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#and getting my stuff out there is important to me
kaijutegu · 2 days
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Yesterday, I went to Baltimore with the intention of visiting a friend in hospice. Her health had taken a sharp nosedive over the weekend, and on Monday evening, the doctors said she maybe had a week left.
What actually happened was I went to Baltimore to help clean out her stuff, because she died at 8:44 on Tuesday morning and my plane didn't land until 8:50. So me and another friend helped another friend/her roommate (before hospice) find important documents, as well as save sentimental items for her actual loved ones because her family, well.
Her friends were her family. But because she died intestate, the people in her family of choice were entitled to nothing under the law. Instead of her beloved, disabled partner, her estranged family has legal rights to her savings bonds and the rest of her estate. (Sometimes common-law partners can inherit but they weren't together long enough to meet that criterion.)
I knew this was coming for a long time. You don't recover from the brain cancer she had. But it still really hurts. And knowing that people she hadn't spoken to in years are getting that money instead of the person she loved most... well, that hurts too.
Please, if you don't have one already, make a will. It's not hard. We don't like to think about it, because nobody likes thinking about post-death legal matters, but you need to make a will. If you're in the US, you can use websites like Free Will. You don't need an estate attorney or anything like that. In many states, a notarized letter is fine. I don't know enough about international estate law to say anything in that regard, but take half an hour to google estate laws in your jurisdiction and put together a will.
If something happened to you tomorrow, who do you want taking care of your pets? Do you have a collection of anything that you want looked after? Do you want your money to go to a person, a charity, or something else specific? If you don't have kids, everything reverts to a spouse. If you don't have a spouse, it goes to your parents. I know I don't want to burden my parents with figuring out what to do with my tegu, my skeletal collection, or my library. But if I died tomorrow, my will would take care of all of that. Thinking about mortality isn't fun, but dying intestate is worse. Make a will.
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ponderingmoonlight · 2 days
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Imagine Megumi blushing because yuji and nobara along with gojo are teasing him about you...(The refrence when he pulled his uniform a bit to hide is blush in that ep pls he was looking so cute I just wanna squish him)
„Bye (y/n).“
„Please look out for yourself.”
His tender touch doesn’t leave you as well as his intense gaze. You are on your way to an important mission along with Toge, so ready to finally go out without having Gojo or multiple other comrades around you. This is your time to finally prove yourself, to show them what you can.
But oh, that look on Megumi’s face makes it so hard to leave.
“I will”, you reassure him with a gentle smile.
“Make sure to message me as soon as this mission is over. And if it’s getting too dangerous, call Gojo-sensei.”
“Megumi”, you chuckle, squeezing both of his hands tightly.
“I promise everything will go well. After all, I’m out with Toge.”
“Salmon!”
“I really need to get going now. See y’all.”
With one last glance behind you, you are gone. Hopefully everything goes well. If that curse bruises you…
“Now what do we have here? How did I miss you two lovebirds?”
The stinging voice of his sensei rips Megumi out of his daydreams immediately. Did Gojo…Did he mean him and you?
“What are you talking about?”, Megumi mumbles.
“What he’s talking about? That you’re head over heels for (y/n), dumbass”, Nobara interjects out of pure frustration.
“And I think she’s totally into you as well. Even though I’m not that good when it comes to that stuff…”, Yuji adds.
“Just imagine how their kids will look.”
“Eww, hopefully they won’t have his grumpy face.”
“Don’t be so harsh on him, my dear students. To have kids, they have to-“
“SHUT UP RIGHT NOW!”, all three of them shout at once to stop Gojo from talking any further.
“Why can’t you stop talking? You’re embarrassing me”, Megumi mutters into the collar of his uniform.
He hates the way heats starts to creep up his face. There is nothing to get red about, nothing about their words is true…
Do you like him like that, though?
“Yuji…”
“Yeah, what is it?”, the pink-haired boy replies visibly confused.
“Do you…do you really think (y/n) likes me?”
“AWW, LOVEBIRDS!”, Nobara and Gojo cry out in sync, forcing another wave of redness straight into Megumi’s cheeks.
“Megumi is in loooove, Megumi is in looooove, Megumi-“
“Stop it-“
“Megumi is in loooove, Megumi is in looooove, Megumi is in-“
“Who are you in love with, Megumi?”, your innocent voice questions from afar.
“(Y/N)!”
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ladymirdan · 24 hours
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I have always been on the fence about Female Space Marines, and that is mostly because I'm not happy with my own assigned gender (and the fact I like submissive men and dominant women and space marines are extremely sub almost all of them, fight me about it)
But like, seeing the outrage over female Custodes. I'm urging, no begging, GW to release them.
I want every crying, “lore expert” who never read a single book, but just binged some loretuber who read straight off a wiki that never held canon info in the first place, (man im heavily dyslexic and I have no spare time to speak off, but even I at least get the audiobooks), I want these dudes to just burn their armies in rage. (and leave the hobby, dont forgett that very important part)
“Dont make Warhammer political”, get the fuck out of here. 40k was created by a bunch of nerds so angry at Margaret Thatcher they created a satire so heavily influenced by Monthy Python that I'm convinced John Cleese got paid off in cool minis to keep him from suing them.
Warhammer didnt go woke, it was always made by the left. We look at the older stuff and forget that it was created in a different(worse) time, and they have consistently tried to do better.
Look at old Forum posts about Graham McNeill. “Wäääh, why is he always writing about women, communist cuck McNeill” (not those exact words but general sentiment)
Like, I give McNeill so much shit today for how all women he writes about face horrible fates (but to be fair, what men doesn't have a terrible fate too). But I have even forgotten that some of this stuff is about 25 years old.
Seeing Warhammers official page block people who acts out in the comments about this, seeing them double down on the fact thar Custodes can have any gender. Seeing authors of the franchise, new and old back all of this. Im feeling Vindicated.
Gods, I wish this is the last straw for the alt-rights too stupid to realise they are being satirized.
And in the famous words of Games Workshop:
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danrifics · 1 day
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okokok bethstopher lets talk hypothetically for a moment and say dnp arent together. imagine like meeting phil at a bar and u two hit it off so he takes u home, gives u the best sex of ur life and ur like “omg i rlly like this guy” and u fall asleep in his bed. the next morning u look over and phil isn’t there. you assume he just got up before you and get dressed, as ur doing so, u hear this LOUD grating voice. it doesn’t sound like phil. u think maybe its just company? maybe a roommate? without anymore questioning, u head downstairs and into the kitchen, u see phil chatting it up with an curly brown haired man. they don’t notice you for a few minutes, once they do, the curly haired guy gives u the dirtiest look you ever ever seen. phil greets you and gestures towards the man “this is Dan.” “oh hello” you reply awkwardly. without acknowledging u, Dan quickly starts up another conversation with Phil and its like u were never even there in the first place. u stand there awkwardly as they talk about how they built this house ur currently standing in, together. what do you do next?
i excuse myself to the bathroom but instead i go have a look around and i find some stuff to steal, i grab what i can and i just run as far and as fast as i can, i have the golden pig tucked under one arm but it slips and crashes to the floor. it’s collateral damage. I have some more expensive things in my arms that are more important than the pig but i take a moment to mourn it as i stare at the pieces on the concrete in front of me. i don’t have time to stand for too long so i keep running. i don’t know why im running tho cos i quickly realise they hadn’t even noticed id left and they aren’t actually chasing after me.
i walk the rest of the way home and i keep my treasures from the phouse safe.
a few weeks later i stumble upon a video on YouTube phil is telling the story to his viewers of how he and dan were robbed. he leaves out the information that it was a one night stand gone wrong but i know in my heart hes talking about me.
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vivendraws · 2 days
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making an important announcement about some things i’ve noticed in the gwendoline christie fandom that really bug me.
disclaimer: read this at your own convenience and discretion. i am not responsible for any sort of hurt feelings and frankly… i don’t care. if you’re mad about this, you are probably the problem. /lh
to start with id like to begin on a positive note so that i’m not diving into negativity, i don’t want to be completely negative about my experiences because i’ve actually met some of the kindest people in the world through this fan base.
the gwen fandom, the gwandom, the gwendoline christie fandom , the lesbian cesspool, has been an incredible experience that i’m grateful i’ve had the pleasure of being apart of.
i went through a rough patch during november, and if i hadn’t found out about gwen, or met such wonderful people during my time here , i honestly wouldn’t be here right now. i owe my life to these people, gwen included. i will forever adore miss christie and what she stands for alongside the friends i’ve made along the way.
and while i know someday this hyperfix will end, it’s really disheartening to me when a fandom is what makes me grow distant from things i enjoy. it happened before, i feel as though it is happening all over again.
and no, i’m not taking issue with anything like the catrissa stuff or the brienne and larissa ship going around or anything like that. i like that we can all be weird together and enjoy aus like catrissa and crackships like bririssa (not sure the official name that was decided lol). my issue is the amount of content i’ve seen that either focuses on gwen herself, or the strange relationship with minors, or the odd artwork of gwen, and the absolute disgusting behaviour towards giles.
gwen would be absolutely appalled seeing fanfictions of herself that involve nsfw or just her in general, anyone would, it’s disgusting to make works of real people in that setting. it’s like you’re treating them as an original character you can mould and manipulate as you see fit and using someone who is real with thought and feeling and consciousness for smut fics is not okay, or any fic in general. i totally get the hype around her characters, i literally have “brienne’s princess” in my bio and i’ve had “jane murdstone’s bloodbag” (in reference to my vamp au) as a name in a discord server.
but i think the fandom has begun to blur the lines between fictional characters and reality settings when it comes to gwen and the personalities she portrays on the television screen. it’s not fair to her. it’s disgusting. i’ve seen a minor do it, i’ve seen a grown adult do it. it’s something i don’t see shamed and frowned upon often enough and it’s really not okay.
on that note i’d like to quickly mention the photos, we alllll know what photos i’m talking about. the bunny one, the nudes, the ones gwen has expressed regret towards and wishes to not have them spread. was there not a “fan” who brought her a book of her nudes and wanted her to sign it? that person who was blocked on instagram by gwen because they reposted her nudes on their story and tagged her???? how can you refer to yourself as a fan after behaving so abhorrently? absolutely disgusting behaviour. as a collective fandom we need to stop touching those photos (metaphorically speaking) and leave them in the past.
i’ve been told of numerous circumstances in which adults have shown their nsfw works to minors in this fandom and it has to fucking stop. it’s disgusting!! how can you do that knowingly? i constantly ponder terminating my account after a minor got ahold of my nsfw work, and upon realising they WERE a minor it was as simple as blocking and moving on. it’s truly not that hard, folks. and the minors on tiktok who fight with others saying silly things like “that’s my wife” or worse. i’ve seen it all, i feel like, and the more i see it the more sick i become. i cannot stand it.
i have seen and heard of fans who have fat shamed gwen for that one pink dress she wore to the met gala. she looked so happy in that dress, and the audacity one must have to fatshame that poor woman on twitter then turn around and continue to proclaim your ‘love for her’ as if you’d done no wrong? are you fucking serious? are you mental?
and the sexualisation over the porcelain doll look, gods some of you are sick. those were not real breasts, people. considering the fact she wholeheartedly regrets her nude photoshoots , what possesses you to believe she would actually flaunt her chest in that outfit?
the blatant mistreatment of poor giles is not fucking okay either. just because you’re jealous of someone who makes her immensely happy does not give you the right to post something so vile and cruel about him. shame on you. why do you believe this is okay to post:
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????????
are you serious? have any of you stopped to consider how HAPPY giles makes her? or is her happiness the last thing you ponder when you look at her? have you even noticed how unhappy she looks lately? have you truly paused to consider how she would feel about seeing this on your page, random twitter user, or the rest of you who think this is okay? bless your hearts.
and some of the absolutely horrific things i’ve seen about her online and the hurtful behaviour towards giles makes me question the difference between a fan and just the general paparazzi. because if you truly loved her and you truly loved giles then i would not be ranting into the fucking void about it for no reason.
