#yeah i'm finding old interviews everyone else has seen

[cheriladycl01]

I cant do this anymore - George Russell x Wolff! Reader Part 4

Plot: You are the daughter of Toto Wolff team principle of Mercedes-AMG Petronas, you've worked your whole life to become an engineer. However, your dad has other ideas for you and doesn't want you to become a race engineer. You start to confide more in the Red Bull Racing Team Principle to help you get an engineering job, and see him as your present father figure.

"Who was that?" Max asks having seen the Mercedes ahead of him, no longer racing.

"I can confirm that is George Russell" you say calmly looking at the on-board seeing that the number 63 had stopped movement on the map.

"What happened?" Max asks.

"Focus on the race Max, Norris is closing that gap" you sigh, checking the tires and the breaks which looked like Max was wearing them out a little more than anticipated.

"If Norris pits, we will pit, if he stays out we stay out. Protect the tires and bring it home" you advise there wasn't many laps left and you were starting to sweat from the sun that had moved so it was now on your back in the box.

"Okay, copy" he says, he took the corners softer while keeping that gap with Norris.

"Okay, it looks like Norris isn't going to pit, Christian is debating to come in for tires" you explain to him, you look over at Christian who is analysisng the data.

"What do you think?" he asks you.

"I advised we stay out if Norris stays out, Norris is on fresher tires by 3 laps, but we are the faster car. The tires will hold until the end" you suggest and he nods.

"Okay, no pit. 12 laps to go, Norris is 2 seconds behind. Push Mode Push" you say, nodding at Horner as you both watch the on-board of Max, he's having an amazing drive today.

12 laps later and Max crosses the checkered flag. You and Christian cheer and hug each other.

"That's P1 Max, P1 in Brazil" you say into the radio, a grin on your face. You hear his cheer and thanks before your running with the rest of the team to go congratulate Max. You get crushed by the Pit Crew as the gather around you and Max squeezing all of you.

The podium was amazing and you were filming the whole thing while talking to Geri next to you. You couldn't be prouder of this moment. You see the cameras on you, making you wave and smile excitedly before frowning and pointing for them to look at Max and his podium rather than film you.

"Well done Max" you smile as he hops down off the stage and towards you both.

"George has been watching you this whole time, just so you know" Max offers leaning in and whispering to you so that no-one else could here. You look over his shoulder, seeing he was in fact right and that George was glaring at the back of his head, watching the interaction between the both of you.

"I'm not ready to talk to him yet, I know i said I'd talk to him here, but its too soon. Is that childish of me?" you ask, not sure if this was right.

"No, after how he acted, he deserves more than the cold shoulder. I have an interview and you have a piece with Netflix I believe. I'll tell him that after Abu Dhabi you'll review your situation, how is that?" Max asks looking at you, you nod pulling him back into a hug before nodding and looking away.

"Thank you Max, really!" You smile turning back round to catch his gaze before finding the Netflix crew and where you'd sit to start your piece.

You walk in, and they make sure you hair and makeup is looking good before they explain to you what they want you to do.

"So you want me to walk in, sit down and smile at you guys before saying something funny?" you ask unsure of how this would even work.

"Yeah, we want this to be as natural as possible. It's going to cut from Max's old engineer walking off... which we filmed last week to you walking in" the director smiles.

You walk into the line of the camera, before turning round and taking your seat, smiling at the camera.

"Get a load of that guy am I right?" you laugh, and everyone in the room joins in laughing.

"Hi, I'm Y/N Wolff and I am Max Verstappen's race engineer for Red Bull Racing" you smile into the camera again.

"So you came into the season quite late... but you haven't disappointed" the interviewer says.

"I guess you could say that"

"And, it's an interesting last name you have there. One that's already known in the F1 media very well..." they push.

"The team principle of Mercedes Amg Petronas is my dad, yes" you say.

"And now you are working for a rival... which came out of the blue may i say"

"Yes"

"And do you have any regrets"

"One"

"And what is that?"

"That I didn't go to Horner sooner" you say with a blank face and they all clap.

You go onto to be questioned about the whole ordeal with George and your dad, you knew the fans would eat all of this up.

They offer you to stay around while Will Buxton comes in to do his first bit about the new Mercedes V Red Bull drama that Netflix were of course eating up.

It was sad really, because you'd genuinely been hurt by George's and your fathers actions and there were people monopolizing off it.

"Y/N has always been a character in the Mercedes garage from when she was really young at age 11 up until she was a teen studying in the garage... and there's something really quite endearing about her when you talk to her" he starts and you smile, Will used to baby sit you around the paddock in his free time when Toto was busy during the races.

"I've known Y/N for 10 years now, as long as her dad's been in the sport and she a bright girl"

"There was no surprise when she came and told me she'd enrolled into university to do engineering. I would also remember Toto shaking his head, asking what she would even use it for"

"I think when she got that degree, she would have asked him for a job and he's declined, which is where Red Bull and Christian Horner come into things"

"Thanks Will, just pause there for a second! Okay so when we edit this, we need Christian Horner straight after nodding and saying Hello" the script writer says and his assistant nods writing it down on the paper she was holding.

You eventually left, seeing what goes into the creativity behind the episodes before getting bored and wanting to go back to the hotel.

Max agreed he'd fly you on his Jett wherever you wanted, and in all honestly you didn't know where to go. It wasn't like you wanted to go home to your dad. And you were fresh out of university so you didn't exactly have your own place.

Lewis, you knew would take you in a heart beat but he was going to LA for the week before the Las Vegas GP and you wanted to go to the UK, your home.

You pick up your phone scrolling through your contacts before finding the one you wanted to call. It rings a few times before a bubbly and energetic voice answers.

"Hello Darling, are you all okay?" Geri says to you, you could practically here her smile through the phone.

"Hi, Geri..." you say a little timidly.

"What's wrong, do you need me and Christian to come get you?" she asks.

"No, no. I just I dont really have anywhere to go until Vegas and I w-" you start but don't need to say anymore before Geri interrupts.

"Oh honey, our home is always open to you. Your a great help around the house too, especially with the kids. Call that garden view rooms yours from now on okay! In fact when we get back I'll have a key made for you, Christian can we do that?" she explains before her voice gets more distant as if she's pulled the phone away from herself.

"Do what?" you hear Christians voice ask muffled from the distance.

"Get Y/N a spare key, when we are back obviously" Geri asks.

"She doesn't have one already. I thought I gave her the spare..." Christian offer's and then mumbles about how he must have forget.

"Anyway darling that room is yours okay. Don't worry" Geri says making tears come into your eyes.

"Thank you Geri, really. I" you say and immediately the older woman can tell that your getting upset.

"Oh no sweetheart, don't get upset. It's okay" she tells you.

"I'm just really thankful"

"I know, hunny. But i've got to go Max is needing an escape route from an interview. But I'm sending him straight to you and he's gonna drive us to the hotel to get our stuff" Geri says and you hang up after thanking her a few more times.

You hung up, sighing happily before looking around you. You lock eyes with someone across the paddock.

George, of course it was George. You braced yourself for him to come up to you, trying to apologize and grovel.

But to your surprise he stayed where he was with Alex and Lando who was talking to the pair of them rather animatedly. He gave you a nod and a small smile, stopping walking making Alex and Lando also stop and continue that conversation stationary.

That told you everything. From the nod to the smile, he finally accepted that you'd come to him when you were ready.

Now you could concentrate on Vegas and Abu Dhabi and getting those points to finalize Max's year.

Taglist:

@littlesatanicassholebitch @hockey-racing-fubol @laura-naruto-fan1998 @22yuki @simxican @sinofwriting @lewisroscoelove @cmleitora @stupidandunnecessary @clayra-g @daemyratwst @honey-belden @moonypixel @lauralarsen @vader-is-hot @ironcowboycopnickel @itsjustkhaos @the-untamed-soul @beebo86 @happylittlereader @ziejustme @lou-larcher5 @thewulf @purplephantomwolf @chasing-liberosis @chillyleclerc @chanthereader @annoyingmoonballoon @summissss @evieepepi08 @havaneseoger08 @celesteblack08 @gulphulp @fandom1ruined2me @celebstories @starfusionsworld @jspitwall @sierruhh @georgeparisole @dakotatankbig @youcannotcancelquidditch @zzonsbeek @tallbrownhairsarcastic @mellowarcadefun @ourteenagetragedy @otako5811 @countingstacksandpanicattacks @peachiicherries @formulas-bitch @cherry-piee @hopexcroc @mirrorball-6 @spilled-coffee-cup @mehrmonga @bigsimperika @blueberry64857959 @eiraethh @lilypadlover @curseofhecate @alliwantisadonut @the-fem1n1ne-urge @21stcenturytaegi @dark-night-sky-99 @spideybv28 @i-wish-this-was-me @tallrock35 @butterfly-lover @barnestatic @landossainz @darleneslane @barcelonaloverf1life @r0nnsblog

[borisbubbles]

Eurovision 2024: #36

36. FINLAND Windows95Man - "No Rules!" 19th place

Decade ranking: 143/153 [Above Nadir, below Let3]

Okay so, I promised in Saturday's post that I would try to be positive, but I may already have to rescind on that promise lol. (the "lol" is for punctuation because I definitely did not laugh.) "No rules!" stinks and has very few redeeming qualities. 🙂 Natalia was right, she WAS robbed by a Nudist Demon!

For real, does anyone over the age of twenty-five enjoy this dumpster fire? If so, fukk meee. LOVE YOURSELVES.

As I noted in my UMK review back in Feb:

I have difficulty buying into this hyperactive ball of bad taste. “Fuck The System” always feels like the go-to message of individuals that fail to fit into social structures that aren’t fully of their own shaping. For an entry that’s all “live as you like, there’s no rules!” in its messaging, these two look like they conform to just about every styling and behavioural rule associated with Zoomer culture: A total disregard for general aesthetics over a dumbed-down drone of a beat because everything is ironic and nothing is to be taken seriously.  It is a depressing take on life. Yeah sure, a bit of camp levity is welcome in this loathesome world, but any happy song that weaponizes irony like this one trends towards encouraging irresponsibility, cynicism and nihilism. Some things DO matter in life, you know? You need to afford your bills and groceries, charge your social batteries, cultivate your friendships, or else you’ll wind up living alone in a van, down by the river. But if the latter life appeals to you, then this is the entry for you, I guess. For me though; this contest is already has one Joost Klein. Let’s not add a second one from Finland.

Funny how I nailed that even before knowing the full extent of it. I ofc vastly underestimated how bad the live would be, and as soon as I'd seen it my scepsis immediately supernova'd into intense HATRED. If ONLY "Paskana" hadn't been weak as piss. Yes, the cringe in "No Rules!" is deliberate, obviously, I have a sense of humour. Having a sense of humour is why I hate it? How much "deliberated cringe" can one tolerate before concluding "nope, this is r o t t e n." Does it start with

THE BAD GUNTER IMPRESSION?

or

THE DONALD DUCKING?

or

CALLING HIMSELF" A QUEEN"?

or

screaming "SEE ME SLAYYYY" :proceeds to not slay: ?

It definitely ends in whatever this shot is supposed to be.

Humour is subjective sure enough, and Windowsninetycringeman's jokes fall flatter than a pancake á moi. Why is everything denim? Why is this THIRTY-NINE YEAR OLD MAN still engaging in toilet humour and internet speak? Grow the f up? The art lies in the execution and Finland showed neither. I do NOT like Europapa much, but having Finland and not Netherlands in the final vibes wrong on so many levels. Europapa at least had a clear plan and delivered its nonsense in contained, piecemeal doses? It was COMPETENT in what it attempted to be (A Televote Winner), not a lazy amalgation of simple-minded drunk jokes strung together over a Planet of The Bass megamix as some sort of a Hail Mary. Joost and Teemu represent the Expectations/Reality divide of Zoomer Nonsense and it was darksided that only the latter got to compete for points. But on top of that, Teemu was generally just full of shit? Hooray, an Old Millennial engaging in Zoomer Cringe who lets an actual zoomer do all the vocal heavy lifting, without giving him a single featuring credit. Yay! It's a painfully accurate depiction of what being a zoomer is like, but not an intentional one.

Also remember when Teemu said he would "try to discreetly approach the other contestants to find ways to show support for Palestine" (remember that this contest was supposed to be 'not political'?) Hm yes discreet. So discreet he declared his intentions to interviewers so that everyone would know it was HIS idea. "Discreet", human please. And the result of all that talk was...

(lol I'm SO making it sound like I care about what political standpoints any of these acts took, and I don't. But I do call out a fraud when I spot one.)

Yeah well thanks for trying, but I'd rather you hadn't. A statement you can apply to my feelings of the entry overall. Okay, we've reached full circle, time to move on to our designated palate cleanser because THIS page is a safe zone for people of good taste.

The universe where YLE overrules the results and sends THEM to ESC is the one where we head to Helsinki twice in a row.

THE RANKING

[airteacher]

If elements were more lineage based and not stuck 1:1 per parent what element would you hc the air kids as having. (Assuming Pema is a non bending daughter of at least one earthbender)

//Personally, I've always imagined Pemzin's kids as having the potential to be Airbenders (bc of Aang being of Air Nomad decent), Waterbenders (bc of Katara being of Water Tribe decent) and Earthbenders (bc of Pema being of Earth Kingdom decent). If one of Pema's parents were from Fire Nation decent, then I'd include that as well.

But I imagine it not extending past grandparents, because the creators specifically say it's not about bloodlines, but rather a spiritual connection, with each culture providing a different spiritual vantage point. So, while I do believe in some genetics having to do with ethnic grouping, I still think grooming is an important factor. By fostering the Air Nomad side of their heritage, they are more likely to develop into Airbenders than any other element.

With this in mind we know of three canon aspects that attribute to being able to bend: ethnic grouping/cultural upbringing (decides which element you're predisposed to developing), spiritual connection (how likely you'll be a bender), and a physical aspect having to do with blood flow and chi channels in/around the brain (an on-and-off switch basically).

Here's a snippet of an interview Bryke did for avatarspirit.net (the main online community for atla/lok content before tumblr arrived) that supports this. This is from April 2007. I've bolded the text I found most relevant.

