#the only junk thing is that eventually you’ll try writing for a character you haven’t listened to in a while?

[paimonial-rage]

The biggest recommendation I can give on writing dialogue that sounds in character for the character to say is, not to read the quests they are in, but to listen to the English dub whenever you get the chance. This may seem difficult especially if you are used to playing it in another language, but listening is key to getting the vibe of a character down. What you pay attention to is, not what they say, but the cadence in which they say it. Pay attention to the emotion in their voice, the speed at which they say things, the volume, etc. Once you get this down, it becomes easier to get an idea of what “sounds” right and what doesn’t. Cadence is an especially powerful thing. By training your ears to a character’s cadence, you can get a better idea of which words they would prefer to use, the lengths of their sentences, and things of the sort.

For example, reader asks Zhongli to dinner and he accepts. How would he respond? “Hmm, I’m not busy this evening, so I accept. Thank you for the invitation.” But that doesn’t sound right, does it? Is Zhongli the type of person that uses many contractions? I don’t think so, so let’s fix it. “Hmm, I am not busy this evening, so I accept. Thank you for the invitation.” But would he say “I accept?” Perhaps, but it still doesn’t sound right. How has he accepted proposals in the past? A bit of research shows he has said “sure.” How can I mix that in? “Hmm, I’m not busy this evening, so sure. Thank you for the invitation.” But hmm… the second sentence doesn’t sound right. What else could he say instead? “Hmm, I’m not busy this evening, so sure. It would be my pleasure.” That sounds a lot better.

Some people may ask why you can’t do these things while listening to another language. Personally, I don’t believe you can. If you are not fluent in those other languages, your ears are not properly trained enough to understand the nuance of the ways they speak. The correct emotion and tone will come through, yes, but you still won’t be able to intuitively know what sounds right and what does not. You only will get this sense by listening to it in the language you choose to write in.

The only downside to this is that your writing will become based upon the English translation of the game. As many people know, the portrayal of characters in English often does not completely match the portrayals in Chinese. This is especially so for characters like Zhongli, Xiao, and Kaeya. A lot is lost in the translation and dubbing process. Characters do not vibe the same. Thus, your portrayals will be more true to English, but not how it technically is “supposed” to be. Personally, I don’t necessarily believe this is a bad thing. However, it is something that can bother people. The only way I can imagine getting around it is by playing the game with the Chinese dub and by following accounts that speak Chinese and can give insight on the literal translations and what they mean and imply.

#personal #advice #character analysis #i personally dislike the idea that bc the en translation and dub aren’t parallel w/ cn they did a bad job #yes there are cases where the translation is terrible but it’s impossible to do a 100% true translation #when you translate a work the translation eventually becomes its own entity #it is the job of translation to change the text so that things sound natural #add into this communication misunderstandings between the translators and the writing team and things can become skewed #i’ve completely given up on zhongli but what i do try to do when writing xiao is to follow the notes of fan translators and ppl that play c #i do have it in my plans to eventually open an asian account and replay the whole game in cn too #but yeah training your ear to a character’s cadence is a real cheat way to learning character advice #this is bc it’s less rigid and more open-ended than memorizing straight speech patterns #the only junk thing is that eventually you’ll try writing for a character you haven’t listened to in a while? #and then you are forced to reserve two hours in your day to listen to a character or event quest with them in it #pain peko #also if you’re still here i’m gonna complain a bit like why do ppl always default to the jp voices when the cn voices are right there? #why not listen to cn? that should be the default if you want the best experience #idk man #maybe i’m just tired of listening to jp voice acting. they’re all the same

[genuflectx]

4th Dimensional Being/OC - CH1

Full Length: 19,543

Chapter Length:  4,248

Main Themes: Other dimensions, tentacles, confinement, nsfw

Other Warnings: politics, "godly" behaviors, vomit, feeling of loss of autonomy, comparison to a toy

(all images in aesthetic board are labeled for reuse with modification or are mine)

I ended writing a novella... this is my longest short, non-fanfic work yet. It's not perfect but was a fun exploration of these characters and themes. Yes, there will be explicit sex in a later chapter :) Later on I will format the novella correctly for a nice little Gumroad/Patron release! Enjoy! (WILL BE NSFW IN LATER CHAPTERS)

The 4DB Chapter 1: Heartburn

“Do you need any stamps?”

The middle-aged woman re-set her teeth subconsciously and rose a brow. “No, I just came to drop off the package.” Her eyes crinkled in a way that passive aggressively said 'get on with it.'

Chris pursed her lips, features big and round with false politeness. “Okay then! If you could just insert your card-”

“Is it one that takes chips?” She interrupted.

“Yes, it's ready for you.”

The mail room was a quiet murmur as the card clacked against the plastic scanner. Eventually it happened to slipped in. “It's not doing anything.”

“You might have it in the wrong way ma'am,” Chris suggested, tense.

The woman squinted, a corner of her mouth raising in distaste. She ripped the card from its slot and turned it around. The machine asked her pin. She got it right on the third try. Finally, the package could be put in its place as the lady left with a stick up her ass.

“Some customers are just the worst,” Chris concluded as she and two of her co-workers were closing shop.

Vincent shrugged. “They just like to take out their anger on strangers to make'em feel better,” he smiled and locked the door.

Mildred chuckled and rolled her eyes, patting Chris on the shoulder. “Make sure none of them hear you talking like that!” She started to walk to her car. “I been here for a decade. You'll get used to them.”

“Well I been here a year, I ought to be too!” Chris groaned, slumping dramatically where she stood.

“Just get some rest, tomorrow's the big event!” Vincent grinned and pranced off to his own car.

Chris found her feet dragging on, her hand fumbling for keys. “Yeah yeah, see you there,” she mumbled, climbing on in with exhaustion.

She was never much of a people-pleaser, but she did her job alright. After a long exasperating work week the weekend was blessedly encroaching upon her, right along side the annual downtown gathering of Gabriel's Children. Chris was not one of those children. However, Vincent had been since the horn had first begun to blow. Chris did have to admit it was an astounding scientific phenomenon, but that's all it was. Just something science had yet to explain. The little festival the locals vended had delicious food, though. Hearing the horn was a fun little bonus.

The festivities started early in the morning and she arrived with Vincent in the afternoon. There was a talk being held at its center, which Vincent felt the need to drag her to hear after gathering snacks. They nibbled on freshly baked pastries and sipped hot coffee as a man high on the stage explained recent discoveries of the hum- another word for the horn. Chris thought maybe they'd come in a little late, as the man was already beginning to finish off his speech. Plus, it was hard to hear with the bustling of the surrounding crowd; all the people laughing and chatting and cooking at their stands, necklaces jingling and children begging parents for magnets of trumpets and angels. She strained her ears to listen.

“So if it wasn't the factory, if we are inland unlike the Children of Europe, we have no buzzing wind farms nor major fault lines, then what is it? What is the 'horn?'” He stalked across the stage, pacing and looking so, so serious. “Twenty years and we have no answers. But we know it's sped up. We know it's moved and honed in to few locations; from our little mid-American town, to Washington D.C., all the way down to the hot, dry climates of Texas.”

Chris sighed and slid further in her chair, looking bored. “We've heard all this before. They haven't learned anything new in years,” she whispered across to her excited co-worker. Vincent shushed her and she resisted a bored moan.

The speaker was unaffected, totally unaware of a particular audience member's dry indifference. “Every year now it comes, and every year we gather again to try and learn something. Anything,” he frowned.

Chris crammed cinnamon role into her gob and huffed quietly. “Good luck.” She washed it down with a big swig of coffee.

Vincent gave her a look that could melt the bones right out of her body. She smirked at him.

“Maybe this year... things will be different,” the speaker trailed off quietly and quit pacing. He became eerily still, looking out over the heads of the crowd and into the mottled stone walls of downtown. Vincent felt that he was pausing for dramatic effect, but Chris rose a brow. He'd stopped speaking, almost wall eyed.

“Shit,” Chris suddenly whispered, bringing fingers to her temples and shutting her eyes.

“You okay?” Vincent worried, glancing from her to the stage with a sense of terrible unease.

She grit her teeth and shut her eyes. Her ears were ringing, one even popped. A few seconds passed. It slowly subsided into a dull pain. “Just a weird headache? Guess it's all the noise,” she dropped her hands, exhaling.

“Guess he got one too?” Vincent gestured uncomfortably.

She followed his hand up to the stage, where the speaker was continuing to pause. By now it had just become awkward; his palm on his forehead and a pained expression encased his wrinkled visage. The crowd had begun to murmur in confusion. Slowly he swallowed, like forcing down vomit, then became relieved enough to continue.

“That's... that's all. Thank you for coming to listen to me speak,” he shuffled away to the shallow stairs and disappeared, making way for the next speaker.

“Weird,” Chris mumbled. “Maybe air pressure then? Well come on, I want to look at some shops before the countdown reaches zero.”

He jumped up enthusiastically, all starry eyed. “Yeah! I want a new key chain!”

As they carefully navigated the crowd back to the local art shops, Chris shook her head and laughed. “Don't you already have like, six trumpets?” She scolded.

He scoffed and waved a hand. “Pch, sure, but they're all different!”

An hour to go. They browsed, they made small talk, they sat stiff on freezing metal benches outside of local junk shops. Vincent not only snatched up a key chain but a copy of a screen print as well. He turned it upside down and squinted, humming. It was some abstract piece. Flat shapes seemed to wiggle around at him in a colorful confusion.

“Why don't you buy anything?” He asked, tuning the print right side up again.

She shrugged, chilled hands in warming pockets. “I'm not a tourist like you.”

“Heeey, I resent that!” He joked, trying to hide a smile.

Suddenly Chris winched, putting a hand at the nape of her neck. There it was again, that creeping feeling of a splitting headache coming back. She sighed and slowed her pace, feeling nauseous.

“Listen, I think I'm gonna head home.”

Her friend expressed disappointment. “What! It's only fifteen minutes now! Really want to miss Gabriel?”

She nodded, rubbing her neck and looking down. “Yeah, I really feel icky. Besides, I'll probably still hear it in my car if I roll the windows down. I think the crowd and air pressure are just overwhelming me.” Chris did hate to leave her friend to himself, but he was a big boy, even if he was two years younger. She just didn't feel up to staying any longer.

He pretended to pout and waved her goodbye. “See ya at work Monday,” he called across the loud, mingling voices of the festival.

Chris waved back and found her way through downtown, back out into the more empty streets. She pressed a red button. The streetlight sounded and the image turned white so she crossed swiftly on numbed feet. She made it up the car park elevator, found her car among the dimly lit concrete slopes, and finally was on her way home. The headache had yet to return during the trip so she counted herself lucky.

The roads were relatively empty due to the majority of traffic having already settled in to wait for Gabriel's horn, though a few roads were annoyingly blocked off for the event. She was deathly glad for the vacant roads that allowed her to slip out of downtown with an ease she'd not get to enjoy any other day.

“Oh right,” Chris rolled down her side window. Fresh cold air flowed in, which soothed her head a little. “Not long now.”

She was just about out of downtown when it happened. But... there was no horn. No rusty screech, no hum that she'd grown to know so well. However, there was an awful, unaccounted for noise that came from the rolling Heavens. A sharp, quick sound; a hard whispered word blasted her brain and set it on fire. It hurt like Hell. Like the loud screech of white noise when one had forgotten to turn the volume down before pressing 'on.' Chris slammed her breaks and cried, her wheels screaming. Was that what Vincent heard, waiting patiently back in the crowd? Or was it just in her head?

Chris pressed the gas gently, teeth grit and eyes barely open. She veered into an empty parking lot and stopped askew over two spaces. She yanked her hair and pressed her forehead against the wheel then suddenly felt extremely sick. She fumbled for the door then stumbled out. Chris felt pressure and collapsed clumsily to her knees against the broken asphalt. After a few moments some of the pressure let up, but then she heard that word again.

“What's wrong with me?” She slurred, feeling dizzy.

A look around found that she was very much alone. There was nothing but empty parked cars. The pain was suddenly gone. She froze and took a deep breath, her eyes re-focusing and hands shaking. She needed to go to the hospital but did not want to pay for the ambulance. Vincent could drive her. Her hand slowly retrieved the phone from her pocket, but as she pressed the button to find Vincent's contact she heard the word one last time. Sharp, quick, just like the first, but it was more clear.

“Wh-what? I'm hallucinating,” She mumbled, knowing full well that that was not the sound of Gabriel's horn.

“Chrysanthemum,” a loud-quiet voice called out in her head.

“Shit!” She dropped her phone and watched it smack against the faded asphalt.

“Chrysanthemum, don't be afraid. You are not hallucinating. The pain you felt was an... accident,” it explained, lowering its voice.

“God?” Chris called, slipping onto her butt and staring with fear into the sky. She was shaking from head to toe now.

It made a weird sound. “No, we are not a god, though we may seem it to you. We are the noise you call 'Gabriel's Horn,' but we are neither Gabriel nor Horn. The 'Horn' you've heard was merely our days affecting your years as we... tuned equipment,” Not-Gabriel explained plainly.

She glanced from cloud to cloud, brows furrowed so hard her forehead hurt. For a moment she thought if she just searched long enough she'd be able to find the face that was talking down on her.

“It will be difficult for you to understand and will take many of your days to acclimate. Do you at least understand this Chrysanthemum?” It sounded condescending at the end.

Chris scowled. “Well you can't be God if you keep using a name I don't go by,” she complained.

“We are of the 4th dimension. We are not a god. Here. I will touch your insides, it may feel strange,” it warned. “See?”

She screamed and grabbed her stomach. It felt like her acid churned, and suddenly she had heart burn. Chris burped and felt woozy. “That's... ohhh I think mm gonna pahhh-” Chris collapsed heavily to her back, unconscious.

There was nothing, nothing, nothing, then there was something. She saw herself amid a void. It was like a thick goo, as if the gas or lack of gas in the air had solidified. There was no cold nor heat, no apparent up nor down. But then, as she turned her head towards her feet, there was an illumination that lit the ground beneath her. A flat plain decorated with complex, ornate geometry rested below. She squatted against her calves, though it felt years before she came to a halt, and with every tiny change in posture she saw a ghost of her former self.

“Hello?” She called, echoing into the void. Her word simultaneously stuck in the goo and penetrated its atoms all at once. This world was a contradiction.

Something small screamed, a high-pitched trill of terror and shock. Chris glanced down at the geometry and squinted. The geometry was moving; it shivered and vibrated like cells in a body. It was all scrambling so fast compared to her.

“Hello?” She asked again, balancing with a hand so she may come closer.

It screamed again. A tiny little organism wriggled backwards, and across the plain something tickled Chris's hand. She lifted it and gawked with disgust and horror. She'd squished something, and it lay in bits in pieces.

“Whoops, I think I broke something,” she admitted sheepishly.

“Don't smite me!” Squeaked the thing by her feet.

Chris frowned. “What are you? You're so small and... flat.”

It rotated and looked around, but it never once looked up into the sky. The creature could not see anything but the outline of her shoes where she'd stepped atop its planet.

“You don't know?” It asked, sounding only slightly less panicked. “Then you're not God? Are you from Somewhere Else?”

She shook her head, confused. “No, I'm not a god. I'm Chris. And you're a cell?”

“A cell?”

“Yeah, a small organism that can group up to become a bigger organism. I'm full of them. You look like all the diagrams we used in school. But you can talk and I can see your insides. Which is the mitochondria?” She scrutinized the inside of the creature's body. It was sorta gross.

The flat creature's brain was working hard as it stared at the funny outline of Chris's shoes. She could even see it working. It nervously moved around her shape, making a full circle to get a whole picture.

“You're gigantic, please don't hurt me Chris. What do you want?”

“I don't- woah!” She began to sink. The illuminated plain was caving to her weight, but only she passed through. The plain itself remained as flat as ever. “I'm gonna fall!”

The creature's panic sky rocketed as it watched the line gyrate and change, growing larger and longer. “Ahhh!” It yelled, backing into a corner. If Chris continued to grow it would have no way of escape and be crushed against the side of a wall. “What's happening? What's wrong?”

She slipped further. Now it was Chris who was in a panic, scared of the endless black void below the flat planet. She sunk through to her elbows, leaving her to sprawl her arms and claw at the ground for purchase. Across the world her fingers scraped through a once wondrous shape, which crumpled and splintered as she accidentally destroyed its existence.

“I'm sorry! I'm sorry!” She freaked out, heart beating like on a roller coaster. Chris fell.

She gasped, her skin clammy and damp. Everything was too bright and she shielded her eyes.

“You're awake, good. Here,” a man said.

Chris sat up and exhaled, her eyes adjusting. She was in a stranger's house and was being handed a glass of cold water, though the ice inside had since melted. The flat planet was a dream. She had not really scraped a building from the face of a world. As she took the water, her hands shaking, she realized something.

“...You look familiar. Where am I?” She fretted, sipping a little.

He sat across from her in a chair. “What's the last thing you remember?” He asked rather than answer.

She crossed her legs atop the couch and dabbed sweat off with her sleeve. It took some brain power to get any semblance of memory going. “I had some sort of weird... episode. Then I passed out in a parking lot. I think I need a hospital,” Chris groaned.

He grinned. “So you did hear it?”

“What?”

“You heard it? The thing that says its from another dimension?” He was star-struck.

Chris stared down into her cup, thinking. Flashes came back to her until finally she remembered everything, right down to the nausea. A chill came over her body so she sat the cold water down. “It wasn't a hallucination.”

“No it wasn't!” He exclaimed, shivering with excitement. “It spoke to me too! It told me where to find you since you fell unconscious! But we aren't the only ones. It spoke to even more.”

She quirked the corner of her lips and let that information sink in. Suddenly something came to her and she tilted her head curiously. “You're that man from the stage.”

“Call me Cole,” he scooted closer and stuck out a hand.

Chris hesitated, unsure. “Chris.” She shook his hand daintily.

He explained everything. The headache, the ringing in his ears, how he'd been packing up his laptop to leave backstage when the countdown hit zero. To everyone else it had been a disappointment, for this year the horn did not hum to the eager ears awaiting it. Instead, it narrowed down its focus and spoke to them. Chris and Cole, but others, too.

“It told me there were six others. That includes you. So outside of us there are five other people it spoke to directly,” he explained.

“But... why? Just seven people?”

He leaned back in his chair and shrugged, nonchalant. “I asked, after the initial shock and having dropped my laptop (may she rest in peace). It just said: you work for your government.”

Chris looked off, expression soured. It was true. The Postal Service was a branch of the government, but she hardly equated government with the mail.

“What do you do?” She asked him nervously.

“Department of Energy.”

