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sparkles-rule-4eva · 23 days

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Alrighty! @number-one-shadisper-shipper and I binged the Knuckles series today, so time for thoughts! SPOILER ALERT.

I'll admit the show wasn't perfect. I've seen the negative reviews, and I kinda get where they come from. BUT! I did enjoy this show greatly! And I'm not here to complain. Time for some happy thoughts, y'all! 💙🤩

I think you need to have a love, not just tolerance, for the SCU in order to properly enjoy this show. I do have such, so I had a lot of fun with it.

There were definitely scenes from every episode that had me either squealing, laughing, crying, or flipping out. But my favorite was likely the first episode, because come on, we saw the Wachowski family! Most of them, anyway! While I missed Tom's presence, I was grateful for that comment from Maddie about him being "out of town," so he wasn't just gone for no reason.

The SECOND it showed our three space babies hanging out together in their room?! I SCREAMED. THE BOYS!!!!

Tails sitting on his bed tinkering with one of his gizmos, Sonic rocking out to music with an air guitar, and Knuckles exercising from one of the ceiling planks. IT'S THEM!!! They're just hanging out, doing their thing, looking oh so much like brothers. And Sonic's narration at the beginning was GOLD. 🤣💙

Even though we didn't get enough of Maddie being a parent, we definitely got a nice chunk for it only lasting part of an episode. Maddie called Knuckles "one of our kids" (that had me SCREECHING). The angry mama vibes were GOLDEN. 🤣 The way she made breakfast for them, the "Boys, breakfast is ready!" I love the normalcy of it! Can't wait to see more in the future! (Her calling to them with "boys" is somehow just the sweetest thing and I'm melting.)

The poor mailman being like "I just wanna go home, man" 🤣

We were right, fellas, Knuckles had no idea what being grounded meant. 🤣 Although the way Sonic piped up with "Oh, I definitely know what it means," has me suspecting that Sonic himself has gotten grounded a decent amount before. 😂

Knuckles trying to talk back, and Maddie going, "ExCUSE ME?!" then just making those tiny, terrifying noises and Sonic being like "Bro don't mess with Mom when she's mad" (okay, he didn't say "mom" and that made me sad, but the mom vibes were 110% there so I'm here for it). 😂 And since Knuckles snuck out and later Wade said, several times, "Aren't you grounded?" seems to confirm that this entire show is basically what Knuckles does when he's grounded. 🤣 Although ... his comment about not being able to be grounded because he had no home made me very sad. 😭

I did not have an issue with so much Wade screentime! Sure, he isn't my favorite SCU character, but I love what this show did with him! I'd already seen his moments in the movies (like nearly shooting Robotnik in the face with an actual handgun). I like how they gave him actual family issues; a dad who abandoned him and his family, a realistic sister, a mom. Bad family memories. Awkward reunions. They could've made it a joke, but they didn't, and I greatly appreciate that. Especially since I've witnessed firsthand how painful family separations can be. 😔

All the emotional talks Wade and Knuckles had caught me off guard in the best way! The way they talked about their different family issues, the way they talked of betrayal from friends, and being left alone, hit way harder than I was prepared for. Especially that talk they had at the burger place in the middle of the night? Oof. Good talk right there.

Also, even though they took a "show don't tell" take with it, I loved how Knuckles relaxed more and more throughout the show. In the beginning, he couldn't rest, he couldn't sit back and have a genuine good time. But the more he hung out with Wade and his family, the more he learned. He learned about music and found "his jam" (that was literally amazing btw). He watched movies with Mrs. Whipple and ate snacks in the hotel room in Reno and watched more movies. He had his teenager moments of rolling his eyes and rebelling, but he was so well portrayed here, I loved it. I felt for him.

Despite the bizarre nature of the episode "Flames of Disaster," (we were cracking up so hard) I'm trying to glean bits of the truth of Knuckles's story from the crazy musical play that Pachacamac put on in Wade's dream. I mean, "Longclaw" and her tribe were there, and ... what the heck was that giant demon thing?! Iblis?! Does our Knuckles Wachowski have an actual history with freaking Iblis?!?! 😱🔥

I was deeply intrigued by the two main antagonists, especially at the implication that G.U.N. did seem to exist before the events of the first movie?! Did it exist, get disbanded after the Maria incident, then get reformed?! My brain is exploding. 🤯 I was even more shocked that they apparently died? I guess I shouldn't be surprised, the Wachowski kids don't seem to have much qualms about getting rid of the baddies for good as the game versions do. That was a terrifying phenomenon, what happened with the two rings. 🫣

And then the Buyer getting crushed by the giant glass ball 👀

Although in those last two episodes, I admit I was freaking out and legitimately near tears at Wade's seemingly having to "betray" Knuckles. Before the reveal that all was in good communication, all I could think was how relaxed Knuckles finally seemed, chilling in the hotel room, being excited about whatever Wade wanted to "show" him, questioning whether it was a song, him declaring that he was going to bring his favorite hat, 🥹 all I could think was of their previous discussions about betrayal from friends and family, and when Knuckles called Wade "my friend" right before the elevator doors closed, I just about sobbed. I was like "please, don't let him be betrayed, don't let him have come all this way and relaxed so much only to get 'betrayed' once again by someone he's come to consider a friend." 😭 We heaved a HUGE sigh of relief when it revealed he was aware of the trap the whole time. 😪

Maternal instincts went nuts when he got so badly hurt in that final battle 😭 I literally reached for the screen several times and was right back to almost weeping 🥲 And someone tell me I wasn't the only one noticing the parallel in that scene with Wade standing in front of his unconscious body the way Tom did with Sonic in the first movie. That, PLUS Knuckles's epic comeback, and his retrieval of his own power?!?! EPIC!!!!

The ending was abrupt, sure, but the pure joy on Knuckles's face after everything as he jumped up to high five Wade was just too sweet. 🥹

So yes, even though I would have loved just a little more, a return to Green Hills, a reunion with Maddie, Sonic, and Tails, I adored this show. It was a wild ride, full of laughs, tears, excited screeching, etc. 💙💛❤️ I don't care what anyone says, nothing will make me hate it.

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sometipsygnostalgic · 1 year

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“Love Day”, a catradora fanfic

I was apprehensive about posting this, because it is a personal gift for @phosphoricbomb!

But here is Love Day which is a fic that I wrote in her dms from the very random brain thoughts in my head on February 14th.

It’s the first fic I’ve posted in many months and my silliest yet. Enjoy!

Adora was drinking a coca cola, her favourite drink, in the Bright Moon kitchen area. She was banned from the kitchen area, after her first and final attempts at cooking dinner for everyone. But nobody was around right now, so she could drink as much coke as she needed and feel only mildly guilty about it!

Suddenly, with a loud SPARK, a wild Glimmer appeared.

"ADORA!!"

Adora yelped and dropped her coca cola glass on the floor, spraying both her and Glimmer, who would've probably been pissed off if she wasn't already so stressed.

Glimmer grabbed her arms. "Adora... I NEED your help!!! I haven't figured out what I'm going to do for Bow on Love Day!!"

"Love Day?" said Adora. "What the hell is Love Day?"

Glimmer narrowed her eyes at Adora. "The annual Etherian holiday where you show the person most special to you that you appreciate them, through exchange of cards and gifts?"

"Aaaa???" Adora was suddenly panicking too. "Oh no, what? Is that today?"

"YES!!"

"But I haven't got anything for Catra! She's going to think I'm a terrible girlfriend and leave me forever!"

Glimmer shook Adora. "You can't be having a crisis about not getting anything, I'm having a crisis about not getting anything! Just get her... like... a squeaky toy, or your old hoodie! I need ideas for Bow!!!"

"Um. Get him, uhh.." Adora scratched her chin. "Get him a guitar pick or something."

"Musical instruments? Eh, maybe. Okay well you're shit out of luck, BYE ADORA!!!"

"WAIT NO GLIMMER YOU HAVE TO HELP ME TOO---"

And Glimmer teleported out of the room, leaving Adora alone, to figure out what to do for Catra!!! Adora rushed through her own things to see if there was anything she could give to Catra. Ahah - A SWORD!! Wait no. Was Catra interested in swords? Or was that just something Adora was interested in. But having a sword is the COOLEST thing ever. Or was it only cool to Adora? Would Catra think Adora got a gift for herself? Well it was literally one of her own swords, so was it just a handaway? AaaaaaH!!! Why is this so hard!!!

Adora also looked through her old hoodies. Sure, Catra nuzzled up against them every time she got the opportunity. But was it really fair to give it as a Love Day gift? How all out were you supposed to go for this? In the Horde, sure, being given someone's old clothes was a dream come true!!! Catra wore Adora's old uniforms ALL the time. But these hoodies were ALREADY covered in Catra's fur, and Adora suspected that Catra preferred to steal her hoodies rather than actually own them.

Adora made her way back to the kitchen area, wondering if Catra would instead want to make food, when she bumped into Frosta and Sea Hawk! Adora processed the scene in front of her. Sea Hawk was throwing coal into the oven, like he was trying to power a steam engine.

"More... MORE!!!" Frosta yelled. The oven was burning up a storm, the fire inside probably heating up way past its normal limits.

On top of it, Adora could see several chunks of large metal. They were being heated up by the gas burner.

"Uhhh.... what... is happening here?" she asked. "Are you, are you supposed to use it like that?"

Frosta laughed maniacally. "We are making GUNS!!!!"

"That's right", Sea Hawk replied cheerfully. "Frosta is helping me make a sniper rifle for sweet Mermista! She always wanted to be a secret assassin, and what better gift than to make her dreams come true!!"

"So is that why you're filling the oven with coal?" Adora asked.

"It's so that the fire on the stove burns HOT ENOUGH to MELT the METAL," said Sea Hawk, "so we can make the gun!"

"You do realise that the temperature of the bottom part doesn't... power the stove, right?"

"Hmm? That's nonsense", said Sea Hawk. "This is CLEARLY where the fuel goes--- Oh dear---"

The oven was starting to MELT from the inside, droplets of metal and paint pouring onto the floor, while the metal chunks at the top had barely heated up at all!

"YESSSSS" cried Frosta. "MORE FIRE!!!"

Adora, not wanting to get Super Banned from the kitchen, ran away before the fire alarm went off. There was no way any advice from Sea Hawk was going to help her make a gift from Catra, especially if they weren't actually able to make any guns for her.

Adora, starting to feel hopeless, wandered into the basement area. How was she going to explain things to Catra? "Sorry Catra, I found out Love Day existed like 5 minutes ago so I got you nothing, here's a hug!"?? She couldn't even make Catra some certified Fake Ration Biscuits now! She was CERTAIN that Catra was going to open another portal as soon as she realised Adora hadn't even thought to gift her anything.

She stepped on something--- and it YELPED, and scratched her leg! Actually no, it didn't scratch her leg, it deliberately drew a taser and gave her a quick zippity zap.

"Ouch!!"

She realised that what she had stepped on was a small robot kitten, which wandered away into the newly built Bright Moon Lab of Robots and Awesome Science, aka, BRIMOLRAS, which was a stupid name, but she wasn't going to argue with Entrapta.

Adora entered the lab, and saw Scorpia talking to Entrapta animatedly, while she focused intensely on something.

".....so she told me that I looked really pretty in the earrings, and I said 'Thanks, they belonged to my aunt!', and she said 'I hope I can meet your aunt one day', and I said 'That's too bad, because she was murdered by the Horde 30 years ago!!', and I don't know why but that really killed the mood, but anyway, that's why I wanted to give her some earrings too. They're awesome right?"

Scorpia held up the earrings, which were warped copper rings that had incredibly ameteur attempts at what appeared to be wooden scorpions attached to them. One of the scorpions appeared to have a blob on its head and was smiling happily in the way you'd see in a small child's drawing. The other had a spiky head, and was a bit larger, but unfortunately its tail appeared to have snapped off.

Entrapta raised an eyebrow, before smiling. "I think Perfuma will wear them every day :D"

Hmm. Maybe Entrapta and Scorpia could help Adora sort something out for Catra?

The robot cat meowed loudly, and the pair looked up at Adora. "Hey," Adora started, "could I have help with--" The cat meowed loudly again. "Making a gift---" MEOW!!!

"SHUSH, CHEESOID" said Entrapta. "Sorry Adora, she gets like this when she doesnt have Electrical Robo Snacks. Scorpia could you feed some to her?"

"Oh - Got it!!!" Scorpia replied, upright and happily grabbing a thing. It dispensed glowing smaller thingies which the robot cat preyed upon like it was starving to death. Scorpia cooed over it and patted its head, and the cat hissed at her. This didn't stop her gooey eyes at "Cheesoid".

Adora coughed. "Anyway---"

"Are you here because you need help making a gift for Catra for Love Day because you didn't know it existed until just now?" said Entrapta, hair hand pointing up and a smirk on her face.

Adora was stunned but only for a moment because she was used to this bullshit from Entrapta. "Okay, yes."

"That's okay," said Entrapta. "At least four other people have approached me today with the same issue! Thirteen minutes ago, I was helping Glimmer repaint her gift for Bow. Then she warned me not to help Sea Hawk make any guns! I haven't spoken to Sea Hawk yet but I'm 50/50 on whether I will help him make guns."

"I don't know what I can give her :(" said Adora. "I've known Catra for so long, but... we only got together, a couple of months ago." She sat down on a nearby table, shoving aside a couple of grenades to make room. "I want to make Catra feel important, like she is special to me. How can I do that if I won't even do anything on LOVE day of all things? And, maybe she'll be okay with it, but.... I won't be. I'm not fine with knowing I let her down." Adora sighed, and stared at the floor.

...A tendril of hair patted her on the head gently. "There there!"

Then Adora dared to look up, teary eyed, and saw Scorpia staring straight into her soul with the most sappy, almost tearful expression! "Ahh!!" Adora yelped. "Eye contact!!!"

She fell backwards off the chair, knocking over the grenades. Fortunately Entrapta caught them all, and had room to also catch Adora, pushing her back onto the table, where Scorpia gripped her arms determinedly.

"You care so much about Catra!!" Scorpia yelled. "I'm so... You're so sweet!!" She started bawling and hugged Adora very hard. "I'm so... I'm sorry, I just have so many feelings right now! I used to feel the same way, but you know her so much better than I do. You're made for each other Q_Q" Scorpia continued crying, and Adora tried to resume breathing. Entrapta stopped what she was doing for a moment, rotating her chair and looking at them both.