i avoid interacting with pages i find problematic on here to keep from stirring the pot but tonight i chose violence and got reeeeeal pissy about how i felt about this place. it’s not okay what i see on here and it’s getting exhausting seeing the same cycle of content on a daily.
that’s everything i have to say, i think. i probably missed a lot that should be discussed in the comments but i’m done for now because i know if i go on i’ll probably cry.
before you post things about real people with real feelings , stop to consider how they will feel those real feelings towards the content you put out. chances are you’ll become less problematic and obnoxious that way. 💘
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possamble · 3 days
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realizing im kind of a weirdo about laios and marcille
#possramble#ignore this im just babbling but#the thing is that like. i don't ship laios and marcille together. their relationship is so so important to me in that laios comphets himsel#and THINKS that he might be in love with her but he isn't and that's my insane obsession#platonic soulmates for real but they're so sweet together that i fully expect them to be shipped together#like i get it. that's almost the appeal for me. if dungeon meshi were any other series there'd be an epilogue where they get married#convention dictates that they're meant to be together as the male protagonist and his beloved female deuteragonist#but dungeon meshi DOESNT do that and i love it so fucking much they're the comphet besties ever for my strange little brain#like if i ever did an arranged marriage au it would absolutely be laios and marcille having a platonic political marriage and then just#the most insane mutual pining with marcille and falin while laios and marcille struggle their way into becoming best friends#the imagery of the king and his beautiful court mage being tender to each other and everyone thinking they're in love is like catnip to me#like yeah they'd be like that and have no idea people think they should be together and the subversion makes me so obsessed#the more people ship them romantically. the more i enjoy their platonic dynamic it's like some sort of weird comphet fetishism idk#people think they're in love and im outside the window like YES... YES!!!#but also the second i see stuff of them kissing on the mouth or fucking im like oh god no i went too deep in here i gotta get out#don't wanna see that. i'll go feral over the idea of laios and marcille being arm-in-arm like king and queen but they would not fuck.#i want marcille to be his default comphet beard and dance partner/plus one at official royal events but they're not kissing.#she's there on his arm because he's scared of the other noble women tryna get him and being a baby about it#and people see them muttering to each other and laughing and generally being very sweet and think that they're dating but they're not.#she's actually covered in hickies from falin underneath her dress and is gonna get dragon dicked right after the party is over#like she's in her bedroom and falin's helping her take her ridiculous dress off while listening to her complain about politics#and falin is the person she goes home to the person she falls asleep to and wakes up with#they're a triad of utter devotion to each other but only farcille's side of the triangle is romantic#it's almost like an open secret because they're not trying to hide it at all but people assume and are surprised to find out#like people are so right about her relationship with the toudens but with the siblings' roles switched#love of her life & irreplaceable life companion. does anyone get it#anyway. i don't know what's wrong with me#it bothers me that they're not the undisputed most popular het ship for marcille on ao3#it's unnatural. marcille being paired with any other man should be a fringe case.
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nightwolf14292 · 2 days
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Dick Grayson Canon Lore Stuff:
(TW for Batman stuff, like spoilers and mention of injury/death) Hello, I know very little about the canon Batfamily because I can't exactly just read all of the comics (there's way too many, and they're very expensive T-T) so instead I spent like an hour reading the entire Fandom . com entry on Dick Grayson, and this is pretty much my timeline of important events that I got from that (I'm typing this in hopes that it'll help me remember it).
Dick Grayson Canon Lore Stuff:
•From a very young age Dick Grayson was trained as an acrobat, hence his job as a performer in his family's circus act.
•When he was eight years old, he overheard a well known crime boss threaten the circus performers if he wasn't paid by the circus owner. The owner didn't pay him, and that night Dick witnessed his parents high wire snap, leading to both of their deaths. (He felt responsible for not warning them)
•He was put into a juvenile service system, because social services in Gotham were full. In this system he was often beat up by the others, which led to him eventually being put into a Catholic orphanage instead.
•Bruce Wayne adopted him, but Dick didn't want to replace his deceased dad with a 'stuck up' billionaire, plus he felt like Bruce didn't give him enough attention (Probably because Bruce was still dealing with the trauma of his own parents death and didn't like getting attached to people in case he lost them as well), so he snuck out in hopes of solving his parents murder himself.
•He met Batman, also investigating the murder, which led to him finding out that Batman and Bruce Wayne are the same person.
•They find the crime boss, but he 'dies of a heart attack' before he can be arrested.
•Since Bruce saw so much of himself in Dick, he asked the boy if he wanted to become his sidekick and Dick decided to name himself 'Robin' after what his mother used to call him.
•He was trained for six long, hard months before he was allowed to do any real missions, and he had to go through one full night eluding Batman without help before he was allowed to officially become Robin.
•For the first year or so Dick had a lot of fun with his job, and treated it as a fun adventure he and Bruce participated in together.
•That was until he had a fight with Two-Face, in which Batman and the DA were both stuck in nooses. Dick cut the rope around the DA with a Batarang, but Two-Face had crafted a double trap and this made the floor fall out so the DA landed in a pit of water in which he drowned. This was Dick's first time witnessing an on-the-job death which would serve to haunt him for years to come, plus he got himself a beating from Two-Face (Okay but like, wouldn't he have been like 9 or 10 max Jeezums- 😭🖐).
•Bruce temporarily 'fired' Dick, not wanting to see him get hurt any more.
•Dick served as Robin for a while longer, still working with Bruce and also forming his own Titans team.
•When Dick was 17 he got shot in his shoulder by the Joker, which prompted Bruce to officially fire him out of fear for his safety. Dick decided that he didn't need Batman anymore, plus he had some issues with the way Bruce did things, so he moved from Gotham to New York to be more involved with the Titans, and he dropped out of highschool.
•Bruce didn't really like this, and told Dick that if he was no longer going to work with him he would have to retire the Robin title. Dick left Wayne Manor afterwards, and handed over leadership of the Titans to Wondergirl.
•Unsure of himself and what he should do now, yet not wanting to give up crime fighting now that it was such a big part of his life, he went to find Superman. For a brief while Dick stayed with Superman, and Superman told him of a Krypton hero who had been known as Nightwing. Because of this time with Clark, Dick decided to finally become his own hero free of Batman. He named himself Nightwing after the Krypton hero, and made himself a costume based off of something his father once wore back in the circus.
•Now as Nightwing he helped lead the Titans, though his relationship with Starfire was worsening over time.
•Jason's death was a bit of a turning point in his character. Even though originally he hadn't seemed to like Jason (mainly because Jason acted as his replacement, and because of his not so great relationship with Bruce) Dick seemed to grow into a kinder/gentler person after the event.
•A while after this, Dick discovered that the mob boss who had killed his parents was not actually dead but was in a coma instead. Dick went looking for him, but witnessed him being gunned down before he had a chance to do anything for himself. Bruce claimed that he was worried that Dick would seek revenge for his parents death if he knew the truth, so he told the young boy that the mod boss was dead instead. Dick was obviously upset because of this, and his relationship with Bruce stayed strained.
•While he was still serving with the Titans, Tim Drake sought him out and asked him to return to being Robin (Because after Jason's death Bruce was going crazy without a Robin by his side), but Dick refused because of his bad relationship with Bruce and his enjoyment for his current job. He did help Tim become Robin, though.
•A lot of bad things happened with the Titans, people passed, people left, people changed, but Dick fought to stay the heart and center of the team through it all.
•Despite their strained relationship, Dick tried to impulsively marry Starfire, but the ceremony was interrupted, which eventually led to Starfire leaving and returning to her home planet.
•Bruce was brutally injured by Bane, but because his relationship with Dick was so bad and he didn't want to 'force' his son to return, he temporarily gave the Batman title to the not-so-stable Jean Paul Valley, with Tim there to help him out. Jean proved too unstable, however, and Dick returned to Gotham to help Tim deal with him. Dick decided to step away from the Titans to focus on Gotham, and the still healing Bruce asked him to be Batman until he was alright again which Dick agreed to.
•During his time acting as Batman, Dick built a great brotherly relationship with Tim. In addition, Bruce admitted that he hadn't originally asked Dick to act as Batman for him because he didn't want to force him to come back, and the two finally began to fix their relationship.
•Dick pretends to be a villain working under Deathstroke for a while, until Deathstroke betrays him and kills at least 100,000 people with a bomb. Dick tries to find and help any survivors, but is unable to because of the radiation which weighs heavily on his mind. He also proposes to Barbara Gordon around this time.
•Dick recovers and Bruce asks him to join him and his current Robin in rediscovering his roots. Dick is hesitant, but Barbara insists that he helps, and suspends their engagement for the time being.
•Dick returns to the Titan's tower, because there's someone there pretending to be him. Turns out it's the revived Jason Todd!
•While on a case, he gets buried alive by a mysterious voice that tells him he's 'supposed to be dead'. He has a hard time finding work because he's in a cast, and is having some trouble due to his injuries.
•By this point his relationship with both Bruce and Tim have improved dramatically, and he's close with both of them.
•The Titans decide to reform their group.
•Okay I'm gonna try and put this as simply as possible… Bruce was targeted by a group called 'Black Glove', supposedly going insane and running away. Dick doesn't want Tim to have to deal with everything himself, so he returns. He gets kidnapped and drugged by the International Club of Villains and is scheduled for a lobotomy, but gets out of it because Bruce's 'insanity' was made up to expose the Black Glove. Batman fights with Doctor Hurt on a helicopter, but the helicopter explodes. Batman is fine and works with the Justice League, but then is seemingly killed in his confrontation with Darkseid. In his will, Bruce begs Dick not to become Batman. Because of his refusal to become Batman, someone else takes up the job instead, calling himself Batman but using lethal methods that Bruce would never allow. This 'Batman' is actually Jason Todd, who shoots Damian and almost kills Tim with a Batarang. Dick and Jason fight and Dick shoves Jason off of a speeding train, seemingly killing him though Jason says they'll 'Meet again soon'. Dick finally decides to become the official Batman, but refuses to make Tim his Robin because according to him, he sees Tim as his equal and not his sidekick. He instead makes Damian his new Robin, which of course pisses off Tim. Tim, believing Bruce to be alive, takes up Jason's old Red Robin mantle and goes searching for Bruce. Dick moves base because the Batcave reminds him too much of Bruce, and struggles because Damian is constantly reminding and taunting him over the fact that he will never truly be able to replace his father. When he next fights Jason, Jason remarks that if the Lazarus pit could revive him, it could revive Bruce too as he's being arrested.
There's quite a bit of stuff that happens in between here, most notably the death of a young boy called Baby D which influences Dick's future character, but since I've been typing for hours:
Thinking about what Jason said, Dick takes Bruce's body from his grave and takes him to the Lazarus Pit. While it does reanimate the corpse, the revived 'Bruce' is angry and violent. This is because it was never Bruce at all, it was actually a clone of him. This gives Dick, Damian, and Alfred a similar hope to Tim, that Bruce is actually still alive. Tim brings evidence that Bruce is actually lost in time, and after a bit of digging and more evidence finding, they manage to bring Bruce back.
•Dick finally becomes Nightwing again, now with red on his costume which reflects his darker and more grim outlook on life and humanity after his time as Batman.
•Nightwing gets stabbed on a mission.
•He also, on a different mission, momentarily dies but they manage to start his heart again.
•Dick puts down his Nightwing title for a while and becomes a secret agent for Bruce, but the wiki has no info on this.
•Dick goes back to being Nightwing, finally returning to his original black and blue suit instead of the black and red one. He reforms the titans, but after working with them for a bit, but ends up moving back to Blüdhaven soon after.
•Someone is sent to assassinate Dick, and he gets shot in the head. He manages to survive, though he has amnesia and for a brief while becomes 'Ric Grayson' until he gets his memories back. When Ric tries to restore his memories he is kidnapped by the Joker who brainwashes him into believing that he was the Joker's sidekick, though he's eventually rescued and gets his memories back. After this event, he officially rejoins the Batman Family as Nightwing.