Chris got the creeping notion that his house was vaguely radioactive. Or, at the very least, he was. “Great.” She stretched her legs over the couch's edge and stared at her shoes awkwardly. “So now what?”

“We wait to be called upon,” he answered simply. “I'll go start some tea,” and like that Cole was out the room.

So they waited and waited. Chris thumbed through books as she did, glancing at Cole's collection and idly sipping tea. Sometimes she'd get the fear that he was making it all up, that this was all a scheme to kidnap her without freaking her out. Or that maybe he was just some guy screwing with her head. But then her stomach would churn and she'd remember how it felt to be touched. Chris felt queasy. At the same time she couldn't help but feel... honored? It was strange. This was all so new to her.

Finally it came to them. This time there was no pain, no headaches or heartburn. Cole fell to his knees as soon as the creature spoke, but Chris just sank shakily back into couch, empty teacup in hand.

“You will be transported to a location for study,” it said.

Cole nodded his head and agreed instantly, but Chris found herself asking it: “Why? And where?”

“Why: a 'mutual' exchange of information in a controlled environment. Where: the center of your 'country' in a long-term observation facility.”

She balked. “For how long?” But Cole spoke over her.

“That's brilliant! Brilliant! Have you spoke to the president? Surely you have,” he clasped his hands together and smiled.

“...Yes. Unfortunately. Some deep convincing was needed to induce submission,” it replied with obvious irritation.

Chris was uncomfortable and suspicious of the wording, though she was not surprised the president was a nuisance to converse with. The creature assured them there would be at least a day or two before anyone came for collection, so they had some time to prepare. Cole questioned why this creature could not simply pick them up and plop them back down, but it was uncertain that such action would be healthy. So again they played a waiting game.

Chris went back to her house. Cole stayed in his. Sunday dawned upon the world and there was no one yet at their doors. Chris paced uneasily in her little home, her suitcases already packed in the living room. She didn't know what to do with herself. Couldn't even stomach trying to explain anything to Vincent or Mildred. Hell, did she even want to leave? She was sure she had no choice.

Finally, come Monday morning, there was a knock at her door. She jumped from bed and scrambled to answer, a measly robe tossed across her shoulders. A stoic man dressed in all black was there to greet her, his eyes unreadable though they crinkled. She could sense some strange dread in him from his hard posture alone. Only the automatic light of her porch lit their way as this stranger led her to the car.

Cole was there, his white teeth gleaming at her as she boarded. Despite his cheer, Chris felt like she was in a daze the entire time. Her hands settled frozen in her lap and eyes glued to the window. She watched her little town pass her by just as the night drifted to day. The ugly office building next to the apartments, the fenced off government buildings. There went the post office. She sighed.

Where are you? Vincent texted Chris when they were already hours from town.

Her thumbs hovered sleepily over the keys. She didn't know what to say. Eventually she just settled for:

It's been a long weekend. I don't know when I'll be able to come in again. Something's happened

…

…

…

Are you sick?

Don't know what I'm allowed to say. I'll text later. Xoxo

Well that's not totally vague but ok

…

…

Tell me if u need soup fam

Chris smiled at her phone. She really hoped this didn't cause her to lose her job, even if it was something way more pressing than delivering mail. She'd miss her co-workers the most. Even Mildred. With any luck the 'long-term' in 'long-term research facility' wouldn't be any more long-term than a vacation.

The driver drove non-stop, through the night and the day, across interstates and through small cities. It was unnerving. Cole whispered that he was sure the creature was to blame, even though it hadn't spoken the whole trip.

“It's fascinating,” he whispered.

Chris hummed and faked a smile in acknowledgment before staring back out the window. All she could think was what a weird vacation before she found herself nodding off.

“We've arrived,” the driver announced as sudden as summer rain.

Chris jerked, her stinging eyes glued in confusion to the dim window. They were inside of a painfully lit parking garage and there were droves of black-suits and white-coats to greet them. She must have fallen asleep for some time.

“Thank you,” she heard Cole dully as his door was opened for him. Her door was next.

“Have you been in contact?” Asked a man sternly, no trace of emotion in his voice.

She furrowed her brows. “What?”

He didn't miss a beat. “With the 4DB?”

Both she and her jittery acquaintance were being led away through the garage. Someone gently guided her through a door with a palm against her back.

“The... the Four Dee Bee?”

The man re-adjusted the wireless device in his ear, lips crinkling. “The Fourth Dimensional Being.”

Chris began to sweat and tried to explain. “Not since before we were told we'd be sent here, but-”

A woman patted her shoulder nonchalantly and shook her head. “Can't even wait till she's in the room huh?” She teased her co-worker, her heels clicking against the hall tile. “We're just eager, don't be afraid! You and Mr. Artrip will speak with a scientist and be briefed before joining the others. This was all very sudden so don't mind the dust bunnies.”

Chris nodded quietly, glancing ahead to get a glimpse of Cole- Mr. Artrip. This was all so weird and she felt she had some sort of jet lag. She wondered when she'd be allowed to talk with the creature again. It had been a few days now.

“And then after everyone's settled it's about meal time! But first,” she carefully pushed Chris into a dimly lit room, had a quick word with her co-worker, then silently shut the door. “Have a seat.”

She did as she was told. Chris sat before a small wooden table, as if this was meant to make the room more inviting than it really was. It just made her feel interrogated. Or like she'd been called to the principal’s office.

The woman took a seat across from her and peeked into a thin file. After a short pause she looked up, smiled, and said. “Chrysanthemum Sain... tell me everything.”

Read CH2 early on Patreon or wait for it to go public!

#terato #monster lover #monster romance #tentacles #exophilia #writing #short story

[steves-on-a-plane]

Double Trouble (Pt. 1)

Words: 2310 Pairing: Steve Rogers x Bucky Barnes (formerly & eventually) Other Characters: Betsy Sarah Rogers (oc) & Eleanor Roosevelt Barnes (oc) Other Info: Parent Trap AU Inspired by: @caffeinated--writer​‘s Post Summary: Betsy Rogers is about to be dropped off at a summer camp she doesn’t want to go to. She’d much rather spend the summer with her father and his friends moving into their new place. Ellie Barnes has been attending Camp Sunshine every summer since she was seven. This summer she’s going to finally be a Cabin Leader. But both girl’s lives are about to change when they discover a secret that ties them together forever. 

Camp Sunshine. Thirteen-year-old Elizabeth Sarah Rogers could have gagged as she read the name off the swinging wooden sign their car passed under. The sign was hung crookedly by a pair of chains that each connected to a large beam.  Camp Sunshine sounded like exactly the sort of place Steve Rogers would send his only daughter. Betsy continued to stare out the window, looking anywhere but at him. She imagined it was the type of camp that didn’t allow junk food or for the campers to be up past seven. The kind of camp that gave out patches for making popsicle stick houses or some other such nonsense.

“Why the long face, Bets?” Her father asked. He maneuvered the car into a turn and waited for her to respond, even though he already knew the answer.

“I don’t want to be here.” She mumbled to the window.

“I know, Chickadee.” He sighed, digging out an old nickname he only used when he was really trying to win his daughter over. “But we’ve been over this. You’re too big to fit in my luggage.” He joked, trying to get a laugh out of her. Betsy couldn’t help but smirk. Steve Rogers was the king of dad jokes.

“Don’t think I can’t see that smirk.” He commented, still driving down the winding camp road.” Listen, Bets I know you don’t want to go to camp, but I’ve gotta help Tony get the new compound set up and you need to be around kids your own age more.”

“I don’t like kids my own age!” She pouted. “I want to hang out with you and Tony and Natasha!”

“Well, maybe you just haven’t found the right ones yet.” He suggested.

“Well you should hang out with people your age.” She thought it was a very good comeback considering her dad was over ninety years old.

“Ha ha,” The captain feigned a laugh. “That’s different and you know it. Clint said this camp is nice. It’s where he usually sends Lila every summer.”

“Yeah, even the Bartons are going on a family vacation this summer.” Betsy complained. Steve sighed again.

“It’s only four weeks, Bets.” He added before driving the rest of the way in silence. The car didn’t go much further before stopping just outside of the main cabin. All around the manicured lawn of the main cabin girls were milling about in small groups of two to four. Some eagerly waved good-bye to their parents while others, like Betsy, looked as if they didn’t want to be there.

“Well, Chicakdee, this is where we say good-bye.” Steve told his daughter regrettably. She finally looked over at him and said the snarky line she’d been saving up in her mind for a full week.

“You mean this is where you ditch me for four weeks.” She huffed before opening the car door on her side. Betsy walked to the back of the car and waited for her dad to pop the trunk. When he did she reached in and grabbed her bags. She slung a duffle bag over one shoulder and her backpack over the other before slamming the trunk down. She then tapped on the trunk twice, so he knew she’d gotten everything, just like she’d seen the captain do when one of the Avengers dropped him off at home.

Betsy walked back towards the driver’s side and leaned into the window. She had to stand on the tips of her toes to do it, but she managed to kiss her father on the cheek. She then leaned back and offered him a salute.

“Bye, Captain Dad.” She said, bringing her arm to her side. “Promise you’ll at least write to me?”

“You’re going to summer camp, not to war, Bets.” He laughed. “But I’ll write, I promise. Stay out of trouble alright? I love you!”

“I love you too.” You answered back before he rolled up his window. It was a strange ritual that he insisted on for as long as she could remember. You should always tell someone you love them when you mean it because you never know when your last chance to say it might be. He’d told her once and the sentiment always stuck. She waited until his care had turned around and disappeared out of sight before heading inside the main cabin to check in.

“Name dear?” The elderly woman who was checking in campers asked her.

“Betsy or Elizabeth.” She added, realizing her father had probably registered her with her full name. “Elizabeth Rogers.”

“Ah, Rogers.” The woman nodded. She marked something down on the list in front of her. “You’ll be in the Cabin Five. You should find it easily enough. Your Counselor’s name is Ellie. Next!”

“Okay…” Betsy wandered outside back onto the lawn and hoped that she could find her way to cabin five.

“Ellie! El!” Betsy turned to look for Ellie, the girl who was supposed to be her cabin leader, as it seemed someone had spotted her on the lawn somewhere. But while she squinted against the sunlight a girl approached her talking a mile a minute.

“I heard you were a Cabin Leader this year! That’s so amazing! I mean it makes sense, you’ve been coming here for like ever, but what’s with the new look? I mean I’m into it but hiking boots? A denim jacket? Helllooo? Earth to Ellie!” The girl finally stopped for a breath.

“Sorry were you talking to me?” Betsy pointed at herself. “I’m Betsy Rogers and you are?”

“So so so sorry!” The girl exclaimed. “You look just like this other girl, Ellie. Have you met Ellie before?”

“I, ah, no.” Betsy shook her head. “But I’m looking for her. I’m supposed to be in Cabin Five with her. Do you think you could…”

“Oh Cabin Five!” The girl remarked excitedly, interrupting Betsy. “I can totally show you the way!” The girl grabbed Betsy by the hand and started leading her across the lawn. “I’m Joss by the way. Nice to meet you Betsy. I can’t wait to show you to Ellie! She’s gonna freak!”

Eleanor Roosevelt Barnes was in her cabin unpacking as she waited for her new campers to arrive. This would be her seventh summer at Camp Sunshine. She’d been going every summer since she was a little kid and this year, she was finally a Cabin Leader. She would be responsible for a whole cabin of campers. Sure, it would really only be her friend, Joss, and two other girls their age but she was excited anyway. Ellie put her hands on her hips and surveyed her four pieces of matching luggage.

“Maybe I’ve packed too much this year.” She sighed. She did pack an entire bag of just make-up and hair accessories.

“Ellie!!! Ellie! There’s someone you’ve got to meet!” Eleanor could hear Joss’ shouted from inside the cabin before the thin screen door flew open. “Betsy, this is Ellie.” Eleanor looked away from her luggage and over at the cabin door. The girl standing between her and her best friend nearly took her breath away.

Betsy was dragged across the camp by Joss, a girl who hardly ever seemed to stop talking. When they finally reached Cabin Five, Joss continued to rattle on while forcing Betsy inside. The cabin’s only other occupant at the time was quickly introduced as Ellie.

Ellie was, at least in Betsy’s opinion, way too overdressed for camp. Her dark brown hair was curled into perfect ringlets which had to have taken at least forty-five minutes to set. Her make-up was trendy and colorful. The kind you’d see on an Instagram model with perfect eyeliner wings. She wore a hunter green skirt that stopped just above her knees which perfectly coordinated with the camp counselor polo shirt she was wearing. Even her shoes where a pair of keds in the same hunter green.

Betsy, from Ellie’s perspective, looked like she’d just crawled out of bed and dressed in the dark. Her dark hair had been twisted into some sort of a knot that barely resembled a bun. She wore a denim jacket over a faded red t-shirt. She had on shorts of a different color denim from her jacket and a pair of brown leather hiking boots.

Despite their differences, both girls noticed that they had the same ocean blue eyes and a nose that was broad and pointed upwards. Their hair was nearly the same color except that Betsy’s was streaked with highlights from the sun and Ellie’s had the faintest remnants of bleach on the ends from when she thought balayage would be a good look on her. If they didn’t know any better, they would have said they looked like twins.

“Sorry, what did you say your name was again?” Ellie asked. She smiled wide so that she was showing as many of her perfectly white teeth as possible.

“Uh, Betsy.” She answered quietly. “Like Betsy Ross, my dad kind of has a thing for history.”

“Tell me about it.” Ellie laughed. It was a light laugh, like a bird’s song. It was the same laugh that Betsy had. That’s why her dad had called her Chickadee. He said her laugh sounded like a bird’s song. “My dad’s named after a president. So, he thought it’d be cute to name me after a first lady!”  Ellie rolled her eyes. “C’mon in and get settled. We don’t have a lot of time to unpack before dinner starts.”

“Okay, is no one going to talk about the fact that the two of you look exactly the same?” Joss asked. “Like exactly the same?” Betsy and Ellie looked at each other, neither wanted to admit that Joss was right. “I mean El, you’re always saying how you wish you had a sibling! Maybe you and Betsy are related!”

“Not possible.” Ellie shook her head. She took a stack of photos out of one of her suitcases and started pinning them to the cabin wall with thumb tacks. “My Dad doesn’t have any family. Unless you count Bill and Javier and the other guys from the shop. It’s just been me and him for as long as I can remember.”

“It’s the same with me.” Betsy agreed. She tossed her bags on one of the open beds. “My dad told me once that there were only two people he ever loved before me. He lost his first love in a really tragic accident and the second…” Betsy shrugged. “Well, we never really talk about him. It’s too hard for my dad, I think. Instead we kind of surrounded ourselves with a ton of found family.”

“What about your mom?” Ellie asked looking away from her picture collage on the wall.

“I don’t have one.” Betsy replied. She sat down on the bed she’d claimed for herself. “At least not the way that most people do. My Dads had me with a surrogate and when they split up I stayed with my Dad, Steve, because he stayed living in New York. My other dad moved away before I was even a year old. I don’t even know his name.”

“Okay that’s weird.” Ellie admitted. “Because my Dad had me with a surrogate and he used to live in New York but we live in California now. He said he left the guy that he was with because they were just too different. He said he didn’t even take much with him, just me. But there’s this picture of a blonde man taped to his toolbox at work. I always wondered if that was my other dad. Do you know what your other dad looked like?”

“I Saw a picture of him once, in a framed photo on my dad’s dresser, but when he saw me looking at it, he put it away.”  Betsy explained.

“Did he look like this?” Ellie riffled through the stack of photos she’d brought with her until she found the one she was looking for. It was a picture of her Dad standing outside of his garage. She’d taken it about two years ago when constructions was completed on the new factory. “Bucky’s Motorcycle Co” was what the new sign that stretched across the whole building read. Standing under the sign, smiling proudly was her dad. James Buchan Barnes. He had the same dark hair as Ellie and the same nose, and even, Betsy noticed as she studied the photo, the same ocean blue eyes.

“That’s him.” Betsy said, not taking her eyes off the photo. “That’s the guy I saw in the picture in my Dad’s room. Wait your dad’s the owner of Bucky’s Motorcycles? That’s so cool! My Dad has one of those, but he never lets me ride it…”

“Betsy! Focus!” Ellie commented impatiently. “Do you have a picture of your dad?”

“Right!” Betsy nodded. She sent aside the photo of Bucky and reached for her backpack. Inside her wallet she pulled out a small photo of her Dad that she’d taken with her instant camera. He’d just come back from a mission and was still wearing most of his Captain America uniform. He held his helmet in one hand, while his other was pressed to his chest. His head was tossed back on laughter. “It’s not the best,” She explained handing the photo over to Ellie. “But it’s the only one I have with me.”

“Wait, your Dad is Captain America?” Ellie asked as she studied the photo Betsy handed her. “My dad told me that my other Dad was in the military. That’s how they met.”

“Wait! Wait! Wait!” Joss gasped reminding the other two girls that she was even there. “If your if Ellie’s Dad looks like your other dad, and Betsy’s Dad looks like your other dad, doesn’t that make you both like, sisters?”

#Steve Rogers #Steve Rogers x Bucky Barnes #Stucky #Parent Trap AU #Not A Reader Insert #Teen OC #Double Trouble #How Do I Get Down These Rabbit Holes

[crampdown]

Cramp’s Comic Recommendations For Fans Of Classic Rock And Co.

Allright here we go. This is my current list of comics/manga/graphic novels you might enjoy if you’re into classic rock. Before we get started I’d just like to let you all know:

- This list is far from being complete. I’m sure there are many more groovy comics out there that I’m simply not aware of yet so if you have any suggestions feel free to add them :)

- I know I said “Classic Rock” but some of my choices may drift into other musical directions

- Needless to say I do not own any of the following images. They all belong to their rightfull owners and I’ll use them as visual reference material only.

- Sorry for eventual misspelling

Let’s go ^^

1. Bob Dylan Revisited 

Let’s start with an obvious choice. This is a collection of 13 well-known Dylan Songs, each of them graphically interpreted by a different artist. The most striking feature therefore is the high variety of different art styles. Some of them are cartoony, some are very abstract while others are almost photo realistic.

Dylan’s mesmerizing lyrics have always been inspirational and these beautiful depictions truly are a sight to see. 

Including works of Thierry Murat, Lorenzo Mattotti, Nicolas Nemiri, François Avril, Jean-Claude Götting, Christopher,  Bézian, Dave McKean, Alfred, Raphaëlle Le Rio, Maël Le Mae, and Henri Meunier, Gradimir Smudju, Benjamin Flao, Jean-Phillippe Bramanti and Zep.

