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genericpuff · 3 months

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Scamlords is at it again.

A few nights ago, there was a sudden blow-up in the /r/webtoons server showing a new announcement from Snailords -

For anyone unaware, Death : Rescheduled has been on mid-season hiatus since October. And it's now, and only now, that Snailords has suddenly decided the comic is ending after it returns, but readers can get an extra 20 episodes... if they fork over $1k in merch sales.

Now, this could be a lot worse. They could be threatening not to return to the series at all unless their readers hand over money. But considering it's practically just one degree away from that, it's still pretty nasty. Not to mention, the further they divulged in their reasoning around this "idea", the more confusing it got.

They also even revived their @snailordsrant account on IG which, for those of you who were there and can recall, was the same account they used to put one of their own fans on blast over some very mild criticism.

None of this makes any actual sense, for several reasons:

1.) I literally fail to see how getting $1k in less than 24 hours is worth shoving in an extra mini arc of 10 episodes if you don't even have it planned out. Why do that to your audience or to yourself? Why drag things out just to scrounge up an emergency $1k? Why not just be honest with your audience and run a GoFundMe or just say , "Hey everyone, I've run into some financial troubles, I would really appreciate it if you could FastPass my newest episodes or donate to my Patreon or buy some merch so I can cover the costs". It's really telling that this shithead doesn't have enough confidence in themselves or their audience that practically worships them that they have to resort to this kind of underhanded shit to get the money they need. I wanna make it clear that this is NOT like a Kickstarter stretch goal or anything that incentivizes readers to support their work, they're instead holding the length and future of their series over their audiences' head (which they've done before) for money. That's not an incentive, it's an ultimatum.

2.) Maybe I'm misreading / being stupid (someone pls explain if I'm missing something here) but I literally don't see how their comment about working 50 hours a week explains why they're suddenly getting their fans to pay out $1k worth of merch in less than 24 hours. For anyone who doesn't know, $1k per episode is an example Webtoons uses in its post discussing how they pay out creators (this came after the platform got called out 2 years ago for paying creators too little, there are undoubtedly creators getting paid less). And yet for some reason $1k is apparently the difference between 10 episodes and 20? How does that add up? And is the bit about them wanting to buy boba supposed to be a joke? Where's the punchline here?

3.) They say they have writer's block and they want to use the money to "motivate them", but then just a few slides later they say 10-15 episodes is what would make them the "happiest" so which is it? Do they want to write 10 episodes or do they want people to pay them to write 20 episodes so they can draw the fluff scenes that they apparently want to draw? If you have an ending planned out, why rush it or drag it out depending on how this "fundraiser" goes? Why not just write the ending you want to write that will serve your story best? Why shove in an extra mini arc that you don't even have full confidence in writing and then try to compare it to a "super expensive cake"? What are you doing? Speaking as someone who's had trouble getting motivated in the past, suddenly getting a month's rent worth of money to do it doesn't necessarily solve that, it just turns up the pressure, and if you're not someone who deals with pressure well, then you're more likely to wind up just burning out entirely rather than fulfilling that goal.

4.) The fact that they did, in fact, hit their goal just makes it all the shittier to think about because their audience is mostly made up of teenagers who worship the ground that they walk on. It's horrifying that they keep pulling these stunts with their audience, and getting away with it to boot - and Webtoons, as a company, keeps enabling it by allowing it to happen by hosting and promoting people like this.

Anyways, there's already a lot going on here that's sketchy, but then... they went and deleted their posts. At the time of this happening (as I was there to witness it all play out in real time) I assumed this meant that they had hit their $1k goal - especially as they had been showing their progress on their IG and they were already at $900 after just a couple hours - but it gave me a sinking feeling seeing them delete it because they had also been called out by some brave readers telling them that it wasn't exactly a good look to essentially blackmail their audience through their own content into giving them money.

Snailords deleting it gave me a stronger impression of "burying the evidence", especially now that they had the money. By all accounts, they could do whatever they wanted now.

So what did they decide to do?

. . . Huh?

Okay, take a second to actually think about what Snailords has done here. Because I know some of you will go "oh, it was for charity all along! that was nice of them!" but . . . I don't know about the legalities of collecting donation funds under false pretenses, but morally speaking, it's a really shitty thing to do. They stripped away the choices - limiting them to three - of what their readers could donate to, and what I think their readers don't understand - due to being mostly teenagers - is that they're tax-exempt individuals and they just unknowingly gave Snailords an easy $1k tax write-off. You really, really shouldn't collect donation funds like this without being honest, it's just a shitty thing to do, especially after you've already collected the money. It mostly just comes across as damage control on Snailords' part to make it seem like they were always planning to donate to charity, when in reality, if they wanted to donate to charity, they would have been honest about that at the start. Again, even if they wanted to do that from the start, it goes to show how little confidence they have in themselves or their audience that they have to stoop to methods like these instead of just doing it honestly.

And do you really think Snailords will actually do those extra episodes? Or donate that money? This is the same asshole who has manipulated their readers for money not once but twice, and now seems intent on doing it a third time just for the charm. This is the same person who practically sabotaged their own comic, Freaking Romance, because they apparently didn't like the romance genre and may as well have only done it for clout / views / etc.

What was especially odd - and I found this out from folks who actually read Death : Rescheduled (I do not) - was finding out that it wouldn't make sense for D : R to end in as many as 25 episodes, because apparently, the plot has basically just gotten going.

So it does seem like this is foreshadowing that D : R will wind up just like Freaking Romance, rushed into an ending that wasn't expected. And this, of course, has the people who read their work confused because D : R was supposed to be Snailords' passion project, their magnum opus, the project they wanted to do. So them holding the timing of an ending that shouldn't even be happening yet for ransom contradicts that original intention. Really, it just goes to show that Snailords has no passion, they're just in it purely for the money, to a degree that I can't even cheer them on for being a hustler because it's missing the honesty and integrity.

And of course, every single time Snailords finds a way to backpedal and take his audience for a ride, they hop right in without a single thought for themselves.

And no, none of this is to hate on the readers directly, I hold Snailords entirely responsible for this - they have an audience of impressionable, naive, gullible teenagers, and they know it, and take advantage of it every chance they get. It's why they weren't just honest about wanting to collect money for charity from the start. It's why they resorted to basically holding their own comic's progression for ransom during its midseason hiatus. It's why the deadline was 24 hours and why the posts are now gone.

Thankfully the Internet does what it does - any evidence that Snailords was trying to bury is now all over reddit, and hey, just for good measure, here's a post on Tumblr that's been sitting in my drafts for days now, days after people have already seemingly stopped talking about it. Don't let anyone bury or forget about the stunts Snailords is pulling on their audience, with a platform that they've been consistently given by Webtoons, because that's what they want you to do.

#snailords #webtoon critical

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dailyadventureprompts · 7 months

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Tableskills: Creating Dread

I've often had a lot of problems telling scary stories at my table, whether it be in d&d or other horror focused games. I personally don't get scared easily, especially around "traditionally horrifying" things so it's hard for me to recreate that experience in others. Likewise, you can't just port horror movie iconography into tabletop and expect it to evoke genuine fear: I've already spoken of being bored out of my mind during the zombie apocalypse, and my few trips into ravenloft have all been filled with similar levels of limp and derivative grimdark.

It took me a long time (and a lot of video essays about films I'd never watched) to realize that in terms of an experience fear is a lot like a joke, in that it requires multiple steps of setup and payoff. Dread is that setup, it's the rising tension in a scene that makes the revelation worth it, the slow and literal rising of a rollercoaster before the drop. It's way easier to inspire dread in your party than it is to scare them apropos of nothing, which has the added flexibility of letting you choose just the right time to deliver the frights.

TLDR: You start with one of the basic human fears (guide to that below) to emotionally prime your players and introduce it to your party in a initially non-threataning manor. Then you introduce a more severe version of it in a way that has stakes but is not overwhelmingly scary just yet. You wait until they're neck deep in this second scenario before throwing in some kind of twist that forces them to confront their discomfort head on.

More advice (and spoilers for The Magnus Archives) below the cut.

Before we go any farther it's vitally important that you learn your party's limits and triggers before a game begins. A lot of ttrpg content can be downright horrifying without even trying to be, so it's critical you know how everyone in your party is going to react to something before you go into it. Whether or not you're running an actual horror game or just wanting to add some tension to an otherwise heroic romp, you and your group need to be on the same page about this, and discuss safety systems from session 0 onwards.

The Fundamental Fears: It may seem a bit basic but one of the greatest tools to help me understand different aspects of horror was the taxonomy invented by Jonathan Sims of The Magnus Archives podcast. He breaks down fear into different thematic and emotional through lines, each given a snappy name and iconography that's so memorable that I often joke it's the queer-horror version of pokemon types or hogwarts houses. If we start with a basic understanding of WHY people find things scary we learn just what dials we need turn in order to build dread in our players.

Implementation: Each of these examples is like a colour we can paint a scene or encounter with, flavouring it just so to tickle a particular, primal part of our party's brains. You don't have to do much, just something along the lines of "the upcoming cave tunnel is getting a little too close for comfort" or "the all-too thin walkway creaks under your weight ", or "what you don't see is the movement at the edge of the room". Once the seed is planted your party's' minds will do most of the work: humans are social, pattern seeking creatures, and the hint of danger to one member of the group will lay the groundwork of fear in all the rest.

The trick here is not to over commit, which is the mistake most ttrpgs make with horror: actually showing the monster, putting the party into a dangerous situation, that’s the finisher, the punchline of the joke. It’s also a release valve on all the pressure you’ve been hard at work building.

There’s nothing all that scary about fighting a level-appropriate number of skeletons, but forcing your party to creep through a series of dark, cobweb infested catacombs with the THREAT of being attacked by undead? That’s going to have them climbing the walls.

Let narration and bad dice rolls be your main tools here, driving home the discomfort, the risk, the looming threat.

Surprise: Now that you’ve got your party marinating in dread, what you want to do to really scare them is to throw a curve ball. Go back to that list and find another fear which either compliments or contrasts the original one you set up, and have it lurking juuuust out of reach ready to pop up at a moment of perfect tension like a jack in the box. The party is climbing down a slick interior of an underdark cavern, bottom nowhere in sight? They expect to to fall, but what they couldn't possibly expect is for a giant arm to reach out of the darkness and pull one of them down. Have the party figured out that there's a shapeshifter that's infiltrated the rebel meeting and is killing their allies? They suspect suspicion and lies but what they don't expect is for the rebel base to suddenly be on FIRE forcing them to run.

My expert advice is to lightly tease this second threat LONG before you introduce the initial scare. Your players will think you're a genius for doing what amounts to a little extra work, and curse themselves for not paying more attention.

Restraint: Less is more when it comes to scares, as if you do this trick too often your players are going to be inured to it. Try to do it maybe once an adventure, or dungeon level. Scares hit so much harder when the party isn't expecting them. If you're specifically playing in a "horror" game, it's a good idea to introduce a few false scares, or make multiple encounters part of the same bait and switch scare tactic: If we're going into the filthy gross sewer with mould and rot and rats and the like, you'll get more punch if the final challenge isn't corruption based, but is instead some new threat that we could have never prepared for.

Art

#tableskills #horror #spooky #halloween #the magnus archives #dm tip #dm advice #dm tips

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mxlti-fand0m-imaginess · 5 months

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Enchanted // JJ Maybank

request: none!

prompts: none!

summary: midsummer’s was the same thing every year, the same old boring party with the same old boring stuck up rich people that your parents considered their friends. but this year, something changes. there’s someone new there, and he ends up changing your life for more than one night.

warnings: language, reader overthinking, rafe momentarily being an asshole, slightly insecure reader, slightly insecure jj, a bit of ooc jj (he gets flustered and blushes), allusions to alcohol consumption, teeny tiny fight that gets resolved very quickly, readers dad being a smidgen manipulative (nothing that bad), allusions to sex but nothing explicit

word count: 5.9k

a/n: gn!reader, kook!reader, reader is implied to be shorter than jj (which i mean isn’t really that hard)

join my taglist!

There I was again tonight

Forcing laughter, faking smiles

Same old tired, lonely place

“And so then I said, hey wait! That’s my boat!”

You forced a laugh at the punchline to a joke you didn’t quite understand, knowing that you had to maintain a happy and invested front every time your parents dragged you off to one of these extravagant parties that you had always held a distaste for. It was always the same, your mother treated you like her own personal dress up doll, shoving you into expensive clothes that you hated and perfecting your appearance just so that she could present you to her friends.

You were always expected to be on your best behavior, kind and polite, invested in conversations that you didn’t care about with people that you cared about even less. Midsummers was always the worst. Your parents were usually uptight and controlling during these fancy events, but during Midsummers, their Kook craziness was practically tripled. It was suffocating, and frankly, exhausting.

Everyone around you was fake, and you knew that. No one really cared about each other or anything actually going on in each other’s lives. It was all a show, a way to brag to each other about their possessions and show off their wealth. It was sickening. The other side of the island was struggling to even afford food and shelter, and here you were, surrounded by selfish people with endless riches who wouldn’t even think about helping someone else with their money.

You politely excused yourself, stepping away from the conversation and walking off to an empty section of the porch wrapped around the Island Club. You needed a break, if you had to keep up that perfect little rich kid act any longer, you knew that you would snap. And you didn’t want to deal with the disappointed looks from your parents and the pitying looks from others at your building outburst. So you decided to walk away, in order to collect yourself you had to go somewhere where you could be alone.

Or at least, you thought you were alone.

Walls of insincerity

Shifting eyes and vacancy

Vanished when I saw your face

All I can say is it was enchanting to meet you

You heard him before you saw him. Hurried footsteps and curses mumbled under his breath. You couldn’t recognize his voice, which intrigued you because you knew everyone from your side of the island, and you knew everyone at Midsummers. And yet, there was someone new approaching you. A stranger. And when you turned to face him, your interest was piqued even more.