RM: Okay, next I know I'm going really left brained and you can call me a geek because I am, but in "The Fortuneteller" you have a pair of twins...kids...one is an earthbender and one isn't. So is bending genetic, or is it some sort of spiritual thing? How does it work? BK: Mike and I just got new puppies. They're brothers. They have the same mother and father. Same litter. Mike's dog can just sit in a crate and be happy as a clam. My dog just loses all control...everything. Who knows why these things happen? They're beyond our full understanding. MDD: Yeah, Katara's mom and dad weren't benders. Maybe it's a recessive gene. I've always seen it as more spiritual connections, though. A little bit mysterious... BK: I mean we've definitely talked about it. I think, again, sometimes we might not know...it's more of what we don't want it to be. We didn't want it to be like there is a lineage...a royal family or something...and these people can bend and then there's everyone else as non-bending, people who never will. Some sort of caste system. Mike and I are more attracted to more of the flux type universe. The only constant is change, variation, that sorta thing. I'm sure it's a bunch of factors. ***Interviewers note: About 20 mins after the interview, Bryan came back to me and we spoke a little more about the basis of bending off recorder. He described bending as more of a talent. You have some genetic basis for potential, but you could go your whole life without developing the talent into ability. Some people have more inherent talent than others, while others with minimal inherent talent can still develop it through hard work and practice. He reiterated a connection to the spiritual energies is the underlying basis. How it manifests is based on upbringing and experience. RM: So could Teo's people perhaps grow into the airbenders of the future? BK: I think Teo's people are more refugees. They probably came together because they're not benders and really had no way to defend themselves. Then fell under this nutty guy who has his own skill and aura of authority. I don't think it's an ethnic group of non-benders, rather they were all just escaping the disasters of war. MDD: Yeah, I think if you've gone through puberty and not found any bending abilities, you're probably not going to find them. I think it manifests early. BK: Although that would make a pretty outrageous story. Some 80 year old guy... MDD: "Wow, I never knew!" BK: ...fire starts shooting out... RM: I was just curious if the airbenders could just come back from the general population rather than necessarily having to come back through Aang or anyone else who came from the airbending lineage. MDD: Aang is the last Airbender, so I don't think it's possible for Airbending to spontaneously develop in the general population. RM: It seems like all the Air Nomads were benders. Did they exile everyone who didn't manifest the trait, or did they really have such a high percentage of born benders? BK: We always have liked the idea of who will be a bender and who won't be to be kind of an ambiguous mystery, even to the people in the Avatar world. From early on we thought the Air Nomads would be all benders. Again it's like Mike was saying, it's more of a spiritual connection. But they have...they had...the smallest population. Earth Kingdom has the biggest population but the smallest percentage of benders. So yeah, there were these notions we kicked around that is wasn't going to be regimented or ruled through specific lineages. We liked the idea that each of the cultures have a different spiritual vantage point...coming at it from a different angle. MDD: Then the Air Nomads would have been the most spiritual...the most connected to the spiritual energy of the Earth. BK: But the most detached from society. More monastic.

[safyresky]

Frostmas Year 7: Behind the Scenes

Prologue | Y1 | Y2 | Y3 | Y4 | Y5 | Y6 | Y7 | Y8 | Y9 | Y10 | Y11 | Y12

Lmao I JUST posted Y6 and the BTS for it like, YESTERDAY as of starting this post, and I'm ALREADY HITTING UP YEAR 7 LMAO LET'S GOOOOoOOOOoooooOOo

Year Seven was a fun one! My notes were small and it ended up being one of the longer chapters which was genuinely shocking to me. Year 9 also did the SAME THING. Check out the OG notes below the cut! :)

[ID in ALT]

Short enough it fits in a screenshot. WILD. ALTHOUGH! It is SURROUNDED with little snippets from the year (hence the "see right side" note up top)—I imagine they were written while I was struggling with Year 6.

Anyway! Let's hecking get into this, yeah?

Jacqueline's Intro

Guess who scrapped it!

THIS GAL

Fun fact: I actually never liked the intro. I felt it really deterred from where I left off in Y6, so when I went back to read it and still felt this feeling, I scrapped it

As of writing this, I THINK I'm going to add it post-the tree and fast freeze hair scene? But we'll see if it works with the funky flow of things~

OKAY REGROUPING A WEEK LATER BC YOU GUYS. AS I READ THROUGH IT TO FILL THIS THING OUT I REALIZED SOMETHING. THE EVENTS OF YEAR SEVEN? THE WAY I WROTE IT, ALL HAPPEN WITHIN A DAY:

Jacqueline heads back to the Pole January 3rd

She has the convo about the Final Form Resort with B on January 3rd

They come up with the arson idea on January 3rd

She gets the twins clearance from Santa Jack during his wee lil interview on January 3rd

SHE GOES HOME AND GETS BLINTER APPROVAL AND THE TWINS TO AGREE ON J A N U A R Y 3RD

THEY THEN. IMMEDIATELY GO UP TO THE NORTH POLE AND JACQUELINE DOES THE WHOLE AIRPORT SHENANIGANS WITH JACK ON JANUARY THIRD

WHILE BELOW THEM. THE TWINS WING IT UNDER BERNARD'S WATCHFUL EYE. AND BURN THE NORTH POLE RESORT STUFF TO THE GROUND.

ON

JANUARY

THIRD

Now when I originally wrote this, I had not picked up on that at ALL. I thought that there'd been some time in between, but alas! I did it all on the SAME DAY. It only FELT LIKE IN BETWEEN TIME BECAUSE I KEPT TAKING LONG BREAKS BETWEEN WRITING SESSIONS!

AH!

SO I HAD TO OVERHAUL THAT WHICH DRASTICALLY CHANGED THE WHOLE CHAPTER FROM HOW IT ORIGINALLY WAS, ESPECIALLY SINCE THE TWINS ARE 12, NOT 8 (hundred) LIKE I ORIGINALLY HAD THEM IN LIKE. 2012! FUCKIN EH!

So NOW, without FURTHER ado. The Behind the Scenes of Year 7 Mark 2 because ah-fuck-i-can't-believe-i've-done-this dot vine.

Scene 1: Freedom

As per the crossed out original opening of this BTS, I decided to move the intro somewhere else, and found a good place for it, I think. I didn't want to break up the flow from Y6 into Y7, and I kind of like it a LOT better like this! :)

"Right now immediately" is tumblr vernacular/maybe a reference to the breadsticks meme?

Don't worry, she DOES find her left shoe again! Snow likes her a lot so when she went back up north she was like "HEY SNOW. YOU SEEN MY SHOE." and the snow yeeted it right out of a huge drift and slid it her way :)

And FINALLY she decides to come CLEAN to Blinter

I gotta tell you guys. Writing Blinter has been a STRUGGLE in these old parts. I have to keep remembering that CS has not happened, nor has MtF, so Winter's frozey and Blaise needs a Fucking Nap. I ALSO have to remember that they are decent parents. Like, they are trying their best. And as I read through these old chapters, some things they said were phrased in such a way that I was like "Hmm. My parents would say that. Let's change that!"

The other thing too is that a lot of lines in Frostmas were peer reviewed and quite well liked in the reviews, so trying to keep those in (because I liked them too!) while updating the vernacular and making sure everyone is in character has been a CHALLENGE. But I think I did well enough! HOPEFULLY.

My apologies if there was a line you liked that's GONZO now 🫠

Scene 2: Coming Clean to Blinter

This scene actually held up pretty well!

One major change was Blaise's anger. It was directed at her, so this time around I tweaked his vocab to make sure it was directed at her disappearance, and to hopefully show that it's coming from a place of concern and fear and that's why he's angry about it lmao

Winter too! Though she deffs didn't appreciate Jacqueline's sass levels, which are 100% hints I've dropped about what happens to her at the end of Year 10 >:)

"...they had grown into a sentient enchantment"

^So the gates at Frost Manor were NOT enchanted by Blaise to open on their own, funnily enough! They grew into sentience on their own. It happens sometimes ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But the gates are one of my fave characters and they really love the family which is a good thing given they've been standing on that lot for like, four thousand or so years

RIGHT INTO THE FUN BITS

"Mom’s thumb rubbed my cheeks, her lips pursed. “Jacqueline darling…what have you done to yourself.” She chipped away at the ice on my face, head tilted, looking…perplexed."

The MOMENT she sees Jacqueline she's like "this is fake as fuck. why have you put all this ice on your face. what in the actual fuck, Jacqueline"

She's gd Winter ffs!!! And Jacqueline ain't SLICK! She thinks she is but she's really not :) But she tries and we gotta give her credit where it's due!

"I know it's convincing" says Jacqueline, meanwhile Winter's thinking "it's a mess, actually, and close up not convincing in the slightest but you've had a long day so I'm not going to roast you about that this time :)"

"Your FATHER trying to reach out" is a new line! Since I decided how Blaise's connections with the kids worked I figured I'd mention in in Y7 lmao. He's like "I'll leave you be but I am there if you need me" meanwhile Winter's like "I am a constant threat presence"

It's an interesting view into how they both grew up, actually, how they approach parenting and how their connections work!

Winter was surrounded by loud, loving sisters and a lovely mum. They were/are very tight knit and it shows with how active her connections with the kids are

Blaise didn't have a lot of freedom growing up, CONSTANTLY under the watchful eye of his parents AND brother AND the entire nobility AND the entire gd continent so he, of course, is very much like. Give them the freedom they need but support where you can kind of thing

sups off topic. Getting back ON topic. AH.

the line about the spiked warm drink was one of MY faves and I did my best to make sure I could keep it in there >:)

Scene 2.5: The Actual Chat

Blaise's hair is his worst tell. And the truth of the matter is, he can 100% keep it temperate if he wants too but he doesn't—he is the reason Winter always beats him at poker or any card game involving bluffing, really :P

Blinter deffs were unsure she'd be back by Christmas, given how everything went with the first child. They tried very hard to be hopeful and they were, doubt just creeps in REAL EASY especially when you're THAT old and have SEEN SOME SHIT

And the thing is, they DO understand! They've both been there. Dealing with some gnarly extenuating circumstance, that may or may not have been caused by family members or at least, contributed to by them, and they have fought through it and clawed their way out of the ground time and time again and are reminding Jacqueline about that in this whole scene. And also me. Because I frequently forget the shit I put these two through when they were younger (see: civil war, the call, day of darkness)

Blaise's speech about how many times can you keep doing it is loosely inspired by this post which whenever I see it I go hope IS messy, and also, BLAISE VIBES bc that's his core lmao

And it makes me feel better for constantly trying again and again even when things seem hopeless

hope really is messy business, isn't it? ANYWAY

"I am a simple woman. I just like to watch people flail on ice until they fall over.” “A worthy pursuit.” “Thank you, dear.” Dad nodded over the rim of his cup.

this was newly added, i fucking LOVE Winter she's so funny and Blaise is just like "you're valid hun" like. I love them? 🥰🥰🥰

And WHAMMO! WE INTRODUCE THE ACCIDENTAL FREEZE!

Which was HUGE foreshadowing, lol, as that's LITERALLY what HAPPENS as we know by now in Year 10!

You've heard of sad. You've heard of bad. Get ready for ANGRY. REALLY, REALLY FUCKING ANGRY! That's Jacqueline's nature as a frozen sprite, if you haven't noticed lmao

Reading this now post writing it, I'm like, DAMN, I could go for a Blinter sammy hug. That sounds delectable!

Scene 3

I have I ever told you all how I can pinpoint the exact moment Jacqueline's heart freezes? No? Well, I can, and if you're curious to know, it's in this scene 🤫

Scene 4: Visiting Gran

Yet ANOTHER instance of fixing shady character shit, oy VEY.

One of my pet peeves is Mother Nature being characterized as the BIGGEST bitch, derogatory, completely uncaring and cold. Like, yeah, Nature do be like that but also, it do be warm and comforting and nurturing, you know?

And she always seems very nice in her scenes in the movies so, you know, the MOMENT someone is like "she doesn't CARE" or ANYTHING like that I'm OUT.

So when I catch it happening in MY work I'm like, oh HELL NOOO

And I think this scene had a few instances of it that have since been refreshed and cleared out :)

CS HEADCANON ALERT: Fairies can shrink their size to get into small places! So can Pixies.

CS HEADCANON ALERT: The Legendary Figures all guard a specific type of magic that was used to create the World. Oh, there's all sorts of magic involved there. But the big ones, the ones that are easy to pick up on and most common? The Legendary Figures guard it, and make sure it keeps flowing and that the world keeps turning

This is why MN says that she felt a shift and things felt righted—Jacqueline, being a Legendary Figure atm, coming back out into the world proper, tips the magic balance back to where it should be.

Hence the comment of "having the legendary magics back in the fold, and all that" and the meaning behind it! Which maybe you didn't need to know. But hey! You know now! :)

Scene 5: VINDICATION

Because that's Jacqueline's thought the ENTIRE time the council is meeting. I WAS RIGHT THE ENTIRE TIME and she is READY to gloat about it and WILL gloat about it FOREVER

And now we're getting into the messy business of "how come the Council didn't know Jack wasn't supposed to be Santa" and the obvious plot hole in tsc3 of "How did FT NOT pick up on Jack doing that?" which are smaller facets of the whole HOW DID THEY LET THE THEME PARK HAPPEN ANYWAY?! Argument

They didn't! Jack just did it. And as for timelines, well, FT coming in CLUTCH with an explanation! Of sorts.

I mean, they gave us the answer in tsc3—their powers don't work on other Legendary Figures! So if a Clause is used, Christmas magic, in conjunction with Time magic, BY the guy who uses the WINTER MAGIC, well. It's going to get messy and the timeline's gonna be all sorts of fucked up and FT is popping up now to start tackling that problem

And because we are more than halfway through, and we all know how the movie ends, so...time to start having FT figure out the shit going on!

Especially with Y8 being right around the corner, lol.

"Picture of poise and grace and such" was I think, "Picture of sophisticated grace" originally and yes, it was a Frozen reference.

Scene 6: Jacqueline's Intro

Tada! This is where I moved it! When the New Year starts proper! I thought that was rather brilliant on my end :3

Apparently, this opening was one of the heavily enjoyed ones? Idk. But I'm happy with where it is and glad I didn't have to scrap it entirely! I kind of like them, you know? I like that Jacqueline essentially TW's us for what shenanigans are gonna happen NEXT before telling us about said shenanigans.

Also. Sometimes. the Canadian just SLIPS OUT. And it sure fucking did with the last line of the intro lol

Fun fact! Jacqueline's a dual citizen. Her other citizenship is Canadian 🤭🤭

Scene 7: Breaking into B-Man's. Again

Idk WHY. When I was writing this. Jacqueline was like. I commit breaking and entering as a hobby into Bernard's house, specifically. But! Here we are!~

We can also see the uh. Friction getting to Bernard, with him being snappish @ Jacqueline

tho admittedly it's ah. well deserved given that ah. She did break into his house and deliver bad on bad on badder news!