•There's no info after this.
Grrrrr I might do this for the other characters but idk because this took forever and I am tired lmao
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fortunekookie07 · 2 days
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Mc disappears on a mission/snowcrest (Days, weeks, author's choice) I want pain, anguish But a happy ending, with a reunion (the only requirement, life is sad enough 😭)
This is the prompt requested, and I got this idea.
Looking for my Heart
The mission seems simple enough, you thought as you read through the file that Jenna had sent. After you had gone to Snowcrest last year with Zayne and temporarily teamed up with the Deepspace Hunters stationed there she had decided to add more diversity to the training. This included rounds in Snowcrest.
This time it was your turn, you were excited to see Dr. Noah and Pie again. It had been almost six months since your last trip. Getting out of Linkon for the first time in awhile was just the refreshing change you wanted.
Zayne had agreed to take you to the train station so you could meet up with your temporary team, but for some reason he was late. This was highly unusual, Zayne was almost never late. He prided himself on his perfect manners.
You decide to take your luggage downstairs anyways. Surely Zayne was on the way or maybe even pulling up to the complex now. Upon seeing the quiet parking lot devoid of his car a pout forms on your lips. You grab your phone and scroll through the texts you'd exchanged and check to make sure you'd told him the correct time and date. There it was, Wednesday morning 9:30, along with his affirmation and yet no Zayne. You decide that this is not ok and immediately tap the phone icon to call him.
Straight to voice-mail, a frown furrows your eyebrows and your lips purse out in frustration. You call again, once more, twice more. You almost lose count at the number of straight to voice mail calls you send. So you type him a text in anger.
I know you don't want me to go to Snowcrest but this is my job after all. If you didn't want to take me you shouldn't have agreed in the first place. Trying to make me miss the train is really petty. You hit send without a second thought and immediately call for a taxi. Minutes later one is pulling into the parking lot and finally you are off.
After getting to the station and finally securing your tickets and luggage your phone rings. Zayne's name and picture flash across the screen. In anger you shut your phone off and stuff it deep into your bag.
You walk down a few cars before finding a seat. Across from you is a family. A little girl is giggling as her father is making funny faces and the mother is quietly laughing as well. A smile crosses your face and then unwanted thoughts pop into your head.
For a moment you see yourself and Zayne in that exact situation. Though he'd probably never actually admit it, Zayne would do anything you asked no matter how silly. To him you'd hung the moon and scattered the stars. A small smile came to your face and you violently shook your head back in forth, uncaring that your hair whipped your cheeks as you did so.
"No I'm angry, we're mad at Zayne. Be mad at Zayne"! You chant softly to yourself before slapping both cheeks. Having successfully for the moment chased away the daydream you sit back in your seat as the train begins to move and look out at the scenery flashing by. Slowly changing from city to mountains.
Two hours later the heaters in the cars came on as the temperature outside had dropped. It was snowing lightly according to the weather report. Your about to get your jacket on when an alert sound on your Hunter's Watch. You look down and see that a there is a Metaflux warning on the screen and the scanner is red.
Immediately your heart starts hammering in your chest as a cold sweat rolls down your back. This is exactly the readings you saw on your first day Hunting.
"Look out"! You scream just before everything goes white and you hear a high pitched screech and then nothing.
**********************************************************
She was standing off to the side holding Dr. Zayne's phone. Finally it was her turn to watch for important calls or messages and inform him of them. Finally she would be able to get closer to him. Oh how she had dreamed of this day! Luck was finally dealing her the winning hand.
At least that was the cloud nine Mia was currently occupying until the phone actually started soflt vibrating. A quick glance at the screen sent her stomach straight to the pits of ultimate fury. How did this stupid girl have Zayne's number? She was always around him. It made her blood absolutely boil staring down at her stupid smiling face and name on the screen. "Humph"! She scoffed sending the call straight to voicemail. Oh how it delighted her to reject that snake's call.
Well that was until the phone started vibrating again almost immediately. She's calling again?!?! Mia thought wanting to throw the device into and inferno.
I've been in his department for two years and she already has his number?? How dare she deceive my Zayne! She sent the call to voice-mail again. This went on several more times and she was almost giddy at having rejected the call five times. A wide smile made its way onto her face as a text message popped in then. Zayne would never allow anyone to talk to him like that. She was riding this wave for the next hour before finally the surgery was done.
Mia quickly deleted the records of the call and then looked up as Dr. Zayne set down his instruments and gave his final orders. He was handing the last of the surgery duties over to his team. They quickly got to work stitching the patient back up. Dr. Zayne walked over to her and her heart skipped a beat as she watched another nurse help remove his scrubs and gear before finally standing in front of her.
He looks so tired, she thought silently handing over his phone. He accepted it and a deep frown immediately hung over his face. He pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. "Damn, I'm late". He said quietly.
"Is something wrong Dr. Zayne". Mia asked gazing at his face. Mock concern on it. Zayne only looked at her before leaving the room. Mia was confused, while it was true they didn't have much contact, he'd never outright ignored her before. She shrugged it off as tiredness. It had been a six hour surgery after all.
Mia left the surgical wing and went back to the nurses station to write down the report she knew would be expected by the end of the day. However forty-five minutes later she was being summoned to Zayne's office. He had directly written an email and sent it to her. This had never happened before. Mia had attended dozens of surgeries with Zayne before, but never had an email come to her straight from him.
She was so elated that she didn't even notice the looks she was getting as she practically skipped to his office. Word of her misdeeds had traveled around the entire cardiac ward and then some, but Mia hadn't noticed. Too busy floating in the clouds to see the disapproving stares and mock sympathy she was getting.
She stopped only once at the last bathroom before turning to his office to check her hair and makeup. She quickly undid the ponytail her hair had been thrown in before and finger combed the strands before relying it neatly. Adjusting her bangs to fall just right across her forehead and removing all traces of smudged eyeliner. Perfect! She thought glancing once more before leaving.
Standing in front of his office door she cleared her throat and raised her hand to knock, but another hand beat her to it. She turned a withering look on her face but nearly recoiled in shock. Standing to her right was the president of the hospital along with his secretary and another Doctor she couldn't remember the name of.
"Come in". Zayne's deep voice sounded from the other side. The president quickly pushed the door open and strode inside. His secretary looked at her. A woman in her mid thirties with square framed glasses a high ponytail with side swept bangs and piercing golden eyes. She looked like an eagle that had just found her next pray. Mia suddenly felt small, all her early excitement and high dwindling rapidly to nothing.
She walked into the room like a timid mouse searching for the cat she just knew was watching her. "Y-you wanted to see me Dr. Zayne"? His green and gold eyes looked at her. Expression flat, devoid of all emotion and even life. Her body started to trembled as she played with the hem of her uniform shirt.
"Did I receive any calls earlier this morning"? He asked her out right not beating around the bush. "N-no sir, your phone did not ring". She was sweating nervously. Why was she being asked this in front of the president. She wanted the floor to swallow her.
"Is that so". He said and the temperature in the room dropped ten degrees with that single sentance. He wordlessly turned his computer monitor around to show what he was looking at and Mia felt her stomach sink to the floor as she stared at a frozen image of herself holding Zayne's phone. It was clear as day.
"Are you unaware that in addition to their being an observation deck above my operating room there are also cameras all over the place? Are you sure this is the route you wish to take"? He asked as her pressed play on the video. You could clearly see her holding the phone and looking down at the screen when the device lit up. The name couldn't be read from the distance but the picture of you was unmistakable.
Mia lost all composure as she ditched her cover. "Why does she get to have your number and hang around you all the time like some cheap skank? It makes me sick the way she's always coming to the hospital like she owns the place. She doesn't even deserve to breathe the same air as you. She doesn't deserve to breathe at all"! Mia shouted chest heaving from her words and anger. "Who does she even think she is? She's isn't good enough for you"! She went on. There was no coming back from this, Mia had tossed all caution to the wind and she was going down with her sinking ship.
"Are you so self absorbed that you don't even know who my patients are"? Zayne asked, his voice was cold enough to give Mia frostbite as she practically froze. Horror dawning on her as realization started to sink in. "Not that it is any of your business in the first place. She has an extremely rare heart condition and requires weekly checkups to make sure no changes occur. She has my number because I gave it to her....".
Just then the door burst open and several people came in panicked. "Dr. Zayne you need to see this now"! The male shouted grabbing the remote and turning the TV on to the news in a flurry.
"..Minutes ago on the mountain there was an explosion believed to have been cause by metaflux, at the time the train bound for Snowcrest was at the heart of it. As of yet we are unable to get reports of the accident. As you can see drones are trying to get closer bit having no visual luck. The smoke has completely enveloped the accident. We are able to confirm that the train was blasted off the tracks as you can see here". The reported said as a still image filled the screen.
You could clearly see where the tracks ended brokenly and the huge gouge that had been taken as well as the black smoke. All eyes in the room turned to Zayne who had stood abruptly from his chair with such force that it had been knocked over. He scrambled for his phone furiously before tapping and immediately calling someone. The phone went straight to voicemail. Over and over again to no avail, finally he dropped the phone and hung his head brokenly.
He looked up sharply and sent her a withering glare, "The president will deal with you. I need to go". He said directing the last part to the president.
No one said a word as Dr. Zayne left the hospital and drove straight to the train station. He tried calling Dr. Noah, but to no avail. Emergency lines overruled all other communication.
Zayne felt like all his sanity was about to slip away, you were missing and you took his heart with you when you vanished.
*******************************************************
That had been eight days ago, every news outlet was following the story as the very world held its breath. Four rescue attempts had been made with no results. The explosion had stired up all the Wanderers and the area was thick with danger. Rescue workers couldn't fend off the Wanderers and there just weren't enough Deepspace Hunters that could destroy them, protect the rescuers, and look for survivors. All hope seemed to be lost.
As morning dawned on the ninth day something changed, the areas that had previously been inaccessible were suddenly clear. The Wanderer sightings in the first zones had dropped to zero. Even the metaflux readings were bottoming out. Like the forests surrounding the area was reclaiming itself.
Zayne finally ditched the watch the Association had put on him and headed into the wilderness. You the only thing on his mind. He was coming for you no matter what.
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Pain, that was the most prominent feeling you had first as you tried to open your eyes and move. They didn't want to cooperate. Something shuffled near you and then you realized something was holding your hand. At first you were afraid, unable to open your eyes and unable to move. Panic started to set in and with it dizziness. Even though you were already lying down the ground beneath you was spinning. Like a merry-go-round turned on to fast.
Then there was a quiet shushing. "It's alright, please calm down. Your injuries are serious and we have no way to treat them. We barely managed to stop the bleeding. Your eyes have been covered because there were deep cuts on your forehead. In addition your right leg and arm are badly broken. I don't know the extent of all your injuries so please don't move. If it hadn't been for your warning no one but you would have survived. My wife and daughter are alive thanks to you. Please let us help you". A male voice said softly near your ear. A hand brushed your hair back and then there was gentle pressure on your left hand.
A smaller hand had gripped it holding softly. "We managed to put up some shelter, it's been snowing non stop since the accident and the area is not safe. Your watch alerts us to dangers so we're staying hidden. You're a Hunter aren't you"? Those time a female voice was speaking softly. Memories slowly came back, you remembered the family you saw on the train and tears came to your eyes. That family had survived and not only that, protected you at your most vulnerable moments.
With all the strength you had left to muster you squeezed the small hand still holding yours before passing out again. Thankfully in unconsciousness there was no pain and there was also Zayne.
How you missed his cool demeanor and often icy personality. You missed staring into his deep hazel eyes and getting lost in them. You missed him holding you and waking up to him. In your dreams Zayne had already found you and was gently tending all your injuries while hiding how much it pained him to see you in this state.