"Maybe you can't think of anything to give Catra, because neither of you know what she likes yet?" she said. "I know that Scorpia and Hordak thought they hated kim chi stew, but the first time they tried it, they asked for it every night. Even with me cooking!"

Adora huffed, insofar as it was possible while being hug crushed. "We just... we've barely been able to do anything, I don't even know who I am anymore... I guess I'm still learning who Catra has become, what she likes."

"It's going to take a while", said Entrapta. "Fortunately, I ALREADY KNOW what Catra likes!!!"

Entrapta spinned on her chair and took out a couple of charts. Entrapta was able to maintain so many charts and make so many things in a short time that Adora was wondering if she was living in a parallel plane where time was slowed down.

"See, it says right here.... Catra likes the colours black and red, dangerous new weapons, and cuddling Adora. Underlined in three black lines. She REALLY LIKES cuddling Adora."

Adora blushed. "Wait does this mean a hug is a viable gift then?"

"After doing much research, I've concluded Love day is less about materials... and more about spending time with the people you care about!!! But a hug tends to be a free offering." Entrapta was rotating slowly on the chair and Adora tried to turn with her so she could see the chart, and was getting dizzy. "Catra likes some material things, and some immaterial things. She loves Melog, who as a cat companion, is both cuddly AND a friend. But maybe she would like something that represents Adora directly, when Adora is not there? Or at least something to remind her of you." This talk was starting to break Adora's brain. Cuddly, a friend, and would remind her of Adora..? She watched the robot cat purring on the floor, Entrapta patting it on the head once again. Its grumpy deeanour reminded her of Catra and Melog. The difference is, the cat wasn't very fluffy, and wasn't that down for cuddles--

"AHAH!!!" A flash of inspiration went through Adora. "I got it!!!" She pried her way out of Scorpia's arms using She ra strength. Scorpia sniffed and wiped her nose. "Alright Entrapta", Adora continued, "Can I borrow... uhh.... some material, some sewing needles, and any amount of fluff you might have?"

"Oh the sewing needles are over there next to the chainsaw", said Entrapta. "But I'm all out of fluff and material, you can steal it from Glimmer's secret pillow armory."

"Great, THANKS." Adora ran out of the room, and then back in again. "By the way is that thing you're working on for Hordak?"

Entrapta looked up from where she had started welding again. "For Hordak? Oh, no. This is my own power suit. I haven't got anything for---" She snapped the mask up. "WAIT!!! I forgot to finish Hordak's gift!!! I only have two hours!" She grabbed Scorpia. "Please help. If I don't get Hordak a gift for Love Day, he'll be so sad---" Adora couldn't stay and hear Entrapta resolve her crisis, for she had work to do. She found Glimmer's secret Pillow Armory, which everyone stole pillows from regularly because they were the softest fluffiest pillows, and got to work!!!

Two hours later, everyone came together at dinner... which was a takeaway for Sea Hawk reasons... and began sharing their Love Day gifts.

Micah went first. He placed a bouquet of flowers in the middle of the table, Angella's favourite. Castaspella and Glimmer hugged him.

It was silent for a while. Then Netossa launched something at Spinerella with her net!!! Spinerella looked up and narrowed her eyes. "A code for Sea of Thieves? Really?" "Hell yes, said Netossa. "We haven't played together since your Xbox Gold expired. Season 7 is SOOO much better Spinny, we're going to sink so many people!"

Bow coughed nervously, bringing out his gift for Glimmer. "I got you... a new cloak?"

It had a sparkly under layer like Glimmer's current cloak, but it was much warmer, with a fuzzy white collar sewed onto it. It was magnificient, the colours of the galaxy. Glimmer looked so... happy, almost tearfully, and teleported to Bow, hugging him instantly. "Oh-- I got you something too!" she said bashfully. Then Glimmer pulled out.... a SHIELD!!! It was wrapped in a bow. And it had Bow's face printed on it with a wink, in his own art. That was probably the secret work Entrapta helped with but while Adora was autistic she still knew it was a bad idea to tell the world how last minute Glimmer's gift idea was. "It's your SUPER HERO shield", said Glimmer. So... you're safe, while you're protecting people 🥺 ” And then he kissed her on the top of the head, and she hugged him. Hey Tippen, I DO write Glimbow sometimes! The gift giving continued. Swift Wind got a pair of sunglasses for Castaspella, which fit her well somehow. Adora didn't think they were dating but it wouldn't entirely surprise her.

Inexplicably, Sea Hawk gave Mermista a gun. It was a sniper rifle as promised. Mermista blushed, and looked away, muttering something before gifting Sea Hawk a small box, which he stared at with such wonder as he opened it. He didn't share what it was it with the group.

Scorpia gifted Perfuma the little earrings. Perfuma looked SO happy, but she didn't put them on. Then she gave Scorpia a medium sized box, which Scorpia opened. "Wow..." she said, "This is so..." She took something out. "This is Scorpion Sensitive Soap... I thought it didn't exist anymore! And here are a pair of fuzzy gloves and one for my tail--" She took out the gloves and put them on immediately, even though it was really warm. Scorpia looked fuzzier than ever. "I.. You're the BEST, Perfuma!!" And then the pair cried very loudly and everyone smiled, and talked a bit more loudly as things continued. Hordak looked a bit downtrodden as Entrapta wasn't here yet, but she showed up suddenly, running around the corner. "I'M SORRY I'M LATE" she said, "I WAS STILL WORKING ON IT!!!" And then she dropped a fucking engine onto the table. Hordak's eyes went wide.

"This..." he said, "This is the engine from my designs to upgrade the starship..." "Yep!!" she grinned. "But.. we thought we couldn't stabilize the plutonium crystals necessary for the catalyst..." "All sorted!!!" He stared at her, in disbelief, then pulled something out of his pocket. Entrapta gasped. "Is that a data crystal?" "I heard it's Etherian tradition to give your partners a part of yourself. This necklace... is a response to the one that you gave me long ago." (A/N: It was less than a year ago.) Entrapta had an unreadable expression as she tried to plant the blue crystal in her chest, then remembered she didn't have a power suit on, and placed it around her neck. "Wanted..."

They hugged, it was nice. Tipsy Adora thought it was very cute that Entrapta and Hordak seemed to have found someone who understands them. Catra had been watching events unfold while seated next to Adora, and grabbed her hand, stroking softly. Adora was flustered, and nervous as hell, but now she realised it was time.

She turned around and faced Catra. And was stunned. She stared at Catra's beautiful face for about sixteen seconds before Catra stammered. "Uh. Hi Adora!" she said, tail flicking and a smirk on her face, amused and intimidated by Adora's behaviour.

Adora blinked. "H... Hi Catra."

Glimmer rolled her eyes. "Disaster lesbians." Spinny and netossa nodded in agreement. Entrapta was counting the seconds, verbally, that it took for Adora to continue. Scorpia was holding her breath, which couldn't be healthy. Bow was just gazing with his Bow face like he was going to start crying and hugging everyone again, which is happening a lot in this fic, but that's what you get when you're gay and sappy and writing a valentines day crack fic for your girlfriend.

"Mm-hmm!" Adora coughed. "So. Catra. I... I've known you for a very long time... and we've changed a lot over the course of that time... and I guess..." Adora sighed. "I guess, I'm starting to realise, I'm still learning about you. And now we've escaped the Horde, now we have ROOM to enjoy life... I have such a hard time figuring out what it is you like, or what even I like! Which is scary... but at the sametime.... kind of exciting. "

Catra's eyes were dilated and her tail had moved around her legs. Adora continued.

"I think, I know enough about you.... to say that for whatever reason, you like me. And I like you. So I thought maybe you'd appreciate it if you had something, that made you think of me."

She blushed and revealed, from behind.... a golden retriever toy! Or at least, that is what it was supposed to be. Some parts of its fur were less fluffy than others and its eyes were mismatched, but they were blue buttons, with black and white dots pained on them. It was so very cuddly and kind of fat. "I know it's not really useful like some other people's gifts... and you haven't asked for a cuddly toy... but I thought, you should know it's made with a lot of love."

Catra took the toy, and Adora waited for her reaction. She wondered if Catra was going to divorce her for such a shoddy gift, especially compared to Mermista's gun and Hordak's radioactive engine that he and Entrapta were now taking out of the room after much begging from Bow.

Catra laughed. She fucking laughed! But after a few seconds of wishing she was dead, Adora realised that Catra was crying. It was a happy laugh. Catra gave adora a hug, kissed her on the cheek, and talked in her ear. "You dummy. Of course you don't know what I want. I never tell you!!!"

Catra drew away, while Adora was enchanted. Catra was smiling peacefully, but then realised she was surrouned by people, and was blushing and looking away a lot like Mermista, as she took out Adora's gift. It was wrapped in several pieces of newspaper and tape.

"Here", she said. "Take it before I change my mind."

Adora unwrapped the gift... it was...... A cuddly cat. No, not just any cat - A Catra! It was a small cuddly Catra, on all fours with cartoonish proportions, like a very chibi Cat. Some parts of the fur were off colour - it seemed Glimmer's Pillow Armory had seen a lot of theft as of late - and it was slightly smaller than Adora's Adoretriever. But it was so funny. Adora giggled, she couldn't help herself, and Catra smiled.

"I thought the exact same thing", said Catra. "Now I'm with you forever whether you like it or not."

She picked Adora up, then realised Adora was too heavy to pick up, so Adora picked her up instead, and they kissed and hugged.

Why did Catra always have to be so cute?

The end!

And this is the fanart I drew to accompany it :)

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omies-odd-writing-spot · 3 days

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Lifeboat 03: To the Afternoon

[story on Ao3]

Getting a chance to just clean up was amazing. Lana felt much better, even if she had to retreat to the lifeboat while Sesa changed the water in the bigger of the two containers so the young woman could clean her clothes.

There was a bit of a pattern that was forming that Lana noticed as she sat in the improvised tub-pool thing again. The warm water was a comfortable difference to the cold salt water. Sesa was very focused for several hours at a time was what Lana noticed. Fishing actively as Lana kept herself busy. Every half an hour or so Sesa would seem like she remembered Lana and came to check in on her, ask a few questions while sitting on the bench before another pole would start to reel out as it hooked… whatever the things were.

It smelled like fresh cut cedar in the crate. The combination of the familiar earthy scent, being semi enclosed and just feeling far more steady on Sesa’s ship, then when in just the lifeboat on her own. It all helped to settle Lana’s stomach, and overall seasickness that she had been not only able to nibble on the offered food that morning but keep it down.

Lana looked up, reminded of the pictures inside of guitar or violin. Not just a box, as it was so big to her, and with two sun beams it oddly helped. The wood was not weathered and had a dark reddish tone to it. Each corner had support pillars like any crate Lana knew, with thick flat planks making up the walls and floor around her. Letting a bit more filtered light through the gaps.

She definitely did feel safer in this place than that glass water bottle. Lana was pretty sure it was a false sense of security, on some level, but her mind needed to rest from the fear and panic. Not just from Sesa fishing her and the lifeboat but the days of isolation while lost at sea. Lana pulled her legs up in the warm, clean water hugging them as there was only the faint smell of salt from the lifeboat and… the mystery boat.

Sighing, Lana got up and shook herself mostly dry. She was at least feeling clean now after a second bath in the sun warmed water. Her clothes looked about dry now, as they had been in the full sunbeam. A little damp for her leggings and shirt were okay being damp. Her only other set of clothes would be dry too.

Lana paused, hearing Sesa talking but realized it was at whatever she was catching. A bit more confident, Lana walked around the inside walls of the gigantic crate she was in. It was like walking around a massive house or medium-small store space. Just, mostly empty.

At the second pass around, Lana paused beside the other boat. Looking at the colorful patterns painting on the outside. It was about the same size as her lifeboat, only having a true flat bottom and like it had been a big chunk of firewood cut, then carved down into. Three, not so little benches had been wedged inside, very stable it seemed. Lana paused, noticing something that had her climbing inside.

The young woman touched what looked like off white paper, but it felt waxy. Lana found it was like a long poster, but folded up. That wax feeling instead of plastic. She peeked between the folds, frowned at the writing she saw. It almost looked familiar, like seeing where letters were in the wrong place.

It had Lana curious enough to work the wax paper out from under the benches. There were muffled sounds from outside, Sesa firmly distracted by whatever she just hooked. There was an added slot inside the very bottom of this boat. Once finding how the ‘paper’ sat, it slid out relatively easily. Just awkward for size. It was like unfolding a tarp or sign.

Was it a letter?

Lana tilted her head and touched one of the letters. It was like staring at something when drunk or too tipsy, where you sort of recognize it but not. Like the letters were backwards and mixed up.

Lana folded the wax paper back up, not quite able to get it fully back so let it rest in the bottom of the boat. Lana climbed back out, admiring the swirls of colors on the hull, what looked like flowers half her size pressed against the paint, and everything coated with a clear coat of something.

Lana walked back to the massive pile of fabric around her lifeboat. The not so small dish there of the offered food. The ‘bubble cheese’ smelled and tasted like Swiss cheese of all things. It took a bit of work with the use of the knife Lana had, but the cheese was cut down to something far more manageable. Lana nibbled on some, then used a bit of the cheese to scoop the honey substance on a chunk of sourdough bread. It was an odd attempt at a sandwich but filling.

Sesa was coming back and sitting on the bench, the giant woman gasping a bit and giving a low groan as her shadow passed over the crate. Muttering something about getting older as Lana could just see through the few gaps of the planks. “Damned glowtails… that hurt.”

Lana blinked and pulled her legs up, suddenly glad she was in the box-crate if whatever hurt the giant was out there.

“You doing okay in there Bitta?” Sesa asked, there was a pause before she corrected herself. “Lana, right, sorry.”

“I'm…okay…ish.” Lana said, looking up and finding Sesa was shifting to look inside through the open corner space. Thankfully not crowding close but just leaning forward to peer in at an angle without moving too much. Just castling a shadow that dimmed one of the main sunbeams.

“What's going to happen to me?” Lana asked softly.

Sesa must have better hearing then it seemed like, as she sighed. The giant lifted a hand, paused and then moved to rub it on her pants out of sight. She scratched at her head, Sesa's own hair was an interesting shade. More like oxidizing copper with green or blue tint to it.

Not panicking, Lana could see some details much better. Like how Sesa likely had the equivalent of longer hair then Lana's, needing to pull it up and twisted into a simple bun. The copper tinted, work tan was a tattle of how she worked outside.