Zep’s take on “Not Dark Yet”

Jean-Phillippe Bramanti’s interpretation of “Knocking On Heaven’s Door”

Definitely worth checking out not only for Bob Dylan Fans.

2. Baby’s In Black” by Arne Bellstorf

I’ve seen several people in the Beatles fandom complain about the lack of Stuart Sutcliffe material when it comes to early Beatles history. 

Well, here it is: a graphic novel that focuses on the relationship between Stuart Sutcliffe and fotographer Astrid Kirchherr who took the very first professional photos of the Beatles during their time in Hamburg (1960-61).

Told mostly from Astrid’s point of view this comic presents itself in a grey and melancholic tone that fits the rather sad story. Bellstorf’s drawings are simplified and charming (they remind me of early sixties children book illustrations which suits the setting’s time period)

If you’re interested in early Beatles history (especially their Hamburg days) you should give this one a try.

3. Blue Monday by Chynna Clugston Flores

I really wish I had known about this amazing comic series a few years earlier, not only because this is a slice of life/coming of age story with teenage characters who are actually likeable and relateable but also because “Blue Monday” is an overall highly entertaining depiction of early nineties teen culture/rebellion in an American suburb that comes with a lot of references to Britpop, mod culture, Buster Keaton movies and Adam Ant (to name only a few).

To quote the author herself: “It’s like Archie on crack, with cursing and smokes”.

The art style of Chynna Clugston Flores is very vivid and expressive and has a certain stylistic touch of anime/manga (like a lot of comics from the early 2000s). I also really enjoy all of the graphic fashion details in this one. Plus, this is the first comic with it’s own soundtrack and that’s always a nice bonus.

I’d recommend “Blue Monday” for fans of Britpop, Punk, New Wave and early 1990′s culture.

4. Punk Rock And Trailer Parks by Derf Backderf

Another story about growing up in American small town madness, this time set in 1980s gritty Punk subculture of the former rubber city of Akron, Ohio. Protagonist Otto who likes to refer to himself as “The Baron” becomes fascinated with Punk after attending a Ramones concert. He meets several Pubk icons (thus as The Clash, The Plasmatics, rock journalist Lester Bangs and many more) and becomes someting of a local punk star himself.

Derf Backderf (who is best known for his highly acclaimed graphic novel “My Friend Dahmer” and his Eisner award winning comic “Trashed”) created a comic that is as “raw and dirty as punk itself”. His art style is an unique combination of expressionism, underground cartoons and punk magazines.

“Punk Rock And Trailer Parks” is a must-have for punk fans (especially if you’re into The Ramones and The Clash. It made me a huge fan of both of them).

5. “CASH - I See A Darkness” and “Nick Cave - Mercy On Me” by Reinhard Kleist

Two biographical graphic novels by Reinhard Kleist, both of them tell the story of a fascinating personality in rock history and both of them are incredibly well drawn. Kleist’s art is full of life and movement and very atmospheric due to his impressive use of stark contrasts. 

I personally love his semirealistic way of drawing people and I’d highly suggest you to check out his other works too. He made a lot of biographical comics that really amazed me.

CASH

Cave

Definetly worth reading. Not only for Johnny Cash and Nick Cave fans.

6. Nowhere Men by Eric Stephenson, Nate Bellegarde, Jordie Bellaire and Fonografiks

I talked about this one a while ago but I’ll gladly do it again since it’s just too cool. “Nowhere Men” is set in an alternative past/present and future where scientists became as popular as pop stars (catchphrase “Science is the new Rock n` Roll”) but somewhere along the way something definetly went wrong. 

The hype of science shares obvious similarities with the beatlemania of the 60s and the founding of Apple back then. Furthermore, the characters are partly inspired by well-known personalities of Rock history. There are many more or less hidden nods and references to musical popculture wich is why I put it on this list.

Nowhere Men is a thrilling sci-fi dystopian that requires an observant reader because there is a lot of jumping back and forth i time and inbetween information. The art style is realistic and full of very vibrant colours.

I found myself reading this multiple times to get all of the details in the world building. A thoughtful and brilliant writing indeed. 

7. P.I.L. by Mari Yamazaki

Japan 1983: 17-year-old Nanami couldn’t be more frustrated. Her grandfather loves to spend all of their household money on useless luxury junk and her strict school criticizes her messy hairstyle. Caught between teenage rebellion and responsibility as she tries different side jobs to earn at least a little bit of money, Nanami also has a thing for punk music and overall everything originated from England.

P.I.L. tells the story of conflict between two generations who aren’t as different as they might seem. Sometimes funny and heartwarming, sometimes with a bit of drama this is a charming slice of life/ coming of age josei with a more simplistic but aesthetical pleasing art style.

as the title might suggest, Nanami is a big fan of P.I.L. and other bands of the punk, neo punk and new wave movement such as The Stranglers and The Killing Joke

8. Yellow Submarine by Bill Morrison

A comic adaptation of an animated film such as Yellow Submarine? Yeah, I was skeptical at first too but hear me out: This is really great. Morrison did an amazing job at capturing the trippy and psychedelic feeling of the legendary Beatles film. As the 1968 film used the medium of animation as an actual form of art to accomplish things only animation can do, Morrison did the same thing and used the advantages of the comic medium to accomplish things only comics can do. And it works. It really works.

Every single page of this colourful book has a different panel layout. Some of them are so beautiful and creative that I’d love to have a full-size poster version of them :’D

If you liked the film, if you love the psychedelic age, you’ll probably like the comic too. 

9. In The Pines by Erik Kriek

“In the pines, in the pines, where the sun never shines...”

5 Murder Ballads, some might call them dark Country Music, each of them beautifully illustrated by Erik Kriek. Atmospheric, dark and gritty and always on point to match the spine-chilling western-like storytelling of these ballads, great for fans of horror literature a la E.A.Poe.

10. Andy - A Factual Fairy Tale by Typex

Allright folks this is it:

Typex’s “Andy” is by far one of the best comics/graphic novels I’ve ever red. It defenitely is my personal favourite reading of 2019 (and tbh I kinda doubt anything will top this anytime soon)

This is more than just a biographical take on of the most enigmatic pop-art artists of 20th centuary’s America, this is a portrait of the 20th centuary itself. There are so many references to art, history, literature, music and more that I could fill a book counting them all. And of course this is a monument for the medium of comic itself. Typex really managed to show what comic’s are capable of (At this point I’m really sorry I can’t explain it better I’m not good in writing stuff like this yet...)

Visually one of the most appealing things are the different art styles Typex manages to pull off so well for every chapter in Warhol’s life because each of them are a mirror of their zeitgeist. The introduction of Warhol’s childhood during the 30s is drawn in a cartoony style of old news paper comic strips. The chapter of 1967 has a psychedelic edge. The chapter of the early 60s shows similarities with the works of Roy Liechtenstein

So many icons from the 1930s-1980s have a cameo in this graphic novel it’s just amazing. If you’re even remotely interested in anything of this time period you’d definitely should read this. (seriously, READ THIS). But at this point I’d also like to mention that this comic does not shy away from showing very explicit content and sensetive topics (please keep in mind this has a mature rating for a reason)

Yeah so I couldn’t give this piece of art enough praise. It is absolutely brilliant, a masterpiece in every sense and word.I wasn’t too aware of Typex before but appearentely he also did a graphic novel on Rembrandt. I’m gonna read this too.

Some honorable mentions:

California Dreamin` by Penelope Bagieu

I haven’t red this one yet so I can’t say anything more about it. But I wanted to let you know that a graphic novel about the life of Cass Elliot exists.

Before Watchmen: Silk Spectre by Darwyn Cooke and Amanda Conner

One of the prequels of the legendary “Watchmen” by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. It’ “only” an honorable mention because you’ll have to be familiar with the Watchmen universe to fully get all of the story. This prequel focuses on Laurie Jupeczyk, the second Silk Spectre and her own adventures during 1967, the summer of love in San Francisco.

Hip Hop Family Tree by Ed Piskor

Another one I haven’t fully red yet, but so far I’m loving it. It basically tells the history of Rap and Hip Hop from the early 70s to the mid 80s. The art style is intentionally old-school wich really fits it’s tone and setting.

Fritz The Cat by Robert Crumb

I suppose I can’t make a list like this without at least mentioning an absolut icon of the underground comix movement. Crumb created the adventures of this nasty junky cat during the 60s. Fritz can be seen as a satirical mirror of counter-culture’s zeitgeist.

and speaking of Crumb, his “Heroes of Blues, Jazz and Country” trading cards are neat too...

allright that’s it for now. like I said, if you have anymore suggestions, feel free to add ^^

#long post #Cramp talks #classic rock fandom #comic #thierry murat #lorenzo mattotti #nicolas nemiri #francois avril #jean-claude götting #christopher #bezian #dave mckean #alfred #raphaelle le rio #mael le mae #henri meunier #eric stephenson #Nate Bellegarde #jordie bellaire #fonografiks #ed piskor #erik kriek #derf backderf #arne bellstorf #penelope bagieu #mari yamazaki #robert crumb #typex #reinhard kleist #chynna clugston flores

[veryimportantsparkles]

Alright I’ve kept meaning to do sort of an infodump on my projects because I’ve been really slipping lately.  I dunno how obvious it is?  Probably kind of obvious.  I’ve also been really bad about checking messages and responding to people.  So I figure I can write up a status report and then point to it when I’ve been inadequate about communication.

My IRL job has been wiping me out.  I’ve been getting short, labor-intensive shifts in the evenings, and then random surprise morning shifts shortly after, which has been really hard to manage my time around.  My sleep schedule has been extremely broken and it’s affected my productivity a LOT.  Leadership in my department is about to shuffle around and I’ve been interviewed for the manager position.  If I get it I’ll be working an entirely different schedule, which could potentially be good for my sleepy brain but will definitely leave me with less art time overall.  I’ve also been enduring some back/shoulder issues over the past few months.  Nothing urgent, but it’s limiting how much I can draw each day.  I think replacing my desk chair is going to be a big factor but it’s not the only factor.  I just need to be a smart human and take care of my joints and not hunch over so much.  Working on it.

Here’s the current status of my various art projects:

Laserwing

I ended chapter 5 in June and said I would finish up some other side projects before I start concept work for chapter 6.  One of the projects I needed to finish was the Popkas Yugioh season 4 special, which I finished.  The other big one was my Neonmob card set, which is most of what I’ve been posting lately.  Once that’s out of the way (see below) I need to do concept art.  Chapter 6 will put all the Laserwing characters in new outfits which will need reference sheets.  I’ll need background sketches and layout diagrams so I don’t have furniture shuffle randomly around between scenes.  I also need to sketch out the chapter 6 draft page by page.  I’ve made Laserwing in GIMP up until this point and am going to try switching to Krita for chapter 6.  I might need to do a test page to make sure my process transfers over well into a slightly different system.  Once I’m ready to make real pages, those take a while.  Chapter 5 pages were going up maybe every 2-3 weeks.  I don’t know how many pages are going to be in chapter 6, nor can I say for sure how many chapters are in Laserwing.  An old outline had maybe 40 chapters.  It’s a story with a defined end point, I can say that for certain, but it’s intended to be long.

Popkas

I’ve had issues with Popkas for a while.  I keep picking new themes for dailies, thinking they’re going to be quick and easy, but then end up making them hard for myself.  It’s been to my benefit, I’ve forced myself into learning new art programs and techniques through Popkas.  But it’s hard to keep up the daily schedule.  Currently I’m doing the Paper Mario: TTYD bestiary, which has 124 enemies.  At a rate of one per day, by the time I’ve finished them, Pokemon Sword and Shield should be released and we’ll have all the info about the new Pokemon.  Those will be drawn in ‘Popka classic’ style (scribbly shitposts).  After those are finished, unless my IRL work situation dramatically changes, I’m considering putting Popkas on pause.  In order to do any other monster dexes I’d have to do a lot more research (for example, people have suggested Yokai Watch but I’ve never played one) in order to have anything meaningful to post.  Same deal with Popka Specials (the anime writeup things), those take prep time and anime-watching time that I might not have.  I don’t ever want to end Popkas, but a hiatus might be necessary.

Angelfire Hime

Did anyone even know about Angelfire Hime?  Well I want to post more but that involves finding, scanning, retouching, and transcribing my old high school scribble comics.  It takes as long as any other project but is also low priority because it’s all old content.  Nobody is waiting for the latest update because nobody but me actually knows what that content is, and possibly nobody but me can even read it.  It’s more a personal journey of self-reflection than anything.  I want to return to it but not at the expense of better work.

MeganFantastic dot com

I had a domain name linked to a tumblr that was supposed to be my news blog/front page and I barely use it.  Also, I let the domain registration drop.  Also, I had let a typo in my banner graphic go unnoticed for YEARS and still haven’t fixed it.  Even now, I’m writing this big post to my personal blog instead of the one for news.  The idea was to eventually buy some real hosting and make MeganFantastic a whole site of its own, but that’s a lot of work.  I’ve got a generally good idea of HOW I’d do it (probably wordpress) but I’m not a coder, it would take a lot of trial and error.  This would be a huge undertaking and eventually Laserwing, Popkas, and all my other junk would be contained on one big non-tumblr website.  But it’s uhhhhh not happening yet.

Hundera Youtube

My contribution to our LP channel is to show up, talk about video games, and then draw title cards.  All recording, editing, and channel management is maintained by Josh, and I can’t speak on his behalf about our update schedule.  I will say there are a lot of half-finished games we want to return to.  I will also say that when the new Pokemon comes out Josh is dead set on recording it.  I don’t know if he intends that to be a stream or a regular LP.  In the meantime he streams Minecraft with his friends every Sunday and we fit in our own streams and recordings when we can.

Commissions/Patron Art/etc

I’ve not been very good about this lately and I’m truly sorry!  I have a few things I’m working on, a few things I’ve promised to start working on, and a few things I’ve told people I can do once my workload lightens up, which hasn’t been happening yet.  I really don’t have an answer.  I almost never delete anything so if I’ve been sent a message in any form I should still have it, and I’ll be sure not to forget anyone.  And if I do forget someone feel free to throw rocks at me!

Rane Story 2

What the heck is Rane Story 2?  Well I guess I have to explain Neonmob.  Imagine if ChickenSmoothie and DeviantART had a baby.  It’s a virtual trading card site, which is fun and cute, and I’m drawing out a card series to release on there.  I’ve been using it as practice for painting backgrounds and to fill out some backstory for some 4th-string Laserwing support characters.  Before Mistaire came to Earth, she went to space high school, and that’s where Rane Story takes place.  You can preview the series, and when it’s finished I’ll post about it.  I’ll also repost all the art to DA.  If you scroll through the last several pages of this blog you’ll see some of the art.  I’ve put a lot of my brain energy into getting this done in spite of my work/sleep issues because I don’t want to resume Laserwing until I’ve finished it.  This is what’s stolen my life, guys.  Right now I have 6 more cards to make, and then I have to write and finalize all the text.  I should be done SOON.

Pokemon Nonsense

When my back and shoulder get too hurty and I have to take a break from drawing, one of the easy things to do is whip out a DS and play Pokemon.  I’ve done a lot of twitter shitposting about it lately.  I’ve also drawn up a bunch of gijinkas for my Pokemon.  I’m talking about it now because I also intend to draw up gijinkas for Pokemon to trade away.  I’ve already done a few.  However, I don’t know for sure how I’m going to distribute them.  The idea is people can trade actual Pokemon with me (in either X or Let’s Go Eevee) and the Pokemon they get will come with a character design for you to keep.  I was thinking I might do a discord server for organizing trades and such, but I haven’t yet.  Mostly because it’s low priority and I have SO many other things going on.  But actually playing Pokemon can happen when I’m too fatigued for real work, so the horde keeps growing.  Hopefully my posts and scribbles about it are entertaining.

I feel like there’s other projects on hold that I wanted to discuss, but right now I’m too braintired to remember, and some of my ‘projects’ never actually got talked about online so nobody’s waiting for an update.  My greatest problem seems to be that I try to juggle too many pointless side projects and then drop them all over the place.  Sometimes I’ll shitpost about an idea and even I won’t be sure if I was serious or not.  How do I end this post?  I don’t know.

tl;dr Megan is SLEEPY and dropped her spaghetti everywhere but somehow still has time to play POKEMON and WON’T STOP TALKING ABOUT IT

#long post #what do i even tag this as

[boogiewrites]

A Girl Walks Into A Bar 2

Characters: Declan Harp x Bella (OFC)

Word Count: 3600+

Summary: Frontier Modern AU. Declan is a bar owner and local urban legend with a reputation he’d like to leave in the past. Bella is a rough around the edges, low key sweetheart that isn’t from his part of town. After meeting with the help of some bad luck and perhaps a touch of fate, how far will their undeniable chemistry take them until their histories catch up with them?

Warnings/Tags: Language.

Positive feedback is MUCH appreciated! Reblogs, likes, asks and comments feed me to write more! Let me know if you’d like tagged in my work.

Click on my screenname then go to Mobile Masterlist in my bio for my other works and chapters. (Had to do this since Tumblr killed links, sorry.)

You lay in your bed for over an hour looking at your phone. You weren't surprised you were having trouble sleeping, the two of you were very old and close friends at this point. With there being a man you barely knew in your living room, just on the other side of the wall you were staring at, you were even less surprised you couldn't sleep.

So you kick off your covers and move quietly to your door, your feet in thick knee socks, wearing leggings and a pulling a large hoodie over you before you click open your door. You peak your head around the corner of the wall, trying not to be obvious.

He's sound asleep, looking entirely unbothered and you found it comforting in a way. At least he felt safe around you, that was something. What you'd give to be able to fall asleep in a strangers house without reservation. But if you looked like him you'd be scared of less too. It's not like you'd learned to defend yourself and worked out just for the vanity of it, after all. From the intimidating vibe the men outside the bar were giving you, you're guessing that he looked the way he did for many of the same reasons.

You see you haven't woken him and when a small snore and grunt make their appearance your nerves ease as you see he has no intention of doing anything besides sleeping and he's apparently doing well in his endeavors currently. You rest your hip against the doorway, watching him.

The night is biting cold, you can feel it creeping into the house from the window, the heater balancing out the warmth of the room. You can see him in the warm orange glow of the light of it, his relaxed face looks soft, despite the hair that covered it and the scar marking his brow. He looked hard but not menacing, which seems like a very difficult thing to achieve for a man looking the way he did. You wouldn't deny he was handsome, how could you? It was the heat that rose to your face when your eyes first met that made you admit it to yourself. You were working on trying to admit when you found a man attractive, having learned too many lessons the hard way in your youth, you now found it hard to trust men. Well, hard to trust just about anyone. You'd buried yourself in your hobbies which turned into a career, keeping your head low, focusing on yourself and being independent of your past. Perhaps you needed to start working on a new phase of accepting new people into your life. This polite and kind man seemed like a decent place to start. His friendship would even come with a bar, and thus even more new people to meet. You weren't sure if you were ready to make new friends, but a part of you knew that you would never be fully ready and perhaps the universe was intervening, making you walk into that bar yesterday to give you a push in a new direction.

