#or maybe it' swarm era whatever

[rubbish78]

"Stressful day at work today, honey?" x,x

#haven't made mcr gifs for a while #gerard way #live 2023 #my chemical romance #mcr #mikey walking by #living dead business hot lady #decay era #or maybe it' swarm era whatever #tw: flashing lights #my gifs #rubbish78gifs #secretary outfit

[leggerefiore]

Found You!

cw: implied yandere Volo

pairing: Volo/Reader

Readjusting to the modern world had been more difficult than you had expected. It was a strange experience to scare awake from the beeping of an alarm or forget how to work a computer after having gone so many months without it. That was just modern technology, too. The repetition of modern work and life felt so odd compared to the stress and uncertainty of Hisui. The safety and comfort so foreign after being bathed in danger and distress for so long.

Not to mention the strange hurt that you felt when reflecting upon the subtle loss of friends. No more could you spend time with the bumbling Professor Laventon, enjoy a battle and sweet with Adaman, or laugh along with Arezu at whatever her new hairstyle suggestion was to be. A shudder always went down your spine when you considered that they were long gone. Their deaths happening through the centuries you skipped through to return back to the modern era you were born to.

Maybe it was those complicated feelings that brought you to the Jubilife of your day and age. The city was bustling and large; the capital of the Sinnoh region. A shrine to the hard work of those you watched shed both blood and sweat to create this sanctuary during the Hisui era. It was nearly unrecognisable to the small village you had lived in during your time in the past. Everything was the most up-to-date here than the rest of Sinnoh. Towering buildings blocked the sky as people swarmed to walk every which way. You had felt your heart clench.

It was gone – you truly had returned to modern day.

The strange experience of Hisui was something you could put firmly behind you as some delusion the no one but a select few seemed even willing to entertain. It was isolating.

You were back home, surrounded by your friends and family, yet more alone than you had been in Hisui.

A sigh left you as you stopped before a large office building. Clowns danced outside, advertising some new modern tech-gadget that your brain cared little about analysing. You let out a sharp breath. Capturing Arceus after completing the PokeDex that Laventon had sought to make, it truly did feel like a dream. The deity challenged you to a battle and gave you a piece of it upon your victory. The Azure Flute had come with you to the modern day, too. You wondered what would happen if you returned to the Temple of Sinnoh.

The thought of the location sent another pang into your heart.

Volo.

You wondered how he had spent his days in Hisui. He had completely vanished after your confrontation at the temple. His true intentions… His actual plans… His kindness… His smile… Everything blended inside you painfully. The blond had come to you at your lowest point and gave you the support you needed to carry on. Then, he smothered those very flames he lit with his own hand. Had Volo only been using you the entire time? His plan had only changed when you had begun to collect plates, you knew.

A nearby electronic board projecting an image eerily similar to him on it. Champion Cynthia. She was beautiful, bold, and strong. Her love of archaeology and visage evidence that Volo had carried on his lineage. You suppose he found his place somewhere in the world. Somehow, your feet had carried you to a calmer part of the city. Less noise pollution and people wandering about. Where should you go next?

Before the question could be truly contemplated, arms wrapped around your form tightly and pushed you firmly to the body behind you. A cheek came to press against your own as both hair and cloth tickled you. Long, golden streaks broke out of the dark, heavy coat hood. You felt your heart race. What the hell? Hands locked your wrists together. Your breath stalled in your throat.

“The reason I could never collect all the plates, why I was never chosen by Arceus and then abandoned by Giratina…” a terrifyingly familiar voice whispered into your ear, “I could not recreate the world, nor could I think about anything but you… I wandered alone for so many years…” The grip on your wrists became painfully tight. They held you so close to them that you were convinced that they may be trying to fuse your body to their own. “… Found you!” they playfully spoke.

Biting back a scream, you forced yourself from their hold. You managed to turn to face them, but they kept a firm hold on your hand. A coat obscured their face as you swallowed. It could not be. He was long dead. This had to be some awful prank by someone who heard your story. Still, there was a lingering feeling of deja-vu that refused to fade. You could see their hair peaking out from the obscuring shadow of the hood. Blond hair.

“… Are you one of Cynthia's relatives? I didn't realise she had such mean people there,” you shook your head with a nervous smile, “You all seem to look eerily similar, you know.” Hopefully, they would be satisfied with your reaction and leave you alone now. A chuckle you knew all too well came from them.

His other hand came to grasp the hem of his hood as he pulled it back. Your eyes went wide as your mouth hung open.

It…

It could not be.

It simply was impossible.

A stormy eye peered into your own, obvious adoration pouring out from it. Blond strands caught the wind, nearly revealing his other eye. A smile was on his lips. Your heart skipped a beat.

“I finally found you…” Volo's voice was the same as it had been centuries ago, “It's been too long.”

His eyes closed to reflect his pure joy. You stood in shock and confusion. He pulled you to him again, forcing you into a proper embrace. His lanky form consumed yours.

His hot breath fanned against your ear as he spoke again.

“I won't let you go this time.”

#yandere pokemon x reader #volo x reader #yandere volo x reader #yandere x reader #volo/reader #pokemon x reader #yanstuff #yandere

[poppy-metal]

Okay but the slight angst of reader going from freshman to sophomore and Jordan into their senior year.. there’s gonna be other girls throwing themselves at Jordan once they leave god u and go into the seven (or whatever other career)

pulls my hair out because you know this leads to your probable breakup era,,,,,, they get busier and busier and you see them conforming more and more to what the sevens PR wants for them then what they actually wanted to be and they've always been popular but it hurts to see the world suddenly take notice and act like jordan is theirs when they weren't there for them like you were. its messy and its heartbreaking when you end it, you're in tears and jordan is trying not to be, you're telling them you miss them and they're getting angry because you knew this was coming - knew this is where they'd always end up. they let you leave, and for the first time, they dont chase after you.

its lonely and hard on the both of you, you probably don't meet again until a few years later - when you're graduating, and jordan is at the ceremony to do some press at GodU, its where they started after all, and you run into eachother. and its like no time has passed, with the way your nerves flare up the second they're around.

jordan opening and closing their mouth, before settling on a soft, "you look - you look good. congratulations, on ah, graduating."

the formal words make you want to scream, mostly because jordan has never been this polite person. not unless they were performing for their parents. it seemed they were constantly performing now. and you wonder how deep the jordan that used to sneak flasks into parties and ditch early to make out with you, is burried.

before you can even come up with an equally as stiff reply jordan is swarmed by fans - wating autographs and pictures and that fake smile is back - gleaming as they nod and pose. you turn because the sight churns your stomach, you dont notice jordans eyes watching you retreat, that flicker of something in their eyes like they want to go after you but cant.

you go home, and you're just there long enough to unstrap your heels from your aching feet when you hear pounding on your door. confused because you hadn't expected anyone at this hour, especially with the downpour, you answer it.

you have just enough time to register its jordan - in the same suit at they were at the party, drenched in rain, a wild look in their dark eyes, before they're stepping forward and gripping your face and yanking your lips to theirs.

you think you should pull away and tell them to fuck off, that they cant do this, they can't fucking abadon you and then just kiss you like they'd been starving for years and are finally being fed, they can't. but then they're moaning into your mouth and you're whining into theirs and you jump into their arms and you hear the front door shut as they kick it closed behind them.

they pull away just long enough to say, "tell me to stop - tell me you dont want this -"

"just shut up, jordan -" you kiss them quiet. giving your assent just like that. you hate them for leaving you, but you miss them even more. being touched by them makes you feel alive again. wakes up your body. you don't know if they'll leave again tomorrow, they probably will, but for tonight jordan is yours again. you'll let them fuck you - let them inside you - so that maybe you'll be able to keep a part of them with you forever.

#ask #jordan li x reader #sorry i love angst #exes to lovers....

[minty-mumbles]

Whumptober Day 3: “Make it stop”

TW: Blood and injury, medical aid without painkillers, restraints, unreliable narrator (kind of)

A/N: Yeah I know it's the 5th and this is late. I forgot I was doing whumptober to be totally honest, I'm so sorry lol