The next time you woke up all was quiet around you. Carefully you pulled the layers of cloth off your eyes and peered into the dim light. It stung a bit after so much darkness. Huddled around you was a man, woman, and small child. They looked worse for the wear and tou noted cuts, burns, scrapes, and the like on them. Seems they had been extraordinarily lucky to escape with such minor injuries. You took note of the extent of your own injuries for the first time. Breathing hurt if you sucked in air too deeply, seems you can add ribs to the list of broken. Not to mention the burning paid in your side. That was heavily bound with cloth. That must be the bleeding that was hard to stop.
You tried to lift your head but that just sent oy straight back to the world of dreams. All your energy spent on just moving cloth from your eyes and feeling out wounds.
*******************************************************
Zayne was still unsure of the man walking beside him. He sort of knew about your upstairs neighbor and frequent Hunting partner but had never actually met Xavier before. He was quiet hardly speaking and seemed to be emotionless. Taking down every Wanderer that approached.
He hardly even needed Zayne's help, in fact he was pretty sure the man required zero help at all. It was quite a surprise when Xavier had agreed to Zayne's coming along in the first place. He knew there was more that Xavier knew than he would ever let slip. This guy held more secrets than a diary.
When Zayne had told him he was going to find you with ir without his help Xavier relented and off you were. Easily slipping past barriers and blockads headed for the accident zone.
Suddenly Xavier stopped his sled dogs and walked through the trees. In front the train tracks appeared and so did the spot where a huge hole was. Spanning at least thirty feet wide and probably ten feet deep at its center, it was no surprise the train had been blasted off the tracks. One of the cars lay on its top. Windows busted and scorch marks all over the metal. The fire on this one had burned a long time. The smell of burnt wooden, metal, and coal still lingered in the air. The bursting of snow looked odd on the scene. Any tracks that may have been on the snow were long since gone. Dusted over with more snow.
"Not here". Xavier said quietly leading away from the car and walking further away from the train into the woods. The air was dead silent, no animals had been seen in days. Having run away, or too terrified to come out of hiding.
Zayne felt his heart freezing over with the bitter cold. He would not admit the chances of your survival of the explosion until the evidence was thrust right before his eyes.
The hospital had forced him into a personal leave two days after the explosion. He was walking around in a daze, because quite literally his heart was missing. He got angry everytime he thought about what one of the nurses had done. Rejecting your calls like that several times. Her job was terminated that day. The president would not have such a malicious person on staff at Akso hospital. If word got out that patients were treated like that because a nurse thought she was entitled to whatever she wanted their stellar reputation would plummet.
A crunching noise started coming from a few feet in front of them. Xavier dashed forward towards thr sound.
In a makeshift clearing a man was walking their way. He looked beat up and tired as he froze at the sight of them before smiling in joy. It looked like he had been crying.
"Oh thank god"! He cried coming to them in relief. "We need help, the young woman that is with us is hurt real bad. I don't know if she's going to make it. I can't treat her injuries. Zayne felt his blood freeze as a sickening feeling came over him. "Show us". He said and the man immediately turned are hurried back the way he'd come. For the first time Zayne realized there was a tent strung from blankets and branches.
The man pushed the heavy blanket aside and went in. Zayne paused for a moment before he and Xavier followed. As soon as Zayne got a look at who was lying on the ground it felt like his soul left him.
There you were, his heart so battered and hurt he could barely breathe. For the first time Zayne wished he didn't have any medical training ir knowledge. He could easily see every injury and the signs of the ones the untrained eye could not.
A fever had set in and you were shivering despite the blankets on you and the two people huddled near you trying to keep you warm.
"Move aside", Zayne said with a calm he didn't feel. He took his backpack off and immediately searched for the pain medication and bandages. He gave you a shot to dull the pain your broken bones would definitely be giving you. He removed the cloth wrapped around your stomach and examined the injury. He could tell they had tried their best to care for you but lacking any supplies at all it had been a struggle. Signs of infection were already setting in. The jagged cut to your side was deep and would require antibiotics and stitching. Neither of which he had now. He just tried his best to clean the wounds with the basic supplies he had and moves on.
At some point during his treatment, you woke up. Eyes hazy and unfocused. "Zayne can't you find me already"? The fever had made you delirious. "Hurry and come find me Zayne. I can't hold out much longer". He stoked your head and mumbled. I'm looking for you, I'll find you soon. "M'kay". You say before slipping back into a feverish sleep. "We need to get her out of here now". Zayne says to Xavier carefully turning you onto your back and the carefully picking you up.
Your face scrunches in pain and whimpers escape your lips but you do not wake. The pain meds are doing their job, for the most part.
*******************************************************
After what seems like a year later you're waking up. You tense as you realize that you no longer have anyone around you. The little girl is gone and so are the mom and dad.
It takes you almost three minutes to notice that you are lying in a bed now and not on a covered ground with several blankets. Only when you realize that do you also hear the sounds of machines. You blearily open your eyes and see the white walls and the large curtained window on your left.
Zayne is also there, asleep in a chair that just screams uncomfortable. There is a chart in his lap and you realize it's yours. You are glad that you can't read what is written from your angle. You try to turn onto your side and one of the machines starts beeping angrily at you.
Zayne snaps awake instantly and reaches over to press a button. He removes his glasses and rubs his eyes. He must be exhausted. You open your mouth to speak but all that comes out is a whisper. Your mouth is so dry.
Your voice is only a whisper. Instead you try to move your hand. This manages to catch his attention. He is immediately checking you over. Doctor mode has been activated.
"Are you in pain? How is your head"? He fires off questions rapidly. Unable to answer them you point to the water on the table. His gaze follows your finger and he grabs the glass holding the straw for you to sip. "Slowly, not too fast". He gently chides.
"Zayne, you found me". You say not answering any of the questions. "Of course I did". He says matter of factly sitting down and staring at you again. "I know you are too resilient to go down without a fight. You're tougher than that".
You smile softly gazing at him. "I need my heart". He gently takes your hand staring at the ring on your finger. He won't say it but you have certainly put his heart through a beating.
"When can I leave the hospital". You ask and he just sighs. "You're just going to have to stay put for awhile. You're in for a long recovery. The extent of your injuries were no small matter.
"Dr. Zayne I'd like you to return my finacee to me now". You say in a joking manner squeezing his hand.
A long sigh is drawn out from him before he says "just what am I going to do with you"? He leans over and kisses your forehead, both eyelids and then finally your lips.
"I hope you know a person can't live without their heart. Don't make mine disappear again. " You smile, feeling warm with his words.
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athanza · 1 day
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Starlett - Part 2
Cooper Howard/fem!OC (not self-insert)
Tags: Hurt/comfort (sort of?), non-allowed romantic connection, lots of tention, pre and post war drama, some Cooper dad fluff because why not ♡
Warnings: Mentions of domestic abuse and (no graphic scenes or descriptions of that nature), angst, canon wasteland violence
This branches out from canon but I thought it was a cute story idea so I had to write it. Enjoy! ♡
Part 1 | Part 3 | Final part
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The harsh sun was setting now which meant he needed to find somewhere to settle in for the night. The rickety second floor of one of these buildings would be the best option so he'd have a good vantage point if something were to happen.
As he searched for the right building he began to hear muffled screaming coming from further in the crumbled town. At first, he couldn't give a rat's ass, but he needed to know if it was a big enough threat for him to keep moving.
It didn't take long for gunshots to begin ringing out through the ruins, but they were only from 3 separate guns...then 2...then 1.
As he reached the area where the shots were coming from, the sounds of a pissed off Yao Guai became apparent, and there was one singular person left to fight it off but she looked like she was badly injured.
"You son of a bitch!!" She yelled when her gun jammed and the wounded beast readied itself for another charge.
As it lunged at her one more time a shotgun shell slammed into the side of it's head and it went down, a pink mist left in the air for a moment as the rest of it's brains splattered to the ground.
The woman turned to where the shot came from to see Cooper walking casually towards her, unable to see his face very well in the dark. She pointed her now un-jammed rifle at him just in case.
"Those things'll kill ya." He quipped.
"Yeah, no shit." She replied, wincing at the pain from a gash on her side.
He cocked his head a little. Her voice sounded familiar.
"Why don't you put down that gun so I can cut myself some bear hide and be on my way?"
She scoffed. "So you can shoot me in the face and steal all my shit? No thanks cowboy."
That was it, the confirmation he didn't think he'd get.
"Irene?" He said.
The woman paused briefly, then aimed her gun properly. "How do you know my name?"
He stepped a little closer so that the light from the lantern on the ground could illuminate his face.
It took her a moment but she recognised his eyes and immediately lowered her weapon.
"Cooper?"
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A scream woke Cooper up in the middle of the night and he instinctively got up and ran to his daughter's room.
"Daddy!" Janey cried when she saw him.
He came over and hugged her tightly. "Hey, hey, it's ok, it was just a dream, you're ok."
She cried into him for a moment before spluttering "Why don't you and mommy love each other anymore?"
That caught him off guard. He had no idea what to say and it hurt so much hearing her say that.
"It's not that we don't love each other honey, it's just..." He tried desperately to search for the right words. "Well...your mom and I just disagree on somethin' really important and we tried to figure it out but it was too hard."
"What did you disagree on?"
"Well...that's grown up stuff baby girl."
She sulked quietly, putting her head back on his chest.
"We still love you very very much, that hasn't changed at all."
"Is it my fault?" She asked and his heart broke.
"No baby girl, no, not at all. None of this is your fault."
"I know I haven't been doing my homework, and I don't always feed Roosevelt when I'm told and-"
He cut her off, kneeling beside the bed so he could look her in the eyes. "Janey," he held her hands. "None of this is your fault. Your mother and I loved you since the day we found out we were gonna have you. And when you were born, we looked at you and we just cried and cried.
I have never been prouder or happier than I was in that moment. And you know what? That hasn't changed a bit, not even a little."
Janey smiled, her face still wet with leftover tears.
"Really?" She sniffed.
"Yes." Cooper chuckled, scooping her up and hugging her again and she giggled. "Now, how about a hot chocolate, with double marshmallows?"
She smiled and nodded enthusiastically.
She hugged him as he carried her downstairs. "I love you daddy." She said.
His chest burst with warmth and happiness and he smiled. "I love you too sweetheart."
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The next morning, Janey was watching cartoons on the TV while eating her breakfast and Cooper sipped greatfully at his cup of hot coffee, having not gotten much sleep.
He smiled as he heard his daughter giggle at the TV, her mouth full of cereal, and sat down at the dining table with his newspaper.
But just as he sat down the loud ringing from the telephone rang out through the kitchen and he sighed heavily.
"I'll get it!" Janey yelled and ran over, hoping it was her mother. Her face dropped when it wasn't her mother's voice she heard on the other end of the line. "Yeah he's here, I'll put him on."
Cooper looked up at her tone and she held the receiver out to him. "It's for you dad."
He walked over and took it, kissing her on the head before she went back to her cartoons.
"Hello?" He said.
"Mr. Howard, it's Irene. I'm sorry to call you at home but I need your help."
Her voice told him it was serious. "What's wrong?"
"You were right. About Frank. I know we barely know each other but I need somewhere to stay for the night before I go to my mother's up in Sacramento. Lee...Lee doesn't know."
"I uh..."
"...no, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have bothered you." She said.
"No, no, it's ok. I'll make up the guest room for you."
He could hear a faint sigh of relief in her answer. "Thank you, so much, I owe you one."
He gave her his address and they hung up.
"Who was that dad?" Asked Janey.
"A friend from work. She needs a place to stay tonight so she's gonna stay in the guest bedroom. You'd like her."
She kind of shrugged in an uninterested way and took another bite of her cereal, her attention back on the TV.
He hoped no one sees Irene at his house, that's the last thing he needs in the papers, especially now.
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Part 1 | Part 3
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callipraxia · 1 day
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Further Interview Analysis: the "Ford Plan," and Bill's Blind Spot
I didn’t sleep again the night after the “musical Weirdmageddon” post, and wrote a lot of loopy stuff the next day, and posted none of it. But then I slept, so yay, time for an attempt at some actual analysis! Original interview is, as before, here, with credit and thanks to @fordtato and @hkthatgffan.
