wasn't thinking too much about Moon-Saturn with her because she's very vocal and not afraid of being herself, it's more-so she's afraid of being someone her family is disappointed in. So I want to lean more towards the node with this one, because we didn't really get any childhood wounds, but she also Did say that she always wanted to do archery and doesn't want to give it up, and she's worried she might have to if her parents were to find out so I'm torn on which one it is. Yes Node in the 4th is about wanting to have a family etcetc, but what Type of family life do you want to have. It doesn't have to Literally mean a family. It's just what type of values do you want to take with you when you grow, Yes you are leaving the lessons of the 10th house, but also be wary of any warts that are to be healed before you pass them on too. For Chiron, I think it was just the idea that she was the oldest and it's also tough on the eldest. They're expected to be the ideal child so when that falls short it's a lot of pressure.

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That's all! Thank you for reading if you've made it this far! If you have any extra thoughts, please feel free to comment and share them! If you're wondering what my thoughts are on some characters, I might've not been paying attention to them/// so feel free to drop it in my inbox

[razberryyum]

TGCF donghua Episode 9 Thoughts (SPOILERS! for episode and novel)

I've heard of the words Sinner's Pit a while back, probably when I first heard of TGCF, but it wasn't until a couple weeks ago when I started reading the book that I finally understood what they meant, and why it was an event in the saga of HuaLian. Even though I've only been acquainted with it for such a short period of time, I still teared up when watching the scene, so I can only imagine how much more emotional this moment was for fellow fans who have been waiting years to see it. I really hope it lived up to everyone's expectations cuz it kinda blew my mind.

When the episode was delayed in its broadcast I actually felt dread, since I immediately assumed that the HuaLian Sinner's Pit scenes didn't pass the restrictions and it was going to be edited to death or worse yet, completely cut out. Thank God that was not the case. I was looking forward to much groppage of Hua Cheng from Dianxia, and that's exactly what I got...with an extra large dose of romance too thanks to the amazing score. If anything was left out in the scene I sure couldn't tell nor did I feel anything was missing.

I've watched countless fall and rescue scenes in cdramas, to the degree that sometimes it feels like it's a required element in romance cdramas, and of course it's usually the woman in the couple falling from somewhere and the man coming to her rescue and catching her. And they're usually so poorly done that I either eyeroll so hard my eyes feel like they're gonna pop out of their sockets or I feel almost nauseated from the cheesiness.

But the donghua did it PERFECTLY. Those stupidass cdramas should learn from them. HuaLian's fall and catch scene was paced just right, scored just right, shot just right...simple PERFECTION. Not at all cheesy or cringey, utterly sublime...and everything that followed between them was utterly sublime as well.

Talk about another perfectly captured scene. I loved this line. So sweet and wonderful. No wonder Hua Cheng's in love with this man.

Btw, I know it says friendship, but just in case anyone's worried the donghua is trying to friendzone HuaLian, those Chinese characters can just be a general way of saying getting along, usually in a friendly way, but it's not as friend zone-y as it sounds. Although, I doubt anyone actually watching the show and paying attention to it would even think Hua Cheng only wants to be bro-friends with Xie Lian.

I mean, I guessss bros can be touchy feely and eyefuck eyelove each other all the time, but I would personally like to meet them bros like that.

Also, not fair of the donghua team to cuteify these boys even more. My poor heart almost couldn't take it. Too adorable!!

Honestly, after that HuaLian-ful sequence, my brain was barely able to register anything else. Doesn't help that I already know how things will resolve in terms of this mystery. I am mostly looking forward to how the "new" characters whom are being introduced to looks and how they will bring to life certain non-HuaLian related events that sounded dramatic or even epic in writing.

For example the Banyue Guoshi...was totally not expecting her to look this adorable. She looks so innocent and pretty, who in their right mind would bully such a beautiful little girl??

Although, when she is on the attack, she definitely does feel like a wraith bringing instant death upon her victims. This was so beautifully animated: it looked both terrifying and truly impressive.

Lastly:

Hiiii puppyyyyy!!!! Nice to finally meet you!! Who's a good boy?? 😂 E-Ming's a total cutie pie and his first appearance was cool AF too. I freaked out a little.

OMG I almost forgot!! I LOVE the new ED theme!!! I hope they release an official MV for it soon!

~

NOVEL SPOILERS

Current Reading Progress: finished book 1, currently in book 2, knee-deep in Yong'an famine crisis. Every HuaLian interaction is a treasure, I know I didn't mention them at all last week but pretty much every time they meet up again I scream a bit. The temple scene, when Dianxia told chibi HC to live for him, got me so emotional (I also really want to hug little HC and protect him forever). Seriously felt like I finally reached some kind of important milestone since I read that line somewhere even before I even knew who or what HuaLian was. I don't know how many seasons of the donghua we'll be blessed with, but if we don't get as far as Dianxia's past, then I do hope we at least get to see Ghost City, Gambler's Den, Paradise Manor,and Qi Rong's cave. I can imagine getting into some of that next season but unless it's a long one, I doubt we'd be able to see all of it in one season.

And also, I don't think I love Qi Rong anymore. He really is a bad, bad boy...and not in the sexy way, but more in the holy shit you really are fucked up way.

Finally, the Yong'an thing... I'm already bracing myself. I could be wrong but I already see how that could lead to Xianle's downfall. The knives are probably coming, huh?

TGCF novel translation can be found at: https://tgcfmxtx.carrd.co/

[ordinaryschmuck]

What I Thought About "What If...Captain Carter was the First Avenger" from Marvel Studios' What If...

Salutations, random people on the internet who certainly won’t read this! I am an Ordinary Schmuck. I write stories and reviews and draw comics and cartoons.

Back when Marvel Studios announced the new lineup of films and shows, I was admittingly underwhelmed. Nothing we've seen so far has been poorly written, far from it, but during the announcement, nothing really popped out at me as worth getting excited for. That is, except for one series: Marvel Studios' What If... An animated series that changes the canon of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, all through the simple question. The question being, "What if this happened instead of that."

From the get-go, I was sold on this idea. I'm a sucker for hypothetical scenarios, thinking up all the ways of how some of my favorite stories in fiction could be drastically different thanks to one tiny change. Some might call that "Fanfiction the Series," and while you're not wrong, I fail to see how that's a criticism. Because fanfiction can be fun...just as long as you ignore the sick freaks, sure, but it still can be fun! So whether Marvel Studio's What If... is fanfiction or not, it still didn't change how excited I was to watch it. Was it all worth the hype? Well, to answer that question requires spoilers, so keep that in mind as we dive deep into Marvel's most ambitious project yet.

Now, let's review, shall we?

WHAT I LIKED

The Watcher: Gonna get the generals out of the way before I talk about what I specifically like about this episode. Ok? Ok.

Now, using the Watcher as the narrator for this series is just perfect. What If... already has a similar energy to The Twilight Zone: An anthology series that takes viewers to new and mysterious realities all through the guidance of an omniscient narrator. And using the Watcher as that type of narrator might just be the second-best choice...number one would be Stan Lee, obviously, but...he's dead now. May he rest in peace.

I haven't read that many comics, so there's not much that I know about the Watcher's character aside from a ten-second Google search. But something tells me that a character described as a celestial being that observes and records the events surrounding the galaxy sounds like the exact type of omniscience to guide us through the unknown. All added with Jeffrey Wright's performance, who really does convey a character that sounds like he's as old as time and wise beyond his years. Plus, it's pretty cool that such a seemingly odd character now technically plays a major role in the MCU canon. Comics are weird, and if the Watcher proves anything, it's better to embrace that weirdness than deny it.

The Animation: Looks like someone watched Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse.

That really is the feeling I got when watching this. What If... doesn't look as good as Spiderverse (Nothing can be as good as Spiderverse), but the idea is still there as it combines primarily CGI animation with a few hand-drawn elements. It makes certain scenes just pop and, at times, even makes specific shots look like they're straight from panels in a comic book. Besides, while Spiderverse still looks better, that doesn't mean the animation isn't phenomenal in What If... The scenery looks gorgeous, the CGI models moderately match their live-action counterparts, the expressions are fantastic, and movements are as smooth as butter. There was definitely some money that went into this series to make it look as good as it did, and my eyeballs were more than grateful because of it. Especially when it comes to--

The Action: Holy s**t, was it a good thing that this series was animated!