You eventually fall asleep, telling yourself this Declan Harp wasn't going to kill you, he wasn't going to try anything in the middle of the night and you eventually grew tired, meditating to tell yourself it was okay to relax enough to fall asleep. And eventually, you did.

You wake up to your work alarm and you groan, smacking at the phone in annoyance. Work? No. Not today. Not after yesterday, not with this snow. You call Karen and tell you aren't coming in. She doesn't seem surprised in the least. Apparently, the weather was bad where she was too, there'd already been cancellations on appointments today so she wasn't worried, it's not like you missed work often anyway.

You still didn't hey nearly enough sleep, but you were used to functioning at this capacity. At just before nine you creak your door open, peaking out just the same as the night before, but now you could see a lamp was on. He'd already put up the bed, bless him, sitting snuggly on the couch with a blanket over him, scrolling through his phone.

You move into his view, running your fingers through your sleep-tousled hair before stretching and tugging back down your hoodie.

"Mornin' Bells." his voice is deep and gritty and sounds like honey being poured over whiskey stones looks. You let out an involuntary grunt as it hits your ears, clearing your throat to cover your reaction.

"Morning, Dec." you grumble, another yawn coming as you walk slowly into the kitchen. You figure if he can already manipulate your name, that you could do that same to his. He doesn't seem to mind as you can feel him watching you walk by.

He doesn't mind the nickname, but he's actually gotten distracted by how you look this morning. It having been dark in the bar and through the night, and you wearing layers he didn't get a close look at you. But now, sunlight in through the frosty panes he couldn't help but follow your lower half as you stomped sleepily across the room. Seeing a clearly strong thickness in your thighs that rested under an ass of the same description, just peaking out from beneath the bottom of your hoodie. "I didn't keep you waiting too long did I?" you say a little louder, your own voice deep and slow from sleep still.

"Nah." you hear groaned as the couch makes a similar noise as he rises.

"Not been up even thirty minutes. Just checking my phone out of habit." he shrugs, but you don't see it, pushing his phone into his pocket, wearing a tank top that you guessed was under his t-shirt from last night and his jeans.

"Mmmph." you nod in response, hearing him walk into the kitchen. "Want breakfast?" you ask, your eyes half-lidded and blinking slowly.

"After those sandwiches last night I'd be an idiot to say no."

"Mmm." your lips purse as you rest your hands on the counter, leaning against it. "Flattery, huh?" you let out a low rumbling chuckle. "This early?" you quirk your head at him.

"You warned me you'd be mean this morning..." he raises a brow and you know he's being a wonderfully intuitive person, making sure he defused any situation before it even started.

You give him a closed mouth smile. "So you're smart too, huh?" you finally give a laugh, another low rumble from your chest as you move to the fridge.

"My actions would usually speak against that." he grins, looking down at the wooden floor. "But I won't turn down a compliment." his head shakes slightly, his hair moving back and forth over his face as it hangs down.

"Breakfast burrito alright?" you ask, looking at the contents of the fridge and finding yourself not wanting to make anything from scratch.

"Fuck yeah. Sure." his voice is full of amusement and more than a bit of hunger.

You lean into the freezer, picking the pre-made burritos out of their container, all individually wrapped, part of your meal prep you tried to keep up with. "Big boy like you'll eat two I imagine." an amused smile on your lips as you push the buttons on the toaster oven to heat them up. "You make these too?" his voice sounds impressed.

"Yeah, I like to make them ahead of time. Easy to grab before I go work out in the mornings."

"Ah. Makes sense." he gives a thoughtful nod, finally moving from his position of leaning on the doorway to the table. "What's in 'em?" he asks, chin in his hand, watching you move about the kitchen, starting the coffee.

"Uhh...lots of veggies." you nod. "Eggs, goat cheese, bell peppers, mushrooms, spinach, pork sausage, some salsa." you name off things as you back and forth from the counters on opposite sides of the room, one with your coffee, tea and appliances, the other with the stove, toaster oven and sink, the fridge sitting daunting between the two, cabinets on either side of it.

"Sounds almost healthy." he laughs, still low and easy going, rumbling around his chest before escaping from his smiling lips.

"Could be a lot worse." you nod and sit a glass of water in front of him, sitting in the chair closest to him at the round table that took up one half of the kitchen. You look out the double patios doors for a moment, your fenced in backyard covered in deep snow. "I figure...with as much as I drink sometimes, and my tendency to eat really unhealthy greasy junk food late at night, I can try to eat well the rest of the time." you look over to him and shrug, rising when the coffee pot beeps.

"Not a bad approach. I feel like somedays I only work out because I eat so much." he laughs at himself, chin still in his hand as his eyes follow you.

"Can't relate." you laugh with a shake of your head. You make your coffee, setting it on the table. "How ya take it?"

"Fuck it, just black this morning."  you give a stern nod and comply.

"Take your coffee much like yourself." you chuckle to yourself, his brow furrows in amused question at you as you sit down. "Straightforward. Dark. Strong." you let out a laugh, your nose wrinkling as you take a sip.

"What's your's say then?" he asks with a quirked eyebrow.

You hum in thought, looking into your mug. "Bitter base with enough artificial sweetener to make it tolerable." you let out the first shoulder-shaking laugh of the day.

A grin spreads across his face. "I heard artificial sweetener is bad for you, you know." he says with no scolding, still teasing you.

"Alright, mom." you chuckle into your mug. "I'll be sure to add my emotional shortcomings to my list of things to work on. Try for more raw sugar and less aspartame." you smirk.

"Oh shit, I didn't mean it like that." you can see his posture stiffen.

"Don't worry Declan, no offense taken." you shake your head and give him a genuinely warm smile that eases his nerves. "Stick around me long enough you'll start to understand my fucked up sense of humor. I'm always like this." you grin at yourself, standing to get the burritos from the small oven after it dings.

You slide the plate in front of him, just as last night he doesn't hesitate to attack your offering. "So you meal prep...and you said you work out..." he says between bites." Do you do competitions or anything like that?" he asks.

You grin as he makes contented noises as he eats. "Oh, no." you laugh. "I just like lifting weights. I like being strong." you nod, taking a bite yourself now. "You clearly workout, you do competitions?"

He laughs, a mouthful of food before forgetting his manners. "Nah." he shakes his head. "Kind've comes with the tough guy territory," he explains with a slight shrug. "Bar owner, ex-member of a biker gang. People try to start shit with me a lot." he rolls his eyes.

"Makes sense." you add to show you're listening. "Ex biker? I didn't think they let people out of those things?"

"Well these guys did. After all the shit I've done for them, sorry, all the shit I still do for them, " he chuckles, "You tell them you want out, they listen." his eyebrows raise with his explanation. So he certainly seemed to be someone you wouldn't want to fuck with and his words back up this theory. He was becoming more and more intriguing the more he spoke. "I saw the vests and patches on the guys out front that gave me a hard time, I was hoping I wasn't going to walk in and someone tries to make me ride bitch with them." you joke.

"Oh ignore them." he moves his hand dismissively. "They like to act all tough but they won't give you any trouble. Not with me around anyway. One of them so much as insults you, you let me know. I'll set 'em straight." he gives you a friendly wink.

"What if I'd rather set them straight myself?" you grin.

"Well if you think you can take them, go for it babe." he chuckles, "I won't stop ya."

"They behave better when you're around?"

"Yeah. They know I don't want all the violent bullshit in my bar. Not like I can totally avoid it, kind've comes with the territory.  We get too much flack as is with stereotypes. Don't want to attract the wrong kind of people ya know? I don't' want to deal with that bullshit anymore."

"Very smart and professional of you." you say supportively.

"Can I get that in writing? You do reviews?" he laughs, finishing his burritos. Taking down two in the time it took you to eat one.

"The Trading Post. 5 stars. Personal chauffeur service. Personal attention and great fuckin' music. If you love the smell of years of liquor being spilled into old wood floors, you've found your new local." you let out a slight giggle.

He opens his mouth to retaliate against your comments.

"That was all meant to be a compliment." you push your chin into your chest.

"Ah, I see." he nods slowly. "Good thing you came in then, wouldn't want to lose you to one of those gentrified gastro pub's that keep popping up."

"Now my friend Charlotte, that's more her scene," you explain, taking the plates to the sink. "She took me to one once, not my style." you shake your head, "I like dives. I like age and grit and rough around the edges. Dark and rugged...that's more my style."

You turn to face him, he's already standing, stretching and letting out a roar of a groan as he does so. You can't help but notice the line of skin exposed from the raising of his shirt, warm tan skin with a light dusting of hair that you blink rapidly to forget. Don't go getting distracted by a nice body, that's never done anyone a bit of good. Even though this body seemed to have a good brain inside it, you'd wait to hold judgment until you'd known the man at least 24 hours.

You look at the clock on the wall as he smacks his lips and rubs his neck.

"Salt truck should've ran by now. Let's see the verdict, shall we?" you shrug and walk past him to the window in the living room. "Good news!" you lilt, turning quickly to let him know the roads were salted but he's already towering over you, peaking out of the curtains above your head. Jesus, he was tall. You bet he was around a foot taller than you and you can't help but feel physically intimidated standing in his shadow. Who would be stupid enough to mess with this guy?

"House arrest over." he laughs.

"Salt trucks ran, sun's out, you've got four-wheel drive...you should make your break to freedom before another front moves in." you look up at him with big blinking eyes, he meets them with a warm smile, seeming to study your face for a moment before moving to the couch to grab his t-shirt.

"You need a ride anywhere?" he asks, pulling on his boots.

"Thanks but no." you shake your head. "I'm not going anywhere today." you frown but not in a sad way as you move to the front door.

"Well...in case you do..." he says, leaning over the small desk in the hallway by the door, scribbling down something. "There's my number. The buses suck shit in my part of town so don't think you're gonna be bothering me."

"Written down instead of texted. Old fashioned. I like it." you give him an approving nod. You pull your phone from your pocket, entering in the number and texting him your name. He puts on his coat, seeing the numerous locks on your front door, trying not to be obvious as he thought about why'd you have so many. Three deadbolts seemed a bit much but...you were a woman who lived alone.

"I'm not as cool as you so I just texted it to you." you shrug.

He flicks the screen with his thumb. "Bella Fiore." he grins. "So that other half is Italian huh?" That explains the olive complexion and dark hair he thought. He'd known you were half Irish but only the light freckles on your cheeks that he could see now that you weren't wearing makeup, and your green eyes gave any illusion to the heritage.

"Afraid so." you grin.

"Well..." he lowers his head almost as if he were bowing. "Thank you, for letting me stay. For real. And you fed me...twice! So I owe you." he chuckles. He brings you in for an unexpected hug, but you certainly weren't going to fight him. You'd seen him do the same to the girl the night before so you still don't feel like he's being forward with you.

"Just repaying you for dealing with and taking care of my drunk ass last night." you say, noticing that distinctly masculine smell that's unique to every man, his being particularly pleasant to your senses as your fae rests on the soft leather of his coat.

He let's go, an inviting smile on his lips as he looks down at you. "I don't get many people as cool as you coming into the bar so don't be a stranger, alright?"

"And miss out on more of that Ale? Don't be stupid, Declan." you give him the same kinda smile back before unlocking the door and opening it for him. "You be careful!" you say loudly, holding your hand over your eyes to shield it from the white reflecting off the snow-covered street. He waves before getting in his truck to leave and you watch him depart from the living room window.

The house felt oddly empty now. "Oh hello baby." you coo as Robert appears, rubbing against your ankles. "Got distracted feeding someone else and left you out huh?" you baby talk him, scratching under his chin as you carry him to the kitchen. He meows and purrs, not seeming to be angry about it.

So you feed the cat and place the heater back in your room. You sit on the edge of the bed, wondering how to spend your unexpected day off. You figure you'll check in with Charlotte, your oldest and best friend.

"Hello?" you hear the usual weariness in her voice, having just had a baby.

"Hey mama." you try to sound cheerful to offset her exhaustion.

"Hey." you hear her yawn.

"Didn't wake you up did it?"

"Ugh, no. I've not been to sleep."

"Sam being a booger still?"

"He's not stopped since conception." she hums in amusement at herself.

"I had a great night and I thought you might want to hear about it."

"Please. Yes. Let me pretend I'm not covered in spit up and breast milk and that I've showered in the past two days. because I have a life still."

She had been living vicariously through you as of late. It had been the other way around previously. She'd found a banker, a nice enough dude to marry her and those were all things that felt not in the cards for you. Rich guys she tried to set you up with just really didn't seem down with what you were offering, but then again, you weren't really looking to be anyone's wife. You'd agree to a blind date and it'd end amicably but there'd never been any follow-up. Rough around the edges was a polite phrase you'd heard one too many times now to describe yourself.

"Well I went to a new bar, I'll have to take you eventually, it's rustic and strangely endearing."  you pick at the cat hair that's gathered on your hoodie from where you carried Robert around. "And I met this really nice guy."

"You're kidding." she says flatly.

"Nope. He even stayed the night last night." you say suggestively, purposely leading her on and she bites the bait hook, line and sinker.

"HE WHAT?!" she shouts. You hear the baby start crying. "Oops." she says in a tone that shows she's only disappointed with herself. ------- Declan arrives back at the bar, Mike's already there dealing with deliveries.

"Back late I see." his eyebrows raise as he looks down on a clipboard.

"Got snowed in." he gruffs out.

"Mmmm Hmmm. Yeah, sure ya did." he chuckles.

"I very literally did." he responds flatly.

"And how was the girl? What was her name again?"

"Bella." he says, a small smile on his face as he takes his coat off and hangs it on a hook in the back room.

"Ah. Bella. Pretty name for a pretty girl." he says, checking off his list. "And how did Miss Bella treat ya last night Mr. Harp?" he grins.

"Nothing happened that would warrant that tone being used." he shoves his shoulder as he passes him with a chuckle, moving over to a pile of boxes.

"If nothing happened then how was she? Not had a woman we didn't already know in this bar for ages. You two seemed to get along really well, actually." he inquires.

"She's..." he pauses, a tilt of his head in thought. " She's really nice actually. And cool." his eyes narrow in thought.

"Oh goodness, nice and cool? Such aggressive descriptors from you about a woman." Mike cackles.

"Shut up Mike." he grunts, still grinning to himself as he lifting the boxes to carry to the walk-in fridge.

@vale0413

#Declan Harp #Frontier #Declan Harp AU #Frontier AU #Jason Momoa #Declan Harp fan fiction #declan harp fic #declan harp fanfic #declan harp fan fic #frontier fan fiction #frontier fic #frontier fanfic #frontier fan fic #declan harp x reader #declan harp x ofc #Frontier fandom

[queen-of-deans-booty]

All Hell Breaks Loose Part Two- Part 3

Pairing: Dean x Reader

Word Count: 2,071

Warnings: Typical Supernatural violence, language, ANGST!!!!, major character death, blood, you know the usual

Author’s Note: I do not own anything from Supernatural. All credit goes to their respective owners. If you’re a junkie for this sort of thing, then a tag list is the right thing for you! If you want to be a Queen, I’ll add you to that list too! Any and all comments on these are appreciated. I really want to hear what you guys think about this one!

This is it. This is the finale of Season 2. Wow, this season was a rollercoaster to write and this episode was intense! I would love to hear what guys thought about this one. Please. 

Feedback is the glue that holds my writing together.

Tags at the bottom

Dean and Sam stopped arguing the minute they walked outside, pretending that everything was okay. You three got into the car and you huffed out when Dean pulled away.

“You know, something is going on here and you guys aren’t telling me. That’s fine but just know I will figure it out eventually and then you’ll both be in trouble.” You said and it was so quiet in the car, you could hear Dean gulping.

Dean got to Bobby’s house and you jumped out, ignoring the pain in your chest as you rushed to the front door. You knocked on it and Sam and Dean hurried to follow you. They needed to stop Bobby from saying anything to tip you off even more.

The door opened and Bobby’s face was in shock from seeing you.

“Y/N?” He asked in a whisper, not believing his eyes. He looked at Sam and Dean and while Sam looked away, Dean shook his head slightly, signaling to him not to say anything.

“Why are you staring at me as if I’m a ghost. I know I was hurt, but come on. I’m okay now.” You said with a smile, hugging Bobby who hugged you back tightly. You winced when he pressed into your wound from behind.

“Sorry,” Bobby said, letting you go.

“Don’t worry about it. Oh, thanks for patching me up.” You said, walking past him, going to the living room. It was a little messier than usual but you could understand it.

“Don’t mention it,” Bobby said after you. Bobby, when you were gone, gave Sam and Dean a very hard look. He knew something was up.

“So… she’s awake and better. What did you find out?” Dean asked, walking into the house to get away from Bobby’s glare. He felt like he was younger and Bobby was his dad with how similar their glares were.

“I found something but I’m not sure what it means,” Bobby said when everyone was inside the living room.

“What is it?” You asked, sitting on the couch. Bobby stared at you with a lot of emotion in his eyes before snapping out of it, taking a deep breath.

“Demonic omens like a fucking tidal wave. Cattle deaths and lightning storms skyrocketed from out of nowhere. It’s all happening around Wyoming except one: Southern Wyoming.

“Wyoming?” Dean asked.

“Yeah, there is one area that is totally clean. It’s almost as if the demons are surrounding the area.” Bobby said, thinking out loud.

“Look, if demons want something, they can get it easily. So, if they’re surrounding the area, then that means they probably can’t get into it. Like a huge ass demon trap or something like that.” You said, looking at the men who stared back at you.

“Look, my eyes are swimming right now so, Y/N, could you take a look at it?” Bobby asked.

“Yeah, no problem.” You said with a smile.

“Sam, Dean, would you help me? I got some more books in the truck. Help me lug them in.” Bobby said, glaring at the boys who sighed, knowing they were in deep shit right now. It was when the men got to the car, did Bobby blow up.

“You stupid ass!! What did you do to her?” Bobby exploded, glaring at Dean who looked away but Bobby was pissed. He pushed Dean and Dean looked at Bobby with pain in his eyes. “What did you do to my daughter? You made a deal for her… Didn’t you? How long have you got?”

Bobby knew the Winchesters pretty well by now to know what moves they would make and what mistakes to fix.