Scene 8: LOTS of BAD Ideas

Like. SOO many bad ideas.

Okay. So we got like. The final version of the Resort, right? Then we have Jacqueline's big plan: FIRE.

And Jack calling in actual reporters from the ordibeing world

So you'll NOTICE that THAT detail wasn't on the notes! That'd be because I added it as I was writing! I realized that like, if he'd dropped off all these tickets and people were calling it a scam and y'know, social media circa 2001 was going OFF about it, it'd be ideal for Jack to fess up asap before other people took the credit for it OR everyone deemed it a scam with fruitless investigations and whatnot (if that makes sense)

BASICALLY it was to give the Resort a sense of legitimacy given that it was this close || to being brushed off as a scam or silly marketing scheme (which aren't totally untrue statements)

Do I know where Jeff works? NO! All I know is he's the only reporter (him and his team) to come up and the interview is gonna be SO exclusive lmao

Bernard probably had to talk Jack down from hosting a whole ass PRESS CONFERENCE lol, bc he absolutely would. 100%.

An aside: I bet the pieces on news stations when reporters who have kids go to the Resort are interesting pieces lmao. The whole world is probably like "wow! crazy!" and the news casters are probably like "A fun activity to do with your kids this Christmas!" and the Council is probably like "Woahg. They're?? Not thinking it's the real deal? Crazy"

This got off topic, but YEAH! The reporter bit was added in as I was originally writing! Neat facts!

"Your fascination with arson concerns me, Jacqueline. Especially considering your alignment and all."

^Okokok this is one of my fave lines. It's a call back to her suggesting they burn his satchel the year before. It's also very true: she quite enjoys starting fires. Loves her a good fire, that Jacqueline. DEFFS the summer sprite blood there. The Twins also have more winter sprite tendencies! Fiera constantly overheats and LOVES being cold. Fino always has a window open when it's nice and cold outside. That sorta thing!

Jacqueline: suggests the TWINS join their efforts

Literally Everyone: are you insane

Jacqueline: >:O. YES! OBVIOUSLY!

"...I know listening is hard for them, but I would rather have a controlled fire than something akin to the Great Fire of London." “Hey! They were young! It was an accident.” “They started that?!” “Oh! I assumed you knew? I thought that’s why you brought it up.”

The Twins did, in fact, start the Great Fire of London. In 1666 specifically. That one.

They didn't mean too! They were quite young and missed Jacqueline so they took the long maiden voyage out of Crystal springs, all the way across the world to Europe and met up with her in London, promptly SETTING IT ON FIRE.

I think they're both complicit. Fiera was sparky and Fino wanted to pet the animals in the barn. It is what it is, I suppose ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Scene 9: Crashing the Interview

Making Jacqueline channel Jack brings me great joy for reasons I cannot express but could probably be easily summed up as ANGST

“And his name is Jeff, which I think is very funny for a bigshot journalist doing a travel piece. On Santa Claus.”

->She's calling me out :( I didn't have a name for Jeff so I went with Jeff bc I had just watched WWDITS and Jesk existed and was a thing 🙃🙃🙃

(In Nadja voice: It's like a weak ejaculation!)

“On the biggest news story this year!” “The year is still young, y’know."

I wrote this bit. Remembered that Y7 takes place in 2001. And my face was immediately like

"Since this is an off-school year" Jacqueline says, surprising even ME as I didn't know that's how they did school in CS

But I'm getting the vibe for magibeans, they take decent breaks between schooling years just bc of longevity or something. Idk. I'm working on it? I guess?

Like when people take gap years to travel or whatever, lol. Would NOT be surprised if Magibeans did something similar but the students would go travel into the ordibeing world or do magical research or projects or SOMETHING like that, lol

"I winked at Jeff, which seemed to do the trick as he laughed heartily, thinking it was some sort of joke amongst us magibeans"

I spent this whole passage thinking of the culture shock Jeff must be dealing with and cackling

Also. Love having Jacqueline throw her title in Jack's face, makes me cackle >:)

Scene 10: Best Laid Plans Start. A MONTH OR SO LATER! NOT ON THE SAME DAY!

I am so mad about this same day thing, honestly

SO HERE WE SEE THE FIX! THE PLAN HAS BEEN SET UP AND N O W JACQUELINE IS BROACHING IT WITH THE PARENTS AND IT IS NOT A ONE DAY THING, IT IS AN OVER TIME THING

Imagine being Jack. And dealing with THESE THREE GREMLINS on the most STRESSFUL year of your REIGN AS SANTA SO FAR.

It's also been very fun writing Bernard, especially when he gets a little win—like ruining everything on airport day specifically >:)

Jacqueline references this CS fact when she talks about how Fiera and Fino may have invented the fire hazard/fire safety

Hot girl soot is just a play on hot girl shit. So it's. You know. hot girl shit. Eating hot chips. Girlbossing. Starting fires. Practising elemental control. That sort of thing!

And this is immediately followed up with ANGST. I surprised myself with it too, tbh!

"And thinking of the amounts of paperwork the Resort will result in? Arson just seems more and more promising" Blaise is not here for the paperwork at ALL. I am thoroughly convinced that if he remembered Frostmas, he'd throw Jack into a lake and yell THE PAPER WORK I HAD TO DEAL WITH! And Jack would resurface and be like "gee dad. you really need to cool off" and push him into the lake with a snowy assist

The news the next day: Old Man is thrown Into Lake By Even Older Man.

Byline: IT'S ABOUT THE MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF PAPERWORK!

So that's why he's all "hell yeah" for arson, lol. He really really isn't looking forward to the bureaucratic NIGHTMARE the Resort will be—between the secrecy laws being broken, preventing the other secret magibean places from being exposed, and lady only KNOWS how much witness damage control? YEAH. BURN IT BEFORE HE DOES WHEN IT ALL CROSSES HIS DESK

Scene 11: Actually LAYING the PLAN

One day. What is WRONG WITH ME

Anyway! This scene is all new! To explain how the twins get up there and make a lil name for themselves BEING up there so that when the fire ACTUALLY HAPPENS it's not as sus as could be. even tho. y'know. it's DAMN OBVIOUS LOL

It turned into another one of those back into the present scenes where the cold front is recounting the tale with one another and this one was SO FUN and made me weak

the implication is that the twins somehow managed to weasel themselves into the cold front's day off plans? I think that comes across

Not that Jacqueline minds, of course! She sees Jack too often at this point and is more than happy to have her other siblings hanging out too, let someone else bother the man while she takes a beach nap

She just likes to tease him bc yes, the twins absolutely DO have Jack right in the palm of their hands, the sneaky lil hotheads

Scene 12 & 13 & 14: Fire Time

12 is deffs my favourite scene! Well, one of them, lol. Just. The image of disgruntled Santa Cosplay Jack watching two fiery beings try to shove themselves into a backpack while the other sibling loses it laughing beside them and just being like. I GUESS THIS IS MY LIFE NOW. Just SENDS me.

"He stopped beside Fiera; they stared at each other quietly for a moment before Fino nodded" <- this is twin telepathy at play right here

"Bermuda?" "Neutral Territory" <- don't quote me on this. to my understanding Summer mostly deals with Bermuda so she's HAPPY to host fight dates for Spring and Winter, helps ease their squabbling and also makes it easier for Summer when she hands off with Spring.

This could be why the Bermuda Triangle is Like That, lol.

(I know there's science in that shit. Let me suspend my disbelief for one goddamn moment, where is the WHIMSY)

Yes I named the Fire Marshal Marshal. A silly thing that was unappreciated when originally revealed so now I am making it VERY OBVIOUS

But also, he's more of a character in Y7 PROPER now, given the whole. FIRE thing we have going on here, so now his name has to be in your face instead of one off wordplay joke.

RIGHT! SO! FIRE TIME

You guys would not BELIEVE the pause this scene caused me. I got right up to go time and then paused like "huh. how do you start fires".

Did I google it? Yes! Needless to say, reddit has a sub for EVERYTHING and I learnt about a very prolific serial arsonist and now may have to take out another book from the library, but that's neither here NOR there

I also googled "is varnish flammable" and it is, more so than paint so, here we are lmao!

Would NOT be surprised if I was on some kind of list, especially since half this research was. In fact. Done at work 😬

Scene 15: Cold Front Time

I went on a whole ass OTHER research rabbit hole involving PLANES and POLAR TRAVEL for this one lmao

Boeings don't GO into polar regions! I know this now! And more! The wikipedia page on the Lockheed planes was very very very long and informative, wow.

when Jacqueline says "terrible new paint job" please know it is the exact design it had on it in the movie. The Santa flying on top of the plane design. That one lmao

As for the crew, I was thinking about this and I wasn't sure they'd be human/ordinary, non-magical people, y'know? But I FIGURED that Jack would know some seedy mofos/have people who owe him or vice versa and he'd be able to cash in on that for a situation like THIS.

I know nothing about the crew, other than the pilot is very tiny, dressed like an old timey pilot, and you cannot see their defining features so all you know is that they are a creature of some sort but that's it!!!

"Have you ever waded through molasses, let alone cold, non-magical molasses? It’s exhausting.” “I wouldn’t know. I was in Chicago at the time, not Boston.

You guys. I have been resisting the urge to reference the molasses flood of Boston MA the ENTIRE TIME Jack has compared the Christmas magic to Molasses. I finally caved. Hashtag worth it.

Trying to figure out how the people got into the pole, given the itty bitty hole and GIANT plane and lack of any environmental storytelling was a CHALLENGE, but I'm quite happy with it!

I originally wanted to have Jack talk about putting in a historic display that leads UP to the Resort and say some BS like "It's the FINEST iteration YET" but I was like "woah there, dani, you need to calm DOWN" and so I canned it at the uh, Disney pre-show mentions lol

Anyway. Jack never says the I told you so as they head down and see the FIRE, but I think it speaks for itself 🤭🤭

Scene 16: Twinsplinations

When I tell you. Fino and Fiera have been practising this bit ALL YEAR. I mean it

They are giant hams. This whole family is tbh (and we love them for it? I think?)

They're so good that even Jacqueline was like HEY LIVE THEM ALONE >:( despite knowing they were playing it up--but this is also a side effect of her own predicament lol. She's entering her angry era ;)

I deffs modelled the "what's salvageable" bit after the exact same scene in tsc3! I love me a bit of mirroring here and there >:)

I am pretty sure they would've gotten away with it if Jacqueline hadn't ended the scene the way she did. Absolute banger, of course, but my GOD she's causing problems on purpose, isn't she? heh.

REGARDLESS. These two continue to vex one another and quite frankly, exhaust me. Remember when I wanted to update every thirteenth? And this was updated late July? And the BTS is now being posted in (checks watch) AUGUST?!!? AND YEAR EIGHT HASN'T GONE UP YET???

AHHHH

Scene 17: Home Safe

So I reworked this scene quite a bit! Blinter is now included, and Jacqueline's mood post-arson can only be described as:

So. Let's see what notes and references I snuck in here!

None, apparently! But I am a big fan of this whole scene and interaction. Hitting us with the Winter angst when she asks Jacqueline to stick around! Whatever the heck Blaise and Winter are saying with their facial expression! I sure as shit don't know, but they sure do!

Scene 18 and 19: The Finale

When Jacqueline finally goes back up North to spy/scout/antagonize Jack for the most part, and she talks to Jack about everything, and he mentions the security footage and how the missing bits and how security was just like WHOOPS, I 100% pictured Gary(?) from the series. Heard it in his voice and everything!

I have to keep reminding myself that Jacqueline and Bernard are on the same team here, lol. And that the elves are HAPPY to help make things messy for Santa! So the erasure of the bits of security footage that showed the twins causing the fires was added to aide that bit

And I feel deep in my bones that they pulled a Speed and looped old footage of the twins eating with Bernard in case Jack was a wee bit too clever lol

And then we have the reveal as to why the security officers in the movie were human, and not elves! Jack time out'd them, which means Jacqueline made cute little ice statues of them and sent them off to help the others with the TUNNEL lol

The permanency of the PEN. me @ me:

Um, the carbon monoxide thing is new! I think about that story of the guy who was leaving notes for himself he couldn't remember, and how it ended up being carbon monoxide and a broken detector, quite frequently.

This year had like a LOT of explanatory semantics re: how the Resort was received/took off in the mortal world. That was one HECK of a summary passage to write in this last scene!

And I SOMEHOW managed to preserve the same end sentence. FUNK YEAH!!!

GOD this year was a MESS of a year. Glad to have fixed it up though! It's still holding up a month later (I started this BTS July 7th, and a week later ran into my IT WAS ONE DAY?!?!? problem, and FINALLY got around to posting it after finishing Year EIGHT) which is GREAT and now I can take a break from these bad boys since Y8 and Y9 already have a BTS! That'll make things MUCH easier! RIGHTO. Enjoy this raging dumpster fire of me RAMBLING. Prommy I'll get last week's scrimble done and this week's too at some point, and HOPEFULLY will throw Y8 onto ao3 BEFORE September (she says, on August 28th 🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃

[the-girl-with-the-glass-heart]

I've never drawn stardew valley fanart before but since you guys liked my Alex and Harvey body swap idea so much I thought I'd draw something for it.

"What happens when a 40 year old wimpy doctor with a dad bod swaps bodies with his conceited 20 year old athletic neighbor on the same day that one of them has a date for the flower dance and the other has an interview that could make or break his business? Alot of really stupid hijinks and some kinda horrifying angst."

Yeah I draw Harvey over weight, fight me.

For those who haven't seen the post I made a long long hypothetical post about what if Alex and Harvey swapped bodies and it got quite a few notes so I'm happy you guys liked it.

Here are some really great things I think would happen here that I didn't mention in the other post.

-Since Alex is a conceited asshole before he gets character development he spends alot of time complaining about how old Harvey's body is and how fat and weak it is or his stupid mustache, the good news is that Harvey doesn't hesitate to call him an asshole and a good portion of this idea is Alex being humiliated by circumstance. The very first thing he said when finding he was in Harvey's body was "look at my hands! I have witch hands! I look like I should be stirring a cauldron!". Don't worry, Alex learns better and apologizes to Harvey about it which actually helps them switch back.

-Harvey gives Alex a ton of notes on taking care of his patients in his absence and Alex is 100% sure that this is gonna be a cake walk, after all, how hard can being a doctor be when you've just got like... 20 people to look after? Pretty hard actually considering everyone in the valley is unbelievably stupid. Marnie and Jodi show up because their kids swallowed marbles, not together, they just both got the worst idea ever at the same time.

