#if anyone is actually interested in the thought process i’d love to explain it tho

[jujumin-translates]

★ Main Story | Act 13 - Budding Spring | Chapter 27 - Papa Crisis

Banri: You guys can take a twenty-minute break here. Good work.

Masumi: The KniRoun Stage video is up.

Sakuya: Waah, it is!

Chikage: Lancelot’s pretty eye-catching.

Tsuzuru: He was even working on his sword fighting for KniRoun in between rehearsals. Must’ve been rough.

Banri: Nah, he was havin’ the time of his life, trust me.

Citron: Itaru looks like he is having fun~.

Rento: Ooh~, his overseas debut, huh? Looks like he’s doin’ great.

Rento: Still, absolutely insane as hell that he’s comin’ back here right on openin’ day.

Izumi: It really, truly is…

Izumi: In the past, it would’ve been unthinkable to try and to this, but with the current Spring Troupe, I think we’ll be able to pull this plan, even with it cutting it so close.

Banri: Well, it’d be pretty nice to keep this kinda energy goin’ through openin’ day.

Tsumugi: I hope Itaru-kun was able to get to the airport safely.

Sakuya: It’s about time for his flight, right?

Chikage: Let’s check the chat.

*Phone notification*

Izumi: Ah, I just got a LIME from…

Itaru: “problem, can’t get on my flight, airport’s shut down bc of a strike.”

Tsuzuru: WHAT!?

Sakuya: A strike!? That won’t end any time soon…!

Tsumugi: Sometimes the end soon, but sometimes they go on for days. There’s no telling what will happen…

Banri: What’re we gonna do? I mean, we could get through openin’ day with an understudy, or delay it entirely, but…

Masumi: We considered a lot of factors when we picked the date of opening day. It’s the day that’ll give us the most views with the least competition from other troupes, so moving it should really be our last resort.

Izumi: Right… And refunding tickets would have a huge impact on our votes…

Izumi: We’ll still have to deal with refunds if we go for having an understudy, but the damage with that should be minimal.

Banri: Guess we gotta go with an understudy.

Sakuya: Um, can we at least wait until the very last minute?

Tsuzuru: We want to wait for Itaru-san’s return for as long as we can. Can we at least do that, please?

Izumi: …

Tsumugi: I can be ready to sub in at any time, so don’t worry about it.

Sakuya: Thank you so much!

Chikage: I’m arranging a flight for him at another airport as we speak. With this one, he’ll be able to just barely make it in time for the start of the performance.

Chikage: Someone get into contact with Chigasaki and tell him to hurry to catch the bus.

Tsuzuru: On it!

Tsuzuru: “Itaru-san, please hurry to the nearby airport ASAP!”

Chikage: The next bus is leaving at--.

Citron: “I will give you a lucky chant so you will make it in time!”

· • —– ٠ ✤ ٠ —– • ·

Announcement: “The plane has arrived at Narita Aiport two hours later than scheduled.”

Announcement: “We sincerely apologize for the delay in its arrival due to weather conditions. We offer our deepest condolences to those affected by the delay.”

Itaru: (CITRON used Lucky Chant! The Lucky Chant shielded me from a critical hit…!)

· • —– ٠ ✤ ٠ —– • ·

UC: Run, Chigasaki.

Itaru: (I am running!)

Saku: You can do it, Itaru-san!

Curry: director said she’s coming to pick you up

taruchi: dw abt it, it’ll be faster if i take a taxi

· • —– ٠ ✤ ٠ —– • ·

Passerby A: Huh, is the line for getting a taxi really this long?

Passerby B: Probably because of a group of tourists~. Let’s just take the train.

Itaru: (Wait, the line for taxis is THIS long? Oh, I’m so screwed…)

Itaru: (Should I ask Director-san to pick me up now?)

Itaru: (But I’m sure she’s busy getting everything ready for the start of the show. Not to mention, even if she comes now, we probably wouldn’t make it back in time for the start of the show anyway--.)

[ ⇠ Previous Part ] • [ Next Part ⇢ ]

#a3! #a3! translation #sakuya sakuma #masumi usui #tsuzuru minagi #itaru chigasaki #citron #chikage utsuki #banri settsu #tsumugi tsukioka #// huge shoutout to my dearly beloved friends for helping me work out how to localize the bit where itaru makes a pokémon reference #it’s not like. exactly what he said but i also didn’t want to write a whole essay as a tl note explaining the thought process behind that #so like. disclaimer for that here ig #if anyone is actually interested in the thought process i’d love to explain it tho #i just didn’t want to put the world’s longest tl note for something that already like. makes sense in english lmao

[starbuck]

love understanding myself, but gently… not in the harsh, judgmental, over-analytical way i did as a teenager… just being like “oh huh, my enjoyment of this and my enjoyment of that actually have the same root if you trace it back far enough… isn’t that something?” it’s fun! i sure am a Little Creacher.

#would NOT trust 16 y/o me with these revelations… #they were NOT ready for all this… #but i’m ready now and i’m really enjoying myself!! #the fact that that REALLY weird thing i’ve been into since i was like four years old is probably connected to my fascination with sacrifice #is just like HUH… #yeah. ig that tracks!! #what actually *IS* their common origin point tho?? i’d love to know! though i’m sure i never will… #it has been lost to time!! #but that’s okay! it’s just interesting to think of it as the same thought process… the same division… #idk if i *want* more people to be into the weird thing or if i’m glad i don’t know of anyone but me 😂😂 #SOMEDAY i will explain it to someone bc i honestly am curious if there’s anyone else out there like me #my one friend i did tell it do initially told me it wasn’t weird but has since conceded that she doesn’t know anyone who thinks about #it the way i do #and she’s very active in the sorts of communities where i would expect it to pop up so i do think it’s legitimately unusual #which is *fine* but also like. Hm. #it’s weird to be that it’s just me #it’s SO appealing to me that it’s like No. that can’t be right… surely other people must see this too?? #haha idk #i’m extremely fucking tired i am falling asleep typing this #GOODNIGHT MY LOVES I LOVE YOU SO MUCH ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

[bigskydreaming]

Continuing on that observation because I forgot to add this part, as a gen z I'm glad you understand that we or young people don't invent new ways to be evil, but it's not completely true. You aren't seeing new forms of online abuse in every platform, I doubt second hand information is going into details as well. Also the fact that you are a white man, there are things being said and done to poc in various online communities that I don't expect you to be privy to. Harassing fans of color and poc media has become a lot more common and normalized which parts of the fandom at large will never see. I don't know if anon did all of the thinking before saying "gen z bad" but they're not completely wrong looking at the kind of mass bullying behavior literal kids are exhibiting. They are learning from or being encouraged by older people but that shouldn't take the focus away from them to blame only the older people.

And my ask regarding Barbara, you assumed I hadn't thought about if my disdain for the character could have come from ableism. I had tho, granted you couldn't have known that and it was surely a possibility, so I'm not saying I'm mad about it, I was at that time a little bit. But you could perhaps give your anons a little more credit sometimes. Sometimes people know what they're talking about, you don't need to explain other possibilities to them each time.

Once again, sorry if this came off as very rude I just needed to share that observation and among many other instances these two were really highlights and kept bothering me. My issue with Barbara goes in a different direction than anything to do with her appearance and I've personally faced online abuse from people younger than me in ways that technologically, even politically, wasn't possible or as easy a few years ago, so you can maybe see why...

Please keep in mind that whatever context you have for yourself or your ask when you come into my inbox on anon......I have none of that. You have an awareness of yourself relative to whatever you asked me. I literally only know an anon by the words they put into my inbox and nothing else.

Also please keep in mind that every anon I answer, I do so in the larger context of my own interactions with tumblr overall. I have a lot of precedent with things I say being taken out of context, misrepresented or even just me not conveying myself as well as I like.

So the combination of those two things is that a) I literally just don't KNOW what any anon does or doesn't know and b) If I'm going to answer an anon, I tend to want to answer as fully and clearly as possible.

I can understand it coming across as being talked down to, so I'll work on that, but I would ask people to remember the above and keep that in context too when weighing my responses.....am I actually being condescending in every case, or does it simply feel that way because I'm including stuff you already know in my response? And if its the latter, is THAT something I COULD know about you without knowing who you are or you as a person and not just a paragraph sent in anonymously?

I'd rather be safe than sorry, and so from my POV since there's no harm in somebody seeing someone cover information they already know as PART of their overall answer or response, like, there's no reason for me not to include whatever I think is relevant and just expect readers to decide for themselves what about my response, if anything, is helpful, and like....just ignore the rest, y'know?

Also, just for the record, I am ADHD and I save my medication for when I'm working or writing or have stuff I absolutely need to get done, which doesn't include my usual blogging. So I'm usually posting while not on my ADHD meds at all, hence the rambling tendencies and the length. Another aspect of ADHD that doesn't get talked about much ime is we tend to over-explain, part out of just excitement/interest in whatever it is that has our attention, and also in part because we're used to people not necessarily following the leaps our minds take when jumping around rather than proceeding in an orderly thought pattern.....so, part of why I break things down so incrementally is I literally just don't know where my way of looking at things diverges from the way neurotypical thinking views things, so I want to draw as detailed a map as possible in order to ensure the most people possible can follow my thought process, just in case.

(And again see, this is something you might already know, and hell, you could have ADHD yourself, I just literally have no way of knowing that so rather than just mention it and be like "oh and also I have ADHD and so that's something to keep in mind" I'd rather explain WHY I feel that's particularly relevant to your question, since I'm kinda like, why not answer as fully as I have the spoons for? People can stop reading at any time if I go on too long. Its fine).

As for the specific asks you're referencing - my response to the gen z anon was not meant to convey that the sort of things you're describing don't occur among gen z, so sorry for giving that impression. Its actually the opposite of my point, which was simply that I don't think its a generational thing, or that anything is gained by treating it as a generational thing. This kind of behavior exists in gen z, yes, but it also existed before gen z. Its not gen z SPECIFIC, or limited to just that generation. That's all.

And the other ask, the one you made about Barbara - to be honest, I don't have anyway of knowing for sure which one you meant, and there are a couple it could have been, but if its the one I THINK you're referencing, I believe you asked how to stop people from assuming you dislike Barbara for reasons rooted in ableism when its because of other things? If that's the one, then I mean, the thing is....I DID answer your question, in as much as anyone could. I addressed the perceptions other people might have of your stance there, but basically - there IS no way to ever ensure people take you at your word or any kind of guarantee you can present your POV in a way that won't be misrepresented or misunderstood. So ultimately, I just had no real useful advice for that?

And so I expanded into the only thing I think anyone CAN control, aka their own thoughts and words, and suggested that you just double check to be sure of your own possible biases that others might read into your words without you being aware you were putting them in there. That wasn't meant as an insult or to suggest you hadn't already examined yourself for possible ableism - it was simply saying it never hurts to check again, y'know? We don't always catch everything every time we do a self-review, and internal biases are inherently tricky to pick up on ourselves. And it just loops back into the fact that I really had no way to know what you had and hadn't already considered, you're essentially a blank cipher to me....and in my experience, a lot of people are a lot more ableist than they realize.

And this isn't an insult either! It applies to me and I'M physically disabled! I'm constantly to this day unpacking new realizations about how I still have more ableist views and opinions than even I realize, even after about five years of living with chronic pain, vertigo, nerve issues and associated problems stemming from only half a working mouth lol. I'm not trying to insult people by asking them to just do what I do every day and just like....make sure I'm not the problem when other people have a problem with me. Because sometimes, even after reflecting as fully and genuinely as I can, I think they're still wrong! I don't have to agree with their conclusions! But that doesn't mean that they're never right.

And for the record, I do think its still worth examining on your end, because I don't love that you said your issues with Barbara have nothing to do with her appearance, when we're talking about ableism specifically. It very well could be just a poor word choice on your part and not a reflection of your actual views, but it could also be a suggestion that you tend to think of physical disability as something that's limited to there being a visual sign of, and there's a lot of invisible symptoms and changes to the ways a disabled person interacts with society and society with them that don't alter a disabled person's appearance in anyway...and many of these things are the exact stuff a lot of unacknowledged ableism revolves around.

So I'd like to give you and other anons more credit and the benefit of the doubt and assume you know what you're talking about and don't need things broken down as much as I tend to break them down to - but keep in mind I don't OWE you that, and its a lot to ask someone to take you on faith when you've already made the conscious choice to present yourself to them anonymously, and deliberately limit how much a person even CAN know about you before answering, when you have an equal opportunity to present yourself by name, allowing someone the full context afforded by your blog, that they can use to familiarize themselves with you and what you likely do or don't know before answering. I don't think its entirely reasonable to anonymize YOURSELF and then expect people to still give you the benefit of the doubt.

Especially when not giving you the benefit of the doubt only really results in me over-explaining something you don't think you need explained in certain ways or in as much depth. Its not hurting anyone, and you're not going to be the only one reading this response and maybe that over-explanation ISN'T something other people know and it could still be of use to someone else, y'know?

But lastly, please keep in mind that you came to me, and I just answered in the way that made the most sense to me. If that didn't work for you or wasn't what you're looking for, that's fine, but like. You knew way more about me going into this interaction than I could possibly know about you, and assuming good faith of you and your interest in my response and giving you as much of a response as I did in the first place, let alone now, IS giving you the benefit of the doubt in the sense that I'm assuming you can find some way in which these responses are of use to you.

And if not, like....just don't send me more asks? LOL. I kinda feel like you just didn't expect the answer you got, and that's sitting weirdly with you. Which I get, to be honest, but I don't particularly think that's a me problem, because that has nothing to do with anything I can control.

I can only give the answer that occurs to me when I read and think about an ask. I can't guarantee it'll ever be the answer the asker actually WANTS.

[horansqueen]

You & Me : chapter 17

A Niall Horan fanfiction ; rated MA

Sequel to AM CONVERSATIONS

CHAPTER 1 || CHAPTER 2 || CHAPTER 3 || CHAPTER 4 || CHAPTER 5 || CHAPTER 6 || CHAPTER 7 || CHAPTER 8 || CHAPTER 9 || CHAPTER 10 || CHAPTER 11 || CHAPTER 12 || CHAPTER 13 || CHAPTER 14 || CHAPTER 15 || CHAPTER 16

NOTES:

-one chapter is her pov, the next is his. -4.2k -im sorry, i never proofread, i hate it. -there WILL be smut. but not only smut. -this is a romance, comedy, smut story. -for the summary, check my MASTERLIST.

- notes: i know some of you were sort of waiting for that soooo here it is! PLEASE let me know what you think!

if you want to be on the list of blogs i notify when this is updated, just message me :)

requests! : i added a few but some im not posting the screenshots of because i didnt add everything in the ask so it felt weird to add them. it was tough to add requests tho because I sort of had something planned. i hope you enjoy it anyway :)

Chapter 17 : His chapter

NIALL

I hadn't heard from Olivia in days but I was not really surprised. Apparently, her fiance (and trust me when I said I hated that word) had came back for a few days and she had without a doubt spent all her time with him. I was so mad when Harry told me about it that I actually initiated sex with my girlfriend, which was something I hadn't done in a very long time. I hated to think about Olivia with him. In fact, I hated to think about Olivia with anyone that was not me, and it was driving me a bit insane. Who would have thought my best friend would give me all these feelings? I wouldn't have guessed that back then, when we were kids.

I was the first one to sit at the restaurant as I waited for everyone to be there. It was sunday morning and we all had decided to have brunch together. I was not really in the mood but at least, it made me get out of the house, if only for a few hours. Even Heidi, whom I almost broke up with about 5 times in the past 2 days, couldn't handle being around me too much. I was still pissed at her and I knew she could feel it but somehow, I felt like she held me responsible for everything that had happened, like me being mad at her for what she did gave her the right to be mad at me.

Of course, I was not completely innocent in all of this and the fact that Olivia and I had kissed and more should make me feel guilty but it didn't. We were supposed to be together so why were we still apart and dating other people?

Louis and Eleanor were the first ones to join me, followed by Julie and Liam. We started talking about what we would do for Harry's birthday when I felt her presence behind me. It was a mix of the connection we had, and the way she smelled like, that always made me know when she was around and I started wondering if she could sense when I was near, too. It's only when she took a seat that something stirred in my stomach. Her boyfriend was there too and he was doing everything he could not to look at me. It made me frown and suddenly, I realized that she probably told him everything. It shouldn't surprise me, she was not the kind to keep things from people or even worse, lie, but I thought it was something that only belonged to us and it bothered me to know that she shared it with someone else, even if that someone else was the boyfriend she was cheating on. He was also still there, with her, making me think he had forgiven her, which was some crazy level of bullshit.

I tried to have fun and chat with everyone but I couldn't help but keep glancing at Olivia. She didn't seem at ease and I was not even sure why she had decided to come. She didn't enjoy that kind of confrontation and awkward moments normally and once again, I guessed that Dylan was probably the one who had convinced her to come.

I knew everyone was having fun but I was not and when everyone was done eating and were just chatting and laughing, I got up and said my goodbyes. They were short and I had a hard time to fake a smile but I still sent one last glance to my ex girlfriend before leaving.

I was searching for the right key on my chain when I noticed someone from the corner of my eyes and immediately hoped it was Olivia. When I turned my head, however, I noticed Dylan walking towards me and I was wondering if he was just going to throw his fist in my face. I didn't know what kind of guy he was, and although I felt like my ex girlfriend couldn't pick a violent guy, I also didn't know what a man who was cheated on could do.

"Hey man," he started, standing in front of me with a small frown before sighing. "Look, i'm not sure how to tell you that but, I know there's something between you and my girlfriend."