“Bobby, please,” Dean said, sighing.

“How long?!”

“One year,” Dean said with a sigh.

“Dammit! What were you thinking? She doesn’t know, does she?”

“She won’t know. Bobby, you can’t tell her.” Dean immediately said.

“She will find out whether or not it’s from any of us. How do you think she’s going to feel when she finds out you have one year left to live? You didn’t see her when you were in that hospital after the crash. That ruined her. This is going to kill her!” Bobby said.

“Bobby, he knows that. Which is why he’s going to tell her himself.” Sam said, glaring at Dean.

“Look, I know what I did but it’s done now, okay? We have to find that yellow son of a bitch and I’m going to kill him myself.”

“With what? The Colt is gone, Dean.” Sam said, not knowing what to do. But Bobby wasn’t done talking about the major issue here.

“What is with you Winchesters? You and your dad. Why are you so willing to give up your life for others? I understand it’s Y/N and I’m glad she’s not dead but is this really the way to do things? I haven’t been there myself but I heard Hell is pretty… well… hellish.” Bobby said.

“That’s my point, Bobby! Dad brought me back! I’m not supposed to be here. At least this way, something good can come out of it, you know? It’s like my life could mean something.” Dean said, getting a little emotional.

“And it didn’t before?! Do you really think that low of yourself, boy? Are you that screwed in the head?!” Bobby said, grabbing Dean’s shoulder and shaking him slightly.

“I couldn’t let her die, Bobby,” Dean said, choking up. Sam stared at his brother, never seeing him act this way for a woman before. “I love her, Bobby.”

“And how do you think she’s going to feel when she knows you’re going to hell? Did you even consider that? How do you think Sam and I are going to feel? She’s going to find out and you know that.” Bobby said, getting tears and letting them fall.

Sam had tears already falling because he couldn’t bear to lose his brother. Bobby let go of Dean and Dean was about to say something when you came running out of the house and to them.

“Guys, I found something and it’s huge,” You said, noticing the tears on each of the men’s faces. “Okay, what the hell is going on? What aren’t you telling me?” Dean immediately looked away from you as did Sam but Bobby stared into your eyes.

He was about to say something when all four of you heard a clank from a different part of the junkyard. You looked in that direction and started to walk, the men behind you. You had to push the suspicion for now but you were far from over the topic. You were going to find out what was going on. You heard it again and realized that it was coming from behind a junk car.

You looked at Sam and Dean before reaching out to grab at whoever was there. You gasped when you saw it was Ellen.

“Ellen!” You smiled, bringing her into a hug. She started to cry, hugging you back.

“Oh, thank God,” Dean said in relief.

“Come on, let’s go inside.” You said, glad to know that Jo’s mother wasn’t dead. You really needed to talk to her and catch up. You and the men brought Ellen inside where Bobby gave her a shot of holy water.

“Is this necessary?” She asked, looking at Bobby.

“Just a belt of Holy Water. It shouldn’t hurt.” He said, not giving her anything else. She sighed and took the shot, it has no effect on her.

“Whiskey now, if you don’t mind.” She said and Bobby nodded, getting out the alcohol.

“Ellen, what happened? How did you get out?” Dean asked, referring to the fire.

“I wasn’t supposed to. I was supposed to be in there with everyone else. But we ran out of pretzels, of all things. It was just dumb luck,” She said, scoffing. She drank the whiskey that Bobby brought her and sighed deeply. “Anyway, that’s when Ash called with panic in his voice. He told me to look in the safe but then the call cut out. By the time I got back, the flames were sky-high and I knew everyone was dead. I couldn’t have been gone more than 15 minutes, tops.”

“I’m sorry, Ellen. Have you called Jo?” You asked, biting your lip.

“Yeah, she knows everything but she’s stuck in some case right now and can’t come down. A lot of good people died in there,” Ellen said, getting tears. “And I got to live. Lucky me.”

“You mentioned a safe?” Bobby asked.

“Yeah, a hidden safe we keep in the basement,” Ellen said.

“Did the demons get what’s in it?” Sam asked.

“No,” She said, pulling out a map from her pocket, opening it up before setting it on the table. It had several black lines and X’s on it.

“Wait, Wyoming… Wait another minute! Let me tell you what I found!” You said, getting up and going to Bobby’s desk. You grabbed the book you were reading earlier and showed it to everyone.

“You see the X’s on Ellen’s map? Each of them represents an abandoned frontier church. They’re all mid-19th century and all of them were built by Samuel Colt.” You explained but you were only getting started.

“Samuel Colt? The demon-killing, gun-making Samuel Colt?” Dean asked.

“Yes! But wait, it's getting better,” You said, getting back to what you were saying. “He built private railway lines which represent the black lines on the map, that connect church to church.”

You set the book down and grabbed a marker, moving the map until it was facing you.

“Now, if you connect the churches together,” You said, connecting them with the marker. The shape it made was a star. “It happens to be this. Which proves my theory earlier: This is a giant ass demon trap and whatever is inside, preferably the middle, those demons want. And I have a feeling those demons are going to get it.”

“This is actually brilliant. The iron lines means demons can’t cross it.” Dean said, impressed by your work.

“I’ve never heard of anything that massive before,” Ellen said.

“And even after all these years, it still works?” Dean asked.

“Yeah, it’s railroad tracks. Those things aren’t going anywhere for quite a while. Plus, those omens that Bobby found, it’s the demons. They’re circling it, trying to find a way inside but they can’t get in,” You said, proud of yourself. “I feel so smart. Sam, is this what it’s like to be you?”

“Har har,” Sam said with a playful eye roll.

“Okay, so they can’t get in but what’s inside?” Ellen asked.

“That’s what I was looking for while you three were outside, talking about whatever it is you were talking about. Which, by the way, we are coming back to that so don’t think you’re off the hook.” You said with a huff.

“What are you talking about?” Ellen asked. The men stiffened up immediately.

“They won’t tell me. They’re acting weird and I have no idea why. Do you not trust me?” You asked Dean.

“Of course, I do, you know that,” Dean said with a sigh.

“Then what could you possibly want to keep from me?” You asked, defeated. No one said anything and that was bugging the shit out of you.

“Why don’t you tell us what you found? What’s in the middle?” Bobby said, changing the subject. You kept staring at Dean who looked guilt but you couldn’t figure out why he would be. You sighed and got back to what you were talking about.

“There’s nothing there but an old cowboy cemetery right in the middle. I know that whatever is there, they want it before we do. So, I suggest we get on the road before they manage to break those lines.” You said.

“But what’s Colt have to do with anything?” Ellen asked.

“Wait,” Dean said, thinking of something. “What if Colt wasn’t trying to keep something out. What if he’s trying to keep something in?”

“That’s a comforting thought.” Ellen scoffed.

“Could they do it? Could they get inside?” Sam asked.

“Sam, this devil’s trap is so powerful, you would probably have to have an A-bomb to destroy it. There is no way an even full-blooded demon is getting inside.” You said, crossing your arms.

“No… But I know who could.” Sam said, making eye contact with you.

“Jake.”

The Queens:

@maddieburcham1 @ginamsmith @mogaruke @whit85-blog @inlovewithbja @spn67-sister @kdfrqqg @jarpadandjensenaremyheroes @roxyspearing @supercalifragilistic26 @mishamigose @cobrakai1967 @essie1876 @wishedworld @crispychrissy @laqueus-ludovicus @nostalgic-uncertainty @jerk-bitch-and-an-angel @potterhead1265 @starswirlblitz  @untitled39887 @ta-n-ja @deans-fallen-angel-boy @scarletluvscas @notnaturalanahi @tahbehonest @stay-in--place @dreaminofdean @posiemax @donnaintx @mikey1822 @alexandriajanae4  @li-ssu @just-another-winchester @obsessivecompulsivespn @emoryhemsworth @newtospnfandom @mizzezm  @goldenolaf25 @jessikared97 @wh1sp3r1ng-impala @charliebradbury1104    @queen-of-moons-peace-out-bitches @becs-bunker  @atc74 @lemonchapstick​

The Dean Beans:

@akshi8278 @mega-mrs-dean-winchester @winchesterandpie @spn-dean-and-sam-winchester @carribear31 @tacklesackles @oreosatmidnight @not-naturalfangirl @missselinakitty @iam-a-cutiepie  @kristendansmith @milo-winchester-4ever @jensenackesl @codyshany316 @pheonyxstorm @helllonearth @juniorhuntersam @pouterpufftrain @ruprecht0420 @shut-ur-face-and-get-in-the-car @carriemichelle2012 @aubreystilinski @sandlee44​

Series Rewrite Junkies:

@helllonearth @amyisabellal @deanwnchstr @caseykitten6 @quixoticcat @supernaturalblogging @notmoose45 @crowleysminion @mina22 @tahbehonest @hadleymcallister2177 @destielsangels @spnhybrid @oreosatmidnight @valerieshubin @seninjakitey @flyonlittlewinchester @aubreystilinski @rocketqueeens  @emilygracespellins @earthtokace​

#supernatural series rewrite #all hell breaks loose part two #dean winchester #dean winchester angst #dean winchester x reader #spn series rewrite #dean x reader #dean x you #dean x reader insert #dean #dean angst #dean fic #dean winchester fic #dean winchester fanfiction #season 2 episode 22 #s2e22 spoilers #spoilers #spn #spn spoilers #supernatural #supernatural spoilers #sam #sammy #Sam Winchester #bobby #bobby singer

[duskins-ao3]

Bitty hunt part 2

So now that theorising and ciphers are (mostly) out of the way, time for actually talking about bitty hunt. As mentioned before it is made by the awesome @rnd-injustice and can be found here. The topics I am going to go across are just to clarify in more detail of what I mentioned before, which is here. The reason for the ‘keep reading’ is just simply for the length of the writing.

Since we were talking about Miss. Bitty before, I am curious about how her personal arc is going to turn out as, I’ve already stated my idea of her past in part 1. As for her future I can see two possible routes for her.

A) She ends up at normal height due to emotional or physical developments and she gets to do the stuff she used to love. 

B) She stays as a bitty but learns to move on from the past, but not forget it, she adjusts with the help of the skeles.

There has been many nostalgia implications in the story,

'So, that's the Nan's room, the guest room and Victoria's room claimed. Who's going to try to claim Jake's, Mum and Dad's room and my room?'

“I use to love my games. Nothing helps me unwind quite like a good match.”

The last time she had anything sweet or caffeinated was...since a little before becoming a bitty. Oh how she missed it! Why couldn't she be one of the bitties who had forgotten what junk food tasted like?

Looking back to the burger, holding something that wasn't a slice off something almost made her feel...normal.

while yes she is a bitty and these nostalgia moments are reasonable, especially point out the fact “....she also happens to be the only bitty in the entire world that just happens to remembers her name and past?” yet it also could be an implication of adjustment and learning to let go but not to forget. Though if she did end up normal height again, these things, like with the controller, she can do again. Though with the addition of cutlery I can see the story leaning towards adjustment, since she is learning to adapt better with the skeles.

Now, Edge as mentioned has great pacing to his development. Some stories I feel have 80% filler and very sparse character development in said filler, while others have it as sonic level fast for progression. For instance Six skeletons and a maid has very little development with one or two chapters after a while actually having an impact on characters, where as there are many stories where in the first two chapters or first couple of meetings there is a skele that has instantly fallen for the human. Pacing is like walking a tight rope, walk too fast you probably fall and staying still you won’t progress and you’ll tire eventually.

This is why Edge is so good in this story! Honestly, I was worried on the pacing of him when I read the two first chapters, since I didn’t want it to be so slow with his murderous intent. While as amusing as it is, I knew I would get tired since Miss. Bitty would be in constant danger round him. So the fact that he observed over the days and noticed behaviour like her reactions and lack of outcry to any injures was able to humanise her and he was able to realise she wasn’t just a termite. The best way to describe his development is just through the story itself; 

Edge, well, besides looking even more pissed off than when she last saw him, was tapping the walls, his skull pressed against the wall. Apparently he thought she was a termite or something.

"YOU'RE TELLING ME THAT THE PEST CAN CLIMB INTO CARS AND HAS ENOUGH INTELLIGENCE TO PUT THEM INTO NEUTRAL?!"

Edge turned sharply, red blazing eyes. With a raised hand, he encircled the large area around Y/n's last squirt attack in pointed red bones. "YOU WON'T ESCAPE ME VERMIN!!"

(My personal favourite simile) she saw the look Edge was giving them from his crossed-armed sitting position at the dining room table. He looked like he was watching two slugs make out on top of his favourite, one-of-a-kind toothbrush.

"I HAVEN'T HIDDEN MY INTENTIONS TO HARM YOU. STILL, YOU CAME HERE TONIGHT, AT THE RISK OF YOUR LIFE, FOR A COOKING LESSON?! WHY?"

"YOU, ARE A WORTHY OPPONENT FOR THE TERRIBLE EDGE. ONE WHO DOESN'T BACK DOWN OR MAKE SQUEALING NOISES, BEGGING FOR YOUR MISERABLE LIFE."

Edge spoke up, smirking, "DON'T BOTHER. THE PEST IS MUCH TOO SCARED FOR THAT!"...She expected him to look angry, miffed that she dared to stuck her tongue at him. So why did he just look smug?

“VERMIN!” he growled, “NO OPPONENT WORTHY OF THE TERRIBLE PA-ER EDGE IS MERE VERMIN!” He looked genuinely offended at that claim...  “IF I DIDN’T SEE YOU AS AN EQUALLY, AS A WORTHY OPPONENT, THEN WHY WOULD I BOTHER WASTING MY TIME POINTING OUT THE OBVIOUS FACT THAT THE OTHERS TREAT YOU LIKE ARE INCAPABLE?”

I know that was a lot of quotes but it clearly shows just how is view on her changes just over the days, the fact that it is realistically paced and not extended for too long. 

Since Red and Edge were both after her the fact that they are no longer as much of a threat is great as it means that Miss. Bitty isn’t going to be in a life or death situation as often. Yet as shown by the latest chapter, there are many other dangers to Miss. Bitty out there that seem harmless.

Which lastly brings me to Stretch, which I will admit I am pretty biased on, since Stretch and Russ (SF Pap) are my favourite two skeles (totally not because of the fact that I always end up matching with Stretch or occasionally Russ).

I LOVE how Stretch is portrayed in this story! There have been too many times when Stretch has only been in a multiskele story and he is basically amalgamated to the couch, is only casual chat rarely with the reader, but is a ticking time bomb for angsty emotion which he is going to release on the reader! 

Like a good example would be from “Six Skeletons and a maid”, which I stopped reading after chapter 58. In this story Stretch just chills on the couch and rarely interacts with the maid. Then when she finds him pissed (drunk for non brits, not the angry pissed) he is begging her to lie to him to say “I love you”. Like I stopped reading that cause; 

A) I absolutely hated Stretch and Sans (because of their petty behaviour)

B) The general dickish nature to all of the masters annoyed me

C) There was filler after filler and no clear plot in sight other than the maids infatuation with Green-

Sorry that kinda diverted so I’m ending my rant on SSAM right there.

Anyway there have been many fics that Stretch is always at the butt end of a situation because of Angst, he always appears to be in a shit situation to press his buttons and for angst. Maybe I am not looking in the right spots but yeah... That is why this and others like ‘Skeleton squatters and a landlady’ are so refreshing. Stretch is seen in a really awesome way!

I love the trust that is built between Stretch and Miss. Bitty ever since the skeletons had a look round. 

The fact he noticed her on the glider and showed a non hostile side as he just was amused at her actions. He played games with her. She even ended up in his hoodie even though it wasn’t under the best of circumstances. 

The trust that has built was also indicated more subtly with the actions of Stretch once he noticed Red. The fact he mentioned Red’s shifty behaviour and investigated for Miss. Bitty indicates towards him being reliable to Miss. Bitty to actually mention when someone is suspicious and look out for her, by asking red what he was doing. I just love how even when Miss. Bitty was feeling betrayed and was venting at Stretch, while he was probably confused, he stopped the others grabbing her. To some degree he must have known that even though he was an innocent bystander, she needed to vent on him or she would have kick started again with new anger. (Though I also am still biased since for friendship I don’t trust others and only keep one or two people close since most of time time for some reason more.... dickish... friends have ended up hanging round so I am at that point of “if you want to hang round me cool, if not that’s alright. I think some people are alright but I dunno if we are close enough to be friends never mind close friends.” sooo yeah... in this story Stretch is number 1 because of the trust.)

I believe that is mostly it on my more detailed thoughts on the stuff I mentioned in the comments. I did mention more about why there was development of trust but I think rnd knows about the trust ;)

#Bitty hunt #part 2 #actually talking about so far in story #I may have rambled more since it is 4am #night

[the-bounce-back]

I FEEL GOOD, SOMETIMES I DON’T

I should probably start by saying that this post will be very different from what I’ve previously shared on here.

In all honesty, I was unsure if I should even post this at all. When I started this blog, my vision for it was that it was going to be a hub for infinite good vibes, positive energy and empowerment for myself and whoever ended up reading it to combat and eventually overcome depression, anxiety, emotionally harmful thoughts and so on. But I’m realising now that I’ve made a bit of a mistake in my approach.

So far, I’ve been writing about aspects of my mental health that I’ve already overcome, accepted and healed from - hence why I’ve been able to write my advice with so much self-assurance and positivity. Writing about things within my comfort zone and knowing that my learning from my experiences has helped people has undeniably made me feel really great lately. However - behind the scenes, to put it dramatically and in true Liv style - the past couple weeks have been really, really sh*t for me.

It’s hard for me to even write this, because it forces me to acknowledge that things really aren’t okay right now. I kept convincing myself that I shouldn’t put it on here, because it really goes against the light and fun tone I’ve been able to maintain from the start. But after much thought, I remembered something very important:

As much as I wish that the positivity and self-confidence I’ve been feeling for the past couple months could magically erase the years of mental health issues, it just doesn’t add up or make sense. Of course there will be be bad days, slumps, insecurities and irrational thoughts from time to time that manage to rear their ugly heads - it’s a part of the healing process. It makes perfect logical sense, because it’s how we overcome these times that end up proving how strong and resilient we have become.

I say that, like I haven’t been in denial that a slump has been looming for a while now. I’ve been so obsessed with this happiness and positivity that I’ve been feeling, that I’ve literally forced myself to ignore the huge red flags that everything was going to go to sh*t very soon. I tried to rationalise that the feeling of unease in my stomach was due to the novelty of moving and securing this job has begun to wear off, and that text book near-panic attacks were just due to me being tIrEd or hUnGrY.