The golden eyes that look at Lana were eerie though. Like they faintly glowed. It was almost like being watched by a predator, though in this case one that was just curious herself then any aggression. Or hungry.

Thankfully Sesa showed no signs of being hungry, considering the childhood stories of giants. At least not seeing Lana herself as a good source. Lana saw a few times through the gaps that Sesa ate the decapitated heads of the seamonsters the bigger women fished.

Most of the head?

Thinking about it, Sesa took the lower jaw, with more teeth, off the sea monsters and tossed them overboard before eating.

“I've been trying to figure that out too.” Sesa spoke up after a long quiet, Lana looked up to see the giant staring into the middle space. “I… the stories I heard about Bitta, humans, fairies, whatever it is… nothing ever gave clear instructions.”

Sesa looked over again at Lana, thinking. She then looked at her own hands, “Gods, you're so small, even the village would be like a wild land to you. Some idiot might try to… to…”

“Kill me?”

“...if you're lucky.”

“Lovely.” Lana could not help the sarcasm, sitting back against the fabric. Scarf? It was mostly soft at least.

Sesa gave her own dry chuckle back. “Yeah… Well, you can come home with me. I don't have any pets inside, nothing bigger than you. A few flightless birdies in a set area. I like growing small plants and they showed up in the garden a few winters ago.”

“Then what?” Lana asked, resting into the softness. Fiddling with the knots, the scarf was likely very fine knitting or crochet to Sesa. Time and care were put into making it.

“I'm not sure.” Sesa scratched at her neck, thinking. “Admittedly I don't like being around town. People are annoying and stupid most times. I could try and see if the old timers have any stories that would be useful.”

Lana thought about it, with no idea between them or seemed how she got… wherever ‘here’ was. Sesa seemed honest in her shock of Lana, to not know where she came from other than the lifeboat. “Can I trust you?”

Sesa shifted to peer inside the crate she put Lana. Frowning at first then her expression smoothed as if in understanding. “...I hope I could be trusted, you're a talking thing…thing…person? You're taking and aware, just… teeny. I guess some hermit-hunter like me doesn't seem that trustworthy. Not that I have much. Uhh, I don't know how to answer that, Lana. I like animals and plants more than people- but you likely will be nothing like the idiots in town. Being from a different place…”

Sesa gasped, paused, then facepalmed, leaning forward and partly out of sight from inside the crate.

Lana giggled now that the long ramble seemed over. Oddly that word vomit from the giant woman was more reassuring than any smooth words. She was side eyed as Sesa sat back up, but did not say anything more. Lana spoke up with her own sigh, “I like plants more than most people too. That's what I was studying, before…er. Shipwreck.”

Sesa smiled again, looking between her legs at the deck below. “Plants have less drama than people.”

“You would think but sometimes not, more so if something is like a princess fern or carrot seeds. Drama queens, the lot of them.”

The giant woman let out a bark of laughter. Loud enough that it startled Lana, but she could tell it was a genuine sound that blurted out. “Drama queen? HAH! That’s a good way to put it! I’ve never heard of that phrase! Drama queen, and kings. That fits a lot of idiots in town. I like most of the kids though, it's why I net out wish boats when I see them.”

“Wish boat… is that what that thing is?” Lana asked, pointing over at the colorful, flat bottom boat with her whole arm as she was looked at.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought your life raft was at first, then you made the squeaky sounds.” Sesa said, scratching at her scalp again, having an expression of someone making a note to get a shower herself.

“What are wishboats?” Lana asked, worried she might have messed something up by looking at the wax paper.

Sesa looked a bit awkward as she peered through the opening, smiling a bit, “It's… it’s supposed to be a little boat you, or kids, make for Bitta. Good luck fairies, what you are seen as. If a bitta likes it, the boat, you get some of that good luck and if you write a nice note to the bitta, sometimes you get a wish.”

The giant snorted and looked up at the folded sail of her boat, “Some are telling kids nowadays to write what your wish is in the letter. But you’re not supposed to. A wish is for something needed and not wanted. That’s what happens according to the old stories.”

“What does that letter say?” Lana asked, curious despite herself.

“I read it earlier.” Sesa said, those golden eyes looking back in. “The kid was talking about their home. And hoping the bitta that found the wishboat liked it and could fish peacefully off it. ‘Get as much food as they want,’ and something about finding a rainbow. A good note…”

“You sound like you know the, ah, kiddo.” Lana thought about what was mentioned. The way food was mentioned had Lana's attention.

“Know of them,” Sesa said, looking down again at her hand and taking a deeper breath. “I don't know the kids' names. It's a big sister and her little brother, their parents make fabric. The kids walk near my land, I found out they're the ones that leave me little mug-cup cakes sometimes.”

“You look like one of my friends that had an idea they aren't sure about.” Lana noted what she could from her angle. She was rewarded with a level look from golden eyes.

Yet Sesa did not seem upset at all, huffing slightly in amusement. “I suppose. I’ll think about it before getting back to shore.”

“You said, you'll be back on shore when it's dark, or something?” Lana asked, only half remembering what was said a few hours before.

“If I can fill all the other crates, we can go back early,” Sesa leaned forward, there was a loud dragging sound, then something like stabbing. The giant sat back up and held something up higher for Lana to see.

Headless, with what looked like thick fins and once forearms that had been there but were cut off. So the seamonster was more of a… fishy-eel being half prepped for dinner now instead of the likely former horrifying monster it once was. It was a blue-black color of hide with scattered, large purple shined scales that glittered.

“These will keep well in my cold room, and right now I have enough to eat for the next week and a half. If I get some more that I fill things, or start fileting out here to last the month that would be better.” Sesa lowered the half dressed glowtail. She chuckled, “Could trade what I don't eat with the rock crab trappers if I do.”

“You have been eating the things raw?” Lana blinked, then another thought popped up, “How does that not make you sick?”

“Well, it could make some people sick. If they're not used to eating raw.” Sesa considered the question and smiled at Lana, this time letting some of her sharp teeth to the side. “I might be a weird case for what's normal. Had to start eating the unpleasant parts of hunting raw when I was younger. At first it was….easier to eat that, save the fur and sell the rest. I'm just used to it.”

Lana watched as the giant woman lifted the sea monster again, it had to be as long as Sesa's arm. “Is that why you have that pretty metallic tone, highlight, to your skin?”

Sesa almost dropped the thing she had speared with the just as massive knife. Turning to look in the crate where Lana was sitting and could see the momentary flush before Sesa seemed lost in bafflement.

Lana flapped her hands a bit, flustered at herself for blurting that out, “I mean, well, that thingy…has metallic pigments in the scales and if you eat a lot…it shows up in you?”

Sesa smiled at the cute display. Looking at the catch she picked off a larger scale, turning it back and forth. “I… don't know much about that stuff. Maybe? I've only been fishing actively this year for the last month. Abouts, my boat is just small enough that being in the winter storms is a bad idea.”

“Your boat is as big as shipping boats!” Lana paused and then added, “Or most harbors, thinking about it.”

Sesa smiled, an honest expression of amusement at the thought of a Bitta colony’s harbor able to fit in her boat. She finally looked in the crate closer, “You want the water exchanges again?”

“It's okay, I'm…just really tired now.” Lana admitted, sighing to herself. “It's weird feeling something stable under my feet.”

“You can sleep if you want.” Sesa chuckled looking around outside the crate. Before carefully reaching to change out the freshwater, leaving the scale inside on accident. “The birdies haven't shown up yet. So if you want to catch a nap while it's quiet, and I fish, you can Lana. If you've been stuck at sea alone that long, a good nap might help you.”

“You…won't be weird or grappy or something like that?” Lana could not help but asking warrily. Thinking how it was half an illusion of safety in the crate as Sesa could just reach in whenever she wanted to. The young woman watched the giant's face seem to soften a bit.

“I can close the lid if you want me to? It'll make a lot of noise if I open it.” Sesa could understand the want Lana had at a bit more security before sleeping.

“I…would like that. Wait there's no like, giant spiders right?”

“Not on my boat,” Sesa shook her head as she turned to grasp the lid. Even with the bracing line overtop, she could shift the lid. Let it settle carefully instead of bang. “Or can get in, but if you speak up or yell, I can hear you.”

“Really?” Lana asked reflexively, taking in the now dimmer light. The brightness mostly kept out except for the small gaps in the walls.

Sesa chuckled from the outside, just slightly muffled. “Really. Take a nap while you can Lana. I'll be fishing.”

“Okay.” Lana said slowly, part of her not wanting to let her guard down. But with the feeling of being safe from the current scarier outside of her…crate.

The body's desperate need of proper, healing, resting sleep won out over everything. Lana sank back into the semi folded giant scarf to rest. She would just doze, and… and….

Lana's body betrayed her, she was fast asleep curled partly in the knitted fabric.

#omie's writing #gt #Lifeboat story #Lana and Sesa #They try lol #giant tiny #gentle giant

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yasmijn · 2 years

Text

On drawing lines

I am pretty good at reading between the lines. And it helped me to emit the right signal to the corresponding person. And yet at times, certain people might send puzzling messages that confuse me. But I make sure to steer clear from the unclear and go for people who are as straightforward and as sure as I am.

When I was in Delft, I had two pretty close guy friends. The first one is an Estonian guy who belonged to my orientation group. We were the only two people from the same program, there were no other Estonian in the class, and he was very friendly. He looked so much like a typical Russian guy with pale blonde hair and light blue eyes, with big muscly body like Gaston from Beauty and the Beast. We studied together several times, and we worked on some assignments in the same group. He was just super friendly. I made sure that I kept my distance, and I remembered a particular chunk of his WhatsApp messages where he said that he was so grateful to have me as a friend in the class.

And that’s one way on how you draw a line.

The second guy, I can say that he is the closest foreigner I have as a friend. A very, very close one. He knew some stories I never shared with anyone, and we talked about so many things. He showed me his drafts of personal essays (which were similarly written like a telenovela). Sent me videos of his playing the guitar (unfortunately he does not have the voice). Asked me out to ramen joints. He invited me over for multiple lunch, dinner, and even to his baptism (me with probably 6+ people from our class). In some of the occasions, I also met with his friends and cousins (and also his then girlfriend). I also kept my distance with him - I almost never send a message to him first. But I must admit that I was confused, many times. But I shrugged things off and normalize them in my head - after all he is an Italian-Venezuelan with starkly different culture and courtesies compared to my eastern background. I took everything at face value, telling myself that that is how he treats people. I invited him over to our Eid al Adha feast.

But in our chats, both on WhatsApp and in real life, he always refer to me as a ‘friend’. Pretty much like how an Australian would end their messages with ‘mate’. I enjoyed the friendship that we had in Delft. Partly because I enjoyed having him cook for me, and partly because I enjoyed being able to discuss about what we discussed. From our shared experience as a citizen from a third world country, to our thoughts on Kurzgesagt or Alain de Botton or Jiddu Krishnamurti or Doug Stanhope or Sam Morril or Jordan Peterson. So whenever he invited me over, or ask me out, I would cling to the word ‘friend’ and rolled with whatever he offered. He would still send me a message every once in a while. Last year he called me right after he broke up with his girlfriend (this guy go from one relationship to the next like no other).

And there was also another guy friend from the same class. He was a muslim Indian so I was even more careful with how we interact. Unlike my two other friends, for which our cultural and religious difference might be enough to keep the relationship normal, this other guy differs slightly. At first I didn’t even realize that he was a muslim (my being a pretty stereotyping girl, I thought all Indians are Hindus), but he would first ask about islamic community (I thought he was just curious). And he sent some messages to discuss about Ramadan. And there was this one time he asked me out on lunch. He started talking about being a muslim in India, about Kashmir (which was actually a very interesting topic), and other things. But I was uncomfortable and when we parted I told him that I had a boyfriend (fact), that I would be fine with talking over WhatsApp but in case he has plans on inviting me over for lunch, I would say no.

I knew that his interest for me was unconfirmed but I did not want to take any risk. I’d rather be viewed as someone who is ‘kegeeran’ rather than to led people on and giving them mixed signals. (What is a right translation for the term ‘kegeeran’, anyway?)

For other people, when I felt like their advances might lead somewhere out of the ‘friends’ zone, one of my many moves is to start telling them about the people I have a crush on. And send them updates on a regular basis. Tee-hee.

Well, anyway. Conclusion: Lines are helpful.

#personal

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captaineof7 · 9 days

Text

i’ve created my magnum opus:

a shitty colored pencil drawing of that one picture where John is singing ‘if i fell’ to Paul — but get this — they’re zombies.

lore under the cut

TW: murder, blood, zombies, drug use, alcohol use, weapons, graphic depictions of violence, gore, and the cheesiest lore you have ever read, this could be a fanfic

Paul realizes his love for John, but only after they have died. George and Ringo try to carry on with the band even after the tragic loss, but they eventually disperse and go their separate ways. Before they were killed, they had a fight. After a particular tense writing session, Paul yells at John about how he won’t let Paul help him finish his lyrics. The fight goes on for quite some time, and they end up in close quarters. John cracks and breaks the space between them with a kiss. Paul is confused and he doesn’t know what to do with this situation. He looks on in shock as John starts to explain, he loves him, he would do anything for them to be together. But Paul leaves the room baffled with a slam of the door. The next day Paul has scheduled a meeting with George to talk about the guitar lick for a new song. When George arrives at Paul’s house, he knocks on the door. Paul doesn’t answer. The door is unlocked and George walks in. He goes up the stairs and knocks on Paul’s bedroom door. Paul doesn’t answer. George enters the room anyways and is met with the sight of Paul in bed with tissues scattered across the floor. Paul tells George everything. George tells Ringo and they realize that the bond between John and Paul can’t be broken for the sake of the band. After all, they have a concert that coming Friday. Two days away. So Ringo goes to John and says, ‘we know about your feelings for Paul, but you can’t keep these emotions, for the sake of the band.’ And then, ‘I hate to bar you from your feelings but what would Paul think if this split up the band?’ So John represses his feelings. That Friday they perform, and when they leave out a side entrance, a group of screaming girls happens to be outside. The boys run for their lives but the girls catch up and in an event not unlike a horror film the girls corner John and Paul, while Ringo and George flee not knowing their friends are not with them. The girls begin to rip out Paul and John’s hair, still screaming but now joined with the cries of the two singers. Things escalate, the girls most likely had been intoxicated or under the influence because they start clawing at the boys. Blood seeps from several cuts on each of them. But the girls don’t stop there, they shred John and Paul’s skin, claiming chunks of their skin under their nails. But they aren’t yet satisfied. One girl pulls out a knife while another pulls out two vials. The one girl drags the knife across Paul’s and then John’s neck, while the other collects samples of their blood gushing from the wounds. The screams of the girls die out as they come to and realize what they have done. They flee the scene. George and Ringo eventually trace their steps back to the alleyway where they find John and Paul dead and maimed. In death Paul awakes to find that he is still in the alleyway, he sees his and John’s corpses and Ringo and George sprinting down the alleyway. He runs, and eventually ends up at his house. He doesn’t know what to do. John awakes several moments later and sees the same as Paul. He also runs from the scene but ends up at his old home from when he was a boy. Eventually both Paul and John reconcile with death. Years later Paul has an epiphany, his friendship for John was deeper than he ever knew. He cries with the knowledge that he and John could have led a secret life together. Still clouded with shame, Paul mopes about for the next few days. John on the other hand had almost come to terms with Paul never being able to love him when he hears a familiar tune making its way through Liverpool. He knows immediately that it’s Paul apologizing for not knowing sooner. The ground above their graves shakes as the two musicians break their way out of their resting place. Now as the living dead they have one mission. Destroy those who wanted to stop them from being together. They visit each and every one of their friends and slaughter them thoroughly. Now standing in the blood of their band mates, John and Paul sing ‘If I Fell’ and fully express their love for each other.