He was gorgeous. Unkempt blond hair and the bluest eyes you had ever seen. You felt your heart stop for a moment as you just looked at him. He didn’t seem to notice you yet, and you weren’t sure if you wanted him to, not wanting the trance he had set you in to be broken.

He was wearing something that almost looked like the uniform the waiters wore, but there were noticeable differences. The coloring of the vest was off, and he wore a bowtie instead of the ties worn by the rest of the waiters. He didn’t belong there, but he was trying to make it seem like he did.

Most of the people there didn’t spare a second glance to the “help”, which would probably explain how his uninvited presence had so far been undetected. But you were different, you noticed people and you noticed things about them. You saw everyone as a person and gave them the attention they deserved, unlike the shallow Kooks who looked down on anyone who didn’t live in Figure 8.

He kept walking towards you, still blissfully unaware of your presence. The more you looked at him, the more you felt yourself wanting to know everything about him. Everything in your life was a certainty, everything perfectly formulated and planned by people who weren’t you. Just once in your life, you wanted something different. You wanted to experience something where you wouldn’t know what was going to happen next. And for some reason, you felt like that experience would be him.

Your eyes whispered, "Have we met?"

Across the room, your silhouette

Starts to make its way to me

The stranger finally looked up, his eyes catching yours, and he froze. He had just seemed like he was in a hurry, panicking about something, but all of that seemed to fade away when he looked into your eyes.

You watched him curiously, a smile dancing across your face at his dazed expression. He walked over to you, slower than he had been walking before, a smile of fake confidence on his face. You took a few steps forward to meet him, your eyes still lost in his.

“H-hi. I’m JJ,” the stranger said, noticeably wincing when he stuttered.

You simply smiled back at him, your heart pounding inside your chest from how close you were to him. “Y/n.”

He opened his mouth to respond when you both heard a group of people running in your direction. His eyes widened in panic as he looked back over his shoulder. You leaned to the side to see what he was looking at, and you scrunched your face up in disgust at the sight of Rafe, Topper, and Kelce. Of course it was them. Could they just go one night without starting a fight or harassing someone who just looked at them in the wrong way?

“This is probably gonna sound really strange, but can you hide me? Or misdirect them? Just something, please?”

You glance back at his panicked face, and you know what was about to happen. Rafe and his two little sidekicks were about to jump the poor guy, who probably didn’t even do anything to provoke them. You nodded and grabbed JJ’s arm, leading him over to the railing on the porch.

“Jump down, hide in the bushes. I’ll get rid of them.”

JJ looked relieved and smiled gratefully, doing as you said and hiding himself in the bushes the best that he could. You turned around and pretended to be busy on your phone when Rafe, Topper, and Kelce finally approached you.

“Y/n! Hey!” Rafe said, a fake smile plastered on his face. “You didn’t happen to see someone running through here, did you? Pogue, fake waiter uniform?”

You pretended to think for a moment before nodding. “Oh yeah! He just ran through here about a minute ago. He jumped over the railing and ran towards the water, probably to a boat or something. He’s probably gone by now. Why? Did something happen?”

Rafe clenched his jaw in frustration as he looked past you towards the shore. “Not yet. We probably scared him away. Oh well. We’ll get him next time.”

You nodded and forced a smile, pretending to be pleased with that response. The three of them walked away, all looking very pissed off, and you waited until they were out of sight to turn back to where JJ was hiding.

“Okay, the coast is clear. They’re gone,” you said, smiling softly when you saw JJ crawling out of the bushes.

You reached down to grab his hands, helping him back onto the porch. He brushed the dirt off of his clothes before looking back up at you and smiling.

The playful conversation starts

Counter all your quick remarks

Like passing notes in secrecy

“So, what’d you do to piss them off? Breathe near them?”

JJ laughed at your words, a smile overtaking his face. He was beautiful, and you knew right then and there, that you would do anything to see him smile.

“Surprisingly, nothing. Usually I tend to provoke them, accidentally or not, but this time all I did was walk by them and then they were trynna jump me!”

“You probably did it wrong. Rafe is very particular about how people walk. You do it wrong, he’ll beat the shit out of you,” you said in a faux serious tone, barely keeping a straight face as you spoke.

As soon as you finished speaking, you and JJ bursted into laughter, despite what you said not being that funny. It was just something about him, just being with him made you feel lighter than air, his smile infectious and his laughter contagious. And you had a sneaking suspicion that he felt the same way about you.

“Y’know, you’re not like any other Kook that I’ve met before,” JJ remarked, slightly out of breath from his fit of laughter.

You raised an eyebrow at his words. “In a good way, I hope?”

“Definitely,” JJ said, stepping closer to you. “You’re the first one I’ve met that’s treated me like a person, not like something less than.”

“Everyone deserves to be treated like a person. It drives me insane when I see the way that even my own parents talk to people who they deem less than us. It’s such bullshit.”

“You really aren’t like the rest of the Kooks. What’re you doing here then? At this fancy Kook party with all of the fancy Kook snobs?”

You groaned and rolled your eyes, the topic already annoying you. “Trust me, definitely not my decision. My parents drag me along to all their little parties, showing me off like I’m some prized show dog. I hate it.”

“So why don’t you just leave?”

You sighed longingly. “I wish I could. This is as close to leaving as I can get. My parents would lose their shit if they found out that I left.”

“If they really annoy you so much, why do you care what they think?”

And it was enchanting to meet you

All I can say is I was enchanted to meet you

Before you could even get the chance to think about a response, you heard your father calling your name. You looked over to see him standing near the now almost empty dance floor, searching for you in the dwindling crowd.

You turned back to JJ with a frown, and he already seemed to know what you were going to say.

“It’s fine, I get it. You have to go, and you don’t want to be seen with me. Am I right?”

You shook your head, reaching forward to grab his hands, his touch almost electrifying you. “It’s not that. I mean, yes I have to go. But, I don’t care about being seen with you. It’s just, I don’t know what my dad is going to say to you if he does see us. He’s… judgemental. And that’s putting it lightly. I just don’t want you to have to deal with another one of his moods.”

JJ smiled softly at your words. You weren’t ashamed of him, you were trying to protect him. Not that you really needed to, he could handle himself and he was definitely used to dealing with unkind comments from people who looked down on him. But just knowing that you were trying to protect him from all of that made his heart flutter.

“Y/n!” your father called again, seeming a bit more impatient than he had been the previous time.

You noticed the pen sticking out of JJ’s pocket and grabbed it, taking his hand in yours and writing your number on his arm.

“I’d like to see you again, if you’d like that too. You’re the first real person I’ve ever met.”

Before JJ could respond, you leaned up and pressed a kiss to his cheek. You pulled away and smiled at his dazed expression before turning around and running over to your parents. You had barely spoken to him for more than five minutes, but there was an undeniable chemistry between the two of you. And you knew that you were definitely going to see him again.

This night is sparklin', don't you let it go

I'm wonderstruck, blushin' all the way home

I'll spend forever wonderin' if you knew

I was enchanted to meet you

“There you are! Where have you been? Your mother and I were worried sick!” your father said, rushing over to you when he saw you approaching and immediately pulling you into a tight hug.

You fought the urge to roll your eyes at his dramatics. You had only been gone for ten, maybe fifteen minutes at the most. That’s hardly long enough to warrant worry, and you knew he was overreacting in an attempt to make you feel guilty about wandering off. And his manipulation used to work on you, before you finally became aware of what he was doing, learning how to perfect your responses to give him what he wanted, without allowing yourself to fall victim to his mind games. It wasn’t like he was a particularly bad father, he was just overprotective and set in his ways, and he thought that the only way that you could succeed in life was to be perfect, which is exactly how he was trying to make you.

“Sorry! I hadn’t realized that I was gone for so long. But… I met a guy,” you said vaguely, trying to introduce the possibility of a new presence in your life as gently as possible, and without revealing that he wasn’t the type of boy your father was expecting you to be interested in.

“Oh? And who is this mystery man?”

You smiled, your mind getting lost in thoughts of JJ. “Well I could tell you, but then he wouldn’t be a mystery.”

The lingering question kept me up

2AM, who do you love?

I wonder 'til I'm wide awake

You laid on your bed, staring at the ceiling, your mind racing with thoughts as the memories from just a few hours ago played on loop inside your head. Now it was two in the morning, and you couldn’t stop yourself from overthinking even if you tried. Was JJ actually into you like you thought he was? Were you just misreading everything? Maybe he was just looking for a friend, and you had gone and scared him away with a kiss.

You sat up, groaning in frustration. There was no way that you were going to get to sleep now. Your thoughts had scared you awake, and now you couldn’t stop your mind from wandering even further. What if he was already with someone? That wasn’t an entirely unreasonable thought. Only a few minutes spent with him and you already thought he was perfect. Why wouldn’t someone else feel the same way?

“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” you muttered to yourself, opening your phone to check your messages to see if you had missed something.

But of course, there was nothing. He hadn’t texted you. Granted, it had been close to midnight when you got home and it had only been a few hours since you met him, but in your anxiety-filled state, you couldn’t help but think that you blew it. You either drove him away or made a move on a taken man. And you were likely never going to see him again.

Unless…

And now, I'm pacing back and forth

Wishing you were at my door

I'd open up and you would say

"Hey, it was enchanting to meet you"

All I know is I was enchanted to meet you

You stood up, throwing the covers off of your legs, and started to pace back and forth in front of your bed, your thoughts racing as you fell into a spiral. Maybe he did feel the exact same way as you. He had stuttered when he introduced himself, maybe he was just really nervous around you. If he was nervous, then it would make sense that he hasn’t called or texted you yet. Maybe he’s just too scared too!

You paused, grimacing when you realized how out of control your thoughts had gotten. You had begun reading into every single little thing, stretching details and fabricating stories, creating something out of nothing. You didn’t know how he felt, and realistically, you had no way of knowing unless he told you. And now it was almost three in the morning, he was probably asleep and you wouldn’t hear anything from him at least until the sun was up.

You sat down on your bed, feeling your mind slow down as you came back to reality. You knew you were overthinking, and that continuing to do so would only drive you mad. And yet, you couldn’t help yourself from imagining scenarios, daydreaming about what you wanted to happen and fantasizing about what-ifs and maybes.

You knew it was impossible, but you wished JJ would show up at your front door. He would tell you that he felt that same spark that you felt, and that it wasn’t all in your head. The two of you would walk down the shore, talking about anything and everything until the sun came up. Then he would walk you back to your door and just as you were about to walk inside, he’d grab your hand and spin you around, kissing you like you had never been kissed before.

You felt your stomach erupt into butterflies at just the thought of it. It all seemed so perfect. You knew that it wasn’t real, but maybe, one day, it could be.

This night is sparklin', don't you let it go

I'm wonderstruck, blushin' all the way home

I'll spend forever wonderin' if you knew

“Ooo, someone’s all giddy. What’s going on with you? Finally meet your Prince Charming?” Sarah said teasingly as she sat down beside you in the sand.

You were at a kegger on the beach, far from your usual scene, but you knew that JJ would probably be there. Which is why you said yes when Sarah invited you, making her squeal in excitement about you finally agreeing to come to a party with her. And now you were sat by yourself, your eyes scanning the crowd as you looked for the most beautiful guy you had ever seen.

You smiled, feeling your face heat up in a blush. “You could say that…”

Sarah’s eyes widened as she grabbed your arm and shook you with excitement. She had been continuously trying to set you up with someone, knowing how much you longed to not be alone. Every single date had been a disaster, each Kook she had chosen for you just as insufferable as the last. She had practically given up hope, but here you were, almost giggling to yourself at just the thought of him.

“Really?! I need to know everything! Spill!”

You bit your lip as you smiled, feeling yourself grow continually more flustered the longer you thought about him. “You probably know him. His name is JJ. I met him a few days ago at Midsummers, and I just felt this spark. I gave him my number, but he hasn’t even texted yet. It’s probably not gonna go anywhere, but I thought that maybe I could find him here and try again.”

Sarah’s eyes widened in shock. “Oh my god! You’re the mystery person from Midsummers!”

“What…?” you asked, not following what Sarah was saying.

“John B told me about it. JJ met someone at Midsummers, you, and you wrote your number on his arm. He forgot to write your number down before he went surfing. Your number washed off! That’s why he hasn’t texted you, he can’t!”

“Wait, really? So, I didn’t scare him away or something?”

“No! He’s practically been beating himself up over it. I heard him say that this was the first time he believed in love at first sight! C’mon, I know where he is! Let’s go!”

Sarah stood up and grabbed your hand, pulling you to your feet, before she took off running towards where her new friends were, dragging you along behind her.

This night is flawless, don't you let it go

I'm wonderstruck, dancing around all alone

I'll spend forever wonderin' if you knew

I was enchanted to meet you

“JJ! JJ!” Sarah called as she approached them, capturing the attention of the blond boy, who looked up when he heard his name being called.

JJ stood up and walked over to Sarah, not noticing your presence just yet. “What? Is something wrong?”

Sarah shook her head and smiled, stepping aside so JJ could see you better. His eyes widened when he saw you, and you could almost see a faint blush painting his cheeks.

“Found them! I’ll let you two catch up. But just know, if you hurt them, I will kill you,” Sarah said, trying her best to appear threatening.

“So… lost my number, huh?” you asked, a teasing smile on your face.

JJ smiled sheepishly, pulling off his baseball cap and running a hand through his hair. “Yeah… guess you could say I had a bit of a blond moment.”

You laughed softly, taking a step closer to him. “I was going crazy. Thought I scared you off or something.”

JJ shook his head, smiling at you once more. “I don’t think that’s even possible.”

“I should hope so. According to Sarah, you said it was love at first sight.”

JJ’s eyes widened as he face went red with embarrassment. “She- uhm… she said that? Did she say anything else…?”

“No… Why? Something else I should know?” you grinned, inching closer to him until your hands were brushing together.

“Uhh, no I don’t think so. Nothing that important,” JJ said, trying to avert his gaze from yours, but ultimately being unable able to keep his eyes off of you for that long.

“I think we should pick up where we left off. Y’know, since we were so rudely interrupted last time.”