I stood there in silence, not really knowing what he expected from me. Was I supposed to agree? Apologize? Try to explain myself?

"I love her, you know."

I kept a straight face but my heart jumped in my chest. I loved her too. I was in love with her, but I couldn't tell him that, even if I was dying to.

"I know."

"Just," he passed his hand nervously in his hair. "I don't know how to ask you not to ruin this."

I stared at him for a few seconds, trying to let his words sink in and I started feeling bad. Not because I felt guilty for trying to get my ex girlfriend back, but because It was not the first time someone was asking me not to ruin something. I knew I could lie to him but I was not going to.

"I don't intend to ruin your relationship." I just pointed out in a low tone. "But is that really what you want? You want to marry a girl who's not completely yours?"

He sighed and glanced down before looking up in my eyes.

"If you were me, wouldn't you try anyway?"

This time, I had to admit that I was speechless and I just sighed too. Of course I would. If I was in his shoes, I would probably try to keep her, too, which is something I should have done over a year ago instead. If I had, we wouldn't be stuck in this mess.

I ended up just nodding and he did the same before turning around and leaving. I waited until he was back inside to get in my car and closed my eyes, breathing in and out deeply. I couldn't get myself to give up about Olivia, even if I knew she would be happy with Dylan, even if I knew it would hurt him and probably Heidi in the process, even if it would make an even bigger mess in our lives. I hit my wheel once and then a few more times a bit harder, hitting also the honk by accident. It was getting ridiculous and I knew that whatever was going to be decided needed to happen very soon.

I drove home and waited. I didn't want to be the first one to reach out, I thought that time, she was the one who had to call me and I waited.

It was a random thursday afternoon when I got her text message. The truth was, I was sitting in front of the tv but I was not really watching it. I had picked a netflix show that I was not really interested in just because I knew I was not able to focus on anything but when I put it on pause, I realized it would now probably suggest me a bunch of boring tv shows and I sighed, grabbing my phone. I could pretend I was not happy to get a message from her but i'd be lying. I could even try to say I tossed my phone away and kept on watching my stupid show but in reality, my heart had skipped a beat and I had re-read her words about ten times.

'Can we talk? I miss you.'

I blinked a few times, a bit surprised and annoyed by her words, and pressed my lips together in anger. Did she really just message me as if I hadn't stormed out of her place the last time we talked to each other? As if she hadn't asked me not to break up with my girlfriend after pointing out she was still getting married despite everything that had happened between us? As if she hadn't ignored me at the restaurant? I wanted to text her back to remind her that I was pissed and let her know she needed to stop toying with me. Instead, I decided to do it face to face.

'Where?'

I was expecting her to choose between her place of mine but instead, she asked me to meet her in a park and it made me frown. I got up and grabbed my keys and wallet, but kept my sweatpants and t-shirt. I had been quite lazy in the past few days and I didn't even give a fuck.

The drive seemed long but it was probably just because I was impatient and when I saw her, waiting for me on a bench, I stopped walking and inhaled deeply before sighing again. She looked good and I had missed her. The anger I felt so strongly for her now seemed more like annoyance or pain and I didn't feel like being rude to her anymore. I pushed my hands in my pockets, my eyes never leaving her, as hers were traveling around her. She could have been on her phone like most people would but instead, she was looking at kids running, people having picnics and most of all, at dogs walking by. I noticed her lips curling slightly every time one was near and it made me smile a bit, too. It's only when her eyes moved on me that I smiled more and I noticed that she did too. Why was it always so strong when we were near each other? I walked to her and sat a bit farther on the bench, making sure we wouldn't touch. She turned slightly to face me as I leaned against the back of the bench. placing my arm on it too, my hand very close to her shoulder now.

"I'm here now." I just said, my smile faltering a bit. "What did you want to talk about?"

"I'm sorry for what I did, Niall. I'm sorry for what I said, too." she let out, surprising me a bit. "Of course what happened between us matters. It's... it's all that matters, or almost."

She sighed and I stared at her as she looked down at her hands. She started playing with her fingers nervously and licked her lips but I remained silent.

"I asked to meet here so we wouldn't be tempted to just throw ourselves at each other instead to talk. Because that's all we do, you know? We flirt and we kiss and we touch but we have no idea what to do with our feelings."

I moved slightly closer to her and bent down a bit as my hand gripped the back of the bench tightly. It caught her attention and she looked up, her traits softening immediately when our eyes met.

"I love you and you love me." I whispered firmly, my eyes dropping to her lips before moving back to her eyes. "You love me more than you love him. We're meant to be."

Those were not even questions, they were facts, and somehow, I could feel that she thought the same thing. Her lips parted and I realized that I was in her vital space and despite how rational and private I was, that made me want to kiss her. Whenever we were at very short distance of each other, we were attracted to each other like magnets.

I pressed my lips together but it took me all my strength to move back a bit, making sure I wouldn't just kiss her right there, in the middle of a discussion.

"I know you want me to break things with Dylan, I'm just... Niall I'm not sure I trust you." she looked up and I saw she was tearing up. "You used to be the only person I really trusted and now? I don't know, Niall.."

"I know I've hurt you, I know I've broken your trust, but we deserve an other chance don't you think?"

She closed her eyes and swallowed hard but when she looked at me again, a tear fell from her right eye and she quickly wiped it.

"What exactly do you want, Niall?" she asked, sniffing.

"You! I want you!" I expressed a bit louder. "It's your heart I want Olivia!"

"Why? So you can break it again? Shatter it in pieces? Stomp on it?" she let out, her face twisting in pain. "Because I won't survive this an other time, Niall!"

"I would nev-"

"You'd never do that?" she cut me quickly. "Because I used to believe you'd never break my heart and then you did. So I'm just supposed to let go of the only guy who's ready to drop everything for me, for a guy who broke me before?"

"Who says i'm not ready to give up everything for you?"

We stayed in silence for a long time, just looking at each other as people laughed, talked and ran around us. We were the only static alive things in the park. Even the trees moved due to the small breeze and I focused on her parted lips and how she looked wordless because of my question.

"I need time." her voice was so low it was almost inaudible and I just nodded, feeling my heart twist in my chest. "I'm sorry again for the other day. I should have ran after you."

"I should have called you back then. I should have tried to get in contact with you. I should have told you that I missed you, that I still wanted you in my life. I should have told you my album was about you." I let out before taking a short pause. "I shouldn't have broken up with you."

Her head tilted and the left corner of her lips moved up a bit.

"And I should kiss you right now."

"But you won't." I just let out low.

"I won't."

I nodded and sighed, finally looking away.

"I'll give you all the time you need." I gave in, knowing I was going to have to be very patient. "But even if I understand your reluctance, I love you, and I hope you can trust me again."

I felt her fingertips brush on the top of my hand that was still gripping the back of the bench and held my breath at the feeling of her skin against mine.

"Me too."

                                                    ----

We decided to do the party at Louis and Olivia's and for some reason, I liked that idea. We had fooled Harry with the surprise by throwing colorful balloons at him and screaming 'Happy Birthday!" when he walked by the door and it was probably the cheesiest thing we ever did. Of course, Louis had proposed to play a prank on him where we would all ignore him all day but from what I had understood, Olivia had voted against it and apparently, she had a veto power or something.

"Who drank all the beer?" Louis asked in a loud voice after dinner. "I'm tired to drink your expensive wine, Livi, I want cheap beer and some nachos!"

"You are the most annoying person ever!" Olivia let out, rolling her eyes, before turning to Eleanor. "I don't know how you do it!"

El laughed as Louis glared at my ex girlfriend. "You're the one who lives with him!"

"Not for long again."

I frowned again and moved my chin in her direction. "Are you moving out?"

"No, Louis and I are going to move in together." Eleanor replied with a large smile as Olivia walked up to me.

She opened her lips to say something but Eleanor talked again and caught her attention.

"Did you drink? We could go buy beers maybe? Just so he shuts up!"

"Heyyy, I heard that!" Louis pointed out as El wrapped her arms around his neck.

"I can drive, no problem, I just had a glass of wine before dinner." Olivia shrugged, grabbing her hoodie and looking for her keys.

I wanted to propose to go with her but I knew it was a bad idea. Besides, Julie and Eleanor just grabbed their stuff and all the girls left, leaving me with Harry, Liam and a tipsy Louis. I don't know how the discussion turned from Harry being extra single at the moment to sexual encounters but I kept glancing by the window to see when they'd actually come back.

"I swear, that girl was crazy. She had me buy a whip and stuff." Harry rolled his eyes. "A real one too, like, it was insane."

"Don't even try, I bet you loved it. You're the kind of guy that makes us want to believe he's a dom but he's just really a sub." Louis laughed, raising his nose up with amusement. "The best kind of sex is just that first time you push yourself inside a girl that you've wanted for a long time. That my friend, is what bliss is all about."

"Or you know, a fucking good blowjob." Liam let out, making all of us laugh.

"I love when the girl lets me be a bit rough with her." Louis just added with a sly smile.

"Yea, Olivia loved a bit of a spank." Harry laughed, making me frown immediately.

I didn't like hearing about my ex girlfriend having sex with anyone, as hypocrite as it could sound. I also didn't want to be reminded that they fucked and dated, and most of all, it seemed extremely inappropriate to talk about one of our friends like that. Friend who could walk by the door at any moment.

"Oh yea, and a light choke, too."

This time, I frowned even more and turned to Louis who was laughing.

"And how exactly do you know that?" I asked a bit rudely, making him look at me.

"Relax, mate. She told me." he just explained with a shrug.

"So you never had sex with her?" I insisted just as meanly as the room fell silent. Everyone turned to Louis who remained motionless for a few seconds before clearing his throat and taking the cigarette he had placed behind his ear to light it up. I didn't really think they had but he knew so many things about her that it bothered me.

"Niall, come on."

His answer made my heart jump so high in my chest that I thought I was going to puke. If he hadn't had sex with her, he would have just said that, right?

"Did you fucking have sex with my girlfriend, Tomlinson?" I asked a bit louder, getting up quickly.

"EX girlfriend, Niall!" Louis frowned, getting up too, before pushing the smoke out of his lungs quickly. "You two were broken up."

I heard Harry curse but didn't send him a glance. All I could think about was Louis' hand wrapped around Olivia's neck as he fucked her and that made me feel even worse.

"You're a fucking hypocrite!" I almost yelled. "Telling how much of an asshole I was for sleeping around after breaking up with her while you were shagging her!"

"Oh I'M a hypocrite?" Louis frowned, tapping his chest a finger from the hand he was still holding his cigarette with before pointing at me. "Take a look at yourself! Being all mad that your ex girlfriend rode my cock while your dick dipped in so many vaginas you probably can't even remember half of them!"

I felt myself get so angry that I practically ran to him before being stopped by Liam, who acted like a shield between us. He placed his hands on my chest and tried to get my attention by moving his face in front of mine.

"Woa mate, no, don't."

I put my hands into two fists and squeezed them so hard I knew my knuckles had turned white and I felt them shaking. Why didn't anyone tell me that my ex girlfriend and one of my best friends had sex before?

"How many times?" I just asked in a low tone, waiting a few seconds to get an answer. Silence. "How many fucking times!?"

Louis didn't have time to answer. The door opened and the three girls walked in, laughing together. They all stopped when they saw us and Eleanor frowned, her eyes moving from me, to Louis and then Liam.

"Okay, what's wrong here."

My eyes found Olivia but she was looking at Louis with a questioning look. I turned to him as he shrugged a shoulder and his lips twisted in a small and guilty smile. Olivia sighed, rubbing her eyes, and that's when I realized there was one thing that bothered me more than them having sex. It was to realize that they were so close now that they could communicate without even talking.

I groaned slightly and stormed out of the room, trying to calm myself but I was pacing in the hall, pulling on my hair and letting out a few curse words under my breath.

"Nee."

I turned only to see Olivia stare at me with soft eyes but it didn't ease the anger inside me. I stopped walking and shut my eyes tight until I felt her hand take mine. My eyes fluttered open again as she stepped back slowly, bringing me to her room. I followed her, not really sure what she was doing, and she let go of my hand when we were inside.

"Please, close the door."

I sighed but finally did what she asked. We were standing together in the dark, very close to each other, but neither of us tried to touch the other or get closer.

"Can you turn the light on, please?"

Once again, I obeyed without a word and when her face appeared in front of me, I immediately imagined her naked on top of Louis. I looked away and closed my eyes, diving my hands in my pockets quickly and playing with the fabric inside of them, twisting it with my fingers.

"Louis told you, right? Is that why you're so mad?"

"Is that why i'm-" I repeated in a whisper. "Are you fucking serious?" I added louder.

"Niall, I was single, and he was single, and you were who knows where." she explained. Her words hurt me but her tone was soft. "I needed comfort, he needed comfort... You got comfort too, didn't you? With a few girls, I heard?"

"But not with any of your friends." I argued, shaking my head. "And I didn't have sex with as many girls as you seem to believe. Is that really what you think of me?"

Once again, the blame was turned towards me when in reality, i was the one who felt fucking betrayed by their behavior.

"Tell me, Olivia." I continued a bit roughly. "How many times did you let one of my best friends make you cum, uh? How many times did you allow him to fuck you so hard you'd forget about me?"

"That's the thing, Niall! I didn't forget about you! Not a fucking second!"

Her answer made my lips part and I stopped frowning. She took a step closer and once again, took my hand in hers, bringing it up to press her palm against mine before intertwining our fingers together.

"I love you, Niall." she whispered. "Having you so close to me all the time... it's making my body vibrate. I know it sounds stupid but it's true. I miss you. I miss everything we did."

My eyes roamed on her face and I licked my lips.

"You're trying to distract me from what I just learned, aren't you?" I asked low.

"No, I'm trying to tell you that it meant nothing. Not for him and not for me. He's the closest friend I have, and we shared that together in a few moments of desperation and intense sadness. I didn't make love with him, I only made love with you. In all my life."

"I only made love with you too." I admitted, squeezing her hand in mine as I watched her tear up.

"Really?" she asked in a whisper as I saw her break down.

"Yes of course, really." I repeated. "Did you doubt it?"

I watched her nod and sniff again. I couldn't wait for the day that the feelings I would bring inside her would only be good ones. I wanted to see her smile again, I wanted to make her happy. I had promised myself I would make her happiness my priority and once again, she was crying right in front of me.

"What can I do to make you smile, Olivia?"

She brought her free hand on my chest and let it slide gently over my shirt as she licked her lips.

"I know I said I needed time but, please, kiss me." she murmured, trying not to sob again. "Just kiss me."

#niall horan #niall horan fluff #niall horan smut #niall horan fanfic #niall horan fan fic #niall horan fanfiction #niall horan fan fiction #niall horan writing #niall horan story #my fanfics #yam

[r0h1rr1m]

rambly inception thoughts p.3

bc it got too big in this post i’m gonna start another one of these, ostensibly about my unified theory on what will or won’t fly in dreamshare, tho i’m almost guaranteed to go a little off-topic

the movie says the tech was originally developed as a training tool for the armed forces, and i don’t want to pretend any real knowledge of the american military but i’ve always thought that there’s no way they were there from the beginning unless the very genesis of the idea was already intertwined w the notion of eventually using it to train soldiers. and the tech is so outlandish in premise and would take so much time (even by accelerated movie standards) to become viable and like, there’s an easier way. in the history of dreamshare that i js made up right now, there are 3 main eras. pre-military, where the scientists figured out how not to send ppl directly to limbo immediately upon putting them under (we’ll get there), military, where a lot of the roles/frameworks were discovered and solidified (i will explain what i mean by this, too), and post-military

the last thing i want to add before diving in is a disclaimer. the precise details of how exactly dreamshare works are almost entirely irrelevant to understanding the movie, and so they weren’t included! which means that the beginnings of this will be based in canon, but as i go on, the logic of my worldbuilding increasingly depends on context i js.... made up. so if u wanna go on, js buy into it and bear with me if u like worldbuilding i hope it’s worth it

so i said that before anyone had the genius idea of using dreamshare to let soldiers kill each other over and over and over, it had to exist. which like, duh, but the reason i bring this up is tied into my thoughts abt what limbo is, why it’s possible to go more than one level down in a dream, and why dying would wake u up. come yell at me for refusing to learn anything about lucid dreaming/sleep science, but i’m gonna say that limbo as dreamsharers kno it is the closest a pasiv will get u to natural dreams. “unconstructed dreamspace,” pure subconscious. and it seems like the movie was treating it as an actual place? that would be the same for every dreamer? and u could access it and alter it like a public minecraft server. here my thoughts diverge a little bit into 2 possible scenarios

scenario A) Minecraft Server Limbo: it is an actual, internally consistent entity and not dependent upon each dreamer. which means that the pasiv technology for accessing it isn’t even about shared or lucid dreaming at all, but accessing another sort of other plane/dimension beyond the physical. think cognitive realm a la cosmere, if that reference means anything to you (if not, i’d love to hear what ur analogy would be). this idea is a lot of fun, but doesn’t rly allow for the levels between waking and limbo, or explain why those have to be created new every time.

scenario B) Actually the Subconscious: the way i think about limbo kind of begins w the ideas in this fic, where limbo is unique to everyone. i’m gonna start here in era 1 of my history of dreamshare, by saying that the first experiments w whatever prototype eventually became the pasiv went v poorly bc scientists were js immediately chucking ppl into limbo. like, that’s the default state of dreams w the pasiv, and all the rest came later. so. in a natural dream, ur brain rationalizes anything, and u get the most vividly detailed backstories and explanations for stuff that makes so much sense until u wake up, which is all also true for limbo. this is the reason limbo is so dangerous, is because ur brain’s working overtime to make u forget u’re dreaming and dying to wake up doesn’t work unless u’re absolutely sure u’re dreaming. so the 1st major breakthrough in dreamshare was being able to remember that u were dreaming when u went under.