I’ve decided to write about this, because I also want to normalise the hard and sh*t parts of healing. I want people to know that having bad days is okay, not being a ray of f*cking sunshine all the time is okay, having meltdowns is okay, that not feeling okay is okay - as cringe as that may sound. I also want to show that not having all the answers all the time, winging it and having a well deserved whine and moan is fine, too - and that’s essentially what this post is going to be about. I need to f*cking vent.

These past couple of weeks have been hell for me, to put it lightly, and as earlier mentioned, I chose to ignore every single sign that a slump was pending. When I’d come home from work with a gnawing feeling in my stomach that something bad was going to happen, I’d just binge eat a bunch of junk food and then go to sleep so I didn’t have to think. Whenever I’d be dangerously close to realising that the happiness I’ve been feeling is slowly but surely crumbling, I’d find myself forcing myself to banter and laugh about the whole situation so that I could mask how shit I was feeling about myself. And when I had two separate anxiety-attacks - which I haven’t had in ages - I forced myself to make light of them and make jokes.

Honestly. I feel like such an idiot for not taking them seriously. The first one was me waking up at my mates house after her birthday party with an insanely high heart rate and in a cold sweat. I was the only one awake at the time and I was actually really scared of dealing with it alone, so I ended up leaving. I later made light of it by saying that it was probably just because I was still drunk, that I’m a drama queen and that I was definitely feeling better after sleeping in my own bed.

The second one happened literally a couple days later. I blacked out and almost fainted on my commute into work. I‘ve experienced lightheadedness and dizziness before, but this was definitely different. My vision was blurry, I was seeing black dots around me, the music I was listening to kind of faded out and sounded muffled - like I was underwater - and my legs were shaking like mad. If I hadn’t had something to cling very tightly to, I’m very convinced that I would’ve passed out and fallen. I still can’t remember how I managed to stumble off the train at the right stop, but when I finally got some fresh air and my senses stabilised, I noticed how much of a cold sweat I was in.

Most normal people would’ve realised that they needed a time out at this point, but not I - I was forcing myself to believe that I was still happy, that everything was okay, that I just needed to ensure that I got a good night's sleep and eat something. I only told my housemate, my sister and my mum what had happened, made jokes about not wanting to go on WebMD because it’d tell me my brain is hemorrhaging… and then went about my day.

Right now I’m really torn, because I really want to internally punch myself up for not listening to my body...but at the same time I’m trying to be kInDeR tO mYsElF and fOrGiVe MySeLf for not following my own advice. Who even am I?

With all jokes aside and the background for this post out of the way, let me get very real.

As I mentioned earlier, I’ve been having this feeling of unease for a while now. This is a classic sign of anxiety - feeling that since things are seemingly too good to be true, something terrible must be coming up to ruin the peace. Since I know that when I usually feel like this it’s just down to irrational thinking, I kept suppressing the feeling and convincing myself that I was gucci.

Only this time, the feeling was real. I received some potentially life-changing news last week, that really rattled me to my core. I don’t even want to share what it is at this point, because I’m worried that discussing it openly on here will manifest it more than I already have by telling the few people I trust. All you as a reader needs to know is that it was heartbreaking and very illusion-shattering, and it definitely pushed me over the edge that I had no idea I was so close to.

The interesting thing about receiving bad news is that the way you take it onboard says a lot about your mental state. If you’re in a good place mentally - much like I was a couple weeks ago - chances are that you’ll be able to deal with it in a healthy manner and feel very assured that things will turn out fine, at least after the initial shock. But unfortunately, since I’ve spent the past couple of weeks convinced that something bad is going to happen, it’s really just sent me in this massive downward spiral.

When I get sad - like, really, really sad - my usual composed and collected self goes out of the window and my mind goes down a very irrational and self-deprecating path. My first thought when I heard the bad news was that it was my fault - I felt like I had literally spoken and willed it into existence, and blamed myself. Of course, it’s easy for me to see the irrationality of this feeling as I’m writing about it within a short window of sanity before the next emotional downswing comes. But when I let myself just be sad, I really and truly blame myself, and I don’t even know how to stop it.

The problem with me is that I struggle a lot with separating different things going on in my mind when I’m feeling like sh*t. I can never be in my feelings about one isolated thing - once the waterworks start, I really just feel sad about everything until I feel like there’s literally no point to my life anymore, and I start contemplating whether this life really and truly is even worth all this stress. The phrase “when it rains, it pours” is even an understatement, because why am I being attacked by this storm from a million different directions?

The maddest thing is that I feel like I deserve it, even though it literally makes no sense. I find myself thinking that this sh*t is all happening because I’ve made such a big deal out of putting my own mental and emotional wellbeing above my own family and friends - and now I’m being punished for it. I’m not entirely sure how or why this concept that I’m being punished has even manifested itself in my mind, but lately it’s really been taking over and literally poisoned my thoughts.

It’s my own fault that my relationship that my family is strained - I was the one who decided to move away.

My family, friends, colleagues and acquaintances don’t really care about me, or particularly like me for that matter - they just tolerate me because I’m there. It wouldn’t make any difference to them if I lived or died.

The pride, confidence and success I’ve been feeling careerwise lately is going to come crashing down any second now, because I don’t even really have the brains or resilience to make it like that. I’m an imposter, and people will soon realise it.

The immense loneliness I feel from time to time is there because deep down I know that the people I deem important in my life only see me as a background character in theirs.

I’m putting up a front that the failure of my last relationship it was all for the best and that I learned and grew from it, but deep down I know I’ll probably never fully be ok again. And even if I was to, I’d never be capable of loving them back because I’ve become too emotionally apathetic to feel anything for anyone again.

This confidence in my beauty that I’ve been feeling lately is all a scam. Deep down I know that I’m hideous, and no amount of healthy eating, working out, positive affirmations or glowing up will ever be capable of changing that.

...you get the point. It was actually really hard to type those out - as mentioned earlier in my blog, putting words to feelings you usually keep buried inside is genuinely traumatising. The thing is, when I read back what I’ve written when I’m in a good frame of mind I know it’s all rubbish. I know that my family and friends are proud of me and my success. I know that I matter. I know that the loneliness is my head messing with me and unresolved issues, because I’m surrounded by amazing friends. I know that when the time is right and I’m emotionally ready, I’ll settle down with someone on my wavelength that actually deserves me. I know that I’m very beautiful.

But the power of the mind really is a force to be reckoned with. It’s terrifying. It really has me thinking so irrationally and doubting my own knowledge, and it’s so emotionally draining. Furthermore, it convinces me that I’m the only person in the world feeling like this, that I’m some sort of emotional outcast that’s carrying this huge burden in secret. I literally feel like I can’t tell anyone how I truly feel anymore because - even though I preach about being unapologetic about feelings - I’m terrified that I’ll be judged, thought to be overdramatic or labelled as attention-seeking.

I think the horrible and most frustrating part of this whole slump business is the three states of mind I differentiate between until it passes. I’m either balanced, really f*cking numb or really f*cking sad.

The balanced part - not to be confused with actually being content - is the state of mind that I force myself to be in when I’m at work or need to interact with people and feel relatively normal. People don’t even know - or care - enough to see that I’m constantly having to fight myself to not be affected by anything that could trigger the other two mindstates.

The sadness that takes over from time to time is the hardest to deal with because it’s so unpredictable. I’ll just be going about my day at work, sitting on the bus, hanging out with friends, watching a movie alone when I suddenly just feel tears coming. Most of the time I don’t even know why it’s coming because it seemingly doesn’t even have a trigger. All I know is that it’s really f*cking hard to keep the tears back, and if I let the tears come I know it will go on for a really long time.

The third and final one - the numbness - is definitely the most scary one of the three simply because it’s so out of character for me. I’ve been a quite sensitive person my entire life - as in no stranger to crying and getting in my feelings - so when these feelings began to emerge I was worried that there was something wrong with me or that I had snapped. Well, I would’ve been worried if I had been capable of feeling it at the time. As someone that’s used to crying whenever things get hard, suddenly feeling numb, empty and unbothered by all the sh*t that’s going on is a massive red flag. The first time I felt it - in conjunction with ending things with my ex - my therapist theorised that it was my brains way of protecting and repairing itself from the overwhelming amount of sadness I had been feeling. I’m no neurologist so I don’t know if this is correct - but it would make sense if that was the case. The numbness, apathy and lack of emotion was a blessing at first, but I soon noticed that it actually makes me not even give a f*ck about my family, friends, job, body or health either - which simply isn’t me. In the long run, the lack of emotion really ended up taking a toll on my health. I was drinking very excessively at this point in time and tried other substances that I know for a fact I wouldn’t have dreamt of trying otherwise - simply because I didn’t care if I lived or died anymore.

Luckily my periods of numbness aren’t as bad as that anymore. I’d like to think that it’s because I have become more resilient and mentally strong since then, but I’m not even sure anymore. All I know is that when I lie in bed at night and try to allow myself to cry to let out all the pent up emotions, the tears don’t even come. That’s how I know that something is very wrong.

Whenever I feel myself slipping into this rotation of mindstates, I desperately try to find a way to get out of it because I’m scared of how long it is going to last this time. You might as well call me Solange, because I literally try to work, laugh, sex, joke, eat, drink, shop, clean, read, cry, sleep, pray, ignore and - as you can see - write it away. Sometimes I’m able to distract myself for brief periods of time, but as soon as the good feeling wears off I’m just back to feeling like sh*t again. I’m scared now that all the positivity that I’ve been feeling in conjunction with moving and starting a new job is beginning to wear off, and that going back to constantly having this underlying sense of sadness and loneliness will fully take over my life again.

Unfortunately, only time will tell. And much like Solange implies, I can’t keep trying to avoid confronting my problems.  I’m just going to have to ride this sh*t out, hope for the best and force myself to stay positive, even though it all feels really hopeless right now. Hopefully one day I’ll be able to revisit this post and share the lessons and solutions I’ve been able to devise by going through it - after all, that’s what I’ve been doing in my previous posts. But I don’t know when that will be.

I could go on writing about this forever, but my mind tends to go around in circles when I feel like this and I feel like I’d just be repeating myself. Although the purpose of this post was for me to have an outlet for my emotions before I ended up snapping and going full on Mrs. Hyde, I hope that me sharing how I’ve been feeling can let whoever might be going through a similar period know that they aren’t alone, regardless of how lonely and alienated the sadness makes them feel.

I want to round up this post with a short list of tips for whoever can relate to this post, on how I personally try to make these episodes at least slightly easier to deal with (Because is it even a Bounce Back post if it doesn’t have tips in bullet points? I don’t think so):

Time your productivity with your emotional upswings.

If you’re anything like me, the particularly bad feelings come and go in waves. When you can feel that you’re in a good-ish state of mind, make sure you address all your responsibilities, chores and other things you need to do. Don’t worry too much about the amount of extra time it ends up taking - taking slightly longer on a task is much better than doing it when you’re in a sh*t mood and would honestly just want to off yourself. For reference, it’s taken me two weeks to write this blog post just because I didn’t want to write it while being miserable - because I knew it wouldn’t be very helpful, would make me feel worse and probably wouldn’t make much sense.

Don’t neglect yourself.

Luckily I have a full time job now that doesn’t allow me to fall into patterns of self-neglect anymore. But if I didn’t, I’m positive that I’d just be in bed taking depression naps, netflixing, ignoring everyone and either overeating or not eating at all. In fact, that’s literally me on weekends when I don’t have plans. Not healthy or helpful at all, in other words.

A shower (or even better...a bubble bath), brushing your teeth, leaving your room, eXeRcIsE, fresh air and a cheeky cuppa really does do wonders in terms of mood-lifting. I promise that giving yourself that extra push to do at least 3 of those things will make you at least feel like you’ve done something with your day so you don’t have to be so hard on yourself for being a lazy sh*t.

Keep your living space clean (!!!)

Fun fact - I may or may not have burst into tears after coming home from work the other day and seeing that there was a whole lot of sh*t on my unmade bed and on the floor. On my good days I’m usually a bit (a lot) of a neat freak, so when my living space is disgusting it really just is a reflection and a brutal reminder of how bad my state of mind is. Of course, I had no one but myself to blame for the mess but it really ended up being the last drop that sent me over the edge.

If you at the very least make sure your floor, bed and other areas you know you’re going to want to wallow in self pity in later on are tidy, it really does make a huge difference. One less thing to have a meltdown over; we stan.

Force yourself to believe that it will pass.

This is really difficult when you literally feel like you want to play in traffic. But try your best to remember other times in the past where you felt like your life was falling apart and appreciate that the lessons you learnt from that have made you slightly more resilient this time around, even though it may not feel so.

For example - regardless of how terrible I feel right now, I remember times when I couldn’t even brave leaving my bed to go to uni or work...and that was for a lot less bullsh*t than what I’m going through now. Furthermore, the more of these episodes I have, the easier it is to convince myself that it will, in fact, pass. It always does. You just have to ride it out.

Don’t isolate yourself.

I thought I’d finish with the one that’s the most challenging (for me). I’m naturally a bit of a loner - always have been. Going to other people to talk about how much I’m struggling has never come naturally for me - it’s not really until my adult life that I’ve learnt to understand the importance and benefits of talking to others. Furthermore, when my brain tells me that my family and friends don’t even f*ck with me like that, it really is a huge challenge to overcome that feeling of insecurity and reach out to the people that supposedly hAtE mE. I’d rather just stay in bed and protect my feelings by just being alone and then cry about feeling lonely. Make it make sense, please.

Of course, this is far from healthy and it is imperative to learn how to break away from this pattern of thinking. Nowadays I force myself to leave my room and annoy my housemate, force myself to grace my friends with my comedic abilities so I can at least try to have a laugh, and force myself to reach out to family members that I’ve managed to convince myself don’t really want to talk to me.

It really does make a massive difference and I promise you that you will be positively surprised. It really makes you remember that it’s all in your head and makes you more able to disregard the feelings when they come and try to attack you.

Whew enfant. I definitely feel better now. Apologies in advance for the rambling and the probable confusion, but to be honest no one really forced you to read it. I don’t really know how to end a post like this, so I’ll just finish up by reminding whoever needs to hear it (including myself) that these feelings are normal and will pass, as well as that feeling like this doesn’t imply weakness or a lessening of worth.

Keep telling yourself that until you believe it.

In the meantime, I’m going to try my best to keep my head above water and keep dishing out posts about how to get through times like this. Fear not, I still have loads of ideas that I want to share - and I’m not letting a sh*tty couple weeks ruin the good thing I’ve started.

Love,

Liv

#mentalillness #selfhelp

[irlbop]

Finnrey, Reylo, and Goddamn Human Decency

Okay, so let’s sit down and dissect the situation since my buddo, Sithskywalker, has only been met with harassment in her attempts to do so. Initially, I was going so ask that we try and settle this but frankly and ashamedly towards y’all, I know that that is an impossible task to expect.

               Let’s start with something simple before we get into the complexities of this entire Reylo/Finnrey debacle: Reylo is, at best, problematic. At worst (of which it is most often appearing to lean toward in my observation), Reylo is ignorant in the lightest term that I can think of. Now, the beautiful thing about ignorance isn’t always intentional; in these cases, it is obliviousness and, if the oblivious one is willing, this can be adjusted. But in more commonly observed cases, the ignorance I’m seeing is done out of spite and with an intention to inflict pain or disturbance. And no, don’t go “Just let me ship it!” or “It’s my freedom to ship it!” or “But did you see the way he – ” No, no, no, no, no, no, no. There’s a myriad of issues surrounding the Reylo situation on a scale regarding what a healthy relationship is, regarding race, and your own personal consideration for your fellow man as well as the films this entire fandom is based around. If you stick around, great. If you’re seeing the same things you’ve heard before, then maybe the problem isn’t the fact that you need a billion reasons to cut through your skull. Also, trigger warning for rape, abuse, and racism

Abuse: I’m going to say this right upfront and now: I have never been in an abusive relationship, nor have I survived sexual assault. I’m lucky. I am blessed. But my experience isn’t everybody else’s. therefore, it’s important to consider the situations of those who haven’t gone through life without an invasion of personal space or emotional boundaries. If you don’t believe me, look at the media: We’re constantly smitten with the guy who “takes what he wants” and can literally shove the object of his affection against a wall and suction his face to hers. This is often done during the “chase” stage and while many (including myself) buy into it at first, if you take a moment to step back and actually analyze the situation, it’s actually disturbing. I could probably write a good page or two on just how the media practically contorts and romanticizes some actually abusive traits but I’m already on this bad boy. 

But the point is, when you take Kylo Ren’s actions out of context and mix it with the whole “rough-loving bad boy” persona we’ve been spoon-fed since God knows when, it’s easy to contort it into something appealing. But for some people, it’s not. For some, seeing Rey get smacked against a tree can bring back literally painful reminders. Seeing him trying to basically mentally manipulate isn’t an opportunity for him to read her mind about how she’s “totes thinking he’s a hottie” so then they start making out or whatever. To be frank, romanticizing this situation was under absolutely no intention of the director, screenwriter, producer, etc. It’s exactly as it’s meant to be: hostile, ambitious, and nasty as it should be between enemies. Nothing more, nothing less.          

However, it appears too many people refuse to understand this or even begin to fathom it. Furthermore, they actually take it upon themselves to harass those who express discomfort over people making goo-goo eyes at what can practically be a reminder for a very dark time for them. Someone I loved had PTSD and I can attest to this just by observing him: That shit does stuff to you. You can still smile, you can still laugh. You can even go on with your life and do what people expect you to do i.e. go to school, get a job, maybe even start a family if you so please it. But trust me: It doesn’t leave you. You can’t “get over” something that hits you so hard that it streaks right down into your soul. I can’t even begin to imagine what it feels like. Many people can’t.      

But it’s for that very reason that you have no right to march up to somebody who has it and tell them to “suck it up.” Because if you’re telling them to suck up something that has impacted them for the rest of their lived, then you should certainly be able to suck up criticism over a fictional relationship that you will probably forget about once you realize that shipping doesn’t pay the bills or help take care of student loans. You can’t be petty over something that’s literally hurting somebody else, it makes you look like a disgusting waste of human. Especially since we’re entering an age where the goddamn assigned leader of this forsaken country has very likely committed those acts upon others, is getting away with it, and is basically doing every and all things that he and his stooges can to assure that it keeps happening. You know that thing that a girl in Africa made? That sorta condom-like thing with teeth that goes inside her and will shred the dick of any man that tries to put it inside her without her consent? If you don’t and want to know why this isn’t a thing here, it’s because it’s illegal in the U.S. It’s literally seen as a form of torture. So a man’s pride and literal junk is worth protecting more than a woman’s safety. Yeah.            