JJ smiled, his nerves slowly subsiding. “That sounds like a great idea.”

This is me praying that

This was the very first page

Not where the storyline ends

JJ moved closer to you, one of his hands resting against your waist as the other came up to cup the side of your face. You wrapped your arms around his neck, pulling him even closer. There wasn’t any more space between the two of you, it was becoming impossible to tell where he ended and where you began. And before you even had the chance to start overthinking, JJ leaned in.

Time stopped when his lips touched yours. Everything around you disappeared, fading into the background. Nothing else mattered but you and him, and this moment you were sharing. It was magical. That was the only way you could think of to describe it. His lips moving against yours gently, you could practically feel him telling you everything he hadn’t said yet. It was truly unlike anything you had experienced before, just like you had dreamed it would be.

“Wow,” you whispered, not realizing that you had voiced your feelings aloud.

“My thoughts exactly,” JJ said, resting his forehead against yours.

The sound of cheers and applause broke you and JJ out of your moment, and you turned to see his friends and Sarah cheering at the two of you for kissing, causing JJ’s face to turn red, which he then tried to hide in your neck.

“Never had you pegged as the shy type, JJ,” John B said, laughing at his friend’s embarrassment.

“I’m not,” JJ mumbled against your neck, pulling you closer to him.

You laughed softly, running your fingers through his hair. “Could’ve fooled me.”

“Oh, shut up,” he replied, a slight whine in his voice.

“Make me.”

“Gladly.”

And JJ kissed you again.

My thoughts will echo your name

Until I see you again

These are the words I held back

As I was leaving too soon

“I should get going soon. I have a curfew,” you said, smiling apologetically at JJ.

“You’re Kook royalty, of course you have a curfew,” JJ said, the usual amount of snark in his voice without any malice present.

“You better not lose my number this time,” you warned, poking him on the shoulder.

He grinned. “Already got it saved. And besides, even if I did happen to lose it again, I could always get it from Sarah.”

You rolled your eyes and smiled at him, already completely smitten for the boy you’ve only spent a few hours with. You weren’t normally like this, you almost never fell that hard for someone that fast, but things were different with JJ. He just had some kind of effect on you, and you just couldn’t help falling head over heels for him.

You kissed him quickly before standing up to walk away, when you felt him grab your hand and pull you back, spinning you into his lap so he could kiss you again. Your hands rested against his neck as you kissed him back, feeling yourself getting lost in the moment. Until Sarah cleared her throat.

“Ahem. Parents. Curfew. Ten minutes. Any of this ringing a bell?”

She sounded frustrated, but you knew she wasn’t actually upset. Reluctantly, you pulled away from JJ, pressing one more quick kiss to his lips before standing up and walking over to Sarah.

“Alright, grumpy. Let’s go home,” you said, elbowing Sarah in the side as you burst into a fit of laughter.

You started walking away with her, only to turn around and look back at JJ one more time. “I’ll see you soon, handsome.”

You could barely contain your smile at the way his cheeks turned red from your words.

I was enchanted to meet you

Please, don't be in love with someone else

Please, don't have somebody waiting on you

Please, don't be in love with someone else

Please, don't have somebody waiting on you

“Is it true that you’re dating JJ Maybank?” your friend Scarlet asked you, shock evident on her face.

“Well… not exactly dating. Yet,” you replied, a lovestruck smile on your face.

“You’ve heard about his reputation, right?” she asked, donning a concerned frown.

Your smile faltered and you scrunched your brows in confusion. “Reputation?”

Her eyes widened. “You really don’t know?”

You sighed, glaring over at her. “Just tell me.”

“He’s a player. Every time he gets involved with someone, he sleeps with them and then dumps them the next day. I just don’t want you to get your heart broken when the same thing happens to you.”

Everything fell silent around you as her words replayed in your head. Was she right? Was that really all JJ wanted from you? You thought there was a connection, something real between the two of you. God, how could you have been so stupid?!

“I- I have to go,” you mumbled, standing up and walking away from the bonfire you were sat at with your friends, stumbling slightly in your daze.

Scarlet called out to you, but you couldn’t make out what she said. You just kept walking until you found your bike, mounting it and pedaling all the way home. Your mind wandered over the memories of your two short days with JJ. Everything had been moving so fast. How could you have thought there was something real? Of course that’s all he wanted from you. That’s all guys ever wanted from you.

You got to your house, letting your bike fall to the ground as you walked towards the porch. You had almost made it to the door when you noticed something out of the corner of your eye. A red motorcycle. One that definitely didn’t belong to either of your parents.

You paused your movements and turned to look at it, suddenly noticing the person standing next to it. JJ. What was he doing here? Hadn’t he already done enough? Maybe he was here to finally end it, getting out before you got too attached.

“Hey!” he called out, walking over to you with a smile that you didn’t return.

Your lips turned down into a pout as you gazed at him, forcing out a meek, “Hi,” in response.

This night is sparklin', don't you let it go

I'm wonderstruck, blushin' all the way home

I'll spend forever wonderin' if you knew

JJ finally reached you, his hand coming up to rest against your cheek.

“What’s wrong? Why do you look so sad, beautiful?”

You huffed, gently pushing his hand away from you. “What do you want?”

JJ put his hands up in defense as he looked at you in bewilderment. “Woah, someone’s hostile. What’s going on? Did I upset you or something?”

“I know what you’re trying to do. And it isn’t going to work.”

“Okay…,” JJ raised an eyebrow at you, still utterly confused. “And what exactly do you think I’m trying to do?”

“I heard about you from Scarlet. Your reputation. How you sleep with people and then ghost them right after. Is that really all I am to you? Another chance for a hookup?”

JJ let out a puff of air, looking slightly deflated. “Alright, I may have done stuff like that in the past, but that was only because I didn’t really care about any of them.”

“Wow. You’re really helping your case here.”

JJ groaned in exasperation, running his fingers through his hair frustratedly. “No, what I meant was… that’s all they were. Hookups. Both sides knew that and didn’t care. But with you… it’s different.”

Your tough demeanor softened slightly at his words and you took a tentative step towards him. “How so?”

“I- I actually care about you. I have feelings for you. I’ve never felt like this for someone before. It’s all new and terrifying, but you’re worth it all. I don’t want to just use you for a one night stand, or anything like that. I want you and I want to be with you for as long as you’ll let me.”

JJ’s expression softened as he continued to look at you, his eyes glistening with unshed tears. You smiled softly, reaching up to place your hand against his cheek. JJ put his hand on top of yours, leaning into your touch. Your heart warmed at the sight.

“I want to be with you too. So badly. I guess I just got scared when I heard all of that because I didn’t want it to be true. I didn’t want to be just another meaningless night to you.”

“You could never be meaningless to me. You’re so much more than that. You’re everything.”

This night is flawless (Please, don't be in love with someone else)

Don't you let it go

I'm wonderstruck (Please, don't have somebody waiting on you)

Dancing around all alone

“Are you sure about this? What if they don’t like me?” you asked, biting your lip nervously as you glanced up at JJ.

He simply smiled and leaned down to kiss you, immediately washing away all of your worries with just one touch. It’d been a month since you and JJ first met, and now you were finally official. The only thing left was for him to introduce you to his friends, who you only met once at a party, while they were all wasted. This was your chance for a do over, and you wanted everything to be perfect.

“You’re my significant other, of course they’ll like you! And even if they don’t, which would never ever happen, I’ll make them like you. So really, you have nothing to worry about either way.”

You smiled at him, trying to calm your nerves as you gripped his hand tightly. “I hope you’re right.”

“I am right. Trust me. Now, c’mon. They’re waiting,” JJ said, smiling excitedly as he led you over to John B’s backyard where everyone was sitting around a fire pit.

“There you are, man. Thought you got lost or something,” John B said, a joking grin on his face.

He finally took notice of you standing beside JJ and furrowed his brows in confusion. Apparently he hadn’t remembered meeting you at that kegger.

“Who’s-,” John B started, only to get cut off by Sarah.

“Y/n!” she cheered excitedly, standing up and rushing over to hug you.

You hugged her back, relieved that you had at least one friend there. Sarah let you go and turned back to the group.

“Guys, this is y/n. Y/n, this is everyone!”

“Wha- hey! I wanted to introduce them!” JJ said, pouting at Sarah.

You giggled and turned to face him, kissing his cheek and instantly putting a smile back on his face.

“Woah! Okay, when did this happen?” Kie asked, looking between you and JJ in shock.

“So, you guys remember the person I met at Midsummers?” JJ asked, a giddy smile on his face.

“Yeah, the one who’s number you lost by being an idiot,” Pope said, not following where JJ was going.

“Well, here they are!” he said, wrapping an arm around you and pulling you into him.

“What?! How?! You said you lost their number,” Pope asked in shock.

“You can thank me for that,” Sarah said, smiling proudly at her actions. “Y/n agreed to come with me to a kegger for once, and then I found out it was only because they were looking for JJ. I gave them each others’ numbers and the rest is history.”

I'll spend forever (Please, don't be in love with someone else)

Wonderin' if you knew

I was enchanted to meet you

“Hey JJ?” you asked, lifting your head from its place on his chest.

The two of you were lying on a hammock in John B’s backyard. Everyone else had fallen asleep already, leaving just the two of you alone in a peaceful silence.

“Yeah?” He tilted his head to look down at you, his eyes blinking sleepily.

“I love you. I- I know it’s really early and all, but I do. And I just thought you should know.”

JJ’s eyes widened in surprise, and you took that as a bad reaction, instantly panicking and trying to take back your words.

“Uhm- what I meant was… I mean, what I was really trying to say… I- I didn’t-,” you rambled, JJ cutting you off by placing his hand over your mouth.

“Hey. None of that now. I- I love you too. I’m just not used to hearing someone say that they love me. Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever heard that before. At least, not from someone who actually meant it. Except from these guys, but still…” JJ smiled awkwardly, feeling himself begin to ramble.

You placed your hands on his cheeks and leaned in to kiss him, pouring all of your love for him into your actions and making sure he could feel just how much you really loved him.

“Well I love you, JJ Maybank. And I mean it.”

He smiled up at you, hearts in his eyes, and he pulled you back down for another kiss.

“I don’t even wanna imagine what my life would’ve been like if I hadn’t met you.”

You smiled at his words, leaning in to press a kiss to his cheek.

“You’re the best thing in my life, JJ. And the only good thing to ever come from Midsummers,” you said, laughing softly at your words.

“I love you,” JJ said, wrapping his arms around you and pulling you back into his embrace.

Please, don't be in love with someone else

Please, don't have somebody waiting on you

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yuurei20 · 4 months

Note

hi hi! i wanna start off this ask with thanking you for all your translations and comparisons! they're all so interesting to read and really help with putting the characters' personalities into perspective. i was rereading the heartslabyul manga and noticed that ace seemed to think the title of magic-less prefect was cool while in the game he was more neutral and simply stated they must be the first at nrc? is the direct translation perhaps more positive? thank you in advance!

Hello hello!! You are too kind, thank you very much m(_ _)m

And thank you so much for this question, it was fascinating to look into!

I went through the game, manga and novel for the scene you refer to, and compared what we see:

Ace's original dialogue and the EN translation are almost identical here (just with the removal of a プッ sound at the beginning, insinuating that he is holding back laughter), where he comments on the player character being maybe NRC's first-ever magicless prefect.

His follow-up line is where things begin to deviate:

Original Game: Nice, that's cool. A prefect who can't use magic! Original Manga: Nice, a prefect who can't use magic! That's cool! English Manga: A prefect who can't use magic. I like it! It's so cool.

English Game: But sure, why not? Whatever works!

While Ace's positive approval from original game and manga was kept in the English-manga adaptation, for some reason it was toned down to "whatever works" in the English game (this line does not exist in the novel). Nice catch!

I also compared Ace's earlier interaction with the prefect across the two translations (plus the manga and novel) to see what deviations there might be, and in that case the English-language adaptation of the game is perfectly accurate to the original:

The original- and English-language manga have slightly different phrasing in this scene (and Deuce is there, whereas he isn't in the game or novel), but the overall feeling is the same:

- "Only the chosen ones are allowed to enroll in this academy. You didn’t have what it takes." - "Are you lecturing me? I kinda think that’s super annoying." - "I’m out of here. I have class."

The biggest change in this scene is in the original novel, where Ace is even meaner:

- "Getting the attention of everyone in school, and then the perfect punchline: you’re a magicless, disappointing, nobody." - "What is with you? Don’t you have any pride?" - "Tried talking to you just to tease you a bit, but this is boring. Do your best with that monster, for the rest of us—and with your cleaning."

And this is possibly because we get a more detailed look into Ace's underlying issue with the prefect in the novel:

"‘I’m saying, I was wrong. I might have said some horrible things to you because I didn’t know your situation. All I heard was there was someone in the school who doesn’t even have any magic, so I thought you’d forced your way in or something, while the rest of us all had to get in on our own merit. I thought it wasn’t fair, so I got a little pissed off.’

The words leave Ace in a rush, fast and awkward, and then he hangs his head. ‘I’m sorry.’

Then Ace lifts his head again just slightly, giving Yuuya a glance.

‘…if you apologize then you get forgiven, right?’"

(The "Meeting Ace" scene has now been added to the overall compilation of translations from the first novel!)