the first thing the scientists figured out how to do was hold a setting in their head as they were going under so that they could go there in the dream. at this point, they don’t distinguish between settings out of memory and completely original settings bc it hasn’t occurred to them yet. they just knew that trying to imagine a place instead of diving right under puts limits on the dream that help to keep u from getting dragged under and away by ur own subconscious.

to some ppl, the natural thing to do is access a memory. this does interesting things to the makeup of the dream, because memories of places, depending on the person, are constructed from a bunch of different combinations of sounds, smells, visuals, and indefinable ‘feel’ of the dream. to other ppl, the natural (most interesting) thing to do was invent an imaginary setting--mbe a place from a book/movie/tv show (if u don’t watch them closely u js get star trek all the time. so much star trek) if they’re a little creative, or a brand-new fantasyland if they’re a lot creative. these dreams tend to be mostly visual in makeup, since their inspiration is mostly visual. it takes a lot more effort to add details like sounds and smells bc those aren’t instinctively/automatically part of the way the dreamers are used to experiencing, say, the bridge of the enterprise. It’s harder to make imaginary settings feel real, and this is why it’s comparatively more dangerous to dream from memory. the problem is that the way ur brain interprets and stores select information about a place is more concerned with gathering a coherent narrative of the place than with retaining any objective details. recalling this narrative is a subconscious act/uses ur instinctive mental processes while building a new scenario requires ur higher functions. letting ur subconscious run the show instead of staying consciously in charge urself runs the risk of lapsing into natural-dreaming confusion and falling into limbo.

this is the early days of the technology, where scientists didn’t have the expertise to make dreams stable, and the somnacin formula was still crude enough that u could drop from a structured dream into limbo pretty easily, no sedation required. dying in a dream, for example, had about a 50/50 chance of waking u up or sending u to limbo. the brain has no frame of reference for how to experience dying, so it’s completely disruptive to the plot of the dream--it has to end. so depending on how much the subconscious--as opposed to active cognition--was in charge of the dream, either u wake up or ur subconscious takes over completely to smooth over the confusion and u’re lost in limbo. dying wasn’t the only thing disruptive enough to destabilize a dream in those days either, tho. shock--ranging from injury to just surprise at something bizarre--and high emotion could also do it. this happened a lot bc those early dreams were still p close to natural dreams and rly weird shit happened all the time.

as somnacin got more sophisticated, it got better at suppressing the rampant subconscious and putting the rational mind in charge. constructed dreams left some of the psychedelic weirdness behind and started playing by logical rules, but that was still the given value of ‘logical’ that meant whatever the dreamers understood to be true, regardless of how that matched up w real-world physics. also, dying became the only thing disruptive enough to throw u out of a dream, because the somnacin, by reassigning the lion’s share of the mental processing work to the slower, more effortful systems of reasoning, dampened emotional responses a little. it forced the mind to extrapolate how the situation--usually an injury or smth--would play out instead of js panicking and slamming the eject button. the last major effect of the new somnacin was that waking up was now almost the guaranteed effect of dying, and u only went into limbo if waking up wasn’t an option. almost guaranteed, bc it wasn’t perfect yet, and how could it ever be when it comes to messing around w brain chemistry. but almost was enough for the military and they offered funding and soldiers as test subjects in return for use of the technology as a training tool.

this is the end of era 1! and the post is getting big enough and it’s been in my drafts long enough that i want to end this here. i’ll finish later, probably by reblogging this instead of making a new p.4 post, so check the notes!

#i find conditional tense to be disproportionately annoying #so the disclaimer is the last i act like i'm anything less than god handing down gospel lol #so sorry abt that but i'm so interested in what anyone else might think! #i'm dying to expand on dreamshare as a worldbuilding element even if u conceptualize it totally different #also i can't believe i've written so much on this by now but bram set me off and i can't find my chill #inception #yes absolutely #running my mouth #arthur #ariadne #dom cobb #eames

[thewhaatever]

BE MORE CHILL LONDON

My brain was very bad at processing things that day but seeing the show on Saturday was honestly the best experience of my life and here's why:

First of all: Joe Iconis was sitting two rows in front of me.

I was freaking out a little and my friend was laughing at me but I didn't want to annoy him so I tried to chill

But then he was standing behind us in line for merch (he was buying a whole bunch of his own merch which was kinda funny) and some other people talked to him so I did too and I'm not entirely sure what I said to him but he was SO nice and then I got a picture and... yeah I was just really happy.

Now to the show:

The set was incredible. Absolutely amazing.

The screen was used so perfectly and made everything seem like a videogame, honestly.

It was basically the only set. The only furniture they had was a desk for Jeremy's room, chairs for the school and some other minor things (I have to say it did seem a little bit empty at times and I wish that would have used a bed at least - didn't make sense to me that Jeremy falls asleep at his desk - but I'm probably just too used to the Broadway set)

More Than Survive was SO good! Scott puts so much emotion in his portrayal of Jeremy... I can't really describe what exactly he did but something about his Jeremy felt so real and yeah I might have cried a little... (I honestly think he’s my favourite Jeremy so far)

Also: Blake's Michael is very different from George's but in such an interesting way. I loved him the second he entered the stage. He really did capture the "Doesn't care about what anyone thinks, but deep down he does a little" - Energy.

Play Rehearsal was.... wow.

Miracle's Christine had no chill. At all. She was so unbelievably weird and quirky. (Also, she seemed much colder / not interested in talking about anything except theatre and when she didn't want to talk about something she was really showing that by acting uninterested... I thought that was an interesting take that definitely worked for the character) Every normal person would have been a little freaked out by her energy during the song probably but Jeremy was just staring at her the whole time with heart eyes it was really cute.

Favourite part was how Jake said: "Rich is doing it cause he's MY BOI!"

Squip Song was great, his VOICE!! WOW. I love James's Rich. Like, you could really see that even though he's the school's bully, there's something underneath that's not right. Everything he did felt very forced and I loved it (also, I told James at the stage door that Rich is my favourite character and that made him really happy apparently)

Now that I am thinking about it, I think they changed that scene a little and Rich didn't pee (so that conversation was missing) but that was probably due to the set bc the toilets were just projections on the screen so it would have been weird if he pretended to pee on the screen 😂

Also really loved the use of the screen during that whole scene, it was flashing and glitching when Rich's Squip was acting up

They brought back the bean bags for Two Player Game!!

The staging for this was so cool because at the end when Jeremy and Michael were dancing the screen made it look like they were the characters in the game (but differently than on Broadway) and I loved it (I'm sorry I'm really bad at explaining this)

Also, Blake's 'Is it really true, I'm your favourite person' was so funny, he did like a model pose or something and was sliding off the bag.

Scott was basically sitting on the floor the whole time because he somehow didn't manage to properly sit on that bag

Also, I think they changed the dialogue about Jeremy's mum a little bc when Michael asks him if he's heard from her Jeremy said "A little" and I'm pretty sure he didn't say that before

I feel Blake's Michael is that kind of person who's really bad at expressing how he feels... like, you could see in his face that he didn't like Jeremy's idea about going to the Payless and that he was genuinely scared about being too uncool for Jeremy afterwards but he really tried to say the "will u be to cool for... videogames" kinda jokey and yeah I'm overanalysing but I loved it

One thing in general: Everyone seemed really young on stage, definitely much younger than the Broadway cast. Especially Jeremy and Michael. I really believed that they were teenagers!! And I really love that.

Scott was fidgeting a LOT with his hands and I feel like that was very in character for Jeremy. I thought so often that he would drop things.... (like the money in the scary stockboy scene.. it took him so long to give it to Michael)

Jakes favourite restaurant is Pizza Hut now

When the Squip was activated Scott was screaming and rolling across the entire stage and it would have been funny if it didn't look like he was actually in pain

Because the stage was different the Squip had to walk on for his entrance and somehow that was incredibly funny to me but I can't explain why

Stewart Clarke. Holy shit. I'd totally swallow a supercomputer if it looked like him! I loovveeed his take on the role. I've seen interviews with him where he was talking about how he has to think of so many weird questions like how does a computer act, does it feel, how does it feel etc. And I really saw that he was thinking about those things. At the beginning his Squip was very robot-ish, simply focused on making Jeremy cool, without any secret plan or anything. But throughout the show, the Squip clearly evolved and became more... human, I guess? Like it was showing more and more human traits/emotion which peaked in The Play (later more on that)

In conclusion: I loved the Squip so so much

Squip: "Everything about you makes me wanna die!"

Jeremy: "Uhhhhhh this is intense!!"

The Brooke/Chloe scene in the mall was so funny and the part where the Squip tells Jeremy what to say (u know, in bmc pt.1) might have been my favourite part of the show. Scott looked so awkward and confused by everything but he did his best to mirror the Squip (they did identical movements the whole time which I don't remember from Broadway but my memory is shit so...)

Millie's Chloe was so over the top I love it.

They changed the dialogue a lot here, so that there's no mention of Madeleine at all so Chloe wasn't pissed or anything (I'm not sure if I like that) Jeremy just said something along the lines of "Oh you wouldn't know her because she's French" and that's where Brooke picks up her trying to speak French- thing

I THINK (not 100% sure tho) that Millie said "Jeremy?" Instead of "Jerry" At the beginning of that scene and that Scott was a bit confused for a second but he just continued with "It's Jeremy" and then Millie had to duck away because she was laughing (but maybe she did say it right and was just laughing at Jeremy in character idk)

I loved how Eloise's Brooke was so awkward. From the second that Jeremy noticed her she tried SO hard to impress him and it didn't work very well but it was so cute. Chloe tries to show her the whole time what to do but that doesn't make it better.

During Do you wanna ride, Jermey got so scared of the girls that he climbed onto the table with the t-shirts (actually now that I'm thinking about it he was climbing on things a lot)

Guy That I'd kinda be into was so cute!! I never particularly liked that song but Miracle somehow gave it a very different flair and I loved that. They changed the staging a bit and there weren't other people with hearts (there were hearts on the Screen) but at one point Rich was coming on stage with a helium heart balloon for like a second and then he disappeared again 😂 that was a bit weird but...

now lets get to the Act 1 Finale which was SO GOOD

Okay, so they changed it up quite a lot: After the whole "Eminem is dead?!" The Squip tells Jeremy that Brooke likes him (and Christine doesn't, yet) and Jeremy is so shocked that he turns to Brooke and says "You like me?" And she's like confused but nods and he's like: "Why???" (I loved that, Scott delivered that line really funny) and then Brooke explains the whole thing with Chloe, that she always gets noticed first etc. (That whole scene was really cute Jeremy and Brooke really seemed to actually like each other and I was really able to relate to Brooke - good Job Eloise!)

Then Brooke starts singing the "I'm tired of being the person that everyone thinks that I am" Jeremy repeats it and then she starts Upgrade with the tres magnifique bit. It's like on the OBC until Jake's and Christine's part. They do their verse but run off after "Gotta get an upgrade" (Miracle was singing this up the octave which sounded SO cool) so they didn't have their conversation about Jake's parents (I did miss this a little but I get why it was cut) and then Jeremy ran back on stage followed by the Squip (you can see in Stewart's performance that he's already much more persuasive in a human way than before) who starts to sing the aggressive "C-c-c-come on Jeremy can't you see we got a plan, now be the man..." From the original cast album (I loved this SO much). Everyone came on to sing the "Christine" part in that and was surrounding Jeremy. He then shouts "Arghh too many voices in my head" the Squip leaves, Michael comes on, they do their "Jeremy that's amazing" dialogue, the Squip explains optic nerve blocking and says that he has to cut Michael off if he wants to be popular (Squip: "Cut your ties... or you'll both drown" I remember that because it sounded so unbelievably dramatic), Michael asked "Are you coming" and leaves the stage for Jeremy to sing Loser, Geek, Whatever.

I loved all of that so much because Scott puts so much emotion into this song, it nearly made me cry!! He really conveyed Jeremy's inner struggle without making him look like an asshole, more like a stupid kid that's going to make a really stupid decision

The second verse and chorus of LGW were cut (the "Dad taught me follow your instincts..." part) which I really liked (I never enjoyed the chorus of this song tbh).

"THE PROBLEM HAS ALWAYS BEEN.... .... me" the way Scott sang that truly broke my heart.

AND THEN (Loved this SO SO MUCH) after "ever agaaiiiiinnn" He went straight into that part that I guess you could call an Upgrade reprise from the Original Cast album ("And I wasn't sure before but now I wanna go all the way and more so give me that upgrade" etc.) AND it tied in so perfectly with Michael then asking again "Are you coming" and "Optic nerve Blocking on" and as much as I loved the "I'm tired of being the person that everyone thinks that I am" chorus, this was SUCH a great way to end act one, I might even prefer this.

I just love how they mixed in the old parts from this song that I was really missing on the OBC.

When the Squip came out in his first dress (is it a dress?) Costume people were cheering, loved that. (I mean that costume IS gorgeous and Stewart Clarke looks absolutely fabulous in all the costumes)

That was Act 1!! (I am so sorry if you actually read everything up to this point...)

Act 2

Halloween had such an amazing energy!!! The dances!! Ahh

At his "I don't have a machete but a loaf of bread will do" line, James threw the bread up in the air but didn't catch it and just hit his head as he went to pick it up as if he was blaming his Squip (not sure if that was supposed to happen but I loved it)

I loved how the Squip joined the dance, it looked so fancy with his costume 😂 I know he did this on Broadway too and I never really understood why (the others can't see him after all) but there it kinda felt like it was hinting at the fact that the Squip was becoming more human-ish??? (I'm definitely overthinking this) Like he was having fun maybe??? Idk

Millie's Do you wanna hang was so hilarious!!!

Like I said they didn't have a bed so she was just dancing around him (which looked good but I missed a bed here tbh) and they added a bit of dialogue (I think, maybe it was in the Broadway version) where Jeremy asked her "Are you jealous of Brooke??" And she was like "I'm not jealous I just don't understand why everyone likes her and no one likes me." (Or something like that) and the way Millie delivered that line really gave Chloe a whole lot of character depth. She sounded so heartbroken, I just wanted to hug her.

When the Squip shuts off (it looked really funny), Stewart just trust-falls backwards off stage and someone has to catch him and I was just thinking what if whoever catches him forgets about it??? 😂😂 (No seriously, dear catch person, don't forget this, ever... we need him as a Squip)

And now, the moment we have all been waiting for. MITB

Ahhh I was having so many feeling during this scene. I already told you that I love Blake's Michael and I really loved how rational and smart (?) He sounds in the scene before the song compared to Jeremy who kept insisting that the Squip isn't bad.

They added a bit of dialogue here too I think, because Jeremy said something along the lines of "You said technology isn't dangerous-" "Yeah unless someone uses it like you do!" (Something like this), really loved that as people somehow keep insisting that this is a show about the dangers of modern technology (It's definitely not).

Blake and Scott both did such an incredible job in this scene (and overall obviously), you just knew something bad was about to happen...

At the "Leave me alone" (not sure if that's what he's saying) line Jeremy steps reaaalllyy close to Michael (like there noses were almost touching close) and he looked so intimidating towards Michael and Blake sounded actually a bit scared when he says "Or you'll what?"

Then they just stand there for some seconds, not moving, before Jeremy says the "Get out of my way, loser" and Scott says this with so much hatred, my heart was actually hurting. Michael then just steps away and he looked sooo sad I almost cried.

MITB was absolutely amazing. Again very different than George's version but with just as much emotion and Blake's voice was sooooo beautiful, I can't!!

He sang the last "Michael in the Bathroom by himself" a bit different (can't really describe it but the note on "bath" was higher than usual? I don't know much about music sorry) and I loved loved loved that

The scene with Christine and Jeremy was so sweet. They were so unbelievably weird, I love them.

When the costumed person between them leaves, Christine pulls Jeremy across the stage by his legs and places them on top of hers (like in the promo pic) and it looked so cute!!

After that when Rich comes on and says the "I'll burn you out" I was soo sure somehow that there used to be a voiceover of his Squip but I can't find it anywhere so idk I'm confused... But it's definitely not there anymore.

Smartphone Hour. Holy shit, that was SO good. Renée Lamb's voice OMG!! Absolutely incredible.

(I just had to notice once again how much I hate the costumes in this scene... like the colours are great but what teenager wears THAT to sleep???)

The screen was so cool here again!! It obviously showed Jenna's selfie with the house (which I want printed to hang on my wall tbh) and then at the end it was full of fire that changed its colour and all of that was so fitting for the colour scheme!! The entire set design is just so incredible.

Also, Brooke is eating a banana when Chloe calls her and when she tells her about the fire Eloise just yeets it across the entire stage

They all looked like they were having so much fun!!

Back to Jeremy: For the scene with Mr Heere, Scott was switching back to total asshole mode... Internally I was like "Uhh that little shit" but yeah, great acting!!

I LOVE the pants song! It's so underappreciated!

The "You're burning incense" line got a lot of laughs

"Say it like you're in the army!"

"NO, SERGEANT, SIR!!!" *salutes*

Loved that

Pitiful Children was actually SO intimidating!! The use of the screen here and in The Play was almost overwhelming but like in a good way, I really felt the seriousness of the situation.

Again great acting skills from Scott and Stewart. Jeremy was so torn between giving in and knowing that it's wrong and the Squip really felt humanly evil at this point.

Renée Lamb's riff!! Omg! She did it very different than in the press videos but it sounded so cool!!