"I think that Bill was trying to find Ford, but I think- I always think of Bill as like, this guy who has, like - you know, he’s stirring the pot of soup that is the Ford plan, and he’s got like 900 pots of soup across the universe of different things he’s working on, and at any given moment, he’s so cocksure that it’s all gonna work his way eventually."
Bill’s a trillion years old, so it’s like, Ford disappearing for thirty years is like- [snaps fingers] is like somebody saying they’re ghosting you and then texting you the next weekend, you know what I mean? He’s like- he’s like [handwave] “Ford’s gonna- Ford’s gonna be back. Ohh, [air quotes] we had such a big fight, Ford’s sooo mad at me,” oh, you know, “our will-they-won’t-they-take-over-the-universe relationship, like, he’s gonna- he’s gonna march off in a huff, and he’ll be back, ‘cause we’re- is Ford gonna find anyone else in the multiverse that strokes his ego as well as me?” Is there anybody else in the universe that’s gonna make Ford feel as important as Bill? No, of course not, Ford needs validation, and so Bill knows Ford’s gonna be back eventually. 
...so, Bill still had a "Ford plan," did he? Like, some active plan that involved using Ford in some way to escape the Nightmare Dimension? Interesting.
I always interpreted his cliche-villain-gloating routine when Ford confronts him about being a liar as the point where Bill was ready to discard Ford altogether. If he had wanted to - if he could have been bothered - after all, he probably would have had a very high chance of somehow manipulating Ford out of the realization that he'd been played: Ford had been literally worshiping Bill a few days earlier. He was basically a cultist, and he was not only someone who'd spent way too long talking to Bill, he was also someone who could only confront Bill on Bill's turf, so to speak. But Bill didn't even try to turn it all around, because (ran my reasoning) he'd gotten what he really needed: the Portal existed, and you can't close Pandora's box. The technology was there. It would not, from Bill's trillions-of-years perspective, have taken very long to find some way to manipulate someone else into rebuilding the Portal once it existed even given Ford's attempts to hide the plans. Bill was scribbling on the Journal in invisible ink after Ford's last entry, before he buried it but after he wrote all about his plans in some detail, even drawing a map to J2. The Journal separation plan would have been laughably easy for Bill to work around. So at that point, I assumed that the only reason Bill didn't arrange for Ford to - if I may be blunt - kill himself the first time he blacked out was because Bill was basically getting off on the psychological torture and wanted to see how long he could keep it going/enjoy himself until Ford literally died of exhaustion. Ford certainly seems to think he'd have been killed if he had lost the game of 'hide and seek' in the asteroid field. I thought the idea that "Bill used Ford until he used him up, and now he was done with him" was basically canon, and that Bill paid no more attention to him from that point onward than you would pay to a broken Solo cup in the trash until Ford did something unexpected - ie, survived the Multiverse, came back with a death ray, apparently took out a few Henchmaniacs, almost shot Bill himself, and then survived the experience.
But here we have what I suppose amounts of authorial commentary which seems to directly contradict the idea that Bill didn't even regard Ford was worth finding and/or killing. Bill was looking for Ford, all those years - not all that intently, apparently, or really very long from Bill's point of view, of course, but still - and Bill still had a plan for Ford. Bill also, if I'm reading that right, seems to have really just expected Ford to come back, of his own free will, to join him eventually, not to kill him.
Of course, it's possible I'm reading that wrong, and Bill just knew that killing him would also give Ford a massive ego boost and that Ford would have to eventually reenter his orbit in order to attempt to do so. It's also true that Bill just not being able to accept rejection in no way, by itself, implies he wasn't planning to go "hahahaha, no" and kill Ford fifteen seconds after he finished begging Bill for forgiveness. But the 'Ford plan' bit seems to undermine that. Let's assume the hesitations and half-sentences are Hirsch improvising, not Bill actually cutting off a thought he might not like the end of. So was Bill genuinely never planning to kill Ford after he bumbled into the Nightmare Realm back in '82? And if not - what in the world was he planning to do to him once one of the Henchmaniacs caught him, then? And why do I have the feeling that whatever it was would have made murder seem both a) kind and b) not at all disturbing by comparison?
Also gives us, in a way, some insight into Bill. Kinda. We've always known that there's this...level, this very deep, seldom-relevant but very important level, on which Bill doesn't quite understand how people work. We see it primarily in the mistakes that Bill makes with Stan and Mabel. Maybe there was nothing he could have said or done in the situation with Stan to save himself, Stan had reached the point of literally suicidal determination and there's really not much you can do to budge someone at that point and especially not once their consciousness has already caught fire, but with Mabel - in Sock Opera, all Bill needed to do to win was keep his mouth shut for three more seconds. He was clever enough to see how Dipper and Mabel's relationship could be exploited to get Dipper to do what he wanted, but he did the exact opposite of what he should have done to get Mabel to do what he wanted, because for one thing he underestimates Mabel and for another...it comes back to that elusive Thing that Bill can't or won't understand about the deeper levels of humans. Or maybe it's Things, plural, and a distinct one for each person, but there's something there at the bottom of the personality that Bill apparently can't jive with.
With Ford, for instance, he clearly underestimates the power of genuine self-hatred and remorse. Bill may feel bad in some way about what he did to his homeworld, but look at the actual words of the Axolotl's prophecy: he feels that way not because he has realized at some point that what he did was fundamentally wrong, but because he wants to go home and can't. Essentially, his regret is for his own inconvenience. And in a lot of ways, I can see how that could have translated into him feeling he did, in fact, know all he needed to know to push Ford's buttons, because while it's never spelled out for us, it seems, based on his habit of carrying around family photographs on his person apparently since college despite not getting on well at all with his family, that there was maybe some tiny part of Ford that also wanted to "go home," and not just to flip off the town. Ford was also someone who deeply feared the consequences of his actions, if you read between the lines in the Journal - his worries about a 'Close Encounter' with the government, his scrawling that he must not lose his nerve on some early Portal notes, his talking more and more about Fiddleford losing his nerve in a way that starts seeming kind of projection-y - and Bill could certainly understand that fear perfectly well: we see Bill panic outright in the finale when he realizes he's out of options he's going to remotely like. In the unlikely event Stan would or even could save him, Stan obviously wouldn’t have done so so on Bill's own terms: Bill would have been stuck making an honest deal for once, or else left with the options of "die" and "take a one-in-a-million shot and do his invocation of the 'Ancient Power,' possibly putting himself squarely into the hands of an enemy whose full aims he probably does not know." But then, that's Bill's flaw - the things that drove him to become what he did were revenge and the fear of Death, of the ultimate loss of control. His arrogance makes him think he can take most any situation, no matter how disadvantageous it might seem, and twist it around sooner or later, but Death - well, that's it, ain't it? Or, as Horace might say in a really old translation:
When life is o'er, and Minos has rehearsed The grand last doom, Not birth, nor eloquence, nor worth, shall burst Torquatus' tomb.
(Horace, Ode 4.7. The Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace. John Conington. trans. London. George Bell and Sons. 1882.)
Bit different from most translations I've read, but close enough and in the public domain I believe, so we'll go with that. It's possible that Bill's...unique...state of existence may actually make dying an even more terrifying prospect for him than it for the rest of us. He became what he was to escape limitations, including mortality - but after all that killing and burning and transformation, he found out that he might not ever die, but that he could still be destroyed. And even when he found his own 'territory', it started decaying around him, which proved that dimensions, too, can die even if nobody is apparently actively trying to destroy them. What happens to him then? That's what he's afraid of, and he cannot quite grasp that others might be able to overcome that fear in service of either another principle or another fear. That's where he keeps running into trouble in the series timeline, too. It never occurred to him that Gideon might have enough humanity to want Mabel to actually care about him, instead of just about possessing her - much less that Gideon could want that enough to risk death for it. It was inconceivable to him that Dipper and Mabel could voluntarily turn their backs on even a blatantly false paradise to willingly walk into a living hell, just because it was the right thing to do. And as for Ford and Stan....
Well, on one level, he's right about Ford. When he met Ford, they did have certain things in common: frustration, ambition, deep and secret regrets, loneliness, and fear of facing the consequences. Ford's desire for respectability and honor from those who had rejected him his whole life may have extended this even further for him than it went for Bill in some ways: he couldn't even admit to himself that what he was doing was totally self-interested, whereas Bill, like Stan, has long since come to terms with his own selfishness. And like Bill, Ford probably didn't even have the ability to see that no matter what he did, it would never be enough, and would never really satisfy him. But death? Ford doesn't fear death. Never really has, as far as I can tell, but he certainly doesn't now. The way he lives his life, the man might as well be courting death - sending it roses every week and buying all its drinks at the bar, so to speak. He and Bill both fear the consequences of their actions, but 'consequences' are a category, and it's just as possible to be afraid to live as it is to be afraid to die. And Stan...Stan is harder to be sure of. Certainly Stan's priority is always for self-preservation. He's probably depressed to some degree, and he will risk life and limb without hesitation when he perceives a threat to that which he loves, but that's something that usually happens in a crisis. He doesn't hesitate because he doesn't think about what he's doing, which is what makes the Final Deal such an incredible gesture for me - he not only had plenty of time to think about what was going to happen, but he had to actively take steps himself to enable it to happen. To me, at least, that seems the hardest thing...but then, the whole situation in the Fearamid is one that brings to mind some of my worst fears, to the point that I find the scene difficult to watch and I almost scrapped an entire 22,000-word story once just because it required me to write about a small part of it. I'm sure Bill risked death, in some fashion, to become what he is, and I'm sure he was afraid of failure every time - but he was less afraid of a bad outcome that might come from leaping at the chance for some semblance of life, any semblance of life, no matter what that might look like or how long the odds might be, than he was of doing what he knew would lead to...wherever even destructible gods go, when they go. This is why the Stans were the thing he couldn't account for, really. He couldn't conceive of having a priority higher than self-preservation, of overcoming his worst fear - and that was what destroyed him. Maybe, anyway.
It's sort of funny, actually - I started writing a completely different post yesterday about how to develop a new character based on some of Hirsch's remarks, and in the course of it, I made the remark that I found it hard to fathom how you could write any of Gravity Falls, at all, without knowing ahead of time that it is the story of (if I can make so bold as to quote my own story's dialogue) "the Faustus of New Jersey and His Knucklehead Brother and the Hazard Sign From Hell," and without at least a fairly good understanding of who those three people are and how they got there. If one looks at the story that way, I suppose you could say the events after their starting situation are also the story of these three being thrown up against the places where their real deepest fears lie, and seeing who has something he really, really will not compromise on...or at least, it did at the start of this paragraph. But did any of them, really? Bill blatantly fails that test, of course - Bill runs, just like he's been, in a way, running for his entire miserable existence. Ford comes close to what might have been a couple of breaking experiences for him - either surrendering to Bill or, had the memory wipe worked the way he thought it would, with living with whatever the fallout of essentially killing his brother would have been - but the universe was kind and stacked the deck just enough to let him cheat his way out of that one, at least for the most part. But what about Stan? He didn't want to die, but we already knew that he'd risk it for the kids, because we've seen him do that before. The way he went about it this time arguably took more courage than the others, when he just went in swinging at an immediate and obvious threat, but it was still an escalation on an established thing. Stan's real worst fear isn’t death - it’s of being alone again, of losing his family. That's the principle that overrides self-preservation for him. What would have happened if he'd been in Ford's shoes - required to take up the role not of the sacrifice, but of the one who performed it, giving up one member of the family to save the others? Could he have done that?
...though that is wandering from the topic I was originally talking about, isn't it. Which was that yeah, Bill is, in his way, as fallible as anyone else despite his immense resources - which is gonna be a fun topic to get into when I get around to the post in this series about writing higher intelligences, but that's also not the point, which was that Ford was never going to go back to Bill the way Bill thought he was, because Bill's inability to understand other people's ability to do things that he can't is a serious blind spot for him. It's the thoughts he can't have that doom him (probably...hopefully, anyway...), fortunately for the rest of us.