#twstask #twisted wonderland #Ace Trappola

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fob4ever · 1 year

Text

pete on the tuna for toast podcast 3.2.23

link

he tries to play golf once a week.

pete and the host talk about golf for a bit (they lost me here)

talks about the album title: "the parentheses being around the "for"- there is a little bit of "so much stardust"- i think about it in the way like- and it's like the dumbest thing, but everybody is stardust- everyone's these different molecules and carbon, former stars, and i think about that when i think about how different everybody on the planet is. we're all kind of the same still. and there's some relief in that."

pete: "love from the other side going number one after 17 years of our first appearance on the chart is like, the most fall out boy way to do it of all time. couldn't have done it way more than the way we did do it."

pete mostly writes lyrics on paper and on the notes app. sometimes if he's driving he'll have whoever's the passenger write it down for him. he doesn't do voice notes because he doesn't "think in those terms".

when they were writing smfsd, they had friends telling them that they should just release swgd 2.0, that it was the perfect time for it, but pete thought that was wrong and that it was "exactly not the time for it". he didn't want to do a retread, and he feels that when artists try to recapture the early magic it's just not possible. he thinks about when fob/mcr/patd first got big, green day felt like the position fob is in now, how GD had been a band for 20 years and they made a record that pete felt was adjacent to what they were doing & reminded people why green day was so big & why they loved them, and thats what they were channelling during the writing of lftos/smfsd- how it can be adjacent to all the stuff that's happening, but it shouldnt be a retread and it shouldnt be chasing what is happening right now

pete's been watching the last of us :)

"with srar and mania, we were just surviving! there was a pop culture landscape not super friendly to bands [...] and now this is a chance where everything's cyclical, and we have a chance to lean in to being the band we were in a futuristic way."

talks about the early days of fob and how their dreams were always "one size too big" and how pete always has that and it "drives patrick a little crazy" but they "fuel each other in that regard"

interviewer: "is it healthy to still have that state of mind [despite fob's achievements and success]?" pete: "hmmm... what would my therapist say..........." girl..

pete's been trying to enjoy the journey more: "[the band] has been hanging out way more than we [used to], we've been going out to dinner, exploring cities together and i think it helped this record."

patrick doesnt live in LA anymore!

"this is the first record in a while that we were in the same room together, we hashed things out, we passed notebooks back and forth. [...] we're a band where we get into it with each other but we're also siloed off from each other, this was the first time in a while where there was no silos"

"any feelings of doing a throwback is a little stomach-churning for me" so true pete

pete retells the panic origin story of ryan making fun of fob lol

talks about taking panic under their wing and how there were only a couple of bands that took fob under their wing when they first started like less than jake and punchline, and how he always liked the spirit of that.. talks about the communal spirit & culture surrounding hiphop music: "why couldnt we do that?"

"to me, [decaydance] was like seinfeld, like, you never knew who was going to show up at the apartment on seinfeld- they all lived in the same building... and i always thought 'why couldn't there be a record label like that?'" that tweet thats like. why gabe saporta da bus driver 😭

#post the hangout pics.. NOW #sorry my recaps are so long! as much as possible i try not to paraphrase what they say/try to keep it as true to their og words as possible #recap

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bonzos-number-1-fan · 6 days

Text

TMAGP 16 Thoughts: Aave Maria

This was an interesting one. I don't think I loved it but I do think there is a surprising amount to dig into. I also think this is showing more of the form of TMP. A bigger focus on a rogue's gallery and unlike TMA is more more in the thick of it to start with. We're not piecing together an unseen world, we're in the world and getting our bearings.

Spoilers for episode 16 below the cut.

It's really great to see some immediate follow up on Alice's run in with Drowning Victim. I was a little worried it'd be something she pushes down and ignores like everything else in the job. Because she didn't I think there might be a change in her perspective. Previous she's been very uninvested in the specifics of the cases and now she's basically been in one I do wonder if it'll effect her work. We definitely saw more of a reaction from her from this incident than we've ever seen before. So I'm wondering where that will lead her. I'll also be interested to see how this ties back into the Institute. The Drowning Victim is obviously connected but it makes me think Connor Dyer (found in CHBD, see master sheet below) might not be her dead name. I wasn't a fan of the idea of both main protagonists having the same backstory but the way she alluded to the death of her parents here makes me think the Institute might have had something to do with it. Not that I think she knows that but that the narrative placement of it might be laying the groundwork for that connection to be revealed.

For the incident itself I don't have a load to get into I don't think. I thought it was pretty effective in showing Madame E to be kind of a tool but then giving us more and more reason to be sympathetic towards them. Ink5oul's first voiced appearance was remarkably understated too. I was expecting them to feature more here but I think I'm glad they didn't. As I mentioned there is more of a rouge's gallery here and with a couple of really loud characters already it's quite nice to see one more understated than that. They've got a bit of an M.O. forming here too. Part ironic "punishment", part graverobbing plagiarist. DIG. Which does lead me to wonder about how they'll end up kicking the bucket. It feels like a set up waiting for a punchline. The way they give the "clients" what they're after in a twisted sense has a lot of room for interesting stories so I'm interesting to see where that goes. It's also interesting just how similar this was to Daria's incident. Very similar incidents overall but to different ends. What I think is a more interesting concept in those is how it totally differs from the tattoo that showed up in Marked. The tattoo in both of Ink5oul's works have been afflictions on the tattooed but Marked's tattoo was something that affected those that viewed it. Whether that's a consequence of they're plagiarism or a different "school" of tattoo technique remains to be seen.

Also fun fact: from.vision.ruled really is a location in Highgate Cemetery. There is a map app called what3words that is a grid of 3 metre squares over the globe and then each square gets a three word code. It's so you can give a more precise location than something like an address or broad location. So in this case you don't need to say "Meet me outside the Circle of Lebanon in Highgate East" you can say "Meet me at from.vision.ruled" and get a more accurate location. It's great if you want to meet people where there isn't much or any signage, point people towards the entrances to places when it's not obvious from a address, and stuff like that.

Post-incident was really great too. It's lovely to see Lena be so clearly angry and lose her typical collected nature. Not only because it shows she's got range but because it really hammers home just how scary a character like Lady M. is going to be. Gwen not taking her shit for it is also great. I think bringing Lady M. to the OIAR as a power play was pushing it hard but I also think Lena treats Gwen like shit and needs a lesson or two as well. This power struggle they've got going is always captivating to see and I can't wait to see more of it.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Incident/CAT#R#DPHW Master Sheet (Now with terminology/theory cheat sheet)

DPHW Theory: 1565 is about where I was expecting this would end up. 1 in Death in an episode where someone died already seems to be a sticking point for people. I personally don't understand that particular framing. Every Power in TMA had a massive body count but only one of them was the Power about death, and not all of them focused on stuff that'd outright kill you. So while a person did die this episode it's not an episode about Death as a concept/theme/subject.

CAT# Theory: CAT1 is very interesting given how the other tattoos have been placed thus far. But I'm going to leave that for the time being. I've got an essay in the works about the current more common CAT# theory. Should be out over the weekend.

R# Theory: B seems about right for this. It's weird and publicised but, ostensibly, medically explainable. So it happened and we can agree it happened but it's just an unfortunate illness in the eyes of most.

Header talk: Tattoo (Influencer) -/- Cardiac is interesting in the same way the CAT# is so I'll leave some of that for later. What I do want to talk about in that subsection. Influencer as a subsection is intriguing because it's very unlike Smirke's methodology. That was fairly rigid but Influencer in this context is such a modern term that it implies this methodology is reacting to how things change and express more rapidly, or it's not as old as I think has been implied so far.

#the magnus protocol #tmagp #tmagp theory #tmagp speculation #klaus = kl4-u5

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ascendthisday · 2 years

Text

World On Fire

gif by veilofmegiddo

Pairing(s): Slash | Saul Hudson/Fem! Reader, (Implied) Slash | Saul Hudson/Myles Kennedy, Slash | Saul Hudson/Fem! Reader/Myles Kennedy, Myles Kennedy/Fem! Reader

Word Count: 3,300~

Info: Cuckholding, Vaginal Sex, Smut, Oral Sex (Fem Receiving), Creampie, RPF, Gential Piercings, Dirty Talk, Cock Shaming

Summary: Myles loves his wife. Myles loves his guitarist. He'd do anything for them, even if 'anything' means letting his guitarist fuck his wife while she sits in his lap.

Authors Note: hiii!!! I've finally decided to slowly move some of my tamer stuff onto tumblr so im trying to post a fic or two a day! everything posted here is already on my ao3 so if you want more or anything go there (all fics are linked via titles) ! that's all cuz this 1 is just kind of cute and sillyish but be warned im not THAT familiar w how the tumblr fic girlies want stuff formatted so this might be a little bumpy until i get it all figured out! be nice 2 me or whatever

"Just let me, let me have her one time," Slash whined. Now, he was no man to beg, he's Slash for God's sake! But he didn't want to disrespect Myles. He adored both Myles and his wife, his ever so gorgeous, wife which is why he's begging for one night to shoot his shot. Despite what it sounds like, he does not want to steal Myles' woman. He just wants a taste, and is it wrong to want to share with friends?

The brown-haired man simply stared back for seconds that elapsed into minutes. "Fine." were the final words that escaped him. This is exactly how Mr. Myles Motherfucking Kennedy ended up being the bottom slice of bread in this fucked up Hudson/Kennedy sandwich. His dear wife haphazardly splayed across his lap and part of Slash's, which would be innocent enough if the guitarist hadn't begged to fuck the same legs that were innocently thrown across his lap. Occasionally, she'd lean into Myles' ear and whisper dirty little things to him, babbling about the cute new underwear she had bought the day before, and then press a kiss to his ear.

Myles loved those sweet little kisses, always basking in the pure love they represented, but now, he felt almost dreadful. When a smile had yet to cross Myles' face, she knew something was wrong.

"Baby, hey, you feelin' particularly good?" she murmured into his ear once more. Seemingly caught in a trance, Myles snapped back to his usual gentle self and smiled at her, "I'm doing great, why? Do I look sick?" He questioned as the girl placed the back of her hand on his forehead and bit her lip for a moment. "No, no you're fine you just looked a little upset, that's all." She quipped and gently slid her hand into his.

"You know, they say there's an erogenous zone," Slash uttered, suddenly snaking his hands around the girl's leg, feeling up her calves "just up around the calf and behind the knee." He finished with a whisper as his fingers softly ghosted upon her skin. Something wasn't right. Yes, Slash is dirty and a little perverted but it was never serious. Now it sounded and felt so real. He lacked the sweet pink that dusted his cheeks when he grinned and goofed around. His sunglasses were nowhere to be found, only leaving a piercing stare in their wake. He was just different today.

Slowly, he found his hands trailing up the woman's legs, and following their path, he began to leave little kisses. She nervously giggled and leaned into Myles' ear once more. "Is this a joke? Am I missing the punchline?" She questioned, trying to lightly shake the guitarist's hands away from her legs with a little wiggle. "Just let it happen, okay? As long as you want it, I mean." Myles mumbled back, trying to promise that everything that may happen tonight is on her terms.

As the kisses he peppered along her legs got less and less innocent, his hands also busied themselves with slowly bunching up the pretty floral sundress she had worn on this fine August day around her waist. Though some parts of her were terrified, she had a husband for God's sake- a husband whose lap she's lounging in, every other part of her wanted this so much. Truth be told, she had always loved Slash but he was forever unattainable and just when he had gotten divorced and publically announced himself as back on the market, she had fallen head over heels for a particularly charming vocalist.

It's not like she was unhappy with Myles, she practically kissed the ground he walked on! It had always just been a little schoolgirl crush that she was pretty sure Slash was aware of. Sometimes while she was lost in her head, the guitarist had managed to get himself down on the floor and had pulled her with him. Now, she sat more directly in Myles' lap. "Hold these for me, will you Mr. Kennedy?" Slash teased from his position on the floor and tapped on the girl's legs. Myles obliged and helped to keep her legs thoroughly spread. His hands, which had been otherwise absent throughout this experience previously, stood firm in keeping her laid out.

Small nips and kisses blended on the girl's inner thighs and she felt herself grow wetter with every moment she stared down at the guitarist. His hands still ghosted along her legs and massaged their way up her midsection, just resting on her breasts.

"Myles? Be a dear and give me a hand here?" Slash gestured towards her underwear with one hand, the other still content on playing with her nipple through the sheer fabric of her dress. Myles shimmied the girl's underwear off, choosing to stuff it into his pocket instead of throwing it to the floor out of fear that some poor venue worker will be forced to dispose of it. "Oh, panty thief. That's dirty, Kennedy, I like it." The older man grinned up at both Kennedy's for a short moment before gasping as if all of the hair had been sucked out of his lungs.

"You're gorgeous. Genuinely, you have a pretty pussy." He drawled. Maybe it sounded stupid in hindsight, but at the moment it made the girl tingle from the top of her brain to the very bottom of her toes. She simply whined and rocked, or attempted to rock, her hips at the man. As much as she loved her husband, she began to spite him as their position currently made it difficult to squirm and gain friction, but maybe that's what Slash wanted. After all, this seemed to be a planned attack.

He placed many small kisses and bites along her inner thighs, all while Myles softly panted in her ear. Weirdly, he seemed to be getting off on this more than Slash was, despite him receiving the least affection. Perhaps Myles Kennedy is a cuck. Maybe he's got the most intense boner of his life from watching his best friend go down on his wife, so what? All he could see was the way his life partner squirmed and moaned at the curly head of hair between her legs.

Finally, Slash made his approach. He placed one sweet and simple kiss on her clit. That was it, just one teasing little kiss and it caused her to groan and throw her head back onto Myles' shoulder. She locked eyes with him and gave him a little kiss on the cheek.

Between her legs, the guitarist went to town, thriving in the jumbled words that flowed through the girl as he ate her out. He was thorough, lapping at her as if this were to be his final meal. Occasionally, the cold metal of his nose ring would touch her skin and she'd break a little more, longing to grab and pull on handfuls of his big curls. Like he could read her mind, Slash pulled away and muttered a calm "Keep your hands to yourself." before returning to the work at hand. She moaned in response and chose to grab handfuls of Myles' belt instead.

Slash's leather pants disgruntledly crinkled as he adjusted his position on the floor, curiously bringing a hand up to her clit and lightly smacking it. She curled upwards in surprise and reeled in the slight pain while releasing little moans and huffs. He just grinned. Though he chose not to hit the girl anymore, he stored the idea in his head, just in case this was to happen again. The bracelets that adorned his arms jingled as he slowly began to tease her entrance. Before choosing to finger the girl, he removed some of the thick rings on his fingers.