But I digress: Reylo has no bones to form a healthy relationship. Stop acting as though it does. Because what does have a proper foundation is Finnrey. Which leads us to …

Race: Disclaimer, I think both John Boyega and Adam Driver are fine men. Both physically and based on their personalities. I harbor no ill will toward Adam, nor any favoritism towards John. I don’t even really ship anyone! However, this is something that needs to be said because after the bullshittery I’ve seen go down on buddo’s blog, I felt it needed to be done. But geez, where do I even begin to delve into a centuries old and ongoing system bent and formed to assure Caucasian superiority on an educational, residential, aesthetic, etc. level? Hmmm … I guess, once again, we’ll start with something simple: Why is Finnrey superior not by opinion, but by overall character?         

Let’s see … Finn is Rey’s first ever friend, by meeting him she was able to eventually come to terms with the reality of her situation, thereby meeting Luke (whom is 98.99% likely to be the father she had been missing), they shared an experience, they protect each other, they care for each other, Finn literally risks death just to get her back and she picks up a weapon she previously wanted nothing to do with to assure that he couldn’t get hurt anymore, and, most important of all, they goddamn respect one another. I’m not going to bring in the fact that it’s all but canon now because honestly, it shouldn’t be this hard to express the characteristics of what can present a decent foundation for a healthy romantic relationship. Especially because if you care about the loving aspect, then you should care about Finnrey. (If you care about a lusting aspect, then you only care about sexual characteristics which can still be found in Finnrey. If you do that in-character with Reylo, however, it’s extremely predatory since, you know, Kylo hates Rey and Rey hates Kylo.)             

So after taking all these factors into count, it begs the question, why don’t more people ship Finnrey? Well, kiddios, the first term of the day is “systematic racism.” Systematic racism, also called institutionalized racism, basically refers to a form of racism expressed in practices on a social and political level ranging from and entwining into literally anything from schooling to income, to criminal justice, wealth, healthcare, living situation, who’s considered beautiful, and, yes, relationships. Don’t believe me, you can literally read articles on anything from black women with white husbands getting mistaken for hookers or watch the movie Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.          

Anyway, how does systematic racism tie into who we find more appeal with? Well, some centuries ago as Europeans started to venture outward more, it eventually become common word that dark things were associated with badness and white with goodness regardless of what sense it made (Jesus was more black than white, for example). Since then, this mindset has spread like wildfire. Or the smallpox the English brought over. In countries where dark-skinned persons are the norm, they’re more likely to promote or run advertisements with lighter-skinned people. And if they can get their hands on a white person, you know they’re gonna. This is because the white person is, in far too many cases, portrayed as the everyman. This is why we’re quicker to recognize when a protagonist is a POC – it’s just not an everyday occurrence.

We see this in our movies all the time with a white man being cast as the lead, or when they’re presented and promoted in rapid succession compared to their colored cast mates and so on and so forth.

And the thing is, this shit starts early. If you Youtube “Doll Test”, you’ll see small children (including black ones) calling the white baby doll good and the black baby doll bad. They even refer to the white doll as the pretty one, whereas its darker counterpart is ugly. The problem is, the media often does very little to help destroy this mindset so it often ends up blossoming into what we see today: sympathy for white killers, fictional or not, out of finding them physically attractive. (If you come up in here and tell me this isn’t true, I will smash your fucking face into the screen of a laptop and make you read all the bitches whining about Dylann Roof’s death sentence or how many twits wanted some other white boy killer to go free and creaming themselves after he showed up to court in a shirt expressing pride over his killing. I don’t have time for this bullshit.)

Basically, what we end up doing is sparing sympathy for lighter-toned people because, institutionally, light means good and dark means bad. (This is actually also a thing in the black community where lighter skinned people are treated differently than darker-skinned ones but this is also a story for another time.) Does this sound reminiscent of anything? Perhaps a fictional non-canonical pairing wherein people make excuses and slander the names of the characters’ actors to justify a notably unhealthy interaction over an actually more stable one?

Furthermore, while it’s becoming more commonplace in commercials and TV shows and film, the image of a black male and white female is met with criticism. I’ll admit that the reasons honestly differ among ethnic groups but for the most part, it’s usually a criticism born simply from the fact that it’s a black man and a white woman. Remember when I said Europeans began to use their position to promote ideas that pretty much raised their position for just being white? This was a favorite tactic used in America in the 18- and 1900s. The idea was that white women were fragile and needed to be protected from the brutish black bucks. A black man near a white woman would surely cause her harm! This was displayed in many forms from posters to pamphlets to D. W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation wherein a rowdy and completely buffonish cast of blackface-donning actors were portrayed in scenarios that included harassing a delicate flower of a white girl, as well as lustfully celebrating over the ruling that they be allowed marriage to women women (which received more applause than being allowed placement in government).

So where have we seen people portray a black male as barbaric, invading on the safety of a young, white female and threatening her by so much as touching her hand? Could it be … in movies where the black man is a rapist or a thug? Maybe … in real life where numerous white women have claimed assault on an innocent black man but nobody dared to investigate the matter further? Or perhaps … a disgusting amount of Reylo-shippers, who have literally gone out of their way to portray John Boyega as a beast rather than a man and actual friend to coworker Daisy Ridley?

I could go on a tangent about how insulting this is not only on a racial scale, but also in regards to demeaning the situations of people who have actually been in unpleasant or altogether awful interactions with genuinely awful people but, like I said, this is what we’re focusing on right now.

But in the end, do you know what a lifetime of this can do to a POC’s mindset? I can think of an example: The second term of the day is “internalized racism.”   

As the name would suggest, internalized racism is when a person of an ethnic group displays racist traits towards members of their culture, including themselves. This can come about in many ways but one thing is for certain: it’s linked with institutionalized racism. You see, it gets quite easy to think very negatively of something that people subtly or even outright portray as a bad thing. Even if that thing looks like you. Maybe you’ve seen far too many black people get arrested on the news; maybe you just don’t feel pretty with your corkscrew curls and earthy skin; maybe you just feel an inherent need to hold your purse close to you when you see a big, black guy walking down the street despite the fact that he’s just making his way down the block to run an errand. The point I’m trying to get at here is that there’s various ways or showing or even experiencing internalized racism. I’ll be the first to admit that I experience it. I’m trying not to; a lot of people may be. But it’s hard to undo something you didn’t know existed until recently, or what keeps growing back with the constant exposure after every time you think you’re free from it. But this is no excuse to go out of your way to keep feeding it.

So anyway, when I talk about internalized racism, you probably have an idea where I’m going with this: Black Reylo shippers, we need to talk. What exactly is it that you find appealing about this dynamic? Be real with yourself. Is it because Adam Driver is attractive? That’s all fine and good, but that has nothing to do with his character. What exactly does Kylo offer Rey? By comparison, what does Finn offer Rey? If you feel Finn, after an entire film’s worth of interacting with her, offers Rey nothing whereas Kylo, after maybe a total of 15-23 minutes (most of which involved him using his fucking unstable lightsaber on her), offers her something, then it may be healthiest for you to step away from shipping for a while and think about what you truly do respect. If shipping is just an outlet for you, fine. But you should make sure that that outlet reflects what a good relationship is to you: not some sadistic, abusive game of predator vs prey. If that is what you want, then you seriously need to stop focusing on shipping and start focusing on your psyche.

All in all, there just a shit ton I could’ve said or still want to say, but I think this is long enough and most of y’all have either dropped out or have left to write an insult of threat without reading the entire thing or considering why it’s being written in the first place. Plus, I’m tired. Physically tired, but mostly, I’m tired that this shit actually needs to be said to a bunch of people who think their asses are grown enough to recognize what a relationship is, yet end up sending disturbing content to anyone who even so much as looks uncomfortable at the crap they’re promoting. Star Wars was never meant to be this way; no fandom is. But it’s because of inconsideration and intentional ignorance that things collapse. If you still feel a need to ship Reylo over Finnrey – especially if you have to actually change peoples’ characters and basically rob them of their principles – then maybe it would be best if you stepped away from shipping and asked yourself, “What does this say about me? How do my reactions towards people who do not agree with me reflect what I actually feel?” Because if you’re still willing to ship these two when it’s looking like they’re probably cousins alone, then you’ve got more issues to work out than just the fact that somebody doesn’t agree with your ship.

TL;DR – Reylo is a result of the entwined workings of the social romanticism of abuse and downplaying of female respect and a multitude of racial issues, including institutionalized and internalized racism and you need to go sit down and think about all this and what it says about you before you even so much as try to counter it. And for the rest of you where you stand by your stretching, I quote my brother: “Just say you hate black people and go. it’s not that deep.” It really isn’t; we can see you in your kiddy pool of defense.

@sith

#tw: abuse #tw: rape #finnrey #long ass post #i am tired #but i'm also angry #anti reylo #anti r*ylo #institutional racism #there's probably a lot i missed or whatever #but i'm tired and i honestly shouldn't have to tell some of y'all any of this mess

[artificialqueens]

Love Me, Thats All I Ask Of You (1/?) (Pearlet and Famelet) - GilaMonster

A/N ~~~~~~

Nyello I’m GilaMonster. I’m new to writing fics, this is my first. I am here to pour a couple of drops of water on the pearlet drought! I have quite a bit of experience in writing but hey who knows it might be good it might be utter garbage. This is a Phantom of The Opera (2004 movie) based Fanfiction. The pairings are Violet/Pearl AND Fame/Violet and maybe some implied shalaska. If you haven’t watched Phantom of the Opera I strongly suggest you do because A) this fic will not make sense to you B) it’s a good movie/musical/play. The way this will be set up is each chapter will be certain scenes from the movie represented with all the characters in each scene. The way the scenes will be written will be quite like the scene from the movie and there’s just too much content to pack into a single box to keep the readers from boredom and there’s lots of singing and some unnecessary dialogue. I was writing this thinking I could do it in one shot because I fit like two scenes in under 2000 words but I will break it up seeing as I want to give the two most iconic (to me) and drought satisfying scenes their own single chapter. I will be using biological names for most people besides Violet, Katya, and Alyssa. I do apologize with this mother of an author’s note but I just feel there needs to bit of background. I will be posting the character list and the link to the song(s) in the beginning of each chapter so here we go children. (p.s. just to relieve any confusion since there is multiple characters I will be putting letters/initials for each speaker. I have made some changes to the original script/dialogue because we don’t want a whole fanfiction of just singing.

Songs used: Hannibal/rehearsal (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QXhzWnJaZI&index=2&list=PLgqUwNabyFTGq-0PXFwTJhShQEZi6I-N2)

Think of me: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJ_3Kfx4q-I&list=PLgqUwNabyFTGq-0PXFwTJhShQEZi6I-N2&index=3)

Angel of music: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRiF6161qK0&index=4&list=PLgqUwNabyFTGq-0PXFwTJhShQEZi6I-N2)

Little Lotte/The Mirror: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7hYln0mXVo&index=5&list=PLgqUwNabyFTGq-0PXFwTJhShQEZi6I-N2)

Also here’s some ques and such:

This is body and dialogue

This is character singing

And this is when “He” ominously sings from somewhere.

**** = scene change

Trigger warnings: semi-toxic relationships (eventual), injury, mentions of death, minor character death (eventual) fighting (eventual).

Christine Daae: Violet Chachki ((V))

Viscount Raoul de Chagny: Miss Fame (Kurtis dam-mikkelsen) ((KM))

Erik/The Phantom: Pearl (matt James) ((P/M))

Madame Giry: Michelle Visage (Madame Visage) ((MV))

Meg Giry:  Katya Zamolodchikova (Katya) ((KZ))

Carlotta:  Alyssa Edwards (AE)

Monsieur Reyer: Thorgy Thor (Shane Gilligan ‘monsieur Gilligan’) ((T))

Gilles Andre (new owner #1): Phi Phi O’Hara (Jaremi Carey) (J)

Richard Firmin (new owner #2): Roxxxy Andrews (Michael Feliciano) (MF)

Ubaldo Piangi:  Shangela (Darius J Pierce) (D)

Joseph Buquet: Sharon Needles (Aaron Coady) (AC)

Monsieur Lefevre (old owner of the opera populaire): Rupaul (Monsieur Charles) (RP)

T: “Monsieur Charles… I am rehearsi- “

RP: “Monsieur Gilligan, Madame Visage, ladies and gentlemen please. If I could have your attention. As you know, for weeks there have been rumors of my imminent retirement… I can now tell you that these are all true and I’d like to introduce you to the two gentlemen who now own the opera populaire. Monsieur Jaremi Carey and Michael Feliciano.”

The two men wave at the crowd of dancers, singers, and cast members.

RP: “I’m sure you have all heard of their recent amassed junk business”

J: “Scrap metal… actually.”

RP: “I would also like to introduce you to our new patron, the Vicomte de Chagny.

The crowd of people applaud as the man enters the opera hall. From the stairs of the performers entrance, two women come up the stairs to see the new contributor to the Opera Populaire’s list of support.

V: “It’s Kurtis! Before my father died, you see. I guess you could call us childhood sweethearts.”

V: “He used to call me little Lotte.”

KZ: “Violet, he’s handsome”

Kurtis goes on to speak to the crowd about how his family is honored to support the Opera Populaire.

RP: “Vicomte, gentlemen. This is Alyssa Edwards our leading soprano for five seasons and here is Darius Pierce.

KM: “An honor, signor, but I believe I am keeping you from a rehearsal.”

KM: “I will be there this evening to share your great triumph.

RP: “Thank you once again m. Vicomte”

KM: “My apologies signor.”

The Vicomte leaves the hall, allowing for the rehearsal to continue.

V: “He wouldn’t recognize me.”

KZ: “He didn’t see you.

****

 Madame Visage takes the two new owners aside and begins to tour them around starting first at the section where the dancers are rehearsing. The women are dancing four in a row connected by what resembles the chains used on slaves in the roman era.

MV: “We take a particular pride in the excellence of our ballets, signor”

MF: “I see why, especially that little blonde angel.”

MV: “My daughter Katya.”

MF: “And that exceptional beauty, no relation I trust?”

MV: “Violet Chachki. Promising talent Signor Feliciano, very promising.

J: “Chachki you say? No relation to the famous aerialist?

MV: “His only daughter, orphaned at seven, came to live and trained in the ballet dormitories.”

J: “An orphan you said?”

MV: “I think of her as a daughter also. Gentlemen if you would kindly stand to one side.”

  The men step to the side as the rehearsal continues. The dancers split apart and a wooden elephant is pushed in. The performers attempt to get in order, Darius steps on Alyssa’s dress which causes her to snap at him and she turns to Jaremi and Michael, singing incredibly loud, obviously looking for attention and approval. The two men chuckle and continue to stare at the dancers watching every step, every leap, every jump. The rehearsal ended as all the performers all leave the stage, Alyssa visibly angered.

  AE: “Ah, Chachki, all they want is your dancing!”

RP:” Vicomte is very excited about tonight’s gala.”

  “Well, I hope he’s as excited about dancing girls as your two new managers, because tonight I am not singing! Goodbye everyone! Now its finished. Get my doggie, bring my doggie, good-bye.” Alyssa yells while stomping away.

  J: “What do we do?”

RP:” Grovel… grovel, grovel.

MF: “Right.”

  The men pursue Alyssa and shower her in compliments to get her to return. Jaremi mentions an aria in third act of Hannibal. Alyssa complains and says that she would’ve done it but someone didn’t finish her costume, she’s tired and she hates her hat. Jaremi was lucky enough to get her to do a small performance of it right at once. Alyssa began to sing and the men in the upper workings of the hall leaned over the railing to get a good look at her, not noticing the figure brushing past them in a hurry. The ropes on one of the curtain is untied by someone and it starts falling close to the diva. She is knocked down by the curtain and becomes absolutely enraged. The woman is shouting, pounding her fists on the ground, and kicking in a tantrum like manner.

  RP: “Coady! For God’s sake, man, what’s going on there?”

  “Please Monsieur! Don’t look at me. With god as my judge I was not at my post. There’s no one there: or if there is, it must be a ghost…” The man bares his teeth comedically trying to scare the people around him.

  J: “Signora, these things do happen.”

AE: “For the past three years these things do happen, and did you stop these things from happening? No! And you are just as bad as them ‘these things do happen’. Until you stop these things from happening, this thing does not happen”

AE: “Darius c’mon! Bring my doggie and my boxes”

D: “Amateurs”

  Alyssa storms out of the hall leaving Darius to carry everything including the little Chihuahua/terrier. While this ordeal goes down Madame Visage goes to inspect the spot of the incident and a little envelope flutters down to the floor. A wax skull seals it. Reading the note, she walks over to the men.

  RP: “Gentlemen, good luck. If you need me I shall be in Australia.” J: “Signora Edwards she will be coming back wont she?”

MV: “You really think so monsieur? I have a message from the opera ghost.”

MF:” Oh god in heaven you’re all obsessed!”

MV: “He welcomes you to his opera house.-“

MF: “His opera house?”

MV: “And commands that you leave box five open for his use and reminds you that his salary is due.”

MF: “His salary?”

MV: “Monsieur Charles used to give him twenty thousand francs a month.”

J: “Twenty thousand francs?

MV: “Perhaps you could afford more, with the Vicomte de Chagny as your patron”

MF: “I had hoped to make that announcement public tonight when the Vicomte was to join us at the gala. But obviously, we shall have to cancel as it appears we lost our star.

  Michael looks around the room frantically trying to find any sort of way he and Jaremi could save the show.

  J: “There has to be an understudy.”

T: “An understudy? There is no understudy for Miss Edwards!”

MF: “A full house Jaremi, we have to refund a full house.”

MV: “Violet Chachki could sing it sir.”

MF: “The chorus girl? Don’t be silly.”

MV: “She’s been taking lessons from a great teacher.”

MF: “Who?”

V: “I don’t know his name monsieur.”

MV: “Let her sing for you, she has been well taught.”

J: “All right then, come on, don’t be shy, come on, come on.”

T: “Just, just… from the beginning of the aria please mademoiselle.”

Think of me, think of me fondly when we’ve said goodbye

Remember me once in a while, please promise me you’ll try

The girl sings quietly at first. All the performers come back onto the stage some confused, others in awe. She continues her song, looking back at Madame Visage and gains confidence from the look of approval in the older woman’s eyes.

When you find that once again you long, to take your heart back and be free. If you ever find a moment, spare a thought for me

****

The Lights are down and the show is already in the third act part way through the aria. Violet is on the stage in an elegant white gown. She executes each note with precision, a woman of dignity and grace. The men up above are stunned and even under the opera hall he himself is in awe.