The MCU has had its fair share of great fight scenes in the past, but it always felt restricted to what the big superhero fights could be due to everything needing to look "realistic." That all changes in What If... Because now that this series is animated, we can finally chuck realism out the window and allow these characters to be as epic as they were in the comics. The movements are swift, the blows look like they hurt, and best of all, you actually get to see characters fighting each other! There are no random cuts to hide the stunt doubles or weird camera angles to avoid audiences seeing how ugly the CGIed replacements are. We get to see all of the action with zero restraint, thanks to the fact that animation is limitless and allows writers to get away with literally anything. And shows like this make me wonder, "Why the hell isn't the MCU animated?"

Peggy as Captain Carter: It's here that we get into the specifics, and by golly, do I love me some Peggy Carter making a return. And what a return she made!

Seeing Peggy kick Nazi ass as Captain Carter is as awesome as it sounds as she gives a new definition of a "Strong, independent woman." She took s**t from no one and was more than willing to destroy anybody who said differently. It's a ton of fun for fans (the ones who aren't sexist, at least) and even fun for Peggy as well now that she gets a chance to wreck shop. However, that in itself could cause problems. If you watched Agent Carter (a great show, by the way), then you'll know that Peggy doesn't act as...somewhat meatheaded as she does here. As she said it herself, she's "usually more covert than this." And she is, as she was pretty much the first superspy in the MCU, who's impressive through how she effortlessly infiltrates her way to winning the day with diminutive requirements for fighting. So stripping that away gets rid of a core part of what makes her character so interesting. Although, in fairness, you could blame the fact that the reason she's acting like this is that the super-soldier serum is messing with her brain a bit. We've seen through U.S. Agent the reciprocations of the wrong person taking the serum, and while Peggy is far from the worst pick, there are hints of why Steve Rodgers was the best choice. Still, even though it's not the same Peggy Carter, that doesn't mean Captain Carter is a poor addition to the hero roster in the MCU. She's cool in all the right ways, even though they're drastically different from what made her compelling, to begin with.

Howard Stark: Another character I'm more than happy to see again!

Howard didn't leave that much of a grand of an impression in Captain America: The First Avenger, but in Agent Carter (Seriously, great show), he was a blast. You can just tell he was Tony Stark's father through all the ways he fast-talks in and out of problems and brilliantly comes up with solutions thanks to being tech-savvy. The main difference between Howard and Tony, however, is that Howard prefers to stay on the sidelines, where Tony learned to be more proactive. You get a sense of that in this episode. Because even though he goes to save the day, you can tell that he would rather be anywhere else. And, as a bonus, Howard's just funny. Probably not up there as one of the funniest characters in the franchise (Paul Rudd's Ant-Man reigns supreme), but he still cracks me up more times than not. Howard may be nothing more than a side character, but he'll always win me over no matter how small of a role he has.

Steve Rodgers in the Hydra Stomper: Don't mind me. Just admiring the fact that despite being crippled and skinny, Steve Rodgers still finds a way to fight the good fight, which is who Steve is to me. One of the best things about The First Avenger is that it fully understands the hero that is Captain America. Serum or not, he will do all he can to do the right thing and won't give up despite how many times others tell him he should. So if Steve's going to fly around in a suped-up Iron Man suit that's appropriately named "The Hydra Stomper," then Steve'll f**king soar. Because he is a gosh dang superhero, no matter what name he takes at the end of the day.

Fast-Forwarding Through Events: Some fans might take issues with this. Don't get me wrong, I would love to see all the little changes that Captain Carter makes to the story, but realistically that's not the best choice to make. Let's be honest, there's not that much to show other than what this episode did, and doing a full-on rewrite of Captain America: The First Avenger would have rubbed some fans the wrong way. Besides, from what I can tell, most of the What If... comics are one-shots that very rarely branch out into longer arcs. The primary goal is less to write this large-scale story and more of this self-contained narrative that does what it precisely delivers: Show fans a glimpse of what would happen if this happened instead of that. That's what we were given, and I can't really complain that much. I would have loved to have seen more, but I can learn to be happy with what I got.

Colonel Flynn Taking Credit: This guy is sexist and an idiot, and that's why I hate him...but I'd be lying if I said that I didn't at least chuckle when he said everything was his idea. It's such a scumbag move that I couldn't help but find the humor in it.

(Like, what even was that scene where Peggy was pissed at Steve kissing a girl. THEY WEREN'T EVEN DATING !)nd Steve falling in love inThe First Avenger, which certainly wasn't helped by how they had these dumbass misunderstandings of each thinking the other was dating someone else. Here, they at least get to interact, confiding in one another about their insecurities and offer support when needed. And while it may be a little rushed, I'm more willing to believe their romance in under thirty minutes than I did in over two hours. It could have been better, but it also could have been much, much worse.

(Like, what even was that scene where Peggy was pissed at Steve kissing a girl. THEY WEREN'T EVEN DATING AT THE TIME!)

“I won’t tell you anything.”/”He told me everything.”: That's the Peggy Carter I know and love! Added with a solid joke, too.

Steve’s Pratfall: It's nice to know that no matter what universe we see, Marvel is still funny.

Peggy’s Sacrifice: Much like Peggy and Steve's romance, I buy Peggy's sacrifice way more than Steve's. Several fans already pointed out how it makes no sense for Steve to crash the plane into the icy waters when it seemed like he had enough control to land it or could have easily jumped out after aiming for the crash landing. Here, there's a more legitimate reason why Peggy sacrifices herself. The monster was undefeatable, and the only way to stop it was to push it back through the portal. Peggy, being the only one strong enough to do so at the moment, was the only option, and there was no way where she didn't end up going through with the monster. Even her return makes more sense, as I think her being lost to time and space sounds more believable than Steve surviving being frozen in ice. Something no mortal man should live through. Peggy's sacrifice proves that while the MCU can't change its cannon past, the writers learn from their mistakes and make something better.

WHAT I DISLIKED

The Reasoning Behind Peggy Becoming Captain Carter: So, the idea that one small change can greatly alter the story we knew is a great one, and it's one of the main reasons why I was excited about this series...but how does Peggy staying in the room cause the Hydra agent to detonate the bomb early? I understand the ripples that come from the Butterfly Effect, but I feel like that's too big of a leap to reason how Peggy ends up taking the serum instead.

Colonel Flynn: How is it possible that this guy is somehow even more of a pain in the ass than the general he replaced? At least Chester Phillips had the decency to respect Agent Carter!

Red Skull is Still on the Dull Side: Red Skull isn't an awful villain, but he wasn't really a great one. It's the same here, as he's just as forgettable and wooden an episode of television as he was in a full-length movie. But at least he had a cooler death this time.

Sebastian Stan is Not a Great Voice Actor: He's not awful, but his talent really doesn't shine in this regard. Some people think that being an actor and a voice actor is the same thing, but it's not always the case. Through live-action, actors are given a chance to express emotion through their expressions, movement, and voice. With voice acting, actors still have to convey emotions, but strictly through their voice. Meaning that actors like Sebastian Stan are limited to what they're used to and can stumble a bit when trying to perform in a field of acting they're unfamiliar with. You can tell he was trying his best, but this type of thing can take far more practice for others to perfect.

“Whew. Thanks. You almost ripped my arm off.”: ...hhhhhhhhhhHHHHHHHHA! HA HA! Ah...oh man...I, uh...I felt the internal bleeding with that one. Wow. Just...wow.

Bucky Leaving After Steve “Died”: Ok, now that's the biggest bout of bulls**t I've ever heard. BUCKY WOULD BE WITH STEVE 'TILL THE END OF THE LINE AND WOULD NOT HAVE LEFT THAT QUICKLY!

...This episode did Bucky dirty, didn't it?