(Read on AO3)

~~~

Let it be known that Wind hated Wild’s era. He really did. 

Wind hated Wild’s stupid era because it had stupid moblins who had stupid bomb barrels that they liked to pick up and throw. 

To be frank, Wind was used to explosions. Many members of their group didn’t hesitate to use bombs for their own benefit. But the heroes’ habit of exploding things was only fun and exciting when it was them who were the ones doing the exploding. When it was a moblin in Wild’s era with a bomb barrel, it was decidedly less fun.

Fuck.

Wind winced as he was jostled slightly, the movement sending shooting pain through his back

Damn Wild’s era. Damn it all to Demise. 

Wind was jostled again, and a strangled wheeze forced itself from his mouth. Distantly, Wind could hear the heavy drawl of Twilight’s accent. The rancher was probably apologizing. 

Wind hummed in acknowledgment, but didn’t pick his head up from the shoulder it was resting on. He tightened his hold around Twilight’s neck the best he could without strangling him. As hard as he tried, though, it was difficult to keep a grip on someone when you were bleeding out. Twilight’s arms hooked under Wind’s legs were really the only thing keeping Wind from falling to the ground at this point.

Every step Twilight took was agony, making what was left of his tunic rub against the open wounds on his back. They'd been walking for at least ten minutes now, and Wind’s world had narrowed down to the repetitive movement and corresponding spikes of pain that came with it. 

He was broken out of his daze when Twilight's gate slowed down. Wind lifted his head ever so slightly, and found that they had arrived at their destination.

A stable. Wind couldn't remember which one it was.

Wind barely had time to send up a silent prayer of thanks to whatever god allowed them to finally arrive before people were swarming out of the strangely shaped tent and surrounding Twilight and Wind.

Wind only tucked his head back into the crook of Twilight’s neck, trying his best to ignore both the loud conversation happening around him and the blood he could feel trickling down his back.

What he wouldn’t give to be wrapped up in a warm blanket in front of a fire right now. Maybe with a cup of hot apple cider, cuddled up against one of the other heroes. Maybe Sky���. Sky was the best at cuddles, even if he had a tendency to fall asleep and then not let you go until he woke. But Wind wouldn’t mind that right now, to be honest.

He would love to be able to cuddle someone and have their arms wrapped around his back without any pain. Wind knew that was a wistful thought. No one would be touching his back without it causing pain anytime soon. 

That stupid moblin had made sure of that. 

Wind hoped one of the other heroes had killed it in a very painful way. He scowled into Twilight's neck at the thought of what had happened, and- 

Oh, Twilight was moving again. 

Great.

Wind sighed, and fought back tears. He was in pain and this whole situation sucked, but he was not going to cry.

He wasn’t.

He just felt dizzy. His thoughts were swimming and his muscles were too weak to support himself. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t convince himself to raise his head from where it was buried in Twilight’s pelt and try to focus on his surroundings. That was probably the effect of the blood loss and shock setting in, Wind thought faintly.

But then he had no choice but to move because Twilight was releasing Wind’s legs. Wind had half a second to panic, thinking he would hit the ground. 

He didn’t. Instead, he found himself sitting on the edge of one of the beds inside the stables. Wind wondered briefly when they had moved inside, but decided it wasn’t the most important thing at the moment. 

Suddenly, hands were touching him. For a few seconds, he resisted the touch. He didn’t know who was touching him and he did not appreciate it. But he was too weak to do anything about it and found himself being maneuvered anyways. 

He found himself laying face down in the bed. His face rubbed into the fabric beneath him, and it took him a second to realize that it wasn’t the blankets he was feeling. It was a towel, spread out over the bed. 

That was good. Wind was glad someone had thought to do that. He wouldn’t want to get blood on the stable’s bed. That would be pretty rude. But! With the towel under him, Wind could take a nap here and not get any blood on the bed! That sounded like a really good idea, in Wind’s humble opinion.

And now that he wasn’t constantly being jostled around by Twilight, the pain was actually starting to fade! It still hurt, but it was a dull background pain that he could ignore. 

Wind didn’t know how long he lay there, content to drift in and out of awareness. He could hear people talking around him, and something that maybe sounded like an argument, but he didn’t worry about that. He was sure it would sort itself out without his help…

He gave a little sigh, rubbing his face against the rough fabric of the towel. It felt nice- a sensation to focus on other than the pain in his back.

He continued to drift for what felt like a long, long time. He wondered if the others had left so he could take a nap. That was nice of them… 

A touch to his neck startled Wind out of his daze. He let out a startled breath, feeling too tired to try and say anything. Fingers pressed at Wind’s neck for a moment- feeling for a pulse, Wind realized- before they withdrew.

There was more talking, and then an expectant pause. Wind said nothing. If they wanted him to talk, they were out of luck. He couldn't summon up the energy to go wading through the fog that clouded his brain to pay attention to whoever was talking to him. He couldn't summon up the energy to anything,

After a few moments of silence, the voices picked up again, and then Wind felt a touch on his back.

His torn up back which was covered in open wounds and pierced by pieces of debris 

Wind decided that he didn’t like that. He didn’t like it at all. 

Then the touch was moving and tugging something out of Wind’s skin, and Wind discovered that he did have the energy to scream and thrash, after all.

For one blissful moment, the touch was gone, and Wind was hopeful it would stay away. Then hands wrapped around his legs and his upper arms, and were pressing him down onto the bed, and Wind felt all his hope flickers away.

The torture seemed to go on forever. Every so often there would be a pause in the pain as the touch on his back drew away, and Wind would hope that it would be over. But all too soon, the touch would be back.

He couldn’t get away from it.

The hands clasped around his limbs were gentle but firm and unyielding. Wind hated that. He hated everything. Everything hurt, nothing was good, and the pain was never going to end.

There was another spike of pain from his back, like someone was digging their fingers into his existing wounds and tearing the cuts further open. Wind twisted, still trying to get away, but the hands stopped him again.

He gave a strangled grunt, his voice finally being pushed past the breaking point. He couldn’t scream anymore, but he could still move. His shoulders were still being held down by the hands pressing on his upper arms, but he could still move his arms. He reached out blindly, trying to find something to grasp onto, some bit of leverage that could get him away from this torture,

What he found instead was more fabric. Part of the towel, maybe? 

No, it felt different. 

Not caring what it might be, Wind gripped it hard, and used it to pull himself forward. To his surprise, the hands didn’t seem as prepared for this, and he was able to drag himself forward. There was a swell of noise around him that he ignored. The new fabric beneath him was soft, and the worry of staining the sheets was long gone from Wind’s mind, so he buried his head into it.

Apparently, the hands had decided Wind could stay where he had dragged himself. They didn’t shove him back to his previous position, but the torturous touch on his back returned.

Wind whimpered, not knowing what to do anymore. 

Why was this happening?

Slowly, though, something trickled into his mind. He was hyper-aware of any and all sensations that weren’t pain in hopes of finding something to latch onto, something else to focus on. Slowly, ever so slowly, Wind realized the new fabric was warm under his touch.

He sucked in a shuddery breath, and before he registered what he was doing, Wind was lifting his head up to stare straight into a familiar face.

It took his brain a few seconds to register safety and comfort at the sight, and a few seconds more to register that the face belonged to Time.

Oh.

Wind was clinging onto Time’s pants, and he’d just had his face buried in Time’s lap.

Okay. 

Wind knew in normal circumstances, he’d be embarrassed, but he didn’t care.

Time was here.

One of his brothers was here.

That meant everything would be okay, right?

Wind blinked up at Time, and the man looked down at Wind with an odd look on his face. 

Wind wanted it all to stop, and Time was good at making painful things stop. When the teasing from the other heroes got to be too much, Time would step in. When Wind had been injured before, Time had stitched him up with gentle, steady hands. When Wind had been kept up with nightmares, Time had made him a cup of tea over the campfire, and let Wind lean against him without any questions.

Time had never failed to offer comfort before.

“Time,” Wind croaked, his voice ruined, “make it stop. Please, make it stop.”

But Time didn’t help. He was looking up, away from where Wind was being pinned down by his hands. Wind thought Time’s mouth might have been moving, but he couldn’t tell what Time was saying, let alone if the old man was speaking to Wind or someone else. 

No matter what Time was saying, he wasn’t letting Wind go, so it didn’t matter. 

Time wasn’t helping Wind, it wasn't making the pain stop. 

Time was hurting him.

Wind was shaking now, unable to stop himself. He was too tired to cry, in too much pain the thrash anymore. Everything was getting worse, and no one was helping him.

It was a relief, really, when he finally slipped into blissful unconsciousness.

#whumptober 2023 #linked universe #mint's fanfiction #lu wind #lu twilight #lu time #lu warriors #whump #angst #lu wind agnst #blood #injuries #splinters

[killerlookz]

𝐅𝐚𝐯𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐂𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐫 | Edward Nashton x Gn!reader

description: (based off of this concept and this concept) Eddie's picking up shifts at the diner where he's quickly gained a favorite customer who comes in without fail, every saturday. when eddie though, is the one who fails to show up one saturday, his favorite customer realizes how much they enjoy his company, so they make an effort to make sure they'll never miss eddie again.

content: crushing!!! so much crushing!! eddie has a huge crush. no real established timeline (can be pre- riddler or riddler era eddie, whatever your heart desires!), lovesirck, nervous, stuttery eddie <33 (he's too cute) this fic is pretty much pure fluff! no real warnings to be given :)

word count: 4775

a/n: i have had THE biggest diner!eddie brainrot since i started discussing the concept a few days ago... him as a shy waitier with a favorite customer who he just adores :(( TOO CUTE... so here's a short little drabble while i work on some bigger fics.

-

Edward felt his chest tighten as he looked across the crowded diner, an increased foreboding feeling filled the space between his ribs. His stomach churned with a certain disquietude while laying his eyes on the sea of people surrounding him. Chattering customers sat about, making more noise than Eddie knew how to deal with, their incessant ranting and raving filling his brain to a capacity that he could not stand. He let out a shaky exhale, desperately preparing himself for the Saturday dinner rush that had already begun.

"Nashton!" An unnecessarily loud call came from directly behind him. He tried his best not to cringe at the sound, Edward could spot the voice of his shift supervisor anywhere, he loathed the sound of her thick New Jersey accent, and shrill, scratchy tone that could only be found in a woman who's been smoking for far too long. Her rough voice alone made Edward contemplate quitting his own nicotine addiction, not wanting to end up barely over 60 and already sounding like he's decaying. But with the anxiety caused by shifts like these, he found himself desperate for a cigarette. His long fingers lightly grazed the front pocket of his work pants, making sure the half-empty package of cigarettes still remained where he left it.

Edward turned around to face the voice, looking at his supervisor with a big, lost look plastered all over his face. He did little to hide the nameless dread that swarmed every cavity of his being, his low-hanging head, and god-awful posture all alluding to his negative state of mind.

"Ya regula' is here sweetheart, table 8, go make ya-self useful it's too busy for ya to just be standin' around like that."

At the announcement of his regular being there, Edward's entire demeanor changed. Suddenly he's standing up straight, and his eyes are wide and attentive, he'd hardly even noticed his supervisor's condescending tone. An involuntary smile crept on his face and his stomach began to do loops.

"Y-yes," Edward nodded, an overwhelming excitement threatened his stuttering voice.

Edward began to make his way over to table 8, the anxieties of the crowded diner slowly drifting away as he caught a glimpse of you from across the room. You were sitting there, with a strained look on your face as you hunched over a beat-up notebook. Edward worried you'd be able to feel his eyes burning into you from how intensely he was looking in your direction, but he couldn't help himself, he was infatuated with you.

Ever since he started picking up shifts at the diner on weekends to help out with rent he'd notice you come in every Saturday. You'd always come in on your own, sometimes with textbooks, or notebooks, maybe even a computer. Over the course of weeks spent serving you, he'd come to find out that sometimes you would come to the diner to study and as the two of you grew closer he'd even on occasion helped you out with your coursework. Usually on nights where it was late, and the diner had gone nearly empty, but you and he still remained, you'd let out a frustrated sigh, and Edward would ask to take a look at your work. Edward wasn't always the greatest in school- he was smart but too miserable to ever put in enough effort to apply himself properly. But you, you gave him the boost he needed and he was more than happy to put in as much work as necessary to show you his capabilities. That being said most of the time he did understand the work you were doing, and he'd sheepishly look around the diner, making sure no one else needed his help, and once he was in the clear he'd sit next to you and try not to stutter too hard while explaining whatever concept it was to you.

Those nights were Edward's favorite. You always looked so cute with that exasperated look on your face, asking Edward for help. Edward sort of liked the feeling of someone needing his help. Even if it was just for some schoolwork.

But, regardless of whether you were studying or not, every Saturday night without fail, you'd come in completely on your own. Edward always wondered what someone like you would be doing all on your own at a cheap diner on a Saturday evening, after all, Saturdays were for having fun, right? He'd wonder if you were lonely like he was, or if you just liked to take time to yourself. Maybe spending your night surrounded by rude, rowdy strangers was your idea of a fun Saturday night.

He wondered a lot about you actually, even outside of his Saturday shifts. He thought about you often, he couldn't help himself. Your weekly appearances made the job worthwhile, your pretty smile and sweet demeanor were Edward's escape from the usual verbal abuse and beratement he suffered at the hands of most of the customers while on the job. You treated Edward like he was real, like he was a person, your quick waiter-to-patron exchanges were warmer than any of the treatment he'd ever gotten in his life thus far.

So, when Edward had fallen ill last weekend after a co-worker at his day job had come into work with a nasty cold he was absolutely devastated he'd miss his weekly encounter with you. While Edward sat home, sick, fever overcoming his body, he continued to wonder. He wondered if you even noticed that he was missing, or if you were maybe even glad he wouldn't be bothering you tonight. He worried maybe you'd like your server tonight more than you liked him, maybe you'd gotten one of his more confident, more "conventionally attractive" co-workers as your server and maybe the two of you really hit it off.

The worries plagued his aching head until a calmer, more appealing part of his consciousness took over, one that dreamed up a fantasy of you sitting alone at a booth by the window, completely on your own, unhappy with tonight's waiter, missing him. The thought of you even just recognizing Edward's absence put a smile on his face. Of course, it also made him feel a little guilty, he didn't want you to be unhappy, only, unhappy regarding the fact you weren't with him.

But now, Edward was back, and in good health once again. He wiped his clammy palms against the thick fabric of his pants. His thighs tremble under the firm touch of his hands. Something catches your attention and you suddenly drop the pencil in your hand and look up from your notebook. Your head turns to the side and all of a sudden you and Edward are making eye contact, Edward feels his body go stiff as a large smile spreads across your face.

"Eddie!" You exclaim the moment he gets within a few feet of your table. Edward feels his heart begin to beat faster as the sound of your voice. He can't help but melt every time you call him Eddie, you were the only person who'd ever called him that.

"H-hi y/n," He smiles, approaching the small table.

"I missed you last week Eddie," You lean forward against the table, resting your chin in your hand. You noticed. Edward felt his breath get caught in his throat and he had to try to think really hard for a moment about how to remember to breathe. The way you looked up at him had him in a daze, the way the soft diner light's reflected off your eyes, and how this lighting perfectly flattered your skin. Edward had never in his life gazed at something so beautiful.

"Oh-oh yeah, someone at my other job got me sick so I couldn't come in."