Shane calls in to complain about how he feels awful for some mysterious reason, making Alex yell at him "MAYBE CAUSE YOU LIVE OFF TWO HOURS OF SLEEP AND A DIET OF PEPPER POPPERS AND BEER!". Shane is absolutely stunned at this realization, could have never possibly conceived it.

Lewis walks in complaining that he has splinters all over his body and Alex asks why Lewis says it's cause he was naked in a bush, Alex decides not to press any further.

-Harvey attempts to walk Alex's dog, sure he's never walked one before since he's allergic to them, but it's probably not that hard. Dusty then proceeds to yeet Harvey all over stardew valley, smacking him into mail boxes and bushes and buildings.

-People keep throwing things at Harvey and expecting him him catch it, he's gonna have a broken nose by the end of the day if people don't stop.

-Like I said before, Alex has a date with Haley for the flower festival and says Harvey has to go in his place or else Haley will be crushed.

Later when Alex is at Harvey's aerobics class he sees Haley there and over hears her talking to Emily about how she's upset that Alex is avoiding her and how she doesn't even know if he will meet her at the festival.

Alex jumps in to very enthusiastically and somejeay creepily tell her that he will absolutely 100% be there no matter what because Alex told him himself.

Haley doesn't even acknowledge what he just said and asks why a man's in a dance aerobics class, Alex has no explanation.

-At the flower dance Harvey is on the phone with Alex saying that he's terrified to dance with Haley, Alex who is back at Harvey's apartment, chastises him for being a little bitch and tell him him take charge and ask her to dance.

"I don't know how to be romantic!"

"Come on Harvey you can't seriously tell me you've never seen a romance movie before!"

"I mean, I saw titanic once with my mom."

"Perfect! Act like Jack!" "You want me to drown myself?" "No! I thought you were smart dude!" "I am but I also have a generalized anxiety disorder and you're freaking me out right now!".

-Harvey is trying his best, God bless him, but Haley can tell he's incredibly nervous since he keeps looking down at their feet and his palms are incredibly sweaty, grossing Haley out.

-Meanwhile Alex is at home cause he's being interviewed by some medical magazine about what it's like to be a doctor in a small town and absolutely failing to say anything interesting or remotely substantial.

-He's barely even trying to hide that he isn't Harvey, he's putting his feet up on the table, eating the whole time, dodging questions and just generally being kind of a dick.

-Alex was very very adamant about not going to Harvey's dance aerobics class since it's obviously a class for chicks 🙄, then when he gets there all the girls are doing just fine during the exercises while he's slowly dying and can't get up.

-Evelynn keeps forcing Harvey to eat, he cannot physically eat any more food but she just keep on giving him more and more. Harvey genuinely wonders how insane Alex's metabolism is since he can eat all of this and not gain a pound.

-i like the idea of Alex passing out in the clinic from the stress of working all day and also being a 40 year old man with back pain so Harvey gives him a little blankie.

-When Shane and Sam are talking at work sam mentions Alex and Harvey have been spending a alot of time together for no reason, Shane just says "Maybe they're gay.", Sam nods agreeingly and says "good for them.".

-I thought of three angsty concepts for this where one involves Harvey thinking about the possibility thay he could just run off and leave Alex in his old body and go live his pilot dreams no that he doesn't need glasses anymore, one where Alex confesses he's been so rude about Harvey's body because being conventionally attractive and fit is all he has, and one where Alex and Harvey are hit with the very real possibility that they might never be able to switch back and Alex will miss out on a huge portion of his life and Harvey will have to relive his all over again.

-Luckily they do get switched back by the end of the day and learn to understand one another better, they might not be friends but they've learned to respect each other a little more and Alex apologizes for saying all that mean shit about Harvey's body.

So yeah, that's about it, I'd like to make a full fanfic or comic out of this but idk, also alternatively I think body swaps between pierra and Morris, sebastian and Demetrius, and Shane and marnie would be very funny.

Thx that's about it.

[second-hand-heaven]

Like Stede's a bitchy guy (lovingly, honestly some of his funniest moments when I'm laughing with him and not at him, I love him) at some other points but he's only this much of a dick from the start to Izzy and I don't think the first couple times were even ABOUT Izzy?

Stede is being a dick for the purpose of His Reputation/Self-Steem both times isn't he? He wants the hostages back because he sees it as the clear way to prove he's an Adequate Human Person Pirate Captain and then at the bar he's in reputation building mode too! He HAS to be mean he cannot back down bc he's pumped up to be an Adequate Pirate Captain and he can't affort to lose steam. He doesn't want to fuck it up and also he's having a shit day off the ship both times. Also. He probably likes how it feels to be openly confrontational after being stuck with passive aggression being the most he's allowed himself to be so far! I get him! (He may even like that Izzy snaps back since he says so after the hostage stealing)

Afterwards yeah they're both catfighting over Ed (that "trouble in paradise" comment and Izzy's entire deal lol) or just setting each other off, but by then the dynamic has been established. Even Calico Jack has to do A Lot to get Stede to be rude to his face so openly and Stede hates him more than he hates Izzy lmao

Ty anon!

Honestly this makes me think back to the interview W David Jenkins saying that casting Rhys was essential to getting a dickish-yet-likeable Stede, and that with all the actors they tried for the part before Rhys, the character came across too dickish to be sympathetic.

I pretty much agree with your point about Stede having something to prove, absolutely, and Izzy being the first Real Pirate he encounters brings that out of him. Stede wants to be seen as a real pirate by both his own crew and other pirates, and sure, he's a dick to achieve that. But it's so interesting considering his dickish moments with his own crew are more "catty" than anything, reactionary outbursts, sometimes funny for the audience, sometimes less so.

I do like the point about him finally being able to confront a 'bully' but considering what Stede actually sees of Izzy, I feel like Stede is projecting a lot of his own issues onto Izzy here. Is he also flirting or caught up in some good old fashioned Repression in that scene? Who knows. Maybe he wants a romaticised nemesis to play opposite him? Idk man

But I find it funny tho that you mention reputation, because the way that he treats Izzy is so oppositional to the brand he's trying to build when they encounter each other again in ep3.

He's literally The Gentleman Pirate, but he acts like anything but that to Izzy (especially in ep3 onwards).

The Gentleman Pirate, with his "kill them with kindness" attitude, has found an exception with Izzy in that scene.

Again, Stede's going Thru It at that point (but when isn't he tbh) but he's polite enough to both old-mate-behind-the-bar and Spanish Jackie, considering.

You could ague he's just giving as good as Izzy in that scene, considering the way Izzy walks into the bar and straight away is dickish to everyone else, but Stede is still considering their encounter from earlier, and is showing a lot of unfounded hostility.

Not very gentlemanly of you, Stede.

[regardingjenmish]

I'm having a weak moment. I believe cockles is real...saw the jib10 post and it was cool to see how much these two middle aged men can't contain themselves around each other. But it has been so fucking long since we have had them interact with each other just the two of them for more than 5 minutes, that I don't know.... What if they're not together anymore. What if they're just good friends now? Even worse what if they've never been more than friends with occasional hook ups? Because there's no way these two weren't fucking!

Which reminds me of a scene in the boys season 2 where homelander and stormfront are on the tv giving an interview and butcher just turns to kimiko and says, very definitively, "they're fucking!" I was like yeah!!! Exactly! That's how we KNOW Misha and Jensen fuck!

But anyway I'm weak...please give me good cockles moments if you're free. Or maybe some reassurance would be nice.

I feel like to judge any “famous” relationship and/or friendship based on how much the two people involved in it interact in front of fans is probably not the best idea. Because the truth is they are very private and the few loud moments we got from them are mostly from panels where they almost forgot where they are and ofc after many drinks of…juice. Usually they try to be extremely subtle (they fail horribly but they still try). And don’t get me wrong it does suck that we haven’t yet had a jenmish panel or something else that involves them but that doesn’t mean that they broke up (especially bc technically we have seen them break up and that was just unpleasant for everyone, so we’d definitely know if something happened). And if I’m being fully honest it would take A LOT to convince me that those two were never a thing. They’ve said and done too many things that prove otherwise 😌 However I will provide you with some links to some cute cockles (btw these won’t be in any order at all, I’m simply going off of what my brain thinks of)

First of here’s an old ask I answered with bunch of links to cute panels and some interviews. I obviously also cannot post this without linking thee hour long video (also there’s a new hour long video that is amazing). Now to start off here’s the post where Misha had trouble answering the question if he ever kissed Jensen. Also the denver con where they had a tiny reunion on stage! And also confirmed that they saw each other day prior. One of thee most important videos ever taken where they’re talking about fan art. Also the video from last years livestream where Jensen said ‘Okay, babe.’ Short but sweet and it had the whole fandom going insane. The interview where Jensen decided to interview Misha for some reason…This adorable video from their livestream. This video that screams couple to me (I’m sorry but I would never just take someones gum). The video for YANA when it was a leap year. The straddlegate (I’m just gonna put the video of it here even tho you mentioned it but the whole thing is a lot!). The Valentine’s Day Card!!!!!! And to end this I’m just gonna add this short video of Misha on his birthday that i find adorable especially since it’s just the make up ladies and then there’s Jensen looking at him all cute!

[interact-if]

Day 5 of A/PI Heritage Month featured authors interview! The lovely Parker, everyone!

Parkerlyn, author of The Nameless

A/PI Heritage Month Featured Author

Legend goes when the world was formed, the mortal races, mortalis, were created with the gift of magic. But as time passed their hubris grew, and the sheevra were created to curb their pride.

When it comes to these chaotic and malevolent beings, the lands are full of cautionary tales. Though some would tell you that the stories are just that. To them, names have no power. There are no mysterious deals to fear, and the figure who seduces you into an alley at midnight is certainly no malicious spirit.

Which luckily for you means easy prey.

Author's Ko-fi | Discord

(INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT UNDER THE INTERVIEW!)

Q1: First of all, introduce us to your project! What is it about?

The Nameless is a mishmash of fey stories and a... teetering on apocalyptic setting? The world itself is almost completely covered by desert save for four regions and cities that have maintained life around them. The origins of that desert, the Arids, are said to have been from wars thousands of years ago where there was too much magic siphoned from the world, and the cost was desolation.

The reader enters the story as a sheevra (the fey-based race) who's been taught that all this was the mortal race’s doing in their desire for power. And that the sheevra were created to take that energy back from them via deals and names to slowly restore the world's more verdant state.

If you asked the mortalis though, they'd sing a different tune. To them, the sheevra are the remnants of the entity mainly responsible for the state of the Arids, and they're the reason why the world is stuck like it is.

Where does the truth actually fall? Well…

The game itself kicks off when one of the four sheevra clans in the world goes missing, and you're sent to investigate what happened. Though whether or not you really want to find out remains to be seen.

Q2: If it’s not too spoilery, what are you most excited about your project?

I'm definitely buzzing over some of the reveals behind the Arids and other features of the world, and how things are tied together. The puzzle will start getting filled in towards the end of Book 1 and will culminate in the final major choice of the entire story, and I'm really excited to see how people handle it.

I'm also looking forward to exploring more of the backstories of the romances and various characters, and also for more descriptions of magic-tech and how that's integrated into each of the cities (had a BLAST with this in upcoming content). Just in general, excited to continue bringing the world to life!

Q3: What inspired the current project you’re working on?

The Nameless was initially sparked by a D&D NPC, Oisein's predecessor who was far more bitter and not quite the sarcastic chaos gremlin they are today.

Specifically from Kobold Press' Courts of the Shadow Fey, this NPC was supposed to be just a one sentence rumor. But (of course) my players decided to pursue that route more in depth. Said character that I made up on the spot then ended up being a regular that I eventually made into a PC for another campaign. And...things sort of spiraled and transformed from there as I created their backstory and fell in love with the characters who would then become the four romances of the game.

There's also a theme I've been wanting to write about for a long time which might lend itself to spoilers, that I was finally able to find a home for in the world of The Nameless. So it's a dash of old and new ideas!

Q4: Do you pull from your own identity for inspiration? How has that been reflected in your work?

There's some indulgent, more obvious ones like the city of Han, which is directly named after the Han River in Korea and is, well, the City of Rivers. There's also small references to Korean folklore within the sheevra that will probably continue to show up, and you better believe Korean inspired food and clothing will make an appearance haha.

But below the surface level, I think a lot of the mannerisms and backstories of the characters may unconsciously be affected by my identity. Until someone asked me about modern ethnicities for the love interests, I didn't realize how much I had tied my mixed culture into these characters. But I'm happy to have that little piece intertwined in their personalities, their values, and their attitudes, as a small nod to my own Korean-American background.

This will probably become more evident in the settings too. There's a lot of mixed inspirations and sources in the architecture, environment, and culture of each city that I'm looking forward to expanding on.

So yeah, it's kind of funny to see that manifest in my writing, but hopefully it helps to build up an interesting and unique environment for readers to immerse themselves in!

Q5: What’s been your experience so far? With writing, with the if community...

For writing in general, this is by far the largest project I've ever taken on, and there was and is a learning curve when adjusting for interactive fiction. But I've enjoyed the freedom and variation I've been able to build into this story with this medium, and think it continues to take shape in ways I never initially planned but love to see!

For the IF community, it's definitely been positive! I kind of just chucked this story out there not expecting much from it and figured it would be hard for anyone else to get into. Honestly I thought that maybe just a few people would see it, but that it would mostly be self indulgent.

But the support from other writers and readers and the questions I've received has just been amazing, and I’m glad I dived deeper into the IF community. Especially when the self-doubt inevitably creeps in and you have those moments of "oof this is terrible". The positive words and encouragement mean so much, and I don't think I'll ever be able to express how much it helps. I'm also really happy to have found an overall inclusive community, and hope I can extend that space into this game!

Also the stories and games out there? Talented, brilliant, incredible, amazing, show-stopping, spectac-

Q6: Do you have any future projects in the works?

None at the moment, my focus is mainly on writing The Nameless and continuing to develop features for the Twine version!

Q7: Finally, what piece of advice would you give to fellow authors?

Don't let yourself get down by comparisons. It's easy to slip into, and I'm definitely guilty of it too! But no one's going to tell your story like you can and the way you want it, so it's up to you to share that with the world!

[emo-and-confused]

Headcannons based on @cb28 ‘s “ceo of many hotels tommy and hotel receptionist tubbo” au art (includes dysfunctional sleepy bois) (awesamdad)

-techno, wilbur, and tommy are phil’s kids

-(the three kids are adopted, techno was adopted when he was five, wilbur was adopted when he was four, and tommy was adopted when he was seven)

-techno is older than wilbur by two years and wilbur is older than tommy by eight years

-phil is this rich businessman. techno is some powerful leader. wilbur is a famous songwriter.