Also, I felt so bad for Jenna. Her "No one's ever asked me that before" really hit me.

"Michael makes an entrance!!!!!" was perfect, I love Blake!

The fight between Jeremy and Michael looked SO violent 😂 at one point towards the end Jeremy punched him and he was just lying there on the edge of the stage for some minutes and only woke up to join everyone screaming at the end.

I loved how everyone acted when they were squipped!! They were very obviously not themselves.

Especially Christine was acting very very differently. Her voice sounded completely different and you could see that Jeremy made his decision to give her the mountain dew red the second she opened her mouth.

Jake's "God I love me!" Was just really wholesome. He sounded so surprised about that.

They didn't have the "My Squip says I can go all the way to Broadway" :((( but I can live with that...

The part where the Squip “Died” was SO good!!! This was really the moment where the Squip felt very much like a human being. He was screaming and begging and sounded actually terrified. His acting here was absolutely incredible. I almost, almost felt bad for him a little.

Also, the projections were amazing, it looked like the screen shattered when the Squip died. 

Again, one thing that really bothered me: What kind of hospital doesn't have beds??? Jeremy and Rich were just sitting in wheelchairs which was fine but like... Why no bed???

I loved James' acting in this scene!!! He was a COMPLETELY different person and everyone noticed that right away. Even without the l lisp, you would have noticed simply by the way he was talking. James really did a great job with Rich!!

His "I'm totally bi now!!" Sounded so surprised and got a lot of applause.

Voices in my head is my favourite song and made me cry 😂

Christine's Squip is now Greta Thunberg!!!!

I loved how Jeremy was totally his old self again when he was talking to Christine. He was stammering and fidgeting with his hands a lot and only managed to bring out the "Bowling Alley performance art?" Because Christine kept encouraging him which was so cute. If there are somehow still people out there who think that their relationship is underdeveloped they should watch this version.

The kiss was so cute!! Miracle and Scott have amazing chemistry!

I really think that's all I have to say... It's a lot I'm sorry 😂😂😂 just had to write those thoughts down.. I hope it makes a little sense I was a bit sick in the last few days so excuse me if anything's worded in a weird way...

I loved it so so much and I'm so happy they got the well-deserved extension! I'm definitely going again sometime soon 😊😊

#long post #very long post #be more chill london #be more chill #bmc #scott folan #jeremy heere #blake patrick anderson #michael mell #the squip #i'm sorry i hope this makes sense

[smores100]

once again we’re in full agreement lol. What’s your take on s3 remakes you’ve watched? Wondering how you feel about Skam FR as it’s kind of a similar situation to me where the chemistry & beauty is there but the writing and style is iffy (overwrought &overdramatic). My favorite s3 is druck. As a wlw I had high hopes for españa but it was p slow/v desexualized—a whole discussion, but my other gay friend & I were disappointed given how remakes with guys don’t hold back in that respect.. Thoughts?

Honestly re: wtfock tho I really do wonder if they had like one good writer in the room surrounded by fools. Bc it really does feel like some group projects I’ve been in where I feel like I’m the only one who’s not a fucking fool and carry the whole thing while having to fend off bad ideas (but when the majority rules, those bad ideas/execution get put in). I wonder if that’s what happened w wtfock.

re: wtfock, lol group projects are the worst….idk what wtfock’s writing process was like, but i’d love to know it. according to their wiki there were 3 writers this season? all seem to be male, naturally. did the two other writers have good ideas but there was a main writer who overruled them and did his own thing? or maybe they’re the rl one brain cell squad, that would explain a lot :p in any case, i’m unimpressed (friday’s clips did not help with that).

as for the other part of your ask….oh damn i have so many Thoughts on that, lol. this is probably gonna get long and messy, but you asked for it!

* druck - my absolute favorite. it’s the only one i’ve watched since s1, so that definitely played a part in my emotional investment and attachment. still, there was more to it than that. it was the closest to og imo in vibe and style (it felt small, real, lowkey, quiet, natural like og, as opposed to - as you said - overwrought and overdramatic + overproduced like the others); they cast an actual trans guy to play a trans character, if you wanna talk about a skam remake doing something REVOLUTIONARY? druck is the one; i loved matteo’s and david’s characterizations, how they both had a bit of isak and even in them, and the role reversal in some scenes, made things feel fresh *and* fit their characters/story; i LOVE that teens matteo and david were played by actual teens michi and lukas!! they’ve completely ruined me for all other remakes, bc thissssss is how it’s supposed to be! thisssss is how it should look like! THEY ARE KIDDOS. and they (druck and michi/lukas) truly captured what it’s like to be young and fall in love for the first time, the awkwardness and the nervousness and stuttering and fumbling around, the softness and pureness and innocence of it all!!! also they have THE BEST dynamic - other people might prefer all the hot kissing and steamy making out and the smouldering looks, but me? i just couldn’t get enough of their dumb chaotic energy, best friends who love each other deeply and are also constantly little shits to one another. gimme them pranking each other and playfighting every day! and then being soft and THE HANDS and matteo being a clingy koala basking in david’s affection :3 i also loved how for the most part they didn’t just copy/paste og’s storyline, they made some changes and knew how to make *other* changes accordingly for it to make sense and fit the story *they* were telling - for example, replacing the ‘call your gf’ scene with matteo’s panic attack/breakdown (one of my fave scenes), or their reunion at the end of ep 7 (replacing the desperate kissing + sex with a comforting and relieved yet also bittersweet and melancholic hug), or even matteo getting advice from his drug dealer instead of the school’s doctor, lol. also THE BEST BOY SQUAD, hands down. and matteo is my favorite isak bc to me he felt like his own character instead of just another isak, he was different and reletable and a constant Mood. that being said - it wasn’t perfect and it had its issues. there were a few times when i did feel they stuck too close to og scenes and it didn’t *entirely* work for me, just felt a bit off; i will forever be disappointed that they didn’t directly address and acknowledge matteo’s mental state/depression, bc there were enough signs imo to indicate that he did suffer from something. they mentioned ‘therapy’ in mia’s, alex’s and kiki’s cases, i truly thought they would with matteo as well, but alas, they dropped the ball on that one; i was extremely upset with david’s outing, but i’ve since calmed down and have managed to see it in a more positive light, tho i still have mixed feelings about it and am not fully on board with that decision, still wish it had been done differently (but at least! it wasn’t brushed off and was addressed immediately and eventually led to david having agency and yelling out his pain!!! which was good and important and cathartic); also eps 8 and 9 were pretty messy writing-wise, things either didn’t make sense or would’ve made more sense had the clips were organized differently (that random ping pong clip….?). overall tho, the good outweighed the bad, and it remains my fave

* skam france - now that’s a tricky one. the way i felt about it in the first half of the season, is different from the way i felt about it in the second half of the season, is different from the way i feel about ever since watching druck’s s3. it’s funny you should say how similar it is to wtfock for you, bc i’ve been thinking the same thing for quite some time. those neighboring countries sure have a shared flair for the dramatic! fr’s s3 was pretty much the first s3 i watched (i gif-watched half of skamit, couldn’t get into it). i wasn’t planning to (i was extremely unimpressed by the couple of s1 eps i tried watching, and same by axel’s acting in those first two seasons), but even is the loml and they got me gooood with their eliott pov trailer, which might have affected my excitement over it during the first half. back then i really enjoyed it for the most part, despite some clips being rushed or missing the point thus not fully having the required effect (their locker room scene, for example, or the ‘generalizations are bad’ convo), or how much i hated basile (a character so obviously written by a man it’s amazing), or the cheesy piano music. there were enough good things for me to focus on instead (more in a bit) that i could ignore the things i didn’t like or weren’t as good imo. however, all the positivity got sucked out of me when yann noped tf out after lucas came out to him bc WAY TO MISS THE POINT OF SKAM!!! and things went downhill after the director’s IT’S NOT DISNEYLAND IT’S FRANCE 2019 comment. i’m getting all upset just thinking about it, but to say *that*, to explain that horrendous decision bc lowkey homophobic reactions are realistic!!! only to THEN be all ‘haha jk yann isn’t homophobic! we just wanted you to *think* he was! he’s actually an awesome friend who took several days to reflect on all his past wrongdoings while his bff was at home having a nervous breakdown bc he believed his bff hated him!’ ughhhhhhhhh, miss me with that shit. great that they had yann apologizing for his past comments, but the way in which it was done was for pure shock value and angst, completely ooc for his character (all season he was all ‘tell me tell me tell me let me help let me help let me help’ only to do *that*?? nahh), and interesting how out of everyone the only black character was the only one with a negative reaction (remind you of anyone), highlighted even more during ep 7 aka the ott lucas coming out tour. then ep 8, that should have been 100% all lucas and eliott and building up to eliott’s manic episode suddenly had that weird random pov changing clip in the middle of it which truly wtf, basile was still basile, lucas thanked chloe for outing him, more scenes felt rushed, they had sex in school where people could come and go in front of huge windows in broad daylight and luckily didn’t get poisoned from licking all that paint! and i did not like the flatshare, i absolutely hated mika and lisa kicking lucas out of his room - which he pays rent for! - and manon not even trying to put up a fight, and them being like ‘roommate isn’t just a place, it’s a way of living. that’s a family, and you’re more like a cousin.’ ‘a second cousin.’ ughhhhhh and then when eliott was recovering from his depressive episode, they *still* didn’t give lucas his room back or at least let eliott stay there, he was sleeping on the couch, i’m aldjlajdafj. can’t believe i’m gonna say it, but TAKE NOTES FROM WTFOCK. tl;dr there were some good moments in the second half, but i was feeling bitter more often than not about certain things, so my enjoyment wasn’t as high as when it first started. and after watching druck, druck’s brand is definitely much more my style. plus, i was already struggling with making myself believe axel and maxence were in their teens, but after druck it’s completely impossible, so i just pretend they’re in college or something lol. all my issues with it aside, i’d still rate it higher than wtfock, bc overall the writing was better, more coherent, and made much more sense. i also liked lucas’ friendship with the girls; i loved that instead of copying the underwater kiss + 21:21 like some others have, they came up with their own thing i.e. polaris, which i thought was lovely; the lucas/manon crying in the middle of the night together in front of the tv was one of my fave scenes of the season; also love how we were introduced to eliott on the first week! and they spent time together! and specifically the piano playing scene, ohhhh; and in general elu are sweet and i reeeeally like axel and maxence and their friendship. so yeah, it had some major issues, but i’d rather have a coherent story with something done for shock value and drama ONCE than an incoherent story with several shock value moments.

* skam espana - sorry to hear you girls were disappointed! i only watched half of it, so i can only comment on what i saw. i decided to binge watch s1 and give s2 a shot when i heard they were giving cris isak’s story - it felt a bit weird to me, but it was also something different and new, and i did have an appreciation for their decision to have a wlw season (also much more revolutionary to me than showing a gay bashing), so i was intrigued and willing to try it. sadly i didn’t really vibe with s1? it’s totally a personal preference i think, maybe even a cultural thing idk, but it felt very fast and loud and hectic to me, idrk how to explain it. i was just more into the chill more lowkey vibe of druck and skamnl. but i still gave s2 a shot, and idk, it still wasn’t my cup of tea. i thought it was ok for the most part, but there were some things that bothered me - joana/cris felt underdeveloped to me? and things b/w them felt like they were moving so fast from the second they met, like jona was so intense and forward ALL THE TIME, they had like 6 almost kisses in a really short time, like shhh slow down. i remember disliking their ‘call your gf’ scene, it felt really petty and kinda mean to me? bc i felt like joana came on to cris *really* strongly and *very* frequently, so cris was more than entitled to feel hurt and betrayed when she found out joana had a bf, but then cris was kissing a dude and joana positioned herself and her bf in front of cris so she’d see them kissing too, and i just didn’t like bc seriously?? cris is valid, just apologize to her and explain?? idr much else tbh, they had some really cute and sweet scenes afterwards, i’m still against doing the underwater kiss + 21:21 so i was kinda meh about that (tho aesthetically speaking it was BEAUTIFUL, and i’m like, fiiiiine girls deserve an underwater kiss too, i’ll allow it just this once!), and that cuddling clip in ep 6 i think was sweet and the last one i watched. like i said, i was less vibing with this remake, and iirc it was going on during druck’s s3 and skamnl’s s2 - which were my faves, plus skamfr was on too i think and i was lowkey following it too, so….there was just too much all at once and something had to go, and it was skamesp. it was also around the time when panaphobia-gate happened, so *shrugs* i’m not wlw myself so your opinion on it being desexualized is probably more valid than mine? i just know when i did watch, there was a lot of kissing and making out and being cute and touchy with each other, so i thought it was ok? as i’ve mentioned before, i don’t need to see a naked butt or anything like that to *get* it lol, i thought they were lovely! but that’s just me. i will say that my faaaave part was most definitely the cris/amira friendship. they were so wonderful! one of the best skam friendships imo. i might one day go back and finish the season just for the heck of it, but they didn’t do anything major or highly offensive that made me have negative feelings towards it, it was just a personal preference + circumstances (too many remakes!) that made me be less into it and drop it before the end.

#phallusophical #replies #sorry for the gigantic wall of text! #but like i said - you asked! haha #i'd put this under a read more but my blog theme makes it harder to read there so....sorry! #all those who aren't interested in my opinions just quickly scroll past this just this one time ty #aaaaanyway hope this answered your question??? 😊 #skam remakes #long post #druck #skam france #wtfock #skam spain

[upthehillask]

i’d love to hear your cursed child opinions!

Oh boy, well now you’ve unleashed me :D lol I don’t know if you’re interested more in what I loved or in what I’d critique, so I’ll go for both I guess? And you can read whichever you like :) But tbh you won’t hear anything new from me that you haven’t heard other fans talk about. Anyways, here are my thoughts on the actual play: [Spoiler alert I guess!]

Things I loved:

- THE MAGIC!!! The effects were EVERYTHING. The time warp, the telephone booth, the floo, the underwater, the dementors, the writings on the walls, and so much more… Really cool!!! And I loved the whole vibe and aesthetic of the play too, it felt authentic and fitting! THE SWISHY CLOAKS!! I want them!!

- The scenes I especially enjoyed were Harry’s nightmares, glimpses into his past and scenes from the books in general. I think they executed those quite well, made me really soft! Especially the scenes of little Harry in his cupboard and also him in the graveyard. Gripped my heart. Oh, I also loved that they finally showed Cedric in the end, he was so perfect!!

- Draco. Yes yes yes to dad Draco. Still bitchy, pretentious, and petty, trying so hard to play cool and tough, but a pained softie deep inside—we STAN. The relationship between him and his son I CRI EVRITIEM!!! Draco in the alternative timeline letting Scorpius do what he believes in, Draco in the real timeline hugging his son, I LIVE. And oh my god that scene where Draco walked in to Harry crying.. GOD. Yes emotions, yes vulnerability, yes bonding, yes yes yes. (Though I still can’t get over the ponytail. Would’ve been more than fine if Lucius hadn’t been portrayed with long hair lol)

- I loved Albus!! He’s a good Slytherin boy! That’s all I have to say. He’s a good friend and son who tries his best. I liked him a lot, more so now after watching the play. He really did remind me of Harry in a lot of ways. (Also, unpopular opinion, but I always loved Albus Severus’ name and I always will, fight me.)

- And just all the dad-son relationships, parenthood themes, friendship between the boys, related conflicts… Loved all of them. Touching, inspiring, couldn’t get enough!

- McGonagall was fcking ON POINT. Fcking QUEEN. Get it girl. Show em how to understand and respect children 👏👏👏

- I really loved Snape too! It was nice to finally see him being his self that only Dumbledore got to see in the books. I loved his demeanor too. I know actors change, but the one I saw portrayed Snape in a way that felt more canon. As much as I love Alan Rickman, he was a bit too graceful and sophisticated for canon Snape. In the play, however, Snape was kind of more rough, more rash, less pulled together in a way that he spoke and moved. It’s subtle but I lived for that. Also he was finally short. Yes.

- I feel like I have to mention Harry too. I actually quite liked him, so I’m gonna put him under this list as well. Yeah, that one scene where he threatened McGonagall into strict surveillance of his son is a bit much, errr 😅😅😅 But overall, I like the idea of him struggling as a father, making mistakes and learning from them. He’s a good egg.

- Ron and Hermione, my babies!! I had issues with Ron’s characterization, but I did mostly enjoy the portrayal of their relationship. I liked that their roles within the play were mostly to be together or to find their ways to each other. Since so many fans are against their ship, I was really excited to see them. And I just loved Hermione in general. They got her characterization almost on-point too, I think. I just love her 🥰

- In general, I enjoyed a lot of the dialogue. I liked all those strong, emotional one-liners that make you gasp. Harry saying things, Albus saying things, Scorpius, Draco, Ginny, others… There were good examples of lines they’d say that perfectly articulated everything that they embodied or felt or were dealing with. Well done there.

Okayyy I’m sure there’s more I could think of, definitely, but I’ll stop here since this is already a lot 😁

Things I questioned:

- So the one single biggest thing that I am the most critical of has to do with the plot itself, and it’s about Cedric turning into a Death Eater. I’m sorry but I just can’t. I could write a whole essay on how this makes no canonical sense (and I probably will if you ask me lmaoo), but to sum it up, Cedric eventually turning bitter and evil because he was publicly humiliated directly contradicts his canon character development. Cedric’s humility, kindness, and fairness are the core qualities around which Cedric’s personality was developed in the books. He almost explicitly places popularity, glory, and reputation second, and that’s critical, because if failure and humiliation were to affect him so drastically, his primary core values needed to be broken down and changed beforehand, but they never weren’t. So presenting the Triwizard incident as the turning point for him does not make any sense, and as a result the rest of the narrative falls apart. This is a plot hole and hasty writing.