"Aww, my poor Eddie." You whine, giving Edward an overexaggerated pout, looking up at him with big, sad, puppy-dog eyes. Edward's head begins to go a little fuzzy, who's Eddie? YOUR poor Eddie? Edward worries he may pass out, but the thought of how embarrassing it would be to faint right there in front of you is enough to keep his consciousness half-working. "You're feeling better now though, right?"

"Yeah, yeah- i-it was just a cold."

"Good," You smile, "I'm glad, it kind of sucked without you here, I was looking forward to seeing you and all- I even brought this really hard crossword puzzle I found in the newspaper for us to do together." A crossword puzzle? Together? Edward can't believe his ears. He's sure he looks absolutely insane right now, eyes blown wide, and his usually pale cheeks a deep, rosy pink.

"Did you um- finish it yourself?"

"No," You shake your head, "It's still on my coffee table." You let out a small, soft chuckle at the end of your sentence, and Edward swears he's fallen in love the instant the sound of your stifled laugh hits his ears. It's only been two weeks since he last saw you but god did he miss your voice.

"Well, if you bring it next time I'll do it with you." Edward nods before once again wiping his palms against his thighs. His hands tremble slightly as he tries to relieve them of some of the moisture they've accumulated from his nerves. It doesn't work. Edward's eyes quickly dart from you, to the notebook that's open in front of you, "What are you studying today?"

"I was really hoping you'd ask" You pick your head up from your hand, 'Remember how I was telling you how I was taking that forensics class?"

"Mhm." Edward rocks forward slightly.

"We're studying the Zodiac Killer right now, and as a challenge, my professor gave us the 408-cipher to try and solve for extra credit, and, god, this shit is hard." You let out an exasperated sigh.

Edward's face lights up upon hearing this news, excited that he now has the opportunity to help you out with something he knows he's good at.

"Do you want me to take a look at it when I get my break?" Edward asks, trying his best to not talk too loud or too forcefully out of pure eagerness.

"Would you please, Eddie?" And there you go again, looking up at Edward with those soft, sweet eyes, and he's weak in the knees now.

"Of course," He nods eagerly. Just then he's startled by the feeling of someone's hand on his shoulder. His body flinches slightly, caught off guard by the sudden sensation.

"Hey- hurry it up Nashton, you've got other customers waiting." Edward turns to see one of his fellow waiters standing behind him. Edward's jaw clenches tight in frustration at both being touched and being interrupted. Edward stares the man down, a long string of expletives brew in his vocal cords and he bites down on his tongue to stop himself from saying something that would get him fired or even worse make you upset. His teeth are puncturing his tongue so hard that a slight metallic taste seeps into his taste buds.

"Sorry." Edward barely mumbles out through gritted teeth. Who does he think he is, interrupting such a moment? Edward quickly turns back to face you, your brows furrowed slightly at the waiter who'd just reprimanded him. "Oh-uh I should probably take your order. The usual?"

"Yes please," Your expression quickly softens to a smile as the other waiter leaves your presence. You hand Edward back the menu the hostess had placed at your table, "You know me so well."

"I'll get that to you as fast as I can," Edward says, taking the menu back from you, rocking forward back and forth slightly on the balls of his feet.

"No rush Eddie." You assure.

-

It had been nearly two hours since Edward had cleared the dishes from your table, and you still sat there, in that booth, nose down in your notebook. Edward stared at you from across the diner, admiring your every move, he felt a little creepy but he just could not take his eyes off of you. A faint smile grazed upon his small pink lips as your brows knitted together and you let out what seemed to look like a sigh.

The diner had cleared out substantially as the late-night dinner rush faded into the early hours of the morning.

"You can take ya' 30 now Nashton," his supervisor said, pushing past his shoulder with a mostly empty coffee pot in hand. He nodded in response, despite no longer being within the woman's line of sight.

Edward makes his way over to the dessert case that sits right at the front of the diner. He slides open the case and takes out a slice of pumpkin pie that sits on one of the shelves, before heading to your table. Edward places the glass plate down and it rattles against the plastic tabletop, before taking his place on the seat opposite you with no warning. Your head popped up from your notebook immediately as you heard the sound of someone in front of you.

"Edward!" You said with a small gasp, "You startled me."

"Oh- I'm sorry." Edward frowns, his cheeks flush, hoping he hasn't upset you too greatly.

"It's no bother," You shake your head, "Come sit next to me," you scoot yourself over in the booth and pat the cheap pleather next to you.

Edward is quick to get up from his spot- anxiously taking the opportunity to get at least a little bit closer to you.

"Is this for me?" You smile, pointing at the slice of pumpkin pie that sits in front of you.

"Yeah, it's on me."

"You're too sweet to me Eddie," You say grabbing the plate and bringing it towards you. "You want to share?"

"No, it's okay, only if you don't finish it." He shakes his head and puts up his hands, motioning that you can keep the pie to yourself.

"Okay," you pause, "Should we get started?"

"Mhm."

-

"See? You got it." Edward said handing you back your pencil. "And this shape here... this would also be..." His voice trailed off as he extended a long finger to point at a square-like shape on the cipher.

"L...?" You asked, looking over to Edward for reassurance.

"Exactly! See? It's easy." his voice full of nothing but adoration and praise.

"Easy to you Eddie, you're like... a genius." You giggle. Edward's cheeks begin to turn a soft shade of red in response to your compliment.

"Oh," He sighs and shakes his head, "Not a genius, look, you did most of the work."

"With your help Eddie."

Edward's entire body gets hot and he can feel your eyes on him, he can't think of anything to say, no words will come out. You sound so kind, so appreciative, it has Edward in a trance. He's almost glad that his words are stuck in his throat, worrying that if somehow, someway they were able to climb their way out of his mouth he'll say something dumb. In a weak attempt to escape your unrelenting gaze Edward glances downwards and while doing so gets a quick look at the watch that wraps around his wrist. The ticking minute and second hands instill dread within him as he looks down at their surface.

"Shit." He sighs, "My break ended 5 minutes ago."

You frown, "Well, I'm not leaving until I finish this cipher, so, I'll probably still be here when you get off."

"Alright," Edward looks back up and pushes his glasses back up his nose, glancing back up at you he notices a sudden change in your face, your brows hang lower and your mouth points downwards. He can't quite explain the way your look makes him feel but he knows its not good. Edward looks around, noticing the lingering customers that are still scattered about. It's not that many people, he sighs "I- I'll be around a few more times." He sets his hands on the table and nods reassuringly.

"Okay," You respond in a hushed voice, barely above a whisper. Edward usually loves to hear your voice, but not now, you sound dejected, disappointment radiates off those two little syllables and he's well aware he's the one who caused it. Edward tilts his head as he looks at you, the corners of his mouth involuntarily falling just as yours had done seconds prior.

"You've got this," he barely lifts his finger to point towards your open notebook, he gives you a wholehearted smile, cheering you on in an attempt to hopefully lift that frown off your face.

"Thanks, Eddie." Your lips perk up slightly in a small smile, and Edward is relieved slightly that he is able to make at least a tiny change to your disappointed appearance.

He wants to stay sat down, helping you with the rest of the cipher, praising you every single time you get something right. He wants nothing more than to sit next to you for the rest of the night, and he contemplates just saying fuck it and doing just that. But the rational part of Edward's brain knows he can't risk getting fired, can't risk losing this job, and in the long run spending an extra few hours with you was not worth losing out on potential weeks' worth of diner visits.

So, unwillingly, he begins to send himself back to reality, away from your warmth and delight. He looks back around, noticing that the old couple that has been harping on him all night is still sitting at a booth in the far corner of the diner. A long breath falls from his lips, wishing that all of his customers could be as sweet as you, greeting him with a kind smile and attentive eyes. But even then Edward knows no one could ever compare, he knows he would never get as much pleasure from serving anyone as he does you. You were an experience he could not find anywhere else, and that's why it pained him so much to once again leave you alone in this booth, left to try and solve this cipher on your own.

Edward slowly stands up from the table, his hands warily pushing into its surface, reluctantly supporting him as he makes his depart.

"I'll be back soon," He smiles, stepping out of the booth.

"See you, Eddie."

-

A brisk wind hits Edward's face as he takes a step out of the overwhelming confines of the diner, slipping out into the dark Gotham streets. He sighs as he leans up against the building, his fingers slipping into his pocket to fish for the battered cigarette package. His hand wraps around the flimsy cardboard and takes it out of the tight confines of his trousers, flipping open the top and taking out a cigarette. He places the long, slender stick in his mouth before placing the package of cigarettes back in his pocket, and searching for his lighter in the other one. The cigarette sits between his teeth as both of Edward's hands come up close to his face, one cupped around his mouth to protect the impending flame from the wind, and the other holding his lighter, ready to strike. A calloused finger flicks down on the cold, metal flint, eliciting a bright orange flame from the cheap green lighter. The soft glow from the flame casts a small amount of warmth against Edward's face as he lights the end of his cigarette.

Edward inhales the warm smoke, letting the cool taste of menthol coat his mouth and throat, his prior urge to quit dissipates just as quickly as the smoke that exits his mouth does when it hits the wind. Edward's vaguely aware of each inhale's toxicity, but people fill their bodies with garbage every day, so really, how much more harm could a cigarette be doing?

Edward suddenly turns around, startled by the rattling of the diner door behind him. His gaze now falls upon you, who's just exited the diner, bag full of books slung over your shoulder, ready to leave. Your sudden appearance catches Edward way off guard, causing him to stifle his inhale, the smoke getting stuck in his throat. The once comforting warmth is now burning as he begins to viciously cough, nearly dropping his cigarette in the process. You stand there next to him, a vaguely worried look on your face.

"You alright, Eddie?" You ask, tiliting your head to the side.

"Yeah-yeah," Edward barely chokes out after a few more coughs, his face flushed with embarrassment. Finally, he catches his breath and straightens himself out, and a more relieved look washes over your face.

"I finished the cipher." You state, "I- uhh- I left a copy of it on the table- right next to your tip- if you wanted to take a look at it."

"Of course I do," His face lights up, "That's good. I told you you could do it." Edward's free hand taps anxiously at his side, his fingers pattering at the fabric of his pants.

"Well," You look down at your feet, a shy smile tugging at your lips, "It was mostly you, Eddie."

Edward wonders why you're being so bashful, you should be proud of yourself.

"Don't discount your work, I merely just helped,"

"I guess." You shrug, "Well- I just thought I'd let you know it's there for you on the table, I didn't know if you're staying 'til close- but I'm getting pretty tired so I figured I should go."

"No-uh-yeah that's alright, I still have a bit left on my shift." Edward nods incessantly. "Thank you for letting me know."

"Of course Eddie." You smile, "Goodbye," You shift towards Edward slightly and open your arms. He freezes for a minute, all of his joints simultaneously feeling like they've just locked up. He needs to take a second to process what your open arms are inviting before he anxiously opens his up slightly too.

Your arms find themselves on his torso, just barely giving his upper body a squeeze. Edward is completely thrown off guard, you've never hugged him before. He wants nothing more than to throw his arms around you, pull you into a bone-crushing embrace, and show you the full force of his affections. But he stops himself, only wrapping one arm fully around your back, and the one with the cigarette loosely around you, keeping it stuck out slightly to keep the flame away from your body.

Even in your friendly embrace, Edward can't help but admire the warmth that radiates off of you. Not just physical body heat, but the way your arms hold him, and your headrests just gently on his shoulder, no one has ever handled him with such delicacy. He couldn't even tell you the last time he had a hug, years probably, and one like this? Literally never.

"Goodbye." He choked

He desperately suppressed the urge to tell you how much this meant to him, to get comfortable in your arms, to let you hold him there- but Edward knew this was no more than a friendly goodbye hug between two acquaintances. Your arms slowly pulled away from him as a small yawn escaped from your mouth. He couldn't even be disappointed at the sensation of you letting him go, the afterglow of even the simplest affection, was so heavy on his face.

"See you soon!" You wave, beginning to step away from Edward.

"Please be safe." He urges, unable to not worry about the possibilities of wandering around Gotham late at night.

"I will Eddie," You sport a content grin across your face as you turn around and walk away. Edward's gaze follows you down the sidewalk until he sees you get into a car that he presumes is yours.

He brings his cigarette back to his lips, inhaling, desperate for some relief now that his mind is once again moving at a million miles a second. The nicotine does little to calm him down now, still all too stunned from your sweet goodbye. If anyone were to pass by now he'd surely look like a madman, his body entirely stiff and locked up, smiling like an absolute maniac. But he didn't have half the mind to even care about his perception to other people because you hugged him. How could he ever possibly stop thinking about that? How could literally anything else in his life matter?

Edward quickly finishes his smoke, eager to see your work on the Zodiac cipher. What remains of the cigarette falls from Edward's fingers and onto the cold, hard ground below. He steps over the dwindling flame, crushing the cigarette with the heel of his boot and scraping the rubber sole against the rough pavement to make sure it's been put out. He anxiously steps back inside where he b-lines right to your table. The first thing he notices is a generous $15 tip, way over 20% for your meal. The sight of the wet bills sitting under a cup covered in tiny droplets of condensation brings a small smile to Edward's face, even though it makes him feel a little shallow.

Next to the bills, however, Edward notices a copy of the Zodiac cipher penciled out on the same notebook paper you had been using, on a separate sheet, the answer to the cipher, both of which he'd expected to see. However, Edward is slightly caught off-guard by a third sheet of paper, containing the same symbols of the 408 cipher, but of a different length in order, with a simple"Solve me :)" scribbled at the top.

Edward quickly realizes that you've left him your own cipher to solve, and he's even more excited now than he was before, just getting to see your solution to the Zodiac cipher. But now you're actually partaking in a puzzle for him to figure out? Could you get any more perfect? Edward's chest moves so rapidly, his breathing so present, that he's positive that it could probably be heard from tables away.

Despite all his eagerness to immediately drop everything and begin to decipher your message, he can hear his supervisor calling his name from across the diner. He gives out a shaky sigh, collecting the things from the table before returning to his job.

-

It's after 2 a.m. and Edward's finally home, his aching back hunched over his large wooden desk, papers sprawled throughout, illuminated only by a single, blinding lamp. He chews on his lip as he scribbles out the last remaining letters of your cipher before stepping back to read your work.

To my favorite waiter,

I know you love puzzles, so I wanted to try my hand at one I hope it's not too easy to solve, when you get the answer, give me a call!

The cipher then spelled out a series of ten single-digit numbers. Edward's pen fell right out of his hand straight onto the ground and his jaw went slack once he put everything together. Those numbers spelled out a phone number your phone number. You wanted him to call you. HIM!

Edward runs a hand through his sandy-blonde hair, lightly tugging on the strands as his fingers pass through in pure disbelief. Had his apartment always been this warm? His vision always been this blurry? Anxious fingers fumble towards his back pocket, quickly whipping out his phone. His hands are visibly shaking as he holds his phone out in front of him, typing the numbers onto the keypad. His nervous shakes causing him to hit the wrong number more than once.

Once he finally has the number down he sits there, staring at his bright screen reflecting back onto his face. He's lost, he has no clue what to do. You said to call him... but what if you're asleep? It is pretty late. What if it's a cruel joke and that's not even your real number? What if he says something stupid and embarrasses himself. Edward is at a loss, but he can't give up this opportunity, no way.

Edward screws his eyes shut tight, fuck it, he presses the bright green call button that shines in his face. The phone begins to ring, each high pitched toll feels like a growing mockery of Edward's own anxieties.

And finally, the ringing stops, the line picks up. Edward's heart drops down to his stomach.