-then tommy owns a hotel

-he's still like 16/17 but he owns and manages it

-techno is the oldest therefore favorite and heir to whatever money and property phil owns

-tommy is least favorite. phil ignored him.

-then one day phil just gave him money and said "stop being a disappointment" so he started his hotel at 15

tommy: i’m going to build a hotel in rage

-then best friend tubbo who works there and is nice to tommy

phil: oh, theseus, my son. come, i was just telling my companions about your ho- who is that?

tommy: this is tubbo.

tubbo: hello :)

-wilbur being the normal brother and treating him like a normal person and taking him and tubbo to hang out and be kids

wilbur: tommy, let’s go get ice cream

tommy: wilbur, ive got things to do, paper work and, and shippments and-

wilbur: tommy.

tommy:

wilbur: let’s go. bring tubbo.

-tommy feels like he has to prove something to phil

-he also feels like he might be able to earn attention from him. that if he works hard enough phil will be proud of him

-wilbur’s music is what makes phil pay attention to him, but when he was a kid phil said his music was never going to be a stable source of income and actively encouraged other future job choices. this only made wilbur more focused on his music

-both tommy and wilbur feel the need to prove themselves

-tommy meets sam when starting up his hotel, and immediately gets attached

-sam is basically his guide, even after building the hotel. sam saw the child and went “yeah he needs parental guidance” and continued to stay in contact with tommy

-tommy is the one who gives sam the creeper mask. because sam is always working on construction and stuff and he's always inhaling debris and tommy likes minecraft so he gives it to him. sam adores it and wears it all the time.

-tommy totally calls him sam nook

sam: hey tommy! just building your hotel. i do need some more things for construction though... could you ship them over to me?

tommy: y'know this reminds me of a game my brother made me play over the holidays...

sam: ... uh,,,, what?

tommy: animal crossing! that's it. you're totally tom nook.

sam: alright, tommy.

-[over emails]

]Mr. Danger Careful Innit,

Could you supply more building materials?

Sincerely, Sam Nook

]Mr. Samuel Nook,

sure.

Sincerely, Tommy

-sam gets a very official hand written contract (the same one as the lore)

-he gets it and just goes with it (there’s a more real contract but tommy values his handwritten one more)

-sam signing it and tommy cheering and immediately going to text phil

sam: and... there you go! signed. :)

tommy: really??? ... YES!!! LETS GO!!! (calls phil and tells him)

-then tommy hanging up and smiling, then looking back over to sam.

tommmy: (clears his throat) um. my apologies. that was very unprofessional. thank you very much, sam.

-tubbo is the receptionist for the main hotel in the chain, (the one tommy is constantly at) but he basically becomes sort of a manager

-tommy sends him off to do multiple jobs throughout the day, and tubbo does them with only little complaint

tubbo: you know i’m not room service right?

tommy: i don’t remember asking

tubbo, already holding the room order: this isn’t my job tho-

tommy: and yet here you are, doing the job

-tommy pays him more than everyone else though, but tubbo doesn’t know that because tommy won’t let him see the usual staff paycheck

-tubbo is half a year older but his parents are constantly away on buisness trips so he is often home alone and has to take care of himself

-tommy is not good with showing his affection, the only one in his family to do so was wilbur. phil just kind of threw money at him on holidays and ignored him the rest of the time, and while techno was a lot more attentive to him, he wasn’t the best at affection either

-when tommy started making money with the hotel, (how very successful hotel chain), to show tubbo he cared he just started offering to buy him things

tommy, upon finding out tubbo likes bees: you know i could buy you a bee sanctuary if you’d like?

tubbo: tommy no-

-tubbo teaches him that money isn’t the only form of showing you care. it’s a long process

tommy: so you’re saying i shouldn’t buy sam a private engineering lab for his birthday?

tubbo: i know for a fact sam wouldn’t know how to accept such a gift and that he’d rather you close the hotel for a day and take him to play laser tag

tommy: ...okay but what if i do that and buy him a private engineering lab?

tubbo:

-the dream team are bell hoppers.

-tommy gets hate for being that young and successful

-the dream team are like “stfu i'm proud to be working for a very successful 16 yo how dare you" and go off on every rich person who says something about tommy’s age

they're still streamers. they just don't tell tommy. (tommy totally knows tho, he’s a 16 year old kid who plays minecraft and animal crossing, ofc he knows they’re video game streamers)

dream: hey tommy-

tommy: yes? is there a reason you're barging into my office?

dream: .. is that... animal crossing music? are you playing on a switch?

tommy: no!! i'm signing very important and legal documents!!! if you have nothing to say, get out!!

dream, to sapnap and george: he’s totally playing animal crossing.

-tommy makes them greet people at the doors and carry peoples bags purely because they’re famous. they don’t know this though

-they don't think tommy knows. tommy and tubbo think it’s hilarious. tommy hints it all the time that he knows but they just think he's being a kid

-quackity is on sam’s building/contracting team

-even after the hotel is built, q comes in to "check up" on the building with sam. and they "make sure nothing is going wrong with the building"

-they really just want to make sure tommy is okay under so much pressure

-wilbur totally has tubbo’s schedule and knows when tubbo’s on break, he can usually be found with tommy in tommy’s office

-wilbur will just barge in and be like “okay let’s go, you need a break”

-one time wilbur came in while sam and quackity were there

wilbur, barging in: kay, tommy, tubbo, let’s-

sam, mid lecture with tommy: you can’t keep doing this!

quackity, also scolding: you need to take a break, man.

tubbo, who noticed wilbur come in: wil! tell tommy he needs to go to bed and sleep! he hasn’t slept in twenty seven hours!

tommy, from his desk, with his head in his hands and leaning over paper work: i’m being ganged up on.

-wilbur instantly likes sam and quackity, because they care for his little brother (he totally has a rivalry with them though, he was there first, and tommy’s actual brother)

-the main hotel in the chain is sometimes used as an international meeting place for big companies and politicians

-more than once has phil or techno needed to stay for a few nights due to major meetings with powerful people

-it’s kind of awkward sometimes because tommy’s the hotel chain owner and since he’s based at the main hotel, he sometimes needs to greet the people going in for meetings

tommy: good afternoon, madam secretary

tommy: good afternoon, mister minister

tommy: good afternoon... *awkward cough* ...technoblade.

-or since he’s the ceo of a big name company, he sometimes has to attend big rich people galas that he hates

tommy: tubbo i literally hate these types of places, when can i leave, when am i allowed to to leave

tubbo, who is tommy’s plus one and moral support: dude i don’t know, i didn’t grow up rich

tommy, who grew up talking care of himself when wilbur wasn’t there: yeah well technically neither did i!

-and his father is a business man..

tommy, faking confidence and striding across the room: tubbo, i have no idea what i’m doing-

phil, from a table a few feet away, calling him over: theseus!

tommy, slowly turning around to see phil with a bunch of other rich people: fuckkkk-

-tommy makes sure everyone calls him tommy and not theseus

[in an interview]

interviewer: so theseus-

tommy: it's tommy.

interviewer: ... alright, tommy. would you like to address the rumors going around of your boyfriend?

tommy: huh??? oh, you mean tubbo? no, we're just best friends. and that's weird. i'm a minor.

interviewer: are you gay, though? we've never seen you date any women.

tommy: no, i do date women! all the time!!

-tommy being legally named "theseus watson" but calling himself "tommy innit"

-wilbur is legally “wilbur watson” but only ever goes by his stage name “wilbur soot”

-they both totally end up changing their names. legally.

-tommy saying i hate men because he just hates his father

-tommy getting scandals and controversies all the time but just by the upper class

-everyone else loves and adores him and knows he's literally just a 16 yo kid so that kind of stuff is a joke and he can say that without getting in trouble

-tommy will be in his office and tubbo will be at the front desk and sometimes tommy will just yell “TUBBOOOOO HELP MEEEEE” if his laptop crashes because Tubbo Tech

tommy: [during a meeting] oh, tubbo's clocked in for work.... TUBBOOO!

tommy: he's gonna come in here. surely. he'll go "hellœ?" surely. he'll walk in here...

tubbo: [walks in the room] hellœ?

-phil still has no idea who tubbo is

wilbur: yeah, i’m going to go check on tommy and tubbo

phil: ..the receptionist?

wilbur: ...

wilbur, internally: also your sons best friend but yeah sure, the receptionist.

-techno is lowkey fond of tubbo

-techno notices how tommy is clinging to tubbo at parties and galas all the time so he tries to get tommy to talk about him

-he likes that tubbo is there for tommy and totally resonates with the chaotic energy the two create

-sometimes when tommy can’t get tubbo in to the parties/galas, and techno is there, tommy will hang around him and steal his things

-like taking his wallet so techno will have to go back to the hotel afterwards and visit tommy

-he does it for attention. 

-tommy lives at the hotel. it’s not technically legal cause he wasn’t emancipated from his family and he’s only 16 but they’re rich so people don’t really say anything

-technically he still has a room at phil’s place, but he stays in a room at the hotel. when designing the place, he made sure to map out an area for his living space

-tubbo takes naps in his room

tubbo: i'm gonna go take a nap in the break room

quackity: there is no break room??

tubbo: yea there is. on the top floor. with the giant door.

quackity:... isn't that tommy's room???

-tubbo sometimes stays the night with tommy, when his parents have been on a business trip for over two weeks. he still goes to in-person school so he usually only stays on weekends during the school year

-tommy does online school, and forces himself to get his schoolwork for the week done over the weekend so he can focus on the hotel and other responsibilities

-he fakes having the “lmao i'm better and have more money also you don't play minecraft" mentality towards other kids and claims that’s why he does online

-it’s actually because he doesn’t have time to balance everything and he was bullied in the past so he switched to online school as soon as he started his hotel

-sometimes tubbo helps him with his classes tommy is overworked. like, in his off time. he has the passwords to tommy's computer so he just goes on it and does some of his school work

-tommy ranting to tubbo about how he hates his dad and how he said phil was gonna visit him the next day

-phil arriving and asking tubbo (because he's the receptionist) where tommy is. tubbo saying he doesn't know and that he left. even though tommy is literally in his room

-phil tries. he just doesn’t know how to parent. techno was 17 and wilbur was 15 when he adopted tommy, and he just got busy enough and forgot how to take care of a child

-tommy knows if he talks to phil, it’ll be awkward and phil will just try and buy him off (not intentionally, it’s just how business men be working, yknow)

-tommy just wants to prove himself, to both himself and phil. and hes using his hotel to do that

———————

fanart that was posted with @cb28 ‘s work

(i got permission to post this)

[turkisherlockian]

Books and Sins | Chapter Two [Benedict Cumberbatch AU]

Hello everyone! I'm Cer but you might remember me as @rosamundhr a.k.a. Rosamund, it was my nickname but I've changed my mind and I will use my own name Ceren, now. (Cer for short hehehe) Unfortunately I lost access to @rosamundhr so I will keep posting my stories here! I hope you enjoy it and I apologise for making you all wait for so long! Love you all, stay safe. 😸❤️

Summary: Katherine is a fan of Timothy Carlton, the writer who she knows nothing about. No photos, no interviews, no information, not even his age. And one day, a man comes into her life who claims to be her classmate from high school. But through the time, she has a gut feeling something is... Wrong.

Warnings: Mature content, self harm, violence, swearing.

Word count: 1855

Feedbacks are much appreciated and so motivating!

Chapter One

---

  Katherine woke up with a weird feeling inside her chest. She was mad at herself for being like this: She could like someone so easily and fall in love with them soon after. It was not her fault though, he was really charming. Too good looking to like her back. However, she tried to convince herself that she just liked him and was attracted to him because he was a writer and well... Handsome as fuck. Not to mention his gentlemanly behaviour. Taking a deep breath, she reached out for her phone to tell her best friend about it. She didn't really have lots of friends and she never complained about it, she liked solitude.

  She scolded herself for being that excited about the thought of seeing him again. He was the very first thing that was on her mind in the morning and she wanted to talk to him again. So badly.

  K: Morning!

  S: Morning to you too 🤣

You're texting me 'morning' since when?

  K: Stop being sarcastic. Can't I be nice to my best friend?

  S: Of course you can, I'm kidding. I just wondered what made you this cheerful... Or who, I should say.

  K: You know who.

  S: Oh do I?

  K: Come on, Samantha! The man I met yesterday. I can't get him out of my mind, I don't know what happened to me but he's like... Cigarette.

  S: You're smoking? Since when???

  K: Of course I don't! It was just an example, idiot. Just can't get him out of my mind. What do I do?

  S: Text him maybe?

You won't seem desperate, don't worry. I am sure he found you attractive as well and he might even be in love with you.

  K: Okay, no need to exaggerate.

What do I say, good morning or hi?

  S: It doesn't matter!

  K: Okay, I'll text you later.

Are you sure I won't seem desperate?

  S: JUST TEXT HIM FOR GOD'S SAKE!

  K: OKAY I WILL!

  S: Don't forget to tell me about it. I gotta go now, talk to you later. xxx

  K: Bye! ❤️

---

There was something different about him. Did she like him because he was attractive or because he was nice to her? She had to admit that he was attractive, but there was something else in his voice, in his looks, in the way he talked. She actually found him beautiful.

  Taking a deep breath, she finally decided to text him.

  K: Good morning. :)

  Was he still asleep? Maybe he was at work. Wait, do writers go to work? Maybe he had another job. Maybe not. Maybe he just did not want to talk to her... Why wasn't he replying?!

  She sighed in frustration as she took a big sip from her coffee and burned her tongue.

  B: Morning, Katherine.

How are you? :)

  He finally replied after 10 minutes. She bit her lip as her heart skipped a beat, and started typing.

  K: I'm good! Getting ready to go to school.

  K: I mean work.

  God, I'm an idiot, she thought.

  K: How about you?

  B: Just got out of shower, that's why I replied late by the way. Sorry about that. :)

  K: I was wondering if you would like to meet again sometime.

  She grinned as she bit her lip, that's what she always did when she was nervous or excited.

---

  K: I would love that! When will you be free?

  B:I'm always available for you.

Whenever you'd like. :)

  She started squealing in excitement. What did he just say?!

  K:I'm free in the afternoon.

  B: Wonderful. How about the café we met?

  K: Sounds good. Is 2PM okay for you?

  B: Yes. I am looking forward to it, Katherine.

  K: So am I. :)

I gotta go now, see you later. x

  B: Have a good day. See you. x

  She looked at her watch and she was 30 minutes late already. Without telling Samantha about it, she started to get ready in a hurry.