- Yeah, Bellatrix having a child is still kinda weird 🙃🙃 I just hate that because in the books Bellatrix played the archetype of this anti-mother, the antithesis of motherhood and motherly love. I feel like having her voluntarily bring a child into this world destroys that symbolism. It makes me unsatisfied.

- I had some issues with the very beginning and the whole “montage” of events leading up to the fourth year. I found it overwhelming and disorienting, even though I’ve already read the script and knew what’s going on. Still, I felt like I was hit by a train, watching all the fast-paced scenes, cliché chaotic small talk going on, years going by… It felt messy for some reason. I feel like I need to watch it again in order to fully catch up and process everything I saw, and that’s not a good sign. But I didn’t hate it, I just wish we were more eased into the story.

- Scorpius. Now listen. When I read the script, Scorpius was my favorite character. I LOVED him, this awkward nerd who loves his dad and best friend with all his heart. The way I grew to imagine him was quite not how he was portrayed in the play. I know the dialogue and everything’s all the same, but idk, Scorpius in the play was way more hyper, bolder than I pictured, and worst of all, he was going out of his way to be this wannabe player. He seemed so all over the place, even acting a bit arrogant sometimes, celebrating moments of over-confidence, chasing after girls, trying to be everything BUT himself. But that honestly might just be my takeaway alone. There’s nothing actually wrong with his character, I just found myself slightly disappointed with him in the play specifically. I wish I could see the play again to actually analyze things more thoroughly to explain why I feel this way, but I can’t. I still like Scorpius, but a different version of him. (tho damn did I love those skinny pants on him lmao 👌👌)

- Moaning Myrtle. Like, I laughed, it was funny, but it just wasn’t very tasteful lol and I was left feeling a bit uncomfortable from the idea of this young murdered girl writhing and thirsting over literally everyone. The play really blew that out of proportion and idk it’s kinda awkward when I think about it 😅 And in general, there was just so much thirsting… with Rose, Polly Chapman, Delphi… Not to mention Albus kissing his AUNT… Like damn chill JK please 😂 Weird cliches and teenage hormones aren’t the only source of comedy okay?? 😂😂😂 Also, speaking of Myrtle, I kinda wish there was something mentioned about Draco having had been friends with her in sixth year. Idk it would’ve been nice to see that relationship somehow reminisced since we didn’t really get to see it :) 

- Craig Bowker Jr... If he was supposed to be a parallel to Cedric, both being the spare, why did he get literally zero attention?? We don’t really know who he is, we don’t see anyone hurting because of his death, he’s killed with such apathy. We don’t even see his parent grieving, like we saw Amos (who also happen to be an integral part to the plot of CC!). The whole parallel is so incomplete. Poor Craig and his unsymbolic death..

- Ok I am obviously elaborating way too much so let me just quickly summarize the rest of things I don’t actually hate but might wanna rant about: RON IS NOT A JOKSTER—GEORGE IS. RON IS A FIGHTER. HE IS ALSO HARRY’S BEST FRIEND, NOT HERMIONE, BUT HE WAS MADE USELESS AND UNNEEDED, WHICH IS HIS ACTUAL WORST FEAR, SO WHO THE FUCK DARED. ROSE IS MORE THAN A BITCHY ROMANTIC INTEREST AND A BAD FRIEND. WHERE THE HELL IS HUGO. GINNY’S EVEN COOLER THAN SHE WAS PORTRAYED, I PROMISE. THE SURPRISE SECOND TIME TURNER ERRRR LOUSY PLOT DEVICE I’M SORRY. LACKLUSTER PLOT IN GENERAL, THE ONLY ACTUAL TWIST IS DELPHI’S REVEAL—NOT ENOUGH, JKR KNOWS BETTER THAN THIS, THE BOOKS WERE FULL OF TWISTS AND TURNS (but that’s kinda okay with me because the relationships between characters in CC really made the whole story worth it).

Alright enough :’D I’m not actually upset, just exaggerating haha Because overall, I liked the play. I wanna see it again. And I wanna analyze it more, too. I’m so excited I finally got to watch it. It’s far from flawless, but I’m still happy with it overall and want to approach it positively! Sure, I’ll rant when it’s ranting time, but I do love it (:

#the cursed child #cursed child spoilers #Q&A #Anonymous #upthehillask

[gccdfcrtune]

⧼    henry golding, cis!male, he/him   /   satellite call by sara bareilles  +   the feeling of dread when you know you’ve made the wrong decision, nights you lie awake unable to sleep, the comfort of a well fitting leather jacket    ⧽   ━━   let me tell you a thing or two about ASHER ROGERS-BARNES. the TWENTY NINE year old son HARVEY DENT (BIO) STEVE ROGERS & BUCKY BARNES (ADOPTED) is a SHIELD LIAISON OFFICER in town, and has sometimes been referred to as THE ATONER. they’ve always seemed very CARING & GALLANT, though i’ve heard that they can be pretty HAUNTED & PESSIMISTIC, too. it’s common knowledge that they have the ability of SHIELD TRAINING ; guess we shouldn’t get on their bad side, huh?

tw: warfare, injury

DOSSIER.

harvey dent was never meant to be your father, even when a baby is dumped on his door step. who is the woman willing to annoy the dreaded two face?? you have no clue - despite everything you’ve done in your life you’ve never met your birth mother.

you grow up on the gotham streets as a result of harvey’s neglect. it would have been hard for anyone, but worse for you given that your father’s name followed you where ever you went. in many ways the dent name is the old

eventually you do enough to draw batman’s attention. who’d have guessed that bruce would have still valued his old relationship with your father. the bat owes him you guess, and as a result he owes you too.

he promises you a family though as your fourteen year old self was mainly made of anger and a distrust for authority you find it hard to believe him.

turns out however that batman is a man of his word and this is where steve and bucky enter your life. they take you in despite everything, all the baggage you carry with you. for the first time you have parents, you have a family, you have people that love you even if you’re kind of thrown into it.

the first year was hard, you’re plagued by nightmares and anxieties, not to mention that you’ve never really had much schooling. it’s hard. you’ve never been the best at being vulnerable and yet in that moment you have no choice but to lean on the people around you.

luckily it gets easier. you laugh more than you ever had before, even if you tend to still enjoy your own company. your anger is still there beneath the surface, but you try to let it push you to do better things.

going to california and joining the marines at eighteen years old was your idea, subconsciously trying to atone for the actions of your birth father. you serve in iraq and afghanistan trying to do some good.

you spend four years as your more average marine, learning what it took to be a medic in such a harsh war environment.

the titans group of the marines is the second real home you find. this time you find it for yourself. the next four years are spent doing things most squads were unable to do. the titans making quite the name for themselves. you gain more scars, and spent most of his nice healing bullet wounds.

being a prisoner of war was the most horrifying thing you could ever experience, and you has the scars to prove it. you get home like you promised the ones you were captured with, but the prince is the death of half their squad. chavez, simms, frank-o. ghosts that you now carry with you.

it only took one psych evaluation to work out that you were no longer fit for duty, and so you were sent back state side. joining you didn’t think you were going to have much of a problem, how shocking can death be when you’ve grown up in gotham? but the danger you were put into effected you more than he thought. (read: he has ptsd that he simply refuses to acknowledge)

coming home you are desperate to put the past behind you. you spend a lot of time in new york around your family. you spend two years just getting yourself back on your feet buck and steve unhesitating in getting you the help you need. you’re lucky.

that’s when shield approaches you, claiming they can use someone of your skill. you refuse them at first. you know active agents, having grown up around them and know you don’t have what it takes.

when they explain that it’s a placement at paragon however you reconsider. it’s a good way to keep you busy and close to your family, besides you had never been especially good at being bored for too long.

LITTLE THINGS.

despite how much he hates birth father his father, and how much he tries to distance himself from him the two of them share that consuming anger. he tries to at least let him

his answer to everything is literally action first questions later.

his relationship with the whole hero thing is odd, he appriciates trying to help people, but he’s seen so much fall out in his life he’s a big believer in checks and balances to make sure that the people doing the saving don’t end up doing more damage in the process.

he’s a bit of an older brother to the other avengers kids. in afghanistan they were taught to save children wherever possible and so this is now a regular part of his behaviour.

he has a puppy!! rascal (x) is a tiny german shepherd that he honestly adores

WANTED CONNECTIONS.

gotham kids - he wouldn’t have seen them in a very long time but it would be interesting to throw him against people he would have known in gotham, if to nothing else really prove that he never lost that side to him.

shield buddies - long term i’d quite like ash to become a ‘proper’ agent in the short term tho it’d be fun to explore what he’s at like when actually at work.

avengers kids - are they technically his responsibility? no. does he still see them as such? hell yeah. he’s there for all of them in a heart beat, even if he’s really not the best at giving out advice.

#sidekick.intro

[fbwzoo]

(1/?) Anxious about pets anon here! Thank you for your reply, I adapted all your tips and already feel better :) In my first ask I almost talked about my situation sounding a bit hoarderish but didn't to keep it short but I realized I prolly should've! So I'm gonna explain myself a bit better now that I'm calm, I'll try to keep this short but I have a tendency to ramble so I apologize for the length in advance. Also gonna call myself 🌱 from now on since Anxious about pets anon is a bit long!!

(2/?) Normally getting two geckos and turts in a couple weeks is definitely a red flag and if I saw someone do that I'd definitely side-eye them. I do not support getting so many animals this fast at all which is why it freaked me out so badly and it's something I never want to do/experience again. I find preparing and caring for a new (species of) pet for the first few weeks very stressful to begin with, so doing so for multiple species simultaneously with little to no warning has been awful.

(3/?) However the reason I ended up in the situation at all was because I had seen a post online about a leopard gecko that was for sale enclosure & supplies included for fairly cheap, so I opened it for fun. Turned out the geck was actually in my area and the set up was not... Very good. So I talked with the seller and came to the conclusion I could take him as my own leo struggles to keep up with the phase my feeders breed anyway so I had the means to do so

(4/?) All is good, I'm getting a leo (picking him up this weekend). No biggie, except oh no. I find a morph of created gecko I have been looking for & I've had an empty set up waiting for this moment for ages. I'm a bit put off by the timing as I don't really like the idea of buying two pets in such a little amount of time, but it's too late for I have fallen in love and I justify getting him bc I've been prepared for this for a long time and it also happened to be my birthday that day. 

(5/?) Still, took a bit of a hit from it and looking back I would still classify it as an impulse buy as I had not expected to run into the crestie that day even if I had been prepared for a while. This has also been the first time I haven't waited 12+ months between purchasing animals which planted the seed of anxiety in me and the word "hoarder" did cross my mind a couple times but I ignored it, mostly because I knew I'm not one and thought it was silly to think that, but also cuz it scared me 

(6/?) Fast forward a few days I'm talking with the leo seller again. I ask why they're getting rid of it and they tell me they're quitting the hobby so they're rehoming everyone. In curiosity I ask what other animals do they keep and we talk about it for a bit till they say "everyone else already has a home except this baby turtle, no one wants him". I have no interest in getting a turtle, but like a fool & out of wanting to be educated I ask about the species as I'm not very familiar with turts

(7/?) I thought I made it clear I'm not going to take him before the chat but as the 'educational' convo went on the seller was actually picking apart my reasons why not & as pets are a special interest of mine I engaged very enthusiasticly w/o realising. At the end of the chat they said "I'm glad they're both going to a good home". I had missed two of my latest therapy sessions & have severe difficulty telling people no so I replied with "I'm just trying to help" & had a panic attack.

(8/?) It was too late to back down now so I'm getting a turtle. But with that what I was getting as well was more anxious and I spent the next day in bed, which helped. I opened up about it to a close friend, and instead of them reassuring me they told me they've been meaning to ask me if I could take a tortoise (that turned out to be a turtle as well) out of their friends hands. I said Im not sure if this is the right time, and my friend asked me to think about

(9/?) I ask my friend why does this turtle need a home anyway, he tells me the owners travel a lot and that the turtle is loved but neglected. I felt sad. My friend knows how I'm gonna react if someone comes to me directly to ask for help, especially if it's about a suffering animal. I grind my teeth & talk with the owners telling them I'll see what I can do, then I get a text telling me my friend has already made a plan how to deliver the 100g aquarium to my apartment.

(10/?) Even when I may not have wanted the turtles I'm glad if I get to make their lives more enjoyable. I will give them my everything and do my best to provide a good home for them. Tho it does hurt me my discomfort is secondary to other people when they know I will agree to things as long as they apply enough pressure, especially when I'm already vulnerable, but I suppose it's my fault too for not communicating well enough and for allowing them to take advantage of my difficulties

(11/11) Sorry this turned out a LOT longer than expected!! You don't have to post it I just wanted to let you know I didn't just wake up one day and decide to expand my family by half, but that it was more of a gradual process that I found myself unable to stop even when I wanted to, & will work with my therapist so I can be prepared for these situations in the future. Thank you again for the advice, it has helped me feel better! Ps. I will update when all the pets are here and settled down! -🌱

I hope you don’t mind me posting, I wanted to share your story with others, especially in case anyone was still worrying about the situation!

I’m sorry that you had so many people stomp all over your boundaries, especially your friend. That was super not cool of them. :/ I understand having difficulty saying no, especially when you’re wanting to help animals - I have issues with that too. I’m glad that you’re so aware of the problem & that you have a plan to work on it though!

Also I wanted to add one more bit of advice - keep in mind that you do not have to be the forever home for every one of these animals. Especially if you find yourself getting overwhelmed or having difficulty with care. You have to take care of yourself as well as the animals. I know turtles can be a fair amount of work and money to set up well, and while I know you said you’re up for the challenge, I just want to make sure you give yourself some room to breathe. If you do find that you’ve taken on more than you can deal with, it’s okay to look into options for rehoming some of the animals, and that doesn’t make you a bad person. I can definitely vouch for the experience of finding yourself in over your head & needing to take a step back and find a better place for a pet, even when it’s really hard! I know these words might not be necessary, but I just wanted to make sure someone said them, in case you needed to hear it. ♥

Thank you for the update and further explanation, and I hope everyone settles in well! I look forward to more updates if/once you’re able to do so. :) 

#asks #fbw rambles #long post #animal rescue #Anonymous

[darlingpeter]

a sense of purpose

this takes place a few months after the events of the puninsher season 1, where frank meets you at one of curtis’ support groups when you come to pick up your grandfather and he starts to look forward to seeing you every week. 

pairing: frank castle x reader

warnings: some spoilers for the end of season 1, and just fluff besides that!

length: 2816 words

(i love this gif bc scruffy bernthal has me feeling some type of way, ok?)

Recovery is hard.

That’s what you’re told when you’ve lived through some serious shit - whether it be through drug or alcohol addiction, physical injury, or been on the front lines. It was the hardest thing that Frank had ever had to do.

Showing up to Curtis’ meetings, let alone opening up and talking in them were all new to him, and it was a slow process, for sure. But it was definitely interesting. Weekly, he got to grab a cup of coffee and sit and listen to the thoughts and struggles of other soldiers. It was a lot different than just hearing them from out in the hallway - he was actually able to see their faces as they spoke and see the same fear in their eyes that he felt in his heart every day.

After Central Park and the shootout with Russo, his record had been wiped clean; Frank Castle was dead, but Pete Castiglione was able to go out and live a free life. He stayed in New York but grew out his hair again as well as his beard, and ignored any hipster remarks that were thrown his way - he would much rather deal with those than have someone recognize his face and claim that Frank Castle had once again risen from the dead. While keeping that identity 6 feet under, he still went by Frank in friendly circles, claiming that it was a childhood nickname.

He no longer dreaded mornings. That didn’t mean that the nightmares had gone away, but it had grown easier to get out of bed in the morning.

After another meeting, Frank got up and started to help Curtis put away chairs. It was their routine to help each other out, and that way the both of them would be able to grab another cup of coffee before it was all gone. Once the last one was folded and stacked away, he gave Curtis a hearty pat on the back. “It was a good one today, Curt.” He said, and even though the remark was short, the words were weighted with gratitude.

The two of them had been friends long enough that the other man was able to pick up on that fact, and he gave Frank a smile. “Thanks, man. I’m really glad you keep coming. I can tell that it’s doing you some good.”

They chat a bit more about mundane things, the kind of small talk that Frank had hated before he realized how fucking necessary it was just to feel some kind of normalcy. A few folks from the meeting came by to say their goodbyes to Curtis, but Frank didn’t really pay attention until the other man beamed with his gaze on someone at the door.

“Hey! Was wondering when you would show up.” He boomed with a laugh, and Frank turned to see you walking toward them with a grin. You hugged Curtis and turned your glance to Frank with a smile. Curt took the introduction into his own hands. “Y/N, this is Frank, he’s an old friend of mine who comes to these meetings. We were in the Marines together.” He gave Frank a clap on the shoulder. “Frank, this is Y/N, her grandfather comes most weeks, he’s a Vietnam vet.” You held out your hand for him to shake, and he took it with a small smile, pleasantly surprised at the firmness of your grip.

You turn your attention to the other man and begin a discussion about how your father was doing while in the group, and during your discussion, Frank was taken slightly aback. In such a somber place, it was rare for anyone to bring an energy as bright and lively as you did. It was refreshing, and he couldn’t help but stare as you interacted with his friend.

“I’d better get him back home, you know how he hates to miss his Jeopardy reruns.” You said, and Curt let out a small laugh.

“No wonder he’s quick as a whip for his age. I’ll let you get to it.”