"H-hello," He stutters into the speaker.

"Eddie!" A familiar voice says on the other side, comfort reigns over Edward as his body finally slumps back into his chair, "You called!"

#edward nashton #edward nashton x reader #the riddler #the riddler x reader #dano! riddler #dano! riddler x reader #edward nashton fic #paul dano #danonation

[butchthirteen]

what’s your pitch for good!Flux? And good!Power of the Doctor?

okay so i'm going to preface this by saying i have not rewatched flux or power of the doctor since potd aired and that is because potd dealt so much psychic damage to me that it retroactively ruined the entire chibnall era and now i can never watch it again. so this is going to be extremely vague/broad strokes because i don't remember what happened very well.

on the other hand, this means that the bar for a good version of both of these is very low.

overall, flux should be entirely about the doctor's reaction to the timeless child news and her subsequent identity crisis, and secondarily about how she is in absolutely no shape to have any kind of relationship with another person.

to make room for this, we're cutting out like half the plot lines. i liked bel and vinder but what were they doing there. we don't need the unit thing either, and i think i'd also cut the lupari, or at least, i might keep karvanista as a figure from the doctor's past but i'm not sure connecting that to a species that exists to guard humans makes literally any sense. i'm not sure we need swarm and azure either, and i would maybe replace them with a lackey for tecteun who's responsible for creating/spreading the flux. the weeping angel thing can take up more time, that was one of the cooler parts of flux, and it could also build up some suspense (ie. the angels are stalking the doctor, what do they want with her, finally she's in the 60's and this town is crawling with them, etc.) and we keep dan so yaz can have a companion.

plotwise like... i feel like the flux itself has to feel personal. like... okay, planets are disappearing, but they're planets the doctor cares about. she drags yaz to some planet or another because she thinks it might give her more clues about what division is, and the planet is just full of refugees. and something is clearly extremely extremely wrong. and they go back to earth to check on it and they realize the streets are strangely empty, i guess i'm lifting from the dimension cannon audios to say the flux got the sun. which also gives them a time limit on fixing it because pretty soon the earth is going to be uninhabitably cold. and they pick up dan somewhere in there. but as they like. go around the universe trying to figure out what's wrong it's clear that like. places that have a particular significance to the doctor are gone. you could pull a ton of different references from past seasons. and then she realizes she keeps seeing the angels.

you need to either do way less or way more thasmin, and i'm a dyke, so i would make the thasmin way more explicit, but also way more toxic/codependent. yaz knows thirteen is hiding something, knows it's massive, knows thirteen is running away from her, but can't leave because 1. she's never felt this way about anyone and she doesn't want to lose what she has and 2. she knows that whatever thirteen is hiding is clearly devastating and rooted in trauma etc which makes her 100% more likely to forgive thirteen. and thirteen for her part is like. perfectly nice until yaz tries to challenge her/ask questions and then she falls back on the "haven't i shown you amazing things!!" thing that we get like. one line of.

also like yaz having WWTDD on her hand was a clear attempt to show that she looks up to the doctor and wants to be like the doctor but it's like. extremely on-the-nose and stilted. "show don't tell" isn't universally useful advice but it would be useful advice in this specific instance. show us that yaz is becoming like the doctor!

for example. i kind of want to keep some of the stuff with the mouri, maybe the doctor goes to them to figure out whether something's wrong, realizes a couple are missing, but crucially yaz is like "wait if you get another person in there will it stop the universe from being so fucked up." and jumps in. because she thinks she can handle it. and the doctor is like. oh shit i don't want to lose yaz and jumps in too. because then you can have all the flashbacks, maybe you give yaz glimpses of a possible future for herself (without the doctor... but with the doctor's constant intrusion) (also in good!flux yaz has already quit being a cop and she's an emt in the future thing) and then that can parallel the doctor's glimpses of a possible past for herself, with the present as an intrusion (ie. she's seeing yaz instead of her actual partner or whatever).

yaz's separation from thirteen (and her watching thirteen turn into an angel) needs a lot more narrative and emotional weight, we should see her sobbing and wailing, and then we should see her stand up and figure out what needs to be done. the doctor doesn't give her a hologram (because thirteen being like "well i think we might get separated!" and planting a hologram makes NO sense) but she does have like. a silly souvenir hologram of the doctor from some amusement park or something so it's literally just the doctor grinning and going like "hi yaz!!"

and she has dan with her but i think i'll leave jericho out honestly because the main thing i remember about him is yaz taking a historical object out of a dig site type of place and going "we should return it" and jericho going "no no it's a discovery!!" and like. i think maybe i'm actually not going to have a character of color say "hey stealing this cultural item kind of sucks" and then an older white man from the 1960's who's just there to go "no it's great." i mean if i do keep him in i take out that line and i give his death way more impact. but anyway . we can keep dan as companion for yaz and also like. general emotional support guy. this also means that he gets an extremely one-sided picture of yaz's relationship with the doctor. i also think he assumes they're dating/partnered just by how desperate yaz is to get back.

but anyway without the hologram yaz doesn't have a mission from the doctor, but she does have a mission, which is to get back to the doctor, and she's spent enough time with the doctor that she knows if she looks hard enough eventually she'll find a time traveler, possibly another version of the doctor, and she can get that person to get her back to the doctor. i think also if we keep the tunnels she needs to discover them through research etc., like she needs to read somewhere about this guy in liverpool who keeps saying these tunnels are going to weird times/places, and then she needs to follow up on those rumors and seek out the guy and ask him about the tunnels and convince him to show her the tunnels and then she gets back. and dan is there to be like "hang on i know about these tunnels!!"

meanwhile!! first of all we make a much bigger deal about the angel thing, we see thirteen left there for much longer, and it's tecteun who comes and turns her back. also the conversation with tecteun starts with tecteun addressing thirteen in gallifreyan and then switching to english when thirteen absolutely refuses to engage. this is the "reveal" that yes, the flux was about the doctor, and it's all so the doctor can have a beautiful new universe to play in, etc etc etc. honestly i don't think i'd change much about this bit, it's just all the stuff around it needs to give it way more weight. i'm honestly not sure how this resolves, though. i think thirteen needs to think tecteun is right for a moment, and then she's like wait fuck this and figures out an escape. probably she figures out tecteun has an escape plan and uses that. to be honest i don't worry a lot about the technicalities of stuff like "how does she escape" because i feel like that's secondary to the actual plot. like in doctor who the technical stuff never makes any sense but you buy into it because the emotional story is good. unless the emotional story is bad.

and then like. we're back on earth with the sun gone out. it is extremely crucial that thirteen does not get trisected after the interaction with tecteun because this means that yaz is now in the right century, directly in front of the tardis, but the doctor isn't there. which means that we can use the chekov's gun of yaz knowing how to pilot the tardis (!!!) and have her get in there, get out her big binder and all her sticky notes or whatever, and figure out how to find the doctor. and honestly i think it takes most of the episode for her and the doctor to find each other. meanwhile they're both trying to figure out how to solve the problem of the flux. they find each other, have their moment, thirteen is absolutely wrecked emotionally and physically, yaz is doing a little better but like it's been a long four years. and there's a moment where thirteen is completely defeated, yaz starts throwing out solutions, like "maybe there's an antidote" "maybe there's something that works against it" "maybe we can turn back time" etc etc etc.

and here's the thing... i think maybe this is where the heart of the tardis could come in. like when it's used at the end of the first episode of flux, it's so anticlimactic. but in s1, it's established that the heart of the tardis gives you what you need. and i feel like thirteen looking into the heart of the tardis could like. do some things. for the universe. particularly i think thirteen coupled with the tardis could fuck with the timelines to reverse the progress of the flux, there's still lots of loss but she manages to save earth (and the sun) and get the flux out of the universe. honestly i'm not sure if this would actually work but again it's one of those things where the emotional storyline needs to really sell it.

so that's flux. and you know what you could just have the doctor regenerate right there, considering the heart of the tardis has a track record of killing her, but let's say instead she expends it all trying to fix what the flux did and then she's just so fucking tired. and yaz is like "okay let's have a beach day. do you want to invite dan."

and then we get eotd/lotsd. i won't go into too much detail here except that these episodes need to like. foster actual conversation between thirteen and yaz. like they need to actually talk it out. thirteen needs to tell yaz what she's been hiding, yaz needs to express how it's hurt her. which sets them up for potd.

good!potd involves a few things. first of all, tegan and ace are both explicitly dykes. none of this "i have two ex-husbands" whatever. she's married to nyssa and we all know this. secondly, we need an actual bodyswap between the doctor and the master. what actually happened was way too confusing. thirdly, if you are going to open on a random child and then not use that to talk about thirteen's childhood trauma. what is the point. fourthly yaz needs to either choose to leave on her own accord (because thirteen mistreated her, because even though they're talking now it's too little too late, because her time in the past made her realize she really missed normal life) or there needs to be tragedy. like she needs to die. we also need an emotional kiss either right when she's about to leave or while she dies. honestly i don't remember what the actual plot of potd was but like. fewer plot lines more of the master and the doctor goofing around in each other's bodies, more dykery, more tragedy. and also thirteen needs to die as a direct result of the forced regeneration. honestly i only watched potd once and since then i've been trying to wipe it from my brain because i hated it so much so i have fewer thoughts on this one.

anyway i hope you enjoyed that. i gave myself real emotions thinking about thirteen's emotional journey in my own personal version of flux. if anyone has thoughts or wants to add anything let me know. i thought about adding jack to both flux and potd because according to the released shooting script for rotd he was supposed to come back at the end and deliver a cliffhanger into flux (presumably written before the bbc blacklisted john barrowman) and like if we're living in a perfect world where no one sexually harasses anyone else having jack there (particularly as someone who knows the doctor very well from a very different point in their life) would be cool so there's also that.

this is long but i'm not putting it under a read more. woe! good!flux and good!potd be upon ye!

#doctor who #chibnall era #flux #power of the doctor #headcanons #<- i guess #criticism #<- also i guess #if i had time and energy and fewer long wips i would try and fic this but. nah #sorry for not answering earlier also. but again time and energy are at a premium #edit. i just remembered there were sontarans in flux. cut them out too i guess

[omegalomania]

every single time without fail theres some kind of nonsensical no-stakes "fall out boy vs my chemical romance" smackdown on tumblr dot hell theres always this little nest of fans who scream and cry and go "we shouldnt pit them against each other we are friends and cousins and holding hands!!!" and it always makes me think of how this wretched webbed site was circa 2015. some of you werent active at the time so ill tell you what that was like.

abap-era fandom was like an absolute bloodbath in the worst possible ways because that's when bandom on tumblr was like still at its peak but thats also when twenty one pilots was getting enormous so we had racists swarming out of the woodwork and a lot of people who didnt want to admit they were racist and all that fun stuff. and i just really really really remember quite vividly the way that pete was building up hype for the boys of zummer tour by saying "you are NOT gonna expect who we go touring with" and ofc everyone started theorizing and going wild and pulling out whatever big name they could think of. blink-182 was one of the big ones but the other really really big one i remember was everyone saying "oh my chemical romance is gonna reform and they're gonna tour with my chem!!!" you know, my chemical romance, the band that was broken up for 2 years at this point, the band that wasn't a band anymore.

anyway they announce the boys of zummer tour with wiz khalifa and naturally, again, the racists come crawling out of whatever anal cavities theyd been sleeping in to be like MUH MUH MUH fob is touring with a rAPPER UGH can i SKIP wiz's set i don't feel SAFE in that CROWD and it was, you know, generally disgusting shit coming out of the fob fandom but on top of that we had inexplicably rly salty my chem fans ALSO piling on the racism because they built up the hype for this magical reformation that wasnt going to happen and had no indication of happening. so imagine if you will, what was roughly the equivalent of if you were trying to clean a shitton of nuclear waste out of your house that was corroding everything and making the entire place Uninhabitable and then out of nowhere your neighbors decided that that they were going to start bailing in more garbage through the window like they were absolutely fucking stone cold determined to make your home the goddamn elephants foot forcing you to deal with THAT in addition to all the other, preexisting garbage you were already struggling to deal with.

so yes, you know, sure. our bands both got big at the same time and the scene didnt fucking like them and all they had was each other at the start. and, sure, our fandoms are cousins or family or whatever because of that. but you know, that doesnt mean i want to deal with the racist cousin coming around every so often actually. maybe i dont want to hang out with the racist cousin. maybe im going to tell the racist cousin to fuck off and stop coming around unless they feel up to cleaning up their act. maybe i dont like the racist cousin, and im tired of making allowances for them.

#*making poasts #you can rb this if you want i really dont care #ive dealt w a lot from these people and this was....i think the first real interaction i had w the my chem fanbase #delighted to announce that everything ive seen since has absolutely lived up to that. stay classy folks!

[eatdearth]

Timing: During Jasper's No-Face Era Location: The Magmacave, Gatlin Fields (underneath) Feat: @eatdearth & @magmahearts Warnings: Jasper's intrusive thoughts, sensory deprivation? Summary: A faceless Jasper tries to find his way out of the mines but instead stumbles into Cass' Magmacave. Cass offers to help but Jasper makes it weird.

It wasn’t exactly rare for things to wander from the mines into the Magmacave. There were a lot of entrances within the cave system that led from one to the other; Cass had made use of it herself plenty of times now, exploring both manmade and natural rock structures with excitement and vigor. But when something wandered into her cave, she knew to proceed with caution. Wicked’s Rest was a dangerous place to be, after all — she had to be careful if she wanted to avoid becoming a cautionary tale.

So when she heard something stumbling around, she approached slowly. Quietly, carefully until it came into sight. Or, until… he came into sight? At first, she only saw the back of his head. He looked lost, he looked uncertain. And then he turned around, and she saw the rest of him. Namely, the blank place where his face should have been.

She remembered this. From the cave-in, the moment when that crystalized thing spit on Milo’s face and then his face was gone. It looked just like this, and that meant it had to be the same thing, didn’t it? That meant this guy had faced the same monsters they’d come across in the cave that day. 

Carefully, Cass scooted forward. “Can you hear me?” She asked experimentally, uncertain. Milo had been able to hear, she was pretty sure, but what if it was different for everyone? Clearly, whatever had happened to this man hadn’t just happened. Maybe it was a progressive thing.

Darkness and silence. These were the two friends that kept Jasper company as he struggled to make his way out of the wretched mines. Whatever attacked him left him alive. Or at least he still feels he’s alive. There was no pain, no persisting aching or phantom longing, except maybe for what was now missing from his head. He could no longer see, so his eyes were gone. He could barely smell anything, if he even could at the moment, so his most prominent feature, the tall bridge that was the centerpiece of his face, was also gone. His ears and his mouth? He couldn’t feel them anywhere on his head. 