#mclennon #what have i done #this is soooo bad #sorry guys

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crocus-cryptid · 22 days

Text

We're on to V1:E2, as listed on roosterteeth's website. I know what the E stands for, but it took me a second to realize it's V for Volume. I watched V1:E1 immediately before this, so it's two plays of the theme song back to back. The theme fucks severely so I'm not complaining.

I realized the airships have fins and it looks a bit like they're swimming in the sky. That's really cool. Holy shit they switch to standing on all fours to land, I love that. A lot of RWBY's design elements function on the rule of cool, I think. Is it practical to have a gun scythe? Do physics really work that way in combat? Probably not, but it kicks major ass so it's fine.

I feel bad for Jaune, that's one hell of a case of motion sickness. Poor dude's vomited at least twice.

I noticed one of the shadow people doing a jaunty little walk on the way into beacon, that made me smile. Oh damn this episode is only six minutes. In later seasons I remember everything being a more consistent length, but I guess the series was still finding its footing here.

It's funny how Ruby animorphs into 2d chibi art. The flat colors and style of it harken back to the sort of thing I used to see being posted on deviantart by younger artists, which gives me a nice warm sense of nostalgia. I remember posting my wonky anime art online once upon a time.

I think it's cute that Ruby's a weapon nerd. That could be a great vehicle to explain more about how weapons work in Remnant. How a character explains world details can tell you just as much about that character as it does about the world.

I kind of love the poorly recorded stock sound effects. It's something that really roots this in that era of youtube animation.

Weiss assuming that Ruby doesn't know what dust is is likely to explain what it is to the audience, but she's also a brat who would figure that most people are beneath her based on this scene alone. Blake just standing there reading a book is interesting- was she reading and walking at the same time? I forgot that she was a bookworm.

You can really see the anime influence in how they animate the characters. Also in how they're designed, but how they move and emote feels very anime.

I wonder about that wiggly clothing effect. Is it supposed to be wind? I've seen it happening indoors. I'm guessing it's not an error since they've consistently kept it in. Is it for emphasis? It's probably wind.

Blake bringing up the unfair labor practices Weiss' family corporation employs comes back later, I know.

I like Jaune's shield, and I thought it was funny that Ruby pointed out how it weighs the same. Even the "uncool" weapons are neat. It's cool that Ruby forged her own weapon, too!

The outro fucks severely too! The chorus reminds me of music from the 70s in some ways, with the strings and the bells. I clicked off to look up the full song. The guitar solo is pretty good, feels kind of Steve Vai to me.

Oh huh, V1:E3 is another six minute chunk titled pt 2 to the last one. I'll just keep going in this post since it's basically one episode. This was uploaded after the ten minute limit on youtube videos based on how V1:E1 was one ~12 minute chunk, so I'm not sure what's up with that.

Jaune going "Where am I supposed to find another nice, quirky girl to talk to?" And there immediately being another character with real details behind him is honestly pretty funny foreshadowing. If they were animating this one piece at a time before uploading, it'd make a lot of sense if they read the comments about Jaune clearly being an actual character and decided to make a gag from it.

The dialogue can be pretty rough. It reminds me of like. What people think Marvel movies sound like. And I don't like marvel movies.

Ruby reads as autistic to me, maybe some other flavor of neurodivergent as well.

Ozpin's glasses remind me of Vash from Trigun's glasses. I wonder if that was intentional or not.

I love Jaune's footy pajamas. The background boys having real detail was probably just to sell the gag but it might be fun to see them again.

Ruby's pajamas remind me of the Dead Tired line of g1 monster high dolls, with the graphic tank top, patterned pajama pants and sleep mask. I doubt she has high heeled slippers, though. She and Frankie Stein would probably get along pretty well.

Ooh it's a different song this outro! My guess is it's to show off the totally awesome soundtrack. If I had music that awesome linked to my project I'd want to show it off too. I should listen to Jeff and Casey Lee William's discography after this.

#rwby #croxs rwby liveblog

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dzpenumbra · 1 year

Text

12/8/22

Today was tricky. I don't have good words for it honestly.

I woke up late, meaning I slept in and caught up on sleep. Not gonna beat myself up over that, not healthy. I called the vet, they wouldn't prescribe the sedative for my cat until after my first visit... and my first visit was supposed to be a blood draw... but they were actually super nice about it and worked with me. I should get a call from my old vet tomorrow about this, hopefully they can call in a prescription, otherwise I'll have to bring her in for a routine visit and then do the blood draw at a different date. Either way, I'll get it worked out.

It was just a bit emotionally difficult because Max actually puked this morning. Not sure why, I'm afraid it's because she was really hungry because I was late feeding her, because I slept in. But I'm not a doctor. I just told myself that reasoning to protect myself from thinking about her potentially being sick. She looks fine and healthy, just... cats don't normally vomit, not like dogs. So yeah. That was a difficult start to the day. I'll mention it on my appointment.

I got one of my dumb chores out of the way - putting a label in my mailbox so that they know who lives here now. It was really easy and I got it done quick, while strolling through the hallways in a wife-beater, barefoot, smelling like exotic essential oils, eating an apple, in fucking mid-December. Because I'm totally a normal human being like all of you, I promise.

After that, I learned how to tune my djembe. I have never taken the time to do that, and that poor thing is ancient and has like... been out in the rain and left in cars and shit, I'm shocked it's in as good condition as it is. I tightened the skin a bit and I think it sounds better, I just don't really feel comfortable playing it to test it, I'm still nervous about upsetting neighbors.

This was my lead-in to working on a musical arrangement. I was really inspired to do an acoustic cover of an After the Burial song. I love their rhythmic grooves and I think they'd translate over to acoustic hand-drums pretty well. At least I hope, only way to tell is to try. I put a few hours into arrangement, splitting the drums into djembe, taiko and etc cymbals (still haven't gotten that figured out fully). Then arranged it for 2 acoustic guitars in Open C# and a bass. So... if all goes according to plan... I should be able to cover this myself, even if I have to do electric drums.

I got a decent chunk done, then I had to do my therapy appointment. And it was regrettably the first bad therapy appointment I've had with this guy. Not to his fault, he's great and he meant well the entire time. He was overwhelmed, and was very upfront about it. We got onto a topic that was difficult for me (but that I had brought up several days ago after the giant fight with my parents): work and money. It triggered me. And I didn't express it out loud. I just rode the wave, I guess. Tried to navigate the emotional rapids. I started tearing up like halfway through, which is like... really embarrassing to be a grown man who starts crying because he's afraid he's just not competent or well-equipped enough for another form of work other than what he currently does. Like... I'm sorry, I have years of experience here. I have been rejected for every single application I've put in, and most of them because I'm too creative, too emotionally in-touch or too overqualified. Ambition Snowskates (a dream job), a writing job for a company where they review places that you can bring your pets, an animal shelter, the list goes on and on.

Really what gets me is like... I go to people in social services, right? The sector of social work that focuses on helping people get the resources they need to make their life functional. At least, that's my understanding. I've gone to therapists, I've gone to life coaches, I've gone to vocational rehabilitation. All with a very clear vision of what I want to do. It's a very broad range of things I want to do - music, art, poetry, video, animation, podcasts, crafts, whatever creatively inspires me - but it's very clear that I want to have an environment where I am free to strike when the inspiration iron is hot. All I need help with is figuring out how to translate this into money. Because I do not care. Money fucking bores me, it stresses me out, it gets in the way, it's a barrier, not a goal for me. Not only does money not motivate me, it actually immobilizes me. It makes me freak out, it emotionally overwhelms me, which obfuscates my creative focus and puts me in a state where I actually have to take time away from work to recover. It's really detrimental. And my life has really been fucked because of this cycle. I think about money, and I freak out and get emotionally overwhelmed, then I get in a stupid fight about how I'm not making enough money, then I have to take time to emotionally recover, then I open my eyes and a week and a half have gone by and I've done no work, I'm not streaming anymore, the dishes are stacked up chest-high in the kitchen and my beard is 2 feet long. That last part is an exaggeration but you get my point.

No one has been able to help with this. And it's so goddamn hard for me to articulate why this is even a problem, or how it is, or like... how profoundly crippling it's been. But like... the worst part... I feel like I'm just whining. And they wouldn't say it to my face, but I guarantee a lot of people I've talked to about this want to say "wow, don't be so dramatic, just go get a fucking job." Like I'm making excuses to get out of my civic duty of being a laborer for someone else's company. Well, here's my chance to vent, so buckle up. Why the fuck do I want to be a laborer for someone else's company if that same person would not, under any circumstances, support my business even as a customer? Why do I owe it to someone else who decided to open a restaurant or something, who happened to have a social support system that actually believed in them... just because I was not so lucky. Because I have been surrounded by self-absorbed narcissists who don't give half a shit about my health or success, only what they can get out of me. Who just want free shit, or to show off, or to share their music that they like, or to get affirmations or compliments or reassurance, or to just have someone actually listen to them.

See, once I start pulling this money/work thread, I just start unravelling, it's just stitched into every fucking problem in my life. So I started emotionally breaking down during the session. He tried to help, he really did. He referred me to local art resources, pulled up the website and everything and I thanked him like he was on the fucking RMS Carpathia. I like... I know it's not in his job description. So... I just encouraged him to like... help me develop strategies to combat social anxiety so I'd be a little more confident and okay meeting people in my field.

I feel like I have the portfolio of someone fresh out of college or something. I'm 36. I've been working in multimedia art for over 15 years. I feel myself rabbit-holing, I don't need to do this. This, right here, this thought chain... this is impostor syndrome. So, this is me course correcting. I have a lot of diverse artistic talents, and a lot of knowledge from many, many diverse disciplines. Geology, mythology, ancient history, spirituality, music theory, illustration, painting, sculpture, animation, the list goes on and on. Because I have so many diverse influences and such a broad net of creative knowledge, it can make each specific part look... underdeveloped. Like... if I spent the past 15 years just playing guitar. 4 hours a day, every day, for 15 years. I'd be a phenomenal guitarist. But I spread that time out into different things. So that's why I feel like I don't have as much to show for it as others. But I need to remind myself that my diversity and perspective is my strength. It's what makes me unique, as a multimedia artist. But all of this can be hard to like... let someone know within the first 5 minutes of meeting them, and a lot of people want the TL;DR - and there really isn't one.

I've talked about this before and I honestly don't want to relive it right now. The big take-away here is that... I was so caught up in the emotional fog of this... that I didn't let him know that I had uncovered this ghost from my past. That I had unearthed my long-buried diagnosis with ADHD. Which I'm sure anyone who even glances at my MASSIVE several page journal entries would probably go "yeah dude, no shit you have ADHD", but in my eyes, it's still hard to fully process. And again, I still feel like an impostor. I still feel like I'm "tricking myself" into thinking I have ADHD, and I'm sorta like... method acting it. So frustrating.

So... I'm going to send him a message after this to clarify and pass that insight along, which may help him come up with some tools catered to helping someone with unmanaged ADHD regulate. It's a lot of the same tools as anxiety, from my understanding. Meditation, grounding, emotional regulation, but maybe brainstorming more executive functioning stuff. I've been coming up with some crafty life hacks that have been working pretty well, but I'd love to hear a professional's take on it, assuming he's well versed at all. Oh, also, probably a good tell that I have ADHD is that we go overtime like every fucking session because I'm talking the entire goddamn time and feeding him with that energy, and I have like zero perception of time, and he lets me lead. Might have something to do with it! XD

So yeah, after the meeting... I was super upset. Like... really emotional. And I called my mom, and warned her upfront that I was very emotional and it would be helpful if she could help process. She was very kind and did, and we talked about work stuff and she was very encouraging. She was very excited to see the piece I made for my sister-in-law, and to see the write-up I did with it too, telling that individual piece's story, and the science behind how smoky quartz gets smoky colored. I brainstormed doing videos documenting the process of my pieces - in short and long form, short for YouTube, long for Patreon - from finding sticks and stones in the woods to the final product, with me narrating the process and talking about all of the historic, geological, whatever context that goes behind it. To really show how fucking important these pieces are to me, how special they are. And to show my fascination, my obsession, my passion about all of the amazing things behind this.

The story that resonated with my mom was one I told her about a TEDx talk I watched the other day about one of the oldest ceremonial gravesites found in the world, it was like 35,000 years old. And they found like 4,000 carved mammoth tusk beads in there with the dude. And someone actually went through the process of recreating these beads from authentic mammoth ivory just to see how long it would take a skilled individual to make them, and it took him an hour each using primitive tools. Think about that. These were people who like... we don't even know if they had spoken language yet. And they sunk at least 4,000 hours into carving beads that were going to be buried in the ground. Like... That's absolutely fascinating to me. And it speaks to me about the power of making something for the sake of it being... precious. Valued. Sacred. None of these words seem right, and Holy seems really pompous... Special? I don't know, I can't find the right word. There is something so viscerally powerful to me about picking up a stick, carving it with unique designs (even if they aren't referentially meaningful, that's a bonus, honestly), and then... it's no longer "stick". It's "your stick". It's something engrained into our DNA at a primal level. It's something we have been doing for millennia before we were even painting on the walls of caves! And I am blessed to have the freedom to explore this.