“Thanks, Curt. It was really nice to meet you Frank, I’ll see you around.’ You said your goodbyes and walked over to where your father was standing hunched over next to the refreshment table with his cane in one shaking hand and a cup of coffee in the other. “That’d better be decaf, you know what the doctor said.” Frank heard you say as you looped your arm through his to guide him to the door. He couldn’t help but smile and hope that you came around more often.

Over the next several weeks, Frank found himself looking forward to the end of meetings, but for reasons completely different than when he started going. He couldn’t wait to see you as you arrived to make small talk before you took your grandfather home. In the small talk that the two of you would share, he learned quite a bit about you and your situation. You were an elementary school teacher who moved in with your grandfather in order to help take care of him after your grandmother died a couple of years prior.

After one session, however, you didn’t show, and Frank began to grow worried. It was only rational to presume that something had come up and you weren’t able to make it, but his knee-jerk reaction was to assume the worst.

“Does Y/N’s grandpa have a ride?” He asked as he routinely helped Curtis stack chairs away. He was the last one left of the others who were at the meeting, standing over by the coffee with his cane.

Curtis nodded, wiping off his hands on his pant legs. “Y/N gave me a call and asked me to be his chauffeur, she said that her car broke down and she wouldn’t be able to take him to and from the meeting today.” He explained. “Which means i’ll be a little late for a date that I have in a bit, but I’d rather know that he made it home safe.”

Frank saw his opportunity and took it. “I could see him home if you’d like. You don’t need your good heart tripping up your love life.” He offered nonchalantly, but on the inside he was really hoping that Curtis would agree.

However, his friend knew exactly what was on his mind and gave him a knowing smirk. “Don’t play like this isn’t you trying to see Y/N again.”  

Frank hung his head and gave a chuckle. Curtis really did know him too well. Nevertheless, Curt gave him your address and pulled him into a final hug. On the way out the door, he shook your grandfather’s hand as a farewell. “Frankie here’s going to be seeing you home tonight because I’ve got to run. Let me know if he gives you any trouble and I’ll sort him out for you, ok?” Which made the old man give a beaming smile.

Frank was the next one to shake his hand. “Sir, I don’t think I’ve ever formally introduced myself. The name’s Frank.”

“Arthur.” He responded, shaking Frank’s hand with firm grip, making it clear where you had gotten yours from. “You serve, son?”

“In Afghanistan, sir. As a Marine.” He said, holding out his arm for the other man to take.

He did with an enthusiastic “oorah,” picking up his cane in one hand and taking Frank’s elbow in the other as he let Frank lead him to his beat-up pickup truck.

It was pouring rain outside, but the cab of his truck was warm and his company was more than happy to fill the silence with stories from “back in ‘Nam.” Arthur and his pals in the same platoon got into quite a few shenanigans while they were stationed, and although Frank had been told the same story a couple of times during the car ride, he didn’t mind.

Once he had arrived at your house, he walked your grandfather to the front door and knocked. He heard muffled footsteps on the other side and a second later, the door was opened to reveal you, dressed in flannel pajama bottoms and an old Mets t-shirt. Your hair was thrown up and disheveled and your feet were bare as you held onto a steaming mug. “Hey, old man.” You greeted your grandfather as he crossed the threshold, and then you turned your kind eyes to Frank.

“Curtis had something.” He quickly blurted, nervous all of a sudden. You had expected Curt to drop your grandpa off, not Frank, and he didn’t want you to think that something was wrong when a big, bearded, surly-looking man dropped him off instead. “He had a, uh… a date, i think. Something like that.” He stuttered, and then mentally kicked himself for probably sounding like an idiot.

To his surprise, you didn’t comment on how uneasy he must’ve been behaving, and instead gave him a fond look. “Did he tell you about the story about Nha Trang?” You asked with a smile telling of your grandfather’s talkative habits.

“And the chickens in My Tho. Multiple times.” Frank answered amusedly.

“Thanks for putting up with him, i know that he can be quite the handful to people who expect a two-way conversation.” She said, which caused Frank to let out a small laugh. “Would you like to come in and get out of the rain?” You asked.

“I don’t want to be a bother, ma’am.” He responded quickly, but as you mentioned it, he noticed how after standing outside for only a couple of minutes, he was still completely soaked.

Luckily, she merely stepped aside in the doorway. “I insist. Plus, I can throw your jacket in the dryer and have you out of here in 45 without having to worry about you catching a cold on the way back home, ok?”

You left him practically no other choice, especially not with the promise of putting his sweatshirt on fresh out of the dryer, and he walked past you and into your home. You closed the door behind him, quieting the rain to a gentle patter on the roof. He gave you his jacket and you disappeared for a short minute before you strolled back past him into the kitchen. “I made chicken and mashed potatoes tonight, do you want me to fix you a plate?” You offered.

“That sounds wonderful, ma’am, I’d really like that. Thank you.” He said, pushing his rain-wet hair out of his face and taking a seat next to your grandfather at the sturdy wooden table that sat between the kitchen and the living room. As you put the plates down in front of the two men, Frank tucked in, and he felt like his soul left his body. He hadn’t had food that good in ages.

“Can I get you something hot to drink and warm you from the inside out?” You asked. “I just brewed a fresh pot of coffee. I could also put the kettle on if you want tea instead, you just look more like a coffee man to me.” You told him.

“Sounds like you’ve got me in a box here, ma’am.” He said, “I’ll take it black.”

“Black it is then,” You said, getting a mug from one of the cabinets and pouring him a generous cup. “And you can ease up on the formalities, Frank. Y/N is just fine.” You handed Frank the warm mug, and he accepted it with a quiet “thank you.”

“I like a man who uses those titles.” Your grandfather interjected. “It shows respect.”

“I know, pop.” You sighed. “But it makes me feel like an old maid, and there are other ways that a man can show women respect, like taking their hats off at the table.” You lightly swat his shoulder, and he quickly swipes the “VETERAN” hat off of his head with a sheepish grin.

The three of you make lighthearted conversation, and it’s no surprise that Arthur dominates it with tales of his service and other worldly travels. It would be boring if he wasn’t as funny or as good of a storyteller as he was, and Frank finds himself laughing so hard that he loses his breath a couple of times, which hadn’t happened for far too long.

All too soon, Arthur says goodnight to you and Frank before disappearing from the kitchen in order to head to bed, and you take all of their dishes, washing them while Frank finished off his coffee.

Once the dishes were put away, you sat across from him at the table, the setting littered with papers and various colored pens. “It looks like you have a lot going on over there.” He remarked, looking at your setup.

You sighed and ran a hand through your hair. “It’s conference season and I have a lot on my plate and things are kind of falling apart right now, if I’m honest.” You said, and your eyes immediately widened. “I mean, shit, that just kind of slipped out. I don’t mean to drag you into my pity party, Frank. I’m sorry, change the subject.”

Your cheeks turned red and you avoided his gaze as you waited for him to say something, but Frank wouldn’t let this slide. “You know, if there’s anything that I’ve learned in the past few months, it’s that talking about things that you’re struggling with to other people really helps.” He said softly. “I don’t mind.”

And so, with a little bit of hesitation, you started talking about what you were struggling with. Conference season meant that it was time to meet up with the parents of your students and discuss their marks and behavior in class, and while mostly docile and manageable, there were a few students whose parents treated you badly, and it was stressing you out to try and have to prove yourself to them. Because your car broke down, you were late to a meeting with one said parent, who was unhappy, to say the least, and you had received several passive aggressive emails from them in retaliation for “wasting their time.”

“That sounds brutal.” Frank commented.

“Yeah,” you sighed. “And on top of that, there’s a ton of repairs that need to be made in this house and I don’t have the time to do them myself or the money to pay someone else to.”

Frank perked up. That was something that he was familiar with, and if helping you out meant that he would get to spend more time getting to know you, then he would be more than happy to be of service. “What needs to be fixed?” He asked.

“Almost all of the faucets in this house leak, the lock on the back door gets stuck, the living room needs to be repainted, the fence needs to be stained, the sprinkler system in the back garden got messed up with all the crazy weather we’ve been having, and the garage door gets jammed half of the time, to name a few.” You told him.

“You know, I’m no stranger to a box of tools, Y/N, and I’d be happy to help.”

Y/N’s face fell. “That would be so wonderful, but I don’t have the money to pay you for all of that, Frank.”

“You don’t need to pay me.” He insisted.

“I understand that you could do this out of the goodness of your heart, but I won’t feel right about it unless i give you something in return.”

“Tell you what,” Frank started, putting his mug down. “You could pay me with a hot meal once every week. I don’t get eat a lot of home cooking these days, and I would much rather not eat alone.”

You considered it for a moment. “Make it twice a week.” You said after a beat.

“Will that be too much?”

“Too much? Come on, Frank. With all the things you’re going to do around here, I’m surprised you don’t want to come by every night!”

“Sounds like a deal then.” He said, flashing a grin as you held out your hand across the table. He shook it, the warmth of your palm lingering on his fingertips even after you pulled it away.

About 10 minutes later, as Frank walked back to his truck in a warm coat with a plate to go in a tupperware container, he couldn’t believe his luck. He felt happy in a way as he got back into his truck, a way that he hadn’t felt in quite some time. Not only would he be able to spend more time with you and your grandfather, but he would also be able to feel like he had a good sense of purpose.

Pete Castiglione had something going for him with this, he really did.

[a/n: i’ve left room to continue this as a series if that’s what you all want! this has been in my drafts for months, and i’m very happy to finally get it posted, but as always i would love feedback!! let me know what you think in my inbox, on reblogs, or by dropping me a message! thank you for reading!]

tags:  @howlingbarnes  @rotisserierogers @maybe-mikala @savage-stilinski

#frank castle #frank castle x reader #pete castiglione x reader #the punisher x reader #frank castle fluff #frank castle imagine #the punisher imagine #howlingbarnes #rotisserierogers #maybe-mikala #savage-stilinski #beautifullybarnes

[twiststreet]

Progresso Report - April 2018

This is an ongoing series of charts that I keep to track my slow but inevitable ascendance to a higher and more eternal plane of existence than you, a frail normal person bereft of the life force that courses through me.  As I believe Paul Atreides once explained to a Reverend Mother of the Bene Gessit order, the First Law of the Mentat is that “A process cannot be understood by stopping it. Understanding must move with the flow of the process, must join it and flow with it.”  Or as I believe Tommy Lee once said, in The Dirt: Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Rock Band, “Every day after rehearsal, I would pick her up in my van, we’d park somewhere quiet, and she’d squirt her shit everywhere. I loved to just sit there and let her cum on me.  Eventually, however, my van started to stink.  I drove my mom to the store one afternoon, and she kept asking what the smell was.  I had to pretend like I didn’t know.”  

April was a goddamn messy one-- but mostly in the sliver of the ol’ living that I keep off that internet, between work stress and private life stuff and health and welfare and everything else.  Whole mess of a month there, so not sure what there’s left to talk about in one of these.  These charts are all about optimizing “spare time,” but hoo-boy, some months.  

But...  Here’s the chart:

The Weekly Section:

Cooking - Recipe (1):  2/4  -- Cooking - Dinner (2): 5/8.

Not a lot of cooking this month-- on account of some health spooks, I got pretty confused what I should be eating or not.  

The internet is the most spectacularly bad piece of technology when you’re trying to figure out what you should be eating or not, incidentally.  Every article about diet on the internet is like “Whatever you do, don’t eat peanuts. *blah blah blah* Have you considered eating more peanut butter and jelly sandwiches?  The best part is the peanut butter.”  Most of the articles make no sense. 

Plus, any one fix-your-diet article on the internet is contradicted by at least two-to-five other articles.  Nothing agrees with anything else.    

Anyways, I got pretty, pretty spooked about my health/lifestyle this month (very specifically: after I ate the dish pictured above-- that was a rough night)(it tasted pretty good tho)-- I had some spooks, sis-- I had some spooks.  So, I had to go and hire myself a nutritionist to get that figured out.  

I was worried they’d be like “stop eating all Asian foods and also stop breathing oxygen”, crazy-talk, but mostly they zeroed in on cutting down on animal protein.  Which is turning out to be pretty tough for me actually-- it turns out I eat a lot of that stuff.  Big Food sneaks animal protein into all the good recipes, especially if you count pig semen as being animal protein. (And I for one do!) 

But that’s the plan for right now, cutting that down.  I haven’t 100% figured out how to get back to cooking while all that’s been going on-- haven’t cooked as much.  Need to plan more what I want to be making, though...

Sketchbook Work (1): 6/4.  I haven’t drawn enough in a while, so I’m smack-dab back at square one, again.  This was not a confidence building month.  

I was trying to do character designs so I could use them to build little loy-poly people to populate out the game world I’ve been building.  (Which is a huge detour from what I’m “supposed” to be working on, which is building out a convenience store...).  So I’ve been looking at these character designers (mostly Japanese folks-- they sure seem to be better at that shit than anybody else), and weird fashion blogs, but when I sit and draw, it’s just been... It’s been pretty gruesome because I’m trying to run before I can crawl.  I’m still struggling with circles and squares, so trying to do hot fashionz... Why would that work?  Why would that ever work?? 

Reading (2): 6/8.  Don’t remember anything particularly-- I think the only comic I read was the first issue of the latest Ennis Punisher series. I didn’t think that was particularly good, at least on the story side, not compared to that Fury book he’d done, anyways. I thought that first issue overpromised and under-delivered, but it’ll probably be a better trade.  But it’s going to have a hard time competing in my head with Fury book which I just think highly of (and it kind of bummed me out how low-energy people were about that series...).  

Besides that-- read some short stories?  I just got in the mood to read science fiction short stories.

Read a Harlan Ellison short story from his last collection that I’d never gotten to-- a pulp riff called “The Toad Prince; or, Sex Queen of the Martian Pleasure-Domes.”  I like Harlan’s pulp riffs because he usually knows to build all the tawdry action stuff on top of a foundation of a pretty open, obvious and proud misanthropy. I think that’s a pretty reliable combo-- never hurt with comics, anyways, from X-Men on.  

For me, reminding the reader of people generally being awful turns out to be a pretty trustworthy way to get you to root for or feel suspense for a character, even if maybe not a healthy way, even if those tropes tend to blind some bad-nerds out there to the whole “maybe people will be less awful to you if you’re less of a shitty asshole” life-hack, myself included, I guess, lump me in with some of them folks... 

(I mean, not this latest batch of pillow-skulls causing ruckus because that’s a whole other thing.  Have you looked at comics people wild-ing out on the internet lately, and like comics draw-y dudes being like “let’s hear both sides” and all the crazy shit?  Seems like that world’s all bad news, lately... )

Read a Ray Bradbury short story, too-- The Lake or The Beach or something like that.  That wasn’t worth the time, though.  I was in the mood for something else, though, when I read it, so maybe that’s on me.  Bradbury’s conservatism-- his Americana, that kind of stuff doesn’t speak to me, and it was him in that mode, where... I was just in the mood for something more plot-y or conceptual or .... something different than what I landed on.  Some folks can sell nostalgia but Bradbury’s just... something itchy about it.  

(Everything I read last month was better than how I spent last week-- way too much time got spent reading about incels for no good goddamn reason. The fucking evil lunatic variety, but also, that’s not who the term was coined for, is the thing.  So, if you dig into people talking about it, which yaaaay I chose to do, there’s just these layers of sadness out there, man-- in particular, people who’s shit got all burned, you know, massive severe life-altering skin burns, and stories from sex workers about having to work with them so they’re not just condemned by their misfortune.  I spent way too long reading about that. 

Serious Burn Victim Sex Stories got a little depressing...?  People generally are depressing!  I mean, people need sex and to be touched and all that stuff, but man, porno sites got fucking comment sections, so obviously that’s not happening for more people than I think anyone wants to acknowledge.  A lot of sexless marriages out there-- that really pushes buttons I don’t want to think too much about having to read about, folks talking about what that’s like for them (spoiler warning: unhappy!).  

Fucking comment sections on porno sites.  Someone at the dawn of internet porn was like “free porn’s nice and all, but it really needs comment sections-- this needs to be more like Autofocus.  Sure, free porn-- but where’s the camaraderie.  Autofocus-it up!  People come for the porn, but they stay for the Autofocus”...)

Laundry Night (1): 2/4.  I want to have a regular weekly weekday Laundry Night, so I’m not rushing around on Sunday’s as much, losing good weekend time, and can be more present for weekends, instead of feeling like I’m constantly playing catch-up on chorin’ when the weekend rolls around.  Starting to build more of a habit there, but habit-building’s slow going... 

Planning Session (1): 0.  I actually really need to start doing this one though on account of needing to plan my diet more.  I’m worried this one’s just a nice idea on paper but not something I’m going to make time for, though.  But I haven’t given up on this one yet... I know there’s a good idea here!

“Mini-Stepper”/Globogym (3): 9/12.  I’d joined a Globogym in March, which had replaced the Mini-Stepper entry.  And then after my health spooks in early April (which kept me from going much the first two weeks), I went further and signed up for a trainer, that I’m seeing twice a week since trying to do things properly on my own was obviously a losing battle.  

I was spending a lot of time wandering around the gym, confused what I should be doing, like a dog that just woke up from a nap, which feels extra-shabby when you’re amongst the studley people.  So I thought a trainer would help with that.  Plus, it turns out going to a sales pitch for a trainer when you’re in the middle of a health spook, maybe isn’t the most fiscally prudent decisionmaking.  I was just like “Yeah, sign me up, here’s the PIN to my debit card, steal my identity, whatever you want, I’m in.”  It was like going to the grocery store when you’re hungry...  