Jasper warily put his hands in front of him as he moved, careful to not throw himself off a cliff or into a jagged piece of protruding rock in front of him. The mines were dangerous enough when dimly lit. In absolute darkness, it was a death sentence. How surprised was he then, when he realized he was surviving for far longer than he would even expect on a good day? Despite already confirming that the entirety of his mouth, including his luscious lips and above average tongue, were gone, he still tried to call out for help, though nothing audible or understandable came out of him. Who would even hear him out there? No one in their right mind would be in the mines at this hour, at this time. 

Hear him? Jasper’s right eyebrow went up. Or at least it would have if it was still there, which it wasn’t. He tilted his head to one side, taking a few seconds to confirm, but, yes, he could still hear things even without his ears. How strange. The pitter-patter of a nearby trickle of water, not enough to be drinkable, definitely not enough to be a stream or underground river. How was he hearing things? Was it just his imagination? Or was it because it was still too early for him to lose his hearing since the attack? Or maybe it was because he had been listening to a bunch of songs on his stupid phone before he was attacked, before he lost his face. Was that even a thing? A thousand possibilities swarmed Jasper’s thoughts, drowning his mind in a myriad of scenarios, though none of which were ultimately helpful at this point in time.

Then he heard a woman’s voice. Jasper instinctively tilted his head so that the place where his right ear would have been was in the air, slightly higher than the rest of it, as if that would help him hear better. He tried to answer the question, but again, not a sound came out of him. He started to yell internally, scream as hard and as loud as he could think himself to, but again, to no avail. In a last desperate attempt, he stretched his hands forward, as far as they would go, away from his body, trying to get a hold of this person, to feel this beacon of hope, yearning for the touch that would confirm whether she was real or just another hallucination. Maybe he’d even get lucky and— Jesus freaking Christ, this isn’t a sitcom, brain! Focus!

He seemed to respond to her, in a way. His head tilted, he moved his faceless face as if he was trying to speak. No sound came out, but of course it wouldn’t; there was no mouth for it to escape from. Cass remembered Milo’s voice coming out of the thing that took his face when this had happened to him, and she wondered absently if this man’s voice was in some creature somewhere spouting out memes the way the one they’d encountered during the cave-in had been. Though… something told her that the meme thing had been mostly tied to the face that was stolen. Who knew what this guy’s face would be saying?

Arms stretched out towards her, and Cass hesitated only for a moment before reaching out and taking the man by the wrist. She tugged him forward carefully, making sure his feet avoided uneven ground and rocks that seemed like they’d be easy to trip over.

“You’re in a cave,” she told him carefully, speaking slowly and loudly. Was it hard for him to hear her? She had no idea, but it seemed like a good bet. He didn’t have any ears. “I don’t know if you knew that or not. I think you came in out of the mines, though, so maybe you started there. There’s a creature that takes faces. I think that’s probably what you ran into, huh?” He couldn’t respond to her, of course, so she didn’t bother asking him any questions that needed a real answer. Except…

He could still move his head, couldn’t he? That meant they could do yes or no questions. “You can nod for yes or shake your head for no. Okay?” She gave him a moment to ‘respond,’ then continued. “Do you know where the thing that took your face went?”

Jasper immediately shuddered, cowered, when he felt something grab his wrist, someone. Despite that, he didn’t try to resist. All he wanted was to get out of the freaking caves, get back his freaking face, and it didn’t matter how he’d do those things, who would help him do those things. This guy could be one of those serial killers or whatever and Jasper would be fine with getting abducted by him. At the very least, he’d be somewhere else, far from whatever that thing was. On the surface, outside the mines, his chances of being found, rescued, would be much better, even if he’d be found, rescued, as a victim of some stinky backwater serial killer.

Oh, my fucking god! Is that a girl? Jasper felt a sigh of relief wash over him, not unlike cold water on his bare body on a hot summer day, when he heard her voice. He didn’t even register the fact that she was telling him what he already knew—of course he knew about the mines and caves; he was an expert in that field—never mind the fact that she probably didn’t know any of that. A creature? That takes faces? She did know more about the situation than him. He had thought it was just some asshole who threw acid on his face and melted it all, but if it was a creature that takes faces, maybe he can get his back somehow?

Jasper nodded at her first question. Okay. His head was still tilted, angled, in a way that made him look like a confused puppy who couldn’t see in the dark so it was trying to listen to things that would help it survive. Jasper shook his head at the second question. There was no way for him to have known where the creature that stole his face went. He should’ve made sure to note that but it all happened so fast and Jasper has never been that kind of smart. He was book smart, could memorize rocks and shit, but common sense always seemed to elude him. A terrible tradeoff. Jasper tried to move his hands around, trying to touch the girl’s face, just to confirm that she was in fact a girl, a human, and not some other creature trying to butter him up so it could eat him when his guard was fully down. It would have to buy him dinner first.

He seemed to relax a little as she spoke, and that felt good. Like she was doing something right, like she was making his situation better. In all honesty, she didn’t know how to help him in a real, tangible way. With Milo, killing the creature that took his face had given it back to him, but Cass had no idea where the creature responsible for this man’s predicament might be. Even if she found it, she would have no way of knowing. She didn’t know what this man looked like with a face on, so she wouldn’t recognize that face on the body of one of those face-snatching beats, would she? So what were her options here, exactly? What was it she was supposed to do?

Get him to the surface. Find someone who knows him. Make him feel safe. That was all she really could do, wasn’t it? It wasn’t much, but it was better than leaving him to wander in the caves until he died. 

But there might not be much anyone could do outside of that. Her heart sank as he shook his head. No, he didn’t know where the creature that stole his face had gone. That meant they didn’t even have a place to start as far as how to take it out. She noted the way his hands were searching, figured out what he wanted and guided his hands to her face briefly. “That’s okay,” she told him, removing his hands so she could speak. “We’ll figure something out. I’m going to take you out of the cave. Do you, um… Is there someone I can call? You could… tell me their number with your fingers? Or do you still have your phone on you?” Gosh, she hoped he didn’t use face ID to unlock it.

Jasper instinctively shuddered, flinched, when his hands touched something soft and flesh-like. As if he didn’t expect to touch anything soft and flesh-like. Even though that was the whole point of him flailing his hands everywhere, to confirm that he was talking to someone soft and flesh-like, human, not something monstrous. Monsters aren’t usually soft and flesh-like. Even if they were soft, they’d usually be wet or hairy, furry, sometimes prickly. Oh, god, what if this is just a monster wearing someone’s skin?! He should be able to tell if that was the case, right? Right?

Gulping, Jasper hesitantly tried his best to remain calm, choosing to focus on trying to make out what he was in fact touching. It didn’t take him long to find a nose, cheekbones, ears, even an eye. Or at least that’s what he thought they were, considering they were where his natural protrusions and orifices would have been if his face had not been stolen. So far, so good… My fingers have not been bitten yet. Or my entire hand swallowed.

Still tilting his head toward the wrong direction, his ear—or at least where it was supposed to be—more toward her face than his eyes—or at least where they were supposed to be—should have been, Jasper nodded as desperately as he could. He tried to tell her that he lost his phone somewhere in the mines, too, but without a voice, and more importantly, without a mouth, all he could do was mime with his hands and his right butt cheek. Why does she keep saying cave instead of mines? Is this not another part of the mines? I don’t remember being in a cave that wasn’t in the mines… If Jasper could squint, he would’ve. Where was he, and why was this woman in here? What was this, some sort of Batcave? And who was she, some sort of Batgirl?

It was obvious that he was afraid. She could practically feel it radiating off of him, could feel the vibration of his desperate heart in his chest thrum thrum thruming as it hummed a tune of terror. Cass wanted to help him, because that was what heroes were supposed to do, but how could she? She couldn’t return his face to him without knowing what became of the monster that took it. She couldn’t even offer him any real answers as to what the monster had been or what it was doing with his face. Her experience with the face-stealing monster from before was so limited, so soaked in the anxiety and fear of the moment it all occurred.

But she could let him feel her face. She could reassure him that he wasn’t alone anymore, even if she couldn’t do much more than that. It wasn’t a lot, she knew; it was only one step above nothing, but that still made it better than nothing, didn’t it? Not being alone must have counted for something, even if it didn’t count for much.

He didn’t seem to have a phone on him, from what she could tell. She wasn’t really sure what he was trying to say, but if he had had a phone, he probably would have pulled it out right about now. But that was okay; they could make do. “Do you know anyone’s phone number? I have my phone, so I could call someone for you if you know their number.” He could communicate numbers with his fingers, at least. Anything more than that, though… This was hard. This was a hard spot to be in. For him and for her.

Jasper fought the urge to move his hands down the rest of the woman’s body. He wasn’t sure what she looked like but that didn’t really matter, as she sounded like a woman, so she must be a woman. Only one way to find out…NO! Stupid man brain! What’s the worst that could happen? She’d slap him? She wouldn’t even know who he was, considering he had no face on. I’d know! The Universe would know! Also, I don’t even know if she has a weapon! She could stab me! Dying would be a welcomed respite at the moment, though. It might be a whole lot better than living a life without a face.

Jasper was starting to lose his mind, it felt like. It was bad enough that he could not see anything but he probably looked like a monster to everyone else, except for this strange woman in the strange cave that he couldn’t even see. What if she wasn’t even real? Just a product of his imagination, his desperation, his sanity having been stolen by that thing, too? No, he touched her. That means she’s real, right? Just slumped on the ground, too confused to function. If only there was a way to communicate with her without speaking, if she was even real and not a trap by the mines. 

Then it hit him! Jasper had been through this before. Not lose his face to a monster, this was a new experience for sure, but be in a silent war with a woman. They did not speak to each other for weeks until their eventual break-up. But they did communicate still…with pen and paper! Turning his faceless head to where he thought the woman was still standing, he made the gesture for her to give him a pen and paper. Sure, he wouldn’t see the damned things, so his message might be less than legible, but maybe it would be easier to write his stupid ex’s number! He was so high in his “breakthrough” that he was complicating things. Surely, it’d be easier to make number gestures with his fingers.

He was doing… something with his hands. It took Cass a moment to comprehend what. But when she did — oh! That certainly made more sense than using fingers, didn’t it? She dug around in her pockets until she found a receipt, thankful that she’d actually bought something the last time she went to A Latte Love rather than just stand around and bother Wynne until they got off their shift. She found a pen, too; she was pretty sure she’d swiped it from a table in the mall, though she had no idea why she’d taken it. It had a frilly pom pom on the end. Maybe that was what had captured her attention. 

“Here,” she said, pressing both items into his hands and making sure she had a good grip on them before pulling her hands away. And then – “Oh! Let me take you over to the wall so you can have something to write against, okay?” Carefully, she led him over to the smoothest section of the cave wall. It wouldn’t allow for neat handwriting, and she imagined his presumed blindness would only make it messier, but hopefully he’d be able to manage legible.

With him in position to write, she leaned back. “Okay,” she said. “Um, you should be able to write now. So… What’s your name? That’s probably the best place to start. And, um, if you remember the date you got lost, that would probably be good too?”

To say that Jasper was an idiot would be the understatement of the year. As soon as he had the piece of paper(?) and pen, he immediately tried writing his name. Fortunately for him, his attempt was made somewhat easier when the girl led her to a wall. He took a second or two to touch the wall, his brain telling him to check if it was in fact suitable as a surface to write on. Well, at least support the paper and pen so he can write legibly. It must’ve been awkward for anyone, watching a faceless buffoon tilt his head in the wrong direction while attempting to write his name.

His first attempt came out as ‘Jasjen,’ mostly because he tried to write his name in cursive, an attempt that he expected to be much easier than what he ended up with. Fortunately for whoever was helping him, he immediately realized a contingency, and quickly re-wrote his name in non-cursive: ‘J as per.’ Close enough. The date he got lost? He wasn’t even sure what date it was at the moment. Has he been there for days already? Or was it just an hour after the attack? It all seemed the same for Jasper, as if time had stopped entirely, with days and weeks and hours melting together in a horrific torment fit for hell. Then it hit him. Of course he remembered the date he lost his face. He was, after all, a scientist, who dated his journal entries. For science. June 30, 2023, which he wrote as ‘06l3O/223.’ Close enough.

Then something else hit him. A possible cure! Remember how Jasper was an idiot? Well, considering that he already lost his face to something that science may not be able to explain, why not find a solution in fantasy, right? Specifically, Snow White. Or was that Sleeping Beauty? Heck, they all seemed the same to him now. What with their faces and stuff. Jasper quickly jotted down his stupidly desperate salvation, barely making the two words fit on the receipt, before stretching both his arms to where he thought the person was, human or not: ‘Kiss ne.’ If he had lips, he would have been puckering at that moment.

She squinted as he wrote, wondering how hard it must have been. It certainly couldn’t have been easy, because she didn’t think Jasjen was anyone’s name, especially given how quickly he seemed to feel the need to correct it. “Jasper,” she read the name written in messy scrawl out loud. That was a real name, wasn’t it? A pretty cool name, too. “You know, that’s a rock, too. An opaque variety of Chalcedony. Usually it’s brown, yellow, or reddish. You can find it all over, but usually it’s found in India, Russia, Egypt, Madagascar, Australia, and South and North America.” 

She was rambling. She knew she was rambling. Going on and on about rocks because she was in uncharted territory here. It was easier to go on a tangent than it was to let herself really exist in this situation she had no control over, to let herself acknowledge that, even if she got him out of the cave, she had no way to actually help him. She knew how to get his face back, but knowing how meant nothing if they couldn’t find the creature that stole his face to begin with. And judging by the date he wrote on that paper… “You’ve been down here a while.” How would they even track that creature down now? Was there any hope of it at all? 

Something seemed to occur to him, something exciting. She watched him scribble with some curiosity, taking a step back when his arms stretched towards her. Reading the words on the page, she made a face. “Ew, dude, I’m twenty,” she said, wrinkling her nose. She didn’t know how old he was — hard to tell, given the whole ‘no face’ thing — but judging by how he moved and stuff? He was older. That wasn’t the only barrier, of course. “Also, you don’t even have a face. And no offense, but you’ve been down here a long time, and you kind of smell.”

What the actual fuck? Jasper cringed, or more precisely, winced, moving his body inches away from the direction of the girl’s voice, as if he was in complete shock, when she started explaining what jasper the rock was. In his head, he played a memory clip of that meme where the fat dad from Family Guy—of course he couldn’t remember the character’s name right then and there—went ‘who the fuck starts a conversation like that, I just sat down’ or something along those lines. In all his times of introducing himself by his name, few ever mouthed out factoids about rocks. But that disbelief was immediately overshadowed by him being impressed by the woman’s knowledge of his own field, so much so that he had already forgotten cringing, or more precisely wincing, at her intellectual blabbering. 

Jasper nodded his head, fervently so, when she mentioned he had been down there for a while. It took him a little more while to realize the gravity of that fact. He had been down there for a while. Not a few minutes, not a few hours, but a while. No one ever says ‘a while’ unless they were downplaying the amount of time lost, especially in his current situation. He started to panic, his throat drying so suddenly. He could feel his heart race, and his hand immediately went to his chest. He felt like dropping down on the ground but instinctively reached for her to get some leverage, to balance himself, to keep his legs from failing him.