"Hold these, and don't you dare drop them." He grunted as he placed the rings between the girl's teeth, catching her in a moment of surprise as she hadn't noticed the way her mouth hung slightly open. His hands found their way back to her entrance and rather quickly inserted themselves inside her. He started with not one, but two thick fingers. Immediately, she bucked her hips at the intrusion.

"Jesus Myles, do you even try to get her off? C'mon man, she's so desperate." The man between her legs started with his rude comments but chose to never leave his spot on the floor. Myles just buried his head deeper in her neck as a response. After a couple more minutes of fingering the girl, he reapproached her with his mouth. He did juvenile things, such as drawing the letters of his name on her clit with his tongue, just to bask in the way she reacted with her sweet little muffled moans.

Just as she began to get closer and closer to her peak, Slash quickly stopped both of his ministrations. "Let's make a deal, yeah? I get to come before you, and in return, I'll let you come. If you're good, maybe even Myles can get himself off after this." She nodded, unable to reply without dropping the rings he had placed in her mouth previously.

He rose from his knees, beginning to pull off his 'Vaginas are way cool' shirt. "You like my shirt, right?" He snarked "Oh, wait. Let me take those. Thanks for holding them, by the way." He mumbled as he pulled the rings out of the girl's mouth and slid them back onto his fingers. "Anyways, you like the shirt? Maybe I should get you a matching one. 'Penises are way cool' you know?" He grinned as he finally pulled the shirt off. "Scratch that, let's get you one that says 'Slash's penis is way cool' since obviously, Myles' poor excuse of a cock can't please you as I do." The words burned, he adored Myles and it felt wrong to berate him like this, but Myles asked for it so nicely. The girl almost immediately went to jump to Myles' defense but was cut short by the sweet, almost feminine whiney moan that cut through the air. Holy shit. Myles was getting off on this.

Sure, she had been able to feel the way he rocked his hips at the elder man's words occasionally, and yes she had heard the little breathy moans in her ear, but she assumed he was just into dry humping! She didn't have much time to linger in her thoughts, though. Instead, she was pulled into a long kiss. Kissing Slash was like nothing you could expect, he tasted like birthday cake chapstick and raspberries. As her tongue explored his mouth, she realized that Slash had fucked up teeth. Very fucked up, uneven teeth. For some reason, this made perfect sense for who he is as a person, and it turned her on even more. Her hands found themselves buried in fistfuls of curls. His curious hands wandered down until their found the zipper to his leather pants. She whines as he pulls away to wrestle with the ever-so-tight pants.

When he pulls his pants down, she's met with the biggest, pierced cock she's ever seen. It's pretty, with a nice pink tip and the lightest bit of pubic hair at the base, not quite long enough to curl and look messy, but not entirely shaved. She couldn't stop staring. "Oh! Sorry, I should have warned you. I got that done in, hm, 98' or so? around then. It hurt like a bitch, but doesn't it look nice?" He rambled off into your neck, tempted to bite kisses into the soft skin, but holding back for Myles' sake. She curiously approached it with one hand, enamored by how his cock stood tall against his midriff despite the heavy-looking jewelry.

He lightly smeared the metal-clad tip against her lips, simply in the name of teasing. She groaned at the steely cold that softly prodded at her lips.

"Do you think it'll fit?" he mumbled as he lined himself up straight with her, yet he simply let his cock rest on top of the girl's abdomen. He let out a low, deep whistle. "Jesus, look at that. Whaddya think, Myles? Will it fit?" He questioned as he looked the vocalist dead in the eye, grinning ever so predatorily. Whatever Myles had uttered back was entirely unintelligible but, how important was his advice anyways?

"C'mere and fuck me already." She demanded and Slash obeyed. In one motion, he was inside of her. The two of them groaned out handfuls of curses at the first thrust. Slash grabbed her hips, burying his head in the other side of her neck, parallel to Myles. "Holy shit, fuck Myles! I understand why you didn't wanna share. She's a fucking, uh, vice, man." Slash groaned as he gripped her waist.

"Oh, Myles! He fucks me so good! Oh my god." She moaned as her hand frantically found his, running her fingers over the cold metal of his wedding band. Slash had been his best man. Maybe he had always wanted her, maybe there could be a way where the three of them worked as more than fuck buddies. Myles whimpered as grew more desperate for any sort of friction, I mean, come on, it's his wife getting fucked here! Let the dude jerk off, for God's sake.

Now, normally when touring with Slash, you walk backstage to the green room and he's either taking a quick nap or fucking with a guitar, not fucking chicks. It's not the 90's anymore, and he's calmed down quite a bit. So imagine the collective shock between Todd, Brent, and Frank when they open the door and get an eyeful of Slash's ass. There are maybe three thoughts that are passed among the men, and they go as such; Oh my God, Slash is fucking someone backstage. Oh my God, Slash is fucking Myles' wife backstage. Oh my God, Slash is cucking Myles Kennedy and fucking his wife. What. The. Fuck. The men gawk at each other, and then Todd starts to giggle.

"This, oh my lord, this is fucking- fuckin' absurd." He doubles over laughing as Brent and Frank frantically shush him. Frank's got his head in his hands as he murmurs a chorus of "What the hell, "s and Brent is silent. Truly, he's almost bug-eyed as he just stares. Slash pays them no mind, even as the girl under him reaches to cover herself or as Myles asks him what they'll do about this.

"C'mon, they want a show. Let's give them a show, dirty girl." Slash murmured to the girl below him as he began to resume his thrusting. She tried to stifle her moans, she really did! But, alas, she couldn't help herself, especially when Slash leaned toward Myles and began to rant about how ashamed he was of the vocalist. "Jesus Christ, man! Everyone thinks you're such a strong, bold frontman yet here you are, letting your wife get fucked on top of you." He slammed Myles, his voice starting quiet but growing in volume rather fast as his thrusts got harder.

"It's fucking pathetic, you know that? Imagine what people would think if they found out. Imagine the headlines 'Alter Bridge's Myles Kennedy Is A Cuckold, And You'll Never Believe Who The Bull Is!' Would you even be able to show your face again?" He questioned, ignoring the way Myles moaned and gripped at his legs. "Please, Slash, thank you. Thank you for helping my wife, thank you for helping our marriage." He knew these words weren't true, Myles had an ideal relationship even when his wife and he had been fighting, but it felt so good to let the words tumble out.

Sure, Myles didn't answer the question at hand, but that's okay. Discipline is learned after all. Slash could no longer push aside the tight feeling that lingered in his abdomen, he knew the fun of tonight would be over soon. He knew that tomorrow, he would be forced to sit down and have a grueling talk on how this most likely wouldn't work out, so he decided to live in the moment. He had sworn to Myles that he wouldn't even think about coming in his wife. Yet, his mind was swimming. "Oh, god. I'm so fucking close, you're so tight. Where do you want me to come? Where? Do you want me to come in this tight little pussy?" He didn't have a second to think before the words had left his mouth.

"Yes! Please Saul, Please come in me!" she begged. Slash was no fan of his legal name, but when it left her mouth, he saw it in a new light. Previously his name was just the man he was before, Saul was that awkward teenager with a curly mullet and Slash was the Guns N' Roses superstar, but the way she said it was new. It was unlike when fans had used it to try and dig into his personal life, it was as if it was the most sincere pet name leaving her mouth. It made him want to melt.

"What do you think, Myles? Should I come in her? You think she deserves it?" Slash leered at the younger man, ever so tempted to just let go now and ignore his input entirely. Myles only got a solid nod and a half in between Slash froze, pushing the entirety of his length into her. He panted and shook, throwing his head back with a long moan. He wouldn't quite describe the feeling of it as fireworks, more so like he was punched in the chest repeatedly. She wrapped her legs around him, as to try and keep him inside her as deep as possible.

The guitarist could vaguely hear the scattered wolf whistles that echoed through the room, but there wasn't a lot of time to think about how he may have permanently changed the way his bandmates viewed him when he still had a job to do. He leaned over once more, quickly mumbling a "Thanks." to Myles and pressing a small kiss to his collarbone before resuming his attack on the girl below him. He found himself desperately kissing her, unable to keep up the strong persona he had put on display previously. After a couple more minutes of making out, he slowly began to rock his hips once more.

"Sorry, it's ah, still sensitive." He huffed as he began to lightly twitch when the girl tighten around him. It was weirdly feminine, that tingly butterfly-esque feeling that chased Slash throughout all of his nerve endings as he worked to draw her closer towards her own finish. His thickly jeweled fingers played out their own rhythm on her clit. God damn those ever-so-skilled guitarist fingers.

He was unnaturally needy, desperately leaning in to receive kiss after kiss from the girl below. She pulled away first and he groaned. In an instant, she was reaching and drawing red lines along his back with her nails while she mumbled a series of curses with the occasional "I'm close!" sprinkled along her lines.

Finally, she came. She came with a babbled mix of both Slash and Myles' names. She was vaguely aware of the way Slash quickly adjusted her dress to keep her decency at least somewhat intact before tucking himself back into his own pants. It was all such a blur, a blur that was similar to the way you could hear everyone talking while you're underwater but every word is warbled and warped. She could feel herself being gently shimmied out of Myles' lap and placed on the couch beside him, nestled next to Slash.

Her tired hands reached for Myles' belt but were quickly stopped while she mewled something about how he hadn't finished. The hands that had intercepted hers belonged to nobody but her dearest husband. "Later, if you're up for it." He sweetly smiled at her and guided her hands into his own while the other three curious onlookers stared at the three lovers.

There was only one thing she had recalled before she had promptly passed out and that was a question asked by their beloved drummer.

"So, are we gonna talk about that? Or like, is this a normal thing? Have I just been missing out super hard?"

271 notes · View notes

tripleyeeet · 1 year

Note

(Look away, Loki!)

✒️

I’d like to request a drabble featuring my favorite himbo, Steve Harrington. Where he and reader are trapped together somehow. Perhaps in his Scoops Ahoy era? 😆

Angsty, fluffy, whatever you choose – I know it will be incredible!

it's been so long since i've written for steve so i kind of went a bit ham with this one, my bad :')

also to anyone reading this, if you'd like your own request for steve (or even eddie) hmu i'll probably another one or two requests! :)

LIKE WHEN WE WERE KIDS

PARINGS: Steve Harrington & Gender Neutral Reader

SUMMARY: It's Steve's first day on the job... what could possibly go wrong?

WORD COUNT: 3,878

WARNINGS: Brief mentions of claustrophobia/anxiety. Also unedited so bear with me if you find any mistakes!!

It starts on a playground.

Steve Harrington, the boy that lives next door is shooting across the monkey bars. His long, strong arms propelling him forward with ease. Beneath him, his legs dangle like dead weight, showcasing the curve of his calves and how they work in tandem with the rest of him.

“Oh, my god Steve is so hot,” Becky says. The two of you are sitting on the grass a few feet away, suddenly admiring his movement as he skips one of the bars with a triumphant jump.

Scrunching up your face, you watch as he hits the platform and turns to watch his friend follow. “I guess he’s taller than I remember,” you say then, watching the way his hands neatly nestle themselves into the curvature of his hips as he bends forward.

“Obviously. He’s like, the tallest boy in school!”

“Is he?”

You could’ve sworn Andy was. Last year in gym class the two of you had been paired together for dance unit. Both of you looked incredibly awkward standing next to each other as you moved throughout the room, trying your best to accommodate the other’s height.

“He’s also so funny. Janet and I were at the arcade the other day and—“

As Becky drones, it’s hard to imagine Steve Harrington as anything other than tiresome. Having grown up alongside him, it’s more often than not you tend to view him as something entirely different from your peers.

For example, to you, he’s always just been this loud and obnoxious know-it-all rather than cool. Everything he does is done with far too much gusto for that of a fifteen-year-old boy and it’s annoying. Infuriating even because as a fellow teen going through puberty, he shouldn’t be allowed to have that much confidence. Like you, he should be weird and anxious —not hip and hot and tall, apparently.

It’s not fair, you think, trying your best to tune back into your best friend’s words. Somehow she’s still going, her voice excitedly shrill as she relays some stupid joke Steve told her while he was showing her how to play Space Invaders. Apparently, it was really funny —you can tell by the way Becky’s whole face lights up as she tells you, her hand moving to grip your arm in excitement once she tells you the punchline. Awkwardly, you laugh and nod your head in agreeance, hoping that she doesn’t catch your lack of attention span as you glance over at Steve.

He’s on the monkey bars again, positioning himself so that he’s facing you and your friend. As per usual, he’s grinning up a storm, watching the way all the girls at the park ogle him as he pulls himself onto the top.

Becky, who practically squeals at the sight, watches the way he sits on the edge with wide eyes. Once again, she makes some comments about his appearance. Something about his hair looking extra fluffy or whatever.

Same as before, you merely nod your way through the conversation, listening to the way her voice fluctuates in between topics as you continue to stare at him and the way the bottom of his shirt starts riding up, exposing the bottom half of his stomach.

Immediately, it makes you uncomfortable, your own stomach churning in a way that has you readjusting in the grass to accommodate the sudden upset. Slowly, you pull your knees up to your chest and hug your shins, noticing how much tanner his skin has gotten since he’s come back from summer camp.

It looks nice. Warm and soft and—

Years later, you now realize that’s when your crush on Steve Harrington started. At the playground in the summer before sophomore year of high school. Embarrassing, right?

To this day Becky still hasn’t let you live it down, despite her own past infatuations. Day in and day out, she teases you any chance she gets even now that you’re all graduated and getting ready to move on with your lives.

“I bet you and Harrington would make beautiful babies,” she always says, grinning that evil little grin she knows you hate. It makes you want to smother her in her sleep. But considering her companionship is more important, you reluctantly don’t. Instead, you just grin and bear it, hoping one day soon she’ll just forget that you and he ever existed on the same wavelength, even though you know that’ll never happen, considering Steve Harrington is still your neighbour.

And as of today, your coworker.

You’re not sure if it’s the universe slapping you in the face or what but either way when you walk into work and see him standing there, donning the mandatory Scoops Ahoy uniform you feel like you’re about to faint.

“Ahoy there sail— shit.”