The training has been interesting-- I like the part where I don’t have to be responsible for making any decisions a bunch.  I’d love to have a trainer whose only job was helping me to choose what to watch on Netflix.  Just get everything trained up.   But between the nutritionist and the trainer, this year’s shaping up to be more a “get (some of) my shit together” kind of year than I had figured going in.  My spending’s a little out of control, thanks to all this, but... That’s shaping up to be the theme... 

Shave (2): 1!  I have a trainer now, but I’m still fully committed to looking like I’ve given up on myself 100%.  When I redo these charts for the next trimester, I really have to figure out a way to make these less embarrassing... jesus christ... The whole idea of these reports is to try to embarrass myself into moving more, pushing harder, but this one’s... I’m feeling it on this one.  Haha.  Oh man...  

Tidy (1): 2/4.

The Monthly Section:

New Restaurant (1): 1-with-an-asterix/2.

I finally got to try Eggslut.  Which I’ve been wanting to have for a long while now-- they do egg sandwiches-- but then it got... 

It got weirdly publicized when the pedophile who made-up Ren & Stimpy-- that pedophile started harassing the woman who was like “you’re a pedophile” after that article came out, right?  And it was awful and disgusting and repugnant like everything else about that guy’s existence, but in the middle of his nonsense, he just started yelling some kinda crazy shit about Eggslut, like “People at eggslut are going to know you’re a dirty slut” or something.

But I went to Eggslut and I’m pretty sure they couldn’t tell I was a dirty slut.  (Ladies).  Or they were at least nice about it-- nobody said “can we put this egg sandwich inside of you, whore?” to me, like they did that one time at Chili’s, so five stars on Yelp for that.  So I don’t know-- I kind of think that horrifying pedophile might not know what he’s talking about, you guys!   I hope it doesn’t ruin my career in animation to say so.  

Anyways: it was a decent sandwich.  I went on an off-hour though-- supposedly the lines get pretty ridiculous... 

And then, for the asterix, I was at Umami Burger.  I’ve eaten there for years, been to Umami more than a dozen or two times probably, ever since they opened that first place on La Brea, so I can’t count that as a “New Restaurant.”  But I finally got to have that Impossible Burger, which is slowly showing up different places around the city-- they started selling them at the Fatburger by my office, too.  That’s the new-fangled vegetarian burger that tastes super-meat-y on account of some Frankenstein soy leghemoglobin concoction.  

You know you’re not eating meat-- I don’t think it’s going to pass a Turing test. It’s not like anyone on Westworld is going to shove one up their ass, and the audience will be like “why did that happen??  Was that meat or veggies?  Why is this happening on a robot slave plantation?  Do people go to those for fun in the future??”  But for a vegetarian burger, I thought it tasted entirely reasonable, way more reasonable than the competition in that space that I’ve ever tried.  But I’d just say I think there’s an uncanny valley thing going on with it...

I had it before I was told I had to cut down my animal protein consumption, so I’m more excited about it now that I know I gotta be doing that.

LA Stuff or Travel(3): 2/3.

There was an art gallery show, across from my gym.  New York in the 50′s and 60′s shit... the Picasso’s were tight, bro.  I don’t know-- usual gallery stuff; nothing special, nothing jumped out... 

And then I went to the Pack Theater for a show.  The Pack Theater’s one of those small theaters on Santa Monica that only squeeze in like 40-50 people, I gotta figure.  (I think by law they can’t seat more than 100 people...?  Isn’t that how it works).    It was a Saturday night late show so the crowd was reasonable sized-- but that was a pretty goddamn great show.  

It was Heather Anne Campbell playing Ayn Rand and hosting a talk show for other famous dead writers. I just think highly of her generally, and she was having a good night, as far as I go.  It was her, and it was James Adomian playing Walt Whitman-- goddamn, that guy is so fucking funny, has been for so long now-- he was just destroying. (He’s really great on the live Dollop episode about the New York to Paris car race, incidentally, which is a fucking good one, if you’re in need of podcast-ery or are into the whole Wacky Races genre...)

And then other comedy people played James Joyce (reading primarily from his letters to his wife, which as you may know are absolute fucking filth, the filthiest shit, genuinely uncomfortable to hear read out loud even at a comedy show filth)(in particular, his letter of the 8th of December, 1909-- jump out of your skin you’re a skeleton now filth), and then Jane Austen and Emily Dickinson both had some solid bits, got some big laughs.

I hadn’t seen some live comedy in a while so it was a good show to dip my toe back in there.  Or just seeing Campbell and Adomian killing that hard at a fucking “pay what you can” show-- it’s just how crazy good this city is with comedy, if you make an effort to track some down... I don’t know.  I’d missed seeing stuff... I’d gone too long.  I felt pretty dumb afterwards on that point-- just haven’t been making an effort there lately even though I’m surrounded by stuff of that quality that’s, like, technically-free...??? Dumb.  I live dumb.

Documentary (1):  1.  Just the Apu documentary.  I’m glad I saw it, just to get a sense of how far off people were who were screaming about it, but I don’t know if I’d recommend it to anyone, either-- it’s really strange to me that this became a thing with people who aren’t Indian.  And then the time spent watching the angry people yelling at what they imagine this documentary might be saying (but isn’t)-- it’s that thing about the internet that... It’s happened to me and easy bet that I’ve done it to other people, it’s happened to everyone who’s done the thing with any skill, which is ... It doesn’t matter what you’ve said.  People are just going to argue against what they want you to have said, and what they want you to have said is the thing that’s easiest for them to argue you about and feel like they’ve won.  I don’t know.  People are bummers!  Matt Groening’s a bummer! 

Movies (4):  2/4.  God, I just saw Avengers and Black Panther.  Ugh.  Glad I tracked that!!!  Glad I built a whole system to just track that was what my life was for an entire month.

I saw that Avengers twice-- just to be sociable with friends I don’t get to see often.  People wanted to see that Avengers movie-- what can I do?  It’s just... I just felt nothing both times.  It’s just not satisfying to me as a movie.  

The obvious comparison is to Empire Strikes Back, but ... and maybe this is just me excusing the flaws in Empire because that movie got at me when I was young, but I think that Empire functions as a movie more than this one does.  Luke loses in Empire and Han losing in Empire is meaningful for reasons that are actually contained within the movie, at least, which I don’t think is true of the Avengers movie-- who wins and who loses feels weightless in this one.  But. 

Second time through, I still laughed the hardest at the shot where Jar Jar Brolin is crying because he’s sad he has to do murder...?  No one else in the theater laughs at that part besides me, but it’s goddamn hilarious-- people are watching a Jar Jar that was cut to look like Josh Brolin cry!  

My favorite part is the 5 second long Saving Private Ryan bit where they go inside the monster spaceship as the doors start opening and the monsters start crawling over each other to get out and attack people  I think that’s a dope 5 seconds.  

Nothing I needed to see again, but you know, I liked the folks who invited me the second time around, so.  It gets harder to see some folks, as time goes by and all, so it’s nice that these big movies create an excuse, at least.

Highlighter Video (1):  0.  Listening to podcasts but haven’t heard anything I’ve been that moved by to chop up.  

Write Script (1):  0, but a lot of prep work this month, getting closer to figuring out what I want to be working on.  

Part of me wants to get a new comics project going -- I’m thinking this summer might be less stressful than I was afraid of, but this game is going to take forever and a day, best case scenario, just to build all the sets.  

But, god, what a time to even want to think about being in that world...?  Can you imagine a bigger GET OUT sign than the one comics is hanging on itself right now?  I want to shove my head in that fucking nest and see what kind of scabies try to crawl under my skin...?  Fuuuuuck that.  

 I mean, it’s one thing to do a comic and have to hunker down with “no one’s going to care, just go ahead and fart, no one’ll be around to smell it” like with the other stuff I’ve done, and another thing entirely to even have to worry for a heartbeat about having to be like “oh, hyperspeed-dumb maggots might care and have words for me for being near comics while brown.”

 But I mean, I’m not painting a target on myself by being on twitter, so all that message board drama might miss me for that.  I mean, I don’t want to victim blame buuuuuuuut man, comics folks knew what was up with fucking unmoderated message boards back when pretty fast and then that became, like, forgotten lore...??? I mean, I get that  people signed up for an unmoderated message board with their real names because they were there to promote shit, drum up that patreon kickstarter whatever money, so you can’t victim blame too much, but... I just don’t think you can figure there’s much surprise to that getting ugly, is all...

Revisiting the older problem with comics projects right now though-- lack of information.  Anytime I sketch out plans, I try to google up basic info about sales numbers, or what I could expect if I tried this or that idea-- and there’s just very, very little solid info to be found.  I know people who I could ask, but that’s not really the point, you know?  (Also: I’m shy!) I find that very frustrating, especially after spending times looking at games, where people are very into sharing info and post mortems and research tools and all that shit.

Anyways, blah blah blah, I did nothing cause I like talking about it more than being about it, episode 9 billion and five.  These charts is taking a bite out of your boy this month!!!  

(I’ve decided to just start calling myself “your boy” in tumblr posts... I feel like this is a big step foward for me... towards Valhalla...)

Youtube Tutorial (1):  0.  

Q1 Goals:

I finally did a Yoga class that my gym offers, after way more than a decade of wanting to try a yoga class.  (I’d set up going with other people so many times and having it fall through... And googling and then not going and... It was a whole thing).  

It turns out there are different kinds of yoga, and none of them are tai chi, which is always what I thought yoga was, all chill and pose-y.  I took the “end up on a mat wheezing and legit worrying that my heart was going to explode right then and there” hyper-intense kind of yoga...?  I seriously thought at one point that I was going to physically die.  

Not really what I was aiming to experience for the last decade plus.  My plan is to try again after the training’s sunk in more and I’ll have less “heart-is-going-to-explodo” anxiety.  But...  I just thought I was going to get to look at girls...???  Which I did-- I got to look at girls; but I looked at them because I was like “I hope that girl standing on her head whose body be banging also knows CPR when my heart explodes and that she cool when blood sprays out my damn ass like in a Lone Wolf & Cub scat video.”  That wasn’t my fantasy!  That wasn’t my fantasy!

I’d heard about it but I still wasn’t ready at the end when all white people yelled Namaste at each other.  But I was less ready to hear that the dopey schmoe who did that comic where all the DC Characters raped each other just got done with a Gandhi biography comic-- some superhero rape comic dude is going to teach the kids about Bapu... But you know, white people love us, so what are you going to do?  (Ladies)(uh, specifically, ladies who know CPR and don’t mind butt-blood..)

Highlights:

Cutting out personal or family stuff, for the most part…

I just have John Mulaney on SNL, Cunk on Britain, Parker Posey on Lost in Space (rest of the show is bleeeeeeeeh, though; Posey’s fun), and a line from Riverdale (”Goodbye Chic”) written down!  Just TV stuff.  I didn’t mention Barry or Killing Eve or Atlanta or that Joel McHale Show but I’m watching those, too... 

So... that was my highlight...?  I watched some TV.  (*Begins crying*) 

Nah, it was just too much was going on in the rest of my life, this month.  It just wasn’t that kind of month, sister-man.  Lot of other stuff going on this month, it felt like, and just... not a chart kind of highlight month, I guess...  

Overall:  This has been a journey into embarrassment.  

#what gets measured gets managed

[whydoyouthinkileft]

ele watches aos - spoilers ahead

-I'm sure that the therapist is one of the bad guys but ah, yes, another evil person making meds also sound bad, lovely. Or maybe the therapist is good? which still makes me side-eye any scene about AoS and therapy -okay he was a good therapist. It still annoys me okay because I tend to be wary of AoS vs therapy because either characters reject it or seem not to need it, and all that, and it's just part of the typical tvshow thing where therapy is weakness or straight up evil -aw Elena and Mack, tho, now we are talking -okay I appreciate the talk about prosthetics a lot -Jemma teasing Mack to lighten up, oh my god. Or did she actually misunderstand because that's also funny -also if I were in Elena I'd also feel a bit freaked out being left alone with Jemma after being choked by LMD Jemma -Cybertek is back uhhhh -Deke fighty with Fitz is funny too to me -'have a seat, deke' 'okay' -'I'm not a baby-sitter' 'do you have an idea of how high my IQ is?' hello Jemma's future grandson -Mack's '''friend''' oh my god the meeting, what kind of bullshit friends at the academy -the team making fun of Mack is making me so happy ?? also more about Mack! He followed the rules, of couRSE HE DID, also mechanic so I guess sci-tech too? which explains Candyman, of COURSE the guys who built that... pub downstairs and are geniuses also have some kind of Guy who can get you anything -Deke. Trying to what, play basball with the grandfather? what are you DOING child -is Fitz going to toss th-yes, he's going to play fetch -seeing a lot of pissed off Fitz from s1 in this somehow -oh god, Jemma is alone for this -also hey, something horrible is about to happen isn't it -not relevant but Liz is so beautiful -Elena is making me cry and I will NOT process this scene, it's murdering me -of course Jem has to hope they can change it and of course Elena can't after what she saw and oh my heart -can Candyman also stay and be 'dude, what happened' -no but seriously another fear could have come through and I feel with all the traumas Jemma has been through, if she's the one alone and near it it could be anything traumatic and I'm here for it -aww Daisy and May are sneaking in attempts to save Coulson -I get why Coulson doesn't want to risk pulling a Garrett -I get why no one is listening -is Fitz wearing that sweater thing again, professor style, because Jemma during sex told him she likes that kind of clothes -Deke's curiosity is such a FS season 1 thing though, he has so many questions because... this whole world is amazing to him -awww that thing of calling each other wife and husband as petnames I always write about -they'll change to FitzSimmons right -also hey has Jemma done anything but giving encouraging speeches to literally everyone on screen with her in the past ten episodes? this is also what she did in s4. Come on. At least balance it with some breakdowns of her own due to what happened, she hasn't had a scene where she cried over Kasius and what he did to her or anything, how can she possibly not need venting? I LOVE (and write) her doing that, but you gotta alternate. We had some moments of her being ruthless too, which I appreciate because that's just who she is, but... I genuinely believed we'd get a 5 seconds scene of her starting to cry once free, and I don't know, parallel her going to hold a crying Fitz in s4? or something? even with Daisy, who saw more of what happened to her? or anyone else, if it wouldn't work with Fitz because we'd have had to see the wedding soon. but like, is she doing any scientific thing, solving any scientific problem? the only thing that comes to mind is figuring out how to help the Zephyr fly. which is nice because otherwise I wouldn’t have known she’s a genius, just thought of her as a kind inhuman-guide and the team’s doctor -I have so very little to say about the villains, I just... I'm so focused on our characters, right now I'm not as interested -Deke is still exploring oh my god, I feel him so close to me when he eats -oh no. OH NO. THE FEAR DIMENSION. IT'S HIS MOM ISN'T IT. IT'S HER. NO. I'M IN SO MUCH PAIN. -no no no nO -Fitz's face when Deke comes up with a good theory tho -also Fitz was adorable when he called her 'wife' earlier I forgot to say it -Candyman get used to it -I need lots of new non-shield people to be there for their shit and be shocked and shield agents being like 'yeah we do this every monday' -I'm so happy Davis is okay -have I ever mentioned how much I love Daisy's ponytails -Mack hates drowning and height? (wonder if height is a reference to Henry Simmons hating it lol) -they gotta ran ignoring the enemy I guess? GO DAMN IT -Mack, really. It's hammer time. I Can't. -Also Mack tho get the hell out of there don't pull anything stupid oh my god -Fitz buiding flying pod is still one of the best things ever honestly -Tony Candyman needs to stay but also to run as fast as he can -Elena, oh my god. As if she can't break down every now and then, precious woman. Honestly it's a pity the two of them didn't spend more time together, she and Jemma are so different but also have similar instincts against enemies. -DEKE IS ABOUT TO FIND OUT -HE DID -OH MY GOD -ALSO SHE'S HOLDING ONTO THE PIECE OF MONOLITH -JEMMA SOUNDS SO SWEET WHEN TALKING TO HIM TOO -awww Deke's face, Fitz looks appropriately freaked out -'after you, grandpa' -'I DON'T KNOW, I'M STUMPED' horrible jokes too I love you both -aw he got her beer and a robot -oh right, arms, yes, that makes sense too -I don't know how to feel about Alex and Ruby even if I'm sure she's playing him for her mother

#ele watches aos #i think I love Elena even more now

[fairielust]

lolol if u think ur day was bad try living my life,,,

yesterday we had japanese and ~surprise~ wisteria brought in the two exchange students for ~speaKing practice~ and i wanted to kms bc holy fuck i got bad anxiety right there and then !!! heCk i was w wisteria anyway going through homework and i just,,, wanted to die !!!