IN CONCLUSION

I'd say that "What If...Captain Carter was the First Avenger" is an A-. It's still a solid start of what I can already tell will be a great series, but some elements could have used some polishing out. I loved it, but it wasn't as bloody brilliant as it could have been.

(And I meant it: WATCH AGENT CARTER! It's pleasantly surprising!)

[aion-rsa]

Unforgotten: the Clues in the Titles and Why Every Detail Matters

https://ift.tt/3b8wdBf

Warning: contains spoilers for Unforgotten series 1-3

“You’d be surprised,” says Peter Anderson, creative director of the studio behind the title sequences for hit ITV crime drama Unforgotten. “You can show something really on-the-nose, and people won’t get it until they’ve been told. We fret and worry about giving too much away but the clue is only triggered when you know the context.”

Each 40-second title sequence for Unforgotten is a curated collection of purpose-filmed scenes designed to go where the drama can’t – namely, inside the characters’ heads. Every series starts with the discovery of a long-buried body, then introduces viewers to a guest cast of characters whose connections to each other, and to the historical murder, gradually unfold. It takes six episodes to solve the mystery, but right from the start, the abstracted and symbolic images created for the title sequence already hold all the answers. 

“Some of the images are big clues,” explains Anderson. “With the current series titles, there were some things that were taken out and then went back in, that are incredibly poignant, really incredibly amazing clues, I can only be ambiguous about it at this stage.”

Our new titles, full of little teasers and clues. Made by the brilliant @PAndersonStudio #OneDayMore #Unforgotten 4 https://t.co/rE5XAo5lx6

— Chris Lang (@ChrisLangWriter) February 21, 2021

How the series four title sequence relates to the new story, airing on Mondays at 9pm, is currently anybody’s guess. The meaning behind its images – a smashed car window, an allotment, a discarded fountain pen, to pick just three – will only become apparent after the finale. “You should have a relationship with the title sequence that grows as the drama grows,” says Anderson. Look back the title sequences for previous Unforgotten series and that’s exactly so – they’re transformed by hindsight.

Take the series two montage, which opens with a shot of a pub table and three empty drinking glasses. Atmospherically, it’s a lonely image, but hardly ominous. In the finale, the scene is revealed to be a turning point in the investigation as the place where the murder suspects gather and the truth is finally told. It’s a terrible truth about three lives irreparably damaged by childhood sexual abuse, and provides the answer to another title sequence mystery. The dreadful significance of a previously unexplained shot of an empty yellow tent is made clear in a heart-rending monologue from Mark Bonnar, who plays lawyer Colin. The abuse Colin suffered as a child began aged nine, on a camping trip. Each week, viewers have been shown the tent from his memory – a formative moment that haunts the titles in the same way it haunts the character.

“That’s one of those occasions where the titles are showing you something awful and poignant, a game-changer,” says Anderson. “In a way, the tent is the scene that forms the whole story of the drama, but it’s in the titles. It’s not a flashback, it’s been allowed to be in this other place, this place that says to you, ‘Before you watch this drama every week, think about some of these things’.”

Copyright: Peter Anderson Studio

Not every image is necessarily a clue. “Some of them are setting the scene, some of them are memories that form the characters, some of them are about placing the different time zones that you’re in.” Unforgotten is a time-travelling series, says Anderson. “The titles are showing us that we will be in memory.”

All four series titles share the visual metaphor of unsettled dust motes floating from scene to scene. “It’s talking about how, the moment Cassie and Sunny (the show’s detective leads played by Nicola Walker and Sanjeev Bhaskar) come knocking on your door with news or an accusation, it unearths a whole series of events, whether you’re innocent or guilty. The dust, your past, is unsettled. That thread follows through all the title sequences, it’s about the everyday becoming disrupted and changed.” 

Clues and reminiscences are purposely blended in the Unforgotten titles. Some memories may be more important than others, but nothing is frivolous, says Anderson. In the series two sequence, even a glimpsed pan of peas boiling on a stove feeds into the working class roots of a now wealthy, knighted business tsar. “Even the peas have a job to do because they’re taking you back inside the head of a character.”

“One that pops to mind is a car crash scene from the series one titles. It’s the moment that one of our characters was in the crash that put him in his wheelchair. That’s not something shown in the drama, but that’s a moment that formed that character, a lot of his traits come out of this awful thing that happened.”

Read more

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Unforgotten series 3 writer: “we live in uncompassionate times”

By Louisa Mellor

Books

Why Unforgotten fans should read Reservoir 13

By Louisa Mellor

Title scenes are a different type of narrative that hark back to the silent movie era, Anderson explains. “It’s about subtly extending the storytelling, extending the characters through their memories, taking you to a place that formed them that the drama doesn’t have the time to show. It might be referred to in dialogue, but we can actually make it in the titles.”

They can make it, but not wanting to give the game away, they also have to obscure it. “Something that seems abstract often is laced with meaning,” he says, citing a tiny snippet in the series three credits where we see a close-up of a deer’s eye. The deer turns out to be a plot point, as the animal hit by an underage driver whose father suspects him of having killed the victim. In the same sequence, a poetic scene shows grass and flowing water. “To the viewer that will just be abstract and atmospheric, but actually, that’s the moment when the river broke its banks and carried away the body.”

The Unforgotten titles incorporate the settings used in the show, but – until this series because of last year’s Covid-19 restrictions on set visits – were always purpose-filmed by Anderson’s studio and not compiled from existing footage. They’d pop in to a set while the production was on lunch and get the coverage they needed, borrowing key props and costumes. That’s how a necktie worn by a character revealed to have a sadomasochistic fetish is glimpsed binding the hands of a young woman (a Peter Anderson Studios intern, being useful on her first day) in the series two sequence. A suitcase used to contain and dispose of a murder victim is spotted sitting innocently at the bottom of a wardrobe. “We have access to all the costumes, the props, the poignant clues from the drama itself. The detail that’s in there comes direct from the drama.” 

Copyright: Peter Anderson Studio

Each Unforgotten title sequence begins life as around 100 short scenes written by Anderson after reading all six of that series’ scripts. It’s unusual to be granted such breadth of access in TV drama, which is part of what makes the title work on Unforgotten so special. The entire Mainstreet Pictures team, from creator and writer Chris Lang to the producers and directors, collaborate on whittling down the list of scenes until they say everything they need to, without giving anything away. 

This kind of devotion from a production company to a TV title sequence is rare in the UK, says Anderson. He’s experienced it precious few times in his career: with Neil Gaiman creating the stunning 2D animated titles for Good Omens, with Steven Moffat and the producers of BBC One’s Sherlock and Doctor Who – for which his studio made the series seven titles starring Matt Smith – and here, on Unforgotten.

Lang tells Den of Geek that he’s never worked on a series with such a symbiosis between the titles and the drama. “We meet at late script stage, when the characters are fully formed, and then we decide together which echoes, teases and clues we want to put in to the opening sequence.” Lang describes the titles for each series as a mini drama of their own, easing the audience into the world of the show. In dramatic and storytelling terms, he says, the titles do a lot of heavy lifting.

“Chris will say ‘Can we add this scene? Because this is why that character was formed’, explains Anderson. “I can’t extend a character’s story in the way that the writer can. He knows implicitly how he’s formed his characters, he knows their past. He knows which memories are important”. It’s about understanding the detail of every bit of storytelling, “that even a half-second snippet really matters.”

Copyright: Mainstreet Pictures

One character-forming scene that’s only a half-second snippet in the series three titles shows a young child being hugged by a woman. The costume, backdrop and lighting suggest the 1960s, putting us in the realm of memory. In that half-second, Anderson confirms, we’re inside the mind of Dr Tim Finch, an extremely damaged man played by Alex Jennings.  “It’s just meant to be a flicker of time showing an overbearing mother that formed part of his character. If you look at the detail of that shot, what’s important is the fact that he’s being smothered and the smothering therefore has a psychological effect on him growing up.” 