Now, take someone who has the passion you just heard, the commitment to learn thousands of different techniques, the resiliency to fuck up a piece that I've sunk hundreds of hours into and to get back up and try again... and put that guy in a car delivering DoorDash for half the day instead of working on this stuff. Tell me that makes sense. Give me a reason that justifies that. Like... I should be teaching college-level classes. And the reason I need to put my time into "a job" to "make money"? So that I can pay my bills. So that I don't die. Not to better my future. Not to utilize my trained skills. So that I don't get evicted, and so that I have food in my cupboard. Call me melodramatic, but this seems like an egregious failing of social structure.

So... I'm gonna keep working on my art. I'm gonna try to get over my shit and post pictures on Instagram. And, most importantly (I think), I'm going to shop around for a mentor. I need to find an artist like me, a multimedia artist. I'm cool being an assistant or whatever. I just need someone connected to show me the ropes and help me find my place. That's really it, I think. I'm nervous, but I think it's excited nerves. Who cares if I fuck up somehow and embarrass myself, at least I tried, and I can try again.

I need to give Max her meds and my hand is actually sore from furiously typing this with no breaks. I need to go.

#diary #journal #online journal #stream of consciousness #stream of thoughts

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adamwatchesmovies · 2 years

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Eye See You (2002)

While I didn't enjoy this film, that doesn't mean you won't. No matter what I say, the people involved in this project did it: they actually made a movie. That's something to be applauded. With that established...

Formulaic, contrived, dull and confusing, Eye See You (released as D-Tox outside North America) stinks of re-writes and re-shoots. Shelved for 3 years as it underwent endless changes to try and give it some kind of market value, I bet most people haven’t even heard of it despite a cast that includes Sylvester Stallone, Kris Kristofferson, Robert Patrick and Dina Meyer!

FBI agent Jake Malloy (Stallone) is pursuing a serial killer with a grudge against cops. When he stops them at great personal cost, Malloy falls into a deep depression and attempts suicide. Sent to a rehabilitation program designed for law enforcement officers by his best friend, Agent Chuck Hendricks (Charles S. Dutton), several bodies suddenly turn up. It appears the killer may have survived.

The first problem are the characters, which are so flat, unmemorable and so hurriedly introduced you cannot keep track of who’s who. I could’ve predicted the identity of the killer easy if I weren’t scrambling to figure out which staff members of the facility are still alive and which aren’t, or if that dead body was the bald dude with no lines, the depressed junior officer who just told us his tragic backstory in detail, or that guy played by Mif (is that right?). Even by eliminating the characters who are so obviously set up as antagonists they can’t possibly be villainous for real, there are so many people waiting to get butchered you can’t pinpoint how the ending will go. I don’t mean that in a good way.

Eye See You is one of THOSE serial killer films, the kind with a gimmicky murderer who is so intelligent and meticulous in his planning he must be a mind reader, or the luckiest person on Earth. For a large chunk of the film, director Jim Gillespie wants us to think the killer is dead when in fact, he’s followed Malloy to the rehab center to torment him some more. How did the killer know Malloy was going there? Was he always planning on eliminating one inmate after another, or is it just happy coincidence that a freak storm breaks out, cutting all communication to the outside world and trapping everyone indoors?

Even before then, things don’t add up. The killer’s gimmick is that he likes to drill through people’s eyes, usually when they’re looking through the peephole of their front door. He strikes with (apparently) the same weapon as the “Driller Killer” because it cuts through everything like it was butter and so quickly his victim can’t pull their faces away. How he knows, they’re looking through the peephole when he’s pressing his tool against it, I don’t know. So yes, he’s needlessly cruel. I mean following that up with calls telling Malloy “I see you” and leaving the same message under the corpses eyelids? It means he's killing people for the puns. Talk about inhumane. Then he follows it up by hanging his victims – apparently the man’s the fastest knot-tier in history.

During the last few minutes, Eye See You tumbles headlong down the stairwell of stupidity, transforming into an incoherent mess of an action scene whose conclusion is magnificent. I can’t believe I haven’t seen it done elsewhere. It’s the kind of braindead, ultra-macho kick in the pants you’d expect at the end of those violent and nudity-filled low-budget drunken action flicks as the electric guitar solo ends. I laughed loud and hard, which was certainly not the intended reaction.

You won’t see the ending of Eye See You coming, but only because it sets up the characters so badly and because you won't know just how dumb this film is until the conclusion. (On VHS, March 26, 2018)

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tempenensis · 3 years

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a (sort of) comprehensive analysis of the second opening

So, this opening from what I saw really got people think. There’s so much to unpack here.

Heavy spoiler warning. Also, very long post.

1. The cat and Gojo

Right on to the first, we see this cat with only one eye illuminated perching on the window. There’s an allusion to Gege - who always draws themself as cyclops cat. But then there’s a scene with Gojo with one of his eyes shaded white. The one opposite of the cat.

By now we knows that sometimes the opening of the anime can allude to the things happening in the manga. In addition to my previous post related to the lyrics of the song used, one of the possible explanation - if we consider the things already happens in the manga - that this might alluded to his sealing during the current arc. Another speculation is that he possibly actually loose one of them in the future to come.

More liberal and loose speculation; one of his eyes is ‘stolen’ and then put into someone other - possibly an adversary and we may see another “Gojo” emerge as an enemy. The current villain is very capable of doing that.

2. The Funeral

The black clothes, the incense, the rain, and the solemn faces. It all alludes to a funeral. But whose funeral? There are two possibility - first is after Shibuya incident because Nanami is the only one who doesn’t wear black and he also doesn’t wear his glasses. The second one is they are paying respect after the the incident during exchange event with Kyoto school, as several staffs of Tokyo Jujutsu High are killed by Mahito when he infiltrates the school to obtain the fingers.

There’s also Gojo here, walking alone without umbrella because he actually doesn’t need it with his technique - with same atmosphere as a funeral. The interesting thing is the bouquet he brings -- blue flowers and white flowers.

Someone in twitter points that the blue flowers could be Periwinkle (in flower language means “lifelong friendship”) or American Blue (means “the bond between two people”), while the white flower is possibly lily - a common flower for funeral. As he is shown alone, this maybe indicates that he is in separate mourning from the rest of the Tokyo Jujutsu students and Nanami above. And yes, I mean Getou.

3. The Bubbles

There is a saying that human life can be compared to bubbles in a stream. Mahito blowing bubbles here may alluded to him who plays so easily with human’s life. People are nothing but literally mere bubbles for him to toy with.

Especially here. If you see how this bubble break, it shapes like a jellyfish. Yes, it’s Junpei. This shows how he destroys Junpei’s life.

4. Chocolate desert

Alludes to the curse manipulation power that the Fake!Getou coveted that he took control of Getou’s corpse. And then there’s fillings inside the chocolate ball - which maybe a nod to the ‘something’ inside that body - more specifically, inside the skull; the brain.

5. Nanami’s death

Nanami is only shown to be walking straight ahead - yes, that’s all he does in his life. Walk straight in the ‘right’ path of being a sorcerer after he returned from his office job. But where that got him? A half-eaten bread.

Nanami is a foodie and his favorite food is bread. It is a foreshadowing of his death in the Shibuya arc on the hand of Mahito who is shown right after the bread scene. The ants may be a nod to the transfigured human that he kills just prior to Mahito killing him - leaving only his lower body, surrounded by transfigured human he defeats.

Mahito here seemingly is doing the incarnation of the Kusouzu brothers - behind him is a human suspended in T-pose. That means this cour possibly cover the Origin of Obedience arc too.

6. Origin of obedience arc

There’s a pretty sizable chunk of possibility that this cour probably covers up to Origin of Obedience arc. That Mahito above and this river with crystal-like structure. This is where Fushiguro does his first ryoiki tenkai to fight a curse who has one of Sukuna’s finger. In addition Sukuna here shown in a river - watching over him.

Also, here the original Kamo Noritoshi, which we only see during the flashback of the Kusouzu brothers - when they fight against Itadori and Kugisaki on the Yasohachi bridge.

7. The traitor

Utahime looking for something - rather, someone. Yes, the traitor in the Kyoto school as Gojo asks her. And then we get this shot of Kyoto students.

Mechamaru is the only one in the shade - as he is the one traitor working with Fake Getou and Mahito because they have a deal. Literally shady - he is the traitor that Utahime is looking for and finally found. Subsequently, that deal with Mahito causes Mechamaru’s death.

8. Yu-un and Hyakki Yakou

Yu-un (Playful cloud) is originally three-section staff special-grade cursed tool owned by Original Getou, which he used when he attacks the school and fights Yuuta in Vol. 0. Here Yu-un shown in the midst of ruins is a strong nod to Getou’s defeat during Hyakki Yakou and subsequently his death. Yu-Un is then picked up by the school and used by Maki to fight Hanami during Goodwill event arc.

But Yuuta here is really just a cameo. He is with Miguel, ex-Getou family, maybe over there in Miguel’s original country.

9. Three becomes Two

The three of them are together during this scene. But during the flashing back scene sequences at the end of the opening after the guitar scene - there are only two of them.

You can probably imagine what will happen to Itadori. This just drive that point home. A strong nod to his death penalty.

10. Flower and The Fish

Another nod to Junpei after that bubble - the same fish that alluded to him as in the first opening. There are a lot of symbolisms here; firstly Junpei’s incident is what makes Itadori “blooms” as a sorcerer. This also supported by how the flower shape likes Itadori’s family crest here, which someone pointed out in twitter.

Secondly, a nod to Itadori’s fight with Hanami - the special-grade curse with power based on plant and forest. Hanami has a cannon shaped like flower. Also, the first time Itadori does Kokusen (”Black Flash” - see? Black, like the color of the flower) is against Hanami. Another part of his growth as jujutsushi.

And lastly, the flower is possibly black lily, which means “curse” that Gege mentions on one of the extra page. It is also drawn in Fushiguro’s flashback scene in the background of Tsumiki who is cursed and has fallen into a coma.

tl;dr: amazing opening. 100/10.

#jujutsu kaisen #jjk manga spoilers #brain vomit #jjk meta

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burgerpocalypse · 3 years

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I've been trying to run through some free games I got from the Epic game store, specifically Grand Theft Auto V, Creature in the Well, and most recently Night in the Woods. I quit GTAV about 60% of the way because it sucked, and I can't beat the last area of Creature, so that leaves me to talk a little about NitW and the emotional turmoil it gave me.

Upfront, I'm not interested in games with heavy emphasis on story, least of all visual novels or whatever you want to call this game. However, I've heard mostly positive things about Night in the Woods here and there for the better part of the previous decade. That and the fact I got it for $0 convinced me to finally try it out.

Night in the Woods is an adventure focused on exploration and character drama. Mae Borowski, the protagonist, is a college dropout that just moved back to her Rust Belt hometown for mysterious reasons, and becomes entangled in suspicious happenings. The player will traverse the aged suburban sprawl and rural outskirts of Possum Springs, conversing with family, friends, strangers, and everyone else, uncovering secrets and opening wounds along the way.

Seeing as how Night in the Woods is primarily a story, I'll mostly be discussing that, so look out for spoilers, yo.

After spending two years away, Mae attempts to reconnect with her previously closest friends Bea (an idealist goth whomst had considerable familial and financial responsibility thrust upon her at a young age), Gregg (an anarchist punk with bipolar tendencies), and Angus (an incredibly nice man). Mae pushes the story forward by hanging out with Bea and Gregg, and sometimes Angus. This will often involve going to social outings, running errands, committing crimes, and so on.

Other than her friends, Mae will also have opportunities to interact with her parents, various citizens, and vagrants. whom provide flavor and history to the world while also bringing some of Mae's muddled past to light. The player will traverse environments through walking and jumping around, with the occasional platforming feat required to progress or access certain areas. Occasionally, you'll be presented with small minigames, like a Guitar Hero-clone or red light/green light shoplifting, and a game-within-a-game dungeon crawler that pissed me off to no end. While most activities in the town are benign, certain important events will move the day along and lock you out of further exploration.

Early on, Mae's group stumbles upon a discarded arm and some cryptic dialogue from a few characters. After each day, Mae experiences strange dream sequences that involve platforming segments and surreal representations of her friends and the town. Several hours of gameplay later, Mae witnesses a kidnapping on Halloween by what appears to be a ghost.

In the midst of all this, Mae hangs out with her friends and discovers what they've been up to in her absence. Bea runs the family business for her father, who broke down after her mom died, putting them in dire financial straits and preventing Bea from leaving Possum Springs; she bears resentment towards Mae, since she dropped out of college and came home for no apparent reason while also not maturing at all. Gregg is aimless, sporadic, and uninhibited, while his boyfriend Angus is neat, tidy, and overly helpful. Their relationship appears strong, and they are planning to move to a new city together, though Bea is convinced it won't last.

Mae does her best to strengthen bonds while suffering from a variety of stressors, like her family's money troubles, her self-destructive tendencies and dissociative episodes, and ominous celestial beings invading her mind. This sometimes leads to inadvertent and painful social situations, especially with Bea.

Mae attempts to investigate the supposedly supernatural happenings with the help of Bea, Gregg, and Angus, while her mental health steadily declines. Eventually, the group travels deep into the woods (at night) and stumble into a cult, after which Mae suffers a great fall and enters a coma. After waking up, Mae then attempts to confront the cult head-on, though her friends arrive to help. They enter a cave, find the cult again, discover the eldritch horror they serve and explore her personal connection to it, accidentally cause a cave-in and trap the cultists, escape the cave, and try to make sense of what happened after the fact.

Now, don't get me wrong. I rather enjoyed Night in the Wood's story. I really liked all the characters. I loved the dialogue. Even the platforming and various minigames were fine, if simplistic and occasionally annoying. The structure of this paragraph seems as though it's leading towards a big 'but'. I just wanted to say that I really liked the game, even though I don't generally enjoy video game stories, and especially not video games primarily about a story. Though I'm not from a run-down midwestern town, and obviously don't have the same sort of personal relationships she does, Mae's emotional strife and insecurities really resonated with me. Her personal thoughts and reactions often made me just stop and think about the many mistakes I've made with the people I care about and all the relationships I've ruined.

However, if the plot wanted to spend so much time on Mae and her friends, it should have been about Mae and her friends. Conversely, if it wanted to be about a spooky cult in a small town, it should have spent much more time on a spooky cult in a small town. The plot is torn between two diametrically opposed focuses, those being Mae's struggles to maintain relationships and her dealing with suspicious supernatural occurrences in Possum Springs. So much time passes before anything really happens with the cult and cosmic horror that I feel some people might even forget there is a cult and cosmic horror, and Mae isn't just experiencing a psychotic break for no reason.