And then it got worse. She’s fucking twenty?! Oh, god. Oh, god, oh, god, oh, god. It was Jasper’s worst nightmare. He almost kissed a child! Or at the very least, one of his students! That would have been really bad. Terrible. Horrible. Catastrophic. Sure, some twenty-year-old people were cute and beautiful and fine, but that’s just being objective. He should still have his limits, his discipline, his pride or standards or whatever old-timey dudes called their—honor. Something like that. The faceless old man shook his head fervently before doing what a man of his advanced age would have done in this very situation—run! Or at least he tried to. Without eyes, Jasper was just stumbling in the dark. Painfully slow. Awkwardly slow. Even though in his head he was doing his best to scram before the FBI agents came rushing in. I DIDN’T KNOW!

She felt pretty bad for the guy. Even without a face, it was pretty clear that he hadn’t realized how long he’d been down here, that it came as a surprise to him. She couldn’t imagine what that was like, but it must have been scary. Being lost was one thing, but being lost with no face? With no ability to even see where it was you were wandering? She didn’t envy him. She wanted to help him, but… Helping him might be a little hard.

Especially because he started running. In the wrong direction. Cass sighed. She didn’t want to chase him, didn’t want to scare him more, but… subtly, she shifted the ground beneath his feet to turn him so that he was running on a straight path towards the opening of the cave. Not much, but at least it would get him out of here. And… okay, maybe she didn’t really want him to be her problem anymore. Was that so bad?

She watched him go, following along behind and changing his direction every so often until he burst out of the cave and into the afternoon light. Then, she stood at the mouth of the cave and watched as he continued. She’d look for the face stealer that got him, of course, but until then… Well. 

Good luck, Faceless Jasper.

#wickedswriting #❖《 ⋯ ♖ feat. cass akamai #❖《 ⋯ ♖ para ♜ ⋯ 》❖ #《 ⋯ ❖ face off ❖ ⋯ 》 #《 ⋯ season one ❖ canaries ⋯ 》 #❖《 ⋯ ♖ no face jasper era ♜ ⋯ 》❖

[understandableparadox]

We are rapidly heading into a media era of "Follow the leader or Follow the Chart". one of these is far more common place, the follow the leader strategy has always been somewhat a thing in terms of media and content creation, for every blockbuster their are fifty plus Block Ticklers, some of which can become cult classics.

but we are now seeing both an acceleration of that plus an addition of fill by number plot lines that follow threads. that lack of originality is of company origin, committee driven decisions to continue plot lines that clearly should have died or creating movies with safe plots that can be sold on international markets with pretty faces, big actions and maybe a decent enough scene a director managed to sneak in between the board directors cocaine lines.

for example let's look at the HBO show for harry potter, a vary clear follow the leader. the percy jackson disney show came out, had great word of mouth, had everything a stockholder creams their overly expensive suit pants over.

oh and would you look at that, hbo had their own critically acclaimed children's book series that could be translated into an episodic book series where each book becomes one season. Ain't That A Coinkydink.

now here is where shit gets interesting, despite the by committee factor, there is still a cultural factor. People Get Sick of things. I love little debbie banana marshmallow pies but if i eat a goddamn box of those little yellow fuckers, i'm going to throw up neon yellow. people are wiped out on by the numbers hero movies. people are wiped on the fucking musician biopics.

and it doesn't stop there, David zaslav is notoriously Bad at making cultural decisions, the number of movies he has shelved has already made him enemy numero fucking uno and killing his own company slowly through a nerd hate that's slowly becoming a Mainstream Hate.

companies should be able to balance out the hatred they get with the product they put out, creating a more cynical dramatic persona, for every slop movie that's there to suck money, you let out a few Art Pieces to make sure people at the vary least assume that its not Your fault movies are bad but instead the movie makers themselves.

though companies seemed to have forgotten that. this show is a blatant show of whatever icarus esque confidence and barely coherent risk analysis they managed to do. the harry potter show banks on the idea that we don't care enough about hbo, we don't care that they killed off so many cool looking movies, that they are detrimentally money hungry, that we don't mind giving out money to a noted transphobic shit wagon and that we don't care that they are trying to shove another fucking movie down our throat from a series that has had 11 installments including the spin offs, 18 games, multiple theme park attractions, a fucking Baffling Stage play on route to become a movie and a partridge that refuses to stop spewing hate on twitter roosting on a pear tree.

it is a badly calculated business decision attempting to ride the coat tails of another series when all we have had since the start of the 20 20s are by the number films that swarm and suck the blood out of the actually good shit that manages to Squirm its way out of the morass.

#txt

[victoriousscarf]

There's so many questions on this thing I can't choose lol- (if that's too much stuff at once just pick the ones you feel like answering and ignore the rest 😅)

7. How do you choose which POV to write from?

9. Do you comment on stories you read?

12. how does receiving or not receiving feedback/support impact you?

16. How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Share one of them?

17. What do you do when writing becomes difficult? (maybe a lack of inspiration or writers block)

20. Have you noticed any patterns in your fics? Words/expressions that appear a lot, themes, common settings, etc?

22. Are there certain types of writing you won’t do? (style, pov, genre, tropes, etc)

28. On average, how much writing do you get done in a day?

29. What’s your revision or editing process like? (Plus 47. How many times do you usually revise your fic/chapter before posting?)

40. If someone were to make fanart of your work, what fic or scene would you hope to see? (this is probably my favorite question) (I'm most curious about covet verse scenes ofc) (but yeah feel free to talk about whatever fic you feel like)

53. How do you spend your time when it comes to fanfiction? Are you primarily a fic reader, writer, or a perfect 50/50 split of both?

55. Of the characters you write for, which is your favorite? Has that choice been swayed at all by your followers/readers’ reactions to certain ones?

60. Have you had a writer you admire comment on your fic? What was that like?

65. Tell us about what you’re most looking forward to writing – in your current project, or a future project

7. It depends? Like sometimes a story will just be one POV--like Covet is pretty much Fili, and I'll often take Dick's POV over Jason's in a DC fic, but usually it's like whose eyes do I most want to be on in this fic/scene? I have definitely started leaning toward whole fics in one POV but I will still switch if it works for the story (for example, needing to know scenes about which one character cannot know about). I would have previously said I would switch POVs more in long fics but Mahanon sorta shot that right out of the water. I enjoy the challenge of a limited POV fic sometimes, because you really are stuck with this one dude for what's now 500k and thus as limited in knowledge as he is. But it's rarely something I think like, that much about.

9. I am once again trying to get better lol. It's all about seasons of our lives, right? I used to try and go through fics that didn't have a bunch of comments and comment on them in the smaller fandoms/ships I was in, but then I stopped reading fic for a very long time, and now that I'm more regularly reading again, it's like flexing a muscle to comment again.

But it is an effort, one I think more people need to start accepting again. Writing is really hard work, it deserves some acknowledgement.

12. Like. I will write some wild things, and I don't need a LOT of feedback persay, but if something is getting no acknowledgement at all and another fandom is doing their best to feed me... receiving/not receiving feedback WILL impact my desire to work on a fic. It can be one or two dedicated as fuck readers who get me through a whole story, or it might be a whole swarm of them, but if I get dead silence, I have less like ability to push through the bad times (which always come in any multi chapter fic) and keep going. It hurts the motivation to get silence for sure.

16. So many. So many. As always so many.

I've got usually a whole stack of fics waiting for me to care about them/have the time which I never do. In Dragon Age I've got a pirate AU (Just, Cassandra ranting every 30 seconds about the fact they declared her a pirate but when someone offers her a pardon if she turns Mahanon in she tosses them over the side of the ship like well anyway) a whole Regency Era AU with strong vibes of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel, and a very strange fake dating college au that may involve Fae.

Tolkien wise I've got some fics I promised people that I never wrote, an elf time loop one (which apparently is becoming a really popular idea in the Silm fandom on tumblr haha but I've been nursing this damn one for ages), that Anastasia-ish Hobbit story, a Regency Era AU for them too (but specifically Emma) and a story I've turned around for literally years now where Thorin died before the quest so Fili becomes king in exile and pretty much laughs Gandalf out of the room when he tries to convince him to reclaim Erebor (he's got a LOT to deal with emotionally okay, he's not got time for that) so they have to go and like try and kill Smaug in the middle of the War of the Ring instead.

And those are just the ones off the top of my head.

17. I think the most important thing as a writer is give yourself some grace. I try and write every week, but like I went on a trip and then I've been too exhausted since I got back, so it's been 2 weeks now with no writing for me. And frankly, I'm still feeling really wiped out so it's more like, if you're not feeling it, it's okay to take a break. Drink some tea, read a book, let it all peculate in the back of your head for a while. Try to do some things that inspire you, like for me it's reading history, or taking walks outside or going to museums, basically just learning new things. See some friends. Spend time with people. And then come back and see if that all triggered something. We forget writers block is often a systematic issue, like we're too tired or burned out or whatever, and it's about reinvigorating your creativity. And understanding and giving yourself the time. And if you're just exhausted by life well, unfortunately, maybe it's about trying to make those bigger changes, or accepting this will be a period where you plant some clover on the field of your creativity and let it lay fallow for a season or two. It will be there when you're ready again.

20. I mean, over the years I've written some wildly different things but yes, hahaha, very much yes. My favorite conflict is duty vs desire, I'm a sucker for loyalty, I'm a sucker for little shits that just don't stop, I'm a fan of knock-down, drag out street fighters, and if you leave me alone long enough, I will manifest a revolution into basically any setting. I like characters who are competent and don't give up, but who are human and make mistakes and fuck things up and keep going anyway, despite the fuck ups and danger and road blocks in front of them. I like when people feel things very deeply, but maybe aren't very good at talking about it or dealing with it, but always know they loved first and foremost, but sometimes it wasn't enough, and sometimes they did terrible things for it. I like imbuing the every day with intense feelings, be that ships or robots or undead horses or flower crowns. And I will probably try and make you cry at some point.

22. Hm. Yes and no? I have written things that I would never have expected, and I have written a LOT of stuff over the years on what are essentially dares. And there's things I wrote before that I'm like, way less inclined to write now? Like looking back my early 20s were way more willing to play around with student/teacher relationships that now I'm like... why was I even touching that with a ten foot pole? I also really really really hate pregnancy and will probably never write that into any story with any degree of detail. I'm not saying people won't have kids, but I'm not gonna be dealing with it.

So I'll write anything, as long as I can make it work for me. But it might not be in a way that like, other people expect or like.

28. On days I write I aim for 4ish pages, single spaced, 11/12 font. On really good days I can do 8 pages. On really good days I can do 20. I do not usually aim for that though. 4 is quite manageable for me on one go. (And as you'll see in the answer below on my editing, that's usually the length my chapters are. I know some people like to complain about my chapters being ~too short~ but honestly I don't want to hear it. On a good weekend you're getting 8 pages of writing if I write both days, and while some would probably prefer me waiting until my chapters are at 8 pages instead of 4, the reality is if I wait for it to be that long I will start spiraling mentally on myself and if it's good enough, so it's actually much faster for me to post the smaller chunks than deal with that. I'm a post or die person, and isn't that better than not getting anything at all?)

29/47. ... Hm.

Yeah I don't really edit. My editing process is usually to do one read through before posting (Unless I'm feeling like a scene is not working at all, in which case I may go back and rework it while halfway through and change things to make it work. But if I have to do that more than 2 or 3 times I will delete the whole thing and start again). I will try and grab typos and make sure things are working, then I will post. Once posted I try to do another read through on a typo hunt, but sometimes I don't get to that for another day or two, depending on when I post it.

40. I mean, there are always so many images while writing that make me go this would be really fun as an art haha.

I would love the scene in chapter 7 of covet not the feel of gold or taste of blood of Kili just sorta losing it. Or Fili, poor lad, covered in gold.

I'd love Dick in his magic shop from trust not in the darkness, trust in my outstretched hand, or the cabin covered in candles and the snow. I tried to work on my settings a bit more in that one.

I love any time someone draws Dick and Jason and the bike from find the sun in the corners of shadows.

I would love to see Mahanon and Sonja in art together. That would probably make me cry.

But honestly I would not really care. Like any fanart is a gift that makes me so emotional any time it happens. I understand why commissions etc exist, but I feel like the idea of sharing gifts in fandom used to be stronger than it is now. And that does make me a little sad. But it still happens and every time is worth treasuring.

53. I'm more of a writer, but lately I've been reading a lot of fics again. (Stranger Things got to me). But I also read a bunch of non fanfiction things, so I go through seasons of reading fic or not. But I almost always am writing, so I'd say majority writer, but when I read I do lose it.

55. I mean, the classics at this point are Fili and Dick and Mahanon probably. I am a sucker for someone who has every reason to hate the world and chooses instead love, belief, compassion, or in Fili's case, simple fucking survival haha. And no, I don't really care about people's reactions to certain characters. If I did I would have less plans for Gaspard in the forest is dark and deep. (Every time he shows people yell at me about how much they hate him and I'm like oh well, you're going to have to keep dealing with him anyway <3)

Honestly I only seem to chose popular characters by chance, and sometimes don't really care about the fandom reading on them (Fanon Dick Grayson my beloathed). I don't mean this in a "I'm not like other girls" way, I just know I'm contrary at best, and don't really care for the whims of popular fandom. I do what I want, and I have gotten yelled at for it by readers, and not in a good squee-yelling sort of way.

Unless you mean, swayed by readers/follower's opinions in a "I will never write this again as long as I live" way in which case yes, I did actually drop a whole ship because the readers were so mean about it and it killed all joy I ever felt in those characters together. And it was Tony Stark/Loki back in the 2012 era. That was the worst experience in fandom I ever had, you will always be legendary to me for all the wrong reasons.

60. Yes! Actually I commented on their work and they went wait, aren't you the one who wrote xxx? And I was like oh, yes, that is me, and we went from there. And then we became fandom friends lol. It is always a very kind, warm feeling to realize people have read your stuff, especially when you know they've got good tastes in their own work lol.

65. Listen, listen, I'm so excited for where ancient sea is going, the fact my brain is refusing to write it is driving me crazy. I want Hawke to meet Bianca! For the temple of Dirth to be a total shit show!!! the Forbidden Oasis being EVEN WORSE! I want my boi Abelas to show, I want things in Orlais to get batshit insane while Mahanon goes "whoops" I am dying for the assassins from Josie's personal mission to show up while Mahanon is on a hair trigger on that issue (especially! Josie! After! Wycome! holy shit). I want Gaspard to show up and be really annoying for like many different things while Mahanon keeps wishing he killed him while he had the chance (real "I should have left you on that streetcorner where I found you" "But you didn't!" vibes). I want for them to try and start breaking Mahanon and his symbols down and for him and his to rebuilt something new from the ashes.

On the other hand I also want to keep trucking in Covet because I'm really excited about some of the stuff there too, and getting to the point where I can start posting some of the side story stuff I've been writing to keep myself sane in the main story lol. (I've got like a whole 13 pages of Nori POV that came out of a fucking joke to someone that I can't post yet and now I'm mad about it lol).