Another key memory scene – a child’s-eye perspective of a woman peeling potatoes at a sink, which relates to the moment a character told her mother she was being abused by her father – was coincidentally filmed in the same location: Anderson’s kitchen at home. “I have a 1950s house with a genuine 50s kitchen with a genuine 80s wall with a genuine 70s floor, so as a location, it’s utterly fantastic for time travel,” he laughs, angling his laptop camera down to show a tiled floor fans will recognise from several of the Unforgotten title sequences. 

In the US, Anderson explains, TV titles are highly paid for, but in Britain it remains a lo-fi business. When his studio created the fast-paced title sequence for high-profile Sky One drama Lucky Man, for instance, instead of closing the roads and wiring up a street with cables to film the fast-paced street scenes, they did it using an actor from Starlight Express roller skating through London wearing a GoPro.

Copyright: Peter Anderson Studios

Series two’s yellow tent scene was filmed using vintage camping equipment pitched in the park next to Anderson’s home. “That was me and a cinematographer on the side of a hill. We set it up meticulously with an oil lamp from the period. We wanted the light to be perfect, so for just that one scene we probably spent between three and four hours shooting.”

A television drama often won’t have the time to be so indulgent with its photography, he says. For the series three titles, his studio shot Bristol Bridge in the early hours of the morning, starting off in the dark and the snow, waiting until the light was just so. Production arranged the official permissions, the hotel, everything so that Anderson’s team could film just two scenes of no more than a few seconds each. It’s proof, he says, of how much everybody involved cares and how every detail matters – something well worth remembering the next time your finger hovers over that ‘Skip Intro’ button.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Unforgotten series 4 continues on Mondays at 9pm on ITV1.

The post Unforgotten: the Clues in the Titles and Why Every Detail Matters appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/303o3nf

[spezialistin-archived]

Rules & About

I do not demand any size of reply, there’s times we have more to say, sometimes less;

I do not demand a good english, it’s not my mother language, I can’t judge;

I will write in third person. If you want to write it in first, do it. But I’ll do it in third;

I don’t like a lot to start a rp already in the smut part, I prefer building up a situation, but it’s not a rule;

I won’t smut with female muses, I feel uncomfortable, sorry;

Even if we didn’t start a rp with the decision of smut, that doesn’t mean that can’t lead to it;

For now, I ship rivamika, jeankasa, reikasa, mikannie, erumika, ererivamika, erurivamika, erejeankasa, eremika (with restrictions) and, of course, chemistry. I probably won’t ship with OCs or muses outside SNK;

I have no problems with rping with an OC;

But about the AU, I can play it if I like the AU, but I like the universe of SNK a lot to not play on it. So I prefer AUs more like it;

Please tag as spezialistin, please.  But tag it on the post, I try to track my tag but it gets messy sometimes;

You can reply any open any time (unless it’s specific for some character or verse, but that’s rare), check them in the tag #open rp;

Don’t act like our muses know each other unless they’ve met in canon, they heard about each other in canon or we talked about it;

There is a big chance that I won’t roleplay with gender-swapped nor racebended muses, I’m not comfortable with that;

I reserve myself the right to drop threads. Most likely short ones, that won’t happen to long ones. I won’t warn because I have social anxiety. And please don’t press me to know about that because I will get anxious and ignore you. I want to be your friend, but I will run away from anyone that makes me anxious;

Memes can be turned into threads. Please do it. If you make it in another post is better, but you can reblog the ask as well; although when I reply it will be in another post;

About icons, gifs and fanarts: some icons and gifs may be mine, some not. The fanarts definitely aren’t mine unless stated otherwise;

Unless I post my icons for free use, DON’T TAKE THEM;

OOC posts will be identified by the tag #out of blades;

This not a spoiler free blog. I'm up to date in the manga and I’m currently watching the anime;

I don’t use to check my tag. So please warn me properly;

Time zone -3 GMT;

I tag nsfw graphics, but I won’t tag nsfw threads. But they will be put under read more;

DO NOT REBLOG MY HEADCANONS, I will block the shit out of you. They are mine, I wrote them, they are not for sharing. You can only reblog if: it involves your muse, but you should ASK FIRST;

DON’T REBLOG OOC POSTS. Unless you’re just answering something (and it’s not hate) Or I will block you;

Don’t come randomly to me just to say shit about something I like. Unless I asked or you have intimacy enough. If not, that just DISRESPECTFUL and I will block you;

I won’t tolerate any ship shame/hate. Even if I dislike the ship myself, that won’t be tolerated; there’s a thing called RESPECT. And I do ship a lot of ships that I know there’s a bunch of idiots sending hate about. Don’t waste your time, go live your own life loving what you love instead of wasting time with hate, that will only show how pathetic you are;

I am aware I have problematic ships. But block me or just not follow me. If you disrespect me or send me hate, you’re just going to have your ass blocked;

I have social anxiety, so I will NOT send any password. However, have in mind that I will read your rules before following you. If I do anything wrong, it is not because I haven’t read it, but because I’ve forgot. Talk to me and I’ll pay more attention to it;

I probably won’t follow duplicates. I have my reasons. But you can come & talk to me, that can be changed.

Please tag (mostly graphics of): animal abuse/cruelty/death, pregnancy & mental hospital. I don’t want to unfollow anyone because of that, but they are things I don’t want to see in my dash and/or are triggering to me;

TAG YOUR HATE/ANTI. To be honest, I probably won’t even follow you if you post too much hate/anti. I’m here to have fun, not to get flooded by hate towards something I love;

I won’t interact with people who post anti “insert ship/character I like”. It’s petty. Reminder that not liking something is DIFFERENT from posting/being an anti. I won’t interact with you if you post anti. I am not here to stress myself;

I follow as ask-mackerman

[jokertrap-ran]

(未定事件簿) EVENT! 「消失的黄金」 [Tears of Themis] EVENT: The Lost Gold Translations (Xia Yan Chapter 3-01: Mountainous Forest Zone)

“Although it's safe out here with no wild animals in sight, it is still getting dark out, and she's a girl, so she’s bound to be scared.”

*Tears of Themis Masterlist  *Spoiler free: Translations will remain under cut *(y/n) is your name when in direct referral; otherwise referred to as MC.

Location: Mountainous Forest

Xia Yan's tranquilizer gun had hit Dong Hechuan with dead accuracy. The anesthetic was so potent that it had knocked him unconscious with no trouble at all.

I opened Dong Hechuan's backpack, searching through it. And as for the person himself...

MC: Xia Yan, the way you lifted him out of the grass earlier really looked like you were holding up a chicken instead of a human.

Xia Yan: I'm already feeling plenty embarrassed to have let him out of my sight for such a long time.

Xia Yan: It'll ruin my reputation, were my brothers back in the Ministry to learn about this.

Xia Yan: I'd definitely have embarked with the guy in question, if it wasn't for a certain someone who kept testing Wang Xian's testiness aboard the Cruise Ship and effectively increasing their guard up.

Xia Yan: Even I don't believe that I have the ability to send someone scampering with just a look.

He sounded affronted, but he wasn't actually serious about what he said. Because...this was just how NXX normally was.

They'd always try to one-up each other no matter how tacitly they work together.

MC: (Sure enough, "Men are teenagers until they die". You're all mere 6 year olds when together and nothing more.)

In addition to the regular supplies that had been provided, Dong Hechuan's personal belongings included a mobile phone, a knife  that adhered to restrictions and a pistol.

We also found a diving suit and a broken respirator.

MC: He went underwater but still turned up empty. Could it be that even he, himself, doesn't know about where the stolen goods are? And he's trying to locate it while on the move?

Xia Yan: Judging from how he had asked the Staff for a leather tube to fix his diving respirator, he should be fairly certain that it was hidden underwater.

Xia Yan: Maybe he has a few locations in mind which are highly-likely to be placed where the stolen goods were hidden at, but is unable to determine which one's the correct one.

Xia Yan: No matter, we'll just have to ask him about it when he awakens.

MC: And this; a piece of sheepskin parchment. This is the only possession he has with words written on it.

The parchment looked old; the paper itself had turned soft and was already somewhat dirty.