  She was never late for work, so no one was upset with her being late.

---

  ''...And my mum said I'm out of my mind!''

  Katherine just could not get him out of her mind, and she hated it. She did listen to her counselee but couldn't pay any attention, and now she was crying. She gave her a tissue, ''I understand you, Jane, and I hope telling me about it made you feel better. I know how difficult it is for you, but I have a suggestion. When I was your age, I found a way to deal with my problems: being your own counselor.'' She smiled warmly.

  ''My own counselor? How?'' The young girl sniffled.

  ''I imagined that I was told about everything I am going through, and I had to find them a way out. Think of it as if you're reading your life in third person of view. I did it for years and I still do when I don't want to tell people about my feelings. Plus, I found out that it was scientifically proven in college, so it is safe and it actually works. How does that sound?''

  She wiped her tears, ''I can try...''

  ''So tell me, what would you say to yourself if you were someone else?''

  ''I think I would say that maybe..." She sniffled, "Maybe her mother wasn't feeling good as well.''

  Katherine smiled, ''That's it! You are right. We all have problems that we don't want to tell the others and sometimes we might burn out on people we care about the most without being aware of it. You can ask your mother if she is feeling alright, it doesn't matter whether you are still upset with her or not; maybe you can help her as well just like you just helped yourself. That was very brave of you, in my opinion.'' She smiled wholeheartedly.

  The girl who was just crying smiled and said ''Thank you very much, Miss Daelan. It's going to be the first thing I'm gonna do when I'm home.''

  ''You're welcome. Feel free to talk to me anytime.'' She got up to open the door for her and then left the room as well before checking her phone.

3 new messages from Samantha

  S: Hey! Send screenshots!!!

Are you there?

Kath!

  K: I'm sorryyyy I was late to work already and then forgot to text you.

Here you go:

*screenshots*

  S: I told you that he liked you as well, he is flirting with you!

  K: No he's not!

  S: He adores you!

  K: You are really exaggerating.

  ''Miss Daelan, do you have a minute?'' Katherine looked up at the principle, "Yes, Mr Brealey."

  K: The principle wants to talk to me, I'll ttyl xxx

  S: What did he say?

  The old man opened his room's door for Katherine, she smiled and walked inside. He gestured her to sit down, "Please, have a seat." he said and closed the door. After sitting down, he cleared his throat and said "Miss Daelan, I... Erm..."

  He loosened his tie, couldn't dare to look at Katherine. His cheeks were red and there was a thin layer of sweat on his forehead. The young woman frowned a little, listening to him in curiosity. "I've known you since the day you started working here and... I must say that you are the most intelligent, kind, beautiful woman I have ever seen... I can't take my eyes off you because you're an amazing woman and I... I love you."

  Katherine was shocked, didn't know what to say at first. She did not feel honored at all, she was disgusted. "Excuse me? I thought you were married!"

  "Yes but I don't love my wife, I'm going to divorce her soon; you must understand Miss Daelan, I love you! Please give me a chance..." And now she felt her blood boil in her veins.

"I am sorry but it's never gonna happen. I suggest you to divorce your wife as soon as possible to keep her away from an asshole like you." Katherine stood up angrily and walked towards the door, "But Miss D--" and she shut the door.

  K: FUCKING HELL!

He said he loves me!

He's fucking married, Samantha!

*seen*

Are you there?

*seen*

  K: I guess you are busy

I'm going home to get ready, talk to you later xxx

  S: Sorry, I had to deal with a costumer

What a prick!!!

How dare he?

I want to kill him.

  K: Violence is never the answer but yeah, I pity on his wife to be honest. He even has children.

ANYWAY

WHAT AM I GOING TO WEAR?

S: Whatever you're comfortable with. :)

  K: How about a dress?

The one I wore when we last met?

  S: You look so hot in it 🔥

Wear that one!

  K: It covers all of my body, it's kinda tight and there's NO WAY I can look hot in it. I don't want to look pretentious anyway.

  S: Anything you wear looks good on you, love!

  K: Gay. 🤭

  S: Shut up. Wear it!

  K: LOL sorry!

I gotta go nowww

  S: Tell me all about it when you're home, IF you go back home ;) Good luck!

  K: I WILL and thanks! ❤️

  The young woman sighed as she tried to find her keys. She was still mad at the principal and it was frustrating her.

  After a short shower, she dried her hair with a towel and let her curls down on her shoulders. She wore the dress and looked in the mirror, It actually looks good, she thought. After applying some makeup and wearing her favourite her perfume, she was ready. She didn't like to wait and hated making the others wait for her as well, so she left her flat at 1:30PM. It took her 15 minutes to get to the café and she realized that she wasn't the only one who was punctual.

  "Hi..." She said as she walked towards the man she couldn't get out of her mind. He was wearing a brown jumper with beige trousers and she breathed his masculine, minty cologne in. Her heart was beating faster already.

  "Oh, hi, Katherine!" He stood up and for one second she didn't know what to do. Should she shake his hand or kiss his cheek? Or hug him? The young man leaned down and kissed her cheek before hugging her, she was shaking inside.

  He felt her body close to his. He felt her delicate, pale skin; and her linden scent made him feel dizzy. Her arms hugged his chest and he felt her plump, beautiful breasts. He watched her dress tighten around her curves as she moved.

  She was so beautiful and he could barely keep his hands to himself. He could kiss and take her right there, but didn't. He had to control himself until she submitted to him, which wasn't going to take long because it was in her blood. Submitting, obeying, and being his. He just knew it, and he was going to take what belonged to him. Katherine, belonged to him.

---

Chapter Three

Please let me know what you think! ❤️

[daemadness]

What are some couple behaviors you like to see or imagine with Bela/Farin? Hugs, handholding, certain types of kisses, stuff like that.

At first, I have to say: maybe it's because I'm aromantic, but I no longer believe in the traditional view on relationships. I don't think that any kind of behaviour is exlusively for romantic relationships, but I believe that each person can decide for themselves, and when it's about two or more people, only they can say what is the state of their friendship or relationship and whether traditional romantic or even sexual behaviours are a part of their relationship/friendship or not, and outsiders do not get a say on any of that.

Therefore, I don't call any of those in your ask as "couple behaviours" as imho people can do all those things with other people and still not be in a romantic relationship with each other. And I also don't want to define Bela's and Farin's friendship/relationship for them, altho I do have to say that it does have a very strong queerplatonic relationship vibes (I know I just said outsiders have no right to put labels on other people's relationships but! Listen, I'll explain it just in a second!), and I wish there was a way for them to learn about that word, since it seems that especially Bela has often been trying to find a word to describe their relationship but hasn't been able to find any that would fit perfectly. So far we've heard everything from friends to brothers, to a married couple, to partners, to business partners... you name it. Just like in this Bela's interview from 2006:

But yeah, since the disclaimer is now out of the way, I can finally answer to your ask! :DDD

Okay so. There is actually so much content that they don't really leave much for the imagination XD We have seen basically everything already. Nowadays my fave thing is actually to look at such photos and think about what led to those photos? Like, there are so many photos that make me go "what why why WHY???" but in like, the very positively curious way. Would have been interesting to be a fly on the wall during so many of those photos, just to see who got the idea and why, and why was there someone with a camera. Or is that just what people keep calling as "boys will be boys"?

Sometimes these photos also evolve in my head and instead of "what led to this?", they do the opposite and the scenario continues in my head and that's usually how I come up with my endless fanfic scenarios.

More underneath cos, once again, I cannot shut up:

There are also some stuff that I kinda wish existed IRL too more, since most of the time the FUB interaction is wrapped in humour. Especially Farin is so often using that as a shield to escape from questions he doesn't want to answer to, almost like some panic reaction. Especially if watching the interviews from 2012, he's almost always directing it to him and Bela first before getting serious and answering the question normally.

What comes to imagined stuff, very often these revolve around (emotional) hurt/comfort. Not them hurting each other, but something else hurting and then them comforting each other. The tendency for this comes from my own past, when I was bullied and hated by everyone at school and got used to this me vs. the world mindset, and learned to survive on my own. So with these h/c scenarions in my head, I kinda relive those same old emotions but with an outcome I would have needed most back then - just have someone to simply ask "are you okay?"

So, often whenever I'm feeling down or like an outsider or whatever, I often turn to either writing these down as FUB fanfic scenarios, or a newer thing is to just make doodles of those. Visuals are always so much stronger than words. I haven't actually posted neither of these anywhere (yet) as they are often very, very personal and come too close to me, so showing them to everyone would feel like exposing myself as well. Even when it's literally just. My versions of Bela and Farin - but the emotions and thoughts, especially if they are any darker/deeper, usually come from myself. But oh boy is it still fun to write about!

Normally the behaviour I like to imagine are just some. Idk, domestic, soft stuff? Like, my own touch-aversion makes me so amazed every time I see a photo or video of them where they are just perfectly comfortable letting the other one inside their personal space. It's something so uncanny to me! How do people do that? How can people feel comfortable like that? So whenever I write or draw stuff, I like to imagine more of that too cos the idea just is so nice. Like, to trust another person so much you don't feel like suffocating or dying just because they might be 1 cm closer than what you'd be comfortable with. It's so weird and looks so nice, but I literally don't understand how people sometimes do that.

I hope this answered to your ask at least somehow :D I had to clean my text so many times because I was derailing too much omg.

[bones-sprouts]

Okay so we're just having fun with this. It's more like exaggerated personas so we were just creating funny scenarios.

- We joked about how there's no hybrids in MCSM to our recollection so I just said stuff like "Fundy wears a fricking fox hoodie" and "Ranboo wears an enderman hoodie". Somehow that led into more jokes where Ranboo dies or smth in the plot and his crown is knocked off leaving Baldboo. This then led into a joke like "Plot twist, Ranboo's crown is enchanted so that he has a glamour that makes him look human, knocking it off reveals his full enderman." We ran with that and now Jesse is kinda sus of him because aren't endermen supposed to be aggressive mobs? Of course there are plenty to vouch for Ranboo because he is just so beloved.

- Joked that Fundy would probably have gotten an enchanted flint and steel not because he found it, but because he stole it from someone. Maybe Phil.

- Questioning everyone and finding their opinions of each other and yeah, Ranboo is just that beloved. Petra suggests to Jesse that it may be a front. He is actually just that beloved.

- Joked that Technoblade would wear a pig hoodie but realized that'd be so lame, and demanded he at least have his royal garments. That led to me saying that they'd probably make him anime boy Techno. That led to a joke of Techno's crown being knocked off at some point as well, only for him to just appear as a regular brown haired dude. "Oh no, my wig" indeed. He's just like "...SUBSCRIBE TO TECHNOBLADE" then gets hit with a trap.

- Jesse being either the person in the group with the most common sense or being locked out of the loop at all times. It fluctuates often. Also them being very confused with the little blurbs about each person when interviewing "Philza Minecraft is so brave-"

- Quackity most likely being very reliable within the group for keeping track of alibis and clues. WHICH IS WHY HE MAY GET AXED BY CASSIE-

- Joked that Tommy wouldn't be able to restrain from swearing. Cue hilarious bleeps of his curses.

- Joked about Technoblade seemingly dying and having a stack of potatoes in his inventory for nooo reason. He's seen alive and well though after the whole ordeal, because you know. TECHNOBLADE NEVER DIES. Plot twist x2: He's seen with his regular Minecraft pig skin after his "death".

- Sapnap suggests burning down the mansion and leaving so they can escape. Also him potentially being a minor suspect because flint and steel.

- This was more of a funky idea we came up with but if Ranboo's has glamour crown what if each person had a funky enchanted item with some kind of buff? Like Eret has her sunglasses, Tommy has his discs, Technoblade has his sword, etc.

- Jesse being curious about Eret's sunglasses and Eret eventually revealing the white eyes after some investigation and interrogation. Cue mini freak out like "AAAAAA HEROBRINE??" and just "No no, not Herobrine, just related. Common misconception really." and then just "JSKJSDA COMMON MISCONCEPTION?"

- Tubbo being pretty good with connecting dots in trying to find the murderer and figuring out the contraptions, though he can be a bit excited about it.

- Phil potentially being a target because hardcore world adventure and stuff and old. Maybe he has the flint and steel? (and he did, just stolen by Fundy). He's lived too long to die just yet though, so he evades the traps.

- The Captain still being in this just for him die and Tubbo screaming "NOOOO THE CAPTAIN"

- Dream or any of the Hunters probably helping Jesse chase down the White Pumpkin at some point because speedrun dududududu

- Technochat joke: "Chat's telling me it's one of us, but they're also spamming E as usual. Real helpful chat." Jesse's just like "What on earth is he talking about?" They're also spamming "Sus" and "Sussy imposter".

- Jack Manifold being the most self aware out of the whole crew with where the plot is going. Like "Obviously I'm not gonna press these buttons under the table, that could be a trap- oh God dammit WHO PRESSED THE FUCKING BUTTON?" Tommy, Tubbo or Fundy: looking away nervously Of course Jack Manifold has awful luck so he never gets to voice these opinions. The button pressed has his chair fall but he manages to climb back up because you can't stop that Manifold grind.

- Jesse questions Fundy about having the flint and steel and he's just backing up and is like "Yeah, I do have it but I promise I wasn't the murderer, I just took Phil's. You know, for a closer inspection!" insert nervous laugh here

- Tubbo is definitely ending up in some kind of bs choice whether or not to save him or save someone else. Maybe Wilbur?

There were a couple more ideas but have these for now.

WAIT,,, WAIT THAT HITS SO HARD ACTUALLY

[shinneth]

Spill the tea on Stevinel (just because I saw one for conniverse) And yes, I'm not on Anonymous. Because I'm a proud stevinel shipper and no one's going to stop me from loving it, also your blog is cool

And you know what? That’s the right attitude to have! People should be free to express what they ship without shielding themselves with anonymity. I don’t blame the people that do these days - antis are fucking dangerous people - but goddamn, people. It’s fiction. 

So I commend you for shipping Stevinel openly and proudly! Hard to believe it’s actually considered a bold and brave move just to be open and honest about harmless preferences these days. 

That said, I’m sorry it took so long to get to this. I felt you deserved an epic, given how unexpectedly successful my tirade on why Connverse is a shit ship with an undeserved golden reputation was...

But the truth is, even though I’m very much a Stevinel shipper, it’s definitely not my OTP.

And it’s very tricky for me to figure out how to spill the tea on Stevinel in a way that’s distinct from me doing the same with Stevidot.