“Shit.”

Immediately, your other coworker Robin looks between you with interest, her eyes narrowing at the uncomfortable stand-off.

“Since when do you work here, neighbour?” Steve attempting to break the ice, watches in confusion as you roll your eyes and brush past, making your way to the backroom.

You need time to process. To grieve what could’ve been your first summer without Steve Harrington. To come up with a game plan of sorts so that you don’t go crazy these next couple of weeks.

“Neighbours, huh?” Robin grins and follows closely behind you, making you feel suddenly claustrophobic. Panicked in a way that has your chest tightening at the remembrance of why you took this job in the first place.

You wanted to escape the yearly summer trip your and Steve’s parents planned every year.

Not many people at school knew this but your families were practically inseparable. Having been brought up together, they still clung to each other like leeches. Everything they did often held an extended invitation to the other, prompting a lot of hang out’s between you and the Harrington’s.

Inhaling deeply, you walk over to your locker and spin the dial of the lock, ignoring the way Robin and Steve begin to talk behind your back; both of them (in a volume you’re not entirely sure you’re supposed to hear) discussing the details of your relationship and how the two of you have known each other since you were preschoolers.

It makes you quietly groan as you pull open the lock and begin to shove your bag inside, prompting both of them to change the subject.

“So, uh, I told Kevin that I could only do a half day today,” Robin says, flashing you her most apologetic smile once you turn around in shock.

“Seriously?”

Steve looks between the two of you, pressing his lips together in a way that makes him look guilty. As if somehow this was his plan all along.

“I have that thing with my parents, remember?”

You don’t remember but Robin’s never been the type to lie so you merely just sigh and close your locker, accepting your fate with reluctant arms as you fully turn to face them. “I assume that means we’re both training today then?”

Robin offers another meek smile.

Great, you think. Just perfect. As if the universe wasn’t punishing you enough by giving you arguably the worst mall jobs in the world. Now on top of that, you had to work with him, the one person you took this job to avoid.

A part of you wants to quit on the spot —to tell Steve that he sucks before grabbing your things and storming out of there. It’d be exhilarating for sure, but then you quickly remember school and the tuition waiting in the wings to be paid.

So ultimately, you don’t quit. In fact, you don’t even fuss as you go about your day, letting Robin take the reins during the first half, avoiding Steve as much as possible in favour of focusing on customers to provide the best possible service.

And for a while, it works. Thanks to the constant streamline of people and Robin’s ability to distract Steve when needed makes the day fly by with ease, pushing you into the last, dreaded half.

The clock hits quarter to one when Robin finally hands him over, giving you a look that screams I’m sorry please don’t hate me.

In response you dramatically frown behind Steve’s back, watching as Robin snorts and shakes her head. “Alright Harrington, let’s go to the freezer before Rob leaves.”

You motion to the backroom and make a beeline for the freezer, motioning for Steve to prop open the door once you arrive. “So I don’t know if Robin told you but around this time we usually do restocks,” you tell him. “Obviously the exact time fluctuates but it’s usually around noon cause people are too busy getting actual lunch.”

“Makes sense.” He nods.

“Yeah, so basically what we’re gonna do is pull what we’re low on. I saw you and Robin going over that already so we can just grab whatever it is you guys figured was needed and then we’ll bring it up front, FIFO the case and eventually write down what we took from the back on this clipboard.”

As you tap the clipboard hanging on the wall beside you, Steve steps forward to take a look, sending you into a panic as soon as you see the door closing behind him.

Somehow, you forgot to mention that the door is broken. A thought that crosses your mind as you haphazardly blurt out a bunch of panicked sounds while simultaneously trying to reach around him to grab it.

Steve, who has no idea what’s happening, looks at you as if you’ve just sprouted a second head and tries to dive out of the way. Except instead of that he merely miscalculates and moves directly in front of you, causing your face to ram into his shoulder.

Groaning at the impact you pull away and palm the sockets of your eyes because, of course, this would happen. Of course, out of everyone in the fucking universe it’d be you and Steve destined to get locked in a freezer on your first day of working together! Of course, of course, of course!

“What the hell was that?” He looks at you with discomfort, his eyes full of judgement as he watches your continued silent frustration unfold. His arms are crossed tightly over his chest as grabs the aforementioned clipboard and begins to take a look.

“The door is broken, you idiot,” you tell him, even though you know it’s not his fault. It’s yours but you’re too angry to deal with that right now.

“What do you mean broken?”

“I don’t know, broken? It’s just, it’s —it won’t open from the inside!”

“What do you mean it doesn’t open from the inside?” Suddenly panicked, Steve puts the clipboard back and turns to the door handle, giving it a few good yanks before looking at you. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I was too busy training!”

“Well shouldn’t that be apart of the training tour? Y’know like, here we have register, here’s the case and the backroom and the freezer —oh just so you know the door doesn’t work so don’t accidentally lock yourself in because if you do you might turn into a god damn human popsicle!”

You can feel that familiar tension rising like a fog, covering you in a cloud of ignorance as you flash an angry look in his direction. Somehow it’s always your fault. No matter the topic of argument, between you and Steve, you’re always the one to blame. It’s been that way since you were kids and to this day you still resent him for it. For making you the bad guy in every situation. It’s why you’ve always hated his presence, despite the attraction. Just the sight of him often makes you feel like less of a person. Like, regardless of your accomplishments, you’ll forever be beneath him because, at the end of the day, you’re not cool enough.

It sends you into a rage just thinking about it. And has continued to ever since that summer before sophomore year when you started looking at him as something other than the boy you grew up with. Suddenly, it was like a switch had flipped in your mind, telling you that maybe he wasn’t all that bad —that maybe you and he could be more than just neighbours.

Nowadays though, you know that that feeling is just the result of the chemicals circulating through your brain. An overload of dopamine and norepinephrine hitting you like a bus. Back then, puberty had fucked you up and now here you were, standing alongside Harrington in a small, cold room for god knows how long.

Suddenly, Steve bashes his fists against the door and screams Robin’s name. His voice is strained —loud and desperate and despite wanting to make fun of him for the way it cracks you merely follow suit and join in, throwing your hands against the cold sheet metal.

“There’s no way she’s already gone, right?”

Your shrug your shoulders, knowing it’s possible.

“I swear to god if she’s gone I’m—“

“What? You’re gonna kick her ass?”

Steve looks at you, annoyed. “No, I’m not gonna kick her ass. What do you take me for? A psycho?”

“Not a psycho per se.”

“Oh, not a psycho okay. Then what?”

He’s pissed off now. You can tell by that familiar frustration lacing itself between his features. Almost instantly his brows pinch toward the centre of his face, meeting the bridge of his nose that simultaneously crinkles upwards. On his hips, his hands settle into that usual position he holds whenever he’s ready to pick a fight; his fingers tightening around the flesh that sits above the waistband of his shorts.

“Hey Steve, for once could you just like, maybe not look at me like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like you’re about to antagonize me like you always do.”

He lets out a scoff. “I don’t do that.”

“Yes, you do.”

“Name one time I’ve antagonized you.”

You stop for a moment to think of a good answer; a bunch of options rising to the surface of your mind. “Last summer at the cabin. I brought Becky with me and she brought those beers and instead of just letting us have fun you yelled at me for like twenty minutes before telling my mom.”

“Yeah, well, you shouldn’t be drinking.”

“Seriously? I shouldn’t be drinking?”

“Yeah, you’re underage who knows how it’ll effect you!”

“Steve, are you serious? We’re the exact same fucking age!”

“Actually, pretty sure I’m older than you by like, three or four months?”

You want to wring his neck. Take your two already shaking hands and wrap them around his stupid throat until there’s nothing left inside. It’d be easy, right? Sure, you’re shorter than him and probably a bit weaker but people are known to act faster when put into fight or flight. One quick lunge and you could end him in a matter of minutes.

“Besides, you and I both know the only reason I did that is because Becky is a bad influence!”

You raise your brow and refrain from killing him (for now), looking at him confused.

“She’s got all the bases already covered if you know what I’m saying. Every party I see her at she’s always necking with some guy she’s just met. Not to mention the fact I saw her purchasing some dope from Munson last weekend. She’s bad news.”

“Bad news? What are you my dad?”

“No but—“

“Then why do you care? It’s not like you’re any different Mr. Horny Harrington!”

“Horny Harrington?” Suddenly, Steve looks at you in horror. “Jesus christ, is that what you call me behind my back?”

You don’t, usually, but you refuse to tell him that. Instead, nodding your head triumphantly as you watch his previously aggressive stance sort of dwindle into nothing, his hands rising to slide across the expanse of his face in defeat.

“Never mind, I’m just… I’m gonna ignore you now and try and get us out of here.”

Immediately, a part of you is thankful for him changing the subject. The last thing you want to do is continue to fight, especially now that you’re once again aware of the circumstances. Which is that you’re still trapped inside the freezer, arguing in a space that isn’t as comforting as it usually is.

Upon remembering your chest instantly begins to tighten, your breathing pattern becoming erratic as you glance around the room before you, remembering how small it is. Now forced together, you and Steve have probably around six by eight feet of movement amongst you which you’re sure is a lot but because of how cold it is it just makes you feel numb.

Because of this you sort of just freeze while he works, watching as he fiddles with the handle.

“There’s gotta a be a way to fix it,” he says under his breath, his fingers wedging themselves into the base to brush against the exposed mechanisms.

“We’ve been trying to fix it on our own for like a month now,” you tell him, noticing the air of meticulousness that surrounds him.

Embarrassingly, it’s kind of attractive. Something about positively seeing his stubborn personality makes you feel that familiar warmth bloom across your torso. Your eyes, once used to survey the lack of space in the room quickly dart towards his face, noticing the way his tongue sort of pokes out the side of his mouth in deep concentration.

“Do you think you could hold this open for me?”

Without hesitation, you do as he says. Something you’re sure he’s thankful for based on the heavy breath that comes from his nose.

“What are you doing?”

“I think there’s a spring stuck,” he says.

More than anything you want him to be right so you continue to leave him be, waiting in the wings with bated breath while trying not to stare.

Not that it’s easy though. Not when you’re so close and freezing and obviously full of foreign feelings like that summer at the playground.

All of a sudden it feels like a mixture of old and new emotions. All of them swirling through your system like a hurricane ready to strike. Consistently, your breath moves in and out of pace, your chest hurting from the lack of stability.

You hope he doesn’t notice. Because Steve, despite everything has always noticed you. At your best and your worst, he’s always been able to pick you apart with just the glance of his eye. It’s another one of the reasons you always avoid him. You fear he’ll see what you’ve been hiding all these years. What you planned on hiding and hopefully getting over before you left for college.

Well, at least until he decided to ruin that by taking a job you’re absolutely positive he knew you already had. A new level of annoyance you weren’t aware he was capable of.

“Hey, can I ask you something?”

“Hm?”

“You knew I worked here,” you point out, suddenly curious because it doesn’t make sense. Sure, since the beginning of time, he’s been on your ass one way or another, whether it’s selling you out to your parents or making fun of you at school for little mishaps. The torment never seems to end but why continue it? Why now that you’re officially about to go your separate ways is he still trying?

“That’s not a ques—“

You let out an angry breath before rephrasing. “Why did you take the job when you knew I worked here?”

There’s silence for a minute. An unbearable lack of sound other than the overhead fan and the clicking of his fingers against the metal. It’s awful, you think, your lack of patience quickly eating you from the inside out as you watch his eyes begin to narrow and his tongue pokes out again, completely forgetting your question.

“Steve, can you please j—“

Before you can finish the door jerks forward, making both of you stop. Somehow he’s managed to do it. The impossible task you and Robin and the rest of the part-timers have been attempting for weeks.

At first, you’re happy —excited even. Your face breaks out into a large grin as both you and Steve shuffle into the back room, rubbing your arms to get a better flow of heat. But then you remember your words —your question and the still unexplained answer you continue to wait for as your moment of celebration quickly starts to end.

“Shit, we should probably—“

“I took the job so I could hang out with you.”

What?

Time, regardless of everything, stops in an instant. Your body, still frozen from the chilled air, makes it hard for you to move even the slightest of muscles as you watch him look to the roof and sigh.

“I can’t believe I’m about to say this. I swear to god,” he mumbles, shaking his head —still averting his gaze as his neck cranes back to its previous position. “I just… I know I can be dick sometimes.”

“Most of the time.”

“Yeah, sure, most of the time. Believe me, I know. I sucked in high school. I treated people like shit and because you were always like, there, you were the one that got it the worst.”

His apology feels surprisingly genuine. His voice is quiet and slow unlike it usually is and every word feels purposeful, like he’s rehearsed it before but has suddenly forgotten his lines.

“It sounds stupid but I took this job thinking that if we hung out more maybe I could apologize and it’d like, actually mean something?”

You’re not quite sure you follow so you continue listening.

“Like, maybe if we hung out you’d actually like me again. Like when we were kids.”

Like when we were kids.

God that seems like forever ago. A whole other lifetime. Honestly, it’s been ages since the two of you could sit in the same room together and enjoy a normal conversation. A moment of peace undisturbed by each other’s thoughts and feelings.

It reminds you of how easy it was when you were kids. How, even though he was loud and boisterous and such a frustratingly competitive child, at the end of the day, you still managed to love him. To care for him when things were hard. To set aside your frustrations after a hard day to hear him out when he needed it.

You’d like to say you’re unaware of when all that changed. To be as ignorant as you normally are and turn a blind eye. But deep down you know exactly when it started —why it started.

You’re the reason he feels the way he does and as you stare at the side of his face, wishing he would look at you, you know it’s all your fault.

“Anyway, uh, we should probably go man the ship or whatever…”

You open your mouth to protest —to argue in an attempt to get him to stay— but nothing comes out. No feelings or thoughts or counterpoints rise to the surface as you watch him awkwardly scurries out the door without another word.