There was something written in ink on it, with something similar to a pen. It's contents looked to be a poem.

Xia Yan: "He walks in the day..."

Xia Yan: "I am yesterday, today and tomorrow..."

Xia Yan: "I light up his Golden Scepter, guiding him, who opens the great door every thousands of years."

MC: Could this be a clue to the whereabouts of the stolen goods?

Xia Yan: If I remember correctly, this passage was adapted from the "Book of the Dead" in Ancient Egypt. This should be a clue that leads to where it is.

Xia Yan: And judging from how old the paper is, I'd say it's probably something that was left behind from 10 years ago.

Why was this adaptation of the "Book of the Dead" deemed as something related to the Stolen Goods?

I had originally wanted to ask him about it and think on it for a while, but I decided that it was probably not something I should be digging further into when I saw that he didn't make a move to explain himself.

At this time, the effect of the anesthetic was already slowly starting to wear off as the unconscious Dong Hechuan started to stir.

Xia Yan: Look at the time, it's almost time for dinner.

Xia Yan: There's some delicious wild fruit in the woods around here; plump and juicy! So how about you go pick some for us to snack on later?

MC: Sure...

It was plainly obvious that the wild fruit was just an excuse. Xia Yan wanted to distract me elsewhere. And considering how his secret mission was nothing, if not confidential, I took a small pouch from my backpack and prepared to wander the forests around here for a while; just like be told me to.

Xia Yan: Take your Terminal and your Cellphone with you. Keep in touch if you need to and don't stray too far.

MC: I know. Call me on the Encrypted Channel if you need me here and I'll come back immediately.

☆⋅⋆…⋅─────────── ⋆⋅✾⋅⋆ ───────────⋅…⋆⋅☆

The gentle demeanor on Xia Yan's face dropped the moment the girl left.

He kicked the tied-up Dong Hechuan and slapped him condescendingly. Dong Hechuan slowly awoke, leisurely; only to shiver in disdain upon seeing Xia Yan.

Dong Hechuan: Who are you and why have you captured me!? Let me go!

Xia Yan: Dong Hechuan, age 33, mother died young and father jailed for robbery.

Xia Yan: You came out to society before even finishing Junior High and later joined the Robbery Gang, Gold Lion.

Xia Yan: I have to say, you really did follow in your father's footsteps, didn't you? Although you're much too much of a greenhorn compared to your father. Your one-time off doesn't even compare to what he had stolen for half his life.

Dong Hechuan: You seem awfully well-informed about me. Did you investigate me?

Xia Yan: Your entire group died 10 years ago in the Gold Robbery, with you as the sole survivor.

Xia Yan: You used this time's Treasure Hunt as an opportunity to come to the Island. I'm sure you must be here to reclaim the stolen goods that you had failed to bring back the other time, right?

Dong Hechuan: Whatever are you talking about? I don't quite understand you.

Dong Hechuan: I was part of the Robbery Gang back then, yes; but I'm not here today for the loot! I don't even know where the remaining gold is!

Dong Hechuan: If only I knew; then I would have told the Police back then and gotten another one or two years off my sentence!

Xia Yan: Dong Hechuan; You see, I can't let my companion stay in the woods for too long.

Xia Yan: Although it's safe out here with no wild animals in sight, it is still getting dark out, and she's a girl, so she's bound to be scared.

Xia Yan: So I don't have much patience to spare with you here.

Dong Hechuan: But I really don't...

Dong Hechuan: AHH——!

Xia Yan pulled Dong Hechuan's bound hands over to him, pulling lightly on the first joint of his left index finger.

Xia Yan: I said, I don't have time to go around in circles with you.

Xia Yan: But don't fear, I'm not overly fond of violence, so you're getting off the hook here.

Xia Yan: Granted, if you keep dragging things out with your refusal to speak...do you know that having something dislocated for a long time in passing will cause many problems down the road?

Dong Hechuan: I-I...

Xia Yan: I'm just a Treasure Hunter seeking after money. I'm only interested in the cash and I don't give the slightest shit about your life.

Xia Yan: Come on brother, don't get in the way of me and my money.

The sky gradually dimmed and the dim lighting only made Xia Yan's vacantly smiling face even colder.

Xia Yan: Don't think about asking your accomplices for help; no, do you even have any real accomplices?

Xia Yan: Having survived that internal scuffle back then means that everyone is just a pawn in your eyes, no?

Xia Yan: Oh yes, I forgot to tell you that Lin Dahai is actually nearby. Did you know that he's actually here to seek revenge on you? I'm guessing that you did think of silencing him before, yes?

Xia Yan: But what if I told him where you were? What then?

He took out his cellphone and brought up an interface, showing it to Dong Hechuan. The location displayed clearly denoted Lin Dahai's name and he was not far away at all.

Dong Hechuan: ......

Xia Yan: I'll inject you with a muscle relaxant before leaving. 

Xia Yan: Not only will it ensure that you remain conscious, but it'll also render you unable to put up a fight.

Glancing back at Dong Hechuan who still seemed a little out of it, Xia Yan took a medicine box out of his bag.

There was an injection nestled inside, prepped and ready to use.

Xia Yan: Say, I wonder if he'll do the same to you as what you did to his father?

Dong Hechuan: I'll talk, I'll talk! I'll tell you where the gold is!

☆⋅⋆…⋅─────────── ⋆⋅✾⋅⋆ ───────────⋅…⋆⋅☆

Previous Part: (Xia Yan 2-05: Mountainous Forest Zone) | Next Part: (Xia Yan 3-02: Mountain Plains)

[thebeauregardbros]

LFRP: Alus Beauregard | Crystal Server

THE BASICS ––– –– –

Occupation: Free Paladin | Field Medic | Café Proprietor

Hobbies: Fashion | Tea Brewing | Pastry Creation | Jewelry Making | Reading Faerie Tales

Race: Miqo’te (Sunseeker Descent)

Sexuality/Romance: Asexual / Panromantic

Relationship Status: Single; never married

Languages: Eorzean | Common. Understands all languages; possesses The Echo.

Alignment: Neutral Good

PERSONAL ––– –– –

Alias: “Alice” (💢)

Residence: The Goblet, Ward 8 : Sultana’s Breath Apartments; Wing 1; Apartment #21

Place of Work: Café Nobilitea: Lavender Beds Ward 20, Lot #8 | Anywhere his Eorzean Grand Company sends him.

Birthplace: ??? (Grew up in Eorzea; particularly in the Thanalan area)

Fears: Slugs | Failing to keep his comrades safe | Failing to save his enemies from themselves

APPEARANCE ––– –– –

Height: “Tall for a miqo’te” (5′8″/173cm)

Build: Barrel-chested, muscular; untoned muscles | Long legs, wide shoulders, slender hips.

Age: Unknown; nameday 20 yrs ago. Approximately 23 summers old.

Gender: Male

Skin tone: Tan; Gold Undertone

Eye color: Heterochromia; Deep Fuschia (Right) | Golden Yellow (Left)

Hair color: Golden Blonde

Body Mods: Pierced ears.

Distinguishing Marks: [SPOILER] Large amounts of large-scale bruises and scars all over his body. They are almost always covered up with his clothing. There are no visible scars on his face, neck, or hands.

Common Accessories: Large amounts of gold jewelry; Excessive rings, bracelets, pocket watch chains, earrings, tiaras, circlets, crowns | Large amounts of fresh and/or fake flowers; On his lapel, coming out of his pockets, warn as a flower crown, tucked in his hair, tucked amongst the buttons on his outfits, etc.

BODY LANGUAGE ––– –– –

Walk: Excellent posture; he carries his upper body with strength, while his legs nearly cross in his stride like an elegant female runway model.

Voice: His voice is often strong, clear, deep, and commanding, with the slightest hinge of huskiness. While off-guard, however, his voice cracks into a higher pitched and goofier voice. His quiet tones are very soft and sweet, like a warm fuzzy blanket wrapping you up in it on a cold winter’s night. (Voiceclaim/reference: Johnny Yong Bosch, particularly his roles as Vash from Trigun and Zero from Marvel vs. Capcom.)