#vs does a meme #i talk so much but to be fair there are a lot of questions haha

[rubbish78]

And never again, and never again They gave us two shots to the back of the head And we're all dead now

#hit the link it's a really good edit video #gerard way #bat boi #frank iero #my chemical romance #i never told you what i do for a living #decay era #or maybe it' swarm era whatever #tw: flashing lights #rubbish78gifs #my gifs #mcr

[minimoefoe]

Thirteen Era Rewatch: The Vanquishers

I'm re-watching Thirteen's era in lead up to the Centenary and since this is likely going to be my last full re-watch for a while I thought I'd do a post on each ep where I just go over all the things I love, hate or just have some general thoughts on.

This hug will never not kill me. The way 13 purposely stops what she’s doing just to hug Yaz, how aggressive the hug is, Yaz’s face !!

I never really cared for the use of the house to represent 13’s memories and it being like we’re in the watch but idk I kinda like it now. Also everything being in greyscale while Swarm and Azure are in colour looks really cool

13’s quick ‘I miss you’ in RotD when she’s been away from Yaz for LITERALLY decades versus her heartfelt as fuck ‘I miss you’ in this ep after being away from Yaz for probably a day at most makes me scream that’s growth babey

Also Yaz’s vibe in that scene is cool too like before she was losing her mind at being away from the Doctor but this time she acts like a few years away from the Doctor was nothing, which isn’t fully true obviously, but I do think there’s something in there about like, this time during her time away from the Doctor she had a purpose and shit to be doing and she could watch the hologram, but before she was just stuck with nothing and as far as she knew 13 could be dead.

I just love this idk

Love the scene with 13 and Karvanista, shame she didn’t offer to do brain surgery on him tho...

I actually have connected the dots

Why is Diane the only one left in the Passenger lmao. I know she’s like ‘It’s bc they think I’m not significant’ or whatever but like.. that’s a weak as fuck explanation

I love her!! Idk how I feel about the Grand Serpent existing but this whole scene with him and 13 is great

Love that 13 has never properly flirted with anyone (unless you wanna count the Solitract, which I don’t really) and the first time she does is with another version of herself lmao

The cutting between shots of different versions of 13 in the TARDIS is really not my fave. I wish they did some wide shots of them on screen together more. And sometimes 13’s reaction feels kinda delayed when talking to the other 13. It’s just weird.

I like Jericho but I can’t say I really care that he’s dead. The scene is kinda sad but idk, I’m not that cut up by it. Going into this ep I low-key forgot it was even gonna happen lmao

Idk how I feel about Swarm and Azure dying. Part of me is like, what a simple death for such cool villains and another part of me is like well maybe it shows the power Time has. And I’m also like I wish they didn’t die bc it would be cool to see them again but at the same time the idea of them being Flux exclusive villains would be kinda cool. Maybe they’re not even properly dead idek

I love Time and I love the prophecy they give 13. I’ve seen ppl say it’s just a knock off of what happened with 10 and yeah its definitely similar to that but I don’t think that matters. If anything I think makes sense that Time would have that info and use it to tease 13

This is just too many ppl in the TARDIS actually like get them out. That’s kinda a theme with this era, 13 just inviting ppl into the TARDIS, and I don’t love it. In this case specifically I get why it has to happen ofc, but generally, nah

I fear I will never emotionally recover from this scene. Every time I watch it basically gets me just as much as it did the first time. They’re insane

I hate that Dan comes in at the end and cuts off Yaz and 13’s moment. That’s a thing I mentioned that happens before in my 13.01 thread, something happening to cut a convo off rather than the characters being made to actually end their convo naturally, and it winds me up

I’m glad 13 decides she doesn’t want her memories. I think that’s the best thing to do bc it would be next to impossible to satisfyingly give her the memories and represent them well or whatever. Way better to just leave it a mystery

I do like that she says ‘unless I really ask for it’ tho bc it leaves the door open for them to go into it in the future if a showrunner ever wants to

I used to see, and still do sometimes, a lot of ppl be like ‘it didn’t wrap up the TC, I hope they wrap it up in the specials’ but like.. to me that was a very clear wrapping up of the TC. I think it’s possible it will get brought up again somehow in PotD, especially since we have that clip of 13 in a chamber with regen energy everywhere, but if it doesn’t come up I don’t think it matters at all. The final scene in this ep felt like closure.

I love this ep tbh. There’s a lot going on but for the most part I think it works so well. The only thing I’m a bit meh on is Kate and the GS bc I don’t fully see the point in them even being in the series at all. But at the same time, I love 13’s scenes with them so

#doctor who #thirteenth doctor #dw meta #dan lewis #yasmin khan #nataliechats

[pidge-poetry]

Life is Yours: track-by track from Apple Music

Yannis Philippakis doesn’t think that Foals will make another album like Life Is Yours. After the sprawling rock explorations of 2019’s two-part Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost, their seventh album is a product of the environment in which it was made: a series of gruelling lockdowns, dreaming of lost nights and nocturnal roaming, yearning to be back out on the road. It was a period in which everyone was desperate to get out of the house, but only Foals could’ve turned it into the most buoyant and danceable record of their career. “I can’t see us making a record that’s as dancey and up and energised and simple as this again,” singer and guitarist Philippakis tells Apple Music. It’s not like the London-based trio ever seem inclined to repeat a trick anyway. “Everyone always says, ‘How come the sound changes so much from album to album?’” says guitarist and keyboardist Jimmy Smith. “Well, you go through three years, musically and emotionally, and you’re not the same person.” What marks Foals out as one of the most important guitar bands of their generation is how they always sound like themselves, wherever they take their sound: whether it’s the mix of melancholy and defiance in Philippakis’ voice; the wiry, sleek guitar lines; the swarming synths; or drummer Jack Bevan’s rhythmic propulsion. The anthemic grooves of Life Is Yours were made for dancing to, but delve deeper and you’ll find Philippakis in a contemplative mood. “It’s a positive and fun record made for communal moments, but the title is quite solemn advice,” he says. “It’s meant as an antidote to depression. On every record, there’s been a balancing act that goes on between the levels of melancholy.” Here, they get the blend just right. In many ways, Life Is Yours feels like a compilation of Foals’ best bits. Philippakis and Smith take us through it, track by track. “Life Is Yours” Yannis Philippakis: “Whatever is happening in the verse between the vocal and the keyboard part and the beat and the bassline felt like the DNA for the album, the blueprint. It was the bit I liked most. The song came right out of [next track] ‘Wake Me Up’—we were jamming it and then Jimmy went into that keyboard bit. The next day I said, ‘Let’s split it.’ Lyrically, the song is set along that coast between Seattle and Vancouver, where my partner is from, conversations that happen in private in car journeys along the Pacific Northwest.” “Wake Me Up” Jimmy Smith: “There’s always a bit of choice about which song to put out first, but this had the most immediate impact.” YP: “And it’s the most bombastic. We just felt that the message and the immediacy of the grooves and the boldness of the parts would be a wake-up call. It would demarcate the new era of the band and also be the kind of song that should come out after a pandemic. It felt like it was energising and defiant, it wasn’t introspective. Normally we throw curveballs out first, we put something out that shocks people. I guess maybe it did in some way, but it also felt like it sets you up for what’s to come.” “2am” YP: “This started off more melancholic. I messed around with a keyboard during the depths of lockdown, late at night. I was missing the pub, missing the potential that a nightlife allows—the potential to make mistakes, the potential for wrong decisions, for wild decisions, for waking up in a very different place to the one you intended when you went out, the type of infinite choice that can occur if you do a night out well. It got moved into a bigger and poppier direction when we started recording with [producer] Dan Carey.” JS: “There was a smoky late-night version, which we were all down for. But as soon as we experienced the Dan Carey version, it made the smoky version seem unbelievably slow and dull.” “2001” YP: “This is one that really benefited from working on it with [producer] A. K. Paul. It’s almost a collaboration with A. K. Paul; he plays the bass on it and he wrote the chorus bass. It reminds me of The Rapture and ‘House of Jealous Lovers’. Lyrically, I was thinking about the frustration that people were feeling in lockdown. It made me think about being a teenager and feeling frustrated when you are cooped up and you don’t have autonomy—and how the cure for that is to run away to the seaside and have a wild weekend. It’s partly looking back at when we moved to Brighton [in 2001], the excitement of leaving Oxford and us living in a house together for the first time. We moved there and it was a really exciting time for the band and an exciting time for the music scene.” “(summer sky)” YP: “This was essentially a jam with A. K. Paul. We’d wanted to work with him for a long time. We come from two different worlds, so it was a really fruitful collaboration.” JS: “Pretty much everything he did was amazing. He had to edit out a lot of his own stuff, but it was pretty special. We just sat on a sofa, watching it happen, watching this man use his amazing brain to make the song better.” “Flutter” YP: “I was looping something on the guitar and the vocal part came very quickly. We were playing it over and over, and Jack sat back on a beat, and the riff came out of that same jam. Everything was there in the first few hours, basically. We didn’t work on it more as we wanted it to be simple, like, ‘Let this be a slice of the moment.’” “Looking High” JS: “This is one of the ones that I started. It was an experiment of very, very simple guitar playing and pop structuring, that two-chord pattern back and forth, and I had a drum machine playing a Wu-Tang beat which I copied from ‘Protect Ya Neck’. It all slotted in really quickly, and then Yannis added the other parts of the song, the more reflective, dancier bits in the drop-downs. When I listen, it feels like that moment at a show when you lose yourself a little bit and then it snaps back into the verse and it’s completely different. I really like the to-ing and fro-ing; there’s a cleanliness to it.” “Under the Radar” JS: “It came straight out of the practice room when we were writing. There’s a few on the record that were written on the spot, like nothing brought in from the past.” YP: “Probably 30 per cent of our songs come from jams, but we always jam our ideas. No one ever comes in with a complete song, as in, ‘That’s it, learn the song.’ We tried to keep this really simple. It felt quite different for us. I think it feels New Wave-y, like something we haven’t written before.” “Crest of the Wave” YP: “This goes back to a recording session we did in about 2012, with Jono Ma from Jagwar Ma. It was this syrupy, sweaty jam known as ‘Isaac’, and we parked it because I couldn’t find the vocals, but this time I did. Something happened between the bassline changing and the vocals, and we just cracked it. To me, it feels like a companion to [2010 single] ‘Miami’ because it’s set in Saint Lucia. It’s got longing and a bittersweet feeling of rejection in it; it’s somewhere idyllic, but you’re melancholic. There’s high humidity and there’s tears.” “The Sound” YP: “We don’t normally do that uplifting, classic penultimate track. This is us at our most electronic and clubby. It’s inspired by Caribou, that slightly dusty and dirty vibe; there’s crackle and a slight wildness to it. I like the fact that there’s a slightly West African-style guitar part that contrasts with the clubbiness of the synths. I had a lot of fun with the vocals on that. I wanted to layer up lots of shards of lyrics and approach it in a slightly Karl Hyde-ian way.” “Wild Green” JS: “The album finishes in such an organic way, it almost falls apart. I love how it just drops straight into the studio ambience. It seemed to happen quite naturally.” YP: “It’s about life cycles, the cycle of spring, expectation of spring and regeneration. In the first half of the song, there’s lyrics about wanting to fold oneself in the corner of the day and wait for the spring to re-emerge. Then there’s a shift. Once you get to the second half of the song, spring is passed and now it’s actually the wind-down and it’s departure and it’s death. It’s not in a dark way, but it’s passing through states. It’s about the passing of time. That’s why it felt like a good album closer, because it’s basically saying, in a veiled way, farewell to the listener.”

#foals #foals band #liy #liy era #life is yours #wake me up #2 am #2001 #(summer sky) #flutter #looking high #under the radar #crest of the wave #the sound #wild green #interviews #yannis philippakis #jimmy smith

[christopblog]

CHRIS 2022 TOP 10 ALBUMS 

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

Carly Rae Jepsen - The Loneliest Time 

She's back baybee! Though it grew on me significantly, her previous 2019 album Dedicated was a bit of a let down after I'd gotten really into EMOTION. The Loneliest Time doesn't come close to EMOTION, but I might like it better than Dedicated, this is a really great helping of extremely catchy pop without too many misses. More of an even, consistent good without major highlights though. Western Wind, and Go Find Yourself Or Whatever are the best.

Weyes Blood - And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow She's back baybee! One of the most unique vocalists out there, I was very excited for Ms. Blood's follow up album to her excellent 2019 Titanic Rising and was not let down! Though maybe slightly weaker, Hearts Aglow brings incredible songwriting, excellent instrumental production, and more of her iconic voice and singing style. Very pretty, if you like Baroque pop/chamber folk or whatever the fuck genre she is check it out. Opening track and God Turn Me Into a Flower are the highlights.

The Smile - A Light For Attracting Attention 

He's back babyee! Featuring pioneer sadboy Thom Yorke and guitarist Jonny Greenwood, The Smile looks, feels, and sounds exactly like what it is, half of Radiohead. And since Yorke is in that half, that's honestly good enough for a pretty excellent album. Not quite Radiohead tier, maybe better than some of their weaker releases. Radiohead 2!

Florence + The Machine - Dance Fever She's back, baybee! This one was pretty close to cracking the top 10, I think this is Florence's strongest release since HBHBHB, and wayyyyy better than High as Hope. This is definitely her Bovid album, creating a much more intimate atmosphere than some of her previous, more grand releases, and I think the introspection really suits her. Getting to see a lot of these songs live also helped, what a fucking great concert. Cassandra, Free, and My Love are the best, but honestly there are very few misses.

Hikaru Utada - Bad Mode 

They're back, baybee! This is definitely their Bovid album, creating a much more intimate atmosphere than some of their previous, more grand releases, and I think the introspection really suits them. It's funny that I get to just copy and paste that, because strangely it fits both of these albums very well. I think this is easily Hikki's best in years, I really love some of the longer ballads that have extended instrumental sections. Somewhere Near Marseilles clocks in at kino length aka 11:54, legendary stuff.

Big Thief - Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You

The bit doesn't fit for this one unfortunately it's a band. This is easily the most hot and cold release on this list, this fucker is 80 minutes, and I think some of the weaker cuts could have been left off the table for a tighter album experience. Adrienne Lenker continues to prove herself one of the best songwriters alive right now though, and while this is not nearly as tight as her solo project from 2020, some of that brilliance shines through in a few tracks. Time Escaping, Little Things, and Simulation Swarm are some of the best songs of the entire year, seriously, go check them out. Folk's in a good place with them at the top, tbh. TOP 10 ALBUMS OF 2022: 

10. Hatchie - Giving the World Away

This album feels deeply nostalgic for a certain sound and era of pop, somewhere in the 90s, and I can feel that despite having not really listened to much music in that era. What really elevates this album is the production and mixing, which is just fucking phenomenal. Jangly reverbed guitars, synths, and Hatchie's great vocals create this layered, harmonic, blissful pop that I cannot get enough of. This is one of those albums you just throw on and vibe to hard the whole time, zero skips, all gas. I'm very excited to see what she'll make in the future, she's clearly extremely talented. Track highlights: Lights On, This Enchanted, Quicksand, The Key, Til We Run Out of Air. Common Australia W

9. Naked Flames - Miracle in Transit

I get in the mood for house music sometimes, especially for late night gaming sessions, or when I'm working on some kind of creative project. House provides something that I can throw on and not pay attention to the nuances of the track, but let them sort of wash over me and impress the themes and ideas over time. This album was literally so good I kept stopping what I was doing to jam out to the beats, this goes fucking ridiculous. It's like the soundtrack to some indie game that was never released from the early 2000s, games like Sonic are a clear inspiration. If you're into electronic music game soundtracks, you absolutely have to give this album a spin, I'm looking at both of you Juan and Claire. Probably my biggest single recommend for both of you. If you want a test, throw on Pan Matsuri or Visiting Corners. I'm literally skimming through the songs right now and popping off at how good the grooves and beats are on this thing, it's so textured and layered and delightful.