Because, well, let’s face it: these two ships, beyond being very similar in nature, have also endured identical hardships from the fandom.

All the death threats Stevinel fans get from the raging antis for daring to ship something so “problematic/immoral/wrong/not Connverse”? 

Stevidot fans have been treated that exact same way for years. And still are. For the exact same reasons.

Both Stevinel and Stevidot shippers are valid, but the fandom constantly turns a blind eye to Rebecca Sugar’s husband who also worked on the show outright saying gem x human ships are FAIR GAME.

And also turn a blind eye to the recent interview where Sugar herself stated that the gems are more like AI - a conclusion I and many others deduced ages ago just by how gems are portrayed in the show. 

But by god, they’ll hang on Matt Burnett’s word that “grown gems” are a thing even though canon itself explicitly states that GEMS DON’T GROW.

Just like how despite Maya Petersen outright admitting that Aroace!Peridot is just her headcanon, people treat it like the fucking gospel now.

(no offense to anyone who’s committed to that particular headcanon - I just don’t really see it with Peridot in particular and it’s really fucking stupid to claim it’s 100% canon when the source herself explicitly said it wasn’t)

Well, it’s canon that Spinel kissed Steven and he didn’t turn into dust. And Steven was already well on his way down the path of self-destruction at this point in time; he would’ve gone monster whether this happened or not. 

Also, how often does a character get the “heart eyes” expression for just a platonic love?

If there was ever a scene where Connie or Steven had heart eyes, no doubt most of the pricks would scream “YES!!!! UNDENIABLE PROOF THAT THEY’RE IN LOVE!!!”

But when it’s Spinel, suddenly it doesn’t count? Really?

How convenient.

There’s also the stupid idiots who saw the conceptual development of Spinel in that movie artbook and saw some vague color keys during a conceptual stage and claimed that Spinel was “family” to Steven - which of course must mean “related” and therefore must make Stevinel an incestuous relationship! 

Which is bull. Also shit. It’s already common knowledge that gems don’t work that way. She was the designated playmate for Steven’s mother. Nothing more.

Of course, most gems who come in Steven’s orbit end up being sort of a family to him. 

But everyone seems to have this impression that a gem being part of Steven’s family means they become additional surrogate mom figures.

And yeah no, that’s dumb and wrong. Garnet and Pearl are really the only ones I’d consider actual “mom figures”. Amethyst’s more of a big sister. Everyone else can vary depending on perspective, but I’ve never seen any of the other gems as anything close to a motherly figure for Steven. Any time I see shit about Lapis or Peridot being regarded as “gem moms” to Steven, I laugh my ass off. They are so not moms or any kind of authoritative figure for Steven. Bismuth at best is more of the fun-loving aunt.

There are more roles in a family than just a paternal/maternal substitute. In fact, I believe Steven has considered Connie to be part of his family well before they hooked up in canon.

(as a side-note, I love how people who are allegedly SO squicked out by age gap ships totally pardon Connverse - you guys realize Connie was 14 in Future, right? Possibly 15 depending on the time scale? There’s gonna be a point in the relative near future where Steven is 18 and Connie isn’t - why don’t I hear you assholes angst about that “atrocity”, huh?)

I honestly do consider the CG B-Team as part of Steven’s family, but more in a loose sense. But by that same token, I consider Connie as part of the family in a similar manner. 

Especially since Spinel was shoved off to live with the Diamonds after the movie - and the Diamonds themselves have a very fucked-up relationship among themselves to the point where I honestly hesitate to put a familial label on it at all - it’s extra stupid to try and paint Stevinel as something with incestuous overtones when it clearly doesn’t. 

Spinel does happen to be a perfect representative of how full of shit antis are about age gaps, though. 

While Peridot’s age has always been left vague, we know she can’t be 5K or older due to being an Era 2 gem. Due to her utter lack of knowledge of Era 1 events (or being completely sold on the Diamonds’ propaganda) and her general inexperience with her own equipment - as well as her ability to quickly adapt to Earth - I always headcanoned Peridot as being especially young. Like, younger-than-Steven young. 

Mostly because Peri’s attitude reeks of Gen Z - also because it’d be nice for a change to have a gem who isn’t thousands of years old like literally every other noteworthy gem in the show. We need a representative of gemkind who hasn’t been around for ages. 

Of course, Spinel’s backstory proves that even if they went the boring route and made Peridot thousands of years old just like everybody else, it wouldn’t really mean much of anything. She’d be no less of a valid romantic option for Steven regardless of age.

Spinel is several thousands of years old, and the movie explicitly shows us what exactly that amounts to for a gem.

As I mentioned earlier, Sugar sees the gems more like AI. Spinel remaining in one spot for several millennnia, not moving an inch, not speaking to anyone, not seeing anything other than a gradually-deteriorating garden... yeah, and somehow, despite all that, Spinel’s still very childlike per her design. She had literally no room to mature or accrue life experience: Pink Diamond basically hit the pause button on her entire life.

Even though she’s several thousands of years old, through no fault of her own, Spinel’s mindset remained unchanged. It wasn’t until Steven inadvertently came into her life that she became twisted - understandably so after finally realizing she’d been abandoned by Pink. 

But she still didn’t completely lose her true self. Spinel realized on her own that Steven didn’t deserve to suffer just because his mom was a negligent asshole. She also came to understand on her own that unlike Pink, Steven truly cared for her no matter what shit she threw his way. 

Steven could give Spinel the care and attention she always deserved; something Pink totally denied her while deceiving her into wasting away with her abandoned playground. He could be the one to give Spinel the love she always deserved but was either denied or manipulated into believing she got. 

Honestly, this is more than enough to warrant building something more between these two. 

The age gap is irrelevant. The two have chemistry. They aren’t related.

(and honestly, this is fiction - these details are largely irrelevant in fiction anyway. I’m only bringing it up because it doesn’t take much research to find that every label the antis put on Stevinel is complete inaccurate Diamond propaganda bullshit)

Stevinel is FINE. Let people ship it if they want to!

Um... is that good enough?

Honestly, I’m not gonna lie: Stevinel’s pretty goddamned popular; so much that I’m a bit jealous of it. I enjoy the ship a lot, but I’ve been keeping it at arms-length all this time. I’m looking forward to when I can write my own brand of Stevinel interaction when I get to introduce her in my series, but that’s still a while to go. 

Also, there’s almost zero Peridot/Spinel material, let alone my Peridot/Steven/Spinel OT3. And Stevidot material is still hard to come by; I’m noticing Stevinel’s still quite a bit easier to find by comparison. 

So in a way, I feel many other unpopular ships deserve some tea-spilling sooner than Stevinel because Stevinel at least still has a sizable fanbase. Same can’t really be said for a lot of similar ships here...

A lot of this can apply to other Steven x gem ships, honestly. 

But I guess I haven’t been showing Stevinel much proper love due to my devotion to my superior SU-AU. I can only hope I can soon reach a point where I can have GA Spinel react to Steven, since their dynamic will be significantly different.

(and then one day I’ll finally make the Peridot/Steven/Spinel OT3 fic!!)

Until then, I can only hope I did Stevinel some justice here!

[watching-pictures-move]

Put On Your Raincoats #20 | Squalid Motels and Desperate Gals, courtesy of Kim Christy

This review contains mild spoilers.

When I first heard of Kim Christy, I knew I had to delve into her work. Here is someone who was involved in the drag scene in the '60s and went on to direct and produce pornography from the '80s onward. She's also a trans woman director (and occasional actress), which is not just unusual in golden age pornography but even mainstream cinema today. Unfortunately, figuring out where to start was a challenge. There's a very good interview with her on the Advocate but which doesn't really delve into her directing work. So I did the highly risky and ill-advised move of scanning through the titles in her filmography and trying to pick out ones with interesting sounding premises. Even this was a challenge, as a lot of her movies sounded like they didn't have a terrible amount of story. (A good many of them also had certain slurs in the title, which are unfortunately common in trans pornography.) So out of the crapshoot of movies I picked, I can't say I really got to the bottom of what makes her work interesting or even gelled to most of them, but hopefully I can convey what makes the ones I did take to interesting.

To start with the most slight, the two Divine Atrocities movies are basically a collection of sex scenes. There's a theme of dominant women running through them, but otherwise there isn't much tying together in terms of staging, aesthetics and the like. The segments have titles like "The Leather Lass Tamer", "Rubber Rampage" and "Ms. Degradation", but truth be told, nothing here is terribly shocking. So there isn't a lot to either of these movies, but if you're watching it for those reasons, they're enjoyable enough. A few of the segments feature trans performers, and I did find that Sulka had a nicely imposing screen presence in her scene, and while Sugar Nicole briefly threatens her partner with her "big black cock", I did like that for the most part the movies don't discern between these scenes and the ones with cisgender performers. In the eyes of Kim Christy, there's room for everyone in this great sexual melange. Also notable is the threesome scene with Janey Robbins, who (after likely reading Dan Savage's column) tells one of her partners, "If you don't find a different way to fuck me, you can forget it, I'll have to find somebody else", and in the first time in the history of civilization, gets mad at her male partner for not climaxing quickly enough. "You always say it'll only take a few minutes. Time is the only thing I can't replace, and it always takes too long."

A bit more substantive narratively but less interesting is Momma's Boy, with a premise that you can guess based on the title. Tantala Ray presides over a brothel set during an indeterminate period, where she presides over her girls and also her son, who mysteriously became a deaf-mute at a certain point of time. Why did her son become a deaf-mute? Will we ever find out? Spoiler: it's incest. Tantala Ray does have a weird enough screen presence to make her parts watchable, but this has none of the charge that, say, Taboo brings to the same material. (It's worth noting that Ray in this movie, looking like a debauched queen of Mardi Gras in one scene, is a camp villain while Kay Parker plays her role straight in the other movie.) As it's shot on video, the movie is not very nice to look at, and the dirt cheap production values make it unclear whether this is supposed to be a period piece. Some of the dialogue is amusing ("Oxford?" "Guess again." "Princeton?" "Try Biloxi Tech, my sweetie."), and there is some old timey music and one of the clients wears an ascot at one point, so it's not a totally squalid affair. (It's classy, see? He's wearing an ascot.) As the son, Jerry Butler does a cringe-inducing lisp, but I did chuckle at his last line.

A bit easier to recommend is True Crimes of Passion, where Janey Robbins plays a private detective (cheekily named B.J. Fondel) who invariably bungles her investigations and winds up in sex scenes with the people she's supposed to be investigating. "Out of the fog and into the smog" begins the overwrought voiceover, which truth be told doesn't compare to the likes of Chandler but I guess the effort is nice. The first case involves her investigating the wife of a minister whom her client suspects of infidelity. Surprise, surprise, it turns out the wife has a girlfriend with whom she has dominant sex. Thanks to Robbins' investigative prowess, she gets found out and forced to join the proceedings and ends up getting her client, a Dan Quayle looking motherfucker in a cowboy hat, captured as well, which leads to an incredible burn.

"The lord will punish you for this."

"The lord already has, he gave me you for a husband."

Also, when Robbins is forced into cunnilingus, she says over narration, "Oh Christ, I'm not even sure I've seen one of these things up close", and yeah, okay, Janey.

The second scene is probably the most notable as it features Christy as a performer. Robbins visits her friend to investigate a death threat against her friend's brother (also Robbins' ex), and the twist can be deduced when you start wondering why a seemingly minor character gets an unusually large amount of screentime. The scene features a trope that likely isn't terribly sensitive by modern standards, but I get the sense from that Advocate interview that Christy isn't too hung up about such things and one must concede that the film is a product of its time and genre (and within that context, there's a lot worse out there). The last scene has Robbins spying on her neighbour in hotel to get some industry secrets, which leads to some really awkward dialogue about champagne and then a threesome involving her client and mark. Like the work of Yasojiru Ozu, this scene breaks the 180-rule, but I guess if this is your thing, you might enjoy it. At the very end, the mark just gives up his secrets to the client. The secrets of male bonding sometimes elude me.

Easily the most accomplished and enjoyable film from Christy that I watched was Squalor Motel. It combines the sexual variety of the other films with a sense of camp and grounds it in a distinct, memorable location. There isn't much more "plot" than the other movies, as it's basically about a motel concierge doing her job over the course of a day, but as it follows her bumping into a variety of (usually horny) guests and finding herself in amusing (and unfailingly sexual) situations, there's enough of a narrative through line that it feels like a "real" movie where the other movies strained for similar effect, and the movie uses a soundtrack of icy synths and jazz that sounds like imitation Angelo Badalamenti to give it all an alluring vibe. I'm gonna make a wager that David Lynch would have liked this movie. Look, I have no idea what his viewing habits are or what sends his motor running, and the thought of him jacking it furiously to this or any movie is not something that brings me pleasure. But this shares some of the campy tone and surface qualities of his works, and I also wanted to leave you all with that image.

Why does the motel have its own house band (to whom people try to listen to while they engage in all kinds of sexual congress)? Why is Jamie Gillis made up like a vampire and trying to sell marital aids? Why does the one guest's blow-up doll turn into a real person (and prove, uh, extremely vocal during their scene)? Why is the owner wearing a pig mask and a tutu while he spies on his guests? Why is everyone laughing at the newlywed? Why is the one scientist with a Hitler mustache and his shrill-voiced assistant conducting experiments (read: having a threesome) with Tantala Ray? And how are most of these things taking place in the mysterious Reptile Room in the middle of the motel? With an extremely winning Colleen Brennan in the lead role (sporting a pair of thick glasses, a Lucille Ball updo, and a big, toothy smile), we'll have a pretty good time finding out. Like a lot of hardcore movies, this is pretty episodic in structure, but its distinct atmosphere gives it a nice sense of momentum as it drifts from scene to scene.

With its nice production design (and the fact that it seems to have actual sets, rather than being shot in what I assume are people's homes like in the other movies), Squalor Motel feels a bit more upscale and lavish than the average porno. While I don't have any budgetary information handy, I do know that the production had an assistant director, Ned Morehead. To what extent he contributed to the movie's DNA I can't say for certain, but the directorial effort of his I watched, also produced by Christy, had many of the same qualities. Desperate Women starts off feeling pretty stylish with its spraypaint style opening credits (although it loses a bit of style when it misspells star Taija Rae's name as "Taja Rea"). Taija Rae plays a reporter who ends up wrongfully convicted for a murder and thrown in brutal women's prison presided over by the sadistic Tantala Ray, who seems to get her jollies from spying on her prisoners as they get it on or abusing them with the help of her dimwitted guard. During such incidents, the guard frequently ends up ejaculating on her uniform as a source of comic relief. (One such scene ends with a shot of a photo of Ronald Reagan.) I must however disclose, without revealing too much about the shameful inner workings of my hopelessly degenerate mind, that the denouement of scene involving Ray, her guard and Sharon Mitchell did not leave me unmoved. Mitchell plays a prisoner who befriends Taija Rae, and it's worth noting that despite being one of the best actresses in classic porn, she's saddled here with an atrocious Hispanic accent and at one point sings a bit of "America" from West Side Story.