Tics or Mannerisms: His speech consists of a shakepearian inspired word usage with a consistent disuse of contractions, similar to Urianger. | He tends to step-dance or become especially physically clumsy while nervous in social situations. | He will elegantly dodge all physical contact, even minor, unless he is comfortable enough with you to make the first contact.

Smell: Gardenia (Jasmine) / Cuttlebone dust

Posture: Constantly straight and erect; shoulders rolled back, chest out. Never looks truly relaxed, even while sitting. A model of good posture.

Disabilities: [SPOILER] Surface numbness on his scar tissue. Mild numbness in his left-hand fingertips.

RELATIONSHIPS ––– –– –

Romantic Partner: (None.)

Parents: Gwenneg Beauregard (Adoptive) (Deceased)

Siblings: Arc Beauregard (Twin Brother) (Alive)

Children: (None.)

Extended Family: (Unknown.)

Pets: Various unnamed wild songbirds and a fledgling Dodo that followed him home. He keeps feeding them, so they keep coming back, but he does not claim ownership of any of them. | He has also developed a relationship with a wild white horse he’s named Marion who consistently comes to his call. | His military-issued chocobo is named Erminia.

Other: Alus considers everyone he meets to be a friend.

PERSONALITY TRAITS ––– –– –

Extroverted / In Between / Introverted

Disorganized / In Between / Organized

Close Minded / In Between / Open Minded

Calm / In Between / Anxious

Disagreeable / In Between / Agreeable

Cautious / In Between / Reckless

Patient / In Between / Impatient

Outspoken / In Between / Reserved

Leader / In Between / Follower

Empathetic / In Between / Apathetic

Optimistic / In Between / Pessimistic

Traditional / In Between / Modern

Hard-working / In Between / Lazy

Cultured / In Between / Uncultured

Loyal / In Between / Disloyal

Faithful / In Between / Unfaithful

Addictive / In Between / Nonaddictive

RP HOOKS ––– –– –

Café Nobilitea: Alus is the proprietor of a western-style teahouse with a distinct theme for elegance, royalty, and other-worldliness - His café is bright, full of flowers, and always playing soft kind-hearted piano music; the type of place a person could become lost in whence they’ve become tired of the grueling and dark outer world; a real heaven and haven. He often spends his free time there and enjoys sitting with his customers to get to know them.

Grand Company Militia: Alus is a very active member with the Eorzean grand companies in fighting against the Garlean empire and any other threats to the peace there might be upon the world. It’s very possible your character might have teamed up with him at some point in active duty.

The Prince on a White Horse: Alus patrols random fields often in order to keep the peace. Your character or someone your character knows might have been saved by the mysterious ‘Prince on a white horse’ while being attacked by bandits or beastmen, who oft leaves without giving his name.

A Fellow Warrior Of Light: Alus has helped out the Scions of the Seventh Dawn on occasion due to his status as a Warrior of Light; one of many.

LOOKING FOR ––– –– –

Long-Term ANYTHING!: Friendships, rivalries, casual familiarities, romances, anything. Alus has lived a long life without any PC RP interactions, and I feel his writing suffers for it. I want someone who will be there for the long run and get to know him. I want stories to develop. I want Alus to grow because of other people.

Open-minded villains!: Alus has the patience of a saint and will befriend the nastiest of criminals no matter what. Alus will stop them from directly committing serious crimes he may be there to witness (murder, kidnapping, robbery, etc.), but will ultimately be very forgiving and calm when dealing with these topics. He wants to genuinely make a connection with people he doesn’t understand and strives his best to soften anybody’s heart, no matter how hard. His ultimate goal is to change their ways for the better through patience and understanding.

Platonic flirts!: Alus has a lot of love to give and happy to give it to nearly everyone and anyone. He throws around the words ‘I love you’ quite easily, and if he is especially crushing on someone, he will hold their hands and hug them openly despite his normal dislike of physical touch. He is most happy when he has a large circle of queerplatonic relationships, but will be absolutely exclusive to their ‘steady’ when he has made that romantic commitment.

Distant family members!: Alus knows very little of the Beauregards; his adoptive father and surnamesake did not speak of them much. Alus is fascinated with Elezen culture and considers himself one of them. He would be incredibly happy to find anyone with the same last name who would welcome him to his adopted ancestor’s information.

ADVENTURE!: Once in awhile, let’s RP somewhere other than a unmoving place. Let’s RP in a dungeon. Let’s RP while doing gold saucer chores. Let’s RP while talking to random minor NPCs. Let’s RP while doing something other than just sitting! It can help a lot with improvisation and keep the creative juices flowing.

ABOUT THE MUN ––– –– –

Who I am: Hey, my name’s Will. I’m a 24 y/o prep cook living in Alaska. My family’s straight-up wiccan, I got 3 black cats, I love super flashy ridiculous fashion, 1980s comedies, and my favorite game’s Bayonetta. I’m a queer Aquarius with mild ADHD. Buddhism and pacifism are super important to me. I love the McElroys?? and uh. I yell in caps a lot. i WILL make you a playlist of music if you ask for recommendations, don’t fuckin tempt me. I’m a casual goofus fuck. here’s my ‘me’ tag on my personal,

Server: Balmung, Crystal Data Center

Time Zone: Alaska (GMT-8)

Availability: 11AM-2AM (subject to change)

Writing Style: Rapidfire! 95WPM. I like to RP just like I type normally - as thoughts pop up, I type ‘em, just like if I was talking. I’m not a big fan of waiting for turns; I have an anxiety disorder and that particularly makes me extremely anxious! However, I am happy to do short paragraph RP with you if we’ve been RPing long enough. Huge paragraph RP is 100% OK on Discord!

Platforms: In-game(preferred) or Discord.

Restrictions ––– –– –

No ERP!

No Permadeath! I really do not want to RP with anyone who intends to eventually kill off their character, either. This is a legitimate trigger for me.

RP Fighting...? I’ve never done this before. I’m not a fan of physical injury so it’s unlikely I would want to, either. But if the situation really calls for it, I’m open to learning. I will not allow you to permanently disfigure or disable my character - temporary injury is alright, but please talk to me about it first.

Mature Themes...? This is okay for me. Swearing, murder, prostitution, drugs.. I’m an adult! I don’t mind these themes being mentioned or being used as a backdrop to a prompt. Alus isn’t a fan of these things though! So just keep that in mind.

Sexual Assault...? For the most part, NO. However, a forceful kiss? An inappropriate touching that stops as soon as my character says no? Maybe. Ask me beforehand and be clear about what you’re thinking, no surprises.

More Info ––– –– –

Click here for Alus’ RP blog and all the memes and asks I’ve written for him!

tags;

@ffxiv-crystal-rp @crystalxivrp @mooglemeet​

[beerecordings]

okay i’ve got quite a few prompts and they all look GREAT i’m super excited about these!! thank you so much for trying this out with me guys i know it’s a slightly unusual format for requests but it really helps me out :D

for the most part I am going to call prompts closed for now but! if you think of something really cool or you’re in a different time zone and didn’t get a chance, you can send me a non-anon request and I will consider it! i don’t want you to get left out because of time differences, but now that I have a few I will restrict it to non-anons just in case someone really wants to send one in :) I know that was a short window I just don’t want anybody to have to wait like three months haha

okay that said i want to tell everyone that I got their prompt and that it’s Bee Approved lol! cause it might take me a long time to reply. so Reina, Nikki, Florence, Ninja, Cael, I got yours! Ninja and Cael I have a really big idea for your guys’ so I might put them together and make a longer piece based on them :)

okay and these are spoilers for the requests that I got but if you sent an anon you can check under the keep reading to check if i got it!

Anon for people walking in on the Jims having a JJ religion meeting: lolll. okay yeah i can do that! that’s funny haha.