In the end, the cult goes unresolved, and it's unclear what the relationship is with the residents of Possum Springs, or what its powers even are. I don't need the game to explain every aspect in detail, but no one appears to be affected by the existence of the cult and its god other than Mae. My brain was going into overdrive looking for clues, making patterns, identifying red herrings, anything that might help me understand the mystery, when in reality there was no mystery to understand.

There is also a severe lack of actual choice or decision making in terms of dialogue, and a distinct absence of any real challenge in gameplay. I definitely felt that this story could have been more efficiently told if it were in a book, usually after spending a few minutes walking around trying to find something important and

It doesn't help that I sometimes accidentally skipped certain segments, since it's not always explicitly clear if an action will push the day forward and lock me in. I even completely missed a third of the investigations since I chose to check out the historical society building with Gregg second when the game expected me to do it last. This sort of problem led to me giving up completely on other story-focus games like Kentucky Route Zero since I constantly skipped and missed chunks of stuff or did things out of the intended order and ruined the flow of events.

Now this has obviously gotten a little too long, so I'll just wrap it up by saying that Night in the Woods is great and I recommend it. It made me feel feelings, deep feelings, like I was moments away from crying on more than one occasion.

Thanks for reading. I have a lot on my mind because of this game, so I hope it was worth your time.

#night in the woods #nitw #mae borowski #video games #review #coyote

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shyflameweasel · 3 years

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Yo @mozzerlladoodlez07, here’s the thing from yesterday. Hope its decent cause I’m running off a partially melted brain while writing this.

Malcom will never not be surprised that he not only survived Nevada’s one man natural disaster but that he was married to said embodiment of death. He was pretty that little tidbit alone would make him either the safest or number 1 target in the wastes of Nevada. If it wasn’t for a little thing called secrecy. Thank whatever god was out there that he wasn’t more cheesy or he might have started swooning like some love sick fool that a middle aged lady would read.

If he had to get sentimental, he did care about the big guy despite being on opposite sides. He was beauty, he was grave, he almost shot off Malcom’s face when they first met. There wasn’t any fireworks nor was there an instant connection. Just an adrenalin filled tumble of a one night stand. Hell, it wasn’t until a lot later and someone pointing out his description did Malcom figure out that he slept with the Hank J Motherfucker Wimbleton. That scared more than a few years off his expectantly short life expectancy.

While the notoriety of sleeping with the guy was nice, Malcom did miss when he was just left alone. It was a bit tiring to have to deal with people more than what he was comfortable with. Like come on, it wasn’t like he was going to see the assassin again so the topic should have just died down.

Only Malcom was very wrong about one of those things as the topic did die down a bit. But he did end up seeing Hank again, several times infact. The guy just kept popping back up in whatever area Malcom was in. Which, unfortunately was usually by himself far from others as due to being a sniper since he couldn’t see jack up close.

Although, he guessed it wasn’t too hard to look for someone wearing a ski mask. The agency had fire shadows, undead clowns, a cyclops with a god complex and a wannabe cowboy. His love of ski masks was nowhere as weird or out there as some other people.

After what had to be the eighth time of the man scaring what had to be another chunk of years off his life Malcom finally got sick and tired of the man. What followed could only be explained as insanity as he chewed out Hank. Malcom should have been very very dead. Instead he got a chuckle out of the Nevadian boogeyman. Maybe a smile if he was going off those red lenses.

Which led to what Malcom could only consider as dates whenever he had to stake out an area. In the beginning it was honestly terrifying...until Malcom found out just how weirdly goofy the guy was. Don’t get him wrong, Hank will always be a unstoppable force to be reckoned with. But it was a weird disconnect when the man was relaxing. One time Malcom came back to his perch to find it covered in wall to wall sticky notes. Or another when he turned to ask Hank something the man was using one of his extra rifles as a guitar.

It was weirdly adorable.

Their secret meet ups kept up for a couple more months. He’d be lying if he said that he didn’t remember being this happy in a long time. It changed one day during a picnic date. The both of them sitting atop his latest perk eating a nice little lunch side by side with Hank’s head leaning against his shoulder rumbling in contentment. It was odd to find out the man could purr, but it just added to his charm.

Malcom hadn’t thought too much when Hank had lifted their head. He did notice when Hank seemed to get anxious, okay that was more than a little worrying. When something could worry a guy like it had to be big. Imagine his surprise when Hank took his hand, dropped something into it, then turned his head away. Malcom looked down and blinked.

Sitting innocently in his hand was a ring. Turning it in his fingers, Malcom felt a small engraving inside the ring that read Molotov, the nickname Hank had given him months ago.

That couldn’t be what he was thinking of. Not wanting to jump to conclusions, he looked over to Hank and asked. Hank and embarrassed where not two words he thought went together before. But right now they seemed to go hand in hand. It took a bit of coaxing but he was able to get it of the man that he wanted to marry him. Malcom was pretty sure tackling the man in excitement was a pretty good answer.

There wasn’t anyone to attend the wedding but Malcom was happy with just the two of them. They may have still been on opposite sides but Malcom was happy that he was able to snag someone like Hank.

#madness combat #some mutuals were talking about the agent in the trailer and I got the writing bug #the proto name for this in my drafts was Malcom in the middle and I thought it was too funny to leave out

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scapegrace74-blog · 3 years

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Ginger Snap, Chapter 4

A/N Here’s the next chapter installment of Ginger Snap. I now have this story mentally plotted to its conclusion. It will have a total of 6 chapters, with perhaps a wee epilogue. In keeping with the theme, the title of this chapter is “Where There’s Smoke”.

Previous chapters are best enjoyed on my AO3 page, because I have a bad habit of going back and editing them after they’ve been posted.

I glanced around the sitting room, trying to see it through a stranger’s eyes. Well, not a stranger. Through Jamie’s eyes.

We had sold most of our furniture before leaving Boston, not considering it worth the expense of shipping across the Atlantic. Frank hired an interior decorating firm to furnish the third floor Southside flat before we arrived. The overall impression was stylish, if a bit soulless. Having grown up a virtual nomad, there were no mementos or heirlooms to speak for my personal journey. For the first time, I regretted their absence.

The buzzer rang, and I shook away my wistfulness. Jamie’s tousled curls and reckless grin greeted me as I opened the door. Today he wore a fitted navy jumper, faded grey jeans with frays about the ankles and the ubiquitous work boots. A messenger bag was slung across his broad chest.

“I hope I wasn’t supposed to supply the ingredients for today’s lesson, because my cupboards are bare,” I remarked after inviting him in.

“Jus’ as well. I wouldna squander yer food. I have all we need right here.” Reaching into his bag, he removed a clear container filled with chunks of pink meat swimming in a broth of blood. I wrinkled my nose in disgust.

“What sort of dish will I be making with those?”

Those summer eyes shone in merry provocation.

“No’ a dish, Arsonist. An experiment.”

Two saucepans were set on the stove. Jamie had me place a few pieces of meat into the water of one pot before it warmed. To the other I added a pinch of salt and a clove of garlic, but waited until it came to a boil before adding the chicken. After five minutes, I used tongs to move the now-pale flesh to waiting salad plates. Neither looked particularly appetizing, but the first pot yielded a glutinous blob.

“I suppose this is the control group,” I remarked, looking at Jamie where he leaned against my countertop, ankles crossed like a cover model. “I’m already quite familiar with what culinary failure looks like, thank you.”

“No’ failure. Variability,” my teacher argued. “See here? If ye want meat tae dissolve til it doesna hold its texture, low heat is key. An’ if ye want tae infuse it with flavour, always combine heat an’ seasoning at the same time.”

I took a small nibble of chicken from the second pot, and sure enough it tasted mildly of garlic. It was otherwise quite bland, though. When I commented on this, Jamie nodded in excitement.

“Aye, verra good. Nature seeks equilibrium, as ye well know. Sae now ye have poultry tha’ tastes o’ water and water tha’ tastes o’ chicken. If ye were makin’ a stew or chicken stock, t’would be a good thing. Fer anything else, tis shite.”

I laughed, getting into the spirit of his well-executed game.

“Have ye any music?” he asked while we cleared away the results of round one. “I always cook better with a bit o’ background noise.”

There was a high-end stereo system in the living room, but I doubted Jamie would be interested in Frank’s collection of Brahms, Mahler and Celtic harp. Seeing my hesitation, Jamie dug out a portable speaker from his bag.

“Do ye mind?” I shook my head and soon my kitchen hummed with guitar chords and plangent vocals.

The lesson lasted far longer than the scheduled hour. Jamie had me bake, fry, roast and braise different samples, each time explaining why a particular technique might be used and insisting I taste the result. It was so much fun, I shed my habitual reticence while cooking.

“An’ now fer the pièce de résistance,” Jamie announced in dramatic tones. From his seemingly bottomless messenger bag he removed what appeared to be a miniature flame thrower.

“What the fuck is that?” I asked, forgetting myself.

“I wanted ye tae ken there’s a place fer fire in the kitchen, Arsonist. Tis only a question of picking yer moment.”

With a flick of his lighter, he set the butane alight and handed me the small kitchen torch. Using extreme caution, I seared the outside of the two remaining morsels until they were a rich caramel colour. Jamie then wrapped them in foil, placing them in the oven to finish cooking. When they were cool enough to sample, the outside was pleasingly crunchy and sweet, while the inside swam in moist chicken-y flavour. We both declared them the winner.

“Tis a funny thing about fire,” Jamie remarked as he packed up his bag to leave by the more conventional front door route. “It can remain hidden beneath the surface, burying its secrets deep inside. Doesna mean it doesn’t burn, though.”

I thought about what he’d said long after he was gone, leaving me alone with his signature scent of rising bread and salt air.

That weekend, I blamed the poor weather when I declined Frank’s offer to shop for an engagement ring.

***

The next week, instead of asking to be buzzed inside, Jamie requested that I join him downstairs.

Grabbing a Mackintosh, my purse and slipping into comfortable walking shoes, I joined Jamie outside my door. He was particularly animated, despite the foul weather.

“We should ha’ started wi’ this lesson, but t’wasn’t the right day fer it,” he explained as we walked towards the farmers’ market that took place twice a week in the shadow of Castle Hill.

I considered protesting that I already knew how to shop for food, but Jamie’s enthusiasm was contagious.

We stopped at every stall, sampling the foodstuff on display, which was surprisingly varied despite it being November. Jamie knew most of the merchants by name and our progress was regularly halted by conversations on topics as varied as his family’s health, the latest rugby results and Scottish politics. I envied his wide circle of acquaintance and apparent ease interacting with them. There was no pretense, no stiffness, just a man who inhabited every square centimetre of his life to the fullest.

Jamie insisted that I taste various produce before adding it to the cloth bag he’d provided. Honey-crisp apples. Peppery radishes. Herb-infused venison sausage.

“Close yer eyes,” he instructed when I was practically dizzy with all the flavours. Still, I complied immediately. A rubbery moisture tickled my lips. “Open,” he said simply. I opened. “Tell me what ye taste, Arsonist.”

I chewed the morsel of cheese thoughtfully, letting the taste and texture coat my mouth before finally swallowing.

“Creamy. Thick. Salty. Sorrel.”

I opened my eyes only to fall into the inky vortex of Jamie’s pupils, which had expanded to almost eclipse his irises. His hand still hovered near my mouth, muscles frozen in abstraction. The cheesemonger let out an awkward little cough. Jamie blinked, and the moment vanished.

“Sorrel?” he asked a bit gruffly.

“Yer lass has a fine palate, Fraser. My sheep graze in fields full o’ it.”

I allowed myself a smug little smile. Neither of us corrected the merchant’s presumptive pronoun.

Later that evening, I sat cross-legged before the fire with a picnic for one. Frank had called from his office earlier to say he was working on notes for an upcoming symposium. Before me lay the results of the afternoon’s market adventure. Closing my eyes as I ate, every mouthful set my senses ablaze.

We never found time to visit the jeweler that weekend either.

***

The next week, I fell ill with a miserable head cold. Frank was in Oxford for his symposium, so I called Ginger Snap myself and explained to Jenny in a hoarse voice that Jamie should avoid coming to my flat at all costs.

I was curled up in a mentholated daze when there was a series of knocks. It took several minutes to free myself from my blanket cocoon and shuffle to the front door. Glancing in the entryway mirror, my hair called to mind an electrified poodle and my nose was twelve shades of raw, but I opened the door anyway. No-one was there. Leaning out to peer down the hallway, I practically tripped over a brown paper bag resting at my feet.

Inside was a metal thermos, still quite warm to the touch. As I unscrewed the cap, my stuffed nose was assailed by fragrant steam. Homemade cock-a-leekie soup. I felt a glow fill my chest that had nothing to do with my fever. Pouring a helping into a mug, I shuffled back to my couch-nest. I felt better already.

***

The following week, Jamie was distracted. I’d thanked him profusely for the soup, and asked if he could show me how to make it for myself. As the chicken thighs and stock began to warm, however, I caught him glancing regularly at his phone, fingers drumming against his thigh.

“Are you expecting an important text?” I finally asked.

“Hmm? Och, Arsonist, I’m verra sorry. Tis only that we got a last-minute request tae cater a big corporate Christmas party, an’ Jenny is beside herself wi’ worrying.” He tucked him phone into the pocket of his cargo pants.

“When’s the party?”

“T’morrow,” he confessed.

“What! Jamie, what are you doing here? You should have called me to reschedule.”

“T’wouldna be fair, what wi’ us missing last week on account of yer sniffles. An’ wi’ Christmas ‘round the corner, I didna ken when I’d... er, when we’d have time for another lesson.”

I turned off the burner with a decisive twist. Jamie opened his mouth to lodge a protest, but I beat him to the punch.

“Jamie, the soup will keep. Growing your business is more important. I wish there was something more I could do to help, but under the circumstances...”

“Come wi’ me?” he blurted out.

I was nodding before the words finished leaving his mouth. Notwithstanding the fact that he had just literally been teaching me how to boil water, I didn’t want to lose his company so soon. We likely wouldn’t see one another again until after the New Year.

It was a thirty minute walk to Leith. Jamie could probably have covered the distance in half that with his long strides, were it not for me trotting along beside him. We stopped at several shops along the way to pick up provisions, arriving at Ginger Snap with our arms laden with the freshest food Edinburgh had to offer.