#the big yeet #steve harrington fan fic #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x you #steve harrington fluff #forced proximity #enemies to friends #i'm honestly thinking about writing a part two to this but i don't know #summer writes

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dustedmagazine · 27 days

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Listening Post: Mdou Moctar

Mdou Moctar is, without question, one of the pre-eminent rock guitarists of our time, as much a master of heavy, hazy grooves as of double-tapped Van Halen-esque shreddery. His music is steeped in a very specific desert blues aesthetic, the swaying, side-to-side rhythms that evoke camel caravans, the keening call and response that suggests lonely attempts at communion in remote campsites, the hard-bashed but intricate percussion, the silky multi-colored tunics that the band sports onstage. And yet, it’s universal in the same amp fried lineage as Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Eddie Hazel and, oh right, Eddie van Halen.

Dusted has been enamored of Mdou Moctar for quite some time, beginning with Patrick Masterson’s highly entertaining review of the Akounak Tedalat Taha Tazoughai OST in 2015—the music for a remake of Prince’s Purple Rain in the Tamashek language— on Sahel Sounds.Masterson observed, “The idea of a Tuareg Purple Rain would have been unthinkable in 1984, not least of all because —and I cannot stress enough how funny I find this — there is no Tamashek word for ‘purple.’ Yet, 31 years later, here we are — the magic of a smaller world has helped bring an academic outsider’s joke to life. The punchline, of course, is that it’s as good as advertised.”

We collectively fell for Ilana (The Creator) and its out-of-hand shredding in 2019.Isaac Olsen noted, “If you still have a punk-induced allergy to flashy guitar solos, be warned; there’s not a track on Ilana where Moctar doesn’t take every available opportunity to — no other word for it — shred. Fortunately, Moctar earns the right to play his ass off by recruiting a band whose hungry energy matches and spurs on his own and by, for the first time, writing a whole album of tunes worthy of his chops.” The record brought a normally fractious Dusted roster to unity and dominated the 2019 Mid-Year feature.

Two years later, Afrique Victime won praise for its less showy, more groovy vibe. Said Jennifer Kelly in her review, “While he’s been one of rock music’s best guitarists for a while, the larger platform takes him out of the niche desert blues category and into the broader multinational arena. He might be excused for capitalizing by leaning into the rock elements of his sound, but instead, he’s putting forward the droning, mystic, call-and-response twilight magic of northwest African guitar music.”

And so we come to Funeral for Justice, another scorcher. The new record is as sharp and impassioned as any Moctar and his band have done so far, and it is inflamed with political energy. It comes after a period of exile after civil war in Niger. It calls out the injustices of colonialism, economic inequality and exploitation in cuts including the title track, “Oh France” and “Modern Slaves.” It cooks on the strength of a band that has never sounded better or more locked in, and it has one or two guitar solos, too.

Intro by Jennifer Kelly

Jennifer Kelly: How are you all liking the new Mdou Moctar? I’m feeling like it’s the best thing he’s ever done, not different exactly but more intense and volcanic. Definitely turned up to 11.

Bill Meyer: My first reaction is that while Funeral For Justice definitely foregrounds the shredding, I miss the layered sound of Afrique Victime. But I’m tickled to hear the increased prominence of electronic percussion and autotune. It’s kind of a roots move, given that the first time a lot of people heard him was on a tune originally identified only as “Autotune,” which appeared on the Sahel Sounds compilation, Music From Saharan Cellphones.

Tim Clarke: I saw Mdou Moctar live last year at a music festival, and it was very loud and thrilling. This is the first time I've listened to a full album. It makes me realize how little I'm drawn to fast guitar playing! And the band's trademark "cantering" rhythm feels like a bit of a musical rut. But when they explore outside these parameters, things get more interesting, especially when they play around with a mix of recording fidelities at the start of second track, "Imouhar." I also like the fact the record is concise and well-paced. Definitely piqued my interest to hear more of what the band can do.

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Christian Carey: The combination of desert blues and intense rock solos is amazing - and fairly singular. The group vocals create an appealing contrast to Mdou's shredding.

I'm not sure that he can raise the intensity level any higher than this — turned up to 12?

Jennifer Kelly: I'm so glad you guys picked up on this. Lots to think about.

First regarding Bill's comment about a "rootsier" sound, it's complicated isn't it?

We look to third world artists for authenticity, which in its most reductive form means less electrification, fewer electronics, etc. But as Bill points out, Mdou's early stuff was heavily autotuned, as for instance here:

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And a lot of the Sahel Sounds’ (and thanks, Bill, for making sure we gave them credit for being first with this stuff) cellphone compilations have a very slick, disco-electronic vibe. And that's music largely produced for African audiences without much consideration of a global audience. So which is authentic?

Also, my understanding, Tim, is that the rhythm is based on the way camels walk and a nod to West Africa's nomadic culture and heritage? You hear the same beat in Tinawarin's stuff.

Tim Clarke: I can definitely hear the camel's gait in the cantering rhythm section, that slightly awkward, loping feel. It's certainly unique.

Bryon Hayes: The almost hard rock riff in the intro of the title track originally confused me (did I put the right album on?), but I found it really powerful upon further spins of the album, especially how it segues into the cantering rhythm. Also, the roar as the lower fidelity section of “Imouhar” transitions to a higher fidelity is downright mind-melting! He’s experimenting with song form, and it really works.

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Michael Rosenstein: As much as I've liked Mdou Moctar's music, I have to admit that this one is starting to lose me a bit. But that has way more to do with my musical proclivities than it does to the music at hand. What originally drew me to Moctar's music was the rawness of it; that uneasy balance of "shredding" that others have mentioned with a trance-like, cyclical flow. That was really foregrounded in his early albums like Afelan or Anar both of which were released a decade ago. This new one sounds, to my ears, much more heavily produced and fussed over. I admit, though, that I'm really uneasy with my assessment in that, as much as I hope I'm not, I fear I am just bringing my old, white, privileged judgement to bear. Is this just me judging that the music is no longer "authentic" enough? Or is it just that he is embracing the rock leanings inherent to his music and that just resonates less with me?

I do find it curious that, as far as I can tell, none of Moctar's music on Sahel Sounds is available anymore (including the one track on Music from Saharan Cellphones: Volume 2 referenced by Bill.) I have no idea if that is by his choice, by contractual obligations with Matador, or by the choice of the Sahel Sounds folks.

Jennifer Kelly: I noticed that those records were missing, too, when I looked for the Sahel Sounds records to hear the autotune. I wonder what happened?

Some of the songs are still very trance-y..."Imouhar," for example, especially at the beginning (it gets loud later), "Takoba" all the way through. The production seems about the same as on Afrique Victime to me, clean but not overly so. (Though, I will admit that I probably like the rock stuff more than Michael does.)

We haven't really talked about the political backdrop to this record, have we? The fact that Civil War in Niger has left them stranded in the States since 2023. I don't speak Tamshek but it seems that a lot of the songs with English titles are about politics and colonialism, which may affect the way they play and present the material, yes? It's different from writing songs about village life or falling in love with the local beauty.

Ian Mathers: I'll admit, there's at least a part of me that wishes this whole record was just unabashedly Going For It as hard as the opening title track does. Not that I don't like the relatively more restrained material; I'm not terribly knowledgeable about African music in general but "Takoba" reminds me of one of the few records from the continent I do very much know and love, the one Ali Farka Toure did with Ry Cooder (Talking Timbuktu) that my dad played all the time when I was in high school. Toure was from Mali, which at least shares a border with Niger, so hopefully I'm not being too ignorant hearing similarities in some of the guitar playing there. The more monomaniacally the band gets cooking here, generally, the more I like it (I really like "Sousoume Tamacheq," for example). I think I probably like it a little more than (the also excellent!) Afrique Victime, although I think for similar but opposite reasons to Michael, that it's just more to my taste and not necessarily a better record.

I'd also love to see a full set of lyrics/translations, and everything I've read about the sociopolitical context of the band and this music has been fascinating, but mostly right I'm just appreciating and enjoying this record in a similar way to, say, Oneida's "Sheets of Easter" or that U SCO record I picked for our 2023 Slept On round up.

Tim Clarke: Further to what you're saying about enjoying the "everything on 11" aspect of Moctar's sound, I can't help wondering what the band would sound like recorded by Steve Albini. That I'd like to hear!

Ian Mathers: Oh, good point; maybe because we talked about African Head Charge a while back I'm now also wondering what Adrian Sherwood would make of them.

Bill Meyer: I don’t think you’re too far off the mark in seeing a similarity between Moctar’s and Ali Farka Toure’s music, Ian. Toure worked with the languages and styles of several ethnic groups from the Malian interior, soI’m sure he would have been acquainted with the precedents for what Moctar does. Moctar is from subsequent generation, so his music is more in touch with what has been popular in the Sahel in this century. But another thing they both have in common is that they’ve been worked a lot on non-African stages, gotten hold of gear that isn’t particularly available back home, and undergone a personal course of development on a world stage.

Their politics are different, though. I think Toure was the mayor (or something similar) of his town. He was pretty invested in fostering the stability of the existing Malian state, thus all the songs in different languages that encouraged people to get along. He was the big man in town who responsibly leveraged his popularity as a musician to obtain resources for his community. Your CD purchases generated income for Niafunke’s farming community. Moctar, on the other hand, was just another guy on the street, albeit an artistically ambitious one, until musical opportunities permitted him to tour and make records outside of Niger. His stance, as far as I can grasp it, is critical of African leaders who don’t look out for their people, and even more critical of the foreign powers that have run roughshod over his country (mostly France and the US).

Matador came through with the lyrics.

[Here are some excerpts.]

“ FUNERAL FOR JUSTICE”

Dear African leaders, hear my burning question

Why does your ear only heed France and America?

They misled you into giving up your lands

They delightfully watch you in your fraternal feud

They possess the power to help out but chose not to

Why is that? When your rights are trodden upon

“ MODERN SLAVES”

Oh world, why be so selective about human beings?

My people are crying while you laugh

All you do is watch

Oh world, why be so selective about counrties?

Yours are well built while ours are being destroyed

Yours are well built while ours are being destroyed.

Jennifer Kelly: Wow, that is fiery stuff.

Ian Mathers: I can also see in the translated lyrics even more of a connection between the two countries, with Tamasheq described as "A helpless orphan abandoned by 3 countries / Mali-Niger, Niger-Mali and Algeria as the third." Interesting to note the gap between Toure and Moctar's respective places in society (at least right now, for Moctar). I didn't specifically think of reggae when I was reading the lyrics, Bill, but once you point it out there does seem to be a number of shared themes, maybe even some metaphors and imagery, there.

#dusted magazine #listening post #mdou moctar #funeral for justice #matador #sahel sounds

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cipheramnesia · 1 year

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Trying to craft jokes like Rodney Dangerfield used to do is just a really fun writing challenge for me. Like, his material is quite tricky to write anyway, but I have added a further challenge to make the jokes queer and avoid or minimize self deprication. So for a lot of them I have his pacing down but they're longer than I'd like.

But so the basic formula is one sentence should frame the landscape, the background, the situation as it were; and then the next sentence is the punchline. Ever so often there's three sentences, with a middle sentence bridging the set-up and punchline, but that's about the max. My attempts often go to four or five sentences, which is too long when you compare it to a guy who could just punch out like four or five jokes a minute. There's so many so fast it looks easy but especially trying to make them queer specific it take a lot of work to hone them.

Like, the first thing I think most people get wrong is trying to play the frame to a too specific audience. It's like okay, it works for memes online, but when I'm framing one of my RD type jokes I'm trying to imagine what an offline audience in Nebraska or Ohio might be familiar with. Thankfully there's much more trans awareness, but not enough to always reliably throw complicated queer ideas in two lines, so you keep the broad concepts really simple. My wife, my dad, my job, my doctor, etc. These are all pretty reliable touchstones for people who aren't always going to process my nonbinary asexual wife and my relationship and the whole complex polyamory thing.

It's all about compacting information to its minimal possible state of compression, trying to cut away every last scrap of extraneous detail. Every single thing to understand the punchline should be in the first sentence, which somehow also needs to be the verbal equivalent of brightly colored preschool shapes.

Once all that information is delivered, the follow through has to transform it into something different, but which carries the ideas of the framework forward in a logical way. The first step ideally makes people paint a picture of their own version of Dad or Doctor or Wife. With Rodney Dangerfield, the second step usually involved dropping himself in as a loser getting dumped on. Like "I went to the doctor and he said I was overweight. I said I wanted a second opinion so he said fine, you're also ugly." It's a classic but not really the vibe I want, but also fortunately being a trans queerdo gives me something entertainingly contrary to the familiar ideas in the set up. Like "geeze Dad I thought you'd be upset I'm trans. Well I wish you'd been a lawyer but as long as you're happy." That's a cute gag that needs a little extra framing up front but ultimately plays on many ideas broadly familiar to a wide audience while generating a pretty amusing bit of absurdity for a laugh (being a lawyer isn't the same as being a gender, funny!).

Anyway, it's just a really exciting process for me to get a kind of shitpost idea, but then workshop it into one of those one-two punch jokes. Some of them need a little more fine tuning, but they're all much more carefully crafted than meets the eye. A bit like the haiku, the formula is simple, but learning how to build it takes work.

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artbyblastweave · 1 year

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Gideon the Ninth, Chapter 17

Alright, I’m done procrastinating on this. Before I start, some brief metacommentary on the skull mascots for each of the houses, which I only recently bothered to scrutinize;

First House skull is very big.

Second House Skull has a centurion's helmet.

Third House has jewels in the eyes;

Fourth has laurels- that was a military thing in ancient Rome, right?

Fifth has some kind of wavy crown thing. I bothered to check this in the first place because I thought it was going to be flat-out removed from the section header as an evolving credits thing.

Sixth has scrolls between the teeth; no surprise, they eat lots of books as children

Seventh has a rose jutting out the eye sockets (Hakahani disease AU!)

Eighth is blindfolded;

Ninth has absolutely nothing. Less, even. No lower jaw.