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multiverserift · 2 days
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An often overlooked aspect of character and relationship building is the question: "How do the characters adress each other?"
It's a surprisingly interesting facet of DS9. I think Worf not once calls Quark by his name, it's always "the Ferengi".
Rom calls him only "Quark", I think, once or twice in the whole run of DS9. Otherwise it's always "Brother" or "my Brother". While Quark uses "my Brother" mostly derogatively, but when things get ugly, he says "Rom!"
[For all people reading this not familiar with Star Trek, another example: When Dean Winchester says "Sammy" you know things are escalating horribly.]
If someone knows an instance where Worf calls Quark by his name, let me know. I am looking for this for years. Maybe I heard it in the german translation.
Sisko is always called "Ben" by colleagues, which looks like an intimate name. Until you realize that he is called "Benjamin" only by his most intimate familiar, Dax. And mockingly and twisted, by Dukat. His full name is his pet name, while the abbreviated version is his more distanced, regular used name. Awesome detail.
Odo even mocks Kira for being interested in Chief O'Brien. Excuse me, I mean "Miles" 😉 In my own comic (not Star Trek related, I'm not brave enough for that), I, as the time of writing this, have only three characters on screen. And I put a lot of thought into the question: How do they adress each other? And even made a bit of fun of it.
Why am I telling you all this? Because Garak and Bashir have a very interesting dynamic. Firstly, there is not one instance of Bashir calling Garak "Elim". Garak calls him "Doctor Bashir" or the classic "my dear Doctor".
Now when we imagine Garak telling Julian how he actually doesn't like him (at all!) and then he says "ok bye. Julian. wink wink 😉" I don't really know if it would feel out of character for Garak. Damn, somebody get Andrew Robinson on the phone and pay him to say it.
If Garak does it slowly with a thick, chocolady sarcastic tone and smirk, I think it would work. But it would also make him VERY vulnerable, no matter how he tries to overplay it. Which would be an interesting scene, to say the least. So it would have the need to feel earned.
It would also be an interesting callback to early twink Bashir, hopelessly in need of human(oid) connection. He forcefeeds Kira the "HEY KIRA I'M JULIAN CALL ME JULIAN! SAY IT!!! JUUUUUUUUULIAN!" stuff very early on. At the end of the Julian and the Federation Ambassadors-Episode, they respect him and call him Julian.
So Garak denying him that indulgence is an interesting trait. And if you're still reading this with me, maybe you agree on that. It's important to notice how our characters adress each other.
Garak denies Julian the un-formality of the first name (what Julian desperately craves), and would propably be shocked or even angry in return, if Julian himself called him "Elim".
What I'm saying it, it would be a big deal. Closing a speech with "Julian" could break that delicate balance and dynamic. Maybe it would work. Maybe it wouldn't.
I would love to hear what Siddig or Andrew think about the question. Or anyone other than the voices debating this in my head. Do you have other examples for this?
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ask-funnybunnydoll · 24 hours
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Hi!
I think I have to move on.
You may have noticed that all of a sudden my posts have become less and less frequent. That's not on purpose I simply don't have the motivation to keep this ask blog going. I made this blog at the peak of my TADC hyperfixation because I knew it would give me the boost to work. At the start I made like, what? 2 a day, wowzas! Then it became like every other day posts. It's not that I don't enjoy the blog, the ship, the asks. Hell, the asks were the best part of this, I love just seeing what you guys come up with for these three and I get to do the even more fun part of drawing the answer.
But I still have no motivation to keep this going. And I have fixated on something else if you follow my main.
So, thank you for being here and still liking my posts even if I hadn't posted often. This was the most fun I've had and being my first ask blog I ever created just makes it more important to me.
I probably won't ever revive this blog but I'll keep it open for you. And if you want to see what the story I originally planned out was gonna be then check below the cut! Or if you wanna stay curious and theorize then just scroll by. Thank you again, hope ya have a great day and year. I hope my shit was at least okay to you.
I'm not gonna lie. Most of the stuff was just created along the way of drawing. I was like, huh this would be cool let's add that in. And ofc I didn't get to any juicy lore in this but it would've been rushed because I didn't plan beforehand... which you probably could tell xd
For Pomni, here's the plot twist: she's dead and her conscience was updated into the game to keep her somewhat alive. She worked in the place that created the game, she even took part in putting people in there. The entire game was just an expirement to test if immortality was possible, but of course.. everyone goes insane in there so they have to keep on and keep on trying with more and more people to get anywhere. They wait until someone goes to edge of absolute insanity and that's when they take them out of the game, their bodies are still kept alive and they go back to normal. They forget everything that happened while in the game. For Pomni she died just after her conscience was converted to the game, for others they were forced to go while alive. Who killed Pomni? Well, her boss, the head of the experimentation. Why? Idk 😭
For Jax, I gave him a dark story. He was isolated in his home and kept away from the outside world, which is why he lacks empathy, because he simply doesn't know how to feel that way when he never really had knowledge of emotions outside or even inside his home. His father was emotionally and physically ab4sive so.. that didn't help. He latched onto his mother the most but they never saw eachother often. That's all I had for him in mind.
For Ragatha, she lived in the country on her own land with her husband. Yup! She had a husband and a daughter too. Husband was a total jerk and she couldn't leave because she didn't want their kid to experience separated parents. She's a doll in the game because it resembles the doll she made for her daughter.
I also had some plot that I made up in my mind. Like.... Pomni at the end would be the last one alone in the digital circus. That being since she's dead she would just be yknow. Dead if she left the game. Jax and Ragatha leave but only because Pomni forces them. Again don't know how, I probably would have made it up while I went along with the story. So, Pomni is just there alone, with Caine. And she lives like that for eternity. She doesn't go insane anymore and it isn't as lonely as it used to feel like. It would feel like home kind of. But she would be there, longing for her partners forever unless she decides one day to just. Yknow, die..
Also since Jax and Ragatha would forget everything after they leave the game, they just don't remember they were in a relationship and would live their lives like before. Sad and lonely.
Goodness, I forget I make the most sad stories ever sometimes 😭
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waitmyturtles · 1 day
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Turtles Catches Up With Old GMMTV: A Honorable Mention For War of Y, and Another Look at How Thai BL Talks About BL (With a Bonus Watch of BL: Broken Fantasy)
[What’s going on here? After joining Tumblr and discovering Thai BLs through KinnPorsche in 2022, I began watching GMMTV’s new offerings -- and realized that I had a lot of history to catch up on, to appreciate the more recent works that I was delving into. From tropes to BL frameworks, what we’re watching now hails from somewhere, and I’m learning about Thai BL's history through what I’m calling the Old GMMTV Challenge (OGMMTVC). Starting with recommendations from @absolutebl on their post regarding how GMMTV is correcting for its mistakes with its shows today, I’ve made an expansive list to get me through a condensed history of essential/classic/significant Thai BLs produced by GMMTV and many other BL studios. My watchlist, pasted below, lists what I’ve watched and what’s upcoming, along with the reviews I’ve written so far. Today, I take a look at the more recent attempts by the Thai BL industry to critique itself with War of Y and the mini-documentary, BL: Broken Fantasy.]
2022's War of Y. Let me start this piece off by saying that this show is not good. My friend and BL elder educator, @bengiyo, once said about the OGMMTVC project, that some people (LIKE ME :'( ) just have to look into the abyss to satiate their curiosity about how this genre has developed, and that's definitely a point of the OGMMTVC. Not all past Thai BL shows are good, not by a long shot, and I don't recommend War of Y if you're watching dramas for pleasurable experiences only. (If you want to watch a GREAT drama that critiques the Thai BL industry, start with 2021's Lovely Writer, and I'll get more into this later.)
War of Y, directed by the chaotic Cheewin Thanamin and the I-am-assuming-to-be-misanthropic-and-indulgently-self-righteous-and-preening Den Panuwat, gave us 20 episodes of what I believe they thought to be groundbreaking critical art about the currently Thai BL industry. Let me set up an outline so that I don't spend too long on the bad stuff, and explain why War of Y does at least get an important mention (but not an official inclusion) on the OGMMTVC list.
1) What was War of Y about, how it was structured, and some quick high points, 2) Comparing War of Y to other pieces of Thai BL fiction that did a better job of critiquing Thai BL culture, and 3) A close-out reflection of Aam Anusorn's 2020 mini-documentary, BL: Broken Fantasy.
War of Y, as presented by Cheewin and Den, is designed to be a meta-drama of four chapters, all examining a specific aspect of the Thai BL industry. The first chapter, led by Billy Patchanon and Seng Wichai, focuses on two ship partnerships competing with each other, to the mental detriment of one of the older ship's celebrities; the second chapter focuses on two HORRIBLE warring managers; the third chapter showcases, in excruciating detail, god help us, a Y idol reality show, replete with singing; and the final chapter depicts the creation of a BL series and the rise of another super celebrity, whose career potentially gets derailed by his relationship with a female acting colleague.
Before I get into the few high points, I just want to say that this bloated structure (four chapters of five episodes each) did not do this drama well. It could have been edited down GREATLY for more succinct messaging. The other major issue I had is that the Thai BL genre -- as a romance genre itself, that demands romantic and coupled endings -- is just not the right genre to meta-critique the industry from which the piece of art comes from, not unless you're the screenwriter of Lovely Writer, who deftly managed some very complicated storylines into true art. There was no deft to War of Y. Couples got together in pandering and condescending ways, because that's how a Thai BL should end, right (?!); HORRENDOUS warring enemies suddenly made up with barely any context except to make money, and so on. I kept saying to friends during my watch that in a Den Panuwat show -- the worse you are as a character, the more likely you are to be redeemed for seemingly no good reason.
[Exhibits B and C in Den Panuwat's screenwriting record of questionable human characteristics? Fucking Only Friends and Playboyy. THE WORSE THOSE CHARACTERS WERE, THE BETTER THEIR OUTCOMES. Yeah, we really wanted those assholes to end well. ANYWAY. (I am committing to never watching a Den Panuwat show again. ANYWAY.)]
But there were a few high points. Actually seeing a Y idol reality show, something that international fans may not be able to appreciate with a lack of subtitles, was at least eye-opening for the inter-related nature of these kinds of shows, with some performers subsequently getting series gigs. (I understand that Santa Pongsapak, of My Own 12%, is an example of this kind of performer, who started out first as a music idol trainee.)
And the acting. Some of the acting was EASILY the best part of War of Y, as it very often happens in questionable Thai dramas: Billy (BILLYYYYYYYY), First Piyangkul, Dome Waruwat (who we most recently saw in Cooking Crush, and who absolutely SLAYED as one of the SLIMIEST, GROSSEST characters EVER, ohmygod), and
SENG MOTHERFUCKING WICHAI
(who will win one of the crowns as one of THE BEST FUCKING ACTORS IN THAI BL at the conclusion of the OGMMTVC project)
were easily the best reasons to watch War of Y. The range of Seng Wichai. It's ironic that he left Idol Factory last year, ending the BillySeng ship, and was then disgracefully treated like utter crap by the media and BL fans for the reveal of his relationship with Freen Sarocha. That, in itself, could make for a heartbreaking drama about the BL industry, but alas. We have War of Y instead. Seng is a motherfucking hero, and is also the KING of cringe, playing a horribly behaved actor who learns to overcome his insecurities to stand up against the advantages taken unto him by greedy managers.