I had expected Jenny and Jamie to be working alone, but the fire station was abuzz with activity. I was hastily introduced to Angus, a distant Fraser cousin; Mary, a childhood friend of Jenny’s; and Murtagh, Jamie and Jenny’s godfather. They worked together like a well-oiled machine, and I stood awkwardly to one side, wondering what the hell I was doing there. I was preparing to make my excuses when Jamie called me over to a spare station. He gestured to the commercial-sized sink, which was full of vegetables of every dimension and colour.

“Claire, I need ye tae rinse and then cut these inta nice even pieces. Can ye do tha’ fer me?”

"Consider it done, chef,” I said with a jaunty salute.

There was a feeling of camaraderie as we each went about our assigned tasks. I chopped. Mary baked. Angus filleted. Jamie cooked, and Jenny plated the various canapés, salads and sauces and stored them in the enormous refrigerators that lined the back wall. Murtagh’s role seemed mostly to keep the troops in line with an assortment of verbal barbs.

Music played in the background. Volleys of witty banter flowed between us, but never at the expense of the work or anyone’s feelings. Angus nicked himself with his filleting knife, and Jenny sent him to my station for treatment, saying I was the team’s resident doctor. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt so at home.

Time passed quickly and before I knew it, it was dark outside. The bulk of the work was done and the pace slackened, the pressure of the looming deadline relieved. One by one we cleared our stations, meeting at the small seating area to share a well-earned drink.

Jenny sunk into the couch beside me and let out a loud sigh.

“Ouf, I canna believe we got it all done. Claire, ye were a godsend. Normally I do most o’ the prep work, but it leaves me no time tae arrange the dishes.”

I demurred, uncomfortable with the praise.

“Nay, Arsonist, ye were amazing,” Jamie began to object, but he was interrupted by my phone buzzing. Glancing down, I felt my face fall. I’d completely forgotten about Frank. Now he was texting, asking me where I was. I quickly fired off a reply, then stuffed the phone into my pocket.

“Everything alright?” Jenny asked.

“Oh, yes. It’s only my fiancé, asking when I might be home,” I answered, still distracted by my uncharacteristic lapse. As I glanced up, I ran straight into Jamie’s iceberg gaze.

“I didna realize ye were engaged,” he looked pointedly at my bare ring finger. “Congratulations.”

He said the word as though every syllable pained him. I quelled the urge to explain, to say it wasn’t a real engagement because I’d never agreed, that I’d only been looking for a sense of security, but somehow found myself in a cage.

Instead I hastily finished my drink, called myself an Uber and quietly wished everyone a good night, all while avoiding the many questions written across Jamie’s expressive face.

#my writing #outlander #ginger snap

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arahul-abyssia · 3 years

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Festive

Writing number 4 for Nintember (@starprincesshlc , @jklantern )! To hopefully escape the pit of Emotions™ that was the first three stories, here's some hopefully much much much lighter, more slice-of-life-ish fare.

This does correspond to prompts 16-20, but I got caught up in Real Life for a while, so it's going up mega-late, and also it's kinda... abridged from its original concept, and less polished. 'Tis the way the cookie hath crumbled this year...

~~ Horse, Color, Hats, World, Music ~~

Layna awoke to a loud and repetitive hooting in her ear. She blearily turned her head to the side to find a pair of black-framed bright red eyes staring at her with interest. It took several moments of staring before she was mentally present enough to avert her gaze, sit up, and look out the window at the horizon. As she had expected, the sun had only barely risen fully above it.

She turned back to her greeter. “Relos! How many times do I have to tell you not to wake me up?”

Relos merely, and quite literally, hooted with laughter and flew off out of her room. Layna knew it was futile to keep telling him not to wake her, not because of any obligation or the masterful internal clock of his, but because he knew she didn’t like it and he was a mischief-mongering imp.

Normally, she’d roll over and try to get a few more minutes of sleep, but that day was the first of one of the best weeks of the entire year, and she didn’t want to miss a single moment. She quickly pulled herself from her bed, cleaned and dressed herself, grabbed the pack she had prepared the night before, and hurried downstairs, hoping to get through the delightfully aromatic kitchen and out the door before--

“Aaaalwaaaalrwaaa!”

Standing between Layna and the door was the soft pink-and-cream form of Infra, who was gazing up at her with strikingly accusatory eyes, her hands on her hips.

“Yes, Infra, I know I haven’t eaten.”

“Laaalruuwaar!”

“It’s the first day of the festival and I want to do as much as I can! I’ll get something from one of the vendors.”

“Luulrwarraalyaaa!”

“Ugh…! Fine, if it’ll make you happy.”

Begrudgingly, she returned to the kitchen and sat at the table, as Infra went to the stove, gingerly placed an assortment of breakfast foods onto a plate, and set it before Layna, smiling at her with fairy-pink eyes that had nary a semblance of her previous visage. Unlike the rest of Pokémon in her family’s home, who were all quite content to leave the human part of the family to do as they pleased, the Audino practically operated like another mother to her, as if she needed a third one on top of her human two (who also were often subject to Infra’s mothering). Somehow, she had learned how to do a whole plethora of human home tasks and chores, and she never let Layna leave home in the morning without ensuring that she’d eaten. An outside observer might wonder why a Pokémon was apparently her morning caretaker, and not either or both of her mothers, but with both of them having jobs that began long before dawn, it was simply how things were in their house.

She had to admit that Infra was a surprisingly good cook. This evaluation, however, was not based upon the food that she was at that moment rapidly stuffing into her mouth, but rather upon the numerous meals from days where she wasn’t dead-set on going elsewhere as soon as possible. That morning’s breakfast, while certainly of Infra’s normal calibre, was given no time to rest upon Layna’s taste buds, and may as well have been tasteless for all she cared.

As soon as the last bite of egg left her fork, she jumped to her feet, practically threw the plate and silverware into the sink, and darted for the door, calling out as she left, “‘Kthankyoubyyyyeeeeee!”

Infra was not impressed with her, as projectile kitchenware was dangerous and eating that quickly would likely give her a stomachache, but she’d have time later to worry about such things. Her next task was to prepare food for the rest of the Pokémon scattered about the house, who all were beginning to come to consciousness, probably due to the clatter of cutlery, and she set about with the same dutifulness and joy she always did.

Layna, of course, hadn’t even a single neuron focused upon Infra’s judgment, as she was far more concerned with sprinting down a steep road with wanton abandon, the countless colors and lights and tents and tarps of the festival visible in the distance. It had already entered full swing, always beginning with the dawn, and she wanted to explore as much as she could. She had considered bringing along some of the Pokémon, but not long later decided to bring them along later in the day instead. She did not know why she made this decision, nor did she care.

The streets that had been blocked off for the festival were already bustling with people and Pokémon alike, almost each and every one nearly as energized as Layna was. She promptly began to wander the streets, turning and spinning and looking about enough that she ought to have made herself sick, but this had not lasted for even five minutes before she was drawn to a larger vendor stall by an overpowering floral and fruity aroma.

As should be expected, an impossibly wide variety of flowers and fruits were on display, some having been made presentory and others still being attached to their plants, with countless more options upon the boards hanging from the awning.

“Well, hello there, young miss!” said one of the farmers behind the stand. “How can we help ya?”

“Oh, I’m just looking right now, sir.” She paused a moment, then was overtaken by a rather sudden curiosity. “There are so many flowers and berries here, how do you manage to pick and move them all?”

The farmer chuckled. “We have a lot of help, ‘specially around this time of year. Lot of it comes from extra hands, but it would still be impossible without the help of all our Pokémon, like ol’ Sitrus here.”

At this, he gestured to a Mudsdale beside him, which Layna had somehow managed to miss entirely.

“She’s lovely! And so… big…! I’ll bet she must be really strong, too!”

“More ‘n any of us could’ve expected! And she’s friendly, too; wanna pet her?”

Layna’s eyes immediately lit up. “Would I?!! I mean, uh, if she’ll let me…!”

The farmer laughed and brought the horse forward, and Layna tentatively reached up and placed a hand on her face. Sitrus took a moment to consider her latest contact, then, judging her satisfactory in that esoteric way few can ever decipher, leaned in to her touch. She giggled and stroked her a few times more, noting her fur’s strange combination of roughness and softness, before pulling her hand away. Sitrus, in turn, snorted a puff of hot air at Layna’s face before backing into the shade again.

“Aw, that means she likes you! Well, let me or any one of us know if ya want anything.”

“Will do, thank you!” Layna had no intention to buy anything at that time, not when there were countless other things to do and find and see at the festival. She proceeded to bury her face in several of the flowers around the stall, enveloping herself in their different, yet undeniably pleasant, scents, before scampering off to find some other point of interest.

She could have easily checked the maps of the festival area, which were scattered on boards and holographic signs all about the city and even available online, but this sounded boring and unfun, so she did not. Upon her winding, meandering, unfocused path through the streets were innumerable stalls and stands and attractions to take note of--more fruits and vegetables, tickets to special shows on later days, a ferris wheel to ride with someone else later, foreign cuisine and sweets--but it was not until she overheard the faint but unmistakable sound of music that she was drawn in once again.

Upon the boardwalk was a small stage with a frighteningly energetic group of musicians, surrounded by an even more enthusiastic crowd. They seemed to be in the middle of a rendition of a song Layna heard on the radio nearly every day, an anthem for Trainers detailing their goal to “Catch ‘em All.” She never saw the appeal--both of the song and of the objective--but it apparently spoke quite well to most others.

As they finished their performance--and on a much more somber note than the original song did--their main singer pulled the microphone from its stand and began pacing the stage. “I hope you folks are enjoying the show! Now, however, I’d like to take a break from the hype, and sing something a bit slower, something that’s… rather close to my heart.”

Layna watched as a Toxtricity--which had evidently been playing with the rest of the band, but which, just like the Mudsdale, she had failed at first to notice--stepped forward and began playing a slow guitar piece. The lead singer waited a moment, then began to sing a ballad in a tongue Layna could not understand. It was one she was certain she had heard before, but could not manage to identify it any way beyond that it was not the common tongue known by almost everyone across the world.

She tried to stay and listen, but immediately found that, beautiful though his singing was, she was not in the mood for slow music. Along with a small chunk of the band’s crowd, she turned and left, and returned to her aimless wandering and exploration.

Eventually, she found herself in a quarter rife with food vendors, most of whom had one or two individuals calling out and offering free samples. By the smells and descriptions alone, she was greatly tempted to take every single one she could. Of course, her mothers would likely have tried to limit how many she took so that she wouldn’t spoil her appetite for lunch, and Infra would surely have balked at the notion for the same reasons; also, most of the food in the area was rather far from being healthy. Indeed, she had significant reason to not do what she wanted to do.

However, none of those individuals were here to remind her, and as it turned out, the aromas were very persuasive. Layna marched forward and nabbed every sample in sight, only barely stopping to enjoy them before moving on to the next, and only doing so because of the crowds and lines slowing her down.

Her frenzy ended not fifteen minutes later, and as she looked about to find her next target of interest, she realized she had wound up on the very same street she had started on. Obviously, this would not do, as there were so many other, more interesting circles to walk in the festival’s streets.

However, with home being so near once again, she had half a mind to return to grab something to combat the rapidly rising sun, whose rays were just beginning to take too much precedence over the comfortable morning breeze…

“Twee-tweeoo-twrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!”

Or maybe I won’t have to after all!

A black-and-brown blur was barrelling toward her from the sky, making a frankly obscene level of noise. She stood firm and faced it, staring unblinking at the rapidly encroaching avian, before ducking at a perfect, precise, and repeatedly practiced moment. Like clockwork, Layna’s vision was shaded by an off-kilter hat (which she quickly adjusted), and the feathery form of a Taillow alighted upon her shoulder, whose face she began to delicately stroke.

“Thank you for bringing me my hat, Lond! Wherever would I be without you?”

“Twrrrt-t-twiii!”

“Wait, no, don’t tell me: Infra wanted me to not burn in the sun and you wanted to not be stuck inside with Relos.”

“Twrr-twrr-twrr!”

“I thought so… well, now that you’re here, how about sticking with me for a bit of exploration? I’m sure there'll be plenty of stuff to try!”

Lond pretended to think for a moment, then gave another enthusiastic chirp.

Layna giggled. “In that case, we mustn’t waste any more time! Onward!”

And with no decay to her exuberance, she sprinted off into the festival once more.

#nintember #fun note: i don't really like the whole 'pokemon say their names thing' so i went with Other Sounds instead

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brittlebutch · 3 years

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OK. are y’all ready to listen to me overanalyze wyld stallyns music? Wyld Stallyns music from Bill and Ted?? PLEASE say you are

I’ve been listening to ‘That Which Binds Us Through Time’ and ‘Face the Music’ a lot lately because i’m obsessive, but I’ve been thinking about how much the two songs are able to tell about Bill and Ted’s struggle with their music over the years. Even outside of the entire plot and action of the movie, these two songs say nearly everything you need to know about the journey lmao

‘That Which Binds Us Through Time...’ is a song that utilizes a lot of instruments and a lot of looping; several sections of the song are just repeated chunks of melodies and rhythm played by separate instruments. There are several little arcs of the music, but everything returns back to the same loops. You can hear guitar playing as well, but it’s never the Primary focus of the song - it’s used as an undercurrent beneath some of the primary looping instruments, like the Theremin. When Bill and Ted play the song at the wedding, their guitars don’t even make it to center stage (they also don’t get a chance to play them at all, which I’ll come back to).

It really is an excellent song, but there’s kind of a slogged sound to it. The repetition is part of that - I do really like the repeating loops and they sound great because Bill and Ted are good at playing the instruments but none of the instruments are allowed to shine because they have to balance so many - especially when performing it live. They don’t have a band behind them anymore it’s only them, and there’s only so much they can do on their own. They have to rely on loops to pad out the song - to extend it and make sure that it sounds like More than just two dudes with a couple instruments - because they can’t rely on any bandmates to help them perform Or help them write.

It also, like I said, doesn’t really have a big climax to the song that helps burst the vague sense of anticipation that runs through the melody - there’s a lot of build up but no Release in the tension. This, I think, does an excellent job of underlining the place that Bill and Ted are in in regards to their music. They’ve been working so hard throughout their entire life to write the song that unites the world, but they haven’t been able to do it yet. All build up with no release - the tension can’t go anywhere because Bill and Ted still have to carry it. And like I said before, there’s no one around to bear that burden with them, so there’s nothing else contributed to the sound BUT the years of desperation that Bill and Ted have put into it.