(and she teased me too,,, saying i looked like one of those kabuki actors covering their face in fear like bitCh !!! that me tho !!! but also i’m trying !! my very best !!!)

then when we went to switch and talk w the girls me being the lovely person i am fucking triPPED IN FRONT OF SAID EXCHANGE STUDENTS for fuCks saKe !! wisteria and the girls were laughing @ me lol i actually want to die what an introduction lol fuck :’))) and of course i fucked up speaking to them wow they probably think i’m a real idiot now lol :’))

but also,,, i want to cry holy shit,,, selene was on library duty this morning and it was my friend’s birthday today so we bought them flowers and selene noticed and came over !! she was so pure we joked saying that the flowers were for her and i just,, my heart !!! :’)))

she asked us how we were all going w year 12 and i said that extension 2 was literally the only thing working out right now (on future reflection it really isn’t bc my anxiety is a fuck-all mess)

but anyone she asked if i had bought the books she suggested before but i didn’t want to tell her i didn’t bc that would make me look like an idiot but then i quickly redeemed myself by telling her i was changing to free verse poetry anyway ! and she thought it was interesting bc i’m a very visual person lol. then she asked about my art major and i said my teacher still doesn’t get it and i’d rather the other art teacher but she said ‘well, at least you have something ! a reminder that i had to rip up my process diary to create my major’ and i just burst into laughter because i think it’s the funniest thing idek why lol,,, poor selene ! i still wish she could show me her major that would be cool lol. and i told her i was going to do nine prints but i already had two done so she’s like ‘well you’re already on top of things !!’

oh miss,,, if you you knew,,, how fucked(TM) i am i really am not on top of things bc i have fucking anxiety that drags me down and i can’t control it ok ! everyone understands my ideas but the two people who actually need to understand it have no idea and i can’t explain it i’m so fucking pissed ? all i can think about is the end product i don’t care for the progress,,, according to those two people :/

but at least selene was supportive, i really needed that. thank god for her. i should’ve asked how her sister is doing, i miss her :(

#musings #tc #tcc #lesbian tc #female tc

[itsclydebitches]

hELL YEAH! Thank you so much for filling that prompt! I am the happiest. Qrow is Qrow and Ozpin is longsuffering and asdfghjkl this is perfect. This au gives me life omg. Please write more in this universe someday maybe if you want to. 1 question tho? Does Ozpin give in? ;D

Yay!! I’m so glad you’re the happiest :D For the record Ozpin absolutely caved… eventually. He might often be the embodiment of an old and stuffy headmaster, but he’s also only human ;)

Oh man, I’d love to continue this AU, but I’m gonna be diligent and wait until I’ve AT LEAST finished Beyond the Path/a significant amount of Jungles Amongst Deserts. In lieu of actual writing though I’m putting some thoughts below the cut for my own notes + anyone who’s interested in reading a jumbled mess of ideas lol

Okay right SO 

Modern Sense8 AU. Ozpin, Qrow, Glynda, James, Tai, Salem, Raven, and Summer are all a cluster (now the same age) and are, in short, living in a Not Good world. Oh, everything seems great to like 97% of the population, but senseates are quickly becoming an extinct species - a far cry from the dominance they expected just a decade or so ago. Ozpin’s cluster is not only famous for their survival, but also their continued willingness to fight given all that they’ve lost. As the ficlet lays out: Summer died a while back (taking her own life rather than being captured - a la Angelia), Raven betrayed them to work alongside Salem but also sorta ambiguously to just help herself (a la Jonas), and Salem herself now runs BPO. It’s an organization Ozpin once believed in… though that was a long time ago. 

Thanks to Glynda’s ability to re-create blockers and the implants James invented (with numerous other side effects…) the remaining five have been able to mostly cut Raven and Salem off from their cluster. It’s not perfect though. It’s why Ozpin has never seen the two girls that came out of Tai/Summer/Raven’s union - the only currently known children born within a cluster. Out of them all Ozpin has the strongest link with Salem and he can’t risk her knowing about - let alone finding - these two kids. So he just gets vague stories from Qrow and Tai, he teaches, tries to live a normal life alongside their battles, makes sure Glynda knows how grateful he is that she moved to his University, gives support to Bart and Peter (the only survivors of their own cluster, men who should have gone mad with the loss, yes still somehow exude confidence and optimism), he tries to keep James from launching an all-out war; the kind that would catch non-senseates in the crossfire. 

Except that one day (either by coincidence or fate, depending on what you believe) Ozpin runs into Ruby after a street brawl and knows instinctually that she’s a senseate like the rest of them, that her sister Yang is too. It’s startling on a number of levels: that children born to two other senseates indeed appear to be sensates themselves, that siblings would automatically belong to the same cluster (it happened with Raven and Qrow, but everyone explained that away with them being twins), and that they’re so young. Ozpin doesn’t know when Ruby and Yang’s second birth will come - or who among his own cluster might induce it - but it will be soon and they need to protect them. 

So Ruby and Yang come to Beacon University, excited, but not quite sure why the adults in their lives are acting so strangely. It’s a frustrating mystery until suddenly (at the most inopportune time, no doubt) she starts feeling connected to Yang in ways even their close bond can’t explain. And soon the two of them are getting visions of people all around the world: a Greek martial arts champion named Pyrrha (who Yang already follows as only a True Fan would), a Chinese boy named Ren dealing with the recent loss of his father, the street girl named Nora who has been helping him through that struggle, a seemingly normal kid named Jaune with far too many sisters running around (he didn’t need six more girls in his head too!), Blake the runaway with ties to another anti-senseate faction, and finally Weiss, the homeschooled girl in Germany who’s heir to a massive fortune - the one Ruby feels the strongest connection to and the one Ozpin can most easily exploit. They’re likely to bump heads on that. 

Unbidden, the birth of Ruby’s cluster sets a whole string of things into motion. Ozpin and his cluster are suddenly dealing with the appearance of a new generation in a world quite inhospitable to their kind. They’re trying to fight a war they never wanted their kids involved in. Ruby’s cluster is working through what the hell is happening to them, and trying to live semi-normal lives in the process - with all the drama, romance, and mistakes one would expect. 

And for a while it works. For a while they’re safe. There’s school and discovery and befriending people so very different from them. But then Ruby’s cluster encounters a long missing sensate named Cinder, a woman with black eyes and the knowledge - the abilities - of her entire cluster, though the rest of them are gone. She’s powerful, vicious… and no longer quite human. Both clusters realize that Salem and BPO aren’t just eradicating other sensates, they’re changing them. They’re fighting monsters now, and Ozpin isn’t sure if these kids are ready for that. 

Or if he is either. 

okay yeah I’m done 

#rwby #sweet messages #sense8 #ajdifajdkfad this au would take so much planning #WHY must I write stories with 16+ characters?? #Anonymous #rwby!8

[andimackfaneditsss]

Get to Know the Friendom Tag

i was tagged by @the-suitelife-of-disneychannel and @thesubtextmachine :)  This is coming out a little late because I’ve been preoccupied with Carmilla Series updating everybody as they film the movie but since I am also a HUGE fan of Andi Mack I thought it deserved my attention again, too. Especially since there’s going to finally be a new episode tonight!!

Favorite Andi Mack character

I said it before and I’ll say it again, Buffy IS me when I was a kid and even now. (Actually what I said was that I relate to her, but still.) I am the type to get competitive over even the littlest of things if someone so much as jokingly mentions a challenge over - say, finishing a bottle of water in under 2 minutes. You might be kidding, but I can assure you I AM NOT. A challenge is always accepted. I feel like I sometimes make my life one of those 5Gum commercials. I’m that competitive over literally everything. I am just so extra. But Buffy isn’t my fave character because she has this flaw, I love her because she’s struggling to see how this can be a bad thing - how it’s even a flaw. I was the same way when I was a kid. I didn’t understand how being this way can alter your reality, making you feel like you’re the only one who knows how to play the game and people need you to win and if they think different then hope they learn their lesson when they lose. Not wishing for them to lose, but actually believing they will by not having you there to win for them. I’ve grown, I’ve learned, I keep it in check now. But I still remember the times I didn’t have it in check which made me grow into a different person eventually because I realized I was ruining every game by trying to be the best in it instead of just having fun w/ friends and family. The mentality of a person this competitive is you think you’re the star of the show, which I think is an awesome belief to give a secondary character because it makes them an actual person: our friends and family may be secondary to our story but they have a story, too, and in that one WE are secondary. It’s - like with everything else in Andi Mack so far - very real. I can’t wait to see Buffy recognize her flaw and not necessarily “overcome” it but learn to channel it to be a better team player, not a player better than the team.

Is that your all-time favorite? If not, then list that here:

I don’t think I can pick just one character like I can a ship (hollstein 4ever!!) but I’ll try to name a few all-time faves at the top of my head (and from the bottom of my heart):

Laura Hollis (Carmilla Series) REASON: because like Buffy Driscoll, Laura is flawed and driven and real. There are missing girls at her University and her new roommate who turns out to be a vampire and has been assigned the same room because the school doesn’t even bat an eyelash at Laura’s former roommate having just up-and-vanished, may actually have ties to what’s been going on but no actual knowledge of what’s really happening. She believes because she’s the only one who cares enough to not let the weirdness and everything absolute sketch slip under the radar, she’s the only one who can do anything about it. She cares way too much about everyone, so much so that she forgets to remember (really think about) who she can trust. But she would willingly give her life for every friend that has ever walked into/out of her life simply because she just loves people and cares so much about everybody. Even hardcore villains who she definitely needed to kill - she still feels bad about killing them, despite the fact they would smile at the sound of murder they organized. She’s flawed but freaking inspiring!

Buffy Driscoll (Andi Mack) REASON: read my answer to the first question of this tag.

Wilson Kirsch (Carmilla Series) REASON: he’s a freaking puppy who doesn’t deserve what he’s been through when all he’s ever wanted was a bro! He just needs a really good friend and I wish I could jump through my screen and wrap him in a hug.

Benny Weir (My Babysitter’s a Vampire) REASON: he may have caused a lot of trouble because the world allowed a HUGE nerd to have magical powers - so what did it think was going to come of that?! But - but - but, he was also the solution to fixing the trouble almost 90% of the time. He’s flawed, just like many characters I love, but he’s a dork who just wants to live out his dreams of being a wizard and - accidentally raises the evil dead pets of the entire neighborhood in the process of trying to win over a girl through his newfound abilities. And he’s there for his friends, and if that calls for enchanting a cologne to be a love potion for his best bud to finally win over his hot babysitter (sounds weird but I promise if you watch the show it’s not what you think) - then he’ll do it!

And now for some honorable mentions I’m compiling them because if I go on and on explaining why I love these characters then this post will be longer than I intend for it to be: Matska Belmonde (Carmilla Series), Melanippe Callis (Carmilla Series), Theo Straka (Carmilla Series), Cyrus Goodman (Andi Mack), Andi Mack (Andi Mack), Bex Mack (Andi Mack), Daphne Diaz (Stuck In The Middle), Georgie Diaz (Stuck In The Middle), Riku Harada (D.N.Angel), and to end this list Kaori Fujimiya (One Week Friends).

Favorite Andi Mack cast member?

Probably Joshua Rush atm, but then I’ve seen some pretty funny tweets from Lilan Bowden. So...maybe Lilan? How ‘bout I break the rules and - just kidding! I’ll pick one... Definitely Lilan. Sorry Josh!

All-time favorite cast member? If not, list them:

Elise Bauman! She seems so cool to work with, very fun and chill. Must be all the yoga.

Honorable mentions ofc: Natasha Negovanlis, Shannon Kook, Kaitlyn Alexander, Kira Kosarin, Matt O’ Connor, Chloe Grace Moretz, Atticus Mitchell, Lia Marie Johnson, Allison Scagliotti, and to end this list Jeremy Shada.

Original reaction to the show:

I was excited to see more Asian rep, for sure! But I seriously thought the BIG secret was that Bex “her older sister” would be moving back home and that that would stir up some fun adventures and trouble. I was utterly shocked - just, in literal tears when the reveal happened. It hooked me. I’d never seen that sort of story-line on a Disney Channel show. I was sure it’d be something different, pure and at the same time mature, and THAT interested me. Yes, the fact there’s no laugh track is the same reason I loved My Babysitter’s a Vampire, why I love Stuck In The Middle, but that was just the cherry on top of the wonderful eye-catching rainbow shimmering unicorn cake this show was going to be...and is!

Current reaction to the show:

It’s slowly developing the characters a bit more - which is always great - and teasing out more issues that can potentially be fully brought to light and commented on (hopefully) in the next season, because I really wish they talked more on the issues with Buffy. Her hair being “too big”: it could have been said that that was a little bit racist that comment right there? And how about how Buffy was concerned with who said she “wasn’t girly” and why she was so bent on helping Cyrus become “2.Bro”? Yes she’s my fave character from the show but I’m saying this also because I don’t want them to be bold enough to shout into the void, silencing the crowd, and then shrink into the dark shadows of the corner behind them not wanting to go on with their groundbreaking statement. These are real issues that can be deeper analyzed but I get that they are kids and kids often don’t think about a problem facing them philosophically but rather directly. So to them it was just, “What? How can that even be possible? Hair too big? Huh?” I just hope they go deeper next season, just a leetle bit deeper is all I’m asking. But it’s getting better and I still very much like it, and the Friendom. I also just have one more request: CAN ANDI PLEASE PLEASE PRETTY PLEASE WITH A CHERRY ON TOP FINALLY CALL BEX HER MOM LIKE CAN THEY JUST HAVE A REALLY NICE BONDING MOMENT AND ANDI JUST SMILES TO HERSELF BEFORE SURPRISING BEX WITH A “NIGHT, MOM” OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT PLEASE?!

Favorite Andi Mack plot line(s):

The kids’ lives away from school most definitely, but that isn’t just one plot line. Andi’s sister is actually her mom and her mom is actually her grandmother, Cyrus’s parents are divorced shrinks who both remarried shrinks, Buffy’s mom is overseas. Not gonna lie I will be a tad disappointed (okay a whole lot) if we don’t get to see a really touching moment where Buffy’s mom just shows up at their doorstep, finally home; if Cyrus’s gossip shrink of a mom doesn’t have consequences for gossiping to everyone about her clients’ private lives and has to look for a new job (could that even happen?); if Bex doesn’t become a total “mom” over the kids and just steps back one day and is like “oh wow I’m asking all of them how school was and cutting crust off of two sandwiches out of the three I made because Buffy likes the crust on - wait what?” And I don’t even know why I really want to see this happen but I really want to see this happen: Andi’s, Buffy’s, and Cyrus’s parents all coming together to hang out and eventually become friends. I just feel like Bowie will return and when he does, he and Bex should have friends their own age to go out on the weekends with. Maybe that’s just me tho...

Least Favorite Andi Mack character:

It’s waaaaaaaaay too easy to say Tiffany (Amber), and it’d also be a little lazy at this point. She’s so clearly meant to be the antagonist. It’s the only character they gave us to hate... Or is it? My least fave Andi Mack character is (I’m sorry to all the shippers out there who see him with Buffy or to anyone who just likes this character) Marty from the Party. Look, he was pretty sexist in the episode “She Said, She Said” where Buffy was happily surprised to find out she was the fastest in track and then he followed that up w/ “fastest girl” and said “by a minor biological reality” that men and women were not created equal and how the fastest woman would never beat the fastest man. I’m normally not one to jump up at these remarks and go “AAAAAAAAAHHHHH SEXISM!!!!1!!″ however the way they ended that subplot with us just seeing them take off in another random race Buffy initiated and then cutting away entirely before we get to see who wins that time? I didn’t get much closure. And I also feel that witty banter and slight sexist remarks aside, Marty just needs to be developed more. So he’s my least fave Andi Mack character rn atm. I don’t hate him I just like him the least.

All-time least favorite character? If not, list them here:

We’ll be here all day (maybe all year long) if I delve too deep into my all-time least fave characters. So, some more honorable - or, infamous? mentions: The Dean, Baron Vordenberg, and Theo Straka (i know he’s also one of my fave characters but that’s because he’s such a good villain it’s hard not to love that he exists, I mean he’s not even a vampire himself and yet he’s so evil) (Carmilla Series), President Snow, Gale Hawthorne, and President Coin (The Hunger Games), The Vampire Council (My Babysitter’s a Vampire), Mark Jefferson (Life Is Strange), and finally to end this list Victor Alvarez (Netflix’s Original Sitcom One Day at a Time).

Upcoming Andi Mack episodes I’m worried about:

A couple of things. Not so much the episodes because as a whole they’re always good, but I am worried about developments within each episode...ones yet-to-be-aired and ones yet-to-be-filmed.

1) Andi and Bex’s relationship as mother and daughter really not strengthening and instead they just go on as if they’re still sisters.

2) Andi never calling Bex “mom”...I think it should come first before she calls Bowie “dad” because there’s already a bond between her and Bex and so it should be a lot easier to do that first.

3) Cyrus coming out. Or Jonah. Either one even just questioning who they actually like. Because when Disney had aired that one episode of Good Luck Charlie with the two moms, people went nuts and so I’m kinda hoping they don’t ignore exploring this plot line when/if it happens because of the backlash they had from the moms who claimed they were “enforcing gay agenda on the children.” Liking who you like isn’t something that can be taught really but like religion can be fed in unhealthy, brainwashing amounts like if you were to preach over and over again to someone every day for years “You’re a Christian so confess your sins you sinner” or “You’re gay just admit it already” even if they don’t follow that religion (or any religion) or aren’t that sexuality for sure; however, all that Disney is trying to do is be inclusive and not preachy. Just btw, I know a six year old who was happy to say that he has a boyfriend. Kids are growing up and if your kids aren’t gay they’ll be exposed to other kids who either support it and talk freely about it or who actually are gay. Nbd.

4) Buffy not realizing her flaw (being overly competitive) and not getting it in check so that she can be a better team player and even make some new friends on her track team.

5) Jonah not breaking it off with Tiffany (Amber) for his and everyone else’s mental health. Their relationship is not a good one and she is so nasty to all of his friends, he’s such a ball of sunshine who doesn’t need to be with a girl who will insult and disparage his friends behind his back. Oh yeah and cHEAT ON HIM. WHICH SHE TOTALLY IS!!!

Welp, I guess that’s all there is for me to say. I hope you’ve all gotten to know me better and I don’t know who to tag so I’ll just leave it up to any of you that follow me to pick up this tag for yourself and tell the Friendom a little bit about you! :)

#andi mack #get to know the friendom #andi mack fandom #andi mack friendom #disney channel #fandom #friendom