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We also had MANY wild and crazy cameos from real BL professionals in the show. @twig-tea and I agree that director New Siwaj's cameo was BAFFLING. He played a BL director (which he actually is) who maybe hated making BLs? (Maybe he actually hates it?) But still does it? And was mostly checked out of making the BL-show-within-the-BL-show, until he was called out about it, and then behaved like a good boy. Like. That cameo, along with a literally-evil NetJames and an even more inexplicable and weird literally-evil MaxNat cameo (wtf, that wasn't filled out AT ALL), were the really weird ones. The sad ones were ones like sweet NuNew Chawarin telling young BL guys that they have to sing (NO THEY DON'T). There was actual!Tee Bundit telling off Seng Wichai's character, that was rad. Director Lit Phadung of SOTUS and Dangerous Romance (😬) was there. Even the original novelist for Thailand's first television BL, Love Sick, was there, playing herself as Kwang Latika, who complained to a producer within War of Y that the show-within-the-show (yeah, I know) was taking her novel out of context. That shit sounds familiar! I could have used more accurate commentary on that.
The last high point that I can muster is that the show began to toe the line of the issue of actors needing to explore their sexualities for art's sake. As fans, we truly do not have much insight into this process, and I think it's for good reason, so as to protect actors (wherever they land on the sexuality spectrum) from very real, emotional, and sensitive processes and workshops that prepare them for taking on queer material. We know that actors like Nanon Korapat from Bad Buddy use Method techniques in their performances, and that can be mentally draining. Do I believe that some actor pairings experiment with dating, and may actually be in relationships? Yes, I must believe it, considering the psychological work these young men have to do to build attraction to each other for art's sake. The CEO of Korea's Strongberry studio confirmed as much earlier this year.
Unfortunately, I think War of Y leveraged these very sensitive realities to blatantly and flippantly indicate that ships can be ASSUMED to either explore sex with each other, and/or to even assume that they SHOULD be in relationships, à la the television BL romance formula that I mentioned above. I think this show could have transcended the romance genre formula, frankly, and I think the show came kinda close to doing that in the last chapter with First Piyangkul -- but not before setting up First's character, Achi, as a cheating monster-machine who was willing to go to great lengths to protect his fame, including outing his trans-female ex-girlfriend and co-star (YEAH, THAT HAPPENED), as well as separating himself from his ship and sexual same-sex partner while still indicating that they were dating. The whole storyline was just -- BLEH.
As I chatted with another fabulous BL elder, @twig-tea, about after I finished War of Y, clearly, Cheewin and Den thought they were intellectual geniuses upon the creation of this show, thinking that a BL itself would be a sufficient mechanism to offer meta commentary about problematic aspects of the BL industry (IT'S NOT). Twig wisely said to me that a writer or directly simply CHOOSING a topic to explore vis à vis a BL -- like a criticism of the industry itself -- is not, in of itself, worthy of laudation. And Cheewin and Den were CLEARLY expecting flowers by the end of this drama. If you've ever lived in smelling distance of southern California, you'll know that entertainment industries love nothing more than to talk about the entertainment industry, and that they think that fictional drama art is the best way to obsess over the vagaries of these industries (IT'S NOT). Instead, Cheewin and Den basically outed themselves as economic shippers and idiot faux-savants who are clearly in the game for fame, and maybe the dudes themselves, which -- BLEH REDUX.
On the OGMMTVC list, Lovely Writer does such a better job at covering the latent homophobia and judgments against actors within and external to the industries that take on BL. War of Y actually teed up a LOT of interesting topics, such as the BL-to-het-drama-and-studio pipeline that I talked about in my past OGMMTVC KinnPorsche pieces -- but these topics in War of Y just instead drowned in misanthropic meditations about fame, sex, and money that seemed far more suited to reaaaaalllly-bad Cinemax than, say, a proto-documentary.
The OGMMTVC syllabus also has YYY, from 2020, as a first entrée to BL-commentary-within-BL (and funnily enough, YYY also stars Lay Talay, who was the main anchor of War of Y, and was actually fantastic in both shows). YYY is a lot more succinct, CONCISE, zany, weird as HELL, incomplete, INSANE, not the greatest show, but HILARIOUS, simply in part because of its different and wonderful writers in Fluke Teerapat (a former BL actor himself) and Tanachot Prapasri. If you're looking for commentary about BL within wild-ass fiction (and if you're willing to watch it with shrooms or a fifth of vodka), watch YYY. (And remember that you're really watching YYY to watch Poppy Ratchapong eat his role of Porpla totally alive. Utter brilliance.)
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Otherwise, as a means of complementing this review, I also watched 2020's non-fiction mini-documentary, BL: Broken Fantasy, by Aam Anusorn, another Series Y director who made the documentary, perhaps in part, to atone for past BL shows that he made, like 2Moons2 and Call It What You Want.
BL: Broken Fantasy featured interviews from directors, actors, and actual fans, about the nature of shipping, what the industry demands of actors, what fans themselves demand, and offered even a little bit of insight from two HUGE actors, Bright Vachiwarit and Win Metawin of 2gether and Still 2gether, about the process itself of young men acting in a queer coupleship.
The documentary is perhaps too short for its own good. And it sets up Aam as an unwilling participant within the BL industry, seemingly not knowing about what he was getting into when he first started making BLs (2gether's director, Champ Weerachit, also presents this way, which I found a touch disingenuous, as they were literally filming 2gether in the documentary).
But BL: Broken Fantasy hammered on a couple of important and real points. The economic benefits of shipping are HUGE. The sponsorship deals, the fame, the money -- they literally make young actors very rich and very well attended to. The fans EXPECT shipping performances, so that they themselves can situate themselves as caretakers or "mommies" to their young flock of boba-eyed actors that they worship. And for directors who want to earn money by making filmed art: the budding industry offers them that opportunity in growing spades. ( @lurkingshan will be happy to know that of all people, Aof Noppharnach, confirms to the documentary's audience that BL is a romance genre of love stories. As if there was any doubt, playa!)
At this point in time, in 2024, if I want a meta-critical understanding of the BL industry, and its many impacts on queer populations, fan bases, and Asian and global society, I'll go to Dr. Thomas Baudinette's Boys Love Media in Thailand and choose the academic route. We are SO LUCKY now to actually have tremendous academic discourse on the genre and its impact on media, fandoms, queer society, and global and regional acceptances of queer equity.
As opposed to the roads that academics are paving, War of Y allowed itself to bloat and gloat, on behalf of its creators, about their desires for shipping, for lavishing attention on beautiful young men, without offering us objective insight into the mindsets of these gentlemen who are important artists and creators in many of the shows we love. There needs to be a space for fair and objective criticism about an industry that may, at many times, take advantage of these young men. While there were many industry cameos in the show, the most frequent cameo was Den Panuwat himself. That enough should tell us what this show was ultimately really about.
[Well, as you can tell, I am fucking DONE with War of Y, laughing my azz off, and -- I'm off to greener pastures. I'm taking a cute and quick break from the OGMMTVC to devour Japan's anime version of Cherry Magic for an upcoming comparative (and totally self-indulgent) Big Meta on Thailand's and Japan's versions of that franchise. (And I have also been watching Fully Booked, AMA.) But I've got a long-awaited rewatch of The Eclipse coming up, to explore how GMMTV handled homophobia as a centered topic head-on, and from there, I go back to Idol Factory to watch Thailand's first GL, featuring the lovely FreenBecky, in GAP.
AND THEN: HOLY SHIT! FINALLY! My School President. I can't wait.
Here's the latest of the OGMMTVC list. If you've got any questions or comments about the syllabus, just mosey on over to this link and drop a comment my way!
1) The Love of Siam (2007) (movie) (review here) 2) My Bromance (2014) (movie) (review here) 3) Love Sick and Love Sick 2 (2014 and 2015) (review here) 4) Gay OK Bangkok Season 1 (2016) (a non-BL queer series directed by Jojo Tichakorn and written by Aof Noppharnach) (review here) 5) Make It Right (2016) (review here) 6) SOTUS (2016-2017) (review here) 7) Gay OK Bangkok Season 2 (2017) (a non-BL queer series directed by Jojo Tichakorn and written by Aof Noppharnach) (review here) 8) Make It Right 2 (2017) (review here) 9) Together With Me (2017) (review here) 10) SOTUS S/Our Skyy x SOTUS (2017-2018) (review here) 11) Love By Chance (2018) (review here) 12) Kiss Me Again: PeteKao cuts (2018) (no review) 13) He’s Coming To Me (2019) (review here) 14) Dark Blue Kiss (2019) and Our Skyy x Kiss Me Again (2018) (review here) 15) TharnType (2019-2020) (review here) 16) Senior Secret Love: Puppy Honey (OffGun BL cuts) (2016 and 2017) (no review) 17) Theory of Love (2019) (review here) 18) 3 Will Be Free (2019) (a non-BL and an important harbinger of things to come in 2019 and beyond re: Jojo Tichakorn pushing queer content in non-BLs) (review here) 19) Dew the Movie (2019) (review here) 20) Until We Meet Again (2019-2020) (review here) (and notes on my UWMA rewatch here)
21) 2gether (2020) and Still 2gether (2020) (review here) 22) I Told Sunset About You (2020) (review here) 23) YYY (2020, out of chronological order) (review here) 24) Manner of Death (2020-2021) (review here) 25) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) (review here) 26) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For The Sake Of Rewatching Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (re-review here) 27) Lovely Writer (2021) (review here) 28) Last Twilight in Phuket (2021) (the mini-special before IPYTM) (review here) 29) I Promised You the Moon (2021) (review here) 30) Not Me (2021-2022) (review here)
31) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) (thesis here) 32) 55:15 Never Too Late (2021-2022) (not a BL, but a GMMTV drama that features a macro BL storyline about shipper culture and the BL industry) (review here) 33) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) and Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (2023) OGMMTVC Rewatch (Links to the BBS OGMMTVC Meta Series are here: preamble here, part 1, part 2, part 3a, part 3b, and part 4) 34) Secret Crush On You (2022) (review here) 35) KinnPorsche (2022) (tag here)  36) KinnPorsche (2022) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For the Sake of Re-Analyzing the KP Cultural Zeitgeist (part 1 and part 2) 37) Honorable Mention: War of Y (2022) (for the sake of an attempt to provide meta BL commentary within a BL in the modern BL era), with a complementary watch of Aam Anusorn’s documentary, BL: Broken Fantasy (2020) 38) The Eclipse (2022) (tag here) 39) The Eclipse OGMMTVC Rewatch to Reexamine “Genre BLs” and Internalized/Externalized Homophobia in GMMTV Shows (watching) 40) GAP (2022-2023) (Thailand’s first GL)
41) My School President (2022-2023) and Our Skyy 2 x My School President (2023) 42) Moonlight Chicken (2023) (tag here) 43) Bed Friend (2023) (tag here) 44 La Pluie (2023) (review coming) 45) Be My Favorite (2023) (tag here) (I’m including this for BMF’s sophisticated commentary on Krist’s career past as a BL icon) 46) Wedding Plan (2023) (Recommended as an important trajectory in the course of MAME’s work and influence from TharnType) 47) Only Friends (2023) (tag here) (not technically a BL, but it certainly became one in the end) 48) Last Twilight (2023-24) (tag here) (on the list as Thailand’s first major BL to center disability, successfully or otherwise) 49) Cherry Magic Thailand (2023-24) (tag here) (on the list as the first major Japanese-to-Thai drama adaptation, featuring the comeback of TayNew) 50) Ossan’s Love Returns (2024) (adding for the EarthMix cameo and the eventual Thai remake)
51) Dead Friend Forever (2024) (thoughts here) 52) 23.5 (2024) (GMMTV’s first GL) (thoughts here)]
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treasureofmammon · 13 hours
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💛 Our future together 💛
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🔎Summary: You've been studying non-stop for the last few days since finals are coming. Your boyfriend, Mammon, doesn't like it but changes his mind when you reveal why you need to study hard.
👥️Characters: Mammon x gn!reader.
⚠️Warnings: None, just fluff (But if you catch any, let me know). Established relationship with the raven boy.
📝 Note: We are back with our usual Mammon lover content, after some petty revenge for dinner for all the brothers. MC here is a nerd (and so am I).