8. Alvvays - Blue Rev 

So, I think I listened to their extremely popular sophmore album Antisocialites a few years ago because I have it rated on RYM, but I never saved any of the songs, I think I liked it okay but it didn't leave much of an impression. So, suffice it to say I was surprised when this new one blew me the fuck away. This is superb indie pop. A great mix of noise, with some shoegaze thrown in there too, wonderful guitar playing, and top notch songwriting. I think one complaint would be that the songs tend to blend together in my mind, there's a similar sound throughout the album, but that sound is a good sound so that doesn't end up being a problem for me. Even despite that, there are a few melodies that really sink into my brain and get lodged there, like Many Mirrors, and Tile by Tile. Belinda Says is an incredible piece of songwriting, too. I think I was a little hotter on this after the first listen than I have been since revisiting it, which is why it's lower on the overall list, still, don't miss it if you like this kind of stuff.

7. The Beths - Expert in a Dying Field

 What's that? Oh, it's the sound of the Beths cementing themselves as one of my favorite bands of all time with another stellar album. Crazy, they just keep doing it, huh! This band has a real talent for a style of quirky, witty, deadpan lyrics that trend melancholic in a way that somehow hits me directly in the feelings every time. This is likely due to their knack for writing music that elevates the lyrics emotionally in a way that I really don't experience with many other acts. Power pop at it's finest, I adore Elizabeth Stoke's voice and could listen to it forever, but the rest of the band backing vocals lead to some amazing harmonies too. Using a pretty simple rock band structure, they like to lean into different styles like punk, ballads, and just good old fashioned rock'n'roll too. I hope they keep this up, and I'm very excited to see them in concert in March. (this is still probably my least favorite album of the three so far, but it's close, they're all amazing) extremely common new zealand W

6. Kessoku Band - Self Titled

Do not let your eyes deceive you, this is not an anime soundtrack, this is a proper J-rock album from Bocchi and the band. I just want to point out that Tricot did release an album this year, which was good, but did not make my list. This made my list. If this was a real band releasing their debut J-rock album I would be praising them as one of the best new groups coming out of Japan, and I promise I mean that genuinely and not just because I gave Bocchi the anime a 10. It's admittedly difficult to separate my enjoyment of these songs from their appearances in the anime, but I maintain that without context I would like this music just as much, it's very my shit. This is genuinely amazing songwriting, a full album's worth of catchy bangers, zero skips, and listen to Bocchi fucking shred dude!! that's MY guitarhero. I also absolutely have to shout out the track カラカラ, which was written by Ikkyu, the lead guitarist and singer of Tricot. This song is literally just a Tricot song performed by Kessoku Band, and is probably my favorite unofficial Tricot song of the year, beating out all the real ones they released. anyway, season 2 when? Especially if it means I get more of this.

5. Vylet Pony - Can Opener's Notebook: Fish Whisperer

It is time to post cringe! I have ascended past cringe, this is so good that I no longer am capable of feeling cringe! Praise be! Seriously though, I mostly included Vylet's last album Cutiemarks and the Things That Bind Us at the 10th spot on my list last year as a meme, Little Simz probably deserved it for her album. Not to disparage Cutiemarks, I think it's amazing, I still listen to it all the time, but all of this is to say that, clearly, I don't need to dedicate a meme slot to a horse album this year. This thing deserves its spot here, 1000%. Fish Whisperer is a narrative concept album that tells a story about a marine biologist horse that leaves home to pursue her dream of becoming a musician, and juggling that dream with her work which she also loves. It's a surprisingly compelling narrative that flows well from song to song, you could probably miss it if you're not paying close attention, or if you don't read the blurb Vylet put on her bandcamp page, but I think it makes some of the songs hit harder. Even after such a short period of time, this album shows some serious improvement on Cutiemarks, with much better lyricism and songwriting, which was probably my biggest issue. Her production continues to be stellar, but evolves into something even greater, offering some of my favorite pieces of electronic music of all time. Vylet is stupidly talented, showcasing singing, guitar playing, rock and roll, and phenomenal EDM/indietronica skills too. It's fucked up how good this album is guys, I really cannot sing its praises enough. If you want a sample, listen to the three song run from The Yak Song to Typewriter, or maybe just Fish Whisperer. 2nd best horse album of all time.

4. De todas las flores - Natalia Lafourcade

Okay, I have to do a disclaimer here, I have listened to this album all the way through 1 time. It came out pretty recently, and I saw a lot of buzz, so I finally got around to it a few weeks ago and was extremely impressed, but I don't have nearly a good enough handle on it to evaluate it as fairly against some of the other albums on here. Real Fantano heads in the chat probably know that this was his AOTY, and I really can't fault him for that choice even if there were  a few more I liked more. This album is a powerhouse, just phenomenal, jazzy singer songwriter latin music. Incredible instrumentation and production, I think this one has a lot of depth that I'll be unpacking for a while. Maybe I'll come back and rearrange the order as I listen to this one more, but this is where it slots in mostly out of sheer respect over familiarity.

3. Black Midi - Hellfire 

Okay, as we get into the top 3 I want everyone to know that these three albums are close to interchangeable, it was very, very hard to rank them against each other. Especially spots number 3 and 1, which are frequently compared to and pitted against each other because they're both recent sensations in the underground rock scene in the UK, and have released albums around the same time twice now. I liked Cavalcade when it came out, I was really impressed with the crazy instrumentation and great singing, but wasn't quite blown away like everyone else was. Then we get Hellfire. Holy shit. This is fucking Prog baby, but it's twisted and evil and new and exciting, I have literally never heard anything like this album before in my life. The speed at which the playing can change on you at the turn of a hat is a little mind-boggling, and the bombastic playing is matched by Geordie Greep's one of a kind voice, which I think is the only style that could ever go with this kind of music. What unfolds is a descent into Hell, through narrative driven prog tracks covering all kinds of sin and debauchery, of war and death, soliders, love, lust, prostituation, racing, and one of the best closing tracks I've ever heard in my life. The theatrics are turned up to 12, it really does feel like I'm watching some kind of stage play while listening to this. Also, I cannot praise Greep's singing enough, his voice surprises you after all the raucous shouting to reveal he's got one like, a nearly operatic, angelic voice when he wants to bust it out. Some of the best parts of the album are when he does both on the same track, like in Sugar/Tzu. The vocal work on The Race Is About To Begin is probably the single most impressive performance this year, and maybe this decade so far. Writing this is making me think maybe this is my AOTY so I need to stop before it all gets mixed up. Logan listen to this or I will kill you in real life.

2. Silvana Estrada - Marchita

Originally my number 1 spot, like, I literally wrote out the Ants From Up There blurb and then changed my mind, don't let any of that detract from this album. What an incredible piece of music, Silvana is has one of my favorite voices out there, the way she flawlessly delivers each lyric, shifting from pitch to pitch is mesmerizing. This is obviously right up my alley, singer songwriter folk is one of my favorite genres, if my Ichiko Aoba addiction didn't make that obvious. Even if I was predisposed to like this, I still fell in love with this album over the course of this year, revisiting these intimate songs that mostly consist of her singing and guitar playing, occasionally joined by other instruments, all of which is flawless. This album is also special to me, because it was one of the first pieces of music I really connected to Elli with. Our tastes don't always line up very well, but she got just as into her as I did this year, and sharing that with her for what felt like the first time was extremely cool. Not much more to say, this thing is just beautiful front to back.

1. Black Country, New Road - Ants From Up There 

This was easily my most anticipated album of 2022. After their breakout debut last year, For The First Time which has ascended to favorite status very quickly, I was excited to see what new tom foolery this group would get up to. Unfortunately, just as the album released, we got news that the lead singer Isaac Wood would be leaving the band, cutting short what could have been an incredibly promising career. I'm not sure how much of that decision was looming on his mind as he and the band wrote this album, but somehow it feels like the swan song that it ended up being, a much more emotionally driven, bittersweet, loving, lonely thing than their first. The band's incredible instrumental talent is back on full display, outshining even my favorite performances on FTFT somehow, which is a gargantuan achievement. There are multiple points listening to this album where I tear up a little bit, it's just so heartwrenching. This group is so fucking talented, and they're bringing their best on every single track, especially Isaac, who's singing and vocals continue to floor me. This album is an artistic achievement, a modern classic, that, I think will be remembered long past this year, or even this decade. I'm still excited to see what the band does without Isaac in the future, as he's hardly the only member, but it'll be different. And that's okay, I think. What a way to go out. And that’s it, it was a very good year for music! Thanks for reading if you did, I had fun writing this! 

[bisluthq]

honestly taylor and joe having different approaches to the privacy stuff is just so normal relationship problems. it’s just a different kind of issue to what a normal couple would have. it’s not bad for joe to go “hey but we agreed on this before and i liked it that way”. but swifties make it out to be some outrageous wrongdoing lmao

yeah it’s not relatable as a problem but changing lifestyles are. Their situation is comparable to idk getting together with someone - this is a silly example but I’ve seen this happen - who has the same diet with you (whatever that is) or having a different diet but agreeing to do it with you (so say going vegan “for” someone) and them then changing theirs. It’s a genuinely big problem. My friend K fights with her bf about many, many things (including how he changed his mind on marriage lol they’re very T/J coded) but also she was a STRICT vegetarian when they met and he’s huge into meat and fish so she agreed to meet him halfway and be pescatarian and he agreed to meet her halfway and cut down on meat and he did that for a while - when I met them they didn’t eat meat at home and he’d only eat meat at like farm to table ethical restaurants - but he’s going more and more towards eating it and now cooks it at home and stuff (he ethically sources from small farmers or buys venison/culled animals but eh she doesn’t like the smell and stuff so it’s not just that). Seemingly not a big deal and neither are wrong but it’s a problem. T/J’s fame stuff was like that. Neither was wrong and they had very much been on the same page and she was allowed to change her mind but he didn’t have to?

and I’ve seen anti Joe people go “oh but now he looks fine with paps and he goes to events so he clearly just didn’t like her enough” but it’s not just that? Having a random pap chilling in a busy part of London or LA or NYC kinda hoping for something and snapping you along with a bunch of other people walking by is really not the same as paps using long lens shit to try and “get” you or having them mob your house or your cars. And we’ve seen Taylor at events and it’s also a COMMOTION on a scale that like just going to a celeb function normally isn’t. And she’d told him she didn’t like that stuff either and wanted to slow down lol so idk that he was wrong for figuring that’s what they’d do. But she was also not wrong for changing her mind.

The wedding planning is also imo tied in with this stuff ngl because we were talking about Burton/Taylor - when they got married, a pap legit parachuted onto the property to get pics. Tay’s wedding - regardless of who she’s marrying rn - will 100% be that big a deal lol like Jack’s was swarmed because of fans and paps who were there for HER. And I don’t know how she can avoid that entirely, like it absolutely will be a fiasco, unless she skips the wedding party/ceremony and does just a legal marriage but I don’t think that’s what she wants? When Taylor and Joe were discussing marriage as part of the future, I don’t think he expected it to get that crazy lol and that was maybe naive on his end because lbr here but in their Lavender Haze era I don’t think they thought properly about logistics. I also think the dope thing about Travis is he won’t mind the fiasco and chaos but Joe is genuinely not the only person who would have.

[fvckyouimaprophet]

2, 5, 13 for the choose violence ask game 💖

2. a compelling argument for why your fave would never top or bottom

not the top/bottom discourse 😂

i’m not sure if i have a fave at the moment, but i’ll go with sirius. there is so much existing discourse about who tops, who is taller, who is whatever, so, let’s hop in and join the swarm.

well, first of all, sirius is a scorpio, so— (kidding, kidding).

this is so hard because the discourse is so stupid, but okay okay i brought this upon myself.

sirius doesn’t bottom because he internalized the shitty politics of “power dynamics” associated with top/bottom discourse when he was first sexually curious and is a dramatic fucker, so his takeaway was, “i will never bottom because i will always be the one in control/with all the power.”

a lot of the people he hooks up with are like, “oh, okay, sure,” or want to be topped (sirius makes it known), so it becomes a point of pride for him. he’ll casually drop it in conversation, “well, i’ve never bottomed, so i wouldn’t know.”

remus thinks it’s the funniest thing he’s ever seen and pokes fun of sirius’s fragile ego and how very heterosexual of you to view sex this way. but sirius is prideful, and that only makes him cling to it harder. 

5. worst discord server and why

i don’t mean this in a “i’m too scared to share” or tame way, but i haven’t been a part of any shitty discord servers. which is probably because i’m only really active on four, and two of which recommended by people on one of the other servers (and another which i co-started and has maybe 15 members).

i have heard stories, but discord overwhelms me, so i have kept it tight. and i lean more onto the older side of fandom discords, so i steer clear of spaces that have a lot of minors or people who are significantly younger than me.

shitty rps, however, i have stories. i got kicked out of a teen wolf rp because of shipping shenanigans. and i have been harassed on glee rps (whom amongst us who was a part of those hasn’t), but i don’t remember the names, and they’re all long deactivated, so i don’t think it’d be juicy.

funny story about glee rp culture, though. there was a blog where people could submit shoutouts to characters, ships, and specific rp servers. sounds like a good idea, but a loooot of drama started because anonymous people would share things like “i hope [this ship] gets back together. i hate [current ship].” or they’d praise a handful of characters in one server, but others would get ignored, and people would quit because they’d feel under-appreciated. oh glee, you really were a swirling vortex of drama.

13. worst blorboficiation

if we’re talking fandom: i am genuinely annoying about this in one of the discord servers, but the blorbofication/baby girl-ifying of certain slytherin marauders-era characters.

i genuinely don’t care if you ship them. i wrote lesbian rosekiller, and i enjoyed the idea of them just being genuinely unhinged and used it to practice writing body horror.

but this culture of “oh they’re so soft” where they all get turned into a gang of hot topic queers who feel like the embodiment of the uwu face has me ???? and then people will act like it’s canon. like anyone who thinks that barty crouch jr wasn’t living out “love simon” is lying to themself.

i get that this has happened since the dawn of time (esp with white male characters). but the characters who get it usually are meant to be torn in some way, are redeemed, or theoretically have the potential to be redeemed.

i just genuinely wish people would acknowledge that it’s wildly ooc. there’s nothing wrong with that! i think it can be really freeing. “this is basically original fiction, but i’m using familiar character names because it makes me feel more comfortable/creative, and i have a built-in audience for my work” is a valid approach to fanfic!

if we’re talking about me: i watch riverdale, and so i’m going with cheryl blossom. 

has she murdered an uncle (and pretended to feed him to other members of the family to blackmail them), played doll with her brother’s dead corpse, and tried to surprise her ex by being like, “let’s co-parent your child. i built them a room in my mansion”? absolutely.

but i love how crazy she is. and you can rip her and toni’s batshit toxic relationship out of my cold, dead hands.

"i'm not the same girl who burned down thornhill and cut off [my mom’s] oxygen" "sure you are" 10/10, flawless.

(also janice from the sopranos)

✨send me asks from the choose violence game✨

#ask #anonymous #long post #this is fun!! if you're reading this and debating sending some in please do