By porn standards, this is actually quite well produced and has a relatively sturdy narrative. (I must however note that one scene has a blatant ejaculation-related continuity error.) Women in prison movies tend to be pretty squalid affairs in general, at least in terms of production values, so this doesn't feel too far off from the real thing and offers more explicit versions of the same pleasures, while its sense of humour gives it a nice campy quality. Tantala Ray especially delivers in a pleasingly over the top performance as the teeth-gnashing villain (the camera often frames her severe face in wide angle close ups), and say what you will about Sharon Mitchell's accent, I did like seeing her pop up in here. With all the flamboyance and excitement around her, Taija Rae almost becomes a supporting character in her own movie, although I must confess that I found her character's hopeless naivety pretty cute. ("I didn't wear rubbers, it's sunny out".) With a fun cast, a firm handle on the genre's pleasures and a groovy soundtrack, this is a pretty good time.

[judgement-free-sideblog]

Never underestimate a black suit

Bill Hader x Reader

I'm not even going to pretend I regret this one. It all started in 2009 when I became obsessed with SNL, then he just kept popping up, here an there and the crush just grow, and since thanks to It chapter 2 he is finally getting the recognition he deserves I got this idea last night and I got to write it before it escapes my mind.

One shot: Imagine you are a PA in Barry and you have the biggest crush on Bill Hader but it seems like he hates you because he is dead serious all the time he is around you.

Warnings: Swearing, Age gap (I know he is just over forty but god I love him).

You were pacing on the set, the Steve Allen Theater, hoping for someone, anyone, to give you an order so you could pretend you were so good at your job as PA so they won't fired you. But the damage was done, all thanks to your verbal incontinence and now the most amazing job in the world was about to be over.

You had started working on Barry about a year ago, and you have loved every minute of it, the cast was so sweet and down to earth, and make your job so much easier, D'arcy Carden for example was always thankful with you for the simplest things like bringing her coffee and Sarah Golberg even had invited you to lunch after you helped her with a female problem one time. They were so talented and nice that you could not believe it when the production called you back for the third season to keep working there.

But then it was him, the titular character, the fucking genius whose hard work and imagination have created this magnificent show, Bill Hader. Yes you were 28 and he 42, but still you couldn't explain it, there was something about the way he spoke and the way he walked that made you weak on your knees every time, and his laugh, you were sure something had been fixed in your mind after the first time you heard him laugh.

And then it was that first week of shooting from last year, the retro outfit with the suspenders, you couldn't get your eyes off him and you almost made one of the sound guys trip with Henry Winkler. And then the table scene, you were in the back making sure the extras were in their right place and avoiding look at him because he was so perfect on that scene that you certainly will froze just by looking at him.

This little crush was obvious for absolutely everyone, except obviously for Bill, you were sure that Anthony Carrigan even deliberately asked you for anything when he was talking to Bill to see you all clumsy and awkward, not to be a dick, just to push you to talk to him, but you were certain he didn't liked you, with most of the other members of the cast and crew he was always laughing, but in the limited interactions you had he was serious, asked you for a coffee now and then or to make a phone call but just that, and you were beginning to think your absurd infatuation was making him uncomfortable, so you tone it down, made a composed face and limited to do your job.

But now you had blow it. That morning they were filming the behind the episode, for the new season, at some point Barry had one of those daydreams and he imagine himself married to Sally, so there he was all perfect in a black suit sitting in his chair next to Alec Berg talking about the challenges of the new season and how thankful they were to come back.

"So the cast is amazing, the first two episodes of the season are incredible and you have managed to keep the same novelty feeling on the series, why do you think that is?" The guy interviewing them asked.

"Well I think it's mainly thanks to the cast" Alec started "This guys are just amazing, this season we are actually giving Sally a bigger arc and that is very interesting"

"And the crew too" Bill said then "I mean they make us all look good, even when some scenes are a total disaster, the set designers, the wardrobe and all that" they made a pause and you were there to put water bottles in the table between them.

"Bill I have known that you used to be a PA, you think that gives you a better understanding on how hard it is for and aspiring actor as Barry, and does it translate on the writing?" He asked and against your better judgment you stay there to listen.

"Totally, but on a more personal level I try to no be diva with my PAs, recognize they do a hard work and know them all by name, that sort of things"

And then your verbal incontinence kick in, and there, just a few feet away, your mouth was quicker than your brain and still looking at him you spoke, not that loud to be heard by the three of them but enough for him to look straight at you.

"That's bullshit" you instinctively took your hands to your mouth and turn around before you could saw him react and went away pretending you were taking coffee orders. And here you were just waiting for the "we are gonna have to let you go" speech when one of the other PAs called you.

"Hey Y/N Hader says you have to go to his dressing room ASAP" Your friend Danny said and you felt like something heavy fall down inside your stomach.

"Can someone else go?" You answered trying to find an excuse "I have to walk Kirby's dog" you lied.

"No, he said you specifically, something about a mail he asked you to sent?" You gave him a thumbs up and start walking to his dressing room, already feeling you were fired.

"Did you need anything Mr. Hader" You tried to sound professional, and not dead ass scared.

"Oh sure, Y/N, please come in" Great! He did know your name, so apart from impertinent you were an asswhole. And he was still in that stupid black suit that made him look so gorgeous, not like the tshirts and hoodies didn't. "Do you by any chance printed those documents I asked you to send last week? I seem to have deleted them and Alec is going to freak out" He said as nice and kind as always and the weight in your stomach start lightening.

"Yeah sure, I ... well unless someone says is confidential I make copies of everything, an old habit" You said looking for a flash drive in your purse. Since all the crew sing a NDA at the beginning of the production there was nothing wrong with that, unless of course you put it on Twitter if you wanted to go to jail.

"This is not your first work on a set right?" He asked while you started looking for the documents in his laptop.

"Oh no sir. I worked in Dead to me two years ago, but since they are in a break I try my luck here last year, and HBO has better catering" You said concentrated in your work.

"Oh so you met Christina?" He asked genuinely interested, "how old were you then?"

"26, a bit late to start in this business I know, but well I like it more" You answered with a smile and then pointed to the laptop "There they are".

"Thanks so much, truly a life saver" He said and let go a sigh "And you are never too old or too young to start, as long as you enjoy it, and tolerate your bosses... bullshit was it?" He said raising an eyebrow accusatory. You immediately turn white and then red and multiple apologizes started bubbling in your mouth.

"I'm so sorry sir, I really am, I sometimes speak my mind and say all this stupid stuff, I'm sorry" You finally managed to say. He started laughing, you didn't let go the painful irony of the situation, it was the first time you made him laugh, and probably will be the last.

"I'm sorry" He said finally " I couldn't help it, relax. I'm not mad. It was quite funny what you said, I sound like such a duchebag I know everyone by name" He said making an acute voice and you start calming down "But if anything I'm sorry I made you, or any of the crew, feel like you don't matter. All of you are actually great" He said and smiled again to you. "Also lose the Mr Hader, that's bullshit, you can call me Bill".

"Oh no, I couldn't, I'm already so embarrassed by why I did" you started and he looked at you making exaggerated puppy eyes mouthing please, and it was lucky you were so nervous otherwise you would have exploded with laughter "Ok Bill"

"Ok then you are 28, and recently started as a PA, you want to be an actress?" He said, leaning back on his desk.

"Absolutely not, I wanted to be a writer, I was a writer actually in a newspaper, but it didn't feel right and then I realized I wanted to write stories, scripts, and one of my friends was an extra in Stranger things, then she said Netflix needs PAs and well there I went" You said, it was easy talk to him. "Also I don't have the looks for it and hate to se myself in pictures"

"I don't have the looks for it, and here I am" He said opening his arms "But honestly you keep writing and trying, if it's what you want, I mean I get here"

"Well yeah but have seen yourself in that suit?" Your mouth betrayed you again and you look at your feet to hide your face. "Amm I think I have a dog to walk, bye" You said before he could said anything and run away.

The next weeks were difficult, you avoid being alone with Bill but you kept doing your job as good as always, and every once in a while you will notice him looking at you, thinking on how pathetic you must look to him. Until the last day of shooting, they wrapped up the season and it was amazing. The only thing left was to go for a drink at Henry's place and start looking for a new job, thankfully you had finally written a promising draft and your hopes were high.

Maybe that's why you actually choose to drink at the party, and dance with your friends and some members of the cast, and you were a little more talkative than usual, until Anthony who was talking to you about something you were not actually listening leave you alone next to bill.

"So what's next??" He asked in the middle of the loud music, and you didn't quite got it because he signaled the garden and you followed him. "Finally I couldn't hear my thoughts" He said once you were outside.

"It's really loud, but you all deserve it" You said and suddenly realized you were alone. "What where you asking?" You tried to sound casual.

"Oh if you could get me a coffee" he joked and then quickly add "No I was wondering what's next for you after this is over?"

"I actually waiting good news from Amazon, maybe with any luck I'll get a chance with one of my scripts" You said proudly.

"That's amazing" He said with bright happy eyes "I'm so glad for you, so we won't be seeing you in season four?"

"With any luck no" You answered "You'll have to find another impertinent PA to call out your bullshit" You add laughing.

"Oh I'm pretty sure we will find someone, or I can always call you and ask you to do it for free" He said and you could notice how close he was "You know as a concerned friend"

"Sure, I can do that, my contract finalized yesterday day so I guess starting today I'm just your rude friend that says come on man don't be a duchebag" You said letting go a small laugh but he was looking at you completely serious.

"In that case..." He started and took your face between his hands, he was so tall and you felt so tiny next to him but also it was so nice and comfortable being so close, he lean in to kiss you and stop just close enough to your mouth so you will feel his breath, as if he asked for your permission to continue, and instead of saying something that could ruin the moment you close the distance and kiss him.

His lips felt soft and tender over your lips, and he slowly started deepening the kiss pressing you against him from your waist, and you hold on to the front of his jacket trying to keep him closer to you, hoping for this moment to never end, until the absurd necessity of oxygen force you to split.

"I ... I didn't think it would be appropriate to do that when we were working together" He started, smiling like a child. "I'm sorry if I made you feel like I was avoiding you, Anthony messing up with me by having you around all the time didn't help either"

"Don't worry it's okay, and yeah it would have been super inappropriate but thank god I no longer have a job" you said still trying to make sense of the situation.

"Would you... I mean I love Henry but there's only alcohol in here, do you want to go grab some dinner?" He said pointing the exit.

"I would love that" you answered, overwhelmed by joy and you followed him to the door, happy with all the possibilities the future hold.

[reyeslonestar]

For me it was Todd, from Bojack Horseman. He actually helped me come out to my brother, who is the only person in my family to know that I'm ace. We're both fans of the show, and when I told him I wasn't really interested in relationships he said "Oh, so are you maybe ace, like Todd?" It was so nice to finally come out and not have to explain what asexuality is! It also made Todd's character really special to me.

I have not watched Sex Education. I heard it's really good and it has an ace character (I think I've seen clips of that) but I think the fact that it's called Sex Education has always kind of put me off watching it, for some reason. I'm not really sex repulsed I think, probably more indifferent, but for some reason I can't get myself to start watching it.

The ace Judd headcanon is really interesting, I hadn't heard that before (but then again I've only been in the fandom for a couple of weeks). I remember that one scene with Grace and Judd from season one where they hadn't been intimate since the accident with the old 126, and Grace said something like I have needs too, whether you like it or not. I know that's not the exact quote, but it was something in that direction. It made me really uncomfortable, and it's one of the few scenes that I really didn't like watching.

As for more positive rep, lately I've been really getting into queer literature and I recently read Loveless by Alice Oseman. It's about a girl and her asexual and aromantic awakening. The author is aro-ace as well. To me, it was very relatable and the main character had a lot of the same thoughts and feelings that I had when I first realised I'm ace - and later aro too - and that I sometimes still struggle with. I read the entire book in a day, and I'm definitely going to recommend it to all my friends if they want to understand my experience with asexuality and aromanticism better.

Unfortunately that's pretty much all the positive ace representation I know of. I know that there are some characters where it's implied that they're ace, but it's so hard to find good ace representation where it's really made clear that the character is ace. I've read interviews from shows and films where the director or showrunner is like "oh yeah in my mind this character is ace" or "i interpreted this character as ace" and that's really nice but at some point it just isn't good enough anymore. One of the hardest parts of being aro and ace to me is that I always have to explain to people what it means, and that's never going to get easier is there isn't any good, positive representation.

Sorry for the long ask! 😅

oh wow! this is so interesting - don’t apologise at all, thank you for sharing all this. im so glad Todd gave you a comfortable path to coming out to your brother - as you said - “One of the hardest parts of being aro and ace to me is that I always have to explain to people what it means," - and when there are good examples in media that people become familiar with, that becomes so much easier. and yeah - its so frustrating when it’s ‘confirmed’ outside of the actual media, because realistically, the only people who will notice that are the ace and aro people who want to see that rep, not everyone else who we need to see it to help normalise it.

I can totally understand the cautiousness with Sex Education - I guess I fall more into the sex indifferent side of asexuality so it wasnt too much of a big deal for me, and also ive become rather accustomed to mentally tuning out sexy stuff on tv and in films sjfdlkjf.

as for ace judd - my personal headcanon for him is that he’s a sex positive/indifferent asexual. obviously this is just headcanon/fan thoughts, but for me it makes me happy to think that he would be ace. I kinda agree with you on the scene that you mentioned with the discomfort, personally I can’t really understand the concept of ‘needing’ sex in that way - but then again thats because im ace and not allosexual - different sexualities, different perspectives. I think that I can work my theories around those scenes and have it make sense to me, but I totally get it if people disagree!

I will have to look into Loveless - I confess that I don’t know so much about Aromanticism beyond the basics so I will see where I can get hold of it. (I consider myself biromantic/panromantic - I honestly don’t know how to label myself romantically which is why I often default to queer).  it’s so cool that its written by an aro/ace author too!

and btw, welcome to the fandom! its been a really positive place for me so I hope it will also be for you. it feels to me like there are a lot of ace people about too, which I find really reassuring and comforting. thank you for sharing this, and know that you’re always welcome to pop by with any thoughts!