Okay, onto CSI: Canaan House:

"In the early hours of the morning, even Palamedes admitted defeat." EVEN Palamedes. Delightfully concise phrasing. This establishes from the start that we’re in the midst of the first group study session this rock has seen. It reinforces that Palamedes is first among equals in his headstrong sherlockishness. He could be the protagonist of this. You could rewrite this to do that.

“The early hunger of ghosts.” So ghosts are vampiric. Are vampires Vampiric? Are there vampires? Can Vampires be made to be, using necromancy?

Christ. The Fourthlings. This is another example of something that was funny until it wasn't funny. They had, like, a bit going with the Fifth, a back-and-fourth; their dialogue was almost exclusively rendered a punchline. Now they're voiceless on an entirely different axis. Shoo out the clowns. Rosencratz and whatshisface.

Taking note here that Gideon is capable of identifying what she refers to as the “minute” signs of Harrow’s exhaustion. She’s paid that much attention to her mannerisms in the past, despite their ostensible enemyhood. This book does such interesting things conveying the depths of their familiarity with each other while also being a story about how they barely know each other.

There is no way it's an accident that Coronabeth and Ianthe didn't bother to dress. Only solace of the night indeed. This is a power play. On the opposite side of the spectrum we have the “painfully useful” Sixth. See, when Palamedes shows up to work in his PJs, that's the opposite of a mind game. That's a mark of sincerity.

He apologizes to Abigail as he steps over the body. Jesus.

Palamedes gives his bedrobe to Dulcinea. Those two had a thing. They were the protagonists of a John Green type novel some time before the start of this book.

Palamedes and Harrow, once both cognizant and faced with a problem, are on the same wavelength. There was, somewhere out there, a place where Harrow would have fit in immaculately.

What should I read into Camilla’s overprotectiveness of Palamedes? Gideon’s narration makes her hovering sound unwarranted, but Gideon’s narration also set us up to think that Ortus was much more of a wet blanket than he wound up being. She’s not the greatest at assessing the personal circumstances underlying idiosycratic behaviors. Is Sixth House the terminal exaggeration of “Publish or Perish?”

Not to harp too hard on this scene, but "Gideon had to stare pretty hard at skimpy nighties to get over that one." Best way to cap off the reveal of how Third House necromancy works; also a pretty good explanation of why they go out of their way to keep up appearances otherwise. This is not a faction that could get away with being both cannibalistic AND ugly; they've browsed Tumblr. They know that as long as you're alluring you can eat a few fingers. As a treat.

Dulcinea's not allowed to get involved in the investigation. The Seventh sent a Necromancer who isn’t allowed to get involved in hardcore necromantic exertions? Something weird is going on.

And NOW the Eighth House show up, having taken the time that nobody else did to get fully kitted out. And they specialize in spirit magic.

Silas is a soul siphoner. And Harrow knows this- despite someone else’s exclamation in this sequence indicating that soul siphoning isn’t a widely known technique. Know your enemy.

Oh my god. That's why his Nephew looks older than him, isn't it?

Silas was probably expecting this to be a big-damn-heroes fix; instead he (predictably) nearly kills Dulcinea and finally causes someone to throw a punch, tensions being what they are. Making a note here that Colum seems to not give a shit that his Uncle has been laid out and held at swordpoint; a direct side effect of the siphon, or an indirect one in the sense that he's not gonna lift a finger to help his charge if not expressly ordered? Like Artemis Fowl if Butler thought his charge was a little shit and kept trying to rules-lawyer a permissible way to let him die.

A schoolyard fight broken up only by the arrival of Teacher, who is, for the first time, AFRAID. And demonstrating a coherent and involved necromantic knowledge; nobody was supposed to be allowed to die in this section of the facility, because something very, very bad happens if you leave a dead body down there. He's giving actual, actionable suggestions. He is telling people that they are wrong. Absolutely wrong. Everything is absolutely wrong.

#the locked tomb #tlt #gideon the ninth #the locked tomb liveread #the locked tomb spoilers #gtn #gtn spoilers #gtn liveread #blastweave livereads #thoughts #meta

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centrally-unplanned · 1 year

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Oh speaking of manga I have been casually rereading the FLCL manga while doing the translation work, and finished it over dinner today - god I love the ending. This manga is a hot mess btw, there are moments where the conveyance completely falls apart, but Hajime Ueda is just not the kind of guy to care about shit like that. It carries itself on its visuals and character dynamics, which is fine - it just means it isn't going to have 'plot' payoffs per se.

But the ending man, for its all Ueda-core irreverent violence and FLCL's commitment to toxic relationships, when Haruko has burned everything down and Naota has rejected both Mamimi and Ninamori as crutches for his own lack of self-awareness... then Haruko just pops up out of his forehead wielding a shotgun and wearing a bunny suit one last time, and Naota's response is "wanna make out?" which, obviously she does, and they even have a bondage joke thrown in on top:

Its A: very hot, but more importantly B: the kind of tonal irreverence that only 'anime' can pull off. The semiotics of the medium is just full of events close enough to this kind of stuff that what would be whiplash in any other medium is punchline or even organic here. And Naota deserves to get some after all the shit he has been through, good for him!

Idk I think as I have been deep diving into the FLCL interview database how the manga works has crystalized for me. Saying the FLCL manga is controversial is a bit of a stretch, but its not very popular as it is extremely different from the show - way more surreal, way more slapstick, and of course a full blast of Hajime Ueda's edgy goth-punk stylings. For a lot of fans these changes are a bridge too far, its "Not FLCL".

As you start to understand Tsurumaki's 'intent' though, it comes together - this is a work devoted to the goal of trying to open 'anime' up to new directions its not going in. He goes on about how the anime industry is overly obsessed with realism; uncomfortable with throwing the silly and serious into the same scenes when it shouldn't be; and neglectful of the diversity of themes present in manga such as the emo-seinen works (and the troubled girls who populate them) Tsurumaki is so fond of. FLCL is self-indulgent but also intentional in its industry 'critique'.

To adapt that to a manga, the critique has to fit the industry; it wouldn't make sense to adapt 'manga themes' into, well, a manga, that wouldn't send a message! Hajime Ueda is actually perfect for this role, taking an artistic style that is completely different from anything out there, seemingly incompatible with the story being told, and stretching that story the bounds of its tonal diversity to make the fit work. You can't 1-to-1 the intent ofc, but if you are going to try this is how you do it. From that lens the story works, and the ending is great; from full-on ruin apocalypse to makeout fanservice to entirely silent metaphorical ending in maybe 15 pages. The semiotics of 'anime' were built for this, you just have to not be afraid to try.

#flcl #ash adaptational analysis

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deep-spaghetti · 22 days

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i’m sorry but “yeah so i went to go visit my friend” was funny once and annoying by like the 4th time i saw it. every tumblr specific meme i’ve witnessed in real time has been the worst thing ever. i don’t know how to succinctly describe it, just something about the way this site collectively adapts jokes is like actual dogshit. maybe it’s like too fandom centric everyone’s just drawing a different character over the same punchline the “meme format” isn’t a framework for a setup and punchline but a deviantart tracing base. like goncharov was nothing it’s the exact kind of joke that lasts for one bit where you’re gaslighting someone in specific and it’s funny because you’re seeing how far you can get with a lie but the moment i was in on it it was just annoying, like the joke ceased to be for anyone everyone just wanted to feel included and add their own stupid idea to the expanding “lore” that nobody was keeping track of. it was like an extremely lame collective creative writing exercise. i guess a good 70% of tumblr activity is from people who dedicate their free time to lame creative writing so that adds up. “the friendful visitor” was a specific joke about like bizarre online vocabulary and instead of adapting it for other strange things of that nature to say or using the visuals of the 2 panels for some other joke people just substituted the nouns. you literally don’t even need to read the second speech bubble the setup obscures nothing about the punchline there’s no joke like it’s just an endless array of pointless fandom adaptations of the same joke except stripped of any meaning so there’s no joke even left it’s just some extra features drawn over the picture you’ve seen a million times

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keyleth-clay · 2 years

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I genuinely love Callopea and I hope that it goes fully canon.

Not because a ship has to go “fully canon” to be legitimate, or to be enjoyed by the fandom, but because I think the dynamic between Fearne and Chetney is so different from the vast majority of ships that we’ve seen on Critical Role so far.

Because the thing is, I feel like a lot of the fandom kind of sees Callopea as a joke? And not just goofy or lighthearted, but kind of mean-spirited. Like, the idea that this could ever be a “legitimate” ship or that it has any meaning to it is laughable. (This is also kind of reflected in fanworks, since there’s basically no art of them, and there’s like... two people making gifs. In comparison to pairings like Imodna or Dorym which, while I do also ship, there is arguably less concrete evidence of in canon at this point in time).

Which I don’t think is true! I think there’s a lot of depth to both Chetney and Fearne, despite being largely comedic characters, and I think there’s also a lot of potential depth to their relationship, despite it being largely played for laughs.

Take Chetney, for example. I think the depth of his character is best summed up with this quote from The Night Before Critmas (and yes, I know that was Chutney, but he was the basis for the character):

“He told me to make Voltron out of wood. No one wanted it. He told me to make a Game Boy. I can't do circuits. He told me to make the little trolls, but the hair didn't move.”

Again, yes it’s comedic, but the core idea of the character was here – because Chetney/Chutney isn’t just talking about toys. He’s talking about himself. A huge part of this character is dealing with the feeling of obsolescence, of the world moving on without you and you not being needed anymore. That same idea also shows up with Bertrand at the beginning of the campaign, and I don’t think that’s an accident, and I don’t think Travis is doing that just for the joke.

Growing older can be scary. Feeling like you’re out of touch with the world, or that you aren’t needed anymore, or that you just don’t understand things anymore – that’s scary. In a way, it feels like parts of the fandom treat a character being old as a punchline – it sometimes feels like the very idea of a character being elderly, and an elderly character wanting some form of intimate relationship in particular, is worthy of mockery.

I’m sure we’ve all seen commercials or interviews or something that contain some variation on “as we age, our need for intimacy does not diminish”. Yes, Chetney has flyaway white hair and wrinkles and a squeaky old voice and a hat he’s almost laughably attached to and goofy curly toed boots, and he is still deserving of love, and that isn’t a joke. Not that that love needs to be romantic love, necessarily, but love nonetheless.

And I think that it makes perfect sense that Fearne would be the one to recognize that! For one thing, she’s the only one in Bell’s Hells that is anywhere near his age (though there is still a noticeable gap, but who knows how the fuck time works in the Feywild anyways). For another, with her wildshaping and his werewolf transformation, the two of them are the only ones in the group that understand that idea of letting animalistic instinct take over, of the freedom of being wild, and also the occasional lack of control or fear that can come with it. Not to mention both of their… impulsive morals.

But there’s two more ways I feel that these two connect, which are even deeper than what I previously mentioned – one of which I only realized after this most recent episode.

The first is related to this wonderful bit of meta from @captainofthetidesbreath, which I’m not going to reiterate here because a) you should go give them some love, and b) because this is long enough as it is. But to sum it up, Chetney is a toymaker, and takes great pride in that. He takes great joy in seeing other people, especially children, finding joy in what he’s crafted. Out of everyone in Bell’s Hells, I feel that Fearne is the only one who would truly appreciate that. Just look at what he’s made for everybody else – a box, which isn’t a toy. A skyship, which was immediately left behind for a child who would actually play with it and appreciate it. A wooden hand? And a house for Pâté and Sashimi, which is kind of a toy and kind of being played with, but also kind of not.

Fearne, on the other hand, has always had a certain whimsy about her. She enjoys the frivolous, she appreciates the silly, and she makes it a point to collect and steal and have things, simply because they make her happy. That, to me, is closest to the heart of why Chetney is a toymaker in the first place.

The second was something that Fearne said in episode 25. When Dusk showed her the locket that contained the portraits of her parents and that whole conversation started up, Fearne said”

“I don’t know where they are, and I’ve been looking for them, but maybe they just forgot? ‘Cause it’s been a very long time since I’ve seen them.”

I’m very curious as to whether this is a thought that she’s had before during her search for her parents – or if this will continue to weigh on her now that she has thought of it, at least until she’s able to reunite with them.

Because I feel like this ties in with the idea I mentioned above of Chetney feeling obsolete now that he’s gotten older. I could see a real and genuine heart-to-heart happening between them over this. I also wonder – Chetney’s never mentioned any family; no parents, no siblings, and most importantly for this Callopea ship manifesto (apparently), no spouse(s) or children. I get the sense from both of them of just… getting used to being alone and being lonely. That they are genuinely lighthearted and humorous individuals, but that humour does still help to hide some heavier feelings.

CHANGING TOPICS ENTIRELY, I also want to touch on something else that might seem completely counter to everything I’ve written here so far, and that is that this ship doesn’t need to be deep! They don’t need to have a “You know I’m in love with you, right?” or a “My heart belongs to someone else” or a “You were not born with venom in your veins”, etc etc etc.

A ship doesn’t need to be deep and intense and Romantic-with-a-capital-R to be real and genuine and enjoyable! It can be as simple and light and fun as just two people being attracted to each other and having fun exploring that attraction. Hell, their relationship doesn’t even need to be romantic! I’ve seen people headcanon Fearne as arospec, and I love the idea of a non-romantic but still sexual relationship being explored, and not being treated as lesser because of that.

Hell, they could still end up as a romantic relationship, but start out here, with heavy-handed flirting and overt sexual overtones, and see their relationship as fun but ultimately not particularly meaningful, but then *intense and emotionally-heavy moment later in the campaign happens, especially if one of them nearly dies or does die and is brought back*, and then they realize Oh shit, this isn’t just for funsies, I’ve got real actual romantic feelings for them and I’d be miserable if they were gone. Oh fuck.

And that’s not even touching on the wolf/deer theme they’ve got going on, or the sun/moon vibes that they’re rocking, etc.

Basically there’s just… SO much potential for Callopea, guys. I can’t wait to see where it goes.

#sorry if this is rambling I wrote it at 4 in the morning and then queued it up for several days later #kc speaks #Critical Role #meta #CR 3 #Chetney Pock O'Pea #Fearne Calloway #Callopea

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