Anon for favored puppet Chase and Anti: you got it! it’s okay to be vague as long as you don’t mind that I will come up with something to fill it :D there’s a possibility this will be combined with another prompt but that would just mean a longer story

Anon for Dark mistaking Mark for Y/N: that’s really good!! sure I can do that!

thank you guys for sending prompts in! I’m excited to write them :)

[iboredteen]

Paper Planes : the prologue

" Staying up way past your bed time, sneaking out of house and partying all night was my idea of a normalized behavior of a high schooler - until I realized that my little detour was about getting a bottle of Lexapro instead."

Synopsis: Meet Jong Y/n ,a girl who has always been that one nerd right up in the front of the class who never really talks. Or the one who always wears the same hideous green sweaters which even makes the 53 years old chemistry teacher, Mrs. Choi nice looking in terms of fashion, who spends break time in that one boring section of the library where even the librarians stop trying, pretty much got no friends, prolly has no life. What are the odds?

For Y/n though, life is simple. No sad backstory (except a few tragic failures at making friends and a constant fear of getting sick),a full access to Netflix and frozen pizza and Raspberry Almond crumb tart every Friday night.

But sometimes, when everything seems fine, nothing really is.

In this twisted little paradise of illusions, two parallel universes collide and take off with a promise of blossoming memories, emotions touching the skies and a spiraling silence of chaos, just like paper planes.

Spoiler alert- if only they didn't see him.

Pairing: Jimin x reader

Genre: A/u , angst (to a certain extent), fluff, slight smut.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Prologue~

All my life I've made a lot of wishes, except, none of them came true. Even the simple ones. Like jumping into puddles without getting in trouble or having a late night candy snack without getting caught.

Well, I'm still not allowed to ,but at least I have a hide out plan now.

Ever since Dad became a Congress member and Mom became one of the front faces of an NGO, 'restrictions' , 'responsibilities' , 'perfection' (basically all the scary nouns that ruined my childhood -which is also a noun) have all become a huge part of my life. The tiny middle schooler me didn't understand why all of a sudden the cute stray puppy became a 'touch-it-not', why the old swing set in the playground became a 'get-sick-soon zone' or why Happy Sushi store down the street became unhygienic?

I still don't, all I know is that these big words just make feel vulnerable, like a small girl left on her own in a world full of monster like critics and expectations and unlike before, no one really told me what was I supposed to do this time around. Almost makes me want to run away, but I'm not allowed to do that either.

Getting into the good books of people I don't even know was initially what I was supposed to do . Only, it didn't exactly go as planned though. Their 'ideal-model-to be' kid turned into someone who doesn't know how to have a normal conversation and is pretty much the awkward sociopath girl whose only goods are her overachieving parents.

Mission successfully failed, eh?

Sometimes, I wish I had someone to comfort me, to tell me that it's okay to be the imperfect odd one , to hear me out or just be there for those couple dark moments when my demons surface and just won't let go.

As I gaze at the grey cluster of clouds above, I feel the cold engulfing my hand and look down at his long slender fingers intervened in my small warm ones.

Maybe I do have someone after all.

I stare at his face which is angled upwards towards the dusky sky and take in his features. His blue coral eyes seemingly lost, nose scrunched up, plum lips slightly parted blowing air out through them and a broody stillness over his body form.

"I still don't understand." His deep raspy baritone shook me out of my daze, "Why won't you let go of me if you really hate me that much? All you have to do is take that one step and I'll be gone. Forever, just like you wanted" His curious yet strong gaze pierced into mine and I flinched.

A chill rushes down my spine. I gawk at him as a million possible answers swirl up in my mind.

Was it because he was the only one there when no one else was? Or because he knows my secrets enough to make me feel naked? Or maybe I am just pathetic?

I exhale out a long sigh as a droplet of water falls on me followed by yet another, breaking my awkward state of panic.Saved by a drizzle.

I squint my eyes as I look up and feel the water rush down drop by drop in elaborate urgency. At that moment I didn't care if Mom would ground me for staying out and 'getting sick'. All I could see was me and the gloomy mirroring skies had poured down in passive aggression.

"Come on", an intruding murmur broke me out of my stance. He grabbed my hand and ushered us to a nearby bus stand to avoid the rains. How he hated the showers.

I turned my head and saw the chaos around us. People hurrying their ways to the nearest shelter, kids being gleeful yet cautious and their mothers trying to get them into the nearby convenience stores.

I turned away from the commotion ahead me and saw him concentrated on getting rid of the wetness of his soaked shirt and it is then that I realized that as time passed, our encounters and separations became so vivid that with every alley, every crossroad that we passed, it all led me to this very place.

A moment like this.

A/n: Hey guys! This is first attempt on writing something! Hope you guys like it. I would love your constructive feedback 💜

[bestbabydollaccessories-blog]

Where to get the right Baby Doll Accessories?

A youngster's initial years are a period of disclosure and enchantment. Infants structure one of a kind and forceful enthusiastic bonds to objects and toys. From a kid's point of view, a doll isn't only a toy or toy, yet a dependable wellspring of solace and a closest companion.

Aside from your infant having a doll, they would likewise need to imitate adults. Doll embellishments assist kids with sustaining formative aptitudes by figuring out how to deal with their toys. What's more, there is no better method of dealing with dolls than having the correct doll frill.

In any case, finding Best Baby Doll Accessories adornments can be startling. The bunch of items in the market make the assignment much increasingly boisterous. Uplifting news is, we have investigated the best embellishments and assembled them beneath to make your work simple.

1. Barbie Care Clinic Vehicle

Why we like it: The item includes in excess of 20 intuitive embellishments for a reasonable play. This doll embellishment empowers creative mind and revelation.

Since 1959, Barbie has been rousing children over the globe to be what they need. Barbie strolls each progression with your kid and offers boundless open doors for play. This Barbie emergency vehicle changes into a center with four zones of play, a blessing shop, and a sitting area. It has a test room where your youngster can treat the patients. This intuitive playset empowers the kid to react to calls and convey care to patients. There is a TV that pulls down into a remarkable blessing shop.

Be cautious when requesting the doll embellishment as some show up with missing pieces

2. Barbie Glam Convertible

Have a good time with this convertible vehicle and appreciate a crash into all sort of undertakings. The Glam is planned prepared to take off and investigate the potential outcomes. It has space for two dolls. Notwithstanding, dolls are sold independently. This two-seater convertible is lively, smooth, and mark style. Its outside is shimmering pink with the Barbie outline enriching the hood. The spoiler includes an energetic look with the cool dark inside highlighting upholstery names. The cutting edge wheels include a popular touch. The shimmering edges coordinate the accents. Pull the vehicle to start the ride however remember to clasp the safety belts that include a sensible touch.

3. My First Denim Doll Stroller for Baby Doll

The buggy has the under-seat stockpiling bin, which is very open to fit different toys. the carriage additionally accompanies a compartment divider to stash different things. Your young one will get full focus while walking the dolls. It urges minimal ones to explore and incites their learning abilities. Everything about this toy is ok for your child. It's made of top quality materials tried through USA wellbeing standard. The seat is agreeable

4. Barbie Fashionistas Ultimate Closet

Keeping your closet slick and all around masterminded will assist you with remaining sorted out. What's more, this Barbie storage room is intended to cause your young lady to figure out how to sort out garments for her doll. The doll's closet accompanies in vogue pieces that can be organized to make numerous looks. You can dress the Barbie doll to suit your style. In any case, the doll is sold independently. The storage room is intended for design fun in a hurry or at home. the item has conveying handles to make it simple to move. All the more along these lines, it accompanies tasteful doll garments and adornments for bunches of fun and narrating. There are six holders to keep the garments sorted out and cupboards and drawers which are ideal for dolls.

5. Shopkins Lil' Secrets Mini Playset Beauty Day Spa

This magnificence spa has a d. You can open the buddy lea's Beauty Day Spa by figuring out the code. There is party pop-ups greeting where you will discover and uncover the codes. This lovely spa highlights underneath shells and an unwinding Jacuzzi for your minuscule companions. There are pearlescent, sparkles, metallic, and fleecy locks to discover. The code is printed at the rear of the playset to enable your kid to open it quickly.