We never said “our love was evergreen”, Or “as unchanging as the sea” But if you can still remember, Stop, and think of me

Think of all the things We’ve shared and seen Don’t think about the Things which might have been

Think of me, think of me waking, Silent and resigned Imagine me trying too hard to put you from my mind

Recall those days, look back on all those times Think of the things we’ll never do There will never be a day When I won’t think of you.

The Vicomte sits in box five, puzzled yet staring intently. He thinks to himself.

“Can it be- Can it be Violet?” He stands up and applauds.

“Bravo!”

“Long ago it seems so long ago, how young and innocent we were. She may not remember me but I remember her.” Kurtis says to himself as he walks from his seat trying to find a way to see her after the show.

We never said “our love was evergreen” or “as unchanging as the sea” But please promise me that sometimes, you will think of me!

****

Violet finds herself downstairs at the chapel lighting a candle for her father.

??: Brava, Brava, Bravissimi

KZ: “Violet, Violet?”

??: Violet…

KZ: “Where in the world have you been hiding? Really you were perfect. I only wish I knew your secret. Who is your great tutor?”

V: “Katya, when your mother brought me here to live. Whenever I come down here alone to light a candle for my father I hear a voice from above. And in my dreams, he was always there. You see, when my father lay dying. He told me an angel will protect me. An angel of music.”

KZ: “Violet do you believe? Do you think the spirit of your father tutored you?”

V:” Who else Katya, who? Father once spoke of an angel. I used to dream he’d appear. Now as I sing I can sense him, and I know he’s here. Here in this room he calls me softly, somewhere inside hiding. Somehow, I know he’s always with me. He, the unseen genius.”

KZ: “Violet you must have been dreaming, stories like this can’t come true. Violet you’re talking in riddles and it’s not like you.”

V: “Angel of music guide and guardian, grant to me your glory.”

KZ: “Who is this angel. This- “

V: “Angel of music hide no longer. Secret and strange angel.”

V: “He’s with me, even now.”

KZ: “Your hands are cold.”

V: “All around me.”

KZ: “Your face violet its white.”

V: “It frightens me.”

KZ: “Don’t be frightened”

****

Violet enters her room with Madame visage and she is pushing the door shut trying to keep the swarm of people from pushing in.

“You did very well my dear. He’s very pleased with you.” The older woman says handing Violet a rose with a black ribbon tied around it.

Outside the room, Michael and Jaremi are talking to Kurtis. Michael pats the young man on the shoulder.

M: “Ah, we’ve made quite the discovery with miss Chachki. Perhaps we can present her to you, dear Vicomte.”

KM: “Gentlemen, if you please. This is one visit I’d like to make unaccompanied thank you.”

Kurtis goes over to the door and enters the room slowly.

KM: “Little Lotte let her mind wander. Little Lotte thought; Am I fonder of dolls, or of goblins of shoes.”

V: “Kurtis…”

KM: “Or of riddles of frocks, those picnics in the attic or of chocolate”

V: “Father playing the violin- “

KM: “As we read to each other dark stories of the north”

V: “No, what I love best Lotte said, is when I’m asleep and the Angel of Music sings songs in my head.”

With each phrase, he got closer and closer to violet until he was right beside her.”

 “Oh, you’re so like an angel tonight.” Kurtis sighs, embracing the girl. He releases her and she whispers to him.

V: “Father said ‘When I’m in heaven, child. I will send the angel of music to you.’ Well, father is dead Kurtis, and I have been visited by the Angel of Music.”

KM: “No doubt of it, and now we’ll go to supper.”

V: “No, Kurtis, the Angel of Music is very strict.”

 “Well I shan’t keep you up late!” the man says chuckling.

“Kurtis, no.” Violet hisses. Her face is a combined expression of worry, anger, and confusion.

“You must change. I’ll order my carriage. Two minutes Little Lotte.”

“No Kurtis, wait!” Kurtis exits the room shutting the door behind him. The candles go out and the door locks itself. There is a cold air and uneasy feeling in the room.

???: “Insolent boy! This slave of fashion, basking in your glory! Ignorant fool! This brave young suitor, Sharing in my triumph!”

“Angel I hear you! Speak, I listen… stay by my side guide me! Angel my soul was weak – forgive me… enter at last Master!”

???: “Flattering child, you shan’t know me, see why in shadow I hide! Look at your face in the mirror, I am there inside!”

Violet walks towards the mirror looking at the taller dark blonde man behind the two-way mirror. A white mask covers half of his face.

“Angel of Music! Guide and guardian! Grant to me your glory! Angel of Music! Hide no longer! Come to me strange angel.”

???: “I am your angel of music. Come to me: Angel of Music.”

Kurtis returns to the door, grasping at the handle which won’t budge.

 “Whose is that voice? Who is that in there?” He tries pushing on the door to get into the room, but it won’t move.

???: “I am your Angel of Music.”

“Violet…Violet!” Kurtis shouts pounding on the door. Violet moves the mirror aside revealing a passageway filled with candles and the masked man standing in front of her.

???: “Come to me angel of music.”

Violet takes one step closer to him and gently grasps his hand.

AN#2 Its gila again if y'all made it this far either congrats if you liked it sorry if you hated it. i will finish the next chapter soon. i have two exams this week so i’ll work on that after.

#rpdr fanfiction #gilamonster #all i ask of you #m/f au #musical theatre au #phantom of the opera au #famelet #pearlet #violet chachki #pearl liaison #miss fame #katya zamolodchikova #michelle visage #alyssa edwards #rupaul #thorgy thor #sharon needles #shangela laquifa wadley #roxxxy andrews #phi phi o'hara #au #submission

[wilsonneate]

GEOFF BARROW KEEPS HIS PECKER UP WITH BEAK>

(Interview done by me in 2009, originally published in BLURT magazine)

After Portishead’s second album, Geoff Barrow quit music for five years. Since the 2008 release of Third, though, he’s remained active, as boss of the Invada label, as a producer (The Horrors’ Primary Colours) and now as a member of BEAK>, a Bristol trio featuring Billy Fuller (Fuzz Against Junk) and Matt Williams (Team Brick).

Whereas nearly eleven years passed between the second and third Portishead albums, BEAK> hatched their debut in just twelve days. An exercise in what Barrow calls “instantaneous writing,” this is a Krautrock-influenced affair, infused with a touch of proggy weirdness, some drones and out-there noise and a bit of doom-metal heft. Although BEAK> shares a few influences with Portishead’s last album, particularly an affinity for Simeon Coxe’s Silver Apples, Barrow also sees BEAK> and Portishead as worlds apart. Exploring a largely different creative process, traveling to gigs on budget airlines, carrying his own gear and playing small venues all add up to a welcome change, one that he finds re-energizing.

Barrow spoke to BLURT about working with BEAK> and, among other things, his love of Can, his ambivalent relationship with Bristol and the difficulties posed by being a singing drummer.

BLURT: As an expat Bristolian, I was immediately struck by the track titles on the BEAK> album, many of which are the names of places around Bristol. Is that just playful or is there a link to the music?

GEOFF BARROW: It was very playful but, at the same time, we kind of said, “No, no that doesn’t sound like [the village,] Pill – that one sounds like Barrow Gurney.” So there was a connection, but it was definitely a playful connection. But when I think of the place, Pill, I do think of that tune [“Pill”], and when I think of Barrow Gurney, I do think of that tune, cos it’s a sort of mad synthesizer tune.

BLURT: Yeah, the sound is pretty manic – so the title “Barrow Gurney” refers to the Barrow Gurney psychiatric hospital, rather than the village of Barrow Gurney itself? When my grandfather was frustrated with us he used to say, “You’ll drive me out Barrow Gurney, you will.”

GB: Yeah, right. I know a lot of people who went to Barrow Gurney and a few mates of mine worked there as well, as mental health nurses. It’s closed now. It’s all Care in the Community now. They all do crack…. That was Thatcher for you.

BLURT: And is “The Cornubia” a reference to the Cornubia pub in Bristol?

GB: Yeah, it’s a proper Real Ale pub…. As I was saying that, I felt like a proper Real Ale drinker [laughs]. We had an Invada night at the Cornubia and we got banned from putting on gigs there again. It’s a good pub. It’s one of the only real pubs left standing in Bristol. I think it actually survived the bombing in the [Second World] War. If you see pictures of it, it literally stands alone. It’s the most peculiar kind of setting because everything else was destroyed either side of it, in front of it and behind it, and it just stood.

BLURT: Bristol was bombed heavily in the Blitz. My mum’s house actually took a direct hit, killing most of her family.

GB: Bloody hell! Bristol got hit badly during the War. If you look at photos of how it was before the War and afterwards, you can really see it. It’s pretty different.

BLURT: A lot of Bristol musicians have stayed in the area. Do you feel a strong connection to the West Country?

GB: I don’t know really. I just haven’t really been anywhere else. It’s home. At times I don’t like Bristolians and I don’t like what the city’s become. I don’t really like the history of the city, either, but this is where I live.

BLURT: When you mention the history, are you referring to the slave trade in particular? [In the 18th century, Bristol prospered as a key British port in the triangular trade.]

GB: Yeah, and the corruption. It’s always been corrupt. Do you know that book, A Darker History of Bristol by Derek Robinson? It’s a thin book that takes you on a little historical trip into why Bristolians are the way they are. They’re pretty apathetic. They don’t really want to join any side. They just want to get pissed and have an all right time, really. It’s got that kind of port mentality, you know? Like Liverpool. It’s got that about it. People just can’t be bothered down here, really. The only people who can be bothered are thieves and mercenaries.

BLURT: You recently organized a big event at the Colston Hall in Bristol featuring bands on your Invada label. There’s been controversy surrounding that venue because it’s named after the Bristol merchant Edward Colston, a prominent figure in the slave trade. Do you think the name will actually get changed or do people not give a shit?

GB: Bristolians don’t give a shit about it, but the middle classes do. So it will change its name eventually because it’s like having a place called the Hitler Rooms. It doesn’t sound great, does it? Or the Goebbels Village Hall.

BLURT: It doesn’t really have a good ring to it.

GB: Maybe the Goebbels Community Center? I think it’s got to change and eventually it’ll just happen. It’s just a name, but you’ve got to move forward. So yeah, we did the Invada Invasion there. We took the place over with Mogwai and a load of other bands. It was a really good night for people into alternative music. That’s something that just doesn’t happen in Bristol, and we just thought, “Right, we’ll do it.”

BLURT: Was BEAK> a collaboration that had been on the cards for some time?

GB: I think we’d all always liked what each other did. I’ve always liked Billy and his bass playing and stuff, and I’ve always been a fan of Matt’s. I mean, that’s the reason I put out their records on Invada. And we played together at a New Year’s Eve party, and me and Billy said it’d be great to do it again – and that was two years ago. Then we bumped into each other and said it again. And Matt (as Team Brick) had played on the last Portishead record and we had this bit of free time, so we did it. But there was no discussion about it, really. We just went in there and set up the microphones, and the first thing we played was basically the first track on the record, “Backwell.” As you hear it, it’s pretty much the first time we played together, which was really refreshing.

BLURT: So was the record largely put together from improvisation and, for want of a better word, jamming?

GB: It all came about in that way, although I’m not really into the term “jamming” – it was more about a kind of instantaneous writing, really. Cos jamming, to me, reminds me of bands that stick on a chord and play a solo for a couple of days, do you know what I mean? Like the saxophone player goes [approximates ostentatious jazzy sax solo] and it’s all about getting your chops in, and it’s just bollocks. For me, it was about being sat there and being aware of the space you’re in and the sound you’re creating: being totally aware of it and then moving things forward and just trying to write instantaneously. It was like a flow of consciousness, really – whether it’s lyrics or melodies or whatever. We actually played things a couple of times when we said, “Yeah, that’s a really good idea, but it completely went and fucked up there. Shall we just have another go at it?” And it wouldn’t be a couple of days later, it would be in the same half an hour. But in the end we’d usually go back to the first take and say, “Oh, it had something about it.” So, like I said, there wasn’t really that much discussion. We’d listen to a track after we’d played it and it’d be like, “Well, that’s done!” And there wasn’t a sense of it being throwaway, it was more like it just being refreshing. I mean, the album’s got bits that fuck up on it, but that’s what gives it its character – rather than it being put on Pro Tools and some bloke moving the snare drum so it’s in time. It’s not that kind of music, you know.

BLURT: Do you think the experience of the way you work with BEAK> will feed back into how you do things with Portishead?

GB: Well, the thing is that Portishead has actually always had that aspect of it. Like the song “Numb” on Dummy – it was written by me being sat in one room with a sampler and Ade [Adrian Utley], Gary [Baldwin] and Clive [Deamer] basically doing the same thing that BEAK> does. But that came from a hip-hop loop mentality. So it would be like, “Yeah, play that again,” and I’d just stick it in the sampler and loop it up. So Portishead have always had that, really. It’s just that people get a different impression because we’ve taken so long over records. Because of that, people perceive that it’s a more traditional setup. Portishead is weird – it can be instantaneous. Like sometimes the riff is written in an afternoon, but the beat takes twelve months. It’s just kind of fucked. And anything that can help my brain to be more productive in a writing way is great, but you can’t leave one record, do nothing and then start a new record without feeding your brain. That’s why I gave up music for five years, really, after the second Portishead tour, because I was kind of empty of ideas. I didn’t want to prove anything, didn’t want to move forward.

BLURT: In addition to improvising the music, you also made up the lyrics as you recorded the BEAK> tracks. When you play live, do you invent new ones?

GB: Yeah, basically, there’s a general vibe with the lyrics; there’s always one word that fits in it – like the sound of the pronunciation, how it suits the mood – and then you just kind of make it up. It’s interesting because playing drums and singing, it’s odd anyway.

BLURT: You’re now part of a great tradition of singing drummers: Robert Wyatt, This Heat’s Charles Hayward, er, Karen Carpenter…. Is it difficult?

GB: Yeah, it’s pretty mad, singing drummers [laughs]. You know, I’ve never done it before. It’s not too bad. It can throw you a bit. Thinking about the lyrics at the same time as you’re playing, it’s like tapping your head and rubbing your tummy at the same time or playing keepie-uppie with a football.

BLURT: You’ve said that you don’t really enjoy playing live with Portishead. Are you enjoying it more with BEAK>?

GB: I am, yeah, to be honest. Recently we’ve been playing not gigs, but little places – like we played a gallery the other day, without a PA. We’ve been playing most of the gigs like that, without a PA. We just set up and it’s refreshing; there’s no real pressure. There’s a huge difference between that and playing Coachella, you know what I mean? I engineer the drum sound when Portishead play live and me and Ade are like the MDs of it. And with BEAK> it’s a very simple kind of setup: playing live is pretty much as we recorded the album. There’s a couple of echo boxes we use to get that kind of dark, deep reverb sound, and it works and I’m not stressing over it. So, yeah, it has been really enjoyable. I mean, setting up your own kit and setting up your own sound and all that kind of stuff has been quite funny as well. When you compare touring with Portishead, with a crew of eighteen, to BEAK> on an easyJet flight with a synth in a suitcase and a snare drum in your pants, then basically it’s a different vibe. But it’s all really refreshing and gives you a different take on things.

BLURT: So doing BEAK> has been re-energizing for you, musically?

GB: Yeah, it has been. I think Ade finds it incredibly refreshing to play with other people. And Beth [Gibbons], as she’s writing her songs, it comes from a different part anyway – so it’s all good for feeding us. Our brains being fed like that was what brought the last Portishead record about.

BLURT: Some of the influences I heard on the BEAK> album were, maybe, “Church of Anthrax,” Tony Conrad and Faust, Silver Apples, Can. Are these things you’ve all been listening to?

GB: What was that first one?

BLURT: “Church of Anthrax,” a track by Terry Riley and John Cale, from 1971 – very much in a Krautrock vein….

GB: I don’t know it, but it sounds great! [laughs] We’re definitely into lots and lots of different music, especially the Can thing. I think we’re definitely influenced by them. I think they’re an incredible band, and if we’ve got anywhere near to where they were…that’s just brilliant. We didn’t try to sound like them, though. It’s just where I’ve found myself rhythmically, coming out of being influenced by hip hop and electronic music and having a vibe where it’s got a beat and it’s heavy, but heavy in the right way – it’s not heavy sonically, like, “I’m gonna smash your head in with this sound.” Our influences are pretty wide, especially what Billy and Matt are into. Matt’s really into the Cardiacs and Billy’s really into bands like Plastic People of the Universe, and I’m into that as well: music that’s really out there, but that still retains melody and rhythm. I really like Moondog, too – that was a big influence on the last Portishead record.

BLURT: And Silver Apples….

GB: Yeah, yeah – I’m actually interviewing Simeon for a magazine. We met at All Tomorrow’s Parties and it was really weird because he was playing in Bristol and he asked me to play the drums, but I didn’t do it. If it was now, I would have done it, but back then I hadn’t played drums in quite a long time. So maybe we’ll just arrange it again. Maybe I’ll see if he wants to play again. But yeah, our influences are there. We’re not embarrassed by them. We think they’re brilliant bands.

BLURT: Some musicians I’ve interviewed emphasize that they don’t listen to any other music, so as to avoid being influenced. That’s not the case with you, then?

GB: Well, it’s really strange because I actually listen to very, very little music. An incredibly small amount. Like I’ll get into a Silver Apples track or one Can album, Ege Bamyasi, and I don’t want to hear any more. I just want to hear that one. I think it’s just a perfect record. It’s weird: I’ve always made more music than I’ve ever listened to. I don’t know much about other artists and I don’t know about their techniques or anything – I’d like to! – but Ade’s kind of the opposite. He’s a walking encyclopedia of music, but I just like to make music, really. And he does as well, of course. Ege Bamyasi is an absolutely genius record. I first heard Can on [BBC] Radio 1. It was Mark E. Smith on Radio 1 talking about his favorite tracks. It was around 1990 or something, when I was listening to A Tribe Called Quest and Gang Starr and stuff like that. And Can’s “Vitamin C” came on and I was bowled over. It was just like the first time I ever heard Public Enemy as a kid. I thought Can were a new band, and I thought they were the greatest band that ever lived [laughs]. I still think that tune is just unbelievable. No one’s even gone close to it, really.

BLURT: Talking of Can, did you see that recent BBC documentary, Krautrock: The Rebirth of Germany?

GB: Yeah! What I absolutely loved about everybody in it was their true feeling that they were just doing it because they were doing it – for no financial gain or anything else. They were just really solid in their musical form, and they were still there. Which is a really lovely thing.

#geoffbarrow #portishead #beak #mattwilliams #billyfuller #adrianuttley #simeoncoxe #can #egebamyasi #bethgibbons #invada #silverapples