Now with ‘Face the Music’ I’m only focusing on Bill and Ted’s solo towards the end of the song since the overall composition is Billie and Thea, not theirs. But even JUST THAT part of the song is such a Climax for them, both the song and Bill and Ted themselves. It drives me insane, and I think the fact that they went back to guitar has a lot to do with it, because THE FIRST shot we see of Bill and Ted in Every Single Movie is them with their guitars (Not counting the reveal of Evil Robot Bill and Ted in Bogus Journey - Bill and Ted themselves are first seen in their Battle of the Bands audition), but they don’t get a chance to play it even once before MP46. Like I said, even though ‘That Which Binds Us’ has guitar sections included in it, they don’t get a chance to play in movie because they get interrupted due to the unconventional sound of the song.

I think, more than anything, Bill and Ted are guitarists. When they were still planning Wyld Stallyns in high school, they have a piano and a drumset, but they don’t play them. Even despite the fact that it takes them years to properly learn how to play the guitar, they still love to play and perform just because it’s Fun. They don’t even necessarily care what the sound is, just the act of playing delights them, which I’m obsessed with. But anyway, Bill and Ted - shown through ‘That Which Binds Us’ are really good at playing a bunch of different instruments, but they still love the guitar more than anything.

So during ‘Face the Music’, Billie and Thea could have handed Bill and Ted any instrument, and I bet they’d be able to play it. After all, Jimmi Hendrix is there so they already have a guitar in the sound, and they give Jo and Liz a keytar and a violin, so they’re clearly adding other instruments. BUT they give Bill and Ted both guitars because they know their dads (ALSO worth noting that I’m similarly obsessed with the fact that Billie and Thea were the only ones who stopped to consider the fact that Bill and Ted have been alone in the band for years. When The Great Leader brings Bill and Ted to the future to write the song she talks about Preston/Logan And The Band and claims she gave them ‘everything they needed’, BUT the first thing Billie and Thea tell to Kellye is that ‘they’re all alone’ and they want to help support them because they don’t HAVE a band, they’ve only had each other. Anyway)

They give Bill and Ted guitars and for the first time in GOD KNOWS how long, they get to play with other people. You can SEE how excited that makes them before they even start to play; how thrilled they are that Billie and Thea have built up this composition and that they get to play with other people again. Ted hops all over the stage to give high fives to his family because they’re all there with him for the first time in a long time!! i LOVE the little grins that Jimmi Hendrix and Bill are able to share - because there’s no WAY that only Billie and Thea were Hendrix fans, Bill and Ted almost certainly were too and to get that surprised little look and nod of approval from HENDRIX HIMSELF - no wonder Bill’s face scrunches up so excitedly dude!!

Not only that BUT because the sound isn’t resting wholly on Bill and Ted’s shoulders they get to have fun with the music. When they play ‘That Which Binds Us’ during the wedding, they don’t smile before Or during the performance because they’re so concentrated on getting everything done. It’s not something they have the freedom to relax during because the work is balanced so precariously between them. in ‘Face the Music’ however, it’s not just them! They have the space to bounce around stage, to play with each other (in a classic sense, not Just an instrument sense) and play their guitars with proper feel, because they don’t have to focus on playing each part so precisely. The song isn’t preplanned, it’s an Improvisational song they’re all playing by ear with each other. The music has personality because they finally have the breathing room to Give it to it, and the tension that hung over ‘That Which Binds Us’ is GONE because Bill and Ted are finally given the release that they’ve been working for all these years. Their solo IS the climax and the release of the ‘Face the Music’ song, they break the tension! They can play and have fun, work off of each other and the other people in the band, and it can be natural instead of a very carefully planned deliberate attempt and you can HEAR all of that in the solos themselves.

Tl;dr: Both are EXCELLENT songs because Bill and Ted are good at what they do, But “That Which Binds Us Through Time” is a tense and precariously balanced song with no release or relief because Bill and Ted have to handle it alone, while their solo in “Face the Music” grants them the breathing room to play and have fun with feel in their playing because they’re finally able to work with a band again instead of just being on their own. AND I’m still fucking bonkers over these dudes.

#N posts stuff #bill and ted #bnt #bill and ted face the music #mixed reviews whether 'read mores' work on mobile so.. apologies just in case. this got out of hand.#YES i wrote this whole thing because I listened to 'face the music' in the car on the way home from grocery shopping and teared up #YES i went back to review the scenes and started bawling from 'shot where Bill and Ted see Billie and Thea playing on stage' again #CHRIST #but anyway i'm fucking insane and i'm Beyond thrilled that the people who made bill and ted 3 CLEARLY loved the series #1500 word essay can't even begin to encapsulate how much i LOVE these songs #i AM also writing a fic that centers on bill and ted's burnout which is closer to 7000 words but i'm still working on that one lmao

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wafflebloggies · 3 years

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a troubling guest [2]

noname belongs to @lacking-hydration! i’m having way too much fun with this whole thing send help

bits and pieces for context:

[a step too far]

[a little light mischief]

[part 1 of this!]

[part 3 of this!]

Alan had always been a realist. For this reason, he wasn’t disappointed by the sight of the Captain’s folded arms and pointedly offended scowl as he opened the door. It wasn’t an encouraging sight, but it certainly wasn’t a surprising one, either.

It was the first time they had seen each other face to face in months. Alan’s stomach had been twisting sickishly ever since he made the call, and his unhelpful imagination had framed a million ways it could go- good, bad, really bad, terrible- but now that the moment had actually arrived, he felt… not much of anything, really. Nothing he could put his finger on. Just tired, and a little sad.

Before he could say a word, the Captain unfolded his arms and pushed past him into the hall. His voice carried back to the porch as he stomped into the kitchen, and Alan heard the chunk of the fridge being opened.

“This had better be good, Alan."

"Come in,” Alan said to nobody, as he shut the door. He followed the Captain into his own kitchen, and found him staring into the depths of the fridge with a deeply annoyed glare, as if something inside had just handed him a steep library fine.

“Captain-”

“You’ve got a lot of nerve.” The Captain shut the fridge with unnecessary emphasis and turned. “You ghost me for months, you leave me on read, and then you just expect me to drop everything and come running? You think I’ve got nothing better to do?”

Well, you’re here, aren’t you? Alan captured the words before they actually escaped, a little frightened by how easily they almost did, and managed a sort of strained chuckle instead. “Well- maybe the jury’s out on that right now-”

The Captain bridled. He had a way of making it clear that he was getting on his high horse that was nowhere near as subtle as he probably imagined it was, like a volcano that wanted the maximum amount of anxious attention focused on it before it exploded in earnest. “What, you think I just get to slack off and stop creating content because you’re not around? Have you even been watching the channel?”

“Of course I-” Alan stopped. With an effort, he shook off the rising, horribly familiar sense of helplessness, and lowered his voice. “Listen, Captain, we are not having this conversation right now, okay? There’s something I have to-”

But the Captain was already shaking his head. He held up a hand with pompous authority, as if he was getting ready to stop a marriage service, or maybe to direct traffic.

“Oh, no, no, no, no, no, we are. We are having this conversation, because I’d like an explanation, Alan. I’d like you to explain why you thought it was reasonable to just walk out on me, and never call, never even write-”

“Never even- what are you talking about? You’re the one who-” Alan pulled himself up short for a second time. Knuckling a frustrated hand into his own temples, he dragged it down his face, tried to breathe. He was starting to get a headache, a very specific kind of dull overstressed ache behind his eyes that he hadn’t felt in quite a while. In several months, in fact.

“Look, I’m not getting into this. You are not going to drag me into this, because this isn’t-”

“I want-”

“This isn’t about you!”

In the ringing silence, the two of them stared at each other. They both felt it- they both saw it, in the other’s eyes. In that flickering, painful moment of synchronicity, the moment and that moment, months ago in the rotunda, were one. The space of time, the distance between them; just how much had changed, and how much hadn’t. What had been experienced, healed, endured, in their months apart- the depth of their rift, the waste of it... and how terribly vital it had been.

Alan moved first. He heaved a deep sigh, forcing his shoulders to unknit, forcing the tension and anger from his face.

“It’s about him.”

Alan’s uncanny guest had crept into the living room doorway, moving little by little, clinging to the frame with fingers splayed and white-knuckled, like a limpet waiting for high tide. It looked up as Alan spoke, and the fraught, unfocused gaze of its human eye trailed over him and onto the Captain.

It went absolutely still.

The Captain had a similar reaction. He looked at the thing for what felt to Alan like a very long time, while a whole variety of complicated expressions dovetailed into each other on his face. He raised his pointer finger, slowly.

“Who… is he?”

“I was trying to tell-”

“Why does he look like you?”

“It’s a little hard to ex-”

“Why does he look like that?”

“I… I don’t know,” admitted Alan. “But it’s okay, he seems pretty harmless.”

The words were barely out of his mouth before the thing snapped abruptly out of its stupor. Before either of them could move, it let out a ghastly, rattling shriek that sounded more like a rabbit that had just stuck its foot in a plug socket than anything else, and flung itself at the Captain, tackling him headlong to the floor.

The Captain rolled, trying to shake it off, but it hung on with hands that seemed longer than they’d been a moment ago- amorphous, strong, and sharp. It tore at whatever it could reach, howling non-stop, a blur of teeth and pointy elbows and wild eyes. Alan was too stunned to react for a second or two, but once his shock broke he scrambled forwards and made a grab for the thing’s shoulder. His reward was a vicious blow to the face that knocked him off his feet.

Lunging, the Captain caught hold of the thing by the scruff of its neck, but it twisted and bit at his arm. He recoiled but managed to hang on, and it bucked and fought like a mad cat, grabbing at anything that came too close. As the Captain tried to keep his grip, the too-long, blackened fingers sought and scrabbled for purchase, latching onto the first thing they could find, which unfortunately happened to be-

“Ow ow OW not the face not the FACE-”

The Captain’s mask stretched out in the thing’s grasp, the fake skin distorting like a rubber band. Something had to give, and with a high elastic noise like a guitar string snapping under stress the mask twanged off, catapulting out of the thing’s hands. It whipped across the room like a Frisbee, nailing Alan square in the ear just as he managed to sit up.

Thrown off-balance, the thing hit the floor shoulders-first and bounced back to its feet, snarling. Its eyes were frantic, far past reason, the weird right-side one a livid, burning purple. Black goop slipped from under its sodden hair and coursed freely down its face and neck, spiralling down its arms. Its hands, fast losing their resemblance to anything even approaching human, clutched and jerked shakily at its sides.

The Captain stepped in front of Alan, holding up his hands in warning.

“Don’t-” he started, but the thing was beyond listening. At the sound of his voice, it bared its teeth, and sprang.

The Captain flinched, splaying his fingers. With a bright flicker, a screen flared between his hands, a jumbled blur of images as he fought to concentrate. A UFO, a kitten, a few frames of an old Soviet cartoon, and then at the very last second the image stabilized into a nice, clear picture of a brick wall; weathered, slightly mossy, and very, very solid-looking.

Even if the thing had wanted to hit the brakes, it was far too late to stop. It slammed into the picture face-first with a nasty, semi-liquid thud, and slid to the floor, out cold.

Dropping his hands, the Captain let out a relieved breath, letting the screen sputter out into nothing. “Whoof. I knew that Shutterstock license would come in handy.”

Behind him, Alan sat up, holding the mask between finger and thumb as if it was something Leica had caught and left on the floor. It took the Captain a moment or two- and a mild double-take- to notice it, but as soon as he did he swiped it quickly out of his hand, with a rather testy “Thank you.”

In the fragile silence that followed, Alan got to his feet, rubbing his ear. The Captain quickly turned his face away and bent his head, hooking the mask back into place with practised speed. This done, he straightened, shook his jacket back into line with an officious little jerk, then hesitated.

“Are you...” He cleared his throat, grimacing and waving a hand as if he hoped he could somehow communicate what he meant by sheer vague arm-flapping alone, thus getting away without actually having to say it. He fought it out, extracting the word like a stubborn tooth.

“...okay?”

To tell the truth, Alan didn’t feel particularly okay. He felt very shaken and as if he was probably going to have a swollen lip, but right now he had nothing to show for it but a metallic taste in his mouth and a general feeling like someone had fed a fistful of loose change into his skull and rattled it hard. On top of it all, the really pathetic thing- the thing that made him feel somehow worse and better all at once- was how much it mattered just that the Captain had asked.

He nodded, gingerly. “Yeah, I’m- I’m fine. Are you?”

“Oh, you know. Much better now nobody’s trying to claw my face off.” The Captain sniffed, feeling behind his ears to make sure the mask was secure, and took a long, steadying breath. “Okay. Okay, how… how about we walk it back a little? Fill me in from the beginning.”

“You mean about him?”

The Captain rolled his eyes. “Oh, no, actually, I meant about why you took down your Magica De Spell picture- of course about him!”

Cautiously, ready to jump back at the first sign of movement, Alan knelt down by the thing where it lay crumpled on the floor. He was a qualified first-aider, but he was a little at a loss to check for fractures where he wasn’t sure there were bones, or to seek a steady pulse when he didn’t even know if there was a heart. He could only guess the thing was still in one piece from the slight rise and fall of the chest, and the hectic flicker under its closed eyelids.

“I didn’t think he’d flip out like that,” he said. “He’s been quiet this whole time, I- I mean, more or less, anyway, he’s had a couple of… moments.” He swallowed. “Captain, this is gonna sound crazy, but I think… I think he was made.”

It didn’t take him long to relate the little he knew. The Captain listened, fiddling with his mask, which didn’t seem to be sitting comfortably after its rapid trip across the room. At one point, he poked the thing on the floor gently with his foot.

“Pretty shoddy craftmanship,” he remarked. “Look at him, he’s barely corporeal. Can’t even keep a consistent physical form. Huh, like I’d expect anything better from that toxic, pseudoscience-pushing hack...” He broke off, running a finger around his eyesocket, which still looked a little out-of-kilter.

“For the love of- have you got any glue?”

“Um, your usual stuff dried up, I had to throw it out. I… probably have a gluestick, is that any good?”

“Alan,” said the Captain, still feeling his mask irritably, “I hardly need to remind you that this is an incredibly advanced and delicate myco-cellular biosynthetic prosthesis.” He paused.

“What kind of gluestick?”

“Uhh. Elmer’s.”

“Yeah, that’ll do it. Thanks.”

#captain disillusion #alan amelik #noname #my writes

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