6. 19 Pcs ZQDOLL Girl Doll Clothes Gift Sets

Would you like to dress your doll as you dress from head to toe? At that point this is the superset that you should purchase. The dresses are adorable and made with strong, top notch materials. It has ten distinct styles that can suit any event. This can be a phenomenal present for your daughter, and she will be glad to see it. The garments set shows your young lady how to dress child's y copying the job of a mother. Therefore, it encourages her create authoritative abilities, incites her design sense, and cause her to grow great confidence.

7. Weardoll 18Inch Doll Clothes and Accessories

It's an ideal opportunity to make your dolls look like princesses. This super occasion assortment highlights 33-piece hand-planned outfits and adornments. The pieces are intended to fit Journey young lady embellishments, age doll, and the American doll. The garments are intended to fit any event. There is an umbrella for the stormy season, easygoing wear set, party dress, bathing suit, and summer excursions outfits. You can blend and match the outfits to empower you to dress the doll and give it a look you need. All outfits and fun food embellishments are very much enclosed by a reward doll travel knapsack for simple transportability and capacity. All extras are made of great textures which are security tried and machine launderable.

8. PZAS Toys and 18inch Doll Clothes

Joy your princess with this doll garments. It will assist her with having a total closet makeover for her dolls. The ten outfits are appropriate for any event and can accommodate your 18inch doll. The PZAS toys are extraordinarily intended to guarantee no things are duplicated from different brands. The inventiveness and restrictive workmanship make the outfit remarkable, which will make the dolls extraordinary as well. The ten outfits and the planning pieces can be blended and coordinated to give a tasteful look. It gives long periods of fun and aides in building up your kid's feeling of style and design.

9. Shopkins Happy Places Beach Camper Van

There is such a great amount of fun behind the swinging doors of this bright van. Open the wonderful entryways and assist Col with setting up and pimp her upbeat camper van. The swinging doors are anything but difficult to tidy up to guarantee the doll remains in a perfect and glad home. There is a sink close to the shower with a mystery simple to-crease latrine. You have to open the table and grab a chair by a window and appreciate the cool wind.

10. 18inch Doll Travel Set

At the point when it's an ideal opportunity to travel, you ought to consistently have a rundown of things you need. This is a similar case with this movement doll set, which accompanies a bit of portable baggage. It has a ticket visa and 14 extras which incorporate cellphone, face and hand creams, hairbrush, identification and ticket, towels, shades, camera, and iPad. The portable baggage is structured with a handle that goes here and there like the genuine one. It has a strong elastic connection for the doll's hand.

11. Snap n' Play 9 Piece Doll Puppy Set

The doll little dog and adornments are appropriate for an American Girl doll. It's charming set that highlights bearer, pup, bone, bed and cover, rope, tennis ball, food bowl, and brush. These are the frill expected to deal with a little dog. The pup is cuddly and delightful. It has Velcro chain appended to the little dog's neck for simple control. It has been intended to entirely fit 19inch dolls all things considered and all made with high caliber for a considerable length of time of satisfaction. The lovable brush helps in brushing the doll. You can serve the little dog's preferred supper in the pooch bowl, and when it's an ideal opportunity to rest, there is a bed and cover for an agreeable rest.

12. Melissa and Doug Mine to Love Diaper Bag Set

In the event that you need to your daughter accept the parenthood accountability, at that point this is the ideal set to by. For over three decades, Melissa and Doug has been planning toys and embellishments that advance inventiveness and upgrade intellectual aptitudes. The set accompanies a texture sack, a holder of wipes, and a self-stick fabric diaper for an ideal fit.

For more related stuff visit https://alldollthings.com/product-reviews/best-baby-doll-accessories/

[foul-humors]

LFRP: Steia L’Etoile @Balmung/Crystal

NOTE: This character is no longer available.

ᛃ THE BASICS ––– –– –

Occupation: Apothecary

Hobbies: Housewifing, Piano Playing, Painting, Fight Club

Sexuality: Pansexual

Relationship Status: Open Marriage

Languages: Several

Alignment: Chaotic Neutral

Color-Wheel: Red-Black

ᛃ PERSONAL ––– –– –

Residence: Lavender Beds

Place of Work: “Sweet Sin Apothecary”

Birthplace: Unknown

Patron Deity: Nymeia

Fears: Those she cares for will turn on her.

ᛃ APPEARANCE ––– –– –

Height: 5 fulms, 7 ilms

Build: Endomorph, Healthy

Age: Appears to be in her 30′s

Gender: Female

Skin tone: Pale Olive

Eye color: Left: Amber (Natural) / Right: Black (Fake Eye)

Hair color: Jet Black, going Grey (Often dyed)

Body Mods: Basic earrings

Distinguishing Marks: Scar on bridge of nose, discoloration on right temple

Common Accessories: Hair Ribbon with secret pockets, purse, allag-style earrings and rings, choker

ᛃ BODY LANGUAGE ––– –– –

Walk: Confident saunter

Voice: Sultry, mature, strange accent

Tics or Mannerisms: Almost never uses contractions, formal speech patterns. Shameless and flirty

Smell: Light floral perfumes.

Posture: Mood dependant, ranging from attentive to relaxed, confident to defensive

Disabilities: Monocular vision; Difficulty channeling aether

ᛃ RELATIONSHIPS ––– –– –

Partner: Husband and Others

Parents: Unknown, Probably Dead

Siblings: Unknown, Probably Dead

Children: A few estranged daughters and her Husband's adopted kids

Extended Family: Mostly unknown outside of a few in-laws.

Pets: None

Other: Several she refers to as her “Favored” who she cares for above almost everything else. May or may not include the above.

ᛃ PERSONALITY TRAITS ––– –– –

Extroverted / In Between / Introverted

Disorganized / In Between / Organized

Close Minded / In Between / Open Minded

Calm / In Between / Anxious

Disagreeable / In Between / Agreeable

Cautious / In Between / Reckless

Patient / In Between / Impatient

Outspoken / In Between / Reserved

Leader / In Between / Follower

Empathetic / In Between / Apathetic

Optimistic / In Between / Pessimistic

Traditional / In Between / Modern

Hard-working / In Between / Lazy

Cultured / In Between / Uncultured

Loyal / In Between / Disloyal

Faithful / In Between / Unfaithful

Addictive / In Between / Nonaddictive

ᛃ RP HOOKS ––– –– –

Sweet Sin Apothecary: Maybe you found her business card and have a need for potions of various sorts.

Strange Paintings: Steia has sold paintings that, while otherwise normal, have the faintest whiff of void magic on them.

Through Lady Dusk: Steia has been witnessed hanging out with Lady Dusk in public places.

Overbearing Presence: Perhaps you witnessed her going too far with her flirting, teasing, or butting in on matters she didn’t need to.

Rumors: All sorts of things get spread around, some true, some untrue.

ᛃ LOOKING FOR ––– –– –

Interesting People: Steia is always looking for the Fresh and Novel.

Services: Anyone who can provide services to an Apothecary-Pugilist-Painter-Pianist-Pseudo-Housewife.

Clients: Anyone Steia can provide a service to.

Foils: People that will challenge Steia and force her to grow or break her down.

ᛃ ABOUT THE MUN ––– –– –

Who I am: A hideous old ogre with an affinity for computers. Been roleplaying since I could talk and in MMOs since 2005

Server: Balmung, Crystal Datacenter

Time Zone: Mountain (Standard: GMT-7 / DST: GMT-6)

Availability: From Wake-up to Pass-out on the Weekends, and in the evenings on Weekdays.

Writing Style: See my tumblr for examples. Themes and length varies depending on partner, situation, and mood.

Platforms: In Game and In Discord. Long threads on Tumblr drive me crazy, so, ‘no’ to that.

Restrictions:

If you’re a foil who’s going to try to kill/maim/imprison my character, discuss it with me ahead of time so we can work out the details.

If you’re coming to me for just plain ERP, get out.

No Erotic or Romantic themes if you or your character are under-age or just SEEM immature.

Contact: Direct Messages on Tumblr will do.

(as of 23 Aug 2019)

[Spoilers version of this post is here]