✨️💖💛✨️💖💛✨️💖💛✨️💖💛✨️💖💛✨️💖💛✨️
Finals are coming, and you've been studying non-stop for the past days, only coming out of your room to eat, go to school, and give a small peck to your boyfriend once in a while. However, this arrangement is not desirable for him. Mammon constantly sneaks out of Lucifer's grip to knock on your door. As usual, you can't say no to him, so you end up letting him in.
You sit at your desk, reading, marking your textbook, making small annotations, and overall, trying to understand the subjects at hand. Meanwhile, Mammon lays in your bed, playing with a plushie he gave you on one of your first dates, tossing it up and catching it in both his hands, just to toss it up again; however, he quickly gets bored and decides that what he needs it's your attention.
—Treasure?—.
You answer with a —Hm?—, not parting away from your books.
—All ya do is study and study. It's so f*ckin' borin'!— Mammon states. Immediately, he stands up and hugs you from behind, setting his chin on the top of your head, his arms resting in your shoulders. Although you blush a little, studying is more important, so you continue with your task. Mammon kisses your head, and with a low and tender tone of voice, he suggests —Hey, why doncha stop studyin' so we can hang out?—.
You sigh, closing your eyes briefly, and start explaining: —Mammon... If I don't study hard, then I won't get good grades. If I don't get good grades, then I probably won't get a good job. And if I don't get a good job then, how am I going to provide for you?—.
Mammon jumps back immediately, —Wh-What?—. His reaction catches you by surprise, so you finally look back at him, trying to understand his behavior. He continues, —Y-Ya think about our future, together?! How far have you thought on us?—.
You are amazed by how much this surprises Mammon. A small silence spreads between you two, and you realize that Mammon is meaning his question, expecting a coherent and honest answer, so seriously, you answer: —All the time. I want to make a family with you. Since you have your own spending problems, I should be the one in charge of the financial stuff so our children can live well enough—.
—Children? With me?—, he says without even thinking, astonished.
—Yeah, two; maybe three—, you admit, —... and we can have a nice house next to a lake...—.
—A lake?—.
—Yes. Close to a hippodrome so you can watch whenever you want. But not gambling too much!—.
—So I can gamble?, really?—.
You nod, —... yeah, with moderation, though. Oh! And we could ask Barbatos to create a door close to the house, so we can visit the Devildom when we want to—.
—So I can visit my family whenever I want?—.
—Of course! And so they can visit us too—.
—What 'bout Goldie?—.
You sigh, —You can have a card, a debit one, though...—.
—What 'bout my car and my crows?—.
—We definitely would have a cool garage so you can work on your car... Oh! And your crows can come too, I'd love to have them around. But I want to have lots of pets too—.
—Pets? Like cats and dogs?—.
—Yes! I want a golden retriever called Butter. And a cat called Jiji, like the black cat on that human anime movie we watched with Levi... Oh! And once out of school, you can focus on modeling without worrying about money. So..., you know? Studying is important for me, for us—.
Another silence fills the room again. You observe Mammon's handsome face with tenderness and love. His surprised facial expression shifts slowly, and you realize tears are coming down his cheeks. You stand up and move quickly to him, —Sweety, are you okay? Are you... crying?—. You can't help but smile at Mammon's cute display of happiness. Meanwhile, Mammon lets you take him in your arms, rubbing his eyes and sweeping his cheeks clean, —I'm- I'm not cryin'!—, he says before sniffing.
✨️💖💛✨️💖💛✨️💖💛✨️💖💛✨️💖💛✨️💖💛✨️
[Notes: The character(s) depicted here belong to the mobile game "Obey me: shall we date" and are owned by Solmare Corporation. The text here was made by me: Treasure of Mammon, meaning these are fan-made. | GN!Reader | English is not my first language, so there might be orthographic and syntax errors. I urge you all to interact kindly with this post].
📌 Masterlist
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Georgi Romanov: A Brief Introduction*
*bc there is not a lot of information about him in English.
Good evening to the greater Sharkudablr community, it has come to my attention on the eve of Georgi Romanov's Possible First NHL Regular Season Start that not all of you know about Georgi Romanov or appreciate him appropriately. This is insane to me as someone who spends approximately 40% of my waking hours thinking about Georgi, but then I realized that as a person with a blog, I can just say stuff to fix that.
This is Georgi Romanov:
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He's not exploding you with his brain, he's actually exploding his teammates with his brain, you're just standing there.
This is also Georgi Romanov:
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Goaltender Interference with the Barracuda is when Your Goaltender Interferes With You Beating The Shit Out Of Kole Lind 😌
This is ALSO Georgi Romanov:
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At beginning of the season, sadly he got a haircut so he looks less like the kind of beautiful Eastern Orthodox saint you'd find in a stained glass window who was like the patron saint of taking poppers at Ultra Europe. Who said that.
Georgi Romanov is so important to me. He was a frequent flyer on the Wichita Express this season which makes it all the more joyful that he made a) to the NHL, and b) saved...uh...a couple of...shots against Edmonton. Fuck Edmonton all my homies hate Edmonton. Anyway, the Cuda signed him this summer thinking they were getting a lil buddy for Beck Warm (in the ECHL) and then he proceeded to kick ass at the AHL level and matched or outplayed Chrona and Mäkiniemi every step of the way and then Jmac way overplayed him and he did amazing anyway. Then I got to experience Jmac and GMJW putting him on the Wichita Midnight Rider bc the Sharks had uh really been banking on Chrona and Mäkiniemi for their goalie prospect pipeline and were NOT expecting some 23 year old kid who had played ONE single KHL game to actually be very very very very good, but like Jmac is incapable of spreading starts evenly between all three goalies, so Georgi had to be removed from the premises.
But he is very very very very good. Even though he suffered severe Strauss Mann-ification, he has risen to the challenge again and again! When Chrona got called up to the Sharks and then Mäkiniemi went down with mono, he basically got called up full-time to be the third goalie in the Cuda and he has been killing it ever since.
Here is an interview SJHN did with him at the beginning of the season, by the only man I trust on this bitch of earth, Nikita Sokolov. It's a good article, here are some fun tidbits:
Had to learn to tie a tie when he came to North America because in his Russian team (TIER 2 RUSSIAN LEAGUE!!) he just wore tracksuits
Stayed in Knyzhov's house for a month before signing a lease, which doesn't help the "Nikolai Knyzhov is the eldest daughter of the Barracuda" allegations but is so so funny to me too
The mattress company never delivered his mattress and he didn't speak enough English to resolve this, so he had to get his teammates and agent to help him out. I love thinking about Nikita Okhotiuk arguing with a mattress company. I think I would just give him a free mattress at that point.
Bought a car here with a loan to build credit bc him and his wife "need to think about the future. We want to be here for a long time.” 🥺🥺🥺
Here are some facts about Georgi from k 18minutemajor, when I asked if they had any fun facts:
Romanizes his name as Romanoff on instagram
It appears his nickname is Gosha!
Cuda fans all love him very much 😭
They also did amazing art of the greatest hits of Situations Happening To Georgi which I cannot overstate has crossed this man from give Georgi a knife to give Georgi several hand grenades. Please look at it and appreciate it and click on the links bc Georgi has suffered so much and still he remains so beautiful and so deadly.
Here are some facts about Georgi that you may only know if you attend games regularly or watch games on AHLtv:
He habitually bangs his stick on the ice when he gets pissed at his team. Or possibly encouraging them but usually it's when defense is falling apart and shots are like 45 to 30 Firebirds/Cuda, he starts slamming his stick against the ice like...a warning...a reminder...he's coming for ALL your motherfuckers.
Cuda stick the back up goalies in the tunnel and MOST of our goalies are so normal and just sit a couple feet back from the glass and hang out. NOT Georgi. Georgi has Emi the athletic trainer drag his chair right up to the glass and then he crosses his arms on the lip of the board and then he rests his head on his gloves and watches the game with his face pressed against the glass.
When we were rocking a line up with Nikita Okhotiuk for a few brief beautiful weeks, I very much watched Georgi on at least one occasion go up to Okhotiuk during a stoppage and take his water bottle from his hands. MY water bottle. And Nikita just let him.
Often the Cuda lose at home. Often the Cuda are trying to get the fuck off the ice as fast as possible. OFTEN Georgi will do a little one man salute of the arena with his stick while the rest of the team is streaming off the ice. Guys I think he really likes us :(
Cuda Goalie vibes this year were INSANE like I do not even know how to explain what was going on there without going full Pepe Silva BUT by the end of the year, things seem to have um. Well. I once watched Mäkiniemi (with mono!!) run -- run!!! -- down the stairs from the scratches box to go stand by Chrona in the tunnel to watch Georgi face a shoot out and when they lost, both of them waited for him to get off the ice. Guys I think they really like each other :(
Signed for one more year which I guess you could look up on CapFriendly, but EYE didn't know that until this week and I spent no joke like the entire season barfing with anxiety that we don't bring him back. But NO. Provided GMMG doesn't give me a 15th or 16th reason, we have ONE MORE YEAR OF GEORGI 🥳🥳 and will maybe (probably) be rocking a Chrona/Romanov tandem. Which is so beautiful to me as an Employee Appreciator.
Also here's some photos of Chrona and Georgi hugging:
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It's the way Goosh was waiting for a hug and gave up for me lol
In conclusion: Georgi Romanov is so important and Sharkudablr needs to love him So Much. Thank you for listening 😌
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candypalace · 16 hours
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Translation: the GazettE/Decade Book (Reita&Uruha Interview Snippet)
Hello friends, long time no see. A while ago I translated a part of the Decade Book interview section where Reita and Uruha talk about their indie days for my friends and promised I'd do the whole thing one day.
Posting this piece ahead of the full interview to appreciate the bond the guys had with each other, and, in a way, thank them for not giving up.
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scan credit: @rad-is-more
REITA : … I don't really think about the roles within the band, but each of us has a natural role, and I think that's why we've been able to exist for more than 10 years. Um, well, I kinda don't want to talk about this embarrassing stuff…
URUHA: You're embarrassed?! I really don't think it's embarrassing?
REITA: No-no, it’s not like that! I don't think I'm ashamed of what I'm saying, it’s more like when I say it out loud, it makes me feel a little awkward.
URUHA: Aah, so that's what you meant (laughs).
REITA : I think for all five of us the GazettE is very important. Even though me and Uruha first started a band as “a continuation of child's play”, we thought: “I want to take things seriously”, but still those bands didn't last long and always broke up after a few months.
URUHA: I guess that's true. Before we became the GazettE, we played with a band called Kar+te=zyAnose, where Ruki was also the vocalist. The drummer did not even show up for our breakup show, and when we announced “We’re disbanding today”, we heard a faint laugh from the audience. It was a real shock, wasn’t it? It was also the moment when my groundless confidence that made me think “We’re absolutely badass!” collapsed with a loud crash.
REITA: Indeed. It was TOUGH at the time. I guess it is precisely because of that experience that I am so happy to be able to celebrate 10 years with the current members of the band. It is also precisely why I cherish the relationship between the five of us now.
URUHA: That's so true. Before the GazettE settled down, me, Reita and Ruki also played together in bands called Ma’die Kusse and L’ie:Chris before Kar+te=zyAnose. It took us a long time to reach the GazettE.
— You never gave up, did you?
REITA: No, I gave up once! I thought there was nothing next for me. But honestly, I'm glad I didn't quit! (laughs)
URUHA: It’s because me and Ruki desperately tried to stop you, m?
REITA: Really, thank god you did. But back then, I couldn't see the future at all. Even my parents said “Giving up someday is also brave”. There were many times when I wondered “Is now the time?”. When I saw all my friends around me getting jobs and having families and stable lives, I thought maybe this was also a way to happiness. Still, I decided for myself “I’ll try to do my best for one more year”, and it was during that year that the GazettE was formed. I really think it was fate.
URUHA: But it was difficult, right? We didn't have many shows, and we couldn't tell if we saw the future.
REITA: Yeah. If the GazettE had not continued with the current members, I really would have quit.
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